Chapter Two……

This was Harry's eight time visiting the Parishs'. He had quickly abandoned his friendship with Micheal to build one with the boy's father. He'd finish his homework before coming to their residence, spend a few minutes helping Micheal out with his and then move over to the living room to sit down with Mr. Parish and discuss politics and philosophy with the man. The man at first had been astounded by Harry's intelligence as had Mrs Parish, and though Harry was sure they were still amazed by it they soon got used to it.

His intelligence endeared him to the couple and his silver tongue helped him curry favor with Mrs Parish who would give him a huge lap of chicken or some yogurt and milk from the fridge.

Today though was the day he was going to bring the entire charade to completion. Today he was going to get what he wanted from Mr. Parish.

When he had first walked in, he made sure to adopt a sad countenance. This made Mrs Parish send him worried glances. But perhaps she had thought that seeing Micheal would cheer him up but he kept up the facade even after he helped Micheal with his homework and came down to the living room for his usual discussions with Mr. Parish.

Getting overly concerned for him now Mrs Parish decided to find out what was wrong with him. Her concern was aided by her now knowing that he was an orphan as he had informed them the previous day about his parental status and that had awoken Mrs Parish motherliness towards him.

"Harry dear, is anything wrong?" She asked kindly, taking a seat beside him and placing a hand on his shoulder.

Harry looked up to meet her baby blues and sniffed. He let her get a good look at the tears gathered in his eyes before he ducked his head again. At this point even Mr. Parish was now beyond concerned.

"Harry… what happened. Did anyone hurt you?" He asked, making an effort to make his baritone sound less intimidating and failing horribly.

Harry burst out crying and immediately Mrs Parish shooed her husband away and hugged Harry to herself. She rubbed him on his back to calm him down and whispered soothing words to him and after ten minutes Harry calmed down and wiped his eyes clean of tears.

That had been surprisingly easy, crying. All he'd had to do was emotional rouse his feeling of helplessness when under Vernon's physically abusive treatment and the tears just kept coming. Sometimes he surprised his own self with how much control he had over his emotions. Then again he had been forced to learn how to control his emotions as the Dursleys didn't like seeing him happy or seeing him sad. Any visage except neutral would earn him some serious punishment at the business end of Vernon's belt.

"Now would you like to tell me what happened?" Mrs Parish asked, favouring him with warmth and kindness.

He nodded demurely. "Mi… Mister Chaplin," he muttered, sniffing.

"Who is this Mister Chaplin and what did he do to hurt you?" She coaxed, still rubbing him across the back comfortably.

Harry wondered if this was what having a mother was like. It was really nice.

"Mister Howard Chaplin is the main editor of the Daily Facts."

"Ah, that Mister Chaplin," Mrs Parish said in realization. Then she looked down at him in surprise. "How did you get to meet him?"

"Uncle Vernon invited him over for dinner." That was an absolute lie. Vernon had boasted a long time ago about being an acquaintance of Mr. Chaplin but have never invited the man over for dinner. In fact that boast had been what gave Harry the idea to put this entire plan together.

"And I assume Mister Chaplin said something that offended you during this dinner?" Mrs Parish enquired.

Harry nodded energetically. "I told him that I aspired to be an editor in future but he laughed and told me that I can't even be a simple columnist. I told him I could and that I even had a few articles written. He asked for them and I was glad thinking he was going to approve of them. I thought then that at least if I can't be an editor for now I could at least be a columnist. I gave him the articles I'd written. He read them, laughed and threw them in my face. He told me that the public didn't need to read my childish fantasies. He… didn't even read them all. I won't ever be a co…columnist. I won't ever be a columnist."

Harry burst into tears once more and this time he wasn't pacified by back rubs and words of assurance. Mrs Parish cursing the wicked Mr Chaplin brought Mr. Parish back to the living room. Harry continued to shed tears as the man asked his wife what was wrong. She explained what Harry told her to him and Mr Parish chuckled earning him a crossed look from his wife.

