Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Harry plucked nervously at the fraying cuff of his sleeve while a giant man named Hagrid rummaged around his coat. They were in a place called Gringotts, a bank of sorts, run by funny little people called goblins. They were standing in front of a counter that had to be about a mile long, staffed by a hundred goblins. All around them were doors, with people constantly moving in and out of them. Harry didn’t see any other kids around.

Their goblin teller watched placidly as Hagrid, who assured the goblin he had Harry’s vault key, emptied his pockets onto the counter. Moldy dog biscuits, dozens of keys, slug pellets, balls of string, tea bags, a live owl that hooted in indignation. Harry blinked a few times, then turned to watch another goblin weigh glowing rubies the size of his fist.

Lately, things had been moving quickly for Harry, too fast for him to keep up with. First there was that talking boa constrictor at the zoo, and the vanishing glass. The punishment Harry got for that is the longest he had ever received. He had missed the last few weeks of school, and hadn’t been let out of his cupboard until the summer holidays had begun. Harry hadn’t noticed much; time lost meaning in the cupboard. A part of him was surprised he’d been let out at all.

After the cupboard were the interminable days of summer holiday itself. Dudley’s friends, his gang, were at the house every day. That was probably the real reason he’d been let out of that cupboard. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia didn’t want Dudley’s friends to spread stories about him. Harry wasn’t complaining. Out of the cupboard was out of the cupboard, and whenever he wasn’t pressed into doing chores, he wandered around Little Whinging, thinking. Fantasizing, really, about going to secondary school, about getting away from the Dursleys, if only for a little while.

Then the letters came.

Looking back to the night before, when Hagrid told him he was a wizard, when he learned he’d been lied to his entire life, all Harry could think of was, why him? Of all the kids in the world, why did he have magic? Harry was still reeling from all those people in the pub shaking his hand, as if he was special. Harry understood why, since Hagrid had explained about an evil wizard killing his parents, but he didn’t understand why him.

“Got it!”

Hagrid held up a tiny gold key. The key to all the wealth Harry’s parents had left him. He looked down at his shoes, a pair of Dudley’s old trainers. There was a large hole in the toe, and the soles were peeling off.

The goblin leaned forward and examined the key. Then his shrewd eyes looked at Harry’s scar. Harry chewed his lip and reflexively patted his fringe down. He’d been told his entire life how ugly his scar was, and now everyone wanted to get a look at it.

“I’ve also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore,” Hagrid said, sounding rather proud and self-important. “It’s about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen.”

The goblin replied without looking away from Harry’s scar. “Very well,” he said, reaching forward and plucking the key from Hagrid’s fingers. “I shall have a goblin escort you to vault seven hundred and thirteen. Griphook!”

Harry watched with some trepidation as another goblin took Hagrid through one of the many doors. Hagrid, for his part, showed no distress at being led away from his charge, cramming the last of the dog biscuits back into his coat.

The goblin teller hopped off his stool, then flipped up part of the counter to pass through.

“This way, Harry Potter.”

Harry followed the goblin, though he was unable to stop himself from looking around. 

“What’s your name?” he asked politely. 

The goblin sneered, then said, “Ragnok.”

No one seemed to find it odd that he was being taken off on his own. Harry didn’t think he was old enough to have his own bank account, but maybe magical banks worked differently. 

“Why are we going through a different door?” Harry asked, casting a nervous look at the armed goblins guarding the door.

“Security,” Ragnok said shortly. He held the door open and waved for Harry to walk in. It was a narrow stone corridor, lit by sputtering torches, so steep that much of it was lost to darkness.  

Harry looked back in the direction Hagrid had gone, but couldn’t tell which door it was. If he got lost, Harry knew he would never find his way out again

Ragnok gave Harry a hard jab in the side. He winced, and walked into the corridor. The door slammed shut behind them.

Harry followed Ragnok down the corridor for some time, ever sloping downward, plunging into the earth. Hagrid had said that Gringotts extended for hundreds of miles underground. It was hard for Harry to conceive of such a vast system beneath all of London. Maybe magic made that sort of thing possible. Imaging all of that dirt above him made Harry claustrophobic, though the walls seemed sturdy enough and Ragnok didn’t mind at all.

“Where are we going?” Harry asked, battling a grow sense of dread. The goblin was now in possession of the tiny gold key, but he wasn’t carrying it anymore. “To my vault?”

“You must undergo a magical screening before you are permitted to access your vault,” Ragnok said. His voice echoed oddly in the narrow corridor. 

Harry had no idea what a magical screening was, Hagrid hadn’t mentioned anything like it. Did he have to prove he had magic? How? He didn’t know any spells. He still wasn’t entirely convinced he had magic at all. 

“What sort of screening?” Harry asked.

Ragnok shot him a dark look, then came to an abrupt stop. To Harry, this bit of corridor was indistinguishable from every other bit, but the goblin reached out and stroked the wall with one of his long fingers. A portion of wall melted away, revealing a small, boxy room made of the same stone as the corridor. 

Astonished, Harry walked into the room. He didn’t notice the wall sealing up behind him. 

Chapter Text

Not wanting to be rude, Harry hadn’t looked too closely at the goblins when he first entered Gringotts. Now that he was in a small room with several of them, it was obvious how different they were from humans.

Harry sat on a chair, in front of a wooden table, and observed several goblins as they spoke to each other in a complicated, guttural language.

The goblins were all short, the tallest only coming up to Harry’s shoulder, which wasn’t saying much as Harry was very short for his age. They were all eerily pale, like they never got any sunlight; even one with a swarthy complexion had a faded cast to his skin. Their heads were as big and round as footballs, and their limbs were too long for their bodies. Their ears were long and pointed, as were their noses.

All of this Harry might have overlooked—after all, there were many physical differences among humans—but then there were their eyes. The goblins’ eyes were black. Completely black, without whites at all. And their teeth were all sharp and pointy, like a shark’s teeth, but thicker, and stained deep yellow. Their nails were long and sharp. One goblin wore a pointed hat, one had an oiled, curled beard. Another had a wicked axe looped through his belt, and he slowly stroked the blade with his thumb.

Harry looked at the wall, but he couldn’t see the door he’d come through, as if it never existed at all. The small room was hot, airless, and he was starting to sweat. Harry didn’t think he was in any trouble, he’d only just got to Gringotts and hadn’t stolen anything. He hadn’t even touched anything. Had he offended someone? What else had Hagrid said about goblins? Only that you’d be mad to try and rob Gringotts. And that there was a dragon somewhere.

“Harry Potter.”

Harry flinched. All three goblins had stopped talking and were now staring at him. At his scar. Harry didn’t know the names of these ones. They hadn’t introduced themselves.

“Yes?” Harry said, his voice coming out in a squeak.

“We have observed several anomalies with your person,” the goblin, the one wearing the pointed hat, said.

“What’s an anomaly?” Harry asked.

The goblin stared at him unblinkingly. “Discrepancies.”

Harry shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t know what that means either.”

“There are things magically wrong with you,” the bearded goblin snarled. The one with the axe just kept staring.

“There’s something wrong with me?” Harry asked, his heart racing.

“We have ways of detecting strange magics,” the bearded goblin said, creeping closer to him. “Ways of stripping that magic away.”

“What sort of magic?” Harry asked anxiously. “Is it bad?”

“We will need to do a test,” the goblin said.

“Ragnok said something about a screening?” Harry said.

The goblin nodded, smiling wickedly. “A screening, yes. A winnowing.”

Harry gripped his baggy trousers. “What—”

“We will need your blood,” the goblin in a hat said. He waved his clawed hand, and a scroll materialized out of thin air. 

Harry sat there, gobsmacked, as the scroll was unfurled on the table. There were all sorts of squiggly symbols on it, none of which Harry could make sense of, but he hardly had any time to look as the bearded goblin seized his wrist and stabbed his finger with a knife. 

Harry cried out in pain, in fear, as his finger was mercilessly squeezed. He tried to tear his hand away, but the goblin’s grip was too strong. The other two goblins had moved in to flank him, penning Harry in. Ruby red blood beaded on his fingertip, then pooled over to drip onto the scroll.

“Let me go!” Harry shouted, twisting, trying to get away. Why had Hagrid left him? Why had he agreed to go anywhere with Hagrid in the first place? Because he got a letter and a squished birthday cake? How stupid was he?

“Watch, child!” the goblin holding Harry hissed. 

Powerless, surrounded by what he now knew were dangerous, powerful strangers, Harry had no choice but to look at the scroll.

Harry’s blood was leaking onto the paper, spreading out in tendrils, and the squiggly characters flashed and danced around, bending strangely in his mind, swirling madly, rearranging themselves, rearranging him, and Harry cowered from this, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.

His wrist was released, and Harry fell back with a gasp. He looked at his bleeding finger, then curled his hand.

Blood will out, a hateful voice whispered in Harry’s head.

“You are Harry Potter,” the goblin in a hat said. 

Harry no longer cared about their names, he just wanted to leave. “Yeah, I know that,” he said angrily. “Who else would I be?”

The goblin tapped the scroll. “You are the Heir to the Noble House of Potter, the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, the Noble House of Prince, the Noble House of Gaunt, the House of Gryffindor, the House of Slytherin, and the House of Peverell.” He dug around his pocket and dumped a collection of rings onto the table. “These are your heir rings.”

“What?” Harry said, baffled. “What the hell does that even mean?”

“Everyone else in those family lines is either dead or incapacitated,” the bearded goblin said. “You are the last, the only, inheritor.”

“If I’ve already inherited all of…whatever this is, how am I still an heir?” Harry asked. “Shouldn’t there be a will or something?”

“There is only the will of magic,” the goblin in a hat said. “And a marriage contract to Ginevra Molly Weasley”

“Thanks,” Harry said acidly. “That really clears things up.” It felt good to be angry. It was better than being scared and confused. “Who the fuck is Ginevra Weasley?”

“Now that we have ascertained your identity,” the bearded goblin said, “we may address the various curses you are afflicted with.”

“Curses?” Harry yelped as his chair was seized and dragged back. Two pairs of hands roughly clamped his arms down. “What are you doing?” 

“The screening,” the goblin in a hat said. He stood in front of Harry now, his hand raised. The goblin crooked a finger before Harry’s face, like Ragnok had done while opening the wall, then yanked it down. 

A scream tore out of Harry’s throat. He thrashed around, but the hands that held him down would not be moved. It felt like someone had hacked him straight down the middle, plucking out his organs one by one, cracking open his skull, then setting him on fire. Tears blurred his vision, but a murky light pierced him. 

“His magic core is blocked,” someone said. 

Harry wept helplessly. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to clear his vision. 

“Seventy, no, eighty percent.”

“Metamorphmagus, blocked. Parselmagic, blocked.”

Harry gulped in air between sobs. The words made no sense to him. Nothing made sense.

“Soul bond—”

“A soul bond?”

“Loyalties keyed to Houses Weasley, Prewett, Dumbledore, McGonagall. Distrust keyed to Houses Malfoy, Prince, Slytherin—”

“How can an heir be distrustful of his own house?”

“Blood glamours...”

“His core is significantly damaged.”

“His core is black.”

Harry violently shuddered.

“Please, stop,” he begged. “I’ll do anything, just, please…”

Something glowed with a dark, pulsating light, hovering before him, and it felt wrong. Something inside of him wasn’t supposed to be, and something outside of him shouldn’t have been. 

There was a horrible lurch, the awful sensation of something jagged and too big being shoved back into Harry, and, for a time, he knew no more.

Chapter Text

“Lord Hadrian James Regulus Potter-Black-Prince-Peverell-Slytherin-Gryffindor-Gaunt-Riddle.”

Harry slowly opened his eyes. He was slouched in the chair, his entire body aching. He felt like a frog who’d been dissected while alive. There was a word for that, but Harry had just turned eleven and didn’t know what it was. He didn’t know a lot of things, like what on earth he’d just been called. 

“What?” he slurred.

“That is legally your name.”

“It’s just Harry,” he mumbled. “Harry Potter.”

James? That giant bloke Hagrid had said his parents were Lily and James. Harry didn’t know he had a middle name, much less twenty of them. He stared blankly at the table. There were a lot of rings on it. 

“We found something else while examining your magic core,” someone said. 

Harry shook his head. He thought he was going to the bank to get some of the money his parents left him so he could buy school supplies. He didn’t expect whatever this was. An interrogation? An examination?

“Why are you doing this?” Harry whispered, his voice hoarse. Had he been screaming? “Why? I don’t understand. What’s in it for you?” He didn’t even know who you was. The goblins in the room? The entire bank?

“This is in accordance with goblin property rights.”

“Not a goblin,” Harry said, his voice stronger. He pushed himself upright, grimacing at the gross, greasy feeling inside of him. “You said I was cursed?”

“Oh, yes,” the goblin with a hat said. “Quite extensively.”

Harry squinted at him. “Can I be uncursed?”

The goblin smiled at him. “For a price.”

Harry sagged in his chair. That made sense to him. Like those people who went around door-to-door showing how dirty your carpets were to sell you a Hoover. The goblins were hoovering his soul. 

“There is something troubling attached to your soul,” one of the goblins said. Harry was tired of trying to tell them apart. 

“It sounds like a lot of things are attached to my soul,” Harry said bitterly. “You said something about a marriage contract?”

The goblin pressed a long finger against Harry’s scar. Harry froze. Something hot and thick dripped down his face. 

“You,” the goblin said, “have a horcrux.”

Harry went crosseyed looking at the finger touching his scar. “What?”

“The foulest, darkest, most evil of all wixen magic,” the goblin said. 

“Wixen?” Harry repeated, dumbfounded. “You keep using words I don’t know.”

“A piece of another’s soul has latched onto yours,” the goblin said. “The Dark Lord.”

“Dark lord?” Harry said, confused. His eyes widened. “Oh, you mean Voldemort?” Then Harry put all the words together and felt like he was going insane. “I have a piece of Voldemort’s soul?”

“And there is only one way to destroy a horcrux,” the goblin said. “Its container must be destroyed.”

The goblin standing next to Harry raised his axe. 

“Container?” Harry said, eyeing the axe-wielding goblin warily. “Am… I the container?”

“We can remove it for you,” the bearded goblin said. “Would you like us to remove it?”

“You think?” Harry said. “I don’t want his bloody soul attached to mine!”

The goblin took a swing at Harry’s neck. Harry shrieked and dove out of the chair. 

“No!” he shouted, crawling under the table. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Your death will eradicate that fragment of the Dark Lord’s soul,” one of the goblins said.

The axe bit through the table, its blade coming to a stop a hair’s breadth from Harry’s face. Rings fell to the floor, scattering in all directions. 

“Then I don’t want it removed!” Harry bellowed. “Alright?”

The axe was ripped out of the table. Trembling, Harry scooted away until his back was pressed against a wall. 

The bearded goblin stroked his beard. “We discovered something else while examining your magic core.”

“What?” Harry asked, his voice shaking. He’d nearly been decapitated. He had a part of someone else’s soul inside of him. He was contracted to be married to a girl he had never heard of. He had about a dozen surnames. All of this on top of learning he was a wizard not twelve hours ago. Harry could not make heads nor tails of the situation. All he had wanted was to withdraw some money to buy school supplies. Right now, he couldn’t even remember what was on the list. Robes? A wand?

“You have a creature inheritance,” the goblin said solemnly. 

Harry put his head in his hands. “Did I inherit a… a… I don’t know, a unicorn or something?” How was he meant to take care of a unicorn? He doubted Aunt Petunia would let him keep it in the back garden.

“You have the blood of a creature,” the goblin explained. “At some point, in one of your many family histories, an ancestor of yours bred with another magical being.”

“Great,” Harry said flatly. “That’s bloody fantastic. What kind? A centaur? A dwarf? A fairy? An elf?”

“A púca. Shapeshifters and troublemakers. You may develop a taste for blackberries.”

Harry slumped against the wall. He did like blackberries.

“We should discuss your other bloodline abilities.”

“I can’t take this anymore,” Harry muttered. “I don’t want my head cut off, I don’t want to be a pookah or phookah or whatever, I don’t know what to do with all of these rings, I don’t want to get married—”

“The marriage contract will be nullified upon consummation of the soul bond.”

“Brilliant,” Harry said, looking up. The goblins were clustered together again, two of them arguing in their own language about the scroll he’d bled all over. “Who’s that then?”

The goblin shrugged. “With your Potter Luck, you will undoubtedly locate them.”

“Potter Luck,” Harry said dully. “What luck? Bad luck?”

“Via blood adoption, from the Blacks you are a metamorphmagus, though this may conflict with your púca blood. From the Prince family—”

“Adoption?” Harry said. “Someone adopted me?”

