Harry Potter
Harry Potter couldn’t scream.
He tried yet not a sound would leave his body. Even as he watched Cedric die before him, collapsing onto the ground. He couldn’t scream. He couldn’t move. All he could do was watch as the light left the Hufflepuff's eyes.
“C…Cedric. No,” his voice finally returned to him as he found himself still rooted to the spot, his eyes unable to break away from the warm body of his friend.
“You did this,” the lifeless body hissed, color draining from it until it was a pale and gray zombie, shambling forward, “You killed me, Harry,” the creature hissed as it continued forward.
“I didn’t mean to,” Harry tried to back away, falling onto the ground as the undead Cedric moved onward
“You should have tried harder,” another voice chimed in, and Harry turned around to see the haunting face of his Dad hovering over him, “You should have tried harder. Or died yourself,”
Harry found his legs and scrambled to his feet, kicking up gouts of dead grass and dirt as he tried to run away. He weaved between tombstones and gnarled trees with long branches. His arms were littered with cuts as he ran through thorny vines. All the while he could hear the voices of his father and Cedric taunting him, always just a few steps behind him.
Eventually, he came to a stop, crashing against a stone angel, the grave marker coming to life and ensnaring Harry in its grasp. Holding him just long enough for phantom ropes to fire from the darkness and bind him to the statue. His fear seemed to surge forth even more as he tried to fight his bindings. He knew what was going to happen next. What he was going to see. Harry wanted no part of it but had no choice.
The thick mist that covered the graveyard pulled back, revealing a simmering caldron. From within its depths, he could hear horrid, serpentine laughter. The sound echoed in his head, taunting him with its sound.
“Harry Potter, I must thank you,” the sound of Parseltongue was unmistakable as a figure began to rise from the caldron’s depths
“Were it not for you I would be a shell of my former self. Nowhere near the excellence, I am now,”
The figure rose to its full height as the fog fully parted. There, standing above the empty caldron was Voldemort, a younger version of the Dark Wizard. He looked every bit like Tom Riddle from the diary, just older. The man that stood before Harry looked no younger than Thirty, brown hair cascading around his deceptively handsome face. Almost all of his features were human. All of them, except for his eyes. Those red eyes, slit like a snake. They bore directly into Harry, peering directly into his soul. Eyes that were filled with malice, cruelty, and a predatory gleam of hunger.
“So much power in your blood Potter. I cannot wait to taste the rest of you,”
Voldemort rushed at Harry, his face larger than life as he laughed. Only then did Harry scream.
Only then did he finally wake up.
Sweat plastered his body, dripping off of him in cold rivulets. His world was a fuzzy blob of darkness, with only the faint light of day starting to make an appearance. To his left he heard the worried hoot of Hedwig as he felt around for his glasses, slowly coming out of the horror that was his nightmares.
Nightmares mixed with reality at that.
Fumbling for the lamp, Harry felt mildly relieved as soft yellow light illuminated his room with the Durselys. Despite wanting to be anywhere than here, there was some comfort to be had in the familiarity of it. It wasn’t quite home but it was far better than being in the hellscape of his mind. Of reliving that night over and over again. Seeing Cedric die. Of…being a part of Voldemort’s resurrection.
“You’d think these stupid dreams would stop after like two weeks,” he muttered into his hands, as he sighed despondently.
Hedwig gave him another hoot, though this one felt more like an admonishment over his words than anything else.
“Yeah well, nothing I can do about it, you fluffy rat catcher. Well, almost nothing,”
Harry chuckled as Hedwig puffed up his nickname before going back into her cage to roost for the morning. Harry honestly envied his familiar. He would give anything to just be able to find a corner and ignore the problems of the world. However, when one seems to be at the center of most of the world’s problems, that is often an impossibility. Yet Harry knew he couldn’t sit idly by. No, he was a young man of action. He had to be doing something to take his mind off of everything. That something happened to be tinkering.
