Disclaimer: Usually, I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but once again I find myself not really interested in doing so for this story as it's very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I'm making no money whatsoever from the writing of this FanFiction.

Warnings: Mild to moderate violence, character death, foul language, alternate universe (i.e. kiss HP canon goodbye), angst, drama, starts pre-Hogwarts Era, original Quests, some minor religious themes, and who knows what else.

AN1: This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.

Chapter Three: Evolution of a Gamer

Saturday, August 24, 2019 1:12 AM
No. 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey

Harry breathed out a near silent sigh as he reached up to pull the NerveGear from his head. He was always bummed when it was time to log out of Ken no Sekai but it had been especially difficult to leave this time because he'd been having so much fun hunting the Monsters now that he knew how to defeat them. Letting out a second sigh, Harry pushed himself into a sitting position and stretched out the muscles that had gone stiff from lying in one position for so long. He then turned around to close the game and shut down the computer.

As soon as the screen went dark, he carefully moved everything back into the smallest section of his cupboard so that he could cover it back up before he went to sleep. He took care to make certain all of the cords were tucked away before he pushed the cardboard cover he'd made to hide the computer and gaming paraphernalia into place. Harry inspected the cardboard cover closely to make certain there were no gaps and that there was nothing sticking out before he pulled open the curtain that blocked off his cupboard's door and crawled into bed.

It would take Harry a long time to fall asleep once he was in bed. He was still all wired up from the progress he'd made in the game. It also felt far too stuffy in his cupboard for some reason and it almost felt like he was going to suffocate because of how warm it was inside. He was half tempted to crack the door to his cupboard open but didn't want to get snapped at in the morning for leaving the door open 'for someone to trip over'. For a moment, he even thought he saw the walls closing in on him as he sat up to throw off the covers but he figured it was probably just a trick of the light.

Once he did fall asleep, he tossed and turned until he woke up in the morning feeling more than a little groggy due to how stuffy his cupboard felt when compared to the wide open spaces of Ken no Sekai. He felt a little better once he was out of the small, enclosed space and moving around as he completed his chores for the day and by the time he returned to his cupboard after supper later that night, he'd forgotten all about how cramped and stuffy he had found the boot closet after his most recent trip to the virtual game world.

Each night for the next five nights, Harry would return to the Dungeons as soon as he set foot inside of the game in order to earn more money in the game so he could buy better Arrows. And a better Bow because the one he had now wasn't really all that good, even if it was a hundred times better than any of the swords that he'd tried using. That pattern would be broken on evening of the twenty-ninth of August after he'd been reminded that school would start up again soon when he heard Aunt Petunia make a comment to Uncle Vernon about buying school supplies for Dudley.

The reminder about school also reminded Harry that he needed to sort through the pictures of the stuff that he needed to translate from the game to make certain the words were readable in the photos. Only, when he looked in the photo folder on the computer that night, he discovered that he'd forgotten all about taking pictures of things with the in-game camera because he'd been far too busy getting beaten up by his own sword or shattering Monsters with his Bow.

It wasn't hard for him to make the decision to spend that night taking pictures rather than hunting Monsters since he knew translating the in-game signs and his Player Menu was more important. Of course, he first had to figure out which button on the Menu activated the in-game camera first since he didn't know which button had taken the photo; a process that involved Harry logging in to open his Menu so he could press a random button before he logged out in order to check to see if a new picture had been downloaded and repeating the process as many times as it took for him to find the camera button.

It took him a good thirty-three minutes to do so; most of that time spent logging in and logging out.

Once he knew how to activate the in-game camera, he flittered about the city taking pictures of every single sign he could find. He even managed to take some pictures of the Dungeon Monsters on the First Floor since they each carried a 'tag' that labeled their species. Capturing those pictures had not exactly been easy though since he couldn't attack them when he had the Menu Camera active and he couldn't stand too far away from the Monsters while he took the photos or the tags wouldn't be visible; meaning he had to be up close and personal with the Monsters to photograph them.

And that inevitably meant getting 'killed' a few times all for the sake of a few photos.

Not that Harry minded too terribly much, those deaths had at least been for a good cause; unlike his earlier deaths in the game.

Getting a copy of his different Menu Pages was far trickier since he couldn't actually take photos of the Menu (and he had tried) but he had suspected that that might be the case due to the way he accessed the in-game camera through the Menu. Finding a pen and paper in the game to copy out the Menu was a little harder since he wasn't able to actually ask the NPC Shopkeepers or other Players where to get those Items from. Once he did have them, it took him the rest of his time in the game that night and an hour the next night to copy out the Menu before he took pictures of everything he'd copied down.

