Timeline: After HBP but Dumbledore didn't die
Summary: Voldemort has always been known for his propensity to use dark creatures in times of war. What if this time they sought to use him also, and What would that mean for Harry Potter and the Wizarding world. A comprehensive Twist on the Inheritance trope.
Categories: Slash, Harry/Voldemort, Alternative ending to Half Blood Prince.
Disclaimer: All rights and characters belong to J. and I make no profit from this story.
Special thank you to my Beta reader CeeCeeJudas for your wonderful work!
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Chapter 1 – A Bittersweet Symmetry
Harry startled at the loud rap of knuckles on his bedroom door
"Boy! We're leaving now"
Harry clambered off his boxed bed inside his small bedroom at number four Privet Drive.
"I'm coming!" He called out, to buy himself some time as he lifted the loose floorboard underneath his bed. From it, he extracted his most treasured and meagre of possessions, the picture of his parents, the Marauders Map and the broken mirror that his Godfather, Sirius Black, had given him. Harry felt a pang of grief as he looked at the latter, and more than once asked himself why he was keeping the broken mirror, but it was the last thing he possessed of the shaggy haired man and he couldn't bring himself to part with it. He still owned Grimmauld Place of course, and Kreacher, but The Order was using Grimmauld Place and Kreacher was at Hogwarts. He'd been made to return to the Dursleys this summer, until he hit Seventeen and the wards around Privet Drive were of no more use to him, Dumbledore had said.
Vernon's footsteps had receded some time ago now. Harry stuffed the items into the pockets of his overly large hand-me-down trousers, stood up and approached the door. He grasped the door handle and hesitated. He steeled himself for the awkward goodbyes that were sure to happen within the next few minutes. He could just stay in the room while they left the house. It's not like there was any great love lost there. Despite that, he twisted the handle.
Harry emerged down the carpeted stairs. Once full of the Dursley family pictures, it now had clean spots on the wallpaper where they had once hanged. Vernon Dursley hauled a large bourbon suitcase through the narrow hallway. It wobbled as he did so, the case knocking clumsily off the radiator and banisters as he hauled it out to the front door.
Aunt Petunia stood vigil at the front door watching him stiffly. Dressed in her long thin formal winter coat, woolly hat and suede brown gloves she had a sour expression watching Vernon. Normally an unusual outfit for the end of July, but then it had been a bad summer this year, full of storms and extreme weather. Currently, Surrey was experiencing a cold snap.
Aunt Petunia turned her sharp gaze on him as he came down and stopped on the last few steps. Harry felt conflicted. He knew well that this was going to be the last time he would see his Aunt. Clearly Petunia felt no such inner conflicts as she ignored him and turned to watch a pink faced Uncle Vernon heaving the wobbling load over the threshold and out to the car.
Dudley joined his mother in the hallway then. The chubby boy had changed a lot over the last summer. Not only had Dudley taken a stretch thinning out his great bulk and chubby face, but he'd also changed quite a bit on the inside. He was more introverted now and avoided Harry altogether in the days since the Dementor incident.
"Come along darling. Daddy will be waiting," Petunia gestured him forward with a sweeping arm. Dudley however, didn't budge. He looked confused for a moment staring at Harry.
After a moment and without a word, he stepped forward, causing Harry to tense. Harry thought he might say something, but he flinched as Dudley grabbed him and pulled him off the last step and into a bear hug.
Harry was flabbergasted. He flushed with embarrassment and his eyes went straight to his aunt in shock. She frowned disapprovingly. Dudley made no move to release him, so Harry patted his broad back consolingly.
"Flaming heck, Dudley! Did you get a personality transplant or something?" Harry laughed nervously. Dudley let him go and awkwardly stepped back out of arms reach. He stared at Harry in indecision and after a moment, he spoke.
"You saved my life, and I never so much as thanked you. And now we're leaving and I don't know if I'll ever even see you again." Harry felt stunned, never having expected this depth of emotion from his cousin, but the unexpected emotion that filled his cousin's face was another indication of the changes the large boy had gone through. Dudley turned to his mother then and asked why Harry wasn't coming with them. Why they were leaving him behind, and where was he going to go before leaving. He stopped abruptly as a figure in black robes appeared at the door.
Severus Snape's shadow loomed in the doorway like a Dementor and sneered down his long pointed nose at Dudley, who instantly went pale. The boy trembled visibly as he sidestepped the older wizard and darted out the door.
Snape looked at his Aunt in indifference and slowly turned his beady eyes on Harry.
"Potter, The Order will be here momentarily. Make sure you have everything packed and in the living room ready to go"
"You!" The hate in his aunt's tone caught Harry off guard. Her tone was vicious. Her eyes full of accusation and her thin gloved fists balled up at her sides shook. Harry was taken aback by the loathing in her expression, he'd have withered under that gaze but Snape for his part seemed unaffected.
