Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or the characters of his universe, I just play in that sandbox for fun and without pay or any form of remuneration other than reviews and private messages; which are fortunately non-taxable.
AN: Wow, 105 reviews for chapter one by the time I posted this. That made me smile a lot as I saw the numbers growing and the comments and ideas people gave me. So since I needed more fun and frivolity in my life I decided to write one more chapter. Really though, the number of reviews coming in helped me to come to that decision, and I really appreciate some of the ideas people gave me. Apparently people liked the idea of exploiting the ever living heck out of the video game mechanics of Harry's life. In some ways this is going to be a parody and humor based on Harry Potter canon, in others it is going to be poking fun at video game mechanics and the myriad ways that gamers take advantage of those mechanics. Personally, I love to exploit some games. Call it a personality flaw, but I cackle with delight when I can enable God Mode or find an exploit that enables me to steal a store bare during the night, just to sell the products back to the same store owner come morning light. This chapter, however, has to do with movement mechanics and basic combat. I hope you enjoy it and let me know if you think I should keep these chapters coming. This is basically a lark for me, so if it isn't fun then I'll just work on my other stories. Cheers!
'Thoughts are in italics'
"Things Said, or Things Written"
Chapter 2: A Jumping Fool
A whole world to explore.
A new adventure over every horizon, ok, so at least around every block. That is, if Harry could even reach the end of the block without gasping for air.
"Gasp! Air! Give me Air!" Harry wheezed, trying not to fall over, as apparently the "ruddy little bugger" and "out of shape" type comments that the tutorial had stated about his malnourished and out of shape status were true.
In short, Harry had run out of stamina.
Hence why our intrepid main character was currently hacking up a lung while trying to inhale that sweet thing called oxygen.
"Merlin, I can't even go half a block without nearly dying." Harry wheezed, his hands on his knees and his head drooped as he was stooped over trying to catch his breath; his stamina meter slowly refilling after his half block run.
Originally upon exiting the Dursley's driveway the unknown shaded areas of Harry's Map had called to him with the siren's call of the unknown. Harry had immediately broken out in a sprint the moment he reached the sidewalk, only to see his stamina bar rapidly plummet.
And when that stamina bar emptied out Harry's energy level bottomed out also, causing him to almost collapse from an exhaustion that he had rarely if ever felt before in his life.
"Gasp, no fair, cough. I used to be able to outrun Dudley and his gang at this age all the time." Harry coughed and forced himself to stand up and start walking. Harry's stamina bar passed the half way mark and he was able to once again breathe normally. Slowly but surely Harry watched his stamina bar fill all the way until it was completely full.
"Dee-Do!" the chime of the tutorial box popped up in Harry's vision the moment his stamina bar filled back up. "Stamina and You!" The tutorial box was labeled.
"Stamina, this energy allows you to do physical feats such as running, jumping, dodging, climbing and fast swimming. Activities such as running or fast swimming use your stamina the quickest, whereas jumping and climbing take overall less stamina. You build your overall stamina by traveling distances, thus the faster you travel the faster your stamina will eventually grow. Your stamina bar will recharge normally, though certain items or potions can increase your stamina level or recharge rates. Another way to increase your stamina recharge is by increasing your overall strength. At stamina level 0, which you currently are, you will gain a level of stamina after covering one kilometer of ground. Each subsequent level of stamina requires you to travel further distances which increase with each level. You gain more total stamina for each level of stamina you gain. Additionally, for every five levels of stamina you gain, you will gain a +1 to your strength and subsequently a 10% increase in your stamina recharge rate. Now Have Fun!"
Harry frowned at the tutorial message as he finished reading it and it disappeared. "I think the cheery messages at the end of these tutorials is going to get to me sooner or later." He finished, before shaking his head and then moving from a walk to a run down the sidewalk again.
Harry's stamina bar dropped quickly as he sprinted down the path.
That is, it dropped quickly until one of Ms. Fig's cats ran out of the bushes in front of Harry and forced Harry to Jump over it otherwise face a collision.
And that's when Harry realized that while in mid jump, his stamina bar stopped falling. To Harry's amazement, even though he was traveling forward at the same speed as if he had continued running is stamina was starting to recharge while he was in midair.
Harry landed on his two feet, eyes wide as a thought struggled to come to him.
"What if I-" Harry's statement cut off as he stopped mid statement and looked back at the distance he had run, then forward down the path again. And then a smile spread across his face.
Harry took two sprinting steps forward, and then jumped.
And then he jumped again the moment he landed.
