Plot bunnies by DayDreamer315

by Lindie de Waal

This is all 10 parts (so far) of the plot bunnies series by DayDreamer315. I take no credit just needed an easier way to read it. Please note that no editing was done on my part and all chapters of all 10 books are posted in 1 chapter per book. Don't read if you don't like extremely long chapters. Will update books if there's more

10. Mirror Image

Mirror Image Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/33542509.

Rating: Not Rated Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Character: Harry Potter Characters Additional Tags: Time Travel Fix-It, Not Real Time Travel, Character Bashing, Harry

Potter is So Done, Existential Crisis Language: English Series: Part 10 of Plot Bunnies Stats: Published: 2021-08-28 Updated: 2023-12-01 Words: 55,218 /series/1532360

Mirror Image by DayDreamer315

Summary

Harry Potter was 11 years old when he chose his path in life. The path that led to war, death, and eventual victory.

Or was /users/DayDreamer315/pseuds/DayDreamer315

What Happened Next

After the war ended life got easier in many ways, but more complicated in others.

Rather than returning to school Harry and Ron went to work as aurors at the Ministry. He was, at the time, co-parenting Teddy with Andromeda, becoming Teddy's full time parent when Andy passed away when the boy was 8.

He also started seeing Ginny again, who did stay in school, for a few years. It came to an end since, in Harry's opinion, they were just going in different directions. Ginny wanted to focus on her quidditch career and didn't want to be bogged down with a kid and had wanted Harry to give full custody of Teddy to Andy, something he had no intention of doing. He was fine with focusing on their careers before having kids of their own, but he wouldn't give up the one he already had. And even while she was arguing they shouldn't have a family yet Ginny wanted to get married. In the end he decided to focus on his own career and his godson and broke it off with Ginny, something neither she or her mother ever really forgave him for.

Ginny had managed to get on the Holly Head Harpies, but was only ever a reserve, she had been Hogwarts good, but not professional level since she didn't like to share attention so rarely passed the quaffle. She was let go, or retired as she claimed, 4 years later after only playing in a dozen or so professional games. Then she was all about having kids and tried to restart her relationship with Harry. At first he had been nice, but then she started bringing up how Teddy needed a mother figure and how she was the best for that, something that her mother added to every time he saw her. If she was just annoying him that was fine, but the moment she brought his boy into it he was done playing nice.

Over the years he truly actually began hating the girl, seeing she had never been more than a self obsessed fangirl the entire time. She just wanted fame and money.

Then she had all but disappeared from the magical world for nearly 2 years. When she returned she had newly signed divorce papers and was heavily pregnant. He had been outrage when the idiot girl had the sheer unmitigated gall to name her daughter Lily. It had confused him when she kept trying to get him involved in her daughters life. That was, until she filed paperwork claiming that Harry owed her child support.

When it came to trial the truth came out and his fury at her trying to claim he owed her was dwarfed by his disgust. Lily Weasley was in fact the daughter of Ginny Weasley and her then husband, Dudley Dursley. Ginny claimed since Dudley was Harry's cousin that somehow meant Harry was responsible for their daughter.

He did feel somewhat bad for Lily Weasley. Genetics had not been kind to that poor girl. Not only did she have Ginny Weasley for a mother, but she had inherited the body type of Dudley and Vernon, the neck of Petunia, and the red hair and freckles of the Weasleys. But, from what he heard she was a nice enough girl, and quite clever. She ended up spending much of her childhood and teen years with her Uncle Percy and his wife and their children since she preferred to be with them.

After the Wizengamot all but laughed Ginny out of the court room, refusing in any way shape or form to demand Harry pay for her child, which was just another thing for Molly, Ron, and Hermione to berate him for, Ginny moved on. She couldn't get anything from Dudley, but she tried with the Dursleys' only to have Petunia huck her trusty skillet at her head when she showed up asking for money. Dudley's change in attitude hadn't lasted long after he and Harry parted ways. He had never worked for anything in his life and was an atrocious student, meaning he had no prospects for a job or higher education. After he finished at Smeltings, two years late, something Petunia had been hiding from the neighbours, he moved in to Marge's place after she died. That was where he and Ginny had lived. But with no marketable job skills he fell back into his old pattern of selling drugs and then drinking the profits, just as he had done as a teen.

He hadn't known Ginny was a witch when they got married. When he found out he had kicked her out and completely rejected the child. He had then gone on a binge and been killed in a car accident. Harry saw the irony in it since that was how the Dursley's had told him his own parents had died.

After that Ginny finally seemed to move on, seeing that Harry wasn't going to get involved with her. She had then got back together with Dean Thomas and they had had two boys. They divorced a few years later and she had then reconnected with another ex, Michael Corner, and they had had a son. They split a few years after that, at which time she had gotten back together with, and remarried, Dean Thomas and they had had another son and a daughter. They had stayed together until their youngest was in Hogwarts at which time they split up once again when Ginny had given birth to what was supposed to be their newest youngest. Dean had been less than pleased to go to the hospital expecting to meet his newest child only to get to welcome Seamus Finnigan's son, something which caused a fair amount of tension to that friendship, not to mention Seamus's own marriage to Susan Bones.

All in all Ginny ended up moving back in with her parents at the age of 37. She dated from time to time, but spent the rest of her life as her fathers secretary until his passing, at which time she ended up working at the Leaky Caldron as a cook. And during that she once again had an on again off again relationship with Dean, Harry really wondered how that one had gotten into Gryffindor, he had absolutely no backbone. He had always just followed along, even when he disagreed with something he wouldn't speak up. But it wasn't his problem.

By the time Teddy was in Hogwarts Harry got promoted to Head of the DMLE. That was something Ron was furious about. While the war had made him grow up, he still had the nasty habit of falling back into the attitude of a petulant child that wanted everything everyone else had without having to work for it. Ron was a decent auror when he was focused, but more often than not he was late to work or just preferred to sit in the office all day rather than actually going out and doing the job. Ron threw a petulant fit since he apparently felt Harry getting the promotion was because of who he was rather than the fact he did his job and had the respect of the other aurors. But it had been expected since Ron had thrown a similar fit when Harry was initially promoted to Head Auror when he wasn't.

Rather than staying to keep working his way up Ron quit and went to work with George. He told everyone he had just wanted to be there to help his brother but the truth was George was the only one that would hire him, and that was only because their mum threw a fit and made him.

His relationship with Hermione didn't last long either. Hermione was always off on one crusade or another and demanding he use his fame to support her, something she knew he hated but did anyway. If he agreed with what she was working on he would have given her support, but more often than not she was trying to force the magical world to turn into the muggle world and he actually didn't support that. Her SPEW thing was one example of that, he believed they should try and improve conditions for elves, but they needed to be bound to survive, and they actually enjoyed working. Denying an elf the right to work would be like denying Hermione the right to read, but she just wouldn't accept that logic.

She had tried to run for Minister a few times, and failed every time since she had no ability to get people to support or vote for her. It was like in school when she first started SPEW, she tried to bully and intimidate people into agreeing with her, but this time she wasn't protected by the Headmaster and scaring children, she was dealing with adults with a lot more power than her.

He really started to see just how hypocritical and self-centred she was. As he really examined how she had been in school he remembered how she had always tried to act like it was fine that he was better than her in defence but even as she said it was fine she was crazy passive aggressive and in some cases downright mean. It had been even worse when he had gotten his hands on the Half-Blood Prince's book he knew. She acted like he was cheating because there were things written in the margins, it was no different than any other student using an older siblings notes, something that happened often. And it wasn't like he hadn't offered to share, she had just been being petulant about it. And then there was how she was all about forcing them to follow rules but she could break them and it was fine. For Merlins sake, she had straight up kidnapped Rita Skeeter. Even if she had released her from the jar once they reached London like she promised she had still contained a human being and moved them from Scotland to England against their will. Not to mention she had blackmailed her into not doing her job for a year, could any average person afford to just not do their job for a year?

And what she had done to her parents… The obliviate charm was highly regulated because of the damage it could do at the end of an unskilled wand. Hermione had used it on two people, at once, at the age of 17. After the war ended she had looked for her parents, but never did find them, who knew what damage she could have done to them, or if they had survived it. But when he had asked her about it she just shrugged it off saying she knew she had done the right thing. With all that in mind he knew he couldn't support Hermione to be Minister of Magic.

It had all come to a head after he became head of the DMLE. She had thought that having the Boy-Who-Lived, who was also Head of the DMLE, supporting her would guarantee her the job and demanded he publicly support her. But, as the Head of the DMLE he was contractually obligated to remain publicly neutral in political situations, as he repeatedly told her. Her campaign had ended in a wipeout, of all the eligible voters she had gotten less than a hundred votes. And she blamed it all on him, like she hadn't been the one that publicly stated

the Wizarding world was backward and that only she, and those who supported her, would be able to fix it, and she said it all in the same condescending tone she used when critiquing his and Rons homework.

After that Ron and Hermione still hung around him during public events, like Ministry fundraisers, not that he went to them very often. Other than that they treated him like he had dragon pox and talked behind his back much like Ron had during their fourth year.

But it didn't really matter to him as he got over it. It seemed that a friendship that could survive torture and war couldn't survive the real world. And it did make some sense to him after a while, it had all been one long drawn out adrenaline rush, and once it came to an end they realized they really had nothing in common and their personalities clashed horribly. Hermione and Ron were still together, but that was mostly because they were used to each other. Ron was used to Hermione's behaviour and hitting, and Hermione was used to Rons rudeness and self-centred nature.

But he was still friendly with many others in the Weasley family. Arthur and Percy were still working at the Ministry so they would often see each other around and would sometimes grab lunch together to discuss things. Arthur was still head of his department, something that got extra support from the DMLE budget once Harry became the head since he saw the value in it. Percy had gone back to the Department of International Cooperation and worked his way up to the Head of the Department. They had a friendly relationship whenever their work overlapped.

The Weasley he was naturally the closest with was Bill. But that was because Teddy had started dating his daughter Victoire. The two married a few years after they left school. They would go on to have 4 children.

After 25 years with the Ministry Harry decided he needed something new. Teddy was settled so he could move on. For years he traveled the world and learned all sorts of magics that weren't accepted in Hogwarts. There was so much out there.

During that time Harry had started a friends with benefits relationship with Charlie Weasley. After the war Charlie had returned to Romania, something that had infuriated his mother. The two worked well together and neither expected anything from the other, more did they want more. For both of them it was more about finding release with someone they trusted and could have fun with.

Harry had been surprised to find out that Charlie had once been involved with someone he loved. It would seem Charlie had had an ongoing relationship with Cedric Diggory. Amos Diggory didn't have a problem with the idea that his son was interested in his own gender, same-sex relationships were perfectly normal in the magical world, but he did have a problem with him seeing someone that he saw as a worthless waste of space. Amos had great plans for Cedric, he wanted him to one day become Minister of Magic, and he felt he would need to make a good political match for that, and Charlie Weasley was anything but a political match. He harassed and berated his son until he agreed to break things off with Charlie and try with someone his father felt was a better match, but if it didn't work out he would get back together with Charlie.

It was why Charlie hadn't reached out to him when he brought the dragons, he had been angry at him for throwing away their relationship to make his dad happy. Cedric had written to Charlie before the last task, asking to meet up since he had wanted to talk about getting back together since he apparently couldn't stand Cho and her bullying ways. They were supposed to meet up after the school year finished. But then Cedric died, and Charlie, Charlie just shut down. He turned his attention to helping to destroy the ones that had taken Cedric from him, but once the war was over he just drifted away, getting revenge hadn't given him the peace he had thought it would.

Harry worked to get a few different qualifications, something he could do since he apparently had money, something that had surprised him.

After the war he had gone to try and salvage any relationship he had with Gringotts in a hope they wouldn't outright kill him for breaking into their bank, let alone freeing the dragon. It should have been the first sign of who his so called friends were when neither Ron or Hermione were willing to apologize themselves.

The goblins had naturally been furious, but after he explained everything fully they were surprisingly understanding. They apparently couldn't stand Dumbledore so when Harry explained he had been following Dumbledores plan their anger was more focused on the old man while they saw him as an idiot child. Harry had been thoroughly disillusioned about the man he had at one time considered a grandfather like figure and mentor given the fact he now knew the man had been raising him as a lamb to slaughter, plus he had admitted to knowing about his abuse and not trying to stop it, but after what the goblins showed him he wished the old fool was alive so he could kill him again.

After the death of his parents Dumbledore had sealed their wills within hours. When he had the wills unsealed he found amongst everything was the information that Sirius wasn't their secret keeper and a note that he was never, under any circumstances, to be allowed to even meet Petunia and Vernon Dursley.

His parents even laid out an extensive list of who was to get custody of him. The only saving grace for Dumbledore was that he wasn't a witness on the will, nor had he read it before sealing it. Harry just figured he wanted to keep control and have things go how he wanted them.

Then there was the money. No, Dumbledore hadn't stolen any money from him, though, not for lack of trying. The man had repeatedly made demands to have access to the Potter monies to care for him as he claimed, but he was always rejected since the goblins would never just willingly hand money over to someone with no relation to a family, even if they had the key, as Dumbledore did. He had left it alone for a while after that. But it started up again, with demands for even more money the year Dumbledore died. At that time the man had presented letters, bearing Harry's signature in an effort to get them to allow him access, but again he was rejected. When the goblins had tested them they found that what had originally been written on the parchment had been magiced away, leaving only his signature, and a new letter had been written.

It confused Harry to some extent given the fact the Potters weren't crazy rich. They were decently wealthy, but not to the extent those like the Malfoy's were. In all the Potter estate only amounted to just over 8 million galleons. A massive amount of money to those like the Weasleys, but hardly enough to risk angering the goblins to get.

But then they showed him the rest. Dumbledore had again sealed a will, this time of Sirius when he had been killed. Sirius had left nearly everything he had to Harry, with a portion set aside for Remus. Dumbledore must have thought, correctly, that Sirius would leave his money to him as he again hadn't been able to read the will before sealing it.

Sirius may have been disowned by his parents, but he hadn't been disowned from the family, as proven that he still had the last name Black. As the last surviving member of the main line of the Black family he got it all. If he had been free he could have claimed their Wizengamot seat and everything. And if the Potter estate was a decent size it was nothing in comparison to the Black's. The Black estate, not including properties and antiques, was worth over 100 million galleons.

Dumbledore had wanted to fund himself and the war by taking his money behind his back.

He and the goblins reached an agreement. While Harry had broken into their bank, and as such needed to pay, it wasn't a lifetime in a goblin prison like most would expect, goblins didn't like wizards in their territory. The punishment for breaking it was paying a fine or being beheaded, Harry chose to pay the 1 million galleon fine and give them a full explanation of how it was done so they could update their security.

He also had to pay an additional 500,000 galleons for the damages done by the dragon, as well as its recapture. When he had argued about how they shouldn't treat dragons like that they had explained the dragons used in Gringotts were prisoners, they were sent to the goblins because they were known egg and hatchling killers or were caught repeatedly trying to attack the muggle world.

Under normal circumstances he could have also been banned from using their bank again and would have had to transfer everything to the muggle banking system, but the goblins hadn't gone that route. First and foremost, they didn't want to loose that much gold from their bank, the Black's had been one of their wealthiest clients. The second reason was because Harry hadn't been told about his own vaults, which was against bank policy. When an orphan, known to come from a magical family, was brought to the bank after their 11th birthday they were supposed to be tested and have the accounts checked to see just what they had inherited, if anything at all.

But that had never happened with Harry. And while his ignorance of his heritage was mostly the result of Dumbledore covering it up, all the goblins he had interacted with at the bank over the years were also negligent in ensuring he had the proper information, plus the mail ward Dumbledore had placed on him had been allowing him to receive his quarterly Gringotts statements.

And that just brought up two more issues for Harry, his families seats on the Wizengamot and the effects of the mail ward.

Going over the voting records at the Ministry he found that Dumbledore had claimed proxy over the Potter seat as soon as his parents had died. And since there was no magical verification of who had rights to what seat unless someone challenged for a seat no one saw a problem with it thinking his parents had left him as his proxy. And after Sirius's death he had claimed the Black votes in Harry's name as well.

And he was voting for so many restrictions that Harry himself would never support. Harry remembered the man decrying the horrible werewolf registry that Umbridge had gotten passed when he was talking with Remus during the summer he had been ignoring him before his fifth year. Only to find the bastard had voted for it. It really was all just an act for him, he would say and do anything just so long as he got his way. Honestly, Harry thought the old man would have made a deal with Voldemort and pretended to support him if he thought it would help him get his way in banning anything he personally didn't approve of.

Then there was the mail ward. For over a decade and a half Harry had only gotten the letters Dumbledore personally approved of. All the rest had just been stored away in one of the rooms in the dungeon. When he had gone to the school to demand it be returned to him McGonagall had actually been upset that Harry was furious at Dumbledore for his actions and like always pretended the man could do no wrong.

At least it hadn't all been destroyed.

He spent his evenings and weekends over the few months after that sorting through everything. It was a massive pile. Most of it was fan mail, that he mostly ignored but he glanced through if he saw a name he recognized.

To say Ginny's letters were a little creepy was an understatement. The girl seemed to have written him at least once a week, every week, starting from when she was about 7. And even just glancing through a few of them, since he didn't want to waste his time reading them all, it was clear the girl was an obsessive fangirl. For Merlin's sake, she was writing about their wedding and futures together by the age of 9.

There were of course more than a few hate letters and death threats. Those tapered off somewhat a few years after Voldemort's first death. But they picked right back up, when he had told people of his return after his fourth year. And the group insulting or threatening him that time was far more varied. Then there were those that came after the last war ended. Those that he deemed a true threat or had curses or the like attached were taken to the DMLE to have them investigated. He was done letting people get away with that sort of behaviour.

What had surprised and hurt him the most were the letters from Remus Lupin. All that time he had thought he was alone and forgotten at the Dursley's Remus had been trying to reach out to him. There were presents for every single birthday and Christmas. He knew very well Remus had never been well off, so the fact that he had actually spent what little money he had to buy him something hurt him deeper than he could say. A small part of him had always resented Remus for not being there for him growing up, and now he got to learn the only

reason he hadn't been there was because Dumbledore had blocked him relieved some pain, but just created more since he couldn't even talk to Remus about it.

Harry travelled the world for a few decades before he moved back to Britain when he was in his early 80's. During those years he had managed to earn three masteries. He was hired to teach spell crafting to the NEWT level students at Hogwarts.

After McGonagall had become Headmistress she did as she had always done, exactly what Albus Dumbledore wanted. The school stayed virtually the exact same as when he had been there for her entire 2 decades as Headmistress. It was a sore spot between them that had often ended up in them arguing when he had a problem with her limiting Teddy's education and her arguing he was corrupting him by arranging for him to have tutors in subjects Hogwarts used to teach during the summer.

But eventually McGonagall had had to retire. She was replaced by Aurora Sinistra who had been the astronomy professor when Harry was there. McGonagall had been less than pleased with the school boards decision since Sinistra had been in Slytherin when she was in school and even tried to put off her retirement to try and force them to accept her deputy who had been a Gryffindor. But the board had refused on both counts, they wouldn't accept her rescinding her retirement and they felt her deputy was still too new since he had only been at the school for 5 years while Sinistra had been there since '85.

When Sinistra became Headmistress she set about a 15 year campaign to restore Hogwarts to what it once had been. She managed to bring back nearly all the classes Dumbledore had canceled. She of course had her critics, Molly Weasley and Hermione Granger-Weasley loudest amongst them, but she had far more supporters than detractors.

By the time Harry was hired the Headmaster was Chester Davies, his younger brother Roger had attended the Yule Ball with Fleur. Chester was a decent Headmaster who was all about encouraging the students to learn more and broaden their horizons.

Of course Harry getting hired at Hogwarts had brought a still somehow childish Hermione and Ron back into his life. Both had actually tried to become his friends again while saying that he only got his position because of his name while also suggesting he try and get them hired so it would be like old times with the three of them at Hogwarts. He had outright laughed at them. He pointed out that Headmistress Sinistra had reraised the teaching requirements to only those with a mastery, and since neither of them had masteries they couldn't work at Hogwarts unless they wanted to be caretakers. They had tried to argue that he shouldn't be able to work their either since he hadn't even finished so he showed them he had taken his exams independently as well as his three masteries which had resulted in both of them storming off in a jealous huff once again. Honestly their youngest grandchild was the only one still in Hogwarts yet the two still hadn't grown up apparently.

The years passed in fits and starts after that, it all kind of blended together. By the time he was 118 he himself was the Headmaster.

He liked to think he was a good Headmaster, the kids seemed to like him at least. He always tried to keep his main focus the students rather than allowing himself to be distracted by politics like Dumbledore had been. He had assigned one of Percy Weasley's granddaughters as his proxy so he could focus on the school. The girl seemed to be a perfect combination of Percy's brains and the twins love of fun in his opinion. She could spout out the most random facts or flay you alive with her tone alone, you never really knew which way she was going to go, and he thought those fools on the Wizengamot needed to deal with someone like that.

And in his down time he liked to explore the school. He found all kinds of hidden treasure troves that way. Sirius had once told him that there had been 4 marauders maps. Pettigrew had lost his to Filch, but he, his dad, and Remus had hidden theirs around the school, and he found them all, but he only took his dads, leaving the others for future generations of troublemakers to enjoy.

He would also admit he often did enjoy using Dumbledore's, and to a lesser degrees McGonagall's, portraits as targets. They rarely ever went to the Headmasters office portraits since he would throw things at them if they said something stupid, which was often.

He had had to learn to accept that he just wasn't meant for true love or true joy. Sure, he felt love for Teddy, and he had been happy with things, but those feelings were passing. All in all, his life wasn't bad, but it wasn't great.

"Back again, Harry." Came an old voice, dragging Harry back to the present.

Harry started to shake as he realized he was sitting on a cold stone floor, and had been for hours. Looking in front of him he saw his old self get up from his headmasters chair and come to stand in front of him before changing back to his 11 year old self and being joined by his mum and dad.

He was looking at the Mirror of Erised. An entire lifetime, and it had all just been an illusion.

He could remember arriving there to see his parents again, and he couldn't help but wonder what his life was going to be like? If he was on the right path? But most of all, where would this path take him? And it would seem the mirror showed him.

"I see you, like so many others before you, have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised." Dumbledore continued, not noticing the complete and total mental breakdown the child in front of him was having.

Harry gave what he thought were understandable answers before fleeing the room when he was told he could. And he made sure to not look Dumbledore in the eye at any time.

Rushing down the halls all that he could think was, 'What in the name of Merlin's most baggy Y-fronts was that about?'.

But more importantly, what was he going to do about it?

Harry ran at full speed under his invisibility cloak to the room of requirement. Once there he called up a room that he liked the most, or that he had liked the most in the whatever that was. He made sure that the time bubble feature was on it so he could spend hours, days, even weeks in there and only 10 minutes would pass outside.

Once safely locked in the room he began to pace as he freaked out.

Was any of that real? Could that have been what his life would be? Was any of this real? Was he still sitting on the floor staring at a mirror and this was just a new illusion?

Nope. No, no, no, no, no. He couldn't go down that mooncalf hole.

He did not have time for that existential crisis. Well technically he did since he was in a time bubble… but still.

He tried pulling up his occlumency shields only for it to not work since he was 11 and had never practiced occlumency. This just caused him to get worked up more since he clearly knew what occlumency was, but no one had ever taught him that before since he was 11. So did that mean this really was still a mirror illusion or had he actually retained information from the mirror?

And that was when the hyperventilation started.

Sixteen hours later Harry Potter sat down at the desk the room had created for him.

They had not been a pretty 16 hours, that was for sure.

There had been a grand total of 5 existential crises about the meaning of life, were any of us really here, what defined life, what is real and what isn't, and what actually is reality?

In-between those he had paced what had to be 50 kilometres. Threw himself to the floor to kick and scream a bit. The room created hundreds of breakable objects for him to throw and break, and he completely obliterated every single one of them until he physically couldn't lift either of his arms anymore. Tried putting himself in the corner for an hour to try and calm down. Summoned up a dueling dummy to fight, which had just resulted in him passing out since his 11 year old core couldn't handle auror level spells. Repeatedly tried pinching himself to see if he could feel it and compare that to how things had felt in the illusion to see if there was a difference or if he was still in the illusion, the results of that had been inconclusive, but he did end up with a large number of bruises. Before ultimately having the room make him a fluffy pillow fort for him to curl up inside of and cry himself to sleep.

When he woke up he was feeling better. Well, not better per say. His entire body ached, he swore even his hair was sore. His eyes were red, puffy, dry, and itchy all at the same time. His

throat felt like it was on fire, and he was so stuffed up and congested he thought he just might be drowning on dry land… But he felt… calmer.

Moving his quill was agony, but slowly, he began to write. He knew he couldn't stay in the room for much longer since he hadn't brought any food in with him and he knew he couldn't conjure any or even summon a house elf since he was in a bubble, and he was getting hungry.

