Title: Darkest Hour
Author: ryurazoo
Rating: Mature Teen
Warnings: Brief mentions of child abuse, powerful!Harry.
Summary: Harry was never a true child of the light. Shunned by his so-called family, he is taken into Voldemort's care after showing signs of uncontrollable, raw power and brought up as heir to the Dark Lord.
Disclaimer: Everything canon belongs to J.K. Rowling. I'm not making a penny from this endeavor, sadly.
Feedback: Would be great.
Lily's eyes were wide, the green in them almost luminescent as she traced a rune in the air with her finger, then traced another one on her child's forehead. The baby mewled happily, nearly going crosseyed from staring up at the finger atop his head. Lily looked down at the baby and brought up her arms, voicing a harsh incantation in Latin that made the air heavy with magic. Harry squirmed restlessly in his crib.
The incantation ended, and glowing, fiery words traced themselves above Harry's head as Lily slumped into the chair beside the crib, exhausted. Her fatigued features were brimming with horror as Harry's parentage revealed itself.
"Mother: Lily Potter.
Father: Tom Riddle."
Lily had expected this, but the affirmed revelation brought all her fear to the forefront of her mind. James wouldn't floo back from auror training for a few minutes, and Lily knew what she had to do.
Silently, the woman arose as the letters faded from above Harry's head. She considered the restless babe. His eyes were a bright, unnatural green- quite a bit more vivid than hers, but the same shape. Even as a baby, Lily could now see some of the aristocratic angles of Tom Riddles face, some of the features that were unique to him- the dark hair was much smoother than James', the lips wider and plumper. Lily could tell that his face would be handsome and sharp when he was older.
She could see none of James in him.
She drew her wand, prepared to cast a glamour. She'd always been good at charms. Taking a deep breath, she began to change Harry's face. There was one thought on her mind: he needed to look like James. But when her spell was woven, the baby soon looked too similar to her husband- eerily similar. She cast another charm that took the glamour off of Harry's eyes, making them look like hers.
Satisfied with her wand work, the witch quickly reholstered her wand. If she gave him all of a mother's love, she told herself, then he wouldn't grow up to be like his father. If she made sure that his path didn't stray, watched him and cared for him, he'd never turn into such a monster. She promised herself that Harry would be a good man. She'd help him the whole way.
Too bad she forgot that promise.
As Harry grew, he was well cared for. James took care of him and doted on him like the child was his own- which he thought the poor babe was. Lily determinedly cared for her baby, fiercely loved him.
And then Harry said his first word.
"Momma?"
Unfortunately, the witch he was trying to communicate with didn't speak parseltongue.
She gave Harry an odd look when he gave off a funny little hiss and wrote it off as one of those strange noises that babies make. But she and James could no longer ignore it when Harry persistently hissed his way up to the age of two.
By then, Harry could speak quite well to his parents, and was used to them ignoring his words. One day, when Lily took him outside and left him for just a moment to get something to drink. Her baby was quite a capable one. He wouldn't get up to any mischief in her brief absence.
When she came back, to her shock, Harry was absentmindedly stroking a small garden snake on the head with a pudgy finger. "Kafrinis says you can't understand me unless I talk like this, Momma," Harry said happily.
Lily dropped her drink. It landed on the grass with a soft thud, spilling pumpkin juice around it in a sickly orange halo. Lily's first thought, in her shock, was that Harry had a funny accent. He drew out his S's in a way that made his words sound smooth and elegant. Lily thought that if she tried to talk like that, it'd only sound like she had a funny lisp.
"Who- who's Kafrinis?" Lily asked tremulously.
Harry pointed to the snake, beaming. The snake flicked out its tongue and hissed softly. "He says 'hi'!"
"Harry, get away from that thing!" Lily cried, panicking. She ran forward and snatched her child away from the serpent, hugging him to her chest. "No! Mummy, we were just playing- honest-" Harry wailed in protest. Lily turned around with every intention to bring Harry quickly back into the house, but James stood in the doorway with a shocked expression on his face.
"Lily..." he rasped, licking his lips. "Was Harry talking to that snake?"
