A Soulless Angel

Spaghetti carbonara was one of the easiest meals ever invented, and as the bacon fried away in the pan, Harry prepared the cheese, grating a mix of cheddar and parmesan into a bowl. Harry had had a busy afternoon; once he had left the Leaky Cauldron and masked his presence, he had gone into London, and he had begun exploring the city, and doing some shopping. Many of the shoppers and people in the city had assumed he was a small old man, only to do a double-take in shock when they realised he was a teenager, luckily Nobody had asked him those invasive questions like why he had white hair.

After spending a few hours buying new pairs of clothes and shoes, particularly exercising clothes, Harry went to his mother's townhouse and he had gone back out again, he bought some books, videos and music for entertainment before he went to a market, and he had begun buying himself some food. The market had been full of fishmongers, butchers, greengrocers and bakers, and the smell of rich food had intoxicated him and nearly made him break down and sob, but even his new magically regenerated muscles had ached under the strain, as he'd brought back bags of food and drink back to the townhouse.

Once he'd finished a brisk spring clean of the townhouse which lasted a few hours as he had needed the time to think about his newfound freedom, Harry could have had anything for dinner, tonight from a piece of fish, a steak, a pie, or something like that. Instead, he had opted for the simplest meal he could make. Harry decided to make spaghetti carbonara after he had memorised the classical Italian recipe in a book from the Little Whinging library.

Harry put some pasta into a pan and filled it with seasoned hot water, and he let it bubble away while he prepared the rest of the meal. After cutting some bacon, he left it alone for a few minutes before he turned to the eggs. While the traditional Italian recipe was slightly ambiguous, he had decided to use 5 eggs, and he grated pecorino, parmesan, and cheddar cheese into the eggs before he beat them.

Once the eggs and cheese were prepared, Harry moved on to his fruit salad. He had just about bought just virtually every single fruit he saw at the market; he'd bought pomegranate seeds, a pineapple, two melons, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, red currants, black currants, grapes, a mango, bananas, kiwi fruits, apples, oranges, pears, peaches, plums, cherries, blackberries. Glancing at the Greek yoghurt he'd purchased from the supermarket as an experimental alternative to cream, Harry was looking forward to his dinner and pudding tonight.

Turning back to the cooker, Harry put on the bacon and let it fry. Within minutes the bacon was cooked. Turning to the spaghetti, he grinned when he saw the pasta was cooked, but he tried a piece to be sure. It was cooked. Once he was finished waiting for the water in the bacon to evaporate, leaving the fatty oils, Harry took his tongs, and he quickly forked the pasta into the pan, smiling at the hissing as the watery pasta hit the pan. After flipping the pasta over, Harry grabbed the spoon and gently spooned some of the pasta water into the pan and mixed it up. Traditional Italian carbonara didn't use cream.

Remembering the recipe, Harry moved the pan off of the heat, to let it cool down for a few minutes. He picked up his egg-cheese mix, and gently moved the mixture into the pan with the pasta and bacon and water mix. The pan was quite hot, if he left it on the heat, he'd have a pan full of scrambled egg pasta and bacon. Not good.

Harry grinned as he mixed the egg with the pasta water, seeing instantly the sauce beginning to form; Moving the pan back on the heat to thicken it up, Harry finished up, pouring the carbonara onto a plate, grabbing a tray and a fork and a spoon. Getting a smaller bowl and gently spooning in some of the fruit salad, Harry took another spoon, popped open the Greek yoghurt and poured some of it into the bowl, before he went into the sitting room.

The TV had been switched on the whole time.

"…seen over Surrey today, shooting stars resembling fireworks appeared…," the presenter said.

Because he was close to eating his meal, Harry paused when he heard this. Shooting stars? Fireworks? He sighed. Of course. Just because he was a wizard with only a few years of experience didn't mean he couldn't recognise the signs of magic.

