Summary:

Harry Potter / Sekirei Cross-over. Harry, forced into exile to save his heritage from thieves, begins traveling the world. While in Japan, Harry happens upon an intimidating woman dressed in black, and gets thrown into a plot he never saw coming.

Disclaimer

I don't own Harry Potter in any way. JKR has those rights... Also, I hear Sekirei is owned by Sakurako Gokurakuin.

*Author's Note *

Some back story on a few of the Sekirei has been changed, just cause I wanted to use the characters and needed them to come from a different place. If it bothers you, tough.

Original Publish Date: 2012-02-28

Chapter Last Update: 2012-05-28

Chapter 1 – Betrayals and Travels

"Sorry, repeat that last bit," said a very tired and weary Harry Potter. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head with the futile hope it would somehow make the words he was about to hear change from the last time they were uttered. "I could've sworn you just said I had an unbreakable marriage contract drawn up in my name by someone else."

The intimidating goblin in front of him nodded gravely. Normally a goblin couldn't care less to what happened to a wand user and Harry was well aware of this fact. But this one thus far had tried to be somewhat civil to Harry which, to be brutally honest, seemed quite odd. He had never known anyone other than Hermione who had selflessly helped him in the past. Everyone else always had an angle they were trying to achieve.

He put his thoughts of crazy Goblins out of his mind, he paid attention to the words being spoken.

"A marriage contract was drawn up between your magical guardian at the time, one Albus Dumbledore and the regent of House Prewitt, one Molly Weasley. This document was only discovered two days ago when extraneous vaults opened in your name over the past decade and a half were consolidated into your trust vault. By virtue of this contract, you are to marry Ginevra Molly Weasley by her seventeenth birthday, which is August 11th 1998."

"Well, cancel it. I have no intention of marrying that girl. I'd probably get some unidentifiable disease from her anyways," said Harry, who had already mentally moved on to the next topic they were supposed to discuss. He didn't have time for nonsense like this.

"I'm sorry, Lord Potter. The contract is unassailable by the current laws of the Wizengamot. More interesting are the additional clauses found further in the contract, one of which states and I quote, 'Since the aforementioned Harry James Potter is a half-blood and not to be trusted with his own finances and civil responsibilities, House Prewitt will upon execution of the marriage, gain complete control of House Potter's finances, titles, and any periphery Houses under House Potter's control…', which unfortunately, would include Houses such as House Black."

'Well, isn't that interesting,' thought Harry, whose temper was only barely kept in check after that revelation. He had been pushed around for years by the magical world, first indirectly though the abuse he had endured by being placed with his non-magical relatives by magicals who thought they knew best. Later, it was through the constant threat of death and dismemberment on a yearly basis once he had rejoined this so-called superior society. This was the last straw. If they wanted to screw with him, he would screw right back.

"High Warlord Ragnok, I would appreciate any suggestions you may be capable of providing me. The last thing I want to do is leave my family's legacy in the hands of inbred thieves with no honor. I hope we can find a solution that would be mutually beneficial and provide good profit for all involved."

Ragnok, the powerful looking goblin who currently sat across from him smiled a very toothy fanged grin that probably would have made even the most battle hardened of goblins shit themselves silly. "I'm sure we can assuredly find something beneficial to us all, Lord Potter."

-o0o0o-

Three days and at least a dozen meetings later, Harry Potter walked out of the High Warlord's inner sanctum deep within the bowels of Gringotts bank. His mind swam with details of the newest element of insanity that has been introduced to his life and how the world still seemed to contrive new and improved ways to make his life difficult despite the war now being over. He could only sigh with the realization there seemed to be no relief in sight for him.

Just weeks ago, he had managed to achieve his so-called destiny and defeated the second major Dark Lord the wizarding world had faced during the twentieth century, Lord Voldemort.

The victory was not without cost. Almost the entire population of Great Britain's First-Generation witches and wizards were lost, slaughtered by their own magical government. Their immediate families were often captured and executed in the purge as well. Just like after the first war, those responsible had claimed to be victims of the Imperious curse again, or had plead other forms coercion justified their 'reluctant participation' in the atrocities.

Harry seriously wished he could lower himself to the level of his enemies, annihilate them all, and let God sort the mess out. This reaction was so easy for him to ponder because he had been dragged somewhat unwillingly into the politics of the aftermath of the second rise of Voldemort.

