Start of Summer
.
The trip back in the Express was something I could do without. I came from the late 2010s. Hours long trips without a music player, a smartphone, a laptop or a portable gaming console, were very boring. Chatting and tabletop games could only help you for 2/5 of the trip at most.
When we reached London, I took a deep breath, and exited the train with confident steps. But my good mood couldn't resist contact with the Dursleys. The trip back from Kingcross Station to Privet Drive was annoying. Dudley was just too unpleasant to have around for any period of time. The occasional insults or nasty comments from Vernon or Petunia didn't help. It was hard to resist insulting them back, but I managed. After all, that wouldn't last long.
When the Dursley questionned me about Hedwig absence, I told them she would meet me in the evening. I had sent her away exactly to avoid any unpleasantness with my relatives. The less they saw each other, the better. We got into a minor argument, and it was agreed she could leave at her leisure, to avoid her making a racket because she got cooped inside. They had enough of that the previous summer. They wanted to forbid me from sending letters, but I pointed out that no news from me would likely result in another visit from magicals. That shut them up. Once we reached the house, I was rushed inside by Vernon.
"I will not allow any of your hocus pocus in my house, boy" he said in a low threatening voice once we all got inside, with the door closed. "Your stuff will stay in the cupboard until your departure in September."
"Yes uncle Vernon" I replied blandly while refraining from rolling my eyes at him.
I seemingly complied with his order. I took out my clothes and neccessities, leaving my trunk and my stick in the cupboard. He watched me carefully the whole time, and hastly closed the cupboard afterward before sending me to my room. I mentally grinned. All my important magical possessions were in my inventory. The stick wasn't my wand, but an ordinary stick looking like it.
Once I got in my room, I relaxed and grinned. There was a bed, a night table, a desk, a wardrobe and a small bookshelf, all of them were old. I put them all in my inventory, and pulled out 8 little devices. I placed them on all corners of the room, 4 on the floor, 4 on the ceiling. They were designed to fit there.
Together, they would slowly activate 2 wards. A mild notice-me-not and aversion ward, to help keep my relatives away and forget about me when I'm in the room. They were too used to make me do chores, a strong ward would likely backfire on me. The second one was a 1-way sound dampening ward, to keep excessive noise from leaving the room, while allowing sound from outside in. I set the wards to activate slowly to not trigger the ministry detectors. I didn't know if they could make the difference between spellcasting and the activation of a magical item. I believed that wards suddenly springing up would alert them, but if it was discreet it would be fine.
In Kamidori Alchemist Meister, the home of the protagonist consisted of a store, the bedroom, the workshop and the garden. The furnitures that could be placed in these sections would grant certain bonuses to attributes related to the alchemist business. Back in Hogwart, I was able to test if these bonuses still carried over, and was pleasantly surprised that it was the case. And I was only able to test the bedroom furnitures and the workshop furnitures.
The bedroom furnitures stimulated my creativity, allowing me to come up with more innovations and alterations using what I already knew. It didn't grant me additional knowledge. The workshop furnitures improved my crafting efficiency and reduced the waste of materials. I guessed that the shop furnitures would increase the success of the store, and the garden furnitures would increase my ability to find the useful properties of materials, or something similar.
I replaced all the old furnitures with new ones, those that gave the best perks. A heavenly bed, a study desk, a gorgeous bookshelf, a gorgeous plant, an impressive scroll, and an emperor kimono. As for the wardrobe, I designed an entirely new one. The Room of Requierment had several configurations, including the room of lost things. There were plenty of old magical trunks, and I dismantled them to learn how their space expansion enchantments worked. Then, I build a wardrobe that contained a whole workshop inside.
Wizarding enchantments worked well with charms and runes, but enchanting was easier and stronger with appropriate magical materials. Like the ones I had. With spirit stones, magic stones and magic sand, space expansion charms were easy to embed, and much more stable. If you broke a wizarding item containing a space expansion charm, the charm would collapse and the compressed content would explode outward, riping the item appart. Thankfully, when I studied them, I used empty trunks, and was only blasted away by compressed air. I don't think my protego amulet would have saved me from high speed physical projectiles. If my item was broken, the enchantment would unravel over time, instead of a critical cascading failure.
The wardrobe looked like an ordinary one, until you pulled the hidden lever. Then the back would open inward to reveal the workshop. It was separated in 5 sections, one for smithing and mechanics, one for alchemy and enchanting, one for apparel crafting, one for physical training, and the last one was the entrance, which doubled as a rest area. The entire place was 60m², with an average 12m² per sections. Of course some were bigger and other smaller. I didn't need a lot of space, only something temporary. There was no need to go overboard, that could wait for when I have my very own house built. Without wizarding magic, it would have taken more time to build it. Levitation, feather weight, severing, mending, transfiguration and others; such useful magics for crafting.
There was one last thing to place in the room. Hedwig new perch. It had a big and cosy egg shaped nest at the top, where she could retreat and rest away from the sunlight. Owls were nocturnal after all. It even had a small sound dampening charm on it so I wouldn't bother her with my noise. I looked around and got mostly satisfied. The only thing needed was a bit of cleaning, but I wanted the wards to be up and running before that.
The wards were activated without alerting anyone, and were working as intended. The Dursley didn't bother me during the morning, and I was able to spend it in peace. The automatic broom was a magical vacuum cleaner, much less noisy than its muggle counterpart, and more efficient. A single pass was enough, and the floor, walls and ceiling of my room got quickly cleaned. I was going to make an automatic wiper next to wash them.
