Harry spent the next hour cleaning in weary silence.
Dudley’s discarded belongings covered nearly every inch of the room, forcing Harry to sort through broken toys, old clothes, scattered homework, and layers of dust that had clearly been accumulating for months.
By the end of it, his back hurt, his hands were dirty, and the room actually looked livable.
The broken glass had been swept away, Dudley’s junk shoved into neat piles, and the dust mostly cleaned from the furniture.
The system immediately rewarded him for it.
[Optional Quest: Clean Your Room]
Objective: Complete
Rewards: +15 EXP
[EXP gained!]
[Level: 1]
[EXP: 15/100]
Harry stared at the glowing blue text with undisguised satisfaction.
It was only fifteen experience points.
Objectively, it meant almost nothing.
He had not gained a level, unlocked a skill, or received any obvious improvement from completing the quest.
Yet watching his experience increase from zero to fifteen filled him with an absurd sense of accomplishment.
There was something deeply satisfying about seeing tangible proof that his effort had mattered, even if that proof amounted to little more than a number floating before his eyes.
Maybe the lunatic’s memories were rubbing off on him more than he thought.
Harry wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of one hand, leaving behind a grey smear of dust.
The smell rising from his clothes made him grimace.
Dirt, dust, and several hours of sleep in his clothes after half a day of travelling from Scotland to England did not make for a pleasant combination.
As though summoned by the thought, another notification appeared.
Quest Available!
[Take a Shower]
Description:
You smell concerning.
Objectives:
Wash yourself properly
Rewards:
+5 EXP
Failure Penalty:
Continued unpleasantness
Harry stared at the message before an incredulous snort escaped him.
“I’m being bullied by my own System.”
Still, five experience points were five experience points.
More importantly, the new quest appeared to confirm a theory forming in the back of his mind.
The System did not merely assign grand missions involving danger, fate, or Voldemort.
It also reacted to Harry’s immediate circumstances, turning ordinary chores and daily necessities into opportunities to earn experience.
If activities like cleaning his room and bathing could become quests, perhaps others could as well.
Studying, exercising, practising spells—possibly even completing his summer homework.
The individual rewards would probably remain small, but if he could receive them regularly, those small amounts would accumulate.
What had the lunatic called that?
Ah, yes.
Farming.
Easy, consistent, and, over enough time, extremely effective farming.
Harry gathered a clean shirt, trousers, pants, and socks before heading for the bathroom.
The house remained completely dark.
Earlier, during the struggle over his body, whatever surge of accidental magic had erupted from him had apparently destroyed every working lightbulb in the house—and the entire street.
With no working lights, Harry was forced to shower by candlelight.
Honestly, after growing up in the Dursleys’ house, bathing by candlelight barely ranked among the twenty strangest things he had ever experienced.
Warm water washed the sweat, dust, and lingering grime from his skin as Harry rested one hand against the tiled wall and allowed his thoughts to wander.
The Dursleys would return eventually.
When they did, they would be furious.
The broken lights alone guaranteed that, and Harry knew from experience that Uncle Vernon would not care whether Harry had destroyed them deliberately.
Something unnatural had happened; therefore, it was Harry’s fault.
Harry closed his eyes and lowered his head beneath the stream of water.
He did not want to remain here any longer.
Not after everything he now knew.
The foreign memories had given Harry an unsettling new perspective on his own life.
Before tonight, he had simply accepted the hunger, the endless chores, the shouting, and the isolation that had defined his childhood.
He had hated those things, certainly, but some part of him had always assumed that this was simply how the Dursleys were.
Perhaps it was even what he deserved for being unwanted.
It had been normal.
Except it had not been normal at all.
Now Harry possessed the memories of someone who had grown up in an ordinary family, and attended an ordinary school.Comparing those experiences with his own childhood forced Harry to confront a truth he had never possessed the words—or the perspective—to recognise before.
What the Dursleys had done to him was abuse.
Not a few isolated moments of anger or punishment taken too far, but systematic, casual, everyday abuse that had continued for as long as Harry could remember.
He slowly opened his eyes.
He was twelve years old.
That complicated matters considerably.
The intruder’s memories contained plenty of stories about minors seeking emancipation, although most of those examples came from America rather than Britain.
Whatever legal options existed in the Muggle world, Harry doubted any sensible authority would declare a twelve-year-old independent when he possessed no income, no permanent residence, and no adult willing to assume responsibility for him.
But the Muggle world was not his only option.
What about the magical world?
Harry straightened beneath the shower as the thought occurred to him.
What about the magical world?
He knew almost nothing about wizarding law.
In fact, most magical children his age probably understood far more than he did simply because they had grown up hearing their parents discuss the Ministry, family rights, inheritances, and other parts of everyday magical life.
