Dusting himself off, Harry rushed to the courtyard behind the pub. Tom, the bar keeper of the Leaky cauldron, had not been behind the bar, and there were no patrons that Harry could see, so his passage through went unnoticed.
Opening the archway onto the winding cobbled street that was the main street of Diagon Alley, Harry felt his first real stab of doubt.
The once gaudy shop windows that had been covered with large Purple Ministry of Magic posters the last time Harry saw them, were looking decidedly worn. Many of the posters were showing distinct signs of neglect; tattered and falling down. Through the remains of the Ministry posters, Harry could see the shops beyond were abandoned. The streets were almost deserted, with only a few small groups of people hurrying here and there fearfully.
Stores that had once entranced Harry with they weird and wonderful window displays were boarded up and even the shabby stalls were now missing.
Realising he was very conspicuous and quite vulnerable on his own, Harry pulled on his invisibility cloak and stuffed the Sneakoscope Ron had given him for his birthday years before into a pocket.
Bill told Ron the Sneakoscope was rubbish because it seemed to be constantly and randomly going off, but that was before they had discovered the betrayer Peter Pettigrew was living with them in his rat Animagus form. The magic detector was meant to light up, spin, and make a noise whenever somebody untrustworthy was around, so it had barely stopped while in Ron's possession.
Worried that it might make too much noise, Harry cast a silencing charm that would hold for several hours on it. Hopefully the spinning vibration would be enough to alert him. He cast another on his shoes, for good measure.
There were even less people out and about compared to the last time Harry had been here with the Weasley's just before the start of school. Harry's only fond memory of that visit was seeing the Weasley twins' new joke shop, but his run in with Draco and Narcissa, Draco's mother, and his subsequent following Draco to Borgin and Burkes, had pretty much ruined that day.
A surge of guilt and anger rose in response to thinking about the blonde Malfoy heir. If he had made more of an effort to investigate what Draco had been doing in Borgin and Burkes, they might have found out about the cabinets earlier, and everything would have turned out differently. Dumbledore would still be alive.
Harry mentally slapped himself.
Thoughts like that were not going to help him; he had learned that lesson after Sirius died. There is point in playing the 'what-if' game; he had to concentrate on what he could do now, and right now he was standing in front of the huge white building of Gringotts bank.
Instead of the normal single uniformed security guard standing besides the outer bronze door, two guards stood on either side, and two more appeared to be patrolling the building. All of them were heavily armed with swords and knives, worn metal helmets and chain mail vests, and they were watching the streets with a menacing air.
Dropping his cloak and suddenly appearing in front of the wary guards was not a wise thing to do, so he moved off to a side street and hid his cloak back inside his shirt.
Walking slowly, and with his hands in clear view, Harry entered the bronze doors of Gringotts under the watchful eyes of the Goblin guards, who did not bow as they had done the very first time he entered the bank as an eleven year old.
In front of the silver doors that were engraved with a warning rhyme, there were four more armed guards, although these ones did bow him through to the main foyer.
The vast marble hall that Harry had only seen twice before still looked exactly the same, except for the long line of wizards waiting to be served. There was still the long counter running almost the entire length of the hall, and hundreds of Goblins sitting at counters scribbling in ledgers and weighing coins.
Harry joined the end of the queue and waited his turn. The line appeared to be moving very slowly.
Despite the number of people, and Goblins, the hall was deathly quiet. The wizards and witches standing in line appeared to be too afraid to talk to anyone in anything more than a whisper.
As he stood waiting, Harry couldn't help examining them. Nobody in the line would meet his eyes for more than a split second before they hurriedly turned away. Everybody appeared extremely nervous. At one point, a Goblin accidentally dropped a sack of coins and the whole crowd jumped two feet in the air from the sudden noise.
Everybody was scared, Harry realised. Voldemort and his Death Eaters had turned the once vibrant magical community into a fearful thing that was scared of its own shadow.
Out of all the people that jumped when the bag of money hit the floor, only Harry and two young witches had even started to draw their wands. Everybody else screamed, or ducked, or almost run away. Even the Goblins had reacted badly, although a lot better than the wizards and witches waiting in the queue.
Harry found he was watching a young mother with her infant son standing behind the two witches who had drawn their wands. The mother had the look of somebody who had been 'running on empty' for along time. Her face showed an immense tiredness and a profound sadness; the signs of prolonged strain. The baby was sleeping in her arms, but she held him so tightly that Harry wondered if there was any blood getting to her hands.
The war against the Voldemort and the Death eaters was obviously going badly. Despite Fudge and now Scrimgeour's attempts to reassure the public that everything was under control, people were obviously terrified. The Ministry had completely failed the people, and they knew it. Nobody knew where to turn for guidance or reassurance, and now with the death of Albus Dumbledore, things were likely to get much worse.
