My Name is Barry Potter, and I am the twin brother of Harry Potter : Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Commissioned by [Damien Jones]

My Name is Barry Potter, and I am the twin brother of Harry Potter.

Chapter 3

–Barry Potter–

Guide to Sacrificial Magic - Lily Potters

The title itself sent his heart racing as the book likely held the answers to many of his questions. Hell, it was sure to raise more questions just from the thickness of the book, on top of the clear magic he could feel from the book. It was most probably bigger on the inside, which just served to increase his happiness.

“What is it?” Harry asked him with clear impatience in his voice, totally uninterested in the book in front of them, likely more interested in the piles of gold all around them. Well, that too was interesting, but not as much as the book in his hands.

He could barely hold himself back from opening the book and getting engrossed in the likely revolutionary piece of magic in his hands, because they were not in safe territory. Sure, this was the Potter Vault and the Goblins wouldn't enter, mostly because of their reputation and job security, but this was not the preferred place to read a piece of magic that likely held the answer as to why Voldemort, a Dark Lord that terrorised an entire Major magical country for years without being stopped in any meaningful capacity, was stopped by a Muggleborn mother.

Holding the book carefully, he covered it in a cover he conjured, got a handful of Galleons, unnecessary as it was, before exiting the vault, not before locking it using the key, though. The whole thing was surreal to him. The fact that an entire vault was locked using just a key, a key that was in the hands of Goblins, a race universally known to have no bounds for their greed.

He supposed that the Goblins were pragmatic at the very least, knowing that if they tried to steal a single vault for some short term wealth, they would end up losing their place as a cornerstone of Global Magical Banking and would soon find themselves hunted down by their many enemies with their stranglehold gone.

Still, he wouldn't trust anyone with something this precious, aside from Harry maybe, but even the brat did not really understand the value of the book.

‘Hey! I am not that bad!’

He ignored Harry’s indignant exclamation as he walked to the Goblin who was waiting for him. The moment he entered the cart along with the Goblin, the green creature tsked, as if something had gone wrong. He was about to ask him, but then realisation hit him. Smiling in amusement, he leaned on the edge of the cart, “You have some sort of waiting fee if people stay in their vaults and make you wait too long, right?”

The goblin’s silence was telling enough. Stereotypical bankers, he supposed. The core behaviours and policies did not change, even if the entire species changed. Something to do with the profession, he supposed.

Coming up to surface level, he thanked the goblin who brought him up, waved nonchalantly at the Goblin who confirmed his identity, who did not react to the greeting, before he exited Gringotts and once again faced the Diagon Alley in all its magical glory.

Taking a deep breath, he whispered to himself, “Yup! Magic is in the air.”

He ignored the snort that came from Harry as he hefted the bag of money he got from the bank and walked straight towards the entrance of Diagon Alley. All the stores he needed to go to for the Hogwarts Student Haul were located right at the beginning of the Alley, probably for easier access.

He wondered if prime real estate concepts regarding proximity to entrances and exits applied to Magical Britain or not. He supposed that with magic, many things normal to non magical people were simply absent, such as road access to towns or dwellings, as well as other utility things like electricity, gas, water, etc.

Magical Britain and what wizards could actually do with wands and even the most elementary of magic would probably give any average camper/off grid liver the chills. It was just so easy to just get off the grid and live on your own, all self sufficient, without ever having to meet another soul for as long as you want.

….He should look into that when he grows up and could do something about the whole divide between magical and non magical worlds.

Saving the Wand matching creamery for last, since he wanted Harry to be in the pilot’s seat for that, just in case the wand had some kind of weird requirement about the whole two souls in one body thing, he walked to the bookstore, shopping list in hand.

While he was excited about the books, that was before he was given the ultimate gift of knowledge in the form of that one book. That single thing might be one of the strongest pieces of magic on the planet, if you have the proper conditions for it.

Not really in the mood to extend his visit here, he quickly brought every book that was on the list and then some of the ones that caught his eye, along with a small Bag of Holding to store the books in, since they numbered in the dozens. And this was just from a cursory look; he hadn’t even looked too deeply into the many catalogues they had.

Maybe he could come back in a few days, once he was done going through the books?

With the books done, he went to get his uniform, only to be told that they were on their Lunch Break, which was odd, but he then shrugged and moved on. Who knows what kind of break times they had in Diagon Alley, given how sparse the traffic was at this time of the day.

Maybe it was him that had come at the wrong time?

Moving on from the clothing, he stood in front of what held the most important purchase of the day.

