"Good morning Aunt Petunia," Petunia Dursley turned to the voice to see her nephew staring back at her.
There was something profoundly odd about her nephew, Petunia thought to herself once again.
Oh, he was always polite but distant. Always had that composed look to him. Even after all these years she and Vernon made their displeasure of his existence known. Even when her Dudley would play rough with him, he never once broke composure.
The signs had been obvious since he was only a baby. Unlike her own Duddykins, he never cried. He never coo-ed, gurgled, or was fussy like babies were supposed to do. He only ever made noise to indicate he needed to be fed or changed. While that could be explained away by being a quiet child, what could not be explained was Harry's eyes. Emerald green from Lily but it was not the color that unnerved Petunia.
His eyes were just too knowing, too focused, and how they would focus on her when she entered the room and held her gaze until she looked away.
She had confided in Vernon about the matter, but there was too much they didn't know. Did the boy possess magic like her sister once did? Were magical children different from non-magical children?
As the years passed, the quiet baby grew into a quiet child. She and Vernon looked out for any hints of magic around the child, but nothing was ever seen. Things did not suddenly fly to his hands as if pulled nor did he manipulate flowers as Lily had done as a child. She had thought that he may have even been a normal child, oddities aside, but that thought was crushed as she read the letter in her hand.
MR. H. POTTER
The cabinet under the stairs
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey
"Come here, boy."
The start of a new year and with it, another young group of inquisitive minds to nurture. Albus Dumbledore gazed out over the Great Hall. He took in the returning students, but his gaze was concentrated on the new students being led by Minerva entering the Great Hall for the first time for their sorting. He never tired of seeing the wonder on the children's faces as they beheld the Great Hall for the first time with the floating candles illuminating the enchanted ceiling above that displayed the stormy night sky. A most fascinating bit of enchantment by the founders, those.
He continued his observation of the incoming first years. Another Weasley, Ronald, would most likely be going into Gryffindor with the rest of his brothers. With hope, he would not cause the same amount of mischief messrs Fred and George oft did. He took in another child, blonde hair, with a slight smirk that even his awe of the Great Hall could not entirely cover. Draco Malfoy took after his father in looks and judging by his two companions, the Crabbe and Goyle scions standing beside him, in temperament as well. All Slytherin no doubt. His gaze finally turned to a smaller boy compared to his peers, glasses that covered familiar green eyes he had not seen in years.
He had noticed Draco standing as far from Harry Potter as he could in their small group, even using his companions as a buffer between the two. He was informed of an altercation between the two while on the Hogwarts Express but the details were unknown.
He focused his attention on young Harry Potter. Albus frowned. The boy was small compared to his peers. He was thin and the clothes he wore were ragged and ill-fit for his too-thin frame. He further noticed his expression. The rest of the children in his group were gawking at the Great Hall but Harry Potter observed it all with a restrained and composed look on his face. His gaze met Albus' and held.
Albus reached out with legilmency. A feather-light touch to simply brush across the surface of his thoughts and emotions. He expected bravado as children oft felt, that underneath that composed expression was nervousness like the rest of his peers. What he did not expect was to find a guarded mind. Perhaps a natural Occlumens? Though Lily had no such talent nor did any of the Potter family he had met over his long life. Albus considered resorting to a more active probe to delve into the boy's mind, but Harry broke his gaze to look over the rest of the High Table.
Finally arriving before the High Table and stopping beside the sorting hat, Minerva turned to address the children. "Now, before we begin. Professor Dumbledore would like to say a few words."
Albus stood with a wandless and silent sonorous to amplify his voice and commenced his speech. "I have a few start-of-term notices I wish to announce. The first years, please note that the Dark Forest is strictly forbidden to all students. Also, our caretaker, Mr. Filch, has asked me to remind you that the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish a most painful death." He mentally chuckled as he took in their reactions to his words, yet mister Potter's expression had not changed.
"Thank you." Albus finished and sat back down while Minerva began the sorting.
"Hermione Granger," Minerva began with.
A frizzy-haired girl stepped forward, visibly nervous. Albus watched her take a deep breath, muttered to herself, most likely trying to calm dawn, and stepped towards the sorting hat. She had a rather bookish look to her. Ravenclaw perhaps? As the hat was placed on her head, everyone waited.
