31-Jul-1991

"Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough. Right, that should be enough fer a couple o' terms, we'll keep the rest safe for yeh." He turned to Griphook. "Vault seven hundred and thirteen now, please, and can we go more slowly?"

"One speed only," said Griphook.

"So everything in that vault is mine?" Harry asked the goblin standing at the doorway as he tucked the key into his pocket and prepared to climb in.

"Yes, human, it is."

Harry looked back at the door that the goblin slammed shut, and then to Hagrid who was looking even more queasy, before asking the goblin another question. "So when someone comes down here and needs time to count a lot of coins, what do you do?"

"We wait."

"What? All day?" Harry asked, surprised by the answer. It would take hours – maybe even days – to count all the coins he saw. What if it was normal to have even more money in one's vault? Could it take weeks to sort through?

"As long as someone is in the vault, we wait. It's in the visiting agreement when you open a vault." The goblin gave Harry a glare that made him consider whether the concern was more about unsupervised humans and pilfering as opposed to some low-level goblin cooling their heels.

Harry grabbed on and held tight as the cart flew through the tunnels. While he was enjoying the ride somewhat, having Hagrid push against him was a bit nerve-inducing for another reason as the very large man kept making piteous noises. When the cart stopped, Harry listened as the conversation continued around this special vault from which Hagrid needed to stop by and retrieve something.

- FoT – FoT – FoT -

On the way to the bookstore, Hagrid motioned Harry to step into a modest shop with very large windows. Every surface and corner appeared to be overflowing with different kinds of containers – small boxes, large boxes, odd hinged spheres of various sizes, and he was certain he saw an armoire trying to hide underneath a stack of old-style steamer trunks.

"Ah, Hagrid, here with another first year?" the proprietor asked, a kindly-faced woman with slightly grey, slightly brown hair in soft curls that was wrapped in a maroon shoal.

"Yes, Ms. Studley (*), we need your standard trunk, don't need one of the special ones," Hagrid said while doffing his cap into his fist.

"Of course, dear," she said with a smile, before turning to face Harry. "I suppose it's a bit much for a young lad like you to want one of our excellent multi-compartment trunks just now. Perhaps when you graduate you'll come back and look into something that matches for your planned lifestyle."

Harry smiled back, pleased to meet a gentle soul – and secretly amused at how Hagrid shuffled his feet and stole glances at the woman. "Thank you, ma'am," Harry said. "I've no idea what I really need, but trust Hagrid fully." Harry mused whether a bit of indirect praise would raise Hagrid's prospects.

"Very good, then," she said as she gestured for Harry to follow her toward the front bay window – which looked like it was about to give up trying to hold a pile of trunks in the store.

As Harry followed her toward the trunks, he noticed the armoire had given up trying to hide under the pile – and a few trunks tumbled out of sight from it – and was slinking toward what looked like some kind of crazy hammock with a lot of poles attached to it. The sideways gait of the armoire came to an abrupt halt as the colorful bit of fabric suddenly wrapped itself tightly around the armoire, and the poles jumped into position to keep it in place.

"Here we are," Ms Studley announced, drawing Harry's attention back to her. With a negligent wave of her wand, the top-most trunk floated down to the ground and came to rest at his feet. "Anything else, dear?"

"Ah," Harry said, peeking back at the possibly-a-hammock, "What's that over there?"

"Hmm?" She turned and surveyed the corner, before stating firmly, "Stop that!" She strode quickly over to the pair of items and tapped them soundly with her wand, causing the two to separate and slink off toward opposite corners of the store. "Sorry about that, dear, sometimes that tent just won't leave things alone that come close to it."

"Err," Harry slowly stated as the hammock-maybe-tent seemed to slouch into a pile in the corner. "That's a tent?"

"Yes dear, a wizarding tent. It's been a few years, but that was a commissioned piece that was never picked up." She leaned close to Harry, dropping her voice to a whisper. "It's rather starved for some affection, you might say. It just wants to be useful."

Harry blinked a few times, trying to comprehend such an idea, before giving up and resigning himself to learning a lot about magic and the magical world. "Right, uh, thanks then," Harry said, picking up the trunk and heading back to where Hagrid was failing to not be obvious about staring at Ms Studley.

"That will be two galleons, three sickles, and five knuts, young man," she said as she passed him. "And be sure to polish it at least once a year, or the anti-scratch protections will stop working."

"Yes, ma'am," Harry said, dutifully counting out the exact change and placing it in her hand. Once he was done, he opened the trunk and began transferring all of the items that Hagrid had already helped him acquire into his new container. While he was moving the parchment and ink, he had another thought. "Err, ma'am? How is a wizarding tent different from a normal, err, muggle tent?"

"Well," she said with a soft laugh, "for one, it's bigger on the inside – quite like a flat, you understand. For another, it has climate control, built-in kitchenette, and a full water closet."

Harry was once again surprised at that bit of information, and decided to just let it sit in the back of his brain. "I see. Thank you, ma'am," Harry said as he closed his trunk and stood up. "Shall we carry on then, Hagrid?"

- FoT – FoT – FoT -

"Yer ticket fer Hogwarts," he said. "First o' September — King's Cross — it's all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a letter with yer owl, she'll know where to find me. ... See yeh soon, Harry."

The train pulled out of the station. Harry wanted to watch Hagrid until he was out of sight; he rose in his seat and pressed his nose against the window, but he blinked and Hagrid had gone.

As Harry sat there on the train, heading toward Surrey, he reflected on how much his life had changed in an extremely profound way over the last 24 hours. He had no desire to return to his relatives, who at best would be called neglectful but in reality he knew were overtly abusive. He knew they were not as bad as they could be, but deliberately encouraged beatings, withholding of food and water, and the constant verbal abuse was not proper. The place he was heading away from was one of wonder, charm, and friendly faces – a place where he had the ability to do things, and money that could be used to keep him well fed. Or to get him better clothes. Or to learn new things.

By the time the train reached London Bridge, for the first train change to get to Surrey, Harry had an idea, a brilliant idea. Without a second thought, he exited the train, consulted the schedule, and then crossed back around to the opposite platform to catch the next train back to Paddington.

There was a tent that wanted to be used, and a very secure location he could go camping – where no one could break in and find him, right in the middle of a lovely shopping area.

- Fragments of Thought -

AN:

It turns out that FFN seems to have a b0rked chapter update notice system, so folks may not have received the notice about the prior chapter. If the idea of a potion that regrows optic nerves doesn't resonate as silly, you didn't read the last chapter.

Those complete sentences in italics are direct quotes from JKR's book the first.

[*] In reference to the extended family of "Henry O. Studley" – check Wikipedia if you are unfamiliar with the name.

So if you have this handy vault no one can break into, and an easy path to/from that vault, and know about wizarding tents . . . uhh, what's so hard about hiding out and/or doing your own thing? And if you have a house elf companion, it's even more ridiculous. Just imagine at the end of Book 2 and how that might unfold for summer plans. Or Book 3. Or any book, really.

I'm sure other people realized that Harry never actually bought a trunk in Book 1, but I didn't until I had this bunny to chase down. He just walked around the alley in his first shopping experience with his arms loaded with random items, apparently. Or perhaps Hagrid's unending expansion charm pockets held everything, right up until he put Harry on the train back to Surrey. Another one of those off-the-page but implied events, since he has a trunk to pack things in before heading to platform 9.75.