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Chapter Text

On the 31st of July in 1980 not one, but two new Potters were born. Lily and James had insisted they wanted to wait until the war was over before they got any children, but once Lily got pregnant they couldn’t abort their babies, even though it was done with a simple spell.

James had been anxious the whole 9 months of Lily being pregnant, not just about becoming a father, but also because the war was getting worse each day. A lot of bad things happened to children in war time, man, his own childhood was an example for that.

He had faced Voldemort three times in his childhood, Sirius, him, Remus and Peter had been so young and almost died a couple of times, the power Voldemort had was something no one could even begin to comprehend. He was scared for his children, anything could happen to them with a mad man with that much power running around England.

But when he first looked at his children he got hope- hope for their future, their lives would be better than his.- so the only logical thing to do was call his daughter Hope, Hope Lily Potter was his daughter, the younger of the two. Lily had rolled her eyes, but agreed immediately after telling James that she got to name their baby boy.

Lily had looked at the boy and whispered, “Harrison- Harry.”

That’s the story of how those two twins- Harrison (Harry) James Potter and Hope Lily Potter- were born.

Lily and James had already agreed to make Sirius godfather, who had jumped them in his dog form when they told him, licking James face while Lily laughed at them.

And both of them had immediately noticed Sirius might like Harrison a bit more, buying him a child- broomstick when he was only 6 months old, Harry had loved it, Lily however hadn’t.

In the end all of them noticed that the two children were totally different, in every way possible. Harrison seemed to understand everything that happened around him, he had control over his magic in a way they had never seen such a young child control their magic before, summoning toys from the other side of the room just to pick them up afterwards and start playing.

And yes, he might’ve hit Remus in the head a couple of times while summoning his ‘padfoot’ toy, but honestly, what did you expect? He wasn’t even a year old.

Where Harrison understood everything and had total control over his magic, Hope didn’t. She would look around the room clueless and start screaming when Sirius asked her if she wanted to play, obviously thinking Mommy and Daddy left again- Sirius used to babysit when Lily and James had to leave for a couple of hours. She had also broken the room with her magic a lot of times, to the point where James and Sirius put a permanent shield charm around the room, it wasn’t strong, but it was enough to stop Hope’s magic.

But besides all their differences they were both loved, everyone in the order would die for them and they were never alone. Whether it was Sirius and Remus playing with them for hours or McGonagall taking care of them when Lily felt overwhelmed, they never had to be alone. The only time no one was with them was at night and even then their parents could come to them in one second if something were to happen.

So when Dumbledore told them about the prophecy, the whole order immediately tried to do everything to protect them, in the end everyone decided that putting a Fidelius charm on their home was the safest option. Sirius had said no to the offer of being secret-keeper, telling everyone that the godfather being secret-keeper would be too obvious. So James and Lily had asked Peter, because Remus was already struggling enough trying to avoid Fenrir, who was still trying to find his ‘cub’.

Peter had agreed immediately, telling everyone how much he cared about the children and their safety.

~

A few months later someone walked into the Potter residence, James-who had been the first one to see him- shouted at his wife, Lily, to run and take the kids.

She listened, she would do anything to save her babies. So when she heard a thud followed by footsteps she put up a shield, that would last long enough to at least give her the chance to shield her kids.

“Step away from the children,” The voice said, Lily refused to listen. The question got repeated, twice, but Lily- as stubborn as she was- just shook her head and didn’t move.

The next thing she knew she too was hit by a stunner.

Voldemort didn’t hesitate for a minute, he just tried to kill the girl, what he didn’t expect is for the spell to rebound and just like that an infant killed the most powerful wizard alive.

That was how the story went, how that night went down as far as everyone knew. Hope got all the fame, leaving Harrison alone to live with his aunt and uncle, abandoned by his own family.

The real story, however is so much more interesting.

~

Peter had been asked to babysit the twins, since Lily and James had an emergency meeting with Dumbledore.

“Make sure to take care of Hope’s cheek before she goes to sleep,” James said, “The poor girl cut herself by accidental magic.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Peter said, taking Hope from James, “Thanks, Wormtail.”

“It’s no problem, you know how much I love these kids.”

Neither of them expected Peter to let the one person they never wanted close to their children into their house.

“My Lord,” Peter said, bowing to Voldemort.

“You may rise,” Voldemort said, “You’ve done a very well job.”

“T-Thank you,” Peter said, Voldemort never complimented his followers.

“Now lead me to the children.” The Dark Lord commanded and Peter nodded, “Of course! Follow me.”

When they arrived at the nursery, Voldemort commanded Peter to stay outside, make sure no one comes in. Then he placed a strong privacy charm in the room.

Now he stood above two children, which one was the right one?

He looked at the first one, a girl, she was crying and had big blue eyes and auburn hair, she was an exact mix of some of her moms and some of her dads features. The boy, though, looked at him with pure curiosity. His little head was tilted slightly and his green eyes were free of tears.

“I’m sorry I have to do this- what has my life come to, I’m apologising to literal babies.” Voldemort muttered and the boy giggled at him, did the child just understand him? No that couldn’t be, yet the boy seemed so understanding and forgiving about the whole situation.

His train of thought stopped when he felt a wave of magic come from the boy, it seems to go straight to the girl, Voldemort could only blink at the pure power this child had.

This had to be the one.

He raised his wand and muttered “Avada Kedavra.”

Then he turned around, walking away from the still crying girl, he hated babies. He didn’t see the spell reflecting, hitting Hope in her wound, ripping it open slightly further.

“Where are you going, Tom?” He heard a voice behind him, as he just reached the door, he froze and then slowly turned around.

“Dumbledore.” Tom greeted with his usual charm and Dumbledore just looked at him with a disappointed look, “Really, killing babies now? That’s a new low, even for you.”

“I had to.” Tom replied easily, ignoring the slight regret of destroying the life of an obviously very powerful wizard.

“Well, if you had to do that, I have to do this. I’m sorry, my boy.” Dumbledore said, almost sounding like he would really regret what he planned to do. “Avada kedavra.”

Voldemort’s body turned into ashes and when Lily and James arrived they were glad that both of their children were okay, neither of them understands how this happened, or where Peter was.

~

An hour later Sirius and Remus arrived, they had been the first one James and Lily called, after making a plan with Dumbledore.

Dumbledore claimed to feel the magic coming from Hope, it was so strong she had to be the one. Dumbledore made them promise to never tell anyone the truth, about how they had abandoned their own kids, leaving them in the not very capable hands of Peter. Instead he told them to tell everyone they had been stunned in one of the few acts of kindness of Voldemort. How they had rushed to the nursery as soon as they woke up again and immediately took care of their children.

“So what happened?” Sirius asked and James and Lily looked at each other, unsure what to say. Dumbledore, who was still in the room started explaining his theory, ”We found Harrison unconscious, while Hope was awake crying with a huge cut on her face and a magical shield surrounding her. I think she protected herself from the curse, saving both herself and Harrison, who was still asleep. She’s a magical prodigy.”

“She already had a cut,” Sirius said, “Prongsie called me up, almost crying cause his sweet baby hurt herself.” He mocked and James stuck out his tongue, making Lily and Remus roll their eyes.

“It ripped open further and the whole cut is charged with Magic residue.” Dumbledore said, “She has been hit.”

“So what do we do now?” James asked Dumbledore and Dumbledore shrugged, “It’s easy you give Hope extra tutors, she is the chosen one after all- the girl who lived!- I will send Harrison somewhere safe to grow up for the few first years of his life, you’ll get him back when he’s 11. but he can’t have a normal childhood with the fame his sister will have and he does deserve one. Jealousy is also a big problem we don’t need right now, I can only imagine how it must feel when you’re nothing for the wizarding world- just another wizard- while your sister is the saviour.”

“What? You just want to give my child away?” Lily said and Dumbledore nodded, “It’s for the greater good, you have to understand. I know just the place, I won’t be able to give you the address so you won’t visit him until his eleventh. You want to give him a normal childhood right? Also we need to prepare Hope for the future.”

“He’s right, Lily. It would be hard to grow up with a famous sibling while you aren’t, it’s probably better.” James said and Dumbledore tried to hide his smile while saying, “I’ll give you till tomorrow to say goodbye to small Harrison.” Then he apparated away.

“You’re just gonna give Harry away?” Sirius asked, surprised by his bestfriends’ actions. Remus looked just as shocked, his inner wolf was probably shredding them to pieces right now, how could they just give away his cub?

“It’s for the best.” James sighed and Lily added, “We know Harry is your favourite, Siri, everyone noticed, but please just understand that our focus should be on Hope right now. Please, Still be a godfather to Hope, it will only be ten years.”

Harrison started crying in Sirius’ arms, obviously understanding what was gonna happen.

It was the first time anyone had really seen him cry after his first day on earth.

“Only ten years? Are you crazy Prongs? He’s your son!” Sirius said and Remus agreed with him immediately, both of them had never seen Lily and James like this.

“He might be our son, but Hope is also the chosen one! We have priorities!” James said and Lily nodded and quickly added, “You have to understand, we don’t want this either.”

Remus just shook his head and muttered, “That’s what I’m questioning right now, it seems like your totally okay with this.” Sirius looked at him and they both nod at each other then Sirius said, “We are leaving, don’t talk to us unless it is to tell us that you finally got your shit straight and are not just giving your child away!”

He put Harrison on the floor, giving him his favourite plushie, the padfoot one, muttering, “I’m so sorry, for everything.” To the baby, Harrison stopped crying and softly patted Sirius’ cheek almost like he was saying- ‘It’s okay’ – Harrison also repeated his first word, “pads.”- Lily and James had absolutely hated it that their 13 month year old child’s first word was the nickname of their friend. Sirius thought it was hilarious.-  both Sirius and Remus chuckled and then looked back to Lily and James, “Goodbye.” Remus said and they both walked out.

They couldn’t believe what their friends had done and they wouldn’t forgive them for doing this anytime soon.

~

Lily was helping Harrison pack, trying to have some sort of mother-son moment before Dumbledore would bring Harrison somewhere else. Besides putting so much effort in spending time with her son now, it didn’t really work. Harrison had just been staring at them, cuddling his padfoot and moony plushies, but leaving his prongs and wormtail plushie on the ground.

He obviously knew what had happened and Lily hated it, she could only hope he wouldn’t remember it when he was older, but deep inside she knew he would. James seemed to have noticed the same, staring at the prongs plushie with sadness and maybe even a bit of annoyance, Harrison hadn’t even looked at it once since yesterday.

And now when she tried to give Harrison his plushie- to put in his bag- he just threw it away with his magic.

So when they were finally done with packing, Lily went to Hope and cuddled with her instead, Harrison wasn’t even trying to make today somewhat fun.

When Dumbledore came to pick Harry up, Lily didn’t even try to hug him anymore, James did and was genuinely surprised when Harry gave him a sort of hesitant hug.

Well- that is the most hesitant a child can look.

“Well, me and Harry should really go now.” Dumbledore said and James and Lily nodded, James handing Harrison over to Dumbledore. “I love you, Harrison.” Lily whispered, right before Dumbledore apparated away.

What Lily didn’t know however, was that the place Dumbledore brought her child to was her sisters’ house, Petunia who hated magic.

If only she had known that, maybe she could’ve changed this story, but she didn’t. Her son was laying outside, in front of her sisters’ house and she didn’t even know.

Chapter Text

Merlin knew he wasn't supposed to do this, but this time he had an excuse to come here- to come to the future.

He had heard about this child, seen so many different versions of them, but all of them started right here: on the doorstep of an abusive household. That wouldn't do.

He knew that they- the founders- won't like it at first, him kidnapping a child from the future. He would be patient, explain everything and beg them to please give him a chance, it was only for ten years.

Helga would be the first to accept, pretty quickly accepting the child into her family, she would later convince Rowena and Godric. Salazar would agree, saying he won't take a big part in raising the child, but slowly become fond of the child.

At least, that is how Merlin expected it would go.

He picked up the child and took a deep breath, time travelling took a lot of focus. He tried to find the exact time and space where he wanted to be: The four founders had a meeting right now, perfect.

He travelled back, it felt a lot like apparition, but faster. The speed was necessary; you had to travel faster than light.

When he opened his eyes again he was standing in the meeting room, all the founders looking at him.

He smiled at them and said, "hi."

"A baby!" Helga giggled rushing over to Merlin, "Can I?" She asked and Merlin nodded. Helga picked up little Harrison and Salazar raised an eyebrow, "So why did you bring this child here?"

Merlin looked around awkwardly for a few seconds and then started explaining, "This is little Harrison. He's from the year 1981."

"That's centuries away-" Rowena gasped and Merlin nodded, "Yeah- he's well. He's an important part of the future, but they left him. I brought him here to well.. be safe until he's eleven."

"Please- just tell the whole story, what do you mean important part of the future?" Salazar asked, looking at the child.

"Okay so where should I start-" Merlin muttered and Godric snorted, "The begin, please." Merlin glared at him and then started explaining, "There's well.. a dark lord, He's family to you actually, Salazar. He's a smart and powerful man, but went insane by making too many horcruxes. So when he heard a prophecy that a baby would defeat him, he immediately tried to kill the child. This is Harrison, the boy who he tried to kill, however Dumbledore- an absolute asshole with too much power from the future- told everyone his twin sister was 'the chosen one', he send poor Harrison here to an abusive family, so that his sister could get all the fame.

It's your jobs to raise him right and help him prepare for the future, if you accept of course, I'll be here now and then to give him some history classes about the 'future' – for him it will all be history. Don't worry too much about preparing him, his power is stronger than any power I've ever seen before and he has absolute control over it, even now. So, will you guys accept him?"

"That's a big responsibility-" Godric said and Salazar nodded, "But his other option is an abusive family?"

"Sadly, yes it is." Merlin answered and Salazar seemed to think before saying, "We'll- well at least I'll take him, I don't care what the rest thinks."

Well, that was surprising. Luckily the rest of the founders agreed pretty quickly after that and while they were passing the child around they started discussing who would teach what to the child.

"So I'll be here sometimes to teach him everything about the past and future, but I can't do anything else." Merlin said and the founders told him it's okay and thanked him for helping them, anyways. After that Merlin quickly said his goodbyes, telling everyone he had to return to his own time.

"Okay so how about I teach him to make wands, letting him customize a wand at a certain age?" Salazar asked, he was the wand-making expert of them and the others agreed he was the best one to teach little Harrison that art.

"I will teach him Herbology and Healing, maybe we could do Care of Magical Creatures together, Godric?" Helga offered and Godric agreed, "Yes, we can. I'll also teach him duelling and transfiguration- We can just mix Defense Against the Dark Arts with duelling."

"Okay so I shall be teaching him charms, astronomy, maybe a bit of Divination and Arithmancy if he shows any interest and if he really is a prodigy I'll add Ancient Runes." Rowena said and then added, "I presume you want to teach him Potion making and occlumency, Salazar." Salazar nodded, "Yes, I will also teach him some Grey- area spells, we are not sure what type of core he has yet. I want to test if he can handle darker spells."

"His core does feel grey," Rowena said, being the only one who was really magic sensitive in the group.

"That means he should be able to cast light and dark spells with no issue." Godric says and Rowena nodded, "Yes, it's pretty rare for a wizard to be purely grey. We will find out soon enough if that is the case with our boy."

"Don't you all even think about teaching him anything dangerous before the age of six!" Helga said and Godric chuckled, "No promises, Ma'am."

Rowena giggled, "Don't worry Helga, he will be safe."

The next day the founders made a new room in their castle: It was a big room with all the founders colours mixed, not too much furniture was in the room now, they wanted to give Harrison a chance to pick some furniture himself once he was old enough.

Harrisons first three years were good, if not a bit boring. He got to roam the castle a lot and pretty much knew all the secret passages when he turned four.

He had bonded with the founders the first three years of living here and he pretty much saw them as his parents, how couldn't he? His real parents left him behind.

But at the young age of four, Harrison kept getting more bored, not really know what to do when his parents- the founders were teaching other children.

But the founders noticed this pretty quick and his lessons started right then and there. Starting with the basics of magic.

All of the founders were surprised to see how quickly Harrison learned and Salazar was pleasantly surprised when he noticed he wouldn't have to teach Harrison to make wands immediately; he could do wandless magic better than anyone they had ever seen before.

They didn't let Harrison cast too much spells: he was only four! But they did give him some basic spells that couldn't really hurt him. A good example was, "Lumos." Harrison liked complaining about the dark, so when he heard about this spell from Rowena it became his favourite for a while.

The first two years of his classes past pretty quickly and the day Harrison turned six he pulled Salazar into a potions lab and demanded he let Harrison finally help him with harder potions, Salazar just chuckled. He thought it was hilarious how Harry hadn't even given the other founders time to say Happy birthday before pulling him away.

To everyone's surprise Salazar was actually the closest to Harrison, they were always found together, the other founders made fun of Salazar; telling him how he turned soft for a child.

Salazar would always answer Harrisons questions, giving long detailed answers and making sure the kid understood everything.

"Okay, come with me, we'll gather some ingredients and I'll let you help me brew some pepper up potions."

Harrison rolled his eyes, "Boring, but okay."

They walked to Salazar's ingredient storeroom, Harrison had never been inside the room, so he was curious what it looked like.

"There isn't a doorknob." Harrison noted and Salazar looked at him and said, "Good observation." Then he turned to the door hissing, "Open." The door opened and Harrison giggled, "Your password is 'open'? That's the worst password I've heard yet!"

Salazar literally froze before turning back to Harrison, "You understood me?"

"Of course I did! You just spoke in English."

"That wasn't English, Harry."

"It was! I can't speak another language."

Salazar just stared at him, not sure what to do.

"You know what? I think Helga made a cake, I'll explain this to you while eating." Salazar said and when Harrison asked him about the potions he just told him that the potions could wait.

Walking into the meeting room- where Rowena, Helga and Godric were still sitting- Salazar sat Harrison down.

"That was quick-" Rowena said, but Salazar hushed her and now all the eyes on the room were on him, they weren't used to Salazar acting like this.

"Harry, look at me." Salazar said and Harrison did, he didn't know what he did to make Salazar act weird, but he hated it.

"I'm sorry for reacting like this- I'm just in shock. You never told me you were a parselmouth."

"He's a what- Oh! I don't even have a chance of getting him in my house anymore." Godric complained and Salazar smirked, "You never had one to begin with."

"I- I don't know what a parselmouth is! You have to believe me." Harrison said and Rowena looked at the obviously confused child, "We believe you, sweetheart."

"What's a parselmouth?" Harrison asked Salazar and Salazar sighed, "It's one of my family traits, only direct family has it. It's an ability that makes it possible to talk to snakes."

Now that made Harrison only more confused, "But I'm not direct family to you, I mean- that's not possible."

"That is true, he's not family to you. Merlin told us a couple of months ago your families haven't even crossed once." Helga said and Salazar nodded, "I know, that's why this is so weird."

"It might have been the dark lord- he was family to you." Rowena theorized and Salazar shrugged, "It doesn't matter why he's able to speak it, now I just have an amazing secret language with my favourite kid."

Harrison giggled, finally feeling less nervous and all the other founders just stared at Salazar, making Salazar give all of them a death glare.

"Oh and I can teach you Parselmagic!" Salazar said, actually excited.

Parselmagic was- obviously- magic just for people who could speak in parseltongue, but this branch of magic made a lot more things possible, which is why Salazar loved it.

"It also explains his grey core." Rowena said and the other founders stared at her, "You're sure about that now?" Helga asked and Rowena nodded, "It's obvious. The only other person I've met to even being close to totally grey is actually Salazar, it might have something to do with parselmagic."

"You mean Salazar isn't a dark-wizard?" Godric asked, dumbfounded and Salazar looked at him, "I'm not, I just like the dark spells more."

That was the end of their conversation, they instead started focusing on Harrison. They gave him some small presents and each of them spend some quality time with him, it was after all his birthday.

Chapter Text

Harrison sat on his broom flying above the castle, Godric had been teaching him how to play quidditch when he found out Harry was a natural flyer. Helga absolutely hated the thought of her child so high in the air, but had to admit it was also impressive to see the things he could do at such a young age.

Helga was the one who teaches Harrison the least, but every time she was his teacher she had to be impressed with how naturally came to Harrison. He had been here for six years now, his seventh birthday had just passed and in the one year they started their serious classes Harrison already mastered everything from year 1-3.

That was without wand.

To say the founders were amazed was an understatement. They had noticed he was a prodigy after the first week of having him, but this was more than just a prodigy.

Beside going through the whole curriculum so fast, Harrison was bored, everyone noticed. So Salazar and Rowena teamed up to teach him how to edit and create spells and potions, it was quite impressive to see a seven year old kid write sentences of magic into a notebook, just to create a spell.

It started easy: making a better summoning charm, instead of something flying through the air to him, he could now teleport things to him.

He did that in the first month of learning how to edit spells.

But that wasn’t the only sign of him being a genius, he also did everything not only wandless, but also wordless. A lot of times he told them he didn’t even know the incantation to a spell, instead just thinking of it happening.

So yes, their little Harrison surprised them again and again. All they could think was; he has to have one thing he can’t do right? But so far none of them had found anything, He was good at flying, spells, potions and even at Care of Magical Creatures, which took a lot of patience not a lot of people have.

Harrison always just told them he had the best teachers and that that’s the only reason he could do the things that he could, that might be partly true, but somehow the founders doubted that they had a big part in the insane amount of control and magical power this child had.

Harrison landed on the ground, he had cast a Tempus  and realised that a lot more time passed than he thought, Salazar wanted to meet up with him, something about finally teaching him the skill of wand-making or something useless like that. Harrison honestly didn’t understand the need for wands, he was doing just fine without that.

But Merlin had explained to him in multiple classes that being able to use magic wandless was very rare and even more rare in the future- his time. So to hide the fact that he had years of training for Dumbledore, he needed a wand.

Harrison didn’t ask why he needed to hide something from a man called Dumbledore, he remembered a lot from his first year- he didn’t know why either, sometimes he wished he could forget.

But at the same time he wanted to keep the good memories, his godfather and his friend, man he would even like to remember his sister.

Harrison decided however that he wouldn’t use his wand a lot, he had heard of wizards using a wand and losing the skill of wandless magic. So instead he decided to ask Salazar if it would be possible to make two wands: one that really functioned as a wand and the other one just an identical piece of wood.

Salazar would probably agree anyways, even if it was just to make Harry happy.

Harry went downstairs to dungeons, running his hands across the long walls that all seem to be the same, once he felt the little stone he was searching for he hissed, “Open”.

Salazar had shown this room when he realised Harry was a parseltongue, it was a private sort of office with a small duelling place to practice dark spells on dummies safely.

“There you are, I was getting worried.” Salazar said when Harrison stepped into the room. Harrison was quick to apologise, explaining how he had been flying and lost track of time.

“It’s okay, I sorted through some woods and found three that are most likely to fit you: Beech, Pine and Ebony.” Salazar explained, motioning towards the three different kinds of wood on the table.

“How- how do I know which one is best for me?” Harrison asked and Salazar chuckled, “You won’t, but your magic will.”

Harrison just stared at the man, not quite understanding.

“Close your eyes and just focus on your magic.” Salazar instructed and Harrison did what he asked. Without Harrison noticing, his hand started to hover above the Pine.

“Of course it would be pine.” Salazar muttered, sounding more amused than anything. Harrison opened his eyes and looked at Salazar.

“Every wood has a personality type it will bond best with. That’s how I knew these three were the best options for you.” Salazar just explained, without Harrison even asking.

“So what does pine mean?”

“It’s usually for individuals, people who might be seen as loners and don’t mind, usually that also makes them mysterious. We both know that will be how you act when you actually walk these halls in your time, Harry. Besides that, this wood is also good at adapting to new kinds of magic or new methods of using magic. It works best with non- verbal magic, so you don’t have to suddenly learn incantations, don’t worry.”

“That actually fits.” Harrison said, kind of amazed.

“Yeah- anyways your core is next.” Salazar said leading Harry to a table in the back of the room.

They repeated the process and when Harrisons magic picked not one, but two cores Salazar couldn’t even be surprised.

“Phoenix feather and Horned Serpent Horn, a mix I’ve never seen before- well there aren’t a lot of wizards with two cores- but it makes sense. Phoenix feather is generally the core that picks the most powerful wizards, Horned Serpent Horn however is good for Parseltongue spells.”

“Is it possible to mix these two cores?” Harrison asked and Salazar nodded, “Of course it is.”

Together they went through the process of making the wand, which surprisingly didn’t take too long. The only thing that really took a lot of time was Harrison carving snakes on the bottom of his wand.

When Harrison asked about the fake wand, Salazar thought for a second before telling him that he didn’t want Harry to hide his abilities while he was still here and that he would work on it and make sure that the fake wand was in the shop of the wandmaker in his time, so that he wouldn’t have to make up a story up for when they were getting wands.

Harrison quickly accepted the idea, wondering how Salazar was planning to make sure that no one else got the wand in the centuries before his official time, but he didn’t question the older man’s ability.

After that Salazar told Harrison to go to the great hall for food, telling him he would join Harry and the other founders in a bit. Harrison ran away, new wand in his hand, ready to show it off.

Sometimes the founders forgot the kid was only seven.

They only had 3 years and a couple of months left and they totally planned on making Harry be able to pass the NEWTs without a problem before he went back to the future. They had 3 more years to teach him what would normally take them 4 years in their curriculum, easy.

For Harrison everything still felt surreal, he had been here for six years and still felt like any moment he’d wake up and be right there next to his sister, who he had protected with his life, literally. But deep down he knew it would never be like that again, the fame would’ve gotten to his sisters head by now and he- well he was hundreds of years in the past growing up with some of the most powerful wizards known.

It was weird, but he loved his life and wouldn’t change this lifetime for anything.

He was also glad to be growing up here, not influenced by anything because everything that happens in this time was mere history in his time. He could make his own opinions when he went back to the future and from what Harrison heard, his mom and dad wouldn’t be happy about the decision he would probably make.

He was fine with that, though, he wanted to be his own person.

~

Years flew by and slowly Harrison was getting older. When he turned nine he started following some classes with the sixth years- but he quickly passed them in skill and joined the seventh years.

He was a prodigy at everything he did, except for the small less complex charms, like cleaning charms. He didn’t quite understand how to imagine a room getting cleaned and it just suddenly be clean, that didn’t make sense.

The founders thought this was hilarious, seeing the boy be so confused over a cleaning charm, but the moment they started talking about editing complex spells he talked with them and showed them how by editing a single sentence of the spells ‘code’ you could easily change the whole purpose.

What the founders also loved was seeing Harrison care for Magical Creatures, but when he was found petting thestrals, they got worried again, had he seen someone die?

Harrison had just shrugged; he honestly couldn’t remember someone dying- he knew his parents and sister were still alive, but he could still see the black bony horses.

He got more into flying on weird animals too- thestrals being one of them- He absolutely loved the hippogriffs for this reason and they also loved him. Whenever he found a bit of free time he was found with animals surrounding him, whether it be hippogriffs, thestrals or small snakes.

He also started duelling Godric, the dummies got too easy for him and he needed a challenge- Godric was a challenge.

The duels were kind of slow at first, Godric didn’t want to actually hurt Harrison and Harrison was waiting until Godric actually did something.

It was just Godric throwing curses and Harrison reflecting them with a simple shield, however Harrison started actually throwing back curses and the duels got more heated.

Godric began throwing different jinxes, mixed with disarming spells. Harrison threw spells back at the same speed, avoiding Godric’s spells with ease.

“Expulso” Godric said and Harrison slashed his wand, making the spell disappear into thin air, he threw an Stupify back. They had been duelling for around 15 minutes now and neither of them was on the top side yet, the match was very even.

That fact surprised the other founders who were watching the duel, they could see that Godric stopped holding back after the first 5 minutes, Harrison however had also held back in the begin, but both men were sweating right now throwing spell after spell and very obviously not holding back.

It was impressive to see an nine year old be an even match to Godric Gryffindor, known to be one of the most powerful duellers in history. Harrison hadn’t beat Godric once though, his longest match had been 25 minutes before being hit with a simple stunner.

Godric had told him how proud he was after that duel, it was rare for someone to hold a duel against him for 25 minutes.

Now, the time was flying, they kept throwing curses and didn’t even notice themselves tiring. Harrison loved the feeling of duelling someone who was actually a challenge and Godric was also challenged for once.

This duel lasted longer than any of their prior duels; 42 minutes to be exact.

After 42 minutes Harrison hit Godric with an Expulso  and he quickly hit him with an Expelliarmus after.

Godric lost his wand and Harrison officially won his first duel against Godric.

Even years after Harrison left the founders, Godric would still hear it from the other’s; how a nine year old had been the one to beat him. No one else knew though, they had to keep Harrisons existence out of history books, because that could give him problems in his future.

That was all in the future, though, in present time Rowena ran towards Harrison and congratulated him, before Salazar hissed, “Godric is gonna hate this, goodjob, little snake.” Harrison giggled and hissed back, “Don’t bully him too much, Thanks, Sal.”

Little snake, that was a new nickname, Harrison mused before he turned to help Godric up.

“I can’t believe a nine year old beat me. I will never be the best at anything anymore with Harry here.” Godric complained while ruffling Harrisons hair and Helga giggled, “That’s for sure, it counts for all of us.”

Harrison blushed and Salazar laughed, “We get some credit, though.” Rowena nodded, “That we do.” Before she turned to Harrison, “You should shower and rest for a bit, no more magic before you drain yourself too much. You just duelled for 42 minutes.”

Harrison nodded and hugged all of the founders before rushing to his room. The room had changed a lot, Harrison liked to practice creative magics on his walls. It now had a big moving picture of a snake that looked like a reticulated python to muggles, but wizards would be able to see the difference by the small spots of purple and the literal glowing eyes. On top of the python was a small corn snake, a normal corn snake, he had seen multiple of those during the only year he spend in his time and quite liked the red patterns the snakes had.

Beside that his room was now mostly green, blacks and blue’s. He loved how the founders tried to make his room a place with all four of their colours, but he didn’t like the bright yellow and red with the rest of the colours. So he had changed it.

The rest of the room was pretty simple; a bed in the corner, a small desk and a sitting place to chill in. He couldn’t really hang in the common rooms so this was the next best option.

He also had his own small bathroom, where he was going right now to take that shower that Rowena told him to take.

He finished up his shower pretty quickly and decided to read some theory on altering potions; He had done it a couple of time, but generally it was still a hard thing to do. Every single plant had an effect on all the other plants in the potion, throw in one wrong herb and you might end up making a poison instead of a potion.

Harry just generally thought the idea of poisoning someone isn’t something he had to do right now.

~

Harrison had been training his ass off trying to get his animagus form before.. well leaving and going back to the future.

His tenth birthday got closer and closer and Harrison didn’t know if he was ready to begin his last year here. He pushed those thoughts to the back of his head, though, and took a deep breath, focusing on his magic.

He could feel Helga and Salazar entering the room, they had left for a few minutes to allow him to concentrate, it hadn’t really helped, but the thoughtfulness was nice.

When Harrison had started his animagus training he had asked about his patronus, too, the two often aligned, however Sal had shook his head and told him that he would have to wait till later for that charm.

He had smiled at Harrison and told him, “Let your future teachers at least think there’s something you don’t know yet.”

Harrison had just giggled and that was the end of that conversation.

Now he was still trying to turn into his damn animagus form, he felt his magic tug and took a deep breath, before letting everything around him go.

For a second the world turned black, then slowly he blinked and well he was surprised by his eye sight. His normal eye sight was okay, Rowena had fixed it a couple of years ago, but this was obviously better.

He looked into the mirror and snorted, in front of him stood a small black wolf, he knew for a fact that it was some kind of weird mix between pads and moony’s forms, well pads and a werewolf.

It was kind of cool, though.

“I’ve never seen a wolf animagus before,” Helga breathed, slowly approaching him. Salazar just smirked and said, “Of course Harrison had to be different again.”

Harrison- or well wolf-Harrison – growled at Salazar and then nudged his head against Helga’s hand, that was slowly petting him.

After a while of just getting head pats and trying to get used to his wolf form, Harrison changed back. It was weird how magic gave him this form: The animal literally being a mix between two of his father’s bestfriends.

Or well ex-bestfriends, Harrison corrected himself, remembering the day he got taken to his aunt. Sirius had been so angry.

“Harry?” Helga asked looking at him worried and Harrison looked at her, “You okay?”

“Yea, I was just thinking. My form looks exactly like Padfoots animagus, but like a wolf and Moony is a werewolf. It’s just weird, I suppose, that my form looks like my James’ ex-bestfriends.” Harrison said and Helga nodded and hugged Harrison.

All of the founders had found out pretty quickly that Harrison remembered a lot of his first year and while they were all curious about how the boy remembered, they were also worried, because some elements of the past really still seem to hurt him.

“You did great, little snake.” Sal hissed and Harrison pulled away from Helga and turned to Salazar instead, “Thanks, Sal.”

~

Harrison was practically bouncing in his chair. Merlin had been teaching him history for quite a while now, well more things that happened in the future- but history in his time. Today was the day they would finally talk about what has been happening since Harrison had been born and everything after.

Harrison had heard all the basics of Voldemort and his family, but not a lot, he wanted to be ready when he went back to his time.

“So when you were born the war was probably at its worst moment. Voldemort went totally insane, he just kept creating more horcruxes.” Ah, yes, horcruxes. Salazar had told him about them once and then made him promise he would never be stupid enough to make one.

“So when he heard the prophecy,” Harrison had heard the prophecy about 256 times right now and he was fine with not hearing it again, “he went to kill the child, you, however the curse reflected and the baby saved the wizarding world.”

“That’s not true.” Harrison said and Merlin looked at him in shock, “You remember?”

Harrison nodded, “Voldemort- he well apologized before trying to kill me, I put a shield around me and hope, the spell did reflect and hit hope making a cut on her face. I went unconscious after that. The only thing I remember is hearing Dumbledore, he was the one who killed Voldemort- I think.”

Merlin seemed to be speechless for a few seconds and then said, “That- actually makes a lot more sense, however the whole wizarding world think that Hope saved them, in the way I just explained but her instead of you. She’s famous, even got a wand- that she can’t use at Hogwarts- early to train her magic.”

Harrison didn’t understand how everyone just believed Dumbledore telling them Hope saved the wizarding world, he didn’t mind, though. His sister deserved it.

“I can’t wait to meet her.” Harrison muttered and Merlin nodded, “Yeah, don’t blame her for your parents being the worst parents on earth.”

“I won’t- I want to get to know her, see if she herself is a nice person and then we’ll see.”

“That’s good, anyways, the rest of the last few years have been uneventful. Voldemort still has to return which he will, with his horcruxes.”

“So what does Voldemort fight for- why did he turn into a dark lord?” Harrison asked and Merlin replied with a question: “You actually want to know the dark lords cause?”

Harrison scoffed, “Of course, I’m not going to fight for Dumbledore just because my parents- who abandoned me because of Dumbledore- fight for him. I want to form my own opinion about both sides and then pick a side.”

Merlin looked at the boy- ten year old boy, he reminded himself. – in shock.

“So will you answer my question?”

“Of course, Voldemort fights for more freedom of magic, most dark and grey magics are illegal right now, and for more rights for dark creatures- like werewolves. Dumbledore, however convinced everyone he fought for blood purity and power.”

“But he does fight for blood purity, right?”

“He does, well at least in some sense, not literally, though. He wants to separate the magic world from the muggles, to make sure wizards are safe, we wouldn’t be able to win against muggle weapons. So he wants to make muggleborns pick between the wizarding world and muggle world, magic or no magic.”

“That makes sense.” Harrison said and Merlin nodded, “I want you to base your opinion on what you think is best, research this when you go back to the future, you can change the wizarding world, Harry.”

Harry nodded and whispered, “I’ll try.”

Chapter Text

It was Harrisons tenth birthday and this one felt different than all the others he had here.

Harrison blamed it on the fact that it was the last birthday he would spend here; he would go back to the year 1991 after spending 10 years in the past.

Life is crazy.

But beside the fact that this was his last birthday here it was still weird how all the founders seem to be nervous around him today and that even Merlin was here.

He decided to ignore it, he would find out later why they were so nervous.

So when it was finally time for gifts- because even though Harrison thought the fact that they took him in and took care of him as if he was their own child was enough, the founders still loved spoiling him.- He sat down carefully at the table in the meeting room.

He looked around the room to see the founders all looking at him nervously.

“eh? Hi?” Harrison said and Rowena giggled, “Sorry, for acting so weird today-“

“We have a special gift for you! That is, well, if you accept.” Godric said, fully interrupting Rowena’s apology, making the woman scowl at him.

“There’s no easy way to explain this is there?” Salazar groaned and Merlin shook his head.

“We want to blood adopt you, Harrison, all of us. It will legally make you our heir.” Helga explained softly and Harrisons eyes went wide, “You’re serious?”

“Yes, I brewed the potions a few weeks ago.” Salazar said and Rowena said, “We were gonna do this right before you left, but this is your last birthday with us.”

“Is that why Merlin is here?”

Merlin laughed, “When Helga said all of us she meant it, Harrison.”

Salazar quickly did explain that there was a chance he wouldn’t be able to claim Slytherin lordship when he turned 17, because he still had a living heir, the rest of the founders didn’t.

“So what’s your answer?” Godric asked and Harrison nodded, “Yes- Of course!”

He couldn’t quite believe this was happening, the founders actually cared enough about him to make him their son in blood. He knew they cared about him; they had made that clear over the years, but this was a whole different level of caring about him.

He watched as all of the founders and Merlin added a few drops of blood into a potion that turned into a quite dark red.

“Drink it Harrison.” Godric said handing him the potion and he did.

The feeling was quite weird, his blood felt like it was slowly warming up and he could actually feel his heart beating through his whole body. He also felt his skin slightly morphing, he knew how blood adoptions worked, it makes you look a bit like the person blood adopting you, but without ruining the looks you got from your biological mom and dad.

“You’re taller.” Rowena noted and Harrison silently cheered in his head, he had hated being very short.

“Your eyes look a bit more AK green than they did before- I didn’t even know that was possible.” Godric said and Helga giggled, “It makes you look kinda intimidating, like your reading my soul.”

Harrison hadn’t changed a lot, he had grown an inch or two and his hair turned a little lighter- now more dark brown than the raven colour he had before. His eyes seemed like they were glowing.

He just looked more like the founders, to be honest.

Harrison looked at all the founders, not even noticing the tears on his face and said, “Thank you. This is the best present ever.”

Harrison thanking them quickly turned into a group hug.

Best birthday ever.

Salazar pulled away from the group hug and said, “By the way, we’re giving you etiquette classes this year, to make you a proper pureblood- or halfblood heir.”

Harrison groaned.

~

Etiquette lessons were a shit ton of bullshit. He learned what spoon to use for which
meal, how to make his face expressionless and how he should sit when there were others- who weren’t close friends or family members- with him.

And a shit ton more bullshit.

The only thing he liked was Salazar teaching him how to have a slytherin mask all time; explaining him how to get good blackmail and a few lessons on manipulating.

It wasn’t Harrisons favourite class, but he understood why it was important for him to learn this, so he listened to the founders and paid attention in the classes to be done with them as quick as he could possibly be.

He finished the class in like 5 months, the only thing he had to continue learning was dance; turns out they found the one thing Harrison was absolutely horrible at- dancing.

He just didn’t understand the movements, focused too much, kept looking at his feet and just overall didn’t understand why people were interested in these ‘formal’ dances he had to know.

The founders thought it was hilarious, Harrison wasn’t good at dealing with failing, he didn’t have a lot of practice with failing things and always thought anything could be possible for him.

And if there was anyone on this hell of an earth that could make anything possible, it was Harrison, the founders all agreed on that.

Turns out, dancing isn’t part of that ‘anything.’

~

It was in the last 6 months of Harrisons stay here that Salazar approached him and explained that he wanted to teach Harrison Occlumency, the art of protecting a mind. He told Harrison about all the powerful people that master the art of Legilimency in the future and how this would stop him.

Harrison agreed immediately, occlumency had already been high on his; Wanting to learn, but don’t know how list, so ofcourse he agreed.

So now he was sitting here, in Salazar’s office.

“Building a shield for your mind is like making an unbeatable game.” Salazar started he looked at Harrison and said, “You remember more than anyone else does. I’ve never met anyone who could literally describe a day of their first year alive in detail before you.”

Harrison shrugged, “I don’t know how I do it.”

“I know, but it’s important to protect it.” Salazar said and then continued his explanation, “You want to start with imagining a big vault and putting the memories you want to keep a secret in there, we make multiple layers of protection this is the core; don’t put all your memories in here it will tire you.”

Harrison nodded and closed his eyes, it took a bit, but after a while his focus was good enough to build a protection layer. imagining a big vault and then imagining putting some memories he wouldn’t want Dumbledore to see once he went back to the future.

For example, the fact that he remembered everything from that day.

“Okay you wanna secure this chest, put it in a room, put a password on the door whatever you want, use your imagination.”

Harrison put up big walls around the vault, this was honestly fun if not a bit tiring to do, it felt like creating your own world.

“Remember your ability to speak parseltongue, only me, Voldemort and you would be able to come in.”  Salazar reminded him and Harrison immediately put a parseltongue code on his vault.

When Harrison opened his eyes again he was surprised to see Salazar writing in a journal in front of him, he looked at a clock in the office and noticed he had spend 2 hours working on just the first layer and he felt like he was going to faint because of exhaustion any moment now.

“I think that was enough for today,” Salazar said with an amused smile and Harrison nodded, “I didn’t even notice that this much time passed.”

“People usually don’t, time flies when your working on protecting your mind.” Salazar said and Harrison nodded, having nothing else to say.

“Go take a nap before Rowena kidnaps you for a dancing class.”

“Shit, I forgot about that.” Harrison hissed and Salazar laughed, “Go rest, little snake.”

And Harrison did, because honestly dancing while being this tired sounded like a suicide mission.

~

Helga, out of pure boredom had decided to teach Harrison how to cook; wizarding style.

Harrison had immediately agreed when she offered and honestly with her being the founder who spends the least time with the boy, she thought they deserved some quality time in Harrisons last few months here.

What she however didn’t expect was for Harrison to be a master cook after a few classes, afterwards she knew she should’ve expected it, but honestly this was a new sort of impressive.

Helga had started out easy, but then a few days ago Harrison just turned up with a full damn meal; he made Salmon with potatoes and vegetables and while, of course there were harder meals to make.

It was pretty damn impressive for a ten year old.

And the food had been good. All the founders had been impressed by Harrisons cooking and Harrison had just smiled at all the compliments.

So now, instead of teaching Harrison how to cook, she was teaching him spells how to make cooking easier, which didn’t take away the fun of spending time with Harrison so she was okay with it.

And it made Harrison happy, so she was more than okay with it.

~

“Now build something around the wall.” Salazar had said a couple of weeks ago.

Harrison who had been thinking about how to hide the rest of his memories had found the perfect idea.

An underwater maze, full of locks and parseltongue passwords.

It was literally unbeatable.

The only one who could take away the water in his own mind and not well.. drown in a mind? Was he, himself. Besides that, Dumbledore couldn’t speak parseltongue and most of the passwords were annoyingly long sentences that you couldn’t guess after hearing parseltongue a few times.

And Harrison had fun while building it.

It was every bit tiring as it was fun, but when after like 20 hours of work he showed Salazar, Sal had just been speechless for a moment and then muttered, “I think that will do.”

Harrison smirked, “Why thank you, lord Slytherin.”

“I liked you more before the etiquette classes.” Salazar decided and Harrison laughed, “That’s not my fault or problem.”

“I guess not.”

“You got anything else to teach me?” Harrison said and now it was Salazar’s turn to smirk, “Afraid you’ll get bored?”

“I know I’ll get bored the moment I go back, but now I’m still here for like another 2 months.” Harrison said and then suddenly his whole face changed, “I’m going to miss you, guys.” He whispered

“We’re going to miss you too.” Salazar responded immediately and then seemed to think for a moment, “For me it will be centuries away, but there’s always portraits around the school, come search us?” Salazar asked and Harrison nodded, “Besides that, I’m probably going to see you in my common room.”

Salazar smiled, getting that Harrison meant that he was probably gonna be sorted in Slytherin.

“Don’t let Godric hear you say that.”

“He’s still convinced I’m going to be a Gryffindor?” Harrison asked and Salazar nodded, “Yes and he will be until proven wrong.”

“Oh talking about getting sorted, Merlin told me they use Alistair as a sorting system in the future.” Harrison said and Salazar laughed, like actually full on laughed, “You’re kidding?”

“No, turns out Godric’s little experiment of trying to put all of your ways of thinking into his hat was the perfect way to still get your opinion on sortings.”

“Your saying that Godric trying to be a cheat by having a hat that helps him, by mixing our intelligence is used as the way of sorting in the future? That’s ridiculous.”

“I know! The worst thing is from what I’ve heard, it actually works, as well.”

“That’s crazy.”

“It is.” Harrison agreed.

~

In his last two months Harry mostly just walked around the castle, talked with the founders, and practiced his magic alone.

He wanted to be prepared for whatever the future would give him.

The founders told him they had pretty much teached him everything that they thought was important, so they stopped their lessons.

That didn’t stop the duels- which Harrison won a lot more often- and other competitive things they did, however.

Harrison also started playing quidditch with some students sometimes, they knew him as the founders kid and all obviously wanted to know how he became a heir to all the founders.

He however kept silence, his existence had to be as silent as possible; he had to try to avoid coming in any history books. That would be awkward to explain.

Now he was saying goodbye, Merlin was patiently waiting for him to finish saying goodbye’s he obviously understood how hard this moment was.

“We will leave you little gifts in our vaults, once you claim our heirships you’d be able to open them.” Helga said and Harry smiled, “Thankyou.”

“We will also have portraits in out vaults and in Hogwarts.” Rowena reminded him and Harrison nodded, “I know.” He was trying so hard to ignore the tears slowly staining his cheeks.

The founders were crying too, so it was okay.

“Just threaten my heir if he won’t give you access to my vaults.” Salazar said with a wink and Harrison giggled, “Oh yes, mighty lord Slytherin I will threaten the literal dark lord for a part of his fortune.”

“Hey, I’m just saying my family magic might protect you.” Sal said and then he seemed to think for a moment, “However there is generations of family between you guys, so technically magic might not see you as related close enough to actually protect you.”

“Not that he needs protection,” Godric muttered and Merlin laughed, “In the future the history books still say your unbeaten if only they knew that you were beaten by a nine year old.”

“Shut up.” Godric said, although he was smiling.

“I think it’s time to go, little snake, Merlin still has to plant memories into your and your families brains.” Salazar hissed and Harrison nodded sadly.

They were indeed planting fake memories, to make sure Dumbledore would think he had actually spend time with the Dursley’s.

“Bye. I love you all.” Harrison said, slightly blushing in embarrassment, he didn’t know how the founders would react to him using the word ‘love.’

They hugged him and told him they loved him too, that was their reactions.

After a lot more teary goodbye’s Merlin finally kidnapped Harrison and brought him back to the future.

To new adventures.

Chapter Text

Merlin had put multiple memory charms on the Dursleys, creating new memories, deleting old ones. Then he had expanded Harrisons room for one day, his parents would come pick him up tomorrow.

He had hugged Harrison, whispering that he would miss him and that there should be a portrait in Hogwarts of him somewhere.

“I’ll find it, if anyone knows all the halls in the castle it’s me.” Harrison said and Merlin laughed, “That’s true, kid.”

Their goodbye was almost as emotional as Harrisons goodbye with the founders, while he had spend less time with Merlin, Merlin had still be the man who had saved Harrison from a probably very abusive household.

He owed Merlin everything.

And overtime they had become close to, Merlin felt more like his cool uncle than anything else.

He was really gonna miss Merlin.

But he would make them all proud, whatever the fuck that meant. He hadn’t even decided what side he was on yet. This war was gonna fuck him over the first few months back here, but he would bring Voldemort back, talk to him and kill him himself if he had to.

It was the only way to find out what he really fought for without other influences.

Now, he had to focus on what would happen tomorrow, though, he would meet his parents.

He looked at his room, it had a simple bed and closet nothing else. That was fine, he would only be here for a bit.

And it sure as hell was better than what he had in the fake memories, he literally slept in a cupboard in those memories, imagine that!

He sat down on the bed and grabbed a book, he had taken some with him so he could at least read something interesting. He also took most of his clothing; both wizard and muggle clothing, knowing he had to pretend he only had muggle clothing at first.

He was still trying to figure out how much he could show his parents and sister tomorrow, knowing that he probably shouldn’t know anything about magic except for the few things he could do wandless as a little baby.

“I’ll figure it out while I go,” Harrison muttered, after all knowing what his sister could do would be a big way to figure out how much of his skills he could show.

He read for a while, but couldn’t quite focus on the book. His mind seemed to wander to everything that could go wrong in this new life of his. He knew he would be able to deal with the things normal kids worry about, like school, but he was trying to figure out what he was going to do about his parents, how he should act.

And what to do with the dark lord, he was the only one that knew what really happened that night, well at least he suspected Hope didn’t remember a lot.

If only Sal could be with him to give him advice right now, maybe than he’d actually know what to do.

He put down his book and decided to sleep, it was getting pretty late and if he remembered well, Merlin told him that his aunt would wake him up to make breakfast at 7.

~

Just like Harrison expected the next morning Petunia banged on his door, screaming at him to make breakfast. He came out of bed and quicky changed into some muggle clothing before running downstairs, listening would work better than standing up against them, it was only a few hours after all.

And honestly cooking wasn’t that bad.

Harrison blamed Salazar for giving him this common sense and self-preservation, Godric had tried so hard to teach him differently.

Harrison snorted, Gryffindors and their ‘courage.’

While cooking bacon for the Dursleys- and really? Would they eat this all cause this seemed like it could feed all of the seventh years at Hogwarts.- he wondered what his parents were doing right now, were they stressing about meeting him? Screaming at Dumbledore for bringing him to Dursleys?

He knew that until- well today they hadn’t had a clue where Dumbledore brought him. He also knew Lily wouldn’t be thrilled when she found out he had spent his childhood with the Dursleys.

He hadn’t really, of course, but they didn’t know that.

~

Lily, indeed, hadn’t been thrilled.

Dumbledore had send them a letter with the address of Harrisons stay. Both James and Hope had sat down on the couch, Lily standing in front of them with the letter.

They had celebrated Hope’s birthday before even bringing up the subject of Harrison, knowing Hope would get angry if her special day wouldn’t be about her.

“So today we’re meeting your brother again.” Lily said softly to Hope, Hope knew this, of course, her parents had been warning this day was going to come for as long as she could remember.

“Don’t blame him if he’s a bit jealous, you know how hard it must be on him, having to grow up somewhere else.” James said with a distant look in his eyes, Lily guessed he was thinking about the day Harrison left.

That day everything changed, they had left Godric’s Hollow to live in the Potter Manor, they had spent way more money for tutors, clothes and just generally to make them look like a normal pureblood family to the public.

No one spoke about the child that disappeared.

That was except for the ‘darker’ families, who would look at them with such disgust. Lily and James pretended it was because their daughter was the chosen one, the one to defeat the dark lord once, and would do it for a second time.

Deep down they knew it’s because these were the families that noticed their lost child, the wizarding world- especially the purebloods- were against anything that had to do with abandoning children, or abusing them.

Sirius and Remus seemed to befriend those dark wizards, it was their social group now and everyone seems to just forget the fact that Sirius was the black sheep of the black family.

So yes, everything in their life changed.

It had been hard at first, but now it seemed normal and none of them were quite ready to take Harrison back, change everything again.

“Open the letter, mom.” Hope said and Lily nodded, listening to her daughter, she usually did listen to her daughter.

Hope was the boss of the house, she had her mom and her dad wrapped around her little fingers without even trying. Ever since that night James and Lily listened to anything Hope said, not wanting to lose the child they picked- because they did pick Hope, even if they didn’t see it like that.

Lily opened the letter slowly and her whole expression changed, her magic went wild the whole room seemed to shake and then she dropped the letter and ran away.

Hope picked up the letter she read out loud to her dad, “4 Privet Drive, Surrey.”

And James froze, he looked at Hope and said, “Stay here for a bit, Okay? We’ll be back soon.” Hope scowled at him, demanding him to explain why her mother was so angry, but for the first time in a while he ignored his daughter’s demands.

Instead he ran in the direction Lily went.

“Lils?”

“I’m here,” He heard his wife’s weak voice. He entered the room, the Library and saw Lily on a couch in a corner of the room.

“I just- My muggle family?” Lily said and James nodded, “It might’ve been for the best, not growing up in the wizarding world.”

Lily nodded, but didn’t look convinced.

“Dumbledore probably had a reason and we get him back today, we should probably get ready for that.” James said and Lily nodded, “Yes, it’s time to get our child, maybe Petunia treated him okay.”

“Yes, we can only hope.”

Together they went back to Hope, telling her to get ready to get her brother.

~

Harrison was sitting in the hall when the doorbell rang, he thought it was probably better that he open the door and not have a sister reunion. He opened the door and came face to face with his ‘family’, not quite knowing what to say or do he just awkwardly turned and shouted, “Petunia, I’m going!” And like he expected; no response.

“You sure you don’t want to give a proper goodbye to your aunt, kiddo?” James asked and Harrison scowled, gosh he hated this man already. “No I’m good, I already had a long goodbye yesterday evening.”

“Okay,” James said, a strange look on his face. Then Hope stepped forward extending her hand, “I’m Hope, your sister. I’m glad to have you back little brother.” She seemed to look at his muggle clothing with disgust, but seemed to also genuinely try to at least somewhat welcome him.

Harrison looked at Hope and decided both of them probably wouldn’t be able to keep the nice act going for long, for now though he wanted to know his sister a little better.

“I know, I remember. And for the records I’m the older one.” Harrison said, smirking slightly, but still giving Hope a hand.

“No you’re not!” Hope said and Harrison raised an eyebrow at his ‘mom’, Lily sighed in response, “It doesn’t really matter, Hope.”

“No! Tell him he’s wrong.” Like Harrison had expected, she hadn’t kept the nice act going for long.

“Hope-“

“She’s right Harrison.” James cut Lily off and Harrison just nodded and turned around grabbing his trunk.

He had the urge to shrink his trunk, with a simple wave of his hand, but then he remembered he was supposed to know nothing about magic.

Lily gave the trunk one look and grabbed her wand, shrinking it for him. Harrison thanked her politely, but way too fake for Lily to actually think he was thankful.

He wasn’t going to make this easy on his parents, he wanted them to know he remembered everything of that night.

“Okay!” James said clapping his hands, “Why don’t we go to diagon alley to buy your stuff for school.”

Hope nodded excitedly and they didn’t even wait for Harrison answer, James just grabbed his arm and apparated.

Gosh, this was going to be the worst day of his life.

He lowkey hoped he was going to run into Sirius and Remus, but he knew the chance was small. And he didn’t know if he would even get the chance to talk to them, when they ran into them. So maybe it was for the better that it probably wouldn’t happen.

James had apparated them to the Leaky Cauldron, telling them it was probably smart to eat something before shopping, Hope had pouted for a second, but when she noticed it didn’t work she quickly just smiled and turned to pick a table.

They each ordered a meal, Harrison silently wishing he was cooking with Helga right now, instead of sitting here waiting for his food.

“So before we enter diagon alley, we should probably tell you something.” James started and Hope had a satisfied smile on her face, knowing exactly where this conversation was going.

Harrison had two seconds to think of his response, he could do three things: Fuck with them, pretending he knew Hope was the ‘Girl-Who-lived’; Tell them the truth that Hope wasn’t really the one to beat Voldemort; or pretend he knew nothing.

Okay no, really it were two options, the second one wouldn’t work anyways.

“I know, Hope is the girl-who-lived, blah-blah-blah. I remember the night, you know?” Harrison muttered and immediately regret it, it might’ve been smarter to pretend he knew nothing or at least say it somewhat nicer.

Well, what’s done is done.

“What was that?” Lily asked, slightly angry and slightly sad, at least if Harrison read her emotions right.

“I remember the night, well at least parts of it is in my nightmares, not a lot. I just remember Hope screams and,” Harrison didn’t finish his sentence, instead he fake-shuddered. And he gave himself a mental shoulder pat, he just saved himself from his parents knowing he remembered everything.

The table was silent for a moment and then Harrison spoke up in a quiet voice, “I’m sorry- if that sounded rude, it’s just these nightmares are the worst and I don’t like being reminded of the fact that Hope almost died for- well all of us.”

Both Lily’s and James’ eyes softened, “It’s okay Harrison, we will try to avoid the subject of that night as much as possible.” Lily said and she gave Hope a very obvious look, Hope just smirked.

The fact that Harrison told himself to be nice to this selfish bitc-

No, just keep acting, Harrison.

When the food finally arrived James spoke up, “We actually have a surprise for you two.”

Harrison looked up from his plate, the food in this place looked weird and tasted like absolutely nothing.

“A surprise?” Hope gasped with puppy-dog eyes, Harrison snorted.

James gave Harrison a look that obviously meant to be threatening, but growing up with Sal made this look well- weak.

“Yes- well, me and your mom are going to teach at Hogwarts.”

You’ve got to be kidding me, Harrison almost said, but instead he stayed silent.

“Well, I will be assisting Flitwick with Charms and your dad will help McGonagall by taking over some Transfiguration classes.” Lily said and then she added, “So there is a chance we don’t even get to teach your grade, however, we will still be in the school.”

Hope gasped and jumped into her parents’ arm, obviously happy she didn’t have to leave them. In that moment Harrisons heart ached, he wanted- no needed to talk to the founders.

“Okay,” Harrison muttered then looked at his dad, “Obviously there’s a but..”

“Why would there be a but?” James asked and Harrison just raised an unimpressed eyebrow, “Your tone says enough.”

James sighed defeated, “Hogwarts has been very busy lately and they were searching for more teachers. Not only me and Lily will be new there, Sirius and Remus will teach history together and Sirius might actually get some Transfiguration classes, too, Minerva wants to focus more on her job as deputy- headmistress. Dumbledore has been busy with well- the war.”

Hope’s happy expression fade slowly, “You’re kidding? They accepted those vile- dark wizards as teachers? Do they want me to end up dead?”

Harrison pretended to be confused, but on the inside he was cheering. He was lowkey excited to meet Siri and Remus again.

“Who’s Sirius- isn’t that like the brightest star or something?” Harrison muttered to himself, but obviously James heard him, because he began explaining how his bestfriend had betrayed him and the light side after that night and how both of them were now always seen with dark wizards.

Harrison smirked, this was perfect, now he could finally mix in his opinion- real opinion for a bit.

“Aren’t dark wizards technically just wizards born with a dark core? What’s wrong with that?” Harrison asked innocently.

“Well- yes, but most of them aligned themselves with-“

“So because most of them did something bad, suddenly you think every dark wizard is evil?”

“I mean they use dark magic and Harrison, we know you didn’t grow up with a lot of magic, but dark magics are dangerous.”

“So all of your cores are totally light?” Harrison asked, stunned.

“Pretty much, we at least have a mostly light core.” Lily said and Harrison just had to ask, “How do you test it?”

He remembered the day the founders had found out he was a parselmouth, they had talked about him being perfectly in the grey area. Just like Salazar and Voldemort.

Not a lot of people knew that Voldemort wasn’t a dark wizard, but parselmouths tend to be the only ones with a perfectly grey core, it had something to do with how different parselmagic worked from other magics.

So yes, Voldemort, Salazar and Harrison were all grey wizards. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t pretend he didn’t know yet, just to see his parents shocked faces when they found out.

“You can do it with a potion or go to a magical sensitive person,” Lily explained, “We went to a friend of mine, she actually lives pretty close to here, maybe we can go after shopping to test your core?” She looked at James who nodded, once again a weird look in his eyes, like he couldn’t quite decide what to make of Harrison.

Good, that meant Harrison could keep confusing them for a bit longer.

“Talking about shopping, can we go, please?” Hope turned to their parents who nodded, not even asking Harrison if he was ready to go before standing up.

Harrison stood up quickly and ran- yes literally ran- after them.

They waited for him at a brick wall and explained that once he got his wand he had to tap a brick to come in.

He gasped, pretending he never saw this place before.

Really he and Godric had flew over the old diagon alley a couple of time with disillusionment charms, he pretty much knew this place like the back of his hand, he had loved just sitting on his broomstick in the air studying the roads.

“Okay so first we’ll get you guys a new wand, Hope, your wand has to go back to the ministry it was just a practice wand. We’ll buy both of you your first official wand after that Hope can show Harrison where to go to buy books and robes while we get your potion kits.” James said and Lily placed her hand on his arm, “James- honey, we should probably go to Gringotts first.”

“Right, okay so Gringotts first.”

Lily giggled and led the way. Gringotts had always been there, Harrison had never been inside, but he did know where the building was and how it looked from the top.

They walked inside and he gasped- literally this time, not acting – by the beauty of the interior design, while he himself liked simpler rooms, the gold decorations fitted the white walls.

He just stood there looking around the room, white walls, very light shade of red floor with what seemed like golden pieces in it, all the furniture was dark wood mixed with gold.

And honestly, he was surprised that the goblins made these decorations work with each other, but they did and it looked beautiful-

“Harrison, come!” Hope shouted from where they were standing with a goblin, he blushed- slightly embarrassed to be caught admiring the room- but quickly followed them.

The whole way down to the vault Harrison just sat silently as his family talked, he couldn’t wait to finally be back at Hogwarts again, back at home.

His parents grabbed some galleons for both him and his sister.

And either the worth of Galleons changed by a lot or they gave them way too much. Harrison didn’t necessarily mind, he could spend his money on more interesting books or whatever.

When his mom gave him his little money pouch she explained that the extra money was to pick a pet and Harrison thanked her, he lowkey wanted to buy a snake anyways.

A snake would be a companion that’s better than like at least 90% of humans.

They went to Ollivander’s after and Harry hoped Salazar or Merlin indeed got his fake wand here.

Harrison decided to let Hope go first, it took her about 30 minutes to find her wand; A Unicorn hair core with Holly wood.

Protective and easy, Harrison mused to himself, Salazar had taught him some wandlore after he made his wand.

“Unicorn hair is a very good core for your average wizard, while Holly shows protectiveness. The core is almost impossible to turn dark, but I don’t think I would have to worry about that with you, would I?” Ollivander asked and while Hope looked slightly offended she shook her head that no, she wouldn’t turn dark.

“Mr. Potter, it’s your turn.”

Harrison stepped forward and sighed, this was gonna be a long process.

The first hour none of the wands bonded with him, of course they didn’t, he already had a wand that was bonded to him. That wand was currently shaking in his pocket.

“Is- is he a squib?” Lily asked silently and Harrison scowled and made sure to blast magic with the next wand he held.

Ollivander smiled, “That answers that question, that was a little more than a what a squib could do.”

“So why didn’t he have a wand that bonded with him yet?” Hope asked sounding impatient.

“I have a feeling your brother here is special- Wait I know, a man came told me that this wand would only match with one certain wizard,” Ollivander said, “I wanted to refuse, but this combination, I just couldn’t refuse it. So I took it and decided to wait for the right person.”

Harrison nodded looking at the box in Ollivander’s hand.

“I do have to warn you, I have not once felt magic come from this wand. I can’t explain how, because I know it is magical, saw so with my own eyes.” Ollivander said.

Of course Sal or Merlin had somehow convinced the wand- which literally had no magical core and was just a piece of wood, so he could keep his wandless magic on a high level- was magical and for a special person.

“This wand had two cores: phoenix feather and Horned serpent horn, which alone is special, but the wood is also one I don’t use a lot. It is made from pine wood, which usually means that the wizard is a independent person, usually seen as lonely, because they’re mysterious.”

“What do the cores mean?” Lily asked and Ollivander explained quickly that Phoenix feather usually is picked by a wizard who has a great potential in any type of magic and that it’s usually really picky.

“Horned serpent horn is a harder one, though, because it usually only picks parseltongue speakers.”

“Okay so let’s see,” James said, once again that weird look on his face, suspicion, Harrison realised.

Ollivander opened the box and Harrison almost laughed when he saw the wand without magic which was an exact copy of the one he had in his pocket right now.

He was still proud of the snakes he made at the bottom and he was just admiring the wand when his sister told him to just pick it up already.

“Fine,” Harrison rolled his eyes and picked up the wand, making sparks appear with a bit of easy wandless magic.

“The wand always chooses the wizard,” Ollivander whispered with a surprised look.

James and Lily paid and left the store, Hope following them out, they seemed to not like him very much right now.

Maybe because his wand was more special than the chosen-ones wand?

And why the hell did they pay after giving him money to pay for himself? Well he wasn’t gonna complain.

“Oh, young Harrison, the man who gave me this wand told me to give this to the wizard the wand chooses.” Ollivander said.

He got handed a little piece of paper- rolled up and closed with a certain sticking charm Rowena liked to use- and decided it was probably better to read it later when his family wasn’t waiting for him impatiently in front of the shop. He thanked Ollivander and walked to his family.

When he was finally outside with his family, his mom and dad told Hope to go to Madam Malkin’s and some other stores with him while they got their potion kits.

They told Harrison and Hope that they expected them back at the entrance of diagon alley in 2 hours.

So Harrison got dragged away by his little sister to a clothing store. Entering the store Madam Malkin walked towards them immediately, “Hogwarts robes, dearies?”

Hope nodded, “Yes, for me my usual measurements, Harrison still needs to have his measurements taken.”

Madam Malkin nodded, searching for Hope’s measurements, meanwhile Hope looked at Harrison, “Mom and dad told me that you also have to buy some wizarding clothes, instead of wearing just muggle clothing.” She once again looked at Harrisons clothing with disgust.

Harrison wanted to protest, he had wizarding clothes already, but then he realised the clothing style probably changed a lot the past few centuries.

And so he was picking out colours and materials in which Hope would order robes and other clothing for him while his measurements were taken.

“Seriously green? That’s awfully slytherin.” Hope scrunched her nose and Harrison laughed, “It’s my eyes, dear sister of mine.”

“Still, you should pick red instead, I mean all the Potters are gryffindors.”

“No, Hope. I’m taking a mix of blue’s, greens and some black and grey, deal with it.” Hope looked like she wanted to protest but just nodded, and started to fill out a sheet with everything Harrison would need in the chosen colours.

Harrison was secretly glad that Hope didn’t decide to pick colours for him, she obviously had no idea what colours fitted someone’s appearance. And he totally made that assumption based on the red dress Hope was wearing, which totally clashed with the red colour of her hair.

“Okay, time to take your measurements, Mr. Potter.” Madam Malkin stated, when she walked back into the room, motioning for Harrison to follow her.

In the room he got lead into there was a blonde boy, he was also getting his measurements taken, but when the boy saw him he gasped, making his mother tell him to be respectful.

“Mom, that’s the lost potter.” He heard the boy whisper, “They finally got their heads cleared up and took him back.”

“Draco, stop being so disrespectful.” His father said and Harrison noticed that the boy- Draco- put up a Pureblood mask, a mask he himself was also wearing- Salazar had spent ages teaching him how to get a good mask.

“It’s fine, sir. I understand he’s surprised, I mean I myself was surprised that my parents even wanted me back.” Harrison said with a shy voice, quickly adding, “Not that they pay a lot of attention to me, my sister is their little star.” His voice sounded bitter now and he had to be careful before he spilled too much of how he was really feeling.

“Oh, you poor child!” Mrs. Malfoy said, Harrison could spot a Malfoy in any crowd, somehow the family still looked somewhat like their ancestors in the founders time.

“It’s fine, Ma’am. I don’t think they’ll be happy with me after my sorting, anyways, so maybe it’ll be easier on all of us if they don’t really care about me now.” Harrison said, talking about how he really felt for the first time in a while.

“And why would that be?” The boy asked, obviously wondering what house Harrison thought he was going to be sorted in.

“Well, everyone I know tells me I will probably be in Slytherin.” Harrison said, sounding really happy with the fact that Slytherin was probably going to be his house. Salazar’s portrait was in the common room and of all the founders, he probably missed Sal the most.

“A Potter in Slytherin, how.. special.” Mr. Malfoy said and Harrison grinned, “Well sir, maybe it would have been different if they had actually tried to raise me themselves.”

“You are right.” Draco said and then walked towards Harrison, “So what do you say, want to break another family rule and be the first Potter in a while to befriend a Malfoy?” He extended his hand and Harrison smiled, “I’d be honoured to and I do love breaking my families ‘rules’” Harrison said and Draco smiled when Harrison took his hand.

“Okay Mr. Malfoy, we have your robes ready.” Madam Malkin said and Draco nodded, saying goodbye to Harrison before walking to the front of the shop with his parents.

After that it went pretty quickly, Harrison got his measurements taken and Madam Malkin told them to come back in half an hour, so they went to flourish and blotts next.

Inside the store, Hope didn’t give Harrison a lot of time to look around for interesting books, instead just walking to the front counter and ordering two sets of first year course books. Her excuse was that he had spent too long at Madam Malkin and they didn’t have a lot of time anymore, however Harrison knew that she probably just hated everything that had something to do with reading.

“Okay so where to next?” Harrison asked his sister, but couldn’t find her when he looked around, “Goddamnit, Hope.”

Harrison had never quite used Wizard cursing words, finding it weird to curse with ‘Merlin’s pants’ after being partially raised by the man. So instead he used muggle curse words, like Rowena and Godric had done and even Salazar sometimes. Helga had always been strictly against cursing, to the point where she would get angry when anyone cursed with Harrison close by.

That was the day that Sal started cursing in parseltongue, much to Harrisons amusement.

“Hope!” Harrison half-shouted and then he heard a soft, “I’m here.” From the direction of a group of redheads.

Weasleys, Harrison realised, just like the Malfoys they hadn’t changed a lot from their ancestors.

He walked towards the group and saw Hope standing with a boy that was slightly taller than she was.

“Okay so, this is my little brother Harrison.” Hope said and Harrison had the urge to mutter, ‘older’ but decided against it.

He looked around the group once and noticed a few things immediately- Salazar and Helga had spent hours teaching him how to read people in a group or alone. Salazar had mostly done it because it was a handy skill, especially in a world full of pureblood masks. Helga, however thought that being able to read people made it easier to befriend them, notice when they need help.

Despite their difference in reason, they teamed up to teach Harrison everything they knew about reading people after even one quick look.

The first thing he noticed is that the one that looked the oldest now obviously wasn’t used to being the oldest child, he looked nervous like he didn’t quite know how to act around his siblings anymore. This meant that there was at least one older child.

The second thing he noticed was that there was a big drift between the younger two and the others. The mom seemed to spend more time watching the younger ones and generally seemed closer with them. The middle two- twins- seemed to be totally apart from their family, obviously something happened to this family.

“Harrison!” Hope snapped and Harrison looked at her, “Yeah?”

“I’ve been calling your name for the past 2 minutes, are you okay?” Hope asked and Harrison nodded, so Hope continued, “I wanted to introduce you to the Weasleys.”

Harrison nodded again, to get Hope to continue.

“Okay so this is my bestfriend Ron Weasley and that’s his younger sister, Ginny Weasley. The twins over there are Fred and George, and the oldest right now is Percy.”

“Our older brothers-“

“- Are in Romania and Egypt-“

“- Right now.” The twins said and Harrison nodded, not even weirded out by the twin speak. Their mother seemed to find it irritating, though, telling them to stop.

Deciding it was probably better to change the subject back to what they were talking about Harrison asked, “So who’s Fred and who’s George?” Making both the twins look up in surprise and Ron mutter, “What does it matter, no one knows the difference between them anyways.”

“They look pretty different to me, maybe if you’d actually try you would see it too.” Harrison said before he could stop himself, he had seen a quick flicker of hurt in the twins eyes and suddenly the distance between them and their family made sense, Harrison knew how they felt, being in pretty much the same situation.

And he had not told a lie; the twins were pretty different, it was mostly the face shape and body language that made them look different, he had to give the family that: their features were pretty similar.

“I’m George,” One of the twins said and the other one nodded, they sounded serious enough, even if their mom protested that they were joking.

“Nice to meet you, everyone.” Harrison finally said, but no one beside the oldest three decided to pay him any attention anymore.

He sighed, “Hope, we still have to get pets, an owl or something.”

Hope’s eyes lit up, “Right! We should probably go, I’ll see you in the train, Ron!” Then she grabbed Harrisons arm and pulled him towards The Magical Menagerie.

When they entered Hope let go of him, immediately going towards the owls.

Harrison however went towards the snakes, not quite finding what he wanted. There seemed to be a lot of smaller snakes, the ones you would find in a field with high grass.

The hissing was very loud and not all of them were necessarily intelligent. It was kind of annoying, hearing snakes whisper threats into his ears.

That was until he saw a snake that seemed to whisper, “Please, shut up. You’re not scaring him, stupid hatchlings.”

Harrison chuckled, “I like you.” The snake looked up, surprised, “A speaker? Of course you would like me I’m amazing.”

“I’m sure you are and you’re quite beautiful, too.” The snake looked like either a boa or a python, but one look at his teeth and belly scales told him differently.

Salazar had taught him everything he needed to know about identifying snakes, but still he wasn’t sure about this one.

The scales and teeth signalled that this snake was venomous; Pythons and Boa’s aren’t venomous.

“So pray tell, what you are, You look like a python or boa. Yet not any snake of these kind are venomous like you obviously are.” Harrison hissed and the snake gave him a look, “I’m magical, I am indeed a Boa, but the not-venomous rule doesn’t really apply to us magical snakes.”

“Perfect, would you be okay if I took you with me?”  Harrison asked and the snake nodded, “Anything to get out of here.”

He took the snake with him before walking to the owls, spotting his sister petting a brown owl, “That’s a pretty one.” He said and his sister nodded, “Yeah, I think she’s the one I’m getting.”

Harrison nodded, before he saw a snow white owl in the corner of his eyes, it was such a pretty owl.

He walked towards it and was about to reach out when he got stopped, “Watch out! She bites.” A shop assistant said and Harrison totally ignored them, reaching out to pet the owl and the owl let him.

“Or she doesn’t,” The assistant said and Harrison chuckled, “I’ll take her.” He said and the assistant nodded and then noticed the snake on his arm, “You will also take him?”

“Yeah, both of them.” The assistant nodded and when Hope joined them, Harrison also paid for her.

They left the shop, Hope not noticing the snake that Harrison was hiding, currently in his pocket- with an extension charm on it. “We should probably go back to get our robes now,” Harrison said and Hope nodded.

They told their owls to go to Potter manor and went back to Madam Malkins, finishing their business there pretty quickly, they got their robes and paid. Madam Malkins shrunk the bags for them and after that they went to the entrance of Diagon Alley, meeting their mom and dad there, who were already waiting for them there.

“You got everything?” James asked and Hope nodded, he didn’t even look at Harrison for his answer before saying, “Good, we can visit our friend now to see what core you have, Harrison.”

Harrison nodded, knowing that this was probably the start of ruining the last part of the relationship he still had with his parents, they would hate his grey core.

“She lives pretty close to here, so we can walk.” Lily said and Hope groaned, but followed her mom. Harrison and James also followed, walking in a sort of tense silence, James kept looking at Harrison with a weird look.

It made Harrison nervous.

This continued the whole way to the house of Lily’s friend, where they knocked on the door and Lily explained what they came for.

“Oh! Of course, come in!” The friend said cheerfully, “So this is Harrison?”

James nodded and the witch continued, “Well it’s a pleasure to meet you Harrison, I’m Megan and Magic gave me the gift of magical sensitivity. It means I can see your magic, see if your core is light, grey or dark. I want to say, that whatever kind your core ends up being it doesn’t mean that that you are ‘good’ or ‘evil’ that’s for you to decide and has nothing to do with your magical core.”

James scowled, “I’m not accepting a dark wizard as son.”

Megan looked at James sighed, “Leave this room, then. I’m not going to have you disown your son because of his core.”

Harrison smiled at Megan and said, “It’s okay, he can stay.” Having the urge to add: It wouldn’t be the first time they left me behind for something that isn’t even my fault.

“Okay, we’re ready.” Lily said, though, she too was looking at Harrison with a weird kind of suspicion now. Megan nodded, closing her eyes and when she opened them her first light grey eyes seemed to glow white.

It was the first time Harrison noticed how the woman looked, he had been too focused on his parents finding out about his core. The woman was wearing a loose white dress, she had curly black hair that stopped right above her shoulders and soft freckles were spread over her dark skin. She had a small tattoo on her bare shoulder, it seemed to be a star constellation, Harrison couldn’t see which one it was, though.

She looked like a goddess, really.

She looked at Harrison and gasped, “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” And Harrison smirked, he knew that only he and Voldemort had a core like this.

“What?” Lily asked her friend, “It’s grey, so grey. It’s something I’ve always believed to be impossible, every wizards magic has one type that it prefers and a ‘grey core’ usually means being close to grey, but still having one kind that your magic slightly favours. Harrisons magic doesn’t seem to favour anything, though. He’s perfectly grey.” Megan explained, her eyes glowing a bit brighter than before.

James looked at Harrison and just shook his head, “A grey core?”

“Yes, it’s perfect, your son will be able to do any kind of magic with ease, well as easy as magic can get. He also won’t have the symptoms from casting the wrong kind of magic for long periods of time, like sickness.”

“Yeah, I remember casting one dark spell and getting really sick.” Lily said and James looked at her with a questioning look, she shrugged, “It was war, Dumbledore had taught me the spell, it wasn’t illegal or anything so I just tried.”

James accepted her answer, knowing that Dumbledore only taught his wife for her safety.

“That was however, when I didn’t know anything about cores yet.” Lily added and James was once again reminded that Lily was a muggleborn.

“Can we go home now? I’m bored.” Hope whined and Lily nodded, “Of course we can.” Not even bothering to really end the conversation she was in.

She did, however, quickly say goodbye to Megan and then walked out, James following her and Hope. Harrison was about to follow, but instead decided to turn around and thank Megan properly, because his parents obviously hadn’t.

“Thank you for doing this.” Harrison said and Megan smiled, her eyes were back to normal now. “It’s quite alright, Harry- may I call you that? It was a honour to see a core like yours. I’m sorry that your dad reacted the way he did.”

“Yea, you can call me Harry. About my dad, that’s fine, I honestly suspected it. He’s been kind of weird the whole day and well-“

“It’s your first day back with them,” Megan finished his sentence and Harrison nodded, “Yeah, it is.”

“The Potters- well they aren’t that popular, half of the wizarding world loves them- Hope especially, of course. Most of us purebloods haven’t forgiven them for giving away their child, though.” Megan said and Harrison nodded, “I remember most of it, the night they decided to give me away, I pretend I don’t because it’s easier. I still remember Sirius and Remus leaving them, telling them that this was the end of their friendship if they gave me away.”

“Yeah, they were- still are really angry about it. They can’t wait to see you at Hogwarts.” Megan said and Harrison just had to ask, “You know them?”

“Yeah, we’re pretty close. I used to never pick sides, not really caring about the fight between light and dark magic, but I- like a lot of others- never forgave the Potters for giving you away, even though I didn’t stop being friends with Lily. You made me side with the dark wizards more and because of that Sirius sought me out, he’s been coming here weekly ever since.”

“I made you pick the dark side?” Harrison asked, honestly surprised.

“You did, the dark side isn’t just Voldemort, well it used to be. Now it’s just everyone who hates Dumbledore and most of them also hate the Potters. I well- my core is grey, but favours dark magic, so if I had to fight, I would’ve probably picked the dark side anyways. The light side has been passing all kinds of laws against dark creatures and magic, even if they don’t harm anyone. It’s unacceptable.”

Harrison looked at the witch in front of him, “Thank you, for being honest about this war. It’s hard to find information that isn’t biased.”

“It’s my pleasure. It was nice meeting you, but you should probably join your family now.”

And she was right, the Potters were waiting impatiently in front of the house. Harrison nodded, “Can I come to you if I were to have questions about this war?” He asked, he finally found a trust-worthy information source and Megan honestly seemed nice.

She nodded, “Yeah, owl me anytime.”

“Thank you.” He said and then he joined his family outside, it honestly felt nice to meet a not- judging grown up in this time, but it made him miss the founders even more.

“Finally!” Hope said and Lily grabbed his arm and apparated both of them without warning him.

That honestly wasn’t a nice feeling.

“Dinner will be served at 7, before that you’re free to do what you want.” Lily said and he nodded.

“Ask a house elf to lead you to your room.” James asked and then they both just left, leaving Harrison alone with Hope, who rolled her eyes and said, “You can call Nimsey, she’s one of the Potter elves.”

Harrison nodded, “thank you.”

Hope left without saying another word, Harrison called for Nimsey who lead him to his room.

He dropped the some of the bags- which he had shrank before they had met up with their parents- and finally got his snake out of his pocket, “Sorry,” He hissed and the snake just responded with, “I’ve been through worse.” And then slithered up his arm to wrap himself around Harrisons neck.

Harrison accepted the answer, not questioning the snake about it. Instead he sat down on his bed and pulled out the note from Merlin, that Ollivanders’ gave to him.

Hello Harrison,

So when I went to the future to make sure your wand would be at Ollivanders, I found out a little fact you would probably like to know.

Turns out, that the phoenix that gave you your feather for your wand only lost one other feather that was also made into a wand. That wand has a phoenix feather core and the wood used is yew, the current owner is Tom Marvolo Riddle- or Voldemort, whatever you want to call him.

I don’t know what this means, but it might have something to do with that night.

Make sure you find my portrait soon!

Merlin.

Harrison just stared at the note and then started to laugh at how ridiculous this situation is, of course the dark lord had not only the same type of core, but also from the exact same phoenix.

This only happens to him. He would have to look at what it meant to share a core made from the same animal, finally something new he could learn.

But for now, he would ignore this situation and instead wait till he met Voldemort; maybe the man had answers.

Instead he decided he should call for Nimsey again and ask her to lead him to the owlery. He wanted to check if the owl was okay with being called ‘Hedwig.’

Talking about names, he still had to come up with a name for his snake, coming up with names sucked.

“Do you have a name?” Harrison asked the snake, who answered “No,”

The snake was a black Boa and with the right light he had a blue glow, Harrison thought about names that fitted either how the snake looked or how he acted.

He was so bad at this.

“Loki?” He hissed and the snake hissed, not even saying anything.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Harrison laughed, he hadn’t expected the snake to like that, “What about Ebony?”

“That’s a pretty easy name, I like it.” The snake- Ebony hissed back.

“You’re literally named after wood.” Harrison said and Ebony replied, “I like wood- well I like trees and they’re made from wood so.” Harrison imagined Ebony would shrug if he had shoulders.

“Right,” Harrison said and then he decided to finally go to his owl- Hedwig.

Hedwig seemed to like his name and just like that his first day back was spend, soon he would be back at Hogwarts- back at home.

He couldn’t wait.

Chapter Text

Harrison had to spend one month with his parents and Hope. He totally forgot about the fact that ‘August’ was also a month and since he returned at the 31^st of July he would have to spend the whole month in this house.

Harrison spend the first two days avoiding everyone who could possibly come over to their home, like Ron and Molly Weasley. He also avoided his own parents and Hope, only joining them for meals, but even then he wouldn’t talk to them.

Today, the 3^rd of August was different, though. When Harrison sat down for dinner his mom looked at him and said, “You know how we picked you up at your birthday?”

Harrison nodded, not bothering answering, surprised she even remembered that it had been his birthday, too.

“Well, since we couldn’t have a party for Hope then, we decided to have on in a couple of days, the 7^th to be exact. You will be there, that means no hiding in your room.” Lily said and Harrison nodded, not showing any emotion on his face.

“Who did you guys invite?” Harrison asked and James said, “The Weasley’s, Longbottom’s, Diggory’s, Amelia and Susan Bones and some others.”

Harrison snorted, “Right, no ‘dark’ pureblood families. Is Megan coming? I have some questions about my core.”

James raised an eyebrow, but Lily nodded, “I did invite her, so she’ll probably try to show up.”

“Okay fine and are all the Weasleys coming? I met some of them in Diagon Alley a few days ago.” Harrison asked and Lily smiled, “I’m glad you’re not throwing a fit about this, I suppose that most of them will be here. I don’t know about Bill and Charlie, but the past few years they did show up.”

Harrison nodded once again and then turned back to eating, Lily and James started talking about what kind of decoration Hope wanted for her birthday and Harrison honestly wanted to leave as soon as possible.

When he did finish eating he looked at his family, who once again pretended he didn’t exist so he took that as a sign he was free to leave.

~~~

Two days later Harrison went to Diagon alley on his own for the first time, Draco had asked if he wanted to meet up with the boy and Harrison agreed immediately. Draco had warned him that his parents would be there, Harrison had just told him it was fine, it wasn’t like his parents were coming.

Or that they would even notice he was gone.

So now he was standing outside some fancy restaurant, he had decided to not tell too much to Draco yet, not talking about the dark or light side, just about more standard subjects.

After all, he wasn’t sure how his parents would react if Harrison just casually mentioned that he was planning to bring back their lord.

He walked into the restaurant and got led to the place Draco and his parents were sitting, Mrs. Malfoy smiled at him politely, “We almost thought you wouldn’t show up.”

“I had to wait till my parents finished talking about how great Hope is,” Harrison rolled his eyes, “I don’t think they even know I’m here right now, not that I didn’t tell them they just don’t bother listening.”

He sat down with every bit of grace that a pureblood heir should be, “I am glad to get the chance to leave the house, I’ve been meaning to come back here, but I never quite had a reason to do so.”

“Is there anywhere you would like to go specifically? We could show you around.” Draco said, with the excitement of a little child, Harrison inclined his head, “Actually, I’ve been searching for a certain book on wands that I can’t quite find here, I suppose I should look in Knockturn alley for it.” He paused, “Unless you don’t want to take me to there, I’ve heard stories about it, though I’ve never actually been there.”

Total lie, Knockturn alley had been Salazar’s favourite shopping place, though back then it didn’t quite have the bad reputation it has now.

“Oh dear, what would a boy like you need from Knockturn alley?” Mrs. Malfoy asked, though she got interrupted by their food arriving, turns out the Malfoy’s ordered for him.

He didn’t know what they ordered from him, even after seeing it, but Draco smirked and said, “Just try it.”

Harrison did, decided he liked it, before turning back to Mrs. Malfoy, “Well, Mrs. Malfoy, there’s something with my wand, that I was wondering about. I’ve never heard of it before and I pretty much master wandlore. I just need answers.”

“Something’s wrong with your wand?” Draco asked, surprised and Harrison shook his head, “Don’t worry about it, I can deal with it, I’m just curious.”

“So what is this problem you’re having?” Mr. Malfoy asked and Harrison sighed, “My wand.. well it has a phoenix feather as core, but the phoenix who gave my feather gave one other feather and I know who has the other feather, but I don’t know what it means.”

“That’s not something heard of, two wands from the same animal.” Mr. Malfoy said and Harrison nodded, “I know, that’s why I want to know what it means, but I don’t think there would be books about it here.”

“You’re probably right about that, we will take you to Knockturn alley.” Mr. Malfoy decided and Harrison thanked him, before returning to his food, eating as quick as he could while still with the manners of a pureblood.

First impressions matter after all.

~

They finished lunch pretty fast and went to Knockturn alley immediately afterwards, Mr. Malfoy- Lucius, Harrison found out- led them to Borgin and Burkes, they had a big book selection in the back of the store.

Harrison looked at all the books and decided to not buy anything beside the book he needed, he would come back here some time, but it was too risky to have dark arts books while living with the Potters.

He searched the place, asking Draco to help him find a book on wands, but it took a while.

“Can I help you?” A man asked, the man had been looking at him for a while and probably decided he was taking too long. He was after all a young boy with no parents around- Lucius and Narcissa were looking at other items in the shop.

“Actually, yes. I was wondering if you had books on wandlore. More specifically cores from the same animals.” Harrison said, and the man raised an eyebrow, “Why would a young boy need such a book?”

Harrison immediately knew this was a good place to go, the answer told him that there was a book with answers here. He had ofcourse, thought it would be here, he had seen a book like that when he was still at the founders and for some reason he felt a weird pull on his magic, but back then he ignored it.

“Oh, how rude of me.” Harrison said sarcastically, “Let me introduce myself, I’m Harrison Potter.” He smiled at the man, who was now gaping at him. “And I’ve recently found out that my wand has a twin wand as people like to call it.”

“From the same animal?” The man asked him, Harrison looked at him, amused. “I do believe that is what twin wands mean, yes.”

“Oh- of- ofcourse. Let me get the book.” The man said and hurried away. Draco looked at Harrison, “Why did he react like that?”

“It’s really rare for someone to have a twin wand, I’m not sure what it means. I’m also the lost Potter wandering around Knockturn alley.”

“Fair,” Draco snorted and Harrison turned back to the man, who came hurrying back with the book in his hand. “I do believe this is the book you were looking for.”

Harrison took the book, feeling the same pull as he had years ago, he nodded. “Yes it is, thank you, sir.”

“It- the book costs 10 galleons.” The man said, “I- it’s a rare book.” Harrison nodded, 10 galleons was about 50 pounds, honestly cheaper than he thought it would be.

He grabbed the money his parents had given him- of which he had almost spend nothing, because both his parents and Hope had paid for a lot of his school supplies.

“Here you go.” He said, handing the man the money. The man nodded and Harrison and Draco joined Narcissa and Lucius.

“Found what you were looking for?” Narcissa asked and Harrison nodded, holding up the book.

“Good, now I was thinking we go back to Diagon alley and just walk around for a bit, before going back home.” Narcissa said and everyone agreed, Diagon alley was probably safer for two eleven year old boys.

~~~

Two days later Harrison woke up and the whole house was decorated. “Right, birthday.” He muttered to himself. Instead of eating downstairs he called Nimsey to bring him food to his room, the elf made him some quick breakfast and he ate while reading the book about wands.

‘The wand chooses the wizard, yet it’s possible that a second-hand wand works perfectly. For years we thought that this could only happen because of reincarnation; But sometimes two people in the same time can use the same wand- or at least the same core.

Every core is different and it can be that one thestral hair does bond with you, while another one doesn’t. Cores have their own wills and that’s generally why we only make one wand per animal. Even if we get a second feather from a phoenix we usually only use one of the two feathers. Sometimes, something goes wrong and two people end up having a core from the exact same animal. We call these wands twin wands.

While there are many possible reasons for this, the most popular theory is that the two wizards are soulmates, having a similar faith, some might meet- other’s won’t. Another theory is that it depends on your background, having a similar childhood can make people similar in a mental way.

Twin wands have only been seen a couple of time in history and everything we know about them are just theories, since we don’t have a lot of examples to study.

Harrison frowned, this didn’t say a lot. Though the soulmate part might signal in him being a horcrux, the founders had warned him that he might be one, since Voldemort’s soul was so unstable when he attacked Harrison.

“Harry! Come downstairs!” James shouted, Harrison sighed, closing the book. He left his empty plate behind, knowing Nimsey would find it later.

“You have to greet the guests.” James said when he was finally downstairs, Harrison raised an eyebrow, “Shouldn’t Hope do that?”

“She didn’t want to.” James said and Harrison groaned, but did walk towards the door, spending his first 30 minutes or so greeting a bunch of people he didn’t know.

“Hey Harrison!” He looked over and saw the twins and their family, “Hey Fred.” He said nodding towards Fred, who was currently standing on George’s left. He saw that the two oldest brothers did show up today.

“You remembered.” George said in surprise, the rest of the family looked just as surprised. Especially the two oldest one, who hadn’t been there when Harrison basically promised he would remember the difference.

Harrison shrugged, “I said I would.”

“So you did.” Fred smirked and Harrison smiled, “Now I know almost all of you, please introduce me to the ones I don’t know yet.”

“This is our-“

“Dear father,”

“Arthur.” George finished and Harrison looked at them in amusement.

“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Weasley.” He said politely and Arthur nodded while smiling, not responding, because Fred and George were talking again.

“You’ve already met-“

“Our dear Brothers and Sister-“

“Ginny, Ron and Percy.”

Harrison nodded and then George said, “And ofcourse our mom, Molly Weasley.” He looked over at the woman, who once again looked annoyed by their twin speak. Ron and Ginny also looked annoyed, Arthur and Percy just ignored it and the older brothers seemed just as amused as Harrison was.

“And then here-“

“- Are our older brothers-“

“- Bill and Charlie Weasley.” Fred finished and Harrison nodded, “Pleasure to meet you.”

Charlie- who Harrison assumed was the second eldest, by the way Bill kept looking over all the children like a sort of third parent- smiled at him, “Pleasures all mine.”

Harrison let them in and could finally join the party, the Weasley’s had been the last ones to arrive.

He sat down on one of the couches in a corner, he wasn’t going to try to socialize with people who would all be in Hope’s social bubble in school.

“Harrison.” He heard and he looked up seeing Megan there, “Hey, I heard you had some questions about your core?”

Harrison smiled, “Not actually about my core, more about the war.. I have a feeling me and the dark lord are connected in some way and I want to talk to the man, try to get answers and decide what to do then, but the man is currently not really alive.”

“Oh,” Megan said, slightly shocked, before smiling again, “Well I’ll answer your questions.”

Harrison waved his hand, making a privacy charm around them, Megan raised an eyebrow at his subtle show of powerful magic, but then giggled. “I really shouldn’t be surprised after I read your core.” Harrison grinned at her.

