c17

Harry stood staring at the home he had so loathed for decades. Number 4 Privet Drive had been the source and location of many of his most horrible nightmares. Of course he had rectified a lot of mistakes over his life as he grew older, but he never could get himself to deal with the Dursleys. He had stood right where he stood now, his rifle in hand with every intent to end the family that had caused him so much suffering.

He couldn't do it.

For the first and last time in Ace's professional career, he had been unable to perform the kill. He had instead chosen to walk inside and had removed every trace that he ever existed and then spent the next six hours obliviating his family and any muggle he had ever met. He left the knowledge of Lily behind in Petunia's mind, but changed the memories so they were more happy and gave the impression that the two sisters had simply grown apart over the long years. Harry Potter had truly died that night.

Now he was preparing to knock on the door once again, this time with the intention to judge the family. A small light in his chest told him that he still held some ridiculous sense of hope that they were perhaps good folk.

He breathed deeply and knocked twice and listened.

The footsteps of his aunt was recognizable enough, her high heels clanking against the floor as she walked.

'Why she wears shoes inside, I'll never know.' Harry mused to himself as the door opened.

Happy that his years of training stopped him from physically reacting, Harry's mind did a double take as he saw his aunt Petunia for the first time in decades. She looked… healthier… in a sense. Her face was more relaxed, less harpy like. Her body also seemed to be a little fuller, as if she had not tried to starve herself to her "ideal weight" as he remembered her moaning about many times during his childhood.

"Oh, Harry. We were going to come to the station to pick you up, but you never sent a letter and told us when you would be coming home." Petunia said in a surprisingly neutral tone.

They stood and stared at each other for what felt like hours to Harry before he finally managed to regain enough sense to open his mouth.

"Aunt Petunia. Is Dudley and Vernon home?" He asked in a low tone.

"Dudley is in his room and Vernon is in the kitchen, why?" Petunia asked in return as she stepped aside and gestured him inside the house.

Harry nodded in thanks as he stepped inside and looked around; it all looked like he remembered it from so long ago.

"Could you go get them and gather in the sitting room? I think I need to explain something." Harry said as he moved himself to the mentioned room.

Petunia nodded unsurely before she stepped upstairs to gather Dudley. Moments later, Vernon stepped into the sitting room on his own and Harry's mental self did another flip. What the fuck.

What the bloody flying fuck had happened to Vernon's whale stomach? This man was still overweight, indeed. But it was clear that he had been in decent shape at some point in his life. He looked like the amount of fat that sat around his stomach had arrived as a side effect of stopping a regular exercise regimen.

"Harry, welcome back." Vernon said as he took a seat in his favorite chair and looked over his nephew. When their eyes met, Harry noticed Vernon's eyes widened slightly.

Before either could speak, Petunia came down with Dudley in tow and Harry feared his heart might be giving out on him. Dudley was almost the exact same as his father, only in reverse. He looked like he had been oversized but was now heading towards getting a lot better. What the actual flying…

"So, Harry, what did you want to tell us?" Petunia asked with a small smile as she sat down with Dudley in the sofa.

"Pet" Vernon interrupted, causing the two to share a meaningful look "Harry, please take your time"

Harry nodded in thanks and took a few deep breaths as he steadied himself. He gave one last wistful look over the Dursleys and wondered to himself just if they would believe him.

"I need you all to remain calm as I tell you this, and it might seem hard to believe but I promise it is all real" Harry began.

"It's about your… magic, isn't it?" Vernon stated, as he seemed to roll the word around on his tongue as if it was a strange thing to say.

"Yes."

Then Harry began his tale. Starting from his earliest years and memories. He told them everything. His experiences and what he had done with his life, how he felt about them and what he had done to them. Finally he told them about how he came back to this time and the changes he had noticed. Throughout the entire story he had taken careful note of their reaction and he found it all surprising.

Vernon looked outraged at a few points in his story when Harry mentioned some of the worse things he had been exposed to.

Dudley looked confused through most of it, but seemed slightly disgusted whenever Harry spoke of how he knew him to be.

Petunia was the biggest reaction. She had outright yelled in protest when he had spoken about her relationship between Lily and her. She had also been the angriest the more Harry spoke about his life.

"So that's what happened… I figured you deserved to know since my Headmaster insisted that you were in fact good people, despite my protests otherwise." Harry stated with sagged shoulders as he stared expectantly at them.

"Harry" Petunia whispered "please look around the house for a minute and then tell me just what it is that you see."

Harry gave a nod and rose from his seat and began walking through the house. He looked over all the walls and items, taking in the nostalgic feeling it awoke in him. As he began looking at the pictures he felt a clump spread in his throat. The further he walked, the heavier his legs felt until he stopped in front of the large fireplace and took in the picture standing prominently displayed in the center.

