Disclaimer: There are two of these posted in this story already, so from here on out I don't think it will be necessary to say that everything you recognize belongs to Rowling.

AN: Thank you to all the people who reviewed or added this story to their C2's and favorites. You guys made my day!

Diagon Alley

OoOoO

Harry took a deep breath of the early morning air, enjoying the light breeze that blew through the owlery. He leaned against the waist high railing; the tail end of the sunrise staining the sky a light pink. It was quiet.

It made Harry restless.

He had a spectacular view of the field that separated the house from Potter Manor. From here he could see part of the empty manor's upper story and its sloping roof over the tops of the trees. To his left, he could just make out the village of Godric's Hollow.

The Potter grounds were located in the middle of a small forest nearly one mile down the road from the village. About three acres of forest land had been cleared for the manor, house and the sizable field between them. The smaller of the two houses was located on the south end of the property, hidden out of sight of both manor and the Muggle road by its own little groove of trees.

Harry looked down. The ground wasn't that far away, really- the house was only two stories so this 'tower' was but three stories up.

The air in the tiny owlery smelled fresh, despite the stains from wet, moldy hay and owl droppings that marked the floor. A small bird nest was tucked up in the rafters, smears of white bird droppings all over the floor beneath it, but the nest must be old because the open room was otherwise empty. Harry did not have an owl; Hedwig was left behind and he really had no need for another one just yet.

Not for the first time, Harry found himself growing lonely.

The possibility of going back still nagged at him, of course. Maybe, if there was no body, his friends would think he was still alive and try to find him, but Harry did not think they would be able to. And he wasn't sure he could return even if they did. He could not, in good conscious, bring Tom Riddle to a world just freed from Voldemort, if it was even possible to bring the boy with him. Neither could he leave him here. Maybe it was just his "saving people thing" again, but how could he leave this place when he had a chance to prevent Lord Voldemort from ever existing?

So he hoped, for his friends' sakes, that he left behind a body. It would be better for his friends to know without a doubt that he was dead.

At least Hermione had the foresight to make all three of them write up wills. Unsettling as the activity was, Harry was glad she'd made them do it. He didn't want all his things to go to the ministry or something. It would have been very nice to have some of it here, of course. The pile of coins in the inheritance vault was not nearly as large as what Sirius alone left to him back home.

Harry shook himself. He'd come up here to make himself feel better, not worse. He set a critical eye across the grounds again.

That patch of field over to the left would be a perfect spot for a home style Quidditch pitch.

He leant further forward, examining the area. Yes, it was perfect. All he needed to do was get the goal hoops. He could make them from transfigured tree branches or something. And then... what then? Harry sighed and cast his gaze downward again. The bushes under the owlery still needed tending to. They were overgrown and weeds had choked out any flowers that might have once been planted around them.

Merlin, he needed a broom. He missed flying; it never failed to clear his head. His Firebolt had not been on his person in the final battle, and thus was one of the many things he left behind. Using it here would have been too dangerous anyway, he thought bitterly.

Harry bent nearly double over the railing, just staring at the ground. If he unfocused his eyes just so the ground almost looked like it was spinning, like it did when he went into a steep dive after the snitch. He felt a sudden upwards push as he activated the wards designed to keep anyone from falling off the tower. He eased back up until the pressure disappeared again.

Harry straightened a bit, rebuking himself. There was no need to be acting so glum. He could buy himself a new broom. And the money in the vault was more than enough to support them for now, so long as he was careful and didn't waste it on something stupid like a dozen sets of dress robes or something.

Eventually he would need to find a job, but it wasn't urgent. Which was good, because Harry had very little idea what he would do. He had no background; in this place there wasn't even any proof that he had taken his O.W.L.'s. Being an Auror was definitely no longer a possibility.

He shoved harshly away from the railing. He'd worry about it later, once Tom was back at Hogwarts and he needed something to do. For now, fixing up the place and looking after Tom was more than enough work.

OoOoO

Harry was downstairs working on breakfast when a scuffle came from the doorway behind him. He jerked and nearly pulled his wand on the intruder before he realized it must be Tom. He turned around a bit sheepishly. It hadn't taken him long to get used to living alone in a silent house. "Morning, Tom."