It was time to start planning how he was going to handle this, preferably before he had another meltdown.

Thinking and Freaking Out

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Harry pulled out some parchment and a quill and started trying to think about what he needed to do, and that wasn't easy. Everything was a mess in his head. There was so much that he wanted to change but it wasn't like he knew exactly how to change it.

The mirror had showed him some of the future, but it wasn't like it showed him everything. He had felt the passage of time was odd, and now he knew why, he only saw bits and pieces, not lived it day by day. If he had to describe it he would say it was like reading a book. He was shown the important parts that moved the plot forward but skipped over the boring things that made up a majority of school life.

He knew that if he took his spell crafting mastery tests he could probably score a low pass, but that was just because so much of his travels had been focused on that. But at the same time if he took his OWLs or NEWTs he would undoubtably fail most classes since he really had little to no memory of the theory behind the spells.

His mentality had changed a fair bit, he knew that, no one could have experienced what the mirror showed him and not grow up a bit, but at the same time he was still an 11 year-old boy. He whimpered slightly as he knew that meant he was going to have to go through the hormonal and emotional mess that was puberty again, or, for the first time, technically.

On his list of things he wanted to do was get Sirius out of Azkaban, get Remus in his life, get Pettigrew out of his dorm because, ewww, make sure he couldn't be sent back to the Dursley's, and, if possible, try and reduce the antagonism between him and Snape. And that was all before he figured out what to do with Voldemort.

When it came to Voldemort he was a little lost. On the one hand the man had killed his parents, and he hated him for that, on the other he knew he was mentally ill thanks to the horcruxes. Tom Riddle had been a smart, handsome, charismatic boy who had become a monster known as Voldemort as he spiralled into insanity, and no one helped him. And while nothing had really happened he did still feel like he had already had his revenge.

If he could arrange it he would make a peace agreement with the man, if he could work it he might just try and heal him so that he had a chance at a normal life, that was all he had ever wanted himself. He knew from the future thing in the mirror there were all kinds of ways to return a disembodied soul, and he was sure he could find one that would also heal the soul damage the man had done to himself as a boy.

Mostly, Harry just wanted some peace. No more war. No more adventures. No more manipulations. He knew, given his luck, it would never happen, but he could try.

Harry knew he had to leave since he was really starving, he had gone three days without food in the time bubble. It wasn't the longest he had ever gone, but he knew he needed to correct his eating habits if he wanted to make a recovery, and he did.

Slipping from the ROR Harry quickly returned to his dorm under his invisibility cloak. It was only a few hours until breakfast started and he knew he could wait until then.

He planned to get up and leave the dorm as soon as breakfast started so he could finally eat. It didn't hurt that Ron didn't wake up until much later since he wasn't sure how to approach things with the other boy yet. Breakfast officially started at 6 each morning, but since it was the holidays the food would be available until 11, and then lunch would start at noon. Most didn't get up when breakfast started so he knew he would most likely be alone while he ate.

Then he was going to go down to the kitchens and ask a few different elves to pack him a picnic lunch. He knew doing that would get him enough food to last him at least a week in the time bubble so he could actually have something to eat as he actually worked out how to try and make the basic plans he had already created a reality.

And for a few minutes everything was fine, but then he entered his dorm room. A snore from Ron drew his attention to his first friend and he froze, the rat was sleeping on the pillow.

In all his planning he completely forgot something, Peter bloody Pettigrew, a Death Eater, the man that got his parents killed, framed his godfather, and killed a dozen innocent bystanders was sleeping soundly in the bed next to him. He was literally on the pillow next to Ron… and that was just ick.

Harry all but dove for his own bed, slamming the curtains closed behind him, or as much as you could slam two pieces of fabric. As soon as they were closed he had his wand out and was throwing every locking, silencing, anti-spying, and protecting spells he knew at them.

This just resulted in him becoming extremely lightheaded and nearly passing out as his core was in no way large enough to preform so many spells at once, especially since most of them were high level. As it was of the over 2 dozen spells he cast less than a half dozen of them were actually successfully cast.

It took every thing he had not to just jump back out of his bed, grab the disgusting little traitor, and hurl him out the window. But, the fact that he could barely move and knew if he tried to stand he would collapse due to his magical exhaustion may have contributed a bit. The last thing he wanted was to be unconscious anywhere near the rat.

Instead he turned his focus to his friends to distract himself. He honestly wasn't sure how he was going to handle Ron and Hermione. They weren't horrible friends, they just weren't great either.

He thought of Hermione first, trying to be as impartial as possible.

Ignoring what ultimately became of their friendship Hermione had been the most loyal person he knew during his school years. Other than her going behind his back to McGonagall about his Firebolt, although he knew she really had thought she was protecting him, Hermione had been there supporting him. In her own way she had been on his side through thick and thin.

But at the same time she had been one of his worst bullies. She had never outright taunted or cursed him the way some did, but she had often hit him when she was vexed or angry at him and she was incredibly condescending and insulting if he did better than her in anything. Hermione had announced herself as the brightest of their age in their first year, and there wasn't anyone she wouldn't go after if they even implied otherwise, despite her actually not being the top in their year. When he did better than her in things like defence, and potions when he had Snape's old book, she had made sure to go out of her way to belittle him and act like he couldn't earn good grades. And it wasn't just him. Hermione tried to make anyone that did better than her at something miserable or claim they didn't deserve their grades, she'd even gone after Neville a few times.

She was also very closed minded. Hermione had her beliefs, all of which came from her life in the muggle world, and nothing would sway her from her course. She wanted to be a witch, but she didn't want to act like one. The magical world had a very rich culture that had existed for thousands of years and Hermione wanted to do away with every single aspect that didn't perfectly align with her muggle views.

And Harry knew he and Ron hadn't done her any favours. School was where most children learned what was acceptable behaviour. It was one of those times peer-pressure was a good thing as it helped to reinforce social norms. But they had stopped Hermione from having to learn those social norms by always protecting her and excusing her poor behaviour. She never had to develop social skills because he and Ron had sheltered her from the fallout and on the occasion she was actually forced to face the consequences of her behaviour they would just pretend like she hadn't done anything wrong and defended her saying it was the others that were the issue.

He had to wonder what things were like with her parents since it was clear they had never bothered to address her behaviour before she started at Hogwarts. Honestly he kind of had to wonder if they were like the Dursley's and treated Hermione like Dudley, the whole 'can do no wrong' situation. From what he knew Hermione hadn't had friends in primary school for the same reason most of the Hogwarts students didn't like her so it wasn't like her rudeness had suddenly started when she entered the magical world.

At the same time he wasn't sure if maybe Hermione's parents were a part of the reason she was the way she was. Hermione had said her parents were proud when they found out she was a witch, but he did question that. He hadn't really seen any major interactions since when they were dropping her off and picking her up at the station they had been in and out, not even taking the time to really talk with anyone. The longest time he had seen them was in Diagon Alley before his second year, and they had only spoken a few full sentences between the two of them, and that was with Mr. Weasley peppering them with questions.

But the biggest thing for Harry was Hermione's teeth. Hermione had said she had tried to convince them for years to let her use magic to fix her teeth, but they refused on the basis they didn't think magic and teeth should mix. Knowing Hermione she had researched every detail and could have written an entire book on it, so it wasn't like they weren't informed about the subject. But rather that allowing Hermione to do something pretty much all magical people could have done they wouldn't let her, instead wanting her to go with braces, which was just nonsensical. Braces could take years to fix Hermione's issues, they were highly visible which would only make a self-conscious Hermione even more self-conscious, they could be difficult to maintain with normal eating and brushing habits, but most of all they needed multiple adjustments each year, something Hermione would have had a hard time with since she would be at Hogwarts and it wasn't like they could just drive to the school and take her to her appointments each month. It was obvious that they didn't exactly embrace magic and the benefits it could have given Hermione, and he did wonder how they responded to her going behind their back and letting Pomfrey fix them after she was hit with the teeth growing hex in their fourth year.

It wasn't that her parents were neglectful of her needs like the Dursley's were with him, they just didn't seem to be the perfect family Hermione had pretended they were. They took her on extravagant trips to different countries, mostly France, and Hermione never wanted for anything school related, including dozens of new books each year. But, they didn't seem to connect on a personal level.

It also didn't escape his notice that she also didn't really spend much time with her parents either. First year was the only year she actually spent the winter holidays with them, she had planned too for fifth year but had gone to Grimmauld after Mr. Weasley was attacked. And she was almost never home after their fourth year. Between the end of their fourth year until the end of their sixth she had only spent a few days at home with them before going to spend the rest of her summers with the Weasley's or at Grimmauld, and after their sixth year she had only been there for a month before erasing their memories and never seeing them again. That meant that in a period of two years they saw their own daughter for less than a full week, and that was stretching it.

In all the idealized version of Hermione he had once seen was no longer real to him. She was smart and loyal, but she also had her flaws. Her perfect family seemed to be a mirage and he didn't know how best to help her, he may have matured a fair bit, but he was still just a kid and hadn't exactly had a normal home life himself.

Then he turned his focus to Ron, more specifically, to the Weasley family. Originally he had seen the Weasley's as this perfect family. Given his own background it made sense. Now he knew better, the Weasley's were as damaged and troubled as any other. He realized now there is no such thing as a perfect family.

Arthur Weasley was the patriarch of the family, but for the most part he allowed his wife to manage everything. He was a good father, there was no denying that, but he could have been a great father to one or two children in Harry's opinion. Mr. Weasley loved each and every one of his children but between the sheer number, and his wife's overbearing personality, he ended up becoming overwhelmed and going to hide in his shed until things calmed down.

Harry knew from how Mr. Weasley fought during the war that he could handle threats and stress, but it was only in the short term. Apply any prolonged pressure and he would fold. Between his job, including all the overtime he took to earn extra money, and his hiding in his shed, his children only saw him for an hour or two on weekdays, and four or five hours on weekends, when they were home. In Harry's opinion that played a roll in why the children were the way they were.

Molly Weasley was the definition of devoted mother. In the muggle world she would have been the ultimate 'helicopter mum'. Her entire focus was on her children and trying to make sure they had what she felt were good lives. If she didn't approve of their career paths she insulted their jobs and berated them to do the job she had chosen for them for the rest of her life. Even knowing how much the joke shop had meant to Fred and George she had still tried to force George to shut it down and get what she termed a 'real' job after Fred was killed in the war, even as she later made him hire Ron. But in her mind it was all about giving them the best life possible.

Mrs. Weasley loved each of her children with a zealots passion, but it wasn't always in a healthy way, nor was it equal. She had wanted a girl so bad that once she finally had her she sort of forgot the other children to an extent. She didn't neglect them or anything, but her main focus was always her daughter first and her boys second. He remembered Ron once commenting on how Harry's mum had died to protect him and how he felt his mum would die for Ginny, but not necessarily for him. Her favouritism caused many problems, including Ginny feeling she could do no wrong and the twins constantly harassing Percy since their mum almost always used him as a way to drag them down, be it for their grades or their disciplinary records.

Loving them as much as she did didn't stop her from bullying and demeaning them. Nothing the boys ever did was truly good enough, even Percy, who did everything in his power to be perfect, couldn't measure up to what she expected of them simply because his opinion may differ from hers on a single topic. Honestly Harry didn't even think she knew she was doing it, and it most definitely wasn't meant to hurt her children, but as much as she used praise to reinforce the behaviours she wanted she also used insults.

Bill had been spared the worst of his parents issues. Since he had been the eldest he had gotten the most time alone with his parents. By the time his dad was fully overwhelmed and Ginny was born distracting his mum Bill was off to Hogwarts. He only spent the holidays at home and after graduation had gotten a job out of the country so didn't have to deal with it on a day to day basis.

Charlie was a lot like Bill since he was so much older, but he did have to deal with two years of a full house before he got to start school. During that time he mostly became responsible for looking after the twins while their mum dealt with Ron and Ginny and their dad worked. He saw the unfair treatment but was old enough to rationalize it and saw it as just a part of growing up in a big family.

Percy had had a really hard time in such a large family, he was a quintessential middle child. He craved structure, and that was something that was never present in the Weasley home. Since he was so different from his siblings he was often just left alone, leaving him craving

attention and approval. He tried to gain that approval for how hard he worked and his good grades, and it worked to an extent. But since he was often held up as an example to the twins, something which irritated them, the twins would tease him, which made him turn to his parents more to try and get their approval, which again alienated him even more from his younger siblings, it was a vicious cycle that he just couldn't get out of.

Harry actually thought that was why he had done so well at the Ministry. The place may have been as corrupt as it was possible to be, but there were clear and defined rules that Percy found no problem following, and he finally got the approval he craved without any of his siblings using it against him, for the most part.

And in turn his dislike of Dumbledore made sense as well. Percy was all about rules, propriety, and respect, the very last things Dumbledore bothered with. Albus Dumbledore had never met a rule he didn't think he was above, the man acted like so long as he had what he deemed were good intentions he could hurt anyone he wanted, and unfortunately he was right in a way since he was never held accountable for any of the laws he broke, and there were many of them. While Dumbledore expected everyone to have nothing but reverence for all the power and positions he had attained he treated everyone else like they were children, and if they dared to disagree with him then they were petulant children that would be given his most annoying disappointed looks. One of the purest forms of Dumbledore's self centred disrespect was the way the man was always late, even for meetings he himself called. The way Harry saw it it was Dumbledore's way of establishing his own importance, it was practically pathological by that point, but at the same time it was incredibly disrespectful and would be something that drove someone like Percy absolutely mad.

Fred and George were the living definition of bad attention is better than no attention. The only time they were really given attention was when they had made lots of noise or gotten in trouble, more often than not, both. They, like any other child, wanted their parents attention, and when it wasn't freely given they forced the issue. They also got rather irritated in how they were always lumped together, often resulting in both getting in trouble for something even if only one of them had done it, not that it bothered them to take the blame for the other, but it was the fact they were treated as one person rather than the two they were that got to them.

Fred was the elder of the two. He was the more outgoing one and was more likely to be the one starting conversations. He was boisterous and loud, even by their standards, and was the more charismatic of the two. He loved puns and had a slapstick humour. His talents lay in the more practical applications of things like transfiguration and charms. When it came to their jokes he was the one that often came up with the more outlandish ideas.

George was the quieter of the two, or as quiet as the pranksters could be. He was more sarcastic than his twin and had a dryer sense of humour. He excelled more in theoretical magics and had the patience for arithmancy and potions where as his twin was more likely to blow things up since he didn't like to focus as much, or he just wanted to blow something up. When Fred started coming up with his ideas it was George that made the outlines to make them work.

For Harry it was easy to tell them apart, and that was because they were almost always smiling. Their smiles were mirror images. When Fred smiled or grinned his lips pulled to the right creating a dimple on that side. George had his dimple on the left.

And that brought him to Ron. With the maturity he got from his mirror life Ron and his issues actually made a lot more sense. As the youngest boy he always felt like no matter what he did it wouldn't be significant since his older brothers had already done it. Then there was the fact that he was only a year older than Ginny, the daughter his mother had so desperately wanted. Ron was babied, pandered to, and given little responsibility by his parents since the pressure was always on his elder brothers, but at the same time he was often overlooked and pushed to the side because his sister was deemed more important or one, or more, of his older brothers had done something to draw attention.

Ron was often told he should be more like his older brothers, but it didn't seem it was impressed on him that they only got to where they were because they worked hard. Ron thought he could have all the same success as them without doing any of the work. He knew he could never compete with Ginny for attention, so he put himself in near constant competition with his brothers and resented when his lazy work ethic couldn't match up. But even as he wanted to be better than his brothers he didn't want to work for it.

And he was jealous of everyone that had anything he didn't or did anything he hadn't. Being around Ron could be great fun… if he was in a great mood. But if Ron's ego was even so much as brushed he was impossible to be around. It was like walking on egg shells. If Harry got a good grade or bought anything Ron didn't have he would lash out. And once that happened it was days, weeks, or as in the event of the triwizard tournament months, of the silent treatment and passive aggressive insults and rumours.

And since he had nothing better to do he decided to do some math, because why not? He knew from experience that the average salary of a ministry employee was a little over 5000 galleons. More to the point, Mr. Weasley was the Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, so he didn't make the average salary, as Head he was paid the standard rate of 6000 galleons each year, plus the occasional bonus. Despite what Ron thought his father was actually well liked by his co-workers, it was really just his department that was looked down on. Pay like that was more than enough for an average family, the problem for the Weasley's was the number of kids. Pretty much regardless of how much a person made the financials were always going to be tight while raising 7 kids. The Burrow may have initially been a relatively cheap property they has still done multiple renovations and expansions to make room for each child, and that wasn't cheap, and they most likely would have had to take loans so they had all the money and that meant there would be interest to be paid as well, making money even tighter.

But the biggest issue to Harry appeared to be a lack of prioritization and saving. From what Ron said he had about 500 chocolate frog cards, and he knew it wasn't like he had gotten them from his siblings since they each had their own collections, which meant Ron had had at least 500 chocolate frogs. And he wasn't saying that was a bad thing, 500 frogs worked out to a frog each week since he was just over a year old. But the thing that he noted was the expense. Each frog cost 3 sickles, that amounted to just over 88 galleons, so about 8.8 galleons each year only on chocolate for one child. Ron also had his entire room decorated in

memorabilia from his favourite quidditch team, and Harry knew it wasn't knockoff versions, it was the real thing, and again that was an incredibly frivolous expense. Plus there were all the quidditch books Ron had, enough to fill two of the shelves on his bookcase, and the monthly comic editions that filled up the other 3 shelves, none of those were free, and again, that was just one child, and he knew all the spoiling Ron got was nothing in comparison to Percy, or, most of all, Ginny. Treats were fine, but you need to evaluate your situation before you just start spending frivolously, especially with 7 children that all deserved something.

But the thing that really got to him had started at the beginning of the year and continued to what was happening at that moment.

One of the first things he heard from the Weasley's was Fred and George initially complaining about how Percy got new robes, when Mrs. Weasley said they were a gift for making prefect the twins started teasing him, and that hadn't stopped over the past few months. Harry knew the twins, they loved to have fun and tease, but when they held onto one thing and started getting mean it was because they were upset. When Ron had joined him it was clear he was embarrassed by his old, too short, robes, his second hand everything, and Scabbers, aka the disgusting fat man that killed those who called him friend and had spent years sleeping in the rooms of children. He had said he got Scabbers when his dad had gotten Percy his owl.

But that meant Percy got two gifts when Harry knew that Ron only got one when he made prefect, and Bill and Charlie had also both only gotten one gift. Even the most basic school uniform set that Percy had cost a minimum of 40 galleons, and Hermes was a screech owl which cost 15. A wand cost only around 7 galleons, but apparently that was just too much for the Weasley parents to accommodate even though it directly impacted the learning abilities of their child since Rons wand never really worked well, and Harry knew that once he got a new, proper, wand he was much better, even managing a patronus, something adults struggled with.

And then, after all that, Percy, Fred, George, and Ron were all left at the school so the Weasley parents could take their favoured child galavanting across Europe to visit Charlie at the dragon reserve. What in Merlins name were they thinking? Nothing says I love my children like abandoning a majority of them to spend the holidays at boarding school, oh, and their gifts are all going to be homemade since I would rather spend the money I have on myself and my favourite child.

Yes, portkey costs went up for each person but still… If seeing Charlie was so important they could have bought him a portkey so he could come home for the holidays and visit with all of them, which would have saved them a great deal of money anyways. How can they say they didn't have the money to ensure their children had good quality supplies for school and then turn around only a few months later and suddenly have enough for international travel?

And then there was when Mr. Weasley won the Daily Prophet grand prize. That was 700 galleons, something that again, could have been used to ensure the children had everything they needed for school, but instead went on a holiday, this time to visit Bill. Again, they could have just had Bill come home over a long weekend, but why do something sensible when you suddenly have a bit of money laying around. After all was said and done they had

enough to spend a few days at the Leaky Caldron and get Ron a wand since his old one broke. And that was it, the money was gone.

So for Harry it wasn't that the Weasley's were poor, it was that the Weasley's couldn't handle money. They spent it like it would disappear if it was left in the bank for more than a week. Harry had seen their vault, even with Mr. Weasley making a decent wage they only had a single galleon and some sickles.

Initially Harry had felt horrible, but once he grew up he realized they were the cause of their own situation. You can not help someone that will not help themselves.

He really wasn't sure what to do. Ron and Hermione had meant so much to him, but he knew them well enough to know that neither of them was going to adjust well to a Harry Potter that didn't hide behind them, and he had no intention of doing that this time.

It was time for Harry to be himself, whoever that may be, and they could either adapt, or get out of the way because not even for them would he hold himself back.

Chapter End Notes

Yes, I legitimately did math for this chapter.

The salary I assigned to Arthur came from looking up the average salary for government heads of department in the UK, adjusting for inflation since I couldn't find data from that time, then changing it into galleons which are said to be a 5/1 exchange.

For Rons chocolate frogs I found a name brand candy bar, added a bit due to the fact they came with collectible cards, adjusted for inflation, and then converted it to galleons.

The cost of Percy's uniforms came from looking up the average cost of school uniforms and the cost of owls is listed on Pottermore.

It should also be noted JK has said Hogwarts tuition is covered by the government so the Weasleys wouldn't have had to pay the ridiculous tuition private schools charge.

And yes, this is actually how I feel about the homelives of Ron and Hermione. I can't even imagine having to grow up in those kinds of families, I came from a stable two parent home, and my parents always made sure we knew they would be there for us no matter what so I can only go off what I think and feel in regards to the messed up families that make up a majority of the Harry Potter universe.

Harry Proves he can Still be an Idiot

After spending the night on edge, refusing to sleep, Harry slipped out of the dorm just after the sun rose.

With all the thinking, and freaking out, he'd done, Harry had come to a decision… He needed to make peace with Voldemort, or at least get him to agree not to fight. While he was still angry about the death of his parents he was also mature enough to understand that when you choose to engage in war you have to accept the consequences, his parents had chosen their paths, now he was going to choose his rather than let himself be forced down one. Plus, he already felt like he'd gotten his revenge.

But to do that he was going to need to make sure Voldemort didn't go any more crazy than he already was. The man had managed to arrange for a rather average wizard like Quirrell to break in to, and escape, Gringotts, something he personally knew was not an easy feat, so clearly he was still somewhat intelligent and powerful, even if his plans to acquire the stone were rather moronic. And he had been winning the war before his defeat so he wasn't the complete madman he had been in years to come.

Harry figured the curse that came with drinking unicorns blood had to have been what started his decline into full out raving lunatic. But so far there hadn't been any unicorns dying, he believed it wasn't until the end of February, beginning of March, that he started hunting the unicorns so there was still time. If he could get the unicorns to willingly donate some blood than they could avoid the curse. Then he may actually be able to help the man regain his sanity and they could avoid the psycho Voldemort.

And that was what led to Harry running around in the Forbidden Forest after a quick breakfast trying to find a unicorn. It was not going well.

He had caught glimpses of both adult and juvenile unicorns through the trees multiple times, but they were always gone by the time he reached where they had been. He could hear the drumming of hooves, but when he turned there would be nothing there. It was like they were taunting him.

For over 2 hours he searched. And it was the middle of winter so he was pretty sure he was turning into an ice cube. Even with the trees blocking the worst of the wind it was still well below freezing. Hedwig flew from tree to tree above him, occasionally hooting her encouragement or flying down to perch on his shoulder and nuzzle his hat covered hair.

Hearing the sound of hooves once again Harry spun around, instantly falling on his butt on the frozen ground when he came face to belly with a centaur.

Looking up he saw a familiar face. "Hello Firenze."

"Harry Potter." The centaur said in his usual deep, dreamy voice. "You should not be here."

"Yeah, yeah. I know. Mars is bright and there are dangers in the forest, especially for me."

The centaur gave a slight smirk. "Oh… Mars had indeed been bright as of late, but a comet of Antevorta has streaked the sky and now Mars is slowly dimming. And while this forest holds many dangers it is no more dangerous to you than it is to any other. No, you should not be here for what you seek does not reside here, what you seek resides within your school."

"The philosophers stone won't help me in this." Harry disagreed. "The elixir of life only works if you continuously drink it. I only need to keep them healthy for a few more months."

"It is not the tears of a stone that you need." Firenze said in a soothing voice. "It is the tears of fire."

'Tears of fire' Harry thought questioningly. What could be considered tears of fire? It took him an embarrassing amount of time for him to realize what Firenze was trying to say.

"Fawkes." Harry muttered as he hit himself in the head. Of course, phoenix tears would be able to keep both Voldemort and Quirrell in the best possible health.

He knew from his own time as headmaster in the mirror future that despite what Dumbledore had led people to believe Fawkes was not his familiar. Fawkes had originally been the familiar of Helga Hufflepuff and had just stayed at the school after her death. He would sometimes go off to do a bit of travelling but tended to stick close in times of need. The reason he hadn't been well known before was that the other headmasters and mistresses had respected him as the independent and powerful creature that he was so they didn't parade him around in an effort to show how great and powerful they were like Dumbledore did.

