Lea and Harry secretly hung out with each other as often as they could for the rest of the school year. Harry has been sneaking away from Dudley's entourage every time. He has a high success rate, but that doesn't protect him from Dudley at home. Harry is always injured in some way, but he always waves away Lea's worries. He says, "It will all be over soon, I'm fine." Not like that makes Lea worry any less, especially since she is pretty sure Harry is hiding the worst injuries from her.
Besides planning their great escape, Lea starts teaching Harry how to feel his magical core. However, Harry has a hard time meditating and always ends up bouncing his knees instead of concentrating. It seemed normal at first, not everyone is good at meditating, but then his attention span gets smaller and smaller as the days pass. He sometimes gets confused when Lea uses bigger words, words that he should know. Something is wrong with Harry. Lea tries to subtly ask and tell Harry what is happening to him in ways that would be obvious if he were mentally an adult. When that doesn't work, she bluntly states, "Your attention span is shrinking over time. You are becoming more childish. Are you alright? How are you feeling?"
Harry makes a face like he is thinking about the hardest thing in the world, "I think I'm regressing back to an actual child for some reason. It is taking all my concentration to even have this conversation. I don't know why this is happening." Then, Harry's thinking face is gone and he says, "Do you want to play rock, paper, scissors with me?"
Lea outwardly smiles and plays with Harry while internally adjusting their plans. She really hopes the goblins will know how to fix this.
-----
It is the second to last day before school ends. Lea tries her best to make sure Harry remembers his part in the plan. "All you have to do is pack everything into your backpack before bringing it to school tomorrow. Now repeat back to me what I said."
"Pack stuff into backpack." Harry skittishly and childishly says.
"Pack everything that is yours, okay?"
"Ok, I don't have much so it's easy."
As Lea plays with Harry, she repeatedly makes sure he knows what to do. By the time they have to go back to school, Lea is satisfied and knows Harry will remember what to do. Though Lea is still nervous for tomorrow. They were supposed to be working together on this, but now Lea has to take care of childlike Harry while also getting to the wizarding world. However, Lea is confident it will all work out. At least she can use parts of their original plan and is not just winging it.
-----
Harry never shows up at school. Lea is worried for him. Dudley, and probably Dudley's parents, have been getting more and more violent as Harry continues to evade Dudley at school. She doesn't know how he survives going back home every day. Lea is worried about what kind of state he must be in if he couldn't make it to school. The best case scenario is if Harry was just locked in his cupboard again, not that Harry knows that Lea knows some details about his home life. Harry never wanted to talk about it, even when prompted.
Lea decides it is up to her to save Harry. Her bag is already packed and Harry's should be too, hopefully. Lea sneakily follows Dudley home, and luckily he doesn't notice. When they get to the Dursley's house, Lea waits a bit after Dudley enters his home before getting closer. Lea turns on her magic sight and sees the color of Harry's magic through the wall, where his cupboard should be. She has not experimented whether her magic sight went through walls, but she is glad it worked. She wanted to make sure Harry was actually there. Lea decides to wait for nightfall before rescuing Harry.
Lea takes a toy lock she got from school out of her backpack and starts to attempt to use magic to unlock it. She had planned to learn the unlocking charm once they were settled in the wizard world. But, like every one of her plans so far, that is out the window. She needs to learn it before it is time to get Harry. Ignoring that she has not successfully cast any magic spells yet.
As Lea practices, the sun slowly goes down, and it turns to night. Lea could tell she was close to getting the unlocking spell to work, but it needed a little more of something. Lea thinks about how much she wants to save Harry and how much she wants the lock to open, and the lock finally opens. Lea makes a big smile. That was the first time she was able to use actual wizarding magic. Lea physically locks and magically unlocks the lock a few more times before deciding she was ready.
It was late enough that everyone should be asleep. Lea goes to the front door of number 4 Privet Drive, puts her hand on the doorknob, and unlocks the door. Lea tiptoes to Harry's cupboard and whispers, "Please whisper. It's me, Lea," as she unlocks the cupboard door.
"Lea? What are you doing here?" Harry weakly questions.
Lea opens the door and gets a look at Harry. It is dark, so she cannot see the true damage he is in, but she can see enough to know he is not doing well. "I came to get you out of here, of course. Now get everything you need and let's get out of here."
Harry grabs his backpack and winces as he attempts to put it on. Lea carefully takes the backpack from Harry and carries it herself. Now she has two backpacks on, one on each shoulder. Lea helps Harry out of the closet and closes it once he is out. She helps Harry walk out of the house, also closing the house door. They walk towards the main road, far enough that no one in the neighborhood would see them.
The original plan involved taking a taxi with the money Lea and Harry saved or stole. Now that money has to be saved, and hope it's enough for the goblins. Harry had told Lea how to get to Leaky Cauldron during his few moments of clarity in case he forgot with his regression. There was more to the plan, of course, but it doesn't matter now. Besides, they are never going to find a taxi at this time of night.
Lea raises her dominant hand and powers her magic into it, hoping this will work even if she doesn't have a wand. She even calls out Lumos to get a better chance of it working, even though she has not cast the spell before.
Nothing happens. Lea sighs and starts to bring Harry to find a spot to hide until daytime.
Suddenly, there is a whoosh sound and a few honks. It's the night bus, a magical bus for wizards. Lea makes a huge smile and leads the fascinated Harry into the Knight Bus.
A lady stands at the door taking out a paper and reads, "Welcome to the night bus, emergency transport for a stranded witch or wizard. My name is Nancy, and I will be your conductor this evening." She puts away her flashcard. "Come on in. I will take your backpacks."
