Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter.

Authors note: This is my first time writing fanfiction and first time doing creative writing since primary school, please go easy on me.

I apologise if the punctuation isn't perfect but I hope the story flows well when you read it.

This story takes place in an alternate universe where Voldemort's soul is shattered upon accidentally creating his 8th horcrux, Harry. Voldemort is dead for all intents and purposes his Horcruxes are still around but they are just weak corrupting influences.

Unique Magical items like the Deathly hallows will play a more active role in this story and they will be changed somewhat.

Happy reading

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Prologue - New Beginnings

7.00 AM, 31st of July 1993 – England, Surrey, Little Whining, Number 4 Privet Drive.

"Avada kedavra!"

Harry's eyes shot open as he leapt out of his dream, straight into the bottom of the staircase. He groaned and closed his eyes trying to will away the throbbing pain that echoed in his skull before he buried his head back into his pillow

When most kids sleep, they dream of Spitfires dodging through the sky and princes rescuing princesses from evil wizards. He dreamt of wizards and princesses alright, except he was always the evil wizard, the prince never seemed to win and the dreams would usually end with him torturing the princess until she shat herself and died.

But this dream was different. It started the same as they usually did, with him striding through a group of people in black outfits as they cowered away from him. This time he had stopped in front of a rotund looking individual, and after a short exchange he stormed out of the stone room with him. The next thing he knew he was walking through a snowy town and a house suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

After the house had appeared the short man scampered away and he continued into the house. What followed was the usual: He blew the door off its hinges and killed the unlucky couple. Instead of the customary ending of him cackling with glee this dream ended when the green light he usually killed people with rebounded off a baby and hit him instead.

Harry wondered when he had become so numb to the horrific scenes that played out in his mind. Last weeks dream was much worse in comparison: he and his band of merry men had tortured a couple for hours before using a weird beam that turned them inside out.

When the dreams started years ago he avoided sleep for days out of fear at what he would see. He hoped that the seeming death of his nightmare was a sign that it was the last he would dream of being some psychopath wizard.

Perhaps he was reaching, but he felt as though the dreams did at least give him something: Perspective. He used to constantly be sad about how terrible his life was, this sort of thinking got him nowhere. After seeing people literally cough out their lungs, Vernon and Dudley's constant insults seemed petty and empty. Why he ever cared about the opinions of such pathetic humans was a mystery.

Rather than live seeking approval that would never come, Harry had decided to get angry at his weakness and force himself to improve. No more moping about how underfed he was, he simply topped up whilst cooking: the farm animals didn't seem to notice a few rashers of bacon or a sausage missing from the trough. Instead of reluctantly doing hard manual labour for Petunia's garden he began to treat it like strength building, waiting for the day where his speed and strength overcame Dudley's sheer mass. Needless to say this had improved his life immensely.

Harry, taking care to avoid the staircase, sat up and ran a hand through his hair. It had turned bone white on what was the worst day of his waking life: Dudley's 10th birthday. Harry involuntarily shuddered in remembrance, that was the day the dreams started.

Harry had been forced to go with the Dursley's on an outing to the zoo as Vernon didn't trust the 'little bastard' around Dudley's new gifts. The motor carriage ride had been a new experience and blessedly uneventful.

The zoo was a huge place, massive iron fences surrounded the compound. The exotic animals were odd and the amount of work put into recreating their natural habitats was amazing. Somewhat predictably,Dudley and his friends were constantly moaning about how lazy the animals were. To alleviate his boredom Dudley had taken to throwing small rocks he had picked up at Harry.

Harry scowled, watching as Dudley banged his fists against the glass of the snake enclosure. He rubbed the back of his head where a particularly large rock had hit him earlier causing his vision to become unfocused, and if the matted damp hair and blood blood on his fingers was anything to go by, likely cutting him as well.

His rage festeredand Harry begun to truly despise the Dursley's. Harry's rage kept on building as he remembered all the mistreatment he received from his 'family', all he ever did was try and make them happy so they would love him; alas, he never even received so much as a head nod in acknowledgement.