Then again, and again, and again.
"Bwa Ha ha! Boing! Boing! Boing!" Harry yelled out, including adding his own 'boing' sounds, as he rapidly traversed the length of his block at the speed of a dead sprint but while bouncing like a bunny rabbit that had just been given electroshock therapy. Even better his stamina bar only dipped a small amount with each jump but then the stamina meter recharged the part it had lost from doing the jump while Harry was in mid-air and not touching the ground.
"Ha ha ha! Take that game!" Harry yelled mid jump as he passed several of Petunia's book club members heading down the sidewalk towards number 4.
The three women just looked at each other, and then shook their heads as the obviously deranged boy bounced past them.
"The Dursley's must be saints to put up with that boy's unnaturalness." One of the women quipped with a haughty expression. All the others could do was nod and agree about the latest gossip topic to hit the neighborhood.
Harry bounced rapidly down the street and was coming up fast on the corner at the end of the Dursleys block. Right in Harry's path was a silver colored mission that he had seen on the map titled, "A Heroes First Save."
People stood around the corner, waiting for the bus or waiting to cross the slightly busier four lane street that stood between the neighborhood streets and the local school.
In midair, and about six feet from the curb, Harry's foot clipped the top of the grey exclamation point.
"Beep! Mission: A Heroes First Save. Mission parameters, Save the Baby, Don't Die, and you will earn 500 experience and increased standing with the muggles."
"My Baby!" A mother on the opposite side of the street from Harry screamed as she was bumped while she waited for the bus; her stroller with her baby inside slipped into the middle of the street and was barely missed by a speeding car as the stroller moved deeper into the traffic.
Harry didn't even think, he just jumped right out into the street.
Harry barely missed getting clipped by a speeding cab and jumped into the second lane of traffic and then quickly jumped to his left twice so as to gain room from the quickly oncoming lorry.
A quick jump forward like a frog trying not to get squashed saw him dodge the lorry, then dodge to the right three times, grab the baby out of the stroller and then two quick jumps forward to safety and the waiting arms of the mother.
Harry ignored the trophy emblem that popped up in his vision, as he had no idea what it was talking about when saying something about Frogger.
"Trophy! Let's Play Frogger! Congratulations on surviving a real life version of Frogger."
Instead of spending his time reading the trophy description, Harry was too busy getting pats on the back and a large hug from the woman whose baby he had saved.
"Ding! Gained 500 Experience points. Congratulations, the muggles like you more. Your muggle standing is now "That-Boy-The-Neighborhood-Isn't-Too-Sure-Of."
Harry growled mentally, 'Great, my very first hyphenated name.' Still, Harry couldn't stay mad about his new standing for long as the muggles around him congratulated him on a job well done.
"Good job son, good job." One of the men on the corner stated, shaking Harry's hand vigorously.
"No problem, Sir. All in a day's work." Harry finished with a smile as the mother gave Harry a hug once again while simultaneously fussing over her baby.
Harry just smiled, excused himself, and then jumped off into the sunset- or at least down the block to seek further adventure in the neighborhood.
Speaking about the neighborhood, what felt like three hours of bunny hopping to Harry apparently was no time lapsed at all as the sun was still sitting stationary overhead. Despite the lack of time passing in the world around him, Harry Potter had still traversed every single one of the streets and sidewalks for the fronts of the houses in and surrounding the Dursley's neighborhood.
Three hours and counting, and Harry was still busy bouncing like a hyperactive kangaroo that had been hitting the cocaine just a little too much.
"Yee-Ha!" Harry yelled out, as at this point his jumps were quite high and long and they enabled him to almost feel like flying as he traversed the streets at the speed of a sprinter.
Three hours spent traveling at a speed of roughly twenty kilometers an hour (just over 12 miles per hour) had equaled fifty nine kilometers traveled, twelve levels of stamina gained, and an additional +2 points to Harry's strength ability.
Harry had traversed all of the streets, so now it was time to start checking out the grey areas that were the back yards of the neighborhood.
Harry took a hard right turn towards a hedge, using the ability to change directions nearly on a dime which he had discovered accidentally when dodging the speeding cars during the baby saving mission.
"Boing! WHEEEEE!" Harry yelled out, including yelling his own 'boing' sound, as he vaulted the hedge.
Only to plummet into the full Koi pond, of Japanese design, in the unnamed neighbor's back yard.
"Aah!" Harry's yell of joy came to an abrupt end as he missed the landing on a rock in the middle of the pond and landed face first in the algae filled water.
