Harry was laughing.
Ah… but he was also screaming.
Because this was hilarious right?
Just as it was in equal parts absolutely horrific.
Sickening, obviously.
But also hysterical in a way only someone who'd completely lost their marbles would find the edge of despair to be.
And so he was laughing a full-bellied laugh of utter hysteria, but never let it be said that he wasn't also screaming.
Forget being locked in a dusty shed, there had to be a world outside of this dark bubble he'd been trapped in for god knows how long, and that world was going to hear him because there was no way—NO WAY—he was going to just go quietly.
He had just enough presence of mind not to take his wand to the shed, and also to slip the muggle-repelling ward stone back into his bag to negate the effects. Because while he knew he had lost it, he was also after blood.
Let them come to me.
He didn't need a wand.
Wands were for wizards, for humans—and he just entirely gave up on the entire stupid concept of being anything but some crazed creature locked in a box that was about to go feral if someone didn't let him out right the fuck now.
He ran and threw his tiny body with all the energy he had left at the locked doors of the shed, and the tiny latch connecting the doors gave—but the chains locking the two metal handles together did not. It was enough to cause the doors to wobble drastically though as he tossed himself at it again, feeling a sharp pain in his shoulder as he did so but he didn't even bother caring about it.
Knowing he just didn't have the energy for that and he'd be no better than Dobby the house elf for ramming himself into a wall again and again uselessly, he kicked at the door. He couldn't keep his balance so he fell, but then he just sat on the ground and used both feet to kick at the door.
And he kicked, and kicked, and kicked, and kicked.
All the while shrieking as loud as he could because someone was going to hear him. He didn't give a fuck who it was—any Durlsey would be fine, but he was almost begging a neighbor to hear. What a laugh that would be! Having a neighbor come running at the blood-curling racket going on and finding the Dursley's delinquent nephew locked in a bloody shed.Pride didn't mean shit, and he didn't care about any damn neighbors. As soon as someone opened this door to shut him up he was out of here.
He ran of out energy kicking really quickly—even his blinding fury and desperation wasn't enough to fuel a body that hadn't eaten in a while—but as he slumped back onto the filthy wooden floor, in just inhaled as deeply as he could and screamed at the ceiling for all it was worth.
It legitimately probably sounded like there was a feral animal locked in here, but he didn't care.
He screamed until he ran out of air, simply panted a couple times, breathed in as much as he could, and gave it another go.
And again.
And again.
And again.
He felt his vocal chords go out, and his throat burned something awful, but he refused to stop. The broken voice made the screams sound even more inhuman though, which satisfied him in some way.
He was extremely dizzy from the lack of air as he managed his breathing poorly, but it felt good to get it out. What was it Pomfrey had said, what felt like lifetimes ago? Let your emotions run their course?
Yeah, well, here it was.
He was so dizzy and focusing on screaming so hard, that he almost didn't notice the chains on the door rattling, and someone else shouting to compete with his shrieks. Almost.
But he did, and he cut himself in shock to realize he recognized the voice.
Vernon.
He clambered up, almost collapsing again but adrenaline now kicking in and somehow he got upright. That's right, he could…he could…
Blessed light flooded the small room and he hadn't counted on how badly that would hurt his eyes, but he didn't need to see to force himself forward. He ran, and he ran hard, into the light and just making a break for it.
He didn't make it far—but he was out, and that was a relief so intense it kind of hurt.
The air never felt so wonderful as a fresh breeze washed over his face, and it smelled like grass and gasoline, probably from someone mowing their lawn recently. How odd.
Almost as an afterthought, he realized someone was yelling near him, and he lashed out, too dazed to really care about how he couldn't move his arms properly—was someone holding onto him?— or see straight in his first light in months, or even hear because maybe he'd blown out his own eardrums screaming. It certainly felt that way, at least.
It wasn't until he hit the hard, yet somehow soft earth of the back yard and got a face full of bright green grass that he gathered some awareness, again the adrenaline filling in the gaps in his senses and putting things into clarity. Not the crystal clear vision he usually got when his heart started beating this fast, but awareness just enough not to be blind and deaf—which spoke to the state he was in right now.
Wait, grass?
He was so out of it, but he pressed his palms into the grass beneath him, marveling at it's smell and it's fantastic color.
Grass is awesome.
A hand wrapped itself around his arm and wrenched him up, and he held his breathe in panic—head snapping up and he was looking into a fully purple face of Vernon seeming to be exploding with rage.
"—dare you cause such a bloody racket first thing in the morning where any damn neighbor could hear!" he was hissing and the only thing Harry gathered from that was that it was morning. Had he been working through the night? Weird, his sense of time was so screwed. Also his eyes were seriously fucked because it seemed bright enough to be midday to him.
He was also unafraid right now, even being held up by the man who'd personally locked him in a cage not too long ago.
Also weird.
"Vernon, get inside!" He glanced and Petunia was on the back patio with her curlers in and still sporting her nightdress, a pale and disturbed looking Dudley hiding in the kitchen behind her at the scene they were making. His aunt looked drawn and her eyes were darting around nervously, clearly worried about who was hearing all of this.
"This blasted boy-!" Vernon moved, clearly going to do as commanded and drag them both inside—but it suddenly clicked with Harry that he was free.
He just needed to get out of this grip, and he'd be free.
"NO!" He bellowed as loud as he could, getting a foot up thanks to Vernon holding him but his arm to plant his foot in the man's stomach and kick for all he was worth. It probably wasn't that hard given the state he was in, but the man was fat and probably thought a push up was a type of bra for how fit he was. The bulbous man gasped in shock and dropped him, and Harry felt panic mixed with unwarranted hope flood him as he hit the ground and tried to run.
Tried to as he clearly wasn't as fast as he used to be—something large and meaty hit him in the back and with enough force to launch him into the ground hard enough that he heard his wrist creak ominously, palms not quite catching him as they scraped against the earth and his arms giving out entirely. He didn't so much as catch himself as avoid face-planting—the side of his head still made sharp impact with the ground, and suddenly his world exploded in red.
Not blood, for once. Thank god for small mercies, there was no more blood.
It was the color of blood, but also of roses and apples and Christmas.
His hair was probably a bloody mess—he'd brushed it and tried to wash it with his water bottle the best he could, but he hadn't had a real shower in over a month now and he felt that.
Despite it all though, it had gotten long and he'd hidden it loosely under his beanie in preparation for his escape, but it'd fallen off when he hit the ground and now it was on full display to the people he'd hidden it from since the first streaks of red had started showing on his head. First his magic, now his hair.
For the second time this summer he felt entirely exposed on accident, and he braced for impact by curling onto the grass and covering his head with his arms. Not that it did a thing to hide the puddle of red flying about the back yard against the green grass, but he tried.
