Title: Finding Solace

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Warner Bros, Bloomsbury. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Warnings: Slash, swearing, mentions of child abuse (only what's in the actual books), some graphic (magical) torture

Chapter 2

Harry took two steps back warily, and drew his wand the second he and his other housemates were dropped off by the Portkey.

It was a good thing he did because Malfoy and Zabini immediately drew their wands and pointed them at him, the rest of the Slytherins gathering menacingly behind them.

"What the fuck was that, Potter?"

Harry drew on the cockiness that Snape had told him thousands of times his father also had, and drew his chin up, looking down his nose at his housemates, an admirable feat considering they were all taller than him. "What was what, Zabini?"

"You know what he's talking about, Potter. That thing with the Dark Lord, and the duel and being Dark, and that kiss!"

Harry could understand Zabini's mindset. Harry Potter had been a weak, unintelligent wizard for as long as Zabini had known him, and had never stood up for himself in any situation. According to Harry's past actions, if either Zabini or Malfoy threatened him, he would roll over and give them what they wanted, Dark Lord's fucktoy or not.

Unfortunately the basis for Zabini's assumptions was fundamentally wrong.

Harry had continued to spend most of his time in the library after his first year, because he still wasn't welcomed in his house. Because of all the time he spent there, he changed from the abused, isolated child he was, to the competent wizard he was today, all the while creating and maintaining his mask of a downtrodden Slytherin Boy Who Lived.

All the time he spent in the library meant that he was always a couple of weeks ahead of his class in terms of spell work and theory. He always knew every spell they learnt in class well enough to be able to purposefully fail at casting it.

Most teachers had no idea about what he was doing. Some like Sprout and Hagrid because they never paid enough attention to him, and their classes were easier to make purposeful mistakes look like accidents. Others, like McGonnagall were too blinded by their dislike of Slytherins, and general disdain for Harry himself for being sorted into the snake pit, to notice what he was doing.

Some teachers, however, had caught on to what he was doing. Professor Flitwick and Professor Lupin the most notable among them. He had asked them both not to call him out on it, when they questioned him about failing intentionally, explaining that it had to do with house politics and his status as the Boy Who Lived. Harry had benefited from their attention, however, by asking them to privately coach him on more advanced skills, under the guise of remedial lessons. Professor Moody had also helped and tutored him, but Harry had known the man was going to be a polyjuiced Death Eater before the year had even started, and so had approached the man on the first day asking for additional lessons.

It was because of these lessons that Harry was so proficient at DADA. Being good enough to defeat Draco Malfoy in a duel was nothing to scoff at, considering the other boy had been trained to duel and fight from a young age. Harry had always had a natural talent, but it had been drawn out and nurtured by the only two competent DADA professors they had ever had, and an award winning duelling champion.

It was with this duelling talent, and his swift reflexes that Harry disarmed and bound Zabini, then Malfoy and then the rest of his housemates.

Levitating them so that they were all lined up in a row in front of him, Harry addressed the sixth year Slytherins. "Right. Let's clear some things up." He narrowed his eyes, and stared down each of them. "As far as the rest of the school is concerned nothing is going to change. At all

"You're all going to treat me the same as you always have when in public, and I'm going to stay out of your way, like before. The only thing that's different is that if I ask you for something, or ask you to do something, you do it. Okay?"

The Slytherins had remained silent during his little speech, but clearly got over their shock as he finished talking and addressed them with a glare. They erupted into a cacophony of noise, spewing out insults and denials indiscriminately. Malfoy finally managed to make his voice heard over the rest of them, and called for them to shut up. He then looked down his nose at Harry with a sneer. "Right, Potter. I think you've gathered that the general consensus is 'no', but in case you hadn't, well, what you are asking is never going to happen, and once you let us out of these bindings, you're going to regret ever thinking about it." He smiled mockingly and asked in a condescending tone. "Okay?"

Harry knew that the Slytherins had a low opinion of him, but he didn't think that they were so set in their ways that they just ignored everything that they had seen already that night. "Why not?" He asked. "I'm obviously valuable to the Dark Lord, and you're all just high school Death Eaters. If nothing else I out rank you."

As he finished Pansy Parkinson let out a shriek of laughter. "Valuable, Potter? You think you're valuable? Please." She continued in a sickeningly sweet tone. "Just because you're warming the Dark Lord's bed for the moment, doesn't mean you out rank us. He'll drop you within the month, and then you'll be so screwed." She let out another high pitched laugh, but it quickly rose another octave into a scream of pain.

Harry laughed darkly. "Oh, Parkinson. That I'm fucking our lord has no bearing on my worth to him." Harry looked around at the other Slytherins, and activated their Dark Marks as well, using the wand pressed tightly into his side. He smiled at their swiftly muffled grunts and gasps of pain. "You think that hurts? Wait until he summons you."

