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Diagon Alley, Harry thought, was filled with colour and wonder, children ran up and down the streets, excitedly chattering to their parents, there were so many things to look at, shops selling potion ingredients, telescopes, brooms, and so much more lined each side, and yet his eyes were drawn to one shop in particular.
The Magical Menagerie, which sold animals, in the window there were cats of many sizes and shapes, pawing at each other or taking a nap in the sunbeams.
He'd always been a cat person, something which had delighted his babysitter, Mrs Figg because it meant that he had something to keep him occupied while she got on with her housework.
Hagrid noticed that Harry had stopped in his walking, and was staring at something, he looked at the thing that had caught his attention, and smiled, before tugging gently at his arm.
"Come on, Harry, we've got to get your money before we can get anything, you can look at the cats later."
Harry nodded and continued following him as they went to the bank to retrieve some gold.
Normally, Hagrid would have gotten Harry a snowy owl as a surprise gift, but in this universe, Hagrid has seen the look of longing on the young boy's face as he'd looked at the cats in the window of the shop.
In this universe, Hagrid made a different decision.
After they'd left the apothecary, Hagrid stopped just by the window, "right, just your wand left then, Harry," he paused and smiled, "but ah, I still haven't gotten you a birthday present."
Harry gaped at the man, "you don't have to do that!"
"Nonsense," Hagrid waved him off, "all boys your age are wanting a pet, right?"
"I-" Harry began, but Hagrid continued talking, leading them both to the Magical Menagerie.
"Now, I don't much like cats, they make me sneeze," he told the boy, "but everyone has different tastes in what they like and don't like, and I saw you eyeing up those cats earlier."
Harry blushed and they entered the shop, a loud mixture of noises coming from all around them, all kinds of animals making their presence known.
He looked around in wonder as they made their way over to the section which held the cats, stopping once they'd walked over.
A group of staff members were crowded around one cat, which was being held down by another.
"Just do it already, I can't hold the little bugger much longer."
"What are you doing?" Harry asked.
The members of staff looked at him, and the cat seemed to struggle harder.
"He's too violent, attacked many customers this one has, we're going to be putting him down," one of the girls said to him.
Harry frowned and walked over, ignoring their protests he crouched down by the cat and gently pet him, "I'll take him."
"Hey kid, wouldn't you like a nicer cat?" a man who appeared to be in his thirties protested.
In response to the question, he pushed the hands of the staff member that was holding the cat down away and gathered the cat up in his arms, who responded by rubbing his head against his chin.
"No."
"If you're sure," a brown-haired teenager spoke, hesitatingly.
Harry nodded, and they quickly gathered the items he'd need to keep a cat, including a bed, bowls, food, carrying case, and toys.
"Ah, good luck, kid," the blonde-haired girl who processed the transaction said, nervously looking at the black cat that had curled around his neck.
With that, Harry and Hagrid left the shop to go and get his wand, hand scratching behind the ear of the cat.
The Cat That Got The Cream
Harry wasn't stupid.
He knew that getting a supposedly violent cat was asking for a disaster to happen, but he'd looked into the cat's blue eyes and had seen what those people had missed.
The cat was highly intelligent, perhaps too intelligent.
Once he'd gotten back to Privet Drive, his aunt had screamed at him, and then locked him in Dudley's second bedroom, after being informed that they'd better not see him for the rest of the summer, on the threat of no food.
He had seen the way that the cat's eyes had narrowed at the woman and had known that there was something strange about him.
Either way, he still had to come up with a name for the cat, and so he pulled out a battered dictionary from the cupboard on the small desk and began to look at words that could be a suitable name for him.
"What about Blacky?" he questioned the cat, who was curled up on the plush black and white cat bed.
He opened a single eye and glared at him.
"I'll take that as a 'no' then," he flicked through a few more pages, "uh, Midnight?"
The cat hissed at him and he grinned slightly, flipping through the pages, "how about Lucky?"
Harry's grin widened as the cat got up and made his way over to where Harry was sat, stopping, and sitting down next to him, looking up at him with an unamused look on his face.
"Cucumber."
