Full summary: At the night of his sixteenth birthday, Harry is granted a wish; to no longer be the Boy-who-lived, Chosen One or Harry Potter. With a wizarding world full of hypocrites and a new face, Harry decides to flee, believing that people count on chance to save them too much, it's time for them to wake up to reality and the fact that their saviour might not necessarily choose to save them after all, it is time to be Dark. With Harry Potter gone, their world is thrown into a frenzy of panic and uproar, just the kind of distraction needed for a new unknown pureblood, Raziel, to make his appearance without bringing too much attention to himself. Slightly Dark!Harry. Eventually Powerful!Harry. HP/DM
Rating: T for now but M later.
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.
Pairing: Both slash and Het. Main will eventually be Draco/Harry but for those against slash you can consider this a Harry/no one fic, coz I'll be placing slash warnings for each chapter.
Dedicated: itachisgurl93 , Akinyi222, MidnightRoseIsTheMadDetective , loveGD, Tiliapetiolaris, Clint, Reithandina, Analei, Yami-Taichi, Necro Regulus, DJFireHawk, JtheChosen1, Katsy17, adenoide, sunny smiles, sexy fox 101, Lilia0, Cazzylove.

Thanks for Your reviews, made me happy to know that you like it so far. From next chapter onward it will be a bit more Drarry focused.

This chapter is raw and unedited so bear with me if you meet the occasional spelly, here goes.

Tenebrae Aeternae
Chapter Four
- Linking the Pieces -

-ϟ-Tenebrae Aeternae-ϟ-

"…his bones were crushed…"

Darkness cradled him almost endearingly, like no parent ever had, putting his mind in a state of absolute peace. It was around him, within him, with him, united, they were one.

"…can't show their bodies to the Aurors…"

Who is talking?

A fraction of him wanted to know that, but that was all it was, a fraction, a miniscule part of him.

What was it he wanted to know again?

The thought had vanished, like a snowflake on a summer day, but he saw no reason to wonder why.

It didn't matter. Was he getting repetitive? Certainly not. He didn't understand how that idea had occurred to him at all; his mind was blank once again.

Nothing really mattered any longer. He could just lie here forever entangled with this comforting darkness cloaking him, loving him, protecting him, as he could enjoy this eternal moment, and he decided when he wanted it to stop. It was his decision alone if he wished to dream forever, his magic would make it happen, it said.

Feeling everything and yet feeling nothing at all, which was it?

"…monstrous…that magic… still glowing…"

Nearly soundless footsteps merged with the crunching sound of glass shattering below solid shoe soles, tugging at the edges of his conscious.

"…isn't that of a child…"

Nimble hands turned his motionless body over and he shivered discreetly as an enticingly cool hand brushed away the wisps of hair from his forehead, which he hadn't known was burning with a high temperature. The cold fingers were bliss, they felt so good.

"…only one who can…touch him…go near him…"

Fragments of sentences buzzed all around and he just wanted the noise to go away - to cease - to end. Had the world always been such an ear-splittingly noisy place? It was a wonder it had not driven him mad already.

"…rid of those plagues…"

"Mobilicorpus." A soft voice said. He knew whom it belonged to… he just couldn't care enough to search his memories.

"….who brought shame to the dark…"

Now floating, he could feel the air under his body as he passed many spheres of energy. He wondered what they were.

He could feel the shift of magic somewhere around him… there was people… and most of them veiled their magic, like he had, but he could clearly feel them as if there was nothing - no air, no skin - no meat - no bones - no distance - separating them. They were but spheres of magic in his dark world behind closed eyes. He could sense it all. Most of them blended into the darkness, but some lit up. Give him a moment to gather the determination and he would figure it out.

There were two magical people here whose allegiance was to the Light. See? He could use his head if he wanted to. But…

Why were there light wizards here? Or was it…. why shouldn't there be? Did it even matter? He couldn't remember. He didn't want to remember right now, he didn't want to care right now; he just wanted to… do nothing.

Perhaps sleep some more, yeah? The darkness whispered suggestively to him and wrapped him in its tranquillity once again. Let's both sleep.

And then the voice was no more.