Vernon made an audibly shocked sound above him, and then predictably lost it.
"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL HAVE YOU DONE NOW YOU FREA-"
"VERNON."
Harry actually startled despite previously thinking he was immune and numb to any more shocks as an unfamiliar screech actually interrupted his uncle's shouting, and by the tone in his voice Vernon had been gearing up to go on quite a rant about people with freakish hair. Instead he'd been cut off dead by a shrill voice Harry thought he recognized, but he'd never actually heard her raise her voice like that, much less hear it so full of panic and desperation that he automatically looked up towards it.
The back yard was stunned silent for a minute as Harry stared at Petunia's now ashen face, and Vernon stared at his wife in shock she'd actually managed to drown him out. Petunia herself… was staring at Harry with an expression he'd never seen her wear, and he frankly wasn't sure he even knew what it meant.
Stunned muddy hazel met terrified emerald green.
There was a long… long beat of silence where everyone just stopped.
And they stared.
Vernon gathered himself first.
"Petunia what-"
"Let him go."
What…? Did she mean…?
Harry couldn't get his thoughts together, but Petunia's face crumpled into something nasty and bitter and acidic and she hissed at him. "Just go!"
He didn't need telling twice—he scrambled to his feet and bolted without looking back once. The instant he was clear of Vernon's reach his heart started beating more freely, and a couple seconds later he was in the front yard, then the street, and then working his way up towards a larger road as fast as he could. He made it to the playground at the other end of the neighborhood before he needed to catch his breath—he wasn't strong enough to be doing this and that was the most movement he'd done in weeks.
Still highly aware that he was still too close to the Private Drive, he tried to catch his breath by panting deeply as he walked at a more reasonable pace into the nearby woods, and kept walking. His whole body hurt from the sudden exertion, and everything he'd just gone through, but he couldn't think because he needed to keep moving.
He knew he was a mess, he couldn't just call the Knight Bus or walk out into muggle train station because he'd get way too many questions. He'd kept moderately clean but a month without a shower really spoke for itself, and as he looked down at his arms holding branches out of the way as he picked through the forest, he saw deep marks that would be thick bruises in no time. Particularly his wrist, which ached something terrible now that the adrenaline was wearing off.
And it was his writing hand too—that sucked.
Once deep enough into the forest that he'd at least be able to hear anyone coming, he sank down at the base of a tree and tried to think. He'd planned for this, he just had to get his thoughts in order and get there.
He also just needed to stop shaking first.
000
Harry was dead on his feet by the time he was finally safe—at least safe enough.
It sucked that it was morning when he'd managed to finally escape that damned shed; he'd calculated that pretty badly, but it was better than nothing. Better than spending a single second there longer than necessary, in fact, so he could deal with it. The unpleasant part came from increasing the length of the journey he needed to take to get away properly, but it had worked out eventually.
The easiest part had been getting to the muggle train station—he'd started by digging through his clothes and putting on a large plain grey sweatshirt that covered most of him, as well as put all his hair into a tight bun at the back of his head, covering it with a bandana to try and make himself look unmemorable. Especially with Dudley's old pants and shoes—yes he looked like a hoodlum but he was also tiny and twelve so like… a kid dressed as a hoodlum instead of actually being a delinquent. He noted the skin on his hands was… really pale, probably not healthily so, and took out his mirror to finally get a good look at himself in full light for the first time in well over a month.
To say he needed to lie down on the forest floor for a bit was an understatement.
Still, eventually he got up (he needed to keep moving) and pushed it from his mind and just tried to pretend like he wasn't starving and exhausted as he got to his feet once more. He'd half thought he could pull this off in Dudley's clothes and just put some make up on to hide everything else, but now he realized there was no way to go out there and actually pretend like he was fine. As soon as any adult saw him they were going to come up and ask questions, and he could not have that.
Luckily, the back up plan worked out so flawlessly that it probably should've been his first plan to be honest.
It was pretty simple—an invisibility cloak and a broom worked wonders, and he was at a train station in less than a minute. He kind of wished he could go all the way to London like that, but seriously doubted he'd remain conscious on a broom that long (it was easy for him, but not effortless to fly and the last thing he wanted was his weak muscles giving out a hundred meters in the air). Instead he kept the cloak firmly on to stay out of sight and hung around the train station until the next train to London came in.
An invisible boy on a train had an easy time, which was a blessing because he was in desperate need of an easy time for once. He did buy a ticket just in case for some reason he had to take the cloak off and got questioned, but as no one even knew he was there to ask to see it and no one bumped into him on accident, he wasn't bothered once. In fact, he took a heavy nap and woke when he was almost there, which was awesome even if it did make him feel more tired and groggy than before if that was possible.
Once in London, things got a little harder. There were a ton of people around so not getting bumped into while he was invisible was a challenge, and then trying to navigate when he had neither a map nor could he take off the cloak to ask anyone directions was a bit of an issue. He was tired as hell so walking god-knows how far to find what he was looking for didn't seem appealing, but he really had no choice.
The only good thing, was food.
And by food, he meant the food that he stole from convenience stores, food trucks, and right off people's plates at restaurants he passed and that no one stopped him from taking since, you know, invisibility cloak.
I take it back Dad, this thing isn't useless it's freaking amazing and I'm glad you passed it down.
He did feel a little bad, but also not that bad at all. He was hungry, and so far beyond caring he swiped with reckless abandon as he shoved what he could in his bag for later and munched away at hot food he swiped right off people's plates right then and there—and it was delicious.
Not too much as only a couple bites and he felt like he was going to throw up, not having eaten enough for his stomach to be used to suddenly getting this much, but as he had a lot of time to kill he could wander and swipe as he pleased and eat as slowly as he needed to.
The issue with getting out of the shed first thing in the morning was that he needed to wait until it was later at night to get away with sneaking into a hotel. He couldn't do it outright as even if he didn't look like a ghoul right now, he was still a twelve year old kid and no matter how seedy the establishment, him asking to stay alone would cause questions, if not issues if they decided to call the cops. Even if he said he was just waiting on his parents or guardian to catch up, eventually he'd need to provide said guardian and that wasn't going to happen.
So, he waited until night.
And thankfully, it was just after dark when he finally found it: a very small, really sketchy looking motel especially far on the outskirts of the city where the buildings were shorter and more suburban looking that near the center of the activity—not to mention the broken gates and graffiti said there probably weren't too many eyes watching in this area. The person working the front desk was this greasy, overweight guy with a serious bald spot watching the TV on the desk instead of the front door, so he didn't even notice it swing open of it's own accord behind him, and more importantly neither did anyone out on the street. From what Harry saw there were no cameras in this place, and when he snuck around the counter to get an idea of the process they had here, he was thrilled to see a big paper calendar grid and a pin board full of keys with numbers on them, about half the hooks empty.
