A Change in History
A HP Fanfiction
Disclaimer: I do not own HP.
Chapter Ten: His Father's Son
The room was dark; the only light was from the flames that danced and flickered in the ornate marble grate. Harry sat in the center of his bed as he had done many times before, chewing his lip lightly in apprehension as he cast his eyes over the many open tomes laid out before him. He sighed and knuckled his forehead in trepidation at the magnitude of the task before him.
Father—Harry was still not used to calling him that—had given him a list of books to take from the library and use in his studies. When asked about the reason for such a large number of books, he had merely shooed him out of the library, Harry's small arms struggling with the size of the load that not even a well cast Lightening charm could fix. Harry sighed again and looked desolately at the contents of the nearest book—The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1—and began to read.
He worked steadily through the lower level Hogwarts course books (including a few extra by the names of Jinxes for the Jinxed and Confronting the Faceless, both very interesting reads) before he began to get into the extracurricular subjects. He picked out the nearest book on Divination (Death Omens: What to Do When You Know the Worst Is Coming whose book cover icon resembled, strangely enough, Sirius when he was in his Animagus form) and eyed it with distaste. By the fact that it appeared brand new and hardly scuffed Harry figured it wasn't taken off the shelves often. Flipping open the book and reading the introductory chapter Harry snorted.
Small wonder, he thought viciously as he threw it aside nonchalantly. It's full of rubbish. Why does he even have it anyways?
Moving past the pile of neglected Divination texts he came upon something that looked very interesting to Harry: Arithmancy. He plucked it up out of the pile with interest and settled back among the pillows again.
It didn't take Harry long to grasp the concept behind the subject. He turned to his bedside table and rummaged in the drawers, finally coming up with an eagle feather quill, parchment, and a bottle of ink that he had nipped from Father's desk in the library when he wasn't looking. He grinned mischievously as he unscrewed the top of the bottle, dipped the tip of the quill into its contents and smoothed the parchment over his knees, consulting the book in front of him.
"Let's see…Harry James Potter, that would be a…eight, plus…one, plus two nines, so eighteen…add seven for Harry…"
He worked in silence for awhile, only the scratching of the quill against the parchment and the steady rays of the sun moving across his floor marking the passage of time. At last he sat back and surveyed his work.
"Not bad," he said, smiling. He flipped to the designated page in the Arithmancy text before him. "Let's see, my full name adds up to five, which is also my personality number…" he glanced at the volume. "Fives… 'Five is the number of instability and imbalance, indicating change and uncertainty. Fives are drawn to many things at once but commit to none. They are adventurous, energetic and willing to take risks. They enjoy travel and meeting new people but may not stay in one place very long. Fives can be conceited, irresponsible, quick-tempered and impatient.' Well, that's me in a nutshell...Except for that last part, anyways, though patience isn't my strong point…My heart number is…seven… 'Perceptive, understanding, and bright, sevens enjoy hard work and challenges. They are often serious, scholarly, and interested in all things mysterious. Originality and imagination are more important than money and material possessions. Sevens can also be pessimistic, sarcastic, and insecure.' There's that insecure again…and…" Harry checked the worn parchment on which he did his calculations. "My life number is seven, too…" Satisfied with his achievement, he set aside his work for later scrutiny and began on the other subject that interested him: Care of Magical Creatures. He chose Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland to start with and settled back to enjoy his research.
By the time he was done reading the many texts on Care of Magical Creatures he felt rather sure that, should he be given a test on the subject now he'd pass it with flying colors. He grinned as he recalled the very violent and intimidating pictures of different kinds of dragons from the first volume. That Hungarian Horntail had looked pretty wicked. Maybe I should ask Father for a pet dragon, he thought in amusement, stifling a giggle fit as he imagined the look on the Dark Lord's face should the subject ever come up. That'd be fun. I doubt Nagini would appreciate it much. A sudden image of Nagini hissing and spitting with rage over a small dragon curled up in her usual spot on his bed threatened to crack his composure. Yeah, they wouldn't be pleased about that. Wonder if he'd actually do it, though? There was a thought process to ponder. He shook his head and moved onto Advanced Transfiguration before he could be drawn in. He'd see to that later.
