Dumledore was confused - the boy looked… off. Like he had aged internally - his eyes shone with depth as if he lived a decade more, not innocent young boy eyes. 'Perhaps too much dementor influence, but it could be Tom as well, I should better check'

As conversation progressed the boy seemingly unaware glanced at his eyes as usual. Albus took the chance and soon was inside.

His instincts screamed at him that something was wrong, yet he could not find anything amiss. The library of Harry's mind looked almost the same as last time he checked - it was quite a few months since he last caught the boy's eyes during the meal for a casual greeting.

Still feeling that something was wrong he decided to investigate more thoroughly - he picked a thin book from the front - which was supposed to be Harry's surface thoughts at the moment and started reading.

"Sigh I am so bored - I wonder when I will escape from here? I miss my friends, I haven't seen them in a while…. I wonder what will be for dinner tonight? I surely hope it's not another madam Phompfey made dinner as those taste awful… Well at least she gives me plenty of chocolate this time around…. Sigh another Dursley summer, I sure hope I can live with my godfather soon, why did that rat hate to run away ..."

Dumbledore closed the book with a thud - the thoughts seemed perfectly fine to him, relaxed he started speaking to Harry a speech he prepared yesterday while absentmindedly reviewing the night events from a nearby book - he was surprised seeing a few dementors actually perish, though the boys patronus was somewhat interesting, a thestral - perhaps based on Potter lineage from Peverrels who are known to use thestrals as a family crest? He relaxed more and left the boy's mind - things seemed in order as he simultaneously ended the conversation and left the room.

If he were to glance back as he left his room he would have noticed a huge grin on the boy's face, a bit of a crazy grin in fact, not something a thirteen year old boy should have on his face after encountering hundreds of dementors.

Harry was basically beaming for quite a few minutes after Dumbledore left. His plan succeeded, Dumbledore did not notice a door in a library - a door which he hid with invisibility cloak - he found he could materialise it inside his mind for some reason, even though other items did not seem to work - it took quite a few restarts to came up with this idea, but no matter, a few hundred days of trying to escape Dumbledore's mind invasion seemed a fair deal for him - not like ten years he wasted at improving his occlumency. He shuddered remembering his other ideas which… were not so great.

Especially not the escaping one - which was kind of horrible. When Fudge did not find him at the hospital bed after Sirius escaped… things escalated horribly. The Ministry had access to traces, which in fact could track him even when he was not casting any spells! So after an hour of running away… a team of aurors popped in place and arrested him - the headmaster then intervened as usual… and the reset was triggered.

The mind trick with the invisibility cape was quite a lucky accident - it took a dozen or so tries to get his surface thoughts in order while multitasking his conversation with Albus - but now he was finally free - for now, and he deserved some actual sleep. He soon was snoring with a grin on his face.

The morning came and he was once again released from the hospital - he happily skipped along the steps back to his dorm where he met Ron in his room.

"Harry! You're out"

"Hi Ron, haven't seen you in a while" - Harry seemingly had tears building up in his eyes as he rushed and hugged his friend.

Ron just stood there agape, eventually returning the hug - "Whoa there mate, we had met like two days ago?"

"You know, being near dementors…. It just makes it seem like it was so long ago, like eleven years, three months and ten days…"

The awkward hug broke off as the boys happily chatted whole evening - Ron was surely surprised of Harry not getting bored of Chudley Cannons fanaticism and even went for multiple rounds of chess, even after losing multiple times in a row.

They played late into the night until eventually going to sleep - at least Ron did as Harry's eyes opened as soon as he heard Ron's loud snores. He grabbed his invisibility cloak from his trunk and sneaked out to the library. He still remembered that the path was clear on this particular night, so he just hummed along and a few staircases later was already pushing library doors open.

Harry decided to just relax this loop - perhaps study a bit, read some books, but mostly spend more time with some people. Prolonged dementor exposure for over ten years did affect his mind somewhat - he was not the same naive boy anymore and he somehow just craved some more communication, connection with others. Heck he even missed the Dursleys - and that said something about his state of mind.

Still humming he casually strolled through the library - eventually he found a shelf of used school books sections - they were old and quite worn out, but he did not mind, he skipped first four years and just grabbed charms, transfiguration and defence against dark arts books for fifth sixth and seventh years - then suddenly stopped, remembering his second year defence 'textbooks' he scrolled back and picked actual textbook for that year - perhaps he had some serious gaps in his knowledge.

Then the boy casually dropped the books on a nearby couch and just sat there, reading the books - as if he had all the time in the world. The book pile quickly emptied as he did remember some tricks for faster reading from some muggle book he read about so-called 'speed reading'. Surely he would still need to reread it all in his mindscape to more deeply comprehend how those spells were cast and how to block them - but he was not worried, he had some extra time at the start of restarts anyway, for this one he wanted to spend more time with.. People. Perhaps have some fun and relax, maybe even make some new friends?

Checking the time with the tempus charm it was four past midnight - or is it four in the morning? Somehow he did not feel sleepy at all, musing he concluded that he had slept so much this day - nearly twelve hours - that it was probably fine and just put the books in place, deciding to just… stroll along, to figure out what kinds of books there actually were - for future visits. He was not quite ready to tackle the time loop problem. He needed some peace and quiet now. Peace and quiet - and some more people too.

Eventually a few hours later he went back to his room - pretending to have just woken up and readied for the journey back… home. He kind of missed that place as well.

