Chapter 4 - This Story Needs More Transition... and Dialogue

October 10th, 1982 – Number 4, Privet Drive

For the next year or so, Harry devoted every waking moment to talking, moving or meditating. Talking had come fastest to him, as the mouth was such a crucial part of the anatomy. He was talking easily within a month, although he didn't let his relatives find out until after his second birthday.

He tried his hardest every day to regain more of his motor skills. It took him nearly three months to be able to walk around steadily. It took him another three to grasp the art of holding things. Although he was making progress, Harry wasn't content to wait for his muscles to recover. Harry spent his time recovering each day looking into a mirror Rose held, learning to change the color and shape of his eyes and the length and color of his hair. That was pretty much as far as he went for now. Harry didn't want to lose his sense of self by getting too good at assuming other forms.

Aside from working on his motor skills and morphing abilities, Harry spent the last part of every night meditating. Rose claimed it would help him with both Occlumency and other types of magic later on.

Harry came to find out that while Snape was right on claiming that the Legilimens spell was not made for simple mind reading, he lied outright on the mechanics of both Legilimency and Occlumency. Occlumency was not simply clearing one's mind of anything in it. That wasn't even the first stage in centering of their mind; it was more like third. One started by learning to attain inner peace. From there, one begins learning to focus on a single thought or idea, and then on nothing at all. After all that came building defenses to stop the intruder. While Rose claimed that a vault-styled structure - Snape's style - could be the most secure, she believed it would also be the most impractical. It did absolutely nothing beyond protecting the mind, and Occlumency was capable of so much more.

Snape's method - properly taught, of course - actually was optimal for the situation Harry had found himself in Fifth Year. He needed a quick and dirty defense. That is all Snape's style is good for: an initial defense. This time, however, Harry had all the time he could want to build a true defense: a mindscape. The reason Snape's spell just brought forth a jumble memories was because that was what Harry's mind was at the time - a series of memories floating in an endless dark space. The events of his life since Halloween of '81 had torn away any stable image it had conjured up. Harry would have to rebuild it from the ground up, but first he needed to find his center.

Flashback – May 1982

Harry had worked for the better half of a year trying to find it. For the first few weeks, it was simply a good way to fall back asleep. Later, he had been able to enter the dark expanse that was his mind. Small motes of light flitted about at the edge of his consciousness, drifting either outward into nothingness or gravitating toward a mass of lights at the center of it all. Harry was sure this was the center. He had made excellent progress over the past few weeks, and today Harry thought he would finally reach his goal.

Just as he always did, Harry gradually fed all of his thoughts into a flame, feeding it until all excess thought burned away and left him with a void. He dove in, rising faster and faster towards the mass of light at his core. Harry instinctively rubbed at his eyes as it seemed to grow brighter, even though it couldn't damage his eyes. When he was finally close enough to touch it, Harry pulled out of his mind.

"Rose? Hey Rose, I think I found my center," Harry said as he came out of his meditation.

Rose, who had been enjoying her guilty pleasure of watching Harry sleep - he was absolutely too cute - perked up. "Really? What did it look like? How long did it take you to find it?"

Harry scrunched up his face - 'oh Harry you are far too cute' - before his face lit up with an answer. "It looked kind of like a Rasengan - a ball of swirling energy with bands of it moving in hundreds of different directions. The thing is, the closer I got, the bigger it seemed. When I got close enough to touch it, it was probably as big as Hogwarts. There were thousands of little lights moving among the bands of energy, too."

"Well the size of it suggests that your magic from the last time through was brought back with you. It also means that your magic did in fact grow rather than fully breaking Dumbledore's binding. You'll need to get inside that ball if you want to create a mindscape. If your magic was calmer, I would recommend using it as a base to build around, but with the core working against itself like that, it would tear apart any stable representation. You could replicate for a shield later, though."

Harry smiled - 'oh, Harry, you adorable little thing, what am I going to do with you?' - as he thought of Riddle's mind touching the shield and getting shredded into little pieces.