The wait continued. He saw the students getting antsy and restless, no doubt a combination of impatience and hunger. A hatstall perchance?
Suddenly, the hat moved and called out, "Gryffindor!" The Gryffindor table cheered as miss Granger joined her housemates at their table.
"Draco Malfoy," Minerva continued. The boy stepped forward and took a seat. The hat barely touched his head before it cried out, "Slytherin!" With a pleased expression, Draco moved to join his housemates.
The sorting continued until another potential hatstall occurred with Neville Longbottom.
Eventually, Minerva called out for Harry Potter. The whole hall turned to stare at the young man's every move. He could hear the whispers of the students about The-Boy-Who-Lived. Harry sat down on the seat and the sorting hat was placed atop his head and seemingly deflated. Minerva frowned and other students looked curiously at the action. Was Harry truly a natural Occlumens? Albus decided to sit and wait. The hat would inform him if any problems arose. Once again, the minutes passed. A third potential hatstall this year?
"Slytherin!" the hat exclaimed. This time, there were no cheers or applause, only an uneasy silence. Harry was unperturbed. He merely walked to the end of the Slytherin table, ignoring the silence and stares. Albus glanced at Severus for a quick moment and saw nothing on his face, but he did not need to use Legilimency to have an inkling about where Severus' thoughts may lay.
The sorting continued from there and once finished, Albus stood and opened the feast. Afterward, he sat back down and monitored young Harry. He watched Harry Potter eat silently as none of his housemates moved to engage with him. He could even see some hostile looks among his housemates. Albus frowned. This could be a problem.
The other Hogwarts houses believed Slytherin to be an undivided force. It was an image every Slytherin student was commanded to maintain by their head of house, Professor Snape. Division within the house can never be exposed to other houses. Slytherin house was already ostracized so a strong front must be maintained. Project strength when there is division. A very Slytherin mindset Draco thought to himself. Everyone in the house of snakes knew that there was no unifying force or equality within the house, that this was a den of snakes where alliances and deals were bartered and broken, where betrayals were when, and not if.
Students who entered this den knew that they had to find a group to protect them from others. His group was the most prominent within his year, as his father's status granted him power and influence in this house. He looked across the room to the only other major faction in their year, the neutral faction led by Daphne Greengrass. Another family of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Daphne was working on Transfiguration homework alongside the half-blood, Tracey Davis. Davis understood the traditions of the house so she joined Daphne's faction on account of having known her since childhood. Half-blood she may be, she still followed the traditions of Slytherin.
Draco turned his thoughts to Harry Potter. The Boy-Who-Lived did not follow such traditions. He sat alone, and thus stood alone in the house. A dangerous prospect. He was already an outcast, but now he was a pariah. An acceptable and exposed target within the house. When Potter snubbed his offer on the train, Draco hoped Potter would change his mind once he was sorted into Slytherin. To bring the Boy-Who-Lived under his faction would make his father proud and gain him further influence and power within the house. Yet, Potter again rejected his offer.
Well, if Potter did not want protection, then he'll learn what it truly meant to be without it in the house of snakes. The Boy-Who-Lived had a lot of enemies before he stepped into Hogwarts. Now, in the Slytherin common room, a great many of those enemies lurked.
As if summoned by his thoughts, the entrance swung open, and Harry Potter stepped in. Draco and his group stood and intercepted him in the middle of the room.
"Potter," Draco spoke with a sneer. Potter merely looked back at him with that same bland expression as if he was above everyone that infuriated him. Potter never reacted to any of his nor anyone's insults. Draco continued, "Come now, Potter. You have no influence, no allies, and no power. Join me."
This was advice from his father. If Potter didn't wish to join him, then Draco would simply have to teach him the consequences of his actions.
Potter looked at him with those green eyes and replied with a curt and dismissive, "No."
"A mistake." And with those final words spoken, Draco drew his wand and pointed it at him. His group followed suit. He took a quick look around the common room while mentally preparing a spell. Some decided to get out of spellfire range while others looked up from their activities and got ready for the show. Potter's other enemies in the upper years stood to the side, smirking, and looked on in excitement. They would get their turn after Draco. He returned his gaze to his target and froze. The eyes that looked back at him were not the usual green, but instead, a sickly yellow that sent shivers down his spine.
