Harry’s Wars: Episode 1 Chapter 2 (part 2)

Harry's Wars: Episode 1 Chapter 2 (part 2)

A/N1: I got this chapter done early and as impatient as I am, I decided to publish it earlier than planned.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter in any shape or form.

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Harry finished his meal with gusto. "You got this from Hogwarts, didn't you?"

Dobby nodded his head furiously in confirmation.

"Yes, Harry Potter, sir. House elves be very grateful to Harry Potter, sir and bes very happy to help," he exclaimed with a million watt smile.

"Well, at least I have some help in the magical world now," mumbled Harry. "Thank you Dobby, and thank the Hogwarts elves for me, too, will you?"

He smiled at the little guy. Taking a deep breath, he continued

"Now Dobby, I need your help. As you can see, I am currently all alone and without any food at home. I need you to go to my vault, get some galleons and buy some food for me. When you are done, I need you to check all my belongings for foreign magic. I already found something on my glasses. If these are tracking charms as I expect, then some of my other things are going to be marked as well. I'm going to check them myself, but you have more experience with magic. Maybe you can even figure out what kind of magic is attached to my things."

As Harry explained to Dobby his immediate tasks, Dobby was almost bouncing on his seat. "Dobby can be doing that, Harry Potter, sir. But Dobby can not be knowing what magic be on Harry Potter, sirs thingies. But Dobby cans be moving the magics on other thingies, so Harry Potter sirs thingies be's all clean."

As he talked, his ears drooped sadly, not being able to help Harry to the needed extent. But he perked right up at the possible help he could possibly provide, "Dobby can feel if the magic be harmful to Harry Potter!"

Almost jumping from his seat, Dobby grinned in visible joy and Harry grinned right back.

"That is more than helpful. In fact, it might be the better solution. Like this, whoever placed these charms on my things is kept in the dark. I like it. Thank you Dobby!"

Before Dobby could go on another praising tirade about him, he quickly stood up and said "Let's get going. The earlier we take care of this, the earlier I can start making plans for the future."

Dobby nodded at him and popped away, taking the dishes with him.

*hoot hoot hoot* Hedwig added helpfully.

"Yes you can help, too. But first I am going to check you for magic though. If the one I suspect is responsible, then you are probably also tacked with a charm. Tracking charm I think is the most likely."

*hoot?* *hoot hoot!* Hedwig hooted in indignation.

The clearly agitated owl seemed almost burning with indignation. At the possibility, someone could have cast magic on her without her knowledge or at the possibility of someone tracking her, Harry didn't know. And he certainly did not want to ask. He wasn't stupid.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

After liberating his trunk from the cupboard under their stairs, which seemed to have sprouted some more locks and bolts since the last time he checked, he went to his room to finally check his magical belongings. He was a bit nervous at the possible results. He prayed to all deities he knew or ever heard of and even magic herself. He really didn't want to be right. Because if he was right, then he was dealing with the chessmaster Dumbledore scenario, and not the naive fool or well meaning but incompetent Dumbledore. He really would prefer for Dumbledore to be hopelessly naive and maybe just overworked. That all the crap he had to deal with just slipped to the cracks without someone to pick up the slack.

Yeah, right. Maybe he was the naive one.

As he reached his bed, he spread his possessions neatly side by side on his bedsheet.

"Wow, I really do not own a lot before the transmigration. And nothing really personal, aside from the photo album of my parents,my cloak, my broom, my quidditch uniform and my school stuff. This is just sad. Well, it's not like I had much room for development. I should find a hobby after I get the basics of my magic down. The way I use it can't be the final form. Let's write a grading system down later. Now, enough dawdling. Focus Potter. Feel the magic."

As he said that, he closed his eyes and tried to sense something.

After a few minutes, the only thing he sensed was his growing impatience.

