Harry Potter opened his eyes to the sterile ceiling of Number Four, Privet Drive—not with the groggy confusion of a child awakening from a nightmare, but with the clarity of a player who had just respawned. It wasn't the dazed reawakening of an eleven-year-old. No, it was the cold, calculated calibration of someone who had lived lifetimes.
Memories—two lifetimes' worth—sank into place like bedrock beneath his consciousness. He remembered the cupboard, the neglect, the accidental magic... but he also remembered something else. Crafting tables. Creepers. Redstone contraptions. Portals. A world built from code and imagination. A name: SpectralBuilder. And him. Herobrine.
The fog. The haunted mineshafts. The server that had crashed when he ventured too far into the End and found the hidden temple. Herobrine had been waiting. He'd never spoken. Just stared. Glowing eyes without pupils, standing in the mist.
And now, somehow, impossibly, both lives were one. He felt it under his skin—a rhythm, a code ticking behind every beat of his heart. He blinked, and for a split second, health bars flickered into view at the corner of his vision. Inventory slots. Hunger. Something primal and digital nested within his soul.
Footsteps thudded on the stairs.
"Get up, boy!" Vernon Dursley's voice boomed, accompanied by the bang of a meaty fist on the door.
Harry sat up, slowly. Not afraid. Not anymore.
He raised his hand toward the door—and for a brief second, he felt it. A selection box, invisible but real. If he had a flint and steel, he could light that door on fire. If he had obsidian, he could trap the entire room in a suffocating cube. But for now, he had restraint.
He blinked the interface away.
"Yes, Uncle Vernon," Harry said calmly.
The door slammed open. Vernon's eyes narrowed as he stared at the boy who never met his gaze before. But today... Harry stared right back. His emerald eyes shimmered faintly white. Just for a second.
Vernon flinched.
"About time," he grunted, stepping back.
Harry stood. He could feel his limbs responding differently. Smoother. More aware. Like toggling sprint and crouch in perfect sync.
The morning passed with routine dullness: breakfast made, insults hurled, chores assigned. But Harry wasn't really here. As he scrubbed the front steps, he was testing. When he wiped down the windows, he was observing.
At noon, Dudley shoved him while walking past, knocking Harry's cleaning bucket over. The water spilled in a perfect arc—and time slowed. For a split second, Harry saw it. The water was a particle system. Flowing in a coded arc. A physics engine.
"Watch it, freak!" Dudley snorted.
Harry's hand twitched. For a moment, he imagined summoning a bucket of lava and dropping it at Dudley's feet. The HUD flickered again.
Item Unavailable: Lava Bucket
"Not yet," Harry muttered.
That night, lying awake in the cupboard under the stairs, Harry stared at the wood above his head. And he reached inward.
Inventory: empty.
Crafting: locked.
Status: Active Player.
But something stirred in the back of his mind. A ghost of a menu. A seed. Not of a world, but of change.
He closed his eyes and imagined four wooden planks and two sticks.
A shimmer of light.
Nothing happened physically. But mentally, he felt a subtle click.
Recipe Unlocked: Wooden Sword
His eyes opened, glowing white for the briefest flicker.
He grinned.
Magic had rules.
But so did code.
And he knew how to break both.