Luck of Nines

8

It was some weeks later, the time spent rummaging through the garbage and slowly meandering through the area, when it happened. Perhaps it was foolish and tempting fate, but he found himself moving further and further into the city. More people roamed the streets, and even in the night traveling without being spotted became more difficult, there was always some people around, cameras too.  These obstacles gave him something else to focus on though, and maybe a part of him knew that. 

      He was alone again, but the thought was less annoying than he figured it would be. He traveled aimlessly for the most part, scavenged through trash cans when he could, and spent most of his time asleep and in hiding.  When something caught his interest he slunk about until he was able to check it out unseen, once his curiosity had been sated he would continue in whichever direction fit his fancy at the time. Sometimes, he'd even struggle his way up onto the rooftops to avoid particularly busy areas, nobody ever bothered to look up anyway, and if they did, they would not get a second chance. He was too fast.  It didn't matter where he went, he didn't have anywhere to go, but a part of him demanded that he just kept moving. So he did.

       The fact that he truly was in the city, did not strike him until much later, when he looked up and realized that he was somewhere in the heart of London. He wasn't entirely sure where, but he did recognize some of the distant landmarks he had once caught glimpses of on the television and seen on posters, advertisements, and cards. So there he was, crouched on a rooftop in London, with the sudden realization that he needed to blend in, be smaller again, if he was to escape unnoticed, like he had been back before he had transformed.

       A small part of him felt a pang of regret as he realized that he no longer despised this form as he once had; the canine form was as much a part of him as his cat form was, as his human form had been.  He had not wished to be any different than he was for many sunrises and sunsets, although he wasn't entirely sure how that translated to human time.

         He paused briefly remembering how it had felt as a cat, a part of him pondering if it was time to finally cast that part of him aside like he had so quickly done for his time as a human,  and just like that, when he opened his eyes with no further answers he realized it; he was a cat again.

           Which was... rather convient. Nobody would give a young cat in the city a second look like they would if he choose to wander about freely in his hulking canine form.

But...

Slowly, he focused again, this time on the feeling of ground beneath his feet and long fingers, his spine straighter than before, balance worse, and head heavier. His paws shifted awkwardly as he transformed again, this time much slower, the few short memories he had as one had grown distant with time, reappearing as a human boy, crouched in an out of sight corner upon a rooftop in London.

For once Dursley's clothes had their benefits. The worn and ugly cast offs that he had once been practically swimming in now almost fit him. The legs of the pants were too short, the same problem applying to the arms as well as the torso of the shirt, the belt he wore was now a little too tight around the waist, and the width of the clothes remained too stretched and baggy to not look awkward. But, he could fit into the clothes still like he would not have been able to had they once been his size.

Stretching out his limbs a bit he transformed back into a cat, satisfied with the knowledge that all three of his forms could now be made of use to him, he quickly and easily descended from the roof top. The whole process was made far easier now as a cat than it had been as a canine despite the large size difference. Stretching out again he headed out onto the sidewalk, still bustling with people in a rush to get where they needed to go, and weaved his way through the crowd with the easy confidence Rosy had pushed onto him that was as inherent as possibly could be in all who were born to the feline family.

Still, although travel had suddenly became far easier, it was not as if he particularly had a destination in mind. Which in a way made the victory of discovering that he had the ability to control the mysterious transformations feel abruptly hollow. He weaved his way through London though, just as he had before, stopping and observing whenever it suited him. Now, he occasionally even dared to enter establishments and interacted with humans who did not hesitate to give small offerings to a meek looking, fluffy kitten.

For a kitten he still was. It had been harder to tell as a canine, but as he returned to his kitten form he realized he had not grown all that much, he remained in all of his kitten-fluff glory that Rosy had tutted over once she realized the fluffy down fur was not going away as it should have.

One thing his wandering had brought to his attention though, was a strange building that was far more ragged looking than its peers that sat on a busy shopping street.

The Leaking Cauldron.

Even if not for it's unusual and undescriptive name, or for its rundown, unique, appearance it would stand out. For one, the people who entered it, or the lion's share of them at least, dressed in unusual fashions.  From men dressed in bathrobes and night gowns to women with large, dead animals or bouquets of fruit on their hats and mismatched clothes, even to the lesser extreme versions of people wearing just simply out of fashioned clothing, you could identify many of the patrons of the strange establishment.

For the most part though, in a frankly odd twist, the other people on the street didn't give them a second look. He knew from the Dursleys, that simply being a month or some out of fashion would have you gossiped about for weeks in Surrey by the other housewives, and a mere untucked shirt or wrinkled clothes would have the men frowning and muttering under their breath about lowering the neighborhood more when they were already so close to Spinner's end. And he knew from his time with the Sully's that nobody was exempt from the urge of gossiping, even when they were more... restrained about it.

Still, even without the odd form of dress, his observations had him realizing, that you could still pick one of the Leaky Cauldron's patrons from the crowd simply with the manner in which they carried themselves with. There were all types of tells there, the vaguely rushed steps that wasn't just heading towards, but getting away. The way their hands hovered as if seconds from grabbing something, perhaps like a weapon, he'd seen similar stances in Dudley's western films. And a thousand other small differences that was missed by the hurrying crowds.

Everyone was headed somewhere. Everyone except him, it seemed, which was maybe why he decided to watch the odd establishment; people seemed to relax a little the second they stepped foot inside.

It had not been any of the small differences that had attracted his attention to the leaky cauldron though, it had been the smell of the food, which had lured him over. Not like anything he had smelled before, and he had tried many types of food when scavenging through the dumpsters. So, naturally, he had been curious.

Still, it would be no easy task to get inside, so he observed, and wandered, just like he had before he had discovered the peculiar place.