The calendar had several people's handwriting on it, and luckily a couple of them had pretty bad penmanship. Double checking the guy was thoroughly distracted by his movie beside him, Harry's invisible hand borrowed a pen to scribble in Joe Grey across three days in one of the empty rooms, approximating one of the sloppier handwritings, and then nicked the matching key.
He wasn't sure this would work for more than three days—after two they might wonder why there was no card on file, or more like no cash paid up front since this seemed like the place to do that, but he wasn't planning on actually sticking around that long.
Honestly, he just needed a day.
Once in the room matching the key number he'd taken, he promptly locked the door and shoved the desk chair under the door handle. He finished his precautions off by fishing out his muggle repelling ward stone and sticking it on said chair so no muggle would even come close to the door at all. None of this would stop a wizard, but frankly he wasn't concerned about witches and wizards at this moment.
Precautions complete, then he breathed a sigh of relief.
He took neither his bag nor his shoes off as he collapsed on the bed, and was out like a light.
000
He woke, predictably, from a nightmare.
He was so over it though, and still so bone-tired from not getting any true sleep, he just sat up and took a couple minutes to breathe deeply and gather himself. He felt like shit, but… there was light coming through the curtained windows, and the room smelled a bit moldy and sweaty, but it didn't smell like a shed so it was an absolute win on every level.
First thing he did was open the curtains, and let light wash over him. He enjoyed it for a minute… and then also enjoyed being able to tell it was morning. Mid-morning maybe?
Oh yeah, he was free now, he could actually look at a clock. Which he did, only to be confirmed he was right—it was 9:17am.
Wait—August 10th?
He did a double take and then had to grip the windowsill hard to keep the dizziness that realization hit him with from knocking him down. He'd lost… so much time. Horrifyingly enough, he probably would've bet money it was still July if you'd asked him five minutes ago, and if that wasn't a sucker punch…
I never once saw sunlight in July, a terrible little voice whispered at him from a dark corner he didn't want to turn and face.
It was damn near poetic really, the thought. If not absolutely gut-wrenchingly horrifying too.
He shook it off, needing to… he needed to…
He needed to eat, he realized, and finally took off his bag and his shoes, pulling out some of the food he'd stolen yesterday and had a joy of a time finally eating what he wanted. He still couldn't eat that much, but he ate what he could before he started to get nauseous and then drank a ton of water, finally heading to the shower.
Which, was appropriately filthy for a seedy motel like this and there was a half-used shampoo bottle in there which under any other circumstance Harry would've avoided like the plague but now was not the time to be picky. It would do for now, and he'd take another shower at the earliest opportunity, which would hopefully be this afternoon.
He used all the hot water the entire place had, he was sure, because it was nearly noon when he finally emerged from the bathroom scalded and scrubbed as clean as he could get himself, and somehow he'd also avoided looking at himself in the mirror too. He knew he couldn't avoid it forever, but just for now…
He gathered everything he had just in case, eating just a little more although he still felt a little too sick to eat much more than that, then donned the cloak one more time for another excursion now that he felt a little more human.
It was not hard to find a nearby convenience store, they seemed to be on every street corner, but it was hard find one that had makeup that wouldn't make him look like a clown. Seriously, most of it was orange-tinted or glittery which was extremely unnerving. When he finally did track some down, he nicked it unrepentantly.
He did make note of the store name and general price of what he'd taken to tell Axeclaw about it later though, because while he stole without hesitation in his hour of need but he wasn't that bad.
He only made one last trip back to the motel to use their bathroom, and finally faced what he'd been dreading.
The mirror.
He understood he was unreasonably vain and petty on a good day, but you know what he didn't have to defend himself about his vain habits now of all times when it was so far outside of his realm of 'things he could deal with' he barely even hesitated when stealing the make up in the first place. Besides even people who were self-confident in their appearance would be hiding under an invisibility cloak if they could if they looked like this.
The best description he had was that of a ghoul. And as his seriously disturbed expression stared back at him in the mirror, it only got worse.
He'd never thought of himself as particularly tan, nor particularly pale—he'd worked outside his whole life for the Dursleys doing chores, or running around town avoiding Dudley, but since he started taking care of himself he also always wore enough sun screen to only rarely get sunburned or come close to real deep tans. He'd spent a lot of time outside doing yardwork right before his time in the shed, and gotten plenty of sun then.
All of it was gone now. He was not only pale, but pale enough that he definitely looked terminally ill and borderline grey in some places. He was sure his own disgust and uneasiness about his appearance did not help his pallor, but given that obtaining dreamless sleep potions and calming draughts was high on his list of to-dos, he didn't expect that to change anytime soon.
He was thin. Not like lithe and delicate thin, but a slightly too boney and pointy thin. Thankfully you could barely notice it in his face despite it being definitely not as round as it used to be after all of Hogwarts' feasts last year. It hadn't been nearly long enough without food to make his cheekbones stick out too much, but his neck and his collarbones gave it away instantly. The shadowed dips of his collarbone in particular and the hollows of his shoulders were so unnatural they caught the eye, and it was pretty obvious what caused it. Reluctantly taking his shirt off to take a look, he also saw it on his ribs and in the dips of his hips. Luckily not that badly there—his collarbone seemed to be the biggest give away for some reason.
Still, he would not be changing in front of his roommates or quidditch teammates for the foreseeable future.
He also wasn't thrilled to notice all the scars he'd accumulated since only a year ago. The one on his shoulder really was a thin white line, but you could still see it even standing a couple feet from the mirror like he was. The two on his face were as noticeable as ever—the one on his forehead the beacon it'd always been but the new one on his cheek not nearly as faded as Pomfrey told him it'd be. He didn't want to call her a liar, but maybe her definition of barely visible simply did not match his. She'd already underestimated how vain he was once, after all.
The ones he wasn't sure about were all the new ones on his hands. They were a solid pink, but seemingly to be fully healed. House elf magic seemed different than wizard magic, as Pomfrey could be more delicate when healing cuts than Dobby had been, but his understanding was that Pomfrey had taken longer. Dobby healed them with a snap, but it seemed they'd frozen as they were—gaping cuts had frozen over with a scar, so now that otherwise thin line it might've been even with muggle stitches was stuck as a semi- wide wedge cut from his skin since they hadn't been treated otherwise before instantaneously healing.
Given the elf wore a filthy tea towel and seemed willing and eager to seriously damage himself for disobeying his master, Harry shouldn't have expected he'd care one bit about appearances.
He flinched, thinking of Dobby's masters and pushed it aside for now.
