Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Last Chapter:
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As the smaller potion hit Harry, I began to fear the worst. Then I heard Voldemort scream and saw him vaporize or at least I thought so. A second later Harry began to glow; I saw a small stream of magic coming from Harry hit me. I don't know what happened next as I lost consciousness.
Chapter 3
Forward to the Future
Jun 7 1996 – Harry's 5th year summer:
He had mourned for Sirius for the last week. The Dursleys had left him alone. He had thought a lot in that one week. Until now everything had been an adventure, unwelcome but still it was three friends solving a puzzle, beating the odds, nothing else. Even when Cedric died it had not registered fully. But now he had finally realized that there was a war going on and based on the prophecy he was going to decide the outcome.
As he lay down on his bed, thinking, he wondered about his odds. Even the most Compulsive gambler would not bet on him. He wanted to live. If he is going to survive, he cannot wait for Dumbledore to get off his ass and do something. He had 16 years to do something and all he did was placed him in hell and forget about him. Even this year after Voldemort had come to power, he had not undergone any training. He had to teach others. All the training he got was the torture that Snape dished out. The more he thought about it the more he realized that the prophecy was a little too convenient. You don't tell a guy that he has to kill a monster just after he lost the closest thing to a father and when asked why you did not tell this before reply that the time was never right.
He thought he should forget everything he heard about the wizarding world and start anew. Harry started to make a list of things to do.
1. Gringotts: Every thing about his finances, after all the Potters were a very old family.
2. Books: about ancestry, law, ministry, Wizengomot, tracking charms, Defense, Dark arts, ancient magic, about Merlin the father of modern Magic, Morgan le Fay the first known dark lady and Merlin's equal, Glamour and scars. Occlumency and Legilimency and any others he could think of.
3. Optical.
4. Nutrient potions and gym or self defense classes.
5. A way to practice magic during summer.
6. Extra protection dragon skin coat.
7. Magical training: unspeakable or hit wizard training. Aurors were similar to Bobbies he needed military training.
8. Time travel, time turners.
9. High security trunks.
10.Last but not least new wardrobe.
Jun 14 1996
The last week he had not been able to go to Diagon alley. But he had got a mail order catalogue. He had ordered some of the basic books he needed. He was also able to determine the order's guard schedule. The easiest would be during Dung's turn or Tonks turn, but he did not want the order to blame Tonks. He had also been able to join a gym that provided with some self defense classes along with endurance training.
He had started running in the morning and evening and went to the gym in the afternoons. His diet was a little better but not up to the required level. He planned to change it during his visit to Diagon alley.
He had read some of the law books on underage magic. He realized that it was one of the recent laws proposed by Fudge. The author had also mentioned that this was not effective as the purebloods have ways of preventing the ministry from knowing about the magic performed in their home. It made sense as he doubted that Malfoys always seemed to know more about dark arts than allowed in Hogwarts.
Jun 21 1996
He had finally been able to visit Diagon alley. He had just wrapped his invisibility cloak and just walked to the end of the street during dung's watch. Once he was at the street end he called for the knight bus and went down to Diagon alley. He had learnt a lot about his heritage at gringotts. He was the descendent of all founders and Merlin. He was not a direct heir to any of the families but if Voldy died he would he the next heir of Slytherin and if Dumbles died he would be the next heir of Gryffindor. Right now it did not affect him much other than he would get a little more power when he comes to age at 17.
He also learned that his vault was less than 1 percent of the total Potters assets. Though he cannot access more than 10 of the total assets until he is of age it will increase to 50 percent when he is 17 and 75 percent when he is 35. The remaining 25 percent is always in a family trust and the interest provides for any children if the father is a gambler and has squandered all the money. In addition to all this his godfather had left him a lot of money and books. He also owned a number of properties. He was currently the heir of both the potter and Black houses.