Since he could remember, Harry loved figuring things out. The first time he ever got a taste of this was when Dudley threw a tantrum about a fancy robot he had gotten for Christmas. The thing was too complicated for him to figure out, the seven-year-old angry he couldn’t make it move like on the telly. He had smashed it in the middle of a tantrum and his oh so loving Aunt and Uncle happily took him to get another toy while leaving Harry to clean up the mess.
They thought they were being cruel to the boy. Instead, they had given him his first and best Christmas present ever.
He kept the broken parts in his cupboard and over the months when he wasn’t tending to the yard or cleaning the house, Harry worked on fixing the toy. He found the parts and the way they meshed together endlessly fascinating. Even tracing the various wires and figuring out ways to connect them to the green boards was an adventure. It had taken stealing a few rubber bands, a lighter, and some super glue, but eventually, Harry had rebuilt the robot. Not only that, but he had even programmed the thing properly one night when his relatives were away and Harry could sneak onto the computer.
Frankly, the fact they thought the password ‘Number 4 Privet Drive’ could keep him off the computer was laughable.
The toy itself was a great thing to have, even if he had to play with it silently while his Aunt, Uncle, and cousin were sleeping. The robot was honestly a fascinating toy, with how it was able to execute most functions Harry had plugged into the remote. He had even gotten the thing to behave how it did on the telly, slowly lifting its hands and imitating finger guns. Yes, for the first toy Harry ever had, it was truly tons of fun to be had.
A few weeks later he had run out of things to make the robot do.
Even with access to the computer, albeit sporadically, there was only so much Harry was able to get the robot to do. Not only that, but he was slowly growing frustrated with the toy's lack of motion and features. For something claiming to be, ‘The most high-tech toy of the decade’ it indeed was far more disappointing in the long run. If Harry were any other kid, he would have left the robot behind to rot away. Harry was not any other kid. Harry was a kid who wanted to make things better, and that is exactly what he did.
It took him weeks upon weeks. It was hard to work on his new project at home, as the Dursleys always had some stupid chore for him to do or a meal to cook for them. Instead, he had brought it to school and worked on it while hiding out from Dudley and his friends. The librarian was kind enough to let him have his own space to fiddle with the toy, watching as he poured over the thing during recess. She would even bring him little odds and ends to use in his goal. Some wire, tubing, or even oil of all things. If Harry needed it, she was more than happy to find it or the nearest subsite. She even kept the robot hidden in her office when she caught Dudley trying to crush the thing one day.
It took him a total of four weeks, but by the end of it, the robot was far superior to when it was first built. It moved faster than the box model and with more grace at that. The arms had full 360-degree movement and modified joints for superb articulation. The voice box was programmed with a better vocal package and could respond to well over 1000 phrases. The grip strength of the toy had been improved and it could crush an empty soda can easily. Even its body had been made more durable after Harry spent ages mixing various melted plastics to make it stronger. The librarian hadn’t been too happy when she caught the boy playing with an open flame, but happily followed his instructions and made the shell at her home. The toy even had a small LCD screen in its back and could access the net thanks to a salvaged router the school had thrown away.
In short, Harry had made the ‘Most advanced toy in a decade’ better in just under a month.
He was only six years old.
His Aunt and Uncle were not pleased when they found out. Harry’s teachers had called a conference after the boy had sown off his robot as part of a science project. At first, they claimed that Harry had stolen the toy. Then that it was Dudley who had made it better and that Harry was a no-good thief who wanted to take their precious child’s credit.
Even the teacher had to suppress a laugh at that, knowing full well that Dudley was only barely getting by. Even then, he was sure he had Harry doing his homework for him.
To her credit, Harry’s teacher didn’t buy a word of what they said. Instead, she merely told them that Harry was far too gifted to be wasting away in the lower grades and that he would love to bump him up a few grades. When they protested about ‘that good-for-nothing boy getting a free ride that should go to Dudley instead’, the teacher reminded them that it would mean less time spent around Harry as he would have to stay after school.
