Chapter 6:

"ID Create" a rather frail looking boy in tattered clothes intoned as he walked along a sidewalk in the bustling streets of London. A man sitting on a bench on the other side of the road blinked as the boy walked behind a streetlight pole on one side and didn't come of the other.

That boy, Harry Potter, was having a whale of a time by startling the life out of random strangers on the street. He'd discovered soon after that fateful day of magic shopping in Diagon Alley that sneaking up on people using his Instant Dungeons and startling them by popping out of nowhere was a rather clever little cheat for leveling up his Sneaking, ID Create, and ID Escape skills. He couldn't wait to get to the point where he would be able to gain access to some other forms of Dungeons that involved fighting enemies and leveling up his skills. He had read in one of the many gaming pamphlets he'd perused that Dungeons were basically grinding heavens, supplying the player with enemies to fight in waves until the wanted to stop. Harry couldn't wait to get into that dungeon, but at the moment, he was having fun in this one too.

Harry looked up at the red sky of the dungeon.

Through a series of Observes and discoveries, he had learned quite a few things about Instant Dungeons. For one, there seemed to be no moving objects in there. No wind, no cars, no people, no animals. If it could move, it didn't exist in the ID.

Another crucial thing he'd learned the hard way was that his position in the ID at any moment was equivalent to the position in the real world. He had once entered into an ID, broken open his room's lock in the ID, and then used ID Escape a while later in the garden expecting to exit back in his room, only to pop out into reality barely a foot behind Petunia. Luckily, she had not noticed him appear out of nowhere, but he had then been forced to listen to Vernon rant and rave for hours on end. Luckily, old Mrs. Figg had come over to taste some of Petunia's new baked muffins, and she had managed to resolve the situation before it got too bad.

Mrs. Figg...that had been another little surprise for Harry.

A chance Observe directed at her had ended up revealing much more than Harry had anticipated. As it turned out, she was actually a member of the Order of Phoenix placed in Privet Drive to guard him. Harry couldn't help but wonder how someone like her could be considered a 'guard'. Perhaps she was some sort of British Batman type of person, an innocent old lady by day and crime-fighting vigilante with bulging muscles and secret gadgets at night…probably not though, considering her stats as he remembered them.

Arabella Figg

Lv-30

HP-1500/1500

Race-Squib

Str-8

Vit-14

Dex-3

Int-21

Wis-43

Luc-12

Arabella Figg is a non-magical born of two magical parents and a member of the Order of the Phoenix. She was assigned to watch over Harry in exchange for a house and a small pension for her old age. Although initially, she did it as a job, she has come to like Harry as a humble and clever little boy she thinks he is. She loves her son despite him abandoning her in an old age home prior to her joining the Order.

Harry shook his head and walked over to the nearest ledge of the Southbank Center, on which he was standing on. The view of the London spanning out in front of him against the backdrop of the red sky was as intimidating as it was awe inspiring.

Ping!

Due to extreme use and climbing your Sprinting skill has evolved.

Parkour Lv-15 (30%)

Your speed in parkouring is that of a superhuman being-28 miles an hour.

He had been working on improving his Parkour and Dex for almost 8 hours now, and the results were starting to take great shape. Harry waved away the message and refocused on the sight before him, focusing on the newly finished Canary Wharf building, which still had most of its scaffolding left around it. Harry wondered if there was anyone mad enough to attempt a climb that high with no safety equipment.

"Well, there is now," he muttered with a smirk as he stepped ahead and dropped off the 300-foot building.


That night, Harry was lying on his brand new bed in his brand new room. Of course, neither of those were brand new, the bed being almost half a decade old and the room being all but a bin for Dudley's useless stuff. But they were new to him, and that was all that mattered. Above him, his inventory lay sprawled open as he sorted through his stuff and arranged them all into neat stacks and boxes.

Sorting through his inventory had become a pleasant stress-relieving thing for him lately, and now, filled with any and all useful things he could find in Dudley's pile, his inventory was in dire need of some stacking up. His room, after some clearing up, it had become quite livable. A bit small, but it was the best Harry had ever had. That, combined with the thought of not having to come back to the Dursleys the next summer was what was tiding him over the month of August.

Harry pulled out the Potion's textbook by Jigger and the reference book that McGonagall had made him buy. Harry was about to set the reference book called Introduction to Reactions by Fine Brothers aside when he suddenly noticed something in the dark of his room that he hadn't noticed in the broad daylight in Flourish & Blotts.

The book was glowing with a faint light.

Curious about what the cause was, Harry grabbed it and started fumbling around with it.

Ping!

You have obtained a skill book! Would you like to learn the skill, 'Potions'?

YES/NO?

Looking back at the stack of books he'd pulled out, Harry noticed that while all the school course books were entirely devoid of any glow, all the reference books for each of his subjects were glowing.

Harry grinned. This was going to be fun!


A couple of days after that night, the Dursleys had plans to visit the new traveling circus that had set up shop in London. Unfortunately for them, none of their neighbors were available to take Harry in for the day. Afraid that the freak would ruin their day, the Dursleys had gladly and immediately agreed when Harry had told them that he'd get himself home before nightfall and let himself out of the car near the Royal Library.

With the Dursleys gone, Harry, of course, was entirely too delighted to see shelves after shelves of books, and even more so when he noticed that quite a few of those were giving off the barely visible glow that seemed to only be visible to him. Without further ado, he took to the books with a gusto, not even realizing that his Int had gone up by 3 even before he had finished his second book.

INT - 14

He, however, did look up from the Richard Feynman Lectures when a ping rang in his ears.

Ping!

A new skill has been made due to hard work and practice!

Science, Lv-1 (80%)

A branch of knowledge that deals with the workings of the world.

Physics- Basic concepts of physical science.