The wizarding world was celebrating the loss of Voldemort. And when he had been in the muggle world, Harry had spotted a few people wearing cloaks, in broad daylight. Harry had not expected that, and he had needed to duck in an alleyway; he had almost had a fit of paranoid panic, wondering if they were looking for him so desperately they would jeopardise the Statute of Secrecy, and then he realised they were so happy the war was over, that Voldemort was dead at last.

Irrational anger surged through him.

The wizarding world was doing it again, they were celebrating, acting all merry, but they had failed, as they had before, to see what the cost of the victory over Voldemort was.

Thanks to his upbringing, Harry had come to see everyone was fundamentally selfish. Even the most selfless person often had a spark where they would not do something unless it benefited them. His upbringing proved that, his experiences at Hogwarts proved that. He had decided to be as selfish as possible.

He had gone after the Philosopher's Stone because he wanted to learn magic at Hogwarts, even if he found the teachers stupid and worthless, and because he didn't want to go back to the muggle world after experiencing the wizarding world.

He had stopped the younger Voldemort from shutting down the school, aided by the arrogance of Lucius Malfoy for precisely the same reasons; if Hogwarts closed he would go back to the muggle world again.

Third year was tricky; thanks to Dumbledore's manipulations, he had been forced to resort to stealing and copying Granger's time-turner which he had hidden in the castle, and used it to secretly take the Arithmancy and Ancient Runes classes, but he hadn't gone after Wormtail to just avenge his parents.

Oh no.

Harry didn't care for Pettigrew's mindset, nor did he care about justice; he had merely seen a chance to rid the world of a Death Eater who had harmed him, but when he had learnt of the truth, a spark of a wish he'd had growing up, of a relative coming to take him away, an idea which he'd become bitter about when Harry learnt of Dumbledore's manipulations regarding his cousins in the MACUSA, had returned.

Big mistake, because it did not take him long to realise there was something seriously wrong with Black. Look what came out of that.

Pushing aside his feelings towards Black, Harry turned back to the news. For a few minutes, the newsreader yakked on about scientists being baffled, but Harry soon became bored, and he ignored the newscaster although he paid the muggle only half of his attention, but he smirked inwardly when he realised what the newsreader had just said, about the shooting star/fireworks being seen over Surrey. That meant the Dursleys were getting an eyeful of the celebrations. Laughing spitefully inside at the thought of the Dursley's reactions focusing on his dinner. Gently he forked some pasta and twirled it around his fork on the spoon, and he slowly lifted it up to his mouth. Flavour exploded in his mouth, as he tasted the creamy flavour of the sauce, mixed with the strength of the salty bacon.

Tears almost dropped from his eyes. Harry had not had a decent meal in a year, thanks to being locked up in Azkaban. A year-long diet of filthy bread and a shot of water had practically almost destroyed his stomach and killed his taste buds with utter boredom. But now, the flavours exploded and he was nearly sick.

After taking a moment to pause, to let his body adjust while he wished he could storm the Ministry and gleefully show Fudge just what he had picked up from Voldemort, and some of the more viciously minded Death Eaters, Harry slowly kept eating, but he wasn't eating long before he heard something that made him choke.

"….when asked, one of the cloaked figures laughed, and said, "Rejoice, for muggles like you should be happy; Harry Potter has won!'"

"YOU DUMBASSES!" Harry screamed once he had gotten over the choking fit. "You moronic, worthless poltroons!"

Harry couldn't believe it. He had gotten done for that stupid car mess Weasley had dragged him into back before his second year, and yet morons were freely spouting not just magical words, but his name too!

Hurriedly he turned the TV off, too angry to listen anymore. He took in deep breaths, as he struggled to calm himself down.

He was a staunch supporter of the Statute of Secrecy; the years he'd spent being abused and treated like a House Elf by the muggles he'd lived with was proof wizards and muggles just could not coexist. And yet, he had heard stories of how there were some witches and wizards, who stupidly tried revealing their world to the muggles. Harry felt nothing but contempt for them. He felt nothing but contempt for Arthur Weasley's muggle obsession; the idiot believed muggles were nothing more than harmless animals to be gawked at, in a zoo.

