Thanks to all those who checked out this story! Here's a second part out.
A shrill scream woke up the people in the house, along with everyone else on the street. Everyone was wondering who was making the racket, and they soon narrowed it to Number 4. At first, some of the neighbors thought it was just the couple's spoilt brat of a son having a nightmare, but a few realized it didn't sound that way, which meant it was the troublemaker of a nephew who was the one who was raising the din. It cemented their impression of the boy, and some of them started putting on nightgowns, intent on going over to tell the residents of Number 4 just what they thought of their inability to control a child.
Then a young girl told her father that the boy in question had stood up to a gang of bullies for her, only to get beaten up for his trouble. The newfound knowledge led the man to come to the conclusion that something VERY bad was going on in that house, and he immediately phoned the police. The flustered police sergeant on duty was mortified to hear what he was being told, and several cars turned up soon enough, with a team of policemen kicking down the door of the house as the bemused and surprised residents of the neighborhood watched on.
What they found was something that horrified them; the beefy husband had his hand clamped around the mouth of a young boy who seemed too thin to be normally healthy, practically strangling him. But what was more shocking was the state of the boy; blood covered the front of his clothes, and one of his arms was clearly broken. Needless to say, Vernon Dursley soon found himself beaten up and in handcuffs, and Harry Potter was packed off to a hospital with all due haste.
Albus Dumbledore, the leader of the Light, was having some troubles of his own. Just as he was falling off into slumber, one of the silver instruments he used to monitor Harry burst into hell-raising screeches, which set off the portraits in his office and his phoenix Fawkes. In his rudely awakened state, he fumbled around trying to make sense of which one it was. It didn't help that Arabella Figg's head appeared in his fireplace, screaming that young Harry was being tortured, and adding to the overall noise. By the time he managed to sort the information out, it was too late to stop the news from spreading through the Muggle news channels. The fact that a family had been torturing a young child of seven whose records were nonexistent was something that made front page news, and Harry certainly was very attention-grabbing with his screams. Malnutrition, beatings, being forced to live in a cupboard under the stairs; the public ate it up.
Thus, when Albus Dumbledore finally turned up at Privet Drive, it was only to find that he could do nothing without involving the Ministry of Magic. Thankfully, none of the wizards cared enough about the Muggle world to pay their news any attention, or they would have found out that their so-called savior had lived a life of horrible abuse. The few Muggleborns who were aware wondered about the name, but with no pictures, they weren't sure. So the only magical people who knew were members of the Order of the Phoenix whom Dumbledore told. In particular, a certain cat Animagus who was currently tearing into the person who had left Harry there in the first place.
"I TOLD YOU, ALBUS! I TOLD YOU THEY WERE THE WORST SORT OF MUGGLES!" Minerva McGonagall screamed at her boss. "AND YOU STILL LEFT HIM WITH... WITH THEM!"
Dumbledore looked very old and shrunken in his seat. "And I shall never forgive myself for that all my life. But we must stay focused, Minerva. The longer young Harry stays at the hospital, the more he will be at risk-"
"Surely you don't mean to put him back there!" McGonagall hissed furiously.
"I agree, Headmaster," The third member of their group, one Severus Snape, spoke silkily, not showing the turmoil he was feeling. Lily's son... going through... through that! "Returning him to these... Dursleys, would be a very bad decision. And we can no longer remove him from the hospital with all the attention he has drawn."
"Then what can we do?" Albus asked feebly.
It was McGonagall who provided the answer. "We'll just have to do without those blood protections."
"Minerva, you can't-"
"SHUT UP! You listen to me, Albus Dumbledore! You have put that lad through hell because of this protection of yours! No child should have to go through such things!" Minerva took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. "As I said, forget about the blood protection. Let him be adopted by a good family at least, a Muggle one so he can grow up outside of the Wizarding world like you wanted. We can put up wards and have Order members watch over him."
"That is a good idea, Headmaster." Snape added his voice to her cause.
And thus, Harry's life was decided.
