C1 Back in time

When Harry opened his eyes, the world was different.

He was now in the cupboard under the stairs that was his when a child. The little toys he stole from Dudley when he threw them away, the spiders that used to be his only friends.

'So it worked,' Harry thought. 'Death really sent me back to the past.'

One night two years after Voldemort's defeat, Death came to talk. She took the appearance of a young, attractive slim woman of average height. Pale skin, dark eyes, long jet-black hair.

At first, Harry wanted to deny that the woman was she claimed to be but how could he do it when by just looking at her, he remembered the times he met Death before. Quirrel, Basilisk, Dementors, his death at the hands of Voldemort.

Every time, she was there.

Once he came to accept that Death was in front of him, he didn't even have to think about what she wanted with him. After all, no matter how many times he tried to get rid of them, the Deathly Hollows always came back to their owner.

Harry had been right. Death explained how she could not interfere with the mortal world directly, so many years ago she thought of a loophole in the rules. Death created three objects, The Elder Wand, The Ressurection Stone, and the Cloak of Invisibility. When the three were united by a wizard or witch who had died once and came back to life, they would be an avatar of Death.

Death explained what exactly was to be an avatar. It basically came down to the balance. What balance? She tried to explain but it involved such complex metaphysical concepts that Harry gave up on understanding. The resume was that from time to time Death would give him missions that varied from the usual hunt the immortal evil guy to protect someone that would be important to the future. The rest of the time he was free to do as he pleased.

Of course, the job came with perks. Immortality, even though he could die in combat. He could also learn magic from ghosts, for example, he could summon the Founders or Merlin himself to teach him. He could talk to his parents if he wanted to.

However, it was the last perk that made Harry accept Death's offer. If Harry accepted to be her avatar, Death would send him to the past. To a time before he was sent to Hogwarts, with all the knowledge he had now.

Harry accepted, of course. So many things could be different. He could save Sirius earlier, get rid of the Dursleys, and save so many lives.

Harry asked if Death didn't care about those that had died living longer.

"I don't. I only care for those that try to cheat me, those that want to be beyond Death," Death said. "I don't care if you save some lives and they live longer Harry because, in the end, all will come back to me. When the first living being came to be, I was there. Waiting. When the last living being, the last star, the last planet dies, my job will be finished. I'll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave."

Now, here he was. Locked inside the cupboard under the stairs back at his nine years old body.

Harry first mediated and tried to find his magical core. One of the things that came with the job of Death's avatar was a profound knowledge about souls. For example, the magical core was a metaphysical organ located at the soul. Harry's core was a ball of multicolored light, like a rainbow that someone compressed until they had a ball of light.

The fact that it was located at soul was one of the reasons why wandless magic was so difficult, and only the more powerful wizards and witches could do it. The core was always transmitting mana, the energy used for magic, to the body but it was scattered. Mana passed through the blood, muscle, and bones in small quantities at all times.

That's why they use of magical focus was needed, for example, an wand. Wands were designed to make a connection direct to the magical core, direct to the soul. That was also a reason why you would never get results as good as the one you got from another wand than yours.

After all, every soul was different.

When Harry found his core, he knew that somethings had changed. He was not as powerful as before coming back in time but he was sure that he still had way more mana than the average nine-year-old should have. Harry thought he had something around a second-year student at Hogwarts but he could not know for sure.

Turning to the locked door, Harry focused. Now that he had his circuits opened, he should be able to do some wandless magic, nothing complex but perhaps Alohomora was not out of his league.

He put his right hand over the lock and concentrated on the desire to open it, he imagined the mechanics inside the lock moving and unlocking the door, and willed it to happen.

With a rush of mana through his right arm and a soft click, the door unlocked. With a smile, Harry got out of the cupboard and did the same thing to the front door of the house, careful to not make any sounds that would awake his relatives.

Once outside, he could see that it was the beginnings of the morning. Harry didn't have a wand with him right at the moment so he couldn't call for the Knight Bus, so he walked in the direction of the public library.

It took him almost half an hour to get there but it didn't matter, his goal wasn't the library but the dark-blue telephone box right near it. A police box. Inside, Harry contacted the police station. Focusing once his mana once again to make his voice different, Harry spoke.

"Hello, I would like to report a case of child abuse."