Chapter 5 - Shopping Part 2

DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Harry looked at his watch. It was nearly 8:00 pm. 'Well,' he thought, 'It's getting too late to carry on with shopping. I'm knackered anyway. I'll be having another long day tomorrow, better get a room and relax tonight. His stomach took this particular time to remind him that he needed to eat. So he made his way to the Leaky Cauldron and towards the bar.

'The place must have thinned out after the supper rush,' he thought. There was still a group of faithful patrons enjoying some libations. He quickly scanned to see if he could spot someone, but he did not recognize anyone. He approached Tom, who seemed to be putting away some butter beer.

Harry said, "Excuse me sir! I was told that you are the patron for this establishment and I was wondering if you have any rooms available for tonight."

Tom looked him up and said, "could I please see your forearms!" Harry thought that he must have been checking for death eaters. So Harry showed him his forearms to let him know that he was clean.

"Sorry about that, but one must be careful these days!"

Tom got his ledger and uttered, "Name please?"

"James Evans".

"Very well here is your key, you'll be in room 15".

Harry then inquired about getting his supper brought up to his room if possible. He ordered Bangers, Mash potatoes and some Butter beers.

"Room service will be extra" Tom said.

"That's fine", Harry got his credit card out and paid for his room, supper and his breakfast tomorrow. He took his key and went up to his room. He then put a powerful locking charm on his room and a perimeter charm. He took his trunk and enlarged it. He needed to get his vault's charm books and look up disillusionment charms for tomorrow.

He knew that his disguise make up would not last the night. He went to the mirror and carefully memorized his appearance and jotted his looks to memory. He had retrieved the book and had found several disillusionment charms. He picked a 12-hour duration charm and began practicing the incantation and wand movement. When he was satisfied, he put his book back in his trunk and took off the locking charm and perimeter charm. It was now 9:00 pm and finally someone knocked on his door and hollered "Room Service!"

Harry pulled his wand out and cracked the door open, thoughts of CONSTANT VIGILANCE surfacing in his conscience. Harry thought that Mad Eye must have had a much bigger influence on his Psyche than he thought. Harry said, "Please put the tray down and slide it across the floor!"

Harry picked up his tray, and closed the door. He then reactivated his locking and perimeter detection charms. He took out is wand and muttered a few incantations over his food. He would have to thank Mad Eye and Bill for teaching him the Jinx, Hex and Poison revealing charms. His food had not been tempered with so he got down to business and tackled it with relish. When he was done he got a white rat out of his trunk and said to Anubis

sss Anubis, I have set supper for you, I will put you down, so that you can go hunt your meal sss

sss Master, I look forward to my meal sss

sss When you are done you can crawl back to my bed to stay warm, If you don't mind, my mind magic is still not very good, would you help me guard mind while I am sleeping sss

sss Master you do not have to ask, I will always help you protect your mind, it will be an honour sss

sss Thank you my friend. It was hard to tell, but Harry had the impression that his snake was happy. sss

He finished his nightly routine and prepared himself for bed. He was pretty tired but decided that he would try to clear his mind to help his Occlumency. He realized more than ever how important it was for him to become a master Occlumens; he would do what ever it took to learn Occlumency and Legilimency.

This he realized would be his first training task. He crossed his legs and started to do his deep breathing, very soon he could not hear anything except for the rhythmic sound of his heart. Inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth. He still found it very hard to completely clear his mind. Every time he was close stray thought would surface and distract him. After 30 minutes of this, he crawled under his blankets and closed his eyes. He mentally reviewed what was let on his list. By 10:30 pm Harry was fast asleep.

Harry woke up the next day at 6:30 am. He found that Anubis was sleeping quietly at the foot of his bed. He got up and found that he has slept a very good night. It surprised him that he had not had his regular nightmare from the events at the DOM. He scar had not even twitched either. 'Well,' he thought, 'no sense pondering a gift.' Every night he didn't have snake face making unwelcome visits was a blessing indeed. If that was Anubis' doing, then he was more then worth his weight in gold.

