The days blurred into months, and the months into a year.
Every morning began the same slaver-*cough* I mean chores. Dishes, gardening, scrubbing floors, hauling bins. At first, my body complained, weak and trembling.
But I pushed through, turning each task into training. Every sweep of the broom hardened my arms. Every trip up the stairs strengthened my legs.
When the Dursleys thought I was asleep, I slipped out to the park under the cover of night.
There, beneath the pale glow of the streetlamps, I ran until my lungs burned, lifted what I could find, and practiced push-ups and squats in the shadows.
The playground became my gym, the night air my companion. Grind is eternal.
But it wasn't just my body I honed. Magic flowed thicker each week, eager to be shaped. I drilled the basics, Lumos, Nox, Accio, Leviosa until they obeyed my will as naturally as breathing.
I experimented, stretching wandless control, layering intent with imagination. Sometimes spells fizzled, sometimes they backfired, but I learned. And with each failure came progress.
Meanwhile, the Dursleys changed. Slowly, subtly, piece by piece.
A gentle push of Legilimency here, a whisper of Confundus there. I laced their dreams with guilt and nudged their thoughts toward tolerance. Not perfect, never perfect, but enough.
Meals improved. Protein found its way onto my plate. Chicken, eggs, beans. My body filled out, muscles forming where bones once jutted.
By the time I turned eight, I no longer looked like a half starved ghost.
And the changes touched them as well.
Vernon, under my quiet influence, cut back on his indulgence. The gut shrank, the double chin faded, and in its place was a man who looked almost respectable.
Petunia, freed from bitterness and encouraged by subtle nudges, began to care for herself again.
The sharpness in her face softened, her eyes regained a hint of youthful brightness beauty she had long buried under jealousy.
Even Dudley slimmed down, losing the piggish rolls of fat as his meals grew healthier, his body shaped by small shifts in routine and my nudges away from gluttony.
Now he looks like a child rather then a piglet.
Hatred had dulled into tolerance. Resentment into uneasy coexistence.
They didn't love me. They never would. But they fed me. They clothed me. They treated me as part of the household, if not family. And in this world, that was enough.
I had bent their reality to my will.
And I was only just getting started.
At eight years old, I stood taller, stronger, and sharper than the boy who had first woken up in that cupboard. results of my grind.
The mirror no longer showed a scrawny waif in Dudley's oversized cast-offs. My body had lean muscle, my eyes clearer, my skin healthier.
But the changes inside mattered more.
Magic flowed through me like a steady current now. Not wild, not chaotic, but disciplined.
I had trained it like a muscle, bending it to my will until it responded almost before I thought. Wandless control came naturally, though imperfect, some spells fizzled, others overpowered, but the foundation was solid.
Still, I knew this was only the beginning.
I needed more than light or levitation tricks. I needed defense, subtlety, and control.
Occlumency. The art of shielding the mind would be essential when Dumbledore or Snape eventually tried to pry into me.
Legilimency. I had already dabbled, but mastery would turn people into open books.
And, above all—combat magic. Stunning, disarming, binding. I'd have to build an arsenal long before Hogwarts even entered the picture.
The Dursleys were proof enough of my progress. A year ago, they had despised me. Now, they tolerated me. Soon, with continued nudges, they would respect me, maybe even fear me.
That was the lesson I had carved into myself: magic was power, but only if paired with discipline. Without it, even great wizards could waste their gifts. With it, even an orphan in a cupboard could bend the world.
I lay back on my bed that night, no longer the cupboard, but a proper room Vernon had begrudgingly ceded to me and stared at the ceiling.
"I'm not the boy you wanted me to be," I whispered into the dark, voice steady. "I'm something else. And when the time comes… I'll be ready."
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By the time I turned nine, my magic wasn't the only thing that had changed.
Vernon, slimmed down and oddly proud of it, decided Dudley needed "discipline." Petunia, nudged in the right direction, agreed. So Dudley and I were shoved into a local boxing gym twice a week.
