Title: The One True King
Author: Shara Lunison
Beta: Batsutousai
Rating: M
Pairings: eventual HP/LV, JP/LE, HP/everyone, ever
Warnings: AU; OoC; character death; pseudo Lion King crossover; dark, insane, promiscuous, Slytherin Harry; pseudo incest; more as they happen

Disclaim Her:

~I'm Not Ready for the Darkness; Swear Upon a Heartless Soul~

Harry graduated, and the day after his nineteenth birthday, Neville James Potter was born. He was the only child to fulfill what little piece of the prophecy they knew. Another child may have been born at the right time, but Alice Longbottom had miscarried at three months.

After the child was born, it took a full year before the Death Eaters were able to find the Potter family. James—wisely, for once—had not returned to Potter Manor after his marriage. Only a select few people knew where the family had settled down, and Tom had been speculating for some time that Dumbledore must have hidden them with the Fidelius Charm.

But the weak link was an old, long-exposed source of information: Peter Pettigrew. Tom sent him in to spy, not expecting much, and his reward was the rat animagus becoming the holder of the Fidelius spell. As Wormtail had proven time and again, he would gladly sacrifice his own friends if it meant saving his own skin.

They were not the only ones who could put two and two together—Severus came before Lord Voldemort and pleaded for Lily's life. Harry was more than surprised when Tom acceded; there was nothing in it for the Dark Lord except the loyalty of one follower. Though he suspected that his friendship with the Potions' Master may have influenced the decision.

Tom waited until Halloween night to attack. Harry was with him, the only Death Eater trusted enough to know the exact details of the plan, much less accompany Lord Voldemort on the raid.

Tom gave Harry the honor of killing James. It was so simple to kill off the last of his family; one spell to blast open the door, and one killing curse straight into the chest of a defenseless James Potter. He hadn't even been able to get his wand properly in hand.

Harry had vaguely heard some yelling while he was killing his brother, and motioned toward the stairs, letting his Lord precede him.

At the top of the landing, they saw one closed door immediately to their left, while the others were open. Another blasting spell threw open the door to the nursery, and Harry entered behind Voldemort, green eyes gleaming with malicious intent.

"Not Neville, spare him, please!" Lily screeched entreatingly. She was standing in front of the crib in which a young babe was lying.

"Step aside, you silly woman!" Voldemort snarled. He was trying to spare the mudblood as Severus had asked, but Harry knew the man had little patience for these things.

"No, please, please! Spare my son!"

"I command you to step aside!"

"Not my son, take me! Take me instead!"

Harry snorted and flicked his wand, sending a stupefy toward the woman, who crumpled to the floor in front of the crib.

"Now," Voldemort said. He moved closer to the crib as Harry moved Lily out of the way. Staring down at the quiet, calm face of Neville Potter, his lips curled in a vicious sneer. "Avada Kedavra!"

Harry watched as if in slow motion as the jet of green light left the Dark Lord's wand at point-blank range. A sudden bad feeling swamped him, but he wasn't close enough to do anything. "NO! TOM!" he screamed.

The blinding green flash rebounded onto the Dark Lord somehow, and Tom screamed before his empty robes and wand fell to the ground with a quiet clatter.

Neville was screaming now, pudgy baby hands holding his forehead where it had apparently been hurt.

Harry was screaming too. He had been standing just behind the Dark Lord when it happened, and something of the killing curse must have passed through and hit him in the chest, just over his heart. He could feel a burning pain there that was only multiplied by the knowledge that Tom was gone. He was gone, and Harry had no idea how to bring him back. Tom was supposed to be immortal, wasn't he? The Dark Lord couldn't just die. Especially not at the hands of an infant.

Struggling to his feet, Harry lifted his wand to point it at Neville. He would finish the job. "Avada kedavra!" he yelled. The curse rebounded off of Neville's forehead again, and Harry saw a strange lightning-bolt shaped wound in the center. He barely managed to dodge the rebounded curse in time.

Cursing, Harry swept over to the crib and lifted the squalling infant in his hands to study the mark on Neville's forehead. It was bleeding freely, and he could see that it was shaped like the rune sowilo-it was a protection rune that meant 'sun'. Lily had protected her son.

