AN: My first ever fic! This is an experiment, and so I cannot guarantee if I will finish this story, or even progress it beyond what I am writing on a whim tonight. Note that this Harry was born in 2001 (instead of 1981) and that this chapter is a rather hastily written backstory so that we can get into the real meat of the story. Readers - give me ideas! I'd love to hear your thoughts so long as they are not just insults to my character (I get enough of those as it is). Anyways, a new beginning!
~o--HSatNR--o~
Little Whinging (2003 - 2011) - 3rd Person POV
From the earliest memories that Harry Potter had, he had lived at #4 Privet Drive. From those same memories, he could clearly recall being told that he in fact should not have been living there, and would not been living there if it were not for his freak parents. Since he was intruding into their home life, his aunt Petunia gave him the constant lesson that he was inferior than them, and that he would have to earn his keep. When a toddler is told something that they do not like, they often respond by crying and becoming sad or screaming and becoming angry. Harry Potter tended to gravitate to the latter of the two reactions, and became a rather petulant child.
At 'home,' he didn't seem to have many chances to rebel. He could have deliberately altered the cooking recipes he had been given and not do the chores he was assigned, but (unlike Dudley Dursley) he wasn't very happy at the thought of living in a pigsty.
No, the perfect opportunity to do as he wished came at school. Dudley's attempts to torment Harry at Little Whinging Traditional School surmounted to ensuring that (1) Harry had no friends, (2) Harry seemed mentally retarded to the teachers, and (3) Harry was chased down and beat up whatever chance he got. The first problem was easy to solve. Despite growing up starved for attention, Harry quickly decided that he did not want to be friends with little 'itty bitty' children who were driven away from his company by Harry's abnormally large cousin and his pack of miniature bulldozers. Regarding the second problem, Harry refused to be hindered. He would prove to all those around him that it was his relatives and their brood that were inferior rather than him. And if he wasn't fed for several days after each time he brought home a record high report card, it was a good thing that Harry had always been good at sleight of hand with his cafeteria food, and that he was forced to wear Dudley's secondhand clothes which could undoubtedly fit a baby blue whale. With regards to the third problem, it wasn't much of a problem at all! A little exercise never hurt anybody, especially since Harry could tire out Dudley by jogging for 10 minutes at a moderate pace. Plus there was the fact that Harry wanted to look somewhat fit when he was older, rather than emaciated. No, that wasn't vain, it was just practical he would insist in his brain.
During Harry's quest to consume the contents of all the libraries he was around and become smarter, he became enamoured with fantasy books. A knight of little repute heroically saving the princess when no one else could? That could be him! The stories of dragons and magic fascinated him, and drove him towards books on the medieval period. And so Harry learned about kingdom building. Groups of peasants banding together to form fiefdoms, and fiefdoms accumulating into kingdoms. He learned about the progression of society throughout history; the technology, the art, the ideologies. For a little boy who held nothing to his name, money and fame were constants in his dreams.
And then, he discovered it: Game of Thrones. Should a ten year old have been watching a TV series with coarse language and excessive nudity? Probably not. Did it matter to Harry? Absolutely not. Harry was completely taken by the show, which he believed by all accounts to be a masterpiece. He even dealt with his uncle yelling at the TV screen about how stupid the characters were being, because in the end, Game of Thrones was just worth it. Poor Ned Stark. Poor Sansa. Poor Arya. If it wasn't obvious by his thoughts, Harry was just a little obsessed with the North and the Starks. Just a little.
~o--HSatNR--o~
The Hogwarts Era Year 1 (2011 - 2012) - 3rd Person POV
It wasn't until Hagrid knocked down the door of the lighthouse, that the rollercoaster of Harry's life really began. Except this time, Harry was a lot more smart, curious, and antisocial. As soon as he boarded the sidecar of Hagrid's motorcycle, he began pelting the half-giant with questions. Most importantly, these involved how Hagrid knew who Harry was, why Harry was left with his relatives without knowledge of magic, and who was the one who decided to do so. Needless to say, Harry was not impressed with either Voldemort or Albus Dumbledore. When he entered the Leaky Cauldron, ensuring that he had some makeup hiding any existence of his scar, he was able to experience a much more normal introduction to the wizarding world.
That is, until he got to Gringotts and promptly exploded with righteous fury. Why did Hagrid have his vault key? Why was he unaware of all of his funds prior to this day? Where was his parents' wills? Had people been stealing from him? What in the world was going on? Griphook seemed particularly amused by these happenings, while Hagrid's face clearly revealed that he was regretting being the one to bring Harry to Diagon Alley. While Hagrid was sent to the next vault to retrieve what he needed, Harry returns to the surface to make some changes. First, all previous keys given by the goblins were rendered null, and a new key was issued to Harry. Next, he received a full audit of his account, which indicated that money has been going to Dursley's for Harry's upkeep, money which Harry knows had never been spent on him at all. Those payments were halted, and all previous monies distributed were set to be seized by the goblins as soon as possible.
For the rest of the trip through Diagon Alley, Harry seethed at the only person he could: Hagrid. Get a regular trunk? Not bloody likely. The seven compartment trunk that could be practically lived in is the way to go. A bedroom, a potions lab, a duelling room, a library, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a study room in one? Harry was never going to have to buy a place to live in his life! He then proceeded to buy an excess of 50 books much to Hagrid's protests, the highest quality of school clothing he could, and a holster to go along with his wand. Harry then bid Hagrid adiue and rented the cheapest, smallest room he could find in the leaky cauldron till school begins. It's not like he's going to live there. He's got a trunk to explore!
Over the following month, Harry did everything he possibly could do with regards to the wizarding world. All his textbooks were read within the first week. He had successfully visited every single shop in both Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley by the week after. Hogsmeade and the other small villages across Britain were visited via the Knight Bus and forgotten within a day, as they didn't hold much of appeal to Harry.
The true surprise came when Harry visited St. Mungo's to see if there was a way to hide his scar via a magical means rather than a muggle one and the healer/cursebreakers discovered the small inert soul piece hidden there. Following a harrowing two day surgery process, the scar was gone forever, and Harry was all the more happier for it. This is especially considering that all the knowledge contained within the soul piece was now available to him, and school was now practically useless. As a bonus, Harry discovered that he also had metamorphogus potential in his blood due to his grandma being of Black blood which had now also been unlocked. On a whim, Harry asked the healer whether the soul fragment could have been influencing Harry in some way, to which he is told that if that were the case Harry would experience a constant dull headache not unlike that when faced with a legilimency attack, reminding him that he would have to build occlumency barriers as strong, if not stronger, as the Dark Lord had for himself.
Finally the time came, and Harry boarded the Hogwarts express. The Weasley's, while a nice family, were dismissed by Harry as being rather thickheaded for shouting about muggles and magic in the middle of a crowded station. Thus, when Ronald Weasley attempted to sit with Harry claiming that the other compartments are full, he called bullshit, embarrassing the redhead who was outed for simply trying to find the rich and famous Harry Potter to befriend. When Hermione Granger came around spouting random knowledge facts, Harry has begun to become irritated, and dismissed her with a snap and a few sharp words. By the time Draco Malfoy entered with his two goons, Harry was downright murderous, and demonstrated his prodigious knowledge of the knockback hex and the locking charm, Colloportus. If Harry believed he would fit in better with his fellow witches and wizards before, he had been disabused of that notion by that point.
The year continued normally from there. Harry was sorted into Ravenclaw, where he felt he would thrive best and not be driven to insanity by some of the more idiotic peers from his year. Subpar teaching from Professor Binns, Snape, and Quirrel meant that Harry largely ignores those classes and pursued self study. Not that Harry has been learning anything in class anyways. Voldemort, evil as he may have been, was one of the most magically learned men in history. Thus, Harry dedicated his time furthering that knowledge in the library and the room of requirement, which had practically become a second home for him.
Draco Malfoy's duel requests and Ron Weasley's attempts to become his friend were ignored alongside Hermione Granger's constant prattling. When Draco Malfoy stole Neville Longbottom's remembrall, Harry cared little, while Draco lost several hundred points for disobeying the direct command of a teacher. Halloween was spent by Harry in a somber mood, alone, where he took the time to mourn for his parents. When he learned of the troll that infiltrated the castle and killed Hermione Granger the next morning, he shrugs it off rather easily while thanking his lucky stars.
Christmas came around, and Harry received his father's legendary invisibility cloak. Voldemort's memories let Harry know several things at this point. Firstly, that the cloak was riddled with tracking charms and a compulsion to explore the castle at night, which he took the time to remove. Secondly, the writing and the magical signature on the slip of paper that came with the cloak match Albus Dumbledore, which surprised Harry little at this point. Lastly, the cloak was no ordinary one that faded within a decade and as made out of demiguise hair, but seemed to be a legendary artifact known as a Deathly Hallow. This was exciting for Harry, since he now knew the location of two of the three Deathly Hallows if he counted the Resurrection Stone. Speaking of the Resurrection Stone, Harry resolved to deal with Voldemort's horcruxes and his followers in the coming summer, so that he could put that chapter of life behind him.
