AN - Ok here we go again, this story won't leave me alone and it won't let me make it a one shot. So let's see where it takes us.
Alternate universe where the Potter's raise Tom Marvolo Riddle JR after Dumbledore brings a new-born baby back from the past. But there are consequences for interfering in the past, Grindelwald lives and is gathering forces.
There is an 11 year time jump in this chapter which happens in one paragraph. There will be flashbacks to this period in future chapters.
Chapter 1 – Nature VS Nurture
Albus stood in the circle which was supposed to take him back in time to destroy Voldemort, Lily and James Potter and Sirius Black stood watching as the circle started glowing. All three males poured their magic into the Ritual which would hopefully ensure that Harry grew up without the idiotic prophecy hanging over his head.
There was a table in the room which had a parchment on it; the parchment would record any changes in history that occurred as a result of Dumbledore's actions in the past. The plan was simple, Dumbledore would find a young and very pregnant Merope Gaunt on the 31 December 1926 and make sure Tom didn't survive the troubled birth, an hour after the ritual started Sirius, James and Lily would bring him back to their time and deal with the consequences.
A two day old Harry Potter lay in his crib and marvelled at the moving miniature brooms above him, with thumb in mouth he drifted asleep not knowing or able to understand what was happening in the basement two floors below him.
Lily checked the parchment and saw that Grindelwald had not been defeated by Albus Dumbledore but rather the two gifted magicians fought to a draw, Gellert having been drained of his magical core was imprisoned in a newly built ICW prison which would replace every magical prison. An hour later Albus stood back in the circle as expected, what they did not expect was that he was holding a little boy in his arms. Lily turned to the parchment and saw that there was never a Lord Voldemort but instead Grindelwald had escaped and was still on the loose.
"Albus what have you done?" Sirius roared
"Calm down Padfoot" Lily put her hand on Sirius' shoulder "Is that Voldemort?"
"No my dear, this is Tom Marvolo Riddle Jr who would've grown up to be Voldemort but I will rename him and raise him" Albus said
"What do you know about raising a child Albus?" Sirius challenged "Your own brother cannot belief that you're a teacher so there has to be something that you're not telling us" he stated plainly
Then Dumbledore told them the story of Arianna and Gellert, everyone listened carefully and watched Albus Dumbledore tell the most heart-breaking story they had ever heard. Lily looked at James and in that moment he knew what she was thinking and he agreed with her completely, Albus could not raise this boy and fight against Grindelwald.
"Albus, give him to us. We'll raise him with Harry" Lily spoke softly. The more she explained it to Dumbledore the more she found herself happy that Harry would have a brother, they had agreed to deal with the consequences and this was one of them.
"Lily you cannot be serious, he was going to kill Harry!" Sirius protested
"No Padfoot, Voldemort will not exist because Tom will be raised differently. We will love him and care for him and he will be good" James said firmly as Lily took Tom from Dumbledore.
"Very well, I will deal with Gellert once more. Lily and James you will raise Tom and Sirius, I think you just got a new godson" Dumbledore smiled for the first time since he had returned from the past. They checked the parchment over and over again and small insignificant changes had taken place. Hagrid was expelled from Hogwarts for keeping an Acromantula in his room but Dumbledore saved him by making him the Keeper of keys at Hogwarts, Ravenclaw's diadem had not been stolen but resided in the Ravenclaw tower under heavy protection and monitoring charms.
Eventually Sirius and Dumbledore departed and left the young couple alone
"So what will we call him?" she asked while holding the still sleeping baby
"I think we'll stick with Tom as a nickname but Thomas should be his first name but I think we should use your father's name as well, since we always planned that for our second child"
"Thomas Mark Potter?" she asked tentatively
"I think it sounds good, let's take him upstairs" James said guiding her towards the stairs
They conjured a second crib and put him down and went to bed for the night, feeling completely drained from the evenings activity, James held Lily close and they drifted to sleep.
