The shock of almost walking into Petunia was instantly replaced by an automatic fear that he had been caught hexing his fat cousin, but just as quickly the fear and guilt were swept away by a wave of anger.
She stood perfectly still, shock and her usual disgust at even seeing Harry creasing her horse-like features into the perpetual sneer he knew so well.
Without saying a word, and not giving her a chance to say anything, Harry brushed passed and pulled on the invisibility cloak before heading out the side gate and down the street.
As he automatically marched his familiar route towards the park that had become his refuge after Sirius died, Harry realised he was not thinking properly, but he needed to get out for a bit, away from the house that he was sure now contained a sulking Dudley and an enraged Petunia.
It had only been a couple of days, and Harry had managed to avoid his relatives for the whole time after that initial nastiness, but he was already regretting returning at all. He knew was not going to be able to stay much longer.
Harry found himself thinking about what had just happened as his feet unconsciously moved him down the road. Much of it could be blamed on delayed frustration; he had been sure Draco was plotting something, and that Snape was not to be trusted, but everybody else had trusted Dumbledore, and Dumbledore would not consider that he might have been wrong about Snape.
They had all done what was easy, and had fallen back on habit.
Nobody believed Harry when he said Draco had taken the Dark Mark, and Dumbledore had refused to defend himself, instead wasting his last opportunity incapacitating Harry so that he couldn't interfere and maybe get in harm's way.
If he hadn't been frozen, Harry could have stunned Draco before the other Death Eaters had arrived. He could have sealed the door leading to the tower and taken Dumbledore on the broom to the hospital wing, or maybe even joined the battle, attacking the invaders from the rear when they weren't expecting it. Dumbledore himself could undoubtedly have handled Draco, even in his weakened state, if he had not cast the petrification spell on Harry.
Why had Dumbledore risked, and lost, so much? What could he possibly have been afraid of happening to Harry that he had put them both into an incredibly dangerous situation?
Viciously kicking a can along the ground, he once again keenly felt his inadequacy.
Obviously Dumbledore had believed Harry too incompetent to protect himself; and he had been right! Look at the fight with the Inferi. If Dumbledore had not woken up when he did, both of them would now be floating in a lake inside the hidden cave, silent guardians in Voldemort's army.
With a start, Harry realised he was feeling both angry and guilty. He was angry at Dumbledore for being so careless with his own life, and guilty at the thought that Dumbledore had effectively given that life to keep Harry safe for only a few minutes. The instant he had been released from the body bind, Harry had blindly rushed himself into a battle he couldn't hope to win, and could easily have been killed - probably would have, if Buckbeak hadn't attacked Snape and driven him off.
No matter how many times he thought about it though, Harry knew he would have done many of the same things again. He recognised that he had recklessly chased Snape in a futile attempt to capture him, but nothing would have stopped him from joining the fight anyway, not with his friends in danger.
His humiliating defeat at Snape's hands still rankled though. What possible chance did he have against Voldemort if he couldn't even beat Snape, a man his father had apparently bested often?
"Your father would never attack me unless it was four on one, what would you call him, I wonder?"
Again the memory of Snape's hated voice burned in Harry's memory.
Well, that wasn't bad advice really. No matter how good Snape or Voldemort were, outnumbering them was one sure way to win. Nobody could win if the odds were stacked enough; that was how the Death Eaters worked. Like Dudley and his gang of bullies, they only ever attacked when they were sure to have superior numbers.
Harry was certain that Lucius Malfoy and his companions would have fled from the battle in the Department of Mysteries once the Order had shown up, if their mission had not been of such importance to Voldemort and Lucius had not already been on thin ice because he had lost the Diary Horcrux.
Voldemort himself had fled from the evenly matched Dumbledore, once other wizards had started arriving.
Of course, it would take quite a crowd to overpower the Dark Lord, and in the end the prophecy did say he could only die by Harry's hand and the 'Power he knows not'.
Makes two of us, thought Harry ruefully. I have even less of an idea about that.
No matter what Dumbledore had said, Harry didn't see how his ability to love could be used to destroy a psychopathic murderer who had at least fifty years more experience and training in duelling.
Then Harry remembered the Pensieve memories he had inherited from Dumbledore. Maybe that was how Harry could catch up on Voldemort's skill! Maybe Dumbledore had made those memories specifically for him to use as a short cut to training for years.