After taking a picture of his handwritten Menu copy, Harry sorted through his Inventory (which he'd only just noticed was full of a bunch of junk when he'd been copying stuff) to figure out what everything was and if he was going to keep it or sell it off. Most of the stuff he got was rather weird (skins, bones, teeth, feathers, and meat) but he also got a few Items that he thought were useful (such as Arrows, Bowstrings, and Boots). He also got a few knives but he didn't touch those. He sold off most of what he'd collected but kept the Arrows, Bowstrings, and the nicest looking set of Boots.

After that, he'd spend less than an hour out in the Dungeons hunting Monsters before he called it a night.

Harry wouldn't get a chance to log into the game at all on the thirty-first; he'd spent all day mending the latest batch of hand-me-downs that his aunt had given to him in order to make them somewhat presentable for school. He'd then gone to bed early that night in order to adjust his sleeping schedule to make certain he got enough sleep for school. On top of that, he was having more and more trouble spending time in his cupboard each time he logged out of the game and it was especially hard to fall asleep in his cramped cupboard once he shut the computer off.

He was up by four the next morning and spent two hours playing Ken no Sekai before he got dressed for the day. The fact that he lost an hour's worth of game play meant he'd be going to bed even earlier that evening in the hopes that he would be up earlier in order to gain another hour or two of play time. So long as he logged out by six, he'd have more than enough time to get ready for the day and help him aunt make breakfast for his uncle. He wouldn't need to worry about making anything for Dudley; Dudley would be leaving for his second year at Smeltings later that night.

Harry would then have three and a half months before he'd see his cousin again. The nine year old was pleased with the fact that Dudley was older than him and that Uncle Vernon had paid to send Dudley to a private boarding school; it meant that Harry didn't have to put up with him except during long holidays (winter and spring break) and during the summer. That also equated to fewer chances for Dudley to get him in trouble with his aunt and uncle or for him to make extra messes for Harry to clean up.

The downside, however, meant that his aunt would pay closer attention to him during the day (especially on weekends) because she would no longer have Dudley to fawn over. Of course, that mostly meant that she'd supervise him more closely as he did his chores and then inspect his work more thoroughly after he was done than she did when Dudley was around. He wasn't looking forward to the extra attention from his aunt because he was worried that she might notice he wasn't quite as unhappy all the time as he used to be; another side affect of spending time in the game.

He'd have to work on thinking sad thoughts during the day in order to make it harder for her to notice that he'd found something he enjoyed.

That would actually be fairly easy for him; all he had to do was think about how little time he got to spend in the game.

Monday, September 02, 2019 7:12 AM
No. 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey

Harry quietly slipped outside and pulled the back door shut behind him before he made his way around to the front of the house. Once he reached the street, he turned east and headed off to St. Grogory's* Primary School for the first day of the new term. On his back, the nine year old carried a battered rucksack that had seen better days; the old thing yet another second-hand item he'd inherited from Dudley. Inside of the pack, Harry carried the bare essentials he needed for school (pencils, an eraser, two notebooks, and a ruler) and a thumb drive holding copies of the photos he'd taken in the game.

Getting out of the house with the thumb drive had been rather tricky since his aunt always inspected his rucksack before he left for school; to ensure that he wasn't smuggling valuables out of the house or sneaking any of Dudley's precious snacks. He couldn't just slip it into a pocket either because he had to turn his pockets out before he left the house for the same reason. No, he'd needed to be smart and tricky about his smuggling and had created small pockets in the shoulder straps of the rucksack when he'd repaired it after his aunt had handed it to him along with Dudley's old clothes.

He'd done the same thing to past rucksacks he'd used for school; though he typically used the hidden pockets to hold loose change he'd squirreled away (coins and bills he'd picked up off the street or that he'd found beneath the cushions of the couch) to keep his relatives from finding it. He usually used that money at the student store to buy replacement school supplies since his aunt never replaced what he used through the year and what she supplied at the start of every year was the cheapest supplies available and only bought the bare minimum.

Buying his own supplies from the school also meant he'd get better quality supplies and his aunt wouldn't complain about how much money he was costing her (not that she ever bothered to spend much on him). He also occasionally snuck extra supplies out of Dudley's second room since Dudley never used (or even really needed) all of the crap that Aunt Petunia bought for him at the start of each new school term. That was where the second notebook in his pack had come from; though it was an older one from the year before last so his aunt hadn't recognized it.

