Harry Potter: Multiverse Maelstrom: Chapter 2: The Stranger in the Cupboard

Jack let the audience sit with the implications of his explanation for a moment, allowing the emotional reunions and tense standoffs to settle into a fragile, simmering truce. He took a theatrical sip of a floating drink that looked suspiciously like a Muggle soda.

"Alright, everyone comfy?" he asked, his cheerful tone a stark contrast to the heavy atmosphere. "Before we roll the first feature presentation, a couple of quick housekeeping notes. First, the auto-summoning feature." He waggled his fingers. "I've tweaked it slightly. It will now only pull beings from your specific universe. So, no need to worry about strange entities from other realities popping in for a chat. If someone mentions a 'Truck San,' for example, nothing will happen. But if you mention, say, Aberforth Dumbledore..."

A gruff, bearded man who smelled faintly of goats appeared next to Dumbledore, scowling. "Albus? What in the blazes is this? Did you turn the Hog's Head into a cinema?"

"A pleasure to see you too, brother," Albus said with a strained smile. Aberforth just grunted and looked around suspiciously.

"See? Works like a charm," Jack continued. "Secondly, you're about to hear some new terms. The primary one being 'Isekai'." He flicked his wrist, and the massive screen behind him lit up, displaying the word in glowing letters, along with a simple animated clip: a cartoon truck driving at high speed towards a stick figure, who then reappears in a fantasy world with a sword.

"Isekai is a term from a place on my Earth called Japan," Jack explained. "It literally means 'different world.' It's a genre of story where the main character is transported from their world into another one. This often happens... well, via a collision with a truck. It's a bit of a running gag. The person whose thoughts you're about to read has been 'Isekaid' into Harry's body."

A collective gasp went through the room. Harry Potter felt a cold dread wash over him, a profound sense of violation. Someone else, wearing his skin, living his life? Lily and James gripped his shoulders, their faces pale with fury.

"And one last term: 'Canon'," Jack said, the word replacing the animation on the screen. "In this context, 'canon' refers to the established, official sequence of events in a story. For you, 'canon' is your own lives. The history you all lived. This person you're about to meet knows your 'canon' because, in his world, your lives are a famous book and film series."

The silence that followed was absolute, heavy, and horrified.

"Our... our lives... are a story?" Hermione whispered, her mind reeling with the philosophical and existential implications.

"To him, yes," Jack confirmed gently. "Try not to think about it too hard. It'll just give you a headache. Now, let's begin."

The screen flickered, displaying metadata in crisp, white letters against the black void.

Title: Harry Does Canon, and loves it

By: fvdv123

Summary: Truck San Isekaid me as Harry. I am a die-hard fan of Harry Potter, so I am going to enjoy Hogwarts to the Fullest! I may change things an itsy bit. Is two girls a harem? or three? Well, I am getting them. Harry/Two or Three, or More. As always, Mr. Cringe, Mr. Harem, and Gary Stu are here to screw Canon sideways. Harry will do the screwing with the girls in later years.

Rated: R (Contains content suitable for mature teens and older only. Not suitable for children below 16 years. May contain non-explicit adult themes, references to (sexual) violence, frequent or strong coarse language or drug use.)

Genre: Parody / Humor

The reaction was instantaneous and explosive.

"A harem?!" Molly Weasley shrieked, her face turning a dangerous shade of crimson. "What in Merlin's name is a harem?! It sounds positively indecent!"

"It's a term for a man having multiple wives or concubines," Snape supplied, his voice dripping with disdain. "Typically associated with decadent Eastern despots. It seems this... interloper... has ambitions as crude as his intellect."

"Two or three girls? Or more?" Ginny Weasley exclaimed, her eyes flashing with anger. "He thinks he can just 'get' them? Like they're Chocolate Frogs to be collected?" Fleur Delacour, sitting beside Bill, sniffed disdainfully. "Non. He is a pig."

Harry felt his face burning with a mixture of embarrassment and disgust. This person was using his body to plan... that? He glanced at Hermione and Ginny, feeling an overwhelming need to apologize for something that wasn't his fault.

