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Harry is six the first time he enters the library. After browsing through the kids section for a minute and nineteen seconds he contemplates the probability of discovering something more fascinating in the adult section. By chance he ends up in the mathematics and science books, and can't decide which ones to read first. The librarians all think he's adorable, 'looking at pictures' in the adult books. Harry scoffs and continues reading, occasionally writing notes down in the tattered little journal he found in one of their neighbor's trash bins a few months ago.
He is almost eight when Dudley receives a top of the line laptop for his birthday. It lasts approximately two months, seventeen days, four hours and thirty-six minutes before crashing due to viruses. His cousin received a new one on the first day of school to replace it and the old one is tossed in Dudley's second bedroom with the other broken toys. That weekend, while Harry is deep cleaning the house, he sneaks it into his cupboard and hides it in the corner under his folded clothing and second set of bedsheets. Every evening afterwards Harry fiddles with it, exploring the technology with curiosity. It takes him a bit over a month to clean up the laptop and get it near factory settings after unsticking the keys, cleaning out the hardware, wiping the viruses out of the system and generally fixing the thing. After that it takes about a week for Harry to retrofit it into a slightly more complicated beast and begin working towards upgrading it.
He's half past ten when he discovers the thrill of breaking into other computer systems and messing about with their data. After three months he's crashed six popular websites, wiped all of Dudley's game accounts from the servers, given Vernon's work computer three nasty viruses and put a glitch in Grunning's finance system that sends paychecks to a 'Mr. Adam Fields' in accounting who doesn't actually exist. After the numerous books and tutorials he's read, as well as several secret discussions with another minor hacker, he's quite positive that his security is very safe. And it is. He's received paychecks for the last two months with nice sized sums, that he cashes 'for his father' (the bank lady thinks he's the most adorable little thing, trying to act 'grown-up'). He saves the money in a loosened floorboard under his cot with the ten-cent book on stocks and bonds he got from the library sale last year. Eventually he's going to make himself enough money to leave the Dursley's and he'll never look back.
When Harry first received the letter, he's terrified that it's the government. It has his cupboard in the address! He slips it under his door and goes about his daily chores, sweating bullets in the back of his mind and itching to know what it says. When he finally gets tossed in his 'room' that afternoon with a water bottle and slice of buttered bread, he notices the fancy parchment. Which is odd. After reading the letter, he wonders how anyone could fall for something so ridiculous. It's only after the letters start appearing everywhere and Vernon and Petunia try so very hard to keep him from reading them, that he has suspicions. Eventually Vernon is so terrified they leave Privet drive and end up on the coast in a rickety little boat to a small island with a hut on it. A poor, applianceless hut without electricity. On Harry's birthday. It's even worse than usual because he can't hide away and tap away on his computer there. But, it gets better.
Hagrid is, apparently, some sort of half-breed with one parent being very large. Probably giant, but possibly troll. Harry doesn't much care except that he actually gets Vernon to shut up for once and then takes Harry in to London.
Diagon Alley is wonderful, in the sense that it is every child's picture of what a magical bazar should look like, not in the sense that Harry is too stunned to think rationally. The most devastating thing, Harry thinks, is how utterly dark age everything is. Have these wizards been so removed as to miss the last several centuries of innovation? Especially the last few decades of technological achievements!

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After collecting his school supplies Harry buys a room in the Leaky Cauldron for the next month and then heads into London on a shopping spree. He buys himself enough tech to fill his 'bottomless' messenger bag and then some. He spends the next thirty days buried in his room with a vat of Earl Grey and several tins of biscuits building a new computer out of the top of the line model that will run on his magic and therefore overcome the upsetting short-circuiting effect magic has on his lovely little gadgets. After three weeks he makes a breakthrough. His beautiful new computer feeds off his magic when it's turned on, but the leeching is so minuscule it's barely worth mentioning. Once he's done with the hard drive, console and monitor he outfits his internet adapter to do the same. And he's done. His last week of free time is spent securing his software and making improvements to the original.
While he mainly focuses on his tech, he does spare about two days to figure out a way to keep receiving Mr. Fields' paycheck. It was incredibly easy too. He simply bought a house elf, a wonderful girl named Tory, who picks up the checks under glamour and then deposits them in Gringotts for him. She also gets his mail, keeps his rooms mostly clean (as it can't be completely clean as he's working) and fetches food from Tom so he actually eats. He does send her on other errands, especially when he discovers that his library of books doesn't have what he's looking for and needs additional charms texts.