Harry let them suffer for a moment longer, before letting the pain draw out of their Marks. "So, as I said before. Let's get some things clear. I out rank you considerably. My first, and only, order is to act the same as you always have. Be prepared to follow any others I may give you. I am also your point of contact to the Dark Lord. Any messages you want to pass on to him regarding your task you need to get to me discreetly, and I'll pass them on. He'll reply through me, and tell me any new orders he might have for you. Do you all follow now?" Harry let his question coincide with a flare of their Marks, but didn't give them a chance to respond. "I do hope we have no problems from now on."

Harry flicked his wand to dispel the binding charms on all the Slytherins and dropped their wands on the floor, before turning on his heel and stalking from the room.

Once he was a hallway over Harry brought his hand up to rest on the wall, and placed the other on his hand, willing it to calm down.

The magic needed to manipulate the Dark Mark was intensely difficult and required a lot of power, and Harry hadn't yet perfected it. He didn't want his housemates to be aware of that fact, however.

He had spent the last two years researching to work out how the Dark Mark operated, casting spells on Barty Crouch's Mark whenever he could be certain the man wouldn't notice, and occasionally ambushing one of last years Marked Slytherins, to run some further tests, before obliviating them. He had been fortunate to be able to compare the spell work in their Mark to his own modified Mark that ran up his right side. It had been a complex spell to work out, let alone twist so that Harry could affect other's Marks through his own, but he had managed it, all without Voldemort ever noticing.

Admittedly though, he did have a fair amount of help from the man he was on his way to see. Severus Snape.

Harry knocked on Snape's door, then walked in, not waiting for the man to call for him to enter. He'd had an open invitation to the mans office since fourth year, and always took advantage of it.

He had never planned to tell his head of house anything, but that had backfired spectacularly because of Snape's vow to Dumbledore to always protect Lily's son. It had pushed Snape to switch his loyalties back to the Dark side, because of Harry's shifting inclinations back in his third year, and that had prompted the professor to confront Harry.

Harry still found it amusing that it was Dumbledore's own actions that had lost the Light their best spy.

"Evans." Snape greeted Harry. He had called Harry by his mothers maiden name since third year.

"Hello, s-" Harry was only halfway through his greeting before he was swept into a hug by someone from behind. Harry slammed his elbow into the offender's stomach, before he recognised the distinctive smell of tobacco that Sirius always hanging around him.

"Siri." He exclaimed. "Sorry about that. But you know better than to come at me from behind. I've never been good at dealing with that. You know that. You spent the whole holidays with me for Merlins sake."

Sirius, however, just waved his hand. "Don't worry about it, pup. I was just testing your reflexes. Congratulations on passing." Sirius drew him into another hug with a charming grin. Harry was still sometimes overwhelmed by his godfathers exuberance, despite spending a considerable amount of time around the man, but he did as he had always done, and nodded and smiled, just going along with it.

"I'm sure that's exactly what it was, mutt. It certainly wasn't your Azkaban addled brain forgetting things again." Snape drawled, bitingly.

Before Sirius had a chance to reply, Snape ploughed on. "What are you here for, Evans? I have no desire for your company this evening."

Harry turned back to the door, shaking off Siruis' restraining hand as he did so. "Alright then." He said airily. "I'll leave. I'll tell you about how I dealt with the other Slytherins some other time."

Harry smirked as the door locked shut before he had a chance to open it.

"Sit down, you menace, and explain yourself."

Harry leant back against the door instead. "I don't think I will. You just need to know that they're not going to be a problem. The school, and the headmaster will never know anything has changed.

"Now, I'm tired, and just want to go to sleep, and also don't want to be here when your godson inevitably comes knocking, amusing as his face would be when he saw me here.

"If you want to talk with me just give me a detention or something. Assign me to work with Longbottom and we'll blow up a potion for sure."

"Okay, you menace. Go into my office, and through the passageway. No need for you to run into anyone on your way back to the common room." Snape dismissed him then, turning back to his marking.

"I'll come with you, Harry." Sirius jumped up as Harry made his way across the room.

Harry didn't even bother to reply to his godfather, knowing the man wouldn't be deterred by anything.

Harry had a very odd relationship with his godfather. Neither of them had known they were on the same side until half way through their third year. Harry had thought Sirius was the white sheep of the Black Family, and Sirius had only known Harry as the Boy Who Lived, and Dumbledore's Golden Boy. All of their interactions had been tainted by this misunderstanding, and it hadn't been until the Dark Lord had told Sirius to pass along a message to his godson that they had worked it out.

Harry had spent the summer before his fifth year staying with the Order of the Phoenix at Grimmauld Place, which Sirius had lent to Dumbledore 'for the cause.' Really it had meant that Sirius was able to learn all sorts of things about the Order that Snape never could, because, as he owned the house, he also owned all the portraits, and they reported back to him on any gossip and news they might hear.

