XXX
Story: [Children of Aincrad]
Summary: "Not for children under the age of thirteen" the casing had said. But Dudley always got what he wanted.
Crossover: (Sword Art Online) / (Harry Potter)
Genre: Drama, Family
XXX
Dudley Dursley always got what he wanted.
That was just one of those inescapable facts of life, as far as Harry was concerned.
So, it hadn't come as a surprise to anyone that the ten-year old had been given the newest game-system on the market the moment that he'd asked for it.
A helmet that was supposed to immerse the player entirely into a virtual reality of their choice. And a game filled with sword-fights.
Yes, Harry Potter had expected his aunt and uncle's quick action to secure the limited edition game for their son. Regardless of if he was probably-too-young for the 'guidelines' of the manual to recommend exposing him to it.
After it'd been declared that his cousin's physical health wouldn't be in any danger from playing the game, uncle Vernon had simply scoffed at the guidelines and said that his son was "made of sterner stuff".
So, Harry had expected his cousin to be hooked up to the mechanically fascinating NerveGear.
What he hadn't expected was for his cousin and aunt to have bought a spare, and for Harry himself to be told to make use of the completely-unnecessary spare system in an effort to convince his cousin to come back out.
Apparently, "made of sterner stuff" or no, the Dursleys had no intention to mess with the set-up even after they'd realized that they couldn't actually communicate to their son that dinner was ready and he really should put the game down.
So, that was now Harry's job, because neither his aunt nor uncle seemed even remotely inclined to try the strange helmet on for themselves. Quickly declaring that it was a toy, and that toys were for children, not adults.
They still managed to get in a mutter somewhere along the lines of freaks not technically classifying for toys, but that it was better than for two respectable adults to lower themselves by acting like children.
Harry didn't argue.
Even if it would only last for a few minutes until he could find Dudley and tell him about dinner – he sincerely doubted that he would need to do much convincing, if only because Dudley never missed a meal if he could help it – Harry would be allowed to see the enviable wonders of Aincrad, the fictional world which Sword Art Online took place in.
XXX
Harry found Dudley barely an hour after the System Announcement where they'd all received the mirrors.
It had been a lot easier trying to find him, once he could actually recognize him by sight in order to look for him.
But by the time he'd found him, the original reason for doing so had already disappeared. Dinner? Putting the game down? They were trapped in a Death Game together with 10,000 other players, and the only way out was to battle the monsters of this world, all the way to the top of the 100 levels.
People had already been dying. And there was no escape to be had.
Harry found Dudley, and he dragged him over to the rest of the children their age – the others who had ignored the guidelines – and he pretended not to see the tear-tracks on his cousin's face.
Harry didn't cry.
He hadn't cried in years.
XXX
It's interesting how magic works.
In fact, it was so interesting that a whole slew of various ambitious people had spent their lifetimes desperately trying to force it to start to make sense. So far, they'd all been completely unsuccessful.
However, one of the few things that most of these people would agree on – though some of them would do so with visual frustration – is that magic and electronics tend to be 'incompatible', in that when you introduce magic to electronics, pretty much anything could happen.
It could function perfectly for years. It could short-circuit in an instant. It could explode. It could implode. It could walk away. It could dance away. It could just inexplicably not function at all. And trying to understand why it'd done any of these things had driven some wizards completely bonkers.
No, the inner functionings of magic were interesting, but they were also fairly impossible to predict.
So when a young wizard placed a highly complicated piece of electronic equipment on his head, and then in his rising panic found himself trapped within it, strange things happened.
Oh, the magic didn't short-circuit the almost-helmet, and it didn't pull him away from the looming horrors of the new world its creator had trapped him in, but it did something.
And months later, when hundreds upon hundreds of letters remained unanswered, and Rubeus Hagrid arrived on the hospital's doorstep searching for the boy that he'd once carried to the home of his last living relatives, well... plans changed.
Harry Potter was trapped in an artificially created coma. The muggles had no way of waking him – and they'd tried, oh but how they'd tried – or any of the others who'd been trapped in there with him.
