Chapter 3

Disclaimer: who cares.

8 years later

Harry woke up with a loud groan, falling asleep reading was fun but it made him detest getting up for school in the morning. Going to school at such a young age was considered odd in the wizarding world with most Wizards first taste of school being Hogwarts at eleven, only muggleborns and the occasional half blood bothered attending muggle schooling.

"Its a shame" thought Harry he found it quite useful to get some schooling thought he suspected he was in the minority, most kids his age detested schooling. Harry was one of the top students there and he always found it quite odd how he seemed to enjoy being at school more than being around his family.

After throwing on his clothes Harry made his way downstairs to the kitchen, it was silent and empty at this time in the morning, Harry knew the rest of the family would not be down for food this early in the morning.

Harry sighed as he sat down to eat and began to reflect on his parents and sibling, he always knew he felt apart from the family, he certainly didn't have the connection his brother Jim had with James and Lilly. To say he was unloved would be unfair, his parents still seemed to care for him but to Harry it always seemed they were more interested in what Jim said or did, even Remus and his Godfather Sirius were guilty of the same fact. As for his thoughts on his brother, well they were best left unsaid. Harry had grown to deeply dislike his brother in the past few years, Jim was far too arrogant for Harry's liking.

"Well it wasn't always like that" thought Harry gloomily. Indeed Harry could remember growing up as babies together that Jim was quite friendly, unfortunately it seemed Jim's fame had gotten to his head as he grew up and made him into an arrogant fool. His parents were to blame too, before they had raised Jim as any other boy but as the years went on they had began to succumb to the fame of the boy-who-lived and began to pamper Jim. They weren't as bad as some parents Harry had read about as they at least disciplined Jim but Harry shuddered to think what would happen the day even that tiny piece of parenting vanished. He really did not look forward to an even more smug and arrogant brother.

Harry was quite fond of professor Dumbledore it had to be said, Dumbledore didn't coddle Jim nearly as much as his parents and Harry could tell he was extremely intelligent and gave off the aura of someone you didn't want to get on the wrong side of.

Harry once again sighed, knowing dwelling on such things would not change matters in the slightest, choosing instead to ignore the issue as he always did.

As Harry finished up and went towards the front door to leave for school he wondered if he would see any of his family upon his return.

Harry returned home from school in a huff, it seemed to him he was getting easily distracted these days, becoming more and more focused on the magical books in the Potter library. He still managed to appreciate school, if for no other reason that he was a good student there and received praise for his work, a thing that had become a rare commodity at his own home. Walking through the front door, he noticed the house was silent and didn't have lacked any occupants.

"They've probably gone to some ministry gala or some other thankless party" Harry thought grimly to himself. Harry had attended some of the parties and get-togethers in the past and he hadn't particularly enjoyed them, finding them boring and full of snobby people. Deciding he would go up to the library to continue his studying he walked up the stairs. Thankfully he managed to convince his parents that he needed to focus on his school work and asked if he could stop attending them. His father had tried to convince him to come but his Mother being muggle born had taken him more seriously, she still remembered that even primary school homework was quite the task.

In the end James had reluctantly agreed and told Harry he wouldn't have to accompany them anymore, Harry also suspected that Jim having all the attention on him was a bit of a bonus for his parents, after all Jim was far more famous that Harry, even if Harry was legally the potter heir.

As Harry entered the library he took another moment to marvel at just how many books there actually were, certainly more than Harry could ever read in his lifetime. Harry walked over to where the chair he usually used was and sat down, yesterdays book still open on the page he hadn't finished reading the night before.

Harry knew the magic he was interested in was unconventional compared to practically every other wizard. Most people would assume he would take after one of his parents and be a prodigy in either charms or transfiguration, truthfully while he was competent, in theory at least in both fields. Perhaps a little more in charms what Harry was really interested in was a completely different branch of magic. Illusion magic.

He was no fool, Harry was well aware that most people would turn their noses up at such a branch of magic, well the ones who actually remembered it existed anyway. Reading through the few tomes he could find on the subject Harry had discovered that illusion had gradually fallen out of favor over the years, the logical reason being "why cast an illusion if you can cast a real spell?"

