Preface
Darker SoulsPosted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/9463769.
Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Fandom:
Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationship:
Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Character:
Harry Potter, Tom Riddle, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Luna Lovegood, Neville Longbottom, Sirius Black, Bartemius Crouch Jr., Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Harry Potter), Hogwarts Staff, Hogwarts Students, Hogwarts Founders Portraits
Additional Tags:
tomarry - Freeform, Bad Dumbledore, Harry has his own group, and no one likes dumbledore much, grey!Harry, Grey!Friends of Harry, Sane!Voldemort, Voldemort/Tom, Voldemort is Tom to Harry and Co closest death eaters, Voldemort likes tea, Seer Luna Lovegood, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, magically bound harry, Demon bond, decendend from the founders, all purebloods are related (closely or not), so do a few others, Harry is part lovegood, helping refine Tom's goals, Tom cuts back to the cruciartus curse, living with death eaters for the summer, secretly slytherin Harry, mysterious dursley murder, Abusive Dursley Family, Abused Harry Potter, Muggleborns from Squibs, Harry comes to 5th year different, So do the others, no more masks, starts at the end of GoF, Tom at Hogwarts, teacher!tom, invading Teachers Rooms, Harry and Co finally take up pranking, Founders Rooms, Chamber of Secrets, Room of Requirement, Rowena Ravenclaw's Room, Godric didn't make a room, he made secret passageways, marauders map, and im done for now i cant think of any more, probably gonna be part crack!fic, i have no idea where this story will go honestly. i'll try and keep a plot going xD, Sentient Hogwarts
Series:
Part 4 of
Arilisa's guide to messing with the Potter Multi-verse.
Stats:
Published: 2017-01-25 Updated: 2017-08-14 Chapters: 14/? Words: 43902
Darker Souls
by Runa_Valerie (orphan_account)
Summary
NOTE!!! ON HOLD UNTIL LIFE CALMS DOWN, SORRY, MUCH LOVE, THANK YOU! really sorry guys but life's flared up horribly. i've pulled out of the bigbang until it all calms down. really really sorry.
when Voldemort returns his saner then one would think -and hotter too-
and, when away from Hogwarts, and no Cedric to drive his hero complex, Harry drops his golden boy act a deal is made that will better the wizarding world more than anyone realized.
With Voldemort Sane, Harry no longer having to act and a group of students no longer having to look over their backs in fear of their lives... well... Hogwarts is going to be interesting. to say the least
Notes
this is my first time posting a fic -but not writing- this chapter was started at 4 am on a whim with no real thought but I rather like it so I'm going to continue it and see where it gets me! (posting as I go so I don't back down!) so, I hope you enjoy cause this is probably gonna be a mess xD
Deals and a Demon
Chapter Summary
Harry lands himself in the graveyard and things don't go the way he first expected.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Harry Potter liked to think himself smart despite everything that would prove otherwise.
He learned from a young age it was often required to hide things about himself.
How smart he was- age 6, Dursley residence. End of year reports and a rather brutal beating for 'being better than the normal people'
How quickly he understood things- age 7 the teachers at school, who tried to insist he take extra credit or help other students
His need to help others- age 7, school yard. Easy enough if he walked far enough away
His ability to talk to snakes- age 10-11, the Zoo and first day in the wizarding world.
His want for more in the world- age 5, Dursley residence. "Freaks don't deserve things"
His Slytherin side- age 11, first day in Hogwarts. "Wasn't a witch or wizard that went bad that wasn't in Slytherin" - Total Bullcrap. But keep to your fantasy Ronald-
So, when he arrived at Hogwarts it was easy enough to continue editing himself and hiding bits a pieces away -much like the Diary Tom Riddle, or Lord Voldemort, Harry quietly wondered how it was actually done. If, when used, You forgot what happened in that time... If so he would actively pursue doing that same for his time at the Dursley's. Or maybe not... one would not do well to forget one's foundations, after all-
He spent the following three years constantly changing his personality in slight shifts.
Fighting with Draco Malfoy to keep up the 'Gryffindor Golden Boy' act. One like himself should not be friendly with someone dark after all
Keeping up with Ron in ways of school work, letting Hermione rule the school grade wise
Played to the headmasters tune, saving those that needed saving -Ginny, Buckbeak and Sirius-
Protecting what needed to be protected -The Stone and Hogwarts-. Well, more finding the stone early, copying it, hiding the fake and sending the real one to his trust vault. But neither Dumbles nor Voldie need know THAT titbit of information
He played his part well. But, Harry James Potter was quickly coming to his limit.
Who in their right mind allowed a 14 year old to play part in a tournament designed to push near adult wizards and witches to the limits?!
Who in their right mind allowed someone who was constantly targeted to play in such a game?!
Harry Potter glared ahead as Wormtail took his blood and dropped it into the cauldron, ever happy he'd decided to use his brain and not allow Cedric to grab it with him Trap Trap Trap Trap there is always a BLOODY TRAP at the end of the year!
Harry Potter glared at Wormtail as sparks and steam flew from the cauldron, a human figure raising up. Harry supposed that he probably should be worried Lord Voldemort had once again returned to the physical world and would probably cause significant stress for the UK once again. But his ire was currently focused on Wormtail. Damn rat.
"Robe me" Harry's eyes flickered to the figure -surprisingly not horribly disfigured as the face back when he was 11-
He'd peg the man around 25, stunningly beautiful with a straight nose and rather long hair -reaching far down his back-. Really, one had to thank magic for all it allowed, after all, this man was in his 70's yet he had the body of someone in their mid 20's, rather fit too, somehow. He now had a clear advantage over Dumbledore.
Wormtail was quick to do as his 'master' said, passing a robe to the man all the while whimpering and bowing and crying -though, Harry supposed, he WAS missing a hand now. Maybe he'd die of blood loss? Maybe Voldemort would let him have the body if he got out alive? That would be nice, he'd be in a position to prove Sirius was innocent with a few memories and, well, a full body, minus hand-
"Harry Potter, welcome" Harry watched and Voldemort approached, tilting his head to the side slightly as he scanned the man's face.
"You know, you could have sent an invitation instead of kidnapping me though a horribly deadly tournament where I could have, at any point, died. Could have even made it dramatic, portkey'ing me out of the great hall, that would have caused some panic" Harry said, flicking his glare back to Wormtail "also, could you either kill the rat or put a silencing charm on him? Honestly the whimpering and the begging... it's horribly distracting " Voldemort blinked in surprise -Harry figured he should probably feel proud for that- before taking his wand off the rat and silencing him -sadly not permanently.-
"You stand, Harry Potter, atop the remains of my Father, horribly filthy muggle man that he was, it seems he was use after all" Voldemort spoke again, Harry wondered if he was trying to be threatening?
"I'm aware, I looked down and guessed, plus your Diary was also very keen on his own voice, talked on and on about his history." Harry said, turning to look at Voldemort again -red eyes, how charming, he'd always liked red eyes, the idea of vampires with them held most of his imagination when he was little- "thank you, as well, if he didn't shut up I'm afraid my magic might have 'accidentally' lashed out and caused his death"
"My diary? What do you know of my Diary boy?!" Voldemort hissed -parseltongue?-, looking rather angry and stalking closer, Harry tilted his head, wondering his the diary was awfully important.
"I'll tell you if you let me down and not kill me for an hour. My body is going numb and I'd like to heal a few of my cuts." Voldemort glared for a time, Harry could practically see his brain working over his words, taking note of all his injuries before he flicked his wand, Harry dropped to the ground in a heap.
"Ow ow ow, okay that hurts" Harry rolled his shoulders, shifting around so he was leaning back on the statue with his knees bent "seriously, please don't kill me Voldemort. I have things I still have to do in this world" Voldemort glared down at him
" Talk" he hissed once again, Harry sighed.
"In my second year Lucius Malfoy placed a small black book within Ginny Weasley's cauldron before school started down in Diagon Alley. I noticed but did nothing, rather curious of what his plans were and, well, if it WAS a dark and dangerous artifact I sure as hell wasn't going to take the heat on it. I rather enjoy being alive.
"On Halloween -seriously, do you guys have a set planner for each year? It's always Halloween and the end of year that shit goes down.- Me, Hermione and Ron were at a death day party, on our way to bed we came across Mrs. Norris hanging on the wall beside a rather threatening message ' the chamber of secrets has been opened, enemies of the heir beware '. Lucky, or unlucky, the cat wasn't dead rather petrified. The school went crazy for it and Malfoy got even worse for a while. Cue the golden trio mystery solving time
"By the end of the year we had almost it all figured out. Or, well, I did at least. Actually I had it figured out halfway through the year -it was rather useful that we brewed a rather difficult potion in the same bathroom as the one victim of the last chamber happening and the opening- but I can't have it figured out that fast if I didn't want any questions asked so I had to let Hermione continue finding answers. By the end of the year Hermione got attacked to -didn't die- and Ginny was taken down to the chamber. Me and Ron took Lockhart down -or threatened him down- where he obliviated himself, trapping Ron and him behind me while I went on to meet with Tom/you and rescue Ginny like my job description says I should do.
"Long talk with Tom and a fight with the basilisk later I killed the thing -regrettably- and took a fang to the arm. Believing I was dying and figuring I should at least take my killer with me I stabbed the Diary -which was possessing Ginny and using her life-force to give Diary-Tom a new body- effectively killing him -I think-. Saving Ginny. From there Fawkes gave me some of his tears -was that before or after I killed Diary-Tom? I don't remember-. Lived, got Ginny out, got Ron and Lockhart out. Saved the day and managed to complete my end of years passing and moving onto third year!" Harry finished, moving his arms in a 'ta-da' motion, leaning his head back onto the statue and closing his eyes "so, if the Diary was important, like I'm thinking it was since you let me down so I'd tell my story. Then you can blame Lucius Malfoy for its destruction and Albus Dumbledore for forcing me into the hero role, and Yourself for trying to kill me 13 years ago thus making me some type of mega-mage. Also, I think the rats about to die of blood loss" Voldemort turned towards Wormtail, blinking at the pale form
"Ops"
"Is he, uh, allowed to be dead?"
"He'd still be somewhat useful alive, but I don't have anything that could save him right now. It's a minor loss" Harry frowned slightly
"What do you need him for?"
"I'd use him to call my death eaters back to me, then have him as a slave around wherever I stay until I get bored with him" Harry supposed Voldemort must have been somewhat out of it from his story -and obvious loss of something important- and the probable death of the rat to notice what information he was giving out
"I can save him if you let me return to Hogwarts unharmed, and, say, rather than kill him when you get bored obliviate him of the last year/two years- so long as he keeps up to the end of my third year-, stun him in rat form, cage him and send him to me" Harry offered, wondering if Voldemort would ACTUALLY make another deal with him -heh, maybe Harry would make a good demon?- Voldemort turned back towards Harry
"You seem different from your first year" Voldemort muttered, eyes going back over Harry as if confirming Harry as Harry
"Yea, well, few years of trying to stay alive is bound to change a person, I grew up. Plus, since you probably don't want anyone to know you're alive yet -if I was a dark lord I certainly wouldn't, I'd like time to make a power base again- I'm guessing this place is pretty well warded, at least to the point where Dumbles can't find anything going on here. So I don't have to play golden boy right now. My priorities are set to survival mode" Harry shrugged
"How would you save my death eater? Why would you? How do I know as soon as you go back you don't scream at the top of your lungs I've returned?"
"My friend, like I said, survival mode, magical oath? Though, I'd like to warn 7 people, Them taking an oath of silence as well?" Harry offered, giving a small smile "seriously Voldemort, I don't want to become a murder within my teen years. I'd happily sit on the sidelines if allowed, as would my friends. We don't want war" Harry paused "actually. I take back the murder, if I killed my relatives I wouldn't care... if YOU killed my relatives I wouldn't care." Harry took a look at Wormtail "might want to make this fast, Wormtail's almost dead"
"I want a magical oath that you will save Wormtail in return for me letting you leave and return to Hogwarts. I want your magical oath that you will tell no one of my return and nor will your friend... and you may warn those closest to you with a magical oath that they will not spread it around..." Voldemort said slowly, Harry frowned and thought it over. Idly wondering why Voldemort didn't try and word it to his favor, Did he accidentally break Voldemort?! Well, If HE wasn't going to take charge of this situation like a proper business men then Harry would.
"How about we take this a few steps further.
"On my side we have this, an oath that me and mine will not cause major harm to you and your unless in self defence
"An oath of silence on your return until you make it public yourself
"and... " Harry paused, mind going back to his last summer with his relatives, the day he left with the Weasley's... Hermione mentioning that her parents were starting to act a bit odd around her, jumping when she accidentally sneaks up on them, Mrs. Weasley being unhappy with Gred and Forge. "Should it be asked for, sanctuary for me and mine where it is you are staying under oath that we will not reveal such information to Dumbledore and his lot.
"On your side, an Oath not to attack Hogwarts or her students.
"An oath that you and yours not to cause major harm to me or mine
"And an oath of silence from you and yours not to spread this deal around... and a hatchling of Nagini's should she ever have some. I'd adore having a snake
"Oh, and Wormtail's life once you're done with it" Voldemort watched Harry closely as he spoke
"Should I see it fit to kill Dumbledore will I be allowed to?" Voldemort asked. Dear merlin he did break Voldemort. Asking for permission to kill Dumbledore?!
"Sure, though I wouldn't recommend it, I'd discredit him instead, have the ministry deal with him, lock him away, he's probably got enough crimes under his belt somewhere, not everyone is an innocent little angel" Harry shrugged in reply. Voldemort nodded, bringing his wand to his chest and saying the needed words for the oaths, including one to make his death eaters take the needed oaths before giving Harry's his wand to repeat -a act of trust if ever there was one- who made his required oaths before grinning at Voldemort
"Right then, guess I gotta save a rat now" standing on -somewhat numb- legs "Arilisa, I require some aid if you would" he called softly, smiling as a bright flash of emerald light raced over the graveyard, fading to reveal a woman looking in her late 20's. White blouse and hufflepuff yellow ribbon around her neck with a grey sleeveless V neck jumper. Black skirt and black and hufflepuff yellow thigh high socks, tied together with simple boots, slytherin scarf and hufflepuff yellow headband.
"This...is... not Hogwarts." Harry grinned at Arilisa as she looked over the graveyard before her eyes settled on the three men "what happened?" she asked, bringing her hand through her hair, As far as woman go Arilisa was rather beautiful, soft black hair, wide green eyes, pale skin, thin but nicely pink lips and a rather nice figure. As far as Demons go she was one of the more powerful ones, As far as demons with human habits go, she was mostly human.
"Think you can save the rat? I got kidnapped by Voldemort and, well, we've made a deal but it hangs on the rat living" Harry grinned to his ancestor while Voldemort watched wide eyed... "sorta. actually i want the rat alive for Sirius"
The kid had a bloody DEMON on call?!
Arilisa hummed, moving closer, poking the dying man with her foot with a frown "I can but it's pulling it close, he probably won't live 2 years after this, so I do hope he's not important" she answered before letting her magic move around the man, pushing his blood back into his bloody and sealing the stump, letting her magic press into his heart forcing it to beat at a normal pace, letting her magic weave into his magical core to seal the cracks before withdrawing. Stepping back as he started to breathe -instantly turning back into whimpering and begging- before turning back towards Harry and walking up to him, letting her magic wash over the boy she'd placed in her care, healing all his cuts and removing the poison "I am wondering why you did not call me earlier Hadrian"
"Sorry but, Voldemort seemed sane and I didn't want to set him off my calling you. Or set Wormtail off my calling you, you never know how some people will react" Harry shrugged before moving to give her a hug, Arilisa smiled, wrapping her arms around Harry in turn and settling her cheek on his head
"Well, you did good not dying, I'm guessing you made a good deal with Voldemort letting you and your friends live?"
"Yea, and Hogwarts being protected with her students" Harry replied happily
"Very good Harry, you've done well, are you able to return to Hogwarts?"
"Yea, the cup will probably take me back"
"Very good, off you go then, I want to have a talk with Voldemort. I'll see you later"
"Okay" Harry stepped away from her, giving both people a smile before moving back to the cup, once again activating the portkey
"Who are you exactly?" Voldemort asked, watching the demon as Arilisa turned and smiled, setting her hands in the pockets of her skirt
"Arilisa Le-fay Slytherin, at your service, or not, as I'm under Hadrian's service right now, technically."
"Slytherin? Le-Fay?" Voldemort's eyes widened in surprise how? Was the unasked question
"Little known fact about Demons, we're all humans before we're demons. I was the daughter of Morgan/Morgana Le-fay and Merlin Emrys. I later married Noel Slytherin and lived a rather happy life giving birth to a lovely son who went on to make a lovely family. If you're wondering why I'm helping Hadrian, since I am, proof being I didn't ask for anything in exchange for saving the rat. He's my descendant. And a small rule with demons is, if we come across descendants, or the descendants of known demons we help them. He knows who I am and I guess I'm the big sister he never had. Or, family he never had. Sweet child he is" Arilisa said, still smiling "if you're wondering no you two are not related via me, or closely at all, you are descended from Nathaniel Slytherin. Noel's younger brother. Sweet kid, till some stuff happened with some muggles then it all went downhill for him, gave the Slytherin family a bad name"
"Fascinating, you're aware of your current family tree?" Voldemort asked, happily snapping out of his broken state for a chance of information on demons -they were rather rare after all, friendly ones more so. Finding a summoning ritual was a 50/50 chance of death. He'd found one during his hogwarts years but never tried it, perhaps Harry had found the same one?-
"I did some research after Alexander passed Hadrian over to me, I actually have a few descendants in this time, though their bloods to weak to show any of my traits like parseltongue or any other creature speak. Though I believe Harry may get his full ability if I can take off his binds, I'm unsure. Bloods an odd thing to mess with, no one else with my Blood has parseltongue, though it may pop up again should two with it strong enough marry. Its around but dormant" Arilisa said "but, I have to go, I do have other clients. We may meet again. Probably will if you help Harry with his relatives. Should he ask please get him out of that house. I am rather worried about him there. But I can't do anything without alerting Dumbledore to my existence. And should anyone find out that Hadrian bonded with a demon, even an ancestor, it will cause quite the mess" Arilisa gave a small bow before spinning on her heel and disappearing in a puff of black smoke, leaving Voldemort still somewhat stunned of the events in the last hour. Shaking himself he filed away the event to go over later, turning to Wormtail he pressed his wand to the dark mark.
It was time to call his death eaters.
Chapter End Notes
https//LunaNoir tada, i have a . i personally dont see if going anywhere (who'd pay for what i'll eventually post anyway?) but, meh, go poke if it you feel like helping me out i guess?
Luna and Marvolo
Chapter Summary
Harry tells his friends what really happened in the grave yard
Harry and Luna have -another- heart to heart
and Harry is the first to take up housing in Malfoy manor.
Chapter Notes
"Normal talking"
.:ȿParseltongueȿ:. as my 'Parseltongue' symbol does not show on Mobile the .:. is purely for their benefit apologies for not knowing how to work this site very well... i'll figure it out one day. :3
Thoughts will generally be Italic, unless within "..." or .:. (which means the word is stressed by the talker, I'm tossing up if I should keep all Parseltongue italic or not, will decide later!)
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Note, Parsletongue with be like this .: oh my a speaker! how fun:. any other creature speaks will be hopefully obvious, just...take a look at whatever animal is in the scene? Parsletongue is the only language that will star without a animal being in the room. each will have a different type, for example birds will be OH! LOOKIE& and such, maybe not with caps, i just see birds as very excitable characters... anyway, enjoy the chapter!
Harry groaned as he landed on the grass, taking instant note of insufficient people around and frowned, just how long was he talking with Voldemort? Getting up with a soft grunt Harry turned around a few times before grabbing the cup again and moving towards the castle.
The climb back to the castle was quiet and in darkness, pausing at the doors inside, muttering a soft ' I'm back Hogwarts ' and allowing the magic to wash over him, checking him over and somewhat feeling like a mother's hug home he walked through the hall, Hogwarts using the free magic the occasionally push him in the right direction -leading him straight to the great hall- where he found various students -years 4-7 in various houses- talking with the professors, Aurors and headmasters.
The other three champions were sitting to the side talking quickly with one another. Harry stayed just by the door until her spotted his friends -Hermione, Ron, Neville, Ginny, Luna, Gred and Forge- standing near the headmasters and Aurors, also talking quickly and in hushed whispers. Harry let a smile cross his face as he walked towards them, Luna was the first to notice him, the young woman happily skipping over to him, drawing the attention of the others as she led him over to the Aurors and headmasters by the arm, standing next to them she coughed lightly before looking up towards the enchanted sky. Harry chose to ignore the fact that one Mad-eye Moody was absant from the hall, really the DADA teacher is always the one to do something each year -or try to run in a hour of need, in one case-.
An off tune course of "Harry!" and "Mr. Potter!" rang through the hall while Harry set the cup down, giving the adults in front of him a dull glare
"Next time the triwizard tournament is on, I'd suggest making sure the Portkey stays in Hogwarts." Harry drawled "one would think you wanted a student to go missing."
"Harry my boy" Dumbledore started, causing Harry's glare to turn to him "what happened? Was it Voldemort?" Harry frowned
"Why on earth would it be Voldemort? Sorry Headmaster for the panic but I believe the Portkey simply missed its target. Or some such. When I reached for the cup I was Portkey-ed to an empty field where I hit my head. Upon waking I fixed myself to the best of my knowledge before taking the cup with the plans to take the night bus back to Hogwarts when I was Portkey-ed back to where I assume I was meant to be originally- the quidditch pitch, rather odd really." Harry finished, watching as the Auror took the cup and cast a series of spells on it before nodding.
"It seems there was a mix up with the portkey. Someone must have messed up its return point the first time but didn't remove it before adding another. Odd and annoying certainly, and dangerous. But no real harm done" the Auror said "so long as Mr. Potter is safe and fine I see no reason for us to remain, I'll take my team back to the ministry and report the whole thing as an accident." the Auror nodded towards the headmasters and then to Harry before departing the hall, his team following along with most of the students, leaving only Harry's friends. The teachers and headmasters and the judges
"Harry, Cedric said you didn't want him to take the cup because you were worried of a trap, did nothing truly happen?" Dumbledore asked, watching Harry closely
"Yes Headmaster, it was simply paranoia from the past three years. If Voldemort did want to use this night as a way to get to me he messed up, And if he has done something then I wasn't part of it. I'm sure" Harry said, a small smile on his face as his friends gathered around him.
"Perhaps you were unconscious for it? You sad you passed out" Dumbledore continued, casting a glance towards Snape
"Sir, if Voldemort was there and did use me for something I have no doubt he would have killed me as soon as he was finished with me. It has been his goal for 14 years after all. I doubt he'd just let me go when he had me defenseless" Harry argues "now if you do not mind I am rather tired, I might head to bed. That maze was rather exhausting" Harry gave a nod towards the Professors and headmasters "goodnight. And sorry for worrying you" turning on his heel he led his friends out of the great hall and towards Gryffindor tower.
Taking a turn as he reached the fat lady and continuing up towards the 7th floor, the others still following without question. As Harry -and Luna- paced in front of the wall, As soon as the door appeared the group filed in. it was a rather nice room -one of his favourites-. Ron had kindly dubbed it the founders' den as the walls were a soft cream colour while the carpet was dark green with a golden trim, the wood taking a dark tone and the chairs taking on a dark blue colour with a black trim.
A section of each of the houses in one room. Harry was rather fond of it.
As soon as everyone was seated -Harry on a lone chair, with Luna on the floor by his feat, Fred and George sitting on the arms of a couch with Ginny and Neville between them. Hermione on the last lone chair with Ron sitting on the ground, letting Hermione's hands pass through his hair- Harry started
"Note I am taking advantage of the oath we made at the start of the year. All said in this room stays in this room." the magic in the founders' den pulsed and settled, reforming the magical bond around all within "Voldemort has, in fact, returned. We made a deal."
"What type of deal Harry?" Ginny asked, her voice was soft -she was still somewhat uncomfortable with talk of Voldemort, but she was getting there-. she was the most recent to join Harry in his...less then hopeful view on the wizarding world. Hermione and Ron joined him half way through third year, Luna brought Neville and herself at the end of third. the twins came at the start of the year with Luna bringing Ginny just before the second task.
"The deal where we can finally breathe. It went as follows
"On our side we have this, an oath that we will not cause major harm to Voldemort or the Death Eaters unless in self defense
"An oath of silence on his return until he makes it public himself
"and... Should it be asked for, sanctuary for me and mine where it is you are staying under oath that we will not reveal such information to Dumbledore and his lot.
"On his side, an Oath not to attack Hogwarts or her students.
"An oath that He and the Death Eaters will not to cause major harm to us
"And an oath of silence from him and the Death Eaters not to spread this deal around... and a hatchling of Nagini's should she ever have some. Since you know I'd love having a snake
"Oh, and Wormtail's life once he's done with it"
Neville was the first to nod "sounds good to me. Can you expand on the sanctuary?" Harry gave Neville a smile, remembering that his gran wasn't the best guardian either, did this count as planning a mass run away?
"Should any of us feel threatened by our guardians or others we can go to wherever Voldemort is staying and receive protection. No one in their right mind would think we, perfect and innocent children, would ever turn our backs on the light and take shelter in the dark. And if there seems to be any spies within his ranks they'd be bound to silence on our being there. As the Sanctuary falls under the deal and they aren't allowed to spread it around"
"How would we get there?" Luna asked, raising her head to watch Harry, though her guardian wasn't horrible -he was rather amazing from Luna's stories- if there was a mass run away she'd come too, and probably call it a sleepover.
"Not sure. Voldemort will probably figure something out once he has all his Death Eaters in order" Harry said, before getting up "but, with that sorted now it is time for sleep everyone. You all head back to the common room, I'll drop Luna back at Ravenclaw and see you in the morning. Goodnight" a few mumbled goodnight's were returned, with two 'see you in the morning's' as the other Gryffindor's left the room
"We should expand to the other houses next year. There is two Slytherin that would be rather nice to have around. And I know a hufflepuff who's simply darling!" Luna voiced sleepily while Harry just smiled, letting Luna take his arm once more and resting her head on his shoulder, leading her out of the room and towards Ravenclaw.
