[this attempts to answer the question: can you teach an old cliché new tricks?]
Voldemort's Master Plan
Voldemort needed the boy. That much was certain. But how to get him? The old fool would never let him near, even if he didn't know Voldemort was around again, which he did, thanks to the little snag in his plans at the Graveyard. The boy, though—he was the important one.
Voldemort, tired, decided to take a break from evil plotting (he had been doing it all day, with nary a break to torture anyone) and go to his special room. It was special because no magic was allowed in there—and no magic was allowed there because Voldemort used the room to house all his useful muggle electronics (although he'd kill you if you found out).
Voldemort sank down in a comfy armchair in front of the telly, and drifted off to sleep, when he had a very strange dream…
Voldemort woke up intrigued. Could it be? Had his subconscious finally got the hint and decided to help him out? Or had he just watched too much Star Wars?
Well, there was only one thing to do: research. Voldemort loved research, especially when it was for useful things like world domination, immortality, and making other people suffer.
After hours of fruitless searching, Voldemort finally found it: a tiny paragraph near the bottom of the page in a thick, dull book in the middle of other thick, dull books nobody ever bothers to read unless they have to.
Voldemort felt a smile stretch its way across his skeletal features. At last! The boy was within his grasp. He could set the plan in motion at once, with no one the wiser…
[[[]]]
Harry was having a bad summer. Cedric had died, it was his fault, he was bored out of his mind, he was still living with the Dursleys…just to name a few. But it got aeons worse than he had ever imagined it could when Voldemort showed up on his doorstep.
Well, not literally. He wasn't that suicidal. He sent Lucius Malfoy, looking disgruntled, and a lawyer. Harry tried to sneak out the door but Malfoy walked casually over to him and grabbed his arm in a viselike grip. Harry winced. Lucius stared at him, and Harry decided not to make a run for it.
He would have if he'd known Voldemort sent him.
In only ten minutes, Harry's things were packed, and the Dursleys were gladly seeing off a very apprehensive Harry, who was wondering how to get a message to Dumbledore without Malfoy seeing. He'd thought they had watchers in place to prevent this sort of thing happening!
[[[]]]
"He's gone?" Dumbledore asked. "What do you mean he's gone?"
The person on the other end of the fireplace cowered. "I mean just what I said—he's gone! There ain't no trace of him anywhere!"
"Are you sure he's gone? The wards haven't been activated," Dumbledore said worriedly, pacing.
"I know, I know, but he's definitely gone."
Dumbledore thought hard. The wards were completely foolproof. There was no way they could have been broken, unless Harry had come of age or a relative of his had taken him away.
A relative…could that be a loophole? But Harry had no relatives, none that were not accounted for.
What could possibly have happened?
[[[]]]
"VOLDEMORT?!" Harry yelled. They had entered Malfoy Manor, and he'd been introduced to his host—so far, they hadn't gotten along very well.
"Be silent, you infuriating boy!" Voldemort growled. "I haven't finished explaining my master plan to all observing!"
"YOU KIDNAPPED ME! YOU KILLED CEDRIC! GIVE ME A WAND AND I'LL KILL YOU!"
"No! Shut up!"
"I WON'T! I'LL TELL DUMBLEDORE!"
"You will not!"
"I WILL!"
"You have no way to do so!"
"I DON'T CARE!"
Voldemort roared with rage and backhanded Harry across the face, sending him flying across the room.
"I told you to be quiet!" he shouted, and tried to calm himself. He'd been trying to make a better first impression than this. Apparently it hadn't worked.
Voldemort took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He opened them. "Let me try again," he said softly. "Harry, I am…er… your father."
Harry stared at him openmouthed. "Um…" he said. "Yeah. Well…"
"Yes?" Voldemort asked encouragingly.
Harry tried to think of something to say.
"I don't think you are," he said finally. "I think I would have known, if you were. You know, I'm sure someone would have told me, 'oh, and you just happen to be the son of the Dark Lord himself—'"
"If you would just stop babbling for one moment, I could explain it to you," Voldemort said, gliding over to Harry and pulling him to his feet. "I am not your biological father—that is ridiculous. I am your legal father."
"WHAT?!"
"Can you be a little more quiet?!"
Harry balled his fists and glared. "NO!"
"FINE!"
"FINE!"
"FINE!"
"Um, my lord…" Malfoy started, diffidently, from the corner.
"Shut up!" Harry and Voldemort said together, turning at the same time and glaring at him. Malfoy backed against the wall. One of them was bad enough, he thought wretchedly, but now there were two of them!
"I am sorry," Voldemort said. "Usually I am able to control out connection better than this. It must be our close proximity, feeding and multiplying our rage and so enhancing it—"
Harry groaned and put his head in his hands.
"Right," said Voldemort. "As I was saying, I found a loophole in the law that allowed me to break your protection."
"By making you my father," Harry said. "How are you even allowed to do this? It should be illegal!"
"I am a very good researcher," Voldemort said, rather smugly.
Harry groaned again. His scar was hurting, and he could feel the smugness emanating from Voldemort. This was just. great.