Ollivander’s, where Harry’s wand waited. He didn't need the wand per se, more than capable of using magic with just a wave of his hand, but he would be lying if he wasn’t equal parts curious and equal parts dreading the future where Harry would get used to a wand, thereby their body would get used to the wand, and his soul form wouldn’t, making wandless magic that much harder.

He took a deep breath and banished those fears. He had a number of solutions for that particular problem. There was no solution to not having a wand while attending Hogwarts. This was inevitable, so with a thought, he pushed Harry to take control of the boy, as he watched from the background.

Harry took a moment to let his gaze roam all around the very enchanting entrance of the store that was probably here before the invention of Sliced Bread, before pushing the door open. He instantly sensed Ollivander, waiting for them in the corner of the store, which meant Harry did too, but Harry took it remarkably well, having already been told about Ollivander’s eccentricity, and just walked right to the counter, before looking down at a silver bell.

He snorted in his mind as Harry rang the bell twice in quick succession. Ollivander’s magical signature hadn’t moved one bit, but he was far more interested in the cacophony of magic he could feel coming from all the wands ahead of him.

He would have thought that all the wooden casings used to house all those wands would have muted their magical signatures, but from what he could sense, there were likely hundreds of wands here, all with their unique signatures, each one slightly different from the rest.

What he tried to focus on was to check if there was a specific one that called out to Harry. Did his presence butterfly away the wand that Harry was originally going to get? The twin of Voldemort’s wand?

“Hello, there,” Ollivander chose this moment to step forward, into the light, and say, likely to scare Harry. Harry, obviously, did not act scared, just turned around and looked at the weird man who owned this shop.

The silence lasted for a minute before Ollivander snorted and just walked behind the counter, no explanation as to why he was standing in the dusty corner, hidden in the dark, while 11 year old kids were waiting for him at the counter.

He supposed that any wizard with some sort of magical expertise, taken to the extreme end, had something odd or weird about them. Dumbledore and Voldemort were both the pinnacle of odd eccentricities, with both of them being magically powerful.

In Ollivander's case, he was just the premier and likely, only, reliable wand maker in all of Magical Britain, and that was just as, if not more, valuable than having just great magical combat prowess, if looked at from a long term perspective.

Harry spoke up, “Hello. I am here for my wand.” 

Succinct. To the point. Nice.

“You don’t say,” The man legit deadpanned at them before continuing, “So, tell me a bit about yourself, Mr.?”

“Harry,” As was practiced, they were not going to hide behind a pseudo identity, as it was not going to last for long anyway, “Harry Potter.”

No sooner had the words left Harry’s lips than he had to lean back as Ollivander had leaned forward, almost unnaturally so, looking at their forehead, where the scar should have been but now was almost gone as he had done the shard of Tommy boy in, years ago.

Ollivander muttered to himself, “Hmm. I can definitely see it. Way too faint, though. Well, let’s see what we can do for the Boy Who Lived.”

Before Harry could ask the man what he meant, the wandmaker had already disappeared into his vast collection of wands. Wands that still sent him all sorts of magical signs, something he had never felt before. He would have loved to be in the driver's seat at the moment and just experiment with the wands and their magical signatures, to get a better idea of what he could sense and how, but they couldn't afford to gain any extra undue attention.

At the beginning, he was more concerned about having to hide everything, especially the Dursleys' fear of him, from any wizard that came to escort him to Diagon Alley, but so far, there had been no news about them. It was as if a single reply from his side had satisfied them, and no escort had come to introduce him to the magical world.

Were they treating him as if he were a kid of a pureblood House and hence did not need any help with the Magical world? Did they really forget, or was he being tailed by someone? Someone he could not sense yet? If so, they would have to be someone really skilled, even if they had something especially powerful, such as the Invisibility—

A chill ran down his spine as he imagined Dumbledore using the Invisibility Cloak, something he got from the Potters themselves, to spy on him and his actions so far.

How long had he been spied upon without realising? Was Dumbledore onto him? Was Dumbledore spying on him ever since he got the letter? Ever since he came to Diagon Alley? Inside Gringotts?

Inside the soul space he shared with Harry, a tremor rang as his thoughts went into disarray, the fear of Dumbledore, a competent Dumbledore making his mind conjure up far too many negative scenarios, affecting his mind immensely, only for Harry himself to come running through in their soul space and slap him, hard. Well, in mental terms, but the intent was there, and that was enough to snap him out of the small panic attack he just had, just because of the mere possibility of Dumbledore, a magical titan, spying on them for longer than he was comfortable with.

“A small panic attack? Don’t lie to yourself.” 

Harry scoffed and spoke in their mind, and before he could rebut that statement, Ollivander came out of the back, coughing and waving his hands to get rid of the dust, his other hand holding multiple wooden boxes, with more magical signatures.

