"Isn't he just the cutest?"

Harry Potter looked upon the infant Tom Riddle with a slight hint of apprehension. Memories of what the boy would grow up to be were still fresh in Harry's mind. The amount of death and destruction that had been wrought onto the world because of one man's desire for power. For immortality. As much as he tried, Harry couldn't fully separate Lord Voldemort from the infant Tom Riddle, not even when he stood at the foot of the latter's crib.

Though, his traveling companion seemed to have no problem with making the distinction, bully for her.

"Harry? Isn't he perfect?"

"Oh, we've graduated from cute to perfection now?" Harry looked away from the infant and took in the exuberant expression of the woman beside him. "Well, for a future dark lord in an infant body, I guess he's okay."

"Harry! Don't say things like that. You're going to upset little Tom." Death scolded him whilst taking the infant out of the crib. She nestled him into the crook of her elbow with the ease of someone who had done the action a hundred times over. Harry didn't know how to feel about that, or anything about their current situation. "He's nothing but a cute little baby, aren't you?"

Infant Tom Riddle cooed softly as he was awoken from his slumber.

The sight was both cute and revolting.

"I'll go find Mrs. Cole," Harry said when it became clear that Death wouldn't part with the infant. The absurdity of the situation was as blatant as it was damning. Being thrown back to 1927, with no way to return, and with only the clothes on their backs as well as the emergency go-bag he was able to snatch before it all went sideways. Stuck in the past with limited funds, nowhere to go or stay, and a global wizarding war to deal with. Just what he wanted to coincide with raising an infant.

He left the nursery and made his way down the hallway. Wool's Orphanage was not as depressing as Tom Riddle's memories made it out to be. The other orphans were generally happy with the place. None of them were ever going to bed hungry. The older ones had their own rooms and everything. Certainly better than growing up in a cupboard, Harry thought to himself, not caring for how it sounded after the fact.

The path to Mrs. Cole's office led him through the day room. It was early morning for London, the sight of cars from the Roaring Twenties still slightly jarring to take in, as was the reaction of the other orphans. They were more or less respectfully silent when he entered the room. Harry knew it had more to do with the fact that he looked like a well-to-do Muggle, the three-piece suit being the only thing in the go-bag that fit the era, and that his beard made him look even more eccentric.

Was this what Dumbledore felt when he wore those atrocious looking robes?

Harry gave those few orphans who were milling about the day room a curt nod before making his way. Most of the orphans were boys, but there were some girls scattered about as well. A few of them whispered when to each other as he made his way towards Mrs. Cole's office. "Did you see how the lady was with the baby?" One of the girls whispered, while one of the boys frowned and muttered, "Its always the babies who get adopted. Never one of us older kids." That twisted Harry's heart when he heard it, but there was nothing he could truly do for them, not when he had an infant Tom Riddle to care for.

He knocked on the wooden door, heard the muffled reply for him to enter, stepped into the small office, and shut the door behind him with a soft click. Mrs. Cole was a young woman, not yet thirty by Harry's estimation, though she looked… tired. She tried to hide it when he took a seat across from her. Harry offered her a kind smile and made a promise to himself that once he had set up a life here, he would send some funds her way. Ease her burden.

"Have you come to a decision, Mr. Potter?" She looked hopeful that he had. There were only three people on staff to care for thirty odd orphans, some of whom were still in diapers. Any child that was placed in a loving home probably meant the world to her.

"My… wife is rather taken with the child, yes." Harry knew that they would have to hammer out the details eventually. But for the Muggle world where a magical could have documents forged on a whim, or where memories could be altered, it didn't really matter. Moral relativity was a wizard's best friend. "She was so very sad when she learned that she was barren."

That entire statement wasn't even a complete lie.

"An unfortunate set of circumstances." Mrs. Cole agreed.

"Right, but she has expressed her desire to raise young Tom as her own. As her husband," Harry couldn't help the grimace that crossed his face, "I can't help but agree with her. She is the love of my life, and I would do anything for her. Even adopting an orphan."

He might have played the part of a loving and doting husband a little too well if the tears pricking at the corner of Mrs. Cole's eyes were anything to go by. But it worked out in his favor in the end. In no time at all, along with some expertly placed magically forged documents, and Harry found himself a father. The benefits of magic and 1920s era Muggle governmental documents. It made certain aspects of life a hell of a lot easier.