"Ah, don't worry Harry. Chaplin won't know a good article even if it hits him in the face. You are a smart boy, you have nothing to worry about, people will read your columns and love it," the man tried to assure him.

Harry shook his head frantically in denial. "No they won't. He… said they were just childish fantasies," he said in faux despair as tears rolled down his cheeks.

"That's because Chaplin is an idiot," Mr. Parish countered. "I asuure you people will love reading your columns."

"H…how am I to ever know?" Harry asked, heaving.

"Well we could do a test to see," Mrs Parish suggested.

Finally! It took a lot of willpower for Harry to not jump up and pump his fist into the air.

The significative look Mrs Parish was giving her husband made him step back like a deer caught in headlight.

"Isn't that right, darling?" Mrs Parish asked her husband with a testy tone.

"Eh… I," Mr. Parish stammered. "How exactly are we going to test this, dear?"

"Why with the New Social of course," she answered sweetly.

Harry to escape bursting from joy just added tempo to his crying. Mrs Parish was now rocking him while she glared at her husband.

"Love, I'm not the owner of the newspaper," Parish reminded his wife.

"Well, then I believe you certainly own the couch from now on. I hope you find it comfortable enough."

"Wait," Parish said, panicked. "Let me see what I can do."

"And if it's a hit?"

"Well if its a sellout then Harry will definitely be having a career as a columnist."

Mrs Parish smiled at her husband sweetly. "You learn quite quickly, darling."

Seeing Mr. Parish bring out a handkerchief to wipe sweat off his brows Harry could not help thinking: if this is the power women hold over men then I obviously skipped the right gender.

~Break~

Harry's columns had surprised everyone and had been a total sellout. How wouldn't it be when it was the opinion of an impressively smart six years old boy on the current global political climate. Everyone wanted to read the point of view of a child smart enough to understand politics. In a month he became famous and Mr. Parish helped him open a bank account for the money he was being paid by New Social for the columns. His first paycheck had been a thousand pounds and according to Mr. Parish his salary was likely to increase the more popular his columns become.

Becoming a thousandaire wasn't the only good thing that happened to him that month. He requested for a double promotion exam and successfully passed with straight As. He was already in grade three due to having skipped kindergarten altogether so he passed for grade three and four and was transferred to grade five.

He increased his studies some more and now that he had his own money he could buy materials to do some experiments so he could gain some hands-on knowledge he needed to be better at his studies. This will help him be done with high school when he is eight as he was planning. Then he will leave St. Gregory's Primary School and finally get to stop seeing his cousin's stupid face all the time.

Another power was brought to his attention when it became widely known that he was a columnist. It was the power of fame. That made it the seventh power he was discovering, the others being knowledge, martial, political, wealth, blackmail, and fear. Now his teachers would ask him to stay behind to discuss a political topic with him, they would favour him more than his fellow classmates, his words now had value to people, people saw him and waved.

He didn't really understand the immensity of the power of fame until he did his research. He read about artists whose fame drew thousands of people to their concerts making them millions from sold tickets. Fame he realized, was a gateway to the power of wealth. He got the perfect opportunity to test this a week after he was promoted to fifth grade.

He had just returned from his early morning run and was getting ready to hit the showers. He heard a noise in the kitchen, the clanking of a pot's bottom atop a cooler. He went over to see what was going on and found Aunt Petunia preparing breakfast.

This was not so surprising. Since he became a famous columnist the Dursleys reduced the level of maltreatment. They didn't stop abusing him entirely but anything that could be noticed on him like malnutrition and scars had been avoided. They didn't still feed him well, bacon and toasts twice a day could hardly be called feeding, and Vernon now only made his belt land only where the ensued injury could be concealed by clothes.

