—Harry Potter and the Broken Compass—
Heart's Greatest Desire
While the Dursleys are out shopping, nine-year-old Harry is allowed to browse a pawn shop. It was one of his rare 'privileged' days when he was allowed to use what little of his allowance he had to buy his own things. While he was searching, Harry found a peculiar compass that intrigued him: it didn't point north. Curious about it, he bought it (even though the pawn shop owner tried to talk him out of it because it was broken). At first the Dursleys had tried to take it from him, but when they realized it was a worthless broken compass they let him keep it. It becomes Harry's most favorite thing in the world and he keeps it on him at all times. He spends the next week slowly realizing that it was magical and that it pointed towards what the holder most desired (usually always out of the Dursleys' door for Harry: freedom).
One day, after Harry had accidentally teleported to the school roof to escape Dudley's gang, Harry finally turned to his compass for answers. He used it to find Diagon Alley and the bookstore. When he learns of Hogwarts, Harry believes that there's no chance of him possibly being allowed to attend it because while he was a wizard, he was poor and neither of his parents were magical (as far as he knows). Alas, he returns later with notebooks to copy down some of the spells from the various books and to steal a wand from Ollivander's. He starts making regular trips to the bookstore to expand his number of copied spells from the textbooks and he secretly practices his magic in either the privacy of his cupboard or at the park at night. Unknown to Harry, the Ministry detected his use of underage magic and was sending him numerous warnings but the Dursleys kept intercepting them and burning them without Harry's knowledge.
On his tenth birthday (seven months after buying the compass and two months after finding Diagon Alley), the Ministry finally had no choice but to expel Harry from Hogwarts for his continued use of underage magic. They sent representatives to the Dursleys, confiscated all his copied spellbooks, and broke his stolen wand (Harry was at school during this). When Harry came home to find his things missing, he quickly realized that the Ministry must've somehow caught on to him. Enraged and hurt because he didn't understand the situation, he took his compass and ran away. He didn't care where he went, he just wanted to out of Great Britain and away from the unfair and unjust English Ministry. His departure caused the blood wards to fail, sending Dumbledore scrambling to find him, without luck. After a quick stop in Diagon Alley to get a new wand and steal some new textbooks to study later, Harry left London.
Using his compass to lead him to his freedom, Harry eventually found his way to Dover and aboard a fishing boat bound for France. Harry snuck aboard and wasn't found until they were well out to sea. He was able to bargain with the captain to let him stay aboard and work. Though they were against it initially, the fishermen soon relented when they learned that Harry was an orphan and that he could actually cook some respectably good meals (far better than any of them could at least). With reluctance, they decided to take him on as a full crewmember. During his time on the ship, they taught him many things about fishing and sailing, as well as several different languages (French, Spanish, and German). In secret, Harry continued studying his spell books and practicing his magic.
Meanwhile, the Wizarding World was in chaos. First they learned that their beloved savior had been expelled from Hogwarts a year prior to his receiving his acceptance letter on charges of repeated use of underage magic. Then there was the Halloween troll attack that hospitalized Hermione Granger (though they didn't care one bit about her because she was a Mudblood, it was the principle of the situation that stunned them). Voldemort got the Philosopher's Stone. Hogwarts gets closed down because of the Heir of Slytherin terrorizing the kids, culminating with Ginny's death. Delamort appears and starts a campaign to become a high-level politician. He gains quick and immense support from the populace when he promises a way of changing the world for the better should he or one of his be elected for the new Minister of Magic. In 1993, Hogwarts remained closed for the duration of the schooling year, but many Pure- and Halfbloods were able to continue practicing magic as long as they were accompanied by a full-fledged wizard and in a magical environment (i.e. their parents and in their homes). There have been numerous reports from anonymous wizards that Death Eater activity was on the rise again after a mass breakout of Azkaban. In 1994, Hogwarts gets reopened because Fudge (trying to stay in office) gets the Triwizard Tournament reinstituted as a means of raising morale for the populace. Death Eaters and other terrorists attack the World Cup and try to interrupt the Tournament.
