Motivated by their fear, it wasn't long before Harry and the two Dursleys were in the car; since he had so few possessions barring a few battered novels that he'd found in a few bins and around the town, a couple of trinkets he'd liked, and a couple of warm shirts, Harry didn't need long to pack. As for everything else in the Cupboard under the Stairs, they could stay there. He hoped he never saw the Cupboard again. If he did then he was liable to burn the house to the ground.

As the car drove into London while he had Dudley wrapped up in his tentacles, letting out pained gasps every once in a while to keep Petunia motivated to not try anything stupid - which seemed to work, if the scared and angry snarls and whimpers and the looks coming from her were any indications, Harry had the time to think over what he'd learnt.

Magic…

Magic was real.

Magic existed.

His parents….the same parents Vernon and Petunia had hated and derided for years and years were magic, and so was he. There was a world of magic. There had been a magical war. His parents had been involved. But…Harry had been abandoned because they believed he didn't have magic. But why? What had made his parents reach such a conclusion in the first place? Had they performed some kind of test, and the result had been wrong because they'd made a mistake? Such things did happen, but what Harry just could not grasp was how final his parent's actions were. Why did they seem so sure that he didn't have any magic? Why hadn't they assumed it was a brief thing, and just come to check on him later on?

Okay, Harry wasn't entirely sure he would have welcomed his parents coming back once he'd heard the full story, assuming they told him about why they'd left him with the Dursleys. But he would have discovered the truth eventually. He was a curious boy, and the love he had for reading had helped him see things differently from other people. The Dursleys hated him learning more than they did, which was one of the reasons he'd gotten into the library regularly.

Harry was also going over his plans and thoughts about the wizarding world while he sat back in the passenger seat, keeping watch on his aunt since he knew how tiresome and treacherous she could be. Truth be told, he didn't have many plans at all for what he was going to do. A part of him wanted to find some way of contacting his parents and making them regret abandoning him, but truthfully the rest of him just wanted nothing to do with them. Sadly, that part was the majority.

Harry didn't care about his parents. It was almost impossible to feel any kind of attachment for two people whom you've never met, and whom you've lied to all your life. Right now, every single instinct in his body was telling him to just give up on his parents since they'd abandoned him, and make a new start somewhere else.

Only the year before, Harry had read Charles Dickens 'Oliver Twist.' Harry had hated it, despite his love for reading, and his belief books were better than real life. He hated the disgusting nature of Victorian Britain, the selfishness, and the cruelty shown to orphans like Oliver. The history behind the French Revolution showcased only the dangers of an aristocracy where the upper classes were cruel. Harry merely wished something similar had happened in Britain, a revolution where royalty and the aristocrats were ousted from their perches and forced into the hell they'd imposed on those they'd considered lesser than themselves.

The point was while Harry had been disgusted with the seedier elements within the book, he had wanted to escape, like Oliver had. Only he had planned to go into foster care, although he knew he would likely still keep stealing. He might have hated it at first, but he had come to eventually enjoy it.

If he played his cards right, then he could live in a nice foster home, and he could go out and use his powers to be a pickpocket in case life in the home was bad. Yes, a nicely balanced life. That way he wouldn't live on the streets, he would be free to come and go as he pleased and he would have had the chance to go to college or university.

But now those plans were likely in tatters.

The discovery of the wizarding world had changed a lot, and there were now so many revelations for him to process that Harry was unsure how many of his plans had been ruined or altered, and he would need a lot of time to go over everything in the magical world before he could even make a guess. He didn't know what to think anymore. His parents had thrown him away, abandoned him and just….ignored his very existence, for his twin brother. He'd been abandoned, how long would it have been before they discovered their mistake?

Would they have discovered their mistake, somehow, a long way off into the future?

What would have happened if he hadn't attacked the Dursleys?

Would they have eventually come? What if he'd continued to stay at the Dursleys? Would he have gone to the magical school Petunia had described, and met his brother there, who would have told his parents?

Thinking of that made Harry wonder if he was down for this magical school. Was his name down, or had it been taken down already because his parents felt he couldn't do magic? Would he go to this school? He didn't know, but a part of him wanted to since he had always loved learning and while he had learnt a lot about magic, how much of it had been touched upon? Had he merely just been scratching the surface, and developed a crude understanding of how his powers worked? Would his parents suddenly want him, even if they hadn't in the past unless they had and he hadn't known, he was not in the mood to have anything to do with the Dursleys right now, except to keep reminding his aunt of the dangers of trying to make some brave but stupid decision by herself. Harry didn't know what his parents would have done or if they had visited Privet Drive, but he was more interested in the present. He was also trying hard not to put too much faith in such a thought; if they'd visited, then that was it.

