Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
So much was going to change once he walked through this door.
Harry just hoped they didn't start cursing him before he could explain; so much depended on Voldemort make his usual long winded speeches about finally defeating him. That was also something he needed to remember to mention, that was if he lived through the next five minutes.
Taking a deep, calming he took all the Gryffindor courage he could muster and opened the old wood doors that lead straight into an Inner Circle Death Eater meeting. He still hadn't looked to see who was there, mainly because he already knew, but also because he didn't want to see who the ones were trying to kill him, knowing ignorance would be bliss in the future.
Walking straight to the throne in the front of the room, no one had yet to make an attempt to even say a spell or even stop him; instead they all were silent and moving out of his way as he made the slow procession to the Dark Lord.
Reaching the closest distance he felt safe at, Harry finally looked up to find a shock of his own. The Dark Lord that he had seen a mere two weeks previously was not who was standing in front of him. No the man looked no older than thirty, but he was human. Well obviously, but to Harry that was almost disturbing. Now how was he supposed to use the speech he had practice over, and over? Even going as far as to practice in front of a mirror for Circe sake, he had even thought up what he thought might be Voldemort's responses. Now it was all smashed to hell because he didn't practice a speech for this version of the Dark Lord, the one that with one looks like an older Tom Riddle, no dammit he had practiced for Snakeface Dark Lord.
With a sigh far too loud in the silent room Harry Potter began to tap his foot, a nervous habit he had since Petunia had decided it was time for him to learn to cook. It was probably embarrassing to an almost thirty year old woman for a three year old boy to cook better than her, even without the help of a cookbook. So Harry had suffered a whole month of Petunia trying to 'teach' her nephew to cook, while Harry watched with a critical eye silently reprimanding her for every mistake she made.
So now twelve years later he had struck the same pose not even noticing the varying looks on the faces around him, if he wasn't so distracted trying to find a way to blame this on Voldemort he would have seen this as humorous. Lucius Malfoy stood as stoic as ever except for the peculiar twitch around his lip area; Bellatrix Lestrange seemed not to know what expression to take, there was a gleeful giddiness that wasn't quite normal, to anger that seemed to make her hair stand on end, to the required 'Are you stupid?' where her eyes seemed to be popping out and she didn't seem to know whether to leave her mouth open or have her teeth gnashing, the effect was quite comical; Severus Snape's expression was something that would take the most intelligent to interpret. He didn't seem to know how to respond. His eyes seemed to promise death, lips were formed in his typical smirk, but his fingers decided to have a mind of its own and was actually pointing at Harry.
Of course the only one with a view of the entire thing had been the Dark Lord himself, so when he suddenly began to laugh, well even the most emotionally dead person in the room had began to wonder if Potter had somehow hexed their Lord without them seeing. Then there was Harry who, was still just tapping his foot and seemed oblivious to everything around him.
"Potter while I am enjoying this immensely I am beginning to wonder why you came here, obviously you aren't here to die." That didn't get a response from the boy wonder either. "Or am I wrong? Have you come here to let me finally kill you?"
This seemed to work because Harry finally looked up, opened his mouth to speak, shook his head and began again.
"Yes, I mean no. I haven't come to die, obviously, though I was expecting it. I wonder why you didn't kill me the moment I opened the door." He didn't wait for an answer, just continued to ramble, lost in thought. "So er, I came to tell you that I've decided to join you, you know like you offered. That is if the offer is still standing."
There were gasps throughout the crowd, someone even called out saying he was a spy, Harry thought the voice sounded remarkably like Wormtails, he just sneered in the direction it came from. Voldemort lazily waved a hand signifying a yes to his question, and to continue.
Harry wanted to sneer at him too, but thought it would be best if the Dark Lord was in an agreeable mood about the next bit.
Shuffling his feet and not looking into the face of the man who killed his parents, Harry mumbled the whole reason why he was there. Everyone in the room was straining to hear, but none succeeded.
"Would you mind repeating that, perhaps without all of the mumbling?" The Dark Lord asked dryly.
Looking straight into the eyes of someone he hoped to know better after the revelations he was going to confess.
"Well you see, I had this speech planned about how I was going to tell you this, although I suspect you might already know most of it, but it's all related so I have to tell the whole thing." Voldemort nodded his understanding. "So when you came to kill me, you killed my mother too but not my father, because he wasn't there. That part I'm not sure you knew about," a shake of a head was his answer, "well see my mother was having an affair. When I first found this out I instantly thought Snape." An odd gurgling sound came from where Snape was, Harry wished he could have seen his face. "I found out about the affair in second year, when I had found my mother's diary. She hadn't mentioned actual names, all that was written was an 'S'. See that's why I thought Snape, him being my mum's friend and all. Well I looked up ways to find out who my father was when I went back to school; the only way seemed to be a potion that showed your family tree. I had finished it within the first month of my third year; I also continued to read her diary."
