Harry Potter and all associated characters and situations are the property of J. K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership.


"There are two kinds of worlds—your world, which is the real world, and other worlds, the fantasy. Worlds like this are worlds of the human imagination: their reality, or lack of reality, is not important. What is important is that they are there. These worlds provide an alternative. Provide an escape, a threat; provide a dream, and power; provide refuge, and pain. They give your world meaning.

They do not exist; and thus they are all that matter.

Do you understand?"


At first, I had no clue what was going on.

Everything was color and noise, and I was falling. I don't know how or why, but I kept on falling, fearing I'd be smashed into a pancake when I hit the ground.

Instead, I woke up in bed. With a freaking bed sheet beneath me. Made of soft fabric. Softer than I was used to. And another sheet covered me all the way from my chest down to my toes.

"Good," whispered a dry, rasping voice. "Very good."

My head was on fire, and my eyes felt like chunks of lead. My hands and legs felt fine, which was… odd. I distinctly remembered those motherfuckers hacking my arms and legs and dropping me into that dusty grave and shoving mud over my screaming face. Not something to remember fondly over a meal, I assure you.

"Excellent," rasped the voice again. Female, I recognized. An aging woman. "I told you he had strength."

"We shall see," said a silky voice.

"Your eyes," said the woman again. "Open your eyes."

Bad call. My eyelids were sleeping. But I opened them right away and hissed at the intensity of the light.I waited for a moment and then tried again. Then again. On the fourth or fifth try, I could see.

Somewhat.

Then somebody shafted a pair of glasses on my face.

And my vision cleared.

Hospital.

Joy.

My arms felt right. No injuries whatsoever. No absent limbs, no IV either. There was this weird, familiar woman smiling at me, not the 'I want your babies' kind or 'you owe me money' kind, but weird nonetheless. Not bad-looking, for a forty-year-old, with ash-brown hair, a fair, friendly face and brown eyes. She wore a nurse's garb and presented a naggingly familiar look I could not place a finger on.

"Welcome back," she said.

I didn't smile back, in case you're wondering. I glanced further up, spotting a black-garbed man with greasy, black hair, a hooked nose and sallow skin. A face that I not only recognized, but challenged my brain that it was seeing things. My stupid brain, crazy little bugger that it was, threw back another contradiction, recognizing the man as Severus fucking Snape, potions master of Hogwarts. A fictional character of a fictional story that I used to read and, I suppose, daydream about, when I was a kid back in school.

So why was I dreaming about him?

You've recognized your Destination World

Welcome, Outlander!

The words appeared, bright, floating on a translucent blue screen. The kind that shows up in low-budget sci-fi movies made in the 1990s. It didn't take an earth-shattering revelation to realize what it was.

A fucking game screen.

First Severus Snape. Now a game screen. I've definitely gone cuckoo.

…. or not?

How does one know?

I tried to open my mouth. To speak, yell, grunt, hiss– anything. Nothing worked. No sound emerged. Like someone had taken superglue and stuck it beneath my tongue. Instead, I stared at Snape's pasty pale, photophobic skin in shock and confusion, while the rest of me did a perfect impersonation of a wastebasket. Utterly dead and full of crap.

Responses Muted Until Protocol Activation

I'll admit. I was panicking now. But what good is panic if you can't even move anything except your eyes?

So I watched. I watched with utter bewilderment as the man, no, the fantasy character in front of me conversed with the woman – Madam Pomfrey – my head told me.

"He's barely responding," Snape muttered. "Perhaps an aneurysm?"

"His readings are all over the place," The nurse frowned. "It's surprising he's even awake. Merlin, if you were just a second too late—"

Snape stiffened.

"Dementors inside Hogwarts! I swear, what was that man thinking, I mean—"

"Kneazle got your tongue, Potter?" Snape barked, but any idiot could tell he was trying to goad me into reacting. News Flash, idiot! The game screen turned me into a dumb goat. So why don't you hold your balls and shut your trap and do something useful for a change?

Hey! Imaginary characters casting imaginary magic could yield imaginary results, right?