"Luna dear you know you're in charge of who were talk too. Should you bring someone with you to our meetings, studying, table, practice or simply social bonding we won't question you. Bring anyone you wish into our group next year" Harry said softly, walking with Luna through the various secret passages that Godric made. Most not even on the marauder's map -though he did want to add them-
"It is a good thing I'm rather fond of you all, If I decided I didn't like you all I could easily bring a poisoned member into the group." Luna sighed.
"You could, but we love you and you us. So please don't" Harry replied, passing through the charms corridor
"It is the fact that you trust me so much Harry. Where most people would use me for their own gain you simply make me a friend" Luna said seriously, turning her gaze to him
"Luna, you are a friend, a dear friend. Seer ability null and void. We each have our talents. I'm good with Offensive and defensive spells best. Neville is amazing with plants. There's no one in Hogwarts that can beat Ron at chess. There's no one in Britain that can keep up with the twins and pranking. Hermione is like a sponge when it comes to knowledge -even if practical work is difficult for her- and if you need to find someone Ginny is your girl.
"We each have our place. You my dear. Are our Ravenclaw, we couldn't find another better with runes if we tried. And we won't" Harry whispered, once again moving through a narrow hall, by his side Luna once again relaxed and let Harry guide her "we love you Luna, not because you're a seer but because you're you. We won't ever use you, not if we can help it"
"Okay Harry." Luna's dream tone had returned as they arrived in front of Ravenclaw tower, Harry took his arm back and smiled at Luna
"Goodnight Luna. We'll see you in the morning"
"Alright Harry. Goodnight" Harry gave Luna a small peck on the cheek before leaving, heading back to Gryffindor for a good night's rest while Luna whispered the answer to the riddle and returned to her own room, feeling better once again
The following days passed quietly, Mad-eye went missing 3 days before the end of term. The night before Harry found 7 simple silver rings -each with a different coloured stone in the centre- on his bed with a note
These Portkeys will place you in Malfoy manor should it be required. The activation word is Marvolo. Please pass them to your friends. I have informed the Death Eaters that, should any of them appear, you are not to be harmed and all oaths have been taken correctly
Voldemort
When Ron looked over his shoulder to see what'd caught his attention he'd quickly become confused at the series to snake like lines on the paper leading Harry to believe it was written in parseltongue, taking the green gem for his own he slipped the ring on his right pointer finger before giving one to Ron, explaining quietly what it was and what it was for, giving another to Neville then leaving the dorm to give the girls and twins theirs, pocketing Luna's to give to her in the morning and returning to bed happy.
The Tournament was officially finished. He was given the cup and 1000 galleons -which was quickly split, 500 going to the twins store fund and 500 going to the joint group account so they'd all get decent things next year-. The visiting schools returned to their homelands leaving Hogwarts feeling somewhat empty for the following week.
Classes went on with Harry sitting out of the exams, generally sitting by the black lake, twisting the ring on his finger or transfiguring rocks into various items waiting for his friends to get out of their exams. All in all it was rather boring.
Dumbledore watched him closely -like always- and Snape watched him almost cautiously -he supposed Voldemort would have had to tell Snape about the deal, the man was probably horribly confused by 'the copy of James Potter'- but life went on.
Within a few peaceful weeks Harry and his friends were back on the train heading for London, all wondering who would be the first to take up sanctuary and how soon it'd happen. Harry supposed that as soon as someone activated theirs Luna would follow near instantly.
Off the train the group said their goodbyes, watching as Harry looked for Vernon who stood near Mrs. Weasley looking unhappy, already he had a slight purple tinge.
Ever thankful for the small bag he had in his shoe -with an (illegal) undetectable extension charm which held his trunk and Hedwig's cage (Harry having decided to send Hedwig to Malfoy Manor so her safety)- so he didn't have to worry about him taking it, therefore having to find it before he -eventually- portkey-ed away. Harry had a feeling he would be the first to head over to Voldemort's side. Harry and the Weasley children walked towards the two guardians -Luna leaving with her Father, informing him of the school year and Hermione casting longing glances towards her parents as they lead her away, and Neville leaving quickly with his gran, keeping his ringed hand in a fist as if making sure it didn't disappear-
Harry greeted Mrs. Weasley with a smile before moving towards Vernon, Ron giving him a quiet 'good luck' as he walked away.
As soon as they were out of sight of the magical crowd Vernon speed up, moving faster than he should have been able to back to the car. Harry slid into the back seat as his 'uncle' was pulling away. Closing the door quietly and waiting. The urge to utter a simple 'Marvolo' was nearly unbearable .
As soon as they were 'home' Dudley yelled out that 'the freak was back' which was followed by Petunia ordering him to start a roast dinner, Vernon waddled past him, gripping his shoulder tightly just as he was about to enter the kitchen.
"You'll be back in the cupboard under the stairs for the stunt you pulled last summer boy. Once you're done with dinner get in there and not a sound all night or so help me-!"
"Yes Uncle Vernon" Harry agreed, not at all happy but, it was an expected outcome
I wonder how Voldemort would react if I came right now
No, best let Draco and his family has some type of family time -as much as they can have with a dark lord in their home- before it is invaded by Gryffindor's -and a raven-
Harry glared at his Uncle and Aunt as they took away the apple he'd pinched from the fruit bowl. He'd taken one bite before they noticed. Harry glared harder as his uncle tossed the food in the bin.
"In the cupboard, NOW Boy!" Harry straighten himself, tilting his head back slightly and straightening his clothes
"I think not, I'm not dealing with this another day" a week he'd lasted. With no food, sleeping under the stairs, cooking every meal and never getting a bite, it was torture, his stomach was effectively eating itself. Only taking water from the hose outside no more
"What are you talking about boy?" Vernon was unhappy, to say the least, not only had he burnt breakfast this morning, he'd stayed out through lunch and had just -attempted- to steal. Harry figured the only reason he was free of a beating today was because they'd seen him talking with Tonks outside.
"I made arrangements prior to coming here. And now, I shall be leaving. I came so that Dumbledore would stay off all our backs but no longer. So have fun dealing with the freaks when they find out that you let me get away. I'm sure it will be interesting for you"
Both of their eyes widened, casting a look towards the door
"Don't bother running, they have tracking magic" Harry gave them a small grin .: Marvolo:.
Feeling the hook at his navel he let himself let carried away by the magic, dropping -painfully- in the Malfoy manor pallor, and fighting back the urge to move stomach acid to the outside world
"Bad idea to take Portkeys when starved... good to know, good to know, I'll be sure to tell Hermione..." Harry groaned, flopping back like a starfish on the ground, well aware the Malfoy's will probably hate him for doing so.
And he stayed like that until he heard wing beats, raising his head to see Hedwig swoop into the room with all of the grace of an angry angel, flying a circle around him before dropping by his head and beginning the -impossible- task of straightening out his hair, Harry let out a small chuckle, raising a finger to trail down her back "hey mum " Hedwig pulled back to glare at him before returning to her task, making Harry laugh again as Voldemort strolled into the room, hair now trimmed and in -surprisingly- more muggle like clothing then robes. Black pants and shoes with a black silk shirt and a black coat did he wear enough black? Was he colour-blind like Snape?
"Harry, what a surprise" Harry gave a grin at Voldemort, sitting up but still staying on the ground
"'Lo Voldie. Sorry to intrude but I got bored with being starved and locked in a small dark space so I decided to pop in." Voldemort watched and Harry got to his feet somewhat unsteadily, his bird moving up to his shoulder -continuing to preen his hair- "how've you been?"
"I think, Harry, that small talk should be saved for once you have been seated and have some food in you, come" Harry shrugged -causing Hedwig to let out an annoyed hoot and fly overhead- and followed.
"Food sounds lovely, thank you" Harry smiled, coming to walk next to the dark lord, keeping most of his focus on staying balanced, not noticing the dark look that crossed the dark lord's face, nor the quiet promise of death to three muggles.
Chapter End Notes
quick warning to my readers. my family only has one laptop in the house which is mainly used by my mother (and I don't, ever, leave the house) so updates WILL be jumpy! not by choice however : so, I'm sorry for that. I'll try and update as often as possible though!
Malfoys, Gardens and Hermione
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
The following morning caught the Malfoy unawares seeing a -still somewhat sleepy- Harry Potter at their breakfast table waiting with their lord was not something they'd expected to see so soon into the holidays.
Harry, for his part, was still extremely tired despite sleeping through dinner, after a small snack, using that time to explain his one week at the Dursley's, by extension his childhood and past summers and Voldemort leading him to his room -and by extension the rooms his friends would be staying in should they appear, though he said Luna's was useless, she'd likely sleep with one of them rather than by herself- he'd sat on the bed to see if it was similar to the Hogwarts beds -though bigger and with different colours, Harry's room with themes with soft blues and greens- he'd instantly fallen sideways and he was unconscious before he hit the pillow.
He had the feeling either Voldemort had spelled him, or seen he was rather tired and expected it to happen. Either way when he'd come to make sure Harry was awake for breakfast -he wasn't- he'd been impossibly amused -which was unnerving in itself.-
"Potter. Tired of getting hero worship from the muggles then?" Harry almost, almost, wished he was a dark lord so he could morally get away with delivering a cutting curse to Draco's throat...
"Draco, I'd suggest you not speak of things you don't understand" Voldemort intervened -having gotten a history on the Potter-Malfoy fights from both Severus and Barty, was the feud not meant to be between the Weasleys and Malfoys?-. Harry sighed and continued to play with his ring, it'd quickly become a habit
"Good morning Lord Malfoy, Lady Malfoy, Heir Malfoy, I thank you for allowing me within your home and apologize for not announcing myself yesterday, it was terribly rude" Harry greeted, standing and moving towards the three to offer a small bow to the two males and taking lady Malfoy's hand gently, bowing slightly and bringing her knuckles to just before his lips before straightening and gently letting her hand go
Little known fact to his group, despite acting rather rudely -normally- everyone had learned the proper edicate for being a pureblood -along with proper ballroom dancing, both leading and following, and yes, the yule ball was a painful event for him to attend, not being allowed to dance properly was rather annoying to his mood. but it was he who chose his masks.-
Lady Malfoy took the lead while Lord and Heir Malfoy recovered from their shock because Potter had greeted them properly. Assuring Harry that it was fine and that Voldemort had explain the situation to her, Harry found, to his surprise, he was instantly mothered under Narcissa Malfoy's watch.
"Harry" Harry paused his meal, turning his attention towards Voldemort "do you think Lady Le-Fay Slytherin would mind answering some of my questions next she's around?" Harry frowned, tilting his head slightly in thought.
"She likely wouldn't mind, as you are technically family. Even if it's through Nathaniel and not herself. Though if you're planning on asking for her help she will likely decline. Her visits to me are short at best, calling her suddenly gets me a few minutes. Only when she can complete quiet a section of work early does she spend more than a few hours around. And I'm guessing you'd take up her time for more than a few hours." Harry replied, continuing his meal while Voldemort thought
"I suppose being a demon would be rather taxing" Voldemort mused, causing the Malfoys to stiffen and turn to Harry in shock, Harry gave Voldemort a smile
"Definitely. Even the average demons are rather busy but Arilisa is a countess of hell. Her free time is few and far in-between. I've been lucky we get so much time together as is. She often stopped by after classes ended before dinner during the school year, she taught me a lot of magic, thankfully, Which I could then teach in part to my friends."
"How often did you see her last year?"
"At least 3 times a week. Often 4. And she always attended the tasks, she didn't want me to die and we don't really trust the headmaster to keep me alive. Going from his past record" Harry said, finishing his meal and turning his full attention to Voldemort
"What do you know of her?" he asked, Harry took a moment to think while the Malfoys were still frozen, Harry Potter knows a demon?
"She was born to Morgana Le-Fay and is a biological daughter of Merlin. Though he never accepted her existence and rather disliked her. She grew up her mother and attended Hogwarts, she was a Hufflepuff but she says the hat was 50/50 towards it or Slytherin, so she affectionately calls herself a Slytherpuff. She has the ability to communicate with all animals and loves most if not all creatures, she grew close with Noel Slytherin during their school years as they were both caring for a RuneSpoor in the forest. They got married not long after they graduated Hogwarts and left to explore Britain, keeping out of the way of muggles, eventually Arilisa feel pregnant and they returned to Hogwarts where they lived our their lives for a great many years.
"Arilisa was burned for being a witch by the muggles after she'd magically exhausted herself saving a village from something, she refused to say what. From there she died, and her dark blood from her Unseelie heritage allowed her to become a demon, the celestial blood from Merlin gave her a significant advantage when wandering the mortal realms so she quickly rose through the ranks. As far as demons go despite being rather old she still keeps most of her human habits and spends more up in the mortal realms -still doing her job- then the under realms. That's really the limit of my knowledge. Other than the fact that I'm related to her by blood and you're related to her by marriage I guess"
"You're not seriously believing this my lord? There is no way Potter of all people is bonded to a demon!" Draco hissed standing "I don't know what you're playing at Potter but I draw the line at Demons."
"That, Malfoy, would be your loss. I care not." Harry stated before turning to Lady Malfoy "My lady, would you mind if I explored the gardens? I am rather fond of plant life" Harry smiled
"Of course Harry dear. You have may go anywhere within the manor so long as it's not through locked doors" Narcissa replying in turn before shooting Draco a glare "i'll send a house elf should we need you for something"
"Thank you my lady." Harry smiled, standing and leaving the room.
"My lord, you cannot seriously believe Potter is bonded to a demon?" Lucius said, eyes wide towards Voldemort
"My, Harry's bombs are rather entertaining when in the know. Yes Lucius, Harry does have a demon on call. I meet her when she saved Wormtail at Harry's request, and, as you just heard, she is family. We talked the night I came back" Voldemort gave a chilly smile to the three "I'd suggest not getting on his bad side. Lest Harry call her. I shall be in my room, I have things to do" Voldemort stood, leaving the table as well while Lucius turned to his wife
"When the Lord wanted to speak to you, what was it about?"
"Young Harry and his friends. He explained that Harry was not as he seemed and was mostly likely abused by his relatives -from his request at sanctuary and someone else's request that should it be asked he gets Harry out of that house, I'm guessing now that was the demon Arilisa- and that, from such, his friends would likely be different too. He requested I make up their rooms and when they came to the manor I treat them fairly. That was all" Narcissa replied, sipping her tea "Draco, I want nothing like your school fights while Harry and his friends are here. You are to treat them as you would any other important pure blood. Even the Weasleys should they come" she finished her tea and stood "I am going to see to the peacocks. Do try and behave the both of you."
Harry sighed as he sat down on a patch of grass, closing his eyes and letting his mind turn inwards after he set a ward to tell him if anyone got close, he allowed his magic to buzz around him as he focused on his inner animal as Arilisa had advised months ago.
He relaxed and the wind seemed to race around him. He was a bird of some sort he knew but he didn't know what yet. But as soon as he had that down it was just a matter of having a mandrake leaf in his mouth for a month, not the most pleasant thing but doable, a month of silence was a little price to pay for unaided flight.
With a peaceful sigh Harry fully immersed himself in his mind and soul, fully feeling like he was whatever bird he was. His mind creating vast open skies around him, fluffy looking clouds and thick trees below. His heart speed up as he dived. Moving so fast, air gliding over his feathers and wings tucked in tight. He could see his target, a lake, fish stupidly swimming near the surface so close, so fast . Harry's talons were out as he angled himself to pluck one right out of the water. His magic buzzed around him eagerly as his claws pierced the scaly flesh. Wings spread out either side of his he raced over the water, prize safely under him, he caught a flash of bright green eyes and black feathers before he was forcibly ejected from his mind, blinking rapidly down at the bird that had pecked him he shooed the creature away before laying down, wide grin on his face.
He'd finally caught a glimpse of himself! A small one but he was getting closer! After almost a year of meditating. Harry's magic continued to buzz around him happily. Unknown to him, interacting with the other three occupants of the manor.
From her place in the gardens Narcissa's magic danced around with Harry's, with a small smile on her face Narcissa continued to go over her roses, making sure everyone was in proper form.
Both Lucius and Draco were in the library, going over known Demons and their rituals -along with Demon laws- because Harry Potter knowing a demon, let alone being related to one, did not sit right with them their magic's batting away Harry's stray strands of magic, fiercely defending the two males
And Voldemort, Voldemort was standing at the window, watching Harry and letting his magic tangle with the boys, the grey magic feeling perfectly normal with his own dark. Voldemort had to wonder just what the boy was hiding for his magic to feel so at home with his own. And just how much magic the boy truly had. Carefully Voldemort used his own magic to bring Harry's closer, letting out a content sigh as it slid over him. It felt so peaceful and happy and alive . So different to the magic of his death eaters. It felt guarded yet free as it shimmered through the air.
Voldemort had to wonder if his magic felt like that to everyone. And if so why the people seemed to turn on Harry so easily. For would everyone not want to be as close to such power forever?
It was to Harry's surprise that he felt the ankle around his ankle burn while he was once again exploring the guardians a few hours later. He instantly turned on his heel and headed towards the pallor, arriving just in time to see Hermione drop in
" 'Mione?" Hermione's eyes moved to Harry, they were wide and somewhat frantic
"They brought a gun Harry" Harry frowned and moved to hug his friend, his magic moving to wrap around them tightly
"Shh, 'Mione, the gun could have been for if some other magic came with unfriendly views. Surely they wouldn't aim such a thing at you " voiced, but inside his mind was spinning surely they wouldn't? Right? Yes having a witch in one's house was be worrying but... surely.?
"I do not know Harry but... I didn't want to risk it, not when they're so jumpy around me all the time." Hermione whispered, borrowing into him, Harry sighed and let her
"Of course Mi, well, at least I have company now" Harry said smiling
"How long have you been here?"
"Little under a day. Come on, I'll show you to your room then we'll tell Lady Malfoy you're here and we can sit in the gardens until lunch" Harry said, pulling Hermione up and taking her trunk, pulling it behind him and he led Hermione through the manor.
Chapter End Notes
I really hope it doesn't tell people every time I make a edit to a chapter otherwise any subbers probably HATE me. cause I just edited chapter one twice and two once. anyway, hope you enjoyed :3 there would be more to this chapter but I'm to hungry to write any more tonight (cant focus and there's no food in the house) so chapter four will just have to be longer :3
Bonding and Gringottss
Chapter Summary
the remaining group gathers at Malfoy manor. time passes with peace and bonding, birthdays pass with tears and a trip to Diagon Alley spawns possible murder plots and new Lords/Heirs that haven't been seen in a 100 years!
Harry and Hermione were sitting in her room overlooking the garden when Voldemort walked in. They'd passed Narcissa in the hall and introduced Hermione to the Malfoy and was welcomed then moved on. Hermione had opened a book on the Dark arts while Harry had quickly fetched his before they sat down to discuss some of the spells and find a light alternate. The books on light magic sitting open on the bed in front of them, Hermione flicked through them while Harry thought up what category the spell would be under.
Voldemort took a moment to just watch the two as their magic undulated through the air. Hermione's was rather annoyed and serious, due to the book she was flicking through, while Harry's was amused, along with lethargic, like a lazy cat watching another cat chase after a mouse, which was easy enough to tell without magic, as the boy was laid out on Granger's bed, head on one arm with a soft smile on his face with the other arm flicking lazily through the dark arts book near him, the item propped up on a pillow. Voldemort approached the bed and picked up one of the books on light magic.
Harry's head rose to the movement, eye's dancing with mirth as he took in the sight of the dark lord looking over light arts. "Would you look at that 'Mione, light magic doesn't burn the dark lord to ashes. The Ministry would have a fit if they found out!" Harry joked. "Or maybe Dumbledore. Nah, probably not." Beside him, Hermione laughed, watching the dark lord warily but continuing Harry's joke.
"I don't know Harry, I can hear it now! 'Voldemort my boy! So good to know you've seen the light, come, join us for cookies and kittens and know all is forgiving under the power of love!' and all that rot, with that annoying look in his eyes. Gah, that man is what my parents warned me away from when I was little!" Hermione grinned when Harry laughed. "Oh Merlin, 'Mione, are they eating the kittens with the cookies?!"
Voldemort watched as both's magic danced and expanded, wrapping around each other while a portion of Harry's moved over to his own, as if inviting it to play.
"What? NO! The Kittens are to cuddle while they have cookies!" Hermione replied, shaking her head with a smile while Harry laughed more.
When he finally calmed down -partly due to Voldemort firing a calming spell at him-, Harry grinned at Voldemort. "So, what brings you to this end of the manor, Voldemort?"
"I am simply curious how you knew Miss Granger was here before both myself and Lucius. I went to the Parlor to meet the new arrival, only to find her missing. Only when I came across Narcissa was I able to hunt you down." Voldemort replied, returning the rather advanced light magic book to the bed, and summoning a seat from across the room.
"Ah, well you see, we have a system in place to warn one another if we're in danger." Harry said, pausing to remove the disillusionment charm on himself. "Each of our group has a piece of jewelry. I pair with the green gem stud in my left ear, Ron with the red. Hermione pairs with my anklet, Neville with the thin silver band on my left pointer and Ginny the right hand. Luna pairs with this lovely Ouroboros bracelet on my left arm and Fred and George on the bracelets on my right, red for Fred, blue for George. We all have the same set, except for the fang earring I got from Bill on my right ear." Harry lifted his head to show the dangling item before returning it. "If we channel magic into one piece, it'll heat up the piece that's from the person tha-...you know what, no, that doesn't make a lot of sense. Hermione pushed magic into the earring that pairs with me, and in turn my anklet heats up telling me she needs me. So, if I wasn't already in the manor, I would have activated the Portkey and teleported to her. Since I was here, I knew she was coming and moved to the Parlor to get her before Draco showed up."
Voldemort thought for a moment before nodding "It's smart for a small group as your own. I assume as soon as one of you are in trouble you're meant to activate them? Before they can seal your magic, that is." Harry nodded in reply
"'Mione also managed to weave in a tracking charm so we can find one another. It pairs with the Marauders Map if we're in hogwarts, and if not, they can act as Portkeys to bring us within a kilometer of whoever was taken."
"Smart." Voldemort replied before looking back over the books "What are you two doing?"
"Going through our dark arts collection, trying to find the light arts version of each spell. Its entertaining for us and, should someone piss us off, we can spell someone with really nasty shit no matter where we are" Hermione said, returning to her task "i don't suppose you know the Light version of Os verto favillae?"
" Osa verto favillae. Where the first is 'I turn bone into ash', 'Osa verto favillae' is 'I turn bones into ash'. It's an obvious flaw within the ministry that two spells essentially meaning the same thing is separated between light and dark" Voldemort replied promptly, looking over another light arts book. "the light version of the spell was used in the beginnings of the first war on my Death Eaters opposed to the Crucio. it does not actually turn the bones to ash, or, when used correctly it doesn't. but rather give the feeling on your bones turning to ash, and the heat is said to be almost unbearable. overpowered versions of both spells have been known to cause burning on the bones and, in some cases, turn sections of the bone to ash. I know of no one that has managed to turn a whole bone to ash however"
Both teens blinked at Voldemort. "You'd have made a good teacher." Harry said simply, Voldemort lifted his head to look at the two.
"I would have been if not for Dumbledore. I probably would have been working with my inner circle on the side to get into the ministry and change some things, but I would have mainly been a teacher."
"That's right, you're said to have cursed the spot after Dumbledore turned you away!" Hermione said, sitting up. "You should apply this year! It'd be nice having a good teacher on hand, and you'd be pulling one over Dumbledore too!"
"Hermione, did you seriously just suggest putting a Dark Lord in a school full of children?" Harry grinned, the idea had its points though. Effort getting Voldemort into the castle would be easy, Hogwarts would welcome the fellow Heir of Slytherin, even more with his vow not to hurt her or her students. But getting him past Dumbledore would be difficult
"It's not like he can hurt the students, he took a oath. And Dumbledore would be easy. Just have to use a strong glamour, like your Parsel glamours Harry" Hermione continued "and a fake name. Mr Malfoy is on the board so you have him and we could pass you off as a traveler who just came back to Britain, when you saw the spot was open."
"The idea has merit, Miss Granger, but I believe I'd be happier not teaching 11 year olds at current. If your new teacher is truly horrible I will do my best to get a substitute though. It will not do to have faulty education. The new generation is the future after all." Voldemort countered, looking back down to the book, Hermione visibly deflated but still had a small smile as she went back to her own books as did Harry.
The following hours passed peacefully with both Harry and Hermione shooting Voldemort questions on various spells, charms and curses they came across, while occasionally Voldemort would add a page number they should read as to understand something better, or a spell/charm/curse that was the opposite of the spell they mentioned, or the counter. It was peaceful.
Voldemort, though he still had letters to read and write out, could not bring himself to leave the room and instead stayed with the teens, answering and helping when they asked but otherwise finding various spells that had been invented in the 10 years he was unable to do anything. Allowing Harry's magic to pulse around him, filling him with a peace he had not felt in many, many years.
Luna arrived two days after, the dreamy blond attaching herself to Harry instantly one breakfast and not moving from his side for the day. The next day she was attracted to Hermione, and the day after to Draco, forcing the blond to interact with Harry and Hermione. This pattern repeated for another three days. She congratulated Harry on getting closer to his Animagus and was quiet while Harry and Hermione got to know Draco better.
Voldemort often came to whatever area the teens were in to sit with them for a hour or two, answering any questions they had. Though the teens realized he had no real reason for coming to them -that they knew of-, they didn't mind the Dark Lord when he appeared.
Neville appeared a week after Luna, after Luna sent him a letter asking if he was coming and that the group would be complete soon so he should make an appearance.
With Neville's appearance, the five teens spent more time outside than inside.
Three days after Neville came, so did the Weasleys. Fred and George appearing in a fit of anger -Molly having lit their products on fire and once again telling them that jokes and pranks wasn't a job -. The two were followed an hour later by Ron and Ginny.
The group -minus Draco and Voldemort- spent the next week in their rooms, only coming out at meal times, when helping Fred and George recreate their lost merchandise, or working on the remaining summer homework.
When the 8 finally emerged from their isolation, they spent most of their time outside meditating on their Animagi forms. Voldemort returned to his habit of hunting down the group, now reading with them while they meditated, while Draco joined them in meditating -the young Malfoy trying to become one as well, like his Mother and Father, who were both unregistered Animagi-.
Harry's and Neville's birthdays passed with a small party with beautiful gifts.