The next morning was eventful for the family of four; James woke to a loud noise from the kid's bedroom. He rushed in to find them both in Tom's crib pointing at random brooms and making them fly down into the crib and then take off again. Lily was a charms master and here these two toddlers were undoing her work. Their first stop of the morning was the Ministry to get both boys registered; it took the entire morning to explain that the second boy was left on their doorstep and that they wanted to raise him, they decided to have Harry and Tom share a birthday as they were both only days old. When they left the Ministry, the boys were officially registered as Harry James Potter and Thomas Mark Potter. St Mungos was the next stop where the parents were shocked to their cores when they heard the news that the magical cores on both boys were well developed.
"So what does it mean?"
"Well, since their cores are so developed for them being only days old I think they will be extremely powerful wizards" the Healer smiled "Also you should see them performing accidental magic much earlier"
"This morning they were performing magic but it didn't seem accidental" James said
"Can you show me what you mean? Can I see the memory?" the healer brought out a pensieve to view the memory. Minutes later he emerged from the memory smiling
"Who cast the charm on the broom sticks?" he asked
"I did, I just finished my Charms mastery" Lily replied
"You will have to excellent little Wizards Mr and Mrs Potter" he smiled once more and cast some vaccination spells over the boys.
"You may leave but I expect to see these two again in a years time" the healer handed Tom to Lily and the family left the hospital.
"Where should we go to now?" James asked Lily
"Frank and Alice did ask us to bring Harry over to see Neville"
"Let's go then introduce both boys to them then"
The rest of the day was pleasant and all three boys took turns being in one of the four adults arms.
The next eleven years seemed to fly by for the two families, Lily and James moved the family into Potter manor (which was right next door to Longbottom manor) when the boys turned three. The small house in Godrics Hollow no longer able to contain the chaos that was Harry and Tom, with Neville always over James and Frank knew that neither boy would grow up friendless. Lily was worried when she found the boys playing with a snake in the back yard and saw that Tom was controlling it, she mentioned it to James and the Longbottoms who knew the truth about Tom and they decided to wait till they were older to explain it to the boys.
The boys ended up celebrating their birthdays together, Sirius who had ended up loving Tom as much as he did Harry bought all three boys brooms for their seventh birthdays. He also promised them if they ever made a Quidditch team at school he would buy them any broom they wanted.
The week before Hogwarts was due to open all three boys received their letters, they had changed the pet list for the year and that's when Lily and James knew it was the time to talk to the boys. They both sat down next to one another waiting to be shouted for something new, even Sirius was there looking at the boys with a mischievous smile
"Boys, your mother and I love both of you equally and nothing will ever change that" James started
"Both of you are so special and such wonderful boys and I have no doubt that you will be powerful wizards" Lily offered
"We know" the boys chorused having heard some variation of this before
"Two days after Harry was born someone left Tom on our front porch. There was no letter and no one ever came to fetch you. So we raised you like our own son, and now after 11 years I couldn't imagine life without our little Tommy"
Tom smiled and Harry put his arm around his brother's shoulders
"So you aren't my parents but you love me?" Tom asked
"We love you more than you know" Lily told him
"And who are my real parents?" he asked curiously
"We don't know Tom, we have tried to find out but you were just left here" James lied. It was the lie they told everyone who asked.
"Okay, so why are you telling us?" Tom asked clearly happy with the answer he received
"Because there are some things that are going to happen this year; You read your letter and it has allowed you to bring an owl, a kneazle, a cat or a snake which must be non-poisonous and non-venomous and if you're lucky enough to have a Phoenix become your familiar then you may bring it as well. Now Tom because you can speak to snakes we know that you are a descendant of the Slytherin blood line and that's why Harry and Neville can't do it and the Potter's are descendants of the Gryffindor blood line. So we think that you and Harry might be split up when the sorting ceremony happens and we want you to know that no matter what house you're in, you're still our sons and we love both of you equally. Sirius was in a family who were all in Slytherin and he was a Gryffindor, which proves that anything can happen next week"
"Ok mom" both boys replied again
"So no matter what might happen, I want you two to stay close ok"
"We will. So when can we go get wands?" Harry asked
"Today actually, your dad and Uncle are going to take you" Lily said and gave each boy a kiss on the forehead and went back to work on a new book.