-ϟ-Tenebrae Aeternae-ϟ-

Bolting awake, something akin to an electric shock bore through his body; he gave a cry of pain. His head hammered in vengeance to his rapid movement as tears prickled from his eyes.

Curled into a small ball, he let the aching in his body ebb out slowly, while gritting his sore teeth.

Mercifully, he couldn't remember what had happened, where he was or how he had gotten there. Wait, he knew this place. He was in his room…

"HE'S AWAKE! DAD!"

…not so alone.

Someone - probably Millicent whose presence he hadn't noticed - had just run out of his room. "HURRY!"

Footsteps were heard, and soon two people came running into his room. Raziel swallowed nervously as a sign of discomfort and decided to pull the duvet up further, if only to shield himself from the intensive starring.

"What's going on?" He asked when his adoptive father only stared at him from the door-opening as if frozen to his spot.

"F-finally you woke up." The usually calm and collected wizard both sounded and appeared to be worn out. "You were giving me gray hairs, boy!"

"Sorry?" He tried, not sure what the commotion was about. "Did you manage to catch the Death Eaters? You saved me after I fainted didn't you?"

From the crestfallen look on the Bulstrodes' faces he could tell he couldn't have aimed further from the truth. Millicent was the first to recover.

"You don't remember? Anything?" She asked, cautiously. "Nothing at all?"

"Of course I remember, Malfoy warned me and urged me inside to keep me safe, but they had already broken the wards, and when Bellatrix used the Cruciatus curse, I fainted." He finished off lamely, disappointed with himself knowing he'd cracked down with only one curse.

"So it wasn't Draco Malfoy who lured you into a trap?" Cyril asked harshly and if Raziel hadn't known better he'd have believed the man's harsh tone to be anger, but this wasn't anger, it was desperation.

"No, he did not in fact he helped me. I removed his mark and then, he warned me, but I didn't listen really so he forced me inside." He confirmed and let the duvet drop a bit.

"Owl Draco and Narcissa Malfoy, about the state of things now, and …apologize." Cyril ordered his dumbfound daughter. "We'll discuss what to do with Lucius when they come. Go!"

Millicent nodded and rushed out the room.

Raziel raised an eyebrow. "What happened…after I fainted?"

"Raziel, you… " Cyril stopped and closed his eyes for a moment before pulling his wand out of his pocket. "Try to call on my wand."

"Why? We never did lessons outside your study before." He wondered.

"Just do it." It was an order and he didn't like it, but he still reached out and called.

"Accio Wand!" The wand didn't move. "Accio Cyril's Wand! Accio Wand of Cyril Bulstrode." The wand didn't move no matter how he rephrased the spell.

"Did you enchant it?" He asked curiously, in wonder. "That's a neat spell, can it ignore disarming spells too?"

Cyril didn't answer immediately; he bit his lip, honey eyes edged with worry. "No, you don't understand, this isn't a lesson, and no spell can make a wand untouchable to magic."

Raziel looked confused for a moment as he digested this. Then looked at the surface of his hand and a wrinkle slowly spread over his usually smooth forehead.

"Argumenti." No water came. Not a single drop. His magic didn't respond and his mind reeled, trying to acknowledge the fact that his magic didn't respond. "S-Squib?"

"Confringo."

"Confringo!"

"CONFRINGO!" He howled as dread spread like venom inside his system, to every bone, to every cell of his body all the way to his heart. Pain forgotten he hugged himself, and allowed himself to give away, and fall back on the soft mattress as he forced back the poison, and he searched, searched for his core, before madness would take hold. It had to be there, somewhere.

"Stop, don't search for it." Cyril said tonelessly.

"W-why? What did you people do to me!" Raziel yelled as anger welled. Anger so intense that had he still had his magic this room might be no more. But the fact remained, his magic remained unresponsive.

"Calm down, you aren't a squib…you're damaged. You killed a-and…." The older man attempted to explain voice now trembling, telling things like these had never been his strong point.

"Killed? I think I would remember if I just randomly decided to kill someone." He huffed, focusing on his anger. Only anger could hold his sanity intact instead of throwing himself into grief. A month ago he wouldn't have cared if he suddenly lost his magic, but now that it wasn't there, he felt a hole, an empty, bottomless pit. Anger temporarily sealed the hole of desperation and madness, but for how long was the question.