He got out of bed and did a few exercises to increase the blood flow. He then went into the shower and had himself a nice soak. He got out and felt completely refreshed. Today he had to wrap up his shopping spree. He found out last night that Flourish and Blots open at 8:00 am. He got dressed and decided to apply the disillusion charm he had learned yesterday. He took his wand and pictured what he looked like yesterday he completed a full circle above his head while muttering "Dessino Mascus". He went to look at himself and found that he looked like he did yesterday. He reduced and pocketed his trunk and then told Anubis to wrap himself like he did yesterday and cast a different disillusion charm on him.

He wanted him to blend with his own body so he slashed his wand and uttered "Dessino-Nocens". He looked in the mirror again and found that Anubis blended completely within his shirt, if he made no sound or movement then no one should be able to tell that he was there. He was happy with his work and took the perimeter and locking charms off his room. He then proceeded downstairs to get some breakfast.

An hour later he made his way to Flourish and Blot's. He entered the store and noticed that it was not too busy. He knew he was going to get a lot of books and decided to get an expendable cart. He decided to start in the transfiguration section. He picked up his 6th and 7th year NEWT's for his entire core courses. He had Trans, Charms, Potion, and DADA. When he got thinking he was going to also learn Arithmancy and Runes so he decided to pick those NEWT books as well as the beginner books not to be lost.

It would be a while before he got to those subjects but he was not about to leave any stone unturned in his quest for knowledge. Looking further into the Trans section he picked up some unique books on advanced transfiguration, self-transfiguration, home needs and furniture transfiguration, and the one that really interested him was Transfiguration duelling. He then walked to the charms section and picked up a tome titled

From ancient to Modern Wards

He also picked up a book on blood wards,

Animating Objects, and

The grand daddy of them all The Grand Book of Charms.

His next section was Potions. He picked up the regular class books and also picked up a book on healing potions. He browsed through it and noticed a section devoted to blood preservation and replenishment potions. This got him thinking about the blood wards that needed to be re-strengthened. He remembered Dumbledore saying that he needed to be close to a blood relation of his mothers.

His magic interacted with Petunias blood to help recharge the wards. He wondered if this could be accomplished with only her blood and not have her stick around. A kernel of an idea began to form in his head. There might be a way to get those damn Dursleys out of his hair after all. He knew that Odin's Eye would take care of them, but wouldn't it be even better to simply get rid of them for the majority of the summer? No sense inviting unintended discoveries! Continuing his quest for more books he picked up another book called

The Top 1000 Most Useful Potions

Then Harry walked over to the Defence section and picked out the following books

How to Counter the Dark Arts

Duelling Defensively and Offensively

Protection Spells

After getting those books Harry walked over to the final section he wished to purchase from and started grabbing the following books.

Duelling Dirty

Duelling Tactics

How to Duel Multiple Opponents

Obscure Hit Wizard Spells

How to Resist Spells

He figured he had more than enough books to get started. With that thought in mind he made his way up to the counter. He met the clerk and checked out his books. Surprisingly there was nobody waiting in line.

While the clerk checked out his current selection, Harry decided to keep perusing the shelves. He found one at the back of the wall. It was a dusty shelf and looked kind of hidden. You really had to look to find this section. He decided to pick up the following tittles

Defence and Offence of the Mind

Hexes and Curses

The self-updating book of law

Australian Aborigines Magic

Magic of the ancient Americas

From that section Harry found himself in the Trades section. He found some very interesting books and decided to pick:

Building your Magical Home,

Completed spell guide to making your very own broom,

Modern Magical Mining and Smelting,

Japanese sword making,

Creating Magical Artefacts

He put them all in his cart brought them all to the clerk. Harry decided that if he went any further he wouldn't be able to fit all of his purchases in his trunk. He patiently waited at the counter for the clerk to finish ringing in his books. Finally the women finished and said

"Why so many books, Mr?" Harry had collected nearly 60 books.

Harry eyed the woman and decided to give the stuck up little witch a little lesson. "Ma'am who I am is none of your business, what is your business is to tell me how much I owe you, get it?"

The woman's eyes grew steel hard and she told him it would cost him 445 galleons. Harry picked all of his books and made sure that they were properly stowed in his trunk.

He reduced and pocketed his trunk. He pulled his hood over and made sure that his face was properly covered. One can never be too careful even with disillusionment charms. As Mad Eye would say CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

Thank god he did too because just as he was nearing the door, in came Hermione and Ron. No doubt Herm was checking to see if they had an updated version of Hogwarts a History! They just passed him and paid him no attention, for which he was very thankful. Soon after he was back in Diagon alley and decided to head towards Gringotts. If his plan were to work, he would need a chuck of muggle money to sweeten the Dursleys.