Firenze smiled as he gave a single nod.

"I'm such an idiot." Harry grumbled. He could have avoided all of this if he just thought things through, and it was even worse since, other than freaking out, thinking about things was pretty much all that he'd done since leaving the mirror.

"Despite your recent mental and emotional maturation you are still young, and human. You can't expect more than that." Firenze told Harry.

Harry gave the centaur a bland look. Because who didn't enjoy a centaur with a warped sense of humour? "Is there anything else written in the stars?"

"The path to the left may be longer, but it is the more rewarding." Firenze told him before bowing and making his exit.

Harry watched the centaur leave in frustration. After so long of dealing with them he knew better than to expect a straight and helpful answer, Firenze really was trying to help with his warnings, but centaurs were just to bloody vague. It had taken him over a decade to understand the way the centaurs had repeatedly told him that Mars was bright. Mars was the Roman god of war. They had been telling him that war was coming.

Antevorta was the Roman goddess of the future. Saying a comet associated with her had been seen could be reference to him getting to see the future if he had carried on the path he was on. Now Firenze was saying that since the comet Mars was dimming, that could mean he was

going in the right direction this time and the chances of an all out war were decreasing. And that was exactly what he wanted.

Harry got up and turned, taking the path to the left.

Harry had only been walking for about five minutes when a unicorn stepped onto the path in front of him. "Of course you finally let me catch up." Harry sighed in a combination of understanding and frustration.

On the one hand he was glad he had finally managed to find a unicorn, but on the other he was glad he hadn't found her earlier since he didn't really need any of her blood. It just would have been nice if someone had pointed out that he was being an idiot, he had spent hours running around in the freezing cold, even with his cloak and the basic warming charms he could cast his entire body was still numb.

He didn't know how he knew it, but as he and the unicorn across from him stared at each other he just knew that this was the unicorn that he would have found dead only a few months from then. As they watched each other the unicorn shifted, slowly moving closer to him. Once she was right in front of him she did something he hadn't expected. She bowed.

Then something else happened, a crack and rustle of leaves announced they weren't alone. Turning, expecting to see a centaur he was surprised to see a small foal. A unicorns horn length was determined by age, the horn grew an extra half twist each year. This foals horn showed he wasn't even a full year yet.

The female and male horns were different. The males twisted clockwise while the females were counterclockwise, and they had different properties. The male horns were the most common and cheapest, if you could call over 20 galleons a piece being cheap. The males grew and lost their horns each year, similar to muggle deers antlers. It grew very quickly, they started growing in early spring and were fully grown within only a few weeks, they were usually shed just days before their new horn began to grow but the unicorn could chose to shed them early if they wanted. The horns were used in purification potions and antidotes to poisons.

The females were different, as was true in all species. Their horns grew continuously and weren't shed each year, instead they chose when to shed them and then they would regrow to their original length within a year before slowing back down to regular growth rate. It was because they were only shed when the unicorn wanted that their price could be multiple times the amount of the males. The horns of the females were associated with mental and emotional clarity and the older the unicorn the stronger the magic.

But the most valuable horn was the horns of the juvenile. The reason for this was a combination of power and rarity. Juvenile unicorns only shed their horns when they chose to, but they were generally so well guarded by their parents that they didn't pass over their horns often. The smaller the horn, the more powerful the magic, the more expensive, the horn of a yearling could easily go for over 300 galleons minimum. But it was worth the price, with freely given blood and combined with the horn in a runic amulet it reduced the pain and insanity caused by the werewolf shift. He and Teddy had found it in one of the Peverell grimoires when Teddy's youngest daughter, Andrea, was turned when she was 19.

Slowly Harry moved forward, stretching out his hand. He knew from Hagrid's classes how to approach a unicorn. Since he was young they were calmer around him then they would be with an adult male, it was oddly surprising that they were so welcoming to him given he was a living horcrux and he figured they would be able to sense it, but it did make him wonder about peoples definitions of evil.

It was as he was petting and rubbing the little foals forehead when it happened, the small little nub of a horn came off. And then the impossible happened, as often happened around him, the foal turned his neck to willingly offer up his own blood. His eyes instantly sought out the one he believed to be his mother in worry, only to find her calmly watching, it almost looked like she was smiling even. It was almost unheard of for a foal so young to give up their horn, let alone the herd allowing it to happen.

For over an hour Harry greeted each of the over 30 unicorns that made up the forests herd. And the little foal wasn't the only one to willingly give him things. He was just relieved he had been planning to collect supplies when he went out and had brought his potions kit with him so he had plenty of vials and the things needed to properly store ingredients without risking contamination. When all was said and done, to go along with the little horn of the foal and 2 vials of his blood, he had the horns of over a dozen adults, 3 dozen vials of blood, and countless tail and mane hair of unicorns of all ages. Just knowing what he did, and it wasn't like he had ever become a potions expert, he knew the value of what he had collected had to be at least 1000 galleons.

Bloody hell, could he not be normal in anything? All Harry wanted was to be a normal kid, instead this happened.

It was as he got back on the path and started heading back to the school that he got another shock. He was not alone, someone else was there, other than Hedwig of course.

"Aren't you an odd and lucky little wizard?" A female voice whispered from the other side of the path.

Harry spun to see who had spoken, they had apparently been watching him for quite some time and he hadn't noticed, something which disturbed him given how hyper vigilant he could be. And to add insult to injury, or in this case add injury to insult, when he spun to the voice he tripped on a tree root and ended up falling on his butt on the frozen hard ground, again.

Looking up his groan of pain got stuck in his throat as he saw the giant green python he knew had been Voldemort's familiar, Nagini. He knew just how dangerous they could be, although pythons normally weren't venomous she was a magical one and was incredibly venomous, although he didn't know if that was her natural state or if Voldemort had altered her to make her more dangerous and violent. Either way, he knew he needed to be very careful in what he did next.

Nagini smelt the scent of fear from the small wizard. It was at times like this she wished most she could communicate with more humans, she didn't want him to be afraid of her. "Calm down little wizard, I mean you no harm."

Harry had a lot of thoughts running through his mind, but ultimately it was one of the more ridiculous things that came out of his mouth. "Shouldn't you be hibernating?" Although he knew it technically wasn't hibernation, it was actually brumation which was just similar.

Nagini was so shocked she almost fell out of her tree. If she hadn't been wrapped around the branch multiple times she definitely would have, as it was her upper body did drop a few feet, almost hitting the ground. In the first 60 years of her life she hadn't met a single speaker, now she was meeting a second in only a few years.

"You can speak?"

"Yes." Harry confirmed. "But you still haven't explained why you are here and not sleeping through the winter like most other snakes."

"I don't want to sleep." Nagini said as she slowly pulled her upper body back up on the branch. "My friend casts a long term warming spell on me each week so the winter doesn't slow me down too much."

Harry pulled himself up off the ground and noticed something odd. "You don't sound like any other snakes I've spoken too."

While snakes had their own language, and there was even a written form due to serpent creatures, snakes did have a limited intelligence. Wild muggle snakes were the most limited and only spoke in the most basic of ways, they spoke of things like 'light time' and 'dark time', as well as 'warm time' and cold time'. Muggle snakes that grew up around humans tended to have a larger vocabulary, but were still simpler, like the boa he had met at the zoo. Magical snakes, both those raised in the wild as well as those raised by magicals were again, smarter. But he had never met a snake that spoke so much like a human, snakes had their own words for things that were instantly recognizable. Nagini spoke like a human did.

"I am a maledictus." Nagini informed him primly.

"A mally what?"

"Maledictus." Nagini repeated, going slowly so the boy could understand. "I was born a witch, but I am under a bloodline curse. I had the ability to shift my form at will when I was younger. I became trapped in this form when I was 26."

"You were a…" Harry felt sick. He had had Neville behead a woman. Neville could never know, he wished he didn't.

Nagini wasn't surprise to see shock, the curse she was under wasn't well known, but the scent of sick and pure horror was startling. Why did this young boy care so much? She knew she was going to figure it out, it would most likely just take time.

"Yes. Now why are you and your pretty owl out here little wizard?"

"I was…" Harry wasn't exactly sure how to respond to that. He didn't want to do anything that would tip his hand too early, and he still wasn't exactly sure just how far he was willing to go to find peace. He had no doubt that Nagini would inform Tom if he said anything too incriminating so he needed to distract her. "I was gathering a few things to help someone."

Nagini cocked her head to the side. "And just who is it you are trying to help."

Harry quickly ran through a few scenarios. He could keep his secrets, and Nagini would undoubtedly tell Tom about the strange boy wandering the forest with unicorns, and all she would need to do was give a basic description and he would be found out. Plus starting this off with a lie would not be good. If he told her everything she could just tell Tom and he wasn't sure how he was going to deal with the man yet so that could be a problem. In the end he decided the middle road was the way to go, tell her he was trying to help Tom, including calling a phoenix to aid them, and taking her inside with him for his meeting with the possessed professor. Having Nagini on his side might just go a long way in helping him calm Voldemort, even at the hight of the mans madness he had doted on the snake, even if he had ultimately destroyed her mind with his horcrux.

It was something he would need to consider, the horcrux in Nagini seemed to have destroyed her mind, the possession of Quirrell was destroying his body, but even when the link between the two of them had been open near nightly for almost a full year it hadn't truly harmed him, he would need to figure out what made him different.

"I believe the one I am trying to help is your friend. Tom Marvolo Riddle, also known as Lord Voldemort."

Nagini snapped her head back in shock. Her friend had told her much, but not a lot at the same time, what she did know was that he called himself Marvolo or Lord Voldemort depending on the day, so she suspected this small wizard really was talking about the same man. "And just how would you help my Marvolo?"

"I know that he is currently possessing the defence teacher." Harry said, not surprised the man wouldn't want to use either name associated with his father, although Harry knew the connection to Marvolo Gaunt wasn't anything to be proud of either. "The human body wasn't meant to house two active souls at the same time. Because of that Quirrell's body is weakening. I had hoped to find something out here that could help to sustain him. Unicorn blood would, but if it wasn't freely given it would deliver a curse even as it helped."

"And now you have the freely given blood so all is well?" Nagini said cautiously, questioning if he really meant to use the blood to help.

"I have the blood, but a centaur gave me a much better idea."

"And what was that?"

"Tempestuous!" Harry called out loudly rather than answer.

Harry was relieved he didn't even need to wait. Only seconds after his call the phoenix Dumbledore called Fawkes and pretended was his familiar appeared before him. With a trill he flew over and landed on the branch Nagini was resting on before looking at him while cocking his head to the side and letting out a few chirping sounds as if asking what he wanted.

"Hello Tempus." Harry gently stroked the phoenix's head, using the nickname he knew from the founders journals he had found in the mirror timeline was what Helga Hufflepuff had often called him. "I need your help."

Tempus gave a trill.

"I need some of your tears to help Tom Riddle and Quirinus Quirrell." He wasn't surprised when the bird pulled back and gave him a hard look. "I know, neither are exactly innocent. And trust me, I above all know just how not innocent Tom is, but he was once, it was the cruelty of this world that made him what he became.

I think he can be saved. But I will need your help to do so. Please Tempus, help me stop a war before it can even start." Harry's voice was pleading by the end.

He could have cried when the phoenix gave a decisive nod of his head and pearly tears started to form. Grabbing two of the last empty vials remaining in his potions kit he held them under each eye. Honestly he was startled by how many tears he got. He had expected 3 or four tears maximum, instead by the time Tempus sat up straight again he had a dozen tears in each vial.

Tempus was visibly exhausted as he settled into a relaxed perch. It took a lot of energy for a phoenix to cry healing tears. If he remembered correctly initially the phoenix had burned around the middle of the next school year, now, after crying so many tears, he would be surprised if he even lasted until the leaving feast.

"Thank you Tempus." Harry carefully sealed each vial and tucked them away. He was going to need to do some arithmatic calculations to determine just how long those tears would last Tom. "You can flash back to your nest if you want, or I can carry you if you're too tired. I will be using the come and go room often for the rest of the year and I'll make sure to have plenty of fire berries should you want some.

Although, I do have a final request." He waited until the bird gives a chirp showing he was listening. "Headmaster Dumbledore has brought the philosophers stone into the school for so called protection. At the end of the year, if it looks like he is planning to keep the stone rather than return it to its rightful owner please flash it back to Nicolas Flamel. It would be in everyones best interest if you were to save the man from his own worst impulses."

Harry had been absolutely stunned after he became Headmaster. He had searched through his new office for hidden compartments and found one containing the stone he had long ago been told was destroyed. The only idea he had come up with was that Dumbledore had been planning to use it to extend his life if need be so he could keep controlling their world only he had been cursed and then killed, negating its power.

Nagini too hissed her thanks to the great firebird for his help. Tempus gave a croaky warble sound before flashing away, undoubtably to take a well deserved rest.

"Will be going to see Marvolo now?" Nagini questioned hopefully.

"I need to do a few more things, but I will be meeting with him before the day is done." Harry assured. "If you want, I can take you inside with me, the come and go room will be more than big enough for you to stay in. If I can just put a feather weight charm on you I can carry you there." He knew there was no way he was going to be able to carry the massive snake, certainly not with his weak little body.

"Others might see you and report back about you carrying me." Nagini said sadly. She would love to be inside so she could watch over her Marvolo.

"Not to worry." Harry grinned as he pulled out his invisibility cloak and wrapped it around his shoulders. After saying a goodby to Hedwig, and giving her plenty of treats he had brought with him just for her, Harry set off to prepare for a meeting with Voldyquirrell.

Chapter 4: Meeting and Planning with Voldyquirrell

Chapter Notes

Parseltongue is in italics

Harry was still exasperated with his own stupidity as he sat down for lunch. Planning had never been his strong suit, he knew that, he always did better in the heat of the moment, and that apparently hadn't changed even with his increased knowledge. It frustrated him to no end that he was a child in that respect.

He had spent 25 years as an auror and head of the DMLE. His instincts were just that, instinctive, the problem was his young body didn't have the muscle memory. His magic also wasn't fully developed yet. He had relied on his magic to keep him alert to his surroundings as he could sense the inherent magic in others so would be able to pinpoint their location with that alone. He could still feel magic, but it was much weaker since he was much weaker.

It also didn't help that his mind was an absolute mess, and so were his emotions. He knew he was going to have to put in some serious work rebuilding, or starting building, his occlumency shields. Occlumency didn't just build a shield around ones mind, it help to retain and sort out information. It basically allowed one to learn their way to a perfect memory. Once he got his shields up he would be able to sort through things and hopefully get control of his mad cap emotions.

Harry was lost in his insanity when Ron threw himself onto the bench across from him. "Where have you been all morning Harry? You didn't wake me up for breakfast."

Harry resisted rolling his eyes. He had forgotten Ron defined people by what they were doing for him and could never take responsibility for himself. "You didn't have to go to class so I figured you would wake up when you got hungry."

Ron hurumphed around a mouthful of chicken sandwich. "Where were you?" Or that was what Harry thought he was asking since his mouth was full of food.

"I went for a walk in the forest." Harry said, being quiet about it since he knew he could still get in trouble for being in the forbidden forest.

"Why didn't you invite me?" Ron whined.

"I didn't think you'd want to go."

"Why?" Rons voice stayed at that annoying whine.

"Ron. Do you know what an acromantula is?" Harry questioned, knowing this would put an end to Rons whining.

"No." Ron was confused by that. Since when was Harry interested in any of that stuff?

"An acromantula is a type of spider. You know those pumpkins Hagrid grew? The ones that were like six feet tall." Ron nodded to Harry's question, already fearful at the mention of a spider, his greatest fear. "An adult acromantula can grow to be larger."

All the blood drained from Rons face, making his freckles stand out way more. "There's one of those things in the forest?"

"No." Harry allowed Ron a moment to calm down. "There's a nest of them. So… around 200 or so. I didn't want to risk bringing you too close to them. There were more than a few webs near the path so I figured you would rather be in here, where they don't come."

"Thanks." Ron just turned his attention to the third sandwich he was shoving in his mouth, not wanting to think of something horrible again.

During lunch Harry had Hedwig drop a letter on Quirrell's desk to meet him in the ROR. He made sure to include that Nagini would like to speak with her friend Marvolo to ensure the man would show up.

After lunch he slipped away from Ron, who he had distracted by suggesting a nap would be a good idea. Sometimes Ron's simplicity was a very good thing.

Then he went up to where the ROR was. He had to take Nagini out and close the room before opening the time bubble, for some reason although you could change the room while in it you couldn't activate a time bubble unless the room was initially opened in a time bubble. As soon as the door closed the bubble would activate, so to keep it from activating he just left the door cracked a bit.

Quirinus Quirrell was very cautious as he arrived on the seventh floor. He had found a note on his desk after lunch and his Lord was conflicted about it, but he didn't want to do anything that would draw his anger.

He knew his Lord was already less than pleased that his body was failing. They both knew they were going to have to do something soon or he would die. Quirinus really didn't want to die and was willing to do almost anything to survive. He had suggested unicorn blood as a last ditch effort, but he knew his Lord really didn't want to go that route, but soon they weren't going to have a choice unless he could figure out how to get the philosophers stone Dumbledore had.

But now he needed to unravel this new mystery. He knew from what his Lord said 'Nagini' was the name of the snake that had travelled with them back to Britain, but they had left her charmed to stay warm in the forbidden forest. So whoever had left the note had clearly found Nagini, but the bigger question was how they knew her name.

Walking down the hall he found the area where his Lord had told him something called the come and go room was located. And there was a door there as he had been told to expect. It was slightly cracked open. Drawing his wand he eased inside.

But it wasn't a room filled with tons of junk like his Lord had said he himself had found. Instead the room appeared to be a large sitting room with a few doors leading off in different directions. He could feel his Lord was paying attention, unfortunately he was under the turban so couldn't see what was around them, and he knew good and well that he didn't like the limitations. Unfortunately thanks to Dumbledore he couldn't take control the way he could outside of the school since the wards would alert him to a possession, unless the wards were in complete disrepair, something his Lord suspected but wasn't willing to risk.

"Hello Professor." Harry said as he moved from his hidden area. He just hadn't wanted to take the risk of the man coming in firing spells. The man did train his wand on him instantly, but Harry knew from the mirror that Quirrell wasn't that reckless normally. When they had met in the mirror when he'd gone after the stone the initial response was to get him out of the way followed by negotiation, the attack hadn't occurred until after he got angry, and he hadn't been destabilized by unicorn blood yet.

"P…P…Potter." Quirinus was even more cautious now, and he could tell his Lord was even more interested now, something he hadn't thought was possible. But he was worried Dumbledore was trying to set him up for something, he knew they couldn't risk the old man stopping them.

"Please stop with the stutter Professor." Harry sighed, the stutter was one thing he would not forgive, mocking a speech impediment was not funny or acceptable, especially since he knew Neville struggled with the issue himself given the way he was treated by his so called family.

"Where is the Headmaster?" Quirinus questioned hesitantly. The boy couldn't know the stutter wasn't completely real. He had had a stutter as a child but had overcome it years ago, he had started putting it on worse than it had ever been to ensure no one would suspect him of doing anything brave like hosting the Dark Lords soul.

"He doesn't know we're here. While this room is connected to the wards he can't tell what's happening inside even if he's paying attention to the wards since it is in a constant state of magical flux." Harry explained as he went over to the table and sat, waving for Quirrell to do the same. "I need to have a private conversation with your companion. And to prove I'm here in good faith I brought these."

Quirinus watched, confused on multiple levels, as the petite child placed two vials of pearly liquid on the table but chose to focus on the second part of what the child had said. "And just how could you have a private conversation with someone else here with myself in the room?"

Harry smirked, catching the mans not acknowledging that he was not alone. "Oh, I don't think it will be a problem."

Quirinus froze in absolute shock as the child in front of him hissed. He had heard that hiss before, every time his Lord spoke to his snake. Harry Potter, Harry bloody Potter, the Boy- Who-Lived, the golden boy of the light was a parselmouth. At the same time he could feel his Lords interest in the boy become even stronger.

"As I said, I brought this as a sign of good faith." Harry indicated the two vials, slowly lifting his wand, making sure to keep his movements non threatening. "I, Harry James Potter, do swear upon my magic and my life, that each of these vials contains 12 tears of a phoenix, no more no less, so mote it be."

"And how does that show good faith?" Quirinus questioned after the boy cast a low level light spell with his wand, showing he was speaking the truth.

Harry smirked, it would seem Quirrell and Quirrellmort have forgotten the same thing as Diarymort did. "A body isn't intended to house two active souls. It will eventually begin to die from the stress, as I'm sure you've realized given how pale and drawn you have been becoming over recent weeks.

There are however, three things that can stop it. The first, and most widely known, is the blood of a unicorn. But unicorns generally dislike giving blood so it is rare and very expensive, and you would need large amounts so the only way to get that would be by force. And that is the worst thing someone could do since killing and drinking a unicorns blood carries a most horrible curse that would drive even the strongest mind mad.

The second is the elixir of life which comes from the philosophers stone, and that one may just be a viable option here at Hogwarts for the moment thanks to Dumbledores games. The problem is that it will only keep a person alive, it will not heal the damage, meaning they would still suffer from the pain of the injuries they have already incurred. Plus, once you start drinking the elixir you can never stop, even if one only drinks the elixir for a week, they stop, they die.

And then we come to the third, and best option, phoenix tears. Admittedly very expensive, and difficult to come by, unless you know a phoenix that just so happens to like you, as I do. The tears of a phoenix will heal almost any injury. From my calculations, a single tear is enough to keep someone housing more than one soul in peak health for around two weeks before their body will begin failing once again, and another tear will then heal that damage. Although you may want to check my calculations for your own peace of mind.

Either way, you should use one of the tears now for yourself, and I will give your companion one when we speak since it would be awkward for you to try and do so. Then you can sit and do some marking or check my calculations while we discuss the situation."

Quirinus was yet again stunned by that. This boy was nothing like he had expected him, truthfully he never had been, but this was even more out of the blue. He had expected a tall slightly muscular boy that walked with his head high and chest puffed out, and he had expected him to be in the latest fashions and have an ego larger than the castle itself from all

the stories he had heard of the boy. But that day, in the Leaky Caldron, he saw a scruffy, too thin child who looked completely lost and clearly intimidated by peoples reactions to him. He had thought the boy just might have grown up too sheltered so he didn't know how to deal with crowds, but as time had gone by he realized that wasn't true. He heard rumours the boy had been raised by muggles, and like his Lord, had started to develop a bad feeling. Now, a child he had thought would despise his Lord was helping to heal them and wishing to talk with the man that had killed his parents.

"I have to be at a staff meeting in a few hours, just before we head to dinner." He said as he picked up one of the vials.

Tipping his head back slightly he used the dropper the vial was sealed with and drops a single tear on his tongue. Nearly instantly his body began to feel better. The tearing pain in his chest eased and it became easier to breathe.

"That won't be an issue." Harry assured as they both moved towards the table area. The way it was set up was that there was one table, that Quirrell would sit at, and another table behind it so Harry would be able to sit across from Tom's face. "This room has a time bubble feature that was activated when the door closed fully. No matter how long we are in here only 10 minutes will pass on the outside. I got enough food from the kitchens so that we can be in here for a week if we need too so we can work everything out."

Quirinus just took a seat, he couldn't handle any more surprises. Instead he took his turban off before pulling the calculations closer. Arithmancy hadn't been his best subject, but he was sure he knew it better than a student that hadn't even finished their first year. And this wasn't something he was going to take a chance with, it was his life, and the life of his Lord, after all.

"Harry Potter." Lord Voldemort hissed as the boy came into view.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle." Harry hissed back with a smirk, quickly lifting up the vial to give the creepy, now furious, face a phoenix tear before he could express his rage. He really did hope that he was saner since he hadn't had unicorn blood yet.

"Where did you hear that name?" Voldemort hissed in fury even as he began to feel better with both him and his host now having had a dose of phoenix tears. "Did that old fool tell you?"

"That's complicated, technically, you told me." Harry took his seat and prepared for a long and weird conversation.

"I did no such thing. I am Lord Voldemort."

"I am willing to compromise and use Marvolo like Nagini, but I will not use that name for you. Honestly, using an anagram of your own name, bit childish there." Harry said, the slight tease translating surprisingly well through parseltongue.

"Such disrespect."

"You killed my parents and tried to kill me when I was only 15 months old, I owe you no respect, you should be thankful I am giving you what I am."

"YOU DID WHAT?" Nagini shrieked, suddenly up on the table and glaring. This devolved into her giving a good 5 minute lecture on the sanctity of children in the magical world and how it was never acceptable to harm them.

"Is that what you wished to see me about?" Marvolo hissed. "To have Nagini tell me off for you?"

"No, that was just a bonus." Harry shot a grin at the snake. "What I wanted to talk about was a truce."

"A… truce?"

"Yes." Harry said nonchalantly.

