Harry settled onto the seat in the empty train compartment with an inaudible sigh. The last month had been one of the busiest, strangest, and freest of his life. Using a newly learned spell he flicked his fingers at the doorway and set up a notice-me-not charm around the compartment, but especially concentrated on the door itself. He had made the mistake early on of casting the charm on himself instead of his surroundings. It was an interesting experience to see how others completely ignored his presence while going on with their life, but when he was almost sat on in the park, he decided he needed a better method.
With his compartment secure and his privacy reasonably ensured, he settled back to wait for the train to begin its journey to his new school. Until then he kept the hood of his new black hoodie over his head and acted like he was asleep. Another observation he noticed over his month of freedom was that others tended to avoid those that they thought were asleep while in public, especially older teens and adults. Hopefully, if any of the other students saw through his spell work, or if it failed for some reason, he would still be left alone. His mind drifted in the peaceful silence of the compartment and he thought over all he had learned and accomplished in the last month.
That first night, back in his cupboard as his magic healed his body from the newest injuries, Harry had contemplated everything that he would need to accomplish in the coming month. As the list grew, he decided to compile his tasks into a few categories; studying his books for school, studying everything else about the magical community he could, collecting the rest of his school supplies, and practicing any new magic that he could learn. Three of those four tasks he was not concerned about accomplishing. He could read, study, and practice his magic late at night in his cupboard as he had done for several years now. It was collecting his other school supplies that would be the most troublesome. His only option would be when he was sent to the store for Aunt Petunia to fetch groceries for the house. However, he ran the risk of the gossiping shop attendants telling Aunt Petunia about his other purchases and the extra money he seemed to have. He went to sleep that night with thoughts and plans whirling through his mind and continuing into his dreams.
The next morning, he had learnt that his life at the Dursley household was about to drastically change. Apparently, Aunt Petunia had decided that upon his return to their house that he was a danger to her precious Diddykins and their perfect life now that he knew about the magical world. He was informed after he had finished making their breakfast that from now on he was expected to complete his chores in the morning before he completed breakfast and after that he was to vacate the house, not to return until it was time to make their dinner, clean the kitchen, and then return to his cupboard for the rest of the night. Harry kept his face impassive at the news but on the inside he was busy thinking of all the new plans he could make. He was sure other 11-year-olds would be scared to be alone for most of the day, but he was no ordinary child. To him, this meant freedom; freedom to learn, freedom to explore, and freedom to act how he wished.
Indeed, Harry used his newfound freedom to the best of his ability. His early mornings were spent practicing smaller feats of magic while he did his chores. Mostly he practiced different ways to mask any sounds he created. During his first attempt, he was able to silence the whole area he was in so that no sound escaped. The first problem he found was that the barrier worked both ways. While it was up, he was unable to hear outside of the silenced area. The results could have been disastrous if he was unable to hear Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon come upon him while he was working his magic. Therefore, his second attempt was to prevent the barrier from letting sound out while still allowing it to enter. It only took him three days to perfect his silencing barrier and he moved on to another aspect of masking sound. Instead of silencing the full area, he wanted to try to only silence specific areas, such as around his feet or the shelves that he was cleaning. By the end of the week he was able to make multiple small silencing bubbles. He did note that each consecutive one he made drained his energy a little further and at the moment he could only make five medium sized bubbles or silence a full room the size of the kitchen. Despite the practice, Harry still kept his magical use at a minimum and very discrete while he was doing chores. With his new freedom away from the house he had plenty of time to practice other types of magic and he saw no reason to take the risk of being discovered.
His first afternoon of freedom was spent walking to the store to finish purchasing his supplies. He went to one that was further away from the house so there was less likelihood of Aunt Petunia finding out he was purchasing supplies with unknown money. He very quickly purchased some better clothes and proper shoes, that he would only use once he was at Hogwarts, and an assortment of pens, pencils, notebooks, binders, and lined paper. He also ran across a few chains that varied in price. He chose one of the cheaper ones to hang his trunk from. Harry had an idea to make the chain stronger with his magic, perhaps even unbreakable if possible. His trunk wouldn't be safe if anyone could come along and either remove the chain or break it. Last on his list of purchases were non-perishable food items, such as cans of fruit, soup, peanut butter and jelly, bread, as well as a few bottles of water. He figured he could keep everything in his trunk as well, so he had something to eat while out of the house.