Petunia cooking wasn't much of a surprise as recently she started cooking from time to time and even doing the laundry with the washing machine she'd made Uncle Vernon finally buy. According to her, she couldn't let 'the disgusting boy cook her food or do her laundries'. Harry was of course the disgusting boy and the reason why he was now disgusting was that he was rich. The Dursleys had different reactions to his riches. Petunia for some reason feared him being rich, perhaps she thought that now he had money he'd buy some cyanide or hemlock and put it in her food. Dudley's reaction to him being rich was different. The idiot felt, for some strange reason, that Harry's money should be his. Vernon on the other hand hated Harry having his own money, he hated it so much that he wouldn't stop glaring at Harry and took every opportunity to discipline him, of course in places where his clothes will be able to hide the scar.

Harry didn't care much about Vernon's physical abuse anymore. Did it hurt? Something fierce. But did it make him cry? No. Vernon was unknowingly breeding a soldier. Harry knew there weren't many six years olds who learnt to relish pain even if it was inflicted on their self, but he did. There weren't six years olds who felt that abuse was building them up to be stronger and uninhibited by emotions and morals, yet this was his perspective. Vernon was building him up to become a psychopath. Violence was not something he was adverse to, or have ever been adverse to. Lying, cunning, manipulating, glibness, exploiting, heedlessness, arrogance, delusions of grandeur, sexual promiscuity, low self-control, disregard for morality, lack of acceptance of responsibility, callousness, and lack of empathy and remorse were the traits of a hardened psychopath. And he saw this not as vile traits but potential powers.

Clearing his thoughts, he left his Aunt to continue preparing breakfast and went to get his needed shower. After the morning meal where they all sat together, ate together, and glared at each other, Harry received a hand delivered letter from the Lovedom Show. It was a popular talkshow on TV Aunt Petunia loved to watch. Sometimes she'd even change the channel from whatever Dudley was watching and bribe him with desserts so he wouldn't complain. Harry got a real shock when he received the letter inviting him to the talkshow.

He had been about to tell the unofficial postman (who apparently was a member of the Lovedom crew) that he couldn't honour their invitation. The Lovedom Show was too feminine and romance centric for his tastes. He held back from denying the invite request though when he saw the look on Petunia's face.

It made him remember that Petunia was a fan of this show as were hundreds of women all over London. This sold Harry, he could use this show, he could use it to subtly blow his own trumpet or he could pull off being so adorable and intelligent that the mothering population of Britain will help him do that by themselves.

His decision made he told the crewman. "I'll attend. That's, of course, if my aunt is willing to escort me there."

The crewman's gaze had been fixed on Petunia once those words were said but it wasn't a second later that Petunia immediately agreed.

The next few days were nothing if not interesting. Petunia's treatment towards him changed, not drastically, but she became civilly polite to him. This, Harry felt, should be studied as it had the potential to become another power—the power of influence.

The day of the talkshow came and Petunia drove him to London. She was given a seat in the gallery of the show's auditorium while Harry was invited to the stage to seat beside Mrs Evangeline Silver.

He had a great time, admittedly. Acting was fun. He had the audience cooing and eating out of his hands with how adorably smart he had been. This was not the only advantage he gained from the opportunity of being on the talkshow. He also used the talkshow to sow seeds that bore fruits days later.

When Harry was asked things like his favorite item or his hubby, he made sure to sneak in brand names and emotional stories of his, pertaining to them, into his answers.

Some of his answers were like this:

"My favourite second hubby is eating Meridian Smooth peanut butter. It's really the only peanut butter I can eat and be concentrated enough to write outlines for my Columns. Eating others tend to make me lose concentration and fall asleep." And when Mrs Silver asked him whether it's because the others were too sweet he contradicted her, "no it's the exact opposite, they are not sweet enough!"

He made sure to coat his frustrated tone with childish petulance and it made the audience crack up.

That week, Meridian and some of the brands of different products Harry had mentioned in similar manner during the interview contacted him for ambassadorship. They were going to have him promote their products. Harry's face soon became a familiar sight on jumbotrons, billboards, newspapers, magazines, and tv commercials.