Once he'd calmed down Harry turned the TV back on, flicking through channels to find something else to watch; he didn't want to watch any more news. When the TV channel switched over into a movie, Harry turned his brain off and he focused on his meal. He didn't know how the Ministry was going to clean up this mess, but he didn't care.

He wondered how the Dursleys were taking the news. He didn't know if Dumbledore had sent a letter to them, explaining his imprisonment and now they knew he was out. But he had bigger fish to fry than a family of stupid muggles, and yet thanks to the stupid wizards out there, Harry knew he would need to use a different identity. Who knew how the muggles would take it? Sure there were dozens of people called Harry Potter out there, but he decided not to make it easier for them.

Carbonara finished, Harry grabbed one of the notebooks and a pen he'd bought earlier and he began writing down his plans. Harry had learnt a long time ago never to tell anybody about his plans or intentions; he didn't have much choice with regard to his MACUSA relatives in the courtroom, but when he was free of the Ministry and Dumbledore, Harry had time to think.

Harry began a list;

Get physically fit and learn martial arts. Wizards were inherently lazy and they didn't like hand-to-hand combat, which he could use to his advantage, and besides he didn't ever want to be hopeless again.

Take a holiday out of Britain. Harry was sick of Britain. He hated his home country, it had brought him nothing but trouble and he wanted to get out there, into the world. He had passed a few travel agents in London, and some of the countries looked interesting. Best of all, he would be far away from Dumbledore's influence, and he'd gotten a nice fantasy of visiting America without anyone from Britain knowing before he'd tipped the cold water of reality back on it since he didn't know how his cousins would react. He decided to visit the goblins and see if he could work something out. He would need a passport, money, and passage.

Continue with his muggle education. Harry had always kept up with his muggle education, knowing from bitter experience there was a chance something could happen at Hogwarts, and he'd have to go back. When he had been accused of setting the basilisk on the muggle-borns, Harry had considered running away and hiding in the muggle world and forgetting his magical roots, but he had found so much knowledge on magic he had decided against it. Sometimes he did wonder, what if.

Become an animagus. Okay, ever since he had seen McGonagall transform from a cat into her human form, Harry had longed to have the same power; to him, it symbolised the powers of a wizard or a witch; they were useful, too. With an animagus form, Harry could spy and come and go as he pleased, and if he found himself in Azkaban again - touch wood it never happened - he would just find a way of sneaking out. Harry would also need to figure out a way to hide acquiring that ability, but if Black and his father could do it, so could he.

Learn more magic, like the enchantments in the Marauders Map. While he didn't have a clue what happened to his map and the cloak, Harry had always been interested in the maps' enchantments. They could come in handy, depending on whatever he planned to do with his life.

Forge an identity in the muggle world. Okay, Harry might want to meet his family in the MACUSA, but he was realistic enough to know it might not work out the way he hoped, and he had to be ready for that, he knew living in the magical world was impossible. He would always be watched, always suspected of anything that went wrong. He did not want to live like that.

Harry wrote more notes for the next two hours while he ate his fruit salad, enjoying the different fruits as he ate slowly to let his body take it in.

But there was one note that he kept coming back to.

Visit Potter Manor.

Ever since he had learnt of his family's ancestral home and what was inside it, the portraits of his family who, thanks to the family's enchantments which were common to all magical families, were given portrait immortality. The idea of speaking to echoes of his parents was something that both spooked and angered Harry. His opinions towards his parents tended to be negative, considering the lifetime of conditioning he'd had at the hands of the Dursleys. It was hard to shake off the image of his mother, as a whore, and his dad as a layabout drunk and replace those images with two war heroes.

But he wasn't going to let that dictate his life. He wasn't going to be scared of echoes, for Merlin's sake. While he didn't like the person he had been forced to become, Harry had no intention of his parents portraits telling him how to live; if they were so concerned then they should have never put so much faith and trust in Dumbledore, Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew.

All the time he was working, Harry kept an eye on the first pages of the protean journal. So far no answer, but the time differences between America and Britain, logically, made him decide to wait.