Things go very VERY wrong

It was strange, being in Hogwarts, like I had walked right into the set of the movies.

"The sorting ceremony will begin momentarily," what didn't help that feeling was seeing how everyone had an uncanny resemblance to their actors.

Oh sure, they didn't look completely the same and all had some differences that made them seem closer to their book counterparts. Hagrid was taller and gruffier looking Anthony McMillan, McGonagall looked like an older Maggie Smith and Harry (who was currently having a faceoff with Malfoy) looked like a skinnier green-eyed Daniel Radcliffe.

It wasn't off-putting just… surreal.

"Adams, Noah!"

But I knew this was reality, especially from the sheer nervousness I felt as my name was immediately called out and I walked up to the thing I genuinely feared. The sorting hat.

The reason for my fear was obvious. It could reveal all my secrets and I had no way to stop it.

I had tried to do the whole "clear your mind" thing but had noticed no significant change, had found no books on the topic on the visit to Diagon alley and now, as the rim of the leather cap covered my eyes, I could only hope for the best.

"Hmm. Let's see what we have here," my stomach clenched.

"A keen desire for knowledge. A rather mature mind… filled to the brim with ambitions and a reckless bravery. Though, you hate hard work, don't you?"

Hope rose inside me as the hat made no mention of my actual memories, but I still had to answer the hat's question, "it's not exactly good to work hard if you aren't working efficiently."

"Ha! Yes, I thought you'd say as much. Better be… Ravenclaw!"

There was a smattering of claps, my clothing shifting to match my new house, as I walked to the Ravenclaw table, the urge to vomit from stress finally dissipating. However, as I sat down at the Ravenclaw table and looked towards the staff table a new urge replaced it.

The urge to just tell Dumbledore, who looked like Michael Gambon, about all the things that were to come, from the Horcruxes to Quirrel, and just relax as he did everything. An urge that seemed all the more tempting as I looked at Quirrel sitting there…

Yet I wouldn't.

This wasn't because I was a psychopath who didn't care about people dying or anything, no. It was because I was a selfish person at my core.

See, that the other me had implied that I could also become omnipotent like him. Which, of course, meant that I was willing to take every single advantage I could get.

My meta knowledge, then, was the biggest advantage I had. It was an advantage that I could use to get more advantages to prepare for my next step in becoming as powerful as other me.

But if I were to share my knowledge with someone, especially Dumbledore or one of the good guys?

Then they would deal with events that they considered 'bad' and ruin my plans of using the 'coincidental opportunities' presented by those events to gain more advantage.

An example being my plan to create a ritual to absorb the Horcruxes power being invalidated if they were all destroyed too soon, which the 'good guys' would definitely do if I tell them about the Horcruxes.

I couldn't have that. The other me had already said that it'd be difficult to achieve the same level of power as him and so I couldn't afford to lose any advantages, even if it'd result in some people dying…

…and yes I realised the hypocrisy in being okay with innocents dying, yet worrying about how some rituals may require innocent sacrifice. But there was a simple reason behind that. I wasn't the one directly killing them.

It was an academic difference, after all innocent people were still dying, but it was a clear one.

Of course, that didn't mean I wasn't willing to kill people it's just that I didn't want to kill innocents who'd done nothing wrong, which really only applies to children and such. Everyone else was fair game, especially those I'd consider 'evil'.

Evil people I'd be more than okay with killing till they're dead, not in the least because of the rewards on The List other me put in my head.

Also "The List" (it deserved the capitalization). Another reason not to tell them my metaknowledge.

It was absolutely choked full of tasks that would award me 'points', that I'd be able to use when going to the next world to get stuff, and some tasks that outright gave perks when I went to the next world.

The only issue being that almost all those tasks required me to do the things on my own. The chronologically closest example is killing the troll on Halloween by myself.

So again, suppressing the urge to just tell Dumbledore and instead thinking about how to kill a two-ton behemoth by myself while minimizing the risk of getting my brain splattered across a bathroom.

"Potter, Harry!" however I'm soon knocked out of my morbid musing as I hear the infamous name being called out and, much like the rest of the hall, stop to look at the front as a small black-haired boy sits on the stool.

Ten seconds.

Thirty Seconds.

One minute.

Five minutes.

Even till the ten-minute mark the entire hall maintains the silence, but the uncertainty is palpable and even I begin to feel a bit strange.

Was it meant to take this long? I remember it taking longer than the other kids but not this long…

"Hufflepuff!"

…

… …

What?

No seriously. What the actual fuck is this.

I ignored the sudden clapping that erupted from the Hufflepuffs when everyone realised that the bloody boy-who-lived was in their house, frozen as I was with my mind racing at a thousand miles per hour.

Was this an AU? Did the other me interfere? No, couldn't be. I knew myself and I wouldn't interfere like this with my entertainment.

But how else could this have happened, after all, I hadn't… even… changed…

"Fucking butterfly effect," I growl beneath my breath, ignoring the scandalized look I get from the upper-year student who heard me.

This changed all my plans.

Before I had been content to build up my strength and let canon continue chugging along as I took advantage of the numerous opportunities that popped up. But now? With Harry separated from Hermione and Ron, who both went to Gryffindor?

I'd have to not only make sure that the green-eyed pain in the ass survived till he sacrificed himself, after all, there was a pretty juicy chunk of points for that, but I also had to make sure that Voldemort doesn't come back prematurely, since Harry might not even go to stop him without encouragement from Ron or Hermione.

Not to mention I had to do all that while coming up with a new essence creation array, making a dozen new rituals, studying magic in general, figuring out occlumency and exploiting the room of requirement!

… You know what? I'm gonna start a progress journal because with all this shit I'm going to quickly lose track of everything if I don't write it down.

Hopefully, a simple cipher and codenames for everything should stop people from deciphering what I write.