Chapter 3: A few Days Down

After the frigid home began to warm from both the heater and the stove. I began to eat in the not quite comfortable kitchen as I grappled with what exactly I had become. I could feel the souls of the neighbors. I noticed with unease. the one Petunia called Mrs. Next door, and her daughter no doubt having another argument. Or so it seems from the quickened rhythm of their souls. Easily sensed as if they were echoes of a sound.

Then from outside with the rhythm of a relaxed breeze; Mr. number 6 was shoveling snow off his sidewalk. Further and further my senses stretched, until I noticed could feel the souls of everyone on the block. all similar yet different enough to be discernable.

Drawing inward, I began to feel my own soul as it thrummed more substantially than those around me. soon the presence of another became apparent, I gagged. Located above my own I closed my eyes letting the utensils fall from my hand. I could sense a darkness so foul it was palpable, and it was coming from . . . the scar, of course.

I completely forgot about horcruxes Voldemort had 6 of them, not counting the one in my head. And I would have to hunt all of them down I realized. With a sigh I decided. Let's start with the closest.

'Death are you there?' I thought

'For you my herald I am.' came an amused reply

'I have a sliver of soul lodged in my Skull do you want it, or should I just expel it and let it disperse.'

'Take its essence as meager as it must be and send it my way.' she responded, this time sounding a tad bit disappointed.

The knowledge from the Infinity Well made absorbing the souls Essence truly easy, like using a hose to put out a match. It took a moment of concentration. I cut away the tendrils of energy I could feel connecting my soul to the pathetic sliver of soul Voldemort had left in Harry.

Then I drew the tendrils of energy into myself. My mind slowly began to clear of a fog of forgetfulness that I never noticed. as an avalanche of information flooded into it. Knowledge both mine and that of young Harry. Memories of my childhood, alone, much like this Harry. although for much different reasons. Harry a victim of tragedy and me a product of choice.

My only salvation had been the school library much like this Harry. He used to read for escape much like I had. Knowing knowledge was the one true power in the world. I could see our similarities and differences as we slowly but surely began to become one entity.

The pain that soon came it started slowly a small creeping ache like a bone begging to be cracked. a slight stiffness in the neck that grew to encompass the whole of my head as I felt the last vestiges of Tom Riddle emerge.

I looked around and noticed I was no longer sat in the kitchen of Number 4 privet drive. But, standing in an all-white formless mist, doing its best impression of a train station. Within sat an abomination of a childlike figure clutching its curled-up form with overly long limbs. It glanced up at me with red eyes as I approached, fear evident on its disgusting snakelike features.

Remembering Deaths entrance into D-Lilah's office. I willed a touch of energy to connect me to Death's realm, it began to burn the tip of my finger which I then dragged on the white mist below me making a small scratch on the ground which soon tore into a small black abyss with jagged edges. The knowledge of how to do this coming from Death herself.

I walked around to the other side of my new portal and rolled the soul fragment into the hole with my foot. It closed as the creature fell into it and left me alone in the misty white place.

With the creature's disappearance came a whole host of memories from Tom Riddle spells that could liquify organs, turn the blood into acid, and even turn corpses into Inferi, spells of the darkest order. a plethora of curses, knowledge of magical theory and ritualistic magic as well. It would take me quite a while to sort through all this information. I delegated it for later in favor of my curiosity toward where I found myself.

There I stood. Wondering if a thought I had about this place when I first came upon its likeness in the Deathly Hallows book was accurate. Was this a realm of limbo, a more accurate depiction of Harry's mind or maybe some combination of the two.

With a thought I willed the mist to form a house nothing fancy just a small home reminiscent of the kind in every neighborhood. And the mist coalesced and swirled before me as if controlled by an imperceptible wind. And there stood not just a misty home but the exact one I imagined with color and life unexpected from this formless place. So, mind scape it is I concluded after not sensing a single soul within the range of my detection.

I willed myself back to the material plane. something that took less effort than I thought it would as it felt as simple as opening my eyes.

The late morning sun was still streaming in through the kitchen windows of 4 privet drive when I awoke from my mindscape. With a vow to return soon and see how the practice of the mind arts might be done. I finished my still warm breakfast before thinking

'Death did you receive that . . .creature?'

'I did indeed, it was only a fragment of an already mutilated soul. But I did manage to put it to use. send me all of this Tom Riddle's soul and I will count him as one of your 3 false immortals.' Came her reply

'Delightful.' I thought back. closing off our connection as best I could.

Standing from the table and making my way through the finally comfortably heated house. Noting from Harry's memories that the Dursleys were planning a weeklong vacation before disappearing two days ago and leaving harry locked in his cupboard.

So that leaves me a few days to settle in and relax before turning off the heat and locking myself back in the cupboard. With that realization I started to explore the Dursley home.

It truly was a normal home, aside from the family pictures all excluding Harry. The house could have belonged to any upper middle-class family in Surrey. I remembered Dudley had a computer up in his bedroom so I made a plan harry would never consider. A plan to both increase the boy's muggle finances as well as his public image why be Harry Potter the deviant of privet drive when in the muggle world when I could be Harry Potter tech genius. With that thought I decided to raid the boy's primary bedroom.

I swiftly made my way up the stairs then down the hall into the second largest bedroom in the home. The room of one Dudley Dursley, a room full of toys, games, a new television Vernon bought the boy for his most recent birthday and the prize I sought. An old by my standards computer at a small new desk.

