ESSENTIALLY CREATIVE

I do not own Harry Potter or any other recognized works of fiction.

This chapter is dedicated to Sinereal, who wrote an OP Essence fic that spawned the plot bunny for this fic.

Thanks to my beta reader PercyPendragon3 for correcting my many, many mistakes.

Besides the sites I normally post on, you may contact me on;

Shiro's Gaming Omniverse: discord.gg/wd3tUYWVCd

Of Fiction and Fuckups: discord.gg/68gAdfsTE4

With that out of the way, let's get to the story.

Chapter One: Prepping with a Purpose.

I woke up like pre-Hogwarts Harry normally would; from the traditional nightmare of He-Who-Is-Undead's voice and then a flash of green light.

The next thing I felt was a headache of epic proportions as the memories of OG Harry slammed into my mind with the force of Truck-sama at full speed.

Those memories were what really confirmed that this really was an AU. In canon, the physical abuse was glossed over. Here? The fat tub of lard tried to kill me at least once a month, with a little extra gift on my birthday, which happened to be three days ago.

Can you hear the sarcasm, readers?

And yes. Petunia placing 6-year-old Harry's hand in a lit stove for, quote, "wasting our hard-earned money on your freakish behaviour. We took you in after your useless parents died, and this is how you repay us?"

You're asking what Harry did? Well, he committed the heinous crime of, wait for it... Burning the bacon! How evil! Never mind that a six-year-old had no business cooking anyway. Of course, it was completely normal and definitely not child abuse. Not at all.

Once again, can you hear the sarcasm?

And that thing about OG Harry having to intentionally fail his classes was also true. The screeches from Petunia as she swung her frying pan at his head, as well as Vernon really laying into him with the tip of his belt, with a couple kicks to the ribs to finish, ensured that Harry never, as Petunia would say, used his freakishness to surpass her perfect Dudders.

I have to give Harry credit though. It takes a lot of learning to pass just so you don't repeat the year, but always keep your score a point or two behind someone who's almost as dumb as a pet rock. It's a tightrope walk, to be honest.

Anyway, Harry had received his 'birthday present' and was left for dead in the cupboard, and if tradition were to hold true, his isolation would probably last a week.

Unfortunately, this Harry's body just couldn't take it anymore, and since his mana was being drained in ever-increasing amounts to power up the walls of his prison, his magic just couldn't keep up. You can guess what happened next.

Let me pay my respects. F.

RIP Harry. And thanks for the free body. Even though it is in shit shape. Don't worry. I'll make sure to get revenge for you.

Well, for all intents and purposes, I'm Harry now. So there's that. And the Dursleys will definitely be getting their comeuppance.

A quick check on myself just confirmed the memories. Scars everywhere. Thank God for the regeneration perk I picked up, or I'd be a corpse by now.

Anyway, the first thing I did was open a portal to my Home dimension. And I have to say, it was all worth it.

According to the information that just seemed to appear in my head, it was a three-storey mansion that contained more bedrooms than could possibly be counted, fully equipped training rooms, basically everything.

The grounds contained farms, a beach, as well as several different biomes for training purposes. And I loved it.

Anyway, I set the portal's destination to the medical bay and lay down on one of the high-tech beds as my body started to glow with green light as the machine started to correct years worth of problems.

The process took three fucking hours. If that doesn't tell you that this body was really fucked, I don't know what will.

I came out of it feeling lighter than I ever had before, as I had lost the mouldy egg's soul parasite and all the chains that were binding me to Durzkaban, as it was so creatively called. Dumbledore must have been throwing a fit right then, but that's beside the point.

Even though I was now healthy, my body still looked like any passing wind would blow me away. Luckily, a quick application of my perk-given one-time body redesign fixed that, turning me from a skinny, weedy little thing into a relatively tall for my age ten-year-old with a well-sculpted face and just the right amount of muscle. If I wasn't straight as a laser beam, I would've fallen in love with myself.