Hogwarts taught its students how to cast spells, brew potions, and identify magical creatures, but offered almost nothing about the laws governing the society they were expected to enter after graduation.
Still, if wizarding Britain possessed some form of legal emancipation—or any procedure allowing an abused child to challenge the authority of his guardians—then Harry might have a chance.
His expression sharpened.
He might actually have a chance if he plays his cards right.
For the first time in his life, Harry seriously considered using his fame to obtain something he wanted.
The lunatic’s memories had made one thing painfully obvious: Harry Potter was beloved by magical Britain.
And right now his reputation was probably at its peak.
He was still the heroic Boy-Who-Lived: the child who had defeated You-Know-Who as a baby and, during his second year, saved Hogwarts from the Heir of Slytherin.
Harry was fairly certain nobody knew about the basilisk or what had truly happened inside the Chamber of Secrets, but everyone knew he had solved the Heir of Slytherin problem—even if the details remained a mystery.
Future Harry—the one from the memories—eventually suffered through smear campaigns, political attacks, and public distrust.
But current Harry?
Right now, Harry Potter was not a liar, an attention-seeker, or a dangerous symbol for the Ministry to discredit.
He was the Boy-Who-Lived.
And, for the moment, he was very nearly untouchable.
If he could find a good lawyer—
Harry frowned almost as soon as the thought occurred to him.
A genuinely good lawyer.
Someone who would represent Harry, rather than quietly reporting everything to another interested party.
That meant no one beholden to Dumbledore, the Ministry, or one of the old pure-blood families.
And absolutely no Death Eater sympathisers.
The Death Eaters wanted him dead.
Their former enemies might want to help him, but Harry no longer knew whether their idea of helping would involve giving him any choice in the matter.
His hand tightened unconsciously against the tiled wall.
After all, Dumbledore had left him here.
Harry was willing to believe that the blood protections were real.
His mother’s sacrifice had stopped Voldemort from touching him, and Dumbledore understood forms of magic that Harry had never even heard of.
If he claimed that living with Aunt Petunia extended that protection over Number Four, then there was probably at least some truth to it.
But how did magical protection justify ten years of abuse?
Did Dumbledore never check on him?
Mrs Figg had watched Harry for years.
She had known him for as long as he could remember and had seen the oversized clothes hanging from his narrow shoulders, the bruises left by Dudley and his friends, and the way Harry reacted whenever an adult raised their voice.
She might not have known about every missed meal or every night spent locked inside the cupboard, but surely she had noticed that something was wrong.
Had she reported any of it?
Had Dumbledore known?
And if he had known, had he simply decided the protection was worth the price Harry was paying for it?
Harry’s breathing grew uneven as old memories returned with a new and far uglier meaning: cold nights beneath a thin blanket, days spent hungry while Dudley ate his fill, Aunt Petunia’s disgust whenever she looked at him, Uncle Vernon’s roaring fury, and Dudley’s fists striking wherever they could reach.
For most of his childhood, the Dursleys had treated him like a servant.
No.
Less than a servant.
A servant would have been paid.
A servant could have left.
And whether through ignorance, negligence, or deliberate choice, Dumbledore had allowed it to continue.
Anger surged through Harry, hot and sudden.
There must have been other options.
Dumbledore could have placed him with another magical family, found a neutral household, or hidden him with an ordinary Muggle family far beyond Voldemort’s reach.
Australia, Japan, America—anywhere outside Britain.
America was enormous, and Voldemort’s influence there had been practically nonexistent.
Surely concealing one child across an entire ocean could not have been more difficult than entrusting him to people who despised magic so fiercely that they had spent years trying to stamp it out of him.
The candle flame abruptly died and darkness swallowed the bathroom.
Harry went still beneath the falling water, the only sound his own harsh breathing and the steady patter against the tiles.
After several seconds, he released a slow breath.
The candle relit itself.
A small flame trembled above the wick, weak at first, before gradually growing steady.
Right.
Accidental magic.
He needed to calm down before he shattered something else—or accidentally set the house on fire.
Harry leaned back beneath the warm water and forced himself to breathe slowly until his anger receded from a roaring blaze to a manageable simmer.
Whether Dumbledore cared about him or not was no longer the most important question.
Harry was done waiting for someone else to save him.
His hand drifted unconsciously toward the lightning scar on his forehead.
The Horcrux.
That damned thing.
According to the future preserved within the intruder’s memories, a fragment of Voldemort’s soul had been lodged inside Harry ever since the night his parents died.
Future Harry had willingly walked into the Forbidden Forest, allowed Voldemort to cast the Killing Curse at him, and gambled everything on the hope that he would not remain dead.
Harry grimaced.
“Yeah,” he muttered, rubbing the scar with one finger.
“Let’s keep that as the last possible option.”
He needed another solution.