Harry felt his pace quicken in excitement and forced himself to slow down to a normal speed. Tripping over and suddenly becoming visible was a sure way of attracting attention.
It made sense. Dumbledore had made sure Harry would be able to receive all the training he could possibly need, and nobody would know. If a Pensieve had the ability to watch memories in less time than they actually recorded, it might be possible for him to learn at a much-accelerated rate.
He needed a Pensieve, and he needed one as soon as possible, but that was not likely to happen unless Harry approached Professor McGonagall and told her what he wanted one for. He was just going to have to write to her and hope she would be willing to help him out even if he wasn't returning for a more traditional education.
One of Harry's watch alarms, a Mermaid's song, broke him out of his pondering. He had been trying to find some use for all the alarms, and this one was for lunch today.
Then Harry discovered he was lost.
Without realising it, he had completely missed the park that had been his original destination, and had walked into unknown territory. Looking around for something he could recognise to guide himself home, Harry saw a small shopping centre Petunia had taken him to a few times when he was younger.
Stepping into an alley at the rear of the shops, he hid the invisibility cloak back under his shirt and performed his hair and glasses transformation. With the well fitting clothes and different colour hair, Harry doubted that anybody would recognize him as the 'mentally disturbed delinquent that spent summers at the Dursley home', despite his scar.
The small supermarket had a good selection of fresh fruit and vegetables. Harry loaded up a full trolley with them, along with lots of other treats he had only occasionally enjoyed; Pizzas and ice creams mainly. He also loaded an impressive set of cookware, and a stylish, patterned twelve-place dinner setting that caught his eye.
Not that he needed any of it, since he could conjure or transfigure anything he wanted, but he thought it might be nice to have at least two plates that matched, since every item he made tended to be slightly different each time.
He was heading for the checkout, when a special display of children's toys caught his attention.
On sale were large doll's houses, complete with furniture and two six-inch action figure dolls; a man and a woman.
Dudley was never permitted to have anything as 'girly' as a doll's house, so Harry had never seen one up this close before.
The detail fascinated him. Little cupboards had working wooden doors and drawers that opened and closed, there was a dinner table with six elegant chairs, and a large leather-look lounge suite that was of a style the Dursley's would derisively call 'too modern for a family home'. The bathroom and bedroom were fully appointed, something that Harry thought odd for a child's toy, and the other rooms in the house were decked out as a study (complete with bookshelves), a guest room, and a spare bedroom. There was even a miniature fridge!
Despite considering how he, a teenage boy, might look buying a dollhouse, Harry decided he was getting it, and balanced it precariously on top of his groceries.
"It's for my niece," he explained self-consciously to the check out lady, as she rang it through the till. She smiled disinterestedly and gave him the total.
Once outside the store and back down the alley, Harry realised he still wasn't sure how to get back to Privet drive. Checking nobody was watching, he shrunk everything down so that it fit in one bag, then braced himself and once again stepped into the unpleasantness of Apparition.
That night, Harry took everything out of the doll's house he could use and magically altered it to 'human' size and strength. It was by far the hardest transfiguration he had ever done, but the results were easily better than the best he had ever achieved before.
His sleep was filled with pleasantly satisfying dreams of Hagrid turning Dudley into a pig.
The next day started out agonisingly slow for Harry, despite there still being a lot to do to make his temporary accommodation as comfortable as he intended.
He stayed inside the tent, only going to look out the window once, and sorted out his books. He had not realised just how many books he had accumulated, but between six years of school, presents from his friends, and the significant number he had bought during his brief shopping trip, he had enough to fill a large book case.
Sorting them would have gone a lot faster if he didn't keep getting distracted by the books themselves. He still wasn't in a studying mood, but he couldn't help flicking through every book, which usually ended up with him reading several pages.
From the amusing notes he and Ron had written on Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests, to Hermione's underlining of important events in his History of Magic book, Harry found himself unable to just pack them away without taking the time to look through them.
A loud crack announcing the arrival of a wizard broke Harry from his reading.
"Blimey," said a familiar voice. "There's not much room in here. Hello, anybody home? Do we just knock or go in? How do you knock on a tent anyway?"
"Go in," said Tonks. "He won't be sleeping this late, unlike some people I know, who would still be in bed if they could be."
