Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Harry Potter and the Never-Ending Possibilities
Chapter 1
Harry looked behind him in a frenzy, knowing that there was danger in doing so. And, of course, he felt a thick leg appear in front of his own legs, causing him to tumble down onto the sidewalk, scraping his hands and knees as he tried to break his fall.
"Well, what do we have here? We caught Harry!" his fat whale of a cousin, Dudley, called out to his gang of bullies. "It looks like we won 'Harry Hunting' today!" Dudley shouted in glee as he started to shove his fist into Harry's stomach. Harry let out an 'oomph' as the wind was knocked out of him from the constant streams of punches and kicks.
All of a sudden, Dudley called for the gang to stop. "I want to see how far he can run before he collapses," Dudley said 'wisely'. His friends agreed.
Harry, seeing an opportunity to get free of the torturers' grasps, gladly stood up and started running. At first, it was slow and painful, but soon it picked up speed and he was sprinting away from the group of large, evil children. He heard their heavy footsteps on the pavement and gave a bloody smile. I need to get away, he thought urgently. He squeezed his eyes shut and ran even faster, hoping for a way out. Suddenly, he tripped and let out a strangled cry in desperation. He quickly opened his eyes to see where he was, all the while cursing himself for being so foolish as to close them in the first place.
When he noticed he wasn't anywhere near Dudley's gang, he started to relax, his tense muscles visibly unclenching. He looked around again and discovered he was on the roof of his school, which was odd since he was on the ground just a second ago. Was… was it magic? No, it couldn't be. After all, magic isn't real, right? Harry thought to himself. So, Harry dismissed this thought and climbed down the sewer pipe and snuck around the building, staying in the shadows the whole way home.
,=,e
Now, Harry wasn't one to dismiss something so easily, but he was willing to do it if it meant he got food on his plate. After all, once he started to become a freak, his relatives would start doing something worse than just letting Dudley roam free, whaling on him at any chance he got.
However, this just wasn't something he could dismiss like he did with his disappearing act before.
Harry looked around him in wonder and awe as he noticed the belt coming down onto his back, yet frozen in place. As was everything else. Harry could see Petunia's sick glee as she watched Vernon's belt come down on his back, and Harry could see droplets of spit flying from Dudley's mouth as he talked with his mother. However, those droplets were suspended midair, as was the fly in front of his face.
"Did I- Did I freeze time?" Harry wondered out loud. He was rather freaked out about what was happening suddenly. If Vernon learned of this, he'd decide to give Harry more than just ten lashings with his belt, which Harry received for getting a 'C' on his report card when Dudley got a 'D'.
Yes, indeed, there was no way of just dismissing this. Harry had to see for himself just what he could do.
,=,e
After time started rolling again, Harry got his lashings, and was sent to the cupboard without dinner. Not that it mattered much, anyway. He hardly ever got dinner.
Wasting no time, Harry got out a pen and pad of paper. He quickly jotted down all the incidents considered 'abnormal' to just about everyone else in the world. After writing all them down, and there were quite a few, he tried to find a connection.
"How does growing hair back connect to teleporting? Or changing hair color, for that matter? In fact, how does stopping time even become relevant in this equation?" Harry wondered out loud. After hours of thinking and hours of coming up with nothing, he turned to the default reason his mind came up with in the first place.
"Magic."
,=,e
Feeling light, Harry left his cupboard, only to realize that he'd never gone to sleep, and that it was, in fact, still afternoon. And that meant that the Dursley family was still awake. This also meant punishment.
"BOY!" Vernon shouted as he stood up from his chair. Harry gulped and waited for his punishment. "YOU WILL GO BACK INTO YOUR CUPBOARD THIS INSTANT! IN THE MORNING, YOU SHALL NOT HAVE YOUR SHARE OF BREAKFAST, EITHER!" And, there it was. Oh well, it was to be expected.
"I'm sorry, Uncle Vernon. It won't happen again," Harry said in a meek voice, completely forgetting about his magic. Vernon nodded, grunting. Harry hurried back into his cupboard and locked it before Vernon got purple in the face.
"Whew, that was a close one. Well, it looks like I'll need to be careful from now on. I need a clock. But where to get one?" Harry thought aloud. He thought long and hard, before a light bulb went off in his head. Dudley's storage room. There has to be one in that junkyard of a storage room. Harry waited until he heard the Dursleys snoring like a goddamn garbage disposal trying to chew up metal.
Harry snuck out of his room quietly and snaked across the hallway and up the stairs, careful to avoid the squeaky spots in the floor that he'd tediously mapped out years before. As he moved, he saw the door to Dudley's storage room close. Just a few more steps… Made it!
Now all Harry had to do was rummage through piles upon piles of crap. Good news however, there was lost money in here as well.
When Harry walked out, he had a new watch, still in its packaging, and three wallets full of money. They felt quite full, too. A quick peek inside showed plenty of twenty pound notes and fifty pound notes. So they were quite full.
Harry put on his watch and noticed that he needed to set it. So, he went to the kitchen and set it at the time the microwave was showing. He had a scare, though, when the watch started to beep. He quickly set it and it stopped. He sat in a chair and waited for what seemed like hours before going back to the safety of his cupboard.
A glance at his watched showed that only fifteen minutes and twenty two seconds had passed.
,=,e
After Harry got back in his cupboard, he focused on his newly acquired watch. He wanted a way to set alarms on it so he can run on a schedule. Now, where was that manual. Ah! Here it is! Now, setting an alarm, and life is good!
Harry set an alarm for seven in the morning and eleven the next night. After all, when else would he practice his magic if not at night?