Levitate! Goal completed. 500 XP Awarded.

New Elective Goal: What Stuff? (250 XP)

Learn how to use the Notice-Me-Not charm.

Accept.

Over a year. It had taken Harry over a year to learn one spell. Admittedly, it had taken significantly less time for him to use magic for the "first" time—his hands had heated up only a few weeks after his fourth birthday—but it was still incredibly annoying that a spell he'd learned in a few hours when he was eleven had taken most of his fourth year and the beginnings of his fifth this time around. He'd even pumped 15 of his unspecified skill levels into intent magic, and it had still taken all of his effort to get it done as quickly as he had.

That wasn't to say that the year had been a waste, of course—his life had changed drastically over a few short months. It hadn't, as it turned out, taken that much effort to get the government to start looking into his home life, and after god knows how many meetings and a court order Harry had been given Dudley's second room.

Of course, Harry would have vastly preferred being removed from the Dursleys altogether, but after the government started to poke their noses in Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had realized that their actions were not coming across as the epitome of "normalness" to their neighbors and they'd immediately made an about face in how they treated Harry.

He now got three square meals a day, no more than seven "age appropriate" chores a week (enforced via child services), decent if second hand clothes, and a complete end to the mental abuse he'd had to endure the first time around, even if his relatives still couldn't quite bring themselves to actually act nice to him (instead they mostly ignored him when possible.) While it wasn't as good as, say, not living with the Dursleys, it was a hell of a lot better than his prior experiences, so honestly he was cool with it, especially because due to his new freedoms and health he had been able to raise a number of his skills quite a bit more than he ever would have in his past go-round.

What he was less pleased about was the day. It was the 6th of September, and the first day of Year One.

"Dudley-kins! Breakfast is ready!... there's some for you, too, Harry." Petunia called, as if it wasn't obvious—the smell of sizzling bacon had been permeating the house for at least ten minutes now, and it was only Harry's extreme reluctance to go to school which had kept him in bed, focusing on levitating a Lego.

Still, it looked like there wasn't any way he could get out of this, so he shoved the Lego with the rest of his toys in a small bin under his bed and picked up his backpack.

Dudley was headed out of his room at the same time as Harry, and glanced at his cousin for a second, before apparently deciding Harry wasn't worth the effort and turned down the stairs. That had been another welcome change—with child service's interference, Dudley had been finally taught some manners, placed on a diet plan, and made to have an equivalent number of chores as Harry (though Dudley was always given help with completing them.) The end result, once the months of temper tantrums and secret coddling had ended, was a cousin that Harry wouldn't ever be close to, but one he no longer hated. This Dudley—just five years old, and now only the size of a particularly well-fed panda instead of a whale, acted much more like what Harry remembered other five year-olds acting like, even if he was still quite a bit more spoiled than most.

The sound of Dudley's clomping dimmed as he entered the kitchen, and Harry took a deep breath. There was no delaying it anymore. In about an hour he would have to start Year One.

Maybe it won't be that bad, Harry thought as he descended the stairs. Maybe spending hours every day acting like a five year-old with a bunch of other five year-olds won't be… No. This was going to suck. Harry sighed.

The car ride was disturbingly quick, and well before he was ready he was standing directly outside the entrance to St. Grogory's, trying to tune out Aunt Petunia's simpering goodbyes to Dudley. Around him other parents were similarly saying goodbye to their young children, some crying and others putting on a brave face. Harry didn't see what the big deal was—while he and Dudley had gotten out of it with everything that had happened with child services, the rest of the children should have been attending Reception for the past year.

Harry grimaced.

That interpretation wasn't very fair, was it? It wasn't like parents loving their children was a bad thing. It just… it felt wrong, to Harry. He may have twenty two more years of experience since the last time he was in this position, but in the end he hadn't actually had all that many experiences with him being on the receiving end of parental love. He supposed Mrs. Weasley and Sirius had both fulfilled that requirement occasionally, but there had always been something in the way of him considering them a parent. Besides—his thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a middle aged woman standing in front of the school.