If her reaction was anything to go by, she knew Snape. A fact that thoroughly surprised Harry. Snape, for his part, quirked an eyebrow at her.
"Me," he offered pointlessly.
His aunt turned her fiery gaze on Harry. Her expression became guarded as she readjusted the bag on her shoulder. She opened her mouth to say something, before she apparently changed her mind and turned to leave, having said nothing.
Harry stared after her and felt a weight settle in his chest. He had not expected a hug from her by any means, but it still hurt that she hadn't said goodbye to him. It spoke of a long seated resentment that she held for him.
Vernon pulled out of the driveway just as the roaring of flames could be heard from the sitting room and the Potter-Guard began to arrive. Snape slammed the door shut as the blue car screeched out onto the road.
"Your belongings, Potter?" Snape hissed with impatience.
Harry snapped out of his thoughts and went to the cupboard under the stairs. He opened the door and dragged out the large trunk just as the head of red shaggy hair of Mad-Eye Moody appeared out from the sitting room door. His normal blue eye found Harry and at the same time his magical eye found Snape. His scarred face was all business.
"He's out here," he spoke back into the sitting room. "Come on then Potter, we need to get everyone briefed before the wards drop."
"We…?" Just how many people were guarding him?
As Harry entered the sitting room, he dropped his bag by the door and deposited Hedwig's cage carefully on top of it. He turned around and was greeted instantly by the sight of Molly Weasley and her husband, Arthur, who stopped talking as they saw him. In the corner, Mundungus Fletcher stood and examined the light fixtures. Kingsley Shacklebolt, Nymphadora Tonks and Minerva McGonagall were grouped into a corner having a conversation. Kingsley, who was facing his direction, met his gaze and gave Harry a terse nod of acknowledgement.
Harry's vision was then blocked as Molly Weasley enveloped him in a bone-crushing hug, patting his frame down for thinness in the process. Harry flushed with affection, and he squashed back the emotion that surfaced as he compared it to the cold departure of his Aunt Petunia.
"Oh, Harry dear! It's so very good to see you. Did you get all of your things?" She glanced at the trunk behind him. Harry nodded and she smiled and guided him with an arm at his back, further into the sitting room where everyone else had gathered, except Snape who lingered behind him in the doorway like some overgrown bat.
"Wotcher, Harry!" Tonks quipped brightly. Mad-Eye gazed out under the lace curtains, his magical eye swivelling left and right. He let the curtain drop.
"The road looks clear. Alright! Is everyone clear on the plan? Gather your hairs and get your potions ready."
Harry held up a hand in question. "Sorry! I'm not clear." Harry flinched at a quick pain that erupted in his scalp. He turned and glared accusingly at Snape, who had a handful of Harry's hairs in his hand.
"Honestly!" Mrs Weasley huffed in protest.
Snape gave the hairs a disdainful look before he passed them to Kingsley.
"How do you know my Aunt Petunia, Sir?" Harry asked in his customary bluntness, while his hand rubber the tender spot on his scalp. All of the adults in the room turned to look at Snape then, who sent him a reproachful glare.
"Mind your own business, Potter." He spat.
Harry sent him a look that promised a follow up. The clock mantle chimed seven o'clock and each member of the Potter-Guard took out a vial of green lumpy potion and uncorked it. The potions bubbled in the tubes and Tonks wrinkled her nose at the smell of it. They added the wiry hairs and waited. Realisation struck Harry, they were using Polyjuice potion! Everyone with the exception of Snape, it seemed.
On Moody's signal, they each tipped back the vials into their mouths and before Harry's eyes, they changed. Their hair grew short, dark and messy. They shrunk down in their clothing and became thinner and paler, until seven Harry Potters stood in front of him, each in various states of undress.
Harry flushed in embarrassment and willed none of them to look under their clothes. To his relief, one of the Harry's stepped forward and in McGonagall's voice transfigured each of their clothing into a blue pair of jeans and a simple green shirt, a replica of what Harry himself wore.
Arthur Weasley then opened a rucksack that lay across an armchair, and took out seven pairs of glasses and seven broomsticks. He handed them to Kingsley, who passed them along to everyone in the room.
"Got yours, Harry?" Harry nodded swiftly and opened his trunk. He took out the broom, which was lying across his unorganised clothes and books and shut it quickly before anyone could see the mess within. If he read Snape's twisted sneer, he alone had seen through Harry guise.
When Harry stood with his firebolt gripped in his hands, Moody-Harry then removed his eye patch, one of his green eyes was rolling around in his socket anxiously. His other eye was fixed on Harry.
