A/N: You ever try writing a chapter for any story and the start just wouldn't come? This chapter was like that.

Disclaimer: My ownership of Harry Potter is non-existent.

Chapter 4

Boy-Who-Lived Son of You-Know-Who?

The story of how the Boy-Who-Lived got his scar is widely known by all, but there are many other, more controversial aspects of young Harry Potter's life that have been hidden from the public. But not the Daily Prophet can exclusively reveal possibly the most shocking revelation about the supposed saviour of the wizarding world to date.

It appears, due to certain adoption papers that have recently been found in an almost forgotten part of the ministry show that Harry Potter is not, as we have all been led to believe, a Potter, but was adopted mere moments after his birth and his own mother's death. The cause of the boy's mother's death is currently unknown, though the identities of both of his birth parents we can tell you.

Though his mother wasn't too well known when she was alive his father was, and still is, one of the most feared wizards for centuries, He Who Must Not Be Named, so it seems that the Dark Lord may have killed his wife and the boy's mother after she gave birth to his heir. This disturbing fact has brought to light many questions, such as whether he should be allowed to still attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the new school year, or whether Potter, if we can call him that any longer, should be imprisoned in Azkaban in order to prevent the rise of another Dark Lord.

My Father had been furious when he had read that letter, just a week after he kidnapped me from the Dursleys. I'm not quite sure why though. Either it was because it bad-mouthed me (something which I sincerely doubt would bother him) or because it accused him of killing my mother. Either way it got on his nerves, so I wasn't complaining too much. I was used to the Daily Prophet having a go at me, it had happened so often it seemed to have lost its sting.

I can still remember the day my father read that article perfectly, though.

-----Flashback-----

My father slammed a copy of the Daily Prophet down on the table, incinerating it with a quick 'incendio', giving me barely enough time to read the headline (Boy-Who-Lived, Son of You-Know-Who?) before the paper was swallowed up by the flames and was reduced to nothing but grey ashes.

"They found out then?" I asked him calmly, infuriately my father further than I though possible. To be honest I saw no real reason why I should get worked up over something as simple as a newspaper article, even if it did reveal the truth about my parentage.

"You let it get out," he hissed accusingly at me. "You told the prophet!"

"Oh yeah," I said sarcastically. "I'm real likely to go to the Prophet and ask for an exclusive interview because I just found out my father wasn't the person who everyone believed he was, but a homicidal maniac instead."

"Well someone leaked this information out, and I was to know who!"

"Have you asked Snape?" I asked after a moment or two of silence.

"Snape? He's loyal. Why would I ask him?" my father spat at me. God, for a Dark Lord bent on taking over the world he can be dense.

"Well, let's see," I said, acting like I was talking to a five year old. "He was threatening Quirrel about the Philosophers' Stone when I was in my first year, he's a teacher at Hogwarts, a member of Dumbledore's Order, has given loads of information away about your plans in the past and his hair is greasy. Now what possible reason could there be for me to suspect that he's a leak?"

My father growled at me. "One day I am going to kill you and it will be the best day of my life."

"Whatever," I said, not exactly intimidated by his death threat. "Hey, you gonna torture or kill Snape anytime soon? Can I watch?"

-----End Flashback-----

Nothing much else happened for the rest of the summer though. Well, with the exception of when my father had Snape interrogated, tortured and left to die from his wounds, which my father wouldn't let me watch. He said it was because 'it would be a bad influence' (which is one of the worst excuses I've ever heard, considering the fact that he is a Dark Lord, so he himself is a bad influence). I believe the real reason he wouldn't let me watch (and believe me, I tried to get own there, but it was too well guarded. The paranoid bastard must thought someone was trying to get down there) was simply to piss me off. After all, I had been doin nothing but that to him over the time I spent around him.

Anyways, on with the story. Nothing much else happened for the remainder of the summer, and soon enough it was time for the start of the new year at Hogwarts (I can assure you that there was a huge argument over this between dad and me, which he happened to win. Bah! Like I care that Hogwarts is the best magical school in the world! All I know is that it's run by a crackpot, manipulative old fool with an obsession with sour, disgusting muggle sweets!) and my first public appearance as the heir of the Dark Lord and of Slytherin (my father sent someone, some Death Eater, to buy the things I would need for the up and coming year) and I wasn't looking forwards to it one bit.

I arrived at King's Cross relatively early on September the first via port key, and though there was still about half an hour until the train set off, but there were quite a few people there already. Some of them looked at me, their gazes filled with hatred, whilst other - actually, no, they all looked at me the same way. With complete and utter, pure, undiluted, unrestrained, full-on hatred. It was pretty pathetic really, considering that just the previous year they had thought of me as a tragic little orphaned hero who had put up with so much pain, horror and cruelty in his short life, and the year before that as a totally insane, attention-seeking, trouble-making spoilt brat, and all of this was mainly due to what the Prophet had published. And for some crazy reason I got the impression that they might not like my father from the way they were looking at me.

