Shampoo147: Thank you for the spelling tip o' faithful reviewer.

Ayame: Thank you . . .

To Think

The next day, a small flutter of black robes weaved in and out of the Diagon Alley foot traffic, heading in the direction of Gringotts.

Quickly skittering inside, the flutter of robes hurried to the nearest teller.

Removing the deep hood, laced with gold to divert negative attention, revealed a slender elfin face with pink lips and hypnotizing green eyes. The young boy looked at the goblin and said, "Excuse me, but I must ask you, is it possible for me to access my trust fund without my key?"

The goblin looked down his nose at the small boy and said, "Yes, if you are serious, follow me." Then walked off at a swift pace. The boy scampered off to him and took a few yards trying to mimic the goblin's way of walking, before succeeding and was now walking with his head high, a grouchy, yet traditionally elegant posture usually impossible for humans to mimic.

The goblin led the boy, (If you haven't figured it to be Harry, I suggest Sp. Ed) to a wooden door and said, "Just place your hand here," he gestured to the circle in the middle, "and the door will take a few drops of blood. If you do have a vault, even a trust fund, the door will give you a key." Harry nodded and placed his nimble hand on the circle, wincing as he felt a sharp prick in the middle of his palm.

The goblin made a gesture, letting Harry know that the door had its share of blood. As he pulled his hand back, he noticed a glowing light at the small slot to the right of the circle, where the goblin was. The light faded away, leaving one, small key in its place. The goblin gave a brisk nod and said, "Well, this key says Vault 314, Potter's heir." When he was done with this statement, a cart came whizzing and Harry watched as it slowed and stopped in front of them.

The goblin got in and, seeing that Harry hadn't copied, made an impatient gesture to the seat behind him. Harry quickly hurried his steps and settled himself in the back seat. There was a sudden jerk and all Harry can fully recall about the trip was a blur of colors and shapes.

'Good defense tactic, not even letting your enemies have a chance at navigating the tunnels by themselves.' He thought acidly to himself.

The cart finally jerked to a stop and Harry blinked as his stomach heaved queasily. He shakily followed the goblin out of the cart and to the vault. The goblin put the key inside the keyhole and opened the vault.

Harry looked inside and barely managed to retain any shred of dignity he had left by keeping himself from fainting or gaping like an idiot at the sheer amount of gold inside. He cleared his throat and asked the goblin, "Might I inquire how much money is in here?"

The goblin looked at him and back to the vault, "My estimate is 4,500 gallons."

Harry nodded and walked in, filling his pouch with gold and turning to the goblin to let him know that he was ready to leave.

Harry was so distracted by the gold in his pouch that he failed to notice a redheaded girl watching him with admiring eyes.

Harry said nothing as he left the Apothecary with the necessary ingredients required for the potions he had in mind. He quickly hid himself among the early Hogwarts students milling about and went into the bookstore.

He looked over a few books and picked up A Basic Guide to Occlumency, The Basics of Mind Magic, Abstract Magic, Advanced Potion Making, Potions for the Gifted, Wandlore: The Dying Art, Foreign Magic, Albanian Magic, and Spell Crafting. The cashier had given him a funny look before deciding that he must be picking up books for the family, which was fine with Harry.

He vexed his lip as he took his things back with him, to his home and tried to stop his finger twitching. He had seen a beautiful drawing of a centaur while in the bookstore and needed to get his hands in some clay, and collect his tools.

Harry leaned back and admired his art, a masterpiece. It was a centaur, the very same centaur he had seen in the bookstore, with deep brown fur and hair, spots of glossy black on the rear side of the creature. Is had had golden brown skin and black hooves and tail . . . eight days it had taken him to complete this work of art. As was his talent, the centaur moved, expressed life without a single quiver of the clay. It was a painstaking job, to express so much emotion into a single inanimate object, and to pay attention to every little detail so that each stroke of hair and color had its own care.

(Well, well, you've wasted over a week of precious time making a damn sculpture? You've wasted the time you could have spent studying, learning, planning?!) Damn it, he hated that voice so much.

'For your information, you annoying little pest, I have been planning. I've been thinking and creating works of art helps me do that! Yes, I could have been studying, but then my brain would get sluggish and I would fail to bring up a plan worth the thought of 'genius' and not merely 'clever'.'

(Well, now that you're done, you might be able to get back to work, brat.)

'Bastard.'

There was no reply and Harry heavily questioned his sanity.

He was silent for a moment then looked out of the window, to the cherry courts. They were beginning to go out of their season and some of the leaves were already dying. He stared at the scene for a moment more before digging out A Basic Guide to Occlumency.