He looked at his battered watch and noticed that it was around 9:30 am. As he was walking towards Gringotts he noticed a store Pandora's Time Keep. 'What the heck,' he thought. 'One more purchase will not kill me.' He walked in and noticed the store clerk. He made a beeline right away, "Excuse me, Sir?"

The man noticed him and said, "How may I help you young man?"

"Well I need a new watch and I was wondering what model you carry, money is not an issue".

At the mention of no money issues, the man perked up right away and decided to bring in his most popular collection. Harry looked at a few of them and for the most part they weren't too flashy and didn't seem to be overly magical.

Harry told him "These are nice, but do you have anything more magical than these?"

The clerk looked at him and said "well sir I've just received a new shipment of Auror and Hit Wizard watches. You must either have an Auror licence or enough money to get around the Auror discount. These watches are water and fireproof. "

The man continued with his verbal diatribes.

"They also have an unbreakable charm and have a built in dark detector/locator. The watch when prompted can also project a three dimensional image of your surroundings over a 300 feet radius with you at its centre. You will always be the centre of the map. The blue dots indicate friendlies and the red dots show dark wizards. The watch uses the person's magical energy to feed the indicator/locator crystals. This type of watch would be very useful if caught in a tight situation, yes!"

Harry thought about this and pictured his past fights. He came to the conclusion that these features could be very handy in a fight. Harry said "How much? I don't have an Auror license but I do want one?"

The man said "100 galleons!"

"O.K. In what colours do they come in?"

"They come in platinum, gold and silver. The backings are emerald green, sapphire blue and ruby red."

He ended up picking the Platinum model with an emerald green background. He made sure it was set for the correct time and promised himself that he would read the watch manual on his way to Privet Drive. He got out of the store and decided to make his way back to the bank. He was almost there when he looked to his right and noticed another store Knights and Squires.

He looked into the window and noticed that it had all sorts of battle gear. He was intrigued and decided to have a quick look. He entered the store and started looking at different battle robes and weapons. He knew that he wanted to forge his own weapons. He had bought a book specifically just for that, but it wouldn't hurt to buy some decent body protection. A gentleman sauntered over and introduced himself as Eric Greengrass.

"What can I do for you Sir?"

"I am looking for general information on battle clothing and such?"

"Well sir we have a large array of battle clothing. We currently stock 4 types of dragon wear along with chimera hide and Acromantula shirts. Unfortunately we do not carry any Basilisk wear!"

Harry asked, "What is so special about Basilisk wear?"

"Sir, it is the most resistant magical material that we know. It is even tougher than dragon Hyde and will practically protect against most spells except AK. It will significantly reduce the effects of Cruciatus should you have the misfortune to run into that one!"

Harry thought for a moment and remembered his 2nd year adventure. How could he forget slaying a 60 ft Basilisk?

"Sir, maybe we can come to an arrangement! I know where to find some Basilisk hide. If I can get it for you, could you make me some battle robes and a vest! I'll pay you accordingly and leave you with enough hide to make two more robes. You see I happen to know of a 60 ft Basilisk that was slain not to long ago. As you can imagine that was no easy feat to say the least!"

The man was practically drooling on himself and asked "When could I get the material?"

Harry said "Sometime by the middle of the summer if everything goes O.K."

The man said he would wait to be contacted by him. In the meantime Harry ended up buying a pair of Horntail Dragon boots. It had special pockets for a blade and a wand. They were also charmed to be quiet, waterproof and had an environmental climate control charm on them. They made the wearers feet stay at a constant temperature no matter the weather conditions.

He also bought two wand holsters, one for his wrist and one for his calves. They were charmed to be invisible and would protect his wand from any summoning charms. The holsters were also incredibly fast at drawing. He practiced a bit and after a while his wand landed in his hands very naturally. He ended up shelling 150 galleons for his wears.

Harry got out of the store wearing his new boots and made his way back to Gringotts. He decided to get £4,000 pounds to give the Dursleys so they could go on a nice vacation and out of his hair. Speaking of his plans Harry had one more store in Diagon alley to go to. He needed to find a well-stocked apothecary and get three new potion kits. He also needed a fully stocked potions cabinet for professional potion maker. He felt that Potions was his weak point and planned on doing a fair amount of studying in that particular area. He walked down to Eros Apothecary.