I found an empty compartment quickly enough, which was the main reason I originally wanted to arrive so early. Fortunately my father had agreed, saying that he wanted to get rid of me as soon as possible, and the port key had been arranged. I just hoped that no one would want to share this compartment, as unlikely as it was. I really just wanted my privacy so I could think through a few things.

One such thing I want to think about was I had suddenly become so sadistic, wanting watch whenever someone was tortured, and to learn the dark arts so I could cause then a whole world of pain. I had no idea why I wanted to see people writhing before, screaming, clawing at the faces in attempts to stop the pain, but I did. Don't get me wrong, I would have been repulsed at the idea before that summer, would have been disgusted if I had so much as thought of causing someone else pain, no matter how much they deserved it, with the possible exceptions of Dumbledore and the Dursleys.

During the summer though, I don't know. I honestly have no idea what changed. Maybe it was being away from the people I hated for long enough to truly see how much I hated them without the influence of the people who placed me with them in the first place, people who would object to the dark arts. Maybe it was being around people who thrived in causing other people pain that affected me much, or being around my only surviving relative who happened to like causing most people pain than almost anyone else that did it, but I can't be sure.

Maybe I had started changing; wanting people to be in pain, after I had found out that everything about my life had been a lie, to pay them back for everything that had been done to me because they had kept me from my birth right and my family to suit their own purposes. Maybe I was becoming more and more like my father, starting to, pretty much; hate the entire world for what had happened to me. Or maybe I was just growing up to be the person I was meant to be, finally free of any manipulations for me to be able to think straight.

Yes, that's right. My father never manipulated people. That was always Dumbledore. My father was always up front about everything, telling people what he required when they decided to entered his service and what the punishment for failure was. Dumbledore always hid everything apart from what he had to tell people to prevent them from discovering how conniving he really is. Dumbledore implied a great many things in everything that he said, giving almost everything double meanings, evading questions, changing the subject, using any knowledge he had about people against them, and making them believe that choice they make is of their own free will rather than knowing that it was only the decision Dumbledore wanted them to make.

Dumbledore treated everyone like pawns in a giant game o chess, you see, one which he was determined to be the winner. My father, on the other hand, knew that this as a war, and valued each and every supporter and follower he had, never killing them. He knew that the best chance he stood of winning the war would be to have as many followers as possible, so if he was to kill any of them it would start to deplete his numbers. Sure, his punishments were harsher on the whole, but at least he was always up front and honest about it. Dumbledore never was.

Another thing that had been bothering me was the way I had been acting to my father. You might be wondering why I was bothered about this. I wasn't sure myself. I guess it could be to do with the fact that I had expected so much more from him. I think I had had this sappy little picture in my head of my father being loving, caring and kind and that we would get along really well, but when we actually met up on friendly terms I realised it would never be like that. Not that I'm complaining. If he had been like I had thought (which was a kind of crazy thing to think or a Dark Lord) there's no way I would have enjoyed riling him up as much as I did.

I shook myself out of the reverie I had managed to get myself in and saw that the train must have left the station a while ago. The countryside was whizzing past many fields filled with farm animals, such as sheep, cows and horses, all untouched by the war that was raging in the magical world, a war that I was supposed to play an important part in.

That's something I can't really understand. How could they expect me, a sixteen year old kid, to help determine the end result in a war? I know the prophecy Dumbledore gave me in my fifth year was fake, due to the fact I couldn't be born to someone who had defied my father twice if my father was, well, my father, but Dumbledore still had me training as though the entire outcome of the war depended on me. It didn't, so there was no point in pretending it did.

I sighed and went back to staring out of the window, knowing that this year would be hard on me, what with the entire school hating me. Oh well, I would survive. I knew I would. I had to.

A/N: ::winches:: I know I'm gonna get an earful from my reviewers for taking so long, but I swear the start of this chapter just would not come. I'm not even sure why. But I id start it. And finish it. And get over 2000 words of story. So, um, yeah.

Pheonixrising: But it was the one line I couldn't resist! And Harry's gonna make the Death Eaters respect him... um, in a while.

Krissy Riddle: Thanks! I read another fic recently from Harry's viewpoint where he was Voldy's son, but I can't remember what that was or who it was by.

Anubis-sama: As bloody as possible, eh? Now that I could have some fun with.

ChaosDream: ::blushes:: Thanks! I don't think there's much else I can say.

NatalieJ: I couldn't resist! And you have the same first name as me!

Lonlyheart: Chapters? What do you call this? And the last three chapters then? Because I call them chapters.

Phoenix of the Elements:  Yes, I do realise that. They did, they just thought that she had died in child birth like Dumbledore had said.