A/N: So this skips a lot between different character's points of views. Sorry, I needed to have some things explained by Harry, but also have some different points of view from other characters. R&R and hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: How are you not getting this by now?
Flashbacks, Funerals and Reflections
The sun shone through the window of the pub, streaming onto Harry's face and waking him with a groan. He rolled over, hearing a worrying 'crack.'
"Oh no…" Sure enough, when he hoisted himself up onto his elbow his glasses lay broken next to him. He pulled his wand out of his coat, which he had slept in, and muttered the spell,
"Reparo." He pushed the now good-as-new spectacles onto his nose and sat up. Running his hands through hair that he now realised was jet black he renewed the disguising spell, which had worn off while he was asleep.
He stumbled groggily over to the mirror, inspecting his appearance he sighed, his eyes were plagued with dark shadows, there was stubble (albeit now blonde stubble) around his mouth and his hair was as ruffled as if there was no spell at all. In short, he looked like he had walked in off the streets, despite his nice clothes. "I'm going to need to look more respectable if I'm going to Gringotts," he muttered to his reflection. "Amen to that, dear," replied the mirror.
When he'd had a shower he pulled a container the size of a ring box from the pocket of his coat, "Engorgio," he said. Stepping away from the box that he had placed on the floor, it began rapidly expanding and soon it was not a small trinket, but his travelling trunk. He pulled it open and picked out a new shirt and waistcoat, combed his hair through once, shaved and mumbled to himself, irritated, when he couldn't shift the shadows beneath his eyes.
He was glad he had not changed his physical build when he had settled upon a permanent form for the disguising spell. It would be such a pain having to carry round clothes fitting two different people, as it was, his trunk was already pretty full. It held a selection of interesting costumes for Lysander, as well as some clothes belonging to the less flamboyant Harry Potter, and some concealing hooded cloaks when he wished to be neither, the most concealing of all being, ofcourse, his invisibility cloak.
Harry remembered the words or Dumbledore, so long ago, before the War, before the death and destruction, before Harry had even met Voldemort since his parent's death:
"I don't need a cloak to become invisible." But even that voice of reason had been silenced along the years, he thought bitterly. In a way, he had adopted this statement as his philosophy, he rarely used the cloak now, preferring subtler ways of being invisible, he found being unnoticed was a much more effective way of being unseen.
He headed downstairs for breakfast, ordering eggs and bacon from Warner.
"Do you like your room, Mr Reubels?" asked Warner slyly, obviously feeling braver about talking to Harry since his conversation with Flitwick. Harry nodded in reply. "Going anywhere special?" Warner tried again, eyeing Lysander's newly shaven jaw and tidy hair, using a nonchalant tone of voice.
"Gringotts." Harry grunted again, this time warily.
Despite further efforts, this was all the man could get out of him as soon the breakfast arrived. Warner had been right the night before about his lengths of stay; he never roamed the country for more than two months before he found himself drawn back to London and the familiar streets of Diagon Alley. Like the Butter beer the idea was just too comfortable and familiar for him to abstain for long from the sight of the pub's walls. It was foolish and probably dangerous to become too well-known a face, he knew, but could not help himself.
He was snapped from his thoughts as he heard the conversation occurring between two witches on the other side of the room. "Is it happening at Godrics Hollow?" the first witch, a woman with purple hair, asked.
"Mmmm, everyone's going to attend…even the Minster of Magic and his personal assistant!" The second witch pointed at something in the newspaper she was holding, no doubt the article containing this information. Harry listened carefully, his attention caught by the mention of his once family home. He suddenly realised, horrified, what they were talking about when the purple haired-witch next spoke.
"Well that's no surprise, everyone knows Hermione Granger was a best friend of his, she would be going whether the Minster was or not."
Harry had suddenly lost his appetite. He stomped upstairs again to his room, slamming the door shut. He did however, refrain from kicking something again, the splintered bedpost a reminder of last night's loss of control. Could he go nowhere without hearing about his death? His funeral? Him? Having to face himself each morning in the mirror was hard enough, the disguising spell helped with that. But Harry's hatred for himself ran so deep that this constant idolism left him disgusted. He didn't deserve their pity, alive or dead, he didn't deserve anything…
But despite this, another feeling niggled at the back of his mind: curiosity. It was his funeral after all, not many people had the chance to witness their own memorial service first hand. He hastily pushed the feeling aside, no, it was ridiculous, far too dangerous to attempt. He pulled on his coat and left the pub, heading towards the steps of Gringotts bank.
Bill stood at the top of the bank's steps, scanning the crowd for his family. Amid the bustling of Diagon Alley he was glad, for once, that the Weasleys possessed one very distinguishing feature. And sure enough, as he craned his neck red splashes of colour appeared in the crowd, emerging to form Molly and Arthur Weasley. Next to them was the silvery blonde head of his wife, Fleur, who was looking as beautiful and elegant as always, despite the bulge of her heavily pregnant stomach.