It was well into the night by the time Harry finished even a quarter of the books crowding the surface of his bed; Binky had dropped by earlier to deliver his dinner to him, and Nagini had come around to check up on him. Remembering his giggle fit from earlier, Harry told her in casual passing about the idea of him having a dragon for a pet; He'd really like one. Nagini, as expected, had hissed in disapproval right from the get-go but had allowed the excited young boy to show her pictures of the intimidating dragon species.
After Nagini had left Harry had begun practicing his magic. He had been training with Father for awhile now to learn to control it without a wand, and he felt he was beginning to get rather good at it; not only could he levitate the feather and that blasted heavy book with ease, but he could summon smaller things to him with minimal difficulty. Of course, Father didn't know about this; Harry had been working in secret, and hoped to surprise him with how far he had advanced. Harry smiled and with a flick of his wrist summoned the biggest and heaviest of the books towards him. It certainly did help him with these monstrous things.
Harry flipped through the pages of the book, Olde and Forgotten Bewitchments and Charms in disinterest before stashing it away and nicking the more recent ones—more precisely, the school books. Harry was going to practice.
Hitting upon the index of spells in the book, Harry examined it for a moment before nodding and setting it aside, standing and going to bolt the door that led to the bathroom. Stepping back, he focused his magic to undoing the lock. "Alohomora," he intoned with a slight brush of the wrist, and after a split moment of waiting he heard the tell-tale click of the lock springing open. He grinned to himself as he sauntered smugly back over to his bed, intent on trying more spells. This magic thing was getting easier.
It was the following Monday that Harry was called into the practice room where he held most of his magic lessons. He had worn his normal attire, however this time with a dark blue battle robe over it. He had a feeling things might get a bit rough.
He was correct. Upon entering the towering chamber the first thing he noticed was that there was another in the room besides Father—and it wasn't Severus. Instead, a dark woman garbed in the customary Death Eater robes that he had so frequently seen on the Potion's Master stood to the right of Father's chair, off to the side of the room. Father smiled when he walked in.
"Ah, Harry," he said pleasantly as Harry came to stand before him, curiosity evident in his eyes as he paid an almost rude amount of attention to the unknown person in the room. She regarded him coolly from behind heavily lidded eyes. "Good to see you on time. I suppose you're curious as to who our guest is this lesson?" Father didn't give him a chance to continue before going on. "This will be one of your tutors from now on, and she is here to test you on your abilities. Harry, meet Bellatrix Lestrange; Bella, my son, Harry." Harry nodded and offered his hand for the woman to shake, which she took cautiously. Father smiled again. "She will be in charge of this lesson; I am here to watch. Begin when you are ready."
Bellatrix—or Bella, as Father called her, turned on her heel curtly and strode to the middle of the room, glancing over her shoulder to check if Harry was following; He was.
She spun to face him and her wand jumped to her hand, Harry having barely enough time to think before a jet of light came roaring towards him. Harry scrambled to remember the incantation for the shielding charm he had memorized the night before and recalled it just in time.
"Protego!" he shouted, flicking his wrist a little harder than necessary and his shield sprang to life, sending the curse ricocheting around the room. Harry leapt to the side as another curse, this time a red light that identified it as a Stunner came hurtling his way.
Good grief, she's fast, he thought frantically. He dare not spare a glance to see his Father's reaction, but he had a feeling the man thought this was funny. This isn't amusing to me.
After a time of alternating between dodging and shielding Harry finally saw his chance to get an offensive curse in. He cast his mind around to find the perfect spell and landed on one in particular. Harry sensed what suspiciously felt like a smirk flit across his face as he rolled out of the way of Bella's latest attack (this time the Impediment curse) and, bouncing back to his feet, brandished his hand.
"Serpensortia," he hissed, and a large, very dangerous looking venomous black snake burst into existence between the two combatants. It coiled in around itself and raised its body, swaying back and forth slightly as its hood flared out in warning; it was a king cobra.
"Disssarm her," Harry commanded the snake and, faster than lightning, the cobra slithered up to Bella and wrapped itself around her, her wand clattering to the floor. Harry, using this as an opportunity, struck out with his magic and tripped her, rendering Bella immobile. Harry summoned Bella's wand to him and turned to Father expectantly.