Fifteen minutes later Harry was enrolled in sixth-year classes.
For five years Harry was thriving at school. He spent so much time after classes learning far more than he would have on his own. He was devouring books on Advance Engineering and Theoretical Physics in a heartbeat. His mind just absorbed the information and by the next day, he was able to put it into practice. Harry was smart, there was no doubt about it, and he had no problem letting everyone know just how smart he was. When the school started letting kids use tablets, Harry had programmed his with a basic A.I. that was able to interact with him as if he was having a conversation with another person. Harry was on top of the world.
Then his world changed when he got a letter from an owl.
Finding out he was a wizard and part of the magical world had been an odd thing. Sure he had noticed he could do things others couldn’t. There was the time he ended up on the roof after being hounded by Dudley and his gang. After which he spent weeks trying to replicate what happened, going as far as to have Dudley chase him again, though with a less desirable outcome. Then there was the time he turned his teacher’s hair blue. That one he didn’t even bother trying to rationalize. Still, he couldn’t be a wizard, magic wasn’t his domain.
Nonetheless, after his Aunt had filled him in on her ‘freakish sister and her freakish husband’ Harry found himself whisked away into the magical world. The half-giant Hagrid had been more than happy to show Harry around the magical world. Or at least the small portion of Diagon Alley. Harry couldn’t wrap his head around the lack of technology, but once he saw his first spell cast, his thirst to know everything about this new world grew. Loaded up with several books, something that Hagrid seemed a bit hesitant to let Harry do even though he eventually relented, Harry dedicated the rest of his Summer to becoming an expert in every magical field before school would start. By the end of it, Harry had come to one conclusion:
Magic and Wixen were mad as all heck.
Transfiguration went against every known law of the universe. Sure, he figured out how to turn a mouse into a teacup during his second week in the class, but that didn’t mean it made any sense. Charms even less so. The fact he could negate the pull of gravity on any object, regardless of weight, and with a bit of concentration was utterly mad. It was cool as hell when he levitated a bookshelf with ease, but still just utterly mad. Then there was the fact that magic had burned out every one of the gadgets he brought with him. That frustrated him to no end when his tablet turned into a burnt husk in his trunk. The entire Wixen world was running off of chaos and despite himself, Harry enjoyed the challenge.
Even then, the chaos seemed to get in his way at every turn.
His first year of school was spent dealing with rabid fans, a potions professor that was hellbent on making him miserable, and eventually finding out that his Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was playing host to the shade of the man who killed his family.
The second year, somehow, was even more insane. How Dumbledore let a clear grifter like Lockhart teach children was beyond Harry’s understanding. Not to mention the fact that a diary could contain the imprint of a living person. Harry was still upset he couldn’t keep the diary to figure out how it worked. Then there was the large snake that had been turning kids to stone for the better part of a year and not a single soul had even bothered to inform the parents. Nope, instead it was Harry who had to almost die to keep things running smoothly.
Third year was just a mess. Werewolf teachers, sure why not. Creatures that could rip out your soul, life-altering but at this point whatever. Finding out his Godfather wasn’t a crazed madman who sold out his parents to a Dark Lord, honestly, that was probably the best part. Making Hagrid a teacher though? Now that was insanity that bordered on the idiotic. Even if Harry did enjoy getting to ride a hippogriff in the end. Then there was the whole time travel thing. That had turned a lot of logic on its head for Harry.
Fourth-year? Well, he was still reeling from the hell that was the Fourth Year. Nightmares had been commonplace since he got back to Privet Drive two weeks ago. Were it not for Fred and George, those brilliant little devils, and their portable silence cone, Harry was sure his Uncle would have kicked him out after the fifth night he woke up screaming.
Tonight, just like all those other nights, Harry got up to do the one thing that helped put his mind at ease, he went to go tinker.