Chemistry- Basic concepts of chemical science.

Botany-Basic concepts of science dealing with flora.

Zoology- Basic concepts of science dealing with fauna.

Science…in a world with magic, science could at times feel so pointless, but if the Game agreed that it was a skill worth having, then it was something to work on. Harry waved it away and turned back to his book.


"Boy, I better not hear from Petunia that you reached home late," Vernon growled at Harry as he walked out of the Grunnings' main premises and into the small sea of warehouses and production buildings that surrounded them.

Harry didn't care. He had a man to follow and a mission to complete.

A couple of days prior to that fateful day, Mr. Grunnings had paid a courtesy visit to the Dursleys' home, bringing with him some expensive wine and a can of caviar the Dursleys could barely conceive of affording. Harry, of course, had been locked in his bedroom beforehand, but Mr. Grunnings had insisted on a complete house tour of his 'favorite' employee, and the Dursleys had been forced to reveal the existence of their abnormal little nephew.

The fat greasy man had bent down, grinning at Harry as he offered him a hand. Prompted by Vernon's furious miming from behind his guest, Harry had shaken his hand, accidentally pressing a little harder than he'd intended to.

"Ohho!" Mr. Grunnings had exclaimed, getting onto his feet, "Your nephew has the handshake of a man Vernon. Tell me, young man, have you ever had any interests in drills and construction equipment as such?"

Harry started to shake his head, but seeing Vernon turn redder than a tomato, he quickly turned his shake into a nod. Grunnings could barely seem to contain himself.

"Well! Then it is settled! You, young man, simply must come and see our facilities tomorrow."

And settled it was. No matter how much Vernon had tried to protest, Grunnings had been set on Harry going to visit their factory, and after he'd Observed the man, so was Harry.

Winston Grunnings

Lv-28

HP-4000/4000

Race-Muggle

Str-25

Vit-13

Dex-6

Int-14

Wis-8

Luc-13

Degenerate human trafficker and owner of a drilling firm called Grunnings', Winston is a major player in a multi-million-pound criminal enterprise. He has been known to have an unhealthy obsession with extremely underage girls and wishes to close his last deal tomorrow and retire to the Bahamas.

Then and there, Harry hadn't gotten a quest alert, but he had decided on stopping him anyway. Besides, it even made sense from a pragmatic point of view, because so far, the one noticeable trend he had found in all of wizardkind was that wizards tended to be extremely physically weak, probably because they tended to use magic for all their activities. If they were all like that, then if he somehow got close enough to one, he could take down one even twice his level. Missions like these were perfect for growing his physical stats.

And so he had gone to Grunnings' the next day, trying to get as much information as he could about where the deal was happening. But no matter how much he tried to Observe and find out more things about that last deal, he couldn't find anything. So he'd resorted to his last tactic. Following Grunnings around until something popped up.

As it turned out, it just had.

Disappearing from Vernon's gaze into a space between two warehouses, Harry quickly shimmied up onto the roof of a warehouse along a pipe. Once he found a high enough vantage point, a quick sweeping gaze of the area with Gamer's Mind immediately found Grunnings entering one of the older, more debilitated looking production buildings. It was a fairly large one with five floors and a skylight on the roof. More suspiciously though, it had a very buff looking guard armed with a gun guarding the front door.

Quickly apparating onto the roof of that building, Harry found an open skylight and leaned in to assess what was going on just as Grunnings walked into the room.

A pair of chairs stood in the middle of the room, on one of which Grunnings sat down, and on the other sat a thin man in a pinstriped suit holding a briefcase.

Harry had a simple plan. He'd wait till they brought out some sort incriminating enough evidence that the police could use to put them away, then disable them and leave them tied up with the evidence in front of a police station so that the police could do their job. All in all, the situation that night would have been a lot less painful for those involved had they not dragged out the girl.

She looked about 16 and was barely dressed in her tattered clothes. Her face was sunken, her limbs were rickety, and the way she flinched whenever one of the fat man's bodyguard moved did not bode well for how she'd been treated by them.

For a fraction of a second, Harry saw red and Gamer's Mind wavered, but it recovered near instantly, shielding Harry from his instinctive rage. He paused. He knew he had to do something, but he couldn't charge in fireballing. Each and every one of those goons and thugs had a gun. It was best to first listen to what they were saying.

"So has your friend in the mask terrified you so much that feel the need to do your deals halfway across the world now? I didn't think kingpins of criminal empires were that easily scared by masked costume fetishists," Grunnings said with a smirk.

"Don't be idiotic Mr. Grunnings. We are here trying to shake the tails Interpol has been sending. Tails that found their leads thanks to leaks in your organization. And I would advise you against so flippantly addressing my employer. He doesn't like being spoken about in that tone." the man in the suit said, his voice cold as steel.

"Well, he isn't here now, is he? And why doesn't he try to arrange a distraction for all of his managers at the same time? Does he realize how humiliating it is to have kids swarming all over his building in the name of 'work visit day'?" Grunnings shot back. But the tremble in his voice gave away his nervousness. Whoever this kingpin bloke was, he was dangerous. "Anyhow, this little girl is a special one. We saw her do some really…inhuman things, and thought she might be of some experimental value to your client."

Ping!

Quest Alert!

Destroy the goons, help the girl escape!

Reward,

3000 Exp

Failure,

See that girl? Yeah. That one. The goons will violate her tonight and later she will be drained of her bone marrow by scientists for illegal experimentation by the next week and by the end of the month she will be forced to act as a suicide bomber right in front of Buckingham Palace, killing hundreds. So accept the bloody quest.

YES/NO?