"Why would you choose to make a truce with me?" Voldemort was confused by the golden boy of the light wanting to make a deal with him rather than outing him to Dumbledore or just attacking him himself. "Why choose not to fight this war?"

"Because I've seen it, and it's not worth the cost." Harry said dully.

"What?" Both Marvolo and Nagini hissed in a confused way.

Harry sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. He had known he would need to explain the mirror, had even planned how he would manipulate the story to ensure the best outcome, after all, despite being semi rational the man wasn't fully sane. "You know as well as I do that Dumbledore had the philosophers stone brought here.

It isn't to protect it, it is a trap for you and a test for me." Harry gave the face a hard look. "Honestly, the fact that you fell for it is not a good sign. You are supposed to be a Slytherin , cunning and ambitious, but you have been acting rather more like a thoughtless rash Gryffindor with your coming here and letting a troll in.

Regardless, the Cerberus you found on halloween, or Samhain, which ever you prefer, is just the first trial. The test/trap, is set to culminate in facing the mirror of erised. But Dumbles wanted to tip things a little in my favour so he arranged for me to 'accidentally' come across the mirror so I would be ready to face it when we follow his plans and face off against each other."

"And just what is so special about a mirror?" Voldemort wasn't going to argue about his own rash actions, he knew he was acting rashly, but until he had had the phoenix tear he had been dying, and he knew it, and the stone was the only thing that could have kept him going.

"The mirror of erised, or, the mirror of desire, shows us what we want, whatever we want." Harry explained. "It is an enchanted artifact that is known to pull those who gaze upon it into a thrall like state, forming an addiction almost instantly. Over the centuries hundreds have lost their lives in front of the mirror because what they see becomes more important than

anything else, including food and water. If someone looking into it is pulled out of it without willingly stepping back or being released in a way by the mirror they can often lose their minds and go completely mad. The only ones that can truly beat it is those that accept that what they saw isn't real.

I am not one of those people. Honestly, I feel more than a little mad as of late. Dumbles interrupted me the other day and I honestly am still struggling trying to figure out if this is even real. And, if this is real, is what I saw in the mirror real, but I saw this room in the mirror so if this is real, and I found this room then what I saw had to be real, but again is it real or is the mirror just showing me another vision…"

"You're spiralling." Nagini quickly cut in, seeing the boy had started to shake slightly, no doubt the after effects of whatever enchantment was on the mirror.

Harry let out a shuddering breath. "Thank you Nagini. Anyways.

Initially the mirror just showed me something I could never have, my family." He gave Voldemort a small glare at that. "But the last time I wasn't thinking about my family, I was thinking about what my life would be like if I kept going down the path I was on, and it showed me. I mean, it actually makes more sense that the mirrors true enchantment would show you a vision rather than a static picture, because as interesting as it was to see the different members of my family I could always walk away, but I think that was just the mirror forming the addiction in me.

So… The mirror showed me a version of the life I would live if I kept going down the path Dumbles had so carefully laid out for me… It wasn't a bad life… Not really… It just… It wasn't… I don't really know how to explain it."

"What happened to you?" Nagini redirected the struggling child.

"Everything… Nothing." Harry sighed. "At the end of this school year I would have been tricked into going after the stone. Well, tricked isn't exactly the right word. I thought I was doing what I had to to protect myself and my friends. When I had grown up some I realized Dumbles had lead me down the path of thinking like that and had intentionally given me just enough information so that I could confront Quirrellmort here." Harry felt a sharp stab in his scar for a moment even as he and Nagini snickered. "Dumbles really just wanted to see what I would do and see how strong the protections on me were."

"Protections?" Voldemort questioned, still irritated by that horrible nickname.

"My parents used a protection ritual on me, it is part of why your curse rebounded on you. Basically, you can't touch me with the intent to harm. You had ordered Quirrell to grab me, but when he did his hands started burning. He ended up dying when you left his body to save yourself and the protections on me burned him to ash. And I got to spend three days unconscious in the hospital wing from magical exhaustion and a head injury, so needless to say none of us had had a good time." The normal person wouldn't think sarcasm and snark translated well into parseltongue, but surprisingly it did, incredibly well.

"Why would I just attack you?" Voldemort was slightly confused by that. He had already decided that he might try to sway the boy, with his power and fame there was much he could help him with.

"You kinda didn't." Harry shrugged. "Initially you tried to get me to join you, but you were also kind of going crazy. You hadn't had the phoenix tears so had had to resort to unicorn blood, which like I said carries a curse. Really, within the next few years you would lose what limited amount of rationality you had left until you were basically the equivalent of a rabid animal."

"And that is why you do not hurt unicorns." Nagini gave her friend a narrowed eyed glare. "I warned you of the dangers."

"So you burning Quirinus did not kill me." Voldemort said as a matter of fact, pleased to know his horcruxes were still doing their job. Although he was a little distressed about the rabid animal comment, not that he could deny it given what he had sunk to at the end of the previous war, something he still struggled in understanding.

"No. Over the next few years after that the school didn't get any safer for me and I was almost killed multiple times." Harry said, he knew he was going to be avoiding those situations this time. "You ultimately managed to resurrect yourself at the end of my fourth year. War was openly declared the year after that.

It was bad. You managed to take the Ministry and Hogwarts at the end of my sixth year. Again, you were like a rabid animal. You made the Carrow twins professors here, and that ultimately lost you a lot. Those two are almost as mad and cruel as Bellatrix, and that's saying something. They so greatly adored using the cruciatus on the students, and not even the children of your followers were safe, and that caused a number of your own followers to secretly turn against you. You often said love was a weakness, but you missed that it can also be the greatest motivator and strength. You were their Lord, and they all but worshiped you, but the moment you became a threat to their children you made yourself their enemy. And while none of them outright attacked you, they also did not come to your aid when you needed it most.

That year I was labeled 'undesirable number 1' and my friends were numbers 2 and 3. We were hunted, like so many others, but we managed to stay one step ahead of your idiot followers for the most part. Even when we were captured once and brought to Malfoy Manner to be guarded by Lucius and Bellatrix we still managed to escape, taking a few of your more valuable prisoners with us.

At the end of May that year the final battle took place, the Battle of Hogwarts it was later called. Because you, the man who had considered Hogwarts your first home, like me, had gone so mad you were willing to destroy it, and all the children inside.

147 died. Nearly all of them students. And it was all for nothing. In the end, you and I faced each other in single combat, and you lost."

Voldemort didn't even have the power to be furious at the idea of him losing to what would be a 17 year old boy. Instead his mind was caught on him using Hogwarts as a battle ground.

Like the boy had said, Hogwarts had been his home. The idea of turning it into a battlefield was horrible. And then the number of children killed, he may not be overly fond of children but the entire purpose of him initially starting his fight was to keep other children from suffering the way he had in his youth. He knew looking back that he had lost his way, but slaughtering children had never been his intent, he could remember a few times ordering his followers to not harm children even at the hight of his madness. He was really going to need to reevaluate his plans.

"And is that when the vision stopped?" Nagini questioned in a small voice. She knew she was going to do everything in her admittedly limited power to ensure Marvolo stayed on the right path.

"No. After the final battle things carried on, much the same as they had before the war. The wixen world has never exactly been big on change so despite all the horrors they had seen they refused to better themselves or their society much." That was still a sore point for Harry. "And I just kept going.

My godson had been orphaned when his parents were amongst the few adults that fought and died in the final battle. I helped to raise him with his grandmother until she passed and then it was just the two of us. I couldn't let him end up like me. He was a good kid, so it wasn't like it was a hardship or anything.

I became an auror. Then Head Auror. And eventually Head of the DMLE. During that time Teddy had gone to, and finished Hogwarts. He settled down with a loving wife and had a couple of kids.

And then, I left. I traveled the world for a few decades. I'd visit home from time to time to check in with Teddy and the grandkids, and later great grandkids of course. But I just needed more.

I earned a few masteries and did a lot of research. And then, I came home, back to Hogwarts. I became a professor, and by the time I was 100 I was the Headmaster. I had been sitting in my office going over some of my notes when Dumbledore finally bothered to show up and pull me out of the vision."

"That sounds like a perfectly fine life, even if there were some bad bits." Nagini said, slightly confused about why the boy would wish to change it so overly much, although she was glad he was going to try and save Marvolo too.

"Oh, it wasn't bad, not really, it was just… Hollow." Harry said in a far away voice as he remembered the feeling. "There were moments of true joy and happiness in my life, but they always faded back to numbness. And I think I figured out why just before coming back here, and that's why I want to change things."

"And just what did you figure out?" Voldemort asked, pulling himself out of the self disgust at the number of children he had killed to focus on the present.

"The prophecy, I think we all misinterpreted it. Not that that's really surprising since prophecies really aren't meant to be understood until after. I also think Dumbledore may have

misheard a bit of it, it wouldn't be surprising since at the time he was in a pub and there was a commotion going on. I never got to hear the proper prophecy since the orb in the department of mysteries was destroyed before any of us could hear it so all I had was Dumbles interpretation. And if the mirror trip taught me anything it is that Dumbles is in no way infallible." Harry knew he would have to distance himself from the man, not that it would be hard since he had only known him a few months at this point.

"You know the prophecy?" Voldemort was instantly at attention. "What does it say?"

"It went 'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies….' Clearly, it's self fulfilling in a way." Harry said knowingly. "If you hadn't come after me then I never would have been 'marked', and then I would not have become your 'equal'.

Personally, I think Dumbles heard a bit of what he wanted to hear. Maybe it should have been 'neither must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives'. But that's just going off what I know happened."

Voldemort's mind was swiftly sorting through all the new information. He was more than a little furious with himself, the boy was right after all, the prophecy was self-fulfilling. If he had left the boy alone and waited to see like he had initially planned then none of this would have happened, he had only acted in a fit of anger after a different plan of his had backfired. But there would be time to think about that later, instead he focused back on what the boy had said.

"And just what happened to make you think the old man misheard?"

"We aren't meant to fight." Harry said surely. "Magic itself doesn't want us to fight."

"And just where would you get that idea?" Voldemort was confused by that.

"Our wands." Harry placed his wand on the table. "When I got my wand Ollivander said something to me. He said that the phoenix who's tail feather is in my wand gave another feather, just one other. He said it was strange that this was the wand for me when its brother was the one that gave me my scar."

Voldemort glanced back and forth between the innocuous looking wand to the famous scar a few times in shock. "And just how does that mean magic doesn't want us to fight?"

"When Ollivander said my wand had a 'brother' it wasn't just a unique turn of phrase." Harry returned his wand to his pocket, knowing he would need to find a way to get a holster. "Wands that have cores from the same magical creature are called brother or sister wands depending on the gender of the creature, the feathers in our wands come from a phoenix originally called Tempestuous, he was the familiar of Helga Hufflepuff. Brother wands do not like to fight, like I mean they will resist casting spells at the holder of their sibling. If they are forced to fight they will connect through Priori Incantatem. If that happens then the wands

get to know each other even more and can react to each other just by being around one another.

You tried to overcome that by just using a different wand but even that didn't work since our magics knew each other and my wand knew you were the holder of its brother, instead your second wand was completely destroyed. As I said, magic itself doesn't want us to fight each other."

Voldemort was once again thoughtful, he had never bothered to study wand lore beyond learning what his wand said about him so this was new information. He was going to have to find a book that went more in-depth into the subject. He was then startled out of his thoughts as with a flash of light a book on wand lore was on the table.

"Yeah, the room will do that." Harry tried valiantly to hide his entertainment at the man/face's shocked look. It was funny seeing so many emotions on the creepy looking face. "The schools magic makes a copy of every book that enters Hogwarts and makes them available in this room, it was originally Rowena Ravenclaws personal office and library. If you want something and the room can provide it, it will, all you need to do is think about it."

"But how did you know the familiar of Helga Hufflepuff?" Voldemort questioned, he would learn about, and enjoy the rooms abilities, later. Despite how famous the founders were surprisingly little was actually known about them, and he had never heard anything about familiars.

"Because he's still here." Harry said. "It was after I became Headmaster that I learned the truth. The phoenix Dumbles claims as his familiar Fawkes was originally Tempestuous."

"Why would he change his name like that?" Voldemort questioned.

Harry raised an eyebrow and looked at him like he was an idiot. "Because Dumbles will do anything to make himself seem more important and like a good Light Lord. And the population has practically been bred to idolize phoenixes and see any associated with them as the epitome of light."

"But having the same familiar as Helga Hufflepuff would give him that same greatness. It would also give him a better connection to the Hufflepuffs, giving him the near guaranteed loyalty of half the school rather than just the Gryffindors." Voldemort pointed out.

"True." Harry acknowledged. "But, Tempus isn't actually his familiar. He is instead bound to the school. Previous Headmasters just didn't display him, believing he deserved respect. And he liked to go off for a few decades at a time to do whatever it is phoenixes do during their personal time. I think he just wanted to make sure no one connected the phoenix he claimed with the phoenix that had been loyal to the school for centuries."

"That man is so desperate." Voldemort sighed.

"Is there any other reason you think the prophecy has been interpreted wrong?" Nagini asked, wanting to keep them on track, at least somewhat. She wanted to know as much as she could so she could keep an eye on her now two favourite people.

"Yes." Harry then gave Marvolo a weary look. "You need to remain calm and not over react to what I am about to say. Just remember, they are all fine.

I know about your horcruxes." Harry felt the pain in his scar from Marvolo's anger, but it was suppressed surprisingly quickly and he decided to quickly explain. "I kind of had too, remember, the mirror showed me your defeat, which meant they had to be destroyed. I have no intention of doing so again. Although, I will say you are an idiot for creating them, especially since you didn't do your research."

"I did so." Voldemort snapped, completely unwilling to admit just how childish he sounded at that moment, and studiously ignored Nagini's snort, no doubt about the childishness.

"You read Magics Moste Evile. A book which only contains the most basic explanation of horcruxes." Harry rolled his eyes. "And then you mentioned it to Slughorn, while he is a knowledgeable man he isn't exactly well known for his understanding of incredibly dark and dangerous rituals."

"There weren't any other books available. If I had known about the added capabilities of this room I would have used it, but that is besides the point, they worked."

"Yeah, they worked, at driving you mad." Harry thought about books on horcruxes and with a flash over a dozen books sat next to him. "Before we leave this room you will be reading at least a few of these so you understand just what you did wrong.

Despite what Magics Moste Evile says, the horcrux ritual doesn't just take a sliver of your soul and put it in an object to anchor you to this plane, it takes half. Your diary, 50% of your soul, the ring, 25% of your soul, your locket, 12.5% and so on, I hope I don't need to keep going. If you know anything about advanced magical theory or magical psychology you would understand why you became so unstable both magically and mentally by the end. We need our souls, they serve to balance us. With your soul as damaged as it is it's no wonder you lost control. And just so you know, it would also magically weaken you since much of magic relies on intent, focus, and emotion, and a damaged soul would reduce that."

"I am managing to keep my focus just fine thank you very much." Voldemort had absolutely no intention of looking over at Nagini. He really didn't understand why he was so fond of the overbearing snake. "And my magic is just fine."

"No, it isn't, and neither are you." Harry said calmly, sharing a glance with Nagini, agreeing silently that they would make him suffer, later. "The reason you are as stable as you are is because of Quirrell, his full soul is serving to stabilize your damaged one. Plus you are in close proximity to other parts of your soul.

As for your magic… I know that when you were younger you were capable of wandless magic. Tell me, when was the last time you were able to do anything wandlessly." Harry just smirked at the slight throb in his scar, knowing that was as much of an admission as he was going to get. "A horcrux wouldn't weaken you a lot, but the number that you have, you are weaker as a result.

Now, where was I… Oh yes, the prophecy. So… we need to talk about your last horcrux, and no, it isn't the diadem as you might think."

"Yes, it is."

"No, it isn't." Harry felt the urge to stick his tongue out at the man, but managed to repress it, just barely. "Because of the number of times you did it, your soul was incredibly unstable when you came to my parents home that night. In the backlash your soul split yet again. And… well… The part that remained needed to go somewhere. Tell me Marvolo, you were one of the smartest students to ever graduate Hogwarts. So, knowing all that you do, you should know that the killing curse kills without leaving a mark, so where did my scar come from?"

"That's…" Voldemort's mind began to race as he ran through all the possibilities. It just couldn't be possible. "You… You're a horcrux." He would deny until his dying day that he had stuttered.

"In a manner of speaking." Harry shrugged. "The prophecy said I would be marked your equal, and I am. That night you only had around 3% of your soul left, 1.5% left, that is you, and the other 1.5% stayed, choosing to remain with me. I quite literally hold the same amount of your soul as you are."

"So you are dying?" Nagini asked sadly, she liked this boy, she would just have to make her Marvolo fix it. "Quirinus is dying because of having too much soul in his body, so you must be doing the same. Is that how you know about the help of phoenix tears?"

"Not to worry Nagini." Harry gave the snake a smile. "I am fine. The soul in me isn't active, so it isn't harming me as far as I can tell. When a horcrux is put in a vessel it controls that vessel, but since I wasn't prepared as a horcrux vessel it can not control me.

I'm actually not even the first living horcrux." Harry shuffled the books around until he found a personal diary from the middle ages. "This book was written by Rodesh the Unstoppable in the early 13 hundreds. He had created a horcrux to extend his own life. He wanted to teach his wife to do the same so they could continue living so decided to show her how it was done by making another. But the ritual went wrong and he died before he could finish, the piece of his soul that had already been removed attached to her and she used his original horcrux to restore him.

Obviously, he didn't live forever, despite what books on horcruxes may say they are not a guarantee of eternal life. But she was his horcrux. And as a result of that their lives were tied together. The only true way for either of them to die was for the other to die around the same time. They both had to die within 24 hours of each other or else their souls would just go to limbo and they repeatedly found a way back since they were connected.

And I can say that's true. In the mirror life Marvolo was successful in killing me once. I spent a bit of time in limbo, got to see just how much he had damaged himself by seeing the physical representation of his horcrux in me, and then I decided to go back. The thing was, the horcrux was just too badly damaged and the pull wasn't strong enough for it to return

with me since by that time most of the other horcruxes had been destroyed and were in limbo too. When Voldemort died only an hour or so later he wasn't able to come back.

But from that point on, I felt hollow. Like it or not the horcrux is a part of me. To lose it is to lose a part of myself.

And that's what I think the prophecy really means. It said 'neither can live while the other survives' Dumbles interpreted that as saying that one had to die for the other to live. But I think it means neither of us can truly live if the other is just surviving. Over the past decade we have both just been surviving, Marvolo as a wraith and me with my delightful relatives. And it will keep on like that.

The only times I can remember truly being happy and content during the mirror life was when Marvolo had regained a body and was relatively happy too. We are connected by the horcrux, we kind of need each other. And that's why I chose to try offering a truce. Plus, Marvolo can't kill me. First off, because he would technically be killing a part of himself, but also because I could just come back as he serves as an anchor for me just as much as I serve as one for him. And in the mirror life I had my revenge for the deaths of my parents, and although I'm not sure if it was real, I still feel like it happened so I am ready to move on with my life."

Voldemort sat silently for a few minutes thinking things through. It was a lot to take in. This boy was his horcrux, and he was right, he couldn't kill him, nor would he. The entire point of the horcruxes had been to live, he wasn't about to destroy a part of his own soul. He would work out the rest later but at the moment there was one thing he needed to know.

"Just how much of a connection is there?"

"I always know when you are around." Harry told him, likewise thinking they could deal with the rest later. "Right now it just tingles when you're around. When you are upset or angry anywhere near me it can throb and when something is really bothering you it gives me a constant low level ache.

After you got your own body it became more intense. It got to the point where we would sometimes share dreams. On a few occasions I could see through your eyes and you were able to send me visions. Occlumency helped to block it out for the most part, but even with that the connection would flare up from time to time."

Voldemort wasn't sure how he felt about that. He needed to think, and read. Maybe he would find information in that diary.

Harry saw the thoughtful look and knew Marvolo needed time to process and read. Hopefully he would begin to see the error of his ways to an extent. He had raised a teenager, he knew the best way to get someone particularly stubborn or argumentative to do something was to make them think it was their idea.

"I think we should take a break for a bit and just let the information settle." Harry said and wasn't surprised about getting no argument.

Later

Voldemort had finished reading the diary, it had only been about a hundred pages so it was a quick read. As he thought through the new information he had been watching the Potter boy relax by the fire and work on the essays he had due after the holidays, and as he did so he gently stroked Nagini. He had had Quirinus have mirrors placed around the room so even if they both couldn't be looking in the same direction they would still both be able to see. As it was set up at the moment Quirinus was at a desk and all he would need to do was glance in the mirror before him to see the boy while Voldemort was facing him.

The boy was a conundrum. Had been since the beginning. But now that he had information about the possible future he was even more interesting. He needed this boy on his side. And the fact he was his horcrux was just part of the reason, the main one, but still only part.

He had been going over their conversation in his mind and something had been holding his attention… The boys reaction to mentioning his family. It was clear there was something wrong there, and he wasn't going to let that go. And it would only benefit him to have an adult present that would be able to intervene as he believed would need to be done. This boy was going to be his ally after all. Once he had left Quirinus's body the man would be able to file a complaint if needed that way.

"Mr. Potter?" Voldemort waited until the boy put down his quill and gave him his full attention. "Earlier you mentioned your family. From what you said I can only assume things are not as delightful as they have been portrayed."

"From what I've heard you are treated like a prince and have gotten to travel all over the world. What's wrong with that?" Quirinus piped up. His Lord had told him earlier that he wanted to get the boy talking about this particular subject.

Harry gave a disgusted grimace. "Let me guess, you heard that from Dumbledore and those ridiculous books." Harry allowed for a moment for the professor to agree. "He lied. And he knew very well it was a lie. I grew up in Surrey. Dear Dumbles has done everything he can to keep me as isolated and miserable as he could. You would think the man would learn, but oh no, he just keeps doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, you above all should know about that."

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" Voldemort questioned.

"How many students do you think have requested assistance over the years? Can you guess how many he denied? I'll give you a hint, it was all of them. He has this insane idea that no one would really hurt a child, especially if they were blood related despite seeing evidence to the contrary in form of medical scans, and in some of the worst cases, death certificates." Harry was still incredibly bitter towards the old man after everything he had learned that the old fool had covered up over his years as Headmaster. "There have been a few students that

went completely off the rails after they went to him asking for aid only to be told their family, or caregiver, loved them and they just weren't trying hard enough to see it."

"And you were one such child?" Voldemort questioned, his tone seething. He remembered perfectly well Dumbledore's views on abuse and even the claim that they loved them and it was just the child not trying hard enough to see it, he had gotten that speech each year for his first three years when he asked to stay at the school or go somewhere other than the orphanage until he realized no one was going to help him.

"Have I told him what happened in that house, no. To do that I would actually have had to meet the man." Harry gave a bitter smirk. "Only hours after my parents died he, as Cheif Warlock, had my parents wills sealed claiming somehow them being read would endanger me or something. Since the wills were sealed no one knew who was supposed to have custody of me, so he claimed it for himself of course. Then he, along with McUseless, left me at my mothers sisters place, never bothering to come and check on me."

Quirinus snorted slightly. "I know Minerva isn't always available to help her students, but isn't 'McUseless' going a bit far?"

"Tell me professor, what is the acceptable amount of time to leave a child outside in November, alone?" Harry questioned sarcastically.

"None." Quirinus was confused by that.

"After Mr. Red Eyes there killed my parents Dumbles, McUseless and Hagrid brought me to my Aunts place the next night, where they left me in a basket on the doorstep, and then left. They didn't even ring the bell to let anyone know I was there." Harry said in a cold voice. "Do you get that? They left a walking toddler with a head wound outside, in November, for hours. I wasn't found until my aunt went to put the milk bottles out.

Hagrid I can understand and forgive to a degree, his perception on safe and not safe is more than a little skewed. And it doesn't help that those around him seem to intentionally keep him ignorant and childlike. But Dumbles and McUseless should know very well the dangers of what they did, they just didn't care. And if McUseless did care she stopped when Dumbles no doubt claimed it was for the 'greater good' or some such nonsense because the woman is nothing if not a blind sycophant."

"And you would say that things at your aunts were bad enough he should have removed you?" Voldemort probed.

"If he were a decent person, yes." Harry relaxed back in his seat. He had long since gotten over his embarrassment at his home life and was now just resentful at what so many had allowed on Dumbledores word alone. "But he knew very well what was happening, I think he allowed it so when I came to Hogwarts I would see him as my saviour for getting me away from them if even just for the school year."

"And how do you know he knew?" Voldemort asked. "You said it yourself, he never bothered to come and check on you."

"Despite claiming the position of Magical Guardian, no, he never personally bothered to come check on me. The first time I saw him was his picture on a chocolate frog card on the Hogwarts Express, and the first time I saw him in person was at the feast that night." Harry explained. "Initially I thought I had never known the name before my Hogwarts letter, but thinking about it a bit more I realized I had seen the name before.