"Alright!" Miss Taylor, his former—and present— Year One teacher called out. "I know you all wish this isn't necessary, but it's time to say goodbye. Don't worry, all your children will be returned to you at the end of the day—in one piece, too!"

The parents laughed.

Beside Harry, Aunt Petunia hugged Dudley one more time.

"—and if anything at all goes wrong, don't hesitate to make them call me. I know you're my brave, tough Dudley-kins, and I know you are going to do just wonderfully and show all of the other students exactly how a good, darling boy acts. I love you." She kissed his cheeks as Dudley puffed up with pride, before turning to Harry. "…have a good day, Harry." she ground out, glancing at all of the other parents surrounding him. None of them were paying any attention to her, but then she hadn't been aware that the neighbors had been paying attention last year.

"I will, Aunt Petunia." Harry answered dutifully. Miss Taylor called out again, and he and the other—the actual—children all swarmed after her as she led them into the school.

The classroom was just as Harry remembered it. It was colorful, and almost every bit of furniture in the room was sized for a five year-old. It was, all in all, not a bad place for a five year-old to spend their day. But therein lied the problem. Harry wasn't a five year-old, he just looked like one.

Miss Taylor directed them to sit in a circle on the large map of the world that took up one half of the classroom. Harry sat, but his stomach knotted some more as he did. He had no idea how to pass off as a normal five year old—at least with child services he'd known how he'd acted the last time around, but this time he would be expected to act like a relatively well adjusted child, and he had no idea how to pull it off. He remembered the child rearing book he'd pilfered two years back, but that had mostly focused on toddlers—he was definitely out of that age bracket now. A thought occurred to him then and he quickly he pulled up his SKILLS.

(Unspecified Skill Levels: 20)

He really shouldn't have shoved all those points into intent magic, but 20 still wasn't bad. Now, what to put them in…

…

SOCIAL

-Teaching: 49 (The ability to teach others)

-Negotiation: 14 (The ability to negotiate to a more pleasant outcome)

-Seduction: 10 (The ability to gain another's attention in an amorous way)

-Intimidation: 0 (The ability to intimidate to get a more pleasant outcome)

-Charisma: 19 (The ability to get people to like you)

-Acting: 48 (The ability to pretend or lie)

-Deception Detection: 21 (The ability to notice other's lies, half-truths, and ulterior motives)

-Speech: 31 (The ability to convince, motivate, and otherwise influence others)

Reflexively Harry put all 20 points into Acting, then winced. While it would definitely help him in the short term, he'd literally just thought about how he'd have preferred to have not already spent 15 points. Well, at least he'd use the points immediately.

Miss Taylor was speaking, he realized. Talking about the importance of school and year one and how they'd all still have fun. His memories of his first few years of schooling weren't exactly clear—who remembered being five with anything but a blurry haze?—but it all sounded vaguely familiar. School, he did remember, had always been a bit of a salvation for him. While his teachers had never really treated him well—Aunt Petunia's words to them about his behavior in combination with Dudley's constant attempts to get him into trouble had ensured that—it had at least been free of his aunt and uncle, and he'd generally been ignored rather than treated badly by his teachers.

Now Miss Taylor was having them go around and say their names and favorite color. It was Dudley's turn—he'd caught a seat just to the right of Miss Taylor, likely in a bid to suck up to her in the same way as he did his mother.

"My name's Dudley Dursley, and my favorite color is… red! It's the best color."

"Hi Dudley."

Thomas, Adam, Jane, Sara, and Andrew went next, and then it was Harry's turn.

"My name's Harry Potter, and my favorite color is green."

The class, as one, said "Hi Harry," and then the boy to Harry's right—George, apparently—started. Harry let out a breath. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard after all.

That said, Harry thought as a girl named Nancy tried to decide whether she liked purple or magenta better, it would definitely be boring.