After discovering some major plot issues with SHSR, I've decided to rewrite it with a more neutral outlook. Writing comedy was too hard...sorry...
This story in set in an AU where Harry's generation and Voldemort's generation coexist. Harry's parent still died, and he has been living with his godfather, Remus, and Peter. Tom Riddle is still trying to take over the Wizarding World, but the distractions of the Gryffindor Marauders, which include Harry and Ron, prevented him from learning about horcruxes and getting very far in his goal. The Tom I'm trying to portray is one who has lived with the influence that is Harry Potter, but he and the other characters might seem a little OOC here.
Hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer-The wonderful world of Harry Potter and affiliates belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Harry was so bored. So bored.
You'd think that walking down a damp and spooky cave with his best friends alongside Lord Slytherin and his entourage while looking for an ancient cave in a journey that was prophesied to right all the wrongs and bring back order and eternal peace and blah blah would be the perfect recipe for disaster, but nooo.
The only awesome part of this trip was the very beginning. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, as dutiful aurors, had gone to visit Headmaster Dumbledore at Hogwarts on a lead for Death Eaters.
Well, the dutiful auror part was mainly Hermione.
Harry and Ron had been bribed along with the prospect of pranking at Hogwarts again. They had been expecting to be bored out of their minds by Hermione and Headmaster's responsible droning of laws and rights for magical creatures until they could find an opening to sneak off and prank the Sorting Hat. Now, that was something consequential and worthy of their attention.
Not that magical creatures didn't deserve rights; Harry couldn't understand why one needed to talk so much around it before getting to the actual topic and doing something.
Hermione always said Harry and Ron never could understand politics. She probably was right, since he could never wrap his mind around why everything was so complicated when could all be so simple.
When they had entered the Headmaster's office, he had found Cedric Diggory, the famous Quidditch seeker for the Montrose Magpies, nervously sitting amongst two reporters, the Quibbler's Luna Lovegood and the Daily Prophet's Ginny, Ron's little sister. Cedric had been one of Harry's best mates outside of Gryffindor, and his Quidditch team had unfortunately been attacked by some looney Dark wizards who called themselves the Death Eaters.
Personally, Harry was slightly thankful for the pathetic assault. Hey, no serious harm was done, and the Montrose Magpies seriously needed someone to take their cocky attitudes down a notch.
Ginny had dragged Cedric out to the Headmaster's office to interview both him and Headmaster Dumbledore, and Luna had tagged along to find the source of an abnormal aggregation of Wrackspurts. It was just Harry's luck to run into journalists rabid to learn everything they could about how the Ministry was preparing to take on the possible threat. Ginny, bless her little demonic soul, had latched onto the three aurors and refused to let them leave without a good interrogation.
This Death Eater cult had started to ripple around and shake the foundations of the Ministry, she said. She wanted to know how the aurors were planning on dealing with the pureblood supremacy revolt. Harry yawned. Just as Hermione had started formulating another long and drawn out speech on equality and natural rights and Harry had started to nod off, Trewalney burst in, screaming like a banshee.
"ALBUS! Albus, there will be DOOM!" She shrieked before her eyeballs rolled up into her head.
Then, she became eerily calm.
When she opened her mouth after a few agonizing seconds, her voice seemed to echo within itself, powerful and otherworldly. It was as if each sound made ripples through the air and distorted their surroundings. The room dimmed and shadows warped across the office while the Headmaster's silvery trinkets hummed and clanged and tinkled. Fawkes cawwed morosely and covered his body with a wing.
"Seek out the hidden treasures seven, with them open the door to heaven; after the reign of dark come the reign of light, and the saviour to sacrifice, before fate will be set right."
Those words had hung suspended in the air for a minute while everyone had frozen, half-crouched, shell-shocked. Then Trewalney, the idiot who couldn't read the mood, just had to ruin the perfect real-life suspense scene and ask "DOOM, Albus, I will be DOOMED if I don't have my daily morning dose of Kool-aid! Have you seen my Kool-aid powder?"
Headmaster had just sighed and said, accio red LSD.
After Trewaley left, Headmaster Dumbledore drew out his memory of the prophecy and placed the it into a vial for safekeeping. He motioned for them to enter the fireplace and explained that they had to floo to the Hall of Prophecy in the Department of Mysteries and move the prophecy into a prophecy record.
Ron had been a little pale and shaky about the whole encounter, and Hermione kept on asking pointless questions like, "How accurate is the fate of a prophecy that claims fate is currently off-course?" But all in all, Harry had been very excited; something interesting was finally happening around his drag of a life! He was going to go on an adventure with his best mates from their Hogwarts years, just like old times. He didn't think fate could get any better.
He had been so excited he practically skipped down through the Time Chamber and into the Hall of Prophecy. He had grinned and chattered away with Luna about Crumpled-Horned Snorkacks without a care in the world.