Harry stared at the failure screen, horrified. How…how could there be people like that…? Something inside him curled. Something deep… something forgotten…

Mutilate them…murder them…kill them…they deserve it…

Harry's scar burned, Gamer's Mind snapped, and a hot rage the likes of which he had never felt filled Harry.

With nary a thought, he opened up his inventory and pulled out his wolf cloak. He'd discovered in his spare time that it had various magical properties, like disguising him by using illusions and changing his voice. It seemed like oddly fitting to use the memento of his own greatest regret to do some good. Obscuring his face in the shadows of the hood of the jacket, he got ready to break in. This was going to be a bloodbath.

Zipping up the front of the jacket, Harry stepped off the edge of the roof, falling all the way down the 150-foot tall building and landing with a thump straight onto the lone guard guarding the door, shattering dozens of his bones and knocking him out on impact. He then rose to his feet and opened the door quietly, slipping through.

Inside he found several guards walking around with guns in tow. Slipping into the shadows, he tried to stay out of sight as he evaluated the threat in front of him. The girl was on the fifth floor, and there was four floors chock full of armed men against him. This wasn't going to be easy, but he wasn't going to be holding back. With a combination of Apparition and Sneaking, he made headway through the hallways, but with his Sneak being a relatively low level, he was bound to get caught eventually.

Luckily for him, it was a random guard.

"Who are you?" the man asked, threateningly shaking his gun at him.

"Nobody of consequence."

"Well, then nobody better disappear fast," he snapped, fingering the trigger of his sub-machine gun, "or else."

Harry opened his inventory box in front of him and expanded it to cover his entire body like a wall.

"Fine then. Make my day," he said with a grin and pulled the trigger. The sub-machine gun went off, spraying bullets at Harry, only for each bullet to enter Harry's inventory and disappear. The man stopped shooting and looked at Harry with wide eyes.

"Wha…what are you?"

"As I said," Harry repeated as a needle-thin spike of earth shot out from behind the man, puncturing the man's spine, causing him to fall down paralyzed. "Nobody of concern."

Harry looked at the gun the man dropped and used Observe.

PP-2000

A machine gun made by the KGB weapons division. It is a 9mm round and is capable of using armour piercing rounds while being capable of storing 44 rounds. It was previously used by Russia but is also common in the hands of the russian mafia.

Bullets left- 23

Harry put the gun away. He was sure he could find some use in it in the future. He then checked the man's pockets and scored another cartridge of bullets and a cigarette lighter. Moving quick as a snake, he dumped the body in the shadows and then moved quick as a snake. As he approached a turn, another man appeared. The new grunt didn't even have time to respond as Harry knocked the man out with a punch and looted his body.

Dashing up the stairs into the first floor, Harry then climbed up onto the second floor and began knocking out every man patrolling the place. A punch to the gut, a chop to the neck, a slam to the chest… his fist being boosted by using fire shooting out of his elbow was a weapon good enough to take out even the beefiest of men. It took him fifteen minutes to clear the floor of the henchmen, which was a great speed, but he wasn't here to set a score. He was here to save that girl and time was running out the more he dawdled.

Finally deciding to abandon his minimum magic plan, Harry let his instincts take control.

Running up the stairs to the next level, he started apparating around like mad, letting loose pillars of fire and powerful jet streams of wind down hallways, taking down enemies by the dozens.

'They will hear the screams!' a part of his mind that he could barely hear through his bloodlust said.

Let them…let them know that death is coming…let them cower…

Harry paid neither of the voices any heed. Halfway through, something in him had snapped. There was little reason left behind his rage. He had tasted blood, and he was in no mood to stop. It wasn't long before the next floor was clear of enemies too. His mind was thrumming with rage as he walked up the stairs to the level where they held the girl. Magic shivered at his fingertips, begging to be commanded into form.

Kill them all…

It was as if his rage was a living demon inside him, telling him to do it! Something inside him tried to resist, but it wasn't nearly strong enough.

As the four men on the level came into sight, Harry locked eyes with each one of them, feeding on the fear and confusion that filled them, before focusing his mana around the four men on the level and clenching. Not the air around them, but on the water in their blood, freezing them right where they stood. Harry's scar flared with tremendous pain.

Kill

Harry obeyed.

The blood in their vein froze. Deprived of oxygen and frozen in place, they desperately struggled to breathe. Their skin slowly paled, and their bodily functions shut down one by one. Grunnings was the first to go and then went the guards. Filled with a morbid sense of curiosity, Harry Observed the remaining man.

James Wesley

Lv-25

HP-8400/8400

Race-Muggle

Str-18

Vit-17

Dex-23

Int-23

Wis-17

Luc-17

The face of a criminal empire. The man behind numerous political assassinations all around the world. Considers himself loyal to his employer and a professional person. He is one of the best-known criminals in the American criminal underworld. Is a master marksman and really good at chess.

Just as Harry had finished reading, the window faded away and Wesley dropped to the floor, gone for good.

Ping!

Skill has been evolved due to creative use!

Wandless Magic Lv- 9(11%)

Allows you to control your magic in short sporadic bursts. You can try to use it in any way you wish and it will obey your every command. Has various discoverable branches.

Cost-20 MP per minute

Branch A -Remomancy-Allows you to control any form of elements. You can reconstruct it in any way you wish and it will obey your every command.

Cost-80 MP per minute

Ping!

Quest Completed!

Destroy the goons, help the girl escape!

Reward,

3000 Exp

Ping!

You have leveled up!

Harry Potter

Health-450/450

Mana-250/250

The Gamer

Title-The Boy who Lived

(+20 Str,+20 Vit, +20 Dex, while in Home Turf)

Level-9 Exp-19940/38400

Race-wizard

STR-12

VIT-10(+3)=13

DEX-9(+3)=12

INT-14

WIS-10

LUC-19

POINTS-15

MONEY- 175£ / 2042G 182S 25K

Harry Potter is a wizard, the son of Lily Potter and James Potter. He has bad eyesight making it difficult for him to do well in class. His magic has gotten him trouble over the years in various schools. Strange things seem to happen around him. Harry finally aware of who he is and wishes to find meaning in his life. Harry loves his parents and hates the Dursleys.