"Everte Statum!"
Daphne knew what was coming. The entire Slytherin house knew what was coming. Harry Potter had made himself no friends and more enemies, and with no allies, it was only a matter of time until the Boy-Who-Lived would learn exactly why the traditions of Slytherin existed.
"You think Potter will give in to Draco?" Tracey whispered over to her. "Draco's been pretty stubborn on this. Probably on daddy's orders." She finished with a slight snicker.
Daphne thought over the question. The Potter family may not be a member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight and they were still staunchly of the Light but the real value would be twisting the Boy-Who-Lived to the dark faction. A shrewd politician like Lord Malfoy could turn that to his and his faction's advantage.
Daphne Greengrass looked at the boy and replied simply, "Unlikely. Potter has ignored the norms of Slytherin all this time, his mind won't be changed by words alone at this point." Tracey replied by merely letting out a sound of agreement to her words.
She looked at the upper years, the group most devout to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's beliefs. Led by seventh-year Adrian Pucey, his faction included the Carrow Twins, Marcus Flint, second-in-command Terrence Higgs, and quite a few others. Draco was not subtle in his plans. If Potter would not join him, then the upper years would be eager to demonstrate why it was unwise to not have allies in the house of Salazar. She herself had considered recruiting Harry Potter to her faction but had decided against it in the end. The neutral faction would be forced to defend him against the entirety of Slytherin and her faction simply did not have the strength. Additionally, it would give her enemies a reason to attack her. It was a risk that was not worth the reward.
As expected, Harry rejected Draco's offer and she knew what was coming next. Draco drew, pointed, and after a slight pause, went on the offense.
"Everte Statum!"
She expected Harry to be knocked back, but with speed belying his small frame, moving before the incantation was fully spoken, Potter side-stepped out of the way of the spell. Instead of taking the opportunity to draw his wand before Draco's companion followed up, Potter instead closed the distance between them.
"Densaugeo!" Theodore Nott cried out but his spell went wide while Harry got within arms reach of Draco. With his left hand, Harry simply slapped Draco's hand, sending his wand clattering to the floor, and with his right hand in an open palm, sending it smashing into Draco's chest, sending him to the floor as well with an exclaimed, "oof."
In a quick and smooth motion, Potter pivoted to his left where Crabbe stood, drawing in the palm that just pushed over Draco, folded it into a fist, and launched it into Crabbe's stomach.
Daphne didn't think it would do anything. Crabbe was a head taller and larger in width by several times, yet Crabbe crumpled in half with a cry of pain, sending him to the floor next to Draco.
Seems like speed was not the only thing that Potter's small form belied.
In front of Potter, Pansy Parkinson centered her wand on Potter while behind, Goyle reached out to grab and immobilize him.
"Colloshoo!" Pansy yelled. Once again, Potter was already moving before the spell was fully articulated. He slipped to the side, dodging both the spell and Goyle's grasping hands while Pansy's spell slammed into Goyle, sticking his shoes to the floor and causing Goyle to swing his arms wildly in an attempt to balance himself.
Potter was not idle, he stepped behind the flailing Goyle to come face-to-face with Nott.
"Di-" was all Nott managed to utter before the wand was ripped out of his hand. Harry's other arm came up and Daphne thought he would be pushed over like Draco but he instead grabbed Nott by his uniform and pulled, causing him to crash into Goyle's back bringing both of them to the floor. Only Pansy was left standing. Potter turned to her and with a second of contemplation, she dropped her wand in surrender. With an idle look at the wand still in his hand, Potter tossed Nott's wand with an absent-minded motion.
Honestly, Daphne didn't think Pansy was smart enough to actually know when to surrender. Crabbe's groaning was the only sound that broke the tense silence of the common room. She looked around the common room, at the stunned gazes of her fellow housemates. Without even drawing his wand, Potter had dismantled Draco's entire group in seconds.
While Slytherins respected tradition, if there was one thing that they respected above that, it was power and Potter had demonstrated that power was something he possessed. She would need to re-evaluate the risk of potentially recruiting Potter.
