A/N: New chapter. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter… Obviously.
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Bella and Harry had underestimated the distance from Azkaban to the western coast of Britain. Instead of the predicted four to five hours of flying that both Harry and Bellatrix had predicted, strong winds had forced Bella to have to fly for almost twelve.
As soon as Bella was low enough to the ground, she dropped Harry, who turned back to his human form to land his feet, and immediately landed, also changing back.
"Ha… Ha… Harry!" She managed to force out between taking huge gulps of air, before promptly passing out from exhaustion.
"Bella!" Came the concerned call as she fell backwards.
Despite the fact that Harry had secretly always wanted to catch the beautiful damsel in distress as she fainted, he didn't. Although he should have been expecting it, considering the twelve hour flight and the fact that Azkaban doesn't provide an excellent meal service, his shock prevented him from moving.
He picked her up, bridal style, and carried her off of the rocky beach that they had landed on, heading toward the treeline about a hundred metres away.
'She doesn't look like she is going to be waking up any time soon.' He thought, looking down at the bundle in his arms.
Following this thought, he decided that they would make some sort of make-shift camp. Setting Bella down on a relatively dry bit of ground, he began collecting leaves and pine-needles from the nearby trees to act as bedding. Unfortunately, this was the extent of Harry's survival knowledge and settled for huddling against some trees and each other, whilst lying on the bedding.
With that, he lay Bella down on the 'bed', moved up beside her and linked her arms around her, holding her body to his. He shut his eyes, hoping for a dreamless sleep.
He was asleep within seconds.
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In the next two days not much had happened. Bella had been barely conscious for the first day and a half but Harry had problems of his own. Namely, food.
He had puzzled over this for a while before coming to a conclusion. Hunting had been the only option. However, he was unable to cast the Killing Curse without a wand, and had never actually tried it, even with a wand. An explosion of crushing curse was also out of the question, since he wanted his food to be edible, and he was rather sure Bella would too. This only left small curses and charms, such as the cutting curse, but in his weakened state, he wasn't sure he would be able to pull it off, especially since he was only really adept at best in his wandless magic studies.
Finally, an idea struck him, powered by his growing hunger. He was unsure if it would work or not, but he was where he would really test his Legilimency skills.
His plan was to force his way into whatever animals mind, and then possess it. He would then place an instruction to kill itself (A/N2: Don't ask me how, I don't have a clue). The instruction would be like an itch, the more it is ignored, the more annoying it will become.
An hour and a half later, Harry returned to the camp carrying a rabbit. A quick gathering of wood and an incendio later, Harry was chewing on a surprisingly tasty rabbit.
During the time between his hunting and Bella waking up, he had spent all his time at her side, whilst practicing his wandless magic. Every curse, hex and jinx that he could cast with a wand, he was able to reproduce without, although it took a lot of energy to perform such feats. Despite this though, he could perform any charm he could think of, and many more that he had read up on, within 3 tries wandlessly, as well as being able to accomplish advanced transfiguration, also wandlessly.
However, although he could perform exceedingly well with charms and transfiguration, he still needed to work on his magical stamina, that had been what he had been working on before he got sent to Azkaban, so he continued there.
With Bella waking up came another hunting trip, and Bella had sworn that Harry was going to be doing all the cooking from that moment on.
Shortly after this, Harry brought up the topic of what they were going to do now.
"I've been wondering the same thing."
At Harry's look of shock, she explained.
"Just because I've been to Azkaban before does not mean I'm an expert on being on-the-run you know!"
Harry immediately looked slightly ashamed before recovering.
"Right. Sorry Bella. The only thing I can think of that is needed is a wand but that's not completely urgent."
Nodding, Bella replied. "Yeah, I know someone in Knockturn Alley who custom builds wands for all of her customers. That's where I got my old one from."
They discussed wands and wand holsters for a while before Bella brought another issue to their attention.
"Harry, we need robes as well, and we can't exactly go to Madam Malkin's."