"Listen, you really did it, you…used the unforgivable on Bellatrix Lestrange and then you sucked out Walden Macnair's…magic. Cyril said, leaving out the fact that, sucking out another's magic meant the death of that person; the boy would figure that out by himself soon enough.

"Prove it."

Cyril blinked.

"Show me your memory…" Raziel forced out, already feeling tired, even if he had just woken up.

"Of course, I can give you that." Cyril said as he left the room to retrieve a small pensieve.

Wanting nothing more than to sleep and even if fleetingly only, just forget what he had heard. Raziel scolded himself for denying a possible truth, it was outrageous, though, to think he of all people would kill, he had always assumed he wasn't capable of killing, that he didn't bear enough hatred in his heart to end someone's life, or that is what he had hoped.

Cyril returned, much too fast though, and without hesitation pointed the tip of his wand to his forehead. He allowed the silvery string of the memory to be pulled into the pensieve and handed it to the boy.

He dove into the watery surface and entered the memory, rewatching the horrors unfold in front of him, from Cyril's eyes. Feeling a tinge rise in his chest, he clenched and unclenched his hands all the while looking into his own soulless eyes bending over the broken man on the floor and grinning in a very Voldemort-ish way.

Gasping, he pulled out of the memory, panting and finally noting how fast his heart beat within him. Raziel turned his head to look at the other with wide eyes.

"So, I killed a Death Eater and sucked out the other's magic, what exactly does that have to do with the fact that I can use no magic at all now? If I really took his magic I should be more powerful now, shouldn't I?" He felt a sting of regret, knowing he disregarded his kills as if they meant nothing, had he grown that inhuman and become incapable of feeling guilt? So what if they were Death Eaters and killers, he was a killer now too wasn't he?

"That's the problem, we are all born with a magic core shaped to fit the magic we are given at birth. Your body may have changed but inside you, resides the magic core of Harry Potter, that will remain unalterable." Cyril explained the worry never leaving his face.

"But I've had no trouble with my magic up until now, and even I know, my magic has changed in terms of power. Why did it happen now? And not before?" Raziel asked, squashing his unease, afraid of hearing bad news.

Cyril sighed. "Harry Potter's core is supposedly average and the same size as most normal wizard's, the problem though that is when you embraced your ancestry, your core was added a lot of pressure, resulting in your weak control of your magic's flow."

"But…"

"You told me you received a small amount of Voldemort's magic on that night, am I correct?"

"Y-yes." He stuttered, feeling his chest tighten in pain.

"From that moment your core's boundaries had already been put to a test. Magic not your own inhabited you, but luckily your core has expanded over time to fit the additional magic and because of that it has had no consequences for you."

"Can't I grow used to this magic too then?"

A bitter laugh came filled the room. "You will, yes, if you don't use it at all for perhaps 30 years, could you wait that long?"

"30 years!" Raziel couldn't hold back his disbelief.

"Yes, considering Voldemort's magic had 15 years to settle in you, this amount should take even longer." Cyril said.

He clammed his mouth shut.

"Basically awakening and becoming Rahlin's magical heir should already have done this to you, but you took another persons magic in on top of that, and that is what made the glass spill."

"I don't care about that I just want to know how to return to normal."

"Return to normal? Impossible. Use magic again? Just takes some patience from you." Cyril corrected him. "Try to call on it again."

"I can't…"

"You can. I'll show you, later. You should get dressed and eat something nutritious, you've been in a comatose state for the past week or so, Millicent thought you wouldn't wake up and we had to force-feed you." And with that the other left the room.

And Raziel was left, with to his newfound sympathy for squibs, replaying Cyril's explanation inside his head to tirelessness.

-ϟ-Tenebrae Aeternae-ϟ-

The day after the banquet had been the quietest, and the most uncomfortable. Draco had struggled with turmoil inside him and been forced to come to term with his current situation. He was no longer in the manor, when his mother had learned that the mark was gone they had gone to an old safe house; their family had inherited from the Blacks. A safe-house Voldemort - and not even his father – had any knowledge of.