Making their way back to the nursery, Harry followed behind Mrs. Cole and listened to all the whispers of the other orphans. Some were bitter. Others didn't seem to care. A few were wistful in a way that a child shouldn't have been. An almost haunted sadness about them.

They found Death with the infant still in her arms. She was calmly rocking him back and forth. There was a small smile to her lips, and it grew when she looked up at them. "He's perfect," she said, "just look how peaceful he is, hasn't even cried once."

"I'm sure he is." Harry said and offered her a tightlipped smile.

"There are some small things to ready for you all," Mrs. Cole offered Tom a sad smile, "little things for the baby, and then you'll be all set."

"All the help you have to offer is appreciated." Harry said. "We're stepping into a new world after all.

The double meaning wasn't lost on him.

Diagon Alley didn't look any different.

Harry took it all in as they made their way down the road towards Gringotts. Some of the shops were different, others recognizable in an instant, but more or less unchanged from when he had last walked the uneven cobblestones. Time moved slower in the magical world than it did for the Muggle one. Being thrown back to the 1920s wasn't half as jarring now that they were here than on the other side.

Diana, the name that Death had chosen for herself, walked beside him dressed in the era appropriate witch's robes and their new infant son in her arms. It had been agreed in the intervening time it took to walk to the Leaky Cauldron that if they were going to sell the lie and live in the 1920s, they would need to go all in. Harry hadn't been sure if he was ready to start his life all over again, but on that front, Diana had proved a godsend.

Perks of being the literal personification of death. She was basically magic made flesh. Which meant she had an unfair advantage when it came to magic and Harry wasn't at all ashamed of using it to the fullest.

Which was why a part of himself dreaded what was to come.

"Its going to be fine." Diana said as they walked up the steps of Gringotts. The goblin guards not paying them more than a glance. "So please stop looking like you're going to upend your stomach at any moment."

"I'm a Gryffindor that's about to take the Slytherin Lordship." Harry muttered out the side of his mouth. "This is basically going against every bone in my body."

"School houses and family names aren't the same thing." Diana snorted and Tom let out something that sounded like a burp. He received some light pats on the back which made him smile. "Besides, once you take up the name and lordship you can make it into whatever you want it to be. You could change the family colors to purple and gold if you wanted to."

Harry opened the doors for her and stepped in after her. The inside of Gringotts looked exactly as it had when he had first stepped into the place with Hagrid all those years ago. Never mind that they were in the year 1927. Everything looked more or less the same. It was odd. He had expected some differences.

They walked up to one of the counters that stretched along the length of the marble hall. The goblin behind it looked as wrinkled and old as the rest of them. Harry held back his grimace. The last time he had visited Gringotts he had received cold shoulders and looks, the goblins still angry at the fact that he had broken in and wrecked the place on his escape. No matter that he had won the war in the end and restored democracy, they still hated him, but thankfully none of that had happened here.

"Purpose of visit?" The goblin asked.

"I'd like a take an inheritance test." Harry said, crossing that irreversible boundary of their insane plan. Tom gurgled slightly beside him, and Harry pressed forth. "So that I may assume my rightful place as the Lord Slytherin."

He hated how pretentious that made him sound, but it would all serve its purposes. Claiming the Slytherin name would guarantee them a foothold in the world they had found themselves in, provide an explanation as to why Tom was a Parselmouth, and was quite possibly the best family name to have in order to start making changes to the backwards world that was Magical Britain. It was truly a balls to the walls plan that had been hatched from five minutes of talking. Diana said it sounded like a great plan. Harry chalked it up to his Gryffindor side.

Hopefully it all worked out.

"Slice your finger with this," the goblin sounded bored as he produced a silver dagger and a sheet of Gringotts parchment, handing both to Harry. "Let three drops fall onto the parchment, then we'll see if you're really a lord or just some upjumped wannabe."

"That's a little rude." Diana muttered to herself as Harry did as instructed.