"Is this all you have? Is this the power you boasted about Draco?" Potter was standing over Draco. Draco scrambled for his wand, but Potter was faster and kicked it, sending it clattering across the common room.
"You think you know power, Draco? You are nothing but an irritant."
Draco turned to Potter with an expression of fury. Daphne thought Draco might've tried to punch Potter with his bare hands, but he held back.
Before Draco could reply, a spell cut through the air.
"Expelliarmus!"
Potter again simply sidestepped the spell and turned his attention to where the spell had originated from. It was the upper years. Twelve of them. The spell had come from sixth-year Terrence Higgs.
"Well, well well. Seems like the Boy-Who-Lived actually has some bite to him" Higgs taunted as he stepped forward. The rest of the group followed with wands drawn.
"The Boy-Who-Lived, brawling like a filthy muggle." One of the Carrow twins followed up.
Potter looked over at the group standing against him and asked, "You insist on fighting?"
Adrian Pucey had an ugly smile on his face, "This isn't a fight Potter." His grin grew wider. "We're simply here to educate you on the rules of Slytherin."
The atmosphere suddenly turned oppressive. A feeling of heaviness and uneasiness now hung in the air. She turned to the source of this feeling. Harry Potter still looked the same - small, and rather thin for a boy his age, but now, a sense of menace and dread surrounded him, draping him like a cloak. The dungeons were often cold on account of being beneath the Black Lake, yet Daphne could feel beads of sweat forming upon her forehead.
The group opposing Potter clearly felt it too. She could see nervousness rippling through them, as they were suddenly unsure of themselves. Marcus Flint even took a step back in fear. Daphne watched them take a glance at each other, reassuring themselves with the presence of each other. Seemed they mustered enough courage as they raised their wands together. Twelve spells rippled through the air toward Potter.
Daphne expected Potter to move as he seemed to prefer but with a sharp, commanding gesture, raised his hand toward the oncoming volley in a seemingly futile gesture.
In defiance of everyone's expectations, all twelve spells stopped in mid-air.
What?
She could see the spells hanging there, slightly lurching back and forth as if attempting to escape their binding only to be pulled back. She had never heard of any kind of magic like this.
The Slytherin common room was stunned into silence but Flora Carrow and another upper year were faster on the uptake and attempted to follow up their initial spell.
"Impedi-"
"Fulga-"
Potter flicked his still outstretched hand with a dismissive gesture. The spells hanging in the air suddenly shot back towards the upper years.
Some of the upper years were still too stunned to react while others dove for cover or attempted to raise a shield.
Daphne winced as Flora Carrow went down with a scream of pain as her leg was shattered by a bone-breaking hex. Another upper year found himself suddenly wrapped in thick rope. A third student panicked when her robes suddenly burst into flames. A fourth student simply crumpled over as he took a stunner. The rest of the spells splashed against the floor and walls around them.
In an apparent show of confidence, Potter decided not to follow up as he let Higg's group regain their footing. Higgs and his faction looked back at the Boy-Who-Lived with an expression of anger that warred with fear. Daphne thought the duel might have ended there with that show of power through impressive wandless non-verbal magic but seemed like anger won out.
"Serpensortia!" Hestia Carrow conjured forth a snake, most likely to avoid Potter catching her spell again. Hestia's allies attempted to follow her lead but before they could get any further, Potter made a deceptively gentle pulling motion, which contrasted the way in which wands were violently ripped from hands, sending them hurling to the floor before Potter.
"Accio!" Pucey responded with a desperate edge to his voice. To his credit, Pucey's wand reversed course midair and leapt towards his outstretched hand but before it arrived, Potter once again flicked his hand toward him. Pucey was suddenly banished off his feet across the room to hit the ground rolling before finally slamming into the wall. He did not get back up while his airborne wand simply sailed over his previous location before hitting the ground once again.
The conjured snake was momentarily startled by the sharp clacks of the wands hitting the floor near it, baring fangs and hissing at the sounds, but it followed the last orders of its summoner by slithering towards Potter with deadly intent. To the entire room's astonishment, Potter looked at it and hissed. The snake hissed back in reply before simply curling it on itself.
Silence reigned. Parseltongue. Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived was a parselmouth.
Potter stalked forward with confident steps, stopping before the assorted wands beneath him, and broke the silence.