He reached for the wine and carefully poured some into an uniquely created silver chalice, he had received on his eleventh birthday. With closed eyes, Draco sipped slowly, keeping a few drops on his tongue to take in all the nuances of its flavour. After the last bit of taste had subsided in the still parched mouth, he opened his eyes with his pale pink lips curved into a weak smile and he let the pink muscle trail his bottom lip in search of lingering taste of the wine.

The wine was ambrosial to his sandpaper-dry mouth; good thing the taste was so rich that he could only sip it so slowly, else he would soon be find himself tipsy after only a second glass.

"How could pureblood families stoop as low as to kill for their belief? Why do they follow a half-blood, no matter how powerful he is, if they truly believe in blood purity?"

Draco winced and allowed his body to fall back into his leather-clad lounge chair, after putting the silver chalice away. He felt light-headed, and from only one cup, that did not exactly add to his now waning confidence.

Lord Raziel's words stung him; he did not know why he now doubted his former Lord's blood purity and he had only after his own response noticed that he had taken Raziel's words as the truth without question. It was a mystery to him. The young boy had insulted purebloods on the basis of hypocrisy. Was there any proof of Voldemort being a half-bastard? No, and the idea itself had never even occurred to him, but now suddenly, without proof, without doubt in his mind, he believed the words of the person he was indebted to, and if Draco would honour the unwritten law of purebloods, Raziel would now be his superior, his master, his lord. He should be bound by an oath of fealty and homage to Raziel now and it should have bothered him greatly, but it did not.

What bothered him was his lord's apparent rejection of his services.

"But really Malfoy, you can just do whatever you want. I have no need for your service"

How dared that orphan reject him?

Releasing the claw-like hold he'd had on the chair's arms, he wondered what he could do to prove to his lord that he was a valuable card to have at hand and his service not to be taken for granted.

A reoccurring image of Raziel's battle had settled in his mind, he was glowing, so blindingly bright, even as he fell asleep on the ground next to his last kill, and spared Draco's shamed father who was now held hidden in Cyril's basement. They had rushed the bodies away and no one had seen who the last Death Eater had been, only his mother had noticed the faint wisp of magic hanging onto her now tortured husband. Draco now wished his father had never had such relations to the dark lord, Azkaban had affected him beyond imagination. He sank back into his chair and let his mind travel to the iridescent youth.

"Raziel." The name felt oddly familiar to his tongue, and it rolled off of his lips with such ease, not noting the way he closed his eyes as if the name made him sleepy. "Raziel."

Raziel…Raziel…Raziel…Rahlin…

His eyes snapped wide open and he pushed himself from the chair, striding with long steps towards the small library at the far end of the safe house. That name, Rahlin, it stirred something in him, he knew he'd read about this person somewhere, and once a Malfoy got curious, there was nothing that could stop them from searching the world till they found the answer they sought.

A…B…C….

Passing many bookshelves he finally came to a halt upon reaching Z.

He was in luck today, he grinned as he reached out to pull out the thin slick book. The book was written in Latin.

"The tales of the ingenious commander…Rahlin the Sagacious." He spoke softly as he scanned the cover's outdated text. Finding his way to the petite couch in the corner of the library, he promptly plopped down and studied it. The book was untouched by time as so many books were but the magic from it still crackled with a sound much like lightning, it was a buzzing sensation that spread in his palm where the cover came in contact.

The cover was painted with a deep royal blue sky, a lightning filled sky. Thunder echoed all around him and send another tinkling sensation through his hand.

Inside was no page of introduction, no title, no mention of the author or date of publishing. In fact the inside was like a whole different book, merely covered in a newer binding. The first pages were blank and the material they were made of were rough and old, telling something about the methods used to create paper older than he could imagine. But when he reached the fifteenth page a inelegant sentence was splashed across the page with old dried in ink-like spots in brilliant red.

"Errare humanum est, sed in errore perseverare turpe." He read out loud to himself. "Audiatur et altera pars."

On the next page was written, in neatly written Latin with black text.

To my dear old friend, Serpens.

My one honest friend among the two-faced and deceitful lot of lions. Lions whom I once believed to be part of my world, my sworn brothers, my family, my everything. But the truth will come out, eventually, I only regret having lived a lie for so long. I shall no longer allow them to use me in their sacrificial plans for a greater good I do not believe in.

