Harry and narcissi
At twenty three years old I sat in the library of Number 12 Grimmauld Place thinking over the last few years of my life. My name is Harry James Potter and I am a wizard. Yes a magic wielding wand waving wizard. The real interesting things started happening around the end of my fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Ever since Dumbledore (my ancient school headmaster) had told me the prophecy I had become increasingly upset with him. The old man was doing nothing to prepare the supposed chosen one for his destiny of defeating Riddle.
So I decided that if Dumbles wasn't going to train me I would train myself. Shorty after that decision was reached I traveled back down into the Chamber of Secrets. I figured at the time that secrets was plural for a reason. I had been proven correct when I eventually stumbled upon Slytherin's private chambers which included a personal library. Inside I found books on just about every subject known to the magical world. What really caught my attention were books on parsel magic, mind magic, and the dark arts.
I discovered a spell that allowed me to bypass the copyright charms on any book and copy them into any format. I then made copies of all of Slytherin's books and converted them into one single book that had an endless number of pages. The last books that had been read were sitting on a desk away from the shelves. I figured that Tom Riddle was the last one to read the books since there wasn't too much dust on them.
Curious as to what Riddle had read I started reading the books. It was on a subject called Horcruxes. I was horrified by what I read about them. Horcruxes had pointed out how Tom Riddle had survived the rebounding killing curse. I had read a charm to detect a Horcrux and had cast it on myself after reading the indicators of a living Horcrux. I was horrified to find my scar was a piece of Riddle's soul but was relieved to find that Slytherin had written how to destroy the soul fragment without killing the host.
I went out into the main chamber and rendered the basilisk completely down into constituent parts. I then called Fawkes and asked him for some of his tears. The magical bird had filled up a gallon with his healing tears. I then followed the directions for the soul fragment destruction. Casting a parsel shield around the scar and pouring basilisk venom onto the tainted skin was the bulk of the procedure. After several seconds when a scream was heard and a green mist left my forehead I poured the phoenix tears on.
I felt a rush of power as my magical core was released from the bindings the Horcrux put on it. From that day onward I practiced the mind arts from my compendium book and didn't look anybody in the eye. I found it much easier than Snape's lessons/torture sessions. I had also slipped into the library at night and copied all of the books into my compendium, including those in the restricted section.
This was made easier by my invisibility cloak. I had wondered how Dumbledore always seemed to know where I was even under the cloak. I scanned it for charms and found several tracking charms. I transferred them to a rock that I would carry in my pocket when I wanted to be found and not carry when I didn't.
I brewed a potion from Slytherin's books the last few days of school that allowed me to remove the trace that enabled the ministry to track my underage magic use. When I did go home for the summer I snuck out to Diagon Alley quite often throughout the summer. I got magical contacts that had the same charms the paranoid old auror Mad Eye Moody's eye had.
I also had a set of basilisk hide clothes made with temperature regulation charms on it. It included a hood and gloves and could block several killing curses because of the age of the beast. I kept the extra skin in my trunk. My trunk was immediately expanded inside and secured with a blood ward.
After going to the goblins and having them do the standard inheritance test for heirs of noble families I learned that I was Lord Slytherin through my mother's side. My mother was descended from squibs and was of a senior line to Riddle. I had been overjoyed to learn that I had 25 million galleons (125 million pounds sterling) in my vaults. I had immediately gone on a shopping spree to get a new wardrobe along with anything else I desired.
That summer I spent practicing any magic I considered useful in a fight, light or dark. I mastered occlumency but of a sort that it looked like I knew no mind defense at all. I buried my important thoughts and memories under the surface in my mindscape. After all the best defense is one that your enemy doesn't know is there.
The dark arts were practiced extensively. I learned that it wasn't the spells but how you used them that really mattered. The dark arts weren't corrupting unless you didn't do the cleansing ritual every three months. The ministry wanted them banned because they were much harder to track compared to light branded magic and the darker families that controlled the ministry wanted to be able to use them exclusively on their victims.
