I do not own Harry Potter, The Gamer, or Fallout which are the inspirations for this fanfic.

A/N: First off, thanks for all of the comments! There were a couple of downers, but for the most part my feedback has been positive. I've read and considered everything that has been said, and while a may give a brief overview in my A/N's, I'll let the story tell the tale of where I am going with this. First a brief recap:

Harry died and is reliving his life, but does not get to keep his memories. This means he will not have prior knowledge to change anything in his second chance. However, he does have a gamer ability to help him through life. This will change how Harry develops in his formative years which will effectively change how he interacts with the world. In essence, Harry will be different from Canon and this will cause unique situations. This is an AU people.

I previously had an A/N posted, that I replaced with this chapter, that let people know I was working on figuring out what type of gaming format I would use, and how I would implement it. This means coming up with skills, the stat distribution, how skills effect stats, how the character will gain skills and stats, etc. I originally wanted to go with a more "The Gamer" route, but decided against that. While I will still have some influences from that manga, the main selling point for it was ID create and escape, but I felt that would make Harry overpowered too quickly so that had to go. I won't go into too much detail on what the final result of my deliberations is in an A/N. Read for yourself and tell me what you think.

Chapter 4: Life is Nothing but a Game

After that first message popped up on his fifth birthday, Harry simply continued on with his daily life. He did his chores, kept his head down, and did what he could to pass through school, and life in general, without drawing attention to himself. In his experience, attention was always a bad thing.

Despite this, he continued to receive the occasional pop-up. It was not until the summer after first grade, however, that he finally began to understand the effect these pop ups had on his life. This was partly because he had experienced them often enough to gain a basic understanding. However, the main reason was that his reading comprehension was finally high enough that he could understand what they were saying. Most of the pop-ups appeared only infrequently, however there were a few that seemed to be a recurring theme in his life.

+1 Physical Damage Resistance

+1 Running

+1 Jumping

+1 Climbing

+1 Cooking

+1 Cleaning

+1 Gardening

After dealing with these pop-ups often enough, Harry realized that he was actually becoming better at what they mentioned. Running allowed him to run faster for a longer period of time before getting tired and Physical Damage Resistance made it so Dudley's beatings, when he was caught, did not hurt quite as much.

It was with this new understanding that he began to realize the usefulness of these pop-ups. Especially quests. Although infrequent, occasionally he would receive a Quest Notice pop-up. And, every time he accepted and completed a quest, he received something called "Exp." Even better, he occasionally received an actual item as a reward!

He even received a pocket full of candy after he helped Mrs. Figg from across the street find one of her cats! Of course, Dudley promptly beat him up and stole it all, but not before he was able to chew a piece of Bazooka bubble gum and read its comic. It was the best day ever! Unfortunately, it was reading the comic that tipped Dudley off to his newly acquired candy stash, but all in all he considered it a good experience.

And so, the year continued on. He went about his life as normal, while doing the occasional quest, and clicking through the odd pop-up that let him know he had improved a skill. Occasionally, he would receive a quest and gain items, but generally he just received Exp. from them.

It was not until he had a chance encounter with some teenagers at the local park that Harry gained a true understanding of his ability. This encounter occurred during the summer after second grade when Harry had successfully escaped from Dudley and his friends, who had recently taken to playing a game they called "Harry Hunting".

Deciding to hide in the park, Harry came across a group of teens who were sitting at a park bench playing a strange looking game. They had a board spread out in front of them with characters on it, along with a bunch of cards and dice. The game they were playing was called Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and had apparently just been released that year.

He did not truly understand the game, but the teens were nice and let him sit and watch. Harry appreciated this because he knew that even if Dudley found him, he wouldn't try anything around a group of teenagers. And so, Harry relaxed, watched, and learned. He was too young to grasp the finer points of the game, but he did pick up a few things, and those things were enough to change his life. He learned that the characters in the game were able to train to improve skills and attributes. He also learned that certain careers had requirements that must be met before a character could utilize it. Basically, through training the characters were able to improve their strength and skill, and as they got better they were able to do bigger and better things.

This may seem like a simple and obvious observation, but to Harry it was life altering. Up until that point, he had simply been living from day to day. Each day, he simply tried his best to keep his head down and go unnoticed. Sure, he thought the pop-ups showing how he improved was cool, but he never actively tried to better himself.

After watching these teens, however, Harry had an epiphany. If he actively trained the skills these pop-ups told him about, he could become strong. Strong enough that no one would ever hurt him again.

*Ping*

Observe skill has been created. 1/100

Through continuous observation a skill to observe objects, situations, and people has been generated that allows information to be gathered. More data is revealed at higher skill levels.

Harry couldn't help the chuckle that escaped his lips.

"My life really is just like an RPG…Well, if I am going to play, I might as well play to win."

A/N: So, Harry finally understands the ability he has been gifted with…at least somewhat. At this point in the story, it is the second semester of Harry's 2nd grade school year. This means Harry is currently 7 years old, and the year is 1988. I have never actually played Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I simply know it was released in the UK around 1986-1987. It is a game that was released after D&D, so there are some similarities between the two. That is about the extent of my knowledge. If I messed something up while I was portraying it, please let me know so I can fix any mistakes.

This chapter mainly dealt with discovering Harry's ability and how it works. It may seem dry to some but I feel it is better than taking things for granted and just saying "It works because I said so". I want to set up a solid system that the rest of the story will rely on for future development. Also, I felt the Warhammer element was necessary, because the timeframe here is the mid-eighties. There was not much in the way of RPG video games at this time and Harry is too young and under privileged to take notice of them anyways. An RPG board game, however, is similar enough to give Harry a foundation from which he can grow to understand his ability.

The next two chapters will deal with level ups and then I can really start getting on with things. Two chapters because my chapters are short :P

Please R/R.