From the Malfoys, both Harry and Neville got new cloaks, both deep black with a silver feather clasp for Harry and golden paws for Neville.
Hermione got both of them books, another dark arts book for Harry and Advanced Herbology for Neville.
Luna gave Harry a set of black, green, red, silver and gold hair ribbons saying that Harry should grow his hair out, maybe, while she gave Neville a new pair of gloves. Harry took this suggestion to heart, like one always should when Luna says something.
Ron gave Harry an appointment card for eye doctor " All paid for mate, go get rid of those crappy glasses!" and Neville a rare plant.
Ginny, Fred and George all pitched in together to get Harry some more clothes -both wizarding and muggle-, while they got Neville a mixed prank set -both Zuko's products and the twins-.
Voldemort, surprisingly, gave Harry a mirror " Should you require aid at Hogwarts, feel free to use this, and I will send Lucius or another to help" and Neville a rare plant, along with an apology, in a roundabout way " I will not apologise for the loss of either of your parents, for it would insult both their sacrifices. But I will apologize for how you were raised. It was never my goal to cause so much pain in the last war and you have my word things will not go that way a second time".
From Molly and Arthur Harry got the normal gifts, Hagrid gave him a cake and card, Sirius sent him a two way Mirror with a letter saying if he needed him, to call him, so long as its wasn't about the weather at midnight. Remus sent him a book full of pranks the Marauders had done while at Hogwarts -apparently under Sirius' request- and a odd prism that played music, While Arilisa gave him the best present he could ask for.
Not only did Arilisa wake him up in the morning, informing him that she had the day off to spend with him, she brought with her a contract that she'd made up, similar to the one they'd had last year for her training him. This one was a family bond, effectively allowing him to call her whenever he needed her for another year and giving her a day of her choosing off each month to spend with him.
She'd used her Celestial blood to enter the happier side of the afterlife, hunted down his parents, and asked them to write out a letter each for everything they wanted to say to him and brought them back, and Harry had -unashamedly- cried over both.
For Neville she brought two rings " This may not work Neville, I will start off with that. But these are healing rings worn by demons at all times. They provide a boost to our natural self-healing. I know you're parents are getting better slowly. Next time you visit them, I want you to put these on them. It may speed up their own self healing, but it's never really been tested before. All I know is it won't hurt them. Happy birthday."
All in all, it was a good birthday for both boys.
Arilisa joined the group when they went to Diagon Alley for their school things, along with Lucius, Narcissa and Voldemort -who was under a light glamour-.
Arriving near the leaky cauldron caused quite the stir, whispers instantly going out around the crowd.
Voldemort and Arilisa split off to take Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione to get their things while Lucius and Narcissa took Luna, Draco and Neville, and the twins split off to do their own things with the promise to be back at the leaky cauldron for lunch.
Ron, who was still in a bit of a daze about being made prefect, allowed Hermione to lead him in shopping while Harry and Ginny hung back with small smiles. It was only when they got to Floris and Bolts that Ron's attention peaked, picking up this year's defense against the dark arts book he winced
"Guys" Ron started slowly, turning the thin book in his hand. "I have a feeling this year's defense against the dark arts is going to be self taught." Harry was by his side in an instant, taking the book and flipping through it
"Is this some kind of joke?!" he hissed "there's absolutely nothing of value in this, its first year theory " Harry turned and tossed the book at Hermione who flipped through it just as quickly as him. "Does anyone know who the DADA teacher is this year?"
"Lucius would know" Voldemort said, taking the book from Hermione's hand and flipping through it himself "...I shall make arrangements for another teacher to take the place of the current. All you lot will have to do is drive them out of the castle" Voldemort closed the book with a snap "We shall only be buying one of this rubbish. I can copy more using the Parsel charm, there's no reason to waste money on such...foolishness."
"Any idea why Dumbledore would hire someone like this? I mean, he's paranoid that Voldemort's back, but why would he hire someone that assigns 1st year theory to all years?" Ginny muttered, going through her own book. "What's that goat thinking?"
"Unfortunately, Dumbledore is not the cause for this mess. Most likely," Arilisa said, arms crossed as she looked at the group "there was word going around underground a few weeks ago, that there's a pink toad that made a deal with a demon to get a higher position in the ministry- the demon was of low rank, barely any power, but a deal is a deal. I didn't pay much attention to it til a few weeks ago, when said deal seemed to go supernova. The toad overpowered the demon deal. Bitch got her place in the ministry and ear to the minister but she doesn't owe a soul anymore. The demon she owed it to went missing. We're guessing the blokes dead." curious eyes watched as Arilisa lowered her head
"The bitch is playing with fire she doesn't understand. She hates half breeds and creatures alike. Demons count as creatures. My guess is the bitch made the deal so she could easily worm her way into a power spot in the ministry, propose laws and such, and since that equals safety... We demons are forbidden from harming ministry officials with due, proven, cause. Now she's going to Hogwarts, where, like tall, dark and handsome over there knows, the future generation is. What will happen when we get a bunch of 11 year olds believing every half breed and creature is violent and evil and will kill them all in their sleep?"
"They'll keep that belief, even in the corners of their minds. And when something bad happens involving a creature or half breed..." Hermione's eyes widened
"It'll freeze their beliefs, as when they go into the world they'll distrust them like the worst of us. Half breeds and creatures will be caged and killed. Doesn't matter if it takes 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. It'll go on, and it'll continue. She's going to plant the seed of death." Voldemort finished, watching as Arilisa's eyes bed black and red in muted awe. he'd always been curious about demons.
"Harry, Luna, Neville and Draco are all technically my heirs. I don't care how you do it, but get that bitch to do something against you. As soon as she does I have full right to hunt her. If their blood's involved, I'm sorry to say, but even better. Harming a demons' heir is a death sentence and since no one knows you're mine you have an advantage. I don't want any of you badly hurt, but I do want to be able to hunt her. Not only did she probably kill a demon, she's responsible for a lot of pain between the non-humans. I can't let this stand."
"I guess that solves getting her out of the castle, if this teacher really is the pink toad. I just have to get her to hurt me, then Arilisa comes in and we have a legal death." Harry shrugged. "And if it's not the toad I say we prank 'em till we break 'em."
Arilisa smiled, eyes changing back to white and green and she moved to plant a kiss atop Harry's head. "And that's why you're my favourite heir. Even one drop of blood is enough to give me a reason to hunt. The second she does something call for me."
"Of course. Now, back to shopping yes?" Harry grinned at Arilisa and the others "I still have my eye appointment."
"And I want everyone to visit Gringotts before we leave. I have something to give you all, or, some of you." Arilisa said, moving to grab the rest of the books and placing them on the counter.
Voldemort, Harry, Luna, Neville and Draco sat together while Ginny, Ron, Fred, George and Hermione sat to the side, watching with Lucius and Narcissa as Arilisa talked in hushed Gobbledegook to the head goblin within the main office, a place wizards and witches barely got to enter. Harry was near constantly moving a hand over his face rubbing where he'd normally have the weight of his glasses. Not wearing glasses is weird.
Finally, after around half an hour the two turned back to the five
"Right then. You're each gonna need to take a blood test, then we'll see what happens."
"Mister Riddle, as the eldest, you'll be first" Voldemort held back a grimace at the name but offered his hand anyway. The head goblin made a small cut on his hand and allowing the blood to drip onto the parchment below, before letting go of the hand.
Though one would think that blood was purely being tested, but in reality, the blood was being tested for polyjuice potion and other body altering spells. The blood was, always, taken into account but first and foremost the magic was tested, through the blood, since magic took in and recorded traits from birth. Which was why traits such as Parseltongue could not be transferred via blood adoption. You had to be born with it. As the trait took root in one's magical core and was transferred via magic. The parent with the trait had to be near the infant during pregnancy and for at least 3 months after birth for it to transfer. Though the blood bond was required. Even if the trait was dormant it would transfer, either dormant or awakened.
There was a good reason why blood magic wasn't often practiced. It's a bag of cats barely anyone wants to open.
The blood faded into the page with a dull glow before the head goblin poured ink onto the parchment. The ink was instantly absorbed, and promptly resurfaced in writing;
Tom Marvolo Riddle
Titles; Lord Voldemort
Blood status; Half-blood
Status; Alive (level 5 dark arts resurrection. Level 9 dark arts ?)
Magic; active.
Family Traits; Parseltongue. Legilimens. Parselmagic. Presence Aura. Necromancy.
Family ties; House of Slytherin (close)
House of Peverell (close)
House of Gaunt (close)
A vailable wizarding Lordships; Lord Slytherin (one other possible heirs)
Lord Peverell (one other possible heirs)
Lord Gaunt
Available Muggle Lordships; Lord Riddle
Other magical traits; Animagi (unlocked), Occlumens (active)
Harry then repeated the process.
Harry James Potter
Titles; none
Blood status; Half-blood
Status; Alive (level 7 dark arts sacrifice)
Magic; active.
Family Traits; Parseltongue. Parselmagic. Celestetongue (blocked). Metamorph (Dormant). Air affinity. Presence Aura. Animal Aura
Family ties; House of Slytherin (close)
House of Peverell (close)
House of Le-Fay (close)
House of Emrys (close)
House of Ravenclaw (distant)
House of Gryffindor (close)
House of Hufflepuff (distant)
House of Potter (close)
House of Black (close)
House of Longbottom (distant)
House of Prince (distant)
House of Lovegood (distant)
4 Houses (distant)
Available wizarding Lordships; Lord Slytherin (one other possible heirs)
Lord Peverell (one other possible heirs)
Lord Gryffindor
Lord Le-Fay
Lord Emrys
Lord Potter
Lord Black
Available Muggle Lordships; Lord Potter
Other magical traits; Animagi (awakening), Occlumens (dormant)
Currently Bonded to Demon; Arilisa Le-Fay Slytherin, Daughter of Emrys, 17th Countess of Hell.Followed by Draco
Draco Lucius Malfoy
Titles; none
Blood status; Pureblood
Status; Alive
Magic; Active
Family Traits; Occlumens, Parseltongue (Dormant), Metamorph (Dormant). Siren's call. Air affinity. Animal Aura
Family ties; House of Malfoy (close)
House of Black (close)
House of Slytherin (distant)
House of Gryffindor (distant)
House of Ravenclaw (close)
House of Hufflepuff (close)
House of Prince (close)
House of Longbottom (distant)
House of Greengrass (distant)
House of Le-Fay (distant)
House of Emrys (distant)
3 houses (distant)
Available wizarding Lordships; Lord Malfoy (currently claimed)
Lord Black (two other possible Heirs)
Lord Ravenclaw (two other possible Heir)
Lord Hufflepuff (one other possible Heir)
Lord Prince (two other possible Heir)
Available Muggle Lordships; Lord Prince (two other possible Heirs)
Other magical traits; Animagi (awakening). ParselTongue (dormant)
And Neville
Neville Frank Longbottom
Titles; none
Blood status; Pureblood
Status; Alive
Magic; Active
Family Traits; Metal and Stone affinity, Natural with short blades. Animal Aura, Plant Aura.
Family ties; House of Longbottom (close)
House of Diggory (close)
House of Slytherin (distant)
House of Gryffindor (distant)
House of Ravenclaw (distant)
House of Hufflepuff (close)
House of Potter (close)
House of Prince (distant)
House of Greengrass (distant)
House of Le-Fay (distant)
House of Emrys (distant)
3 houses (distant)
Available wizarding Lordships; Lord Longbottom
Lord Hufflepuff (one other possible Heir)
Lord Diggory (one other possible Heir. Currently Claimed)
Available Muggle Lordships; Lord Longbottom
Other magical traits; Occlumens. ParselTongue (dormant). Animagius (awakening)
And Finally Luna
Luna Pandora Lovegood
Titles; none
Blood status; Pureblood
Status; Alive
Magic; Active
Family Traits; Seer. Vision, Runes
Family ties; House of Lovegood (close)
House of Greengrass (close)
House of Slytherin (distant)
House of Gryffindor (distant)
House of Ravenclaw (close)
House of Hufflepuff (distant)
House of Prince (close)
House of Longbottom (distant)
House of Black (distant)
House of Le-Fay (distant)
House of Emrys (distant)
5 houses (distant)
Available wizarding Ladyship's; Lady Lovegood
Lady Greengrass (two other possible Heirs, Currently Claimed)
Lady Ravenclaw (two other possible Heirs)
Lady Prince (two other possible Heirs)
Available Muggle Ladyship's; Lady Greengrass (two other possible Heirs)
Lady Prince (two other possible Heirs)
Other magical traits; Knowledge, air affinity, cold affinity, wings (blocked), reflexes.
Arilisa gathers the five papers and read them over, nodding every now and then or making a humming sound before handing them over to the head goblin
"Now to decide who gets what. I suggest we don't poke around with any titles not in this room so that Greengrass, Prince and Diggory. I don't think Sirius will mind if Harry takes his title as he was planning on giving it to Harry in the end."
"We can claim the lordships now?" Neville asked, looking over his own page
"No, well, tall dark and Handsome can, and Harry can as, in the eyes of magic, he's now an adult for completing the triwizard tournament. The rest of you can claim the Heir rings which reserve the lord or ladyship for you. It can only transfer then if another possible Heir challenges you to a duel for Lord or Ladyship. In Draco's case he'll claim the Malfoy Heir ring and when Lucius steps down he'll be able to claim lordship of the Malfoy family.
"As Heir's you'll be able to enter and remove certain things from your family vaults. And you'll be able to look over your holdings and such. But you won't be able to influence them. You can ask the goblins to do things but it will then go through a process before it's passed and the action happens. Understood?" when the group nodded Arilisa looked back over the pages
"Voldemort you should claim Peverell, Slytherin and Gaunt Lordships."
"Harry, you should claim Gryffindor, Le-Fay, Emrys, Potter and Black."
"Draco, you should claim the Malfoy and... Grinclok, who's the other prince heir, that's not Luna?"
"That would be a Mister Severus Snape Lady Le-Fay Slytherin" the goblin replied "he has not come to claim his ring, even though he does know of his blood." Arilisa hummed
"And the Prince Heirship Draco. Should Snape not come to claim Lordship, it's his own loss.
"Neville, Longbottom and Hufflepuff Heirships and Luna take the Lovegood and Ravenclaw Heirships" all five nodded their consent to the Lord/Heirships while the Head Goblin sent for the various rings.
Handing each their respective rings, each slid their rings onto their right hand ring finger, each ring merging with the other, set to flicker as each name was focused on.
The large group left Gringotts happy. With their various Lord and Heir ships they now held a large sway over Hogwarts and the Ministry. Not that anyone was aware of that, it had been years since the old names had been claimed.
As they each Portkeyed back to Malfoy Manor, Arilisa smoking back. One thing was for certain. Should Dumbledore do anything stupid this year. He'd likely be kicked out of the castle.
The masks were off. The golden and silver trio were going to be coming back with devil horns instead of angel halo's. The twins were going to take the castle by storm and Draco Malfoy just hoped he had enough popcorn to last the following years. or he will, once Hermione introduces movie nights.
Making a Scene
Chapter Summary
Arilisa talks to Voldemort about Harry and his soul, and figures out something she's not totally comfortable with.
Harry and Co make it to Hogwarts. dive bombing into the sea of magic and causing tidal waves all the way back at the ministry!
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
The morning the teens were set to leave for Hogwarts, Arilisa was once again in the manor, grinning from ear to ear, saying it was only fit she join in sending her makeshift family off to school. Since Arilisa -from her plan to one day off the pink toad- was obviously NOT hiding from the wizarding world anymore, she decided she was allowed to be seen with Harry, and only a few people would ever recognize a demon's aura anyways.
That was why she was joining the group at breakfast, eyeing an oddly tense Voldemort.
"You know you'll be able to visit them under glamours when they go to Hogsmeade, right Voldemort?" Arilisa's voice cut through the sound of everyone eating. Voldemort turned glaring red eyes to said demon.
"I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about Arilisa. Why would I need to visit anyone in Hogsmeade of all places?" Voldemort's voice was tense. Arilisa sighed before standing and leaving the room, giving Voldemort a look that said ' Follow, now' . Voldemort did, if only to convince Arilisa that he was fine letting the brats go back to school. Right under Dumbledore's nose. Where they could be hurt.
Arilisa lead him to one of the smaller sitting rooms, taking a seat before he was even at the door and leveling him with an unimpressed look. "Tom." Voldemort stiffened at the name, sitting himself. "If you truly think I did not notice you wrapping yourself in my boys magic every time you're near by him, then I may have to requestion your sanity." Arilisa said quietly, giving the dark lord an almost sad look. "And if you believe I missed just how fond you've grown for those children over the summer, you are mistaken. It's not wrong to care about them Tom."
"I know you are still the dark lord. You always will be. It's your role in this world to lead the dark. But when Harry stabbed that diary in his second year, he gave you back 50% of your soul. The more soul you have the more you feel. More you think. I know this for a fact, the question is, can a person survive on 50% of a soul."
"I will not deny I... do have relapses. Did have one, when Harry and his friends held themselves up in their room for a week. It was worrying. Harry's magic calls to me, there's a familiar feel, it calms me, makes me feel a bit more whole. Its... an odd feeling. One I will not deny liking. And I have grown fond of the boy, and of his… friends."
Familiar? Calmer? Whole? Arilisa's eyes narrowed, thoughts twisting in her head. She was a demon. She knew souls. Souls were her JOB, they were a part of her life. If you needed someone to explain soul magic to you, Arilisa was your woman. But... soul mates? Shouldn't be possible, they should have been born closer together if that was the case. Ah...but what if it was reincarnation? They could have been born close to one another but due to an accident... not possible, Tom Riddle would have died years after, or Harry's soul would have instantly gone back to the loop, the gaps to big for it to be soul mates something else then. The purpose of a Horcrux is to trick a soul that would otherwise be too annoying to kill off naturally. Insanity is a rather fast way to off people, but it also makes the soul highly unstable. Could something have happened the night of the attack? Possible, but the chances of something happening to create that kind of bond are... 1/1000. An d Harry's luck is just stunning so far, isn't it? It would probably be fates joy to bond his soul to an insane Dark lord as a baby. But then... Harry would be a Horcrux. No that can't be right. That kind of thing gives on vibes. The goblins at least would be able to tell...
Voldemort watched as Arilisa debated with herself, eyes curious as she tilted her head left and right slightly, as if to listen closer to a whisper. When she straightened up, her eyes were slightly wider
Harry James Potter (level 7 dark arts sacrifice, level 9 dark arts unknown.) The same with Voldemort. Soul magic wouldn't register to the parchments as its limited knowledge given by the demons, though the goblins are aware of it so they can reverse anything needed... Harry is a Horcrux to Voldemort. That makes too much sense it makes me want to kill Dumbledore all the more. Yes, the goat must have blocked from anyone realizing it. Even the main soul, the goblins. Me. Now that, that's just insulting. that is just .Sulting. Dumbledore.
"And your thoughts on Harry, on all of them, leaving for Hogwarts today?" Arilisa asked, pushing aside what she'd figured out. She'd head down to talk it over with a demon over tea later and figure out what to do. For now she'd allow things to pass.
"Its...unpleasant, having to let them return to Dumbledore's territory." Voldemort replied, curious to Arilisa's thoughts, but you didn't get anywhere with a demon by pressing, They'd give you information if they felt like it.
"You know the answer don't you? You just have to go too." And stay close to Harry in hopes your soul doesn't freak out trying to get back to him. Would it even be safe to try and remove the fragment? The souls in a baby are so meldable to allow for magical traits... if he'd absorbed the soul into his own...
"You said yourself Arilisa, I am the dark lord. I have put off my plans for a summer, but I can not any longer. I need to call my Death Eaters and prepare to fight again. Even if it's not an all-out war, I need to get started. The dark has been passive for far too long."
"Who is to say you can not do that from within Hogwarts? I can get you in and out of Hogwarts easily Tom. I've been sneaking in and out for the past year after all." Please for the love of Lucifer! Stay close to my boy! at least until i can figure something out!
"I think not, with the brats gone I can focus on my work, I won't be going to Hogwarts, Arilisa." Voldemort's voice was cold and Arilisa sighed.
"Very well, return to your dark lord self. But don't go on a killing spree. Hurt Harry, and I will find a way to drag you down to hell." Arilisa voice was just as cold, flickers of red ruby mixing in with her green eyes. "Never forget Voldemort that we demons have close relations with Death and Souls. You won't be able to run from me. " Arilisa puffed out of the room and back to the dining area. I'm sorry Tom, you need to see that your soul needs that boy right now. I'll try to find another way. Please don't hurt anyone. Don't do something you'll regret. and please, take my fake threat to heart!
Voldemort was left with the feeling he'd just lost quite a bit of leeway with the Demon.
Arilisa gave Harry a happy smile as he walked onto the train. The demon stood next to Narcissa and Lucius as the nine teens moved inside. Draco had, somehow, wormed his way into the core of the group over the summer, and the group had readily let him after Luna had said she'd collected one of the Slytherins that'd join them. The young Malfoy had mellowed out his attitude some after a whole summer around the group, realizing quickly that the group was very different then they let on for the past four years.
Draco was easily a valued member of their group. No one could pick apart a person like a Malfoy. The male blond was now their people man with Luna. Along with that, Draco was also exceedingly talented in potions, officially becoming their helper to the twins. Though the teen was far more talented in conjuration.
Surprisingly, the blonde had no complaints over helping out the group. He even managed to form a -somewhat formal- friendship with Hermione.
Coming across an empty compartment, Harry magically enlarged the space to fit them all comfortably, Hermione enlarged a wooden plank and suspended it in mid air between the seats to act as a table as everyone sat. The twins started taking out parchments to continue their plans for the year. Draco starting up a round of chess with Ron and Ginny left to go find her boyfriend while Hermione and Neville took out their respective books. Harry curled up in the corner for a nap.
The trip back to Hogwarts was peaceful.
Entering the great hall with Draco Malfoy in their ranks was the first thing that got a shocked silence around those in the Great Hall. Whether because Draco was happily talking with Gryffindors, not only that, but Weasley Gryffindors, or because Harry Potter laughed at something the blonde said, no one was 100% sure on.
Either way it caused Harry to smirk as he took in Dumbledore wide eyes, Snape's confused gaze, and the students horror. His eyes took a look at the pink toad sitting at the end of the table and grinned. Ari would get her hunt after all.
It was Colin Creevey who summarized everyone's thoughts at that moment
"Hell's finally frozen over." the fourth year muttered. Harry smirked
"Not yet Colin. The event that causes that is still to come." Fred said, patting the teen on the back and taking his seat with George by his side.
Draco left to Slytherin table, Luna to Ravenclaw while the other Gryffindors took their own seats.
For the first time in her memory, McGonagall walked into a silent great hall.
The student body snapped to attention for the sorting, casting off looks to Harry's group every now and then but eventually calming down. Just because they were talking pleasantly, and came into the great hall together, doesn't mean they're FRIENDS after all.
Once the sorting was over, before the headmaster could start his beginning of year speech, Harry Potter stood on his seat.
"Before the Headmaster starts I'd like to say a few things, if no one minds!" Harry grinned. Turning to the headmaster, who, slowly, gave his permission "Okay, first. I'm looking to buy a Slytherin Scarf, if anyone has a spare, that's not Draco's. I'm paying 5 galleons for one! I'd like to support my secondary house this year so one IS required. If you're willing to sell, I ask you bring the scarf to breakfast!
"The second is a warning. I will not allow any bullying in the castle any longer. Slytherin or not." Harry looked over the tables " Not many of you are aware, but I am the son, godson, and adopted cub of three of the greatest pranksters in the history of hogwarts. Professor Snape can vouch for the ruthlessness when it comes to messing with people, which, Professor, two of three apologize for." Harry looked Snape dead in the eye and bowed his head "I am also sorry for the stress I've caused you over my years here. Also, Mum forgives you for the fight you had. She's sorry she hadn't done so sooner and thanks you for looking out for me." Harry paused and looked over the student body once again
"This year I was gifted a book on all the pranks my father, godfather and adoptive uncle pulled in their years here. Should I hear about anyone bullying a student. I will not hesitate to prank you. Or set the twins on you. This is an official warning to both Student and Professors. After each prank you can give me however many detentions. Take however many points. But know if I prank someone, it was for their own crimes. I am merely bringing attention to them" Harry took a breath
"On top of this announcement, I would also like to inform you all, and Hogwarts that three of her heirs have finally returned. Harry James Potter Officially claims the Lordship of Gryffindor" and Heirship of Slytherin went unsaid, but Hogwarts heard him anyway. With a bright flash of magic, Hogwarts officially recognized the Gryffindor lord/Slytherin Heir.
It was to the students surprise that Luna then stood on her seat "Luna Pandora Lovegood Officially claims heirship of Ravenclaw, Lady Hogwarts!" Dumbledore's eyes were wide as he looked at both students. Hogwarts happily accepted the future Lady Ravenclaw. The magic in the great hall singing at the official return. Eyes scanned the hall for the final Heir of Hogwarts. And everyone held their breath as Neville stood
"I, Neville Frank Longbottom, Officially claim Heirship over the Hufflepuff line." The magic once again accepted. Both Neville and Luna moved to stand next to Harry as he stepped off his seat, standing in the middle of the great hall and looking at Dumbledore
"This is an official warning for the Hogwarts Headmaster. Hogwarts and her children are not happy with you. Make one mistake this year and you will be banned from the castle. You have made many mistakes Dumbledore. I hope you're ready to face the consequences.
"This warning is also extended to the Defence against the Dark Arts Professor. I don't know you, I don't care, but there's been a bad track record with your job. Try to harm one student in these halls and you will regret it for the rest of your life." Harry smiled at the teachers before moving to sit at the Slytherin table, slipping beside Draco. While Luna sat back with Neville at Gryffindor. The sorting was done. Seating no longer mattered.
Dumbledore was visibly tense as he made his speech. But most of the attention was still on Harry Potter.
When Dolores Umbridge made her announcement only half the students were listening. The Pink toad glared at Harry who smiled sweetly.
Food was eaten. Harry entered himself nicely into Slytherin, giving a short explanation as to why he wanted a Slytherin scarf, which boiled down too, I'm 50% Slytherin at heart really, but I'm Dumbledore's golden boy. I'm not allowed to be Slytherin, or friends with 'dark' families. Well, over the summer some things happened and now I don't care if anyone has a problem with my being part Slytherin, or being grey in nature. I'm officially taking after one of my ancestors. She was a Slytherpuff. Sorted into Hufflepuff, but was 50% Slytherin. She walked around with Hufflepuff colours and Slytherin colours. I'm doing the same, with Gryffindor and Slytherin.
