The Biggest Hoax

Summary: Harry Potter pulled the biggest hoax ever seen by the Wizarding World. Who is Harry Potter really? Is he the trusting soldier molded by Dumbledore? Or is he the Dark Lord's long kept secret?

Author's Note: If you read chapter one before chapter two came out, please read chapter one again. There are important edits.

Chapter One; All Powerful

I was seven when I met the Dark Lord. He was inhabiting a man who lived across the street from me, Mr. Atherton, and he just so happened to save my life. At the age of seven, I was already plotting ways I could die. I could act out and make Uncle Vernon kill me, that would be easy. I could stand in front of a car and wait until it threw me ten feet like a rag doll. I could hang myself with one of Uncle Vernon's ties. That's how much I hated my life. There were a million and one ways I could go about with my suicide, and Mr. Atherton was there the one time I had enough courage to go through with it.

When Mrs. Barclay wasn't home, I filled her shallow kiddie pool with water from the hose and lay face down in it. My eyes were closed, and my mind was calm and at peace with what would happen. I was almost there, falling through this deep, dark well when someone pulled me out of the water and shook me. Standing there, cool as a cucumber, was Mr. Atherton, Mrs. Barclay's next door neighbor.

Mr. Atherton was a middle-aged gangling man with thin, spindly fingers. Overall, his appearance was forgettable, and that's what the Dark Lord needed. He probably observed me for weeks, assessing my situation at home and my status in Little Whinging. In what way should he approach me to make me trust him? He was correct, of course, in assuming that I thirsted for a taste of the normal life where food was not withheld as punishment and a beating was not considered a normal occurrence. He was incorrect in assuming that I needed a life saving. I hated him for pulling me out of the seductive arms of Death.

Dudley's castoffs were like anchors, heavy from being soaked in water, and they pulled me down. I lay on the grass next to the pool and faced the open blue skies, forcing down the bitter disappointment that threatened to consume me.

"What a terrible idea," he said.

"Was not," I said indignantly, still feeling like I missed out on the greatest Christmas present ever.

"It is when you could be making your family pay, instead of taking your life."

"What?" I said softly, and pushed myself to my elbows. I looked up at Mr. Atherton with these huge green eyes, rolling around what he said in my head, trying to deduce the meaning of his words. In the end, I decided to play ignorant.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I muttered, and dropped back down to the ground. He made a noise in the back of his throat.

"Why do your family a favor when what they probably want most is for you to die?"

That really shocked me. What does Mr. Atherton know about my family life?

"I know a lot more than you think,"

"Are you a mind reader?" I demanded. He chuckled, and I felt like he was laughing at me, so I pulled up my defenses.

"Never mind," I snapped.

"I am," he said, when his chuckles subsided. "I can read yours especially well. It's like an open book."

I stood up this time, feeling quite vulnerable now that he mentioned he could conveniently read my thoughts, and turned my back to him.

"Are you still doing it?"

"I need to make eye contact," he admitted.

"Well," I said lamely. "Good,"

"Potter - "

"How do you know my last name?" I asked sharply, turning to face him.

"I... knew your parents," he said very offhandedly. Did I believe him? No. He was Mr. Atherton, he's been there for as long as I could remember, and he hated me just as much as every other neighbor did. How the hell would he know my parents.

"They were drunks." I said flatly.

"Is that what they filled your head with? No, they were not drunks."

"Who are you," I complained, completely exasperated with what he claimed to know and do.

"I'm not Mr. Atherton," he said seriously.

"Ha, ha. Very funny."

"I'm not Mr. Atherton," he insisted.

"Then who are you?" I asked, with narrowed eyes.

"My name, is Tom Marvolo Riddle,"

"Tom Marvolo Riddle." I echoed. The words felt awfully strange on my tongue.

"If you're Tom Marvolo Riddle, who is Mr. Atherton?"

"I am,"

I threw my hands up in the air, finished with his nonsensical answers.

"I'm leaving. No thanks for saving my life," I said sarcastically, and headed towards the front of the house to escape from this madman. His voice stopped me.

"This body belongs to Mr. Atherton, but I, Tom Marvolo Riddle, am living in it."

"That makes no sense, what so ever." I said bluntly.

"Not if you're a wizard," he said.