A second later, his words struck me.

Merlin. Dementors. Hogwarts. Potter—

Potter.

He had said Potter.

He could talk about only one Potter.

My body shivered, and for the first time, my hand felt free. I shakily moved it up, crossing past my chest and lips until it landed on my temples.

At my scar.

HOLY—

Outlander has recognized World Setting

Sense of Self Activated

Responses Active.

Establishing Reality Foundation…

Welcome, HARRY JAMES POTTER!

.Fuck!


You've got to believe me.

This shit is real. I'm not in a fucking coma, and these fuckers aren't part of some deranged drama set. As strange as it was to wrap my mind around the facts, and as ludicrous as it might appear, the truth is — it's all real. Very real. I'm as logical as the next person, but I'd be a fool to shut my eyes and deny reality. As absurd as it was, this is my new truth.

I have been reincarnated into a fantasy world.

I'm at Hogwarts.

In the body of Harry James Potter. Not the wide-eyed eleven-year-old, bespectacled, semi-autistic kid of the books, but a sixteen-year-old Harry Potter who was, and I'm not kidding – still in his third year. Why? Not because he was a retard that constantly failed for three consecutive years, but because in this world, they start at thirteen.

Why? No clue.

Initially, I was absolutely crazy about having actual magic. Well, actual, fictional magic of a fictional world, but you get the idea. But then I realized that being the Brat-Who-Lived also meant going on surprise dates with dragons and death eaters and dementors, basically anything with a D that has a Kill-Harry fetish.

But then this happened.

Name — Harry James Potter

Age — 16

Sex — Male

Meta-Luck — 12

World Anchor — 0

AFFINITY

Transfiguration — 15%

Charms — 18%

Martial Magic — 42%

Dark Arts — 30%

Psychomancy — 3%

Alchemy —- 2%

Spatial Magic — 21%

PERKS

Child of Prophecy, Outlander, Defiant, Horcrux

Yeah. Gamer elements. In the Harry Potter universe. Because there's no such thing as 'too much buggering', is there?

I've had two days to lie in that whitewashed hall, listening to that worrywart Poppy Pomfrey's lectures and drinking my potions like a retarded baby, while memories–Harry's memories–bombarded my already addled brain like freaking Kamikaze hits. First year–the troll, the dog, the stone. Second year–parseltongue, Riddle, basilisk, ohmygawd pain. The phoenix bit was a nice touch. Third year–Grim. Sirius Black. Peter Pettigrew. Lupin–holy shit that's a freaking werewolf—cold, more cold, more, more, more freezing arctic cold, dementor, hood and IDON'TWANNADIE—

Yeah. Painful stuff. You don't want to know.

But most of all, I got my answers to these fresh additions to my Potter-verse. The Screen. The attributes. Meta-Luck. Things like what the fuck were these perks and why was I being a Horcrux considered one?

PERK — HORCRUX

Tom Riddle Fucked Up! You get one free pass against the killing curse.

EFFECTS

+100% Affinity for Dark Arts

Okay! That's not a perk. That's a one-ticket saying 'DIE and become a Dark Lord!' All I needed was to fly into the path of a killing curse and Presto!

… yeah! Not happening anytime soon.

What was this world anchor bullshit again?

WORLD ANCHOR

A number representing how strongly you are tethered to reality.

Creepy.

At least the screens responded to my thought and nobody else could see it. Or I hoped that was the case. Snape certainly hadn't spotted anything while I was imitating a cucumber.

My reality-defying, physics-altering, spell-slinging magic wand was out there somewhere. But until I got my hands on it, I'd have to do with the screen.

Quickly, I checked through the other perks.

PERK — CHILD OF PROPHECY

Congratulations, you're Fate's Bitch! May you live in interesting times.

EFFECTS

+50% increased chances of encountering significant entities in this world

Attribute META-LUCK added

Meta-Luck. I briefly remembered something about a bottle of luck. All of this was a very diplomatic way of saying that I'd be drawn into the plot of the story. Newsflash motherfuckers! Everything happens to Harry Potter. You can't get deeper into the plot than that.

