Harry finds himself turned into a cat and flees from the house before the Dursley's figure out what has happened. He takes shelter in a neighboring house, but after the tragic death of his mentor he leaves to find his own way in the world. At first...
He did end up coming back the next day, and then the day after, and the day after that, and the day after that. And slowly, he warmed up to Analyse; when she asked him to do small errands for her in exchange for various types of desert, he quickly found himself agreeing. He'd help carry some boxes, take letters out to the owlery for her, and water the window box flowers. Once he'd even, nervously, dropped his don't-go-into-the-house thing to help wash dishes.
He trusted her.
The one thing she didn't stop pushing for was that he should get some help, professional help, so that he could be placed with a loving family and have a real childhood. If he didn't know any better, he might have been a bit less reluctant to agree. But he was more happy, and healthy, out here than he ever had been before. He could tell it made her sad and frustrated though, which always left him feeling a little guilty. Still, he had sworn to himself he was never going back to that scared, shivering kid who let himself be locked away in the cupboard, in part grateful just to be away from his so-called family even if that meant he wouldn't eat for a day or two.
He wouldn't let himself go back to that.
So Analyse hinted about getting help, he skated away from the issue and the two passed a few hours every night sitting by the steps at the back of her cafe-she lives upstairs so it wasn't too difficult for her- talking and eating. She taught him a few better human manners such as how to properly hold silverware and a teacup, he gave his opinion on the food, what he liked, what he disliked, and made guesses on the ingredients.
He knew she didn't really need his opinion, and it wasn't as if his opinion carried any weight with others, but it was still a nice thought on her part. Besides, guessing the ingredients and amounts was fun, even if he nearly always managed to guess the ingredients and could roughly estimate the amounts.
Oddly she'd asked a few more times to check to make sure his foot had healed alright, despite his reassurances that there was only a small scar. But... she worried about him, whether his diet had enough calcium and vegetables, whether he was doing alright on the colder nights despite providing two blankets for him, if he had a comfortable place to sleep- even if he still wasn't comfortable crashing on her couch.
Time passed quickly, and a few weeks down the line he slipped off the wall in his cat form earlier than usual, it wasn't a rare occurrence for him to simply hang around the now familiar café. It was comforting and after a few nights of lounging on or near the walls just out of sight, he'd made a habit of sleeping in the area too.
So today too he slipped out of the crowd to crouch on the building which sat behind the cafe- he'd never seen the sign to the entrance although he was sure he had passed by the storefront a few times in his wandering. His musings were interrupted however as he caught sight of a glimpse of familiar robes, although not familiar faces, standing inside the café at the corner just before Analyse hurried to the window and shut the curtains.
Immediately, he was on alert. No Aurors had previously visited the café, and as he had seen in his wandering as of the the alleys, at least when uniformed the Aurors were creatures of habit. There were two bars which they visited, most groups stuck to the same bar. The first was almost entirely filled with Aurors and ran by a retired one that sat a few buildings down on the left street by Gringotts. Groups which socialized with a more mixed group of ministry officials- generally these were higher ranking ones, although not necessarily older, or oddly enough more experienced- stuck mostly to another, this one sat on Horizontal Alley between Knocturn Alley and Diagon Alley.
(An: For those of you who wonder if there's a map describing the alleys as I am portraying them, there is, although I'm not sticking strictly to the stores. Scroll to bottom of chapter to see map which I did not create. I do not know who did, but it is awesome.)
Aurors did not make a habit of visiting dainty cafés in full uniform. Nor was there any reason to be recording information. The distinctive scratch of the quill on parchment met his sharp ears as he watched the faint little he could see through the curtains and relied on his other spells to make up the rest.
"He visits every evening, so he should be here tonight. He's too thin to be healthy even though I've been making sure he gets at least one good meal everyday." Analyse's voice was worried and he could imagine the way she twisted the Ap Aron she wore when the café was open.
"And you said this kid is short, black hair, green eyes, wearing muggle clothes but likely wizard raised, what makes you think that?"
"He knows odd bits of information about things like Azkaban and potions that I don't really think he could have picked up otherwise. He even said once he disliked apparition because of the way it twisted his stomach." Analyse sighed, hesitating, "I gave him some blankets and boots to keep warm, but he doesn't have a cloak or anything so he'll still stand out in the crowd... did I..." she sighed.
"You did the right thing," one Auror picked up comfortingly when she trailed off, "We'll be able to find him much easier this way, you did the right thing by calling us before it got cold enough to be dangerous for the lad. We can take him and settle him down in a proper home in no time, and if he really isn't from some muggle family, we can even make sure he ends up with family who will treat him well that's his."
Chipper felt his blood run cold, numb, as what he had begun to fear was proven correct. She had turned him in.
"Okay, anything else?"
"I set a monitoring charm on him while casting healing spells the first day I saw him back there," with those final words Chipper's heart shattered. It had all been a lie, he struggled to return his attention to the conversation in case he , "But when I checked it, he wasn't where it said he was; no one was, I've been recasting it under the disguise of a casting a diagnostic charm to make sure he's properly healed, but it still seems to malfunction at times... I've never really needed one before for this you see, only to monitor the stuff occasionally, so I must be casting it wrong."
"Alright, thank you Miss Withers, your memories and information have been a great help, and we should have no trouble tracking him down..."
Chipper didn't hear anymore.
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Okay, so I don't know who's picture of Diagon alley this is, but it's the one I am loosely basing the alley in this story's shape off of. Honestly, it's not going to come into play much more after this. -T.A.L.A.