Status- wizard, giving Harry - +3 VIT, +3 DEX and the ability to control magic, talk to snakes, control his appearance and look cool.

Perhaps it was the pings, or perhaps it was the fact that finally, the fighting was over, but the rage faded, and Gamer's Mind finally took hold again.

With wide eyes, Harry turned around to look at the carnage of dead and unconscious he'd left behind him.

"Oh no…" he muttered, "What have I done?"

But he didn't have much time to wallow in his misery. With a start, he remembered the girl and shook his head. No matter how carried away he'd been, he couldn't just stop here. He still had work to do. It was like John had said. He had the right to protect. Not just himself, but other innocents around him. He looked around for the girl, only to realize she'd fallen unconscious.

Immediately, Harry turned around and started looking through the loot around him, picking up anything that he found.

5 pump action shotguns

4 AK47s

3 sniper rifles

17 mini surveillance bugs

A pack of ammunition

7 impact grenades

Money- 1650£

Harry piled up the four people he had killed, and putting a hand on the pile, transported it all to an ID and then used ID escape to get out of the ID. Since the ID reset every time he went into it, the bodies would be gone the next time he entered it. Finished with his work, Harry picked up the girl and prepared to apparate away, but stopped when he heard a thud behind him.

He turned around to see a man behind him, wearing all black with a black piece of cloth covering his eyes and the upper half of his head.

"Who are you? I've been following that man for a long time now. What did you do to him?" the man spoke warily, easing into a fighting stance.

Harry frowned. He had no interest in fighting more. He had done enough of that while he had been berserk with rage. Besides, the man was no danger to him.

Ping!

A new skill has just been created!

Bloodlust, Lv-4

You scare the crap out of your enemies.

25% chance of working

20% scary

With his wolf cloak hiding his identity in any and all ways, giving his voice the undertone of a growling werewolf, Harry's voice was already fairly intimidating. Combined with Bloodlust, it was downright terrifying.

"No one you'd like to mess with" Harry said, and turning on the spot, apparated away.


"Well, there you are, boy," Uncle Vernon said, a nasty grin on his face. "Platform nine and platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it yet, do they? "

Figuring he was reasonably safe saying anything he wanted to him seeing as how he wouldn't see the man and his blob of a son ever again, Harry rolled his eyes.

"You, Uncle, elevate the meaning of the word moronic to a whole new level every single time you open your mouth, you know that?" Harry said, while flippantly looking around in search of any other Muggleborn or magical family taking a kid to the station.

McGonagall had told him to run straight at the divide between Platforms 9 and 10, but without any knowledge as to which side of the divide was he to run at, Harry wasn't about to risk looking like an idiot in the middle of one of the most crowded stations in the world. Although he did rather like the clever sense of making sure that only a running person could enter the barrier which made sure no one leaning on it would fall into the station.

"Of course they don't have the platform be obvious," Harry added, "It's magic. You do remember the word don't you Uncle? That five lettered word. Spelled M-A-G-I-C. Don't you?" Harry was having way too much fun riling Vernon up. He was turning purple and the passerby people were staring at him. For a moment, he amusedly wondered how much he should charge them for a session with an extremely rare purple whale.

Ping!

A new skill has been made through your act of taunting,

Taunt, Lv-1 (50%)

You can cause your opponent to lose their cool and do something stupid.

5% chance of working

"Then where is it, boy?" Vernon spat angrily.

"You just walk right through the portal."

"How?"

"Magic!" Harry replied with a grin as Vernon turned even purpler. This was way too much fun. "In fact, you can come with me, if you like, and see it for yourself. All you have to do is sacrifice an appendage of your own," Harry suggested, smirking as Vernon turned purple to pale, thinking of the appendage dearest to him.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Harry saw a couple with two teenagers go straight through the Platform 9 face of the wall. With a curt goodbye, he quickly left Vernon behind and headed towards the barrier.

"-packed with Muggles, of course-"

Harry looked up abruptly as he heard the wizarding term for non-magicals. Looking around, he caught sight of a family of redheads from where the voice had come and quickly hurried after them.

"Now, what's the platform number?" The old woman asked playfully.

"Nine and three-quarters!" the little girl piped up, "Mum, can't I go, Harry Potter will be there this year!"

Harry couldn't help but grin at that. He had a fan! Gingerly, he approached them.

"Excuse me," Harry said.

"Hello, dear," the woman said kindly, "First time at Hogwarts?

Harry nodded.

"Oh good. Ron's new, too," she exclaimed, reaching behind her to drag one of the smaller ones out of the pack of redheads, before patting him on the back, "Well? Aren't you going to say hello to your classmate, Ron?"

"I- er- yes mum," the freckled boy said before sticking his hand out at Harry with a nervous grin, "Hello. I'm Ron."

Harry smiled gingerly. There was going to be a reaction. Shaking Ron's hand, he said, "Hi Ron, my name is Harry Potter."

As he had anticipated, the reaction was immediate. Ron's eyes immediately flew to his forehead and the little girl let out an abrupt squeal and promptly hid behind her mother's skirt, peeking out shyly at Harry.

It was rather adorable, Harry decided, even if the whole getting recognized thing was a bit uncomfortable.

"Are you really?" Ron asked.

"Are you really Ron?" Harry replied amusedly.

"Of course I am," Ron said, looking confused. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"I could say the same to you," Harry replied and turned to the woman. "So, I was wondering if you could help me get onto the platform ma'am?" he asked.