His focus immediately went to the multiple boxes in Ollivander’s hands as his senses tried to catalogue them, just like all the other wands in the shop.  

“Here, try one of them.” Ollivander set down the boxes on the counter, opened all of them with a simple flourish of his hand, and looked at them expectantly. Harry, understandably nervous about the whole ordeal, took his time to look at all the wands presented before his hand gravitated towards the one right in front of them.

Understandable.

What was not understandable was the feeling he, or rather, they got from the wand, seeing as they both shared the same senses, with the more magically talented being the only one who could shut out the other from the senses. Which meant that Barry was superior to Harry when it came to that.

And the reason he was doing this was to tease Harry, as the boy had to restrain himself from rebutting that statement, as he was currently in the middle of a very important task that could not be disturbed at any cost.

Still, a quiet, “SHUT UP!” reached him, but he expertly ignored that, as Harry set that weird feeling wand down and picked up the other one, doing the same until he reached one end of the counter.

Ollivander still had that expectant look on his face as he followed Harry to the other side of the counter, and then all the way to the other side of the counter, as only 5 different wands were left, all of them exuding unique magical auras that didn;t really tell them anything because the 6 wands that Harry rejected before gave them similar auras, but were rejected all the same based on the feeling they got when Harry finally held the wand in his hand.

Three of the five wands that were left were rejected on similar grounds, which finally elicited a reaction from Ollivander's expectant face, his face, instead of dropping, lit up in excitement. He supposed that Fanon theories about Ollivander’s loving a challenge were true then.

Then, Harry picked the second last one, and finally, they felt something! It was not weird, but he had a distinct feeling it was not the one either. No sparks out of the wand, no natural flow of magic surging into the wand, no recognition from the wand either. It was fine, usable, but not really the one.

He’d thought that wands matching with the owner would be a more dramatic phenomenon, but if only the last wand was left and that too did not click with them, then this was going to be it.

“Doesn’t feel right, does it?” He looked up as Ollivander gently pried the wand from Harry’s hands and placed it back into the wooden box. “You shouldn't force it if it doesn’t feel right. You should just know if the wand is the one. Come on, let’s try again.”

Ollivander gestured to the last open box, containing presumably the last wand he planned to offer them right now, and he could feel Harry’s nervousness at being rejected for not having a proper wand, to which he rolled his eyes and gave Harry a mental whack up the head for thinking so little of himself.

He was Harry Potter, for Merlin’s sake!

Maybe he did a little too good a job in making sure that Harry did not gain an ego, especially since now that he had an entire family practically terrified of even breathing near him and was only going to experience an even greater amount of fan worship after the world got to know who he was, and just what he could do.

Harry could not hear his current thoughts, though, as he was focused on the last and final wand that could make or break his career at Hogwarts, or atleast that’s what he assumed, and he could not correct the boy right now because Ollivance was practically breathing down their neck with how closely he was watching the entire process.

Harry’s hands touched the wand, and as he was monitoring the senses very closely, he got hit with what he could only call an explosion of jubilance, as sparks, small fireworks, and light just exploded out of the wand, as Harry let out a cry at being flashbanged, and dropped the wand, which only made it worse as now the wand was just letting out sparks everywhere, forcing even Ollivander to drop behind his counter.

Harry stumbled back a bit, almost falling had it not been for his emergency intervention to force the body upright using wandless magic. Blinking the spots away, he saw Ollivander pop out from behind the counter, and after swiftly enveloping the wand in the wooden box, slid it towards them, with a very self satisfied smile on his face.

“That will be 7 Galleons.”

He looked at the offered wand, at the still, present smell of fireworks in the air, before looking back at Ollivander, “Actually, the wand–”

Ollivander interrupted him, “That will be 7 Galleons. Thank you for your business.”

As he said that, he waved his other hand, as all the other wand boxes floated back into the storage, the smile still plastered on his face.

Hesitantly, he took the offered box, gave the man his money, and watched him smile until they exited his store.

“That was very weird,” Harry commented the second they were out of the store, apparently satisfied being in the backseat for now.

“Yeah, it was.” He agreed mentally before deciding that he was down for the day and headed back to the Dursleys.

He had to figure out the whole wand situation and see if there were any variations with the wand response depending on who was in the driver seat.

Not to mention the absolute treasure trove of information he was expecting from Lilly Potter’s book, but unfortunately, he knew that solving the Wand issue was more important in the short term.

It was far harder than he had expected it to be, but unfortunately, logic won out, and he had to look at the Original Lily Potter book longingly, as it was stored in favour of figuring out this stupid Wand thing.