"We're using brooms tonight, as it's the only transport left that doesn't have a trace on it. The wards protecting this house will fail for one of two reasons, Potter. When you leave this house for the last time and no longer call this place home, or when the clock hits eight tomorrow night, when you'll come of age," he said impatiently.
"We're not going to wait for that to happen, obviously, which is why we're here a day earlier. The one thing we've got on our side is that the Dark Lord doesn't know we're moving you tonight. We've leaked a fake trail to the ministry, they think we're not moving you until the thirty-first"
Harry nodded, he could still see one major hole in that plan.
"However…" Continued Moody, impatiently. "This is You-Know-Who we're talking about and we can't just count on him getting the date wrong, so each Harry is going to go in a different direction and rendezvous later at Grimmauld Place".
Moody's eyes swivelled to the clock. "You'll be accompanied by Sn-" he never got to finish.
Everyone in the room jumped, startled as something solid smashed through the sitting room window and landed on the ground in front of them with a metallic clunk. Before any of them could react, the magical bomb sent out a shock-wave that sent everyone in the room flying apart. Harry crashed into the dinning room double-doors that buckled inwards instantly and sent him rolling. The bang rang out and echoed loudly throughout his skull. He groaned in pain, his muscles ached everywhere!
Careless of the glass scattered around him, Harry scrambled up unsteadily. Only muffled sounds reached his ears. Thick grey smoke had filled the house and he coughed and raised the sleeve of his jumper up to his mouth to breathe through it.
"The wards are down! Find Potter!" The voice was instantly recognizable as Lucius Malfoy's. The Death Eaters jumped through the smashed living room window in twos, displacing the smoke as they did. They quickly spread out and disappeared into the murky cloud. The cry of spells sounded then from many voices and gloomy smoke lit up with the light of different spells that were cast.
The sound of a door slamming open echoed from the kitchen behind him and Harry dropped to his knees and ducked behind one of the thick wooden legs of the long formal table. Feet thundered by him and into the living room.
Moments later, a hand clasped the back of his neck and hoisted him upwards. Harry gasped in a mouthful of smoke and coughed. Snape's hooked nose came into view briefly, a broom was shoved into Harry's hand and he pushed him towards the back door where the smoke cleared out. Harry's eyes widened as he realised that they were leaving. Snape was leaving the others behind to handle the Death Eaters invading the house and abandoning the order.
"No!" Harry struggled. "We can't leave them!"
"You imbecile, Potter!" Snape shouted. "You can't help them, they're after you!" He accentuated with another shove to Harry's back. "If you leave, so do-" Suddenly Snape hissed in pain and involuntarily grabbed his forearm. At the same time, Harry grasped at his Scar which flared with pain.
Snape's already pale face went white and his wide eyes met Harry's in horror before they turned on the back door. Standing there in all his bald-headed, red-eyed glory, was Lord Voldemort.
The thin lips curled up at the corners in a humourless smile. His gaze was fixed on Harry with an intensity that burned into him, before it was blocked by Snape's black robed mass who extended his arms to hide him from view.
Voldemort's smile disappeared as he then focused his blazing eyes on Snape.
"Severusss," came the sibilant hiss. "How thoughtful of you to make an appearance tonight. It reminds me of a muggle phrase…to kill two birds with one stone".
The last part was Parseltounge, but by Snape's stiffening form, the menace wasn't lost in the switch of language. Snape raised his wand, his hand shaking slightly. Voldemort dismissed the threat and looked at Harry as he took a step to the side, which allowed another figure to enter.
Harry made a strangled sound in his throat and took a step forward but was blocked instantly again by Snape, who anticipated the move and stepped forward block him. Aunt Petunias eyes were clouded in white, as all Inferi were. Her long formal coat was glistening with dark blood that oozed from the deep open and angry gash across her throat. Harry felt guilt strike his chest with the intensity of a dagger through the heart. Voldemort had ambushed the Dursleys and killed them, destroying the wards in the process. They had miscalculated the Death Eater's plans poorly, Harry had - and it had cost his Aunt and her family their lives.
Behind them, the shouts were getting louder but Snape only had eyes for Voldemort and the Infei that stood eerily silent beside the Dark Lord, to prove a point it seemed. A stray Bombarda blasted the doors behind Harry and Snape and sent them crashing to the ground in a shower of splinters. Voldemort swiftly raised his wand and blocked the spray but a body hurtled through the destroyed doorway, hit the shield and bounced off of it. The person rolled along the ground and came to stop before Harry, who felt his inside twist.
The bloodied face of Harry Potter lay before him, their faces almost touching. One glassy green eye stared unseeing at him, the other rolled uselessly in its socket. Mad Eye Moody.