[[[]]]
"You what?" Dumbledore asked blankly.
"As you can see, it is all perfectly legal," Voldemort said smoothly. He put his arm around Harry, who ground his teeth. "Isn't it Harry?"
Harry said nothing.
"Isn't it, Harry?"
"Yes," Harry muttered sullenly.
Voldemort kicked him under his robes.
"Sir," he amended sarcastically. Voldemort grimaced but went on.
"I am therefore enrolling him in Hogwarts—"
"I'm ALREADY enrolled—"
Voldemort kicked him again, and Harry stopped speaking abruptly. He crossed his arms and scowled.
"Yes. Enrolling him in Slytherin."
Harry whirled around, horrified. "You can't do that! I've already been Sorted! He can't do that—Dumbledore?"
Dumbledore looked at Voldemort. "And if I refuse?" he asked.
"I'll kill him!"
"You're going to kill me anyway," Harry said.
"Now now," said Voldemort, "lets not be hasty. It can wait."
Harry closed his eyes and sighed.
"Well?!"
Dumbledore shook his head slowly. "Very well Tom," he said eventually.
Voldemort's arm tightened around Harry's and his face went stony, but he only said, "Good."
[[[]]]
"Oh Harry, isn't it awful?"
"Oh Harry, I can't believe it—"
"How hard—"
"How sorry—"
"With Malfoy—"
"In Slytherin—"
Harry let his friends words wash over him. He was just happy to be away from Voldemort, in the train at Hogwarts, and he was trying to pretend, for just a little while, that nothing was different. But Hermione and Ron were making it rather hard.
"Yes yes, it's very bad," Harry said finally. "Can we just—stop talking about it?"
They stared at him, as if 'not talking about it' were a foreign language.
"Are you sure you're all right, Harry?" Hermione asked.
"All right? All right? Voldemort's my father!"
They flinched. Harry wasn't sure why, for once. The name, or the sentence itself? It still made Harry sick every time he said it—which was a lot, because every day a new reporter had been coming to Malfoy Manor, wanting to talk to him, and Voldemort had shoved him at them. "It's always good to know how to control the media," he said when Harry complained, although Harry thought it was doing most of the controlling. They never kept even half the things he really said, and exaggerated the other half.
"Practice makes perfect," Voldemort had answered, and shot another one at him.
Harry was completely drained.
But it wasn't like he could complain about it to Hermione and Ron. When he did, they just asked, "has he tried to kill you yet?" or "did you find out any secret information?" which wasn't very helpful.
Harry sank down in his seat. At least his scar wasn't hurting now that they were farther apart again. It had been paining him almost constantly when they were under the same roof. Look on the bright side, Harry thought, for the umpteenth time. Voldemort's playing at being your father, but at least your scar isn't hurting.
It didn't help very much.
[[[]]]
Harry met his new roommates in a sea of glares, was tripped up, and hexes shot at him, all before the end of the day. Feast was a disaster. Harry stared at his friends and listened to Voldemort thinking about a book he wanted to read, while everyone shot wary glances at him as if he might explode at any moment, or start Avada Kedavra-ing everyone.
At least no one can pretend Voldemort isn't back now, Harry thought gloomily.
The next day was not much better. Harry started to think that if school kept on being this bad, he would welcome Christmas break, when at least most of them would go home. But what if Voldemort wanted him to leave then too?
If the Slytherins were hostile, the Gryffindors seemed confused and awkward. He could never get more than a few sentences into a conversation before the other would trail off awkwardly. The only exceptions were Ron and Hermione, but being in different houses, they saw each other much less. Harry had no desire to talk to any of the Hufflepuffs, after what had happened to Cedric, so he ended up hanging around with Ravenclaws most of the time, who didn't seem to mind if he just sat there and stared into space.
Harry soon found that living with your archenemy is a lot easier than living with a hundred lesser enemies. It's the numbers, you see. You never know where they all are.
Two weeks into term, Ron and Hermione started noticing it. "Are you ok?" they would ask. "You look sort of pale." "You seem tired." "Did you hurt yourself?"
"No," Harry wanted to answer. "I didn't hurt myself, why would I do that?" but he refrained. They meant well—but Dumbledore couldn't help him now, neither could any of the teachers or heads of houses—except for Snape, and the day he decided to help Harry would be the day Hogwarts fell.
Five weeks into term, and Harry began to realize he had to do something. This wasn't the Dursleys, who he could avoid, this was a whole House conspiring against him—and he was in it. Inside enemy lines. He could hardly get any schoolwork done, he was so tired, and he'd stopped bothering going to the hospital wing except for emergencies.
Harry rubbed his eyes from where he was hiding out inside the library, and tried to think. He looked up when he felt someone approach him, but it was only Luna.
"Hi," he said tiredly.
"You don't look well," she said in her usual astute way. "Are the Slytherins tormenting you?"
"Yeah," he said. "I'm trying to think what to do about it."
"Well," she said, sitting down next to him, "I think you probably have to make them respect you."
