Death's Game

by wolfsrun

AU. After the final battle, Harry Potter is murdered by an unknown assassin during the victory celebration. Death is displeased. Given a second chance to do things right, Harry is sent back to his beginning with a gift from Death. Video Game Harry! Grey Harry! Pairings undecided. Rated M for language/violence/perhaps adult situations.

5. Level Up

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

Chapter 5: Level Up

*Ping*

Congratulations!
You have completed your first secret quest!

Secret Quest:
It's Morphin' Time!
You have a Metamorph bloodline ability!
Quest Details:
Alter your appearance using your Metamorph bloodline ability.
Completion Reward:
+250 exp.
Gain Metamorph talent 1/5.

Harry's eyes shot open and he sat bolt upright in his cupboard as he read the pop-up.

"Alter…my appearance? Metamorph…bloodline?!"

Stunned disbelief flowed through him. He slowly reached his hand up to the strands of hair that he could see hanging in front of his face. The strands of hair that shouldn't be there because his Aunt Petunia had shaved him nearly bald the day before. As he ran his hand through his surprisingly full head of hair, his lips began to twitch upwards. He knew his RPG powers were weird, but this hinted at so much more.

"I'm a superhero." A grin stretched across his face before he paused and tilted his head in thought. "Wait…If I can shape shift, that means I'm like that Mystique character in Dudley's comics. Does that mean I'm a supervillain?"

The smile slowly started to reform as he thought of all of the things the Dursley's had put him through, and what he could do with shape shifting powers. "That might not be too bad."

*Ping*

Level Up!
Please distribute your stat points!

'Well,' Harry thought, 'this is new.'

With a practiced flick of his wrist, he closed the pop-up and something entirely new took its place.

*Ping*

Henry James Potter
Class: Gamer
Title: Pariah
Lv. 6 – Exp: 150/600
HP= 59/59
MP= 27/27 (-25%)
SP= 12/12 (-75%)

S = 9.9 (-50%) = 5.0 + -
P = 6.3 (-50%) = 3.2 + -
E =11.7 (-50%)= 5.9 + -
C = 3.6 (-50%) = 1.8 + -
I = 8.1 (-50%) = 4.1 + -
A = 9.9 (-60%) = 4.0 + -
L =13.5 (-50%)= 6.8 + -
Points to distribute:(25)

Here it was. This is what Harry had been wanting all along. Tangible proof of how much stronger he was becoming. And apparently with 25 points to distribute he was only going to become stronger. Now, if only he could figure out what he was looking at.

"What the hell is SPECIAL? Okay, I get HP and MP. I remember them from that Warhammer game, but the rest of this is complete gibberish. Hmm…I wonder…"

With that though, Harry pushed his finger against HP on the screen.

Suddenly, a new, smaller pop-up appeared on top of the stats distribution menu

HP=Health Points-a representation of your overall health.

"Well, that solves that problem. Now to see about the rest of them." And so, Harry began to cycle through all the different elements on the menu in front of him.

MP=Mental Points-a representation of your mental stamina.
SP=Spiritual Points-a representation of your manna pool.
Strength=How strong you are.
Perception=How perceptive you are.
Endurance=Your ability to endure.
Charisma=How charismatic you are.
Intelligence=How smart you are.
Agility=How agile you are.
Luck=How lucky you are.

"This thing doesn't really give me a lot of details…although I guess it tells me enough to get by. It's odd that MP isn't manna points like I thought, but whatever. Now, what should I do with these points? If I put a lot into strength, I really could be a superhero! I bet with 30 points in strength I could lift a car! But…" Harry winced as he looked at his charisma stat. Suddenly a feeling of melancholy began to overshadow all of the joy he had been feeling. "Maybe that's why I can't get any friends…and really, what's with all of the negatives?"

With that thought, Harry tried pressing the negative number beside MP.

Instead of a detailed message, however, all he got was:

Status Effect

"Okay, what the hell is a status effect?"

And, as soon as those words left his mouth, a new menu appeared. A menu that pissed him off. Badly.

Status Effects

Malnutrition
Due to years of improper diet, you are a scrawny little git.
-50% to all S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats.
Permanently lose 10% of all S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats every 5th year after malnutrition began.
Malnutrition began November 1, 1981.
To remove this status effect, eat a proper diet every day for six months.