"What is a 'Gary Stu'?" Draco Malfoy drawled, trying to sound bored but failing to hide his curiosity.

"It's a term for an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character," Jack explained patiently. "Someone who is unrealistically competent at everything, beloved by all the good guys, and effortlessly defeats all his enemies. Essentially, a poorly written character."

Voldemort let out a short, derisive hiss of a laugh. "So, this imposter aspires to be a god, but is written as a fool. Fitting."

The final line of the summary, however, caused the most uproar. "...Harry will do the screwing with the girls in later years."

"HE WILL DO WHAT?!" Lily Potter shot to her feet, her green eyes blazing with a mother's protective fury. James was right beside her, his hand clenched so tight his knuckles were white. "That... that thing is in my son's body and it plans to... to defile him?!"

Sirius Black was snarling, a low, guttural sound. "When this is over, I'm finding this 'Truck San' and I'm showing him what the Black family madness really looks like."

"The rating is also a concern," Remus added, his voice strained as he tried to be the calm one. "Rated R... for coarse language and... other themes. This person is in the body of an eleven-year-old boy."

"This is a parody?" Dumbledore murmured, his fingers steepled beneath his chin. His usual twinkle was gone, replaced by a deep, troubled gravity. "To find humor in such a violation... it is a peculiar sort of mind we are about to witness."

The screen shifted, and the first lines of the story appeared, accompanied by a shaky, distorted view from inside a dark, cramped space. The sound of faint, muffled footsteps from above could be heard.

Hello, I am a Harry Potter fanati...fan. Can you believe that when Truck San ran me over, I ended up here? In Harry's cupboard! I am totally Isekaid! When I calculated the date, today it is Dudley's birthday and the trip to the zoo. I can hardly wait.

The view on the screen stabilized, showing the cramped, dusty confines of the cupboard under the stairs at Number 4, Privet Drive. The audience saw through the grate the sight of large, meaty legs descending the staircase.

"My cupboard," Harry breathed, the words tasting like ash. He remembered the spiders, the cold, the perpetual darkness. Seeing it again, knowing some stranger was now lying on his lumpy mattress, filled him with a chilling emptiness.

"They made you sleep in a cupboard?" Lily’s voice was a deadly whisper. She turned her furious gaze across the room to where a new set of figures had just blinked into existence, looking confused and angry. A portly man with a large mustache, a thin, horse-faced woman, and a boy who was already the size of a small whale. Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley Dursley.

"Lily?" Petunia gasped, her face draining of all color.

"You dare speak my name?" Lily trembled with rage. "You swore you would protect him! You left my son to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs!"

"Now see here!" Vernon blustered, his face turning puce. "We gave the boy a roof over his head! Food from our table! He was an ungrateful freak, just like his parents!"

Before James or Sirius could launch themselves across the room, Jack snapped his fingers. The Dursleys found themselves glued to a rather uncomfortable-looking bench at the very back of the room. "Rule one," Jack reminded them calmly. "No fighting."

Petunia couldn't take her eyes off her sister, a mixture of fear, resentment, and a flicker of ancient guilt in her horsey features.

The screen shifted again, the text continuing to scroll.

Regaining Harry's memories was disturbing, man, that boy got starved. Not a lot of beatings, only at accidental magic and neglect to a criminal level. But I want to play this out.

The reaction was a tidal wave of fury.

"STARVED?!" Molly Weasley shrieked, clutching her heart. "CRIMINAL NEGLECT?!" She rounded on the Dursleys, her eyes like chips of fire. "You... you monsters! He was a child! A baby!"

"We didn't starve him!" Petunia screeched back, her voice shrill. "He was a growing boy, he ate enough!"

The screen immediately flashed an image: a plate with a single slice of dry toast and a quarter of a grapefruit, juxtaposed with Dudley's plate, which was piled high with bacon, eggs, and fried bread. The visual evidence was damning.

McGonagall looked as though she had swallowed poison. "Albus... I warned you. I told you they were the worst sort of Muggles imaginable."