Something that could remove the fragment without requiring him to stand still while a homicidal Dark Lord murdered him.
The instant that thought formed, the System reacted and a new window unfolded before him.
Quest Available!
[Fragment of the Dark Lord]
Description:
A fragment of Tom Marvolo Riddle’s soul resides within you.
Its existence threatens your life, soul, and future potential.
Objectives:
Remove the Horcrux safely
Rewards:
+25,000 EXP?????????
Failure Penalty:
Soul corruptionDeath
Harry stared at the quest in silence while warm water continued pouring over his shoulders.
Twenty-five thousand experience points.
The reward for reaching Level Five, raising an attribute to Rank D, and learning three new spells was only five hundred.
Destroying the Horcrux would grant him fifty times that amount, along with three rewards the System refused—or was unable—to identify.
The enormous difference told Harry more clearly than any warning could have done just how dangerous the fragment truly was.
His eyes lowered to the failure penalties.
Soul corruption.
Death.
Neither possibility came as a surprise, but seeing them displayed so plainly made the threat feel far more immediate.
The Horcrux was not merely an unpleasant problem waiting somewhere in his future.
It was already inside him, fused to his scar and threatening something the System called his future potential.
Harry dismissed the window, turned off the water, and stepped out of the shower.
After drying himself, he gathered his clothes and made his way carefully through the darkened house, guided by the flickering candle in his hand.
Several minutes later, he sat on the edge of his bed, fully dressed and deep in thought.
Hedwig watched him from the top of the wardrobe, her amber eyes following his every movement.
Harry looked around the room one final time before reaching for her empty cage.
The moment he lifted it, Hedwig spread her wings and glided down, landing neatly upon his shoulder.
Her talons pressed lightly through the fabric of his shirt as she leaned into him.
“Yeah,” Harry murmured, scratching the feathers beneath her beak.
“I’d rather not lock you in there either.”
Hedwig gave a soft, approving hoot.
The room was cleaner now.
It was still painfully small and carried too many memories of confinement, but at least it no longer resembled one of Dudley’s rubbish heaps.
It still was not home.
It had never been home.
Harry had no complete plan yet, but he knew he could not remain at Number Four and simply wait for the Dursleys to return.
He needed somewhere safe to spend the night and time to investigate his legal options before Dumbledore—or anyone else—could force him back.
Carrying Hedwig’s cage in one hand and a candle in the other, Harry opened the bedroom door and stepped into the hallway.
The house remained unnaturally silent, its familiar shapes reduced to shadows beyond the candle’s weak circle of light.
He had taken only two steps before stopping abruptly.
His trunk.
Uncle Vernon had taken it from him almost immediately after they returned from King’s Cross, locking it away along with Harry’s wand and every other magical possession he owned.
Harry swore beneath his breath.
A notification sounded inside his head.
Timed Quest Available!
[Recover Your Belongings]
Description:
Leaving without your possessions is highly inadvisable.
Objectives:
Retrieve school trunk
Retrieve wand and magical belongings
Time Remaining: 12:00
Rewards:
+30 EXP
Failure Penalty:
Loss of supplies
Severe inconvenience
Emotional damage
Harry stared at the final penalty.
“Emotional damage?”
The System offered no explanation.
Then the timer changed.
11:59
11:58
Harry’s amusement vanished.
A timed quest could mean only one thing: the System expected him to lose the opportunity to retrieve his belongings in less than twelve minutes.
The Dursleys were coming home.
Panic surged through Harry, and he moved immediately.
He hurried downstairs as quickly as he dared, with Hedwig balancing effortlessly upon his shoulder while her empty cage bumped awkwardly against his leg.
The candle in his other hand provided barely enough light to see the next few steps, transforming every familiar doorway and piece of furniture into something vaguely ominous.
Harry reached the entrance hall without falling, set Hedwig’s cage and the candle on the floor, and hurried toward the cupboard beneath the stairs.
The door was locked.
Of course it was.
Harry dropped to his knees and tugged at the handle anyway, as though indignation alone might persuade the lock to open.
It remained stubbornly unmoved.
“Right,” he muttered, glaring at it.
“Where would Vernon hide the key?”
Somewhere painfully obvious to Uncle Vernon and deliberately inconvenient for everyone else.
Harry searched the kitchen first, checking drawers, cupboards, and the small collection of hooks where Aunt Petunia kept the household keys.
He found keys for the back door, the garden shed but none opened the cupboard beneath the stairs.
He moved on to the sitting room, searching the mantelpiece, the writing desk, and the drawers beneath the television.
Nothing.
The timer continued counting down in the corner of his vision.
09:41
09:40
09:39
“This is mental,” Harry whispered.
He rushed back into the hallway, took the stairs two at a time, and pushed open the door to Vernon and Petunia’s bedroom.