Whenever my relatives went on vacation I wasn't taken since they didn't want my 'freakishness' disrupting their good time. But they weren't going to leave me home alone since my uncle claimed I would destroy the house. So I was left with a neighbour. I got to spend those days cleaning the house of a woman who had around 20 cats, so it was just oh so much fun I'm sure you can guess.

But, knowing what I know now, those cats were part kneazle. And each year I would be tasked with properly putting away her holiday decorations, including cards. And each year, amongst the cards there would be one brightly coloured one with fancy writing in equally bright colours. They always thanked her for doing such a good job, want to guess who they were signed from?"

"Albus Dumbledore." Voldemort hissed, almost slipping into parseltongue. "He must have sent her there to watch over you. Did she know anything wrong was happening?"

"Of course she did." Harry was unsurprised the mans mind had jumped to the right conclusion so quickly. "She would have seen me working long hours, including through meal times, in the garden, something which often involved shouted threats from my aunt or uncle, the entire neighbourhood knew. And while she couldn't see what was happening inside she did sometimes have to get me things to treat my injuries when they weren't healing properly. And man oh man did she act like such a martyr when she had to go all the way down to the local drugstore because the burns I got when my uncle slammed my head against the hot stove got infected and they didn't want to risk me going to school so left me with her despite my aunt not having a job and being home all day."

Voldemort hissed and Quirinus was stunned.

"Is it really that bad? Do muggles really hurt their kids?" Being raised strictly in the magical world and never leaving it, despite having previously taught muggle studies, he had had the importance of children impressed on him since he was a child himself. Their population was so small each child was important.

"Not all muggles, but some yeah." Harry shrugged. "They don't understand accidental magic so usually the kid can get punished if something happens. Like a kid summons their favourite toy after it was taken away, the parent would see that as the kid disobeying them rather than something they couldn't control.

But don't act like it's just a muggle thing. The magical world may act like they don't hurt kids but that's just in public." Harry raised an eyebrow at the disbelieving sound both made. "From what I've heard Snape requires each Slytherin to get a physical each year. And in case you haven't noticed he's been giving special attentions and potions to a few of them, including Theo Nott, who's in my year. And I heard him telling Blaise Zabini that if he felt he was in danger to contact him immediately. Given the fact the boys mother is suspected of

killing her husbands for their money it's not really a surprise. But he should be safe until he comes of age since that is when he can claim the estate his fathers parents left him and then she can claim it, if she killed him now it would go to one of his distant cousins and she wouldn't get anything.

Plus, I've talked with Neville Longbottom enough to know that the sainted Longbottom family isn't exactly great either. His gran is horribly verbally abusive and his uncle nearly killed him multiple times while forcing his accidental magic. And the reason he has such a hard time in class is because his gran won't even get him a proper wand and is forcing him to use his fathers despite them being a bad match.

The magical world is just as hypocritical as the muggle one. Plenty of purebloods hurt their kids, it's just those that do often have a certain amount of money or power so everyone just looks the other way and allows it."

Voldemort was seething at that information. He hated child abuse. If he found out the boys suspicions about the Nott boy were true, something he suspected to be since the boy had future information, then his follower was going to suffer greatly. He was also going to make sure that filth paid for harming his horcrux as well as ensure the boy didn't return there, although he had no doubt the boy was already working on that problem.

"Honestly, sometimes I think I would have been better off living with Marvolo here." Harry carried on rambling, lost in his own thoughts now. "He's only tried to kill me like… 1 3/4 times as of now. My delightful relatives had surpassed that number within a year of my living with them. I'm pretty sure my uncles favourite thing to say to me, other than 'comb your hair' is 'I'm gonna beat it out of you one day freak'."

It took Quirinus a moment to remember his Lord had warned him the boy would be calling him Marvolo. "1 3/4 times?"

"Hmmm, oh yeah, sure." Harry nodded absently. "Once when I was a baby, then the troll and the cursed broom. I'm only saying the troll was a half murder attempt since it wasn't aimed at me, and I'm dividing that between the two of you so that's 1/4. And the cursed broom is a full murder attempt but again, I'm dividing it between the two of you so that's another 1/2."

"And just who would think it was a good idea to give me custody of you?" Voldemort snorted.

"Well, I was left with abusive muggles because we're related, so it would be just as easy to justify you having custody since we're also technically related.

"WHAT?" Both Voldemort and Quirinus gasped in shock.

Harry looked up at that. "Yeah, it's admittedly rather distant, but it's still a relation."

"How distant?" Voldemort questioned warily, wondering if that played a part in the boys survival.

"Is that why you can speak parseltongue?" Quirinus added.

"It gets a bit complicated since Marvolo's family liked to reuse names so I got a bit lost in the genealogical charts. Like, I think Marvolo is the fifth with that name. His mum was the 6th with her name and his uncle Morfin was like… the 8th of his name. Regardless, we are either 10th cousins, or 11th cousins once removed.

And yes, our common ancestor was descended from the Slytherin Line so, it's possible that could be the reason behind my parseltongue ability." Harry said thoughtfully. "Speaking of our common family, when you get a body back you really do need to claim the family title and set the record straight. You will still be Lord Slytherin by default, but claiming that title outright would just be far to suspicious to Dumbles and it would be best not to poke that hornets nest immediately since things are not going to be going his way in the next few years and he will be less than happy about that."

"And just what family is it that we have in common?" Voldemort would be more than happy to claim a title since it would give him more power.

"Umm… Ok, do either of you know the fairytale of the three brothers?" Harry questioned.

"No." Voldemort was confused by that line of questioning. What did a fairytale have to do with their family?

"Sure." Quirinus agreed. "It's the story of three brothers who meet Death and each are given an item. The eldest gets an unbeatable wand, but is later killed after bragging about it. The second gets a stone that will recall spirits from the grave, but kills himself after recalling his lost love and seeing her suffer while keeping her in the world of the living. The third brother is given the very first invisibility cloak that he uses to hide from Death, ultimately he greets Death as an old friend when he feels it is time for him to go and passes the cloak on to his descendants."

"Exactly." Harry agreed. "The whole meeting Death thing has never been proven one way or another, but the tale is based on three real people. Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus Peverell. They were all magical inventors so they may have actually just created the items they claimed were given to them by death since it is well known that Ignotus Peverell is credited with the invention of invisibility cloaks.

The three brothers also happened to be the grandchildren of the last living descendant of Salazar Slytherin. The titles were to go to the eldest, but he was killed before he had any children so the titles passed to the middle brother, Cadmus. Marvolo is the last living direct descendant of Cadmus Peverell, which means he is entitled to the titles of Lord Peverell and Lord Slytherin. The Potter family descends from Ignotus Peverell, hence, we are distantly related."

Voldemort thought on that for a few minutes. "You said I should set the record straight, what did you mean by that?"

"Who's coat of arms is this?" Harry conjured an image of the Peverell coat of arms, the design of the wand stone and cloak.

"It's Grindelwald's." Both men answered at once.

"No. This is the coat of arms of the Peverell family." Harry informed them. "While the names of the brothers were never mentioned in the tale there were those that figured out who it was about. And despite the story no doubt being nothing more than drunken bragging, there are those that believe hole heartedly that the story is factual, one such person was Gellert Grindelwald. He claimed the Peverell coat of arms as his own due to his obsession, so really he's just a line thief. The final part of the tale was the legend that if someone could master all three artifacts they would become the Master of Death, and those like Grindelwald believe it to be factually true.

It's probably why Dumbledore watched you so closely when you were at school Marvolo." Harry said as he glanced at the man. "He was probably worried Grindelwald would either try to recruit your or kill you to get his hands on your families heirlooms. It's probably why he has also been so interested in the Potter family as well. Dumbledore is also one of those that might believe the stories to be true although I don't know for sure."

"I will be looking into clearing our families name once I have my own body." Voldemort assured in a growl. He couldn't believe just how much he had missed when he looked into his own family.

Harry chose to watch the fire for a bit before going to bed in one of the rooms off to the side. Thinking about the stone had given him a few more ideas that he wanted to work through.

Day 2 In the Time Bubble

"I've been going over the body creation ritual and I think I can get everything, all I would be missing is the blood of an enemy." Voldemort hissed shortly after they had all had their breakfast.

Harry looked up from his notes in slight horror. "For the love of all that is hot and sexy in this world, please, no."

"Hot and sexy?" Nagini cackled from her place by the fire.

"That's the ritual you used in the mirror, and it was not pretty. I saw diary you, so pretty much what you looked like when you were 16. As a man with a healthy appreciation for the male form… Ok, as a boy who will one day have a healthy appreciation for the male form, damn these tenses, I have no problem acknowledging that 16 year old you was smoking hot.

Post ritual you was not. I'm just gonna say it… that ritual did not create clothes so you came out of that cauldron naked, it was the stuff of nightmares. Your skin was almost pure white and had the texture of crumpled parchment. You had literally no body fat or any real muscles so your skin just kinda sagged off your bones. Your face was kinda like it is now, but somehow worse. Your eyelids didn't seem to form properly or something because even when you blinked your eyes wouldn't fully close. What little bit of nose you've managed to retain,

as slight as it is, was fully gone and you just had slits for nostrils. And although I didn't see anything particularly wrong with your feet you never wore shoes again. And you wondered around in the forbidden forest before the final battle, you would think anyone half way intelligent would know to wear something on their feet in there, but you didn't so I really do think something was wrong there.

And again, you were naked, so I saw everything. And if the ritual kept that part of your anatomy correct I can understand why you had such a chip on your shoulders, honestly, I've seen pine needles bigger."

Voldemort chose not to reply at all as he had the room show him any other books that might contain rituals to get his body back. He studiously ignored Nagini's hysterics as she demanded Harry tell her more about what he had looked like. He did not feel the need to defend his endowment, which had been more than adequate thank you very much, no need at all…

Later

"You mentioned seeing my diary self. How is that possible?" Voldemort suddenly questioned after lunch.

Harry really was wondering if the man knew how to politely get someones attention before speaking but chose to just shrug it off, after the headache he had had after his and Nagini's discussion about his looks earlier he didn't want to anger him again just yet. He had figured the topic of that particular horcrux would come up eventually and already had a story he would use.

It wasn't that he liked Malfoy Sr., in truth he really had no like for either of the Malfoy parents, but he didn't want them horribly killed, he and Draco had made their peace long ago, or would, and he knew how much the idiot loved his parents. He felt the Malfoy parents weren't exactly good parents themselves. They had spoiled and overindulged their child to the point if it weren't for the mission from Voldy and the war the boy would have been useless. He had no understanding of work and expected everything to be given to him at this point, the only one that made him actually do any work was Snape, as his head of house and godfather.

And even if Narcissa finally got off her rear to get Snape to make a vow to help her son, she hadn't tried to help him herself, she had just passed the responsibility off to another. And she had lied to Voldy about him being alive, but it wasn't like she was innocent in the whole Death Eater thing, she might not have been marked but she was just as much a supporter as her husband, hence why she was there. She knew the dangers of following the loon, but she never once tried to protect her son from it until after it was too late. With the money she had available she could have taken him and fled the country, but she hadn't bothered. And Lucius did love his son, but he was just as useless as his wife when it came to teaching their son how

to survive in a sometimes cruel world or even teach him how to look after himself. Both loved their son, just not enough to do the day to day work of parenting him.

He could admit much of his animosity towards them came from the court case. The Malfoy parents believed that Draco was the rightful Heir to the Black estate, and he would have been, if the laws had been followed in regards to Sirius. Since Sirius was never legally convicted he was never stripped of his right to inherit the Black estate. When he died he had left everything to Harry, and that included the Black estate since he was the last one. If he had been convicted, and stripped of his right to inherit then the estate would have reverted to the next male in line, Draco.

When it came out that he would inherit the two were furious. They had actually tried filing a contest on Draco's behalf, Draco himself had grown up and knew there were things more important than money. He had just lost his beloved wife and become a single father at the time so Harry understood his struggles and had helped him, which was one of the things that helped the two to make their peace, he had also been one of those that helped him research his wife's condition to try and heal her prior to her death and that had started their bonding. In the end they lost, but it still left Harry with a sour taste in his mouth.

"You were kinda high on unicorn blood and had this great idea." Harry started. "Next year is going to be the 50th anniversary of when you opened the chamber of secrets. You decided it would be oh so much fun if your diary was in the school and possessed one of the students into opening the chamber again. And it did work out that way. Diarymort possessed and started to drain the life force of Ginny Weasley. She repeatedly opened the chamber and Filch's cat, a few students, and Nearly Headless Nick all ended up petrified.

At the end of the school year the diary had enough control to take her down into the chamber. He planned to finish draining her life so that he could be free of the diary and live his own life, but I couldn't allow that. They made it perfectly clear that if Ginny died they would shut down Hogwarts. They were thinking about just opening a homeschool program while they thoroughly searched the school, something they believed would take a few years. Which meant I would have been forced back to the muggles and there was no way that was happening.

So, yeah. Ron Weasley and I found the chamber, and went down. I got to fight a basilisk after Diarymort told it to kill me. Tempus, the phoenix that gave me the tears for you came and blinded it while giving me the old sorting hat, the hat dropped the sword of Gryffindor on my head, and I ended up stabbing the basilisk through the roof of its mouth and into the brain, killing it almost instantly. I did get a fang in the arm for my trouble, but thankfully Tempus cried on it, and then I used the fang I had pulled from my arm to stab the diary, saving Ginny and making sure the school stayed open so I wasn't forced back to muggle hell."

Voldemort was furious to hear about the destruction of one of his horcruxes. It was even worse because one horcrux had almost killed another. He was glad he had phoenix tears this time since it was obvious the unicorn blood would have caused some major problems.

"You survived being bitten by a basilisk over a thousand years old?" That was stunning.

"Again, phoenix tears." Harry shrugged, glad the man was stable enough not to be ordering Quirrell to kill him. "Although, it did make me slightly immune to poisons, so that was cool."

After a little bit of more pointless banter Harry suddenly remembered something important. "Your wand."

"My wand?" Voldemort was confused by that jump.

"The night of the attack…" Harry really wasn't sure how to delicately put that and knew they both preferred to avoid the topic. "Anyways, Wormtail… Peter Pettigrew, the man that told you the secret… he followed you. He took your wand and hid it. You are going to have to question him about where he put it, but you're also going to need to make sure you don't do any permanent damage to him. I need him alive and well."

"And how am I supposed to question him?" Voldemort asked in a bland voice. "I had Quirinus do a great deal of research for me once we got back to the UK. From what he told me Sirius Black killed him. They said it was because Pettigrew had hunted him down for betraying you and your parents, but since I knew Pettigrew was the one who gave me the information I figured it was Black that tracked him down and then killed him."

"Siri did track him down, but he didn't kill him. When Sirius had him cornered Pettigrew shouted out how Sirius betrayed my parents and then blew up a gas line, causing the explosion that killed the muggles."

"So what happened to him? They did find some kind of body parts, didn't they?" Voldemort wanted his own wand back, even if he couldn't use it.

"Pettigrew cut off his finger, transformed, and hid in the sewers while Sirius was dragged off." Harry said bitterly.

"Transformed?"

"Pettigrew was a rat in all senses of the word." Harry sneered. The man had ultimately lost his life because he let him go, but that didn't mean he forgave him. Voldemort killed his parents, but he was willing to accept the excuse of war and insanity for him, Pettigrew betrayed those who had trusted him most. "One of my fathers best friends in school was attacked by Fenrir Greyback when he was 5."

"Dumbledore let a werewolf attend Hogwarts?" That was interesting, the man supported pure light, pure human only, despite his pretence.

"He owed Remi's father." Harry told him. "Anyways, werewolves are only dangerous to humans, so my dad and his friends became animigy."

"While still in school?" Voldemort was startled by that. He hadn't achieved that, but it wasn't like he'd tried, but it was still a hit to his ego.

"They managed their transformations by their fifth year." Harry smiled. When he had managed his own change he had been a panther, it had been a little bittersweet since it showed just how different he was from his father and his friends despite how he might look, but from what Siri had said his mum loved cats so he thought it could be a tribute to her.

"You did it yourself." Voldemort said knowingly.

"I did. Now I am going to have to do it again." Harry said, intentionally not revealing his form. He decided to get them back on topic. "Pettigrew's form is a brown rat."

"So to find my wand I need to track down a rat in the UK?" Voldemort asked dubiously before getting hopeful. "Or, did you happen to know where he is?"

Harry smirked back. "He needed to keep an eye on things, so he found a magical family to stay close to. In my third year Sirius found out he was still alive, and near me, so he broke out of Azkaban to protect me."

"Broke out of Azkaban?" That interested Voldemort, no one had done that before.

"Animagi." Harry told him. "Dementors don't effect animals the way they do humans. Since they can't see he was able to slip past them when they brought food to him one day."

"Clever." Voldemort said thoughtfully.

"Like I have said, love can be a great motivator." Harry said sadly. "Anyways… Pettigrew is currently here in the school.

Not just in the school either. He's been hiding as the pet rat of the Weasley children since you fell. The disgusting little creep sleeps on the pillow of Ron Weasley in my dorm room."

Voldemort could see just how disgusted the boy was, and he couldn't blame him. They were talking about an adult male that had chosen to surround himself with underage boys. "What do you intend to do with him?"

"I'm going to set up an accident to expose him in potions class." Harry said. "If I do it right I can not only get Sirius free, I can also get myself away from the Dursley's, and possibly even help Neville."

"And how do you intend to do all that?"

"Getting Siri out is self explanatory, he's alive so Sirius couldn't have killed him." Harry said. "And, there is a Death Eater sharing the room with underage children. It would be unforgivable if the staff didn't insist on each of those children getting a full physical, and Pomfrey is fine for basic health checks, but it would be much better to bring in outside assistance, like a full and proper healer from St. Mungo's, just to be thorough.

My medical history will show an extensive history of physical abuse. And Neville's abuse has been mostly emotional but there were some physical events that could show up."

Voldemorts lips quirked. He never would have used his own abuse that way, but that was because he would never allow himself to look weak, but Harry was more than willing to do whatever he had to do to get his way, he admired that.

"How long do I have?" Voldemort was going to question that little rat, that was for sure.

"Dumbledore will be attending the opening of the new year at the ICW next week so that's when I'm gonna do it." Harry explained. "He would never allow anyone from outside in since he wouldn't be able to control the information, and he doesn't want anyone to know about my history. With him gone McGonagall will be in charge, and while she's useless for the most part she can be pushed in certain directions easy enough, especially if you know her pressure points, and my dad and Sirius were two of her favoured students so she will be more willing to do what she can to help."

Voldemort couldn't argue that fact. McGonagall had been a few years a head of him in school and she was rather narrow minded in his opinion, she thought everyone would see the world the way she did.

After Dinner

For once the two were sitting relaxing when Voldemort chose to speak, so he wasn't interrupting anything Harry was doing.

"How were my horcruxes discovered?" He was very interested so he could make sure it didn't happen again.

"That was both our faults kind of." Harry told him. "He learned that there was some kind of connection between the two of us when he had me examined after my parents died, but he didn't know how and wasn't willing to risk allowing others to know since the more people that knew the more likely he would lose control over the information. As of now only he and Poppy Pomfrey know that there is some kind of dark magic connected to my scar.

When he learned about the diary he started to get more of an idea and started researching the books you had access to when you were 16 since he knew that was when it was made. His information expanded when I was 15 and started being able to see through your eyes and share your dreams. The vision you sent me at the end of that year and then you attempting to possess me was when he finally made the connection to a shared soul.

But he still didn't know how many. So to figure that out he moved Snape over to defence and rehired Slughorn. Using information Slughorn had he was able to figure out you intended to split your soul into seven and started working on what you would use. He ended up dying the year after that when Snape killed him on your orders but he left the information for myself and a few others. We then spent a year tracking them down, culminating in us sneaking back

into the school, which was by then under your control, to get the diadem as well as gain access to the basilisk corpse so we could use the fangs to destroy them."

Voldemort was greatly displeased. Not just that they were discussing his horcruxes, but the fact they had so easily been collected and destroyed, but it was his fault, on both counts. Five years, it had take only five years to find and destroy all of his horcruxes, and then he had killed the boy himself apparently. He was going to need to relocate them elsewhere.

"How did you manage to get the one I gave to Bellatrix, I know for a fact that one is hidden in Gringotts."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "As you proved only a few months ago Gringotts security isn't all that it's made out to be. Although I did have to pay a rather large fine afterwards, including giving them a detailed report on how I got in so they could tighten security, plus pay for the recapture of the dragon we escaped on."

"You escaped on a dragon?" Voldemort would not admit to the squeak in his voice at that information.

"Well it wasn't like we planned that bit, but yeah, you do what you gotta do when things go sideways and you have a goblin hoard bearing down on you." Harry shrugged. He hoped they weren't going to do a horcrux by horcrux report on how each was found, not that it wasn't important information, it just took up too much time when there were more important things to plan.

"Do I need to be worried about Slughorn?" Voldemort questioned. He was going to make sure the diary never entered the school, in the possession of a child at least, so Dumbledore wouldn't have a starting point. But he didn't want to risk the man developing a conscience

and telling Dumbledore things.

"Not really." Harry didn't want to risk the mans life, he had actually grown to like him somewhat. "When Dumbledore demanded the memory of you asking him about horcruxes he had altered his own memory, admittedly poorly, but he wouldn't tell him anything. Ultimately I was the one to get the information since my mum and been one of his favourite students like you were. That, and I had taken some felix felicis, and then got him incredibly drunk after helping him collect thousands of galleons worth of acromantula venom. Unless that happens again, something I have no intention of, you don't need to worry about him. Even after you took over, he still taught and carried on as he had before, he has a fondness for you that never faded, even knowing what you did. So you really don't need to worry about him."

Voldemort sat back and relaxed, he could easily change things now.

Day 3 in the Time Bubble

It was after spending a relaxing day just mostly reading the planning began.

"I think it would be best if I just went and collected my diary from Lucius." Voldemort said out of the blue.

"It would be a good idea." Harry agreed. "I know that Dumbledore began to encourage the raiding of dark aligned homes after the end of this year, mostly because he had tangible proof you you were back in the country. Getting it out of there would be for the best, you could also warn him to be careful. You know, Gringotts has artifacts vaults and as long as there are only items and not money in them they won't report you having them to the Ministry for a yearly fee. It would be a good way for those like the Malfoy's to hide anything they don't want anyone to know they have.Oh, and when you go you could do a few things for me."

"And just what could you want from the Malfoys?" Voldemort gave a put upon sigh.

"Just a few little things." Harry smirked, he knew the man was acting it up, he was actually starting to grow fond of him he was sure. "Starting with Malfoy Jr.. He offered his hand in friendship to me on the train and I rejected it, not knowing the full extent of what was going on since I never knew anything about the magical world until my birthday. If you could tell Malfoy Sr. to tell Malfoy Jr. that I never had any of that training and had no idea what I was doing that would be great, it might lessen the antagonism. Then you could say that you wanted to sway me away from the light so wanted them to play nice with me that would be even better. I don't want the spoiled little prat to try and become my best friend or anything, his parents really did a number on him, but just less fighting and sabotaging my potions would be great. Tell them you want me to go neutral or something. And, I want Dobby."

"And what in Merlins name is a Dobby?" This time the sigh didn't need to be played up.

"Dobby is one of the house elves that the Malfoys have. He saved my life a lot. He's a very spirited little fellow who when he found out about the scheme with the diary disobeyed orders to try and warn me. He died saving my life from Bellatrix." Harry finished sadly. "You also might tell him to take better care of his elves. After all, the first impression a person gets when they go to a purebloods manor is the elves. If they are injured and poorly dressed the only impression that gives is that they don't know how to maintain their property."

"You can't give an elf better clothing, that would free them." Voldemort really wished he could pinch the bridge of his nose at the exasperating boys demands. But to do that he would need both hands and a nose.

"No, but you can give them money, order them to buy themselves some fabric and sew themselves proper uniforms. I always had my elves put my coat of arms over their heart as something they could be proud of as well as to make sure everyone knew who they belonged too." Harry said matter of factly. "Either way, I want that elf. And if I have to go after Lucius Malfoy myself I will."

"I will get you the bloody elf, calm down." He really didn't get the boys focus on the elf, but the boy did house a piece of his soul so having a creature around that would literally give its life for his would be useful, especially since it was clear the boy lacked a great deal of self preservation.

Harry just smiled.

Later

"So, I've been thinking." Harry started.

"Oh great." Voldemort snarked, ignoring the look he was shot at that.

"No, this isn't necessarily a bad thing for you, it's a way to reduce the birth of muggle- borns." Harry said.

"I'm listening." That peaked Voldemorts interest as it was a problem he could never solve. No matter what there were usually 20 to 30 muggle-borns born each year and no one knew why. Although there were plenty of theories, including the rather ridiculous one about muggles stealing magic for their children, which was nonsense, muggles weren't that powerful, he hoped.

"Make your followers stop the inbreeding and accept their squibs."

"What?" Voldemort was completely confused by that.

