Harry Potter sat in his school trunk, inside the cupboard under the stairs, focussing on his summer homework with the desperation of a man who had a lot to do.

And a lot to forget.

He'd been kneeling in the small room for hours, ignoring the prickles and tingling that fizzed within his ankles, his head bent over a large dish full of silver mist. The room he was in was not dim, but the pale glow from the bowl radiated upwards, catching his eyes, reflecting off his glasses, casting strange shadows upwards on his face.

He sighed.

Then he raised his voice and spoke to a dicta-quill that hovered to his right, eyes still fixed on the swirling silver. "Ursula Southeil came to the attention of witch hunters in Knaresborough, Yorkshire, in 1561, mainly due to her cursed well and favours she shared with local muggles. Although merely blessed with good sense and a Hogwarts education, Southeil's muggle neighbours widely understood her to be a prophetess or seer. During the superstitious witch-hunts of muggle culture in that time, Southeil's advice was seen as unusually present when – hang on, that says 'prescient' – prescient when instead she was merely giving perceptive insights. Ah, crap."

Raking a hand through his tangled hair, Harry abandoned his view of the Pensieve to grab the dicta-quill with his right hand and lean over to the parchment it had been scribbling on. With pursed lips, his focused green eyes skated down the page before, "Ah". Harry found the sentence he'd ruined with his misreading and quickly scratched the wrong words out.

Then he stretched. This was the last of his holiday homework, and it was conveniently easy to complete, copying – as he was – from the essay he had already written last timeline. After a few improvements thrown into the mix with a second view of his old reference books, Harry's homework would be drafted down and complete, ready for him to make a clean copy and pack it all up for Hogwarts.

It was a small success in the chaos that was currently Harry's life.

With a roll of his shoulders and the click of a couple of joints in his spine, Harry found the tension temporarily leave his stiff back.

He'd been working at quite a pace, and with the magnificence that was his Pensieve, homework and self-study were going very well indeed. The positive thought cut through a little of the stress that had surrounded him constantly for so many months.

The smoothly capable feeling his efficiency gave him was more satisfaction than Harry had felt for schoolwork in a long time; not since he'd figured out how to enjoy learning had study seemed so agreeable. His legs were suffering though, Harry realised with a frown. All the nerves in his legs were either tingling or numb, and that hot bite of thousands of ants startled him when he shifted his weight.

The discomfort drew him back into his body, away from the purely academic place he had been before, and Harry's mind escaped his grasp long enough for some intrusive thoughts to sneak in.

He frowned.

Homework successes notwithstanding, Harry suspected that this might be the worst holiday he had ever had. And that was taking into account, well, everything that had happened last timeline.

Sure, at least he hadn't gone and gotten Sirius killed this time – it hadn't quite been fifth-year – but he'd managed to realise he'd killed someone else instead. He'd done it in person, no less. With his own two hands.

Murderer was a new title he was still getting used to.

He didn't like the ring to it, but it rather put the moniker 'Boy-Who-Lived' in its place.

He shifted his weight one again, and re-catalogued the aches and pains in his body.

Before returning in time, Harry hadn't realised how much damage the various fights and curses had left him with. They'd all been healed, of course – more or less – but coming back in time had brought home what price he'd paid for survival. Being an inexperienced eleven-year-old again had come with the surprising advantage of much less pain as well as more youthful energy.

Now though, in the wake of a few realisations, things were changing.

Harry carried the stress in his body, in his bones. His stomach ached near-constantly, his headaches were ever-present, and he had once again taken to waking up from night terrors.

This new sense of guilt had become deeply familiar, and intensely unpleasant.

The owl-order of Dreamless Sleep from St. Mungo's was correspondingly appreciated.

Of course, if that was all it was, Harry would have been fine.

Unfortunately, due to the rather embarrassing way he had ended the school year, things had taken a sudden spin well out of his control.

Having been walked to the infirmary and into Madam Pomfrey's stern care in a somewhat public way, Harry was mortified by the subsequent fallout.

A number of his friends were owling him daily, now that everyone had separated for the end-of-year break. Neville was contacting him most frequently along with little gifts that Harry would have found touching, were the reason behind them not so embarrassing.

He now had a shelf and a half of small plant cuttings that grew in pots in his bedroom compartment; they were good for healing and rest and high-quality air, according to Neville's accompanying notes.

