The two had talked for a few hours when Harry finally noticed that he was beginning to hunger, he looked towards the cracked window and frowned when he noticed that the sun was at its highest point in the sky, signifying that it was midday.
"Do you know where the nearest town is?" He asked her.
"I believe it is a half an hour walk in the northern direction," She told him, as he stood from where he was half-laying on the floor. "What is it that you need?"
"Clothes," He shrugged. "And food, a bag would be nice, maybe a book or two?"
Nana frowned at him. "You do not have suitable clothing?"
"Just what I'm wearing, oh and an invisibility cloak!"
She gave him a concerned glance and hummed. "I suppose it would be within your best interests to go and get some clothes then, you have money, correct?"
He nodded and pulled out the pouch that he kept his money in, it contained some wizarding money as well as about two hundred and fifty pounds, which he'd had converted the previous summer at the same time he'd obtained the money to pay the potioneer.
She watched him for a few moments and then nodded. "Don't forget shoes and underwear."
He blushed as she began herding him out the door, carefully helping him avoid debris on the ground, once there, she turned him to face the direction that he assumed was north.
"Walk in a line, or as much as possible until you reach the town and be back before the sun sets."
He nodded, a serious look on his face as he began walking away.
"Oh, and Harry?" She called after him, waiting until he'd turned back around to face her to continue. "That wand of yours? You might want to get rid of it."
"What? Why?" He cried out in a mixture of panic and confusion.
She gave him a sad smile. "So long as the magic has been attached to an object for a while, ghosts can feel it. There is some form of tracking magic clinging to it, and from what you have spoken of the magical world of the current day, having people find where you are is not something that you would want."
Harry pulled his wand out from the pocket on his shirt, looking at it in bewilderment, until he recalled the incident in the summer between his first and second year at Hogwarts, where he'd gotten in trouble for casting magic when it was actually Dobby's actions, he also recalled Hermione mentioning something called 'the Trace', which monitored the magic casted by students.
Nana was correct, he didn't want to be found by the Wizarding World, who knows what they would do to him now that he was no longer human?
If Harry Potter didn't turn up for his fourth year at Hogwarts, would they decide to track him down? If it was possible to use the Trace to track his magic use, then why not the wand itself? And even if they didn't try and track him down with that originally, if he used magic through the wand it would cause the Trace to go off, leading them to him.
"Yeah," He frowned and gave a sad nod, tucking the wand back into his pocket. "That might be for the best…"
She gave a sad smile and placed her hand on his shoulder, ignoring his shudder from the chill of her ghostly form, "A focus is not worth more than the life of its wielder, even if the focus has bonded to them."
He looked up at her, feeling so incredibly small at that moment. "I understand, but I wish I didn't."
She sighed and patted his shoulder. "Go on, those clothes will not purchase themselves."
Harry nodded and turned away once more to begin his walk to the local town.
As he walked, he took the time to familiarise himself with the scenery just in case he ever found himself lost within the woods. There were many different types of trees, some of which he could identify, such as the pine trees, willow trees, and even an occasional cherry blossom tree.
The ground was covered in a mix of moss and grass, with the occasional rock or boulder sticking out from the ground, forcing him to pay extra close attention to where he placed his admittedly sore feet.
He soon stumbled upon a walking path, which skirted the edge of a town where the treeline suddenly came to a stop and quickly made his way into the town, ignoring the way some of the adults looked at him.
He knew he looked a mess, honestly, he was the size of a toddler, and he wore only a torn and muddy shirt that was far too large for him.
The first thing Harry did was look for a bin, he wandered up and down the streets, idly picking out the shops that sold clothes that most likely wouldn't care about a small unattended child shopping for clothes, so long as said child had the money.
He found one eventually on a small pedestrian street, next to a set of traffic lights, and walked up to it, pulling his wand from his pocket, he looked down at it sadly, and then dropped it into the black bag that lined it.
Eventually, the bin would be emptied, and the wand would be taken to wherever it was that the bin men took the rubbish to, and then if someone were to track it, they would end in a big pile of rubbish, no Harry in sight.
He stood, staring at the bin for a good five minutes until he forced himself to move on from the spot, it was time to look for clothes.
While hoping that no-one would ask questions about why an apparent toddler was shopping for himself, he'd felt what he could only describe as getting pins and needles in your leg after it had been in the same position for a really long time, only this was in his head, not his leg.
After that, once he'd made eye contact with one of the sales assistants, their eyes had glazed over and had been perfectly happy to help him find clothes in his correct size.
Before his sudden transformation, he would have called it accidental magic, however something inside of him screamed that this was the incorrect conclusion, and as such he chalked it up as an ability of his new species.
He spent the rest of his outing in the small town figuring out how to control this new ability of his, while also finishing his much-needed shopping, grabbing a pair of shoes that actually fit him, a nice big hiking bag, lots of non-perishable foods, a nice big fluffy blanket with a pillow, and some non-fiction books that he'd pulled out of a bargain bin, all of which he stored in his new bag.
He'd also eaten a pasty from the local bakery, and gotten some paper, pens, and envelopes, just in case he decided to send a message to Sirius with Hedwig, he was his godfather, after all, he deserved to know what happened to him, didn't he?
His trip back to the cottage from the town was a lot more tolerable than the journey there, thanks to the fact that he was now wearing a pair of shoes and not just running around barefooted, and he made it back with a few hours to spare.
He quickly made his way into the living room, smiling at Nana who was once again knitting on her rocking chair.
"Have a nice time?" She asked him.
"It was..." He trailed off as he thought of the correct words to describe his day. "Informative."
"Oh?" She looked up, raising an eyebrow at the large bag on the boy's back, but not saying anything. "How so?"
He moved to his corner, kneeling down and quickly unpacking his things from the bag, adding the blanket and pillow to the pile of old blankets in the corner of the room. "Think I might have brainwashed the staff members at the shops to pretend I wasn't an unattended a toddler or something."
"You used magic to make them believe something that wasn't?"
"I don't think it was magic," He corrected while placing a can of soup on a pile of other canned food items. "Felt like I was doing it with my head."
She frowned slightly in thought. "There are some species with psychic tendencies, some more than others, but there is an ability in some of these species called 'Hypnosis', I believe a spell was created based upon this ability, and some non-magical humans even managed to create a version which needed no magic at all to perform."
Harry stared at her, a conflicted look on his face.
"Even still, these psychic abilities are not magic, similar though they may seem, and many species are mistaken for magical as a result," She looked at him, creating direct eye contact, "Perhaps this is what you are experiencing?"
Harry gulped in nervousness.
"Well, it is no matter for this moment."
And with that, they went back to a somewhat tense silence, as Harry stacked his food and Nana knitted.