(Sorry for the delay, I just got a new cat, and I've been busy taking care of her)
It takes Harry several days to get used to his strange new freedom.
Never before has he been able to get up whenever he wants or eat whatever he fancies.
He can even go wherever he pleases, as long as it is in Diagon Alley, and as this long cobbled street is packed with the most fascinating wizarding shops in the world, Harry feels no desire to break his word to Fudge and stray back into the Muggle world.
Harry eats breakfast each morning in the Leaky Cauldron, where he likes watching the other guests: funny little witches from the country, up for a day's shopping; venerable-looking wizards arguing over the latest article in Transfiguration Today; wild-looking warlocks; raucous dwarfs; and once, what looks suspiciously like a hag, who orders a plate of raw liver from behind a thick woollen balaclava. (Baba Yaga in Harry Potter confirmed?)
Polaris, meanwhile, often gets a Butterbeer from the bar and occasionally smokes a cigarette in the backyard. When Harry asks why he smokes, Polaris shrugs and says "It calms my nerves."
Harry also notices how often Polaris writes in his notebook, he seems to enjoy talking to whoever is on the other end because he smiles whenever a response comes through.
After breakfast Harry will go out into the backyard, take out his wand, tap the third brick from the left above the trash bin, and stand back as the archway into Diagon Alley opens in the wall.
Harry and Polaris spend the long sunny days exploring the shops and eating under the brightly coloured umbrellas outside cafes, where his fellow diners are showing one another their purchases ("It's a lunascope, old boy - no more messing around with moon charts, see?") or else discussing the case of Sirius Black ("Personally, I won't let any of the children out alone until he's back in Azkaban").
Harry doesn't have to do his homework under the blankets by flashlight anymore; now he can sit in the bright sunshine outside Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor, finishing all his essays with occasional help from Polaris, and Florean Fortescue himself, who, apart from knowing a great deal about mediaeval witch burnings, gives Harry free sundaes every half an hour.
Once Harry refills his money bag with gold Galleons, silver Sickles, and bronze Knuts from his vault at Gringotts, he has to exercise a lot of self-control not to spend the whole lot at once.
He has to keep reminding himself that he has five years to go at Hogwarts, and how it would feel to ask the Dursleys for money for spellbooks, to stop himself from buying a handsome set of solid gold Gobstones (a wizarding game rather like marbles, in which the stones squirt a nasty-smelling liquid into the other player's face when they lose a point).
He is sorely tempted, too, by the perfect, moving model of the galaxy in a large glass ball, which would mean he never has to take another Astronomy lesson.
But the thing that tests Harry's resolution most appears in his favourite shop, Quality Quidditch Supplies, a week after he and Polaris arrived at the Leaky Cauldron.
Curious to know what the crowd in the shop is staring at, Harry edges his way inside and squeezes in among the excited witches and wizards until he glimpses a newly erected podium, on which is mounted the most magnificent broom he has ever seen in his life.
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The Mysterious Heir
Fanfiction2 Years before Harry Potter is born, Voldemort conceives a son to take his place if he died before he reached immortality. After he is born, Voldemort enchants him to be more powerful than himself. This is the story of Polaris Cygnus Lestrange, The...