“—you may be gifted in occlumency. From the Gaunts you have parselmagic, which is currently suppressed by a magical block on your core. From your direct Peverell ancestors you are a natural necromancer, an ability which is also blocked. There are several blood-based glamours altering your appearance…”

Harry wrapped his arms around himself and rocked back and forth. 

“...multiple, layered enchantments to make you more trusting or distrusting of certain people, or groups of people. Both, in your case.”

Harry shuddered. “This isn’t normal, is it? Most people haven’t got so many things going on when they go to the bank?” The goblins all fell silent again. Harry looked at them imploringly. “You said you could undo it all for a price?”

The goblin with a hat seemed to take pity on Harry. Or maybe he thought that Harry was so scared that he would agree to anything, at any price. It wasn’t like Harry couldn’t afford it, given all the money he hadn’t seen yet.

Who could Harry talk to about this? The goblins only seemed interested in explaining what was wrong with him then charging him to fix it. He only knew the Dursleys and Hagrid. The Dursleys didn’t care, and Hagrid hadn’t mentioned any of this. For all Harry knew the goblins were making it up, were in on some elaborate scam, and Harry was too ignorant of the magical world to know otherwise. 

Harry was too overwhelmed, too tired, in too much pain to care.

“Just tell me how much,” Harry said wearily. “I want this to be over with.”

Chapter Text

The rest of Harry’s time trapped in Gringotts went by in a blur. An elderly female goblin was brought in to remove the various curses on him, an experience which left Harry shaking and nauseated. The goblins gave him a mirror. Harry’s features had softened, making him look feminine, but he also had high cheekbones and his bright green eyes became even brighter. That reminded him of the visions he had when stuck in the cupboard for too long. A blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead. Rather than black hair, what sprouted from his head was gorgeous, curling waves of red hair. And he had pointy ears and small fangs. Thankfully, his creature blood as a púca and his family magic as someone blood-adopted into the Black family gave Harry the ability to alter his appearance, once he worked out how to do it. He was also subjected to a ritual to remove the loyalties and distrust. Harry didn’t feel appreciably different since he had never met any of the people he was supposedly loyal to. He was pretty sure at this point that the goblins were having him on. 

Eventually, he was taken to his vaults. There were several filled with gold, some filled with books and artifacts, another packed with all the mail he had never received, one filled with gifts, and Harry learned many people had willed all of their possessions to him upon their deaths. Apparently this was very common. At his Potter heir vault, which was the only one Harry was willing to take anything from and the one Hagrid had had the key too, Harry scooped handfuls of coins into a bag that could hold an infinite amount of coins. He also got a black credit card for spending in the muggle world. 

Here, in the bowels of Gringotts, Harry learned that many of his precious artifacts were missing, including family grimoires, and that money was being taken out to pay for something called the Order of the Phoenix, that the Dursleys were being paid, and that some people called the Weasleys were also being paid. 

“You must claim your Wizengamot seats,” a goblin told him.

“What?” Harry said, cringing at his girlish voice. He was stumbling through a stone corridor, one he hoped led back into the lobby. It had been hours. 

“The Potter, Black, Prince, Peverell, Slytherin, Gryffindor, and Gaunt seats are currently held in proxy by Albus Dumbledore.”

“I keep telling you I don’t know what any of this means!” Harry snapped. 

“Then I suggest you educate yourself, Lord Potter,” the goblin said blithely. “And get a good trunk.”

They finally reached a door, and Harry was unceremoniously shoved back into the lobby. He pushed back his beautiful red hair and straighted his glasses, then staggered out of Gringotts. Outside, he found Hagrid dry heaving on the steps while two guard goblins impassively looked on. A grubby, paper-wrapped package lay at Hagrid’s feet.

“What happened to you?” Harry asked. 

“Cart ride,” Hagrid said miserably. 

“A cart ride?” Harry said, infuriated. “You’ve only had a cart ride? Do you know what they did to me in there?”

Hagrid blinked a few times, then focused on Harry. “Who’re you?”

“I’m Harry.”

“You look like a girl.”

“Thanks,” Harry said, glaring at the dozen rings the goblins had forced onto his fingers. No matter how hard he pulled, he couldn’t get them off. The goblins promised the rings had all sorts of protective enchantments, but Harry didn’t know what to believe. He didn’t feel protected.

“Might as well get your uniform,” Hagrid said, seeming to accept Harry’s altered state. He shook his great head, then groaned. “Mind if I slip off for a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts.”

Harry watched Hagrid stumbled down the steps and wander off back to the pub, shoving the little brown package deep into his pocket. Harry assumed it was drugs, though this may have simply been resentment at being abandoned again. Hagrid, the goblins had helpfully informed him, had been the one to dump him on the Dursleys’ doorstep. So, Harry made his way alone to Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions.

Harry had barely crossed the threshold of the shop when there was a loud gasp. A blond boy standing on a stool toppled off, sending pins and bits of fabric flying every.

“My mate,” the boy said reverently, gazing at Harry with watery eyes. “You’re my mate.”

Harry slammed the door of the shop shut. He’d get his uniform elsewhere. 

***

Twilfitt and Tattings wasn’t much better. Harry just wanted the school uniform. Plain work robes, a pointed hat, gloves, and a cloak. What Harry left with was a bulging wardrobe of school robes, day robes, night robes, summer robes, winter robes, dress robes, several pairs of boots and shoes, and various undergarments. He had been forced to purchase a luxury trunk—which, in addition to multiple compartments he could switch between, had an entire two bedroom flat inside of it—simply to contain it all. The shop-keeper called him Lord Potter and bowed as Harry made his escape.

Harry ran into Hagrid again outside of Madam Malkin’s, holding two ice creams. Thankfully, the blond boy was nowhere in sight. Harry hadn’t eaten in hours and accepted the ice cream. It was a massive choc raspberry with chopped nuts on it, and Harry readily bit into it. One of his many rings stung him, but Harry ignored that and kept eating the ice cream, trying to keep his lovely red hair out of it. 

The purchases continued piling up. Parchment, quills, ink, cauldrons, scales, telescopes, jars of herbs, powders, animal parts. The bookshop, Flourish and Blotts, was particularly trying. Not wanting to take anything anyone said at face value, Harry bought every book in the convenient Muggleborn section, and various books on inheritance, pureblood culture, pureblood etiquette, paganism, the Wizengamot, occlumency, familiars, parselmagic, magical cores, light, dark, and grey magic, soul bonds, soul mates, mates…

“What do you need all that for?” Hagrid asked him. “All that pureblood stuff is rubbish.”

Harry frowned over a book that described all the family magics common in magical Britain, then added it to the stack. “Just in case.”

The last thing was to get Harry’s wand. Harry was ready to call it a day, crawl into his trunk-partment and sleep through the rest of his life.

“I still haven’t got you a birthday present,” Hagrid said abruptly.

“That’s really not—”

“Tell you what,” Hagrid said over him. “I’ll get your animal. Not a toad, toads went out of fashion years ago, you’d be laughed at—”

“What if my familiar’s a toad?” Harry asked, just having learned that familiars existed. “I don’t think an animal should be bought—”

“I don’t like cats, they make me sneeze,” Hagrid plowed on. “I’ll get you an owl! All the kids want owls, they’re dead useful, carry your post and everything.”

Harry had no one to send post to, and all of his incoming post was being redirected to various vaults in Gringotts due to something called a ward. His objections were cut short when, immediately upon entering Eeylops Owl Emporium, he was accosted by a snowy owl. 

“Don’t mention it,” Hagrid said as Harry lumbered under the huge cage. 

Unlike his ten thousand galleon trunk, Harry couldn’t shrink the cage and shove it in his pocket. The owl was unusually large for her breed, completely white, and wide awake. When Harry met her uncannily intelligent golden eyes, he felt an indescribable moment of connection. 

“Don’t expect you’ve had a lot of presents from them Dursleys,” Hagrid said. Harry didn't respond, too captivated by the foreign feeling surging within him. “Just Ollivanders left now. Only place for wands, Ollivanders, and you got to have the best wand!”

Harry jerked his head away, breaking the connection. A wand. A magic wand. That’s what he'd been really looking forward to. That’s what he really needed, something he could have used when surrounded by all those goblins.

The only place for wands turned out to be a shabby little shop with a dusty window display. Inside was a cramped space, packed with thousands of narrow boxes in teetering stacks. Hagrid claimed the only chair, then just as quickly broke it when a creepy old man loomed out of the stacks.

“Ah yes,” the man said. “Yes, yes. I thought I’d be seeing you soon. Harry Potter.”

Harry reached into his resplendent green robes—they refused to let him leave the robe shop in Dudley’s hand-me-downs—and took out a long slip of parchment.

“For legal purposes,” Harry said, squinting at the words, “you are required to address me by my title. Lord Hadrian James Regulus Potter-Black-Prince-Peverell-Slytherin-Gryffindor-Gaunt-Riddle. Or Lord Potter-Black for short. And you are Mr. Ollivander, I presume?”

The old man crept closer to Harry, watching him with big, luminous silver eyes, leaning so that he was nose-to-nose with Harry. 

Then Mr. Ollivander tried to touch Harry’s scar.

Harry stepped back, vaguely thinking this was some breach of pureblood customs. He didn’t know as he hadn't read all the books on it yet, and really didn’t want to. They looked boring as hell.

Mr. Ollivander made some noise about being sorry he sold the wand that gave Harry his scar—in other words, turned him into a horcrux—but Harry had been bombarded with too much information to take anything else in. According to the goblins, his Prince bloodline magic of occlumency would sort that out. Until then, Harry’s abused mind would continue to suffer.

After being subjected to a relentless battery of wands, Harry was finally presented with a wand that grew warm in his hand. It fountained gold, red, green, silver, and black sparks, then subsided. Hagrid whooped, the owl hooted, the old man politely clapped. Harry was relieved the onslaught was over.

“Curious,” Mr. Ollivander said. “Very curious.”

Harry sighed. “What now?”

“I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, Mr. Potter—”

“Lord Potter-Black.”

Mr. Ollivander stared at him intently. “Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather, just one other.”

“Really?” Harry said flatly.

“It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother, why, its brother gave you that scar.”

“That's great,” Harry said irritably, digging out galleons from his infinite money bag. Soul bonds, mates, familiars, and now brother wands? What next? He dumped some coins on the counter. “Could I get a wand holster too? Cheers.”

***

It was nearly evening by the time Harry finally left Diagon Alley. He didn't know how many more revelations he could take. Naively, Harry assumed he was being taken to Hogwarts, or perhaps to one of his dozens of properties staffed by creatures called house-elves who subsisted off his magic. Instead, Hagrid took him to Paddington Station and bought him a hamburger. 

“You alright, Harry?” Hagrid asked. “You’re very quiet.”

“Oh, yeah,” Harry said, angrily pushing his luxurious red hair over his shoulder. “I’m great. Never been better. How are you?”

Hagrid took this as an invitation to prattle about the wonders of Hogwarts and how great a man Albus Dumbledore was. Harry sat on his hard plastic seat and finished his hamburger in silence.

After the meal, Harry learned that Paddington Station was not a brief stop on their journey to Hogwarts. No, after everything he’d been through he was being sent back to the Dursleys. Hagrid pushed him firmly onto the train.

“Your ticket for Hogwarts,” Hagrid said, thrusting an envelope at him. “First of September, King’s Cross, it’s all on your ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a letter with your owl, she’ll know where to find me.” Hagrid patted a lumpy pocket. “See you soon, Harry!”

Harry watched the giant man wave as the train pulled out. Then he blinked, and Hagrid was gone. 

Glad the day was finally over, Harry put an arm around the owl’s cage and sagged in his seat. He had learned a lot of things that made very little sense to him, and only one thought stood out in Harry’s mind.

They couldn’t put him back in the cupboard after this.

Chapter Text

Harry’s last month with the Dursleys wasn’t fun. One would think that the introduction of magic into Harry’s variously miserable and boring life would have made things better. However, Harry was suddenly in the possession of an unimaginable amount of wealth, a vast array of physical property, a veritable army of indentured servants, had an insatiable appetite for blackberries, could theoretically change his appearance on a whim, had multiple seats in the magical government’s legislative body, had numerous priceless artifacts stolen from him, and was hemorrhaging money to various causes, including the relatives who had starved, beaten, and locked him in a cupboard. He also had a mystery soul mate, an owl who was attempting to form a familiar bond with him, and had a wild mane of luscious red hair that resisted his attempts to revert it to short and black. Harry also had more than the standard two parents, a staggering five parents, two who were murdered, one who died under mysterious circumstances, one who was alive but in prison, and the other who he didn’t know anything about.

Thinking that Aunt Petunia would know something about his mum’s life, Harry asked her about Severus Snape. Aunt Petunia threatened him with a frying pan and refused to say anything about that awful boy.

In a strange reversal, the Dursleys wouldn’t speak unless spoken to. Harry wasn’t shouted at, or made to do chores, or locked in the cupboard. They pretended he didn’t exist at all. It was a relief, but also isolating, to be left alone in Dudley’s second bedroom, only venturing out for meals or to drift around Little Whinging. He did have his owl, Hedwig, but an owl wasn’t much of a conversationalist, and the bond forming between them made him wary.

Harry retreated into himself, sometimes literally retreating into the sparse flat inside of his trunk. He hadn’t purchased any furniture for the flat, not knowing he had to, but the rooms within the trunk were more spacious than the second bedroom and free of all the broken toys Aunt Petunia wouldn’t let him throw out.

There wasn’t much for Harry to do other than read, and he had an overwhelming amount of material to get through. Initially, he was excited to read all the magic books he had for Hogwarts, but the books were dense with theory, archaic language, and generally a slog to get through. Instead, Harry devoted his time to the study of occlumency.

***

Harry looked around his mind palace and despaired. So far the only mental image he managed to construct was the cupboard under the stairs. It made sense, in a depressing way; the cupboard was what Harry was most familiar with, where he had spent the majority of his time, and offered some measure of safety. The illusion of safety. Harry had a disappointing imagination if this was the best he could do, but he reasoned he had to start somewhere. 

According to the Guide to Advanced Occlumency and Protection Charm Your Mind: A Practical Guide to Counter Legilimency, books available at your local Flourish and Blotts, occlumency was the single most important skill Harry could master, and he had a significant advantage in having a magical gift for it. With occlumency, he could create adamantine shield about his mind to keep out intruders, he could lay mental traps, create an entire mental minefield, trap people within the chambers of his mind fortress, perfectly memorize everything, defend against magic that affected his memory and mental state, access repressed memories, instantly access any information stored in his mind, split his mind so he could simultaneously think of different things, manipulate space and time within his mindscape, bring people into his mind palace, visit other people’s mind palaces, accelerate his mental processes, and, though this was only alluded to, visit other versions of himself in alternate dimensions via transdimensional mental bridges constructed by the parallel power of their combined mental might. 

Given his middling marks in school, Harry was somewhat taken aback to discover that his mind was a dormant supercomputer. 

He doggedly built the impenetrable fortress of his mind brick by mental brick, if only so he could skim all the other boring books and absorb the information without really processing it or comprehending it. Understanding would come later. Until then, memorization would suffice. 

***

No matter how formidable his mental defenses would eventually be, Harry was still an eleven-year-old boy. He couldn’t pay with his black credit card on the bus, and there wasn’t anywhere to buy tickets in Little Whinging except for at the station, and then he would have to talk to a stationmaster who would question why a kid had a credit card in his own name. Harry also didn't know how the credit card actually worked. Did he have a line of credit with Gringotts? Would everyone accept the card because of some weird magic? Did it make a difference whether they made a carbon copy or ran it through a magnetic strip? More importantly, on the last day of August, Harry wasn’t sure how he'd get to King’s Cross. Either he could hide in his trunk, somehow shrink it from the inside, and trust Hedwig to carry him there, or he could ask Uncle Vernon for a ride. 

It was easier to ask Uncle Vernon for a ride. 

As it turned out, they were going up to London to get Dudley’s pig tail surgically removed. While communicating this, Uncle Vernon eyed Harry’s poorly concealed ears, which were looking more and more like rabbit ears with each passing day, sticking out of the shining red tresses that Harry relentlessly hacked off every morning. Bad enough he looked like a porcelain doll. The ears were ridiculous.

According to the goblins, he would come into his full creature inheritance, into all of his inheritances, when he was of age. Since he turned eleven, he had entered a magical growth spurt of sorts, and he would experience another at thirteen, then fifteen, with the grand finale at seventeen. Harry already felt like he was going to explode out of his own skin; the goblins claimed his magical core was blocked and various blood, creature, conquest, and familial magics were suppressed. The ritual removing these hindrances had unleashed Harry’s magic, and he felt ungainly and bloated. His magic was going off for no apparent reason. He had to constantly cast spells to bleed off excess magic. 