She nodded. "Of course, dear. All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don't stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it, that's very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous. Go on, go now before Ron."

Harry thanked her for her help and steeling himself, ran full tilt at the wall.

The imposingly solid brick drew closer…closer…closer…and then it felt like he was walking through a veil of mist, and then he was somewhere else.

Harry looked around, smiling a little at the sight of so many wizards that had dressed up, obviously in an attempt to fit in with the muggles in the station outside, but had failed spectacularly. A woman with a dead vulture arranged on her hat walked past him, and Harry almost broke out into a fit of giggles.

A dozen different things were assaulting his senses, and it felt amazing.

"Thank you for your help ma'am," Harry said to the redheaded woman and went down the station. He had most of his stuff in his inventory, but he'd stuffed a few of his school books and some odd knick-knacks into his trunk just to blend in a bit. So he quickly found a compartment, and sliding the door close, picked a spot by the window to sit, listening to the chatter of the redhead family by the train for a few minutes before tuning them out and turning to his copy of The Two Towers.

Ever since Harry had learned that Tolkien was a wizard, he'd been reading his books whenever he had free time, which he had a lot of, since he basically absorbed all the information in the all the reference books he had, some of which taught up to and beyond third-year stuff. Harry doubted that he'd ever even need to look at the books again, but even so, the school books each had their own way of describing the concepts and he had fun reading them.

After a few minutes, the door to the compartment slid open, and two remarkably similar-looking redheads; no doubt part of the family he'd met earlier; stepped in.

"Blimey, we found 'im!" said one of them, "Are you-?"

"He is," the other confirmed. Harry had overheard their names, Fred and George, but he couldn't tell which one was Fred and which one was George.

"Aren't you?"

"I'm confused, if that's what you mean," Harry finally replied.

"Harry Potter?" chorused the twins.

Harry nodded, and a grin spread across the two boys' faces.

"Welcome back mate. Hope the time with the muggles didn't scare the magic out of you."

Harry paused a moment, before remembering that everything in his life was public knowledge at this point. Deciding to just roll with it, he chuckled and replied, "I'm definitely hoping not. First class with Professor McGonagall is gonna be really awkward if that's happened."

The twins seemed pleased. "Will you look at that Gred?" one said, and the other continued, "Looks like our savior isn't as airheaded as we were worried he was eh?"

And then the first one picked back up again, "So, any expectations for the house you want to be in Mr. Potter?"

"My parents were in Gryffindor, so I suppose I could go there, but I'd probably do fine in Ravenclaw as well," Harry replied, casting Observe. The results almost made him choke on thin air.

Fred & George Weasley

Lv-7

HP-1320/1320

MP-900/900

Race-Wizard

Str-8

Vit-12

Dex-13

Int-14

Wis-7

Luc-12

Born as conjoined twins and separated at birth by a magical surgery, Fred and George Weasley are consummate pranksters and lifelong purveyors of mischief. They have the ability to subconsciously communicate with each other using their thoughts as long as they are within a certain range of each other. They occasionally work with their friend Lee Jordan and study in their third year at Hogwarts. Their dream is to open a joke shop.

They think Harry is a nice guy and hope that he isn't some stuck up celebrity who judges people by how much money they have.

Harry didn't stare, but he couldn't help but wonder with incredulity at the fact that these guys could communicate with each other in their heads! Curious to see what other special secrets they were hiding, Harry started casting observe on them, hoping for more information while engaging in light banter with them.

Suddenly catching sight of a yellowing piece of parchment sticking out of George's pocket, he observed it as well.

The Marauder's Map

The Marauder's Map is a magical document that reveals all of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Not only does it show every classroom, every hallway, and every corner of the castle, but it also shows every inch of the grounds, as well as all the secret passages that are hidden within its walls and the location of every person in the grounds, portrayed by a dot. It is also capable of accurately identifying each person, and is not fooled by animagi, polyjuice potions, or invisibility cloaks; even the Hogwarts ghosts are not exempt from this.

This time, he did stop and stare.

"You alright mate?" George asked, concerned about their new friend.

"Yeah, yeah. Just fine." Harry said, waving away both the screens and their concerns. Just then, their younger brother entered the compartment.

"Fred, George, is anyone sitting there?" he asked, pointing at the seat opposite Harry. "Everywhere else is full."

"I guess that's it for us Harry," said George, "Take the seat Ron. We've got to get back to Lee. We will see you two later, then.

Harry wondered if he should steal the map from them, but ultimately decided not to. He wanted to try and explore the castle on his own. And if an emergency called for it, he could always ask.

"Bye," said Ron. The twins slid the compartment door shut behind them.

"Are you really Harry Potter?" Ron blurted out.

Harry nodded.

"Oh -well, I thought it might've been one of Fred and George's jokes," said Ron. "And have you really got - you know..."

He pointed at Harry's forehead.

Harry sighed. It looked like Ron was a little clueless. Asking him to show his only scar from the night his parents died was a bit too daft, but figuring that Ron was probably too engrossed in his idea of meeting a hero that he forgot his manners, Harry pulled back his bangs to show the lightning scar. Ron stared.

"Wicked," he said.

"Yeah, it was really considerate of Voldemort to give me such a wicked-looking scar when he murdered my family and attempted to kill me as an infant," Harry said dryly, hoping he would catch on and they could move on from the subject.

But Ron just stared at him, fascinated and a little horrified. "You really shouldn't say his name, you know."

Harry raised an eyebrow. That was what he got from it? That he had said the name of a dead wizard? Not Harry's not-so-subtle ribbing on his tactlessness?

