When he went to check the items he held back at his hideaway, Harry was somewhat confused at the odds-and-bits. There was no proper identification aside for some identity card that was at least thirty years old (a fact that confused the police when they went to apprehend them), one bag of odd coins of gold, silver and bronze (wasn't he surprised when he reached into the bags only to have his entire arm disappear to the shoulder), a very bulky key made of gold, three wands of different design and make that gave off an odd feeling (two gave off sparks when he waved them and a third almost blew up in his face), a cloth that gave off a feeling that he did not like (Harry used his magic to move it out of the hideaway and onto a pebble, watching it vanish with a pop), and finally a piece of parchment that had oddly cursive writing and with a coat of arms at the top, and the words 'Gringotts Wizarding Bank' and 'Hogwarts' on it.
Guess he had a new place to look up, and perhaps a place to return the key if it was what he believed it to be. He did not want to be labeled a thief after all.
~ooOOoo~
Time went on with Harry experimenting even further. One of the first experiments he did was to etch the same protection symbols on the walls of his hideaway with the addition of placing pebbles with the symbols of 'protection', 'power' and 'root' at various points of the area. The locations were a mix of a good hiding spot and an instinctive feeling that they would draw natural energy from the surroundings like the river nearby. There was a sense of pride going through Harry as he activated the symbols and watched a smaller dome appeared over his hideaway with the anchor pebbles well within it, now noticing the hexagonal patterns on it that reminded him of a bee's nest from one of his textbook. It was definitely working a lot better than he anticipated since the pebbles made sure that they would be protected inside of the dome, which made sense as he recalled stories of people subverting barriers by digging them out as they were at the edge or outside of the barrier. With this, the weaknesses should be reduced a fair bit.
Harry's senses had expanded during the camp so he could now tell if someone was coming at him or an attack was imminent from a distance (most useful when Dudley tried to come at him from behind), but evidently with the new barrier installed, Harry could sense everyone and everything in it, not to mention a few intrusions and repelling that spoke of people trying to force their way through. After Harry felt the presence of the magic users trying to get near Privet Drive for about a week, Harry had about enough and thought furiously of ejecting them out from the start. What he did not anticipate was for his magic to interact with the barrier and enact his thoughts immediately, allowing him to see with his mind's eye at least five wand users with their odd robes thrown out of the barrier and one Arabella Figg ejected of her premises in the evening with evidence of tax-evasions and other crimes which saw her arrested. After that Harry started to relax since he could no longer feel anyone with magic that wanted to do him harm.
There was however one issue with the barrier; Harry was not used to feeling so many people at once, making him experience a sensory overload to his mind that forced him to stop every so often to regain himself. He ended up having to read up on books for meditation and mental exercises in order to organize his thoughts better, but the real kicker was a seemingly unimportant journal stuck between thicker books in the library. Harry would have thought it to be a misplaced item if not for the odd feeling that came off it and the few keywords that popped out in the pages when he flipped through.
Magic, wand users, Hogwarts, Gringotts, his name and finally, one Lily Potter nee Evans.
Harry managed to get it back to his hideaway and read the journal that was evidently left behind by someone with similar backgrounds to Harry, being raised on the outside or as stated 'muggle-raised'. Said author who had apparently kept his name as a secret put together the journal with instructions to find his stache of books on mind-arts and old magical text, before leaving it in the library in hopes that anyone with magic in the area could pick it up and learn from it. Harry loved puzzles, so it did not take long for him to decipher the instructions and followed them to the stache that was hidden very cleverly behind an old painting at the old town hall down the street.
It was certainly interesting to read from a third person's perspective on entering 'Magical Britain'; how the world seemed to be set in the Victorian Period using old candles and lamps for lighting, how as an innocent child the author entered the world through a bar called the Leaky Cauldron, went to a place called Hogwarts to learn magic, suffered the blood prejudice and the war that went on, and finally left the world as a slightly jaded man. The author described the four houses represented by animals and what they stood for, the four founders who created Hogwarts, the type of lessons done by the professors, the type of environment for said lessons, the mystery and the darkness of magic. He spoke of mystical creatures that Harry had only read and dreamed of from fantasy books like elves, goblins, centaurs and unicorns, and then he talked about the prejudice and social structure that existed there. He lamented about the education that was average at best and downright horrible at worst, the missed opportunities to continue his regular education, and how after checking with other countries shown that Hogwarts was lagging behind in the education front.