Opening the wooden box, his hand made contact with the wand, and immediately, he could tell that things were going to be very different for both of them when it came to using this particular wand.

While it practically blew up in happiness when Harry touched it, it basically acted the same as the second last wand when he touched it. Usable, but that’s it. 

No amplification of magic, no ease of use, nothing. Just a piece of focus through which he could cast his magic.

Which was honestly fine since he was going to focus more on wandless magic anyway.

He was in a Magical World! He was not going to subscribe to stupid and idiotic things such as rules in a Magical world.

___xx__

It was the next week, and he was, as usual, currently holed up in his locked room so that no one could disturb him, experimenting with his magic. While he might have thought of rules with contempt, in the sense that they should not be as rigid as it came to magic as they were to science, it helped to formulate some of his own studies, as he was an entirely new phenomenon in the magical world with a perfectly stable multi soul singular body layout, or so he liked to think.

Shaking his head, he waved his hand, a wave of magic passing through the room, turning everything in his sight into a bright pink colour, making Harry sound like gagging, which was fine since the next moment, Harry took control and waved the other hand, turning the entire room black, plunging everything into darkness, as Harry had also closed the curtains at the same time.

Magically enchanted curtains that could block out the sun’s rays, no matter what time of the day it was outside.

Ignoring Harry's childlike giggle, since he was a child, he just gently but firmly pushed Harry out of the control seat and waved his hand once more, turning the room back into its normal state.

“Don’t do that when we are not alone.” He warned Harry about what he had just done. See, normally, there could only be one person in the pilot seat, as they had taken to calling it, that could control the one body they both had access to.

But, after Harry had gotten his wand, his magic had somehow begun evolving or some other convenient shit, as Harry could just as easily take control of a specific limb and use the magic from there. Obviously, he could push back on that as well, but Harry had never been able to do that. He knew because they'd tried that as part of his experiments about body possession.

Maybe it was Harry becoming more magically capable as he grew up, or maybe it was the wand, whatever it was, it gave Harry a new ability, and like a kid with a new toy, Harry was making full use of it, purposefully trying to annoy him by taking control of a specific part of his body while he was deep in study or meditation, or magic.

The most annoying part was that Harry knew he couldn't do this outside the safety of their room, which is why he couldn’t even get mad at the brat. Doesn’t mean that it wasn’t annoying at having to swat away his own hand from tickling his nose when Barry was reading the single most precious book in his opinion.

Ah, the book.

Lilly Potter’s Guide to Sacrificial Magic.

A book that, to the people in the know, would be worth more than entire treasuries full of Gold and other treasures, as it was one of the few things on the planet that could allow someone of a lower power tier to kill someone of the highest power tier, all at the cost of a measly life.

After all, to the nobles and purebloods, he was pretty sure that they would not even bat an eye to sacrifice a single wizard, even if pureblood, to take down the Titan of Magic that was Albus Dumbledore.

They would be foolish to think so, of course, as Sacrificial Magic, atleast the one that Lily Potter was describing here, was not akin to Rituals where you had to gather specific materials and then sacrifice them for something in return.

No, this branch of Sacrificial Magic was more focused on self sacrifice.

Sacrifice of the self to achieve some pretty badass results. Now, not all of the methods in here require the sacrifice of the Immortal Soul, but the lower the sacrifice, the lesser the effect.

Lily Potter effectively destroyed her own soul, letting the magic consume it as fuel to power not just that attack that vaporised Voldemort’s ritual enhanced body, but also power their protection for decades to come, had he not been in existence, who ate Tommy boy’s soul to gain more power.

There were notes about sacrificing her ability to grow long hair, sacrificing her vitality in small batches, which was dangerous, but when he took into account that Lily Potter was very young when she died, the stupidity kind of made sense.

What she got in return was not specific here, or maybe it was, and he just hadn’t found it yet.

See, over the course of the week, after he had practiced with the wand a bit, he had taken up the book he was very excited to go through, and that was when he realised that…

Lily Potter was not a great writer.

She might be an awesome witch, and an even greater mother to them, having the will to sacrifice herself without any hesitation, but she was not a good writer who could write about an entirely new branch of magic, as far as he could tell, in a cohesive manner so an absolute newbie can read through it properly.

The flow was not right. There were P.Ss written everywhere, detailed exceptions and paragraphs written in sections it had no business being in, with figures scribbled over text, making both of them hard to read.

It was all around a mess, which is why it had taken him the better part of a week to go through just over a hundred pages, which was not even halfway through. Lily Potter might not have been a great writer, but she sure was thorough, which is why he was sure that once he was done going through the entire book, only then he was going to get a proper understanding of everything.

