Orson was correct, of course, when he had told Harry that he'd have gone mad by month's end. Not that Harry hadn't been told he was a little mad before, but a month and now two more weeks of isolation, he wasn't thinking straight.

You haven't since you got here, a traitorous voice whispered in his head.

It hadn't been the crazy, unbelievable headlines on the Prophet, or even the existence of Emily Riddle – okay, that one was definitely a lie, but Harry was just so confused.

Harry Potter – no, Evans, dammit, you're Harry Evans – did not like being confused.

He'd checked off the next item on his list - something reasonable, for once, that being his Hogwarts supplies. He even considered opening an account at Gringotts, though Harry was confident that the cost would've been far more than he would be able to afford.

He looked down at the amount of Galleons he had left – 14, and winced.

Harry knew he was being at least a little impulsive, but the more and more his Aspen wand began to act up, he was convinced it was necessary - yesterday, it nearly made him perform a summoning spell without any will of his own.

Knockturn Alley was a bit harder to avoid in these times. It was not as obviously run-down and poorly maintained as it had been in the 1990s, and Harry supposed it was aided by the fact more people were seen walking around than more would ever be caught dead back then. It didn't matter to Harry, who stood in front of his chosen destination.

Hawthorn's Nest.

The bookstore was run-down, but still doing business, and Clara Hawthorn, Harry remembered, ran it.

"What may we have here?" she pondered. Hawthorn was tall, taller than Harry, and with long and wavy auburn hair, paired with a young face and an unsettling smile. He supposed teenagers going into Knockturn Alley shops on their own was very uncommon.

"A prospective customer," said Harry plainly.

"Hmm," she drawled for an uncomfortable period of time. "Acceptable," she said, opening her worn, wooden door and letting Harry into her shop.

As soon as Harry stepped in, he felt overwhelmed with an artificial, perfume-like smell that threw him into a coughing fit. He would enjoy it if it weren't so – irritating.

The bookshelves weren't so ridiculously full as they had been in Flourish and Blotts, and the place was generally less of an eyesore, even if it looked older. The floor was of worn wood, lined and uneven. There looked to be about 6 isles he had the freedom to explore, though some spots looked to be missing books. Dust hung off some of the ceiling.

"I'm," he stuttered between coughs, "looking for books on wandlore, ma'am." Not before stumbling and looking down at his feet and seeing the inscribed writing on the floor.

A people enraged by tyrannies is fearsome!

But if cruel fate, coming to love an evil-doer

Preserves you from that righteous recompense

Still tremble, tyrant! For evil and faith-breaking

Your sentence shall be spoken by posterity!

"An excerpt," Hawthorn's voice interrupted his reading. "Taken from a Muggle poet of my homeland."

Harry gave Hawthorn another glance over. The reddish, auburn hair, high cheekbones, dark lashes, even, soft face…

"Russia?" he guessed.

She nodded and began leading him to the very back of the store, where the books got less numerous and the pages dustier and thicker. "Few read into the study of wandlore," she said. "These are what I can offer."

Hawthorn pointed him to a set of three books – dusty, and very thick, that all looked to offer the same thing. An introduction to Wandlore.

Harry began to skim each of the books – all began similarly, with dramatic, philosophical questions about the nature of magic and the sentient nature of the force few were able to wield. The authors were all unknowns, so the best Harry could do was go off of how competent they sounded. All did, to some extent.

"This one," Harry decided. It was the cleanest of the three and appeared to be at least a little more straight to the point.

"7 Galleons," she said immediately.

7 Galleons? Harry repeated incredulously in his head. 7?!

"For an ancient textbook that hasn't been used in probably 50 years?" he questioned.

"Don't like it, don't buy it," she said.

What a dick.

Hawthorn smiled triumphantly when Harry handed over half of his remaining pocket money, albeit reluctantly.

They exchanged no more words as Harry took his copy of Magic's Magic: The Study of Wandlore, 5th Edition, and walked the rather long path out of the bookstore. He felt the flooring go wonky, slightly, as his feet hit the engraved words in the front.

It didn't occur to Harry until the moment he was out of the shop and back in the relative safety of Diagon Alley.

Why would a Knockturn Alley business have a Muggle quote imprinted on its floor?

It was already the 24th of August, but for Harry, it felt like it none at all.