When everyone went to sleep that night, one thought went through everyone's head.
Potter isn't holding back this year. Not even 6 hours into the year and he's made a scene...
Though they all paid attention to his warning. Most of the bullies of Hogwarts decided they didn't want the Weasley twins to focus pranks on them...
Dumbledore was left in his office, trying to figure out just what had happened to Harry over the summer... he hadn't even realized the boy had left the wards!
From his perch on the shelf by the sorting hat, Fawkes the phoenix watched. The sorting hat beside the fiery bird chuckled lowly. They'd both known that boy would be good for the school.
Quietly, Fawkes wondered to himself how long he'd have to wait to be able to tell someone all the dark secrets he'd hoarded over the years. He missed the daughter of Grey, able to speak to him and understand in a way no one else could.
Hidden in the office, Arilisa smiled. It seemed Harry had already caused a stir if the headmaster was this deep in thought so soon. Casting a sad glance to the Phoenix and hat on the bookshelf she straightened, soon she'd be able to talk to both freely. All she had to do was wait.
Chapter End Notes
sorry for the late update. my sleeping went back to normal for a few days so I was unable to write. but fear not! I have messed myself up once again. so, so long as I'm awake between midnight and 7 am updates will follow!.. its just a matter of being up at midnight-7am... god damn life getting in the way of writing -_-
hope you enjoy this chapter. I was most definitely sleep drunk writing it. I'm functioning on 3 hours of sleep and a one hour nap (which I took AFTER I wrote this!) so the plots probable skipped ahead a beat... *shrugs* whatever, I said it was part crack fic is prep for this. if its off the rails a bit its allowed! ha!
sadly, for all those reading this in hope of some sweet Tomarry bonding. I'm sorry that will start properly in 6th year. best I can do this year is hogsmead date-not-dates : well, they say distance makes the heart grow fonder... or... the soul go on a murderous rampage... we'll see which one happens :3
Bunnymort or Voldeflops
Chapter Summary
its almost Halloween and everything was boring...
and then Voldemort.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Harry frowned as he leaned back in this chair. DADA was the first class of the year and so far Umbridge had pointed out what they were going to do for the year, a lot of it being of theory ' starting from basic's' and, much to Harry's ire, a lot of talking on 'dangerous half breeds.' A fight had already sparked between Umbridge and the Gryffindor fifth years. With Dean at the helm and, surprisingly, backed up by the Slytherins.
"You can't honestly expect us to be able to pass our owls without any practical practice first!" Lavender shouted, standing.
"Lavender, sit down." The room froze at Harry's voice, as he'd been quiet for the whole argument. "Madame Umbridge is allowed to teach however she see's fit. If you wish to practice, ask Professor Flitwick to oversee your spell work. He's an amazing dueler and should be more then happy to help you. Causing a scene in class will do no one any good."
"Harry, you can't be serious?! You of all people should be arguing this! This book is rubbish! We'll learn nothing!" Dean hissed, leaning forward on his desk to get closer to Harry
"Then I suggest you turn to self study. Madame Umbridge is only doing her job, granted not her job as a teacher of Hogwarts, but her job at the ministry is far more important, is it not Madame? Though it could be argued that the ministry is doing the public a disservice, after all, defensive spells are required in life... but if the ministry wants to be responsible for the possible deaths of a whole generation, that is their choice. I believe we've done quite well all things considered, I'm ashamed that you all are causing such a scene."
"And Mr. Potter, why would you think you'd need to cast defensive spells in my class?" Umbridge's high voice was soft, in return Harry slipped his hand into his bag and brought out one of his lighter defense books.
"Well, I expect I would need to cast them so I can hold up in a dangerous situation. I never said there would be a dangerous situation in the classroom. But outside... there's all manner of things outside of Hogwarts." The class watched as Harry seemed to prepare himself for his next words. "Dangerous...Half Breeds... such as..." Harry glared down at his book "Werewolves and Demons, Vampires... Trolls and, other magical creatures..." Hermione, Ron and Neville gave Harry a sad look "you never know. We need to be prepared to protect ourselves. Aurors might not-" Umbridge didn't seem to notice as Harry's words grew tense and stiff, fully forced out through his teeth "always be fast enough to put down such creatures before they can harm someone." Umbridge seemed to preen
"Quite right, Mr. Potter. Maybe you aren't all lost to Dumbledore's pull after all!" Harry hissed out some choice words softly in Parseltongue "should you all perform well in class, I shall see about allowing some practical work before your O.W.L's. Now, get to reading chapter one." Stupid bloody bint, you forget as a pureblood YOU have creature blood!
"I'm skipping lunch to blow things up" was all Harry said before he disappeared down the hall, leaving Hermione, Ron, Neville and Draco behind in front of the charms classroom.
"I get that it helped up with Umbridge but... those words in DADA" Hermione sighed "for someone who only has three true people he views as family, one being a werewolf and one being a demon to... to say that..."
"Harry's not so weak as to let her win Granger" Draco said, walking away "for every word she makes him say against Magical creatures. I'm sure she'll suffer an extra year in hell."
Harry was quiet every time he appeared in class, worrying McGonagall and scaring Snape.
Harry disappeared once again once classes were over for the day. When they asked Luna at dinner she had just smiled and said there was nothing to worry about and that the next day he'd be back to normal.
Harry, for his part, spent his time down in the chamber of secrets, parchment in hand, carefully mapping out the tunnels. So far he'd found three alternate exits from the second floor bathroom. One out near the forest, one near the headmaster's office, and one near the library.
By the time it hit 3 am, Harry was almost sleep on his feet. He'd found three more exits, one near the hospital wing and one out by the green houses, and finally one behind the fireplace in the slytherin common room that he tiredly staggered out off, collapsing on the lounge and falling asleep curled around one of the pillows.
Draco had been kind enough to wake him before breakfast the next morning.
Harry was, as promised, back to normal the next day. Still paying more attention than he had the past 4 years of schooling Harry happily engaged in the classes, answering a few questions whenever he felt like and laughing with his friends.
A week into the school year, Cho woke up with a -somewhat creepy- stuffed owl following her around. The purple bird would float about a meter behind her, large black button eyes seemingly watching her constantly -a simple and weak paranoia spell-. The fake animal would occasionally chirp, always at random and always frightening the teen. No matter what she did she could not spell the bird away.
The animal followed Cho for a week before it suddenly disappeared, much to the girl's relief and Harry's amusement. He'd only stopped the prank because Luna requested it. But it didn't mean he wouldn't bring it back the second she did something wrong. Harry had found a portrait of a colony of snakes, all of which were happy to help the only parselmouth in the school. He officially had spied in every corner of the castle, even the headmasters office.
Two weeks after that a hufflepuff woke up with two stuffed owls following him and a slightly stronger spell that made him slightly fear the spelled toys. These two, instead of chirping, called him 'papa' almost constantly. Unless he was in class in which case they would sit on his desk and stare at him.
He lasted 3 days before he returned what he had stolen to a first year ravenclaw. The birds flew away the second the item was handed over.
It was to the professor's relief that Harry didn't seem to be breaking out any of the Marauders old pranks. When Snape questioned Harry in potions, the boy simply smiled and said
"There's only one in this castle I would ever consider harming with a 'prank'. Or horribly humiliating, and that's Dumbledore. My motto, that my father and friends seemed to have been missing, is not to harass, but to baffle. If the prankie can't laugh with the prank, it's a horrible prank. Both Cho and the hufflepuff were able to laugh with their friends after the owls left, so it counts as a proper prank, not harassment."
Though that wasn't to say there weren't any other pranks going on in the castle, or plans being made. The Charms corridor was still swamped by one of the twins products, while various other students were still sporting various coloured hair. Glitter was still raining down in the transfiguration corridor and no one could quite get the suits of armor to stop breaking out into song at random. But nothing harmful had yet to come to Hogwarts.
Though the twins were admittedly distracted trying to memorize Godric's passages around the castle, along with Slytherin's tunnels (Harry had secretly taught them 'open' in Parseltongue after much effort on both sides), while Godric's were opened with a small pulse of magic to the correct stone.
The group had also grown by one. Susan Bones was brought 3 weeks into the term to the Room of Requirement. The redhead had easily slipped into the group and, after a week, was open to the views of the group -Arilisa being a large part. Having an aunt as the head of the DMLE meant that she sometimes overheard things, and the young hufflepuff was aware of the few demons allowed close dealings with the ministry, Arilisa being one of them. She was also aware of the demon laws. With the knowledge that the demon would never allow harm her heirs, Susan slowly came around to the idea that the Dark Lord wasn't the worst kind of person. Just slightly insane. And if you took away the murder and mayhem, his ideas were quite good. It helped the hufflepuff who was already wary of Dumbledore too.
Just before Halloween was a Hogsmeade weekend, and Harry was just about bouncing on his toes as they walked from the castle, happy that Arilisa had pulled this day as her day off and worked out a way to spend Halloween with him too, although she'd be in animal form for the second one.
Approaching the village, Fred and George split off to set up a store in a open area. After McGonagall had caught them selling things on school grounds and forbidden it, they'd decided to sell things in Hogsmeade.
Draco split off with Susan and Hermione. All three had formed a small group within them. While Draco still spent time with the Slytherins, his interactions with them had lessened over the two months. Not that they seemed to mind, as Draco still spent time with them and was happy. Draco had also taken to warding off any harassment Susan got for her figure. which was to say, busty and caused a lot of harassment from the older population of Hogwarts.
Ron and Ginny left to go get some sweets while Harry walked happily towards the center of town. Upon arriving he grinned, weaving around the people standing around and wrapping himself in Arilisa's arms, giving a content sigh and he relaxed
"Jeez little snake, one would think you hadn't seen me in under 48 hours" Arilisa laughed, returning the embrace
"I know but... we've never really had a real time to relax together out in the open" Harry mumbled, pulling back and taking note of the way she was dressed, his eyebrows rose as he took in the black boots, black pants and coat, none of her usual colour or novelty in sight, Arilisa gave a small smile
"I just got back from a deal. You don't think i turn up to work dressed as I normally do, do you? The coats a protective one, insurance with all the muggle weapons around, they may not kill us but they hurt like an angel's holy. My King insists we wear these nowadays. Even more so considering there are apparently angel blades floating around in America and someone stole a demon blade a few years back and it still hasn't been found" Harry nodded at the explanation "i asked Tom to come, but I'm not sure if he will. He's been antsy lately, and I'm worried he'll end up killing someone at this rate. Mind showing me around?" Harry nodded, leading the way as they walked
"What kinda deal? And Ansty?" Harry asked, smiling when Arilisa hung an arm around his shoulder, leaning into the touch. When she wasn't teaching him things she really acted like a affectionate elder sister, which was somewhat odd as one would think she'd mother him, which she did occasionally -a lot at first-. She finally settled into a big sister role.
"The normal, little bit of good luck for their soul in..." Arilisa paused, slipping her hand into her coat and pulling out some paper "8 years and 134 days. Would be the normal ten but it seems they have an appointment with death before that deadline" Arilisa gave a small shrug "better for me" she said, slipping the paper back "and he's getting grumpy. I believe he's recently started throwing around crucio's again. Though they're still shorter then they use to be, and it takes a lot more before he'll throw them at someone. Doesn't change the fact that he's once again using unforgivables in a unforgivable fashion on his followers. I rather dislike leaders that do that."
"Lucifer's never tortured a demon?" Harry asked, head tilted to the side, regardless of how accepting he was of magic and, now, demons, he was still influenced by muggle upbringing
"He use too, back when My King was still settling into hell and his job, but he's mellowed out a lot now. Any torture of demons down stairs is purely from idiot leaders. And if they get caught doing it they get demoted. We torture only the souls that deserve it." The two walked in silence for a time.
They passed by the others from time to time, waving before splitting off again, gathering again for lunch and eventually moving back to the center of town and sitting on a bench. Harry leaning his head on Arilisa's shoulder. she hummed softly while reading, Harry lazily following the words. The Chronicles of Narnia; Prince Caspian was interesting, yet could do nothing to stop Harry from falling asleep.
Arilisa paused when she heard Harry's breathing even out, slowly lifting a hand and smoothing down his hair, not that it did much, Gryffindor hair was truly untamable. Arilisa smiled as she remembered all the times she, Helga, Rowena or any of the other females of the castle had tried to tame the Gryffindor mane. Even in his sleep Harry leaned into the affectionate touch. Carefully Arilisa strengthened the spell she'd placed on Harry a few months after they'd first meet, while also checking on its progress.
Harry let out a small wince in his sleep before relaxing, Arilisa sighed, it'd still take 2-3 months before all his binds were broken. Arilisa sighed again, leaning her head on Harry's and returning to her reading.
Severus Snape was annoyed. Scratch that, he was far more than annoyed.
In the past hour not only did he find out that Potter had actually stayed almost next door to the dark lord all summer, but apparently had, unintentionally or not, gotten the dark lord attached to the boy, and made a deal with the dark lord! An oath of no harm!
Severus growled lowly in his throat as he carried the black rabbit in his arms to its destination.
As it turned out, in just under 2 hours the boy had happily gone and switched sides!
Severus' steps faltered as he spotted Potter, head resting on a woman's shoulder, a woman who's magic felt darker than even the dark lord's. The Rabbit in his arms didn't seem to care. Kicking out of his arms he watched as the black haired, red eyed, creature bounced across the paths until it go to the two, sitting at the woman's feet and waiting. Carefully Severus moved forward to the three
;;Arilisa;; Arilisa blinked, moving her book to the side to look down at the black rabbit at her feet
;;I'm assuming since you know my name you are a wizard and not, in fact, a normal rabbit;; Arilisa replied, small chirping and growling noises sounding out of place coming from her, probably because she wasn't a rabbit...
;;quite, I am Voldemort, though i've always hated this form it does, apparently, have its uses. I wish to enter Hogwarts;; the Rabbit - Voldemort, replied, Arilisa hummed
;;Bunnymort, or Voldeflops. You can't harm any students, so i have no problems with it.;;
;;could you wake Potter? I wish for him to help me move around the castle.;;
Arilisa nodded, gently lifting the dark lord off the ground and shaking Harry awake ;;what happened to calling him Harry? You were so close over the summer;; she said, placing the rabbit on harry's lap
"Hadrian dear, wake up." Arilisa smiled as Harry's eyes slowly opened, blinking a few times before straightening and turning to her
"'lisa?"
"Tom's here. He needs to go to Hogwarts, he wants you to help him get around the castle" Arilisa grinned as Harry blinked, letting the words slowly sink in.
If ever there was proof Harry trusted her this was it, being able to sleep so deeply even with everyone around
"Tom? Why... how can I help? Where is he?" Arilisa brought her hand to gently pet the rabbits head, causing Harry's attention to move to the Rabbit on his lap
"He can't open the doors of the castle by himself. I can probably remove the rest of the bind on your celestaltongue before you have to go back for the day, but it'll hurt, a lot. Though the knowledge is already there, the blocks have been there most your life. It's almost broken as is but... it would probably be useful to be able to talk without him turning back huh?"
"We can do it, i wanna be able to use at least one of my family traits." Harry said, watching the dark lord on his lap, while said dark lord stared back. Something about the dark lord, the most feared dark in the last 500 years being a bunny rabbit. That really feels like a deliberate prank from fate. "Should we head back to Hogwarts for it?"
"Might be safer to do it in the RoR, or the chamber, either one. You head there. I'll gather what I need and find you" Arilisa stood, stowing her book in her coat and stepping back "if you head to the RoR, ask for the ritual room. If you head to the chamber, I'm sure you've found fathers old ritual room by now. I'll see you soon dear" Harry nodded, standing and cradling the dark lord in his arms. Watching as Arilisa turned on her heel and apparated with a small crack and swirl of black.
"Well then, off to Hogwarts. Guess I should pick up the others while I'm at it. It's around the time we normally head back." Voldemort twitched in reply. "Soooo..." Voldemort's ears twitched again "a bunny?" Voldemort bit at his finger "Ow! Shit. Come on, I'm gonna be in enough pain as it is in a bit, no need to add to it." Voldemort's ears twitched in reply "Which one of your loyal minions brought you here? On that note, who else knows you're a bunny?" Voldemort gave him a scathing look, as if saying ' why are you asking me things when I can't reply? ' "This would be easier if you were a snake..." Shaking his head he walked up to the twins, who were busy packing up.
"Hey guys, I'm heading back to the castle. There's a, uh, thing, we need to take care of, if you guys could gathe- and why do I even bother" Harry smiled as Luna walked up to them, the rest of the group following. "'lo Luna, everyone, care to follow us to the castle for this years first surprise?"
"But it's now Halloween yet! Nothings meant to happen until Halloween!" Ron said rather loudly, causing Draco to take a step away from the redhead
"And I'm sure whatever Tom has planned won't go into place until Halloween" Harry replied, turning on his heel and walking towards the castle
"Hey 'mione, do we have everything ready for tonight?" Harry asked, halfway to the castle
"Yes, I have all the spell work ready, we just have to map out a safe way for all the students to get down to the pitch." Hermione said, pulling out a notebook from her bag and passing it over to Harry, who read over the spells with a smile
"Some of these your own invention? I don't recognize some" Harry said, looking over the words .
"Yeah, I also checked in with Dobby. He has all the brooms ready. Cleansweep six's for the first and second years. Nimbus 2000's for third to seventh years. Dobby was also able to replace the old school brooms with cleansweep six's without anyone noticing.
"All in all, everyone should be ready for tonight."
"Food? House elves got it covered?"
"Of course Harrykins! They'd never let the gryffindor lord down. We checked in with them last night, they're all set for providing us with snacks, and there hasn't been one peep to the professors" the twins said happily. Harry nodded in thanks as they approached the gates
"So long as everything runs smoothly tonight we should be able to do it weekly, it should be nice for all the student. Merlin knows Umbitch is stressing everyone out" Harry said, moving up the stairs.
Everyone followed him through the castle. Moving in front of the RoR three times with the ritual room in mind, the door etched into existence and disappeared as soon as they were all enclosed.
Voldemort was quick to jump out of Harry's arms, morphing into the form of a man and standing proud, as if he'd never just spent a good half hour as a bunny in Harry's arms.
"So that's what the rabbit was about" Susan said softly, somewhat pale as the dark lord gave Harry a dark look.
"For your information Potter, only two others know of my animagus from, being Lucius and Severus. Severus was the one to lead me to you and if you ever call me a bunny again I will crucio you." Voldemort hissed, causing Harry to raise a brow
"I'm pretty sure a crucio counts as harm Voldemort. And does that mean Bunnymorts out? Voldeflops?" Voldemort sighed, though a small part of him questioned just how much time Harry and Arilisa had to spend together to come up for the same names for his animagus form, he was about to reply when Severus walked into the room, glaring darkly at Harry
" What do you think you're doing Potter?" Snape growled softly as the door shut behind him. Everyone froze as Snape stalked up to Harry, in a rare show of idiocy totally ignoring the dark lord and other people in the room. "Surely you aren't so idiotic to thi-" Snape paused his rant as he felt a dark and cold presence behind him
" Step away from my heir " Snape turned slowly towards Arilisa, who in turn brushed passed him and brought Harry to her side "you will not scold my heir, nor will you put him down and bully him. He is NOT his father Severus Snape and should I hear about you acting so unfairly to him again i WILL retaliate. Everything he has done at school has been to keep his cover and protect himself from Dumbledore. You of all people should know what that entitles. So shut up, sit back. And wait until we get around to you.
"I would like everyone to step back to the wall, the magical backlash of this could be violent and I'd rather not have to heal anyone other than Hadrian today. Hadrian dear, go sit in the circle. I need to combine these herbs and cast a bit of black magic, once it starts you'll want to be on the ground." Harry nodded, moving to sit in the circle on the ground. Taking a deep breathe as Arilisa passed him a cloth. "Bite on it. We don't want you biting your tongue off" Harry nodded, putting the cloth in his mouth and waiting.
Arilisa sat at the edge of the circle, placing a bowl at her feet and pouring water into it, adding the herbs she'd gathered, both magical and not. Letting her magic bleed into the air while pulling out her -rarely used- wand, she pointed it at Harry
"For what it's worth Harry, I'm sorry for how much this is gonna hurt" Harry gave Arilisa the best smile he could before closing his eyes and waiting
"templa amin, amin bid tena amin plea.
yanwa yassen i' templa en' sina hin ar' help amin cleanse ta ten' ta has been tainted ar' changed.
tyava n'e ho core ar' utua i' lock, rusva i' chains tanya seal ho.
ho mind naa tampe ar' ikotane ho core, amin bid lle, templa amin, tena amin plea ar' leitha ho.
templa amin, rusva i' chains.
templa amin, fallana i' awra.
templa amin, entula mani nae locked.
templa amin, let lle job be done, entula a' amin once ner.
templa amin, amin Diola lle sii'.
templa amin, sana mani lle will, ten' lle service amin Diola lle sal'"
The group collectively winced as Harry screamed, falling backwards and arching off the ground. Arilisa's eyes hardened at the sound, continuing her chant three times over until, as guessed, the forrian magic lashed out of Harry, slamming into everyone before dissipating.
Collective groans rang through the small room. Arilisa was the first to roll to her feet, moving next to Harry as she smoothed his hair away from his brow. Even if the whole thing had only taken 5 minutes, it still hurt a lot. If the proof of this hadn't been in his screams, it was in the way his body shook with the after effects
#Shush my dear, it's okay now, its okay# Harry opened his eyes slightly at the coo Arilisa made, his mind supplying him with the translation and language. Cat. She was speaking cat to him. a soft -and comforting- purr rollings from her chest.
#Ari, hurts#
#I know dear one, I know, I need you to drink some of my blood, okay? Just a little, it'll reinforce the bond you share to the skill, seal any breaks. And help heal you a bit# As Harry nodded -slow and small, but there- Arilisa left her form shift to her little used Celestial form, her hair lightening from black to white and skin paling some, eyes staying green but adopting a slight glow, she gently slit the side of her hand. Harry took a mouthful, making a face at the taste while Arilisa moved it away, healing the wound with half a thought as her form once again shifted back into human while she cradled Harry in her lap #You did well Hadrian, you did so well, your gift's there. You did good little snake, so so good# Harry smiled at the calming coo's and small meow's Arilisa made, leaning into the touch of her hand as the pain faded away slowly
"Sleep, we'll talk once you've rested a bit" Harry heard Arilisa say, feeling the floor shift around him as he welcomed the darkness.
Arilisa watched Harry once again fall asleep before looking at the group still near the wall.
"Well, I don't know about you but I'm now going to be haunted by his screams for a few weeks" she quipped, muttering a featherlight charm on Harry and moving him over to a bed that Hogwarts was nice enough to give, sitting beside her heir/son/little brother, she continued to let her fingers drift through his hair "Any questions?".
The looks she got would have made her laugh had her magic not been slowly draining out of her.
Chapter End Notes
I am SO SO SO sorry it took this long to update, merlin I feel like shit ;--;
my reason for not updating was because I didn't have laptop access. so, sorry. enjoy this slightly longer chapter as...something!
also heres the translation of what Arilisa was chanting for Harry :3
magic mine, I bid hear my plea.
join with the magic of this child and help me cleanse it for it has been tainted and changed.
feel out his core and find the lock, break the chains that seal him.
his mind is blocked and so his core, I bid you, magic mine, hear my plea and free him.
Magic mine, break the chains.
Magic mine, heal the pains.
Magic mine, returns what was locked.
Magic mine, let your job be done, returns to me once more.
Magic mine, I thank you now.
Magic mine, take what you will, for your service I thank you still.
bye! hope you like!! next chapter we have fun and a bunny Voldemort hopping around Hogwarts!
Quidditch and Bunnies
Chapter Summary
Quidditch is played, house unity is achieved and everyone regrets being awake at midnight.
Chapter Notes
i should add, Bunnymort is NOT my idea! Bunnymort was lovingly adopted from the story 'black bunny' which is amazing and adorable and not suitable for younger people. :3
Severus was the first to snap to attention, technically. Voldemort simply moved over to an arm chair near the bed and pulled out a book. "Where did you learn Elvish magic?" The bat-like man asked, wand raised and pointed at Arilisa.
"Wow, I use old Elvish magic, and I'm pretty sure you realize by now I'm a demon since I poofed into here. And... you point a wand at me. I'm so scared. But I did ask for questions. I learned Elvish from a rather friendly adolescent Elvish soul down in my sector. After I knew some of the language, asking other, albeit more living, Elves for help learning was easy. I was actually able to travel to a lesser plane of Alfheim to learn... it was rather amazing actually, I value the time I spent there"
"If you're a demon, what is your name and rank? Titles? Why are you here?"
"Arilisa Lilith Le-fay Slytherin, 17th Courtess of Hell, commander of three demon armies, I'm currently in hold of 3074 souls. When I was mortal I was the daughter of Merlin and Morgan, though Merlin would refuse to say so... though I still ended up inheriting his stuff, odd that. I'm here to guard, teach and be a family to my true Heir. Though I'm also guarding and protecting my other heirs...oh and, I put myself in charge of making sure a certain nephew of mine doesn't go on the murdering rampage through Britain. You'd think I'd get tired of introducing myself so detailedly but, you'd be wrong. Is detailedly a word?" Arilisa was leaning her head back on the head board, and by the time she'd finished speaking, she was pale and sweating.
"It is." Luna's voice cut in before Severus could speak, not that he was making an effort to, the man had frozen, wand loosely in his hand at his side. Eyes wide as he looked from Arilisa, to Harry, to the Dark Lord, and to the group of teens.
"Okay, I know I said questions but my magic has just finished draining and I'm tired as the dead so all of you out, me and Harry are taking a nap. I'll make sure he's awake by dinner, out" Hogwarts was happy to give a pulse of magic, pushing all but the dark lord out of the room. Arilisa cast the dark lord a glance before shrugging and shifting to curl up into a ball next to Harry, both now happily sleeping off the effects of the ritual.