PERK — DEFIANT

You're a rebellious little piece of shit. Trying to get you to bow down to authority is harder than pulling teeth!

EFFECTS

+80% immunity against mental coercion

Not bad. The mental coercion thing would be especially useful, given who I was against. Wait. I was? No chance of snake-face reconsidering the deal? Like I could just fidelius myself off the world and settle down somewhere in the States under a different identity? Maybe invest in Google and Microsoft and Apple and settle down with a nice retirement package?

There were two problems with that. One was the obvious one–I had no clue how to perform the Fidelius. Assuming I could even do it. The second was the Child of Prophecy Perk. Somehow, I doubted it'd let me stay away from where the action was.

That left one final perk to check.

PERK — OUTLANDER

Ability to see the Rules that govern this world on your Screen. You lucky dog! Everyone else is playing trial and error!

EFFECTS

Gain affinities from others by increasing World Anchors

Very nice. Very wordy, meaning? No fucking clue.

I felt like kicking myself. This was definitely a Harry Potter universe, but it wasn't the Harry Potter Universe of the books. Or movies, for that matter. The age difference was the most obvious one, and I knew there'd be more to go.

And then there was this again.

Memory Infusion and Segregation Complete

Spiritual Matrix Determined

Set

Activating all functions…

THIS IS GONNA HURT!

"Holy!" I began.

And then darkness.


"... rry?"

The voice called out to me in the darkness. It was lucky I didn't throw my pillow at it.

"... rry, mate! You awake?"

Blearily opening my eyes, I looked up and found a lanky redhead—Ron Weasley peeking through the door. Beside her was a girl — Ginny? — her head some inches below Ron's. Harry would have been glad to see his friend, and friend's sister, I supposed, but all I felt was apprehension. I was a fraud, and didn't believe for a second I could act enough to fool both of them, even with the full set of Harry's memories.

"Good to see you, mate! Ginny overheard Pomfrey talk to Sprout that you'd woken up! We were worried as hell!" Ron shifted on his feet as he entered the room, with Ginny in tow.

I quickly did a thorough rundown of both of them. Ron was tall and lean, like the books portrayed, but Ginny, Ginny looked mesmerizing. Red-hair, freckles, with a slightly darker skin than her brother, with wide hips, thick thighs, and an ample chest with curves.

A woman's body.

No wonder Harry Potter nailed her in his sixth year.

"Umm, mate?"

Then I realized they were waiting for an answer from their Harry Potter.

"You know," I tried to be casual, "Just enjoying the peace. Where's Hermione?"

Ginny bit her lip in concern, which was already leagues ahead from the butter-dish girl I had memories of from Harry's — from my second year. Damn, this reincarnated Outlander thing made grammar really difficult.

"Uh, mate, you don't remember?"

Something told me I would not like this. "Remember what?"

"Back at the Willow," Ron replied hesitantly. " When Professor Lupin changed… Don't you remember?"

Of course I did. I — Harry, was talking to Sirius about how I could go to live with him after Pettigrew got imprisoned and Sirius was a free man. And then Lupin — curse that moron — had changed into a werewolf and Sirius had attacked him to save Ron and—

I froze.

No. Not Ron. Hermione. Sirius had tried to save Hermione, who was chained to Lupin and Pettigrew, but it was too late. Lupin had gotten to her.

"Hermione. She was bleeding."

That did not tally with what I remembered from the books and yet, that was the story Harry remembered. Lupin had slashed her with one of his claws. Slashed by a werewolf under a full moon. That my head was swirling with sweet memories spent with the bushy-haired sexy bookworm, and even thinking of her bleeding arm made me feel all kinds of wrong inside. I remembered running after an injured Sirius down the forest towards the lake where the dementors would come flooding in, the place where I'd cast my Patronus and try to save him.