He took his place at the Leaky Cauldron. Orson wasn't there – thank Merlin, and Harry was becoming frustrated with the tolerance he'd quickly built for Butterbeer.

"Fitting in?"

Jules Lockhart's voice snapped Harry out of his stupor, quickly shushing the boy. "Not so loud," he hissed.

"Sorry, mate," said Jules. He was standing in front of two, slightly taller – though still short people who Harry assumed to be his parents.

"You know this boy?" asked who was probably his mother, suspiciously.

"Kind of," said Jules, skeptically. He certainly hadn't earned favor with the blonde boy when he'd asked about Riddle. "He's… new."

Well, he could've said worse.

Surprisingly, that seemed to appease the two Lockharts, who sat down and both ordered some of Ogden's Oldest.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Harry spoke.

"I met Riddle."

"Now that's fantastic," Jules responded dryly.

"I did, in fact," said Harry again, irritably. "Right where we're speaking now."

That seemed to pique the boy's interest. He eyed Harry with a mix of curiosity and suspicion.

"If she gave you half as much hell she gives me," he said, "I reckon first impressions went swell."

"You reckon," Harry snarked, right as the shit-eating grin dropped off of Jules' face

"What's impressive to me is that you're alive to tell the tale," Jules drawled. "You might be something after all, Evans."

Harry rolled his eyes. "She's a teenager, like the rest of us. I'm starting to think she's just good at spreading rumors."

He knew very, very well that wasn't the case.

Jules leveled him with a wary look. "Are you sure you won't be in Gryffindor, Evans?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Harry said blindly.

"Ah, right," Jules was awkward. "Transfer student." Harry smiled, realizing that Jules had already forgotten Harry'd revealed he knew about the Sorting.

"Well," Jules scratched the side of his head – "Hogwarts has four houses, each one representing different values and personality traits, the sort. Every student gets sorted into one, and Gryffindor is one of the four."

Harry considered accepting Jules' accurate response blindly, but pushing Lockhart on the flimsy structure of Hogwarts Houses might just get the boy to start asking questions.

To Harry, that was more than worth it.

"What does Gryffindor represent?"

"Bravery," Jules seemed a little perturbed at answering rudimentary questions about how the school operated. "Courage, nerve, determination," he listed, his voice monotone once more.

"Interesting," Harry mused. "Guess I'll be there, then, if I'm crediting myself generously."

"Without knowing about the other houses?" asked Jules, raising an eyebrow. "Guess you really will be in Gryffindor."

Not if I have anything to say about it.

"If I fit the criteria, why wouldn't I be?"

"Fair enough," said Lockhart, and they spoke no more on the matter, though Harry could tell that Jules had got to thinking, even if for a couple of seconds.

"Same thing, lad," the bartender said to Harry as he walked by. "Should I get two?" the man nodded to Jules.

"Yes please," said Harry.

"On the house?" Jules raised another eyebrow at Harry, who shrugged.

"I guess so."

"You guess so."

In the corner of his eye, he saw that Lockhart's parents already seemed a little tipsy.

They don't seem to care much. They did seem suspicious of me though.

"Say what," Jules said, a little loudly, probably noticing that Harry was staring. Man isn't fond of me staring at his drunk parents, got it. "My pals and I, we run a dueling club at Hogwarts – you did you say you liked dueling – and we meet biweekly during term and monthly in the summer. We could use a newbie to toss around," he smirked.

Yeah, you're a salesman. "We'll see about that," Harry flashed a toothy smile.

"So you're in?"

"Does Riddle attend?"

"Very funny," Jules drawled and sneered. "No."

Harry deadpanned. "Sure."

The conversation ground to a halt as Harry pulled out the worn, 7 galleon copy of Magic's Magic and began to slug through it once more.

It wasn't a chore, per se – but it wasn't enjoyable either. The book presupposed knowledge of two branches of magic that Harry had no clue about, being Alchemy and something called Somniency. The study of Dream Magic.

As the textbook explained it, there were wizards who'd reported having strange, lucid dreams wherein they themselves or someone else performed impossible feats of magic – great, towering conjurations, complete mastery over the elements themselves – and incredible, destructive battle magic.

But it went far beyond that. One could manipulate the dreams of others, induce nightmares, and create arcane magic in a dream that wasn't possible in any other way. Dreams were powerful, and Harry had to get used to respecting that.