"Well, first of all, incest is gross. It is also the primary cause of squibs and that is part of the origin of muggle-borns." Harry told him. "Two muggles are incapable of having a magical child. A few decades from now there was actually a study released from somewhere in Asia that proved muggle blood actually weakened magic to an extent. Just look at someone like Seamus Finnigan, his mother is a pure-blood, his father is a muggle. He has 2 squib sisters, and he is weaker than other half-bloods that have two magical parents, like me."

"Then where do muggle-borns come from? If muggle blood weakens magic then those like you and I would be weaker, but we aren't." Voldemort said, ready to have a good in-depth conversation, it was so rare he got those, especially during the war since so many of his followers were afraid of him.

"The origin of most muggle-borns are when someone descended from a squib reproduces with someone with magical being blood. On some rare occasions it can happen with two squib lines but that's rarer with the muggle blood watering it down. If they just accepted their squibs the numbers of so-called muggle-borns would decrease."

"Was your mother like that?"

"You need to understand, a majority of squibs are born as a result of inbreeding. That mostly comes from families trying to keep their family 'pure', but it can also happen because the magical population is so small that there are limited genetic possibilities. But wixen aren't the only group that has that struggle.

One such group is silkies. For them, if they can't find a mate distant enough to procreate with they come to land and find a human. When beings like silkies mate with a human there is about a 1 in four chance the child will be born silkie. If that happens they split up with the human and take their silkie child back to the water. But that means a majority of the children are born human, but they still have silkie genetics. These children are often known to be quite attractive with paler skin, darker hair, and jewel toned eyes. They are also known for their ability to charm and encourage people to do what they want, part of the silkie allure, which is kind of similar to a veela's, just not in a sexual way, mostly.

Like my mum. She was pale, had dark red hair, and emerald green eyes. And she inherited that from her father who had inherited it from his own mother. Traits that she in turn passed to me.

My mum's mum was from a squib line descended of someone you would actually have known. It would seem the late Headmaster Armando Dippet had a younger sister who was a squib. She was my great great grandmother."

"Is this true for all of them?" Voldemort questioned in great interest.

"A vast majority. Sometimes it really is just the luck of the draw. Magic is a recessive gene. Sometimes it can show up again after generations, but more often than not it gets a kickstart by adding magical being blood."

"But what about me?" Voldemort questioned challengingly. "You know my true name, so you must know that the disgusting thing that sired me was a muggle. If your theory was correct than his filthy muggle blood should have weakened me, but no one can deny just how powerful I am."

"You really shouldn't be so harsh on your father." Harry said slightly scolding. "What he did to you was wrong, but I can understand why he flipped out the way he did."

"You would defend that scum?" Voldemort was furious at that.

"Right…" Harry said warily, his head starting to throb again, he knew the man had never gotten the chance to know that much about his family, mainly because he had killed them or framed them for murder, but still… "I can tell you what I know, if you want, but you need to control that bloody temper of yours."

"Tell me." Voldemort demanded as he forced himself to calm down, he could feel the absolute terror coming from the follower hosting him. The man might not be able to understand what they were saying, but he could feel his rage.

"During my sixth year Dumbles decided to offer me special lessons to teach me how to defeat you since that was what he wanted me to do, kind of." Harry was still resentful of the mans grand plans. "I think after he learned about your horcruxes he planned to have me die and then he could step in to be the hero. But he was killed before he had the chance so he just wanted someone else to finish the job once I was dead.

Since at that point his plan was already for me to die he couldn't teach me how to fight or anything, instead he showed me memories so I could learn about you and determine where your horcruxes were. That was how I learned the basics of your family. And then after the war was done I will admit I may have done a bit of grave robbing and taken bones from some of your different family members so I could have them tested."

"Tested for what?" Voldemort demanded, still unhappy about his horcrux, potential ally, sympathizing with the man that had abandoned him.

"We'll get to that." Harry told him. "We'll start with the Gaunts first.

The reason it was such a struggle to determine just how distantly we were related was because the Gaunts were one of those families that tried to keep the blood 'pure' by marrying within the family. Often times cousins were matched, or on some occasions the heir would be matched with an uncle or aunt if there weren't any cousins available. The end result was infertility and madness by the time your grandfather was born.

There were no immediate family members for your grandfather since the family had shrunk so much by that time, instead he ended up marrying his third cousin, Melisandre. Despite their distance from the main line they still followed the marry the family model, the problem was Melisandre's parents, a set of siblings, had had three children that didn't survive due to the birth defects. Ultimately Melisandre was born as a result of an affair her mum had with a naga, the being blood made her a bit stronger than her late half siblings, it also brought back the gift a parseltongue. Little known fact is Salazar himself was the son of a witch and a naga.

Melisandre married Marvolo and they had Morfin and Merope. Shortly after Merope was born Melisandre died. When I found her grave and had her bones tested it showed she was poisoned. I think it was most likely her husband that did it since there really wasn't anyone else around to do so. Either way Marvolo raised both kids on his own after that, teaching them all the same things he himself had learned.

The first memory Dumbledore showed me was when Morfin and Merope were young adults. Morfin had attacked a local muggle noble, a Tom Riddle, which resulted in law enforcement getting involved since he had used magic on a muggle.

When the auror was there he saw Marvolo repeatedly manhandle Merope and belittling her since she hadn't had enough active magic to get a Hogwarts letter. Morfin thought it would be fun to torment his sister by saying that she had a crush on the muggle he had attacked, and his father overheard. Marvolo was a pure blood supremacist so hearing his daughter was interested in a muggle set him off and he attacked her. The auror protected her and ended up calling for back up resulting in both Marvolo and Morfin spending time in Azkaban.

And all of a sudden Merope was free. Her entire life had been ruled by her father and her brother, who she was supposed to end up marrying. You need to understand, she had spent nearly her entire life abused and tormented by her family, so needless to say she didn't exactly have the best grasp on how to connect with other people."

Voldemort was disgusted at a lot of that information. He had known the Gaunt family had a problem with inbreeding and madness, but the idea of marrying siblings was abhorrent to him. He had seen the hovel they had lived in, and that too had disgusted him, Salazars noble bloodline reduced to tramps. But the fact his own mother was supposed to marry his uncle was just… And then there was the abuse. He hated abuse with a passion unlike any he felt for almost anything else in his life, and his own mother was abused by her own family.

"Carry on." His voice was tense, Voldemort wanted to know everything.

"Specifics of what happened to your mother aren't known after that, what is known is that a few weeks later she had run away and married Tom Riddle." Harry said slowly. "It was something that didn't make much sense since at the time of the arrests he had been engaged to a young muggle woman from another noble family. But, 6 months after that he arrived back in town claiming bewitchment.

I wanted to test the claim so collected one of his bones and had it tested, and while it is more difficult to find potions in bones since most ingredients don't end up on the bones some can work their way in. In your fathers case there were traces of pearl dust and powdered moonstone in the bone growth. Both are ingredients in love potions like amortentia. From the amount present in the bones the potioneer I was consulting with said he had most likely been given weekly doses for at least 6 months. So, the timing really does work out.

Say what you will about the man abandoning you, that is understandable since you hadn't done anything wrong and in no way deserved it, but I do have some sympathy. I was frequently targeted with love potions when I got older, I was just lucky to manage to avoid them. I saw the results of a few who didn't and it was awful. Your father, who knew nothing of magic, was drugged, and repeatedly sexually assaulted. He had every right to freak out and abandon your mum.

He lost everything because of what she did to him. When he got home and told his story no one would believe him, they just thought he had run off with the local tramps daughter. His fiancée would not forgive him and married another. He ended up spending the rest of his life, until you ended it, living with his parents unable to deal with things. I checked the records and he did a few stints in an asylum since his parents thought he was going mad from what he was saying.

Ultimately I have sympathy for both of them to an extent. Merope was abused her whole life and dint know how to connect with anyone and resorted to potions to get the life she dreamed of only to lose it all and die in childbirth. Tom was drugged and sexually assaulted and ultimately killed by the child he abandoned."

Voldemort, for a moment, actually had a regret about killing his father, but it faded quickly. Yes, what happened to him was awful when put into context, but he was an innocent child in an orphanage, he hadn't deserved his own father to turn his back on him over what his mother had done.

"That still doesn't explain me." He said eventually. "Unless you are saying my magic is stronger since my grandmother had magical being blood."

"Well, that too." Harry shrugged yet again, he seemed to be doing that a lot. "But, at the same time it does. What is one of the first rules of potion making?"

"Don't mix pixy wings and fairy wings?" Voldemort repeated one of the first lessons Slughorn had taught them.

Harry snorted. "That too. But, one of the main rules about potions is never give a potion to a muggle. Potions for the most part just direct our own magic to do what it wants. Muggles don't have magic to direct so they just end up killing them. Your father had potions in his system for months, if he was just a regular muggle he would have died within a week. The fact he lived as long as he did proves he had some level of magic, even if it wasn't active."

"He was a squib?" Voldemort said thoughtfully, he would need to figure out from which family.

"No, remember, I said the more powerful come from a pureblood line that crosses with a magical being. Your mother wasn't a full squib since she had a limited amount of magic, but she wasn't a full witch either. It was your father, and your mothers mother, that brought in the magical being blood." Harry told him.

"So my father was descended from a magical being, do you know what kind?" Voldemort questioned interestedly. He wasn't like many of his followers that disliked anyone that wasn't pure blood pure human. He had always found the hypocrisy annoying since all anyone would need to do was look at the Malfoys to know they were obviously part veela in some way.

Harry gave Marvolo an indulgent smirk one would give a child when they missed what was right in front of them. "I believe I mentioned earlier about a magical being that often mixes with humans. Their human offspring are known for pale skin, dark hair, jewel toned eyes, and are also known to be charismatic.

Tell me, when you were in your own body didn't you have pale skin? And dark brown hair? And sapphire blue eyes? And I've also heard tell you could be rather charismatic, given how many followers you managed to amass even as you slowly went insane I am predisposed to believe that."

"Silkie."

"Very good." Harry's head throbbed at his saccharine tone, but he just couldn't resist. "Yes. I had your fathers family tested and found that his mother was the child of a silkie."

"That still doesn't address those being raised in the muggle world coming in and expecting the magical world to adapt to them. Not to mention those children knowing nothing of their heritage. You've been through that just as much as I have."

"The book."

"Book?" Voldemort was confused. What book? Was it one in here with them?

"The Book of Names is in the Headmasters office. It was created by Rowena Ravenclaw to identify potential students. A childs name is added the day of their first bit of accidental magic as that is what identifies them." Harry smiled knowingly. "Because it's after the first bit of accidental magic some children are added right after they're born. Hagrid did say that my name was added the very same day I was born since that was when I did my first bit of magic apparently, Neville Longbottom was the same way.

If you could get the ministry to understand the danger some of the children are in you could force through a law stating that the children are monitored as soon as their name is added to the book just to be safe. That's how it works in France. As soon as a magical child registers in their equivalent of the Book of Names representatives of the Government are sent to explain the situation to the parents and make sure they have assistance if needs be. If they determine the child is unsafe they are removed and adopted into a more accepting magical family. And if I'm old enough at the time I will guarantee you the vote of the Potter seats."

Voldemort started thinking of all the ways he could change things once he had his own body again.

Day 4 in the Time Bubble

"Merlin damn it we are going to need help." Voldemort cursed as he went over his plans again. "There is too much that needs to be done both inside and outside the school to do it on our own. Quirinus has to teach and you have to go to class after all."

Harry thought quickly and decided on using one of his own back up plans. "So we get help."

"How? Lucius will be informed of my return, but he can't be disappearing for any length of time, especially since Dumbledore is already suspicious." Voldemort grumbled, irritated he had fallen into the old fools trap. "And he wouldn't be able to get into the school to get orders, and Quirinus can't be constantly leaving."

"Then we use two of your followers that are amongst your most loyal, and no one knows of." Harry smiled.

"And just who is that?"

"Barty Crouch Jr., and Regulus Black."

"Black disappeared before you were even born. And from what Quirinus told me Crouch died in Azkaban." Voldemort pointed out the flaws in the plan. But he wasn't going to rub the mistake in, he was too cautious, this boy had access to information he didn't after all.

"Regulus Black did disappear, but he isn't dead, technically." Harry had been surprised to learn that information years after the war, but he was going to have to selectively edit things

and spin them in his own way. "You got assistance from Regulus Black to hide your locket horcrux in the form of his house elf, Kreacher. That made him a target, both to allies and enemies alike.

I never did figure out which side did it, but Regulus was placed under the imperious and ordered to retrieve what you had had Kreacher help you hide and destroy it. Going so far as to order him to leave a taunting note so you would blame him alone."

"He destroyed my locket?" Voldemort was furious. "And what do you mean by implying it was one of my other followers that may have done it. None of them would dare betray me like that."

Harry rolled his eyes, the man still wasn't getting that his followers were just as capable of being self-centred as anyone else. "Tell me, do you know why Avery is in Azkaban while the Carrow twins are not?"

"I would assume the Carrows were able to come up with a believable story to keep them out or they paid off the right people." Voldemort was less than happy some of his own had denied they were loyal to him and then never bothered to try and find him, and they would pay for that.

"I only found out the truth because after the second war the new minister mandated that everyone accused of being a death eater or having your mark had to be questioned with veritaserum, a potion that didn't exist at that time. It is the strongest truth potion invented and there is no way to beat it, although, the drinker says what they believe to be the truth and only answers the specific question. With other truth potions the drinker will speak the truth, but also has a tendency to expand on what they were saying.

Anyway…" Harry shook his head clear, now was not the time to debate the efficacy and uses of different truth potions. "When questioned they told what actually happened. It was well known that Avery was more useful to you since he had a better job than them at the ministry, plus you were closer to him since you were classmates, so they were jealous. They wanted to get him out of the way so that they could move up the ranks.

To do that they pretended they were forced to join and managed to gain the sympathy of a friend of their family that worked in the DMLE. The two would pass along certain information, like the plans for raids you had ordered Avery to conduct. It was why so many tasks you gave Avery failed, they were selling him out behind your back.

And then, when the war ended, they had a high ranked member of the DMLE backing up their claims that they were informants that had brought in plenty of information. They were given a pardon and Avery was sent to Azkaban. Your followers are just as capable of stabbing each other in the back as anyone else."

Voldemort let out a low growl. Those two were going to pay, he lost a number of loyal supporters in those raids Avery had planned. Maybe he would give them to Avery's son and let him address their treachery.

"Where was I… Oh yeah, Regulus." Harry returned to the story at hand. "He managed to place the fake locket, but didn't destroy the real one. He had had to drink that potion of yours and it had allowed him to throw off the imperious. Instead he ordered his house elf to hide and protect the locket at all costs. The locket is safe and sound in one of the Black properties. After that Regulus, suffering under the effects of the potion allowed the inferi in the lake to pull him under."

"But you said he wasn't dead." Voldemort was confused by that.

"Technically, he isn't. While an inferi can kill, they can also turn a person into something like them. And that's what they did, Regulus's soul was forced from his body by the inferi curse, but the body is then kept in a suspended state, neither alive nor dead. To undo the inferi curse all you need to do is purify the body, recall the soul, and then use a soul sealing ritual to put it back in the body." Harry explained. "And I know Regulus isn't fully dead, because as I said, I've been to limbo, and when I was leaving I saw his soul there waiting. The only way he would be there is if his body was still technically alive. If his body was fully dead he would have moved on."

"And how do you intend for us to recall his spirit?" Voldemort questioned.

Harry was confused for a few seconds before he realized he really hadn't gone in-depth about the Peverell artifact they each had. "Right, I didn't mention it since we were speaking English. The Peverell heirlooms. The wand, stone, and cloak.

While I have no idea if the story about death is real or not, the artifacts do exist. Despite it being a well known fact, or as well known as it can be, that invisibility cloaks begin to wear after a decade and become pretty much completely useless after two, I have the Potter family invisibility cloak that was once the Peverell invisibility cloak. A cloak that has been passed down the family since Ignotus himself. It has not worn or frayed, spells do not stick to it, and it is always magically just big enough to cover any and all who get under it, wether that is one preteen, or multiple teenagers.

As you are descended from Cadmus you got the stone. The ring that you made your horcrux, the one currently hidden in the Gaunt Shack. The stone in it is the fabled resurrection stone, and it can call back souls. I used it myself in the mirror life to speak with my parents, godfather, and my godsons father just before I let you kill me.

All we need you to do is go and collect the ring. The horcrux is in the gold of the ring, magic doesn't stick to the stone so there is no problem removing it from its setting. I was gonna ask you to get the stone either way as I plan on using it to get my godfather out of Azkaban so I don't have to go back to my relatives."

Voldemort stared for a few minutes. He had a stone that could call the spirits of the dead. Merlin be damned he needed to do some more in-depth research into his family. He was so caught up he didn't even notice as a few books appeared next to him including a number of genealogies.

"What about Crouch?" Voldemort questioned, hoping this would be safer for his admittedly shaky sanity. "Are we bringing him back from the dead?"

"Not really. Although he is seen as legally dead in the eyes of the Ministry he is still completely alive." Harry grinned. "After what happened with the Longbottoms, something I am less than happy about by the way, he was caught along with the Lestrange's."

He knew from the trials of Rodolphus and Rabastan that they actually hadn't done the damage that took Nevilles parents from him, that had been Bellatrix and her insanity. The two had admitted to using the curse only a few times and never longer than a few seconds. It had been Bellatrix that held the curse on long enough to cause permanent damage even as the three men tried to get her to stop.

"Like many, they weren't given proper trials and were sent directly to Azkaban by Bartemius Crouch Sr.. That man was trying to show how tough he could be in hopes of becoming Minister by locking up as many as he could not even bothering with trials for most of them, including my completely innocent godfather.

And while his father hated him his mother loved him. She was sick so she convinced him to do one last thing for her. They both went to Azkaban. When they had a few moments alone with their son they used polyjuice to switch them. Mrs Crouch died in Azkaban a few days later. Bartemius has kept his son locked in his house under the imperious ever since.

In the mirror thing you found out after questioning a ministry employ that had seen him but Bartemius had memory charmed. You helped to free him and he spent a year impersonating a professor here so that you could kidnap me when the time was right for your resurrection. He was ultimately successful but Dumbles 'caught' him and then Fudge had him kissed by a dementor to cover everything up."

"The way you say 'caught', can I assume there is another story there?" Voldemort questioned knowingly.

"He was impersonating Mad-Eye Moody, a man that has supposedly been a good friend of Dumbledores for decades… The fact it took him an entire year to notice the difference, and he said he only did because he said he was going to take me somewhere to get medical attention… I'm not buying it. I think Dumbledore allowed it to happen, just as he is allowing this year to happen, as a way to test me and see what will happen." After he had grown up Harry had really begun to see all the signs he had missed.

Both sat in silence for a few moments until Harry thought of something. "Professor Quirrell, are you any good at brewing potions?"

"Yes Mr. Potter." Quirinus said as he looked at the boy in one of the mirrors. Up until then he had dutifully been ignoring the hissed conversation out of manners, not that he could have understood it anyway. He had found he greatly enjoyed this room and had been getting plenty of reading done after verifying the boys calculations about the phoenix tears. "I received an O on my NEWTs."

"Great, thanks." Harry looked back to Voldemort who was once again paying attention.

"Potions?" Voldemort questioned once he was sure he had the boys full attention.

"Yeah, we're might need to counter the potion Regulus was forced to drink, I'm not sure if it would have run its course or if once he's back in his body it will start affecting him again. We are also going to need the purification potion for the ritual. And then there's Barty. He is surprisingly stable and was able to hold it together for a year admirably, but he really does need some mental stability potions just to help counter the imperious effects, plus a few dementor recovery potions, it may have been years ago, but he was still around the creatures for a prolonged period of time and never got any help." Harry explained.

Voldemort would have nodded his understanding if he could, but he was just the face on the back of a skull so he was limited and that irritated him. "And do you have any plans for how we get access to them?"

"I figured you could make an excuse to leave the school for a bit." Harry shrugged before giving a heavy sigh. "You are going to have to kill Bartemius Crouch, but understand, that is not me agreeing with your more kill happy personality, but we need him dead, and he was the reason I lost Sirius all these years. But you need to be careful, it needs to look like an accident or natural causes. Dumbles knows you're in the country and any suspicious deaths will draw his attention. And when you do it just stun the house elf. Winky originally belonged to Mrs. Crouch so her main loyalty is to Barty. She could be very useful to us."

Voldemort felt the very childish urge to roll his eyes at the boys obsession with house elves, instead he settled for a glance at the ceiling and a slow blink. "And where are we supposed to put them. I would assume you don't wish to inform Lucius,"

"Not a chance." Harry was horrified at the idea of bringing that man in any more than he had too. "I figured we would just keep them here in the room. Because of its ever changing nature the wards can't track who's in it."

"And how do we get them in?"

"There's all kinds of secret passages." Harry said. "Or… Oh… The vanishing cabinet."

"Vanishing cabinet?"

"Yes, there's a cabinet on the first floor. Peeves destroyed it in my second year and Draco spent our sixth repairing it. Its match should currently be in Borgin and Burkes, you should know it, you used to work there. Anything placed in one will be transported to the other. Draco used it during our sixth year to get your people into the school for the takeover. An adult can easily fit inside. So we just need to get the one from the shop and put it somewhere safe and then get the one from the first floor up here. Then we can come and go as we please and Dumbles will never know." Harry grinned at the sudden idea.

"When I leave this evening, or… you know… the evening after we leave this room, I will look into getting hold of the cabinet you're talking about and move the other up here. How long will the room remain open if we aren't in it?"

"The room closes as soon as it's empty, but it remembers old rooms for years so we can call this exact room up any time we want. But to activate the time bubble we need to specifically call up a time bubble room meaning we would all need to step out for a few moments and

then reopen the room and the time bubble would start as soon as the door closed. And that would be useful for healing Barty and Regulus, since they will be able to use as much time as they need to recover. And if we have food supplied Dobby and Winky could come in here with us and they could look after food and everything."

"It sounds like you don't intend for me to be in with them, and possibly you?" Voldemort didn't like that idea.

"We only have so many phoenix tears. Each tear only lasts so long, and while we might not age in here time still does pass and I can't guarantee Quirrell's body won't start dying again." Harry said in his defence. "It is safer for you in the long run to limit your time in the room if at all possible. Tempus will be having a burning day soon because of how many tears he gave me for you so I won't be able to get any more from him."

Voldemort narrowed his eyes but couldn't find any fault in the logic.

Day 5 in the Time Bubble

"You want me to absorb my horcruxes." Voldemort said as everything finally hit home as he finished yet another book on horcruxes.

Harry looked up from his history report with a small smile. "I had wondered when you would figure that out."

"You want me to give up my immortality." Voldemort was furious at the idea.

"Did you learn nothing from those books?" Harry questioned. "Nothing lasts forever. Immortality is a myth. Even the philosophers stone isn't a guarantee. Look at the Flamel's. They may have lived hundreds of years, and can live for a few hundred more, but they still look like it. The elixir keeps them alive, it doesn't keep them young or in perfect health, they still can get sick and hurt, it's why you don't see them running around in public. Besides, your horcruxes really don't serve a purpose."

"They anchor my soul." Voldemort hissed.

"Yes, but one is just as good as six. And while you can reabsorb the others, the one in me stays with me." Harry pointed out. "Remember, from first discovering the existence of your horcruxes to the complete destruction of them was five years. They are not a guarantee, but I could be. As of now Dumbledore knows we're linked, but he doesn't know how. So long as we keep that information hidden he won't start planning my death."

Voldemort had to acknowledge that the boy had a point. His other horcruxes were admittedly rather vulnerable, but the boy could defend himself. Plus, he had future information so he knew threats to himself before anyone else could truly endanger him. And, he would be the

perfect anchor for his soul, no one would expect him to use the boy he had once tried to kill to protect his future. His others were clearly far too easy to locate.

"You also shouldn't forget that I only hold around 1.5% of your soul. If you absorb your other horcruxes you will have 98.5%, and that would have you at near enough full strength." Harry said in a way to tempt him. "While your other horcruxes have a basic ability to protect themselves those protections can be overwhelmed easily enough, but I can defend myself. Or, I will be able to properly defend myself once I get back into practicing."

"And you think you could stand against those who might wish to harm you?" Voldemort questioned challengingly.

"I have the memories of someone who fought in a war, became and auror, Head of the DMLE, and a professor and headmaster after earring three masteries. I might not remember everything, but I remember enough to connect the dots." Harry pointed out. "My core might be a bit to small and unstable to do the high-level spellwork, but remember, I was able to survive multiple murder attempts by you yourself."

"I was suffering under horcrux madness and the unicorns curse." Voldemort said primly. "I will consider it. But remember, I would need to feel remorse for my actions and I don't regret protecting my existence."

"That might not always be necessary." Harry argued. "That's the only way stated in Magics Moste Evile, but there are other ways. It's like the body creation ritual you've been looking at, you're only looking at European methods, but there is an entire world of possibilities. European wixen aren't the only ones capable of doing stupid things."