“Well, I suppose it’s better to start with the most logical question, what does the Dark Lord actually fight for?”

Megan seemed to think for a moment, “He’s- well He was trying to secure our safety. Muggles they’re dangerous, while they don’t have magic they are creative. They made weapons that could easily kill our whole population in a single day. The Dark Lord saw these dangers and warned people about it, but our ministry- with influence from Dumbledore- decided it was better to make the wards that have been up for decades to protect us from muggles weaker. They believe we can learn to live together, as one big community. They don’t see the muggles as a threat. That’s the reason why the Dark Lord became a Dark Lord and didn’t just join the ministry, he could never show them how dangerous muggles really are, so instead he decided to take over the ministry and do the work himself.”

“But then he got insane, because of his fear for death.” Harrison finished for her, she shot him a surprised look again, but nodded. “He went totally crazy, turned into a madman who wanted to suddenly kill everyone who wasn’t 100% pureblood.”

“Fucking hypocrite.” Harrison muttered and Megan laughed, “Yeah, well, no one knows that he isn’t one himself, though.”

“You do.” Harrison said and Megan inclined her head, “So do you.”

Harrison smirked at her, she smirked right back. Then she said, “You are an unusual eleven year old.” Harrison shrugged, “I’ve gotten that more often,”

“Must be true, then.” She said, Harrison snorted.

“I actually have another question, if I were to- you know- bring the Dark Lord back, would you like to be there?”

She looked at him in shock, “You’re- what-“

“I mean, nothing is certain yet, but I’m pretty damn sure I’ll have found out how to bring him back at Halloween.”

“I mean- if you want me to be there, I would love to, I was never really totally dark, like I told you. So now would be a good time to talk to the Dark Lord.”

“Yes, the plan is to also make him sane, so that we won’t have to deal with the insane creature on this planet anymore.” Harrison said and Megan nodded, “Good thinking. I should probably go back to the grownups now,” She rolled her eyes, “Really, I don’t understand how you deal being with your parents 24/7.”

“I lock myself in my room.” Harrison answered and she laughed, “Smart, I should try that the next time I’m here, just lock myself in a random room.”

Harrison laughed, “Good luck.” She grimaced and walked away.

Harrison sighed and leaned back in the couch, he wasn’t going to be social if his parents didn’t force him. After all, he was at least present at Hope’s party, it wasn’t like they were also celebrating his birthday right now, so he didn’t see a reason to be very social right now.

“Hey Harrikins!” Harrison looked up to see the oldest 5 brothers of the Weasley family standing in front of him, He nodded at them in greeting.

“Can we join you?” Bill asked and Harrison answered, “Yeah, sure.”

All the brothers sat down, looking kind of awkward like they don’t quite know what to say. Well that was besides Fred and George.

“We couldn’t help but notice that this whole party was for Hope.” Charlie said carefully and Harrison raised an eyebrow, “Wow, you guys deserve an award for noticing that.”

Charlie snorted, “Is there a reason?” Harrison shrugged, “My parents don’t really like me, at least, I don’t think they do. Ever since I’m back here we’ve just ignored each other, to the point where I was gone a whole day and they didn’t even notice. The only reason I’m here is so they can keep images up of being the perfect little family who took their poor abandoned child back.” Harrison laughed bitterly, “I suppose they did, but not because they really wanted to.”

Harrison was glad he hadn’t took down the privacy charm he put around his area earlier, he wouldn’t have to show off his magic in front of all these Weasley’s, but he could still talk about his situation without anyone hearing.

“That’s actually not that surprising,” Bill said, trying to find the words to not hurt Harrison’s feelings, but also wanting to explain how the Potters had said multiple times that they were happier with just Hope.

“I know,” Harrison sighed, “I suppose I shouldn’t tell this to a bunch of strangers, but whatever. I remember- everything.”

“What?”

“Everything from that night, even from before then. I suppose my first active memory is when Sirius gave me my first child broom,” He smiled, “My parents hated the thought, but I absolutely loved it, the whole day I sat on that baby thing. I could pretty much fly before I could walk. Hope hated it, that first day all her attention was gone, to make sure I didn’t crash.”

“How old were you?” George asked and Harrison shrugged, “About 6 months? I’m not sure.”

“Can I trust you guys with something I’ve told no one? I think it would be nice for someone to know and my magic has pretty much been telling me I can trust you guys.”

Because trust like this could only come from his own magic telling him that these five were okay, even Percy the more silent one- who he hadn’t really heard talk yet- could be trusted.

“If you want to.” Charlie answered easily, Harrison thought the man was probably the best at dealing with situations like this, he had been talking the most ever since they sat down.

“Hope everyone’s saviour,” Harrison laughed, “But she’s not even the girl-who-lived, Voldemort didn’t even look at her twice when he felt my power.”

The Weasley’s gaped, Harrison just laughed, “Everyone will believe Albus Dumbledore the moment he says something, but I remember Voldemort standing above my crib, apologising about the fact he was about to kill me, telling himself he was going crazy for talking about a baby. I even laughed at him.” Harrison said, “It’s so surreal and no one will believe me, but Voldemort never gave a shit about Hope.”

“But the scar-“ Percy said, speaking up for the first time.

“The curse reflected,” Harrison showed his own scar, hidden under his hair. “It’s the wand movement of the killing curse,” He said.

“I can’t believe- I mean I believe you, but this is the craziest thing I’ve heard in a while.” Bill said and Harrison shrugged, smirking slightly. “You’re welcome.”

~

After Hope’s birthday Harrisons break was boring, he still had 3 weeks. In these 3 weeks he read a lot and decided that he probably had Voldemort’s twin wand, because in some weird way their magic blended that night.

He just wasn’t ready to admit that he had a piece of Voldemort’s soul in him.

He also read all his course books through, multiple times, remembering all the spells he had to learn this year and already practicing them. He could use his normal wand and wand without core as well as normal wandless magic.

Since the trace latches into the core of a wand he could use all of them, Salazar hadn’t put a trace on his real wand and his fake wand couldn’t possibly have one. Wandless magic of course didn’t have a trace either way.

Harrison actually managed to keep himself busy with magic until the night before going to Hogwarts. He totally forgot about having to visit Gringotts and decided he would do that somewhere in his Christmas break. While falling asleep all he could think about was how it would feel to be home again.

~~

The next morning was chaotic to say the least, Hope unlike her brother didn’t pack anything yet. She was running around the house the whole morning to make sure she had everything while Harrison just quietly sat at the table, eating his pancakes, which was their goodbye breakfast.

(He had been hiding Ebony in his pocket again, much to the annoyance of said snake, but he knew his family would probably try to kill him if they found out about him. So instead he kept him in his pocket, at least until he was in the train.

He had already send Hedwig to Hogwarts, telling her he would be there in a few hours, she had nibbled his finger before flying away.)

Well, it wasn’t really goodbye, Harrison mused. After all, his whole family was going to be at Hogwarts. And he would finally see Siri and Remus again, he couldn’t wait.

When Hope was finally ready, they flooed to the platform and they were just on time, Hope left him to look for Ron immediately and his parents didn’t even bother saying anything, so instead he walked onto the train trying to find Draco or the Weasley twins, either would be fine.

He went past a lot of compartments and eventually found Draco, he was sitting in a compartment with two other boys and a girl.

“Hey, can I sit with you?” He asked Draco, who nodded and made place for him. Even though these compartments were obviously made for 4 persons, not 5 or more.

Harrison waved his hand and made the compartment larger, it was a simple enlargement charm, one of the first the founders taught him.

“What-“ The girl said and Harrison chuckled, he wasn’t going to bother hiding his skills when he was probably going to expose himself in the first few weeks anyways. His real secrets- like him wanting to help Voldemort, only to talk to him about his idea’s – would be kept secret.

“Wandless magic has always been my talent,” Harrison shrugged and Draco seemed to snap out of his shock, “Pansy, Blaise, Theo this is Harry Potter.” He said and Harrison nodded at them, “Nice to meet you.”

Blaise- who had been silent the whole time- even at his casual show of wandless magic, spoke up now. “The lost Potter, huh?” He asked with a raised eyebrow, smirking he added, “Are mommy and daddy okay with you sitting with us, dark wizards?”

He saw that Draco was about to tell Blaise off, but Harrison just laughed, “Honestly I don’t really care what they think about me sitting here.”

“You’re different than I expected you to be,” The other boy, Theo, said.

“If you expected me to clung to my little sister after they abandoned me for her, no I’m not really a big fan of them. Honestly, I tried to give Hope a chance and she has moments where she’s nice, but overall I can’t deal with spending too much time with them.” Harrison said casually, as if he didn’t just admit he didn’t like his family.

“I feel like you’re going to make this year more interesting,” Draco said and Harrison chuckled, “I’d sure hope so, after all, the drama I’m going to create at the sorting will be enough.”

“Harrison here thinks he’s going to get sorted into Slytherin,” Draco explained to the confused looks of the other three and Harrison nodded, “I don’t think I’m going to get sorted into Slytherin, I know I’m going to get sorted into Slytherin.” Then he looked around and added, “Talking about snakes, any of you really scared of them?”

When all of them shook their head Harrison finally freed Ebony from his pocket, “This is Ebony, he’s still a child in a few months I won’t be able to hide him in my pocket anymore.”

“You have a snake?” Pansy asked and Harrison rolled his eyes, “No this is just a human I transfigured into a snake, obviously I have a snake.”

“Don’t bully the humans too much, you might need them later.” Ebony hissed and Harrison laughed stroking the snake.

“Did he just understand the snake?” Blaise whispered, more to himself than to the rest, but Harrison nodded, “Yeah, you’ll find that I have a lot of secrets, I’m not going to bother hiding too much. It gets tiring and I believe that I can trust you guys or well, more like I can make you guys regret it if you show me that I can’t trust you.”

Harrison smirked and the other’s believed him immediately. It’s not like he really cared if the secret about him being able to speak parseltongue got spread anyways.

“See, that’s better, Speaker. I always say; everyone can be trusted with enough threatening.” The snake hissed and then he looked down, “Sometimes the stupid ones still betray you, though, be careful.”

“I will, don’t worry, oh wise one.”  Harrison responded sarcastically. All the others looked at him with surprise, but quickly slipped their masks back on. Harrison laughed at their reactions, “You didn’t think I could just understand the snake, did you?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Well- it’s weird to hear someone talk to a snake.” Pansy said and Harrison supposed it was, after all none of them could’ve seen this before, all of them were around his age and the last known parselmouth got well- killed, when he was only one.

He forgot that not everyone was used to him talking parseltongue, like the few students he took classes with in the past were, him and Salazar liked talking in parseltongue while walking through the long corridors of the castle, no one could hear what they were talking about.

“I suppose that’s true.” Harrison shrugged.

The rest of the train ride was kind of boring, Harrison ignored everyone, instead reading through his potion book. He was excited for potions, over the years a lot of new techniques were introduced, after the founders time- so he would actually learn something.

Salazar and him had loved experimenting with potions, they went from making better working numbing potions, to trying to make a potion with a crucio effect.

Helga wasn’t happy when Sal told her about that, but honestly it was a learning experience.

After a while Pansy left their compartment to change in a different compartment and so everyone started changing.

Harrison shook his head and instead used the spell Rowena had taught him, it changed your clothes, not quite transfiguring it instead swapping it with other clothes in your possession.

Harrison remembered the day Rowena taught him that, she had been quite insistent about the fact that he should master this spell.

“Harrison, please, just do your little hand wave thing and think of wearing these clothes instead of the ones you’re wearing now.” Rowena practically begged him, Harrison just laughed, “I think my clothes are fine, why do you want me to change them so bad?”

“I don’t want you to change them, I want you to master this spell before you try it in a train compartment and fail.” Rowena explained and she added- after Harrison shot her a confused look, “Everyone always changes into their Hogwarts robes on the train, it’s weird and takes too long, mastering this avoids that.”

She looks disgusted at the thought of ‘changing time’ as Hogwarts students tend to call it.

Harrison just waved his hand and the next thing he knew, he accidently transfigured half of his clothes into the other robes Rowena wanted him to change into.

“Okay, I might see why you wanted me to practice this.” He admitted, slightly embarrassed, Rowena just laughed, “I’m glad.”

He spend the rest of the afternoon trying, until he finally mastered the spell.

He silently thanked Rowena, he could see now why she wanted him to learn this spell, changing in these small- even after Harrison made it bigger- compartments just seemed chaotic.

Especially with four boys in one compartment.

When Draco, Theo and Blaise finally finished changing, Theo looked at Harrison and said, “You are teaching us that spell.”

Harrison shrugged, “I don’t actually know the incantation or the wand movements, I can try, though.”

“How does wandless magic work?” Blaise asked, he always seemed to be the more curious one of the three boys.

“It’s like, imagining something and then pushing your magic to do that thing you imagine.” Harrison explained, as if that made sense.

“Anything is possible?”

“Well, no of course there are limits, however you come pretty far to nothing being impossible with parselmagic.”

That was the moment Pansy walked back in and they spend the rest of their time talking about what they expected to happen during the sorting ceremony. Harrison giggled quietly to himself; it was still unbelievable that Alistair was the sorting system in this time.

He had spent hours talking to Godrics creation, the hat was – surprisingly – quite good company, if not a little boring at times. Godric had loved the idea of a singing hat so he spend hours teaching the hat how to write songs.

He supposed, in some way it made sense, it was the only real way to get the founders input without portraits; and Harrison was glad they didn’t pick portraits, because the fight between Godric and Salazar at his sorting would be too big.

He would probably just tell them he wanted to be in Rowena’s house just in spite.

He got pulled out of his musing by the train stopping, they actually arrived, Harrison was almost home.

The first thing he heard when he left the train was a voice shouting, “Firs’ years over here! Firs’ years over here! Alrigh’ there, Hope?”

He looked to the creator of the sound and saw a big man- no way that he was human- hugging an enthusiastic Hope. Of course, all the teachers would already know Hope, she was after all their little saviour.

Harrison just shook his head, he didn’t care what people thought about his family, he just wanted to find the founders portraits.

They followed the man down a path and eventually got a view of the castle. All the first years ‘ooh’ed at the sight, but Harrison could only think that Hogwarts had seen better days. The castle, which admittedly still looked beautiful, also looked old and like it needed a big clean up.

He couldn’t decide if he liked it or not, so instead he ignored it. Instead he was trying to figure out with who he would sit in the little boats, eventually he got pulled into a boat by Hope.

“You’re not sitting with the slimy snakes,” She whispered angrily and then seemed to think for a moment before adding, “You’re ruining my image.”

“I’m not ruining anyone’s image,” Harrison said out loud, “if your image could be ruined by your brother befriending some people, then you might need to rethink this whole good-image thing.”

Hope groaned, “Of course, you wouldn’t understand. There’s a reason why mom and dad dropped you off at some muggles place.” And for a second she seemed genuinely convinced that he wouldn’t understand, before he saw a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes.

Harrison smirked, quickly hiding it with his pureblood mask. “Of course and I’m oh-so sorry that happened. It was horrible being separated from you.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm and one of Hope’s new friends gasped, “That’s a low blow.”

Harrison snorted, “You know what? How about this, you leave me alone and I won’t bother you either. We just pretend we don’t know each other.”

“People would hate me for ignoring you,” Hope said, without any explanation.

“Why is that?”

“Because we already left you behind once, we can’t have the blow of a second time of abandoning you, it would ruin the whole Potter image.”

“You and your images. Is there anything you actually care about beside them?”

Hope just huffed and didn’t respond, fine with Harrison, he was expecting being abandoned a second time very soon. Probably a few weeks after being sorted into Slytherin.

After getting warned to put their heads down by Hagrid, Hope started talking with her friends and Harrison just sat in silence until they arrived.

~

Walking into the great hall felt like coming home, there was really no other way to describe it.

Because, while Harrison hadn’t really eaten a lot of meals here, he did spend a lot of his free time in this room. He would sit here practicing whatever he was focused on at the moment while all the other students followed their classes.

(Before they went into the great hall some ghost had scared them and Harrison had greeted them with respect, especially when the bloody baron came, he didn’t want to get into any trouble with that ghost.)

They were all following a woman, Minerva McGonagall, Harrison remembered her from his time as a baby, to the front of the great hall.

There on top of a chair was Alistair, Harrison still thought the whole thing was hilarious.

He also studied the teacher table and quickly spotted his parents and then he also saw what looked like an older version of Sirius and Remus.

Deciding to deal with that later he just went back to looking at Alistair.

He heard Hope’s friend whisper something about the ceiling being bewitched to look like the sky and Harrison just smiled, Rowena had explained him the whole process and how many days it took her and Helga to finish it.

Rowena had always been the founder who loved explaining difficult magic to him, while Salazar explained most questions about easier magic. Rowena had a way of explaining where anything just made sense, you just understood, it was great. You never feel stupid when she’s talking with you, her patience and skills at explaining make sure of that.

When Alistair started singing Harrison just stopped thinking and listened, the hat honestly hadn’t gotten any better, well maybe a little bit better. His rhymes were better than before, but the lyrics still needed work.

“Oh, you may not think I’m pretty,
But don’t judge me on what you see,
I’ll eat myself if you can find
A smarter hat than me”

And that last part was so obviously the intelligence and arrogance of Salazar, that he normally hid well, that Harrison couldn’t help but snort.

“You can keep your bowlers black,
Your top hats sleek and tall,
For I’m the Hogwarts sorting hat
And I can cap them all.

There’s nothing hidden in your head
The Sorting Hat can’t see,
So try me on and I will tell you
Where you ought to be.

You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
their daring, nerve and chivalry
Set Gryffindors apart.

You might belong in Hufflepuff,
Where they are just and loyal,
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true
And unafraid of toil.

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,
If you’ve a ready mind,
Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind.

Or perhaps in Slytherin,
You’ll make your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means
To achieve their ends.

So put me on! Don’t be afraid!
And don’t get in a flap!
You’re in safe hands- though I have none…
For I’m a Thinking Cap!”

A big applause went through the room and then McGonagall read the first name on her list, “Abbott, Hannah!”

The shy girl went to the front of the room and sat down on the chair, it took a bit, but then the hat shouted: “HUFFLEPUFF!”

The yellow table cheered and the shy girl smiled while handing the hat back to McGonagall, quickly joining her new house mates.

“Bones, Susan!” McGonagall called next and the girl came to the front, a bit more confident than the girl before her.

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

Another cheer from the yellow table.

“Boot, Terry.”

“RAVENCLAW!” This time the blue table cheered and the boy smiled and joined his house mates.

“Brocklehurst, Mandy!”

“RAVENCLAW!” And once again the blue table cheered, she joined the boy- Terry.

Like this the first years got sorted, Lavender Brown became the first Gryffindor; Millicent Bulstrode became the first Slytherin and then another boy got sorted into Hufflepuff.

“Granger, Hermione!” The girl who had earlier been sitting with his sister came to the front, Harrison honestly expected her to go to Ravenclaw after hearing her talk about books for a full ten minutes, but he also knew to not judge a book by its cover.

So when the sorting hat shouted, “Gryffindor!” Harrison just politely clapped for the girl.

The next few who were sorted where Draco, Theo, Pansy and two boys who Draco seemed to know; all of them went to Slytherin. After them a pair of twins got sorted, who surprisingly got split up. Harrison remembered how the founders always tended to leave Twins together, because magical twins have a different sort of connection then muggle twins.

It seems like the sorting hat didn’t care, though, he just split the twins up. The two girls seem to be fine with it, though, so Harrison wasn’t going to complain about it.

Some other people got sorted- Harrison honestly stopped paying attention, he had been standing here for a while- until it was just him and his sister and some other people.

“Potter, Harrison!” He put his best pureblood mask on and walked towards the chair, looking every bit pureblood that Sal taught him to be.

McGonagall smiled at him before handing him the hat, he nodded politely and then Alistair was on his head.

“Hey, Little One.” The hat greeted and Harrison smiled, he knew it must look dumb for everyone in the hall, smiling because he was talking to the hat, but he had honestly missed this stupid magical hat.

“Hey, your songs improved.” Harrison replied and he heard the Hat chuckle in his mind, “Please, the old goat won’t let me use my best ones, he practically wrote this text.”

“Not having fun then?”

“It was more fun before they used me as sorting hat,” Alistair admitted and Harrison nodded, “makes sense, honestly what were they thinking, using you?”

“I mean to be fair, I can break any occlumency spell, so it might have just been for that. Yours was harder to break than anyone else’s, by the way.”

“I sure fucking hope so, Sal taught me himself. Look, I love this little talk, but the people are starting to look worried, can you sort me?”

Alistair laughed and this time the whole hall heard it and then he shouted, “SLYTHERIN!” When everyone got over their shock of the sorting hat actually laughing out loud, some started clapping, while others went into another shock. A Potter had just been sorted into Slytherin, that was impossible.

Harrison looked at the teachers table and sighed in relieve when he saw both Sirius and Remus clap, they wouldn’t hate him for this. He even met Sirius eyes for a second and for a second it looked like Sirius wanted to wave.

Everything was going to be okay.

He sat down next to Draco, ignoring the glares of his family. He knew they wouldn’t like this and had prepared himself for the glares. Hope went up to the sorting hat and sat down, “Gryffindor!” Alistair shouted.

Hope smirked at him and he just ignored her, instead looking at the last few people getting sorted. Dean Thomas went to Gryffindor. Another girl Lisa Turpin went to Ravenclaw. And then it was Ron Weasleys turn, Harrison was pretty sure he would join his brothers in Gryffindor; and he was right, Ron was easily sorted into Gryffindor.

Blaise was the last one to get sorted and joined them in Slytherin, sitting down next to Pansy.

The headmaster- Dumbledore, who he had been warned for multiple times by all the founders- stood up and started a speech- if you could even call it that.

“Welcome!” He started, his blue eyes twinkling, “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!” He sat down again and all the tables, with the exception of most of the Slytherins started clapping and cheering.

“The old coots crazy.” Harrison muttered, but Draco heard him and snorted, “You got that one right.”

“He’s powerful, though, it might be handy for him to at least like you.” Pansy pointed out and Harrison just shook his head, “He’s the reason I got send away. I’m not even going to try to pretend I like him.”

The Slytherins around him just stared at him and he shrugged, “I remember everything.” Then he grabbed some food, because he had missed Hogwarts food, and started eating.

Harrison studied the teachers table while he was eating; he decided that he should be fine in most classes, none of the teachers seem to have anything against him, yet. He did feel a weird pull, like his magic was trying to blend with the magic of one of the teachers.

And for a second he remembered Merlin’s classes- and it couldn’t be right? The pull felt so similar as the pull he had to the book about wandlore, he had studied this for ages.

But there was no way Voldemort was in the school, Harrison told himself. He should stop being paranoid. It would make his job of talking to Voldemort easier, though.

The teacher next to the man with a tulban was a man with greasy black hair, the man was currently looking at Harrison with a weird look. He looked like he didn’t quite know what to think of Harrison and that made Harrison nervous, after all no one really knew him right? Besides being the abandoned son of the Potters.

“Who’s the man next to tulban-guy?” Harrison asked and Draco looked at him, surprised, “You don’t know Snape?”

“Obviously not, I’ve kind of been stuck in the muggle world for the past 10 years.” Harrison muttered and Blaise was the next one to look at him with a surprised look, “You mean you did the whole wandless magic thing in the compartments without any training?”

Harrison smirked, “Yeah, well kind of, some ‘accidental magic’.” Then he turned back to Draco, “So who’s Snape and why has he been looking at me for the past few minutes?”

“He has some history with both of your parents, James hated him, while he was Lily’s bestfriend. He fell in love with your mom a while ago, but they had a fight in their sixth year and Lily refused to speak to him afterwards, marrying James and getting pregnant with his child. He probably thinks you’re like them, the other Potters.”

“How do you know all this?” Harrison asked and Draco shrugged, “He’s my godfather.”

“And he’s the head of our house,” Pansy added and Draco nodded, “That too.”

“Guess I’ll just have to prove him wrong,” Harrison muttered and then turned back to eating food and listening to the conversations around him.

When everyone finished eating Dumbledore clapped his hands and all the food disappeared, he stood up and said, “Ahem, I must say another few things before sending you all off to bed.” Catching everyone’s attention.

“Firstly, we have a few new teachers this year, Mr and Mrs Potter will be assisting Flitwick and McGonagall, taking over a few of the upper-years classes. Mr Black and Mr. Lupin will be teaching History and Mr Black will also be assisting McGonagall. And lastly, this year’s defence against the dark arts teacher, Mr. Quirrel.

I must also remind you all that the forbidden is exactly that, forbidden. Mr. Filch also asked me to remind everyone that no magic shall be used in the corridors between classes.

And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third floor corridor on the right side is out of bounds to everyone who doesn’t want a very painful death.”

Harrison snorted, of course Dumbledore would bring something dangerous into the school the exact year he and Hope went here. He looked over at his sister and saw her whispering with Ron and Hermione about something, Harrison rolled his eyes, his sister would probably try to go to the third-floor corridor.

Gryffindors, Godric himself had never passed up the chance to go somewhere dangerous, not a single trace of self-preservation. He could only guess that his sister would act like that, the sorting hat had after all placed her in Gryffindor.

“Now,” Dumbledore clapped his hands, “Pick your favourite tune!”

And the whole school started singing, different speeds, tones, and well different everything’s. Some were finished after thirty seconds, while the slowest- the Weasley twins- only finished the song in a good 2 minutes.

“Okay! Bed time! Off you trot!”

The 2^nd-7^th years all stood up and started walking towards their common rooms, the 1^st years however, all gathered in front of some prefects who would show them where the common rooms were. Harrison followed the Slytherin prefect silently, not commenting on how they could’ve taken a quicker route, he just followed the prefect and listened to the other first years talk.

While listening to the first years he got pulled in a conversation with Millicent and two other girls he hadn’t notice before, Tracey Davis and Daphne Greengrass,  they talked about the charms that would’ve been used for the great hall. And while talking to them Harrison realised how accurate they were; Rowena had told him how they did most of the spell work.

And just like that he had befriended all the Slytherin first years, except Crabbe and Goyle when they reached the Slytherin common rooms. The girl who had led them hair walked so she was standing in front of the small group of Slytherins.

“Welcome to the Slytherin house! I’m prefect Gemma Farley and I’m here to tell you a bit about Slytherin. The first thing you should notice is that our common rooms is in the dungeon and while many hate this at first, it has its advantages, one of them being the view into the lake.” She pointed at a window, “The giant squid loves to visit us.”

“Also, now you’re here you should notice, after your sorting you might have noticed some people hate Slytherins. Our bad reputation come from many years of cunning leaders getting good connections to fight for the rights of a dark wizard. We are the house with the most dark wizards, our cores are the darkest, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other dark wizards in this school. However, we as Slytherins have another advantage, our head of the house is a potion master. If you ever get sick from casting any kind of light or dark spell, Snape will have a potion that will at least make it somewhat better, don’t be scared to ask, we all deal with it.

Another thing is that beside our bad reputation a lot of people ignore the other people who have been in Slytherin, like Merlin for example, probably the most well-known wizard in the wizarding world. Don’t ever be ashamed to be a Slytherin.” She looked straight at Harrison while saying the last sentence.

“Use the fear the other houses have for us to your advantage. It’s the best tip I’ve ever gotten to deal with the hate we get. Anything to add, Professor Snape?” Gemma asked looking behind the first years, who all turned around to look at the head of their house.

“Well, you did quite well, Gemma.” Severus said, even though his serious expression didn’t show any pride for his student, “But, I should probably mention that we have three rules in Slytherin. The first one is, everything that happens in the common room stays in the common room, any fights, secrets, literally anything. In the rest of the school we have to be one front, it helps us protect ourselves from the rest of the school. The second rule is, if you want to go against school rules, don’t get caught, I won’t help you if you do. The third one is help other Slytherins, if anything happens, no matter to who. If it’s a Slytherin you help, understood?”

All the first years nodded and then a snort came from behind them, “That was ridiculously similar to the speech I used to give.” Salazar hissed from his portrait making every Slytherin in the common room, even the older years look at the portrait in surprise, it hadn’t spoken in years. “Hi Sal.” Harrison hissed back.

“It’s a good thing they have the whole ‘what happens here, stays here.” Rule otherwise you’d be fucked by now.” Sal said, chuckling and Harrison smirked, “Well, I wasn’t going to hide my parseltongue, I do think however that they are wondering why you are talking to me.” Harrison signed at well, everyone in the room with his hands and Salazar laughed, “I suppose they do question it.” He replied in English.

“Well, I’m too tired to answer so either you do it or you let these snakes here sit without getting answers.”

“The latter sounds pretty good, it’s good for them, not knowing everything for once.” Harrison scoffed at Salazar, “Right, like you’d be able to handle not knowing everything.”

“Shut up, child.”

“You shut up, you grown up child.”

“You’re not acting very Slytherin for someone who just got sorted into Slytherin.”

“Am I supposed to act Slytherin, oh Lord Slytherin?”

“Yes, you are.”

“Well, maybe Godric rubbed off on me.” Harrison said back and Sal shook his head, “God, no I can’t handle one person like him, just imagine two.” He groaned and then Pansy spoke up, breaking the silence of their audience, “I wouldn’t say you are acting very Slytherin right now, either, Mr. Slytherin.”

The effect it had was pretty funny, the whole common room looked at Pansy in fear, while Harrison laughed pointing at Pansy saying, “Exactly!” Salazar only groaned.

Harrison then said, “Don’t you have something better to do than shocking the Slytherins? Like I don’t know brag to Godric, Rowena and Helga that I got sorted into your house instead of theirs.”

“Oh! Right, Rowena seemed to think that you would also have a chance to end up in her house, Helga however said there was no way of you being a Hufflepuff. So yes, it’s time to make Rowena and Godric jealous.”

“Say hi to them for me,” Harrison replied and Salazar nodded and left his portrait. He turned to face the rest of the room and saw Snape rising an eyebrow, “Would you like to explain this, Mr. Potter?”

“Honestly? I have secrets, but if you must know, I found some portraits a while ago.” He lied easily, not wanting the head of Slytherin to get suspicious of him already. “I’m going to bed, goodnight.”

And Gemma seemed to finally snap out of her shock, “Right, eh, boys bed rooms are left when you go up the stairs, girls are right. You will see that you’re in pairs of two or three.” She seemed to freeze for a moment before turning around, “There are enough rooms without this one, but there is one single person room, for the boys. It was made and used by the dark lord, that’s all I know. Be careful, no one had used that room in ages and once you picked a room it’s your room for the next seven years.” Then she walked away and the first year all went up the stairs.

Harrison pretty much got singled out the moment they stepped into the hallway with the bed room for boys. “What the fuck was that?” Blaise hissed, backing Harrison up against a wall. Draco seemed to want to protest against Blaise’s more violent nature, but he also wanted answers so decided against it.

“Like I said, I found their portraits a while ago.” Harrison replied innocently. And Theo was the one to say, “Bullshit. You told us you grew up with muggles, no way you had their portraits.”

“Muggles who were aware of magic.” Harrison said, “They are Lily’s sister and her husband, they’ve known about magic for a while and I could easily have magic objects.”

The Slytherin boys didn’t look convinced so Harrison tried again, he knew this was going to happen, but really he didn’t want them to know the truth so instead he kept going with his story.

“Look, I understand that well, it must be unbelievable. The lost Potter being back for one day, also turning out to be a parselmouth and immediately being the first Potter to be sorted into Slytherin, and not only that, but he also knows the founders. If I were you I wouldn’t believe myself, but the truth is, I have no fucking idea why everything that happened to me happened. I had a shit childhood and the founders basically raised me while in their portraits, taught me everything I had to know before being thrown back into the wizarding world. So yes, I know them through portraits and they mean a lot to me, but I don’t fucking know why this shit happens to me, satisfied?”

The Slytherin boys blinked a few times and then Blaise backed off, “I’m sorry, for eh- reminding you of your childhood.”

Harrison looked at them in surprise, he hadn’t thought that that would convince them. Even though he had let as much emotions as possible float into his words, he didn’t think it would be enough.

“It’s okay, I understand.” Harrison sighed letting himself drop to the ground and then looked up at the concerned faces of all the other Slytherin boys, it was the first time he saw all of them with absolutely no mask. He gave them a weak smile and asked, “So what we doing with the rooms?”

“Well Crabbe and Goyle are going together, right?” Draco asked and Goyle nodded, he then turned to Theo and Blaise, “So it’s us four, we either split up or one of you guys wants to go into our- the Dark Lords room.” Harrison noticed his slip and smirked, before saying, “I’m okay with going alone.”

“You sure? It’s the-“ Theo asked, before Harrison cut him off, “I can deal with whatever the dark lord left behind, you guys go into the three persons bed room.” He left before any of them could object.

When he entered the room he was surprised to see his trunk there, he had totally forgotten about it.

The room seemed pretty normal, it had a bed, small desk and some chairs. Maybe it was a bit big for a one person Hogwarts bedroom, but honestly he expected that from a room made by the dark lord. He scanned the room for cursed with a simple twitch of his wrist. When it came up negative he dropped himself on the bed.

(After carefully placing Ebony on the desk with a warming charm.)

And he fell asleep, being home again felt great.

~

In the other room Draco, Blaise and Theo were discussing Harrison, all of them agreeing that they didn’t believe his explanation at all, but also deciding it’s probably better for them to just pretend they believed it for now.

They would find out the truth eventually.

And they didn’t want to lose the chance of being Potter’s allies or even friends.

Chapter Text

The next morning Harrison sat waiting in the common room- with Ebony around his neck- for the other first years, surprisingly Tracey, Daphne and Millicent were the first to join him, then Theo and Blaise- who told them Draco was currently standing in front of a mirror to make sure his hair looked good and that it could still take a while. – Pansy and Draco joined them almost at the same time and lastly Crabbe and Goyle joined them, even though they looked like they just rolled out of bed.

“It’s 7.30am, we still have enough time, first class is at 9am, right?” Harrison looked around and all the first years shrugged, so instead he looked at Sal’s painting, and Salazar nodded.

Harrison seemed to remember something and hissed, “Oh, by the way, we met when I found your portraits somewhere. That’s the story, you guys practically raised me from your portraits, because my muggle family was horrible.” Ebony raised his head when Harrison started speaking parseltongue, but pretty quickly noticed that it wasn’t him he was talking to so went back to just lounging on Harrisons shoulder.

Salazar smirked, “Smart. I’ll tell the others, have fun with your first day of classes. Don’t get too bored.”

Harrison groaned, “I probably will be, bye, Sal.”

“Bye, Little Snake.” Harrison scowled at him while Tracey laughed and the others just looked slightly amused, if not still a bit freaked out at the fact that Harrison was this close to Salazar Slytherin.

“Okay, let’s go!” Harrison said and the other first years just followed him.

In the great hall their time tables were passed to them and Harrison groaned when he noticed most of his classes were shared with the Gryffindor’s, the ones that weren’t just with the Gryffindor’s were with the whole first year instead.

He looked over at the Gryffindor table and noticed almost none of the younger Gryffindors were here yet. He shrugged it off, the Slytherins were pretty early. And even if Hope and her friends were late, it wasn’t his problem.

“What subject are you most excited for, Harrison?” Blaise asked, making him blink a few times before realising he hadn’t been paying attention to anything.

“Eh, I quite like potions and duelling. Godric always told me he thinks I would make a great dueller and Salazar loved explaining every small part about potions.” He replied, thinking back to the few times he won a duel against Godric.

It had happened a few more times after that first time, but they would still usually end up in a draw.

“What about you guys?” He asked and Blaise said, “I think I would like charms.”

Draco was the next to answer, “Potions, Severus always let me help as a little kid.”

“I think either charms or transfiguration.” Tracey said and Millicent nodded in agreement, but did add, “I would also like DADA.”

Crabbe told them he liked DADA and transfiguration, while Goyle- like Draco- enjoyed potions. Crabbe and Goyle were the only two Slytherins Harrison didn’t quite see as his friends yet, they didn’t seem to speak a lot. Which is probably also the reason he still called them by their last name.

Theo said, “I think I would enjoy herbology and charms.”

“I’m curious about History of Magic, I’ve heard multiple times that it was really boring with the old teacher, but maybe it’s fun with Siri- I mean Mr. Black and Mr. Lupin.” Harrison said and all the Slytherins noticed his mistake, he muttered, “I remember them from- well when I was one year old.” And then stopped talking, instead he started eating.

And not for the first time the first-year Slytherins wondered just how much Harrison knew from the wizarding world now and how much he exactly remembered.

Tracey was the first brave one to speak up, “So, Harrison, what do you think of Dark Wizards?” And while the boys had already somehow gotten an answer in the train, they were all still curious for his answer.

“They’re alright, just like every other wizards.” He answered before muttering, “Damn, they weren’t kidding when they told me that the discrimination against dark wizards sounds the same as homophobia in the muggle world.”

“What about you, what’s your core?” Millicent asked and Harrison looked around, “I assume all of you are at least mostly dark?”

Everyone nodded, Theo spoke up saying, “None of us are 100% dark, though. So we can at least handle some light spells.”

“Yeah, my family is totally light and they told me it sucked to cast dark magic.” Harrison said and Blaise nodded, “It used to be understood, everyone had their own part of magic they excel in. It’s all in your core, some magic is better at charms other are better at transfiguration. Somehow people started thinking that everything ‘dark’ was evil.”

“Yeah, Rowena told me about that- she herself prefers dark magic and hates the fact that it seemed like an evil thing nowadays.”

“Rowena Ravenclaw is a dark witch?” Pansy asked, slightly shocked.

“Yeah, Rowena was a dark wizard and Godric and Helga have a light core, though Godric’s did come pretty close to grey.” Harrison explained, making Draco ask, “What about Salazar?”

“Salazar is a parselmouth, like me and Voldemort.” Harrison said, like that explained everything. It obviously didn’t, though, because Draco said, “Yeah, but what’s his core?”

“Core-rules don’t really apply to parselmouths, we’re the only ones with a perfectly grey core, we don’t even have the smallest preference.” He explained and then remembered, “well, we do have a preference, which is parselmagic which is exactly grey, too.”

“You mean you have a totally grey core?” Draco asked, slightly surprised. Harrison nodded, “Yeah, my family wasn’t thrilled when they found out. Talking about my dear family, they haven’t even tried to talk to me since yesterday, when I got sorted into Slytherin. I honestly expected them to force me to talk with them, maybe try and get a resort or something like that.”

“We’re just ignoring that the dark lord has a grey core?” Blaise asked and Pansy nodded, “Yes, we are and we will forever or he’ll murder us the moment he retu-“ She silenced herself quickly looking at Harrison, who smirked and waved his hands, placing a heavy privacy charm around them, one he made himself. No one broke it before, even after Helga had spent an hour trying, when he asked her to.

“What did you do?” Theo asked obviously noticing Harrisons wandless magic. Harrison smiled, “Privacy charm, it’s just a shield with a muffliato added into it, but without the buzzing.” Harrison scowled, the buzzing was part of the reason he hated the normal muffliato charm.

He looked at Pansy, “Please, continue, when the dark lord returns?”

“He’ll kill us if we talk about him not even being a dark wizard.” She said nervously, obviously not knowing Harrisons opinion about the dark lord yet.

“Right, I have to restore his sanity.” Harrison whispered to himself and then looked at the Slytherins, “What do you know about the return of the dark lord?”

“Close to nothing.” Draco said, “The dark marks got darker again, but besides that nothing happened.”

“Dark marks are interesting pieces of magic,” Harrison mused, “It’s directly connected to Voldemort’s magic, he can basically control his Death Eaters like puppets.” He decided to ignore the flinches at the name Voldemort.

“He’s a smart man, no doubt.” Blaise said and Harrison nodded, “And we can use him in this world.”

“So you’re not on the Dumbledore’s side?” Crabbe asked, speaking up for the first time in a while.

“No, I rather dislike the headmaster, but I don’t know about Voldemort either. I’ll just see where the future leads me.” Harrison said and that was the end of that conversation.

Around 8.40am Harrison and all the Slytherins got up to go to their first class ever, Charms. He found the room quite easily and shrugged it off as an accident that he walked the right way the first time.

When they went inside there were already some Gryffindors, but not his sister or her friends. They came running in a minute before the bell rang. The moment Flitwick noticed- because thank god, Lily wasn’t teaching them- Hope was in his class, he fainted and pretty much wasn’t able to form normal sentences for the rest of class.

After charms they had a free period before lunch, the Slytherins spend this hour exploring the castle, Harrison trailing behind them with an amused look on his face.

Lunch passed pretty quickly, too and Harrison noticed for the first time how the foods on the tables were different based on the house. Slytherin had the more expensive foods, while Gryffindor for example had fast foods and some healthy stuff, Harrison honestly hadn’t gotten a good look at the table on the other side of the hall. The Ravenclaw table seemed to be filled with foods from a lot of cultures, more a mix of everything. Hufflepuff was mostly what a normal family would eat, basic meals but still good food.

After lunch Harrison had transfiguration and he decided- with the other Slytherins- to go to the class early. He walked into the classroom to find it empty, they could select any seat they wanted. Harrison sat in front with Draco, Blaise and Theo behind them.

He noticed a cat on the desk and smirked, he could practically sense the magic around the animal.

The room slowly filled, the Gryffindors and Slytherins splitting up- and because this was a class for all the first-years- the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws decided to sit in between them.

The bell rang and still there was no teacher there, and neither were any of Hope’s friends here- or Hope herself.

They ran in a few minutes late and he heard Hope say, “Phew, luckily neither McGonagall or Black is here yet.”

Harrison decided to save Hope some embarrassment, for no reason beside his own amusement, “I wouldn’t say something like that, we are after all in a transfiguration classroom.” He said nodding at McGonagall who- still in her cat form nodded back.

“Shut up, you slimy snake, why would we listen to you?” Ron asked and Draco was about to say something to defend Harrison when a big black dog came running in, the dog jumped and transformed into a human, “welcome to your first transfiguration class.” Sirius said and then the cat transformed into McGonagall immediately saying, “15 points from Gryffindor for being late, 10 points to Slytherin for noticing my animagus form.”

Harrison smirked at Hope, who scowled back.

“Like Mr. Black- who will be assisting me with this class- said, welcome to transfiguration. Transfiguration is one of the hardest and most complex magic branches, if you mess around in my class you will leave and not come back.” McGonagall said. Then she turned her desk into a pig and back.

After that her and Black started explaining the basics before giving everyone a match and telling them to turn it into a needle. Harrison, who had decided even before going back into the past that he would not down play his skills too much, pretended to not be able to do it before turning it into a needle.

He used his fake wand the whole process and when he got it on his third try, he raised his arm and Sirius came to check on him- answer his questions- and literally gasped when he saw the needle.

“I think this deserves at least 30 points to Slytherin, Minnie, and you know how I hate Slytherins.” He winked to Harrison and then turned to McGonagall who was scowling at him for the nickname, which by the way, made the whole class laugh, before McGonagall also gasped when she saw the needle.

“I quite agree, Mr. Black. I think he beats your skills at transfiguration.” She said and Sirius laughed, “I think he might. 30 points to Slytherin.” Harrison smirked, before- when McGonagall asked him to- explaining his process.

He explained how he had a visual image of a needle in his head before casting the spell and tried to focus his magic on recreating that image.

He shrugged it off like it was the easiest thing he had ever done, which it well- it kind of was, he had done harder things when he was six.

“Sometimes I wonder if you really spend all these years with muggles.” He heard Draco mutter while he tried to turn his match into a needle with the tips Harrison gave, he only managed to get the tip of the match to turn a bit sharper.

“Focus your magic, try to feel it going into the match and then boost it a bit to turn.” Harrison said and Draco gave him a confused look, before closing his eyes obviously trying to focus completely on his magic. The next time he tried he actually almost turned it into a needle, he just needed to shape the other end of the needle a bit and it would look like a perfect needle.

“Good job Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Potter for helping him, another 10 points to Slytherin!” Sirius said, he had obviously been looking at Harrison with suspicion or whatever.

Draco tried once more, now turning his match into a perfect needle, “Thank you.” He whispered and Harrison just nodded. At the end all the Slytherins, Ravenclaws, some Hufflepuffs, and Hermione Granger managed to make the point of the match sharp. No one else, however, managed to change the whole match into a needle.

“Mr. Potter, would you stay behind for a second?” McGonagall said and Harrison nodded, telling his friends he would meet them in the library. He swore he heard Hope mutter, “That’s what you get for cheating.” And then after a second heard Weasley say, “You should tell your mother!”

Harrison rolled his eyes, how would he even cheat at magic?

When everyone left the classroom McGonagall signed for him to sit, which he did.

“I heard Flitwick talk about your skills at magic this morning and didn’t believe him when you did a charm first try,” Harrison barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes again, the spell they had been practicing was ‘Lumos’ The first charm he learned at the young age of four.  No one else managed the spell, even though they had a whole period to practice it.

“Neither of us believed him at first,” Sirius muttered, who was also still in the classroom, being one of his teachers. “I mean, not even your mother- Lily- managed to do that when she was eleven and she was practically a charms prodigy.”

“But then you managed to transfigure a match into a needle, in three tries.” McGonagall said and Sirius added, “It looked like you could’ve done it your first try, but were just holding back.”

Harrison began to slightly panic now, how could he explain this when he grew up with muggles? He didn’t even know if he trusted this older Sirius enough with his secret, just imagine having to tell not only him, but also McGonagall! On his first school day, he really should’ve pretended to not know anything about magic, yet.

“So all we want to say is- while we’re not going to ask for an explanation, because both of us know how good you were at magic as a young child. – if you ever get too bored, please tell us, we might figure out a way to make classes at least somewhat fun for you.”

Harrison sighed in relieve, no need to expose himself. Sirius chuckled, “We should have known you would be a prodigy, you were summoning toys when you were only one year old.”

Harrison looked up, perfect start of this conversation. He laughed, “Yeah, I remember.” He muttered and McGonagall stood up, obviously wanting to give them some privacy- she wasn’t stupid and noticed where this conversation was going. “Maybe it’s better if I leave now, I’ll see you later.” She muttered, leaving the classroom quickly.

“You remember?” Sirius whispered and Harrison nodded, “I remember everything, but I didn’t want to just come up to you and say, ‘oh hi! I remember you being my godfather and then also leaving your bestfriend when he decided to abandon me, thanks for that by the way!’ I didn’t know how to well, tell both you and Remus I guess.”

“I don’t regret anything I did that day.” Sirius said before adding, “We always thought you would remember, you always had so much understanding in your eyes, it was slightly creepy for a child.”

Harrison shrugged, “I don’t know why I was like that- I don’t know why I’m this powerful, I just am and to be totally honest it’s slightly funny.”

“You should be proud of it.” Sirius said and Harrison smiled, “I am, I really am. I just sometimes think that the reason I got send away that night is because I’m powerful.” He sighed and decided to tell Sirius at least the beginning of the truth, “If I hadn’t been, I would’ve died that night and Hope would’ve been raised normally.” He looked away, not knowing how the man would react.

“You remember that night?” Sirius asked and Harrison muttered, “I remember everything. I’m pretty damn sure Dumbledore killed Voldemort, but I blacked out.”

“Can you tell me the whole story- I mean only if you want to, I don’t want to bring up bad memories.” Sirius asked, looking at him with a mix of amazement, curiosity and concern. That’s a weird mix of emotions Harrison hadn’t seen before, but honestly he could’ve expected it in this situation.

“Of course, it started with Voldemort coming into our house. Peter was babysitting us at the time and he just let the man in. He also lead Voldemort straight to our room.” Harrison stopped and looked around, twitching his hand under the table to put his privacy spell up around the room. Then he continued, “Voldemort came up to us and while he was trying to pick who of us was the prophecy child I wrapped my magic around Hope, stupid mistake on my part, Voldemort felt it and realised I was the prophecy kid. He apologized and I giggled at him when he muttered how he must really be insane to apologise to a literal baby.” Harrison laughed and Sirius chuckled, “Voldemort actually apologized?”

Harrison nodded, “After that he hit me with an AK, it rebound onto Hope’s cheek and I passed out hearing Dumbledore and Voldemort talk. Next thing I woke up in well- your arms, hearing my parents are abandoning me.” Harrison tried to keep his face straight, but sometimes it still hurt, the thought of being abandoned so Hope could live her little famous life.

“I’m so sorry for letting that happen.” Sirius said, he sounded sincere and Harrison shook his head, “You tried, even left your bestfriend after him refusing to keep me.”

“I mean of course, every good person would’ve done that. The dark wizards- my friends, actually hate them for it.”

“I noticed when I met Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy.” Harrison said and Sirius smiled, “Yeah, the Malfoys were probably the worst of them all. Lucius actually threatened them- and Dumbledore- a couple of times, giving a magical child away is just not done.”

“To be honest, they didn’t even seem excited to see me when they came and pick me up.” Harrison muttered and Sirius frowned, “I don’t understand how they could do this, I’ve been wondering every day for ten years.”

Harrison shrugged, “I honestly don’t care anymore.” Sirius looked at him and then said, “They talked about you like they didn’t want to know you anymore after your sorting, talking about how you were a disgrace.” Sirius winced, “Sorry, just thought you should know.”

Harrison looked at Sirius and scoffed, “I expected that, to be honest. I’m going to get disowned before the end of the school year, if only because perfect little Hope asks my parents to.”

Sirius blinked and sighed, “I will never understand what happened to the James Potter I knew.” He then looked at the clock and muttered, “Fuck, I got to leave, Minnie will kill me. Come visit me sometimes, if you want to of cour-“

“Of course I will, see you later Sirius.” Harrison laughed and then added, “By the way, maybe calling McGonagall ‘Minerva’ instead of ‘Minnie’ will make her keep you alive for longer.”

Sirius gasped dramatically, “I could do no such thing! Minnie loves my nickname for her, I’ve called her that since I was a teeny tiny thirteen year old boy.” Harrison giggled, “Goodluck with trying not to get killed.”

“Right, see you in history tomorrow kiddo.” Sirius ruffled Harrisons hair, making Harrison scowl, before quite literally running away.

Harrison sighed, feeling happy about his decision to trust Sirius with one of his smaller secrets. He quite missed the man, after all Sirius had been his favourite uncle as a child.

He picked up his bag with his school supplies and went to the library, joining a group of concerned Slytherins.

“Thank Merlin, you’re here. What did they want?” Draco asked and Harrison grimaced at the casual use of Merlin’s name before saying that he didn’t get into any trouble.

“So why did they keep you there for almost a whole hour?” Blaise asked and Harrison chuckled, “McGonagall wanted to tell me how proud she was and that she believed Flitwick now, because it turns out Flitwick told every teacher I’m a magical prodigy.”

“That took an hour?”

“No, then she left me and Sirius alone and I got to catch up with my godfather, who quite literally left behind his best friends for me.” Harrison snorted, “Turns out my parents don’t really like the fact that I’m a Slytherin, I swear I’ll be surprised if I don’t get disowned before the end of this year.”

“You don’t mind getting disowned- having no name?” Theo asked, a weird sort of amazement on his face. Harrison shrugged, “I got some lordships to claim that will give me an even better last name.”

Harrison barely stopped himself from laughing again, just imagining him coming back as Harrison Slytherin- Gryffindor- Ravenclaw- Hufflepuff- Emrys.

The world would probably turn into a chaos.

“Are you going to tell us your lordships?” Draco asked and Harrison shook his head, “You’ll figure it out yourself, I’ll give you a hint for the first one, though. It’s probably claimed by Voldemort right now.”

“You’re a Slytherin.” Blaise stated and Harrison smirked, while the rest looked at Blaise in confusion, “He’s a parselmouth, only the Slytherin house can speak parseltongue.”

“But the Slytherins and Potters haven’t crossed once,” Draco stated and Harrison shrugged, “It’s more of a magical thing, because of that night.”

“He defeated the last living member of the line, so magic officially sees him as heir.” Theo stated and Harrison smiled, “Exactly!”

“That still doesn’t explain how you speak parseltongue.” Blaise said and Harrison shrugged, “I’ve always been able to, don’t know how.” He paused before dramatically saying, “It’s magic.” He waved his hands, making sparkles appear in the air.

The Slytherins looked at him with amusement.

“So how about we finish this Charms essay?” Daphne said, coming up behind the Slytherin boys with Pansy, Millicent and Tracey. Harrison shrugged, “Sure. Charms essay about the Lumos spell and situations you could use it in, shouldn’t be too hard.”

The Slytherin girls joined the table the others had claimed and all of them began working on homework, Harrison being finished, because Rowena made him write this exact essay years ago, just started playing with magic.

He created a little light orb, without any of the other Slytherins- who were still writing- noticing and made it float above their head. After three minutes it exploded into little sparks that surrounded them.

Nobody in the library noticed it because they were sitting in the back of the library, surrounded by bookshelves.

“What-“ Tracey looked around in amazement and Harrison smirked at the table, this spell had been a spell he created out of pure boredom. He perfected it when he was eight years old. He waved his hand making the sparks twirl around and changed the colour into a mix of silver and green.

“How are you-“ Draco started, but suddenly froze. Harrison just laughed and made the sparks freeze by clapping his hands.

“Harry James Potter.” A voice behind him said and Harrison froze, slowly turning around. “Hi, dad.”

James eyes narrowed and he looked around at Harrisons friends, “You’re having dinner with Hope, Lily and me tonight. Be there in 30 minutes, max.”

“You could’ve just invited me, no need to make it an order.” Harrison said and James scoffed, “You, Mr. Potter, are in so much trouble.”

“What have I done?” Harrison asked innocently and he swore that he heard Millicent groan behind him.

“Look, kiddo. I know you never had parents, but that doesn’t mean that you can disrespect me now. You shouldn’t blame me for the fact that your aunt and uncle didn’t raise you right.”

“Like it’s not your fault?” Harrison asked, “Like you weren’t the one to convince Lily that Dumbledore is right? You, dad, are the exact reason why I wasn’t raised well. The fact that you can even look at me and tell yourself it’s not your fault says enough for me.”

“I had to.”

“Keep telling everyone that, maybe one day they will believe it.” Harrison hissed and then turned his back to his father, “I’ll see you tonight, I guess.”

“Yes and you better have a real good explanation for that magical trick you did here.”

Harrison ignored him, instead of responding he took a few deep breaths. When he opened his eyes he gave his friends a small smile, “Sorry for that.”

“Are you okay?” Pansy asked and he could see the genuine concern in her eyes, all of their eyes. Harrison nodded, “I’m okay.”

“I don’t know how you did that,” Theo whispered and Harrison shrugged, “It’s easy to piss people off when just existing already pisses them off.”

“Anyways, what was that spell you used?” Blaise asked, obviously wanting to change the subject. Harrison smirked, “I don’t actually have a clue, I made it a while ago it has no incantation yet. I just like playing with magic.” He paused and then decided to just make his whole childhood sob story even worse, “I got locked away as a kid a lot of times, sometimes under the stairs and sometimes if I was lucky in the smallest bedroom. The only thing I had was magic and since I lived with muggles it was a risk of course, but I was young enough to let it pass as accidental magic. I started playing with magic to pass time, sometimes I was locked in there for days, only getting a bit of bread and water. So I kind of accidentally made that spell.” Harrison explained softly and then shrugged, “It’s not as hard as it looks, though.”

The Slytherins sat in a sort of uncomfortable silence after that, none of them really knowing how to respond. Harrison chuckled, “I’m sorry, I keep making the whole mood so sad. You guys should finish your essay, I won’t bother you with any weird distracting spells anymore.”

“Right, charms essay.” Tracey muttered, he could see none of them would be able to focus anymore though.

He smiled and copied his essay nine times, giving all the Slytherins one copy. “Just change it up a bit, I’m sure Flitwick won’t notice.”

“Thank you.” Millicent said and Harrison shook his head, “It’s no problem, it’s my fault none of you would be able to concentrate anymore. Don’t worry about the muggles, though. I won’t have to go back.”

“How are you sure? What if you do get disown-“ Daphne started only for Draco to cut her off with a hissed, “Daphne!”

“I have Sirius.” Harrison shrugged and then added, “I know he’ll take me in if he had to or even if he didn’t have to. I think he prefers that to me living with the Potters.”

The Slytherins seemed a bit calmer after that and Harrison really noticed for the first time why Sal always told him that Slytherins were the most loyal friends behind closed doors.

“We should probably go to dinner now,” Harrison muttered, “I’ll meet you all afterwards, if they even let me go, that is.”

“Yeah, good luck with your family.” Draco said, motioning for the other Slytherins to follow them, they all picked up the essay Harrison gave them and walked out. Harrison sighed and also picked up his stuff, before walking towards his parents rooms.

He actually had no idea which of the teacher dorms his parents used, until he saw Hope standing in the hallway. She was glaring at the ground, until she heard his footsteps, “Hey, Potter.”

Harrison snorted, “It doesn’t quite have the same effect if that’s also your last name.” And Hope glared at him, “Mom and dad are waiting for us.”

“Well lead the way.”

And Hope did, not saying anything anymore. Harrison was quite happy with this, he managed to perfect his occlumency shields and his mask while walking, not even noticing that they had walked into the room until Lily made him sit down at the big table in the middle of their room.

“We have some things to talk about, so we thought why not have a family dinner.” Lily said sitting down next to James, who had already been sitting at the table when they walked in.

Lily and James’ room was disgustingly Gryffindor, the whole room seemed to be red and gold, till the point where it was just too much. Harrison could only be glad he wasn’t a Gryffindor, he could only imagine how the Gryffindor common room looked.

“I wouldn’t know why we need to talk.” Harrison said, staring at his plate filled with chicken and mashed potatoes and some other things he had seen at the Gryffindor table.

“Is this actually what you guys eat?” Harrison whispered in slight disgust, he was honestly fine with the food, but it seemed so.. well let’s just say he was glad to be a Slytherin.

“Yeah, what does Slytherin have?” Hope said, but Harrison could practically hear the disgust in her voice when she had to ask about Slytherin.

“I don’t know, a shit ton of different kinds of meat, vegetables and sea food.” Harrison answered, remembering that he could basically make sushi with the food at the Slytherin table.

“There’s a difference in food?” Hope asked and Harrison nodded.

“About that-“ Lily said and James continued for her, “We think you should get a resort, Harrison.”

“No, no way.” Harrison replied and James said, “Look for a resort we need you to agree. We can’t force you, but we just think that your housemates could turn out to be a bad influence. Just look at the in the library, you all were casting fun little spells instead of making homework.”

“They were what?” Lily asked before turning to Harrison, “Look I get you want to practice magic after ten years in the muggle word, but you don’t want to already get behind on homework, it’s only your first day.”

“I already did my homework, I was just showing my friends a spell I came up with.” Harrison said and Hope snorted, “Right, I- who had tutors for ten years- can’t create spells yet, but you who just returned from the muggle world already came up with spells.”

Harrison just sighed and started eating, not interested in continuing this conversation at all.

Lily just looked at Harrison sadly, “You don’t have to come up with things like this for us to be proud of you, Harrison.” Harrison snorted, making Lily’s eyes narrow for a second before she added, “But I do think you should try to befriend some Hufflepuffs or Gryffindors.”

“Can’t you guys just be happy? For once just be happy about the fact that I’m still here? Look I know you don’t like that I’m not the perfect son you imagined I would be when I was younger, but in my defence you abandoned me. I was raised in a whole different way than anyone here, don’t expect me to fit in your perfect little family.” Harrison hissed, before standing up, “I’ll join my friends now, the next time you ask me to eat dinner with you guys don’t start trying to convince me to change myself the minute I walk through the door.”

He walked away, towards the great hall. When he joined his friends they asked him what happened and he just smirked, “I think I’m going to get disowned before Christmas.”

And they left it at that, talking about other subjects, like their next few classes instead.

~

The rest of the first week of school Harrison got ignored by the Potters, except for Hope, who instead started bullying- or trying to bully- him every chance she got.

His first history class had been fun, he again sat in the front and Sirius and Remus had thought to test everyone’s knowledge on the founder time of Hogwarts, which was hilarious.

Especially when they started talking about a rumour of the four founders adopting a child for a few years, but then the child suddenly disappeared. Harrison had to stop himself from bursting out laughing and saying, ‘yeah sorry, that was me. Had to go back to the future, you know?’

He did earn Slytherin a lot of points that class, by simply answering their questions. After class he had shrugged it off saying he liked history.

Herbology was another class he had and even though Harrison never enjoyed it like the other subjects, he had to admit there was something interesting about magical plants.

He still preferred learning about spells, like he did in DADA. Professor Quirrel- which turned out to be the name of the professor with the tulban. – had stuttered the whole class, but beside that he obviously knew what he was talking about.

Harrison had thought it was weird that Quirrel had been looking at him the whole class though, until his scar started hurting and Quirrel’s eyes turned red for a second, not long enough for anyone else to notice.

Harrison smirked, he had just figured something out that would take other’s a long time to figure out. If this actually was the Dark Lord possessing someone, he could help him and talk to him.

Harrison left the classroom satisfied.

They also had astronomy class and while Rowena and Salazar had spent a bit of time with him, teaching him the basics, he never really liked the subjects. He had to admit, though, that it was quite nice to just look at the sky for a period while listening to his teacher telling them stories.

The last class was the one Harrison was the most excited for, potions. They had the class two hours on Friday mornings with the Gryffindors.

And Harrison couldn’t wait, he was waiting to be let in. When Snape arrived the Slytherins claimed the right side of the class room, Harrison pairing up with Draco, of course.

The first thing Snape did was calling names, he sneered when he saw Harrisons name, but when he called out Hope’s name next he looked up and said, “Oh yes, Hope Potter, our new celebrity.”

Hope pretty much beamed with the attention, only for Snape to ignore her and move on.

When Snape was done calling names he started an introduction to his subject, “You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making,” he started, his voice not much louder than a whisper, but it still carried through the whole room. “As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses.. I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death- If you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads that I usually teach.” He ended his speech.

Hope started whispering with Ron and Hermione about something, making Snape shout “Potter!” Before looking at Harrison and nodding his head towards Hope, making Harrison smirk.

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

Hope looked at Harrison confused, before realising Snape was talking to her. She stammered out, “I-I don’t know, sir.”

Snape tsked, “Clearly fame isn’t everything, Miss Potter. Try again, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”

Hope’s face flushed and she looked down at her table, “I don’t know, sir.”

“I thought you could open a book before coming to class. One last question: What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

Once again Hope looked embarrassed while saying, “I don’t know.”

Snape smirked before looking at Harrison and Harrison realised what’s about to happen, he nodded.

Snape said, “Let’s see if your brother knows the answers.”

“Well professor, if you add powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood you would get a potion currently known as the draught of living death, even if a few centuries ago it was just known as ‘powerful sleeping potion.’ To your second question, bezoar is found in the stomach of a goat, and monkshood and wolfsbane are the same plant, also known as aconite.” Harrison said and Snape nodded approvingly.

“Ten points to Slytherin, why isn’t everyone writing this down?” Snape asked and everyone scrambled together some paper to make notes. When Snape gave everyone enough time to write it down he said, “So for your first class, we’ll brew a Boil-Cure potion. He flicked his wand, making the instructions appear on the big board in front of the class.

“You grab the ingredients?” Harrison asked Draco, who nodded and followed some other students to get ingredients. Harrison read over the instructions and rolled his eyes, this were the long instructions. They were easier, but took like twice as long.

He twitched his wrist under table to set up the cauldron and waited for Draco to return. When Draco returned with the ingredients they immediately started crushing the snake fangs before adding them to the potion, Harrison heated it up till 250 degrees and let it sit for 10 seconds before quickly cooling it down.

“It’s so much easier to do this with someone who doesn't need a wand.” Draco said and Harrison laughed.

Waving his hand he muttered, “If you counter clockwise stir twice while we add the horned slugs we can basically skip the waiting. Well- we’ll only have to wait for 10 minutes instead of 33.”

Draco looked at him and nodded, grabbing the horned slugs while Harrison stirred, Draco did however mutter, “This better doesn’t fuck it up or I’m never working with you anymore.” Harrison smirked in reply.

Afterwards they waited 10 minutes before taking the cauldron off the fire, to add the porcupine quills. Harrison let Draco stir 5 times and then waved his hand.

They completed the potion in record time. “We’re done, Professor.” Harrison said and he heard Hermione say, “That’s not possible! We have to wait for 30 minutes!” But Snape ignored her to check their potion, “This is a perfect Boil-cure potion, pray tell me, Potter, how you knew of this faster way. I know Draco didn’t.” Snape said and Harrison shrugged, “Sal explained me some things in his portrait.”

Harrison knew Snape didn’t trust him one bit, but that made this whole thing so much better.

“Well you better go, before you get hurt by any Gryffindors messing up their potion.” Snape said, clearly dismissing him and Draco. They left the classroom and found out an hour later that Snape had been right, Neville had ended up in the hospital wing, his whole body covered in bruises.

And just like that their first week of classes ended and Harrison only had one goal for this weekend: find a portrait with all the founders.

Oh, and he wanted to talk to Remus. He hadn’t had the chance to talk to the man yet and while he assumed Sirius had told him most of it, he could never be sure, so he had to find the right time.

But first he had to finish his assignments.

Chapter Text

“You heard what Hagrid said, Hermione! There has to be something!” Hope’s voice came from the back of the library. “Yeah and this Flamel guy obviously has something to do with it.” Ron said and Hermione’s less certain voice said, “Just because something was stolen and Hagrid happened to mention it and the Flamel guy doesn’t mean that this school has something to do with it.”

“Oh and the fact that Hagrid said, ‘hey that’s the vault Dumbledore made me go to to get something.’ Wasn’t a big hint that it did have to do something with our school?” Hope hissed and Hermione just shrugged, “I don’t know-“

“Look something is going on in this school and I want to solve it, so has any of you seen the name Flamel before?” Hope asked and neither Ron or Hermione responded.

At least Harrison couldn’t hear their responses. He had heard about Flamel before and remembered where; He had been reading about the philosophers stone. If the stone was in the school then that would be the reason Voldemort was here.

But could he trust something he overheard in a library, after one week of school?

No, he would wait, figure it out later. Harrison decided, maybe he would even go up to the third-floor corridor, he was still partly raised by Godric and would never let that side of him go.

Now, though, he wanted to make his assignments for the upcoming week and decided to put up a privacy spell. He had to concentrate.

He started writing his essay for Defence, it was mostly about vampires, which admittedly was kind of interesting. The homework had just been to research these creatures and write a paper about them, Harrison was okay with that, he could finish it quickly.

Afterwards he started working on assignments for Transfiguration and History, because surprisingly they didn’t have any other homework.

When he finished all his assignments he used this alone-time to search for a portrait with all the founders, the Slytherins basically hadn’t left him since he was sorted into Slytherin so he hadn’t had the chance yet.

He wandered through the halls of the castle he had lived in for ten years and everything seemed to be like then again; he felt like he could run up to the now headmasters office and just find the old meeting room there.

This was something he thought about a lot the past week; he wondered if maybe his life could have been easier if he refused to go back to the present, stay with the founders and live a long happy life with them.

But he had to help this wizarding world, deep down he knew that, because no one else would.

No one else but the dark lord, who was currently still insane, that was.

In a hallway close to the astronomy tower he found it; a big portrait of all the founders, it had been easier to find it than he thought it would be.

Well maybe he had just hoped for a challenge for the first time since returning to this time, after all there were thousands of portraits of the Hogwarts founders.

He sat down in front of the portrait, cast a privacy charm- just to be sure- and awkwardly said, “Hi,” To the founders, who obviously hadn’t been paying attention to the people walking through this corridor.

“Harrison!” Helga said and Rowena literally cheered when she saw him, Godric offered him a smile and Sal just winked.

“Are all the portraits connected into having like one mind?” Harrison asked, he couldn’t help it, Salazar had greeted him so casually. “Yes, actually. It’s weird.” Rowena said and Godric snorted, “She just finds it weird because this is one of the kind of magics she can’t understand.”

Harrison laughed, “I missed you guys.”

“How long has it been, Harry?” Helga asked, “You still look the same.”

“Only one month and a week, it’s more boring than I thought it would be. I miss being able to practice magic with you guys, duel Godric, just anything that gives me a challenge.”

Rowena giggled, “You poor child!”

“I know right? On the bright side, I did find Voldemort, he’s teaching us DADA right now, well he’s possessing the man who teaches us.” Harrison said and Salazar raised his eyebrow, “You didn’t tell me that yet, can’t say I’m surprised you figured out so quickly, though.”

“Dumbledore actually allowed him into the wards? We always had protection against people who had been possessed.” Godric looked surprised and Harrison shook his head, “Of fucking course he knew. He literally got the philosophers stone into the school, he’s making it more dangerous for everyone here.”

The founders, who had been told what the philosophers stone was looked like they could kill someone.

Rowena was the first to speak up however, “Language, Harrison.”

“Oh! Now you’re acting like parents, I remember. I had to tell you guys about how I already almost got disowned, I won’t be a Potter by the end of the year.” Harrison said and Salazar shook his head, “I still can’t believe the Potters.”

“We heard them talk about you the other day, there’s a portrait close to an empty classroom Lily has been using for tutoring. They were talking about you like you were some upcoming dark lord.” Helga said and Harrison snorted, “They might be right about that one, if the light keeps acting like this.”

“I just don’t understand how they can talk about their own child like that!” Godric said and Rowena nodded in agreement.

“Talking about children, do I have any heirs of you to look out for? Beside the dark lord.” Harrison asked, just to change the subject, and so the founders started talking about Helena Ravenclaw and other children that still wandered the castle as ghosts.

Harrison just sat and listened happily.

~

When Harrison finally returned to the common room that afternoon, he was greeted by a very excited Draco, “Flying classes, Harry!”

Harrison laughed, shoving Malfoy away softly, “I heard you the first time.”

He took the paper from Malfoy’s hand however, and groaned, “With the Gryffindors, you’re kidding?”

“For real?” Draco asked and Harrison shot him an amused look, “You forgot to look with who we had the class in all your excitement.”

Draco looked at the floor in embarrassment.

“We’ll live, it’s going to be fun.” Theo said, coming up behind them and Blaise- next to Theo- nodded in agreement.

“I just hope that My sister and her friends won’t embarrass me for my flying,” Harrison said and then added, “I’ve never been on a broomstick before, well besides the baby broomstick Siri bought me when I was a child.”

Absolute lie, Harrison was a natural at flying and knew it, Godric had told him he had never seen someone fly like Harrison.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine, knowing you you’ll have some sort of secret talent for flying. Is there anything you can’t do?” Blaise asked, with the most serious look on his face. Harrison laughed, “Cleaning-charms.”

“What- you can’t do-“ Theo started laughing, Draco was obviously trying to not laugh.

“What? They don’t make sense like, you just imagine the room being clean and cast the spell? But what if I imagine something on the wrong place and won’t be able to find it afterwards? Cleaning-charms are scary.”

“I can’t believe magical-prodigy Harrison James Potter can’t cast cleaning-charms, we have to test that.” Blaise said, also laughing now.

Harrison scowled, “Do you have to use my full name? And for the record, I’ll show you how bad I am at them once you can cast them successfully.” That silenced them, none of them had any experience with cleaning charms.

“That’s what I thought.” Harrison muttered, before saying, “I also can’t dance.”

That made the Slytherins laugh again, this time Harrison allowed them to make jokes about it, knowing all of them had gotten dancing classes as kids.

~

Turns out, Harrison could fly- which he had known, of course, but the rest of the Slytherins hadn’t.- Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom however weren’t doing that well, Weasley made the broom hit his head while trying to mount it.

Neville was a whole different kind of bad, his magic had lashed out and made the broom shoot up into the air, Neville fell off his Broom and had to be taken to the hospital wing immediately.

Hooch had trusted them to act grown up for a few minutes while she brought Neville to the hospital wing, that hadn’t ended well.

Draco had picked up Neville’s Remembrall, taunting Hope with it, which Harrison found kind of funny. That was, until he decided to shoot up into the air and threaten to throw it.

“Draco! Don’t you fucking throw away Longbottom’s possession to annoy my sister.” Harrison shouted, but Draco wasn’t listening to him. Instead he was looking at Hope, who looked like she could kill someone.

Draco threw the Remembrall away when he didn’t get the reaction he wanted and Harrison could hear Blaise groan behind him.

He did the only thing he could do at this point, fly after the ball hoping he could save it with a dive.

It honestly felt good to really fly again, not the boring up and down stuff they had to do for their class. He took a ridiculously dangerous dive to get the Remembrall and grinned, it felt like playing quidditch with the Hogwarts kids again.

He closed his hands around the ball and made his broom go upwards again, when he heard a voice behind him.

“Mr. Potter! What do you think you’re doing?” He heard Snape shout and realised that he probably flew past some of the classroom and office windows, groaning he flew back and threw the ball to his sister, “You give that back to Longbottom,” He muttered before turning to Snape.

“Sorry, sir. I wanted to save a student’s possession, because Draco here can’t seem to realise that sometimes it’s not a whole house, but rather a few people, who deserve to get this kind of treatment.” Harrison said, smirking slightly, Snape wasn’t actually mad at him and he knew that Draco would get away with this easily, even if he would hate Harrison for the next day.

He could use the alone time.

“That was some impressive flying,” Snape said, ignoring the fact that Harrison obviously just told him that Draco was bullying Longbottom.

“Thank you, sir.” Harrison said and Snape smirked- and oh no, that couldn’t mean anything good.

“If you would come with me Mr. Potter.” Snape said and Harrison nodded, following Snape after telling the Slytherins to meet him in the library later. Draco stubbornly didn’t answer and Blaise rolled his eyes and told him that they would be there, even if they had to drag Draco there.

Snape lead him to the charms classroom, where the 5^th year Gryffindors and Slytherins had a class right now. Snape knocked on the door before opening it, “Excuse me for the rude interruption, Filius, but if I could borrow Mr. Flint for a moment?” He asked and Flint looked at the head of his house in surprise, but when Flitwick gave permission he left the classroom quickly.

“Eh-“

“Mr. Flint, I have found the new Slytherin seeker for you.” Snape said and Flint raised an eyebrow, “What about Terence? He’s been seeker for the past few years.”

“Mr. Higgs would rather be chaser, at least from what I’ve heard. Or would I be wrong if I said that you convinced him to be seeker instead, because you were desperate?”

Flint smirked, “Yeah, I might’ve done that. So why the first-year prodigy?” He said looking at Harrison and now it was Snape’s turn to smirk, “I believe this first-year here could give Charlie Weasley a run for his money.”

“Is that so?” For the first time Flint looked intrigued, “Care to prove that, Potter?”

“Sure, Captain.” Harrison responded, not feeling intimidated at all, it was kind of hard to intimidate him, he had lived with Salazar Slytherin for ten years.

“Well then, I suspect you to be on the quidditch field this evening.” Flint said and Harrison nodded, “I’ll be there.”

Snape said, “Now, I have to go convince the headmaster, Mr. Flint, you should get back to class. Mr. Potter, I believe you have a pissed Malfoy to get to.”

Harrison snorted, “Yeah, see you tonight, Flint.” And he left to find the other Slytherins.

Walking towards the library Harrison could only prepare himself for his year-mates reactions.

“Harrison!” He heard someone shout and he realised he totally walked past the table the Slytherins were sitting at, “Sorry, I was distracted.”

“What did Professor Snape want?” Blaise asked and Harrison shrugged, “He took me to Marcus Flint to convince him to let me try out for seeker.”

“Isn’t Terence Higgs currently seeker?” Theo pointed out and Harrison nodded, “Turned out he wanted to be chaser, but Flint convinced him to be seeker, in Snape’s words ‘Or would I be wrong if I said that you convinced him to be seeker instead, because you were desperate?’” Harrison said, trying to talk like Snape, making Blaise and Theo laugh while Draco was still sitting silently glaring at the table.

“Draco, we both know you won’t get into any trouble, I wouldn’t have told Snape anything otherwise.”

“You still took Gryffindors side in the Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry.” Draco said and Harrison groaned, “Stop being a child, Draco, Neville is quite literally an outsider. None of the Gryffindors even cared when you stole his possession. My sister might look like she cared, but we both know it’s only cause you were taunting her.”

“Now if you had stolen something from my sister I might’ve let you, just to spite her and my parents, but you had to steal something from the one boy who doesn’t even fit in his own house, who has no one.” Harrison said and then turned away, “I’m going to find the others.” ‘The other’s’ obviously meaning Daphne, Tracey, Millicent and Pansy, or even Crabbe and Goyle, who Harrison would still like to get to know.

Crabbe and Goyle made themselves look stupid, but Harrison had seen their work and they have potential.

He heard Blaise mutter angrily, “Merlin, Draco can you for once just not get pissed at the smallest things? Potter is a valuable ally and a great friend, so stop fucking pouting and apologize.”

Harrison smiled, he knew the Slytherins probably befriended him because he was a valuable ally, but hearing he was a good friend felt good, honestly.

When Harrison walked into the great hall- for dinner- a few hours later, it was spread around the school that he would be the new Slytherin seeker, and while he did shoot Higgs a look to see if he was really okay with it- which Higgs answered with two thumbs up- he didn’t say anything about it.

He just sat down like normally and was surprised to see Blaise talking to Draco looking furious.

“Eh- hello?” Harrison said while sitting down and Blaise looked up, “Hey.”

“Any reason for this?” Harrison said pointing at a very embarrassed Draco and Blaise scoffed, “Well in all his anger, this idiot decided to challenge Hope and her friends for a midnight duel in the trophy room. Your sister, being the Gryffindor she is, accepted.”

Draco looked like he wanted to say something, but Harrison cut him off, “You’re not going.” It was obviously an order.

“What?” Draco asked, surprised.

“You’re not going, they’re Gryffindors, they’ll go and we’ll just snitch on them. It will make them lose a lot of points without us doing something.”

Draco looked like he wanted to protest, but Blaise quickly said, “I agree with Harrison here, Draco, going will do nothing good for us.”

“Okay fine, but I’m not snitching.” Draco said and Harrison smirked, “That’s okay, I’ve been meaning to speak with Professor Lupin anyways.”

He saw Flint walking towards them and laughed when both Blaise and Draco jumped when he started talking, “Aye, Potter, quidditch pitch at 8pm. Dumbledore accepted Snape’s request, if Hope could also join the Gryffindor team, after that we made sure that the quidditch pitch was free. Turns out there are Gryffindor try-outs till 7.30pm.”

Harrison cast a quick tempus and nodded, “So I have 90 minutes to finish eating and talk to Sirius and Remus, easy. I’ll meet you there.”

Flint nodded and walked away, probably to join the other 5^th years.

Harrison quickly finished eating, while still trying to eat in a way that at least looked somewhat pureblood. Really, learning how to eat properly was one of his least favourite parts of the pureblood classes the founders gave him.

After eating he tried to meet Sirius eyes, who was talking with Remus and nodded his head towards the doors of the great hall. Sirius looked at him with confusion, but nodded, before turning to Remus.

“Okay, I’m going to talk to Siri and Remus now, I’ll see you guys later.”

He met up with Remus and Sirius in front of the great hall, together they walked to the history classroom. When everyone was finally sitting, Harrison laughed, “Sorry I’m going to need you guys as Professors now. Hope will sneak into the trophy this night, Draco challenged her for a midnight duel, but none of us will show.”

“Our cub is a Slytherin, Pads.” Remus said and Sirius nodded, “That he is.”

“We will make sure to tell Filch.” Remus said and Sirius nodded in agreement, Harrison thanked them and then asked, “So how have you guys been?”

 He then had to listen to Sirius complain about grading homework and how Minerva made him oversee a lot of detentions for payback of his own schooltime. Meanwhile, Remus talked about all of this in a more positive way, having never expected to actually get a good job as a werewolf.

“What about you?” Remus asked, he and Harrison hadn’t really talked yet, so it felt good to talk to him again, even if Sirius told them about his whole conversation with Harrison last week.

“Well, I got accepted into quidditch, but only if perfect Hope can play too.” Harrison scowled and then his expression brightened again, “I can’t wait to beat her.”

Sirius laughed and said, “We have to get our pup a broom, Moony!”

“Just wait until after my try-out at least, please.” Harrison said, “Who knows, maybe Flint would rather keep Higgs after seeing me play. Or maybe he would just keep Higgs, because Higgs never wanted the position anyways, and that’s funny to him.”

Sirius snorted, “Right, pup. You managed to impress Snape with your flying, that’s hard enough to do, I think you’ll be fine.”

Harrison just smirked in reply.

“Oh! By the way, I wanted to ask if you wanted to spend the Christmas holiday with us. I know it’s  a while away, but just thought the earlier the invitation the better-“ Sirius said, Harrison’s laughing cut him off, “I would love to. Anything to not spend the holidays with the Potter family.”

“That bad?” Remus asked, looking worried. Harrison shrugged, “It’s kind of annoying how they get suspicious at me for breathing. Also the power Hope has over our parents is annoying.”

“I can imagine.” Sirius grimaced, he obviously noticed the same thing before.

Harrison cast a quick tempus and swore, it seemed that Sirius and Remus talking about their time at school had been longer than expected, “I have to go, quidditch try-outs.”

Remus looked disappointed for a second before saying, “Visit us more often, you don’t need a reason like you had today.”

“Will do,” Harrison replied and Sirius ruffled his hair, “Goodluck at the try-outs, pup.”

“Thank you.”

When Harrison had quickly changed into more quidditch-appropriate clothing he literally ran towards the quidditch pitch, he didn’t want to be late. When he arrived he saw Flint standing in the middle of the pitch, and surprisingly Higgs was sitting in the stands, watching his try-out. He smirked when he noticed Harrison noticed him.

“Just on time, Potter.” Flint said and then motioned him to come over, he opened the box in front of him and barely stopped the bludgers from flying straight into Harrison. Smirking he looked at Harrison, “I trust you know what these are?”

Harrison nodded and Flint grabbed the snitch, “We’ll only need this one today of course,” He then lead Harrison to a broom, “Higgs lend this to you for today, we don’t want you to have an accident ‘cause the School doesn’t know how to take care of their brooms.”

Harrison nodded and mounted the broom when Flint told him to, “Just catch the snitch as fast as possible, me and Terence will decide if you’re actually good enough.” He said and while many would be scared by his slightly threatening voice, Harrison just smirked, “Alright, Captain.”

Harrison blamed Godric for not being scared. Really that man made his sense of self-preservation lower than it should be. Sal had done everything he could to bring it up again, though.

He rose up until the air and Flint let go of the little golden snitch, and Harrison silently thanked Rowena for fixing his eyesight at such a young age, otherwise this would’ve been impossible.

He took off after the snitch, following it easily even with all the sharp turns he had to make. In the end he caught it in the middle of a pretty dangerous dive, he pulled his broomstick up right before hitting the ground.

His time was 1 minute and 24 seconds, when he heard this he scowled, he could’ve done better. Had done better in the past.

Flint however looked like he had just won the quidditch world cup, he looked at Higgs and saw a look of amazement on his face, smirking Harrison stepped off his broom, “I trust that I’ve proven my skills to you?”

“Welcome to the team, Potter, Terence you get chaser position!” Flint said and Harrison laughed when Higgs started cheering, “Thanks for freeing me, Potter.”

Harrison just gave him a mock-bow and Higgs chuckled, “I like you, Potter!” Flint nodded in agreement, “You’ll fit into the team just fine. There’s a team training in two days, 7.30pm, be there.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then, Captain.” Harrison said, giving Higgs his broom and walking away.

“When the lost Potter got sorted into Slytherin, I never expected this.” Higgs muttered to Flint and Flint nodded in agreement, “People say he grew up with muggles, I don’t believe it.”

“There’s no way, with his skill. He could probably graduate Hogwarts already if he wanted to.” Higgs said and Flint snorted, “That might be exaggerating.”

“I wouldn’t be so quick to say that, I saw a little magic trick of him in the library when he was studying with his friends. Some of them looked suspicious, but he gave them a sob story of his bad childhood and suddenly all of them believed him.”

“Yeah, he sure as hell has a way of charming people,” Flint said, “You should’ve been there when Snape pulled me out of charms class, he made the head of Slytherin tolerate him. Which wouldn’t be that hard, but he’s a Potter and we both know the history.”

“It’ll be interesting to have him in the team, that’s for sure.”

~

Harrison was walking towards the dungeons, the Slytherin common rooms, when he suddenly got pulled into a classroom.

He was ready to defend himself when he saw Fred and George Weasley. “Hey, snake.” George said and Harrison snorted, “Hey, George.”

“He’s not George, I am!” Fred said, but that just made Harrison snort again, “Right.” Harrison hadn’t talked to the twins since Hope’s birthday party, but he still believed he could trust the two Weasley brothers.

“Well, my brother I believe-“

“- Yes, I must say I agree.” George answered, not letting Fred end his sentence, Harrison just laughed and said, “So what did you guys want?”

“Well, Harrikins-“ George started this time, Harrison groaned at the nickname.

“- We heard this little rumour that this first-year-“

“- Would be the new Slytherin seeker.”

Harrison raised an eyebrow, “Yes, you might be right.”

“So you see we were over joyed-“

“- Ecstatic even, for you.” Fred said and then George scowled, “But then our little brothers friend-“

“-Perfect little Hope-“

“- Had to be the new Gryffindor seeker.”

Harrison shrugged, “I can’t do anything against that, sorry.”

“Okay no, but like seriously.” Fred said, the lack of twin-speak told Harrison that they were going to either tell him something serious or offer him something.

“We want her off, all we want to ask you is just give her bad time. We are beaters so in return we will try not to hit you.” George offered and Harrison smirked, “You would let Gryffindor lose, just to spite my sister?”

“Well, we were almost sorted into Slytherin, but didn’t want to get disowned. However pretty much everyone heard how you don’t give a shit about getting disowned and you kind of inspired us, but we can’t really get resorted so instead we want to make the Gryffindors life horrible.”

“It’s not like they’ve always been nice to us and Lee. Turns out that the whole loyalty in house thing counts for every house, but Gryffindor.”

Harrison looked shocked before he mumbled, “Godric would be so disappointed,” The twins actually nodded in agreement and it made Harrison wondered if they had talked to the founder in a portrait.

“Well, I will accept your offer, since I intended to make her have a bad time anyways and I would never refuse an offer of not getting hit in the skull with a bludger.” Harrison wrinkled his nose, he had been hit in the skull by a bludger when he was eight, it hadn’t been a fun week. “And I’ll look into resorting for you guys, a way without needing a signature from your parents. I think the founders told me something about that.”

“Really?” George asked and Harrison nodded, “Of course.”

“Thank you.” Fred said and Harrison shrugged, “Anything to help a fellow snake, am I right?”

Fred and George smirked and nodded, “We’ll see you later, little brother.” And then they disappeared into nothing.

Harrison for a second thought about the fact that he might be going crazy and this conversation never happened, but then he remembered that the twins were known as the pranksters of the school. If anyone could just disappear into nothing, to scare people, it would be them.

Being called little brother by someone he only talked to twice felt weird, but honestly he couldn’t get himself to mind. The twins did look like great older brothers and if Ron couldn’t appreciate that, he would.

After all, the twins might be handy allies in the future.

~

When Harrison sat at breakfast eating while quietly talking to Blaise, because Draco still was kind of pissed. Harrison had expected a lot of things, for example the Gryffindors losing a lot of points- they had lost 300 points last night!- but one of the things he hadn’t expected was being told to come up to the headmaster’s office after breakfast.

“Why would the headmaster need you?” Blaise whispered and Harrison shrugged, “I don’t know, don’t worry, though. My occlumency shields are really strong.”

Harrison heard Blaise sigh in relief and wondered when the boy- who had quite literally slammed him against a wall to question him the first night- had become so worried about him, or when he became one of Harrisons best friends.

Harrison didn’t mind, though, Draco was a great friend, but he could explode any moment. You had to kind of tiptoe around some subjects to not lose the friendship with one conversation, Blaise- like all the other first year Slytherins- was a lot more open minded.

The other Slytherins seemed to accept that the four of them- so with Theo- kind of formed their own little group, but that didn’t mean that Harrison didn’t still enjoy talking to Pansy, Millicent and Tracey, or even Vincent and Gregory- who he talked with once and seemed to be genuinely more nice than they pretended to be.

“It’s probably because last night,” Theo muttered, he had joined somewhere in the conversation and was half glaring at Draco now, “You’re lucky Harrison stopped you or we could’ve lost a ton of points, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Draco said and Blaise and Theo seemed surprised, “A Malfoy apologizing, must be a first.” Blaise said and Theo laughed.

“Okay guys, that’s enough.” Harrison said, he really didn’t want to annoy Draco too much. “You know I already forgave you yesterday, Draco, so please stop whining and start acting like the Draco we know again.”

Draco smirked, “That I can do,” But Harrison could still see the guilt and anger in his eyes, the Malfoy mask really wasn’t as good as they took credit for. “Good, now are there any rules about going to the headmaster’s office, like should I ask a professor to come with me?”

“Officially the head of the house must always be there, however Dumbledore tends to ignore this rule.” Theo answered and Harrison nodded, “Okay, so I’m going to Snape now, ask him to come with me and then go to Dumbledore.” He said, pushing his now empty plate away from him.

“Tell us about it later!” Blaise said and Harrison nodded, “Will do.”

Snape looked up in surprise when Harrison was suddenly standing in front of him, “Mr. Potter?”

“Hi, ehm, sorry. Correct me if I’m wrong, but head of the houses should always be there when the headmaster invites a student to discuss something.” Harrison said and Snape nodded, “That is correct, I assume Headmaster Dumbledore requires your presence for something.”

“Yes and if I’m being honest, I don’t know what I did.” Harrison said, his pureblood mask carefully in place, he knew that all the professors were watching him right now.

“Okay, I will join you to this meeting with Dumbledore.” Snape said, while getting up and Harrison sighed, “Thank you, sir.”

“It is my duty as your head of house, Mr. Potter.” Snape said and Harrison shrugged, while they started walking. “I know, but somehow I feel like this conversation would’ve been different as a Gryffindor with McGonagall.”

“You might be right about that, Minerva is a good teacher, but Albus got her wrapped around his finger.” Snape said and Harrison nodded, “I believe that, sir.”

“So did he mention his password to you?” Snape asked and Harrison nodded, turning to the gargoyle he said, “Sherbet lemon.”

The gargoyle slowly turned, giving Snape and Harrison access to the Headmasters office. Harrison could only look around in amazement, the office was, of course the old meeting room, but it had been totally changed. It had a simple desk with a phoenix next to it, making Harrison wondered if Dumbledore forced the poor animal to bond to him. The room had a lot of small magical artifacts and trackers in it, the whole wall was covered with portraits of past- headmasters and headmistress’. Harrison was pleased to see the founders, too. He nodded at them and then turned to Dumbledore who was looking at him with an amused expression.

“Sorry, sir, I was just amazed by your office.” Harrison muttered and Dumbledore smiled, “It’s quite alright, my boy.” Harrison was looking everywhere, but Dumbledores eyes, the small moment he had actually looked into the man’s eyes he had felt a little push against his mind.

He knew his shields should be able to stop Dumbledore, but Harrison wanted to be sure.

“I also have to apologise, for I had not thought you would finish breakfast this quickly. We have to wait till your parents and Hope join us.”

“My parents, sir?” Harrison asked, an confused expression on his face. Snape sneered at Dumbledore, “Can you at least explain why you called Mr. Potter here.”

“I don’t think it’s your business, Severus.”

“As the head of Mr. Potter’s house, it indeed is my business.” Snape sneered and then a voice behind them spoke up, “As Harrisons father, I don’t think it’s your business, but fine you can stay.” James said.

“So pray tell, headmaster, why am I here?” Harrison asked, now that his family was here. Dumbledore sighed, “Hope here told us you challenged her for a duel yesterday and then didn’t even show up.”

“A duel, sir?” Harrison asked innocently and James growled, “You’re not convincing anyone, Harrison James Potter.” Harrison faked wincing, “Ohh the whole name usage, this must be serious.”

“So you didn’t invite Hope to a duel? Mrs. Potter can you tell me what you told me yesterday?”

“Well, I walked past my dear brother,” She rolled her eyes, “When he left the library yesterday and then Malfoy was suddenly in my face, challenging me for a duel.”

“So you had nothing to do with this, Mr. Potter?” Lily asked and she looked angry, Harrison just rolled his eyes, “I don’t control my house mates. I left the library because Malfoy was pissed at me and I was done with his bullshit.”

“Language,” Lily hissed and Harrison scowled, “So no, I had nothing to do with the duel, I only told Draco to stop being childish when he told me.”

“So you are the reason Draco didn’t show up?” James asked and Harrison nodded, “I wasn’t going to just let him go on his own and I wasn’t going to sneak out with him.”

“So it is your fault, Mr. Potter.” Dumbledore said and Snape raised an eyebrow, “You’re blaming my student for not leaving after curfew? And not Hope, because she did leave after curfew? This is a new low, Dumbledore.”

“Stay out of this, Snivellus.” James said and Severus scowled, “This is just childish, I’m leaving with my student.” He grabbed Harrisons arm and pulled him out of the office muttering about the stupid headmaster.

When they were far enough away from the office for none of them to hear them, Harrison snorted, “I don’t understand how they come up with things like this.”

