Found, Never Lost

Prelude

On a foggy Wednesday morning in October 1999, he sent Hedwig to Ron and Hermione with a long letter, left Dudley's old clothes to Dobby, and boarded the Hogwarts Express to London with his Firebolt and his old, battered trunk which contained the few personal items that meant anything to him: the photo album Hagrid had given him after first year, his father's invisibility cloak, Sirius' letters, a clipping from the Daily Prophet, and a set of dress robes.

Very late that afternoon, he left Gringotts Bank with some Muggle money in cash and a small plastic card which, so the Head Goblin assured him, would give him access to an account with the Bank of England that would be opened in his name on Monday morning. And if Mr. Potter wished to transfer money from his vault to said account in the future, he only needed to send a letter to a certain post office box and everything would be arranged immediately and discreetly.

It was amazing how much a well-filled vault could accomplish in such a short period of time, Harry thought as he walked along Diagon Alley towards the Leaky Cauldron. Too bad it could not keep him out of the paper. Quite the contrary: whenever they ran out of other gossip, the Prophet entertained the Wizarding world with speculations about who the lucky one would be that caught their hero's eye - and whether it would be a boy or a girl. It would have been nauseating if he hadn't been through it all before. Now it was just old and predictable and he was so very tired of it. I'll give them something new to speculate about. He smirked at the thought, pulling the hood of his old sweater over his head as he entered the pub.

He would have liked to stay at the Leaky Cauldron for a few days and explore London from there before venturing out into the Muggle world for good, but that was definitely not an option. People would recognise him and his whereabouts would be splattered across the front page of the Prophet faster than he could say Obliviate. No, he needed somewhere else to go. A place where he could learn what he needed to know in order to live in the Muggle world without drawing attention to himself. And he knew exactly where to start. But first he had to make himself presentable. As much as it still hurt to think about Draco, he had - among other things - taught Harry to pay more attention to his appearance. Even Parkinson had made a remark one day that Harry looked "less scruffy" after a couple of months with Draco.

He needed new clothes and a haircut.

Fortunately, the road he stepped into from the Leaky Cauldron was in a quite busy part of town...