"I know," Harry finally replied, remembering the first time he'd said the name and felt its power. For a dead wizard, his name sure seemed to hold some serious magical weight. Ron, on the other hand, looked torn between the desire to impress upon Harry the importance of not saying Tom Riddle's pseudonym and asking more about the night the two had met for the first time.

Finally, he asked, "Do you remember it?"

"You do realize I was fifteen-months-old, right Ron?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I know!" Ron defended, although his tone of voice indicated that he didn't seem to really grasp that Harry was far too young to have even properly remembered the event, much less actually play some part in Voldemort's downfall. "I just thought that you might remember because of the scar."

Now it was Harry's turn to stare. "You know, I'm starting to think that you don't actually know much about how scars work mate. And to answer your question, yes, a little."

"What do you remember?" Ron asked eagerly.

Harry paused, before frowning.

What did he remember? He'd seen bits and pieces from his nightmare, but he had never really tried to put it all together before. Putting aside the fact that he should be offended that Ron was actually asking questions about what he remembered about the first time someone attempted to kill him, now seemed to be as good a time as any, considering he had a few hours to kill.

"Well," Harry said, closing his eyes and trying to piece together all the flashes he'd seen over the years. The visions effortlessly floated to the front of his mind, "I remember someone…my father…telling my mother to take me and leave. Then there's laughing… and someone else…my mother…begging the Dark Lord to spare my life. He told her to stand aside and let him kill me…but she didn't…she said no and asked him to kill her instead. He-he did, and then there was a lot of green light and my forehead felt like it was on fire…"

Harry's chest coiled more and more, and by the time he had finished and opened his eyes, there were tears flowing down his face.

Ron looked horrified. "I'm sorry, mate, I didn't think-"

"No. No, you didn't," Harry cut him off flatly, wiping off his tears as he got to his feet. "Well, it was…a pleasure meeting you Ron. I suppose I'll see you around at Hogwarts," He said in the same flat tone, and opening the compartment door, walked out.

Feeling confused, frustrated, and rather unbearably sad for some reason, Harry did the only thing some his age would have done when faced with such turbulent emotions.

He blamed it on someone else. More specifically, Ron.

'Well, now I know what house I don't want to be in. The one into which he goes,' Harry thought angrily as he went up the train looking for another compartment to sit one with only a boy and a bushy haired girl, he slid open the door.

"Excuse me. Can I sit in here?"

Getting a nod from the girl and the rather timid boy, Harry sat himself down beside the boy and joined in on the conversation.

"But how does that make sense!"

"It's just the way it is," Neville replied to Hermione's indignation with a shrug.

"So what're you talking about?" Harry asked.


Fifteen minutes later, with an innumerable number of facts about Quidditch stuck into his brain, Harry stood firmly on Hermione's side of the argument while Neville looked devastated at having lost another one to the anti-Quidditch campaign.

"She's right Neville. One hundred and fifty points for someone to catch a golden ball! That makes absolutely no sense!" Harry said with a shrug. He could definitely get the appeal of flying really fast, but the rules of this game were abhorrent. It was as if they took football and then went ham with it.

"You-you haven't ever seen a professional match! The chasers score fast-really fast really early and catching a snitch before an hour is extremely hard. It just adds that much more unpredictability to the game, you never really know who's going to win." Neville apparently personally abhorred flying, but much like other children of his age born into wizarding families, was incredibly passionate about Quidditch and willing do anything to defend his favorite sport.

"They won't change the game just 'cause you say so!" Neville exclaimed.

"I am the Boy-Who-Lived, you know, People will listen to me. And maybe if I can persuade them to change the game at Hogwarts, the innovation will spread." The compartment grew silent at the statement. Harry suddenly remembered that he hadn't really given them his last name.

'Oh dear.'

"Are you really?" said Hermione, her voice transforming, "I know all about you, of course I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."

"Did you?" said Harry, immediately putting a stop to her tirade. He had messed up his friendship with the first person his age he'd met because he let this kind of conversation go on for too long. He'd be damned if he made the same mistake again.

"If you did you'd also know that the only person to survive that night was me and I have never been interviewed by anybody, nor have I even tested for anything as far as I know. So, most likely, most of what you read, especially about me killing a dragon and discovering Atlantis, is a lie."

"But they're books! They wouldn't lie in them!" Hermione raised her voice indignantly.

"Wouldn't they? It was the time right after a war, Hermione," Harry said grimly, "Families were dead and children were orphaned. So these stories and so-called facts would have been printed to give hope to a broken and bleeding society. That was the truth then, and that is the truth today. It is also the only reason I've allowed them to stay on shelves and not taken their publishers to court for breaking the law. Even a lie spoken with best intentions doesn't make it the truth."

Due to reaching a logical conclusion and spreading it around, you've gained 1 Wis!

WIS-13

Hermione was staggered to a standstill. Harry reminded himself that even if they were both the same age, they had very separate upbringings and she had no Gamer's Mind to help her be objective and assess situations like Harry did. Her worldview was based on books and elders always being right. Harry had just broken one of the legs of the stool that her entire worldview stood on.

After a few silent moments, Hermione finally spoke again. "You two had better change, I expect we'll be there soon," she stood, still in shock and off balance, and walked out of the compartment, presumably to the bathroom to change.

Harry and Neville took off their jackets and pulled on their long black robes.

"You-you really scared her I think." Neville's voice had gained back his stutter after the topic of Quidditch had passed. Before Harry could answer, the compartment door slid open and three boys stepped in.

"Is it true?" he said. "They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"

"Indeed it is," said Harry. He was looking at the other boys. Both of them were thickset and looked extremely mean. Standing on either side of the pale boy, they looked like bodyguards. Harry quickly observed them.