And Politics certainly reared its ugly head often, since many of the representatives of magical non-humans species had requested the well-known pro-creatures stance of Harry during the negotiations of new treaties. The Fudge, Scrimgeour and Voldemort led governments had laid waste to essentially every treaty ever signed by Britain. The most sensitive of these re-negotiations concerned the Goblins, who requested reparations after Harry and friends stormed the depths of the bank to steal the piece of Voldemort's soul housed there. Luckily, the issue was quickly settled by the new Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, who managed to get Harry off with just a minor fine, which the newly reinstated Ministry graciously paid.

It was now the sixteenth of May, only two weeks after the massive Battle of Hogwarts, and now Harry found himself in a new fight: a battle for his rightful heritage. He had less than three months to avoid being condemned to a life in hell under the Weasley's thumb.

He had just left his final meeting with High Lord Ragnok. The Goblin, once the situation was explained and he had been properly appeased with a separate bribe of Galleons, had approved of Harry's plan to infiltrate Gringott's to steal a piece of the Dark Lord's soul and destroy it. He was mainly happy, not that Harry had found glaring holes in his bank's security, but that Harry had graciously and voluntarily given the contents of the Lestrange's vault over to the Goblins. All Lestranges being dead and Harry being Bellatrix's head of house turned out to be a very useful thing in the end.

Harry himself had just endured three days of explanations from Goblin Legal experts concerning his current financial options. The High Warlord had taken a personal interest in this case, and had contacted numerous Goblin legal experts in an attempt to find and exploit loopholes in the contract.

Their findings however, were not what everyone was hoping for. In the end, very few things could be found that could be turned to go in Harry's favor. The contract was unbreakable as written per the laws of the magical country of Great Britain. The clauses that stated the Weasleys gained complete control of all Potter assets regardless of whether Harry was alive or not on August 11th could not be invalidated or worked around either. Moving Harry's assets to another Gringott's branch offshore wasn't an option either, because of the newly negotiated Goblin treaties Harry himself had helped negotiate with Magical Britain. Those agreements would eventually require Gringott's to move the assets back to England when the Weasleys requested them.

The upside of their analysis was that the contract was invalid and worthless under the laws of basically any other civilized magical society in the world.

Everything that had transpired and been discovered had culminated with the meeting Harry had just left. It was decided, after intense negotiations, that for a fee of ten percent of all House Potter's liquid assets, the Goblin Nation would transfer all gold and currency holdings they currently managed on behalf of House Potter to the Gnomes of Switzerland in secret. What remained in England, the financial and economic holdings and interests, would be liquidated at cutthroat rates in order to quickly divest them. Also, any significant or well-known real estate properties held by the estate within Britain were put up for sale at prices that would encourage their liquidation within ninety days.

The one solitary property Harry would retain secret ownership of within Britain was his family's ancestral home of Potter Manor at Rowan Hill. The Goblins had already established an alternative identity that would retain ownership of the property, which had never been burned down like Dumbledore had told the public. Harry had wandered the deserted hallways of his ancestors for thirty glorious, emotional minutes before ordering the home stripped, emptied, and then locked down in stasis. All moveable physical assets owned by Harry were to be moved out of the country. The destination was a secret location below his new estate in Switzerland that only he and his elf Dobby knew the full details of once the Goblin team that built the storage cavern voluntarily allowed themselves to be obliviated of the location in exchange for a ten percent bonus.

All of his vaults within Gringotts were closed except the main Potter family vault, which 30 silver sickles were left in a neatly stacked pile in the middle of the basketball court sized room. Most heirlooms and family items were placed within newly created vaults deep underground below his new sanctuary in Switzerland.

Items that Harry would always wish to carry with him, such as his Firebolt, his few personal belongings, and journals of his parents were placed within multi-compartment trunks that Harry carried with him at all times. The trunks were kept shrunk within a bandolier like armband attached to his wand holster which only Harry could see or remove.

Then, Harry and the Goblins repeated same exact same process with the assets and financial holdings of the Ancient House of Black. Harry figured Sirius wouldn't want his family's assets, no matter how much Sirius hated his parents and cousins, to fall to true traitors such as the Weasleys. He realized he had responsibilities to Remus' and Tonks' child Teddy, his godson, so he made sure trusts were established in Teddy's name that would have money transferred into them by the gnomes each year.

Eventually, August 10th, 1998 arrived and Harry sent copies of the marriage contract to the press, both domestic and international, to be printed on the 11th. His goal was to make it worldwide public knowledge just how poorly England treated its' heroes. This also provided the additional benefit of discrediting the Weasleys, who had been doing their best to become media darlings and the epitome of what a 'family of the light' should be.

