"Harry," Dumbledore had said softly, "whatever road you've taken, may it not be too dark."
The words hung like ghosts in the fading night. But Harry was long gone — far from Privet Drive, far from the empty cage that once defined his life.
The sky was bright now, the sun finally reaching its peak. His feet ached, his breath came ragged, but he didn't stop until the houses thinned and the neat streets gave way to cracked pavement and weeds pushing through forgotten lots.
That was when he saw it — a rusting factory, long abandoned, its roof half-collapsed and its windows blind with grime. A chain-link fence surrounded it, sagging in places. He scanned it briefly before spotting a small tear half-hidden beneath a tangle of shrubs. Harry crouched and slipped through, wincing as the metal scraped his arm.
Inside, silence greeted him — the kind of silence that felt like a secret. Dust motes drifted lazily in pale light spilling through broken panes, and the air smelled faintly of oil and rust.
For the first time since running, he stopped moving. The adrenaline began to ebb, replaced by the heavy, spinning fog of thought.
He sat on the cold concrete floor and stared at his hands. They were trembling — not from fear, but from something deeper, something he didn't have words for yet.
He thought of the Dursleys. Of Petunia's shriek. Of Vernon's rage. Of the years in the cupboard and the way they had always looked at him — as if he were less than human . . . he had been powerless then.
Powerless to fight back. Powerless to leave. Powerless to be something more than the "freak" And then, in one moment, that powerlessness had shattered.
He didn't regret it. Not really. The thought came to him with surprising calm.
It wasn't joy or cruelty he felt — only understanding. The weak obey because they must. The strong choose their own path.
The Dursleys had taught him that lesson well.
For years, they had strength, and he had none. They had enjoyed the power they held, while he had been force to work like a slave for them.
Now the balance had shifted. He exhaled slowly and looked around the shadowed room — the broken tables, the heaps of scrap metal, the old tools scattered across the floor. It wasn't much, but it was his.
A place to start over. A place where no one would find him. Moving with a strange sense of purpose, Harry began clearing space on the main floor. He shoved aside collapsed crates, rolled broken pipes to one side, and stacked bits of usable metal. Not that he knew how to use it, atleast in the real world.
The work was slow but grounding — each small motion giving shape to the chaos inside him. When he reached for a wrench lying half-buried beneath debris, the wrench was oddly prestine comapred to the other tools he had found, the air shimmered faintly before his eyes.
A familiar translucent text appeared, hovering above the tool:
"Item has a corresponding mod open for addition."
"Would you like to add the create mod to mc?"
[Yes] [No]
Harry froze, staring at the faint, pixel-like letters.
The wrench felt solid and cold in his palm — but the words . . . the words were impossibly real.
His heartbeat quickened.
The System was had given him an option.
A choice to add a mod to his world.
For a long moment he simply watched the glowing options pulse before his eyes.
Then, slowly, he raised his hand — reaching toward one of the choices.
As he reached for his choice with the golden light falling down upon his hand he knew his choice.