Author's Note: Plot Bunnies. Plot Bunnies Everywhere.

Chapter One

Harry was done.

Done with the Wizarding World, the fame, the expectations that came with being The-Boy-Who-Lived, the weight of the world pressing down on his shoulders. Or, at least, that was how it felt like.

Being isolated, trapped like a puppet dancing to its master's strings, not in control of his own self.

The first person that rubbed him wrong was Umbridge. He had stormed out of her office clutching his right hand defensively, a bit pale from blood loss and a whirlpool of emotions tearing his gut apart. It was the perfect starting point for the others to build off of and into the present clusterfuck.

The next event that set him off was getting called into Dumbledore's office right afterwards, where the headmaster proceeded to lecture Harry about Duty and Sacrifice and a load of other hogwash.

"My boy," Dumbledore sighed, his eyes showcasing a faint twinkle, "this is all for the greater good, you understand."

Harry was surprised the headmaster had not been incinerated in his seat with the force of his glare.

Harry's sleep that night was fitful, with glowing red torture and the green light of Avada Kedavra swirling around him. The worst part was that Harry was pretty sure those were memories of Voldemort.

The D.A. meeting the next day was almost therapeutic, until Harry thought back on the reason he was doing this in the first place. Teaching these students the magic they should be learning in school, but aren't.

Just another drop of rage in the bucket.

Another day went by, dawning into The Day.

"I don't see what the problem is," Ron was saying. Loudly. In the middle of the Great Hall, for all to hear. "Just throw the Ministry a bone, you know, maybe an interview. Show their good side to the public, and then they'll let off a little. Easy."

Harry felt his anger bloom full force, and after a moment of seeing red used his rudimentary Occlumency to block most of it from coming to the surface. The contrast showed clearly in his magical aura, and Harry saw Luna duck out of the Hall in the corner of his eye, which did nothing to improve his mood.

"I can see how someone like you would think that, certainly," Harry said stiffly. Ron's mouth gaped unattractively, and Draco, sitting a ways away at the Slytherin table, looked as if Christmas had come early.

Later that evening, Harry found himself cornered by Hermione in the library.

"Honestly, Harry," Hermione tsked, "Ron was only trying to help."

"Oh? How about I help him out the nearest exit then, to return the favor," Harry snarled. He felt his flimsy shields crack at the inferno raging underneath, just waiting to overwhelm him.

"Stop being so unreasonable, Harry!" Hermione scolded, and Harry felt something inside him twist and snap.

"All right, Hermione, I'll apologize later. I've just been stressed lately, you know, with the O.W.L.s coming up and all." Harry forced his lips to pull back into a bashfully apologetic smile, and Hermione nodded, satisfied.

"I'm so glad you realized how rude you were being. I'm sure Ron will understand if you tell him how you feel." She looked at him expectantly.

No. Just... No.

Though Harry felt as if he was swallowing nails at every word that came out of his mouth, and in the back of his mind he knew he should be screaming and punching something senselessly right about now, his face was the picture of calm and collected. "I'll do that."

But he didn't.

As soon as Hermione left, Harry began stalking towards the Room of Requirement. He had a plan. This plan had been in existence ever since he had seen some of "The Prophecy" in a disastrous Occlumency lesson with Snape. Luckily, he had already made Snape magically swear not to tell anyone what either of them saw during these lessons, so no one else knew he knew.

Unfortunately, it was bloody difficult to escape Dumbledore, let alone the Fate of the world.

Which was why he was leaving this world, too.

Pacing in front of Barmy's painting, who was Magic knows where, Harry thought very carefully through his rage on what he wanted the Room to be.

Give me a white room exactly 8' by 8' by 12' feet, with the ceiling being highest. On the ground draw in Kraken Ink a Triquetra inside a circle. On top of that draw a Lemnicate, and have it all the size of my palm. Now around that draw an Enneagram, with the points reaching out to touch the walls, and inside the segments draw the runes Raido, Mannaz, and Perp repeatedly in a radiating pattern. I'll be doing the rest.

Although the simplest and most time-consuming steps were out of the way, it still took a good hour to carefully draw the remaining runes accurately and without making the unstable compilation blow up.

Even now, Harry wasn't sure if it would work. This was complex magic, and even with his prodigious talent in Runework he was nowhere near able to make something like this.

Which was why he copied most of it from various theory work in Slytherin's journals (found in the Chamber of Secrets, and written in Parseltongue), and added a shitload of Luck, Chance, and Karma symbols to it.

He had the Devil's luck, and he was sure as hell going to make good use of it.

And if it still didn't work...

"After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."

Silently asking the Room for a knife, he cut open his wrist, blood dripping in a macabre display. Taking in a deep breath, he focused himself and pushed all of his magic into the Runework.

"Pare me makria," Harry whispered.

Lights flashed behind tightly screwed shut eyes, but the world was completely silent except for himself.

Thu-dump. Thu-dump. Thu...

In hindsight, it was a pretty bad idea to dimension travel inside a pocket space.

Harry knew immediately that he did not succeed in being transported. After all, people transported to different worlds did not become... babies.

Or did they?

