Chapter Text
When Harry wakes up, he notices two things.
His surroundings are completely dark, and he has a killer headache.
This is not a new occurrence for him. At this point in life it's practically routine to wake up to pain, confusion, and darkness. He's used to all of those.
What is different, however, is the space he wakes up in. For a second he stops breathing before his wits come back to him. He may not be able to see well, and his head may still be spinning, but there's no way he's not recognizing the place where he spent so much of his childhood.
He would never not recognize his cupboard.
When the door of his 'room' is forcibly opened a few moments later, he's not surprised to see the ugly face of aunt Petunia, using her shrill voice to screech orders at him.
As he crawls outside the cupboard, he comes face to face with his relatives. His awful relatives that had made the first eleven years of his life a living hell.
There's only one possible reaction he can have to this situation.
Harry smiles.
His plan worked.
Hermione had once said that messing with time travel was dangerous, that wizards have been lost to time for daring to disturb the timeline. Well, those wizards weren't Harry Potter with a grudge, now. Were they?
He spends the day pretending to be a normal ten year old boy—as normal as a ten year old boy who is treated worse than a house elf can be, of course— while mentally going over his plan. The chores Petunia gives him are so dull he can easily do them while his mind is miles away, occlumency being useful for once in his life, and they have the benefit of letting him go all over the house taking all the stuff he needs to "borrow" to exact his escape.
Some markers from Dudley's second bedroom, a pack of cigarettes that fell behind the sofa, a torch and some paint from the garden shed, and finally, a small knife from the kitchen sink. It all ends in his cupboard.
He can easily tune out the insults, and Vernon is not angry enough to give him a beating, so the day goes on without any major incident. It's only when the night falls and the Dursleys go to bed that Harry lets himself act.
He uses the torch to see and the markers to trace the runes he needs inside of the cupboard, before cutting himself with the knife and letting his blood mix with the paint.
Trying wandless magic with his currently underdeveloped body would end... not well, probably. But making a rune array with his own blood? A wizard's blood? That might just work.
A wizard's blood has power, Dumbledore had told him all those years ago, and as much as the old headmaster lied to him throughout his life, this one thing he knows for a fact.
Blood has power. Just not in the way Dumbledore liked to pretend it did. There is no power in the blood of an aunt that resents your very existence. There is no love in a household like the Dursley's.
As he finishes drawing the last rune, they all light up for an instant, before fading away into nothingness. It doesn't worry him, that's how they're supposed to be: invisible and untraceable.
No one but him will know they're there. Not now, and not in the morning when all that's left of Privet Drive number four is ashes and a miraculously untouched cupboard. The place where a little boy slept. And really, such a preventable accident. Vernon should have known better than to leave a lit cigarette in the kitchen's trash can, especially after Petunia forgot to turn off the gas on the stove.
But oh, well. What can you do?
Surprisingly, it's Ron who spends the most time helping him study runes and rituals. His hatred for everything "dark" only got worse after what happened to Hermione, but he'd been willing to swallow that hatred if Harry's insane plan was even remotely possible. Harry doesn't have it in him to tell him that his best friend is as dark as they come, by this point.
The few months after the death of the Dursleys are pretty hectic.
The day right after the fact he is introduced to a nice social worker named Maggie. He's shy, and polite, and still affected by the tragic death of his entire family. "I can hear them scream," He whispers to her, like it's a shameful secret. Her heart breaks for the poor brave boy who has to endure all this, and Harry has to fight to repress a smirk.
He answers all the questions she comes up with, and soon after that, the fire is declared an accident without fanfare.
When Maggie tells him that he's going to go to a foster home, Harry smiles and nods, but he isn't surprised when that same day Albus Dumbledore walks into the building and tells young Harry that he's a wizard and he must live with his kind.
It's not like he didn't expect Mrs. Figg to tell Dumbledore of the fire right away, and he didn't expect to suddenly be able to live on his own, being in the body of a ten year old boy and all, but it's annoying that he's now going to go a magical family who will want to keep an eye on him.
He doesn't let that show, though.