Harry bribed an official in the floo office in order to make use of a very little known feature of the transportation system that allowed for distribution of ministry notices. With this venue, Harry delivered a notice to every home and business in England that he would be holding a press conference that day. The conference, which quickly became headline news since Harry had been out of the spotlight for two months and had been completely unreachable, drew thousands of spectators to the Ministry Atrium where it was being held. Through the Goblins, Harry had hired his own security force of ruthlessly trained squibs and ex-ministry hit-men from Voldemort's first rise.

The added security definitely helped, and he inwardly cheered as he waited patiently on the platform for the conference to start as he watched a herd of red heads stopped cold on their way to confront Harry. The security force that met them was led by a dozen of the biggest and most intimidating men Harry had ever seen. If Voldemort had used people like this instead of inbred lunatics with facial tremors and crossed-eyes like Lestrange or the Carrows, he would've had the wizarding populace in his grip far sooner than he managed.

Slowly, the crowd which had fixed its attention upon the loud and obnoxious throng of redheads returned its attention to the reason they were all in attendance. To the surprise of all present, Harry made a very short and succinct statement that he was permanently leaving England. With a wave of his hand, a multi-page document appeared in the hands of every single person present, listing in detail everything that would appear in newspapers the next day. Then Harry declared that, so long as there was a Weasley alive to tie him or his descendants against their will to a contract, Harry and his descendants would never step foot in Britain again.

And with those final words, Harry activated a portkey and left the ministry.

The reaction to the news was typical of the backwards British magical society. Most people were outraged that their hero and savior was being forced to marry someone against his will, and that the contract was designed so that everything that belonged to him was somehow going to be taken over by someone else when the marriage took effect.

But these were the common folk. Despite being systematically hunted and executed, the majority of the populace of Great Britain was by far Half-Bloods and First Generation magicals. However, despite the fact they represented the vast majority of the country's population of Britain, they were a wholly apathetic lot, who had willingly let the Ministry mistreat them for centuries.

Most Purebloods were actually incredibly happy to see the Potter and Black wealth redistributed, especially to a family as financially inept as the Weasleys. Most of them were actually counting on the Weasleys doing what they always historically had done when a financial windfall came their way.

They would lose or spend all the money within a generation, sometimes within a decade.

Harry did not leave the like he informed the shocked crowd in the Atrium. Instead, he stayed within Magical Britain one more day. This day would truly mark the day that Harry Potter decided to throw down the shackles upon him for once in his life and strike back at every single person who had wronged him. In his opinion, if wizards were going to stand back and permit the assets of House Potter and House Black to be gutted, then Harry saw no reason why the assets of said wizards weren't fair game as well.

With the aid of some surreptitiously provided maps and blueprints of the homes of prominent members of wizarding society, courtesy of the Goblins, and a time-turner whose existence had been lost in ages long past from the back of the Potter Family Vault, Harry began his revenge.

During the longest night of Harry's life, he simultaneously visited the homes of every person that had ever wronged him with the aid of the time-turner: Weasleys, members of the Order of the Phoenix who had been knowledgeable of his life at the Dursleys, the Dursleys themselves, his Aunt Marge, Former Minister Fudge, Madame Umbridge, corrupt Auror's who had helped the Death Eaters and had gotten away with it such as Dawlish, and every member of the Wizengamot who had been recorded voting against him in his sham of an underage magic trial two years previous.

They were all visited. And every one of their homes was attacked and razed to the ground.

None were spared, and no one suspected Harry was directly responsible, because there were already advance fake international news postings complete with photographs of Harry's travels circulating in the press thanks to Gringotts.

With that last act, Harry left England behind, and never looked back again for years.

-o0o0o-

The profound sense of freedom that Harry gained from leaving England had been something he had never had before in his life. He travelled the world under an assumed name, where he used his anonymity to study, learn life, and relax.

The biggest influence upon his life suddenly became his parents, as the previously lost journals of his mother, father, and Sirius were pulled from storage boxes from a dark corner of the Potter Family vault and from Sirius' trust vault. He found more stories about the three people he loved more than anyone else in the world from those pages than anyone had ever bothered telling him previously. The adventures, the jokes, the pranks, and the unfiltered true history of his parents had documented within these pages slowly became worth more than all the material wealth he had fought tooth and nail to keep from thieves.