My enemies have become my allies, and my allies have become my enemies. I, Rahlin, son of Æther and Iljana Zuine, hereby and forevermore declare my allegiance to the Dark, may my soul forever be bound to the Dark ways and remain unusable to the Light….

-ϟ-Tenebrae Aeternae-

Dual coloured eyes darkened with intensity and his chest clenched painfully.

No magic came. And Raziel was starting to feel, oh, so vaguely pissed.

"Why do you want me to perform such an advanced, not to mention nonverbal spell? Doesn't it take a great deal of magic force to use it? I can't even gather the magic needed for a simple lumos right now!"

Cyril was sitting on a small stool watching him with silence. He had dragged the boy outside in the garden saying that should he perform this spell it would destroy his house.

"Focus, Raziel. Do as I told you, keep that image in your head, and use that pointless temper of yours to add some force, it will always be hard the first time but once you've felt the core opening to you, calling forth your magic should become, a little easier."

"The image doesn't help at all…?"

"After you fell asleep your body glowed with magic for five nights and four days. No one could touch you without getting thrown away when it lashed out at anyone within range, then on the fifth day your body couldn't take it any longer and I believe as a last means of defence to protect the rest of you." Cyril nodded towards his body. "Sealed off the wild magic within. What you must do now is create a new opening, it's painful but you of all people should be able to deal with it, beware though, when it does open, you must be mentally prepared to control it."

Raziel closed his eyes again and imagined a small tunnel around him, his chest started clenching again but he held onto the image. Faintly aware of the sudden merciless increase of chest pains, he started feeling the buzz inside his chest, like a small globe buzzing within.

"Raziel you can stop for now...we have guests…"

Ignoring the voice of the outside world he put all his attention on that buzzing feel of his core under the still growing pain.

"Stop it now!"

Wrapping his core gently in his mind, he listened to the chaos and unsettlement inside it; like two, opposing forces clashing together endlessly inside the small, cramped space that was his magical foundation.

He tried to pierce the globe but it was ridiculously hardened due to the magic pressure it kept inside it. Magic pressure he had to relieve it from sooner or later if he was to ever use magic again.

And like that he pushed into the hardened core with his willpower, his wrath and his desire calling out to the magic inside. He felt dizzy under the painful ache that had intensified tenfold in the moment it took for his magic to answer to his longing for it, and the effect was instantaneous.

The core buzzed louder, now with a different sound, as if the magic inside had united and put apart its differences to answer to his summon and it hammered at the walls imprisoning it and it keeping it from serving it's master's desires, the magic thought that unforgivable and so began to fracture the barrier without forgiveness. Raziel worried that the opening would be too big, like Cyril had warned him against, spoke gently to his magic with a calming and soothing voice, ordering it to not destroy it's container but only pierce a single hole. And so it would be, because he asked for it.

Terraemotus. He thought as he welcomed the buzzing, sizzling and aching thread of magic now coming from the small opening, no bigger than the hole a needle could create, because he had willed it so. The magic was eagerly responding to his longing for its presence and wrapped itself around him, washing away the pain with a soothing buzz, the magic sang in joy at being free again filled his mind with familiar comfort that only his dreams had given him. But it wasn't long before their reunion was cut short.

"Raziel, wake up!"

A sonorous enhanced voice pulled his conscious wildly and he left the tunnel he'd created, opening his eyes with a gasp for air as if he'd been underwater and held his breath for too long.

The first thing he noted was his lack of balance, then he found out why he had no balance, the ground under his feet were quivering much like an earthquake.

The tremor ceased and the sight that met him was Cyril's beautiful garden, grass and flowers now split as the pieces of earth had divided opening rifts a few meters deep, running like a lightning shape of zigzag in several directions starting from his feet.

"You really love destruction, do you not?" Came the sarcastic comment from a now floating, Cyril who had found it too dangerous to stay on the ground. "Could you not hear me earlier? You just stood there unresponsive until suddenly you let out a buzzing sensation into the ground and a moment later you'd wrecked my beautiful garden like it was nothing. This will take hours if I have to revert it."

Raziel couldn't help but laugh despite the serious tone Cyril had used. He was only so immensely happy that he still had his magic. He couldn't imagine living as a squib.

