Ten years is a long time. That seems obvious, of course, but when most of that time is spent waiting for something to happen, it gets all the more apparent. When I was first reincarnated into this world, I had been confused at first. My awareness was instant, no fog scattering my memories or long years of youth trying to make sense of vague dreams. I was simply there, asleep one moment and waking the next with a woman's screams in my ears and my body no longer the one I once knew. Once I figured out what was happening, that was to be expected, but what really threw me off the game was that I hadn't been born, exactly. Instead, I woke up as Harry Potter, the morning after Dumbledore left him on Petunia Dursley's doorstep. Or maybe I had already been inserted into his body directly after the killing curse struck and just been unconscious. I'm not sure, even after all the time I've spent thinking about it.
It wasn't that hard to piece together what was going on, catching tidbits of frantic conversation and names spoken over the course of the next few days, but I wasn't entirely sure until I managed to sneak a glance into a reflective surface. I didn't think I looked like Daniel Radcliffe, but considering I had never seen the man's baby pictures, that was relative. Still, it was hard to deny the absolute mess of black hair, deep green eyes, and lightning bolt scar right in the center of my forehead. As an avid fanfiction writer and reader both, it was easy to reach the obvious conclusion. I had been inserted into Harry Potter's body, for some unknown and likely absurd reason.
The next seven years were… complicated, to say the least. I wasn't exactly the kind of person to panic over suddenly finding myself in another body and world, and even if I was, there wasn't much I could do there regardless. Either this was a dream, in which case it would eventually end on its own, or it wasn't, and I would simply have to deal with it. At the same time, I found myself utterly constrained by a few simple facts, namely that while I could easily come up with all sorts of plans to make Voldemort a non-issue, the problem was enacting those plans, and being trapped at the Dursleys made it nearly impossible. Yet I couldn't just walk away, not immediately.
So I waited. Waited and plotted, and planned, and in the meantime either practiced with my magic or read books to simply fill up the days when I wasn't doing the Dursleys'... well, everything. Not that I minded either way. My body may have become a child's, but my mind was that of a grown man who had held down actual jobs and knew better than to let the insults get to him. I kept my head down, did what I was told, and went about my life with all the freedom of an active imagination. Even before reincarnating social stimulation had been more of a convenience than anything, so it's not like I got lonely either. I was mostly just bored. Tending the same yard and cleaning the same house over and over got old after a while, and school was a non-issue, all things considered.
Then came my eighth birthday, or rather Harry's. This was about the time I had concluded I could start getting things done. Just old enough for adults to not dismiss me out of hand, but early enough that I would have a few years to get ready before Hogwarts began. Which led to my first goal: Getting out from under the Dursleys and shifting myself over to the magical actually went surprisingly well. I was still surprised my magic actually worked how I wanted it too, since in my periodic experiments I could only get the thing to work how I wanted about thirty percent of the time. Another half and nothing happened, while the rest of the time it blew up in my face quite spectacularly.I once spent an entire day with tye-dye hair that tasted like cotton candy which was fun. When it came to the actual wizards themselves, I think it was mostly the combination of an eight-year-old boy who talked like and held themselves as a self-assured nineteen year old would, and the sheer knowledge of situations I held that allowed me to simply bulldoze through any problems. I had certainly expected much more resistance and cajoling necessary to get where I wanted to be, but simply coming into contact with the Wizarding World was enough. My choice to leave the Dursley's should have shattered the Blood Wards around there house like so much fragile glass, and now that I had returned, they wouldn't let their precious Boy-Who-Lived go, Dumbledore be damned. That first week was certainly interesting though. Even after all I had done to prepare myself for meeting and interacting with these people I knew so much about but had never actually met.I was still a touch nervous. And they were people, I had to remind myself. This wasn't some story where I could simply change the words on the page and have things go my way. This was real life, and there would be consequences to my actions, something I saw proven quite quickly in Sirius. Now that had been a surprise.