Dropping the baby back into the crib, roughly, Harry turned away to study Tom's robes. He picked up the wand as though it were a precious treasure, which to him it was. "I'll keep it safe, Tom," he whispered. The robes he left for the Aurors to find. Thinking of them made him realize that he didn't have much time. He studied the room.

Lily was still out cold on the floor, and Neville was crying hysterically in his crib. No one had to know that the boy had done anything remarkable. He could set things up to make it seem that James had died defending his family, and taken the Dark Lord with him.

Stumbling from the room, Harry rubbed his chest absent-mindedly as he hovered James' dead body back up the stairs. Then he began to set the stage. He added a large number of cuts, scrapes, and welts to James' body, as well as a number of Dark curses and hexes that made him ache to feel Tom's magic again. Casting them made the spot on his chest tingle pleasantly, and he sighed as he relaxed for the first time since seeing the Dark Lord disappear. He took James' wand and cast the Killing Curse at the wall, then made sure that James had his wand in his hand, firmly grasped, before turning to survey Lily and Neville.

Their separation wouldn't do. He opened a door in the room and found a closet, then levitated Lily inside to curl up in a corner. Neville he grabbed and pressed into her arms, trying to make the embrace look natural. The only redeeming quality was that Neville calmed and stopped screaming hysterically as soon as he felt his mother's arms around him.

"Obliviate." Harry said lazily, forcibly removing Lily's memories of the events and making it so that she wouldn't question his presence inside of a house formerly protected by the Fidelius Charm. A simple healing spell healed the cut on Neville's forehead, and he wiped away the blood. There wasn't even a scar left behind to mark the event. "Reenervate." Lily began to wake, her eyes blank and dazed like anyone who had been recently Obliviated. Pocketing his wand, Harry knelt in front of the woman and took her by the shoulders. This would be the performance of a lifetime. "Merlin!" he gasped. "Lily, what happened?"

She blinked, staring at him. "I don't...know..." her eyes cleared slightly and he waited for her to remember. She gasped, automatically sitting up straight and looking around. "The Dark Lord! James!"

Harry winced, turning his head away dramatically. "I'm sorry, Lily," he whispered.

"No! James!" Lily lunged past him, Neville still clutched in her arms, and Harry let her pass. She stopped short at the sight of James' body lying protectively in front of the door. He looked more than a little worse for wear after Harry's curses. Looking at him made Harry realize he had forgotten something important and he cast a Dark spell from his wand while Lily was distracted, removing the memory of what spells he had cast from his wand and replacing them with benign Light spells that he might have used to investigate the house.

"He's dead," Harry told her gently once he was done. Lily was sobbing over her husband's body, and Harry's lips twisted in disgust when his words only made her cry harder, clutching Neville like a lifeline.

"What am I going to do?" Lily wailed. "I can't raise a child by myself! I'm not ready!"

Harry looked at her in surprise. So, little Neville wasn't exactly 'planned', was he? "You won't be alone," Harry told her firmly. "You'll both live with me. I can help you take care of him."

Lily wiped some of her tears away with her sleeve and looked up at him hopefully. For a moment Harry felt as though he were looking at the innocent young girl whose virginity he had stolen in secret. But in the next moment, he remembered her treatment of Severus and any pity he might have felt disappeared like smoke.

"Really?" Lily breathed.

"Really, truly," Harry said. "Let's get you out of here and wait for the Aurors."

"But, James..." she trailed off, gently touching the butchered face of her husband. "All right," she whispered.

Harry helped her to her feet and led her from the room. They made it downstairs not a moment too soon, for the Aurors burst in at that exact moment. Harry felt a thrill of fear go down his spine when they pointed their wands at him automatically.

But Lily was recovering herself enough to snap, "Stop that! He came to help us!"

Harry gave the Aurors a calculatedly nervous look, and they lowered their wands. Inside, he was cheering. Lily hadn't even questioned his presence there!

"James is..." Lily trailed off, fresh tears pouring down her cheeks. She turned to Harry unexpectedly and he found his arms full of crying mudblood, getting his best robes wet on one shoulder. But Harry folded his arms around her, as well as Neville, and looked to the Aurors.