"I know. But we don't have to get robes." Harry responded, a grin spreading across his face.
Bella stared at him incredulously. "What? We can't just go around in these filthy things!"
Harry laughed. Then laughed some more. It wasn't even that funny, but he couldn't stop laughing. When he finally calmed down he said, "I said we didn't need robes, not we weren't going to buy knew clothes. We are going to go Muggle shopping!" He finished with a dramatic wave of his hand, but Bella remained sceptical.
"Trust me you will love it. From what I've heard, women love their shoes, correct?"
With a snort, Bella replied, "You could say that."
"Well I know for a fact that the Muggle world has whole shops dedicated to shoes, amongst other things."
At this, despite her being a hardened warrior, Bella couldn't help the slight widening of her eyes and the small smile that graced her face at the thought of a big shopping trip.
Harry noticed this and grinned, before saying, "The only problem is getting to Gringotts without being spotted."
"We will sort that out later, but for now we should go to Knockturn Alley and find somewhere to stay. No offence honey, but this place is a pig-sty." She said, accompanied with a sly grin and wink.
Harry laughed, before transfiguring two nearby sticks into thick black cloaks. He handed one to Bella, who looked at Harry in awe.
"W-was that wandless transfiguration?" She asked, near whispering. She knew how much power that was needed for on-the-spot transfiguration, especially wandless.
It was Harry's turn to adopt a sly expression, before he changed to an over-exaggerated look of indifference.
"What can I say? I seem to have inherited my father talent for transfiguration."
"Smart arse!" She swatted his arm. Donning the cloaks, Bella hugged Harry, before pulling both herself and him through side-along apparition.
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"Warn me before you do that next time!" Assisted apparition wasn't comfortable even when prepared for it.
"Sorry." She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and a wink for his troubles.
"Right, course you are." He replied. She just winked again.
They had appeared in an alley branching off of Knockturn, which ran parallel with Diagon Alley. Looking around, Harry noticed that the alley they were currently in was even more dank and disgusting than Knockturn.
"Keep close and keep your hood raised." Bella said to him, breaking him out of his thoughts.
"Yes Ma'am." She allowed herself a smile at his poor joke, before slipping back into her stoic expression.
"I'm serious Harry, Knockturn Alley isn't known for its bright cheery people and its happy atmosphere."
"Right," he said, also serious, pushing his hood up to cover his face, "I'll just follow you."
"Good," she replied, satisfied, also pushing her hood up.
With that, they moved out into Knockturn Alley, blending in perfectly.
Bella turned left and began setting a brisk pace, but Harry had no trouble matching it with his longer legs.
After a good five minutes of walking, Bella slowed and leaned towards Harry whispering, "That's the Hippogriff's Talon. It's our only choice of a decent lodging so that where we will be staying." Her tone left no room for arguments, not that Harry had any anyway.
Entering through the rickety door, they found a surprisingly warm interior. It was well lit and had a crackling fire in a huge fireplace.
Moving through the near empty lounge, up to the reception counter, which doubled as a bar, Bella ordered a suite for two. After taking the key, they both moved towards the narrow staircase which led to the rooms.
The suite was nice, but they didn't have chance to admire it since they were both tired and craved sleep.
Undressing, a now naked, Harry decided that a shower could wait until morning. He climbed into bed, and began to wind down.
He was interrupted though by the door opening. Looking over, Bellatrix was framed in the doorway.
"After so long of spending the night with you, I couldn't see the point in stopping." She explained with a fiendish grin.
He returned the expression whilst lifting the covers as a silent invitation in.
Slipping out of the tattered garments, she joined him in the bed, with her bare back pressed against his chest.
Now they could both settle down for the first proper night sleep they had both had in months.
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Tap! Tap!
On the bed, two people, a man and a woman, were returning to the waking world, and neither were too happy about it. Or the owl that was causing it.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
More anguished groans came from the bed about the loss of sleep, before an elbow to the ribs from Bella caused Harry to reluctantly leave the warmth of the bed and the woman who he had shared it with.
