The next morning, Harry initially dressed in the grey trousers, a white shirt, and the green robes. After examining this in the mirror, he decided the grey combined with the green made the outfit far too Slytherin. He switched to the black trousers, and decided the same of the white and green. He changed to a black shirt, as well. Finally, he closed the robes, so that it no longer mattered -- except, he thought, that I'm wearing green.

The robes, he discovered, now showed a half-inch of his trousers below them. He seemed to have grown taller, again, but apparently in the torso. Harry looked closely at his face. He thought his lips might be thinner, and his face, as a whole, slightly more elongated, but he wasn't sure. He wondered if he could surreptitiously get an old picture of himself from one of his friends.

Snape banged on the door.

"The Weasleys are expecting us in twenty minutes! If you want breakfast, you need to get out here, now!"

Harry came out quickly.

"Sorry. I was trying to decide if I look different."

"Of course you look different," Snape said sarcastically. "You look like a wizard, not a Muggle refugee. Eat, now. I'll be back in time to floo ahead of you to ... that joke shop.

Snape preceded Harry to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, with instructions to Harry to wait two minutes before following. Harry complied. When he arrived, Snape had already left. Harry supposed that avoided certain awkward issues, such as whether or not to say goodbye, but he felt rather abandoned.

"Harry!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, drawing him into a hug, then brushing ash off his robes. Her own were grey where they had touched his in the brief embrace. "So sorry, dear! Fred and George simply don't think to clean the grate for company."

"That's fine," Harry said.

"Well, look at you!" she exclaimed. "Such fine robes, and you've done something with your hair! You'll have girls at your feet."

Harry could not keep himself from scanning for Hermione. She was at the edge of the room, studying him with a puzzled frown.

"At the moment, the girl seems to be as far away from me as she can get," he commented, grinning at her.

An annoyed snort came from somewhere to his left. Harry turned and saw Ginny glaring at him.

"Sorry --"

"Oh, that's all right! I know I'm not a girl; I'm a little sister."

"I hadn't seen you, Ginny, that's all."

"Well, I need to get going," Ginny said loftily. "I'm meeting Dean at Florish and Blotts." To Harry's surprise, she winked at him. Perhaps, he reflected, she wasn't as annoyed as she seemed.

After multiple rounds of instructions as to where they were to meet, and warnings not to go down Knockturn Alley, Mrs. Weasley left to do her own shopping, leaving Harry with Ron, Hermione, and the twins. Ron came forward, grasped Harry's hand, and thumped him companionably on the shoulder.

"Always wondered what would happen if you got away from the Dursleys! You've grown! Were they feeding you shortness potion, or something?"

"They just weren't feeding me. We think this may be my first growth spurt that came when I was getting food."

Harry looked past Ron at Hermione, who was hovering just out of reach. "Some welcome!" he said. "Since when is Ron's mother the only person who gives me a hug?"

Hermione smiled, then looked down. She stepped up to him and hugged him. Harry put his arms around her and pulled her close. He hadn't remembered it feeling like this. He breathed in the scent of her hair and tried to memorize it. When she shifted slightly, he released her, and glanced nervously at Ron, who rolled his eyes, then gave him a thumbs up.

Ron doesn't want her! Harry found he was grinning so broadly that he could feel it in his cheeks. He was amazed to discover he cared. Well, she's always been for Ron -- I mean, since she's been for anybody. I guess I knew not to care.

"Such a touching display," one of the twins commented. Harry turned and looked. He thought it was Fred. Fred had a slightly different way of standing when he was being dramatic.

"Nice to see you, too," Harry returned. "How's business?"

"Still growing," Fred said cheerfully.

"Did you like the samples?" George asked.

"Honestly," Harry said, "I haven't been able to try them. I didn't have any time I could during my last week at the Dursleys, and at Hogwarts ... It didn't seem like a good idea, with the professors checking on me as often as they did." He smiled encouragingly at them. "I have plans to go at them the first few weekends of term, though."

"We have something you should try now," George confided.

"A perfect trick --"

" -- or treat -- "

" -- for an overly-famous --"

" -- retiring wizard."

Fred pulled out a small box from his inner pocket, opened it, and took out a reddish-brown candy, which he handed to Harry with a flourish. Harry examined it suspiciously.

"This isn't going to make me invisible, is it?" he asked. "Or tiny? Or otherwise unable to buy my school supplies?"

"Not at all!" Fred assured him. "You will be perfectly visible and mobile."

"Human?"

"Yes."

Harry eyed the twins suspiciously for a moment, then, with a shrug, popped the candy into his mouth. It had a strong chocolate taste, but that didn't manage to cover something unpleasant beneath that. It melted almost immediately in his mouth.

"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, apparently surprised at his acquiescence.

Harry felt a slow blossom of heat at his navel. The heat flowed over his skin, outward in all directions, until his fingers, toes, and the top of his head all felt like the most extreme blush he could imagine. Slowly the feeling faded. "Wow," he said.

Ron giggled. Harry looked at him, and Ron choked. Suddenly, the redhead looked very alarmed.

"Told you it would look better with that black hair," Fred commented.

Harry looked down at his hands. They were brown. Not paint-brown, but a natural-looking dark skin brown, lighter on the palms. He looked up again. Hermione was staring.

"Uh... Got a mirror?" he asked.

George pointed his wand at the window between this room and something that looked, from Harry's brief glance, like an office, and the window became a mirror. Harry stepped up to it.

"This is great!" he exclaimed, examining his reflection. His skin was dark, but his features were unaffected. Chocolate brown skin combined oddly, but attractively, with his slightly wavy black hair. It made his scar even more noticeable, but if he covered that somehow, no one would recognize him.