The next thing was to check on my Skill Creator Essence. It worked exactly the way I wanted;

[LP: 12,601

Skills: Get Creative (EX), LP Conversion (EX), Bestow (EX) , Upgrade (EX), Merge(EX), Toggle Fertility (SSS), Designer Babies (SSS), Regeneration (SS), Undying (A), Harem Protagonist (B), One Mind, Many Bodies (C), Sexual Optimization (D), Shapeshifting (E)

Drawbacks: Excessive Fluids (C)]

Although my Head Start options showed up in my status panel, my essences did not. Didn't mean I didn't have them, though. My giant Home dimension was evidence enough of that.

If you're wondering where the Shapeshifting skill came from, let me ask you this. How else would you explain a kid's hair growing back overnight? Canon Harry could have been a metamorphmagus, but we'll never know if it was true. And I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

I watched as my LP value ticked up by one each second and smiled. One each second may not seem like much, but it does add together if you wait a while. Do you know how many seconds there are in a day? A week? What about a year?

Anyway, the first skill I created was Energy Manipulation at D rank, which set me back 11,000 LP; A thousand to create the skill at E rank and ten to upgrade it to the next rank.

As if a dam had been broken, I could feel a surge of unknown energy rise from within my chest and flood my whole body. Archmage was definitely doing its job as I felt my truly massive reserves. I wouldn't be running out of mana anytime soon.

I played around with my mana a bit, creating constructs and shooting beams of magic at the wall. If you haven't guessed, those beams of magic were green. Guess the fandom was right about something after all.

After playing with magic for about half an hour, I created the Martial Arts Proficiency and Superhuman Physique skills at E rank, for another 2000 LP.

Immediately, everything changed. It was as if I had been seeing through a foggy window and wading through treacle as my vision became clearer and my movements slightly easier. OG Harry may have been OK with glasses, but I certainly wasn't.

I decided to save up my LP for a bit as I created three extra bodies to spar and test my new martial arts skills. Grinding the natural way is also good. And since I had the Blank essence, my skills could grow naturally.

After two hours of four bodies beating each other up, the Homunculus servants brought lunch for all four of my bodies, leaving me with full bellies and a few thousand bonus LP.

I spent the rest of the day with one body exploring the house as the other three continued to grind up some of my skills.

I recalled my bodies at around 10pm, fully satisfied. Today had been a productive day. I went to bed, knowing that I had several busy days ahead of me.

The next day, I got out of bed feeling better than I ever did. I had another three days to train, then it would be time to terrorize the Dursleys. Until then, I would continue training with my seven extra bodies.

For the next three days, I had two of my bodies training martial arts, one training my Shapeshifting, while the remaining four sparred to try and improve our physical parameters. I held off on creating new skills since I wanted to save up my LP to create some high-level ones.

My three days of training paid off as my Martial Arts Proficiency and Superhuman Physique rose to D, and my Shapeshifting to C. I could now change the colour and length of my hair at will, as well as the colour of my eyes. It was unfortunate, though, that I hadn't seen much progress with Energy Manipulation. Oh well, beggars, choosers and all that.

I returned to the cupboard via portal on the evening of my seventh day in this world, leaving five other bodies behind to continue training. My main body was almost vibrating with anticipation. Things were about to change around here. The Dursley family didn't know it yet, but their ass was grass. And I was the lawnmower.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! "BOOOOY! Get up and make us breakfast. We didn't take you in out of the kindness of our hearts so you freeload in here!"

Welp. This bitch needs to get laid. Not with me though. I honestly wouldn't touch her with a stolen dick.

As you can see, my thoughts about my alarm clock were far from favourable. I stepped out of the cupboard when she suddenly reached for my arm, trying to drag me to the kitchen.

There was no way I would allow these people's hands anywhere near me. My martial arts skills kicked in as I sidestepped the hand coming for me. "I've had enough of this."

