His love for Potions I ✔

Chapter 33: Grimmauld Place

"Dudley," Harry said, not looking up from his trimming the hedge.

His cousin paused, idly, on his way down the street on the other side of the hedge.

"Think you could cover for me going away for a few days? Say you just saw me and I was going out to the park, that sort of thing?"

Dudley grunted neutrally.

"I left a three layer lemon cake in your room," Harry told the hedge. "With strawberries on top."

"Not chocolate?" Dudley asked thin air.

"I could make a chocolate one when I got back. If you covered for me."

"I want four layers of chocolate cake. With chocolate frosting."

It was nice to know that some things in Harry's life would never change.

"If you really distract them - tell them you told me to eat in my room because I was distracting you or something...."

"Don't tell me what to do," Dudley told Harry reflexively, and both of them went quiet as they considered how to recover from this conversational death trap.

"I want some more of those blue things as well," Dudley said.

"You like the Sour Raspberries?"

The little blue candies had been Harry's effort to get Dudley to stop stealing his experiments, by making the most tongue-destroying sour candy possible. The idea of Dudley trying one of the ones with magical effects, and the effect that would have on his fragile summer peace had been rather motivating for Harry.

Sensing rebellion in the colonies, Dudley pounced, "A whole bag, or no deal."

"Fine." Heaven forbid Harry stop his cousin from torturing himself. Maybe they'd been a better idea than he thought? "I'm leaving tonight."

"Where're you going?"

"London."

"Why?"

Harry ignored this question, and eventually he heard Dudley wandering off muttering insults under his breath.

#

Harry'd been thinking about this plan for weeks, ever since his night's conversation with Sirius. Exchanging letters with his friends was all very well, but he'd been hoping to spend more of his summer with Ron, and there'd been no definite word about that. It left him feeling restless, and returning over and over in his mind to Sirius' words - whenever you need someplace to escape. 12 Grimmauld Place, London. Choose your own room.

It wasn't as if he was turning up without an invitation. He had an invitation. And he was curious, and on clear nights with bright stars, Harry looked out his window and thought about star navigation and really flying the way he hadn't dared on any previous summer. He thought about his flying car adventure with Ron, and tucked away a bottle of water for the trip, eyeing his things and trying to figure out what would be really necessary and what wasn't - his cauldron didn't make the cut based on weight, even if he wanted it. Maybe Sirius's house would have some? A couple robes and some other clothes, a map of the country with a neat line drawn from Little Whinging to London, Quidditch Through The Ages, his wand... at which point his bag was full and Harry spent far too long brooding over the rest of his books and the frugality that had kept him from buying a bag with a bigger inside than its outside. It would have been just like Doctor Who, and he could have brought his cauldron and his books, but no, it wasn't recommended for students. Hmph.