Harry had no idea why he had come to Little Whinging; the Dursleys were long since gone.
He should know.
He was there.
He had seen the For Sale signs, which meant the Dursleys were gone, and they had left with virtually everything although now he knew why only the basics had come with them to Japan.
A new family had moved into the house, Harry had helped clean the fucking House of Horror for the viewings. The Dursleys had been so thorough they had even made sure the Cupboard Under the Stairs was clean so when the new family moved in, they wouldn't find any evidence of the abuse he had gone through, and Petunia had searched through it at the last minute to make sure he had not left anything and he'd needed to be careful they didn't find his cash.
That had been a scary time for Harry, and a shocking one. He would never forget the excitement he felt that they would be going to a different country, since it might even be possible to flee the Dursleys and use the sheer size of the Japanese capital city as a cover; the Dursleys might not even look for him, but the city's size would be better.
But at the same time, Harry had been terrified when he learnt the Dursleys were going to clean out the Cupboard under the Stairs. At the time it was a revolutionary concept, moving, but events had been going so fast he was barely able to believe they were moving, never mind going to Japan.
Sometimes Harry wondered what happened to the house the Dursleys had bought, or rented, in Japan. They hadn't been there long, but they had still abused him, and they had likely left signs of it at the house. Had the Japanese worked that out? Had they found it? Had the house been resold when the Dursleys had scarpered? Truthfully he didn't know what the Dursleys had done, but he knew positively they were not here, and he wasn't trying to look for them here. They were long gone, and even though he now knew who and what he was, he had no intention of looking for them just yet.
Oh, one day, he had every intention of going after the Dursleys and making them pay for everything they had done.
But not right now. He had to get through Hogwarts first. He had only been back in Britain for a few short weeks, he had found a few places to live in and squat and he was just getting used to being back in Britain.
With a sigh he walked down the streets towards Number 4; as he walked down the streets, sneering at the changes and the few people he saw, inwardly grinning when he saw their double-takes. It wouldn't take long before the local jungle drums started rumbling with news the Potter boy was back.
Harry knew the moment word got around that he had been seen, everyone would be like; why is the Potter boy here? Where has he been? Why was he alone? Stuff like that. Harry decided to just let them think, and he had no desire to speak to them.
When he got to Privet Drive, he saw an old vintage car of a make he didn't recognise but he knew full well that the Dursleys could never have afforded it, not even in a million years if they saved up for it. Walking towards the house, mentally casting a notice-me-not charm, Harry found a shadowed corner and he focused on Number 4.
When he got inside the house, still cloaked by the notice-me-not charm, Harry almost thought he had missed Number 4 and gone into a different place. The decor was so different; gone was the terrible, effeminate wallpaper and paint, all of the photos of Dudley evolving from a large, ugly pink beach ball into a pink, almost hairless blond gorilla riding on a bike, or playing with toys that would inevitably get broken because Dudley couldn't help but destroy everything he touched.
Instead, there were photos of three beautiful kids, one no older than a toddler, the eldest being around Harry's age. Harry studied the photos, chuckling when he saw a little girl grinning at the camera, ice cream covering her face. In another, there were all three children in a pizza restaurant. And there were pictures of holidays, the kids swimming.
The family here were not like the Dursleys; while on the face of it, Petunia and Vernon had doted on Dudley doing this, they had never been involved in the photos at all. But this family was different, they doted on their children. Seeing there was nothing here for him, Harry just used the shadows to get away from the house.