"Good morning," Tom greeted, not sounding at all groggy. Harry turned back to breakfast. A chair scraped loudly across the floor as Tom sat down. Like the night before, he made no offer to help.

"I figured we could go to Diagon Alley today, if you'd like." Harry picked up a fork and began flipping the bacon over.

"What for?" Tom sounded a bit suspicious. Tom had yet to sound anything but suspicious so this was not that big of a surprise.

"I need a new broom. Couldn't bring my old one with me and not being able to fly is driving me barmy. And I don't know if you've looked in the library yet but there isn't much there." Only a handful of books from the family vault kept the shelves from being completely bare. "And, er, I figured you'd want some summer clothes." Tom was wearing his Hogwarts uniform, minus the outer robe, in favor of his orphanage clothes. Harry figured Tom would be as eager to get rid of those as Harry was his Dudley castoffs.

He glanced over his shoulder. Tom's face had a distinctly greedy cast to it. "I'll take that as a yes, then," Harry muttered, and began dishing up breakfast.

OoOoO

Harry dropped into a chair at the ice cream parlor, struggling a bit with his new broom. Perhaps he should have waited to visit the Quidditch store. Shrinking and lightening charms tended to interfere with the complex set of spells needed to create a wizard's broom and so it was a bit ungainly to carry around. Across from him Tom was having no trouble with his own magically lightened bags. By some miracle Harry managed to set his ice cream down without spilling it or knocking anything over. He sat and set everything else on the ground.

The instant the first bite of peppermint and chocolate hit his tongue Harry felt himself beginning to relax.

He sighed and settled back in his chair, stretching out the knee which had begun aching halfway through their third stop. The ice cream break was as much to let him get off his feet as it was a chance to refuel for the last stop of the day: the bookstore.

Tom, Harry had discovered, was nearly impossible to buy for.

It wasn't because he was overly picky. He was, however, extraordinarily suspicious. One minute Harry was apparently treating him like a slave boy because he refused to buy Tom dress robes and the next Harry was trying to bribe him over by offering something expensive like a broom. Harry was hanging on to his temper by a bare thread before they were even halfway done.

And to think he'd have to do this all over again when it was time to come back for school supplies. Ugh.

There was a newspaper sitting on the empty table beside them. Harry caught a glimpse of the headline and summoned the paper to take a closer look. He didn't mind reading the paper so much now that he wasn't likely to see his own name in it.

Grindelwald's Continued Silence: a Feint or the Finish? was plastered across the top with the subtitle Three Likely Locations of his Next Target.

"Has he done anything else yet?" Tom asked, with an eager note to his voice that Harry carefully ignored, reminding himself for the umpteenth time that day that Diagon Alley was not the place for an argument. He refolded the paper and set it beside his ice cream so he could eat and read at the same time.

"Doesn't look like it. It's been over three months since his last attack in France. They think the next hit is going to be a big one." Harry skimmed further down the page. "Still continuing the style of guerrilla warfare he's used since the end of the Muggle World War… look for wizards disguised as leftover Nazi extremists… authorities don't think he's gone just because there've been fewer attacks… Diagon Alley's listed as one of the most likely locations for his next hit."

"Really?" Tom shifted in his seat excitedly. "Maybe he'll attack today. I wonder if we'll see him."

Harry stabbed his spoon into his ice cream. "Not likely. If he's going to attack Diagon then he'll wait till next month when people are doing their back to school shopping and any nerves in the general public caused by this article have died down. There's no guarantee the next hit will even be in England, though. He could go after a country on the continent again."

Tom looked disappointed. For a moment Harry wanted to hex him. He settled for mutilating his ice cream instead.

OoOoO

Harry wandered idly down the isles, eyes skimming over the books, broom and bags clutched in his left fist. When he thought no one was looking, he ducked into a certain section and began scanning titles quickly.

If anyone caught him, he could act like he was looking for a book for a mother or sister or something.

Twenty Tips for the Perfect Hostess. No. Cooking Tricks for the New Mother. No way was he going to own a book that specifically referenced girls in the title. Basic Home Cleaning Charms . He picked this one up and flipped through it quickly, then put it back. Close, but not quite varied enough. Encyclopedia of Household Spells. Aha. This looked promising. He flipped to the table of contents. There were spells for use in the kitchen… laundry and linens… owlery upkeep…it even had a section on charms for exterior home care. Perfect.

