Chương 1: ITW,H - Chapter 1 - I'm the Wizard, Harry

Author's Note: I've been posting this story over on Webnovel for a while now, but I decided to port it over to RoyalRoad as well! I'll be posting en masse here over the course of the next couple of days until I'm caught up, then it'll drop down to once or twice a week. (Word Count: 2, 483) Harry started awake, finding himself in an unfamiliar space. He was inside a cramped closet. This couldn't be right, he had just gone to sleep in his room. Did someone kidnap him? And for some reason, everything was blurry.

Like he needed glasses. But Harry had never needed glasses before. There was a door right next to his head that had some grated slits. It was these slits that allowed just enough light to see. Harry went to push the door open but to his horror it was locked from the outside! Just as he was about to freak out about his now confirmed theory of kidnapping, he noticed that his hands were too small in comparison to the door. He was tiny!

Looking around the closet he was locked in, Harry searched for something reflective, anything. In the dim light and the blurry vision, he had to get his face up close and personal to actually see anything. It seemed like there was a shelf with some personal items at the foot of the cot that took up the rest of the space. On the shelf, Harry was able to find both a pair of glasses that were sized too big for him, and a tiny hand mirror. The glasses were hanging loosely on his face, but it did help him see better.

Looking into the mirror, Harry was shocked! He was staring into the eyes of a young Harry Potter, complete with the angry red lightning scar. And then he realized. He had been thinking about himself as Harry this whole time, but he was Harry! No! No, not Harry! His name was… his name was… he couldn't remember. He wasn't Harry though. He was from normal, mundane earth. Now he was in the world of Harry Potter somehow. Just then, a searing pain racked his body. It came from within, like his very soul was on fire.

The pain was so intense he lost all breath and couldn't even scream. A good thing too, or those Dursley's would have woken up. [Wizarding System Initializing. 0% Pending permissions from Fate, Magic, Death…. 10% Initializing Stats…. 24% Initializing Classes…. 35% Initializing Skills…. 50% Initializing Perks…. 75% Binding to Host…. 80% Syncing Host's memories…. 100% Wizarding System Initialized.] As soon as the pain cleared away, so did all the previous panic and confusion.

Harry now recalled exactly what had happened, and all of Harry Potter's memories. Turns out that he, in his past life, had died and met some God and wished to be reborn into Harry Potter. The God took that wish literally and reincarnated him into a world where Harry would have been stillborn, as Harry Potter himself, to regain awareness at 6 years old. According to his new set of memories, everything else went according to the plot he knew.

After he was born, his mom and dad learned of the threat on Harry's life and hid under the fidelius charm. Voldemort still found them, and killed his parents exactly like in the movies. His mother begged for his life. Harry shuddered at the wicked gleam in Voldemort's eyes as he killed her. Voldemort tried to kill him too, but the killing curse backfired and Harry had seen Voldemort's wraith flee the house. A rat had come in and took the dark lord's wand away.

So Harry knew he wasn't in some weird AU where Sirius was the traitor. Snape actually showed up and wept over Lily's corpse then left. It was about an hour afterwards that Hagrid showed up, around the same time as Sirius. Sirius gave him to Hagrid while he went to hunt down Pettigrew. By then, Harry had fallen asleep, where he woke up in the middle of the night on the Dursley's doorstep. Then what followed for the next five years was a long string of neglect and emotional abuse.

