Chapter 4

A/N: Thank you to Jan (Guest), gindensmi, and Gurgaraneth for reviewing! I am glad you like the story; it makes me want to continue writing without stopping today.

As promised, I managed to finish another chapter today, so here it is…Enjoy!

Warning: There might be some bad language here and there.

…Next Day…

Harry grimaced as he paced in his office. Six o'clock was coming up fast and he was again starting to doubt his ability to handle the man. A knock startled him from his thoughts, and he frowned as he looked at his watch. There were still twenty minutes to go, was the man early for some reason?

He opened the door, saw a flash of brown hair and brown eyes and a spell missed him by inches before he flattened himself against the wall next to the door. Now, this is why I keep up with my bloody training! But before he could react to the attack, there was a dull thud and then the sound of someone activating a portkey. A slightly worried face peeked through the door and Harry was surprised to note that it was none other than Lucius Malfoy, whom he had met on several occasions, as Hadrian mind you, while visiting Draco.

Lucius, as he had asked him to call him, looked relieved when he saw that he wasn't hurt, although Harry didn't know whether it was because of genuine concern or simply because the Dark Lord would have their hides if something happened to him while they were supposed to be guarding him. He was kind of betting on the latter.

"Sorry Hadrian, I happened to be passing by and thought that I would come to greet you. Glad I did though. I already sent him away to the Aurors. Draco will take care of him." Harry nodded and thanked him before stepping back as if to invite the man in even though he knew that the Dark Lord was on his way and that Lucius probably knew this as well. He seriously doubted the portkeyed guy was on his way to Draco though.

The aristocrat had his usual pureblood mask in place, but Harry could see that the man was thinking of a way to make himself scarce before Lord Slytherin found him here. He also knew that the Dark Lord probably would not be happy that someone had managed to fire a spell at him because it went against the instructions he had set for them.

Harry looked at his watch as if checking the time and widened his eyes as if he had just realized something before looking back at Lucius. "I'm sorry, it seems I forgot that I had another client in a few minutes. Do you want to meet after work?"

Lucius quickly declined and Harry could see the relief in his eyes even as he excused himself with the excuse that he also had somewhere he urgently needed to be. Harry let the man go without a fight even as his nerves grew with each passing minute. He wished there was a book on How to deal with Dark Lords in any situation, but he doubted that anyone would be stupid enough to publish such a book.

Finally, there was a knock on the door and Harry wondered how he would be able to act surprised at the swop, but then he steeled himself. Dancing around would only try the Dark Lord's patience, so he needed to act swift enough to get it done quickly and in such a way that the Dark Lord would then leave him alone once everything is settled again. And for that, he needed the Dark Lord to know that he had been onto him from the beginning.

…Marvolo's POV…

The Dark Lord didn't know what to expect as the door finally opened for him and he was allowed into the office. Sure, he had imagined that the man would be shocked at seeing him again and then he would probably be angry at him for lying through Severus, but what he didn't expect was Hadrian Ignotus Peverell standing in the middle of the room with crossed arms and looking at him as if he knew exactly what had caused the swop.

Hadrian silently invited him in before closing the door and for a moment Marvolo's perfectly crafted speech about how he only wanted to talk to him and that he hadn't meant any offense, danced upon his tongue before he swallowed it. It would have been a hollow apology anyways since he was used to doing and getting what he wanted without a fight. Whether Hadrian intrigued him or not, he wasn't about to lower his pride just to be able to talk to the man. His own voice mocked him at the thought with a loud yeah right, but he ignored it.

In fact, if it wasn't for the hollow feeling disappearing around Hadrian and the fact that there was such a big mystery hanging around the man, he was sure that he would have finished summoning Harry Potter's soul by now. He had already completed all the preparations and only needed an alchemical formula that would form a perfect human body. Too bad the Philosopher's stone had been destroyed. And yet there was something about the whole situation that still stopped him from performing the ritual.

…Harry's POV…

Marvolo glanced around the room and the mind-healer took the opportunity to examine the man once again. He was obviously older than the 16-year-old boy he had seen in the chamber of secrets, and almost none of the snake-like features had stayed once he had reabsorbed his Horcruxes, but the man still couldn't completely hide the red of his eyes and they looked slightly slitted as well. Though most people would never even notice it unless they had seen the man while he was insane, and he knew it was because the last Horcrux was still inside him.

Hadrian abruptly averted his eyes when he noticed that the man had caught his gaze and he missed the slight smirk that crossed the Dark Lord's lips as he motioned for the man to sit down. Marvolo barely allowed him to get comfortable before he attacked, verbally of course. "I can't help but note that you didn't seem surprised to see me. Is there something that gave me away?"

Hadrian just wanted to shrug the question off, but he figured that the Dark Lord would then simply shift targets and interrogate Severus later. "Even though I am friends with Severus, I know for a fact that he would never give in and see a mind-healer of his own accord. That left me with two possibilities, you either forced him to see a mind-healer or you wanted to come instead, given what happened last time. And I know that if hell froze over and he finally decided to see a mind-healer, it wouldn't be someone he knows."