At first, Dudley strutted like a rooster, certain he'd pound me into the mat.
But months of midnight training had hardened my body, and in the ring, he learned quickly I wasn't the same cousin he used to bully.
Our first spar ended with me bloodying his nose. He cried, not from pain but from shock.
That night, in the changing room, Dudley slumped beside me, staring at the floor.
"I was a right git, wasn't I?" he muttered.
"More than a bit," I said, grinning through my split lip.
"…Sorry," he whispered.
It was awkward, clumsy, but genuine. From then on, our matches became less about proving who was sigma and more about pushing each other forward.
By the end of that year, we were sparring partners, almost like brothers, iron sharpening iron.
Outside the ring, I kept grinding. Morning runs, chores turned workouts, late-night magical drills. My control improved, my body sharpened.
The Dursleys provided proper meals now, and protein fueled the growth. I felt myself becoming something beyond what either Harry Potter or my old self could have been.
Grind baby grind.
Still, I wasn't reckless. I knew I couldn't isolate myself from the wizarding world forever. I needed eyes, ears, a thread of connection.
That thread came in the form of Mrs. Arabella Figg.
The old neighbor with her endless cats and cabbage-smelling house.
I visited her one afternoon under the pretense of running errands. She was surprised, wary even. But over time, I let subtlety guide my words. Small phrases, careful hints. That I was safe. That I was different from what she'd been told.
At first, she resisted, clearly following some unseen instructions. But I was patient. I let her see me not as a freak, but as a boy, polite, sharp, oddly mature for his age.
And when the time was right, I planted the confundus gently, like a seed in her thoughts:
Take me to the Leaky Cauldron someday. Let me see the world I belong to.
Her brows had furrowed, lips pursed, but she didn't say no. That was enough.
I lay in bed that night, Dudley snoring faintly in the room next door, my muscles sore from training and my magic buzzing under my skin.
At nine years old, I wasn't just surviving anymore.
I was Thriving.
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Between the ages of nine and ten, my life was no longer about survival—it was about refinement.
Magic bent to me with a precision that shocked even myself. What began as lifting pebbles in the park grew into heaving entire boulders into the air.
'I have become too op' I thought giddily
By my tenth birthday, I could suspend over twenty tons without breaking a sweat. Hell yeah baby.
Occlumency had become my constant brother in arms. I quickly learned that "emptying the mind" was a false theory from fanfics. Thoughts never truly stopped.
Instead, I built shields. Layered constructs within my mindscape, infinity castle style where I could bury my truths under layers of useless buildings like how Muzan hide himself.
It wasn't perfect, but it was enough to keep me safe from casual intrusion. For now.
Legilimency, however, was where I truly excelled.
At first, it was glimpses, surface emotions, fleeting impressions. But with practice, I learned to peel back layers, passively skimming thoughts without anyone realizing.
A nudge of intent let me dive deeper, sifting through memories like pages in a book. It was intoxicating, dangerous, and powerful. I was progressing faster here than in Occlumency itself.
The Dursleys remained at the level of tolerance. Meals, clothing, a room of my own. That was all I needed. Dudley, however, was different.
Our time in the boxing gym and the quiet conversations after had forged something like brotherhood between us.
He no longer saw me as the cousin to bully but as his equal, maybe even someone to look up to. When I said bros before hoes he looked at me weirdly and said "What's a hoe?" I stayed silent.
At school, I excelled without difficulty. Teachers praised me for sharp answers, quick wit, and discipline beyond my age.
They don't realise how close they were.
"Harry hunting" was a thing of the past, Dudley himself made sure of that.
Instead, I buried myself in the school library, devouring books far beyond my grade. Latin, Sanskrit, the root tongues of magic itself.
Physics and chemistry, through to university-level texts. Knowledge was a weapon, and I intended to sharpen it to its edge. Science was important for alchemy stuff as I remember.
Meanwhile, my quiet campaign with Arabella Figg reached its conclusion.
Six months of subtle Confundus, gentle nudges, and careful persuasion wore down her resistance.