Disclaimer- Just because I have blonde hair doesn'r make me JK Rowling! (...Wish it did tough) So get off my back!
Title-A Son I Never Knew
Chapter Title-A Slytherin in a Gryffindor Home
You might be wondering why I'm standing here; at the height of six foot two, a boy with unruly black hair I inherited from my dad and bright green eyes from my mum, a boy of fifteen, six hours away from sixteen, in the middle of my red and gold clad bedroom, staring unblinkingly at the door my family will run through in a few moments, holding a note telling my family about me in my left hand, in my right hand, aimed at my chest, cocked and loaded, a gun.
I'll tell you why. My life before Hogwarts, my parents kept telling me I'd be a great Gryffindor. That I'd never be in any other house. Gryffindor was the best in their opinion; no other could match up to it.
September 1st 1991, that's the date my family started hating me, for I didn't get put in Gryffindor, oh no, I was put in the one house my parents hated above all others, Slytherin.
They believed in the stereotype that every Slytherin was evil, and they drug my little sisters, Rose (fourteen) and Kayla (twelve), with them.
Tonight at dinner my parents gave me my birthday present early, it was the knowledge that when I turn seventeen I will no longer be a part of the Potter family. That's right, their disowning me. Great gift, don't ya think?
I already sent my owl, Hedwig, to my best friend, Blaise Zabini, like we planed on if one of us ever did this, to let the other know. We're the outcasts of the Slytherin house. The others in our house believe him to be more of a Hufflepuff then a Slytherin. And me, they hate me because I come from the Potter line. I hope that you get the idea, if not, just read the letter with my parents, you'll learn more about me too.
I pull the trigger, I hear a bang as the bullet leaves the barrel, then I feel pain and then I see everything going dark but I still have my eyes open. I feel the gun fall from my hand and hear it land on the hard wood floor. I fall to the floor with a loud thump as I lose my strength. I hear footsteps running up the stairs. But their too late, I'll be dead in a couple of seconds…
Half an hour earlier
The Potter family was sitting at the dinning room table talking about their day, well, not the oldest Potter child. Not that his family cared or anything, but he was more quite then he usually was, poking at the food on his plate, looking like he was thinking hard about something.
"-And then the dragonfly landed on his nose, and he sneezed." His sister, Kayla, was talking about her cat, like she always does at dinner.
There was some laughing before it was quiet. It was his Dad, James, who broke the silence.
"So Harry, how was your day?" He said with a slight sneer.
Harry looked up from his plate with a surprised look on his face, not expecting his father to speak to him at all tonight before looking back down at his plate of uneaten food and answered with a shrug.
"Alright, I guess." After he said that he went back to poking at his food.
"Well, your father and I wanted to give you your birthday present early," Harry's mother, Lily, said. This made him look up in shock again. 'They're going mental.'
"Yes," James said. "One year from tomorrow, you will no longer be a part of this family." Harry could feel his eyes burning from unshed tears. He looked down again.
'Figures…'
"You're disowning him?" Rose asked her parents. She never thought they'd go that far.
"Yes," Lily told her. "We are." The girls we alternating their stares between their parents and their brother, who looked to be on the edge of an emotional breakdown.
"Why?" Harry asked his voice thick with tears.
"We don't want a Slytherin in the family. We've already put up with you longer than we though we could've." James said.
"If you hate me that much, why are you waiting until I'm seventeen?" Harry forced his voice to sound stronger than he felt.
"Well, then you'll be an adult and you can take care of yourself. Sirius said it would be best that way."
Harry slowly nodded before looking up again at his parents.
"May I be excused?" He asked them. They nodded, and then he stood up from the table and walked to the door leading to the hallway.
He put his hand on the handle and looked back at his family. His parents were looking at him with blank faces and his sisters looked at each other in shock. A tear fell down his cheek as he turned back to the door, opened it and walked out of the dinning room.
His family heard him walk up the stairs and close his bedroom door. Rose and Kayla looked at their parents and Kayla asked:
"Are you really going to disown him?"
"Yes," Lily answered.
"Why?" Rose questioned.
"Because, he's an evil, good for nothing brat that doesn't deserve the name Potter." James told them.
"What makes you say he's evil?" Asked Kayla.
She never got an answer, for right then a loud bang was heard, followed by the sound of something hard hitting the floor, then a loud thump.
"What was that?!" Rose loudly asked.
"It-It sounded like a gun." Lily said as she stood and ran out of the room. The other three looked at each other before following after her.
They saw her red hair disappearing at the top of the stairs and ran after her. When they reached the second landing they saw her standing in the door way of Harry's room.
They walked over to her and looked inside the room. What they saw made Rose and Kayla scream, breaking their mum out of her shock. She ran into the room, falling to her knees in front of her son in the middle of a puddle of blood, a muggle gun laying next to his body, a piece of parchment in his left hand, bright green eyes wide open.
She grabbed his right wrist, checking for a pulse. There was none.