"How did I do it yesterday?" he wondered aloud, only to smack himself in the forehead. "Step-by-step, stupid. You had a magical feather in your hand. And here you are trying to sense for something you don't know is there from a distance. Learn to walk before you run indeed. I should train with the feathers first."

As he rose from his position, sitting in front of his things, he reached for the phoenix feathers. As he held them in his hands, he didn't even need to focus, he could feel the inherent magic inside them, when tried to focus with his eyes closed he could even differentiate between the feathers from their magical feeling alone.

"This is so awesome!" he whispered. Then, as he remembered his goal, he placed the feathers in one line in front of him, creating a line about one metre long.

"With this, I should be able to measure my success."

Closing his eyes again, he did his best to search his immediate surroundings for the magical impression he clearly remembered when he held the feathers in his hand. When he did not find immediate success, he impulsively pushed magic into his mind and surroundings. He was shocked when he felt his magic dissipate in his surroundings, creating an unclear picture in his mind.

"Wow! I don't know what I just did, but that was awesome!" he exclaimed in joy. "Like some kind of radar. I should refine this later, if I can use this with more skill, I would never be surprise attacked again! … And isn't that a sad thought. I'm now not even 13 years old, but I have already experienced attacks to my back by someone. Bastards, the lot of them! Oh my dear mother magic. I have to go through puberty again. Even if I have some experience, I will be surrounded by hormonal teenagers. And the drama."

*Ugh* he groaned loudly. "Doesn't matter. Now I have magic. This is worth it."

When he had calmed down, he decided to try something crazy.

"Yesterday, I just pushed magic into my body and ordered it to heal me, then, I pushed my magic into locks and willed it to open. Now I pushed my magic into my mind with the desire to sense something. Maybe, if I push my magic into my eyes with the desire to see magic I can develop a bootleg Sharingan. Train my eyes to see magic on command, get enhanced perception or even to see up to the microscopic level. Oooh I am so excited! That would just be awesome. I should put that on the list of things to develop. I should never forget, my magic should have to obey only my rules.

Back to topic, sense magic in items. I should just try to put my hand on the item in question for now."

Deciding to postpone his bout of magical revolution, he placed his hand over his photo album, the easiest of his belongings as it should not have any magic on it.

When he tried to sense for some magic on it, he was startled. there was a lot of magic on and in his photo album. Opening it and repeating the process, he realised his mistake. The pictures were fixed with a permanent sticking charm, not glue.

"Oh god, this is so embarrassing." he groaned out loud.

*Hoot* he heard Hedwig agree. Great, now even his familiar mocked him.

After slowly scanning each page, he felt only one distinct spell inside of it. But on the back of it, there was one different spell. It felt distinctly different from the sticking charms.

"Great. That's one for one." Harry stated, clearly unhappy with the beginning of his search.

"Next, let's see if the rest of my stuff is also tagged."

And then, Harry scanned each and every surface of his magical belongings, leaving his invisibility cloak by the side. His gut warned him to not interact in any magical form with his cloak at the moment. When he finished with all his belongings, 30 minutes had passed.

"Wow, that was tiring." He let out an exhausted sigh, sat up and called for Dobby.

"Dobby, please try to move the foreign magic on my photo album to the inside of the cover. It feels the weakest, and if you make a mistake it would be the least suspect."

Dobby, happy to be of help, snapped his fingers with a look of concentration on his face.

"It be done Harry Potter, sir."

Harry scanned the album again, and there was no discernible difference for him on the charm.

"Well done, Dobby." he praised the little house elf. "Now wait a second for me to prepare a few notes so that we can distinguish the origin of each charm and place it back if need be."

After he cut a spare piece of parchment into pieces and clearly labelled them, he got Dobby to place the magics on the corresponding spaces.

"Thank you again Dobby, you are a lifesaver! Now Hedwig, please come here."

As he called out to his owl, he expected some form of punishment. He did, after all, leave her for last, not first as he had promised.

*Hoot. Hoot hoot hoot, hoot!* With a cuff to his head, Hedwig landed gracefully on his lap.

