It took a lot more than being frustrated beyond endurance to really attempt amending a nasty situation. This was something Harry have always known. He got fed up just after two months of being the Dursleys involuntary chef. He had only been two years old at this time and had to stand on a chair to see over the cooking counter. He had also gotten fed up when his relatives forced their chores upon his incapable three years old self. And he had been beyond fed up the first time Vernon got physical with him.

All these instances of being frustrated and barely tolerant of his situation yet there had been absolutely nothing he could do about how things were. Life as he had discovered was quite disadvantageous, infintely, to a powerless child. He had neither power nor leverage of any kind to draw an advantage from and therefore put a stop to the cruel reality of his existence in No. 4 Privet Drive. He had no parents to call upon for protection, he couldn't report his relatives to the authorities as Uncle Vernon had already convinced everyone that Harry was a very imaginative child and was partially mentally unstable due to having experienced his parents death.

Vernon's vile lies aside, he lacked prove to provide the authorities with about his wretched living conditions. And to top it all off he couldn't run away as, if it haven't been established yet, he was a powerless child who lacked the necessary resources essential for supporting himself if he dare to risk such dangerous undertaken.

The hard truth was that he could be fed up all he like, be frustrated beyond endurance, but he could do absolutely nothing about his lot in life… for now.

His weakness was a temporary thing as far as he was concerned. In fact he was already making good progress in seeing its impermanence. Harry have always been smarter than most children he knew and it hadn't taken him long to realize that if he could manage to weaponize his intelligence or utilize it self-beneficially then he could eventually make his intelligence the power he sorely needed. After all, knowledge, as they say, is power.

Coming to this realization he started to give his intelligence the equivalent, in this situation, of a proper maintenance and upgrade for a weapon: accumulation of knowledge. He wasn't selective, any type of knowledge was cherished with gladness and delight. This new development blissfully turned out to be an avenue of escape from the Dursleys even if it was just for a few hours daily. For finding knowledge he'd needed a repository, a reservoir of knowledge, and the nearest one had been the public library and spending time at the library had meant spending less time at the Dursleys'.

He had been three years of age when he started hitting the books. For the entirety of his first year as a novice bibliophile it had been necessary to have a dictionary, or two, beside any book he was reading but eventually he stopped needing the hardcover translators for turgid vocabularies all the time. His goal for supreme intelligence was helped by the fact that Harry never forget something experienced, be it something he read, saw, smelled, tasted, felt, heard, e.t.c. He could remember everything that has happened since his brain developed enough for him to be aware, and he could recollect them in perfect clarify. He could distinctly remember the smell of lavender that had been thick on his baby blankets. Though he was only able to put a name to the scent when he started doing the Dursleys' laundries.

If he could remember such typical detail about his blankets it was certainly unsurprising that he could recall spoken words and words he'd read, effortlessly. It was his stellar retentive memory that was the driving force behind his learning spree. Not only because it made it impossible for him to ever forget the things he learn, but mostly because with it he could never forget all he's suffered at Vernon's and Petunia's hands, sufferings that made him yearn for power and had brought him to this path of accumulating knowledge. Indeed it was a driving force, intensified at each remembrance.

A year and some months after he discovered the library and began absorbing knowledge, another type of power was made known to him, a power that was quite physical. To be precise, Harry discovered martial arts. This discovery, as it happened, did not take place in the library but surprisingly in the living room of number 4 Privet Drive. A movie that premiered a few months back was aired on a faithful day Harry happened to be at home. Usually he could only be found in the Dursley household at mornings and nights. Mornings were for chores as he still needed to do them or be ready to face the worst from Vernon and Petunia, and nights were for seeking a few hours of night rest in his cupboard. But on the day this movie was aired, his Aunt Petunia had heaped so much chores on him and he hadn't been able to rush them and then rush off to the library. The chores had been so many. Apparently there had been a party the previous day, a farewell party for one of Dudley's friends whom's family was moving out of town.

So he had been in the living room, hanging up the curtains which Dudley and his friend pulled down during the party so thy could use the white fabric to cosplay ghosts to scare themselves, when the movie came on.