After that, I had three years. Three years to prepare, to plan, and to start influencing things so that I could walk all over the Dark Lord and be free to pursue a life of magic and adventure. And I used it well. There wasn't much an eight-year old wizard could do, since without a wand I couldn't learn most conventional magic and I was still a kid so other options were limited. I did have some though. I easily found magic that didn't require a wand, a subject practically made for me even and so exploitable I couldn't believe it at times. I made a friend too, and a few acquaintances here and there while joining Sirius at social events or putting the fortune my parents had left me to use. Sirius even got around to shoving me at a Mind Healer at some point, which was absolutely fucking hilarious experience. The Marauder still believed I was insane, but now he knew it was in a different way than he originally thought. At least, I think he did, considering He hadn't called me Harry since.
Eventually, time ground on, and the time for waiting finally came to an end. And so I found myself on the Hogwarts Express, flipping through a large, leather-bound tome filled with my own handwriting, waiting for the inevitable plot hook to come walking through the door. Unfortunately for me, that wouldn't be happening quite yet. I had other things to do first.
XXX
The compartment was quiet, but for the flipping of pages and the pen tapping against my fingers as I wiggled it back and forth impatiently. HTere were a lot of things different about this new body from my old one, both in what I could do with it and how it looked, but my mind at least remained the same, and old habits came with it. ADHD was a bitch at the best of times, and I was almost constantly moving. It didn't help that my focus was having trouble staying on the page, wondering just who would show up first to get this whole show on the road. Ten years of waiting, and the real plot was about to start. Finally I paused, as the sudden sound of a door sliding open made me blink and look up. Well, that was unexpected, and just a touch disappointing.
"Draco Malfoy," I greeted neutrally, eyeing the blonde boy critically with a raised eyebrow. He was just as much as one might imagine, dressed impeccably in fine silk robes of black already edged in green, though they weren't his school ones. His hair was the image of a perfectly snotty pureblood, and the seer he wore could have fit perfectly were he looking at a piece of shit he had found stuck to his shoe. There was, interestingly enough, no Crabbe and Goyle at his back trying and failing to look intimidating, but that was the only discrepancy. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Hello Harry Potter." He replied, sharp grey eyes glancing up and down my form as his sneer deepened. I was dressed a touch more casually, a pair of black slacks and simple white t-shirt beneath the loose black hoodie of only middling quality, but I wore it like a second skin. "I see you've already gotten comfortable. Not afraid they'll toss you off the train to go live with the Muggles you so love?" I cocked an eyebrow, amusement skittering across my features.
"Been there, done that." I replied, snapping the book in my hands shut and standing to face him directly. He was taller than me, no real surprise there. Most people were, and the silver-haired boy was above average regardless. Still, I met his eyes easily and confidently, lips twitching upwards. "It was extraordinarily boring. Besides, I can't have you running amok without supervision, can I?" There was a beat of silence as the other boy processed that, then another, and finally he simply grinned, all semblances of disdain and arrogance vanishing in an instant.
"Dammit, you've got me there." Draco muttered, tone suddenly much friendlier as he stepped forward and swung his arms open. I accepted the hug easily, patting his back with just as much fervor as he while my own grin broke out. It was good to see him again, even after only a couple weeks since the last time. After a moment we released each other and he pulled back, eyeing me in a much more amicable way this time. "So, how was it?" He asked eagerly. "Did it sound good?"
"Hmm, not enough disdain I think." I told him, grin widening just a touch as his own fell slightly, but not completely. "Try calling the Muggles animals next time, that might do it. Or go for something else entirely. It was a weak subject to begin with."
"Yeah, yeah," Draco muttered, waving my advice away as he sat down. I followed, taking the place across from him and picking my book back up from where I had left it on the seat. "You're too demanding. Sometimes I think you actually want me to be an evil overlord or something." Despite his words, he didn't sound much like he was sulking. In fact, there was clear laughter behind his every word, and my friend's grey eyes were practically sparkling with mirth.