Eventually he boards the Hogwarts Express, using Floo rather than taxi through London and wander around the station looking for an unmarked platform. After picking himself up from the ground and triple checking to make sure his tech is all fine, he sets out onto the train and into an empty compartment where he proceeds to close the curtains and lock the door and get lost in lines of code. He doesn't even realize how long it's been until the trian finally stops at Hogsmead Station and he's jolted out of his little bubble of concentration. Spending an extra twenty-three seconds to finish up his lines, he packs away his things and heads out into the sea of children clamoring around the station.
Harry holds out hope for his new school for all of three days. There is no progress, children are stereotyped and segregated in a sanctioned systematic process, and prejudice is encouraged and propagated both by teachers and the students in charge. Those born in the wizarding world can't even pronounce telephone correctly, let alone describe one or the process to use it. Muggle-borns seem to drop their roots as soon as the get on the train and even the 'smartest witch of their generation' Hermione Granger sniffs in disdain when she sees him reading his self-study books so he can still earn his A-levels. It's like they stop thinking as soon as their eleven! Harry finds it disgusting.
On top of these societal failings being fostered in his school, the classes are mostly horrendous. The main subjects are ludicrous and sometimes need talent to do exceptionally well in them. Potions would be far more interesting if their teacher wasn't a biased bully who systematically destroyed three-fourths of his student's work through overbearing hovering and verbal abuse. Charms is fascinating but goes at a snails pace due to the inattention of the students. Transfiguration is also wonderful but the teacher is set in outdated 'traditional' ways and teaches spells for stupid things rather than teaching how to mold magic to change anything into something else. History of Magic is a joke, the teacher can't keep his students interested in the subject material and the children learned from the older students to use it as a free period to do whatever they like. Herbology is a great class, except that Harry doesn't really care for plants after being treated like a personal gardener by his aunt. He likes Astronomy, except that it's held at midnight because they have to see the stars; rather than building something like the Great Hall but that only mimics the night sky, like a planetarium. Defense Against the Dark Arts would probably be more effective if the teacher was competent and lasted more than a year, currently it's a waste of time since the teacher can't communicate clearly and no one takes him seriously.
Grudgingly, Harry muddles through the classes with a bored and annoyed air. During the winter break he spends his days in his empty tower room tapping away on his computer and working on new inventions. He's taken some of his smaller things to Flitwick already, his Head of House thinks his gadgets are brilliant and has even given him supplemental reading, which is actually fascinating. He spends his second semester in bored frustration. Towards the end of school the DADA instructor is killed in that 'forbidden corridor', probably doing something suspicious but Harry really couldn't care less. He heads back to the Dursley's frustrated and disappointed with the world he comes from.
When Harry is about to turn fourteen he discovers something rather interesting in his Gringott's account. A letter from his mother Lily, it was buried under a small stack of coins which he's finally cleared enough of to find it. Apparently, his parents aren't his biological parents. Lily explains that Dumbledore gave him to them after their child died before being born, something went wrong with the birth and little Harry didn't make it. The envelope contains his actual birth certificate along with little Harry's death certificate. According to his birth certificate his parents, Mary and Arthur Whishaw, named him Hamish. After debating he keeps Harry for the moment but looks deeper into his biological family. Just before Halloween he catches a break and discovers a file in the Mett's cold cases which details the disappearance of infant Hamish Whishaw from a family outside of Ipswitch. The only problem is the files have been buried under a crap ton of security measures. And it stinks of conspiracy or cover-up, Harry's not sure which but he knows Dumbledore is involved somehow. Between his disappearance at the hospital and his adoption by the Potters something happened and the government was involved somehow.
He keeps digging throughout the school year, even as he gets roped into the ridiculous tournament and is subsequently shunned by the entire school. He barrels through the first deadly task with a bit of difficulty but his brain's already being eaten up by his personal studies, his research into his family (which is only taking so long because his parents files have been moved from where they should be and he's frustratingly having to slum through ridiculous little files until he finds their trail), and a host of new gadgets he's hoping to patent and sell to improve the wizarding world so it at least gets past the renaissance before he graduates.