Dumbledore's face was a mask of profound sorrow and regret. "You did, Minerva. And I believed the protection of his mother's blood was worth the price. I see now... I see now I was gravely mistaken. The price was paid entirely by Harry, not by me."

Snape was silent, his black eyes fixed on the screen. His jaw was clenched. He remembered a small, bright-eyed girl in a park, and the horse-faced sister who had called her a freak. The pattern, it seemed, had continued.

"Beatings," Sirius growled, his voice dangerously low. "He admits to beatings. For accidental magic. The very thing that should have been a sign of wonder, they punished him for."

Just like canon, the fat ass wanted more presents to add to his pile of broken junk. His friend Piers Buttkiss came for the trip, and I was forced to come along.

Dudley, who had been stuffing his face with a conjured donut, sputtered. "Fat ass?! Who is he calling a fat ass?!"

A scrawny, rat-faced boy blinked into existence next to him. Piers Polkiss. He looked around in terror, saw the assorted wizards and monsters, and promptly tried to hide behind Dudley, which wasn't very effective.

"Buttkiss?" Fred Weasley—the real Fred, alive and whole—snorted with laughter, momentarily breaking the grim tension. George joined him. "He's not wrong about the 'butt' part."

Piers whimpered.

The screen showed the living room at Privet Drive, a mountain of presents piled in the corner, and the new Harry—a scrawny boy with a strangely confident smirk—standing off to the side, looking bored.

I tried to get out of it by asking Petunia: "Aren't you afraid people look down on you for not having money enough, so you have to dress me in these rags?" I could have avoided the slap, but I would have gotten two more after. She said: "You follow us five steps behind you freak."

On screen, they watched as Petunia's hand cracked across the face of the small boy wearing Harry's face. The sound was sharp and ugly.

Lily Potter let out a choked sob. James put his arm around her, his own face a thundercloud. "That's it. Dumbledore, when this is done, you are letting me have five minutes alone with my dear brother-in-law."

"You and me both, Prongs," Sirius muttered.

Petunia, on her bench, actually flinched, as if feeling the echo of her own actions. She stared at the screen, then at Lily, and for the first time, a flicker of something that might have been shame crossed her features before being buried again under years of resentment.

"He provoked her," Vernon grumbled under his breath. "The little delinquent always knew how to push buttons."

That is a nasty cow. Anyway, canon followed except for the snake scene, I am not a fan of the hunger games. All in all, a wasted day. I tried everything from fan fictions to getting wandless magic, but nothing worked, I knew I am getting shafted here.

"He skipped the snake scene?" Harry asked, confused. "But... that was the first time I ever spoke to an animal. The first time I felt like I could do something no one else could."

"This person is not you, Harry," Remus said gently. "He sees your life as a script to be followed or ignored as he pleases. He doesn't have your connection to these events."

"What are these 'fan fictions' he keeps mentioning?" Kingsley Shacklebolt inquired, his deep voice resonating with authority.

"As I said," Jack interjected, "stories written by fans. In his world, there are thousands, perhaps millions, of stories written about you all, exploring different possibilities. This person has read many of them and seems to believe the magic described in those stories should apply here. He's essentially trying to use a cookbook from another country to bake a cake with your ingredients. It's not going to work."

Hermione looked fascinated and appalled. "So, he has foreknowledge, but it's been... contaminated, by non-canonical sources? His understanding of magic is based on amateur speculation?"

"Precisely," Jack nodded. "He's working off a cheat sheet, but half the answers were made up by other students."

The letters came, I kept a few for evidence, and let the rest play out like canon. Hagrid came in the middle of the night, even when you know he is coming and he is big… he is freaking huge!

On screen, they saw the hut on the rock, the storm raging. The door splintered, and a massive, familiar silhouette filled the doorway.

Hagrid blushed under his beard. "Well, I don't like to brag, but I am a fair size."

"You were the first person who was ever kind to me," Harry said quietly, giving the half-giant a grateful look. "The first person who made me feel like I mattered."

The real Hagrid looked fit to burst with emotion, his great beetle-black eyes shining.