The one problem he encountered as he read the journals of the trio was the realization that his parents and Sirius had been incredibly intelligent. His mother likely would have been able to run circles around Hermione. Upon reflection, he slowly became well aware of the limitations of his own education, and his previous lack of studiousness. To counter this, he travelled to South America and enrolled at the hidden Mayan Enclave with the initial goal of simply finishing his NEWTs. The more he studied there however, the more he was both amazed and disgruntled by how little of the world of magic he truly had been exposed to while in England's educational system.

The Mayans were excellent practitioners of rituals of life and death, and Harry learned much about his past, present, and future while there. The identities of many who had betrayed him and many who had helped him behind the scenes, often to their own detriment, were revealed to him as the strands of his life and cruel sheers of fate were analyzed by true seers.

It almost made him sick to think about how badly he had been duped by those around him. Obliviations, compulsions to avoid specific people, loyalty potions, and blocks on his very magic itself. As the list of wrongs committed against him grew and grew, Harry found himself forced to review his life objectively with the knowledge he now possessed and was slowly shocked by the revelations he had when began writing down all the things that had happened to him.

Harry knew his magic had the potential to be strong beyond belief on rare occasions, most aptly demonstrated by his ability to drive over a hundred Dementors away from his godfather Sirius at the end of his third year. It was on special occasions such as these, that Harry's magic would fight against the blocks on them, almost shattering them completely each year at Hogwarts when faced with the deadly events that threatened him. The broken blocks were never completely undone, and new ones were always simply placed over the existing restrictions on his magic during his extended hospital visits.

The removal of the remnants of no less than nine blocks on his magical core had put Harry in coma lasting a month and completely changed him in ways he could never have imagined. He was physically and mentally stronger, healthier, and his eye sight improved to the point where glasses were no longer necessary. His magic grew and reveled in being free for the first time in seventeen years.

And with the correction of all the abuse that had almost ritually been inflicted upon him for the last seventeen years of his life, Harry rededicated himself to his studies and tried to become the man he knew his parents would be proud of. Suddenly in his mind, to fight and defeat a Dark Lord wasn't something to be proud if all he went on to do afterwards was to become a drunk or arrogant sod that brought home a new woman each night. Harry wanted to better himself while he learned about magic, kept his sense of humor, and became a better overall person.

His studies at the Enclave included wards, curse breaking, spell crafting, enchanting, and a whole host of skills which Harry dove into with a reckless abandon. As he delved further into the study of wards, he developed the very useful skill to see magic, also known as Mage-Sight. Mage-Sight was something that Harry had heard very few wizards speak about, and he always assumed it was only the rare wizard like Dumbledore who possessed the ability. Mage-Sight after all was what allowed the old fossil to see through Harry's invisibility cloak and then boast about it afterwards in his first year. Harry now learned that it was a trainable art, which of course was banned within England for being a dark ability.

The biggest life-changing difference was the emergence of intentional wandless magic. Previously Harry had only rarely performed wandless magic, and it only occurred in times of great stress and emotional upheaval. Previously uncontrolled magical outburst such as blowing up his aunt Marge and then the subsequent greater feat where he wandlessly opened multiple locks upon the cupboard under the stairs, or his actions during the summer before his fifth year where he able to lit his wand when it wasn't in his hand while being attacked by Dementors in an alleyway. Previously, these monumental feats were few and far between. Now with his added control, he found that he only rarely needed to reach for a wand since his magic just seemed to know how to react to his needs.

He always thought himself to be a powerful wizard when the going gets tough, but never found a way to harness that power and be more than merely mediocre all other times. Now he realized the truly powerful moments came when the blocks would be partially shattered when his magic realized he truly needed his full capabilities.

The hospital stays that occurred after such bouts of magic were when the blocks were reapplied by Dumbledore, leaving him weak and bedridden for days.

With his body, mind, and spirit in better shape than any previous time in his life, he departed from South America and went to the American Southwest, to learn something he felt had been denied to him for years: Animagus Training.

Animagus training was something he had always wanted to begin, but never found the time. It was also technically not legal to learn within the borders of England. After all, what pureblood would lower themselves to willingly transform into a filthy animal. Harry could not find any books on it amongst his possessions. It seemed any sources on the art had long been pilfered by Albus Dumbledore when he ransacked the Potter and Black Libraries.