The cat smacked at his arm with his paw, obviously disagreeing with his suggestions and Harry giggled slightly.
"You pick then," he put the book down on the desk, unsurprised when the cat began flicking through it.
The cat stopped on a page and smacked him in the face with his tail, once he'd seen that he had Harry's attention, he pressed his paw up against one of the words.
Harry looked over and stared at the word pointed out to him.
"Master, really?" the cat nodded, looking at him for a moment before flipping through the pages again, he stopped after a moment and looked to the side of the desk, nudging a torn notebook and a rather girly pen.
Harry got the hint and picked them up, flipping the book open to an empty page and writing down the word the cat had picked out.
An hour later, Harry was laying down in the bed, the cat curled up by his head, he'd now discovered one of the negative aspects of magic.
The cat was actually a man, or well, an alien, which was a bit odd to think about, and he'd been cursed, changing him into a cat.
Harry had promised him that he would find a way to help him, he wouldn't let him down.
The Cat That Got The Cream
He was stood in front of the whole school, about to put on the hat that would dictate his placement in the school.
It was nerve-wracking, seeing hundreds of eyes staring at him, he looked away from the students nervously and instead looked at the hat as it was lowered over his head.
"My, such loyalty to a person you've only just met."
Harry jumped at the strange voice, which chuckled at him.
"No need to worry, I'm the hat which is on your head," the hat informed him.
Harry frowned slightly, "what are you-"
"I look through your memories to find the best place for you to bloom, Mr Potter," the hat hummed slightly, "I have many privacy spells laced upon me, I cannot tell others your secrets."
He relaxed slightly at that and heard the hat call out, "Hufflepuff!"
The hat was removed from his head, and Harry walked down to the table in yellow, filled with cheering students, the trim on his robe fading into the same yellow.
The Cat That Got The Cream
Harry paced in the shared bedroom, the Master watching from where he was perched on Harry's bed.
The rest of his roommates were down in the common room, finishing the feast.
"I can't help but think that something really bad is going to happen," he informed the cat, "I mean, a troll in the school?"
A meow alerted him to the fact that the feline had something to say, so he turned to look.
The Master pawed at a scrap of red fabric which was tied to one of his bedposts, there were four fabric scraps there, red, green, blue, and yellow, one to represent each house in the school.
"You think a Gryffindor's going to go after it?" he frowned.
The cat nodded, and Harry sighed, sitting down heavily on his bed.
"I hope they'll be alright," he whispered, arms filling with the feline.
The Cat That Got The Cream
Harry didn't care for Christmas, he had no-one to celebrate it with, but having access to the multiple owl order books turned out to be an interesting experience.
The Master had looked at one of the books, and opened it, looking through and demanding he buy one item from the book.
A travelling backpack with enough wizarding space to be able to fit all the items in his school trunk, and still have room, while keeping it all feather-light.
It also had a part near the top, which was made specifically for cats, with their comfort in mind.
Harry raised an eyebrow but ordered it.
Moments later, the Master was dragging the dictionary that Harry kept close by over, quickly pointing out a word to him.
He raised an eyebrow, "you want me to get a passport?" he asked.
The cat nodded.
"How would I do that?"
He moved the pages across, pointing first at the word 'head', then at the word 'house'.
"I suppose she would be able to help me there," he agreed.
The Cat That Got The Cream
They were at King's Cross, Hogwarts having broken up for the summer, all of Harry's items were in his backpack, and the Master was tucked up in the top of it, looking through the mesh that allowed him to look out and breathe.
The Master had made a plan for him, it was a five-minute walk from King's Cross station to the St Pancras International station, where he could catch the Eurostar to France.
He would then spend the summer looking around different European magical markets to try and find any information, whether it be in books, scrolls, or otherwise, to help reverse the curse on the Master.
He'd even found him a potion that would translate all known spoken and written languages, although it had taken a whole month to brew, and when he'd taken it, he'd been in a lot of pain for five hours, unable to move.
It wasn't until after he'd taken it that he'd discovered that not many people took it because there was a rather high chance that the person who took it could actually die.
Professor Sprout, the head of Hufflepuff and the Herbology teacher had been able to help him put in a form for his passport, which had been delivered a week before the end of the year.
Now all he had to do was avoid Vernon.
The Cat That Got The Cream
Harry sat silently in the compartment, which was shared between him and five classmates, they were staring at him oddly, which he couldn't really blame them for.
During the summer, they'd had a run-in with a bird-like humanoid creature that called itself a 'feathered-thief, something which the Master had informed him was a direct translation, most likely thanks to the potion he'd taken.
The cat had no prior knowledge of the bird being, not that it would have helped much anyway, as he'd stumbled into their nesting area, which was how they'd found out that they were extremely territorial.
As a result, Harry now had a long thin gash across the bridge of his nose, which was still healing.
If he hadn't believed in aliens and had only been humouring the Master before, he definitely believed now.
And if that alone weren't enough for them to stare at, he'd managed to find a laptop that protected against and even powered by magic, which the Master had been using to type out words recently, which was a lot quicker than constantly paging through a book.
Being stared at was annoying but watching their eyes dart back and forth between his face and the cat typing on a laptop was rather funny.
The Cat That Got The Cream
The second-year had passed much like his first, apart from the multiple petrification's.
His first year, nothing notable had happened after the troll incident until the end of the year where Quirrell disappeared one day.
One day, near the end of the year, multiple Aurors stormed the school, and it was found that the creature attacking the school was a Basilisk.
The students had to be sent home a month early so the Aurors could break their way into the piping system and kill the snake, those taking their exams had to do so in the Ministry building on the same dates.
Once again, Harry took the Eurostar to France, but this time he took a mixture of trains, buses, and taxis to Asia, perhaps one of the countries there could help.
The Cat That Got The Cream
The Minister of Magic, some guy named Fudge, had assigned some creatures called Dementors to guard the school that year, thanks to a prison breakout by a man named Sirius Black.
They were unfortunately attracted to Harry, however, even causing him to lose consciousness on the train heading towards the school.
Luckily, the new DADA teacher, Remus Lupin, who was apparently an old friend of his parents, knew a spell to help repel the creatures.
His Patronus took on the form of a cat that looked identical to the Master, who appeared to be very smug about that fact.
Professor Lupin seemed disappointed.
At the end of the year, Professor Lupin went missing, and he heard a rumour that he had left with Sirius Black.
The Cat That Got The Cream
Harry and the Master had been avoiding going on a plane during the holidays for the simple fact that the Master would need to go below the plane in with the livestock because he was a cat, not a human.
But during that year, they'd found a spell which would temporarily mask live animals, so long as they were below a certain size.
And so, Harry enjoyed his first plane ride as they headed towards America, hoping that they may find the answers they were looking for, or get pointed in the right direction at least.
The Cat That Got The Cream
Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts was a disaster.
They were hosting two different schools for an event, the Tri-Wizard Tournament, or something like that, and names were drawn by a goblet.
The Master had seemed to pick up on the fact that something might go wrong and had looked up Magical Contracts and their laws, after having heard from a group of older students that they were used for the picking.
He had told Harry to use an obscure and rather old spell to change his first name in a way that magic saw as binding, suggesting a name that could be shortened to Harry as a nickname.
Harry, while confused, agreed, and he was now Harold, a name the cat had suggested.
He was glad that he'd followed his advice on the night that the names were drawn from the goblet, as 'Harry Potter' was spat out of the goblet, but the paper was black, letting the judges know that it was invalid.
He never told anyone how he'd done it.
Then during the winter, the school hosted something called the 'Yule Ball', lots of people tried inviting him to go with them, but in the end, he stayed in his dorm room, doing some online course the Master had signed him up for, complaining the whole time.
"Why do I need to know what the area of a trapezoid is?" he whined, receiving a smack to the face for his noise.
The Cat That Got The Cream
While they were in Quebec that summer, they stumbled upon a spell and potion combination, which, while not what they were looking for, was certainly helpful.
They had it administered by a local professional, and once it was done, the Master could finally talk again after almost five years.
He stayed silent most of the time unless they were alone, and the times that he did speak, he was typically muttering rude things about random people they saw in the streets.