Harry had to do something about it. 

Chapter Text

On the first of September, Harry woke up at five in the morning and went directly to the bathroom. He locked himself in, braced his hands on the sink, and stared into the mirror. He knew what he looked like. What he was supposed to look like, or what he had looked like before all the various glamours that had concealed his sort of true appearance were mercilessly stripped away. He looked like his dad, James, but with his mum Lily’s eyes. Harry gripped the porcelain, squeezed his eyes shut, and thought with his nuclear-powered brain until he finally felt something happen. 

Two hours later, Harry looked into the mirror and collapsed in relief. Messy black hair, round ears, green eyes that didn’t glow in the dark, features that were less divine and cherubic and more eleven-year-old boy. There was, however, an odd distortion to his features, which went away when Harry took his glasses off. When he understood what happened, he wanted to fling his glasses at the wall. 

Harry had fixed his own vision. 

“This is so stupid,” he muttered, popping the lenses out of his frames. He wasn’t good enough at his púca/metamorphmagus abilities to purposefully degrade his vision to what it had once been, and Harry didn't want to give up his glasses. His dad, one out of four of his dads, had worn glasses. 

Harry put the empty frames back on his face, then hung his head. It was good enough. 

***

Harry looked at the space between Platforms Nine and Ten. 

"Have a good term," Uncle Vernon said, cackling as he left Harry standing there with his owl cage like an idiot. 

Obviously there was some trick to getting onto Platform Nine and Three Quarters, like there had been when getting into Diagon Alley, but Harry didn’t know it. None of the books he read mentioned it, there was nothing about it on his ticket, and Hagrid had said nothing. 

Harry looked down at the rings decorating his hands, but they had nothing to contribute to his dilemma. Harry squinted his magically-healed eyes, but he had yet to unlock his magesight. He tried letting Hedwig out, but got told off by a guard. Harry felt like he’d been told everything except for how to get on the bloody platform. He should have read those books for muggleborns first. He tried flipping through the card catalog of his mind, then gave up when he remembered he hadn't finished mentally building the Little Whinging Library.

“—packed with muggles, of course—”

Harry honed in on the speaker, a plump woman wearing robes, accompanied by four boys and a girl, all with violently red hair. They also had an owl with them. 

Feeling drawn to this family, Harry began following them. One of his rings zapped him. Harry scowled and tried to get the damn thing off. It zapped him again.

“Now, what’s the platform number?” the woman said.

“Nine and three-quarters!” the girl replied. “Mum, can’t I go?”

‘You’re not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet! All right, Percy, you go first.”

Since the stupid ring was still going off, Harry hung back and watched the family go one by one through the barrier between platforms. Bemused, Harry followed them.

He walked onto a platform packed with people. A scarlet train pumped out steam. He glanced at a sign that read, Hogwarts Express, 11 o’clock. There was no one to give his ticket to, so Harry went in search of an empty compartment. He slightly regretted not keeping the red hair since people so easily recognized him, but it was frankly unmanageable and he wasn't keen on looking like a Greek goddess crossed with a carnivorous rabbit. 

Harry eventually found an empty compartment near the end of the train and carried Hedwig on. He looked out at all the families, hugging and kissing their children goodbye, and felt terribly lonely. To his immense relief, the train started to move, taking Harry away from all those touching scenes. 

Two out of five of his parents were still alive, that wasn’t bad. Plus, he had Hedwig, and somewhere in the world he had a soulmate. And he was going to magic school. Things were looking up for Lord Hadrian James Regulus Potter-Black-Prince-Peverell-Slytherin-Gryffindor-Gaunt-Riddle.

“Anyone sitting there?” Harry looked over and saw a red-headed boy had opened his compartment door. “Everywhere else is full.”

Harry doubted that, but shook his head. Forming alliances was important in establishing oneself in pureblood society, and as the last scion of multiple lines it was up to eleven-year-old Harry to put his best foot forward. Sadly for pureblood society, Harry thought etiquette in general was annoying and dumb and had no interest in putting any foot forward.

“I'm Ron Weasley,” the boy said, addressing this to Harry's forehead.

Harry took a deep breath, then rattled out, “Well met, honored son of the Ancient House of Weasley. I am Lord Hadrian James Regulus Potter-Black-Prince-Peverell-Slytherin-Gryffindor-Gaunt-Riddle.”

Ron gaped at him. “You what?”

Harry stared back at him. “Did you say Weasley?”

Ron rubbed his smudged nose. “Yeah?”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Do you have a sister named Ginevra?”

“Yeah,” Ron said, still eyeing Harry's forehead. “But we call her Ginny. She hates Ginevra.”

“Right,” Harry said flatly. He stood up and grabbed Hedwig's cage. “Well, it was nice meeting you, Ron. Have a nice life.”

Harry stepped to the compartment door and threw it open. To his dismay, the blond boy from Madam Malkin's was lurking outside.

“Have you seen her?” the blond boy asked desperately. “A pretty girl with hair like rubies and eyes like emeralds and skin like pearls and—”

Harry slid the compartment door shut again, then locked it for good measure. He sat back down and stared at his dragon suede shoes.

“You alright?” Ron asked.

“Yeah,” Harry muttered. The compartment door rattled.

“What’d you say your name was?” Ron asked.

Harry sighed. “Harry Potter.”

Ron looked like he had won the jackpot.

***

Harry thought he handled being stuck in a compartment rather well, given Ron's family had been stealing money from him and that there was a marriage contract between Harry and Ron's sister signed by Ron's parents and Albus Dumbledore. Maybe if his loyalty was still keyed to the Weasleys, Harry would have felt bad for not sharing the sweets he got from the trolley, but Ron just had to make do with his corned beef sandwiches.

Ron talked nonstop about his family, his older brothers, his rat Scabbers, Chocolate Frog cards, quidditch. Due to his growing mental discipline, Harry unwillingly committed all of this to memory.

Late in the afternoon, a tearful, round-faced boy stopped by looking for his toad, then he came back with a bushy-haired girl. Harry tried to keep his expression neutral. Had the boy, Neville, purposefully brought the girl to him? Harry was being paranoid. He hoped.

“Nobody in my family’s magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it’s the very best school of witchcraft there is, I’ve heard. I’ve learnt all our set books off by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough.”

“I’ve memorized them all too,” Harry said, not wanting to be outdone.

The girl gave him an appraising look. “I’m Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?”

“Harry Potter,” he said. His attempt at a pureblood introduction hadn't landed at all with Ron, and as a muggleborn Hermione would have even less of a clue. 

“Are you really?” Hermione said. “I know all about you!”

“I'm Ron Weasley,” Ron said, but they all ignored him.

“I’m sure you don't,” Harry said. “I don’t even know all about me.”

“You’re in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century…”

Harry shrugged.

Eventually Hermione wore herself out and left, taking Neville with her.

“Whatever house I’m in,” Ron said, “I hope she’s not in it.”

Harry hoped he was in neither of their houses, but with only four choices things weren’t in his favor. 

Ron picked up his one-sided conversation again. All of his family sorted Gryffindor, his brother Charlie worked with dragons in Romania, Bill worked for Gringotts in Egypt, there was a break-in at Gringotts, the rules of quidditch. Harry tried his best to file away the information; however uninteresting he found it, the Weasleys were involved with Dumbledore and the more he knew the better.

The compartment door slid open again. To Harry's dismay, it was the blond boy. He looked at Harry with keen interest. Too much interest. He was accompanied by two Dudley types.

“Is it true?” the boy said. “They’re saying all down the train that Harry Potter’s in this compartment. So it’s you, is it?”

“No,” Harry said. “I'm Lord Hadrian Potter-Black.”

Horribly, this made the blond boy step closer to him and hold out his hand. “My name’s Malfoy, Draco Malfoy.”

Harry stared at the hand. He had read everything he could about mates and soulmates. He knew some sorts of creatures had mates, and some humans had soulmates. Harry feared he was in the unlucky group who had both. His five parents might have made it work, but he didn’t think he could. He had no idea what shape his soul bond would take. A soul mark? Something written on his skin like their name, the first words they said to him, their current thoughts? A red string of fate? Would he feel their injuries? A date? A timer? Or would their touch leave marks on his skin?

In any event, there was no way in hell he was touching Draco Malfoy. He didn't want Malfoy to imprint or scent him or whatever. 

When a pink-faced Malfoy finally left, driven away by a surprisingly aggressive Scabbers, Harry leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. Whatever else happened, he could not be in the same house as Malfoy.

Chapter Text

“Weclome, Founders’ Heir!”

“Oh, god,” Harry muttered, sagging on the stool.

He had tried to blend in with the other first-years, but as they each got called up to try on the hat, there were fewer people to shield him. Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom had gone to Gryffindor, while Draco Malfoy got Slytherin as soon as the Sorting Hat touched his greasy head. Now it was Harry’s turn, and his concerns about lice were drowned out by the bloody hat declaring yet another heirship or lordship or whatever the hell this was. 

“Difficult. Very difficult,” the hat said in Harry’s head. So much for occlumency. “Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind, either. There’s talent, oh my goodness, yes! And a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that’s interesting. So, where shall I put you?”

“Not Slytherin,” Harry thought. “And not Gryffindor.”

“Those are your only two options,” the hat said gently. “The heir of a Founder must go to that Founder’s house.”

“According to who?” Harry demanded. “They’ve been dead for a thousand years!”

“I was Godric Gryffindor’s hat,” the Sorting Hat told him. “I was gifted to him by Salazar Slytherin. You see, they were lovers—”

“Alright,” Harry said. “I don’t want to be near Malfoy or Weasley. What about Hufflepuff? Ravenclaw? Or just make up a house right now. Liverwurst. Our colors are puce and grey, and our mascot is a flying pig.”

“The heir to Hufflepuff is Zacharias Smith, and the heir to Ravenclaw is—”

“I don’t care,” Harry snapped.

“You’ll get a private room in Slytherin,” the hat said. 

Harry groaned in frustration. “Fine.”

The hat shouted, Slytherin!, and Harry tore it off his head and dropped it back on the stool. 

“Useless piece of shit,” he muttered while slumping towards the Slytherin table. 

Instead of the applause other students got, the Great Hall was dead silent as Harry crossed it. He couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad thing until someone shouted, “Traitor!”

“How could he?”

“He was supposed to be in our house!”

“Mum promised—”

“I bet he’s a dark wizard!”

“What would his parents think?”

Harry rolled his eyes. Why were people so worked up about which dormitory he slept in? From what Harry gathered, two-fifths of his parents had been in Slytherin, so he had at least a forty percent parental approval rate.

Now Harry had to decide where to sit. The Slytherins were all watching him with cold, remote faces, except for Malfoy who was pink-faced and restless. Harry didn’t want to know what kind of creature Malfoy was, he had his own inheritance issues to deal with. He was in blackberry withdrawal.

Malfoy was flanked by the big boys Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. There was also a pale, quiet boy named Theodore Nott, and four girls. Tracey Davis, a halfblood, Daphne Greengrass, the pureblood princess, Millicent Bulstrode, a halfblood and possible creature, and Pansy Parkinson, the other pureblood princess. Harry picked the least hostile-looking one.

“Well met, Heiress Greengrass,” he said half-heartedly.

The girl gave him a frosty look. “Well met, Lord Potter-Black.”

“What are you doing here, Potter?” Malfoy snarled, his nostrils flaring.

“Blame the hat,” Harry said, taking a seat next to Daphne. “And it’s Lord Potter-Black to you. The Malfoys don’t even have a seat on the Wizengamot.”

One of the girls, Tracey, gasped.

Daphne turned her head slightly away from Malfoy, icing him out. She regarded Harry coolly. “Please ignore his impropriety. We are surprised by your sorting.”

“That sounds like a you problem,” Harry said, turning to watch another girl, Blaise Zabini, get sorted into Slytherin. She had the sort of haughty features that fit in with the rest of them. A third pureblood princess. Harry didn’t actually know, but had to infer the blood status of his now fellow Slytherins from their seating positions and terms of address. It was already exhausting.

Harry looked around the Great Hall. The entirety of Gryffindor was glaring at him, Ron especially giving him a betrayed look. Up at the High Table, Hagrid looked like Harry had just killed his dog. There was Professor Quirrell, who was sporting a large purple turban. He hadn’t worn one when they met at the Leaky Cauldron, but maybe it was part of his teaching uniform. Quirrell turned to speak to a dour, greasy-haired, sallow-skinned, hook-nosed man. The man looked straight into Harry’s eyes, and Harry felt a sharp, hot pain in his scar. Harry gritted his teeth. Was that legilimency? Unnerved, Harry turned his gaze to the man he had been avoiding, a man he recognized from a Chocolate Frog card, the headmaster Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore had a grave expression, frowning at Harry, but his blue eyes twinkled.

“Strange that the ghosts aren’t here,” an upper year said. “Usually they come to meet the first-years.”

Harry didn’t dwell on the professors or absent ghosts as a magnificent feast sprang up before him. Tragically, there were no blackberries, but Harry soothed himself by claiming an entire treacle tart.

***

“Magic is dying.”

The Slytherin common room, an incredibly lavish subterranean lair decorated with snakes, fell silent at this proclamation. Harry was quiet for other reasons. He had just learned that his head of house was Severus Snape. This was after the prefects had explained all the rules—Slytherins stick together, Slytherins first, what happens in Slytherin stays in Slytherin, don’t get caught, ranks, hierarchy, blood status, Slytherin royalty, vassalages and house politics, and so on. Now Professor Snape was glaring hatefully at Harry and telling them that magic was dying.

Harry didn’t get it. Why had Professor Snape’s name shown up on his various blood and inheritance tests? He did know that Snape was not among his legal names. Had he been disowned? Not that it mattered. He had four other parents.

“Because of mudbloods,” Malfoy said, to widespread agreement.

“Because we have forsaken the Old Ways,” Professor Snape said. “Many halfbloods do not uphold them, and muggleborns believe them to be superstition. We do not teach them at Hogwarts.”

Harry stopped himself from asking what the Old Ways were, or which old ways. He had some books on Celtic paganism, and vaguely knew about the Roman conquest and the Norman invasion and the conversion to Christianity, but that started hundreds of years before Hogwarts was founded.

Professor Snape was still talking, but between his animosity and the heaviness of the subject matter, Harry was done. He wanted to go to bed. 

After Professor Snape finished explaining how only they could prevent the decay of magic through various rituals, rites and acts of worship, wrapping up with another sneer directed at Harry, the prefects finally showed them to their private rooms. Harry used the last of his strength to slam his door in Malfoy’s pointy face.

Chapter Text

The jockeying for positions began almost immediately, at the breakfast table. The King and Queen of Slytherin held court at the seventh-year end of the table, while Malfoy had got over his episode and gathered his vassals Crabbe and Goyle about him. The girls were in their own world, and inner circle of Daphne, Pansy, and Blaise, with Tracey and Millicent on the halfblooded fringes. Harry was too distracted by the breakfast itself to notice, and too rich to care. 

Breakfast was like nothing Harry had ever imagined. He knew he would experience various wonders at Hogwarts, but this?

“Are you not accustomed to pureblood cuisine, Potty?” Malfoy asked snidely. “Bet you’ve never seen anything like this before, halfbreed!”

“A scone?” Harry said, frowning at a dense-looking scone covered in a white sauce with bits of sausage in it. 

“It’s a buttermilk biscuit,” Malfoy said. “Which chip beef gravy.”

Harry gave the biscuit a skeptical look, then searched the table for something more familiar. He recognized pancakes, waffles, eggs, sausage, bacon, toast, though Harry had never had a waffle of such fluffy proportions before. There were glass jars with tiny handles, filled with dark syrup and emblazoned with maple leaves. He poked at a triangular shortbread with berries in it that was confusingly called a scone, eyed a pot of a gritty porridge called, unsurprisingly, grits. Feeling adventurous, Harry opted for the so-called scone. He had to dunk it in his tea to soften it, but he didn’t think it was half bad. 

“Hi, Uncle Sev!”

“Good morning, Draco,” a voice as rich and velvety as melted chocolate replied.

Harry choked on his “scone.” He coughed crumbs out as Malfoy and Professor Snape exchanged a warm greeting. 

“I was just telling Potter he wouldn’t get our special pureblood food over at Gryffindor,” Malfoy said sneeringly, his eyes darting to Harry to make sure he was paying attention.