One of them crooned quietly to itself constantly; the mumblefern was supposed to stimulate rest, apparently.

Dear Neville, the good bloke that he was, was sending a new plant every few days.

Ron also mailed regularly; Errol's desperate arrival at the Owl Post Office had apparently alarmed them so much they had posted a note back to the Weasleys. Something about owl-care and expected working lifespans, to Harry's uneducated guess, most likely. Anyway, the fallout was that now Percy, too, was sending tonics and advice as Hermes winged his way towards Harry's post box carrying missives from what seemed like the whole family at times.

On whichever overseas holiday Hermione was on, she was apparently struggling to find owls, because she had only mailed him twice, but her letters were pages and pages long, full of advice and admonishments to Harry's somewhat irritated amusement.

She was obviously under the impression that Harry had overstretched in his preparations for exams. It was a rather obvious assumption on her behalf, since he'd managed to beat her grades – just, thanks to his practicals – while masterminding the plot against Lockhart, and she wasn't suffering under the same suppositions as the rest of what seemed like the whole magical world.

Carefully not looking at a corner of his study compartment, Harry closed his eyes and slowly breathed out a deep sigh.

He had fan letters again.

In the wake of the end-of-term chaos, he'd made the papers, Harry had discovered to his great disgust. It was somewhat ironic that his grand plan to have Lockhart kicked out of Hogwarts had reflected onto him, and Wizarding Britain was apparently under the impression that the poor orphan Potter was emotionally struggling with the betrayal by one of his teachers.

In the few letters he'd opened, it seemed that half of Britain was under the impression that he'd had some kind of close mentor-mentee relationship with Lockhart and that the shock of betrayal had sent him into some kind of health scare.

The other half of Britain apparently believed that in the wake of the death of his parents and the horrible remnants of Voldemort's attack, Harry had grown up to be a brave but sensitive child with some kind of permanent traumatic damage. Those were the letters in which people told Harry how much they pitied him, and how much they admired his "attempts to live a normal life", as Archibald Chadwick had put it so succinctly.

The widespread acknowledgement of his emotional fragility made it difficult to go into Diagon Alley for his food and his post. Witches and wizards now looked at him – quite visibly, with no attempt at subtlety – with pity and compassion in their eyes.

Mrs Weasley had invited him to spend the holidays in her home again, and despite his initial intentions, Harry just didn't think he could put with that kind of sympathy on a daily basis.

Therefore, he declined, and found himself stuck inside his luggage compartment in what was ironically even more restricted than any other holiday so far. In either timeline.

Dismissing the offensive fan mail from his mind, Harry's eyes glanced around the compartment he now sat in. Made of finest dragon leather, he had been assured when he bought that it was one of the most exceptional travel accommodations available to wizards.

The space wasn't small, Harry noted with fresh eyes, determined to distract himself from the pressures of the post that lay waiting. Each compartment was significantly larger than his cupboard, larger even that the smallest bedroom that had once been his.

Functional, sure, but not extravagant.

The four walls, floor and ceiling still looked vaguely draconian, never mind that the leather that made up the trunk had been charmed and enchanted many times over.

The deep dark brown that made up the space did not seem like the warmness of wood and panelling, not matter how hard it tried. Even the ceiling-high bookshelves, the desk, the high-backed chairs in rich colours and polished timber could not quite make the room look like a home.

He lived in a trunk, Harry knew, and it was impossible to pretend otherwise.

Putting aside his homework draft, Harry got to his feet and pottered about the room.

His footsteps on the floor – still dragon leather, although it had been somehow convinced to show grains in patterns that looked like wood – were muffled and soft. Harry padded over to the pile of books on the desk and picked them up with a grunting heave.

They smelled like ash and ink and oil, a familiar scent; Harry found the rich and subtle aromas of the wizarding world so much more homey than the muggle world, these days.

He'd take the bitter bite of potion fumes, the acrid sting of owl dander and feathers, the heavy layers of dust, and sweetness of holly and aspen over muggle cleaning products and heavily perfumed sprays any day.

In his own room, this temporary abode due to desperation and homelessness, Harry found himself breathing deeply as he slowly re-shelved them each by hand.

Despite all it lacked, this enchanted trunk of his was growing comfortable over time. The damp smell of well-watered plants drifted over from Neville's new gifts; his bookshelves were filled the room with Hermione's scent of parchment and ink – a weighty, scholarly fragrance that felt like years of familiarity; broomstick polish and a faint sprinkling of fairy dust – probably carried into the room on his cloak before falling to the floor – reminded him of Ron and Luna respectively.