To prevent her from thinking that he'd 'stolen' the second notebook when she'd seen it in his bag, he'd claimed it was an extra one that he'd gotten from the school at the end of the previous school year; his aunt had accepted the lie as truth since there were times that Harry did get unused supplies from the school (Dudley had as well when he'd attended the same Primary School). Harry hadn't felt any guilt about telling the fib; if only because he'd been telling the truth in a round about way and the supplies had been unneeded extras.

He'd taken it at the end of a school year and it was an extra one that Dudley had not needed or used and that his cousin had thrown into his second bedroom once he'd gotten home from his first year at Smeltings.

It was far easier to smuggle things into the house; since Aunt Petunia never bothered to search him or his pack once he returned from school. Those items he brought home were usually retired library books, uneaten meal snacks, the handful of supplies he bought, and the odd trinket, lost toy, or discarded clothing that he rescued from the school's Lost and Found or that he found on the street on the way back to the Dursleys. Most of the items that he brought back with him were promptly hidden inside of his cupboard to prevent his relatives from finding them.

He had two secret cubbies in his cupboard for such stuff; one under his bed (which was really just a cot mattress set on a couple of folded cardboard boxes) and one behind the baseboard along the back wall of the cupboard. The small one under his bed was where he kept the trinkets, toys, and money he found while the larger one in the wall was where he stored the books he took from the library's 'obsolete bin' or snuck from Dudley's playroom. He didn't bother to hide the occasional shirt, jacket, jeans, or shoes he found since his aunt never bothered paying attention to his clothes.

Any snacks that he brought home were temporarily stored under his pillow and eaten the same day they were brought home (usually after supper in order to make up for the measly portions that he was given to eat). He didn't dare store the food any longer because of the increased chances that the food he stored would attract pests such as roaches, ants, and rodents; something that his aunt would take notice of right away. He always had to make certain to get rid of the trash and clean up any crumbs right away for the same reason.

And if there was one thing that his aunt hated more than she hated Harry, it was common household pests. She'd scream like a banshee when she saw one and then she'd go into a cleaning rampage where she tore the house apart from top to bottom and ordered Harry to scrub and bleach everything. At the same time, Uncle Vernon would be ordered (a rare occurrence since he was the 'man of the house' and therefore the one usually giving the orders) to spray poison around the outside of the house, in the basement, and in the crawl-ways under the house.

That was one of the few jobs that Harry was never allowed to do; his relatives feared he'd intentionally poison them.

Harry personally wasn't all that bothered by bugs or rodents but he'd learned to fear getting caught within five feet of a live one. His aunt had once seen a moth land on him and she'd chased him out of the house with the broom before she proceeded to sweep at him with the broom to kill or drive the moth off. She'd then ordered him to strip down to his briefs while still outside and had him wash himself from head to toe with lye soap before she hosed him off with the garden hose to ensure there were no more on him.

That had been both embarrassing and uncomfortable because the broom had been a stiff bristled one that left tiny welts on his arms and legs because she'd brushed so hard against his skin in her attempts to make certain he was 'clean'.

Needless to say, it had not been a pleasant experience and the lesson it had imparted had stuck with him.

The only reason he allowed a few spiders to remain in his cupboard was so that they'd deal with any other insects that got into the closet and he was very careful to make certain he didn't have any on him when he left the cupboard lest the sight of one set his aunt off. He was also very careful to keep the spider population down to a bare minimum lest they spread outwards from his cupboard because he knew his aunt would blame him if spiders ended up in any of the other rooms in the house. He did that by removing the egg sacks of the females and evicting any extra bodies that turned up.

He also made doubly certain to eradicate those spiders whose bites and venom were harmful to humans; no need to tempt fate by getting bit by a bug that would get him sick since it would only get him in trouble for 'playing around with nasty little vermin'.

Once he arrived at school, Harry made a beeline for the cafeteria in order to grab his usual double breakfast. He then took his food to the computer lab where he claimed the desk furthest away from both the door and the teacher's desk and quickly ate through those portions of his meal that couldn't be saved. After he'd eaten his fill, he tucked the uneaten portions into his backpack and cleaned his hands off with a damp napkin. Once clean, he removed the thumb drive from the hidden pocket on his rucksack, stuck it into a USB port of the computer on his purloined desk, and opened Windows Explorer in order to access his photos.

Harry then spent the rest of the morning looking up the various words and symbols in each photo and diligently copied the translations onto a notepad document on the computer that he saved to the thumb drive. As he worked through the morning (skipping his classes without a second thought), Harry snacked on his leftover breakfast during short breaks away from his research (so as not to dirty the computer) and made note of those words or symbols he couldn't find a translation for on the internet. He also looked up Japanese tutorials, Japanese to English dictionaries, and Japanese workbooks in order to teach himself how to read the language.