Once he made it back to the park by the house, he sat under a tree in the shade where he would not be seen. His first task was writing out in one of his new notebooks all of his questions and observations about the magical world from yesterday's trip. Each one was numbered so that he could reference back as he received answers. Among his observations was the seeming lack of modernization as compared to the non-magical world, the negative treatment of the goblins, and the division of those that were born in the magical world and those that were not. The questions section ended up much longer than his observations. He tried to remember all of his questions from the day before and did his best to write them down in the same order he thought of them on his journey through the alley. Several times he had to draw his attention back to the task at hand instead of immediately diving into a book to answer the many questions.
He also used his first day to set up the blood protection on his trunk so that no one else would be able to get in. It was a simple matter to use his magic to make a small cut on his left pointer finger and then heal the skin once he smeared his blood on the lock. Harry also made sure to always clean the lock once he was done in his trunk, so no residual blood was left. Considering what the goblins were able to do with a bit of his blood, as well as the lock on the trunk, it seemed dangerous to leave any traces lying about.
The rest of that first day was spent with a book in his hands as he strove to understand the world he suddenly found himself dropped into. The first book was a history book covering recent history, starting around the second world war until the present. He learned about the Dark Lord Grindelwald and his defeat by Albus Dumbledore. The last name sounded familiar and upon further investigation he realized that it was the same man who signed his letter of admission to Hogwarts and was apparently the Headmaster of the school. The book portrayed the man as a hero and there was an underlying implication of reverence directed towards him. The book further increased his assumption as there were multiple chapter about Dumbledore and the positions he currently held in the Wizarding World, including Chief Warlock and Supreme Mugwump. Harry made a note that this was a man he did not want to anger or to draw his attention to himself. Someone with that much power was someone not to be messed with.
Then the book came to the rise of a second Dark Lord, referred to only by the moniker 'You-Know-Who'. Harry found this incredibly frustrating because no, he did not know who. His frustration dwindled as he continued to read, replaced by confusion, sadness, and horror. For the very first time in his life, he learned what happened in the first years of life. He learned about the Dark Lord and his followers, death eaters, and how they terrorized Great Britain. The book talked about his goals of eradicating all muggles and 'releasing Dark Magic on the world'. A part of his mind wandered at what Dark Magic was since the book never went into detail about it, but the thought did not hold his attention for long. The next few pages spoke about James and Lily Potter, how they constantly fought back against the death eaters and even 'You-Know-Who' on multiple occasions. Then came the night of October 31st, 1981. The wizard came to their house and both his parents were killed with the Killing Curse, but somehow, when the Curse was cast at a one year old him, something went wrong. All the book said was that the Dark Lord was defeated and he survived, becoming the Boy-Who-Lived and celebrated for ending the war and saving Magical Britain.
Harry sat there for what felt like hours trying to understand his own history. How could a baby stop what was classified as an 'unstoppable curse'? How did he live when his parents did not? Why did he just now learn about this whole society when he was supposedly their hero? His mind whirled in chaos at the new information, unsure how to react to it all.
Finally, he did what he always did, he fell back on his rules.
Rule 1. Not everybody is equal. Equal actions do not cause equal reactions.
Rule 2. There is no correct solution, only the one with the least amount of negatives.
Rule 3. The truth is arbitrary. Truth or lie does not matter, only what the other person perceives to be right matters.
Rule 4. A beautiful lie is far more believable than the ugly truth.
Wizarding Britain may think he was a hero, but he never knew about being a wizard before the previous day. Obviously, they did not truly care about him, only the idea of him. They did not care about the truth, believing only the lie they created in their minds about the life their great hero must be living. The memory of a certain series in the book store flashed through his mind and he nodded at the proof of his thoughts. Harry would not let this make him forget his golden rules, for despite their claims of celebrating him as a hero, he knew the truth.
Do not trust adults. They do not care. They will not help, especially if you are not their own child.
Pain is as much a fact of life as breathing. There is no point in trying to fight it. No point in trying to escape. Both will only lead to greater pain.
Words are useless. They lead to pain and suffering. Do. Not. Speak.
The rest of the month was spent in a similar manner. He awoke early, completed his chores while practicing and perfecting his silencing technique, made breakfast for the other inhabitants of the house, cleaned up from breakfast, and then quickly left for the park and the now familiar tree. At the park he practiced his handwriting with a quill and the fancy calligraphy pen he was able to find as he wrote out questions and notes from the various books he read. By the end of the month his handwriting wasn't quite at the standards he expected of himself, but was at least legible and far superior to when he first started practicing. In between his reading he practiced his magic when he found spells that were discreet and no one was around or when he thought of something to try without a spell. Despite his new books and their lists of spells and wand movements, Harry would never forget that he started using his magic without a spell or wand. He was using his magic for years by visualizing what he wanted to happen and lots of practice. He would not give into the belief that without a spell he would be unable to do what he wanted.