"I- I don't know, James! What are we going to do? Oh, Merlin...."
"I thought only dark wizards could....?"
"I don't know!" Lily yelled hoarsely.
"Mummy? Daddy? What's wrong, Momma?" Harry asked in a high, worried voice with his odd little accent.
"Nothing's wrong, Harry." Lily gave James a sharp look when he opened his mouth. "Let's go inside, okay?"
"Okay!" Harry said gleefully, smiling a wide, happy smile.
James and Lily had another child after that, and named him Brian Sirius Potter. The child was bright in ways that Harry was dark. He had Lily's auburn hair and James's brown eyes. His parents and his godfathers- Sirius and Remus and Peter- all loved him. Harry was left in his brother's shadow.
His only friend was the snake that had told him to speak English, Kafrinis. Kafrinis was a small snake, so he easily could hide up Harry's sleeve. When no one was looking, they conversed in low hisses. People didn't look at them often, anyway. Harry didn't particularly like speaking the language of the humans around him. Parseltongue was more expressive, more fluid. It came easily to his tongue, while English was rough and clipped, an awkward language. Kafrinis, quite the knowledgable little serpent, suggested that Harry might be more comfortable speaking something less sharp than English, perhaps French or Russian. But Harry didn't know where to learn these languages, and the snake couldn't speak in anything but parseltongue.
Harry's brother's best friend was an orphan, Neville Longbottom. Harry had overheard the adults saying that Voldemort had personally killed the boy's parents. Neville was an insufferable, pompous boy, who had been prophesized to kill Lord Voldemort and often praised because of his supposed destiny. If his parents were anything like the child, then Harry didn't blame the Dark Lord.
He lived his young life in seclusion. His parents forbade him from speaking in anything but English, and punished him whenever he slipped and spoke parseltongue. They didn't punish him themselves- oh, no. They wouldn't touch him. He was tainted, dark. Instead, they sent him to a Dark Children Specialist.
There, he was subjected to evils that Lily and James would have saved him from in a heartbeat if they knew what was actually going on behind the walls.
Even they weren't that cruel. They were only fearful of their darkening son.
The man there cast cruciatus on him, belittling the child the whole time, telling him that he was a freakish, evil little boy. When Harry could only scream for mercy in parseltongue, too far gone to remember his English, he was only tortured further. It was hell.
And he only knew that this is what his parents meant for him.
One day, Remus caught Harry sitting quietly sitting in a corner, hissing softly to a tiny snake's head poking out of his sleeve. The head swiveled to look at the werewolf and hissed loudly before retreating into Harry's sleeve. Harry hissed back, looking confused and shaking his head, then looking up. He squinted at Remus. Lupin suspected that the child had bad vision, but when he'd mentioned it to James, he hadn't seemed to care.
Harry jumped. "Oh! Uncle Remy! I-" he broke off as his teeth began to chatter. "Please don't tell my mummy!"
Lily was suddenly behind Remus. "Don't tell me what?" she asked, eyes narrowed.
"I don't know..." Remus said, cocking his head in confusion. "I think- I think Harry has a snake up his sleeve..."
Lily's face suddenly went livid. Harry cowered into his corner, unconsciously trying to make himself small. In fear, all English was forgotten. He began to hiss earnestly in parseltongue. "Mummy- no- please don't hurt me I didn't mean to!" Harry babbled at her. Lily advanced on him and slapped him out of his hysterics. "I told you never to speak to snakes!" she said sharply. Harry held a small, trembling hand to his face, where a red handprint marred his pale cheek. The cruciatus, while excurciatingly painful, never left a mark, and he wasn't left for Punishment long enough to cause nerve damage. Bruises were new. "I-" he began in a terrified hiss, then caught himself. "I didn't mean to!" he wailed.
Lily was suddenly struck by how much he looked like James. She wondered what the darkness, hidden underneath, would look like. Harry was using James's sweet face to make him seem innocent. She found herself sneering.
"Lily- he's only a child-" Remus said weakly.
"I'm not a little kid!" Harry protested, then shrank back under his mother's glare.