"Leave this mess, like I said earlier, we have guests." Cyril ordered nodding towards the terrace where a bunch of people had gathered with sombre expressions, among them were Narcissa and Draco Malfoy, the only ones who did not seem uncomfortable with the sight of the ruined garden.

"Sorry to have made you wait." His adoptive father apologized as they reached the group. "We can start the meeting now."

Raziel wrinkled his nose as he noticed how dirty he had gotten now smelling like soil and flowers. Draco watched him with an unreadable expression, next to his mother but did not seem bothered by his now dishevelled appearance, more like in deep thought over something he had seen.

"About time." A middle-aged and dark-skinned gruff wizard spoke; looking at Cyril, while refusing to even look at Raziel, but he did cast a quick glare at Draco. "Did you call for a meeting intending to allow a former Death Eater and your… son who is not even in allegiance to the dark yet, entrance?"

"Draco is not a Death Eater. Is he also not a close friend of your own son, Mr. Zabini?" Cyril inquired with an innocent smirk. "Draco, I know this is not really needed but could you show them your arms?"

Draco stood still for a second glaring at the interrogating gazes of the other purebloods but stepped out in a more open spot and pulled up his sleeves as far as they could go, to show off his unmarred white skin, skin so white and pure that it caused jealousy in some of the witches who quickly hid their annoyance behind a mask of calm.

Raziel would have injected that the only reason Malfoy didn't have a mark was because he had removed it, but thought it unwise to let these people know that, as Raziel he shouldn't bear any of the grudges Harry Potter had felt towards the blonde who really had not treated him all that bad yet.

And like that he decided to pretend that Malfoy had never been a Death Eater, in the first place.

Mr. Zabini looked around uncomfortably as if to see the reactions around him. In truth they had all expected the younger Malfoy to follow in Lucius steps and even heard the rumours, stating that he now bore the mark, but apparently those claims were now proved invalid. Malfoy smirked back almost sweetly not bothering to hide his content. He was beyond happy just to be rid of the mark now.

"And as for Raziel, not yet being dark does not mean he isn't welcome in our circle now does it? He is in my custody, a member of TA and that should be enough for you even if he used light magic." Cyril continued, hiding his own annoyance at the silence that followed. "Now, this way if you please."

Cyril led the group into his study and stopped in front of the giant picture of his ancestor Calvin Bulstrode, a dark-haired wizard currently soundly asleep in his velvety, olive-colored armchair.

"Dubito ergo cogito ergo sum." Cyril said, and Raziel recognized the words from his latin book as: I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am.

Like the portraits at Hogwarts, this one swung open to reveal a dark narrow opening. Raziel watched as the others went in as if they knew this secret entrance very well. Only Narcissa and Draco seemed a bit uncertain as they entered and Raziel followed quickly, trying to keep up with the group as the portrait shut behind him and the passage was left shrouded in complete darkness, but there was only one way to go, and that was down. After walking for a good few minutes, only faintly hearing the footsteps of the others ahead of him, the tunnel suddenly lit up ahead as torches ignited themselves leading them into a big room probably somewhere under the mansion.

The assembly room was round, and so was the polished atypical wooden table placed in its heart, surrounded by eleven lightly cushioned chairs of same kind of wood. On the curved stone wall hang candleholders, giving them just enough light to see the dancing reflection of small flames on the black, polished mineral stone tiles but still keeping the atmosphere out of the ordinary with the only hazily lit up obscurity of the chamber.

The wizards and witches all seated themselves, once again picking their seat like it had always been their spot at the table. Like they knew this room as if it was their own, and not part of Cyril's house, making Raziel wonder why his guardian had not shown him this room before.

Raziel took the only seat still open, next to Draco and a wizard he faintly recognized as Kaspar Blackwell who gave him a small smile as he seated himself.

Cyril sat almost opposite of him but like this he could clearly see his adoptive father in all his glory as he scanned the people around the table with dark eyes glowing their determination to let people know of his presence.

"I welcome you all to our 108th meeting." He spoke smoothly, and stopped to see if anyone would dare speak, but the silence that met him, urged him to continue. "It's been some months since our last gathering and we have since then gained some new members, and now the presence of my adoptive son, whom most of you must know by now, but I believe a re-introduction of you all is in order. For old as well as new members."

