Space Monkey Harry!

Deleted my old version of "Chaos in his Wake" and am posting a new, better version. I'll try to update as often as possible. Re-edited 3-8-2012

At six years old, Harry Potter could recite verbatim countless tales of ancient warriors fighting bravely in battle against remarkable odds. It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that every young boy (even Harry's moronic cousin Dudley) knew at least half a dozen such stories by heart. Whether these tales are told to them by their parents, seen on the telly, or read from a book, the result is the same. Every little boy, no matter how meek and mild-mannered, will at some point be inspired to get into a few fights of his own.

Despite, or perhaps because of, his young age and slender physique, Harry got into more fights than most. Between his aunt and uncle's version of discipline and Dudley's bullying and his schoolmates' roughhousing, Harry had perhaps been in more fights than some of the heroic figures in his stories.

At one point, he would stand meekly and allow himself to be beaten by his relatives, promising himself that he would behave better- like a good boy, like a normal boy- to avoid feeling this pain again. It took Harry a few years to realize that there was nothing he could do to prevent himself from being attacked. However, fueled by his beloved stories of sword-fights, duels, and battles to the death, Harry began to defend himself against his attackers. At times, fighting back significantly decreased the physical pain that normally resulted from the altercation. A quick kick to the nuts often had his uncle shoving him into his cupboard while doubled over in pain rather than continuing to pummel his nephew for another fifteen minutes. Had Harry been more aware of his emotions, he would have found that even when he lost the fight against bigger, stronger opponents, he felt less emotional pain than he did back when he allowed himself to get beat up. After giving his opponent all he had, he felt a strange kind of satisfaction, knowing that he hadn't taken their crap laying down.

By the time he started school, Harry gloried in the thrill of the fight, whether he was fighting out of self-defense or just starting a fight for the fun of it or to work off the anxiety that came with being a friendless orphan with relatives who hated him. True, he did not always win his fights. He was weak and undernourished, fighting against much better-fed peers. However, he was agile and quick, possessing a dexterity honed from so many years of striving to do chores to his aunt's satisfaction. This allowed him to get in quite a few lucky hits. After years of being beaten, Harry knew which specific points to aim at in order to cause maximum pain.

Young Harry dreamed of being a warrior, but he knew a warrior had to be big and strong. He himself was short and skinny, the result of being underfed and living in a small cupboard. As such, he took care to never shirk from a fight, using every opportunity to strengthen his body and sharpen his reflexes.

One wet, drizzly day during winter break, Harry lounged on his cot in the cupboard under the stairs, attempting to read the story of Hercules. The only sound in the house came from Aunt Petunia scrubbing all surfaces within reach, as Uncle Vernon was at work and Dudley was playing at a friend's house. Harry had no friends (none of the neighborhood mothers wanted her children playing with that violent nutjob Harry Potter), not that he wanted any. He would take a good book or a rousing fight over the opportunity to hang out with one of Dudley's cronies any day of the week. It would have been a peaceful, ordinary, perfectly normal day had Vernon not forgotten his lunch at home. Petunia glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. If she hurried, she could bring her husband his lunch before he started getting hungry. Of course, she had to make extra arrangements for that awful Potter boy.

A quick, unanswered phone call led to the conclusion that old Mrs. Figg, who usually babysat Harry, was not at home. So, her despised nephew would have to come with her. She only hoped that he didn't blow anything up or embarrass the family too much while they were in the building. It should be a quick trip, but Potter hardly needed any time at all to ruin something with his freakishness, not to mention his propensity for violence. Ah, well, best to get it over with.

She unlocked her nephew's cupboard door and briskly ordered the boy to make himself presentable and to be ready in five minutes, no excuses. "Making himself presentable" meant covering up his injuries that he got from fighting with, well, everyone. Warriors were normally proud of their battle scars, as Harry understood it. They would show them off when they got home from battle, telling long, involved, often exaggerated, stories about how they got them. Harry himself had quite a few scars and bruises, which his aunt always insisted that he keep covered when he went into public. As an act of defiance, though, he never covered up the scar on his forehead. He was immensely proud of this scar, which was shaped like a bolt of lightning. It was his only injury which he did not know the origins of. His aunt and uncle tried to avoid looking at it, much less talking about it. If he wanted to go out with that particular injury uncovered, they would happily pretend it did not exist, provided he wasn't stupid enough to ask questions about it.