Professor Snape’s lip curled. “I doubt Mr. Potter’s palate is as refined as yours, Draco.”

“It’s actually Lord Potter-Black,” Harry said. 

“Je ne t'appellerai jamais lord,” Malfoy told him. “Je préfère sang-de-bourbe.”

“I don’t speak Spanish,” Harry said.

“Ignore Draco, Lord Potter,” Daphne said smoothly. She batted her blonde lashes at him. “I do.”

Harry didn’t stick around for any more of this witty repartee. He grabbed his schedule from Professor Snape, who for a moment gave him a look filled with regret and longing, dodged Ron when he tried to confront him in the entrance hall, and went to his first class. 

***

As Harry had memorized all of his school books in his steel-trap mind, classes were boring. Astronomy was held at midnight on a weekday, which was tiring. Harry had got his fill of gardening at the Dursleys and had no interest in Herbology. The History of Magic teacher never showed up, so they were all assigned independent reading, which Harry had already done. 

Harry tried his hand at goblin etiquette with Professor Flitwick.

“May the weapons of your enemies break, and may your vaults overflow with gold,” he said during their first Charms class.

“May your blades ever be sharp, and your gold fall as rain,” Professor Flitwick intoned. Then he fell off his stack of books.

Transfiguration was annoying, mostly because Professor McGonagall kept giving Harry tragic looks and tearfully awarding him points to Slytherin for turning a match into a needle. She made him stay after class to tell him his dad James had been good at transfiguration.

Quirrell was a stuttering mess. Defense Against the Dark Arts was something Harry was probably fated to be good at, but it was impossible to focus when the room reeked of garlic and when every time Quirrell looked at him he got a funny feeling in his scar.

***

On Friday during breakfast, while Harry combated the wrongness of eating a pancake, Hedwig brought him a letter. She often visited him, strengthening their nascent bond. Having a familiar was tempting. You could communicate with the animal, they would often do your bidding, if you died your familiar could carry your soul, you could astral project to use their senses. Hedwig would be a messenger, a spy, a steadfast companion, and she would be more intelligent and have a longer life if bonded to him. This was a major commitment for an eleven-year-old to make, and Harry wasn't sure he was ready for such a big decision. 

The letter was from Hagrid, asking him for tea. Harry felt a strange compulsion to go, then a few of his rings buzzed and the feeling subsided.

Harry gave Hedwig some bacon as he thought it over. Malfoy was occasionally giving him wistful looks, then scowling and shaking his head. Harry had caught Malfoy and his vassals trying to break into his room, only to be defied by the wards on his door. He had no idea what Malfoy planned to do when he got inside. Sniff his clothes?

As he had no reason not to go, and thought it would be nice to get out of the castle, Harry wrote a reply on the back of Hagrid's note and sent it off with Hedwig. In truth, Harry had more pressing matters than familiar bonds and tea with Hagrid. Today was his first Potions lesson.

***

“Harry Potter,” Professor Snape intoned in his dark, silken voice.

“Hello,” Harry said. “Legally, the shortest variation of my name is Lord Hadrian James Potter-Black.”

“Our new...” Professor Snape paused to regard him with cold, empty black eyes, like two tunnels burrowing into the mind. “Celebrity.”

Malfoy tittered behind his hand, and a second later Crabbe and Goyle joined in.

Harry propped his head on a hand and listened to Professor Snape’s monologue on how great potions were. Other than meeting one of his parents-through-blood-adoption, Harry was excited to start brewing potions. He wanted to make shit explode.

“Potter!” Professor Snape said abruptly.

“Lord Potter-Black,” Harry corrected.

“What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

Hermione’s hand shot into the air.

“A paste?” Harry said. “Those two ingredients on their own don’t—”

“Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?” Professor Snape said over him.

Hermione stood up, waved her hand hopefully.

“Wherever you keep the bezoars?” Harry said, confused. “I don’t know—”

“Thought you wouldn’t open a book before coming, eh, Potter?”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Are you trying to start a blood feud with me?”

For a moment, Professor Snape looked surprised, but then he smirked and asked, “What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

Hermione climbed onto her stool, waving her arms in some swotty semaphore.

“There is none,” Harry said confidently, pulling the information from the archive of his mind.

Professor Snape swooped in like an overgrown bat, putting his face too close to Harry’s.

“Tut,” Professor Snape said softly. “Tut. Fame... clearly... isn’t... everything.”

Harry whispered back, “Your... breath... smells... like... coffee.”

Professor Snape reeled away, then stalked back to the front of the room. “Today, you will be brewing a simple Potion to Cure Boils!” he snapped. “Granger, you work with Thomas. Brown, you’re with Patil. Finnigan, you’re with Longbottom. Potter!”

Harry, who was sitting next to Daphne, looked at Professor Snape. Professor Snape gave him an oily smile.

“You will be working with Weasley.”

***

Harry made his way to Hagrid’s hut in a foul mood. He’d been having a great time ignoring the instructions on the board and doing whatever he felt like. Aunt Petunia was really committed to following recipes while in the kitchen, but Harry had always cooked with his heart. It explained some of the digestive issues the Dursleys had, given he only had hatred in his heart for them. The food still tasted good. 

Anyway, Harry had been doing his own thing in Potions, ignoring Ron’s stupid little insults, when Neville’s cauldron melted. Harry got blamed for it, of course. The Dursleys blamed him for everything too, and like them, Professor Snape, whatever Gringotts tests of lineage, blood, and inheritance claimed, absolutely loathed Harry. He also took points from Slytherin, which was apparently unheard of for Professor Snape. This was a huge reputational blow to a first-year, if that first-year cared about Slytherin politicking. Harry didn’t care. He didn’t even understand it. He was eleven.

“Well, fuck him too,” Harry muttered. Three parents dead, one in prison, and one an evil git. He didn’t know what his other three parents had seen in Professor Snape, and was even more convinced the goblins were full of shit. Besides, if Professor Snape actually cared about him, why had Harry been left with the Dursleys? What possible justification could there be? What contortions of logic would be required to subject Harry to years of neglect and abuse when viable alternatives existed? Was it evil? Incompetence? Had some Elder God orchestrated events?

“Where are you going?” Ron demanded. 

For some reason, Ron was following Harry down to Hagrid’s hut. In Ron’s head, Harry was a sneaky Slytherin, and Ron had to keep tabs on him. Ron had sincerely accused Harry of sabotaging Neville’s cauldron. Harry had no reason to harm the docile heir of the Noble and Ancient House of Longbottom. Ron was so hateful towards and distrustful of Slytherins that Harry was concerned he was cursed. Cursed, or an idiot. Both?

Magic thrummed under Harry’s skin, like a microwaved sausage ready to burst its casing. Harry was directing some of his magic to keeping his hair messy and black and his features less faelike, but he felt like he could shoot lasers out of his eyes. 

Occlumency was mastery of the mind, and Harry knew with dedicated meditation he could master his emotions, cultivate the perfect pureblood mask. But, meditation was really boring. Besides, you couldn’t clear your mind and create a layered mental defensive array. Or maybe that was what splitting his mind was for, so that half of it could be empty. 

Harry stomped up to Hagrid’s hut and banged on the door. Whatever Hagrid wanted, it had better be good.

Chapter Text

Harry puzzled over the newspaper clipping he found in Hagrid’s hut, tucked under his tea cosy. When questioned, Hagrid was evasive, and tried to silence Harry with a rock cake. 

A break-in had happened while they were at Gringotts. On Harry’s birthday.

Why plant the newspaper clipping if Hagrid didn’t want Harry to know? Didn’t adults understand that the more they tried to hide stuff the more kids were interested? Was Hagrid capable of such a scheme?

Harry was pondering this in his mind palace while waiting for his flying lesson to begin. Given the animosity between Slytherin and Gryffindor, Harry could not fathom why they had so many classes scheduled together. Who would make such a schedule? Did they want to stoke the rivalry? Harry could see no other reason for it, and like with the newspaper clipping placed conveniently under his tea cosy, he suspected someone was manipulating things from behind the scenes. Or, perhaps, from the headmaster’s tower.

The flying lesson wasn’t off to the best start. The instructor, Madam Hooch, didn’t seem capable of managing twenty eleven-year-olds, many of whom were scared of getting on a broom for the first time. Hermione’s broom rolled away from her, Neville’s smacked him in the face. The Slytherins had no problems. Daphne stood like a seasoned equestrian, while Malfoy shot Harry a triumphant smirk. His expression quickly soured when he saw how at ease Harry was. 

Harry’s school-issued broom met his hand like an old friend, and he felt an innate connection to the enchanted stick of wood, as if it were an extension of his body. Like a chick pushed out of his nest, Harry already knew how to fly. He only had to spread his wings. 

Things took a turn for the worse when Neville fell off his broom and broke his wrist. Harry felt bad for the other boy who, despite being a pureblood and presumably inculcated in pureblood society from birth, was extremely sheltered. Apparently the continuation of the Longbottom line was too vital to risk the sole heir on a broom.

After Madam Hooch led Neville off to the infirmary, leaving a group of eleven-year-olds holding brooms with no supervision whatsoever, Malfoy burst into laughter. Harry already disliked Malfoy, and thought he was creepy. That Malfoy enjoyed when others got hurt made Harry hate the boy. 

“Shut up, Malfoy,” one of the Gryffindors, Parvati Patil, said. 

“Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom,” Pansy teased. “Never thought you’d like fat little cry babies, Parvati!”

Harry assumed Pansy and Parvati knew each other. Probably from going to all those pureblood galas he’d read about. 

“Look!” Malfoy said, diving for the grass. “It’s that stupid thing Longbottom’s gran sent him!” He held up some glass ball filled with smoke. 

Harry felt a jolt of annoyance. Or maybe that was his rings warning him off. 

“Give that here, Malfoy,” he said.

Malfoy smiled at him, then jumped on his broom and took flight. “Come and get it, Potter!”

Harry internally cringed. He did not want to chase after Malfoy. He didn’t want to risk touching Malfoy. He’d read about summoning charms, but hadn’t practiced any yet. Honestly, Harry could just buy Neville another one of those smoke balls if he cared so much. 

Keeping his feet firmly planted on the ground turned out to be the smart move. Harry felt vindictively pleased when Professor McGonagall came roaring out to give Malfoy detention. 

***

Harry was enjoying his dinner of hot links, cornbread, and red beans and rice. He’d never even heard of any of the dishes, and in retrospect wished he had spent more time perusing the pureblood cookbooks at Flourish and Blotts. Privately, he could admit the food was better than any of the scraps the Dursleys had given him.

“Pass the mustard greens,” he asked Theo. Theo handed the tray over without looking up from his jambalaya. Crabbe, Goyle, and Millicent were hogging all the pickled pigs’ feet, while Daphne delicately ate a bowl of catfish courtbouillon. 

“Having a last meal, Potter?”

Harry looked around and, to his alarm, found Malfoy standing right behind him. 

“What are you on about?” he asked. 

“It’s your fault I got detention,” Malfoy said heatedly. “You goaded me!”

“Piss off,” Harry said, turning away. 

“I challenge you to a duel!”

The entire Slytherin table went silent. Harry slowly turned around and met Malfoy’s eyes. Dueling was a big deal in Slytherin, and by extension pureblood culture. A publicly issued challenge could not be retracted. There were a lot of nuances and other stuff Harry didn’t dwell on, but he knew from conversations in the common room that the weekly dueling ring that Slytherin hosted impacted the house rankings. The upper years, the Slytherin royal court, the function of which Harry could not ascertain, was watching.

Harry scowled. Anything he heard in passing just stayed in Harry’s head now. Who would want to remember everything all the time? It sucked.

“Scared, Potter?” Malfoy taunted.

“Stupid, Malfoy?” Harry said. “We’re supposed to handle intrahouse disputes in house, not make a scene in the Great Hall.”

“I’ll be his second!”

Harry rolled his eyes at Ron, who had to get up from the Gryffindor table, pass Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, and lurk under a tapestry in order to eavesdrop. 

“Now look what you’ve done,” Harry said, irritated. 

Malfoy wasn’t listening to him, his eyes glazed over, his cheeks flushed, his breathing heavy. Harry did not want to know what was going on in the other boy’s head. 

“Lord Potter-Black accepts the challenge issued by House Malfoy,” Daphne said frostily. 

Harry gave her an incredulous look. “I’m a lord, not a knight.”

Daphne slowly blinked at him, then placed one frigid hand on his arm. Harry was immensely relieved that nothing weird happened, mate-wise. 

“And one day,” Daphne said, “you may become king.”

“Right,” Harry said, pulling his arm away. He looked at Malfoy again. “First-years can’t use the dueling ring—”

“Dueling ring?” Ron spluttered.

“—so where and when?”

“Trophy Room,” Malfoy panted. “Midnight. 

“Brilliant,” Harry said, resigned. “See you then.”

“It’s a date,” Malfoy said. Then he blushed and ran off. 

Harry shook his head and went back to his boudin. 

***

Midnight came and Malfoy was nowhere in sight.

Harry was a little impressed that Ron had shown up, much less impressed that he had Hermione and Neville with him. Neville wouldn’t stop whimpering and Hermione wouldn’t shut up.

“Sniff around, my sweet...”

Harry slapped a hand over his face. This was a set up. Against his will, he could understand Malfoy’s thinking. Harry getting caught out of bed would lose Slytherin points, which would further diminish Harry’s status in Slytherin.

Harry couldn’t give a rat’s arse for his status. Having his own bedroom was great, much better than sharing a dormitory with other boys, but all the pointless machinations in Slytherin gave him a headache.

Since Filch and his familiar Mrs. Norris were almost upon them, and his rings were burning, buzzing, spinning, humming, and in general being a horrid nuisance, Harry ran away with the Gryffindors.

Later, Harry would realize he was caught up in the moment, and really didn’t want to give Malfoy the satisfaction of getting caught, or give him any satisfaction at all. Ever.

So, he ended up following the three Gryffindors all the way to the forbidden corridor on the third floor, where they found a cerberus.

Chapter Text

Harry stared at the feather on his desk. 

“You’re saying it wrong! It’s wing-gar-dium levia-o-sa. Make the gar nice and long.”

He glanced over at the Gryffindor side of the room, where Hermione was perfectly executing the swish and flick. Behind her, Seamus had set his feather on fire. Hermione’s feather rose four feet into the air, much to Professor Flitwick’s delight. 

Harry looked at his own feather again. Swish and flick. Wingardium leviosa. 

The feather shot into the air. 

“Sir! Sir! Potter’s got it too!”

“Oh, splendid, Mr. Potter! Five points for Slytherin!”

“Lord Potter-Black,” Harry murmured. He shook his head, and the feather drifted down to his desk. He hadn’t said the incantation. He hadn’t even twitched his wand. 

Harry surreptitiously looked around, but other than seeing his feather float up, no one noticed he had done this both wordlessly and wandlessly. Harry sighed in relief. His enormous magical core was to blame. So much magic contained within the fragile body of a child altered the very fabric of reality.

Disturbed by his own power, Harry worked on his essay for the rest of the lesson, then left class in a daze. 

“She’s a nightmare, honestly.”

Harry turned his gaze inward, into the mentally manned parapets of his mind. Could others see the burgeoning power within him? Could they see the dark light that shrouded the core of his being? The fractures in his soul that seethed with sinister powers? Where were all the ghosts?

“Harry, did you hear me? I said, She’s a nightmare, honestly.”

Harry was drawn out of his introspection by a freckled menace. 

“What,” he said flatly. Ron seemed to think encountering the cerberus was a grand adventure, and in the weeks since had redoubled his stalking in the hopes there’d be another adventure with Harry Potter.

“It’s no wonder no one can stand her,” Ron jabbered. “She’s a nightmare, honestly!”

“Who?” Harry said. 

His question was answered when a crying Hermione shoved past them and ran off.

“Do you think she heard me?” Ron asked, sounding worried. 

“You’ve only said it three times,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. “Why are you following me, anyway? We’re not friends.”

Ron turned a painful shade of red and scuttled away. 

“They’re like roaches,” one of the interchangeable Slytherin girls said.

Harry shook his head and walked off. 

***

Slytherin was buzzing with anticipation. Everyone was talking—in hushed tones, discreetly, or openly in the Slytherin Dungeon—about the Samhain rites that evening. Samhain was one of the Old Ways holidays, a seasonal festival banned at Hogwarts in favor of Christianized holidays such as Halloween. 

Halloween, Samhain, Harry didn’t care what it was called. He knew it as the day his parents died, and in some circles they called it Harry Potter Day. It was an actual, official Ministry holiday. People annually celebrated Voldemort’s defeat while Harry was forbidden to go trick-or-treating with Dudley, locked in his cupboard, and left to dissociate in the dark, his frightening memories of that night his only company.