The second half of the school year progressed with nothing of note occurring. Hagrid was fired from his job at Hogwarts and thrown into Azkaban for a decade of jail because he apparently tried to raise a dragon in a wooden hut. A wooden hut! Harry always knew there was something wrong with that man. The day before Harry was to leave Hogwarts aboard the train, he was called into Dumbledore's office where he was told of Quirrelmort's attempt to steal the 'Philosopher's Stone,' and his subsequent failing to leave the school because of Dumbledore. Nice try old man. As if a man who has lived 600 years and never lost the stone would simply give it to a senile old coot like Dumbledore. Either Dumbledore was a liar, or he was a fool. Regardless, Harry knew he wanted nothing to do with the situation, and that Voldemort needed to die as soon as possible. As of such, Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem was quickly brought to the Chamber of Secrets, where it was destroyed.
~o--HSatNR--o~
The Hogwarts Era Year 2/3 (2012 - 2014) - 3rd Person POV
The summer before second year was dedicated to destroying horcruxes. The Gaunt shack was relieved of the ring which was destroyed, while the Resurrection Stone was safely stowed away. Near the Gaunt house, Harry dug up a box buried there and retrieved the key to Bellatrix Lestrange's vault that he knew was kept there due to Voldie's memories. Helga Hufflepuff's cup was quickly destroyed as well, and thus Harry was already through with four of the six horcruxes. The cave by the sea revealed that Salazar's locket had been stolen away, which threw a wrench into Harry's plans until he remembered the house elf that accompanied Voldemort when he first went to place the locket into the basin. It didn't take long to convince Kreacher that the 'Destroyer of Voldemort' was capable of completing the task left to the house elf by his master Regulus, and thus the green locket was added to the pile of destroyed horcruxes. All that was left was the diary, the first horcrux, since Voldemort never got a chance to create his final horcrux within Nagini before his fall on the Halloween of 2001. Sneaking into the Malfoy grounds through the numerous protections while the family was away would have been difficult, had it not been for the Parseltongue password guarded backdoor into the wards that Voldemort had secretly installed into all his followers' homes. And so, the job was done. Since Voldemort was still in his wraith-like form and lacking a body, he simply ceased to be, and the dark mark vanished. With the Dark Lord dead, so too did all his marked followers perish due to the dark mark being attached to their soul and being a fundamental part of their life.
With Azkaban losing almost all its residents within a day, investigations began promptly which lead to the question of why Sirius Black, the supposed right hand of Voldemort, had not died alongside the other death eaters. One trial with Veritaserum later, Sirius Black was free and Harry Potter finally had a family. The rest of the summer was blissful, and Harry had never been happier. Introducing Sirius to Game of Thrones and watching the second season was easily done, and the godfather/godson duo grew even closer, along with Remus Lupin.
Harry's second and third year at Hogwarts passed with no significant events occurring at school, but contrastingly, life at the Black home was incredibly busy. You see, Harry's love for Game of Thrones had made him rather annoyed with the fact that he had to go without the show and all other muggle technology for nine out of the twelve months of the year. Give an incredibly stubborn, talented, resourceful man a problem, and it ends up being solved rather swiftly. It took Harry less than three weeks to develop a magic dampening runic array, which he proceeded to copyright with the ministry. Thus, Potter Industries was born. Sirius, eager to help his godson and make up for lost time, repurposed a Black family property (a previously unplottable island off the coast of Britain) to create the first ever magical mall. Potter Industries opened first with a simple shop that sold muggle technologies that worked in magical environments. From there, it ballooned to include a magical phone system based on a fusion of two-way mirrors and a portable floo, muggle clothes with magical charms, the first magical library, a new and improved potions shop with Andromeda Tonks as the potions mistress, a sports pub that showed quidditch matches on several big screen TVs, and practically everything else Harry could think of. Essentially, Harry drove the owners of the shops in Diagon Alley to the ground. Most shop owners simply had to close and find another line of work, while a select few like Ollivander's grudgingly moved to the new shopping hotspot and paid Harry rent for using up his space.
Harry was rich! Well, he was richer. Truthfully, the money wasn't really that important. Both the Black and the Potter families were ancient, and the money accumulated in the vaults was hardly ever used up. The whole experience for Harry was really a way to modernize Britain, and a fulfillment of his kingdom building fantasies from childhood on a minor scale. For once, Harry was content.