For centuries, it all seemed like child's play, until the great Arne Leif came along. A Norwegian wizard of legend, yet Harry had heard nothing of him up until this point. He had shown a crowd of people a pensive memory of his dreams – something lost to history, but it was known that the spell he performed in them had been a fire-based one, and had been physically demonstrated right after the viewing.

In the beginning, it was thought to be Fiendfyre. But it was one Cuthbert Binns that had debunked that theory and provided his own as to the spell's identity.

Protego Diabolica.

After that, more accounts began to pop up of Wizards suffering the effects of unknown, dangerous spells that had performed in these dreams – but all were vague, and most seemed to have been traumatized from the experience.

The list inside the textbook dosed Harry with a healthy amount of fear when it came to trying anything – three full pages, over one thousand names that had been driven to madness messing around with Dream Magic. In truth, that wasn't many, but it didn't the prospect any less terrifying.

Dreams were dangerous, too.

"Here we are," the quiet voice of the bartender shattered Harry's thoughtstream. "Enjoy."

"I've never had a Butterbeer," Jules commented, much to Harry's surprise. "It's not strong at all. Drink even a little too much and you'll get tolerant," he said, much too loudly.

The comment drew a few raised eyebrows from a few adults beside him – probably concerned that Harry was going to try and get his hands on something stronger.

Harry blushed and ignored them.

"It's… alright," Jules said, gulping down some of the drink.

"This dueling club of yours," said Harry. "When does it meet next?"

"We already had our August meeting," Lockhart said. "We'll meet at the beginning of the second week of term."

That should be fun.

"Can I ask you something, Jules?" The boy seemed a little weirded out by the use of his first name, but nodded anyway.

"What's the Headmaster like?"

Lockhart's face instantly tightened itself up. "He's a self-righteous prick," he said bluntly. "And a stickler. But he'll let you get away with anything if you're a noble pureblood. And slip a few Galleons into his pocket."

"He takes bribes from students?!" Harry asked incredulously. Now that was low.

"He's too proud for that, I think," Jules sneered. "Their parents pay him off and make sure no one but them has influence over Hogwarts."

"Absolutely insane," Harry validated. "Has no one tried to get rid of him or anything?"

"It's pointless," Jules said. "Dippet is powerful and has more connections than half the Wizengamot combined."

We'll see about that.

"Someone should try something," Harry said forcefully.

Inwardly, Harry panicked. He'd received two conflicting accounts of Dippet – in both, he was a self-righteous arse, but one who still cared about his students, and yet in the other he appeared to be outright greedy & malicious.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

And if Dippet was as powerful as he supposedly was… then Harry needed to strike methodically and carefully.

"Fun chatting," said Jules, worriedly looking over at his drunk parents. He gulped down the rest of his Butterbeer. "I think I'll take my leave, you can see," he nodded embarrassingly to his family.

Poor lad. Harry watched as Jules was barely able to drag his parents out of the miserable pub.

He waited a few minutes before standing to leave on his own, making sure that the Lockharts were out of sight.

It was good to breathe in the air of the Muggle world around him in contrast to the choked air of the Leaky Cauldron.

I wonder what's written on Armando Dippet's chocolate frog card.

"I guess I'll meet the man soon enough," Harry murmured.

One thing was clear enough – Riddle was far from his only problem.

And Harry had waited long enough.

A/N: This chapter was written in far from the greatest of headspaces, so I hope none of that slipped into the writing too much. Thanks for reading, everyone! Hogwarts begins next chapter.

Nice chapter, lots of motion… might feed them their teeth.

Thanks, and an interesting analysis of Harry's character so far. He is certainly being impulsive, isn't he?

I hope there's no legilimency nonsense… BS mind arts.

I happen to agree with you. If this is how you feel about the Mind Arts then I think you'll very much enjoy my spin on them in this fic. :)

Interesting story… all over the place.

Probably a symptom of the fast pace (which is going to slow down tremendously as we reach Hogwarts), and a very valid comment. I can certainly see myself trying a bit too hard not to bloat pre-Hogwarts and ending up pacing things too quickly. Something to keep in mind as I write more. Thanks!

I hope you didn't quit on this story.

I have not!

Once again, thanks all for reading!