In early '95, Harry purchases a ship (La Crosse) to start his own business. Harry hires a college dropout to manage his jobs, costs, profits, and business deals (desk work and computers), a psychotic teenage lesbian to be his helper and enforcer, and an old mechanic to teach and help him with maintenance and repair of the ship. He becomes a smalltime fisherman, ferry and cargo transport, and occasional smuggler. He uses his magic to aid him greatly in his mostly Muggle business, making him something of an underworld employee when his reputation starts to rise at unfathomable levels. Even though the police are quick to place him under suspicion and try occasional illegal searches of his home and ship, they can never find any incriminating evidence to use against him (notice-me-not, invisible safes, and secret magical smuggling compartments).
Towards the end of June, Harry's company (La Crosse Shipping & Fishing) gets contacted by an extremely wealthy French family to transport their daughter from Ullapool, Scotland to Normandy, France. Harry had an instant bad feeling about this job. The payment was simply ridiculously high (like the family didn't understand the significance of the worth of money), he couldn't find any background information on the client, the client seemed extremely anxious to get his daughter to France with as little exposure and all due speed as possible (why not simply take a plane?), and it went against Harry's policy of transporting less than ten people over considerable distances. But he had recently gotten into some hot water with both the authorities and Irish mafia and he needed to disappear from the area for a short while until things cooled down.
Monsieur Delacour didn't trust the English Pureblood bigots to bring Fleur home safely – or alive – after she'd managed to win the Tournament, so he decided to have her sneak out of the country in a Muggle fashion to avoid nonhuman hunters. It was a well-founded fear since the French carriage was ambushed by sore loser English and Bulgarian Dark wizards. No one died since they wanted Fleur but there many injuries. Humiliated that they had been fooled by a 'decoy target', the Dark wizards become absolutely zealous in finding and executing the Veela whore for cheating in the tournament and stealing their respective countries' glory and pride.
When Fleur arrives at the La Crosse Headquarters, Harry and company are absolutely dumbfounded to learn that she's their passenger. Harry, once he recovers from the surprise, quickly realizes that she's a Veela and that his newest client is in fact a wizard. This puts Harry even more on edge because his instincts are telling him that trouble is not too far away. His lesbian enforcer girl is positively smitten with Fleur, claiming that she's finally found her one true love. The college dropout and mechanic, despite being attracted to her, just continue on with their jobs and try to respect her as a person as much they are able (not an easy task for Muggles exposed to her Veela charm). Fleur is quite displeased about the whole situation. She had just won the Triwizard Tournament, she could handle herself in a fight! She didn't need to be given 'special privileges' and treated like some frail china doll by her family anymore. So why did she have to be taken home by a group of pathetic Muggles in a floating junk heap?
Once she'd made her opinion of their pride and joy (their ship, La Crosse) known, none of them were happy with her. The tension continued for three days until they had to put ashore to refuel and get some refreshments. While they were visiting a pub to relax, a group of Irish mafia arrived. They'd been tracking the La Crosse for some time and decided to confront Harry about backing out of their arrangement, despite him returning the down payment. A small fight broke out, resulting in the destruction of the pub and several of the mafia criminals dead or injured. Fleur had been amazed and terrified at the fight taking place, but forced to reevaluate her initial opinion of the crew.
Plotline Ideas
Dumbledore hears rumors of a magical teenager running a shipping business and tracks the boy down. He suspects its Harry Potter, due to glimpsed memories and his age. He tries to find and talk the boy into attending Hogwarts, wanting to get him on the Light's side, no matter the means how.
While they put in for resupply, the lesbian snags a drunken Fleur and has a passionate night of sex with her. Fleur is quite disgruntled and embarrassed to learn what had happened after she awoke and sobered up in the morning, becoming even more so embarrassed when the other Crossers (namely the cute, young Captain) figured out what happened.
The Dark Wizards eventually locate Fleur as the La Crosse arrives at France. Despite being outside their business arrangement, the Crossers protect Fleur long enough for the French Ministry to arrive and take her home.