When He got there he quickly scanned the store and found his cauldrons. He ended up picking seven cauldrons with built in shrinking charms. He picked two coppers of different sizes, one silver cauldron, three cauldrons of surgical steel that were very sanitary, one Gold cauldron that was very large and a Platinum cauldron. He decided to also buy a full set of platinum measuring spoons, a magically charmed ladle, a voice activated cauldron heater, a full set of glass beakers, a full jug of neutralizing potion, and a professional master potions cabinet.

The total came to 700 galleons, but it would be well worth it, he thought. Harry wouldn't have to come back to the apothecary for quite a while and he would have everything he needed to make practically any potions he wanted. It was now 11:30 am according to Harry's watch. He made his way out of Diagon alley and, a few minutes later, was out of the Leaky Cauldron and back in muggle London.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief and smiled to himself. He couldn't believe that he had pulled it off. He decided to be extra cautious however and leave his concealment disguise on. He picked a Pizza Hut for some quick grab. After gorging on Pizza, Harry decided to make his way to this large muggle bookstore called Chapters.

Harry remembered seeing it while coming off from Kings Cross Station. He pulled over a Taxi and decided to get a ride. He had enough of walking over the last two days. Anyway he figured he needed to gain some time.

He finally got to Chapters and decided to ask one of the store clerks for what he was looking into. He spotted one of the clerks and sauntered over. He noticed that her nametag read Stacy.

He called her over and said "Excuse me Stacy, I'm in a bit of a hurry and I was wondering if you could help me? I know what I want to buy!"

"No problem Sir just let me know what you want." Harry ended up buying

Fundamentals of Modern Physics

General Chemistry Complete Guide 6th Edition

Molecular Chemistry

Nuclear Chemistry

Calculus and Analytic Geometry (Set of 8 books)

Computer Fundamentals Hand Book

Basic Programming (Set of 4 books)

Modern Biology and Zoology (Set of 12 books)

Oriental Meditation

In Search of the Human Mind

Modern Weapons

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Anarchist Cook Book

From Hannibal to Marshall Zukov (2000 years of Military Strategies)

Harry made out with his purchases with his new muggle credit card. Once outside he went out back of the store and carefully looked around to make sure no one was there. He reduced his muggle books and put them in his trunk. His final stop was going to be at an electronic store called Comet. He pulled another Taxi and 20 minutes later he walked into the Comet Electronic chain store. Once there he decided to buy a Dell Pentium Laptop, a new colour television, a VHS, a CD and a complete sound system with a full rack of contemporary music. He decided to stick to classical and hard rock.

After talking to the Salesman he decided to get himself a cell phone and bought himself a three-year plan. This would allow him to connect his cell phone to his computer and surf this Internet system that the muggles had. He had seen Dudley use it many times, and you could get almost unlimited information from this system. It would come in handy having this computer.

He would be able to organize his magical courses much more efficiently. The computer came with something called Windows 95 and Microsoft Office Suite 95. The storeowner showed him how to boot up the system as he called it and how to start, navigate and close particular programs. After he was comfortable he told the storeowner that he would go out back and pick up his merchandise.

He went out back and made sure that he had all his new possessions in one pile. He carefully looked around to make sure no one was there and reduced all of the items to matchbox size. He enlarged his trunk and stowed his new purchase inside. He reduced and pocketed the trunk and made his way back to the front store. He then checked his watch and noticed that it was 2:30 pm. He decided to check NC Furniture across from Comets. If he was going to build his own trunk then he needed ideas on furniture and such. He also noticed a muggle gymnasium and thought that he would seek some advice there also.

He made his way to NC Furniture House and started memorizing the look and feel of the different pieces of furniture. He looked at beds, sofas, bookshelves, tables, whole suites and ensembles. He was not going to buy anything here but he just wanted some ideas. He cornered a clerk and asked them about the different materials used for the baths and the woods used for the furniture. After and hour of this he got the clerk to give him a whole set of catalogues along with a complete set of materials samples. He had samples of all of their exotic woods, ceramics and marbles. He got out of the store and carried his samples bag next door to New Body's. He quickly cornered a very intimidating and muscled man.

