Reverse side, rearing a child in the Garden of Avalon

Chapter 1

It was around his 8th birthday when young Harry Potter had a tragic accident.

It was when his whale of a cousin and his band of friends ds where having a game of "Harry Hunt", which consisted in hunting and hitting the poor boy.

No one ever helped him in fear of his cousin Dudley's strength and his friends, the teachers did as teachers do and their bullying of him continued to happen unabated, it was further encouraged by his own parents in a bid to curb the "freakishness" off Harry

He didn't know what it meant, but he always said that it wasn't as he wanted to be born that way.

Locked away in a cupboard, treated as a subhuman thing, he wondered if his parents ever cared for him.

It was in the span of two weeks that it happened.

Dudley and his friends where off to hunt him and pummel him, but he decided to escape towards the rather large forest at the back of the school.

They gave chase, their desire to harm him was greater than their common sense as that place was deemed dangerous, talk about wild animals and the like.

As he ran as fast as he could he heard a whizzing sound and he felt pain.

Dudley was cheering, he managed to shot Harry's head with a slingshot he had begged his father for and now he was bleeding.

His eyes begun to blur and a single misstep made him fall down to a crevice.

They looked for him to continue beating on him but could not find him, there was a huge crevice where he could have felt but the kids decided to tell a lie and got their stories straight

The media was all over it, however Dudley and his friends lied to them all and spun a tale on where he had been looking for his cousins and found the trail by accident.

His father was so proud of his boy, even if he knew that it was a lie. No more Harry meant no more freakishness in his house.

There was a lot attention and trying to find the boy, but after the 3rd week they gave up.

Elsewhere

A young looking man opened his eyes, a foreign force had entered this self imposed exile of his (to be fair, it was more like running away from someone who wanted him dead), curious as to what had happened he used his own innate ability and blinked in surprise.

"well… isn't this a strange turns of events" he muttered with a playful smirk as he made his way from his tower down to the garden.

As he walked down the boy in question was still not moving "Oh dear, that looks dangerous, better fix that for you then" the injury healed itself as if time had gone back, the man then made the body levitate with flowers created with his power as he went back up his tower "Sorry, but I only like to touch women" he said apologetically to the young boy, still out.

Harry woke up, startled, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, on his chest was a strange creature, it was akin to a squirrel, yet it was too big to be one, like a Chihuahua, the creature stared at him intently.

"Fou fou fou!" it cried out.

"yes, yes… I hear you ya damn pest, you know you should be grateful as I been caring for you yet you are such a fouled beast" Merlin said. The creature stared at him with a flat stare.

"Ah yes, hello there, it seems you have woken up, you had a rather nasty accident… only… it wasn't quite as accidental as one might think, was it not?" the man said with a look that seemed to know.

"Uh… who are you?" Harry asked.

"Ah yes, introductions, I haven't done one in a while and considering the era we are in… well I am called Myrddin Wyllt, at your service" he said with a flourish.

Harry noticed the strange attire he was wearing, and noticed the staff he held. "Ah… my name is Harry Potter" he said.

"Ah yes, I have known of you, but what I had not know is, what matter of magic did you use to enter this realm of mine?" Myrddin asked.

"w-what do you mean?" Harry asked.

"well this is a realm outside humanity, the 'Reverse side' so to speak, humans, even ones of magic as yourself, should not be able to enter this place, let alone this garden" Myrddin said.

"Wh…what garden is this?"

"You could say is a… special gardens of apples of sort" Myrddin said with a smirk.

The creature jumped on his shoulder and started smacking him with his little paws.

"Is that so… but how… wait… ones of magic? What do you mean?"

"You mean you don't know? Uhmm this is rather problematic, Ah… I see, your entering here was truly accidental, even if the reason you done so is not, it seems that when you got injured your magic went wild. In an attempt to shield you from harm it used a small fairy ring to connect to this here garden, I have to say, the probabilities of landing here is astronomical, you could have landed in the Unseelie court instead, now THAT would not been fun, not at all, anyways allow this magus to at least lift your veil of ignorance that had been forced upon you"

With that said Myrddin begun to tell Harry his whole life, about his parents, what happened to them.

To say he was shocked was an understatement, he now understood the reason he was treated so badly as well. Jealousy… envy.

"Ah yes… humans, they can be the most beautiful of roses or the most obstinate and ugly of weeds" he said with a forlorn sigh.

It was then when he gotten an idea.

In this tower he could only observe, and while entertaining it got boring really fast, now he had a prime opportunity to mess with humanity once more, albeit indirectly. He had nothing to do and time was still in this realm, he could also unload this troublesome beast as well too as an added bonus. Probably should get a laptop or something, he heard about something called 'Virtual Idols', sounded interesting and thought of doing so in the future.

Let it be known that he was a man that adapted and accepted the change of times, unlike most magus, he found utility in modern things, why use an abacus when a calculator was WAY better?

With the idea made, he grinned. "Say, boy… would you care to stay here and learn from me?, don't worry much about time, as years can go by and you wont age, yet time will slowly creep in your world, you may leave forever and go back and find only months have passed, what say you? Is not like you will have a warm welcome at home from what we both know" Myrddin said.