"Okay Harry, I want you to work on getting to your mindscape faster and faster. You'll basically be performing the Legilimens spell on yourself after enough time. When you can get there in under a minute, we'll start working on building your mindscape and invading other minds." Rose paused to gather her thoughts. "Depending on how the Dursleys act, they may or may not become test dummies. It will only get faster with practice. By the time you have mastered the art of Occlumency and Legilimency, you will be able to enter your mind or another's at a moment's notice."

Flackback End

So Harry spent the next two months working almost solely on meditation. By the time he had it down to under a minute, Harry was very much ready to move on to the next stage. He had become more familiar with the view of his self, and it had allowed him to pick out tiny bits of color swirling about in that vortex of power. He had even come across a few memories of his parents from before the night he died.

Those nights he was often up hiccuping and sniffling as he tried to keep in the years of longing for a family. Rose had rocked him to sleep, something he would forever love her for. It had been pretty hard on him the first few times, but Harry was gradually learning to treasure these memories. By the time he was ready to move on, Rose had become much closer to her 'little big brother'.

It was a few weeks into his mental speed exercises that Rose finally approved of Harry moving forward in the mind arts. She had decided to explain the next step.

Flashback – August 1982

"Alright Harry, you've shown me that you can reach your mind quickly enough to be practical, so here we go. I want you to go find that ball. When you get there, go into it and travel to the center of it all. From there, you need to push all but the very center of that vortex out. That part should be more like a ball of water suspended in midair, so it will be more stable. Focus really hard on only pushing away the magic; you want to leave the memories behind so we can go through them. This part will probably take you a while, as the magic won't want to stay a shell like that."

Harry nodded, going into his mindscape. It was the work of about a minute to reach his core. From there he attempted to enter his magic. It wasn't easy – Harry hadn't expected it to be easy – and he had to make several attempts to push himself like a probe into the 'swirling vortex of terror' that was his magical core.

Once inside, Harry fought to maintain a steady progress towards the center of his core. The magic was attempting to push him out, and in a bout of frustration Harry had wrenched that magic to a halt with his will alone. For a few moments, Harry was treated to the wondrous site of thousands of rippling channels of magic and shining motes of memories floating tranquilly about him.

Losing focus of his intent, Harry was brutally reminded that his magic wasn't in a state of calm at the moment. In a heartbeat, the mental probe was violently thrust away from the center of Harry's magic and into consciousness. He awoke with a gasp, which Rose found adorable.

'Well, that was strange.' At Rose's look, Harry expounded. 'I did what you said about trying to reach the center. I was almost there, but I was getting really frustrated because the magic would beat me around. Finally, I just sort of grabbed the magic and forced it to slow down so I could move easier, and it just… did. It was amazingly beautiful. There were all these little lights for my memories, and the magic was all flowing in these rivers that looked like water in zero gravity. Of course, I lost focus at that point and my own magic kicked me out.'

Rose laughed at Harry's last comment. "Oh, Harry, only you could be so disagreeable that even your own magic didn't want to have you around for too long. Don't worry, I'm sure it'll come around if you give it time. I m-mean it's n-not like it's-"

Rose was unable to get any farther, laughing at the image she had conjured up. Harry just grumbled.

Flashback End

She was right; it took Harry two weeks of continuous meditation just to get the magic to stay where he wanted it, and he would still have to check it every day to make sure that it didn't start to revert and ruin whatever organization he might achieve after creating an eye in the storm. Rose said that most of the difficulty came from the spell binding his magic. It wanted to keep it compact, as it was easier to keep the magic bound that way. She explained that when he finally got full control of all his magic and broke the binding, he would be capable of using it in greater ways than anyone else.

When he had gotten the shell relatively stable, the two continued the exercises. Practicing the Legilimens spell would have to wait, as the Dursleys behavior had indeed remained acceptable. Thus, they were continuing his Occlumency exercises to start building his mindscape. Harry recalled her advice

"Okay, Harry, I want you to start going through the memories you have and sort them. You can use whatever representation you want, so long as it makes sense to you. You could have flocks of snidgets flying around, with each flock being a specific subject. You could use doors to represent specific memories. Hell, you could just do it simple and have them in books of you wanted. The point is that it is your mind - you can do whatever you want or need to within it."

Harry had ended up using several ideas. Fact-based knowledge was placed in books and put on shelves according to subject. People were represented by a single animal or by groupings of various small creatures. Hermione was an owl, while Neville was a horse. By placing them in a single representation, any invader would have to know precisely what they were looking for to separate out from the rest. For others, it was better to separate out into smaller pieces that would be hard to grasp. Luna was represented by a swarm of Blibbering Humdingers - or at least Harry's best approximation of one - while Malfoy was a cloud of gnats.

Skills of various kinds, such as flying our making potions, were done differently. Harry wasn't sure why he did this at first, but Rose assured him it would be useful later on. Each skill was represented by something Harry associated with that particular skill or task. For potions it was a cauldron, and flying was his Firebolt. Others were made less obvious. English was stored in a dictionary, but apparating was stored in one of the many orbs of light used to illuminate his mindscape.

The final elements of his mindscape were his emotions. He hid these within colors. By doing this, Harry hoped that anyone skilled enough to traverse a mindscape rather than simply peruse memories would become disoriented by the constantly shifting emotions as they perused his mindscape. Harry made it into a sort of passive defense that could be dampened when he was in his mindscape.

By the end of that first year, Harry had made some impressive headway on his shields and finished working on the morphing skills he wanted to learn before the Dursleys and local kids started paying more attention to him. He would keep on working on those until it was instantaneous, but the ability to grow his nails out slowly would certainly be intimidating. He would be waiting until the numbing charm was perfected before trying any Wolverine-esque changes... or until he was able to open a channel in his tissues to let it through. It would look awesome when he had it down.

For the moment, Rose had decided that Harry's metamorph powers and Occlumency had progressed as far as they needed to. He would still have to work on them, but given the amount of time he had at his disposal, Harry could stand to put them to the side to get some more basic skills so he could expand the skillset on his own.

"Okay Harry, I think it's about time we started working on your fine motor skills. We'll start with some basic things - picking up a ball, holding a stick, and using utensils. Once you have that down, we'll start working on using your magic."

Harry looked up at her with wonder, very eager to start in on the experiments he had in mind. While most of it was based off manga that he had read, Harry saw no reason that it couldn't work. This was magic after all - it allowed for unicorns, dragons and dementors. Adapting magic to work like chakra or reishi or even the Force was hardly outside the realm of possibility given all that. Harry had actually put the question to Rose and got a surprising answer.

"Okay, Harry, let's picture the energies like this. The Christian bible talks about existence in incredibly accurate terms - there is a mind, a body and a spirit. Now chakra is a combination of the energies of the mind and body, while magic comes from the spirit. That's why you can see the spirit at all when a dementor sucks it out. You are seeing the magical energy radiating off of it, not the spirit itself. That's beyond any mortal being, as it should be."

"The Force, as you call it, could be equated with Natural energy from the Naruto world; it is ambient magic. You can learn to channel it, but it has been made the hardest of the three, as it has the most potential for abuse. Those with the Sight are naturally in tune with nature's energy, but anyone can learn. You have a touch of the Sight as well as the Weasley family, but theirs manifests in offhand comments that foreshadow a future event, what authors call Foreshadowing. The twins story about wrestling a troll and Ron's offhand predictions for Divination in Third Year are two good examples."

"Reishi is a bit more complex. It is the energy of the soul and the dead, much like magic, only more potent. You have some potential to use it, but it will be very difficult, and you'll never be on the level of those characters in Bleach. The only reason you could have any access is because you became the Master of the Deathly Hallows. They actually do allow for a connection with Death, but they don't make you the Master of Death itself. That would be foolish in the extreme to hand over to any mortal. No, that is simply mortals taking a story and blowing it so out of proportion that even the 'original' story has a bit of myth to it."

"All of this being said, it is quite plausible for you to learn the skills the characters employed. While you will learn to use magic without a wand, it would be very profitable to look into these other energies as well. They could be a key to future victories, especially in Second and Fourth year."

