Harry sat in the Room of Requirement, examining the book he had just received in bemusement, especially as he looked through the pages, flicking through them with growing disbelief and yet, with a growing sense of hope as he held the treasure in his hands.
Okay, so it was a book, but if it worked out the way he hoped, then this book could solve so many problems, and he wouldn't even need to spend years of his life working himself to the bone trying to learn magic only to fail in killing Voldemort and Dumbledore.
Both were threats and he wanted them out of his life, for good.
And not only him.
Fudge, Umbridge, the Order of the Phoenix judging from the intel he had been getting from Dobby, Winky, and the Room itself, and so many more.
He had found the Room of Requirement a few years ago, just under a week after he had first arrived in Hogwarts. He had found out about the Room of Requirement from the goblins after he had managed to slip the net cast by Dumbledore after Hagrid had so kindly walked away from him and left him to go back to Number 4 without any help or supervision, but since he had told the oversized lackey he could take care of himself, Hagrid had left.
It was a relief, too; Harry had needed to contain all of his disgust and disdain for Hagrid after the oaf had admitted to him how he had taken Harry virtually gift-wrapped towards the Dursleys, and watched without a word or even care as Dumbledore just dropped him as a baby on the Dursley's doorstep.
That made Hagrid Harry's enemy, and a few innocent questions revealed to Harry that Dumbledore had been there with another Hogwarts professor.
Professor McGonagall, the same Professor McGonagall who'd signed the letter, and knew about him living in the Cupboard under the Stairs. As a result, ever since he had gone into Gryffindor, Harry had ignored the old woman while vowing to make her, Dumbledore, Hagrid, Voldemort, and so many others pay the ultimate price for abandoning him to a life of hell.
It might sound petty and childishly vindictive, but Harry did not care. When he asked the goblins if it was possible to secretly learn and hone his powers, they didn't care he might be sounding like a potential replacement for Voldemort - at the time the Dark Lord wasn't even a blip on his radar - they had just seen him as a client, and they'd told him about the RoR, but not how to find it. Instead, they helped him find the kitchens with the House Elves, and Harry had simply asked them for help, and he'd found it.
From the Room, Harry had found a secondary bedroom, a workout area, and a secret library where he could study and learn magic. It was thanks to the Room he had even lasted as long as he had in the first place.
And Harry had been free to return to Diagon Alley and he had soaked up a lot of knowledge there like a sponge, gathering books that Hagrid had likely deliberately stopped him from acquiring during his visit. But when he arrived at Hogwarts, Harry had to pretend he was a believer in Dumbledore and that he knew nothing.
He had been sorted into Gryffindor, a House he had wanted to go into least like Slytherin since he knew only too well they would likely kill him if he went there. He had to put up with spies, incompetent teachers, his godfather coming forward after spending years in a prison surrounded any demonic wraiths and proving himself to be an idiot, Voldemort returning once in a while, trying to recover his body…
And then it happened.
Last year Harry was put into a tournament against his will. The Triwizard Tournament had once been a major competition between Europe's three largest magical schools, but it had a track record of killing off competitors and so was abandoned for decades until last year; the timing was a bit too coincidental, and Harry disliked both coincidence and mystery and he had learnt Dumbledore had been planning to bring the Tournament back almost as soon as Voldemort was defeated and torn from his body after the attack in Godric's Hollow nearly two decades ago.
The Room of Requirement had been his only refuge when his name had come out and he was cast as a Champion; for a whole month, Harry was systematically shunned and bullied by students and staff alike; it largely stopped when he lashed out, but beyond that he had spent his time in the Room of Requirement, gathering knowledge and skills to help him.
But it didn't help much in the end; when Voldemort returned, Harry had managed to surprise the Dark Lord with his spell chains and his use of dangerous magic which went against the image so many people had of him - honestly, why didn't the magical world shake off this ridiculous belief about him being either stupid or Dumbledore's little prodigy who wouldn't practice such dangerous magic? - but he'd escaped, and he had told Dumbledore about Voldemort's return although he hadn't had that much choice.
During the summer of that year, Harry was slandered in the newspaper and nobody did anything about it or anything else, and in the end, he had left the Dursleys for a bit, although at the time he hadn't known he would never see them again alive. He didn't care, either. Harry had need to spend some time somewhere nicer, and he'd gladly and gleefully ignored Dumbledore's commands to stay in his room at Privet Drive. Did that man have any common sense? What made him think a schoolteacher had such power over their students during the summers? His godfather, Sirius Black, a man who only came for him, and cared for him, when it was convenient, demanded he return to Privet Drive, but Harry blanked him.
He had spent his summer exploring the Caribbean and learning about the local magicians there while learning from the books he had already. When he returned to Hogwarts, Harry had been tempted - so damn tempted - to just not go, but because this years exams were vital, Harry had to return despite the scrutiny he would find himself receiving.
When Harry had come back, he had used the steps he'd come up with to help him get to the Room, and he had asked for a way to end Voldemort once and for all. What he had gotten was beyond imagination. While he had the knowledge of how to destroy the Horcruxes, Harry now had this.
It resembled a large book called Death Note.