Gregory Goyle

Lv-3

HP-220/220

MP-100/100

Race-Wizard

Str-8

Vit-3

Dex-3

Int-2

Wis-1

Luc-4

Goyle, along with fellow Slytherin Crabbe, is best friends with Draco Malfoy. They often follow Malfoy around and do his bidding. He has the IQ of a half-dead goldfish and can be accurately described as one of the reasons to avoid inbreeding.

Vincent Crabbe

Lv-3

HP-220/220

MP-100/100

Race-Wizard

Str-8

Vit-3

Dex-3

Int-2

Wis-1

Luc-4

Crabbe, along with fellow Slytherin Goyle, is best friends with Draco Malfoy. They often follow Malfoy around and do his bidding. He has the IQ of a half-dead goldfish and can be accurately described as one of the reasons to avoid inbreeding.

Draco Malfoy

Lv-4

HP-320/320

MP-140/140

Race-Wizard

Str-5

Vit-4

Dex-4

Int-6

Wis-3

Luc-3

Draco Malfoy is a pure-blood wizard and the only heir of the Malfoy family. The son of a Death Eater, Draco was raised to believe strongly in the importance of blood purity. He wishes to be sorted into Slytherin house. Despite his father's violent torturous teaching sessions about blood purity and 'old times' Draco looks up to him and admires him.

He thinks that Harry is a great Dark wizard for killing the Dark Lord who will be to him what Lord Voldemort was to his father. He really wants to get on his good side.

Harry sighed.

It only made sense. He had fangirls and an unexpected and convoluted celebrity backstory. He didn't honestly know why he was surprised by conspiracy theorists.

"This is Crabbe and this is Goyle," said the pale boy carelessly, mistaking Harry's stare at his game windows for him asking who his henchmen were, "And my name's Draco Malfoy of House Malfoy."

He turned to Neville. "Heir Longbottom, glad to see you made it onto the train alright." While his words were nothing but polite, his voice held a sort of demeaning contempt that made Harry's spine tingle.

"Heir Malfoy, I suspect you came here because you wished to form an alliance with House Potter. I assure you that it will not happen unless you're entirely civil to Heir Longbottom here, who already has my friendship." Harry had read enough fantasy novels and etiquette books to know exactly what to say and in which tone to say it. And apparently, he was somehow successful, because Malfoy nodded to his bodyguards and they left the compartment.

"My apologies Heir Potter." He said. Harry simply nodded, not trusting his fantasy book knowledge to take him too far, and waved him to the seat in front him. Draco sat down.

Draco looked around, before spotting the books, "I see you've been reading ahead."

"A little," Harry admitted with a shrug.

"My father had me begin reading a few months ago. He wouldn't let me cast anything, but he showed me a few spells with his wand," Draco bragged.

"How much have you read?" Harry asked, curious.

"Oh, just a few chapters into each book," he answered, trying to sound nonchalant but failing. He was quite proud of his accomplishment and was enjoying the chance to brag in front of the Boy-Who-Lived. "You?"

"I started reading when I got back from Diagon Alley. I've spent most of my free time reading, and besides, it's really interesting to match all the accidental magic with the stuff in the books." Harry replied, not wanting to reveal too much. He could probably go off into his 3rd-year theory exams right now if he wanted, but he didn't want to draw too much attention.

Ping!

A new skill was created due to your ass being jealous of the crap that flows through your mouth!

Bullshitting, Lv-2

A combination of lying and the truth said in a very confident manner!

"Really? Aiming for Ravenclaw are you?" Draco said, a bit surprised.

Harry shrugged. "They do have the resources to gain the most knowledge, and knowledge is an essential tenement of survival in any society," Harry said, trying to recall some of the big words from that Thesaurus he'd been glancing at a while back.

"You don't want to lead or fight battles or…you know…all that stuff?" Draco asked tentatively.

Harry rolled his eyes, "Please do try not to imply that I'm some sort of savior that has come to lead the Wizarding World. I'm just a first year who wants to learn magic, like you."

Impressed, Draco smiled. "You're not what I had expected, Heir Potter. Even if you happen to not get into Slytherin…don't be a stranger."

"I can agree to that." Harry shook Draco's hand, who then got up and left, goons in tow. Harry looked at Draco's description as he left, frowning at the line about his father. His father was a Death Eater who was physically abusing his son. And even after that, the son showed no distaste towards his father. Harry frowned. There was something fishy up there.

A voice echoed through the train: "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."

Harry's stomach lurched with nerves and Neville was positively shivering, looking very pale. Together, they quickly joined the crowd thronging the corridor. The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. Harry shivered in the cold night air.

Then, a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a voice: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!" A positively huge man's hairy face beamed over the sea of heads. 'Hagrid,' Harry thought, matching the description with the name Professor McGonagall had given to him.

"C'mon, follow me-any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"

Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Harry thought there must've been thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. Neville only sniffed once or twice.

"Ye' all get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."

There was a loud "Oooooh!" from the kids ahead of him.

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black take. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

But that wasn't what Harry was staring at. He was staring at the new red window that had popped up in front of him the second he lay eyes on the castle.

WARNING!

You have decided to enter the ancient wards of Hogwarts. Should you choose to do so, your Wardstone perk will be deactivated due to being inside a more powerful set of wards. You will be unable to use them unless you get yourself out of its wards.

YES/NO

Deciding that he was already too far gone to turn back, Harry pressed yes forged on ahead. He used Observe on the castle.

Hogwarts Castle

Hogwarts Castle is a large, seven-story high building supported by magic, with a hundred and forty-two staircases throughout its many towers and turrets and very deep dungeons. The castle was built in the late Early Middle Ages. Hogwarts is built in a valley area with the fairly large Great Lake to the south of the main building. The deep Forbidden Forest extends around to the west of the Castle. Due to its extremely advanced age and the sheer amount of magic present in or around it, the castle is implied to have developed some form of sentience or awareness.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, distracting Harry from his observe box. He was pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Harry was followed into his boat by Neville, a boy named Terry Boot and a red-haired girl with pigtails. Hermione notably avoided them and went into another boat. "Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. "Right then - FORWARD!"

