The moment he stepped into Azkaban, he felt the bitter cold and he shivered with dread, he could feel the effects of the Dementors right now, and he had to bite his tongue to stop the worst effects, ignoring the way the Auror next to him laughed when she caught sight of it.

She was a young Auror, with a heart-shaped face but had all the signs of being a metamorphamagus. But she seemed to be taking everything more personally than she should have done; the other Aurors had shown they were furious with him, but there were a couple who were even worse.

Harry barely flinched when the Auror behind him shoved him with even greater force than he needed to, but fortunately, he managed to stop and catch himself before he fell; the Aurors escorting him to Azkaban had made it clear what they thought of him, a traitor to the so-called 'light' and a murdering traitor responsible for mass murder.

In his mind, it only showed the Light and the so-called Dark were not dissimilar. And right now Harry was planning for the worst.

He had known about the wizarding world since he was 7, going on 8; he had planned to escape from the Dursleys, only to discover the existence of the magical world when the Dursleys had dropped him off at Mrs Figg's place; the squib was old, senile and deluded and at the same time, it would have made his escape so much easier. But before he could escape, fighting the urge to return to his filthy muggle aunt's place as he stole some cash from Figg, only to discover letters and photos linking her to Dumbledore, and learning that there were people deliberately keeping him at the Dursleys and wiping his memory whenever he did escape.

Realising there was no point in escaping, the young boy had been forced to stay, but the moment he'd gotten clean away from Hagrid on his first visit to Diagon Alley, he had spent days gathering a lot of knowledge and books, and he'd only needed to pretend he didn't know anything when he went to Hogwarts.

While he had been at Gringotts, Harry had discovered Dumbledore had been deliberately keeping his American and Australian family branches away from him, and they'd tried for years.

But still, the old man just would not let them take him in.

Harry had been so tempted to call the old man out on it, and more than once over the last few years he had regretted it since. But at the time, Harry had been worried Dumbledore might pull a loophole out and find a way of bringing him back.

Now he wished he had chanced it; at least at Ilvermorny, he would not need to hide, and for the first time he would be able to live like a teenager. He would not need to fight dementors, basilisks and Dark Lords whom he didn't want to fight; the only reason he had fought Voldemort wasn't out of a desire for revenge, nothing so wasteful.

It was because Voldemort, like Dumbledore, was nothing more than a threat to his survival.

He'd had it all worked out; he would get his exams done and he'd gain some masteries over magic, and then he would move abroad out of the old fools' reach, but he'd needed to learn occlumency and legilimency and keep his inner-most thoughts a closely guarded secret. He had also kept secret his hidden trunk which Hedwig would keep on her in case anything happened, along with his custom-made wands.

Attending Hogwarts had given him access to resources despite being troublesome; ironically, Dumbledore had given him the perfect weapon, in the shape of his invisibility cloak; after he'd checked it out and after the mess with the Philosopher's Stone which had interested him in prolonging his life, Harry had begun using it frequently, transferring the different charms onto other things and items in his dorm room to keep Dumbledore off balance.

He had the Room of Requirement, the Chamber of Secrets, and he'd managed to plunder them of the majority of their secrets to help him excel as a wizard while Granger and Weasley had held him back.

Oh, he had been tempted on more than one occasion to just escape Dumbledore's clutches, but he'd needed his OWLs and NEWTs to prove to everyone he was capable of looking out for himself.

Even the unexpected escape of Sirius Black hadn't intruded on his plans. The goblins had told him about his godfather before his first year, but since Harry had believed him to be a Death Eater at the time, he'd been content for him to rot in Azkaban. But when Sirius escaped and the revelations about Pettigrew came out, again it didn't intrude on his plans. Black was a man-child, and he'd spent so much time away that there was no fear in his mind the man would not become his godfather. In any case, Dumbledore's obsession with Harry meant the old man would keep Sirius away for good.

And Harry's doubts about Sirius meant he would keep the man at arm's length, at least until he learnt to trust the man. It was never going to happen now, of course.

But then things went badly wrong for Harry when his fourth year had come around. He had been entered into the dangerous Triwizard Tournament, a contest of life and death, waged by three magical schools in Europe; Durmstrang, Beauxbatons, and Hogwarts. Somehow Harry's name had come out of the Goblet of Fire, the magical device responsible for choosing the Champions.

The moment it had Harry's life became hell, at least from a certain point of view. Both of Dumbledore's spies were on the outs, believing him to have put his name into the Goblet, and to also prove to him that he needed them, and Dumbledore. But Harry had hidden himself from them and Dumbledore.

