Chapter 3: Potions, Runes and Paranoia
Disclaimer: I obviously don't own the idea of Harry Potter or any of the money-making forms of it.
Summary: AU. An AU story of a different Harry Potter's life in a world where he doesn't hold the burden of being the BWL. Neville is the BWL.
A/N: There will be differences to canon in character backstory, family trees, some OOC characters, etc. Magical lore has been inspired by other fics and my own ideas, e.g. potions in rigel black chronicles.
This work has been inspired in some areas by stories such as Holly Potter and the Statues of Stone by xOreoKeKz
It had been over a year since Harry entered the Potter family vault and Petunia had observed a large change in the now ten-year-old boy. He was every bit the bubbly, intelligent, and curious boy he had always been, but now he was more serious. It wasn't a bad serious, he was very focused on being honourable, something he had correlated to kindness and justice. That had become even more extreme when he read about his parents' Hogwarts years. Petunia had a hard time comforting Harry at first when he read about his dad's school years from Lily's perspective. After learning his dad was a bully, Harry was angry and sad for a while.
He had not been happy with Alastor for not telling him and had refused to speak to him until Petunia talked him around. She had convinced him to keep reading the journals, after all, Lily had married James, and Alastor didn't have much to do with him until he was out of school, so clearly he must have matured. Eventually, Harry learned that James had matured during his 6th year at Hogwarts after his parents were killed in the war. Harry had profusely apologised to Alastor and had doubled down on his honour.
The other change that had happened to Harry was his new obsession with magic. At first, Petunia was worried that a rift would form between him and Dudley, and even Piers. However, they had all handled it exceptionally well; Harry included Dudley in his studies as much as possible and was able to separate his magic and non-magic life really well.
After the vault visit; Harry stuck to his original plan of devouring potions knowledge. Petunia knew he came to love the subject, especially after the knowledge that Lily was a potions lover, as well as his desire to impress Severus Snape. Petunia had even let him brew the occasional potion under Alastor's watchful eye. Alastor seemed to be impressed with his skills, and she knew it couldn't be easy to impress him, so clearly Harry was on the right track.
She was so proud of her family; Harry and Dudley were her little angels. Dudley has dyslexia and struggles in school, but he works hard and he is incredibly kind and protective. Harry would help out Dudley on his schoolwork whenever he could; they were brothers in everything that mattered and she was so glad that they would have what she and Lily lost. Vernon had been killing it at Grunnings and was now in charge of sales for the whole business. He had blossomed into a great father too, always having time for her and the boys. She loved how much Dudley and Harry had taken to working with Vernon on his DIY projects and fixing up old cars. Vernon had done so well at work that they were able to renovate the house, they had made up the basement into an entertainment room for the boys that had quickly included an area for potion-making and magic experimentation.
Harry felt like a different person after visiting his family's vault and learning of his ancestors. He was motivated and excited to begin his magic training, he wanted to measure up to the greatest of his family and leave a lasting legacy of his own. To create this legacy, Harry knew he would have to work hard and so he did. He read about his parent's lives simultaneously, and at first, it was terrible.
To learn his dad was a horrible bully who would target his main victim four-on-one; he was heartbroken. Harry cried for days, he felt like he'd been lied to; Alastor always told him how his dad was a kind and righteous man. Eventually, his aunt convinced him to keep reading and he realised his dad was a terrible bully, but he grew up. Seeing the tragic loss of his parents, and the horrors of war; his dad lived through the fire and came out a more honourable man until his dying breath. After coming to that realisation Harry understood his dad's perspective but nevertheless, he vowed to himself that he didn't need a tragedy to be a good person.
After changing his perspective he had loved hearing about his parent's lives until the journals turned to the horrors of war at least. His mother loved potions, and she was an extremely talented potioneer, but her true passion lay in charms. She worked with Professor Flitwick during school and was training for her mastery under him before they went into hiding. His dad talked about how amazing at charms she was and how precisely she could perform them. His dad had a prodigious talent for transfiguration; it had annoyed his mum at first how effortlessly he performed transfigurations without studying and spending all his time on pranks. He had even become an animagus at 15 years old and coached two of his friends through the process.
Alongside his journal readings, he became obsessed with potions, researching different potion ingredients and their properties, what potions they go in, and what effects they have when combined. Every time Alastor visited, Harry was able to brew a potion, starting with the boil cure potion and progressing to other basic brews. Professor Snape had even gradually become something of a potions teacher to Harry. It had started a couple of months after visiting the vault; Harry had come across the professor at his mother's bedside again and had enthusiastically greeted the man. Harry proceeded to apologise for his dad and his friends bullying. The dark-haired man had glared at him so hard Harry thought he would burn up until he turned around and left without a word. Since then Harry had seen the professor about once every month or two in the Janus Thickey ward. After badgering the man with potions queries the first couple of times, Professor Snape started answering as well as testing Harry's knowledge. Harry loved it, he even enjoyed it when the man glared at him and called him a brat if Harry got too happy with himself.
