-8-
The Chronicles of a Time-Travelling Wizard.
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"AAAHHHHH!" Harry Potter screamed in frustration as he fired more devastating blasting curses at the dummies supplied by the Room of Requirement; the transdimensional properties of the Room meant an everlasting supply of dummies which could be made from stone, plastic, glass, wood, or plaster could appear in front of him.
When he had been 9 years old, Harry had discovered the existence of magic, but it was more down to chance and luck rather than design. At the time, Harry had been recovering from a truly nasty number of beatings; as he had grown older at the Dursleys, the muggles had become increasingly terrifying in their abuse; their physical abuse had turned more violent and downright vicious in their mental and physical abuse. Most kids would never be in fear for their lives, but for Harry, it was a fact.
There had been so many times Harry had been terrified that whatever breath that came out of his body, battered and broken, would be his last. That was one of the reasons why he had accepted the very real fact every moment was vital.
As a child he had dreamt many times that he would go out into the world, disregarding whatever sick plans the Dursleys had concerning his future, and he would travel the world and see the places long since denied him.
And yet…
Harry had hated the Dursleys, and he still planned to kill them, and those plans had merely doubled the longer he was here at Hogwarts. The libraries of the school were a treasure trove of information relating to incurable and untraceable magical poisons - untraceable to muggle medicine and science - and that was nothing compared to what he'd found in the Chamber of Secrets, and here in the Room of Requirement.
He usually did his best to visit the libraries in the RoR, and the Chamber of Secrets and practice the magic he had learnt, favouring wandless magic after he had started taking an interest in the wandless magic taught in Africa's Uagadou.
It was when he was nearing his ninth birthday that Harry finally made the plan to leave the Dursleys, all the time concerned and even a bit worried that he had never tried to do so before.
It wasn't until he had found letters at Mrs Figg, a mad cat-loving old bat and resident insane lunatic lady of the neighbourhood, and his regular babysitter, he discovered his answers to the questions he had been asking himself for a long time.
Why was he still living with the Dursleys in the first place when he knew they were abusive, and how they kept shoving him inside a Cupboard under the Stairs to punish him or because they just wanted him out of their sight?
What were those weird and amazing things that happened every time he became frightened or furious?
Why did the Dursleys never follow through with their regular promises to kick him out?
The answer was the Dursleys had been threatened by the magical world to not throw him aside, warning of terrifying repercussions should they even think of defying the power of the wizards, namely Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The idea of a schoolteacher, and an influential one at that, judging from his fancy titles on the letters Figg received, being capable of such things was both laughable and worrying at the same time, but what scared him the most was how Dumbledore had hinted to using spells to keep him at the Dursleys and wiping his memories each time he tried to escape.
Harry had found the letters in Figg's house when the Dursleys once more dumped him there because they didn't want him, but when he had gone, he had been prepared to use the chance to escape.
Mrs Figg was mad and complacent; escaping her would not be difficult.
He had learnt by chance that she usually kept the doors and windows of her house open to let her many cats come and go, but at the time he had been too small and hopeless to really recognise the golden opportunity that she had, but as he'd grown older, he wondered why he hadn't taken advantage of it. But now he knew why.
Each time?
Yes!
According to the letters, he had tried to escape a dozen times - eight when he had been seven years old. By the end of it, Harry would forget every single attempt.
But not after that.
Harry had stolen the letters, and he had begun trying to master his powers, accepting the fact he couldn't escape until he actually went to this school.
When he had first seen Diagon Alley, he had asked the extremely unhelpful Dumbledore lackey Hagrid and all around brainless idiot questions, but Hagrid waved him off all the time.
But getting away from him was relatively simple, and he had gone back to Diagon Alley. By the time Harry reached Hogwarts, he had all the basics he needed to find the Room of Requirement, and he had been using it ever since as secretly as he could.
Harry screamed again as he blasted more target dummies.
He loved these moments when he could let down the occlumency barriers he had worked so long, and so hard to build during his first year, and let his emotions bleed out.
With how he had gone into Gryffindor to play the long game, having to cope with the interminable attempts to potion him up, forcing him to follow those schemes even if he had discovered the Philosopher's Stone was a con and wouldn't do anything for Voldemort full stop, his emotions were like a bottle of nitroglycerin striking a wall.
During his time at Hogwarts, Harry had ignored the Philosopher's Stone despite Dumbledore's attempts to force him to deal with it. But he had found the RoR, and he had learnt the Room could even peer into the future, helping him keep a few steps ahead.
In his second year, Harry had changed history by stopping Lockhart from vanishing his bones, while he did speak parseltongue as it would allow him to access the Chamber after he had seen the events and made his plans, he had been prepared for the outcry.
In his third year, Harry had not bothered asking Lupin for help with the patronus charm since he had the books and material in the Room. When he returned to Hogwarts this year, he had managed to expose Crouch Junior as a fraud and an imposter, going over Dumbledore's head to expose him to the DMLE.
The escaped Death Eater's reveal exposed his father's crimes and his being under the Imperius curse, but someone had put his name in the Goblet of Fire regardless.