"Now, given the fact that I have given you a book capable of providing any information you desire, get cracking! I expect you to learn at least three different types of martial arts by the time you get to Hogwarts. You have the time and you won't have much else to do."

March 1st, 1984 - Harry's Room

Harry sighed as Dudley threw yet another toy his way. That was the third one today! It was going to be hard to keep this from the elder Dursleys if Dudley got any faster at breaking things. If Harry didn't know better - and he actually didn't - he would say the little blonde beach ball did it on purpose just to watch Harry put them back together.

It had been nearly a month since Harry had taken down the mugger in London, and he could honestly say that he had never been so shocked in his life. Since saving the Dursleys from near certain death, Harry had not only gotten as much food as he needed but also been allowed to play as often as he wanted. While it was a bit of a let down to discover that the action figures weren't as fun to play with by themselves, it had afforded Harry a new way to amuse himself.

Any time Dudley broke a toy when the Dursleys weren't looking, Harry would take it and put it back together. Given the number of times Dudley tried to break something, Harry had gained more than enough materials to practice with. Harry had a goal in all of this. It was said that transfiguring complex items like watches was impossible due to the amount of detail that went into it. Harry wanted to see if he could pull it off. His theory was that most wizards simply didn't have the knowledge to actually make it happen. Thus he was using this time to gain some hands-on learning about moving parts.

He had progressed from action figures with shoulder joints to toy birds with wings that flapped using a set of gears. Harry's eventual goal was to be able to create and assemble the parts of a grandfather clock and - if possible - an automobile. He figured if he could accomplish these things, any moving part he could imagine he could make.

Because transfiguration was so visualization-heavy, Harry wanted to gain as perfect an understanding as possible. His studies into chemistry were helping him with the details he couldn't see, so this should help him with those he could. Harry wanted to see if a better understanding of what happened would allow him to perform transfiguration a with more ease like Dumbledore did in his duels.

He also wanted to test if he could create spells that performed pure shape manipulation of present materials. He thought that if you could do this instead of transfigure where possible, the spell would be permanent. The only spells that could remain permanent that he knew of were powerful enchantments set in runes and the animagus transformation due to the innate nature of the animal used. Transfiguration spells could be reversed because they overwrote reality, but a shape manipulation spell might need a counter-spell specific to it. It would be a terrific boon in the engineering- and architecture-style projects he had in mind.

Aside from that, he had also done his level best to keep Dudley's crying to a minimum. That didn't mean he always indulged the brat; sometimes he covered the toddler's mouth and let him shriek as much as he wanted, biting and licking be damned. Eventually, Dudley stopped trying to always cry to get what he wanted, seeing as how it didn't work. Instead, he conveyed to Harry what he wanted and Harry told Petunia. This had earned Harry many a smile from the oft-stressed woman - what she had to be stressed about Harry couldn't imagine.

Time Skip - Two and a Half Years Later

It had been a long time since Harry had been in primary school. For him, sitting in class was probably going to be an exercise in patience. It was fortunate he still had things he could practice while sitting still - levitating objects with magic, practicing the Legilimens spell, getting a feel for chakra, and other such subtle endeavors.

Over the years he had worked on his physical abilities, knowing school would limit his time. He had focused on handwriting and martial arts. Having already learned akido, jujitsu, karate and kung fu the last time through, Harry had put a lot of time into perfecting the moves in his smaller body. Next would be muay thai and thai kwan do. After that he would probably finish it with capoeira and parkour.

He had looked up the forms from the The Book - Harry believed its capabilities deserved capital letters and was sure Hermione would agree - that Rose had given him. Harry had been ecstatic to find that The Book was able to provide the forms for the Leaf Style and the Frog Style as well as any of the styles of his world. Both had seemed quite formidable in the series, and Harry was eager to put them into practice. They would be his final styles. Harry hoped to be finished learning the basic firms by the time he was going to Hogwarts. There, he would test the Room of Requirement to see if it was capable of reproducing Gai or Pa Toad. If he could train his body like Gai did, Harry would never have to fear magical creatures again.