So, it was bittersweet when two weeks after completing his Animagus transformation into a white and blue phoenix, Harry received a highly weathered book written by his father and Sirius. The book had been reclaimed after a tipoff from Aberforth Dumbldore led the Goblins to some possible secretive caches of Albus' misbegotten goods. He wished he had received the books years earlier when it would have been far more useful, but it was one more piece of his father and Sirius returned to him that could be passed on to future generations of his family.

The unfortunate thing in Harry's mind was that rarely used his animagus form once it was learned. It was far too distinctive. What was far more significant to Harry and cherished was the memory of doing what his father and Sirius had done. In the end, Harry truly did just want to make his parents proud, and the chance to follow in his father's and Sirius' footsteps was just one small way to achieve that self-admitted unachievable goal. Afterwards, he would only use the form to bottle tears from the phoenix in case he or someone he knew experienced a life-threatening illness or injury.

After America, Harry decided to dive more deeply into some of the subjects his few remaining friends found enjoyable. He travelled to Siberia, where he learned mysteries of the weather, and how to make plants grow in the harshest of environments. He had long written down and collected bits of the knowledge to send to his few loyal friends back home. A letter with the more esoteric spells and information from Siberia had only been sent for a few days previous to Neville Longbottom, when Neville showed up himself to enthusiastically learn right alongside him.

It would become a tradition of sorts, with every new place visited, Harry would send information to one old friend who would inevitably join Harry at the remote location for a period of time. The knowledge gained on these pilgrimages of knowledge would eventually be taken back to England and used to slowly undermine the backwards and stunted views that had taken root like a cancer once again within England.

Luna joined him in New Zealand at a reclusive preserve for endangered magical and non-magical animals. Hermione made her appearance at the famous Library of Alexandria when the curator, impressed with Harry's very eclectic interests, asked if Harry knew anyone with a desire to pursue an apprenticeship in the preservation of magical history via tomes, parchment, papyrus, and digital means. Fleur divorced Bill Weasley after his family's actions towards Harry came to light and joined him at one of his Chateau's in France, where the two learned the ropes at how to run a succesful vineyard. She liked it so much she quit her job at Gringotts and permanently moved there where she immediately took over the day to day operations of the business and expanded its operations.

In the end, Harry travelled wherever his whim fancied and departed whenever he felt he had learned enough at each location.

The downside of his travels was when he encountered less than welcome reminders of home. The British Ministry of Magic periodically had hired bounty hunters to try and drag Harry back to England. To Harry's great amusement, the hunter's assumption that the bounty was on an uneducated wizard with a barely a sixth year's grasp of magic turned out to be source of their failure every time.

Finally, after the third attempt in so many years to kidnap Harry, he had had enough.

With the way his skills had grown, he easily captured the dozen bounty hunters that had been the latest to have underestimated him. With confessions written in their own blood attached to their foreheads via sticking charms, Harry portkeyed the criminals directly into the Grand Assembly Hall of the ICW headquarters in Geneva in the midst of an International conference. The voices of over five hundred witches and wizards suddenly spoke out in unison against England, and heralded a new level of international outrage over isolated government's behavior.

Sanctions imposed by the real wizarding world against small pure-blood ensconced government of Britain destroyed the economy of the country. Purebloods owned everything in England, but did nothing on their own. Almost ninety percent of the goods within Magical England were imported from other countries, and with a complete worldwide lockdown on all exports bound to Britain, supplies of medical potions and numerous other necessities were gone within weeks.

In response to riots and increase in purebloods stealing from muggles to survive, an international peacekeeping force was deployed to the country. The world at large declared it necessary because the vast number incidents that violated the International Statute of Secrecy all occurred within the borders of the British Isles. Within three months of the final attempt to kidnap Harry, a new government was in place in England with almost the entirety of the upper crust of its society and former government now entombed within Azkaban due to crimes prosecuted by the peacekeeping force. With this final action, Harry felt, at last, the war against Voldemort was finally over.

This did not mean Harry had any intention of returning home anytime soon.

-o0o0o-

Eight years after he vanished from Britain, Harry decided his current next stop would be Japan.

Japan was a non-ICW county, which meant the country's loose and secretive coalition of Magical denizens had no desire to hide the existence of magic from their population, and had therefore not signed on to the International Statute of Secrecy. They had stubbornly held this line for hundreds of years, despite huge sanctions waged both Magically and Non-Magically after the county's defeat during World War II.

His inspiration for this trip had originated with the time he had spent with magically-aware Monks in Tibet. The experience inspired him to attempt to learn more of their subtle arts while in a new setting such as Japan. The country was long rumored to have a few secretive institutions to study at related to their Buddhist religion. He just needed to find them.

Unfortunately, Japan had not been quite what he expected it to be.

He had been in Tokyo for a few weeks now, where he simply wandered the small isolated magical districts, sampled the local cuisine, and tried to take in yet another culture's eccentricities. The number of people who lived in the small country astounded him, as did the number of Magicals who moved about in broad daylight and effortlessly mingled with common citizens. Harry had long ago developed the habit of casually utilizing Mage-Sight at random intervals, and the simple act where turned it on here in the crowded streets had definitely been an eye opener. Within each crowd of common citizens, there were always a handful of Magicals that commuted to work. Their actions were simply those of people who simply went about their daily lives in a manner absolutely no different than one would expect from Non-Magicals.

It seemed to be the perfect society, where Magicals intermingled on a daily basis with mundanes. Unfortunately, he had no luck finding trained magical users. Most people with any sort of magical aura he had come across had never been trained to utilize it consciously.

After a few weeks, where he had tried and failed to find an educational center in Tokyo for magic, he decided to take the day off and simply tour the city. He had headed out in the direction of the city's water front, with a vague goal finding a river tour when he suddenly felt something.

It was not like the nervous feeling he sometimes got when unknown people would place him under observation, or the urge to fully release his powers when an imminent threat was nearby. It was more like something nearby was powerful but had not noticed him yet. He slowed his pace and casually walked towards and leaned against a nearby building. A tourist guide map was quickly brought upwards to obscure his face while he pretended to read.

He palmed a wand and cast a one-way transparency spell on the leaflet often used by Aurors to allow them to snoop through walls on unsuspecting suspects. It allowed him to see clearly through the map as if it wasn't there and left the random pedestrians who passed by none the wiser.

With a casual look around, he found there was no one in particular who stood out, but then he enabled his Mage-Sight and got one of his first genuine surprises in a long time.

A stranger walked on the other side of the street in the opposite direction Harry had previously travelled. Their aura even now sent powerful irregular bursts of magic in all directions that Harry observed in quiet fascination. The power at the person's fingertips seemed barely controlled and absolutely wild in nature. It was almost as if something was broken in the person, and a considerable portion of the person's energy was dedicated towards the simple control and prevention of a magically induced outburst of power.

The Mage-Sight was removed after he decided to get a clearer look at the person behind this enigma. The distorted and muddled deep red blur with black-streaks transitioned into a woman who walked casually down the street. She had messy, silver hair with a topknot that extended down her back. She was dressed in a black military uniform with a loose and open robe covering the whole ensemble. The robe and uniform both had one device, a bird with feathers surrounding it on the left breast as the only identifying mark. She carried a long katana at her side effortlessly and walked with a physical presence that stated quite clearly she was someone who didn't really need the sword to inflict damage.

The woman was directly across the street from Harry when suddenly she stopped. She stilled as if battle may come at any moment. He watched with great interest as her hand moved almost faster than he could see to the hilt of her sword. The woman immediately back up towards a wall, which eliminated one avenue of approach to her. She looked around the street, almost like a predator that was now gleefully prepared to pounce upon prey which had foolishly walked into its territory.

Then her eyes settled upon Harry across the street, who had casually leaned against a wall while he innocuously read the over-large leaflet map of the local hotspots. Despite the distance of the wide road, Harry thought he saw her eyes narrow as she identified him as the source of her consternation.

'Well,' Harry thought, 'this definitely was one of the more powerful local magic users he had hoped to find. Only question is, will she help me or kill me?'

It was probably smart not to tempt fate with the obviously deadly female, but when had doing the smart thing ever been the route chosen by Harry Potter. He looked to his right and noticed a small teashop.

'Yes, that should do quite nicely,' he thought to himself.

Harry lowered and folded the leaflet before he placed it back into the bottomless pocket of the very bright and touristy bag that loosely hung from his shoulder and across his chest. He then deliberately looked across the street and locked eyes with the now dangerously poised woman.

Throwing caution to the wind, he cocked his head, raised an eyebrow, and threw the famous Potter lop-sided grin at her.

If anything, the woman seemed to emit a palpable sense of rage at the sheer audacity of Harry not running away, soiling himself in terror. After he gave an exaggerated side-long gaze at the tea shop, and then back at the woman, Harry briefly nodded his head to the right, where he hoped the woman would take the hint and follow. He never looked back as he walked into the tea shop.