Chapter Text
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!