Over an hour after Harry had entered the bank, he was getting close to the front of the queue. He had been lost in thought about what the Ministry of Magic should be doing and did not notice how close he was until a Goblin called him forward.
"Name?" asked the Goblin, in a less than friendly manner.
"Harry Potter," said Harry quietly. He didn't want anybody else to hear him, but the quiet of the bank meant he would almost have to whisper.
The Goblin looked up at Harry in apparent surprise.
"I am in disguise and would like for as few people as possible to know I am here, if possible, please?" asked Harry hurriedly. He had actually forgotten about his changed appearance, despite his longer hair's annoying habit of falling into his eyes and having to be brushed aside constantly.
"Indeed," said the Goblin. "Do you have your key?"
"Yes," said Harry, quickly producing his key and giving to the Goblin.
The Goblin inspected the key for a moment, then consulted some paperwork in front of him, briefly writing some notes on a parchment.
"Please sign this," it said, passing the parchment over to Harry, along with a black quill.
Harry involuntarily shuddered at the sight of the quill. He knew intimately what it was; a Blood quill. Anything he wrote with the quill would cut his hand and use his own blood as ink. Harry still had scars spelling the words "I will not tell lies" from his detentions with the detestable Delores Umbridge.
The Ministry toad forced onto them as last year's Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher had tortured the school children with a quill exactly like the one the Goblin was now handing over to him, making them write lines in their own blood.
"What for?" asked Harry warily.
"This is a security procedure to ensure you are indeed who you say you are," explained the Goblin almost politely. He must have recognised Harry's discomfort and surprisingly was trying to be more affable. "The Blood Quill will draw blood from your hand almost painlessly and allow us to test your identity. Without this test you will be unable to access your vault. Please read the parchment closely and sign on the dotted line."
Harry took the parchment and read it carefully, still unsure about using a blood quill, even if it was 'almost painless'.
The parchment was very brief.
'I Harry Potter hereby declare that I am in fact who I say I am.'
Then there was a dotted line with Harry's name printed under it. The Goblin must have written in Harry's name a few seconds ago as the ink still appeared wet.
"This is not any sort of magical contract or anything is it?" asked Harry.
The Goblin smiled in way that Harry felt was a tad vicious.
"Indeed Sir, it is. Should you not be who you claim to be, very nasty things will happen within seconds of you signing. Once that stops, whatever is left of you will be handed over to the authorities and charged with attempted impersonation. If you are who you say you are however, the contract will simply burn up and disappear."
Harry gulped at the thought of how powerful the spells must be. Hermione would be fascinated to find out how the Goblins had achieved such potent enchantments, but Harry was just nervous thinking about what might happen if they got it wrong.
Realising he once again had no real choice, Harry picked up the blood quill and signed his name.
It hurt very little compared to Umbridge's.
A few seconds later, the parchment disintegrated in a brief flash of flame and a puff of grey smoke.
The Goblin looked a bit disappointed at the lack of an excruciating death for Harry.
"Everything seems to be in order," he said, sweeping the ashes away with a small brush. "Do you wish to visit your vault or did you have a different purpose here today?"
"I need to withdraw money from my vault, and convert some to Muggle currency please," answered Harry.
"Very well, I will have someone take you to your vault and they will be able to convert your money once you return here. There is a fee for converting money of course, based on a flat percentage of the amount converted."
"That will be fine, thank you," said Harry, wondering just how large a percentage he would get charged, before being led off to one of the uncountable doors set in the wall behind the counters.
Despite years of performing death defying stunts on his broom, having flown a Hippogriff and a Thestral, and being six years older, the ride to his vault was just as exciting as the first time he had taken it.
He didn't recognise the Goblin escorting him, it could even have been the same one from six years ago, but it grinned in apparent delight as Harry whooped and laughed his appreciation during the trip. The journey took longer than he remembered, making Harry suspected the Goblin had somehow taken him on the 'scenic route' to prolong the ride.
Despite the speed of the cart, Harry did notice a number of armed guards patrolling different sections as they flashed by. There were also a few more dragons along the way, if the gouts of flame and distant roars were any indication.
Once at his vault Harry unlocked it and opened the doors, only to stop in shock at the amount of gold in there.
When Harry had first seen his vault, there had been a small fortune in gold galleons, silver sickles and bronze nuts. Now there appeared to be at least twice as much as when he had first opened it, and that was after six years of school fees, books and even some spending money.
At first, Harry couldn't understand where all the money had come from, but then realisation hit him like a physical blow; Sirius.
Dumbledore had told Harry Sirius had left him a 'reasonable' amount of gold. Obviously, Dumbledore's idea of reasonable was a bit different to Harry's. Either that or he had been once again not giving Harry the full story.