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It's an ordinary Thursday for Q, which means it's in no way an ordinary day for the average Brit. He's spent the morning stewing over the new design for 004's new stiletto's with the little pistols in the toe box and the switch blade in the heel. After two cups of Earl Grey he's moved on to the issue of 008's stun rounds getting stuck in the chamber of his .45 ACP. After a brief lunch break, which lasts about fifteen minutes and forty-two seconds before all hell breaks loose, he's talking two agents in Mumbai through deactivating a bomb in the middle of a busy market street, and then relaxes from the adrenalin high by tinkering with 007's new gun design. Unfortunately his ordinary Thursday goes wonky when alarms start blaring at four twenty-six in the afternoon.
With a muttered curse Q pulls up his security features to localize and hopefully track the breach so MI6 can send out an agent to neutralize whatever threat has broken through some of his security. It takes thirteen seconds to locate the breach, and the information that it's heading for sends figurative ice water down Q's back. It's the security around Q-branch personnel that's being flicked through, heading for Q's own files.
"Q, why are your alarms going off?" M's dulcet voice asks from the speaker of his smartphone.
"Just a small security breach," Q mutters, glaring at his computer and activating the protocols he has for situations like this, "Someone's hacked into the Q-branch personnel files, nothing major"
He's tracing the breach and closing the holes in his walls at the same time and eventually the intruder notices and goes to pull out. Only Q's got him trapped, or at least he thinks he does, and then the intruder twists his code and slips under Q's security with a shimmy that makes Q a little starry -eyed because that was brilliant. But now it's a chase, because the intruder knows Q's on to him and Q needs to locate the signal that's cracked through his security to keep his departments personnel safe. There is a brilliant little jaunt through London, into the South of France, across the Sahara and into Peru before his tracking system localizes the break-in to a hazard zone in Scotland and after three seconds of stalling panic that Q can almost taste in the code that's been leading him on a merry little chase, the little blip he's been tracking fizzles out and disappears.
"That's actually a little creepy," Eve's voice breaks into his thoughts and he looks up from his screen to see most of his subordinates and Eve staring at him with worried expressions on their faces.
"What?" Q blinks, only to realize that he's been smiling for the last - however long it's been.
"You know you mutter to yourself when you chase people on the computer?" Eve smirks at him before asking what happened and where they need to send an agent.
Q's a little upset that Eve's laughing at him but explains what the problem was and where they need to go. The coordinates he gives her make her pause.
"That's a hazard zone," She frowns and takes everything up to M, muttering to herself all the way.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Harry/Hamish is a little pissed that everyone is hanging around for winter break this year because of the stupid Yule Ball, but he forgets to be upset when he finally gets a lead on his family. Both his parents have passed, unfortunately, however he does unearth the birth certificate of a Quentin Whishaw who was born to Mary and Arthur thirteen years before Hamish. Unfortunately his brother's files have been locked down behind some rather impressive security measures, for reasons unknown to Harry/Hamish. After studying the security measures for twelve hours and eight cups of Earl Grey he begins carefully slipping through the little lines of code with delicate quick movements and long pauses, at four twenty-six in the afternoon he knows he's tripped something because added security has popped up. He takes two minutes to browse Quentin's files and make a few quick notes in his journal about where he lives currently so he can look him up this summer, and then turns about to leave. Only he's stuck in whatever security measures have been erected in the last few minutes he's been stalled. Thinking fast he pulls out from a rather awkward angle that messes up a bit of his firewall, but admits it's worth it to not get caught by whatever shady government official is keeping him away from the last of his family. He runs subroutines and protocols until his fingers ache and then freezes when his location is compromised.
Fuck.
Harry/Hamish snaps his finger onto his reset key and watches every little line of code he's ever written fizzle out and crash to "Neverland", which is a separate drive that will hold all his data in a sort of suspension to keep it hidden. At least if they come to Hogwarts, assuming they can see past the 'anti-muggle' wards, they can't pin it on him as his computer is completely blank. He may be the only student in the school with a computer, but they can't blame anything on him! It's only circumstantial evidence. It's just his luck that he spends the next fourteen hours rewriting code to get his computer somewhere near it's beautiful old self and completely misses the stupid ball that he's supposed to be contractually obligated to attend. Not that it matters in the least to him. He gets slapped by his date, receives detention from McGonagall and still has his magic. It was worth it.
