Garnet

Harry had finally completed all of his chores for the day and was currently at the park. It was nearly time for him to cook dinner for his relatives like he did every day, and he needed to head back to Privet Drive before he gave his Aunt any extra reasons to punish him.

No matter what he ever did it was never good enough in her eyes. He washed the bathroom then after his Uncle used it, it was dirty again which was ¨his fault¨. Everything bad that happened was always his fault, and he was used to it.

Instead of starting the walk back, he couldn't help but continue to sit on a swing just thinking.

Thinking about how he didn't want to see his ¨friends¨ again. About how he didn't want to go back to a school that was bound to hate him even more than the years prior. How he didn't want to be a martyr anymore. He just wanted one normal year. Most of all, how he wouldn't have to be here if he disappeared. He wouldn't have to deal with anything if he just left and never looked back.

His blade was in his pocket like it always was, and he was itching to not just leave small cuts like he so frequently did, but ones vertically up his arm.

Enough to bleed out.

It would hurt, to die. Harry wanted to feel every second of the pain to see if even for a second he would regret the choice or if all he would feel was peace.

No one would find him. No one cares for him. No one would even notice him gone till maybe two days into school. By that time it would be far too late for even the most skilled healer to save him.

Good, he wanted to see the world panicking about the boy who lived killing himself. He wanted Dumbledore to know that the world was fucked because Harry wasn't there anymore to save it. He wanted Dumbledore to know Harry wasn't his to control anymore.

Maybe it was just in the magical world or just Hogwarts itself that he couldn't kill himself. or just the stupid tower charmed to stop students from jumping. He had tried countless times there but never the muggle world, so there may still be hope after all. Freedom to be found in the darkest of times, a way out after all.

Something about the stars shining over him, all of them watching over him made him feel confronted. He wanted to die beneath them, but if a hot summer day under nothing but the shining sun was all he could get so be it.

He felt normal enough at the moment to think of how it probably wasn't a good idea to slit his wrists, and that he should be heading back to the Dursleys before he wished he never went out in the first place.

But if things somehow got worse than they already were which Harry didn't think possible he still had two weeks to test that theory.

However, like the many other times in his life when Harry thought things couldn't get any worse, he was soon proven extremely wrong.

Because nothing could ever be easy for the boy who lived.

Harry often found himself thinking back to this day later in his fifth year knowing he should have but didn't end it all. Wishing he could go back and change this moment, but couldn't no matter how much he thought about it. If he had, he would have been able to stop the domino effect of actions and there consequences that would soon take place. It was too late for Harry to change things, all he was left with was the fallout of this day's feelings of stupid normalcy and how he wished he had felt any other way. Maybe things would have been different if he hadn't put his blade away.

But all Harry did was put his blade back and start the walk back to Privet Drive.

__________________________________________

Nothing could ever go as planned for Harry so of course, as he was walking back to Privet Drive Dudley found him.

Dudley shoved Harry into an alley and then started to beat him up like he had done countless times before. Harry learned years ago it hurt less if you did what they wanted so he didn't put up a fight hoping it would be over soon.

And then it stopped.

It ended way too soon.

Harry was barely hurt, so why had Dudley stopped? Had he finally started to lose interest in Harry, or was Harry just really lucky today?

Then he looked down and oh shit Dudley was on the ground. Harry crouched down to see if he could shake Dudley into some form of consciousness since he would surely be blamed for whatever had happened to Dudley when he felt a cold feeling of dread and helplessness wash over him. Not the normal kind he felt, the kind that instead of bringing him memories of Cedric, caused him to hear his mother beg for his life to no avail and Voldemort laugh as she crumpled to the ground.

Harry looked up and saw two dementors drifting toward both him and Dudley from both sides of the ally they were currently in.

Harry was fucked.

Truly utterly fucked.

They were in the middle of a muggle town how were there even dementores here? He didn't even know if he was still able to produce a patronus after what happened in the graveyard.
Harry wanted to die but he didn't want his soul to be sucked out, and to never be able to be truly dead. So there was no time like the present to at least try to produce a Patronus. He had done it countless times before and it wasn't hard. How hard could it be now?

Harry used to think of his friends, Cedric, and his godfather while he cast but now all he thought of was death. The screams haunting his ears were getting louder and his vision was starting to cloud with flashes of green.

It wasn't working.

It wasn't fucking working and Harry couldn't think of anything else to use.

But that's when Harry realized the dementors didn't seem to be interested in him. They were all over him in third year so what had changed? And then he realized what dementors fed on. They fed on the happiness and joy in a person. Harry had none of that left so he was immune to them, or at least to a certain extent. But they were still coming for Dudley so he had to find some way to cast the stupid charm he used to be so good at.

Everyone always said you had to find your happiest memory for the charm to work but what if it didn't have to be happy just a powerful one? After all, magic is mostly the intent and power a person has, and if Harry is one thing it is powerful. He had no Happy memories left and this was his only chance so he closed his eyes and thought of the graveyard.

He thought of Cedric's dead body ice cold to the touch and ghostly pale skin. Voldemort's bright red snake-like eyes and slits instead of a nose (like what the fuck is up with that). Seeing his parents, and them telling him they were proud, and to make it out of the graveyard. Hearing Cedric's voice one last time telling him to take his body back.

And it worked

A huge thestral shot out of his wand and charged the dementors causing them to quickly retreat.

His Patronus changed. How did his patronus change? Not in a single book Harry had ever read was a patronus-changing figure ever mentioned. Harry's had always been a stag like his dad, a reminder that he wasn't always alone. Now even that was gone, instead came a reminder of death and sorrow.

He didn't have time to worry about this as he was now faced with the task of dragging Dudley back to Privet Drive.

How lucky was he?
__________________________________________

By the time they made it back, Harry was exhausted and not up for the beating of a lifetime he was about to receive. Hell, he didn't know if he would make it out alive from whatever his aunt and uncle were going to do to him when they found out.

So he did the only thing he could do.

He ran

He was already going to be expelled from Hogwarts for doing underaged magic, so what was the point of sticking around in Privet Drive when the only reason he stayed was because of Dumbledore?

At least now he didn't have to see his relatives, Dumbledore, his ¨friends¨, or any of the people who had made his life a living hell again.

Leaving Dudley on the front steps he ran to his cupboard to grab his trunk and broom.

This was one of the times when he wished he had gotten a familiar in his first year so he wouldn't have been utterly alone wherever he was going to go from there. But it wouldn't have previously been safe for them at Hogwarts or Privet Drive, and Harry didn't want to bring misery to another living thing. Plus he could barely take care of himself sometimes let alone a living thing.

Harry ran out of Privet Drive for the last time without giving it a second glance, and he was finally free.

__________________________________________

He apparated into knocktern ally with a jolt.

From a young age, Harry found he was able to apparate wherever he wanted, only having to think of the destination he planned on going to and he was there.

Harry decided to shop for all the supplies he would need for his house or wherever he was going to stay since it wasn't going to be long before people started looking for him. Dumbledore had a spell to notify him when the blood wards broke and they without a dobt had.

He decided to go to Flourish and Blots first to get all the textbooks he would need for the next three years of his education he would not be attending. He still wanted to have a full education after all. Then any other books he thought would be useful in addition to the books he already picked up from a lesser-known ¨dark¨ bookshop for some of the less legal things he planned on doing.

Harry never understood how someone could classify certain spells as dark and light when a ¨light¨ spell like Wingardian Leviosa can be as deadly as the killing curse if used in the right way. Or a ¨dark¨ spell like Imperio can be as useful as a calming drought to do things like help sick patients. Any spell can be used in a good or bad way, it is the intent of the caster that matters so what's the point of blaming and banning magic?

Then he went to Quitich Supplies and Repair to get everything he would need to keep his broom in perfect condition while he was on the run.

Wait was he on the run?!

That made Harry sound just as crazy as Bellatrix Lestrange when all he did was protect his cousin, but he knew no one else would see it that way. Especially since a Patronus is a NEWT level spell and no one would believe him when he said he learned it in his third year and can could produce a full corporeal Patornus. No one ever believes him.

Then he went to Greengots where he met with Griphook his family's account manager. Since Harry had never been able to go to Diagon Ally without someone else watching over him, he hadn't previously been able to meet with his account manager who he only recently found out he had. Dumbledore wanted him uneducated in anything that wouldn't benifit him so he made sure to hide all of the Potter family knowledge.

Harry wanted to be shocked at what he found out here but he couldn't find it in himself since at this point he wouldn't be shocked if someone told him he was one hundred years old.

Since Harry didn't have his key for identification since no one ever gave it to him(how is that legal?! Oh wait it isn't) he pricked his finger with the dagger Griphook gave him to prove it was him and not someone under polyjuice.

Griphook then sat him down, this is when Harry knew he was in for a long conversation that wouldn't exactly be a pleasant experience.