When that fat ass ate my birthday cake I got angry, they didn't feed me for two days! Hagrid fed me eventually, the fun of being Harry is cooling down though.

The image on screen showed Dudley greedily scooping handfuls of the squashed, sticky birthday cake into his mouth.

"I... I didn't know they hadn't fed yeh, Harry," Hagrid said, his voice thick with guilt and sorrow. "I'd've... I'd've turned 'em into slugs if I'd known. Proper slugs."

"It's not your fault, Hagrid," Harry insisted, though the memory still stung. A birthday cake, the first he'd ever had, eaten by his pig of a cousin.

"He's cooling on the 'fun' of being you now that he's experiencing the reality of it," Hermione observed grimly. "Perhaps a little starvation is a good dose of reality for him." Ron nodded in fervent agreement.

Xxxxx

We arrived at the Leaky Cauldron, I think they put a lot of effort into letting it look like a shady pub, that or cleaning spells need a Masters' degree in household spells. I spotted Purple Stutter, when Hagrid introduced him I tried to take his hand and shake it, but the naffer acted like a scared virgin at the sight of her first dick. Meh, I'll smoke him some other time.

The scene shifted to the dark, crowded interior of the Leaky Cauldron. A man in a purple turban appeared, looking flustered. Simultaneously, a trembling, stuttering Professor Quirrell materialized in the audience hall, his eyes wide with terror as he saw Voldemort sitting across the room.

"M-my L-Lord!" he stammered, before Jack gave him a calming look and gestured for him to sit.

The language used by the narrator caused another wave of disgust.

"Purple Stutter?" Professor McGonagall said, her lips a thin, disapproving line. "That is an abominable way to refer to a colleague, regardless of his... eventual allegiances."

"...scared virgin at the sight of her first dick," Fred read aloud, then dissolved into helpless giggles along with George.

"FREDERICK GIDEON WEASLEY!" Molly bellowed. "Do not repeat such filth!"

But the older members of the Order were looking at the screen with sharp, analytical eyes. "He tried to shake his hand," Moody growled, his magical eye spinning. "The boy—the imposter—knows. He knows Quirrell can't be touched."

Dumbledore nodded slowly. "He is using his foreknowledge, not for protection, but seemingly... to taunt. A very dangerous game."

Voldemort, for his part, looked intrigued. This new Potter was not the earnest, naive boy he remembered. This one was crude, arrogant, and possessed knowledge he shouldn't. This was a variable he had not accounted for.

Gringotts, I skimmed the graffiti, I've seen better poems on public restrooms. Griphook took us with the fun carts to my vault, this time I explored my vault for goodies that my parents could have left. At the pile of gold, I asked Griphook: "How am I supposed to carry this? It weights a ton."

A goblin with a pointed beard and intelligent, dark eyes appeared near Bill Weasley. It was Griphook. He looked around, assessed the situation with a cold, calculating gaze, and then turned his attention to the screen.

"Graffiti?" his voice was a low rasp, like stones grinding together. "The inscription over the doors of Gringotts is a sacred oath, a warning to all who would seek to cheat or steal from the goblin nation. To compare it to lavatory scrawlings is an insult of the highest order."

Bill Weasley, who had worked with goblins for years, winced. "He's not wrong. That's a diplomatic incident waiting to happen."

Griphook answered: "A mokeskin bag cost fifty Galleons Mr. Potter." I said: "And you happen to have one that I can buy?" the greedy ass grinned and said: "I have one for fifty-five Galleons." I grinned back: "For ten Galleon I will tell you something to prevent your bank to be embarrassed." Meh, the naffer didn't catch the bait. I filled my bag with a shit load of Galleons and moved back up. I kept my key though.

Griphook the goblin actually let out a dry, humorless chuckle. "The boy thought to blackmail a goblin? With knowledge of a future event? Foolish. Our contracts and wards are not bound by a single, linear progression of time. We would have known of the dragon long before it became a threat."

"He called you a greedy ass," Ron pointed out, then shrunk back a little under the goblin's cold stare.