Harry could enjoy the feast, but he was also extremely disillusioned by the whole thing. Dancing skeletons, flying bats, all of it. The ghosts no one had seen in months made a brief appearance, though they moved along some invisible path and refused to speak to anyone. 

The Samhain rites were something Harry looked forward to more than he wanted to admit. Even with Professor Snape being the druidic priest or whatever. Samhain was one of the two liminal festivals, when the separation between worlds, between life and death, blurred. Maybe he could contact his mum, dad, and second dad. His two living dads were useless. Harry could only take comfort from the dead. 

Harry kept his head down and ate his tater tot hotdish with a side of green bean casserole. Pudding that evening, or dessert as it was known by purebloods, was a dense and sticky orange bundt cake.

As Harry took a baked potato skin loaded with cheddar cheese, sour cream, green onions, and bacon bits, Quirrell sprinted into the Great Hall, clutching his purple turban, his face white with terror.

“Troll,” Quirrel gasped. “In the dungeons!” He slumped over the High Table, right in front of Dumbledore. “Thought... you ought to know.” Then he did a funny little twirl and fainted. 

There was an uproar. Even people in Slytherin were screaming and panicking, shattering the delusion that Slytherins had any more composure than anyone else. Malfoy was shrieking his head off and clutching Crabbe. Daphne resembled an icicle. Blaise looked amused. Theo was reading a book. Millicent cracked her knuckles. Goyle was taking a second helping of meatloaf.

Harry stared at Quirrell’s unconscious form. What sort of Defense teacher couldn’t take on a troll? What was he even doing in the dungeons while everyone was feasting? Sadly, Harry had yet to install any mystery-solving algorithms in his superbrain, and Dumbledore shooting purple fireworks distracted him from the riddle of the insensate Defense professor.

“Prefects,” Dumbledore bellowed, “lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!”

There was the expected objection from Slytherin. Their dormitories were in the dungeons. Everyone knew that. Everyone also knew that Slytherin was the de facto evil house, and no one really cared what happened to them in an emergency. Not even Professor Snape. 

As Harry was jostled by the frantic crowd, he saw Professor Snape run off upstairs while the other teachers were led by Dumbledore into the dungeons. Curious what his deadbeat dad was up to, Harry decided to follow.

As it turned out, Professor Snape was going to the third floor. Before Harry could decide whether he wanted another encounter with the drooling, three-headed guardian of the underworld, he was bombarded by the most horrific stench known to man. It reminded him of Dudley’s room.

A troll was lumbering down the corridor.

“Oh, fuck me,” Harry muttered, getting out his wand. 

A thought occurred to him. People had been gossiping about Hermione crying in the bathroom all day. 

The troll, twelve feet tall, granite-skinned, club-wielding, and with a taste for little girl flesh, was approaching the girls’ toilets.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Harry said to himself as he ran down the corridor. “Oi!”

The troll paused, then slowly looked up at him. It was big. Really, really big, like the elephants Harry had seen at the zoo. Harry didn’t know how he could kill an elephant, much less an armed troll. Knocking it out was more plausible. His increasingly organized mind flipped through all the spells he’d read about. They hadn’t covered trolls in Defense yet, not that Quirrell would have prepared them at all. 

Trolls… high strength, low intelligence, magic-resistant, deathly allergic to puffapods…

“Accio puffapods!” Harry cried wildly.

There was a crash in the distance, followed by a closer shattering as a nearby window exploded inward. Harry turned around, then quickly ducked as a barrage of puffapod seeds zoomed towards him. The seeds slammed into the troll and began blossoming on impact. 

The troll gave the large purple and pink flowers a bemused look. He coughed a few times, then sneezed. His breathing became strained, an awful wheeze. The troll’s skin gained a bluish tinge. He took a swing with his club, trying to sweep the flowers off himself, and cracked his own head. The troll swayed, staggered to the side, then collapsed against the wall. The troll didn’t get up again. After several agonizing moments, it gave three great gasps then stopped breathing forever.

Harry’s arm dropped. He stared at the dead troll, horrified by what he had just done. 

The bathroom door creaked open. Hermione stuck her bushy head out. Her face was stained with tears.

“It is,” she whispered hoarsely. “Is it dead?”

Harry looked at her blankly, feeling numb.

Before he could answer, before he could even coherently form one, the adults finally showed up.

Chapter Text

Harry took the troll incident and put it where he put all bad things, into the cupboard of his mind. Occlumency was fantastic for compartmentalizing, and that’s exactly what Harry did. It was instinctual; a world in which both magic and the Dursleys existed was absurd. He had to detach himself from the traumatizing aspects of his life to function. Like his parents dying. He didn’t think about it much, just shoved it down, and those thoughts and feelings lay like broken quills and empty ink bottles at the bottom of his trunk. 

Quidditch season had begun. Hagrid was defrosting the pitch, fire surging out of his umbrella like a pink flamethrower. Everyone loved quidditch. Students, prefects, teachers. Not a single person was disinterested in quidditch. No one would ever say a negative thing about quidditch. The longer the quidditch match, the better. Across the board, unilateral, almost compulsory love of quidditch. 

Harry went along with it. The first match was Gryffindor versus Slytherin, and he had been harassed by Gryffindors who thought he was a traitor and Slytherins who thought he didn’t belong since he put on that stupid hat. He hoped they both lost. He wasn’t going to wear all green or wave a pennant or be weirdly obsessed with snake imagery. School spirit was stupid. Perhaps this was subversive for the heir of two Founders, and the son of three quidditch heroes—he’d seen trophies for his dad James, his dad Regulus, and his godfather/blood-adoption dad Sirius—but Harry learned he was a wizard, like, three months ago. He hadn’t fully bought into what passed for magical culture. 

Harry did know a lot about quidditch. This was due to forced proximity to people incessantly talking about it—like Ron and Malfoy—and Hermione Granger deciding they were friends. She haunted the library, her retreat from children who weren’t as academically motivated or vain about their intellect, and it was impossible not to run into her there. This, of course, infuriated the other Slytherins. Not only was Hermione in Gryffindor, she was muggleborn. Her very existence offended them. 

In an act he could only construe as aggression, Hermione had lent Harry Quidditch Through the Ages. One November afternoon, Harry was taking a break in a courtyard, idly flipping through it, each page seared into his memory.

“What’s that you’ve got there, Potter?”

Harry turned another page. 

“Potter!”

“Potter,” Harry said mockingly. “Is that what you called my dad?” He grimaced. “Never mind.”

“Library books are not to be taken outside the school,” Snape said, marching up to him. 

“That sounds like a made up rule,” Harry said. “And I’m technically in the school. It’s a courtyard.”

“Give it to me,” Snape snarled. He snatched the book from Harry’s hands. “Five points from Gryffindor.”

“I’m not even in Gryffindor,” Harry said, watching Snape stalk away. “Fucking idiot.”

Snape was limping. Harry felt a spark of interest at that, but it soon dimmed. His rings were pretty good at catching stuff like that, blocking compulsion charms and the like; it was scary to not know whether he was genuinely interested in something or whether someone was making him be. Harry was still pissed off at the goblins, but so far the lord and heir rings were helpful. 

The rings were supposed to merge into one megaring, but he was stuck with rings on every finger. The Potter Lordship ring was ruby and gold with antlers on it, the Black Lordship ring was silver crow wings, the Prince ring was silver and onyx, the Peverell ring was probably the coolest one since it could unfold into this eerie symbol, the Slytherin ring was a snake with emerald eyes, the Gryffindor ring had a lion with with a ruby in its mouth, the Gaunt ring was a snake, and the Riddle ring, the newest-looking one, was also a snake. All the snake rings didn’t help with the sneaky Slytherin accusations. If, when, the rings did meld together, It would be a lion with a snake tail and antlers. A new chimera. 

“Wonder what’s wrong with his leg.”

With a start, Harry realized that Ron and Hermione were nearby, huddled around a jar filled with blue flames. How long had they been there?

“I don’t,” Harry said, and he left.

***

“Harry! Harry!”

“Oh, my god,” Harry groaned. He had finally got away from Daphne and Blaise and their endless mealtime political discussions, and now Ron was cornering him. 

“I tried to get back that book from Snape,” Ron said.

“I didn’t ask you to,” Harry said, opening the door to the dungeons. He was going to his heavily warded room and climbing into his trunk. “Bye.”

“Who cares about that?” Ron said. “I learned what got Snape’s leg.”

“Great,” Harry said. “Have fun with that.”

Ron grabbed his shoulder. Harry seized up, then relaxed when he felt nothing by the pressure of Ron’s fingers. 

“It was Fluffy!” Ron said excitedly. 

“It was what?” Harry said. 

“Fluffy,” Ron repeated. “You know, the three-headed dog?”

“I did not know its name was Fluffy,” Harry said. “So he got bit by a dog or three, so what?”

“Snape’s after whatever it’s guarding,” Ron said, his eyes wide and feverish.

“Okay,” Harry said, pulling out of Ron’s grip. “Let him have it.”

“But what if—” Ron gasped. “You’re helping him! You’re on his side!”

Harry shut the door in Ron’s face. 

***

Harry’s breakfast of Teddy Grahams sat poorly in his stomach, though the meal was hours ago. The little bears got soggy as soon as you added milk, but they had a unique, grahamy flavor that was hard to resist.

He was sitting in the Slytherin stands at the school quidditch pitch, other students sitting uncomfortable close to him. Harry thought he’d have more fun actually playing quidditch than watching it, but he didn’t have a broom and first-years weren’t allowed to play. 

Refusing to come would have made him more of a pariah in Slytherin; though Harry didn’t want to care, it was hard when the people you lived with hated you, or acted like they hated you, or put on a pureblood mask and were polite to your face while viciously taking you apart in private. Other than killing that troll, Harry hadn’t done anything to deserve it. 

Harry knew Hogwarts wouldn’t be a perfect escape from his life. His initial excitement had been banked by what happened at Gringotts, and all the discoveries he made. As much as he wanted to believe the goblins were using his ignorance to take advantage of him, they didn’t have to tell him about all those other vaults. Harry was also finding tracking charms all over his clothes, which increased his paranoia. He was being watched and followed all of the time. He had more privacy in the cupboard. 

The match started, and Harry tried his best to follow along. Quaffles were passed, bludgers were beaten, hoops were kept. The seeker had both the most tedious and most exciting job. They had to look for the golden snitch, which was small and elusive, and could take hours, days, even weeks to find. The fun part, Harry imagined, was catching it. A single, reckless dive, and the game was over. But, the vast majority of a seeker’s time was spent circling the pitch, looking. Harry was just sitting in the crowded stands, looking. 

Harry was reaching a critical level of boredom, the sort that made him antagonize the Dursleys just so something would happen. 

The stands were too packed to get out easily, so he couldn’t walk around, and he’d neglected to bring a book. Harry snorted, mildly chastising himself. He had books saved in his head, a few dozen at this point. He could just pop into the old mind fortress and read one. 

Maybe if Harry knew what entailed a good quidditch match, or good flying, or good playing, or had any context at all for this sport, he would find watching it more engaging. He got the impression that more people were here to see an accident, and had only a passing interest in which chaser scored through whose hoop. The biggest reactions from the crowd were when someone got hit with a bludger and almost fell off their broom, or when they were intentionally fouled and injured. 

Harry yawned, and something amazing happened. His boredom was immediately alleviated when the golden snitch flew into his mouth and tried to choke him to death. 

Chapter Text

“I do feel so sorry,” Malfoy said, glancing shyly at Harry, “for all those people who have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas because they’re not wanted at home.”

Harry, who was still stuck working with Ron, ignored this and continued measuring out his powdered spine of lionfish.

The aftermath of the quidditch match involved a trip to the hospital wing for Harry, no investigation into the cursed snitch, and the match being postponed. Harry didn’t even get to keep the snitch; Dumbledore confiscated it.

“I’m staying,” Ron piped up. “Mum and dad are going to Romania to visit Charlie, so me and Fred and George and Percy are staying.”

“Uh huh,” Harry said. He abandoned measuring the powdered spine of lionfish and dumped the rest into his cauldron, along with a few whole spines. He imagined driving one through Malfoy’s eyes, but that wasn’t part of the recipe. “Imagine being pureblood and celebrating Christmas.”

Ron looked confused by this. Harry smiled blandly at him and continued brewing his Screaming Potion. They were meant to be brewing an herbicide, but Professor Snape routinely gave him Trolls on his assignments—one of the man’s sick little jokes—so Harry abandoned any attempt at getting good marks.

As Harry left the dungeons to go to lunch, he had a series of increasingly weird encounters. Daphne and Blaise were trailing after him, in turn followed by Tracey and Millicent. They were chattering about some Winter Solstice ball the Greengrasses were hosting, loud enough so that Harry would overhear. Any invitations Harry received for pureblood events were sent straight to a vault, and thereafter incinerated. Anyone hoping to trap him into a pureblood custom would have to do it to his face.

“I would invite you over for Yule,” someone quietly said. Harry, whose magic sense was still in development, jerked in surprise. It was Theodore Nott, who coalesced out of the shadows to approach him. 

The pale boy gave him a sad look. “But, Father…”

Theo's voice faded, and he melted away again.

“Imagine being a pureblood,” Harry said, “a British pureblood, and celebrating Yule.”

“What do you celebrate?” Hermione, who was also following him, asked.

They had made it to the entrance hall and were blocked by a large fir tree. Hermione stared at him eagerly, waiting for a response, as Ron indiscreetly stood close to eavesdrop.

“Traditionally,” Harry said, “the Potters, Blacks, Peverells, Princes, and Gryffindors worship the Great Mare, Epona. She leads souls into the afterlife. Slytherins and Gaunts do Grianstad an Geimhridh, a journey from darkness into the light.” He snorted. “Slytherin was from Ireland. A parselmouth from an island famously without snakes.”

Hermione was fascinated. While this was happening, Ron and Malfoy got up to their families’ old blood feud, and Snape came to break them apart. Harry inadvertently caught the absentee father's eye, and saw a flash of pride in those abysmal depths. Shuddering, Harry turned back to Hermione. 

“What do you do to celebrate?” she asked.

“No idea,” Harry said. Since all of his family grimoires had been stolen, any tradition was lost to him. “By the Roman calendar, Eponalia was three days ago.”

“Oh no!” Hermione gasped. “We missed it!”

“But the Winter Solstice is in two days,” he added. “I don't know, I'll cobble something together from existing traditions, or completely make something up. Morris dancing around a bonfire, maybe.”

Hermione gave him a concerned look. “Do you know how to Morris dance?”

“Nah,” Harry said. The tree was finally out of the way and he was free to get lunch. “There does have to be some ritual, though, to restore some magic to the world.” He sighed. There probably would be a bonfire and dancing. As long as no one got naked…

Hermione seized his arm.

“Unhand Lord Potter-Black,” Daphne said coldly.

“Get your filthy hands off of him,” Blaise said venomously.

Hermione didn’t let go. “And just where do you think you’re going?”

“To lunch,” Harry said.

“We’re going to the library with Ron to investigate Nicolas Flamel!”

“The alchemist?” Harry asked incredulously. “And since when were you friends with Ron?”

Hermione gasped and released him. “I have to look something up!” She grabbed Ron instead and dragged him out of the Great Hall.

Harry watched them run off, then went to the Slytherin table to have a few banana fluffernutters and a tall glass of milk.

***

Once the holidays started, Harry was finally able to relax. No one had stayed in Slytherin, so not only did he have the flat in his trunk and a private room, but he had the entire common room to himself. He spent some time making smores at the fireplace, a pureblood delicacy crafted from a square of chocolate, a marshmallow, and graham crackers. Biting into one was absolute gooey bliss. 

Outside of the underground lair, the castle was infested with Weasleys. 

Percy was strutting around the school, polishing his prefect's badge instead of studying for O.W.L.s. 

Harry found Ron's twin brothers, Fred and George, charming snowballs to hit the back of Quirrell's turban. The sight made him feel strange, particularly around the scar. 

Ron kept trying to get him to play wizard's chess, which was just like regular chess except the pieces shouted bad advice to you, or go to the library to investigate. Hermione and Ron had a theory about what the three-headed dog was guarding, something to do with Nicolas Flamel. Harry was less concerned with what Cerberus himself was guarding, and more concerned with why so many people were trying to get him interested in it. 