Harry found it hilarious.
The Cat That Got The Cream
His fifth year is when things finally went completely to shit.
First, there was some kind of horrible banshee pretending to be a woman in charge of DADA that year, he'd rather have their previous DADA teacher again, and that was saying something, considering their previous DADA professor was a Death Eater, who'd shoved the actual DADA teacher into a box and was harvesting his hair to impersonate him.
Second, he kept receiving random visions which he had no business seeing, which was actually worrying the Master.
The cat going to the library more and more, and that night he found out why.
"So, you're saying that Voldemort, the bloke everyone told me I'd killed while in nappies is still alive, and part of his soul is in my head?"
"That is exactly what I'm saying."
"Oh, ew, how do we get it out?"
"Get a clean crystal and put it on your head before you go to sleep, I may be a cat, but I can still use my abilities, I should be able to remove it."
Harry did as he was told, and when he woke up, there was blood smeared across his face, and the crystal that was once a blueish white was now a dark black, reminding him of tar.
"You think he made more?" he asked the cat.
"Most likely."
The Cat That Got The Cream
Harry received no more visions, and that summer the two put their regular plans on hold as they spent time finding out what Voldemort had made his Horcruxes into and where he hid them.
Funny enough, while they were looking in a bookshop in Knockturn Alley, they came across a book with the information needed to help the Master return to his true body.
They both felt more than a little bit stupid for not thinking of that.
So, at the end of the summer, the Master was no longer a cat, and they'd gathered up all the man's Horcruxes that were not destroyed or in Hogwarts, or the man's snake, which he kept with him at all times, and had them destroyed with a small silver knife that was embedded with Basilisk venom which had cost a pretty penny.
There were only two more left, then Voldemort would need to be dealt with.
The Cat That Got The Cream
Harry thought his sixth year was a little bit strange.
Although that could be since he didn't have the Master with him, it'd be a bit odd to bring a grown man with him claiming him to be his pet, after all.
It had only taken Harry two days to find the Room of Requirement, it had been a bigger challenge to navigate the place, what with all the rubbish everywhere.
One week was all it took before the Diadem was destroyed.
Harry sent the knife off with a letter via owl, it wouldn't do to be caught with such a weapon after all.
The Cat That Got The Cream
That summer, the two of them made their way to the house that Voldemort was hiding out in, there were only two Death Eaters on the property at the time, and they were quickly downed.
The snake was lounging in a sunbeam in the garden, it never saw the knife before it was embedded into its skull.
In the end, Harry didn't do anything against Voldemort but instead watched as the Master pulled a pistol out of his jacket pocket and shot the man in the chest.
Harry didn't think twice before he followed the alien to his 'TARDIS', leaving his world behind.
The Cat That Got The Cream
HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED FOUND DEAD (11 July 1997)
Last night, Aurors were called out to investigate a magical disturbance in the Muggle town of Little Hangleton, an investigation team of three found the old Riddle Mansion occupied with the corpses of two people, one known to have been found innocent of Death Eater activities due to the Imperious Curse, and the other a spy for the Albus Dumbledore, both which appear to be false.
The two bodies were identified as Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape.
The investigators continued inside and found the mutated, and very much dead body of what they believe to be He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, his cause of death appears to be caused by a bullet, shot from a Muggle gun.
We will keep you updated as the situation develops.
Written by Rita Skeeter.
The Cat That Got The Cream
BOY-WHO-LIVED MISSING (2 September 1997)
As our readers know, yesterday was the day where students start or return to Hogwarts.
Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, was supposed to begin his seventh year and is nowhere to be found.
Aurors have interviewed his Muggle relatives, who he was supposedly living with, and they had this to say:
"We haven't seen that freak in years, good riddance to bad rubbish we say, now get off our property before we call the police on your freakish arses."
It has since been investigated, and it appears as though Harry's relatives are completely intolerant of magic, it's unsurprising that the boy would want to leave them behind.
But that still doesn't answer our question.
Where is Harry Potter?
We will keep you updated as the situation develops.
Written by Rita Skeeter.