"Many wizards do," Griphook said dismissively. "It is the cry of the debtor and the fool. His attempt at manipulation was clumsy and insulting."

Lucius Malfoy sniffed. "Attempting to haggle with a goblin is unwise. Attempting to blackmail one is suicide. The boy is a simpleton."

When we passed a store with trunks, I said to Hagrid: "Can I buy a trunk first, then I can store everything directly in my trunk. Hah! Manor trunk coming up!… fuck these are expensive, it takes five months at least, and are custom made. I settled with a five-compartment trunk, one has an apartment completely equipped, spelled with all bells and whistles, and a bottomless bag for my schoolbooks, I was set for seven years. Hagrid was already getting drunk in the leaky.

"A manor trunk for a first year?" Narcissa Malfoy said with a delicate shudder of distaste. "How utterly gauche. Such things are for established Heads of Houses, for travel, not for dragging one's school supplies around."

Arthur Weasley, however, was practically vibrating with excitement. "A five-compartment trunk! With a fully equipped apartment! Fascinating! I wonder what kind of spatial charms are used. Are they stable? What about atmospheric controls?"

"Hagrid!" McGonagall's sharp voice cut through Arthur's musings. "The text says you were 'getting drunk in the Leaky Cauldron' while a student in your charge was left to wander Diagon Alley alone!"

Hagrid had the decency to look ashamed. "I just had a couple o' pints, Professor! Jus' to steel me nerves! I wouldn' have... I didn't leave 'im for long."

"Long enough for him to purchase an unregulated, multi-dimensional magical artifact," she sniffed, making a mental note to review the protocols for introducing Muggle-raised students to their world.

I shrunk the trunk, hey that rimes! And went to Malkins for the robes. The blond ponce left the store when I arrived. Inside the store, I was the only client. A shop assistant came, and a half hour later I left with a complete wardrobe, muggle and wizarding alike. I made an excuse that I had a growth spurt, although that didn't fly, I am shrimp sized, but I think she could count my ribs.

Draco Malfoy's pale face flushed with indignant rage. "Ponce?! He dares call me a ponce?! My father will hear about this!"

"Your father is sitting right over there, Draco, and I believe he has more pressing concerns," Snape said dryly, gesturing vaguely towards the simmering Dark Lord.

A kindly looking, plump witch in mauve robes appeared. Madam Malkin. She read the text on the screen, and her cheerful face fell.

"Count his ribs?" she murmured, her voice filled with pity and professional concern. "Oh, that poor dear. No wonder he wanted a whole new wardrobe. Those Muggle clothes must have been hanging off him like sacks." She shot a venomous glare at the Dursleys, who pointedly ignored her.

The real Harry shifted uncomfortably. He remembered that day, meeting Draco for the first time, feeling poor and out of place. This imposter, however, seemed to carry an unshakeable, if abrasive, confidence.

The bookstore sold me the standard package for Hogwarts, and some more when I asked for the Slytherin supplement package. I browsed some more books about Household spells, etiquette, and the Noble Houses. Yes, I am seriously influenced by fan fiction… I hope Snape doesn't want to bugger me. That is a scary thought. Or Draco! In eighty percent of fan fiction starring him, he is gay or shagging Hermione.

The silence in the room was so complete, so absolute, that the soft hum of the magical lanterns sounded like a roar. Then, it shattered.

"WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?!"

Severus Snape was on his feet, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated fury. His usual sallow complexion was chalk-white, his black eyes burning with a homicidal light. The very air around him seemed to crackle with suppressed rage. The accusation was so vile, so utterly beyond the pale, that he was momentarily robbed of his usual eloquent venom.

"Severus would NEVER!" Lily Potter cried out, her own revulsion clear on her face. Even James, who loathed Snape with every fiber of his being, looked shocked and disgusted. "That's... that's just sick. Snivellus is a greasy git, but he's not... that."

Draco Malfoy looked like he was going to be physically ill. His face was green. "Me?! Gay?! And with... with her?!" He pointed a trembling finger at Hermione. "The filthy Mudblood?!"

