Harry lay, still as a corpse, heart pumping as though he were running a marathon. He breathed heavily under the woolen blanket, before slapping his palm over his mouth to mask his gasps. Sweat dripped down to the end of his nose, as he heard footsteps thudding across the wooden floorboards, right towards him. He did his best to lay still, completely motionless. The footsteps stopped. He was drenched in sweat now, as the shadow of a hand reached towards him…
"Found you!" Ron chirped, grinning madly.
"About time, it's boiling under that blanket!" Harry gave him an unimpressed look, and wiped his sweaty palms on his shorts.
"Ugh!" Hermione gave him a disgusted look. " Go clean yourself up, we can find the others by ourselves." She looked him over, in a very disapproving Hermione sort of way.
"Alright, fine," Harry leaned close to them as he passed by, "Neville's in that cupboard." He whispered, pointing to the furniture in question. Harry decided to go change his clothes, really regretting his hiding place in the middle of the heat wave they were experiencing currently.
After putting on new clothes and trying his best at a cold wind spell, the bathroom was now very cold, and he was no longer sweaty. Padding down to the kitchen, which was the coldest room in the manor, he grabbed himself a sandwich. Just as he was spreading jam on the bread, his mother walked in.
"Harry, would you mind collecting your friends, we're all going to Diagon Alley." She gave him a slightly anxious smile.
"Uh, okay mum, I'll be right back." Harry ran back to the east wing, where the game of hide and seek was contained to.
"GUYS!" Harry yelled, as loud as he could. After a few minutes, he saw the other four children running towards him. Upon seeing Tom, Ron gave him a slight scowl.
"And where were you?" Ron asked the offending boy, who smirked back.
"A wizard never reveals his secrets!" He crossed his arms smugly. "And I won."
"Yeah, yeah, alright Tom. So, Harry, what is it?" Neville turned to him, the only one that seemed to have remembered why they had gathered.
"Mum wants us, she says we're going to Diagon Alley." Harry explained, to surprised faces.
"What for?" Tom asked, confused, "We haven't gone there since that time that guy kept following us."
"I don't know, you'll have to ask mum yourself." Harry shrugged.
The gaggle of children raced down the stairs and found their way to the kitchen, where Lily was waiting, along with Sirius and McGonagall.
"Hello darlings, " Lily smiled at them. "We're taking a trip into Diagon Alley today, to get ice cream."
"Ice cream?" Ron asked, excitedly. "Can we go to Fortescue's, Mrs Potter? We never get to go there!" His excited pleas were joined by Neville, causing Sirius to grin maniacally.
"That's the plan mate." Sirius flashed all his teeth.
"But is it safe?" Harry asked, drawing the attention of the room to him as he asked the question they were tiptoeing around.
"You are eight years old, and I'll be damned if you spend your whole lives in this manor. Both Sirius and Professor McGonagall are going to be join us so we'll all be absolutely fine. I checked with all of your parents, " She looked at the guests, " they all said ice cream would be a lovely treat!"
"Don't worry kids, no one would dare mess with Padfoot, Head Auror!" Sirius spoke his title as though it was a joke, despite it somehow being not.
After a few laughs, the children ran off to find their shoes, ignorant of the more serious glances exchanged by the remaining adults.
Harry happily slurped his raspberry and chocolate ice cream, thankful for the cooling treat. It wasn't just the sun that was burning his back today, as glances and stares made their way to him and the rest of the group.
It had been a complete ordeal getting everyone through the floo, but not for the reasons Harry might've guessed. McGonagall had gone first, standing guard as Hermione, Ron, and Neville had poured through, Hermione both gushing at the beautiful sight of the alley and slightly disoriented at the travel method. Lily had gone through next, then Harry and Tom, before finally being followed by Sirius, bringing up the rear.
It had taken all but 30 seconds for the first person to notice.
"IT'S THE BOYS WHO LIVED" A middle-aged, portly looking man practically screeched, pointing at them. Harry and Tom's faces both burned red at the dozens of eyes that immediately turned towards them. Harry had absolutely not missed this.
"Quickly kids." Sirius mumbled to them, pushing them forward along the road, towards their destination. As the group left the small crowd that had gathered, all yelling things at Harry and Tom, Lily gave them a terrifying glare, stopping one brave fan, who was trying to follow them, in her tracks.
The other children gave the twins a frightened look.
"Are they always like this?" Hermione asked Harry.
"They have been the past few times, which is why we usually only go out in the muggle world if we do."
"They're so weird about it, why do they have to scream so much?" Neville quietly wailed, nervously glancing back towards the mob every now and then.
As the group quickly marched onwards, Lily spoke up from near the back.
"Don't worry darlings, the more you start coming out in public, the more used to you they'll get. They're only excited because they've never seen you before. It'll pass, they might even get bored by the end of today." She flashed a reassuring grin.
