Next Time Around

No I Don't Care What You Just Said

Authors note:
Wow guys and gals... seems like a lot of you like my story now... loads of reads. Thanks to all of you for them. Very much appreciated.

This chapter will contain graphic violence, so be warned.

Disclaimer: don't own a thing of this except for the plot and my OC's.

Enjoy!

It was early in the morning, earlier then his usual wake-up time of six, when Harry was abruptly pulled from his sleep. As he assessed what had woken him, he heard loud wailing from above his head. Ah. He had almost forgotten that he was back to the Dursley's, but clearly Dudley was just as loud as he had always been.

He figured that that was what had woken him. Curious. Normally his subconscious was better at judging if something was a threat or not. He supposed he was still overly paranoid because of all of the Dumbledorian magic in the air.

He waited patiently for a few minutes for someone to come and check up on him, as was normal to do for a toddler. Then he remembered that the Dursley's didn't give a damn about his existence except for the fact they got to boss him around. So he decided a little training with walking in this dysfunctional body was prudent anyways.

As he opened the door of the cupboard with wandless magic, he finally heard the cries from upstairs diminish and eventually disappear. Thank Merlin for that, he thought, as the noise was one of the most tedious sounds he had ever heard.

He made his way to the kitchen, thanking his trainers for the insight they had when they taught him how to move around in different forms. It made it way easier now to use his pathetic little limbs. It was still frustrating though, to have to use his muscle-less legs to stumble about. As he absentmindedly took a piece of bread and wandlessly spread some jam on it, he decided he would infuse his body with some of his magic as to stimulate muscle growth.

Still carefully keeping an eye out for one of the adult members of the household to come downstairs, he made his way back to his cupboard. It seemed he didn't have to, as he heard an upstairs bed creak, indicating the return of what was most likely Petunia, to bed.

He carefully closed the door of the cupboard and sat in the middle of the small room. It was pitch black and completely silent thanks to his muffling charms. For Harry, it was the perfect place to carefully piece together the puzzle of how to leave the wards.

He knew that the wards were tied to both the house, and himself. So either he had to die to disable the wards, or he had to completely extract all of the magic in and around the house, which meant him as well. So the options were either dying, or extracting all of his magic in one go, which, for a wizard, was the equivalent of dying. But then really, really painfully.

Harry didn't particularly fancy dying either way, so that was out of the picture. He sat in complete silence for about two hours, mulling over the problem at hand. He thought of many different ways to disarm or disable the wards, but they all involved him ultimately dying. He even thought of a way to make a Horcrux like Voldemort had and then killing himself off, but he knew that Dumbledore had his blood, so would most likely know when he "died" and he didn't want Dumbledore to know anything about him right up until his Hogwarts letter at the age of eleven.

He noticed with a wry sense of humor that his morals had definitely dropped by quite a bit. Ah well, he thought as he stretched his back, it's not like he really cared about them that much anyways.

As it was nearing eight and Harry could hear some commotion coming from the kitchen, he stood up and made his way there as well. This time, he could walk slightly easier than he previously could thanks to his quickly improving muscles. Constantly forcing magic to course through his body was slightly taxing though, especially over larger periods of time. Therefor, it was important for him to have as much food as he wanted in this stadium of his life. No starvations anymore for him, if he didn't want to slowly kill himself.