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The first thing he remembers is dying.
Hurt.
Rather a lot really.
It was his first clear total full sensory memory and he hated it.
The next bits were a jumble of pain, hurt, loss, a soul screaming agony of nothing making sense, bottomless need Need NEED, and physical pain just to finish off the steaming pile of horribleness.
It took time for all of that to settle, a long time it felt like but eventually it did.
He was weird though when it did settle, because he was himself, and more.
The part of him that screamed for lost loved ones was wild, chaotic and all emotions, hard to control, impossible to control really although he did try.
The him trying for control was logic, a rational mind, yet he was emotions too, empathy and compassion mostly.
Logically an empath was emotions, not logic, yet here he was, some kind of two in one person, curled in his bed under the stairs watching his toys run round for him trying to figure it all out.
His wrist ached yet was no longer broken, it was the reason his family hated him now.... and always.…
Sensory impressions of hate looooong past, rage and pain and hunger and betrayal and he blinked and caught his breath on a sob, because that was dream him.
Real him, awake him, all of him felt pain too, because he wanted someone to love him so much but he was Freak.
Always had been, a long long time of bits and fragments and nastiness that chance words at school, Past Life, gave him the why, even if not the how.
He’d lived before, and could remember bits of it, sometimes loads of it even.
But so much of it was so bad he wished he couldn't.
Freak.
Magic.
That was the proper word, magic, and he'd smiled when his repairs on the plastic toy soldiers changed them to knights and horses and they jousted and swung battle axes and he sighed when he got too tired and let them stand down, but the changes were holding.
They’d been knights and horses for three weeks now, another gift from school, the library, where he’d seen the pictures and thought, “I can do that.’
Someone must love him!
Because the emotional part of him that he used to be when little had grown up a bit now, he felt whole and so much better now he was getting enough to eat, but that smaller younger littler part of him remembered being loved.
Loved properly, and he knew from the people he lived with that his parents had died but no one was just parents, they were people and had friends and other family.
Other family.
He’d been eight when he’d frightened his newest adults into feeding him properly, and not hitting him anymore either, and they'd hardly gotten hurt at all, unlike what they used to do to him, and unlike then, the wrist today really was just him tripping and falling down cause it was only normal to do that when a snake says hello to you!
Back then he’d flat refused to do any work for them, past life him insisting he was a kid, kids got care, it was part of the deal.
Eight, he'd been so little.
Now he was ten though he’d figured out a few things, not only that he must be remembering more than one past life but also, a really important thing to have remembered was how to do magic on purpose but when he wanted to hurt Dudley with it his nice part rose up and said no.
Two in one, so strange to be him.
But he didn't use magic against anyone, but he did kick Dudley in the shin really hard and when his cousin fell with a bellow he’d lent down and said with the older meaner part of himself, “Now is when I call that rock over,” they both looked at the floating rock, “and I hit you in the head with it, over and over and over.”
“Ooooor you leave me alone forever.”
“Up to you.”
The cowardly bully peed his pants and stayed away even now, and that was years ago.
That was the start, making them feed and not hurt him anymore, the library helped so much back then too, cause if you stand in a library where no one can see you and think really hard about what you need to read, it comes to you.
So across two years he’d read everything he could, and some of it was hard and some of it was easy, and all of it was important, but then he’d remembered something from past him…
Libraries got bigger, and when they were big enough they had magic books.
So now, he was going to the biggest library he could find, and he even had permission to do it.
*
As plans went it’d been a good one, go to the library of London, find magic books, learn lots.
Good plan.
The magic fireplaces derailed him utterly!
He’d gone into the huge and awesome book filled building and felt the place, something he'd only just remembered how to do and followed a strong surge of THIS WAY that was magic, and found a room all fireplaces and people stepping in and out and this too, now he was reminded anyway, he knew this.
Floosy, he thought it was called.
Or flooozle maybe?
Step in and say where to go, oh, throw powder first though or the fire burns you all up.
Instead of finding the magic books he watched, and listened, and tried to figure which one to try of all those places he heard people going to.
In the end he followed a nice family out of the floozy room when he got tired of wishing he had a good place to go too and found the help desk and got a library card - although she’d stared a bit at Harry Potter when he said his this-life name - and learned all about library owls, although he remembered them even as she talked.