He also found a few ways to prevent the minister from monitoring the magic performed in his house. 1. Get his guardians to sign a form to allow him to do magic. This was out of the question. Hell would freeze over twice before the Dursleys would sign anything like it.
2. Remove the ministry charms from the wand. This was very illegal and once in Hogwarts the monitoring charms shifted from the ministry to Hogwarts and that would lead to a no of questions.
3. Get emancipated. It was something he planned to do. But now was not the right time. Dumbles was not very busy now and he would definitely prevent this. He had signed every thing and left it with his account manager to be submitted at the right time.
4. The last and best option was buy a trunk that was spacious, secure and prevented the monitoring charms from knowing what's going on inside it.
So he had gone to the trunk store and got one of the best trunks he could find. It had 6 compartments. The first compartment looked like a normal trunk and had a bottomless charm. The second compartment was a two bedroom apartment. The third compartment was a library but it was not stocked. The fourth compartment was a gym / exercise room. The fifth compartment was a potions lab and the last compartment was a dueling chamber. All the chambers were protected against magical detection. It could be camouflaged into a briefcase or a school trunk. It had magical signature based security. Only when he touched the trunk with his wand or hand and pushed a small amount of magic the trunk will open, not even a polyjuiced person will have his signature. The trunk also had a weightless charm.
He shopped some more for furniture and other necessities for the trunk, like gym equipment, bedding etc. He shopped for a full wardrobe, both muggle and wizarding. He also got some dragon hide clothes from the store next to it. He found out that basilisk skin was much stronger than dragon hide and older the better. So he did not buy too much dragon hide clothes.
The next place he went was Flourish & Blotts Bookstore. He got one copy of every book they had including rare and old books. He then visited the apothecary and stocked up enough ingredients to make Snape drool. He also got plenty of nutrient potions so that he could make up for the years of abuse his body suffered at the Dursleys.
He proceeded to Fortescue's ice cream parlor, to enquire about food supplies as he could not find anything related to food in the alley. It seems wizards rely on house elves or magic for most of their food supplies. Those who cook like Mrs.Weasley have a two way cupboard that is directly stocked by the farmers by magic. It reminded him of the Florida Orange juice ad he had seen on TV, where the customers hand goes through the shelves in the store and come out in the orange plantation. Fortescue informed him that there was an outdoor camping store that might have some thing like a bag of never ending supply of sandwiches. After thanking Fortescue he went to the Camping store it was right at the junction of Diagon and Knockturn alley. He stocked with enough food to last him for a year. After finishing of at the camping store he found a magical optical store called Magic eyes.
He had gone crazy with the options. He now had magical contacts that never had to be changed and it automatically changes the power. With a thought it could change into a binocular or microscope. It could change his eye color. He could see through invisibility cloaks and sense magic from objects. It also had heat sensing mode and night vision. He could change settings with a thought and he would not suffer much disorientation after some practice. Overall it was money well spent and not many could sneak up on him.
After he had finished all his shopping he had gone home by knight bus. No one even realized that he had left the house. But he had been lucky as mad eye moody arrived ½ hour after he returned.
Jun 30 1996
He had worked 16 hours daily. He had established a schedule to maximize his time utilization.
His schedule looked something like this.
Time
5:00 Wake Up
6.00 Running
7.00 Cook Dursleys Breakfast
8.00 Transfiguration : Read /Practice/Think of Ways to use it in duels
9:00 Defense: Read /Practice/Think of Ways to use it in duels
10:00 Charms: Read /Practice/Think of Ways to use it in duels
11:00 Read Law, History/ Wars, Stealth Charms
12 noon Lunch
1:00 Potions
2:00 Gym
3:00 Self Defense Classes
4:00 Potions
5:00 Light Reading
6:00 Strategy / Battle Planning
7:00 Cook Dursleys Dinner
8:00 Heritage and Ancestry
9:00 Legilimency / Occlumency
10:00 Practice Occlumency
11:00 Sleep
Jul 28 1996
He had been following his schedule more or less closely. He was improving tremendously, knowledge wise he probably knew 30 more than what he already knew. But over all it was not much. He was probably on level with a 7th year or an Auror trainee. He realized how much his defense classes lacked and he was the best in his class. Probably other than his friends and the DA all fifth years were probably at 3rd or 4th year level in defense. Even with all the draw backs he was improving in strategy. He started replaying duels against Voldy in his mind. He started thinking what he did wrong, what curses he could use. He would definitely not be using stupefy and disarming charms against Death Eaters.