At lunch time, Harry would clean up his messes, save his files, and shut down the computer he'd been using so that he could grab lunch. This time, he quickly ate those items he couldn't store in his rucksack without making a mess before he packed up the rest of the food, left the cafeteria to head to the administration office in order to doctor his attendance records for the day, and get the usual start of term paperwork packets that all returning students had to take home and give to their parents or guardians to fill out and sign. He then headed for the library where he filled out the forms and forged his aunt's signature before returning the forms to the office.

In between the tedious process of filling out the annoying documents, Harry would browse the library for the books and tutorial programs that he'd looked up online; setting aside those that he found so he could check them out later. After finishing those two tasks, he returned the form packet to the office and grabbed a copy of his class schedule from the secretary's computer after she'd gotten up to use the bathroom. He then went around to his individual classrooms to pick up his textbooks, workbooks, and classroom supplies for the term so he could keep up with his classes.

Once he had everything he needed, he returned to the computer lab and snagged a free computer in order to browse for online tutorials for Ken no Sekai that he could potentially use to help him either translate the rest of the photos he'd taken or help him figure out those parts of the game he was having trouble with. Sadly, most of said tutorials were all in Japanese and therefore of limited use since he couldn't yet read the language; so he didn't bother downloading any of them since it would take too long for him to try and translate them.

When the last bell rang, signaling the end of school for the day, Harry gathered up his things and headed back to the Dursleys; taking a different route to his relatives' home in order to scour the ground for loose change and other items of interest. As soon as he walked through the back door, Harry dropped his rucksack off in his cupboard and started in on his chores in order to get them done as quickly as possible. That mainly involved raking up the dead leaves in both the front and back yards, picking up any trash that'd blown into the yards, and sweeping off the driveway and walkway.

The last two hours before supper would then be spent skimming through his school books in order to get an idea of what he'd be required to learn that term so he'd be prepared for the various exams. Tomorrow, he'd need to raid his teachers' lesson plans so he'd know what kind of homework, projects, and reports he'd be expected to hand in as well as when their periodical tests and quizzes were scheduled so he wouldn't miss any of them. His teachers might mostly ignore him and he might be willing to ditch class but he wouldn't cheat to give himself grades for things he didn't do.

He did, however, doctor his grades to ensure they were lower than what he actually got in order to avoid getting in trouble for 'cheating' since there was no way he could be smarter than the perfect Dudley. He also made it a point to forge his aunt's signature on any progress reports that were handed out; there was no point in asking her to sign them herself since she wanted nothing to do with him or his education. The only time Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon saw his grades was when the school mailed them to the students' houses at the end of each quarter.

And since those had reflected his doctored grades ever since he'd taught himself how to use a computer two years ago (something he'd learned mostly by watching the teachers and admin staff at the school when they were overlooking his presence), he never had to worry about what his relatives saw.

Monday, September 30, 2019 6:02 AM
No. 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey

It was with a heavy heart that Harry logged out of Sword Art Online for what would be the last time; today was the final day of the Beta Test.

He was really going to miss playing every day. Harry knew that the full version of the game would be out during the first week of November but he didn't know if Uncle Vernon had pre-ordered it or not before Dudley had thrown everything out. There had been a game-wide announcement within Aincrad two days earlier that had said the pre-ordered copies of the software would be shipped out on the twenty-first of October but it hadn't told him if a copy had been ordered by his uncle or not.

He suspected that his uncle had pre-ordered the game for Dudley, since his cousin had been rather excited about the game when it had first come out and before he'd gotten frustrated with the game due to his inability to read any of the instructions. Harry wouldn't know for certain until around the end of October or beginning of November though. Until then, all he could do was hope for the best, spend time improving his grasp of written Japanese, and focus on his school assignments in order to distract himself from the loss of his game time.

As he diligently closed the game out, shut off the computer, and put everything away, Harry silently reflected on the last twenty-eight days while he ignored the way the walls of his cupboard seemed to press in on him.

After school resumed and Harry had noticed that he was still having trouble sleeping in his cupboard, he'd done some research in the school library and on the internet to find out what was wrong with him. It took him nearly the entire first week before he stumbled across what he suspected was the answer; he'd developed claustrophobia. He hadn't really thought he was afraid of his cupboard but the whole having trouble breathing while the door of his cupboard was closed and feeling as if the walls were pressing in on him were both known 'symptoms' of the well documented phobia.