"You're the one who started this," I pointed out, smiling back. "And glamor, by the way." Draco blinked in surprise at my aside, before shaking his head.
"Right." He said, before blinking again, and suddenly I was looking at a very different boy from before. He was still blonde, and with grey eyes certainly, but everything else was different. His hair, previously so immaculate, was an utter mess of bed-head even worse than mine, and his clothing had shifted completely. Instead of robes, he was wearing a far more casual-if still utterly expensive and designer brand-pair of grey jeans and a white t-shirt with green shoulders and sleeves. Around his neck was a pari of headphones, the cord trailing down and disappearing into one of his pockets, and on his head a grey beanie tried and failed to hide his hair. He looked, I decided, like a sterotypical hipster. I couldn't help but feel that somewhere out here the cosmos were raging at how much I had corrupted him, after which I metnally flipped them the bird and turned back to the conversation.
"Looking good," I complimented, smiling as Draco slouched in his seat, completing the image. For a moment I wondered if there was a way to get some coffee for him to sip, but was distracted when Draco replied, breathing a sigh of relief.
"That's thanks to you, you know. This," And here he paused to flick at his earlobe, where a small black ear-piercing hung, covered in arcane scrawlings almost too small to make out, "makies life so much easier. My Father would kill me if he saw me like this." I cocked an eyebrow but didn't question the assessment. I didn't doubt Draco was entirely serious when he said that. Instead, I shrugged, glancing out the window to note that the crowds of people on the platform outside were starting to dry up. Glancing back, I smiled.
"It was just a glamour. And besides, I only designed the rune schema, Sirius is the one who made it." That was one of the pains of being wandless, and even after I had picked mine up a month ago-surprise surprise, it was holly and phoenix feather-I couldn't manage any of the spells necessary to craft such fine details if I had studied them the entire three years I had access to Wizarding knowledge. Transfiguration like that took a lot of skill and care, skill I hadn't been able to train. Pushing away the thought, I glanced down to his waist where the wire for the headphones was sticking out. "It was nothing like that thing." Draco followed my eyes, before smirking himself and pulling out the object inside, holding it up for me to inspect despite the fact he knew I was perfectly familiar with it.
It looked, on the surface at least, like a simple-if smaller and more compact-portable Walkman, the portable cassette player that was apparently popular before MP3 players became a thing. Inside, however, a different story was told. Oh it still functioned pretty much the same, reading Cassette tapes like any other walkman, but if you were to pry it open you would find instead of wires and batteries, hundreds of miniscule arcane markings etched along every surface availabe, with only the actual operating systems itself intact. I was actually working on making something to replace even that, but only had so much time with all my other projects, and inventing arcane electricity was far easier than learning how to read and translate stored information twice over.
"You know, Father tried to burn all my cassettes the other day?" Draco muttered, meeting my eyes when I looked back up at him. "I was lucky he sent Dobby to do it. If I hadn't already freed him and rebound him to me…" Here the boy trailed off, frowning down at the device in his hands. I frowned as well, before shaking my head.
"Your father's an asshole, Draco." I stated bluntly, to which he snorted in agreement. On that, we both stood in agreement. Still, it seemed to kill the mood a bit, and Draco shoved the Walkman back into his pocket and glanced out the window, expression turning pensive. For a minute silence descended, until finally he spoke, still not looking at me.
"You know, I'm glad I met you when I did Harry. If I hadn't, I don't know what I would have become." I winced, the words evoking memories in me of that time. It had been two or so years ago, and back then, Draco was just as much of a bratty snot as one might expect from him. Honestly, I wasn't sure what i was going to do about him at that point. While I liked Draco as a potential character to write with, In person he was just so aggravating. He said some things, I said some things, and at first it seemed like I would have to resign myself to having a petty and pathetic schoolyard rival. There are few things I will become truly angry about, but when people are being stupid for no reason, that's one of them. And Draco was being stupid. He didn't know why he disliked Muggles and Muggle-borns, just that his father said he should so he did. Nothing I said changed his mind. But then, an idea came to me, just as I was about give up, a terrible and brilliant idea that even I didn't realize would be so effective.