One such example of his practice revolved around the chain he bought for his trunk. He wanted to strengthen the chain so it would not break if someone tried to pull on it as well as make the lock stay latched if anyone other than himself tried to undo it. He decided to start with strengthening the chain as that seemed to be the easier of the two tasks. For his first attempt he held the chain in his hands and visualized his magic entering every link and strengthening it, wanting it stronger, unbreakable. He focused on the thought of it being unbreakable, of no one being able to get it off of him, and pushed his magic from his hands and into the chain. Upon testing the chain he found the he succeeded, but also failed miserably. The chain was strong, extremely strong, which was his goal. Unfortunately, the clasp seemed to have fused together along with the links so it was impossible to open. When Harry tried to undo what his magic did, he learned a new rule of magic.
Rule M-5. Some magic cannot be undone.
No matter how much Harry tried, his magic would not undo what it did in the first place. He could feel his magic leave his body and enter the chain, but then it simply dissipated without enacting any sort of change. Harry was frustrated but as he thought on it, the more it made sense. What would be the point of security spells if someone could come along and simply undo the spell? What good were wards, something he learned about in one of the books as they boasted about the wards of Hogwarts, if one could remove them with little to no effort? However, he figured that this newest rule would be changed and evolve as time went on. He theorized that the more magic you put into a spell, or perhaps the more complex the spell, the harder it would be to undo.
Harry ended up tossing that first chain as it was useless now that it could not be opened. He went back to the store and bought another to practice on. For his second attempt he kept the chain unlatched as he attempted to strengthen the links once more. This second attempt had much greater success as he was able to put the chain on and off while the links remained strong. With this he turned to the second part of his task, making it so he was the only one that could undo the clasp to take it off.
Harry tried for many days but he could not figure out how to accomplish his goal. He figured his blood had to be involved in some way, the same as with his trunk or the test at the bank, but for the life of him he could not figure out how to turn his idea into a reality. Eventually, he gave up on his idea, figuring that he needed to learn more before attempting it again in the future. Instead, he turned to another idea. His trunk came with a notice-me-not charm, something that made others simply ignore the existence of the trunk. If he could not make it so that others couldn't undo the clasp of the chain, then them ignoring its presence was the next best solution. This started his quest to learn the notice-me-not charm and when he accomplished that he went on to experiment with it to see how he could best use it for any given situation.
The rest of the month passed quickly as he studied books on Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, Herbology, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Duelling, Wards, History, and a book on an introduction to the Wizarding World. Harry paid particular attention to Transfiguration, Potions, Defense against the Dark Arts, Duelling, and Warding. He was also interested in Charms, but all of his previous magical feats that he accomplished already fell into that category, so he was interested about learning something new and a new way to manipulate his magic. Defense, Duelling, and Warding were given particular attention because Harry wanted to be able to defend himself from the other students in his new school. All of the spells were focused on the defensive and protection. When he read about the protego charm Harry smirked to himself. What he created with his own personal shock absorber was very similar to the existing spell, although he thought his own version was much better since he could maintain it all day at this point and there were no signs that he had it around him.
By this point he had notebooks dedicated to each of his classes he would be attending at Hogwarts with notes and questions on the subject. He also had a notebook dedicated to a list of every spell that he learned about with their description as well as descriptions and a simple name of the things he was able to do as he grew up, such as the 'Light Spell' where he created a ball of light in his cupboard. If he ever found a spell that did the same as one of his own creations then he would update his list. As he learned of new spells, Harry did discover that simply thinking the name of the spell did absolutely nothing. He had to understand the purpose of the spell and imagine the change he wanted along with the name of the spell. Harry thought it was similar to learning a different language. Being told a word in a different language did not mean that you knew the meaning of that word or whenever it was said you automatically understood it. First you had to translate the word into a language you know for it to make sense. He hoped that eventually the word would become linked with the concept in his mind so that he could skip the middle step, just as eventually a second language becomes instinctive and you don't always translate it back to your first language to understand the meaning.
The jolting of the train and the flare of pain in his body brought him out of his thoughts and back into the present. The train had started moving, carrying him towards the newest chapter of his life. Still, the pain in his back from his punishment the night before reminded him to not let the changes make him forget his past. No matter how much was changing, some things would forever stay the same.
Adults were not to be trusted.
Pain would always be a part of his life.
Words were pointless.