Flailing arms and legs thrashed the pond into a froth as Harry attempted not to drown- only to feel quite sheepish as he realized the pond was only a foot deep.
"Ptttoi! Blah! Yuck, blech!" Harry sat up, spitting the fishy tasting water out of his mouth before suddenly realizing that something wet and slimy was slithering against skin inside his shirt and had just touched his left nipple.
For a brief moment, memories of the giant squid in Hogwart's lake came to Harry's mind, coupled that with lessons from his muggle school teachers about "bad touching" and Harry was suddenly screaming again as he leapt out of the water.
"Eek!" Harry's pre-pubescent voice added to his ability to scream like a school girl as he Harry jumped out of the water, once again flailing and dancing around in his sodden state as he tried to get the slimy creature out of his shirt.
"Ding! Congratulations, you've caught a fish!" A message popped in front of Harry's vision the moment the large goldfish like Koi finally flopped out the bottom of Harry's shirt and into his hands.
Harry looked at the fish. He then looked at the pond, then back at the fish and felt rather sheepish about his earlier reaction. Still, waste not want not, so with a shrug Harry called out, "Inventory," and shoved the fish into an inventory slot before closing the inventory trunk. After all, you never knew when a fish might come in handy, and Harry was of the mindset to collect anything he could get his hands on.
Wringing out his sopping wet oversized clothing, Harry looked around the backyard he had bounced into; hedges bordered the yard giving it a sense of seclusion from the other backyards.
Though empty of anybody besides Harry, and the fish of course, the backyard of the house he found himself in was far from empty of decoration.
A finely raked white sand path with rocks led its way through the backyard; twisting its way until it reached a dark wood gazebo that was shaped something like the pillars of a Japanese temple, and it had red clay tiles on its roof.
Despite how interesting the decorations were, it was what was fluttering just above the gazebo that caught Harry's eye; it was a golden snitch.
Harry smiled, his eyes glued to the snitch as he soddenly tromped through the immaculate white sand path, leaving footprints behind him and the white sand sticking to his wet oversized and dragging pant legs and overly large beat-up sneakers.
Reaching the gazebo, Harry looked for a way to reach the top of the structure, and saw a glass outdoor dining table and chairs that looked somewhat promising.
Tugging on the table, which moved relatively easily given Harry's now +3 Strength stat, Harry aligned the table with the edge of the gazebo and then carefully climbed up onto the glass table. Fortunately for Harry, his light weight allowed him to safely stand on the table without cracking the glass.
Unfortunately for Harry, his short stature required him to jump up to grab the edge of the gazebo to pull himself up.
Harry grunted in effort as he grasped the lip of the gazebo's roof and heaved himself up and onto the slanted clay tiled roof. "Ugh, good thing I gained those two levels of strength." He groused to himself as he finally skittered his feet up onto the roof's ledge.
A faint buzzing sound of rapidly beating wings caught his attention, fluttering within jumping range at the apex of where the four slopes of the gazebo's roof came to a point.
Biting his tongue in concentration as his sandy wet sneakers slipped a bit on the roof, Harry carefully made his way to the apex of the roof, squatted down, and then jumped upwards are hard as he could to grab the fluttering golden snitch.
The fluttering snitch did what snitches do when a seeker is attempting to grab them, it dodged.
Still, Harry wasn't the youngest seeker ever for nothing, and he was known for doing whatever it took to catch the snitch.
The snitch moved to the right.
Harry threw his body to the right and grabbed the snitch.
That's when the immutable real world and game mechanics of gravity came into play, and Harry realized that he was in the air over the side of the gazebo, and now above the glass table that had helped him climb onto the roof.
"AAAAAAAAGH!" Crash!
"Ding! Congratulations, you've caught a Golden Snitch! Total snitches caught, 1/200" flashed before Harry's eyes as two of his previously red hearts were now flashing grey at him.
Somehow Harry didn't feel so thrilled about his first snitch catch, seeing as how he was lying in a pile of glass on the hard floor of the gazebo. In fact, his thoughts on the matter could be summed up nicely in one word.
"Ow." Harry groaned.
A dusting off of glass and sand, a few pieces of burnt toast eaten, and Harry was back to his bouncing self as he finished exploring the backyards on that block and cleared the last hedge before the street with a bounding leap.
"Trophy! You're a Jumping Fool! Congratulations on jumping over 5000 times."