See, it wouldn't be wrong to say that the memories were clouded, though more because of a lack of time to go through them than trauma. The subtle things and nuances — I still couldn't remember them, not unless they counted for something important in the books. I recalled the wonder upon seeing Diagon Alley for the very first time, meeting Ron on the train, and Hermione performing a repair charm on my glasses. All those events were still there, somewhere fudged up in my head, but for the emotional impact they had on me, I might as well have been watching a very detailed movie of someone else's life, which in this case, was none other than Harry Potter. It made me feel superficial and bitter, like even the tiniest joys that I had experienced weren't mine.

But — but if the last thing I remembered was being ambushed by dementors by the lake then…

"... Sirius," I croaked. "What happened to Sirius?"

This was crazy. If this was the Harry Potter world, then how were things so different? Why was I sixteen and not thirteen? And Sirius? What the hell happened to him?

"RON!" I barked. "What happened to Sirius?"

"Harry…. Mate!" Ron said, flustered. "I — that is—"

"Stop stammering and tell me!"

"Snape found your bodies at the lake."

"Yes, obviously he found us at the lake, but what happened to Sirius? Is he in Flit—" I caught myself midway. "I mean, did the Ministry take him? You told them about Pettigrew, right?"

Say yes. Please say yes. Please say ye—

"Harry," Ron gulped. "Snape found your bodies at the lake. You were breathing. Barely. Sirius's dead."

"... dead?" I croaked. How? Why? A million questions bombarded my mind. "And — and Lupin?"

He shrugged. "He err… resigned."

Of course he did. The useless bastard. Knowing him, I'd never see his morose face ever again. Especially with Sirius dead.

"Wonderful!" I muttered. "Absolutely wonderful!"

Sirius was dead. Hermione was a werewolf. Pettigrew was free. I was stuck in Harry Potter's body. And Voldemort would start gunning for me from next year. Could this get any worse?

"Can I… go see Hermione?"

Ginny frowned. "Not in two days. They're releasing her the day after. McGonagall said she'd get a private room. You know, for her condition."

"She bloody should!" said Ron. "there's no saying how the curse's affected Hermione. Mum says that the curse twists them, makes them beasts."

I arched an eyebrow. Ron Weasley biased against werewolves? The books hadn't shown this side of the Weasleys. Certainly not in their behavior towards Lupin. Another divergence, perhaps?

"We should leave now, mate!" said Ron, looking around. "We aren't supposed to be here. Pomfrey would throw a fit if she saw us."

I chuckled. "That she would."

I traded glances with Ginny, who looked concerned. Her hesitation to leave the room was seeping through her distant demeanor. No doubt she was thinking about how low I was feeling about Sirius's demise and Hermione's affliction. After a moment of inner struggle, she strode up and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into a hug. Harry would have been uncomfortable with the affectionate gesture, but I, feeling her youthful body up close, her incredibly soft breasts against my chest and her aroma filling my nose, was beset with arousal. I couldn't help but cop a feel of her soft bottom, my fingers caressing her arsecheeks before jumping back to her waist. I knew Ron was standing right there, looking around cautiously, but I didn't care. I felt her stiffen at my touch, but otherwise didn't react, even when I dug into her neck, smelling her hair. She shivered at my breath against her neck before stepping back, her bright brown eyes watching me as if seeing me for the first time.

Both of them were about to leave before Ron paused again and turned around.

"I almost forgot. Lupin asked me to hand this to you."

He held up a folded piece of parchment.

" — this."

I stared at his hand, slack jawed, realizing what it was he was holding in his hands. The Marauder's Map! The magical map that could give me the location of every single point in the entire castle, excluding the unplottable points. A thief's tool, one that could tell me where every single person at Hogwarts was at every single moment.

I tried not to fondle it. At least I wasn't stupid enough to open it in front of him and reveal its secrets.

"Well… what's it about?" He asked.

"Huh?" I replied, marveling at how the Map would be oh-so-useful to me. "Nothing. Just a souvenir from, you know, when he was teaching me the Patronus."

Ginny's eyes flashed. Did she know what the Map did? Knowing what kind of sneaky bitch she was, I would put my money on her seeing the twins use it. Would she tell? Or was she wondering why I lied to Ron? Either way, I'd be seeing her real soon.