The four of them walked down Diagon Alley and the two boys practically dragged Sirius and James down towards Ollivander's wand shop. When they got there Neville and Frank were being helped
"Ah two more first timers, just wait your turn now boys Mr Longbottom here is almost done finding a wand" Ollivander smiled and moved to another row looking through wands and letting Neville try them out. Both boys watched their friend get to go look for his wand. Finally they saw sparks from the wand Neville chose
"Excellent, ten inch, cherry with a phoenix feather core, it is a very powerful wand which will perform light magic exceptionally well. Okay who is next?" Ollivander asked seeing the three older men were in deep conversation
"Go on Tom!" Harry nudged his brother
"Wonderful let's see" Ollivander took him through the store and Tom felt a pull from the back of the store
"Mr Ollivander"
"Yes Mr Potter?" he smiled as he passed a worktable
"I feel a pull from over there" he pointed to the back of the store
"Well go and get the wand Mr Potter" He motioned for Tom to continue
He walked along the shelves until it looked like the boxes were older than the rest, they had dust on them and the boxes changed colour from a light grey to black. Eventually he found it and when he held it in his hand it almost vibrated with power he looked to Ollivander who simply nodded for him to try it out, with a swish a strong set of sparks burst forth.
"Marvellous, it has been years since someone has had such a strong connection with a wand. It seems that you have an extremely powerful wand Mr Potter. Tell me, are you a Parselmouth?" Tom simply nodded "Well this wand has a Basilisk skin core and matched with Ebony wood at thirteen inches you will make a very powerful wizard, use it wisely Mr Potter this was of the last wands my grandfather created and very little good has come from Wizards who wield wands with basilisk skin core. Other Mr Potter, tell me do you feel a wand calling like your brother did?" Ollivander asked
"Harry it feels like when mom holds you" Tom explained
Closing his eyes Harry immediately knew what Tom meant, he walked to where Tom was and chose the box next to the place where Tom's had stood
"Curious, very curious. Mr Potter it seems you and your brother are going to do equally great things. The wand you hold was the last wand my grandfather created and it was his master piece, it however hasn't bonded with anyone. Ebony wood thirteen inches with a Hungarian horntail core, wonderfully powerful"
With that they paid and left the shop to get the rest of their school supplies, the boys were excited to get their pets next but they would get that last. Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions was next where the boys looked terrible bored but James wanted to surprise Lily by getting everything on the list, not just doing all the fun stuff and leaving the rest to her. Flourish and Blotts was pretty standard, they had pre-packaged the years books together. Sirius got each of the boys a copy of 1000 jinxes and hexes every wizard should know and a copy of Quidditch through the Ages. Last up they went into the pet store and let the boys wander around for a while. Neville found a grey Kneazle with blue eyes which he immediately knew he wanted, Frank persuaded him to look around a bit more before he made up his mind. Harry was watching a very grey bird in an old cage, he put his hand on the cage and the bird pecked it and before he could respond it burst into flames. The shop keeper came towards him
"I didn't do anything, it just bit me and burst into flames" he practically shouted
"No worries young man, you're extraordinarily lucky. This lady here is a white Phoenix, a family brought her in many years ago when her familiar died and she just stopped doing anything, now it seems you have a Phoenix for a familiar" he handed the cage to Harry while James smiled at his son, the moment didn't last very long. Because Tom came running with a Snake in his hands, it had red, black and white rings all down its body.
"Dad! Ronin wants to come home with us" Tom said holding up the snake for inspection
"That was the biggest hatchling we've ever had, the Scarlet King Snake is usually 3 to 7 inches. This one was 18 inches when it was born"
"Lily is going to kill the three of you, one White Phoenix and one Scarlet King Snake" Sirius laughed at the look on James's face.
They paid for everything and bid the Longbottom's farewell and walked through the floo and into their living room.
AN – Thanks for reading. Next Chapter will be the train ride and Hogwarts Sorting ceremony. Let me know what you think so far, the three boys will remain friends no matter which houses they are sorted into not that there won't be issues because there will be. On the topic of sorting give me your suggestions on which house Neville will be in, I have made up my mind on Harry and Tom but you may try and sway me