"I dunno, mate," Ron said.

"But I wanted to go into Muggle London!" Harry explained. "I can do it like this." Harry turned to Fred and George. "How long does it last?"

"Not long ..."

"...just a month or two."

Harry rolled his eyes. "You wouldn't dare. Not to your partner. How long, really?"

"About two hours."

"Great! That's perfect." Harry glanced over at Hermione, who was surveying him with evident fascination, and Ron, who still looked alarmed. "But I need to talk to you for a few minutes, first. In private, as your partner."

Fred moved to one side and with a sweeping bow motioned Harry towards the office door. "We are at your service, Mr. Potter. Please enter."

Once Fred and George were in the office with him, Harry cast Secretus across the door. When he turned back to Fred and George, they were exchanging a questioning look. Well, it's not like we learn that one in school, Harry reasoned.

"Harry?"

"You used Lee Jordan," Harry stated. "This is exactly his color of brown."

"Well, yes."

"But he thinks --"

"Is it blood-based?"

Fred and George looked guiltily at each other.

"It's not as bad as people say, really," Fred began.

"But you can't sell it," Harry pointed out. They shouldn't even be showing it to anyone! "You'll get in trouble -- it's illegal. If I was an Auror, and I saw this trick, that's the first thing I'd check for. Because you had to have used a bodily component, and blood is the most potent one."

George stared. "Where did you learn this?"

Harry smirked at him. "I've had access to Professor Snape's private library, this summer." He hesitated. "How much do you know about bodily components?" he asked.

"Er... not much. We haven't been able to get it to work with spit, or a scraping of the skin, itself."

"Concentrate on fluids," Harry advised. He thought back to the first chapters of Blood Magic. As if in a class, he recited the basics. "Urine and pus are not usable for general applications. Of the common bodily components, the order of effectiveness, least to most, is sweat, saliva, vaginal fluids, semen, menstrual blood, and finally, venous blood." He was pleased with how smoothly he managed to say all of that. "There are some odd things, like cranial fluid, that are as effective as blood for some applications, but dangerous to extract. I will presume you don't want to risk Lee's sanity."

"Right on that, mate," Fred said faintly. George was wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Harry discovered that shocking the twins was a bracing, possibly addictive, experience. He forced his tone to remain coolly casual as he added:

"I'd suggest semen, if you can get Lee to wank for the cause. You still wouldn't want your customers to find out how it's done, but it wouldn't be illegal."

"Er...."

"Harry?" George choked out.

Fred struck a tragic pose. "Ah ... innocence is so fleeting!"

"You've been in Snape's library?" George asked, recovering a portion of his composure. His voice held a trace of admiration. "Is it better than the Restricted Section?"

Harry shrugged. "I've always been looking for something specific in the restricted section, so I can't really compare."

"You're not studying Dark Arts, are you, mate?" Fred asked anxiously.

"Some of the books have some Dark Arts," Harry admitted, "but I haven't been trying any of it. It's useful to know the theory, right?"

"Well, right, but Harry --"

"I just gave you a less dangerous way to achieve your ends, didn't I? I couldn't have done that if I didn't know the theory. And not all blood magic is Dark Arts, either -- it's all illegal, but that's recent. And if you're actually using human blood, you've no grounds to go after me for just knowing how to use it."

George shivered. "True enough."

"You two be careful, all right? If you get in trouble for illegal components, I'll be implicated, too. And it could ruin your father."

Even Fred looked embarrassed. "It was just too good not to show someone."

"It's great!" Harry agreed. "Look, I better get going before this wears off. I'll send you a list of titles you might want to look for, okay?"

"Absolutely."

Harry grinned. "Oh -- loan me some money?"

"Loan you...?"

"I'll pay you back this afternoon, but I can't go to Gringotts like this."

"'Course you can."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. Changing your skin color won't fool a goblin."

"Okay. Later then!"

"Wait!"

Harry turned back. He wasn't sure which twin had hailed him.
"What?"

George held out another sweet to him. "Take an extra. Just in case you're delayed."

Back in the main room, Harry went back to Hermione and Ron.

"We couldn't hear a thing," Ron complained.

"And you didn't want to," Harry informed him smugly. "Let's go. I have an errand to run in Muggle London."

"With you dressed like that?" Hermione chided. "Harry, I've never seen you look like such a wizard."

"I've got normal clothes on, underneath the robes. I can just duck into the first doorway, and move the robes into my bag." Harry grinned at Ron. "Come on! It'll be fun. Gringotts, first."

Ron nodded, but anxiously, as they headed out onto the street.

"You look really odd, Harry," Hermione said, matching his pace at his side.

"You think? I thought I looked pretty good."

"Those green eyes...."

"Do they clash?"

"Not clash, exactly, but they don't look natural."

Harry shrugged. "So people think I have special contacts. Oh -- my scar! I need a headband, or a low hat."

"In here." Hermione pivoted and led them across the street and into a narrow boutique with a sign that said "Miss Trotter's Accessory Emporium." There, she selected a thin gold scarf, which she rolled and tied around Harry's head. "Stunning," she said teasingly.

Harry checked the mirror. The gold headband gave his startling mix of features an exotic flair. Not at all my style, he thought, but that's good for a disguise. Between the dark skin and the changes he had been going through already, covering his scar made him unrecognizable. "Brilliant!" he said.

"You look right peculiar, if you ask me," Ron said darkly.

"But we didn't," Hermione pointed out. "Let's go."