Chapter 41 - No. 4 Privet Drive

I woke up early morning at about 4 am on August 2nd and after having a short breakfast, decided to visit Harry. He must be back at his relative's place by now after his Hogwarts shopping. My decision on whether I should help him will depend on his character.

From what I have read, there were three scenarios when children grew up in an abusive home. First, they break down due to the physical and emotional abuse and live life following orders of their abusers like slaves. Second, they rebel and start having dark thoughts like Tom Riddle which will lead them to a Dark path. Third, they learn to face their troubles head on, become cunning to avoid abuse and learn to adapt to any dangerous situation.

If Harry was of the third kind, I would provide my help to him now. If he was of the first or second kind, I will leave him to the wolves and let them play with his life. I would only help if he had a strong will power as otherwise he was bound to fail in the upcoming harsh challenges of his life.

My reason for helping him was simple. He was fated to become as strong wizard in the future and have similar magical strength to that of Voldemort. He was also going to inherit the Potter and Black Lordships which would make him have double my number of votes in the Wizengamot as both of them were Most Ancient and Noble House. The two houses also had many alliances. These two reasons would make him both magically and politically powerful thus having him see me as a mentor and someone he can trust will help me a lot in the future.

I apparated to Little Whinging, Surrey and made my way towards No. 4 Privet Drive. I activated my mage sight and disillusioned myself when I reached Privet Drive and walked towards the House no. 4. I knew I had reached the correct house when I saw a house that was covered with wards. It was about 4:30 am and everyone was fast asleep.

First I started going through the wards that were protecting the Golden Boy.

I was proved right when I saw that there were no Blood wards protecting the house. There were also no signs of there ever being one in the past. Dumbledore could have used the protection created by Lily Potter's sacrificial magic to erect a blood ward around the house but he could not have done it because for the ward to activate, Petunia needed to accept Harry as part of the family first. Another thing was that if such a ward that protected the Harry from outside harm existed, then Vernon and Marge Dursley who had ill will towards Harry would not have been able to enter the house due to the wards. So Vernon after going for his job the next morning would not have been able to enter his own house that evening after coming back from his job. So I was sure that Dumbledore did not have the option of placing a Blood ward over the house.

Now coming to the wards that were present. I found the basic ward protection on the house, which included an anti-apparition and anti-portkey ward. There was a ward that did not allow anything related to Dark Magic to enter the house. So this ward protected the house from the Death Eaters. There were two wards that detected magic. One controlled magic detection ward that I think was placed by the Ministry of magic which would be able to inform the ministry about any magic that was consciously performed in the house. I think this was responsible for the ministry detecting the magic done by Dobby. There was another magic detection ward that detected all magic done at the house which I think was placed by Dumbledore so that he could be informed about all magic done in the house including high levels of accidental magic.

The wards protected Harry's life from all outside magical harm. That was good. But the thing that was not good was what was powering up these wards. Wards need magic to power it up, it could be either through the ley lines or periodic power up done by wizards. Here there were no ley lines so someone had to power these wards up. What horrified me was that, that I could see what was powering up the wards of the house through my mage sight. The power source was the under developed core of the 11-year-old Harry Potter. This was very bad for Harry's core. From my calculations, the wards were using about 30% of Harry's current core to power them up. These 10 year, the wards were drawing continuous power from Harry's core to keep it strong so his core was always in use.

This was bad for the core. I am surprised that he is alive after powering up the wards from the young age. He should have died due to magical exhaustion as there was no way a baby had enough magic to power these strong wards. The current 30% of magic must have been way more than the reserves of a baby Harry. Fate was really helping him survive. There was one good side for Harry due to this. The constant use of magic by the wards was similar to the magic exercise I did to make my magic grow faster. So his magic core should be much larger than that of the peers. This method could only be used for Harry as anyone else would die within one week of the exercise and it was only because of the prophesy was he even alive. I don't think Dumbledore meant for this to happen. I think he must have not thought it through before he set up these wards or he did not have enough knowledge on warding.

Now it was time to enter the property. Before I entered the property, I decided to adjust the two magic detection wards. I could not deactivate the two wards as it would alert the people who added the wards so I changed area it was tracking to the house opposite to the Dursley house.

I quietly unlocked the door and made my way towards the first floor smallest bedroom. I chose early morning because everyone would be asleep and I could check Harry before he woke up. I opened the door to the room and closed it softly behind me. I saw the smallest 11-year-old boy that I have ever seen sleeping on the bed in the room. For safety sake I spelled him to make sure that he does not wake up. I went near him and started applying Diagnostic charms on him.