Until Tom Marvolo Riddle showed up, followed by his groupies.
He had immediately gone for his wand and went on the aggressive. Everybody there knew that Harry hated Riddle with a passion, especially since Riddle had almost bloody killed him by strangulation their sixth year. Riddle was the antithesis to Harry: blood purist, slimey snake, manipulative and heartless bastard. Riddle wanted nothing but power and simpering sycophants while Harry wanted true friends and a loving family. They had clashed on the first day of Hogwarts, and things had gone downhill from there.
Riddle pointedly ignored Harry and Ron's obvious belligerency like the rude prick he was and, instead, spoke with the Headmaster about the prophecy they had just heard. That was when Harry learned that Fate sometimes liked to prank poor, unfortunate souls.
You see, apparently Riddle and his mindless followers had heard the exact same prophecy as Harry and his crew did, except from a different seer. Prophecies were only announced to those who were affected by the prophecy directly; therefore, Riddle and his Inner Circle of Idiots were apart of Harry's wonderful little adventure.
Which soon became Harry's little nightmare.
The first thing Harry thought was "this prophecy is going to fail." I mean, who could even deal with Riddle, let along cooperate with him and the accessories he comes along with long enough for them to find all seven treasures? He would make this treasure hunt into some kind of terrible death trial or horror story.
But oh nooo, nobody listens to Harry Potter, just another foolish Gryffindor who doesn't know that working with Riddle will end up in a disaster, prophecy or not!
And then things got worse from there.
The Headmaster, after verifying Riddle's story, flooed with them to his office where he explained to them a very strange legend and presented them with a small, black diary.
The diary was the first treasure they were to seek, and legend has it that these treasures were all ancient artefacts created by nine powerful sorceresses who wished to eradicate all the evils of wizardkind and seal them away to bring everlasting happiness and peace to the world. They succeeded in sealing away most of the evils, but alas, the power of the evils were so intrinsic to wizards and witches that no matter how much power the nine sister poured into their treasures, the evil inherent in the people continued to feed it and keep it from complete destruction.
The nine sisters decided to sacrifice their lives to accomplish their goal, and they were successful. The Wizarding World lived in relative peace and prosperity for several decades, until Death struck. The Wizarding World started to crumble and disappear until...
Headmaster Dumbledore, who had been subconsciously leading forward during his tale, now straighten up and told everyone that was where the story ended, because the many records of historians diverged past that point. Nobody knew how the story was supposed to continue, but the little black diary was probably an evil thing that should be handled with the most delicate care. Apparently the evil thing was sentient and could only be opened by its owner and close, trusted associates. Eyes twinkling with mirth, he handed the diary to Harry and told him to take good care of it, as Harry was now the owner.
Harry was now responsible for some kind of ancient, evil diary bound with some kind of ancient, evil dark magic. Wonderful. He had to work with Tom bloody Riddle. Even better. And their only lead was some half-a**ed legend. Life couldn't get more amazing.
Riddle had asked where the Headmaster had found the thing and how he knew so much about it in many different ways, to which, Headmaster Dumbledore only smiled, twinkled, and gave cryptic answers like "You'll understand when you get older, Tom" and "Weellll, when the flower and the bees love each other veeerrrrry much..."
Riddle was bristling with anger and barely restrained magic by the end of things. He resembled a wet Crookshanks rather closely.
So after several weeks of research and little spats, where Riddle and Harry had only gotten sent to St. Mungo's twice, they had finally discovered that most of the myths concerning the nine sorceresses referred to some underground chamber of doom placed in the tunnels created by an ancient serpent when it had burrowed through the early Earth to make it fecund.
Harry found that plainly disturbing. If magical snakes could make people pregnant, well, let's just say Harry finally understood why he kept on feeling funny whenever he visited Hagrid's ashwinder. And why that ashwinder eggs were used in love potions. And why snakes were banned in school.
Then they had been stuck in their research efforts, until Ron, in a moment of genius, wondered why the expedition group didn't just look around for big giant holes in the Earth. Which lead to Riddle making fun of the obviousness of Ron's idea and pointing out how a legend would never be so simple, which lead to Harry researching large holes in the ground, which lead to the discovery of 600 ft deep sinkholes that coincidentally fit all the criteria for a match to the ones in the legends.
Which lead to Riddle acting like Crookshanks for a week.
And now, they were plodding through a damp, musty cavern made by erosion or magic or both, after jumping down the largest sinkhole in the world. The jumping down part had been quite fun. Nothing like carrying an argument over blood purism and muggleborn rights while simultaneously falling through darkness at breakneck speeds.
But now, it was boring, again. Almost mindlessly, he searched the pockets of his favorite black robes for something, but when his hands came up empty, he was hit by the strangest sensation of having misplaced something. Sighing irritably, he pushed the distraction to the back of his mind.
Riddle and Hermione had started their one-sided argument over equality of magic creatures, again. This was getting so old that even Riddle's entourage didn't bother commenting on anything.