Make-up, Diagon Alley, calming draughts, then bad thoughts please.
He had more than enough practice covering his lightning bolt scar with muggle make up, but the process of applying make up to his whole face was another challenge all by itself. Skills at covering one scar did not translate to being able to apply it full-face, nor the challenge covering grey, unhealthy skin with deep circles under his eyes turned out to be. It took him far too long and a lot of wasted makeup, and he was really hoping Pomfrey lived up to her promise of teaching him glamours as soon as possible in the coming school year.
Far too long later, he was kind of presentable and compensated by brushing out his blissfully clean hair to frame his face as much as possible, letting it hang as much over him as he could, trying to distract from his actual appearance which may or may not be wearing too much make up yet still not covering everything wrong with him.
I really need to get out of the muggle world. Wizards accept stranger things without thinking twice about it, I'll blend in better, he mused as he packed up everything after giving up with what he had so far. His clothes he figured were easy—he'd pulled out a long sleeve shirt and a blue bandana to wear around his neck that would look strange as hell in mid-August weather but you know, better than letting people see it. He could cover the grey tone with makeup, he couldn't change the thin, too stretched skin of his neck that easily.
So before he pulled on the cloak, he fixed his hair to fall as much as it could around his face and over his neck, and then took off from the motel without glancing back.
000
It took most of the day to navigate by foot to Diagon Alley, but once he was in the general area he was able to zero right in on it. He didn't bother with the pub, the inn, Gringotts, or any shop down the entire alley, he simply beelined for the shop towards the very southernmost end to the one with the pale blue roof according to the note Madam Pomfrey had written him. When he walked in, the young woman at the counter didn't even look up from the magazine she was leafing through as she greeted him.
"Welcome to Killian's Kures, let me know if you'll be needing anything today." She recited in a thick accent automatically as if she was conditioned to say it to the chime of the bell above the door ringing.
He didn't even bother answering as it was clear she'd be happier if he left her to her reading, he just followed the signs on the shelves pointing him in the right direction. He was more than familiar with what these potions looked like by now so he actually spotted them from afar and went right up.
He could come back, he knew. He wasn't leaving the alley again for a while, he could just come back when he needed more.
And… he expected to need (want?) more.
So for today he swiped three dreamless sleep potions and five calming draughts. As that was a little on the nose for what was wrong with him, he scanned the shelves for other things he though might be handy—being sure to read when their stasis charms would wear off as he hadn't considered that before Pomfrey explained it to him at the start of summer. He settled for a couple mild pain relievers with a shelf life of six months, a couple nutrient potions he recognized as having taken in the hospital wing before, and a fever reducer. He also tossed in a couple bandages and cut-mending ointments. There, it looked like he was just re-stocking his medicine cabinet or something.
Not that it mattered, as the woman ran him up without even sparing him a glance, and immediately went back to her magazine.
000
Harry didn't like being stared at.
He thought this was the one place no one would care—the girl at the potion store didn't care, and he would've thought goblins really wouldn't care.
He was stupid to think that though, as it occurred to him that if the wizard who owned the money they guarded died, that money would stagnate in a vault until someone came to collect it. And as Harry had no kids and no family who'd know about this (fuck the Dursleys, seriously at this point) that was probably a very serious thing.
At least that was his theory, but it really didn't matter in the end, because the point was he was getting at was that he didn't like being stared at, and he was getting stared at pretty seriously while sitting in Gringotts across from Axeclaw, who was doing the staring.
And he had been, for about five minutes now.
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
Eventually…
"I see you recently bought calming draughts at Killian's." the goblin announced in his gravelly tone.
Harry blinked. "Uh… that updates fast, but yeah, I did. Like twenty minutes ago."
"Did you take one?"
"Yes?"
"Take another."
"Um… I just took-"
"Take another."
"Can you stack potions like-"
"Yes."
Harry couldn't really form a response to this terse conversation, so he just pulled one out of his bag and took another one as commanded. He did feel remarkably better, although he was sure a lot of his accumulated tension was because he'd been stared at in dead silence for several long minutes.
Axeclaw really didn't have any facial expression aside from scowling, but Harry got the impression he was satisfied with that. Maybe he just didn't want to deal with emotional humans, which Harry could kind of empathize with.
"Fine. Contrair Alley, you said."
"Yes, I saw apartments above the shops down there and wondered if any are open to buy or lease." He pressed, and the goblin blinked once, before hopping off his large chair and teetering over to a bookcase where he removed a large blue tome and brought it back with him. It made a huge thud when he tossed it up onto the desk, and a minute or so of shuffling pages as he flipped to the right one, he hummed a moment as he pondered whatever was written in there.
"Hm… how urgent is this request?"
"I'd like to go there now, if possible. I'd rather not stay at the inn… or any inn." Harry admitted.
The goblin stared at him some more… before lowing his eyes back to the page and nodding. "It's decent property but I would not advise purchasing at this time. If the intent is to make an actual investment then it would require more research and perhaps judging the market more carefully than… as soon as possible. Since this is an urgent need I could perhaps arrange a lease for one of the smaller options; if you're moving in today you would still have to pay the full month, and likely the rest of the year as well as a security deposit. For the inconvenience of arriving so suddenly." He explained, and Harry had already assumed as much, though not in as many words.
It was more secure than the inn though.
"I'm okay with paying any fee to expedite it. Also, could I pay to have it warded with everything you think I'd need not to be bothered by anyone?"
Again, the goblin stared.
But he did nod. "For a fee, of course."
Harry nodded back. "I want to do it."
"I'll have the paperwork settled in two or three hours; I will summon you back here to sign the appropriate pieces." Axeclaw closed the large tomb, and pushed it aside. He pulled out a small stack of papers and slid them across the desk, to Harry's surprise. And he startled a bit, to pick them up and see the Ministry's seal on the top one.
"On another note, since Gringotts is managing your mail wards, we scan everything that comes in. Predictably most of it is junk or fan mail that is sent to your donation vault if you wished to see it. Anything we deemed urgent would've been forwarded, however things that you may have interest in that are not explicitly urgent I simply held for when you would next visit. There are two in particular I think may be of some interest." He explained the envelopes, and Harry lifted the top one with the Ministry's seal with numb fingers.
"From the Ministry?"
"A warning, for underage use of magic. We received one over a month ago, and another just yesterday."
Harry felt… dizzy.
"Take another draught." Axeclaw's sharp tone cause him to blink out of it, and wondered when his breathing had become so labored. Oh… he'd never heard a goblin raise their voice before and it was kind of terrifying—or would be if he could process things normally. He wasn't stupid enough to argue about it either, so he just automatically pulled one from his bag and downed it, not even noticing the taste if even there was one.