“Dumbledore always acted stupid, but I’ve never seen him do something like this before.” Snape said and Harrison shrugged, “Hope has that influence on people, making them like her and then making them protective of her to the point where they are wrapped around her little gremlin fingers.”

Snape snorted, “You’re one to talk, I believe you could have half of the school would bow down to you if you tried.” Harrison smirked, “Want me to test it?”

Snape looked at the boy unimpressed, “I would tell you to test it, but I fear Dumbledore would believe you’re some upcoming Dark Lord.”

Harrison inclined his head, “Yeah, I believe that. Now I think I should search for the other Slytherins,” And then muttered, “Before Blaise kills himself with worry, really that boy is too worried for me.”

Snape shook his head, “He isn’t the only one, I believe. Good luck, Mr. Potter, I’ll see you in potions class tomorrow.”

“Right, bye sir.”

And Snape had been right, when Harrison walked into the common room he was immediately hugged by at least three different people, maybe more.

“Okay, okay, so much love here.” He muttered, making someone in the group hug giggle. “Are you okay?” he heard Tracey’s voice and Harrison nodded.

“Yeah, the old coot tried to blame me for Draco’s little stunt yesterday. Snape told him that he could only blame me once he blamed Hope for being out after curfew, then he dragged me away.”

“That reminds me,” Harrison muttered and then tried to release himself from the group hug to turn to Salazar, “Would you mind spying on the headmaster for me?” He hissed and Salazar smirked, “Of course not, little snake, it’d be fun to actually do something again.”

“What?” Daphne asked and then laughed, because she realised how stupid it sounded, asking ‘what?’ after hearing Harrison talk in parseltongue.

Harrison didn’t seem to mind though, he just shrugged, “Asked him to spy on Dumbledore.” He then looked around the common room with worry, “Where’s ebony, normally he comes out when I speak Parseltongue?”

“Oh, the pissed off little snake went back into your dorm this morning. I think he’s shedding, his skin looks all grey.” Blaise said and Harrison nodded, “Right, snakes, reptiles, shed.”

Millicent nodded, “Right, Potter. Anyways what did your parents think about Snape’s little stunt?”

“Oh they were pissed, I’m really going for getting disowned before the holidays.” Harrison smirked and all the first year Slytherins shook their head, not quite used to someone who didn’t care about the scandal of getting disowned yet.

“Oh, does anyone here know the rules about resorting in Hogwarts?” Harrison asked and Salazar pointed at himself making Harrison snort, “You know rules have changed over the years, old man.”

“Shut up, child.” Salazar said, “I still have a portrait in Dumbledore’s office and I don’t think it changed. In our time you could just request a resort in 3^rd  and 5^th grade without needing a letter from your parents, because teenagers change a lot over the years.”

“Why isn’t it done more often then?” Harrison asked and a third-year Slytherin snorted, “Sorry I was listening to your conversation. Dumbledore hides things like this, ‘We can’t change them so we will hide it.’”

“The board of governors never allowed him to change rules like this, because students tend to change a lot. Also bullying happens and people who get sorted into the wrong house the first time.” Pansy explained and Harrison hummed, “That makes sense,” He turned to Salazar, “So why did it never happen when I was with you guys?”

“It did, a lot, but you just never paid enough attention. You were always in your own little world.” Salazar laughed and Harrison just rolled his eyes.

“Why? Do you want to get rid of us, Harrison?” Daphne asked, sounding slightly worried. Harrison quickly shook his head, “No don’t worry the Slytherin house will keep the first-year prodigy who earns too much points and makes it impossible for Slytherin to not win the house cup.”

Blaise snorted, “So who are you asking it for?”

“Fred and George Weasley.” Harrison said, laughing at the reactions. “They’re good people and very different from their family, well at least the younger two.”

“What house are they supposed to be in?” Pansy asked, Harrison just raised an eyebrow, making most of the Slytherins groan.

“You’re kidding!” Daphne said and Harrison just shook his head, “Don’t worry, I’ll make them behave.”

“I didn’t know you knew the Weasley’s.” Draco said, speaking up for the first time, but he was sneering. Harrison groaned, Merlin had told them about the Malfoy-Weasley rivalry, “Really Draco, Fred and George are fine. I don’t think they even like their family, though I doubt if any of the sons besides Ron do.” He muttered the last part. “They actually let themselves get sorted into Gryffindor to not get disowned, but having me as a perfect inspiration they decided to not give a shit.”

“You’re such a good example,” Tracey said sarcastically and Harrison smirked, “I know right? People should appreciate me more.”

“As much as I hate to stop this conversation,” Blaise said, rolling his eyes, “I think we should go to DADA.”

Harrison nodded in agreement, they were usually the first ones there and Harrison had talked to Quirrel about a lot of different subjects before the past two classes. He also got to know Voldemort a bit better through these conversations, everyone thought it was weird that he talked so much to their defence Professor, but he couldn’t blame them. No one knew that the professor was possessed by Voldemort yet.

Quirrel- like always- was sitting behind his desk when they came in, and Harrison- like he did the past two classes (they only had three defence classes till now.)- walked up to him and started talking.

Since he wanted to talk to the man about the stone after class, he decided that now was a good moment to start talking about horcruxes and freak the man out a little bit.

It was only the second week of class, he still had a whole month to come up with a plan; he wanted to get the stone on the 31^st of October, he could slip away easily and blame it on the bad memories.

“Sir, would it be possible to make a living horcrux, hypothetically, of course?” Harrison started and Quirrel looked up at him, his eyes flashing red for a second. Harrison smirked.

“Ehm- w-well I don’  th-t-think there has b-been an example yet, but I do think that u-under the right c-cir-c-circumstances it would be a possibility. Now tell me, Mr. p-p-Potter, how did you come across ho-hor-horcruxes?”

“I read a book about them,” Harrison said casually, he really hated the obvious fake stutter, “What would be the right circumstances? Would it be like standing close to a murder? Or maybe even getting hit with the killing curse and surviving?”

He could feel the Slytherins staring at him, some of them would know what horcruxes were, others didn’t. Most of them did notice that this wasn’t just a conversation.

“I wo-w-would say that if you were to survive the k-killing curse, there would be a big ch-ch-chance that a piece of the other’s soul would try to hide it-itself in you. Other c-circumstances could be s-s-standing close to a m-muh-murder in an empty field. If there’s nothing else it could attach to, it might attach itself to a.. huh-host instead.” Quirrel answered, his eyes moving up to Harrisons scar, which he still had, but at least wasn’t as big as Hope’s scar.

He never really suspected that he himself could be a horcrux, but still his parseltongue ability had been weird. And the twin wands were a pretty obvious sign, even if he denied that that could be because he carried a piece of Voldemort’s soul at first. This conversation made him rethink that, it made things a lot easier, though. If he was a horcrux the Dark Lord wouldn’t kill him, and he could make the Dark Lord sane without the Dark Lord losing his immortality.

“I believe it might be best if we keep this conversation between us,” Harrison said, when he saw that the class was slowly filling. He also shot a warning look at the Slytherins, who just nodded.

“I b-believe so too, Mr. Potter.” Quirrel answered, before his eyes went red again and he said, “I believe we also have a lot to discuss, if you c-c-could stay after class.” He noticed that Quirrel was also done with his fake stutter in long sentences, he didn’t use it a lot.

“Of course, Professor.” Harrison smirked, before moving back to his place, next to Draco and Blaise.

“What was that all about? Horcruxes? You’re kidding, Harrison.” Blaise whispered and Harrison rolled his eyes, “I’ll tell you later, don’t worry, I’m not planning on making some living horcrux.”

“I sure hope you won’t, because I will lock you up and not let you go until you get this stupid idea out of your head.”

“Just wait till after class, I’ll tell you all later.” Harrison said, knowing all the Slytherins around them were listening.

So they waited till after class, none of them really paying attention to Quirrel explaining duel rules.

When they were dismissed, Harrison whispered, “Wait for me in the library, I’ll join you guys in a bit.” He didn’t let them answer before he walked towards Quirrel, though he did see Blaise nod.

And thank god for Blaise, because he was sure some of them would’ve refused leaving him if Blaise hadn’t forced them.

“So, horcruxes, Potter?” Quirrel said, not bothering to stutter now. Harrison smirked, “I have something your little friend would be interested in. If you would let me talk to him.”

Quirrel opened his mouth, but Harrison just raised a hand, “Don’t even bother lying, I saw the red eyes I saw ten years ago.”

“Fine,” The eyes turned red, “What do you want, Potter? Obviously you wonder if there’s a chance if you’re a horcrux and to be totally honest, I don’t know.”

“Actually that was purely my curiosity, I did have something to talk about.”

“What would that be.”

“The stone,” Harrison smirked, “I’ll help you, you’re obviously too weak in this form.”

“How did you find out about the stone?” Voldemort hissed and Harrison shrugged, “My dumb sister doesn’t know how to put up privacy charms or silencing spells, not even an muffliato.”

“That’s not important, though. What is important is, I’m willing to help you, if you let me decide which ritual we use to get you a new body.”

“And you think you, an eleven year old boy has enough power, while I don’t?”

“I don’t think so, Voldemort, I know so.”  He released a bit of his magic levitating different items in the room, with enough care to not break them, “That was what I learned to do when I was four, now if you want my help I suspect you to tell me so, before Halloween. I have to get ready to get the stone till then.”

“Okay fine, Potter, I’ll think about it. Now get out.” The red eyes were flickering to blue and then back to red, and Harrison understood that actually being in control of the body must take a lot of Voldemort’s energy.

So he nodded, he had to go to his friends anyways. Entering the library he saw the group of Slytherins all shooting looks at the entrance once in a while. He laughed and joined them, putting up his privacy charm.

“So what was that about?” Blaise hissed, but Harrison saw through his angry act this time, noticing the worry in his eyes. Shrugging, Harrison answered, “Voldemort is possessing Quirrel, I found out the first DADA class. His eyes kept going red for a second when he looked at me and then they turned back to blue.”

“Okay, while that is worrying, it doesn't explain everything, Harrison.” Millicent said and Harrison shot her a confused look, “Wait, I didn’t tell you guys yet?”

“Tell us what?” Blaise asked and Harrison shrugged, “Voldemort tried to kill me not Hope, Hope has never been the chosen one. I thought I already told you guys, because Theo figured out the whole heir by conquest thing.”

“You didn’t tell us that!” Pansy gasped and then looked at Harrison with worry, “Wait that mean you’re the prophecy child, the one to beat Voldemort.”

“Nah, I’m helping him right now. I don’t think the prophecy told the total truth anyways.” Harrison said and then added, “I’m planning on bringing Voldemort back this Christmas, but it will take some convincing.”

“What about celebrating yule with us?” Draco asked, sounding slightly disappointing and Harrison looked up, “Wait- you guys still do that? I thought it was illegal now?” then he literally face palmed, why did he always almost give away that he wasn’t from this time.

“I’m just going to pretend that you don’t know what yule is, because the Potter’s stopped celebrating it thirty years ago.” Blaise muttered and Harrison shot him a grateful look, he knew he would tell the Slytherins, or at least some of them this year. He had to, he hated his whole life being a secret. Hated the fact that he had to pretend to know nothing about magic. But he had to wait for a bit, it had only been two weeks and two weeks didn’t tell him enough about these people.

He would of course make them all swear secrecy with a spell, force them to let him protect this piece in their mind. If Dumbledore found out he’d be fucked.

But he just hated this, having a whole different secret life. So yes, he would find out who he could really trust soon enough and then tell at least some of them.

“You guys want to know another of my secrets?” Harrison smirked and the Slytherins nodded, if Harrison was willing to share, they would always want to know more.

Something about no one really knowing Harrison made him so interesting, Harrison was fine with sitting back and not talking to anyone, just listening. Somehow he still made friends, he still attracted people’s attention.

“I wasn’t the one to defeat Voldemort.” Harrison said and now everyone looked confused, had Harrison lied to them a few minutes ago, or had they just not understood what he meant?

Harrison chuckled at their confused looks, “Dumbledore killed him, that’s why I believe the whole prophecy is bullshit. That’s why I’m still trying to figure out the whole living horcrux thing. If Dumbledore killed Voldemort, how did the soul end up in me? But still I feel out magic connecting, it’s like Voldemort poured a proportion of his magic into me and then the soul just thought he was home. It’s weird, I’m not even sure yet.”

“He did just shoot the killing curse at you, his magic might’ve actually been resting inside your core or whatever. No one knows what happens if you survive the killing curse, because it only happened once and then they studied the wrong person.” Blaise said and Harrison nodded, “I think Dumbledore knew Hope wasn’t the chosen one, like he didn’t want people to study the right one.” He muttered, but no one knew what to say to that. So instead they started talking about normal subjects after an awkward silence.

No one mentioned the fact that if Harrison hadn’t been the one to kill Voldemort, he couldn’t be the heir of Slytherin- or at least not in the way he claimed he was.

But the looks everyone kept shooting at Harrison told him that all of them noticed, but respecting his secrets, didn’t mention it.

Harrison silently thanked whatever god had blessed him with this friend group.

Chapter Text

The week before Halloween was a busy one for Harrison, he had to talk to Sirius and Remus about their side in the wizarding world. He had to prepare to get the stone, tell the Slytherins about his plan and convince them that he could do this alone.

He had figured out that the stone was indeed on the third floor corridor, if the big three headed dog meant anything. And he knew how to make a Cerberus sleep, just a bit of music made by charms. Easy.

But before he did all of that he wanted to speak to Fred and George Weasley, having them in his house, and distracting the others while he was gone, would be useful.

So here he was, sitting in an abandoned classroom waiting for the Weasley twins, he had send them a letter after all.

“Hey Harrikins-“

“- Dear little brother of us.”

Harrison sighed, “Hey, okay so I figured out about the resorting.”

“You did?” George asked, Harrison nodded, “Well, 3^rd and 5^th years get the chance to resort, so you’re in luck. You just have to request a resorting and it’ll be done.”

“It’s that easy?”

“Yeah, Dumbledore tried to hide this option, to manipulate students or whatever. But Sal told me about it.” Harrison rolled his eyes at Dumbledore’s stupidity, and then he was suddenly wrapped into two pairs of arms.

“Thank you.” One of the twins said, but Harrison had to admit their voices sounded very similar and he didn’t quite hear the difference.

“You’re welcome,” Harrison said, “I also wanted to ask if you could just do some pranks on Halloween, I’m on a mission and don’t want anyone to know.”

“Ohh, A mission you say-“

“- tell us about it, Harrikins.” The twins said while letting go of Harrison and Harrison snorted, “You’ll find out eventually, but please, distraction?”

“Of course,” Fred said and now it was Harrison’s turn to thank the twins. “Okay, I kind of have some business to deal with. But you can just go to Dumbledore’s office and request the resorting for tonight.”

“We will-“

“- Thank you, again.” George said and they left.

Harrison was honestly surprised how easy that went. He felt like his conversation with Remus and Sirius would be a lot harder, which was where he was headed now.

Sirius and Remus were preparing for their classes tomorrow when Harrison walked into their living quarters, which they had showed him a few weeks ago.

“Hey, Moony, pads!” Harrison said, throwing himself on the couch in their living room.

“Pup!” Sirius said in surprise, before giving him a quick hug. Afterwards Remus also gave him a hug and then Harrison said, “I actually have something I want to talk about.”

Sirius and Remus both shot him a curious look and sat down, Harrison sighed, “It’s about the war.”

“No! Don’t feel forced that you have to do anything, fuck the prophecy.” Sirius said and Harrison shook his head, chucking. “Don’t worry, Padfoot, I’m not going to do some Gryffindor move and destroy the dark lord now.” He said while pointing at the Slytherin crest on his school robes, “I just wanted to know what side you guys are on.”

“Harrison- Harry, we don’t want to influence your choice. We’d fight for you, whatever side you pick.” Remus answered softly, Sirius nodding in agreement.

“But you do have a preference.” Harrison stated, Sirius nodded and hesitated before saying, “I am obviously a dark wizard, my whole family has a dark core. Moony, he’s a dark creature. The light side tries to take away our rights, we didn’t know what we fought for when we fought with them,” Sirius laughed bitterly, “Dumbledore used my hatred for my family to get us- since we’re both quite powerful- on his side, never really honest about what the goals of both sides were. When- well your parents abandoned you, we started looking more into it and we actually agree with the dark lord.”

Harrison smiled, “I’m glad that will make this a lot less hard.” He took a deep breath, “I’m planning to bring the dark lord back. I have everything planned, found a ritual to restore his sanity and the dark lord even agreed to me picking the ritual.”

“What- the dark lor-“ Remus started, Harrison nodded, “He’s in the school, Quirrel.”

“Merlin’s pants, I knew there was something up with that dude.” Sirius breathed, Harrison wrinkled his nose in disgust. He knew people used the founders or Merlin’s name to curse in this time, but Slytherins usually didn’t swear a lot, so he wasn’t quite used to it yet.

“Language, Pads.” Remus said and Harrison snorted, before saying, “I just wanted you guys to know, since this week I’m going to be working on getting everything ready, and I didn’t want you guys to worry about my absence. At Halloween for example I won’t be at the feast.”

“What do you actually have to do?” Sirius asked and Harrison shrugged, “Steal the Philosopher’s stone.”

“What- no, no way.” Remus said and Harrison froze, “You knew it was in the school?”

“Of course we knew, Dumbledore made us all swear to secrecy, though.” Remus said, looking kind of guilty and Harrison sighed, “I don’t blame you for not telling me, I’m just surprised.”

“That doesn’t mean that we’re okay with you stealing it for the dark lord, it’s too dangerous, Harrison.” Sirius said and Harrison raised an eyebrow, “I don’t actually care, to be totally honest. I’m probably more powerful than Dumbledore himself, so I should be fine.”

Remus sighed, “We know you’re powerful, Harrison, we’ve seen it. Don’t let it get to your head, you’re not immortal, we just want you to be safe.” And Harrison swore he also heard Sirius mutter, “And I thought Slytherins have more self-preservation.”

Harrison snorted, “I don’t think any of you know how powerful I am, yet, I’m not letting it get to my head. Also Sirius, most Slytherins do, I think most Slytherins will try to body bind me to a chair when I tell them about this, but I have to do this.”  He sighed, “Can I trust you guys?”

Sirius and Remus both gave him a weird look, kind of offended that he even asked.

Harrison sighed again, “This is serious, more than anything else. No one knows this.” He was about to do it, trust the two men in front of him with his biggest secret. He wanted to do this, had wanted him after the first month of school had past, Sirius and Remus had been better parents to him than his real parents.

Talking about his real parents, Lily and James had started ignoring him after he had told Hope that for a witch with years of training she was impressively bad at magic. They hadn’t liked that and started ignoring him, honestly Harrison was surprised that they hadn’t disowned him right there and then, but he thought they would probably want to disown him in a more public place. Like the great hall.

“You can trust us,” Sirius whispered and Harrison muttered, “Would you be offended if I asked you to swear secrecy?”

Remus shook his head, “If this is that important to you, we will do it.” Sirius agreed immediately. And so they swore that anything Harrison told them would never be spoken about to other people. Only with Harrison consent they would be able to tell other’s.

“Thank you.” Harrison gave them a small smile, “Well- this is going to sound unbelievable. It all started when my parents abandoned me, 31^st of October in 1981. They send me to the Dursleys the next day, but I never arrived, because Dumbledore left me on their doorstep instead of giving me to them directly. A time travelling Merlin brought me to the Hogwarts founders, years in the past and they have taught me everything they know in the ten years they took care of me. I even beat Godric Gryffindor in a duel when I was nine.”

Sirius and Remus looked at him like he was insane, Harrison looked away, “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.” Sirus cursed under his breath before saying, “No, no. We believe you, it’s just slightly weird to think about. It explains a lot, though, your magic was always too good and we all saw your casual shows of wandless magic.”

Harrison laughed, “The wand I use in class isn’t even real,” He grabbed the wand from his pocket throwing it to Sirius, “It has no core.”

Sirius picked the wand up and felt nothing, it was just wood. Harrison softly explained, “I have a real wand, but wandless magic is a gift that you can lose. If I stop doing wandless magic I would stop being able to do it at some point.”

Sirius nodded, handing the wand to Remus, who was looking at Harrison with amazement. “You are so- so powerful. It does make sense, everything, the amount of details you gave on the founders and their ‘lost child’ in your first essay was kind of weirdly impressive.”

Harrison snorted, “It was funny to write about myself, but pretend I don’t know anything about myself.”

“I can imagine,” Sirius laughed, “So what else can you do?”

Harrison shrugged, “I finished the Hogwarts curriculum in the past, started when I was six- I think and finished at nine or ten. So everything we learn at school and some extra’s.” Then he muttered, “They refused to teach me the Patronus charm, though.”

Sirius gaped at him, “The whole Hogwarts curriculum?”

“It wasn’t that hard, I was kind of bored so they also taught me how to edit spells and potions. Oh! And private lessons of course, the etiquette lessons sucked, though.”

“You are crazy.” Remus concluded and Harrison smirked, “I know, so am I okay to get the stone now?”

Remus and Sirius hesitated and Harrison threw his arms up, being so done with the over-protectiveness from his godfather and Moony. He knew that some of the Slytherins would react in a similar way and he honestly wished that his godfather and Moony wouldn’t take as long to convince.

“What do I have to do? A guy beats Godric in a duel and still his godfather and honorary uncle think he isn’t powerful enough to get a stone from a Hogwarts corridor.”

Sirius snorts, “Fine, get the stone, but visit us immediately after. You have one evening, if you’re not here by curfew we will tell Snape about your stupid plan and come after you.”

Harrison rolled his eyes, “Thank you! Now I’ve got to go, convince some friends that this is a good idea.”

Remus laughed, “Goodluck with that!”

Harrison just left, not bothering responding. He had no actual clue where the rest of the Slytherin first years were, so he started with going to the common room. It was Saturday, which was usually the day he fed Ebony. Unless the snake was shedding and just stopped eating, then Harrison would instead feed him once he was done with his one or two weeks shedding period- because yes, Snakes can really take that long- and would feed the snake then.

The common room was empty so instead he went to his dorm, the dark lords dorm had proven to be totally safe, nothing happened to either him or Ebony yet in the almost two months they had spent at Hogwarts.

“Ebony, do you wish to join me today?” Harrison asked, knowing that the snake hated being held after he ate, Ebony looked at him and shook his little snake head, making Harrison smile.

“Okay, here eat up.” He quickly conjured a rat for the snake who hissed his thanks and started hunting the rodent. Harrison smiled at the snake before leaving, really the snake wasn’t that social and spends days up in Harrison’s room, but that didn’t make Harrison love him any less.

The next place Harrison went to was the library, where surprisingly, he found no Slytherins either. Next he visited the great hall, where his whole friend group was sitting talking. Really he should’ve looked here first, it made so much sense, it was normal for them to spend Saturdays in the great hall.

“Fucking finally,” he muttered, while sitting down next to Pansy who gave him a smile, “I’ve been searching the whole school for you guys.”

“It’s not our fault you had to meet up with people,” Pansy said, smirking and Harrison groaned, “I know.”

He hadn’t realised how tired he was until he sat down, making plans to save an evil dark lord was exhausting. And he had spent nights planning to make sure people wouldn’t get suspicious. If only he didn’t have a group of amazing people to care about him, it would make this so much easier. He could just disappear on Halloween, no one would look for him, he would just be gone and reappear the next day.

It would’ve been less exhausting, yet Harrison wouldn’t give away his friends for the world.

“Harrison? You okay?” Draco asked, he had gotten over his anger after two days and returned to the way he was before. That surprisingly didn’t change the fact that Blaise was one of his closest friends.

“I’m tired, don’t worry, though.” Harrison muttered, he had the urge to lay his head down on the table, fall asleep. But he was in public, he had to keep an image up.

“Who did you meet up with?” Blaise asked and Harrison shrugged, “Fred and George and after that Sirius and Remus. Surprisingly, the one with Fred and George was the less exhausting conversation.” It was true, while Harrison loved the fact that he had some people who knew the truth now, it felt weird. And just telling people about his past made him miss the founders more than before. “I also barely got any sleep last night.” He added.

Now more of the Slytherin first years were looking at him with worried looks, he understood why, he was always the person who just didn’t really care about anything, he was always okay. Him admitting he didn’t sleep well and the fact that he was so tired from a couple of conversations was weird to the group.

“I’m okay, though. I’ve just been planning.” He said and then looked at the group, “I wanted to talk to you guys about that, by the way.”

They all looked at him and Daphne said, “Maybe stop the planning for today, we have time.”

“I can’t, I’m sorry. It’s Halloween on Thursday and I still need to talk to the bloody dark lord before actually doing anything.” The dark lord hadn’t actually agreed to anything yet, he just told Remus and Sirius that to make them agree quicker. The dark lord hadn’t said anything to him about this since that one DADA lesson.

“When we wanted to see if you were on our side of the war, we didn’t want you to do anything to prove that you are, Harrison.” Draco muttered and Harrison smirked, “Don’t worry, I actually planned this before I even met you guys. I didn’t know how to, but now I have the perfect idea. Also I’m not even sure about fully joining the dark side, yet, I just want to talk to Voldemort see what he has to say and then I’ll decide.”

“I’ve never heard anyone talk about our lord so casually.” Pansy muttered and Harrison snorted, “Don’t worry, I think I’m on his side, but I’m not too worried about the evil Dark Lord.” Harrison rolled his eyes, people feared too easy in this time. Back in the founders times, witches and wizards would taunt muggles just to get the experience of being set on fire by them- after that they would quickly apparate and wear the burn scars it gave them with pride.

Okay, Harrison had to admit, people might’ve been a bit insane back then.

“Okay so tell us about your plan,” Tracey said, obviously done with all the talk about the dark lord and sides of the war. None of them were on the light side, so it didn’t even matter.

“Oh right! So the philosopher’s stone is in Hogwarts, third floor corridor. A big Cerberus is guarding it. I’m going to get the stone for Voldemort this Halloween, just so I can use the excuse of trauma if any teachers ask.” Harrison said.

“No- no way.” Blaise said and most of the others agreed with him, Harrison groaned. “I just convinced Sirius and Remus, so please just let me have this this once and I’ll act like the proper Slytherin with enough self-preservation for the rest of the year.”

“Right,” Blaise snorted and Harrison shot him a glare, “Okay fine, I’ll admit I can act a little Gryffindor-ish. But honestly blame Godric’s portrait, not me.”

“Can’t you just let one of us go with you?” Theo asked, who had been silently listening till now.

“No, no way. It’s way too dangerous.” Harrison shook his head, “My magic- it’s well, powerful I can protect myself. I don’t want anything to happen to one of you guys, because of my stupid plan.”

“Harrison, just let us go with you.” Tracey said and Harrison shook his head, “I have to do this alone.”

Harrison sighed, the great hall was pretty much empty, there were only a few Ravenclaw girls. The great hall was usually empty on Saturdays, most older students were in Hogsmaede and the younger students often preferred the common rooms. That’s why they had chosen the great hall as their Saturday place, it was always almost or completely empty.

“Fuck it,” He said and then took a breath, releasing his magic which he hadn’t released for literal years. It surrounded them like some dark cloud, and the few Ravenclaws who were also in the great hall gasped at the sheer power of the Slytherin boy.

Harrison shot the Ravenclaws one look with his now even brighter glowing AK green eyes- which he still loved, it reminded him of the day the founders adopted him. – and was sure that they would be silent.

“Is this convincing enough?” He asked the Slytherins, who were looking at him with a mix of fear and amazement. Some of them had some jealousy, too, but Harrison ignored that. He quickly hid his magic again, sorting his mind and core shields to make the cloud totally disappear and he heard the students around him- and even the Ravenclaws- breathe heavily.

He looked at the Ravenclaws, “You won’t say a word about this, or do I have to obliviate you?” They all shook their heads and Harrison smirked, Snape’s word of a few weeks ago going through his head; ‘You’re one to talk, I believe you could have half of the school would bow down to you if you tried.’

“You convinced me,” Pansy said and Millicent nodded, the girl hadn’t cared enough to actually say anything. She didn’t want Harrison to go alone, obviously, but the argument went well enough without her help.

Now there wasn’t an argument anymore, Harry Potter had an unbelievable amount of power and she realised it would be safer for him to go alone.

Harrison sent Blaise an apologising look, Blaise glared at him. The boy obviously didn’t want Harrison to go alone, still he wouldn’t complain anymore. He knew that Harrison could protect himself.

Harrison was still surprised by how worried Blaise would get over him sometimes.

“So how can we help?” Blaise asked, wanting to do something. Harrison smirked, “Well, the Weasley twins are going to distract people, but just tell people I don’t feel well and wanted to be alone. That I have too much memories of the day, whisper, ‘he remembers everything.’ To people or something like that. Make sure they won’t check on me, though.”

“We can do that,” Tracey said and Harrison smiled, “Thank you, you guys are the best.”

“We’re aware,” Was said by multiple people and Harrison laughed, “And so modest, too.”

~

That evening Dumbledore stood up from his chair, “Before we start with the feast, there are a few resorts needed.” He waved his wand, summoning the sorting hat, “Minerva if you could please?” McGonagall quickly stood up, grabbing the hat and transforming a fork into a chair.

“Well, let’s not wait any longer. Fred and George Weasley and Lee Jordan if you could come forward, please.”

The twins and Jordan were smirking at all the questioning glances.

“Jordan, Lee!” McGonagall said, like they were first year students. Lee turned to Fred and George, “See you guys in Slytherin.” Then he walked to the chair, sitting down on it.

It took about 20 seconds before the hat sorted him into Slytherin, shocking a big part of the Hogwarts students.

Lee sat down next to Harrison, who welcomed him and glared at the students around them to not say anything rude.

The process of sorting Fred and then George went pretty much the same, they too joined Harrison at the feast.

After they sat down food appeared, Dumbledore didn’t even make a second speech.

“I didn’t think Harrison was serious,” Tracey said, being the first one to talk. Fred and George just smirked at her before turning to Harrison.

“So Harrikins-“

“- Dear Little brother of us-“

“- Please introduce us to these-“

“- People you call friends.” George finished and Harrison laughed, “I thought you already knew them, but fine. These are Draco, Blaise and Theo.” He said introducing the people who were sitting the closest to him.

“The girls are Pansy, Millicent, Tracey and Daphne.” Harrison said, “And there are Gregory and Vincent, they don’t talk a lot, though.”

“Good to meet you all,”

“A pleasure!” Fred said, grinning and Lee sighed, “You probably know us already.”

The Slytherins nodded. During their little conversation no one noticed Ron Weasley rushing out of the great hall to tell their parents about the resorting, making sure the twins would be punished for their little stunt.

And even later when the Slytherins would all leave the hall, Snape would be waiting for them. He welcomed the three new Slytherins and then told Harrison that they’re his responsibility.

Harrison groaned, but accepted his faith.

He just hoped the twins wouldn’t behave too crazy.

~

The next defence class he went to talk to Quirrel again, but this time only to ask if he could talk with his defence teacher after class. Quirrel quickly nodded and Harrison decided not to ask anything else, he just went back to his place next to Draco and Blaise.

The class went by pretty quickly, Quirrel just let them practice shield charms, which turned out to be quite hard for most students.

After class Harrison noticed that all the Slytherin students stayed in the class room, he glared at them, but when none of them moved he sighed and decided to let them stay.

“Voldemort,” He said, some of his friends still flinched when he used the name, “I need your answer, the next class is Halloween and I won’t have time to prepare everything anymore then.”

Quirrel’s eyes turned red and he heard some of his friends gasp, “like you wouldn’t steal the stone anyways?” Harrison snorted, “I would, of course, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll still give it to you.”

Voldemort’s eyes narrowed and Harrison smirked, “Now, do we have a deal? All I need you to say is that I can pick the ritual. I’m not going to let you walk around like an insane man.”

“Fine, Potter, but only because I’m done with possessing animals and some of my followers.” Voldemort said and Harrison sighed, “Thank you, now I need you to make sure all the students get to the common rooms early, I’ve already made sure that there is distraction, but I need to be able to get away without getting caught.”

Voldemort smirked, “I have a plan,” Harrison raised an eyebrow and sarcastically said, “Please, share with the class.”

“A troll.” Voldemort muttered and Harrison just stared at him like he was insane, which he was, by the way.

“You do you,” Harrison muttered and then said goodbye, because he didn’t want to deal with an insane dark lord longer than he had to.

When he was finally out of the classroom that smelled too much like garlic to be considered healthy, he rested against the wall, the Slytherins gathering around him.

“I can’t believe I’m actually doing this.” He said and Pansy snorted, “We all thought you would be totally light side, imagine our surprise.”

“I’m surprised, too.” Harrison said, “I didn’t know what this world was going to be like. I never even suspected helping either side, but here I am. I’m just doing what feels right and if I fuck this up I’ll just have to fix my own mistakes.”

“Well, I think you’re doing what’s right.” Tracey said and most of the other’s nodded in agreement. Harrison smiled, “Thank you, now let’s go find some empty class room and practice your shield charms, because you guys were horrible.”

“Rude,” Draco muttered, but he was smiling and the rest followed Harrison without saying anything. It wasn’t the first time Harrison decided that they absolutely sucked at some spell and took it in his own hands to teach them how to do it right, so that they could earn points for it in the next class- and maybe because the spells are usually actually useful.

So they found themselves an empty classroom and Harrison started instructing them how a to make a good shield, they continued to practice for the next few days and by the time that Halloween arrived, every first year Slytherin was at least able to make an average shield. Only Millicent and Theo made a strong shield, though, but that was okay.

They also spend one day after Harrison told them their shields were good enough, decorating a stone to make it look like the philosophers stone.

The Slytherins had lots of fun trying to figure out what creative magics to use and ended up making a stone that looked exactly like the philosophers stone- well maybe it had a different shape, but it was enough to fool people.

Harrison wasn’t going to steal the stone without planting a fake one at the same spot, it would be too risky. So this was the perfect solution.

The Slytherins were happy they got to help.

~

On Halloween everyone went to their classes as usual, Hope seemed super confident the whole day, it was her day. Every teacher praised her- except for Snape and Quirrel- and all her friends would stop people in the corridors to tell them how great Hope was.

So it was as normal as a day like Halloween could get.

When the feast started, Harrison slipped away from the crowds with the fake stone in his pocket- after reassuring the Slytherins once more that he didn’t need someone to come with him.

The first part was relatively easy, the Cerberus fell asleep as soon as he used a spell to play music, the next part was also easy. Harrison stopped moving as soon as he noticed it was Devil’s snare, he didn’t want to destroy the plant. He fell through it after laying totally still for about 30 seconds.

He walked further into a room with brooms and flying keys, and decided that this part was harder than the other two without even trying first.

He stepped on the broom and shot up into the air trying to look for a difference in keys when he saw a big, old looking key between all the golden ones. One of the key’s wings had already been broken, so it didn’t fly as fast as the others.

Harrison shot after the key, trying to trap it in a corner, which worked after trying for a while, when he grabbed the key all the other keys started following him.

“Fuck,” He muttered and flew towards the close door, quickly unlocking it and slipping through. He closed the door behind him and sat down against the door, catching his breath.

That had honestly been harder than expected.

He looked around and saw a chess board, with a lot of charms on it to not let anyone through. He snorted and blew up some of the pieces, until he cleared out all the pieces in front of the next door.

“Should’ve thought about that when they made it,” he said, even though there was no one with him. Through the next door was a troll, Harrison smiled, this was exciting.

He hadn’t really fought anything in a while and trolls were pretty dangerous, because their thick skin reflected almost all spells.

He used whatever he could use, stones, sticks, he even transfigured a stone into a sword. In the end he beat the troll by using its own wooden club against him, knocking him out and allowing Harrison to pass.

The room he came in next had a long table with a row of seven potions and a letter.

He took the letter and read it out loud, to himself.

“Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind.
Two of us will help you, whichever you would find.
One among us seven would let you move ahead,
Another will transport the drinker back instead.
Two among our number hold only neffle wine,
three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line.
Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore.
To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:
First, however slyly the poison tries to hide,
You will always find some on neffle wines left side;
Second, different are those who stand at either end,
But if you would move onwards, neither is your friend;
Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,
neither dwarf nor giant hold death in their insides;
Fourth, the second left and the second on the right,
are twins once you taste them,
though different at first sight.”

Harrison read it through a couple more time, and then grabbed the smallest bottle. He drank it, not thinking about the consequences if this would be the wrong bottle, but when his body started feeling icy he did sigh in relieve.

He walked through the flames in front of the last door he had to pass. Suddenly he was in front of a big mirror, he saw himself with the Hogwarts founders.

“Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi” Harrison read and then pretty quickly realised it was mirrored, “I show not your face, but your hearts desire.” He muttered.

He looked into the mirror again, thinking of swapping the stone in his hand with the stone in the mirror. Suddenly he saw his reflection swap the stones and he felt the stone in his hand get more heavy.

“Thank you.” He said to no one, being alone really made him go crazy. And then he looked for a way out, finding it by looking at the parselscript that was for some reason on the wall.

“Open please,” He said to the walls, and the walls did open for him. He looked around the room that just appeared and noticed it had all of the founders colours in it. There was a big couch with a lot of tables and chairs around it. There were also a couple of loveseats scattered around the room in groups with separate coffee tables. It looked like one big common room for all four houses.

“Awesome.” Harrison whispered and then walked towards the back of the room, there was a door with stairs behind it. Walking down the stairs he ended up in a magically appearing doorway in the corridor that led towards the great hall.

“That’s so cool.” He said and then noticed that all the students were already gone; probably back in their common rooms now.

He started running towards Sirius and Remus’ quarters only to be stopped by a troll in the middle of the corridor, “I’m going to kill you, Voldemort.” Harrison said and then started battling the troll in a similar way that he did the other troll.

In the end he finished this troll by transfiguring some knives and making cuts all over the body of the troll, who passed out after a few minutes.

“Mr. Potter, I believe we told all students to go to their common rooms!” McGonagall said, the moment she arrived at the scene: Harrison was sitting against the wall, the troll lying next to him.

He gave her, Snape, Sirius and Remus- who were with her- a small smile, “I’m sorry, Miss. I wasn’t at the feast, because Halloween is kind of traumatic to me and I had nightmares about it last night. I told the rest to not worry about me and go to the feast, have fun. I just wanted to wait for Sirius and Remus in their quarters when I ran into this troll-“

“Minerva, I did ask Harrison, as my godson, to meet me here after the feast.” Sirius said and Harrison shot him a grateful look. “Okay, Mr Potter.” McGonagall sighed, “Just make sure you let Poppy check you for any wounds, trolls are nasty creatures.”

“I will, thank you, miss.”

“Of course, Mr. Potter.” She shot him a small smile, “50 point to Slytherin.. for being able to defeat a troll at such a young age.” Then she turned and walked away.

“I double that,” Snape smirked, and Harrison knew that Slytherin would currently be 100 points up if you were to check, “I don’t believe your little story, by the way.”

Harrison smirked, “I didn’t expect you to, sir. I’d be disappointed if you did.”

Snape nodded and left him too, Harrison turned to his godfather and uncle and smiled, “I did it.”

Sirius smiled at him, “I didn’t doubt you for a moment, pup.” Remus snorted, “Sure you didn’t. Good job, cub.”

“Thank you- though, I should really get back to the common room I have some concerned friends there.” Harrison said and he saw a flash of disappointment on Sirius face before Sirius nodded, “Of course. Have fun, pup!”

“I’ll come and visit you tomorrow after classes!” Harrison said and then ran- literally ran- towards Slytherin common rooms.

Walking into the common room was a whole different experience, Fred and George were there, of course. They had been resorted a few days ago and also with them was a part of the quidditch team, who Harrison bonded with.

“Thank fuck, you survived.” Said Daphne, who broke the silence. Then the common room exploded, people asking him how stupid he was, a lot of people questioning if he wasn’t a Gryffindor and a lot of congratulations.

“It wasn’t that hard, a first year could’ve done that.” Harrison shrugged everyone off, only for Flint- Please, you can call me Marcus- to snort, “You are a first year.”

Harrison smirked, “Exactly my point.” Making more snorts and laughter appear, but one person did point out Harrison wasn’t a normal first year.

“I also killed the troll, which is two trolls in one evening.” Harrison said and that raised another wave of concerned talking, which Harrison shrugged off again. He did tell everyone he would go to Pomfrey to get checked for any injuries, but had to rest first. He was scared that traces of the potion he took would be found in his blood.

The Slytherins nodded in understanding at that, after he explained why he had to take a potion, which quickly turned into him explaining his whole adventure. There were a lot of mutters of people asking if he was sure he wasn’t a Gryffindor, but Harrison just laughed and pointed out that you could have traits from two houses, all houses were after all based on stereotypes.

That silenced most of them.

He looked around the room, now filled with most of the Slytherins, even the seventh years were listening to him. He had, somehow, earned their respect by the many tales of him doing wandless magic and being very magically powerful.

Oh, and being friends with Salazar also helped.

“I did find something interesting, though.” He said, to no one in particular. It made everyone look at him, though he ignored most of them instead walking towards Salazar’s painting.

“You, old man, why did you never tell me there was a room for all four houses?” Harrison asked and Salazar smirked at Harrison, knowing Harrison only called him that to make the other Slytherins scared- or something like that.

It worked, though, a lot of them looked at Harrison with a shocked expression, mixed with a bit of fear making Harrison smirk, too.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, little snake.” Salazar said, most of the Slytherins relaxed when they heard the man talk with a certain fondness in his voice. Salazar could of course, have masked it, but this was more fun.

“Eh, it looked like some sort of common room, but for all four houses.” Harrison explained, “Why did you never tell me about it?” He asked and Salazar snorted, “Well, I thought you knew about it.” Before he switched to parseltongue, “You sat there quite often, remember when the seventh years wanted to teach you chess?”

“You’re kidding! That’s not the same room.” Harrison exclaimed, making everyone in the room quite confused and Salazar chuckled, “It is, little snake.” Harrison sat down on a chair, the room he knew as a boring room with wooden tables and chairs and was only used to play chess or make homework now looked like the most comfortable common room ever.

Yes, it was really that bad, Harrison always loved Hogwarts, but that room he hated. The chairs weren’t even comfortable in that room.

“We- all four of us- changed the room after you left, remembering how you hated it. We just missed you and wanted to do something in memory of you. I believe there is even a big parselscript on the wall just spelling your name. We couldn’t write it normally of course, it would’ve been too risky. So instead the founders forced me to write a bit about you in parsel, I agreed immediately, of course.”

Harrison looked at the man in shock, “You’re- you’re kidding.” He whispered and Salazar shook his head, “I’ll admit it was hard making it, especially    with the memories so fresh, but it was a good distraction.”

The Slytherins looked even more confused now, some looking in worry other’s just curious and other’s even in suspicion. Neither Harrison or Salazar cared at this point, both being more emotional than they’ve been in a while.

That’s what confused the Slytherins most of all, both of them had always had a perfect mask, only showing amused expressions. So now to see actual sadness, or pain, or grief, or whatever you want to call it on their faces.

It was weird.

“I’m so sorry,”  Harrison hissed, not knowing what he was apologising for. “I always forget you guys went decades without me. The rest of your lives, yet I’m here being sad while I still have the chance to speak to you every day.”

Salazar shook his head, “The fact that things have an ending makes them more beautiful in a weird way.”

Harrison nodded, wiping his eyes- was he crying?- he hadn’t really been this emotional in a while and it felt weird showing so much emotions to a whole room full of Slytherins.

“You should go to sleep, you must be exhausted.” Salazar said and Harrison nodded, “Yes I will, I’ll try to find you guys some time soon, as in all five of you.”

“There is a corridor with our portraits next to Merlin’s portrait.” Salazar said and Harrison smiled, “I’ll find it.”

The Slytherins were even more confused than ever, but at this point they weren’t even trying to make sense out of anything Harrison James Potter did.

“Okay, now go to sleep child.” Salazar said before looking at the other first years, “You guys, I am trusting you make sure he gets at least one good night of rest. Really he shouldn’t have pushed himself this hard for the past week.”

“That’s what we’ve been saying.” Blaise muttered, Harrison shot a glare at both him and Salazar, but both of them ignored him. Harrison sighed and stood up, not bother saying anything before going to his room.

He let himself fall on his bed and fell asleep immediately.

He would deal with crazy dark lords tomorrow.

Now he would sleep, for the next 10 hours, at least.

Chapter Text

Harrison woke up pretty late the next morning, just on time for a quick breakfast and then go to potions. The class was pretty uneventful, besides the fact that somewhere in his morning routine Ebony had snuck into his pocket and made his presence known during the class, there may or may not have been a few screams from Gryffindors when the now pretty long snake- he had a long way to go but 4’9ft was pretty alright- showed himself.

“You can keep your snake with you, just make sure he doesn’t ruin the potions.” Snape said with a nod and Harrison shot him a grateful look, he didn’t want to deal with a pissed off Ebony.

“You’re more trouble than I thought you would be when I bought you.” Harrison whispered to Ebony making the snake look at him, “You should’ve expected it, I’m just that awesome.”

Harrison snorted, “Sure you are.”

Draco sighed, “Harrison can you stir?” Harrison nodded, twitching his wrist, stirring the potion clock-wise.

“Thank you.” Draco said and then smirked, “Really teaming up with you in a class where we’re not allowed wands yet is really helpful.”

“Why can’t you just stir our potion, too, Harrison?” Theo said, smirking when Harrison twitched his wrist again, making their potion stir. “Just tell me if you need more of my amazing magic again, for example with heating your potion.”

“You’re amazing.” Theo said and Harrison snorted, “Right.”

Snape was looking at the whole exchange with a smirk on his face, it is true he didn’t allow first years to use their wands yet, magic could mess up a potion. But he would allow Potters wandless magic, he seemed to know what he was doing.

Normally he would start teaching spells to help with potions around half way the second year, but Potter seemed to already know all the spells. He wondered once again just how Harrison seemed to already know everything, but he wasn’t going to push the boy to tell him, he felt like that would only make the chance that he would ever know smaller.

At the end of the class about half of them finished their potion perfectly, most of them being Slytherins.

Harrison had ended up helping all the Slytherins with little twitches and waves of his hand and it made the people who hadn’t felt his magic once again wonder just how powerful the boy was.

Stirring one potion didn’t take a lot of magic, two was harder, but only because you needed to focus. But Harrison had been stirring at least eight potions and at the same time heating another few potions.

He had even helped Longbottom with his potion, to not make him mess up during class.

And that with a still growing core, Snape honestly feared what the boy would be able to do when he was a fully matured wizard.

He dismissed the class and decided to stop thinking about it now, he had a NEWT class to teach and he couldn’t be distracted by some powerful first year.

“So I was wondering, why do you always twitch your hand when doing wandless magic, is it impossible to do it without moving your hands?” Blaise asked while they were walking from the potion classroom to the defence classroom, the Slytherins refused to let Harrison go alone, Harrison had just rolled his eyes and allowed them to come with him.

“It’s easier to concentrate the magic and it’s kind of like a wand movement. I just kind of bonded certain movements to certain spells, some I really have to do, other’s I just use because it’s easier.” Harrison explained.

“Wait there are spells that are impossible without them?” Tracey asked and Harrison nodded, “Mostly spells I created.”

“You- you created more spells than that one in the library a while ago?”

“Yeah,” Harrison shrugged, “I really want to tell you all the truth soon, but I need to prepare some things.”

“I knew you weren’t being honest,” Blaise muttered and Harrison smirked, “I didn’t completely lie about everything, don’t worry you’ll find out soon.”

“Want to see one of the spells I created?” Harrison asked, mostly to change the conversation topic. The Slytherins looked at him with curiosity and nodded, “It’s a summoning charm, but without the item flying to you.”

He waved his hand, his wand appearing in it. He threw his wand to Pansy who looked at him with confusion, “It has no core. I feel nothing.”

Harrison smirked and continued walking, “You’re telling us all this time you had a wand with no core? But what about the whole twin wands book search this summer?” Draco asked and Harrison shrugged, “I do have a wand with core.” He grabbed his other wand from his pocket.

“It’s phoenix feather and horned serpent.” Harrison said, “I just made the one without core to be able to use magic without losing my ability to use wandless magic.”

“You can lose the ability to cast wandless?” Tracey asked, Harrison nodded, “Everyone can learn to cast spells wandless, but it’s easier as a child. Most people lose the ability before they know they have it. Think about it; centuries ago we didn’t have wands yet, but wizards and witches were still there.”

“Accidental magic,” Daphne whispered in amazement. Harrison nodded, “Mostly you’re ‘accidental magic’ is actually your magic reacting to your emotions and what you want at that point. If you learn to control that, you can do wandless spells.”

He stopped in front of the defence class room, “Okay let’s do this.”

“Wait, you are teaching us the summoning charm you made soon, right?” Millicent asked, Harrison nodded and then knocked on the defence classroom’s door.

“C-come in!” He heard Quirrel say and Harrison motioned for the Slytherins to follow him, but stay quiet.

“Hey, can I talk to him?” Harrison said in a voice way too cheerful for someone asking to speak to the Dark Lord. Quirrel sighed, but his eyes did turn red, “Did you find it?”

Harrison raised an eyebrow, “You’re seriously asking if I succeeded, you don’t believe I could?” He grabbed the red stone from his pocket, “I have it.”

“Now, I’m going to have to know where your biggest soul piece is.” Harrison said, calmly, “The one that has at least 50% of your soul.”

Voldemort scowled, “Why would you need my soul piece?”

“The ritual, I’m not going to let you return as an insane man.” Harrison sighed, “Plus I want to see if I can feel the connection between me and your soul pieces. We have twin wands, you know?”

He heard Draco gasp, suddenly the reason why Harrison wanted the book so badly made sense.

Voldemort just stayed silent and Harrison gave him an unimpressed look, “You’re whole resurrection is in my hands right now. I know enough people who would love to have this stone in their possession, so you either tell me where it is, or I leave and don’t help you.”

“Fine,” Voldemort said, Harrison was honestly surprised with how quickly the man gave up, giving him the answers he wanted. “Lucius has my first horcrux, it’s a diary from my sixteen year old self.”

“You were sixteen when you made the first one?” Harrison asked and Voldemort nodded, “I used the basilisk.” Harrison smirked, Salazar had been fond of the basilisk and showed her off to Harrison multiple times. All the other founders had been scared, but unable to stop them since they couldn’t come into the chamber of secrets.

“Smart, indirect murder.” Harrison mused and Voldemort nodded, “I didn’t even mean to kill her, Myrtle, but when I killed her on accident I thought I would use her death for my path to immortality.”

“How many horcruxes are there?” Harrison asked and Voldemort looked at the Slytherins, Harrison rolled his eyes, but put up privacy charms around them.

“6, right now, I was planning to make a seventh one, my snake after killing you. Well at that time I thought it would be my sixth one.”

“We’re not even sure if I am one.”

“We’re pretty sure, I know you feel the magic pulling your very soul towards me and this is in somebody else’s body, just imagine when I have a body again.” Voldemort said and Harrison snorted, “Right,” Harrison said, “Might be useful, though, I wonder if it makes me immortal.”

“It probably will,” Voldemort said, “I won’t die unless you die, but you have two souls so probably won’t die until I do.”

“Does that mean I can give you all your soul pieces back except for mine?” Harrison asked and Voldemort sighed, “I don’t think I’ll be able to stop you.” Harrison saw his eyes flicker from red to blue and the man stopped responding angrily. So Harrison sighed and said, “I’ll send you more information of where and when we’ll do it.”

“Wait you don’t need to know what the other’s are?” Voldemort said, though his voice cracked a few times and his eyes stayed blue for longer each time before flickering back to blue.

“No, the magic will recognise your soul with the help of the stone, all I have to do is make sure it doesn’t take the piece in me with it. Now stop wasting your energy and let Quirrel take over.”

 Voldemort did and Harrison nodded at Quirrel before he walked back towards his year mates.

“What was that about?” Daphne asked and Harrison shook his head, “Nothing important. Just some more specific information about the Dark Lord, which he didn’t want all of us to know. He knows he can’t stop me from finding out in another way, though, so told only me instead.”

“He trusts you?” She asked, shocked and Harrison shrugged, “I wouldn’t call it trust, more me threatening him to use the stone for myself and not resurrect him unless he gave me answers.”

“Like a true Slytherin would,” Draco said in his pureblood voice, making Harrison and some other’s laugh, while Draco just looked around with confusion.

“A true Slytherin would fall to their knees in front of the Dark Lord and beg for their lord to let them help bring him back,” Harrison snorted, “Salazar would be embarrassed.”

The Slytherins looked at him, slightly surprised and hurt. Harrison was obviously talking about most of their families, “He’s not wrong.” Pansy muttered to the rest and Harrison nodded, he shouldn’t have said something like that, but it was the truth.

They quickly changed the subject after that, Harrison mostly staying silent. They went to lunch and afterwards made their homework, Harrison helping the rest, he still felt kind of guilty over his comment about Slytherins.

“What is spongify used for exactly?” Pansy asked and Harrison shrugged, “A lot of things actually, it’s a quite handy charm. Since Spongify makes something soft and bouncy it’s often used to stop someone from falling too hard when they fall off a broom, for example. Some professional Duels have Spongify agents, whose job it literally is to cast spongify if one of the contestants would fall, especially if it’s a duel on a high platform. And those are only some of the most used situations.” Harrison answered her and Pansy looked at him, “That’s kind of cool, actually.”

Harrison shot her an amused look, “Is it?”

“It is, how do you even know these things?” Daphne asked, she had been listening to the conversation, “Flitwick never mentioned these things.”

“I’m just that smart,” Harrison said and Pansy laughed, “You’re so modest!”

“Tell me I’m wrong, then.” Harrison smirked, silencing her and she glared at him. Now it was Harrisons turn to laugh, “Anyone else needs help?”

A couple of “Me”s were heard around the table, and Harrison answered all their questions.

None of them noticed the blue eyes that followed them, watching them suspiciously.

~

The next morning Harrison, once again, got called into the headmaster’s office.

“What does the old coot want now?” Harrison asked, “Have I done anything wrong?” He looked around and most of the Slytherins shrugged, some of the second year Slytherins were also listening and one of them said, “Dumbledore would be suspicious of you either way, you’re a Potter in Slytherin, who is also somehow a magical prodigy and a Parselmouth.”

“Don’t even get us started on you knowing the founders,” another second year said, and Harrison thought he really should start learning their names, because at this point most of them probably saw him as their ally, friend or whatever.

Harrison snorted, “Dumbledore literally has no reason to call me up to his office, right?”

“Not really, besides what the second years just said,” Higgs answered, also listening to the conversation and Harrison shrugged, “I’ll just go see what it’s about and then decide if it’s actually something to worry about.”

“Take Snape with you,” Theo said and Harrison nodded, “I was planning to.”

He once again walked to the teacher’s table, this time Snape just nodded without Harrison actually having to say anything, following the boy to the Headmaster’s office.

Dumbledore was waiting for them, “Lemon drop?” He asked with a smile, Harrison shook his head, and based on Dumbledore’s glare, so did Snape.

“I’ve heard that you were missing at Halloween and then turned up after killing a troll,” Dumbledore said and he sighed, “I’m worried about you, my boy.”

Harrison rolled his eyes, “Halloween is a bit traumatic for me,” The headmaster looked at him with surprise, “I get nightmares about that.. night. I had a bad one the night before Halloween so I decided to skip the feast. However, I had promised to talk to Sirius and Remus after the feast and ran into the troll.”

“So you killed the troll?” Dumbledore asked and Harrison shrugged, “It was either kill or get killed, I used some charms I learned in class, is there something wrong with protecting myself?”

Dumbledore shook his head, “No and I’m quite sure the whole school should thank you for acting so quickly. A lot of accidents could’ve happened with a  troll in the school.” He sighed, “still one can wonder how you a first year could beat a troll, when some grown witches or wizards can’t.”

“I believe people can do a lot more than you would believe they can, when it’s a life or death situation.”

“You are right, of course.”

Harrison smirked.

 “I am wondering however why you didn’t listen to your parents when they said Remus and Sirius were dark wizards, they are dangerous, you should understand that.”

Harrison snorted, “All of Slytherin is labelled as ‘dark’, I’m sure they won’t hurt me. I took their warning seriously, but decided to see for myself just how dangerous they are and if I’m totally honest they’re not that dangerous.”

“Still, you should’ve listened to your parents.” Dumbledore said and Harrison shrugged, “They never told me to not talk with them, they made their hatred for them quite clear, though.”

“Dumbledore, I don’t think you should meddle with family business.” Snape said and Dumbledore glared at the man, “I’m very disappointed in both of you,”

“To be totally honest, I don’t really care what you think of me. Now can I go or did you need anything else, Headmaster?”

“Actually, your parents requested for a resorting after the Weasley’s resorting.” Dumbledore’s eyes were twinkling and Harrison scowled, “Well, maybe they should’ve read the rules before requesting it. A request should always come from a student, with parental consent in the grades 1,2,4,6 and 7. In year 3 and 5 you can request one without.”

“You think you know the rules better than I do?” Dumbledore asked, losing the twinkles in his eyes once again.

“I know I do and I’m sure the past headmasters or headmistress would tell you so.” Harrison smirked, immediately Godric spoke up, “He is right, Headmaster.”

Dumbledore gaped at the paintings, the paintings in his office were always silence, never giving him input in anything. Now Harrison is here and suddenly they help him?

“Even in my time the rules were still the same,” Headmaster Black added and Dumbledore frowned, “It seems you are right, my boy. I’m sorry, you can go back to your friends now.”

“Thank you,” Harrison smiled, “Oh and Headmaster?”

Dumbledore looked at him.

“Never call me to your office for this bullshit again.” Harrison smirked and then left the room, Snape following him out.

The moment they left Dumbledore started screaming at the paintings, but they just watched him with an amused expression. None of them really liked the current headmaster and they were all glad that they finally found a student who stood up against Dumbledore.

Rowena, Helga, Godric and Salazar all watched the boy leave with a sense of pride, Harrison would change the wizarding world for the better and they were glad that they could see it, even from their portraits.

~

Harrison sat down in the common room, some of the older Slytherins standing around- most of them were part of the Slytherin quidditch team- his friend group.

“What did the old coot want?” Pansy asked and Harrison snorted, “Nothing really, just the usual blame me for not being at the Halloween feast, blame me for killing the troll and then force me to get resorted.”

“What- that’s the usual?” A 4^th year student- named Evan Vanity, Harrison reminded himself, learn their names- asked.

“Eh, I mean not really, I’ve only been called up to his office twice. Both times because the headmaster thought I was doing something wrong, while I was just following the rules.” Harrison said, “More like, the headmaster wants me to do something wrong so he can use it against me, though.”

“Thank Godric for me Salazar?” He asked the portrait and Salazar snorted, but left his portrait.

“What did Gryffindor do?” Adrian Pucey, one of Harrison’s quidditch team mates asked, Harrison answered, “He told Dumbledore he was wrong when he tried to convince me that my parents could force me to get a resort. Which they can’t by th-”

The stone wall of the Slytherin common room opened and Terence Higgs walked through, “Harrison, you better go to the great hall before Snape kills you.” He said, catching his breath, he probably ran to the common room.

Which was rare on its own. “What happened?” Harrison asked and Terence looked at him, “Your twins were throwing curses at Hope when they heard them talk shit about Slytherins.”

Blaise snorted, “Good luck,” He said patting Harrison’s shoulder and Harrison groaned, “Okay, fine I’ll go.”

He honestly hadn’t seen a lot of the twins since they got resorted and if he was totally honest, he was okay with the twins cursing Hope. And their own little brother. He just hoped it was just because they felt like it and not because Ron Weasley had told their family about the resort, he knew Percy didn’t give a shit about houses, so wouldn’t tell their family.

Ron however, would. He just hoped that the twins didn’t just get disowned.

“Did they get disowned?” He asked and Terence shrugged, “Could be.”

Harrison nodded and left, leaving all the Slytherins behind, he had some twins to get under control.

Entering the great hall was an whole experience on its own, he had to get through a crowd of students and some teachers to even get to the twins. Once he reached them he saw Snape, James and Lily watching Hope- and her friends- defending themselves against some angry looking twins.

Snape looked way too amused when he noticed Harrison.

Most of the first years were looking at the twins shooting multiple spells at Hope, Hermione and Ron.

None of the spells were harmful, though, they mostly seemed to be prank spells with some weak nightmare spells.

“Cursing us doesn’t change the fact you guys don’t have a family anymore!” Ron shouted, dodging a spell aimed at his forehead. “Ron!” He heard Percy shout, who was somewhere in the crowd.

Ron ignored everyone, though, shooting his own weak spells back. It was honestly pathetic to see, the twins weren’t trying and Hope’s friends didn’t know the spells to use, so instead they used some minor hexes.

Harrison sighed, then smirked and said, “Hey,” While shooting making a shield between the twins and Hope and her friends.

Every head snapped towards him, Hope clenched her fist, her wand still in her hand. Fred and George at least looked somewhat guilty.

“That fight was honestly pathetic,” He said, “Really we should start a duelling club or something like that. If this is what we’re working with, we have a lot to do.” He smirked at the twins, they shot him matching grins back.

“Now please, slowly, why did this happen?” He asked and he heard Granger snort, “Why would you care, you’re only a first year!”

“A first year with enough power to stop the fight even the teachers didn’t bother trying to stop.” Harrison said, pointing at the row of teachers, some of them looked embarrassed, other’s- like Snape, Sirius and Remus- just smirked or grinned at him.

“Now please, why did this happen? I heard something about having no family?”

“Fred and George are no longer Weasley’s.” Percy answered his question, “Mom didn’t like their resort and she practically has dad wrapped around her fingers.”

“Ah, that’s why they weren’t actually trying,” Harrison muttered, “They wanted you to think they actually cared. Now I’m sorry I broke this up, but I was worried about… the new Slytherins.”

“That’s not true! They were trying!” Hope said, “I just used my training to defend us.” Granger and Ron Weasley nodded in agreement.

“If that was all you learned in your special training I’m honestly worried about the faith of the wizarding world,” Harrison was trying to get disowned at this point, trying stir the attention away from the Weasley disownment.

Plus it was fun to speak his mind for once.

“Harrison! Don’t be rude to your sister.” James shouted and Harrison looked at him, “Sorry dad, just being honest.” He shrugged, “If you think Hope will protect us with some knockback jinxes, you’re wrong. Voldemort won’t hesitate to AK us all. Now can I go?”

Lily looked at him, “No! You can’t just say that and leave!”

“Can we at least go to a more private place then?” Harrison said and the Headmaster looked around, “We can go to my office.” Harrison nodded, turning to the twins, who were now standing next to him. “Tell my friends I won’t be back for a bit.”

“Harrison-“ Fred said and Harrison waved his hand, “Don’t thank me, honestly I’ve wanted to do that since the day they got me back.”

That was only 4 months, Harrison had to remind himself. He had been here for only 4 months.

Walking into the headmaster’s office, with Snape following him felt different this time, he was less sure about how much bullshit this meeting would be.

“Why must Snivellus always be here?” James scowled, Lily elbowed him in his rib. “Because he’s the head of my house, who can be present for every meeting with the headmaster.” Harrison said and James rolled his eyes, “We’re your parents.”

“Okay, okay, stop it.” Dumbledore said, no twinkle in his eye, “Harrison, my boy, why did you say those things? You have to understand that Hope is trying her best, there is no reason to panic.”

Harrison fake shuddered, “I just keep remembering that night, it’s really hard, headmaster. Just imagine my surprise when Higgs comes into the common room telling me that Weasley started fighting with Fred and George after their disownment. They’re my friends, sir, I had to stop the fight, I just kind of lost it.”

James scoffed, “We’re seriously believing the traumatised child act?” Lily seemed to wonder the same.

“I’m so done. I get it, he’s our son, but he doesn’t respect us even a little bit. He’s been rude to Hope since he came here and expect us to just pretend everything is okay, that we still love him the same as when he was a literal baby.” James said, “We all changed, but you’re not even trying to fit into the family.”

“Because I don’t,” Harrison answered, “I don’t fit into the family, because I spend 10 years at a muggle house after you left me there. I spend 10 years trying to secretly learn about magic from books, because I remembered all of it- I needed to know that all my memories weren’t just fake. The moment you took me back you thought I would love all of you immediately, but all I remember is you guys abandoning me for Hope.”

“You weren’t supposed to remember,” Lily whispered and Harrison scoffed, “Well, I did. Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you gave me away. We will never be like a normal family and I won’t forgive you guys until you show that you actually care about me and you didn’t just take me back to better your family image.”

“Harrison, surely you can give your family another chance.” Dumbledore said, eyes twinkling. Harrison shook his head, “No, headmaster, I can’t. You don’t understand what I went through for years. I got dumped by a family who thought I was a freak for magic and the only family who was supposed to love me with my magic- you guys- didn’t want me. I wasn’t good enough for them, I trained for ages trying to be able to fit in the moment I went back here, if I ever went back. All of it was for nothing, you don’t care about what I do. All I’ll ever be to you is a upgrade for your reputation.” Harrison didn’t know if he suddenly got better at acting or if he was actually crying right now, all he did know is that he felt tears rolling down his cheeks, he wanted to hide.

He always pretended it didn’t hurt, he didn’t care, because in the end he ended up with way better people. A happier childhood than he could ever have in this time.

But the feeling of being unwanted never really left.

“Harrison-“ James said and Harrison shook his head, “You either disown me or pretend to actually care. I’m done pretending to be okay with this, bye Professor.” He took at least a bit of satisfaction in the quick flash of hurt on James’ face when he called him Professor instead of dad.

James sighed, “Fine, you’re disowned. I, James Charles Potter, hereby delete Harrison James Potter from the Potter family tree. So mote it be.”

Harrison gaped at his dad, he hadn’t expected his dad to actually do it. He felt the magic around him snapping in place and turned to the headmaster, “If you would allow me, Headmaster, I would like to visit Gringotts tomorrow.”

Dumbledore snapped out of his shock, “You can’t go without a grown-up, Harrison.”

“I’ll take Siri with me.”

Dumbledore sighed, “Fine, my boy. Now I think we’ve talked enough, you should get back to your common room, Harrison.”

He kept everything together until he entered the common room and sat down on the couch- he knew the Slytherins wouldn’t let him leave to his room, after seeing his tears stained cheeks.

He could hear people turn silent, the normally alive common room turned dead silent. No one was used to seeing him in such a state, such an emotional state.

“Sh, It’s okay.” Salazar hissed, Harrison felt a hand on his back, probably one of his friends. “I’m proud of you. It’s okay to not be okay sometimes, you know? You always pretend nothing of this hurts even the slightest, even when you were little, but all of us know it isn’t always okay.”

Harrison looked at Salazar and offered him a small smile, but he said nothing. He could practically feel the curiosity of some Slytherins, wanting to know what happened.

All he said to them was, “Sorry, the headmaster and the Potters are arseholes.”

Then he turned around to look at the person sitting next to him- or people- Blaise sat there, with Daphne next to him and most of the other first years stood around him.

“I’m okay,” He said, at the disbelieving look Blaise shot him he insisted, “I am.”

But he didn’t answer any questions, didn’t even talk about how he felt unwanted, how he wished he wasn’t here right now. How he wished he was with the founders instead, with the people he knew really cared about him. He did however whisper one sentence in parseltongue, “I miss you.” And even though he couldn’t see the portrait he knew that Salazar’s probably had the softest expression anyone had ever seen on his face.

And he knew that the founders missed him just as much.

Chapter Text

The next morning Harrison sat in the common room with the Slytherins in his year. He knew they had been curious about what happened last night and Harrison decided to tell them, because Hope probably spread the news already.

Harrison sighed, looking around the room, “I got disowned.”

“For real?” Pansy asked, looking surprised and Harrison nodded, “I didn’t expect my dad to actually do it, but I guess it makes sense. I’m going to drag Sirius to Diagon Alley today, so I can either claim my heirships or he might adopt me. I feel like he would’ve already, if it wasn’t for the fact that I was still a Potter.”

“Being a black might be smarter than claiming the last name Slytherin,” Blaise said.

“I know, I would like the chaos it causes, but the Potters would ask for an explanation and I don’t want them to know the truth.”

“You want no one to know the truth, no one knows yet.” Draco said and Harrison shook his head, “I told Sirius.”

“You told him, but not us?” Draco asked, sounding bitter and Harrison shrugged, “I had to, it was the only way to convince him to let me get the stone at Halloween. I will tell you guys soon anyways,”

“So you’ll try to use Black as last name?” Blaise asked, changing the subject, Harrison shot him a grateful look, “Yeah, I don’t want to cause chaos now, I want the attention on me to at least fade before Yuletide so I can bring the Dark Lord back in peace. Talking about the Dark Lord, Draco could you please ask your father if he’d like to be present at the ritual I kind of need his help.”

Draco looked at him with surprise and nodded, “Yeah?  I mean sure.”

“Thank you,” Harrison shot Draco a smile, then he sighed, “We should probably go to breakfast, I still have to ask Siri if he actually has time to come with me.”

And like that they all left, when they arrived at the great hall Harrison quickly noticed Sirius pacing in front of the big doors of the great hall, Remus standing next to him, his eyes shining a bit brighter- a goldish tint in them, Harrison realised it must be the wolf in him.- than usual.

“Harrison you’re okay!” Sirius shouted when he saw Harrison, running towards Harrison to hug him.

“I’m okay, Siri.”

Sirius sighed, “I was ready to kill him when I heard what happened.” Remus also came up to them, ruffling Harrisons hair, “I had to stop him from killing them,” he informed Harrison.

“It helped that I knew you would need me, so I didn’t want to get locked into Azkaban.” Sirius said and Harrison smiled at him, “So you don’t blame me?”

“Blame-“ Sirius snorted, “Have you even listened to any of our past conversations, I don’t like the Potters, Harrison. I could not blame you for getting disowned.”

“I mean I did kind of tell them to disown me,” Harrison said and Sirius shook his head, “That’s their problem, now Dumbledore informed me you wanted to go to Diagon Alley?”

“Yes, I need to go to Gringotts to fix my last name problem.” Harrison said and Sirius nodded, “I already have the adoption papers ready.”

“You- I- What?” Harrison asked, honestly shocked, him and Sirius hadn’t even talked about him adopting Harrison yet.

“What you think I’d just let you claim the Hogwarts titles and live alone? No, pup, you’re stuck with me now.” Sirius laughed and Harrison fake-groaned. The Slytherins looked at the scene with amusement and confusion when Sirius said ‘titles’ instead of ‘title’, which would mean Harrison had more than one Hogwarts title.

“You’re part of my family now!” Sirius teased, poking Harrison in his side and Harrison swatted his hand away, “I’m not sure if I want to be,” He said back sarcastically.

“You’re a horrible child! Don’t talk like that to your poor godfather, who’s taking you in at such an important time.” Sirius pouted and Harrison laughed, Remus was also looking at them with amusement now.

“Well, we’ll see you later.” Remus said, motioning for the Slytherins to walk into the great hall, “Bye guys!” Harrison shouted and then turned to Sirius, “So we’re having breakfast in Diagon Alley?”

He swore he heard Blaise say, “All of you owe me a galleon, told you he would get disowned yesterday.”

“How the fuck did you guess the exact day?” He heard someone reply and laughed.

“Of course we are, Kiddo, you didn’t think I would let you starve on the first day of you being my family, did you?” Sirius asked and Harrison just snorted.

“Glad to know you care.” Harrison shot back, amused.

Sirius shook his head, laughing quietly, but said nothing. Together they walked to where the wards ended, so Sirius could apparate them to Diagon Alley.

Harrison quickly noticed that apparating wasn’t that bad, if you knew you were going to apparate and someone didn’t just grab you and apparated.

“So where to first, Gringotts or breakfast?” Sirius asked and Harrison immediately answered, “Breakfast, I feel like our trip to Gringotts might take a while.”

Sirius shot him a confused look and Harrison answered the non-verbal question, “I want to claim my heirships.”

“Ah,” Sirius said and lead Harrison through Diagon Alley to find a place to eat breakfast.

~

“I can’t believe it actually happened..”

“Yeah, the poor boy.”

“What do you mean, poor boy? He literally disrespected his family!”

“Yeah, like you wouldn’t after they abandoned you for 10 years.”

The whole great hall was talking about disowned son of the Potters. And while the opinions were spread, most of them agreed that Harrison wasn’t the bad guy in this situation.

Well, except for the first year and some second year Gryffindors that was.

“I’m just glad that Harrison doesn’t mind too much,” Pansy said, sighing. While she had made herself known as a gossiper the first few months in Hogwarts, even she admitted that this much attention on their friend was annoying.

“I feel like he cares more than he lets us believe,” Blaise muttered, “I mean remember yesterday evening? That wasn’t someone who didn’t give a shit.”

“I mean I don’t think it would’ve been healthy if he didn’t care at all,” Daphne said, “Even after everything that happened it’s still his family. Everyone would feel bad. I feel like the fact that he got disowned so quickly was a big part, I mean imagine how unwanted you must feel. Your family abandoned you, finally decides to get you back, only to disown you a few months later again.”

That silenced everyone around them, obviously no one had thought about that yet.

“That’s it, we’re killing the Potters.” Fred said, George nodding in agreement. Most of the first year Slytherins looked surprised, not knowing they had even been there, but they shouldn’t be surprised it were the twins after all.

“No killing without permission from Harrison,” Millicent said, making the teens around her laugh. Fred and George groaned, but did sit down.

“We’ll wait then,” George said, Fred nodded.

~

Harrison and Sirius finished eating and immediately went to Gringotts afterwards. Sirius asked to speak to a goblin called ‘Griphook’, he quickly explained that Griphook managed the Black vaults.

He also explained how he took the role as Lord Black very seriously, James had always held him back, but after he send Harrison away Sirius decided to finally take up the role.

“Welcome, Lord Black, Heir Gryffindor-Slytherin-Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff-Emrys. I’ve been expecting you.” Griphook said, when they finally walked into his small office, he looked amused while saying Harrisons name.

Harrison bowed slightly, “I’m glad you had time to meet with us, Mr. Griphook.” Sirius looked way to amused by the whole exchange, Harrison ignored his look.

“Yes, yes, now please sit down, we have a lot to talk about.” Griphook said, motioning to the two chairs at his desk.

Harrison and Sirius sat down and Griphook pulled out some papers, “Now I have the adoption files,” Griphook said and at Harrisons surprised look he said, “We were all prepared for this to happen.”

Harrison nodded, but said nothing, so Griphook continued.

“But I think it might be smart to start with an inheritance, it won’t show a lot you don’t know, but it will make you able to claim your other.. Heirships.”

“Okay,” Harrison nodded in agreement and Griphook gave Harrison a piece of paper, instructing him to put 3 drops of blood on it. Harrison followed the instructions, afterwards he began chanting in Gobbledegook and quickly ink started to spread on the paper.

Harrison looked at the magic, sometimes he forgot just how many types of magics existed, how he didn’t know even a quarter of what was possible with magic.

“Okay so like I expected,” Griphook said, “Or well maybe there is something new on here for you.” He pushed the paper towards Harrison and Sirius.

Name: Harrison James Potter

Birth date: 31^st of July 1980

Biological parents:       James Potter (Father)
                                          Lily Potter- Evans (Mother)

Godparents:    Sirius Orion Black

Heir/Lordships:

Slytherin           (Blood-adoption)
Hufflepuff         (Blood-adoption)
Ravenclaw       (Blood-adoption)
Gryffindor         (Blood-adoption)
Emrys                 (Blood-adoption)
Black                  (Godfather)

Core: Parsel-core (100% grey)

After that there was a long list of vaults, Harrison honestly didn’t care about those right now, so Harrison handed the paper to Sirius, who also looked through it and looked at Harrison in surprise, it was another reminder that Harrison had indeed grown up in the past.

“How did you expect this?” Harrison asked and Griphook gave him an another amused look, “Goblin magic doesn’t quite work the same, we’ve known you would return for a while. I'm surprised that was your first question. If you have no other questions, we can go ahead to the claiming process."

Harrison slowly nodded, he would like to at least have access to the vaults.

Griphook waved his hand in the air and a box of rings appeared.

“Lord Slytherin claimed his Lordship a while ago, but because of his… situation he can’t give you access to the main vaults. You can however access the Heir vaults.” Griphook explained, “Since you are the last remaining heir of the other bloodlines, you are able to access all the vaults."

Harrison nodded again and Griphook handed him the first ring, the Slytherin one. He slipped it on a finger and felt a wave of magic, this process he repeated until he slipped the last ring- the Black one- on.

“Now that’s done, we need to finish the adoption. This will make Sirius Black your magical guardian, for any other form of adoption, like blood-adoption, you will have to do on your own.”

“I already blood-adopted you,” Sirius said, “After begging for six months, James and Lily allowed me to do it when you were one year old.”

Griphook nodded, “The Godfather bond was established earlier, which would be why it doesn’t show on the inheritance test.”

“I didn’t know that-“ Harrison muttered and Sirius shrugged, “I was going to tell you, but I just forgot to, I guess.”

After that the adoption was finished pretty quickly, they signed the paper with a blood quill and Harrison changed his name to Harrison Sirius Black.

Sirius looked at him with surprise when Harrison said he would use Sirius’ name as first name. Harrison just gave the man a small smile.

“Thank you for helping us today, Griphook.” Harrison said as they were about to leave and Griphook gave him a toothy grin, “It was my pleasure, Heir Black.”

“May your gold always flow,” Harrison said goodbye, bowing respectfully at the goblin. Rowena and Sal had spent a long time teaching him how to behave around goblins.

“And may your enemies flee in terror, Heir Black.” Griphook replied, though he looked slightly shocked. Sirius also gave a small bow and together they left.

“So what now?” Sirius asked, “We still have a bit of time before we have to get back.”

“I kind of need to get a heated rock for Ebony, he’s been complaining about cold, even with multiple heating charms.” Harrison said and Sirius nodded, “To the pet store it is.”

Harrison nodded and started leading the way.

~

“I wonder when Harrisons coming back.” Draco said, laying down on the couch in the Slytherin common room, a rare sight, the boy always tried to behave pureblood.

“He’s probably in a long boring meeting with goblins.” Tracey said and Theo shook his head, “No, I think him and Sirius are just wandering around Diagon Alley. Contrary to popular belief, goblins hate long meetings, they think that they’re a waste of time.”

“This is Harrison we’re talking about,” Tracey said, “I’ve never seen anyone admit that a meeting with him is a waste of time.”

“She has a point.” Pansy said and Blaise snorted, “So has Theo, I don’t think that anyone- even Harrison- could get goblins to like them.”

“If there was anyone who could do it, it would be Harrison, though.” Millicent said.

The first years had been sitting, making their homework for the coming week, only to realise just how much Harrison helped them. They could all do it on their own, of course, but that didn’t change the fact that it took a lot longer.

“How does Harrison even make his homework in such a short time?” Pansy changed the subject, she was still working on her transfiguration essay. She was sitting on the ground next to the coffee table, so that she didn’t have to leave the other first years who were all sitting on couches or chairs, around the same table.

“Being friends with the founders probably helps,” Draco said and everyone had to admit, he probably wasn’t wrong.

“And the fact that literally all the grown-ups he is close to are teachers.” Daphne said, agreeing with Draco.

“Or maybe, he’s just a genius.” A bored voice behind them said, Daphne turned around and saw Harrison standing there, smirking.

“I’m back? Hi?”

“How’d it go?” Blaise asked and Harrison laughed, “I’m now officially a Heir of seven houses, six of which I already knew I would be. Oh and I am now Harrison Sirius Black.”

“Seven?” Millicent asked, Harrison nodded, “Seven, I suppose I can let you into another secret.”

The Slytherins all moved a bit towards Harrison, without noticing.

Being Friends with Harrison feels like slowly taking down a wall, brick by brick. Waiting till you finally get to see whatever was built behind the wall.

“I- Don’t ask questions about this one, though.” Harrison said, “I’m not ready? To tell everything yet, I suppose.” When the Slytherins nodded, Harrison sighed. “Okay, so I claimed my Heirships, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, Emrys and Black…. I practically own Hogwarts now.”

“You- I- What?” Draco said and Harrison laughed, “Yeah, I know. Believe me I will tell you after Yule, after the whole Dark Lord business. I do trust you guys.”

The Slytherins looked sceptical, but nodded, knowing it was probably better for Harrison to expose his own secrets in time.

~

While the first years were hanging out with Harrison, Fred and George were sitting in an abandoned classroom.

“Are we really going?” George asked and Fred raised an eyebrow, “Do you really want to say no to Aunt Muriel, because you’re free to, but I won’t.”

George shivered, “Good point.”

“She also sounded like it was really important.”

“You’re right, we really can’t say no.” George sighed, Fred nodded, “So we write her back and tell her we will meet up with her.”

Fred and George had gotten a letter from Aunt Muriel earlier that day, asking them to come over some time in the Christmas break. She told them it really was important, so no it couldn’t be later.

And to be quite honest, everyone in their family feared aunt Muriel, while she could be a nice woman, but she could also be quite harsh.

And she had a lot of power, not only magical, but also political- somehow.

So yes, Fred and George were scared of what was going to happen, but they also knew that refusing to meet up with her would make it even worse.

So they decided that, yes, meeting with her somewhere in the Christmas break was the better option.

~

That evening everyone had heard about Harrisons Heirships and the new Black son got a lot of respect from every house.

Even the older Gryffindors started talking to him, offering him their assistance would he ever need it.

Harrison was once again reminded how much power mattered in this fucked up world.

Dumbledore wasn’t there and Harrison hoped that the man was currently destroying his office in rage, because he hadn’t know how valuable Harrison could be for his course, he hadn’t known what he threw away when he gave Harrison away.

The Potters were probably worse, trying to convince everyone that they were the rightful lord to all these houses, being Harrisons biological parents. They kept saying how they would make sure Harrison had no power soon, how Hope would get all these Heirships.

Harrison and most of the Slytherins had laughed at them and then ignored them.

They dragged Hope away from the great hall, probably not used to all the negative attention.

“I mean, I know this would stir things up, but this is crazy.” Harrison muttered, “Maybe I should’ve just called myself Harrison Black-Slytherin-Gryffindor-Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff-Emrys or whatever.”

Blaise snorted, “Teachers would have liked that, just imagine; ’10 points for doing the spell first try, Mr. Black-Slytherin-Gryffindor-Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff-Emrys.’”

“Okay, no, I would hate that. You’re right.” Harrison said and Blaise laughed.

“I don’t think anyone has ever had all four of the houses, you’re children would be powerful. Just imagine you marrying a- well for example, Draco. They would have eight of the most powerful lordships.” Tracey said, Harrison shook his head.

Draco had a weird look on his face, probably disgusted by the thought.

“Yeah no, I should’ve used another example.” Tracey said, Pansy giggled, “No, you’re kidding! I think it would work.”

Harrison fake gagged, “Nope, no sorry guys, not happening.”

“We’re only eleven, who knows what will happen in the future.” Pansy continues and Harrison rolls his eyes, honestly not bothered at all by the teasing.

“Stop it, Pansy.” Draco said and Pansy laughed, “Harry seems okay with it.”

“Just because I don’t mind your teasing and keeping the subject on something that’s not about my lordships, doesn’t mean I’m okay with it.” Harrison said and Blaise snorted, “I don’t see it, though.”

“What do you mean? They would be cute.”

“Fucking children.” Harrison whispered, Theo- who was sitting next to him- nodded in agreement, being the only one who heard him.

“They really would not be ‘cute’, Pansy. Draco has a lot of growing up to do before it could even be a possibility and even then Harrison is just too- too secretive for someone like Draco.” Blaise said and Draco looked offended for a second before shrugging it off.

Harrison shook his head, quietly laughing. He hadn’t even thought about relationships once. Why would he? He was eleven, it wasn’t important.

Plus he had a lot of other things to deal with, actual important things.

“Yeah, but if you look at it like that no one could be together with Harrison. I mean he’s like this with everyone and let’s no one get particularly close to him.” Pansy argued and Harrison decided to stop this, because really why were they even discussing his love life?

“Pansy, we’re all eleven, I really don’t care about relationships. Even if I’m alone forever I feel like I’d be okay with it, please take pity on poor embarrassed Draco and stop discussing this.”

Pansy snorted, “Of course, oh Heir Black.”

Harrison smiled at her and she winked, before turning to Draco to embarrass him about something else.

After dinner Harrison went to Sirius and Remus, he hadn’t told them he would visit, but technically he was Sirius’ son now.

The door of their room opened for him, when he walked in he saw Sirius and Remus sitting on the couch, talking about something- he honestly didn’t know about what.

“Hey,” Harrison said and they both looked up in surprise, before Sirius smiled and exclaimed: “There he is! My favourite son.”

Harrison rolled his eyes and sat down on the couch, next to Sirius and Remus.

“How are you, Harry?” Remus asked and Harrison shrugged, “Okay, surprised by how quickly the news went around the school- but I should’ve expected that.”

“Most of the reactions were positive, though, right?”

“Yeah, they were. I’m glad they are.” Harrison said, “Talking about reactions, I have an idea.”

“Idea?” Remus asked, “I don’t like the sound of this, pads.”

Sirius snorted and motioned for Harrison to continue.

“Well, spreading the news- by for example a newspaper- that the poor boy who lived got abandoned again and then got adopted by dark wizards, well let’s just say it might help us later.”

“You want to just tell everyone? Like whole wizarding Britain?” Sirius asked and Harrison nodded, “It’s not like they won’t find out, but now we still have the chance to make it a sob story.”

“We should do it, padfoot.” Remus said and Sirius nodded, “It’s a smart idea.”

“Okay so you guys know a reporter?”

“Do you even have to ask?” Sirius said and Harrison smirked, this would be perfect.

Chapter Text

A week later, the 9^th of November was Harrisons first quidditch match. The whole Slytherin quidditch team were sitting at breakfast together, anxiously eating while going through strategies once more.

“Black, just ignore the rest of us, make sure you get the snitch!” Flint said and Harrison nodded, then Flint turned his head to Fred and George, who had taken over the positions of beater from Fae Drusus- a 6^th year Slytherin, who liked quidditch but didn’t quite have the skills the rest had. And Ethan Grimstone, a 7^th year who had been meaning to quit to focus on his studying.

Overall, there were no hard feelings about the Weasley Twins joining the quidditch teams. The Twins were probably the best beaters the school saw in a while, being able to communicate without talking helped with that.

“Weasley’s focus on Hope,” Flint said and Fred shook his head, “Not Weasley’s anymore, but you got it captain!”

“Okay the rest knows what to do, right?” Flint asked looking around the table, Terence snorted, “You’ve only been through it with us for like a hundred times, Marcus.”

“Right,” Flint muttered, his eyes darting to the Gryffindor table and then back to looking around the Slytherin team, “We can win this.”

“We will,” Pucey said, Montague had decided to try out for keeper when Terence became chaser and since he was the best one in the try outs he was now on the team as Slytherin keeper.

They all went to the changing rooms after breakfast, Flint going through their strategy once more. Harrison had honestly zoned out the whole time, he didn’t think that beating Hope was going to be a challenge.

However, since Fred and George were Slytherins now he did still have to make sure a bludger wouldn’t hit him.

Walking onto the field was a whole different experience, he had never played quidditch with a full audience before. He looked at the Gryffindor team and noticed that Hope was, of course, loving all the attention.

Flint shook hands with Oliver Wood- the Gryffindor captain- before madam Hooch let them mount their brooms. Harrison took that time to study the other team and he quickly noticed none of them looked thrilled to have Hope in their team.

That was besides Hope herself.

He didn’t have time to look any longer once he was on his broom because Lee Jordan- the commentator, of course, and how weird it would be to hear him make positive comments about Slytherin instead of Gryffindor this time- started talking.

“Ladies and Gentleman, welcome to the first quidditch match of this school year! Like always we start with the Slytherin against Gryffindor match.” Lee said, “On the Slytherin team we have, Captain Flint, Terence Higgs and Adrian Pucey as chasers, Graham Montague as keeper, Fred and George as beater and child-prodigy Harrison Sirius Black as seeker.” There were a lot of cheers, Harrison looked down and quickly noticed the whole Slytherin house was here.

“For the Gryffindor team we have Captain Oliver Wood as keeper, Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet and Katie Bell as chasers, Maeve Smith and Ivan Raven as beaters and the Girl-Who-Lived Hope Potter as seeker. And aren’t we excited for a little sibling rivalry am I right?” The cheers for Gryffindors were obviously louder, but Harrison honestly didn’t care. Hope was smirking at him and Harrison smirked right back.

The new beaters of Gryffindor didn’t seem to be totally sure what to do, so Harrison decided he shouldn’t panic about that too much.

As soon as the snitch got released Harrison started circling the pitch, knowing Hope was following his every move.

He decided to play for a bit, making some dangerous dives, Hope following him- but almost crashing. He spend the entire first half of the match tiring Hope like this, while also avoiding bludgers.

“Slytherin scored! That makes it 60-40 for Gryffindor!” He heard Lee call out, Harrison sighed. He hadn’t caught sight of the snitch yet and the Gryffindor team had caught up with the Slytherins quickly.

The Slytherins had a 30 points lead after ten minutes, now fifteen minutes later the Gryffindor’s had a lead of 20 points.

It honestly wasn’t a surprise, the Gryffindor chasers were Good. And let’s not even get started on quidditch addicted keeper Oliver Wood.

Still it would be fun to win with a big lead, so Harrison stopped annoying Hope, instead went back to circling the pitch to look for the snitch.

“Stay focused, Black!” He heard Flint shout, when he dodged a bludger that almost hit his face, Harrison laughed.

“Don’t worry, captain!”

Another twenty minutes past, now the Gryffindors had a sixty point lead, 140-80.  How they had managed to score eight times in such a short time, Harrison honestly didn’t know.

He dived down again, Hope- and a bludger- on his tail, when suddenly he saw a flash of gold. He redirected his broomstick in an angle that made Hope hit the stands, not being able to make her broomstick move in the way he did.

He followed the trail of gold, ignoring the shocked gasps. Hope, however had gotten up and jumped on her broomstick again, but she had no way of catching up now. So no one was surprised when Harrison caught the snitch and Lee shouted that Slytherin had won the match.

Harrison was soon pulled into a big hug by the Slytherin team, ignoring Hope’s and the other Gryffindor’s glares.

“I knew you had it in you, Black!” Flint said, swinging his arm over Harrison’s shoulder, Harrison steadied his broom stick and laughed, “Of course you did.”

“Party in the common room!” He heard Fred and George shout in the distance, somewhere close to the Slytherin stands. And when he looked at them, he saw Snape scowling at them, but even Snape couldn’t hide his happiness of the win.

McGonagall however, didn’t look so Happy, Harrison understood why. Gryffindors had been the top team for a while, Charlie Weasley had been the Best Seeker in the school for the full seven years of school and Gryffindor barely lost any match.

Now, with Harrison against the Gryffindors that would change.

“That’s our pup, Moony!” He heard his godfather shout, the man was waving at him, trying to catch his attention. Harrison laughed and waved back.

“Snape wasn’t wrong when he said the Slytherin team could use you, Harrison.” Terence said, coming up next to Flint and Harrison.

“Guess I’m a natural.” Harrison said, smiling and Terence snorted, “Just keep saying that, I won’t ever believe you.”

He and Terence had had a lot of discussions about if you could really be this good without training, Terence absolutely refused to believe it was all a natural talent from Harrison.

Entering the common room after changing was a whole different experience, there was loud music and people were dancing all around the room.

If a Gryffindor saw the Slytherins they would say it’s impossible that these people were really Slytherin.

Somewhere in the common room drinks were given away, Harrison knew Fred and George probably used their own alcohol stash that they probably had somewhere for this.

He sat down on the couch and was quickly joined by his classmates.

“Come on Harrison, you got to give us a speech.” Pansy said and pretty much everyone around him began chanting ‘speech, speech, speech!’

Harrison sighed, but stood up. He knew it was better to just listen to people, especially if everyone in the room tried to convince him to give a speech.

“I honestly don’t know why you want me to do this,” Harrison started, making more than a couple people groan, “While obviously Flint here should give the speech.” He continued pointing at Flint, Flint shook his head, “Nope, no, not happening.”

Harrison laughed, “Okay seriously, what we did today is a new start. From now on we’ll win, be known as the new strongest team, after all since Charlie Weasley left and Hope joined the Gryffindors there is no way they are the strongest. We will win, get the cup at the end of the year! Our team can only get stronger at this point and I know I talk for the whole team when I say we’ll do anything to make sure we’ll get stronger. It’s time for Slytherins victory!”

Harrison honestly didn’t know how to make speeches, but no one seems to care enough, there were a lot of cheers through the room. The Slytherin team cheered the loudest for sure.

Harrison laughed and honestly wondered how the Slytherins would show up at dinner.

“Probably drunk,” Blaise answered and Harrison realised he said it out loud, “You’re right about that one.”

“It would ruin the image of our house,” Daphne said, “Everyone thinks we’re these scary, heartless people. Just imagine them seeing most of the house drunk after one quidditch win.”

“That’s why we have sobering potions, dear Firsties!” Fred said, suddenly standing behind them.

“Of course we wouldn’t want to ruin the houses image, doesn’t mean we can’t get pissed now.” George said.

“Aren’t you guys like thirteen?” Tracey asked, staring at the half empty bottle of firewhisky in George’s hand. She looked quite concerned.