Voldemort woke Harry and Arilisa just before Dinner, Arilisa bid them both a goodbye before disappearing in her custom puff of smoke while Voldemort -reluctantly- returned to his Animagus form, and was picked up by a happy Harry, who -sneakily- cuddled the fluffy creature close to his chest, while half of his mind cursed the dark lord for having such an adorable and fluffy form.
Harry arrived in the great hall and moved to his friends making room in the middle of them all, right in the centre of the table with his back to the wall. If he'd look he would have seen Dumbledore's wide eyed wince. But as it was his mind was fully occupied with the fluffy dark lord and Luna's words beside him
"I think we should change our system, the one we have was good when we had less people but now its getting annoying, and we still have more people to add" Luna said as soon as he'd sat, a plate of his favourites foods being passed over to him
"I agree, we could use something different, better, more elegant, since we'll be dealing with purebloods more. We still haven't added Draco or Susan to the system" Hermione pitched in, adding a bit more meat to Harry's plate, Harry in return rolled his eyes fondly, sharing some of his food with the Rabbit on his lap
"What do you all suggest?" Harry asked. Though he agreed, he was getting more and more annoyed at having to make sure he had so many pieces of jewelry on him at all times.
"What about a thin metal bracelet? Maybe making them a bit wider for the males of the group, we can add coloured stones to act as the notice, and instead of heating up they can make a small glow" Draco offered from his spot at the edge of the group, next to him were his Slytherin friends.
"I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to change the charm we already use to glow instead of make heat. Add a weak, constant, lumo's charm to each of the stones, when magic gets channeled to a stone the spell will activate and they'll glow" Hermione said, bringing out her notebook and writing things down
"I'll send a letter to the goblins and have some made. How many gems? Colours?" Harry asked, bringing out some parchment, pushing his food to the side, Voldemort moved over to it to eat more, idly Harry wondered if anyone had noticed the fact that there was now a bunny on the table.
"13 gems, 8 male bands, 1.5 centimeters thick, 5 female bands, 1 centimeter thick." Luna paused, before taking the paper from Harry and writing herself, giving a pointed look to the food, Luna took his quill and began from where Harry left off.
Lord Goblin Ragnok and all it may concern
I, Lord Hadrian Potter, wish to make an order for 13 bracelets. 8 should be 1.5 centimeters thick and 5 1 centimeter thick. All though have 13 gems embedded in the top half of the band
Gems should be the following, Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire, Topaz, Amethyst, Fire Opal, Light Siam, Indian Red, Jade, Diamond, Black Diamond, Rose and Citrine.
Add a feather design along the top of the band. The metal should be Cobalt Chrome.
Payment will be removed from the joint vault under the name Lilith Nor.
Signed-
Luna signed her own name before passing it around the group, each reading over and signing their own names. When it got back to Harry he signed his and muttered a drying charm on the ink before folding it and slipping it into his robe pocket.
"Anything else we should do?" Harry asked after pushing his empty plate away.
"If we want to mess around with the teachers and students and start to stand out, we should consider using the old hogwarts uniform Arilisa still uses. They never actually crossed out of option to wear ones like that in the rules so it's very much allowed. And with the heirs and one lord back in Hogwarts, they can't change any of the rules without our consent. Which is why Umbridge is getting more unbearable. She wants to change things but she can't do anything without us and she refused to approach us. Which she refuses to do because she hates children. And this will also push her over the edge, finally giving Harry a detention and allowing Arilisa to activate the demon hunt on her" Luna smiled, already taking out some more parchment and writing another letter, this time to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.
"What does that uniform even involve?" Susan asked
"White long sleeved form tops, black and grey is allowed as well. Black and grey waistcoats. Black skirts and black slacks. Formal shoes but Arilisa allow made it to allow boots. When wearing a skirt you're allowed knee high socks. House ties and scarfs are still needed. The waist coats can also have the house colours as a trim
"This was made when a young seer saw such outfits in her visions of the uniform in the future. Arilisa loved it and started wearing her uniform as such." Luna relied as she continued to write.
"So no more baggy robes? I'm in!" Ron grinned, before taking another bite out of some bread
"I know you are, I'm ordering a full set for everyone, minus Arilisa and the bunny" Luna replied. Harry sniggered until he got a sharp bite on his finger from said bunny.
The letter once again was passed around the table so that the money could actually be removed from the vault, Harry once again dried the ink before slipping the letter into his pocket.
"I, for one, am officially looking forward to ditching the robes and itchy jumper" Harry said, standing, he'd make a stop to Hedwig before he went back to Gryffindor.
Harry smirked as he finished casting the silencing charm over Gryffindor tower, making sure no teacher or portrait would hear what he was about to do.
It was a little past midnight, and though he would probably feel bad about what he was able to do to the poor little first and second years, all he could feel was excitement.
Voldemort was watching from the top of a chair, while Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville, Fred and George stood behind him. Harry paused before casting a spell on Voldemort to stop him from hearing anything for the moment before he continued
Holding his wand to his throat he muttered ' Sonorus' before taking a deep breathe and yelling at the top of his lungs " Quidditch at the pitch! I repeat, quidditch at the pitch! Midnight quidditch at the pitch! Open to all years and houses! Free brooms available!"
Harry canceled both spells as he heard screams, groans, questions and bangs of students falling off their beds. Harry idly wondered how the other houses were doing with their wake up calls.
" For the last time Blaise, get your sorry ass up! Slytherin is NOT being the last to the pitch! Knowing Harry, Gryffindor is already there!" the rest of the Slytherin house swayed side to side, casting glares at the Malfoy heir, who in turn ignored them all, peeking around the corner of the wall to make sure no teachers were around before opening on the Godric's passages.
Harry grinned as students slowly came out of their rooms
"What is it Potter?" one seventh year grumbled, slumping down on the chair that the dark lord was on. Harry quickly picked up the bunny before he decided to claw the boy
"I've organized for the whole school to participate in a school wide game of Quidditch, if you're interested. There's brooms for everyone and food will be provided. If you want to get back to sleep you're free to do so but I thought this would be a fun way to blow off steam." half the room perked up at Harry's word, others were still waking up and a quarter of the group turned and headed back up to their rooms
"Do you have the permission of the teachers to do this?" one first year asked, Harry gave them a bright smile
"Absolutely not! This operation is 100% secret. Even I wouldn't be able to get permission to do this. So, instead, we'll be sneaking around. Hermione's got a good set of spells to help us play in the dark and we went around a few days ago to spell the windows so friday night from midnight to 3am they won't show anything weird about the pitch" Harry said before turning to the wall beside the bookcase. Sending a pulse to magic into the correct stone, a set of 'oohs' from some of the first and second years were made as Harry sidestepped the now open doorway. "Fred, George, lead the way! First and second years first. Then Hermione, Ron, Neville and Ginny. Followed by the rest. I'll take the back with Bunnymort and close the door, make sure to follow the person in front of you, don't wander off. I haven't fully explored the tunnels yet, we may not find you if you get lost!" The students did as told, first and second years following Fred and George. The tunnel lit up as soon as Fred stepped inside. Hermione, Ron, Neville and Ginny, followed by the rest and then followed by Harry and Voldemort. Sending another pulse to magic to the door, the brick work slid shut and Harry continued on, absentmindedly scratching Voldemort head as he walked.
Harry gave a nod to Luna as she walked up from a split in the tunnels, half to ravenclaw following behind the teen.
When the group made it to the pitch, Hufflepuff was coming from towards the greenhouses, lead by Susan, Hannah and Cedric. Draco came leading Slytherin from roughly the same direction.
As soon as all the houses were present, with a grand total of around 200 students, and standing in front of Harry's group, Harry stepped forward, petting Voldemort with a serious look on his face causing some Pureblood to look confused and a little worried and some of the muggleborns to laugh.
Everyone was in their PJ's in the dark of midnight and Harry Potter walks up petting a bunny looking like he was about to give horrible news.
It was a funny and worrying image to imagine
"I have gathered you all here tonight for a matter of great importance" Harry paused for dramatic effect, though everyone already knew why there were there "Umbridge has been trying to mess with the school. For the past two months she's tried to add and remove rules. Mess with classes. Not to mention her utter failure at teaching DADA. I know some of you, or most, have gotten horrid detentions from her and trust me when I say, my friends and I are trying to do something about it. She won't get away with anything she's done in the castle, I assure you.
"So, to blow off some steam I have started these Friday night get togethers to help us bond, not as a house, but as a school. Every friday at Midnight we shall come out here and for three hours we can play Quidditch, mess around, talk, eat, whatever we want. Without Teachers messing it up. All I ask is that no harmful spells are fired and no one tries to kill another student. From here on, every Friday night from midnight to 3am there are no houses. Just Hogwarts. No purebloods, halfbloods, or muggleborns. Rich or Poor. we are the same, we are student and we are out here breaking rules cause we are teenagers, or almost teenagers. At boarding school and we are WAY too well behaved. Its no wonder the teachers are paranoid about us blowing things up. We barely break any rules!. Well, you guys don't. I break all the rules and know it too.
"If it happens to be raining on a friday night we will instead have movie nights in a large secret room in the castle. We already have that sorted out. This will be a secret from the teachers for as long as possible. At the end of the 3am we will pick a random common room to bunk in. the house elves will bring a new change of clothing for everyone come morning. So it'll be like a giant party then a giant sleepover.
"Now, with THAT taken care of, Dobby please bring out the brooms!. First and second years get the clean sweeps, third to seventh get nimbus. If some of the older years could keep an eye on the youngers, teach them how to fly a bit better, that'd be awesome. Food will come out around 1.30. Hermione has some spells to cast on us all so we can see and stuff. So if anyone could help her out with that, that'd be cool."
Harry grinned has students separated, some of the older years moving to the youngers, handing over the correct brooms and showing them how it's done, fixing their grips. Getting them to hover for a few moments before getting them to fly slowly in loose circles.
Various students moved over to Hermione and Susan, who showed and taught them the needed spells, that group soon separated and moved around, casting spells that made a orb of light float around a student. Hermione and Susan moved to set floating lights around the pitch while the rest of the group moved to help transfigure various night gowns and dressing gowns into pants and tops. Othered added and taught heating charms so no one would freeze.
Within half an hour the group was ready to begin playing
"Okay, since we have so many people this is what were gonna do! We'll have multiples of each ball. We'll have...8 Quaffles, 16 Bludgers and 8 snitches. There'll be 24 chasers, 16 beaters, two keepers and 8 seekers per team. A goal will be the normal, 5 points for the two outer loops and ten for the middle. Snitches will be worth 50 points each, once you grab a snitch take it to the refs so they can hold onto it.
"There'll be 4 refs, and 4 on game overview. You can swap out with someone at anytime, in fact I'd like it if you did switch with people often. Make sure to give the little ones a chance to play. If you just wanna mess around flying, that's okay, try and stay out of the way of the game. But it won't be needed. As soon as you pick a role change the colour of the light. Chasers are red, beaters are yellow. Keepers and blue and seekers are green. Also, add another smaller light, either... pink or purple, this will say which team you're on! If you aren't playing keep your lights white"
The group of students looked to one another before changing their colours to the set they wanted. Harry have Hermione and look who nodded, moving to the Quidditch boxes and opening them, making the balls glow in there selected colours, when she was done she gave a nod to Harry "right, split into pinks, purples and whites please" the group of students separated "now, I think our refs should be the current house quidditch captains, so if you could please come a stand next to my group that would be lovely. Right. Now, everyone pick their first round of team members"
As the students talked among themselves Harry turned to his newly dubbed 'refs' "Right, you four are getting lights of all colours floating around you to make sure you're visible." Hermione waved her wand over the four, their lights changing and splitting apart until they were bathed in the light of all the houses "You should all know your jobs, so I don't have to go over that. Any fouls and you change someone's light to white and pull in one of the subs, okay?" the four nodded and Harry motioned for them to take to the air, turning back to see everyone had stopped and was watching them Harry smiled "right, those playing first get up in the air and in position. Those not feel free to head to the stands to wait it out. Whites you can do what you want" those in the first round rose to the air, while the others went to the stands to wait, idly talking to one another. The whites went off in various directions, some just flying around and others heading to the stands to talk with friends.
Neville, Susan and Luna moved over to the stands, Hermione moved over to a group of young white flyers while Draco and the weasleys were already up with the teams. Harry grinned with his own white light and rose to the center of the field. "Game on" with a wave of his wand he let all the balls into the air, quickly flying out of the way as chaos rained down on the field. The game quickly moved to be on multiple levels, as with 100 players on the field you couldn't really stay in the small group.
By the time 1:30 came around they'd gotten through one full match and were halfway through another. Harry kept to the stands, talking quietly with Voldemort and keeping a running commentary on the playing.
A small team of older students who'd studied healing magic had made their lights flash blue and red, acting as medics sweeping through the air and healing any injuries.
The students all descended when the house elves brought out the food, eating and chatting and laughing, As Harry watched he smiled, eating his own food and holding his hand down for Voldemort to eat from. He was proud. This was him and his friends. They'd done this. They'd once again united the houses .
By 2:30 most of the students were asleep on their brooms.
By 3 they were all back in Hufflepuff's common room. Dead to the world and utterly content.
From where Voldemort sat on a chair, Harry's head below him, he couldn't help but feel proud as well, this was Harry's work. He and his friends had done what no one else had bothered or been able to do in 500 years. He'd managed, in a single night, to bring every house into a state of friendship. Voldemort watched Harry fondly as he slept.
Yes. Harry Potter truly was one of a kind.
He couldn't think of anyone else worthy enough to be dubbed 'his equal' by fate.
The next morning the Hufflepuff common room woke up around midday. With groans and sighs and death threats everyone slowly got ready before wandering into the great hall from breakfast. Not even caring around house tables everyone staggered into their seats. The teachers watched shocked as the houses seemed to totally merge, though it was already hard to tell who was who when they all wore casual clothing.
Slytherins chat as sat with Gryffindors
Raven claws chatted with Hufflepuffs
And everyone half carried one another to their seats. Barely caring when the house elves filled all their cups with coffee and other drinks made to wake people up instead of their normal juice, tea or water. Though some with finer tastes could easily taste some pepperup potion in their drinks. They still didn't care. They were tired. But didn't regret it one bit.
Harry smirked at Dumbledore who looked like he'd just found out he was out of lemon drops.
Oh such a wonderful day after a wonderful night.
Harry downed a cup of coffee in one go, setting down a small plate with more coffee next to him on the bench and another plate with food next to that, Voldemort gave a thank you before he started eating his lunch. Harry did the same
Around them Hogwarts hummed in joy, the magic practically dancing around them.
Chapter 8 (im to awake to think of a good title)
Chapter Summary
again, to wake to think, so, just enjoy.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Later that day, Harry had multiple people coming up to him and thanking him for organizing the Hogwarts night, as it was dubbed by the students.
Though the Gryffindor's demanded he not do a repeat of the wake up call.
It was a few Ravenclaws that gave him the next idea, and Luna nodding her head beside him.
"Now if only we had a group to help with DADA. With all the teachers we've gone through, we've barely learned anything!"
He wasted no time dragging everyone to the RoR to work out the kinks, after giving Colin the task of spreading the word. But making sure to keep it from the teachers "Harry's gonna start another group, this time for DADA. Keep it from the teachers!"
"What is it this time Potter?" Harry gave a cheeky grin, casting a muffling charm around the dark lord before turning to this group, so that the possible teacher didn't hear this sensitive information.
"Okay, so, defense has been stuffed over for the past, 50 or so years. I don't think there's been one good teacher for more than a year. For us we had Stutterville-also-secretly-has-a-dark-lord-on-his-head, Mr-fake-peacock-wanna-be-will-never-be-as-pretty-as-Lucius, Remus who was cool but all the parents freaked out cause he's a werewolf and tried to rip some faces off because he missed his potion ONCE and in all fairness it was because Sirius Black almost ripped Ron's leg off.
"Then last year, don't even get me started on Barty. Dude was a awesome teacher but... showing us the unforgivables? Man's curse-happy. And now this year. We might as well not have a teacher."
"Get on with it Harry, some of us were just about to take a much needed nap!" Draco's voice sounded from the back of the group
"Don't you dare fall asleep Draco! Anyway. I overheard some Ravens talking and got to thinking, why don't WE teach DADA, and any other subjects needed? That way we can make sure people can defend themselves. And people can actually pass their OWLs and NEWTs easily. It's not like we haven't long passed over our own NEWT levels. And we've all been around Arilisa long enough to pick up on the ability to teach."
"Where would we hold these lessons? We can't use the RoR. We use it too much and the whims of people might mess it up." Hermione said as she tilted her head to the side slightly "We would need a large space, since it'd have at least 200 students. Maybe more, maybe less"
"I was thinking of cleaning up the chamber. We still haven't done anything to the basilisk yet by the way. We can render it down and make some money off it, put it into a fund to help the students buy correct wands for the pure and half bloods that have old family wands, like Nev use to, books and protective robes. And we can do one year per day, mondays can be first years, tuesdays second years, so on." Harry answered "plus it has the ultimate security. Not only the protective magic on the entrances, but only select people can open it, Myself, Bunnymort, Fred and George so far. I can teach the rest of you to say 'open' easily enough. 'Close' as well. And with the added bonus of a guard ghost...what can go wrong? Should give Myrtle some purpose in her ghostly life."
"It'll work" Luna said, coming to stand beside Harry "but we should wait until Bunnymort leaves. And till we have the new uniforms."
"And we'll need a way to notify students that their lesson is up" Susan put in "otherwise students won't know when to come."
"What about a system similar to the one we currently have? We can get house themed rings. Enchant them to one of us, bada bing bada boom" Ron added
Hermione wrote that down on her notebook with a thoughtful look "I like it, along with giving Harry a master ring that can call all students."
"It'll be an optional club. And people can keep their rings once they graduate. Sorta like a 'Congrats, you did it!' thing." Harry smiled
"What about after we graduate? Will the club continue?" Neville asked
"We could choose some students after to pass leadership to... Though I know i'm planning on going into teaching here, anyone else?"
"There'll be five of the White Owl within Hogwarts once we graduate." Luna said "Harry wants to go to Defence, and will succeed, I'm going to do to Divination, Neville would do lovely in Herbology, Bunnymort would enjoy teaching about Ancient magic, and Remus would make a fantastic History teacher, don't you think?"
"White Owl? And yeah, I totally approve of those. If we go with that, then we'll be able to continue teaching the students even after graduation." Harry said "Now, back to White Owl. What's White Owl?"
"It's your Order, Harry. Dumbles takes orders from a Phoenix, Bunnymort's eats death. We're the White Owls." Luna replied "we should let the dark lord move around Hogwarts and start on the chamber. There's a lot of work to do" Harry nodded in agreement, canceling the spell on the glaring dark lord.
"Okay Bunnymort, we have some stuff to do so we're gonna let you loose. Don't claw anyone's eyes out okay?"
;;finally deemed I'm worthy of hearing, have you Potter?;; Harry winced at the Dark Lords tone, moving to his knees in front of the dark lord. the others wisely kept their opinions to themselves, regardless of the fact that Harry was now looked to be asking for forgiveness from a rabbit.
;;I'm sorry Voldemort, but some things aren't meant for ears outside of my group, I just didn't want you to hear what we were planning. Forgive me?;; Voldemort continued to glare for a time before letting out a huff and nodded, bouncing himself towards the door, unaware of the thoughts going through the Dark Lord head.
Harry stood and gave a nod to the others, leading them out of the room and towards the second floor girls.
Hissing a quick 'open' he wasted no time slipping down the side, adding a cushioning charm from good measure at the bottom and stepping out of the way as he looked over corridor.
"Dobby, Winky, Kips, Jassy" the four houses elves were quick to appear before him, all four going wide eyed as they took in their surroundings. The two bonded to Harry personally and two that belonged to hogwarts, but happily helped him as Lord Gryffindor, stood at attention waiting for their orders "My friends and I are going to be cleaning up this place, can we get your assistance and word to keep it away from the professors ears?"
At the round of 'yes sir's' Harry smiled, drawing his wand he started vanishing the various bones, as everyone dropped down they did the same, Draco visibly flinching at the smell and casting freshening charms. The house elves took the lead with Hermione, with cleaning charms and permanent lighting charms, it felt like it took forever to get to the cave in.
The house elves wasted no time fixing the brick work. Harry nodded his thanks and they continued again, soon coming up to the door to the chamber
"Its getting late Harry, we should head up for dinner" Harry paused at Luna's voice before opening the door and looking to the elves
"Please render down the Basilisk, keep the venom and skin. Everything else can go to Gringotts. Get the profits to go into my own account, Dobby. I'll sort out the money later."
The four elves nodded and raced into the chamber. Harry smiled and turned to the group behind him. "Come on, we'll head out of the Slytherin common room exit."
Harry smiled at the bunny lord that sat thumping his foot, obviously annoyed, in front of the great hall.
He wasted no time picking up the bunny, once again cuddling him to his chest.
Walking into the great hall Luna led the way over to the Gryffindor, most of whom looked like they were about to fall asleep in their dinner
"How worried do you think the teachers are over how tired we all are today?" Harry asked, preparing his plate, and one for Bunnymort as well.
"Harry, I've been meaning to ask, what the hell's with the bunny?" Harry looked up at Dean then down to Bunnymort.
"This is Bunnymort, we seemed to have bonded or something so he might pop up and disappear every now and then. I think he's a bunny overlord or something. He's probably secretly organizing a Bunny uprising." Harry said, wincing when he got another bite on his finger "Ow. Bunnymort why are you so mean?" Voldemort glared up at him and proceeded to ignore him in favour of nibbling his food
Dean laughed "Bunnymort?"
"Yea, he sorta reminds you of a dark lord, and like I said, I'm pretty sure he's a Bunny overlord. So, who's the most recent Dark Lord? Voldemort. So, Bunnymort! We could also try Voldeflops, and though it's cute and funny, I don't want a rabbit named 'Flight of Flops'. 'Bunny Death' is so much better" Harry said as he started to eat
Harry yawned from where he sat on his bed, grumbling to himself as he put his book to the side "Okay Voldemort, I'm turning the light off, book away" Harry leaned forward to take the book, pausing just before his hand was on it. At Voldemort's nod, Harry removed the book from the bed, placing it with his own and canceling the floating lumos.
Carefully Harry moved under his bedding, taking care not to kick the dark lord that sat at the foot of his bed.
Once Harry was asleep Voldemort changed back to his human form, standing and moving to sit by Harry's side. Moving his hand to let it move through the boy's hair as he'd seen Arilisa do so often. He frowned as he once again caught the spark of fondness growing in his chest.
"What are you doing to me Potter?"
Harry's eyes shot open from his meditative state, the others of 'white owl' were still exploring their souls and magic, so instead Harry turned to Voldemort who was once again reading. Eyes excited he rolled to his feet and ran over to him
"I did it!" Harry exclaimed loudly, Voldemort raised a brow in response "my Animagus! It's a type of bird! A Falcon I think, I'm black with a white-grey underbelly!" Harry was leaning on the arm of Voldemort's chair, slowly getting closer to the man as he talked.
Voldemort laughed lowly, smiling to himself at how happy Harry was, lifting a hand to gently push the boy back "congratulations, now you just have to figure out how you can keep a mandrake leaf in your mouth for a month while you're at school" Voldemort said.
"Yeah... well, I'll figure that out once everyone has their animals!" Harry said. Voldemort smiled fondly
;;Potter, do you have any way to move around the castle undetected?;; Harry paused his reading of dark creatures, marking the Lenthifold page and moving over the bed to his bag, reaching in around his book he carefully pulled out his cloak
"If I let you borrow this you better give it back, it was my fathers. It's extremely important to me" Harry said seriously, setting it down beside him and grabbing the map out as well, muttering the activation without thought he sat both items in front of the now human dark lord "the map see's everyone in the castle and displays where they are, the cloak makes you invisible, from my knowledge only Mad-eye's eye can see through it, and Dumbledore always seems to know when I wear it, but that's all, the map can also see you even when you have it on."
Voldemort looked at both items with respect "No wonder Severus is so annoyed at you. With these you can do anything." Harry shrugged in response "Where did you get the map?"
"My father, godfather and Remus made it. Pettigrew too."
Voldemort nodded, taking both "I shall return."
Harry nodded. An hour later, when Voldemort returned with a silver diadem, Harry didn't question it.
"How are we meant to unflood this place?" Susan asked, kicking at some of the water that flooded the chamber.
"If we can find where the water came from we can block it then vanish what's in here"
"So, we're gonna go swimming? In this?" Draco asked with a sneer.
"Two of us are, everyone else will continue cleaning and lighting this place" Harry said, holding out two vials of gillyweed.
No one questioned where he got it from. Both Fred and George took the vials while everyone else got back to cleaning.
Harry yawned on Halloween morning, Arilisa in her Occamy form curled around his wrist, Voldemort in his bunny form on his lap and him leaning on Luna. Harry Potter was both content, and tired.
The Gryffindor wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep.
"The new Uniforms will be coming in today's mail, along with the bracelets" Luna said, scooping some pudding onto her plate (Harry silently wondered what she'd bribed the house elves with so get herself pudding at breakfast. Harry swore Luna was 60% Slytherin)
Harry perked up at the mention of uniforms, tugging on his robe "will we have enough time to change before classes?" Harry asked
"If you eat before the mail gets here" Luna replied, Harry wasted no time finishing his breakfast
Harry smirked as he walked into Potions, Dark lord wrapped in his arms, Arilisa sitting on his bag which was slung over his shoulder.
Draco was already inside in his own black shirt, grey waistcoat, slytherin tie, grey slacks and boot. Even going as far as to add a Ravenclaw scarf, which sat neatly on the table with his bag.
Harry and the gryffindors were wearing white shirts with their sleeves rolled to their elbows, black waistcoats with the Gryffindor trim, black slacks and boots. Harry's own Slytherin scarf wrapped loosely around his neck.
Hermione was in a while shirt and Gryffindor tie, sleeves rolled down, black waistcoat with a Gryffindor trim, black skirt, Gryffindor striped thigh high socks and formal shoes.
All in all they looked far too good for school.
Snape heaved a defeated sigh. He'd already gone over Draco's uniform and confirmed that, no, they weren't breaking any rules.
And even if they were, he wasn't stupid enough to bully Potter in front of the dark lord.