Harry quickly put on a turtleneck that was much too big for him and a pair of extremely baggy jeans, both hand-me-downs from his cousin Dudley, and hurried out into the living room. Aunt Petunia gave a disapproving sniff (her usual reaction to being presented with physical proof of Harry's existence) and cuffed the boy around the ear, warning him not to make trouble. Harry merely scowled.

Petunia managed to beat the lunchtime rush into town and towards Grunning's, her husband's drill company. When she arrived in Vernon's office, she dutifully handed Vernon his lunch with a quick peck on the cheek. She was about to leave, dragging Harry quickly along with her before too many people spotted him and guessed that they were related, but her quick exit was interrupted by Vernon's secretary. "This yours, Mister Dursley?" She asked curtly, putting a piece of paper on Vernon's desk. "I found it in the copier."

Vernon glanced at the paper, and his eyes widened in shock. He began reading the list, his lips moving silently as he scanned each line. His face turned red, then purple, with fury.

"No, this is not mine! Do I look like a nutcase to you?" Vernon screamed, his mustache quivering with indignation as his loud voice echoed across the office. Harry thought that his uncle looked somewhat less-than-sane, and, judging by the secretary's expression, she agreed with this assessment. Petunia looked curiously over her husband's shoulder to read what had gotten Vernon so upset. Her icy blue eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips, certain that her freakish nephew had something to do with this. Her well-manicured fingers dug deeply into Harry's shoulder, promising punishment when they got home. Harry stood on tiptoe, cocking his head to see what was on the paper that had gotten his aunt and uncle so angry, and what would result in a knock-down, drag-out fight when Aunt Petunia and Harry returned home. His determination to read more fighting stories combined with the fact that he was rarely allowed to watch TV and never told stories by his guardians had made him an advanced reader. He was able to scan the note before his uncle angrily crumbled it up and threw it in his wastebasket. The paper read:

"Bringing the required items does not guarantee admission to training, but no applicant will be considered unless he arrives with the following items and exactly five-hundred pounds cash for personal burial money. This money must always be carried in the student's shoe so that if the student is ever killed, his death will not be a burden on Project Mayhem. In addition, the applicant has to arrive with the following:

Two black shirts

Two black pairs of trousers

One pair of heavy black shoes

Two pairs of black socks and two pairs of plain underwear

One heavy black coat

This includes the clothes the applicant has on his back.

One white towel

One army surplus mattress

One white plastic mixing bowl"

Vernon continued to rant about lunatics, morons, and ineffective administrative assistants as the secretary edged her way out of the office. Petunia nodded along supportively as she mentally wrote out her grocery list... must remember to pick up more crisps; we really run through those fast, don't we? Oh, yes and prunes. Nobody noticed Harry swiftly ducking down to grab the discarded paper out of the wastebasket and slipping it into the roomy pocket of this jeans.

"It probably belongs to Crazy Old Jack," Vernon said, finally finishing his rant. "That man's a complete and utter lunatic. He has the office right across from mine, though not for long." Vernon grinned nastily. "Everyone knows he's going to be sacked soon. Good riddance, I say."

As Aunt Petunia dragged him by the hand out of his uncle's office and towards the exit, Harry risked a glance towards the office across from his uncle's. The door was open a crack, but he could not see anything out of the ordinary, merely a tired looking man doing something with his computer. The man certainly didn't look like crazy people looked on the telly. In fact, if Harry did not have more important things to do than start a fight with his aunt, he would venture to say that "Crazy Old Jack" looked more normal than Uncle Vernon did. True, he was a bit skinny, but that, in Harry's opinion, was better than being the size of a sumo wrestler who had been putting on weight during the off season. The man happened to glance out in the hallway, and Harry stifled a gasp when he saw Jack's face. It was covered with bruises, scrapes, and scars, giving the impression that the man had barely survived some sort of horrific battle. When Jack's eyes found Harry's, he gave the boy what could only be described as a cheeky grin. Aunt Petunia pulled impatiently at Harry's hand, tugging him along. Harry raised his other hand and gave Jack a very small wave.