If the forms excited him, the exercises to learn direct manipulation of magic, chakra and the Force had caused him to almost pass out. For nearly an hour afterwards, Harry was unable to stop smiling and bouncing around, even when his uncle had looked very oddly at him. Dudley had thought his behavior was hilarious and decided to follow his crazy cousin around.

Now it was time for Harry's first day at school, and he was silently amazed at the changes he had wrought. A bout of accidental magic had allowed him to send out Prongs to the Longitude and warn them to get out in time. He had found out at the end of last year that they had escaped and believed that James Potter had saved them from beyond the grave. It was his voice that Frank still swore he had heard telling him to 'take Neville and run'. A quick message to Moody and Dumbledore had seen the Lestranges and their partners caught in the act. The Legend of James was born.

Harry was very pleased with himself for saving Neville from that life. It had been one of his strongest wishes that he prevent the needless suffering Neville had endured. Doubtless his elderly relatives would now have less influence, allowing the boy to grow up much happier than before. Harry's happiness had been far simpler to procure. He had simply waited for the day Vernon brought home the vase and then sent it into the fireplace in the middle of the night, letting it break at the top and fall into the fire to burn to ash. Too bad about the vase itself; it had actually looked quite nice.

As for Harry himself, he was no longer the tiny child he had been before thanks to Rose's Food Box - again too useful for anything less than capitals. Not only had the Box provided food, it had also given Harry nutrient potions to ensure he had everything needed to grow up strong and keep up with his training regimen. The training regimen itself had been troublesome for a time, as Harry had difficulty finding both space and materials. Eventually, Harry had settled on a space in the nearby park. A hedge ran around a small clearing, fifty feet to a side.

For the moment it was only used for physical exercise, but as soon as Harry figured out how to block the Trace by the Ministry and view of the non-magicals with runic wards, he would start working more actively with his magic. Occasional boys seemed to go unnoticed for now, but Harry didn't want to see what might happen when he started casting consistent spells in a small space of time. Chakra and the Force were coming along quite nicely, as they weren't monitored by the Ministry. Harry had taken care of weights by transfiguring scrap metal from the park into weights fitted to his arms, legs and torso. They had the added advantage of creating more power behind a hit and protecting Harry from the neighborhood bullies on his way home. Fortunately, they had all but become a non-issue at this point.

Flashback

Harry had just been returning from a pretty good workout. Sure it wasn't much right now given his age, but Harry was determined not to stop. Rose had assured him that, with enough nutrients in his body, Harry's growth wouldn't be stunted by starting so early in life. The weights, which fit around his arms and legs in a series of rings, had been a great help in resistance training, as there wasn't a river he could practice walking in that wouldn't also risk him drowning. The stuff around his chest was simply shaped to fit his chest very closely.

For the sake of Harry's sanity, it was all charmed with a cushioning charm on the side facing his body. A few simple runes had easily anchored the spell to keep things simple with a daily recharge as he put them on. After every session, he would take them off and leave them in the park. If he were ever confronted it would look suspicious to have toy armor in his pocket, and having them in his pocket wouldn't do any good either.

Coming out of the trance he usually felt like he was walking in, Harry nearly groaned as he realized the way home was blocked off by a couple of young teens. This wouldn't have been a problem except for a few small problems. Harry was tired from a workout. Harry was sore from a workout. Harry was six. That last one was really the clincher. That being said. Harry knew that running would make it worse. Acting tough and keeping them off balance was the best way to do it.

"Hey mates, what's happening today?" Harry figured he'd start off being likeable. He'd always been told that his hair and eyes had made him seem rather innocent, so he'd play that up first. "I'm just out for a run. My cousin and I were watching highlights of the last World Cup, and I figured that if I start working now, I'll have a better chance at England when I'm old enough!"

The guys laughed, and for a second Harry thought they would let him go. Then one of them touched a nerve that had never failed at getting a reaction the last time around. "Ha! You'd have better luck in a ballet recital than the Cup tryouts. Didn't your mum or dad ever teach you about how things work? You're a couple years too early to be thinking about that. Why don't you run on home."

Harry decided it was better to cut his losses on this one. As he was walking past, the boy who had talked decided to mutter something loud enough for him to hear. "Little brat's parents aren't doing a very good job if they let him about like this, the fucking idiots."