The strange creature begun to hit him harder.

"Ouch ouch… yeah.. I get it that was insensitive but there is no need to hit me like that Cath Palug!"

The creature stared at him with contempt.

Having no real reasons to deny, he accepted.

"This magus of flowers will teach you all he can, as I am knowledgeable in all things, there are however, certain magics I don't know, not because of not learning, but rather that I have no need for them, I shall endeavor to teach you things that will be useful and practical and later, once I taught you all I can, you will develop your own brand, your personal magic, it will be hard, and painful, but you will succeed as you have me as your teacher" he said puffing his chest.

It was then when he had gotten his first, last and only student.

He explained that the brand of magic he used was different from what he, Harry, would eventually learn, the first step was to awaken his circuits, due to his relative young age having then open now would be quite a boon as most would start 2 years later, it was a painful experience but he bared with it, slowly, Myrddin begun to enhance them, by having his Od enter Harry's circuits and widening them, due to then being relative young they had elasticity, making them larger and able to effectively contain more Od, he also strengthened them so they could handle considerably more prana and convert them into Od.

He then begun teaching him how the magic he would learn with him worked, the thaumaturgy system.

"Words have power, as words interface with the brain, to use magecraft you must convince yourself that what you are doing is possible and enforce that into the world, obviously the world will detect the error between itself and your will and will try to erode it, however once you go back, where you come from, such erosion does not exist, but you just still convince yourself that what you want to do is possible, then use your Od, that is your internal power, and use it as fuel to enact the effect, what you can do with magecraft is basically the same you can do with modern stuff, for example to make a ball of fire you can use a can of hair spray and a lighter, or to shock someone you can use a taser, magecraft just recreates the effects using time and power what could be done with science, then there is True Magic, also considered miracles, those are things that cannot be taught, you must either be born with it, or be lucky enough to unlock it, either scenario is rather unlikely, it is also something that can't be replicated with science regardless of time, money and effort, otherwise it would stop being a True Magic" he explained.

"Like… in the middle ages flying was considered a True Magic, until the invention of the plane?" Harry asked.

"CORRECT! Magecraft has a rather glaring weakness, can you guess what it is?"Myrddin asked.

"is it… something to do with its name?" Harry said a but unsure.

"Not bad, that is correct, thaumaturgy means wonder working, therefore the magecraft is strongest the less people know of it, it cuts down its effectiveness and power, however you don't have to worry once you are back, the rules where you are from differ from where I am, however do try to not show off too much" he said with a smirk.

The practical part was hard, the ability to concentrate single mindedly on the effect of his magic was troublesome due to him being a child, but he soldiered on and managed to make progress, he then was told to find his trigger, a way to switch his circuits on with a mental image, but he found it, it was a but macabre but it worked.

A green sickly light and the scream of a woman.

Myrddin said nothing of it, as he did not said who and how his parents were killed. Still, to use that as a trigger meant that even should he be attacked by using his fear… it would only strengthen his concentration and power.

Time(?) passed by and Myrddin said to young Harry that he had no longer anything to teach.

"I must say this feels kind of awkward, what us this feeling I have in my chest?" he said to himself.

"Maybe… could it be you might be proud for me?"

Myrddin looked at him and thought, since he never had such thing happen, he decided that it might just be the case.

"Well, since this will be the end of this, I have this to give you, it's an Azoth blade, a mystic code, so to speak that will help you, now that you know what your element and origin lies, however this one is a bit special, you will find out later, also, since you will start school at the magical place you are going, you will require a familiar, so I thought that I could take chance to get rid off… I mean, allow a certain beast to have fun in the human world." He said as Fou started to punch him with a lot of speed and ferociousness. He did not like the fact he had no say in the matter.

With a wave of his staff he used his incredible power to tear a small hole in the realm, just enough for young Harry to snuggly fit trough alongside with Fou, the strange creature that was forced to him.

To be honest Fou held no enmity against Harry, quite the opposite, he took upon him quite easily, much to Myrddin's chagrin, even if he was Harry's familiar that idiot should known better than to leave Beast IV "Primate Murder" into the world of man.

For Harry, more than 10 years have passed, even if his body had not aged by a single day, yet only a mere month had transpired since his disappearance.

He was found near Union Chapel by a constable on patrol. This merit made him be ascended by sheer luck and the news where over the story as Harry was now on every telly in the UK.

Vernon was not happy at all, thinking that the freak had finally gone for good, but what happened next horrified him.

When the constable had found Harry, he had taken him to the nearest station and due to him being the one to find him he was also the one to be in an interview and find what had happened.

Harry said all the things that the Dursley's done to him, the sheer sheen of cold sweat at hearing all the emotional and psychological wounds that had been inflicted on this poor boy, to say nothing of the physical abuse, he had to first collaborate said story, but his gut told him that he was going to see such thing.

When the constable, along with some blokes from the department of education (also in charge of child services) came to corroborate Harry's story found said cupboard, it had been sealed off with plaster, but one of the detectives had keen sight and saw the ever so slight imperfection of said wall.