"James is dead," he said, allowing the briefest touch of remorse to color his voice. A number of the men and women standing there paled and looked toward the stairs instinctively. "I think..." Harry hesitated just the perfect moment of time, then said, "I think he...killed...You-Know-Who."

Lily gasped, pulling back a little bit to stare at him. "There was no body..." she trailed off, realizing for the first time that there might not have been a body, but the Dark Lord was gone and she was still alive, as was her son.

"But You-Know-Who wasn't here when I arrived," Harry said. "And there was a pile of robes beside James that were smoking faintly. I don't know what he did, or how, but I'm sure that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is dead."

The Aurors rushed upstairs without another word, and Harry heard many gasps and exclamations. While they were occupied, he ushered Lily into one of the kitchen chairs and gently took Neville from her arms. The boy had fallen asleep, which Harry was grateful for. Given his prior treatment of the child, he was sure Neville would only cry when he held him. Instead of wringing the brat's neck like he wanted, he gently put Neville against his shoulder and bounced back and forth across the kitchen while Lily recovered herself.

"You're so good with him," Lily whispered. "James wouldn't let me invite you to the wedding, you know. Or to the naming ceremony for Neville. He insisted you were Dark. I wish he could see you now."

Harry smiled down at Neville, saying, "I wish he could, too. He never liked me, Lily. None of my family did. I wasn't what they wanted."

Lily sniffled, but nodded. "I know. My sister had the same problem. I loved her dearly, but she could never get over the fact that I had magic and she didn't. After the summer before my seventh year when she destroyed all of my school things..." Lily shook her head, her mouth set. Then her eyes turned misty, and she wiped them with a handkerchief she had procured from somewhere while Harry hadn't been paying attention. "She has a son the same age as Neville," Lily gasped out. "I've never met him. She never even told me his name!"

She started to cry again, and Harry looked around for somewhere to lay Neville down, and spotted a bassinette just inside of the living room. He put the sleeping child down to rest and then returned to the kitchen, pulling over a chair and folding Lily into his arms again. "She still loves you," he whispered. "She just doesn't know how to handle you."

"How do you know?" Lily sobbed, only sounding half accusing.

"Because James loved me," Harry whispered truthfully. "Deep down, he loved me. But our parents raised us both in such a way that he could never express it. I remember his face when I was sorted into Slytherin. He looked so betrayed. I couldn't understand why he cared, when he had never shown any care for me before. But now I know."

Lily's arms came around him, and he held her as she cried herself out, falling into a restless sleep just as one of the Aurors came downstairs again.

"The Dark Lord is dead," the man whispered. Harry recognized him belatedly as Frank Longbottom, whose son might have been a child of prophecy had it lived. "But his wand is missing. Did you see anything?"

Harry shook his head. "The house was under the FideliusCharm. I don't know who the Secret Keeper was, but it's obvious that they betrayed James and Lily. I came as soon as I realized that I had remembered where the Potters lived. James didn't want me here, so I was never included in the secret."

Longbottom paled even further. "Merlin," he breathed. "Sirius Black was the Secret Keeper! I saw him not an hour ago, before the call came in."

As if on cue, a deep rumbling sound was heard outside-a sound Harry recognized as belonging to Black's magical motorcycle. Thinking quickly while Longbottom rushed outside to confront the other man, Harry drew his wand and stunned Lily once more so that she wouldn't wake up and ruin everything by defending Black. Then he picked her up and laid her on the couch in the living room before returning to the front of the house to peer outside at the show unfolding.

"Frank, what's wrong with you?" Black was saying. "Are James and Neville all right?"

Harry waited in anticipation, not really knowing if this would work or not.

"How dare you!" Longbottom screamed. "James is dead, and you know it!"

"WHAT?" Black cried, an anguished expression coming onto his face before dawning realization came over him and a dark fury filled his frame. "THAT RAT!"

But it was too late for Black to go seeking revenge on the missing Pettigrew. "Incarcerous!" Longbottom cried, and ropes materialized from his wand to wrap around the criminal, binding him at ankles, knees, and wrists and even gagging him before any more could be said. Inside the house, Harry did a minor victory dance in front of the window as the Auror proceeded to arrest his last remaining enemy-other than his nephew, of course.

