Harry Potter: The Quantum Meddler.
-8-
If there was one simple word to describe Harry Potter's life at the Dursleys, it was hell; by the time he was 7 years old, he had come up with a list of names of people he would love to murder.
Don't believe me?
Then let's continue; ever since his parents died, and he was dumped unceremoniously on the doorstep of the Dursleys - nobody knows who did it, although Harry would discover it later when he was 11 years old, but at the time nobody had seen anything, but it was a truly horrifying thing to do to a child to leave them alone and vulnerable on a cold, dark night, where he could have frozen to death or been taken away by a passing predator, human, that is - the Dursleys had made it their life's mission to make his life a living hell.
As he grew older, Harry had noticed the stark differences between his own miserable excuse of an upbringing and other kids. Unlike them, Harry was beaten for things that happened around him, or whenever his bastard pig cousin, Dudley did something to get him into trouble. Dudley was a parrot. He didn't know what his parents' meant by 'freakishness,' and he didn't care. He just caused accidents to get his weaker cousin into trouble. At the same time, the Dursleys made him into their heavily abused slave. He was forced to cook, to clean - heaven forbid Dudley or his parents doing any of it themselves - gardening, and many other things no small child should ever have to do.
Harry remembered when he had received a terrible beating, it was when he had accidentally spilt hot coffee all over the table and the floor. Vernon (he refused to call the man 'Uncle,') beat him so badly, his screams echoed through the house, and he'd asked himself why none of the neighbours hadn't done anything until he was old enough to discover when they finally let him go to school the Dursleys had lied about him, calling him a hooligan and how his parents were a crook and a whore who died in a car crash, lumbering them with the boy.
But his screams always made it worse, they egged his bastard uncle on and made the beatings last longer.
Petunia and Dudley hadn't done anything. In fact, they had been grinning sadistically as they watched him being beaten. From there it never stopped.
After the beating, his still furious uncle dragged him from the house, and kicked him out into the garden, practically broken in agony. As he grew older, he had tried to win the Dursley's affection, but this only lasted for half a year before he gave up when he finally accepted it was pointless and a waste of time. What was the point, when all he gained was more hate and beatings? They called him a freak, refusing to call him by his real name.
The school was just as bad. At first, he had thought since he was learning about things, he could finally get away from the Dursleys, but the abuse got worse because, thanks to Dudley and his thuggish gang chasing him everywhere, he had no friends. They would chase them away, beat them up, bully them. What made it worse was many people told their kids the lies of the Dursleys, and they believed them. He was a very lonely kid. Occasionally he tried telling the teachers what was happening, but they either listened to the rumours as well, or were pressured by the Dursleys' friends to say nothing, or they would do something…only to suddenly move away, lose their jobs, or terrorise him for telling 'lies.'
Harry didn't know how that happened, but he soon gave up. His heart turned cold, realising he was truly on his own. He hated the Dursleys. He hated the neighbours. He hated the residents of Little Whinging, and he hated his parents, spitting on them and their memories, hating them for being what they were.
The magical world and Albus Dumbledore, the bastard who was responsible for placing him with the Dursleys, were in for a nasty shock when he arrived at Hogwarts, after getting his Hogwarts letter after turning eleven on July 31, 1991.
-8-
Harry sneered as Hagrid, the groundskeeper of Hogwarts, left him behind, and he quickly grabbed his things, including the owl - why the fuck would he want a bird, for fuck's sake? - and got off the train. There was no chance in hell he was going back to the Dursleys. He knew they'd beat him up after what happened to Dudley when Vernon opened his fat gob. Ignoring the looks he was garnering for the owl, and coming to terms with this fame he had over his shoulders, but his abusive upbringing had made him extremely sceptical about such things and there was no way he could ignore the way Hagrid had clearly been trying to manipulate him into seeing Dumbledore in a positive light, Harry went back to Diagon Alley, got himself a room at the Leaky Cauldron, which he planned to use for a base of operations - he had always wanted to explore London, why would he let some giant bastard who'd boasted he had taken Harry to the Dursleys tell him where to go? - and went to Diagon Alley.
Using his wand to tap the bricks the same way, Harry went to Gringotts, and after supplying his key to a free teller, and asking if there was anyone who could tell him about his family, Harry discovered many things that left him reeling and questioning so many things. When he was much younger, Harry had often dreamt and fantasised about some long-lost family member coming to save him from the Dursleys; he had given up on the hope a long time ago, it was hard to be positive about something like that when you were being beaten up for things that weren't your fault.
But now…
If everything he had believed about his parents was a lie, then what else was the truth? While he still hated his parents and viewed them with contempt for not running away when Voldemort came for them, he still realised he could have someone out there. What if he had a twin sister or brother out there, and Dumbledore had spirited them away for some perverse reason? What if there were Potters in other countries? What if his parents were still alive?
Harry didn't have siblings. His parents were dead. Pity, he would have been happy to smash their faces in. But he had relatives in the MACUSA in America, but they had tried for years to get custody over him, but they'd failed. Dumbledore, again. Still, the goblins had discovered that although he couldn't just leave the country as he didn't want to go to a school governed by someone like Dumbledore for his part in his hellish life, he could get in touch with them.
Harry, 17, Dumbledore nil. But thanks to the goblins, Harry got himself a new wand, as he didn't like the thing he got from Ollivander a few hours ago, and there were spells on the wand tuned for his magic. The spells would track him down, note down with spells he was using, and limit his magical growth. At the same time, he was given devices to detect potions in his food and drink.
