Harry looked out the window of his dorm at Red Fountain, lost in his thoughts.
A year ago, he would have never imagined himself in this position.
Attending school in another dimension, learning that there were more types of magic out there besides the ones of Earth's Wizarding World, the freedom he had here...
No Dursleys hovering over his shoulder (and they never would ever again, thanks to the Death Eaters offing them...), no one bothering him about being the Boy-Who-Lived, trying to live his life as an ordinary teen going to school, making friends and not being in constant danger...
He even had marks in all his courses and an average that would impress Hermione. Hermione!
Freshman year was over and he'd survived it...
Hedwig flew into an open window and landed on the desk, looking up at him.
"Hey, Hedwig. We're headed back to Earth now... Miss it?" he handed her an owl treat.
She merely glanced at him briefly before devouring the treat.
"Speech spell worn off eh? And Roxy's already gone back to America... No matter. You've always been able to tell me what you feel even without words." Harry shrugged and tossed a couple of shirts into his trunk.
After throwing a textbook on top of the contents, slamming it shut and locking it, he swung his backpack on top of it and slumped into a chair.
"What a year..." he sighed.
"And I've got some plans for the summer as well. Visit the Weasleys, go to that Young Royals Gala on Domino that Roxy asked me to accompany her to..." he stretched lazily and slowly got up again.
"Then Queen Nebula invited me to Tir Nan Og to train with the Warrior Fairies. I couldn't say no to such a big opportunity..."
He sat back up and brushed himself off.
"Well then, I'd better get going then, shall I?" he waved his wand and shrunk his trunk, slipping it into his backpack, which he then slung over his shoulder.
Grabbing Hedwig's cage, he left behind the now vacant dorm room and made his way down to the Transport Zone just outside the school, where he used his wand to conjure up a portal to take himself and his cargo back to Britain.
Harry appeared in a gap between two shops in Diagon Alley and conjured a dark grey, hooded cloak for himself, which he slipped on before entering the Alley proper.
Taking his time to look around, he noted even less people around than there had been the last time he had been there.
"Well, having two major attacks on the Wizarding population will do that, at least..." he noted wryly.
When he arrived at the Leaky Cauldron, he approached Tom at the bar and lowered his hood slightly.
"I'd like a room here for the next four days. Please don't let on that I'm here to anyone who asks. Not even if Dumbledore or the Minister of Magic himself shows up, please." Harry spoke in a low tone.
"Of course, Mr. Potter. Room 19 is free. Here's the key. I'll handle in the proper check-in stuff for you. Go on." Tom smiled toothily at him.
Harry took the key and went upstairs to find his room.
As soon as he had shut the door of the room behind him, he plopped down Hedwig's cage next to a window gave her some owl treats and water, and sat on the edge of the bed, facing her.
"We're back for a few days Hedwig. I'll visit some friends, talk to a few people, attend Bill and Fleur's wedding on the weekend..." Harry smiled. "Now, I'm not the sappy type, but to have a bit of bright spot in all of this bother with Voldemort, the Death Eaters and now the Trix..."
"Then after that, I'm going to the Young Royals Gala with Roxy..." he removed his shrunken trunk from his backpack and tapped his wand on it, unshrinking it.
"Here we go then... Ron said Hermione would be with him and the other Weasleys at the beginning of summer at the very least, so... Come on, I know there's a pack of paper in there somewhere... aha!" he exclaimed at his minor victory, having finally retrieved the pack of paper from near the bottom of his trunk.
Harry fished a pen out of his pocket and sat down at the desk to write his letter to his best friends.
After a few minutes, the letter was done and sealed inside an envelope.
"Alright, Hedwig. I could always just use the communication mirrors, but this isn't urgent and... You haven't been delivering letters for a bit, but I suppose you're up for the task still?" Harry looked at the snowy owl and nearly chortled at the look she was giving him, which clearly suggested that the owl found him to be daft.
"Of course you are." Harry opened the cage and ruffled her feathers lightly when she hopped out onto the table and held out her leg.
"Alright then. Go on, and take care." Harry swung open the window and Hedwig took off into the British skies.
"Well, now that I'm here and I'm free and nobody except the nice Tom knows that I'm here yet... Knockturn Alley seems like it might be an interesting place to visit. Just to be on the safe side though..." Harry pulled a vial with a small amount of a light blue liquid in it out one of the pockets of his backpack.
"Just a small bit of Shapeshifter Potion left... It's not a full dose, but it should help me for a few hours, at least." he uncorked the vial.
"Bottoms up!" he downed it in one swallow and shuddered as it went down his throat.
"Okay then. Should be ready to go now..." Harry focused and his build changed from the slightly muscled build that he had now to the thin, scrawny build he had before, his hair went from slightly long, black and messy to dark blond, short and curly and his eyes went from green to brown.
Fastening the hooded cloak that he had arrived in around himself, he secured his wand on his person and stepped out of the room, making sure to lock it behind him.
"Everyone always says that Knockturn Alley is such a bad place, but now that I'm freely here on my own, I can see that it's actually quite fascinating..." Harry had the hood of his cloak lowered as he took in the sights around him.