But Harry couldn't help himself from loving the potential of using illusion spells, the books he had read mentioned that they were not nearly as taxing as casting real spells and Harry could see the benefit of tricking opponents by using an illusion of a far more powerful spell to seem stronger than he was in reality. Unfortunately he had yet to get a wand, he knew traditionally that most pure-bloods received a temporary family wand when they were 10 in order to prepare them for Hogwarts so all Harry had to do was wait a few more years until he could start practicing the spells he had read in the books. Until then he was stuck on reading theory.

He seemed to recall Dumbledore mentioning to James that it would be a good idea to give Harry and Jim some training in basic spells once they turned ten, Harry just hoped that James decided to include him in these lessons and not decide to just train Jim.

"The problem with only having books to study for the moment" Harry mused "is the fact that any kind of book on illusion magic is extremely rare." He had already searched most of the potter library and only managed to find 3 books, only two of which had any actually useful spells in it. Technically speaking there was the so called restricted section, a locked room full of darker spells that James held the key too but Harry had immediately dismissed trying to get in there, Illusion wasn't considered dark meaning there was little chance of any books being in there and he had little interest in trying to learn dark arts.

Thinking over his options on how to obtain more spell books he decided he would send an owl later to some bookshops to see if they had anything that could help. It was a bit of a long-shot, Illusion magic was no longer practiced and most book shops wouldn't have any books lying around to send, but he had faith some of the older shops still had a few books lying around.

Harry was bought out of his musings at the sound of the front door being opened downstairs, deciding it must be his parents and brother who had finally come back from Merlin knows where he got up and went down to greet them.

"Oh hi son." Said Lilly tiredly and she spotted Harry walking down the stairs, "Sorry we forgot to leave a note or anything but you know how these ministry parties are, lots of important people and had to rush to get there early."

"It's fine" Harry said shrugging not particularly caring where they were, "I got home from school a few hours ago and was just reading in the library."

"Ah there you Harry, so how was school?" James asked him joining in on the conversation

Harry beamed at hearing his Father ask how his day went "It was great" replied Harry excitedly "we had a test today and I came third and I-"

"Well that sounds good" replied James absently cutting him off "I should have mentioned but the Jim got an award from the Dark force defense league so were thinking of hosting a party here next week."

At hearing his name Jim walked up to James smiling smugly and gave his father a hug.

"Thats er, um lovely" Harry told his parents with a strained smile, inside he was scowling to himself, it was his bad luck that Jim would receive yet another trinket to swell his already inflated ego, Harry had never even heard of the Dark force defense league and assumed they were just some stuck up wizards who defeated a wannabe dark lord eons ago.

"I'm going to go tell the house elves to get food ready, I'll call you when it's ready" Lilly yelled distractedly over her shoulder as she left, James ruffled Harry's hair before joining Jim and walked into the living room.

Not bothering to respond Harry trudged up the stairs and decided to go back to the Library and read until food was done. He wasn't in the mood to read any more magic theory, besides he quite liked keeping it a secret from his parents, he prided himself on having learned without his parents help or knowledge.

Harry perused the bookshelves looking to see if any titles jumped out at him, he stopped however when he reached the back of the library. There was a book here at the bottom of the shelf, one that he had not seen before. It looked completely different to all the other books in the potter library, its cover was a dark brown and it looked old and beaten up, he guessed it had not been picked up or read in quite a while.

Sliding it out he squinted and adjusted his glasses to read the worn out title on the book.

The Diary of Gellert Grindelwald

Harry set down in a chair and began to read it thinking if nothing else it should at least prove an interesting read. Harry only had vague knowledge of who Grindelwald was, Voldemort was by far the more feared dark wizard in Britain where-as Grindelwald was more infamous in the European continent. He really only knew that Grindelwald was some Dark lord that got defeated by Dumbledore and was currently rotting in prison. He was certainly interested to find out how his so called diary had ended up in the potter library of all places.

Shrugging this information off as unimportant for the moment Harry turned the first page, unaware of what was to come, oblivious as to how reading this dusty forgotten book would fundamentally change him.

AN:

Slightly longer chapter this time. It will be interesting to see how Grindelwald affects Harry. It seems unfortunate that he doesn't pop up in more fan fiction stories as I find him to be an interesting character.

I chose illusion magic simply for the reason that it presents some interesting opportunities, and the fact its quite rare to see in fics.

Ive decided on a Harry/Tracey Pairing simply for the fact that theres a million harry Daphne fics out there. I want at least one fic pairing with a slytherin girl who isn't Daphne (or pansy)

Next update will probably be next week. Get to see Dumbledore again

R&R!

Jackwr