I dared him to learn. I dared him to go into a Muggle Library and ask about what was perhaps humanity's greatest achievement, the moon landing. I didn't pick that for any special reason, just that it was a big, well-known thing that Wizards hadn't even come close to achieving. And it worked. Hellbent on proving me wrong, On finding all the evidence he needed that Muggles were little more than monkeys still scrabbling in the dirt, he had apparently done exactly that. The next week I had a blonde ponce on my doorstep babbling about space and demanding I tell him more about the great Muggle Magics they called Science, and how on earth they were possible. It was almost fascinating, actually. I think at the beginning he was just planning to steal all the secrets he could from me and then present them to his father as his own invention, but eventually he grew to simply enjoy everything about Muggle culture. I swear, he was more Muggle than the Dursley's at this point, even if he still loved everything magical as well.
"I'm glad too." I said after a moment, the memories washing over me, both of how he could have been, and how he came to be who he was now.I hadn't expected a friend, when first making my plans to sort out Voldemort. I mean, the Golden Trio was a possibility, but I wasn't going to go out of my way to make it happen, and I had always been a naturally isolated person. I could go months, even years without really interacting outside of the occasional conversation with relatives. But now that I had one, I wouldn't complain for anything. It was worth the effort, at the end of the day, and helped remind me that this wasn't some grand game or esoteric thought experiment. People, not characters. I had to remember that.
XXX
After that, the conversation died off entirely, and we both settled in for a long ride. Draco, for his part, stretched out across an entire side of the compartment, eyes closed and one leg arched up as he listened to his music playing, bopping his head to the beat. I simply opened my book and continued doing what I was doing before, eyes scanning the arcane scrawlings and making minor notations here and there. For once, I was glad of Harry Potter's body. Unlike my old one, it didn't have a minor muscle atrophy that made my hand-writing look worse than a doctor's, so I could actually make the precise markings necessary not to make a mess of things and blow myself up. Runes were a very finicky process, and if used incorrectly could be quite dangerous.
Eventually, the train finished filling up, and I came to the conclusion that we probably weren't going to be getting any more visitors than that. Not for a while at least. So it was a surprise when just a few minutes after we had started moving, there came a knock at the door. I looked up, blinking, before exchanging glances with Draco, who just shrugged and fluttered a dismissive hand my way. Sometimes I wished I had managed to divest him of all his pompous personality. Sighing, I stood and made my way to the door, before pausing and looking the interloper up and down.
She looked familiar somehow, in that way that nags at you for days before you finally get it, long after you wanted. Her features were asian, Japanese or Chinese I would say but with bright red hair hanging down in pigtails and crystal blue eyes, and there was something distinctly… martial, to her stance, even just standing in the middle of the train corridor. She looked almost like a spring, coiled to strike at any moment.
"Hey, sorry to bother you," She said in a mildly accented voice, tone brusque and rushed as she glared at me, "But do you have any hot water I can use?" I blinked, processing the strange request, even as I kept studying her features. Seriously, I could have sworn I had seen her somewhere before, but I just couldn't place it. My memory was swiss cheese at the best of times, so I wasn't too surprised. It was just annoying.
"Sorry," I said after a moment, shaking my head. "No hot water. If you asked one of the older years they could probably make some though." The girl looked down at first, but then perked up when I made my suggestion.
"I think I'll do that, thanks!" She said, before turning and actually running down the corridor. I blinked again in surprise, before shrugging and putting it out of my mind. I knew wizards and witches were weird. She must just be one of the odder ones. Although I did have to wonder why she was looking for Hot Water specifically. Was she trying to make tea or something? Shaking my hed, I closed the door and went back to my seat, picking up my book. I was interrupted yet again less than a minute later, however, when this time the door was practically torn open, and another girl rushed in, calling over her shoulder.