There wasn’t much space in Number 4 that Harry could use for his projects. Uncle Vernon staunchly refused to give Harry any extra space that could remind the man of his existence. Even the garden shed, with tools that Vernon had never laid a finger on, was out of the question. So, as usual, it was up to Harry to find his place to work on projects, and find it he did when he was nine years old.
Next to the park that Harry and Dudley often played at, well Dudley played at, was a small shack that had once been for a local scouting troupe. With the troupe long since leaving Privet Drive, as no one seemed to like the boys hanging about, the thing had just sat there. Harry knew an opportunity when he saw it and quickly claimed the decently sized shack as his personal space. Sure, he had to contend with a few spiders and a shockingly nice black adder who had come to enjoy Harry’s company, and having to find a way to steal power but the shack was all his. Even Dudley never dared to come in, at least not without Harry’s permission. Turns out his cousin could be somewhat ice when he got to test out a few of Harry’s inventions. Long as he kept it quiet from his parents of course.
This was Harry’s intended location as he silently slipped out into the pre-dawn light that was rising above Privet Drive. He had probably a good hour or two before his Aunt would expect him back to cook for them. They never asked where he went, only wanting to have him around when there was work to be done. Beyond that, they pretended Harry didn’t exist, which suited the boy just fine. What they didn’t pry into would make his life all the better.
The morning air was heaven on his skin, feeling cleansing after the horrid nightmare he had. There was something about the pre-dawn hours that made Harry happy. The way the cold air of night swept around him. The still visible moon slowly gave way to the brightness of another day. The fact that he could be alone with his thoughts for a few moments before the chaos of the day would take over. It was all of these things and more than made his morning walk over to his shed a godsend. The closer he got, the further away all those pesky thoughts and memories became. Once he stepped inside, Harry felt truly at peace.
“Good Morning Harry. Another sleepless evening,” a voice chimed out from inside the shed.
There wasn’t another person in the space, but Harry didn’t look the least bit afraid or confused.
“Wouldn’t say sleepless PRONGS. Could you get the kettle running, I really want to run some more experiments with the Stark Phone today. I’m pretty sure I’m getting close to getting it to run in a magical environment,”
“Very well Harry. Though I shall remind you that you have been saying this for the past two years now,”
“Well you were built upon my many failures so maybe have a little more faith in me Prongs,” the good-natured barb with his A.I. helped wake Harry up as he waited for his tea to brew.
The young man drifted over to a small table where he had several of his textbooks encircling a refurbished model of last year's Stark Phone. It had taken some study, but Harry found that most items crafted by or around magic exuded a small amount of energy, one that was unlike any other frequency Harry could think of. It was this frequency that seemed to lead to so many technological items turning into junk once they entered an area saturated with magic. Since he couldn’t use magic outside of school, Harry opted to use his accumulated textbooks to simulate a dense magical environment, at least in miniature.
So far, he had discovered the bare minimum amount of magical energy that electronics could withstand before completely giving out, which turned out to be seven books. The rather animated copy of The Monster Book of Monsters was putting in the work, as it had the highest level of frequency Harry had detected. Yet, despite being able to even measure the frequency, Harry had to find a way to stop it from interfering with technology. There had to be a way for it to work. Hell, the fact that as a Wixen he was still able to use a phone meant that there was evidence that magic and technology could work together. He just had to figure out how.
“PRONGS, do me a favor and run a check for any materials that can absorb high amounts of energy. If I can find a way to do that, I might be able to build components that actually use magic to power devices. That could counteract the issue of magic incompatibility. Oh, and create renewable energy that can be collected from the very air around us. Well, at least magically dense air,”
“Right away Harry. If I find any matching your specifications should I purchase them,”
“If by purchase you mean to have it magically shipped here then go for it,”
“You are aware that I am not capable of magical feats like yourself,” came the dry voice of his personal A.I.
“Yeah well, you are far better than any spell I could ever cast. So yes, go wield your brand of magic and supply me with the good stuff,”
With PRONGS doing his best to find something that may not even exist and not much else he could do with figuring out the frequency problem, Harry began to pour over his textbooks for the next year. He was going to be taking Arithmancy next year and the interchange of numbers and magic had been blowing his mind. If he could also get more practice with runes, Harry was sure he could code a computer using nothing but magic. The applications for something like that would be more than amazing. Or at the very least be a fun way to kill a few hours.
Time slowly ticked by, Harry diligently working while PRONGS continued on his search, occasionally sending possibilities for Harry to look over. Despite the A.I. not having a physical form, it felt like Harry was back at Hogwarts working alongside his friends. There was just an easy, companionable silence between them, it helped set Harry’s mind at ease, the nightmare the night before fully fading into the depths of his mind.
Eventually, a soft alarm charmed and Harry looked up from his tablet, cursing ever so slightly.
“Oh, Petunia is going to have my head for this. PRONGS, save all work to the backup and keep on searching while I’m gone,”
“Of course, Harry. Shall I bombard your Aunts phone with robocalls to buy you a few moments,”
“PRONGS you are a lifesaver. Remind me to get you a treat when I come back,” Harry shut down his stuff, being sure to cover everything in the charmed blanket he crafted last year, all of his items vanishing from sight.
The sun had fully risen and Harry knew if he didn’t get back to Number 4 to start cooking breakfast he wasn’t going to hear the end of it. Vernon would probably consider that grounds to hit him across the head again, something that Harry had been lucky to avoid thus far. He was about to slip down the small side tunnel to get to the house when he spotted Dudley leaning up against the wall.
“So, sneaking back out to your lab? Dad was throwing a fit when there wasn’t any bacon cooking when he got up,”
“Well unlike you, I’m sure he could stand to drop a few pounds,” Harry snarked.
It was honestly the truth. In the year that Harry had spent dealing with the Tri-Wizard tournament, Dudley had managed to shed a considerable amount of weight. He was still bulky, but most of it was now muscle as opposed to thick deposits of fat.
“Don’t let him catch you saying that. He already is gonna have it out for you when you get back in the house,”
“Sounds like business as usual Dudley,”
The two walked side by side, an odd pair indeed. Dudley had seemed to ween off his parents’ endless hate for Harry for a while now. Between his cousin letting him test his safer gadgets, even finding a way to get around pesky parental blocks on the computer, and actual conversations between the two of them Harry and Dudley had a vastly improved relationship as compared to before. It made spending Summers at Number 4 almost bearable. Almost.
As they ventured down the tunnel the summer morning began to take a bit of a turn. For starters, the bright sunlight that had been filling the tunnel was slowly starting to fade away into a dour looking gray. The wind seemed to pick up of its own accord, bringing with it an icy bite. For Harry, it was an all too familiar icy bite.
“No. not here,” he whispered, his breath coming out in little crystalline puffs.
“H-Harry. W-what’s going on,” Dudley shivered, huddling his arms around his middle, trying to conserve his slowly vanishing warmth
“Just get behind my Dudley,” Harry had his wand in hand, his eyes looking further down the tunnel as a mist began to crawl along the ground,
“Stay behind me and whatever you do, don’t scream. Screaming makes it worse,”
“Makes what worse,” Dudley hissed, his eyes locked onto the mist-filled end of the tunnel
“The voices. The cold. The misery,”
As he spoke, they slowly started to appear. Dementors. At least seven of them were slowly drifting into the tunnel, their ghostly visage adding to the haunting appearance that left every hair on Harry’s skin standing. Faintly he could hear them, the screams of his mother. He felt the cold shock of fear filling his body as the Dementors began to stalk closer to them.
To his left, Dudley was already on his knees, every bit of energy leaving his body as he began to fall to the insidious influence of the Dementors power. Though Harry didn’t know what was going on in his head, he could see it written in Dudley’s eyes. They were wide, wide with horror as he was taunted by his worse memories.