Lea and Harry enter the Knight Bus and take a seat at one of the beds. Lea tells Harry to lie down, then lies down next to him and wraps her arm around him, making sure she has a good hold on him. As suddenly at the bus appeared, the bus drove off, almost causing Harry and Lea to fall off. Conductor ... causally walks over and asks, "Where are you two little children off today?"
"Leaky Cauldron, please," which comes out a little warbled since Lea is trying to keep Harry and herself from falling.
Conductor Nancy goes to make sure the driver heard where to go. Lea asks Harry, "How are you feeling?"
"Great!" he says, "This is so fun! I've never gotten to go on a ride before."
Lea smiles. She looks out the window and watches as the bus magically goes around and through traffic. Lea outwardly is calm because she has to take care of Harry and get him to Gringotts. Inwardly, Lea can't help feeling excited. This is the start of entering the magical world. She will be seeing a lot more magic from here on.
-----
Getting to the Leaky Cauldron took no time at all, even with the occasional stop. As Lea gets their bags, Conductor ... says, "Here we are, Leaky Cauldron. That would be eleven sickles, please."
Lea keeps a straight face, but internally, she is worried she won't be allowed to pay. "How much is that in muggle money?"
"£3.24" Conductor ... kindly replies.
Lea internally sighs in relief; she was worried they would try to scam her. Harry had taught her the conversion rate between wizard and muggle money, but she couldn't do the mental math between them that well. Luckily, she knows around what the price of 11 sickles is, so she shouldn't get scammed in that way. Lea pays and gets off the bus while saying her goodbyes. Harry looks at Lea and then back at the bus and decides to imitate her, waving his hand in a childish way. The Knight Bus left as quickly as it appeared.
Lea takes off her hoodie and puts it on Harry. She just realized she forgot to do this earlier. Lea makes sure the hood is up and covering Harry's face, especially his scar. Since Harry is malnourished, the hoodie is too big on him. Luckily, that works in favor of concealing Harry.
"Stay quiet, don't get off my hand, and try to stay as close as possible without running into me or someone else," Lea instructs Harry. "Got that?" Harry nods. Lea grabs his hand and leads him into the Leaky Cauldron. The place is packed. Everyone is at least a little drunk, with the majority being plastered. Lea and Harry used their height to their advantage and weaved around everyone until they got to the back door.
Lea exhaled; she didn't even realize she was holding her breath. Lea goes to the brick wall to tap on the brick that will open to Diagon Alley. However, even with all their planning, Lea and Harry forgot to account for them being too short. They are not even as tall as the rubbish bin. Lea was originally going to tap the brick while pouring magic into her hand, assuming one needed magic to open the door, but Lea did not want to ask Harry to help her up. He doesn't have a lot of muscle and is very injured. Lea instructs Harry to get on her shoulders, thinking he might as well try tapping it normally. Maybe it can detect when a wizard is taping it, or it doesn't expect a muggle to get this far.
Harry gets on Lea's shoulders after convincing him that he wouldn't hurt her. Lea tells Harry to start at the rubbish bin, count up three bricks, then count left two bricks. Once Harry has found the correct brick, she tells him to tap it three times. The brick wall opens, revealing Diagon Alley.
Lea gaped at how magical everything is; the movies did not show Diagon Alley at night before. The path is lit up with fairy lights made out of actual fairies. Each store has beautiful signs saying they are closed. The few that were open seemed to look like they were designed for nighttime. Do the appearances change between day and night?
Lea snaps herself out of her trance. She cannot let herself be distracted; she has to carry out the plan. She looks at Harry and sees his face filled with wonder. Still holding his hand, Lea gently pulls Harry to where Gringotts is. Luckily, a building was glowing with golden lights that made it obvious that it was a bank, and it was open.
Entering the bank, Lea notices that there are many tables without a goblin working, about half. She guesses this is because it is nighttime; they would probably be full during the day. Lea is grateful that they work at night at all; it would have been annoying to find a place to wait until morning. Also, there are currently no wizards around to question why two young children are here.
Lea and Harry walk up to the podium and wait for the goblin a little farther back so he could still see her; they were smaller than the goblins. Lea hopes this is the right way to be polite. It will not change anything if they have to wait a few minutes, so it is worth a try.
Eventually, the goblin puts down his quill and looks up at us. "How can I help you two today?" The goblin says gruffly but politely.
Lea bows her head a little and says, "Hello sir, would you please tell me how much an inheritance test costs?"
The goblin replies, "Taking an inheritance test is free. This is to encourage finding lost bloodlines so we can open their bank again."
Lea mentally relaxes a little. This whole bank section of Lea's plan is all very questionable; her knowledge could easily be wrong. "Alright, that is nice of Gringotts. Does the inheritance test show any magics done to the wizard, like compulsions and things? Also, does it show the wizard's physical shape?"
The goblin's face seems to become concerned. Though it is hard to tell because Lea is not used to goblin features. The goblin could easily be annoyed or something. "Only when asked, is something wrong with one of you?"
"My friend here, he is acting differently than he was. I'm worried about him." Lea says, causing Harry to start to pay attention after realizing they were talking about him.
"Hello." Harry quietly greets while bowing his head.
The goblin looks at Harry and gives a small frown. Does goblin magic make them see things wizards can't? "Alright, please follow me so we can go to a private room. This is not normally done for an inheritance test, but since you asked for the extended version, a room is provided for privacy."