Voldemort narrowed his eyes at the less than subtle swipe but chose to let it pass.

Later

"I have a question for you Marvolo." Harry said as he looked over to Voldemort who was just finishing reading yet another book.

"And what might that be?" Voldemort was interested, it was rare for them to have one of their longer conversations in English, so obviously this one wasn't about the future, so it had to be something he knew he could get away with speaking openly about.

"I heard that at one time you wanted to be a professor, and I'm just wondering… Why?" Harry's voice had gone very dry at the end.

Voldemort narrowed his eyes. "I wanted to further the education of Hogwarts students." He would deny his voice was defensive at that.

"Marvolo… You don't like kids. You didn't like kids when you were one from everything I've heard. More than that, you can't tolerate idiots, and frankly, kids are idiots. And teens… Teens are generally idiots that think they are geniuses that are being repressed by the adults in their life in some way." Harry smirked. "Surely you've noticed that after being here for a semester."

"I can admit I didn't think it through fully." Voldemort wasn't going to admit he would rather dress like Dumbledore for the rest of his life than subject himself to teaching at Hogwarts for longer than necessary. The students were just so simple, and irritating, and… emotional. He only had to hear it, he knew himself enough to know he wouldn't be able to handle it.

Harry's smirk turned to an outright grin. He had enjoyed his time teaching, but he liked to think he knew enough about Marvolo to know it would be an absolute nightmare to him. Although, he knew the insane Marvolo, not the saner version he was trying to bring out. But knowing what he did about him as a child he wasn't any more willing to put up with other children. He had had to deal with them when he was a student, but he had to figure that was mostly just about him learning how to blend in and sway people to his beliefs.

Then Harry became more serious. "Do we have an understanding? Are you willing to make a vow with me that neither of us will intentionally attack or harm the other?"

Voldemort examined the small boy with the mind of a man. He could be an invaluable source of information with his future knowledge. More than that he was his horcrux, he could not allow harm to come to him.

"If you will allow it, Quirinus can act as the binder to a vow. Since I have no body of my own we can't do anything as binding as an unbreakable vow, but a basic magically binding vow should give you peace of mind, for now at least." Voldemort offered.

Harry slowly released the breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He had his security. Now all he would need to do is avoid Dumbledore's plans.

That evening, after dinner, the two both made their vows that they wouldn't intentionally act against each other. It wasn't perfect, but for Harry it was good enough.

After that they agreed to have one more good nights sleep and leave the room the next day. Quirrellmort would be going to the staff meeting and then making an excuse to leave for a few hours after dinner so he could start putting their plans into action.

Voldyquirrell Plays with the Malfoys and Gets the Job Done

As soon as they left the school Quirrell allowed his Lord to take full control, causing his eyes to magically turn red.

His first stop was going to be Malfoy Manor.

Malfoy Manor

Voldemort was greeted at the front door and escorted to one of the public sitting rooms in the front of the manor. The rooms were grand gaudy things in his opinion, but those like Abraxas and Lucius, no doubt with Narcissa's assistance, used them to display their wealth.

Lucius was less than pleased to have one of his sons professors show up at his home uninvited. He had heard from Severus that Draco's attitude at school was putting a bit of distance between him and his year mates, but Lucius was sure that in time the others would realize the power of the Malfoy name, and Cissa said he was next in line for the Black title, and once they realized that they would fall in line, it's what had happened with him after all.

"Good evening Mr. Quirrell." Lucius said as he stepped in the room and closed the door behind him. His mood didn't improve as the man hadn't acknowledged his entry, just kept watching out the window. "What is it you needed to speak with me about?"

Voldemort smirked ever so slightly. If there was one thing you could always count on it was the easy bruiseability of a Malfoy's ego. Spiking his magic he caused the mark on his followers arm to burn. "Oh there is so much we need to discuss."

Lucius had always had incredibly strong survival instincts. He was instantly on his knees on the floor with his head bowed. "My Lord. It is such an honour to have you in my humble home. Please my Lord, forgive my manners, I was not aware it was you."

"Of course you didn't know it was me, that is the entire point." Voldemort had once gotten such joy at seeing those high and mighty pure bloods that had looked down on him during school and their children debase themselves before him, now it was just embarrassing. "Do stop simpering and stand up Luciusss." Voldemort intentionally added the hissing, it was hard to get Quirinus's mouth to speak parseltongue. Instead he took a seat with all the pomp of a royal, as if it was his home rather than the man slowly picking himself up off the floor.

"M...My Lord?"

Voldemort had a very strong urge to chuckle at the man truly stuttering while even Quirinus just pretended for the most part. "I need my diary."

"I will get it immediately." Lucius was up and out the door in an instant.

Lucius didn't bother with any form of propriety as he ran down the hall to where he hid the diary.

"Lucius?" Narcissa stepped out in front of her husband before he could return to one of the guest sitting rooms.

"Narcissa, please excuse me." Lucius said as he tried to sidestep his wife, only to have her move with him. And then things got even worse for him as Draco joined them. He knew he couldn't allow his son near the Dark Lord, the boy wouldn't be able to hold his temper. And then he realized that his son had already

been in a room with the Dark Lord, for months. He almost whimpered as he remembered Severus's remarks about Draco's attitude, even with the professors.

"Lucius? What are you doing with that?" Narcissa noticed the diary her husband was holding close to his chest. Seeing it she worried Lucius was going to do something reckless in an effort to gain more influence. "Lucius, tell me you aren't doing anything with that. The Dark Lord personally ordered you to protect it, with your life if needs be."

Lucius glanced over when he heard Draco gasp in interest and saw the fascination on his face as he looked avidly at the book. "Narcissa, please take Draco into the green sitting room upstairs, I will meet you there when I am done with this meeting. And Narcissa, do not let him out of your sight."

"And the book?" His wife demanded.

"I am returning it to its owner." He kept his voice even and saw his wife go instantly still as she realized what he was saying. It took Draco a few more moments, but he was even more interested when he did. "Cissa, take Draco upstairs."

Narcissa nodded her agreement and grabbed hold of Draco's shoulders and steered him towards the stairs, her knuckles going white as Draco tried to argue, arguing he wanted to meet the Dark Lord.

"Your diary, my Lord." Lucius didn't drop to the floor once he reentered the room since his Lord hadn't seemed to like it, but he was still sure to show deference.

Voldemort examined the book, slipping it into the inside pocket of the robe once he was sure it was the correct one, and in pristine condition. "Well done Lucius. I had worried I had left it in the wrong hands when I saw the state of the elf that opened the door."

"The... The elf my Lord?" Lucius was even more confused than ever at that comment. His Lord had never cared enough to even mention the disgusting little creatures before, now he was bringing up their state?

"Really Lucius." Voldemort truly didn't care, but it was obvious Harry cared, and it was in his best interest to do things that would make the boy happy. "One of the first impressions a

visitor gets when they arrive at your home is the elf that opens the door.

The injuries mean they aren't reliable or are not competent. Which means you did not bother to ensure they were properly trained to do the job you have assigned. If I remember correctly, your grandfather used to send his elves to a training facility just outside of Paris, I believe it was your grandmothers idea since her family had always had their elves trained that way and she preferred it, especially since they taught them how to properly prepare the proper French food

she was used too." He knew Abraxas had considered it a waste of money and cancelled the tradition once he was Lord Malfoy. "And the poor condition of their uniforms. Pillow cases? It shows you don't value nor can you maintain your property, or, that you lack the money to properly maintain them."

"You can not give an elf a proper uniform or else it will free them." Lucius defended, worried his Lord was displeased with him and already planning to look into that elf training facility.

"A man I respect was able to get around that." Voldemort said. "He would give the elves money and have them purchase certain types of fabric and then have one of the elves sew them all proper uniforms. He even went so far as to have them put the family crest over their heart to encourage their loyalty at the same time making sure everyone knew just who they were dealing with when he had them collect from shops."

"I will look into doing the same my Lord. Having a properly trained elf that didn't look so grubby would be greatly preferred." Lucius assured.

"Speaking of elves... I am in need of one. Although yours might not be the best, I believe I will be able to make sure it behaves properly. I believe your father mentioned one that should be the appropriate age that I need. He called it Dobby." Voldemort was going to ensure Harry got the elf he wanted.

"Dobby." Lucius called instantly. He wasn't exactly looking forward to losing this particular elf since he used him as his personal elf, but it wasn't like the elf was very good, and even more, he wasn't going to risk displeasing his Lord anymore then he apparently already had.

It took a great deal of self-control for Voldemort not to flinch as the grubby little creature popped into the room. It was filthy, it was also covered in bandages. As soon as it saw him it began to quiver.

"Master Malfoy calls for Dobby?" Dobby was terrified. He knew exactly who was in the room with them.

"I, Lucius Malfoy, master of Dobby the house elf, transfer ownership to..." Lucius glanced at his Lord and saw him mouth the name of the professor who's body he was using. "Quirinus Quirrell, so mote it be."

Dobby quivered even more as he felt the magic shift his bond to the man being possessed by the Dark Lord.

"Thank you Lucius." Voldemort saw thanking his follower as beneath him, but manners mattered.

Before they could say anything else another elf knocked on the door and informed him others had arrived through the floo. Voldemort had sent coded letters to a few of his most trusted to meet at Lucius's. It would seem they had arrived. And like Lucius, as soon as they saw him and he spiked his magic they were on the

floor as Lucius had been. Which just resulted in him having to get his followers to stop acting like lowly animals, honestly, it was embarrassing.

"My Lord, how may we assist you?" Lord Ragnar Lestrange asked once they were each seated.

"I will confess myself disappointed. So many would deny their loyalty yet pretend they are still loyal to my face. You are all just lucky I am pleased you have managed to gain certain positions of influence during my absence that will be useful." Voldemort said, really he wanted to make those that had once sworn him their unending loyalty only to betray him once they thought he was gone suffer, but he knew enough from Harry to know that he needed to be careful to ensure their loyalty. "As of now, carry on as normal. Things are going to be changing in the next few years and you will need to be prepared to ensure plans go as we would wish."

"And those in Azkaban?" Ragnar questioned, still angry over the loss of his sons. He knew it wasn't his old schoolmates fault, they had been the fools that got caught after all, but he hoped his Lord would be loyal to them.

"Plans are in the works. It may take a few years, but things will be done my old friend." Voldemort assured.

Ragnar was stunned at being called 'friend'. It had been so long since his old schoolmate had done that. But he wasn't going to mention it.

"There is one subject that we need to discuss, Harry Potter." Voldemort said.

"From what I've heard the boy is a true blood traitor." Lucius sneered. Draco had told him of the boys disrespect to their family.

"I will admit the boy has a few rough edges, but I have learned a great deal." Voldemort said knowingly. "I have managed to have a few private conversations with him in this form, and I have gotten some very important information.

After my... conflict, with his parents the fool Albus Dumbledore took control of the boy. He then abandoned him in the muggle world and just left him there. And when it came time to bring the boy back into our world the fool assigned that important job to Rubeus Hagrid, the bloody grounds keeper.

Despite all the mans claims, Potter never received any training in his position, or our culture, he wasn't even given the introductory books all other muggle raised were. Those stories written about him are nothing but lies, lies the old man no doubt encouraged. Dumbledore has kept him as isolated and ignorant as possible. I have been giving him access to better information, including books on our true history and culture, but I have to be careful not to risk the old mans notice.

I am hopeful that by giving him the right information the boy can be swayed. I do not think he will ever join us, but I do believe it will be easy enough to get him to go neutral."

"We could just remove him, my Lord." Avery Jr. offered viciously.

Voldemort was instantly on alert. "None of you will even consider harming that boy. Anything happening will just make him a martyr, giving Dumbledore even more influence. No, we need him alive, and not siding with Dumbledore.

The old man has already done a great deal of damage to any bond the two of them could ever form, and I would see it encouraged. It might be beneficial for you to encourage your school age family members to show the boy compassion, his ignorance is not his fault, it is the fault of those light fools, and we can use that. Do not try and get them to suddenly become his best friend, something like that would make him suspicious. But, it would be beneficial for them to play nice.

Lucius, Draco in particular needs to ease back on his antagonism. The boy mentioned what happened between them and I have explained what was actually happening. It would behove Draco to take the highroad, a little humility would do that boy good. His temper is not appropriate for an Heir of a family as influential as the Malfoys, he is making unnecessary enemies with his temper. Only the Black's could get away with that sort of treatment of their fellow Heirs."

Lucius adjusted his posture, not that he could be sitting any straighter. "Draco is the only male available to claim the Black title when Lord Black passes, Narcissa assures me."

"Well, Narcissa is incorrect." Voldemort took a little enjoyment in seeing the pompous man deflate slightly. Harry had told him about why he wasn't as fond of the Malfoy parents during one of their evening conversations. "Despite what so many have been lead to believe, Regulus Black is not as dead as you might think. He has faithfully been doing a very important task for me. As it stands now the title will pass to either him or his brother."

"Sirius Black is in Azkaban for mass murder." Lucius sputtered.

"But he was never given a trial." Voldemort pointed out. "Bagnold and Crouch decided to just send a number of people to Azkaban without bothering to give them trials. I will be using Sirius Black as a way to discredit the ministry since I have evidence that the man is innocent of everything he's been accused of.

But that is beside the point. As Sirius Black was never given a trial he was never stripped of his right to inherit. Meaning, even if Regulus had truly been deceased and Sirius were to pass away, the title would pass to Sirius's heir."

"He never had children." Lucius said in horror, all the dreams he and Narcissa had had about what they could do with the Black estate and power fading in an instant. His father-in-law was the assumed Heir at the moment but he had health issues and had had them for years. During her last visit Narcissa learned her father wasn't expected to live more than another year or two, which meant the title would then pass to Draco.

"No, but he does have a magically bound godson." Voldemort pointed out smugly. "The title and power would all pass to Potter. And I do believe

Dumbledore is expecting that. He has already claimed control of the Potter political power, not even telling the boy he was doing so, another fault I can exploit."

Lucius was in shock, he had to be. Narcissa had been assuring him for years Draco would have the power. Lord Black was getting close to his end, they all knew it. Once that happened He and Narcissa had been planning to claim the estate on behalf of Draco, giving them full control until he came of age. Now he was going to need to readjust everything, and that included his sons and wife's egos.

After that Voldemort dismissed them, giving a few a bits of added information. He told Avery the younger that he had learned it was the Carrow twins that had set up his father and gave the man permission to torment them as he pleased, but they were not to be killed, yet, and he was not to be caught.

He privately brought up his concerns about his grandson with Lord Tiberius Nott. He assured him that Snape had already contacted him about the situation and he was dealing with it. But even still, Voldemort warned him that if the child was not in pristine condition over the years as he checked in without warning he would be dealing with it the old fashioned way. Tiberius knew well enough to know that his son would die in agony, his old schoolmate did not tolerate harm to children, he had as he lost his mind, but he seemed back to his old self again.

Sea Cave

It was easy for Voldemort to collect Regulus from the cave since he was the one that controlled the inferi. And once he had his follower he released the magic controlling the inferi, they were just too unpredictable to keep around.

Leaving the cave he left Regulus's body in the care of Dobby. He sent the elf to a secret property he owned just outside of Hogsmeade. He told the elf to wait for his call.

He left Dobby watching Regulus so he could go and get the vanishing cabinet from Borgin and Burke's. He was just relieved that he had access to his old vault since he wasn't going to risk Borgin, who still owned and operated the shop himself, know that he was back. That man wouldn't hesitate to sell him out in a moment.

When he had the cabinet he called for Dobby and had him bring it to the house before going to make another stop.

Crouch Home

Voldemort silently slipped into the home of the man that had imprisoned so many of his followers, including the one he currently had in his house.

Harry didn't like this man to the point he hadn't just given him permission to kill him, he had even gone so far as to let him borrow his invisibility cloak. Voldemort knew just how big that was, it was a family heirloom, he wouldn't like handing over his locket or ring even before he had turned them into horcruxes.

His first stop was the kitchen where he stunned the elf that was doing the dishes. Yet again, he was having to protect the bloody elves just to keep the boy happy, but he wasn't going to anger him. If that meant protecting an entire herd of the little creatures then he would do it.

He did have to be careful to then enchant the little creature since elves could throw off most magics rather quickly. It was why wizards had elves punish themselves, the punishments they gave themselves actually lasted.

Once that was done he went and placed Bartemius Crouch under the imperious and forced him to take him down to where he was keeping his son. Then he had him take the imperious curse off his son and take the cloak off him.

Barty blinked a few times as he felt in control for the first time since he was taken from Azkaban. Looking around he was confused as he saw his father standing there with the same vacant look he knew he had just had, but there was no one else there.

"Who's there?" His voice was rough from disuse.

Voldemort allowed his magic to flare, causing his mark to react, before taking off the cloak.

"My Lord?" Barty whispered reverently, but was also confused, Quirinus had been a few years a head of him in school so he didn't understand why his Lord was in the body of someone else he knew.

"No, no, stay seated Barty." Voldemort quickly stopped the young man from dropping down like the others had. Despite having access to a certain level of comfort he had still been in a confined space for an extended time, his muscles were clearly weak. "You have stayed loyal when so many others denied me. You have earned your seat."

"How can I serve my Lord?" Barty asked reverently even as his eyes were fixed on his father.

"Soon enough you will have a task to do. As for right now, I believe you deserve to get a little revenge." Voldemort took the other mans wand and handed it

to his son. "Just make sure not to do anything permanent. We need him alive for a little bit of time yet."

After an hour of allowing Barty to 'express' himself at his fathers poor parenting they healed him up and left.

Voldemort left the imperious curse on him. The next day he went into work he was going to use his position to gain access to the evidence room, making sure to pre-date when he signed in to the evidence room. In there he was going to do a bit of evidence tampering. Voldemort had ordered him to wipe clean each and every wand being held in evidence for anyone suspected of being a Death Eater. And just to keep things interesting he had him make a few changes to other evidence as well, he didn't want the Ministry getting too comfortable.

The man was going to die in three days time thanks to a little nicknack he had purchased at Borgin and Burkes to go along with the cabinet. The bland looking little pin would cause the victims heart to race while stopping them from noticing. Exposure for 36 hours would cause permanent heart damage.

After wearing the pin for 24 hours, two 12 hour workdays worth, Crouch would take it off and send it to the secret house Voldemort owned, owl mail couldn't be tracked after the fact so no one would know to look for the letter. While he wouldn't be wearing the pin anymore and most would think that would make him safe it wouldn't, the damage to his heart would have already been done.

On the third day, while at work, he would take a high level wide-eye potion mixed with a pepper-up potion. Those particular potions were stimulants and were not recommended for anyone with heart problems. One might not cause any problems, but taking them both at once would induce a heart attack, guaranteed.

It would mean Bartemius Crouch would die at the Ministry and there would be no reason to suspect fowl play.

Hogsmeade Home

With everything done Voldemort took Barty, and the still stunned elf and joined Regulus and Dobby in Hogsmeade. Once there he allowed Dobby to access his vault to go and gather a minimum of 3 months worth of food just to be safe. Then he quickly gathered his ring horcrux, taking the stone out of the ring, pleased when Harry was correct and it didn't harm his horcrux.

"Regulus?" Barty questioned when he saw his old year mate sitting in one of the chairs.

"He won't respond." Voldemort told him.

"What happened my Lord?"

"Like you Regulus was under the imperious curse." Voldemort explained.

"He was ordered to betray me but he fought hard enough to break through it in the end, but it did extensive damage." He had no intention of telling the unstable man that his old friend was mostly dead and they were going to use a necromantic ritual to call his soul back. "He just needs a purification ritual and a few other things and he will be fine."

"Can I help?"

"Not with that specifically, for now you need to focus on your recovery. Nearly everything's already in place for that and another ally will be helping me with that." Voldemort said as he placed the cabinet somewhere safe. He wasn't going to risk bringing Barty and Regulus in through the front door, that was just asking to get caught. Instead he would bring the matching cabinet into the room and open up the passage before sealing them in a time bubble to do the ritual.

"Barty, I need you to take this potion." Voldemort handed over one of the mind stabilizing potions Quirinus had spent their last evening in the time bubble making.

Barty didn't question it and just took the potion. It was only after he had the idea to ask. "What was it my Lord?"

"Just a potion to help you with the after effects of the imperious." Voldemort took a seat in one. Of the other chairs and motioned Barty to do the same. He explained to the man about the vanishing cabinets and what they did.

"Where will we be going my Lord?" Barty asked, he was surprised his Lord was letting him ask so many questions. Normally just asking one would get a person cursed.

"The passage is going to bring you into a secret room in Hogwarts. That room has a time bubble feature so you will be able to spend weeks or even months getting yourselves back in shape. You will be able to stay in there as long as you have food. Although, I will be bringing in Regulus first, and then you and your elf will join us once your father is dead to ensure the complete loyalty of your elf.

But there is something you need to understand Barty... Harry Potter is in the room as well." Voldemort said, not surprised to see his followers face tighten, it was a common thing it would seem, they blamed the boy for his downfall.

"What will we be doing to him my Lord?" There was a mad gleam in Barty's eye at the idea of punishing the one that denied him his Lord.

"Absolutely nothing. Are you listening to me Barty, you will not harm a hair on that boys head." Voldemort ordered strictly, making sure the man was looking at him. "Potter is not to blame for what happened, I was the one that acted without all

the facts. More than that, he was the one that showed me how to use the room as well as helped to start healing me."

"He has joined us?" Barty was extremely confused by that.

"No, but he has chosen to go neutral. He has gone so far as to make a vow that he will not attack me, and I have made the same vow to him. As of now Harry Potter is untouchable." Voldemort watched as the information sunk in to his followers mind.

When Dobby returned with the food they placed a majority of it under preservation and Voldemort allowed Quirinus to retake control.

When Harry Met Dobby

Quirinus guided the agitated elf to the ROR.

The door was slightly propped open, Potter had wanted to close himself in with the elf once they were bound for some reason, but hadn't explained it to him or his Lord. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, but his Lord was allowing it so he knew better than to question it.

Walking in the room Quirinus was stunned to find himself thrown up against the wall by a furious elf.

"You shall not harm Harry Potter." Dobby was practically growling as he held the man he knew was carrying the soul of the Dark Lord inside him.

"I, Quirinus Quirrell, master of Dobby the house elf, transfer ownership to Harry Potter, so mote it be." Quirinus gasped out.

Dobby was beyond confused as his ownership suddenly transferred to his hero. The Dark Lord had just given him to his enemy?

"Dobby, release them." Harry said softly. Seeing the little elf upset by the order. He wondered if he would ever forget the pain of losing those he cared about. Just bing around Hedwig caused the same pain. And they were the only two he had met so far that had died, he hadn't even been around Fred yet despite being in the same house, he wondered how he was going to avoid another breakdown when classes restarted and he saw so many who had died.

Dobby was stunned, but he did as he was told.

"Where's the food?" Harry questioned.

"The elf has it shrunk in the bag." Quirinus told him. He held up the

container that held the stone the boy had wanted, leaving it on one of the side tables.

"Thank you professor, if you could give us ten minutes."

"Of course." Quirinus walked out of the room, closing the door behind him, no doubt starting another time bubble.

"Hello Dobby." Harry gave a tremulous smile to the little elf.

When he had first seen Hedwig again he had ended up sobbing on her, and he thought it might just go that way again.

"Master Harry Potter sir." Dobby looked back towards the door. "Yous isn't safe around thems. Dobby will protect you."

Harry gave a watery laugh. "Always trying to save me. Dobby, I need to tell you a story."

Hours later Harry finished his tale.

He was shaking and he was completely out of tears. He felt bad for the poor little elf that was trying to take everything in while also trying to get him to calm down and be happy.

Elves really weren't meant to deal with that kind of information. While they did have a certain level of sentience, they weren't on the higher end of that sentience. It was the reason they struggled with things like grammar, they could mimic human speech, but it actually wasn't their natural language and instead were taught language by their parents so they could better serve their masters. They were descended from the same common ancestor as pixies and brownies.

Things like what Harry was talking about would mostly just confuse Dobby and Harry knew a lot of his stress came from Harry's own reaction. It was why Harry had tried to keep his emotions under control but he had lost it around the time he started talking about Sirius's death.

"I know this is confusing to you Dobby, but I won't let there be war again. I am going to make peace and keep the family I'm going to cobbled together safe. I want you to be a part of that family." Harry forced himself to focus on the nervous little elf. "But if you don't want to be involved I will understand and set you free. I know you've been in a bad situation, but you deserve so much better." And he really meant that, Harry just wanted Dobby to be happy.

Dobby was overwhelmed with everything, but he wasn't going to miss the chance to have the Great Harry Potter for a master. He trusted him to make the Dark Lord good. "Dobby will stay. Dobby is happy to serve the Great Harry Potter Sir."

Harry couldn't resist, he practically threw himself forward and hugged Dobby, starting to sob all over him.

When he finally got himself under control again he gave Dobby his first official order, he was to never hurt himself intentionally. If he felt like he had made a mistake or broken the rules he was to talk to Harry about it. His second order was to never tell anyone about the future Harry had seen.