“We are-“

“- But that never stopped Gryffindors before-“

“- And we’re still like at least twenty-five percent Gryffindor.” Fred ended, most of the Slytherins still looked a bit confused at the twin-speak.

“Well, don’t get too drunk, we want you guys to at least remember where the potions are.” Harrison said, making George point at him.

“This is why we like you!”

“Why are you supporting this?” Tracey asked and Harrison shrugged, “Let them have fun.”

~

Before dinner it was chaos in the Slytherin common room, everyone was trying to get to the stack of sobering potions and all of them seemed to regret everything once they got sober.

The first years were looking at the chaos with amusement.

“I hope this doesn’t happen every time we win a quidditch match,” Theo said, Harrison laughed, “It probably won’t, they’ll get used to winning eventually.”

“You’re modesty always surprises me.” Draco said, behind them, sarcastically.

“I didn’t say that it had anything to do with my skill.” Harrison said and Draco looked unimpressed, “You implied it, though.”

“If you say so,” Harrison shrugged.

“Boyss! Come we got to go to the great hall.” Pansy said, she was standing on the other side of the common room with Millicent, Daphne and Tracey.

Draco mumbled something about being bossed around by Pansy and quickly got up, the rest following him. Harrison waited a bit longer, before going to his room to check on Ebony before dinner.

The snake hadn’t taken his rat earlier and Harrison really didn’t think it could even be possible for the snake to shed again, seeing how the snake had shed a week ago.

“Ebony, are you here?”

“Hey! Master, I’m so cold.” Ebony said from his space on the heating rock, Harrison looked at him and then at the rock.

“What do you mean cold?” Harrison asked and then Ebony looked up, ”Are you dumb? I mean if you don’t make this rock warmer I will hibernate in spite.”

Harrison laughed at the snake, before checking the warming spell on the rock, seeing it actually failed.

“What?” He said quietly to himself before looking at the snake, “You’re going to have to move if you want me to fix this.”

“Ughhh, you’re kidding.” The snake glared, well that was if a snake could glare, at him. He did however untangle himself and move away from the rock.

Harrison put his hand on the rock, magically charging it to warm up again.

“You’re welcome, grumpy snake.”

“You’re the best,” The snake said, though he sounded sarcastic.

“I know,” Harrison replied before turning away, “I have to go, I’ll be back later.”

“Okay,” Ebony hissed, but he didn’t look interested, instead he just moved back to the rock.

Harrison got up and joined his year mates at dinner.

When Harrison sat down Draco passed him a letter, Harrison shot him a confused look, but opened the letter.

Draco,

I am quite surprised to hear that the new Heir Black is serious about his intention to resurrect the Dark Lord. However, I could, of course, not say no to such an offer.

And he needs my help? Tell Heir Black that I am quite prepared to do anything for Our Lord. His return is needed and if I could be a part of his return, how could I refuse? He could send me an owl with what exactly he needs from me, please tell him that he doesn’t need to use you for communication.

We have a similar goal, after all.

Then he talked about the usual Father-son crap. Harrison honestly didn’t care to read that too, he did however sigh in relieve, “Thank god.” This would make everything a lot easier, having Lord Malfoy’s help would mean not needing to steal the horcrux to make the Dark Lord sane again.

He passed the letter back to Draco and grabbed an empty piece of parchment, forgetting the fact that this is dinner and he had to eat.

He made a list with what he had to gather before Christmas, who he needed to invite and other things.

The rest of the Slytherins ignored him, knowing to not interrupt while Harrison Sirius Black is planning something. Harrison just sat there quietly writing on a piece of parchment for the rest of dinner, not one comment about how he wasn’t eating any of his food.

That was until Hope came up to the Slytherin table, “Black!”

“Oh, please no.” Harrison muttered quietly to himself. Hope hadn’t really bothered him since his disownment, however he had beat her at quidditch so he should’ve expected this.

“Don’t ignore her, Black.” Granger said, “It’s rude to ignore people.”

Harrison turned around and smiled at them, “Potter, Granger, Weasley.” He inclined his head before turning back to what he was working on.

“What’s that? It should be important if you forgot about eating to make this.” Hope said picking up the parchment he had been working on.

“A list of potion ingredients?” Hope asked, looking confused. Harrison noticed how the whole great hall was quiet now, waiting for either of them- but especially Harrison- to do something.

“Yeah, potions, you know me always working to be as good as you are.” Harrison said and Hope laughed, “You are so desperate.”

“For sure,” Harrison rolled his eyes.

“Wait, Hope, there’s names on here.” Weasley said looking at the list, “I don’t think he wants to use Malfoy’s father in a potion.”

The whole hall was looking at Harrison, who was just smiling at the three Gryffindors.

“Why wouldn’t I? Blood has quite interesting effects on potions, especially strong magical blood.” He said, “Did you know that a single drop of your blood is enough for me to make your whole life a living hell? I invented this potion you see, it was quite annoying while testing, but every single thing that happened while testing it was worth it for the results.”

“W-what?” Hope asked.

“It’s quite a simple potion, really, it just makes your worst fears come true. You don’t even have to drink it, I just need your blood to make it. You should be lucky Voldemort doesn’t know about it yet, or well otherwise-“

“Mr. Potter!” Dumbledore shouted and Harrison ignored him, he didn’t use the right name after all.

“Well you can imagine for yourself what would happen.” Harrison said winking at his sister, “However if you really want to know, this is a list of people I have to talk to, the ingredients were already on there. It’s an old piece of paper.”

“You just said all of that to scare me,” Hope said.

Harrison shrugged, “You can believe that.”

“100 points for scaring another student, Mr. Potter!” Dumbledore said, not even noticing the magic not registering it because he used the wrong name again.

Really the man had been there when the Potter’s disowned him, had given him permission to go to Diagon Alley with Sirius, yet he was the person who couldn’t say the right last name?

“You’re a freak.” Hope said before throwing the paper back and walking away, leaving Harrison laughing to himself.

The rest of the hall didn’t start talking again until someone asked to pass over the bread.

Which Harrison totally understood, bread is just superior food.

“What was that, Harry?” Draco whispered and Harrison shrugged, “I’m so done with the Potters.”

“Was the potion you talked about real?” Blaise asked and Harrison shook his head, “It works differently, so no not really. Though I did make a potion with those effects.”

“Sometimes I forget you really are a genius,” Blaise said and Harrison laughed.

“Potter was right, though, I haven’t seen you eat anything. So eat.” Blaise said then and Harrison rolled his eyes, but listened.

He was quite hungry.

After dinner he told the Slytherins he wanted to search for Merlin’s portrait, giving the Slytherins the choice to either join him or go to the common room.

Blaise, Draco and Pansy joined him, unsurprisingly. He did find it surprising that the rest decided to go back to the common room, but he wasn’t going to stop them.

“So Sal told me there was a Merlin portrait with a portrait of all the founders next to it, but I haven’t found it yet.” Harrison explained while walking, “I feel kind of bad for not visiting them, but especially Merlin, I haven’t talked to him in a while.”

“And how do you know them again?” Draco asked, Harrison rolled his eyes, but didn’t respond.

“I’m surprised Sal even told me there was a place with all their portraits, it seems more like him to just not tell me and act surprised when I finally find it.” Harrison muttered, “Wait no, that’s more something that Godric or Rowena would do.”

“You really know them well,” Pansy said and Harrison nodded, “I’ve known them for years, of course I know them ‘well’”

They were currently heading in the direction of the defence corridor, though Harrison didn’t suspect the portraits would be there.

And indeed, the portraits weren’t there.

They wandered through corridors for hours, not finding a single thing.

“Are you sure Salazar Slytherin didn’t lie to you, Harry?” Pansy asked, resting against a wall and Harrison frowned, “He wouldn’t, not about this, this is too important for him too.”

“What if it’s some secret place no one knows about?” Blaise asked and Harrison looked at him, “Could be, probably. Dumbledore would try to separate the portraits.”

“We might as well give up, then.” Draco said, resting next to Pansy, “None of us knows this castle well enough.”

Harrison rolled his eyes, “I do, if I didn’t know where it was Salazar wouldn’t have told me there was a place.”

“That’s probably true,” Pansy said, “But maybe you should make a list of places to search first, instead of just wandering trying to find it.”

“You’re probably right,” Harrison admitted, “We should get back to the common room, then.”

“Sorry,” Pansy said quietly, “I don’t know what they mean to you, but they obviously mean a lot. So I’m sorry we haven’t been able to find a place with all their portraits yet.”

Harrison looked at her with surprise, “Ehm, Thank you. I shouldn’t have expected to find them in one time, really. The castle is huge, especially with all the secret passages. They could be anywhere.”

“We’ll find them,” Pansy said and Harrison nodded, “Yeah, we will.”

And that was the last thing they said until they arrived at the common room. Harrison stopped and said, “I’m going to visit Siri, I’ll come back later.”

“You okay?” Blaise asked and Harrison nodded, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Blaise sighed and turned around, following the others into the common room.

Harrison was disappointed, he hadn’t been able to talk to Merlin ever since he arrived here, but he also didn’t suspect that finding their portraits would be easy.

All the way up to Sirius quarters he was looking at all the portraits, trying to spot the man, but didn’t see a single portrait.

“Harrison! I was just searching for you.” Sirius exclaimed, he was standing in front of Sirius doors, he realised. “Hey, padfoot.” He gave Sirius a small smile.

Sirius raised an eyebrow, “Come in,” He stood aside, showing Harrison Remus sitting on Sirius’ couch. “And tell us what happened.”

“I’m fine!” Harrison said and Sirius shook his head, “You’re not.”

Harrison didn’t argue any further, instead he listened to Sirius and sat down next to Remus, “Hey Moony.”

Remus smiled at him, “So what’s wrong?” Harrison heard the door close and sighed, “It’s stupid.”

“I was just trying to find Merlin’s portrait, because Sal told me there is one next to a painting with all the founders. We sought for a while, but didn’t find anything. I just feel guilty, I guess. The man literally saved me and I’m just now trying to find his portrait.”

“And would Merlin mind you haven’t had the time yet to find a portrait of him?” Sirius asked.

“No, but-“

“So stop it, the man is probably glad you made your own life here.”

Harrison groaned, “I know, that makes it even worse, they would never blame me for anything. He would probably thank me for finding his portrait even if it took multiple years.”

“Maybe, just listen to him this time. He saved you, yes, but he also brought you back for you to be able to have a life here. He probably doesn’t expect you to talk to him, even if he hopes you will.”

“You’re right,” Harrison said, “And I hate saying that.”

Sirius laughed, “I’m always right, kiddo.” Harrison made a face at the nickname. “Anyways, we got a letter back from Rita Skeeter.”

Harrison’s expression changed immediately, this sounded like good news. Sirius had send the reporter a message about a week ago, offering her a lot of money to write articles- accurate articles, not her usual crap- about whatever they want to.

“I think you’ll like what she said, cub.” Remus said and Harrison nodded, he was sure he would.

Sirius opened the letter and started reading out loud.

“Lord Black,

I was quite surprised by your offer. I thought you wanted nothing to do with me after the accident of 1977.” Both Sirius and Remus had a weird expression on their face and Harrison told himself to ask them about it later.

“However I am glad, of course, this is an once in a life time opportunity. So I accept your offer, I would like to meet with you, your Heir and Mr. Lupin sometime to discuss the details of this deal we’re making. To have no misunderstandings, you understand.

Please write me back to make an appointment,

Rita Skeeter.”

“She sounds a lot nicer than you told me she would be,” Harrison said and Sirius groaned, “Please don’t let her charm you, that’s the reason why she’s so dangerous.”

“I don’t get charmed,” Harrison said and Remus laughed, “Just you wait.”

Harrison rolled his eyes, “Am I allowed to leave the school or do we have to sneak me out?”

“I don’t actually know, I’ve never had a child before.” Sirius answered.

“You used to be a child, padfoot.”

“Right, like my parents cared enough about me to let me leave school.” Sirius scoffed, “I don’t think it’s allowed, it would happen more often if it was.”

“Or Dumbledore hid the fact that it’s allowed once again.” Remus said and Harrison shrugged, “Sneaking out is easier, anyways. I’ll get Snape to cover for me.”

Sirius looked at Remus and then nodded when he saw that Remus approved of the plan.

“Okay, next weekend, then?”

Harrison shrugged, “Fine by me.”

~

Time tends to pass really quickly when you’re in a rhythm. Stand up, eat, classes, eat, more classes, homework, eat, free time, sleep. Harrison was currently in that exact rhythm, so it was no surprise that he woke up on Saturday and totally forgot about his meeting with Rita.

When Sirius told him to visit them after breakfast he gave the man a confused look and then realised. “I have to talk to Snape.” He said, a little too loudly, standing up and walking out of the great hall.

He ignored the fact that the whole hall went silent.

Sirius started laughing and said, “I imagine that must be important,” Which made the students start talking again.

“Mr. Black!” Pansy said and Sirius looked at her, “Sorry- ehm, I didn’t mean to sound disrespectful. I was just wondering what was so important that Harrison just ran out of the great hall?”

“He didn’t tell you?” Sirius sighed before quietly explaining, “He must’ve really forgotten then. We are going on a meeting, Snape needs to cover for him. It would help if you guys would also cover for him?”

“Harrison is sneaking out?” Theo asked, looking surprised, “I thought he’d be the last person to do that.”

“It’s the Gryffindor in him,” Blaise said, “Of course we’ll help and cover for him.”

“Thank you,”

“No problem, Mr. Black.” Pansy smiled. Sirius nodded and walked away, but only after whispering, “10 points to all of you for helping another student.”

“He seems great, to be honest.” Draco said, “I never understood why mother was so sad when talking about ‘Her favourite cousin Sirius getting manipulated to the light side.’ But I might just understand her now.”

“I keep forgetting you guys are basically cousins.” Pansy said.

“We noticed when you implied they would end up together,” Blaise told her and Pansy shrugged, “Isn’t that basically what all purebloods do, marry their cousins.”

“My family doesn’t.” Blaise shot back and that silenced Pansy. “I don’t think Harry would be happy if he had to marry his cousin. He needs freedom from all this pure-blood crap.”

“Good-bye most powerful children ever.” Pansy said dramatically, Blaise raised an eyebrow, “Cause Harry isn’t the most powerful child ever?”

“You ruin everything, let a girl be dramatic.”

“I live to stop you from having fun.”

“You know what? You’re my least favourite person here.”

Blaise snorted and Pansy giggled.

“That’s something new,” Harrison said, joining them at the Slytherin table once again. “I’ve never seen either of you act like that before.”

“I keep forgetting you didn’t know us before Hogwarts,” Draco said, “They were like this all the time. It’s gotten less since we’re here, though.”

“Pansy and Blaise were those best friends who were always together and always arguing.” Tracey said, joining their conversation, since Millicent and Daphne were now talking about some magic kind she didn’t know about.

“Ah,” Harrison said, “What made you stop when joining Hogwarts?”

“We have to wear our Slytherin masks outside of the common room usually, but you were always in the common room and it felt weird.” Pansy explained.

“You’re not in the common room now.”

“Wow! No shit, Sherlock.” Tracey shot back and Harrison just looked at her, “That’s a muggle phrase.”

“Sherlock Holmes, oh how my parents loved those stories.” Tracey said and Harrison smiled, “You’re a half-blood?”

Tracey nodded, “We’re the same, you and I.” She said with a deep, dramatic voice, making Harrison laugh. Harrison himself had limited knowledge of what it was really like to live with muggles, of course. The founders, however, forced him to learn somethings about the muggle world in his time, so he could convince people he actually lived with muggles for a while.

The rest of the Slytherins just looked confused, but didn’t have any more time to question it. Harrison jumped up from his seat and said, “Well, I’m going. I’ll see you all later.”

And then walked away, leaving Tracey with a lot of questions about the man named ‘Sherlock Holmes.’

~

Harrison quickly spotted Rita when they walked into the Daily Prophet building. They decided to have their meeting here, since it’s probably the most private place they would be able to meet.

“Lord Black! I’m so delighted to see you.” Rita said, while waving enthusiastically. Sirius sneered, but quickly masked his expression. He clearly didn’t like the woman.

“I’m glad you accepted our deal.” Sirius said back respectfully, while they joined the woman at a small desk.

“Well, it’s not every day a woman gets a deal like this.” Rita smiled, “Of course, I would like to know exactly what the deal would mean, because you weren’t very specific in your last letter.”

“We expected no less, Mrs Skeeter.” Harrison said, the woman smiled, “Call me Rita, please.”

Sirius was glaring at the woman, Remus didn’t look much happier.

Rita cleared her throat, “Now what you said was that you will give me interviews and give me money, but only if I write exactly what you guys want, I can’t twist your words..”

“You are right,” Sirius agreed, “We need you to write the truth, in exchange you get free interviews and we’ll even pay you.”

“And you will be able to give me an interview now?” Rita asked, “I have so many questions for Heir Potter, you have to understand.”

“It’s Heir Black now, Rita.” Sirius said and Harrison smiled and nodded.

“Oh?”

“It’s part of the story.” Sirius said and then Remus finally answered Rita’s question. “We’d be happy to give some… answers already.” Remus said, “Only after signing the papers.”

After Remus said that, Sirius took out some contract. Harrison raised an eyebrow, Sirius was never one to be this prepared.

“I believe you know that after signing this, it would work as an unbreakable vow?” He said, while sliding the papers over to Rita, she nodded and started reading.

“Oh and Rita?” Harrison said, a smile on his face. “Don’t use the quill that’s in your hand right now, I won’t return here ever again if you do.”

Rita looked shocked and then said, “Of- of course, Heir Black.”

Sirius and Remus both looked at Harrison with proud expressions.

After that the process of signing paperwork went pretty quickly, they all came to an agreement and then Rita took them with her to a more private room, so they could start the interview.

“Sit down, please.” Rita said and then hurried out of the room to get another quill.

“How did you know about the quill?” Remus asked and Harrison shrugged, “I recognized it from some interviews the founders did. Those quills exist for a while and I’ve never liked them. They have a mind of their own.”

“That’s impressive,” Remus remarked, “The fact that you remember exactly how the quill looks.”

“It’s the magic, the quill sends little pulses to all magical beings around them, so they can use emotions to write more specifics. I might not be very sensitive to other magics, but I always notice when someone touches my magic.”

“I’m sorry I was gone for that long, I haven’t used a different quill in a while.” Rita apologized, while hurrying back into the room.

“It’s okay,” Harrison answered, “We do however need to finish this quickly, I’m not exactly allowed to leave the school ground without the Headmaster’s permission.

Rita smirked, “Sneaking out, young snake?”

“Don’t ever call me that again.”

“Woah, sorry, sorry.” Rita laughed. “Let’s start, then. I heard there was an interesting story you wanted to share.”

Harrison smirked now, “The Potter’s disowned me, imagine the headline: ‘Abandoned Potter once again abandoned!’ Or whatever.”

“I like your thinking, can I ask some questions about this?”

“Why else are we here?” Sirius asked and Rita started interviewing them about the disownment.

~

Harrison crashed on a seat in the Slytherin common room, “I am exhausted.” He announced, to no one in particular.

“You were gone for a while,” Blaise said, “Will you finally tell us what you were doing?”

“Nah, you’ll figure it out soon enough.” Harrison smirked, “Believe me, you will.” He said to the unconvinced looks.

“He says that more often.” Fred stated.

“We don’t believe him.” George finished, Harrison rolled his eyes at them, “I am totally being one hundred percent honest right now, give it a week or so.”

“Fine, but if we don’t know by the time Christmas holidays arrive, you will tell us.” Draco said and Harrison nodded, “I promise.”

No one believed him.

Chapter Text

The Black family saved the abandoned Potter son!

A few days ago Harrison Sirius Black- we’ll get into why his name changed later-, Sirius Orion Black and Remus Lupin came to the Daily Prophet building and offered me a story no one had heard yet.

It’s a well-known fact that the abandoned Potter son returned to us a few months ago, just before the start of the Hogwarts year. No one knows where he spent years of his life and no one knows if he was actually safe the time he wasn’t with the Potters. None of the Potters ever seemed to care, though. This split up the dark and light families even more, a big part of the grey families moving to side with the dark.

Now, however, we do have more information about Harrison Black’s past. He seemed upset while telling us the following story:

“I remember a lot of that night, Sirius and Remus tried to stop them from giving me away, but the Potters and Dumbledore insisted it was for ‘the greater good’. The next day I was sent to my muggle family, the very same family my biological mother left, because of their hatred for magic. They were abusive to say the least, but I took comfort in the fact that I knew I was special, I remembered my magic. I found some old portraits in the attic, my aunt tried to hide them from me, but I was a curious boy who was left alone for weeks if not months sometimes. So of course, I found them. The portraits, which turned out to be the Hogwarts founders helped me a lot. They taught me about magic, since all my magic could be blamed on accidental magic I practiced for hours at a time. I don’t think I would’ve been here if it hadn’t been for those portraits, my magic saved me from my family multiple times.”

I didn’t ask him any more questions on this subject that obviously bought up bad memories, instead we moved onto talking about the more recent events, I asked him what it was like being back with Potters for the past few months.

“It hasn’t been great, to be honest. I suspected they would be happier to see me, but instead they treated me as some sort of trophy to show people that they were kind people, by taking the poor orphan boy back. It didn’t work of course, since the only reason I didn’t have a family was them. The first month they pretty much ignored me, only when people were visiting they acted like proper parents. Then Hogwarts started and all they did was complain about me doing well in school, about how there was no way I was better than Hope. They couldn’t even stand me for more than 4 months until they disowned me again.”

And, my dear readers, if that wasn’t a shock! Harrison seemed surprised by the fact we didn’t know about the disownment yet and then said it was probably because the Potters didn’t want people to find out, though.

“Luckily Sirius saved me, the day afterwards he officially adopted me. It wasn’t weird for either of us, since even as a little kid Sirius was always more a father to me than James ever was. I hate to think what would have happened if Sirius hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have a house, a family or well anything really. Sirius quite literally saved me.” Heir Black laughed a little, “And if that isn’t surprising! Since everyone is always telling me how bad the dark side is, yet they are the ones that cared about the fact I was abandoned, not the light side.”

And Heir Black has a point, dear readers, maybe the dark side isn’t as bad as we think it is.

Rita Skeeter, the Daily Prophet.

“It’s front page?” Harrison asked, his friends were reading the Daily Prophet with shock written across their faces.

“Of course it is,” Blaise said, “There hasn’t been a story like this for a while, how did you even get Skeeter to do this?”

Harrison shrugged, “It wasn’t that hard, Sirius did most of it.”

The great hall was slowly started getting louder, everyone was talking about the same thing though.

“Black!” He heard a voice, there they were, the Potters.

“Hi? Did you enjoy the news?” He asked, a small smile on his face. In the corner of his eyes he saw Sirius getting up from his seat and approaching them.

“You had no right to write about us!” James said and Harrison blinked, “It’s just my life story, is that a crime? I thought people would like to know a bit more about me.”

“We will sue you!”

“I still don’t think I’ve done anything illegal.”

“I noticed how you didn’t write that you kept being rude to us until daddy disowned you.” Hope smirked and Harrison rolled his eyes, “I think the ‘They couldn’t even stand me for 4 months.’ Summed that up pretty well. I don’t think I was that rude anyways.” Some people around him laughed.

“Lord Potter, I would appreciate it if you stopped annoying my son.” Sirius said with a blank face, though Harrison could easily see the amusement in his eyes.

“He’s not your son!” Lily said, “I don’t remember you giving birth to him.”

“He legally is my son, anyways, I think you might want to stop embarrassing yourselves.” And Sirius was right, the whole great hall was pretty much laughing at the Potters.

“I don’t think they notice how much they’re embarrassing themselves,” Harrison said and then decided to add, “Dad.” Just to see the Potters reaction.

Sirius laughed, “You’re probably right about that one.”

“Sirius, he is not and never will be your son.” James said and Harrison stopped Sirius from responding by saying, “Well, the chance of me being Sirius’ ‘son’ feels a lot more possible than being yours, since you don’t seem to give a shit about me. Now please, let me eat in silence. If you really want to continue this conversation we can do so later, without a crowd.”

Hope seemed like she wanted to protest, but Lily stopped her by pulling her away from Harrison. Not without shooting Harrison one last glare, though.

James followed his family.

Harrison sighed and turned back to the table, Sirius did not leave him with his friends, though. Instead he made the people around Harrison make place for him.

“We should’ve expected those stupid Potters to say something about it.” Harrison said and Sirius nodded, “Doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”

“I didn’t expect you to be happy about it.” Harrison said casually, while putting some food on his plate.

“Ehm.. Mr Black, I’m sorry, but could you explain the essay we got last week to me- not right now, don’t worry. I’m just really having a hard time with it.” A third year Slytherin spoke up, Sirius seemed to be confused right now before laughing, “Right, right.. Sometimes I forget I’m the teacher now, of course I can. You can come to the transfiguration classroom after breakfast.

“Thank you.” The girl said, before turning back to her giggling friends.

Harrison laughed at Sirius, “You forgot that you’re  a teacher?”

“In my defence, Dumbledore told me he would never allow me to stand in front of a classroom after I graduated.”

“I’m not even going to question that.”

“You shouldn’t, believe me.” He groaned, “I have to go back to the old people’s table now, see you all later.” Sirius left them like that.

“Is your godfather the teacher everyone has a crush on now?” Millicent asked, she stopped talking to Tracey just to ask that question, Harrison realised.

“I suppose, rather him than James.” Harrison said, though it was kind of weird.

“Mr. Black is just so-“ Some fourth year started and Harrison stopped them, “No no! I’m not listening to this shit. And I’m also like ninety percent sure him and Remus are together.”

“Really? Bummer.” Tracey said, picking up a strawberry from her plate.

“You’re literally eleven,” Harrison said and Tracey shrugged, “I won’t be eleven for ever.”

“This is the worst conversation we’ve ever had, I’m done with you all.” Harrison groaned and stood up, leaving the great hall.

He thought it was kind of funny, though. Especially since he knew Sirius was oblivious about it and once Sirius realised he would hate the fact that he was that teacher.

So really, Harrison didn’t mind too much. Only because he knew Sirius would never date anyone that was still in Hogwarts now, he’d hate the age gap.

“Expelliarmus.” He heard a voice whisper behind him, he didn’t even have his wand with him. He turned around and saw what had to be a fifth year Gryffindor with his sister.

“He has no wand on him, Potter.” The fifth year said and Hope smirked, “He’s going to regret that.”

“You seriously need a fifth year to do the spells for you?” Harrison asked, “I thought you had special combat training.”

Hope’s smirk grew, “Not just one Gryffindor fifth year.”

Harrison rolled his eyes, when he heard people walk up to them behind him, “Look Hope, I’m really not in the mood. I don’t know how you convinced people to fight for you, but honestly it’s stupid.”

“You there!” He turned around, pointing at a Hufflepuff, “How did she convince you to fight? Because I know this isn’t something all of you would just do.”

The Hufflepuff girl shrugged, “She offered me money, well her parents did. Told me I’d have to duel a first year old and I’d get the money if I won.”

“I didn’t expect this, when they offered me the same.” The Ravenclaw girl next to her said.

Harrison laughed, “This is just sad, Hope. I’m not doing this, come duel me when you’re confident enough to do it on your own.”

“It’s not like you can get away, you don’t have a wand.” Hope said and Harrison laughed, “Can’t I?” Then he casted an easy wandless and non-verbal incarcerous to body bind Hope and turned to the group, “Anyone else?”

He noticed half of them seems to leave already. The other half was looking at him shocked.

“If I’d known it was the bloody first year genius, I wouldn’t have even accepted the deal.” He heard someone whisper, making Harrison laugh, “You get an out now, if all of you leave.”

Just then the doors of the great hall open, Harrisons year mates walking out, together with some other people. That made the rest of the fifth years leave, honestly Harrison expected them to leave.

“What happened here?” Blaise asked, Harrison shrugged, “Hope build an army of fifth years to beat me. It’s kind of sad, really.”

“She was that mad for the article?”

“Probably.” Harrison shrugged, “It’s disappointing they all left, though. I was kind of hoping for a challenge.”

“And a bunch of fifth years would be a challenge?” Tracey asked and Harrison snorted, “I don’t know, I was about to find out.”

“Whatever, let’s go make homework.” Pansy said and Harrison nodded, even though he had already finished his homework.

~

Hope didn’t bother Harrison anymore after that, beside the dirty looks in classes and the creepy smirks that made Harrison wonder just what the Potter family was planning.

Voldemort seemed to lose a lot of energy, his classes now mostly being silently making essays. It made Harrison wonder if the man would even survive until Christmas.

However, the man was still standing when December finally arrived, so he only had another few weeks to go.

He planned everything now. He found a ritual he could use, told Lucius and Megan the details and made sure that the other 1^st years won’t try to mingle with his ritual. He knew some of them wanted to see the magic, but he didn’t actually know how dangerous it would be, so he refused to let them join.

The only downside of the ritual was that calling souls to a location was very hard, especially if he wanted to keep the horcrux he was carrying. So instead he decided to only give back the 50% soul piece, hoping this makes the Dark Lord sane enough so he could find the others and give those back at their own time.

If the Dark Lord was still an insane lunatic he would just lock him up until he found a horcrux with at least 25%.

He would have to find them all in the end, anyways.

Now he actually gave himself some time to just chill, go to classes, make homework and act like every other teenager.

“Black, the fact that you could do this while dreaming, doesn’t mean you have to actually do it.” McGonagall said, a weird half-smile on her face.

McGonagall and him build a weird sort of friendship over the past few months, the woman loved impressive magics. And Harrison- well he had impressive magic, to say the least.

“Sorry,” Harrison replied. They were currently working on origami, if you could call it that. Everyone got a small piece of paper and was told to use their fantasy to create origami. They didn’t actually have to spell it to do things yet.

Sirius was currently showing off his running dog, which was obviously made with a lot of impressive magic.

“Well since you couldn’t care to pay attention, I think you would like to show the class how good you are at this piece of magic.” McGonagall said, Harrison smiled at her, “Of course.”

He quickly grabbed a piece of his untouched papers and waved his real wand, since it allowed him to concentrate the magic easier, without making a whole show of wandless magic. He still had some struggle of really focussing the magic with his fake wand.

The paper on his table slowly turned into something that looked like a paper plane, which made people laugh, cause it wasn’t that impressive. Then it began to fly around by itself, that silenced most of them.

“I hope that was impressive enough for you, ma’am?” Harrison said, sarcastically.

“It sure was, Mr Black.” McGonagall replied.

Harrison smiled at the woman before looking around the classroom to see other creations. Really, he didn’t know what to make. Paper planes were the easiest options.

His friends were currently struggling to make different sized snakes and Harrison laughed, he waved his wand and animated the already finished ones. Now they were hissing on top of Pansy’s table.

“Look! I made Ebony!” Tracey said, pointing at a grumpy snake that just seemed to be hissing at everything grumpily. Harrison couldn’t actually understand the paper snakes, they weren’t actually talking in parseltongue, but he could still tell that the snake Tracey made would probably act like Ebony.

“10 points to Slytherin for working together.” Sirius voice said, he now standing close to them instead of the opposite side of the classroom. “What are you guys going to do with them? World domination?”

“We might as well,” Millicent answered and Sirius laughed, “Well good luck, paper isn’t the strongest material.”

“Just throw some fire repellent charms over it,” Harrison shrugged, “It might work.”

“Sure it would,” Sirius said in his ‘I can’t believe you right now voice.’ Then he snorted, “I believe you, my son,” Giving Harrison a wink, “Could make anything work, if we just gave you some time to come up with a plan.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

“You Siriusly shouldn’t.”

“Ha-ha, go away, you mutt.” Harrison said and Sirius laughed, “I’m still your teacher, I could give you detentions, you know?”

Harrison dramatically gasped, “You wouldn’t,”

“I suppose I wouldn’t.”

“Good puppy.”

“If anyone here is a puppy, it’d be you. I swear your animagus is going to be an adorable little dog.” Sirius said and Harrison shook his head, “It’s not.”

“It’s not- You mean you’re already an animagus? And you didn’t tell me?”

Everyone around Harrison had an equally shocked face and Harrison blinked, “You mean I didn’t tell you?”

“You never tell us anything, Harry.” Draco said and Harrison had to admit he was right.

“I transformed when I was nine- I think.” He admitted, “I will show you my form later, Moony has to be there.”

“Can we be there? Please?” Pansy asked and Harrison laughed, “Fine, you guys can be there.”

Sirius was still staring in shock. “You really didn’t expect this?” Harrison asked him, he shook his head, “I should’ve, though. I just thought I would get to teach you, give you the old books of me, Peter and James.”

Harrison sneered at the last two names, but then smiled at the man. “You can teach me the patronus, because they refused to.”

Sirius laughed, obviously noticing how all the Slytherins around Harrison seemed to suddenly get more interested. Harrison obviously hadn’t told them his big secret yet.

“Well, I suppose I should be thankful for them.” Sirius said, “Allowing me to at least teach you something.”

“In their words, ‘We can’t teach you everything, let the people who take care of you after us teach you somethings.” Harrison said, trying to imitate the founders voices, all at once.

“Tell them I’m thankful,” Sirius said and then the bell rang, “I’ll see you next class, pup.”

“See you in history.” Harrison said back, ignoring all the questioning looks from the Slytherins. At this point he wasn’t trying to keep it a secret from them, it was just funny to see them dying to ask questions, but knowing he won’t answer their questions even if they asked.

~

Now all of them- including Remus- could be found sitting in an empty classroom. Harrison smirked, “Are you all ready?”

“We’re ready, pup.” Sirius said and Harrison laughed before transforming into his small black wolf form.

He heard some gasps and he started running around.

“Impossible, there’s-“ He heard Remus say, “A wolf animagus?”

“He’s our pup/cub, Moony! Look at him!” Sirius said before turning into his own animagus form, starting to sprint after the small wolf.

Most of the Slytherins just sat there in shock.

“Isn’t it impossible to be a wolf animagus?” Blaise asked and Remus shrugged, “It was, but this is Harrison.”

“He’s so adorable!” Pansy said, trying to pick up the now slower walking wolf. The wolf growled at her, making her back away. Then the wolf smirked, a bit too human to see on a wolfs face.

“At least he’s still Harrison,” Theo said and that made most of them laugh and Harrison changed back into a human.

“Animagus transformations aren’t that hard, when you’re good at wandless magic.” Harrison said, while Sirius was turning back.

“That’s fair, it took us the longest to teach ourselves how to actually do wandless magic.” Sirius then said, while sitting down on a chair. “Now who needs help with homework, because we’re here either way?”

A lot of Harrisons classmates admitted they could actually use some help and Sirius, Remus and Harrison himself were happy to help.

~

Fred and George slowly sneaked into the Gryffindor common room, it was way too easy. If someone even tried to do something similar at the Slytherin’s common room they’d be lying on the floor unconscious now.

Yet, here they were sneaking into the first year rooms, unlike the Slytherin’s Gryffindor’s had to share one dorm.

They grimaced when they saw Ron’s ugly old rat and then walked to his bed. They put down some nightmare powder- someone had to test it! And they sure as hell wouldn’t. They had created it in the past few months, it had mostly the same ingredients as the already well-known potion version, but you actually had to breathe it in instead of drink it.

They put some wards around the bed, making sure the other boys wouldn’t get hurt by the effects of their powder. They didn’t mind people like Dean Thomas or Neville Longbottom.

They slowly snuck out, hoping to see results tomorrow. They after all, needed results to know if their experiment worked.

And results they got, the next day Ron was loudly complaining at the Gryffindor table. They had never really seen Ron this tired before.

They might’ve high fived each other under the table.

Harrison had given them a small smile and they knew then that they wouldn’t get a speech from the terrifying first year, which made them glad, honestly.

Because of course Harrison would immediately notice that this was done by them and it wasn’t just nightmares. They would never understand how the boy did it, but they accepted it once they first figured out that Harrison would always know if they did something. Even if they made it look like an accident.

“That was actually creative, I have to admit.” Harrison said, walking up to them after saying something to his year mates.

“Well thank you.” Fred said and Harrison laughed, “Was it nightmare potion? I didn’t notice you slipping anything into his drink.”

“Kind of, it was a powdered version we created.” George said and Harrison hummed, “Interesting. You can go far with your creations, if you’re able to create something like that.”

“So what did you do with the fairy wings? I never quite got that far.” Harrison asked, seeming genuinely interested.

“We actually didn’t use them, instead we made a weird mixture with asphodel and fairy dust, surprisingly it worked. We really were ready for that to blow up in our face- literally.”

Harrison laughed, “That’s fair, remind me to ask you guys if I ever need to create something.”

They stared at the genius in shock, Harrison laughed, “It was nice talking to you, I have to go, though.”

“He just called us smart.” Fred said, once Harrison had left.

“He did.” George answered, “That’s surprising.”

“It sure as hell is.”

Chapter Text

When the Christmas break finally started Harrison didn’t bother going with the train. Instead Sirius took Harrison to his home- Grimmauld’s place.

The place had obviously seen better days, it was a dark gloomy home, but Harrison didn’t really mind. A few cleaning charms- which he really needed Sirius’ help with, even if it was embarrassing to admit- later he was actually able to admire the old pureblood fashion this home was still in.

Modern pureblood’s were too extra, while the older families generally chose for less luxury in their big houses. The founder’s castles were a great example- even if it was just a holiday place for them.

“Are you ready for everything you need to do this holidays pup?” Sirius asked and Harrison smiled at the genuine concern.

“Yeah, I’m just glad Lucius offered to take Voldemort in until he has a body, it would’ve been awkward otherwise.”

“I’m glad he isn’t staying in my house- our house.” Sirius said and Harrison smile grew, “Thank you for taking me in. I really don’t show my appreciation enough.”

“I would’ve done it either way, those Potter’s don’t deserve you.”

Harrison hugged Sirius, not the first time he had done that, but still one of the first time. Sirius was shocked, he could practically feel the man freeze before hugging back.

“Do you want to see your room?” Sirius asked, smiling at his son? Godson? He wasn’t even sure what he would call Harrison now.

“Yeah- I mean of course.” Harrison said and Sirius quickly led him upstairs, through the last room in a- what seemed like- never ending hallway.

“This was Reggie’s- my brother’s- room. He well- he died a while ago. It’s the second biggest room in the house.” Sirius said and Harrison looked at him in shock, “I can take another room- if you want to keep this one like it is.”

“No- no, it’s fine. It’s about time someone takes this room, it’s been a while.” Sirius smiled sadly.

“If you’re sure.”

“I am, I really am.” Sirius said and then turned, “You can call Kreacher to move your stuff, I have to go downstairs so Remus doesn’t arrive to an empty house.”

“Okay, thank you, Siri.” Harrison said and Sirius walked away.

Harrison looked around the room, he had never heard of a ‘Reggie’ or well probably ‘Regulus’ he had to guess, by looking at the stuff in the room, before.

He had heard Sirius talk about his younger brother that joined the Dark Lord, of course, and he could only guess that that was the Regulus he was talking about.

It felt weird entering a dead persons room, trying to make it your own. Somehow, it felt wrong, a room was so personal, it basically told everything you had to know about a person. And just walking into someone else’s space and claiming it as your own was not something that you could just do. Instead Harrison tried to do what he could to keep Regulus’ stuff.

In the end he decided to take another room and make it an (almost) copy of Regulus’ bedroom. Like this they still had the stuff and could do anything with it they want.

This took multiple hours, but it was worth it to see Sirius almost tearing up and thanking him at least one thousand times for not just vanishing all ‘Reggie’s stuff.’

After he was done with setting up that he made a small space for Ebony.

“Please, just tell me if you’re cold. Don’t suddenly start complaining.” Harrison said, putting Ebony on his heating rock.

“But it’s so much more fun to complain.”

“Sometimes I wonder why I chose to buy you.”

“You love me, don’t even try to fool me master.” Ebony hissed and Harrison laughed, “You sound sure about that.”

“I am.”

Harrison rolled his eyes.

“I’ll never get used to that,” A voice behind him said, Harrison turned around, “Moony!”

“Hey cub,” Remus laughed, “Sirius told me to get you for dinner.”

“It’s that late?”

Remus nodded, then when he noticed Harrison was following him downstairs, he asked “Now tell me why did that snake look so smug.”

“He was bullying me.” Harrison said, “Really, snake’s seem so cool, but then you start talking with them and they just turn into bullies.”

Remus looked way too amused, “I’m sure Ebony is the biggest bully of them all.”

“He really is.” Harrison agreed easily.

~

“Is there anything I actually need to do this break, besides bringing back the Dark Lord?” Harrison asked, he was laying on a couch in the living room of Grimmauld’s place.

“You need to go to Draco’s Yule tide ball.” Sirius said, “They probably want you to lead the ritual.”

“Oh- right. What exactly do I do?” Harrison asked and Sirius gave him a look, “You never celebrated Yule before?”

“I did- but in the founders time it wasn’t as important, the magic was stronger we only gave her a bit of support.”

“So I suppose you know that Yule means we say goodbye to the darkness and hello to the light of the sun?” Sirius asked dramatically and Harrison laughed, “Yes, yes I do.”

“Okay, so you can pick a ritual, or knowing you make one. You have to include Mother Magic and any other Deity’s you’d like to thank. You would be the one to lead even with the grown-ups there, because no-one’s magic is as strong as yours.”

“Mother magic needs me,” Harrison understood immediately, “We need the strongest magic to support her, because not everyone does support her anymore.”

“Dumbledore is slowly killing her.” Sirius confirmed.

“That dumb old goat!” Harrison shouted, “Everyday I start to agree with Voldemort more, which feels weird.”

“He had the right idea’s, but didn’t do it the right way.”

“We’ll fix it.” Harrison said, “I know I will.”

~

It was a few days before yule now and Harrison had spent the time here with Sirius and Remus. He spend a lot of time on creating their birthday presents.

He was making two bracelets with identical runes, but slightly different designs. It took a lot of creative magic and Harrison silently thanked Rowena every time he worked on them. He would not have this skill if it hadn’t been for Rowena insisting he would use it once.

He was also working on making different potions, especially trying to figure out on how to make a better wolfsbane potion. Remus was currently slowly poisoning himself, without noticing.

Most werewolves did, which is why they usually died pretty young. He had tried to convince Remus to stop taking the potions, but his pleas were ignored. Remus always told him how he would rather poison himself than accidentally kill someone else when he couldn’t control himself.

Both Harrison and Sirius hated it. They both knew that the risk of Remus killing someone was pretty big, but they both would rather live with an accidental murderer than live without Remus, because he decided to poison himself.

And Harrison had tried to find a way to make a better not- poisonous wolfsbane potion before yule, but the research took a while and Harrison wasn’t going to rush himself, it would only ruin the potion.

So instead he decided that the wolfsbane potion could just be an extra gift once he finished it, since neither Remus nor Sirius knew that he was working on this.

It’s pretty easy to keep these projects from Sirius and Remus since Sirius declared the potions lab was now officially ‘Harrisons territory’. Both of them never really liked potions and Harrison well, it was his favourite subject. So it was the only logical thing to do.

At least, that’s Sirius’ explanation.

He was currently finishing his bracelets when Sirius shouted, “Harrison, Blaise and Draco are here!”

“They are?” Harrison asked, honestly confused.

“Yeah!”

“Eh, sent them here for me?”

“I will!”

A few minutes passed before the two boys walked into the potion lab. Harrison laughed at their shocked expressions of how huge the potions lab was. The Black family had always been a bit extra with important spaces. Like the Library and Potion labs, especially since one of their recent ancestors had been a potion master.

“Hey,” Harrison said, “Welcome to my domain, I suppose.”

“This is yours?” Draco asked looking around the large room once more, Harrison shrugged. “Do you think Sirius would survive the process of making a potion?”

“Oi! I heard that!” Sirius shouted, Harrison laughed, “Stop overhearing my conversations, pads.”

“Fineeeee.”

Harrison picked up his wand, casting some finishing up the line he was carving in the ring. “You actually do spells with a wand, that’s a new one.” Harrison heard Draco say.

“Carving is hard without a wand, a hand has no tip. Anyways, why did you guys suddenly decide to visit?”

“Draco here decided he didn’t want to suddenly visit you alone, so forced me to come with him.” Blaise said and Draco put his hands up, “In my defence, Harrison is scary. I had to tell you about the fact that you have to do the main ritual on Yule. If anyone else does it, their magic will try to over-power yours, so the caster would be magically exhausted, if not dead by the end of it.”

“I know, Siri told me. I have to save Magic,” he said dramatically, “You think I’m more powerful than all the grown-ups that will be there?”

Blaise snorted, “We’re one hundred percent sure you are and we are also sure that at least one grown-up will get angry about the fact that a child is more powerful than them.”

“I’ll just have to show them then.” Harrison said and then Draco continued, “You have to pick a ritual. We can’t do it for you, magic will notice.”

“I already made a ritual, don’t worry. This one is all about healing Lady Magic herself. And well, asking for assistance in the next war.”

Draco nodded, “Good, you can owl father if you need him to get anything for the ritual.”

“I have everything I need, thank you, though.”

“Now that that’s over, can you please show us around the house. Being in a Black family house is like every purebloods wish.” Blaise said and Harrison laughed, “Well, follow me.”

And just like that Harrison lead them around the whole house, which was a lot bigger than you’d expect when you entered the small entrance-hall. The house had 3 floors, all of them pretty big. The highest floor was mostly his, Sirius and Remus’ rooms- though Harrison suspected Remus and Sirius slept in the same room.- It also had ‘Regulus’ room’ Harrison made.

The second floor had the huge black library and some guests rooms, the 1^st floor was mostly the normal things: Kitchen, living room and anything like that. Then they had a basement. Like any old pureblood it had dungeons, but those hadn’t been used in a while. Harrison himself found it a bit weird. Even the founders had multiple people in the Hogwarts dungeons. The basement was also where Harrison’s potion lab was.

“I can’t believe we saw the Black family library.” Blaise said, sitting down on the floor of Harrison’s room. Harrison shook his head, “It’s not the official one, there’s a Black manor. The official one is there. This is just a recreation with about half of the books.”

“You mean there’s an even bigger library? This one was at least thrice as big as the one in Malfoy manor.” Draco gaped and Harrison shrugged, “The Ravenclaw linage isn’t the only one who likes taking care of their books.”

“I wonder how big the Ravenclaw library would be in Ravenclaw manor.” Blaise said.

“Ravenclaw castle,” Harrison corrected, “All the founders had castle’s instead of manors. Each of the castle being about a quarter of Hogwarts. They merged their castles and then perfected it to create Hogwarts. The original castles are under very heavy protection and secrecy spells.”

“How do you even know that?” Draco asked.

Harrison laughed, making his Heir-ring flash to all of the Hogwarts houses. “You can’t have seriously forgotten.”

“I didn’t, the idea of you being their Heir is still weird, though.”

“It is.” Harrison agreed. Because it was, the longer he spend in this time, the more his past feels like a dream. It’s like it never happened. The only way he knows it did really happen is by his control over magic and his inheritance. The portraits were only so much proof.

Harrison knew everything that happened was real, but still he sometimes stopped to think about just what kind of magics he meddled with to make this possible. Those magics made it seem almost impossible; it was almost unheard of, meddling with time magics and surviving long enough to tell other’s about it.

There were millions of tales. Time travelling wizards slowly dying because the difference in time was too much for their body and consciousness to handle.  And most of those wizards only dared travelling back a few days.

Some say Time himself decided to kill those wizards. He didn’t like his domain to be meddled with. It was a well-known fact.

Even Dumbledore himself never dared to come close to time-travelling. He always lets his minions do it for him, since they would die in Time’s wrath, not him.

“Harrison are you okay?” Blaise asked and Harrison blinked, slowly nodding. “Yeah, I’m good don’t worry.”

Blaise shot him a look that clearly showed just how much he believed Harrison.

“Okay fine, I think it’s time I tell you two. The truth, I mean.” Harrison said, “You guys deserve that.”

“Wait you’re for real now?” Draco asked and Harrison nodded. “I am.”

“Can I put you guys under a secrecy spell?” Harrison asked and then said, “Sorry, it’s just this is something that could ruin our future if anyone finds out.”

“You still don’t trust us.” Draco said, “I can’t believe you.”

“What- Draco-“ Harrison said, “I do trust you.”

“No you don’t! I swear Sirius and Remus aren’t on a secrecy spell.”  

“You’re right, they’re not. The Black family rings cancel out most truth serums. Werewolves are already pretty much immune. You are not, the Malfoy families protection was taken away in a war a while ago. They all decided to lie under truth serum, cause their family rings allowed them to. Magic took away that possibility now, I’m sorry that you don’t have that sort of magical protection, but I’m willing to put one on you. So please allow me to.”

“Okay fine!” Draco said and Harrison knew the boy was doing everything to keep his anger down, but deep down he was still so full of jealousy and anger.

“Thank you. Now all you have to do is allow my magic to place a secrecy spell on whatever I’m about to tell you. Let it in while I’m talking to you. I’ll notice if you let it go even slightly.”

Both Blaise and Draco nodded in understanding. And just like that Harrison started the story of his life again, starting with his birth ending at the point where he went to Hogwarts.

“Oh-“ Blaise was actually in shock, which the boy wasn’t a lot. Draco however seemed to finally let go of his anger again.

“There’s no way you’re actually believing this Blaise.” He said, then turning to Harrison, “You really let us wait this long to tell another one of your stupid lies? I can’t believe you’d do this just for a bit of attention, just to feel special.”

Then Draco left.

“That went better than expected,” Blaise sighed, “He really tried to stop himself there.”

“What-“ Harrison couldn’t even finish his question before Blaise responded, “Draco can’t deal with surprises like this. Right now, he probably feels like everything we’ve been through was a lie. His anger will be gone in a few days and he’ll probably try to talk about it. It’s the way he was raised, Malfoy’s always think they know everything and when they find out they don’t and they’re actually very wrong they get angry.”

“Yeah, I noticed that in the past.” Harrison laughed, “The Malfoy’s were like that even back in the Founder’s time.”

“He’s really trying for you, if you’d be anyone else he would have exploded a thousand times already, but he finds you interesting and probably notices you’re a good friend, the type of friend he needs. I know this means nothing coming from me, but I know he’s probably really regretting what he said right now. The Malfoy pride won’t allow him to come back and apologise, though.”

“You’re really good at reading people,” Harrison smiled, “Even with me, a mostly closed off person.”

“Magic tells people a lot,” Blaise smirked, “I can feel emotions by feeling people’s magic. Since we’re sharing secrets anyways.”

Harrison laughed, “That’s actually impressive.”

“You’re magic is impressive, it was so hard for me to read, you hide your emotions really well behind your occlumency mask.” Blaise complimented him back. “You did the right thing, by the way.”

“What?”

“Putting me under the secrecy spell, too. We both know I have the same protection Sirius has.” Blaise explained, “I allowed it to happen so Draco wouldn’t get another fit of jealousy.”

“Yeah, that and the fact that you don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. We might not have that protection forever.”

“True, now tell me more about the Founders.” Blaise said and Harrison smirked, “I’ll tell you about the duels against Godric.”

And just like that the conversations went back to Harrisons past, neither of them were really worried about Draco staying mad forever. Because they both know he wouldn’t.

~

The day before yule was chaotic. Harrison had to try on the Black Heir robes- which were pretty much fully black with some shades of grey. And him, Sirius and Remus thought out the best way of making the ritual circle.

Harrison had prepared the whole ritual, but got stuck on how to place the runes in such a way that it would help magic and not hurt the people around it.

“This one, move that to the left side of the circle.” Remus said, pointing at a drawing, Harrison did and then Remus started instructing him further, after about half an hour he was finally done.

“Okay now you want to push a bit of magic into the middle, charge it.” Remus said, Harrison did what he was told and the whole circle lit up in a purple-ish colour.

“I can’t believe we finally did it.” Sirius whispered in awe.

“You’re welcome.” Remus smirked and Sirius rolled his eyes, “Yeah, yeah. We’ll give you the credit.”

“Fina- fucking- lly.” Harrison swore, he had been working on this a lot for the past two days. “Moony, you’re the best.”

“I know.” Remus said, “Now you go rest, it isn’t healthy to use this much magic in such a short period of time.”

“I’m fine.” Harrison said, making Remus and Sirius raise an eyebrow.

“I am, really. I can deal with a bit of magic loss, I have enough of it.” Harrison said and Remus sighed, “Just please, at least let your magic rest for a bit.”

“Okay, I will.” Harrison said and Remus nodded, “Thank you.”

“After I finish charming my robes,” Harrison added, making Remus groan and Sirius look interested, “Charming robes?”

“I’m charming snakes on the cuffs.” Harrison said, “Cause it’s fun.”

Then he walked away, leaving the two adult men just kind of stupidly staring at him.

He did not break his promise to Remus, though. He charmed his robes and then didn’t use his magic for the rest of the day. He didn’t even use accio once.

That evening Harrison gave both Sirius and Remus their bracelets, he also send gifts to his friends. Mostly books and candy.

“You made this?” Sirius asked, looking down at the bracelet with a dog and two wolves on it. Though, one wolf looked a bit more human than the other.

“Of course I did,” Harrison said, “It’s pretty similar to Remus’ though there’s a small difference."

Sirius and Remus began comparing the bracelets and pretty quickly realised it’s mostly how the wolves and dogs was standing and the band of the bracelets.

“It has a lot of protective runes on it, so it’s not just a bracelet.” Harrison explained quickly. “The runes might be a bit different, but it’s purely so it wouldn’t accidently hurt the werewolf here.” Harrison said pointing at Remus.

“I- wow.” Remus said, he was staring at the bracelet. “This is probably the most thoughtful and creative gift I’ve ever gotten.”

Harrison smiled, “I’m glad you like it.”

“I do, I really do.”

“Okay so our present is a bit different-“ Sirius said and Remus nodded in agreement, “Firstly, we got you this book.”

Harrison was handed a book called ‘the rise and fall of the Dark Arts.’ One of the books he had passed while looking at books about Twin wands, he hadn’t shown his interest in it back then to not show the Malfoy’s his interests yet.

After that he had totally forgotten about it.

“Thank you, I totally forgot about this.” Harrisons said, staring at the book in his hand. “We have something else, Harry.” Sirius said and Harrison looked up.

“We got this from your vault- technically, but decided to give it as a gift.” Sirius laughed and gave Harrison a big squared present. He slowly opened it and inside of it was a portrait of Merlin.

“Wait- you- I-“ Harrison said and Merlin laughed, “Harry!”

“Merlin? I can’t believe this.”

“We’ll leave you alone to catch up.” Sirius decided and Remus nodded, but Harrison stopped them, “Thank you.”

Sirius gave him one of his rare soft smiles, “You’re welcome, pup.”

“Harrison, is that really you?” Merlin than asked, “Oh, it feels like it’s been forever.”

“It has been forever, for you.” Harrison said turning to the man, “I missed you, I’ve searched Hogwarts for your portrait, but I didn’t find one.”

“It’s okay, I’m just glad I finally get to talk to you.” Merlin said, “I have to say, I was kind of jealous hearing the founders’ portrait talk about you.”

“So it’s true, there is a place with all your portraits together?”

“Yeah, it’s hidden pretty well. I’m not sure where exactly, but it looks like a closed off space.”

“Are all your portraits connected?”

“Mostly, yeah. I know everything that happens to my other portraits, weird, but impressive magic. You can tell it’s not a spell, but just Lady Magic deciding this is the best way for it to work.”

“That sounds pretty cool, actually.”

“It is, if not slightly weird. You’re consciousness gets moved into a painting, but you’re also still dead? Oh and you suddenly live in like hundreds of places at the same time. Weird.”

“I can imagine,” Harrison said, “I’m glad, though. That I can still talk to you guys this way.”

“Believe me, we wouldn’t have let go of you this easily if we knew you wouldn’t be able to talk to us like this.”

Harrison laughed, “I can imagine. They need me here, though. The world really is fucked up, but no one besides Voldemort realises. Hell, I wouldn’t have realised had I not spend ten years in the past.”

“It is quite impressive that Voldemort noticed, even without your knowledge from the past.”

“Yeah, but he also lived in a war, all he saw was the worst part of people. And if nothing else, he is a smart man.”

“That he is, now if I’m right you have that whole yule thing tomorrow, you should get some rest.”

Harrison stared at the man and groaned, “Fine.”

“And there is the eleven year old boy in you.”

Harrison glared at Merlin, “I don’t like you, goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” Merlin chuckled.

~

The next day Harrison stood up pretty late, just because he could. He ate breakfast and went back upstairs again, just to get ready for the party.

He decided it would probably be okay to show up there early, he had to speak with Draco, see if the boy was okay again. Oh, and small detail, he had to get the ritual stuff ready.

He took a quick shower and then put on his house black robes, now with small snakes all over the cuffs. The snakes moved back and forth a bit, but not enough to scare people.

“Pads, Moony!” Harrison shouted and he heard Moony’s voice from Sirius room, “We’re almost done!”

“I fucking knew it.” Harrison muttered. Then changed his train of thought not wanting to think further about Remus and Sirius- his godfathers.

He scrunched his nose up in disgust.

“They are not mating, master. No need to worry.” Ebony said from his place on Harrison’s bed, Harrison laughed, approaching the snake. “Why are you actually nice?”

“Felt like it,” Ebony said, “It’s funny to see you confused. You don’t get confused a lot, but you do when I say something that’s even a bit ‘nice’ as you like to call it.”

“There’s the Ebony I know.” Harrison rolled his eyes, “Thank you for letting me know they’re not, though.”

“You’re welcome, Master.”

Harrison stroked Ebony’s scales and then stood up, “I’ll be back somewhere tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Ebony said, “Don’t forget to feed me once you’re back.”

“Have I ever forgotten you?“ Harrison asked the snake, “No you haven’t, not yet at least.”

“I’ll see you later,” Harrison said and Ebony rolled up into a ball on his bed.

Sirius and Remus were waiting for Harrison downstairs. They floo’ed to Malfoy Manor together and got greeted by Narcissa Malfoy.

“Sirius!” She almost shouted in such an un-Malfoy-like way it surprised all of them. Sirius opened his arms and Narcissa immediately hugged him, “Cissy, it’s been a while.”

“It sure has been, here let me lead you guys to my husband and son.” She said, still smiling. Then she turned, “And the Dark Lord, who is still weakening every day.” She said, though not quite happy like before.

“Tomorrow is the day he will be back to his full power. Don’t worry too much,” Harrison said and Narcissa nodded. Her husband had told her that Harrison would stay at their house for a while to help their Lord.

“I am glad we don’t have you against us, Harrison.” She said, before opening the door to a drawing room with Lucius and Draco in it. The Dark Lord was nowhere to be seen.

“I am too.” Harrison admitted then he turned to Draco and Lucius, “Hello?”

“Harrison,” Lucius Malfoy inclined his head, “I do hope you found a good ritual.. And that you won’t spend all your magic tonight, it would be unfortunate since tomorrow’s plans are big.”

“Don’t worry, Mr Malfoy. I’ve got more than enough magic.” Harrison smirked, then Draco spoke up.

“Harrison- Harry, can we talk, please?”

Harrison looked at Remus and Sirius, who nodded, then turned back and shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

Draco nodded and motioned for Harrison to follow him, Harrison did. Draco lead him to - what Harrison suspected was- his bedroom.

“I’m sorry for not believing you,” Draco sighed, “The other day.”

And Harrison had expected anything but that. He literally gaped for a full minute before he finally responded, “It’s okay, I mean it’s not something I would just believe if I was in your place.”

“Yeah, but Blaise gave me hell about it, told me I was a shit friend. He told me this was the reason you don’t open up and it just made me realise that he was right. I mean I wouldn’t open up if I knew it would cause problems.”

“I should’ve known Blaise would do that,” Harrison sighed, “Don’t worry too much about it, I understand. I mean I’ve always known it would cause problems the moment I decide to tell anyone.”

“It really is true, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I miss them, but this time.. Well this is where- or I suppose when I should be.”

“So much makes sense now.”

“I suppose it does.”

And just like that everything was semi-normal again, even if it felt a bit more awkward then before. At least Harrison didn’t have to worry about an angry Draco all night.

“As much as I’d like to sit here till the other guests arrive, maybe I should start preparing for the ritual… And I need to talk to Voldemort, where is he?”

“He’s in his room,” Draco said, “He isn’t doing well.. He’s getting weak.”

“Yeah, Mrs. Malfoy- your mother, she told me.”

“Here follow me, I’ll lead you to his rooms.”

Harrison walked behind Draco, but then Draco suddenly stopped in front of a door. Harrison looked at him and he said, “I’m not going in there with you, I don’t have a death wish. No one and I mean no one enters the Dark Lords room. Even if he’s weak.”

“No one except me that is,” Harrison muttered, he nodded at Draco and opened the door.

He could hear Draco sigh behind him, before he closed the door.

“Voldemort.” Harrison said, the sick looking Quirrel was currently sitting on a chair before a fireplace.

“Of course it’s you. Nobody else would be such a fool to come in without even knocking.”

“You look… bad.” Harrison noted and Voldemort snorted, “Way to start a conversation.”

“Will you survive until tomorrow or am I going to have to do this tonight?” Harrison asked, sounding genuinely worried. It surprised Voldemort.

“I will be fine…” The man said, though he sounded hesitant. “If anything were to go wrong, It would just be Quirrel who died, not the soul piece.”

“Aw, but I liked Quirrel.” Harrison said, Voldemort blinked, “You haven’t met Quirrel.”

“I mean- technically no, but it wasn’t always a hundred percent you.” Harrison said, “Anyways that’s not important. I have an issue.”

“Don’t tell me-“

“No, no. You’ll still get your body. The problem is, it’s technically impossible to call back all soul pieces besides the one inside of me. So I decided to give you 50 percent of your soul back.. Hopefully enough to get you at least kind of your strength back.” Sanity back Harrison added in his mind, but knew that this insane version was still quick to anger. “And then I can get the other pieces later.”

“That is… fine.” Voldemort decided and Harrison sighed in relief, “Okay, I’ll come get you tomorrow. When I’m ready, try to get some rest. We need your strength, or at least what is left of it.”

Voldemort nodded and Harrison left to find Sirius and Remus, so they could prepare the rune circle together.

~

Draco was welcoming guests and since none of their classmates was here yet, Harrison was stuck talking with purebloods who were all trying to get a glimpse of Heir Black. And while political power was handy for the future, he really didn’t want to deal with it right now.

Yet, that didn’t stop Lord Avery from coming up to him.

“Heir Black.. What a surprise.” He said, Harrison looked at him and the man looked almost embarrassed, “Sorry, how rude of me. I’m Lord Avery.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” Harrison inclined his head.

“I’ve heard some interesting things about you,” The man said, “I wish you luck with your little mission this break. I never expected a first year to have a goal like that.”

Harrison looked around them, the man obviously knew what he was doing. He knew most people here were Dark Wizards, but even the Bones family was here! How could the man be this careless?

Looking at the man’s left arm he quickly noticed a tattoo, the man followed his eyes. “Smart, kid. I’m serious, I wish you luck.”

Harrison looked up again, “Thank you. It is indeed going to be hard, but I’ll do anything in my power to make sure I don’t mess this up.”

The man nodded, satisfied and then said, “I won’t keep your attention any longer, I see some of your friends have arrived. It was nice meeting you.”

Harrison nodded, before turning around to see Pansy and Tracy stand there. When they noticed he was looking Pansy waved and let her parents over to him, Tracey following them.

“Harrison, meet my parents!” Pansy said, before turning back to her parents, “Mom, dad, meet first-year genius, Harrison Black.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Lady, Lord Parkinson.” Harrison bowed his head forward.

“Such a gentleman.” Lady Parkinson giggled, “The pleasure is all ours, Heir Black. We’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Only positive things, I hope?” He shot Pansy a look and Pansy shrugged, smirking.

“Of course.”

“So you’re the- how do they call you- ‘first year genius’?” Lord Parkinson asked, Harrison shrugged, “Either that or just ‘genius’.”

“Can I ask you how you got that.. Nickname. I don’t remember anyone calling someone a genius in our time.”

“Well, magic comes easy to me. Especially wandless and wordless magic, people just decided that must make me a genius.” Harrison said, Pansy shook her head, “Stop pretending it’s not impressive, Harrison literally didn’t have a single challenge this whole year. He does everything first try and when he doesn’t he does it on purpose. Also he alone is the reason Slytherin has a very big lead with house points.”

“That does sound impressive, Heir Black.” Mrs. Parkinson said and Harrison shrugged, “I suppose so.”

“Harrison!” Blaise shouted and Harrison turned around and saw Blaise and his mom walk towards him.

He groaned, making the Parkinson’s and Tracey laugh.

“I’m never getting a break,” He whispered, before introducing himself to Blaise’s mom.

About two hours later Harrison finally let himself rest, he sat down next to his classmates. All of them had been sitting at a table for the past two hours, watching amused as Harrison had to introduce himself to every Lord or Lady here.

“I’m never doing this again.” He decided, “I’m not a social person, when are people going to understand that?”

His friends laughed and Tracey said, “You did fine.”

“I feel like I met every pureblood ever plus their whole family. Most of them talked to me like they were trying to convince themselves that they were better than me. Rather than convincing me that they’re better than me.” Harrison snorted, “it was weird.”

“They probably just think it’s weird you’re the most powerful person here.” Blaise said and Harrison nodded, “If only Voldemort was here, maybe he’d be more powerful.”

“You’re the only person I have heard say the words ‘If only Voldemort was here’ while talking about a social event.” Draco said and Harrison shrugged, “Am I wrong, though?”

That silenced him.

“How long do I have till I have to do the whole ritual thing?” Harrison asked.

“It starts at midnight.. So about an hour?” Draco said and Harrison nodded, “Okay, thank God I have some time.”

~

Harrison sat down on the middle of the rune circle, the rest of the people all had a specific place to stand, based on Magical Power.

“Ego, Harrison Sirius Black, Invoca matrem magicam ut soles renascentis celebrent.” He started he felt his Magic slowly pouring out of his body and he heard some people gasp.

“Solem omnes excipimus, Lunam reversuri exspectantes. Luna nobis potestatem, Sol nos admonet nos soli non esse.” Harrison explained in fluent Latin, even the moon seemed to light up in their magic.

“Omnes divinitatis auscultantes invitamus ut nos hanc noctem magicam vocamus. Hac nocte tuum auxilium poscimus; ad auxilium nostrum Magic, hoc anno nosmetipsos defendamus et in futuro bello nos adiuvent.” Harrison said, people were staring at awe to the greyish-purple cloud Harrison’s magic was forming.

“Rogo te, mater, ut nos cures. Manebimus in causa tua vera, protegens te a luce. custodiens te ab his qui te occidunt.” Harrison put a small poured a bit of his magic into the runes, he saw some people doing the same, making the whole circle light up in different colours.

“Oblationem nostram suscipe et adiuva nos in via quam in annis perfecisti.” Harrison finished and then sighed.

He heard multiple people gasp around him and looked up from his place in the rune circle. Everyone had a small orb- which seemed to be created from magic- in their hand.

An obvious sign from Mother Magic saying, “I accept your offer and will continue to look after you, as long as you try and protect me from those who try to kill me.”

“That never happened before.” Narcissa said, looking at her orb with an amazed look. “I feel like Heir Black once again proved just why he is called a powerful genius by everyone who knows him.”

He heard a lot of agreements.

“What ritual did you use?” He heard someone ask and he answered tiredly, “I made this one, just to help Mother Magic.”

He heard a lot of people discuss what just happened and he took that moment to tell his friends he was going to sleep and get away without too many people noticing.

He was exhausted.

And he had a big day tomorrow.

~

“Oohhhh Harrison! Where are you?” Harrison heard someone say, he had spent all morning in the library, just to keep his mind off the ritual he had to do later today.

“I’m here!” he shouted.

“Hey, there’s my favourite kid!” Megan said, walking inside the library.

“You actually came!” Harrison sat up, Megan laughed, “Of course I did, I’d be stupid not to. This is like a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Harrison nodded, “That it is, because no one else is stupid enough to make multiple horcruxes. Fucking Dark Lords.”

“You nervous?” Megan asked, while she sat down next to Harrison.

“Kind of, I just don’t to fuck this up.”

“You won’t.”

“I’m not sure- I mean it’s never been done before has it?”

“It’s not the first thing you’ve done that’s never been done before.”

“Yeah- but this is different. The whole Wizarding World depends on it, if I fuck this up there is no Voldemort to make sure that Dumbledore doesn’t ruin everything anymore.”

“Because you can’t do that?”

“I mean- I could, but I’m too young.” Harrison sighed, “Believe me I wish I could.”

“Normally, I’d agree, but you’re you, Harrison. If anyone could do it, it’s you. Yes, Voldemort would help, but you could do it without him.”

“You’re right, I know you’re right. But I’d hate the work, the power. Both Voldemort and Dumbledore love it. I wouldn’t be a good leader.”

“Stop saying things like that, you could literally do anything once you put your mind to it.”

“I know, thank you.”

“You’re welcome- I mean I officially adopted you as little brother now, so I’m going full big sister mode every time you say something like that.”

Harrison laughed, “Did you even greet Sirius before coming here?”

“Oh- shit. I got to go.”

Harrison laughed harder and Megan ran- no literally ran- out of the room. Harrison also stood up, but instead of going to Sirius he went to find his friends.

Who were all- like he expected- in Draco’s room.

“Hey.”

“Hey, you feeling okay?” Pansy asked and Harrison nodded, “I’m okay.”

“I still can’t believe you’re doing this.” Theo said, Harrison nodded, “Same, to be honest. But sometime you have to just do something. Not think about the consequences too much.”

“Yeah that’s fair.”

Harrison fell into a chair, after he escaped yesterday evening he made sure he drew the rune circle he would use today first. But this time with his blood. It was either that or giving Voldemort his blood with a potion, which honestly seemed even worse.

He then went to sleep, even if it was kind of hard to sleep with all the background noise. A simple silencing charm solved that problem.

And now that it was actually the day it would happen. It just felt weird. He had another thirty minutes until Sirius would get him and he would get Voldemort to get started. Lucius was currently getting the horcrux.

“I’m just glad I won’t have to worry about this after today.” Harrison decided, “It’s been constantly on my mind ever since well the start of Hogwarts. So I’m just glad I won’t have to think about that anymore.”

“I don’t know how you even managed to concentrate at school with this constantly in your mind.” Pansy said and Harrison shook his head, “I didn’t. Luckily I could already do all this shit.”

“Do you need any help, with anything?” Blaise asked and Harrison shook his head, “No thank you.”

He knew Blaise was trying to feel how he felt right now, so he just let his magic out a bit and Blaise smiled at him.

He was okay.

The rest of the time waiting Harrison just sat there, listening to his friend. It was quite comforting and his nerves got less and less until they were barely there.

That was until he heard someone knock on Draco’s door and then the words, “Harrison, it’s time.”

He never thought he would be this nervous, but he really didn’t want to fuck anything up.

Severus had made the potion for the resurrection and was currently standing in the room where it would happen, with the potion in his hand. Lucius was standing on the rune Harrison placed him on, the horcrux in hand. Megan- on her rune- gave him a smile.

“Are we all ready?” Harrison asked, everyone nodded.

“Okay I’ll get Voldemort.” He left the room, letting Sirius and Remus in in the process.

He did knock on Voldemort’s door this time and the man opened the door, Quirrel’s body really did not look even okay anymore. He looked like a walking corpse.

“You ready?” Harrison asked and Voldemort nodded. Harrison didn’t say anything else, he just lead Voldemort through the long corridors of Malfoy Manor until they finally arrived at the right room.

“Lay down in the middle of the rune circle.” Harrison commanded, hoping Voldemort wouldn’t protest about laying on a floor.

The man didn’t seem to have the energy for it.

“Okay, Lucius place the Horcrux next to Voldemort.”

Lucius followed his command without questions.

“Okay now all of you listen to me. Sirius, Remus and Megan please try to make sure he doesn’t move too much, I don’t care how. Just don’t body bind him. Severus, give him the potion when I say so. Lucius, you have to assist me with your magic, just give the circle a bit of your magic, but not too much, when I say so. I, myself, can’t step inside of the circle. It will try to get my horcrux out, too. So I’m trusting all of you with this. I, of course, use my magic to make it work and not magically exhaust all of you.”

He waited until everybody nodded and then started another long Latin ritual:

“Mater Magia, Quaeso adiuva nos ut corrigamus contritos anima mea. hunc hominem integrum iterum. Adiuva nos in corpus novum conficiendo, ad vivum dare ei alium casum.”

“Now Severus.” Severus nodded and Harrison saw him struggling to get to the man, because of the magic moving around the body, but still he did it. He gave the man the potion.

“Adiuva nos. Adjuva eum. Te ipsum serva.” Harrison said and the magic around him began to move angrily, yet somehow it seemed to work. Quirrel began to move weirdly, Harrison nodded to Sirius, Remus and Megan.

“omnia, quae agere debeas, adiuva nos.” Harrison tried, he didn’t know how many times he asked Mother magic for help anymore, but trying to convince a deity to help someone who messed with another deity is harder than it should be.

“Nos te adiuvet te redire. si dederis ei sanitatem.” And finally magic seemed convinced. Harrison sighed, a blinding light appeared and Harrison looked at Lucius and nodded, both him and Lucius send small bits of magic through the circle.

“Let go off him!” Harrison shouted to the ones still holding him, he honestly couldn’t see who now.

And they did let go of him, just on time. The body slowly began to float.

“We should leave.” Harrison decided, “Go!” And everyone hurried out of the room.

Except Harrison.

~

“Ugh,” Harrison woke up, he didn’t even know when it happened, but somewhere in the process he passed out.

“Funny, you were knocked out longer than I was.” He heard a voice, though it sounded quite painful.

“Ha-ha, good to know you’re still annoying now.” Harrison sighed, but did look over at the man.

And literally gasped.

This was not how he imagined Tom Riddle to look like.

The man was flawless, somehow. Even with his very messed up look from the harsh ritual-Even if his eyes were still scarily red.

“It’s cause I still have horcruxes, my eyes were the first thing to change.” Tom- or Voldemort said. “I could see you staring into them, no need to be embarrassed.”

“Sorry- it’s just weird.”

Voldemort just laughed, which startled Harrison and Harrison just had to ask, “How does it feel, having more than 50 percent of your soul again?”

“I feel stupid, how didn’t I notice what was happening earlier?” He sighed, “I suppose I’m surprised Mother Magic even decided to help me.”

“It took a lot of asking,” Harrison laughed and Voldemort shrugged, “I almost gave up when I heard you ask her.”

“Well-“ Harrison sighed, “You are the only hope for this fucked Wizarding World so I was about to do anything to get you sane again.”

“I would say you yourself would’ve gotten pretty far.” Voldemort said casually before saying, “Imagine what we could do if we work together.”

“We’ll talk about it later, you should rest.. And so should I.” Harrison said and Voldemort nodded and left the room, almost showing no sign of exhaustion or weakness.

And Harrison suddenly understood how Voldemort convinced so many people to work for him.

Only then he realised a still alive Quirrel had been looking at the exchange with a slightly terrified face.

Chapter Text

Fred and George spend their Christmas in Hogwarts. They had gotten multiple invitations from friends, but decided they would enjoy spending their Christmas more in the Slytherin’s common room.

Today, however, they had gotten permission to leave school grounds to meet up with aunt Muriel.

They hadn’t seen their aunt in like forever. Molly hadn’t liked Muriel since Fabian and Gideon died.

So when they were led into the big pureblood manor they just froze to look around in awe for a bit. This was what pureblood life should be like. They didn’t know what their family had done to get all of this taken away from them, but it must’ve been bad.

“Follow me, boys.” Muriel said, leading them to a drawing room in the big manor. When they arrived in the room Muriel told them to sit down and then called for an elf to get them tea.

“We have a lot to discuss.” Muriel said and Fred and George were confused, to say the least. “Of course, Molly wouldn’t have told you.” She sighed.

The elf popped back and gave tea, before disappearing again.

Muriel grabbed a cup, “Of course you have heard of the Prewett’s before, since you are part of this family.”

Fred and George nodded.

“We have a tradition. Molly hated it, it’s what caused her to stop talking to me.” Muriel explained, “The Prewett’s Lords are always identical, magical twins. Fabian and Gideon were the last one. They allowed me to take over until there was a new set of twins in the family.”

“That’s us,” George realised and Muriel nodded, “I couldn’t tell you before, Molly has been trying to steal the Prewett fortune for a while, exclaiming how she is Heir to the line. I assume this is also the reason she didn’t tell you about the title.”

“So how does it work?” Fred asked and Muriel smiled, “Don’t worry about that, we’ll visit Gringotts later, I just want to get to know you better. You are, after all, the new Lords to the family I’ve been in for years.”

Fred and George looked at each other not sure how much they could tell this woman.

“Don’t worry,” Their Aunt said, “I heard all about your little, pranks you call it? Not unlike what Fabian and Gideon used to do, it runs in the family.”

Fred and George laughed and started telling their Great-Great Aunt about their lives.

The woman just listened, not judging like Molly always said she would. It was refreshing.

~

Harrison and Voldemort walked into the room full of people, both of them hadn’t been seen since Harrison told everyone to leave the room.

“Harry!” Sirius shouted running towards them, hugging his godson. “I was so worried.”

“I’m fine,” Harrison said, when Remus and Megan also came to make sure he was okay. He swore he felt the Magic wash over him, a diagnostic charm, he quickly realised.

Voldemort just stood there, everyone in the room could easily feel his dominating presence, he also released a bit of his magic. It was probably a intimidation tactic. Lucius and Narcissa could only rudely- in a not Malfoy way- stare at their once again very human Lord.

“Eh, Pads, Moony, Megan, meet Dark Lord Voldemort.” Harrison said dramatically, making the man glare at Harrison.

An awkward silence came over the room, no one seeming to know what to say or to do, Harrison snorted.

“This! This is why I said you shouldn’t come with me immediately.” Harrison said to the Dark Lord and Voldemort shrugged, “It’s fun to make people uncomfortable.”

“Whatever,” Harrison muttered, before turning back to his family, “Where’s Quirrel?”

“He’s alive?” Sirius asked and Harrison nodded, “Alive and terrified. He heard me and voldy talk.”

The whole room went silent.

“Don’t call me Voldy ever again.” Voldemort hissed and Harrison snorted, “Believe me I’ve called you worse things, just not in your presence.”

“If you hadn’t helped me, you’d be dead by now.”

“I’d like to see you try to kill me.” Harrison responded, in English, “Anyways, I led him to a guest room and I suppose I just thought he would join us.”

“Maybe he’s still asleep.” Remus said and Harrison shrugged, “Wouldn’t be surprised, I’d be exhausted too if I had to live with a Dark Lord in my mind for multiple months.”

“Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing, though?” Voldemort asked, more amused this time. Harrison once again thanked Mother Magic for helping him make Voldemort sane and human looking again.

“Shut up, that’s different.” Harrison muttered.

“Oh, Harrison.” Narcissa said, “Your friends were looking for you, they’re in Draco’s room.”  The woman was brave to speak up before even greeting her Lord, but Voldemort didn’t seem to angry. So Harrison wouldn’t comment on it.

“I’ll go find them, I suppose you’ll be okay?” He asked turning to Voldemort, the man looked slightly surprised before nodding. Harrison nodded and shot Sirius a look that meant something like ‘behave yourself.’

Sirius glared at him.

He walked through the long corridors of Malfoy Manor, Draco’s room was 2 floors up and almost at the other side of the manor. He knocked on the door before opening it, though he didn’t wait for anyone to say enter.

In the room were all his Slytherin classmates, somewhere in the night Tracey must’ve arrived, because she hadn’t been here last night.

“Harrison,” Pansy said and then Daphne added, “We were so worried.”

“Sorry, I was tired, passed out for a bit. All good though, Voldy didn’t kill me while I was passed out.” Harrison laughed, “Didn’t even kill me when I called him ‘Voldy’ in front of him. Or when I told him I’ve called him worse things. You think he’d try to kill me if I told him I used to call him an insane bastard?”

“You probably shouldn’t do that.” Draco said, he had gotten a lot paler since Harrison started talking. Harrison knew that of everyone here, Draco knew the most about the Dark Lord. His family had supported the Dark Lord- damn, his granddad even supported Tom Riddle- since the start.

“It’s okay, though. He’s all sane and human again.” Harrison sighed, “He’s kind of annoying, but I suppose we all have flaws.”

“You’re still talking about the Dark Lord right?” Millicent asked, “I’ve never heard someone describe him as ‘Sane and Human… Oh and kind of annoying’”

“This is Harrison we’re talking about,” Blaise said.

“Oye! I’m right here,” Harrison said. Blaise laughed, “I know, you have a very noticeable presence.”

“At least I don’t release my magic to intimidate people,” Harrison muttered, but then decided to not talk about the Dark Lord with people who obviously still feared the man, “So what were you guys doing.”

That’s how Harrison got pulled into a game of exploding snap.

~

Later that night Harrison knocked on Voldemort’s door.

He heard the Dark Lord say, “Enter.” And opened the door. “Of course it’s you,” Voldemort sighed, “What do you want, Black?”

“And here I thought you tolerated me.” Harrison rolled his eyes, “I was here to discuss my part in the war. So convince me to help you further I would say.”

“Right,” Voldemort sighed, “sit down. Really, I wouldn’t do this with anyone else, but I’d have a problem to have you against me.”

“You don’t have to worry about that, I won’t side with Dumblewhore.” Harrison said while sitting down, “Now I’ve heard some things from your followers and supporters, but I need to hear this from you. What exactly are you fighting for?”

“That’s a hard question, but I’ll try to be specific. When I was in Hogwarts it was the middle of the second world war in the muggle world. In the wizarding world Grindelwald was also slowly gaining more power. Let’s just say I’ve seen the worst of both the Muggle-world and Wizarding World.” Voldemort explained, “But the one thing I always noticed was the way Muggles fight. We as wizards do it pretty easily, we use spells and sometimes create a new one. Muggles however have weapons that could destroy the whole world if they decided that they should use them, it scared me.”

Harrison was actually surprised of the amount of things Voldemort trusted him with, he knew Voldemort was secretive- just like he was. He didn’t expect the man to tell him about the wars during his childhood. The fear he had for those wars.

“I always wondered why the Wizarding world was slowly opening up to muggles. Wanting us to merge into one population, I had seen muggles and they would just start killing us or putting us in prisons. Muggles fear what they don’t know and they use violence to fight it. So I decided that if no one else did anything about it, I would. Around fourth or fifth year I started gaining followers for this goal. I never thought I’d actually be this feared, at first my plan was to make this a political war. No one would listen to me, though. Not when Dumbledore- defeater of Grindelwald- said I was evil and an upcoming Dark Lord. I had no other choice. I have to admit, insanity might’ve made it worse than it was.”

Voldemort was staring into the fireplace now, thinking about what Harrison guessed were his childhood years.

“Soon I however noticed that the Wizarding World was just as discriminating as the Muggle world, so I also started fighting for Dark creature rights. This made it easier for Dumbledore to claim I was a Dark Lord, because who else would fight for creature rights?” Voldemort shook his head, “That man is a fool.”

“Those are actually good goals,” Harrison said and Voldemort smirked, “You sound surprised.”

“I’m not, I know you good enough to know that you’re a smart human fighting for what’s right. Your past strategies were not the best, though.”

“You might be right about that one.”

“I am right.”

“Whatever, do you wish to join my side?” Voldemort asked and Harrison raised an eyebrow, “I’m not going to be one of your minions, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“I’d be disappointed in you if you were okay with being one of my minions, however I had to try.” Voldemort said, “I was more thinking about being my equal?”

“You would actually allow that?”

“If you wish, I trust you. I mean, you carry a part of my soul and gave me my sanity back. You’re probably the only person I could trust, I’m not sure if I do, though.”

“That’s actually.. nice? I suppose.” Harrison smiled and Voldemort nodded, “Okay, welcome to the dark side.”

Harrison could see how uncomfortable Voldemort was with trying to see someone as his equal. He didn’t comment on that, though. He just thanked the Dark Lord and quietly left.

The next day Harrison, Sirius and Remus went back to Grimmauld’s place. Megan went back to her home close to Diagon Alley and Voldemort even went to see some of the Slytherin properties. Quirrel had also woken up and decided to travel to South America to visit some old friends soon, until then Lucius allowed Quirrel to stay with him and his family.

The fact that Voldemort was looking at Slytherin properties reminded Harrison about the fact that he still had to talk to the Dark Lord about his vaults. And he would threaten the Dark Lord if he didn’t give him access.

But asking for access would mean explaining his story to the Dark Lord, which he didn’t know if he was ready for yet. Then again, the Dark Lord had even told him about his own childhood a bit, had trusted him with some of his secrets. It wouldn’t hurt to return that, right?

“Would it be weird to tell the Dark Lord the truth before some of my friends?” Harrison asked Sirius, “I mean, I told Draco and Blaise already, but I kind of want to get access to Slytherin vaults.”

“I think it would make sense to tell him, even if I hate to admit that.” Sirius said, “He wants to trust you, is trying to treat you as an equal. From what I’ve heard he’s doing pretty well. It’d be weird for you to lie to him instead now.”

“He is doing pretty well, surprisingly. I suppose I’ll visit him on his birthday.” Harrison said, “31^st of December.”

“Okay, you do you. Just tell me when you’re going and how long you think you’ll be gone. Don’t let your old man worry too much.” Sirius said and Harrison laughed, “I will, don’t worry.”

Every time Sirius said something that sounded like he really did feel like Harrisons father, Harrison just felt a wave of happiness. He’d never thought he’d get a family again, of course he had hoped to reconnect with Sirius and Remus, but he had always been preparing to start taking care of himself at such a young age.

Once he met Sirius he knew that the man would literally do anything to keep him safe, though. It felt nice, having a bond like this in this time. It made him miss the Founders a little less than he would otherwise.

Remus had also helped, a lot. Though, Harrison still saw Remus as more of an uncle. He had however spent a lot of time the past few days on just duelling with Remus. The man didn’t have Godric’s skills, but he made a good opponent. So did Sirius.

Overall, Harrison had not regretted his decision of letting Sirius adopt him and staying here this Christmas.

He was still looking forward to returning to Hogwarts, not that he had brought the Dark Lord back, he could actually relax and have fun. It’s not like he’d have to study.

~

“Come in! Come in!” The way too enthusiastic Prewett goblin said, “We’ve been waiting for the Heirs of Gideon and Fabian. So it’s great to finally meet you.”

“Yes-“ Fred started.

“- It’s good to be here.” George said.

The twins often slipped into twinspeak when they felt nervous and this was obviously one of these moments. Twinspeak was very comforting for them, their magical bond caused them to almost be able to read each other’s minds, they could get that far if they practiced. However, while using twinspeak the bond strengthens a bit, until they can feel the comforting wave of each other’s presence.

No one ever understood when magical twins tried to explain their bond, but for them it felt normal. They didn’t know any different.

The goblin seemed to be used to the twinspeak, he had to be if he had been with the Prewett’s for years. Since all the Prewett Lords are twins.

“This process should be pretty quick,” The goblin said, “This magical paper will check if your claim on the Lordship is real, in this way we can make sure no line theft happens caused by our mistakes. All you have to do is put one drop of blood on there.”

Fred and George quicky did what the Goblin said, grabbing the knife and cutting their hands, to drop blood on the paper.

“Like expected the claim on the Lordship is real, so you can now try out these rings.” The Goblin said, snapping his fingers and two identical rings appeared. “Both of you have the same power over the vaults and other things. So don’t worry about that.”

Fred and George once again did what the Goblin said, no questions asked. They felt a wave of Magic come over them. During the process their emotions flowed from one to the otherm creating an emotional connection even they had never had. It was not quite words, just simple things the other was feeling.

It felt weird for both of them, though.

“The emotional connection will stay, it can only weaken and strengthen based on your bond with each other. This would be the chance to work together and make yourself a team like never seen before. Two literal twins working together while not having to verbally talk is more powerful than you would think in battle.” The Goblin said and Fred noted, “You sound like you have experience.”

“I had the luck of meeting the Prewett Lord’s from two 250 years ago, they decided to strengthen this bond and got more powerful than ever seen before, they were declared undefeatable. One day they had suddenly disappeared, the rumour was that Muggles had kidnapped and killed them that night.”

“That’s horrible,” George said and the Goblin nodded, “It is, but it’s life. I’m sure whatever you choose to do with the title will be in best interest for all of us.”

“I hope so,” George said and the Goblin nodded, “Well I’ll see you some other time, I hope. I’d like to meet sometime to talk about your duties.”

“Okay we’ll come back soon.” Fred agreed.

“Bye.” George said, laughing slightly.

When they were outside George turned to Fred, “That Goblin wasn’t acting very Goblin like.”

“I suppose not, but I guess even Goblins have personalities.”

“I guess so.”

~

Unknowingly to Fred and George, Molly Weasley felt a small bit of her Magic rip away when they claimed the Lordships.

Magic had automatically punished her for betraying her family and now she was stripped from the family tree.

She sank down to the floor, not having felt this weak and vulnerable for a long, long time. Fred and George had just stripped away some of the most powerful magic she had. Family magic was always stronger and a big part of your total magic when you weren’t Voldemort, Dumbledore or Harrison.

Molly just stared to the floor, not sure what to do, finally she decided to get Dumbledore’s help. She had worked with the man for years, helped him for years. He could pay her back now by giving her some power- was that even possible?- or some advice.

And she would make sure the man punished Fred and George, maybe even Harrison, too. He had after all brainwashed her little boys.

Chapter Text

Voldemort had moved into Slytherin castle, which Harrison- unlike Slytherin’s manor- had never seen. So when Harrison first visited he had to actually ask a house elf to lead him through the long halls.

He had decided to visit on the 31^st of December, though he knew he had to go home early, Sirius had a sort of New Year’s party planned.

The elf did so happily, leading Harrison to Voldemort’s office on the other side of the castle. After that the elf quickly left. Harrison sighed and knocked on the door, not waiting for a response to enter.

“Hey, Happy birthday.” Harrison said and Voldemort looked up, “I don’t even know why I’m surprised you know when my birthday is.”

“You really shouldn’t be.”

“I know, I know.” Voldemort sighed, “What are you doing here, child?”

“Actually I’m here to tell you something and then based on my story ask you something,” Harrison said, while studying the books in Voldemort’s library. All of them were books about Dark Arts, though he was surprised when he came past the tales of Beedle the Bard.

“That sounds ominous.” Voldemort said and Harrison laughed, “I mean, it’s not that bad. I’m just telling you the truth about me, my life, I suppose. I’d hate for you to find out later by accident.”

“Your life?” Voldemort raised an eyebrow, “I don’t think I care, honestly.”

“Believe me, you will.” Harrison said, “You are the fifth person I’m telling, so take this as a sign of trust, if you will.”

“I’m listening.”

“Okay so where do I even start?” Harrison said, “You’d think I know where to start the third time.”

“Since I’m getting the story of your life, let’s start with your first year of living, before I tried to kill you?”

“Nah, that part is boring.” Harrison laughed, “After you almost killed me, I got sent away by my family, everyone knows that part. Hope was ‘the Girl-Who-Lived and I.. Well I was just her useless brother.”

“If only they knew the truth,” Voldemort said and Harrison nodded, “If only. Anyways, I got sent away to my muggle family, Dumbledore just put me on the doormat. So obviously I got kidnapped, I mean he should’ve expected that. Merlin went to get me and I lived my childhood years with the founders.”

“Am I supposed to believe that?” Voldemort asked, looking unimpressed.

“It’s true, I can show you the memories. I can’t explain why, but it I really true.” Harrison insisted, then he started going into more detail.

“At first the Founder’s didn’t really know what to do with me, they took care of me, of course. They never had a child before, though, so it was hard for them. Once they noticed how I could already control my magic at such a young age, they started explaining things to me. I think I was four when they taught me my first spell. After that it all started to go quicker, Sal taught me potions, wandlore and anything I asked him about, really. Rowena went more into specifics of magics, but she also really liked charms. Helga taught more about animals and healing and Godric- well we all know he is a master at duelling.” Harrison laughed, “Salazar was the first one I really got a strong bond with and when he found out I was a parseltongue- well let’s just say we did everything together. He was probably the closest thing to a dad I’ve had ever, I mean Sirius is great but that man-“

“He was there for you your whole past, it makes sense.” Voldemort said and Harrison looked at him in surprise, not expecting the man to understand.

“Yeah, I suppose it does. Leaving them was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but Merlin had been giving me history- or rather future classes and we all know this time would need my help. They all trusted me, they trusted me to make this right again. I got a lot of lessons about you specifically, so if I ever say something you never told me it’s probably about that.”

“The horcruxes.”

“Yeah, that’s one of those things, others are for example your birthday. Salazar was really mad that a Heir of his would be that stupid, making horcruxes, unbelievable. But he knew that I would be here to fix it. He also knows that you are trying to do the right thing, even if it took Merlin explaining that multiple time. Do not ever let someone tell you Salazar Slytherin was not a stubborn man.”

“Salazar Slytherin actually knew about my existence?” Voldemort asked, amazed look on his face.

“Yeah, I mean he wouldn’t have, if Merlin didn’t kidnap me. Merlin did, though, so yes he does.”