"Mum..." Rose couldn't finish the sentence. She didn't have to.
"H-He's gone." Lily replied shakily.
"No-No he's not. He's faking. He has to be." James said from the door way.
"His heart stopped, James," Lily said still staring at Harry. "He shot it."
Rose and Kayla looked up at their Dad to see tears falling down his cheeks before walking over to their brothers body.
Kayla fell to her knees at her brothers head and started to run her fingers through his hair while tears ran down her cheeks as Rose laid a hand on her mothers shoulder. It was then that she saw the parchment in his hand.
She pulled her hand from her mothers shoulder, bent down and took the letter out of Harry's hand.
On the front it read The Potters in her brothers spiky hand writing.
"He wrote a letter to us." Rose said quietly as she opened it with shaky hands. She read it aloud.
"So I guess you're wondering why I did this, huh? You'll find out. Right now I want to tell you about me, now that I have your attention.
Well, I guess I'll start with the obvious. Everyone at Hogwarts hates me (except Blaise Zabini, my best friend), All of Slytherin (Snape included) hates me for being a Potter. The rest of the school hates me because they think I betrayed them by being put in Slytherin. I've been in the Hospital Wing more times then I can count-" She was interrupted by her mother.
"Why would he be in the hospital wing so much?" Lily asked with tears running down her face. Rose kept reading.
"From being attacked by fellow students in the corridors between classes. I've only been there about twenty six times from Quidditch injures. Did you know I was the youngest Seeker in a century? You probably did, just didn't care. Malfoy wasn't happy at all; he's the one who started the attacks. Enough about that; how about I tell you about my accomplishments? In my fourth year I learned to be an Animagus, I can turn into a black panther and a white fox-" This time Rose was cut off by her Dad.
"He had two forms? No one has ever had more then one." He said.
"Really?" Kayla asked. James nodded.
Rose started reading again.
"I was also a Metamorphmagus, an Elemental (I could control fire, water, and wind) I could do wandless magic, and was a master at Occlumancy and Legilemancy by my thirteenth birthday. I've had two girlfriends, Emma and Quinn (both Muggles). My best friend was Blaise Zabini (as I said before). Don't worry about Hedwig, I sent her off to Blaise to take care of her. You see, we had a plan, we've talked about it a lot, since second year, the plan was if one of us killed ourselves, no, that doesn't sound as nice to you as it does me, does it? Ok, the plan was if one of us decided to leave this suck arse world (that's better, isn't it?) then we would send our owls to the other to let them know we'd never talk to each other again." Rose stopped reading here; she found she couldn't talk anymore, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.
"He's been planning to do this since he was twelve, James," Lily whispered to her husband. "How could we not have seen it?"
Kayla looked at her Mum sharply and said. "You were to busy accusing him of being evil to pay attention, and get to know him." She looked back down at her brothers face. "We all were."
Rose looked up as a hand touched her shoulder, and saw her father looking at the letter.
"Is there anything else he said?" James asked. Rose nodded and handed the parchment over to him and pointed at where she left off, and walked over to her sister and pulled her in to a hug. He nodded and read aloud the rest of the letter.
"You might be wondering about Blaise. Why was he suicidal? It's not my place to say. But I will tell you this, he was always attacked by the Slytherins, he was to Hufflepuff for their liking. That's all I have to say. If I left any thing out, you're just going to have to live with not knowing, like I had to live with you not caring.
Your son and brother,
Harrison James Potter.
P.S. Just so you know, I was always proud to be a Potter. I just wish you were proud of me.
P.P.S. Tell Padfoot I died like a rabbit… He'll know what I mean."
After James finished reading the letter he looked at the son he never knew, never bothered to know. Now he wished he had. He could have helped him in so many ways if he had just talked to his son.
James looked at the clock on the wall, six twenty seven. Harry would have been sixteen in five hours and thirty three minutes.
He looked down at the letter again. 'Animagus, Metamorphmagus, Elemental, Occlumancy and Legilemancy master, He could cast wandless magic. Merlin he was powerful.' James thought to himself. He walked over to his wife, fell to his knees next to her and pulled her into a one armed hug.
James couldn't help but remember the last conversation he had with Harry. How could he have said something like that?
James looked down at his sons arm that was bare from Lily pushing the sleeve up, and saw hundreds of scars. Some looked to be years old. He could see the tears in his son's eyes and on his cheeks; Harry was the only one of their children that had gotten Lily's eyes. James reached over and closed them.
As his wife and daughters cried he thought, 'I wish I knew him. I don't even know what his favorite colour was.' Was… It hit him just then. His only son, the son James was proud to know when Harry was ten, the son that was only fifteen and would never see his sixteenth birthday, the son that was never going to know what it's like to hold his child in arms for the first time; would never again open the eyes James just closed.
A/N I decided to write a Prequel at a later date, no sequel, sorry to those who wanted it… I can't make it work without ruining this fic.
Rewritten- December 23rd 2006… Happy Christmas!