Seven years later...
It had been so long, but for the first time in almost a decade, he was heading back to where he began.
Though this time he was going legally, via an airplane. Slow, but discreet.
He had changed a lot in seven years.
Unlike most people his age, he never attended formal schooling. Not for a full decade anyway. No, he attained knowledge so fast after being hit by lightning that it made little sense to stick him in a classroom with other kids his age.
No, the American Ministry had harnessed his super speed and obvious intelligence and put it to good use.
He was an unofficial member of the government, though protected from the rather...passionate...members of the No Maj military.
There were a lot of people who would want to use Chris to "protect" the country from foreign elements, especially after 2001. People who wouldn't hesitate to kill and torture in order to find out how he was so fast in order to duplicate it on 'loyal' members of the military.
So instead he was put to work somewhere else. Somewhere his speed would be more...appreciated.
He worked in a library.
A bit low key, if anyone found out what he could do and how fast he went. But, he wasn't surprised in the least to find it was the perfect place for him to work, study, and get better. And best of all, as long as he produced results he never had to pay for his massive food bill ever again.
Chris was the best researcher the Ministry had. He could find any file, any random piece of material needed for critical cases. The American Aurors loved him, especially when it came down to hunting down old files that had been forgotten about. Or rushing papers to the courtroom in time-sensitive cases.
He liked to read. He earned a steady income putting books away, researching, and learning control over his speed.
It took a lot of control to be able to run fast, but not so fast that he knocked every book off the shelf. Again.
He had to run just fast enough to shelve the books (or remove them) without causing the wind to knock over the books. It took a lot of patience. Something he had in spades, contrary to what people might think.
Fortunately, he had plenty of time. An eleven year old had nothing but time. And he had spent seven years of it learning everything he could about his powers.
The problem was that things in England had started heating up. Really heating up.
Voldemort was back, and he was very close to conquering the place. Normally this wouldn't be his problem, except... rumor had spread that the missing boy-who-lived had a prophecy hanging over his head, stating that only he could kill Voldemort once and for all.
Because of that, the Englishmen had developed a rather worrying strategy to dealing with the Death Eaters, at least those known to associate with Dumbledore. They were basically letting them run roughshod over the idiots who believed in the old man.
Which meant that there would be a huge influx of people heading out of the country. Most of which would want to stay in English speaking places... like America for instance.
And the American Ministry was not interested in dealing with the surplus from the English. Not after the mess one wizard left by bringing things he most certainly shouldn't have. Besides, Chris was very bored, and this would certainly keep him out of trouble.
That, and he had some shiny vaults to claim now that he was of age and an adult wizard, by their standards.
"Welcome to England, Mr. ...I'm sorry, how do you pronounce this name?" asked the customs agent.
"Astraphobos, but I'm actually returning after being away for seven years," said Chris.
"I see. Passport please?" she asked.
He handed it over, and got it stamped.
"Welcome home to England, Mr. Astraphobos."
"I wish I could say it's because of fond memories," said Chris, taking it and heading through the line.
It took him little time to sign into the hotel. Since he was there with the blessing of the Queen and the president of the US, he got a discreet room that wouldn't draw too much attention to himself.
Most people his age would either go the super cheap route, hoping to save money...or blow their money on an extravagant place that really wasn't worth it except to show how rich you were.
He chose a popular hotel that was cheap, reliable, and part of a chain that was familiar to him.
Once he was settled, he made a plan of attack. The basic plan was simple.
The Queen was sick and tired of the threat to her people, and she wasn't buying the line that the Ministry was selling her. The thing was, she couldn't trust her military to end it, because they wouldn't know where to look, never mind have enough of the right tools.
Chris had been around the enclaves enough to remember where they were, or at least a gist of where they had been. He had access to the largest library in the Americas. He spent seven years refining his control, performing experiments on his powers, and learning everything he could under the guidance of more experienced magicals.
Unlike their mundane counterparts, the Magical society wasn't that greedy to replicate unusual powers in normal people.
This was because they knew that one well trained magical with a large enough core was more effective than a hundred ill trained people with ill-gotten powers that had no idea what they were doing.
And Chris had been training a long, long time to discover limits, content with small leaps in progress.
The next morning he went to work.
Chris opened up the window, and immediately closed it. He had forgotten how depressing England's weather was, and that wasn't getting into the fact he hated mornings.
He debated on getting breakfast, but considering he had the most annoying habit of waking early despite hating it, he chose to get to work.
An hour later...
"Holy crap. How much has that guy eaten?" whispered an American woman on her European vacation from college.
"Looks like someone went partying last night. Wonder if he knows any good spots?" replied her friend grinning.
"Still as good as back home. Thank god for chain hotels!" said Chris, stretching.
Thanks to an hour's worth of power-reading through old records, coupled with Google maps, he was able to locate all the potential Death Eater manors and homes. Next was using some of the lost spells to find out which were the most active and eliminate them.
Honestly, the magicals of England were idiots. It only took him a little research and he found the best hiding spots of the Death Eaters, or those suspected of being Death Eaters.