“I really don’t want to believe this,” Voldemort said, “But it explains a lot.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

Voldemort nodded, but seemed deep in thought. Harrison went back to studying Voldemort’s office. The Dark Lord suddenly stood up and walked towards a bookshelf, Harrison studied the man, who didn’t even seem to care about his presence anymore.

The man grabbed a book and flipped through the pages, searching for something. Only when Voldemort put the book down in front of him and he started reading he realised just how much was still written about him.

They had tried to keep his life as secret as possible, but living in one of the biggest Wizarding schools made it kind of hard, especially since the Founders usually gave him complete freedom.

“That’s you, isn’t it?” Voldemort asked, “I’ve spent years trying to figure out who it could be, if it could be distant family, since I’m a descendant of Salazar. All along it would’ve been impossible to find you, since you didn’t exist yet.”

“It is me,” Harrison confirmed, “There’s generations between us, though. So we’re not really family. I did get blood adopted by all of them.”

“What was your question?” Voldemort asked then, “I think I know what you want.”

“The Slytherin vaults.” Harrison said, “All the Founder’s left gifts for me, or whatever. I just want access.”

“Usually I’d say no immediately, but I’m actually considering this. Maybe we could make a Heir vault and take out your piece?” Voldemort asked and Harrison openly gaped at the man, “Yeah- that would be nice.”

“You didn’t expect me to be this agreeing.” Voldemort said, he wasn’t asking though. It was a statement. Yet, Harrison shook his head, “I thought I’d have to fight you for this.”

“I’m trying to- Be nice… to you. I mean I know I’ll need your assistance in upcoming wars. Also, I think you’re the only person who really talks to me with no fear,” Voldemort explained, “Some people try, but I can see right through their brave mask. You, though, have no fear at all.”

“Of course I have no fear, I beat Godric Gryffindor in a duel.” Harrison said, smirking.

“We’ll duel sometime.” Voldemort decided and Harrison laughed, “That’d be fun, a challenge.”

 “I’m sure it would be,” Voldemort said, amused this time, “I hope I’ll be a challenge to you.”

“From what I’ve heard, you will be, don’t worry.” Harrison laughed, again. That seemed to be a thing the Voldemort made him do a lot, “I mean you are after all the Dark Lord. The one who only fears Albus Dumbledore and Death himself.”

Voldemort snorted, “I don’t know who made up the rumour that I fear Dumbledore, but I’ll have to kill them. I mean, the man is powerful, but not strong enough to really fear. I just have to keep an eye on him.”

“Dumbledore is stronger than you’d think he is.” Harrison agreed, “If only the old coot actually used his power for good, instead of what he thinks is ‘good.’”

“You probably wouldn’t even be here then,” Voldemort said, Harrison shrugged, “Or I might’ve never gone to the past.”

“Fair enough,” Voldemort nodded while casting a tempus, “I think it’s time for you to get back to your family, it is new year’s evening after all.”

“Yeah- I uh- Probably should,” Harrison said, “Why don’t you join us?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, I mean what’s the worst that could happen?”

“I’d make everyone super uncomfortable and people would be unable to celebrate new year’s.”

“That really sounds like their own problem, come on, it’s your birthday!”

Voldemort sighed, “You know what? Fine, but only because I like making people uncomfortable.”

Harrison smirked, but didn’t say anything else. Just looking at Voldemort while going through the floo.

He immediately spotted his class in the middle of the crowd, all of them looking slightly lost between all the grown up’s. He waved at them, but didn’t approach them, instead he waited at the entrance.

It also was not a surprise that the whole room fell silent the moment the Dark Lord walked in.

Harrison smirked at Voldemort, the man was currently just standing next to him unbothered.

“I brought a guest.” Harrison said and Sirius nodded and continued with whatever he was doing before, surprisingly almost everyone followed his lead. Soon Voldemort was actually socializing with people, instead of just standing somewhere scaring people.

Harrison did notice that Voldemort tends to only talk to politically powerful people, so he was probably trying to gain some new supporters.

He honestly didn’t mind, since he himself had quite a bit of fun with his class.

“I still can’t believe you brought the Dark Lord here,” Draco sighed, “what were you thinking?”

“Actually we were thinking about how awkward it would be, which is funny.” Harrison said and most of his classmates looked really unimpressed, “I mean I was at his house, so I just invited him to come here. I knew Sirius was going to hold a party.”

“Sure it is, let us suffer for your amusement.” Daphne said.

Pansy cut her off before she finished her sentence, “Wait you were at the Dark Lords house?”

“Please tell me you at least brought someone with you and didn’t go unprotected.” Tracey said and Harrison shook his head, “No protection for me,” He held up his hands, “These are my protection.”

“Sometimes I wonder why we still try to understand and help you,” Blaise muttered.

“The Dark Lord is pretty nice, you know? You guys just don’t know him like I do.”

Harrison laughed when some people around him made disagreeing noises, but the laughter stopped when they tried force him to dance with them.

“I don’t do dancing.” Harrison insisted, making Draco and Blaise shoot a look at him.

“There’s no way they didn’t teach you how to dance.” Blaise said and Draco nodded in agreement.

“I must agree with them, Heir Black.” A voice behind him said. Harrison turned around to come face to face with the Dark Lord, who had left him alone to go socialize about an hour ago.

“They did teach me how to do it,” Harrison said, “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“I think we’re going to need evidence that you are actually able to dance. However, I actually have someone I need to introduce you to.” Voldemort said, only then Harrison noticed the man standing beside the Dark Lord.

“This here is Lord Yaxley, one of my older followers who actually managed to stay out of Azkaban.” Voldemort introduced the man, “He works at the ministry, I think he can help us with our next plan.”

“Ah right, Pleasure to meet you Lord Yaxley.”

The man nodded, “Not what I expected when I heard the Dark Lord finally picked an equal, but I think I might understand.” The man eyed him in a weird way, making Harrison slightly uncomfortable.

Harrison squirmed when the eyes roamed over his entire body and he finally stopped the man.

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” Harrison said, then he looked at his friends, “I’m sorry, Lord, but I do believe I made a promise to my friends. I’m going to have to leave. It was a pleasure.”

“Yes, a pleasure indeed.” The man said and Harrison looked at him one more time, just in time to see Voldemort sending the man a murderous look.

When he turned back to his friends he sighed, “That’s a creep.”

“You do know what he was suggesting right?” Millicent asked, “Or are you really that oblivious.”

“Of course I realise!” Harrison almost shouted, “I mean I suppose it makes sense, because there is no way someone my age is able to be powerful enough to be the Dark Lord’s equal without those kind of favours right? Fucking hell, I’m eleven, what did he expect?”

“Voldemort has some weird followers,” Draco admitted, “But if anyone’s able to handle them it’ll be you. Also Voldemort doesn’t really support rape, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

Pansy snorted, “I was pretty sure Voldemort never had sex yet, until I saw how fucking hot he was when he actually looked like a human. My parents always described him as a snake-like looking person.”

“Can we please stop talking about sex- or Voldemort?” Harrison sighed, “Come on, let’s go dancing.”

“I thought you didn’t want to?” Tracey said and Harrison threw his hands up, “Anything is better than this, let’s go.”

~

After New Year’s the last few days of their Christmas break flew by, Harrison didn’t do a lot anymore. He started planning with the Dark Lord and hung out with some friends, but before he knew it he was back in the train to Hogwarts.

Travelling back to Hogwarts after holidays felt almost as weird as travelling back to Hogwarts after just returning to this time.

It felt like coming home, but not quite right at the same time. It is your home, but it feels different.

Remus had taken over Voldemort’s defence classes, since Voldemort obviously wouldn’t come back and Quirrel had gone back to America pretty quickly.

“It’s actually quite nice to be back,” Tracey said, “I mean I love being at home, but Hogwarts is my home, too.”

“It is nice,” Pansy agreed, “I think it’ll be boring though with Harrison not planning to bring back the Dark Lord and all. I mean what will the boy do now, nothing? He’s literally done with his homework in a few seconds and after that continues planning. It’s amusing, but now there will be less planning.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll always keep planning things.” Harrison said casually, “At least until we’ve won this war, that’s my priority right now. Winning this war, making sure magic survives this war.”

“You’re already planning things for the war?” Draco asked and Harrison shrugged, “I mean, I have talked to Voldy about some things. Nothing is permanent yet.”

“I still can’t believe the Dark Lord actually discusses things with you now,” Theo said and Harrison nodded, “Same, honestly.”

They were currently eating diner at the Great hall. The Slytherins had moved around a bit, now allowing Fred and George to easily join the first years at diner.

The Slytherins were happily talking and eating when Harrison’s eyes drifted to his sister’s friend group. Hermione Granger- admittedly the only at least slightly smart person in their group.- was reading to Hope and Weasley out of a huge book.

Harrison knew they were searching for the stone, because of it. He studied them for a while, doing that instead of listening to his friends conversations. He knew the stone was safe, since Harrison had used it for the potion for Voldemort’s resurrection.

What worried him, though, were the obstacles. As much as he hated them, he didn’t want them to die by some stupid reason like this.

He supposed he should be glad that he at least wouldn’t have to protect them from Voldemort, since that would’ve been hell. Still he didn’t trust the three of them to actually survive alone, meaning he would need to keep an eye on them at all times. Stop them before they could even try to go in.

“Fred, George,” He said, absent minded. The two red-heads looked up, “Can you guys spy on Hope and her friend’s for me? Tell me when they come too close to the third floor corridor?”

The red-heads turned to each other, seeming to discuss without actually talking. Then Fred nodded, “We can,”

“- Help you.” George said.

Harrison let out a relieved sigh, “You guys are heroes, thank you.”

“Why do you want to spy on Hope?” Blaise asked.

“I don’t want her to try and get the fake stone, or at least if she does I want to be there, make sure they survive. It’s not their time to die yet. Now that I think about it, it would be funny to make them get to the fake stone, though. So I’ll just hide in the shadows and protect them. Make them think they easily went through all the obstacles.”

“Really, you’d do that to protect your bullying sister?” Pansy asked, “You’re nicer than I would be.”

Harrison looked at Hope, “Yeah, maybe I am.”

~

The first week of classes were normal or at least as normal as they could be with Harrison in Hogwarts. Harrison was slowly getting bored, since he had nothing to focus on now, besides the Azkaban break out, which Voldemort did the bigger part of. He just needed to get some people to help them, people who were able to cast a Patronus.

He and Voldemort had decided that was the best way to go, let Voldemort get his old followers back first. They needed the numbers if they actually wanted to win this war. So now they were in the planning phase of getting people out of Azkaban.

Then he realised that he, himself could not cast a Patronus.

“Fuck it,” He muttered, making the Slytherin’s around him look up and sent him questioning looks.

He looked around his defence class room and finally spotted Remus. Deciding to just do it, he raised his hand.

Remus who had been helping another student, immediately looked at him, shock written over his face, before returning to the student he had been helping.

“I’ll be right with you, Mr. Black.” Remus said and Harrison almost laughed when people gaped at him. They weren’t used to him having a question.

“What were we even supposed to do?” Harrison asked, realising he had no idea what spell everyone was trying to cast.

Spells were easier to figure out when people actually succeeded in casting them.

“Verdimillious charm.” Blaise answered and Harrison nodded. The verdimillious charm was a charm used to locate dark objects. It could also be used to do damage on opponents. An almost perfectly grey spell.

“Mr Black, you had a question I believe.” Remus said, an amused look on his face. He probably heard Harrison asking what spell they were working on and realised Harrison had not been paying attention at all.

“Yes, Professor.” Harrison smirked, “I had a question about a spell that is usually taught in a higher year, however I would rather learn in sooner.”

“What would that spell be?”

“The Patronus charm.” Harrison said and Remus nodded, a look of realization on his face.

“I think we should discuss this when we don’t have a whole class listening to our conversation, wondering what the prodigy could have a question about.” Remus said, “Maybe, with Sirius, perhaps?”

“Of course, Professor.”

“Now, if you’ve got time to ask questions about other spells, I believe you can cast this one already? Care to demonstrate?”

Harrison smirked, “Of course, Professor.”

“Unless you have secret dark objects here?” Harrison asked, making Remus laugh, “I have some, just to test the skills of this class. None of them are illegal though.”

“Okay, just making sure, wouldn’t want to accidently out you as a criminal or something.” Harrison said in return, a lot of classes with Remus went like this, the class always seemed amused by them and both he and Remus thought it was funny.

It was a way to make classes less boring.

“Verdimillious.”  Harrison muttered, a few objects in the class did, indeed, light up. He also noticed some accessories of students light up, but decided to ignore the fact that some of his classmates were literally wearing objects filled with Dark Magic.

Oh and most of them seemed surprised by it, too. Which was probably worse. Since that suggested that their parents or whoever gave it to them, gave it without telling them they were wearing dark objects around all the time.

“Fifteen points to Slytherin for doing a spell first try.” Remus said and Harrison nodded. “I’ll see you after class,” Remus whispered then.

“Yeah, see you.”

After that the class passed pretty quickly, no one else actually got the spell before Remus dismissed them.

“Why do you need the Patronus spell?” Tracey asked, “I mean I know it’s used to scare away dementors, but I don’t see how-“

“Azkaban.” Harrison cut her off, “I told you me and Voldemort are making plans to break people out of Azkaban right?”

“No, you didn’t.” Pansy said, right before Blaise said, “Azkaban? you’re kidding.”

“It’s something me and Voldemort are planning. We think he needs the numbers before we can actually get somewhere. His most powerful are in Azkaban right now.”

“Breaking people out of Azkaban would mean exposing the fact that Voldemort is back, though.” Theo noted, Harrison nodded.

“That’s true, but I feel like it won’t take a long time before Dumbles figures it out and will tell the world anyways. We decided to just do it despite all the risks, but afterward not go on raids just yet. Hopefully Dumbledore will say something about it and be declared as insane or something. I mean there’s no way Voldemort is back if there’s no raids, right?” Harrison smirked.

“That might actually work,” Theo agreed, “It’s still something to be careful about, though.”

“I will be careful don’t worry.” Harrison said, “But I knew helping Voldemort wouldn’t always be totally safe.”

“He’s got a point,” Millicent said, “I don’t think that any of us expected Harrison would be kind of safe, I’m just glad that he is kind of safe. Maybe we don’t complain about him not totally being safe.”

“Thank you, Millicent.” Harrison said, “I should get to Sirius though, get him and Remus to teach me the Patronus. I’ll need it.”

“Goodluck,” Tracey smiled, Harrison smiled back at her.

~

“The Patronus, Moony?” Sirius asked, “What would he need the Patronus for?”

“I don’t know, Pads, but he’ll probably explain it to us.” Remus responded, “I think we should do it, though. It doesn’t matter what it’s for, if we don’t do it, the bloody Dark Lord will and he’ll probably trust us a lot less.”

“You’re rig-“

Knock knock.

“There he is,” Remus said, “Let’s hear him out.”

Sirius sighed, but nodded, slowly opening the door.

“Siri! Remy! Hey!” Harrison said happily

“Hey,” Sirius said, not helping the smile on his face that he gets instantly when he sees Harrison happy. “I heard you wanted us to teach you the Patronus?”

“Yeah,” Harrison said, “Please?”

“But why? Why would you need it?” Sirius said, his voice full of worry.

“Azkaban, Voldemort needs help and I can help him. You guys know I can.” Harrison replied, “Also, when I asked the Founder’s they told me you needed to have something you could teach me. So they never even tried to teach me this- I don’t know if it was because they thought it would be too hard or what they were saying was true, however they refused to teach me.”

Sirius sighed, “We’ll teach you, but we’re going to have to talk about the Azkaban thing.”

“Sure,” Harrison nodded, “We’ll talk about the Azkaban thing later. You’re the best, dad. I have to get to class, though. Forgot about potions.”

And just like that Harrison hurried out of the room.

“He just called me dad.” Sirius said, Remus could hear how shocked the man was, even with his back turned to Remus.

“He did, didn’t he do that before?”

“Not when it wasn’t to make the Potter’s pissed, no. This was different.” Sirius said and Remus smiled, “Maybe we really will be a real family in the future.”

“We already are.”

Chapter Text

“Expecto Patronum” Harrison said, though only a mist appeared. He sighed, “is this spell even possible?”

“Believe us, it is.” Sirius laughed, “It takes a while for everyone though, usually people have to practise for a month before even getting mist.”

“Yeah, but that’s usually. I have never done anything with ‘usual speed’. It took me only a month to become an animagus.”

“A month?” Remus asked, “That’s impressive.”

“We spend five months and we had extra motivation to do it,” Sirius said, slightly surprised at the fact that Harrison became an animagus in a single month. Even the most powerful wizards tend to spent multiple months.

“Yeah,” Harrison shrugged.

“I think I know what you’re doing wrong,” Remus said then, “You’re thinking of a happy memory sure, but you’re not quite feeling the emotion you felt in that moment. Try to really relive it and feel the same kind of happiness again. This spell is all about pushing protective emotions into it, mainly happiness.”

Harrison slowly nodded, “I think I can do that?”

He closed his eyes trying to search for one of his happiest moments. It was the day the founders adopted him, he tried to really imagine what his just-turned-10 year old self was feeling. The shock, but also the overwhelming happiness that almost made him cry.

“Expecto Patronum.” He whispered one again, this time he could see the start of an animal forming, though it quickly turned into mist again.

Sirius and Remus literally cheered for him, “That was amazing, did you see that Moony?” Sirius shouted and Remus laughed and nodded.

“I am so glad we actually get to see the process of you learning a spell, it’s quite- amazing for lack of other words.” Remus muttered, Sirius nodding in agreement.

Harrison grinned.

“I think we should call it a day, though.” Remus said then, Harrison looked at him, “I can handle more.”

“We know you can, but I think your progress would be faster with breaks in between.” Remus smiled and Sirius nodded in agreement, “You did great, pup.”

“Thanks, pads.” Harrison said, before sitting down on one of the tables, which were now all lined up in the back of the classroom.

“Even when I was a kid it took me max five times to get a spell right.” Harrison said, “It’s just weird to not be able to just do something.”

“You never had any issues at all?” Sirius asked, one again looking kind of shocked. Which amused Harrison, people really should stop getting shocked when he tells them stuff like this.

“No, I mean, I was taught how to do Lumos when I was four, even back then I got it on my third try.”

“You’re crazy.”

Harrison shrugged, “I might be, honestly, I don’t know.”

“You’ll be able to do the Patronus before the end of this year, cub, I can promise you that much.” Remus said and Harrison smiled, “Thank you- I mean really. I appreciate it.”

“That doesn’t mean you have the okay for Azkaban, yet.” Sirius said and Harrison laughed, “Sure, I don’t.” then he hopped off the table, “I should go, I’m sure you guys have more than enough work to do without me wasting your time.”

Sirius groaned, “No- don’t let Moony force me to grade essay’s again. This was my break, so please waste my time a bit longer.”

Harrison smirked, “Bye- love you!” Before running away.

“Fucking hell,” Sirius sighed, “Adopt a kid, they say, it’ll be fun they say.”

“Pads.”

“Fine! Fine! I’m going.”

~

Harrison sat down next to Pansy in the common room. “Turns out there is something harder than cleaning charms.” He sighed.

“Patronus that bad?” Blaise asked, Harrison shrugged, “The ‘putting happy emotions into casting the spell’ part really annoys me. Though, I got close today so I suppose that’s positive.”

“You’ll get there eventually,” Pansy said, slightly turning to face Harrison, who nodded.

“I know, it’s just been a while since I put effort into anything.” Harrison sighed, making multiple people laugh.

“Poor you,” Millicent said, Harrison snorted, “Yeah.”

He leaned into Pansy’s shoulder, something that he did a lot later, Pansy didn’t seem to mind, every time she just smiled at him and kept working.

His calm was quickly over, though, because Fred and George rushed into the common room.

“Harrison!” they shouted, “Hope went to the third floor corridor.”

“Fuck, seriously, now?”

The twins nodded and Harrison swore, “I have to go, sorry.” He said to his classmates before rushing out, muttering about never getting rest and idiotic sisters.

He had never in his eleven years of living ran through Hogwarts this fast, everyone who saw him rush past actually moved out of the way. No one had seen Harrison Sirius Black in such a rush before.

When he was finally in the corridor he hid himself, just out of Hope’s sight.

He watched as his sister opened the door and then seemed in shock for a moment. He saw how Granger and Weasley were looking at the three headed dog over her shoulder. How Granger’s face turned into one of a sort of fascination, while she was also obviously scared.

Then they all stepped back and let the door shut again.

“I don’t understand why Snape would come here-“ Weasley said and Hope rolled her eyes, “Snape obviously thinks the stone is here.”

Harrison almost laughed, they seriously believed Snape had something to do with this?

“But the stone is here, Hagrid told us!” Granger reminded her friends, Weasley nodded, “He did, but I don’t see a stone ‘mione!”

“No but the dog, it was sitting on something,” Granger said, opening the door again and whispering, “look at fluffy’s paw.”

“A trapdoor.” Hope whispered slightly amazed.

That’s when Harrison decided to actually do something.

He cast a Stupefy hitting all three of them, before levitating the bodies to another corridor, on the second floor. He was glad that nobody saw him or he would have to explain something.

Then he used oblivious to wipe all their memories about the third floor corridor and Fluffy, just to be certain that they wouldn’t return to this place. It was too dangerous.

He was kind of sad that they wouldn’t find his fake philosopher’s stone, but this was the easier way. It would cause less chaos.

He hid before waking them, just to see if they wouldn’t accidentally go up again.

“ah,” Weasley groaned, “Where am I?”

Granger was the first one to look around and answer, “second floor.”

“How did we get here?” Hope muttered, “Does anybody remember what happened?”

Both Granger and Weasley shook their head.

“It’s probably some slimy Slytherin thinking their funny to hurt the Girl-Who-Lived.” Weasley said and Hope nodded in agreement.

Granger didn’t look so sure, but they took her staying quiet as a sign of agreement.

“Come, let’s get out of here, I’m hungry.” Weasley said and Hope looked at Granger who shrugged, then nodded.

“Okay, let’s get some food.”

Just like that they all left to the great hall and Harrison could finally relax again.

No more having to constantly be scared that his once sister would end up getting killed by her own stupidity.

~

“Master!” Ebony hissed, next to Harrisons ear.

Harrison woke up, “What?”

“Someone’s here.”

“What do you mean? I don’t see anyone.”

“Are you dumb?”

Harrison snorted, but the snake seemed quite serious so he asked.

“Where is this person?”

“Now you’re asking the right questions. Outside.”

Harrison sighed and got out of bed, leaving his room and walked past the rooms of the other boys in his classroom.

“I thought you would never show up.” The person said and Harrison sighed, “What are you doing here? Did my ritual go wrong? Are you still insane?”

Voldemort snorted, “No. I was merely curious how your… progress was going.”

“That’s suspicious.” Harrison said and Voldemort smirked, “I suppose I’ll take that as a ‘not very well.’”

Harrison looked down, “Is there an actual reason you decided to risk your life to come to Hogwarts? It can’t have been for the DADA position because you and I both know that Remus took over after Quirrel left. And of course, Dumbles would never give it to you.”

“I do have an actual reason, I was simply retrieving one of my horcruxes, it was in this school.” Voldemort said, before showing Harrison Ravenclaw’s Diadem.

“I thought I’d help you, since I know you’re planning to go on a whole Horcrux hunt.” Voldemort explained, “Plus, I thought you would like this one, since your whole.. History.”

Voldemort still seemed uncomfortable with the fact that he was actually doing something people would say was nice.

“I only ask from you that you help me reabsorb the horcrux and you can keep the diadem.”

“You’re serious?” Harrison gaped at the man, “You’d just give it to me?”

“I believe that’s your godfather,” Voldemort smirked, “But yes, I’m giving it to you, it’s only fair.”

“I- Thank you?” Harrison said, “I’ll try to come over soon for the ritual.”

“Thank you.” Voldemort said, “Sorry for waking you.”

Harrison shook his head, “It’s quite alright.”

Voldemort nodded, then gave Harrison the diadem before disappearing.

Harrison just sat in the common room for a bit, staring at the diadem. Trying to convince himself that he was, indeed, not dreaming.

“I told you master, someone was here for you!” Ebony hissed and Harrison smiled at the snake, “I suppose you did, come let’s go back to my room.”

Ebony hissed without actually saying something and then led the way.

~

“Harry- harrryyyyy!” Pansy shouted and Harrison sighed, “Fine! I’ll help you guys.”

The whole entirety of Slytherin had been asking Harrison for his summoning charm, asking him to teach them. Every time he told them he would try, but there was no actual incantation, so it would be hard.

Everyone told him to just teach them anyways.

Today, however the whole house had decided that it was the day for them to learn it, nobody was busy and Harrison didn’t seem to have anything to do either.

That however, annoyed Harrison. This night he had been woken up by Voldemort of all people and everything that happened since then had just been so surreal. He didn’t have the focus to teach some children how to do spells, now he would need to teach a whole house.

“Does anyone know a place where all of us could safely practice magic and summon objects without knocking other people out?”

“I do.” Gemma said, the prefect sounded quite sure, so Harrison shrugged.

“Lead the way.”

The girl nodded and walked out of the door, the whole house- or at least a big part of the Slytherin’s- followed her. Harrison and his year were the last people to follow.

“You guys really made sure the whole house would come, didn’t you?” Harrison groaned.

“It’s funny,” Daphne replied, “To see you suffer like this.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Tracey said, “It’s not like you have a problem with teaching- or at least talking to- big crowds.”

“That’s true, it’s just your timing sucks.” Harrison said, “You guys won’t believe what happened last night.”

“Are you actually going to tell us or just let us be curious and never explain?” Draco asked and Harrison laughed, “I’ll tell not the specifics, though. Let’s just say, I got an unsuspected visitor.”

“Who visited?”

Harrison raised an eyebrow and Theo was the first one to figure it out, “No- no way.”

That response made it clear to the others.

“Yeah- we actually had a quite interesting conversation.” Harrison said, “He also gave me something, which was weird.”

“Will you tell us more? Or is this it?” Tracey asked and Harrison said, “This is all I can say, without risking your lives. Dark Lord and all that you know.”

“I’m glad you won’t risk our lives.” Pansy muttered right before they stopped in front of a wall. Gemma started pacing in front of the wall.

He heard multiple people whisper angrily about the prefect bringing them to a random wall, but all of the whispers stopped when a door appeared.

“There we go.” Gemma said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “You open it Harrison.”

Harrison walked into the room, a big open space, perfect for practicing spells.

The founders never told him about this place.

“What is this place?” He asked, Gemma smirked, “Room of requirements is what students call it. Well very few find it. It’s a complex magic that can make the room turn into anything you need.”

“When you were pacing-“

“Yes, I was basically telling the room what I need.”

“That is-“

“Awesome.” George answered Harrisons sentence for him.

Slowly the Slytherin students filled the room, Harrison made everyone round up in front of him.

“Okay everyone, I want you to make seven groups, based on the year your in. On the left side of the room the seventh years and on the right side the first years. Everyone in between just make sure you stand on the right order. So second years next to first years etc.” Harrison explained and then said, “Yes, this actually matters so please don’t stand with another group.”

Everyone listened and quickly there were seven groups.

“Sixth and seventh years can go stand on the other side of the room, behind me.” Harrison said then, “fifth and fourth years, be honest to yourself. If you can already cast Accio join the sixth and seventh years, otherwise join the first second and third years.”

Most of the fifth years joined the group of sixth and seventh years, but a lot of the fourth years actually joined the younger group.

“Now I’ve made these groups, because being able to cast the normal summoning charm is very important for the process. I know that you first learn it in the fourth year and they expect you to master it at the end of the fifth year.” Harrison explained, “Now this should be easy, Gemma, could you make the room give us a bunch of pillows?”

The prefect nodded and closed her eyes, after a few seconds a pile of pillows appeared.

“Perfect, now seventh years, do you guys know how to cast it wordlessly?”

Some of them nodded, others shook their head.

“Okay, the ones who do know how to cast it wordlessly, could you help the ones who don’t know how to cast it yet, then I can start teaching people how to cast it wordlessly.” Harrison said and the seventh years nodded, not even slightly bothered by being bossed around by an eleven year old.

“Great! Okay everyone grab a pillow and start practicing.” Harrison said then added, “Also don’t be surprised if this process takes a while, we have time. I’ll make sure I have taught every single one of you as fast as I can and I won’t stop before everyone knows how to do it.”

The seventh years started instructing the group of people Harrison asked them to instruct, while Harrison started explaining wordless magic to the others.

“Okay so while I’m sure all of you have some experience with wordless casting, I find the explanation teachers tend to give a bit lacking.” Harrison said, “Nobody used incantations at first, only once people started really making spells they started using incantations, before that magic was purely there to do what the witches and wizards wanted them to do.

“You need to let go of the fact that you want to use this spell and instead try to really get your will to do the magic for you. It’s harder than it sounds, you need to want that pillow to fly towards you and then make your magic comply.

“The easiest way to do this, for me at least is to just clear your mind, then imagine yourself getting the pillow and once you really have that image try to push your magic to do it. You need to know where your core is, know how to push your magic to do it. Wands were designed to help with controlling magic, it automatically focuses your magic in the wand, which is also why a lot of people will never know how to cast wandless magic, they don’t know where their core is without it, how to refocus it.

“All of you can use this in your favour, you don’t need to be able to cast wandless to do my spell. Just focus on the way your magic already focusses on your wand and try to push it some further.”

“You mean all of us could have been good at wandless magic?” A girl named Iris asked, she was a sixth year and pretty close to Gemma.

“Yeah, however there’s nothing wrong with using a wand. I might even say with some magics it’s better to use a wand. However, if all of you had never started using a wand, all of you would have been just as good with magic, you would’ve learned how to control your magic without extra help.

“Anyways I want you all to try and summon your own pillow, at least make it move a bit. This can take a while, so don’t get too frustrated if it doesn’t work first try.”

Harrison started walking around after that, helping people and answering questions. After one and a half hours he made everyone stop. Some of the sixth and seventh years had gotten the wordless spell and a few third years actually mastered the Accio spell pretty quickly.

“I don’t want Pomfrey to kill me because I made you all exhausted so we’ll call it a day. We will continue somewhere this week, great job everyone.” Harrison said and some of the Slytherins sat down, practicing with magic for a while without rest was exhausting and not all of them had a very big core like Harrison.

“I think that went pretty well,” Blaise commented, appearing next to Harrison.

“Better than I expected.” Harrison admitted.

“This spell sucks though.”

“Any luck at all?” Harrison asked, turning around and facing all his friends.

“I got my pillow to move a bit,” Tracey said and Daphne said she did too, “None of us got further than that, honestly.”

“That’s okay, I mean it’s great actually, getting your pillow to move a bit is like half the work. Now it’s just about changing the direction it moves in and the force it moves with.”

“You sound so sure that all of us can do it.” Tracey sighed and Harrison nodded, “I am sure, all of you could do anything if you put your mind to it.”

“We’re not you, Harrison.” Pansy said and Harrison shrugged, “Maybe not, doesn’t change a lot, though. Having the right mindset is the most important part.”

“If there’s anyone who could-“ Fred started, who was also there, but just stayed silent for a while.

“Teach all of us-“

“It would be Harrison.”

Harrison laughed, “If you guys are sure.”

“Hey Black!” Higgs shouted suddenly, sounding slightly panicked. Harrison turned around and saw a whole crowd around someone.

“Fae fainted- or well I don’t know if she fainted, she just suddenly fell.” He said and Harrison rushed over, his friends following.

“Everybody stand back!” He shouted trying to make room. He cast a simple diagnosis charmed that showed that nothing was wrong with the girl, except for her magic levels, which were a little low, but admittedly not low enough to cause her to faint.

“Rennervate.”  Harrison whispered, waking the unconscious girl. Who blinked a couple of time before looking around.

“Wha- what happened?” She sounded genuinely confused, Harrison summoned a pillow and put it under her feet.

“You fainted, it’s okay.” Harrison said, “You don’t seem to have any serious injuries.”

Fae groaned, “Fuck I feel like hell.” Making some people in the room laugh, before the whole room going silent again.

“Are you okay to try and sit up?” Harrison asked, Fae nodded. She sat up slowly and Harrison summoned another pillow, this time transfiguring it into a cup before filling it with water.

“Drink this.” He said before turning, “Fred, George, can you find Snape and get a pepper-up potion?”

“Aye, Captain.” George said before him and Fred ran out to find Snape.

“It’s normal to faint, especially when first trying a harder spell with wordless magic. I’m assuming your core didn’t react well to the amount of magic you pushed into trying to get the pillow to move.”

“I’m the only one who fainted, though.” Fae sounded slightly embarrassed. Harrison nodded, “I suppose you were, but if I remember correctly you were also the first one to get your pillow to move, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“Who knew Black was a healer,” Montague sounded sarcastic and Harrison snorted, “This is basic Magic knowledge.”

“Sureee it is.”

“Are we even surprised, though. It’s Harrison Sirius Black, he can do literally everything I’m convinced. I mean we all listened to him teaching us some spell today, even the seventh years! While he’s a first year.” Ethan said and people around him agreed immediately, Fae was also laughing a bit.

“I wouldn’t teach all of you shit if I didn’t know basic healing, there’s a reason teachers usually only let you practice for like 45 minutes.” Harrison said, then the door opened and Snape came in with Fred and George.

“He thought-“

“It was suspicious-“

“That we needed the potion.” Fred said and Harrison laughed, “Anyone who’s a bit sane would find that suspicious.”

“Black,” Snape drawled, “Pray tell me what’s going on.”

“I was teaching everyone a spell.”

“The whole house?”

“Don’t worry sir, it’s a harmless spell.”

“Yet, I hear that one of my students was unconscious.” Snape raised an eyebrow.

“It’s all okay, sir, I did all the diagnostic scans and nothing is wrong, all she needs is a bit of energy and she’ll walk right out of that door.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, so I would appreciate it if you gave me that potion in your hand.”

Snape nodded giving him the potion, though he was still quite confused by the whole situation.

“Thank you, sir.”

Snape nodded and watched as Harrison gave Fae the potion. Immediately the girl looked a lot better and she quietly thanked Harrison.

“Everyone can leave, I want to talk to Mr. Black.” Snape said and all the students nodded, not wanting to fight their head of the house. Higgs helped Fae up and when he passed Harrison he whispered, “Thanks, Black, goodluck.”

Harrison just nodded.

When everyone had left Snape turned to Harrison, “What were you thinking?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean why are you teaching the whole Slytherin house some spell?”

“Believe me, I wouldn’t, I got forced into it and just didn’t have the fucking energy to fight it this morning cause some way too nice- like suspiciously nice- Dark Lord decided to visit me in the middle of the night and I don’t know what the fuck is going on. So yes I decided to teach them some summoning charm, because they all asked about a thousand times?”

“The Dark Lord?”

“Believe me, Professor, I wouldn’t lie about this. I mean I was thinking about telling no one, but I decided that if Voldemort decides he wants to wake me up in the middle of the night to visit me, I might as well tell people. If he wanted me to tell no one he shouldn’t have woken me up.”

“You’re not making me less confused.”

“Sorry, professor, can I go now?”

“I suppose.”

“Bye, Professor.” Harrison said before walking away.

“Mr. Black, 20 points for helping other students when they asked, another 5 points for helping Fae Drusus after fainting.”

“Thank you, sir.” Harrison smirked, and then he closed the door of the ROR.

“How did they even find this room?” Snape muttered.

~

Over the next few weeks Harrison gave weekly classes, he wanted to at least have all the seventh years master the spell, since they would leave at the end of the years.

It was proven to be hard though and before any of them got it the winter changed into spring, adding exam stress for all of them.

The only comfort that Harrison had was that all the seventh years at least mastered the wordless Accio.

He had thought about making an incantation for the spell, making it an official spell, but it would take a while to get the spell code right. He didn’t have the time for that.

Instead he focused on wand movements, trying little flicks that might help them.

In the end he decided that it would be easiest if they just used the Accio movement, with an extra flick at the end.

He explained this the first time he saw all the seventh years together, he had also written down some instructions, he responded to the confused looks with a simple, “All of you guys will have mastered this spell by the time you leave the school whether you want it or not.”

Most of the seventh years had laughed, but also thanked him and he now saw them practice together quite often, between exam revising.

He swore he had seen Ethan do the spell once, which gave him some hope.

Surprisingly even the first years had started revising for exams, leaving Harrison absolutely bored out of his mind. He also couldn’t bother Sirius and Remus too much, since the couple had to actually prepare multiple exams.

Harrison was pretty sure McGonagall let Sirius deal with most of the exams, trusting the man enough to do that, while also wanting to give him pay back for how much of a pain in the ass he had been his school years.

He was also sure that McGonagall would check all the exams over multiple times, before handing them out.

“You’re doing nothing at all to learn are you?” Pansy asked and Harrison shrugged, “We have multiple weeks, so no not yet. I don’t know if I will.”

“I hate the fact that you can do nothing and still get better grades than all of us.” Tracey said and Harrison smirked, “Sorry.”

It was Friday afternoon and they had some classes this morning, Harrison would have a Patronus class in an hour today, but he at least did not feel as stressed as the rest of the class.

“Just accept that he’s a genius.” Blaise said, “And use it, I mean you can literally ask him anything without awkwardly going to a teacher to get your answers.”

“But if Harrison wasn’t here I would have a chance to ask Professor Black questions.” Tracey said, smirking slightly.

Harrison fake gagged, “That’s my dogfather your talking about!”

“Technically when Harrison is helping us you could call him professor Black.” Pansy pointed out and that made both Harrison and Tracey shoot her a horrified look.

“First Draco now Tracey, seriously Pansy?” Blaise asked, Pansy shot him an innocent look, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I was only stating facts. You’re the one making it weird.”

“That’s it,” Harrison stood up, “I’m going to Patronus class, see you guys later.”

“Say hi to Professor Black for me!” Tracey giggled, Harrison rolled his eyes, “I won’t. Bye!”

When Harrison entered the History classroom he said, “You know that you’re the one teacher everyone has a crush on, Sirius? It’s lowkey annoying.”

“I am?” Sirius asked surprised, looking up from a piece of paper, Harrison honestly didn’t know what it was.

Remus snorted, the man had probably noticed.

“Yes, don’t let that inflate your ego, though.”

Sirius rolled his eyes, “Come in you child.”

Harrison grinned and did as he was told, “So I just cast Patronus and you guys cheer me on like usually?”

Remus and Sirius looked at each other, “Yeah- pretty much.”

Harrison nodded and casted the charm.

And then again.

And again.

After around thirty minutes he decided this was going nowhere and instead sat down on a table again.

“You know I actually have a question that has nothing to do with this.” Harrison said, “I’ve had it for a while, but I kept forgetting.”

“What is it?” Sirius asked.

“The accident of 1977.” Harrison said and Sirius groaned, Remus laughed, “We knew he would ask eventually, pads.”

“Yeah, but right now?”

Remus raised an eyebrow and Sirius sighed, “Fine.”

“We were in our sixth year and at that point were quite well known as… Well let’s just say we had fought Voldemort as teenagers. It got around the school and soon people outside the school knew. Rita Skeeter heard the stories from someone and stalked us for months, writing about every bit of our lives, we had zero privacy. In the end we figured out that she was an animagus and stopped her from stalking us, but we still dislike the woman.” Sirius explained, “I mean we of course loved attention, we were the marauders, but this was just too far.”

“Wow,” Harrison said, “I didn’t expect that-“

Sirius laughed, “It’s okay, pup. All in the past, we just wanted to make sure nothing like that ever happens to you, which is why we’re so careful around Rita.”

“Makes sense, thank you.” Harrison said and Sirius nodded.

“I think we should call it a day.” Remus said, “you got pretty close today, cub.”

“Yeah, I suppose I did.” Harrison said, because he did. He would get it the next time, for sure.

“So,” Sirius said, “How are classes going?” Trying to start up a conversation, obviously not wanting to get back to work.

“You seriously have to ask, pads?” Harrison raised an eyebrow.

“I suppose I don’t, but still, sometimes showing interest in your school career is okay.”

Harrison laughed, “Everything is going well, I’m actually teaching Slytherins right now.”

“You’re what?”

“Have been for a couple of months, they wanted to know how to cast my summoning charm.”

“You never told us.” Remus said and Harrison shrugged, “Suppose it slipped my mind. I stopped the classes with everyone, instead I’m focussing on seventh years, I want them to get the spell right before they leave school. It would suck if they had to leave halfway of their progress and never get to finish it.”

“You’re a first year teaching seventh years your own made spell?” Sirius stated, it wasn’t really a question. “If I didn’t know you, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

“First year genius, you know?” Harrison smirked and Sirius laughed, “Yeah, I noticed.”

Chapter Text

“Expecto Patronum”  Harrison whispered, this time an animal did appear.

Both Sirius and Remus were sitting at the edge of their seats, curiously watching the animal, trying to see what it was.

It looked like a snake, then it flickered and suddenly changed into something else. It now had paws, it flickered again flying around. It kept flickering from animal to animal, like it wasn’t quite sure what form it needed to be.

“What is this supposed to mean?” Harrison asked in confusion, Remus only response was, “Our Patronus represents a person who we feel the safest with, who we feel like they could keep us safe. It could be a parental figure or a significant other. I don’t think your Patronus knows who that would be for you.”

“You mean I have more than one Patronus?” Harrison stated more than asked, “I have multiple protectors.”

“I’ve never seen this before,” Sirius said, “But I mean- it would make sense. You grew up with the founders, now you have us. You’re friends too- and Merlin. You have so many people who could be your Patronus.”

“Of fucking course every piece of my magic has to be special, first the wolf animagus, now this.”

“Maybe-“ Remus cut himself off, he looked like he was deep in thought and he was staring at the place where Harrisons Patronus now seemed to form something close to a lion.

“What are you thinking, Moony?” Sirius asked.

“Would it be possible for Harrison to cast multiple Patroni?” Remus asked and Sirius shrugged.

“Well, I’m not going to figure this shit out now, I’ll try to find something about this in the library here.” Harrison said and Sirius nodded, before summoning something, it was a piece of paper which he signed.

Only when Sirius gave it to him he realised it was for permission to the restricted area of the library in Hogwarts. “If you don’t find anything, we always have the Black library.” Sirius said and Harrison nodded, “Thank you. I won’t keep you busy any longer, it’s almost exams after all.”

~

Time tended to fly right before the end of the year, everyone was learning and classes were pretty much wrapped up, now they just got time to revise for the exam.

Harrison hated it.

He was bored usually, but nothing compared to how bored he was now. Everyone was learning- except for maybe his own sister and Weasley – He couldn’t annoy teachers either, since they had to actually make the exams they would take, while still teaching classes and correcting some work.

Everyone seemed to be stressed, except for Harrison. So he wandered the halls, not really doing anything. He talked to portraits, spent some time in the library to learn about useless things. He also started helping people, anyone from year one to seven could come up to him and ask for help.

The seventh years didn’t even question the fact that this first year already knew everything they had to know. He had taught most of them his spell now, so they pretty much stopped doubting his skills as a teacher.

“Harrison, can you please just help us?” Pansy asked, noticing how he was zoned out.

“Huh?”

“We just can’t get this transfiguration spell.”

“What are you even trying to do?” Harrison asked, seeing multiple hairpins on the table. Pansy sighed, “It’s just- our practical exam will probably just be transfiguring one item into another, right?” When Harrison nodded she continued, “So we thought why not practice? We’re trying to change this-“ She picked up a hairpin, “Into a cup or goblet or whatever- something totally different.”

“That’s pretty hard to do.” Harrison said and Pansy nodded, “We noticed.”

“The thing about transfiguration is that only a few spells actually have incantations, it’s more about imagination. You have to really want to turn a hairpin into a goblet to do it. I would start with something easier, maybe a spell with an incantation.”

“Do you have an idea?” Tracey asked and Harrison nodded, “Start easy, turn the hairpins into hair ties, for example. The way of thinking will be easier.”

Pansy looked around, seeing the rest nod at the suggestion, she smiled, “Thank you.”

“No problem, it’s what I’m here for.”

While the rest started casting spells, Daphne smiled at Harrison and said, “Why don’t you show us how it’s done.”

Harrison rolled his eyes, but still made a small wrist movement, turning all of the pins into hair ties.

“Hey! I was close! You ruined it.” Blaise said, Harrison smirked, “Turning it back into a hairpin should be easier.”

Blaise rolled his eyes, but smiled and started trying to turn the hair tie back.

Harrison sighed and started zoning out again, before he thought of something to do.

“Anyone interested in going to the library with me?” He asked and Daphne shook her head, “It’s so busy this time of the year.”

“Yeah, I’m not going either I really want to focus now.” Tracey said, “Sorry, Black.” She said then. Harrison smiled at her, “It’s okay, I just have to find a book, won’t be good company either way.”

“If you’re offering bad company and help with studies.” Terence spoke up and Harrison turned around, “I mean, I can try to help.”

“We all know you can help, Black.” Montague scoffed, the whole Slytherin quidditch team seemed to be studying together, the old players were also there. It didn’t matter what year you are, if you’re part of the team you can join them any time.

“All of you are coming?” Harrison asked, slightly surprised.

“We sure as hell are.” George said, “Lee also, I think?”

The boy nodded and then Harrison shrugged, “Fine by me.”

Fae Drusus then spoke up, “NEWT potion classes are killing me, please tell me you’re also a potions prodigy?”

“Of course he is,” Flint said, “Even Snape likes him, he has to have some skill.”

“Alright, good enough for me.” Fae said. Just like that it was decided and the Slytherin team all stood up, following Harrison to the library.

“What are you even searching for?” Terence asked and Harrison shrugged, “Books on the Patronus charm, I learned how to do it, but something was off. I want answers.” He pulled Sirius signature out of his pocket, “I have this, so that’ll probably help.”

“I wish I had a teacher who was also my parent.” Fae complained, “Life would be so much easier.”

“Not that Harrison here needs it-“ Fred started.

“- He has the whole staff wrapped around his little fingers.”

Harrison snorted, “Not true, Lily and James Potter hate my guts. Dumbledore thinks I’m some Dark Lord, Hagrid does whatever Dumbledore says and however nice Minerva is, she’s still very loyal to the headmaster.”

“Okay so almost the whole staff.” Lee concluded and Harrison shrugged, “Suppose so.”

He opened the doors to the library and almost immediately noticed it was almost completely full. He sighed, “This was a bad idea.”

“No.” Fred said, George immediately continued with, “Trust us.” Before they walked in a random direction, walking to the other end of the library, here they took a turn to the left until they found the place they were looking for.

It was an isolated place; a table big enough for all of them, close to a window, every where around them were books.

“Sometimes having the Weasleys in our house is a good thing.” Ethan Grimstone said, probably the first person ever to admit that he liked that the Weasleys were in Slytherin.

“Hey!”

“We can be useful.” Fred said.

“We’re starting to see that.” Flint said before taking the lead and sitting down, the rest quickly followed.

“Okay so who actually needs help before I try to find a book.”

“Please,” Fae said, “I literally stopped trying when Snape asked us to make a Draught of Living death in our first class this year.”

Harrison chuckled, “That’s fair, harsh potion. So what do you need help with?”

Fae started telling Harrison what she didn’t understand and Harrison started explaining some things, ignoring the way some of the others had started taking notes. Either for their classes next year- or also in preparation for their exams.

Harrison honestly didn’t mind, this was a lot more fun than just sitting around doing nothing. Even though he knew most of these people were dying to know how he knew everything he knew.

When he finished explaining different types of potions and ingredients to Fae, he told the group he’d return in a bit and started trying to find a book. That was after all his main goal.

It was harder than he thought it would be; there weren’t any books about the Patronus charm specifically, he would just have to get a book about charms and hope there was information he could use.

Eventually he grabbed a book about advanced charms, the books on advanced magics were usually about subjects that won’t be taught in class, but you could learn about if you were interested.

Harrison knew that the Patronus charm wasn’t part of the usual Hogwarts curriculum.

He returned to the table and opened the book, looking for the chapter about the Patronus charm. He did find it and he started reading.

“Patronus charms?” Terence asked, looking over at the book and Harrison shrugged, “Sirius and Remus taught me how to do it.”

“So why would you need a book on it?”

“It’s just- I’m curious about the limits. Is it possible to summon multiple patroni at the same time?”

“It is.” Ethan said, “McGonagall did it before, she had to warn the other teachers about… Something, I’m not sure what exactly. She summoned three charms, all of them were the same cat, but still it was impressive.”

Harrison looked shocked for a second and then said, “I’ll talk to her.”

“You should, it could save you a lot of time researching.”

“Yeah, thank you.” Harrison didn’t stop reading, though. The book didn’t told him a lot he could use; most of it was about picking the right memory, that didn’t stop it from still being theory Harrison didn’t know a lot about yet.

“No one’s questioning how a literal first year can do the Patronus charm?” Pucey asked, looking around the table.

“It’s Black,” Flint responded, like that once again explained everything. Which it kind of did. “Now everyone go study, if any of you fail the year you’re in now, you get kicked off the quidditch team.”

That made everyone except Lee, Harrison, Ethan and Fae stress and turn back to their books.

~

When it was actual exam week Harrison could luckily spend time with Sirius and Remus again. After his Charms exam, which consisted of a written portion and a practical exam- the practical exam being an easy charm to animate an object. In this case make a pineapple dance.- he slowly started making his way to Sirius and Remus quarters.

When he suddenly heard, “Harrison?”

He looked sideways to a corridor he had never noticed before. He took the turn and looked at the wall.

He literally gaped at the wall.

“How- I- what?” Harrison managed to get out, making Salazar and Merlin laugh.

“Looks like you found us,” Rowena stated and Harrison rolled his eyes, before he asked, “But how, I’ve been here a thousand times and never noticed this place.”

“I think it moves around, the location seems to change a lot.” Godric said then, “It makes sense you didn’t find us before.”

“So I’m going to have to find you again, every time I want to talk to all of you?” Harrison asked and Merlin shrugged, “Or you could just get their portraits next to my portraits in your godfathers house.”

“I could, I would have to ask Voldemort.” Harrison muttered, more talking to himself now, “I think I can do that, I mean he was prepared to open a vault for me with the Slytherin Heir title, move some things in there.”

“Sounds like he’s saner than he used to be.” Salazar noted and Harrison nodded, “I did the ritual, gave him back fifty percent of his soul, we’re still working on the rest, but it’s a lot better already.”

“You managed to that this quick?”

“Of course, it wasn’t that hard, just had to get mother Magic to cooperate.”

“Not that hard he says,” Helga says, amused, “I’m glad you managed to do it.”

“I am too, believe me, it would suck to work with an insane dark lord.” Harrison laughed, “I mean he’s still a pain in the ass, but at least he’s manageable now.”

Salazar snorted, but said nothing else. Harrison felt like Salazar was thinking about Voldemort’s night visit. Which, Harrison had to admit, had been kind of annoying, but still sort of nice.

“I believe you were going somewhere, Harry?” Helga smiled at the boy.

“Oh, yeah! Thank you, I should go.” Harrison said and the founders laughed while the boy ran away.

Harrison entered Sirius’ quarters, where Remus had also been living.

“Hello? Anyone homeeee?” Harrison shouted and he heard some cursing and then hurried footsteps from the bedroom, “Take your time- I guess.”

When they finally came out Harrison decided to ignore their appearances and the fact that Remus was constantly smirking. Instead he said, “Turns out McGonagall is actually able to cast multiple Patroni at the same time.”

“She is?” Sirius asked, Remus shook his head, “I totally forgot about that one time, you know, Pads, back in our 5^th year?”

“Oh- I remember.” Sirius said, “I had never quite felt that kind of power before, well I suppose until later that year when we first saw Voldemort in real life.”

Remus laughed, “Yeah, it was impressive.”

“Do you think I could talk to McGonagall without her telling Dumbledore about everything?” Harrison asked and Sirius nodded, “Minnie isn’t quite as loyal to the old coot as she seems, she will of course pick his side in the war, but she doesn’t like his methods. You should’ve seen her when the Potter’s gave you away, she saw you as her grandson.”

“You think we could convince her to join our side?” Harrison asked then.

“With the right arguments, I guess.”

“She was a student the same time Voldemort was. He probably remembers her and he’s always had a lot of respect for powerful people.”

“Wait- you’re seriously thinking of recruiting Minerva McGonagall, deputy headmistress of Hogwarts?” Remus asked, Harrison shrugged, “Maybe next year, I mean I have to do something while in Hogwarts, otherwise I’ll be bored.”

“Well if this does work it’s a positive thing for the dark side that’s for sure.” Sirius said, ending this conversation, “Anyways I think you should talk to McGonagall about the whole Patroni thing, you should talk to her right now and leave us alone once again to fi-“

“Padfoot.” Remus said and Sirius grinned, “Sorry- sorry.”

“Gross,” Harrison groaned, “And here I thought I was always welcome.”

“You are, just not now.”

“Fine, fine. I’m leaving. Have fun.” Harrison laughed and he quickly left the room, not wanting to see his godfather(s?) jump each other.

~

“For the potions exam you will be brewing a forgetfulness potion,” Snape smirked, “From memory. You also can’t work in pairs, you have to do this on your own.”

Harrison heard multiple groans around him, he had to admit, Snape’s humour could be good.

“Of course there are no wands allowed.” Snape continued, looking directly at Harrison. Harrison knew that Snape say no wands instead of no magic on purpose, Harrison would be allowed to use magic.

“But sir, that would give Black an unfair advantage.” Granger said and Snape shook his head, “A skill like wandless magic is a skill anyone could learn, if you actually put effort into learning it you would have the same ‘advantage’.”

“But I was raised by muggles.”

“So was I, Granger.” Harrison replied, “I think that you should stop interrupting professor Snape.”

Snape nodded at Harrison and then said, “Begin.”

Harrison stood up to get ingredients, just like everyone else. He had to admit that with this potion specifically it was an advantage to be able to use magic, since it sped up the process a lot, waiting times got shorter and in the end he would spend almost 40 minutes less to finish his potion.

Snape knew this, yet still chose this potion for the exam. What was he trying to prove? Giving Harrison such an unfair advantage was- well weird behaviour especially from Snape.

Harrison shook his head, deciding to focus on the potion instead of whatever Snape was doing. He did finish his potion pretty quickly and was allowed to leave once he finished, leaving him bored in the library without his friends.

His next exam would be transfiguration and Harrison hoped he could talk to McGonagall before his exam, meaning he should leave early.

The Transfiguration exam was three hours after the potion exam, so he still had more than enough time to sit in the library and play around with magic.

His friends found him later playing around with a purple-ish orb, floating it around the table, changing the tone slightly, when Blaise said hi, Harrison made the orb explode.

A purple mist surrounded them, when the mist was gone their clothes were covered in glitters.

“What the fuck, Harrison?” Draco shouted.

Harrison smirked, “It’s an illusion.” He made a slight hand movements and everything turned back to how it was.

“I’m not even going to ask how you did that.” Blaise muttered sitting down next to him, “three more hours to study transfiguration.”

Harrison nodded, “I think you guys will be fine, you probably have more time since we’re doing it apart from each other and your name is last on the list.”

“Yeah, we still have a day for the written exam.” Blaise said, “At least we’re somewhat lucky.”

“Just try to make a lot of small details, it’ll get you extra points.” Harrison said, “None of you are bad at magic, so all of you will do fine.”

About two and a half hours later Harrison got up and said, "I’m going to Transfiguration early, I have to talk to McGonagall.”

“Harrison once again being secretive.” Pansy muttered, Harrison laughed, “Actually no, I just have to ask questions about the Patronus charm and I might ask to do my exam early, so I’ll be done with the exams today.”

When his classmates were done wishing him luck, he went to the transfiguration classroom. He knocked on the door and immediately got a response.

“Come in!” he heard McGonagall shout, Harrison slowly opened the door.

“Oh Mr. Black, it’s still a bit early.”

“I’m sorry professor, I’m actually here for something else.” Harrison smiled at one of his favourite teachers, “I learned how to do the Patronus charm recently and there was something.. wrong.”

“The Patronus, but you’re so young- wait wrong?”

“I- well let me show you.” Harrison said, twitching his wrist while muttering, “Expecto Patronum.”

He wouldn’t say it’s easy now, but he still got a corporeal form, so he could show McGonagall. The Patronus once again started changing every few seconds and he looked at McGonagall, whose focus was entirety on the Patronus.

“I see, while I do admit that it’s weird, I think it should still work.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about, Professor. I was wondering if it were possible to cast multiple Patroni at once and I’ve heard from multiple people you can do exactly that, you’ve done that before.”

“That’s true,” McGonagall hesitated, “It takes a lot of power, though. It also helps that my core prefers lighter forms of magic like the Patronus charm.” She seemed to think before asking, “If I may ask, what’s your core like?”

“Grey.”

“I mean- I understood that much from seeing you cast magics, but what is your cores preference?”

“I have none, Professor.”

“None?” McGonagall looked absolutely shocked, Harrison had never seen her look shocked before, “I mean- then I suppose you could get there if you just keep practicing. Just don’t exhaust your magic.”

“I won’t, I promise.” Harrison smiled, “Do you have anything that could help me get there faster.”

“Try to ignore the once you casted before, just pretend like you’re casting only one Patronus for every Patronus you add, but do keep enough concentration on the others to not make them fade away.” She looked at Harrisons Patronus, which was still walking- or sometimes sliding- through the room, “Much like you are doing now.”

“Okay, thank you.” Harrison sighed, “Now that I’m here, could I just finish my exam already?”

“Don’t you need some rest, Mr. Black?” She nodded towards his Patronus.

“Oh, no, I’m okay.” Harrison said and then McGonagall nodded, “Well, okay then. She summoned a mouse, the exam is to turn this into a snuff box.”

Harrison nodded and started imagining a snuffbox.

~

The next day was boring. The only exams they had were the Potions and Transfiguration written exam. All they had to do was answer questions about spells theories, situations and which spells you could use, ingredients and situations for potions.

Harrison was glad that the day flew by and before he knew it it was time for his DADA exam. The written and practical exam were immediately after each other, unlike other exams. Once you were done finishing questions about Werewolf bites, Imps, Ghosts, Hags, Gytrashes, Vampires, Zombies and Gnomes, you could join sit outside waiting till Remus would come and get you for the practical part, the part where you had to show spells.

Harrison, like expected was the first one to be done with the written part and once he walked out he saw a way to amused Remus standing there.

“Hey,” Remus said and Harrison rolled his eyes, “Hello, Professor.”

Now it was Remus’ turn to roll his eyes. Harrison followed him to an empty classroom and then said, “Do I really have to do this, it seems like a waste of energy, we both know I will get an Outstanding.”

Remus laughed, “Sorry, cub, school rules are school rules. It’ll be done it no time.”

“just the nine spells we learned in class right?” Harrison asked and Remus nodded and so Harrison started shooting all different kinds of spells, ending with the simple green sparks spell.

“That’s it, cub. You’re free for the rest of the day.” Remus said and Harrison snorted, “Yay, more boredom.”

“We should really try to move you up some grades, maybe place you in fourth year next year.” Remus muttered and Harrison shrugged, “Fine by me, won’t help since I’ve literally been through the whole Hogwarts curriculum before.”

Remus rolled his eyes, “I don’t think Dumbledore would allow it, honestly, sorry you’re going to have to suffer six more years.”

“Yeah, well, at least I can cause chaos here.” Harrison said and then said, “I think Granger finished almost immediately after me, you should probably get her.”

Remus nodded, “I lowkey want to skip Hope’s friends, they’re nightmares.”

Harrison nodded sympathetically, “Goodluck.”

~

The History exam was mostly about the Founders time, Remus and Sirius even asked some questions about him, much to Harrisons amusement.

They had a free afternoon after history, this time actually spend hanging out instead of studying. The next day were the Astronomy and Herbology exams, the last two exams and then they would have some free days, since most of the years above them had more subjects.

The first years could hang around the school doing nothing for a while and Harrison was glad that now he at least had company while doing nothing.

One afternoon, one of the last days of school he got a letter, which was kind of weird, since Gringotts had started to not let any mail for him through, besides the ones he had direct contact with.

It was a precaution to make sure he would get no fan or hate mail directly to Hogwarts, instead Gringotts saved it in a Vault, but he would still get letters from Sirius, Remus, Megan or any of his friends.

“Who’s it from?” Tracey asked, sitting down next to Harrison.

“I’m not sure,” Harrison responded, “I don’t recognize the owl.”

“Open it.” Pansy said and Harrison casted some spells to make sure the letter didn’t have any compulsions on it, before carefully opening it.

Once he saw the handwriting he snorted. “Of course it’s him.”

That made Pansy, Blaise and Tracey, the only three Slytherins around him, look at him in shock.

“Like him- him?” Blaise asked and Harrison nodded.

“What does he want?” Pansy asked then and Harrison shrugged, “Let me read it first please.”

Harrison,

Firstly, stop thinking I’m stupid for sending you a letter, it’s written in parselscript.

Harrison laughed first before looking over the text once more, noticing that it indeed wasn’t English. Harrison still struggled with the difference sometimes, since to him, parseltongue and English sounded- and turns out, looked- the same.

I am currently trying to create a new type of poly juice potion in order to make permanent changes, I think we could use it for the Azkaban break out. I, however, would like to get my second soul piece back before going to Azkaban. I hate to admit it, but the difference in power I felt when I got my soul from my diary back is almost unbelievable.

So I think we should meet up somewhere in the begin of the Hogwarts summer break to finish our planning for Hogwarts and perhaps we could do the ritual then. You should invite your godfather and his partner? Whatever, you could also invite Megan, we could use all the help we can get.

T.M.R

Harrison stared at the letter for a while, before muttering, “Nice way of saying you miss me, I suppose.”

That caught the attentions of his friends, who had started to talk about something else, once again.

“What?” Blaise asked and Harrison shook his head, “Voldy wants to meet up in summer break. Of course, I’ll go, since he needs my help.”

When his friends confusion didn’t go away, he just said, “Don’t even bother trying to understand this. It’s honestly not worth it.”

He grabbed a piece of paper and wrote,

Okay, see you then.

H.S.B

It was a vague letter, but Voldemort would understand. He didn’t master parselscript yet, never even thought about practicing it, so vague was the only way to go.

He gave the letter, if you could even call it that, to the owl and said, “Give this to him.” And the owl flew away.

~

At the end of the year no extra point were rewarded to anyone and Slytherin won with 548 points, Harrison knew he alone had earned at least half of those. Ravenclaw was second with 426, Hufflepuff had gotten 3^rd place with 352 and Gryffindor last place with 312.

Harrison just knew that Godric would have been disappointed in this group of Gryffindors, not even because they lost, but because they aren’t even trying. They use the ‘reckless’ trait as a way to explain why they would lose and say that it’s unfair, cause it’s one of the reasons a person would get sorted into Gryffindor.

Harrison would love to see Godric here, telling them all how wrong that was. How being brave did not even come close to being reckless.

However, Godric wasn’t here so instead he just celebrated with everyone in the Slytherin house. Who practically worshipped him now, because without him they wouldn’t have gotten this win and this win was their first win in a while.

When everyone was dismissed to pack up and go to bed, the Slytherins all went back to the common room and continued celebrating.

Somewhere in the middle of this celebration, Flint stood on a table.

“Now everyone knows how much I hate making speeches.” His voice easily carried over the crowd. “But Black made a speech when we asked him to after a quidditch win, so I will make one now, to honour Black. When Harrison James Potter got sorted into Slytherin none of us were sure about him, let’s be honest here.”

Everyone agreed immediately, making Harrison laugh.

“I mean a Potter- who grew up with muggles- in Slytherin, what good could that be? Oh and then you had that first night where he just decided to expose that he knew Salazar Slytherin of all people? He tried to explain it with an excuse, but none of us believe him even now, let’s be honest. I’m pretty sure Zabini tried to get him to tell the truth with violence.”

Blaise looked embarrassed and Harrison smiled at him, trying to not make him feel guilty.

In the corner of his eyes, Harrison could see Salazar smirk, but no one else noticed so he would ignore the man. Sal probably loved every second of this.

“However whatever we thought Potter would do he didn’t do, he isn’t some Gryffindor who somehow manipulated the hat into putting him in Slytherin, he is one of us. Even if sometimes he acts like a Gryffindor, especially in the start of the year with his own parents. I mean what Slytherin tries to get disowned and lose all their power?” Flint smirked, “A bad one, luckily he had a plan, getting adopted by a family with even more power! That is such a Slytherin move. Just like that Harrison James Potter turned into Harrison Sirius Black. A boy who made sure Slytherin would win every quidditch game, a boy who seems to get points for simply breathing, a boy who helps people in 7^th year, because he understands the magic better than anyone else.”

Harrison shrugged, saying “It’s not that hard.” Loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Where I’m going with this story- speech, whatever- is that Harrison Sirius Black not only made sure we won the house cup, he also helps everyone around him. He helped me understand that judging a book by its cover is not a good idea, because if we all had done that, Ravenclaw would have won, let’s be honest. So to Harrison!” He held up his glass with some kind of drink- probably once again from Fred and George collection.

“To Harrison” Was repeated through the whole room, Salazar himself being the last one to say it.

Harrison sighed and sat down next to his friends, he just hoped that next year would be less boring.

Chapter Text

When Harrison sat down in the train back to London, he hadn’t expected Fred and George to ask to talk to him. What he expected even less was the twins admitting they didn’t know where they could stay this summer.

He had of course questioned the twins, because why the hell didn’t they say anything sooner? But, he did still offer them to stay with him at the Grimmaulds place, he knew Remus nor Sirius would mind to have the young pranksters stay with them. He was honestly surprised that the twins hadn’t met Sirius or Remus yet, beside their classes.

He doubted the twins even knew that they were the marauders, since Harrison only called them padfoot or Moony in private.

The twins seemed thankful and told him they would find him before they arrived, then they went to find some of their classmates.

“You sure Sirius won’t mind?” Draco asked, “I mean you didn’t even ask if they could stay over, you just told them they could without discussing.”

“Have you ever met Sirius Orion Black? He won’t mind.” Harrison snorted, “He’s like a small child. I’m honestly afraid that the house will be a prank battlefield this break.”

“If you need to escape, you can always visit.” Blaise said sympathetically, most of the other Slytherins agreed immediately.

“I could probably stay at Voldy’s place, too, if I really wanted.” Harrison said, “He’ll be annoyed, sure, but when is he not?”

The Slytherins fell silent and Harrison sighed, “I really should stop doing that, bringing Voldy up in normal conversation. All of you are so afraid to say anything about him.”

“Of course we are, we were taught to fear him.” Millicent responded, “He’s still the Dark Lord, no matter how hard you try to prove he changed.”

“’The Dark Lord’ is just another title made by wizards who feared other wizards a while ago.” Harrison said and Millicent rolled her eyes, “That might be true, doesn’t stop us from fearing him though.”

“He’ll be delighted that you said that,” Harrison sounded amused, “I mean, that’s all he’s ever wanted- besides his political goals- getting people to fear him enough.”

“Don’t you fucking dare tell him anything we say to you about him.”

Harrison sighed, “Fine, but only because I’m just that nice. Oh and I like keeping secrets.”

“We noticed.” Pansy said and Harrison suddenly realised he never told the truth to the rest of his Slytherin friend group.

“I never told them, did I?” He turned to Blaise and Draco, both of them shook their heads.

“Damn, I’ll still have to do that.”

“Why don’t you just tell them now?” Draco asked, Harrison looked around at all the curious looks. “It kind of takes away the fun, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know, I mean, they will finally stop complaining to you about not knowing.” Blaise said and Harrison shrugged, “Fine, I’ll tell you all.”

“Fucking finally.” Theo said and Harrison sighed, “October 31, 1981 Voldemort decided to finally do something about the prophecy he heard a while ago. The prophecy stated that a child with the power to destroy him would be born at the end of July. What Voldemort didn’t know is that because of the fact that he decided to attack, the child would get that power, however that doesn’t matter, I just think it’s funny that Voldy made that mistake.

Anyways, he decided to attack two families, the Longbottoms and Potters, he would go to the Potters first, while his death eaters tried to get information from the Longbottoms. That night however, he disappeared. People suspect it was Hope who had killed the dark lord, only me and the Dark Lord himself know that it’s bullshit. He didn’t even look twice at Hope before trying to kill me, it however failed and instead Dumbledore came in and killed him, the soul piece ending up in my scar.

Dumbledore declared Hope as hero and everyone immediately believed the old fool. Then he insisted the Potters gave me away, just for a while, because they didn’t want me to grow up being jealous of my sister.”

Blaise scoffed at this part, neither Blaise nor Draco had heard the whole story yet.

“Yeah, I know, it’s bullshit. He brought me to Lily’s Wizard-hating sister, he left me on the doorstep. Anyone could have kidnapped me, but instead of some creepy person kidnapping me, I got kidnapped by a time-travelling Merlin.”

Theo rolled his eyes, “The truth please, Black.”

Blaise shushed him, “Let Harrison talk, he’s telling the truth, I swear.” Theo seemed shocked for a second before he reluctantly nodded.

“Merlin took me back to the founders era, where he plead the founders to take care of me. They all agreed, after some convincing. They raised me and started teaching me magic at four, I pretty much finished the Hogwarts curriculum when I was ten. Over that time I grew very close to all of them, they are my parents. They are the people who have taken care of me for literal years, when no one else wanted me. They are the reason I’m this good at magic. I owe them everything.

Even Merlin travelled to their time sometimes, to teach me about this time, making sure I was ready for what would come. We called it History class, even though none of that had happened yet.”

“Wait, that boy in History-“ Pansy said and Harrison cut her off, “Was me, we tried our best to keep my presence there out of the books, but the founders didn’t want to lock me up and hide me from the world. Instead they gave me freedom and did what they could to make my name not be mentioned in the History books.

It worked, I mean my name was never mentioned.”

“That’s- that’s not what I expected.” Tracey said, “I mean I knew this would be some crazy story, since it was even a bigger secret than any of your other secrets you told us, but this is-“

“Unbelievable?” Harrison finished for her, “Yeah, I know, it’s the only truth, though.”

“I believe you.” Tracey whispered, she seemed kind of awkward, not sure what to do or say.

“I’m glad you finally told us, Harry.” Daphne said and Millicent nodded.

Harrison nodded but didn’t reply, instead he just turned to the window, they still had a while before they would be in London.

“Exploding snap, anyone?” Blaise said and everyone, even Harrison, joined.

~

When they arrived in London, Harrison waited for Fred and George to join him before approaching Sirius and Remus.

“Hey Siri,” Harrison said when Sirius swooped him into a hug.

“Hey pup.” Was the response he got and when Sirius let go of him, he also greeted Remus, afterwards he turned to them and said, “Fred and George have nowhere to go, could they stay with us?”

“The Pranksters of Hogwarts, huh?” Sirius asked and then turned to Remus, “Can we deal with that much chaos?”

Remus laughed and the twins quickly said that they could behave, if they had to. That made Sirius and Harrison also laugh.

“Don’t worry, they don’t mind.” Harrison said, “I think I’m going to have to flee this summer, though.”

Sirius grinned and Remus rolled his eyes, Fred and George were just confused.

Harrison answered their questioning looks with a small shrug, “You’ll figure it out.”

“Okay, you kids ready to go?” Sirius asked and Harrison nodded, grabbing Sirius’ arm. Remus put his hands on Fred and George’s  shoulders. Then all of them apparated.

When they arrived in Grimmaulds place, Harrison led Fred and George to some guest rooms, telling them to pick their own room, before he went upstairs to his own room. Sirius and Remus had went to talk to Kreacher, because the old elf wasn’t used to having visitors.

“Master, I’m hungry.” Ebony complained as soon as Harrison had put him down.

“Of course you are, you just shed.” Harrison hissed back, before conjuring a rat for the still growing snake. “Go on then, eat.”

Ebony hissed without actually saying something, then quickly attacked the rat. Harrison chuckled, Ebony had a way of talking to people, he just made everyone who could hear him- which admittedly were only him and Voldemort- feel inferior.

After feeding Ebony he just sat down with a book about the Salem witch trials. He still thought reading about these type of things was interesting, because the author who wrote it either tried to show how Muggles are bad people or how they burned only Dark Witches. All of this depended on when and who wrote the book. People from the light side tended to think that only dark witches would get burned, people on the dark side thought it showed how evil muggles are. None of the books gave good arguments, though. None of the books told them the truth; the only people who ended up dying were muggles who were accused of being a witch, because every person with magic easily escaped these trials.

After half an hour he got called for dinner.

“Hey, Pads, Moony, Fred, George. ” He muttered when he sat down, joining the rest who had already been sitting, not even noticing what he had just done.

“Pads and Moony?” Fred said more than asked, George was looking at Harrison, too.

“Yeah, it’s what I call Sirius and Remus, why?”

“It’s just-“ George started, but before he could finish Sirius said, “They probably found our masterpiece, The Marauders map.”

“The what?” Harrison said and Sirius shrugged, but started eating, the rest following. After a few bites Sirius started explaining, Harrison realised he probably thought that they would totally forget about food if they didn’t start eating while talking.

“We made it in our third or fourth year. You know we pranked everyone, right?” Harrison nodded and Sirius continued. “Yeah, so one day James, Peter and I approached Remus, because he’s the mastermind behind all our pranks, really. We explained to him that we wanted to make a map and charm it to show everyone, you can see anyone on the map, live time. It was mostly used to avoid running into teachers.”

“When they approached me, I told them to start sketching. Peter was quite a good drawer, I started looking for charms- Sirius helped me, not because he wanted to, but because he had this really annoying crush on me. Everyone knew, but him. -  When Peter finished the map, I charmed it.”

Sirius looked embarrassed, but that didn’t stop him from continuing. “We then also added a charm that made sure if you don’t know the password, you couldn’t see the map, instead the parchment would insult you.”

“Real grown-up.” Harrison said and Sirius laughed, “We were fourteen year old boys, who weren’t mentally forty years old, you can’t blame us.”

Harrison rolled his eyes.

“We left it in Filches office after our seventh year, we told ourselves that the next generation of pranksters would find it and figure it out. Turns out, they did.” Sirius said the last part in a weirdly proud way.

“Wait- Harrison you’ve been the child of three out of four Marauders.” George whispered in amazement.

Harrison shrugged, “Suppose so.”

Fred instead of saying something to Harrison, turned to Sirius and Remus, “You guys are our heroes.”

“Of course we are, we’re awesome.” Sirius said, “The other two- James and Peter.. they are- well let’s just say you should be glad you ended up here instead of with them.”

“Sirius.” Remus said and Sirius held his hands up, “I didn’t lie.”

“Peter- he was their secret keeper, wasn’t he?” Harrison asked, “I mean, I remember him, I never liked him. However, the grown-ups never really talked about the whole war thing when they were in a room with me and Hope.”

“He was,” Sirius answered truthfully, “He tried to pin it on me, but that didn’t work out.”

“Obviously.” Harrison said and Sirius laughed.

~

When Fred and George went to their room Harrison stayed with Sirius and Remus, putting up a privacy ward.

“We should talk about Azkaban.” Harrison said, “I really want to go, we all know that, we also know Voldy wants me to go and would probably blame himself if anything happened to me.”

“It’s dangerous, Harry.” Remus said, “We just- we don’t want to put you in danger on purpose.”

“I know, but I want to do this. I’ll be okay, I know the Patronus charm, Voldemort and I are working on a perfect plan to make sure no one notices us. I’ll be fine.”

“We want you to be safe.” Sirius said, “It doesn’t matter how good you are at magic, there’s a reason no one ever escaped from Azkaban before.”

“Please.” Harrison said, trying his best at the whole puppy eyes thing, he never understood why this worked for people, but he’d seen it work a bunch of times.

“How about this?” Sirius sighed, “You can go, but we’ll go with you.”

Harrison thought for a second, “As long as both of you make sure you’re safe at all times.”

Sirius smiled softly and nodded.

“Okay, we have a deal, I’ll make sure it’s not during full moon.”

“Thank you.” Remus said and Harrison smiled at him, “Thank you for allowing me to go.”

After that Harrison left pretty quickly, probably to hang out with the twins, leaving Sirius and Remus alone.

“You sure this is a good idea?” Remus asked and Sirius shrugged while standing up, “Don’t know, but I’d prefer to be there, we both know he’s strong enough.”

“Yeah, but it just- I don’t know, I don’t like the idea of Harrison being in Azkaban.” Remus said, watching Sirius as he poured himself some wine, then offered Remus some, Remus shook his head.

“I don’t like it either, Moony, but I trust him and I know he’ll be okay. At least we get to be there now.”

“You’re right,” Remus sighed, “Doesn’t mean I like it.”

Sirius chuckled, placing his glass on the table before leaning down and kissing Remus on his forehead. “I don’t think we’re supposed to like it, but we can support Harrison.”

Remus smiled at Sirius, “Yeah, at least we can support him.”

~

The third day of their summer break Harrison decided to visit the Dark Lord, he told Sirius and Remus that he would try to be home by tomorrow, knowing that the ritual to give Voldemort his soul back would take a lot of energy.

Remus and Sirius hadn’t liked that he was planning on spending the night at Voldemort’s, but when he told them that it would be suicide for Voldemort to kill him, they reluctantly agreed.

That’s how Harrison ended up here, waking up in a way too big bedroom. When he arrived the day before, Voldemort had offered him something to eat before helping him prepare for the ritual. The ritual was a lot smoother this time, since Mother Magic already agreed to help them.

It was also a lot less draining since they didn’t have to make a whole new body. This was the reason why they didn’t have any other help, it was just them. Harrison could tell Voldemort was glad, because he hates to show people his vulnerability. And everyone is vulnerable during a ritual like this one.

Harrison looked around the room, even with it being so big, it wasn’t anything special. There was a bed, a way too big desk, some closets. It looked like it was still in the process of being personalized. Harrison knew it was probably because Voldemort never had guests and if he had guests they probably weren’t important enough to have all the luxury’s the rest of the house has.

Harrison slowly got out of bed and did his usual morning routine, before calling a house elf to lead him to Voldemort.

Voldemort- for some reason- had once again woken up before him and was now sitting in his office, making Harrison once again wonder just how much paperwork Dark Lords had, because Voldemort was always in his office.

“Ah, Harrison, come join me.” Voldemort said, before he seemed to realise something. “If you want any breakfast, you can just call an elf.”

Harrison nodded, “I’m okay, thank you.”

“I talked to Lucius a couple days ago.” Voldemort started, “He explained to me that generally the Azkaban guards only have two hour shifts, since being in the dementors presence is quite draining. However, Azkaban has enough human guards to constantly have some there, the job is a lot more popular than you would expect. But there is one time where there is one time slot where swapping guards doesn’t overlap and leave 10 minutes without any guards present. This time is usually around 3am, Monday. If we prepare well enough we should have most of the work done in ten minutes, if we need more time we can always stupefy and obliviate them.”

“Wow, you’ve been working a lot.” Harrison said, quite impressed by Voldemort’s work, “I’m in, we have to avoid full moons, though, Sirius and Remus are coming.”

“Werewolf?” Voldemort asked, “I remember Fenrir talking about Remus Lupin. I think we can easily avoid full moons, we still need to make a plan for actually getting the prisoners out, though.”

Harrison nodded and then they started talking about possibilities. This took a while, till the point where they started lunch while still swapping idea’s.

“Muggles,” Harrison said suddenly and Voldemort looked up with a questioning look, “Use Polyjuice potion, we could try to make a permanent version.”

“Smart, we just have to make sure the insane, just-escaped-Azkaban Death Eaters don’t decide to wander around the wizarding world then.”

“Lock them up for a while, until we decide that they are ready or until we need them.”

“Hm, it could work.” Voldemort decided, “Afterwards I can try to get into politics with an Alias, try to push some of our goals in the political way before really starting the war.”

“I have lots of seats, I can use Sirius to support you in there. It’d be fun to see Sirius suffer in the political world.”

Voldemort smirked, “And then once we pushed our goals enough, we finally show the public the death eaters we rescued, putting pressure on the current ministry, we can try to take the lead then.”

“Okay, so we need Polyjuice potion that will last at least a couple of years, preferably for a lifetime, so we are sure that they only find out the Death Eaters are out of Azkaban when we want them to know.”

“If this works..” Voldemort started and he didn’t even have to finish his sentence, because Harrison understood, this would guarantee them their win.

“Oh and before I forget,” Voldemort said, twitching his wrist, until Harrison suddenly felt something on his head.

The Diadem. Harrison realised, Voldemort had actually given it to him now.

“Wandless magic, huh?” He said instead of commenting on the Diadem.

“You can’t be the only magical prodigy.”

“Ah damn.”

Afterwards they went back to planning, but somehow both of them felt closer to each other now, knowing that they could banter, if you would call it that, in such a way. Even though they are Harrison Sirius Black, former Potter, and The Dark Lord.

When they finally had a solid plan, Harrison went back home, explaining the plan to Sirius and Remus while the Twins were experimenting with some kind of potion they made.

“Smart,” Remus approved, “That should work, but I have never heard about a permanent Polyjuice potion.”

“I know, I’m going to try to create one.” Harrison sighed, “It’ll be hard, but if it works.”

“If anyone could do it, it’s you, pup.” Sirius said and Harrison laughed, “The amount of time I’ve heard that sentence.”

Sirius and Remus laughed, but didn’t say anything, they knew it was true, Harrison had heard that a lot.

“Oh and look at what Voldemort gave me.” Harrison said, breaking the silence that his last sentence had created. He pulled out the Diadem.

“Is that Ravenclaw’s Diadem?” Remus asked and Harrison nodded, “It had a soul-piece, but I helped Voldemort with the ritual, he gave me this. I mean he had promised that he would give me this before that, but still, I didn’t expect him to actually do it.”

“You sure this is the dark Lord we’re talking about?” Sirius asked, looking at the Diadem with disbelief.

“The one and only.” Harrison chuckled, “People have to stop asking that.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just slightly unbelievable, I mean it’s the Dark Lord!”

“I know, Pads, the Slytherins said exactly the same.”

“Harrison!” George hurried into the room, “Look what we made.”

Fred followed him with a- what seemed like- rubber chicken in his hand, but the moment Fred let go of it, it started doing the Irish step dance.

Sirius started laughing, “We should’ve done things like that, Moony!”

Remus shook his head, but was also laughing quietly.

“We call it Rubby ‘O chicken.” Fred said, “Cause it’s rubber or whatever.”

“So why did you guys need a potion lab for this?” Harrison asked, confused.

“Oh, we just wanted to make sure we had a safe place to experiment, make sure nothing valuable blew up, we used some of the potion wards.”

“Fair enough,” Harrison started smirking, “You should add a music charm.”

George looked at Fred, before looking back at Harrison, “You, sir, are a genius.”

“Where did your whole twin speak thing go?” Harrison asked then, noticing how normal this conversation had been.

“Oh, that’s not how we actually talk-“

“- We do it to annoy people.” Fred finished.

“Especially your family?” Harrison guessed.

“Yep,” Fred popped the ‘p’ and George was grinning like an idiot next to him.

“Well, it did work, I only saw them twice with you guys, but they looked annoyed as fuck.”

“Language,” Remus said and Harrison stuck out his tongue, making Remus roll his eyes.

“Where did you find them, pup?” Sirius asked, looking way too amused by the whole conversation. Harrison laughed, “Actually I met them because they looked lonely when Hope wanted me to meet her friend.”

“Ron Weasley,” Sirius said, “He failed history and only just passed transfiguration, it’s only first year.”

“Pads, you’re not supposed to discuss your students’ scores with other students.” Remus said and Sirius nodded, “I know, but honestly they could’ve guessed this, the boy did nothing all year, when he did do something it was just to annoy other students.”

“Most of our siblings aren’t that bad,” Fred said, “It’s honestly only Ginny and Ron, Ginny can be okay, but she gets jealous quickly. She’s our parents’ little princess.”

“Just like Hope,” Harrison muttered.

Fred and George laughed, “You should have seen our mom when they announced Hope was the Girl-Who-Lived. She had been hoping it could be a boy, so she could force Ginny to marry the boy.”

Harrison laughed, but then quickly stopped when he noticed, “Wait- so she wanted me to be the Boy-Who-Lived so I could marry your younger sister?”

“Yes,” George confirmed, “She even asked Dumbledore if she could dose you with love potions, if it turned out to be you. At least that’s what Bill told us. Dumbledore actually agreed, telling her how it would be beneficial for all of us.”

Harrison shuddered, “Ew, I hate that. I’m so glad Dumbledore lied about Hope being the Girl-Who-Lived.”

Fred and George nodded in agreement, both had been told a while ago that the whole thing was a lie. Harrison had later explained that it was really him who Voldemort had tried to kill that night.

Fred finally picked up the chicken then, the chicken was still dancing.

“Come on, Georgie, let’s get this chicken to sing.” He said and George followed him out.

“They’re good at magic.” Remus said when they had left, “That wasn’t some easy kind of magic that anyone could do.”

“They are really smart,” Harrison agreed, “They just don’t show it in classes a lot, because that’s not what they’re interested in. When they’re working on something they are interested in, though, they could probably do anything they tried. It’s crazy.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing what they will do with their skill.” Remus said and Sirius nodded, “We have good successors.”

“Don’t tell them that,” Harrison joked, “They would faint.”

Chapter Text

It took one week.

One week till the Black family house was a war zone. It all started when Fred and George turned Sirius into a dog, by putting some powder in his food. After that it escalated quickly, there wasn’t a moment where the two teams weren’t scheming, trying to prank the others.

Harrison didn’t pick a side, too amused by the whole situation, that didn’t mean that he didn’t get multiple offers from both sides. He just refused, because he didn’t want to pick a side. It was a stupid thing to do, either he ends up with Sirius and Remus trying to prank him when he was trying to be serious or Fred and George pranking him in the Slytherin common room.

After a few days he decided to visit Draco, since that was the best excuse to flee the house.

“Harrison!” Draco said, he probably felt the wards around the big manor let someone in, “Didn’t expect you to visit.”

“Same, honestly, but the Black house is currently a war zone.” Harrison chuckled, “Fred and George turning Sirius into a dog was clever, though, I have to admit.”

“Well, come, Pansy’s also here.” Draco led the way to the backyard, where Pansy was currently sitting in the grass. When she saw Harrison she literally jumped up and ran over to hug him.

“Harry!” She said. Harrison laughed, hugging the girl back.

“How’s your break so far?” Pansy asked once she let Harrison go.

“I don’t know, normal? It’s still weird, being outside of Hogwarts.” Harrison sighed, “I mean of course I went out sometimes with the Founders, but usually we would just stay in Hogwarts.”

“You literally spent your entire life in Hogwarts,” Pansy said, “It’s understandable why it feels weird to just be kicked out.”

“Did you know that in the Founders time they actually allowed students to stay in Hogwarts in summer break? It was an option, mostly because Muggleborns were unsafe in the Muggle word, it was common for them to get abused.” Harrison explained, “It’s weird, I escaped that life, it’s not as bad this time as it was back then, but still if I had lived with Lily’s sister I would’ve been abused heavily. They hate magic.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t grow up with them.” Pansy said, “Come, no more negative thoughts.”

Harrison nodded, before letting Pansy pull him away towards the place she had been sitting. On the ground was a half-finished flower crown.

Pansy smiled before saying, “I’m going to teach you, you have no choice.”

Harrison shrugged, before turning to Draco, who was looking at them with a weird expression.

“Come join us!” Harrison said and Draco sighed, but did join them. Draco, too, got forced to learn how to make flower crowns, Pansy insisted that they would make matching crowns, sort of like friendship bracelets.

Harrison didn’t complain, just listening to the girl’s instructions. Draco, however, kept sighing and complaining about how bored he was and how these crowns would ruin his hair.

An hour later Harrison and Pansy were laying on their back, flower crowns beside them, while pointing out funny looking clouds. Draco had once again felt the wards shift, Harrison suspected it was either Theo or Blaise.

His suspicion was confirmed when Blaise walked in, flower crown on his head. When Harrison raised an eyebrow, Blaise shrugged, “Draco refused to wear it, so gave it to me.”

Harrison chuckled, “Fair enough, really I don’t know what he’s trying to prove.”

“Probably his undeniable masculinity.” Pansy quipped, giggling slightly. Draco, who had been standing behind Blaise then said, “Hey! That’s rude, we all know that I don’t have to prove my masculinity. It is undeniable after all.”

Harrison snorted, “Either way it doesn’t matter, flower crowns shouldn’t be something masculine or feminine.” He smirked, waving his hand, summoning a fourth- not quite self-made, but still Harrison made one already so it counts. – flower crown.

“Wear it.” Harrison said and Draco shook his head. Pansy, who was also smirking, then faked a pout, “Come on, Draco! For us. We are your best friends after all.”

“Nope- no- I’ll just hang out with Crabbe and Goyle instead.” Draco said and Harrison sighed, “I really didn’t want to have to do this, Draco.”

He waved his wrist again, making the flower crown appear on Draco’s hair. When Draco tried to take it off, Harrisons magic refused to let it go.

“Talking about Crabbe and Goyle, they really barely talk.” Harrison said then, trying to make conversation.

“Harry- take this thing off.” Draco said and Harrison shrugged, “No can do.”

“You know Harrison, you’re right, I barely talked with them at all.” Blaise said, pretending that Draco wasn’t trying to force Harrison to let the crown go.

“Harreeeee!” Draco said and Harrison laughed, “Fine, you’re no fun. You only had it on for like 30 seconds.”

“30 seconds too much,” Draco muttered, sighing in relief when the crown finally let go.

“You’re so boring, Draco.” Pansy said, but didn’t force the boy to wear the crown again, it really was less fun if they had to force him.

“You guys can’t complain, you all decided to go to my house, after all.” Draco pointed out and Harrison shrugged, “Yeah, well I didn’t know if Blaise was in Italy or not, also I didn’t want to worry Sirius by going to the Dark Lord.”

“My mother took her new husband to Italy,” Blaise muttered, “They needed privacy, so left me in the Zabini Manor in England.”

Harrison offered him a small comforting smile and then Pansy said, “You didn’t even think about going to my place? I’m hurt.”

“Well, to be honest, I didn’t suspect you would be home, you seem like the kind of person who goes out every day. I wasn’t wrong.”

“I’m- no, you know what, that’s fair.”

“Also, has Snape been here, Draco? I honestly don’t know where Snape spends his summer breaks.” Harrison said, suddenly thinking about the fact that he still had to make a Polyjuice potion. He could do it alone, but he would never turn down some assistance.

“Hm, haven’t seen him so far, he’s probably at home. I would just send him a letter.”

Harrison nodded, he would, he’d also ask the man for his recipe of the original wolfsbane, since he still wanted to try to make a better version.

If he succeeded, he would also need the man’s approval before marketing the potion, since the original was Snape’s.

“Why would you even need Snape?” Pansy asked, “Didn’t you like literally create your own potions multiple times?”

“I did, however I need to finish this project in a few weeks or the Dark Lord might just kill me.” When Draco paled he snorted, “That was sarcasm, Voldy wouldn’t.”

“Don’t sound so sure.”

Harrison rolled his eyes, but didn’t bother responding.

“Anyways, how bad is the prank war, Harry?” Blaise said, to change the subject.

“Not that bad, yet. They’re mostly using spells on shampoo, soap and food now. Honestly, I’m afraid that Moony is going to leave and the house just explodes.” Harrison paused and then, “Wait, no, never mind. Remus would probably be the cause for the house exploding, he is really the best at coming up with pranks, but if he gives Sirius an idea that’s too hard to actually execute-” Harrison shuddered, not even finishing his sentence.

“So the Library in Black family house?” Pansy asked, slightly disappointed.

“Yeah, probably a war zone now, however that library is pretty small, Black Manor is the real Black Library. The family house only has copies of like one third of the real Black Library.”

“He says it’s small, but it pretty much as big as Zabini and Malfoy Library together.” Draco said and Pansy nodded, “Yeah, I thought it would be. Harrison has this thing where he really understates things.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault I grew up in like the biggest houses in the Wizarding World.” Harrison defended himself, “I mean- it were castles, but still.”

Blaise snorted, before he turned to Draco and Pansy, “Yeah, it’s not his fault he grew up in castles! Plural!” He said and Pansy and Draco started laughing while Harrison groaned.

“This is bullying.” He said and Blaise smirked, but after a few seconds both Harrison and Blaise also started laughing.

~

After spending a big part of his day at Malfoy Manor it was time to return to Grimmaulds place.

Harrison expected the worst, so he was surprised to walk into the house and see Fred, George, Sirius and Remus sit and talk. No pranks in sight.

“You guys are not teaming up to prank me, right?” Harrison asked, carefully scanning the room for any boobytraps, “Because I can return to Malfoy Manor.”

“We weren’t planning on pranking you,” Fred said, truthful enough for Harrison to believe him.

“We should’ve, though, that would be amazing.” Sirius said and George nodded in agreement.

“Sorry, cub, ignore them. How was your day?” Remus asked then and Harrison smiled, “It was good, actually, Pansy and Blaise were also at Draco’s.”

“I’m glad you had fun.”

“So what happened here, what did the twins do?”

George scowled, “Why would it be us that did something?”

“Because it’s Sirius’ house, so he could hardly get punished for something, he would never actually punish Remus- let’s ignore how that sounded. And this-“ He kind of waved his hand at them, “Is way too calm for how much of a war zone it was this morning.”

“That’s fair,” Fred said, “You have to admit, George, he has a point.”

