Chapter 4: Chapter 04
By 5 pm, something did occur. Harry's wandering attention, which had been engaged in the half futile act of blocking out the admittedly immense pain while still staying awake, was snapped to focus when he literally felt his immobile, purple and swollen arm creak. It was so shocking that he yelped in surprise. The weird feeling continued,admittedly lessening the pain as arms, legs, ribs, his dislocated joints and other damage was slowly and painfully reversed. It took till 5 in the morning when Harry was finally in a state a normal human being might call 'functional'.
Harry was both jubilant and annoyed. On one hand his totally idiotic scheme had somehow pulled through and he finally knew the feeling of whatever inner power coursed through him. On the other hand his chores would begin too soon for him to get any more sleep. In other words, he would have to do that day's chores half asleep.
Of course, it was at this point that he realized that the Dursleys wouldn't call on him for a while yet, after all they had just finished trying to beat him into a coma, and trying to get the half dead kid that he had been mere hours before into public was just begging for trouble. So he decided to take the opportunity and slept, all the way till the next morning.
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The next day, the Dursleys were treated to a very peculiar site – happy Harry. Now while normal kids spent most of their time laughing or crying (or in some cases pouting), Harry was known to them to be, peculiarly enough, in a perpetually blank emotional state. There was no rage, frustration or any of the 'normal' reactions to their heaped abuse. In fact that was one of the reasons the Durselys tried so bloody hard to get a reaction out of him. No matter what their end of the equation, a kid who doesn't get the least bothered when a grown man tries to kill him was 'freakish', at least, to them.
With that in mind, the horribly malicious glint in his eyes and the happy grin did not bode well for the Dursleys. Even Dudley could feel it. And for once, Vernon, who from Petunia's reluctant tales, knew exactly what a seriously annoyed wizard could do, felt the tentacles of fear slowly worm their way into the frigid crevices of his utterly inhuman heart. Even so, he could not let this pass. So he decided to ask the 'freak' exactly what the matter was.
"What happened to you, boy? Why are you so cheery all of a sudden? You wouldn't be doing something freakish now would you?!" Vernon huffed, mentally adding the unsaid, but understood 'after I walloped you so thoroughly not too long ago'.
Harry grinned even wider, unsettling Vernon even further. "Nothing at all Uncle Vernon. Nothing - at - all."
And he happily twirled to the counter and flipped the bacon. Vernon decided not to pursue the matter. Not with his attention diverted by the bacon at any rate.
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Harry spent the rest of the month happily experimenting with his new found ability. He literally had a brand new toy to play with. The first thing he did was of course to try and mold chakra, which contrary to his prior opinion, did take practice to get right. Then he did it while forming the 12 'standard' handseals he had gleaned from the books, and noted down his 'results'. Then he began to try doing the simplest and least chakra intensive discipline of them all, genjutsu.
It was not that genjutsu were easy to learn or do. It was just that Harry had confidence, determination and a quite literally a goal to die for. As a result, even though his handseals were not up to his childishly exaggerated expectations, and his genjutsu were literally sucking him dry, he persevered.
The funny part of course was that basic genjutsu were visual, because that was the most clearly used sense of the five. And differences in brain structure meant that it was not possible for him to trap animals with a blunt force genjutsu. That meant only one thing, Human Experimentation.
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It was a poor time for Dudley. He had recently been the frequent subject of daytime nightmares. Sitting still one moment and dying in increasingly imaginative and horrifying ways the next. The Dursleys were so worried sick that, in an ironic twist of fate, they forgot to blame the one person who was actually responsible.
But even when Harry eventually tired of his little game, he could honestly say that it was the single most satisfying thing he had ever done. However he decided to stay his real vengeance for a later date, when he could do much more imaginative things with chakra. After all, didn't someone say that revenge was a dish best served cold?
As the new month began, in the cupboard under the stairs, Harry James Potter began to smirk maniacally, the promise of death dancing in his eerily glowing green eyes.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone