A Study in Magic

Chapter 1: A New Role Model
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"Hey freak, you ready to play? I'll just go grab my friends." Dudley said as he waddled out the door.

School was finally over, but Harry couldn't catch a break. Dudley had decided to be a kind and caring soul today and warn Harry about the games he was going to forcibly partake in, before Dudley left to gather the rest of his gang. Harry Hunting: the preferred pastime of Dudley and his friends, and the least favorite time for Harry. He guessed that Dudley was still mad about the boa constrictor incident and bored without other kids to pick on too. Harry was sure that he was Dudley's favorite target.

Harry decided that he had to get out of the house. He had been trapped in the house before on previous occasions and none of them were pleasant; once they were joking about how Stonewall High had a tradition of dunking the new students heads into toilets, and since Dudley and Piers weren't going with Harry, they decided to fulfill the tradition on their own anyways. Getting out of the house, he at least had space to run around and try to evade Dudley's gang, though Harry wasn't sure how far he could run. He wasn't bursting with energy, considering that he was only given the bare minimum food to survive. He headed out to get a head start against his whale of a cousin.

Harry strolled down the street towards the playground, throwing constant looks behind him so he wouldn't be caught unawares. It was the only place he could think of immediately. There were a few kids running around and screaming when Harry got to the playground. He sat down on one of the swings and just lightly swung back and forth. One of the kids tripped and fell, scraping his knee against on the ground. Harry watched as the mother rushed and fussed over the lightly bleeding knee, he wondered if his parents had ever treated him like that or if Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon would ever do that for him. He doubted they would. He wished that he could be running around and enjoying the life these kids had without having to worry about Dudley ruining his day.

Speak of the devil, Harry noticed four people walking down the street. How could he have forgotten that Polkiss's house was in that direction. In an instant, Harry hopped of the swing set and set a brisk walking pace in the other direction, having already decided to not stick around for Dudley to notice him.

Too late.

Someone shouted something, Harry guess it was a whale belting out something, perhaps ordering his gang forward. Not wanting to find out what it actually was, Harry tore down the street taking random turns to try and shake them off his tail. By the time Harry was out of breath, his lungs on fire and his feet like jelly, he sneaked a quick peek behind him, noting that Dudley and his gang were just as out of breath. He had put some distance between them.

Despite being malnourished, Harry was thankful that Dudley was big and fat. He was also grateful that no one in their group was particularly athletic – who needed athleticism when they just beat people up and intimidated them, they had no one to run from. Harry had to hurry up and find someplace to rest though, he couldn't keep up running away forever.

Harry came around the corner of the street, panting hard and found himself by the library. A thought struck him, Dudley was big and stupid. There was no way he or his gang would be caught alive in a library. The very thought of books likely made Dudley's brain short-circuit.

Harry sucked in a lungful of air, hopefully this is the last bit he would need to run for a while. He exhausted most of his energy, but needed to get into the library quickly. He took off down the street again, and hoped that he could make it before Dudley's gang rounded the corner.

Harry entered the cool air-conditioned environment of the library, immediately greeted by the old paper book smell. Harry became acutely aware of how loud his breathing was, as the rest of the library was extremely quiet except for the occasional wrinkling of paper as someone turned a page in a book. Harry tried to calm his breathing, taking deep breaths and trying to slowly let it out. As his breathing came under control, Harry then noted that his heart seemed to be beating loud enough for others to hear; it was still pounding from the exertion of the run.

Harry briefly wondered that if Dudley and his gang had paused outside of the library, they might hear his heart beating traitorously loudly, announcing his presence in such a quiet environment. Harry decided that he wouldn't risk it and headed deep into the library, hoping to put as many bookshelves and books between him and door.

After Harry had sufficiently calmed down – and his breathing and heart rate were under control – he decided that he would stay in the library for a while. Surely Dudley and company would get bored if they couldn't find the Harry in Harry Hunting; they would have nothing to hunt. Harry decided to pull off a book from the shelf he was leaning against and went to find the nearest couch or chair to crash on.

His legs promptly melted from the heat they gave off themselves and Harry fell face first into the couch. With some twisting around and gingerly moving his non-responsive legs, he found a comfortable position and cracked open the book he was reading. He noted the title of the book The Complete Sherlock Holmes.

Harry found himself jolted out of the story hours later when the library announced that it was closing. Fascinated by this Sherlock Holmes, his powers of observation and skills of deduction, Harry imagined the possibilities if he had those skills. Running out of time today, Harry dreaded heading back home.

At least he was glad to have finished all of his chores earlier in the day, before taking off and hiding from Dudley, but knowing Uncle Vernon, he was still going to get punished for something. Perhaps it would be for being gone most of the day, or for not being around to entertain Dudley, or something as innocent as being alive.

It turned out that when he did get home he did get punished. Vernon was waiting for him, red-faced and spitting fire. It was his fault he missed out on dinner they said – "and for not cooking dinner boy! I expected you to have been home and for dinner to be waiting for us!" Harry got shoved into the cupboard and locked in, and given just a small piece of bread as his dinner.

-==SiM==-

Harry soon found himself in the library during all of his free time. The books scattered around him were on subjects all over the place: some were fiction, other Sherlock Holmes short stories or general criminal fiction, others were nonfiction, books on forensics and chemistry, books on anatomy and British law. His study had the added benefit of avoiding Dudley and his gang all the time now. He also made sure to complete his chores before running off to the library and always made sure to make it back in time to cook dinner.

