Story belongs to JK Rowling. That is all.

If there was one thing that Harry had kept from his time at the Dursleys', it was his survival instinct.

Not the scars, or the fear, or the loneliness. That had all been healed from the moment that he stepped into Hogwarts.

But even coming to the end of his second year, Harry's instincts were as spot-on as ever. He'd ignored the Mirror of Erised, knocked out the troll, reversed the spell on his flailing broom, rolled harmlessly onto the grass from a speed that most cars couldn't reach, blocked a curse from the monster that feasted on unicorn blood, picked the right potion to get him through the barrier, and slammed his hands into Quirrel's face to kill him, and that was all in the first year. The second involved a giant snake, a diary, a car with a bad attitude, an elf with an arguably worse attitude, his friend's sister, Lord Voldemort (again), gnomes, pixies, and a suspicious number of reflective surfaces.

And although he'd overcome all of that, when he looked back on it, he couldn't make heads or tails of how. How was it that he could suddenly cast shields that blocked blasting curses from Voldemort, weakened though he was? How could he speak to snakes without ever hearing anything but hissing just moments before? How could he cast a wingardium leviosa strong enough to pick up a magic-resistant, six foot tall, solid wood club?

Of course, that didn't matter right now. It was in the back of his mind all the time, but as tempting as it was to let his thoughts wander, he didn't want to miss any cues on such a deadly potion as-

Ah. He'd missed a cue while thinking about missing cues. How ironic. The potion, which should have turned pink with golden swirls after the addition of powdered kneazel claw, instead began fizzing, emitting a screech that he imagined was how mandrakes sounded.

Time seemed to slow down, and less caught by surprise this time, Harry finally had a chance to properly observe the effects that his intuitive state brought with it.

Harry felt... urgent, but calm at the same time. He didn't fear death, because he just knew that he wasn't going to die. It was preventable, and inexplicably, he knew exactly how.

That was what Harry truly feared. It wasn't the Whomping Willow, or Voldemort, or the killing curse itself. It was these strange moments of clarity, and the information that he pulled from who knew where. He was certain that he wasn't being manipulated, but how else could he possibly know everything that he seemed to during his calm moments?

Nonchalantly, almost lazily, Harry poured a tablespoon of salt into the brew. That was quickly followed by a dozen beetle eyes, three unicorn tail hairs, a bezoar and a slightly crumpled piece of parchment. Against all odds, the potion began to sort itself out. The bubbles were absorbed by the parchment, the screeching made way for silence, and the bezoar neutralised the noxious gas that had risen, all but unnoticed in the panic.

Harry sighed. He was beginning to wonder if it was actually possible for him to die. His instinct grew stronger the closer he became, and that even took into account things that he couldn't sense. If someone came up behind him and cast a silent killing curse, he'd be dodging before the spell left their wand. He wondered if his magic would force him to stop aging if he became close to dying of old age, but he put it out of his mind. There was no way to tell for quite a while, after all.

Ladling out a portion of the clear potion, Harry sighed at what he was about to do, before putting it to his lips-

And drinking what he hoped was a regular Polyjuice potion. It was worrying that he hadn't been forced to put a hair in; when he'd tried drinking Hermione's batch, he'd ended up throwing the vial to the other side of the room, so obviously it was fatal if you didn't choose a person to transform into.

Also obviously, he'd just drank a potion that wasn't what he'd been planning to make, and he had no idea of what effects it could have. And he was in the Chamber of Secrets, where he couldn't just walk to Madam Pomfrey. That was bad.

It could have been worse though. A reliable source told him that he wouldn't die, so he had that going for him. He was annoyed that his instinct only worked for actual death, though; if it was painful and irrevocably body-altering, but wouldn't actually kill him, his danger-sensing vanished and left him with a set of skills that, if he was honest with himself, he'd neglected in his ability's favour.

A sudden wave of pain in his chest, like he'd swallowed something big enough to push his lungs out of the way, informed Harry that the next few minutes were not going to be fun in the slightest.

He was right.

It was not fun.

He was also wrong.

Unless minutes could literally feel like days, he was very, very wrong.

