As Harry walked back down the path to 4 Privet Drive, his confused mind grappling with the fact that he was, in fact, five years in the past, he couldn't help but feel a tiny smidgeon of fear at the fact he'd have to spend any amount of time with the Dursleys. He shivered unconsciously as he reached the door to the house, putting his ear to the door to see if anybody was lurking on the other side of it, laying in wait to ambush the freak. He could hear a muted conversation from somewhere inside the kitchen, but if he was lucky he could probably sprint up the stairs and into his room quickly enough that the Dursley's wouldn't have time to catch him. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door a crack, his stomach somersaulting like a circus acrobat. Fortunately, there were no fat faces waiting for him on the other side, so, marshalling his courage, he slipped into the door, and up the stairs, leaving his relatives none the wiser.
Harry shut his bedroom door, locking it with a quick charm before collapsing onto his bed. He needed some time to figure this out. Once more, he gave himself a final once-over, just to make sure that he was, for certain this time, back in the body of his eleven year old self. Yep. That just about summed it all up. Looking up at the ceiling, he tried to organise his thoughts into something vaguely resembling a cohesive thought pattern. Okay, he was back in time. Because his best and first friend had betrayed him. The Dark Lord was still in hiding, probably inhabiting Quirrel at that very moment. Sirius: Probably back in prison, trying to hold onto what remained of his sanity. So that was probably a priority. Sighing heavily, Harry grabbed a sheaf of parchment out of his trunk. It was time to do what he was good at. It was time to make a plan.
"Alright, first off, get Sirius out of prison." He murmured to himself. If he had to spend another summer at the Dursley's he'd do a hell of a lot worse than blow up his aunt, that was for certain.
"Just got to find that rat. I can't imagine he was at Hogwarts the whole time, how dumb would you have to be to hang around the most powerful wizard of the age for eleven years? No, he's probably with some random family somewhere who are too dumb to question a rat living waay longer than it should." He took down a note. Step 1, find Pettigrew and free Sirius.
Step 2 was a bit more obvious. Dark Lord can't get you if he never rises, Harry thought smugly. That wasn't too hard to do, at least until after the Triwizard Tournament. After that, everything would be up in the air. Although…Harry absentmindedly scrunched his face as he peered down at his growing to-do list. There had to be a way that the Dark Lord was sustaining himself that went beyond being a powerful wizard. Probably some obscenely powerful dark magic or some-such. Harry took down another note. Find out how the Dark Lord is still kicking around and, if possible, neutralise him permanently. He nodded in satisfaction at that one. There would probably be plenty of information at the Hogwarts library to help him sort it out.
Alright, Harry thought to himself. On to Step 3. What was the most damaging event unconnected to the Dark Lord that he could stop? Well, to that there was only one answer. The basilisk. Eight children at Hogwarts had died before the beast was brought down, and Dumbledore had been forced to resign from the ICW and the Wizengamot after the whole affair. Since that had happened second year, Harry decided this was probably first priority.
Great. So all he had to do was stop the most powerful dark wizard in decades, find an animagus that could be literally anywhere in the world, and, on top of it all, find the location of the legendary Chamber of Secrets, not to mention work out who the so-called 'Heir of Slytherin' was. Harry looked to Hedwig, who chirruped, kindly staring at him with her big eyes.
"Well Hedwig, I think this is going to be an interesting year."
August came and went pretty peacefully in the Dursley household. Harry and his relatives avoided each other at all costs, with a few glares and taut requests to pass a condiment being the only real interaction they had. Truthfully, it was the most kindly Harry had felt towards the Dursley's for quite a while. He personally spent the month holed up in his room, writing letters to the goblins at Gringott's and requesting books from Flourish and Blott's. After a few practice attempts at casting, Harry had found that with his new body came certain limitations. All of his precious muscle memory, built over painstaking years of practice perfecting every little flourish and sweep of the wand, was gone. To make matters worse, his eleven year old body's magic seemed only a little above average for an average child of his age, so, when he got the chance to actually perform spells at Hogwarts, he suspected that at best he'd only be able to perform fourth year magic in the very best case scenario, and even that would drain him immeasurably. Still, it wasn't all bad news. This time around he'd taken great pains to start eating properly, occasionally going out to the shops after converting his sickles and knuts into pounds. He could almost feel himself growing taller, his body lapping up the nutrients and proteins it had been lacking for almost eight years. However, as time inched forward towards the all important September 1st, Harry couldn't help feeling completely, and irrevocably bored. Unable to cast spells, and finding himself lacking his customary holidays pursuit of letters to friends and avoiding the occasional bout of Harry-hunting, he found himself spending most of his time sitting in bed, reading whatever he could get his hands on from Flourish and Blotts, who were kind enough to owl some books over to him in the dead of night. Most days and nights, however, he just found himself going over and over the same old mistakes he had made in the past (future?). Could he have stopped Malfoy from betraying him? Was Sirius even in trouble that night? And just how the hell would he act around his former best friend, knowing that the kid was destined to betray him? Agonising nights of doubts, recriminations and second-guessing seemed to be the only markers of time for Harry in the Dursley household, with as time seemed to slow down the closer he got to the Hogwarts express. Finally, on the night of August 31st, Harry set his alarm clock to 6:00 AM, and, with his mind racing with thoughts of how he'd talk to Daph, Tracey, Theo and the rest, fell asleep.