"If this were an actual cause for concern I would've forwarded it immediately as urgent—however these notices are system errors at best. As you are utilizing our wards, we have full access to magical signatures around them, which includes your mail ward which centers around your person. It was easy to differentiate between actual magic use and accidental magic; and while rare it does sometimes happen. It would be a simple matter to fill out the paperwork to have the warnings overturned, which I could do this afternoon." Axeclaw explained.
For a fee, went unspoken, and frankly Harry didn't care.
"Yes please. I don't care about the fee."
"Very good," Axeclaw made a note in his journal off to the side.
"Can I ask…" The goblin lifted his head, and Harry felt stupid for asking but he had to know. "How is it… I mean the Ministry knew I used magic in any form and just sent the letter? There are no checks?"
"The ministry is using an automatic magic detecting ward provided by Gringotts. It wasn't exactly a premium service if you understand, so it is restricted to names, locations, and any amount of magic. It is placed around the person and residence of every student whose name is on the Hogwarts roster, but all it does it register magic. In a magical household it is pointless, as it's always on, and those cases are disregarded. In mostly muggle households it only registers magic of any type. As you are my client being accused, of course I took the step to verify if it was you who cast the magic to find out the truth—it was a mere case of accidental magic which is allowed so long as no muggles are harmed or impacted, and a house elf for some reason which doesn't count towards your record. The ward the Ministry uses is not nearly so refined, nor mere wizards capable of reading wards like the goblins can, of course."
The ministry paid for a cheap ward essentially just to keep an eye on muggleborns, is what I'm hearing. And that cheap ward only triggers at any magic—even if there are types of magic totally allowed given certain circumstances.
"Thank you for explaining that." He managed to get out numbly.
He was insanely grateful he hadn't gotten these notices while he was in the shed, because if he'd received them without Axeclaw's logical explanation and thought he was about to be expelled for something he couldn't control, he would've lost everything holding him back from going absolutely postal and blasting himself free—as well as all three of the Dursleys into unrecognizable pieces.
Huh, maybe he and his imprisoned godfather would get along after all.
He winced, thoughts of Sirius Black stinging even through three calming draughts.
Axeclaw seemed to notice, one intense yellow eye fixed on him warily.
"I believe that should conclude our business for today as I've much to do to arrange your new lease. I will summon you back to sign the paperwork." The unspoken, I don't want to deal with you while you're like this didn't need to be said, because Harry heard it clearly anyway.
"Thank you, Axeclaw." He got out as he grabbed his bag, looking forward to finally having a place to rest properly.
"And Mr. Potter." Harry turned as he was almost to the door, Axeclaw laying gnarled hands over his papers pointedly. "You seem unaware that it is easily done to have potions delivered if necessary. I would suggest you allowing me to order you an amount to be delivered to your new residence as five does not seem to be satisfactory."
Harry stared back at him this time.
"…okay, send as many as you deem necessary to the place. I'll be back for the paperwork."
000
Four hours later, when Harry entered a freshly warded, sparsely furnished, one-bedroom apartment with pale grey-green walls and a veritable crate sitting in the middle of the living space floor filled with calming draughts, he started to think maybe the brutal goblin actually cared.
Maybe he still only cared about all the money sitting in his vaults, but Harry felt touched all the same.
000
It was two days later Harry finally woke up feeling like he maybe actually slept a bit. Not energized or fully awake, as he still felt groggy with a bit of headache that refused to go away, but after using up four dreamless sleep potions pretty much in a row, only bothering to be awake between doses long enough to eat something, he did feel a bit better than he had. The fully warded apartment that locked with a magical key only he and Axeclaw would ever be able to enter, the muggle repelling ward stone now on the bedside table next to him, and the comfy queen bed the place came pre-furnished with did wonders to help him finally unwind.
But best of all, when he woke up and stretched away the many hours of solid unconsciousness, he heard a clinking sound to his left that was distinctly familiar.
And when he looked out the window, he cried openly to see a very annoyed Hedwig demanding to be let in.
She was not thrilled to be hugged outright as she was a bird, but she nipped at his ears much more gently than she used to in her own form of greeting.
Harry was a solid mess and had to take another calming draught before he was able to get a hold of himself, and he was glad he did when he spotted the letter tied around Hedwig's leg with a familiar scrawl in all capitals saying 'HARRY ANSWER ME RIGHT NOW' in all capitals.
He grimaced.
"Draco is probably mad, huh?" He asked his owl as he stroked her white feathers rhythmically, and the look she gave him implied that was probably a bit of an understatement. "Hedwig…"
He almost couldn't say it. To a bird and his first companion aside from Draco who could never betray his secrets but…
"Hedwig they didn't let me out since you left. It was the whole summer practically… it was so dark." He all but whispered as if it were shameful, and she cooed lowly—bumping her head into his gently.
000
There were so many things he had to say, but he couldn't think of where to even begin with it. He settled, eventually, to opening Draco's letter.
The inside matched the outside with all capital letters telling him to open his damn journal.
Which, Harry did not immediately do. He went and took a shower, ate as much breakfast as he could, and started to empty out his bottomless bag of all his worldly possessions. He was… not thrilled with how much had incidentally been ruined by his carelessly rummaging through it with his bloody hands, but he simply sorted out what needed to be tossed and what he would keep—he half thought he'd have outgrown some of his clothes and they'd need to be replaced, but found that ultimately not necessary. He hadn't grown tall enough in the last year to outgrow a single piece and in fact most of it was now a bit baggier than it'd once been.
He was still going to add clothes to his shopping list to prepare for the coming school year, but the realization wasn't great.
Clothes, more parchment, this year's textbooks… wait, I didn't get my Hogwarts letter yet did I? Maybe it's in the pile Axeclaw gave me—if its from Dumbledore it probably got blocked. Wait, did I add McGonagall to my mail wards? I should do that if I haven't… I'll need to make a list of people actually, I forgot to update those.
What else… I need another trunk, a new potions knife, new contacts for the year, hair cut obviously… new robes? I still fit in mine, but Draco will definitely tell me they're last season, whatever that means. It's a uniform, not sure how they could be last season.
It was easier to simply plan logically than it was to face any of the reasons for why he needed these things.
But it came down to him realizing he needed a new water bowl for Hedwig as his old one got lost somehow, not to mention fresh owl treats, but he caught himself as he was about to leave the apartment.
Planning is one thing, I shouldn't… I need to answer Draco before I do anything else. Stop procrastinating idiot! He scolded himself sharply and forced himself to turn around and walk back to the kitchen table he'd left all his relevant papers on, Draco's letter sitting unaddressed over an eerily stained journal. He gave a sigh, grabbing a calming draught before sitting down and finally opening the journal for the first time since before he decided to cut his way from the shed. Honestly, he couldn't quite pinpoint how many days that was, but it was over a week for sure.