Harry tucked the largish book under his elbow. He turned, more than ready to escape to a more manly section of the store, just as a woman stepped into the isle.

There was something vaguely familiar about her, as if she was a memorable stranger he'd passed on the street months before.

"Mrs. Prince!"

Harry stiffened as an elderly lady greeted the woman. Merlin. He sent the woman a second, studious glance. This was not Snape's mother; she could not be that old at this point. His grandmother, then?

"And is this little Eileen?" the second lady cooed over an infant in the woman's arms.

"Yes, she's five months old in two days," Mrs. Prince stated proudly. Harry had heard enough. He turned tail and fled the isle.

That situation had felt much too surreal. He dreaded what would happen when he met someone he actually did know.

He felt marginally better when he entered the Quidditch section. It was smaller than the one in his time, and many of the titles were different, but Harry didn't care. He selected one about Modern Quidditch Teams and Tactics and the 1938 edition of Quidditch Through the Ages and continued on.

He found Tom in the Defense Section with a sizable pile of books on the floor beside him.

He crouched to read the titles, occasionally nodding in approval. He'd never heard of most of them, which was to be expected, but those he did recognize were good books if his memory were accurate. Still, he'd be looking through them all for anything… unsavory before he let Tom actually read them.

He set down his broom since it didn't look like Tom would be moving from the isle any time soon and dropped his three selections beside them. He stood and strolled down the isle, pulling off books and skimming their contents, keeping the ones that looked promising. When his arms were full he strolled back up to his self appointed charge.

He was a bit bored but he figured having a good number of books around the house would keep Tom busy for the summer. If he were reading he'd be less inclined to go looking for ways to make trouble, right?

He dumped his pile next to Tom's. The kid seemed agitated by his presence, so he wandered off toward the Charms section. He stopped halfway when a book he recognized caught his eye. It was a rather spectacular book, in that Hermione had insisted he read it, and he eventually had, and he'd actually found it useful. Such a sequence of events was rare, almost never getting past the stage of "Honestly, haven't you read such and such book yet?" Harry grabbed a copy of the book and took it back to Tom.

"You read this one?"

Tom cast a glance at the cover and curled a disdainful lip.

"No."

Harry held it out. "It'd be a good idea to get it, then."

"I don't need to read it."

"You probably know most of the stuff in it, yeah, but it does cover some of the more obscure wizard traditions that no one talks about. The kind that you won't have heard of until it comes up in a conversation someday and you make a fool of yourself for not knowing it." Tom's stubborn expression did not budge. Harry rolled his eyes. "Better off prepared than trying to work out what the heck they're talking about on the fly, right?" He dropped it on the growing pile and walked away before Tom could protest. He'd make sure it was still there when they paid.

OoOoO

Harry stumbled out of the fireplace just in time to see Tom disappear up the stairs to his room, no doubt to fawn over all his new things. Harry was glad he'd made Tom go through first because he wasn't quite able to hide his wince upon landing hard on his bad knee. Madam Pomfrey would have him tied to a hospital bed if she knew how much activity he'd been doing lately despite the fact that he was still "recovering". But Madam Pomfrey wasn't here, and Harry was perfectly capable of dealing with a little pain.

Harry banished his personal purchases up to his room and took the numerous bags from Flourish and Blotts to the library. He could organize and shelve the books while sitting.

OoOoO

Several hours later Harry stepped away from the living room fireplace with his arms crossed and eyed the mantle. He nodded in satisfaction. Two wizarding photos sat in a pair of frames he'd bought that day, a simple charm bracelet centered between them. Bright early evening sunlight glinted off the frames, dazzling Harry's eyes. He shifted to the side a bit to lessen the glare.

In the first picture Harry, Ron and Hermione sat together in Ron's bedroom pouring over a pile of books. The photo trio sat flipping through endless pages, searching for information on Horcruxes and how to destroy them, never looking up expect to speak to each other. More specifically, Harry and Ron looked at Hermione while she explained certain concepts or told the boys where to look next. The second picture was a snapshot of Harry and Ginny setting up tables for Bill and Fleur's wedding reception.