It had been that summer, after Sirius had been informed, indirectly, of Harry's true loyalties by the Dark Lord, that they had grown closer. Sirius had taken Harry into an out of the way room, warded it to high hell with privacy and silencing charms, and drawn up his left sleeve to show Harry his Dark Mark. It had only taken Harry a minute to work out everything that Sirius was telling him. His only response had been, "You are so lucky that you never got a trial."

After that they had grown steadily closer. Knowing they were on the same side, and being the closest thing to family Harry had left, had meant that once they had started talking they had never stopped.

Everyone in the house had been aware of it, but most of the Order members had only seen it as a godson getting closer to his godfather after a dozen years of separation.

The only person who had had any problems with it had been Snape, and that was because he was the only other person in the house aware of Harry's Dark inclinations.

He had taken Harry to the side a few weeks before the start of term and had berated him for his decisions and closer relationship with his godfather. This had prompted Harry to make both men aware of their loyalty to their Dark side, and since then both men had come to some sort of alliance. What it's conditions were Harry had no idea, but he didn't really care, so long as it didn't affect their ability to carry out their duty to their Lord.

"How have you been, Harry? We didn't get much chance to talk earlier." Sirius asked as soon as they had left Snape's office.

"Good, Siri. Really good. Especially now. As you saw, the Dark Lord is finally letting some people see that I'm not the incompetent idiot I've been pretending to be, even if it is only the Slytherin's. It's going to be so nice to participate in the inter-house politics now."

"Merlin. Slytherins. By Circe am I so glad I was never one. I had no talent for politics back then. That was always Reggie's prerogative."

"Funny, Sirius. Like being a Gryffindor is any better? The constant level of macho bullshit you had to deal with must have been tedious." Harry and Sirius had started these small house related spats back when they thought they were on opposite sides of the upcoming war, but had continued since then, because they both enjoyed them too much to stop.

"Nah, Harry. We got most of it out on the pitch. You would have done well up in the lion's den, what with how well you fly."

"Bloody hell. I've just realised something." Harry turned to Sirius, almost bouncing as he walked. "I'm allowed to try out for the team! That'll put Malfoy in his place. And with the Firebolt you got me last year... It's going to be fantastic." Harry knew a wide grin was splitting his face, but Sirius wouldn't care about the show of emotion like any Slytherin would. Instead, he just looked back at Harry with the same expression.

"Seeker, right? You're a good Chaser, but your dives are far more suited to going after the Snitch." His face suddenly turned serious. "You'd better make sure you win though. I want something else to rub in Narcissa's face. The duel from tonight will be enough for a while, but, Merlin, you beat her baby at something he thinks he's unbeatable in..." Sirius trailed off with a dreamy expression.

Sirius' attitude toward his living members of his family couldn't be more different. He hated Narcissa with a passion, for what reasons Harry had no idea, but he had gathered it had something to do with Malfoy Junior. It was odd because Sirius had a fantastic relationship with Lucius Malfoy. Whenever Harry saw them together they were deep in conversation about something, or drinking some of Lucius', not doubt expensive, liquor. Harry had some suspicions that they were having an affair behind Narcissa's back, but had no proof, and really didn't care enough to go and find it.

Sirius had a similar opinion toward Andromeda, Narcissa's older sister. She had married a muggleborn, and left behind the Black Family, the latter of which was the more unforgivable offense. Sirius hadn't talked to her since he broke out of Azkaban, and had no plans to either. Whenever he came across her daughter, Nymphadora, at headquarters, be practically ignored her, only paying enough attention to her that it wasn't obvious to anyone not trained to pick up those subtleties. For all that Sirius hated it, he was perfectly capable of being a pureblood Lord when the situation called for it.

Bellatrix, however, was Sirus' favourite cousin. They had been placed in cells opposite one another in Azkaban, and had spent those twelve years talking and reconciling, at least, they had when they were both lucid. Sirius had informed her of his true loyalties, and they had since then built up a proper familial relationship.

"I'll win, Sirius, don't worry. You've seen me fly. I'm better than anyone in this school, let alone my house." Harry's confidence had certainly grown since his first year. "I'd ask for luck, but I don't need it."

Sirius pulled Harry into a tight hug. "I'll try to come by occasionally. Maybe I can convince our Lord to pass messages through me."

"Maybe Sirius. Otherwise I'll see you at Yule." Harry pulled out of his godfather's hug reluctantly, and turned to tap the stone in the wall with his wand that would let him out into the corridor next to the entrance to the common room.

He stepped out of the passageway, and waved to his godfather as the wall slid shut again, then made his way to the entrance, squaring his shoulders and preparing his wand to drop into his hand at a moments notice. He had a House to subdue.

AN: Hey all. Next chapter. Yay. Hope you like it

Thanks to every one who read. You're fantastic.

That's all I have to say really.

Whitsie