When they had actually arrived at Fortescue's it was very busy given the weather, and the queue ended long past the doors of the parlour. After gathering orders of what everyone wanted, Sirius heroically volunteered to stand in the line under the scorching sun while the others retreated to the seated area in the shade.
While people continued to stare at the group, these people seemed more content with silent observation rather than yelling and screaming, which Harry almost found worse. He had always hated the attention he received, and the quiet looks of judgement had always reminded him far too much of Petunia's disapproving glare after he'd messed up a chore.
"Mum, why didn't we use some sort of disguise or notice-me-not? We would have been left alone then." Harry grimaced slightly as he turned around to the rude strangers.
"Well darling, we were going to originally, but like I say, that'll only postpone the problem, you'll have to deal with these kinds of people all through your life and it's better to get the biggest reaction out of the way while you're young so that you can both enjoy life when you're older." Lily gave a slightly guilty smile. "I know it's not ideal, but I promise you boys, you'd hate this so much more if you were teenagers" She gave a small wink, to which Harry and Neville blushed and the others just looked plain confused.
Harry could confirm that life as a teenager being constantly monitored was an absolute nightmare and he hated every second of it, but then again, he didn't think that this press-plague would ever leave him alone, and if he was planning on leaving this universe in a few years anyway he had been hoping to enjoy the time he had here.
Regardless, he cheered when Sirius pushed through the crowd, levitating several cones alongside him towards the suddenly perked up group. Harry was so hot he felt like death, and he should know.
After their lovely treat, Hermione had shyly asked if they could explore the rest of the alley, and the adults, not knowing how often they could make trips like this in future, agreed. So off they went, stopping in various trinket shops here and there. They stopped to get sweets from some apparent competitor to Honeydukes, though in Harry's opinion it could never compare, all getting a few treats to be saved for later as another treat from Sirius. After all; "What kind of Godfather would I even be if I didn't spoil them with sweets?"
After that they wandered to the quidditch shop, admiring the gear and broomsticks, but being playfully reminded by Lily that they all had perfectly good gear back at home. They then spent half an hour playing with the owls outside the Magical Menagerie, with a very serious looking Lily telling them to wait until they were older, and that they had perfectly good dragons, "And what would Snappy think Tom?"
Finally the large group wandered to the bookshop, all dispersing immediately to find something that they each liked. Neville and Ron wandered off towards the fiction section, while Hermione and Tom went towards the text-book style books. Harry snuck off to find any books about Dimension travel. After a few minutes it was clear that there weren't any, but resigned himself to grabbing a few textbooks anyway; they'd be handy for re-teaching him magic. He also picked up a magical theory book, with a large chunk on magical cores. During this he noticed Lily and Mcgonagall chatting with Sirius at the door, watchful but finally taking a moment to relax. After all, they had been on alert all day, they deserved a small break.
They had been told that they had to get their own books with the money Lily had supplied them with before they had entered the shop, and counting his up; he had just enough. While he purchased his books, the clerk kept giving him strange looks, and repeatedly staring at his scar, which was on full display thanks to his short hair. After a few minutes of silence the man glanced around nervously and whispered to Harry.
"You can see it too right?" Harry looked at him on confusion, taking a closer look this time. He looked to be in his old age, with thick gray hair and slightly red skin. As he was bent over Harry noticed his eyes were dulled, as though he were blind, but that couldn't be right? He had just asked if Harry had seen something. Before Harry could answer a younger man appeared from behind the clerk.
"Come on Grandad, you should be resting, I told you I'd take your shift today. Come on." He beckoned to the old man, who reluctantly disappeared behind the counter into the back room.
"Sorry about that Mr Potter, that's my grandfather and he's a little bit, to put it bluntly, mad." He smile as if he had just made a joke. Harry smile back but couldn't push the interaction out of his head. See what?
As the younger man finished processing Harry's books, Ron emerged from nowhere with Hermione and Neville, both of whom were clutching a number of books. Ron meanwhile, was holding one single story book about dragons. As the others finished their purchases, Harry went to find Tom who was standing near the adults, having already paid for his books.
"Hey Harry. Did you see that creepy guy?" Tom asked him jovially, but Harry could see that underneath his calm and happy face, Tom was a bit shaken.
"Yeah, so weird. His grandson says he a bit mad though, so I wouldn't take him seriously." Harry tried to shrug it off, and Tom seeing Harry's reaction calmed down a bit.
"Yeah, he kept saying he knew 'what I was'. How crazy is that?" Harry stiffened slightly at that, but didn't show anything on his face. He let out a small laugh and shrugged as if to say 'wow mad' but internally he was now shitting himself.
Harry would absolutely have to investigate this further, but it would have to wait as his guardians herded the now book-laden kids out of the shop and back towards the floo. The day out was over. Everyone was smiling, it had been such a wonderful day, but inside, Harry was panicking.
What did that man mean?
He could see Tom?
What did he mean 'what he is'?
What exactly was Tom?
What was Harry?