"Tempus," Harry croaked the moment that he could use his magic to do anything but conjure water to keep him alive. His instinct had actually activated once or twice while he was down here, but thankfully hadn't gotten to the point where he moved of his own accord. Even if he wasn't in control at those moments, he could still feel all the pain that moving would have caused.

It took him a while to focus on the numbers floating in front of him. His eyes, already hampered by his incorrect prescription, refused to cooperate after the pain and sleeplessness of the past few days. After going cross-eyed a few times, though, he finally managed to see the date and time.

It didn't sink in for a while, but when it did, Harry swore and leapt to his feet, suddenly finding it easy to ignore the pain. Even so, he still wobbled. He held his hand out in front of him, grimacing as he realised that he was shivering uncontrollably. His legs were worst of all, forced to support him as they were. They felt numb, but the soles of his feet were tingling with pins and needles. He'd barely be able to get to the pipe leading to the bathroom, let alone climb it. Knowing that, he suddenly felt that the floor seemed very comfortable, so he sat down and waited for the weakness to pass.

It was another two hours before Harry's shivering stopped, and he tapped his foot on the floor in agitation. The Hogwarts Express must have left by now. He was alone in the castle, and he was certain that apart from the ghosts and the Hogwarts house elves - which he'd really only heard rumours of - there was nobody here.

Although speaking of house elves...

"Dobby," Harry whispered. His throat still felt stretched and raw. There was a small pop, a far cry from the whip-crack that Dobby's apparition had made last time and a sign that he was becoming healthier already, and Dobby was in front of him, eager to serve as he always was and dressed in an actual outfit now, a butler suit that covered his scrawny arms and made him almost seem like a small human. The beanie on his head and the mismatched socks on both his ears and feet threw off the image a little, but overall, Dobby had changed incredibly quickly from a self-harming slave to a happy hard worker.

"Harry Potter is needing Dobby, Harry Potter sir?" Dobby asked, then gasped as he saw his idol. "Ooh, you is not looking good, sir."

Harry chuckled weakly, shaking his head. "I'm fine, Dobby. Can you apparate through wards with a wizard?"

"Dobby is not knowing, sir," he replied immediately. "Wizards not often ask elfses for using magic. Apparition is not hurting Dobby or Harry Potter, but Dobby is not knowing if apparition will work until Dobby tries, sir."

Harry rubbed his chin thoughtfully, wondering where to go. "Assuming you could take me, how far would you be able to go?"

"Dobby can go with a wizard for all across England, great Harry Potter, sir! Dobby is powerful for a house elf!" Dobby puffed his chest out importantly as he said this, but one of his ear-socks drooped slightly, ruining the effect just a little bit.

Harry hummed in acknowledgement. "I would say Diagon Alley then, but I really shouldn't be there right now and I think people will notice me."

"But you is not looking like Harry Potter, sir! Nobody is knowing that Harry Potter has brown hair and brown eyes!" the excitable elf exclaimed, and Harry blanched.

"...At least I know what the potion did now," he muttered. In his experience, potions only had a single effect. Once the effect was found, it was only a matter of waiting the potion out, but looking like someone else was a boon in this case, one that he could use to his advantage."Dobby, could you take me to the Leaky Cauldron, and then take all my stuff from in here and my dorm, please?"

Dobby nodded, grasped Harry's wrist, and harry felt a sensation of... brightness, except in his whole body instead of just his eyes. Then he was standing in an empty bedroom, alone for a second before Dobby popped into existence next to him, setting down the trunk that really should have been too big for him to carry in the first place, along with the cauldron and potions kit. Harry pulled the invisibility cloak out of the trunk, placed the cauldron on top of it, the cloak on top of the entire structure and pushed it into a corner where it would be hidden properly.

"Thanks, Dobby, you're a real life saver," Harry said. Dobby beamed and gave a salute, before vanishing once more. Harry frowned and vowed to hold a proper conversation with him some time in the future. If anyone deserved friendship, it was the elf that had helped him (or at least tried) against his master's wishes.

Turning to the mirror, Harry sighed at his new appearance. He didn't look like anyone that he knew, and he still looked twelve. If he'd only looked around ten, perhaps he would have been able to pass himself off as a new Hogwarts student during his stay. It would be hard to explain away why nobody had seen him before without that excuse.