Harry frowned. "I could never do that."
"How do you know?" she asked. "Have you tried?"
Well, no. Not really. But he decided to start at once. Voldemort wasn't the only one who could put a master plan into action.
[[[]]]
He started by taking advantage of Voldemort's impromptu adoption/kidnapping. Most of the Slytherins were the children of Death Eaters, after all—if he mentioned a few times, oh, just how angry Voldemort could get, how he wouldn't like it if he knew anyone was hurting Harry—you know, the boy he wanted to kill, yes, that Harry—and by the way, did you know we have an instant connection through my scar? You didn't? Oh, it's very useful—he was sure things would turn around in record time.
He was right. It was ridiculously easy, in fact—in the space of a week he had gone from "most hated" to "most feared" and all because Voldemort had gotten it into his head to do something completely inane. An unexpected side effect was that it spread to other houses, though. He hadn't meant to be feared by everyone, only the Slytherins. But he couldn't stop now. If he did, they would see it was all a sham—and Harry found that he'd take avoidance over abuse any day, at least for now.
Soon, though, he found himself getting lonely. He couldn't contact the Order, because if he knew where they were, Voldemort knew too. Dumbledore had limited his contact to encouraging glances across the Great Hall, and Hermione and Ron had taken advantage of his absence to fall in love. Not that they knew it yet, but Harry could see it plain as day.
Voldemort interrupted him at random hours of the day as well, with inexplicable comments of one sort or another, mostly gleeful.
Well, if no one was going to try to kill the man, he'd have to.
But how? Last time they dueled he hadn't died, but only because he was helped by ghosts. Harry decided he had to be more cunning than that. He had to take the rug from under Voldemort's feet without him noticing, then strike while he was down.
Accordingly, Harry decided he'd have to become Tom's equal, at least in number of loyal followers. And it would have to be in Slytherins.
[[[]]]
Harry explained his master plan to Ron and Hermione, but they didn't look that enthused. "Are you sure Voldemort isn't influencing you somehow?" Hermione asked worriedly. "That sounds like something he would do. And you said he's keeping the connection open on purpose now, right?"
"Yes, but he has no idea what I'm up to. He's too busy gloating. I think he took over the Ministry."
Harry saw Ron and Hermione's shocked faces, and raised his eyebrows. "You didn't know?" he asked. "Surely Dumbledore would have told you—"
"Dumbledore doesn't tell us anything," Ron said. "You were always the one he talked to."
Harry frowned. "Well, anyway, that's my plan. Will you help or not?"
"Of course we'll help," Hermione said. "But are you really sure you want to do this?"
"Yes," said Harry.
And so began Harry's Army.
[[[]]]
The first thing the Army did, after Harry had finished teaching them the basics of Defense magic, was to get rid of Umbridge. That was done easily enough, and was even Hermione's idea—lure her into the forest with the talk of a secret weapon, and Harry let the Army take care of the rest. This was its first real test, to see how well it could function with a goal in sight. The only order Harry gave was that she not come out again.
He tried not to think about what might happen to her, and congratulated the Army when they fulfilled their goal.
Harry had very soon discovered that for strategy, there was no one better than Hermione—she was the one who had thought up the Galleons to call meetings and the cursed parchment to ensue loyalty, as well as the Umbridge plan. Malfoy, though he didn't trust him as far as he could throw him, was perfect for when Harry needed to get things done, and Ron would do whatever Harry asked.
It was the night Mr. Weasley died when everything changed. Harry knew Voldemort had done it, though he had no proof—but the tone of his feelings the next day confirmed it as far as Harry was concerned. The time to move was now, before any more good people died. They had to strike. And Harry knew just where to go—the ministry. Voldmort wanted something at the Ministry, and Harry was determined that he would not get it. More than that—he would pay for his crimes in blood.
[[[]]]
Harry was ready the moment he sensed Voldemort closing off his mind. He activated the Galleons, and the Army mobilized. In record time, they were at the ministry—where it seemed Voldemort's Death Eaters had already been. Harry had been counting on that fact to let them into the building.
They traveled until they reached the place Mr. Weasley had been attacked, and going through the door, they entered the Department of Mysteries.
Before they knew it, the Army was embroiled in a battle with Death Eaters, while Harry advanced on Voldemort, who was holding a crystal ball in his hand. He didn't know Harry was there, so engrossed was he in whatever it was saying.
Harry raised his wand and steeled himself. Then he took a deep breath and yelled "Avada Kedavra!"
Time seemed to stop. Harry felt himself being pulled down into darkness with Voldemort, and everything …ended.
[[[]]]
Harry came to amid clusters of worried faces. He got to his knees, and when he saw Voldemort's still body lying on the floor, smiled. He was finally dead.
Of course, he wasn't so happy when he heard that there were still a bunch of Horcruxes to destroy before Voldemort would be certainly, definitely gone for good—but it was okay. It was finally okay.
Harry let his Army go, and to the end of his days, kept his word to himself never to replicate his short stint as a Dark Lord.
.
.
.
[or: another way the Prophecy could have gone]