"Ha!" The goblin smirked down at them. "With some of idiots that have come through here claiming to be lord of this and that ancient and extinct family, you'll have to forgive me when I have my doubts about…"

Harry couldn't help the smirk that came to his lips as the goblin's words faded to nothing. He had sliced open his finger with the silver dagger, applied three drops of blood to the parchment, and then watched as the family tree bloomed into life as his cut finger magically healed. Using his blood, the family tree he didn't recognize appeared across the parchment, names and dates forming that meant nothing to him. Everything on it didn't make any sense to him, but Diana had said her magic would do its work, and clearly that unfair advantage was working as foretold.

Right in front of them all, was a clear line showing that Harry – without a surname showing oddly enough – was a direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin, one who had a better claim to the title than even the Gaunts, the last surviving cadet branch. There was also a line connecting him to Diana, and between the both of them, was a line linking them to Tom.

The implications of that were unsettling.

It appeared he was now the biological father of Voldemort.

Fuck, I guess that's the price of using an unfair advantage, and I'll probably have to get used to the kid calling me dad soon enough.

"Well, isn't that surprising." The goblin looked more shocked than he sounded. He took back the offered parchment and looked it over once more before putting it aside. He rung a little bell on his desk. "You are a direct line descendant of Salazar Slytherin. That doesn't make it a guarantee that the position of Lord Slytherin is yours, however. Only the Lordship Ring can decide if that's true or not. But I have a feeling that it won't put up too much of a fuss."

Indeed, it did not. The little bell had summoned the goblin teller's immediate superior, who had in turn called for his superior. That then led them to the Slytherin Account Manager's office, which was apparently not enough. It took a total of five levels of bureaucracy, and five more goblins, until someone high enough in the Gringotts hierarchy came around who actually had the authority to get out the Slytherin Lordship Ring from the vaults. Harry wasn't even surprised when the ring was produced on its very own little green and silver satin pillow embroidered with an S in the middle. No doubt the last Lord Slytherin had written down special instructions for how it was to be present to the next potential lord.

I'm about to become a part of this messed up family. Merlin help us all. Especially me.

"Just slip the ring onto your finger, any will do," the oldest of the assembled goblins said, "and if it resizes to fit your finger that means it has accepted you as the Lord Slytherin."

"And if I fall over dead then it means it doesn't." Harry added blandly as he held the ring in his slightly shaking hand.

"No, you'd actually burst into flames, and your bones would be crushed into a fine powder that would then be stored in the vault for the true Lord Slytherin's uses."

"But that's not going to happen." Diana looked sternly at them all with a sleeping Tom in her arms. Her black hair hung loose around her shoulders and along with those piercing blue eyes, she posed a rightly intimidating image. Not even the infant in her arms took away from it. Quite beautiful in fact. "The Lordship Ring is going to resize itself to your finger and then I'll get my own Consort Ring and little Tom here will get his Heir Ring when he starts Hogwarts."

"Of course." The goblins said as one.

Then everyone turned expectantly to Harry.

Talk about pressure. Harry chuckled nervously as he slid the ring onto his pointer finger. They all watched as the ring resized itself with surprisingly little fanfare. There were no flashes or confetti thrown around. None of his clothes suddenly turned green. Nothing. Kind of disappointing in fact.

"Well," Harry admired the ring for a moment. The green and silver S in the middle was prominent and elegant but otherwise unadorned. "There you have it, I'm the Lord Slytherin."

"And we never doubted for a second!" One of the aged goblins cheered. They all seemed to have grown a lot friendlier now that Harry had the ring on and hadn't burst into flames. "Now, for the lady."

A smaller but equally elegant ring was produced with its own little pillow for Diana and Tom. Harry briefly wondered how that would work since they weren't technically married, but when she put the ring on and it resized itself, he simply assumed that she had used some more of that unfair advantage – which was completely and utterly something they would abuse in the future – to good work in making them a family. Not exactly the future he had planned out for himself, not that he had a plan to begin with, but it seemed to be turning out better than expected.

None of his new family had burst into flames and had their bones crushed yet.

"Now, before we send confirmation of this to the Ministry," one of the goblins said as he took out a piece of parchment and a quill and inkpot, "would you like to make any changes to your names now that you have assumed the Slytherin name?"

"Excuse me?" Harry was a little offended by that. What was wrong with Harry Slytherin? Wait, no he saw what was wrong with it. That was a horrible combination of letters.