Bill's father was clutching the Daily Prophet, an angry expression on his face; Molly was talking to him consolingly as she helped Fleur up the steps. The noise of the activity around them was so loud that Bill couldn't hear what they were saying until they were almost right next to them. "…an abomination…intrusive…shouldn't be allowed…no respect…as if we didn't have enough to deal with...as if they didn't…"
Molly looked away, an expression of pain on her face. Bill ran down the last couple of steps to meet them, interrupting his father's rant, "What's this about then?" He bent forward to kiss his mother and then his wife, who smiled quietly at him and rested a tired head on his shoulder.
"The Daily Prophet have tried to make the funeral…rather public…" explained Molly.
"I'll be damned if any reporter will barge in on it for the sake of a few cheap galleons!" Arthur added.
"Quite right, it eez a time for us to be remembering 'arry. It eez disgraceful that they want to publicize it like theez." Fleur sniffed.
Bill had read the article earlier that day and was unsurprised, the media would do anything to get their paws on stories about Harry…
Harry jumped up the steps two at a time, lost in thought. The wind made his coat fan out behind him and ruffled his blonde hair. He was so busy thinking that he did not notice the group of people infront of him before it was too late-
Bill suddenly noticed a young blonde man running up the steps, not looking where he was going-
"CRASH!"
The blonde walked straight into the group, sending most of them flying. Bill managed to catch Fleur before she fell, and Molly and Arthur soon steadied themselves. Someone was talking.
"I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going, I didn't mean-I mean, is anyone hurt?" The young man sounded so apologetic that Bill couldn't be angry at him; it was, after all, an accident.
"No, no, it's fine, no harm done," muttered Arthur, as Bill stared at the strange looking youth, he must've been about twenty-two, his expensive, if slightly odd clothes showing off wealth, he had dark shadows under his eyes and looked quite twitchy. His features reminded him of someone from the Malfoy family, something that would have had Bill instantly prejudiced, but he was too polite for that.
But as Arthur spoke and turned to look at him the young man froze. His eyes grew terrified and he became silent. He acted as if they had all pulled out their wands and threatened to use an unforgivable. Slowly he began to back away.
"Are you alright dear?" Molly asked, taking in his odd reaction anxiously.
The stranger shook his head slowly, "Fine…all my fault…sorry," he barely move his lips as he murmured out the words. Suddenly, he turned and sprinted up the remaining steps, clearly trying to get away as fast as possible.
"'ow odd. 'e looked like 'e 'ad seen a ghost," commented Fleur. They shrugged to each other and carried on their conversation, little knowing it was they who were seeing the dead people.
Harry flung himself inside the building, breathing heavily. His heart thumped against his ribcage, sending signals to his brain to run. Seeing the Weasleys so suddenly, so close like that, he actually ran into them! It had sent him into a panic, he cursed himself for acting so suspiciously, all he had to do was brush himself off, apologise and walk away, but no, he had gone and acted like a startled deer!
People were beginning to look at him oddly, he scolded himself again for losing the mask, for letting his disguise slip, even if just for a second it was unforgivable and he had let it happen in front of the people who knew him most…He remembered Molly's words, she could have been saying them at the Burrow over dinner, the tones of Celestina Warbeck playing in the background: Are you alright, dear? He straightened up, pushing the painful idea away as he did so, and strode over to a counter.
A couple of months before he had disappeared, Harry set up a new account at Gringotts under the name he had picked, Lysander Reubels. He had been theorising about how he would do it for a while and it was now he decided to finally take action. A letter sent by owl had requested that monthly payments be made into Lysander Reubels vault from the account of Harry Potter, a transaction he knew would continue even after he had disappeared. Now it was merely a question of handing Lysander's key to a goblin and taking as much of Harry's money out of the bank as he wanted.
Gringotts was always discreet, you could give them that, and Harry doubted there was anyone but those who did the transacting themselves that knew about this arrangement. It would certainly be impossible for anyone but the owner of the account to know about it outside the bank.
Still, Harry always shuddered at the thought of what the Goblin's would do if they found out that Lysander Reubel's was infact Harry Potter and he had been making frequent visits to the bank all these years. You see, the Goblin's hadn't taken kindly to having their precious bank infiltrated by a young wizard just out of school, even if it was to defeat Voldemort, who, coincidentally was the only other wizard to have made it in out of Gringotts as a thief, alive.
He knew Bill had gotten grief for the fact that his own brother had been deeply involved in the thievery, but everyone saw (and rather unfairly on Ron and Hermione's part) Harry as the main implementer of their plan. Similarly, it was also deeply insulting to the Goblin's that he had stolen the goblet from the vault in exchange for something that was rightfully theirs anyway. Yes, the Goblin's held grudges for a very long time, and Harry was right to worry about what they'd do if they caught him trying to sneak into the bank again as someone else.
He handed the key silently to the goblin at the desk, but this was hardly surprising, anyone who had met with Lysander Reubels would find him unforthcoming. It was not long before he was shovelling some gold into his coat pocket and was on his way. He cautiously poked his head out between the doors, scanning the crowd first. But when he saw no sign of the Weasleys he descended the steps, heading back to the Leaky Cauldron and his solitude.
A/N: This was a long chapter, I know, I don't feel like it's one of my strongest. I want to make this story as plausible as possible so I'm going to try and explore the psychological effects on the characters a bit more. R&R and read the next chapter!