Shaking the thought off, Harry tried to focus on his situation. He had a mom now, right? And a dad?

Harry found that idea... tolerable.

Still, baby Harry could not see a thing. Scratch that. He could see, but it was all a blur. The only thing he could make out was a bright, comforting blue.

In fact, he was pretty sure he could feel the blue as well, like his magic. Come to think of it, his magic felt a little strange, and he should really be more worried about it, but...

There was blue. Right in front of his face.

Harry began to make out voices. Low and gentle, loving, familiar.

Mother?

At the thought, Harry smiled.

More words, in a language he could not understand. Hushed and shaken, then another one, laughing carelessly. Angry voices.

Suddenly, Harry felt the blue energy he now recognized as flames leave him, being siphoned away callously.

No! Not the Blue! My Blue!

His face scrunched up, ready to burst into tears at any moment, but he held off long enough to follow the thin line of power connecting him to his Blue.

There.

Harry relaxed. He could work with this. His Blue wasn't gone, just... Withheld.

He felt himself getting angry again, but quickly calmed himself. He could still access them, if he tried hard enough to follow the feeling. And besides! He was free now! No more Wizarding World, Boy-Who-Lived, or any Prophecy! He was free!

Completely... free.

Harry let out a relieved, childish laugh.

...

He was still beating up whoever sealed away his Blue, though.

Turns out, his parents were dead.

He knew this because his mother had yet to make an appearance since that first time -and didn't she sound weak, breathless, sickly? You need to notice these things, Harry- and Harry knew for a fact that the man taking care of him wasn't his father. He didn't know how he knew, he just... did. It was instinctual.

A lot of things were instinctual now.

Still, Harry -Rin, now- Rin made sure his first word in this new, strange language was Daddy. The man was a good father, especially considering he wasn't the calmest baby.

(He cried. He cried from all these powerful emotions that would spiral in his small body, too big to suppress and he unable to release them. They came and went, but when they did come, they exploded.)

Rin also had a twin brother, named Yukio. At first, he wasn't sure how to feel about that. He had never had a brother before. The closest thing to it would have to be Dudley, which was...

Well.

But Rin quickly grew to like Yukio. Mainly when his brother was being especially adorable by cuddling with him inside the cradle, or when his brother made that cute laugh of his, or when he threw that absolutely charming baby tantrum...

Rin really loved Yukio.

But aside from the new developments in his social life, Rin noticed some other changes. Some other... nonhuman changes.

There were these little black creatures in the air, buzzing around lazily. Rin made sure to ignore them, in case they took offense and attacked him. He could hardly defend himself in his helpless and weak and delicate baby body and-Don't think about it.

Other than that, there were the more direct changes. Mainly, his senses. His nose was very good, better than his last life. Which was saying something, considering how babyish he was now.

He was pretty sure he was stronger as well. It was hard to tell, but babies weren't supposed to be crawling at four months, right? Yukio was crawling at five months, but they were twins. He was bound to be weird as well.

His hearing was sharp. He picked up the language quickly, with the sort of instinctual ease that reminded him of speaking parseltongue.

He could see better now. Better than his last life, what with his glasses.

These were normal things. A bit strange, but he could just pass it off as having a new unfamiliar body if it weren't for one thing.

The Blue Flames.

He could feel them. He could always feel them. He may not be able to sense where they were being contained, but if he just followed the little string tied to his core then he could tug on it a little, just enough to make some sparks. In a way, the seal was strengthening him. The seal did not work to contain the power so much as to move it elsewhere, while his body worked tirelessly to make more of those flames, all without reaching a limit to what he could contain and stopping because the flame would have already left him by then. He was getting stronger.

He'd be grateful, if it weren't for the fact that some bastard sealed his flames away away.

That was a bit of a sore point.

His magic was off as well. For one, even though he was a baby again, he wasn't having any accidental magic. At all.

Sure, it might be because he had technically already trained his magic and tamed it somewhat, but it has been a two years since he casted a spell. Something should have happened by now.

It was as if his magic couldn't come out, which had all sorts of ramifications, none of them good.

Right now he was trying to fix that. He didn't have a wand and he couldn't do wandless magic, so the only thing left were runes.

So now he was in the kitchen with his brother drawing ancient magical symbols of power. With crayons.

He'd made do with less.

Think simple, Ha-Rin. Rin. Think simple, Rin. Small stuff, easy and harmless. You are a wizard with a weird nonhuman body living in a Church trying to practice magic. If you mess this up, I'll... I'll...

Great, now he was talking to himself.

Taking a deep breath, he carefully grabbed a blue crayon, the same color as his flames, and began drawing the Sowilo rune on a blank piece of paper in front of him. The resulting scribble looked like a worm who tried to tie himself in a knot, gave up halfway through, and had a whole family of fellow worms follow his lead.

In short, it was messy, illegible, and all around made him feel shameful as a Runemaster. An amateur Runemaster, but still. Master.

Harry sighed, and glanced over at his brother's work. Said brother was making great progress in drawing his cat... dog... walrus...

Maybe it was a kid thing.

Pairing suggestions? Suggest away!

Also, despite the rather lighthearted tone to this chapter, this story is kind of dark. Only a bit, but still.