"Yes, I deserved that. I did promise to check you first Hedwig, but I did not want to try an untested skill on you. You are the most important of my possessions. I have to be extra careful with you."

While he placated the clearly miffed owl, he stroked her plumage to her visible enjoyment.

With a small *hoot* Hedwig started to carefully nibble on his fingers. He smiled at that, he had been forgiven.

Starting to scan her body, he found something on her left claw. It felt more complex than what was on his possessions. Clearly, it had something to do with his mail. Now he was pissed. To try and keep track of him was creepy, but this was just wrong.

"This whiskered old wanker. Dumbles has gone too far. He dared to place his grubby hands on Hedwig. What was next? A collar around my neck with a bell? This demands retribution. I don't know how, but I will have my revenge."

As he grumbled darkly, he walked to his desk to write down his thoughts. He did not see the look on Dobby's face. The small elf clearly saw this as some form of attack on his great master Harry Potter. He would need to ask the Hogwarts elves for silent support.

"I have to come up with something later. For now I have to prepare. Tommy is going to rise in less than two years. I should write down what I remember about the HP-verse. My inability to differentiate between fanon and canon does not matter. Other than an approximate timetable, I should not put too much stock into the intel I have from there. I need a source of intelligence for that matter.

Dobby, can you get in contact with other house elves? Elves in search or in need of a new master. I have some jobs that are going to need a lot of manpower. Or rather elf power in this case."

Dobby, for the first time since he came in contact with Harry, looked insecure.

"Dobby knows some other elves without master. Does Harry Potter, sir, want to get rid of Dobby?" The teary elf threw himself before Harry, "Dobby be sorry, please forgive Dobby and don't give him clothes master Harry Potter sir!"

Harry, taken aback at the last outburst of the elf, had to take a second to gather himself. As he tried to carefully remove the messily crying, elf sized ball of sadness on his leg he tried to calm Dobby down.

"Dobby of course I don't want to give you clothes. You are my friend Dobby. I just am going to have a lot of work and will need a lot of help. I don't think you can be at more than one place at once, can you? So I will need some support from other elves. That is all Dobby."

As he explained in a soothing voice, he wondered what he could do in order to reassure Dobby about his usefulness…

"How about this Dobby, I am going to finish working on this, and then we will see how much you can do personally without overworking yourself, all right?"

Dobby relaxed after hearing Harry's proposal.

"Yes, Harry Potter, sir!" he exclaimed with so much enthusiasm, the sadness from before appeared to be an illusion.

When he finished with his list of things to do, he was surprised at the length. The lacking length. The first few points are more or less the same: get his memories and mindscape in order, the last few will take an unknown amount of time to set up.

He will need a lot of house elves to get an around-the-clock spy network on all the known Death Eaters and Dumbledore Minions. So far the only thing he could plan for real are his visits to the Goblins and Godric's Hollow.

Well and the purchase of a good trunk with extended space, he just hoped estate trunks were a thing here or at least a possibility. He needed a place to train his developing magical capabilities.

"Well, I can't do a lot as long as the two, or three chess players Dumblediore, Tommy and the Minister of Magic are still around. At least I am still protected by Dumbledore, as long as he thinks I am still his obedient, ignorant little puppet.

"Dobby, I'm going to meditate. Can you call me in an hour for some food? After that I need you to go to Gringotts for me and ask for a private meeting with a finance manager. I am going to need a lot of funds."

With Dobbys enthusiastic nod, he sat on his bed. Dobby had already packed away all of his things and he didn't even realise when. The sneaky little bugger.

Closing his eyes, he focused on Tommy's knowledge on occlumency. He remembered the book, 'Secrets of the Mind' and the instructions on how to protect it. How Tommy read it, enraptured by the potential of mindmagic, reading someone's most intimate thoughts. Causing them pain, or at the highest level even to change their personality over time.

