Once outside of Hogwart's wards he apparated into the grounds of the accursed manor where he had spent much of the past few years, the place still chilled him to the bones more now than ever that its last master was dead.

He worked swiftly moving and transfiguring stone to create a kind of table as would be used for a traditional sacrifice. He changed into his Death Eater robes and made sure to pull the hood up and forward so that it concealed his face and woke Harry just enough so that he would appear to be alive to his followers before giving him a diluted strengthening solution. He then laid the still drowsy boy on the table before incanting the ritual spell Lily had shown him so that the master of death would accept his son and purify him of evil.

Finally, he thought he was as ready as he'd ever be and forced himself to turn away from his son. He occluded his thoughts, allowing his face to adopt the cold neutral mask and haughty indifference he always wore as a Death Eater and Voldemort's heir. He looked down at his marked arm, it still looked the same, only the slightest shimmer gave a hint that it was not all it appeared. Well now was the true test to see if it still worked as the dark mark he thought before pressing his finger to it and focusing his thoughts on summoning his followers.

The seconds ticked by agonisingly slowly as he forced himself to school his features as he waited to see if they would answer his call. Slowly they began to arrive, apparating in and looking around in confusion before muttering and whispering to each other, comparing notes. Soon a large crowd had gathered, he thought there may be a few missing and waited until it became apparent no one else would turn up.

Gradually people began to turn their attention to where he was standing in the grounds and they congregated before him as one black mass. He raised his hand for silence and the murmurs stilled, he looked around allowing his eyes to linger and assess who was here making a few people shift uncomfortably under his gaze. Eventually, he spoke "is this all of you?"

Some of them reluctantly muttered an affirmative uneasily.

Raising his voice, he continued, "brothers, I am the unfortunate bearer of bad news. I have summoned you here tonight to inform you that our Lord has been defeated by a baby not yet two years of age" he told them, sneering for added effect, waiting until the murmurs and gasps of shocks subsided before continuing.

"Yes the rumours are correct our Lord was defeated by a mere babe barely able to defend himself" he sneered "a boy named Harry Potter was able to vanquish one of the greatest wizards of all time. However, we must not despair" he turned as he was speaking, walking to the stone table and picking up harry before walking back to the crowd, "I have summoned you here so that I may take my rightful place as our Lord's heir and continue his glorious work in his name and that starts here tonight by doing what our Lord could not and killing Harry Potter!" He proclaimed his face a mask of anger as he held his son up for all to see, Harry blinked sleepily taking in the crowd.

There was a moment of stunned silence before the crowd erupted into cheers, yes, he knew they would want to see this the death of the one child who had defeated their master. "where my father has failed I will succeed" he told them before laying the boy out on the stone table praying for forgiveness for what he was about to do. He walked back and incanted the killing curse using all the hate he felt for Voldemort to fuel it as his son was struck and engulfed in the green flash that temporarily blinded him.

There was silence as the baby's cries suddenly stopped and the silence was absolute as his followers watched with bated breath.

He approached his son who appeared stone cold and lifeless, and discreetly checked him for signs of life. He was relieved to find him still warm, with a steady pulse and his heart still beating strongly. He silently breathed a sigh of relief before recasting the charm to make him appear dead. "Behold my brothers Harry Potter is no more!" he roared to much louder almost deafening cheers of celebration.

He allowed them to celebrate for a minute before raising his hand again for silence "enough" he said forcefully, "we must not allow ourselves to become complacent. My father appointed me as his heir to continue his honourable work if he was ever unable to do so in my father's absence I take my place as the rightful heir to his legacy, all those of you who pledged your loyalty to my father will now do so to me."

There were definite murmurs of discontent at this before the first of the Death Eaters came forward pledging their loyalty and prostrating themselves to kiss the hem of his robes. Others begrudgingly followed until the last had sworn his allegiance.

"Good. My father was a very powerful wizard, he knew more of the dark arts than all of us combined. He bent his knee to no man and I know for a fact that he uncovered the secret to immortality before he passed using dark artefacts to aid him. We must now dedicate our efforts to learning how he mastered death so that he may lead us once more" he told his audience.

"My Lord" one person nervously stepped forward, looking alone amongst the crowd, "how do you know of such things?"

"You dare question me on such matters?" he replied angrily "I have been named as his heir and as such I am privy to information that he does not see fit to share with the rest of his followers, powerful knowledge that is passed down as part of my birthright, the secrets of immortality cannot be shared with just anyone" he explained before casting crucio on him. He did not enjoy it nor did he hold it long but he knew it would be expected of him to discipline those who were seen to be disrespectful or talking out of line as the man mumbled his apologies.

He was bluffing somewhat as if Voldemort would share the fact that he had created Horcruxes with anyone even his own son, it was only by sheer luck that he had stumbled upon the information whilst begging for help from Dumbledore who informed him that he contained a Horcrux and they had deduced that his father would not have stopped at creating just one Horcrux.

"My Lord, what are our instructions should we carry on attacking muggles?" another bold soul ventured.

"No, we must lie low until we are able to restore my father to full strength and his rightful place as our leader then we will be able to attack at full strength. Unfortunately, my father was taken from us suddenly and unexpectedly was unable to pass on all of his secrets to me. To this end, we must dedicate all of our efforts into discovering how he managed to cheat death so that we may restore him to his former glory so he can continue his noble work. If anyone has any information that may aid us in this mission or any dark artefacts in their possession they must bring them to me with the utmost urgency for analysis so I can determine how he managed to cheat death"

"My Lord, what kind of objects are we looking for?"