A message popped up in the corner of Harry's vision, causing Harry to shake his head in exasperation. Several of these supposed badges or achievements had been popping up through his travels, and Harry thought of them as just ways that the creator of the game was poking fun at him. How else was he supposed to take it when his other recent trophies were called "You can tie your shoes!" and "Mind the Gap;" trophies Harry had achieved for stopping to tie his shoelaces and then for tripping on a street curb as he missed a jump.
Harry just shook his head, as why would anybody care how many times he had jumped or that he had once tripped over a curb? Whoever had created this game obviously had a twisted sense of humor.
"You're still a bastard." Harry groused at the unseen watchers under his breath as he stopped and looked around himself.
There across from Harry was the neighborhood park. Several swing sets were in place above a large sandbox that included monkey-bars, a slide and a spinning wheel thing that kids could ride on. Trees dotted the park in clumps or singly. It was the tree directly across the street from Harry that caught his attention, or more specifically, the silver exclamation point floating over a slightly glowing long branch of wood that seemed to have fallen off of the tree.
Harry shrugged, looked both ways, and jumped his way across the street.
In the shade of a large walnut tree the silver exclamation point hung in the air over the long stick that was mostly straight and had broken off with a decidedly pointy end on one side.
Harry looked around, "Why not?" He said out loud to nobody in particular, and picked up the stick.
"Beep!" "Mission: He Wielded A Pointy Stick." "Mission parameters: for 100 experience points and 1 Pointy Stick, beat the Rabid Squirrel in combat." The message flashed before Harry's eyes.
Harry's eyes went large. "Wait a second, Rabid Squirrel?!"
"Chit chit chit chit, reeee!" A sound over Harry's shoulder had him looking up into the tree, only to come face to face with a squirrel that was foaming at the mouth and in mid leap at Harry.
"AHHH! Rabid Squirrel!" Harry screamed and flung the pointy end of his stick in the direction of the squirrel.
Fortunately the Potter luck was still strong with Harry, and Harry's maneuver was the equivalent of rolling a natural 20, or a critical strike as the squirrel shish-kobobed itself on the end of Harry's Pointy Stick.
"Ding! Rabid Squirrel Defeated! You earned 1 Pointy Stick and 100 Experience points."
Harry was too busy mumbling "Ew, ew, ew, yuck." And trying to fling the now dead squirrel off of his pointy stick. Finally the carcass went sailing off the end of Harry's new stick and away from Harry, and Harry daintily wiped the blood off his stick by sliding the point through the grass until it was clean.
In the end, Harry was left holding his Pointy Stick and no idea what to do with it. Fortunately enough that was just about the time that the tutorial popped up again.
"Ding! Armed, but not so dangerous. Congratulations on gaining your first weapon, primitive though it may be. Weapons can be stored in your inventory, in special holsters designed for those weapons, or carried by hand. In some environments carrying a weapon may get you in trouble, causing people to not want to talk to you or even get you arrested. In short, it's best not to carry your weapon out in polite company, and sometimes it's downright dangerous in the presence of impolite company. Every weapon type has a holster you either make or buy. Also, don't forget to search your kills for loot or consumables."
Harry looked from the tutorial bubble, down to the rabid squirrel carcass, and then vigorously shook his head.
"Oh hell no, I'm not searching that." Harry stated definitively.
With that, the tutorial disappeared, and Harry shrugged and stored the Pointy Stick in his Inventory.
It was then that Harry noticed other softly glowing items scattered around the large park. The park was one of the municipal parks for the town of Little Whinging, so was surprisingly large with its cricket field, football pitch, grassy areas, picnic benches, and playground.
Harry stooped down to a glowing patch of clover next to him and picked up a piece of it, only to be surprised when he got two pieces of clover in his hands. "You've collected a four leaf clover, You've collected a four leaf clover." Popped up in the corner of his eye.
"Ding! Collecting Stuff." A tutorial expanded in the middle of Harry's vision, "You can collect stuff that you may or may not be able to use later in potions or with other characters. Go ahead, try to collect them all!"
Harry shrugged, "Never know when it might come in handy." Harry said under his breath, before starting to bounce across the park collecting items.
"You've collected wild mint, You've collected wild mint, You've collected wild mint, You've collected…" Harry could see how the messages would eventually get annoying, but that still didn't stop him from canvasing the park for collectables. The collection of plants went on and on, including a bit of catnip, a whole lot of mint, a couple dandelions and a few wild daisies.
What felt like another three hours, Harry had over thirty four leaf clovers, twenty eight sprigs of catnip, dandelion greens and blossoms by the 100 stack, several variety of flowers including every rose from the park's rose garden, two playground buckets and a shovel, and fifteen buckets of sand that Harry didn't have a clue what to do with. Harry even hit the jackpot when he found a couple of One Pound coins lying underneath a park bench where parents normally sat to watch their children on the playground.