Harry would be beaten if he went anywhere near it and with his lack of computer literacy there was little hope he would not be caught if he ever did. Thankfully I was not fully Harry Potter. John Anderson had been a programmer by trade and fell in love with the subtle intricacies of technology. something this pre-2000s world was sorely lacking in currently. I could still make this antique behemoth sing. Given enough time I could complete several projects I had in mind back home.

I sat down and booted up the computer I noted the Stark Industries startup animation "interesting" I mumbled as the Operating system finally booted and while dated, I noticed it was not dissimilar to windows 95. somehow stark industries was running software that shouldn't be out for at least six years, on hardware that was much too weak to ever run it. the sheer magnitude of that discovery emboldened me in my path and started the seed of a new plan in my head.

I could probably construct a game befitting this era in a few weeks solo, but using this computer again after the Dursleys return would be almost impossible. And while I could guarantee the success of something in the vein of the game Super Star Soldier. I needed something simple that I could launch this weekend and have up and running before the Dursleys came back. Then I could easily hide my use of this device. suddenly inspiration struck.

one of the greatest free websites of my time that was also incredibly simple to program would have to be that of an online encyclopedia. If I could recreate Wikipedia in this universe, I could easily use it as a steppingstone to create endless opportunities to influence the future of this world's technology.

So, with a path decided I spent the next few hours hold up at Dudley's desk programming the framework of the future site. The daylight had come and gone when I snapped out of my flow state upon realizing most of the front end of the programing was complete. The OS having great software preinstalled to make the process easier was a godsend. The result being a rather good facsimile of the website I had become familiar with in my time. The Stark software was truly unbelievable.

My discovery that the internet here was already up and running and not just localized at CERN accelerated my plans by months, if not years. Leaving only the more grueling back-end development for later. I decided to leave the computer running, as I went back down the stairs and into the kitchen to have another meal. before heading to bed in the cupboard for the night.

In my dreams I was bombarded with more information From Voldemort's memories. Exercises to improve the flow of magic within a wizard, exercises for both occlumency and Legilimancy as well as the basics of spell creation. I slept with the cupboard door open and was awoken by the light of the early morning sun.

after a quick breakfast of toast and bacon I was back in Dudley's room coding the Back-end of my website. when I needed to Delegate to a server, I hacked CERN and created ghost partitions on several of theirs so as to remain undetected and keep a low profile on the burgeoning internet. until I could buy some actual server space and make my encyclopedia the gold standard for information. Stark it seems advanced internet technology about 2 years from my own world. making what I'm doing possible at a time when the internet should be nothing but a recently released research project.

It took some creative programming on my part to pull all of that off and not be detected, but I managed it. And was a little less than halfway complete when I noticed it was almost lunch time. knowing this body couldn't afford to miss any meals due to its current malnourished state, I got up made a quick but substantial meal and returned to complete my little project.

I typed like a man possessed and was done in another few hours. in time to catch the sunset. With all the hard work done I took the liberty of claiming a domain name for my new baby. Something not a complete replica of my inspiration but something rather reminiscent of it. Of course, I know exactly what to call it. Nupedia, after Wikipedia's predecessor.

Registering the domain took no time at all. I used one of the backdoors the ghost drives afforded me to assign the sale of the domain to a proxy account. Which then transferred it to another proxy and another until it was impossible to track the new owner. I did it with a few different domains so it wouldn't be suspicious. if discovered it would appear to be a standard sale on their end. After which I enjoyed my final meal for the day and began to start on the exercises Voldemort knew for magical potency and control.

It was a rather simple process to increase potency one simply had to exhaust themselves magically as often as possible. Then they must let themselves be replenished from either rest or in Voldemort's case a very specific potions regime that could do the same to a certain extent. that however I was mostly sure was illegal in the modern-day British wizarding world.

Leaving me with the natural option which was also unfeasible as projecting out the necessary quantity of magic to exhaust my core would require either high level spells to do so quickly or a bunch of low-level ones cast consecutively. either method would lead to the ministry banging down the door due to the amount of magic necessary to deplete my core in a muggle neighborhood. And while I couldn't be sure of exactly how powerful I was relative to the other magic users of this earth; I knew harry was a powerful wizard from the books and I hoped it would remain true on this earth as well. So, while the path of potency was out. The control aspect however was very much attainable.

it just required first cycling my magical energy throughout my body the easiest being the hands and the hardest the feet. ever since I cast alohomora, I could feel my own magical core and with naught but a thought I willed its energy to move. and it did. slowly but surely, it began to creep down my arms reaching my fingertips. I noticed a dark grey almost black glow began to emanate from my fingers where I could feel the energy building up. I recalled the energy and sent it into the opposite arm and then back to the center.

'Again, arm, center, arm. once more, arm, center, arm.' I repeated mentally as I began to cycle my energy back to my center once more. I then did the same process with my feet. after my first full body cycle, I began to feel a wave of exhaustion. the likes of which I had never come across in all my late nights and early mornings as John Anderson. I barely managed to stumble back to my cupboard and onto my cot, as I fell asleep before my head could fully come to rest on my too thin pillow.

Well, that was another chapter in the books. just a bit of set up for some plotlines in the future. As usual would love to hear your feedback. Enjoy.

more chapters available on the site which must not be named. link in profile.