Harry continued walking for all of a second before pausing long enough to call over his shoulder. "My parents are dead, bastard. Don't talk about them like that."

The boy probably would've been more sympathetic if not for the insult. "Why should I give a damn. Idiots probably had an accident. Happens all the time."

Harry stopped. He stared. Then he glared. Harry had been told that his eyes could get menacing when he got angry at someone, and right now he was furious. "Fuck you, ya shit-eating asshole! My parents died cause some bastard decided to kill off my dad's family, including my mum, and I'm doing this every day cause his minions walked free on big money. I'm gonna kill every last one of them, and if you think you're gonna slow me down by making me wait to recover, I'll make sure you're eating out of a tube long after I'm back up. My name's Harry Potter, and I'm gonna hand you your ass today."

The group had seemed very taken aback by the ferocity this little six year old had shown, and his story wasn't exactly the type you mocked, not after the trouble the IRA had caused recently. Nevertheless, the older boy who had made the first comment wouldn't let Harry's comments go unanswered.

"I'm gonna beat you good, ya little shit!"

With that the two fought. Although the other boy had the size advantage, Harry had been working around that problem for years, and the boy's buddies weren't backing him up like Dudley's gang would. In a fight like this, Harry found he could do a lot more damage than he thought. He was fast, and the adrenaline was letting him ignore the pain and cramped muscles from his earlier workout. The fact he knew several styles as well let him really put the hurt on the older fighter. They fought longer and harder than the boy's friends had expected. In the end, the older boy conceded.

"Enough! I'm done fighting you. You've gotten your kicks and I've gotten mine. We square?"

Harry wiped his lip and nodded. "Yeah, I think this makes us even."

The older boy held or his hand and pulled Harry up off the ground. "Damn, you sure do pack a wallop for such a runt."

Harry laughed a bit. "Just be glad I had taken off my weights before we fought, or this would have been a much more one-sided fight. They're solid steel and cover everything but my head, hands and feet. Sure it would have slowed me down, but you would have had a lot more trouble doing real damage."

The older boy laughed back. "For a pipsqueak, you're alright. The name's Asterly, Jack Asterly. Me and the boys are usually roaming the area looking for trouble, but it seems like trouble found us. So, was what you said about your parents and those minions true?"

Harry for serious in a second. "Every damn word. Those bastards are gonna die one day, and I'm gonna make sure it hurts."

Jack looked at him for a second. "What are you doing 'round London? Shouldn't you be in protective custody?"

Harry shrugged. "I kind of am. The guys that are after me? They're rich - like old school nobles rich - and that means they're useless at most of the practical things. They managed to get my dad's family because they run in the same circles, but out here in the Suburbs? They couldn't tell a gas station from a grocery store. So long as I'm hidden in plain sight, they won't be able to touch me without contacting shady characters, and every last one of them is being watched. For now I'm training for the day they come after me so I can bring them down, hard."

Jack whistled. "That's a tall order, half-pint. Are you sure you can do it?"

Harry's eyes hardened. "I have to. They're part of a society that wants to bring Britain back under the rule of the nobles. and they have old money and connections to back their ambition. If I don't break then now, it might go back to times like King John for a bit before the Yanks step in. I don't want to think about the mind of damage they could do in the meantime. Can you imagine guys like them in charge of our nukes?"

Both boys shuddered before Jack sighed. "Alright runt, if this is as hardcore as you say, we'll do what we can to help. I'm not sure what we can give you that your father's fortune can't provide, but I hate uptight bastards as much as anyone my age. So, what can I do to lend you a hand?"

Harry was shocked for all of a second before a frown spread across his face. "I hope you know what you're getting into. These aren't the typical IRA bastards that might just go in and shoot a family. These bastards were the sickest, most fucked up stains on humanity you can imagine - think a cross of the Nazis and the KGB. They'd off new families that were trying to run in the same circles by going to the house and holding children hostage to try and force the parents to kill their own children. It was a dark time, and the lucky ones died in the raid. The ones that didn't? They were... entertainment. Men, women, boys or girls - they all had... uses. I hate them."