Authors note; one. the black bunny idea was NOT my own. it was lovingly adopted from the story 'The Black Bunny' and I in no way claim mothership to that headcannon!
two; anyone who wants to see the new uniform, that is a chapter in my Ao3 version. since doesn't this site doesn't like pictures I'm afraid I can't show it here. but if you're curious do go look at that, okay? :) thank you for the lovely reviews, they make my day! bye! (note, chapters from 1-11 are copied from my edits done on so...yea, my notes are, for now, put in here instead of top or end notes. might change when i start updating the two secretly again or i might continue making my final edits in and copy pasting that stuff here. anyway, bye)
Chapter End Notes
hello lovely readers, thank you all SO much for your Kudo's and Comments. you're all super amazing and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. truly. you're amazing.
I get that writers are 'meant to write for themselves' but honestly? its really you guys I'm writing for, you guys make my day. every Kudo's makes my day a little brighter and don't even get me started on comments. I live for comments. anyway. hope you enjoyed this chapter, its really not my best, turns out writing two days in a few (technically three) is a bad idea for me, activated my writers block, so I hope you don't mind that its a bit shorter then my already short chapters. :3 o/
the Uniforms
Chapter Summary
just a lotta pictures. skip if you don't care for what the uniforms looks like.
Okay, so I don't have to put another link in the comments, these picture's are for the base of White Owls new school uniform!
pretty much, when writing, this is what I had in mind :) do remember that if any of these aren't your cup of tea, its your imagination imagining this story. you can change how you view items :3
and now, for the female side of it.
(think of the previous male waistcoats on females)
(yes the males can wear the skirts too, I'm not opposed...I might make that a fun chapter if I make Dumbledore have a freak out over the uniforms. anyone up for Malfoy in a skirt?)
(just change the white to the main house colour)
and that's the uniforms done! if anyone can find I nice pair of formal male shoes i'd be thankful, till then, they get boots! (not that I'm opposed to that, the male boots look sweet. and the toes of the boots can sorta pass for formal wear *shurgs*)
Here have Harry's ring too. cause, i'm dumb and forgetful and anyone not at chapter..10 will be confused but whatever. RING!
THE REAL CHAPTER NINE
Chapter Summary
Pretty much, Tomarry fluff :3
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Harry and his friends were mostly happy, seated within the RoR with resident Dark Lord and Demon countess once more.
They'd just got out of DADA, and Umbridge had ordered harry and his friends into detention for the following week so Arilisa was off to the side working out the paperwork for the demon hunt about to be placed on her head. Honestly, over the month and a half they'd all lost their bloodlust for hurting the woman. But, she was a bitch and had permanently scarred quite a few muggleborns already. No one would miss her, probably.
The main thing they were preparing for was the backlash of their status within hogwarts coming out. The students had, surprisingly, kept their Heirs and Lord of status of three out of four main houses within the walls of Hogwarts.
This would all come out when Arilisa made the full, legal and binding claim on Umbridge's life and soul. Not only that, but their relationship to the demon would also come out, which would instantly turn a few heads. Though it would hopefully be balanced out by the fact that each heir was of a different faction, Draco being of a dark family, Neville a light. Luna's family was neutral in most cases. Picking a side when absolutely needed. And Harry was a muggle raised. Though that never stopped the public switching between him being the next dark lord and their savoir at will.
Added to the fact that Harry held Arilisa's True Heir title. Meaning should Arilisa step down from her few duties in the mortal world and relinquish her many titles and powers, they would fall to him. Rather than simple inheritance, which Harry would claim when he turned 17 as Arilisa was already, for all intents and purposes, dead. He'd only get power of the Le-Fay and Emrys vaults and housing. And the other Heir's could challenge his claim to the fortune of knowledge and wealth. Though he would also have some sway in politics by default, even with Arilisa still as the semi-active head of the Le-Fay-Emrys seats... he would be able to sit in them on occasion. And that was only the public. They had no idea what Dumbledore would pull. Arilisa had happily confirmed that there was, in fact, anti-demon wards around the school, along with various other anti-creature wards, mainly Trolls and such, as they were a rather large danger to 11 year olds, though most of the anti-creature wards were failing. Only the Demon wards were fully functioning. The demon wards being around to stop wayward demon making deals with small children, or even coming into the castle grounds. These wards were, of course, set to allow a few demons through, ones that had pledged loyalty to the school itself.
Arilisa Le-Fay Slytherin
Alexander Wool
Alya Black
Sebastian Michaelis
Two of whom were under Arilisa's rule and one who was once taught within the halls.
Harry sighed, pushing his book onto the table and leaning back into the lounge, he'd ended up next to Voldemort, somehow, after Luna had, in a rather out of character moment, chosen to sit on the arm chair rather than the ground.
Harry sighed again, not that he minded being next to the Dark Lord, or more his magic, but it was rather distracting. He was used to it, and it was an incredibly familiar feeling to him. Being wrapped in the dark embrace was almost, if slightly more, comforting than Arilisa's or Luna's hugs. And he was well aware the dark lord had developed a habit over the summer of wrapping himself in Harry's own magic so at least he knew he wasn't alone in this odd development.
Harry glared at his potions text book, did he mention how it was next to impossible to focus with the Dark Lord's magic next to him?!
In class it was bearable. He knew the material four times over. He barely had to think in class. But this? This was him trying to work on one of three essays he had so far, the other two belonging to Charms and DADA, the latter of which consisting of 10 inches of worthless theory.
He was considering skipping that one.
He was also seriously considering taking a nap on Voldemort.
Harry watched Voldemort from the corner of his eye, the man leaning to the side, arm resting on the armrest holding his own book. He could do it, easily, flop sideways and fall asleep on his ex-enemies lap.
Unless the Dark Lord pushes him off.
Fuck it all Harry thought, curling his feet under him and falling sideways, adding a small
cushioning charm to Voldemort's leg, closing his eyes and nuzzling slightly into the limb and letting on hand hang off the side of the lounge, the other curling just before his nose on Voldemort's leg. He choose to ignore the instant stiffening of his new pillow in favour of wrapping Voldemort's magic around him like a particularly thick and warm blanket.
Voldemort stared down at the messy black hair in either horror or confusion. Or both."Potter. What do you think you are doing?" Voldemort asked quietly
Harry hummed softly, taking a moment to shift into a slightly more comfortable -and stable- position before answering "I can't focus when your magic is swishing around so I'm taking a nap. If you don't want me here, push me off, but I'm not moving of my own free will" Harry answered, making a sound of surprise when Voldemort's hand fell onto his head softly.
"...You may stay so long as you don't shift around" Voldemort said softly, gently pulling his fingers through the mess of hair. Giving a small, barely visible, smile, when Harry hummed happily.
If the others in the room noticed the new seating arrangement with the two leaders, they didn't comment.
The other teens eventually left the RoR for the halloween feast, only Luna bravely getting close to the pair to plant a kiss to Harry's hair and promising to tell everyone he was eating in the kitchen for the feast. Harry gave Luna a small smile and a thank you in return.
Harry supposed he'd probably be more torn up over today had it not been for the letters he'd received for his birthday, he probably wouldn't have touched Voldemort with a 10 foot poll without the letters either, regardless of his more than comforting magic. But the letters made it perfectly clear that his parents (and other family members) weren't angry with Voldemort for killing them, and though he still wished he'd been able to know the love of his mother and father, the idea of them was honestly detached from anything he'd let cloud his mind. The idea of having a mother or father would always be a fun idea to entertain, but it was a dream that would never come true. And his parents were supporting him in his path, so why would he bother holding a grudge? As far as he was concerned, Voldemort may have been the gun that killed his parents, but Dumbledore was the one that pulled the trigger.
Plus, he had Arilisa now, and while not a parent, he didn't really need one anymore. Instead he had an older sibling that was willing to bend any rule and pull as many favours as needed to spend time with him as much as possible. Despite the fact that she had a 24/7 no sleep job of making deals and collecting souls. Not to mention managing three armies worth of demons, all the souls they held in their area of the under realms and non-negotiable tea dates with Lucifer himself. He was honestly still amazed she was able to spend so much time in his company.
"I truly approve of the new uniform you know, I only wish I'd known such clothing was available in my time, it would have made manipulating the masses infinitely easier" Voldemort said, closing his book and leaning over Harry's head to place it on the table before them
"There's actually no set uniform rule, the standard robes you see around hogwarts now is simply the items written in the letters for simplicity's sake, it changes every 100 or so years. What Luna call's the old uniform or my uniform is simply what a seer and I designed when I was still in school, and enchanted properly to work in the house colours correctly. The founders actually never said there was a needed uniform, if only because of the time Hogwarts was founded in, we all wore what we could and most of us just added a cloth coloured to our main house once we started getting more students. The various headmasters since never bothered to add a set rule to the uniform. Everyone just assumes the letter robes are ruled in as must wear. Though they say it's 'required' it actually isn't in the official rule tome. The reason it changes every 100 or so is cause students like you, Harry, come to school in something different and it catches on." Arilisa said, slipping into an arm chair with a sigh
"In all honesty though, Tom Riddle of 1940-something rocked the grey sweater and blazer. Though the black robe has been and always will be a eye-sore, lose them and the normal uniforms are alright. If it weren't for all the social standards back then I'd definitely say I was born in the wrong generation" Harry said, rolling over and stretching out, legs hanging off the arm of the lounge and eyes looking up at Voldemort.
Voldemort looked down at Harry with a raised eyebrow "Are you saying you'd have prefered to be in school when i was in Hogwarts Harry?"
Harry grinned in reply "and get to see you in action? Hell yes. Seriously, not only were you crazily attractive in your later years of Hogwarts, you still hold the record for OWL's and NEWT's. I can only imagine the reaction the stuck up purebloods had, well, at least the ones that hadn't earned the... pleasure, of your training."
Voldemort chuckled in response, letting his fingers move through Harry's hair again "the Ravenclaws of my time certainly weren't amused by being beaten by the 'mudblood of Slytherin', at least in my owl year. Anyone that knew of my Heir of Slytherin status let it go fairly easily. And I have to say I wouldn't have been opposed to you being in Hogwarts in my time. Would you still have gone to Gryffindor if you were, little snake?"
Harry hummed, closing his eyes and pressing into the hand "well, if I were still a Potter, I'd go the sibling to my great-great-granddad, who from my knowledge was pretty pro-gryffindor with the rest of his family. That said, the guy did marry Dorea Black, who was a Slytherin I think. Or I could have been a Black...or other. I have a lot of family bloods. And really it'd depend on my raising. I'm as Slytherin as I am because of my time at the Dursleys. If I had a loving family growing up, god knows what kind of different I'd be..."
"I remember Dorea. And Charlus I think it was? Both were in Hogwarts in my time-"
"Oh dear Merlin DO NOT remind me how old you are!" Harry cut in "no offence. But I am currently laying on your lap and I don't need to be reminded how old you are. Like, I don't CARE but it's weird to think about. It's why I tend not to think about the fact that 'Lisa is 900 or something."
"I'm running in on my 1000's I think actually. Honestly, I'm not keeping count anymore."
"It's not like I really care much. Age doesn't really matter to me unless you look like Dumbledore, in which case i have this...uncontrollable urge to get the guy a chair. But I'm planning on living well into my 300's-"
"Fates are planning that too..."
"So it's not like it matters REALLY. I just really don't wanna be reminded that the lap I'm laying on is, by all rights, 70-something, while I'm 15. That's just...way past my moral compass' comfort zone" Harry said, ignoring Arilisa's interruptions. Voldemort watched Harry for a moment before shrugging
"Very well, I shall try to avoid mentioning just how old I am"
The conversation died down then, Voldemort picking up his book once more, while Arilisa and Harry engaged in quiet conversation, aka her quizzing him on various parts of the wizarding world and the history around said parts and him answering.
Eventually Arilisa called for a house elf, asking for three dinners. Though Harry sat up from his spot on Voldemort he stuck maybe a bit closer than normal, not that Voldemort seemed to have any problems with it.
After dinner Arilisa left after hugging Harry and promising to return soon, leaving Voldemort and Harry alone in the RoR
"I think I should be off as well. Though I could stay for the...joy, of seeing that mess you call mega-quidditch tomorrow night, I believe I should get back to my duties. I've been away for too long as is" Voldemort said, standing up. Harry gave a smile to the man, standing himself and ignoring the small ping of sadness the idea of Voldemort leaving left behind
"Of course, dark lording to do and all that, i'm surprised you stayed as long as you did honestly" Harry said, pushing his hands into his pockets.
"Indeed..." Voldemort trailed off, head tilted to the side as his eyes swept over the teen. A smirk growing on his face making Harry take a half step back "I shall return Harry. Around Yule I think... " Voldemort trailed off once more and swept forward, pulling Harry's right hand into his own and planting a kiss onto the knuckles "but I shall, without a doubt, return. I doubt my sanity would last long trapped with only my followers to talk to..." Harry blinked in surprise, small blush covering his cheeks as he tried to tug his hand back, only to get pulled forward instead, Voldemort wrapping his free arm around Harry's waist and leaning down next to his ear "let no one near you Harry, i officially intend to court you. However long it lasts is your choice but until such a time as you break it off. You are mine." Harry was frozen in place even as Voldemort pulled back, smiling almost softly at him and planting a soft kiss to his forehead, easily shifting into his bunny form and hopping out the door -a small cat flap like thing appearing in the wall-.
"Well. that was far more possessive than I was expecting. And I lot sooner than I thought too" Arilisa's voice broke through the silence after some time, Harry jumped and turned to her with wide eyes
" What the fuck was that?" he asked, borderline panicking
"Calm down little one, Voldemort simply...wishes to see if a relationship would work with you. If I had to guess with his new sanity he's...lonely. And there's no denying you two have a connection. Had you been more against your age gap, I have no doubt he would have simply tried to be a close friend to you, but with you admitting you don't care for his age, and that you find him attractive, or at least his 17 year old self, which isn't that far off his 20-something year old body. He's taking a chance to have a relationship with you, a romantic one. Whether it works or not is up in the air but give him a chance, there's nothing to lose really. Though I would listen to him on the not letting anyone near you sexually until you either starting going out or break it off. Dark Lords and Lady's are known to be... extremely possessive of things they consider theirs. And Voldemort is hoping to consider you his." Arilisa said smiling, picking up the paperwork she'd forgotten from the desk
"Lisa!"
"What? I'll give books on courting if you want but if I were you I'd sit back and enjoy it until you make a yay or nay choice. Trust me, the courting process is quite sweet. And Slytherin boys do have a way with gifts... Noel's courting of me was simply adorable"
"You aren't helping here!" Arilisa sighed, walking over and wrapping her descended in a warm hug
"Calm down dear one, there's nothing to worry about. You are not locked into anything. Say no at any time and he is forced to back off by magic itself. By him actually admitting he's going to officially court you infront of me he's activated old magic. He can shower you in all the gifts he wants. Take you out. All that. But you say no? Back off? Hold? Slow down? And he is forced to do so. It's actually sweet of him to have done that. He made eye contact with me as he said it so he was fully aware. Noel didn't do that with me. But Noel did understand boundaries and I was more then happy to hex him through a wall... and he was probably afraid of my parents... but not the point. You hold the power in this Harry. Just... give it a bit. I'll get you some books and you can read them and make your choice. If you don't want it then say no at anytime." Harry bit his lip, wrapping his arms around Arilisa in turn, hiding his head in her shoulder
"What if I... like it and he breaks it off?"
"Then you have full rights to hex that asshole though a wall or ten. Okay?" Arilisa smiled "i believe magic would be on your side as well so you don't have to worry about the oaths you took"
when he heard Harry gave a shaky laugh "come on, lets get you to bed. I think you need to sleep this over" Arilisa said, 'poofing' to Gryffindor tower "goodnight Harry"
"Goodnight 'Lisa... love you"
"Love you too little lion. Get some sleep. I'll drop some books off in a few days" Harry nodded.
Chapter End Notes
my apologies for the extended break between updates.
you know, i actually had this chapter ready for posting two days ago but...you know what i did? i updated on and forgot to update here! cause im a derp like that. honestly, how the tables have turned. normally i forget to post on (since the process to get the chapters up is so much more annoying! for me at least.) but, anyway. its here now so, enjoy!
always remember, Comments are much loved 3 even if its hate, even if i dont reply. i read every comment and take anything said to heart. which, honestly, is probably unhealthy should i get any hate. i mean, that'd just stab me right in the chest... but whatever!
also, if the story starts to come off as slightly more 'Assassin-y' im sorry, i've started playing the Assasssin's Creed games and i tend to take things of my current interest into what i create so... *shrugs* maybe i'll turn Luna into an Assassin, idk. (probably wont)
BYE! see you all next chapter
3
Chapter Ten
Chapter Summary
Harry switches back and forth between nerves and acceptance and Harry and Dumbledore have their first talk.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Harry sighed the next morning as he lay in bed, staring at the window across the room.
He had no idea what he was going to do, did he take Arilisa's advice and give Voldemort a chance? He wasn't going to deny he liked being near the guy. Liked having him around too. While when the other were around he acted almost teacher like. Answering any questions they had. When it was just Harry and Voldemort, they tended to just stay quiet. Silently enjoying one another's presence and basking in each others magic.
Harry frowned in thought. Perhaps listing the pro's and con's would help?
Sitting up Harry wandlessly 'accio'd' a notepad and pen. Making two columns with 'pro's' and 'con's' at the top of each.
Under 'Pro's' he began to write
I can feel his magic, something rare and unforeseen as we can feel anyone else's. Being close to said magic is extremely comforting and familiar
Beside being a dark lord, he's a decent person.
He's patient and willing to deal with me and my friends.
He's attractive.
He's -fairly- kind.
He's not the insane man I met in my first year, nor the immature teen I met in my second.
Parent's-probably?- approve.
Under 'Con's' he listed
He's the Dark Lord. Being with him would instantly keep me in the spotlight
Assassination attempts?
Padfoot and Moony probably won't approve...at first anyway.
He has a habit of torturing people.
He has a habit of killing people.
Harry sighed looking at the list. None of these felt like reason enough to fully agree to or decline the courting. Were his morals really that questionable? Was he willing to be with a murderer? You did lay on his lap last night. Yeah, but theres a difference between laying on someone's lap and being romantically involved. So you're willing to be friends with a murderer, even commit the crime itself, target being the right person? but not become involved with one?
Well... Just admit it to yourself. You want to give it a chance. Read the book Arilisa brought you overnight, then give it until after Yule.
Harry reluctantly agreed with the voice in his head. Getting up, he changed into his uniform, this time with a gray shirt and a Slytherin trim on his waistcoat, foregoing the scarf. Idly flicking his wand at his bag, his school books slipped into the item. Slinging the bag over his head, he grabbed the book on magic courting off his bedside table and slipped out of the room, trusting the rest of his roommates to wake up on their own.
Harry smiled as he caught sight of Hermione over by one of the lone studying tables. Slipping into the seat opposite her, he watched as she weaved spells over the 13 bracelets. Leaving her to her work, he opened the book, reading over the rules of courting, which made up only one page. The rest being examples of gifts, dates and small stories of historical courtings.
The rules of courting are fairly simple.
The male is generally the one to initiate the courting. Asking permission from both parents before hand is traditionally the way to go in muggle courting. Magically courting is slightly different, though it is recommended that the parents permission or guardians are consulted beforehand. To make the courting process a magical one, the initiator must declare their intent to the intended infront of their guardians. Doing so creates a magical bond. Though it has benefits for both parties, such as being able to find your intended over a short distance. The main power is held within the intended, who has the power to cut off the process at will, and even magically stop the initiator from ever talking or coming near the intended again. They also have the ability to force the initiator to back off for a time.
There is only one true rule for courting.
The pair become exclusive, any sexual interactions with either (kissing and beyond) will cause a slight stinging for both parties if both are willing participants, in forced sexual interactions the initiator of such an interaction is giving a sharp pain all through their body. In both cases the other partner is magically informed of the happening.
Keep in mind, every courtship is different.
Some guidelines are;
The initiator is in charge of gifts and dates. There is no set time or amount for either, though the intended can also send gifts (and if very much recommended in more modern courting!)
It is recommended that the Initiator sends a sort of ring, bracelet or necklace that acts as a sort of promise rings, informing people that the intended is being courted and try to ward people away from trying to start something.
Start with group outings, one-on-one should come later. Friendship before romance leads to a stronger bond.
Lastly
Enjoy the courtship . Do not force things, take it slow or fast, each couple is different. If breaks are needed take a break. Nothing is set in stone until you carve it. And even then.
Break the stone if you don't like it, and start again!
The following pages are examples of gifts, date idea's (both group and one-on-one) and past tellings of powerful couples.
"What are you reading Harry?" Harry looked up with a smile at Hermione, closing the book and showing her the cover, urging a raise eyebrow from the bushy haired teen
"A book on courting? Thinking of courting anyone Harry?" Hermione asked with a smirk
Harry gave a small laugh "the one being courted actually..." pausing to look around for anyone and seeing the common room still empty he continued "Voldemort asked me last night..or, well, said. In Front of Arilisa, that he was going to...so, I thought I should read up on it, since I decided to give him a chance" Harry answered with a small shrug.
Hermione blinked in surprise at Harry, mouth parting in shock before she frowned "Isn't he, like, way to old for you? He's 70 or something!"
Harry winced and nodded "I'm aware but...I don't know, it feels right to give him a chance. It's not like i'm not planning on living 300 years. We all are. Eventually the age gap will feel like nothing"
"Eventually yes, but Harry, you're 15! And he's 70 something. That's...not right." Hermione said "its really not Harry, you should block him off"
"I know it's not exactly...morally right... to proceed with this but, like I said, it feels right and I sorta like spending time with him. Why shouldn't I give it a chance? In my opinion he's mentally stunted anyway. Yes he has the memories of 70 years of life. But his personality is that of a 30 year old or something. It's not like we're all have the best morals anyway. We'd all kill and torture if you put the right people in front of us. And its not like we'd jump into a sexual relationship. I'm all for waiting until I'm out of Hogwarts, long out, that stuff doesn't interest me much. And I doubt it interests him much either"
"Yeah, sure, wait until you get close for the last bit and...I suppose, you'll call it off if he does something wrong right?" Hermione asked, turning slightly to watch the students slowly trickle out of the dorms
"Of course" Harry smiled
"Then I suppose it's fine... for now!" Hermione said, moving a bracelet over to Harry "here, this one's yours. Luna gave me a list of everyone's colours, you're Emerald, Bunnymort's red, Luna's Sapphire, Arilisa is Topaz, Draco is Amethyst, I'm Fire-opal, Ron's Light Siam, Ginny is Indian Red, Neville Jade, Fred Diamond, George Black Diamond, Susan Rose and the last mystery person is Citrine"
Slipping the item onto his wrist -and magically removing all of the of the old system- he looked at Hermione with a raised eyebrow "it's a good thing I know what my gems are. You sure you can't make that any more complicated?" he asked sarcastically
Hermione rose a brow in turn "fine, simply put, in the same list on people, bight green, light blood red, dark blue, deep yellow, deep purple, orange-red, light red, dark red, deep green, clear, black, light pink, light yellow" Harry smiled at Hermione and picked up his bag at Ron and Neville came down the stairs, spelling his book and the old system back to his bed he looked to the three before walking out the portrait hole.
"Hey Harry, what happened to Bunnymort?" Neville asked, falling in step beside him on his right.
"He left to go do evil Bunnylord things" Harry answered as Hermione fell into step on his left, with Ron beside her.
The twins caught up with them by appearing out of one of Godric's passages, coming to a casual pace behind Harry and Hermione. Susan and Draco soon joined them, coming from the dungeons when they reached the grand staircase.
Neville sidestepped when Luna skipping up to them, making room on Harry's right so that the blond easily slipped into step with Harry and the rest as they made it to the great hall.
Inside the great hall Dumbledore's heart fell when he saw Harry walking in, confident stride, head held high and surrounded by people in a scarily similar fashion to Tom Riddle.
Harry hummed as they moved towards the Slytherin table, breaking into two lines to sit, Harry sitting in the middle of his group with his back to the wall.
He looked on in surprise as a normal looking black owl landed in front of him, this in itself already drew attention to him from the teachers and few other students littered around the hall.
What kept the attention however was how the owl flashed and was replaced with a letter and box as soon as it landed.
Taking the letter first he broke the seal and read
Harry.
Sadly, due to my decision to court you being rather short notice, even for me, I do not have a material gift to give you as of yet. However, there is one gift I can give.
Your godfather.
As of 3 am of last night Peter Pettigrew was caught and interrogated within the Ministry. As of 7 am your godfather was pronounced Innocent to his crimes, i'm sure a notice of his Innocents and a ask to come into the ministry will be on the front page of the profit this morning.
I ask you to please accept this ring -in the box no doubt infront of you, or being inspected by one of your...friends. I found it in the Slytherin vault. I believe it is the family rings used to inform someone of being in the courting process.
I also ask, for simplicity's sake, that you call me Tom. I doubt calling me Voldemort is very comfortable. I know it isn't comfortable for me to say and i'm the one that named myself that.
This letter is also written in Parsel to avoid any wandering eyes. As, though Dumbledore can understand Parseltongue, he can not read it. though to anyone simply curious it will took to be written in french, and will in no way take about what is actually being talked about, except for the ring. though it forgoes mentioning Slytherin.
Kind Regards
Tom
Harry reread the letter twice before slowly tucking it away into his waistcoat
"Sirius is free" he whispered quietly. "Vol...Tom gave me Sirius" he whispered just as quietly. Wide eyes looking towards each of his friends before down to the box infront of him as Hermione explained why Voldemort would do such a thing.
Carefully picking up in ring, it was rather simple as far as purebloods go, the top half with a line of small emerald and onyx gems, silver or sterling and a vine light design weaving over and under. Harry gave a small smile and looked to Luna, who in turn took the ring and placed it on his ring finger, with a dull glow it changed to fit his finger I love magic
"This way it'll keep away more Snufflepuffs" she said before sliding a plate in front of him, Harry gave a thankful smile and began to ate. Almost choking as Luna continued "and it will make him very happy when he see's it"
Harry's friends watched him for a moment, all wondering just what was going to happen between Harry and the Dark Lord before they eventually turn to their food, once everyone had finished they stood, everyone separating to their classes, Harry and the fifth year Gryffindors plus Susan headed for the transfiguration classroom for class with the Hufflepuffs.
Harry smiled at McGonagall as he entered the room, Harry and Neville pairing up at the front, Ron and Hermione beside them to the right and Susan sitting to the left.