For months, Harry had worked hard, especially when he had broken into Bagman's rooms and forced the former Quidditch player to tell him what the tasks were, so he could better prepare. He had managed to use music to subdue the Hungarian horntail and retrieve the Golden Egg, but while he had attended the Yule Ball with a willing Luna Lovegood, and even had a night of sex with the eccentric Ravenclaw, he had warned her and her father about the second task. Harry wondered how maddening it was for Dumbledore when that happened.

By the time the last task had rolled around, Harry was just tempted to apply for his OWLs and NEWTs and just clear off; thanks to the Tournament, he'd been declared an adult, even if neither Dumbledore nor the Ministry had intended for it to be that way. Getting to the Ministry would not be a problem, and as the weeks wore on, and he had learnt enough of Voldemort's weaknesses, Harry had been ready -

Except things had gone wrong.

The moment Harry arrived in the graveyard, with Diggory who had knocked into him and grabbed the stupid trophy at the same time, he was killed while some of Harry's blood was taken and used in the ritual which resurrected Voldemort.

Harry and Voldemort had a terrifying duel, and all that time Harry had tried to get close enough to hit Voldemort with the spell which would cause a chain reaction and destroy the Horcruxes he'd created. When he had studied magical forms of immortality, he had known at once Voldemort had used Horcruxes; Riddle didn't care about anything but power and he would have done whatever it took to gain more.

But no matter what he'd tried, Harry just could not stop Voldemort and get close enough to use the spell, despite using some of the most dangerous dark curses he had in his repertoire. That had stunned Voldemort, and the Death Eaters; for years everyone had been taken in by the belief Harry was Dumbledore's protege and shared his personality, but it was a shock when Harry had maimed and seriously wounded each of the bastard's who'd cheered on as Voldemort overpowered him and hit him with the torture curse. In the end, he'd given up and he'd tried to escape, but Voldemort had planted a curse on the trophy, and when Harry returned to Hogwarts, carrying Diggory's body, someone touched the Trophy and the curse activated.

Harry…still wasn't entirely sure what happened; while occlumency was incredible and it had so many qualities that made memory recall so much easier, to say nothing of keeping his mind intact while keeping him perfectly calm, occlumency did have limits. Everything happened so fast; one minute he was on the ground, the next there was screaming, shouting, and then everyone accused him of not only murdering Diggory, even if Harry didn't give a damn about the stupid fool, and now mass murder.

No matter how often he tried to clear himself, everyone turned on him. His reclusiveness during the year had blown up in his face, and even though Luna and her father had tried to speak out on his behalf, although he hoped they had, they had gone ignored as Fudge had rushed the trial.

Granger and the Weasels had testified against him, calling him a dark wizard, and so had Snape, Moody, and many of his teachers. The only teacher who hadn't, was Professor Flitwick, who had proven himself to be a Ravenclaw, stating that if he had cast that curse, not to mention killed Diggory, why would he come back?

Sadly nobody had listened and the tiny professor was forced to step down, a highly unpleasant woman who resembled a bastard crossbreed between a human and a toad had made some nasty comments about Flitwick; Harry had vowed to find that woman and skin her alive.

Lupin and Black had been on the opposite side, too; Harry had found Black and tried to give him his side of the story. You would think, that after the waste of space bastard had been thrown in prison he would be on Harry's side, but he wasn't. Instead Black had shouted at Harry, called him a traitor, and many other things. Lupin had said nothing. Well, all three of the Marauders were going to die; he had composed extremely nasty epitaphs for them, and he was already working on a way to make all three of his father's so-called friends pay. At the same time, he was going to make the magical world pay the price.

He had a plan…

"In you go, Potter," the red-headed bimbo who called herself an Auror snapped, shoving him into the cell. Harry yelped as he was thrown forward, ignoring their laughter before he looked around the cell. Harry had already formed several visualisations of the prison based on what he'd learnt and heard over the last few years; he'd pictured crumbling stone cells that were still durably thick with mould growing on the walls, fetid pools of filthy water everywhere, and a narrow hole for a window.

The cell was not far off.

There was a stone slab that doubled as a bed near blackened walls; the 'window' was just a hole in the wall, and let very little air inside.

"Liking your new home, murderer?" The female Auror asked.

"No," Harry didn't care if the question was rhetorical.

"Get used to it, you're gonna be here for the rest of your life!" She snarled.

Harry said nothing about that, in case he tempted fate. Instead, he was looking at the Auror with cold curiosity. "You think I killed those people, so why would I come back to Hogwarts? Here I thought Aurors were meant to be detectives, but clearly, your skills suck," he snapped.