I was called down to prepare lunch, which I did reluctantly. At Hogwart, and in wizarding Britain in general, meals are traditional british dishes, with some magical-only dishes. As a former frenchy (sort of), I was a little disappointed. But just a little, after all, it wasn't as if the food tasted bad. No, it was good, but overall the other europeans dishes (and by that I mean french, spanish and italian) were better. I wasn't a bad cook in my previous life, neither was original Harry, and with my crafting skills, I could make excellent meals. And I gleefully denied the Dursleys these skills. On the contrary, I spiked their food to give them some discomfort later. Headaches for Vernon, dulled senses for Dudley, and itchiness on various parts of the body for Petunia. At the end of the day, they would be tired.
My only chores for the day was taking care of the kitchen after the meal, so I had the whole afternoon free. I left the house and passed through Wisteria Walk, watching Arabella Figg's house from the corner of my eyes. Some of her cats were in the area, and a few of them even watched me carefully. They were probably the half-kneazles. I continued until I reached Magnolia Crescent, which I recognised as the place where Harry and Dudley would be attacked by dementors. I continued and reached Magnolia Road, where a playing ground was trashed by Dudley's gang. Because of that, and them, the place was often deserted.
I went to a corner where nobody could see from outside, and pulled Lily's essence core from my inventory. It was a dark purple orb that turned into smoke and took and indistinct humanoid form. I could feel a link forming between us, most likely the servant/familiar bond. And from that, I could feel she needed a final input from me to properly take form. I should have expected it since, in the game, I could choose which form I wanted her to take.
There was the kid form, teenager form and adult form. Of course the kid form was out! I wouldn't have thought of touching a girl bellow 15yo (or even an adult) that didn't have a maturing body. And because I was back to life in a 13yo body, I reduced that age limit to 13yo. I didn't care about the so-called mental age. My old life was over, and this was a new life with a new youth. I planned to seduce a bunch of 13-14yo girls in my 3rd year so that I could build a harem and start banging them in my 4th year. And since my body was still developping as well, I choose the teenager form. I would feel inadequate in front of the adult form otherwise...
With a pulse, the smoky form coalesced into a girl around 160cm tall, fit with a lean hourglass body shape, and about c cup sized breast. Clothes appeared on her as her body became more defined, similar to the magical girl show of that time (Sailor Moon). The whole transformation was thankfully quick, without flashy lights and noises.
She had long straight blond hairs, almond brown eyes, and dark brown cat ears. Her face was heart shaped, with a small nose and pouty lips. Her skin was fair and without blemishes. She wore a white gothic dress with shoulder straps and black frills, and separate sleeves held by a small belt. She had a thin ribbon necktie, and matching ribbons tied in her hairs behind her ears, giving her thin pigtails. The dress stopped above her knees, and she wore mid-calf black boots with 2 buckles each. Her tail, with a heart shaped tip, was peaking from underneath the dress.
She was looking at me with a stoic expression on her face, arms laying to the side of her body with her fists lightly clenched. Her tail was lazily waving around. I was carefully checking her out, impressed. She was very pretty.
"Hello, Lily" I said, finally breaking the silence.
"Master" was the blunt and monotone answer I received. She had a pleasant, silvery voice though.
"Ha... How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine."
"Okay..." I replied, slightly unnerved by her robotic replies. "Do you know where you are?"
"... No" she answered while tilting her head.
"Can you hide your ears and tail?"
"Yes. Do they bother you?"
And for the first time since we started talking, I detected a glimpse of emotion in the girl in front of me.
"No. It's just that there aren't any succubus in the world. These features aren't common, and will attract negative attention."
"Oh. I understand."
There again. This time there was some relief. She closed her eyes for a second, and her ears and tail disappeared.
"Is it alright now, master?" she asked.
"Yes, thanks. And call me Harry when we are in a public place like here. Call me master only when we are alone in a room."
"Understood, Harry."
"Good. By the way, my full name is Harry James Potter, or Harry Potter. And I'm a wizard."
I thought that it was a good time to give her a quick description of the world.
"In this world, the only humans able to use magic are those born with it, witches for the women, and wizards for the men. Of course, there are other intelligent beings able to use magic, as well as magical beasts and plants" I added vaguely. "However, around 300 years ago, the International Statute of Secrecy was made. All around the world, the magicals separated from the non-magicals and got into hidding. Nowdays, the magicals and non-magicals live separatly, and the non-magicals as a whole think that magic and magical beings don't exist. The magicals take great care to not expose magic to non-magicals. When that happen, they send people to erase or modify the memories of the non-magical witnesses, and undo any magical effects in the area. Do you understand it so far?"
"Of course, Harry."
"Good. Right now, we are in the non-magical world. Doing magic here is forbidden unless you are an adult, there are no witness, and you don't cause troubles. With the abscence of magic, the non-magicals studied sciences, and developped their technology. They improved their medecine, made better materials, and more complex machines, weapons and vehicles. You will see once we leave this broken playground. We are going to the magical side because there are some things I need to take care of. I'll tell you more later. The most important things you need to know right now are: 1- Don't walk in the middle of the road, and look left and right before crossing the road. The vehicles are fast, therefore deadly if they hit you. 2- Don't attract attention to you, stay quiet and observe. Understood?"
"Yes, Harry."
And thus, we left the playground.
.
AN: Just to remind you that I only intended to release 2 chapters per week when I started this fanfic. You are being spoiled, don't get used to it!