Harry had taken to carrying the pictures with him everywhere back home. As a result, they were a bit tattered, and there was a permanent smudge of dirt over the book Hermione held. Harry didn't much care.

There was one more picture that he always had with him, but it wasn't on the mantle. It was from the photo album Hagrid gave him, a picture of himself as a baby with his parents. Unfortunately, it was taken in Hogsmeade, and Hogwarts was visible in the background. So he couldn't display it, not when his parents had supposedly never even been to England. It was tucked into a corner of the vault where no one would find it but he could still go look at it if he ever felt a particular longing to.

Harry stepped forward, close enough to run his fingers along the white chess king on the charm bracelet. This was Ron's piece, hung on the bracelet between Hermione's book and Harry's broom. The bracelet was a variation of the Weasley family clock, charmed by Hermione, of course. They each had a copy, set to flash different colors to indicate different situations instead of hands swinging around a clockface.

The spells tracking Ron and Hermione stopped working when Harry left their time, so Harry set the charms to a slightly different use. He smiled at the only bit of home he had to show and stepped back to eye the rest of the room. It was nothing but bare walls, mostly empty bookcases and old or cheap furniture, but he looked at it all with satisfaction.

There wasn't much here, but it was all his.

OoOoO

Harry knocked on the doorframe of Tom's room. The twelve year old was sitting in the middle of his bed, reading, occasionally running his fingers over the new bedspread Harry had bought for him earlier that day. Everything was put up or put away; there was not a shopping bag in sight.

"How d'you like it?" Harry asked, nodding at the bed.

Tom lifted his eyes but not his head. "It's all right. The ones at Hogwarts are better, but this one is preferable to that." He pointed at the old, slightly worn but perfectly serviceable comforter that had been on his bed before. Harry's jaw clenched angrily.

He did not want or expect gratitude from Tom Riddle. Not the least little bit.

Right.

He summoned the comforter and got hit with a face full of cloth. Disentangling himself, he tossed the pile on the floor in the hall. He'd stuff it in a closet later.

The attempted polite approach hadn't worked, so he'd just go for bluntness.

"I'm tired, Tom, so I'd like some help with dinner tonight."

"You want me to cook?" Tom sounded absolutely scandalized. "That's for house elves and, and servants!"

Bloody irritating rude little brat!

"Do I like look like a house elf?" Harry demanded, "In case you hadn't noticed, we are the only two people living here, which means we are the only two people who can prepare food. I am not going to be preparing every meal of every day by myself." He'd gotten plenty of that at the Dursley's, thankyouverymuch. "Which means you are going to help occasionally."

"I suppose you're going to tell me to wash my own clothes and things, too? Scrub the toilets? There are spells for things like that! Don't you know anything about being a wizard?"

"Oh, I know plenty about how Pureblood wizards live." Because that was obviously the wizards Tom was referring to. "And most of them are pompous, arrogant inbred prats who couldn't survive one day without a wand."

Tom snarled. "You can't tell me what to do!"

"Fine!" Harry yelled, tired and fed up after the long day and beyond caring about keeping his temper. He would have been very happy if someone had taken him from the Durselys' after his first year at Hogwarts and given him his own room and bought him clothes. He would be plenty grateful enough to help out a bit. And it wasn't like he was asking for much, just a hand in the kitchen, but no. "You know where the kitchen is. When you get hungry, feel free to come down and get something!" There. Harry wasn't keeping Tom from the food. If he wasn't going to help Harry with dinner, he could make his own.

"I'm no Muggle!" Tom yelled, "I'm not going to do any cooking!"

Harry stomped down to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. When he got there he jerked the refrigerator open, stared at the contents for a moment, then slammed it shut again. He slumped over the counter and let his head drop forward. Barely a day and they'd had their first yelling match. He groaned and rubbed at his forehead. He had a pounding headache.

"This is going to be a nightmare."

OoOoO

Chapter End

This chapter had a bit of a rocky start. Harry and Tom were supposed to have a nice little argument over breakfast but apparently neither of them was in the mood. In fact, it took all day before they were finally tired enough to lose their tempers and even then the subject wasn't the one I had planned. Stubborn pair.

Next chapter is going to be fun; Harry "meets" someone else he knew in his time.

Edit: Beta version up 11-27-06.