George nodded, “Yeah, fair, but we didn’t do anything.”

“So why are you guys sitting here, not pranking each other?” Harrison asked, confused. Sirius sighed, “We-“ He motioned between himself and Remus, “Were thinking about adopting the Twins- since they are not part of any family right now. It would help their Magic development a lot, but also their influence and honestly we don’t mind the Twins.”

“Wait- you’re adopting them-“ Harrison gaped at Sirius and Sirius nodded, “I mean- if you don’t want us to that’s fine- I wasn’t going to do it if you didn’t think it was a go-“

“Sirius shut up,” Harrison said and the man shut his mouth, then Harrison looked at the Twins, a slight smile on his face, “So we’re officially brothers, huh?”

Two identical grins appeared on the faces, “Yes, Harrikins, you’re stuck with us now.” Fred said and Harrison smiled, “Welcome to our weird- somehow functional family.” Then he turned back to Sirius, “Why make this sudden decision?”

Sirius shrugged, “It’s just- I suppose a chance for us and the Twins, I know they already saw you as their little brother. I had a feeling they would stay here a lot more often and honestly, they are our successors.” Sirius grinned, “No, but for real, it was sudden for us, too. But I mean, I’m all for sudden plans, as long as they don’t screw any of us over.”

“I thought that you would adopt them- just not so soon, I mean the summer break has just started for a bit longer than a week.”

“Well the Twins have a way of making people like them.” Remus said and Harrison laughed, “That they do! Funny, people say the same thing about me.”

“That’s because people are totally right, I mean somehow you got Voldemort to tolerate you! That’s like impossible, that man doesn’t tolerate anyone.” Sirius said and Harrison shrugged, “It helps that I’m carrying a soul piece. Oh! And I brought him back to life.”

“Yeah- that might be true, I suppose.” Sirius muttered, “It’s strange people try their whole life to get that man to tolerate them just a bit, all you do is annoy the fuck out of him and he tolerates you!”

“Maybe it’s because I annoy him, he’s probably secretly kind of done by not having anyone treat him as human, I do treat him as human.”

“Huh, I never thought about that.” Remus said, Harrison shrugged slightly, “He was literally never treated as human, his past is quite sad. Honestly, he probably doesn’t even know how to treat others as equal. All he’s ever known is either be the freak or be the Master, there’s no in between.”

“Surely there was one point in his life where-“

“Nope, no point in his life was normal. I won’t tell you anything else though, before he starts forcing secrecy contracts. That would suck.” Harrison said, “Well, I’ll help Fred and George move their stuff to another room, because we are not letting them stay in guest rooms.”

That made everyone act ‘normal’ again. Sirius nodded in agreement, “Good idea, I’ll try to get Griphook to make sure a contract is ready.”

“And Remus, you should go nap for a bit.” Harrison said, tomorrow was full moon, the man looked shocked and then nodded, “Right.”

Harrison gave the man a small smile and then told Fred and George to follow him.

“So Lupin, he’s a werewolf, right?” Fred asked, Harrison froze, “How did you find out-“

“It’s just- he was always absent around full moon and after that he would look pale at feasts. Also he taught us about boggart and his biggest fear is the full moon.” George said and Harrison sighed, “Yeah, Sirius tries to make his full moons better by staying with him in his animagus form, but it doesn’t make it less painful. I’m trying to make a potion that will help, but that might still take a while. Oh- and that’s also a surprise so if you tell Remus I will kill you.”

Fred put both his hands up, chuckling nervously, “Calm down, we are good at keeping secrets.”

“Our pranks would suck if we couldn’t keep secrets, sometimes they take months to plan.” George said then, “Imagine if we couldn’t keep our secrets and just told the whole school about one of our better pranks accidentally.”

“That’d suck.”

“It would.”

~

Lily Potter was pacing in Dumbledore’s office, “He’s staying with Dark Wizards, there has to be something!”

Dumbledore sighed, “I know, but we legally can’t do anything, Lily.”

“What do you mean; ‘we can’t do anything’?”

“Sirius and Remus are his legal parents now, you disowned him. We have no control over him anymore.”

“Yeah, well he deserved it, his disrespect-“ Lily stopped pacing, facing Dumbledore “I mean what else could we have done, headmaster?”

“You could’ve tried to convince him.” Dumbledore said, “He’s young, easily convinced.”

“We don’t have time for that!” Lily snapped, “We don’t know when Voldemort will return and if I have to trust you, which I’m not sure about right now, we need the boy for some reason. I thought Hope was the Girl-Who-Lived?”

“She is,” Dumbledore easily lied, after all how else could he have convinced Lily to sacrifice her son? He had expected the boy to return submissive, barely thinking for himself, doing whatever his parents want just for them not to abandon him again.

“So why would we need him?” Lily asked and Dumbledore sighed, “He is- well his power is great, we’ve all spent a year denying it, but we’ve all felt it- seen it. If somehow he ends up with the Dark Lord the chances of the Light winning are small.”

“I don’t like the fact that he’s living with Dark Wizards, headmaster.” Lily said, “But that boy- he is not a boy I would like to call my son. He’s disrespectful to us, to Hope! His jealousy, Headmaster, it went too far.”

“I understand that, believe me. If he hadn’t been so powerful, I would have totally supported the choice to totally cut him from your family.”

“We’ll just have to give Hope more training.” Lily decided, “There’s no way I am even going to try and get that boy back to our side. Hope will have to do for now.”

“If you’re sure about that.” Dumbledore paused before continuing, “Then I trust your judgement, I’ll try to find a new tutor.”

The last tutor had given up after Hope refused to listen to her explanations. Hope had told the tutor that she had to either teach Hope what Hope wanted to learn or that she would be fired. Instead she decided to just quit, she didn’t see much potential in the Girl-Who-Lived anyways.

When Lily left Dumbledore’s office the man sighed. He had everyone on his side still wrapped around his fingers, the only problem is when he had decided to give Lily and James freedom with what they wanted to do with Harrison he hadn’t suspected this. He had hoped they would just let him do what he wanted -he boy obviously didn’t need training- Then when Dumbledore needed him, he could tell him what to do, with Hope being the famous one no one would notice that he was going to use the boy as a sacrifice for the greater good.

His whole plan- the plan he had made years ago- was ruined, just because the boy thought he knew better. Now he just hoped that in some magical way the boy would still help them when needed, because he really doubted that Hope would somehow figure out her brother was a horcrux.

~

Harrison had sent Snape the letter and a week later they had started their potion project together. They were working on the Polyjuice potion for a few weeks when it finally worked.

In the time they had been working on the potion Sirius and Remus had gotten used to randomly seeing Snape in their house, which was awkward at first, but eventually no one really paid attention to that anymore and Sirius and Snape even started having civil conversations.

They had quickly noticed that when Lily and James weren’t there Sirius hate for Severus was purely because of their families histories, which meant that Sirius decided to totally ignore all of it and actually started seeing Severus like a human again. After awkward apologies they would actually say that they could maybe become friends.

Harrison had just rolled his eyes, but was secretly kind of glad that it worked out, especially since he wanted to be done with these potions and quickly. If Snape and Sirius had ended up fighting the process would have been a lot longer.

When they were finally done they showed the Dark Lord the potion, who had thanked them both- though the Thanks he gave to Harrison sounded more sincere.- and then showed them the muggles who would be replacing the Azkaban prisoners.

Harrison then explained that the potion would last up till five years, however that time could shorten a bit, because they didn’t know how Dementors influenced it. Voldemort had told him it was okay, because they probably only needed two or three years.

Snape seemed kind weirded out by how casual Harrison and Voldemort acted around each other. All the times he had seen them together was in such a big crowd that they didn’t quite act the same. They actually seemed comfortable around each other.

“Oh, Harrison are you staying for lunch?” Voldemort asked then and Harrison shrugged, “I don’t know, if you want me to.”

Voldemort nodded and then turned to Snape, “You’re dismissed.”

Snape nodded and hurried out the room, like a normal person he didn’t like to spent extra time in Voldemort’s presence.

“I don’t know why everyone’s so scared of you.” Harrison said, amused.

“Maybe because I put effort into making them afraid of me.”

“Wouldn’t work on me.”

Voldemort smirked, “Somehow, I believe that. You’re too stubborn to be afraid of me.”

“You’re scariness doesn’t work on me.” Harrison laughed.

“Scariness?” Voldemort raised an eyebrow, “Not a word I hear a lot.”

“Is it even a word?”

“I am not sure honestly.”

“That must’ve been painful to admit.”

“It really was.” Voldemort admitted, though Harrison wasn’t sure if the man was being sarcastic.

“You are hard to read,” Harrison sighed, “There has to be some way I can make it easier using the horcrux?”

“There probably is.” Voldemort agreed, “We’d have to try it out once, I’m curious. You’re the first human horcrux in history. Or at least the first I’ve heard of.”

“Ohh- we could make so much money by totally investigating this and just writing a book about it.”

“Well- it is illegal and neither of us needs money.”

“It doesn’t have to be illegal once you rule this country.” Harrison grinned. “We could do whatever we want.”

“I am not going to abuse my power,” Voldemort said, “That would be a stupid thing to do.”

“That’s what you’re saying now, just wait till you actually have the power.”

Voldemort rolled his eyes, but didn’t comment on that, because let’s be fair, he probably would abuse his power. Anyone would, power makes monsters out of us all.

“Don’t hear you disagreeing with me,” Harrison was way too amused now and Voldemort just ignored him.

“Let’s go start planning a date for the outbreak.”

~

“Yo! Turns out that Hagrid smuggled a Dragon onto Hogwarts ground last year.” George said while walking into the living room, “Ron, Hermione and Hope figured it out and made him sent it to Charlie.”

“Is Hagrid really that stupid?” Harrison asked, sitting up slightly, he had been laying down on the floor- on a very comfortable carpet. “I mean I have nothing against Hagrid, but that just sounds like a stupid thing to do.”

“It is,” Fred agreed, he had followed George here, “Charlie sent us a letter complaining about Ron making him get the Dragon in the middle of the night. I mean, Charlie would do anything for anyone, but Ron is his brother and only sends him letters when he either wants Charlie to do something for him or needs money. He think it’s unfair that both Charlie and Bill have more money than mom and dad do, because they actually work very hard for it.”

“Yeah, our dad works very hard for it, but we were a big family and his job just didn’t pay enough.” George explained, “Mom also does nothing to earn money, though she does try to force all of us to get a job at the ministry and tells us how disappointed she is when we don’t, but she will still tell us that we have to give them some money once she figures out that we really do earn well.”

“I suppose at least we won’t have to deal with that when we get a job,” Fred says.

George and Fred were still getting used to being part of the Black family now. They used the last name ‘Prewett-Black’ because they didn’t have a Heir or Lord title for the Black house as long as both Sirius and Harrison were alive.

Even when Harrison claims the Lordship, Sirius would still be the Heir, no matter if he wants it or not.

“You won’t have to deal with that,” Harrison smiled, “I mean it’s not like Sirius or Remus need money.”

“Or you- Mr. I-Am-The-Heir-Soon-To-Be-Lord- Of- Six-Of-The-Most-Influential-Families.” Fred said and Harrison rolled his eyes, “Yeah- Whatever.”

“However, Charlie asked if we wanted to visit him in Romania, that’s where we were really going with this.”

“Oh- that’s great! We will have to ask Sirius and Remus, of course, but I’m sure they will agree.”

Fred and George nodded in agreement before Harrison said, “So tell me more about this dragon of Hagrid.”

“It’s a Norwegian Ridgeback, they’re pretty similar to Hungarian horntails, which is already not a good sign at all.” George explained and Harrison shuddered, he understood why that wasn’t a good sign. “They’re also venomous, which I mean is a fun little extra, am I right? They eat mammals, also aquatic mammals, which is kind of weird. They generally start with shooting fire at a really young age, if I have to believe Charlie, Hagrid’s Dragon was already shooting fire and he had just hatched. Hagrid had named the dragon Norbert, however Charlie figured out it was a female, not male, so they now named her Norberta. They didn’t want to totally take away Hagrid’s name for the dragon.”

“You reckon Dragons speak a form of parseltongue? I mean they are related to snakes.” Harrison wondered out loud and both Fred and George said, “We’ll ask Charlie!” At the same time, before rushing out to write Charlie a letter. Harrison laughed, but was glad that he could probably get an answer to his question.

Then Sirius walked in, looking confused, “What were they so excited about?”

“Dragons.”

“Dragons?” Sirius asked, not looking less confused then before.

“Yep,” Harrison answered, popping the ‘p’, “Hagrid had a dragon at Hogwarts- somehow- my sister and her friends caught him and convinced him to give the dragon to Charlie. Now Charlie invited us to Romania to come look at some dragons, oh and we were wondering if dragons spoke parseltongue.”

“That doesn’t clear anything up, at all.”

“It doesn’t?”

“I feel like somewhere in there was a question, though.” Sirius said, “You want to go to Romania?”

“Could we?”

“Yeah, if you make sure it’s not during the Azkaban breakout.” Sirius said, “We could all use a vacation and now you made me curious about the whole parseltongue theory.”

“Easy, done.” Harrison smiled, “And I know right! Like they are reptiles and pretty closely related to magical snake? Maybe it’s just an accent you know? Or like a slightly different language like I don’t know Dutch and Flemish?”

“I don’t think those are really accents?” Sirius said and Harrison shrugged, “I don’t know either, but you get what I mean.”

“That I do.”

~

“Do you think that if I accidently let someone fall and they attack me for it and I then kill them, I could get away with claiming it was self-defence?” Voldemort asked and Harrison looked at him like he grew a second head, this was not something Voldemort would ask.

“Are you trying to legally kill someone?”

“No, I mean, it’s not like it matters. If I want to kill someone without any signs pointing towards me, I can, I have done that multiple times in the past. And now I could kill anyone, because I’m Voldemort and my list of crimes is too long for anyone to really care to add that extra murder. However, I just wonder, could I?”

“I don’t think so- I mean it would technically also be self-defence for the person you kill.”

“Yeah, but they wouldn’t be able to tell anyone that, because they’re dead.”

“That would be true in the muggle world, but we have portraits and ghosts.” Harrison pointed out.

“I lowkey want to try it.”

“Don’t.”

“I might- I mean it would be fun? Dressing up as a muggle and accidently letting some angry muggle fall, then shooting them in the face with some gun.”

“Whoa, aggressive.”

“I was raised during the second world war, if you think that’s aggressive let me show you some memories.”

Harrison rolled his eyes, “We’re not trying this out.”

“But it would be fun.”

“You might get locked up, also I don’t know if we agree on the idea of fun.”

“There are three possible outcomes; one, they lock me up in some muggle prison and I just break out. Two, they lock me up in Azkaban and you break me out. Or three, they kill me and you bring me back to life.”

“Believe me if you die because you tried to kill some muggle to test this theory, I will not be helping you in any way.”

Voldemort sighed, “Fine, but that doesn’t make me less curious.”

“Believe me, Voldy, I kind of want to know now, too.” Harrison said and Voldemort didn’t even look slightly annoyed by the nickname anymore, instead he just laughed.

He actually fucking laughed.

“It probably wouldn’t work,” Voldemort admitted after a while, “There’s probably some law to make sure this wouldn’t work, it would be too easy. I don’t know muggle laws, though, kind of useless to know them now that I only live in the Wizarding World.”

“I’ve never even lived in the muggle world,” Harrison said, “Founders forced me to learn some stuff about them, though, to convince muggle-borns I actually grew up with muggles.”

“I think it worked,” Voldemort replied, “I mean that’s the thing that would make me question the least about how true your backstory is. Other things like your skill at magic and how close you are to the founders is more suspicious.”

Harrison hummed, “Yeah, well.” He didn’t finish his sentence, instead he cleared his throat and said, “We really should finish this plan.” He nodded towards the Azkaban map and Voldemort nodded. They had been doing nothing for way too long and the time to actually break his followers out was getting closer.

They could talk more about their pasts some other time, when they weren’t very close to a deadline. They started working in silence, trying to map out the best route to the death eaters, who were spread all over the big prison.

“I think we should do a horcrux hunt this year.” Voldemort said then, “Try to get most of my soul back. That is, if you want to help me.”

Harrison smiled, “I’ll help you. It’ll make my year less boring.”

“I have an idea where most of them are, I just hope they haven’t been moved.”

“I still can’t believe you just decided to hide pieces of your literal soul all over England.”

“In my defence, I was insane.”

“Still are,” Harrison muttered, making Voldemort snort.

It was so weird how Harrison could say anything, it didn’t matter, Voldemort didn’t get angry, he was mostly amused.

“Yeah, well I’m not the only insane one here,” Voldemort said then and Harrison raised an eyebrow, “Are you literally calling me- an eleven year old boy insane?”

“Of course I am, have you seen yourself? A sane person wouldn’t have done anything you did this school year.”

And Harrison, he couldn’t deny it, Voldemort was right.

“Well, insanity brings people together I suppose.” Harrison muttered.

The shock on Voldemort’s face was way funnier than it should’ve been.

Chapter Text

“Here’s the full plan,” Voldemort said, placing a map of Azkaban in front of him. “We will apparate here.” He pointed to a place in the sea, “It’s where the wards end, now there should be a boat there. We use that boat to go to this entrance.” He pointed out another place on the map, “There should be no guards, like I explained earlier, meaning we would just have to deal with Dementors. There shouldn’t be too much here, but while going up to max security cell, we will pass a room made for the dementors. We will have to be careful there. I will take Snape and Lucius to the West side, while you and your godfathers go East.” He put another list in front of Harrison, “This is a list with all the Death Eaters in that block, Sirius and Remus will recognize them.”

“Bellatrix Lestrange,” Harrison muttered, “Sirius cousin?”

Voldemort nodded, “She might demand to see me,” He grimaced, “She was always a passionate follower of mine, just try to make her come with you.”

“I’ll just stun her and take her with me that way if she doesn’t listen.”

“Yeah, that is probably the easiest way.”

“You’re not taking other Death Eaters?” Harrison asked and Voldemort shook his head, “I don’t want this to go wrong, because some reckless Death Eater. I trust you can keep Sirius and Remus calm enough and I myself trust Lucius and Severus.”

“Okay, I’ll see you Sunday, then.” Harrison said and Voldemort nodded, “Yeah and, please, explain the plan to Sirius and Remus, we have to do this quickly.”

Voldemort had already kidnapped some sick muggles that wouldn’t be missed, because they were either really lonely or already reported as missing, it had been hard to find enough muggles, but totally worth it. The muggles were currently locked in his dungeons, the Polyjuice potions stacked somewhere close to the cells.

The whole plan was finally finished, now they just had to execute the plan, which was honestly the hardest part.

“I will,” Harrison said, before leaving Voldemort’s office. He would be glad when this was over, planning the Azkaban breakout had been one of the most stressful things he’d ever done.

~

They arrived early on Sunday.

When Harrison didn’t feel Voldemort’s magic close he decided to lead Remus and Sirius to Voldemort’s office himself, it’s not like the man would be mad.

“You really know your way around this manor.” Sirius noted suddenly, making Harrison shrug. “Yeah, well, I’ve been here a lot. It’s Slytherin’s manor, Sal build it a few years after I left.”

“So there should be a portrait somewhere here.” Remus said and Harrison nodded, “Yep, haven’t really looked for it yet, I’ve been busy.”

He opened the door to Voldemort’s office to see Lucius, Severus and Voldemort already there.

“Ah, you’re early.” Voldemort said and Harrison gaped, “You- How? You’re magic-“

“We did say we would experiment with the horcrux.” Voldemort hissed and Harrison glared at the man, “I thought we would do it together.”

“I only used occlumency. Nothing special.”

Harrison rolled his eyes, “Anyways, that’s not why we’re here.”

“I’ll help you later,” Voldemort offered and Harrison nodded, then Voldemort moved on, looking at the group. “I’ve just gone over the plan with Lucius and Severus, I trust Harrison explained everything to you?” He asked Sirius and Remus, who only nodded, not sure how to act in the Dark Lord’s presence.

“Good, I will give everyone some flasks of Polyjuice, make sure the muggle drinks at least a big sip, after adding a hair.”

“We know how Polyjuice works,” Harrison said, smirking and Voldemort rolled his eyes.

“We should be able to do a group apparition,” Voldemort said, not responding to Harrisons remark, “So we can take all the muggles in one go, Harrison can also use a bit of his somehow gigantic core that way.”

The group nodded, none of them had ever done a group apparition before, but since only the main caster really needed to know how it works, it wouldn’t be a problem.

“Okay well, follow me, then.”

Harrison easily started walking next to the Dark Lord instead of behind him. They were quietly chatting in parseltongue.

“I’ll never get used to someone being close to the Dark Lord.” Severus muttered to himself, which didn’t stop anyone from voicing their agreements. It was weird, it would always be weird.

“And he’s only eleven, almost twelve. I thought that if the Dark Lord ever got an equal the person would at least be thirty, if not older.” Lucius said.

“Secretly you wanted to be that person, wouldn’t you?”

“Anyone would, the power would be great. However, after being Voldemort’s left hand man for so long, it’s sour that an eleven year old boy swoops in and suddenly becomes his equal.”

“We never had a chance.”

“We really didn’t.”

During this whole conversation, Sirius and Remus were just looking at Harrison. The fact that their son was the only person on this planet that would ever be equal to Voldemort- it was unbelievable, but true.

When they went outside, they all questioned their Lord’s decision, before Harrison explained for Voldemort. “Salazar Slytherin always warded his Manors, castles and well anything really heavily, so while Voldemort himself could apparate from inside, our whole group can’t. However, the wards are weaker outside, so we can apparate from here.”

“Smart man, Salazar Slytherin.” Voldemort said.

“Should’ve seen him when Merlin told him his only Heir was an insane Dark Lord.” Harrison hissed, “He was not proud.”

Voldemort glared at Harrison, before calling his house elf to bring them their ‘prisoners.’

When the muggles had been thrown- quite literally- in front of them, Voldemort told everyone to push their magic and with a lot of concentration they all eventually apparated.

“That feels worse than normal side-apparation.” Harrison shuddered.

“Well, then learn how to apparate.” Voldemort said and Harrison ignored the man to look at the prison. He noticed the boat they were on started going towards it and he looked at Voldemort, the man was waving his hand at the water, making the boat move faster.

It didn’t take long before they arrived.

“Guards will leave their posts in fifteen minutes, then we have ten minutes to swap out the prisoners. We should probably already go up to the max. security cells.”

They split the prisoners into two groups, easily making them float after them while going up to the right place in this huge prison. They placed silencing charms on their shoes, so they wouldn’t make too much noise and- the grownups- constantly had their wands in their hands, so they were prepared if a dementor or guard would show up.

Walking through Azkaban was unlike anything else, it was dark, creepy and there were prisoners everywhere. Temperatures seem to change every meter, due to the presence of dementors.

“Fuck it’s cold.” Harrison muttered, casting a warming charm over the whole group, not just himself.

“Dementors,” Remus said, looking to a hallway to the left.

“This place is so creepy,” Sirius whispered, not sure if the dementors could even hear them. “I can’t even imagine staying here, it’s probably worse than dying.”

They continued walking down the corridor, Remus looking backwards every now and then, to make sure there were no dementors following them.

The first stairs were easy, the bodies floating behind them without any effort, but the further up the weaker they began to feel, the colder it was.

They now understood why the guards only had to protect the first few levels, up here you would die, even with just a twenty minute shift.

“Okay we split up here,” Harrison said weakly, Dementors always made him feel weak.

“There should be no guards up here, so just use the Patronus Charm and keep using the Patronus until we’re out of here.” Voldemort commanded and the group nodded. They then split the muggles, half of them going with Harrison, Sirius and Remus and the other half with the other group.

“Expecto Patronum.” Harrison waved his wand, to make sure that it would work, not wanting to risk his life for a small show of wandless magic.

Sirius and Remus also cast their Patroni and together they walked down the hallway, the Patroni lit up the place and the Dementors fled from them.

The first Death Eater they rescued was Augustus Rookwood. The man looked up when he felt the Dementors fleeing, probably the first time his mind cleared from all the negativity Dementors caused in a while.

“My Lord?” He rasped and Harrison sighed, opening the cell with a series of difficult spells. “We’ve come to save you,”

The man looked up in confusion, “You’re a kid.”

“A kid whose currently helping you and your Lord.” Harrison explained, “If you’ll allow me.”

The man nodded weakly, not that he really had another choice.

Harrison pulled a hair from the man’s head before mixing it with a small- already split from the rest- portion of the Polyjuice they had.  He then force fed a muggle the potion, changing the muggle into Augustus permanently.

He helped Rookwood up and out of the cell, “Wait here.”

Chuckling bitterly the man said, “You won’t see me going anywhere anytime soon.”

They did this whole process a few other times, some of the most noteworthy people they rescued were Rabastan and Rodolphus Lestrange and Antonov Dolohov.

That only left Bellatrix Lestrange.

“I think you should do it, Siri.” Harrison said and Sirius looked at his godson, “The last time I saw her we weren’t exactly on good terms.”

“So show her that it’s okay, you’re still family.”

“I guess,” Sirius said, taking a deep breath. “Okay, okay.”

Sirius opened her cell and the witch looked up, “Milord?”

“It’s me, Bella.” Sirius said and Bellatrix cackled, “Cousin Sirius! I’ve waited for you to come join lil’ old me here.”

“I’m not here for a crime, Bella.”

Bellatrix tilted her head to left, “So why are you here? They don’t allow me to have any visitors.”

Sirius snorted, “I believe that,” He looked back at Harrison, who was already getting the last muggle, “I’m here to rescue you. What do you say, come home?”

“But the Dark Lo-“

“Voldemort’s here, with me. Come, Bella, we don’t have a lot of time.”

“He’s here?” Bella looked at the dark corridor, “Can I see him?”

“If you come with me.”

The crazy woman nodded, trying to stand up.

In the end she fell over and Sirius helped her get up and out of her cell, before force feeding the muggle Polyjuice potion with one of Bella’s hairs.

Harrison ended up supporting all the Death Eaters enough with his magic so they could actually walk and then they joined Voldemort where they had split up earlier.

“My Lord!” Bellatrix said, bowing down.

“Get up, Bella, we have to get out of here, before it’s too late.”

“Of course, my Lord!”

Getting out of the prison was a lot harder than getting into the prison, Harrison fought off five Dementors and stunned two guards while trying to get out. Once they apparated back to Slytherin Manor, Harrison was both glad and disappointed. They had done it all perfectly, they had broken out every prisoner.

But it felt bittersweet, because it was the end of a project he had worked on for a while.

Voldemort summoned Narcissa to start healing up some of the more heavily injured Azkaban inmates and Harrison decided to go home, he needed some sleep.

~

Fred and George knew something was up when Sirius, Remus and Harrison left Sunday evening and came back Monday morning without any kind of explanation.

They just didn’t know what was going on.

It was something they obviously all knew about, except for Fred and George. A birthday surprise was their first thought, but then they realised their birthday was on April first and it was currently July.

Harrisons birthday party? No, then Harrison wouldn’t be involved.

They also seemed genuinely tired and well dirty when they came back on Monday.

So on Wednesday when they had discussed everything they brought it up during dinner.

“Where were you guys when you all just left Sunday evening?” Fred asked and Remus eyes widened slightly, looking at Sirius and Harrison for answers.

“We were jus-“ Sirius started, easily lying until Harrison cut him off, “I think it’s time for the truth.”

Fred and George nodded, “Yes, yes, nothing but the truth please.” George said and Harrison nodded.

“We were helping Voldemort.” When Fred and George started talking over each other, Harrison quieted them and continued. “When I came to Hogwarts I had no real idea what the war was really about, because everything you read is written by the light side. So I looked into it more and eventually decided that I agree a lot more with the dark side then the light. I knew there was no way people would let me have no role, once Dumbledore releases the truth.” Fred and George knew he was talking about Hope not being the Girl-Who-Lived, because Harrison had told the Weasleys at Hope’s birthday party.

“The Dark Side is actually a side with good goals, but Voldemort turned insane. He started forgetting why he was doing this and instead focused on making this war worse.” Harrison explained, “I decided to make him return, but only if I figured out how to make him sane, right now, he’s pretty damn sane.”

“That night in the common room,” George said, “We were about to go down to just work on some of our ideas and saw you with a man, that was Voldemort wasn’t it?”

Harrison nodded, thinking back about Ravenclaw’s Diadem.

“We’ve always liked the Dark Side more,” Fred said suddenly, “In first year we got an information source who told us about the real goals of both sides and we immediately agreed with the dark. I mean it makes sense, muggles are dangerous and underestimated, because of Dumbledore.”

“Ever since then we’ve been trying to figure out who the remaining Death Eaters are and what they are doing for the war. They are good at keeping low, though, I never would have guessed Voldemort returned last year.” George said.

Sirius snorted, “You have Harry to thank for that.”

Harrison shrugged, not really wanting to take credit. “I only made sure Voldy was sane.”

“What exactly were you doing? You only said you were helping him?” George asked then and Harrison looked at Sirius and Remus trying to non-verbally ask them, ‘should I tell them?’

Sirius and Remus both shrugged, ‘You decide.’

“We were helping Voldemort break his Death Eaters out of Azkaban.” Harrison said and the shock on Fred and George faces was funny enough to not regret telling them. Besides, he trusted them.

“Did it work?”

Harrison nodded, “Yep, they’re all safe with Voldy now.” He stayed quiet for a bit before smirking, “Voldemort knows I call him Voldy, by the way.”

That made the Weasley twins laugh and they felt closer to the other three in a way now.

~

Hey Fred & George,

I’m glad to hear you guys can come! I think mid-August would be the best time, but any time is fine for me! Though, a lot of Dragons tend to travel here in August, so if you want to see a lot of Dragons, mid-August would work best.

I don’t actually know whether dragons speak parseltongue or if ‘draconic’ is actually a language. Harrison should totally try to communicate with them when he’s here! – Though tell him that the staff will kidnap him if they actually speak parseltongue, we’ve been searching for a way of communication for a while now, it would be nice to know what dragons need or want. So if he doesn’t want to work here all summer, make sure to warn him to not try and communicate, once the trainers find out, it’s too late to run.

(Also tell him that if he does decide to help, that it would probably give me some kind of raise, bringing someone so useful here is rare.)

Charlie.

Harrison laughed when he finished reading the letter, “I won’t mind working with dragons for a few weeks.”

“Looks like he’s more excited to have someone who speaks parseltongue coming then his own brothers.” Sirius said and Fred snorted, “Anyone would be, if dragons do really speak parseltongue, Harrison is the only one they can use to talk to them. They won’t just invite Voldemort to help them.”

“Voldemort probably wouldn’t show, at least not until he won this war. Too dangerous.”

“You know what this means?” George asked, “If we go mid-August, we can throw Harrison a proper birthday party before we go.”

Harrison laughed, “I feel like I shouldn’t be here for this conversation.”

George nodded, “You shouldn’t be here. Go away.”

Laughing even harder Harrison put his hands up, “I’m going, I’m going. I’ll just go check on the Death Eaters.”

“Come back home before dinner!” Sirius shouted and Harrison replied with a simple, “I’ll try!”

~

Surprising absolutely nobody, Bellatrix seemed the worst when you looked at insanity. The crazy Black gene didn’t help. The woman tried to get into Voldy’s pants every time she saw the man, annoying the man to no end.

“Narcissa, would you mind taking your sister and the Lestrange brother’s home with you?” Voldemort asked the woman who had been taking care of his Death Eaters when Harrison walked in.

“Of course not, my Lord. And I do apologize for my sisters behaviour.” The woman hurried to her sisters room, with every bit of pureblood grace she usually had.

“Bella’s that bad?” Harrison asked, walking into the room. Voldemort actually grimaced when he answered, “She’s just too obsessed with the idea of having sex with me, I appreciate her loyalty, but everything else is unnecessary.” He sighed, “And now I’m discussing this with an eleven year old- great.” The man said, turning away to check on Bella and Narcissa, Bella was currently refusing to pack her limited amount of things.

Harrison laughed at the man’s misery before asking, “Was she always like this?”

“No, I mean she always had an unhealthy obsession, but she was loyal to her husband before Azkaban. She took the role of wife seriously, they were actually trying for a baby before they got thrown into Azkaban.”

“Everyone reacts differently to Azkaban.” Harrison said, looking at Augustus Rookwood, who seemed to be dealing okay. He did seem depressed, but Harrison had to admit he had more than enough reasons to feel down right now. The Dementors probably caused him to not realise what he had lost when he was thrown into Azkaban, the man had cared a lot about his ministry job.

Following Harrisons gaze Voldemort nodded, “The man will be okay, I’ll make him head of the DoM once I overtake the government.”

“If he still wants the job then.”

“I don’t think he’ll give up on the DoM,” Voldemort said, “It was in a weird way his home, even though I can’t imagine calling the DoM your home.”

In the time that Voldemort and Harrison had been talking, Narcissa finally got Bellatrix to pack and told Rabastan and Rodolphus to do the same, the two brothers actually looked okay, If not a little distant, like they still didn’t believe they were really here.

“Why did you visit?” Voldemort asked then and Harrison shrugged, “They started talking about my birthday and then sent me away, so I decided to just go here.” He paused, turning to look at Voldemort again, “You are okay with me randomly visiting your manor, right? Because if you’re no-“

“No, no. It’s fine.” Voldemort said, “Somehow, I don’t mind and all.”

Harrison smiled, “Okay, good, good.”

“Oh,” Voldemort seemed to remember something, reaching into a pocket in his robes, “I had this made,” He handed Harrison a key.

“It’s a vault for the Slytherin Heir, I put most of the personal items in there, I think you will find them more valuable than I do.”

“I- Thank you.” Harrison said staring at the key, Voldemort shrugged, “Just see it as an early birthday present.”

Harrison nodded, “I will. Thank you-“

“There’s no money in there yet,” Voldemort cut him off quickly, Harrison thought it was because he was uncomfortable with emotions. “I thought you wouldn’t need it, but if you do, just ask.”

“I have enough,” Harrison said and Voldemort nodded, “Yeah I suspected you would have enough money for at least twenty lifetimes living in like the richest lifestyle.”

“It’s not that much,” Harrison said and Voldemort raised an eyebrow, “Just the Slytherin vault is enough for five of those lifestyles. You can’t even try to convince me the other founders weren’t as rich.”

“Fair enough-“ Harrison admitted, the founders really had left them a lot of money.

Voldemort smirked, “Don’t even get me started on the Emrys hou-“

“I get it! I get it! You’re right.” Harrison said and Voldemort looked way too amused, “It’s  a good thing though, you would never have to work even if we decide to live until we’re like 700 years old.”

“You think we could go for that long without accidently killing each other, making us both mortal again?” Harrison asked and Voldemort shrugged, “We can try.”

And that sounded way too suggestive, try and live together for centuries, everyone else would die eventually, but they wouldn’t have to, because their mortality literally depended on each other. They could live forever as long as both of them wanted to live forever.

“Let’s first just win this war, eh?” Harrison said, “If we’re both alive and then the horcrux is still there, then we’ll start discussing how long we actually want to live.”

Voldemort nodded, “Yeah, wouldn’t want to get out hopes up and both end up dying in war.” He said sarcastically and Harrison rolled his eyes, “That would be tragic.”

“I will go home with them now, my Lord.” Narcissa came up to them, “Just Floo if you need me to help here.”

“I will, thank you Narcissa.” Voldemort said, Narcissa Malfoy was one of the few Death Eaters he actually treated with respect, because he really did respect the woman and everything she did not only for her family, but also for the whole Dark Side.

“Of course, my Lord.” Narcissa left the place, followed by the Lestranges. The moment they really left Voldemort sighed in relief, “At least I won’t have to deal with Bellatrix anymore, I really do hope she gets better, she was a good dueller.”

“She probably will, just give her time to clear her mind, Azkaban isn’t a fun place.”

“I do hope your right,” Voldemort said and Harrison smirked, “I mostly am. And if time doesn’t help, I’ll try to create a potion that helps.”

“You would do that, spent all that time to save one woman?”

“Not just for Bella, but for anyone who has been locked up in Azkaban for a way too long time, I mean some people get twenty years in high security, but once they’re out of prison their life will never really continue. They are scarred and traumatised and weak from being around a lot of Dementors for way too long.” Harrison explained, “All of them is why I’ll make the potion, the fact that it might help one of your best duellers is just an extra.”

Voldemort nodded gratefully, “If you are really going to make it and you need anything, assistance, rare ingredients, whatever. Just ask, okay?”

Harrison only nodded, because even if he didn’t get a direct ‘thank you’, this offer basically meant the same.

Chapter Text

Harrison woke up like usually, which on its own was suspicious.

After his usual morning routine he got up and walked down the stairs, constantly scanning the halls for any signs of pranks. There were none.

When he finally joined his family Sirius showed him the plate with pancakes, “Kreacher made them.” He said, not adding anything else.

Why all of this was so weird?

It was his birthday, 31^st of July, Harrison was sure they had planned something.

He just sat down, ignoring the identical smirks on the twins faces. The moment he had sat down there was a loud noise, making him jump out of his chair. When he looked behind him he saw a cake with his name on it.

“I’m-“ Harrison laughed, “I didn’t expect this.”

“Well we knew you were going to expect something so we had to make it more complex then we usually would.” Fred explained, “Wouldn’t want you knowing what we were going to do before it happened.”

That’s when confetti seemed to come from nowhere and suddenly his friends were also there.

“Oh-“ Harrison said and then Sirius turned into a dog jumping happily around while people started singing happy birthday- which wizards also do in this time? They sure as hell didn’t in the Founders time.

Harrisons mind had a hard time keeping up with everything that happened.

When they finished the song and Harrison was still gaping at the whole scene, Fred and George high-fived, “We did it! We broke the Harrison Sirius Black!”

Harrison snapped his mouth shut, to glare at the twins.

“It’s okay little brother,” Fred smirked, George continuing for him, “It happens to everyone.”

Harrison way too amused at the twin speak- because admittedly he hadn’t heard it in a while, since the twins only used it to confuse other people – to continue glaring at them.

Also, maybe the Twins calling him ‘little brother’ made him melt on the inside, but he would never admit that.

“Don’t think so highly of yourself,” Harrison just said instead, turning to say hey to all his friends. Fred and George just continued to smile at their now- legally- brother.

The gifts he got were mostly books about complex magics, though the book Sirius gave him was something different entirely.

“I searched for a while,” Sirius admitted, “I wanted something special for my Pups birthday. I found this in a shop in Knockturn Alley, the owner said it was a personal diary from Salazar Slytherin, however no one is sure, because it’s in Parselscript.” Sirius laughed, “I thought that whatever it was, you’d be interested in it either way.”

“You’re right about that one,” Harrison muttered, flicking through the book with familiar scribbles, “It does look like Sal’s Parselscript handwriting.” He concluded, looking up from the book.

“Thank you, I love it.” Harrison said then, hugging his godfather.

Fred and George gave him some prank products they created and Remus gave him a whole collection of rare potion ingredients, Harrison honestly had no idea how Remus had found most of these.

“Alright, alright. I was promised food, where is it?” Pansy asked then looking at Harrison, “I only came here for the food.” She said seriously, it took ten seconds for her face to break out into a grin.

That’s when the table suddenly grow and a bunch of extra plates with food appeared, Sirius said, “Thank you for listening for once, Kreacher.”

Harrison rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help the smile on his face.

Eating with such a big group felt like Hogwarts, but somehow more chaotic, mainly to the fact that the Slytherins actually acted like themselves, not what society expects them to be.

“This was very different than I expected,” Harrison said, when everyone had finished eating, “I expected more pranks, less actual fun.”

Fred dramatically put a hand over his hard, “You wound me! You’re saying our pranks aren’t fun? I think I’m dying, brother.” He looked at Fred.

“You! You’ve done this.” George said pointing at Harrison, then at Fred, “You’ve killed him with those painful words.”

Harrison rolled his eyes and he swore he heard some Slytherins snort, Sirius just looked proud of his adopted kids.

“And to think we planned such a special birthday for this monster,” George said sadly, looking down at his ‘dead’ brother. Fred suddenly jumped up, “I think we should actually use our pranks, George.” He smirked, “Show our little brother here how much fun they can be.”

“No!” Harrison said, “No pranking me on my birthday!”

“Who said we were going to prank you? We have a full room of Slytherins.” George said with a smirk matching his brothers’.

“Oh well, that’s fine with me.” Harrison shrugged, making the Slytherins scream their protests.

“You’re a traitor!” Draco said and Harrison childishly stuck out his tongue. “Please don’t touch my hair,” Draco then added, looking at the twin, whose faces seem to brighten when Draco said that.

Harrison groaned, “You are going to regret saying that.”

Draco’s face actually paled, Pansy snickered.

“Fred, George, we had something planned, right?” Remus said, looking quite interested in the pranks, but he also wanted to continue Harrisons birthday party.

“Oh right!” George said, Fred taking over, “We are-“

“- getting a special-“

“-quidditch training-“

“-from the Puddlemere United team.”

“It was the best team we actually got in contact with,” Fred added, sounding quite sad about it, but Harrison ignored that.

“What?” He asked instead, quite amazed, his friends looking just as surprised showed him that this was also a surprise for them.

“Yep, the Slytherin team is also coming, because we couldn’t just not invite them.” Fred said, “I mean, it will probably make us a better team.”

“That’s amazing!” Harrison grinned and while not everybody liked quidditch, it was fun to try it out- especially when star players are teaching you.

They left pretty quickly after that, meeting the Slytherin team on the pitch. He got a bunch of presents, mostly quidditch gear ‘to get even better at quidditch’.

Wilda Griffiths and Benjy Williams were the first two pro players to show, telling them the rest would arrive soon, but that they could start already. They then got the order to get some brooms from the broom shed and afterwards fly a few rounds as a warm up.

Tracey and Pansy were kind of scared of flying and were the last ones to mount their brooms and start flying around, but after a while even they noticed how much fun this could be. The rest of the team arrived, two more chasers, the beaters and the keeper.

That’s when they started the actual training, starting with splitting the group into experienced quidditch players- the quidditch team and Sirius, because he insisted he would also play.- And the other Slytherins, Remus was sitting in the stands, watching, preferring to not fly.

Wilda, Benjy, the keeper- Ephora Thompson- and one of the beaters- Alec Rawthorn- decided to teach the Slytherin quidditch team, while the rest went to help the other’s and teach them some easy tricks.

The training itself was pretty harsh, a lot more so than their normal training. There were a lot of dangerous tricks and strategy talk. By the end of the training the whole Slytherin team was covered in mud from rolling on the ground after jumping of their brooms or accidently hitting the ground after a particularly dangerous dive.

“If you don’t win the house cup now,” Ephora said amused, “Then I’ll have to come and contact the other team players, because they must be pro if they actually win against you guys.”

“Hogwarts student, huh?” Montague asked, Ephora shrugged, “Most of us are. I was in Ravenclaw, but at the end of my school time I spent way more time on the quidditch fields then studying.”

“What about the others?”

“Benjy was a Gryffindor, if that wasn’t obvious.” She rolled his eyes, their seeker was reckless if not anything else, “Wilda was actually a Slytherin and was two years above me, she helped me with my OWLs at some point.” The girl had a fond smile on her face while she continued, “Alec was also a Ravenclaw, the other beater was a Gryffindor. We have a Hufflepuff chaser, the last chaser is actually home taught.”

“Almost perfect mix of all the houses.” Harrison noted, the girl nodded, “Quidditch talent is found in every house.”

That’s when the other’s joined them, when Pansy looked at Harrison with a begging look- almost puppy dog eyes. Harrison rolled his eyes, but waved his hand, cleaning everyone’s quidditch robes. No one took their wand with them while playing quidditch, the chance of it accidently breaking was too big.

“I knew it! I knew I remembered your name from something different than the newspaper!” Alec exclaimed then, “I have a sister, a 3^rd year Hufflepuff, you’re kind of known as the schools prodigy.”

“Oh I got a promotion! I went from class genius, to Slytherin genius to ‘the schools prodigy.” Harrison said, making Marcus and Terence snort, both of them amused by the first- now second year Slytherin.

“She’s really impressed by you,” Alec said then, ignoring Harrisons sarcastic remark.

“She’s not the only one,” Terence responded, “The schools opinion is split 50/50. Half of them hates Harrison, the other half is impressed by him and thinks that he was in the right with the whole Potter conflict.”

“Oh! I read about that in the newspaper.” Benjy said, “I really thought that the Potters were good people, but nobody just abandons a child, twice.”

“Yeah, well.” Harrison shrugged, “They did, it’s okay though, I have my dogfather now.” Pointing at Sirius.

“Hey!”

“What?” Harrison raised an eyebrow at the man. Sirius just laughed and Harrison also grinned.

“So what’s the plan now?” Tracey asked then and Benjy clapped his hands, “Right, so I thought we split this group in two and play a game with teams of eleven instead of seven, since we’re with the 22 of us.” Then he paused looking at the group of Slytherins, “Unless some of you would rather not play?”

“They’ll play!” Fred said and George nodded in agreement. The Slytherins just shrugged in a way of saying, ‘yeah, sure we’ll play.’

“Great! So we’ll play with one keeper on each team, I’m thinking the Slytherin keeper and Ephora and one seeker, myself and Harrison. Then with five chasers and four beaters per team?”

When everyone agreed Wilda spoke up, “I think we should keep the whole Slytherin team together, let them play against us and just split the Slytherin group. That way they’ll practice their team play.” Wilda smirked.

That’s when Audrey Elms, the other beater, asked, “Are you sure that’s fair?”

“Believe me, you haven’t seen them play yet.” Wilda said and Audrey shrugged, “Okay then, I’m in.”

Sirius and Daphne joined the Slytherins as beaters, while Blaise and Millicent played for the other team. Pansy and Millicent played as chasers for the Slytherins and Draco and Tracey played for the other team.

The unofficial quidditch match started with ten points for Puddlemere, Tracey being the one to make the goal- Which Montague, as keeper didn’t enjoy at all.

Benjy and Harrison circled the pitch like hawks, watching for the snitch. The beaters sometimes trying to hit him with bludgers, never quite hitting him, though, between Sirius, Fred and George it was hard to actually hit anyone. All three of them were pretty damn good beaters.

After the first twenty minutes, the Slytherins managed to score twice, while Puddlemere scored at least five times- without the first goal from Tracey. The score now being 60-20.

“Black, you better catch that goddamn snitch!” Flint shouted, even in this unofficial match he took the role as captain quite serious.

“Aye, aye, cap!” Harrison shouted back, that’s when Terence got the quaffle, making Flint shoot away from him to try to get closer to the other teams goals, just then a bludger came towards Harrison, he rolled to avoid getting hit.

“Sorry, pup!” Sirius shouted, while Fred and George grinned at him and Harrison shouted back, “You could’ve burst my skull open!”

“But we didn’t!” Fred said and Harrison rolled his eyes, quickly shooting after Benjy, when the man suddenly made a dive.

The man stopped when he was at a safe distance from the ground again, “Good form, Black!” He said, Harrison raised an eyebrow, had the man actually made that dive to see if Harrison would follow him when he did something so reckless?

“I’ve done worse things, you should try better if you want to lose me.” Harrison replied, when he suddenly saw a flash of gold, he shot after it, Benjy hot on his tail.

Dive, up, right, dive again to avoid a bludger. The chase was a long one, but it didn’t pay off. Harrison lost the snitch, the gold just suddenly seemed to disappear.

“Do better, Black!” Flint shouted and Terence grinned at Harrison, “That means, ‘Good Try’ In Flint language.”

Harrison laughed, “What’s the score?”

“110-30.” Terence replied, “It’s not going well.”

“Well, Wilda is known as one of the best chasers in Europe.”

“Fair, she’s good.” Terence said then shot after the quaffle, leaving Harrison to once again circle the pitch.

This went on for a while until Harrison saw a gold flash shooting up, Harrison shot after it. When the snitch took a sudden turn to left, but stopped going up, Harrison followed it easily, Benjy was once again right behind him.

Harrison reached forward to catch the snitch, but couldn’t quite reach it, Benjy being right behind him made him nervous. He stood up on his broom, balancing, while reaching out to the snitch, which suddenly made a dive.

Harrison closed his eyes and jumped.

He knew it was a stupid thing to do and he once again cursed Godric in his head, but he couldn’t lose this chance, he dove after the snitch, without broom this time. When his hand finally closed around the snitch, he slowed his fall while summoning his broom.

He should be okay, his broom would be here before he hit the ground.

The fact that he slowed his fall was the only reason he had time to grasp his broom, dangling from it, he sighed in relieve, once again asking himself why he was this reckless sometimes.

When he finally swung his leg over his broom, the whole field seemed to finally start moving again, everyone had stopped when they saw him jump. He held the snitch up to show everyone.

That made his team cheer, the match had been a draw of 190-190. Without the snitch they would’ve lost with a lot of points.

“You gave me a heart attack,” Blaise muttered when Harrison was finally close enough to join them. Harrison at least looked somewhat sorry while he apologised.

“That was awesome, though!” Benjy said, the other seeker smirked, “I might have to learn some things from you, you were right when you said I was going to have to be more reckless to lose you.”

“You should use that trick during school matches,” George joked, “As long as you survive it every time of course.” He added quickly when Flint shot him a look.

“We would prefer to have you alive of course, Black.” Flint said, “But I have to say that was the most awesome and at the same time stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“No one else would’ve pulled that off.”  Pucey said, “The only reason you survived was because of your wandless magic.”

“I really regretted jumping a second after I jumped,” Harrison admitted, “The jumping was my hidden reckless Gryffindor part.”

His year mates understood what he was saying, the rest of them just snorted, because honestly it was an extremely Gryffindor thing to do, even the Gryffindors admitted that.

“I have to say, I’m impressed.” Ephora said, she had an arm around Wilda’s shoulders, the other girl leaning into her side, “All of you did really well.”

“This was a lot of fun,” Wilda said and the puddlemere team all agreed on that, “Well, if you ever want to play another match just owl any of us, we’ll make sure our mailwards allow it.”

That shocked almost everyone.

“Thank you,” Harrison said, “This was honestly great.”

“It was great,” Alec agreed, “We didn’t know what to expect, but we just decided to agree, because honestly it sounded fun to do once, but this was more fun than any of us expected probably.”

“You guys can join our trainings any time, if it were my decision.” Benjy said, grinning, “especially Harrison, turns out I still have some things to learn from him.”

Harrison rolled his eyes at the man, but nodded, because honestly this training had been great.

They put their brooms back after that, then they changed back to their normal clothes and went back to Grimmauld’s place, even the Slytherin team joining them.

Remus and Sirius pulled Harrison aside as soon as they were inside.

“You better not think about pulling anything like that ever again.” Remus said then, Harrison smiled, “I’m okay, moony.”

“Sure you are,” He said, rolling his eyes, “I’ve never been more glad that you’re so good at wandless magic.”

“I wouldn’t have jumped if I was not sure I wouldn’t die.” That was a full lie, but Harrison knew it was the only way to calm Remus down.

“You’re just like James when he was in school,” Sirius snorted, “Don’t take that as an insult, by the way, James was actually really nice in school.”

“Seventh year he got kind of annoying, though.” Remus muttered, “Anyways that doesn’t matter, James always did stupid things during quidditch, I think that’s where Sirius was going.”

Sirius nodded, “He never jumped from a broom that was very high in the air, though, then again he sucked at wandless magic.”

“Sirius wasn’t much better,” Remus said, amused, “He used to dive in front of bludgers, almost forgetting he had a bat and he didn’t have to use his head.”

“I was known as the best beater in like the past century, though! So it worked!”

“Sure it did, padfoot.”

“Anyways as your dad I have to say, please don’t do that again. As padfoot I want to say that that was the single coolest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do in quidditch.” Sirius said and Harrison laughed, he knew that neither Sirius nor Moony would actually be angry if he did something reckless during quidditch again, but they just wanted him to survive.

“I see you’ve figured the whole being a dad thing out.” Harrison said, amused.

Sirius laughed, “Yeah, well, I went from having zero kids to having three teenagers in just over six months.”

“Sorry about that,” Harrison said and Sirius waved his hand in a dismissive way, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He ruffled Harrison hair and then allowed Harrison to return to his party.

“Did you get into trouble for your stunt?” Draco asked and Harrison shook his head, “Nah.”

“You really think-“ Fred started, George taking over, “-That you could-“

“-get into trouble-“

“- So easily-“

“- while Sirius and Remus-“

“- Are your parents?”

“Fair point, Sirius was probably secretly proud.” Draco said and Harrison grinned, “In his words; ‘Anyways as your dad I have to say, please don’t do that again. As padfoot I want to say that that was the single coolest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do in quidditch.’” Harrison said, making the whole group of his friends laugh.

“You really impressed the puddlemere team,” Pucey said and Montague added, “You impressed all of us.”

“It’s just quick thinking.” He shrugged, “Make your magic do whatever you want it to.”

“He says that like it’s not impressive.” Daphne rolled her eyes, “Stop always trying to make other’s believe the shit you do is normal. It’s obviously not, everyone knows it’s not.”

Harrison didn’t respond to her, not wanting to explain to her that it was normal for him.

Luckily Ebony interrupted at the right moment.

“Master!” Ebony said, “I heard it was your hatching day.”

Harrison chuckled at the snake, “Something like that.”

“I’ve gotten you a wand, look!” Just then Harrison noticed the carefully picked out stick that Ebony had wrapped in his tail.

“Thank you so much.”

“Don’t thank me, I already know I’m the most amazing snake ever! Have a good Hatching day, Master.” The snake paused, seeming to think about something, “Tell your friends- as you call them- that if they ever hurt you that I’ll bite them.”

“I’m sure they’re aware, Ebony.”

“Well, I’ll make sure they remember.” The snake then hissed at them, baring his fangs.

“Sorry, he wants to make sure all of you know he’ll bite if you hurt me.” Harrison laughed, “He’s never this nice to me, I think a hatching day means a lot to a snake.”

“Did they get what I meant, master?”

“You made it very clear, so yes they did, thank you, Ebony.”

The snake hissed not really saying anything and then went away.

“That was an experience.” Terence said.

Harrison shrugged, “That’s Ebony.”

~

After a while everyone but Draco and Blaise left, so Harrison finally felt comfortable with asking about Bellatrix and the Lestrange brothers.

“They’re okay, Bella is still a little crazy, but spending time with my mother has made her a bit more aware of her surroundings, the fact that she’s safe. She still wakes up thinking she’s still in Azkaban every morning, it’s really sad to see, honestly.”

“How was the Azkaban break out, anyways, you never told any of us about it?” Blaise asked and Harrison nodded, “Too risky, I didn’t want someone to read the letter and tell the ministry about it. It was good, though, very smooth and quick. The most challenging part was sneaking up to the high security cells and afterwards back down. Azkaban is a dark place, you feel the effects after being in there for a few minutes, imagine being there for years.”

“And somehow they believed that their Lord would save them. Bella told me that’s what kept her going.” Draco said softly, “I mean the Dark Lord did, of course, but imagine he didn’t and they were stuck in there for an entirety hoping for something that would never happen.”

“Rather than then sitting there with nothing to live for, but no way to end life.” Harrison replied, “The Dementors are on strict orders to not kill someone unless they’ve been given the direct order.”

“That would be horrible.” Draco gasped and Blaise nodded in agreement, but then said, “Not more horrible than being alive without a soul.”

“Honestly having hope is the best way to live your life in Azkaban, gives you something to keep going.” Harrison said, Blaise and Draco could only agree, having something to live for is the only way to survive Azkaban.

“Has the Dark Lord visited you since they arrived?” Harrison asked, “I haven’t seen the Dark Lord since he sent Bellatrix to your house.”

“No he hasn’t, which is strange since Bellatrix was one of his best death eaters.”

“Bellatrix kept trying to have sex with him, it’s kind of disgusting, honestly. That’s the reason why he sent her away and probably the reason he isn’t visiting. Though, I would expect he would like to know how she’s doing, if she’s any better now.”

“the Dark Lord might be busy?” Blaise said, more like a question. “I mean you probably have a busy life when you’re a Dark Lord.”

“He’s probably making some kind of political Alias right now.” Harrison replied, “I hope he makes it an interesting name and not some stupid historical figure he’s somehow very interested in. That man has crazy interests.”

“He would do that?” Draco asked, “Just steal a name from a historical figure?”

“Sure,” Harrison shrugged, “I mean why not? It’s a good way to make people interested in you, plus it be funny to pick some popular figure and try to overshine them, make people think about you first instead of them. It’s all about the attention it gets. If Voldy gets a lot of attention just because of the name he chose, he would be known before he even takes his Wizengamot seats. It’s honestly kind of smart. He’d probably pick some insane roman leader.”

Just at that moment two familiar birds flew into the open window of Harrisons room, dropping a two parcels into Harrisons lap, before immediately leaving again.

“And that was Voldemort’s bird.” Harrison said, way too amused.

“Who’s bird was the other one?”

“Megan,” Harrison replied, opening her Parcel first, it had a simple happy birthday note and a small explanation about the book she had bought him:

“Hi Harrison,

Happy birthday! I’ve bought you this veryyyyyyyy special book. It’s about all kinds of modern rituals, I thought you might be interested in this, especially after seeing yourself made ritual. (It also has an in depth explanation of runes used in ritual circles.) It’s from my families library, I don’t think you could find it anywhere else, so be careful with it!

Bye,

Megan.”

Harrison read out loud, the book looked old, but the pages were still clear and the drawings of runes on the front of it promised something good.

“How many books have you gotten today?” Blaise asked, Draco responded for Harrison, “Too much.”

The next note was written in parselscript, the Dark Lord probably didn’t want anyone to have any proof of him being ‘nice’.

“Harrison,

I technically gave you that vault key, but that wasn’t really a present was it? Most of the things in there were yours to begin with, saved for years so you could finally get them from the vault.- like seriously, Salazar Slytherin marked all of them with ‘FOR HARRISON POTTER’. I suppose he thought you would still be a Potter when u got the items.

Anyways this gift is also kind of selfish, because I decided that it would be easier to communicate this way, it’s a journal connected to an identical journal I have, it’s easier to talk with them. (It’s also made to look exactly like my diary Horcrux so you could have some fun with that- I even put T.M.R on it for you. It’s an exact copy.)

T.M.R

(Honestly at this point just call me by my name.)

Harrison openly gaped at the last sentence, before he finally opened the parcel and got the journal from it. He laughed, Voldemort- Tom Riddle? – Hadn’t been lying when he said it was an exact copy, anyone who knew about the horcruxes would be fooled by this.

“Is that-“ Draco started, proving his theory.

“It’s not, it’s made to look like it, though. Just to fuck with Dumbles.” Harrison replied, while smirking and Blaise asked, “So why were you literally gaping at the letter a second ago.”

“I was just surprised, Voldemort said something I didn’t think he would ever say, not even to me.”

“What? Something like ‘Dear Harrison’?” Draco asked, Harrison shook his head, “Nope, this is way more special than that would be.”

“What did he say?” Blaise asked and Harrison grinned, “He told me to use his real name for him, he hasn’t let anyone do that since his school time.”

“Oh- that’s not what I was expecting.” Blaise said and Draco also seemed surprised.

Harrison ignored them in favour of opening the journal and writing;

Hello Tom? That feels weird.

An answer quickly appeared, I suppose it would feel weird, no one has used that name for me since what feels like forever.

Why this sudden change?

Voldemort- it was a name to bring fear to people or to work without people knowing who exactly they were talking about back in school. It feels to official for you, I know you felt like that, too, otherwise you wouldn’t have insisted on calling me ‘Voldy.’

It did really feel too official.

Also I don’t nearly hate my name as much as Dumbledore, for example thinks, that’s just another rumour. Sure, I don’t exactly like my father, there’s a reason I killed him when I was sixteen- even if I do sometimes regret that. The only reason I hated him for a while is because I didn’t understand why he just left me and my mom behind. Only now do I realise that my mom was the monster, she fed him food with love potion mixed into it to make sure he would love her. She thought being pregnant would guarantee that he wouldn’t leave her. And when she realised he would still leave her it was too late, I was dropped at the orphanage in no time.

Whoa, you’re in a sharing mood. Harrison replied, Draco and Blaise were talking to each other now, not minding him talking to the Dark Lord.

It’s not like you don’t know about my whole history yet. I will never really tell you something totally new, it’s kind of refreshing you just understand my situation, because you know about all of it, my whole past.

Yeah, and I’m glad I do. It really helped us being civil to each other.

Tom took a while to reply, but when he did he answered with:

I used to hate it, but now I kind of enjoy it.

And from the Dark Lord that meant a lot.

Chapter Text

After Harrisons birthday Voldemort- Tom and him started talking a lot more, Harrison took the book with him everywhere. They also started experimenting more with their mental link, opening it to see if it can make their communication better, but that didn’t have a lot of luck until now.

Harrison was currently talking with the Dark Lord when he felt a hint of amusement, it was pushed all the way to the back of his brain, he ignored it and just continued his story about Salazar and him pranking Godric by changing the whole Gryffindor house colour to a lime green.

The amusement grew when he continued and though he could barely felt it, it was obvious it wasn’t his amusement.

Is that your amusement? He paused his story asking the Dark Lord about the emotion that had been there the whole time, well since he started telling his story. It’s like I can feel your amusement, but only barely.

The link. Was Tom’s response and then he felt a curiosity replace the amusement, I kept the link open, see if it would do anything, turns out it does.

I’ve never felt this before, though, that’s weird.

Open your side of the link. Tom said then and Harrison did, he had it almost completely open already, but kept it closed for a bit of privacy. The emotions in the back of his mind grew stronger.

I can feel it too, now. Appeared on the paper, It really does feel weird.

Ever since then they kept the link open more often, but only when they were writing to each other, not wanting to invade the other’s privacy.

After two weeks of almost constantly either writing the Dark Lord or helping Fred and George come up with ideas for the prank shop they wanted to make once they got out of Hogwarts, it was finally time to go to Romania. Harrison checked his stuff multiple times, making sure he wouldn’t forget the journal.

If apparating and using the floo was bad, international portkeys were way worse. Sirius had managed to get them a private one, instead of travelling with a group. It was an old scarf, all five of them grabbed it and it suddenly started turning. It took longer than other portkeys, the distance being bigger. By the time they could let go, Harrison was dizzy and sick.

Fred and George managed to almost land on their feet, instead ending up on their knees. Harrison ended up sitting on the ground, while Sirius and Remus had the whole thing figured out and slowly floated down.

“Ugh, I hate magical travel.” Harrison groaned, closing his eyes, until it felt like the world wasn’t spinning anymore.

“For an exceptional wizard, you are really bad at magical travel.” Sirius chuckled and Harrison glared at him, “It’s not my fault, magical travel sucks.”

Sirius had an amused smile on his face, “Sure it does, kiddo.”

“Come let’s go to the Dragons Reserve.” Harrison muttered, still glaring at Sirius. The portkey had brought them to a town close to the Dragon Reserve, so they decided to walk, this way they could see a small part of Romania, too.

When they entered the Dragon Reserve they immediately spotted a red-head on a broom, playing with some dragon.

“That looks dangerous,” Remus muttered, while Fred and George started cheering on their brother.

The red-head stopped to look down and smiled, then quickly dove with his broom, to avoid getting hit by a tail of a dragon.

When Charlie finally got of his broom- sweaty and covered in mud- he walked towards them, “Sorry, I didn’t expect you would arrive so soon. I thought you would look around in the little town you guys arrived in. Aiden here wanted attention- he’s what we in humans would call a teenager.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Remus asked then and Charlie shrugged, “It is, but it’s not as dangerous as recklessly jumping of a broomstick.” He winked at Harrison, who then turned to glare at the twins.

Charlie then said, “To be honest, it is very dangerous. Before anyone starts working here we have to sign a contract that if anything serious happens to us, it’s our own responsibility. Anyone who works with dangerous magical creatures has to do this, otherwise it would be impossible for places like this- safe places for the most dangerous creatures- to exist. It would’ve been forced to close a while ago, purely by the amount of accidents that happen around angry mother dragons, for example.”

“You actually signed a contract like that? Molly let you?” George asked, Charlie chuckled, “You think I told her? She’d be furious. Dad knows and Bill knows, no one else. Well I suppose you guys know now.”

“How did dad react?” Fred asked, while both him and George had stopped calling Molly ‘mom’, they both still called Arthur ‘dad’. The man probably didn’t even have a say in the disownment.

“He told me he disliked it, but told me to follow my dreams. Bill admitted that he had to sign a similar, if not quite this harsh, contract. He only told dad back when he started working for the Goblins.”

“Damn, we never knew.”

“Of course you didn’t, you’re our little brothers. We wanted to protect you, not scare you. The only reason Bill told me about his contract is when I asked him if it was smart to actually sign the contract, he told me that a lot of magical jobs have similar ones, purely because magic can be dangerous.” Charlie explained, “I haven’t seen anyone die here yet, so I think I’m okay.”

“The air here feels so- magic free.” Harrison said then, making Charlie chuckle, “Dragons absorb magic, feeding their own power. It’s not noticeable for us, but it is one of the reason why a lot of Dragons visit this place, we use lots of magic that tends to linger in the air. When some random dude finally figured that out we started using a lot more spells around sick dragons, trying to give them the power they need to heal themselves. It actually works sometimes.”

“Are there any sick dragons here right now?” Harrison asked then and Charlie nodded, “There’s one dragon whose been here for weeks, she didn’t die yet, but she doesn’t seem to be getting better any time soon.”

“Can- Can I try?” Harrison asked, “Helping her with my magic, I mean.”

Charlie seemed surprised for a second, before he nodded. “Yeah, we never deny help. I would have to talk to my supervisor, though, make sure she won’t get into any trouble if I let someone who doesn’t work here really close to a full grown dragon.”

“Okay, just tell me wherever I can help.” Harrison said, he really did want to help magical creatures, especially because he had some things not a lot of wizards had. Like a magical core that feels as big as an ocean and the ability to speak parseltongue.

“She probably won’t mind, she wanted to introduce you to some dragons anyways. See if you could talk to them.” Charlie said, “You’re kind of a celebrity here.”

“He’s kind of a celebrity everywhere.” Sirius said, “Even more so than his sister at this point.”

“That’s an exa-“

“It’s not, Harrison.” Charlie interrupted, “Most people here aren’t exactly fan of the Potters, haven’t been fan of them since they abandoned you the first time.”

“I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.” Harrison said and Charlie shrugged, “I just can’t wait till you tell them Hope’s not the Girl-Who-Lived.”

He then remembered he had told all of the Weasley’s except Ginny, Ron, Molly and Arthur part of the truth. “Yeah, that might take a while, though. I would kind of like to see Hope disappoint them all before that happens.”

Charlie snorted, “Okay- anyways, do you guys want a tour? The place is pretty big, but I mean, I have a break now anyways.”

“You were playing with a dragon in your break-time?” Sirius asked, Charlie nodded, slight smile on his face.

Fred and George looked at each other before turning to the group, “Wicked.”

Charlie then managed to show them the whole place. The place was free for dragons to stay, but they could also leave whenever they want. The dragon keepers did have to make sure the dragons would stay in the magical world. The sick and baby dragons tended to stay for a while, the other dragons however usually left after a few hours.

The last place was where Norberta currently stayed.

“And this here,” Charlie pointed at a pretty small- but still bigger than any human, sized dragon. “Is Norberta, still very much growing. It’s Hagrid’s dragon. Sending me a letter when he found out Hagrid had a dragon was the first smart thing I’ve seen Ron do in a while.”

That got multiple laughs from the group. Norberta roared at them, though it sounded like a weird accent hiss for Harrison.

“Geh ‘way!” The dragon seemed to roar. “No! No closr.”

“Maybe it’s better if we take a step back.” Harrison muttered, the group looking at him like he was crazy, but following his lead when he took a step back none the less.

The dragon puffed and laid back down.

“Whoa,” Charlie said, looking at the now once again calm dragon. “I think that answered one of our questions, what did she say?”

“Geh ‘way! No! No closr.” Harrison tried to imitate the heavy accent the dragon was speaking in.

“.. Do you want to try talking to some dragons?” Charlie asked then and Harrison nodded, “That’d be awesome.”

Somehow talking to dragons felt more unbelievable than talking to snakes, the fact that he was one of the only two people alive that could understand these majestic, but dangerous creatures was crazy. He would have to tell Voldemort about this later, the man would love the fact that they would both be able to talk to dragons.

“Okay, well since that was pretty much the last part of the tour, let me get you to our sick dragon, we called her Willow.”

Willow turned out to be a very pretty Antipodean Opaleye, but she didn’t seem to well. The shiny scales now looked dull and the quite blue-ish colour seemed to fade to a greyish colour.

“We suspect that if she doesn’t get better in the next three months, she won’t survive.” Charlie said, looking down sadly at the dragon, “Maybe you could figure out what she needs?”

“I can try.” Harrison replied before approaching the dragon, behind him he heard Charlie calm down the others- nothing would happen to him.

“Oh beautiful one,” Harrison said, trying to make his voice powerful like the voice of a dragon was. The dragon huffed, slightly tilting her head.

“The ones taking care of you asked me if you need anything.”

“I’m okay,” The dragon said, “I was trying to protect my child, if they want to help tell them to find my child.”

“I will, would you need anything else to heal?”

“Heal? I need magic, of course. None of these humans are powerful enough, my child will help, once you find him.”

“I’ll tell you everything you told me, would you mind if I came back, to try and offer some magic to you?”

“You can try.”

“Thank you, mother.”

The dragon lowered its head again. Harrison told Charlie everything he figured out.

“Dragons can offer each other magic?”

Harrison shrugged, “’suppose so.”

“It’s been a few hours and you’ve already helped us so much,” Charlie said, “Thank you, seriously, this might help us save a lot of dragons.”

“I’m glad I could help.” Harrison smiled, “I also offered to help her with my magic, she seemed okay with it. Tell me once you figured out if I can or can’t help that way.”

“I will, I should probably get back to the dragons now, the wards need a check. You guys can just look around, if you want. Don’t get too close to dragons, though.”

“We won’t get too close to the dragons,” Fred said, smirking.

“Yeah, don’t worry about us, big brother.” George said and Charlie shot Harrison a look that said; ‘I’m trusting you to keep them away from the dragons, because I don’t know if Sirius or Remus will be able to.’

Harrison nodded, “Just look for me if you want my help.”

“Will do!”

~

They spend hours looking at dragons, only once or twice passing Charlie while he was working. Harrison had to stop Fred and George from actually coming to close or trying to ‘prank’ dragons multiple times, but they didn’t do anything stupid, yet.

Right now, Charlie was showing them to his small house on the Reserve ground. It had enough rooms for all of them; but Harrison would have to share with Fred and George. While he didn’t know if he could trust the twins, he also knew that he had never been pranked by them before, he had helped them prank other’s before.

Once they had all moved their stuff to their rooms, Charlie started cooking for them. Remus had insisted on helping him, so Sirius, Fred and George decided to come up with more prank ideas. Fred and George hadn’t gotten over the fact that they were adopted by a- no two marauders yet.

This gave Harrison time to grab his journal and write to the Dark Lord.

Hello he wrote, just to figure out if the Dark Lord was there.

Hello, how’s Romania? Came the usual quick response, sometimes Harrison felt like Tom just dropped whatever he was doing when Harrison started writing him.

Pretty good, turns out Dragons speak parseltongue. He opened their mind link and felt amused when he noticed Tom had already opened his end, which was now filling his mind with curiosity.

Oh?

I haven’t talked to a lot of them, yet. However, I was able to hear some words the whole time while I was walking around, I even talked back to one of them. It was pretty awesome.

So do you think it’s all reptiles or just snakes and dragons?

I don’t know, I thought you would have more experience.

I do, I have. I went to travel the world before becoming a Dark Lord, trying to find ancient magics that are long gone in our population, but maybe not in others. I was in a jungle and I kept hearing words everywhere around me, my guide thought I was paranoid, now that I think of it, it was probably just snakes and other animals.

The fact that you didn’t think about that before.

Shush, I was seventeen, I only figured out that I was Heir to the Slytherin house a year before. It was all new to me, of course I knew I could talk to snakes, but that’s about as far as my knowledge about any of it went.

Alright, I won’t blame you for being very stupid back then, but still the fact that you only just realised.

I didn’t think about it until you just mentioned this! It’s not like I think about my travels every day, I’m a busy person you know.

Yet you always have time to write to me.

Shut up.

No- this is fun. Harrison wrote down, smiling at the book, then he suddenly felt Tom’s side of their connection close.

Tom?
Tooooommmmm
Dark Lord Voldemort, are you there?
Voldy.
Fine, you proved your point.

He sighed, closing the book. Then he started laughing, he wasn’t even mad, of course the Dark Lord had to prove him wrong.

“Children, food is ready!” Remus shouted from the kitchen, Sirius replying with an “Oy! I’m not a child.”

Harrison snickered, following Sirius and the twins to the kitchen.

~

The second day of their vacation started with Charlie taking Harrison to meet some of his colleagues, asking him to tell them exactly what he figured out yesterday.

“Norberta doesn’t like people getting to close, I suspect due to what happened to her before she hatched, though no one can be sure. Just don’t come to close, unless it’s actually necessary. It seemed to stress her out.” Harrison started explaining, “Willow, the sick one, has a child, who she thinks could save her. It’s a boy for as far as I know. She asked me to make sure you find her child, she needs magic power more powerful than any witch or wizard could even start to dream to be. Dragons have that power, in the meantime, I’ll feed her some of my magic to keep her alive. If I’m allowed, that is.”

“That’s all for now,” Charlie said, “He’s only been here for one day, though. So there might be more at the end of the week. If you want any help, I’m pretty sure Harrison would help anyone, if you asked him nicely. Though, as a big brother figure” He winked at Harrison, “Don’t get him into too dangerous situation, he needs to be alive by the end of his stay here.”

“Wait it’s true? You actually understand dragons?” One handler asked and Harrison nodded, “Yeah, turns out dragons speak parseltongue with an accent. The accent also depends on the type of Dragon, at least I suspect it does.”

“That means we could communicate with dragons through you?”

“Yep,”

“That’s like every dragons handlers dream.”

“I’m glad I’m here to help, I don’t know if I understand every kind of dragon though, I’ve only talked to Norberta and Willow.” Harrison said truthfully, “I’ll try though, whenever you want to talk to a dragon, I’ll at least try.”

“Sorry for making your vacation a work vacation.”

“It’s okay, I honestly suspected it, Charlie warned me, it’s fun though. Talking to such magical  creatures feels unbelievable and the fact that I actually can do it- well it’s pretty damn cool. So I was gonna use it either way, whether for my own amusement or to help all of you. This was obviously the better choice.”

“It’s one of the reasons I invited him,” Charlie joked.

“Ha-ha.” Harrison rolled his eyes at Charlie, then he stopped, “Wait- we didn’t just leave your brothers with Sirius and Remus, right?”

“We did, I thought Remus could handle them for a while.” Charlie responded, Harrison muttered, “Shit,”

“What?”

“You probably heard your brothers talk about the marauders before?”

“Yeah, they are Fred and Georges heroes.”

“Both Sirius and Remus are part of the marauders. Remus just fools everyone, he was the mastermind, really.”

“You don’t think they are-“

“I hope they won’t be as stupid, I mean prank dragons.”

Both Charlie and Harrison rushed, trying to find the others. Turns out they were worrying for nothing, the twins hadn’t even thought about pranking dragons, both of them calling it too reckless.

“Thank god, that could’ve ended very badly.” Charlie sighed, making Sirius look amused, “You guys didn’t seriously think we would try to- I mean we aren’t that stupid!”

“Shut up,” Harrison muttered.

“Awe, that’s cute, you thought we would! We were just discussing exploring the nearby town, do you want to come with us?” Sirius asked and Harrison shook his head, “I think I’ll try helping around here, if that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah, just be careful, pup.” Sirius said, “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I will be safe,” Harrison said, while Charlie nodded in agreement, “I think anyone here would jump in to protect your son, if just because he’s so special to us. I mean- he’s our only chance to speak to dragons. Of course, I, myself would also do everything to keep Harry here safe. If that makes you feel any better.”

“It actually does,” Sirius admitted, “Have fun.”

“Thank you, pads.”

~

Sirius, Remus, Fred and George left about an hour ago. Harrison was chilling in Charlie’s home when Charlie entered saying, “We are expecting you at Willow’s place in thirty minutes.”

“Okay, I’ll be there.”

Charlie nodded, leaving Harrison alone again. He was actually excited to work with Dragons today, it was something not a lot of people got the chance to do. Especially cause he could also talk to the animals.

He sighed then, looking at the journal he hadn’t touched since yesterday, did Tom respond?

He picked it up, even if he tried to stop himself.

Sorry, Lucius entered my study in a panic telling me how Bellatrix had absolutely flipped. She ran away from Malfoy Manor and it took hours to find her. I must admit, the moment was- eh special. I didn’t mean to ‘make a point’ at all. Rather, I wanted to say that I’ll admit that every time I notice you’re writing to me I’ll try to make time to talk to you. I don’t know why, but talking to you makes me feel human. Thank you.
I understand if you won’t read this for a while, I’d be annoyed to.

I’m not annoyed,  Harrison responded, quite shocked by how much Tom shared. It must’ve been hard to admit that you make time to talk to me.

It was, I promise.

Well, I appreciate it. How’s Bella doing?

She’s okay.. Unstable and she seemed to sometimes still wake up thinking she’s still supposed to be in Azkaban, trying to flee from the Malfoy’s. Azkaban left a scar on her, obviously, but it’s worse for her than any of the others. Maybe because she was always unstable to begin with, but it’s … sad to see. She used to be my best dueller and now she’s- well she can’t do anything.. Her magic is weak, she herself is weak. She seems almost dumb.

Weird that Azkaban had such a different effect on her, do you think it’s about reactions to Dementors? I do hope she gets better soon, a good dueller might be just what we need once Dumbledore figures out I’ve sided with you.

Hopefully that will be years away, Voldemort said and Harrison wrote down a simple response before joining Charlie to help Willow.

I hope so.

He closed the journal, shrinking it and putting it in a pocket.

Once he joined the dragon handlers- a lot of them- at Willow’s he stepped forwards, Charlie nodded to him.

He stepped forward, “Mother, I have returned.”

“Have you found my son?”

“I have people searching for him right now, I’m here to try and help.”

“Do whatever you want.” The dragon said and Harrison bowed his head down a bit at the dragon.

“Have we actually started searching for her son?” Harrison asked and Charlie nodded, “We have a whole team searching for him.”

“Good, she’s not interested in anything else.” Harrison explained, “She did give me permission to help her.”

He knew the dragon handlers were watching him with amazement, but he ignored that in favour of slowly approaching the dragon.

“Mother, is it okay if I touch you?”

“Will it help me?” The dragon almost sounded desperate.

“Of course, I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

“Okay, but only you, no one else.”

Harrison sighed out in relieve, telling the dragon handlers what the dragon had said and the dragon handlers allowed him to approach the dragon slowly.

He put his hand on the dragons side, slowly pouring in small bits of his magic, he knew that slowly a cloud would form around all of them. All the dragon handlers would feel his magic, but honestly he didn’t care, he would help this dragon.

The dragon sighed happily, the body of the dragon slowly turning a bit more blue- like it used to be.

“He’s powerful,” He heard someone say and Harrison snorted, “Only just realised that?”

He heard multiple people laugh and then started focusing on pouring the magic into the air around the dragon again, he started hearing a buzz, created by purely magical power.

“I’m going to be exhausted after this.” Harrison said, pulling his hand away when he started swaying on his feet.

“That actually helped, thank you, human.”

“My pleasure.”

“It didn’t totally help, but I feel like I can actually move again, that’s the first time in weeks.”

“I’m glad I could at least help a bit.”

“Yes, I’m sorry for doubting you.”

Harrison chuckled at the dragon, he never would’ve thought a dragon would ever apologise to him.

“I think I have to rest for a while,” Harrison admitted sadly, “I’ll help everyone who wants me to talk to the dragon they’re taking care of once I wake up.”

Charlie approached him right after everyone wished him goodnight- even if it was only 2pm- just when he was about to leave.

“There’s some pepper-up potions in the bathroom, if you need them, it might help a bit with the magical exhaustion.”

“Thank you,” Harrison sighed, “I didn’t think that donating magic would be so exhausting, I mean I didn’t even stand her that long.”

“We were there for 45 minutes, Harry. You just kind of zoned out. We all expected you to just faint, because the amount of power you were pushing into the air for such a long time- it’s unbelievable. Let’s just say everyone here respects you even more now.” Charlie told him and Harrison gaped at him, “45- no, that’s impossible. No wonder I’m so exhausted, I really thought I was getting weaker.”

“Believe me, you are not.” Charlie chuckled, “Anyways you should rest before the others come back, it will be impossible to rest then.”

“Yeah, true that.” Harrison laughed, “Good night.”

Charlie smiled and then turned back to the other dragon handlers.

~

Remus, Sirius, Fred and George regretted going to the town close by when they heard what Harrison had done, all of them wish they had been there while Harrison was helping the dragon. Charlie had told them all about it, especially how the air around all of them had turned a glistering kind of purple, because of the sheer power Harrison had.

“How did he not get into a magical coma?” Sirius asked, more to himself than anyone else, Charlie shrugged, “That’s what we all were wondering.”

Sirius then turned to Harrison, “Can we feel your power, without you exhausting yourself more?”

Harrison rolled his eyes, smiling then dropped the mask on his core. He masked his magic at all time for this reason, the people around him were staring at him, the room seemed to get hotter and the air turned purple-ish shade of grey.

He quickly masked it again, leaving the rest to think about what they felt.

“Wait, cub, you mask this at all times?” Remus asked, Harrison nodded, “That’s impressive, not a lot of people can mask their magic even slightly.”

“I’ve always been masking my magic.” Harrison admitted, “It’s easier to avoid questions, especially in the muggle world.” He said, because Charlie didn’t know the full truth.

“Moony, I think he’s been doing it forever, even as a baby. I mean I never really felt his magic, though we knew he had a lot, because he had so much control. Then after that night the whole room just seemed to buzz, it was Harrisons magic, not Voldy’s.”

Sirius had started calling Voldemort Voldy, finally accepting that they were not in any danger as long as Harrison didn’t piss the dark lord off, which seemed impossible to do at this point.

“You’re right,” Moony said, “the magic back then felt exactly the same.”

“Could have been a mix,” Harrison admitted, “You know we both have perfectly grey cores.”

“The way magic feels/ smells is different for every person, Harrison, which core you have is only a part of it.”

“It might have been me, then.” Harrison shrugged, “I don’t remember the time I was passed out, only before and after.”

“It’s insane you even remember a small part of it,” George said, “I mean I have no memories from before I was four.”

“Probably because you fell on your head really hard after Fred pushed you off the stairs.” Charlie said.

“I- What?” George said and Charlie laughed, “Fred pushed you from the stairs, thought it was funny. You had this head injury, forgot a lot of shit it’s kind of sad actually. We then obliviated the memory from Fred’s mind, to not make him feel guilty.- especially cause before we obliviated him Fred refused to eat, because you couldn’t eat normally either, due to your injury he caused.”

“I did that?” Fred asked, “Honestly, sounds like something I’d do.”

“You mean everyone here has memories from before they are four?” George asked and everyone nodded, Sirius saying, “Only the fun ones, which is exactly one for me. That time my parents left me home alone as a three year old for a full week. Best week of my life.”

“I remember everything,” Harrison said and George rolled his eyes, “Yeah, well all of us already knew that.”

“I have this one mem-“ Remus got cut off mid-sentence by some shouts.

“We found the son! Get Harrison.”

Charlie looked at Harrison, who nodded. Yes, he had enough power to do things again. Both of them ran out the house, they quickly spotted the small, very afraid dragon, calling out to his mom.

“Your mom is here, little one, don’t fear.”

“Can I see her?”

“Of course, she’s sick, though. She will probably ask for your help, if you need any assistance just tell me.”

“You’re nice, human.”

Harrison smiled at the small dragon, putting his hand in front of his nose, the dragon nudged his hand and Harrison laughed. He started leading the dragon to Willow, where once they arrived, the dragon layed down next to his mom. Everyone could feel the air thicken with magic.

And Harrison was the only one who could enjoy the mother fussing about her child and the child, in return, worrying about his mom.

Chapter Text

Harrison spend the rest of their vacation to Romania helping the dragon-handlers. He talked to more dragons than he talked to snakes in this one week he was here.

But, all good things must come to an end eventually. So after a week it was time for Harrison and his family to return home, they only had two weeks of their school break left and still needed to go to Diagon Alley. Harrison was almost sure that Fred and George had some school work they had to do, which they procrastinated till the end of summer break.

Teachers tended to give work to students in summer break, although they couldn’t force them to do anything like they could any other vacation, the teachers still wanted you to make it. It was mostly purely some papers to write on some of the most important spells you were taught that year, so they didn’t have to go over all the spells from the past year again.

Harrison- of course- didn’t make any of the work, not even bothering. Mostly because, one the teachers all liked him, and two, He just didn’t care enough. It’s not like he would actually forget any of the spells he had known and used since he was like six.

“Pup, we are going to Diagon ‘lley in a bit.” Sirius said, while knocking on his door.

“Okay, I’ll be there in a bit.” Harrison replied, remembering last years school supplies shopping, the first day he spend back in this time.

“Siri, you still there?” He shouted then and the man replied, “Yup!”

“Can we go get the founders’ portraits from Gringotts? ” Merlin’s portrait was hanging in the Black Library, he and Harrison spend a lot of time discussing certain ancient books they had both read.

“Sure! We’ll hang them next to Merlin’s.” Sirius shouted back.

“Thank you, Padfoot.”

Harrison forced himself to get out of bed, where he had crashed about an hour ago after duelling Moony. The werewolf was a pretty good dueller and Harrison actually had a fun time duelling him, even if he beat him every time.

When he finally decided to join the others, all of them were waiting at the fireplace.

“We’re flooing?” Harrison groaned, “At least it’s better than portkeys.”

Sirius laughed, before stepping in the fire place first, the others followed, leaving Remus to go last.

“Where to first?” Remus asked and Harrison turned around, “Actually do you mind going to Borgin and Burkes first? I bought my book on twin wands there last year and it seemed interesting enough.”

Remus turned to Sirius with a raised eyebrow, Sirius shrugged, so Remus nodded, “Lead the way kiddo.”

Harrison scowled at the nickname, but started to head towards Knockturn Alley.

Fred and George seemed way too interested in the items in the shop. Fred actually picked up a mask similar to Death Eater masks and asked his brother, “You reckon we could get away with wearing this? Or would Voldy kill us.”

“I’m pretty sure Voldy’s too scared of Harrison to kill us.”

Harrison snorted from the place he standing, looking at the poison they sold in this place, pure interest. It’s not like he would actually buy poison.

“Who are we killing, pup?” Sirius asked way too cheerful, coming to stand next to him.

“No one, yet.” Harrison said seriously, “Ask me again next year.”

Sirius laughed, before saying “There’s a vanishing cabinet here, I wonder where the second one is.”

“Maybe ask Burkes?” Harrison asked, looking at the cabinet Sirius was pointing at with a new interest.

“Already did, he has no idea.”

“Bummer.”

“The cabinet is also broken, needs some fixing, even if we did know where the other side was. It’s too dangerous to use in this state.”

“Maybe we should buy it.” Harrison mused, Sirius didn’t even have to ask why, because Harrison already started explaining. “If we do find the other side we would have a way to travel anywhere without issues, just have to fix it first. And it’s not like we don’t have enough money.”

Harrison heard the bell of the entrance, but ignored it in favour of trying to figure out what could be wrong with the vanishing cabinet.

“Okay, we’ll buy it.” Sirius said, “We don’t really have a reason not to.”

“Harrison?” He heard a voice say and turned around. Draco and his father were here, though Lucius was talking to Borgin.

“Draco!” Harrison said, “What are you doing here?”

Draco muttered something Harrison couldn’t hear.

“What was that?”

“Father has to give away his dark artefacts, our home is getting checked by the ministry.” Draco said and Sirius was the one to offer, “Why don’t you store them at Grimmaulds place?”

Draco looked at his father and then back at Sirius, hopeful. “We could?”

“Of course! The ministry can’t reach our home, because the Fidelius charm was illegally placed by a Black a long time ago.”

“That would be great, father will be pleased.” Draco said, “Thank you.”

“What was that?  Sirius actually offering some help to someone?” Remus asked, amused.

Sirius scowled, “They’re my family okay? Some of their- and also my, since half of it will be from the Black family- heirlooms are very dark, you can’t just let those be taken.”

They watched as Draco talked to his father, whose look went from confused to pleased.

He approached them and Remus and Harrison decided to leave, let Sirius figure this out himself.

Draco followed Harrison, pointing at a withered hand, “That’s the Hand of Glory.” He said quietly.

Harrison looked at the hand, not really feeling any magical pull to it. Magical artefacts usually had a pull to them, if it matched your magic.

“Isn’t that usually for thieves?” Fred and George came up behind them, Draco actually jumped then groaned, “You took them?”

“Of course I did,” Harrison said. “They’re my brothers. Yes, this is usually for thieves, Fred.”

“Still don’t understand how you know who is who.” Draco muttered.

Harrison laughed before asking Fred and George, “Did you guys find anything?”

“Well, we found a book on some darker prank spells,” George said, “Not anything dangerous, but just slightly less legal magic.”

Harrison snorted, “Buy it, I’m curious what you guys will do with it. As long as you don’t use it on me.”

“We would never!” Fred gasped dramatically, “Like seriously we haven’t once pranked you.”

“That is true,” Harrison admitted, “you just fear me too much.”

“Sure we do.”

“Draco are you ready to go?” Lucius asked then and Draco whined for his father to buy him something, until Lucius promised to buy him the new broom. Draco winked at Harrison, probably thinking it was very clever, but really Harrison thought it was just childish. Then the Malfoys left.

“We should probably pay now, Fred, George have you found anything?” Sirius asked and they showed him the book and Sirius laughed, “good choice! I’m paying!”

The twins tried to tell him that they had a bit of money themselves and could buy the book for themselves, but Sirius refused to hear it. He just said that since technically they were his children now, he should pay for them.

Eventually Fred and George gave up and let Sirius pay.

When Sirius had paid and the vanishing cabinet had been sent to grimmaulds place, they left to go to Gringotts.

They came past Hagrid in Knockturn Alley and Harrison hoped the man hadn’t seen them pass, since if Hagrid had seen them, Harrison would probably be in trouble. There was no way Hagrid wouldn’t tell the Headmaster.

When they arrived at Gringotts the goblins immediately led them to Griphook, who then accompanied them to Harrisons vaults.

“We stop at the Gryffindor Vault first,” Griphook said, “I must warn you that all the founders tend to have preserved creature eggs in their vaults, you could let them hatch, if you want.”

Harrison nodded, he knew the founders did this, they had told him about it.

The founders vaults only gave access by a blood test, so Harrison placed his finger top in a mark in the wall, the moment his finger touched the wall a small needle shot into it, drawing just a few drops of blood.

The vault opened on its own, revealing the towers of gold pieces with all kind of weapons in between.

Harrison walked into the big vault, his whole bedroom at Hogwarts fit in this vault. The walls had all kinds of portraits and wands with name plates. There was also one big wall with the whole family tree on it.

There was a stash of swords placed carefully in a corner, the Gryffindor sword was hanging above all of them . There was a table with all kinds of daggers next to the swords. In the middle of the vault were the piles of gold, with some more swords and bows. Behind that big pile was a table with some boxes full of jewellery.

There were barely any books and the books that were there, were mostly about duelling. Like Griphook had said one side of the walls was purely eggs, between them were hanging some portraits.

Most of the eggs were Hippogriffs or griffins. It made sense, Godric loved big animals who could also fly.

“Harrikins, if this is only one of the vaults.. You’re probably the richest wizard alive.” George said, looking at the piles of gold.

“Yeah, I thought it would be less by now, there must have been a heir who just didn’t want to work, right?”

Griphook nodded, “There were, but the founders heirs generally invest their money really well, even with spending a lot of money we would only gain more. The founders heirs are our favourite kind of customers. We thought we would never get another Gryffindor, Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff again, but here we are.”

Harrison nodded, walking to a chest of some sort. That’s when he noticed the engravement saying: “For Harrison Potter and Harrison Potter only.”

Griphook saw him looking at the chest, “Don’t get too much hope, Gryffindors line is directly connected to the Potter line and a lot of Harrisons have tried to open it, but none of them could. Of course, your situation is totally different, so maybe.”

“We both know it’s me he’s talking about.” Harrisons said.

The magic scanned both blood and magic, a way of Godric making sure no one else could enter the chest.

The chest was filled with wands, which Godric used in his life; Letters written directed at him, more books Godric bought over time that he thought Harrison would find interesting. Some paintings- even one with Harrison in there! And all other kind of things the founder probably bought with Harrison on his mind.

“We’ll go through all of this later, pup, we don’t have the time right now.” Sirius said and Harrison nodded, “I know.” He closed the chest, only after taking one of the portraits Godric left for him.

Griphook, who had also been looking around- not once in his lifetime did he meet the actual Gryffindor Heir so this was new to him, too. – closed the vault behind them.

“Hufflepuff next.” Griphook said, not even bothering getting into the cart, since all the founders vaults were right next to each other.

