He decided to head home then, dropping by Gringotts to pick up his few pouches of material possessions before returning to Grimmauld, a terse but polite thanks being the only words that passed through his lips during the entire remaining time of his excursion.
He still had to complete his tour through Knockturn, but, at the very least, he could purchase his clothes from Madam Malkin's via owl order, and he could finish the rest of the trip another day. For now, though, he needed his thirst for seclusion slaked, and the thought of his bed had his weary, blood-shot eyes already drooping despite himself.
That single interaction had all but drained him, leaving a hollowly aching, pulsing feeling in his chest that only made his world-weariness rise forevermore.
He hoped for his own sake - though theirs as well, with the state he was in - that he didn't come across a single other person who was after the Harry Potter anytime soon. Hell, for that matter, he hoped he never came across them at all.
He didn't have an ounce of patience or care left for the greed that had infested his renounced society.
.
The following day he decided to spend indoors, placating himself that he'd at least gone out the day before and that he still needed to pack up the innards of Grimmauld into his suitcases for his upcoming trip.
He had a creeping feeling that was not at all subtle that he wouldn't be returning here anytime soon - if at all. He couldn't find it in himself to abhor the thought in the slightest.
.
The first 'thing' he put away was the entirety of the Black Library.
Contrary to his initial worries when he'd moved in, it wasn't nearly as empty as he'd thought it'd be. In fact, only the first couple of shelves had been partially cleared, and, once he began perusing the isles further back, he realized the likely reason why when he felt a brush of familiar magic drift over his skin.
It seemed that the Blacks were certainly just as much of a paranoid and covetous bunch as they'd made themselves out to be, for they'd cast nearly the entirety of the library under liberal protection and theft-prevention charms. When Harry had studied them closer, he'd noted that the magics were keyed in to those accepted by the Black line, which Harry now was.
All in all, this meant that he was able to stuff the remaining entirety of the massive collection into one of his expandable baggages, which allowed him to parse through the organized shelves without much hassle to it.
He ended up clearing through several other rooms as well, taking bits and pieces here and there from multiple bedrooms, the kitchen, the main office, the defense room, and the potions laboratory ensconced in a small basement hidden away from simple cursory glances.
That last room had been somewhat of a boon, as there had been many ingredients stored within that simply weren't available at the potion's shop he'd visited, either because of their rarity or their... less than legal attainability.
Tomorrow, he'd extend his pause from the magical district to head to the muggle world for supplies. There, at least, he could still have some peace from the vast majority of wizards, who rarely traversed to the non magical parts of the country despite many of their preachings.
The hypocritical shites.
.
Harry cast a subtle cooling charm over himself as he blew out a breath, swiftly tying his hair up with a string as he kept a brisk pace down the walkway.
He'd already received a couple of odd glances for his unusually warm attire for the hot summer day, but he much preferred having his skin covered by the long sleeved tee even if he could cover his scars with a rather simple charm instead.
Still, even after cooling himself, he was looking forward to ensconcing himself into a properly air-conditioned shop, and his eyes flickered across those on either side of the street as he continued his swift meander.
He hadn't had any particular store in mind when he'd set out, simply heading towards the packed center of the London city whereupon he'd decided he'd enter any edifice that sufficiently caught his eye.
He'd gotten a significant chunk of his galleons exchanged for muggle currency - both in pounds and American dollars - so he didn't have any worries about not being able to pay his fees. However, he did wonder how exactly he planned to select the veritable landfill of items he wished to purchase without breaking the statute of secrecy.
He shrugged and lightly rolled his eyes heavenwards.
If anything, he could buy a large cartful, and, once out of sight, either apparate them back home or simply shove them all into one of his pouches he had strapped to his side. He'd probably do the latter.
He spotted what looked like a supermarket emblazoned with the title 'Kwik Save,' and he decided to head in, swiftly making his way up the few steps to the entrance. He let out a sigh of relief as the doors opened and a rush of cool air greeted him, and he gratefully made his way into the shop.
As he'd anticipated, it was well stocked with groceries of every kind - fresh, frozen, and canned being the main three methods of which he focused on.
He grabbed a cart from the side of the entrance and steered it into the market with a click-clack of the stuttering wheels.
As it was still relatively early in the day, there weren't far too many other patrons, but there were still enough since it was a busy district.
More than one or two of them side-eyed Harry as he began systematically filling his cart to the brim, clearing entire sections of isles as he loaded up on goods both fresh and packed.