"Yes, new names would be a grand idea." Diana smiled as she took a seat at the desk. She gestured for Harry to do the same. He sat with little grace and tried not to frown at the prospect of having to change his name, or the audience of goblins watching, or the fact that anything that was happening was real and not the conjuration of some sort of fever dream. "I think Tom is far too pedestrian."

"It's not that bad of a name." Harry said.

"He is your son and the future Lord Slytherin," a goblin from the audience informed them. "Would you think that Lord Tom Slytherin would be a good idea?"

"Fine, I admit it's a little…"

"How about Thomas?" Diana asked. She smiled down at the sleeping infant in her arms. "Thomas Henry Slytherin sounds a lot better."

"Henry?" Harry frowned. "You want me to change my name to Henry?"

"Well, the name Harry is a derivative of Henry, so its not too much of a leap to make. And I can still call you Harry in private. Think of it like your regnal name."

"Like the Muggle King George the Sixth." The Slytherin Account Manager added. "George is only his regnal name. His real name is Albert Frederick Arthur George of the House of Windsor."

"But I'm not…" Words failed Harry, so he simply waved his hand about. The message didn't get across, so he simply leaned back in the chair and sighed, resigning himself to fate. "Fine, I'll change my name to Henry. But I'm keeping James as my middle name. That's not changing no matter what."

"Don't worry love," Diana patted him on the arm and offered him a smile. It only partly lifted his spirits. "You'll barely even notice a thing. Henry. Harry. Same difference really."

"And what about you, Lady Slytherin?" One of the goblins asked.

"Mmm… how about, Diana Persephone Slytherin? Sounds noble enough."

"Wonderful!" The quill raced across the piece of parchment and three names were spelled out. Harry watched it all with a hint of sadness tugging at his heart. It was like watching the rest of his life being signed away. Kind of was in fact. But he was a Gryffindor at heart and Gryffindors didn't simply give up when the going got hard. "We'll send this off and receive word as soon as tomorrow morning. Though we can give you some helpful information concerning the steps that will have to be taken in the coming weeks as well as deal with some of the more minute minutia. The Slytherin Lordship has been inactive for some five hundred years you see, ever since the death of Lord Rionarcher."

Harry slowly slid down in his seat, trying to make himself smaller, fearing the next words out of the Slytherin Account Manager's mouth.

"There's a lot of paperwork we have to go through."

Somewhere between after lunch and before dinner, Harry lost the ability to read, or write for that matter.

When he had signed up to become the Lord Slytherin, a decision he was still debating the worth of, he hadn't imagined that he came with so much paperwork. For the past five hours, he had seen nothing but the inside of the Slytherin Account Manager's office, going through the motion of signing or initializing his name across so many dotted lines that he was beginning to question the efficiency of the Ministry of Magic's bureaucracy.

"I think we should take a break." Diana offered as she watched the quill slip from Harry's numb hand. The goblin simply took the miserable looking signature as it was and added it to the pile of signed documents. It was far smaller than the pile of unsigned documents. "Maybe get some fresh air as well."

"Good idea." The goblin, whose real name was such a jumble of letters that Harry decided to simply call him Rock, which the goblin didn't object to, said. "That'll give the boys down in records some time to bring up the rest.

"The rest?" Harry looked at Rock with disbelief. The pile of documents that needed attention took up half of the goblin's desk. It was a large desk. "There's more?"

"The Slytherin Estate was prodigious in size when the last lord died."

"We'll be back in half an hour, Rock." Diana said and stood from her seat. The Lady Slytherin also had to sign off on all documents and her hand wasn't at all numb. Perks of that unfair advantage that apparently couldn't be transferred to him. Changing him so that Tom was his biological son? Piece of cake. Taking away the numbness from signing his own name so many times he'd lost track? No dice.

Harry stood from his seat and stretched. His body made sounds no body belonging to a twenty-five-year-old man should make. He arsecheeks were almost as sore as his hand. Diana brought over the little stroller with the sleeping Thomas in it. The baby did a lot more sleeping than Harry had expected. He didn't even have to sign anything, lucky bastard.