The group followed the goblin to the next vault, the opening went pretty much the same. Though, the needle seemed to almost be more careful this time, Harrison wasn’t sure if he was just imagining it or if the Gryffindor needle just wanted people to show how brave they were.

This vaults general colours were yellow and black, obviously. The almost goldish yellow made the vault look even more filled with golden coins than the last one.

Helga Hufflepuff had always loved tableware and it was noticeable. There were big book planks, but instead of books she had put different kind of gold tableware on it. There was also a gold pocket knife next to a shield, which was hanging on the wall.

Harrison didn’t remember the founders talking about any kind of war, but he also knew that he had only been there for such a short period of their lives. Helga also had a lot of potion ingredients, most of them used for healing potions in a big chest, which would preserve it, the chest had all kind of charms on it.

There was also some already made healing potions. Next to that chest were a lot of books, on all kinds of magic. This vault was split in a totally different way, the money was on the right side, the artefacts and other things on the left side.

Harrison could see their personality in the rooms. The next place he decided to check were the eggs. There were kneazles, but also nifflers. Some animals more dangerous, other less. The Hufflepuffs didn’t seem to have a preference. Helga used to love all kind of animals, even dealing with Salazar’s obsession of way too dangerous magical snakes and Godrics obsession with well- any kind of danger.

Contrary to popular belief, Hufflepuffs weren’t all sweet and loyal. They usually were, but most of them also had a dangerous side, a protective side; they tend to be adventurous. The vault Harrison stood in right now, reflected every part of it. The weapons to the books to the eggs of the most fluffy creature, but then you would suddenly find an egg of an XXX creature.

Harrison was sure there was some poison underneath all the healing potions.

The last thing Harrison looked at was an almost identical chest to the one he found in the Gryffindor, similar to the one there, the chest scanned blood and magic to see if you really were Harrison Potter- now Black.

This chest was filled with recipes of Helga’s favourite meals, more jewellery, some wands and a lot of letters too.

When Harrison finally got to the portraits he picked one quickly, picking one with just Helga on it, so he wouldn’t have multiple portraits of one of the founders, anyone of them would hate talking to themselves.

He quickly closed the chest, knowing that he didn’t have time to get distracted an start reading letters of Helga.

“You ready pup?”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s go to Ravenclaw’s vault.”

“Sorry we can’t sort through it today.” Sirius apologized.

“No it’s okay, I understand, we don’t have enough time right now.”

“We will come back soon.”

Harrison nodded, following the rest out of the vault.

“Now I’m going to warn you before entering this vault.” Griphook seemed amused, “The daughter of Rowena- Helena Ravenclaw, put up a fight to split her vault into different room, now there’s a full library in there. It’s the biggest vault in Gringotts right now.”

“You allowed that?” Remus asked, shocked and Griphook nodded, “She offered enough money, this was her weird way to honour her mother, she did it right after Lady Ravenclaw died.”

“Okay, well open it up, Harrikins.” George grinned, both of the twins were loving the chance to see all of this, not a lot of people got to.

Harrison did so, this needle took a bit longer, but let them in none the less. Harrison wondered how the Slytherin needle would react.

The door opened to a room with mostly artefacts, Griphook then said, “We only allowed her three rooms.”

There was a dark blue bow on the wall, underneath it were arrows. The walls were covered with small notes of different things, there were also some wands with names, though neither Helena nor Rowena’s wand was there.

The rest of the walls were mostly portraits once again, instead of a painted family tree there was a big scroll in the Ravenclaw vault.

Just like in Ravenclaws vault there was a big place with the preservation charm on it, multiple potion ingredients and potions could be found there, but there were also some organs- human organs.

“What-“ Fred said, looking at an eye in a glass jar.

“There were some Ravenclaws who decided to study the human body and save their founds here.” Griphook explained, he pointed at a jar, “That there is a tumour straight out of a muggles body.”

“And all of this has been here for decades?” George was looking at the jar with a look full of disgust, but also some interest.

“Decades, centuries. Who knows?” Griphook said, “A while ago there weren’t really any rules about these kind of experiments. So the people who went experimenting could do whatever they wanted.”

“Okay this smell is gross.” Remus said, “Let’s continue.”

“What sme-“ Fred started but George stopped him by saying, “He’s a werewolf dumbass.”

There was a hallway after that room leading to two separate rooms, one on the left side and one of the right side.  At the end of the hallway was a chest with a portrait above it.

Harrison recognized the chest and said, “Let’s go to the left room first.” Everyone just followed Harrison, since this was quite literally, all his stuff. The left room was filled with gold, kind of a boring room, the money was sorted better than in the other vaults, though.

They left that room alone, instead going to the right room, which was like Griphook had told them, a library.

The library wasn’t too big, but it was big enough to fill a whole vault. There were books on a lot of subjects, almost all the school textbooks were there- well the ones they used in the founders time. Besides all of that, there were extra books on more dangerous magics and other types of things you wouldn’t learn in school, like wandlore. In the back was a whole fiction section, too, most of it was actually muggle fiction.

Remus and Harrison could’ve spend forever in this vault, but Sirius pulled them out of the room after five minutes. Harrison went to the chest and found similar chests, though in the bottom of this chest were little self-made orbs of magic and a small box with all of the founders names on it.

Deciding to not spend too much time here, he grabbed a portrait, he would come back soon.

“Why was this chest placed here?” Harrison asked, looking at the portrait above it, a photo of him and the founders.

“Rowena probably told Helena about you, Helena just wanted you to have your own little place.” Griphook answered, “Or at least that’s what Helena said to the goblin who made this place. It is rumoured that she hid Rowena’s body behind this wall and just placed this here, because no one besides goblins and you could move this chest.”

“What?” Sirius asked and Griphook shrugged, “Helena actually really enjoyed Biology, there’s a hidden section in the library between the muggle books with purely Biology books. Based on that and the fact that there are lots of organs kept here, some past heir made the rumour Helena cut her own mother up after she died and then put her body in the walls so no one would find out.”

“Okay that’s kind of creepy.” Fred muttered.

The group quickly hurried out of the vault, but Harrison was still curious and knew that, even with the new information, he would come back to this vault soon, too.

“Slytherin Heir vault is the last one for now?” Griphook asked, “No need to enter the Emrys or Black vault?”

“Nope, Slytherin is the last one.” Harrison answered and Griphook nodded, leading them to a smaller vault door next to the big one for Slytherin vault.

“The ring should be fine for this one.” Griphook instructed, Harrison put the ring on the door, which opened.

He stepped into the vault, this one was about half the size of the other vaults. There was no money here, just the chest and some artefacts. Mostly books Voldemort thought he would be interested in, but Harrison could also see some weapons and potion ingredients.

In the middle of this organized mess was the chest, with a letter on top of it. Harrison looked at Sirius, who nodded. Harrison smiled and grabbed the letter.

To Harrison,

We have spent the last few days making sure there would still be some items here, even if our descendants decide to empty the vaults, no one could take these chests away. We put out most valuable items in it- mostly wands and our own works. In my chest you will find the potions I have created the past few years. You will find my broken wand, because muggles decided to burn it, I made a new one don’t worry. You will also find my new wand in here.

Most important is you will find our portraits. I hope you will hang our portraits wherever you live.

I was also asked to told you that anything that’s not in this chest, but still obviously ours, like our weapons. Is also yours, you can do anything you want with them. We used some charm to stick it to the wall, only people with grey cores can get them off the walls, for the other founders this was smart, we both know that that wouldn’t work for me. So instead I put my extra pair in the main vault, while putting my official daggers in this chest.

Just thought you might be interested in that.

Talk to me soon little snake,

Sal.

Harrison opened the chest and indeed saw books with potion recipes in it, there were also other kind of books. Salazar had also made little jar with wand cores and put them in the big chest. Harrison, with much regret, reached in to grab a portrait, then closed the chest and turned to his family.

They really had to go to Diagon Alley to get their books.

Before they left the vault however Griphook said, “heir Slytherin.” Harrison knew the goblin probably didn’t want to say all of his names, too much effort.

“A few days ago Lord Slytherin visited Gringotts,” The goblin started, Harrison wondered why it would be his business that Voldemort visited Gringotts.

“He asked me to open up the main Slytherin vault to you, too, but also keep the Heir vault for your own properties.”

“Tom is allowing me into the main Slytherin vault?”

“Tom?” Sirius asked and Harrison shrugged, “Voldy told me to call him by his name.”

“He wha-“

“Lord Black, please.” Griphook stopped him, “Yes, Lord Slytherin told me to give you access. Do you wish to visit the Slytherin vault?”

“Not right now, we have to leave.” Harrison smiled at the goblin he would call his friend at this point.

“Okay well, when you do, just know you can.”

Harrison nodded, then Griphook took them back up, to the entrance of the bank. When they finally walked out of the bank, they immediately headed for Flourish and Blotts.

The shop was very busy, none of them understood why, so they just assumed this was a popular day for book shopping. Once they entered, they all changed minds, though. Hope was in front of the store next to Gilderoy Lockhart, smiling for the camera’s which seem to be everywhere.

That’s when Lockhart seemed to spot Harrison, He rushed Hope away and asked him to take pictures for the paper. Harrison just raised an eyebrow, but Fred pushed him forwards, he could hear Remus, Sirius, Fred and George laughing.

So he did the only thing he could, he walked to the front with confidence. It was kind of worth it, just by seeing the look on Hope’s face.

“Ladies and gentleman! Not only did the Girl-Who-Lived just meet her new defence teacher, so did the poor abandoned brother. I never thought we would get to see those two in the shop at the same time. Isn’t life full of surprises?” Lockhart laughed and the camera’s started taking pictures again. “Smile at the camera, Harrison.” Lockhart said and Harrison did.

When he finally escaped, Lockhart gave him his books and he rushed back to his family, “We might want to escape.” Harrison muttered, “We can return later for Fred and George’s books”

“Why?” Sirius asked, but Harrison just grabbed his arm and pulled him, so the man followed him.

When they were outside the store, Sirius once again asked why Harrison suddenly was trying to rush. Harrison started laughing, “I made the man unable to talk human for his whole meet and greet, He’ll be hissing. The spell can only be undone by a parseltongue.”

“Moony, Moony, my moon, our pup pranked Gilderoy Lockhart!” Sirius said and Fred and George were also laughing now.

They went to a quidditch store, bought quills and went to a joke shop, because Fred and George insisted that they had to.

When it was 4:30pm they returned to flourish and blotts, the crowd wasn’t there anymore, but when they entered Gilderoy Lockhart was still inside. Harrison twitched his hand behind his back to make the man able to speak normal again.

“Black!” Lockhart said, “What did you do?”

Harrison blinked, “What do you mean, professor?”

“I mean I can’t talk English anymore!”

“You are speaking English right now, sir.” Harrison said.

“You! You did this! You made me look like a fool.”

“Honestly, sir, how could I have done this? I didn’t even have a wand, the pictures we took will prove that. Just because you have enemies doesn’t mean that I have something to do with it.”

Lockhart got his wand out, but then changed his mind and walked out of the store, it took a second before everyone- even the employees started laughing.

“That was amazing, I really don’t understand how people stand that man! He’s been annoying us for the past week or so.” One of them said, a girl who seemed to be around twenty. She had long black hair carefully braided and was wearing some pretty simple robes. She also had a pierced nose, a small ring hanging just above her upper lip. “Oh, sorry! I’m Ella Gray, did you need anything?” She then said, “I totally forgot I worked here for a second.”

Harrison laughed, “It’s okay, we kind of rushed out of the store after I put that curse on Lockhart, we totally forgot that they still need their books.” He pointed at Fred and George.

“Fourth years?” She asked, then blushed, “Sorry, everyone here always mentions ‘the twins’ and to be careful around them.”

Fred and George laughed, while Harrison confirmed that they, indeed, were fourth years.

“So it was you who did that?” She asked while getting all the books. Harrison nodded. “That was genius, really shut the fool up for a while.”

“Thank you, I do try.” Harrison said and the girl laughed, “Hold on, I’ll be back, I have to get some books from our storage.”

“They talk about us, you heard that Gred?”

“Sure did, Forge.”

“Lockhart doesn’t seem like a person who could do all the things he wrote about in his books,” Remus said then, “They gave him the defence position instead of me?”

Harrison shrugged, “Dumbledore is probably up to something. Whatever it is, I’m going to try to prove that Lockhart is a fraud this year, doesn’t matter how.”

“Well at least you have a project for this year then.” Sirius said, “No getting bored.”

“I still will get bored, but it might help a bit.”

“Sorry! Sorry! I’m back, here are your books.” Ella came rushing through a door in the corner of the shop. “The fool even uses his fucking fantasy books to teach.”

Fred and George took their books while laughing, Sirius paid for them, thanking Ella.

“Oh! It was no problem. I’m glad you guys got Lockhart out of the store, really he was trying to complain to us about something, but we couldn’t understand his parseltongue.” The girl shook her head, “Really I have never met a man more annoying than him.”

“Big Lockhart hater, huh?” Harrison asked and the girl nodded, “He was in school with my mom and- nevermind, it doesn’t matter, he’s an annoying lying prick. Don’t let him manipulate you.”

“We won’t, thank you.” They walked out and Harrison wondered just what Lockhart did to the girl’s mom.

Now that they finally had everything, they went back home. It had been a long day spent in Diagon Alley, so no one complained when Harrison said they wouldn’t see him downstairs for the next hour or so.

He grabbed his journal the moment he came into his room, sitting down at his desk.

You really had to give me permission to enter the Slytherin vault, huh?

Are you complaining? The usual fast answer came, Harrison had a feeling the Dark Lord could feel the moment he would write through their mind link.

No, I just didn’t expect you to let me into this private thing of yours. It’s basically sharing your stuff with me.

I trust you.

So you’ve shown.

I just thought that you would appreciate it. I know I gave you a lot of things, but everything in the Slytherin vault is more yours than mine. Most of these things are in there, because Salazar hoped it would end up with you. While things have been taken over the year, I want you to be able to have as much as you want from it now.

That- wow. That means a lot.

Yeah, whatever. Harrison laughed at the awkwardness coming from the Dark Lords side of the link, so he decided to change the subject.

I found something interesting today.

Oh?

A vanishing cabinet at Borgin & Burkes. We don’t know where the second one is and this one is broken, but if we manage to make both work, it could be useful.

There’s a vanishing cabinet in the ROR.

ROR?

Room Of Requirement, where you did your lessons last school year. One of the forms it takes is the Room of Hidden Things, or so we call it. It’s a room full of lost things, the Ravenclaw Diadem was there. Harrison looked at the Diadem on his desk, he hadn’t moved it to a special place yet.

How do you get the room to show you that place?

It’s easy, you just ask for it to show you the cabinet and the room will take you to the room it’s in.

I hope it actually is the one connected to the one we’ve bought.

It probably is, vanishing cabinets are rare. It’s almost impossible to find two in a lifetime, so finding to separate ones would be- well you would have to be very unlucky.

Let’s hope. Oh! You know what else I did today?

I’m scared by how excited you are.

I cursed Gildorey Lockhart to only talk parseltongue during his meet & greets.

The man deserves it.

I’m glad you approve.

How were the founders vaults?

Interesting, Ravenclaw one is kind of scary, human organs EVERYWHERE. Helena Ravenclaw moved the chest Rowena made for me to a special place, it is rumoured that she did this to hide the fact that she buried her mom in the vault walls, after cutting up her body to study Biology.

Okay, that is disturbing.

I mean, honestly I get the fascination with the human body, wanting to know more about it. But the part where it’s her own mom she decided to cut up without anyone knowing AND then hiding the body in the vault walls? That’s too far.

Wasn’t she born in the time were cutting open death relatives in the name of science was pretty normal, though? Why hide it?

It’s Rowena Ravenclaw’s body we’re talking about, she’s an important historical figure. Also, Helena is really shy, for as far as I know. Maybe she just wanted to avoid the conversations with scientists about it.

Hm, still weird.

It’s also just a rumour, we don’t actually know how true it is. The first person to tell this to someone was born four generations after Helena’s death.

Helena died pretty young, her ghost helped me find the Diadem. I can’t see her cutting up her mom.

Well, it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not, I mean it’s not like she killed her mom, she just researched a dead person.

Yeah, right. Tom agreed.

Chapter Text

When it was finally time to go back to Hogwarts, Harrisons only regret is that he didn’t return to Gringotts again. He had known he probably wouldn’t have the time, but now he knew he wouldn’t return till at least December.

“Harrison! We’re in here.” He heard Pansy said, he spun around and saw her head poking out of a compartment door.

“You’re on the front of the Daily Prophet.” Blaise said once Harrison sat down and Harrison raised his eyebrows, a silent way of telling the boy to continue talking.

“They say you cursed Lockhart, or well- Rita is the one who wrote it and she wrote it like the man was crazy for thinking such a thing.”

“I really should pay that woman more the next interview.” Harrison muttered, “I did curse Lockhart, in my defence, everyone thought the guy was annoying.”

“Are you kidding? Have you even read his stories, he’s a legend!” Tracey said and Harrison snorted, “And a fraud, I will find a way to prove that this school year.”

“So you’ve found a new little project?” Pansy asked, “Can we help with this one?”

“As long as you won’t let it distract you from school too much.” Harrison smiled at the girl. “So what have you all done the last few weeks of your break?” He asked the group then.

“I went to Italy, met my new stepdad.” Blaise said, “Wonder how long he’ll be around.” Everyone knew Blaise’s’ mom, she was infamous for always marrying men who would mysteriously die after a while.

“We went to France for a bit.” Draco said. The rest of the group had stayed at home, except for Tracey who went to Germany with her family.

“I talked to Voldy a lot, especially after going to Romania” Harrison said then, “And I went to the Founders vaults, there’s some disturbing shit in their vaults.”

“Oh! How was Romania?” Tracey asked and Harrison smirked, “Turns out, dragons do talk in parseltongue, I basically became a dragon handler for my vacation.”

“You got to communicate? With dragons?” Theo, the boy had been reading a book, the whole time till now.

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool, most of them sadly aren’t that smart.”

The door to their compartment opened up, Daphne walked in, Millicent trailing behind her. She looked at Harrison, raising an eyebrow. In reply Harrison rolled his eyes, but waved his hand to make the compartment larger, the girl smirked and then sat down.

“So, I ran into some Hufflepuff on the way here,” She started, “The girl made it quite clear that I had to directly give this to you, orders from Dumbledore, the girl said. Honestly, I wonder how Dumbledore even gave it to her, but whatever.”

She handed Harrison a letter and Harrison scanned it for any type of spells, before carefully opening it. Instead of a simple letter, the letter started floating and talking.

Harrison, my boy.

I request your presence in my office after the feast today, preferably without Severus.

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.

The letter then exploded into a million pieces of paper, all of them vanished before hitting the ground.

“He really went with the full name,” Millicent scowled and Draco shrugged, “At least he didn’t put his titles on it, then we would’ve sat here for an hour just listening to him talking about himself.”

“What does the old coot want?” Daphne asked and Harrison truthfully said, “I have no idea, I don’t think I did something wrong?”

“It would be impressive if you did do something wrong, since you haven’t been in the school for the summer.”

“Maybe he wants something,” Blaise said, “I mean everybody knows how powerful you are, if there is one thing Dumbledore’s after, it’s power.”

“Be careful if you go,” Tracey said and Harrison nodded “I will.”

Then he got his journal, seeing that Tom had written to him first the first time in a while.

You’re worried, that’s a new one.

Are you really trying to sense my emotion of purpose, asshole. Harrison wrote back.

Hey, I just had my part open, it’s not my fault I suddenly felt worried.

Okay, anyways. Dumbledore asked me to come to his office ‘preferably without Severus’

A wave of amusement came over him and Harrison frowned at the journal, This is not something to be amused about, Tommy boy.

Another nickname? This time for my real name? You’re really not scared of me at all anymore, are you? Tom wrote back, amusement only becoming bigger, It is amusing, because he did the same to me, almost every year. He senses power and becomes scared, he will try to manipulate you and read your mind. It’s probably worse with you, since he knows you’re the real chosen one.

Chosen one is also a nickname, I would like to remind you. Harrison wrote back quickly, So you think it’s nothing?

I wouldn’t say nothing, always be careful around Dumbledore. Just keep our link closed, to maximize your occlumency, there shouldn’t be a weak point then. If anything does happen, just open it up and sent a wave of panic.

What would you even be able to do?

I would like to remind you that I snuck into Hogwarts last year, too.

Yeah, but then Dumbledore didn’t know. Harrison paused, You’re not saying you would risk Dumbledore knowing your back to help me, right?

Tom’s amusement went to a weird sort of embarrassment, No, of course not, I’m not stupid. Severus is in the castle, I would… request him to help you.

You would tell him to do so and then when he refuses, you would tell him you don’t need to be insane to torture him?

Something like that.

Harrison rolled his eyes, Nice to know you care.

Whatever, just go and refuse whatever he asks of you, unless it’s something harmless… Or if he tells you to help him hunt special objects..

Horcruxes? You think he would?

No, but if he does, it could be helpful.

Talking about Horcruxes, what are your plans? What’s the next one? And do you need my help?

I was actually going to ask you to get it, well come with me at least. Tom wrote, It’s the locket, it’s in a cave. I put it into a potion.. And well one of us – I will do it- has to drink the potion the other one will have to retrieve the locket.

What potion did you put it in?

Drink of Despair, Emerald potion. Whatever you want to call it.

Are you crazy?

I like to think I am not anymore, but yeah, I used to be.

You want me to come with you so you can drink the potion? You really have lost your mind.

I am not going to let you drink the potion and I pretty much secured it in a way so that just vanishing it wouldn’t work, we have to drink it.

You really have lost your mind.

Are you in?

Of course I am, just to keep your sorry-ass safe.

Thank you, I really would’ve hated it to do this with Lucius or Severus.

Well, you could have just forced them to drink the potion, saves you from the effects it has. I am however glad that you’re not going to force me.

I would’ve forced them to drink it, since I know that I wouldn’t let them force me to drink more once I drank half of it, the only person who has even a chance of forcing me to do so is you.

“Harrisonnnn..” Draco said, “I swear ever since you got that journal, you can’t go an hour without looking into it.”

Pansy giggled and Harrison just raised an eyebrow, before returning to writing Voldemort, the horcruxes were more important. And he loved bullying Tom.

“Just let the boy write the Dark Lord, Draco.” Millicent said and Draco rolled his eyes, “He doesn’t even notice us while talking to the Dark Lord, all of us could die and he wouldn’t notice.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Dray.” Harrison sighed, “Tommy boy- the Dark Lord just started telling me about another horcrux, this is important.”

“Tommy boy?” Draco muttered and Harrison snickered. “I called him that and he didn’t get mad, don’t worry about my safety.”

“Just let him, Draco.” Blaise said, “He’s fighting a literal war, you would find that more important, too.”

Draco pouted, but nodded.

None of them noticed Harrison laughing quietly to the Journal after Tom made a stupid joke, yeah, fighting a war.

~

When the group arrived at Hogwarts, Harrison finally put his journal away. He joined his friends at the carriages, but only after petting the thestral.

“Thestrals are such beautiful animals.” He said after sitting down, Blaise shook his head “I find them kind of… unsettling.”

“Thestrals?” Pansy asked and Harrison started telling them about the animal, Blaise sometimes helping him. In no time they arrived at Hogwarts, silently going to the great hall.

The sorting ceremony was.. boring. Harrison realised that it probably would be boring every year, the only reason you actually found it interesting in your first year is because it is also your own sorting.

Back in the founders time, the founders would sort people based on core, answers on some questions and Sal would use Legilimency. It was actually interesting, every sorting was different than the one before.

“Last year this was at least kind of interesting.” Terence muttered, somehow sitting close to the second years now. The quidditch team had changed the place everyone would sit at the Slytherin table, to make sure the quidditch team and friends sat together in the middle.

“Why is that?”

“The Potters, duh.” Fred said, “We actually made a bet on where the lost Potter would end up. A lot of people thought he would end up in Hufflepuff.”

“Me? A Hufflepuff?” Harrison asked.

“Yeah- I mean we didn’t actually know you, we just knew you would return.”

Harrison nodded, it was fair. No one knew where he had actually grown up and even with the muggles, none of them knew what kind of people they were. From the small bit of information they had, Hufflepuff was a fair guess.

Dumbledore started talking again and then Harrison noticed most of the first years were sorted by now. Dumbledore did his usual start of the year speech and then the real feast started.

After everyone turned to their food, he sought out Harrison and nodded at him, before walking out of the Great Hall.

“Now, seriously?” Harrison muttered. He grabbed a piece of bread, stuffing it in his mouth before telling his friends that he would- hopefully- be back later, he made a joke about the Headmaster killing him, which no one seems to think is funny.

He also ignored the questions from everyone who hadn’t been sitting with him in the train. He just gave the rest a look, hoping they would understand that he was trusting them to tell the rest about the Headmasters letter.

Then he walked away, following the Headmaster quickly. He noticed Hope smirking and he hoped, that the girl wasn’t the reason for this meeting.

The headmaster was standing in front of the gargoyle, waiting for him, when he saw Harrison approaching he turned to the entrance, muttering his password. Letting Harrison follow him up the stairs.

Dumbledore sat down behind his desk, smirking slightly when Harrison curiously looked at Fawkes, which he hadn’t really noticed earlier.

“A phoenix, one of the last ones.” Dumbledore said, “He’s been with the Dumbledore line for centuries and not leaving anytime soon.”

“What about when you die, sir?” Harrison said, “I mean, you are getting old.”

Dumbledore covered his shock on the statement quicker than Harrison thought he would, “I think I have a few decades left.”

“Even wizards die eventually, Headmaster, it’s nothing to be ashamed about.” Harrison smirked, “Especially people who meddle with the wrong kind of magic- They tend to age faster.”

“I am very aware of what meddling with the wrong magic does to a wizard, my boy.” The man sighed, “I have after all fought two of the biggest Dark Lords in history.”

“We both know that’s not what I meant,” Harrison said, “Either way, I don’t think you called me up here to discuss illegal magics, like time travel, for example.”

“That is very true, my boy.” Harrison could swear the vein in the man’s forehead was getting clearer by the second. “I feel like we have some- well some past issues to discuss, things that have stopped us from working together past year.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. I am just another student after all, so why would we need to work together? I don’t see you trying to get anyone else to like you.”

“You know you’re not just another student.”

“Aren’t I? I mean, sure my sister is the Girl-Who-Lived, but that has nothing to do directly with me. She’s not even my sister anymore.”

“That’s no-“

“I mean, unless you were going to tell me my sister isn’t actually the Girl-Who-Lived and you’re just manipulating us, but a good man like you wouldn’t do that right? Manipulate a whole family to make sure you have a lamb ready for slaughter in the war?”

“Are you accusing me?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time, of course. You had the whole Order of the Phoenix, your first try with a child army didn’t quite work out, did it?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I, headmaster? Isn’t it true that you just needed a second try? It’s all about proving that you can save everyone while really you yourself do nothing. It’s not the first time either, I’m sure I heard about Newt Scamander beating Grindlewald. Can’t even blame you for that one, either, since you had a blood pact with him. What were you even thinking when you made that, you think the two of you would actually succeed in taking over the world?”

“How do you know-“

“I have my sources, sir, that’s not important. The important thing is that you are always manipulating everyone to think that you are in the right when you’re not and that if you want me to help you after you practically sent me away to an abusive family, you are going to have to try harder.”

“My boy, please, you shouldn’t let your hatred for me cloud your entire judgement on this war. It will only lead to making the wrong mistakes.”

“You think I would do something like that? You clearly don’t know me at all. At least not as good as you thought when you talked to Lily.” He had heard about the conversation, while the Founders hadn’t been able to talk to him immediately after it since he didn’t have their portraits yet, he had been in the Black family house and Phineas turned out to be quite a nice ancestor. “The walls have ears, headmaster. Don’t even think you can hide anything from me.”

“Are you spying on me?”

“Not exactly. Was that all?”

Dumbledore nodded, looking at his desk sadly. Harrison snorted at the pathetic view and then walked away. Only once the boy had left, Dumbledore noticed that by making Harrison lead the conversation he hadn’t been able to talk about anything he had originally wanted to talk about. He cursed his own stupidity, the boy had known how to distract him.

“He’s going to be hard one to manipulate, isn’t he?” Dumbledore asked his phoenix. Fawkes however, seemed to ignore him, even turning his back to him.

Dumbledore sighed and sat down, remembering what the boy had said about the walls having ears, he really should get rid of some of the portraits.

~

Harrison crashed on the couch in the common room as soon as he came in, only noticing the group of first years staring at him after he had found a comfortable position.

The common room was pretty empty, some of Harrisons friends were sitting in the same corner Harrison had crashed, but everyone else went to their rooms, like they would normally do during introductions of first years.

“eh hi?” he said, waving at the first years.

Gemma snorted, “That is our little genius Harrison Sirius Black, he is smarter than he looks.”

“Oye!” Harrison said, “Rude!”

“If you ever need help with spells or whatever, if you want to throw an amazing party with magical effects or want to create some kind of new spell, without knowing how to, you can approach him. He didn’t earn the prodigy of the whole school title for nothing.”

“Well I kind of did, for doing nothing I mean.” Harrison said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I mean what did I actually do last year?”

Gemma glared at him, “Ignore him, but do approach him if you need help. Even we seven year olds do, cause he knows everything we do in classes better than we do.”

“That’s not an exaggeration,” Salazar said from his portrait, “I myself taught him some things, from my portrait of course.”

That seemed to do the trick, most of the first year gasped and nodded at the founder.

“You can find me in the great hall every Saturday when the older years are in Hogsmaede. Usually I’m really bored, so that’s the perfect time to ask for help, but I will help anytime if you just ask, don’t be scared to ask.”

“Stay away from him when he’s writing in his journal, though.” George joked, he was sitting on another couch close to the one Harrison was on, “He gets all rude and scary then.”

“Fred and George not-Weasley anymore. Be careful around them, they are the pranksters we stole from Gryffindor last year.” Gemma said and Fred added, “We’re Blacks now.”

“You are?” Gemma asked and Fred and George nodded.

“Maybe you should finish this up, Gemma.” Severus said and the girl nodded, “of course, professor.”

She quickly finished her usual ‘Slytherins- are- not- so- bad- speech’ then sent the kids up to find their dorms. After that Gemma herself also went up to her dorm.

“So how was the Headmaster?” Daphne asked and Harrison shrugged, “I distracted him enough with random accusations that I’m pretty sure he forgot what he actually wanted to talk about. Then I left after telling him the walls have ears.”

“The headmaster might not be the best enemy to have,” Millicent said and Harrison nodded, “True, but I can pull the poor child that has been abandoned twice card. If he tries anything the public would just pick my side.”

“Will that card ever expire?” Fred asked, “I mean will there be a day people won’t have sympathy for you anymore?”

“I don’t think so, as long as I don’t become a big criminal. Also I have to be careful with not using it too much, it will get suspicious then.”

“Hey did any of you notice none of the Potters were there this feast?” Theo said quite suddenly, changing the subject.

“Really? I didn’t really pay attention.” Blaise said, others agreeing quickly.

“Maybe something happened.” Draco shrugged, “I wouldn’t be angry about it.”

“That is way too suspicious, I hate it.”

“Ron also wasn’t there.” George said, “Hermione, Ginny and Percy were though.”

“Maybe we’ll figure it out tomorrow, I’m going to sleep.” Harrison said, “Full days of travelling always tire me.” He yawned, stretching his arms. “Goodnight, everyone.”

“That means he’s going to put Ebony on his rock and then write the Dark Lord.” Blaise informed the rest.

“We know.” Tracey said, eyes following the boy who indeed looked really tired, until she couldn’t see him anymore.

~

“We’re home!” Ebony said, “This is home, right?”

“For nine months in the year.” Harrison replied, amused smile on his face.

“I like the castle, it’s big and I can explore when you’re gone.”

“Just be careful while exploring we don’t want anything to happen to you.”

The snake curled up, probably deciding that he is done with the conversation. Harrison snorted.

He changed into his pyjamas and then got the journal.

Just distracted Dumbles until he forgot why he called me up to his office.

Smart, though now I will never know whether he knows about the horcruxes or not.

Should’ve told me you wanted a spy, dumbass.

I have Severus, wouldn’t want to put you in that position during your school time, anyways. Since it’s kind of dangerous. You need to be able to finish your school normally.

I literally need zero focus for that.

I know, but just humour me and pretend you appreciate it?

Okay, okay. Thank you for wanting to keep me safe, Tommy boy.

What did you talk about with Dumbles?

I just kind of told him he would die soon if he kept playing around with illegal magics, then told him that he should stop making child armies, because it won’t work. Then told him I understood that he used Newt to defeat Grindlewald, since he was stupid enough to make a blood pact. Then I told him he wouldn’t be able to manipulate him and then right before I left I just said to be careful, the walls have ears.

You sure you want to make Dumbledore be suspicious of you already?

Less pretending for me, tommy boy. I will always see that as a positive thing.

You’re crazy.

I’m not the only one…
By the way, we should wait a bit before getting the locket, because sneaking out will be hard after making Dumbledore this suspicious of me, sorry?

It’s okay, gives me some time to prepare, that potion truly is horrible.

Aww, at least you’ll have my mental support.

Yes, because that will mean a lot while you’re force feeding me the very potion that put me in the state.

I’ll just force you to feel positive emotions through our link.

And I will make sure you feel at least half the misery I feel.

So sweet

Only for you. Harrison stared at that sentence for a while, but then the next sentence appeared, Sorry that was weird.

What the fact that you used that sentence, or the fact that you meant it? Harrison sent back teasingly.

I won’t answer any more questions, go to sleep, kiddo.

Ugh. I thought you were supposed to be fun. My escape from boring people around me in this school.

Only when I want to be.

I see how it is. Goodnight.

Harrison closed the journal, it was weird how sometimes Tom would strictly talk about only important things for the war and other times he would tease Harrison- almost flirt even.

Harrison decided that that wasn’t important now, he could wonder about the mysterious, somehow actually pretty nice and fun Dark Lord soon.

Now was sleeping time.

~

Dumbledore had taken away about half of the portraits, but the problem was most of them had a sticking charm, which was a lot of effort to undo. He spent two hours to get five portraits from his wall.

Then there was another big problem; the sticking charm on the Founders portraits were unlike any charm he had seen before. He just hoped Harrison didn’t know the founders good enough to have them as his personal spies, because Dumbledore would be fucked.

 “I think that was about it, wasn’t it, Fawkes?” The man asked his phoenix, the bird just made a sound that didn’t sound happy or agreeing, quite the opposite actually.

“Don’t be so mad, I’m on the right side of history, we both know it. Sometimes, I just have to do things for the greater good.”

This time the bird didn’t even bother making a sound.

“The thing the boy said about illegal magics might be true, but it was important okay? I have been careful, mostly I make other people do the dirty work for me, I’m not that close to death yet, don’t worry.”

The bird turned even further.

“You never disagreed with me before.” Dumbledore said, looking at the Phoenix sadly, “So why are you so stubborn now.”

The Phoenix didn’t make a single noise.

“I see how it is, the boy has you under his charm, too? I don’t understand there’s nothing special about him! Yes, he had powerful magic and can do thing I couldn’t even imagine anyone doing until I saw him. That doesn’t mean he’s automatically on the right side of history.” Dumbledore shouted to no one, the phoenix making a sad noise, “Yeah, yeah, his side will win the war, we all know that. Doesn’t mean I have to actually like that fact, though.”

The bird didn’t even move anymore, it just made a sad or annoyed noise once in a while.

Dumbledore sighed and gave up on making the phoenix agree with him, the animal would come around eventually and start helping him again, start giving him company again.

Overall, it wasn’t the greatest start of the year for Dumbledore.

Chapter Text

Besides the visit to Dumbledore, his second year started pretty normal. The first few days were spend trying to get used to having classes, while also writing to Tom and planning for a war.

It was easier than it sounded.

Oh, he also couldn’t ignore the dramatic entrance the Potters had made. Lily and James had ran into the great hall the morning after everyone else arrived, apologising to the Headmaster. They made sure to loudly announce that they had been in Germany and forgot about the date.

Like expected, no one actually seemed to care.

“Harrison, what do you think we’ll do in defence?” Pansy asked suddenly and Harrison shrugged, “Lockhart is probably read us stories he wrote.”

“Oh no, it’s worse than that.” Fred said and George nodded seriously, “We had to make a test about Lockhart.”

“Like that’s actual defence class!” Fred finished, throwing his hands in the air angrily.

“We had to do the same thing,” Terrence said, being one year above Fred and George. “We also have Lily Potter for defence now, it’s even worse.”

Harrison glanced at the teachers table, the confident woman was currently sitting next to her husband, smiling while talking to the headmaster, something in her expression unnerved him.

“Goodluck this year.”

Terrence gave him a smile, Harrison just hoped he wouldn’t get classes from either Lily or James.

He had heard stories from James’ Transfiguration classes, which McGonagall refused to leave totally to James, not quite trusting the man with her students. They seemed to be fun, sometimes, but mostly the instructions were unclear. Which wouldn’t be a very big problem, until James had to teach his students to do human transfiguration.

McGonagall had actually sent James away, telling him not to come back for at least a month. Sirius had instead taken over the classes, which was ironic, because McGonagall had always thought that James was the more mature one of the two of them.

That was if one of them could even be called mature.

Just like Fred and George had told them, their class actually got a test full of questions about Lockhart. No one did well, except for Hermione Granger. Who practically acted like she had just won an award, after Lockhart told her she was the only one with perfect scores.

The rest of the day Granger could be found telling anyone who listened that she had beat the Harrison Sirius Black in a defence test. Once people started asking what the test was about and they heard that it was the Lockhart one, she ran away. Ever since then Harrison hadn’t spotted her yet.

Luckily, the rest of his subjects were taught by the same teachers he had last year. Harrison knew Sirius had fought James over who was going to teach her class, until McGonagall decided it was best to keep it how it was, she offered James to assist her in the new first year class, though, but James refused. He only had the sixth years in his class now, the rest of the school either getting McGonagall, Sirius or both.

Harrison also got asked to help for quidditch try-outs, since Flint wouldn’t make him do the try outs officially this time, knowing he would get the seeker spot either way.

“Wait there’s open positions?” Harrison had asked and Flint had shrugged, “We have to give people a chance, usually I’d have to let everyone try out again, but Snape decided to let me keep you on the team at least.”

“Why is that?” Harrison remembered that back in the Founder’s time, sometimes one house wouldn’t have try outs at all, since they were okay with how the team was and didn’t need new people to fill positions.

“Mostly to fill extra roles, if one of us gets badly injured, but we also have to give everyone a chance to actually get on the team.” He smirked at Harrison, “In the end, the decision is mine, though, so I will keep everyone who was on the team last year on the team.- well everyone who wants to be on the team again.”

“You think there’s people who don’t want to return?”

“Montague, maybe, he’s having more issues with his grades now.”

“Ah, well, tell me when the try-outs are, I’ll be there.” Harrison said and Flint nodded, “You’re a life saver, Black, I despise the try-outs.”

Harrison laughed.

~

Sitting down on the couch in Sirius and Remus’ quarters, Harrison said, “Isn’t it full moon tomorrow?”

“Thanks for the reminder, cub.” Remus answered, sounding very tired.

“Can I join? Tomorrow I mean?”

Sirius shrugged looking at Remus, who was shaking his head, “No- no fucking way.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Harrison sighed and Remus looked at him like he’d grown a second head, “I could practically eat you alive!”

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Aren’t you on wolfsbane?” Harrison asked and Remus nodded, “I am.”

“Look, I’ll be careful. I just want to be able to be there for you, help you. I am a wolf animagus, I’d say there’s no better person to help you.”

“Cub, I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“It is a big risk, Harry.” Sirius agreed then, Harrison sighed. Two against one now, he lost already.

“Fine,” Harrison said and sat back, arms crossed over his chest.

“Sorry, pup, we just want to keep you save.” Sirius said and Harrison nodded, “I know you do, but I also know that I trust Remus, wolf or no wolf. The wolf part of you is just another extend of your own personality, I know both of you would do anything to protect me. If that protective urge is as big as I think it is, your wolf would also want to protect me, not hurt me.”

“Not tomorrow, cub. You should ask us sooner next time.” Remus then said and Harrison nodded, “I will.” Both Sirius and Remus sighed, they should have known Harrison would want this.

“How were your first few days back here?” Sirius asked to change the subject.

Harrison shrugged, “Okay, I’m bored, but it’s okay. I’m helping with quidditch try-outs soon, so that will keep me busy for a bit.”

“What about Voldemort, what’s he doing?”

“Waiting, a lot of waiting. He’s probably also slowly creating his new Political persona, since he would need that before he can actually make any change.”

“Waiting?” Remus asked then and Harrison nodded, “The prisoners from Azkaban have to be safe enough.”

“So he’s waiting till they’re stable?”

“Yeah, basically. He has to be sure that none of them ruin his chance.” Harrison explained, “He refused to create another look for himself though, I hope Dumbledore won’t recognize him.”

“Even if Dumbledore does, we have enough people in the ministry who would call him insane for even suggesting the Dark Lord is back.” Sirius said, “Actually I think it would hurt Dumbledore’s reputation.”

“I hope so.”

“Don’t worry too much about good ol’ Voldy, Harry. He has more experience on this earth than any of us together.” Sirius said and Harrison nodded, “I know- he just- he tends to be a bit reckless, which is kind of Gryffindor from him.”

“Hey!”

“That was nothing personal.” Harrison laughed and Sirius glared at him, while Remus chuckled.

“If you say so, cub.”

~

I’m so bored, can’t you just kidnap me? No one will question it if it’s you.

Suffer. I’m not ruining my whole plan to rescue you from boredom.

Okay, rude.

Besides, Voldemort wrote then, I need someone I trust to watch the old coot.

Ugh fine, I’ll be your little spy.

You can have some fun with this diary, though.

Yeah, about that, how?

I don’t know, depends on how dangerous you want the school to be.

What do you mean.

Well you could drop this diary make me manipulate the poor person who picks it up and then you open up the chamber of secrets and tell the Basilisk to scare some poor students.

You’re crazy, you know basilisk kill? Like with their eyes?

I’m not dumb, child. They have some sort of protection, when they look at people then they will only be petrified.

‘only petrified’ he says.

Okay, so no fan of that idea. You can also act suspicious around dumbledore, clutch this diary in your arms and tell people you hear whispers in the wall.

Make myself look crazy?

Wait let me finish. Then let the basilisk out, making the whole school suspicious of you, until eventually exposing your heir of Slytherin title.

People already know, well most of them do.

Most are not all of them.

You really want me to let the basilisk free, don’t you?

Yeah, she’s lonely, she was so happy when I let her out in my sixth year. You can just order her to only hunt animals, and petrify some, no students in danger.

I’ll think about it.

Well if you decide to let her free, tell me if I can help.

I will.

“You’re writing to the Dark Lord again?” Draco asked, when he walked into the common room. The second years had all been studying in the library, it was one of the rare times Harrison decided to not join them. He didn’t really understand what they were studying anyways, they had only been at school for one and a half week.

“I was begging him to kidnap me.” Harrison looked up, to see Draco and Blaise.

“That bored?” Blaise asked and Harrison leant back into the chair he was sitting on, “I’ve had worse, I suppose.”

“And will he kidnap you?”

“Nah, decided it was too much of a risk for his future plans. He did give me some idea’s to cause chaos, though.” Harrison said, “But they’re all- well pretty dangerous.”

“What were the ideas?” Draco asked, as him and Blaise both also sat down on chairs.

“He wants me to open the chamber of secret, let the basilisk out, while pretending I’m or letting someone else get possessed.”

“The chamber of secrets is real?”

“Of course it is.” Harrison scoffed, “You thought it was fake?”

“Everyone does,” Blaise answered, “No one has been able to find it since it opened in the 40s.”

“Well, Dumbledore probably knows where it is.” Harrison said, “So do I, of course.”

“Just be careful, the last time it was opened the school almost closed until-“ Blaise stopped mid-sentence “oh.”

“What?” Harrison asked.

“Until Tom Riddle- the Dark Lord- figured out Hagrid did it.” Blaise said quietly, “He framed Hagrid.”

“How do you know that?”

“He got a medal for it, it’s in the trophy room. I never knew it, but now I remember, you told us Tom Riddle was the Dark Lords real name.”

“Of course he did,” Harrison muttered, looking at the diary in his hand.

“Harrison?”

“Yeah- sorry. I just realised something.”

The diary.

He was sixteen year old when he made his first horcrux. Harrison thought, The stupid fucking Diary.

“He used the basilisk.” Harrison whispered, “Of course he did.”

It explained so much, Harrison could never imagine a sixteen year old actually making his first kill and immediately doing the ritual for a horcrux. If his sixteen year old had accidently killed someone and then decided to use that kill for the ritual, so he wouldn’t have to kill another person.

Well- it explained a lot.

Harrison wouldn’t know if it was on purpose or not, not until he asked Tom.

But somehow, finding this small piece of information, made the whole situation so much more understandable. He still thought Tom had been a stupid teenager, creating horcruxes like that, but if he had been rushed into creating his first one, just so he wouldn’t have to directly kill someone.

Yeah, you understand it already. It would’ve made any sixth year go crazy. Having only half your soul while you’re not even totally grown up yet, it would fuck anyone up.

“Harrison are you okay?” Draco asked and Harrisons head snapped back to look at them once again.

“Yeah- yeah I’m good.”

“Okay- if you’re sure about that.”

Harrison nodded, “I’m good- great even.”

Blaise and Draco looked at each other, Harrison knew they were weirded out by his reaction to what Blaise told him, but he couldn’t care about that right now. He had to talk to Tom again.

He opened his diary again, knowing Draco and Blaise were watching him.

Tell me. He wrote down.

Tell you what?

About how you made your first horcrux using the basilisk.

How did you even figure that out?

Once someone told me about your medal you got for telling people Hagrid let the basilisk go free.

That’s not really what happened.

So tell me what did happen.

I can’t, it’s a long story, I’m kind of busy?

Doing what?

Currently? Making sure Bella doesn’t burn down my house- or takes of all her clothes and hops on my lap.

Harrison grimaced, Oh, well-

I will sent you the memory.

You will?

Harrison knew Tom felt his shock and he felt the amusement in return. Of course, no secrets here.

None?

Shut up.

Harrison laughed, Goodluck with Bella sitting.

Thank you? Should I even be thankful for that?

:)

Harrison closed the book then and looked up, “Okay, I’m done here. Sorry for reacting all weird, do you guys need help with homework or something?”

“No, we’re okay. We just wanted to know if you want to join us at the Black lake- I think the others are waiting there right now- well have been for the past twenty minutes.”

“Sorry?” Harrison said and Blaise shrugged, “Don’t worry about it, will you come with us?”

“You know what?” Harrison said, “I will.”

Harrison ended up in his Animagus form after 30 minutes, chasing after his friends. He was aware that other students were watching them in confusion, but at this point none of them cared anymore. When they were just hanging out they didn’t have to be the masked Slytherins all the time, they could just be kids for a bit.

Even Harrison, who never acted like just a kid.

It felt good.

~

Just like Tom promised, in two days time he got the memory.

“What’s that?” Pansy asked looking at the small box, with multiple protection charms around it, in Harrisons hands.

“A memory.” Harrison replied truthfully, “I asked for it.”

“You don’t have pensieve, though.” Pansy said and then she looked at Harrison, “You don’t just have a pensieve in your room, right?”

Harrison laughed, “No- no I don’t have one. I think Tommy boy might’ve figured out another way to do this- if he didn’t I’ll just have to sneak into the headmasters office.”

“That’s the dumbest idea ever.” Blaise said, “You are not doing that.”

“Fine, Tom better thought of a way.”

“What’s the memory about anyways?” Daphne asked and Harrison sighed, “I- well- I don’t think I should tell you guys. I mean it’s dangerous-“

“Of course it is, we’re talking about the Dark Lord here.” Daphne rolled her eyes, “Tell us.”

Harrison shook his head, “I really shouldn’t.”

Daphne seemed disappointed before nodding, “Okay, if you say so. I don’t want to get murdered by a dark lord.”

Harrison told them that he would return later, since they weren’t really doing anything right now. He had to talk to Tom.

So I take it you’ve received the memory, I could practically feel your questions. Was already written down by Tom, Harrison didn’t know when he had written it, but probably in the past three minutes.

Yeah, so how do I do this, I don’t have a pensieve.

Throw the memory on the Diary, let me do the rest of the work. Was Tom’s short reply, as clear as ever.

Harrison did as he was told, since he was curious enough to try anything.

Tom didn’t say anything for a while and Harrison just patiently waited, until the pages of his diary started flipping, though not really leaving the page it was on, almost like every page had the exact same words on it and it was a never ending book.

Then the pages seemed to open up, while still flipping creating a hole with a bright light coming out of it, Harrison refused to cover his eyes, wanting to know what was happening.

Then everything turned black.

“Should’ve known it would go messily the first time,” He heard a voice, then he felt a careful placed hand on his shoulder, “Harrison?”

He blinked and saw Tom in front of him, “I- yeah, I’m good.” He said, not sounding very convincing.

“What is this?” Harrison said looking around the- well the school, but it looked older.

“It’s my memory, I made a way for us to look at memories together, mostly so you could show me Dumbledore’s dumb moments.”

“So why did you sent me the memory?” Harrison asked.

“The receiver has to do the spell to suck both of us into the memory. Thought it would be easier for you.”

“Oh- Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Tom smiled, but the smile vanished quickly, turning into the usual pureblood mask. “Come, we should go there.” He pointed at a corridor and Harrison saw sixteen year old Tom standing there.

They followed him up to the second floor girls lavatory. Harrison swore he heard sixteen year old Tom say, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. Don’t worry. This won’t do anything bad. You’re just helping the snake.”

His heart ached for the orphan boy who had been forced to become this monster like person, to get some kind of respect from his peers. Looking at the older Tom, he saw the man looking at the memory with a sad look. Harrison knew Tom regretted ever doing this, but he didn’t know how much he really regretted it till now.

Tom finally entered the lavatory and opened the chambers, asking for stairs, because there is no way he was going to slide down there.

“This is where everything started,” Tom- the older actual Tom- said. “Well- I suppose it started when I asked Slughorn about Horcruxes.”

Harrison watched as Tom called for the basilisk, watched as he talked to the beast like it was the most precious thing he had ever seen. He even watched as Tom practically manipulated the animal to only scare humans for now, no killing yet.

The snake agreed, so Tom let her out.

“I can’t even blame her.” Tom said next to him, “I mean- the basilisk really tried, she petrified some people, but never killed anyone.”

They followed Tom around, Harrison noticed he carefully manipulated the whole Slytherin house. “You would’ve been an amazing Politician.”

“That’s why I decided to go into politics now.” Tom answered, “It’s the one thing I’ve always been good in. Even Dumbledore knew, he would sometimes tell me that I would be the youngest Minister of Magic.”

“You’re a little old for that now,” Harrison said jokingly and Tom chuckled, “That might be true, but my persona isn’t.”

“Ohh- lying about our age now, huh?” Harrison asked and Tom just smirked.

They didn’t follow Tom around for a lot longer, instead Tom whispered something in Latin and they skipped some time.

“I didn’t think you would’ve been interested in watching my sixteen-year-old-self’s day to day life for a month.”

“Maybe I was interested,” Harrison shot back and Tom raised an eyebrow, “Well if you want to watch my whole life, just tell me, I have all the memories.”

“You would let me do that?”

“No, I don’t think so. Not all of it.” Tom said, “Most parts, though.”

Harrison nodded, accepting that answer, then Tom pointed out past him again and they went back to following younger Tom around the castle.

~

Younger Tom looked at the scene in front of him, “Wait! Watch out!” He hissed to the big snake, who almost directly looked into the crying girls eyes, the snake turned around and hissed something- Harrison couldn’t quite hear what the snake said- back.

Then the snake turned around again, accidently looking at the girl, who was staring at the snake with big eyes, full of fear.

The girl dropped on the ground and the snake turned to Tom, probably to apologise or to tell him that she didn’t mean to kill any humans, but Tom had ran to the girl and so the Snake decided to return to the chamber instead.

Tom was looking at the girl on the ground with panic, then seemed to whisper something like. “This is your chance.”

He put the diary down and started chanting, halfway the chant he fell to his knees, doubling over in pain. A greyish glow came out of him, slowly going into the diary.

After that he dropped on the ground, allowing himself to rest for a bit, before grabbing the diary and walking away, going back to his dorms without anyone seeing him.

“Her death really- it was unexpected.” Tom said from where he was standing, looking at his memory.

“That must’ve been hard.”

“It was, the first one was the hardest. When you make horcrux, it’s almost like they take your emotions. When I had my full soul I always thought that me not being able to feel love- because my parents – was a weakness. However, when I started making horcruxes I started seeing all emotions as weaknesses. Me not feeling love, sadness, happiness, it was suddenly my strength. All I felt was such extreme anger.”

“How about now?”

“My emotions- they’re there.” Tom said, “Not quite like before, but you know I have them, I mean you can feel them. I think you really helped me with that, feeling your emotions- it was like showing me it’s not a weakness.”

He looked at the memory once again, he felt older Tom’s eyes on him.

“Do you want to-“ Tom cleared his throat, Harrison knew this must be hard for him. Harrison was practically forcing him to relive all these moments. “Do you want to go to the last part of this memory?”

Harrison looked at Tom, at his carefully made mask and then nodded, deciding that while he wanted to see everything, he also wanted Tom to be able to leave these memories as quickly as possible.

Tom started chanting again and after a few seconds they were standing in the headmasters office, a man sat at the desk.

“Headmaster Dippet,” Tom said, Harrison was once again reminded of how long ago it had been, the time that Tom was a student in Hogwarts.

There was a knock on the door and Dippet looked up, “Enter.”

There, young Tom Riddle walked in, not a trace of the sadness and fear from the past memory in his eyes. He had his hands folded behind his back, proudly showing his prefect badge.

“Ah, Riddle.” The Headmaster said and Tom smiled sweetly at him. Harrison understood why young Tom had every teacher wrapped around his finger, “You wanted to see me, Headmaster?”

Harrison could see through Tom’s mask, months of practice and literally feeling the others emotions did that to a person. He could tell that young Tom felt more nervous than before, he was afraid that he had been caught.

“Sit down,” Dippet said, “I’ve just read the letter you send me.”

Older Tom sighed, “I really should’ve thought this out before I released a basilisk into the school.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have let the Basilisk free anyways.”

Tom made an agreeing noise.

“Oh,” Young Tom answered, sitting down. He gripped his hands together tightly.

“My dear boy,” Dippet said, “I cannot possibly let you stay at the school over summer. Surely you want to go home?”

“No! I much rather stay at Hogwarts than go back to that- that-“ Tom protested, but Dippet held his hand up, silencing Tom.

“You live in a muggle orphanage over summer, I believe?” Dippet asked, sounding almost genuinely curious.

“Yes, sir.” Tom said.

“You are Muggle-born?”

“Half-Blood, sir.” Tom corrected, “Muggle father, witch mother.”

“And are both your paren-“

“My mother died right after giving birth, sir.” Tom answered before Dippet could finish his question, “They told me at the orphanage that she died right after giving me a name: Tom Marvolo Riddle, Tom after my father, Marvolo after my grandfather.”

Dippet sighed, “The thing is, Tom,” He looked at the boy, eyes full of sympathy, “Special arrangements might have been made for you, but in the current circumstances…”

“You mean all the attacks, sir?” Tom asked.

“Precisely,” Dippet answered, “Tom, you must see how foolish it would be of me to allow you to stay in this school when the term ends, with all these attacks. Particularly with the recent tragedy.. the death of that poor girl. You will be safer at your orphanage. As matter of fact, the Ministry of Magic is even talking about closing the school. We are no nearer locating the – well source of all this unpleasantness.”

Tom hesitated for a moment before asking, “Sir, if the person was caught- if it all stopped-“

“What do you mean?” Dippet asked, sitting up on his chair, “Tom, my boy, do you mean you know something about these attacks?”

“No, of course not, sir.” Tom answered quickly.

Dippet looked disappointed for a second, “You may go, Tom.”

Tom stood up gracefully and walked out of the office, Harrison and older-not-memory-Tom followed him.

They went down the spiralling staircase, ending up in the dark corridor, where the gargoyle- the entrance to the headmasters office was.

Riddle stopped there, biting his lip, seeming to be in thought. Then, out of nowhere, he started walking again, passing no one until they reached the entrance hall.

There, a man with long auburn hair and a beard stopped Tom.

“Dumbledore?” Harrison asked, Tom next to him nodded.

“What are you doing, wandering around this late, Tom?”

“I had to see the Headmaster, sir.” Tom replied.

Older Tom muttered, “He really never did trust me.”

“Honestly, I wouldn’t either.” Harrison said.

Tom shot him a glare, before deciding that it was honestly fair to not trust him.

“Well hurry off to bed,” Dumbledore said, “Best not to wander these corridors. Since- well..” He sighed, bade Tom goodnight and strode away, Tom waited until he was out of sight.

Tom then went to the dungeons, the exact place where Harrisons potion classes were. There, Tom hid in the shadow, seemingly waiting for someone.

They waited for a while, but then Harrison heard a familiar whisper.

“C’mon.. Gotta get yeh outta here.. c’mon now.. in the box.”

Tom took that as a signal. He jumped around the corner of the classroom, “Evening, Rubeus.” He shut the door behind him, luckily giving Older- Tom and Harrison enough time to pass through.

“What yer doin’ down here, Tom?”

Tom smirked, stepping closer to Hagrid.

“It’s all over,” He said, “I’m going to have to turn you in, Rubeus. They’re talking about closing Hogwarts if the attacks don’t stop.”

“What d’yeh-“

“I don’t think you meant to kill anyone, But monsters don’t make good pets. I suppose you just let it out for exercise and then-“

“It never killed no one!” Hagrid shouted, Tom took a step back. Then he smirked and backed the large boy against the other side of the room.

“Come on, Rubeus.” Tom said, sweet voice. “The dead girl’s parents will be here tomorrow. The least Hogwarts can do is make sure the thing that killed her won’t ever kill anyone again. I’ll even try to not get you expelled, if you cooperate.”

“It wasn’t him!” Hagrid roared, his voice echoed through the room, “He wouldn’t kill anyone! Ever!”

“Stand aside,” Tom commanded, grabbing his wand.

He shot a wordless spell at the crate behind the boy, opening it. Out of it came a huge spider. Harrison looked at it with a mix of fascination and fear. He didn’t necessarily think spiders were creepy, but he didn’t really like them.

Hagrid, however, did seem to really like them. He shouted “No!” Real hard and then everything around them paused.

“After this I told everyone it was Hagrid, I didn’t even try to stop them from expelling him. When the girl’s parents came to the school I got the badge and a lot of ‘thank you’s. No one ever figured out I was the one to kill her.” Tom said, “Except Dumbledore, he was always suspicious.”

“That was-“

“A lot?” Tom finished, “Yeah, I know. I killed my parents a few weeks later and after that I just stopped caring, I suppose. I can still kill without feeling guilty, though this first kill just feels different.”

“Sorry for making you relive that.” Harrison said.

“If I didn’t want to join you, I wouldn’t have, don’t worry. Though, you do owe me now. You have to show me some memories of the founders.”

“I think I can do that much. It’s the least I can do, really.” Harrison agreed, “You were a really fucked up teenager.”

“I know,” Tom grimaced, “My childhood does that to you. I had to be like this or I would’ve been eaten alive by all the other Slytherins. They were worse back then and the first few years they thought I was a Muggle-Born. That was, until they heard my parseltongue. I got my respect from magical power and connections I made.”

“Makes it more impressive that you are now one of the most heard of wizards. Everyone knows about you, respects you on some level. Even if it’s just respect to how powerful you are, how scared everyone is of you. That’s still respect.”

“Yeah, well.” Tom shrugged, he didn’t know how to take compliments, “I wish I could just tell teenage me to not make horcruxes, to just go into politics, it would’ve been better.”

“At least you’re immortal now. As long as I’m here.”

Tom nodded, “One positive thing came out of my fucked up childhood, I suppose.” He smiled and Harrison felt like he wasn’t talking about immortality.

So, Harrison nodded. He wouldn’t even know what his life would’ve been like if Tom immediately got into politics. He probably wouldn’t have even existed, his mom and dad might have not even been together then.

Even if he had been born, he would probably be the perfect Potter son, a Gryffindor, befriending all the Weasleys, even Ron and Ginny. He would probably look up to Dumbledore.

The thought was sickening.

Luckily, Tom then said, “Well I should probably sent you back to the present, get out of this memory.” Which pulled him out of his train of thought.

Harrison nodded, “Yeah, thank you for trusting me.”

Tom gave him a smile and then suddenly he was sitting in his room again.

He sighed looking at the diary, Tom had never told him about being able to do anything like what they did today through the diary.

So what else could the diary do? Harrison told himself that he would figure it out soon, with or without Tom’s help.

Now, however, he should try to find his friends. Not that a lot of time had passed, turns out that they had only been in the memory for five minutes, but it was a lot longer in the memory.

But, Harrison needed some distraction from thinking about everything he had just seen. And his friends were a good distraction, if nothing else.

So he got up and told Ebony he would come back later today and that yes, he could have a rat once Harrison returned.

Then he started searching for his friends.

Chapter Text

Harrison looked at the small engravement of a snake on the tap. This was it, he remembered it quite well.

“Open.” He hissed, watching the sinks slowly open into a hole. “Stairs.”

The hole changed into one big staircase and just like that, Harrison took his first step down the stairs, it would be the first time he saw the chamber of secrets since he returned to this time.

The way down was a long one, the chamber of secrets was below the lowest parts of the dungeons, below the old prison cells. Below the Slytherin common room. Salazar didn’t want anyone to find his chamber if they tried just digging it up.

Entering the way to the actual chamber door was weird, the place was dirty, full of snake shed and other things- like bones. “People really don’t know what cleaning is.” Harrison muttered to himself, cringing at the sound it made when he took his first step.

He hurried through the cave, hoping that the chamber itself was in an okay shape. Better than this at least.

It didn’t take long, after walking for five minutes he stood in front of the big vault door, decorated with snakes, each one having the function of opening up another part of the chamber.

“Open, please.”

The snakes hissed, suddenly moving, slithering past each other. It almost took a full minute before the door opened up, revealing the long path leading to the entrance hall of the Chamber of Secrets.

It was decorated differently, with water beside the path, snakes every so many meters, carved into the top of waterfalls. Then when he looked at the front of the Hall, he saw the worst statue ever made.

He knew people said there was a statue of Sal in the chamber, but if this was what they meant, well he was disappointed. It just didn’t look right, it didn’t do the man justice. Besides, the features were all messed up, the nose was smaller, eyes slightly bigger, and well everything was just not quite right.

“I am so destroying that.” Harrison said in disgust, making Ebony pop his head out of Harrisons pocket, “Destroy what?”

“The ugly statue.”

Ebony seemed disinterested then, curling up in his enlarged pocket again.

Behind Sal’s statue was a wall made to be shaped like a snake’s head, the mouth slightly open.

“Speak to me, Slytherin. Greatest of the Hogwarts four.” Harrison muttered, knowing that the magic would hear you, no matter how loud you speak. He still thought it was stupid that Sal decided that was the best option for a password, since literally anyone could guess it. Of course, he would never tell the man this to his face.

The snake’s mouth opened further, the tongue flicking out once, before showing an empty hallway. The trick was actually getting up there. There were multiple spells and there was also a possibility of parkour. Harrison, decided that spells were the easier option. He tried to imagine himself already standing there, but since apparating didn’t really work here, this wouldn’t either.

Instead, he slowly floated himself into the mouth.

Everything after that seemed scarily familiar and Harrison knew that the chance that all Sal’s heirs found this place was small, close to zero even. He didn’t even know how much Tom actually knew about the chambers.

At the end of the hallway was the first real room, a sitting room, it wasn’t anything special, nothing here was, besides the library full of Parselscript books, the brewing room and the duelling room.

There was also a bedroom, to make sure Sal could hide in here for a while if he ever needed to, which he luckily never did- in the time Harrison was with them, at least.

The bedroom seemed like It hadn’t been used in the past century, which was probably true. The whole place was full of dust and Harrison knew that if he ever wanted to use this for anything, he would have to clean the whole place.

The next place he checked was the small office, this was probably the room that changed the most. There were new magical items, everywhere. Some were really dark magics, others were lighter magics. It didn’t matter, Harrison knew that the room was full of all kinds of mixed magics, which wasn’t healthy for anyone’s magical core.

The library, like expected was really interesting. There were thousands of books written in parseltongue. Harrison almost regretted telling his friends that he would be done by dinner, that he would join them then. If he hadn’t done that, he would’ve sat down and started reading until he fell asleep and woke up panicking, because he slept through his alarm, tomorrow.

But he couldn’t just leave without at least taking a quick look, right? No one could do that, it’s like you’ve been given the gifts of your dreams, yet you still find the wrapping paper more interesting.

“Master! When are we going to see the other hatchling?” Ebony asked and Harrison laughed, he would never get over Ebony calling a literal basilisk a hatchling.

“Soon,” Harrison replied before walking towards the shelves full of books, it seemed like the library never ended, an infinitive amount of books.

He let himself walk around, careful not to touch any cursed books. He did grab some old diaries, though, looking for interesting ones he could read. He didn’t actually know a lot about this place, this family from the time in between the founders and his time. All he knew were stories from either Sirius and Remus or Tom.

He also found one interesting book on charms; it seemed to be a book explaining simple charms, but also how to use these charms to make something bigger. Most of it required parselmagic, so the fact that the book was written in parselscript makes sense.

It took 42 minutes before Harrison forced himself to leave, knowing that he wouldn’t if he stayed any longer. Also, Ebony’s complaining had gotten quite annoying and Harrison knew he really should try to find the basilisk, talk to it.

He felt Ebony move in his pocket, knowing the snake probably felt the basilisks energy.

“Calm down,” Harrison hissed, he opened the door to the basilisks’ ‘place’. Salazar made a whole living area for the beast.

The basilisk was laying there, looking every bit scary that she should look.

“Hello?”

“It’s been a while since a speaker decided to visit me.” The snake said, “The last one was kind of rude.”

Harrison snorted, knowing that Tom was the last one. “I am sorry it took so long, I have only recently found the time to visit you.”

“I do not blame you, speaker.” The huge snake hissed, “I will not blame you or hurt you, as long as you allow me my freedom.”

“Freedom?”

“It’s easy you allow me to get out of here,” The snake said, “I hate getting locked up here for years, there’s no space, no actual food, no well- there’s not much of anything really.”

The snake was right, of course. The room was pretty empty, it was made to be a very small forest, but compared to the size of the snake, well it just wasn’t the right size, it needed to at least be twice as big.

“I will think about it.”

“Well come back when you know the answer, I have no reason to talk.” The snake hissed, sounding quite angry, “You can let the other snake stay here, I can feel his disappointment of having to leave, I won’t hurt him.”

Harrison nodded, knowing Ebony would want to spent more time with the basilisk. Basilisks were kind of his personal heroes.

The basilisk then put her head down again, an obvious sigh of; this conversation is over. Harrison accepted this, putting Ebony down, telling him that he knows where to find him, would he need it.

Then he left, he left all his findings of the day behind, joining his classmates during dinner, like he promised.

~

I spent hours in that library. Tom wrote back, after Harrison sent him a long enthusiastic message about the library in the chamber of secrets.  It has a lot of useful information, if you know where to look.

Harrison had started writing to Tom the moment he returned, knowing he had a bit more time before he had to get to dinner.

I found some fun books about people in our bloodline, people who are distant relatives, old diaries etc.

Sounds interesting.

I think it would be, I know how it starts and how it is in the present, everything in between is the hard part, though.

So you found books, just to learn more?

It’s an interesting bloodline! I mean the whole parseltongue thing alone is interesting, don’t even get me started about all the other weird things.

Oh?

I’m not going to explain it, you’ll just have to come to the chamber of secrets to read it yourself sometimes.

Fine.
How was the basilisk, by the way?

Kind of annoying, she told me that she wants freedom, only then she’ll have some sort of respect for me.

But giving her freedom would mean-

Yes, letting her go on a murderous rampage again. When I told her ‘maybe’ she told me to get away until I know if I would give her what she wants or not.

I don’t remember her being like that.

Maybe because she wasn’t, maybe you gave her her first taste of freedom in the total beginning.

Could be, I don’t think anyone before me was stupid enough to let the basilisk free.

That is fair enough, to be honest.

Anyways, just try to talk to her about not killing humans. If she’s only killing animals, you could just let her go into the Forbidden Forest for a bit, it’s forbidden for a reason.

That’s actually not a bad idea.

Not all my ideas are bad, I would argue most are pretty good.

Of course, of course they are.
I have one more question actually.

What is it?

The statue, who is that?

He looks like Salazar a lot doesn’t he? Tom’s reply came, That’s because that boy there is his son, that’s why they look like each other. It’s pretty obvious.

Oh, yeah. I saw that he just looked wrong.. He didn’t look like Sal, a lot of subtle differences. This makes so much more sense right now.

There’s a diary of Salazar’s son somewhere in the library, you should read it. I think you would find it interesting.

I’ll try to find it.

~

After all of that Harrison allowed himself to not do anything for the rest of the day, his classmates quickly picked up on his relaxing state, because they were looking at him suspiciously.

The thing is, Harrison always had something to do, he doesn’t just relax.

But Harrison ignored all of them, instead just quietly ate, sometimes talked to someone in his friend group and after dinner, he joined them at the library, playing around with small orbs of magic, while also helping out his classmates.

“You know you’ve been friends with Harrison for too long when a random magic orb flying by doesn’t distract you anymore.” Tracey said, looking at the small misty orb in Harrisons hand, Harrison tapped his finger on it once, turning it yellow.

“Well, it’s good that I’m not distracting you.” He said, looking down at Tracey’s not even halfway finished homework.

Tracey rolled her eyes, “Okay, so it is a little distracting. I got better at ignoring it though!”

“I suppose you did, I’m glad you did, because I love doing this.” Harrison said, looking at the orb floating just a few inches above his hand, “I mean it’s fun and comforting. Also it gives me something to do.”

Tracey nodded, she knew Harrison did it mostly to kill some time, but also for distractions from the unhealthy amount of planning he has to do.

Today, however, he was doing it purely because he wanted to. There was no stress involved or whatever.

Today was a good day.

Chapter Text

Okay, no scrap that. Harrison should’ve known there were no things such as good days.

Harrison had returned to his dorm later then usually that day, which I mean there was nothing wrong with that. However, when he tried to find his diary, the diary, he found nothing. There was nothing in his pockets.

He knew none of the Slytherins would’ve done this, not wanting to risk getting Harrison in a murderous mood. So there was really only one person who cared enough about annoying him to do something like this. And that made it even worse.

The thought that Hope managed to steal something from him without him noticing was- well kind of impressive honestly. Especially because Harrison hadn’t seen Hope.

He wasn’t worried about Hope figuring out he talked to Tom; the spells on the diary made it look like a normal diary, full of parselscript. If she tries to write something in it she would get a small shock, the shocks would get worse every time she tries to write.

Because Tom was that dramatic, right now, Harrison was kind of glad.

Harrison wrote a quick letter to Tom, sneaking out to get it to Hedwig, then he decided that he would try to get the vanishing cabinet from the ROR tomorrow, so the next time- not that he thought anyone would ever be able to steal anything from him again.- he would have a way to go to Tom’s house when something like this happens instead.

After he did all of that, he let himself sleep, hoping Tom wouldn’t be too angry. He didn’t want the man to do something stupid in his rage.

~

Everybody noticed something was up with Harrison the next day. Mostly because of his quick answers and the fact that he showed no interest in anything.

He also spent the whole day looking around the Gryffindor table, trying to spot his Diary.

“God fucking dammit.” Harrison muttered, when once again he saw nothing at the Gryffindor table.

“Okay,” Pansy sighed, “What is up with you today?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It sure as hell does matter! Harrison, you’ve been acting like a fucking child all day! Now, you better tell us what’s going on-“

“Or you what?” Harrison asked, “What exactly will you do?”

Pansy shook her head, “You’re acting like Draco.” She said under her breath, so only Blaise and Harrison could hear it. Blaise snorted, Harrison glared at both of them.

“Someone stole my diary.” Harrison muttered and Pansy’s eyes widened, “The Diary?”

“Yes of course!” Harrison said, “I wouldn’t give a shit if it was a literal Diary! Like sure read all about my life you want, no one will believe you anyways.”

“This could be bad.” Pansy said and Harrison nodded, “I think it’s Hope, but I wouldn’t know how, I didn’t see her all day yesterday.”

“We’ll help you get it back.” Pansy said and Harrison nodded, “Thank you. There’s one positive, if it actually is Hope who stole it there’s no way she could break through all the protective spells.”

“So no secrets?” Pansy asked, sounding relieved.

“I think the only thing she’ll see is Beowulf translated in Parselscript.” Harrison said, “I’m not sure, though, Voldy made the protective spells.”

Pansy snorted, “I hope she tries to translate it, that’d be a pain in the arse.”

Harrison agreed, it really would be funny if Hope managed to translate it.

Pansy, somehow, managed to lift his spirit with this conversation and Harrison was more bearable to be around for the rest of the day. That, however, didn’t mean that the Slytherins stopped being careful around the boy.

And it also didn’t stop Sirius from inviting Harrison, because he knew something was up with his son, to have dinner with him and Remus.

And Harrison should’ve expected it, because the man is a lot more observant then he pretends he is. Especially when it comes to Harrison and Remus.

So Harrison joined them at dinner.

“How was your day?” Sirius asked and Harrison sighed, no easing into the conversation. So he shrugged, “Kind of shit.”

It took Sirius exactly two seconds to mask his surprise, probably because he expected Harrison to lie.

“Don’t look so surprised we all know the reason for all of this,” He motioned at the food, “is because you noticed something was wrong with me.”

Sirius sighed, “I’m worried, pup.”

“And that’s okay, but don’t be surprised that I figured this out, really. You never bother with things like this and I’m glad cause no matter how much I love you guys, the feasts in the great hall are more fun.”

“He has a point, pads.” Remus said, “So will you tell us what’s up?”

“It’s the diary- it well- I think Hope stole it.” Harrison said, the immediate panic on both Remus and Sirius’ face, caused Harrison to continue, “I mean, it’s okay, she won’t figure anything out. There’s hundreds of protection spells on that thing, Tom is careful like that.”

“Thank Merlin he is.” Sirius muttered, ignoring Harrisons look at him using the world ‘Merlin’ instead of ‘God’.

“The problem is,” Harrison said, “I don’t actually have any proof Hope stole it, I didn’t even see her.”

“You didn’t see her? Don’t you have the Diary with you at all times?” Remus asked and Harrison nodded, “That’s why this whole situation is so strange. I saw no Gryffindors when I was with my year yesterday.”

“So you’re not actually sure Hope stole it?”

“Who else would? I mean no one has any reason to and any smart person fears me enough to know that stealing my stuff is not a great idea.”

“Can’t you just summon it?” Remus asked then and Harrison sighed, “No, the protection spells don’t allow it, Tom didn’t want someone to just be able to summon it.”

“Smart.”

“And kind of annoying.”

“Well I am sure Hope stole it,” Sirius said, “I mean it makes sense.”

“Well, I am also almost sure, but that doesn’t mean anything!” Harrison said and Sirius shook his head, “No- I mean, James he had an invisibility cloak, it’s one of the Potter Heirlooms.”

“So I wouldn’t have seen Hope,” Harrison realised, “Because she was literally invisible.”

“That doesn’t change anything, though.” Remus said, “How do we get it back? Boys can’t enter the girl dorms and I’m sure she has it hidden in there somewhere.”

“I happen to have some amazing friends.” Harrison smirked and after that they changed the topic, leaving the problem for later.

~

“No fucking way.” Daphne said, “I’m not sneaking into the Gryffindor room, how would we even do that without people noticing?”

“There’s two ways.” Harrison said, “Both are equally annoying.”

“Oh boy, here we go.” Daphne sighed.

“So first way is Polyjuice potion, easy to get, Tommy boy still has some, I think.” Harrison said, “Though it’s kind of gross.”

“What’s the second way?” Pansy asked, because honestly she was down to sneak into the Gryffindor common room anyways.

“Invisibility potion, lot harder to get, but it will be less gross.” Harrison said.

“I’m okay with the Polyjuice potion.” Pansy said.

“Okay, so I was thinking we could just stun Granger and Ginny Weasley, both are close enough to Hope to not make it suspicious for them to be in her dorms.”

Daphne sighed, “Fine, but I’m Granger. I refuse to turn into little weaslette.”

“Their families have some old fight going on,” Pansy explained and Harrison nodded, “I’m okay with being Weasley, though.”

“I owe you guys.” Harrison said and Daphne was quick to say, “Yes you do, why choose me anyways? Why not Tracey? Or Millicent?”

“Tracey was going to be my third choice, but she wouldn’t be able to stop Pansy once she starts spying on Gryffindors for the gossip. I think if I asked Millicent she’d end up cursing all the Gryffindors.”

“Can’t even argue with that.” Daphne said and Pansy exclaimed, “I will be getting all the Gryffindor gossip, you cannot stop me!”

Harrison snorted, “Yeah, whatever. I will tell you guys once I got the Polyjuice.”

“Okay, I will be mentally preparing myself.” Daphne said and Harrison rolled his eyes, who knew Slytherins would be the most dramatic out of all the houses?

When Daphne and Pansy left his room, Harrison looked at the window to see Hedwig sitting there, he opened it, letting the owl in. Hedwig dropped a letter, before flying- probably to the owlery.

Harrison stared at the letter for a while. Would Tom be mad? Disappointed maybe?

“Fucking hell,” Harrison muttered, grabbing the letter, then sitting down on his bed.

He carefully opened it, at the sight of Tom’s handwriting he missed the Diary more than he had the entirety of the day. It had only been one day, it felt like forever already.

Dear Harrison,

I am glad that you not answering to me isn’t because I pissed you off. I’ve been trying to figure out what I did to anger you, only then your letter came.

We should have expected someone to steal something that you obviously use a lot, especially when it looks like a diary, I mean who doesn’t want to know more about the prodigy?

Even through writing the man managed to sound sarcastic, that honestly should be a talent.

Try to get the diary back, if you can’t for any reason, tell me. I will try to make a new one. A better protected one, maybe I should just bind it to you, making it appear close to you, when there’s a certain distance between you and the diary? That would be a fun magical challenge.

For now, though, we’ll have to go back to talking through letters. If you need anything to get the diary back, please tell me.

Tom.

Harrison sighed out in relief, no anger from the Tom, at least as far as he could tell since the link was currently shut on Tom’s side.

He grabbed paper and started writing a letter back, asking the man for Polyjuice potion. The sooner he got the Diary back, the better.

~

“Does anyone want to come search the Room of Requirement for me? I need to get something from there.” Harrison asked, to no one in particular, it was loud enough to be heard through the entire common room.

Not a lot of people decided to help, but in the end they were with a group of five. Good enough to search the big room.

Blaise, Terence, Flint and surprisingly Iris decided to join. Harrison didn’t actually know the girl, except for the few conversations he had with her during his lessons last year.

“I am searching for a vanishing cabinet.” Harrison explained, while walking to the Room of requirement.

“Okay that’s not what I was expecting.” Terence said, “Why would you even need that?”

“You do know you need two of those to make it work, Black?” Flint asked and Harrison smirked, “Yeah, but I already have the other one, I just hope that this is the right one. I also hope Tom picked up the other one from Grimmaulds place, like I asked him to.”

“Tom?” Iris asked and Harrison looked at Terence, raising an eyebrow. The boy nodded slightly.

“It’s well- The Dark Lord.”

“Ahh, you call him Tom?” Iris asked and Harrison was glad that Terence knew the girl enough to know she was a supporter of the dark side.

“We’re well- we’re equals.”

“Equals he says,” Flint said, “Let’s just say Harrison here is the only person the Dark Lord would call a friend.”

“You actually talk to the Dark Lord?” Iris asked, “That’s amazing, honestly, everyone needs someone to just be open to, even the Dark Lord.”

Harrison looked at the girl, she was different than Harrison expected her to be. She had very soft features, her brown fluffy hair fell till her lower back and she had grey almost purple-ish eyes, they were quite noticeable due to her very pale skin.

“You’re a vampire.” Harrison stated, not even asking first.

The girl laughed, “Kind of. I mean our coven stopped actually drinking blood a while ago, we survive mostly on blood replacement pills. Over time we’ve just kind of- well let’s just say there’s no way any normal vampire would still think of us as vampires.”

“Yet you still follow the Dark Lord.”

“He accepted us,” Iris shrugged, “Even tried to get other covens to follow our lead, managed to convince some of them. Most of them weren’t a fan though. He helps us make sure we don’t run out of pills, he’s a good man. Better than the Light side anyways, any of them would’ve just said we were like any other vampire, blood sucking monsters.”

“But you managed to get into Hogwarts?”

“Also thanks to Voldemort, he’s been playing around with magic, so that we will get the invite letter. It’s all ancient magic, Dumbledore won’t question it if it invites us to come to Hogwarts.”

“How didn’t I know this?” Harrison asked quietly and Iris then started explaining that in his insanity the Dark Lord had gotten worse at doing this, though it didn’t stop the vampires from supporting their Lord, trusting that one day he would start acting like he used to.

“Thanks to you, he is normal enough again, now we’re patiently waiting for him to come visit us.”

“I will ask him to do so,” Harrison smiled and the girl seemed surprised, “That would be- it would be amazing.”

“No wonder Black has everyone wrapped around his finger,” Flint said, “He can promise us anything and we know he’ll actually do it.”

Harrison laughed, “Whatever.”

When they finally arrived at the ROR, Harrison started pacing in front of it, thinking about a room full of lost things.

When the door appeared they quickly entered, inside were towers made out of random stuff. From lost wands to stuffed animals to magical artifacts, literally anything anyone has ever lost in Hogwarts was right here.

“This is going to be annoying.” Blaise muttered looking at all the piles. Harrison nodded, “Yeah, sorry. However, a cabinet should be easy enough to spot since it’s a lot bigger than most of the stuff here.”

“So we split up?” Iris asked and Harrison nodded, “Yeah, that’ll be the fastest way to do this.”

Turns out the room was bigger than it first looked like and it took about 40 minutes until Terence shouted, “I think I got it!”

Harrison walked towards the voice, it was kind of hard to find anyone in this room. In the end, it was worth it, because Terence was standing there next to a cabinet.

A cabinet identical to the one he bought a few weeks ago.

“Is this the right one?” Blaise asked and Harrison nodded, “It looks exactly the same.”

“That should be it then, right?” Iris asked and Harrison nodded, “I think it’s broken, be careful. I don’t know what magic like this could do to people who touch it.”

“Okay so no touching, then how do we take it with us?” Terence asked and Harrison smirked, waving his hand to shrink the cabinet then waving it once again to let it float behind them.

“I think that’s safe.” Harrison said.

“Where do we put it?” Iris asked then, Harrison realised she probably didn’t know he had claimed the room that was once created by the Dark Lord.

“My room,” Harrison said, “Tommy’s old room, big enough for this thing.”

“Don’t question the nicknames he has for the Dark Lord.” Terence said to the girl, “It’s easier to just let him say stuff like that, keeps you saner.”

“I would like to say that I am the person who actually managed to make the Dark Lord sane once again, so you saying that I make people insane is really quite painful.” Harrison said, “I mean, where’s the credit?”

“Honestly it’s a wonder the Dark Lord didn’t go insane again after all that time he spoke to you.”

Harrison glared at Terence, who just smiled back, then he sighed. “He isn’t sane, never has been. He’s just saner.” He then admitted.

“Saner is sane enough for the Dark Lord,” Iris said and Harrison nodded, “Agreed, I mean insane Tommy boy got mad at me for calling him Voldy! That was just unacceptable.”

That earned him a couple of laughs from the group, though they silenced when they came across corridors with more people, not wanting anyone to know what they were actually talking about. Harrison also cast a disillusionment spell on the cabinet, to make sure no one would see it.

They hurried down to the Slytherin dorms and only relaxed started talking again when they were inside.

“Found what you were looking for?” Adrian asked, being the first to notice the group enter and Harrison nodded. “Can we know what it is?”

“Not yet.” Harrison said, for no reason really. It wouldn’t change anything if anyone knew he had a vanishing cabinet. He had to put protection spells on it first, though, make sure no one would accidently enter it and get killed by Tom, that’d be awkward.

Or even worse, someone would enter it before he fixed the thing. He didn’t know what happened to people who entered a broken vanishing cabinet, but he didn’t really want to find out, not now anyways.

“Keep this a secret for now?” Blaise asked, just loud enough for the group to hear, Harrison nodded. He was glad Blaise asked, so he wouldn’t have to awkwardly tell everyone to keep their mouth shut at least for the next couple of days.

Then they just kind of stood there, the whole common room looking at them with curiosity.

Flint saved them from anymore awkwardness, by saying, “Black, I expect you to be in the Library at 8 tonight, alone. We need to put the new team together now that the trials are over.”

“Aye, aye captain.” Harrison said and that made everyone who went to the try outs start talking about the chance of being in the team, almost entirely forgetting about the thing Harrison just bought into the common room.

Chapter Text

It took two days for Tom to send him the Polyjuice potions- In the two days Harrison had to wait, he and Flint made the ‘new’ team, basically the old team with new reserves.- when he finally did he also told Harrison about Hope writing in the diary. He also said that no he would not write back, because he wasn’t sure if it would actually change anything about the protection spells.

Harrison just send him a quick note back, thanking him for the potions and also saying that it’s probably better, to indeed, not reply. Even the slightest change in parselscript could make anyone suspicious. Harrison did not want people to try and break the protection spells, even if it is nearly impossible.

Pansy looked over his shoulder at the letter, then into the box with the carefully placed potions. “He has the potions.” She told Daphne, who groaned and let her head fall on the table, Harrison could practically feel the other tables staring at her. Daphne was known for being emotionless and kind of harsh to people who don’t know her. Harrison heard people call her ‘ice princess’ in the halls.

“Look out, people might think you’re an actual human being.” Pansy whispered, she had obviously noticed the same Harrison had. Lift her head up to very obviously roll her eyes at both of them, then she dropped it on her arms- on the table – once again.

“What did you guys do to break her?” Blaise asked, sitting down next to Daphne, opposite to Harrison.

“Told her Tommy boy sent the Polyjuice.”

“Ah, well at least they get to spy on the Gryffindors, get some blackmail.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Pansy exclaimed, Daphne groaned. “Come on, Daphne, It won’t be so bad.”

Daphne sighed, finally sitting up, “I know, it’s just-“ She scrunched up her nose, “It’s Gryffindors- I mean Hope! We have to look around in her room, imagine what we could find there.”

“Exactly!” Pansy said, “Imagine what we could find.”

Daphne looked at Pansy and shrugged, “Okay, so maybe it won’t be too bad.”

Pansy gave the girl a smile, before asking, “So how do we get the hair?”

“I’ll stun them, keep them stunned till you guys are done, but first we need the password to the common room.” Harrison explained, “Damnit, if only Fred and George were still Gryffindors.”

“Did I hear passwords?” Terence came up behind them, “Ask Wood, he despises Hope, since she absolutely destroyed their chance of winning any quidditch match.”

“Should I be worried about the fact that you just know what we’re talking about?” Harrison raised an eyebrow and that’s when he noticed the twins behind Terence, one of their shop items in their hands. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“It was their idea, to be honest.” Terence admitted, “I just wanted to help out, because figuring out passwords suck and I’m pretty sure McGonagall won’t just give it to you.”

“What about Sirius and Remus, though?” Daphne asked and Harrison shook his head, “They usually only get the passwords from McGonagall when they need it, I don’t think she totally trusts Sirius yet.”

“Wood it is then.” Pansy said and Harrison nodded.

“Don’t worry, Wood is a decent guy.” Terence said, “Just don’t start about quidditch and you’ll be fine.”

“Thanks,” Harrison said and Terence just waved his hand in a dismissive gesture.

And so Harrison started planning how to approach Wood, which was harder than it should be since the boy was always with other people. And Gryffindors did not like Slytherins, everyone knew. The one thing Gryffindors hated more than Slytherins, though, was one certain Slytherin, which – you guessed it..-  happened to be Harrison.

“Just walk up to him and say you need to talk,” Pansy said, “We’re going to need that password soon.”

“That’s easier said than done, I prefer not getting hexed.”

“You won’t, you can just, you know, put up a shield.” Daphne said, “With your magic little hands.”

Harrison laughed, “Magic little hands?”

“It’s what they are, isn’t it?”

“I would like to remind you that everyone here has ‘magic little hands’.”

“Yeah, yeah, but we can’t control the magic from our magic little hands like you can.” Daphne said, “Now stop being a wuss and talk to Wood.”

“Fine, fine.” Harrison said, knowing damn well the whole hall would gape at him the moment he walked over to the Gryffindor table.

He stood up, with a casual smile to his friends and walked over to the Gryffindor table. He felt all the eyes following him, but that didn’t stop him from going over to Oliver Wood. Even the glares from the older years didn’t stop him.

He had to flick one or two unharmful hexes away with a simple twitch of his wrists- he did give the caster a disappointed look each time- but besides that, nothing happened.

“Wood, could I talk to you?” He said, ignoring Wood’s friends. The boy looked up, confused. “Erm, Yeah?” He looked towards the exit of the great hall, silently asking Harrison if he wanted to talk in a place where not everyone was listening to them.

Harrison nodded and together they walked out of the great hall.

“So what do you want?” Wood asked then he smiled, “That sounded way meaner than I intended it to be, sorry.”

“It’s okay, don’t worry I get it.” Harrison said, “It’s well- Hope she stole something important of mine. I don’t expect you to steal it back, but I have some friends who wou-“

“You need the password.” Wood stated more than asked and Harrison nodded, “I wouldn’t- but this item, well I put protection spells on it. It could seriously end up badly if it ends up in the wrong persons hands.”

“A person worse than Hope?” Wood said and Harrison knew that Terence was right about Wood’s dislike for his ex- sister then.

Harrison shrugged in response.

“Okay, fine it’s Wattlebird. It changes in exactly a week, though. Whatever your planning be fast, I won’t give you the next password.” Wood said, Harrison nodded, “Thank you, I owe you, seriously.”

Wood smirked, “Yeah, you do.” Then he turned and walked back into the great hall, Harrison following him.

And when he sat down at his usual place, he was just glad he wasn’t Wood at this moment, at least his friends knew why he went and talked to Oliver Wood of all people. He wouldn’t have to come up with some bad excuse no one would believe.

~

It was pathetic how easy it was to ‘kidnap’ Granger and Weasley. Harrison dropped hairs into both of the potions and gave them to Daphne and Pansy.

“You have three hours.” Harrison said, “It’s a stronger version than the usual one.”

“Made by the Dark Lord?” Pansy looked into the gross potion, “You sure he won’t poison us for his amusement?”

“And anger me? No, he wouldn’t. Also these were made about a month ago, for his own followers.”

“Okay, and the password? Wattlebird right?” Daphne said and Harrison nodded, “Yep, that’s what Wood said.”

Daphne nodded, “Okay, let’s do this.” She said, Pansy nodded. They both took the potion at the same time. Full body shivers followed, “That was gross.” Pansy said, gagging.

“I warned you,” Harrison said and Pansy nodded, her hair was slowly turning red and her skin seemed to boil.

It took them five minutes to totally transition. Harrison waved his hand, turning their Slytherin robes into Gryffindor ones. He knew they would prefer that over actually wearing the uniforms from Granger and Weasley. He waved his hand again to make them fit perfectly.

“Goodluck,” Harrison said and Daphne nodded while Pansy just smiled at him, “This will be so fun!”

~

Pansy and Daphne slowly walked into the Gryffindor common room, Daphne looking around with disgust, “It’s so red.”

“Hermione! Where were you?” Hope seemed to appear out of nowhere. “Me and Ron were about to play wizarding chess. My mom bought me a new set, want to watch?”

“We’ll come in a second, I just have to get my- my charms book!” Daphne said, Hope raised an eyebrow, “I thought you finished that already?”

“I did- I just I found this interesting spell and I thi-“

“Blah, Blah, Blah. I don’t care, ‘Mione. You do your nerdy things.” She said, then smiled all sweetly. “See you in a bit.”

Once she was gone Daphne scowled, “How is Granger friends with her?”

“If you act like that everyone will know you’re not who you say you are.” A voice said behind them. “I mean Gryffindors would never get mad at Hope’s stupidity. Especially not Granger- or Ginny.”

Pansy and Daphne turned around, Of fucking course, Oliver Wood.

He smiled, “The 2^nd years Girl dorms are in the top of the tower, at Hope’s insistence.”

“Thank you,” Pansy said, “You scared us there.”

“Yeah, well.” He shrugged, “Now be quick, you did promise her after all.” He winked at them.

Then he walked away just like that, Daphne sighed, “Am I glad he’s an okay Gryffindor.”

“Come on, Daph. Let’s hurry.” Pansy said, pulling Daphne’s arm. Daphne nodded and followed Pansy up the stairs.

They slowly walked into the room, there were a few beds, but one of them was well- different than the others.