Okay, this is where I mention that I am not a normal boy. I am wise beyond my years, and overall, I do not act like your normal child. I probably stopped being one when I was dropped off at the Dursleys. I was raised to do their bidding, and nothing more. In the Dursley household, everything must be normal. It is some kind of psychotic illness, I suppose, and I don't know how I managed to escape their insanity unscathed. All in all, I am still sane and I don't believe in what they believe.

One of their beliefs is that the word "magic" is synonymous to the word "Satan". Even Dudley can't say the word without suffering some kind of consequence. I never knew why the lot of them went totally nuts over the word or anything related to magic. And now here is a man who is both Mr. Atherton and not Mr. Atherton, claiming that he is a wizard. A person who can perform magic.

My first instinct was to joke about it.

"What do you do? Pull bunnies out of trick hats?"

He frowned, as if confused about why he would be able to do that.

"I suppose I could if I wanted to. But, no, I am not a magician. I am a wizard,"

"I'm afraid I don't see the difference," I said.

"A magician," he began. "Is some kind of Muggle recreation." he spat, with obvious contempt. The word Muggle was of importance to him, but I had no idea what that word meant. I was pretty sure the word wasn't in the dictionary.

"What's a Muggle?"

The question really bothered him, I could tell. He breathed in hard, as if getting ready for a long-winded explanation, and then clenched his teeth.

"Muggles, are what we call non-magic folk. Like your relatives."

"Then I guess I'm a Muggle too," I said the word with exactly the same contempt as he did.

He stared at me, seemed to stare right through me, and started to shake his head.

"You are the furthest thing from a Muggle," he said slowly.

"You sound so confident," I mumbled. "Don't you think I would have noticed by now if I were a wizard? I could have just... I don't know, magicked myself out of this God forsaken place."

"You've never noticed anything strange happen to you? Unusual?" he asked me.

I thought about it really hard, and the incident with the hair came to mind. Aunt Petunia gave me a truly hideous haircut one day, and I was too horrified to go to school with it. Strangely enough, when I woke up in the morning, my hair was back to its usual unruly way. She threw a fit, calling me the devil's child, and locked me in the basement for two weeks. The basement is where they put me when they really want to punish me. Forget the cupboard under the stairs. That place is like a safe haven compared to the roach infested, moss-covered basement.

"See? You are a wizard," he said.

"Stop reading my mind," I snapped. "I enjoy my privacy,"

"I can teach you how to protect your mind so no one can read it,"

"What are you? A magical teacher from a secret society who was sent here to take me away and train me?"

He threw his head back and laughed.

"No, it's nothing like that. I could be your teacher, and the Wizarding World is secret from Muggles, but there is much more to it. You are an important player to a game I am playing, if you want me to be completely honest with you."

"So you're using me."

"Yes and no. It's complicated, Potter. If you want to know about it, come to my house tomorrow. We'll discuss our situation."

I accepted, and unhappily left Mrs. Barclay's backyard.

&

It was summer vacation, so I had time to visit Mr. Atherton. I finished the list of chores Uncle Vernon left for me, endured a game of Harry Hunting, then finally made my way down the street. His house looked exactly like ours, but in a different color.

I knocked on his door and waited for him to answer. He opened the door, and invited me inside. Inside the house was like an old museum. I never pegged Mr. Atherton as a history buff, but I guess you can never tell what a person is really like just from living across from him. There were old books, sculptures, paintings, and ancient weapons lying around the house. He led me to the living room and sat on a dusty leather chair. I sat across from him.

"So how does that work. You inhabiting Mr. Atherton, I mean."

"I don't have a body," he informed me. I blinked at him owlishly.

"You... don't have a body. Okay. But you still have, what, a soul?" I asked.

"I do. Someone tried to kill me, but they did not succeed. My body was completely destroyed, but my soul remained. I escaped to the forests in Albania and lived there for the first four years, inhabiting the bodies of small animals and snakes, until I stumbled upon a wizard who was traveling alone. It was easy to possess him, just as I am possessing Mr. Atherton right now. After that, I caught up on what I had missed in my years hiding in Albania."

"And then you landed in Little Whinging?"

"I confess, I came to Little Whinging looking for you. And it helped that Mr. Atherton is a lonely man with no roots or familial ties. I could possess his body without playing up to his family."

