Thievery and leaving
Harry needed his wand, and he needed to find Snape’s office. Finding Snape’s office was somewhat easy, as it had a sign in red paint that said “TRESPASSERS WILL BE DISEMBOWELED” on it for when the Professor was teaching. Harry stared at the door. He didn’t want to be disemboweled but he needed his wand. The wand chooses the wizard, so couldn’t the holly and Phoenix wand choose to go back to Harry?
As Harry thought about his wand and whether or not it was sentient enough to do magic that he could not do himself, his wand was only just behind the door. It sensed its wizard’s magic, and felt the pull of emotional magic, of desperation and self-hatred. The Phoenix feather had some properties of its once-embodied bird-self, and all of Ollivander’s woods are fireproofed against interior flaming (that’s why only Garrick Ollivander was able to make wands out of Phoenix feathers). The wooden door of Professor Snape’s office, although warded against all forms of Being Magics, was not sturdy enough to withstand wand flames. Ironically, had Fawkes wanted to flame the door, he’d have been unable to, but his tail feather from a half-century gone body easily ignited the wood. Harry coughed, his weak lungs unable to withstand the smoke, and he began trembling despite the heat. What had he done?
He blinked the smoke-induced tears away, and realized that, in the middle of the door that was slowly turning into embers, his wand moved towards him. As if it could tell its owner was afraid, the holly-and-Phoenix-feather wand immediately ceased flaming as it made its way to Harry.
“Nice,” Harry said to his wand, and checked it for tampering. Of course Snape’s morals were low enough that he had placed Charms meant to cause the owner nightmares, irritability, and a disgusting odor that the wand’s owner would be unaware of. And, of course, as a first year, Harry would be unable to remove the Charms, despite being able to detect them. That settled his decision-making, then. He was going back to Diagon Alley. He knew he would need money in both British currencies, and possibly Euros as well, depending on exactly how famous he actually was. Wizarding libraries would be ludicrously easy for a homeless eleven-year-old to hide in, he knew that from the very first book he had ever read at the Hogwarts’ one.
Harry began making his way back upstairs to the Owlery. Hedwig needed to be released so she could send letters to his friends once he figured out where he was going. Then Harry would steal one of winged-horses Hagrid kept a herd of (Hagrid refused to neuter the Thestrals, and the herd was bordering on 500, one wouldn’t be missed even though Hagrid could see them) and begin soaring south. He would travel until he found a Muggle town with a road atlas, after which he would begin on foot, abandoning the Thestral at the nearest wildlife center. Harry didn’t want to be doing this, but he wanted to be exposed to whatever horrible situation his experiences being public would get him into even less.
Hedwig flew off uncomplainingly, and Harry was well-loved by the Thestral after feeding it a dead squirrel he found in the forbidden forest. His plan was ready for action.