Hot rage flooded through Harry. He would not have put it passed Dumbledore to not trust him with the knowledge that he was now quite wealthy. Possibly he didn't want Harry to run off and start spending money like there was no tomorrow.
Or maybe he feared that if Harry didn't really have to rush to earn his keep, he would not be inclined to study hard; as if years of purposely keeping his grades below Dudley's to keep out of trouble had instilled a desire to excel academically in him!
Perhaps he was scared the Dursleys would try and force money out of Harry if they knew how much he had, but now the cat was out of the bag anyway – let out by Dumbledore himself while picking Harry up at the start of the school year. His relatives would be sure to try something when he got back this year.
There could have been any number of reasons, real or invalid, and with Dumbledore dead, Harry would never know.
The sudden memory of Dumbledore's death, and that he had only a few short hours ago attended the funeral, took the heat out of Harry's anger.
It didn't matter what Dumbledore's reasons were; he was gone, and Harry would gladly have given every bronze knut, silver sickle, and gold galleon in the vault, and a lot more besides, to have had him, or Sirius, back, but that wasn't going to happen.
Harry took his trunk out of his pocket and enlarged it, then opened the last secret compartment of the smaller trunk Dumbledore had left him, and filled it, his money bag, and a second bag he had borrowed from Ron with galleons, then left one in the main trunk.
The larger trunk had already been charmed to be almost as light as when empty, but Harry cast the same spell on the smaller trunk and the money bags as well, before shrinking everything back down to fit in a large pocket.
It didn't make sense that magical people lugged around huge, heavy trunks all the time when they could miniaturise them, but there were a lot of things wizards did that didn't make sense to Harry.
Tucking his full money bag into an inside pocket of his robes, he left his vault, still slightly amazed at the amount of gold in there. He had been expecting to empty the vault this trip, instead he was leaving behind more than he had ever expected to own.
The trip back up did not take anywhere near as long as the one down, proving to Harry the goblin had extended the ride down.
Back in the main hall, Harry handed over almost a quarter of his normal money bag to be converted into Muggle pounds, and then discretely shrank the resulting wad in order to fit it into a different pocket. The goblins may not have cared about the Ministry under age magic laws, but Harry was not in a hurry to find out.
With his pockets full of cash, and the knowledge he still had a lot of money to fall back on, Harry headed into Diagon Alley.
"Time to go shopping!" he thought to himself, as he pulled the cloak over his head before walking out of the bronze doors and into the depressingly empty wizard shopping district.
-
Just before starting Harry's third year of school at Hogwarts, he had spent an enjoyable two weeks living in the Leaky Cauldron tavern. During that time, he had become familiar with Diagon Alley and it various stores.
Many of those bright, glorious stores were closed now; boarded up reminders that the world had changed right before his eyes. People walk quickly and nervously in small groups, never stopping to enjoy anything except the most subdued of greetings for friends they came across.
Harry was currently seated in a small café sorting through his purchases of the last few hours while being served sandwiches by a bubbly young witch called Sally. Inside the café the atmosphere was much more relaxed, with people chatting loudly to each other; a marked difference to the way they acted outside. Several piles of apparently random items sat on the table in front of him, threatening to topple over and cover his food laden plate.
Searching from shop to shop for a Pensieve proved to be quite exhausting; especially when Harry had tired to keep his invisibility cloak on at all times that he wasn't inside a store. The lack of crowds made avoiding accidents easier, but the need to go into almost every shop to ask about Pensieves meant constantly taking the cloak off and putting it back on again, without being seen.
Almost every store keeper was reluctant to talk to him, unless he made a purchase. After filling up one small carry bag with miscellaneous items, Harry bought a backpack and paid for the inside to be magically expanded to hold everything.
Even though he did not spend a lot of time looking for things to buy, Harry had picked up an amazing array of items that he was now sorting. Amongst dozens of small items such as a pack of super exploding snap deck and Muggle style pens that could work at any angle, on any surface and under water, he had spent up big on a few items.
The tent was his major purchase. While the salesman had been disappointed that Harry steered away from the three storey ones that came with a moat, he had been please that Harry had loaded his much more modest two bedrooms, one bathroom (with hot and cold running water!), kitchen, lounge and dinning tent with accessories including camp beds, basic cookware, self lighting, and many charms. Harry felt he may have gone a bit overboard with the charms, but it was hard not to buy everything offered by the enthusiastic and persuasive salesman.
In the current climate of distrust, it appeared not a lot of people where opting to go camping in wilderness areas, making the salesman fear for his business. Harry's loading up made the man's day.
