Carry On

The purple hair might be the reason why there were no second looks or glances. Or just the fact that he had been dead for so many years. Harry reached up with his fingers to trace the bridge of his nose, where his glasses would have rested if they had been there. There was no sign of them, but he could see crystal clear. Clear enough to see how wrong-wrong-wrong the entire Ministry looked. It made his skin crawl. The floor was a nice marble, now. The walls were wood paneled and, overall—it looked plain.

Which was better than the self-chosen ostentatious self-importance of before.

But it was still wrong.

Harry pressed his lips together and kept close to the walls as he skirted around the atrium—and came to a dead stop. For a moment. Someone ran in to his back, and swore at Harry as they roughly skirted around him. Harry couldn’t help buy ignore them, though.

The atrium statue had been replaced. Again. Again again. Of course the statue that the Voldemort regime had instated had been torn down the same day as his demise. But the statue that had been erected in its place had been a simple statue of three tall golden wands crossed. Still ostentatious. But equal, in a sense. Hermione had reasoned that it was supposed to represent the three levels of blood status.

Those were not wands.

It was… a giant golden peacock.

“This is too much…” Harry mumbled to himself as his feet drew him toward the statue. It was raised up on a wooden platform. The details of the feathers were so life like, that Harry wouldn’t have been surprised if the bird breathed. It didn’t, but it sure looked like it.

Harry rubbed his face, re-shouldered his bag, and resolutely shook his head. He didn’t want to deal with this right now. As wrong-wrong as the ministry was, the outside couldn’t be that different. Diagon Ally had remained unchanging for decades. What was a few decades more?

Harry soon came to find that he was so, so wrong.

There were sidewalks and curbs. There was a nice brick road now, fairly even and far better than the old cobblestone. Harry walked to where Knockturn Alley had been and found it missing. Entirely. The whole street was gone and had been expanded in to some kind of large park with a… library building?

Harry walked to it, and soon stood in front of the ‘Grand Granger Library’. Harry tilted his head to the side, if only to right the off feeling of tilting the world was doing. The sun was setting, there were children on the play stations of the park—and everything was just… too bright.

Harry mutely turned away from the library and moved on. The buildings were cleaner. Straighter. The displays looked nicer. There were teenagers waving signs in the streets, doing tricks for small crowds. Signs that advertised their sponsor stores. Harry eventually just let his eyes lock to the bricks and plodded along. He just needed to get to the Leaky Cauldron. Once he was there he could… could…

Not get a room. Because he had no money.

He turned on his heel and marched to…

Not Gringotts. Or, perhaps as Frank stated ‘Modernized Gringotts’.

The majestic marble pillars were still there. But the actual front of the building had been changed to modern reflective glass. The goblin guards were gone. Harry stood in front of the building for a short minute, and silently begged for his own sanity that the inside would be the same. That they just added the front to put in better light.

It was not the same.

Harry felt cold. And he felt twitchy. He needed to leave.

But all the same, he forced himself inside. To a reception area with multiple human tellers and many humans standing in line in front of rows of desks. They even had uniforms that reminded Harry of muggles. Harry focused on his breathing, focused on the way the card he had been given cut in to his hand from how tightly he held on it. He got in line, and successfully stamped down the urge to flee.

Harry didn’t know how long it took the line he selected to get to the front. He felt exhausted—the same exhausted he had fought against during Auror training. Harry just wanted to lay down and not move an inch for a few months.

The blond lady on the other side of the counter reminded him of Lockhart.

“Hello! Welcome to Gringotts incorporated. My name is Deliah. How may I help you?” She was young, perhaps a bit past her teens. There was a little plaque on the desk that looked like the Hufflepuff badger.

Harry pressed his lips together and then held out the card. “Um, how do I use this?”

Deliah smiled and accepted the card gingerly before putting it in front of her on the desk. She pulled a notebook closer and used a pen to scrawl a series of numbers on to the top of the page. “It’s a new card, when it is activated it changes from green to gold. Let’s get you set up, okay Mr. Wallowby.” She was definitely winning the award for sunny disposition, Harry had come to find.

As well as the fact his name was apparently Chris Wallowby. What kind of name was even that?

