Sakuya blinked as she awoke, and took stock of herself.
Well, Himself, rather, as that was the most immediate and pressing irregularity she had noticed. Further consideration revealed that she, now he, was much younger than she recalled being, quite scrawny, and for whatever reason he had been sleeping on a small, thin pallet tucked away on the inside of what could only be a small cupboard of some sort.
This was not at all how she typically began her mornings, and so it could only be put to some form of outside influence. She immediately discounted one member of the mansion after another, Mistress Remilia would no doubt have been interested somehow by this turn of events, but it was doubtful that she would have gone to the effort of making them happen. Flandre and the gatekeeper were even less likely, and while the mansion recieved the occasional visitor it was never for long enough to pull the sort of jest this had to be. That left... Patchouli, or possibly that servitor devil girl she had, but Patchouli was the only remaining being within the mansion with the ability and even some sort of possible inclination to go through this.
"My. That was a rapid deduction, and entirely correct."
... Then it was. So, having been found out-
"I can't make it stop. Or rather, I could, but there would be no point. You aren't the 'real' Izayoi Sakuya, you see, no matter what your memories insist. The real one is standing next to me at the moment, and is quite pleased at your intuitiveness. You are a copy, which I have... the details are rather insignificant and rife with terminology you would most likely find incomprehensible. An abridged variation would be that I created a 'copy of Izayoi Sakuya', with her memories up to the last point she awoke, and her ability, located a specific alternate universe which matched the criteria I required, then 'erased' and 'overwrote' a specific individual's identity with you, and have set a spell to 'record' what happens following this."
Sakuya frowned, the thought of effectively murdering someone on a whim for no immediately apparent reason than to see what happened vaguely distasteful...
"It's fine. Had he been left to his own devices, he would have miserably wasted his life anyway. I'm sure he would thank you for this, if his personality still existed. In any case, it's not like you can do anything about it now."
... That was true enough, Sakuya supposed. It wasn't like she was a particular stranger to death, in any case.
"There you go, now on to important things. Your name is Harry Potter-"
What, the title character of that novel series she'd seen in the library a time or two?
"Yes, the very same. Now, please cease conscious thought for a moment, reversing the polarity of this thing is irritating enough a venture without you interrupting the frequency. Now, your name is Harry Potter. Your caretakers are Petunia and Vernon Dursley, your aunt and uncle, and you have a cousin named Dudley Dursley. None of them like you much. You'll be expected to do the majority of the household chores... and from there, I'll let you work matters out on your own. It will be more interesting that way."
Theoretically, Sakuya... Harry, now, assumed, it would be perfectly possible for Patchouli to dump knowledge of whatever it was that would make things 'interesting' for her ahead of time. As expected, however, after a few moments had passed, and the only occurrence was a heavy, repeated knocking at the cupboard door and insistence that breakfast be started immediately, no such information would be forthcoming.
Breakfast was almost poisonously boring in its simplicity, eggs, bacon, and sausage, the only requirement being that it not be burned, and Harry completed the task in the perfectly elegant fashion he was typically accustomed to, nearly sleeping where he stood from the dullness of it all, and thrice found himself habitually searching for vials of preserved blood to splash into the meal. He had to forcibly remind himself every time, after finding no such thing in the kitchen, that his relatives were not, in point of fact, vampires. He assumed.
The meal was apparently of a higher quality than they had expected, despite its simplicity, if the initial suspicion as they ate was any indication. It washed away as they ate, and Harry was forced to suspect that the previous Harry was either only barely capable at simple household tasks, or had pointlessly chosen not to perform at the fullest of his ability out of some sort of childish spite.
... Possibly both, he mused, considering that this body was, in point of fact, technically that of a child.
"... mail, boy."
Harry blinked, realizing he had been lost in thought for a moment, then nodded.
"Of course, Uncle." he said obediently, rising in a single fluid motion and almost gliding out of the room, hot stares of his relatives burning into his back.
How very droll. No doubt the previous Harry had habitually bad posture or would be pointlessly argumentative over performing such a small task. Likely both. The mental image of the lad was steadily worsening with every tidbit gleaned. With the picture being painted, it almost wasn't a surprise that... ah, the mail. Hm. It seemed one of the letters was for him. He absentmindedly slit it open with a small, pocketed paring knife, and began reading as he made his way back to the dining room, noting it was written on heavy parchment and in an odd sort of ink before any of the words really registered.
'Hogwarts'. Wizards and Witches. Owl. What.