"You have lost."
"Potter," Higgs spat out. "You think j-" Higgs's sentence was abruptly cut off as Potter clenched a fist at him.
Higgs was lifted just off his feet and into the air as he let out a choking gasp. His hands instinctively moved to grasp his throat, but no relief could be found there. Potter kept his fist clenched while Higgs let out short, stuttering gasps in an attempt for air while desperately kicking his feet in midair. Besides him, the other upper years looked on in concern, but fear stopped them from aiding their struggling ally.
It was only when Higgs was near his end, as the interval between his desperate gasps grew longer, and the kicking of his legs began to wane, that a soft, pleading voice interjected.
"Please, enough Harry…."
She turned to see the voice belonged to Gemma Farley, the prefect. Daphne didn't even notice when she stood and approached Harry. She did not have her wand out and Daphne could see a tremble go through her.
All of a sudden, the atmosphere grew even more oppressive. It felt like there was a heavy weight blanketing her, suffocating her slowly. Daphne looked up to see Farley, the target of Potter's ire visibly trembling now, but she clearly refused to back off.
"Don't do this Harry."
To both her and Farley's surprise, Harry flinched as if her words had physically struck him and as suddenly as it arrived, the weight lifted along with the oppressiveness that hung in the air since this whole confrontation started. Higgs dropped to the floor and she could hear him heaving on the floor, taking desperate breaths. Not that she could blame him, Daphne found herself taking a few deep breaths herself. A side glance told her Tracey was doing the same. She looked back up at Potter to see him staring at Farley with an unseen before intensity that was missing during this entire fight. Was that regret on his face? Shame? Hope? Whatever it was, it quickly vanished as Potter schooled his expression, took one last dismissive look at the upper years, and hurried up to the boy's dormitories while under the stares of the entire room.
"So…" Tracey said with a musing drawl, breaking the silence. "That happened." She finished, no doubt summarizing the immediate thoughts of most of Slytherin.
"Certainly." Was all Daphne replied with as her mind was too occupied with reflecting on the events of tonight.
One did not need to be trained in politics to see how the tides of power had just shifted dramatically in the house of Slytherin. She looked over to Draco, who was being helped off the floor by Pansy. Draco was looking relieved. His confrontation with Potter was a mistake, but Pucey's was a catastrophe that coincidentally mitigated the boy's own failure. After all, if Potter could defeat the upper years so effortlessly, then Draco was bound to fail. Speaking of which, she turned her attention to the upper years.
They had picked up their wands and were helping each other while shooting the rest of Slytherin dark, defensive looks. Most likely in an attempt to regain some measure of control after their very public, and humiliating, one-sided confrontation.
Despite her's, and most likely many others in the room, glee at seeing Pucey and his faction humbled, unless their faction splintered tonight, they would still be a group of considerable power. At the end of the night, they still had more wands than any others which were made especially potent due to the fact that most of their group consisted of upper years, meaning more magical experience. Even with the sudden loss of respect and influence due to tonight's events, they could always fall back on power and intimidation alone. There was simply no other group capable of matching them in numbers, let alone the disparity of experience. Not everyone was Harry bloody Potter, capable of defeating all foes without even drawing his wand.
She wondered if this was how her father felt, during the rise and reign of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, with its turbulent times that did all it could to dislodge the neutral faction. Oh, Potter made no proclamations nor did he subvert either Draco's or Pucey's faction to his control. Regardless of his intentions though, Potter had demonstrated that he himself was equivalent to any and all other factions in Slytherin and that was power in its own right, and in Slytherin, nothing attracted more than power.
LONG AN: And that's a wrap. Not much here, but the seed of this story is basically that scene where Kylo Ren caught that blaster bolt in midair and it occurred to me that I wanted to see that happen in Harry Potter. Well, not fully, there was another fic where I saw something like this happen and was thinking that it was such a cool scene. The fic is Her Mother's Love by inwardtransience (loved To Reach Without by the author, probably my favorite fem!harry story but took a while to really hit its stride in my opinion). Another partial inspiration is Path to Victory - A Severus Snape Story by Sir Rabby, more for the massive brawl in Slytherin common room which the protagonist dominates. If you wanna give the story a try, you can read most of it on FF by the same name but it was originally posted on SpaceBattles forum which has a couple more chapters that FF is missing.