It was a leather-bound volume with the name Death Note stamped on the front cover. According to its instructions, the book would kill anyone written down in it; you merely needed to write down the name, and the manner of death with which they should die, and it would work; if you didn't then they'd just die of a heart attack.
As he examined the book, Harry remembered an old Doctor Who episode he had seen, Genesis of the Daleks. He had never forgotten it for its incredible storytelling, but now he recalled it for something totally different.
Davros, the evil creator of the Daleks, had just taken the Doctor and his friends prisoner and forced the Time Lord to tell him the future of his creations; afterwards, the Doctor had begged Davros to stop, only for the Doctor to ask the scientist if he had created a virus in his lab would he use it.
And Harry had never forgotten the answer.
"To hold in my hand a capsule that contains such power, to know that life and death on such a scale was my choice. To know that the tiny pressure on my thumb, enough to break the glass, would end everything. Yes, I would do it! That power would set me up above the gods. And through the Daleks, I shall have that power!"
Right now, Harry realised he had the same thing.
Opening the book, Harry wrote down the names of the Inner Circle Death Eaters he had encountered in the graveyard, including Peter Pettigrew, and Lord Voldemort, and he also listed the Horcruxes that Harry knew existed.
For Malfoy senior, it was a positive joy for him to write; "Lucius Malfoy, killed in a fit of rage by Lord Voldemort." It would really show Draco, a boy who called himself Harry's arch enemy but wasn't really worth the time, how psychotic his idol was.
"Walden McNair; murdered by someone who took his axe in a fit of revenge."
Harry went on and on like this for weeks afterwards. Thanks to the Death Note book, he killed Cornelius Fudge, Umbridge, Percy Weasley, several members of the Order of the Phoenix, and several of the muggles who had just sat back and let him be abused or bullied him. The Dursleys themselves were at the top of the list.
Thanks to Dobby and his own intelligence-gathering methods, Harry learnt more about the Death Eaters and their names. Once he learnt about what the likes of the Lestranges, Nott, and several others did, Harry had no problems in writing down their names. He made sure their deaths were appropriate, and Harry had no problems making them as gruesome as possible.
In the meantime, the magical world was wracked with chaos as more and more people died mysteriously, even inside Hogwarts. Malfoy slowly became unbearable, and he became more of a bully. Harry made sure he merely suffered a nasty heart attack, but he focused on others. During the course of the year, Harry was forced to have occlumency lessons with Snape, who continued to bully and harass him. Harry already knew the mind arts, and Snape was deliberately trying to batter them aside.
Finally, one night, Harry lost his temper and he tore one of Snape's hands off. While the potions master felt sudden and agonising nauseous pain, Harry beat him nearly to death before he nearly kicked his teeth out. It got him a near suspension, but Dumbledore would never do that; with Voldemort out there, he couldn't risk his weapon being on the loose, but Harry projected memories of what Snape had done in the middle of the Great Hall, and fuck the consequences. Dumbledore had not been happy with so many secrets being revealed, but Harry didn't care. The old man needed to know that he was not playing games, not anymore.
Dumbledore actively encouraged Hermione and Ron - the two spies who had been hanging around him for years until he broke off their 'friendship' the year before - to try to recruit new members for his precious Order, but Harry ignored them all. If they wanted to sell their souls to Dumbledore, that was their prerogative.
Dumbledore's fate was preordained, now. He would die soon.
Finally, when Voldemort was revealed in a battle in the Ministry, he was seen by several people, and Harry felt secure in his plans while he spied on Dumbledore, who believed it was time he felt love, but in Dumbledore's brain, only he had the right to decide who Harry should fall in love with.
While Harry was writing down the name Tom Marvolo Riddle aka Lord Voldemort and listing his Horcruxes down during the same hour he was at the Ministry, sparking surprise and rumours throughout the magical world, Dumbledore was preparing new plans for him to bring Harry firmly under his control.
He chose Ginny Weasley. Harry had never liked or trusted the girl, and the fact she had shown she was not to be trusted so many times proved they weren't suited. The girl fancied and loved the legend, not him, and he knew that. Worse he found out she and Hermione and her mother planned to use love potions.
Furious, Harry made sure to kill all of the Weasleys, including the twins. He could not allow them to live. Harry made sure that Albus Dumbledore also died before he went on his way. Dumbledore, who'd been waiting at Platform Nine and Three Quarters to take Harry away, caused a scene with his death, and it allowed Harry to slip through. He watched without any emotion as he left for holiday, but not before he followed through with his plans to go through with his NEWTs at the Ministry in the coming weeks.
As for Sirius Black and Remus Lupin….well, they had thrown in their all with Dumbledore, supporting the man's weird and insane decisions. During the year, Harry received a bunch of letters, after receiving unhelpful letters demanding that he go to the Dursleys and stay there like a good little boy. The letters during the year were just as bad.
No, he couldn't care less about them, not anymore, and if they caused more problems for him, then they would find themselves dying of heart failure, or in Lupin's case, suffering from an overdose of silver nitrate.
But once he did his NEWTs, Harry left Britain exhausted, but he left gladly for Europe and he had fun in France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and then moving to Hawaii and seeing Tahiti before visiting Australia, Thailand, and then the Caribbean.
Should he use the book in the Muggle World next?