He felt the cracked cobblestones crunch under his boots, as he made his way down the street, with a slight but noticeable limp. Thankfully his feet didn't make any sound, as the nearly tattered dragonhide boots he wore were spelled with silencing charms. Those took forever to get spelled since dragonhide was highly spell-resistant. The cloak he wore was probably black once, though now it was tattered and stained brown with mud. There were spots and patches of discoloration all over the cloak. Results of spells the cloak had taken over time.
His eyes moved over each building as he walked down the street, and his observant gaze took in each one before it moved on. One eye, large and clearly unnatural, turned and moved around, independent of the other eye. It was constantly looking around and scanning the areas around him. The eye wasn't his originally, but it certainly belonged to him now.
Conveniently, after his eye had been lost, they'd still had it laying around in one of the trunks. At one time he had thought that the eye on the right side of his face had spawned the nickname Mad-Eye for the original wearer.
It wasn't until Alastor Moody had confided in him before he died, that Harry discovered the truth. The "Mad-Eye" nickname had nothing to do with the enchanted fake eye. Moody had earned that nickname not long after he had graduated the Auror Training program. One of his early partners had given it to him because of the manic look he'd get when dealing with dark wizards. Though he used to be called "Mad-Eyes". When he lost the eye they just made it singular. Moody had further confided that the auror who had given him that nickname had died in the first war with Voldemort.
Harry had always thought it morbid that he was using it now to replace his own eye. Even if Alastor had died a few years earlier, it still seemed somewhat gruesome when he stopped and thought about it.
Truth be told though, Harry didn't think about it much. It wasn't like it mattered anymore.
Harry kept his wand in his hand, and was slowly and casually twirling it in his fingers, as he made his way down Diagon Alley. Less than a decade ago it had been a bustling hub of shops and shoppers. Now, as he looked around it was a ghost town.
Literally.
He could see the hazy forms of ghosts in some of the burnt out husks of buildings that remained. Magic itself sustained the charms that kept London non-magicals from noticing the presence of an empty town right in their midst.
His eye flitted over stores he remembered. There was Ollivander's store. It had been destroyed by Voldemort early in the Second War. Harry idly remembered the man's silver-eyed piercing stare. The confusion and non-comprehension when Ollivander had told him that the wand that chose him was the brother of the wand that gave him his first scar. Of course he still had the wand, though he didn't use it often. It was in a second slot inside of his wrist holster.
His eyes moved past other stores. Nothing remained of Quidditch Quality Supplies. His memory flicked over the Nimbus 2000 he had seen in the front window during his first visit to Diagon Alley with Hagrid.
Madame Malkin's still had a mannequin standing where the window had been. Of course that was the only thing standing. Harry remembered being there for his first fitting and his first conversation with Draco Malfoy.
He shook his head, freeing his mind from the memories of those figurative ghosts. They didn't matter anymore either.
Harry could feel Voldemort's magical presence somewhere ahead of him. It was coming from the general direction of the site of the former Ministry of Magic. Strangely though, he couldn't feel the presence of any of the dozen or so death eaters he had left.
A frown crossed Harry's scarred face as he continued down the street. He wondered what Voldemort wase doing there. There was nothing left except the rubble of the giant building that had once stood there. He knew, Harry and a handful of others had spent three weeks combing through the rubble. All that was recovered was bodies.
He wondered what brought Voldemort out of his hiding place this time to resume their game of cat and mouse. Because that's what it was now.
What had started as a war had come to an unlikely end on Halloween when Harry was little more than a year old. The war had begun anew in Harry's 14th year when Voldemort had arisen in a new body in part thanks to blood from Harry's own body.
The second war was so much worse than the first one. It had drawn in the entire wizarding world. There were no neutral sides. Anyone or anything that had anything to do with magic had been drawn into the conflict. The conflict had engulfed the entire magical world.
The conclusion had sadly been almost inevitable.
There were no winners. Everyone lost in this war.
The Ministry which, under Cornelius Fudge, had loudly and repeatedly claimed that Voldemort hadn't returned. They had vilified Harry and Dumbledore and anyone who sided with them. They realized their mistake almost a year later, when first he, then Dumbledore had a public duel with Voldemort after escaping the Department of Mysteries and witnessing the death of his godfather. However Fudge didn't even have time to make the excuses and apologies of politicians.
Voldemort orchestrated a bloody coup. Taking over the entire ministry in a single day. He tried to run things from there. That only lasted a few days.
The counter-assault from the Aurors, and lead by Dumbledore, an assault that Harry had been furious to only find out about afterward. He had once more been forced to remain at his Aunt and Uncle's, and told by Dumbledore not to involve himself. Dumbledore's assault had pushed the death eaters out of the ministry building itself. At the time it seemed like a victory.