The departure feast continued similarly as last time - though Harry did not care much about avoiding syrup or what not - being a bird must be fun he thought as his transformation started. He even tried flying, but just did a somersault and crashed back to the table - flying with wings was not the same as with broom, but he had a determined glint in his eyes - like he would nail it one day. Meanwhile the hall roared with laughter as students were transforming to canaries and back. Eventually the feast ended and the golden trio went back to carriages.

Harry already knew what those horse-like beast pulling carriages were - thestrals. They looked the same as his patronus. So he just focused on his friends - smiling and chatting as they went along. They seemed to notice that he was… different, but seemed to buy 'dementors change people' excuse.

The chat continued throughout the journey until eventual arrival at the station. Harry bid farewell with tears in his eyes, then went to look for his uncle whom he hugged in greeting. Vernon was confused and initially wanted to shout, but perhaps concluding that this was actually totally normal behaviour, perhaps not wanting to make the scene he just greeted the boy and went back to the car.

Back at Privet Drive Petunia and Dudley were also weirded out by hugs - but other than Dudley calling him weirdo did no other comment. Petunia even seemed a bit… concerned with this different Harry.

The next day arrived - and Harry already had a stack of letters ready - for all his friends. He gave it to Hedwig, who seemed excited about a long journey. He opened the window and let her fly off - as it was about five in the morning he doubted any muggles were already awake and outside. He somehow just slept till four and felt refreshed and fully rested - just on six hours of sleep. But he did not mind - he could just do… something else in his free time.

He stepped out of the house and pointed his wand forward - a few minutes later the knight bus arrived. He paid eleven sickles for a trip to Diagon Alley, and some hot chocolate. As he had literal mountains of gold in his trust vault - not even the main Potter's vault which would become accessible on seventeenth birthday, so he felt it was not a waste to splunder money a bit. He thought he might do this… every summer day. Dursleys just did not want to socialise with him, but he just craved it - hence his solution. He did need to at least sleep at Dursleys as he knew it powered blood wards.

He looked around the bus, but could not see any familiar faces - there were some sleeping witches and wizards of respectable age - but they were sleeping. Well it was still very early in the morning he concluded - and most wizards would just use floo or apparition. Harry just shrugged and sat near the front, slurping his chocolate and gazing through the front window. Watching the bus rapidly shrink and expand to pass some unimaginatively small gaps was fascinating and gave him some heartwarming nostalgia.

Still gazing through the window he called out to the drivers for some chatting - he learned some interesting things - apparently there were quite a few knight buses in circulation, so any witch or wizard in England could just call them out… in five minutes at most. Also he was told that quite a few hogwarts students used the bus from time to time - mostly muggle borns as they had no floo at home, and some weird blokes who were apparently allergic to floo powder and of course, older witches and wizards who did not have floo at home and were too scared to learn apparition.

The chat, while enjoyable, came to an end as the bus arrived at Harry's destination. He bid the drivers farewell and disembarked.

The boy walked the familiar path to Leaky Cauldron and ordered plenty of food for breakfast, then ate in silence while thinking of his holiday plans. He decided to try visiting his friends during the day - surely it would make things more… entertaining. He decided to write more letters as soon as Hedwig came back to enquire for available times and locations. He did not have that many close friends - Hermione, Weasleys, Neville and his other room mates- Seamus and Thomas. Oh and also Hagrid and Dobby, still he kind of wanted to avoid Hogwarts as he might meet headmaster there… which was annoying - to constantly monitor his thoughts and force them to think in specific ways… which not always succeeded in fooling the mighty wizard, yes he did fail a quite a few times using that invisibility cloak trick, when Dumbledore found his surface thoughts… off - he somehow got his wand inside the mindscape and cast various charms around, giving him immense headaches, but quickly discovering the hidden room of books.

Eventually deciding to just regularly visit Diagon alley - and eventually bump into Hagrid was good enough, as for Dobby, he could just call him anywhere that's not home - just in case ministry confused Dobbys magic for his again…

He spent the rest of the day exploring Diagon Alley and various shops - in his hand there was a book - fantasy novel in fact, as Harry seemed immersed in it. His day was enjoyable - he only visited a few shops, but went over every little thing they sold, buying whatever he liked, like a pocket-trunk with actual buttons for expanding and shrinking the thing. Which was especially designed with underage wizards in mind as they could not cast the spell themselves.

Inside his new trunk lay dozens of books of various types - various fantasy novels, auror training books, history books, even the famous 'Hogwarts, the History' third edition. He had a lot of fun chatting with the shopkeepers, who were also excited by this rich customer in their stores. He also spent some time trying out various ice creams from the famous Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, hell he even bought some extra frozen as gifts for Dursleys, packed with some sort of cold charmed paper. Harry did notice Dudley eating his abundant birthday snacks his friends sent over, he smirked as he thought at least one Dursley would enjoy this - perhaps in secret, but still, it brought warmth to his heart.

He was getting quite immersed in the story - who knew fantasy novels could be that entertaining? He even made plans to grab some muggle ones as well for comparison, and who knows, maybe they would be even better, as was with meditation material he read years ago. He heard a bell dingle and glanced over - as he did all the time when someone climbed in, knowing hogwarts students frequented the bus did make him want to check all the time - and this time it paid off. He could see a girl his age, with blonde hair entering the bus.

Their eyes met briefly as they slightly widened with recognition. "Potter" - she nodded in greeting, "Greengrass" - Harry nodded back, after spending over decade being torment by one former Gryfindors he didn't really care about her being from Slytherin, they were people too, well except Malfoy, that guy was a prick.

He maintained eye contact and casually moved his trunk to the side leaving enough room for her and asked - "Want to chat while we travel?"