He could request books, from a magic list she’d give him, and he could call a library owl by touching the page and then send and receive books that way and not have to go all the way on the bus.
Which had taken hours!
Perfect!
Asking for a few to get started with he took five with him, all of them he’d picked from wandering the children's section.
Something from before told him good children's books were a perfect place to start on any subject, so he took one on modern history, one on culture, one on government, one on magical creatures, and a dictionary.
Sitting on the bus heading back to where he lived, watching the world go by, he felt good about it all.
Positive.
Because he’d come up with a plan, late one night when he was feeling more himself than usual, if he’d once had family, then he still had family, and if he could find them then they might love him.
Simple.
Because he was loveable, and tried his best to be very very good.
He’d been bad once, in his past life and never wanted to do that again!
Being the one that got hurt was bad, being the one hurting other people was worse.
Patting his book bag, he hopped off the bus and then waited for his own local bus to show up.
It was the good part about London, the buses.
Now he was ten he was allowed to use them any time wanted, as long as he never called for help and always got home by seven.
Considering some of the memories he now had creeping up on him from a time that was clearly long ago, those rules were pretty okay.
*
He’d read his books, and past life him helped with the words, and the dictionary helped even more, and he’d gotten more books and read them too and done that a few times and now he was back in the fireplace room, because one of the books had explained floo travel.
Had explained lots of magical travel really, making busses look even better really.
But Harry’d had an idea, and all his past life memories backed that up, and he thought it was worth a try, because the book also said the floo could not hurt you.
Could not!
If it couldn't find a match to your destination it would send you to a help room in the hospital, and you could figure it out from there.
So he stepped smartly up to the bowl, put his fist full of coins in, took a handful of powder from the second bowl, cast it in and said, “HOME!”
*
“Wow.”
Keeping his voice very quiet because all of him agreed the dim dusty silent grand place might not be safe.
A pop made him jump about a mile, and a kind of horror movie voice said, “Heir of Black, how iz youz heir, iz the heir, how iz that possible?”
“I don’t know, what’s house of black, what’s a hare cause I'm really not a big rabbity thing like they are so you can't mean the animal, and who are you?”
*
The sick looking greenish grey person had brought all of Harry’s belongings to the house, said it was called Grimmauld Place, and if he was the Heir of Black, then it was indeed home.
Past life him had flickers of places like this, but they were more nightmares than nice so all of him pushed the memories away.
He and past him were mostly all one person now, one good person who, even though he sometimes had different ideas of how to go about it, tried very hard not to hurt anyone, because they’d both been hurt before, and it wasn't nice to pass that on.
And Kreacher was nice, even if baffled by Harry, and had made a safe place in the house for him, a room off the kitchens, and there was a big deep tub where he could soak in hot water for as long as he liked, and food for any time he got hungry.
Kreacher fed him about eleven times per day it seemed, and it all was good.
*
“Kreacher is thinkings we is needing the Master of Black, because Kreacher is not being a nanny elf, and I'z isn't beings very sure what to do with youz Harry, not very sure at all!”
The elf was looking so much better, happy and round and clean, it was weeks and weeks in the new house, Harry loved it but this sounded….
Not bad, but maybe not good either, because past memories were not helping at all so he asked, “Master of Black?”
“Indeed, it iz beings complicated, mistris hated him, but he was beings her son, she was hurtings him, usings me sometimes even to hurtings him, and he was escapings her and me," looking around carefully, as if someone else might hear, "I was helpings him escapings, and I was gettings him his stuff to him like Iz gotten yours for you too.... but now he iz in Azkaban, a bad bad place full of dead monsters eatings happiness.”
“But we iz needings him, because I i’z an elf, and you iz a child, and you iz needings a grown up and he is not just Master of Black but is your godlings father.”
The elf nodded his head firmly, “So you iz tellings me to go and fetchings him, and we i’z giving him these potions that Kreacher is stealings from Knockturn Alley, and once he is all better, then HE iz beings your grown up and Kreacher is gettings to be just an elf again!”
Blinking as he processed all of that, Harry finally shrugged, nodded, and said, “Kreacher, please bring Master of Black home!”
And with a snap of fingers, many MANY things changed!