Vernon was livid and shouted to the officers to leave his house while his wife Petunia screamed as a struck pig, Dudley could not understand what was going on, it a was later that both Vernon and Petunia were found guilty of child enlargement, abuse and a long list of other crimes, Dudley, while being a minor would be send to a correctional institute to fix his mentality, as the officers had went to the school and got more in depth information from the children there and got a clearer picture. The boy was nothing but a bully, mostly due to his father encouraging this behavior, it seems as if Vernon and Petunia saw something wrong in Harry and wished it to stamp it out, however the psychologists could see nothing wrong with Harry's personality and mentality, when asked they remained tight lipped, they knew something but they did not want to accept it, to declare it would be as accepting it and would not allow such thing to stain them.

They where to be locked up and Harry would be send to an orphanage.

It was then when he did as Myrddin said.

Activating his circuits he used hypnosis and made the officers and doctors release him and forget about him, but not the crimes done upon him, the Dursley's had to pay, else they would not learn.

Myrddin had given him a plethora of gifts before his parting, besides the Azoth blade.

He arrived to his destination, it was a huge mansion that Myrddin had long time ago, well it was more like a small castle made of stone but it was rather large.

It was about an hour walk from the city of Cornwall "it has many dear and bittersweet memories" he said.

Inside he found his master's old workshop and some scrolls that contained letters addressed to him… however the name was…

Merlin the Wizard.

He… he had learned from the most famous magic user in all recorded history! But it was also a bit disappointing. As he found out that he was easygoing and a complete womanizer, not to mention that he was an incubus half breed, which kinda explained his womanizer tendencies, but not really, he was like that by nature and enjoyed doing so, caused a no small amount of grief to Arthur and his knights… speaking of which, did history got it wrong and Arthur was actually a woman in disguise?

Fou sighed and gently patted Harry, he nodded, he had a lot to unpack.

Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and magic

Albus Dumbledore was at a right loss, the blood wards tied to Harry had collapsed, meaning that either the boy had perished or…

Trying to get to the bottom of it he apparated at Prived Drive and went to see what had happened, it was Arabella Fig, a Squib he had planted there to monitor young Harry that told him what had happened.

He was horrified, Harry had gone missing for nearly a month?! He knew that the Dursleys would treat him badly, hell, he counted on it, in order to have Harry be more malleable once he found magic being real and could groom him as the next symbol of the light, he never would have thought them, however, to just abandon him once he went missing. Things however became good for a while when news of Potter being found, however he had left just seconds after he apparated in the station, when he tried finding more information, none of the cops could remember him, paperwork vanished and even the Dursleys were no help as Vernon wanted to just throttle Dumbledore for ruining his life by leaving that freak of nature.

Harry had vanished and the only way to find him again was once he became of age to go to school, it would be certainly hard to try to find a single boy in the entirety of the United Kingdom, regardless of how famous he is.

He knew he done goofed, as the Yanks say.

In his desire to have a symbol of the light, he had put a small child trough a living hell, he was quite sure that even if his desire for good was wgat drove him, the consequences of it have more than surely condemned him to the depths of Hell.

In another plane of reality

A rather dapper gentleman with long dark hair walked down a hallway, following a rather old gentleman who looked rather strong and sturdy, to those who did not know, the older gent was a rather (in)famous character in this place of learning.

The wizard Marshall Zelretch.

The one by his side was also a rather famous professor, 'Great Big Ben London star' , 'Proffessor Charisma', among a lot other ridiculous titles made by one of his students. His name is Waver Velvet, now known as Lord El-Melloi II, a prominent lecturer whose ability to drag the potential off his students made him famous among the school, much to the chagrin of the other Lords, due to his lowest rank and the youngest to date.

"Lord El-Melloi, I have a request to make of you" Zelretch said to him.

Waver sighed "Please… add 'II' to the name, for it is a name to heavy to bear" he said.

Zelretch chuckled. "So… Waver-kun, about that favor"

He put his hand up "I must stop you right there, knowing you it will be either something crazy, deadly or insane, or, even worst, a combination of any or all, so I must decline" he said.

"But that wont do, honored big brother" a girlish voice said.

Waver groaned in despair, of all the people.

"I have already accepted for you, so there is no need to get your agreement, he simply decided to ask you because he thought you deserved to have an illusion of a choice, that and what your reaction would be much to my delight" she said with a tender smile.

The young girl is Reines, the current head of the El-Melloi family, well technically Waver is, but he is doing so as a place holder till she becomes of age.

He sighed "what do you need?"

"There is something of a particular singularity in another reality, I will need you and your assistant to go and investigate said singularity and see if it could endanger us" Zelretch said.

Waver sighed.

"If this is a set-up to one of your pranks…"

"Its not dear older brother, he is rather serious"

"Since I have no choice and I will ne going to an alternate reality, can I at least count on funds for my stay and that of my disciple

"Don't worry about the money, I will cover all expenses, as they have the same currency, the place is in a little town, to be precise, the same town your cute little disciple is from" Zelretch said with a smirk.

"I see, Gray, come in here… we are going on… a little trip"

Chapter end