Harry thought it weird that it had taken so long for him to develop a fear of small, enclosed spaces (considering that he'd been living in the cupboard under the stairs for nearly his whole life). In truth, it was a combination of several factors that led to the development of his self-diagnosed anxiety disorder.

To start, Harry had been conditioned through the years to associate his cupboard with unhappiness due to the fact that he'd been unhappy since he'd been given to his relatives and that they had made him spend a considerable amount of time in the cupboard throughout the years he'd lived with them. He just hadn't really noticed that unhappiness sooner since he hadn't really been happy anywhere else either and therefore had nothing to compare it to. On top of that, the cupboard had come to represent a prison in Harry's mind since he was always being locked inside of it when he was being punished.

Additionally, his aunt and uncle often restricted his freedom and most of the time, they did so by sending him to the cupboard whether he was in trouble or not and setting foot outside of his cupboard after that would see him getting in trouble for disobeying a direct order. That wasn't even touching on the musty smell of the cupboard due to the amount of dust that his relatives (most pointedly his heavyset uncle and cousin) knocked free each time they used the stairs. Until he first set foot in Aincrad, he hadn't even realized how unhappy he had been in his cupboard.

And that's because in Aincrad, he was free.

Free to choose what to do with his time. Free to go where he wanted to go, when he wanted to go. Free to think whatever he wanted to think. Free to do things his way without fear of being punished. And free to be whoever he wanted to be.

It was so very hard for Harry to let go of those freedoms every time he logged out of the game. Even worse, the more time he spent in the game world, the harder it was to make himself leave Aincrad in order to return to the dreary prison that was his cupboard. He hadn't really realized just how much he loathed living with the Dursleys until he'd finally experienced what his life could be like without them. Sure, he'd hated living with them before but that was nothing when compared to how he felt about the Dursley house now.

It was probably a good thing that Dudley wasn't there or Harry might have been tempted to take his growing frustration with his living arrangements out on his cousin the next time the tub of lard tried to get him in trouble. Of course, doing such a thing would undoubtedly land him in even deeper trouble but it was the principle of the matter; Harry was fed up with being his relatives' figurative punching bag, unappreciated slave (they constantly forced him to 'work' for his basic necessities – such as food and clothes), and all around scapegoat.

Then there was the fact that the NPCs he dealt with in the game (because he did his best to avoid the other Players like the plague because he still couldn't speak Japanese) all acknowledged him while his relatives, the neighbors, his peers, and his teachers all ignored him or actively shunned him in the case of his relatives. Harry didn't like the way everyone he encountered in real life acted like he didn't exist now that he finally knew what it felt like to be treated like an actual person thanks to the computer generated characters in the game.

It was more than a little sad to think that the only recognition he had ever received was from bits of code in a game.

Unfortunately, he couldn't exactly leave the Dursleys; he was still just a child, after all. So he was basically stuck with his relatives until he reached adulthood. And the knowledge that he couldn't do anything to change that made him feel trapped; hence the reason why he'd rapidly developed claustrophobia over the past two months.

Harry let out a huff of frustration due to the direction that his thoughts were currently taking and firmly shoved his growing discontent out of his mind as he got dressed for the day so that he could get ready for school. As he sat down to put on his shoes, Harry's thoughts wandered back to Aincrad and everything that he'd accomplished in-game over the past four weeks.

Once Harry had fully translated his Player Menu, he'd taken the time to memorize what each option on the Menu did and where each particular option was located so that he would be able to navigate through the Menu without the trouble that he'd had before he'd looked up those translations. That was how he'd learned that he could upload documents from the computer to the game; a feature that allowed him to move a copy of his translations into the game where they'd be easier to reference if he forgot what a particular word meant or where a particular section of the Player Menu was found.

He'd also used that function to transfer the program software for a Japanese to English Dictionary (which was easier to use to look up new Japanese words in than an English to Japanese Dictionary) and a list of common Japanese phrases (as well as their English equivalents) into the game where the data had been converted into a couple of Book Items that he could keep in his Inventory for future reference while he was inside the game.

Once he had those Items on hand, he could move through the game with far more confidence and he started leaving Hajimari no Machi and the fields around it in order to explore the rest of Aincrad's first and largest floor. Though he hadn't bothered to leave the first level in order to explore the other floors that had been unlocked by the rest of the Beta Testers (last he'd heard, they'd just reached the Fifteenth Floor on the twenty-ninth); he had no interest in conquering the game – he just wanted to explore the virtual world that had become his home in his mind.