Longbottom brought Black into the house and settled him beside the door. "Keep an eye on him, would you, Potter?" he asked. Then he went upstairs, presumably to fetch one or two of the others to help him bring Black in to the Auror Department.

Black's eyes had widened comically at the sight of him, and muffled exclamations could be heard from behind the gag. But Harry kept an eye on him, all right. Just as soon as he had kicked Black in the balls a couple of times. After that the man was too busy whimpering to attempt to scream obscenities at Harry.

Longbottom came back down quickly, with another Auror in tow. They took custody of Black and left the Godric's Hollow property with a sharp crack of apparition.

Harry decided to leave Lily stunned on the couch and went upstairs to see what the Aurors were up to. Neville was still sleeping, so it wasn't like he had any reason to stay downstairs.

In the nursery, the Aurors were casting spells, trying to see if they could piece together what had happened.

"How is it going?" Harry asked.

"As well as can be expected," one of the female Aurors stated tiredly. James' body had been covered with a sheet and they were all stepping carefully around him as they worked. "This was quite the battle."

"Oh?" Harry asked.

So the Aurors explained what they had found out-Lily and Neville had been hidden in the closet while James turned to face the door and protect them. Voldemort had blasted the door off the hinges during his entrance, and they speculated that the splinters of wood had caused some of James' injuries. Then a great duel had taken place, with James taking hit after hit, but never giving up in his defense of his family. They pointed out the splash of the Killing Curse on the wall where Harry had aimed James' wand, and told Harry that it was from Voldemort, who must have taken so many hits by then that his aim had suffered for it. "The last spell in James' wand was avada kedavra, the Auror finished solemnly. We don't know how he managed to hit You-Know-Who with it, but the result is clear. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is no more."

There was a long moment of silence in the room and Harry looked away, pretending to wipe misty eyes with his sleeve. Finally, he cleared his throat. "I should get Lily and Neville out of this house," he said softly. "It can't be safe, staying here. When the Death Eaters find out..."

"Yes, of course," one of them said, moving closer to him. "We'll just need to check your wand. You understand."

Harry nodded, and handed it over, then cursed silently. They would be able to see that his last spell had been stupefy.

The Auror checked the last ten spells or so, seeing nothing that could not be explained except for the very first spell that came out. "Was Lily getting hysterical?" she asked.

Harry breathed a quiet sigh of relief, but fobbed it off as sadness. "She had finally cried herself to sleep, but then she woke up from a nightmare. I figured she could use the rest, so I stunned her."

The Auror nodded, handing back the wand. "Where will you take them?"

Harry couldn't believe his luck. "My own home. It's a small property outside Leicester. The address is 15 Snows Lane. I'll leave the floo open for you, if you need me."

"We appreciate it," she said.

Harry turned and left the room without looking back. If they had seen his face, they would have witnessed a malicious grin to rival even the Dark Lord's.

~Holding My Breath, Last One I've Got Left Till I See You~

Harry sat on the roof of his home-a gift to him from the Dark Lord when he graduated-and stared up at the stars. The autumn night was chilly, but he sat there bare-chested, only a thin pair of sleep pants clinging to his hips.

He wanted to be cold. It had been two weeks since the Dark Lord's disappearance, and there was still no sign of his lover.

Lily and Neville were settled into the house below him, sound asleep. He had debated about whether or not to just put Lily under the Imperius Curse rather than continue with his charade. But he hadn't had the will to do it yet. It was not that he cared about the mudblood—it was that he missed Tom too much. What was the point in continuing without Tom there by his side?

He had informed Severus that the Dark Lord had spared Lily's life, and invited his friend to come over whenever he wanted to see if, with James Potter out of the way, he could have the wench once and for all.

Several of the other Death Eaters had gone on a killing spree when they found out that Voldemort was 'dead'. Bellatrix and Barty had killed the Longbottoms the same night as the Potters—Harry didn't mourn them, because now there was no one who remembered that it was he who had reminded Frank of the Secret Keeper being Sirius Black. So now Bellatrix and Barty were in Azkaban along with a number of other Death Eaters who had been implicated on Halloween night. Sirius Black had been given the Dementor's Kiss, which only lifted Harry's spirits a very small amount. Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin had attended James' funeral, which Harry had paid for, and Lily had said her tearful goodbyes.