Harry numbly accepted pamphlet after pamphlet from the woman. He had a nice stack in his hands that gave step by step instructions on how to work and access ATMs in the Wizarding Sections versus the Mundane ATMs.

He was starting to think his brain was shutting down. Nothing was going in.

“Um… how do I… make withdrawls?” Harry asked. Because this card thing—he was not prepared to handle it at this moment. He needed cold, hard cash in his hands. Deliah smiled and pointed to a crowded wall.

“We have some cash machines here. And tellers over there to assist you through a first time withdrawal. It’ll dispense notes or coins. Currency of your choosing.” She closed a folder on the desk, slid the card in to a fancy looking wallet, and slid the bunch to Harry.

“Now, do you have any questions about anything?” Deliah asked brightly.

Yes. Harry had many questions. For one, where were the damn Goblins? Sure, Harry did not have a good relationship with them, but having a bank without Goblins rubbed him the wrong way. There were Aurors stationed here.

Harry numbly shook his head negatively.

“Have a lovely rest of your evening!” Deliah concluded brightly. Harry picked up his folder and new (apparently) complimentary wallet and stepped out of the line. He loitered for a moment before he went to the named cash machines. They were large screens with a rectangle of numbered keys and slots and… and everything just blurred. A woman was there in blue that walked him through it, and soon Harry had several paper notes and coins and was walking away.

He felt cold.

Very, very cold.

It felt like he was walking through a fog. The crowds had thinned, and the sticky hotness of the summer had faded to something crisp and easing. Harry drifted to the side, and found a nice space of curb to perch on so he could open his transfigured bag and shove everything inside.

The face of the octopus was pressed against the glass. And gave off a nice shining light of day that had Harry squinting. “… uh. Hey. I’ll, uh… get you out of there soon. Lets… um.” Harry stared blankly at the octopus for a few minutes.

“… what do you even eat?”

A quick trip to the pet shop found that they didn’t deal with aquatic animals. Or at least, didn’t know what his octopus ate or even how to take care of it. Harry rubbed his eyes and focused on the octopus. It was just an animal, an animal that was in his care and he could take care of it. He didn’t need to think about anything else aside from feeding the both of them and getting a place to sleep for the night. He didn’t need to panic. He just needed to focus on these basic needs and build up from there.

He has had enough shocks for the day.

Flourish and Blotts was still there. Perhaps double the size. And a small café situated on the sidewalk in front of them. Harry padded inside and nearly ran in to wrinkly older man in a black uniform. Harry went stiff and shuffled back a few steps.

“Good evening,” the man rasped with a quirked little smile. “Could I help you find what you’re looking for?” Harry felt something like chills go down his back as the man’s eyes traced his face (and some distant, squeamish part of Harry wondered if this man was someone that had gone to school with him).

“Yeah… um. I have a small octopus. I don’t know how to care for it…” Harry let the words tumble out before the silence between them grew uncomfortable.

The man nodded, “our animal care and information section is this way. Main floor.” The man shifted, and Harry could swear he heard a few pops as the old man moved. The man held out an arm, and motioned for Harry to follow along. Harry hesitated, and then plodded along after the old man through the aisles. They towered above him, and Harry felt his stomach unclench as he spotted the thin climbing ladders and rows upon rows of familiar looking books.

Harry breathed in the smell of books, and wondered when books were a thing he could possibly enjoy. The old man led him past the huge books of owl care, how to care for a frog, and a tell-all book about how to make a cat familiar fall in love with their owner. Harry rubbed the side of his face as he eyed the books, and came to a stop next to the older man.

“I collected frogs, when I was younger. I always had a love for the ocean after that,” the man said as he reached out and drew a shiny covered book down and held it out to Harry. It was a book about octopi. General information, it seemed. A pamphlet soon followed, titled in brightly colored letters ‘so now you have an octopus’ that Harry had no doubt was geared toward a much younger reader.

It had sections listed for ‘feeding’, ‘aquarium care’, ‘life time expectancy’ and Harry figured this worked well enough.

… the little guy was only going to live for a year? At best? Harry pressed his lips together, eyebrows drawing to a close as he felt his heart clench at the thought. He shook his head and focused his eyes on what they ate. The list was simple and with good variation—crabs, crayfish, mollusks, shrimp, small fish. Harry hummed, it seemed easy enough.