"Leave me alone, I'm on holidays!" answered Ron defensively.
Harry laughed as Ron entered the tent, closely followed by Tonks who must have Apparated them over.
"Nice," complimented Tonks, looking at the new furniture. "You must have been practicing pretty hard all day to have done this good a job, or did somebody stop in and help out?"
"Nope," said Harry, leaning back in his very comfortable recliner lounge chair. "I cheated."
Explaining about the unscheduled visit to the shop and using the dollhouse to make new furniture, Harry hoped Ron wouldn't get on his case about having money and the ability to do magic outside of school without being of age yet. Luckily the older boy took it all in his stride and immediately helped himself to some of the food and butterbeer.
"Looks great, mate," he said, sinking into a squishy recliner. "Wonder why others don't do something like this?"
Tonks was a bit worried about him venturing out alone, but admitted the likelihood of Death Eaters hiding in the dairy fridge of the local Muggle supermarket was fairly low. She left them to go to work, promising to return to take Ron home later.
"What's with that?" Harry asked. "I thought you were going to stay a while."
Ron huffed and tossed one of Harry's new books onto the ground.
"Mum's having kneazles about this wedding," he complained. "I only got out today because I told her you would go mad if you didn't have company."
"Close to the truth. What about Hermione?" asked Harry.
He had been nervous about owls coming and going, and so had avoided writing to either of them.
"She's doing like you said to; gone with her folks on an ocean voyage somewhere. I got a letter from her yesterday telling me all about it. It sounds dead boring to me. Fancy spending days and days on a boat, with nothing to look at but water."
"I dunno," said Harry wistfully. "I have never really seen the sea."
"You're not missing much. It's just a load of water bouncing you up and down trying to get your lunch back out of you - 'bout as interesting as Hagrid teaching us about Flobberworms, and just as stomach settling."
Ron let out a sigh and looked around the tent.
"So what's there to do around here anyway?" he asked.
Harry smiled mischievously.
"Magic," he said.
Ron looked confused for a second, then his eyes lit up with understanding.
"Wicked."
While Ron was of age, and allowed to use magic legally, living with his rather strict mother had severely limited his ability to explore all of the wonderful ways that magic could be used in day to day activities.
Harry of course had never been allowed to use magic as much as he liked.
With a 'house' to themselves, and nobody to berate them for their laziness the boys quickly fell into a competition of seeing how much they could achieve with as little physical movement as possible.
It started when Harry levitated himself, chair and all, to get a butterbeer.
Ron just summoned one from the cupboard.
Harry levitated a bag of crisps and poured it into a bowl before flying it over to where he was still floating in his chair, a foot above the ground.
Ron levitated the crisps straight out of bag and into his mouth in an unbroken stream.
On and on they went, finding new ways to do everything with the least possible amount of physical activity. Each time Harry thought of something new to try, Ron topped him by going a step further, often reducing them both to incoherent balls of laughter at the ridiculous lengths they were going to be lazy.
It was easily the best time Harry had ever spent at Privet Drive, or while practicing transfiguration and levitation for that matter. Ron made the comment several times that if overstuffed lounge chairs had been allowed in every classroom he would never have had a problem with the Leviosa spell.
Harry encouraged Ron to change some of Dudley's clothes for himself, since he didn't have any Muggle clothing of his own and they would likely need it over the course of their travels. Luckily, although Ron found the designs and styles of the mostly designer wardrobe quite strange, he felt no compulsion to turn anything into the bright and vastly inappropriate colours most wizards seem to favour.
Discovering the Muggle clothes were quite a bit more comfortable than he had thought, Ron commented that Dudley's cast offs were in much better condition than his own hand me downs, momentarily making Harry uncomfortable as he became aware Ron still had some money issues, despite not making a fuss over Harry's large number of recent purchases.
"It's not like they ever gave me the good stuff," he told Ron, feeling a bit defensive. "Fat-head Dudley would have chucked a fit if I ever had something that didn't have holes in it. This stuff was all heading for the poor box before I 'liberated' it."
Ron looked disgusted.
"Mate, I know I don't know a lot about Muggles, but surely they can't be that mental. Why would you keep buying new things when the old stuff is still good? It's just a waste."