Unlike Diagon Alley, there were more people on Knockturn Alley now than when he last visited, all of them appearing to be of the rather shady variety.
Witches and wizards selling what appeared to be human body parts- how did they get those anyway, Harry wondered...
Hags selling charms and amulets, which supposedly could protect you from quite a few nasty hexes, curses and jinxes, people making what appeared to be shady business deals, with items hidden beneath their cloaks...
One thought occurred to him. Sirius had had some questionable items belonging to his family at... back at 12 Grimmauld Place. Dumbledore had told him that Grimmauld Place had been left to him by Sirius. By extension, all its contents would also belong to him. Perhaps... perhaps he could find something useful there...
"Like the Cloud Tower witches say, Dark Magic can be used for good sometimes. I'll need every advantage that I can get..." Harry thought. "I wonder if Kreacher is still there..."
He hadn't seen the twisted house-elf since Dumbledore had paid him a visit at St. Mungo's all those months back, after the attack on Diagon Alley. Was that creature even still alive? He'd have to go and check.
But not today... He wasn't ready to deal with that elf yet. In fact, he wouldn't even be sorry if Kreacher had died since he'd last seen him...
Speaking of elves... He wondered how Dobby was doing. He was working at Hogwarts the last time he saw him- when he'd come into his hospital room as well, as he'd been fighting Kreacher at the time the old elf had been called- and he'd never gotten the chance to see how the little elf was doing since that... He would have to see how he was doing as well and as strange as Dobby was, he would rather see him than Kreacher any time...
His eyes fixed on the sign of the Borgin and Burkes store in front of him and all thoughts of elves and their quirks left his mind for the moment.
"Well, since I'm here, I might as well see what old Borgin has on offer today eh?" Harry chuckled to himself as he headed towards it and pushed the door open.
In a room somewhere, a long, banquet-style table, empty of food, yet with all the seats around it filled, sat various individuals, all of whom were members of the Death Eater inner circle.
Lord Voldemort sat at the head of the table, with Bellatrix seated at his right, her husband seated next to her and Icy at his left on the other side of the table.
Stormy sat between Darcy and Icy across from Rodolphus and was eyeing his wife with a look of immense dislike.
"Well well, what do you plan on doing next? It's been far too quiet lately. I'm beginning to get bored already." Stormy nearly whined.
"Patience, Stormy. You will get to cause the chaos you desire soon enough..." Voldemort spoke coolly.
"And what exactly are your long term plans, Mr Dark Lord?" Darcy's tone was slightly mocking, which Bellatrix did not fail to miss.
"You... I don't like your tone..." Bellatrix growled. "Watch your mouth. You must respect the Dark Lord!"
"And I don't like your face. Quite unfortunate, really..." Darcy replied evenly.
"Why you little..." Bellatrix stood up, hand reaching for her wand inside her robe.
"Bellatrix..." Voldemort's tone had her immediately sitting back down, though not without scowling at the three alien witches. "...do not upset our allies. They are here to help us. If you want someone or something to antagonise, gather a party of Death Eaters and lead them on a Muggle Hunting expedition. You would certainly have my approval for that..."
Bellatrix sulked.
"My plans... What are my plans you ask?" Voldemort returned his attention to the Trix. "The Ministry must fall, so I am formulating a plan for that. The people here are cowards; sheep. If their so-called leaders fall, they will panic and they will be further divided than they already are. Afterwards, Britain shall be easy to take." he explained.
"So... You only plan on taking over this Britain place? What about the rest of Europe? What about this whole planet? All the treasures and magical artefacts and such that they hold?" Icy asked.
"In time, Icy, in time..." Voldemort twirled his wand idly with one hand and used his other hand to rub Nagini- who was curled around the back of his chair- lightly on the head.
"Speaking of taking over this world, what are you going to be doing about the Earth Fairies? They're not just going to sit by and watch you raze the world to the ground..." Darcy pointed out. "Add to the fact that your Death Eaters lead by... Bellatrix..." Darcy looked across at the black haired woman, with an air of supreme disdain. "...abducted one of their subjects less than a year after they escaped some other dark wizards... They won't take that lying down..."
"Our spells can still affect them so that won't be a problem once I extract all of the information I can get out of the fairy that we have as our... guest..." Voldemort chuckled as did his Death Eaters, who all seemed to think that that was somehow a marvellous joke.
The Trix were not amused by it. In fact, they found him rather pathetic.
They'd come close to taking over an entire world in their senior year at Cloud Tower (never mind they were expelled before they could actually finish said senior year), worked with powerful beings and wizards, none of which this Lord Voldemort character could ever help to compare to.
He wanted to destroy anyone who had non-magical ancestry and the non-magicals themselves. If he destroyed all of them, who would he have to be his slaves and do his every bidding? Just the Death Eaters?
With people like Bellatrix and the wormy-looking rat man amongst them?
Why not just find a way to control the population, like Valtor had with the Androsian mermaids? Or simply intimidate and threaten them enough that no one would think to question him like he and Lord Darkar (and he acted more like a real Lord...) did?
Except for the pesky Winx Club and their allies, of course...
Really and truly, the only thing he was useful for was breaking them out of that horrid prison.
So for that and their own amusement, they would play along with him.
For now.