He flipped open the cover, skipped the Table of Contents, and read the Introduction.

Occlumency is a form of mind magic. This form of magic requires no foolish wand waving and is not for the undedicated. Occlumency, like all forms of mind magic, is a magic so pure, refined, and complicated that there are whole plains of researchers who study the art, the form.

The mind is not merely a muscle in our heads, it's a field of worlds all its own. One could scale the threads of a mind for years, decades, and never fully comprehend the movement, the beauty of the mind.

There are very few who appreciate the subtle and delicate arts of mind magic, and stick to their own world of falsehood and secrets.

The mind can hold many different anomalies and dysfunctions . . .

Harry stopped and skimmed over the rest of the chapter. There was nothing here that he couldn't (or hadn't) acquired from a muggle psychology book. He skimmed over the chapters and bit his thumb (his cuticles, more specifically) when he found that Occlumency was a rather simple and do-able concept. The thing that got to most people as hard was that you had to be truly dedicated to the art the countless practice. You had to be focused and dedicated in order to achieve anything in Occlumency, constant organizing, re-organizing the chaos of the mind, the endless mediation, but most of all, the acceptance of what, who, you are and the realities.

In order to master Occlumency, you had to separate your being from your emotions and look at the world through gray eyes. Only the truest occlumens could remain true to themselves and be neither optimistic nor pessimistic.

As expected, not very many people ever reached this level of mastery.

Pushing the book aside, Harry reached for The Basics of Mind Magic, he had a lot of . . . studying to do today.

Studying . . . such a foreign word . . . he hated it . . .

Harry leaned back and glared at the ceiling of his room, he had just finished studying and memorizing the information from the books that he had bought two weeks earlier.

(Damn, you study slow.)

Harry scowled and replied, 'Of course I do, I've never actually studied before!'

(Excuses, excuses.)

Harry growled under his breath before closing his eyes and allowing his anger and frustration to flow over his body. It was a great little magic trick he had mastered a few months ago. He simply allowed any strong emotion, which could cloud his mind and interfere with his thought process, to –for lack of a proper title- shimmer with his magic and vent out through his pores.

Simply, he was sweating out strong emotions. Oddly, if the emotion was negative, it came out gold, a light sheen of gold sweat, and positive emotions came out silver (silver sweat, you have never had such an odd experience).

As the oily gold trickled about his body, Harry's thoughts became more controlled and his thought process was now more apathetic.

Despite having so much knowledge within an arm's reach, he had no clue of anything to do with Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, not to mention spell structure and ritual markings. He had accepted that while reading, he would automatically know what they were speaking about, or have a gist.

This time, on Spell Crafting, he had no clue what they were talking about.

This meant that he would need to buy basic-advanced schoolbooks to . . . study.

Unfortunately, this also presented a problem, as he little clue as to what would automatically be there and what he would be lost in, and also the little fact that he had no instructor.

Most people assumed that an instructor was a luxury, but, while not completely necessary, an instructor was someone who already knew the material and could correct you in a way that books and journals couldn't. Instructors/teachers/professors etc. (but we'll stick to instructors) were actual people you could ask questions, guess with, bounce ideas off of . . .

Plus they were personal doorways into your own inter-personal abilities and outside contacts.

So he needed an instructor, he could easily continue to self-study, but a tutor (and money) was on a "Need to get" list.

He needed more advanced psychology books and books on mind magic, from Knockturn Alley, if he had to.

Now, the Death Eater list would need some more thought. He had little knowledge of the inner workings of the Ministry of Magic, so he would also have to keep stake-out on what he could of the main building and pick up what he can without being recognized or suspected of foul play.

So it would be best to follow different people to their work on in the Ministry, under muggle disguise so he wasn't discovered. He could use muggle dye and dye his hair brown, maybe blonde, and get contacts . . .

But they required money, and he was wary of the currency rate compared to the magical currency. He knew very little about the muggle currency and could easily be scammed, conned, or cheated.

No matter how smart one was, he was still a child and was easily targeted for scams and con artists, and was very easily swayed unless he kept a strong focus, and as money, no matter how much he needed it, was of little consequence to him and thus, not very likely to be protected by him.

A goblin was a very quick thought at first glance, but he was wary of how trustworthy goblins would be to him. So the best option for him at the moment would be to go to the muggle society and pick out the most trustworthy person he saw, most preferably a parent, and ask about money, surely it wasn't uncommon for a lost little boy to ask such questions?

Deciding to go with his last option, Harry stood and prepared for a trip to the muggle society.