He remembered how he dismissed the art of occlumency, as it was described as an "incredibly complex art, not for the impatient" as it would "take a lot of time, dedication and constant repetition" in order to keep the mind protected. The end goal was a conscious control of one's mind and mental projection of a wall around one's mind.

Harry opened his eyes in disappointment, "This is not the cheat I had hoped. Damn you, fanfiction for raising expectations! There is no mention of a mindscape, of the magical core. Nothing. I don't know if Tommy was fooled by his sycophant or if this is the true extent. Well, if I am going to invent my own magics, I can start with occlumency. It is a magical practice, and I have conscious access to my mindscape. Both used in concert should allow me to create the cheat known as fanfiction occlumency. I have already used magic I had pushed into my mind to fix the cracks."

He shuddered at the memories. "I should try to repeat that, this time with the goal to sort my memories and have conscious recall."

Goal set, Harry focused on his meditation and this time, he entered his mindscape more smoothly.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

Opening his eyes in his mindscape, he appeared to be right in front of his magical core, right where he left it last time.

"Good to know" Harry mused to himself as he looked around. This time, he was not surprised at the presence of the black wisps. He expected it, the foreign feeling was back as soon as he used his magic.

"I have to get a handle on this. There is so much that can go wrong if I don't clean this up, and I have to use my magic. I can't just not use it.

Maybe, if I do this right, I can create an automatic system to sort this right after absorption."

As Harry thought of a possible solution, he began to march to the black wisps. For the third time, he absorbed Tom Riddle's memories. The accompanying pain did not get any easier, nor did the memories disturb him any less.

"I hope I can have that at least filtered. I hate to live through Tommy's feelings as he goes about his 'business'. At least I did not lose control this time."

After he finished the unpleasant task, Harry went back to the crystal core. He realised that it had changed in colour. not by much, but it was a shade darker, at the edge at least.

"Great, I hoped the doses of Tommy's soul would not have any impact on my magic. Well, maybe I can cleanse it later. For now, I have to sort through all my memories. My first life, Harry Potter and at last Tommy-boy.

But how? As much as I would like to build a computer supported archiving system, I don't have enough knowledge on the consequences.

Maybe it really is for the best if I use the concept of a mind palace as a base, for the moment at least. Instead of using a very familiar place in order to save my memories, I construct one using magic. That way I should speed up the process.

For now, I should do something simple. A library should be good enough. As for protection, I have to build some kind of access control. Maybe a fortified structure, with some blast doors. Yeah. That should be enough for the moment. When I have had more time to get things going, I have to try to experiment here with the possibilities.

Imagine a mindscape like a spaceship, maybe the Normandy SR2. That would be awesome and secure. No wizard would know left from right. Let's put that on the list."

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

When Dobby woke him up, Harry had the barebones of his mental library. He did create all the shelves, created a counter to file the new memories and the station to possibly reduce the emotional connection, if needed he could even cut them out completely, leaving behind a movie like file, clean and dry. This was mostly in preparation for Tommy's memories, they were disturbing enough without the emotional components.

Before he left his bed, Harry glanced at Hedwig, who was sleeping in her cage.

"She had some tiring days. I should let her sleep some more."

As he was about to turn around, he caught sight of his wand lying next to the cage. As he saw it, he got an annoyed look on his face. He had found three different magics on it. Two at the tip, and one at the handle. It was clear that Dumbledore had added another surveillance method to his chess piece. The worst thing was that the old ghost Ollivander was in on it. He had to be, both magics at the tip had almost the same strength left, so they had to be placed around the same time.

It was obvious to him that Dumbledore had planned to keep an eye on anyone who got the wand with Fawkes tailfeather. But it annoyed him greatly. He was sure that Tommy's wand had the same surveillance. And wasn't that a damning thought, as that would mean that Dumbledore knew about most of the magic Tommy cast in his life. And if his memories from his past life hold true, then Tommy framed his uncle for murder and Dumbledore would have known about it. He would wait until he got the corresponding memories, because if it was true, then he would have to tread very carefully.