"Don't you call her that!" Ron bellowed, jumping to his feet.

Hermione herself was frozen, her face a mixture of shock, confusion, and deep revulsion. "Shagging... me?" she whispered, horrified.

It was Jack who broke the tension, though his attempt only made things more surreal. "Ah. It appears we've stumbled upon the concepts of 'slash fiction' and 'shipping'."

He waved his hand, and the screen displayed a complicated diagram of character names connected by lines and little heart symbols. "In the fan world, 'shipping' is the act of wanting two characters to be in a romantic relationship. 'Slash' refers specifically to same-sex pairings. Apparently, in the stories this person has read, pairings of Snape/Harry and Draco/Hermione are... popular."

The explanation did not help. It was like explaining the finer points of gastronomy to a man being eaten by ants.

"So, in this person's world," Snape said, his voice lethally soft, each word a chip of ice, "there are deviants who write disgusting fantasies about me... and my students?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Jack said with a shrug. "People will ship anything with anything. It's a whole thing."

Snape slowly sat back down, a look of such profound loathing on his face that it seemed to etch new lines around his mouth. He looked like a man who had just peered into the deepest, most depraved abyss of human imagination and found his own name written on the walls.

Anyway, it is time to buy my wand. Again, cleaning charms have to be difficult going on the dust in that shop when I entered, I directly looked behind me, surprising him to find him out.

The scene changed to the dusty, narrow interior of Ollivanders. A venerable, white-haired man with pale, silvery eyes materialized in the audience. Garrick Ollivander. He surveyed the room with an unnerving, knowing gaze before focusing on the screen.

"Ah, the moment a wizard is truly born," he whispered, a hint of reverence in his voice. "When the wand chooses the wizard."

"He seems to think your shop is dirty," Tonks pointed out.

"Dust is not dirt," Ollivander said serenely. "It is history. It is the lingering particles of every wand, every wizard, every spell that has passed through those doors. Cleaning charms would erase that history. Unthinkable."

He said: "Ah Harry Potter, I was expecting you, I remember your mother had.." I tuned him out and explored the shop with interest, when I didn't hear a voice anymore I said: "One wand please." The old fossil was offended I did not listen to his speech.

Ollivander's serene expression tightened almost imperceptibly at the term 'old fossil'. "The story of a parent's wand is important context for the child," he stated coolly. "It speaks to lineage, to magical inheritance. To tune it out is to show disrespect not to me, but to his own mother."

Lily looked hurt. "My wand... it was ten and a quarter inches, swishy, made of willow. Good for charms." She smiled sadly. "I would have liked to tell him that myself."

He did the tape measure thing until I grabbed it away from my dingeling. I looked suspicious at him, is this creep a pedo? That started to give me different wands, twenty minutes later I asked: "Was there a point for that tape measure? I tried half your shop already!" At this point, he did not like me anymore, five minutes later I left with Voldemort's brother's wand.

The collective intake of breath at the accusation against the world's most respected wandmaker was sharp.

"A... a pedo?" Arthur Weasley stammered, horrified.

Ollivander's pale eyes widened in genuine shock and offense. "The tape measure is magically enchanted! It takes dozens of precise measurements—wand arm length, nostril width, the distance between the eyes! It has nothing to do with... with that crude slang!"

"He called your wand my 'brother's wand', My Lord," Bellatrix Lestrange hissed to Voldemort.

Voldemort's lipless mouth curved into a semblance of a smile. "He knows. The imposter knows everything. He understands the connection. This makes him far more interesting."

Harry remembered that moment, the awe and wonder of it. This person on the screen was turning it into a vulgar, transactional, and deeply disrespectful ordeal. The frustration of trying wand after wand was real, but his awe had never wavered. This imposter was just... bored. And rude.

I parted with: "Keep this a secret Mr. Olivander, even from the headmaster, agreed?" He sputtered: "Mr. Potter, he needs to know." I looked at him and returned the wand: "Is there another wand shop in the neighborhood? This one sells the secrets from his customers." He sighed: "You win Mr. Potter, I make a vow to keep it a secret."