A couple of months ago he finished his parent's journals and began reading through Ophelia's. She was an extraordinary witch, who traveled the world living a life of adventure. She was talented in various fields of magic and would be hired on curse-breaking expeditions, helping battle creatures and magic thousands of years old. She was no rune mistress, admitting her expertise lay in other areas, but she encountered incredibly complex and powerful runic matrices in her adventures that sounded as fascinating to Harry as potions were. She encountered countless traps that were triggered by weight or magic and released all kinds of protective measures from bursts of fire to magical creatures. He had found another field of magic to dive into and he couldn't wait.
Harry's mum dropped runes after her OWL exams but she had kept all her school books over the years inside her magically expanded trunk. Today he would start learning runes and one day he would create his own runic matrices as powerful as the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians. Reading through the introductory chapter he learned a lot, runes were symbolic representations of worldly concepts and objects written or carved whilst channeling magic. Then once triggered, which can occur in many different ways depending on the matrix, the matrix activates and produces the desired result. However, if carved improperly or if the runes don't mix as thought, the backlash can be unpredictable and very dangerous. Aunt Petunia would kill him if he got hurt or blew up the house doing dangerous magic without supervision. He would have to be very careful and maybe work on learning different runic alphabets until he was supervised.
Maybe Al would supervise him. Every time Al came over since they visited the vault he had brought Ophelia's wand and taught Harry a new spell. Al always made sure to tell him how the spell he was teaching him could be used in a fight, often in the most unlikely and ridiculous ways. For example, the first spell he learned was Lumos, the wand-lighting charm, which can be used in a fight to blind or distract an opponent. The second spell was the teeth brushing charm, apparently having white teeth that catch in the light and distract your opponent in a fight is very important. Harry had always found Al's paranoia a bit silly, but after reading about his parents' war experiences and especially how many Death Eaters Al had taken down, he knew the man had good reason to be paranoid.
It had been over three months since Harry learned about the almost limitless and amazing potential of runic magic. He would reluctantly admit to himself that he may have let his schoolwork drop off a bit, but in his defence he was learning about spells, potions, and runes that essentially discredited the entirety of non-magical science. He was sure that his Aunt Petunia had noticed but she seemed to understand, that in a couple of months, he would be starting his formal magical education and likely never progress further in formal non-magical education. He spent a lot of time in school thinking about potions and runes. Harry would sneakily read his mum's old textbooks or practice writing runes correctly. He still made sure he was on top of his work so that he could help Dudley and the teachers had yet to complain, so he wasn't doing too badly.
Harry felt as though his runic studies were progressing quite well, he had begun by following his mum's third-year textbooks. The book was extremely fascinating, after the initial definitions of runes and danger warnings it talked of magical Britain's history with runes. The country had always utilised the Northern European and Scandinavian runic system, Elder Futhark and later Younger Futhark. The book guided Harry from the history of the language system to the symbols themselves, what they looked like, and their different meanings. As a result, he had spent the last couple of months of runic study memorising the meanings of Younger Futhark, the more intuitive set for a modern student, and how to draw the runic symbols. He felt like the topic came quite naturally to him, and the elements of the symbols that crafted their meaning made sense to him.
Today, Al was here to visit, and Harry would be writing and charging his first-ever runic matrix. Runes had to be carved or drawn on specific materials that could hold and conduct magic, with specific utensils that magic could flow through. The general rule was that these materials and utensils had to be more naturally occurring to hold the required properties. However, as his mother had first observed when entering the magical world; magic was quirky, by a non-magical standard, almost nothing was logical in the wixen world. Although it could be annoying at times, he did find the differences fascinating. For example, paper couldn't conduct magic nearly as well as parchment, and quills allowed the transfer of magic, whilst pens did not. Therefore, today Harry would be writing his runic matrix with a quill on parchment. It was not nearly as permanent as carving it into a more magic-conducting material and would burn up quickly, but it was perfect for practicing a less powerful matrix.
He would be attempting the basic light-creating matrix, a fundamental part of how most magical lighting worked. Obviously, lighting an area in a building or even a magical home was more complicated than a single combination of runes. In a larger area, the matrix would link together different places where the basic light-creating matrix sat, that one wishes the light to come from, to a single trigger that could be activated. The trigger could be tailored to the user's wish and be activated anyway from the touch of a finger to the clap of the hands from a specific magical signature. For a start though, Harry would be creating one light, centered on the parchment and triggered by magic.
Al was quite humble and didn't particularly like to boast about how great he was; but from the stories he had read from his parents and heard from Al, Harry knew the man was an incredibly talented and powerful wizard. Whilst he may not be an expert in everything, Al was certainly knowledgeable enough about any topic to have a proper grounding in the basics. After all, as Al always said, "knowledge is power, and ignorance is weakness. Constant Vigilance!" Runes wasn't one of Al's areas of expertise but he took the subject up to NEWT level and knew enough about offensive and defensive applications to look after himself in the field.