But muggles don't have magic, and so Albus had arrived in person to deal with the pesky muggle machine that was keeping the Boy-Who-Lived from properly attending Hogwarts.
Except, it wasn't actually a muggle machine.
Not anymore.
Magic could be interesting like that.
So Albus Percival Wulfric Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Supreme Mugwump, and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, found himself staring helplessly at the unresponsive face of the young boy who was prophesied to save their world.
There was nothing he could do. No magic that he could think of that wouldn't run the sudden risk of taking the boy's head off along with the helmet attached to it.
And so, in that quiet little muggle hospital room, a thousand plans within plans all came crashing down around his ears.
XXX
It took Harry two months to get sick of the church and the constant presence of other children.
Dudley was still a bit more skittish than normal, but he seemed to get along fine. The other children had all brightened up considerably when the first month ended with the clearing of the First Floor, perhaps more visibly projecting the sudden influx of hope that blew through the Starting City with the proof that there was still a way out.
But the more time he spent in that church, surrounded by people that never went away, the more Harry felt as if he just needed to get away.
Except, the children were everywhere in the Starting City, because it was a Safe Zone, and so they were given free reign to play.
So, in a possibly-suicidal attempt to not have to deal with people trying to talk to him, trying to befriend him, trying to play with him, Harry stepped outside of the Safe Zone.
There were boars. And he had a sword. And he needed something to do other than simply revel in the blissful silence of not having people pressing down on him from every angle.
So he fought one.
And he fought two.
And two became three, which became four, which became five.
And that was how he spent the fourth day of the third month since being trapped within the game.
XXX
Harry was a strange child.
That was something everyone who'd encountered the small child would agree with. Whether it be the ten-year old's willingness to risk his life fighting mobs just to be able to do anything other than play with children his own age, or the unfalteringly polite mask that did little to take the sting off his rather finely honed sarcasm, Harry most certainly didn't act his age.
The woman in charge of the church, Sasha, had almost had a heart-attack once she'd realized exactly what Harry suddenly gaining levels actually meant that he was doing all on his own. But in the end all she could really do was caution him, time and again, and try to make sure that he always had a relieved face to return to.
It wasn't as if she could ask the older children to keep more than a general eye on him, since his whole reason for leaving was to escape from everyone else.
Most of the younger children were also quick to realize that Harry's levels were climbing, and just as quickly came to the conclusion that he therefore could do things that they couldn't. There'd been some griping about whether that counted as 'cheating' and whether or not he should be banned from playing with the rest of them since him taking part turned the odds 'unfair', but Dudley refused to hear any of it.
So, even when Harry's levels climbed highly enough that he moved onto the Second Floor to find mobs to fight, Dudley would always ensure that he would be allowed back into their games, even if they did find various ways to handicap his raised stats.
XXX
Harry wasn't exactly famous amongst the Middle Floor Players, not like Silica managed to be without trying, but he wasn't an unknown. Not really, anyway.
He was the youngest Active Player, even if only by a bit over a year. He was unusually quiet, he reacted to threats by attacking them rather than fleeing, and he was perfectly willing to stand up for himself and others.
Whilst most probably wouldn't remember his name, few of the Middle Floor Players hadn't at least spotted him once or twice, and Dudley told him that there'd been more than a few rumors about him that had been popping up over the last year.
Still, despite partying with some other Players every now and then, Harry continued to play as a Solo, wandering through the Middle Floors and slowly raising his levels.
It was important to keep a decent safety margin when dealing with mobs, but he did climb levels, slowly but surely.
And sometimes the other children his age back at the church would pester him to tell them about what kind of mobs he'd been fighting lately, and whenever he was too tired to deal with them, Dudley always seemed to appear, ready to drag the more persistent ones away from him by force.
If Dudley hadn't easily been the larger of the two of them, Sasha could've sworn that Harry was the 'older brother' that the other boy could brag about to the rest of the children. And even then, she wasn't entirely willing to surrender the idea.