The journey away from the dreadful office with its mountains of paperwork and into the open air of Diagon Alley was a short one. Harry kept them at a brisk pace in his desire to get outside and basked in the sun for a good thirty seconds when they got past the front doors of the bank. He got some odd looks but couldn't care less as he rejoined his… partner. It still felt a little odd to call Diana his wife. For all the time they had known one another she had always been more of a friend than anything else.

He probably shouldn't have kept all of Death's gifts back when he was still Harry Potter.

At least it would have made their relationship less complicated.

"I can hear you brooding from here." Diana informed him as they made their way over to a small little café. It wasn't one Harry recognized by the name on the sign. The smell of freshly brewed tea was the same. "Are you still upset about having actual responsibilities?"

"I'm not a child." Harry complained as they took their seats at one of the tables. Thomas' stroller was positioned in a way that it looked like the infant had his own chair. He could feel the magical bubble of privacy wards settle into place around the three of them. That was new. "Just thinking about our… situation."

"I know being in the past like this isn't exactly-"

"Not that situation." Harry waved it off like it was a piece of dust. "We'll definitely be talking about that in greater detail later, once all of that damn paperwork is over and we actually get settled in. What I'm talking about is our situation. You and me."

"Oh. I do love you, Harry."

"And I… see that's the problem." The teacups were brought over, and the tea tasted like he imagined it would, like freshly brewed tea. "For all the time we've spent together since the final battle I've barely gotten to know you as a person. I'm sure you're great to be around, and you clearly care a lot for Thomas here. But I don't want to lie and say that I love you as well, because I don't, not like that. You're a close friend, quite literally if we get into the details of the soul bond we share, but not the love of my life."

Diana stared down at her teacup, mulling over his words. Harry did much the same for his own, sighing, and then taking another sip of that damn delicious tea. "Do you miss the old world?"

Harry scratched at his beard. He needed a shave soon. "Yes, I do miss it. We've only been here for less than a day and I miss it. I had a life ahead of me, Diana. Friends, family, loved ones. People I'll never get to see again." He moved to take his glasses of to rub his nose, only realizing halfway through the motion that he didn't have glasses anymore, his eyes no longer needing them ever since he had them healed. "I'm sure we'll have a big fight about being forced here against our will, once we get settled into a routine and reach some breaking point. But that's later and this is now, the two of us and the baby dark lord-"

"Harry."

He grinned beside himself. "Just trying to lighten the mood a little."

"It's not funny." Diana pouted at him as she reached over and touched Thomas' little hand. He squeezed his little fist around her finger in his sleep. "He's going to be a great little wizard."

"I'm sure he is." It surprised him a little at the conviction with which he spoke. "Just like how I'm sure I'll come to love you in every way I can. You are my wife, legally, somehow-"

"My unfair advantage."

"Your unfair advantage." He nodded. "Thomas is my son, biologically. I'm sure he'll want little brothers and sisters to play with eventually." The blush that colored Diana's cheeks was rather cute. It made him grin. "And I'll enjoy the act of making Thomas' future brothers and sisters-"

"Harry!" Diana looked positively scandalized.

"I'm just saying." Harry held up his hands disarmingly. "The love's gonna come eventually and when it does, mark my words, because you're getting all of me. Every. Single. Inch."

"You are incorrigible." She scolded him, though smiling all the while rendered it a moot point. "Setting a bad example for our son. Corrupting his impressionable sensibilities."

"Tommy is gonna be the best Gryffindor Hogwarts has even seen."

"You wouldn't."

"I would."

"The purebloods would riot." Diana pointed at him with her finger, the one which she wore her Consort Ring on.

"I'd hardly call some loud complaining a riot."

"The Gaunts all might die of heart attacks when they hear about it."

"Good riddance to them." Harry then put on his best stuffy aristocrat voice. "They sully the Slytherin line with their mere existence."

"Utterly ridiculous." Diana rolled her eyes at him, though she couldn't stop smiling. Harry matched her and simply threw back the rest of his tea, tossed a Galleon onto the table, and stood.

"Come on," he offered her an army while placing a hand on the stroller, "I've regained the use of my hand. We can now go back to signing our names on stuffy old parchment until they lose blood circulation again."

"Well," Diana looped her arm in his. "Shall we call it a date?"

"I'd rather not date our account manager-"

"You know what I mean."

"Yes, it's a date."