Chapter 3.1- Doom Days

1. Occlumency

2. Books from Room of Requirement (move to number 1 since I don’t have any occlumency books)

3. Check out the forest for dragons (move to number 1, move books to number 2 since I can do that tonight)

4. Finances and shopping (?) (move to number 1 since its easiest to do and I can do the forest and the books when I get back)

5. Figure out a strategy for the rest of the year

6. Expose Crouch (?) (Not sure how or whether I should yet- missing graveyard misses opportunity to get Pettigrew)

7. Sirius’ innocence (need Pettigrew for that)

8. Get stronger

I stared at the rough to-do list of eight items. I knew it would get even rougher with time as I made edit after edit and revision after revision. It was a habit that I had retained from my first life. The need to squeeze as much utility from the day as possible. It was why I had practically fled the antechamber where the wands were weighed in favour of returning to the Chamber of Secrets instead. And now it was why I was preparing to leave the castle and get moving.

I spun in space, using the skulls given to me by Riddle’s memories to bend space-time around myself and appear elsewhere. By elsewhere, I meant the alleyway right next to the Leaky Cauldron. I took a look at the door, and cursed as I spotted my reflection in the mirror. I’d forgotten to change my appearance before apparating here. That was problematic. Very problematic. But there was little to be done.

I waited a few seconds to make sure no one was looking towards the door before I opened I and walked towards the Diagon Alley entrance with a ducked head. The Leaky Cauldron was an extremely popular pub, but it was just my luck that Wizards weren’t as prone to day drinking as their muggle counterparts so the room was mostly empty.

“Harry” I heard Tom the barman’s voice sound out, but I made sure to ignore it and avoid reacting at all to make him think he’d been mistaken. I tapped the brick combination with visible haste in my body movements and even as I saw Tom’s shadow round the corner as he came towards where I stood, I jumped through the half formed entry way and closed it up behind me almost immediately. Safely within the Alley’s magical signature, I waved my wand and lengthened my hair until it fell down to my shoulders. It covered my scar easily at that length, and then I died the hair a dark blonde.

My eyes became blue with another wave of my wand and my black school robes became completely featureless, losing the Hogwarts crest and shifting in style to match something I’d seen Mr. Weasley wear on the way to work. Not me, Potter. I reminded myself at the slip, and then began to walk in. I’d engaged in risky self transfiguration as opposed to glamours because I knew that there were quite a few wizards and witches who wore eyewear charmed to see through glamours and the like. Of course, those charms weren’t readily publicly available but those in the know could get access, and ‘those in the know’ were just the kind of people I didn’t want knowing about Harry Potter’s trip to the Alley.

Gringotts was the first stop. Harry had his key in his luggage, and wasn’t that a relief. I remembered from fan fiction that it was almost a settled trope that Harry didn’t have access to his vaults and instead relied on the Weasley matriarch for such things. Of course, that went against everything that Riddle knew about Gringotts and their security measures.

I stared at the bank’s poem with a smile on my face. Both men whose memories I had absorbed would go on to rob this bank at point or the other- Riddle when he searched for the Philosopher’s stone, and Potter when he sought Hufflepuff’s cup. Considering the cup was going to be necessary to putting Voldemort down for good, I would be robbing this bank in my own time as well. Three robbers walk in to a bank… I chuckled at the mental joke and practically skipped past the goblin guards on the outside even as they sneered at me.

My eventual plans to rob the bank meant that I watched every single thing with a sharp eye. Even as I waited for my turn to come at the Teller, I assessed the bank’s measures with the eye of one who intended to breach them. Doom had never robbed a bank in his life, even if he did remember a funny pro bono case from early on in his career when he had to defend a would-be bank robber. From defender to accused, how poetic. In his turn, he barely acknowledged the creature and handed it his key.

The goblin waited a short eternity, assessing the key from every angle before asking, “I assume there is a reason why Mr. Potter is within Gringotts’ hallowed halls wearing an appearance other than his own” with menace in its voice.

“Discretion, you damned thing. Could you be any louder?” He hissed. It turned out that Tom Riddle harboured a deep hatred of goblins. With valid reason as well. When the young boy had found out about his status as the heir of Slytherin, he expected lands, castles, maybe even a few vaults choked full with gold but he at least understood inflation enough to know that particular expectation was more a pipe dream, and all he had received from the goblins when he tried to press his claim was mockery and laughter. Tom Riddle found out about the Gaunt family’s financial situation through the lips of a particularly nasty bank teller named Jabspear, and it had not been pretty. Not pretty at all.

In turn, the creature just sneered down at him before turning away.

“Griphook. See the human to his vault” At least the goblin was wise enough not to mention his name again.

A/N; Just a little bitty thing