~o--HSatNR--o~
The Hogwarts Era Year 4 (2014 - 2015) - 3rd Person POV
Year 4 brought the first change to Harry's school life in a long time: The Triwizard Tournament. Harry had long ago had himself emancipated through the Ministry of Magic. Voldemort's memories let him know the correct people to 'donate to,' and Harry's burgeoning vaults were more than capable of providing the necessary funds. So when Harry's name came out of the Goblet of Fire the night of the choosing of champions as the representative of Hogwarts, he wasn't too surprised. This caused some hubbub with the population of Hogwarts due to the belief that a 4th year student would likely lessen the chances of a Hogwarts victory, but the outrage was quickly quashed by Harry's stellar performance in the first task.
Both students and adults alike were baffled to see Harry playing with the dragon as if it were a puppy. A mere puppy! While most would attribute Harry's success to some sort of charm invented to give Harry a smell that would cause the dragon to think of him as a newborn Hungarian Horntail, the truth was far more complicated. Harry knew that a human body could only undergo so many rituals before it started to warp and decay as Voldemort's had in the end. Before the first task, the few rituals that Harry had completed were those that enhanced his mind, body, and magic. But when he learned that he was to fight a dragon like the fantasy stories he had read as a child, Harry indulged himself into creating a highly complex ritual that would give him complete control over all dragons and allow him to communicate telepathically with them. Fuck yeah! He was the mother of dragons now! Except he was a dude, and he was more like their friend. But still! It was a practically useless ritual as it would almost never come in handy again, but in Harry's eyes, totally worth it.
Harry went on to take Fleur Delacour to the Yule Ball, who he thought was funny and intelligent, if a bit of a snobby girl. It was also the night he lost his virginity, and that was no mere coincidence either. It was a good night. Harry didn't believe that he would ever find a woman that was perfect for him as he was even though he was still quite young, and so he was content with one night stands and the company of beautiful women whenever he felt like it.
The number of women who wanted him only increased upon his win of the tournament, and Harry relegated himself to having to use his metamorphogus powers if he ever wanted to go into public places in the magical world. Oh well.
~o--HSatNR--o~
The Hogwarts Era Year 5/6 (2015 - 2017) - 3rd Person POV
The last several years of Harry's education at Hogwarts went without a hitch. He ended up achieving the highest ever OWLs scores ever with an O in every single subject that the Department of Magical Education offered. He knew that at the current pace that he was studying, he was going to be able to finish reading every book within the Hogwarts library by the middle of his sixth year, and so he decided to attempt his NEWTs a year early. Finishing once again with the highest scores ever recorded, Harry was ready to say goodbye to Hogwarts.
But before that, he had one more thing that he needed to do. You see, after discovering he had possession of two of the three Deathly Hallows, Harry nearly drove himself mad with research into figuring out where the third one lay. After using legilimency on Ollivander and then obliviating him, Harry broke into Nurmengard before his sixth year to interrogate Grindelwald. When he discovered that Albus Dumbledore was the man who currently held the Elder Wand, he couldn't have been more pleased. With one single slice at the throat with a knife, Harry was able to repay Dumbledore for all the horror he had endured with the Dursley's and recover an artifact of immeasurable power. All in a day's work. Pinning the blame on Argus Filch who was known for constantly muttering about how Dumbledore forced a squib like him to clean the massive school full of ungrateful brats was all too easy. Veritaserum wasn't even an option since squibs were thought of so lowly, and the trial was finished and Filch was thrown through the veil within a day of the murder.
~o--HSatNR--o~
Interlude (May 19, 2019) - 3rd Person POV
"Nonononono. COME ON! They have got to be kidding with this bullshit right?! Arya kills the Night King, Daenerys goes mad, and Jon goes beyond the wall?! What. The. FUCKKK!!!" Harry yelled and screamed at the TV. And as sad as the viewing party (which now consisted of Sirius, Remus, and the Tonkses) found the finale of the series, Harry's reaction had them all cracking up and their stomach's clenching with laughter. Harry's love for Game of Thrones was immeasurable, and now it seemed so was his disappointment.
In the void, Death, who now had a new 'master,' watched in mild amusement. "Maybe...," mused the entity. Thus, the beginnings of a plan began to form.
~o--HSatNR--o~
The Life and Times of Harry Potter (2017 - 2121) - 3rd Person POV
The rest of Harry's life was a joyful affair. The first thirty years of life after Hogwarts were spent travelling the world and learning any magic that had been lost to the Britain, and oftentimes the world as a whole. Be it old magic or new, dark or light, Harry learned it all. With an animagus form of a peregrine falcon, travel for Harry wasn't hard. He lived on the road and in his trunk, setting up a home wherever he pleased. By the time his world tour was over, Harry was happy to settle down, and returned to spend the rest of his years in Britain alongside Sirius, who was still the closest thing Harry had to a family.