The wizard next to Cyril rose from his chair with the grace of a veela, Raziel thought as the swift yet noiseless movement entranced him. "Aloysius Archis, representative for the Archis family and also head of the Auror-office for the ministry of magic. Pureblood and in allegiance to the dark."

Aloysius sat down and Raziel could in the faint light make out the sharp greenish grey eyes, in the brunette's poker face.

The next stood up, a bit less quietly and also managed to slam her knee into the table edge in the progress. "Ouch...sorry about that." She muttered apologetically as she straightened herself. "Louise Addison, pureblood, in allegiance to the dark and chief editor for Witch Weekly. "

Raziel almost grunted out loud as an uncomfortable memory of Gilderoy Lockhart made its way into his mind. The fraud of a professor from his second year, that had posed so revoltingly for Witch Weekly with his even more revolting fake smile.

"Diedrich Zabini. Pureblood, in allegiance with the dark and working in the Improper use of Magic office."

A mottled old wizard who looked even older than Dumbledore stood. "Samuel Dryden, pureblood, raised as a light wizard but now in allegiance to the dark. Member of the Wizengamot."

He had leaned a bit further in on the table to see the Wizengamot member but soon pulled back realizing how rude it was to stare.

A wizard and a witch stood together as a couple. "Alek Bridgewater and Eirene Bridgewater née Johnson." Alek said and let his wife continue. "We are both in allegiance to the dark and purebloods, of course. We both work in the main office with the International Confederation of Wizards."

Alek and Eirene seemed like the type of pair to do everything in life together, both already in their late thirties and still obviously very much in love from the way they held hands under the table. He wondered if his parents would still be like this if they were alive and well.

Finally came the people he knew. "Kaspar Blackwell, pureblood, in allegiance to the dark and working as part of the creative team for Department of Magical Games and Sports."

Silence came and he hurriedly stood up himself, completely forgetting that it was now his turn. He looked straight at Cyril to better ignore the intense starring from the rest of the gathering as he spoke. "Raziel Zuine Peverell Bulstrode, adoptive son of Cyril Bulstrode, pureblood and in no allegiance yet."

He sat down and forced his racing heart to calm. Next to him Malfoy rose to introduce himself, in a bit more elegant manner than Raziel himself had managed.

"Draconis Lucius Malfoy, pureblood, in allegiance with the dark." He spoke capably making Raziel feel even more awkward about his own intro.

"Narcissa Malfoy née Black. Pureblood, in allegiance with the dark." She said a bit stiffly but overall managed to keep calm under the eyes of the others.

Cyril stood. "Cyril Teion Eadmund Bulstrode. Pureblood, in allegiance with the dark and head of TA." He looked around to see the nods, acknowledging him.

"We have severeal matters to discuss this evening, but first I must inform the new members of why we are gathered here tonight, I imagine you, Raziel is wondering what TA is. TA is us. We are 'Tenebrae Aeternae' much like the darker equivalent of the Order of the Phoenix. We work in the shadows whenever the need arises, but we all have a common goal, much like Dumbledore's Order, we exist to dispose of Voldemort." Met with Raziel's still quizzical stare Cyril explained. "Narcissa and Draco Malfoy have volunteered and will from tonight on be your hosts. You will spend the last week of your holiday with them at their safe house to avoid another episode like the attack on the night of the Banquet. And we are gathered here for something else as well, I think you ought to read what happened while you were asleep…"

Cyril threw a copy of the Prophet across the table and on the front page he saw a familiar blackhaired boy with round glasses and a curse scar on his forehead, posing with an unaturally wide smile next to Hogwart's headmaster, Albus Dumbledore for the frontpage article: 'Harry Potter Returns from Secret Training!'

- to be continued -

Fake Harry Potter is on the loose! Who is Serpens? What is the purpose of Tenebrae Aeternae and can Draco be a good host to protect Harry/Raziel from the dark lord?

Oh and I guess I should say, Raziel can't actually use much magic, he is weakened so he's not so powerful atm, he'll have to some time in this state till he can channel it again. Can't have him too OP so early in the story.