This emotion was new to Harry, it made him feel like nothing mattered, except revenge. He felt a power building up inside, whispering into his ear 'take me in and we will show these muggles real fear'. The voices raspy snake like sound echoed around his head 'we will be kingssss'.

He felt something shake his shoulders snapping him out of his trance. It was one of the zoo employees with their ranger styled outfits looking at him with a worried face. "Son, are you alright? Your eyes are bleeding"

Harry didn't remember much after that except blinding pain. As if his mind was on fire and all his muscles were tensed to the point they were almost breaking bones. According to Dudley he was 'spazzing out' for almost half an hour as he ripped his hair out and coughed out black blood.

After that day he became stronger: He no longer got sick, injuries healed much faster, his reaction speed increased massively and he felt oddly connected with the world around him. And his hair grew back white for no apparent reason. Of course the Dursley's noticed none of this, except the white hair and Dudley who could no longer catch his beating bag.

Harry ran his fingers across the only possession he had from his parents: a large cloak that he had been wrapped in when the Dursley's found him on their front step. It was a curious item; the fabric was liquid like, rolling across his hands as he tried to grasp it. Even though he had been using it as his blanket ever since he could remember, it was still in perfect condition and nothing seemed to damage it, not that he had tried especially hard to do so. After his seizure he had felt an odd connection to the cloak as if it was just… more than it appeared to be.

He heard his uncles alarm go off and rushed to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for the two man army: Vernon and Dudley. Toast eggs bacon sausages and coffee, since it was his birthday he decided to pilfer a little extra bacon for himself. It didn't take long before he heard Dudley stomping down the stairs undoubtedly trying to shake the loose dust from the staircase onto him. "WAKE UP WAKE UP SPAZZY, TIME TO MAKE BREAKFAST"

The idiot ran laughing to the tv, joyful that he thought he had already annoyed Harry. Harry felt like he should tell Dudley that he was to late but decided against alerting him to his failure incase he attempted to rectify it. As he heard Vernon and Petunia grumbling and walking down the stairs he was just finishing mixing the last of 9 teaspoons of sugar into Vernon's coffee. He had taken to slowly increasing the amount of sugar and salt he put in food for the family in vain hope of sending Vernon to an early grave; not that he really needed Harry's help.

The couch strained as Vernon sat down in the living room with Dudley "Where's breakfast bo-" Harry interrupted him when he walked into the room with the large plates of food and a genuine smile plastered across his face. Of course, the smile was because he noticed Vernon had opted out of sitting in his favourite chair, likely because of recent problems he had getting off it, not for joy of seeing his family. This was a better 13th birthday present than he could have ever hoped for from Vernon: Vernon's misery was like ambrosia to Harry, this was almost better than the time Vernon's had to collect Dudley from school after he shat his pants.

Harry walked out of the living room a grin still plastered across his face when he heard a light clacking from the mail slot. He headed over and picked up a fairly ornate letter, it had a wax seal and golden lettering spelling his name.

To Harry James Potter,
The Cupboard under the Stairs,
4, Privet Drive,
Little Whining,
Surrey.

He opened the letter cautiously: the address was a little to specific and he never received letters. Scanning the first line he read -

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Headmaster: Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore

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I apologise for the short length of this chapter, I just wanted to get the background out of the way and it seemed like a good place to end the prologue and skip ahead to 4th year. Next chapter will be Harry Headed to school for the 4th year and will be much longer.

In case you are confused, first years at Hogwarts starts at 13 rather than 11. I increased the starting age as it seems a little odd writing mature themes for a 14 year old boy (starting in GOF) Just imagine everything happened in a similar vein to cannon for example Quirrel being their first DADA teacher except he wanted the stone because he was desperate for immortality and unicorn blood was no longer cutting it, not because The Voldemort wraith in the back of his head.

If you have any questions complaints or corrections (or reviews) just voice them in the reviews and I will try and answer.