Even after spending most of the past two years at Hogwarts, entering their room without permission felt deeply forbidden.
Harry had been punished for less, and some of the fear carved into him during childhood refused to disappear simply because he now understood how unreasonable the Dursleys were.
The room smelled faintly of Aunt Petunia’s perfume and Uncle Vernon’s aftershave.
Everything was unnaturally tidy, arranged with the aggressively sterile precision Petunia preferred.
The bed had been made so carefully that not a single wrinkle disturbed the cover, while every object atop the dressing table stood in its proper proper place.
Harry immediately searched the bedside drawers.
Nothing.
He checked beneath the mattress, then opened the wardrobe and searched the pockets of Vernon’s jackets.
Still nothing.
The numbers continued their relentless descent.
07:12
Harry clenched his teeth.
Think like Vernon.
Uncle Vernon distrusted foreigners, modern art, loud children, unusual clothing, and anything even remotely magical.
He probably considered hiding a spare key beneath a flowerpot the height of revolutionary espionage.
Wherever he had put it would not be particularly clever; it would merely be somewhere he believed Harry would never dare to search.
Harry’s gaze settled upon a heavy wooden cabinet against the far wall.
It contained the documents Uncle Vernon considered important.
Harry crossed the room and pulled it open.
Inside were several neatly arranged tins, household records, old bills, and folders filled with yellowing papers.
For one horrible moment, he thought he had been wrong.
Then something metallic glinted behind one of the tins.
Harry reached inside and pulled out a small brass key.
“Yes!”
Hedwig answered with an enthusiastic hoot from somewhere near the bottom of the stairs.
Harry closed his fist around the key and bolted from the bedroom.
He descended the stairs even faster than he had climbed them, nearly losing his footing on the final step before skidding to a halt beside the cupboard.
The brass key slid into the lock.
A quick twist produced a satisfying click, and Harry pulled the door open.
The moment he saw what remained inside, something ugly twisted in his chest.
The cupboard had changed very little since the day Hagrid arrived.
The shelves still pressed down from above, and the narrow walls remained oppressively close together.
Against the floor lay the same thin mattress upon which Harry had slept for nearly ten years.
This cramped, lightless space had been his bedroom.
For most of his childhood, he had believed that was normal.
Anger threatened to surge through him again, but Harry forced it down.
He did not have time to stand there remembering every night he had spent locked behind that door.
Later.
He seized the handle of his Hogwarts trunk and dragged it out of the cupboard.
The heavy wooden case scraped loudly across the floor, but Harry scarcely noticed.
He pulled it into the entrance hall, dropped to his knees, and opened it long enough to confirm that everything was still inside.
His school robes.
His books.
His cauldron.
His remaining potion ingredients.
And, tucked safely among his clothes, his wand.
A triumphant chime sounded inside his head.
[Quest Complete!]
[Recover Your Belongings]
Rewards: +30 EXP
[EXP: 50/100]
Harry barely glanced at the notification.
The timer had vanished, but the relief it brought lasted only a moment before an unpleasant realisation took its place.
He was standing in the entrance hall of Number Four with a heavy school trunk, an owl, no money in his pockets, nowhere to spend the night, and only a few minutes before Vernon Dursley returned home furious enough to burst a blood vessel.
“Brilliant,” Harry muttered.
His mind raced through the available possibilities.
The Leaky Cauldron?
He had plenty of money in his Gringotts vault, but none of it was currently in his possession.
Harry did not know whether the bank remained open this late, and reaching London presented an even more immediate problem.
He had neither pounds nor wizarding currency with which to pay for a bus, train, or taxi.
Diagon Alley had the same problem.
Knowing where he wanted to go did not help when he had no means of getting there.
He could simply start walking, but running away blindly into the night sounded dangerously stupid even to him.
Then a memory surfaced.
Enormous green eyes and batlike ears–a painfully enthusiastic house-elf who had spent most of the previous year trying to save Harry’s life by nearly killing him.
Harry blinked.
House-elves could Apparate almost anywhere, even through protections that stopped wizards.
More importantly, Dobby had repeatedly insisted that he would do anything for Harry Potter.
It was a desperate idea, but desperate was considerably better than nothing.
“Dobby?” Harry called tentatively.
A loud crack echoed through the house.
Harry jumped as a small figure appeared in the entrance hall directly before him.
Dobby was no longer wearing the filthy pillowcase that had marked his enslavement to the Malfoys.
Instead, he had dressed himself in a spectacularly ugly collection of mismatched clothes, including several brightly coloured socks and a tea cosy perched proudly upon his head.
The house-elf’s enormous green eyes widened with delight.
“Harry Potter, sir!” Dobby squeaked, practically vibrating with excitement.
“Harry Potter called for Dobby!”