For reasons Harry did not fully understand, he was sent to his cupboard for a week when he and Aunt Petunia arrived home. Normally, he would have put up a fight, but today, his mind was elsewhere, focused on Project Mayhem. It sounded like a place where he could train to become a strong warrior. However, the note didn't have an address. Where was he supposed to report for training? He decided to make his way to Grunnings and hide out there until the man named Jack left. He could then follow Jack to wherever he went after work. If it was the same place Jack got all those injuries, Harry would know that he had found the right spot.

Back in the real world, Harry's silence caused no amount of smugness from his aunt, who was convinced that her discipline technique was finally working and that she would have a perfectly docile nephew in no time. Little did she know that Harry was hatching a plan.

Harry tore through his messy cupboard, searching for the required supplies. He slipped on one of Dudley's old black shirts and a pair of worn-out black pants. He found another black shirt and pair of black pants and folded them up neatly in a clean corner of his cupboard. Harry then rolled up the ancient mattress that he had been using as a bed all his life and placed it in the same corner. The heavy black coat was harder to find, but Harry uncovered a box of moth-eaten old winter clothes. He found a heavy black coat that looked too big even for Dudley and which might have once fit Uncle Vernon back when he was more athletic.

He also found a pair of heavy black boots that had once belonged to Dudley. Dudley had never done anything that would require the use of such durable footwear; he had merely seen them in a sports store and demanded them because he thought they looked "Cool." As with most things that Dudley just had to have, his interest in the boots faded even before he had broken in the new shoes. Now, they were shoved into the box, forgotten, and stuffed into the cupboard under the stairs. They were still about two sizes too big for Harry, but he remedied this by crumbling up a few pieces of paper and wedging them into the toes of the boots. This way, he could walk, run, and fight in them without them falling off. They weren't very comfortable, but he would get used to that. Harry was certain that this Project Mayhem would make him a better fighter. That alone was worth any discomfort.

Harry sat against the door of his cupboard, too anxious to even try to read the rest of the story he had started this morning. Instead, he merely stared at the bootlaces of his newly acquired shoes, trying to imagine what Project Mayhem would be like. Finally, he heard the sound he was waiting for: the front door opened and closed as Aunt Petunia left the house to pick up Dudley. Harry waited a minute in order to ensure that his aunt was too far away from the house to hear anything.

Flashback

When Harry had just turned five, he had gone through a stage where all he could think about was karate. He would read all the books he could find about karate and spend every spare moment practicing the techniques. At first, he would practice punching and kicking the air. Then, he would incorporate these moves when he was defending himself. These techniques proved to be somewhat successful, but it was difficult to teach oneself how to fight using only library books and stolen glances at whatever action movies one's uncle and cousin happened to be watching. Harry realized that what he needed was a teacher.

That summer, he discovered a school of martial arts only a block away. However, this presented another problem. He needed money in order to enroll in a martial arts class, but there was no way that the Dursleys would ever spend money on him. They complained about how much Harry cost them to keep as it was, and that was with Harry wearing nothing but Dudley's old hand-me-downs, never being allowed to eat as much as he liked, never getting proper birthday presents, and sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs.

Harry had tried to do odd jobs around the neighborhood, but by this point, his reputation as a no-good delinquent had been set in stone. This reputation was due to a combination of Aunt Petunia's stories about Harry's no-good drunken parents who had died in a car crash, leaving Harry to be a burden on his hardworking, long-suffering relatives and Harry's frequent displays of violence. The fact that Harry always looked like a homeless person with his baggy, ragged-looking clothes and his constantly untidy hair did nothing to increase his employment opportunities in the superficial, appearance-obsessed neighborhood.

Therefore, Harry had been forced to earn the money through less than honorable means. He had learned to pick pockets, starting with the other children who walked around jingling with pocket change given to them by their parents. When he realized that the neighborhood children did not carry significant amounts of cash with them, he started stealing from the children's parents and any strangers he saw around the neighborhood. He was careful to steal only a few pounds at a time so that people would be less likely to notice the dip in their finances. However, he stole from multiple people everyday (making sure to pick different targets each day), so by the end of his "workday," the small sum added up.