There were a lot of books in Harry's collection, on subjects as wide ranging as broom repair to magical carpentry. A very weird book called 'Protect your privacy - Control your mind' was the closest thing Harry could find to an Occlumency book without spending a week scouring the dusty shelves in the back rooms of various stores.
The only other shop that Harry spent more than a token amount of time browsing was 'Edward's Enchanters'. Crusty old Edward, who had a beard so long he had to carry it over one shoulder, made magical scrolls that had the same effects as casting a spell when read, but without needing a wand. Since scrolls and similar magics were not covered until seventh year at Hogwarts, Harry had been fascinated by them and bought almost all of Edward's stock.
"It's becoming a lost art," Edward told him. "Nobody wants to take the time to make a scroll properly. Everybody just wants to wave their wand around in the air like monkeys with sticks and do the spell straight away. No thought for the future, just instant gratification, that's all kids want today! A waste I tell you, a darn waste."
He had even sold Harry a book about the art of scroll creation, but one look told Harry it was well above his level of understanding.
A fancy new watch gleamed on Harry's wrist too. It was guaranteed to work at extreme temperatures that Harry himself would not survive, had hands that showed all the planets, phases of the moon, and how many days to the solstice, and had fourteen different alarms, although Harry did not know how he could possibly use that many.
So far, Ron had been right, and it was obvious he was not going to find a Pensieve at just any corner store. The day was getting away from him, so Harry decided he would have to stick to the more expensive stores that dealt with magical artefacts.
Conversations buzzed half heard around Harry as he sorted his new possessions and ate lunch. One involving two middle aged wizards caught his attention when a familiar name was almost shouted.
"Dumbledore!" exclaimed one man. "Who would have believed it? What's going to happen now?"
"Reckon the Ministry will have to pull its socks up, that's what I reckon,' answered the man sitting with his back to Harry.
"The Ministry? You have got to be joking. Scrimgeour might have been a good Auror, but he is out of his depth when it comes to politics. He is still taking advice from that idiot Fudge!" ranted the first man.
"True he messed up royally, but Fudge does know his way around politics and politicians."
"Who cares about politicians? I wish you-know-who did away with the lot of them tomorrow, and their bureaucratic donkeys. That way at least it would let the real workers get the job done!"
Harry snorted into his Butterbeer thinking it didn't sound like that bad an idea when it was put that way, except he knew several good people who worked at the Ministry, including Arthur Weasley.
"Come on Bert! You don't really think anybody is going to do anything visible and make themselves a target do you? Everybody is going to hide under their beds and hope it all goes away! Nobody has the guts to take a real stand and say where the problem is."
"Nah, you're probably right. Pity Lockhart got taken down before you-know-who came back. He would have sorted this mess out straight away, and probably wouldn't have even messed his hair!"
Harry nearly chocked on a mouthful of sandwich hearing that people still considered the fraud Gilderoy Lockhart a hero. The true story of his false career must not have been spread around too much.
"What ever happened to him anyway? I heard his brain was fried while on a mission for the Dark Force Defence League."
"Nah, I heard a Lethifold attacked him. He managed to kill it in his sleep, but never recovered properly. Old Roger Blake's wife, Martha, says she's seen him in St. Mungos last time she was there."
"She still having trouble with her Lumbago then is she?"
"Nah, she accidentally swallowed a toad and had to have it removed."
"Blimey! At least that's not as bad as old Ginger and her house falling down on her. Right sticky mess she was…"
Harry tuned the rest of the conversation out as they continued to talk about various friends and the extraordinary accidents they had undergone.
It seemed almost everybody had lost faith in the Ministry and were scared for their lives. It was true the wizard government was mostly incompetent, but Harry couldn't believe people were more willing to put their faith in a fraud like Gilderoy Lockhart than to take a stand themselves.
Voldemort might be an unstoppable nightmare, but his Death Eaters were just witches and wizards like the people sitting in the Café.
Well, not quite like the people in the café, Harry admitted, unless the elderly couple in the far corner were homicidal psychopaths bent on world domination.
But even Harry was virtually in hiding, fearful of getting attacked. He knew he was a target, but that didn't mean anything to the man on the street who only saw that the one person who had stood up Voldemort besides Dumbledore was not to be seen. Maybe Scrimgeour was right. Maybe Harry should be out in public, rallying people.
The problem with that idea was that he needed to search for the Horcruxes, and do it in secret. Even if he just gave modest support for the Ministry and their well meaning incompetence, he would still be unable to fulfil the task Dumbledore set for him.
Suddenly, Harry had an inspiration. There was a way he could help. He could be visible while at the same time secretly be searching for the Horcruxes. It even tied in with a way he could attend Bill's wedding in disguise.
He was going to join the Ministry as its Poster boy.