It was Dumbledore. Harry had just found out.
That was why Harry was furious; he had assumed the whole mess had been averted, but now he knew he had to go through the whole mess of the Triwizard Tournament; Harry had known about the whole messy year since he was twelve, and he had been trying to find ways to make sure it never happened.
And now this.
Slowly he calmed down, panting hard. He had used a lot of his magic, and he was exhausted.
There was nothing he could do, and he would have to deal with it. There was nothing he could do. With barely a thought, Harry vanished the shattered pieces of the dummies, and he replaced them with a large couch.
Throwing himself on it, Harry sighed as he closed his eyes and just rested. He was so tired of everything he had gone through to reach this spot.
-8-
During the next few days, Harry spent more and more time in the RoR. Fortunately, his 'friendship' with Ron Weasley, was always a battlefield since he had to keep playing the easy route with the lazy redhead who was content to just sit back and let things come to him while ignoring the fact he could look out for the opportunities out there, had fallen apart.
Harry only hoped he never had to put up with the jerk again.
Hermione, however…
Hermione was determined to make him and Weasley friends again. "Harry, if you'll just see things from his point of view. He's just jealous-."
"Jealous of what?" Harry demanded, his expression cold and his voice curt as he glared at the girl, his manner making it clear her response had better be…phenomenally good. "Jealous of how I might die? Did he forget about that? How convenient for him!"
"Don't yell at me!" Hermione snapped before she made the physical effort to calm down. "Harry, he's upset that everything happens to you, and he gets the scraps."
The moment the words were out of her mouth, Hermione realised what she had just said. Quietly, making sure he was flushing his body with magic as he leaned in closer to her; Hermione gulped. She had never seen Harry like this before, oh she had seen him furious before, enraged, but right now his expression was demonic in his fury, and his magic was crackling all around him.
"The scraps?" The expression on his face made her shudder and take a step back. "Tell him…if he wants to get famous, to get his mother, and go out, and find a Dark Wizard, and then provoke them to kill him and his mother, and see if he survives. Go on, I dare you."
"Harry! How could you-?" Hermione was shocked and horrified by what he was saying, but Harry didn't care.
"Well, you just said he gets the scraps! What do you expect?" Harry lost his patience right then. "Y'know what? I'm going to give you a choice; you are either on my side, or you're on his, and let me tell you, if you're on my side you will never interact with him ever again. I don't care what you think, but I find it weird you even care about him at all."
"He's my friend, Harry," Hermione said, staring at him squarely in the eye. "And right now he might be right about you."
Harry's expression of pure coldness didn't shift. "What's that meant to mean?" He started laughing coldly. "You're sticking up for the piece of shit who nearly got you killed in our first year, are ya? Well, be with him, but take this with you; he doesn't care about you. At all. To him, you're just the girl that does his homework for him. Beyond that, he doesn't care if you live or die, with your nagging, your arrogance, and above all your need to be right. Hope you two are happy together."
If Harry had looked back as he turned and walked away, he would have seen her starting to cry. But he didn't care.
-8-
The outcome of the blowup he had with Hermione rippled through the school when everyone realised that he and the Weasleys, and Hermione, were now on the outs. But Harry kept away from most of it, using a collection of spells to hide himself from everyone else. Dumbledore had tried to persuade him to forgive and forget, but Harry wouldn't budge; more than once during the conversation, the old wizard kept trying to look into his mind, but thanks to his occlumency, he managed to stop the invasions. Finally, at the end, Harry had pictured Dumbledore being hit with a cricket bat, and while it was risky it had been enjoyable to see him visibly rocked to the core.
In the end, there was little Dumbledore could do, but Harry had seen that he wanted Harry to forgive and forget. Too bad it was not going to happen anytime soon.
-8-
During the wand weighing ceremony, Harry was stunned when he learnt that his wand connection was growing weak. While he would have appreciated it if Ollivander had kept it between themselves, it was too late, and it was a shock. Harry had later gone to Knockturn Alley rather than to Ollivander, well not initially. There was something not quite right with the old wandmaker, but by the time Harry got to him, he already owned a brand new custom-made wand.
11 inches long, made from a blackthorn outer casing and a ceramic inner casing, with the core being a piece of basilisk fang, with a piece of brainstem and basilisk venom mixed with blood, all supplied by Harry himself. In the meantime, he had gotten a new wand from Ollivander, this one was a bit more powerful and used a Thunderbird tail feather inside a yew casing.
Once he returned to Hogwarts, Harry returned to the Room of Requirement and used it to consult the future. Harry witnessed himself, in various timelines, dealing with a pissed-off dragon. From the observations, he dismissed using a broomstick for the task. He decided to make use of an illusion, one that would keep the dragon occupied.
With luck, he would rise victorious and be above the others. One thing that bothered him was the other tasks. He had learnt before how to deal with them, and he could easily get his hands on the gilly-weed for breathing underwater, but he would make sure to take an extra supply in case he needed it, and he'd practice more spells to help him survive underwater.
For the final task, things would be more complicated.