Due to their close proximity, stupidity, and seemingly unlimited wealth, the Dursleys were a favorite target of Harry's sticky fingers. It was amazing how oblivious they could be. Harry could easily steal four or five pounds a day from each of them with Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and Dudley being none the wiser. By the end of the month, he had enough money to enroll in the karate class.

However, the school was not willing to teach him without permission from his parent or guardian. So, Harry took home an application form and spent hours in his cupboard, staring at it thoughtfully. He could read very well for his age, but had hardly ever attempted to write anything. At this point, he could barely write his own name legibly, which added to his relatives' opinion that he was mentally subnormal. He went to his uncle's study to borrow a pen and a copy of a document that contained the signatures of both his aunt and uncle. He had slipped the paper into the pocket of his oversized jeans and slipped downstairs to his cupboard.

He had spent the rest of that day hunched over that document, several unused pieces of Dudley's drawing paper, and the permission form. He began to practice writing out Aunt Petunia's and Uncle Vernon's full names as they were written on the document. He started by printing them, as he had at least a rudimentary of how to write print. It was a struggle to write neatly in a way that did not betray how much effort he put into writing each individual letter. It had to look like something an adult would write. That meant it had to be both casual, as if they wrote their names without difficulty everyday, and legible. When he finally felt that he had it down, he printed the names of his guardians in the indicated spaces on the permission form.

Then came the hard part. He carefully examined the loopy signatures written in the unfamiliar cursive writing. After several unsuccessful attempts on Dudley's drawing paper, Harry gave up making a signature that looked exactly like that of his aunt and uncle. It wasn't like the teachers will ever know the difference. He just had to make a few confident-seeming loops and swirls. He could make a few of the letters in cursive- the P in Petunia and the D and the Y in Dursley for instance. He made sure to use different handwriting for both his aunt and uncle's names. Knowing that his nervousness would affect his handwriting, Harry took a few deep breaths before forging his aunt and uncle's signatures in the required blanks. Then, he returned the important-looking document to his uncle's study. After he was done with this, Harry settled into his the leather chair behind his uncle's desk and grabbed the phone and a notepad. He needed to make a few calls.

By this point, Dudley had been in the habit of making crank phone calls to strangers- calling up random numbers only to breathe loudly or ask a stupid question like "Is your refrigerator running?" Of course Harry was inevitably blamed when these numbers showed up on the Dursleys' phone bill. Harry had no problems with actually doing one of the stupid things his relatives were blaming on him for once. Harry remembered his aunt complaining that she couldn't telephone Ms. Number Seven because their phone got disconnected. Harry considered the fact that if one's phone was disconnected, it would be impossible to talk to that person on the phone a useful bit of knowledge for the fall, when he was set to start primary school. He was certain that teachers would be telephoning his relatives about his behavior, much like the neighbors did when they were too lazy to march up to Number Four Privet Drive and complain in person.

It looked like he would have to do his research sooner than he expected. Harry began to call random numbers from his uncle's phone. When someone picked up on the other end, Harry immediately hung up. Whenever he received the message that the number was disconnected, Harry carefully took note of that number. He continued until he had a list of five disconnected phone numbers. Then, considering his work done for the day, he slipped the notepad in his pocket and hurried back to his cupboard before his aunt caught him upstairs. Over the next few days, he made time everyday to call up those five numbers to ensure that they were still disconnected. Two weeks later, three of the five original numbers were still disconnected. Harry looked up the addresses which corresponded to these numbers and picked the residence which was closest to the martial arts school, not wanting to look suspicious by claiming an address that was too far away from the school. He then filled in the permission form with the fake address and phone number.

He turned in the permission form and the money with the excuse that both his aunt and uncle were working but had allowed him to walk to the school. And just like that, Harry was a student in the beginners' martial arts class.