The way that Dudley's eyes would light up whenever Harry returned from his trips between the Floors was simply too adorable for her to let the image of big-brotherhood go.
XXX
All Active Players had at least one story about Red Players. Whether it be a personal experience, a brief glimpse, or a more distant rumor.
Harry was no different.
He hadn't ever been forced to kill a Red Player in a desperate attempt to stay alive or anything, but he'd veered off his planned course more than once in order to avoid encountering them. Turns out, working desperately on his Detect skills in a Dursley-inherited fit of paranoia hadn't been a bad choice. So he avoided the murderers, and he reported their locations when he could.
But he saw an older boy standing in front of Silica, and he felt admiration.
Because that boy was a Clearer, and despite that – despite that he should be focusing all his efforts on gaining more levels and better gear so that he can survive the eternally desperate struggle on the front lines – he was willing to help.
And from a distance, Harry classified a certain Player dressed all in black as a good person.
XXX
When the Boy-Who-Lived didn't arrive at Hogwarts' doorstep when he really ought to, Albus was faced with the backlash fury of all those who'd trusted him when he'd told them that Harry Potter was in a safe place.
He hadn't been lying, the boy had been safe from Death Eaters and other wizards. But it hadn't protected him from muggles.
And now he had to deal with the consequences of something he'd completely failed to factor into his plans, with seemingly all of Magical Britain in an uproar, and the blame they were placing on Albus's shoulders being completely understandable.
He'd long since expected a fall from grace, he'd even planned for it rather extensively, because he'd always known that fame came at a price, and that more often than not the price was fickleness.
People would laud a hero, but a hero that made mistakes – a hero that was human – would be cursed and painted in the vilest colors they could find. That was simply human nature.
No, he'd long since expected an outcry from the public. He just hadn't expected it to be from the lack of the Boy-Who-Lived.
He couldn't reveal the boy's location, even now, because he was vulnerable in that little muggle hospital room, but he was still forced to explain the situation in all too exquisite detail to the Wizengamot.
They couldn't rescue him, and after many grueling hours of arguments, even the thickest of the Ministry employees could all agree on one thing.
The Boy-Who-Lived was lost to them.
Some agreed bitterly, others resignedly, but they all agreed.
Because there was a program set up in the muggle world to take place when the victims woke from their forced comas, and that program wouldn't allow for even a single youth to slip through their cracks. Not without the entire muggle government standing at their side to help, and they'd made it more than clear that the Ministry should keep their paws where they belonged, and far far away from the people that they were in charge of.
No, the Boy-Who-Lived might be a wizard, but he would live out his schooling as a muggle.
He would never arrive at Hogwarts' doorstep, because the system had long since turned from paper copies and human memories, and the Statute of Secrecy wasn't worth risking for the attempted removal of one person from the muggle world. Even if that person was the famous Boy-Who-Lived.
They would have to let the muggles have him, though if there were any displays of accidental magic from the boy, perhaps there would still be some wriggle-room in convincing the muggle government to look the other way.
Muggles couldn't deal with magic, that was just how these things went, so if it could ever be proved that the Boy-Who-Lived was magical enough for his presence in the muggle world to endanger the Statute of Secrecy, then it shouldn't be long before they could pull him into the welcoming arms of Hogwarts.
But if Albus was honest with himself, it was a very slim chance.
Even so, all they could do for now was wait and see. And hope.
XXX
Harry took a deep breath and pretended not to feel his cousin's near-skeletal fingers digging into his own as his grips tightened uncomfortably.
It'd been nearly a month since the Final Boss had been revealed and defeated. Since they'd been freed from the game. Since they'd awoken weak and fragile in their hospital beds.
And now their rehabilitation had reached far enough along that the doctors and nurses had finally agreed that there was going to be a 'talk'.