He stacked the cans one on top of another until he had a good square foot or two in his cart that was about six cans high solely made up of them. In another part, he gently organized fruits and vegetables, doing his best not to cram them too much together so they wouldn't bruise. He tossed some of the rather weightless items on top of it all, such as the chips, not worried about them crushing anything. In another corner, he stacked meats on top of meats of every kind - beef, turkey, chicken, fish, pork - and cut - ground, chucked, flanked, etcetera.
The expiration dates of them all were of no consequence, as he had more than enough room for it all in his compartments of either preservation or freezing charms.
He couldn't help but grin as one fellow customer, an older woman, accidentally ran her cart into a stand in her inability to take her eyes off of Harry's ever growing haul, her expression one of utter disbelief that shifted into a jumping, startled sort of sheepish shock upon realizing she'd been caught so blatantly staring that she'd managed to run straight into a blockage.
Harry let out a quiet huff of a laugh under his breath, and the woman winced with a sheepish smile of her own, turning to face him more fully.
"Big family cookout?" she questioned amiably, gesturing towards his cart, and Harry barely held back a snort, quickly schooling his features into something neutral.
"No," he replied, complete straight-faced, even as a quick belt out of a laugh threatened to bubble up out of him.
The poor lady clearly didn't know what to say to that, her expression twitching into something lost even as she managed to keep a slightly feeble smile on her face. "...Ah," she hesitantly replied, the noise almost sounding like a question, when Harry went on to add nothing more.
Harry dipped his head in both an agreeing nod and a farewell, and he quickly wheeled his cart around so his back was to her just in time to purse his lips tightly to cover up an undeniably impish grin, head ducking down as his shoulders shook faintly with suppressed laughter. It wasn't exactly decent of him to mess with the woman so blatantly, but he couldn't help it in the moment, and it wasn't as if he'd done any harm. It certainly lightened his own mood to have caused someone to look so utterly befuddled.
He shook his head, a slight smile still alighting his features, and moved towards the back aisles.
.
He was quite sure that he must look like a paranoid loon with his cart nearly filled to the brim as it was, but he couldn't bring himself to feel self conscious in the slightest. If anything, his chest puffed out slightly at the thought, as he couldn't help but feel as though he was doing well in following Luna's wishes.
The notion both sent a lance of pain stabbing at his heart as well as a sense of forceful determination that further swelled within him.
He was quite sure he'd made a good enough start, but he also knew that it wasn't nearly close to enough if he wished to feel, in full confidence, that he had achieved what he'd set out to do. He'd need to make other, more systematic plans in order to ensure that he was able to make a quantifiably large enough amount of purchases from the muggle world.
.
He continued stacking more items on his already loaded cart, scoring a decent haul of preparatory-based goods. He was quickly running out of room, but he managed to stuff a couple of large packages of toilet paper rolls underneath his cart alongside a roll of garbage bags and several bundles of plastic cups and plates. Additionally, from the section over, he collected other toiletry supplies such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, and the likes.
With that, he headed to the register, inwardly delighting at the look on the cashier's face.
His own expression, however, slowly shifted into a half-way apologetic grimace of a smile as time wore on with every swipe of an item against the register, a process that seemed to be taking half a century to complete.
The scruffy blonde man scanning his items gave a semi-exasperated scoff of a laugh as he worked, not seeming put off as much as bemused by the proceedings as he spared Harry a sideways glance.
"You happen to be one of those doomsday preppers?" the man asked, the question sounding only partially rhetoric.
Harry tilted his head, the term striking him as familiar but unable to fully place it. "'Doomsday prepper?'" he repeated questioningly.
The man nodded along easily enough, swiping a can of peas through the scanner and stuffing it into an already full-to-the-brim plastic bag. "Yeah - I've seen them on the telly before. Worried about the apocalypse, of all things," the man snorted before catching himself, shooting Harry a look that was genial but unrepentant.
Harry's brows ticked upwards, and he let the thought simmer in his mind for a moment, maneuvering it in several angles before slowly nodding his head. "Suppose I am," he belatedly agreed with a twitched up, bemused quirk of his lip.
Yes, he supposed he sort of was, wasn't he?
.
The thought stuck itself solidly in Harry's mind even as he continued shopping, having stopped by C&A to purchase a boatload of clothes for every possible combination of weather and environment as well as at Ravel for several pairs of good, sturdy shoes.
The cashier's words melded with Luna's from her letter, and they fit in a manner that was too oddly meshed for it to not be at all suspect.
It certainly was true that if he were to prepare for the apocalypse, he'd be preparing as well as he could possibly be, which Luna was more than definitely in favor of him doing.