***

The Winter Solstice was also called Alban Arthan. Arthan was a little too close to Arthur, and Harry didn’t want to accidentally unlock any other legacies that year. He lit a few candles to commemorate his dead parents, a white one for his mum Lily, a red one for his dad James, and a black one for his dad Regulus. Hedwig brought a mouse—how she got into the Slytherin common room, Harry had no idea. Magic?—in what he took as a symbolic sacrifice. Then she horked it down, so he thought she must have just been hungry. 

Harry thought he would get away with not doing any magic-raising rituals, but after dinner he was intercepted by a surly Professor Snape. 

“Potter,” he snapped. “With me.” Professor Snape spun away, his cloak billowing out behind him as he strode across the snowy grounds.

Grumbling, Harry trudged through snow, following Professor Snape into the Forbidden Forest. He got a little squirrely when Professor Snape whipped out a curved golden knife, but there were no decapitation attempts. 

Harry had never been in the Forbidden Forest before. As they moved deeper into it, the trees grew taller, older, the tangle of bare branches above them knotting together in an impenetrable canopy.

“We are searching for an oak overgrown with mistletoe,” Professor Snape said. “A sacred oak.”

“Yeah,” Harry said. “Makes total sense.”

They eventually found a tree that met Professor Snape’s specifications. He made Harry stand under him while he cut some mistletoe off of it. Harry caught the mistletoe.

“Is this for potions?” he asked.

Professor Snape put away his golden blade and gave Harry a solemn look. “Under these boughs we are protected.”

“Okay,” Harry said. “So, should I keep holding this?”

Professor Snape gave him a look of such incredible longing and heartbreak that Harry was extremely weirded out.

“My child,” Professor Snape said solemnly. “Though it tears my soul apart, we can be nothing more than teacher and student. I have made vows, beloved boy, and on my blood I have sworn to protect you.”

Harry kept standing there, holding mistletoe.

“I must pretend to hate you,” Professor Snape said. “As I hated your father.”

“Which one?” Harry asked.

Professor Snape’s face twisted in pain. “James.” 

“Why?” Harry asked.

Professor Snape smiled sadly. Harry almost felt bad for him. Sort of. Not really. 

“For reasons I cannot yet explain,” Professor Snape said. Then he looked up through the branches of the oak tree, gazing at the constellations above.

Harry nodded. All he could think of was how, after this awkward conversation, they would have to walk back to the castle together.

***

In the few days between the winter solstice and Christmas, Harry hadn’t much dwelt on how Professor Snape, who told Harry he may address him as Severus in private—that was never going to happen—didn’t hate him but had to pretend to hate him for obscure reasons. Since he was eleven and his occlumency shields were equivalent to a rickety picket fence, Professor Snape had put a shield around Harry’s mind to protect that confidence. Harry hadn’t known you could project occlumency like that. He really needed to go back to Flourish and Blotts for more easily accessible tomes of dark magic, or sneak into the Restricted Section at the school library. 

Christmas had its own surprises in store for Harry. He woke up to a pile of packages on his bed. 

Harry didn’t celebrate Christmas, and not because of some adherence to neopaganism. When the Dursleys remembered to give him anything at all, they only gave him rubbish. For example, this Christmas they sent him fifty pence. What was he supposed to do, go to Woolworth’s for a pic ‘n’ mix? 

There was a package from Ron’s mum, Mrs. Weasley, one that set all of Harry’s rings off. He tossed the handmade fudge but kept the nice green jumper. Harry hadn’t forgotten the woman’s signature on the marriage contract. Hermione sent him a box of Chocolate Frogs, thankfully not laced with any potions, and Hagrid sent him a whittled wooden flute.

The last package contained an anonymous note, and something that made Harry grateful, but also infuriated him. 

Your father left this in my possession before he died.

It is time it was returned to you.

Use it well. 

A Very Merry Christmas to you. 

Harry held the cool, silvery fabric in his hands. It was one of the many artifacts that had been stolen from his vaults, and it was the most precious of all. His dad’s invisibility cloak. 

***

Harry was in a daze all throughout Christmas dinner. The dinner was standard muggle fare, roast turkey, boiled potatoes, buttered peas, gravy, cranberry sauce. Not a blackberry in sight. There was some excitement when the pudding burst into flames, and Ron made him pull wizard crackers. Harry eventually got away, then spent the afternoon listlessly in the Slytherin common room. 

As night fell, and the waters of the Black Lake grew blacker, Harry’s restlessness grew. Aside from being his dad James’, a connection to a family he would never know, the invisibility cloak was a very useful tool. Harry could hide from his stalkers and get into places undetected. No one would even know. 

At midnight, Harry struck out, concealed under a cloak that conformed perfectly to his stature. Harry’s rings were humming a warning, but Harry had wised up to them. He knew what was going on. The rings were trying to keep him out of any plots. Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back, and it was in Harry’s nature as a Potter, Black, and púca to get up to no good. What harm was there in walking around the castle after curfew?

Harry retracted that statement when he found an enchanted mirror that tried to trap his mind. 

***

Harry went back to the mirror a few times, after he worked out the enchantment. The rings held any mind-capturing at bay, leaving Harry free to enjoy images of his parents. It made Harry sad knowing that what he most desired, his parents all being alive and happy, was something he couldn't have. Maybe if he explored his necromantic powers, but he was still getting used to having magic at all. Any raising of the dead would be years down the line. 

On the third night, Harry got the impression that Hogwarts wanted him to be in that unused classroom. He knew someone, or something, wanted him to find the mirror before he'd even found it; the rings made their opinions clear. Part of Harry was concerned that, if he didn't go along with it, more extreme measures would be taken. So, he went back. It was nice to see his mum and dads, the dead ones. He wasn’t sure how the bloke in prison, Sirius, fit into the picture, nor Professor Snape. Having a second mum would have been nice, to balance things out. 

“So, back again, Harry?”

Harry spun around, his heart racing, and saw the headmaster sitting in one of the desks. 

“What are you doing here?” Harry asked, belatedly adding, “Sir.”

“Strange how short-sighted being invisible can make you,” Dumbledore said with a smile. 

“I’m literally short-sighted,” Harry said, which was a lie. He now had plain glass in his lenses, and his vision was still perfect. Being a metamorphmagus made any physical abnormalities or injuries trivial. He could simply change the shape of his eyes, alter his bones and muscles, adjust his taste buds. Theoretically; that took fine control, and Harry was barely managing to keep his hair black at the moment. 

“So,” Dumbledore said, getting out of the desk and approaching Harry. “You, like hundreds before you, have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised.”

Harry stopped himself from taking a step back. He still had his invisibility cloak on. How did Dumbledore know where he was? 

“Yeah,” Harry said. It was really delightful watching his dead mum cry.

“The mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Harry,” Dumbledore said soothingly. Harry felt a sting in his brain. “I ask you to not go looking for it again.”

“I won’t,” Harry said, inching towards the door. 

“Why don't you go back to bed?” Dumbledore said, still advancing, his blue eyes twinkling. 

“I will,” Harry said, completely backing out of the room. “Goodnight.”

Harry quickly walked away, and tried to make it not look like he was running.

Chapter Text

After his encounter with Albus Dumbledore and the Mirror of Erised, Harry started having nightmares. They were similar to the nightmares he’d had his entire life, a bright flash of green light, a high-pitched voice cackling, only now he saw his mum and dad disappearing into the green light. Begrudgingly, Harry spent more time meditating to improve his mind mansion. Occlumency still worked in his sleep, somehow, and with dedicated effort he was able to cordon off the nightmares within the structured landscape of his mind.

The start of term brought back Hermione. Since they shared every class, this gave her multiple opportunities to hound him about Nicolas Flamel; alchemist was apparently not enough for her to go off of. Harry tolerated this because Hermione drove away the girls in Slytherin. Daphne was both standoffish and oddly protective, while Blaise looked like she had plans for Harry. No one should have had any plans for Harry at all. Both were miles ahead of Malfoy, who still moaned about the red-haired girl he saw for a split second in Diagon Alley. 

Other than Hermione and Ron trying to get him interested in Nicolas Flamel, everyone else trying to get him interested in watching quidditch, and the endless essays every teacher assigned, the next few weeks were quiet for Harry. 

***

“Snape’s after the Philosopher’s Stone!’

Harry, who thought he might eat his corndogs down by the lake, was blocked by a frantic Ron and Hermoine.

“So?” he said.

“He’s threatened Quirrell,” Hermione said desperately. 

“We followed him after the quidditch match,” Ron said. “The one between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. It was brilliant, Harry, you should have—”

“The Stone’s only safe as long as Quirrell stands up to Snape!” Hermoine wailed. 

Harry chewed on a corndog. He didn’t think Snape was after the Philosopher’s Stone, whatever that was. He’d have to reference his mental database. Snape was a git, but secretly had a heart of gold, and was a decent enough bloke to pull one, some, or all of his other parents. Harry, of course, could not and would not share any of this with Ron and Hermione. He continued eating his corndog until they got fed up and went away again. 

***

“Psst, Harry! Harry!”

“For fuck’s sake,” Harry said, tossing down his quill. He was in the library, trying to get through another essay while simultaneously avoiding being lectured on proper pureblood greetings by Draco bloody Malfoy of all people, who was weirdly fixated on Harry not shaking his hand, when Hermione and Ron popped up again with their bullshit. 

“Hagrid’s got a dragon!”

“Good for him,” Harry said, picking up his quill.

“Harry,” Ron said, slamming his hands on the table. “Do you want Hagrid to die? Dragon breeding is illegal! You slimy Slytherin!”

“Are you doing revision?” Hermione asked, peering at his parchment. “You haven’t got any reference books!”

Harry had memorized all of his school books months ago. All he had to do was flip through a book to commit it to his perfect memory. All of the reference material was in his head. He still didn’t understand the majority of it, but in his cranial citadel he could speed up his perception of time and really dig into one of the books stored on his frontal lobe floppy.

“We need to find out what Hagrid’s up to,” Ron said passionately. 

“I thought you already had,” Harry said, scribbling another line about dittany. “Breeding with dragons.”

Madam Pince came by and kicked Hermione and Ron out the library. Harry pushed up his fake glasses and rubbed his eyes. Being eleven sucked. 

***

It’s hatching.

Harry watched Hedwig fly off, then looked back at the brief note. It had to be about the dragon. Honestly, it sounded like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, watching a dragon hatch, and Harry was happy to take up the offer. Did he think Hagrid keeping a dragon would go well? Obviously not, but it was still exciting, wasn’t it?

After Herbology, Harry struck out for Hagrid’s hut. Annoyingly, he was not alone. Hermione and Ron were following him, loudly arguing. Perhaps Harry should have aborted this mission, but he really wanted to see a baby dragon.

Hagrid met him, and Hermione, and Ron, at the door. The man looked as flushed and excited as a new father. 

“It’s nearly out,” Hagrid said excitedly, waving them in. He made no comment on Harry being in Slytherin, or how he was accompanied by two Gryffindors who couldn’t decide whether to be friends with him despite being in Slytherin, or to constantly trot out stereotypes and accusations. 

Harry took a seat at the table, keeping his distance from Hermoine. He had developed a complex about touching people, not knowing when or how his soul bond would manifest. Maybe his Potter Luck had conveniently eradicated any soul-related bonding when he got hit with a Killing Curse, then if everyone had a soul mate except for him he’d be even more of a freak. 

The egg cracked open, and a wet, bony, baby dragon flopped out. It bore a striking resemblance to Hagrid’s wandbrella. 

As Hagrid cooed over the dragonlet, and Hermione made a very salient point about Hagrid living in a wooden house, Harry’s magic-sense started tingling. He looked over his shoulder and saw someone looking through the curtains. 

Lo and behold, it was Malfoy. 

***

While the others were upset that Malfoy had seen the baby dragon, and could use this to get Hagrid into serious trouble, Harry was disturbed by Malfoy’s continued obsession with him. Malfoy’s creature instincts were warring with his memory, and he couldn’t connect the ethereal red-haired girl with the scruffy black-haired boy. Suffice to say, Harry was weirded out by the creepy little smile Malfoy had after seeing the dragon.

It wasn’t just Malfoy after him. Harry was famous, wealthy, and powerful, politically due to his many lordships and heirships and Wizengamot seats and controlling interests in various businesses in both the magical and muggle worlds, and magically powerful, though this was something he continuously attempted to hide. People could overlook that he was in Slytherin, or that he offed Voldemort, or whatever other objection they had. 

Harry bitterly realized he was Cinderella in this situation. Everyone had a glass slipper they were trying to shove on his foot. 

***

Harry didn’t really get what Slytherin politics was. Whether it be building coalitions and forging alliances in Slytherin, even though most of the kids had known each other for their entire lives and their parents and extended families had established relationships with each other and there was no material or real-world benefit in taking any of the Slytherin royalty or nobility or court or ranks seriously. For some, sucking up to Harry was a way of rebelling against their parents, or they saw him as their ticket out, wanted him to be their hero. 

Double-talk, and triple-talk, coded language, spying, backstabbing, gossip, power plays, smuggling, trades, deals, pacts, promises, etc. This was all more complex with the older students, but for the lower years the effect was kids being shitty and mean to each other. Harry sort of wished he’d gone with Gryffindor, a house that was completely immune to all the social politicking bullshit. It was like Slytherin was stuck in the Regency era while Gryffindor was dropping acid. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw existed in the background.

Amazingly, no one outside of Slytherin was even aware that a court existed, not even the teachers. Well, Professor Snape did, but it was child’s play to such an intellectual titan. 

Harry didn’t want to be involved at all, but he wasn’t given a choice. 

***

“I’ve decided to call him Norbert.”

Harry was ostensibly in Hagrid’s hut to convince him to rehome the dragon, but really he just wanted to see the dragon. He felt a kinship with the scaly black beast, one that wasn’t entirely imagined. Dragons spoke a dialect of parseltongue, though the baby dragon could only babble and occasionally emit sparks. Harry loved Hedwig, she was considerably more kind and intelligent than everyone else around him, but a dragon familiar would be fucking badass. Badarse? That didn’t sound right.

“Malfoy could go to Dumbledore at any moment!”

Harry put his face in his hands. Did he have to solve every problem? 

“I can’t just dump him! I can’t!”

This was very funny to Harry, as Hagrid had dumped a human baby on a doorstep ten years ago.

“Charlie,” he muttered. 

“I’m Ron,” Ron said stupidly.

“It’s really impressive that you know your own name,” Harry said. “Good job. I’m talking about your brother, the only person we know who works with dragons.”

“Brilliant!” Ron exclaimed. Then he narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Are you trying to get Charlie in trouble too?”

Harry threw his hands up in exasperation. There was no winning with these people.

***

Harry drew the line at actually helping smuggle the dragon out of Hogwarts. He was a Slytherin. He was supposed to be more cunning and subtle than this. 

The plan the Gryffindors came up with involved carrying the dragon through the castle and up a tower. Hagrid was perfectly capable of carting the dragon through the Forbidden Forest or off the grounds entirely to be picked up. It was a stupid plan, made even stupider because neither Hermione nor Ron could keep their mouths shut and Malfoy had overheard what they were up to.

On Saturday, Malfoy snuck out of the dungeons to catch Ron and Hermione in the act, and Harry snuck out to stop him. Not wanting to risk losing it if the dragon went wild, Harry left his invisibility cloak in his trunk. This venture was more about thwarting Malfoy than keeping the others out of trouble. And, even if it was a stupid plan, the concept of a dragon heist was thrilling, disapproving heir rings be damned. 

As it turned out, Harry didn’t need to intervene. Professor McGonagall caught Malfoy by the ear. 

“Detention!” Professor McGonagall shouted, her hairnet starting to slip. “And twenty points from Slytherin! Wandering around in the middle of the night, how dare you—”

“You don’t understand, Professor,” Malfoy whined. “Harry Potter’s coming! He’s got a dragon!”

So this was about Malfoy getting him in trouble? Harry hated that. Dudley did it all the time. He stepped out of the nook he’d been hiding in to clarify matters.

“I don’t have a dragon,” Harry said indignantly. “And it's Lord Potter-Black.”

Professor McGonagall and Malfoy gaped at him. 

“Oh,” Harry said, feeling like an idiot. “Well, shit.”

Chapter Text

Harry’s impulsivity was at fault. That’s how he rationalized his own behavior as he was marched into the Forbidden Forest. He needed some blackberries to take the edge off, but they weren’t in season.

It hadn’t just been him and Malfoy caught. Hermione, Ron, and Neville were caught by Filch. Neville was truly the victim in this situation. He wasn’t trying to cover up illegal dragon breeding, or sabotage dragon smuggling. Chivalrous Neville was simply trying to be a good person and warn them about Malfoy, and now he was caught in the crossfire. Professor McGonagall, outraged that five first-years were out of bed in the middle of the night, and probably overworked and underpaid and wanting just one, just one night where she could get some sleep and instead she had to deal with a bunch of dumb kids talking about dragons, took fifty points from all of them and assigned them all detention. Not even Ron, who had a visible, seeping dragon bite, got out of it. 