Thanks to the goblins, who took off the spells Dumbledore had put on him, which explained why he hadn't escaped from the Dursleys in his entire life, Harry felt freer. But what made him feel better was the removal of the thing in his scar. The goblins called it a Horcrux, a piece of a soul, and they discovered it belonged to Lord Voldemort, the monster who murdered his parents. They removed the soul fragment, and they forced it out of Harry's body and into a pig, since it was just too small for them to purge of Voldemort's magic.
-8-
When he arrived at Hogwarts, Harry was sorted into Gryffindor after his survival instincts warned him, even if he would have done very well in Slytherin due to his attitude, one look at the Slytherins and meeting that fucker, Draco Malfoy warned him going in there was like a death sentence. But every day, his devices detected potions, but neutralised them as well.
Ron Weasley, a boy in his year, tried latching on to him, but Harry refused to have anything to do with the boy, preferring his own company, much to Weasley's surprise. He didn't grasp the fact Harry didn't give a damn about him, and after the way Weasley demanded to be shown the scar on his forehead, why should he hang around with a loser like that?
Harry despised his fame; he hated how so many people crowded around him. He hated being crowded, and he had spent 10 years hated for things outside of his control, and now suddenly, here he was, in a world where everyone praised him for something he hadn't even done!
There was even a bastard teacher, Professor Snape, the Potions Master, who hated him for something he didn't even know about, but it was clear Snape and Harry's father had had a terrible history. Harry didn't care one little bit about Snape's past. He didn't give a damn if Snape lived or died.
As the first months passed, and he settled down into Hogwarts, ignoring Weasley's desperate attempts to befriend him, Granger, a know it all teacher's pet lecturing him every chance she got, and Malfoy's attempts to bully him, Harry explored the castle. It wasn't long before Harry found the kitchens, after watching the Hufflepuffs go into their common room, and the kitchens.
As much as he despised wizards and people, Harry soon liked House elves. And he made a special promise to visit them often, whenever he wanted pure food, and from there he learnt it was the House Elves who put the potions in his food, but they didn't know what they were for, so he didn't blame them for that. Harry discovered much about the school thanks to the House Elves. Wizards were stupid for believing them inferior. In truth, they were smart, and extremely powerful. Harry knew Dumbledore had kept the House Elves of his family away from him, likely because then he wouldn't have anyone around, and he resolved to change that at some point, but he mined the House Elves for answers about the magical world. He learnt more from them and the books, the goblins than he ever did from his teachers.
It wasn't long before Harry learnt about the Room of Requirement, a room that could give him anything he wanted, and within hours, Harry was in the Room, thanks to the House Elves, he knew how to use it. Within moments, he had summoned books about the Potter's family history, and so many other things.
-8-
It was about a fortnight before he discovered the Room of Requirement could help him see the future; Harry had been too busy experimenting with the RoR to discover its limits and what it could do, he had discovered he could summon bags of money - muggle and magical and even take it out - and he done the same with books; he had learnt about the various magical schools around the world, and he had even learnt some of the basic curriculums from them, and he had learnt more about potions in one Ilvermorny class than he had in the months he had learnt about the same subject from Snape.
While he was enjoying himself learning from other schools, cursing Dumbledore's guardianship hold over him, Harry discovered the Room could look into the future, and even show him other realities.
Harry had seen a reality where he could've died as a child.
Harry had witnessed a world where he had a twin sister, or brother, and they became a Death Eater, due to Dumbledore's meddling and after being courted by Voldemort himself.
More than once, Harry had witnessed worlds where his parents were accused of becoming Death Eaters, or were Death Eaters, and Neville Longbottom was the Boy who Lived instead, and he was hated.
In a few realities, Harry witnessed he escaped Hogwarts in his next year, after a series of attacks on the muggle-born students, and thanks to revealing he could speak to snakes, so many bad things happened to the magical world.
But he also saw something that pissed him off, realities where he was manipulated, played by the Weasels, Granger, and Dumbledore.
STOP!
Harry stopped the visions, and he took a few moments to compose himself, and he soon went back to the job an hour later. He began by looking ahead in the future, deciding to see what was going to happen in a few months time, to a few years. He had known Voldemort was still alive already, but seeing his face on the back of Quirrell's head was something, and then seeing that spectre of him from the diary held by stupid little Ginny Weasley…
-8-
Thanks to seeing the future, Harry didn't bother recovering Longbottom's remembrall. Quidditch was a pointless waste of time, and after seeing several realities where he stayed at the castle, why would he want to break his arm because of a bludger, or succumb to the effects of a Dementor? The boy's whimpers of pain after breaking his wrist after falling from his broom didn't bother him, and while many of the Gryffindors were horrified he didn't do anything, Harry told them it wasn't his problem.
The legend of the Boy Who Lived took a massive hit that day, but later on, he did save Hermione Granger, all by himself, using advanced blasting hexes he had learnt from the RoR. While he didn't care about little events like the remembrall, he did care about bigger events.
Okay, a part of him was tempted to leave the girl to die, especially after what he had seen her do in the future, but he decided if he was going to change history, he was going to do it with a few improvements.
A part of Harry was tempted to kill Draco Malfoy, and lay down the foundations for shattering the Malfoy family, but he was intrigued by the possibilities of leaving the castle in his second year.