The magical members of the audience reeled back in shock.

"He forced him to make a Vow?" Kingsley's voice was heavy with disbelief. "An Unbreakable Vow?"

"No, just a magical vow of secrecy," Ollivander clarified, though his expression was grim. "But to coerce a wandmaker into such a thing... it is a gross violation of trust. The bond between a wizard, his wand, and his wand's maker is a sacred one. This boy... this thing... has tainted it with threats and blackmail."

Dumbledore's face was unreadable. He knew he had asked Ollivander about the twin cores. This boy had, with crude but effective blackmail, cut off a vital line of inquiry. It was a disturbingly shrewd move from someone who otherwise acted like a buffoon.

The rest of the trip went like canon, when I passed Gringotts I went inside and changed some Galleons into Pounds. So when Hagrid put me on the train, I took one back at the first station. There is no way I'll go back there this month, so I made a call to Petunia: "Aunt, I'll stay in London, see you next year." I am happy, they are happy. At the Leaky Cauldron I rented a room until one September and asked Tom to keep it silent, I did not want to get mobbed.

"HE DID WHAT?!" Dumbledore's voice, for the first time, lost its calm. He stood up, his eyes flashing with a power that made the air hum. "He left the Dursleys? He broke the blood protection?! That arrogant, irresponsible little fool! He has willingly thrown away the single greatest defense he possesses, all for the sake of a month's comfort!"

The toothless, hunched form of Tom, the innkeeper of the Leaky Cauldron, appeared. He looked around, saw Dumbledore in a fury, and immediately wished he were somewhere else.

"The blood wards are gone," Lily whispered, clutching Harry's arm. "All that... all I did... for nothing."

"This person doesn't understand," Harry tried to soothe her, though his own heart was pounding with fear. "He just thinks it's a story. He doesn't get that the danger is real."

That month a scrawny kid did some more shopping, a Nimbus is a must-have, nutrient potions and growth potions, I let my eyes check out, a potion fixed it, so why… of course, the skinny kid needs to have glasses to look pitiful. I expanded my library with a book about occlumency and several about potions and herbology.

The screen showed a montage: the new Harry flying expertly on a state-of-the-art Nimbus 2000 over a deserted park, downing vials of thick, steaming potions, and then looking in a mirror. His ribs were less prominent, he stood an inch taller, and his eyes—his startlingly green eyes—were clear and sharp, without the familiar round glasses.

The sight was jarring. Everyone was so used to Harry's glasses that seeing him without them felt wrong, like a fundamental part of him had been erased. Harry himself reached up and touched the frame of his own spectacles, unsettled.

"A potion to fix his eyesight?" Madam Pomfrey, the Hogwarts matron who had also been summoned, huffed. "Possible, yes, but it requires a very delicate and complex series of brews. Not something a child should be procuring on their own! And growth potions can be dangerous if not administered correctly!"

"And occlumency," Snape murmured, his earlier fury giving way to a cold, analytical curiosity. "He is preparing to defend his mind. He knows about me. He knows about Dumbledore. And he knows about the Dark Lord. He is arming himself."

Magic theory, Wandless everything that looked interesting, and was mentioned a lot in fan fiction. I think I never studied that hard in my life. The potion regime let me grow a couple of inches and put some meat on my bones. I focused on household charms and hygiene charms. I am getting good at that.

The final image on the screen was of the new Harry, looking healthier and more confident, standing in his room at the Leaky Cauldron. He flicked his fingers, and a dirty sock floated into a laundry basket. He grinned, a self-satisfied, arrogant expression that looked utterly alien on that familiar face.

The screen went black.

<Chapter 1 End> was displayed for a moment, and then the lights in the hall slowly came back up.

The silence was deafening. Every single person in the room, from the Boy-Who-Lived to the Dark Lord, was processing the utter train wreck they had just witnessed.

Finally, Ron Weasley spoke, summing up the feelings of nearly everyone in the room.

"Bloody hell," he breathed. "What an absolute git."

AN: Link to the fanfiction here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14114818/1/Harry-Does-Canon-and-loves-it