"Trust me, Ron," said Harry, floating over a pair of practically brand new sneakers that were so large he could almost have fit both of his feet into one shoe. "I have absolutely no idea, but I do know the Dursleys are definitely a bit short in the brains department."
Ron deftly caught the sneakers, then compared them to his own well worn footwear before shaking his head and casting a shrinking spell.
"Reducio!" he said, holding the wand above the shoes. Obediently they began to get smaller and smaller until they were down to regular human size.
With a grunt of satisfaction, Ron flicked his wand to perform a switching spell, swapping his old shoes for the new ones without having to bend over.
"Not bad, eh?" he asked, holding his smartly clad feet in the air proudly. "Bit stiff though. Stupid git must never have worn them."
"They probably went out of fashion, so he dumped them," explained Harry. It was the sort of thing he could see Dudley doing.
Taking the shoes off and frowning slightly, Ron's face took on a look of intense concentration, and he cast a complex series of spells. The pair of shoes jumped off his lap and started running around in circles, as if an invisible person had put them on and was now jogging around inside the tent.
"What are you doing?" ask Harry, watching the shoes warily. He was a bit unsure of what Ron was up to and half expected the shoes to start kicking him or something.
Ron smiled smugly.
"Wearing them in." he answered, causing Harry to erupt in gales of laughter, again.
-
Over lunch, Harry finished recounting his visit to Diagon Alley and the Ministry. Ron burst out laughing at finding out Percy was the one Harry insisted take his place.
"Did he faint?"
"Nah, but it was close. I reckon his eyes popped out of his head when I asked for my Apparition licence though," Harry told him, while breaking off more of the Mr Magic meal they had taken out.
He wasn't really sure what kind an animal it was they were eating, but it was bird shaped and delicious, even if it did have too many legs for him to be really comfortable with.
Ron stopped laughing abruptly.
"You what?"
"I told them it was too dangerous for me to come in on my birthday and get my licence, and I wanted to get an extraordinary one now."
"Did they do it?"
"Yep. I had to go to the testing area, it was set up like a street and I just Apparated around a few times. Only took a couple of minutes."
Ron sat back in his chair, looking at Harry with a betrayed expression and a furrowed brow.
"What?" Harry asked him innocently.
"Nothing," said Ron, looking down at his plate and refusing to meet Harry's eyes.
"Ron, what's the matter?"
"Forget it," said Ron dejectedly.
"Ron, if you don't tell me what's wrong, I am going to hex you," said Harry, letting a bit of anger slip into his voice.
"Well," Ron started off quietly. "I was waiting for your birthday before going to take the test again, so we could go together."
"Oh," said Harry. "I am sorry. I didn't remember. Are you disappointed?"
Ron shook his head; an obvious lie.
"Nah, it's okay. I'll probably fail and have to go back again anyway."
Harry sat quietly for a second, then waved his wand and summoned a formal looking parchment from his trunk.
"Does that mean you don't want this?" he said holding, out the document.
Ron glanced at it, did a double take, and then grabbed it out of Harry's hands.
"Harry?"
"Yeah, I told them I wanted one for you too. The examiner was the guy you had for your test, and he agreed that it really was just a small matter, leaving your eyebrow behind, and you should be fine with a bit more practice, so they gave it to me for you. I figured it was about time you got something back for having to put up with a famous git for a friend."
Ron stared incredulously at the license, not saying a word for so long that Harry suddenly felt uncomfortable. What if Ron had wanted to pass the test on his own? Harry would never dare do this for Hermione, who would insist on taking the test herself, but Ron had never baulked at taking a short cut before. It was the first time that Harry had ever really used his fame to get something he didn't have a valid claim to, what if it backfired?
"Ron? Is it okay? You're not angry are you? Did I do good?" he asked.
Ron took his eyes off the parchment and stared at Harry.
"Brilliant, mate," he said, a smile spreading across his face. "You done ruddy brilliant!"
"Good," said Harry, puffing out a breath he had been holding. "Because I would have looked like a right Flobberworm if I had to take it back, especially after the whining I did to get it in the first place."
A large official looking owl chose that moment to fly into the tent and land on Harry. She had a letter tied to her leg that he quickly removed and read silently.
"Percy arrives the day after tomorrow," he told Ron.
The rest of the day went even quicker after that.