There were all sorts of social repercussions for losing so many points, since that factored into Slytherin society, and as a matter of course all the other students had been counting on Gryffindor to win the house cup and defeat evil Slytherin. Accusations were confused. Kids in Slytherin thought Harry was trying to make Slytherin lose, while kids in Gryffindor thought he’d set them up to lose. Malfoy blamed him for them both getting caught, Ron blamed him for coming up with the idea. Everyone blamed Harry; he was a convenient target. 

“The Malfoys are a Dark family,” Malfoy was saying. “So are the Notts, Crabbes, and Goyles. The Crabbes and Goyles have been vassals to the Malfoys for about five hundred years…”

Harry rolled his eyes. The detention was taking place at midnight. Filch had walked them down to the Forbidden Forest, a forest which was forbidden, then Hagrid had paired them off. Ron and Hermione, Hagrid and Neville, leaving Harry with Malfoy and Fang. Sticking the Slytherins together, typical. Harry made sure to keep the dog between them. 

“The Greengrasses are Grey. Mother wants their Wizengamot votes, so she tried to arrange a marriage between myself and the younger Greengrass. Father refused…”

Harry’s rings were going off, which made sense. Something in the forest was killing unicorns. Why a group of eleven-year-olds and a dog were on the case was beyond Harry. He’d forgotten about the detention entirely, then Professor McGonagall sprang it on them a week before exams. At midnight. On a school day. Harry was just a kid, but there was something fishy about the situation, and it wasn’t just Fang’s breath.

“...Mother wanted me to go to Durmstrang, but Father wouldn’t allow it. You know, with Dumbledore being the Leader of the Light and all—”

“Shut up,” Harry whispered harshly. They had reached a clearing, and in the center there was something pure white and glowing in the moonlight. Wand in hand, Harry took a step closer. 

It was a unicorn. A dead unicorn. 

Harry’s chest grew heavy. The unicorn was so beautiful, so elegant, so irreparably broken. There was a choked sob, and Harry was surprised to see that Malfoy was crying. 

“What are you looking at?” Malfoy said. He sniffed. “What’s that smell?”

“The dead unicorn,” Harry said quietly, looking around the clearing. Whatever killed the unicorn was probably close. Malfoy didn’t have his wand out, and Fang was tensed, ready to bolt.

“No,” Malfoy said, leaning towards him. “It’s you.”

Harry’s stomach curdled. He already had to avoid any physical contact with Malfoy. Now he had to hide his smell? With what, a scent blocker? He took a step into the clearing, wanting to get away, or at least downwind, but froze when a bush rustled.

A crawling, hooded figure emerged from the bushes and moved across the clearing. The way it moved was unnatural, like the ungainly crab walks they made you do in PE. 

“What the fuck,” Harry whispered. He didn’t know what to do. Starting a fight seemed like a bad idea. Coming here at all was a bad idea. Why had all the teachers gone along with it?

When the thing reached the dead unicorn, it arched its body and lowered its head. Then, it began slurping from the bleeding wound.

Malfoy screeched like a bird, then turned and ran. Fang ran off too, barking frantically. They might have snuck away without the creature noticing, but there was no hope of that now. The monster whipped its head towards the noise, then jerked around until it stood upright. Thick, silver blood dribbled out of its hood and down its front, and it bore into Harry with hateful red eyes. A horrible pain lanced Harry’s head, his scar was hot and throbbing with agony. Then, the creature began lurching towards him.

The pain in Harry’s head grew and grew, and his wand dangled uselessly in his hand. All the occlumency he’d practiced wasn’t helping at all. He couldn’t raise his arm. He couldn’t think of any spells, or think at all. He fell to his knees, his world going black as the monster neared.

***

When Harry next woke, he was on horseback. The horse had the torso of a blond young man. A centaur, then. Harry was surprised to wake at all, and he shook with remembered fear. His scar was a liability, and his mind was too much of a mess to work out why. He was tired from staying up so late, then walking so deep into the forest, and his heart ached for the dead unicorn.

What had woken Harry up was the centaurs arguing. One of them was angry that the one he was on was acting like a common mule. Mars was bright or something. Then the other centaurs went away, and they started moving again.

“Harry Potter,” the centaur, Firenze, said. “Do you know what unicorn blood is used for?”

Harry squeezed his eyes shut. His scar still burned. Visiting hours at his mind museum were over.

“What?” he asked.

“The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenceless to save yourself and you will have but a half life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips.”

Harry tried to nod, but the motion nauseated him. He’d keep that in mind as a last resort. He was already living a cursed life. How could unicorn blood make it worse?

“It will keep you alive long enough to drink something else,” Firenze said. “Something that will bring you back to full strength and power, something that will mean you can never die.”

Why was this centaur giving him this information unprompted?

“Mr. Potter, do you know what is hidden in the school at this very moment?”

“It’s Lord Potter-Black,” Harry said. “There’s a lot of stuff hidden at Hogwarts. You need to be more specific.”

“The Philosopher’s Stone is used to create the Elixir of Life.”

“Okay.” Harry looked over Firenze, relieved when he didn’t see a lightning bolt on the centaur’s golden flank. The last thing he needed was a centaur mate, though Harry could transform into a horse once his púca power matured. That was a pretty common shape for púca to take. 

“Can you think of nobody who has waited many years to return to power,” Firenze said, “who has clung to life, awaiting their chance?”

“Are you talking about Voldemort?” Harry said. “You could just say that that thing was Voldemort.” 

Harry winced as his scar gave another pang. He boxed up any and all thoughts about it and chucked it into his mental cupboard. 

They eventually found Hagrid and the rest, and Firenze dropped Harry off.

“Thanks for the ride,” he said, giving Firenze’s horse shoulder an awkward pat. Thankfully, Firenze didn’t take offense to this. 

“Good luck, Harry Potter,” he said. “The planets have been read wrongly before now, even by centaurs. I hope this is one of those times.”

“But you didn’t say what the stars said,” Harry said as Firenze cantered away. “Hello? You’re just going to say that and fuck off? What the hell?”

Firenze vanished into the dark forest. 

“That’s great,” Harry muttered. What was he supposed to do with this information, tell Hagrid that Voldemort was skulking around the Forbidden Forest? How was that something that could just happen without anyone noticing? What kind of coincidence was it that Harry, the Boy Who Lived, the only person who survived the Killing Curse, who had part of Voldemort’s soul, just so happened to be the one to find him? 

Such a coincidence was ludicrous, yet the idea that someone was orchestrating events at such a granular level was equally insane. Only the greatest, most villainous, manipulative, genius, chessmaster, puppet master, mastermind, master, master, master of puppets pulling your strings, twisting your mind and smashing your dreams, would be capable of such a thing. 

Well, there was nothing Harry could do about that at the moment, so he walked back to the castle and went to bed.

Chapter Text

Harry chewed on the end of his Anti-Cheating quill, then stopped when he realized he could taste the spell on it. He wiped his tongue off on his sleeve, grimaced, then went back to writing his essay. 

All of the first-years were stuck in the same sweltering room, without any water or even a pureblood delicacy such as Flaming Hot Cheetos. He’d love to snap into a Slim Jim, but he had to finish regurgitating everything he knew about self-stirring cauldrons. They’d gone the entire year without an actual teacher for History of Magic, which, according to the upper years, made no appreciable difference. Filch was proctoring the exam, and didn’t exactly create a relaxing atmosphere as he stalked around with his cat familiar. 

It was hard for Harry to concentrate through the stabbing pain in his forehead, and he’d been losing sleep to more nightmares. His scar hadn’t stopped hurting since that night in the Forbidden Forest, and no amount of occlumency or clandestinely brewed potions would help. Harry was reluctant to go to Madam Pomfrey for help as the woman had no concept of student privacy, and he didn’t want anyone else to know about his scar hurting. He briefly considered approaching Professor Snape, but the man had kept his distance and continued being a terrible and cruel teacher. 

When the giant hourglass ran out, and Filch snatched their essays up, Harry closed his eyes and laid his head on his desk. Exams were finally over. Both the written and practical parts were incredibly easy, but lengthy and tedious. Harry didn’t feel any particular way about his marks. That had been beaten out of him early on; doing better than Dudders was a no-no. 

“You could look more cheerful, Harry!”

Harry groaned and turned his head away from the noise. This did not deter Ron. 

“We’ve got a week before we find out how badly we’ve done, there’s no need to worry yet.”

“I’m not worried,” Harry mumbled. 

“Oh, come on, Harry,” Hermione said fondly. “Professor Dumbledore will protect the Stone. No one would dare steal it from right under his nose!”

Harry groaned, then pushed himself out of his desk and left the class. Most people had fled onto the grounds. Harry didn’t want to deal with anyone staring at him or the fumbled verbal sparring the first-year Slytherins attempted. 

“Harry, relax,” Ron said. “Hermione’s right.”

It was sort of funny how mercurial Ron and Hermione were about the Philosopher’s Stone. They’d been going on about the bloody thing for months, but suddenly they were all about exams. Harry didn’t care about the Stone either way, but the situation was annoying to be around. 

Harry flopped under a tree, then threw an arm over his eyes when Ron and Hermione settled around him. He wasn’t friends with either of them—he wasn’t friends with anyone except Hedwig—but they kept circling him and showing up and inserting themselves. 

An owl passed overhead, carrying a note in its beak. Harry watched it fly up to one of the towers. 

Maybe they could have been friends, but Harry’s visit to Gringotts had made him paranoid, distrustful, and poisoned him against most people. Harry couldn’t see the goblins doing that intentionally. From his readings on goblin society, their only interests were in getting the gold flowing, growing his vaults, and peddling their services. Gringotts was basically the magical version of Claire’s. They had everything.

A cold front in the form of a girl appeared before him.

“Would you care to join us by the lake, Lord Potter-Black?” 

“No thanks,” he said.

“My house-elf has made sno-balls,” Daphne said. 

Harry cracked an eye open. “Y’all got blackberry?”

Before he got an answer to this very important question, Hermione cut in.

“It’s, Do you have blackberry,” she said primly. 

“What’s a sno-ball?” Ron asked. 

The Slytherin girls all gave him an appalled look.

“How can you call yourself a pureblood, Weasel?” Pansy sneered.

Ron blushed furiously and started spluttering. Hermione’s hair puffed out, and her eyes were bright with indignation. 

“Alright,” Harry said, getting up. “I’m out.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and headed back to the castle. He could hide out in the library, though there was a good chance of running into that weirdo Theo. At least Theo was quiet. 

Hurried footsteps behind him told Harry that he was being followed. None of the Slytherins would chase after him, except Malfoy, so he knew it was Ron and Hermione. Harry hung his head and kept walking. He only got as far as the entrance hall. 

Professor McGonagall was there, carrying a leaning stack of books.

“What are you all still doing inside?” she demanded.

“Why aren’t you using a levitation charm?” Harry asked. 

“We want to see Professor Dumbledore,” Hermione said quickly. 

“See Professor Dumbledore?” Professor McGonagall said. “Why?”

“There’s no we in this situation, professor,” Harry said, edging away. 

“Professor Dumbledore left ten minutes ago,” she said. “He received an urgent owl from the Ministry of Magic and flew off for London at once.”

“Why would he fly instead of apparating?” Harry asked. He closed his eyes in frustration. He was getting drawn into something again, and Ron proved that with the next words out of his mouth.

“It’s about the Philosopher’s Stone,” Ron said. 

Professor McGonagall dropped her books. 

“See, that wouldn’t have happened if you were levitating them,” Harry said. 

“How do you know?” Professor McGonagall asked, her face white with shock. 

“It’s how levitation charms work.”

“Someone’s going to steal it,” Hermione said. 

Harry turned to stare at her. “You were just saying not to worry about it.”

“Professor Dumbledore will be back tomorrow,” Professor McGonagall said. “I don’t know how you found out about the Stone, but rest assured, no one can possibly steal it, it’s too well protected.” Then she picked up her books, instead of using magic, and walked off. 

Hermione grabbed his arm. “It’s going to happen tonight,” she said.

“It’s not my problem,” Harry said. “Why would I care about someone else’s property? I’m sure Nicolas Flamel can make another. He’s had a few centuries to do it.”

“But You-Know-Who could come back!” Ron said. 

Harry narrowed his eyes. “How do you know that?” He hadn’t told anyone about what happened in the Forbidden Forest. “Besides, what do you think you could do against Vol—”

Hermione gasped. Harry glanced over his shoulder.

Professor Snape was standing right behind him.

“Good afternoon,” Professor Snape said smoothly.

“Don’t you have something like five hundred essays to mark?” Harry asked. 

“You shouldn’t be inside on a day like this,” Snape said with a creepy smile. He met Harry’s eyes. “You want to be more careful. Hanging around like this, people will think you’re up to something. And Gryffindor really can’t afford to lose any more points, can they?”

“What?” Harry said. He couldn’t tell if this was Professor Snape threatening him, or a would-be parent giving advice. “Do you want me to go outside for some reason?”

“Be warned, Potter,” Snape said. “Any more night-time wanderings and I will personally make sure you are expelled.” He began walking away. “Good day to you.”

Harry watched Snape disappear into the dungeons. “What the fuck was that about?”

***

It was late, but Harry couldn’t sleep. His scar was hurting him. 

He had managed to shake Hermione and Ron off, but not before they divulged their plan to steal the Stone first. Those two were convinced Snape was going to do something that night. Professor McGonagall had dismissed their concerns, and it was unlikely another teacher would take them seriously.

Harry didn’t think it was Snape. That thing in the forest was capable of moving on its own. Besides, if the traps had held off an adult wizard for months, how could a first-year student get past them?

Since he was alone, Harry gave in and rubbed his scar. It didn’t help. He turned over, then turned over again. Then Harry got up, grabbed his invisibility cloak, and left his room.

The problem was that Harry didn’t want Voldemort coming back. He knew for a fact that Voldemort still existed in some form, that his spirit or soul was anchored to the living world due to a horcrux. Harry hadn’t found much information on horcruxes, but knew from the goblins that a human horcrux was abnormal. Humans, most humans, eventually died. It was more likely that Voldemort had intended to use Harry’s death to create a horcrux, then totally botched it and blown himself up.

Harry told himself he was just going to check on the third floor. It would be really stupid to go into the Forbidden Corridor, but he also wanted to see what would happen. He was curious, like every other kid at school had been all year. 

He didn’t entirely trust that his feelings were his own.

What if two kids got hurt, or killed, and he did nothing to stop it from happening?

As he walked, Harry didn’t see a single ghost, professor, or prefect on patrol. There weren’t even any portraits in this part of the castle. And Dumbledore had flown all the way down to London.

Harry made it to the right corridor without issue. The door was already open. Inside, the huge cerberus was sound asleep, all three heads snoring. Just inside the door was a small harp, enchanted to play a lullaby. The trap door under the cerberus was also open. 

Lighting his wand, Harry carefully stepped over the sleeping dog. What exactly was the difficulty in getting past it? If someone was so keen on getting the Philosopher’s Stone, why not just kill the dog?

Harry stuck his wand through the trap door. When nothing shot out of it, he looked in. 

It was a long fall that ended with a Devil’s Snare. 

Harry had the same question. Why not kill the Devil’s Snare? This was Voldemort, or an agent of Voldemort. They weren’t exactly squeamish about murder, and wouldn’t think twice about killing a dog or a plant.

Listening carefully, Harry heard two faint, familiar voices, then shouting. Hermione and Ron. Not seeing any other means of getting down, and not knowing any spells for ropes or ladders, Harry jumped in.

After he freed himself from the Devil’s Snare, Harry made his way down a stone passageway. The passageway ended in a bright and airy chamber. Inside, Ron and Hermione were on brooms, being chased by flying keys. They were making a lot of noise, shrieking at each other. Harry retreated into the passageway, folded up his cloak, and hid it in his robes. 

There was a shout of triumph, and when Harry looked again he saw that Ron had seized a large silver key. 

“What are you doing?” Harry asked.

Hermione screamed. Ron tried to cast a spell and ended up throwing his wand. Once they got over their fright, the story was quick to come out. Hermione and Ron had snuck out of Gryffindor Tower, petrifying poor Neville along the way. The door was open when they got to it, and the harp was playing. They’d spent most of their time in this flying key room.

“We would’ve got it faster if you’d been here on time,” Ron said resentfully. Hermione shushed him.