Dumbledore had attempted to enter Harry's home within a day of the attack on Godric's Hollow. Harry denied him entrance the first time by claiming that the family was in mourning. That didn't stop Dumbledore the second time, though, because the man was smart enough to accompany the Aurors in his 'official' capacity as the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. He spent about twenty minutes examining Neville with a puzzled expression on his face, then left and did not come back.

All of his affairs were settled and Harry finally had what he wanted in the form of all of the Potter wealth and properties, as well as the Lordship—but it was bittersweet. Neville was too young to be Lord Potter, but James had made it so that when the brat turned seventeen, he would regain control of the Potter birthright. Harry wouldn't have been worried about losing it, but he had tried multiple times to kill the child, and nothing seemed to work. The prophecy was clearly far more detailed than either he or Tom had believed.

Sighing, Harry lay back on the cold roof tiles and shivered. Was Tom really still out there somewhere? Had he really made himself immortal? Harry rubbed at the mark on his chest and reaffirmed his faith in his lover. When he had had a moment to breathe upon returning home, Harry had found that the mark over his heart was a tiny snake with the most minute of details depicting an eye and a forked tongue. It tended to move about over the area of skin where Harry had been struck by the residue of the Killing Curse. He had no idea what it was or why it had formed, but he welcomed it. It felt like Tom.

He would have to start making plans and working toward them soon. But for right now, all he wanted was to stare up at the stars and pretend that Tom was beside him in a rare moment of relaxation and camaraderie.

~A Million Ways to be Cruel~

"Where is she?" Severus asked, finding Harry in the first floor study after flooing in.

Harry looked up from the paperwork he was filling out and studied his friend. Severus was dressed very nicely in a new set of teaching robes. He had been hired for the position of Potions Master to take over for Slughorn, who was retiring at long last.

"Upstairs, with Neville," Harry answered.

Severus nodded, straightening his robes almost unconsciously as he looked toward the stairs. "I don't think this will work," he admitted softly.

Harry shrugged. "I've been toying with the idea of using imperio on her. Feel free to do it yourself if you want her so badly."

Severus stiffened, but his eyes gleamed. Harry knew his friend well enough to know that the idea both disgusted and excited the other man.

"Perhaps I will try the conventional method first," he said drily.

"Perhaps," Harry said, lips twitching.

Severus swept up the stairs without another word, and Harry returned to his paperwork, though he kept his ears peeled for any sounds of yelling or violence. None ever came.

The Potions Master returned down the steps about an hour later, and Harry turned to him with his eyebrows raised. Severus was smiling.

"Sometimes," Severus said, pausing beside the door with a smug look, "I love being me."

"What did you do?" Harry asked, honestly curious to hear what Severus had come up with.

"A few potions, a bit of memory loss, and a lot of fun," Severus said, nearly grinning. Then he turned away from Harry's study and left via the floo a few moments later.

Harry chuckled to himself and went upstairs to make sure that his sister-in-law was still sane and to make sure the brat wouldn't start crying while she was...recovering. He found Lily sprawled decadently on the bed in the room he had given her. She was nude and was sighing happily to herself with a smile on her face. Next door he found Neville in his crib with a localized sleeping charm that had Severus' signature on it.

Satisfied, Harry went back to his papers.

~Hold My Heart~

"Do you know anything about what the Dark Lord did to make himself immortal?" Harry asked without preamble when he entered Lucius' study in Malfoy Manor. His old friend was bouncing Draco on his knee and making uncouth baby noises in response to the child's cooing.

Lucius froze, much to Draco's displeasure, and then hurriedly called for a house elf to take the child away while he discussed 'business' with Harry.

"What are you talking about?" Lucius finally asked when they were alone.

Harry rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. "Spare me, Lucius," he said drily. "Your reaction was more than enough to tell me you know something."

"But I don't!" Lucius protested, running a hand through his hair with uncharacteristic nervousness. "I would think that you would know, if any of us did. All I have is..."