By pricking his thumb it proved he was the Potter heir and could claim lordship if he chose to since there were no other Potters left beside him. Griphook also wanted to run a test to make sure there were no heirships or magical inheritance he was missing. Harry agreed since what did he have to lose, it's not like he had any other family to inherit anything anyway.

But boy was he wrong, the report reads as follows

Name: Hadrian James Potter
Age: 16 (emancipated, Tri-wizard Tournament)
Parents:
Paternal: James Charlus Potter (deceased)
Maternal: Lily Rose Potter (deceased)
Godparents:
Sirius Orion Black (blood adopted father, incapacitated)
Alice Longbottom (incapacitated)
Magical Guardian:
Albus Dumbledore (inactive since emancipation)
Heirships:
The Most Noble House of Potter- From parentage
The Most Noble House of Black- Named heir from the last lord
The Most Noble House of Peverall- From parentage
The Most Noble House of Slytherin- From conquest
Lordships:
Lord Most Noble House of Potter- Last of the line
Lord Most Noble House of Black- The rest of the line is unable to claim lordship
Lord Most Noble House of Peverall- Last of the line
Lord Most Noble House of Slytherin- Next in line
Current compulsions, hexes, or curses:
Compulsion to want to be in Gryffindor- placed 15 years ago on October 31s by Albus Dumbledore, broken 2 years ago
Compulsion to respect Albus Dumbledore- placed 15 years ago on October 31st by Albus Dumbledore, broken 1.5 years ago
Compulsion to hate Slytherin- placed 15 years ago on October 31st by Albus Dumbledore, unbroken
Compulsion to hate Severus Snape- placed 15 years ago on October 31st by Albus Dumbledore, unbroken
Compulsion to put others ahead of himself- placed 15 years ago on October 31st by Albus Dumbledore, broken 4 months ago.
Compulsion to marry Ginny Weasly- placed 14 years ago on August 11 by Albus Dumbledore, broken 4 years ago
Blocker- 50% of magical power- placed 15 years ago on October 31st by Albus Dumbledore, partially broken
Blocker- 100% of Parseltongue- placed 15 years ago on October 31st by Albus Dumbledore, broken 6 years ago
Blocker- 75% of IQ- placed 15 years ago on October 31st by Albus Dumbledore, Broken 8 years ago
Blocker- 75% of eyesight- placed 15 years ago on October 31st by Albus Dumbledore, unbroken
Appearance alter- cursed facial scar alteration- placed 15 years ago on October 31st by Albus Dumbledore, unbroken
Appearance alter- eye color cover alteration- placed 15 years ago on October 31st by Albus Dumbledore, unbroken
Appearance alter- 35% of height and body growth stunted- placed 15 years ago on October 31st by Albus Dumbledore, unbroken
Contracts:
Marriage contract to one Ginevra Weasley (illegal, not filed)

Once the test was complete Griphook saw the results and with a grim frown looked at Harry and told him to lie down on the bed.

¨Well Mr. Potter it looks like your mind and physical appearance has been altered, with only some of what has been placed on you broken. If you will allow it I can break the rest of these changes. However, I want you to be aware that your physical appearance will change and it is not clear yet how severely. You also may start to think differently, but we cannot be certain till the removal of these alterations. However, once this is complete there is no way to go back and undo the change. Are you willing to remove these alterations that have been placed on you without knowing what the result will be? If you are not, you will continue to have your looks and thoughts altered, but the choice is up to you. I would recommend getting them removed, but I am not the one who will have to live with the results so what do you choose Mr. Potter?¨

Harry just stared at him. How fucked up could he look and start to act once he is his true self? But at this point, he has nothing to lose so he might as well go for it. What's the worst that can happen? He could be ugly and stupid for the rest of his life, which will hopefully end soon anyway. That's a risk he was willing to take to get rid of what Dumbledore had done to him.

¨Sure Griphook, I dont see why you shouldn't remove the alterations.¨ He said trying to be polite, whatever he would be like can't be much worse than how he looks and feels now so why not?

¨Okay Mr. Potter we can perform the procedure now, and when you wake up from the sleeping spell we will need to place you under, we can discuss your heir and lordships that have recently come to light. I'm going to have you lie down and when I snap my fingers you'll go to sleep. ¨

Harry didn't see a problem in this plan besides the fact that it could change his life forever in a way that he could never undo, and it could be another thing he would be faced with the regret of for the rest of his life. So he laid down on the bed Griphook led him to and tried not to think too hard on the choice he was making. Griphook snapped his fingers and the world went completely black before Harry could find it in himself to change his mind.