A Darker Form of Magic, book one: Dark Affinity

Chapter Three

Harry kept his head down as they moved through Diagon Alley not wanting to have to face a repeat of what had occurred in the Leaky Cauldron when Hagrid had all but boasted his name to the other patrons, drawing all of the gazes in the room to the boy instantly. People - witches and wizards - had swarmed Harry in only a matter of moments, closing in on the boy with no possible way of him being able to get away until Hagrid had pushed through the crowd.

Harry would have screamed at the oaf if it wasn't for the man's sheer size. He doubted that the faint would need much more than one good hit to kill Harry where he stood. But even with his head ducked as it was, Harry could tell that Diagon Alley was beautiful.

Every shop was filled with magic, making Harry feel as if he'd walked in another world altogether. In a way he supposed that he had. Everyone dressed in robes, the signs were old in the way one would see in more historical towns, and there wasn't a hint of technology to be seen at all. Children were laughing and googling an actual broom of all things, and everybody was filled with more color than Harry thought that he'd ever seen in his life.

Above all of it, Harry could feel the magic in the air, almost intoxicatingly so. Everything around him seemed as if it was drenched with it, almost as if Harry could taste it if he truly wanted to. It was wild in a controlled way, like a firework that hadn't been light just yet. You know exactly what it would do once given life, all you had to do was light the spark to see it.

And Harry desperately wanted a match.

And yet, as much as he wanted to see the place come to life more than it had already, it all felt off in a way that Harry couldn't hope to properly describe even if he had wanted to. Foreign, almost. But Harry didn't want to think about why that could be, not when his pockets jingled happily with more money in them than he'd ever had before in his life.

The trip to Gringotts had been nothing like what Harry had thought that it would be like when he had heard that they were going to the bank. When the giant had told the boy of their first stop, Harry had immediately imagined a depressing brick building with nothing but dull colors to it that seemed to drain all of the life out of its patrons to sustain its own. Harry hadn't thought that the bank would look something like a muggle museum that had been carved from white stone and was tilting at odd angles. He hadn't expected the creatures inside of it either, the goblins that had looked upon him with intelligent eyes that spoke of knowing something that Harry himself didn't just yet.

The ride to his vault has been the most alive that Harry had ever felt, the wind flowing through his hair as adrenaline had coursed like fire through the boy's veins. That didn't stop Harry from noticing the package that Hagrid had retrieved from the previous vault for the illusive headmaster, and it didn't dull his senses enough to allow Harry to think that it was allowed for him to ask either. Not that he would've if he had thought that it was allowed. Anything having to deal with Dumbledore, Harry was planning on staying absolutely clear of this year and all of the ones following. The man had already been allowed to meddle enough, Harry wasn't stupid enough to all but hand the headmaster more opportunities to do so on a silver platter.

Harry hadn't been able to stop the feeling of resentment that had bubbled up inside of him once he had seen what had laid inside of his vault, buried beneath his feet this entire time.

Growing up, Harry always had nothing. He got Dudley's second hand clothes - no matter the fact that they were always at the least, three times to bung for him - and slept in the cupboard under the stairs - hidden away so that no one outside of the house would ever know that he had existed at all. Food was always few and far between, and the only toys that Harry had ever had were the little toy soldiers that Dudley had thrown such a fit about upon receiving them that he hadn't even wanted them in his second bedroom.