Harry stopped here to think about what he just confessed. No one had known of course what he had been doing; Hermione and Ron thought he was researching ways to kill Sirius Black. The diary had been life changing; it had been since the moment he had found it. Petunia had ordered him to clean out the attic, where he had found an old trunk filled with his mother's things. The diary had been innocently sitting on the top, curiosity getting the better of him; he had begun reading before finishing cleaning. Between then and a month before his third year he had read every day, finding out things about his mother and himself that had almost seemed scary, that was until he had found out more damning information at the end of his fifth year.
Pulling himself from his thoughts Harry continued, "An odd thing happened when I finished my family tree, every person except myself and my mother was blacked out. I didn't know what that meant or why it happened but I had no one to ask about it either, not really trusting any of my friends or the teachers. I didn't get finished with the diary until a little before the end of third year, by then I knew that even without the tree, that Snape wasn't my father, but a Slytherin was." Harry looked around at the occupants of the room then, just to be a little cruel, maybe making them doubt how sure they were of the possibility that Harry Potter could be there son. Snape of course looked smug while still looking relieved, Lucius Malfoy looked interested but of course he knew it was impossible since Harry had such dark hair, but Bellatrix was what had Harry choking with laughter. She seemed to think Harry was talking about Voldemort and was looking at him like he had betrayed her. Voldemort was calmly looking back at her with a raised brow and a smug smile. Harry didn't know what that was about but it still irked him Voldemort had eyebrows at all. I mean come on; I had an amazing speech prepared and everything. "Getting back, just so everyone can stop worrying so much, none of you are my father either. I'm going to back track a little now and explain something about my mum supposedly being a muggleborn. Well let's just say its complete bullshit."
He looked back to Voldemort, instead of the floor, just daring him to call him a liar. It didn't happen so Harry started talking once more. "First off, you need to know that she was adopted. Apparently someone had kidnapped her when she was a child, I think she said she was about three. She had no memories before that time, which if you ask me is clearly intentional."
He was interrupted then by Snape, who seemed to be paler then he was a few minutes ago. "Are you telling me Potter, that your mother was kidnapped by a wizard who was powerful enough to obliviate a child younger than the age of three and still leave their mind intact? That level of power is almost impossible, the only wizards powerful enough during that time to do such a thing was the Dark Lord himself, or Dumbledore. Since you are standing here telling this to the Dark Lord, I am assuming you believe Dumbledore to have done this?" The last was said in a quiet hiss, but Harry heard him. He too felt himself going pale. Never have thought about who actually kidnapped his mother, not even knowing where to start, but he would have bet his whole fortune that it was Dumbledore.
"I had never thought about it actually, but since that seems like the only logical conclusion. It doesn't make sense why he would do that though." Unless of course my mother was a threat to him, but that's just silly, she wasn't even three years old. Still I wasn't even two and the Dark Lord came after me, but for her to be a threat to Dumbledore that would mean she came from a Dark family. That's to think on later. "Right well, my mum grew up as a muggle with a squib family that apparently a man had left her with. He had claimed that her family had been murdered. My mum had believed that until she had went to St. Mungo's when she found out she was pregnant with me and found out that her first three years of memories had been erased. She had never told James Potter because she didn't have an excuse to have been at the hospital. After that she began looking into her family more. She eventually went to her adopted mother and asked about it, that's when her mother told her that a man had came and explained how her family had been killed. Her mother couldn't tell her the man's name, or even the description, so that's when mum had figured out that he had been kidnapped. She was never able to find out who her original family was but she was never able to tell her lover before he was killed about her past. The last page of the diary was about blaming herself, she had suspected that his master had found out about her." He saw the dawning understanding in Voldemort's eyes, he didn't have to turn around to know many except possibly Wormtail and Bellatrix had the same expression. "My true father was a Death Eater apparently, and when he didn't return from a mission, my mother thought you had murdered him because you found out about him being with a muggleborn. So that is why I am here."
No one spoke for a while, trying to slow down their minds processing all of the questions that needed to be answered.
"So if you are not here to kill me, and not to have me kill you, but apparently join me although you believe me to have killed your father, what is it you actually want?" Even if Voldemort seemed to know who his father was, he wasn't voicing the name for a reason Harry didn't understand. Maybe he doesn't know then, just like mother.
"I don't think you have killed my father, I even question if you killed my mother, what I would like is to get to know my father, and even my other family. Also if you could help figure out whose family my mother's is, well that would just be icing on the cake." He knew he confused more than a few with wanting to know a father everyone thought was dead, but well if they still thought he was dead after listening to the conversation, then that's their fault for being stupid.
"Why would you think I know where you father is? After all if Regulus Black doesn't want to be found, more than likely he wouldn't be." More than a few gasps followed his father's name, whether because he was alive or because he was in fact the heir to the Noble and Ancient House of Black, either way Harry was annoyed. Why oh why is everyone so stupid? I really wished that there was some kind of magic to fix it, but alas the only spell Harry could think of was such a wonderful shade of green, that it would be wasted on such brainless cows.