Now that he had locations, he had to make sure his cover was solid.
Time to enjoy being a tourist. Or a refresher, in his case.
Chris noticed pretty quick when the two attractive American girls wandered over to his table.
"Hey, we were just wondering," started the first. A pretty brunette with a Midwestern accent.
"If you knew the best places to party," finished her friend, an equally attractive red head.
"As a matter of fact, I know the perfect places to go. So what are you in England for? Tourist traps, hot night spots, or just seeing Europe during the summer break?" he asked, his own American accent obvious.
"Sightseeing, but we wouldn't say no to someone who knows the area."
"Well you're in luck. I used to live in England till I moved to America, and I can find all the best hot spots that only a local would know," said Chris grinning.
Inwardly he was laughing, because these two would provide the best cover he'd ever need. No one would question an attractive boy spending time in Europe with two equally attractive girls, especially if he was leading them to the best spots.
Somewhere in the misty countryside...
While it was disappointing leaving Clarissa (the hot brunette) and Cathleen(the red head), the unfortunate fact was that duty called.
Besides, he was a veritable monk at this point. He didn't like distractions very well, and hormones were extremely distracting.
Most teens his age got up to stupid stunts that got them killed trying to impress girls.
He found new ways to get his adrenaline fix without getting into trouble. Explosions were awesome that way, especially when they were for a good cause.
Seeing the massive mansion on the hill with the monogrammed gates, Chris smirked and not in a good way.
He changed into his special shoes, then made sure they were snugly on his feet.
"One," he said, taking a single step towards the house.
"Two."
"Three."
And with a blink of an eye, he was gone.
In that place, time stood still. His body was literally moving so fast that time moved around him, instead of the other way around. He walked up to the people in outdated robes, and casually lifted up the sleeves. If there was a skull and snake tattoo, he stabbed them with a needle with a concentrated dose of king cobra venom. With the way the needle was designed, it looked like they had gotten bit by a very angry snake.
Considering Voldemort's reputation for snakes and using them in his raids, it wasn't likely the Aurors or other Death Eaters would look closely enough at the cause of death enough to figure out something was wrong.
A single touch of his hand, and he made the Death Eaters vibrate at a frequency that caused the venom to go through their blood at an accelerated rate.
By the time he left, the venom would have gone through their body to the point that they'd never get help in time.
Not unless they had phoenix tears on hand in the next three minutes, which was unlikely considering he was going to steal everything.
Thank god for expanded trunks.
Chris left the manor after robbing it blind, and killing damn near every occupant in the house. Only a few escaped his visit, and those were people who were too young to really be held accountable.
He walked out of the manor, past the gates and was whistling as he picked up his bag and went Between back to the street that his hotel was on.
With how often he traveled England when he first got his powers and how unlikely things were to change in an area the pure bloods lived in, he had been able to visualize the place easily enough once he knew what he was looking for.
Anne McCafferey wasn't entirely full of it when she described the area known as "Between". Though she really, really understated how cold it was. Or that only 'dragons' could access it.
It was the original form of Apparition, except it was a bit more liberal on the landing. You could go anywhere and anywhen if you had a strong enough visual.
It was just that people tended to get lost when they tried to time travel, so it was restricted to just 'anywhere' and they deliberately forgot a few things.
Hence the pulled through straw sensation Chris had despised. He never used apparition again once he found the original way to teleport places.
Now for the awkward part.
"Tipsy! Jenks! I'm going to need a Time Special," said Chris clearly.
"At once, Master Astra!" they replied in unison.
After the first week of seeing the food bill, the Ministry had assigned two house elves to keep him fed. It was cheaper that way. They could produce massive quantities of food, and they didn't demand payment for cooking.
Besides, only house elves could keep up with the food demands of a speedster who metabolized too quickly for even a fast food chain to keep up with.
Case in point, the epic breakdown of staff moral after the time Chris went to France and back. There had been so much arguing and yelling trying to keep up with demand that he had vowed not to do that again without having the food already prepared first.
Hence why the elves had been trained to make large quantities of foods that were slow to digest, like stew or large sub sandwiches. They also handled the clean up.
Twenty minutes later, he let out a loud belch before making sure the door was locked.
"Good work as always. Now to see what sort of goodies I managed to snag."
He put the small trunk on the ground, tapped it twice and waited for it to become normal sized before he went inside.
There was an entire library's worth of books, all of them from the personal collection of the Malfoy family. And that wasn't getting into the trinkets, gold and other personal belongings that could be resold later once they were 'scrubbed' of anything that would identify them.
Take the jewelry for example. Removing the jewels and melting the metals would make it impossible for them to be traced.
Being a thief had it's advantages.
"Nasty. Then again the Malfoys were always rather...unpleasant... even when they were French. Too bad for the family, I'm a linguist as well as a librarian," grinned Chris.
He closed the trunk, and sent it on ahead to the Library and grabbed the remote. He planned to crash for a few hours before he repeated his success.
When he read the byline of the Daily Prophet, his grin was a bit bigger. Nice to be noticed.