"Give me the snake," she snarled. Harry's eyes widened. He drew the sleeve concealing the serpent up close to him. "No! He hasn't done anything to you!" he hissed desperately. He would not let Kafrinis be Punished.
Lily heard only vicious hissing. She grabbed at Harry's sleeve, but an uncannily strong wall of magic suddenly roared up towards she and Remus, knocking them to the opposite wall, where they slumped to the floor, watching Harry with fearful eyes as the concealed serpent uncoiled itself from Harry's sleeve and perched on his shoulder, watching the proceedings with amusement.
"Kafrinis has been more a parent to me than you have been. If you touch him, you will regret it." Harry's voice was cold and commanding.
"Lily? What's going on in here?" James poked his head around the doorframe and saw his son standing over the bodies of his wife and best friend. "What the Hell have you done, you little-" he began to snarl, drawing his wand. Harry regarded the man with icy eyes. "Petrificus-" James began.
"Oh, no you don't, father," Harry said mockingly, waggling a finger childishly at his dad. With a flick of his pale hand, James was also knocked aside like a rag doll. With another careless wave of the hand, all three adults were shoved against the wall by an invisible force and held there. "Don't follow me," he said quietly, then turned to stride down the hallway and out the door. Sirius and Peter were playing outside with Brian. Harry watched them bitterly. The sneer on his face looked odd for one so young.
Sirius looked up. "Harry? Why aren't you inside?" Sirius asked sternly. Harry's eyes narrowed, the sneer intensifying. "My parents haven't let me out of the house since I was two. Don't I have the right to see the sun once in a while? I don't need to be wreathed in darkness my entire life." His voice was suddenly a whisper. "Am I meant to feel like I'm in Azkaban?"
His language was oddly mature for so little a person. He'd read a lot, though. Kafrinis told him to read all he could get his hands on. Sometimes, he read the books aloud to the little snake.
Sirius sighed. "Do you want to play, too, Harry?"
"Your friends," the word was spat. "Are trapped inside. I'd suggest you go tend to them, rather than bothering to give your attention to a Freakish, Dark, Evil Little Boy."
Sirius, eyes wide, rushed inside. Peter watched him with curious eyes, unmoving as Brian played beside him.
Harry got the worst punishment yet for that.
Lily and James took him to the Specialist. Harry caught a few exchanged words.
"He did wandless magic! Just flung us at the wall like rag dolls-"
"You have to stop him! He's going out of control!"
"Talking to snakes, walking around like he's a king!"
"Don't worry," the specialist said in a sickeningly oily voice. "I'm sure something can be arranged."
Harry was grasped by the wrist and tugged into the Room. "Mum! Dad! Please!" Harry sobbed, reaching out a hand for his parents. They watched him with cold expressions as their son was dragged away.
That day, Harry was returned with a long, red gash across his face that was shaped like a lightning bolt. He was covered in bruises, uncontrollably trembling from nerve abuse. His eyes were haunted. He stared at his parents with a half swollen-up eye. "You did this to me," he said quietly. "I hate you. When I'm bigger and stronger, you'll pay."
For these hateful words, his parents refused to heal their child. The gash was infected, and Harry quickly became feverish and sickly. Kafrinis ended up stealing alcohol from his parents in a desperate effort to disinfect his wound. Medicine and ointment went missing from cabinets. The gash ended up forming a scar that dominated Harry's face, but Harry did not die from his infection for all of Kafrinis's bold efforts.
It was not long after that that Voldemort discovered that he had a son.
The Dark Lord was studying the heavy tome containing the details of the Slytherin lineage when he came upon a very interesting end to the book. A line connected him to Lily Potter, and connected from them both in a 'V' was Harry James Potter. The red eyes widened and Voldemort stood abruptly. The book fell from his lap.
He had an heir.
A/N: I have something of a flair for the dramatic, if you couldn't already tell. I'll update as soon as I finish the next chapter. I have most of the plot worked out, but suggestions for side-plots would be appreciated. :)
Review? Thanks for reading. Tell me if I've made any embarrassing grammatical mistakes.