The Auror snarled, but fortunately one of her colleagues quickly grabbed her shoulder. "Enough, Tonks," it was another female Auror. "He's not worth it, let's just get out of here before the Dementors arrive. Let's leave him to them. Soon he'll be regretting everything he's done."

The Auror, Tonks, took a deep breath and nodded, "Thanks, Hestia," she muttered and she left the cell, but not before she sent a dark look towards Harry, one that confused him even more, and he wondered why that particular Auror was taking things so seriously.

Finally, when they were gone and he began to feel more of the effects of the Dementors, Harry got to work quickly; reaching into his mouth, he took out the fake tooth he'd had planted there and after twisting it out of his jawbone, he placed it on the bed and twisted it. Within moments, the tooth had transformed into a golem.

"You will remain here in Azkaban," Harry instructed the doll while he had to work fast before the Dementors arrived; the golem didn't have any self-ill. He'd mastered their creation a while back when he realised there was a chance he could be sent to this shithole. "You will keep huddled in a corner, and eat the food while sitting staring into space. You will not speak, ever."

Harry shed his clothes, they were Azkaban robes. "Put these on," he told his naked double, who did as he was told. "Repeat my instructions, please."

"I am to remain here in Azkaban. I will keep huddled in a corner and staring into space. I will not speak ever. I will eat the food," the golem replied as it put on the robes, but since its programming was limited and it was only to be used as a convenient decoy, beyond that it didn't have any exceptional intelligence.

"Good," Harry replied, trying to ignore the cold of the cell and the prison in general as it hit his naked body. "Good luck."

He transformed into his raven animagus form and he flew out of the window, cautiously.

-8-

If he had been in his human form, Harry would have been cheering and whooping with joy as the air rushed around him. Harry loved his animagus form.

When he had first seen the potential possibilities of the animagus transformation after seeing that bitch queen McGonagall transforming into her human form from her cat form, he had been determined to learn how to become an animagus himself. He had discovered two different methods, the Merlinian method and the Native American Indian method, who were masters of the art.

The Merlinian method was more brute force and ignorance, and it had many drawbacks as it meant he wouldn't be able to choose his form, and it required so many rough cut methods to make it work that he'd been reluctant to try since McGonagall would immediately stop him as it was complicated and she would recognise the signs instantly, having gone through it herself as a proof of her mastery of transfiguration.

The second method was more calmer and meditative. It connected to the belief that everyone has an inner animal, all that was needed was to use a meditative ritual where he would be unconscious for an hour or more, inhaling the fumes of a potion that would tranquillise him until he found his form. Once he had, he would use a second form and visualise the animal in question, and then he would meditate again, breathing in a similar potion and ingesting part of it to make the transformation spell work, and the animal form come out.

If you had more than one form, you had to visualise all of them at the same time in a sequence until they came out.

Harry7 had studied the second method carefully and precisely until he had it in mind. He'd done it at Gringotts, knowing that the goblins would be able to mitigate the worst of the damages should anything go wrong, but luckily nothing did go wrong, and he was the proud owner of not one, not two, but four animagus forms.

The first one was his raven form, the first he had seen; a bird with a long beak and dark emeralds for eyes. The second was a small house spider. The third was a hydra of all things, complete with multiple heads and spitting venom, and the last one was a black cat. Harry had registered his forms with the ICW, not the British Ministry of Magic. Okay, he would have preferred not to have four potent forms with their unique abilities being discovered by Dumbledore, but the goblins had insisted on the legalities.

It had cost him a small fortune, though, but it was worth it.

As he flew out of Azkaban, trying to ignore the buffeting of the terrible weather caused by the Dementors and shoring up his occlumency to fight off the lingering effects of the Dementors and making a mental note to make sure no permanent harm had been done, Harry flew over the almost waterlogged boat that brought the group bringing him to the prison - clearly they hadn't gotten there yet - and he'd flown across the sea before he'd found himself flying over the mainland.

And he didn't stop.

-8-

When Harry returned to his townhouse in London- he'd found his mother had owned quite a few properties before her death, all of them left to him in the muggle world, where nobody could touch them, much to his delight - he had been flying over Britain for a while before he had managed to reach Edinburgh after pushing some of his magic into his wings, but by the time he got there and found clothes and shoes after breaking into a few shops, he was knackered but he had managed to check into a motel and he'd slept the majority of it off. He stayed in the Scottish capital for the next few days, while he used his powers to steal money and clothes, and he got himself a train ticket to King's Cross station.

It was…disconcerting, arriving in King's Cross, so close to a magical entrance, but he got out into the city. Right now he had a lot of planning to do for the future.