Harry glanced at his reflection again, hoping to take in exactly what had changed-

And stopped.

His mirror image showed the same shock that he did, but then he just shrugged. Somehow he looked younger now than he had a few minutes ago, and he estimated himself to be around ten. How curious, to borrow a certain wandmaker's words.

From that result alone, Harry concluded that the potion reacted to his thoughts, but he had to check, so he imagined himself with long hair instead of short. Suddenly, his hair was shoulder-length, and he grinned. The smile was almost wiped off his face when he realised that the Polyjuice's time limit should have worn off a long time ago, but he chalked it up to his screw-up and hoped that it would wear off at a time that wouldn't expose him.

For the next few minutes, Harry experimented with different hairstyles, heights, weights, facial structures, eyes and much more, but he still felt that he was missing something that would make his disguise more believable.

He wondered what he was missing. There was something about him that identified him as Harry Potter still, rather than some random kid. He rubbed his head in confusion, but then it came to him and he felt an urge to slap himself.

The kid's mannerisms were identical to his own. Harry wondered if he could remove them and add his own, and when he experimentally lifted his hand to his head again, the movement felt alien to him. Amazed at the convenience, Harry felt his spirits lift as he prepared for to create his own character, like he'd seen Dudley do so many time on the computer games that he played.

Harry couldn't think of a name. All the complex things he'd had to sort out, and he couldn't think of a name. It was very frustrating.

He was up to K in the alphabet now. That was mostly filled with alternative to all the C names, like Kallum, Kurtis, Kameron-

Actually, Kameron sounded nice. He wasn't exactly picky with names, and he could see himself answering to Kameron. A quick thought, and it suddenly felt much more natural to call himself Kameron. Kameron... He was an orphan, so no surname. Just Kameron.

He was ten years old, but scrawny for his age. He had fairly long, dull brown hair, swept to the side with no gel to look like it had barely been cut, and dark brown eyes. His skin was supposed to be olive, but it was a little sickly as he hadn't been in the sun for a while. He didn't wear glasses, but his left eye was slightly short sighted. He wore some clothes that Harry had bought the previous year but never gotten around to wearing, and while they were slightly large for him, they were nowhere near as bad as Dudley's castoffs.

As he looked, Harry raised his arms in front of him, before straightening them, wincing as they each made a loud cracking noise. He'd made many changes that the mirror couldn't convey. He was double jointed, and many of his joints tended to crack. He always put his weight on one foot, and would switch to the other when it got tired. He had a high pain threshold and was a little clumsy. He was unable to sit still for long periods of time and would jerk periodically, and the jerking increased when he was nervous.

Really, anything to set him apart from the legendary Harry Potter, anything that would usually be difficult, if not downright impossible to fake. He needed his own conditions, his own personality, problems, fears, likes, dislikes and who knew what else. But some of his likes had to overlap with Harry's. An interest in quidditch and a knack for flying. Some sweets. A preference to be alone, but a willingness to make friends. He wanted to be different, but he didn't want to be so different as to be suspicious.

There was a tap on the window, and Harry - or Kameron, he supposed - looked up to see someone very familiar. "Hedwig," he breathed, and opened the window to let her in. The moment she was inside, she nipped him between the fingers and held out her leg to him.

Kameron thought he recognised the envelope, and his suspicions proved true when he saw the Hogwarts wax seal on the back. He ripped it open, not even bothering to look at the address on the front, and unfolded the letter.

Dear Mr ,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As you have no magical relatives, and thus most likely do not know of magic, a professor will arrive on 30 July at noon to give a demonstration of magic and answer any questions you may have. If this date is inconvenient, please attach a letter to the leg of the owl that gave you this letter, stating a time and date.

Term begins on 1 September. The visiting professor will provide a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Yours Sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

Kameron numbly turned the envelope over in his hands.

Kameron ,

The third bedroom on the right,

The Leaky Cauldron

London

Boom, I did a thing. This story feels like I might actually continue it for a while.

Although that might be more likely if I get reviews. I like it when people give me ideas and point out inconsistencies. Wink wink nudge nudge and all that. In all seriousness though, I view the number (and quality) of reviews as an indicator of success rather than the number of favs and follows.