Reaching the window upon which the owl was tapping, Harry allowed the owl in before untying the letter that it held. Ignoring the owl, who had just flown away, Harry just stared at the seal on the envelope.
'That's Gringott's seal…'
His curiosity piqued, he began opening the letter to find a thick sheet of parchment.
Only two lines were written on the sheet.
This letter is addressed to Hadrian James Potter a.k.a. Harry J. Potter.
Please place your thumb on the mark below to confirm your identity.
Glancing down, he saw a strange symbol or rune that reminded him of the Celtic knots that he had studied in Muggle primary school.
"Bella."
All he got was a very un-ladylike grunt in reply.
"Bella!"
It seemed that was the feather that broke the camel's back.
"WHAT?"
Harry, despite the circumstances, smirked.
"I see you're not a morning person." The glare he received caused him to sober up. "I just received this letter from Gringotts and I thought I would check it over with you before I do anything you would say was stupid."
"Give it here." She demanded. At his raised eyebrow and his once again smirking face, she sighed exasperatedly. "Please."
His smirk changed to a grin and he gave her the parchment.
It didn't take her long to scan the page, before she handed it back.
"I think you should do it. It's standard procedure for Gringotts high priority customers." She explained.
Doing as he was told, he pressed his thumb into the rune. A sharp pinch bit into said thumb before retreating. Lifting his thumb to his mouth, he sucked the tiny puncture point to stop the small blood flow.
He stared at the paper in shock for a moment as more words formed, replacing the former lines.
Hadrian James Potter
We at Gringotts were sad to see one of our top priority customers get incarcerated and we offer our condolences.
After the mistake with one Lord Black's 'trail' one would believe that such injustices were no longer as commonplace as they still seem to be.
Unfortunately, the opinion of us 'creatures of near-human intelligence', to quote the Ministry, is not worth much in the eyes of wizards, so we were unable to aid you in your case.
The reason for my writing is that we have discovered some discrepancies in your accounts, rather large ones. Add on to this the inheritance that you are yet to claim.
Lord Black himself has been in almost constant contact with your account manager, Griphook, attempting to gather evidence for you.
Since we have recently heard of your escape from Azkaban Prison along with one Bellatrix Black, we sent you this summoning to a meeting with myself, Griphook and Lord Black. You may also bring Miss Black as were are familiar with her situation also, but were unable to do anything due to the same reasons as stated above.
We hope to see you at your earliest convenience
Director Ragnok, Director of Gringotts Bank.
Harry stared at the letter in front of him, his jaw opening and closing like a goldfish.
Bella snatched the paper out of his hand and scanned the page. A short pause later and she burst out laughing.
"That has to be the most sincere letter from a goblin to a wizard in history!"
At Harry's questioning gaze, she explained.
"The Potter family and the Goblins have a strange relationship, probably the closest thing you can get as a friendship. I would think of it as a firm alliance."
He nodded, before something clicked. "Hang on. If that's why they are offering aid, then why are they helping you?"
"I would bet that that it is because they have guessed that we are travelling together, and are therefore offering me help as it will help you. The fact that Black is also a high-priority customer also helps." She said, smiling.
Harry returned the smile.
"Well, I think our earliest convenience is in tomorrow. I fancy lying in bad today, and I'm not eager to put those rags back on." He voiced his opinion on the heap of grey fabric on the floor.
"I can't help but agree." Bella said with a wink and a sultry smile, before walking up to him a planting a kiss full on his lips. As she took control and deepened the kiss, he lifted her up, with her legs wrapped around his waist, and walked blindly towards the bed. As they crashed onto the mattress, they came up for air.
"Yes, I would definitely agree." She clarified, burrowing her head into his chest and wrapping her arms around him.
Harry returned the favour as they both drifted back to sleep.
A/N3: So that is Chapter 8. Hope you liked it. Next chapter is Gringotts, inheritance and meeting Sirius again, amongst other things. Please leave a review and thanks for reading.