"It could be anything I will not know until I have had a chance to examine it and perform a series of tests, if you are uncertain of anything you have been given or an object seems suspicious then bring it to me, even the most inconspicuous piece could yield vital information at this point."

"And what will you be doing my Lord? If you don't mind me asking of course" the man added hastily.

"I will be lying low and carrying out my own research. I have already earned the trust of the old fool Dumbledore. He is far too trusting and naïvely offered me a second chance and a job teaching at Hogwarts. It is the perfect place to influence young minds and learn of the enemy's movements as the old man is too trusting to imagine he has a traitor in his midst, by the time our Lord has returned we will have replenished our forces and trained a new generation to take to take up the mantle and continue our glorious work. Now you have your instructions, this night has been long and I must depart soon before I am missed at Hogwarts, leave me and remember to lie low and continue our lord's work"

He waited impatiently as the crowd respectfully paid their farewells and departed. He was desperate to tend to his son but unfortunately, one man remained and he didn't need to guess their identity before he removed his mask revealing his long blonde hair and grey eyes.

"Severus my friend, congratulations on your new appointment, I always knew you were capable of great things" he said in an oily voice that instantly made Severus wary of his ulterior motive.

"Malfoy" he replied coldly "you would do well to remember your place when addressing me"

"Come now Severus, after all I have done for you is that any way to treat an old friend?"

"We are not in the schoolyard now, you will address me properly now I am your Lord unless you wish to be punished"

"My apologies, I forget myself my Lord" he said pretending to be sorry.

Severus was growing impatient by this point "what was it you were wanting, it has been a long night and you are trying my patience" he warned.

"Of course my apologies I merely wanted to offer my congratulations"

"You mean to try and rub shoulders and ingratiate yourself with the new top dog" he stated knowing his game too well.

He feigned shock "of course not Severus, I mean my Lord" he corrected "however I think that I may have some artefacts that may be of use or at least of interest to you and of course there is the library at Malfoy Manor which is always at your disposal should you need it"

"Good, be sure to send them over Malfoy and you will most certainly earn my favour. Now if you will excuse me it is late" he reiterated impatiently realising it would be to his benefit to offer him some incentive for a man who craved power such as Lucius Malfoy.

"Very good my Lord, I will have one of my house elves search for them and send them over" he replied before bowing to him. Severus dismissed him with a wave of his hand, grateful when he finally left.

Finally, when he was out of sight he removed the horrid robes and shrunk them with the ugly mask until they fit in his pocket before hurrying over to where Harry still lay silently. He hoped he was alright as he hadn't been able to see to him in a while. To his immense relief, he appeared to have fallen back into a light sleep none the worse for wear. He ran his wand over him performing the same scan Dumbledore had done earlier and was relieved to see there was no trace of dark magic on him, although his scar still appeared red and inflamed. He conjured a warm blanket and wrapped him in it before applying some numbing and healing salve onto the scar noting how he instantly seemed to relax a little as it worked its magic.

He picked up his son who snuggled into him contentedly. He walked beyond the apparition point glad to be away from the manor. There was much to do he thought, he would have to arrange for someone to look after his new son, one of the house elves perhaps, create a new identity for him and he would also need to find another manor to entertain those Death Eaters who may come to visit as they surely would be expecting him as the dark lord's heir to own something more than the pitiful hovel at Spinner's End, something worthy of his status.

Author's Notes:

Well there we are, that is all I've written so far and at the minute my focus isn't on writing more and I'm not sure when and if that will change. I will be uploading some of the stories or at least chapters of stories that I have already written at some point although there may be some delay whilewhile I concentrate on some other things that need to be done so keep an eye out fro anything interesting

I don't normally do spoilers but since I'm not likely to update this story for a while or at least not anytime soon then I will outline the plan going forward. As has been seen in this chapter Severus will use the Death Eaters to hunt down the Horcruxes on the pretense of using them to restore Voldemort, since they assume he will be studying them to find a way to bring him back they will not know that he is actually destroying them. Once they are sure Voldemort is destroyed then they can start tipping people off about who is a Death Eater.

Lucius will bring the diary or have one of his house elves do so probably Dobby since that would be interesting. Lucius or Narcissa may also drop a little hint about the cup Belltrix has in her vault since she's sure to have bragged about it (I'm not entirely sure when the attack on the Longbottoms happened, presumably not long after as Neville doesn't seem to remember his parents but perhaps not quite that soon that they would already be in Azkabanalthough maybe they won't be attacked this time since Severus has told them to lie low).

I also planned to have Regulus alive and flesh out his story. Since he went to Severus for advice and we know that he turned against Voldemort in canon then I figure that he has come to a similar arrangement with Dumbledore to act as a double agent. That would please his family but leave him with a relatively clean conscience, it also would mean that instead of going straight to the cave and drinking the poison he would take Kreacher to Severus and inform him of what happened so that between them they can come up with a better plan to retrieve the locket.

The others will be more tricky but I'm sure that between Severus, Dumbledore and Regulus they can figure some of it out, they already know about Tom's family history since they did the test to find out about Severus's family which showed his family tree and if they get the locket and cup it won't be too hard to figure out that he's after the founder's treasures.

As for Harry/Hadrian, I've not got any particular plans for him but he will have a fairly normal childhood and not have to fight Voldemort or hunt Horcruxes or anything like that, he will probably be kept hidden for a while since it would be suspicious for Severus to suddenly have a son at the same time that Harry Potter is killed. He'll probably grow up meeting Draco (could be a good influence) and some of the other kids whose parents are Death Eaters since they are in Severus's social circle although he'll probably also meet some of the other light side families maybe when he's school age.