Words like "freak," "worthless," and "unwanted" were common from Mr. and Mrs. Dursley and their son Dudley grew up learning to hate Harry. Harry grew to learn he was worthless. Now having sorted through his own memories, Harry focused on the blue screen in front of him. Though it gave off no light to illuminate the closet, he could see and read it clearly. [Name: Harry James Potter Level: 0 0. 00% Stats: Power: 20, [1], [5] Control: 3 Focus: 7 Classes: None. Skills: None. Perks: Potter Family Magic, A Mother's Love, Horcrux, Parselmouth.] [Welcome, Host. To the Wizarding System. This system is specifically designed to aid in any and all pursuits in your magical development. The automated explanation of your status page will now begin. Name: Your name, obviously. Level: Every level, you gain 5 stat points that you can distribute as you wish, 1 skill point, and 1 class point. To level up, you must gain exp through learning and practicing spells and skills, defeating enemies. The exp required for gaining levels stays the same until Level 100. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Stats: Indicators for different aspects of magic. Include Power, Control, and Focus. Power: A measure of how much magic that you are able to bring to bear. There is no magic core in Harry Potter, it's just "your magic". Your power is not a pool of energy that gets used up and refilled. You can split power to cast and maintain multiple spells at once, depending on your focus and control. The first number denotes total power you can safely channel at once, following numbers in brackets denote how much power is being used currently. Separate brackets means different uses. Control: A measure of how precisely you can control your magic and how effective you are at your spells. Greater Control will somewhat lower the Spell's Power/Focus requirements to cast it. Focus: A measure of a combination of mental and magical concentration on the spell. The more Focus you have, the more Power you can channel into a spell without disrupting its structure. Classes: You can have as many classes as you want at a time, add the class points to one of your classes to increase the class's level. Every level in a class you gain new insights, knowledge, skills available, and you become 5% more efficient/powerful in the chosen class. Every 5 levels, you receive a perk related to the class. Classes available: Potions, Transfigurations, Charms, Curses, Dueling, Herbology, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Astronomy, Divination, Magizoology, Mind Arts. New Classes need to be discovered and unlocked. Skills: When you have skill points you can purchase a skill or spell, every skill has 5 levels. What skills you have available to you is dependent on class, level, perks, or experiences. Every level costs one more than the last. (1, then 2, then 3, etc.) to get the maxed skill needs a total of 15 points. Every skill level offers new insights, increases efficiency and effectiveness, and gives a perk to the skill. Skills and spells can still be performed without the skill. But with the skill, you gain perks and effectiveness. Please note some spells simply require a wand, even if you have the required Stats. Example.) Wingardium Leviosa, Charm. Level One, Can point cast. Halves the power and control required. Level Two, Can cast Silently. Can control the velocity and direction of travel.

Level Three, Can cast wand-lessly. Can also levitate multiple targets at once. Level Four, Once casted, requires no mental focus to maintain it, though it still uses your magical power. Level Five, there is no upper limit to weight you can levitate, it all depends on the amount of magic you put into it. Perks: These can be from Classes, Rituals, family magic, and so on. Your perks include: Potter Family Magic: You are born into the Potter Family line.

Charms and Potions are 50% more effective, and you have a natural talent for flying. You can enter Potter Family sites and not be impeded/maimed by the wards. Normally, family magic is never so pronounced, but it has been enhanced and the downsides have been removed by the system. A Mother's Love: You are protected by the loving sacrifice your mother made. Fate and happenstance will work to prevent your premature death regardless of the peril you face. You are specifically protected against Tom Marvolo Riddle.

These protections fade after your 17th birthday. Horcrux: You have a piece of Tom Marvolo Riddle's soul stuck in your scar. The soul piece continually draws on your magical power to sustain itself. Will require more and more as time goes on. Possession thwarted by A Mother's Love perk. When hit with a Killing Curse, the soul piece will be killed instead. You are linked to Tom Marvolo Riddle, and his horcruxes. Due to its position, it also impairs your vision.

Parselmouth: You are able to speak the noble tongue of serpents. As a Speaker, you command the admiration and respect of all serpents, magical or otherwise. They will be more willing to do your bidding without a familiar bond. [Magizoology Level 10+ only: Any serpent familiar is twice as powerful.] Seeing the descriptions of everything, he boggled at how different the Leviosa charm becomes with levels. Doesn't that just become telekinesis?

Also seeing the benefits of Parselmouth that was locked behind Magizoology made him wonder if he should get that. A magic snake would be incredibly useful. In his previous life, Harry was creeped out by snakes, but now the idea of owning one appealed to him. Another matter Harry wondered about was what his power was being drawn to. He knew one of them must be from the horcrux, but the other one was a mystery. The only thing Harry could think of was the wards around the house that are supposedly up.

