It was a dissatisfied Harry Evans who was found biking home after a few hours spent in a cave practising magic. He'd managed to further refine his mending charm, but the scouring charm had been a complete failure, requiring several casts to remove even a small patch of dust. He thought he knew what the issue was, but that didn't make him feel any better, seeing as he didn't have the tools necessary to alleviate it. See, Harry's thesis was that the scouring charm benefitted from the user having some familiarity with the subset of transfiguration skills called vanishing. If one knew how to vanish an item, one's magic would be more used to the same act when applied to the highly formulaic scouring charm.
The only problem was that vanishing was obviously not first-year material. At least he hadn't found it in his first-year transfiguration book. One silver lining was the fact that if his theory was correct, and that knowing how to vanish would help one's scouring charm, then knowing the scouring charm would be helpful when learning how to vanish. This way attempting to make the scouring charm work would aid him in transfiguration in the future. Although the payoff would probably be higher the other way around?
Without being aware of it Harry started whistling as he drove home, magical theories, his own postulations and plans for future magic learning whirring around in his head.
"That's a nice enough goal. Learning the scouring charm," Harry mused just about when he arrived home and saw how absolutely dirty his mountain bike was. Driving through a forest, be it rain or sunshine, would do that.
Harry quickly deposited the items that he'd repaired in his cave away from home in his room, full of vinyl records, old cameras, coins, trading cards and books.
"Did we get any mail, screaming mail by any chance?" Harry asked his aunt whom he found in the kitchen preparing a meat pie.
"Not that I noticed. How was your bike ride?" Petunia asked without turning away from the forming of the pie.
"Enjoyable and enlightening, very draining," Harry said, mostly referring to the fact that his connection to magic felt sore, as much as a metaphysical state of connection could feel sore. He hadn't gotten physically tired for a while now. Another advantage of magic perhaps? Did it boost one's innate human capabilities? Something to look into after he got his hands on some medical knowledge. Messing with the body was dangerous business.
"Just don't overexert yourself with whatever you're doing," Petunia said before trailing off.
Harry stepped forward and gave his aunt a hug from the side. "What's wrong?" He asked.
A tear fell into the meat pie, Petunia wasn't working anymore but just propping herself up on the kitchen counter. "Just promise me you'll do everything to stay safe," she managed to force out.
Harry continued hugging, an awkward angle due to his size. "I'll prioritise my health over everything," he promised.
Petunia turned towards him to hug him back and to stroke his hair. "You're a brilliant boy Harry. Whatever magic might promise, I assure you, you can be just as successful in this world."
"I love non-magical music way too much," Harry promised, "and by the time I finish Hogwarts I'll be just in time to go to university."
"Good luck explaining where you were for seven years, you dolt," Petunia said as she released him from his hug. She looked him up and down before scrunching her nose. "And go take a shower, you stink," she said with a slight tone of disgust, before looking down on herself and seeing that some of his sweat now stained her apron.
"Universities aren't workplaces. They won't care where I was as long as I have the right grades, worst case, I can just say I first wanted to become independently wealthy flipping cars," Harry said, before noticing that he was overstaying his welcome by tapping his aunt's feet on the wooden flooring.
He went to take a shower.
-/-
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
"Who in the fuck thought such delicate leaf shutters were a good idea," Harry mumbled as he idly transfigured the tip of his screw-driver into a smaller variation thereof so that he could unscrew the fastening of the lens from the camera to get at the shutters underneath. The chrome steel easily popped off and he got to see what had been blocking the shutters from locking. Solidified oil.
"How German," Harry muttered, "designing an intricate mechanical system and then having it fail you because you used the wrong sort of oil." He tapped his wand on the fastening and the screws that he'd taken off, one after the other, "Scourgify," then he began disassembling the rest of it. It was slow tedious work but there was a reward there, a financial one of a few hundred pounds for this rare camera in perfect condition, but also a symbolic one. Harry liked the idea of photographs and the photo album of his new life was safely tucked inside his trunk hanging overhead in its small compartment. Not being able to afford a magical camera with the leftovers of his muggle-born stipend and not knowing how electricity would work within a place as magical as Hogwarts had left him the option of a purely mechanical camera. Contaflex 1948. Very beautiful chrome, once scourgified a few times. It would help commemorate his time in Hogwarts. He paused at the thought. Wasn't there something to commemorate right now? His first train ride to a magical school. Reality truly was stranger than fiction.