As Harry's eyes scanned the bookshelves, as his hands mechanically sorted the books and he reshuffled the armload as the pile shrunk and lightened, Harry found himself acknowledging the smells absently.

Warmth.

Familiarity.

Peace.

The scent of the room calmed him down and brought his spinning thoughts to rest. His hands still moved – capable, dexterous – but with each breath Harry felt his mind slow, still, calm.

He felt himself falling into new habits, accidentally finding his centre. That small still pool inside of him was deep and cool and dark. His frantic thoughts spun out and faded away.

Harry found himself noticing the prickling of his skin in the warm, dry air.

His fingers brushed over the creased leather of his book covers, neither rough nor smooth.

The stray finger that occasionally brushed his bookshelves felt the dry polish of the surface; his eyes caught the golden reflections of light on the lustrous surfaces.

The weight of books in his left arm lightened with each book he returned to the shelves, and by the time Harry had reshelved everything in his arms, he knew exactly where his centre of gravity was.

His shoulders felt lighter than they had in months. His posture felt straight, precise, accurate.

Harry paused, cataloguing the feelings, and then turned to face the contents of the compartment.

This room was not what Harry dreamed of, he thought, his eyes glancing quickly over everything. Yet it had become dear in its familiarity.

His trunk represented freedom to Harry; with it, he had control over his own time, his own destiny.

The rich scents of the room became part of him with every breath; the floor was stable beneath his feet. Soft light caressed him from the wall scones, and the warm air was neither stale nor damp.

This, Harry realised, having surveyed his small domain, this was his foundation.

Everything began from here.

With his new perspective found in this moment of peace, Harry felt the world click a little into place around him.

He found himself looking over at the pile of fan mail and the stack of Daily Prophets with a calculative eye.

Some just needed the formulaic response, Harry knew. Dear so-and-so, thank you so much for your kind thoughts and good wishes.

Others could be referred on to the aurors – the creepy comments, the suggestive harassment.

And then within the pile, Harry knew, also sat a few more business opportunities that he really should consider now that he had time.

He'd been offered sponsorships months ago, Harry knew. And a number of opportunities to meet people or make a public comment about a variety of causes and commodities.

He should get onto those, Harry realised, with a clarity of thought that he hadn't enjoyed for ages.

Plus he needed to contact Professor McGonagall about his studies for the year – his plan seemed to be needing more organisation than he had originally hoped.

And Draco needed a letter or two. He'd given some very good advice, after all.

Harry didn't think it would be wise to use the same services that Lucius Malfoy apparently used for his own business, but there was some research he could do to put Draco's advice into practise, and things would start moving.

Plus a donation or two to the Daily Prophet – something along the lines of a public service donation – would put his year on track.

Harry walked quickly to his desk with a lightness of step that had been missing for a while and settled himself down in the leather chair comfortably.

There was a lot to do, Harry knew.

He pulled over a pile of nice parchment: not the cheap stuff, but the product Draco recommended for business communications instead.

Harry's eyes raked over the variously colour inks in the inkwells in front of him. Black was a classic, of course, but perhaps a deep burgundy would go well for a couple of the more…personal…of letters. The ones needing a more sensitive touch.

Grinning to himself as he hummed a little sound in the back of his throat, Harry dipped his quill into the ink reached for the blotting paper.

He couldn't be stuck in regrets the whole year, after all.

The smallness of the room no longer seemed to press in on Harry; he no longer felt trapped within its walls and it no longer seemed like the public judgement had hounded him into hiding within it.

Instead, the warm colours and cozy atmosphere seemed to support Harry, uphold him, as he held his quill, poised to write the first word in the first of many letters.

He'd be lacking in time, this year, Harry knew, but it was also the year he'd been looking forward to.

The one where everything started falling into place.

Thoughtfully, Harry nibbled at the tip of his quill, the feather fronds tickling the tip of this tongue. He'd had practice writing letters recently, so this no longer seemed too hard, but he did need the right tone for this request in particular.

Dear Mr Weasley, Harry wrote carefully in his very best handwriting. I hope you are well. I am writing to you today in the hopes that you can help me with a number of sensitive issues, and I hope that I am not being too rude contacting you for this help.