So, he only had half of his power available to him. This made him upset, but he couldn't do anything about it for now. Poking around the system some more, when he poked the two bracketed numbers by his Power stat, it actually expanded and confirmed his guesses. The [1] was the horcrux drawing power, and the [5] was powering some sort of protective wards, presumably the blood wards that Dumbledore set up. Poking the classes and skills, it popped up that there were no class/skill points available.

Poking the Perks, the descriptions that the automated explanation gave popped up individually. System figured out, he dismissed the screen. Now, Harry had to figure out how to use his magic and master occlumency before Hogwarts starts or Snape and Dumbledore will be reading anything they wanted off him. He had read too many fanfics of a Dark Dumbledore to let him into his mind. He had 5 years until then, so he had time. All of a sudden, three loud bangs shook the closet door, and Harry heard the latch unlock.

"Wake up! Wake up! Go and make me my coffee, boy!" The angry voice of Vernon shouted through the door. Harry grumbled to himself. Right. He had to deal with these idiots. Harry had only just learned he had magic so even with the system helping him, he was still powerless. So, even though he was no longer the same 6 year old only yearning for their affections, Harry still had to go make the coffee, the eggs and bacon, and wash the dishes, then he had to do the rest of his chores around the house.

He pushed open the door to the kitchen and he was greeted by the fat walrus-like man known as Vernon, and the tall and thin woman Petunia. Dudley must still be asleep upstairs. Vernon was sitting at the table, reading the morning newspaper. Petunia was stirring something in a pot, likely preparing something for lunch. When Harry came into the room, Petunia barked at him.

"Start with the coffee, then cook some scrambled eggs and bacon. And try not to burn anything!" Harry was used to hiding his anger, but with the recent return of his memories, he couldn't hide his scowl this time.

"What's with that look, freak? Come here!" Vernon shouted. Harry walked over, knowing what was coming. Vernon smacked him across the ear.

"You don't give us that look, boy. Ungrateful little freak. We took you into our home, giving you the food from our table, and this is how you repay us? There will be no breakfast for you! Now, get to your chores." Harry sighed to himself. Today was going to be long. Maybe instead of learning occlumency, he should try a blasting curse? It was only in the afternoon after lunch that he was finally free from chores. Then they kicked him out of the house. Where would he go? They didn't care.

So long as he returned in time to help clean up after dinner. Surprisingly, aside from simple things like breakfast, Petunia did most of the cooking. It was her way of feeling like a perfectly normal housewife. So it wasn't a big deal if he didn't help cook dinner, but if he was late to the table, he wouldn't get dinner. Now though, he was free for a few hours. Time to head to the library! He wanted to read up on the mind palace and see if he could unlock occlumency from that. It should, right?

Because they were both for organizing and structuring one's mind. It's just that one uses magic. However, one thing that he knew about from the book series and fan fics were the house elves. If he could bind to one, he wouldn't have to make an hour's trip. He cleared his throat.

"Are there any free house elves who wish to bind to me?" He waited, but no elf showed up. Maybe it didn't work like that? For the 100th time today, Harry sighed. The library was an hour away by foot so, not wanting to waste time, Harry stole Dudley's bike that he never used. The library he arrived at was a small one, but it was actually a lot busier than he would have expected. Though Harry supposed that the internet had just recently come out so libraries were still visited.

Harry sighed for the thousandth time today. If only he had a lot of money to jump on the investment opportunities of the 80s and 90s. Wait… money? He had loads of it in Gringotts, but at the same time, it was impossible to get to London. The Dursley's surely wouldn't take him and he was 6. He would never be able to make it onto the bus or train without an adult. Mrs. Figgs, maybe? Though she would report to Dumbledore.

He could bribe her with some galleons to never mention it, but the risk could be Dumbledore showing up and then learning all of his secrets. Occlumency first, then see about getting Mrs Figg to take him to London.