"You were looking for me," I repeated. The idea was sort of creepy, that this man wandered around for years looking for me.

"Yes. After your parents died, you were supposed to go to your Godfather, but I discovered that he went to Azkaban - that's a high security prison - so he was unable to act as your guardian. Dumbledore put you somewhere, and he made sure that you and your relatives were kept secret."

I sat dumbfounded in the chair, resisting the urge to blurt out a million questions at once. Who was my Godfather and what had he done to deserve to go to a high security prison? Who was Dumbledore? In the end, my family took precedence.

"You said you knew my parents?" I asked slowly, feeling a shiver of hate for the Dursleys who had lied to me for years about the existence of my parents.

"Yes, in a way, I did," he responded carefully. I leaned forward, eager to hear more.

"And they weren't drunks? They didn't die in a car accident? They were wizards as well? How did they die?" I pounded out the questions, wanting to know the truth about my parents - parents that I thought were useless drunks until this moment.

"They were wizards," he conceded. "They were very intelligent, strong-willed - " he paused in mid-sentence, his eyes glazing over as if he were thinking about something very far away.

"They - " Mr. Atherton paused again. It seemed it was very difficult for him to stumble over that bit of information, which piqued my interest even more, but before I could ask, he closed the topic.

"That is for another day, yes."

I blew a frustrated raspberry, and gave him an accusatory glare.

"You can't tell me about my parents?" I asked angrily, feeling the blood pump between my ears.

"It is a long story for another day." he said firmly, leaving no room for me to rebuttle.

I sighed, recognizing a road block when I saw one, and continued with my other questions.

"You mentioned a Godfather?" I asked, hating myself for feeling a glimmer of hope stirring in the bottom of my heart.

"His name is Sirius Black - "

"Sirius Black?" I cried out. "The madman who killed 13 people in the streets?"

Mr. Atherton stilled and looked up at my shocked face. His eyes found mine, and I looked away, afraid he would read my mind again. I fingered with the threads sticking out of my shirt and tried not to pay any attention to him.

"Look at me," he demanded. "Look at me,"

There was something venomous in his voice, something that made me shiver, so I looked up despite my own hesitations. And this time, I realized what he meant by "you're an open book." He leafed through all of my memories that included Sirius Black, which included news programs, newspaper articles, wanted posts, and then broke eye contact.

"Hmm, I never realized he was a wanted figure in the Muggle commnity as well." he said thoughtfully.

"You could have just asked me, you know," I muttered into my lap, feeling indignant that he violated my privacy once again. He waved his hand, and brushed my words away.

"No matter. He is an innocent man."

"What?" I gasped. "So why is he the most wanted man in both magical and Muggle worlds? Surely if he was innocent they would have found him to be...?"

Mr. Atherton shook his head.

"He never got a trial. There were too many witnesses that 'saw' him kill those people."

I felt disgust rise within me. My Godfather, the only living person left with a link to my parents and me, was in prison for something he didn't commit.

"The people in the wizarding world must be incompetent then," I snapped.

"Just the Ministry of Magic," he reassured me.

"The Ministry of Magic?"

"I'll explain later. There are more pressing questions, I'm sure?"

I fired the next question. "Who tried to kill you?"

Mr. Atherton gave me a long searching look.

"That is also for another time, I believe."

"Why?" I frowned. It didn't seem like a terribly personal question.

"A later time," he said firmly. I sighed and let it go.

"Why didn't you completely die?"

"Ah," he started. "I put safeguards as to insure that I would not completely die if I were somehow killed,"

"Is that even possible?"

"Anything is possible, Potter, with magic. You'll understand soon. In the end, it comes down to how much power you wield and what you can do with it."

"Can anyone do that? How did you become so all powerful? Are you sure you're powerful?" I asked dubiously.

He scoffed and crossed his legs.

"No one would have done what I did. It is considered extremely dark magic, but then again, no one is as powerful as I am, except for maybe two people."

That sounded interesting.

"Really? And who are those two people?"

Mr. Atherton stood up and got a drink from a table on the side of the room. He took his sweet time, mixing and stirring. I was growing impatient, and was about to say something, when he spoke again.

"Dumbledore," he said.

"And?" I pressed further, anxious to hear his answer.

"And," he paused.

"And you,"

A sort of new idea that I have. Reviews and suggestions welcome. Thanks!