"Well, erm, bye then," Ron replied awkwardly, patting me on the shoulder and walking out, with Ginny following right after, eyeing me on her way out.

The door closed.

I dropped onto the bed, ruffling my hair. It had been a close one. Maybe next time, I'd try using that Meta-Luck thing.

"One step at a time," I told myself, staring at the now closed door. "Now, where were we with those world anchors?"

WORLD ANCHOR SYSTEM

You do not belong in this world. Be thankful, the World Anchors are here to save your ass.

A World Anchor is a Bond you share with existences that are part of this reality. OUTLANDER allows you to establish new World Anchors and solidify existing ones, granting you affinities from your anchors and Meta-Luck.

I was conflicted between outright laughing and throwing something at its face. Not that it'd work. No one could see or interact with the screen but me.

Big deal, I thought. "Show me my anchors."

You have no existing World Anchors

"Okay, how do I create them?"

Perform a Sanctum Invocation with a Ley Line

"No clue what that is."

Visit a library!

I rolled my eyes. "Fine. No need to be an arse about it."

Arse? Oh, right. British. I wasn't sure what was worse. That I was already saying 'arse' instead of 'ass' or that I'd have to live with this perversion for the rest of my life here?

"Any other options?"

Create a Horcrux

I swallowed. Fantasy world or not, I wasn't sure if becoming a full-fledged murderhobo, throwing killing curses and creating horcruxes was the way to go.

"Anything else?"

Pussy!

Perform a Tantric Sex Ritual with another entity, sharing your magical energy while receiving a minor portion of their affinity in return.

I blinked.

Then blinked again.

Nope. Reality was still broken.

"You're being serious?"

Absolutely!

"And I'd have to just fu—" I paused, looking around just in case someone could hear me, and continued the conversation mentally. According to this, I'd need to grab the nearest female and fuck her brains off, and I'd get this anchor thing?

And receive a minor portion of their affinity

"Great! Tell me more!"

The screen shook a little before new information appeared on it. It looked like a small essay, titled–

WORLD ANCHORS AND TANTRIC SEX

The more I read through it, the more I realized how fucked up this place was. Long story short. I'm an Outlander, an existence outside this whiny bitch called Reality, which is why I need World Anchors to tether myself to this world. And my only, or rather, easiest way to gain those was by fucking beautiful, tantalizing, loin-stirringly hot women.

No kidding. And thanks to my Child of Prophecy perk, my chances of meeting new and interesting people are always high. Sounds like the start of an erotica? You ain't heard nothing yet.

It isn't just about the sex. Fucking new girls would get me started on anchoring myself deep within them, physically and magically, but that was half the job done. I had to develop emotional bonds with them and make sure they value and trust me. Well, that, or fuck them frequently enough to keep me fresh in their minds. Plus, I'd get affinities from them, and the higher the affinity, the easier a particular brand of magic was for me. I wasn't sure how fucking translated to an increase in magical strength and prowess, but I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Wait, I'm Harry Potter. So gift-hippogriff then? Nah, there's something about a gift horse that just sounds right.

Instincts long buried welled up within me. The desire to gain, to steal, to break and conquer. Back in my old life, I had gotten things the hard way. I had had to fight, smack and claw my way up the hierarchy until I ended up in an early grave. But guess what, bitches? I might have lost that one game, but I wasn't out of the fucking tournament. You could take the man out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the man.

This right here was my second chance. If I fucked enough girls and used the added affinities to gain an arsenal of new and exciting and powerful magic, I could become the strongest wizard in existence. The Potters were an old family if Rowling were to be believed, which meant old money. Gold, status, fortunes. Everything would be mine. In a world where magic could convert truth into lies and lies into truth, where a spell could tear into the mind of another, where existed the Deathly Hallows that could conquer Death itself–my growth was infinite. My potential was unlimited. I could do anything, learn anything, and gain anything I wanted.

I shivered.

"Dear me," I said, quoting the words of Vespasian, the Roman Emperor, "I think I'm becoming a God!"