Harry was unaware the driver was a personal friend of Steve the neighbor who had called him and asked for a favor in getting Harry out of Little Whining with the least amount of trouble. Since Steve had helped him out of a spot of trouble, the cabbie, Ajax, had no problem returning the favor today. Steve had explained the boy had been left to find his own way back to school and needed a safe driver to get him to the bus station. Ajax had even pretended to believe Harry's story about his Aunt being unavailable to drive him to the city as she was sick with the three day flu which had told him, even without Steve telling him the truth when he'd asked for the favor, louder than anything the boy had been abandoned by his kinfolk. Especially since Steve said he'd seen the family drive off at the beginning of July and not return. Steve said they were in the wind and as far as he knew there was no expected return date set. Steve claimed he expected them to return while the boy was away at school since they had another child who needed to attend school as well. He'd told Ajax the boy was mature and responsible but that he was only fifteen and small for his age. Old enough to know the rules but looked young enough to tempt the predators. Therefore, he was a prime target for them and needed watching over even if he didn't know it or believe it.
Harry settled into the bench seat cautiously knowing the driver was keeping an eye on him but not able to fully relax so long as he was in open transit like this. Public transit drivers always watched kids and teens traveling alone. Too many times those kids behaved badly and caused a ruckus that resulted in property damages and a loss of money. Then there was the danger of the wrong sort of person approaching a kid travelling alone. All transit drivers were supposed to watch for that sort of thing and head it off before another kid could go missing or wind up dead.
But for Harry too many kids had gone missing for him to be comfortable out in the open and exposed like this. He had his wand up his sleeve but even he knew it wasn't safe for him to use it unless the circumstance were dire. The Ministry would just love to get him on an underaged magic charge. So remaining observant to his surroundings was his best bet for staying safe and reaching his destination.
He made it to London without any problems and chose a cheap hotel not too far from the bus depot to spend the night in that seemed to have good security as well as a dining room so he wouldn't have to go hungry until he arrived at Hogwarts. They even offered a sandwich bar so he could make a lunch to eat on the train. he'd had to explain he was taking a train to school the next morning before the receptionist would rent him a room, but he'd expected that and had a fake school id card to prove his words.
After settling in at the hotel, he took a cab to Charring Cross Road where he knew the Leaky Cauldron still stood as it was the doorway between the magical world and the normal world. He slipped into the Alley without a problem and knew it was mainly because no one had expected him to be here on this day.
Since Dumbledore hadn't set this trip up, word hadn't spread far and wide and people hadn't gathered together to play Lookie Lou. He hated the way he got stared at like that when Dumbledore arranged a trip here for him and he'd been here just enough times alone to know it only happened when Dumbledore arranged the outing. People were too busy tending to their own needs and desires to notice the odd teenager coming and going unless they were receiving some kind of payment to do so.
He had visited the bank and took care of his annual business and set into motion his plans for this year. He thought their reaction to seeing him was a little extreme but since he had no idea why they were acting as they were, he let it go after he got the money he'd need for his shopping and the year.
Then he began making the rounds of the booksellers to get new textbooks in everything he was studying whether he was taking a class in the matter or not. If this year followed the pattern of the last couple of years, he knew Dumbledore would have had that stupid redheaded woman buy his school things including his text books. If he did, Harry would just donate them to the library where Madam Pince kept all the textbooks students no longer wanted. He also bought all the supplementary books he could spot for his normal classes knowing even if she did get his texts, she wouldn't think to get them because her own youngest two weren't studious to the point of registering on the intelligence scale as just above imbeciles. Any other school both Ron and Ginerva would have washed out already. Simply because of their poor showing and aversion to actually doing their assigned classwork.
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