"Sir, I would like some advice on body building?"

"Sure thing, what do you want to know?"

"Well sir, I'm looking to get myself fit, but I have never had any exercise equipment before and was wondering if you could help me pick out the right machines for body building?"

"Absolutely! Here let's go see the following machines. Just so you know working the machines is only one part of bodybuilding. You need to have proper nutrition to maximize your efforts!"

After about another hour of counselling, Harry decided to buy himself a full set of free weights, and two universal Nautiluses machines. One had over 25 exercises for upper body development and the other had about 15 exercises for lower body workout. He decided to also buy a mechanical treadmill machine for cardio. He took the man's advice and bought some books on nutrition along with muggle nutrient supplements. He mainly bought protein and amino acids for his workouts.

He gave him his address and proceeded out of the store. He would be getting he new equipment delivered tomorrow. He looked at his watch and it was now 4:30 pm. It was time to head back to Durzkaban. He again found a quiet corner with no muggles and enlarged his trunk. He stored his material samples and furniture magazines. He looked at his watch again and figured with the traffic it would take a minimum of 1 hr to get to Surrey if he was lucky.

He was thinking about how he would get back to 4-privet drive and decided to take his watch booklet and his magical home building book. He had to learn how to activate his map. He hoped that he could evade the Order successfully. He got his books out and stored his trunk back in his robe pocket. He remembered that he would have to take his disillusionment charm off when he got to Surrey. He would keep Anubis' charm on, no sense pissing off the Dursleys any more than he had to, even thought it was down right fun.

Finally he made his way back to Main Street and decided to take a cab all the way to Surrey. He flagged his cab and off he went. Harry told the cab driver to drop him off at Magnolia Road in Little Whinging Surrey. He certainly had no intention of going right up to Privet Drive in a Cab. This would definitely alert the Order, and he sure as hell wanted nothing to do with any of them at this moment.

So he sat back, and read his watch manual. As he began to read he realized that the merchant must have gotten confused because there was no such thing as a three dimensional watch, what he did discover was that the watch would create a map similar to the marauders map of Hogwarts but with a 500 ft radius. The wearer had to hold the watch with his arm extended away from his body. He then had to press on the emerald crystal on the right bottom corner of the watch, and complete a 360-degree spin. The imbedded diamond at the 12 o'clock position would scan the area and generate a two-dimensional map that only the wearer could see. The map would show the location of buildings, friendly, and enemies relative to his position.

As Harry read on he became even more exited as the watch also had the capability of identifying the names of people, and would also tell you if they were under a polyjuice disguise or not. The watch could also let you know if there were any animagi present in the area. 'Wow,' Harry thought, 'this would come in really handy.' He began wondering whom these watches were destined for. Probably hit wizards he thought.

He looked at his watch and figured he had another 45 minutes drive, and decided to look up room expanding charms in his magical building book. He would need the extra room to store all of his belongings until he managed to build his dream trunk. Before he knew it, they were pulling up to Magnolia road. He told him to stop by the park. He paid the 150 pounds and thanked the man. Now came the really tricky part, he pulled out his invisibility cloak and put it on, he then put a silencing charm on himself and proceeded to Magnolia Crescent.

He walked some more and when he thought he was within 400 ft of his house; he activated his watch and completed a full circle. He then watched as his watch displayed a map. It showed his position relative to the centre of the map. He scanned the map and it showed him what he was looking for. This thing was incredible, and the details were very thorough.

So Bill Weasley was on watch today? From the information on the watch he was about 100 ft from the house facing the North entrance. He was by the Oak tree across the road. This would be easier than he thought; his bedroom was located on the East side of the house. He made his way carefully to his house, making sure not to make any noise.

When he got to the east side of the house, he looked up at his bedroom and cast a perimeter silencing charm. He then looked up at his window and uttered "Alohamora". He then cast "Wingardium -Leviosa" on himself and proceeded to float himself to his bedroom window. He had to be careful and keep his concentration or he might end up seeing Madame Pomfrey earlier than he thought. He got up to his window, opened it and floated himself through. He had made it! He had fooled the Order of Confusion and the Old Fucker himself. Now he was ready to begin his next step.

Little did Harry realize that these two days spent would change his life forever?