Harry ignored that. He kept it in mind, but he ignored it.

The next room was a giant chessboard.

“They’re taking the piss,” Harry said. 

“We’ve got to play our way across the room,” Ron said gravely. 

Harry scoffed. “You think?”

Ron nodded. “We’re going to have to be the chessmen.”

“It’s lucky we’ve got a chess prodigy with us,” Harry said, watching Ron take the place of a knight and Hermione take the place of a castle. “Reckon the last room could’ve used a flying prodigy.” He smiled at Hermione. “Shame you petrified the herbology prodigy.”

Hermione furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” Harry said, turning around. “You two can play chess if you want.”

“Where are you going?” Ron demanded. “You’re the bishop!”

“To get a broom,” he said. What thief would waste time playing a whole chess match? Just blow the board up. Harry knew a few spells that would do the trick, but he didn’t want Ron or Hermione to know that he could. 

Harry grabbed one of the brooms from the key room, then flew over the chessboard, smirking at Ron and Hermione’s infuriated faces. Hermione even tried to get off the board, but the enchanted pieces blocked her. 

The doorway to the next room didn’t have a door in it and Harry flew right through. He was immediately hit with the bin juice stench of troll. Harry’s brief amusement died away when he saw the troll was dead. 

These rooms felt too personal. Dumbledore knew Harry had killed a troll. Was this meant to be an encore?

The next door wasn’t locked. Walls of fire went up when Harry entered the room. There were some potions vials, and a scroll with a long riddle on it, in Snape’s handwriting. Harry could work out the riddle, but instead he spread his hand over the vials. It was easy enough for his rings to pick out the poisons and nettle wine. Then, he hesitated.

While Harry had passed through these rooms, this little gauntlet set up by Dumbledore and the teachers, his scar hurt more, and more. He knew Voldemort was waiting for him

Harry drank the two potions that would shield him from the fires. It was like drinking ice. Harry shuddered. He put his wand away into his trusty forearm wandholster. He took a deep breath, then walked into the last room. 

Chapter Text

“Oh,” Harry said when he saw who it was. “Yeah, makes sense.” 

Quirrell smiled at him, which made Harry’s scar burn. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like that at all.

His scar always acted up in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and he felt stupid for not making the connection sooner. Then he felt angry. This man had been teaching them for the whole year. Snape had threatened him, according to Ron and Hermione. And that purple turban, which might have been offensive, Harry wasn’t sure. Quirrell said it was a gift from an African prince in thanks for getting rid of a zombie, which sounded at the time like a load of shit. The fake stuttering and twitching, the bad teaching...

“I wondered whether I’d be meeting you here, Potter,” Quirrell said. 

Harry didn’t respond. That wasn’t his name.

Quirrell laughed. “Scared, Potter?”

Harry looked around the room. It was a sunken chamber, lit with torches. Other than Quirrell, the only thing in it was a tall, ornate mirror. The Mirror of Erised. Harry fought to keep his expression neutral. Dumbledore had told him to not go looking for it again, and yet here it was. 

Quirrell’s smile fell, and he snapped his fingers. Ropes materialized in midair, then snaked around Harry. 

“What the fuck,” Harry gasped as he toppled over. He was not at all prepared for Quirrell to do a wandless, wordless conjuration. That was scarily powerful. How could someone capable of that be unable to deal with the dog? It didn’t make any sense.

Quirrell was rambling about all the evil he’d got up to over the school year. Enchanting the snitch to choke Harry, setting the troll loose on Halloween, getting Hagrid drunk, Voldemort being on his side, how there’s no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it—yeah, it was Quirrell who said that—how Voldemort was with him wherever he went, breaking into Gringotts, being punished for that, airing his grievances with the mirror. 

“What does this mirror do?” Quirrell cried. “How does it work? Help me, Master!”

“It says it on the mirror, dipshit,” Harry said. 

A horrible, high-pitched voice emanated from Quirrell’s turban.

“Use the boy... Use the boy…”

As he was dragged across the floor, Harry wished he’d kept his mouth shut. His head was killing him. He could not clear his mind under these circumstances. Getting out of the ropes was no problem, he could make his body smaller, or just set the ropes on fire, but Quirrell did him a solid and vanished them. Weird move, but Harry rolled with it. 

Quirrell made things much worse by standing directly behind Harry. He bent down and said into Harry’s ear, “Look in the Mirror and tell me.”

Harry cringed, trying to get the feeling of Quirrell’s breath off of him. “The mirror’s not going to show me anything if you’re in the reflection too.”

Quirrell moved away, and Harry relaxed. He looked into the mirror. He didn’t see his parents this time. It was just him, Harry, and the fucking rabbit ears had popped out of his head.

His reflection, the little shit, smirked at him then reached into his robes. He pulled out a blood red crystal, then dropped it back into his pocket. A corresponding weight appeared in Harry’s pocket.

Harry stared at his reflection, disbelieving. Why? Why would it give him the Stone? Just leave it in the mirror. What the hell was Dumbledore thinking? Aside from that flaw, Harry was unnerved by the enchantment itself. Putting a physical object into the reflection of a cursed mirror was absolutely fucking insane magic. Even with all of his magical inheritances and his enormous magical core, Harry was eleven. He hadn’t even known he was a wizard until a year ago. He was in way over his head with enemies like Voldemort and Dumbledore. Harry hadn’t even conceived of half the shit he’d seen tonight.

“Well?” Quirrell said impatiently. “What do you see?”

Harry took a breath. “I see me shagging your mum.”

Quirrell said several things that no teacher should say in front of a child. 

“Get out of the way,” he snarled, shoving Harry aside.

Harry glanced at Quirrell, then started walking for the exit. 

“He lies... He lies…”

“Oh, fuck you,” Harry muttered. He flicked his wrist, and his wand slid into his hand.

Harry had killed the troll, but he’d never used magic against another person before. He couldn’t stop shaking. 

“Potter, come back here!” Quirrell shouted. “Tell me the truth! What did you just see?”

“Your mum,” Harry said, too scared for bravado. 

“Let me speak to him... face to face…”

He had to do something while Quirrell was still underestimating him.

“Master, you are not strong enough!”

“I have strength enough... for this…’”

Harry spun around and aimed his wand. Quirrell was using both hands to unwrap his turban, and gave Harry a surprised look.

“Confringo!” Harry shouted.

Fiery orange light shot out of Harry’s wand like a cannon, slamming into Quirrell’s chest. His purple turban flew off, and Quirrell screamed as he was blasted into the Mirror of Erised. Harry heard his teacher’s head crack against the enchanted glass. Quirrell slowly slid off, his body smoking, leaving a streak of blood down the mirror. 

Harry’s arm shook, and he was having trouble breathing, it felt like his head was splitting apart, but he had to make sure Quirrell didn’t get up again. 

Harry pointed his wand at Quirrell’s head.

“Reduc—”

The smoke around Quirrell warped and shifted. Quirrell’s body shook violently, and the man gave an awful, gurgling moan. 

The incantation died in Harry’s throat. He took a step back, then another as a shape formed in the smoke. It wasn’t a ghost, or anything Harry had read about, there was nothing to it but hate, and the pain inside Harry grew and grew until it was all he knew, all he would ever know. Harry fell to his knees and clutched his head. He just wanted it to stop, to stop looking at him, to stop seeing him. Hateful red eyes, staring into Harry. 

“Harry Potter,” Voldemort whispered. “You are my—”

Harry fainted. He didn’t want to hear it.

Chapter Text

Harry woke slowly. The world was slower coming into focus. Something shiny and gold was above him. Harry blinked a few times, then went still. 

Dumbledore was standing over him, smiling, looking directly into his eyes.

“Good afternoon, Harry,” Dumbledore said.

Harry swallowed a scream, then made himself look around. He was in the hospital wing. There was a pile of sweets and cards on the table next to him.

“What day is it?” he asked quietly, avoiding Dumbledore’s gaze and hoping he wasn’t being too obvious. 

“You’ve been here three days,” Dumbledore said gently. “Mr. Ronald Weasley and Miss Granger will be most relieved you have come round. They have been extremely worried.”

Harry was on guard and didn’t respond. He didn’t give a shit if those two were worried. Why mention Ron and Hermione? What about the Slytherin kids in his year? Oh, god, had Malfoy been allowed in while he was unconscious? Had his looks reverted? Harry reached up to touch his hair, and was dizzy with relief to find short strands and normal human ears.

Voldemort had tried to tell Harry something he didn’t want to know. Before that, Quirrell was badly hurt. Dying. Before that, the Philosopher’s Stone…

Harry could have died over that stupid fucking rock.

“What happened to the Stone?” he asked dully. It was the safest thing to ask about.

“Professor Quirrell did not manage to take it from you,” Dumbledore said. “I arrived in time to prevent that, although you were doing very well on your own, I must say.”

That was a lie. Harry couldn’t hear it, but he knew it. His memories were crystal clear.

“I arrived just in time to pull Quirrell off you.”

Harry stared off to the side. He didn’t care for the sound of Dumbledore’s soothing voice. It made him feel dirty.

“As for the Stone, it has been destroyed.”

Harry made a noncommittal noise. Nicolas Flamel had made one. He could make another. If Dumbledore was telling the truth. If that had been the real Philosopher’s Stone at all.

Dumbledore kept talking, in a hypnotic cadence. The whole school knew what happened. The Flamels were going to die. Voldemort was neither dead nor alive. Harry’s mother’s love protected him. Snape owed his dad James a Life Debt. His dad James happened to leave his invisibility cloak with Dumbledore. 

Some of what Dumbledore said was bullshit, some wasn’t. Harry was too wrung out to process it.

“The truth,” Dumbledore said, “is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”

Then Dumbledore ate an ear wax jelly bean and left.

Harry lay back in his hospital bed and stared at the ceiling. He killed one of his teachers. Voldemort leaving his body might have finished Quirrell off, but Harry remembered the sound of his head cracking open. He killed a teacher, and they weren’t going to talk about it. He killed a teacher and his… and Voldemort…

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and went back to sleep. His scar wasn’t hurting anymore.

***

Another day of rest didn’t make Harry feel any better. People kept trying to visit him. Hermione and Ron. Daphne and Blaise. He spotted Theo ogling him through a window. Malfoy tried to break in. Ron’s twin brothers tried to send him a toilet for reasons unknown. Harry couldn’t recall ever speaking to them. Now Hagrid was here, sobbing and giving him a photo album, telling him no one could hold it against him for being a Slytherin now. 

“Sent owls off to all your parents’ old school friends,” Hagrid said tearfully.

Harry’s eye twitched. Who were these friends and where had they been his entire life? Had they tried to contact him, only for their owls to be diverted by the post ward? Could he blame them?

When Hagrid finally left, Harry told Madam Pomfrey that he wanted to go to the end-of-year feast. She was straightening the piles of sweet boxes surrounding him. Harry hadn’t eaten any. His fingers were numb from his rings going off.

“Professor Dumbledore says you are to be allowed to go,” Madam Pomfrey said.

This almost made Harry change his mind, then he scowled. He couldn’t live his life in reaction to others. It would drive him mad unraveling every potential motive.

Harry flipped through the photo album to calm down. His mum and dad, Lily and James, waved at him from every page.

***

The Great Hall was draped in green and silver. Harry had no idea how they’d pulled it off after he and Malfoy had lost a total of one hundred points. From table chatter, he picked up that Slytherin won the Quidditch Cup, and he’d been awarded sixty points under mysterious circumstances. Harry sat silently at the table, gazing at a bacon-wrapped turkey leg. They’d given him sixty points for murdering his teacher. People in Slytherin were congratulating him. Those points had narrowly won them the House Cup. 

Dumbledore was at the table, standing to address them. 

“Now, as I understand it,” he said, “the House Cup here needs awarding and the points stand thus: in fourth place, Gryffindor, with three hundred and twelve points; in third, Hufflepuff, with three hundred and fifty-two; Ravenclaw have four hundred and twenty-six and Slytherin, four hundred and thirty-two.”

The Slytherin table exploded with cheers. Malfoy was banging his goblet like a twat. Harry put on a smile and clapped, not wanting to stand out more than he already did.

Most of the students in Slytherin weren’t bad kids. Defensive, insular, with some abhorrent ideas, parroting their parents’ politics, but not evil. They were kids. 

“Yes, yes, well done, Slytherin,” Dumbledore said. “However, recent events must be taken into account.”

The table fell silent.

“First, to Mr. Ronald Weasley, for the best-played game of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years, I award Gryffindor house sixty points.”

No one in Slytherin was smiling now.  

“Second, to Miss Hermione Granger, for the use of cool logic in the face of fire, I award Gryffindor house sixty points.”

Gryffindor was tied with Slytherin now. Harry didn’t care much, but he could see how hurt the kids around him were. Angry, and hurt. They were really excited to win seven years in a row, genuinely invested in the whole house thing, and at the last minute it was being taken from them. Harry thought it was silly, but it mattered to them. 

“There are all kinds of courage,” Dumbledore said, smiling as if he was doing a fucking service to the school. “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. I therefore award ten points to Mr. Neville Longbottom.”

The roar from Gryffindor was deafening. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw joined in, because Slytherins were all dark and bad and they deserved to lose. People were rooting for them to fail. 

Harry didn’t feel good about any of this. He wished he’d stayed in the hospital wing. 

“Which means,” Dumbledore said gleefully, “we need a little change of decoration.” He clapped his hands and, in a freakish show of power, all of the decorations changed from green to red, silver to gold, snakes to lions. The look on Snape’s face as he shook McGonagall’s hand could have curdled milk. 

The feast started after everyone settled down. Though his stomach rumbled, Harry wasn’t very hungry. Dumbledore had effectively ruined the feast for everyone at Slytherin. Harry made himself eat anyway.

“Don’t show that it affects you,” the upper years were telling the most upset kids. “That’s how they win.”

Harry took a plate of lutefisk, boiled potatoes, and mashed green peas, with bacon bits all over it. He added a few rolls of dill pickles and cream cheese wrapped in ham, and a few fried cheese curds. He focused on his food, indulging in the exotic flavors while he still had the chance. Harry would not taste such fine cuisine for months. He’d be back on tinned beans, and maybe a rusk if Aunt Petunia was feeling generous. 

As Harry bit into a jucy lucy, and as the melted cheese burst into his mouth, he wondered why he was going back to the Dursleys at all. Why not just…disappear? He had a flat in his trunk, he could sleep there. But where would he put the trunk? If he could make himself look like an adult, he could go to a hotel or hostel. He owned dozens of properties throughout the world, but some caveats of inheritance magic barred access to many until he reached a certain age. What if someone came looking for him? What if Dumbledore came looking? Or Voldemort? The Dursleys wouldn’t be of any help, they wouldn’t care, but at least there’d be a few bodies in the way. 

The dessert course was a dream come true. Funnel cake dusted with powdered sugar, deep-friend twinkies, and chilled tureens of Dippin’ Dots, washed down with a malted chocolate shake. 

This was one of the worst weeks in Harry’s life, but at least the food was good. 

***

Harry had completely forgotten about exams, so it was with some trepidation that he received his marks. Doing just okay was hard to intentionally do, so Harry was pleased with his straight Acceptables. Not too good, not too bad, and he fell in the dead center of the class rankings. 

He spent the train ride to King’s Cross alone, hiding out in his trunk with Hedwig, flipping through books and occasionally looking at the note that said he wasn’t allowed to use magic over the summer. Harry emerged once the train stopped, then walked across the platform alone, ignoring the people shouting at him. 

“Bye, Harry!”

“See you, Potter!”

“Lord Potter-Black!”

“You have to come stay with me this summer!”

“Mr. Potter, if you could just sign this…”

“There he is, mum! There he is! Look!”

This last one was Ginevra Weasley, who was a year older. She was also a red-haired girl. Harry was in a perfect position to watch Malfoy give her a thoughtful, constipated look. Then Malfoy looked where Ginny was pointing and scowled. 

“Harry Potter!” Ginny squealed. “Look, mum! I can see—”

Harry veered away, towards a familiar purple-faced man and horsey woman. Was his púca blood from his mum’s side of the family? That bore later investigation. Harry’s present concern was that he hadn’t told the Dursleys when he’d been returning. Now, Uncle Vernon was grabbing him, and his trunk, and hauling him off. 

Harry didn’t know what this looked like to others, but he did know people were watching. Hundreds of adult witches and wizards, watching this happen and not doing a damn thing about it. 

He thought about the note in his pocket and smiled to himself. The Dursleys didn’t know he wasn’t allowed to use magic. Even so, Harry knew it was going to be a long summer.