Because Harry had been underweight when he arrived at the hospital, and Dudley had been overweight, and the Dursleys had never been very subtle during their visits to their comatized forms. It had apparently been easy even for the overworked staff of the hospital to recognize the signs of an abusive household when it was carted in front of their eyes.
So they'd been asked to talk to some people from the government who were responsible for things like that, and Dudley had broken down in tears more than once as he miserably admitted to having partaken in his parents treatment of his cousin. And Harry had stood by him.
Because Dudley wasn't a bad person. He was a victim of his parents just as surely as Harry was. No, probably even worse, because whilst Harry was a target, Dudley had been carefully constructed into a tool to be wielded against him.
Harry wasn't entirely sure about how long Vernon and Petunia Dursley would be locked away, but apparently he had an indefinite restraining order on both of them anyway, so he didn't really need to know. He was free.
Dudley obviously took the whole thing harder, because his parents had always been nice to him, they'd always tried to make him happy, and this was all hitting him a lot like a crate of bricks.
Still, with the government already going out of their way to keep the victims of the SAO-Incident together in an effort to carefully catalog any potential lingering mental problems that might be cropping up, the social services were more than happy to keep the two of them together.
So Harry watched unmoving as two of the most horrible people he'd ever known were locked behind bars, all the while carefully keeping himself from commenting on it. Because those people were Dudley's parents, and he hurt badly enough as it was.
He squeezed his cousin's hand back.
XXX
It'd surprised everyone involved when Sasha had somehow ended up being their legal guardian.
It made sense to place the two of them with someone who understood what they'd lived through within the game, and Sasha did have a lot of experience both around children and around themselves in particular. But it'd still come as a shock.
They'd been given a new apartment big enough for all three of them, since the lease on Sasha's old one had long since run out, and the government was more than willing to inject a bit of money into integrating its citizens back into the 'real world' as soon as possible. Which in this case had meant making sure that everyone had a roof over their heads for however long it took them to get their jobs back.
The more general childcare stipend certainly hadn't harmed the three SAO-survivor's monetary concerns.
Life quickly settled into a strange routine of talking to psychiatrists, keeping in touch with other former Players, and visiting the hospital for continued checkups on their physical rehabilitation.
And soon school would start again. A school filled with others like them, who'd also just lost almost two-and-a-half years worth of studying.
Apparently, some of the older children were quite upset about that.
XXX
Harry stared at the NerveGear.
Dudley had violently destroyed his, Sasha had dumped hers in the garbage, and most of the other children had done some variation of either.
Harry's still remained perfectly pristine.
He kept it away from sight, so that the others wouldn't be reminded of it and what it represented, but he didn't let go of it.
Perhaps it was that it had been the indirect instrument of his escape from the Dursleys, from his cupboard under the stairs. Perhaps it was that Aincrad had given him a taste for what freedom truly meant for the first time in his life, even if it was really only a much larger cage than his previous one. Perhaps he was simply too cheap to give up something so expensive, no matter how horrible the thing in question was.
Perhaps he just didn't feel comfortable sleeping with it out of reach.
Harry frowned at it, and then turned around in his bed in order to stare at the wall instead.
He slept like a log.
XXX
A/n: I don't really know where to go from there. Harry would never be able to use a wand, because his 'focus' is his NerveGear, and because of that pretty much all magic would be impossible for him to do.
He would never be able to do much of anything at all with his magic. At least, not in the real world. I suppose that it's possible for him to become a kind of internet-wizard (note, not a technology-wizard, but an internet-wizard) and have more or less free reign over all of the internet software in the world. But it'd probably take him a few years to figure that out, and I can't really think of anything super-exciting that he could do with that ability that I would want to try writing.
Basically, if the Harry in this story is ever put against Voldemort, his weapon-of-choice would be pretty much useless against him (unless he hacked the launch codes for some nuclear weapons, which would be opening up a whole new can of worms). And frankly, I'm pretty sure that the rest of the Wizarding World would know this to at least some degree, because he's growing up muggle, and so Voldemort wouldn't really have any reason to prove himself better by seeking Harry out.