"Dad!" Dudley piped up almost the moment he handed the others off to Vernon, over his shoulder. "Harry's got a letter."
"Poppy-"
"Indeed I do, Dudley." Harry interrupted dryly. "I'm quite sure this is the most... fascinating piece of news you have noted all day thus far, but is such a small thing as unexpected correspondence really worth even a moment taken away from your meal?"
"... but who'd be writing you?" The boy mused aloud, even as he seemed to partially agree with Harry's assessment and return his focus to more important things.
"Some place which decided that naming itself after skin blemishes of swine was an excellent idea, for whatever reason." Harry replied idly, not seeming to care how both aunt and uncle had gone suddenly still, their eyes locked on the parchment in Harry's hand. "... seems to be a school of some sort. For magic, droll as it seems. Odd that I cannot recall applying to such a place... Unless one of my guardians sent in the required forms and payment instead?"
"Most. Certainly. Not." Petunia all but hissed, even as Dudley seemed to regain interest in the conversation.
"Ah? Of course. In that case, these people are either pulling an extraordinarily elaborate prank... or this is quite genuine, and they are most insistent that I attend this... Hog place." He frowned in mild disgust at the name. "And they are not paricularly clear-headed, either, given that the message stipulates I reply 'by owl', however such a means of transportation can be managed. Am I meant to find an owl in the woods somewhere, lure it close enough to attach a letter, and then expect it to deliver it reather than retreat and pick at it until it falls off, then leave it lie? Am I expected to already have an owl prepared in advance for a reply to this letter? My word, that would be quite the nuisance, keeping a wild animal in preparation for a single undertaking. I shudder to imagine the shed feathers and droppings."
Petunia shuddered in turn, seeming able to imagine it all too vividly.
"... Ah, or perhaps it's intended to be a pet of some sort I already have in advance, as it is listed on the section under the heading 'allowed pets'. Along with a cat or a toad, though I can't imagine either of those being anything but less useful than even an owl. Hmph. Well, if it isn't a joke, then with no more than a single letter they have already managed to make a remarkably bad impression of themselves."
"... Then you won't be going?" Vernon asked in a sort of dull confusion, as though he hadn't at all expected things to go this way.
"Hm? Now, that, I didn't say. Though your recognition of the name leads me to believe this is not a hoax at all. I haven't decided. For now, though, there are more important matters to attend to, as there is still a great deal of time before my response, however it turns out to be, is required. In the meantime, I believe there are a number of chores to be dealt with?"
The Dursleys fell into a confused, but oddly speculative silence for a moment, before Petunia spoke up to outline Harry's tasks for the day.
The next morning, no less than three identical envelopes addressed to him arrived in the took a moment to confirm that they each contained the same letter before leaving them to his uncle, who burned the lot without a moment of hesitation. The next day more came, and still more after that, souring the entire household's mood with their demanding insistence. More continued to come with every sunrise, in startlingly odd ways, rolled up inside eggs and within milk bottles, impossibly dry, dozens falling down the chimney like a hailstorm, and finally driving Vernon to the breaking point of frustration.
They left the house behind, the Dursley's attitude to Harry, the focus of this mess, cool but strangely cordial in spite of things, and took temporary residence in a hotel chosen at random. The next morning, they were alerted by an attendant that there had arrived at the front desk well over a hundred identical letters for one Harry Potter. Vernon had them stuffed in a sack to dispose of later. The next port of call, after a long day of wild driving, was a small shack on a deserted island. There was no central heating, or electricity, but Harry had enough recalled familiarity to be able to locate a small stock of firewood secreted away and a warm bonfire had been built by the time a storm overhead broke.
At midnight, the loud and booming noise of someone knocking at the door sounded, and a remarkably large and hairy man forced entry, accidentally smashing the door down in its entirety to do so. he introduced himself as Rubeus hagrid, compounded with meaningless titles, and there was some unpleasantness as heated words were exchanged with Vernon, concluded with Hagrid bending the barrel of a shotgun to complete uselessness and arbitrarily enchanting Dudley such that he sprouted a pigs tail. A dark cast fell over Harry's face.
Hagrid then extracted another, still identical, letter from somewhere inside his greatcoat and proferred it to Harry.
Harry thanked, him, frostily but politely, and without hesitation flicked it into the red-hot coals of the died down fire.
xxx
Snippet time! And I have so many other things I should be doing right now. But I ended up banging this out anyway.