Harry reached the kitchen with a contemplative air around him, the good mood at his success with his version of occlumency had evaporated at the thought of the depths of Dumbledore's machinations.

As he ate distractedly he didn't even realise the amounts he ate, as Dobby kept piling on his plate. It would seem Dobby had decided to fatten Harry up a bit.

When Harry came out of his thoughts and realised the amounts he ate he looked at Dobby funny.

"Dobby I know I am a bit thin, but don't you think this is a bit much?"

Dobby in response looked unrepentant, even a bit proud of himself, back at Harry,

"Dobby must take care of Harry Potter, sir. Harry Potter, sir, bes too skinny. Yes, very, very skinny. Dobby is a good elf, so Dobby has to feed Harry Potter, sir, a lot of good food." Dobby nodded to himself, as if to congratulate himself. Harry was speechless.

"Isn't there an easier way, as to eat my bodyweight in food? The magical world should have an easy solution for cases like mine, shouldn't they?"

Dobby thought for a moment before he answered

"Yes, but it be's a very laborious potion, so it be's only produced on demand. Bad master's greasy friend told bad master so."

Harry was happily surprised. It would seem there was an easier way to heal himself from the malnutrition he was clearly suffering from.

"I have to get into potions at Hogwarts. Let's hope the Room of Requirement is as magical as fanon led me to believe. Occlumency was already a bust." He mused to himself.

"All right Dobby, try to inquire about the potions in Diagon. If the cost is too high, I will have to eat. I should be able to train my brewing in peace at Hogwarts, then I can produce my own.

I am going back to my room to meditate. While I am meditating I want you to take a note to the goblins, asking for a meeting as soon as possible. Also, please wait for a response there, I don't want any possible interference from third parties. I will have it ready in a moment.

When you come back, I want you to call me for dinner at around seven o'clock. If the goblins sent you back with an important message, wake me immediately, all right Dobby?"

When Dobby nodded happily, he rose from the table and went back to his bed, consciously ignoring his wand. He didn't want to get angry again.

As he sat back down onto his bed, back into the same position in order to initiate a meditation, he took a deep breath and entered his mindscape.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

When he opened his eyes, Harry saw the fruit of his labour so far. He had remarkable progress, considering he was creating the technique on the spot it was incredible.

In front of him stood rows upon rows of empty bookshelves, each labelled clearly and neatly and ready to receive the corresponding memories.

The library counter was to his left side, ready to receive, sort and archive his memories.

The only drawback so far he had found was the magical expenditure he needed to take in consideration.

Each construct in front of him had a very small draw on his magic, if he stopped the supply the construct would begin to fade after some time passed. Lucky for him, the time frame increased with the duration the construct had been present. He was especially lucky to find out that fact in the beginning. Otherwise he would have built something grander than a secure store room, accessed via a blast door and filled with simple bookshelves. He could have created an incredibly dangerous time bomb inside his mind. He shuddered at the thought of crippling his magical access or the consequences of a magical exhaustion.

The way he built his library, he would have plenty of time to recharge and keep his mind secure.

After reconfirming the functionality of all the functions of the library with some inane memory from his life before the transmigration, he left his memory palace.

What was in front of him scared him. He knew instinctively that the recent infestation of pieces of Tommy-boy would be bad, but for there to be the rest of Tommy inside, the barrier shining innocently in the background, was a scary surprise. Scarier even was the nascent intellect he could detect in the blackness in front of him. The wisps were no longer stationary, they moved around with purpose. Alarmed, he braced himself for the biggest load of Tommy so far. The rest of his life after Hogwarts. At least, it didn't seem to be coherent enough to attempt to possess him.

"Oh Merlin, this is going to be bad. I better sit down for this."

Using his proficiency with constructs, he created himself a comfortable couch. Closing his eyes, he raised his right hand and initiated the absorption.