Harry smiled to himself when he was given notice that he now was the proud owner of 2 Pounds Muggle and 0 Galleons. Looking around the park, Harry couldn't see any more glowing items to collect, except for a small hand shovel that he must have missed earlier.
Upon picking up the small hand shovel, a chorus of trumpets sounded and a word bubble popped up in Harry's vision, just as the shovel grew in length to be a full dirt shovel longer than Harry was tall and painted in yellow and black spirals up the handle and checkered across the shovels head/blade.
"Tada! With hard labor and diligent work, you've earned the "Hufflepuff Harry" title and a new tool and weapon, the Hufflepuff Shovel. For when there is shit to be done, we know you'll be there diligently shoveling it!"
Harry looked rather nonplussed by his new weapon/tool. "Hardy har har, you're a regular laugh riot is what you are." Harry groused as he looked over his shovel.
"Inventory," Harry called, getting ready to put away his new weapon, only to find a new tab in his inventory called "Weapons."
Touching the tab, an expanded area of the chest opened up like closet or armory; though it was rather bare armory with only one Pointy Stick resting on a weapons rack. Still, the addition of the Weapons armory gave Harry some new information he hadn't had before as floating above the Pointy Stick on its rack was the weapons Statistics of: 1 melee attack/1 defense. As Harry set down the shovel in a weapon rack, its statistics floated above it: 3 melee attack/1 defense, Plus 2 to Herbology when wielding Hufflepuff Shovel and Plus 1 to attempts to Hide Bodies or turn them into fertilizer.
Harry paled at the last two details, "I'm never going to look badly at Hufflepuffs again." Harry stated definitively.
Closing his inventory and shaking off the shivers that came from imaging Madame Sprout and how she made her fertilizer, Harry looked around at all the collecting he had done and realized he was done with that for now.
"Well that wasn't so hard; I wonder what other types of missions are around here." Harry pivoted in his spot, and saw a lone golden mission exclamation point hanging in the air near the swing sets. So Harry smiled and jumped his way over to the swing set.
Touching the golden mission symbol as it hung in the air, Harry was given the details.
"Beep!" "Mission, Survive Harry Hunting Season," "Mission parameters, for 1000 experience points and +1 point to Dexterity, dodge Dudley and his gang and get to safety."
"Hey, there's the Freak! Get 'em" Dudley's voice sounded from Harry's right as Dudley, Piers Polkis and the rest of "Big D's" gang came out of a copse of trees, pointed at Harry and charged.
It was supposed to be an incredibly challenging mission for a level one Harry to survive, hence its main gold exclamation point status and high reward.
Harry in his previous life would have cringed and relied on his smaller size and dexterity to dodge through the playground equipment, or perhaps his ability to run and hide in small places. Heck, Harry from a few hours ago would have been beaten to a pulp by Dudley and his gang as soon as Harry ran out of stamina.
This, however, was Harry Potter exploiter of game glitches, proud achievement winner of the "Jumping Fool" trophy, and grinder of stamina levels 1 through 12 for a total ability of Strength +3.
Dudley and his gang didn't have a chance.
"Ha Ha! Run Run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the Jumping Fool Man! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!" Harry cackled in glee as he took two fast sprinting steps and then began to jump.
As Harry disappeared down the street, and Dudley and his gang fell further and further behind, all they could hear was the mad cackling of Harry Potter as he bounced out of sight.
And throughout the neighborhood, the people of Surrey just shook their head at the small strange bunny-hopping child who lived at number 4 Privet Drive.
AN: Short, fun, hopefully as enjoyable as the previous chapter. Next chapter we will see Harry progressing the story, having a few more fun side missions, and learning some other game mechanics; hopefully with humorous outcomes. I don't know how much I'll write of this, I don't really have an end for it plotted out. Heck, I don't even have the first year plotted out. Then again, some of the best stories are just created as you go. That said, always up for ideas that can inspire me to write more, especially if you have good ideas on classic ways to exploit games, etc. I'm just glad Harry got the pointed stick, I so wanted him to use that on Draco Malfoy at some point. I can see it now, "Draco Malfoy enters the Hogwarts express carriage and begins to mock Harry, Harry Potter uses Pointed Stick! "AH, My spleen!" Draco Screams." Because we all know that it's fun and games until somebody gets a pointy stick in the spleen. Anyway, let me know your thoughts. Cheers!