Harry waited for the other Lord to continue, but Lucius' mouth seemed to be quite stubbornly shut. And Harry lost his patience. He was across the room in a heartbeat, one hand at Lucius' throat and his Dark magic pulsing around him like an aura. "TELL ME," he demanded.

Lucius' eyes widened and his knees clearly gave out. Harry was the only thing holding him up. "H-he gave me...a book!" he gasped out, hands clawing at the one Harry was holding to his throat. "I-It's in the l-library!"

Harry released him and stalked from the room, not even bothering to reign in his magic. He left behind a shocked Malfoy, who remained on his knees in his own study for quite some time.

Harry was quite familiar with the layout of Malfoy Manor and went straight to the library. With his magic whipping around him and pulsing slightly with its own darkness, he found it ridiculously easy to pinpoint the bit of Tom that he could feel in the room and arrowed in on the book after only a moment's pause.

It was a diary embossed with the name 'T.M. Riddle' on the cover. It was made of sturdy black leather, and had an aged and worn feeling to its pages. Harry stroked it gently and felt his magic calming around him. This felt like Tom. It was Tom. As soon as he realized it, he went over to the nearest desk and sat down, opening to the first page. It was blank, as all of the other pages were, but that hardly mattered. Harry took up a quill and wrote on the first page: 'Tom?'

There was a very, very long pause and he waited with bated breath to see if anything would happen. Just as he was about to give up, a familiar spidery hand appeared on the page as his own writing faded away. 'That is my name. What is yours?'

'Tom, it's me! It's Harry!'

Another long pause followed this statement before more writing appeared. 'Of course, how silly of me. Hello, Harry.'

Harry frowned. Something wasn't right. 'Tom, what happened to you? Where are you?'

'I don't know what you mean. I've been here all along,' came the answer.

Harry sat back and stared at the book, not responding. Was it possible that this was not some kind of journal that he was writing to the Dark Lord through, but an actual sentient diary of some sort?

He noticed that more writing had appeared on the page. 'Where are you?'

'I'm in Malfoy Manor, where this diary was being kept safe. You don't know who I am, do you?'

Another long pause ensued before more words appeared. 'I'm afraid I do not.'

Harry closed his eyes tightly and slumped in his chair, trying not to despair. If this was Tom, it was a part of Tom that had never met Harry. What kind of Dark magic could create something like this? He had never even heard of it! He didn't even know what to do. He needed Tom...

His eyes opened and he stared at the diary for a moment. He had Tom. Tom was right here in front of him. It just wasn't his Tom. He picked up his quill once more and prepared to write the entire story down.

'My name is Harry Potter. I am the Dark Lord Voldemort's lover. Three weeks ago, I went with Lord Voldemort to attack the home of my brother, the former Lord Potter. I killed my brother, and then my Lord attempted to kill my one-year-old nephew. But the killing curse rebounded. I have since tried to kill the boy in multiple different ways, to no effect. There was a prophecy involved.

'However, when the killing curse rebounded, it hit my Lord and he...'

Harry dropped the quill, unable to continue. He watched the pages as the words disappeared and waited for Tom to respond.

'I see.'The scrawl appeared by itself for a moment before Tom continued. 'You are searching for a way to bring me—Voldemort—back to life?'

'Yes!' Harry gasped the word aloud as he wrote it.

'Then I am at your service. I am Tom Marvolo Riddle. I am Lord Voldemort. But I am his sixteen-year-old self. I can only assume from what you have told me that my older self is out there somewhere. We have to find him in order to bring him back to life.'

'How do I find him? I'll do anything.'

'A simple first year spell. Point me.'

Harry could have laughed. He pulled out his wand and cast the spell, "Point me, Lord Voldemort." The wand spun in his hand and pointed at his heart. Harry touched his chest where the little snake was branded. What if Tom...

'Where did it point?' Tom asked impatiently.

His hand shook as he took up the quill. 'At me. It pointed at me.'

There was a long silence. Harry closed the book before Tom could respond, and shoved it into his pocket. He wanted Tom—his Tom—desperately. But if Tom was inside of him...

"I would give anything," Harry reminded himself. He would give anything, but he didn't want to die just so that Tom could live on without him.