The banshee looked at me in shock. There was no way her slave and torture toy was standing up to her, right? Her expression then shifted to anger as she screeched even louder. "Just you wait here, you freak. Vernon will give you a hiding to make the last one seem like child's play." She then stormed off to the kitchen to grab her favourite weapon, the Cast Iron Skillet of Doom TM.

The stairs shook as the giant tub of lard huffed and puffed his way down from upstairs. "What's going on here?" He looked around before his gaze oriented on me. "BOY! Where's my breakfast?"

I gave him the most deadpan expression I could manage. "Go make it yourself. It's not like I'm your slave or anything."

The fat whale's face turned redder than a baboon's butt as he charged towards me with an unintelligible battle cry that sounded suspiciously like an ork's "WAAAAAGH!" from Warhammer. He lifted his meaty hands above his head as he rushed at me, if you can call shambling with a red face charging.

I dodged his first swing, ducking under his arm as I punched him in the solar plexus, causing him to stumble back, wheezing in pain.

It seemed like Vernon's survival instincts had deteriorated as he tried to hit me again, only to receive another counter, this time a kick where the sun doesn't shine, causing him to hunch over as he took a few steps back, his hands cupping his crotch.

Petunia, seeing her beloved husband in such distress, tried to take a swing at my head from the side with her skillet, only for me to dodge it as it hit Vernon in the jaw, knocking him out. Well, she did make my job easier, so she can't be all bad.

Of course, she still received a punch to the jaw that laid her out next to her husband. If you can't tell yet, I'm a believer in true gender equality. Evil doesn't have a gender, and neither will my retaliation. See? Equality!

Anyway, after that brief one-sided fight, I proceeded to Bind them, then gave them absolute orders to ensure that my last year of seeing their fugly mugs wouldn't be too unbearable. For me, that is. I also had Petunia Bind her "Precious Duddykins" herself. The sour expression on her face as she placed her hand on his forehead and bound him to my will was satisfying.

After interrogating the Dursleys, I found some pretty useful information. It turns out that the Dursleys were being paid to take care of me. Even worse is the fact that they used MY money to bribe the Principal of my school to look the other way with regards to Dudley and his bullying. To say I was pissed off would be an understatement.

There would be a reckoning for this. With the binder essence, their souls were literally mine. A daily dose of torture was just what they needed. Am I too evil? Naaah. They deserve it.

After interrogating them and setting their commands, I sat down to do some planning. I definitely needed to start learning this world's magic. There was no way I was going to Hogwarts unprepared. That would not be easy, though. If I went in my regular appearance, there was a 110% chance that I'd be mobbed and Dumbledore would find out that his plans were fucked.

That could be worked around, though. The next skill I created was Presence Concealment at B rank for about 160,000 LP. Coupled with my Shapeshifting, this would allow me to sneak into the alley, but the problem was now resources. Since this was an Evil Dumbledore AU, I wouldn't put it past Dumbledore to have some goblins in his payroll. Because of this, going to Gringotts was a bad idea. Thankfully, my newly created Steal skill at B rank would help. I also used my preparation period to train my Shapeshifting skill to B rank, which made me the equivalent of a metamorphmagus in this world. I also upgraded my Energy Manipulation skill to B rank, allowing me to use wandless magic with a bit of precision. I also created the Mind Defence skill and upgraded it to A rank at the cost of 500,000 LP on top of the B rank cost. I also created the Appraisal skill and got it to A rank. My LP took a huge hit, but it was well worth it, since I had descriptions for my skills now. I could also see other people's statuses, which was a plus. I created Fluid Adjustment, which I upgraded to B rank, removing the Excessive Fluids drawback. I would be having lots of sex soon enough and wouldn't want anyone to notice anything weird.

During my one month of prep, things had certainly changed. Absolute Orders ensured that the Dursleys were now treating me much better. I rendered Vernon and Petunia into nearly mindless puppets who obeyed my every order. Dudley, I left mostly alone, except to give him some pain whenever he thought of attacking me. My favourite method of torturing the Dursleys was having the parents be prisoners in their own minds as they treated Dudley as badly as they did me. My orders ensured that they were fully aware of what they were doing, but did it anyway. This was just the beginning. The Dursleys would regret taking my money, then turning around to torture me while calling me a burden. Oh yes they would.

