Author's Note: Thank you for all the reviews and follows. That really encourage me to keep on going with this story.

As always, everything that follows belongs to J. K. Rowling, may her path be straight and free of obstacles.

Chapter 2 - Getting ready

Harry woke up. He frantically looked around trying to figure out where he was. He remembered Minerva and the liquid and the pain, but then all went black.

He was lying in a hard old bed. Wrapped books and broken toys lingered in the corners of the room. A wardrobe and a desk were the only furniture apart from the bed. A big trunk laid at the foot of the bed. Resting on the trunk was a neat cage with a precious snow white owl inside.

"Hedwig" Harry whispered cheerfully, he stopped himself from screaming but only on the last moment. The moon light merged with the street lights, painting the room with a cold light. The Dursleys must had been sleeping, waking them up would had severe consequences.

Harry stood up, opened the cage and started petting his old friend. While in the middle of a gentle struck on the messenger head, he realized what just went through his head and he couldn't helped the huge smile that took over his face. The idea of upsetting his old guardians brought a known fear, almost a comfortable one. He missed this. He missed his fears being a stupid child thing. Well, not that stupid maybe. If he would had woken Vernon at late hours in the night he would had felt his uncle's favorite belt in his back for a week.

They had done it. He was back. But it wasn't time to celebrate yet, there was a lot to do.

Harry checked the clock on the night table. It was to late to start that day. No problem he though it gives my time to think. He gave a last caress to the happy owl and returned her to the cage.

"It's nice to see you again girl" Harry muttered.

The owl gave Harry a confused look, at least as well as an owl can manage expressions, but Harry understood "I'll tell you tomorrow" he said with a smile, and he went to sleep.

That night everything was quiet in Little Whinging. The usual silence was only interrupted by the little movements of people in their beds and the soft snoring coming from some houses. And that was it. Unless you were hearing really carefully. If you were to listen for just a moment you wouldn't had spot it. Even if you were to listen for a little longer you would hardly catch it. But if you were to pay attention, if you sat down on the corner of Privet Drive, near the number four, and tried to hear it, then maybe you could have got a glimpse of it, and that would have been enough. You would have heard the delicate sound of a boy dreaming of hope, for the first time in a long, long time.


The loud bangs on the door woke Harry up.

"It's time for breakfast" his aunt yelled. Of course what she meant was "It's time for you to prepare breakfast".

Harry got up and put on some of Dudley's old clothes. In that moment, the boy noticed how small he was. He hadn't realized the previous night, but his body was one of an eleven year old. Harry dismissed the matter as something he would quickly get used to. The clothes hanged from him, like they were a couple sizes too big, which was precisely the case. He took a second to pet Hedwig with a finger through the cage's bars and left the room.

The fourth step of the stair screamed under his foot, triggering a number of memories. The sudden anamnesis made his head hurt. He had to grab the stair's railing to prevent himself from falling. That made Harry uneasy. He was expecting some consequences of downloading a twenty year old soul in an eleven year old body, but if a small amount of memories hurt that badly…

"Hurry up" Petunia's flat voice took Harry out of that line of thought.

"I'm coming" he mumble tiredly.

Harry walked to the familiar pink and white kitchen. Top-of-the-range appliances filled the wide room. It took him a few seconds to remember where everything was, but after some drawer opening, and a considerable pain in the sides of his skull, the pan was squeaking with bacon grease and the kettle was heating on the flaming hob.

The kettle started whistling while Harry was cutting the slices of bread for toasting. The boy moved to get it out of the fire, but stepped on the too long leg of the trousers and fell over the stove, pushing the hot pan which flew incredibly, spilling bacon and grease all over the floor and the kitchen table.

"What have you done?" Petunia cried angrily from the living room.

"I'm sorry" the boy gasped.

Petunia entered the room, her face became a furious red when she saw the mess "You better be" she snapped. She gave a long stride, grabbed the boy by the collar of his shirt and hit him in the face with the back of his hand "That was your food for the day".

She let go and the boy fell to the floor. Harry covered his cheek with his hand, he could feel the warm liquid getting out the fine line one of his aunt's rings had cut there.

"Now start cleaning" she order as she leaved the kitchen.

The boy cleaned the blood out off his face with the sleeve of his shirt. This part has to change he thought. He grabbed the cleaning supplies from under the sink and started preparing the new litter of bacon as he brushed the greasy floor.

Once all the dishes were served, his aunt told him to go to his room and stay there until he had to leave for "that hellish school of yours". That was a good thing for Harry. The Dursleys won't ask him to do the cooking and the cleaning thinking they were punishing him by not feeding him, which gave the boy the opportunity to prepare.