Human Horcrux
Due to an accident of magic you have a portion of a dark wizard's soul stuck to your own. This requires a constant use of magic and mental power to prevent being possessed.
-25% max MP, -25% max SP if the dark wizard is disembodied.
-40% max MP, -40% max SP if the dark wizard is corporeal.
Gain Human Horcrux heritage trait.
Automatically receive 10 points in Occlumency to shield against the Horcrux's influence.
Requires 20 points in Occlumency shields to protect against the soul fragment's owner if they become corporeal.
Method to remove Horcrux is suicide.
Other methods may exist.

Bound Magic
Someone has bound your magic!
-50% max SP
To remove this see a specialist.
Other methods of removal include entering into high stress situations where your magic is forced to break the binding to save your life. This may have the side effect of turning you into a human bomb and destroying the local wildlife.

Clumsiness
Your Metamorph ability is throwing off your balance!
-10% Agility
Gain Lv.3 in the Metamorph skill to counter this effect.

He began to breathe heavily as he read through the menu.

"Malnutrition?! Those bastards really are trying to kill me. And a permanent stat loss…It's already been five years! I…I…" Tears began to leak from his eyes as feelings of frustration and helplessness began to overwhelm him.

Harry curled his knees up against his chest as he tried to wrestle his emotions back under control. He had learned long ago that crying did not get him anywhere. If anything, it often made things worse for him.

With deep gulping breaths, Harry forced his emotions down and began to steady his breathing.

*Ping*

+1 Occlumency

And the dam broke. For the first time in four years, Harry's emotions overwhelmed him. Pressing his face into his pillow to muffle himself, so he wouldn't wake the Dursleys, Harry finally let loose and truly cried over the train wreck that was his life. He cried over his dead parents, he cried over what could have been, but mostly he cried in self-pity over the mountain of abuse everyone seemed to heap upon him. There is only so much someone can take before they break down. Fortunately, Harry was strong enough to eventually pull himself back together. It was doubly fortunate that he had woken up early enough, that even after his cry, the Dursleys were still asleep. Otherwise they would be beating down his door, and that would have only made his emotional state even worse.

It was a numb and slightly apathetic Harry that finally sat up and looked back at the Status Effect screen. A feeling of 'It really can't get any worse, so I might as well get this over with' filled him as he looked at his next affliction.

Human Horcrux

"Well…fuck."

At that moment, something finally broke inside Harry.

A/N: A few things here. First: in case it needs to be said, I do not own Mystique, although I wish I did. She is pretty badass.

Second: yes I realize I listed Harry's name as Henry. I did this because Harry is simply going to be a nickname in my story. I have seen other fanfictions use the name Harrison, or Hadrian, but I can't remember seeing Henry. Although, I am sure it is out there. To me, Henry makes the most sense, as it is a noble British name used by princes and kings, whereas Harry, as far as I am aware, is only used by the nobility as a nickname. Cases in point: Prince Harry, Duke of Glouceste (actual name Henry William Frederick Albert, 1900-1974) was likely who Prince Harry (Henry Charles Albert David, born 1984) was named after. Also, there are Kings Henry I-Henry VIII, along with King William IV (William Henry), to consider. There is more British nobility than that bearing the name Henry, but I believe that is enough to prove my point. Henry is a strong British name and something I could see a pureblood like James Potter naming his son. Even if he did not hold stock in a lot of the traditions, they would have affected him somewhat, and I am sure he would want to give his son a strong, proud name.

Third: for anyone remembering how Death said Harry's name was Peverell, remember that he also said he became the head of that family after he killed the previous head. Since said killing has not yet happened, and Harry is the descendant of a female Peverell (Of Ignotus Peverell's line) who married into another family, he is not a Peverell in this story. Unless he goes and kills them again to become the sole remaining descendant. Little murdering git.

Finally, fourth: for anyone who thinks Harry is too young to be swearing and using words like "fuck", think back to how many times you heard kids swearing when you were a child yourself, and away from your parents watchful eyes. Taboo words fascinate many kids, so don't be too surprised that Harry, who is 8 at this point, will occasionally swear. FYI: on the story's timeline it is currently early morning on Sep 1, 1988. The morning before Harry's first day of third grade.

So, what do you think? Am I doing okay with this? Sorry about the clifie, but it seemed like a good spot to break. Next chapter will be the stat distribution and hopefully it will be the last chapter dealing with setting up the game system.

Please R/R.