I also used that one month to scout various martial arts training facilities. Although my martial arts didn't advance in rank, the improvement was still a plus. After all, improvement is the cure for weakness.

Finally, it was the first Saturday in September and I was ready. I took a taxi to the Leaky Cauldron and entered Diagon Alley anonymously. No mobs for THIS protagonist. After all, it was just an average adult with brown hair going into the alley. Nothing to see here!

About the alley. Was it like Rowling described it? Absolutely. The place looked... well, 'quaint' is the best word I found to describe it. Really fit that whole 'stuck in the 1750s' theme they had going on. The robes were just the icing on the cake. Seeing an old man in a bathrobe was something. I didn't know whether to laugh or be traumatized. Probably both, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, after making it into the alley, the first thing I did was finding a target to steal from. Luckily for me, Lucius 'The Golden Ponce' Malfoy just walked out of the bank holding a bag of coins. A quick Appraisal told me there were about 10,000 Galleons in that bag. Of course, the bag must be too heavy for the poor ponce, so I used a judicious application of Steal to reduce the contents by half, while hiding myself with Presence Concealment. See? I'm a good person.

After stealing half of Malfoy's gold, I headed off to the bookstore. Knowledge is power, after all. And 2,000 galleons got me lots of it. I got books on all the Hogwarts core subjects up to seventh year, plus as many books on runes and warding as I could. You must know how to keep snooping snoopers who snoop out of your space, after all.

From there, I went into Knockturn Alley. Immediately, I could see why this place got its shady rep. Even the storefronts in this place were creepy and reminded me of haunted houses on Halloween. The people weren't much better. A hag selling fingers approached me and I had to respond with some aggressive self-defence. No one tested me after that.

Anyway, I made my way into Borgin and Burke's, the shopkeeper turning toward me as the bell rang.

The man tensed up as he looked me up and down for a while before seemingly relaxing. "Welcome to Borgin and Burke's. How may I help you?"

I mustered up the most arrogant tone of voice I could. "I received information that this was a good place to get resources that would be otherwise... frowned upon, so to speak, by the idiot pansies in the Ministry. Was my informant correct?" I flared up my magical energy, not enough to create a visible Aura, but enough to be perceptible to any magical's survival instincts.

The man trembled as he answered. "Y-yes. You were informed properly, my lord."

I smiled and nodded slightly. "Good. Very good. Would you have in stock anything relating to the Mind Arts? Why the ministry banned the only way of protecting our minds, I'll never know." I drawled.

"I- I'll see what I h-have, sir." The man scrambled into the back area of his shop and came out after 5 minutes, three books in hand.

The titles of those books seemed promising enough. "Alright. I'll take them."

"T-that would be 2,000 galleons."

I turned up my intimidating Aura. "Are you trying to cheat me, Mr. Borgin?"

"N-no, my lord. I would never." He trembled.

"Good. I'll keep you in mind, then." I paid him the required amount, then transported the books to my home dimension. I then used my home dimension to open a portal in Dudley's bedroom, which was now mine.

I had a year to prep for Hogwarts and I was going to use it well.

~xXxXx~

In an office on the third floor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, an old man with a long white beard and too many middle names couldn't help but smile. Harry Potter would be coming to school next year. By then, the Dursleys should have left him broken, starved for affection and above all, malleable. He couldn't have his pawn see him as anything but the greatest wizard since Merlin, after all. How else could Dumbledore guide him to his death if he didn't trust him?

Of course, Dumbledore had stopped checking on his silver instruments a long time ago, fully confident in his plans. If he had, he would notice that all of his instruments just didn't work. It was unfortunate for him that when he realized this, it would be too late and his martyr would be a true force to be reckoned with. His plans were well and truly fucked. He just didn't know it yet.