Jack's eyes were blazing with rage. "I'm in, my boys are in, and if I know the gangs of London at all, every gang in London is in. You find these bastards and we'll take them out. No one messes with us good boys of the Realm and gets off easy like that. No one. We've got your back."

Harry felt tears coming to his eyes, but he wiped them off quickly. "Well, for the moment, it's like you said. I have to find them first. They're slippery bastards, and all of their homes are off the grid. For now, a sparring partner would be nice."

"More like a training dummy. You ask me again in a few years and I'll just put in the word to find you a decent teacher. You hit hard."

The group laughed as they walked Harry to his street.

Flashback End

From that day on, Harry never had to worry about dealing with the toughs in Little Whinging. Jack had spread the word. Now any time they saw him, the older boys would give Harry a look he had gotten used to seeing in the later years of the war - respect. The boys knew what he was up against, and more than a few had assured they probably would have done their best to hide if they had been the ones targeted.

Dudley and his gang had been given the rundown when Jack caught them trying to give Harry a hard time... of course it was before they started fighting or Jack probably wouldn't have needed to say a thing. After hearing the truth behind Harry's past, Dudley had stopped bothering him and started following Jack and his boys around. Jack would often call them "a stinkin' bunch o' pipsqueaks", but Harry had seen him smile when he thought no one was looking.

Refocusing himself, Harry gazed upon the school and walked in. Time to face the real world... again.

A/N: I'm baaaack!

Okay, so there've been a few reasons why it's been so long. Real life has been kicking my ass. My family felt like it was falling apart at the seams - family is a pretty big stabilizer in my life, so that sucked massively. The other reason was that I couldn't seem to find the state of mind I got into when I started all my writing.

When I first started actually publishing, I figured it would just be a bit of fun. Then I started getting feedback, and that really pushed me to try to keep it going. Between that and trying to rationalize some of the reviews I got that called me out on the realism - or lack thereof in the last scene of this chapter - I lost the will to write. Ideas would hit, but I couldn't find the drive to actually put pen to paper. I lost my way as a writer. It sucked, and I felt bad for the few that had encouraged me. So, this is my new resolve.

To those who find my writing unrealistic: sucks to be you. I'm writing my story into a world where a single boy, with limited assistance, started saving the world from the time he was eleven. Most of it came down to blind luck. He wasn't skilled, there were no special talents, and his crew was a band of misfits if ever there was one.

I fell in love with the idea of magic and wonder and mystery, and hated when JKR decided to have reality come crashing down at the end of book 5. Reality has no business in the HP story line, considering the number of inconsistencies she doesn't even try to address - I'm not even gonna go into her decision to change the context of Hermione well after finishing her book AND movie series. (Books were ambiguous, I'll give her that. But the movies?... Not even close.)

I've gotta say, as Muggle-conscious as the ENTIRE BASIS OF THE TWO BLOOD WARS WERE!... you sure don't see much of them, do you? Guess she's changing that in the newest films. Should be fun!

This story is going to go a bit of a Disney kick with the story, and it's going to be fun. I'm going back in that direction from where my mind was going to head with it. Things will get dark - fair warning to all hoping for pure happiness, this isn't MLP. Instead, we are simply going to see the thing I've loved most about Disney - unity. Disney takes a craptastic situation, introduces a bunch of characters, and uses conflict to establish good vs bad. Guardians of the Galaxy is an excellent example of where this story is going - Ravagers, Xandarians, and that special motley crew of misfits all come together to kick ass.

In this story, you are going to see good guys coming out of left field all the time. But when they join up, that will be it. There isn't going to be intrigue and doubt and betrayal. I'll leave that to every Angst story in the HP section a significant portion of which have a Slytherin significant other, apparently the stock characters are incapable of sympathizing with a more emotional Harry. This is going to be corny. It is going to cheesy. It will be full of crack humor. To quote one of my favorite lines, it's gonna get fucking biblical. It. Will. Be. Epic.

If you're not up for that, I'd suggest looking elsewhere. Look out, here we come.