This movie was Karate Kid. Harry has never worked so sluggishly as he'd done at that moment. It took him over thirty minutes to hang up the curtains and he'd spent the rest time the movie ran for slowly putting the living room to order. Petunia had complained of course but he had simply just apologized demurely and still did not speed up the work. He made sure to watch the movie till the end, though subtly else Dudley see him and complain that the Freak was watching the same movie as him.

That night in his cupboard all he had thought about was him using the fine art of Karate to put Dudley and Vernon in their place. It had taken him a long time to close his eyes and go to sleep, having been so enraptured visualizing himself as a future black belt.

Of course throughout there week all he did was read up on martial arts. He red as much as he could find on it and he became so curious and eager to learn it that all he could think of from then on was Karate and other forms of martial arts he'd read about like Muay Thai and Taekwondo.

Soon he read up a lot about the subject in general that he figured out the basics which he could use to get started before figuring out how to find someone who could really show him the ropes. Said basics was calisthenics, acrobatics, and regular PE.

It hadn't been easy for his four years old body when he began, but his super retentive memory, which he read in a book in the public library was called an eidetic memory, kept reminding him of why he needed to do this. Memories of Vernon striking him, Petunia starving him and clobbering him with a frying pan, and Dudley siccing Marge's dog on him kept him going.

Soon he could do over a hundred push ups without getting tired, do over fifty pull-ups using the bar of the swing at the park before getting tired, run around the neighborhood twice before feeling winded, and summersault in different ways and styles. He had also created a sandbag using a sack Aunt Petunia brought back from grocery shopping. He had tied this sandbag to a tree in the woods surrounding the park and with it he practised his boxing, honing his punching and kicking.

When kindergarten started and the Dursleys were forced to take him to school or risk the neighbors getting suspicious, he was able to take care of himself when Dudley and his little friends decided to rough him up. He even started protecting other children they tried bullying. Harry did not do this out if the kindness of his heart, no, he did this to earn their gratefulness. You see, Harry never stopped reading even though a huge part of his time was now dedicated to training and exercising. His reading progressed even farther than his training and discovered some dubious political books. History treatises and biographies of some European politicians. He learnt about statecraft and sophistry. All these things interested him as he saw it as another form of power. Already he had discovered two, knowledge and martial, now he discovered a third one: political power.

He wanted it. There is nothing Harry loved or wanted more than power so following the footsteps of many ambitious fellows before him he started gathering a following at a young age. He helped the helpless and gained their loyalty. His ring became bigger than even that of Dudley. It also helped that he was quite Intelligent. He helped his followers with their school work creating dependency focused on him. And this didn't take much out of him after all Kindergarten school work was obviously nothing compared to the things he studied in the library.

Life continued like this for the next two years. He continued his awe-inspiring progress in his dream for power. A year after kindergarten he was promoted to elementary school after his remarkable Intelligence was noticed by his teachers and they did a test and saw that there was nothing he could learn from them. He didn't spend a year in grade one before the same situation was repeated and he was transferred to grade three.

He was sad that this good fortune was robbing him of his followers but he was glad for it and just settled for really gathering serious followers after school but this didn't stop him from making friends and creating connections especially with the kids of the elites.

Harry had also discovered a fourth power during these two years: the power of money. One day he saw a newspaper Uncle Vernon had left on the table, he'd picked it up out of curiosity but got interested in it so much that he developed the habit of reading any newspaper his uncle left around. From these newspapers, especially the ones that didn't conceal the truth, he discovered several forms of power through the crimes they reported in print. There was the power of blackmail, the power of fear which went along with threats that can be backed up, and then finally the one that interested him the most: wealth.

Not that he didn't have interest for the other two but seeing the things that money could accomplish on the newspaper made it his most favorite form of power. With money he could buy the loyalty of intelligent people, with money he could hire the most skilled martial artists to protect him. Money answers all things.

This made him take up something that could start him on a journey to wealth. Harry started attending free summer workshops. He attended some that were for literature and some for basic engineering. The one for literature they taught him and the other students how to be great writers and they were even days were they made them learn other languages. As for the one for basic engineering, it was really hands-on. There he learnt things he wouldn't have known until he started high school. He was the youngest in both workshops but certainly not the least in intelligence. When it was taught how to repair a radio, he learnt it to perfection in just an hour. He had not been the fastest but has been one of the fastest. That didn't sit well with him though so he did his best to improve. He expanded on his reading. He started reading anything he could get his hands on. Engineering books, physics book, school books, the words written on products packs, newspapers, research articles, tech magazines, e.t.c.

