Chapter 2
"Feel the Force, Luke... Or how did that line from the timeless classic go again?" I asked myself as I tried over and over to do something with my own magic that was at least a little predictable... Yes, it turned out to be far more difficult than I had first assumed. In the two months since my first magical outburst, I had not made much progress in mastering this so-called magic.
I had learned to sense the power hidden inside me more keenly and clearly when it was just about to break free, and I had gotten better at suppressing spontaneous elemental outbursts. And that was about it. My attempts to deliberately set something on fire, freeze it, or move it from one side of the cupboard to the other currently failed spectacularly eight times out of ten.
That meant I did sometimes manage to burn, freeze, or drench something. But most of the time, the result was... just about anything. From a deafening but not especially powerful explosion in my hands to turning my school notebook into some kind of feathered thing. The bizarre object I got that time did not even resemble a bird. It looked more like some sort of feather cloak, only twenty by forty centimeters in size.
And all I had wanted was to make my notebook float... The new school year was approaching, this body's eighth birthday was already behind me, and Petunia had already loaded Dudley and me up with some preparatory tests our homeroom teacher had given her back in spring. I had gotten completely sick of dealing with all that scribbling and decided to amuse myself a little with a half-filled notebook.
"But in the end, I was the fool who had to rewrite and redo those damned tests from the beginning," I grimaced, remembering all too clearly just how pitiful the notebook had looked after its transformation into a feather cloak was complete.
So far, I was not turning into any kind of great mage or wizard. On top of that, my constant attempts to produce some kind of magic in my beloved cupboard had turned the older Dursleys against me even more. The explosions coming from the cupboard had definitely added quite a few gray hairs to Petunia's head...
Luckily, Vernon had not been home at the time. Otherwise, I was afraid I would have had to fend off the belt again. Aunt Petunia had sensed very clearly where the explosion had come from. And my slightly concussed and disheveled appearance probably did not add much weight to my excuses. Unpleasant.
But I had no intention of stopping, because I could clearly and sharply feel that there was still some progress from those exercises... If not in terms of control over my own magic, then at least in the raw power of my elemental outbursts, I was definitely growing stronger. On the one hand, that was encouraging. It was probably a good thing that I was becoming stronger as a wizard.
But on the other hand, that created a certain problem... It was physically unsafe for me to stop my training and experiments now. After just a couple of days of doing nothing magical... the magic began to press on me, demanding release. Not the clearest sensation in the world. Sometimes I even thought I was imagining it... It was like needing to go to the bathroom, but at the same time not actually needing to go.
The sensations were vague, hovering on the edge of perception, almost impossible to catch. And yet they were distinct enough to make one thing clear: if I did not constantly discharge my magic outward, it started to fill my body and look for a way out on its own. That was when it became truly difficult to hold back the magical surges trying to break free, and the magic itself became eager to react to any of my emotions.
In fact, that was exactly the state in which it became easiest for me to cast. When the magic literally overflowed through my body and pressed against it from the inside, summoning fire or freezing a bit of ice in my stuffy cupboard became much easier... And no, I was not playing around with fire inside the house. After that explosion in my little room near the start of my training, I generally tried not to use magic indoors at all.
The problem was that my main living space became rather uncomfortable in the summer heat, with even the hint of real warmth in the air. So I kept trying to cool down or air out my tiny room somehow, sometimes with a bit of success. And sometimes at the cost of extra nerves while trying to hide the traces of my magical training from my aunt.
Outside was easier in that regard. A month ago, I had already found several abandoned lots for myself, farther from the center of our suburb. No one had lived there for a long time, but the hedges around the little private houses were still tall and thick. Perfect for secretly practicing all sorts of wizardry. The only problem was the other children who sometimes visited those interesting places too. But the main thing was to stay alert and, if needed, spout complete nonsense with the most honest face possible.
Or I could just run away if I was not in the mood to talk to anyone. Yes, that option was even better. After all, it was not just children who sometimes wandered onto the local abandoned lots, but also various... less than respectable types, like the occasional homeless drifter or drunk teenager. Little Whinging was a calm and safe place overall, but anything could happen in life...
"Hey, Harry! You awake in there?" Dudley Dursley's badly muffled voice pulled me out of my lazy thoughts. "Gordon and I are heading to the river while Mum's not looking. You coming?"