The Dark Lord gave a slight nod as if he had accepted his explanation before something caught his gaze and he stood up to inspect it. Harry was left in confusion before he cursed underneath his breath as he noticed that the Dark Lord was looking at a still smoking scorch mark that had been left behind by the previous attack.

As Marvolo turned towards him with a questioning gaze, Hadrian fought to keep a straight face and he even managed to raise a single eyebrow as Severus often did with him. He wasn't supposed to know that the Dark Lord had his Death Eaters on protection duty and so he wasn't going to jump into explanations as if he was trying to save someone's hide.

About ten seconds passed before the Dark Lord let out an irritated huff. It almost made Hadrian smirk because he knew the man was used to getting his way, but Marvolo's face tightened, and he reminded himself that this was still THE Dark Lord that stood in front of him no matter how human he now looked. He felt his own body tense as the man looked him up and down as if he were looking for an injury before returning his gaze to Hadrian's face.

"Did someone try to attack you?" Hadrian was surprised when Marvolo's question sounded like he was merely asking about the weather, but the burning in his scar told him that the man was extremely angry, and he found himself fighting for words because of it. He settled for a slightly modified version of what he had told Severus even as he fought to keep the pain from showing.

"It happens in my line of work, there are always people who aren't happy when they discover things about themselves or when they try to get over something, or when their families or spouses find out that they had talked to someone. The past two weeks have been extremely quiet though, so I have been expecting something to happen. It keeps me on my toes."

…Marvolo's POV…

It keeps him on his toes. Marvolo found himself at a loss for words at the candid reply. The worst of it all was that the man actually seemed to believe it too. He glanced back at the scorch mark on the wall. Even an idiot would be able to feel the darkness within the spell and yet Hadrian was acting as if someone had tried to play a prank on him instead.

He was really going to have to deal with his Death Eaters later, but for now, he had to squash the urge to lock the man up in one of his manors. Not only would that not solve anything regarding the man's view of him, but he was also quite sure that the other countries would not sit still at the news. Given the fact that Peverell had become quite an asset to many countries.

He had already established, given the passage of time, that Hadrian was not the reincarnation of Harry Potter and yet the man drove him to the extremes just as the teen once did. His subordinates had already freaked out about the fact that the man had not only forcefully apparated him out of his offices without paying any mind to his status within the wizarding world, but also that he laid hands on him by grabbing his shirt before doing so. Though most of them had seemed more relieved than worried at his sudden interest in something other than books.

Of course, the rat that had revealed the story was already lying dead in his dungeons and his subordinates had managed to stop the story from spreading. Surprisingly enough it hadn't been Pettigrew, but rather a distant cousin of his that had fancied himself to be a spy for the 'light side' that didn't exist anymore. It was quite ironic how two-faced the family turned out to be.

Usually, his Death Eaters would be calling for blood at Hadrian's disrespect towards their Lord, but most of them had met Hadrian before and they knew the man's disposition. Marvolo himself hadn't felt angered at all, merely amused. There were simply just too many coincidences regarding the man and yet the variables kept making themselves known as well.

The fact that Hadrian's name was similar to Harry's and that he carried the Peverell name and was around the same age Harry would have been, had Marvolo instantly looking into the connections between the two, and yet they had grown up worlds apart.

Sure, it would have been all too easy to fake such a backstory with magic, but Hadrian did not wear any glamours and blood adoptions simply did not change the features of a person once they came of age. Another problem was that Harry was listed as 'dead' on the Peverell family tree and yet Hadrian had been marked as 'alive', along with an indication that he is also a direct descendant of the Embrys line.

Unfortunately, the Peverell family had the odd quirk of only allowing the chosen heirs to appear on the tree and so it was impossible to see who Hadrian's parents were and whether they truly existed. Something that frustrated the Dark Lord to no end.

He was almost at the point of forcing the other man to do an inheritance ritual so that he could set his mind at peace, but that would only open a whole new can of worms, so for now he had to focus on getting the man to join his side.

An idea suddenly came to him as he remembered the nameless allies that had created so much chaos among the light side during the war. Severus had informed him of the spell that would reveal the mark that had been hidden on their bodies and Marvolo decided that it was worth a try as he turned and both wandlessly and wordlessly cast a diagnostic spell before layering the other spell's signature underneath it.

The result had him almost gasping for breath in shock as the spells made contact with Hadrian's body, but it wasn't because the spells revealed nothing, but rather because Hadrian had registered his spells as an attack and the man would have blasted Marvolo off of his feet and into the wall if the Dark Lord's magic hadn't immediately erected a shield around him. As it was, he still felt himself being pushed back by two meters and the wild, dark magic that hung in the air almost had his own purring like an overgrown housecat.

A/N: Well…that meeting turned out very different from what I had first intended…Hope you liked it! I'm on a roll so I ain't going to stop here…