It was his goal to use the knowledge he gain from both workshops to start making some money so it was must that he must be the best student at both workshops. He'd make money with the skills gained from the literature department by writing newspaper columns, he already had that all planned out and it involved a classmate of his. As for the engineering workshop, he planned to use the skill gained from it to do add repair jobs around the neighborhood and make some money from them.

On the latter he was already seeing some progress. A week ago he helped the family on No. 6 repair their lawn mower and got two hundred pounds for it. It was a good business.

For the former he was going to set things in motion for utilizing the skills he was learning from the literature workshop today.

~Break~

The bell rang, announcing the end of school for the day. Harry placed his bag over his shoulder and walked over to a boy delivered from Dudley and his gang's mercies a few weeks ago. Since then they have become really close. Harry only helped the boy and befriended him because his father was an editor in the New Social Newspaper. That boy had a connection Harry needed to become rich.

"Hey Micheal," Harry said, siding up next to the blonde rich kid.

Micheal's face brightened seeing Harry. "Harry!"

"I was wondering if I can come over to your place this evening so we can do our homework together?" Harry asked, watching as the boy adopted a thoughtful look.

"I may need to ask my Dad."

"Okay then," Harry said, casually, but within he was anything but casual about this. He hadn't really thought about Micheal needing his parent's permission to have a friend over. This was worrying.

What if his dad refused? What if my shabby appearance poor clothes repulse him? What if he don't like his child associating with the lower class? There was so many what ifs but he'd never know what could be if he don't soldier on.

Nothing ventured nothing gained, he thought gathering his resolve to face the furtive outcome of Micheal's request to his father. This could even be helpful in a way after all it was Micheal's father he was after not some stupid joint homework.

After Micheal was done parking up his things they went down to the parking lot together, taking about childish things Harry wasn't really interested in but conversed about as they had Micheal's interest.

As they waited for Micheal's father to arrive, Harry watched Vernon pick Dudley up with both not even sparing him a glance. It was fortunate that Dudley didn't interact much with him in school and thus many were unaware that they were related, helped by the fact that they had different surnames, else he might have been facing strange questions from Michael in why he didn't leave with his Uncle and cousin. The only time Dudley interacted with him was when he and his friends attempt to play a game they called 'Harry Hunting'. If course there was no actual hunting as Harry could beat all the boys to the ground. It was just an activity where he got to practice his growing martial skill.

He was so engrossed on his thoughts that he didn't notice the arrival of the man they had been waiting for. Micheal squealing in joy and rushing to hug the man was what drew Harry's attention. Giving Vernon and Dudley a condescending look as they drove away, he walked up to where Micheal was babbling out how his day had been to a tall, blonde man with broad shoulders.

When he was noticed, Micheal took him by the hand and brought him close to his father.

"Dad, can Harry come over this evening. I'd like for us to do our homework together," he asked, giving his father a pleading look that was so cute Harry knew there was no way the man was not going to deny his request.

"Ah… Have your parents agreed to this, Harry?" Mr. Parish asked, looking down at him warmly.

"Uncle," Harry corrected politely. "I mean to ask him and if he agrees then I will come over. That's if, of course, I have your permission also."

The blonde man smiled kindly. "Anyone who help my son out with bullies is ever welcome to my home."

Harry smiled this time and had to stop himself from grinning.

So Micheal had told his father about him stopping Dudley from beating him up. This had obviously earned him some brownie points from Mr. Parish. Sometimes it really seemed that Dudley was unknowingly assisting Harry with his ambitions or perhaps it was Harry who was smartly using Dudley's excesses to his advantage.

It was agreed between Harry and Mr. Parish the time he was to arrive at their home and in no time he was waving goodbye to Micheal and the father and son duo drove away. Harry looked at around at the departing students and sighed as he remembered that he'd have to trek home. Maybe he should look into saving up to buy a bicycle. It was not a bad idea. It won't only reduce the stress if him going home by himself but will also be a good firm of exercise.

With a thoughtful visage he started making his way back to number 4