Harry had applied all of his heart, body, mind, and soul to learning the new fighting style. He avidly drank in all of the Sensei's instructions and quickly mastered most of the techniques. However, not all aspects of the class came naturally to Harry. Occasionally, the Sensei would have a day in which he would not teach them how to fight, but merely have the pupils sit in a circle and talk about discipline. Despite how much Harry excelled at the physical aspects of karate, Harry could tell that his sensei was unhappy with his "lack of discipline." Apparently the Sensei was under the impression that being a good boy would keep him out of "unnecessary" fights. Well, that sure hadn't worked when he was younger, had it? Besides, what was the point in being disciplined enough to suffer something you didn't want or go without something you did want when you could simply fight for everything, as Harry was doing? The Sensei could keep his discipline as far as Harry was concerned. However, Harry managed to quietly tolerate the Sensei's strange insistence on peaceful conflict resolution and using violence only as a last resort since he was the guy who was teaching him all of these useful fighting techniques.

Things eventually came to a head when Harry managed to get into an altercation with one of his fellow students. He couldn't even remember what the fight was about. All he knew was that he loathed the boy, who reminded Harry of Dudley so much that Harry could not help wondering why the boy was voluntarily participating in an activity that required so much movement and didn't involve television. Harry had already been in a bad mood that day after his uncle had decided to blame him for the car breaking down and punished him accordingly. True, Harry had managed to get some good blows in before his uncle shoved him into his cupboard, but it was still an inconvenience to have to slip out of the cupboard, sneak past his relatives, and hurry to karate class. Then, when he got there, the annoying brat had to start riling him up. Harry felt that he could hardly be blamed for giving that twat the beatdown he deserved.

Of course, neither the Sensei nor the boy's parents were happy. Harry was kicked out of the class after refusing to apologize. The school tried to call his aunt and uncle to notify them of Harry's expulsion, but they found that the number provided by "Vernon and Petunia Dursley" was disconnected. Harry never went back to that school.

Although he could no longer come to class, Harry practiced what he learned from class alone in his cupboard and incorporated the techniques into the fights that he continued to get into. When these techniques proved to be successful, he wanted to move on to breaking boards of wood apart. He hadn't progressed this far in his karate classes before being kicked out, but he had been anxious to learn the skill. He had always been amazed when they did this trick in Dudley's movies. So, he practiced with scrap boards of wood in his uncle's rarely-used woodshop. At first, it was awkward and painful, particularly when he tried to break the boards with his bare feet. However, with continued practice, Harry found the same strange power that sometimes came to his aid in fights against larger opponents began to arise when he wanted to break apart boards of wood. He felt an indescribable warmth followed by a feeling of power. The board easily cracked in two. It wasn't long before all the planks were reduced to wood chips.

End Flashback

Now, he was ready to put his hard-earned knowledge to good use.

He raised one booted foot and kicked at the door of his cupboard. The wood shattered, and a hole large enough for Harry to walk through appeared. The hole was a lot bigger than the force of Harry's kick should warrant, but Harry didn't take the time to question this. He quickly stuffed the extra shirt, pants, and underwear and the rolled-up mattress into an ancient, moldy duffel bag that the Dursleys had stored in his cupboard. He hesitated a moment. Most of his possessions were either stolen or discarded items, but it hurt that he would never see any of this other stuff again: the storybooks and toy soldiers he had nicked from Dudley. Still, the hero had to put aside childish things in order to fulfill his destiny. At least, that's what happened in the stories he read.

With the bag slung over his shoulder, Harry jumped through the hole he had made in his cupboard door. With any luck, he would be long gone by the time Aunt Petunia came back and noticed the wood fragments from the cupboard door littering her otherwise immaculate living room. Then, he grinned. He would have plenty of time. Dudley never let his mum drive him anywhere without stopping to buy him a treat of some sort, whether it was a new video game or a burger and fries from the nearest fast-food restaurant. Still, he wanted to leave Privet Drive as soon as possible. He couldn't wait to put this place behind him.

Harry hurried to the kitchen and dug through one of the cupboards. He quickly found a white plastic mixing bowl and stuffed it into his duffel bag. Then, he hurried upstairs to Uncle Vernon's study, knowing from experience that this room would be the most likely place his uncle would keep cash. Sure enough, Harry found a stack of hundred pound notes hidden underneath some paperwork in the bottom drawer of Vernon's desk. He counted out 500 pounds and stuffed them in his right shoe. Then, he grabbed a few extra bills to use as cab fare and stuffed those in the pocket of his baggy jeans.

Harry rushed downstairs and ran out the back door without looking back.