Which, was probably the longest he'd gone without talking to Draco in some way since he met the boy, by several days.
He took a steadying breath, and opened the journal.
Pages and pages of it were filled with Draco's handwriting. Predictably it started as it always had, mostly as a monologue from him as Harry was less than responsive as he had been all summer, but after about six pages of that he started asking questions. Normal things, like 'how are you?' or 'what have you been doing?'. No answer from Harry, of course.
It quickly turned into rather delicate, but no less insistence that he answer him, that his silence was unnerving him. Then it quickly spiraled into demands he answer, and in less than a page he was now writing in all caps and threatening to just show up at his house if he didn't answer soon.
Harry flinched at that, but was comforted that not even Draco would be able to have actually done that—he'd have needed his parents help to get his location from the Ministry, and while he didn't put that past the elder Malfoys he also didn't think they'd be happy to bend to their son's will after only a week of being ghosted. That logic wouldn't hold true forever though if he continued to not answer and the last thing he wanted was them showing up at Private Drive when Harry wasn't there. He literally had no idea what would happen, but he was sure he'd hate it.
Draco's last messages were very, very angry and demanding and Harry gave in, pulling out his quill and what ink he had left in resignation. He hated feeling this way—writing Draco used to be the highlight of his day be it while he was at the Dursleys or even in Hogwarts when there were a thousand other interesting things to preoccupy himself. It shouldn't be a chore, he shouldn't dread this.
He hated feeling this way, but he owed Draco something even if he wasn't sure where to start.
Hi, Draco. Sorry I haven't been answering.
Maybe he wasn't even at his desk yet or had his journal near him to answer, it was mid-morning so he could be out playing quidditch again or off doing something else and it'd be a while before he answers so Harry might have some time before he—
HARRY POTTER WHERE ON EARTH HAVE YOU BEEN YOU CAN'T DO THAT TO ME WHAT'S WRONG?
Or… not. The ink flooding the page was sloshing and not nearly as neat as normal; it appeared in a definite rush and Harry sighed. He felt guilty, which really didn't help all the other shitting emotions he had going on too.
Sorry. I'm fine though.
You didn't answer for days and then there was blood on the journal—what the hell was that? Dobby said you cut your hand.
I did. He fixed it with a snap though.
Of course he did, I told him to, but for some reason he won't tell me anything else and that's pissing me off. Since when do house elves hide things!?
Harry felt ice cold, unable to respond for a couple minutes. He had the urge to snap the book shut but he knew that wasn't fair… he needed to have at least this conversation even if he couldn't get to anything else. Because while he had… mixed emotions about Dobby, he also was absolutely distraught over the concept that the Malfoys owned that tiny creature.
And he had heard about house elves, he knew the general concept. Even Fred and George were chill about the whole concept, and Hogwarts even had them so… this was an accepted thing, and yet that accepted thingsounded a bit too close to slavery for him. Slavery had also been an accepted thing once upon a time in most of the world, but that didn't make it okay. The wizarding world was kind of backwards about a lot of stuff so if they were lagging even a century behind the muggle world, the chances that this was going to be sickening were pretty high.
And Harry… well, just considering it seriously overwhelmed him to the point he had to push away from the table and lean down, dry-heaving a bit as his hands got too clammy to write for a moment.
Draco owned Dobby.
He was… far too intimately aware of what feeling like a captive, a slave or a servant to someone felt like to probably ever be okay with that. The icy horror of even trying to confront it left him shaking a bit.
It's not Draco's fault, he tried to think it through logically, shaking hands opening his calming draught and downing it. Despite this feeling like… like betrayal in some sick way, it wasn't Draco's fault the same as him growing up in a dark family hadn't been. Since they'd met he'd tried so hard to change, and Harry had sworn he'd always support Draco as he navigated the waters of going from dark to grey, and this… this was no different.
It just hit way harder than hearing Draco's parents had once served the guy who'd made him an orphan for some reason. Maybe because the reason he'd ever been so desperate to have parents who loved him was so he didn't have to be near the Dursleys again, to be their own personal house elf locked in their cupboard—eventually their shed. Maybe it was because he'd still had control over himself back then, and he'd literally only known Draco a day before hearing about his family's dark nature—now they'd been friends for over a year and had literally thousands of pages written between the two of them… now learning something this drastic didn't feel like a warning flag, it felt like flat out betrayal.
It's not Draco's fault. He was raised this way, he didn't see a damn thing wrong with it. To the wizarding worldthere wasn't anything wrong with it. I still don't know enough about it besides Dobby who I don't really like to begin with…
But even as he thought that, he couldn't bring himself to think that he was wrong about his disgust right now either. Dobby had screwed him over, but he'd had flighty bandages wrapped around his hands and was dressed in filthy rags and seemed to want to disobey but just wasn't able to… wasn't able to defy without hurting himself…
The problem was, Draco had no idea what his issue was right now, and he wouldn't unless Harry manned up and told him. Draco would not know something was wrong and it was unfair to hold it against him without even talking.
But that meant he had to talk and he wasn't sure he knew how.
He went around in circles for several minutes trying to come up with something, sitting so long Draco responded first with a confused:
???
Harry signed, and picked up his quill once more.
Don't punish Dobby for my bad reaction. He seemed like he wanted to help, I think, I just don't know what about.
I guess—why did you stop writing?
He wanted to slam his head into the journal. Ask the easy questions first, eh Draco!?
He gave a heavy sigh and bit his lip as he tried to think.
Hard to explain over writing. Is Dobby okay?
The elf? He's an odd one—my father even asked him what was up with you but he wouldn't say, which is odd. Still he can't disobey the Malfoy family so father isn't worried too much about it. I just asked him to check on you since the blood freaked me out—he's a massive screw-up though amongst all the elves so it wouldn't shock me if he messed it up somehow. What happened exactly?
Harry's heart ached, and he ignored Draco's question outright.
You have other house elves?
A few, yeah. ?
Are any like Dobby? That they hurt themselves if they disobey?
Dobby is a freak of a house elf, the others are just fine doing their duties. A disobedient elf is a weird thing and so far as I know this one is the weirdest of all. He at least punishes himself without us having to do anything—house elves are meant to act one way and though he doesn't he seems to have enough sense to course correct himself, though it's incredibly bizarre.
So the rest truly were okay with being essentially slaves… Dobby was just unique. Harry wasn't sure if that actually comforted him or not.
Do you ever punish him on top of what he does to himself?
