Part 2

advanced chapters:

patreon.com/FanFictionPremium

---

Damn, that hurt. The first thought that came to mind. The second was much happier. He had survived after all. Numerous studies and experiments on himself had yielded results. Those Confederate idiots had decided to destroy him, but no way. It's not easy to kill a sorcerer who's over a couple of thousand years old.

But what's so strange? My body doesn't listen, I can't feel what I'm used to. Eyes... usually bright blue, capable of seeing in various spectra, including magic, now saw nothing. Nor was the usual magic responding. Pulling himself together, Mephistopheles sat up abruptly on the bed. His head hit the ceiling. And then memories came flooding back. No, it had to happen. To get into the body of a child. And from Earth. Mephistopheles had been to this planet before, a long time ago, and had not been particularly impressed. There is no technology, magic is weak, and the planet itself is far away from space routes.

Checking his state once more, the prince felt the echoes of magic. Aha, a mage after all. Well, that's better. But the body would have to be rebuilt, too weak, too unfit.

There was one more thing that bothered Mephistopheles. His experiments couldn't throw his soul into a random body, there had to be a channel established. But there wasn't. No sign of a soul binding at all. Unless... Yeah, maybe it was one of his descendants. He remembered that there were some pretty girls on Earth, and if you poured a little of your magic into them, they would jump into bed with him. It was quite possible that his current body belonged to a distant relative. That explained the lack of mental barriers on mind and soul. That had to be dealt with, but first and foremost, the guardian problem had to be dealt with. Mephistopheles did not tolerate being bossed around or having his voice raised. Those who dared - soon ceased to exist. Still in thought, Mephistopheles lay back down, waiting for dawn. The game begins again.

The morning began with shouts.

- Get up, boy. - The voice clearly belonged to his aunt. The prince reluctantly got up and opened the door. To think he'd slept in the closet.

- Boy, go make breakfast now. - The squeaky voice was starting to piss him off. When Mephistopheles came into the kitchen, he saw something that looked like a walrus. Mr Vernon Dursle, himself, was already sitting at the table, eating like crazy.

- Come on, Potter! - shouted the carcass. Mephistopheles stood staring at the man. Dursle was furious and jumped up from his chair, intending to whip the boy, but suddenly felt that he could not move from his seat. And then it got worse. The boy's eyes glistened, became more saturated colour, his mouth bent in a smirk. A mocking smirk. As an eleven-year-old kid, it looked intimidating. The Prince moved his arm and Vernon felt his bones come out of their joints, ligaments bursting, heart beating desperately.

- Hey, Potter..." before he could finish his sentence, the woman who had entered collapsed like a hamstring, staring at her husband in horror.

- Are we ready for a dialogue? - Harry said in a strange, broken voice. The Dursleys nodded petulantly.

For the next hour, Mephistopheles listened to the story about his family, about wizards, about school.

- So, wait, why am I living with you guys and not, like, my parents' friends?

- Do we know? - Vernon grumbled. - They dropped you off and left, leaving a letter telling us to take care of you.

Mephistopheles analysed the information. Something was wrong here. There was some intrigue he should look into, but that would come later, first he should deal with the body and abilities. Leaving his relatives in the kitchen, having previously warned them that he could now also answer, the prince retired to the backyard and began the ritual. The old ritual required little preparation and allowed him to determine the extent of damage on subtle astral levels. After half an hour of muttering and crawling through the grass, Mephistopheles finally settled down and sat under a tree. The news wasn't the worst, but it wasn't great either. Of his volume of magic, this body only held 10%. Most of his personal abilities were unresponsive. Of these, he was left with the ability to speak to any living creature with a language, conversion to his totem animal, and an astral sheath. Simply put, Mephistopheles could at any moment become like a ghost without changing appearance. And, in addition, the ability to summon chains remained. An extremely useful item in battle. Made of Runes metal, chains cannot be transfigured from the outside.

According to what Petunia had told him, the school year would start on the 1st of September, so he only had a month to get used to the world and his body, as well as to get some control over magic.

And so the training began. From morning until evening, the prince disappeared in the garden, the park, and the neighbourhood dumps. Adapting his remaining magic to his new body. This yielded some results, in particular Mephistopheles no longer looked like a dead man. It was not uncommon for him to not even come home at night, but to turn into a murkworm and sleep in the trees. There were no murkworms on this planet, but there were animals that looked like them. Imagine a snow leopard, coal black in colour and weighing almost half a tonne. And although the prince was extremely cautious, one day he did catch the eye of a couple of young men who ran away in terror. For another week, the newspapers reported on the escaped panther. So life went on until it was time to go to school.