Chapter Text
Now, Sirius Black was an alright bloke, when he wasn’t royally pissing Harry off - so Harry figured he could get a good fifty pounds off of him from that letter. Maybe a hundred, but even twenty pounds would be more than enough to get him some clothes that fit from the charity shop on the ‘bad’ (that is, poor) side of Little Whinging.
(Could Harry just steal what he wanted? Sure, but even if the charity shop were open all-hours like Tesco, he had standards.)
Anyway. What Harry hadn’t accounted for, in asking Sirius for a nonspecific amount of Muggle money, was that - between being bloody rich, a wizard, and twelve years in prison - Sirius had no idea how much Muggle money was worth.
Prongslet,
Hope this is enough. I’ve included a blank cheque for anything larger. Write me right away if you need more cash, yeah?
- S.
Harry sat down at his desk and counted the notes from the envelope for a fourth time.
It was still two thousand pounds.
He put his head in his hands. Grinned brilliantly down at the wood of his desk.
Sirius Black - what an absolute legend.
That Saturday, the Dursleys went out for a day trip to visit Dudley’s Aunt Marge. This was no longer a problem for Harry, because ever since the Incident of Summer, 1993, the Dursleys knew better than to have Marge and Harry in the same house, let alone the same room. He prepared himself for another day in the company of Mrs. Figg and her numerous cats, as that was where he’d been sent off to last year.
Instead, Petunia left Harry alone in Number Four, with only a stern look and orders to ‘behave’ while they were gone. She even left his bedroom door unlocked.
He chose not to examine any of this happenstance too closely. Instead, when an hour had passed since Vernon’s car had left the driveway, he left Number Four for a day trip of his own.
(He still went out the window under the Cloak, of course, by sheer force of habit. And remained invisible for as long as it took to get to the bus stop a few streets over, at which point he stowed the Cloak in his school satchel, next to the absurd stack of twenty-pound notes Sirius had posted him, and the carefully-folded blank cheque in a side pocket within the bag.)
A quick stop in the corner store got him snacks and the smaller coinage needed for bus fare; Harry munched contentedly on a large bag of crisps for the ride to the nearest train station, and arrived just in time to buy a ticket for the midmorning train to London.
Never mind the charity shop: he wanted to go to Harrods.
It should be mentioned that, having spent the majority of the last five years either in Hogwarts or trapped in Privet Drive, Harry had no experience whatsoever in getting around London. It wasn’t as though Muggles had enchanted maps they could carry in their hand to navigate with - the best he had was a free map for tourists from a newsstand at the London end of his train trip.
Fortunately, Harrods was a tourist destination, and therefore had an outsize presence on the map - so he found his way there with little trouble. And then stopped outside the entrance to stare up, awed, at the great building, because wow. It was just like it was in the magazines.
It also seemed to have a dress code, which made him pluck self-consciously at his ill-fitting secondhand clothes. The doorman had let him in, sure, but that was after turning away a pack of rowdy teenagers - he certainly wasn’t dressed nearly as well as any of the other people inside.
“Er, excuse me,” Harry addressed the nearest store employee. “Can you direct me to the mens’ section?”
He expected to be sneered at down the length of the man’s nose - a reaction he had grown accustomed to in the Muggle world. But in this, as usual, Harry had forgotten he no longer looked like a scruffy street urchin: rather than sneer, the salesman smiled at him, and further, offered to lead him to the menswear department himself, as he was on his way to that floor already.
“That would be great, thanks,” Harry said, trying not to act too surprised at his good fortune.
Merlin, he loved being pretty.
The salesman introduced himself as Christopher as he led Harry through the winding maze of different departments, passing glittering lights and fanciful displays and many a well-to-do browsing at their leisure. Gentle inquiries along the walk as to what Harry would like to buy led to him admitting he needed quite a lot, and - confidentially, while they were alone in the lift - that he had a more-or-less unlimited sum of funds with which to obtain it all.
“Ah, is that so?” murmured Christopher as they stepped into Menswear, which was in fact the entire floor. “Well, then, if I might make a few recommendations…”
Harry was happy to let him make recommendations - more than content, indeed, to have Christopher appoint himself his personal assistant for the day, and show him around the entire store with polite enthusiasm. It was the kind of not-quite-fawning Harry supposed he deserved, once it was made obvious he (or, well, Sirius, technically) was filthy rich.
He enjoyed the attention, even, now that it was for something he felt like he deserved - a sentiment further bolstered by an expert peppering of just the right amount of compliments over the next several hours, as Harry accumulated a wardrobe's worth of clothing ranging from ‘posh casual’ to ‘posh fancy’. This included not only regular clothes and outerwear, but also socks and underthings and a dozen ties and a gorgeous gold watch that Harry absolutely could not resist when he saw it on display.