"But Riddle, can't you see that elves are just as powerful as witches and wizards? They can use wandless magic, apparate, and sneak in and out of powerful wards! Isn't that amazing?" Hermione crowed.
Riddle didn't even bother looking at her. "No."
Cedric sighed.
"We could learn from Elven magic! I've read all that I could on the ancient magicks, but there is much we don't know yet. If I can find an elf willing to teach me, we could open a whole new branch of magic!"
"An elf only has one pathetic purpose in life. As do you, it seems."
"What?" Hermione looked quite boggled. "I'm afraid I don't quite understand your point."
"Mudblood!" Cygnus yelled from the back. Harry rolled his eyes tried to not focus on humid and smelly it was. Merlin, how he missed air conditioners and a nice, cold shower. The sweet, sweet amenities of civilized life!, he bemoaned.
"Oh hush, Cyggie." Luna chided, oblivious to Cygus' death glare. "The Wrackspurts don't approve the use of derogatory terms. It just detracts for the conversation. Why, even muggles can be nice if one focuses on the bonding power of love...or pudding. Even if Harry's muggle relatives treated him rather harshly, I apologize for that." Luna looked at Harry with sympathy.
"What are you talking about Luna?" Harry questioned, a little worried for his friend's mental health. "I've lived with Siri, Remus, and Peter for most of my life, remember?"
"And before that, with his pathetically dysfunctional mother and father," Draco added, eyes gleaming for another confrontation, "both of whom perished in such a unfortunate manner when Potter was seven. So young, huh?"
"Shut it, Malfoy!" Ginny screeched. She was quick to follow up with, "don't mind the git, Harry," but the damage had been done.
"Draco," Harry began threateningly, "don't you dare speak of him in my face."
"Or else what, Potter?"
Before Harry could hex the balls off of Draco, Luna placed a restraining hand on Harry and gave him a serene, reassuring smile. He smiled back, uncertainly, before he noticed that he had been shaking. Merlin, the brave Harry Potter, aka Marauder Hooks, aka best DADA student, aka former Quidditch team captain was shaking. That was so not working for his reputation.
"You've got us now, and we're here to stay." Luna murmured, comfortingly.
He blanched for a second before grinning at her and cheerfully picking her up to twirl her once. Luna read him as easily as an open book, and she always knew what to say. It was somewhat disconcerting, especially because it felt as if Luna knew him better than himself.
The subject of Harry's dead father had been a sore one for years now, one that Harry had buried behind because he had never been ready to confront the implications of his memories. He was a Gryffindor through-and-through, but he was still someone who didn't want to remember those...things. Besides, he had a real loving family and friends, now. People who accepted him and loved him, like he'd always wanted.
Tom cleared his throat, and almost all eyes turned towards him. Harry and Luna were still in that deep conversation, heads together. Hermione thought this was rather cute, and she mentally giggled when she caught Ron's eye. Her somewhat slow boyfriend seemed to be a little shocked and plenty horrified when he noticed how close Harry and Luna had become. Probably thinking that Harry was going to start spending less time with us, or, Merlin forbid, grow up as a responsible boyfriend or something.
"I can't believe they're not dead yet," Alphard whispered to Abraxas. "Tom must be feeling either very lenient or very careful about Dumbledore today."
Tom glared icily and Alphard shut up.
"If the blabbering idiots in the back could kindly shut up," he bit out, "I believe that we have reached our destination."
Hermione wrinkled her nose and tried not to breathe as she trudged up the mound of decaying something to the wall of the tunnel. Tom gestured at a part of the wall, and she, after finding the spot, ran a hand over the damp, smooth rock. Nothing felt like an ancient tunnel entrance or anything. She looked at him questioningly.
"There is magical residue all over that section of the tunnel," he explained, "as well as a thin layer of wards covering it. I'm afraid that I don't recognize the runes used in the wards, but by the way the magic is woven, I believe it is a type of protection against unwanted visitors."
"Can we overpower it?" Cedric asked, trying to sense the wards.
"It is extremely weak. So much that the effects are almost non-existent."
Hermione frowned thoughtfully. "I would have expected better measures of security. Are you sure there are no hidden curses?"
"I agree," Tom acknowledged, if a bit distastefully, "but I can assure you that there are no other traps. But just as a precaution, I will enter first with Alphard and the rest will await my signal. Oh," Tom narrowed his eyes in disdain, "and kindly silence the two shallow-headed fools who can't seem to shut their mouths before someone. will. get. hurt."
The hate in the last part was so evident that Hermione took a guarded step back and debated whether she should, like usual, reprimand Tom about the moral complications of using violence as a solution. Ravenclaw winning over Gryffindor, she simply nodded jerkily and went to fetch Harry and Luna.
Tom then turned to Alphard, who gulped.
"Alphard..." he hissed. "Be a good boy and open the entrance."