Father was watching the scene with a kind of fiendish glee, a cruel and wicked smile curving his mouth as his heir conjured a snake and sicked it on his most trusted follower. He began to clap slightly, wry delight warring with pride for dominance on his features.
"Excellent, Harry. You're won." Father flicked his wrist and the king cobra squeezing the life out of Bella vanished. She climbed shakily to her feet and eyed the young boy guardedly.
Harry smiled at his father's praise and turned to continue his testing, feeling far more confident in himself than before.
Harry spent the rest of the day going through every spell he knew, pushing at his current limits and wading through unknown territory as she taught him new spells that he was expected to know by heart by the next lesson. Harry beamed and nodded in agreement to everything presented to him, his spirits still high from his earlier victory.
Harry passed every day in this manner, alternating between training with Bella and lessons with Father. It was the last Saturday before the new school term started that Harry had his next lesson with Severus.
Harry looked at the man that he had come to respect as a fine teacher and (dare he consider it?) a good friend. The man was pale, naturally, but at the moment he looked as if he hadn't seen the sun in years. His dark, gleaming eyes stood out in sharp contrast to the rest of his face, the oily hair that framed his features seeming even more lank and lifeless than before. If Harry could gamble he'd wager a guess that the man was rail thin under his robes. Severus noticed Harry's inspection of his person while in the midst of setting up for the lesson.
"It is simply pre-term stress. It will pass after the second week of school. Now, where's the homework I assigned you last lesson?"
They were to be brewing Shrinking Solution today. Harry got out his ingredients and began to prepare them for the potion. He glanced at Severus out of the corner of his eye, pretending to be consumed with his task of chopping the daisy roots required for the brewing. The Potions Master was leaning heavily against the countertop, rubbing at his temples in an almost obsessive fashion; Harry could only imagine the headache the man must have at the moment for him to be showing his discomfort so openly. Harry put aside his now neatly cut roots and began the arduous task of skinning the shrivelfigs. It looked as if he'd be making this one unsupervised.
For an unsupervised potion, it didn't look to bad, Harry noted, comparing the state of his finished concoction with the detailed description in the Potions tome resting on the counter by his side. Severus had been called away to attend to matters at Hogwarts ("No doubt the Headmaster wishes to check how far I've come along with planning the class lessons,") and left Harry to his own devices, though the boy didn't mind. Without glancing to the shelf where the empty sample vials were kept, Harry wordlessly summoned a few to him and began to ladle the potion into them. Finishing with this task, he corked them and banished them gently to the cabinet where they would be safe until Severus came to examine them for his grade. Harry looked into his cauldron and, deciding he didn't feel like cleaning it out at the moment, tried a charm he had come across two days ago when researching useful spells as homework from sessions with Bella.
"Scourgify." All of the contents of the cauldron vanished, Harry noted approvingly. That would be one nifty spell. He banished the cauldron back to the rack of them near the sink and cleaned up his work area in silence.
Satisfied that it was done properly, Harry left the dungeons and made his back to his room, intent upon looking up more spells for him to use.
A/N: Okay, this updating early bit is starting to get out of control. Only two days after the last update! Well, true, I wrote this one right after I wrote Chapter Nine, but don't judge me. Sheesh. Anyways, I really enjoyed writing the 'fight' scene for this chapter, though it wasn't so easy to do when I couldn't kill off either of the combatants. And another player is introduced! As promised, we see more of Severus in this chapter. Harry won't be meeting any of the Death Eater children for a few more chapters yet, but they are coming up. It made everything in this chapter easier when I had him using magic. And here we see subtle changes in Harry's personality and the way he thinks. He's slowly but surely becoming a Slytherin. And I discovered something shocking a few days ago; it seems the days (Tuesday, etc.) I've set for certain events match the real 1986 calendar perfectly. I guessed the right day for July 31st without trying. That's kind of creepy. O-o; Anyways, one of you asked me if I post up pre-written chapters--with the exception of this one (refer to above) no I don't. I write the chapter right before posting it up, and I really enjoy doing so. Gives me flexibility for new ideas. :)
And as before when I updated really really early...Drop me a review, even if it is only to say "Update soon" (though I would like for something longer, I'll settle) to show appreciation--I thrive knowing you guys are trying to unravel the plot, or are at least enjoying the story. :) So tenth chapter up, and right on midnight, too...