And there was the fact that he hadn't even finished exploring every inch of the First Floor before the Beta Test had ended; there'd been no reason for him to rush and he'd spent hours just drinking in the various hidden paradises that he had stumbled upon in his wanderings.

He had, on the other hand, learned a ton about the different Towns, Dungeons, and Monsters that could be found on the First Floor. He'd also learned a lot more about the in-game Player Options and corrected a bunch of mistakes he'd made when he'd first set up his account. One of the biggest mistakes he'd made was to set his character's 'class type' as a 'Ranged Fighter' rather than a 'Melee Fighter' and then chose a sword as his default weapon; hence the reason why he hadn't been able to use a sword in the game – his character hadn't been pre-programmed to use one.

Harry had fixed that little mistake by changing his default weapon to a Bow; he had no interest in making any further attempts to master the sword after he'd killed himself with one so many times.

Another thing he had changed on his account was his name. Previously, he'd just had 'Harry' as his name since he'd used his name repeatedly when filling out his account info since he hadn't known what field was meant for what info aside from the ones that required numbers. He'd fixed his information and luckily hadn't lost his character in the process. His new in-game name had been designated as Joe Bloggs; a name commonly used in reference to individuals whose names are unknown or when making a general reference to the average person without naming specific names.

He'd chosen that particular name on a whim and because it was a name that couldn't really be traced back to him. There was also the fact that no one really knew him as Harry Potter outside of his relatives and the weird old lady from a few streets over that sometimes babysat him when the Dursleys went out and if he was going to be stuck as an anonymous entity, then he figured that he might as well have the name to go with it.

After fixing all of the mistakes that he'd made when he first set up his account, Harry had fixed his Avatar; tweaking his appearance so that he looked just a little less like himself – though he'd kept his black hair and green eyes. He'd also upgraded his clothes so that he didn't look quite so much like a ruffian in the game. A side affect of changing his clothes was an increase in Stats but he didn't really pay all that much attention to that since he wasn't really all that worried about leveling up or clearing the game.

In fact, while Harry still fought off any Monsters that he encountered, he no longer actually went looking for Monsters in the game; he was perfectly content just to explore the world. His continued explorations also had an unintentional side effect of gaining him Skill Points for his Equipped and Unarmed Skills. He'd even managed to master four of the Skills without even trying. Those Skills were Navigation, Hiding, Tracking, and Sneaking. His Archery, Detection, Searching, Hunting, and Scouting Skills were all fairly high as well.

He hadn't put in as much effort in his final two Skills, Listening and Escape since he didn't really have anything to do with the other Players or NPCs (which is where Listening was used most – though it could be used to listen for Monsters too) and he never really tried to flee from a battle (which is what Escape allowed a Player to do). He much preferred to avoid the other Players and those Monsters he couldn't sneak around, he fought to the death; either theirs or his own. The only battles that he had fled from had usually been the ones where he was seriously outclassed and he was short on time and therefore didn't want to waste time by being sent all the way back to Hajimari.

Despite not focusing on Leveling Up his character, Harry still managed to make it up to level twenty within the game; mostly because he'd started sneaking on twice a day during the final two weeks of the game due to how limited his remaining game time had been. So, instead of getting only two or three hours per day (depending on what time he woke up), he'd been spending five and six hours in the game per day; half in the early morning and half at night. Doing so really wrecked havoc on his sleep schedule but Harry took to napping during classes to make up for his late nights.

As he slipped out the back door and headed to school, Harry turned his thoughts towards what he was going to do now that he would no longer be able to visit Aincrad (the server would be shut down by the time he had another chance to sneak onto the computer). After thinking about it for a while, Harry supposed that he could try his hand at playing some of the other games that Dudley had thrown out back in August. Most of them were educational in nature; so playing them would probably help him with his school work.

He also supposed that he could find a way to get his hands on the software for a Japanese Tutorial Program that he could install on the computer. He could also see if Dudley's old CD player (the one he'd gotten for his ninth birthday) had been tossed into his playroom after receiving a new one for his eleventh birthday and check out a CD that would teach him how to speak Japanese from the library. Between checking out those others games and improving his grasp of Japanese, Harry figured he'd have enough distractions to get through the next several weeks while he waited to see if his uncle had pre-ordered the full version of SAO.

Once he thought he knew how he could keep himself from going crazy with boredom, Harry knew he just had to wait for a chance to raid Dudley's playroom.