So, as Harry carefully wrote out his runes and combined them into a matrix, Al coached him through the process, making Harry start again when the angle of the rune was slightly off or they weren't combined seamlessly. Finally, Al was satisfied and handed Harry Ophelia's wand. With more experience, wixen could channel magic and charge runes wandlessly but Harry would need a wand. A well-suited wand would channel your magic like nothing else. Placing the tip of his wand on the center of the matrix, Harry felt his magic stretching out brimming with the desire to be released. Taking a deep breath, Harry slowly guided a small stream of magic through the wand and into the rune.
When Harry took his wand off the rune a bright light shimmered into existence, and a feeling of utmost joy filled Harry. His family who had come down to the basement to watch him charge the matrix, cheered loudly. Dudley tackled him in a hug as they celebrated, Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and Al looking fondly at the two boys.
It was almost a month into the bittersweet Summer holidays before Harry was off to Hogwarts and Dudley was off to Smeltings. They were both boarding schools, which meant Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would be seeing a lot less of them in the coming years. The whole family was torn between excitement for the next stage of the boys' lives and anxiety about being alone for so long.
Harry was also anxious about being apart from Dudley and Piers, he hadn't met any wixen his age so the thought of having no one familiar was a bit daunting, well except Professor Snape. Somehow, Harry got the idea the professor wouldn't be hanging around with him on the weekends playing quidditch. At least Piers would be going to Smeltings with Dudley and they would have each other. They had told Piers that Hogwarts was some elite selective school in Scotland that Harry's parents went to and that's why Harry wasn't going. While it was true, Harry thought Piers could tell it was more than that, he was a very observant person, and he knew there was something different about Harry but he didn't seem to mind.
As a result of the impending separation, the family spent a lot of time together this Summer and even went on holidays to France and Italy. The trip was amazing, they immersed themselves in the culture, the food, and the sights and loved it all. The experience made Harry think he may have a new project, the idea of speaking another language appealed to him. While he loved France and Italy, given the Potter routes he thought Greek would be his language of choice. He knew it would take years to become fluent, particularly given the multitude of hobbies he had and the approaching beginning of his magical education.
In the last months of school and when he found the chance during the Holidays, Harry continued his potions, runes, and Ophelia Potter studies. Every night before bed, Harry read through Ophelia's journal, a much longer read than his parents. Ophelia passed away from curse damage at 84 years of age. She suffered lots of injuries over the years due to the dangerous nature of her job, some of which left remnants of curses behind, eventually leading to her death. She never had kids of her own but spoke lovingly of her siblings, nieces, nephews, and their children.
Harry had updated his never-ending journal regularly since purchasing it. At this point, it was much drier reading than Ophelia Potter's adventures but he hoped one day he would have fascinating stories for his descendants to read.
Reading between the lines of Professor Snape's snarky comments about Harry's potions knowledge, his studies were progressing nicely. Harry had even been handed a fascinating book on magic's role in potions during a shared St Mungo's visit, with the instruction to "return it undamaged, or you will live to sorely regret it". The book had massively changed Harry's understanding of potions. All potions require specific ingredients in specific amounts, combined at specific times, and applied under specific heat. Less powerful potions only require the magic of the ingredients to be successful if all other factors are followed. Whereas, more powerful potions or potions with volatile reactions require the conscious imbuing of a brewer's magic to charge the effects of the potion, and at times smooth over the reactions of certain ingredients when combined. This discovery of more factors in potion-making blew Harry's mind and only increased his desire to experiment with potions that required the conscious imbuing technique, but he knew there was a long way to go before then.
His runic studies were progressing well too, he was learning about the Elder Futhark runic system, a less intuitive language but one Harry felt like he had a very good grasp on. Al continued to guide him through basic runic matrices, such as the water-filling scheme, which is the base for household appliances such as a bath. Harry felt his most impressive creation by far was a wooden mouse toy that would move. Harry was very proud of his creation, he had spent over a month learning to carve wood with Uncle Vernon's help, as the runes would not work on a plastic toy. The mouse was a very crude imitation but it served its purpose. The rune work was much more complicated than anything else he had tried to that point, the specific sequence wasn't in a book and Harry worked for a month on how to tie in the runes for movement, durability, and voice activation to specific words and phrases. After showing Al multiple drafts the man had supervised him carving the runes into his wooden mouse and the result was pretty cool. It was a toy that when toughed in a specific place would trigger the magic in the runes, he could then direct it by saying things like forwards three meters, left thirty centimeters and even command the mouse to return to him. Al was very impressed with his work, claiming that some OWL students would struggle to come up with his matrix, and Harry was very happy but he knew it was just a start.
Today, the family was having a breakfast of bacon and eggs when they were interrupted by an owl tapping the window. Harry bounced with excitement as he bounded toward the window, it wasn't Al's owl which meant unless Professor Snape had decided to write him it must have been his Hogwarts letter. Harry Untied the letter from the owl's leg impatiently and looked at the address. Fancy handwriting in green ink spelled out a very specific address.
First Bedroom on the left, Upstairs
4. Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey.