Chapter 5
'My mother had taste,' Harry thought to himself as he walked through the townhouse his mother had purchased a long time ago; from what the goblin and his aunt had told him, once Petunia was forced to loosen her tongue, Lily's parents - his maternal grandparents - had given Lily and Petunia money and were encouraged to buy properties and invest to make some cash.
In short, Lily had excelled, Petunia hadn't, although that wasn't entirely fair since Petunia had invested in property, looking into and buying and having them done up before they sold them off to a developer. One of the reasons why Petunia hadn't excelled was because of Vernon Dursley, she was simply too much in love with the blundering obese pig to see her making a mistake.
Vernon said that they didn't need the properties, as they came with so many problems but he hadn't clarified. Petunia, who it turned out, didn't like looking at the different properties with their varying phases of cleanliness, simply handed Vernon the deeds and the pig had done with them whatever he wished, but there was no doubt in Harry's mind, nor Petunia's it seemed since even she had seemed suspicious as to her husband's actions, that Vernon had pocketed the cash.
Lily, on the other hand, had purchased several properties and she had used a combination of muggle companies and her magical brilliance to clean the properties, and she'd sold them off to developers, for a nice profit, until eventually she had bought several flats and townhouses. The deeds were to be handed over to him when he was 18 years old but this particular townhouse was going to be his home.
When he had learnt about the properties, owned by his mother, Harry was at first afraid that Aunt Petunia would try to take them from him out of spite, but she had not only been afraid of him which meant her fear outweighed her greed, but the goblin was kind enough to hand over the deeds in writing, and Harry had kept his aunt away, so there was no problem there.
Once his business was done with Gringotts, he'd gotten the address for where the townhouse was and discovered it was in the South Kensington area.
Lily loved the West End of the city more than she liked the City.
Harry, meanwhile, was just relieved and thankful he had a place to live, even if he wasn't entirely sure how he should take what Lily's hologram had said about how reasons for becoming a Death Eater.
When he'd told Aunt Petunia she would never again see him again, and escorted her to the Leaky Cauldron pub, Harry turned his back on her and the Dursleys and was now trying to work out what he was going to do now. Harry had no intention of going back to Little Whinging again, not if he could help it, but as he looked around the townhouse he realised he could do whatever he wanted.
After his aunt was gone, Harry had withdrawn some money from the Potter family vault, relieved that his father had the common sense to lock them all down to prevent the Ministry from taking it from him as a punishment for his crimes. He had gone to the bookshops in the magical shopping district, and he'd bought a small pile of books, so he could then read more about magic, and the history of the magical world before he'd come here, to the townhouse.
To Harry's surprise and delight, the townhouse didn't seem to need that much in the way of cleaning but he planned to go out anyways and buy some supplies, and begin cleaning the place up. At the same time, he would buy food. The townhouse was twice the size of Number 4. It had twice the bedrooms and the living space, and his mother had certainly not had the effeminate and tacky tastes of the Dursleys.
Instead, the House was decorated in a royal purple in some of the rooms, while she had brightened the bedrooms and the sitting room which was joined to a small library that his mother had used as a place to relax in a mix of white and yellow, to give it a cheer.
The library was packed full of books that Harry recognised from Flourish & Blotts, and he guessed they were his mother's old spellbooks, because one of the book titles, Standard Book of Spells went up in seven volumes.
The kitchen was large and came with a large fridge and freezer, and it was a much nicer place to work with a central cooking unit as an island in the middle of the room; searching through the kitchen, Harry found more than several kitchen utensils, which made him happy.
What made Harry happy, and this was a big plus for a boy who'd spent so long trapped in a house that was surrounded by houses, there were dozens of interesting buildings and even better, he had the Thames running by his back window.
Oh, sure, he would likely grow bored with the view later on, but this was not a problem for him in the long term since London was much better than Little Whinging.
After giving the house a once over and checking to see what kind of supplies it had already, Harry grabbed his keys and walked out, locked the doors, and he ran his hands down the runic arrays, which would protect the property even more. As he did, Harry wondered if his parents would ever come here. If they were free, then they might be using one of her old properties, in the non-magical world - the muggle world, he corrected himself - and trying to keep their heads down.
Harry grimaced a little as he thought about them. In truth, he wasn't entirely sure what to make of his parents, and while he was sad about what had happened to them, the fact they were forced to go on the run, it was quite another to know they'd done it because of him.
They had given their souls to the devil to save him. It was a humbling experience for a boy who had spent his entire life cursing them for dumping him with the Dursleys, but the years spent under the Dursleys had taught him to hate. But now he wasn't sure how to feel.
As he went shopping, buying the cleaning supplies - sponges, washing up liquid, cleaners and hooverbags (Harry hoped he learnt how to use magic soon, since cleaning like this was going to be long), and buying food, Harry thought about what his mother had said about becoming a Death Eater.
A Death Eater…
From what Lily had said, there were many attractive prospects to becoming one; the biggest was the chance to change the world, so then children like Harry would never grow up hated and feared because they could do magic. And besides, after the way he'd been abused by the Dursleys, Harry saw no reason to defend them.
Once he was finished in the small supermarket, already pleased with the prices of the place, Harry also wondered what he was going to do now; was he going to go to a different school, or was he simply not going to bother?
Harry had always loved learning, but he had also found school painful and mundane, especially as some of the subjects were so bonehead simple, particularly the ones he'd read up on, and painful because of Dudley.
Could he go back to school although a different one, before he planned to go to Hogwarts? His name had been down since his birth, but the prospects for learning were still there, but did he really want to go back to school, or should he simply do homeschooling, just in case?
There were many attractive things about homeschooling in the muggle subjects; he could work from home, he could set his own pace, he could also avoid - and this was the important part - anyone who'd find out about his magic and judge him; Dudley might have scared the rest of the students, back at St Gregory's, but after seeing his magic cause different things, it became all too easy for them to see him as a freak.
Harry didn't want to go through that again. It was just not worth it, and besides, with an entire city for him to explore, why should he go back to a mundane life?
He would have to go back to Gringotts soon anyway, and he decided to give the matter a little bit more thought about his final decision to become homeschooled until he would be able to go to Hogwarts.
Xxxxx
Once Harry was finished with the supermarket, he went around the part of Chelsea he was now living in, and he went into some of the shops, idly using his magic to keep himself unnoticed and unseen unless he wanted to buy something. More than once, he stopped over and indulged himself in food and drink; for a boy who'd had to root around in old bins from the deli in Little Whinging, and keeping as unobtrusive as possible, it was a real treat for him not to do that, and to taste other foods.
Plus, he also saw it as a great place to cast aside the clothes the Dursleys had given him. He went into several shops and came away with three new pairs of shoes, trousers, shorts, pants, shirts and jumpers and even a few replacement coats.
When he got back to the townhouse, Harry spent the rest of the day cleaning up the place, using a combination of his natural flair for magic with the muggle cleaning products, so he wasn't on his hands and his knees all day. He was done within two hours, making sure to clean the fridge, the cooker, the bathroom and the bedroom he intended to be his, and he began preparations for making dinner.
To celebrate his freedom, Harry had purchased a nice chicken to roast, and he'd bought some potatoes and some salad ingredients. With it being sunny, it seemed appropriate. As he lovingly made himself a white loaf to use as a bread and butter pudding, Harry decided to take things one step at a time and checked the bottle of Pepsi he'd bought to celebrate with, he had all the time in the world.