“Hey! Enough with the boring book. Let’s go flying!” He heard Harry scream into his mind from their shared mind/soul scape, prompting him to look up from the book, only to pause to see it was night outside.

What the….

His neck snapped to see the time as he sighed, realising that once again, he had gotten engrossed in the book so much that even after Harry was done meditating/sleeping in the mindscape, he was still reading the book.

It was just so interesting to even think of all the applications here that this was happening more often than not these days, and understandably irritating Harry far more, as he was a child and basically not programmed to sit still and in one place for long periods of time.

Using the bookmark, he snapped the book shut, and after securing it in the locker inside the floor, under their bed, he stood up and stretched, “Fine. Let’s go.”

As he was done stretching, the sound of bones popping echoed in the room, a piece of black clothing appeared and covered his face, before elongating to cover his entire body, as they flew out of the now open window that automatically closed behind them.

Once he was at a sufficient height and had judged that the danger was not too much, he let Harry take control, still monitoring everything using their senses but trusting Harry for now, as the brat had proven himself surprisingly responsible with their late night flight sessions.

Unfortunately, while Harry was responsible, he was also somewhat of a speed junkie, which is why the moment it was made clear to Harry that there were no threats nearby, he accelerated to the max and shot towards the forests, knowing full well that he had an autonomous surveillance as well as guidance system sitting in the back of his head.

___xx__

4 weeks had passed since the day he got his letter. He knew that the School starting date was Sept.1, only a few days away, which is why he was all the more curious as to why no one from the School administration had come to visit him, either to guide him or just to talk to him.

If not for sentimental value, then atleast for strategic reasons alone, Dumbledore should have come or at least sent someone to check up on him. After all, from their perspective, it should be immensely valuable to be the first face of the magical world for the Harry Potter, not to toot his own brother’s horn.

But no, not a single peep from them.

A bad feeling emerged in his mind about the possibility of this place being some sort of alternative world to the canon timeline, but then he dismissed those possibilities as the Boy Who Lived was still Harry Potter. The books, exaggerations as they might be, were the same as what he was expecting.

Banishing those thoughts from his mind, he decided to go out for the day, as having spent the past few weeks holed up inside his room, studying that one single insanely complicated book was not doing any favours to his mindset. Sure, he’d flown around plenty with Harry, at night, but that was not the same as moving about a city with actual people around him.

Which is why, ignoring the way Dudley stiffened when they both exited their rooms at the same time, he locked his room and whistled while exiting the house. 

Then it struck him. It was good that no one came from the administration to check in on him. Then, they might have seen the Dursleys’ fear of him and assumed the worst, especially with Dumbledore, who might do something profoundly stupid like trying to mind lobotomize him.

Within minutes, he was on a bus headed to King’s Cross Station, a pretty big train station, which was not nearby. It took him over an hour by bus, but finally, he was here.

Acting nonchalant, he entered the station and made a beeline for the 9th platform, as the letter said Platform 9 ¾, so it must be nearby, right?

Well, he could sense a magical object or enchantment nearby, a pretty potent one too, but he couldn't exactly identify the platform itself. Maybe they had some sort of magical obfuscation ward as well?

So, the old school method it was.

From what he could recall, children would just walk headfirst into a giant block of converter, and then emerge onto the platform on the other end.

How the logistics of that worked, he did not know, but intended to find out once he actually found it.

Which is why he ignored the odd looks from the people around him as he inspected each and every concrete column with his hands, running his hands over the entirety of the block to make sure he was not missing something.

It was the kind of thing that only a kid could do and get away with, as an adult doing the same thing might have gotten the police called on him, or in some more sympathetic nations, mental help called for him.

Of course, being a kid, there was also a limit to what he could do and how long he could do this, as the longer he was here without an obvious guardian nearby, the more the chances of people calling in Child Services, and this close to finally getting to go to Hogwarts, he was not going to–

His thoughts halted as he felt it, the source of magic.

But, to his disappointment, it was just a block of concrete, magical as it might be.

No matter how much he tried to push, the block did not move, the magical gateway did not open.

His eyes widened slightly in realisation as he understood what it was. Maybe the gate was open only during the times the train was supposed to be there. Other times, maybe they kept it totally closed up?

“Ah, Bollocks,” He slumped near the pillar, his disappointment immeasurable and his day ruined.

He really wanted to see an empty magical train station.

Oh, well. He shrugged at that. 

What can you do?

His eyes lit up at that, his previous thoughts of not conforming to something as stupid as rules in a magical society, rearing their ugly head as a not so wise thought entered his mind.

Pushing against the boulder physically did not work, but what about magically?!

Word Count - 5290