On and off, but not nearly as badly as what he puts himself through. Father kicked him around when he was playing his old part as a dark-sided wizard but I don't think he cares enough to notice what Dobby does or does not do so long as the cleaning is done. I know when I was very little I used to throw things at him, but that's just what kids do, isn't it?
His heart sunk, and he offered the page in front of him a dark smile. Draco was… complicated. Raised to be a terrible person, but still somehow good. He just didn't know the difference, or why this was so bad to Harry, but it still partially, if not entirely his fault too, given he'd never once mentioned or hinted at these hang up of his.
Don't punish him, please.
Okay?
Do you think he wants to work for the Malfoy family?
Well, house elves are house elves?? I don't think I ever considered what they want, since it's in their nature to serve.
Doesn't seem to be true with Dobby, now does it?
I guess? Harry, is everything alright? You don't write for days, there blood all over our journals, and then when you finally respond you ask a bunch of questions about my elf? The blood???? What happened?
Harry grit his teeth, but yet again did not answer.
It's not your fault, I never explained anything to you or let you know how I was feeling about these sorts of things. It just was hard to meet Dobby and know you own him.
I'm afraid I don't follow. Owning house elves is normal for pureblood families, isn't it? You knew about them from your reading and Hogwarts even has them.
I knew, but it's different knowing in your brain and then seeing with your eyes. I know it's normal and I'm sorry for being so weird about it, but it's just hard for me.
How?
It was such a simple question, but Harry… it made his head spin to try and confront it and he just couldn't.
"Me and my damn pride…" He sighed to no one, Hedwig fluttering over to perch on the back of the chair opposite him and give him a questioning look. He huffed. "I know… he deserves more than this but… but I just don't have anything to give him." He complained, fiddling with his quill for a moment.
Eventually:
I don't think I can explain that to you, Draco. We're too different of people to find common ground on this matter, and I don't want to get into it over written words. Maybe we can talk when we see each other again.
I suppose, although that doesn't sooth my concerns.
I don't suppose it does. Sorry.
Harry, is it something I did? With Dobby or house elves in general?
How could he possibly respond to that?
As you said, it's normal in the wizarding world. It's not your fault.
He bit his lip, hesitating a moment, but continuing before Draco could respond.
Maybe I just wish you could understand what I'm saying without me having to say it. And maybe I also want you to never actually understand what I'm talking about.
What? That makes no sense at all, you know that right?
My point exactly. Sorry Draco, we can talk next time I see you. Did you want to meet in Diagon to get our shopping done this week? I think maybe talking in person would be better. Easier, since clearly I'm no help over writing.
I guess so. Do not think I'm going to let the blood thing go when I see you, but I get that words are hard. I'll write to you later? I need to check with my parents on a good day.
Harry felt a bit too much relief to sense the conversation was coming to a close. He used to love writing Draco, when had it become this? He was right—words were hard.
Sure. Thanks, Draco.
Anytime.
000
They settled on the end of the week to meet up, only a couple days away which Harry found himself actually looking forward to despite also somehow dreading his talk with Draco.
Still, finally seeing a friend beyond Hedwig would be a relief. Just so long as he actually spent some time being his friend during the visit and not just a mother hen complaining about how he'd been ignored and worried the whole summer.
That was a bit cruel though, Harry knew his Slytherin friend just cared. Didn't make his emotions any less true.
He did find his Hogwarts letter eventually and made a list of what he'd need, but also a separate list of things he could do before Draco got there. He wanted to show Draco Contrair Alley but he wasn't sure if the pureblood would actually be up for buying anything there, so he got those stops out of the way first. That way he could hang around if Draco wanted to shop, but he didn't want to force Draco to hang around and let him shop if it turned out he wasn't into it. And, given his attitude towards muggleborns and muggle things in general, while improving steadily, was still a high possibility.
His first stop was Osmias' to check out his first investment and was happy to see the man himself both remembered him and was still doing pretty good business. He excitedly showed him all the new products he had, now having contacts that could change your eye color literally any color which was pretty cool. Harry liked his pretty distinctive green but he knew a lot of people would definitely be into it and had the thought that he should've told some of his muggleborn friends, or the more open-minded purebloods he knew, about this place. Blaise was just chaotic enough to not care it was an Odd Solution and just be happy to dye his eyes gold for no reason than he wanted to be dramatic as hell years before they were old enough to learn glamours or illusionment charms.
Osmias had re-run his diagnostic spells and informed him that his prescription was slightly worse than last year, and by his recollection on Potter eyes would continue to worsen until he was in his twenties, which was not great news but soothed by the fact he seemed totally confident in being able to provide contacts well up to that point. The shop owner then happily proved to be Harry's favorite in Contrair by noticing his not-so-invisible-currently invisibility cloak and showed him one of his new colored contacts that matched it almost exactly.
It was just a slight sheen, like the glancing rainbow in an oil contaminated puddle in a parking lot as bright sun hit it dead on. He even had to hold them up to the sunlight to actually see the effect—it was subtle and hard to spot but they were sparkly in the right sunlight. Indoors you'd likely not see them at all but in the right light…
Worth it, Harry grinned as he gleefully agreed to the impulse buy.
"Glad you like them! There's not a lot of people interested in the colors I've found, although people love the synesthesia glasses for some reason. I even made those as a joke!" Osmias chuckled good naturedly as he went about adding the right charms to the contacts Harry had picked out.
"Synesthesia glasses?" He wondered curiously.
"Sure, take a look." He pulled a glasses case from his display shelf and handed it over, and inside were wide rectangular lenses with colorful pink frames. He slipped them on and blinked at the odd world he saw through it—odd colors and wait was he tasting the color blue?
"Eh!?" He startled, taking them off quickly. "What was that!?"
"Mixing senses! Taste colors or hear scents, anything you can think of," He grinned proudly. "Not too useful but they're fun! I was messing around with perception charms and found that out."
"That's so cool," Harry blinked. "So you can enhance sense with a pair of glasses?"
"To a point, just like most of my contacts have enhanced night vision or the like. I got some fifth years asking to make a pair that'll help increase memory retention I think for their OWLs but haven't had any luck with that so far. If it's related to vision, I'm your man, but then you start getting into more complicated magic about enhancing one's mind and things get trickier. I'm down to learn but it's not my specialty." He chatted, finishing the contacts and beckoning Harry over to the stools that looked far more like hairdresser chairs. Since most wizards didn't know about contacts and Harry had no practice as this was only his second time putting them in, Osmias was nice enough to put them for him in like this was a proper eye-doctor visit.
"So could you make glasses that translate different languages you're reading?"
"I suppose, but there are candies for that already."
"Candies?"