I've never written anything that wasn't for school so please excuse all the horrible grammar mistakes, especially the incorrect tenses. Oh and dialogue? What's that? Writing in a specific person's voice is hard for someone like me, who has difficulty communicating with other people, let alone getting the dialogue grammar correct. That's why I just ended up keeping the talking sparse. Kylo Ren/Harry Potter's dialogue might sound familiar to people who have played Kylo Ren in Battlefront 2. I just ripped his voice lines from the game.
For anyone that didn't know what the line that Gemma Farley said that really affected Kylo Potter was Rey's line from The Last Jedi when Kylo was attempting to convince Rey to join him. The full line is "Don't do this Ben, please don't go this way." Now, is Gemma Farley actually Rey? Probably not. I considered maybe making her a Rey reincarnation, or maybe a Rey reincarnate with dormant memories where she might get flashes of her past, or even that Gemma Farley was a force sensitive where the force itself kinda told her what she needed to say at this moment to pull Kylo back into the light. I just ended up making it a lucky coincidence so she only said the first part of the line. If I was going for any of the above-mentioned alternatives, I would've just used the full line and switched to Gemma's PoV then and there. In the end, it was kinda pointless. This is a one-shot so even if she was any of the above, it wouldn't have mattered in the least.
The word doc for this fic was created on October 31st and I would estimate about 80% of the fic was written in a single 10-hour binge-writing session. I know, I know, 10 hours for only like 4k words, well, 3.4k words then, but THIS SHIT IS HARD MAN. My respect for people who can churn out 100k word fics or do steady weekly or even daily updates went up massively during this project. Also, since the majority of this fic was written early, if the first three-quarters of the fic feels disjointed from the rest of the fic, now you know why. I tried to patch things over but I probably missed a ton of stuff.
I mostly stalled out when we got to the upper-year confrontation. I spent weeks slowly working away at it while also brainstorming during slow days at work. I got hella writer's block on how to wind down that confrontation. Should Snape interrupt? Maybe Kylo Potter goes full, "Join me and I will show you the dark side." In the end, I actually ended up with Gemma stepping in. Daphne originally had a bit of a throwaway line while Higgs was being force choked like "Daphne idly wondered where the prefect was because this duel was getting entirely out of hand." Gemma's dialogue was originally even more generic and Kylo Potter would pull himself back, but it wasn't until I started watching Kylo/Rey videos on YouTube that I noticed some quotes were pretty nice and applicable to the situation, and I thought that reminding Kylo about Rey and his previous journey would be more convincing. I also considered maybe an aftermath chapter, from Snape's perspective, but Snape is such a complex character and honestly, I have no idea what to write for it. In all the other scenes, I had barebone ideas that I could grow, but with Snape, nothing. Anyway, the title is generic and shit, no need to tell me. The description is alright, I thought it conveyed what I was going for in this fic. I didn't want to cop out with a "descriptions are hard". Here are some of the alternative ones.
When Kylo Ren died, he hoped to become one with the Force, but he instead opened his eyes in a new world that seemed intent on dragging him back into the dark. A Kylo Ren Reincarnated as Harry Potter one-shot.
How long can Kylo Ren hold onto the light when this new world seems to intend to push him back into the dark. A Kylo Ren as Harry Potter Reincarnation One-Shot
Final apologies for 11-year-old politicians. As a mid-twenties-year-old man, even attempting an 11-year-old pureblood girl was a lost cause. Daphne was just a device to view Kylo's actions but I kinda ended up getting carried away with the politics and just said screw it, this fandom has worst tropes.
Fanfiction has given me thousands of hours of enjoyment so I thought at the very least, I should try and give something back so here are about 5 minutes of reading. Best I can do.
Please let me know of all the errors so I can correct them. No beta readers because I don't know where to find one and all my real-life friends would bully me lmao
Final writing time, probably around 15-20 hours actually spent in front of a computer typing it out, not counting all the hours spent brainstorming while at work. Artwork is AI generated by NightCafe. I tried to get the image with yellow sith eyes but ran out of free credits. Also need to give a shoutout to the HPFanfiction discord. Gave a lot of good advice when I really needed it. They were very kind.