Clawed brawny hands wrapped around Harry's forearms and in a feet of inhuman strength, they hauled him upwards and off of his feet. Harry looked up into icy azure eyes that sparkled and moved. Harry's breath caught in his throat and his body stilled in the face of that gaze. The perfectly sculpted cheekbones looked like they were chiselled from marble, the man's skin glowed with a luminescent hue as though gifted with moonlight everywhere except for the small black symbol on his forehead, which looked as it had been burned into place.
Harry willed his body to move, to fight, to do something, but he could do nothing! However, it grinned, spun him around to face the Dark Lord, and pulled his hands behind his back in a vice grip.
The house had gone quiet now, as if empty and Harry's world was focused on Voldemort, who stepped over Snape's downed and bleeding form and approached a defenceless Harry. His expression hungry and triumphant.
The creature holding Harry pressed its cold cheek to Harrys and laughed cruelly, revealing four sharp dagger like obsidian fangs. Harrys' heart hammered loudly in his chest as Voldemort's wand found his forehead and touched his scar.
"I have nothing left to say to you, Potter," he toned emotionlessly.
Harry went from fear to hate in an instant. It bubbled up from the deepest pit of his stomach, and boiled over into his face. All the hurt, anger and pain this man had caused him coming to the surface. He gritted his teeth angrily and pressed his forehead into the wand further, his expression daring the Dark Lord to do it.
"Coward!" He spat in anger.
Voldemort's eyes narrowed hearing it. The creature holding him shook with delighted laughter and it reaffirmed its hold on him as he struggled to get at Voldemort and rip him limb from limb. As Voldemort opened his mouth to curse him, the creature's blue eyes glowed and caught Harry's gaze. In a slow meaningful gesture, they drew his attention to a spot behind the Dark Lord, where a second figure was approaching Voldemort, while hunched over and silent. Unaware, the Dark Lord started to curse him.
"Avada-" He hissed.
Fangs, black and sharp sank into the flesh of the Dark Lords neck tearing as they went. Red eyes went wide in shock and a cry of rage tore from Voldemort's mouth. Instantly, blood pooled to the surface and the Dark Lord jabbed his wand behind him and into the figure behind it. A blasting curse ripped through the creatures underbelly, blood and innards splattered over the wall behind it and Aunt Petunias still form. The creature slid backwards in a wet and gory lump and hit the tiles below with a sickening splash.
The Dark Lord clasped a hand over his neck to stem the blood flow but it collected and weeped through his bony fingers. Still in shock, the wizard crashed to his knees, beds of sweat rolled down his face and collected at his chin like beads of rain.
To say Harry was in shock was an understatement. The sight of the Dark Lord's neck being ripped into and the resulting disembowelment rendered him silent and speechless. The creature behind him was no longer laughing, as another figure came to step up beside them. The blonde and sullen form of Lucius Malfoy stared dispassionately at his master who shook on the floor.
Voldemort's red eyes quickly connected the dots and he hissed in displeasure. Lucius's steely grey eyes slid sidewards to Harry who was still held in the creature gasp.
"He's still alive?" He addressed the creature holding him.
"Yes, he is," the creature returned. Lucius quirked an eyebrow at that, assessing Harry further until he turned his eyes on the quickly fading wizard before him. He stepped forward and kicked away the Dark Lords wand. He then bent down before Voldemort.
"Traitor!" Voldemort whispered throatily. As much pain as the Dark Lord seemed to be in his eyes and voice still promised death. His eyes flickered weakly from bright to dull red as he prophesied Malfoy's death.
"I'll be back, Lucius. I'll make you regret this treachery. Starting with your son."
Lucius waved a hand dismissively. "I think we both know it would be pointless to kill you, My Lord," the personal address dripping with sarcasm. "…while your trinkets still exist anyway. Something I've been working to rectify."
Voldemort's red eyes widened in surprise as Lucius referred to his Horcruxes. The blonde stared coldly at the suffering wizard before him.
"You took from me my wife. So I'm taking that which you care about most… Your precious immortality."
Voldemort's body shook more violently now, tremors making concentrating difficult. His eyes roamed over Lucius, Harry and finally settled on a spot over Harry shoulder.
He sneered through bloodied teeth as he spoke in a mocking tone "Sic semper tyrannis"
The creature holding Harry stiffened.
"Reducto!" Came the cries of a dozen individuals at once. Harry's vision went black and he knew no more.
Author Note: Sic Semper Tyrannis - latin phrase which translates to Thus alwats to Tyrants and refers to the way that tyrants tend to meet brutal ends. It was shouted by John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and during the assassination of Julius Ceasar.