Harry spent the rest of the day putting things in order. When he was done, he shared some time with Hedwig. The white owl didn't seem to understand what earned her the extra attention but she wouldn't complain.

Eventually, the house went silent. Harry waited a little longer just in case, but when sleep seemed to had grabbed all the other inhabitants of the house he placed Hedwig in her cage and carefully opened the window. A life with the Dursleys and years of evading Death Eaters had given the boy a well practiced stealthy movement, so he got down to the front yard without making a noise.

He made sure of covering his face with the Hogwarts dark robes before he called the Knight Bus. The massive vehicle appeared in front of number four in a few seconds. Harry gave Stan, the conductor of the bus, the eleven sickles and told him he was going to the Leaky Cauldron. He then sat in one of the beds near the door.

As the bus traveled at top speed in between the muggle cars the beds inside wandered, hitting the walls with considerable force. This brought memories, and more headaches, to Harry's mind.

He arrived to the Leaky Cauldron quickly after. He double checked that his hood were hiding his face and went in to the pub.

The dark shabby inn was incredibly populated for a week night. In a corner, four men were playing cards, drinking a greenish liquid from big weizen glasses and smoking thin long pipes. They produced complex smoke figures that danced among the other tables, full of people talking at exalted tones.

"Can I offer you something?" asked Tom, the man behind the bar.

"I wont refuse something to eat" said Harry lowering the tone of his voice in an attempt to hide his age.

"Coming" Tom said as he turned around and rapidly fetched him a Banger pub style sandwich.

Harry sat at the bar and ate quickly, he hadn't realized how hungry he was. When he was done, he left some coins next to the clean plate and left through the back door.

He touched the correct spot on the wall – from the trash can, three up and two across – with his wand and the bricks shifted, forming a large archway. The vision was as astonishing as he remembered. The shops were close, but the lights bathed them with a warm yellow light, casting interesting shadows on the floor. Far ahead, Harry could see the imposing white building, it's grandiose stairway blazing under the torches.

Suddenly, the scenery changed. Harry's sight filled with fire and wreckage and death. Explosions erupted from the stores doors and windows, shattering them. The bodies, limp on the streets, watched him with glassy empty eyes. Coming in and out of the stores were the black shadows of the Death Eaters, shined only by the sporadic green flashes.

When the boy came back to himself he was on his knees. The sweat had fastened his robes to the low of his back. The pain in his head was almost unbearable. It took Harry a couple of minutes to recover. Luckily, the alley was deserted at that late hours, so no one saw him like that.

He got back to his feet and gave himself a minute to fully recover. What was that? The headaches were getting too intense. Would it be like that every time he remembered something? If that was the case, he wasn't sure if he could survived it.

He pushed that thought away, there were nothing to be gained from it at the time. Once he gathered himself he started his walk towards Gringotts Wizarding Bank.

The bank was the only building in the alley that was open all night – other than the Leaky Cauldron and some stores in the Knockturn Alley.

Gringotts' night staff was considerably smaller than that of the daytime one. Instead of the long rows of goblins surrounding the white marble hall only some of the tables that rested in front of the doors that led to the vault passageways were occupied.

Harry went towards one of the occupied tables. A small goblin with a long and pointy nose was writing furiously on a neat parchment.

"Excuse me" the boy said faking a low voice, he didn't thought that a goblin would even notice that he was a kid, let alone care, but he preferred being careful "I would like to visit my vault".

"Name?" the goblin asked without looking up.

"Harry Potter" he mumbled.

"Do you have your key Mr. Potter?" the goblin said, his gaze still intent on his work.

"Yes, sir" Harry answered taking the key out of his pocket.

"Follow me please" said the goblin resting the quill carefully next to the parchment and stepping down from his tall stool.

The cart was as fun as Harry remembered, maybe even more. When they arrived at the vault 687 the boy used the key and the goblin touched the enormous door, which opened swiftly. Inside, mounds of gold, silver and bronze occupied the cave. Harry filled a little bag with galleons and left the room.

Before he left, Harry asked Bogrod, the goblin that had been guiding him, to exchange some of his galleons for pounds, not a lot, just enough to buy food until he left for Hogwarts.

By the time Harry got out from Gringotts the sun was raising on the horizon and the first stores were opening, which was great, because it was time to do some shopping. He didn't particularly enjoy spending his parents money, he knew it would be incredibly useful during the war, but if he did this right, there wouldn't be a war at all.

The first place he visited was Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment. The simple vision of the inside of the store brought a smile to Harry's face. The whole room was crowded with magical objects of some kind or another. The artifacts covered the walls, the shop window and most of the floor.