The drive into London was a quiet one, barring the sounds from Dudley, who was now officially terrified of his cousin. Harry just ignored him. He was too busy thinking about his parents and what he was going to do, but at the same time, listening to the sounds from Dudley and seeing the concerned and fearful looks from Petunia, Harry felt…good. He had let loose with his anger, his rage, and his hatred…and the rush of power had been phenomenal.

Harry didn't care if he had hurt them or not. While he liked to think of himself as a kind, decent person underneath, he knew otherwise. He had spent his entire life in fear of the Dursleys until now. They had been put in their place. Harry knew one thing.

He wanted to do it again.

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting when Petunia finally stopped the car. She had brought him and Dudley to a fairly innocuous street in London. There were shops and people about, but there was nothing nearby that even hinted there was a hidden world of magic nearby.

"That pub over there, Boy," Petunia said, nodding to a dark pub that looked like it had seen better days, "that's the entrance to…their world," she said with unhidden disgust.

"Do you expect me to believe you?" Harry retorted.

"I brought you here, didn't I? Now let my son go."

"Get out of the car. You are coming with me. Now." Harry got out of the car before he remembered something else. He turned to Dudley. "Don't worry, Dudders, your mummy will be back…although in how many pieces, or if she'll even be alive…who can say?"

With a wicked smirk which made his face appear more feral and demented, Harry joined his aunt, and he wrapped his magic around Petunia, who flinched in pain as she felt it burning her skin. "I don't want you getting any ideas. You know this world. You must do it. So you are coming in with me."

Petunia flinched as she realised he'd had this in mind all along. "I don't want to go in. Not there. Not that world of freaks-."

"Who says I care about what you want?"

As they walked closer to the pub, Petunia realised something important. "What are you going to do, Boy? You can't live by yourself. You need to live somewhere."

"Oh, I've already worked that out, thanks for worrying about me and my wellbeing, Aunt Petunia," Harry smirked. "You see, I'm planning on leaving you all now. I was keeping my word the entire time. But I am going to live in London. I'll go to a police station or something unless the magical world offers some choices, and I'll live in a foster home so I can continue my education."

Petunia had to admit that he had thought this out. "So you'll leave us alone?"

"Yes." Harry broke off as he looked up and down the street. He couldn't hide the sense of disappointment he was feeling right now. This was it, this was where a hidden world of magic was. But as they walked inside the Leaky Cauldron, Harry was further disappointed, and he didn't need to glance at Petunia to see how she was taking being in this pub. The place was filthy. At the tables were several people dressed in robes and a mixture of clothes you would expect to find in a 1920s movie.

Harry and Petunia walked towards the bar counter, and as they did Harry stopped when he spotted someone sitting at a table idly waving a stick of some kind….flicking through a book without a finger touching the pages. Harry felt himself smile, and he realised he was home. His home was in the magical world not in the non-magical world, and he wondered to himself if he even needed his non-magical education.

Quickly turning, Harry hurried after his aunt. She was desperate to rid herself and her family of him once and for all, it seemed, for she was asking for the bartender to let them into the magical shopping district.

The bartender, Tom as he introduced himself, led them out of the back to a nondescript brick wall. Taking out his wand, he began tapping the bricks in a specific way. Harry memorised the pattern and he watched in awe as the bricks slowly retracted, the hole growing wider and wider until the archway was large enough to let three people pass through it.

"Welcome," Tom grinned, showing off the number of missing teeth in his mouth, "to Diagon Alley."

Harry grinned, and he caught the look on Tom's face, a smile of gentle delight at seeing the child's enthusiasm while he turned to Petunia, noting the pinched look of displeasure, but he was either too polite to say anything, or he had seen it before. Harry guessed it to be a mixture of both. At this hour, there were few people about, but some of the shops were open although it was clear they wouldn't be for long.

As they walked down the streets, Harry took note of the various shops. One that definitely held his interest was the bookshop, Flourish & Blotts; it was closed, but he was going to go through it. There was an apothecary, and while that too was closed, Harry's imagination was automatically firing up on all cylinders as he wondered what kind of potions there were. He had read enough fantasy to know witches and wizards knew potions that could turn people invisible, or even into animals, or stuff like that. He merely wanted to know if it was all true.