He'd get his chance far sooner than he anticipated when his aunt and uncle decided to visit Marge on the Saturday after his last visit to Aincrad. Harry was sent to spend the day with the weird old lady with a ton of creepy cats by the name of Arabella Figg that lived a couple of streets over (because his relatives didn't trust him in the house alone) but he gave Mrs. Figg the slip less than an hour after the Dursleys had left. All it had taken was an offer to take out the trash for her and him accidentally holding the door open wide enough for several of her cats to dart out through his legs.

The poor women nearly had a heart attack over her cats escaping but Harry quickly promised to round them up for her (since he had been the one to let them out). Mrs. Figg was more than happy to let him chase the cats down and once he was out of her sight, he'd promptly snuck straight back to Privet Drive and 'broke' into the back door using the spare key that he'd hidden in the garden two years earlier for just such occasions. Harry then hurried upstairs in order to search through Dudley's playroom for his CD player, a set of headphones, and anything else useful.

After the first half hour of looking (in which he'd found the tangled headphones), Harry slipped back outside to hunt down one of the loose cats and returned the cat to Mrs. Figg's house (to prove he was actually looking for them). He then ran all the way back to his relatives' place in order to continue his treasure hunt. It was the most exercise he'd had since he'd first logged into SAO but despite how tired he was by the time he'd found the CD player, eight pounds in loose change and small bills, and recaptured all of the cats, he was feeling rather proud of himself.

After catching the final cat, Harry actually took him to the Dursleys with him and let the cat have a small bowl of milk (as a treat to keep him occupied) while he snuck into Dudley's bedroom to steal his public library card (since his cousin had absolutely no interest in using it because he hated reading) and gather up any money that Dudley had left lying around his room. He didn't take too much of the money and most of what he took were the smallest bills and loose change that Dudley ignored because he preferred the higher denomination bills so he could buy more when he took it to the store.

The last thing he did before he cleaned up the messes he and the cat had made in the house (and after he'd hidden his new acquisitions in his cupboard) was to dig through the cushions on Uncle Vernon's favorite chair and on the couch to look for more loose change. He then collected the cat, who he thought was named Mr. Tibbles, locked the back door, and headed back to Mrs. Figg's house. He made certain to thank the cat in his arms for cooperating with him while he snuck about and he might have been imagining it but he was certain that the cat had winked at him in return.

Once he got the cat he was carrying back to Mrs. Figg's house, Harry would spend the rest of the time she was supposed to be 'babysitting' him helping her bathe, groom, and feed all of her cats. Strangely enough, most of Mrs. Figg's cats didn't mind being given baths unlike normal domestic felines and Harry escaped the chore without a single scratch. Even creepier was the fact that the small horde of cats actually lined up to wait their turn for their baths and it weirded Harry out because that was not natural behavior for cats.

The other weird thing was the fact that Mrs. Figg was the only neighbor that ever looked twice at Harry and who consistently remembered his name. She was also the only neighbor that Aunt Petunia had ever spoken to about him and Harry figured that was strictly because she babysat him whenever the Dursleys wanted to go somewhere. Harry didn't know if that was a good thing or not. Aside from the fact that her cats were creepy smart and willing to help him escape the house for hours (they were behaved enough not to rush out the door whenever Mrs. Figg opened it), he never felt very comfortable there.

The house always stank of overcooked cabbage and cat (two smells that did not go well together). Mrs. Figg never stopped chatting about her cats; telling Harry the same exact stories each and every time he was dropped off for her to watch. The cats often stared at Harry or behaved in ways that were unnatural (such as lining up for bath time or carrying their food dishes around when they wanted food). The candies and treats Mrs. Figg offered him were always stale, hard as rocks, or tasted funny. And Mrs. Figg always asked him if anything weird ever happened around him.

Strangely enough, she always seemed so disappointed when he told her no.

Harry soon pushed the weirdness that surrounded his infrequent babysitter out of his mind as he finished drying off the cat that he'd just bathed and turned to clean out the tub so he could prepare the next cat's bath. Several hours later, all of Mrs. Figg's countless cats were clean and fed and a tired Harry was reluctantly collected by his aunt so that he could do the chores he hadn't been able to do while he'd at Mrs. Figg's before it got too dark out to see.

That night, after his aunt and uncle had gone to bed, Harry took the time to organize the stuff he'd snuck from Dudley's rooms earlier that day so that he wouldn't get caught with those things that he wasn't supposed to have; which was basically everything he'd just 'stolen'. He would then spend the rest of the time he'd usually spend in Aincrad (since he knew he couldn't go back – he'd tried Monday night and received an 'Access Denied' message for his trouble) playing one of the mathematical games that he'd salvaged back in August.

There were a couple of other non-educational games that Harry could have played but he wasn't interested in shooting up people or aliens and he unconsciously avoided the other 'sword-based' games like the plague.