"I said no thank you. Now leave me alone, if you please." The newcomer stated harshly before slamming the door behind her and turning to face the compartment fully. When she caught sight of me and Draco, however, she paused, giving me a chance to examine. Another redhead, this one was also naggingly familiar, making me wonder if perhaps there was something wrong with my memory. She, however, was very different from the last one. Her hair was longer for one, and a dark red crimson rather than a lighter red, but more distractingly was that I could actually call this one beautiful. Which was really weird and creepy, since she didn't look much older than twelve or thirteen, and while I'm sure my new body's hormones were influencing that, I was more concerned that she had developed enough to be note-worthy. Most kids around my-new-age were, at best, cute. But this girl had a classical beauty to her, matched only by the mature expression currently marred by a frown and an air of regalness the Lucius malfoy couldn't match on his best day. Her eyes, especially, were intriguing, a deep green-blue mix that seemed to shift with every moment
"Oh! Sorry. I thought this compartment was empty." The girl said after a brief instant in which we both studied the other, her eyes flickering between me and Draco who had propped himself up on one arm to examine her curiously. I simply raised an eyebrow in curiosity, gaze drifting to the door behind her and where I thought I could see dark forms retreating through the glass.
"Unwanted admirers?" I asked, knowing the feeling well. While I imagined her reasons were different, Harry Potter had no lack of people looking to get an in with him, and thus, me. The lengths some people would go to were chilling, really.
"Ah. yes, it would seem so." She answered, a light blush crawling onto her cheeks. A moment later Draco spoke up from the side, my friend rising to a position where he was fully sitting rather than laying down.
"Do you want help?" He asked, uncharacteristically serious. I blinked in surprise, glancing over to find that he was almost entirely stone-faced. Well that was interesting. I don't recall him ever acting like this before with my admirers. Still, I pushed the concern away for later, instead focusing on the girl as she shook her head.
"No, it's fine. I can just wait until they're gone." The girl said apologetically. I quirked another eyebrow, but said nothing. I didn't mind. Draco, on the other hand, smiled.
"Fell free to stay if you want. This guy's pretty boring, actually." He nodded at me, and my brow rose even higher. Well, well, well. Someone was being chivalrous, weren't they. Regardless, the girl shook her head, denying his offer.
"Sorry, but my friend is waiting for me in our compartment. I was just going to the bathroom when those... boys interrupted." She said, almost sneering at the word 'boys'. I snorted, but again remained silent. Draco seemed to have this handled, and I turned my attention back to my book.
After a few minutes, the girl left, leaving Draco to stare at the door with a strangely forlorn look on his face. When he didn't look away, I decided to speak up. "Well that was certainly interesting. I've never seen you act like a lovestruck puppy before." I didn't look up from my work, but could practically feel it when Draco snapped around to glare at me.
"Shut up." He said, voice thick with embarrassment. I paused, glancing up to see him blushing bright as a cherry. Sighing, I shook my head.
"Draco, there's nothing wrong with being interested in girls. Just don't let it make a fool out of you. You do that well enough on your own." He glared, but I didn't bother meeting it, turning back to my book. After a minute he sighed, and I caught sight of him laying back down.
"Yeah, yeah," He muttered halfheartedly, tugging a smile from me. Well at least he knew better than to deny it. I might have had to smack the silliness out of him if he had.
XXX
OOC: Well, there we go. Next chapter up. If you're wondering, yes I'm being vague about what Harry has been doing for the last three years, and how. It will all be revealed in good time. There's plenty of hints if you want to guess, but I'm not going to shove a dissertation on it in the middle of the text until a good time comes up to have it explicitly said.
Hope you enjoyed, and don't forget to review! See ya!