Although Harry still sometimes ached for parents, friends, a spouse, and kids, he knew such things were lost to him in this life. Harry was willing to admit he had standards that were far too high and that he was unlikely to ever have met. Finding someone magical to be with was difficult due to his fame, and finding someone muggle was always a prospect Harry feared as he didn't want to sire another Tom Riddle to unleash upon the world if his spouse ended up hating him for his magic. Instead, Harry buried himself into his work. His rise in the political sphere was swift, and a mere fifteen years later Harry was Supreme Mugwump of the ICW, the highest office any magical can hold.
As he got older, Harry began to feel a pull towards the veil located within the Department of Mysteries. Thorough examination of the archway holding the veil revealed tiny etched runes in all sorts of ancient languages that essentially spoke of death, reincarnation, and a peaceful afterlife. In Harry's eyes, the veil was the most perfect death that anyone could wish for. And so, thirty years after Sirius' passing, Harry decided that it was time to leave this world in 2121, and walked off peacefully into the veil of death with his Deathly Hallows with him and all his other worldly possessions donated to various charities over the globe.
~o--HSatNR--o~
The Void (???) - 3rd Person POV
Harry was floating, unaware of his surroundings and with his senses dulled, when his eyes suddenly shot open with a gasp. That was when he came face to face with, you guessed it, Death. He sat back in a chair that had materialized behind him with a sigh. "You know," he drawled, "I always wondered if you were actually real or if the tale of the three brothers was a bunch of horseshit so that they could flaunt their own creations. I suppose now I know," he finished lazily with his mouth curling upwards.
"HA!" it barked out as a laugh. 'It' was the only way Harry could describe the entity he could see sat before him. There was no real discernible gender, age, race, or even species. Death was just a sort of presence. It seemed to be almost frosty in nature, which Harry supposed may have seemed to uncomfortable to most, but was rather soothing to him. "As if I would let anyone just become my master because three measly mortals escaped from my grasp for a couple of years," it continued with the story. "No no no, those three would have died eventually, be it in one week or one century. For someone as old as me, that kind of time isn't even comparable to a blink of an eye for you mortals. No, I was simply curious, and just a little bored," it elucidated with a slightly exasperated expression.
"So... I'm assuming I don't get to request anything of you then, huh?" Harry asked not expecting anything special.
"Oh au contraire my friend, I am about to make your greatest dreams come true," he spoke eagerly not unlike someone waiting for a gift to be unwrapped that they had sent. "I, am going to be sending you into the world of Game of Thrones, born as Jon Snow," it finished with a smirk.
Any and all protests that Harry was about to voice died in his throat. It was true that Harry had died of his own will and was weary of going back and living another life of his own. But living someone else's life? Living in Game of Thrones which to his death had always remained his favourite TV series? Harry felt like a kid in a candy store. There was no hesitation when he spoke "I accept."
Death continued on as if it had never doubted that Harry would give any different of an answer, which perhaps it never did. "You will be born retaining all of your mental faculties and memories including your occlumency barriers, your knowledge on the future of Game of Thrones, your magic that you have learned in this life, and the Deathly Hallows!" Then it mused to itself quietly, "Though it would be quite difficult and awkward to stuff a wooden stick, a stone, and a cloak into the womb with you." Then it cleared its throat and spoke again normally. "Alright chump change of plans. Instead of the Hallows I'll give you the power to wield magic wandlessly as easy as you could with the Elder Wand as well as the innate ability to turn invisible and summon the spirits of the dead at will. Oh, and you can keep the metamorphogus abilities as well."
"Hmm," Harry spoke up hesitantly. "Will I really have to grow up a bastard and the shame of Eddard Stark? Because as much as I liked the show I could definitely do without that whole aspect of the story."
At this Death gave a grin. "Don't worry about that. I've got a little surprise for you there which you ought to enjoy." With that, and a clap of its hands, the void began to dissolve to give way to a blindingly bright new world.
~o--HSatNR--o~
AN: And so it begins! I know, I know. This is super cliche and you've probably read some variant of this somewhere else already. Well, I am afraid that if you are thinking that, this entire fic will be rather unappealing to you, so be wary. That being said, I hope you enjoyed. Please favourite and review if you did. Thanks! :) - dfwmmnidb02