When I got back to school I discovered that both Hermione and I were being dosed with a love potion. I wasn't sure but I thought that quite a few of the supposed light side students were being dosed with the same. I took nullification potions to negate the love potions. That year often saw me in the chamber practicing fighting, dark arts, warding, and most of the other areas of magic I had started that summer.
He was also being shown memories of various points in Riddle's life by Dumbles throughout the year. Dumbles revealed that he thought Riddle had made 7 Horcruxes and what he thought the first couple were. At the end of the summer when I had been taken to Grimmauld place I caught Fletcher trying to sneak off with some of the things that now belonged to me as the owner. I crucioed the thief before obliviating him of any memories of our meeting. One of the things I recovered from the dirty thief turned out to be Slytherin's locket.
A quick burst of Fiendyfire later and the locket was ash. The magical hellfire was not as difficult to control as the ministry claimed for a skilled occlumens. I had also copied the entire Black family library into my compendium. Dumbledore had taken care of another Horcrux in the form of a ring, at the cost of his hand during that summer.
Dumbles thought the snake Nagini was another, along with Hufflepuff's cup, the locket (which I never told him I destroyed), and something from Ravenclaw. I discovered the something from Ravenclaw when I was trying to discover some of the secrets of the room of requirements. The soul container was in the form of the intelligent founder's diadem. It met the same end as the locket quickly after I recovered it.
Dumbles took me on a hunt for another one of the Horcruxes at the end of my sixth school year that resulted in Dumble's death. It was a fake locket that Regulus Black had left to taunt Riddle. I had arrived back at the school with a debilitated Dumbles to find a battle raging between students and several death eaters. After Snape killed Dumbles I started killing any death eater in sight.
It wasn't out of any feelings of rage over the death of the old man. No it was out of a new found freedom that came from not having to mask my every action from the old pervert. Both Carrows twins met their end as well as several other death eaters. Snape barely made it to the edge of the wards but did end up losing an arm as he fled my unrestrained curses.
As soon as I made it back into the school I went straight to Dumble's office and started searching it. I broke through all the wards that I ran into and ended up finding a treasure trove of items. I took Dumble's pensieve, the Sword of Gryffindor, the philosopher's stone and associated notes (apparently Dumbles didn't destroy it after all), and copies all of the books in the old man's private library.
Not long after that I went to gringotts to claim my inheritance of the potter line at the same time I learned I was the heir of Peverell, Black & Gryffindor lines as well and had a bank account with 50 million galleons.
Tonks had discovered that I was a metamorphagus and helped train me further in my abilities than I would have ever gotten on my own. My powers didn't manifest themselves until my magical maturity because of my core being bound by the Horcrux for so long.
After destroying the last Horcrux besides Nagini I went death eater hunting. A long and bloody guerilla warfare campaign was waged on both sides. In the final battle Hermione was killed. In my absolute rage Riddle and all of his DEs were killed. They didn't stand a chance after killing my first love. I completely obliterated them from existence. I used the oldest and most dangerous spell I had in my repertoire.
After the battle I delved deeply into the magic in my compendium. A compendium of a few of the most ancient wizarding families to ever exist contained much magic, most of which had been thought lost to the ages. I found the subject of portals in the works from Slytherin.
There was a portal that could take the user into the past. Paradoxes were avoided when the past was changed because it took the user into a divergent or alternate future than the one they originated from. It was really like traveling into an alternate reality but one where all events up until the point of change are identical to the ones of your original past.
I took to studying everything I could in recent history. I gathered all of my things in my trunk and said good bye to my last remaining friends.
This brought me back to the present where I am about to make the jump to the past/alternate reality. I put down the glass I was drinking from and stood up. I began casting the parsel spell and watched as a glowing blue portal of energy opened up from where there had been nothing but open air before. It is what scientists would call a wormhole. I step through into what I hope is 1975.
It was rather disorienting to travel through the portal into the past. I felt myself hurtling down a long thin tube. It felt somewhat like the squeeze of apparition. That made sense since apparition is traveling through a wormhole. This wormhole just bridged universes as well as time and space.