Additionally, such a type of preparation would definitely favor materialism, as he'd need to make sure he had every type of supply that he may eventually need since he may not have them available to obtain in the future. Not to mention how Luna had quite straightforwardly advised him to prepare as if this trip of his would be his last, and what better reason for it being so than the very world coming to an end as they know it?
He stopped short, giving an absent apology as someone walking behind him nearly ran into his back, and he picked up his pace once more even as his idle thoughts continued.
Laying it all out as he did served to both clarify and obscure things further for him.
On one hand, it all fit. It'd make an obtrusively large amount of sense for such a thing to be true. On the other hand, however, a decent part of Harry automatically rejected the idea that the apocalypse was nigh upon them. Honestly, it'd be stranger if he simply accepted it as it was.
Sure, Harry had found out there was an entire other world out there - the magical one - and, sure, there were hundreds of thousands of magical creatures and beings that were unlike anything plausible to reality, and, sure, he'd been primed since he was eleven to fight an evil megalomaniac who lived on the cusp of immortality, but -
Alright, he wasn't really helping his own case, but his point still precariously stood.
The apocalypse was a whole other level of unbelievableness, and he was more than wary to simply decide to believe in such a thing.
At the same time, though, he felt that, maybe, it'd do him good to do just that. To believe in the end.
And why shouldn't he?
If he thought that the apocalypse was coming, then he'd be preparing even more than he already was - to the point that it would seem so astronomically ridiculous that one might think him utterly mental for his extremely over the top way of going about getting ready for this unproven event.
What was the worst that could happen, though? The apocalypse didn't come? Fantastic. Then, Harry would simply be excessively overprepared, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, and his outlook on life might even take a turn for the better knowing that the world's demise wasn't imminent.
As simple as that, his thoughts aligned, and he gave a decisive nod of his head.
He'd stop by sometime in the next few days to the library to see if he could find some information on the net about what a typical doomsday prepper - as the cashier had called them - had on their lists to prepare, and he'd meld it with his already growing own.
For now, he had an idea on how to better gather muggle supplies - in terms of both quantity and pace - and he was eager to head back home to set his plans into motion.
.
Alright. Harry could admit it.
His new… method, that he'd come up with was not exactly… legal. Necessarily.
Well, it wasn't that he was stealing or anything, really, since he'd be giving money in return. It was just that he'd be doing both the 'shopping' and the 'paying' while nobody else was there. At all.
Harry winced, rubbing at his face with the palms of his hands and slumping forwards, his arms supported at the elbows from where they were propped against his knees.
To put things more bluntly, Harry's plan was to go around after closing hours and more or less clear out entire aisles or even stores of the majority of their goods before leaving a hefty amount of cash at the register.
So.
Not illegal, really.
Well, it was in the sense that he was breaking and entering.
Harry groaned, pressing his face further into his hands to the point that sparks were popping into his vision from the pressure against his eyelids.
Then he abruptly sat up and gave a clearing shake of his head, jumping to his feet and briskly pacing the length of his study, taking a quick glance over to the map he'd outlined on his desk as he continued to wear a track into the carpet.
On the paper, he'd marked down the locations of a multitude of major stores of every kind across the country - mostly in less populated areas so as to lower the risk of scrutiny being brought to the events he'd soon be instigating. He planned on leaving a generous tip at the register that more than paid for his haul, both to hopefully deter people's desires to bring the incidents to light as well as to make up for the need of immediate restocking.
He nodded his head firmly and came to a stop behind his chair, pulling the invisibility cloak of the back and quickly ensconcing himself within it.
He'd set his mind to it, and he'd go through with it, regardless of the less than idealness of the means.
It wasn't as though he truly had too much of a choice.
After measuring the quantity he'd managed to obtain from the muggle world after a full day's shopping, it had become clear as day that it would take far too long for him to adequately collect all the mountainous amounts of supplies he wished to in the short time frame he had left. Honestly, he should have realized as much beforehand, but it was only now that he processed he may not have been taking his preparations as seriously as he now believed he ought to. Going about it as if it was a singular, short term task - no matter how stocked for that term he may be - would not be sufficient in the least. No, he planned to prepare for both the present and the future, however long of a time that would be.
So he grabbed the map off the desk and folded it into his cloak's pocket, the first plot's coordinates already emblazoned into his mind, and he slunk his way out the room to the back entrance of Grimmauld. From there, he flicked his cloak's hood over his head, casting himself into invisibility as he let the sharp crack of apparition whisk him away.