"Sure... just bring a towel. Tell Aunt Petunia you're going on a picnic with friends. She might even be generous enough to give you sandwiches after that," I hissed quietly at the boy, with whom, surprisingly, it had not been all that hard to find common ground.
Arrogant, pushy, and physically well-developed for his age, the boy had spent the first few days and weeks after my arrival trying to pick on me out of habit, the same way he had always picked on the Harry Potter he knew before... But he got punched in the face. Then he called in his friends and tried to get revenge, but got punched in the face again, though not without me taking a few hits myself. I got my share of bruises that time too.
Kids were kids. They did not really know how to fight, were frankly afraid of punching each other properly, and generally tried more to tackle their opponent than actually beat them... But I was no Rambo either, going up against five of them alone. Whoever I could smack, I smacked... Whoever I could not, I remembered and smacked later.
That was how it went with Dudley too. After our first real fight, he came home with a split lip, and Aunt Petunia gave me hell for it... So later I gave him another private beating and earned punishment from Uncle Vernon too. That time it passed without any physical violence, but I spent nearly the whole day shut in the cupboard.
And as soon as I got out, I stumbled into another fight right away. I almost got punched by "Dudders, who had gone through brutal training with his father"... But in the end, I only got another punishment from my aunt. That was how Dudley and I became friends. Well, if our relationship could even be called friendship.
My cousin was clearly pleased with the new Harry Potter. He introduced me to all his friends and even asked me to show off a few more tricks with knife throwing using a little knife we had stolen together from Vernon's garage. As for me... I could not take friendship with an eight-year-old boy too seriously. But I was not going to act all high and mighty either. By the end of my first month in this new life, I had already gone a bit feral from loneliness. I wanted to talk to someone, at least.
But since the older boys, and even more so actual adults, would never have chosen to speak to me without a very good reason, I had to make do with what I had... Fortunately, when I died, I had still been fairly young myself and had not yet forgotten all the things my childhood friends and I used to do when we were little.
The local kids actually liked games of Cops and Robbers quite a bit. And honestly, I had fun too. It beat sitting in the cupboard under the stairs. In any case, I could not train magic endlessly. Some days I had to leave for "full recovery of magical reserves," and at those times I suffered from boredom in a very real way.
Thankfully, school would be starting very soon, and I would finally have access to some sort of library. Surely there would be at least something interesting for me there, especially since I had already refreshed and even slightly improved my predecessor's reading and writing skills. Out of sheer boredom, I had even reread some of the boy's old textbooks.
There was nothing interesting in them, though I did memorize a couple of amusing little rhymes out of idleness and for memory practice... But messing around with the local hooligan idiots was still more interesting than ruining my eyesight in the cupboard. My glasses were already worse than anything I had ever worn in my previous life. And that was saying something, considering I had once been at minus five. Well, before I got surgery...
Ahem, yes, I would have to find out how such operations worked in this era. Or ask wizards in the future how they treated eyes here. Running around in glasses all the time was not fun. Harry's were uncomfortable too, and they looked rather ridiculous on what was now my childish face.
In short, I would have to deal with that problem in the future. But for now, I would just spend more time outside in the fresh air. The dim light bulb in the cupboard definitely was not doing my eyes any favors... Besides, running around outside was good for one's health anyway. And all that boiling energy in my body had to go somewhere.
And I am not even talking about magic right now, but ordinary strength and the constant urge to move bursting out of me. As an adult, it had been quite hard for me to get used to that, but a child's body was still a child's body. Energy overflowing! I could run around outside all day without a bite to eat and still not feel any fatigue.
Pure bliss, in a word. I had even started thinking about trying to preserve at least part of that vigor and childish energy in myself... Of course, I understood that it was unlikely to work. In my previous life, sports had helped me stay in shape, but I was still infinitely far from the level of energy I had now...
On the other hand, in this life I had magic. Strong and very active magic that somehow reacted to my desires in a way I still did not fully understand. Maybe it could help me with this desire too. If so, then I was perfectly willing to spend all day and night thinking and dreaming about keeping my current energy even in adulthood.
I just was not sure it would help or work the way I wanted. The option of staying a child forever did not suit me at all and honestly frightened me... You hear me, magic? I do not want that. Just strength, energy, and health. Aside from that, a gradually maturing body suits me perfectly well as it is... So do not mess it up and do not get anything mixed up!