They were still a few minutes early, allowing them to relax before the class started. Unconsciously, Harry started to twist the ring on his finger.
Harry pulled out his notebooks with School Transfiguration and Self-Study Transfiguration. Opening his most recent page in his self-study book, he continued his writing on Animagi. The others did something similar, reading over the last lessons notes and their own self study progress.
Unknown to them, McGonagall beamed happily. While Hermione and Susan had both always been studious in her classes, she was extremely proud of the other three for taking lead in her classes. Along with the rest of Harry's friends.
She couldn't help but wonder why they hadn't done anything before now, but, so long as they passed their owls easily. She'd be happy.
As her eyes trailed over the teens she caught the slight shine on Harry's hand, eyes narrowing on the ring that adorned his finger her eyes widened. Biting her lip she looked towards Harry and the teens.
She was extremely proud of her cubs, and she knew none of them were very happy with Dumbledore right now. The question was. Did she tell Dumbledore on the new development with Harry? Or did she trust her cubs?
McGonagall nodded to herself, decision made. As the rest of the student found their seats, she began her class.
Harry sighed at the gargoyle guarding the headmaster's office, not bothering to play the guessing game that was 'what candy does Dumbledore like this month?'. He hissed out open in Parseltongue as he reached the steps, letting it spin him up to the headmasters office.
Knocking once on the door he waited a minute before magically opening the door, strolling through without a care he barely blinked at Lucius and Snape sitting in front of the headmaster. Instead he zero'd in on the headmaster
"You sent a message headmaster?" Dumbledore blinked in surprise at Harry while Severus scrolled and Lucius smirked.
"I did my boy, but I believe I said for 'at dinner'. I'm currently in a meeting right now, if you could come back later?"
"I'm afraid I can't headmaster. I'm busy later, I finished my lunch early so I decided to come up. State why you called me and I will be on my way. Anything you say, I'm sure, can be said in front of these two, after all you like only giving me the bare minimum of information, no?" Harry said, Lucius motioned for Severus not to say anything and leaned back, fully ready to enjoy the show as he sipped at his tea.
Dumbledore thought for a moment before he sighed "very well Harry. There are a few things i wish for you to answer for me, Minerva told me you had a ring on this morning, one that's like...more than decoration, where did you get it?" Dumbledore asked
Harry sighed, he should have known at least one teacher would tell on him "I met someone over the summer, we got to talking and he's stated his wish to court me. I have accepted simply to see how it will go. Would you like to see it? See if it's cursed or spelled to control me or perhaps a portkey?" Harry asked in turn. Dumbledore seemed to have a debate with himself before the old man nodded, Harry pulling his hand on his pocket and showed all three the ring, walking forward he let it sit in the air in front of the headmaster, who in turn pulled out his wand and started to chant softly under his breathe, meanwhile Lucius leaned forward.
"My, it is a beautiful piece...a traditional courting ring if I'm not mistaken" Lucius said softly
"It is, it's been in his family for nearly 1000 years. He found it in one of his vaults. I imagine my guardian will flip when she see's it, if I'm correct it's the same one she wore... perhaps even the first to wear" Harry replied, happily hinting to Dumbledore something he doubt'ed he'd understand for another week. Nearby Fawks perked up, flying towards harry and trilling happily at the ring, landing on Harry's shoulder. 's ring!& Fawks 'said' , I haven't seen it in so long! Will Arilisa be returning publicly soon little heir? Will she? I do miss her so!& Harry smiled, lifting his spare hand to pet the phoenix he gave a small nod, Fawks seemed to light up, nuzzling into the side of Harry's face
"I'm assuming it is our...mutual, friend that gave it to you?" Lucius asked, watching the bird with wide eyes. He'd almost forgotten Dumbledore had a pheonix
"Of course. You know we got quite close while we were at your manor"
"Yes yes... well, I do believe congratulations are in order, to either you or him I know not... But, nonetheless. I look forward to seeing how this will play out" Lucius said leaning back.
Harry pulled his hand back from Dumbledore as he finished "Any other questions headmaster?"
"Yes, your clothing. Where is your uniform?" Harry rose a brow, eyes challenging as he smirked
"You're looking at it sir. Did you know there's no official rule that the clothes written in the letters must be worn? It's said it's required to buy, but never to wear. The only thing in the rule book is to wear your first or secondary house colours. In my case, Gryffindor and Slytherin, why do you ask sir, do you not approve?" Dumbledore frowned in thought "and don't go thinking you can add such a rule. With the Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin heirships claimed. And the Gryffindor lord, all living in the castle. You can't do anything to the rule book, nor can Umbridge or even the board of governors, myself, Luna and Neville have an unspoken rule over this castle. Sorry, anything else?" Dumbledore frowned at Harry before shaking his head 'no'
"Lucius, good to see you again, could you tell our...ah, mutual friend that I love the ring for me? Professor, see you in class. Headmaster." turning on his heel Harry left the room while Lucius turned to Dumbledore who looked almost defeated. Lucius frowned. Looking between the old man and the door
"Headmaster, are you aware that Mr Potter was abused by his relatives?" both Snape and Dumbledore looked to Lucius in surprise "I think, that, if you did, or he tried to tell you this and you refused to listen, this is merely Mr Potter getting back at you for hurting him. If unintentionally. I think, if you are careful, and listen to Mr Potter should he come to you. Then... you may earn back favour with him. And maybe save quite a few people. But only if you listen" Lucius had no idea why he was saying this, but it felt right "he is not a child. He has been through much and learned much. He has grown strong despite what life has thrown at him and, one day, could easily lead a great many people. I would not want to be his enemy when he come into himself any further Headmaster." Lucius placed his cup down, standing he gave one last look to the headmaster and a nod to his friend "whatever he comes to you with, listen to him. Fully. Without judgement. You may just prevent a war by doing so. We already went over what I wanted, goodday" Lucius turned and left the office as well, leaving Severus and Albus alone to ponder their thoughts.
Harry blinked in surprise when he heard Fred yell out for him to come to the front. But, none the less moved past the other students.
Looking at the two redheads, he followed their gaze down to the Tabby-cat that was, in all honesty, looking at the group of them rather smuggly.
"Hello Professor" Harry said, rubbing the back of his head as the tabby morphed back into the strict head of house
"And where, Mr Potter, are you leading everyone this late at night?" she asked, arms crossed and waiting.
"The Quidditch pitch?.." Harry frowned in thought before motioning his teacher forward "Follow, you can...send us to bed if you must. But I'd prefer it if you trusted us enough to at least see exactly what we're doing before you judge us." his head of house frowned but, she had to admit she was curious as to why Harry Potter and his friends was leading most of Gryffindor house though a set of secret tunnels to the Quidditch pitch.
Stepping to the side McGonagall let Harry move forward before falling into step beside him
"I am curious myself. Your ring, Courting or Promise?" McGonagall asked, smiling to herself as Harry started to fiddle with said ring
"Courting. I'm...actually looking forward to how it goes. I'm really unsure on it. And I've been going through a mix of nerves and excitement all day" Harry answered
"Understandable, do I know your could-be-lover?" Harry blushed lightly at the words, looking down at the ring with renewed nervousness
"Uh, yes? Professor you aren't being very...Professor-y right now"
"Oh I'm aware. But don't take this as your professor asking, take this as a old family asking" McGonagall replied "you'll let me meet them one day yes?"
"Uh, maybe? I don't know how he'll take to that" Harry said with a shrug, turning to lead down a Tunnel McGonagall hadn't explored yet, McGonagall smiled and allowed Harry to lead them towards the Quidditch pitch
As it turned out, Gryffindor wasn't the only group that had been caught by a teacher, Ravenclaw turned out a little after Gryffindor (with Slytherin and Hufflepuff already on the pitch) with Flitwick lightly jogging along with Luna.
Fortunately, both Teachers agreed that, with Supervision, they could continue the 'Hogwarts night's'. Flitwick even went as far as to start handing out point in doves for all the charm work the students were doing (though instead of giving them to set houses he gave them to all the houses. Each house jumped up 67 points by the end of his point spree). While McGonagall sneaked in points for the nights being well thought out (again, giving each house a total of 20 points).
This was, of course. Until they saw 100 students in a single game of Quidditch. At which point both teachers nearly fainted. But, none the less let them continue.
Then everyone fell into a magically expanded Gryffindor tower at 3 am. The two head of house's reluctantly agreed to let the students continue without telling any of the other teachers, the realized the students wanted this as a time for bonding away from 'professors' and just being kids. However, Poppy would be coming with them next time. That was for sure.
Chapter End Notes
thank you all for your comments and Kudo's. you're all amazing 3
Chapter 11
Chapter Summary
Where Umbridge goes bye bye and Draco/Luna renovate the Chamber of Secrets to the point of no returns (Magic save them from Salazar's fury when he finds out)
Start note; I edited all previous chapters, even if slightly, if you're curious you can reread but it shouldn't be needed. I don't believe any of the edits matter in the plot line, it was just fixing inconsistencies :)
Harry and his friends sat at Gryffindor table following Wednesday. Nothing interesting had happened since, Voldemort, or Tom, sent him a letter each morning wishing him a good day and giving him rough updates on his plans. Nothing that Harry cared much for war plans at this moment, but the thought was nice.
But, besides the point, Harry smirked as he rubbed his sore hand, the words Ancient Heir were carved as elegantly into the skin as he could write it.
Hey, if he was going to be permanently scarred he wasn't going to have something like I must obey authority carved into his hand. No, when he and his friends had walked into detention last night they'd all silently glamoured their parchments and hands to show those words to Umbridge. But they'd all written something different. Sadly though Umbridge actually did have an enchantment on her room that told her if they really were writing so they had to write something.
Moon Flower
Ice Prince -Harry thoughts that was quite egotistical but, who was he to judge?-
Water Flower War master -again, egotistical but Harry would refrain from vocally judging-
Fire Flower Nature Child Thing One Thing Two -Harry would make sure he made Arilisa regret sharing 'The Cat in the Hat'-
Sun Flower -Harry found it sorta cute that Luna, Hermione, Ginny and Susan had themed theirs-
Each hand was wrapped in a paste Arilisa had given them. Now they were just waiting for the 'official notice' to pop in down below so Arilisa could make the hunt as legally tight as possible.
It was around five minutes after the last student sat down to start breakfast that he felt it. Harry's eyes widened. He wasn't aware Arilisa was going to storm inside demon mode active.
He knew the others felt it too, hell, he'd be surprised if someone didn't feel the pulsing dark magic that was slowly getting thicker. At his chair Dumbledore stood wand out.
Slowly everyone turned to the door of the great hall, Hogwarts joining in on the suspense by opening the door slowly rather than it normally being open by the time someone wanted in or out. Almost unconsciously Harry, Draco, Neville and Luna stood just as the doors open fully.
Arilisa stood near statue like, Black hair long and weaving softly behind her in her demon garb, being a long black trenchcoat, black boots and golden accents. Her eyes swept the hall until they landed on her heirs at which point she swooped in long powerful strides bringing her beside her heirs. Her red eyes were narrowed on the four of them.
"Are you all okay? Do you need healing?" Arilisa's voice was soft to them, a unneeded i'm sorry you had to get hurt underlying her question. Her eyes turned to the rest of the group as well trailing over them, then the rest of the tables.
"No, no we're okay" Harry answered, eyes flickering to the head table before back to Arilisa, who brought out an extra salve anyway.
"Give this to anyone else injured. Blood quills are not nice. I don't want any other children of Hogwarts in more pain than needed." Arilisa said, sitting the large jar down next to Hermione before turning a furious glare to Umbridge and moved forward towards the head table
"Dolores Jane Umbridge. I, Arilisa Le-Fay Slytherin, 17th countess of Hell, am here to sentence you to your place in a demonic hunt for you soul. You have been charged with the following four crimes.
"Suspected murder of a low ranking 100-soul count Demon.
"Creating unjust laws for both Magical kind and Creature kind. Resulting in the unfair treatment of my kind and the kind of my other magical creatures.
"Using a demonic bargain to place yourself in a position of power within the british ministry of magic- then proceeding to nullify the deal with no known repercussions on your side.
" Direct harm to four demon heirs, Hadrian James Potter-Black, Lord Potter, Lord Black, Lord Gryffindor, Lord Le-Fay, Lord Emrys, Heir Slytherin, Luna Pandora Lovegood, Heir Ravenclaw, Heir Lovegood, Draco Lucius Malfoy, Heir Malfoy, Heir Prince, Neville Frank Longbottom, Heir Longbottom, Heir Hufflepuff. via use of blood quills, resulting in one line of permanent scarring along one hand. Not to mention god knows how many other Children of Hogwarts.
"Charged with these crimes, with no question of guilt on at least one. You have been sentenced to a demon hunt, with one week to prepare." Arilisa smirked as Umbridge paled "this sentence is magically binding, with magic herself as my judge. I complete this claim and open it to magic's will, so mote to be" Arilisa waited as magic swam into the room, twisting around herself and Umbridge.
Arilisa watched gleefully as the mark of a demons prey faded into Umbridge's neck and cheek. The black vine like design acted like a weak tracker, any demon near by would be able to tell there was a soul up for grabs and would chase after her. And once the demon had claimed the soul, added it to their soul count, and brought it down to the under realms she'd be thrown into one of the more unpleasant places. Arilisa had half the idea to send her into the creature pits full of all kinds of deadly and more than insane halflings.
"No, please, No!" Arilisa walked up to the head table to gently cup Umbridge's cheek
"You chose your path dear Dolores, it's time to live with the consequences." Arilisa said softly, wiping away a tear from the toad's eye
"No, please you can't do this. You don't have the right to do this, i'm the mini-"
"I can, you hurt my heirs, my dearest heirs. They mean more to me then anything. And you hurt them, you made them bleed, all because you didn't like something about them. You made 11 year olds bleed just for being children. You came into my school like you had any power here and you hurt its children. I have every right to do this. It's time for you to start running Dolores" the woman whimpered before running out of the hall. Arilisa straightened looking over the students of the hall, and now ghosts who'd no doubt gathered due to the surge in magic. She gave a small smile as she saw 'the grey lady' and 'the bloody baron' float towards her.
The two ghost gave her smiles
"Welcome back to Hogwarts, officially, Arilisa" the Baron said, giving a small bow while the grey lady gave a rare smirk
"Let it never be said you did not inherit your mother's temper 'Lisa" Helena said, coming right up next to her "and thank you for getting rid of her. I was starting to get tempted to haunt to woman. Honestly. Hurting mothers ravens like that!" regardless of the fact that Helena didn't like her mother all that much, Helena did respect what Rowena had stood for and the love she put into her house. She would, in the end, protect her mother's ravens.
Plus, Luna was in ravenclaw. And Luna was, by far, her favourite.
"It was the least I could do. Now, if you'll excuse me I believe I have a phoe- oh never mind it seems he's found me" Arilisa laughed, watching as Fawks shot into the great hall with a joyful cry
! ARILISA! OH YOU'RE BACK YOU'RE BACK!& the large Phoenix tackled Arilisa -as much as a bird could tackle someone, it was more like slamming into her and latching on for all he could-. All the teachers made sounds of surprise at the Phoenix's behaviour, but Dumbledore at least lowered his wand, trusting his Pheonix. Arilisa smiled at the Phoenix
"Yea Fawkes, i'm back." Fawkes gave a wordless coo and nuzzled Arilisa's cheek "I missed you too. Shall we go down to the lake, with Harry maybe?" the Phoenix gave the bird equivalent of a cheer and took wing back out of the hall. Arilisa grinned after the bird and moved back towards Harry with a visible spring in her step, taking his hand she grinned "come on Harry, I want to have a talk to you, I've got a long term deal pending and...yea, we need to talk" Arilisa said, putting a arm around Harry and leading him out of the great hall.
Fawkes was polite enough to give Arilisa and Harry some time before he caught up with the demon, and so found Arilisa and Harry sitting by the lake alone -for the most part, if you ignored the fire-bird in the tree a few meters away-
"So? You said you had a long pending deal or something?" Harry asked "what does that mean?"
"It means there's a deal with the demon lives for a set amount of time with the person requiring the deal, I currently have one pending. Due to the multi-verse problem I actually have around 100 or so demons sitting on this deal, but I can take any more out of the field for this so I either leave one unfulfilled or take it myself" Arilisa answered "me going through with it would make me unavailable for long periods of time for the next six months. At the start of April I'd be back to my regular duties"
"Okay then... what's the deal?" Harry asked, if he was going to let Arilisa go for six months -and he would, he could tell Arilisa wanted to do this deal- then he wanted to know about it, call him clingy he didn't care.
"It's about Tom, his mother activated the deal" Harry gave Arilisa a look of surprise "i think I briefly explained that for family traits like Parseltongue to be passed on, the parent with the trait has to be with the child through all nine months of pregnancy and at least three months after, the longer the parent stays the better the trait will set" Arilisa explained "I'd been curious about this actually, but time never lines up so it's all weird. But anyway, if Tom's mother died in childbirth then Tom can't be a Parseltongue, can he? One of the deals have already been completed so I know how it'll play out.
"Tom's mother made a deal, for the demon to extend her life in exchange for her soul. Easy enough, but to keep a dead woman alive like that...magic and all, it's not like what I did with peter, the demon has to stay with the person and keep a constant stream of magic flowing to them. So, my demons will help, we've already put demons in the various multi-verses that have Tom's mother dying in childbirth. Well, except one. I'd like your blessing to go take care of this deal myself. As I said I can't take anymore demons out of the field. Its bad enough i'm losing 100 or so for six months, bad for business. On average my demons bring in 30-40 souls bi-yearly so i'm losing a max of 4,000 souls here. But, for family i'm allowing it." Arilisa explained
"If this doesn't go through this would stop Tom being able to talk to snakes?" Harry asked in surprise. He could already see that going badly. Yes he wouldn't be the heir of slytherin anymore, couldn't open the chamber to cause Myrtle's death. But it would also put him at the mercy of being the mudblood of slytherin, permanently. With no set proof of him being of the Slytherin line...
"Yes. and using Parselmagic. Though Snakes would always be his friends, finding on to kill him would be hard. He wouldn't be able to take to the creatures. Should he have a child there'd also only be a 50% chance of him passing on the trait" Arilisa said, pulling Harry to her side "i don't want you to say yes just because you want Tom to keep his Parsel-trait, or just because you know I want this deal. If you don't want me to leave for six months I won't Harry. You're my Heir, my True Heir. you come first, always." Harry hummed in thoughts before looking over the lake
"I wont say I won't miss you for the six months, I will, but I think i'll be fine if you go, we'll be fine. The group of setting some plans in motion anyway. And i'll have Tom." Harry said, pulling at some grass "i'm gonna be busy this year and I should have any attempts on my life so we should be fine. Umbridge is gone, Dumbledore is still gathering his wits and... yea, we should be fine. I'll call you if anything is need, you'll be able to pop in for a few minutes in those cases, right?"
"Yea, I can probably manage...20 minutes tops each 12 hours. Though I'd like it if you didn't call me every 12 hours. I want to, need to, focus on Tom and his mother." Harry nodded
"Then, I give you my blessing to go, if I need you i'll call for you but otherwise i'll leave you be. That good?" Arilisa smiled and hugged Harry, giving a nod to Fawkes. For the remaining time until Lunch Fawkes caught up with Arilisa. The old Phoenix happy to tell Arilisa of the things she's missed in the past 900 years when it come to Hogwarts.
Later that night Harry and his friends looked over the Chamber of Secrets. Trying to figure out just how they were going to do this.
They'd already added the lighting so that took away a large part of the erryness. And with Tom sending in a new teacher it was fairly safe to say they wouldn't have to focus on just DADA for the group. Rather they could open it up to other subjects as well. The question was how they were going to work it.
"Well, the snake pillars make a good way to section of area's. We could find a way to section off each and apply a subject to each area?" Susan offered "if we group up the years instead of doing them day by day, 1-2, 3-4-5 and 6-7 and have Defense, Transfiguration, Potions, Herbology, and Charms help going. We have have two days open for study on two days with everyone moving in and out of the chamber. Maybe we can teach Myrtle to open the chamber instead of having one of us open it. Those two days we can all help each other with homework and other things people are struggling with. Then we'll still have the weekends off for our own enjoyment" Susan offered. "We can put potions in the back over the chamber by the head. And ward it off to stop stray spells from getting near. Then defence, as we can use the open space to practice dueling. Transfiguration, Charms and Herbology can take place in a sort of common room vibe. If we add bookcases between snake statues we can have a mini-library of sorts down here with all the needed information. The harder and perhaps darker books go higher to stop the little ones from getting into them..."
Harry nodded along. Flicking his wand and adding semi-transparent illusions to the chamber, showing multiple potions stations towards the back of the chamber, a dueling stage to the left side of the most open space and open room on the right. Empty books began to line the walls between snakes. Tables and chairs, lounges and arm chairs appearing down the middle of the hall allowing plenty of breathing room on each side.
"I like it, if we had actual lighting instead of lighting charms, like chandeliers, it will also take away from the 'this is a evil lair' vibe. Maybe lighten the stones." Harry said. Taking a walk around "technically. Me and Tom own this place so we can do what we will to it. And...what Tom doesn't know won't hurt him. So it's our choice. If we make the floor a dark grey. Maybe change the snakes into actual pillars... maybe make the place white marble? Definitely changing the head... damn it we're gonna need to hire goblins for this... Draco! Can I trust you to make this place good enough for teaching multiple subjects. Making it not look like a evil lair and... get this place generally functional?"
"Yea, I can handle this. Do you want just the chamber or hall and tunnels as well?" Draco said, pulling out one of hermione's notebooks, already writing things down. No doubt the teen had been wanting to renovate since he set foot inside
"...eh, in for a penny in for a pound. We'll do all of it up to the point where the tunnels join with Hogwarts. If they can add stairs to the main entrance that would be great"
Harry answered "let Luna help you. She's good with making things. Get the goblins to take the money out of the Le-Fay vaults. They've been building up for 800 or so years. Time to use it"
"Right then, Luna with me. We need to design the new main chambers. One library, one spare room. One master room. One positioners room. One hallway. One gathering room and Merlin knows how many tunnels. and...Harry are we keeping the Basilisk chamber?" Draco paused looking back at Harry who was looking at the Slytherin head in thought
"...yea, why not, I may want a Basilisk yet. Who knows?" Harry answered. Draco nodded and lead Luna back out of the chamber. The other following.
While Harry and his friends focus on thee chamber and what they had to do the rest of the school was watching the three 'demon heirs'. They already knew that they were heirs -and lord- to the Hogwarts founders but, for them to have a demon in the ancestry? That was helping them? The muggleborns were borderline running from them in the halls, it was only thee purebloods that put a stop to it, explaining exactly what a demon was and what it meant to have one in your family.
" What quite a lot of the lower ranking demons are rather unpleasant, a demon of Lady Le-Fay Slytherin's status would actually be a godsend to have in the family. Demons are notoriously protective of people that share their blood, and they actually can't harm blood family. Accidental or otherwise. Not themselves anyway. Family means a lot to demons, to... you saw her, she was terrifying yes. But she only went after Umbridge, who we know has been hurting people in the school, i wouldn't be surprised if Harry and his friends planned this with her to get Umbridge out of the castle. Not only that but she's obviously protective of Hogwarts as well. She gave a salve to Granger to hand out among us no? If she was focused only on her heirs she wouldn't have checked over us too. And the grey lady's reaction to her, and the bloody baron. They know her. Welcomes her to Hogwarts. And Dumbledore's Phoenix." I think...we can trust Harry and his friends and this...demon to look after and protect Hogwarts. While at least one heir is within these walls Lady Le-Fay Slytherin will have full rights to interfere, protect. Just...do things a demon wouldn't normally be able to do since they normally stay out of mortal affairs"
For the next two days Draco and Luna were focused on making the renovation drafts for the chamber while Harry taught Myrtle and a rather kind ghost named Flora -who was known to help first years get to their classes- how to say 'open' in Parseltongue. Myrtle so she could open the chamber for students and Flora to help the goblins. They couldn't actually understand it. Or really speak it all that well, the same with Fred and George. But if they pushed magic behind the word it would activate the passages. Though Harry would forever hate listening to them say it... Have you ever heard a strongly Russian man, drunk off his ass, try to replicate a strong British accent and phrase? That was what it sounded like to Harry when one of them spoke the serpent tongue. Barely recognizable pain.
Hermione and Susan worked out the planning for each year group, how'd they'd tell the students when to go down to the chamber and how they were going to tell the students the chamber was open for people to pass through and the Weasley's worked on ordering books -light, grey and dark- on all topics. Along with various Muggle books -basic sciences, advanced sciences, maths, languages, the works, even adding in some cooking books (god knows why)- and the equipment needed for the potions once Luna and Draco finish with designs adding in a pending order for furniture.
Within the week a new teacher was appointed to DADA -a Death Eater Auror who was quite popular among the students for actually being fair and actually teaching things -after Umbridge anyone would have been popular though-. And though Harry and his friends did still pay attention to their classes most of the school could tell they were distracted.
Along with this time Harry kept away from the headmaster, no matter how many notices he sent to have Harry come up to the headmaster's office,he knew it was childish and Dumbledore couldn't do anything to harm him but Harry honestly didn't want to see or talk to the headmaster, the man had let Harry down and intentionally or unintentionally manipulated his life for years while Harry was acting 'golden boy'.
He didn't want to chance returning to that. More so now that he was getting closer to Tom.
Within another two weeks the Goblins had finished their work. The Corridor of Secrets now far lighter and welcoming adding 'walls' to the off shooting pipes which acted like the wall to platform 9 3/4, Luna had, after some thought, added a mural on one side, the picture of the Hogwarts founders with various students in the open area near the black lake, it was a beautiful piece if ever there was one. While the door to the chamber was changed to stay open it stayed the same -well, the stone was changed to a lighter colour of only so it fit with the rest of the design-
The inner chamber was changed to white marble, the snake's being white pillars and the walls becoming a grey marble with inlaid shelves, the shelves stopping whenever there was a pillar -which were inlaid into the wall-
The area's where tables and chairs would go were lowered slightly into the ground -around half a meter- in sections down the middle creating 7 10 meter square area's for students to sit and study, with two meters for the walk ways and one meter between lowered area's, a large chandelier hung above each area.