“N..No,” he cried weakly from the ground, “Le..leave him alone,”
Harry had no time to worry about what was plaguing his cousin, instead, he had to focus on the Dementors as they were encroaching ever faster. He dove into his mind, trying to find a memory to fuel his Patronus.
Flying. Flying on a broom.
“Expecto Patronum,” Harry yelled, conjuring a thick silvery mist from his wand.
The mist was enough to push a few of them back, but it was nowhere near corporeal enough to drive them away. After collecting themselves, they pressed even further toward the boys. Harry could hear the screams of his mother mingling with the rattle of the Dementor’s breathing.
First time at Hogwarts. Getting Sorted.
Harry tried again, this time the faint outline of the stag took shape. It held against the Dementors, pushing them further and further away. Harry was certain his stag was going to save them when he felt the cold air suddenly triple in intensity.
Harry collapsed to the ground, his wand clattering out of his grip as two more Dementors came in from the other end of the tunnel, their influence finally crippling Harry as his mind began to be filled with faint images of his mother standing before a shadowy figure and a green light stripping her of life. The cloaked beings moved in hungrily, ready to drink the souls of the two boys that had become their prey. Through his own misery, Harry could see one of them lean closer to Dudley, the sound of it drawing in breath and filling his ears.
“No. Leave him,” Harry grunted, reaching up with his wand arm. As he did, the cold air around him started to lose its bite, and a new strength began to surge in Harry’s body.
Harry could feel his magic alight in his body, but it felt far different than ever before. There was a coldness to it, but different than that of the Dementors. It wasn’t biting, but welcoming, like a bright winter’s morning. This coldness rushed along his arms, gathering in the palm of his hand. He could feel it building and building, the magical pressure wanting to escape. Feeling that he couldn’t hold it back, Harry made sure to look directly at the Dementors starting to swarm over them.
“Expecto Patronum,” he shouted.
Green flames erupted from his hands, as his stag took shape. Silvery magic mingled with the flames, giving the stag an even more ethereal appearance. It charged forward, knocking the Dementors back with a flash of magic from its horns. Then it charged, slamming into each of the creatures and burning them to dust. Despite the green flames producing no heat, Harry felt his body starting to warm up, color returning to his face. The same was for Dudley, who slowly sat up.
Harry watched as his Stag finished off the last Dementor, crushing it under hoof in a torrent of green fire, leaving not a trace of the creature behind. With its job done, the Stag vanished into the air, leaving Harry and Dudley to collect themselves.
Dudley was the first to his feet, reaching down to help Harry who was looking a bit worse for wear.
“Harry, what the fuck were those things,” came the rather blunt question, not that Harry would ever blame Dudley for it.
“Oh, you know, just your standard soul-sucking creatures that guard a prison in the middle of the ocean. Kinda commonplace really. It was in this month's National Geographic,” Harry quipped as he reached down to grab his wand.
As he did so, the familiar sensation of his magic connected with the enchanted wood felt different. Off ever so slightly. Seeing as he had, somehow, performed a type of magic he had never seen before, Harry wondered if that meant that his own magic had changed somehow. He was plotting to study this in his shed when a familiar pop of apparition caught his ears.
Floating down into his hands was a letter with the all too familiar seal of the Ministry of Magic. Having a feeling that he knew exactly what this was for, Harry pulled it open. What he expected was there, about how he had done underage magic in view of a Muggle. The threat to snap his wand and that he now had a court date, that was beyond shocking.
“Well…shit,” he muttered, pocketing the letter. Looks like he was going to have yet another audience with the Minster. Considering how well the last one went, he was not looking forward to it.
“Come on Dudley, let’s get back to your parents. I think some chocolate should fix you right up, while I figure out just why the Ministry is trying to snap my wand over sending Dementors that they control,”
Not even a full month out of school and he was already working on a mystery that started with an attack on his life.
Just standard fare for Harry Potter it seemed.