Harry Potter was in awe of the man before him. Tall with white hair, dressed in red and black, he cut an imposing figure in front of the small boy even without the aura he exuded. The boy pinched himself, wondering if he was dreaming, but when his act yielded pain, Harry finally believed that the ritual worked... even if he was the one summoned into the world of the hero and not the other way round.
"So you are a hero?" Harry asked eagerly, seated cross-legged across from the man in red.
"Yes, I suppose I am." The man with white hair quirked his mouth, thinking of his renewed faith in his ideals.
"What's it like?" The boy asked eagerly.
"It's not an easy path..." The man decided he would just refer to himself as Archer, like before.
Harry was shocked to hear about the trials that Archer went through to save others; he never imagined that a hero could be so reviled by those he worked to save. More than once he wondered if heroes were real only in fairy tales and stories, and nothing but cruel lies in reality.
Then Archer told him something that he would remember all his life.
"One cannot save everyone, that's what I learned as a hero. But being a hero means trying anyway."
Harry was filled with admiration for the man. He wanted to be strong like the man before him, and besides, swords were so cool. Curious, Harry reached out to his side and touched one of them.
The moment his hand made contact with it, a whole slew of images flashed through his head, leaving him with an intense headache that made him whimper. The bloody history of the thin blade was etched firmly in his memories, including how to wield it in the way its past owner did. The shock of it knocked him out of the world, and back into wakefulness, but it left him with an awareness of something new.
Archer's ability of Tracing. (1)
When Harry awoke, it was to a rather unpleasant experience. Not only was his throat raw from all the unconscious screaming, but his entire body felt like it had been pierced with blades and was only just beginning to heal. Then there was the matter of the extra passenger behind his eyes.
It appears we are sharing a body. Your body. Archer's voice spoke in his mind.
"What..." Harry rasped, then coughed as speaking took its toll.
Before he could do anything else, a nurse noticed he was awake, and alerted the doctors. Harry followed Archer's advice to keep silent, and listened as the spirit inside him explained what it knew about the medical checkups he was undergoing with the vast wealth of experiences it had. The boy absorbed every piece of information almost hungrily, fascinated by what he was learning.
In the meantime, Archer was exploring the limits of his new... vessel, he decided to term it. He couldn't exert direct control over Harry's body, but when their wills were synchronized, he could alter the movement so as to achieve maximum effectiveness. But what he was more concerned about were the magic circuits in Harry's body. From his past life before he became a Counter Guardian, the one known as Emiya Shirou had twenty-seven magic circuits.
Those circuits were somehow in this boy's body, in the exact composition if not size, as though they were replicated into Harry's body. And all of them at the efficiency he had built them to be after their awakening during the Grail War. With a bit of training, Harry would be able to utilize the same magecraft Archer did.
What's this? Archer was surprised to find what seemed to be a prana source in Harry's body.
On closer scrutiny, he found certain similarities and differences. This source appeared to be continuously active, giving Harry's body a weak degree of Reinforcement, but it appeared to function on a different wavelength from the prana Archer was familiar with.
Something's clearly different here... I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore. Archer quipped to himself. Curse you, Kaleidoscope.
As for young Harry Potter, he was just relieved to find out that he would not have to go back to the Dursleys ever again, and finally fell asleep after people were done poking and prodding at him.
(1) For those who are unaware of Tracing, it's like the materialization of an object according to the caster's imagination, except that Tracing does so by replicating the object's full shape, substance and history, which allows the copying of any special abilities and skill involved in use. NOTE: Harry does not immediately get to use Tracing, for you Type-fans out there.
Honestly, I understand the importance of crafting out a proper back history to a story. But it's quite tedious when the writer (me in this case) wants to jump to the fun part, which starts when Harry prepares to go to Hogwarts.
Speaking of back history, I find Nasuverse is very big on mechanics in magic. The total opposite of Harry Potter, where it seems like you can do nearly anything just by waving a wand. And it's not just limited to magic... see how many fanfictions there are with Ron the Death Eater, Evil Dumbledore, etc... well, I'm still undecided on what path to follow through with this, apart from Harry being resistant to manipulations due to Archer hitching a ride inside him.
Apart from that... well, I think I'll just go with a time-skip and build the back history from that point. Because that's where the fun is.