(“An excellent choice, sir,” Christopher remarked, snapping his fingers to beckon the jeweler. “We will have the wristband adjusted for you before you leave.”)
He paused for lunch at a restaurant on the dining floor, then reconvened with the salesman at the Harrods in-house tailor to get one of the 'posh fancy' outfits altered on rush order.
By the time they'd found the right pair of shoes to go with his new clothes - and several more pairs besides, for the rest of the wardrobe - it was midafternoon. Christopher gave Harry a short tour of the jewelry department, where he was normally assigned, and then they returned upstairs to pick up Harry's alterations. He felt rather like he had on his first trip to Diagon Alley in '91, when he'd left Madam Malkin's in the first set of clothes he could truly call his own: a proper person, not just his aunt's unwanted nephew.
Now, he left Harrods feeling proper in the Muggle fashion, his satchel one blank cheque and eleven hundred pounds lighter, with Christopher’s business card, several receipts, and a ticket with which to pick up the rest of his wardrobe next week stowed in the bag’s inside pocket.
All I need now, Harry thought, admiring his reflection in a nearby shop’s tinted window, is a haircut.
The salon in Harrods had been a little too much like the place Petunia had dragged him to as a child for his tastes; easier to find a quiet barber shop out here on the street, of which there were plenty, now that he was looking. Harry’s eyes lit on a pair of well-dressed gentlemen stepping out of one such shop front just then: he could see no one but the barber left inside, and a sign in the window that read Walk-Ins Welcome, and so decided to go in there.
“Here for a trim, eh, lad?” mused the barber, a broad fellow with a very crisply maintained moustache and beard. He gestured to the singular chair in the center of the room. “What would you like?”
“Er,” said Harry, settling down. “I don’t know what to ask for… it’s been a bit out of control my whole life? My aunt used to cut it,” leaving out that said haircut had happened only one time, to disastrous effect.
The barber took pity on him, thank goodness, and offered Harry a laminated sheet of photographs. “I would recommend one of these options, here,” he said, indicating the top two rows. Harry could agree they all looked nice - he couldn’t quite tell the difference between most of them. “Timeless - easy to tame with a bit of product - popular with gentlemen of all ages.”
The worst possible outcome, Harry figured, was that he’d grow it all back into the Potter bird’s-nest overnight if he hated it. “I’ll trust your judgement, sir,” he told the barber.
Twenty minutes later, an impressive pile of hair had gathered on the floor, and Harry was looking in the mirror in nothing short of utter amazement. “It’s perfect,” he declared, putting an extra fifty-pound note on top of the bill. He didn’t even mind how the new style bared the scar on his forehead. He looked cool.
“Come back anytime, lad,” the barber called after him as he left.
There were hours yet until Harry had to be back at Privet Drive - midsummer days in England were, among other things, long, and the Dursleys would certainly not return to Little Whinging before sunset, not when Marge’s house was over an hour’s drive away. Train service back to Surrey from London was frequent enough that Harry needn’t worry about the schedule, either, which left him with quite a lot of options for the rest of his day.
He stepped into a cafe and considered it over tea. The only errand left for the day was to get copies made of Number Four’s house key; after that, he would have just shy of nine hundred pounds left in the satchel. He would be coming back next week or so to pick up the rest of his clothes from Harrods, but he was already planning to write to Sirius for more money between now and then, so he was free to spend the rest of his current money as he wished.
Briefly, as he ordered a second round of tea sandwiches, Harry entertained the idea of a trip to Diagon Alley. It was - per the map of the Underground he’d gotten at a kiosk in the department store - only a few stations away. But that would mean risking his newfound anonymity, and for what? The only shiny things he’d seen in Diagon were that solid gold cauldron, and he didn’t even like Potions.
No, best to stay on the Muggle side of things, he decided. And furthermore, to take his time for once, instead of rushing through his latest adventure. In fact, Harry thought, comfortably well-fed and beginning to get sleepy, I think I’ll just go back early.
This proved a well-timed decision. The rare sunny day in London had turned overcast in Surrey when Harry’s train reached the station; he watched fog roll in as he took the bus back to Little Whinging, carried by a cool breeze that seemed to promise rain. Harry stopped in at the Tesco on his walk back to Privet Drive to get an umbrella, one accessory he hadn’t thought to buy in Harrods, and since he was already there, a rotisserie chicken.
Outside the store only a few minutes later, it seemed even more cold and damp, to the point where it was beginning to get on his nerves. Harry lengthened his strides on the route back to Number Four, determined to beat the weather, and was so distracted that he didn’t notice Dudley until they nearly bumped into each other.
Or, for that matter, the dementors.