Harry cast a distracted repair charm at the camera that he'd picked apart and cleaned and wound it up a few times without a film roll in it to check if it really worked. Once satisfied with the quality of his repair he stepped out of his compartment. Flagging down the first student he saw, taking care to avoid green ties. Harry ended up engaging a young boy with brown hair and blue eyes who, by the lack of colour on his robes, also seemed to be a first-year.
"Hello, I'm Harry Evans." He said to the boy, who started before turning to him and smiling.
"Hullo. I'm Cedric," the boy introduced himself, extending a hand which Harry shook politely and firmly. "Cedric Diggory," the boy blurted out with a slight flush to his face after the handshake.
"Nice to meet you Cedric Cedric Diggory. Would you mind terribly taking a picture of me in my compartment? I want to commemorate my first train ride," Harry said, at which the boy brightened up again.
"That's a great idea! Why didn't I think of that," Cedric exclaimed as he followed Harry into his compartment. "Wow, that's a really shiny camera," he remarked as the chrome was pressed into his hand.
"Just make sure I'm in the picture and press the button on the upper right corner," Harry said as he let himself fall down on his seat and lean on the little table he'd pulled up with one arm, the other lazily holding his wand to his temple as if he was thinking, or extracting a memory.
"You're not gonna move?" Cedric asked confusedly once he'd gotten into a position to shoot the photo in.
"It's a muggle camera, no point in doing that. It's gonna be a still," Harry remarked and without much preamble, a click was heard.
"That's so cool, how does it work without magic and wait, where's the photo?" Cedric said as he lifted the camera up and checked underneath, looking for a photo. Something Harry would have to develop in his trunk once they'd gotten to Hogwarts. Not that he would bother until he'd actually finished the camera roll.
"Muggle cameras need the photo developed first, it's not instantaneous. Magical cameras make them immediately?" Harry asked.
"Yeah! It's super-fast. Less than a minute, no, less than thirty seconds, no, less than fifteen," Cedric said, jittering in his seat. "Wait, do you think you could take a picture of me? Nobody I know has a camera," he suddenly said before posing, before perking up and jumping to his feet. "Wait, no, you think you could do it in my compartment? I want my friends to be in the picture."
Harry watched, amused to a certain extent, how energetic the 11-year-old boy was. It made sense, he guessed. It was the train ride to Hogwarts, a magical school in the Scottish highlands where they were going to learn how to shoot lightning bolts.
And if lightning bolts weren't in the curriculum? Well, that's what self-study existed for.
"Sure, lead the way," Harry acquiesced and explained all about how muggle cameras branded light reflections onto a dark sleek material.
That was how he found himself taking a picture that made him feel a tiny bit apprehensive. Looking through the small lens at the two identical red-haired twins hugging each other and making stupid faces, Cedric sitting on the ground and a girl he didn't know trying to look haughtily into the camera. Four eleven-year-old children. Two Weasleys, one Diggory, one unknown, but happy-looking girl with a life, a dream, a future, a family.
Two of the four children were supposed to die in the original timeline.
Harry snapped the picture. "I'll get this to you guys when I end up developing the film," he said, quickly excusing himself, but not before being hugged by one of the twins.
A seemingly heart-warming gesture, until Harry noticed something struggling inside of his pocket when he reached his compartment. He pulled out a chocolate frog and stared at it as he stood in the middle of an empty compartment, with only his books, his wand, his trunk and his camera to keep him company.
He popped the chocolate into his mouth. Despite having lived a very long life and having tried many abominable chocolates, this one somehow managed to be the worst one that he'd ever tasted.
It was bitter.