Vernon And Petunia Dursley were standing in the most atrocious looking Christmas sweaters, a sour looking Dudley lying in his mother's arms, wearing a smaller version of the same disgraceful piece of clothing.

It was who was in the picture with them that got Harry. James and Lily Potter were standing right next to them with large smiles on their faces. Sweaters just as ugly hugging their bodies though in inverted colors. And right there, lying so carefully asleep in his mother's embrace, was little Harry Potter.

It was his family. All of it.

A small tear slid down his cheek as he felt a strong hand land on his shoulder. He looked back into the sad smiling face of Vernon and Petunia.

"I loved my sister and nothing could stand in the way of that. We had a falling out as children but when she returned after her seventh year in Hogwarts, we made up and she introduced me to her boyfriend, James." Petunia said as she slowly drew her nephew into a hug.

"James was a great man. At first I was cautious because of the whole Magic business. But once we got over that, James and I became good friends. That picture was taken the first and only Christmas they held with us after your birth. I wish you could have met him, he was so proud of you." Vernon continued from his wife as he felt the memories swim over him.

"Them dying nearly tore me apart. If Albus hadn't delivered you to us that night… I don't think I would have pulled through if I didn't have both you and Dudley to cheer me up." Petunia quietly whispered into Harry's ear as she rocked him back and forth as his tears intensified.

"He didn't leave me on the doorstep, did he?" Harry asked through the tears.

He felt Petunia shake her head against his hair "No. Albus knocked and told us everything before handing you to us. He swore that he would return to go into deeper details, but he needed to control the chaos that was spreading in your world."

"What happened after?" Harry whispered as he tried to regain some sense.

"He would come around once a year, usually on your birthday. He'd have a gift of some sort with him and if we had discovered you were doing an excess of, accidental magic?" Vernon asked and at Harry's nod continued "If that was the case, he would usually speak with you for a few moments and then it would usually be fine."

"I have something to ask of you…" Harry started before sucking in a breath "but I don't know if you will like it"

"What is it?" Petunia asked.

"I want to see your memories of Harry. Your Harry, the one whose place I… I stole." Harry said hoarsely as he removed himself from the loving embrace.

"You're our Harry. Never think otherwise." Petunia stated as she grabbed her nephews head so he would look her in the eyes. "And yes, you can view my memories."

With a nod, Harry cast the spell silently and wandlessly. It wasn't difficult to move around Petunia's memories. They were surprisingly organized for a normy, but Lily might have had a small hand in that if he was right.

A smile came to his face as he watched their Harry in his youth. He had grown up much better than he himself had. Petunia and Vernon treated him like a son but made sure that he understood just how amazing his real mom and dad had been. Oh he got into trouble more than once, but often it was because of his surprising friendship with Dudley. Apparently he had been a "bad influence" on his cousin and had roped him in with "saving people thing" as the teacher's had called it.

The years rolled by his eyes until he saw his younger self bouncing around the house screaming about his Hogwarts letter finally showing up. Then the scene shifted and his eyes almost bugged out of his metaphorical skull as it had in fact not been Hagrid, the lovable giant, that had come to guide him as he acquired his items from Diagon Alley, no it had been Albus himself that had shown up.

He severed the connection as he reached the part where his aunt and uncle had dropped him off at the station and said their goodbyes.

"He lived a good life, I'm proud to carry it on." Harry stated as he looked his aunt in the eye with the first genuine smile he could remember giving her.

"I hope you can consider this your home again, even after everything you said happened" Petunia said as she resumed her seat with a slightly shaken looking Dudley.

"You okay there, duds?" Harry asked absentmindedly with the nickname he had used for his cousin in their last meeting.

"I was a bully?" He muttered darkly as he stared at Harry as if pleading him to say it was a lie.

"You didn't know better. Honestly I'm starting to suspect that you were all under a spell…" Harry paused as he talked, a thought striking him "actually… wait a second" Harry almost ran outside the house where he summoned his staff and slammed it into the ground, causing a large bubble of light to appear and vanish over the home of the Dursleys.

Harry stared at it slack jawed for a moment before cursing in a language his relatives didn't recognize.

"What's wrong, Harry?" Vernon asked as he looked around the street to make sure no one caught his nephew's stunt.

"The wards around the house… they are different… they feel… less malicious than the ones I remember" Harry explained as best he could.

"Dumbledore placed them himself with the help of a gentlemen we didn't know, he introduced himself as Nicholas." Vernon informed his nephew as he guided him inside the house again.

"There's so much that has changed…" Harry muttered as he fell into the chair. Right this moment, he was feeling his actual age.

"How about you go and take a nap in your room. Maybe it will help you to sleep on all this information." Petunia suggested with a motherly smile.

"Yeah… thanks. Is it still the last door on the left?" Harry asked as he headed towards the stairs.

"It is." Petunia nodded and Harry smiled in return.

The door looked almost unrecognizable to Harry without all the locks. He turned the handle and when the door opened he felt more tired than ever as he drank in the appearance of the room. It looked like an eleven year old's room was supposed to. A few toys scattered around, a messy closet and a nice comfy bed that looked very welcoming.

As he flopped down on the soft mattress he caught sight of the image on the bedtable and a warm feeling flowed through him as he felt Morpheus claim his mind. The knowledge that his mother and father were watching over him from right next to his bed.

-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-

Summer became… harsh… for Harry. One would surely think that coming here, realizing that the relatives you knew as being torturing monsters was in fact not, would be something to celebrate. Harry could not celebrate even if he wanted to. Most nights he would wake up drenched in sweat, half screaming his lungs out under a silencing charm. Just being in the house brought back the nightmares and most mornings he had trouble even speaking to his family. When Petunia had admonished him for starting breakfast at seven he had almost recoiled from her. Apparently, Petunia always made breakfast for eight during the weekends or vacations.

Speaking with his aunt had revealed many things about his young self's life. He had been a happy child, always so curious about everything, something Dumbledore had found profoundly amusing at first. Then Harry got around to asking about things he knew about, mainly his aunt Annabeth. Petunia hadn't spoken fondly of the woman at first, still mad about having her memory erased and subsequently returned to her. She did talk about her younger years where Annabeth would play with Lily as much as she could remember, then one day it was simply as if she had never existed.

At least that much had been preserved through to this time, Harry wasn't sure if he could have handled losing Annabeth or Celeste.

He got letters from Vanessa every so often, usually asking him how he was doing and when he was going to come to her home. He had been putting off for a long while, and despite Vanessa insistence that her parents had changed from what she remembered, he was still weary.

His personal search over the summer for the Horcruxes hadn't gone as planned either. Every method he tried had failed. With the fragments within the ring and cup destroyed that left the Diadem, Diary, Snake and himself. The Locket had, thankfully, still been in the Black residence and Kreacher had only been too happy to finally fulfill his masters wish of destroying the damned thing.

The search for Ravenclaw's Diadem was bringing Harry to the very edge of his patience. He knew countless rituals and spells meant for tracking Dark objects but none of them pointed towards the remaining soul containers. At this point, Harry was ready to go and ask… no beg… for help from Amorpha and her Dark Elves. Voldemort had, in a sense, fucked with the entire Dark Elven people when he used that bastardized version of Soul Magic to split his into pieces, surely the Dark Elves would help him for that reason alone… wouldn't they?

With a grumble, Harry slipped his legs off the bed and sat up. He reached out and grabbed the tome lying neatly on his desk next to the image of his parents. As his fingers touched the leather bindings, his body began to change and grow. Slowly the image of Harry Potter, 11 year old Wizard bled away and was replaced with a 25 year old Ace, professional Hitman.

It was a neat little spell that Amorpha had taught him back when they had met. It was a twist on an aging spell, in essence it allowed the user to twist their appearance to that of their older selves and back again. Amorpha had a certain… preference… when it came to her men, and the idea that Harry could freely transform between ages had been a sexual fantasy of the Dark Queen.

Opening the ancient tome, Harry ran a gentle finger down the browning pages with a fond smile on his lips. This was something he had sorely missed to read. The Potter Family Grimoire had been passed down from generations long gone by and now it was Harry's as the Head of House Potter. Within lay many a spell of ancient origin, written in languages long forgotten. He was looking through these ancient texts to find something that could help him locate the remaining Horcruxes, worst case scenario saw him returning to the Ashwoods to request a favor… he dreaded thinking about the price.

Shaking his head with a humorless smile, Harry placed the Grimoire back on his desk and rose to his full height, enjoying the sensation of once more having the reach of his adult body. Privately he had been having thoughts about using this spell with Vanessa to allow them to once more share the physical bond that had tied them so close in the past. But he knew not the limitations of the spell and didn't wish to risk it, of course he could ask the Dark Elves about that too…

He felt like he was just looking for an excuse to go now.

Was he though?

Did he desire to that place once more?

To ask for information that, surely, would hold a steep price for both himself and those he loved?

It was his last idea, perhaps one should follow it. Heaving a great sigh, Harry carried himself out into the shower of the Dursley household and enjoyed a long cold shower before preparing himself for the thing he had been dreading ever since he went back to see Amorpha after his rebirth.

He was going to introduce Vanessa and his Queen.

Merlin, Morgana and The Goddess have mercy…