Harry's eyes shine and twinkle as Dumbledore "Please call me Albus, my boy." tells him about the magic world, but he makes sure they don't meet the old man's, no need to test his mental shields right now.
Albus takes him to The Burrow after that.
Harry doesn't see him again until he goes back to Hogwarts and he thanks Merlin for small mercies.
He doesn't tell anyone that he has ulterior motives, although Luna probably knows. She sees things none of them do. Not that she ever tells anyone what she sees. She does't speak much nowadays.
Living with the Weasleys is easy.
They're loud and close knit, and no one really gets privacy, but he's used to that. He sneaks out and uses the twins' brooms in the backyard, pretending that he doesn't notice them as they watch him soar in the sky. He plays chess with Ron and exploding snap with Ginny, and loses terribly at both. Pretends to be a normal boy. All in all, it's a good place to rest, bulk up and generally heal from the damage the Dursleys left on his body before he finds a permanent place to live in.
Because he's definitely not staying here forever.
A few months after the "traumatic event" he pretends his accidental magic is out of control, It's not entirely a lie, with the way he's growing both physically and magically, but he uses it to guide Molly into getting him his own wand ahead of time.
Since he's not enrolled in school yet, the trace technically doesn't apply to him, and even if that were the case, Arthur knows a man that knows a man, and he gets a special dispensation to use magic while underage for health reasons.
He doesn't really need his holly and phoenix feather wand. He's planning on an upgrade soon enough, but he's pleasantly surprised when it chooses him again. There's no horcrux in his scar anymore, no more connection to Tom Riddle. It was burned out with the ritual that brought him back to the past.
The two older Weasley sons come by to meet him, and he manages to rope Charlie into "teaching him" some spells when he visits. Wanting to learn the stunner, binding, and disarming charm all can be easily excused with him having an interest in defense, but the revealing charm he wants is a bit more tricky, has less practical uses besides being able to expose a hidden animagus. He somehow manages it, though. And it's certainly worth it when he promptly uses it on Scabbers and then stuns him after he gets scared by the big strange man.
They call the aurors, and since the case involves Harry Potter, the head of the DMLE, Amelia Bones herself takes charge of the investigation.
Peter Pettigrew's arrest goes smoothly.
They borrow a couple of runes from the veil. No one can quite tell him how they work, they just know they do. That's okay with Harry. He's always been more of a results kind of guy.
It doesn't surprise him when Arthur sits him down and explains the situation with Sirius. How everyone thought he was guilty and the discovery of Pettigrew made them realize something was off. He tells Harry that Sirius Black is his godfather.
The way Harry's eyes shine at the prospect of reuniting with the man is not entirely pretend.
The wheels of justice turn slowly, and Lucius Malfoy's pockets certainly try to slow them down even further. Harry rejoices in the knowledge that he'll do something about him soon. By the time he and Ron get their Hogwarts letters Sirius still hasn't had a trial, but he's out of Azkaban, now detained in a ministry cell, where he's allegedly getting healed both physically and mentally. Harry suspects Minister Fudge is dragging his feet before the inevitable happens, but he has a plan in case the man decides to do something stupid.
Getting his school supplies isn't much of an event, his scar is all but gone, and without it or his glasses (his eyesight had been fixed when Molly took him to a check up with a healer) people tend to not recognize him. Especially when he's buried in a sea of redheads.
He escapes the group when they enter a bookstore, and walks lightly over to Madame Malkins.
"Hogwarts, dear?” she asks, when Harry steps in. "Got the lot here—Another young man being fitted up just now, in fact.”
Harry smiles, walking to the platform next to the one where a blond kid stands. Green eyes meet grey, and he smiles to Draco Malfoy, who looks back at him enraptured.
"Hello. Hogwarts, too?" He asks, and Harry nods.
"Been waiting for this for years, haven't I?" Draco nods back approvingly.
"I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."
"Harry Potter, a pleasure to meet you, Draco." he says, extending a hand.
He might be saving many people by doing this, but he doesn't really care about that. When he draws the last rune of the array, his only thought is that soon he will get to see that pair of grey eyes again, and this time he will destroy heaven and hell before he loses them.