Even if it was just for a year, this octopus would get to eat nicely.

“Does this help?” The old man asked.

Harry nodded.

“Do you need any more help locating another book?” The old man asked, hand out and patting Harry on the shoulder. Harry smiled and gingerly maneuvered his shoulder out of the way as best as he could without alienating the man.

Harry started to negatively shake his head, but paused and said “um, a history book. Just, um…. Modern history?”

“Mundane or Wizard?” The man asked, and once they had decided on wizard, they climbed a swirled staircase to the second floor. Harry accepted the man’s help and got a book that gave a nice overview of Wizarding history as a whole. And another book about the last century. Harry really wanted to know what happened to the Goblins.

(And everything else—but that would come in time.)

Harry thanked the old man, made his purchases, and left the bookstore. He stopped by the pet store again and picked up some small fish for the time being. Everything was going smooth, so Harry decided to keep to this zen state and get everything that needed getting done, done.

The Leaky Cauldron was run by a woman. Harry blurred through the encounter. He got his room, got supper on a tray, and squirreled away in to a room that looked similar to what he had been in the last time he had to take a room out. Harry set the aquarium on his desk next to his supper tray and let the live fish drop in to the tank. The octopus stared at him for a time before it started to chase. Harry sealed the top and let out a sigh.

Harry pulled out the chair and looked at the simple sandwich-soup combo.

It tasted like ashes and anxiety. He choked it down and shoved it in to the take away box that the house elves would pick up from the room. Harry stretched across the bed and buried his face against the pillow.

It felt like seconds when he jerked away and groaned, a futile hand coming out to block the sunlight as he rolled on to his back. His head pleasantly empty and his eyes locked on to his outstretched hand.

Even the backs of his hands were littered in scars.

Where his words had been (I must not tell lies) was just a big blotch of raised scar. Harry ran his fingers over that, and shivered at the sensitivity of the skin. That was not pleasant. “I should get some potions or something.” Harry spoke to himself as he sat up. He looked to the aquarium, and found the octopus floating lazily. “And you need a name,” he added.

A glance to his bag on the floor showed the contents all spilled out. Right where he had left them. His books were on the floor as well. Harry glanced between the shoebox and the books—what should he open? Harry slid off of the bed and padded the two steps necessary to reach the mess. He picked up the books and placed them on the desk first. He neatly angled them in line with the aquarium, and then set the rest of the contents of the bag on the desk.

Shoebox. Shrunken motorcycle. New Wallet. Bank folder.

Harry peaked in to the folder, and stared at the name. Chris Wallowby. Honestly.

He pushed the folder away and grabbed for the shoebox. He slowly eased the lid off and dropped it to the floor.

Harry pulled out the cloth first. It didn’t take a genius to realize that the box contained wizard space. The padded motorcycle suit stained in blood and rips was not something Harry cared for. Harry stood from the chair and shook it out. It was definitely his size—Harry brought it to his shoulders and checked for a tag inside. No tag. Anywhere.

He banished the blood, but left the rips. The pockets were empty, so he tossed that on to the bed and returned to the box. There was a wallet in the box. Soft black leather that felt like it cost far too much money to aquire. There were several punch cards. A few train tickets between France and Italy amongst the notes. Harry didn’t know the conversion rate of Italian notes to British, but the sheer amount of notes had him suspecting that there was a lot of money in here.

The I.D. card said…. ‘John Smith’.

“… For real?” Harry huffed a laugh at his own make-up covered face. It looked like his face was barely withholding a scowl. He chuckled at himself and added the wallet to the desk. This was interesting, rummaging through the box.

The motorcycle gloves. Harry definitely liked those and they fit snugly over his hands. He wiggled his fingers, and felt less naked for it. The purple styled flame on the palm of the left glove was interesting.

“Red is my favorite color,” Harry told himself. Even with his memories altered—even that had changed? Harry shuddered and pushed his thoughts away from that as he blindly reached for the next thing.

“… huh.” Harry delicately held up the black pistol between his thumb and index finger like how one held a particularly horribly soiled nappie. “Huh,” he said again, as the next several guns came out of the box. All of them had a purple flame painted on to them.

"What?” Harry turned the box upside down and let the empty bullet shells rain out.

“What the fuck happened!” The calm had definitely shattered.