He would be treating this like a war. He would curse to disable. He still was not comfortable killing anyone other than Voldy and probably his inner circle. The next time he curses a Death Eater he is going to cut off his arm or leg and break of his wand so that even if he escapes he is going to be out of service for a very long time. He also knew Voldy was not a forgiving man and he did not have time for cripples.
He had only read the basics of Law, but he realized that both Dumbledore and Fudge have stamped on his rights under their leg and pushed it under the rug. As he was the Potter heir he had a seat in the Wizengomot and he could not be put on trial just like that. There was a whole set of rules to be followed and Fudge could not change the time at the last minute. The more he read about the law the more loopholes he found. He noted them down so that he could use them later.
The history, Ancestry and heritage books he had read were informative. He was able to understand various traditions of the wizarding world. He was also able to understand a lot of prejudices of the wizarding world. One thing shined through all of history, wizards and witches were lazy or they did not care what happened to their neighbor. There was no neighborhood watch, no community committee. Only Diagon alley, Hogwarts or their workplace were the places were they met with others of the wizarding community. There was no sense of society. They don't care if some one killed another wizard as long as the ministry acted as if they were doing something. As long as Voldemort did not attack them they were ready to stick their heads in the sand, even if they don't agree with his policy. The order of the Phoenix was the closest to an army that the wizarding world had. Hit wizards or UnSpeakables were very few in number to be effective against a large group. All this meant, he and a bunch of middle aged people and school students were going to solve the Voldemort problem.
He started reading up on Glamour and camouflage charms. He was getting better at stealth. He practiced it on the Dursleys and he was able to take more food from the refrigerator when they were in the living room. With all the time he spent in the gym and running around along with good food and nutrient potions he had grown at least an inch and he put on some muscles around his bones. He was getting better in potion making without Snape hovering over him. He also read the basic books in potions that explained the properties of various ingredients, why two ingredients could not be mixed and what reactions can be expected, etc. All this should have been explained by Snape at the very first class instead of taking points off for breathing or answering them correctly incase of Hermione.
His Occlumency was also improving. He was able to stop Voldemort's emotions most of the time. He realized that the Snape's method was used to test a trained occlumence. He started meditating to clear his mind and slowly build shields around his mind. He had built a thin outer shield. Then he built a core shield that was reinforced and extremely strong. The gap between the two shields had been filled with fog and anyone that broke into his mind would be lost in the fog. As this was his mind, physical distance had no meaning, so the fog spread out for miles. He also imagined a magic dampening field wherever the fog was present, so that some one could not just disperse the fog and what ever magic that they used was absorbed by him making them weaker by the second. His inner shield looked like it was part of the fog so some one looking at it could not know that it was his inner shield. If some one got past all this he had barb wires, electrified fences, watch dogs and dragons protecting his mind. If some one was able to get past all this to access his memory, they would just see encrypted memory and the key was his magical signature and a parsel password. So the only person who could come close to accessing his memory was Voldemort and he still had to guess a lengthy password. He had also spread out some bubbles in the fog to capture the intruder. It would not be permanent but it was long enough to make them think twice before trying again. He still had some work to do on sorting his memories and encrypting his memories but he was well on his way. He had put Legilimency on hold until he was satisfied with his Occlumency skills.
Over all he was happy that he had something to do and that he was improving himself.
Author Notes:
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Please review. If you feel if there are any grammatical errors please send me a mail and I will correct it.