The far back open space of the chamber the previously caved in ground was filled and the far wall smoothed down. The basilisk's chamber was moved further back to create more room from the potions area, which was a lowered area -meter below the rest- and a 20 by 10 meter space with work stations, potion supplies -and muggle, for anyone wanting to practice chemistry- with various ingredients and chemicals lining the far with in inlaid shelves -protected by warded glass and under status charms until they were removed- along with spare shelving to store any potions.
The whole area was heavily warded to stop any stay spells from getting through, or any explosions getting out.
The raised part of the open chamber was as wanted, on the left side was a raised stage for dueling, and the right large open space for spell practicing, with the wall lined with dummies to practice on.
Along the walls of the right side there was 6 doors, each with where they went, there was a kitchen, outfitting for anything a cook would need including various ingredients stored away the same with way the potion ingredients. Which was also nicknamed Harry's Haven. And was basically a cooks dream kitchen.
A room dubbed 'the nest' that lead to the basilisks chamber -and was locked via Parsel, saying 'the nest' in the snake tongue would allow you entry-. Was mostly bare and would only be used to house a Basilisk.
The Library, which was connected the white owl bracelets so only Harry and his friends could enter. A room that now housed the founders books and other books Harry and his friends had collected. Inside was also a reading area large enough for Harry and his friends but no more.
The master room, aka giant bed room, which was again connected to the white owl bracelets for whenever Harry or his friends didn't have enough energy to get to their dorms. Which was home to 4 large beds, two washing area's and a large wardrobe that was filled with a few sets of clothing for each person.
The master potions room. Which housed more advanced ingredients and was locked via a necklace which only White Owl member could give out or white owl bracelet. It was for the more advanced potioners and twins really.
And finally the common room which was more a retreat for white owl members when they had to be down in the chamber that needed alone time. Was small but homey with soft carpet, softer chairs and a comforting fire.
Along the left side of the open area was a staircase that lead to the floor above the chamber, which lead to a large hall that connected to the various tunnels -each with a sign to their exit, what? They were tired of getting lost-.
All in All? Harry was terrified of what would happen when he finally died. And Salazar was able to get to him for changing his chamber so severely.
...scratch that, Harry was more worried about what would happen should Tom see what he did to the chamber.
But, they were all content. By December the chamber was finished, shelves filled to the brim with books, ladders installed for each bookshelf. Chairs and tables in their area's. Dobby and Winky put in charge of keeping the area tidy and making sure everything was kept in stock.
All in All the whole renovation and installment of various things cost 205,000 galleons, with an estimated 100 galleons lost each month to upkeep and ingredients -honestly that was barely a dent in the Le-Fay vaults. And with all of the investments Harry had he made a good 5000 each month so it was no real lose. But...still. It was a lost of money to lose in one month and Harry refused to buy anything other then presents for the next year-.
Author's notes; hullo, now, before anyone freaks out about how much -or little- the reno cost. In our muggle money that whole thing was around 1,800,000 AUD or 1,250,000 EUR. both these numbers are rounded UP. I got the galleons amount by dividing the 1,250,000 but 6, so that's 6 EUR per Galleon. This gave me 208,333.a heap of 3's. So I lowered that count to 205,000. No complaints! Aside from that, even with magic I reckon marble is a pain to look after -more so with possible potion explosions- so I've put 600 EUR aside each month for ingredients, normal food, muggle chemicals. And general upkeep of the chamber, hall, rooms and tunnels. I figure that's more than fair.
Also, i'm sorry for not updating for so long .. I was sick and then my mind wandered of to other story idea's and I had to wait for my mind to wander back over to THIS ONE. so. Yea. but I finally got it back on track!
So, I also want to do a vote. I have three options for this story.
I want to move the magicals away from the non-magics. So there's gonna be three options to vote on.
The Moon - idea from Batsutousai's story Xerosis (amazing read, 100% recommend). I WAS given permission to use this idea I swear. Litturaly. They just replied to me 5 minutes ago giving me permission.
Atlantis. Now I haven't seen this before in a story so I don't know if I should ask someone but...anyone wanna raise Atlantis?!
BOTH!. This would mean the magicals would move to the moon. But also have Atlantis raised to allow movement between earth and the moon. The magicals would go to Atlantis to talk with muggle leaders whenever it's needed. This would allow the magicals to move down to earth to pick up any new muggleborns. And allow visitation for muggle's to visit family if they moved with magical families to the moon or for magicals to visit muggle family left down on earth.
To vote for these, on Fanfiction. Net I will put a poll onto my profile. For Ao3 I will be making another story as I don't know how to or if I can make a poll on Ao3 with three chapters, titled the moon, Atlantis and both. I ask you to please leave any kind of comment (ONCE) on your voted chapter to vote for which path you want. I will pick the most popular path after...i don't know how long yet after adding both sites votes together.
BYE! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. (note; reviews/comments help me write faster :P ...and someone, anyone, sometimes sending me a message telling me to update cause damn it sometimes I forget okay? D:)
chapter 12
Chapter Summary
is this real? yes. sorry for the delay my excuse is in the authors notes xD
dumps this at your feet then crawls away* there, this chapter is done. My duty to this story is done for the next two weeks. Moving ON
Two days after the renovations on the chamber were completed, Harry and his friends sat at the Hufflepuff table for breakfast. Watching, as five owls landed in front of Harry, removing the parcels and giving each bird some toast. The teachers once again worried about what Harry was planning, to receive so much mail in the past month. Draco took notice of his owl and removed his copy of the Daily Prophet, the wizarding world was still in a fuss over Harry Potter being close with a demon -even if it was looked to as a blessing. It was still frowned upon, honestly Draco was in agreement with Hermione and wondered why he hadn't seen it sooner, the wizarding world didn't understand logic or common sense-
Harry smiled as a black owl once again landed in front of him -it was rare Harry got to breakfast before the owl got to the hall- he slipped the letter that the owl turned into into his waistcoat and placed the box onto his lap, instead focusing on the four Gringotts boxes which no doubt housed the rings each member of the AoMM -Association of Magic Muggle learning. They opted out of adding the 'L' to the lettering- would receive.
Opening each box in turn to make sure everything was in order, the first box contained around 100 rings and 5 silver feather pendants. As did the other three boxes. -the large amount simply to make sure they didn't run out of any for some time-
101 rings were bronze. 101 silver and 101 gold, 101 rings were platinum and one extra ring sat in the platinum box which was a twist of all four other metals.. The bronze rings would go to the first and second years, third to fifth years would get silver and sixth to seventh would get the gold ones -and would get platinum come graduation-
While the 20 feather pendants would allow access to the advanced potion room and would be returned after graduation.
Neville would be in charge of the bronze rings while Luna managed the silvers, and lastly Harry got gold, platinum and 'the commander ring' which would connect to all rings.
All the rings were fairly thin and would magically resize to fit. Simple, plain. Easy.
Slipping the gold, platinum and commander ring onto his spare pointer and sighing happily at the fact that all three didn't add up to more than a centimeter -he hated bulky jewelry- he handed Neville the bronze command ring and Luna the silver before closing and shrinking all boxes, slipping them into his pocket. He'd handle handing them out to the students after classes.
Standing with his friends and making his way to DADA with the Gryffindors and Draco, he opened his letter from Tom smiling to himself as he read the contents. Lately they'd began using the mirror to talk each night rather than letters but Tom still found it fit to send him one each morning, more often than not with a small gift.
Harry
Lucius tells me that one of your projects has finally been completed, or so says Draco. Congratulations. Will you tell me about it tonight? I admit myself curious as to your plans for Hogwarts.
Regardless, I hope you have a good day.
I had the oddest letter waiting for me this morning when I awoke, from Arilisa, apparently she's no longer surprised at my insanity? It runs in the family? Perhaps you might be able to shed some light on it.
You told me three nights ago that you enjoyed Muggle cooking -Merlin knows why. Considering how you learnt it, but I shall not judge- and so enclosed is a book on spell cooking. I do hope you both enjoy and practice. Perhaps you shall allow me to sample your cooking over Yule?
Kind regards
Tom
Harry smiled at the letter, spell cooking sounded interesting but Harry had a strong feeling he'd prefer muggle cooking, if only because it was what he grew up with. But, perhaps spell cooking would help in a pinch.
Slipping into his chair in DADA, Draco taking the seat next to him he opened the parcel Tom had sent him, it was as said, a beginners book for cooking with magic.
"Okay that's it, I'm done, Harry" Harry looked up at Draco in surprise "we need to get you a rabbit, after seeing you go almost everywhere with Bunnymort...gods these past two weeks have been fucking WEIRD."
Harry paused before giving Draco a flat stare "Draco. You do realize I went two months without a bunny at Hogwarts and one week with, right? By all rights, having the bunny should be weird and not having should be normal" Harry said.
"No, no mate, he's right. You had Bunnymort everywhere with you...it's so weird not seeing you with a bunny now. We've all been so busy these two weeks we really haven't said anything but... we need to get you a bunny, man. It's weird" Ron said leaning bringing a chair over to Harry and Draco, Hermione following him with Neville.
"I actually agree with Ron and Draco, it's...odd, not seeing you hold a bunny, Harry" Hermione said, leaning back onto the table next to Ron.
"Even if it is odd, should Harry really get another bunny? I mean...won't Bunnymort...you know?" Neville offered quietly as the professor came in.
"Great. You know, next time I see Bunnymort, remind me to hurt him for making me the guy that always has to have a bunny." Harry said bringing a hand through his hair "look, if you wanna risk getting me a bunny, when we aware dark lords are surprisingly possessive people, by all rights go for it. I'd love to have more pets. But seriously. On your heads be it!"
"Don't blame him, the image suits you! You're...sorta short, small, lithe, you have huge freaking eyes and your hair is just messy enough to be a 'I just rolled out of bed and I'm still really sleepy' kinda look and...when you hold a bunny it's just so cute, I just want to cuddle you and wrap you in blankets and never let you go!" Hermione said with a laugh as Harry groaned.
"I don't know where this conversation started but having a Bunny with you does suit your image Potter, a kitten might work just as well." Daphne offered as she took her seat behind them, the others followed suit, taking their seats as the professor moved to the front of the class.
Harry let out a louder groan.
Harry sighed later that night, leaning back on his bed and pulling out both of his two way mirrors. He'd gotten a letter from Sirius at lunch saying he was finally approved to contact him and asked that he use the mirror that night so they could talk.
Harry should have known Sirius wouldn't have been stupid enough to believe the rat had just wandered into the ministry of his own free will.
Setting both sitting up on a pillow in front of him, he activated both -Tom's followed by Sirius'- holding a finger to his lips to signify Tom being quiet moments before Sirius' mirror lit up showing said man.
"Hey Sirius" Harry greeting, smiling as he noticed the man was looking a lot better than he had at the end of third year.
"Hey pup" Sirius said in return before looking at Harry seriously "as much as I would like to just joke around with you and look forward to seeing you when I'm free. Harry I need to know. How?"
Giving a glance to Tom's mirror, Harry rose a brow in question to the man who seemed to be writing something. Moments later he lifted the parchment.
Your godfather is important to you, if you feel it's safe to tell him do so.
Harry frowned and turned to Sirius "how much do you trust Dumbledore? Are you still on the 'I send a letter, you send it to Dumbledore, You reply' kinda trust or...?" Harry asked, unconsciously hunching his shoulders.
"Harry... you haven't have you...?" Sirius' eyes were wide, mind jumping to possible reasons as to why Harry would ask such a thing.
"I haven't joined the Dark side. I'm trying to be neutral honestly." Harry ignored Tom's raised brow. He wasn't on the dark side. Even if he was friends with the dark side.
"Then why...?"
"Please Sirius, if I tell you something, will you tell Dumbledore?"
"Of course we won't Harry, we trust you" Harry blinked in surprise at Remus' face as he entered the Mirror's view.
Harry paused, remembering Luna's words weeks ago, she'd counted Remus as a member of white owl. Which meant he was trustworthy...right? "Like I said, I didn't join the Dark. but... I am, we are... My friends and I are friends to the dark. We won't attack them outside of self defense. Voldemort sent Wormtail to the ministry for me. Because he knows you're important to me."
"And because you need a legal way out of the Dursley's." Tom said, leaning back fully, happy to talk now that the two know he's on at least talking status with the teen. The two adults in the other mirror jumped at the voice "I have a plan to get rid of them permanently but we'll need someone for you to go to once they're out of the picture." Harry sighed, and rearranged the mirrors to semi face each other, allowing everyone to see one another.
"No killing my relatives, regardless of their treatment of me, they're family." Harry said, focusing on Sirius and Remus "honestly guys he's not...much, like he was in the last war, I hear he does still have relapses, but they're few and far inbetween. He's trying to focus on separating Magic and Muggle more than getting rid of the muggleborns. It helped that, faced with Crabe and Goyle you can't really deny what inbreeding does, and personally I agree with him, us being so close to the muggles is dangerous. They could wipe out one of our settlements with the push of a few buttons. And we all know how badly people react to different things. Point in case, Purebloods to Muggleborns, we don't like things that are different, all it would take is one scared person in power and we'd be at war with people we can barely hide from, let alone defend against. Most purebloods still think muggles use horse drawn carriages. Which haven't been the norm in 150 years. Give or take."
"I don't understand why you're so set on them living but, I plan on at least putting that whale of a man in jail, raising a hand to any child, magic or no, is despicable. There was a reason I tried to kill the children if I killed both parents... god damn wizards wouldn't know common sense if it was shaped as a tuna and slapped in their face..." Harry's lip quirked in amusement, fully aware Tom had only let himself rant and mutter like that for Sirius' and Remus' benefit. Meanwhile both of Harry's would be guardians looked at the dark lord in shock, then to Harry.
"Anyway, Padfoot, Moony, I promise you I am not turning into another dark lord, I am simply stepping out of the war as much as I'm able..."
"Which is pretty much not at all, if you're trying to influence my goals is anything to go by" Tom smirked, leaning back in his chair and focusing on the picture of Harry in his mirror.
"Shut it you, or I'm ignoring you for two weeks" Harry threatened, mildly worried Tom was about to totally lose any points he'd recently gained from his would be guardians.
Tom gasped in mock horror "Oh no, the horror, whatever shall I do without your company?" Tom said bringing a hand over his heart as if stabbed.
Harry in turn rolled his eyes, watching Tom with a small smile "Actually get a move on with getting those bills finished?" Harry said, smiling at bit wider as Tom laughed.
"Harry it's your fault they're taking so long, if you'd stop coming out with suggestions and edits..." Tom said, grinning. Harry knew Tom actually valued his suggestions, the 'lights' opinion on getting a 'dark' bill through Dumbledore never hurt.
"And leave you without my guidance to a human conscious? Tom, the world would burn" Harry joked, totally focused on Tom and not noticing Sirius' and Remus' eyes flicking back between the two males as if watching a rather terrifying tennis match.
"Not all of it..." Tom muttered, half serious, grin falling from his face -the man refused to say just how much he regretted what he did in the last war but Harry had a rough idea that it tore the man up inside every time he thought about it-
" Most of the world would burn" Harry amended, offering a small smile to Tom, who returned it after a moment.
"Except the areas you and your friends are standing" He didn't even need the vow backing that up, he'd go to the afterlife and back before he hurt Harry or his friends -therefore hurting Harry-. Not that he'd allow anyone to know that.
"Harry." Harry's reply froze in his throat, eyes flicking to Sirius' picture in surprise "Harry- you-...he killed James and Lily, Harry. Don't you remember that?"
Harry lowered his eyes "of course I remember that, Sirius. Ever since the dementors, I can't forget that night, but... he's not that same man that killed mum and dad and... mum and dad forgive him, I figured I could too."
"Harry, your par-"
"No, I'm telling the truth, mum and dad forgave him, Arilisa, my demonic ancestor, I'm sure you've read about her, she's quarter celestial, so she can cross to the afterlife with next to no issue. For my birthday she brought me back two letters from mum and dad. I'll show you when I see you but, really Sirius, Remus. They forgive him, they support me, they, they hate Dumbledore for putting me with the Dursley's. For putting so much faith into a prophecy. Please, Padfoot, Moony, trust me on this, I don't hate Dumbledore, not fully, I don't trust him either. But I have faith that Tom has the right idea for this world, he just...went about it the wrong way the first time, that's why I'm helping him. To make sure he sticks to the right path, keeps things in line without...you know, killing all of London in a temper tantrum."
"I do not temper tantrum"
"Tell me again what happened with the basilisk?" Tom didn't reply, allowing time for Harry to observe Sirius and Remus.
The werewolf looked thoughtful, looking between Harry and Tom while Sirius looked betrayed.
"We will talk later Harry" Harry winced at Sirius' dead tone, while Remus looked at the man in surprised before quickly grabbing the mirror.
"We will talk later cub" Remus said quickly, softly, kindly "I'll talk with Sirius, I trust you okay? If you think this is a good idea, I'll trust you. But we will be talking. And I'll want to talk with the dark lord as well. But for now I'll trust you, talk with Sirius. And make sure this stays away from Dumbledore. Okay?"
"Okay Moony, thank you."
"You're welcome cub. Deactivate" Harry sighed, flopping backwards onto the pillow and holding up the mirror containing Tom's face.
"He hates me now. Sirius. He thinks I've gone dark. He hates dark, he hates Slytherin. He hates me."
"He doesn't. Shocked yes. Scared yes, but he won't hate you, Harry. It's impossible to hate you if they know you. And your wolf will talk to him. It will be fine" Tom said in return.
"I don't want to lose him Tom. he's my godfather and while I don't know him much... he offered once. To take me away from the Dursley's. He offered me a family. I want a family Tom."
"I know you do Harry. And you have one, will have one. Sirius or not... you have me, your friends. Arilisa. So don't fret okay? It'll be okay" Tom said, longing of his own, in his eyes.
"...night Tom."
"Goodnight Harry, sleep well."
"You too."
:AUTHOR'S NOTES:
OKAY! So, I KNOW that ending is kinda weak but...gods I'm SO over that chapter. It took me...what... 16 days to write that conversation between Tom-Harry-Sirius-Remus. GODS kill me now! I had everything before that done when I last posted but good Godric that conversation took forever to write. I almost regret putting it in but NO, must remember that Sirius exists... blah, I love the guy but I hate writing him, I don't know how to write him. Cause half the time his freaking DEAD or INSANE or just NOT AROUND. Fudge you Sirius. Fudge you. Stupid character...not, I love Sirius, but...bleh, it's a love-hate relationship I have with his character.
Now.
Okay, so, I told myself, promised myself. Threatened myself, NOT to start another story while working on Darker Souls but... I am weak. So, new story called 'A Life With Magic' stands side by side with Darker Souls. As in Arilisa is here and she just got out of the Darker Souls story. You do NOT have to read Darker Souls to understand this story. I repeat DO NOT have to read Darker Souls. But, since you're reading the Author's note on this story you like ARE... sorry, I copy and pasted most of this, just adding in edits and stuff but leaving the bulk that I typed over in the first chapter of ALWM's Author notes...though...*deletes a section of words*
ALWM will, technically, be the 'second' story in this series, WHOO. Look at me trying to write two stories at once... *cries*
There will be three set common things between this series (because it will be, in a way. Arilisa is going to ALL the universe's. Avengers crossover? One day. Assassins Creed? One day. Anything at all? Give me a fandom, I'll look up the fandom and smash 'em together. Love-potion AU? Sure. Time-Travel? I can safely say there will likely be a LOT of time-travel face-planting. I'm sorry, I am weak and I LOVE Time-Travel AU's...the only one I probably WON'T do is to the founders, since, I would have to included two Arilisa's and that's a NO NO. sorry. No founders for you. Unless I do it for before they have kids... MAYBE founders for you!) anyway, the three common factors.
ONE; Voldemort/Tom/Marvolo will ALWAYS be Bunnymort.
TWO; Arilisa will ALWAYS appear at least once. Even if it's at the beginning to explain things, set down some ground rules then bugger off to go do something else. (likely to happen in the time-travel-face-plants)
THREE; *insert version of Harry's name* will ALWAYS have some form of animal farm, be it bunnies, magical creatures, muggle creatures, both muggle and magical or all of the previous. Harry will ALWAYS get animals... and will NEVER be an Auror. Unless we go and visit a AU that Arilisa hasn't poke her fingers into and take it from when he's 20 or something. Cause then, then he gets to be an Auror. (but not for long...or not)
ALSO, I will never write; Ginny-Harry, Ron-Harry. GODRIC FORBID DUMBLEDORE AND HARRY WHY THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN EXIST NO OFFENCE BUT WHAT THE FUCK, probably not Severus-Harry or Harry in a romance with more than one person (sorry twins 2 you can have Draco!..sometimes...). Harry and Arilisa, nor Harry-Sirius, Harry-Remus, Harry-any-of-the-older-order-members-really... Harry and Arilisa will NEVER approach romantic foot holds...gods no. Those are really the ships I don't like so... yea.
But do know Harry will not always end up with Tom, probably will often but not always. I'm in love with Harry-Luna. So that might pop up often :)
Note to anyone that's actually read this far, remember to vote for that end option you want FIRST, I forget to add, all three options will star in my stories, it's just a question of which happens FIRST. (as of right now both Moon and Atlantis is winning :3 which is cool, since I'm itching to write that one, but I'm just as happy to focus on one or the other~)
Also a shout of to HueHueFanfiction and Rahianna if you see this :3 for being two awesome people, HueHue, your writing gives me strength, Rahianna you're just all round cool :P
Authors Note
Chapter Summary
just a Authors note. sorry.
I am very sorry for the delay in updating both Darker Souls and A Life With Magic.
as the notice before said they WERE on hold for the Tomarry big bang which i was working on for the past few months.
what is the Tomarrybigbang some of you may ask?
the Big Bang is a yearly event where authors all post stories on one day (that posting day is fast approaching by the way!) with Art paired with them (YAY!).
i was, absolutely, going to participate, i was very excited in fact! little too excited... i now have 17 started stories to post... *groans* worst. months. ever.!
but i'll get to those later! this authors note is to update you all on everything! because you deserve that, and i value every one of my readers, seriously, you are my life line, without you i just stop functioning... which is probably why i haven't gotten much done these past months except a good 60,000 words on various different stories... anyway!
so, i was going to do the bigbang, like i said, BUT... i dropped out, because i got kicked out of school and that was a real hard kick to the gut...
why did i get kicked out of school? cause im a sucky student... i was doing distance education due to my health (WHOLE other story...) but as my health got worse the past two years (go figure right? find something i CAN do then i get worse?!) i failed to hand in more and more work until i got kicked out...
so now im a fresh adult!... ish, i gotta learn to adult realllllllly fast. i have a bank account now! and photo ID xD never had those. so thats new, but centerlink (groan) is a pain... i dont really understand anything they do? how does adult stuff work? anyway.
so, without the BigBang i decided to start writing these again... and reading over them... well, shit. i decided to re-write because these chapters are SHIT. which is what i get for writing at like, 3 am. but stilllllll. redoing it all.
you wont have to reread the chapters! (by all rights, you can if you wanna). everything is staying the same im just adding more actions and less talking, filling in the gaps and all that. did you guys noticed those times i TOTALLY skipped bits? like, gods, i swear i adding things but looking back theres just... nothing?
anyway, im doing that for Darker Souls, not so sure on ALWM but i probably will on that one too. since its probably just as bad...
NOW FOR THE FUN STUFF!
i have plans for once DS and ALWM are over! which, YAY, means they do have to be completed, no leaving stories for ever!
so, as you know(?) Arilisa is going around and helping the various Harry Potters of the universe's. fun! so all those bigbang entries i started? are joining the universe!
first coming, after A life with magic is... WINGING IT! in this story Harry Potter, after 5th year, says fuck it and leaves, taking a page out of peters book he changes into his Animigus form and fly's away... only to end up in Malfoy Manor where he and Harry grow close. pairing is, obviously, Harry/Voldemort. i think this ones kinda a crack fic? i dont know. funny story, i accidentally shared the wrong story when trying to explain this one!
next on the list once that's done is... THE DOCTOR IS IN! in this story Harry potter becomes a MoD. becomes The Doctor (Doctor Who, ends with Peters Doctor, since i can't see the future) and is then REBORN as Harry Potter- AGAIN! this time with Atria Black (Missy) by his side... pairing is up in the air but i feel like its gonna be Harry/Voldemort or Harry/Luna. i don't really wanna go with Luna since compared to him she's like... really, really, young. at least Voldemort's a old man...
whoo, adding this in cause i forgot it! this one doesn't have a title yet its just filed as 'Tom time Jump'. basically Harry goes back in time for a year then gets pulled back, Tom, possessive prick, follows Harry back, sounds fun? it probably will be, but you gotta wait for ittttttt xD
after that is... this one doesn't have a title yet but the file is titles AssassinsAU. Com ... i might keep that actually, anyway in this one Iris Potter was left in London, four years old. Adopted by the Assassins she is renamed Amunet Frye. later meeting Arilisa she is raised by the Assassins, learning their ways as well as being trained by either Arilisa or a trusted demon for magic she becomes the best of the London Assassins. eventually she crosses paths with Voldemort (DUH) and things happen. i dont have a lot on this one... Pairing Harry/Voldemort or Harry/Luna, dont know yet.
after THAT is... A Siren's Song... WHO WANTS A SIREN AU?! *looks to the Tomarry/Harrymort discord* they do... in this Tom is a Siren and Harry a Merman. shit happens and that's all i got so far!
i... feel like i missed one... oh i did, sec i just gotta add this above AssassinsAU. Com ... okay back on track. Siren's is number 7 so... 8... is...
THE SLYTHERIN APPROACH! this was a prompt from the Tomarry/Harrymort discord where Voldemort turns himself into a student and goes to Hogwarts during Harry's fifth year, planning to kill Harry he instead gets caught up in the DA (probably trying to get weakness' for future enemies to be fair) and ends up caught off guard by Harry who doesn't really want to fight and would much rather settle things without blood shed. at least i think that's what the prompt was, i dont remember... and its lost to the void so im just gonna go with itttttt.
after that is... you know what no, that's all you get for now! just know there's 6 other stories floating around to fit after those ones so, you can make do with what you've been given for now, my hands hurt and i feel like my shoulders about to fall off. so, there.
hope you like whats to come! And sorry for how long it'll probably take me to go through all 13 of the current darker souls chapters... i'll get there soon, promise :)
Afterword
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