To aid in his studying, Harry also practiced increasing his observational skills. It started small and simple, Harry watched where people placed things. Vernon usually left his car keys in the drawer of one of the kitchen cabinets. Dudley liked to sneak some snacks into his room and hide them behind his desk.

As the weeks progressed Harry also expanded his observations. Sometimes, when he knew Dudley and gang were too busy hanging out at one of their houses, Harry would sit on the swing in the playground and watch the kids and the parents, carefully noting their actions.

Harry watched the kids in the midst of their swing jumping contest. Harry watched as each kid swung as hard as they could before they jumped off. Harry was surprised that he hadn't heard any parent trying to stop the competition, as some of the kids were practically flying through the sky and landing on their hands knees. Most of the parents, as it turned out, were too busy chatting with each other to be carefully watching their children partake in dangerous competitions.

Harry caught snippets of their gossip, finding that it was a fantastic way of getting information, though not always useful information. The information today was a bit strange, they were talking about the strange visitor that Arabella Figg had. Harry perked up and listened more intently at the mention of his occasional babysitter. They reported that they saw a scrawny and poorly dressed man had showed up on the street and wandered up and down it a few times before Figg had come out and ushered him into the house. They said that he had quite a few scars on his face, ones that looked like a cat had attacked him.

Tuned out once the gossip started talking about more trivial things, Harry noticed that he was being observed by one of the fathers; the only parent present at the park not engaged in any of the idle gossip. Harry discretely observed him back, noting his physical features. He was clearly well built, he had dark brown hair, and was slightly taller than average; he was also constantly splitting his attention between Harry and a girl running around, with similarly dark brown hair and a similar facial structure – clearly his daughter. Harry thought he was familiar, perhaps he was there when Dudley chased him out of the playground last time?

Harry suddenly tensed when he noticed who was walking towards the playground again. Dudley. At least he was alone this time, Harry didn't really have to worry about outrunning the entire gang, Dudley: big and slow. Harry noticed out of the corner of his eye that the father had furrowed his brow and narrowed his eyes at Harry's reaction. He turned and saw Dudley approaching and snapped his head back to look at Harry.

Not looking forward to any confrontation, Harry slid out of the bench and started quickly walking towards the library. Hearing some raised voices behind him, he sneaked a glance behind him. He noticed the man had stood up in front of Dudley, blocking Dudley from heading towards Harry. Harry paused and watched the confrontation. He could make out Dudley making some hand gestures towards Harry, and trying to get around the man. The father stood his ground, his stance balanced and confident. He pulled something out of his back pocket, a glint of brass caught the sunlight – A police officer? Perhaps something else?

Dudley suddenly turned pale and quickly shook his head. He then turned around and hurried down the street. Harry didn't want to stick around either though. Dudley knew where he was, and he was sure that as soon as Harry let his guard down he would be onto him. Harry headed to the library started doing research on psychology, though he could barely focus on his reading. He wondered about the police officer – or was it a detective? A government official?

The officer gave him an idea. Harry decided to shelve his research on psychology for the day, and instead went through books on legal issues. He soon found an issue that could help him, child abuse. Maybe he could be taken away from Vernon and Petunia. Harry's excitement at getting rid of his Aunt and Uncle had the drawback of making him late to return home again.

-==SiM==-

"BOY! You missed dinner again!" Harry was greeted with Vernon's rage upon entering the house. "Skipping out on chores again are you? Well how about we lock you in your cupboard for a day?"

Harry shrunk away from Vernon, it would be a very unpleasant and boring if he was locked in the cupboard. Surprisingly, Aunt Petunia saved him from this fate. "We don't have to lock him in the cupboard all day."

"WHAT?" Vernon turned on Petunia instantly. Petunia flinched and shrunk away from Vernon.

"W-we co-could give him so-some more chores tomorrow?" Petunia stuttered out.

This seemed to quell some of Vernon's rage. His face slowly turning back to its normal color, the red fading out. "Very well. Boy, I expect the lawn to be perfect condition tomorrow. No weeds. Lawn mowed. Everything. Make sure the sitting room is clean too."

Harry just meekly nodded, not wanting to enrage Vernon again, and headed off to his cupboard. He thought about what Petunia had done. She had helped him. Harry started piecing together the bits of data. How Petunia was the one that usually handed him the bits of bread if he was locked in the cupboard or changing the punishment to something that he could stand. Harry always thought it was strange that Petunia would wear long sleeved shirts and dresses on some extremely hot days. Finally it came together, perhaps he wasn't the only one suffering in the house.

Harry went to sleep, slowly putting together a plan to get rid of Vernon. His thoughts swirled with what he read. Although he didn't quite understand most of the obscure legal terms yet, the book had made one thing very clear. This was clearly a crime, and Harry just needed to get evidence of it.

Authors Note:

So this begins the first multi-chapter story I'm posting here. This is also a response to Draynuy's Elementary my Dear Potter Challenge. So tell me what you like, what you hate, what you think I could do better with and the generally constructive things like that.

Also the title A Study in Magic is a direct reference to the first Sherlock Holmes book title, A Study in Scarlet. I should probably read that book at some point, but I'll start this now, since it is a Harry Potter story more so than a Sherlock Holmes story.

I'll be doing my best to update this weekly and the chapters will probably be slightly longer than this (depending on the time I have).