Chapter one: The Prince is born
30th July, 1980
10:30 PM
Potter Manor,
Wales
Lily Potter slept. She had just finished the last preparations for childbirth, completing spells and taking final doses of potions, not to mention the numerous rituals, both those symbolic as well as those of very tangible power.
All entailed in being the bride of one of the oldest houses in Britain, and the mother of its heir, of course.
She'd grumbled endlessly, but they were all done now, thankfully. As the tiredness of the day lulled her deeper into her own mind, it opened to that connection every human held to the other place, the realm of dreams.
Soon enough, an image spread across her mind, of herself….sleeping?
How droll, she was dreaming of herself asleep. But even as she watched, the dream changed. She saw her fiery hair swaying and flicking as the wind picked up … In a closed room...
Or, rather, a formerly closed room. As the wind raged, she realized that the walls had disappeared. She was in what looked like a forest clearing, in the middle of a storm. And what a storm! She watched, transfixed, as again and again, bolts of lightning struck the earth, some mere inches from her sleeping self. And she screamed in horror as she watched the largest of those thunderbolts descend to the earth in slow motion, somehow aware that this one would not miss her, by however close a margin.
Sure enough, she watched it strike her nine months pregnant belly, and screamed, this time not in horror, but in very real pain. As her vision darkened, she couldn't help but think she remembered this from somewhere.
Almost immediately the darkness cleared, and the roof of the same room where she'd fallen asleep swam into view. It was then that she realized what the pain was. Her contractions had begun. Her child was coming.
Almost one and a half hour later,Hadrian James Potter, the Heir to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Potter, The Thirty-Fifth Earl of Wilmington, Five thousand Six hundred and ninety third Lord of the Bloodline of the Vessel Makers, and the Forty-sixth Warden of the Northern islands opened his eyes to the world for the first time.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Thirteen Years Later
Harry Potter was scared. He was standing near Hogwarts' lake with his catatonic godfather; shaking as monstrous soul sucking fiends descended upon them to do what they did best, which was to turn healthy living beings into empty shells devoid of a soul.
He watched, helpless, as they came closer and closer. A little ball of light levitated out of the mouth of the only person in the world that he called family. With a jolt, Harry realized he was looking at his godfather's soul coming out of his body. Now desperate, he prayed, begged and cried, for someone to save them, at his own uselessness, and for what he had done to the only person who cared for him. He tried conjuring a Patronus, again and again, never getting anything more than mist. It was all hopeless, he thought as he watched a dementor descend and swallow the ball in one smooth motion.
At this, he slumped, unwilling to fight any further. It was pointless anyway. If he couldn't save Sirius, what right did he have to live? The Dursleys had been right after all, he was good for nothing, a freak, utterly useless, a burden on the earth. Such thoughts overpowered his mind, pulling him deeper and deeper into depression, even as a fate worse than death glided closer with every second.
And then he felt it. As the dementors drew closer, as they laid waste to greater and greater parts of his mind, he felt something snap within , followed by a scream of unearthly rage and pain. Through blinking eyes he saw a tiny black ball, diseased and mutilated, flow out of his scar into the mouth of the dementor closest to him.
The vision was put aside in his mind, though, as his world , raw, undiluted power, coursed through him, rising from his blood, his soul. It was different from any magic he'd ever cast before: Older, purer, and a million times deeper. And with the power, came clarity. What the hell was he thinking? He wouldn'tdie, he couldn't! He was Lord Voldemort! The Greatest Wizard on Earth!
No he wasn't, he was Harry Potter, a below pathetic student with three years of mediocre magical education.
But this was not the time to have an identity crisis. He needed to SURVIVE!
As Harry's mind calmed, his power acted. A tendril of purest darkness erupted out of his hand, burying itself deep within the nearest dementor. Then Harry watched, transfixed, as the dementor unravelled. He could suddenly see glowing threads, tying together the various magics that comprised it simply snapas they were touched by the tendril of his power.
Then he felt a link. Voices were screaming at him: A cacophony of rage, frustration and above all, a mindless terror ... Until he heard one voice, rising over the cacophony.
"We beg forgiveness, scion of darkness. Spare us, we beg you."
Forgiveness; such a wonderful word … such a pathetic lie… Hadn't he already seen what happenedif he showed forgiveness? Wasn't his godfather, the only family he had, lying soulless mere feet from him because he had shown forgiveness? There would be no forgiveness, no mercy. These beasts had robbed him of a loved one, nothing less than their utter annihilation would suffice in return.
Once again, as he decided, his power answered. Dozens upon dozens of tendrils, similar yet more refined than the original, sprouted from him, ploughing through the dementors, dissolving their magics with a single touch. Till at last, the dementors turned back into a full blown retreat. Escaping across the grounds into a direction Harry vaguely knew Azkaban lied in.
It was at this point that his mind gave in, and Harry's vision went dark.
When he woke it was morning. Looking around, he saw that he was in the hospital wing, lying on the beds next to him were Ron and Hermione. Both still unconscious. He thought of waking them, but for some reason the very idea repulsed him, his mind filled of a sudden anger towards them both. Speaking of his mind, he needed to understand just what the hell had happened the last night. He remembered calling himself Voldemort, for Merlin's sake! And as if the name had been a trigger, his mind suddenly filled with memories and thoughts he knew weren't his own. Head pounding, he decided that first of all, he needed a place to think quietly.
The answer came immediately, out of the strange new memories at that. Within minutes he was making his way to the abandoned girls' toilet on the second floor, and before long he was sitting at the feet of the statue of Salazar Slytherin, thinking furiously.
Only that turned out to be a bad idea. The headache, instead of reducing, increased to unbelievable levels, and for the second time in as many days, Harry felt himself falling unconscious.
The last thing he remembered was a grey face looming over him.