Translations: Japanese to English

Hajimari no Machi – Starting City or Town of Beginnings
Ken no Sekai – Sword Art Online
Sosei-sha no Ma – Room of Resurrection

Game Terminology:

Avatar – the term for a playable character that a player uses during game play
Dive – short for FullDive
Dungeon – an area within the game where players can attack or be attacked by Monsters (or other players)
Experience Points – the points earned for each quest completed and each Monster killed
FullDive – the use of technology to fully immerse one's conscience in a virtual reality
GM – Game Moderator: a group of players that were hired or that volunteered to help the rest of the players by answering questions about the game, police those players breaking the rules, and collecting information about bugs found within the game so that they could be fixed
Melee Fighter – a warrior class character that fights up close (usually with hand to hand combat or a hand-held weapon designed for slashing, stabbing, or bashing)
NERDLES – Nerve Direct Linkage Environment System (a surgically implanted chip that allows the FullDive system to interface with the brain – the surgically implanted part may or may not be canon as it was something I thought seemed more logical than it just being part of the interface helmet)
NerveGear – equipment created by Kayaba Akihiko (Argus); allows the user to enter FullDive
NPC – Non-Player Character
Player – an in-game character that is 'played' by a human
Player Stats – a list of a player's in game statistics and skills
Ranged Fighter – a warrior class character that fights from a distance
Respawn – a reset of the player's (or Monster's) character after the character has 'died' within the game
SAO – Sword Art Online
Skills – set abilities that can be performed by characters/players in a game
Skill Points – Experience points that are applied towards mastery of an in game skill

Notes:

* This is the name of Harry & Dudley's primary school according to the HP Wiki and is referenced as such in at least one of the movies as well as in the Trading Card Game and on Pottermore though it is possible that Grogory is actually a misspelling of Gregory. I've used Grogory here because it is supposed to be the canon name.

Harry's Game Data/Stats (End of Beta Test):

Category: Human Player
Caste: Warrior
Class: Ranged Fighter
Type: Bowman
Level: 20
HP: 3675/3675
Cor: 13,345
Attributes: DEF [12], ATK [25], STR [05], AGI [10], STM [05], & LCK [10]
Unspent Stat Points: [77]*

Main Equipment:

Oak Longbow – Reliable Bow accurate up to 200 yards +10 ATK
Oak Arrows – Good quality Arrows; oak shafts fletched with crow feathers & tipped with bone Arrowheads +5 ATK
Hardy Boots – Sturdy boots that make some noise: +1 DEF
Leather Gloves – Sturdy gloves that protect a player's hands: +1 DEF
Leather Clothes – Sturdy clothes that protect a player's body: +5 DEF
Basic Cloak – A standard cloak with no special capabilities

Equipped Skills: 08 Slots
(Basic 1-250 pts, Advanced 251-500 pts, Proficient 501-750 pts, Expert 751-999 pts, & Master 1000 pts)

Archery – 0863
Detection – 0812
Hiding – 1000
Hunting – 0702
Listening – 0456
Searching – 0849
Sneak – 1000
Tracking – 1000

Unarmed Skills: 03 Slots

Escape – 0548
Navigation – 1000
Scouting – 0818

Notes: To calculate the HP for any given level I used the following formula: [175(L – 1) + 350] where L = player's level and 350 represents a player's HP at level one. So, using Harry's beta level (20) as an example; [175(20-1) + 350 = 3675]

* Three Stat Points are awarded to a Player for every level gained according to SAO Wiki Page so the number of unspent points that Harry has is the 57 seven he earned for gaining 19 levels plus the original 20 that he never spent because he didn't know what to do with them since he'd never played an RPG game before Diving into SAO and I had to have him overlook something because he's only nine and not perfect.

AN: This chapter has a few similarities with the first two chapters of Magic Online; mostly due to the fact that they were covering the same time period. That said, there are differences between the two that can be picked out; such as Dudley being off at Smeltings (a continuity error in Magic Online because he should have been at Smeltings in that one too but I'd forgotten that when writing it and never bothered to go back and fix it).

Okay, nothing else to comment on here, I think. Anyway, the next chapter of this story will be posted the weekend AFTER next as next weekend I"ll be updating Twice Blessed Shinobi again after being hit with inspiration for that story this week. If I just confused you, you can check out my author's page for posting dates. For now, I'll let you all go with a huge thank you for all of the reads and reviews this story has gotten as well as thank everyone who has put it on their favorites or alter lists or in their communities! ~ Jenn