The school finally clears, mostly. And Harry/Hamish no longer has to worry about his dorm-mates cluttering up his head with useless drivel. Finally there is peace. For all of two days, and then chaos erupts bringing with it a dangerous blonde man in an expensive Tom Ford suit and spiffy, leather oxfords. The man takes one look at Har-Hamish and sighs with a look of exasperated amusement.
"Of course it is," He smiles thinly and walks straight towards Har-Hamish.
"Can I help you?" Hamish shuffles nervously and wrings the sleeves of his cardi behind his back, trying not to bite his lip.
"You wouldn't happen to have an older brother and a computer by any chance?"
Oh. Oh, crap.
"Who wants to know?" Hamish leans backwards, narrowing his eyes. This must be one of those shadowy government official's people.
"MI6," The man smiles charmingly, and Hamish pales. Oh, dear lord, could his luck get any worse?
"Would you mind coming with me for a while?"
"Let me just tell my Head of House and grab some things," Hamish nods shakily and heads back into Hogwarts with the man on his heels like he's not about to drag him into some form of interrogation and then make the problem disappear.
He gets Flitwick's confused approval to leave school for the rest of the break and then leaves a note on his desk in case he doesn't come back. It includes a will that is to be mailed to Gringotts if he doesn't turn up by the end of the school year.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

When Bond returns from 'neutralizing' the threat in the Scottish hazard zone, he returns with a smug little grin on his face and a fourteen year old kid with messy black hair, green eyes and thick rimmed glasses. The debrief is surprisingly quick, M only yells twice during the entire conversation. A miracle. After Bond finishes his retelling of events he goes to find Q, who is agonizing over the apparently dead and completely useless computer that was supposedly used to hack into their systems.
"So, do you want to meet him?" Bond finally asks after Q has nearly killed himself trying to find a way to start the stupid thing.
"He's not dead?" Q blinks up at him with a wary hope.
"He's fourteen, so no, he's not dead," Bond narrows his eyes.
"Well, that's a first," Q mutters, but nods his head and allows himself to be led away from his work for a little while so he can meet this little genius.
And really, Bond could have said something before he shoved Q into the interrogation room. Because Q was not expecting to look at a little mirror of himself. Really, really not. He stares for approximately thirty-eight seconds before moving to sit across the table from the boy.
"Hello," the kid mutters quietly, staring at him with his mother's green eyes behind huge glasses.
"Hello," Q replies, a little awkwardly, "I'm Q, they didn't give me your name,"
"It's Hamish," the boy answers, "Hamish Whishaw. Are you Quentin?"
Q pauses at the name and then double takes at his own.
"How did you get my name?"
"Your birth certificate," Hamish replies slowly reaching for the little bag at his feet.
Q tenses slightly, because Hamish is an unknown and anything could be in that bag (well not anything, anything. Someone probably went through it before it was returned to Hamish). The boy pulls out a folder filled with papers and slides it across the table to him.
"I recently found a letter from my mother, my adoptive mother, explaining where I came from. It came with my birth certificate so I went digging for more information but a lot of it was buried under government security. I only recently found out about you and my files are still in Neverland so I don't have copies here," Hamish explains while Q flips through the folder.
He does remember the heartbroken sobbing his mother indulged in after coming home from the hospital. He even remembers the police stopping by every few months until he was fifteen to inform his mother that they hadn't found anything. His father had left after that, and his mother got a little distant.
"I'd like to run a DNA test to confirm this," Q finally says, looking up at Hamish.
"Please, if I've got the wrong person, I'm so screwed. I didn't know I was hacking into MI6, I just thought it was a government conspiracy or something," the boy flushes towards the end and Q smiles a bit. He remembers that feeling when he first got caught, so awkward.
After stepping out briefly to grab the necessary equipment, Q takes a quick buccal swab from Harry and goes off to compare it to his own. It's positive. Q sends the results to M before digging into the files and moving every mention of Hamish Whishaw into secure files under his own. After that's done he pauses for a brief moment to let the thought of a brother sink in completely.