CHAPTER : 15

Amsterdam was one hell of a fun city, Harry decided. The two weeks he had spent there so far had been exceedingly pleasant. Decent enough weather, canals everywhere, local food that tended to be heavily fried and breaded and thus utterly irresistible to Harry and a population filled with people who spoke English very fluently as a second language. Unfortunately, he had missed seeing the tulips at Keukenhof, due to it being the wrong time of the year, but the vast plethora of museums more than made up for that. His favourite by far had been the Van Gogh Museum where he had spent hours enthralled by Vincent's masterpieces. Oh, he had not much cared for the Dutch Artist's earlier works; paintings like The Potato Eaters were much too dark and depressing for his taste. The Irises, now that was much more to his taste. The still life of the irises in a vase against a yellow background had to be one of the most spectacular sights the young wizard had ever seen.

It had been quite easy for him to flee Britain. Dobby had offered to pop him over to France. While there was a distance limit to how far the elf could apparate the two of them, Dobby had been quite sure that the short hop across the channel from Dover would pose no difficulty.

Harry had however decided that he wanted to try travelling by plane and so the two of them had used his invisibility cloak and sneaked onto the first plane they found that had empty seats on it. Looking back Harry was quite pleased that he had not been able to board the plane to Berlin. That had been the first plane that was leaving London, but unfortunately it had been quite packed. After that, he had sneaked around looking at passenger lists over the shoulders of airline personnel until he had finally found a flight that had two adjacent empty seats. The seats had even been in business class so Harry had enjoyed a most pleasant flight to Amsterdam. The minute the plane had landed, he had felt an incredible sense of relief. The release of an enormous tension that he had barely realised he was under. Finally he could relax. Surely the Death Eaters would never think of looking for him here.

The only regret that he had about coming to Amsterdam was that he was still too young to legally sample all the delights the city had to offer. He had briefly considered trying to get his hands on some ageing potion but had eventually deemed that too risky. He would have had to find and enter the city's magical district, if it had one, and then find a apothecary to but the ageing potion. Harry did not want to go anywhere where he might be recognised. Even sending Dobby was too risky for him. The elf had belonged to the Malfoys which meant that there were probably many Death Eaters around that would recognise him. All it would take was for one of them to wonder what Malfoys elf was doing in Amsterdam and the trail might lead them right back to Harry. No, he would not be going anywhere near any of the magical districts or areas.

He had no idea if he was as well known in the Netherlands, probably not, he thought, but he had no intention of putting it to the test either.

He had in fact, taken quite a few steps to avoid being recognised. Gone was the distinctive mop of unruly dark hair and his glasses. He was currently sporting a crew cut and brown tinted contact lenses. He had even gotten himself a fake tan and gotten some make up that he dabbed on his forehead each morning. It was surprisingly effective at concealing his scar. All in all he looked remarkably different from the pale young wizard that had fled Privet drive.

"Has it been only two weeks?" he mused. It seemed like a lifetime ago at times. It seemed like ages since he had been able to relax and have fun like this. Truth be told he doubted that he had ever been able to relax like this. At Privet Drive he had always had to deal with the unpleasantness of his relatives and in the magical world it had always felt like he was under constant scrutiny. Even during the good times at the Burrow he had never quite felt truly at ease. There had always been something, like Ginny continuously staring at him and being nervous around him for instance, that had made him uncomfortable and kept him on edge.

He was currently sitting in a small cafe snacking on a plate of bitterballen. Every once in a while a bitterbal seemed to vanish as Dobby who was sitting next to him under his invisibility cloak snacked on them as well. The little elf seemed to be having the time of his life as he invisibly accompanied Harry everywhere.

"Must be quite the change for him," Harry thought. "I doubt the Malfoys ever let him out into the Muggle world."

"So Dobby, what should we do tomorrow," he whispered surreptitiously. "Should we go and see the windmills?"

"Yes, Harry Potter, Dobby is wanting to see the windmills very much."

"Excellent, so that's tomorrow taken care off. What should we do tonight? Should we go and see what's playing at the theatre?"

"Yes, Harry Potter, Dobby loved the last movie with all of the exploding things. Can we see another movie with lots and lots of things going boom. Please, please, please," said the little elf as he bounced up and down in his seat.

Harry grinned widely as he flipped open a newspaper to see what was playing. Who would have ever thought that Dobby would turn out to be such a film buff?