"Sure. Like eat a French Bubblegum Pop and for an hour after you eat it you can speak and read and generally just understand French fluently. They're mighty handy, and probably more useful than a pair of glasses that would likely be restricted to one language, and just written word. Also people like candy, so that's a bigger appeal if you had to choose, I'd think!"
Harry hadn't ever heard of those candies but that was just awesome.
"What about diagnostic spells? Like, I've seen some of my Slytherin friends do diagnostic spells to check if their food is poisoned—even at Hogwarts. Could you make glasses that would show if something is poisoned or warded or something?"
Osmias paused in where he was about to put Harry's last contact in, blinking in surprise.
"Hm… that's actually a mighty fine idea! You must be a charming lad to have Slytherin friends; I don't get many, if any pureblood customers so the need never arose. Might open a whole new market if they would actually be interested in that, at least parents for their children if the kiddies don't know the right spells yet." Which, was a high probability as even Draco had confessed it was hard to learn those spells prior to coming to Hogwarts—he didn't even know all of them yet but his parents had insisted he knew at least some before leaving home.
"I think that'd be really cool. I'd definitely buy a pair and will tell my Slytherin friends. Odd Solution or not I know they'd at least be tempted."
"Good enough for me! I'll take a look at it then." Osmias laughed, finishing up and leaning back to admire his work. "They look great! I think that sheen will be popular—not an overbearing color like some but still pretty snazzy. Happy?" He whipped around the hand mirror he had lying around, and Harry couldn't immediately tell they were even there in the indoor lighting of the shop. Glancing towards the front window though towards the sunlight shining in, looking closely he saw the fine colors, and smiled.
000
He wrapped up his Contrair Alley shopping at the hairdressers, because he figured it'd put him in a good mood to finish off the day.
His hair was…
Well.
He didn't like thinking about it, but his hair had probably saved his life.
While it was uncomfortable to think about, there was a reason Petunia had suddenly grown a back bone and just… let him go like that. Why she actually talked back to her husband (for the first time ever, Harry was fairly certain) much less cut him off mid-shout. Why she'd been so…so…
Harry couldn't even begin to fathom what emotions she'd been working through, and honestly he hoped he never knew. It was uncomfortable enough to recognize that her seeing his hair for the first time got her to do something when she had never once ever bothered to even look at or spare a single passing care about him before.
What he hated to admit, was that he probably had surprised her. And Vernon thought it was freakish, but now that Harry knew it was his mother's hair… he knew Petunia had seen this exact shade before. Had lived with it, had grown up with it.
And if Petunia had ever loved her sister, even a just tiny bit…
Well.
She'd let him go.
If that was the only thing Harry ever got from Petunia Dursley, he was fine with it. He had no need or want of anything else from her ever, and that old wish of hoping her bottled emotions would slowly strangle her one day seemed to bubble up tumultuously from the depths of his repressed emotions every time he remember back to that incident.
He had absolutely no intention of ever going back there, after all, and was oddly cold as he logically considered what would happen if anyone tried. It was the same coldness he felt when he realized he was going to die by Quirrell's hand, when he realized that all those rules and morals he thought he understood suddenly didn't seem to matter when confronted with his imminent death. What did being a good person even mean if you were just going to be dead, after all?
He was thankfully lifted sharply from his quickly darkening thoughts by squeals of delight as the same women who'd cut his hair last year spotted him entering their shop and gleefully scooped him up, eager to get their hands on his hair. They were very, very excitable (not unlike Hannah sometimes) and what he liked best was that they seemed to only have eyes for his hair—they absolutely did not care about him at all, and that was somehow nice.
At least it relaxed his shoulders as they chatted about dead ends and passed potion bottles between them to discuss.
"Any thoughts on style, sweets? It was so short last time you were here and we grew it out for you—it's got some length now but is a bit oily and not to mention these ends need to go," The woman who seemed to take over their project in front of them lifted the ends of his hair to show him and while he still wasn't 100% he could spot a dead end in amongst all his other hair, he trusted her judgement.
He'd given it just enough thought to want to risk it, and if he didn't like it it'd be easy to fix on his own so he just said it before he could chicken out.
"Can I make it long? Like really long?"
She grinned and got to work.
She washed it with an assortment of potions and spells, then dried it with a wave of her wand to began styling it, playing around here and there and asking what he preferred. He just let her do it, chiming in when he liked something or she asked, but was otherwise happy to let her work.
They were in the depths of it though when she paused for a second in her motions as if noticing something on him, titling her head a bit. His heart skipped a bit nervously as she reached out and touched his cheek gently as if wiping something off before blinking in surprise.
"Is this make-up, dear?"
He flushed a bit, realizing it was stupid to think he wouldn't get caught. "Uh…yeah."
Luckily, instead of doing anything he initially thought she would, she just flashed him a big grin. "Muggle makeup, yeah? My roommate had the same stuff before I rocked her world! She's a muggleborn, and no idea why no one told her about it, but it's much easier I'd think. Here, see this," She walked over and picked up a metal container from a shelf full of others like it and came back to him. "Muggle make-up doesn't change color, right?"
"Change color? No?" He blinked, immediately realizing where this was going and perking up.
"Then you'll love this! No fuss, just pretties up the skin. Automatically glamours all types of acne and scars but it does wash off with normal water so be careful in rain. There's a waterproof version but it's pretty pricy," She explained, like this wasn't the best news ever, opening the can to show him what seemed to be just clear gel. To demonstrate she put a little on her finger and swiped it over her arm— the entire swatch seemed to fade and neutralize in one color that was perfectly her skin tone. To Harry's surprise, freckles seemed to appear too, a couple seconds later.
The woman blinked and did a double take to the can in her hand. "Eh? Oh no this one had freckles! Ha, that's what I get for grabbing one at random." She rolled her eyes and popped the lid back on. "I only kinda know what muggle make up is like but my roommate says she only uses it as a base and does other stuff the muggle way still. But this way it'll match you better—I think the kind you have on is a little too dark for you honey."
Harry felt his face get hot, realizing he'd been walking around with off color makeup for several days. Oops.
"Thanks… I think I will take that then. I uh… I've got some bad acne." He lied because for some reason he felt the need to have an excuse for this and she waved him off happily.
"No worries! Teenagers, huh? Everyone gets it bad, and worse is that's the age you're most self-conscious about it. Tell all your friends at school because they don't tell you about these Odd Solutions and you don't learn about glamours until you're much older. If I had to walk around with my crater face at Hogwarts? Please, I would've died." She ranted a bit, going back to his hair like they hadn't been interrupted and ranting on about wizarding make up products now, which Harry was content to just listen to in mild interest.
He didn't actually want to wear makeup, he just didn't like walking around with scars on his face. And with the way life was going at the moment, there seemed to be no sign that people would stop disfiguring him anytime soon.