Behind the counter, a thin tall woman fiddled with a small brass sextant. Her intense brown eyes focused at the task.

"Hello" she dropped the sextant and cleaned her hands on the side of her gnawed apron "What can I do for you?"

"Hello" Harry said, making sure the hood was covering his face "I was looking for a trunk"

"Did you have anything specific in mind?" she asked.

"Yes" Harry answered "I read that some trunks were bigger inside than outside"

"We have trunks with the extension charm, yes, but they are fairly expensive"

"That's not a problem" Harry said grinning "I don't need a particularly big one"

Harry left the store a couple minutes later, with his bag of coins lighter and dragging a worn out brown trunk with jagged golden strips following its borders and a hefty silver lock.

After that, the boy visited Flourish and Blotts, where he bought all the books he would need for his seven years of Hogwarts and then some more. After living in that library for so long books had became a necessity for him – Ron would have laugh his arse off at the look Hermione would have given Harry just for saying something like that. Besides, some people could notice that Harry knew more than a kid his age should – he was specially worried about Dumbledore, the man could always tell when something was off –, so some justification for his advance knowledge wouldn't hurt.

He payed a quick visit to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions and stopped by Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop and left Diagon Alley before it could get crowded.

By the time the Knight Bus dropped him at number four the sun was round in the sky. The Dursleys were probably having breakfast in the kitchen so he stealthily got into his room by the window – which with a trunk was not an easy feat.

Once in the safety of the room, the boy took out the Banger pub style sandwich – that he had bought before leaving – from his trunk and started filling it with the contents of the old one while he enjoyed the culinary piece of art.


Harry spent the rest of the day working in Ron's wand holster – a piece of dragon hide that surrounded the forearm with a release mechanism that would shoot the wand to his hand with a movement of his wrist. Ron had created the design when they were collecting the horcruxes.

Because they couldn't use magic for fear of being tracked by the Death Eaters – by that point Voldemort had already taken the Ministry – they had to fix everything "the muggle way". Ron turned out to had a knack for mechanical work, what, as Hermione usually said, would had made his father proud.

The holster didn't turned out as stylish as the original had been. The trimmings where uneven and the trigger that released the wand hurt Harry's wrist when activated, but it worked and that was enough.

When the sun sank behind the town outlines and the street lights came to life, the time had come. Harry didn't know if his plan was going to work, but it was the best he had come up with.

The boy prepared himself and left the room.

He could hear the telly and his guardians laughing from the stairs. When he appeared through the living room threshold the laughing stopped.

"What are you doing down here?" his uncle bellowed, his face reddening with anger "You better go back to your room"

"We need to talk" Harry said forcing his voice to be steady.

"What?" his uncle asked getting up.

Dudley and Petunia where frozen in their places, knowing what Vernon would do next.

Vernon was unfastening his belt when Harry activated the holster, his wand appearing on his hand. He made some exaggerated movements with his wand as he reached into his pocket with his left hand, which was wet. He slyly took out the Dr Filibuster's fabulous wet-start no-heat firework and threw it against the telly. The firework exploded in an exorbitant ball of colors, taking the screen with it.

"Sit down Vernon" the boy hiss, using every memory he had of the Dursleys as fuel for the venom he impregnated in every word. This gave him a headache but it was worth it.

His uncle sat down, the color leaving his face. His aunt and cousin were even paler.

"This is how things are going to work from now on" Harry continued "You wont have to feed me, you wont have to clothe me. I'll just live here. I'll only use my room, and the hearth from time to time, and you wont bother me any more"

Guilt was building in the bottom of his stomach. Those people had made his life a living hell, but that didn't give him the right to scare them like that. There probably were a better way of reasoning with the Dursleys. But it was to late for going back.

"Is that understood?" Harry asked, not able of maintaining the venom any more.

Vernon and Petunia nod timidly, their faces white as Hedwig's feathers. Dudley looked at him with an open mouth.

Harry just turned around and went back to his room.


That night the boy couldn't sleep. He kept replaying what had happened in his head. The explosion of light, the venom in his voice, the faces of his guardians. He hated Voldemort and all he stood for but as soon as he had the power Harry had used one of his worst tactics. He had used fear.

That night the boy couldn't sleep. The old him wouldn't have done that. Did the war change him so much? Was him not so different from Tom Riddle after all? Had he surrender to Dumbledore's mentality of "what ever it takes"?

That night the boy couldn't sleep. That night, no one could sleep at the number four of Privet Drive.

That night, the last remnants of the boy waiting to discover a new world full of magic vanished, and he was only left with a mission. He was only left with the drive to save his friends. He was only left with Harry James Potter.