“They share their dorms with all the Gryffindors?” Daphne asked, “It’s good that we’re Slytherin then.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t want to share your dorm with anyone besides me, right?”

Daphne, Millicent, Tracey and Pansy had all decided to just make two groups of two. Daphne and Pansy somehow ending up together, Millicent and Tracey shared the room next to theirs. One of the left over bedrooms was turned into one big common room for just the Slytherin girls.

Daphne just hummed, while starting to look around through Hope’s stuff. Pansy started helping pretty quickly. Together they went through everything, making sure to put all the stuff back in its original place.

When they went through basically the whole dorm and still found nothing. They almost gave up, that was until Pansy had reached under Hope’s pillow and found a note for a Dumbledore meeting.

“Do I want to know why that was under her pillow?” Pansy grimaced and Daphne shrugged, reading over the letter. It was vague, but there was an item mentioned. So Daphne put the letter back and turned to Pansy, “I got this. Just I don’t know, try to find some blackmail or whatever.”

Pansy wanted to stop Daphne from going anywhere alone, really, but as soon as Daphne finished talking she turned and walked away, grabbing a charms book from Hermione’s bed, while also ignoring Pansy telling her to not do this alone.

The last thing she said before closing the Girl’s dorm door was, “They won’t tell Ginny anything. Not what I’m about to ask them.”

“Be careful!” Daphne heard Pansy shout back, she nodded, even though Pansy couldn’t see it through the door.

Daphne spotted Hope and Ron in the common room quickly, it wasn’t hard, they were loud. She sat down on the terrible red couch next to Hope and opened the charms book. Flipping the pages every few minutes.

It took about ten minutes for Ron to say, “You’re reading slowly, ‘Mione.”

Daphne shrugged, “I guess I’m just worried.” She mumbled, “Are you sure Black’s diary is taken care off, I mean what if something happened to Dumbledore?”

Hope sighed, “I’ve told you this before, Hermione. Dumbledore knows what he’s doing, he told me he took care of it, so he did.”

“Yeah, I mean we were there when he stabbed it with that weird knife, you saw the black smoke coming out of it?” Ron said and Daphne took a mental note to ask Harrison about that.

“Of course, I’m sorry. I’m just worried- what if something happens to Dumbledore.”

Hope nodded, “He can take care of this, he’s Dumbledore!”

“You’re right.” Daphne muttered, grabbing the charm book once again, pretending to read. After ten minutes or so, Pansy approached them, “Hermione, can you help me? With Potions.”

Ron raised an eyebrow at his sister, but they didn’t react strangely besides that, so Daphne nodded, silently thanking Pansy for giving her a way out of this place.

When she stood up she grabbed her wand, casting an oblivious, strong enough to not get Ron and Hope suspicious when real Hermione and Ginny returned.

Then they left together, walking back to the dungeons. It was harder than they thought to actually get to the common room, since they looked like Gryffindors. However, once they were inside and Harrison started talking to them, asking them how it went, no one was stupid enough to actually hurt them in anyway.

“The Diary is with Dumbledore, he stabbed it with some knife they said.” Daphne told Harrison, “Some kind of black smoke came out of it.”

Harrison smirked, “Tommy’s a fucking genius.” Then he looked around the common room, realizing everyone was staring at them. Of course they were, Granger and Weasley weren’t known for being friendly with Harrison.

“Polyjuice,” Harrison just announced to the whole room, “If anyone says anything about this outside the common room, well- I don’t think you want to figure out what will happen then.”

That got him a couple scared looks, satisfied, Harrison told Pansy and Daphne to come with him. They could talk more privately in his room.

Daphne and Tracey followed him, because they actually could in the Slytherin dorm- there wasn’t any protection magic against it, like in the Gryffindor dorms.

“Has anyone been in there besides you?” Daphne asked, she- like every other Slytherin- knew that Harrison claimed the Dark Lord’s old room. Harrison shrugged, “Don’t think so. I’ve never really let people in here. Maybe Draco or Blaise once? I’m not sure.” He walked over to his desk, where ebony was currently sleep, it was one of his favourite places. “Don’t worry, I made sure to check with Tom if he left any cursed items, he said he didn’t.”

“Okay, good.” Pansy said, looking around the room, “I still don’t get why you just chose this room, before you even met the Dark Lord.”

“I’ve never been scared of him.” Harrison reminded them, “Besides that, I like personal space.”

“Yeah, obviously.”

“Anyways that’s not why we’re here. Did they say anything else, Daphne?” Harrison asked and the girl shook her head, “They seemed to be sure Dumbledore dealt with it.”

 “Like I said, Tom’s a genius.” Harrison said, “I can’t believe he did this.”

“What did he do?”

“Dumbledore- well he had to know about the horcruxes, only he never knew how many or what Tom made into the Horcruxes. So Tom gave me a Diary looking exactly like his when he was in Hogwarts, he made sure I was always writing in public places since the start of this year. I mean I’m sure this wasn’t his plan at first, but then he started thinking about it, he started suggesting I open the chamber of secrets.”

“I don’t understand-“ Pansy said.

“He made me do things a possessed person would do, well at least how Dumbledore would think a possessed person would act. He made Dumbledore think the Diary was a horcrux and I was possessed or something. So Dumbledore made Hope steal the Diary to give it to him, he destroyed it, now he thinks he knows how to destroy horcruxes. Only it isn’t true, it wasn’t a horcrux and you can’t destroy them by simply stabbing them with some knife, Tom made sure it looked like he could, though.”

“The black smoke.” Daphne said and Harrison nodded.

“So Dumbledore thinks he knows how to defeat Voldemort.” Pansy said, “Only he doesn’t.”

Harrison nodded again, “Tom really is a genius.” He admitted with a small smile on his face.

~

After classes the next day, Harrison asked Sirius to help him sneak out, telling the man he was going to make sure Tom had the other vanishing cabinet, before he tried to fix the one in Hogwarts.

That made Sirius ask him about all his adventures the past few days, once Harrison had shocked both Remus and Sirius with everything he had done, Sirius finally allowed him to just use their fireplace to floo to Tom.

He didn’t think Tom knew he was in the mansion, so he just called for an elf, asking the little creature where Tom was. Turns out, Tom had a small meeting for the first time, just with his followers who played a big role in politics. He was probably working on his alias.

“You’re really not telling me a lot lately.” Harrison hissed when he walked into the big room, everyone was seated around a big table, Tom sitting at the head of the table, on some sort of throne. “You’re so extra.”

Tom looked almost apologetic, then he masked his face, Harrison could still see the slight smile, though.

“Sorry, it was hard to tell you without the damn Diary.” Tom said and then looked around the crowd, “I think we’re done for now, we’ll continue later. I have something important to get to.”

The wizards grumbled and some shot Harrison glares, but neither of them paid attention to Tom’s followers.

When everyone left, Harrison shut the door with a wave of his hand.

“How I missed your effortless displays of magic.” Tom said, Harrison rolled his eyes, but didn’t reply anything, instead he said, “The whole Diary thing was smart.”

“I’m sorry for not telling you, it was more of a way of making certain that when the Diary gets destroyed, we’d get something out of it at first.”

“At first?”

“I mean, the past few weeks-“

Harrison rolled his eyes again, “I know you’ve been making me look like a good obsessed, possessed little puppet in places where Dumbledore could see me. It wasn’t hard to figure it out. Why not tell me, though?”

“It wasn’t on purpose at first, I genuinely started talking to you more, because-“ Tom looked away, cleared his throat. “It doesn’t matter. Then only about two weeks ago I started doing it on purpose, I’m sorry, I truly am.”

“I’m not mad,” Harrison said, “I just came, because I wanted to thank you for the Polyjuice potion and make your ego bigger by telling you you’re a genius.”

It was Tom’s turn to roll his eyes, “Oh thank you so much, my poor poor ego really needed a boost.”

Harrison snickered, “Oh! And, did you get the vanishing cabinet, I have the other one in my room at Hogwarts.”

“Yeah, I made Kreacher get it for me.” Tom nodded, “It’s in my office.”

“Good then I can start fixing the one at Hogwarts. Don’t use it yet, it’d be sad if that was the way you lose your body again.”

“Yeah, yeah, I suspect you’re the one who’s going to use it more, anyways.”

“Hey, you never know.” Harrison said.

“Whatever, I got something for you.” When Tom said that, a book appeared on the table. “It works the same, basically. Except, when you lose this one, it will appear close to you. Only when you want it to, though. Don’t worry, you can still get rid of it, if you’re ever totally done with me.”

Harrison nodded, looking at the forest green book, the cover was just something in Parselscript, not literally, but close enough for someone who can’t read Parselscript to think Harrison is just reading in a Parsel book. He then looked up, “Thank you.”

“It’s selfish of me really,” Tom said, echoing his words from back when he gave him the first Diary.

“That’s what you said the first time.” Harrison smiled, “yet, it’s still one of the best gifts I’ve ever received.”

“You’re welcome then.” Tom said, then he sighed, “I really should get back to the meeting I called.”

Harrison nodded, “Yeah, they didn’t seemed to happy when they got sent away.”

“They’re all trying to get some powerful position in my ranks.” Tom said, “But that just annoys me.”

“Goodluck, then.” Harrison said, “I should get back to school.”

“Right, have fun.”

Harrison left then, when he arrived at Hogwarts he told Sirius and Remus what he did exactly at Tom’s, because the men insisted they should know as Harrisons parents. Then he went back to the common room. There he spent the rest of the evening helping people with whatever subject they were struggling with.

His improved mood, made every Slytherin relax a bit, the slightly on edge Harrison had scared everyone the past few days.

Now, he was normal Harrison again, that was good enough.

~

It took Dumbledore two weeks to call Harrison to his office. Harrison asked Sirius to come with him for two reasons; he thought the man would enjoy the drama and he could use some help with Dumbles.

“Harrison, come in, come in.” Dumbledore said and Harrison corrected him, “Heir Black.”

Dumbledore seemed like he wanted to protest for a second, before nodding.

“I took Sirius, hope you don’t mind.”

“Well-“

“Good to see you, Dumbledore.” Sirius said and Dumbledore finished, “I’ll allow it.”

“So why did you want to see me, Headmaster?” Harrison asked, sitting down on one of the chairs in front of Dumbledore’s desk.

“I wanted to talk about one of your past possessions.”

“Past possessions.”

“A few days ago one of the students came up to my office with a book everyone’s seen you writing in, the student asked me to return it to you.”

“Oh! My journal, where is it?”

“After the student gave it to me,” Dumbledore ignored Harrison, “I felt some weird kind of magic on it, after researching it, I started to believe it was a weapon from Voldemort.”

“Are you suggesting Harrison is a Death Eater,” Sirius asked, “You’re getting crazier with the day.”

“No, however I do believe he could have been possessed.” Dumbledore said, “I am afraid of how long it could have been.”

“I was not possessed, headmaster.” Harrison said, “It was just a journal that I found in my room-“

“Voldemort’s old room,” Dumbledore reminded him.

“Okay, so it could’ve been some dark kind of magic, but it never hurt me. It never possessed me.”

“If you say so.” Dumbledore said, “However, I am going to ask some students to watch you, make sure you don’t do anything strange during the next few-“

“You’re kidding right? You’re not spying on my son.” Sirius said, “I will ask teachers to watch him.”

“You must believe me- I think students watching him would-“

“No you are not forcing some Gryffindors to watch me every second of the day.” Harrison said, “I have ears through this whole castle, not just your office, Headmaster. I will know if you decide to force someone to watch me.”

“Don’t you threa-“

“I think we’re done here, sir.” Harrison said and Dumbledore glared at him, “Next time someone asks you to return one of my possessions, please return it, instead of using it for your weird obsession with beating Dark Lords, who are already dead.”

“What?”

“You heard me, he’s dead. Get over it, the only reason you want people to believe he will return is, because you refuse to believe a child could kill a Dark Lord before you did.” Harrison said and then he stood up, following Sirius- who had already started walking towards the door before Harrison finished.

“I’m glad I could be there, instead of hearing about your meeting with the headmaster from you or Snape.”

“It’s fun, making him absolutely furious and then just being able to walk away, like you did nothing.”

Sirius laughed, “You’re good at doing that.”

“Fuck yes, I am. It’s my talent.” Harrison said, “Besides Dumbledore refuses to believe the founders are my ‘ears’. So he isn’t even scared to talk in front of them. It’s great, I know exactly what he fears or does any given moment.”

“So why didn’t you know about the Diary before sneaking into the Gryffindor common rooms?” Sirius asked and Harrison shrugged, “The founders never told me, I think they might’ve done it somewhere with no portraits. Just to be sure. It’s sad, because it would’ve been so much easier if the founders had just told me.”

“At the same time, it did make you less bored for a while.” Sirius said and Harrison nodded, “True, I am glad for that.”

~

You didn’t make him think it was not a horcrux, right? Would’ve defeated the whole purpose.

Of course not, I’m not stupid, you know? Harrison wrote back, How’s the alias creation going?

Honestly? Pretty well, I’m going to pretend to be a distant relative from well- myself. Claim the Gaunt seat, Lucius said claiming the Slytherin seat for now wouldn’t be smart, wait until you get your seats or until the dark side is closer to winning. Dumbledore knows I’m lord Slytherin, of course.

So you have a name?

No, something Gaunt, I have no idea. I need some fancy pureblood name.

Goodluck coming up with something.

Not going to help me?

Do you want my help?

Good question. Harrison could slightly feel Tom’s amusement,  Don’t know if I should trust the man who named their snake after wood.

In my defence, he refused any other name I came up with.

So the other names are even worse? I really shouldn’t trust you then.

Shut up.

I’m just kidding, any suggestion would help at this point. If you come up with anything, tell me.

I will.

Now, want to test your vanishing cabinet?

Do you want another animal to explode in your office.

Not really, Tom replied and then said, But I do want you to be able to visit me, so let’s do it.

Okay, I’ll sent another rat.

Harrison sent the rat and waited for Tom to say something, it took a while. For a second Harrison was hopeful it worked, then Tom’s handwriting appeared.

Good news? It didn’t explode.

But…

It’s still dead. Tom admitted. Maybe try making the force of the magic less strong.

Give me a second.

Harrison went over to the cabinet waving his hand, trying to even out the magic the cabinet seemed to produce. Then he fixed all the small cracks he could see.

Second try? Harrison asked and it took Tom 30 seconds to reply; Yep, I’m ready.

So Harrison sent another rat through, waited, fixed the cabinet more, sent another rat. They did this for two full hours.

Then suddenly, The rat, it’s alive. Tom wrote, saying something quicker than the past few times. Well Nagini ate it now.

Want me to try coming through?

Do you want to risk it? Tom asked back and Harrison thought for a moment then he wrote down Yes.

So he stepped into the cabinet, closing his eyes. This thing could either teleport him to Tom or kill him. And Harrison was not ready to die yet.

After around a minute Harrison opened his eyes. The world was spinning around him, though he seemed to be in some kind of void. All he saw where little lights. Then, suddenly, a force seemed to pull him downwards. Back into the body that gravity had influence on.

He was still standing in the- no a cabinet.

He opened the door, and saw Tom, sitting, anxiously watching the vanishing cabinet.

“It worked.” Harrison said, the relief in his voice reflecting what he saw on Tom’s face.

“If you had died-“

“I didn’t.” Harrison said, “It’s okay.”

Then something happened that Harrison never thought would happen, Tom stood up from his chair, approached Harrison and then-

He hugged him. Harrison was getting a hug from Tom.

He swore he heard Tom mutter something that sounded like, “That was the scariest minute of my life.” But he ignored that, not giving Tom some sarcastic response.

Instead, he wrapped his arms around the man, hugging him back. This was a once in a lifetime thing- or so Harrison thought it would be.

Harrison honestly didn’t know how long they stood like that before Tom let him go, awkwardly clearing his throat before asking, “So are you staying for lunch?”

Harrison shot the man an amused look, but nodded, because sure, why not?

He knew that his friends would question him where he was later and he would probably tell them some half-truth about having to help Tom with something.

“Well come on then,” Tom said, “Also you’re showing me the memory from the meeting with Dumbledore.”

“Am I?”

“Yes,” Tom answered, “Because I am such a nice host, letting you into my house- my mansion like this.”

“Really at least like half of it is mine.” Harrison said, I mean the whole thing would be mine if you asked Salazar.

“You’re such an annoying child.” Tom sighed and Harrison smiled, “Of course I am, that’s totally what you think of me.”

“You are-“

Harrison cut Tom off, “But, because you are an amazing host and I’m just an amazing person, I will show you the memories. I will also show you some other memories you’ve been wanting to see.”

Tom smirked and nodded, “Thank you.”

Chapter Text

“I’m joining the next one, in five days.” Harrison announced suddenly, when Sirius and Remus started discussing full moon.

“No-“ Sirius started and Harrison sighed, “Please, it will be fine. My animagus form is a literal wolf.”

“Harrison-“ Remus tried, but Harrison shook his head, “I want to, I need to do this. I need to be able to help somehow. I know you don’t like it, but can I try at least once?”

“Harry, please.” Sirius said again and Harrison just shot him his best puppy-dog eyes, which Sirius could never say no to.

“Fine, just this once, if it goes well we’ll discuss if you can join more often.”

“Thank you, Siri.” Harrison said, Sirius sighed, “You’re going to give me grey hairs.”

“You already have some.”

“And I look fucking amazing with them.”

“This is how I felt when you joined for the first time, Siri.” Remus said, “At least Snape gives me wolfsbane now.”

“Otherwise I wouldn’t have allowed it.” Sirius said and Harrison rolled his eyes.

“Don’t you have homework or something?” Sirius asked then, making Harrison raise an eyebrow, “Do you even know me?”

“Alright, alright dumb question-“

“Besides, don’t you have to grade some essays, like the ones from my class?” Harrison said, winking and Sirius groaned, “Reminder to self; don’t start a conversation about school with Harrison.”

Harrison laughed, “I’ll leave you alone then.” He said seriously, standing up.

“Yeah, bye, kiddo.”

Harrison rolled his eyes again, then left, honestly that sentence didn’t even deserve a response.

And he did have something to get to, some weird meeting Flint called for the quidditch team.

When he entered the changing room- of all places, a meeting there?- he actually managed to look embarrassed while saying, “Sorry for being late.”

No one believed that he was actually sorry, though, which was honestly fair.

“Sit down, Black.” Flint said.

“Aye, aye captain.”

Harrison flopped down on a bench next to Terence, who looked just as confused as him.

“In two weeks is our first match.” Flint said, “I know last year went well and we didn’t change the team at all, except for reserves, so we should be fine, that doesn’t mean we can all chill out now. We are doing more trainings, I don’t want any stupid mistakes in the air.”

“There’s no way you actually called us here for that.” Terence said.

“I didn’t,” Flint said, “Draco Malfoy’s dad wanted to buy Draco a way into the team, but when Draco insisted Harrison is a better seeker, which we all agree with of course, he settled with the reserve chaser position. Still giving everyone in this team a new broom.”

That’s when everyone finally saw all the Nimbus 2001’s behind Flint. The fact that no one noticed made Harrison think it had some kind of disillusionment charm on it, but he ignored that.

“Lucius Malfoy just gave this? Because Malfoy got a reserve role?” Montague asked, Flint shrugged, “I was just as surprised as you are. Turns out Draco is fine with Harrison having the seeker role. Not that I would’ve given it to Draco either way. Everyone can claim one of the brooms now, this broom will be yours. I expect everyone to take care of their brooms well.”

When everyone picked a broom Flint allowed everyone to go, he didn’t really have anything to add.

“Harrikins!” Fred shouted when Harrison had left without practically saying anything, which Harrison didn’t think was that weird, but others might have.

“Hey Gred, Forge.” Harrison said, the twins now each walking on one side of Harrison.

“How did your little diary retrieving mission go?” George asked, “I can’t help but notice you have a new book you always write in now.”

“Always so observant.” Harrison said sarcastically, “I’ll tell you the full story later. When we’re not somewhere literally anyone could listen.”

George looked sceptical and Harrison sighed, “I mean it. I will tell you the story later.” Ever since Harrison told Fred and George his truth- which had been a few months ago. They had gotten closer, but it also made the twins doubt Harrison sometimes. Not that they didn’t trust Harrison, they just didn’t know if he would tell them the full truth.

Fred nodded, “Okay, we’ll come by your room tonight. You better have an epic story for us.”

“With villains and all, just for you guys.” Harrison answered and Fred snorted, “Maybe you should just become a writer.”

“Write about all my adventures in Hogwarts? Harrison Black and the revival of the Dark Lord.” Harrison rolled his eyes, then smirked, “Maybe I should, then publish it in the muggle world as one of those fantasy books.”

“I don’t think the ministry would be too happy with that.” George said.

“Well, I would probably have to wait till I’m a grownup anyways, by then Voldy should rule this place. I could convince him.”

“You’re not actually planning on doing this, are you?”

“Of course not, too much effort, besides it would be boring. I really don’t do a lot, it just seems like I do.” Harrison said, “Just thinking about filling the empty spaces between all the adventure makes my head hurt.”

“Conversations like these would work,” Fred said, before looking at George, “What do muggles call it? Breaking fourth wall?”

“We’re outside.” George said, Fred shook his head, laughing.

“Well, I can tell you now, I won’t be an author anytime soon. If I decide to write a book, it will most certainly not be about my life.”

~

“Can’t you just call yourself Marvolo Gaunt?” Harrison asked, “Or- I don’t know Marcus? Ma- Malv? Wait no that sucks.”

“Dumbledore can’t find out,” Tom sighed, “Marvolo wouldn’t work, Marcus though.”

“Who cares about Dumbles? He’ll be suspicious anyways. The truth is there’s no reason to connect you to Tom Marvolo Riddle or Tom Marvolo Riddle to Voldemort for anyone who’s not me or Dumbledore.”

“So you’re saying just go with Marvolo Gaunt?”

“Fuck yes. Besides, it would be funny, Dumbledore going crazy about something no one else notices.”

“It could work,” Tom decided and Harrison nodded, “It will, besides like I said Dumbledore will always think you’re Voldemort, your name won’t change that.”

Tom wrote the name down on some magical piece of paper, it must be from the goblins, they had been helping Tom to create this alias. They weren’t dark, perse, but they hated Dumbledore just the same, so they helped where they could.

“Finally that’s done,” Tom said, standing up from the chair behind his desk. “Now I just have to attend the meetings and try to make allies, none- dark family allies.”

“Well with your charming personality that’ll be done in no time, right?” Harrison said jokingly and Tom’s lip curved upwards, a slight smirk on his face now. “Charming, huh?”

Harrison rolled his eyes, “I mean as someone who knows you well, I can say it’s all one big lie, of course. People still fall for it, though.”

“I feel like I wasn’t that charming when you met me.” Tom replied and Harrison laughed, “Understatement of the century. In your defence, you were well- insane- more so than now. And of course on the back of someone’s head.”

“Not my finest moment I’ll admit.” Tom said, the smirk which had grown through the conversation now turning into a grimace.

“It would be worse if that were your finest moment.”

Tom grabbed something from his desk, Harrison shot him a questioning glance. The paper was folded, which on its own was curious, Tom Riddle was not the kind of man to just fold paper.

Tom glanced at him, smirking at the obvious curiosity. “Curiosity killed the cat.” Tom said, Harrison shot him a glare, “Satisfaction bought it back.”

Tom opened the paper handing it to Harrison, before sitting down behind his desk again. “It’s the cave,”

“The cave?” Harrison asked, looking at the map.

“Where my horcrux is hidden. We should go there.”

“Now?” Harrison looked up, seeing Tom shake his head. “No, tomorrow. I’ve told you everything you need to know at the start of this year. Finally I’m not constantly babysitting death eaters, but I also don’t have Wizengamot meetings yet. I think this is the best time.”

“Because you want to drink a whole potion of one of the worst potions made in history, right.” Harrison stated, remembering the conversation they had a while ago.

“It’s you or me.” Tom replied, “I’d prefer it’d be me.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like this stupid plan.”

Tom ignored what Harrison said, instead he asked, “So will you be here tomorrow?”

“Of course, I’m not taking the risk of you getting impatient and taking anyone else.” Harrison answered and he swore he saw Tom smile for a second, before Tom masked his emotions again, “Good.”

“So how late do you want me to be here?”

“Just come once you can get away from your friends.” Tom said, “Whenever that is.”

“Alright, Tommy boy.” Harrison replied, smiling at the man, who shook his head. “Your nicknames are getting ridiculous.”

“You said that I could call you Tom.”

“Yes, Tom not ‘Tommy boy.’”

“You think I could just call you by your name? I’m not that boring, honestly, didn’t you read my friendship contract before signing it?”

“If there was a contract I wouldn’t have signed it.” Tom replied and Harrison dramatically put a hand over his heart, “You wound me! Doesn’t our friendship mean anything to you, Tommy boy?”

Tom snorted, “You’re such a child.”

“I am in fact.” Harrison said, “Good job on knowing my age.”

“How is it that you switch so fast between being mentally 85 and 4?” Tom asked, “That’s a talent, really.”

Harrison shrugged, “Suppose it comes from the way I was raised, kids really had no freedom back in the tenth century.”

“That’s the first time you said out loud that you were raised in the tenth century.” Tom noted, “That’s- well almost unbelievable.”

Harrison shrugged, “Surprisingly it’s not that different from now, well I mean of course a lot of courses were slightly different and some things didn’t exist yet.” Harrison paused, not quite sure how to describe it. “But, it’s well, home? Hogwarts didn’t change.”

Tom nodded, “You didn’t come outside of Hogwarts a lot. The whole world was different then except for the part where you lived.”

“Yeah, pretty much. I mean for me it’s almost unbelievable you grew up during a world war, but if I had just gone out sometimes- well there were wars everywhere.”

“Be glad you didn’t grow up in some war,” Tom muttered, “Might have made you end up like I am.”

Harrison looked at the man, maybe he shouldn’t have bought up Tom’s childhood years, but there was no taking back now. All he could do was- “I don’t think I would’ve mind.” Harrison replied, “I mean- you’re a genius. The horcruxes were just a dumb decision on your part, but at least you admitted they were a problem and you are trying to do better.”

Tom seemed uncomfortable, he probably wasn’t used to getting compliments- well not in this way, not from someone who didn’t fear him, or had some scary obsession with him.

“You’re not too bad yourself,” Tom said, very awkward still and Harrison laughed.

~

“Harrison, Harrikins.” Harrison heard outside his door when he returned from Tom, of course, he had promised the twins to tell him about the Diary and his new Journal- or whatever you liked to call it.

Harrison opened the door to his room, letting the twins in. George picked up Ebony, before sitting down on the chair by his desk, Fred just flopped down on his bed.

Harrison grabbed a second chair- which he had recently gotten, meaning he had just grabbed a random rock and made it into a chair.

“So the diary?” Fred asked and Harrison started telling them the story.

“Hope stole it, she gave it to Dumbledore so it wasn’t there when we tried to find it in the dorm, but we did figure out Dumbledore thought it was a horcrux. This is a big positive, of course, since it means Dumbledore thinks he’s got one of the horcruxes destroyed, while Voldemort’s still dead. He didn’t, though, and Tommy boy is already alive.” Harrison said, “The new Journal is just something Tom made for me, so we could continue talking easily. This time without anyone getting suspicious.”

“And Voldemort told you about this before he gave you the diary?”

“Nope, I mean I felt that the magic around the Diary felt like his- but I’m also kind of sensitive to his magic? Since I know it, it’s familiar.”

“And you spent a lot of time with him.” George said, while still stroking Ebony’s scales.

“That too,” Harrison muttered, not knowing what George meant with that.

George smirked and Fred just laughed.

“I will kick the both of you out.”

“Goodluck with that, Harrikins.” Fred said, Harrison knew it would be near impossible to force the twins to leave if they didn’t want to leave.

“You guys are so annoying.”

“Older brother duty’s, you’re stuck with us now, kiddo.” George said, grinning.

“Currently thinking about the mistakes I made that lead me to this moment.”

“Oh- Common! You love us!”

“You guys are okay, I suppose.” Harrison admitted and Fred and George started cheering, like that was the best thing they ever heard.

“Did you hear that, Freddie? We’re okay!”

“Nicest thing anyone has ever said to us.”

Harrison rolled his eyes, “You guys really fit right into the Black family, everyone is just as dramatic as yo-“

There was suddenly a knock on Harrisons door.

“That’s unusual.” Harrison muttered, just when Fred said, “I thought no one wanted to come in this room, like ever?”

Harrison walked towards the door, opening it to see Montague. Which was even stranger, because of everyone in the quidditch team, Harrison was probably the least close to Montague.

“Hi?” Harrison said and Montague nodded in greeting, “Snape wanted to see you.”

“Snape? I haven’t spoken to him in a while- outside of class. Why would he want to see me?”

“Just the messenger, Black.” Montague said, “I suggest going quickly, curfew is in a bit and you know how Percy gets when he has to patrol the dungeons.”

“Percy is on dungeon duty today?”

Montague nodded, “We’ve been warning everyone all day.”

Fred and George looked at each other, eyes lighting up.

“No- Fred, George, don’t.” Harrison said and Fred and George sighed, “Why do you just know what our plan was?”

“It’s unfair!”

“It wasn’t that hard to guess,” Harrison said, “Either way, if you do something make sure you don’t get caught.”

That made the Twins eyes light up again and Montague just muttered, “I’m glad I’m not Percy right now.”

Harrison nodded in agreement, “Well, I will leave. George don’t break Ebony please.”

“I would never, I love the little guy.” George said and then Harrison left, wondering if it was a good idea to leave Fred and George in his room, alone, especially now the cabinet was there.

He decided to ignore his worries, focussing on the getting to Snape’s office instead.

He opened the door, not even knocking. “You wanted to see me sir?”

Snape looked up, nodding, motioning to the seat on the opposite side of the desk. “I was at Voldemort’s today.”

“You were?” Harrison asked, he knew he had spent a good two hours with Tom, but he hadn’t seen anyone else.

“Of course you didn’t notice,” Snape seemed amused by the fact, “My Lord tends to forget about his followers when you arrive. However, I must admit I overheard a bit of your conversation.”

“Don’t let Voldy know that, he won’t be happy.”

“I know, I hope I can trust you won’t tell him. What I wanted to ask is that you come to my office once you return tomorrow night, I have to make sure my students are safe. I won’t try to stop you, because I know it wouldn’t work. I wouldn’t even know where to start since I don’t know how you travel between Hogwarts and My Lord’s mansion, but I think it’s fair of me to request you letting me know you arrived at Hogwarts safely.”

“I’ll come by your office tomorrow night.” Harrison promised, knowing he would have to visit Remus and Sirius too. “Was that all, professor?”

“Actually, I wanted to ask about the changed wolfsbane you were working on. How far is the progress?”

Harrison sighed, “I got stuck for a while at a certain point, I then spent hours translating different ingredients from parselscript to English, since for some reason that isn’t just readable, most names aren’t to be honest. It took a while, but I think now that I’ve done that I’m coming closer to the finished product.”

“Good, I would like to suggest using a prisoner as test subject, we’ll have to request the ministry, but they tend to allow it.”

“That would actually be helpful, I will come to you once I think I have something that will work, so we can try it out together.”

Snape nodded, “That was all.” He handed Harrison a signed paper, “I heard that Mr. Weasley is patrolling tonight, you might need that.”

“Thank you, sir.”

~

“Honey, I’m home!” Harrison shouted when he arrived at Voldemort’s place, not sure if the man could hear him. At the lack of a response Harrison guessed the man didn’t hear him, sadly, it would’ve been funny.

Harrison started wandering the halls, not asking an elf to help him, because honestly the halls in Tom’s manor were interesting.

“I apologise-“ He heard a voice, almost begging. Harrison froze, not sure how to react.

“You should be happy you’re still alive.” He heard a familiar voice, Tom’s voice. “After all, if you had done this just a year ago you would have been dead by now.”

“I k-know, I thank you-“ The man started, trying to thank Tom for not immediately killing him, but Tom cut him off. “Don’t thank me, thank him.” He said and then in Parseltongue, “I know you’re here, Harrison.”

Harrison walked in, “What did he do?”

“Tried to assassinate the Potters in public,” Tom answered, “I think we agree neither of us would care if they died, but that doesn’t mean we just kill them in public.”

“And here I was thinking you lost your sanity again.”

“Such high expectations you have of me.” Tom said, “I gave them orders to not do anything that would attract too much attention. These fools only respond to fear, if I just order them to do something and get angry when they don’t-“

“So punish him.” Harrison said, honestly, he should’ve expected this when he decided to befriend Voldemort. Also, Harrison personally had nothing against torture, you really couldn’t when you grew up with Salazar. “Just make it quick, we’re on a tight schedule.”

Tom nodded, turning back to the still begging death eater. A simple Crucio did the job, it scared the man enough to not make him do such a stupid thing again.

“Rabastan,” Tom said, Harrison was about to ask what he meant when Rabastan suddenly walked in.

“Yes, My Lord.”

“Don’t let him leave the manor until I’m back.” Tom said and Rabastan bowed, promising Tom to keep an eye on the Death Eater.

“I don’t torture people without having someone close to clean up my mess, especially when I know that I had other plans.” Tom explained, Harrison not even having to ask why Rabastan was there. “Besides anyone would want to escape Bellatrix, so Rabastan didn’t even complain when I invited him to help me with this.. task.”

“Bella’s still that bad?” Harrison asked and Tom nodded, “Yes, she’s gotten better, a bit. But she’s still crazy and way too obsessed. I try to avoid her, I don’t enjoy human touch.”

Harrison snorted, “Understatement of the century.” He was quiet for a bit and then risked saying, “Though, I do remember you hugging me a week or so ago.”

They had both not mentioned the hug, both ignoring the fact that something changed. That now, whenever they were together, casual touches seemed less awkward. A hand carefully placed on a shoulder was a lot more common. Though, there was no repeat of the hug.

Tom stayed silent beside him, Harrison looked at the man and saw his carefully placed mask he always had around others. It made it almost impossible to read the man.

When Rabastan left the room with the tortured Death Eater Tom sighed, “I- well, it’s not always bad, I suppose. That’s all you’re getting.”

Harrison gaped at the man, “Wha- You- you just admitted- That’s enough. I didn’t expect you to respond.”

“I didn’t expect myself to respond.” Tom muttered, Harrison was probably not meant to hear it, because after that he said, “Whatever, let’s get the locket.”

And Harrison didn’t ask more about Tom’s respond, instead he said, “So what’s the plan?”

“Well, you don’t listen to anything I say while drinking the potion,” Tom said, “If I shout telling you to stop, body bind me for all I care, make sure I drink it all, don’t you dare take a sip yourself.”

“I know, Tom.” Harrison said, “You already said all that.”

“I need you to promise me.” He paused, “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I promise,” Harrison said, then he grinned, “Now stop being soft, people might think you have a heart.”

Tom snorted, “Right, because anyone would believe if you told them I said that.”

“I have the evidence, Tommy boy.”

“You can make fake memories.”

Harrison didn’t have any response to that, so he motioned for Tom to continue with the plan.

“We will apparate to the edge of the anti-apparition wards. From there we walk to the cave- well- not really walk.” Tom said, “It’s in the sea, I mastered flying without broom to get into the cave without having to swim.”

“I can’t-“ Harrison started, but Tom cut him off, “I will just take you with me, hold on.”

He offered Harrison a hand and Harrison grasped it, Tom apparated both of them to a rock in the sea, like he had said. Harrison was glad Tom had a way to get there without swimming, it seemed like hell.

“How did you even find this place?” Harrison asked.

“There was a small village close by, my orphanage went there a lot, I wanted privacy so I just wandered here one day.” Tom explained, “Later this became a place for tries at Necromancy, there’s a lot of inferi in the cave.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Harrison asked and Tom offered him an almost-smile, “Because you know me.”

“Okay you might want to hold on a little tighter for this,” Tom said, pulling Harrison closer into something that could only be called a half-hug.

Harrison wanted to make some remark, but then suddenly his feet weren’t on the ground anymore and he was so glad that Tom had held onto him this way, because he would’ve fallen into the water if Tom hadn’t. So instead of saying- well anything, Harrison wrapped his arms around Tom as good as he could, holding onto the man as if his life depended on it.

It luckily only took a few seconds till Tom landed, placing Harrison carefully on the ground.

“You’re teaching me how to do that.” Harrison said and Tom smirked, “Glad I still get the chance to teach you something, oh big genius.”

“Don’t let it get to your head.”

Tom waved his hand, casting a wandless and wordless Lumos, Now a ball of magical light in his hand.

“Show-off.” Harrison muttered, Tom replied with a, “Says you.” Before beginning to explain the different parts of the cave, “This part is the entrance, that door.” He pointed at a door, “Would normally need blood to open, but it recognizes Slytherin magic, so we don’t have to cut into our hands. After that we only have to pass a lake full of inferi.”

“Only?” Harrison asked, disbelief clear in his voice.

“I might’ve been a bit- dramatic.”

Harrison nodded, “Indeed, a bit.”

“Come, let’s just go, get this over with.”

Harrison nodded, Tom made a point, he didn’t exactly want to stand here the whole evening. So they walked towards the stone wall together, Tom muttered something under his breath, while waving his wand.

Must’ve been a powerful spell, since Tom would never use his wand for a spell he could do without one.

Harrison’s thoughts were proven right a second later, when cracks in a door shape started appearing in the wall, Tom let his magic loose, it surrounded both of them totally, but also made the door light up.

Harrison gasped, the feeling of Tom’s magic making the horcrux inside him feel more complete than it had been in a while. Also, Harrison had to admit, the room looked beautiful with the slight glow that came from the room. The rocks surrounding them almost looking gold-ish.

The doors then slowly started opening, the glow started fading and Harrison got pulled out of his thoughts by the sudden darkness, Tom’s lumos once again the only thing lighting up the room.

The next room was dark, darker than the one they were in right now.

“Don’t step into the water.” Tom warned, “And that’s not one of those, don’t listen to what I say things. It might kill you.”

Harrison nodded, only a minute later releasing Tom couldn’t see him, but still not bothering a respond.

Tom stopped at the edge of the rock they were standing on, slowly reaching into the water.

“Didn’t you just tell me to not touch the water?” Harrison asked and Tom nodded, “I did, but I-“ he stopped pulling on something, Harrison saw a boat appear out of the darkness, “Was looking for this.”

Once Tom pulled the boat close enough, they both got into it. Harrison used magic to get to the other side, almost complaining about Tom not helping, until he noticed Tom was sitting, with his eyes closed. He focused on Tom’s magic and felt it as something that could only be explained as a growing spark.

Tom was trying to keep the inferi calm, he was the only person who could.

So Harrison didn’t complain, instead started going faster. It took longer to get to the other side than Harrison thought it would, almost like someone kept pulling them back. Either to sabotage or protect them.

Both of them quickly got out of the boat.

“Why didn’t we just fly here too?” Harrison asked and Tom nodded towards the boat, “I don’t think I could use magic after all of this, I don’t want us to get stuck in this part of the cave for a while, we’ll need the boat to get out.”

“What about getting back to the anti-apparition wards?”

Tom sighed, “Well, I was hoping you could come up with some creative solution for that.”

“You didn’t think telling me that before would’ve been smart?”

Tom shrugged, “Or we could try to climb past these rocks to the village, there you can apparate.”

So Tom had thought this through, Harrison thought, maybe coming up with another solution would be easier, though.

Tom made Harrison follow him up the rock, when Tom reached the basin he shot Harrison one look so full of trust, Tom trusted him to get them both back safely, to not let anything happen to either of them. Harrison nodded, Tom looked back to the basin and started drinking.

It took around five sips till Tom seemed shaken up, more so than Harrison had ever seen him. Harrison wondered how powerful the potion was.

After five minutes the begging started, “Just kill me.” Tom whispered, “Anything besides this.”

Harrison wondered what Tom was seeing, was it the orphanage? Maybe it was himself dying, Harrison almost laughed at the thought, under different circumstances he would have laughed. Then he remembered Tom had asked him to kill him, so it was worse then. Worse than dying.

“Just keep drinking.” Harrison said, while starting to assist the man, glad that Tom had taken him and not anyone else. Any other person would have taken the chance to sabotage Tom, in his weak state, Harrison just wanted to help the man, he would blame himself if anything happened to the man.

“Stop, please.” Was the next thing Tom said, in such a way that Harrison almost paused the now force-feeding- or drinking?

Then he remembered what Tom had said, to not stop no matter what he said, so Harrison continued, forcing the quickly getting even weaker Tom.

It took another fifteen minutes for the potion to be finished, since the breaks between sips became longer and longer. When they finally reached the bottom, Harrison quickly grabbed the Horcrux, something felt off about it, but he ignored that in favour of helping Tom.

He grabbed a stone, transfiguring it into a goblet, filling it with water. He handed it to the Dark Lord, watching as the man drank the water like he hadn’t had anything to drink for two days.

Afterwards he assisted the man in getting back, first to outside the cave, then back to the rock. Harrison decided to transfigure a small rock into an okay functioning boat, it probably wasn’t the safest option, but it was the fastest option.

And it worked, so Harrison wasn’t going to complain. As soon as he reached the end of the wards, he grabbed the Dark Lord’s arm, apparating both of them back to Tom’s house.

He left Tom in his office with the promise of returning soon, before quickly going back to Hogwarts to tell Snape everything went well.

“Sir?” Harrison asked and Snape answered, “You can come in, I take everything went well?”

“As well as I expected,” Harrison sighed, “I think I’ll stay at Voldemort’s tonight, would you mind telling Sirius and Remus I’m okay. The Dark Lord his state right now-“

“He drank the potion.” Snape stated, it wasn’t even a question and all that Harrison could do is nod, “He did.”

“Go,” Snape said and Harrison nodded, glad Snape knew why he wanted to go back to Tom, make sure the man would be okay.

Harrison quickly went back to his dorm, only telling his year mates, “I’m going to Toms.”

None of them asked any questions when they noticed Harrison was in a hurry.

Harrison quickly went to Tom, who was sitting on a small couch he had in his office.

“Hey,” Harrison said, looking at the man, worried. “Are you doing okay.”

Tom looked at him, before nodding. “Yes- I’m okay.”

Harrison didn’t believe a word the man said, but didn’t press further for a real answer, instead sitting down next to the man. Only then he noticed Tom was sitting with the Horcrux in his hand.

“It’s not real.” Tom said, “There’s no magic, also there’s this.”

He opened the horcrux handing the note to Harrison, Harrison carefully unfolded the piece of paper.

To the Dark Lord,

I know I will be dead before you read this, but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can.

I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you’ll be mortal once more,

R.A.B.

“Regulus Black was always a good follower of mine, I trusted his elf with my horcrux.” Tom explained, “I can’t even be angry at him, because if I were in his position I would’ve done this too. You should be glad you never met the really insane version of me.” Tom sighed, “I don’t think you would’ve even tried to help me.”

“Did he die?” Harrison asked and Tom nodded, “He’s one of the inferi, really the worst dead, it’s like a constant state between the living and death, but you can’t even control anything yourself.”

“And you’re not angry?” Harrison asked next, because that honestly surprised him the most, Tom not getting angry over betrayal.

“I think I’m too tired to be angry,” Tom admitted, “I mean, he betrayed me- the course, but I respect him. In a weird way, he gave up his life to make sure the next person could kill me. The next person would have been you, you are ‘my match’ as Regulus said.”

“Well, I’m not killing you,” Harrison then snatched the locket from Tom’s hands, “It does look familiar.”

“It’s the Slytherin locket, of course it does.”

“No- I mean I’ve seen something familiar at Grimmaulds place.”

“You have?” Tom asked and Harrison shrugged, “I think so, that doesn’t matter, though. I’m sending you to bed.”

“You can’t just send me to bed, you’re the child here.”

“Try to stop me in this state,” Harrison challenged.

“Fine, I’ll go.” Tom said and Harrison laughed when Tom stood up, the man would probably be asleep for a while. Right before Tom closed the door to his own office he turned and said, “The bedroom next to mine is the Heir bedroom, take that one if you want. Salazar knows which one I mean.”

Harrison nodded, “Goodnight.”

Tom didn’t respond and as soon as he closed the door Harrison sighed, leaning back further into the couch, today had been exhausting.

He stared at the wall for another five minutes before he decided to search for his room, asking a portrait of Sal for help.

When he entered the room It looked a lot like his room back in the founders time, just more green and less wall paintings. Harrison didn’t bother looking around for too long, he let himself fall on the big bed in the middle of the room.

Then he fell asleep.

~

The next morning he had breakfast with Tom. It was kind of weird, eating breakfast with Tom before going back to school for classes.

Which were in an hour- he had a free morning, thank god.

“We could save Regulus.” Tom said suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence between them.

“Do you want to?” Harrison asked, surprised and Tom sighed, “He was a loyal follower till the end. The only reason he decided to go against me is because he knew that at that point it was better for everyone.”

“How are you so sure?”

“I don’t,” Tom admitted, “But like I said yesterday, if I had been in Regulus position back then, I would’ve made the same choice. Whatever that monster was, was not me. It was really the worst period of my life.”

“If you want to give it a try, I will help you.” Harrison said, “If just so that Sirius can have his brother back. But you will have to promise that you’re not bringing him back to torture him to death.” Harrison said the last part jokingly, because he knew that Tom wouldn’t, Tom had sounded so sincere about not being too angry.

“Don’t be so surprised I’m being nice,” Tom said, “I wouldn’t even have thought about bringing him back if I didn’t know how important he was to your father, so for you in extend.”

Harrisons looked up at the man, he should have known. Tom was doing this for him, he was angry, so angry, Harrison could hear it in his voice.

But Regulus was Harrisons family, Tom knew that. Tom was trying for Harrison, not to become a better person or whatever crap he had said yesterday.

“I would appreciate it, if we could try.” Harrison said and he saw Tom smiling, just slightly. The man nodded, “That’s the least I can do after you risked your life by going with me yesterday.”

Harrison scoffed, “It wasn’t that dangerous.”

Tom smirked, “Oh of course it wasn’t.” He said sarcastically, “That’s why everyone who walks in there never returns, cause it’s entirely safe.”

Harrison rolled his eyes.

 ~

“You really want to do this, cub?” Remus asked, they were currently sitting in the shrieking shack, waiting for the moon to rise. Remus could transform any second.

Harrison nodded, “I do.”

“I’ll be here the whole time,” Sirius said, “Sorry if I attack you if you try to do anything to Harrison, Moony.”

“Oh no, please.” Remus said, “Kill me for all I care.”

Harrison sighed, “No one will be killing anyone, okay? I’ll be fine.”

“That’s wha-“ Remus started, but mid sentence he was cut off, Harrison could see the moon shining slightly through the window. The man was now laying on the ground.

The sounds of bones cracking was slightly gross, Harrison had to admit.

“Animagus form, Harry.” Sirius said, Harrison nodded, changing into his black wolf form.

Remus’ transformation went quickly and the wolf form sniffed around curiously. Approaching Harrison and Sirius slowly.

Harrison growled, before Sirius could. The werewolf looked up, seemingly surprised, before it made a noise and laid down on the ground.

Harrison took that as Remus saying ‘it’s me’.

Sirius thought the same, because he started barking happily and ran around the werewolf, who stood up again.

Harrison just approached the big wolf, laying down next to it, but Sirius nudged both of them with his nose, trying to make them follow him.

It took Sirius a while to actually convince them to come with him, but once he did, they all spend the night running through the forbidden forest, chasing rabbits or birds.

Towards the end of the night they came back to the shrieking shack, all of them laid down and fell asleep. When they woke up Remus was not a wolf anymore, just regular Remus.

And Harrison had finally proved to Remus and Sirius that he would be okay coming with them, since they invited him to join them again next night.

Almost like a family activity, all they were missing were the twins.

Chapter Text

Time is a funny thing, one moment the year just started and the next moment it’s almost Christmas break.

Slytherin had won their first quidditch match easily, now Flint was once again relaxed, instead of constantly stressing out. After the quidditch match Christmas was rapidly approaching and you noticed it through the whole castle. Everyone needed the break and of course everyone was excited to spent the holidays with their family.

Harrison however spent his free time trying to figure out how to expose Lockhart as a fraud, without getting anyone into life threatening situation.

He was currently sitting in Tom’s office, studying Lockhart’s books, trying to find anything, a clue as to how to do this. He wasn’t actually sure where Tom was, but lately he had come here more often to just escape the crowds in Hogwarts.

“Please don’t tell me you’re some Lockhart fan.” Tom spoke, when he saw what Harrison was looking at, the man was standing in the door opening of his office. “That would be enough to murder the oh so feared Dark Lord Voldemort, because if that were the case I’d jump off this building right now.”

Harrison snorted, looked up and saw Tom standing in his formal robes.

He looked away, “I’m trying to prove the fool is a fraud.”

“Just let him fight the-“

“Without killing anyone.”

“Bummer,” Tom said. Harrison looked at Tom again, “First Wizengamot meeting?”

Tom nodded, taking the chair on the other side of the desk, not even trying to force Harrison away from behind his desk. “Just introducing Lord Gaunt,”

“Sounds boring.”

“It is, believe me.” Tom said, “At least you get to manipulate people.”

“Want to swap places?” Harrison said, pointing at the books. Tom smirked, “No, I’ll let you suffer.”

“And here I was thinking you would be honoured to get to help me.”

“As soon as the basilisk gets involved, I’m in.”

“No killing, Tommy boy.”

“Killing is my signature move.” Tom said, “Literally.”

“Bummer,” Harrison said, “If you really want to kill someone, kill Dumbles. Oh! Or that one follower of yours who I met at the Yule ball last year.”

“I’m still planning his slow death, but it’s more fun to do when everyone knows I’m back.” Tom said, “I’ll do a full meeting soon.”

“Can I join?”

“You can’t seriously want to?” Tom asked, “It’s literally people trying to suck up to me, while I just ignore or torture them.”

“Sounds fun, I’m excited to see you get all dark lordey.”

Tom looked sceptical, but Harrison returned to his book, so Tom just sighed and summoned some sort of paper he had to read, Harrison honestly didn’t pay attention.

It took five minutes till Harrisons mind started to wander, honestly Lockhart wasn’t even a talented writer, Harrison doubted the man had any real talents.

He closed the books sighed and sat back, “We have twin wands, you know?” Harrison said, unknowingly repeating his words from months ago. “I think about that sometimes, because I mean, it could be because of the horcrux- that was my theory for a while.“

Tom looked up, “It probably isn’t. That’s what you’re thinking right?” Harrison nodded, Tom seemed in thought for a bit. “I feel like my small horcrux wouldn’t have enough influence on your huge magical  core to change what kind of wand you’ll need.”

“I read a book about them, it said that people with twin wands are often similar, or at least from a similar background.” Harrison explained, “I don’t think we’re that similar.”

“Not really,” Tom agreed, “There’s some characteristics, that’s about it. So where there any other reasons?”

“Yeah, but all of them were just guesses, a lot of it relating to having similar souls, which made me think of the horcrux at first, of course.” Harrison sighed, “There’s also the soulmate theory, two parts of a soul split up waiting to find each other, but that just sounds stupid.”

Tom nodded, but Harrison could see the man was only half listening, so he waited until Tom said something. “So basically, we’re either soulmates because you have my horcrux, or we’re soulmates cause fate’s fucked up?”

“It’s just theories.” Harrison reminded the man, “But either way, I’m just glad we’re not on opposite sites, would be kind of annoying if everyone expects me to kill you, but I can’t cause of the twin wands.”

Tom rolled his eyes, small smile on his face. “It would be tragic. Especially if that accidently still happened, in public.”

Harrison stared at the man, “What are you thinking?”

“Just letting Dumbledore know about our… unfortunate situation.”

“Are you serious?”

“That would be your godfather.” Tom paused for a minute, “But yes, I seriously meant that.”

Harrison laughed, then “Wouldn’t that kind of fuck up your whole politics take over plan.”

“I’m not saying we do it right now, I’ll just put it on my list of idea’s for when we’re ruling the wizarding world.”

Harrison honestly wondered what it would matter then, but he said nothing. Tom probably just loved the idea of duelling with someone who he wouldn’t beat in five seconds, in public.

“Might want to start training for it then, it’d be embarrassing if the minister lost to a child.” Harrison said and Tom laughed, which was rare. This whole conversation was weird, every conversation with Tom had been weird ever since the whole cave thing happened.

Tom had always been more human around him, but now it was like he had zero shields up, he felt comfortable and safe while with Harrison.

And Harrison, he was kind of glad, since it meant that now he would really get to know the man. Even better then he did before.

“Like you’re a child.” Tom shot back, “You’re just an old man in the body of a child.”

“You reckon I should age myself up when I’m done with school? There’s that one potion right?”

“I don’t think it would matter at that point.”

“Well, I’m planning on skipping a few grades, I really should talk with McGonagall about that.”

“Weren’t you thinking about recruiting her?” Tom asked, “If you want to try, you can tell her I’m alive with the right protection spells, of course.”

“I am, still. She’s been nothing but nice to me, even seems to doubt Dumbles more and more.”

“Well goodluck,” Tom stayed silent for a second, “I figured out a way, by the way.”

“A way to…?”

“To expose Lockhart.” At Harrisons look he said, “No torture, I know.”

“Okay so what than?”

“A duelling club, ask him to start one. He’ll be forced to perform some spells, everyone will see that he sucks. Just ask Rita to do an interview then and invite her to the next duelling club.”

“That’s actually-“

“A good idea? I know, really you have so much influence over the one writer who everyone knows and never use your power over her. It’s a waste.”

“You’re a genius, Tommy.” Harrison said and Tom smiled, “I thought that was your title.”

“We can share.” Harrison decided.

~

It took one week for Harrison to make time to meet up with McGonagall, he only made time because it was only two days till Christmas break.

He knocked on the transfiguration classroom, the door opening on it’s own.

He saw Sirius sitting there, next to McGonagall. He would almost laugh at the sight of his father grading papers, while McGonagall was just preparing a fun last class, but instead he forced himself to stay focussed he was there for a reason.

“Harrison!” Sirius said, like the man didn’t know why he was here.

“Harrison,” McGonagall echoed, “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

“It’s about my schoolwork,” Harrison said, “I’m here for the deputy mistress.” He said then, to make sure McGonagall knew he wasn’t here for her as his transfiguration teacher or Sirius.

“Ah, of course, come sit down.” McGonagall said and she was about to tell Sirius to go away, but then paused giving Harrison a questioning glance.

“The dog can stay.” Harrison said and McGonagall nodded, slight smile on her face. Sirius shouted, “Hey! That’s rude.”

Harrison grabbed a chair setting it in front of the desk McGonagall was sitting at. He sat down and said, “I’ve been thinking, it’s kind of boring for me here.” Harrison admitted, “So I was wondering if there’s anyway I could skip grades, get to a higher grade. I was thinking fourth year?”

McGonagall stayed quiet then after almost a full minute, “We haven’t let anyone skip grades for a while, but I know that you would be able to handle it.” She smiled, “I would even argue to just put you in seventh grade.”

“I will admit I’ve thought about it, but for now.. I don’t think I want to leave Hogwarts.” Harrison admitted.

“No one ever wants to.” McGonagall agreed, “Judging by Sirius silence you have discussed this before?”

“Of course,” Sirius said and Harrison nodded.

“I will try to do it behind Dumbledore’s back, so he can’t reverse it.” She sighed, “He would never allow this.”

“I really appreciate that.” Harrison took a deep breath, “I’ve never heard you talk about Dumbledore like that before, though.. Something changed?”

McGonagall looked surprised at the question, “It’s just- It doesn’t matter, but maybe this isn’t the right side of this whole thing.” She looked like she wanted to say more, but she didn’t.

So Harrison did, “I know you probably don’t want to talk about this with a student, but I am well aware about this war.”

“Of course you would be with your biological family,” McGonagall said, “I don’t like that Dumbledore is letting children do the fighting for him.”

“One of the reasons why a lot of people joined the dark side since Voldemort died.”

“Yes, but that worries me. What if he does return?”

“He’s not as bad as Dumbledore says he is. Have you actually heard his goals from before he got insane?”

“I can’t say I have.” She admitted.

“Which isn’t surprising, Dumbledore tries to hide them.” Sirius said, “Voldemort’s actual goals are good ones, which would protect the wizarding world, but also let muggles live without risking our or their safety.”

“A good example is last year,” Harrison said, “He was in the castle almost the entire year.”

“He’s alive?” McGonagall asked.

Harrison looked at Sirius who shrugged, as if saying; hey you decided to tell her. Harrison sighed, “He is, actually told me that he would talk to you if you wish.”

“Voldemort asked for me?” McGonagall asked, “And you’ve talked to Voldemort.”

“Well, not so much Voldemort, more Tom Riddle. You were in school together remember?”

“Yeah and then he disappeared right around the time of Vol- Oh.”

“Once again a thing Dumbledore tried to hide.”

“Tom Riddle? The Muggleborn? He’s Voldemort?”

“Half-blood.”

“Of course, I should’ve known.” McGonagall said.

“A lot of people didn’t know, I trust you will keep this a secret?”

McGonagall just stared forward, probably rethinking every life decision she ever made. She nodded, felt the magical binding snap in place.

Harrison took that as his signal to leave her alone to think about everything.

“Just think about it. I can set up a meeting with Voldy for you.” Harrison said, knowing that he just dropped a big bomb on this woman. “Tom- he well- he thinks quite positively of you.”

This conversation could’ve either made him lose his whole friendship with his transfiguration teacher or earned them a very powerful ally. He honestly couldn’t read what McGonagall was thinking from her face right now.

Harrison stood up and quietly left, thankful that he decided to wait for this conversation till the Christmas break.

Sirius followed him out of the classroom.

“That went better than expected,” He muttered and Harrison nodded, it did honestly. “I hope she won’t think of me as some evil person.”

“She won’t, she let you use a secrecy spell on her,” Sirius said, “Wouldn’t have done that if she wanted to tell anyone you’re evil.”

“We’ll just have to wait till after Christmas.” Harrison said, “I hope she’ll still go through with moving me up some grades, I’m bored out of my mind.”

“At least you can study inferi now,” Sirius said, without any emotion in his voice. Harrison glanced over at the man, then slowly nodded. “We’ll get him back.”

“He still would have missed all these years in between.” Sirius said, “We didn’t exactly- well we weren’t on good terms.”

“A lot has changed.” Harrison said, “He’s not going to blame you.”

Sirius chuckled, though it sounded bitter. “He’s probably screaming at me to not bring him back right now. We’re just selfish.”

Harrison sighed, “We can stop at any point, if you think it’s better, but I want to try this. So does Tom and we all know you want this.”

“I know, I’m just worried.” Sirius admitted, “We’re not exactly bringing him back at the safest time.”

“He’ll have Tom and my protection, he’s a strong wizard and Dumbledore will be too shocked about the fact that he’s not dead  to actually think about what that means. We’re not bringing him back just for you to lose him again, padfoot.”

 “I know,” Sirius said, “Thank you.”

~

“Harrison!” Draco shouted, running after him, letter in hand. Harrison stopped walking, waiting for Draco to catch up.

Draco didn’t say anything when he finally caught up, instead he pushed the letter in Harrisons hands, the careful handwriting of Lucius Malfoy.

Harrison shot Draco a questioning glance, but the boy just motioned for him to read it.

Harrison scanned the letter, stopping when he saw the word Voldemort.

We have decided to have the Yule ball at Voldemort’s place this year, since it will help him get more positive political supporters.

Harrison didn’t need to read more after that.

“Can you believe it?” Draco asked, “Voldemort hosting a ball, do you think he’ll have some sort of tor-“

“He’s just human Draco, the ball will be like any other.” Harrison said, “With better food, maybe.”

“I can’t believe we get to see his house, Slytherins castle!” Draco said then, Harrison sighed and started walking again. Honestly, Tom had just joined the political world, this was the smartest route to get some good attention, he got that. But hosting it in Slytherin manor, that might be stupid.

Harrison opened the door of the great hall, half listening to Draco’s excited talking.

This was the last feast before Yule break. His friends were already there, Harrison knew they would be since he himself had told them to not wait for him.

He sat down at his usual place, next to Blaise and Pansy, opposite of Draco.

“Have any of you seen McGonagall?” Harrison asked and Blaise shook his head, “Not since two days ago, when you said you were going to talk to her.”

“What was that about anyways?” Tracey asked and Harrison shrugged, “I’m trying to move up some grades.”

“You’re what?” Pansy asked and Harrison looked at her, “You didn’t know? I thought I told all of you.”

“I don’t think you did, Harrison.” Theo said, “Good for you, though.”

“Yeah, might help you with the boredom.” Blaise said and he shot Harrison a smile.

“You’re leaving us?” Daphne asked and Harrison shook his head, “I’m not leaving anyone. I only asked to be moved up two years, I actually refused when they asked me if I didn’t just want to move up to the seventh grade.”

“Just two years he says,” Millicent said, smirking slightly. “That has like never been done before.”

“It’s rare I’ll admit it,” Harrison said.

Blaise looked around the group, “You can’t tell me all of you are actually surprised, like we should have seen this coming. He’s a bored genius.”

“Blaise is right you know.” Theo said, “All of us could have seen this coming.”

“Yeah, but Harrison has been so distanced lately!” Draco argued and Harrison sighed, “I’m sorry for that, I really am, but Tom- well let’s just say we’re working on a lot right now.”

“Yeah like Yule ball!” Draco said and Pansy’s face lightened up, “Right! I read about that!”

“Voldemort is not hosting anything Marvolo Gaunt is, a appropriate welcome to the British Wizarding World I’d say.” Harrison said.

“Right, Marvolo Gaunt.” Draco said, “And he’s so different than Voldemort?”

“Yes actually, he’s more human than Voldemort less fun than Tom. However, he is still manipulative. I don’t think Tom could manage making his alias be a non-manipulative person it’s in his blood really.”

“Tom and Voldemort that different, huh?”

“For what anyone else would see, sure.” Harrison shrugs, “But we live in a world full of masks, all of us act differently around certain groups than others.”

“Welcome to the pureblood world,” Blaise rolled his eyes, “Where showing no emotions is more important than forming bonds.”

“Unless the bond is with someone with a lot of power,” Theo added, his voice perfectly matching Blaise’s bored tone.

“Exactly.”

~

Harrison grabbed a book, not really looking at what it was, more interested in what Salazar was talking about.

“So then Godric just grabbed the tail of that beast, he got thrown into the air-“

Harrison let his finger glide over the spines of some books, trying to sense some magic, maybe something interesting was here.

His break had started two days ago and he had been crashing at Tom’s, not for any particular reason- well besides the prank war once again starting in Grimmauld’s place and the fact that he had to prepare for multiple rituals again.

“Can I ask you something?” Harrison hissed at Salazar, the man seemed surprised, then said, “Of course, little snake.”

Harrison smiled at the old nickname, it had been way too long since he had talked to the founders.

“Rowena, did she die before you did? I’m sorry if this is a sensit-“

“It’s okay and I’m not sure.. we all kind of drifted as we got older. Not enough energy to give classes all day, but too much energy to just sit around the castle.”

“I think her body might be buried in her vault’s wall. Helena would have done it.”

“It couldn’t have been Helena.”

Harrison gave the man a questioning look and Salazar sighed, “She died before Rowena did, stabbed by the bloody baron.”

“So there’s no way the rumours are true?”

“I’m not saying no one buried Rowena in those walls, I’m just saying that whatever happened in that vault wasn’t Helena and if that person even fooled the goblins, they must’ve been powerful.”

“You think it’s something I should look into?”

“If you’re bored enough.” Salazar replied, “Couldn’t hurt to look right? Don’t worry too much, though, the person is probably dead by now.”

“Right.” Harrison agreed.

“Harrison here is always bored enough.” Tom strode into the library, “bored enough to hang around my manor all day doing nothing.”

“Our manor, technically.” Harrison said.

“It’s a castle, really.” Salazar said.

“That’s true, too, Tommy boy.”

Tom rolled his eyes at the nicknames, “Be careful, Harrison, make sure you don’t accidentally touch a cursed book. There’s some dangerous ones in here.”

Harrison nodded, “I’ll be careful.” He pulled his hands away from the books, then turned to fully face Tom and Salazar’s portrait.  “It’s mostly in the back though, right? The cursed books I mean.”

“Yeah, I moved them all there.” Tom said, “Those Death Eaters would have killed themselves by now if I hadn’t.”

“Talking about death eaters when are you doing the full meeting?”

“Right after yule, destroy their holiday happiness.” Tom said, “Since the yule ball is being held here, they will all just stay in the guest wing.”

“Right the ball,” Harrison muttered, “It sounds like hell to have to organize it.”

“Good, because you’re helping me.” Tom said, amusement clear in his voice.

“No- you can’t just force me to.”

“Actually I can, or I can ask Sirius to get you home, whichever you prefer. However, I will be honest I don’t think the whole prank war thing is over.”

Harrison groaned, “We only have another few days.”

“Exactly why we should get to planning.”

“I hate you.”

Tom smirked, “You really don’t.”

Harrison rolled his eyes, but did whisper “I really don’t.”

~

It took another two days for Harrison to decide it was safe to go home, especially since yule was in two days.

Him and Tom had luckily finished all the planning pretty quickly, mostly since Narcissa had been nice enough to help them and she had organised almost every Malfoy ball for at least the past thirteen years.

“Finished planning yule ball.” Harrison said, “Well I fled before Narcissa started talking about colour codes, really.”

Sirius laughed, “Smart choice, she really can get a bit extreme.”

“A bit,” Harrison echoed, “A lot more than that.”

“She’s been like that forever, I fear that will never change. We’ll just have to deal with this. Your poor, poor wedding when you’re grown up.”

“Or your wedding, when you and Remus finally decide to actually marry.”

“We’re not allowed, he’s a werewolf, remember?”

“You guys are not allowed here, what about other places, though?”

“We can’t just leave now, especially since were teachers.” Sirius sighed, “But I mean we’re okay like that, we don’t need a ring to prove our love to each other.”

“You could always do a small ceremony, it doesn’t have to be on paper to be real.” Harrison said, “Also there’s a lot of spells that will overpower the ministry if they ever tried anything. I just think it would be fun for you guys.”

“You think we should?” Sirius asked and Harrison shrugged, “I think everyone thinks you should. Also you wearing a wedding ring will lower the amount of people pestering me to get you to talk to them, really how do students not notice you’re the same age as their parents.”

“It’s my good looks,” Sirius said and Harrison snorted, “Sure it is.”

Chapter Text

It was a day till the yule ball at Toms and the Black family decided to give each other their presents today.

They had already opened their other presents from other friends or family. Harrison had once again gotten mostly books and some candy, but Blaise and Pansy had teamed up to buy enough stuff for Ebony to fill up a full room.

So now they had a ‘Snake room’. It was a room full of heated rocks, sticks, some plants and one magically growing/shrinking tree. Ebony absolutely loved it. Harrison hadn’t seen him since he went to explore in the room.

Now it was time to open each others’ gifts and Fred and George looked a little too excited and Harrison doesn’t know if he should be scared or excited.

He settled on the latter.

“Okay before we actually start.” Sirius said, sitting down, an envelope in his hands. “Snape and Lucius asked me to give this to Harrison, some kind of present they said.”

Harrison took the envelope, not sure what to expect, but when he opened it and saw an accepted request for human experimentation or werewolf experimentation, he was shocked. Snape had told him they should try to get this accepted, but he didn’t expect the man to really try by himself.

And Lucius, of course Lucius would have enough influence in the ministry to get this accepted.

“What is it, pup?” Sirius asked and he handed Sirius the letter, the man looked confused to say the least. “What is this for?”

“I’ve well- I’ve been working hard together with Snape to create a new kind of wolfsbane, something you could take once and would give you control forever or at least a long time. I needed to make sure I wouldn’t kill someone. The ministry allows certain people to test potions out on humans, prisoners who would’ve gotten executed anyways. Turns out Snape got our request approved.”

“You’re doing what?” Remus asked and Harrison smiled, “The plan was to finish it on your birthday, but honestly, I didn’t have enough time.”

“That’s- the best thing someone tried to do for me.” Remus whispered and Harrison shrugged, “I just want to help.”

“That’s great, pup.” Sirius said and Harrison waved his hands, not wanting to get compliments for something that makes so much sense to him. He was the only one who has the resources for this new version, so why shouldn’t he try?

“Let’s just move on.” Harrison muttered.

And they did, it quickly became clear why Fred and George had been so excited, giving everyone a self-made prank product.

Remus got Fred and George new School robes, which they really needed. Sirius got them a lot of old marauders journals, saved up over the years. All of their legendary pranks and the spells they used were in there, but also some of their failed spells. Sirius probably secretly hoped Fred and George would retry these pranks and make them work out.

Harrison made a bunch of moving portraits of everyone. There was also one of just a black dog and a werewolf, one of Harrisons favourites. When he gave them he just admitted that he honestly had no idea what to get everyone and that if Fred and George ever needed anything for their prank products that he could probably help.

The last gifts Harrison got were from Sirius and Remus, who decided to give him some old daggers with ‘Toujours pur’ on it. Harrison looked at Sirius, “These are heirlooms.” He stated, it was not a question.

Sirius nodded, “Yep,” Slightly popping the ‘p’, “I mean you’re part of the family now, aren’t you?”

Harrison nodded looking down at the daggers, the founders had never really taught him to fight with weapons, since wandless magic always came easy to him. He had gotten some classes to fight with swords, since that was almost necessary in the 10^th century, but other than that.

Well, it was a skill he would like to learn.

“Thank you.” Harrison said, looking up again and Sirius and Remus smiled at him, no words were needed.

~

Harrison spent the rest of the day trashing the house, he knew he had seen the Slytherin locket here before. It was one full hour later when he finally lost his patience.

“Kreacher!” Harrison shouted and suddenly the elf appeared with a little ‘pop!’.

“Little master called?” Kreacher asked and Harrison nodded, “Yes, I was wondering Kreacher, did Regulus give you anything with the task to destroy it right before he died?”

Kreacher’s ears drooped, the elf took a step back, “N-no, M-master Regulus-“

“Kreacher.”

Kreacher disappeared and Harrison sighed, he should’ve known the elf wouldn’t help in anyway.

He had about five more rooms to go through on the top floor, then he would start doing the othe-

Kreacher returned with a locket in his hand, “Master Regulus gave me this to d-destroy. Kreacher is a bad elf, he didn’t do the last thing Master asked him to.” The old elf had tears in his eyes, probably missing Regulus more than anyone else in this house.

“Give it to me, Kreacher, I know how to destroy it. Just give me a few days.”

Kreacher looked doubtful, but Harrison didn’t hesitate to reach out and grab the locket. Kreacher let go before Harrison could actually grab it.

“Thank you, young master.” Kreacher cried, the tears in his eyes still not gone.

Harrison nodded, he could let the elf think he was going to destroy it, even bring the empty horcrux back with him as proof.

“We both want the same thing, Kreacher.”

~

Tom had invited him to help welcome guests, Harrison had asked the man how they would know each other, since Tom was playing a new politician and Harrison was just a boy from Hogwarts.

Tom told him to tell the others they had met at the Malfoys in the Summer break, told him that the Malfoys would confirm this.

Harrison agreed, of course. In the exchange of Fred and George being able to come, which made Tom sent him a questioning look, I did invite your whole family, Harry.

He arrived an hour early intending to give Tom the locket as a gift, since he didn’t really have anything else.

He made his way to Tom’s office, which was weird, since the past few months he had arrived in Tom’s office through the cabinet.

“Tommy boy!” He shouted when he was outside the door, opening it slowly.

Snape and the Lestrange’s were there. Harrison at least looked somewhat embarrassed when he noticed the people. “Hi?” He said looking at the Death Eaters, then he focussed back on Tom, “I’ve got something for you.”

“You do?”

“It’s yule, my lordness or whatever you want me to call you, of course I got you something.” Harrison said happily, giving Tom a small black box, “Don’t worry it’s not an engagement ring or something.” He added.

Tom rolled his eyes, placed the box on his desk and walked to one of the many bookshelves In his office, grabbing something that was shaped like a book, however now that it wasn’t next to other books Harrison could see it was carefully wrapped in forest green wrapping paper.

“We’re having a full gift exchange with them here?” Harrison said, “That’s nice. Talking about gifts,” He looked at Snape, “Thank you for your- well special gift.”

Tom looked between the two of them confused and Harrison smirked, “I can now legally test my potion on humans.”

“It’s so much more fun to do it illegally, though.” Tom said, “Especially if people will offer themselves, because they are your followers.” He said looking over to the three Death Eaters in his office, smirking slightly.

Harrison laughed, “Not everyone has a huge group of followers who’d kill themselves if you asked them to, Tommy boy.”

“Perks of being a Dark Lord,” Tom said and the faces of the three Death Eaters were such a mix of confusion with fear that Harrison couldn’t help but laugh harder.

“Now open your gift.” Harrison said when he finally stopped, “Believe me, you’ll love this.”

“I can’t feel love, Harry.”

“Not literally then,” Harrison said back, Tom finally handed him the forest green gift and Harrison immediately opened it.

It was a book, of course it was, Harrison already knew that, but just the kind of book it was.

Well, he was shocked that Tom would even buy something like it.

“Greek mythology?” Harrison asked, Tom nodded, “In Parseltongue, those are better than the normal ones anyways.”

“You read Greek mythology?”

“Of course I do,” Tom replied, “I might be a Dark Lord, but I’m not uncultured.”

Harrison snorted, “Right, well Thank you. I actually barely know anything about any kind of mythology, so I’m going to enjoy this.” And he wished he had brought a camera, because really the shock on the Death Eaters face when they realised Tom was being nice.

Well it was something he wished he could’ve taken a picture of, for blackmail reasons of course.

“Now open yours.” Harrison said and Tom nodded, opening the black box.

Tom studied the locket carefully, hiding the shock on his face, but Harrison could see through his mask.

“Is this the-“

“It’s the real one, yes.” Harrison answered and Tom took it out of the box, “I had to search the entirety of yesterday, but hey, it was worth it.”

“Thank you,” Tom said, still studying the locket. Harrison could feel the waves of magic from the thing, now that it was with the rest of it’s soul once again. He honestly wondered how none of the Death Eaters seemed to notice the overwhelming magic that was slowly making the air so-

Tom let put the locket back in the box and the whole effect was gone.

“Will you be able to do the ritual after yule?” Tom asked and Harrison nodded, “I think so.”

Tom nodded and Harrison decided to let Tom finish up this mini meeting, “I’ll just eh- go raid your kitchen. Let you finish whatever this is.”

“Be careful for the house-elves they are very busy preparing for tonight.”

“Good thing they love me then.”

Tom rolled his eyes, but didn’t comment on any thing, instead turning back to look at his Death Eaters again, who all seemed to prefer when he was still talking to Harrison.

An hour later he was standing waiting for someone he knew to enter, while shaking hands of hundreds of people, it seemed.

“Ah, Heir Black, what a surprise.” He heard a recognizable voice say and he turned around.

“It really shouldn’t be.” He answered shortly, trying to open his mind link with Tom, it was constantly half open, just enough to sense each other, but if Harrison totally opened it and sent a signal he could-

“I was summoned?” Tom asked giving Harrison a questioning look. Harrison rolled his eyes, “Lord Yaxley arrived, Milord.” Harrison said and Tom finally looked at the man who was standing quite close to Harrison.

“Ah,” Tom said, “Well come in, Lord Yaxley.”

Harrison snorted at the bitter tone Tom said it in and he swore he saw a flicker of fear in Yaxley’s eyes.

Tom closed his eyes, one hand on his arm, summoning a death eater it seemed. Harrison was proven right when Rodolphus approached them, he had arrived a short time ago, without Bellatrix, luckily.

“You summoned me, My Lord?”

“Make sure Lord Yaxley doesn’t leave the manor before the meeting tomorrow.”

Rodolphus nodded, all of the Death Eaters had been taught to never ask questions. Harrison waited till Rodolphus left again, before turning to Tom, “Awfully protective you are.”

“I’m not protective. Besides, you don’t need protection.”

“Awe, don’t be embarrassed Tommy boy.” He said, reaching up to pat his shoulder. Tom rolled his eyes, “I am never inviting you again.”

“Rude, besides you need me here, would go totally insane if I wasn’t here.”

“I asked you to greet the guests, not pester me.”

“Well, should have thought about this possibility before you decided to have me greet the guests.”

“Harrison!” He heard Daphne behind him, the girl walking up to him and Tom, Harrison could see Millicent following her.

“Daphne,” Harrison smiled, “Hey!”

She nodded at him, then bowed her head a little at Tom, “Lord Gaunt.”

“Heiress Greengrass,” Tom replied, like a proper pureblood, which he wasn’t.

“Your formality disgusts me.” Harrison muttered and Tom snorted, “It would. Really, I though you got etiquette classes as a kid.”

Daphne laughed at Harrisons face when Tom said that. It was shock mixed with amusement.

“In my defence, etiquette was different back then.” Harrison said and Tom smirked, “Yeah well, doesn’t mean you can’t act like a proper pureblood now, greeting guests and all. I mean I never got etiquette classes and even I can do it.”

“With fifty more years of life experiences.”

Daphne and Millicent were just watching their conversation with amusement when suddenly two red heads came up behind them, each of them trying to prank them by changing their hair colour.

Sadly, Harrison put up a shield as soon as he noticed.

“Harrikins, must you always upset us so?” Fred asked, dramatically.

“Where is all your brotherly love?” George asked then and Harrison laughed, “I’ve literally fled the home because you guys make it impossible to live there, you don’t deserve my love anymore.”

“So first you leave us,” Fred started, “And then you blame us for the fact you left.”

“I’m starting to think you really dislike us.” George said and Harrison rolled his eyes, “You know I do not, now where’s Sirius and Remus?”

“Well they were trying to get ready-“

“- But I’m pretty sure they ended up fucking inste-“

“Okay, okay. I’ve heard enough.” Harrison said, “Just eh- try not to anger any Death Eaters?”

Fred and George looked at each other, then at Harrison, then lastly at Tom. “It’s probably better for our health if we agree, right?” George said and Tom nodded. George sighed, “Fine then, though Harrisons friends are not safe, neither are any other students.”

“As long as you don’t break anything in this manor.”

“Castle,” Harrison corrected Tom, “Salazar would be disappointed in you, even after he corrected you, you still call it a manor?”

“So did you a few days ago,” Tom replied, “Little Snake.” He then added, sarcastically.

Harrison tried, but probably failed to hide his smile.

“I feel like we’re watching something we’re not supposed to.” Millicent said to Daphne, who nodded slightly, then looked at Millicent and back to Harrison, “Tell the others to find us once they arrive, since somehow we’re the first.”

Harrison nodded and then they left.

“She’s going to make quite the name for herself,” Tom mused, “In Hogwarts I mean.”

“She already has, people started calling her the Ice Princess.”

“It fits her.”

Harrison nodded in agreement, only half listening still, instead scanning the hall they were standing in, Fred and George were no where to be seen, which isn’t a problem perse, it just could turn into one when they decide to do something stupid.

“Calm down, I have Death Eaters everywhere, trusted ones I mean. If they’re about to do something stupid they’ll be stopped. I also put them off-limits for any type of torture. They won’t ruin anything here, only give us a bit of amusement.” Tom said, like he could read Harrisons mind.

Which Harrison hoped he couldn’t. He really never knew for sure, specifically with their mind link.

He was distracted by Draco, Theo and Blaise entering together, Pansy and Tracey directly following them.

“Welcome to this castle.” Harrison said, shooting Tom a look, Tom’s lip curled into something that could be called a smile, though Harrison was sure only he noticed. Blaise raised an eyebrow, but was also the first to actually reply something, “Guess I really get to see the best houses in the Wizarding World simply cause I’m friends with Harrison.”

“You know it,” Harrison said, “Your parents also coming?”

“Yeah, they will follow in a bit.” Blaise said, just as he said that Lucius Malfoy walked in with Narcissa. None of the other parents were there yet.

“We just decided to go already, because parents can be so slow.” Pansy said.

Harrison nodded in agreement, he still hadn’t seen Sirius and Remus. “Millicent and Daphne are her-“

Harrison stopped mid-sentence, when he saw someone in the crowd entering.

“You invited her?” Harrison turned to Tom who looked confused, before his eyes drifted to the door, then he slowly nodded.

“Megan!” Harrison shouted, he and the woman had shared lots of letters over the past few months. Only getting closer than they were before.

Megan took that as a sign to approach them, “There’s my non-biological little brother.” She said, smiling slightly.

Harrison hugged her, before she even got the chance to greet Tom, who didn’t seem to mind too much. Especially because as soon as they let go, she bowed her head forward slightly and said, “My Lord.”

“You joined him?” Harrison asked, slightly disbelieving.

Megan nodded. Tom seemed to wait for her to explain, but when she didn’t he said, “She approached me a few weeks ago, telling me that she thought about it and would like to join me permanently. We did the whole ceremony and now she’s officially a Death Eater.”

“You’ll be there tomorrow?” Harrison asked, Megan nodded again.

“How didn’t I know about this?” He asked next and Tom said, “We wanted to get your reaction in person and you haven’t seen Megan since-“

“- Since my last break.” Harrison finished, “I get it.”

“We’ll just go-“ Draco said, before he left with Tracey and Theo. Harrison was almost sure Pansy forced Blaise to stay so they could overhear Harrisons conversations together.

“If you want to you can join your friends, Little Snake.” Tom said, hissing the last part, once again using the nickname Salazar gave him.

“Nah, I’m good, also I’m sure I’m not going to have a lot of free time anyways. People love getting to know me just to say they’ve talked to me.”

“Your friend seems annoyed by the fact that we’re talking in parseltongue,” Tom noted, he was right Pansy seemed very disappointed, “She probably is.” Harrison admitted. Blaise and Megan both seemed amused, not really bothered by the parseltongue at all.

“Lord Gaunt,” Harrison heard someone behind him, Lucius Malfoy.

“Lord Malfoy, I believe your son already joined his friends.” Tom said, Harrison could feel Lucius’ eyes drift to him, “The other ones.”

“Ah, well I too shall enter then, although I do hope you are able to speak with me later tonight, alone.”

Tom raised an eyebrow by the slight demanding voice Lucius said it in, making the man bow his head forward a bit, an almost invisible sign of submission. Tom smirked, “I believe I would be able to make some time.”

“Thank you,” Lucius said and quickly walked away, Narcissa following after saying hello to Harrison, Blaise and Pansy.

“I thought you didn’t mind Lucius?” Harrison asked and Tom replied, “I don’t it’s just fun to remind them of their place.”

“I do wonder what he has to talk about.”

“You can join us.”

“I thought he asked to talk to you alone?”

“And I believe he is in no place to make such demands.” Tom said, “If you wish to be there, you can be.”

Harrison nodded, “Well just come and get me when you decide it’s the right time to talk to Lucius then.”

Tom nodded, Harrison honestly wondered if the man planned on leaving anytime soon, but he wasn’t complaining. It was just a weird thought, Tom would rather be seen with a group teenagers than talk with others.

“Is Sirius here yet?” Megan asked, “Who’s invited anyways?”

“Black didn’t arrive yet.” Tom answered, “I invited almost every big political figure, including kids and any other family. Also some Death Eaters and other people who won’t be seen as directly light or dark sided.

“So no Potters?”

“I wouldn’t even trust them in this castle.” Tom responded honestly, making Megan say, “Yes!”

Harrison turned to Blaise and Pansy tuning Tom and Megan out, trusting them to keep it civil, if only for public appearances. “You guys can join the others, you know?”

“We know, but Draco has been bragging about this weird crystal thing he got for yule. I’m not even sure what it is.” Pansy said, “Even I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“And it’s fun to overhear my conversations?” Harrison guessed, Pansy managed to fake an at least somewhat guilty looking face. Harrison snorted, “That’s what I thought. Don’t get too excited, Tommy boy here isn’t going to spill any secrets.”

Tom and Megan stopped talking to look at them, Megan eyeing Tom and then Harrison kind of worried.

“I can spill secrets like this.” Tom hissed and Harrison laughed, “You can.”

“That’s just unfair.” Pansy said, “Do translation spells work, because I will master them.”

“They won’t work,” Blaise answered, “It’s a magical language, spells never work for those, because you can’t just learn them like any other language.”

It took ten full minutes for Harrison to finally convince Pansy and Blaise to join the other Slytherins, quickly after that Megan also left, only for Sirius and Remus to finally arrive and enter quickly.

Then a lot of parents from students he knew arrived, every single one of them took this chance to really talked with the genius kid. Harrison just used these conversations to get used to calling Tom ‘Marvolo’. It felt weird, sometimes he would almost slip up, only for Tom to shoot him a look.

At some point almost his whole quidditch team arrived at the same time, except for the ones who either couldn’t come or well- the ones who were already there. Most of the parents were also there, meaning Harrison had to shake a lot more hands.

“Tough life.” Terence said, Harrison wanted to flip him off so bad, but another sharp look from Tom stopped him, instead he shot Terence a glare. Harrison knew that Tom was practically reading his mind at this point, about twelve minutes ago they got bored enough to both totally open up their own sides of the link, sending each other waves of annoyance or other emotions.

They hadn’t closed it yet.

“As long as the Potters don’t show up, I’m okay with this.” Harrison answered, Terence nodded, “Fair, enough.”

“I’m pretty sure your parents are the only ones whose hands I haven’t shook yet here,” Harrison said, only a minute ago he had stopped talking to Lord Flint. Terence laughed, “Oh they will try to talk to you later, get to know my little brother.” Terence said, this day really made Harrison realise how many older sibling figures he had in his life.

“Well, as long as they aren’t as boring as literally half of the people here, I’m excited to meet them.” Harrison answered and Terence laughed, which Harrison took as a good sign.

Terence then looked at Tom bowed his head slightly forward and said, “Lord Gaunt,”

“Heir Higgs.”

“Everyone greets you so formal, but they just walk up to me and say ‘Oy! You’re the genius, right?’ It’s unfair.” Harrison said, “I mean I will say some people tried with their ‘Heir Black’s. That’s still not my full title, though.”

“If they used your full title they would be take longer to say your name than the actual greeting.” Terence said, Harrison smirked, “I know, it would give me a bit of entertainment between all the boring stuff.”

“I’m doing you a favour here,” Tom said, “I mean at least not everyone will try to approach you once we actually join the people inside the hall.”

And Harrison couldn’t argue with that logic, since it was true, the entirety of last year Harrison had been approached by people, but now he would have had most of that before the ball even started.

“Are you going to have a dramatic entrance?” Harrison asked instead of replying to what Tom just said.

“No, not quite as dramatic as I would have if this was with my Death Eater, I’m just going to walk in.”

“Boring,” Harrison sighed.

“Just wait till tomorrow.” Tom hissed, “We can make it as dramatic as we want.”

“I don’t think I even want to know what he just said,” Terence muttered, “I feel like I’m losing sanity every minute I stand here.”

Harrison raised his eyebrows at the casual way Terence talked about Tom, while Tom was right there, but Tom just seemed amused so Harrison would let it slide, too. Instead he just laughed, “We’ve heard that before.”

“Have we?” Tom asked and Harrison nodded, “People are just too scared to tell me when you’re also there, like Terence just did.”

“It’s not like I can kill someone here in public,” It’s not the first time Harrison wondered just how strong the privacy charm Tom used was, because it had to be strong if he just talked like this.

“Yes, but you could kill someone afterwards.” Harrison said and Terence looked worried, “Don’t worry, I’ll be angry if Tommy here murdered you.”

“Marvolo.” Tom corrected him and Harrison nodded, “Right.”

“Well, I should probably go.” Terence said.

“You can join your friends if you want,” Tom said, “I think we’re almost done.”

Harrison shook his head, “No I will stay.”

~

“So are you dancing this time?” Pansy asked, almost like she wanted to offer Harrison her hand.

“You weren’t that bad last year.” Blaise said, Pansy immediately agreeing.

“Do I have to?” Harrison asked, looking over at all the people dancing it doesn’t seem so bad, really, but he would much rather stay here on the side.

“Practice is important.” Tracey said, “If you ever want to really do well, you need practice.”

“I really don’t like dancing, though.” Harrison said.

“Just wait till others start expecting you to dance with them to get a chance to talk to you.” Draco said, “They luckily still think you’re a little young now, they’ll just greet you here, but in a few years.”

“I know, don’t remind me.” Harrison really did know, he had seen Tom dance with multiple people, talking with them, most of them weren’t Death Eaters, though. None of the Death Eaters would even dare to ask the Dark Lord to dance.

Tom didn’t seem to mind too much, which made sense. If Harrison could only dance with half the skill and grace Tom did, he wouldn’t mind either.

“You’ll be fine,” Pansy said and Harrison could feel the if coming. “If you let us teach you.”

“Oh come on! I’m not dancing.”

“You are,” Pansy said and then she just grabbed Harrisons arm and pulled him towards the dancefloor. Harrison let it happen, because he’d rather dance then stay alone.

Even if he knew that since he danced with one person he’d have to dance with all the others too, then his quidditch team, his family, maybe even Tom.

He chose to ignore that, though. Focus on the present and all that shit. And right now, dancing didn’t sound as bad as it usually did.

~

Harrison allowed himself to sit down for ten minutes, one dance had turned into about a hundred dances- or at least it felt like a hundred dances- with just as much people.

And yes, Sirius and Remus might’ve let him rest for a bit, Fred and George might’ve tried to really messily dance with the three of them at the same time, which had been funny. But that didn’t stop his feet from hurting.

“And here I was hoping you’d still dance with the host,” Tom said, sitting down next to him.

“I’m surprised you even found the time to talk to me with all your popularity.” Harrison replied.

“You know I’d always make time for you.” He said, all kind, Harrison was almost suspicious, if he hadn’t felt the annoyance of the past two hours slowly fade into amusement over their still open links.

“I will dance with you if you let me sneak off afterwards, I need to rest before the ritual.” Harrison said and Tom gave him a confused look, “You don’t need my permission to leave this room or this wing, you know? I mean this house is basically also your house.”

“I know, but I do still want you to get me when you go talk to Lucius.”

“I will, don’t worry about that.” Tom said, then he got up again. He smirked slightly, before dramatically bowing and offering his hand, “Now, can I have this dance?”

Harrison laughed and grabbed Tom’s hand. “Never thought I’d see you bow for anyone.”

“Only for you,” Tom answered, amusement clear through the link still. Harrison was glad Tom still had a good mood this far into the evening, they still had a big part left.

“That doesn’t mean I’m letting you lead, though.” Tom said and Harrison shook his head, “You really shouldn’t. I’m the worst at dancing.”

Tom turned around, facing Harrison. Only then he noticed that they were already in the middle of the dancefloor. He pulled Harrison closer, “Maybe the reason why you’re bad at dancing is because you’re just standing there awkwardly.”

Harrison rolled his eyes and placed a hand on Tom’s shoulder, “Shut up,”

Tom laughed softly, not loud enough for anyone else to hear- can’t ruin his image, can he?- But Harrison could hear it and that was enough.

And when they finally stopped Harrison would admit that really dancing isn’t that bad, as long as you do it with the right person.

Chapter Text

Harrison was laying in the room he had claimed a while ago, just resting, he knew that he would have to do a full ritual later, which on it’s own was exhausting.

Someone knocked on his door and Harrison was sure it couldn’t have been longer than an hour yet, so why was someone bothering him?

“Harrison?” The door opened, “Lucius asked to talk now, you still want to join us?”

Harrison got up, “Yes, I’m curious what he has to say.”

“The night is almost over, don’t worry.”

“I’m so glad,” Harrison said, “I mean the socializing is exhausting.”

“Get used to it,” Tom said, “You’re going to have to do a lot of that when we win this war.”

“Stop reminding me,” Harrison groaned, while half-pushing Tom out of the room. “Now where’s Lucius?”

“He’s waiting in my office.”

“To your office we go.” Harrison said, glad that Tom had decided to let Lucius go there, since it was not too far away from their rooms.

Tom nodded and started leading the way, leaving Harrison to try and catch up with him.

When they entered Tom’s office Lucius was sitting there, as soon as he heard the door open he got up and turned to the door, bowing. “My Lord.”

“You may stand, Lucius.” Tom said and Harrison smirked at the obedience from a man as powerful as Lucius.

When Lucius stood up his eyes drifted to Harrison, Harrison could see Lucius trying to stop himself from asking any questions, instead he just accepted the fact that Tom had invited Harrison, he couldn’t do anything about it.

Tom sat down in the chair behind the desk, so Harrison grabbed the only chair left and moved it so that it was standing next to Toms.

“You demanded to talk to me, for which I should really punish you.”

Lucius mumbled, “I- I’m sorry, My Lord.”

Tom looked at Harrison almost as if asking for permission, Harrison rolled his eyes, but motioned for him to continue. Tom smirked, glad Harrison agreed with him here, then shot a crucio at Lucius.

He stopped pretty quickly, but it did the job of reminding Lucius who was the boss here and that it wasn’t him, for sure. Tom made sure to watch Harrison the short time he held the spell, Harrison hadn’t shown any sign of being okay with torture before this.

“I’ve done worse things in my times with Sal, stop worrying.”

“Yes he has, the self-made potion was still my favourite.” Salazar said from his portrait, “Helga wasn’t fond of that one though.”

“So you’re okay with this.” Tom said, “Even after you put all the effort into making me sane again?”