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

"Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff and Harry shared an amused smile with Draco Malfoy when everyone else all bent their heads; the cliff was way too high to be a danger to anyone except the massive man leading them. The boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried through a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.

They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door. Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.


They were fetched by McGonagall to what Harry suspected was the entrance hall to the Great Hall that he had read about in Hogwarts a History.

He shivered at the thought of the book. Apparently, some parts of it were magically hidden from the sights of underage children, hiding away the more sexually explicit happenings that'd happened in the halls of the castle. Harry, of course, had broken through it with Gamer's mind and Runic Burnout and had promptly sworn off the book forever.

And then there were ghosts. Full on, silvery, intangible, ghosts. One, Harry noticed with some disgust, even had blood patches and chains. Harry wondered why they weren't mentioned in the Hogwarts a History book. Perhaps the writers were having a laugh at the expense of the startled muggle-raised students every year. Either way, they had managed to make their way onto Harry's shitlist.

"We're ready for you now." McGonagall's clipped voice cut through Harry's inner rants.

Feeling oddly as though his legs had turned to lead, Harry got into line behind a boy with sandy hair with Ron standing behind him, and they walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the fabled Great Hall.

It did not disappoint.

Not even in the wildest corners of his overactive imagination had Harry even imagined such a place. Lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. Briefly wondering how the wax didn't fall into the food, Harry looked at the tables that were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table perpendicular to the House tables where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall led the first years up here so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver.

Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Harry looked upward and saw a velvety black enchanted ceiling dotted with stars. It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn't simply open up into the heavens.

Harry quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat that was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Maybe they had to try and get a rabbit out of it, Harry thought wildly as he wondered what the Sorting test was.

For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth-and the hat began to sing:

"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,

But don't judge on what you see,

I'll eat myself if you can find

A smarter hat than me.

You can keep your bowlers black,

Your top hats sleek and tall,

For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat

And I can cap them all.

There's nothing hidden in your head

The Sorting Hat can't see,

So try me on and I will tell you

Where you ought to be.

You might belong in Gryffindor,

Where dwell the brave at heart,

Their daring, nerve, and chivalry Set Gryffindors apart;

You might belong in Hufflepuff,

Where they are just and loyal,

Those patient Hufflepuffs are true And unafraid of toil;

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,

if you have a ready mind,

Where those of wit and learning,

Will always find their kind;

Or perhaps in Slytherin

You'll make your real friends,

Those cunning folk use any means

To achieve their ends.

So put me on! Don't be afraid!

And don't get in a flap!

You're in safe hands (though I have none)

For I'm a Thinking Cap!"

The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again. 'Observe,' Harry instantly thought.

The Sorting Hat

This magical hat enchanted with the intelligence of all four founders of Hogwarts. It normally stays in the Headmaster's office until it is needed. During the opening banquet at the beginning of each school year, it speaks to the wearer inside of the hat with a small, quiet voice, using Legilimency to interpret their thoughts and respond to them. After a moment of consideration, the hat announces its choice aloud for all to hear, and the student joins the selected house. The moment of consideration varies in length, from over five minutes to less than a second.

So that's what it was. The four Founders…Harry almost drooled at the thought of the amount of knowledge that the hat held. Ten minutes with it would probably boost his own intelligence by a metric ton.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Abbott, Hannah!"

A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moment's pause -

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat.

The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. Harry saw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.

"Bones, Susan!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat again, and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.

"Boot, Terry!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

And so it went. Sometimes, Harry noticed, the hat shouted out the house at once, but at other times it took a little while to decide. 'Finnigan, Seamus,' the sandy-haired boy who had stood next to Harry sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor.

"Granger, Hermione!"

Hermione almost ran to the stool and jammed the hat on her head. Harry winced in sympathy for the hat when he saw a new tear appear on the brim.

"RAVENCLAW!" shouted the hat.

When Neville was called, he fell over on his way to the stool. The hat took a long time to decide with him. When it finally shouted, "GRYFFINDOR," Neville ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to hand it over to "MacDougal, Morag."

Malfoy swaggered forward when his name was called and got his wish at once; the hat had barely touched his head when it screamed, "SLYTHERIN!"

Malfoy went to join his friends Crabbe and Goyle, looking quite pleased with himself. Harry still was a bit disturbed by the boy's description, but he hoped he could find out more as the school year went along.

There weren't many people left now. "Moon" "Nott" "Parkinson" then a pair of twin girls, "Patil" and "Patil" then "Perks, Sally-Anne" and then, at last - "Potter, Harry!"

As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like a pit full of snakes all over the hall.

"Potter, did she say?"

"The Harry Potter?"

The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his head was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him. Next second, the hall in front of him disappeared as he landed with a thud on what was looking like an entirely white surface. From in front of him, a dry voice spoke.

"Well. This is unexpected."


Yeet for this officially being the first 10000-word chapter of the story.

I highlighted another one of Harry's flaws with Ron and emphasized on the Gamer's Mind faltering when Harry reaches for some very specific feelings and memories. You just witnessed the first time the Horcrux lodged in Harry's soul managed to influence Harry in a significant manner, infiltrating his very soul instead of his mind. That's gonna be elaborated on later. This chapter took longer than expected, mostly because this chapter had to be heavily changed and edited without changing any major story beats. It had a LOT of plot setups, but the whole feel of it was a bit off. Had to work a lot to put it all together more convincingly.

There was, of course, some off-screen grinding. The stats were a bit higher because of that.