Dobby was making them dinner before they left the room when Harry started worrying again. He remembered Marvolo was an expert legilimance. He would spot the lie as soon as he got a chance to have an extended conversation with Regulus, and then things would fall apart.

But Dobby came to the rescue. House elves had their own magic, and no one paid enough attention to them to bother testing for house elf magic. Dobby would be able to create a false wall in Regulus's mind. He would know the truth, but it would be hidden.

And that resulted in Harry hugging the little elf again.

After Harry had settled things with Dobby and eaten he took a nap and then pulled out the stone. He wasn't sure if the stone would work in a time bubble and was pleased when it did.

He was able to have a decent conversation with his parents and explained a few things. The thing about the dead, they generally didn't hold on to grudges, although his dad was still decently angry at Pettigrew, but Harry understood that. The dead let go of life, it was why bringing them back caused them to become depressed and angry after any extended time.

Thankfully his parents were still connected to the land of the living enough to love him enough to be willing to help him with his plans for getting Pettigrew caught and getting Sirius free.

Welcome Back Regulus Black, Goodbye

Chapter Notes

Hey, sorry I've been away for like… ever. Things went a bit crazy. Normally I would say it's no big deal since I use writing as stress relief and I'm not going to make it stressful by trying to force myself to stick to a schedule, but in this case I feel like I should at least give a basic explanation, so it will be down below.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

After Harry and Dobby were finished their conversation Harry let the room shut down before reopening another. He then sent Dobby back to Marvolo's house to restock their food supply, not that they had used that much since they had only had a small amount to eat. But Harry wanted a chance to have a proper conversation with Regulus before having Dobby build the false wall in his mind just so that he knew some of the basics of what was happening.

Harry was only in the room for a few minutes before Dobby was back with supplies, and a few minutes after that Professor Quirrell walked in and put the vanishing cabinet down, returning it to its regular size.

Then Harry and Dobby stepped out so Quirrell could seal himself in to brew the potions they would need for Regulus and Barty's recovery. Ten minutes later the door reopened and they were able to close the room and once again open a new one.

They all made sure to keep the door open slightly so as not to start the time bubble. Marvolo opened the connection and brought Regulus through. Once the three of them, and Dobby, were in the room Marvolo closed the connection and Harry closed the door and they got to work.

Regulus slowly blinked his eyes open. Everything was blurry and he felt so heavy. He could remember being in limbo. It felt like he had been there for decades and only moments at the same time. Then the Dark Lord and a small child had somehow pulled him back and put him back in his body.

"Regulus?" A voice whispered slightly nervously. "Are you awake?"

"Hmmm." Regulus tried to push himself up but his muscles shook too much.

"No. Just stay down." The voice said. "Dobby, can we move him to one of the beds?" "Yes Master Harry." Came the squeaky voice that had to belong to a house elf.

There was a popping feeling and he found himself laying on something very soft. There was a shuffling sound and a door closing so he assumed the boy was in with him.

"Who…you?" Regulus forced out.

"My name is Harry Potter." The boy told him as he came into view. Really, the hair should have given away that he was a Potter. "James Potter was my father. And your brother Sirius is my godfather."

"Where… Siri?"

"I'm working on that." Sirius had only ever mentioned his brother to him once but Harry knew Sirius and Regulus had once cared a great deal about one another. "Sirius was framed for being involved in my parents deaths and sent to Azkaban without a trial, but I've already started making arrangements to get him out."

"He's where?" Regulus growled. His anger at what had been done to his brother was enough to force him up.

"Relax." Harry urged, pushing him back slightly. "Your body and soul need time to fully reconnect. If you don't take that time you may find yourself back out of your body, only this time it will be because you are dead."

Regulus laid back at that, he didn't want to die, he wanted to help his brother.

"Regulus, I need you to listen." Harry glanced at the door even though he knew that no one would be there.

Quirrellmort was unconscious in one of the other rooms being watched over by Dobby. Harry's core wasn't stable enough to purify Regulus's body or do the ritual to put his soul back in his body. He and Quirrell had drained their magic doing it and were now recovering.

Even knowing that Harry worried, he didn't want to lose this better relationship he had formed with the man. "I know that you know about the horcruxes."

Regulus got tense. "How do you know?"

"I have my ways." Harry equivocated. "I also know you tried to destroy one, thankfully it is still whole."

"Thankfully?" Regulus gasped in shock. What was going on with this kid?

"Yes." Harry said harshly. "I told Marvolo… the Dark Lord, that you had gone after it while you were under the imperious and had ordered your house elf to protect it. I told him no one knew who had used the curse on you."

"Why are you helping him? The Potters have never supported the Dark Lord." Regulus hissed.

"I don't, but I do support avoiding war." Harry told him.

"We are already at war." Regulus didn't feel comfortable around this kid, there was just something off about him. He looked like he was only 8 or 9 but spoke like an adult.

"No, and we haven't been for awhile." Harry told him. "At the end of October 1981 the Dark Lord came after my family. He killed my parents. When he tried to kill me the curse rebounded, his body was killed and I lived. The war has been over for over a decade."

"He killed your parents…" Regulus was horrified. "Yet you are helping him?"

"Yes. He created multiple horcruxes, to truly kill him we would need to find and destroy all of them. We can't do that." Harry told him. "More than that, the horcruxes would drive him mad. I have almost convinced him to reabsorb his horcruxes, if I can do that then he will be mortal, and sane again.

It would be easy to just blame him for everything, but war is war. My parents chose to fight in a war and in doing so they accepted the consequences. And I get to torment him when I like."

"He would kill you." Regulus gave the kid a look, the Dark Lord would never tolerate that.

"Yet I'm still alive." Harry smirked. "He's currently possessing Quirinus Quirrell, his soul is serving to stabilize Marvolo's soul, meaning he is more stable. Plus, to help mitigate what he did to my parents I managed to get him to make a magically binding vow that he will not harm me."

Regulus leaned back against the pillows to think. The Dark Lord made a vow to not harm someone that admitted they tormented him? There had to be something to the boys words about the Dark Lord being stabilized, he wouldn't do something like that for any other reason. "So what do you want with me?"

"I need you to be the voice of reason." Harry sat down on the edge of the bed. "I know that you are willing to risk it all in an effort to stop a madman. Because of that I know you will do what needs to be done if push comes to shove. I can't do that, I'm only 11. I already have enough on my plate with getting Siri out of Azkaban, plus homework.

I'm trying to convince Marvolo to go out of Europe to gain a body using another kind of body creation ritual. Barty Crouch Jr. will be going with him when that happens, he will not keep Marvolo under control if he starts to lose it."

"He will figure out what I did." Regulus warned.

"No, he won't." Harry defended. "My house elf is willing to place a wall in your mind. You will know all of this, but if anyone looks into your mind they will see the story we create."

Regulus thought that through. "You understand I will kill him if I think he is going back to the madness."

Harry was very somber at that, he had oddly become almost… fond, of the man. "That is what I'm counting on."

Regulus nodded his understanding, then hissed as his muscles resisted the move.

"Dobby." Harry called and the elf popped up next to him. "Place the wall, I will keep a watch on Quirrellmort."

Regulus couldn't help but snort at that. The Dark Lord really must be stable to a certain extent if the kid didn't hesitate to use a name like that.

It took three days before Quirrellmort woke up and stayed up. Another day before he was decently coherent.

"What are our plans my Lord?" Regulus questioned as they sat down together for the first time.

"You will be joining Barty at one of my safe houses for a few days while Potter and I carry on pretending as if nothing has changed. Once Barty's father has died the two of you will be coming in here. The two of you will stay in a time bubble until you are both at full health." Voldemort informed his follower.

"Actually." Harry spoke up. "I think Regulus should make a quick stop to visit his grandfather. Lord Black has been sick. From what has been in the news the man isn't expected to live much longer. He deserves to know that the Black name won't end with him. It would also allow Regulus to make sure the Black family barristers get off their lazy backsides and actually try and help Siri once I can force a trial for him. And then they can make sure the Ministry pays through the nose for what they put him through."

Regulus smirked. The rage on the kids face was something he liked seeing since it involved those who had allowed his brother to be harmed, but at the same time the kid looked like an angry kitten.

"You can do it if you wish." Voldemort gave his follower permission. "Given the state he's in you can even tell him the truth about where you've been if you need too."

"Thank you my Lord." Regulus wasn't used to this stable Dark Lord.

"You will also collect my locket." Voldemort wanted that back.

"Yes my Lord."

Black Manor

Lord Arcturus Black shook ever so slightly as he took a seat in one of the sitting rooms. One of his elves had come to him and said his missing, and long since assumed deceased, grandson had just arrived at the manor. He didn't know how to process that. All this time he had let them believe he was dead, a Black wouldn't do something like that to their own family.

When the young man claiming to be his grandson walked in Arcturus was startled. He looked nearly the same as he had the day he disappeared, when he was 19, over a decade ago.

"Who are you?" Arcturus didn't allow his voice to waver.

"I am Regulus Arcturus Black." Regulus said as he came to stand before the man and waited until he was motioned to sit.

"Why should I believe that?" Arcturus glared. "And if you are him, where have you been all this time?"

Regulus explained the story Harry Potter had told him. He explained how he had been placed under the imperious curse and forced to go after something of importance to the Dark Lord and had gotten caught in a trap. Then he told him that he had been lucky enough to be found by a necromancer and he had called his soul back from limbo and put him back in his body.

Arcturus sat back in thought. If this story was true then it changed everything. For so long he had kept his silence and allowed things to happen since he assumed when he was gone the title would pass to his cousin Pollux, and Pollux wouldn't hesitate to go after certain members of the family, he was just as vicious as that banshee Walburga. He was still relieved that woman had finally died, he just regretted his son had never gotten to be free from her.

Then Pollux had died the year before, and next in line was his son Cygnus. While Cygnus wasn't as mad as Walburga and Pollux, he was still vicious. He wanted the title to go to himself, and then to his grandson Draco.

Both Pollux, Walburga, and Cygnus had made it clear they would do everything in their power to get rid of Sirius if they thought he was going to be next in line. It also meant if he tried to reach out to Andromeda it would endanger both her and her daughter. Cygnus and Druella had never forgiven their daughter for running away and marrying for love. Arcturus felt she could have gone about it in a better way, but he understood Blacks didn't do anything by halves.

But if this really was Regulus then the title would pass to him without question. Having Regulus there would mean he could finally set Cygnus straight, and Narcissa to a lesser degree. He just wished Walburga and Pollux could be brought back even if just for a few moments so they could know they never would have gotten the title.

"You will come back here tomorrow at 1." Arcturus instructed the man.

"Yes grandfather." Regulus knew his grandfather was planning something and wasn't going to get in his way.

After leaving the Manor he went to his old family home, Grimmauld Place. Kreacher was overjoyed to see him alive. Regulus was in turn overjoyed to get the still intact locket.

He told Kreacher the basic story they were going to be using, and Kreacher added his own protections to his mind just in case things went sideways and Harry and Dobby turned on them.

He also made sure to order that he was not to discuss his presence there, or their plans, with anyone. Then he left Kreacher to tidy the house and promised he would call him before he went into the time bubble. He knew his loyal elf would prefer to be the one looking after his food during that time.

Regulus didn't even acknowledge the screeching of his mothers portrait, he was furious she had allowed his brother to remain in Azkaban. They might not get along, but he was still her son and she had betrayed him and in doing so betrayed Regulus.

The next day Regulus returned to the manor and was escorted by one of the elves into his grandfathers office. Sitting in the office was the Black Family Account Manager from Gringotts.

"Manager Ironclaw is going to preform an inheritance test on you." Arcturus said in a strong voice, he was feeling better than he had in years at the idea of having a hope for his family line. "If you are my grandson we will go from there. If you are not no one will find your body."

Regulus smirked. Threats were a way of life in the Black family, it was basically a 'how do you do' in their family. Attacks and attempted murders were a little rarer, but they did still happen from time to time. There had long since been a suspicion that Cygnus had killed his brother Alphard do to some kind of fight the two had been having at the time.

Regulus just willingly allowed for the test to be done.

Arcturus looked over to Ironclaw as the test finished.

"This is indeed Regulus Arcturus Black. Born February 7, 1961." Ironclaw announced as the test showed its results. He handed the test over to Lord Black so he could verify it himself.

Arcturus wanted to cry in relief, he was almost at his end, now his holding on for so long wouldn't be in vain. But he held it back, there was business that needed to be done first.

"Ironclaw, I wish to amend my will." Arcturus announced.

Room of Requirement

Regulus was pleased to return to Hogwarts. Since he had effectively been resurrected and learned what the room could do he had been looking forward to taking as much time as he needed to properly recover. Even the simplest of things exhausted him.

He had plenty of work to keep him busy during his time in the bubble to go along with the books that Quirinus had told him he would have access too. His grandfather had formally named him Heir once again, a position he had initially been given after his brother ran away. And to go along with that position came the information about the family members, businesses, stocks, properties, Gringotts accounts, and family heirlooms. He was going to need to familiarize himself with all of it. Normally it wouldn't need to be done so soon, but with his grandfathers poor health he needed to be prepared to take over at the drop of a hat.

And he wasn't the only one that was going to be going over family paperwork. It had been reported in The Daily Prophet that Bartemius Crouch Sr. had passed away of a sudden heart attack at the ministry the day before. Regulus had been ready and used his position as the Heir of the Black Estate to ensure Barty was able to attend a private meeting at the bank.

Since Barty hadn't been legally convicted, and wasn't actually dead, in the eyes of the goblins Barty inherited everything. The only way it could have gone to someone else was if the will said so, but Bartemius hadn't been doing anything other than trying to regain his position and power at the ministry so hadn't bothered to update it since Barty was in his early teens.

Barty needed to claim everything before the ministry could. By rights, if there was no legal heir the ministry could take it all, and no pure blood wanted that. The Crouch estate wasn't exactly large, but it was still rightfully Barty's. That, and while the properties were mostly small and in disrepair since Barty's mum had handled it and without her it wasn't done. But, with how much time Bartemius put in at the office, and the fact he didn't buy anything other than new robes once a year and food, there was a large amount of galleons built up in the vault.

Both of them were going to be using their time not only to recover physically and mentally from what had happened to them, but they would be ensuring they were financially secure. Their Lord had warned them they were going to need to lay low for a certain amount of time, possibly years.

Winky and Kreacher were both going in with them to look after them. It would also serve to help the two elves adjust. Kreacher was still adjusting to having Regulus back.

And Winky was struggling even more. They had kept her unconscious until after Bartemius was dead so they didn't risk her interfering in their plans. Winky was a very loyal little elf, and she would have done anything she could to save Bartemius. Now that he was dead, and it had been of a heart attack, she was more than happy to give her complete loyalty to Barty, she had been helping to look after him since he was born after all. But she was still upset about everything that had happened.

Quirinus, Voldemort, and Harry were all impressed the next time they were able to enter the ROR and see the two men.

Regulus and Barty had gone back through the cabinet so the room could be closed, allowing the three in the school to reopen a new time bubble for them, not that it would really be needed. They weren't planning to be long.

Both of the men looked to be in perfect health. Regulus looked like he had put on at least 30 pounds, and a vast majority of that was muscle. He no longer looked gaunt and unwell, as he had after he was cleansed of the inferi curse. Barty hadn't been as bad off, but he looked to be in perfect health, there wasn't even the mad glint in his eye Harry remembered so he had to have been taking the mind healing potions, something Harry was thankful for.

"How long were you in there exactly?" Harry questioned in interest.

"It was just over 6 months." Regulus told the odd child.

He had used the room to call up newspapers from the past decade to learn just what had been happening in their world. There was a lot on this kid, but he himself had never been seen or quoted. He also knew from the little bit of time he had had to spend with him and the Dark Lord that the reason the boy hadn't been seen was because Dumbledore had abandoned him in the muggle world. He was impressed with just how much he had managed to accomplish given he had only been in their wold since September. He was willing to give him a bit of leeway due to the room, but there was still something about him that unsettled Regulus, maybe it was the look in his eyes, he looked like he was as battle hardened as some of the older Death Eaters or aurors, yet he was still only a child. But at the same time he trusted him, this child was risking everything to protect him, and he already had plans to save his brother.

"And you both took all your potions?" Voldemort questioned severely. He would not be pleased if they wasted Quirinus's brewing time.

"Yes my Lord." Both responded instantly. They had both been well 'trained' to respond the moment they were addressed.

"Good." Voldemort was pleased with that.

"What are our orders now my Lord?" Barty questioned excitedly. He was so happy to be of use again.

"You two will need to investigate if there are any rituals to reconstruct a body, and how to replace a displaced soul. I have already investigated the ones here in Europe and they do not meet my needs." Voldemort told them.

"We will find what you need my Lord." Barty was just as excited as ever.

He had been devoted to the Dark Lord for so long, but he had technically only been in his service for less than four years when everything had fallen apart. The dark side had offered him an escape from his father.

He still held some resentment of the boy sitting next to his Lord, but he had already been warned the boy was not to be harmed in any way. He, like Regulus, found him slightly unnerving, but wasn't going to bother him since he wouldn't betray his Lord.

"What happens if someone recognizes us?" Regulus questioned, he had always been more practical then his wild and impulsive older brother.

"Just make up some kind of sob story." Harry told them.

"They will question us under truth serum, if not veritaserum." Barty pointed out.

"Generally not veritaserum if you are outside of the UK." Harry pointed out. "Most other countries don't use veritaserum since they know that by using strategic questioning the results can be manipulated. They generally prefer to use a generic truth potion mixed with a babbling potion to get you talking."

"You have a very odd base of knowledge for someone who's only been in the magical world since September." Regulus pointed out. "Are you sure you haven't been here longer?"

Harry smirked, he knew Regulus was far more preceptive than most. "I assure you, I was only told I was a wizard on my 11th birthday and didn't reenter the magical world properly until September 1st of that year other than a single trip to Diagon Alley."

Even Voldemort had to smirk at that since the boy was technically being completely honest.

"Regardless, how does a sob story help us?" Regulus returned to the topic at hand knowing the boy wasn't likely to give anything away, he might wear the pelt of a lion but there were more than a few snake scales mixed in in his opinion.

"Yeah, the truth serum would destroy any sympathy we could get." Barty added.

"House elves." Harry said, giving Regulus a look since they both knew this information given what Harry and Dobby had done, and Kreacher later on. "House elves can create walls in your memory to block truth serum or a legilimens from being able to access certain information. They can also create a false memory to place in front of the wall.

All you would need to do is decide what story you wish to use and then have your elf create it for you. You Barty, could say it was all your fathers idea just to screw him over for a little bit more payback. Say he wanted a spy so forced you to take the mark while you were still underage. And since it was your father you trusted him and did as he ordered. You could also say that was why he sent you to Azkaban without a proper trial, he didn't want to risk you telling anyone the depths he had sunk to in his effort to gain information to make himself look better in hopes of becoming minister."

"And me, what could my excuse be?" Regulus questioned even as he saw Barty's eyes light up at the idea of destroying his fathers image even more.

"Well… didn't you go to school with Orion and Walburga?" Harry asked, looking to Marvolo.

"Yes." Voldemort agreed slowly. "I was closer in age to Walburga than Orion, so I knew her a bit better."

Harry nodded before looking back at Regulus. "Say your mother was a big supporter of the Dark Lord and had promised her first born to him once he came of age. But Sirius ran away when he was 16. Your mum was upset by that and offered you as consolation, allowing you to be marked while still under age since your brother would have already been forced into service if he hadn't escaped. I mean… it would require you to throw your mother under the knight bus so to say, but she's already dead and I'm sure she wouldn't mind taking the blame to protect you."

Harry knew good and well what a banshee Walburga could be from having to deal with her portrait, but he also knew Regulus's relationship with his parents was probably much different than Sirius's was. Sirius had told him Regulus was the perfect son and heir after all.

"That could actually work to excuse the actions of a number of your other followers." Harry said as he looked to Marvolo. "Saying an older family member offered them would cover them to a certain extent, especially if that person was the head of the family since they wouldn't have been able to deny them their wishes without facing consequences. Although, you would need to be careful who used that excuse since you wouldn't want their parents getting in trouble if they are still alive."

"I will consider it." Voldemort was thoughtful about the subject. It would be beneficial to give some of his followers an excuse for their service if needs be.

Barty didn't like the idea of denying his loyalty to his Lord, and he despised others doing it to protect themselves. He had never denied his loyalty and it didn't sit well with him. For so long he had hated those like Lucius Malfoy for lying about their service and abandoning their Lord, and now he was being encouraged to do the same.

"You wish us to deny our loyalty to you my Lord?" Barty's tone showed to the others that not only did he question the idea, but he greatly disliked it.

"Yes, but you will still be loyal." Voldemort told him. "We just can't have you falling under suspicion for now."

"Besides, the title Voldemort is no longer a viable one." Harry pointed out.

"I beg your pardon?" Voldemort snapped in fury, as often happened when he was truly enraged he almost slipped into parseltongue.

As Harry's head started to throb he heard Barty was just as upset by the idea, and so was Quirinus. Regulus took his cue from the others and expressed a dislike of the idea, but he wasn't as vociferous as the others.

"Like it or not the name 'Lord Voldemort' has been destroyed by the likes of Dumbledore and the Ministry." Harry defended. "Even many that would naturally side with you will be resistant due to the horror stories that have been put forward.

The likes of the Daily Prophet have always exaggerated things. Take the fight that took place in Bristol, when the aurors raided Dolohov Manor without a warrant. Tell me, how many people died?"

"There were 5." Barty said. "I was there but managed to get away when we were ordered to leave. 3 aurors and 1 death eater, and Antonia Dolohov, Antonin's sister were all killed."

"But if you read the paper from that time it says the ministry announced the deaths of 9 people. And, on the ten year anniversary of that fight the Ministry used it to promote some new 'reforms', and placed a plaque for those that died. The plaque says that 15 people died." Harry told them. "And that isn't the only time they have exaggerated the deaths."

"Yes." Regulus agreed. "I read every edition of The Daily Prophet the room had since I was cursed. There were events I knew of that were greatly exaggerated."

"Exactly." Harry nodded. He had seen the same thing happen with the second war. "It's a way for them to build themselves up. Dumbledore and the Ministry stood against Lord Voldemort, by making him seem like an inhuman monster they make themselves appear braver and more powerful.

For the past decade they have been taking the horrors that occurred during the war and made it far worse. The simple fact is that most wixen in the UK are simple minded and easily led, for decades now Dumbledore and the Ministry have been suppressing any independent thought, and they got their way. They actually believe the drivel that comes from the Prophet now.

Even those that would be naturally inclined to side with the dark will be more resistant now because they have been told how horrible they are without much, if any, push back for a decade. Even those that were alive at the time have been convinced things were worse than they were. If it is announced Lord Voldemort is back and planning to take control they will react as the fearful stupid always do, by panicking."

"So what would you recommend I do?" Voldemort questioned even as he glared at the boy.

"Like I told the others, you need a sob story." Harry grinned as a new idea came to him. "You could say you are your own son. And that could also be Regulus's story.

When it is discovered by the Ministry that Regulus is alive they will question him. He can use the idea his mum forced him to take the mark as a way to protect himself, but people are still going to question where he had been. Create a sob story about how Regulus discovered the Dark Lord had a child. Something or other happened and he became fearful for the childs safety so he took him and fled the country. Regulus could pass off his absence as having stayed away to protect a child. Those on the dark side would see you as your own successor naturally, and you could secretly inform those who need to know of the truth.

People would be somewhat fearful of Voldemort's child, but if you had a good story they would eat it up. If there is one thing wixen love more than drama in their news it is a good story. Make up a story that would make them sympathetic to you and they will back you no matter what, after all, none of them would want to be seen as the one threatening a child."

"I have no intention of being a child." Voldemort liked the idea of returning as his own Heir.

"You should totally do it." Harry hissed. "You've mentioned a few times having a problem in figuring how you could become a public figure again without arousing too much suspicion and it would be the perfect way."

"And how would that get me into the country?" Voldemort hissed back.

"In my fourth year Dumbledore brought back the triwizard tournament. That was how that Voldemort managed to get me away from the school to conduct the resurrection ritual. My name was entered by Barty under a fourth school and Dumbles forced me to compete despite the fact he could have pulled me out as my magical guardian and a rule had been put in place that you had to be 17 to compete. When Cedric Diggory and I took the cup at the end of the third task we were taken to Little Hangleton.

If you were to come back as a teen, and going to Durmstrang, then Dumbles would be forced to welcome you as an honoured guest." Harry grinned ferally. "Karkaroff would be easy enough to control after all. He did give up names and was terrified of him because of that, although, I will qualify that by saying he only gave up names that had already been publicly known.

Just so long as you are 17 before October 31st, 1994 you would be eligible to attend. You could even put your name into the competition, you have the knowledge and knowhow to win, I mean, I managed it at 14, and Cedric was 17, and I already know what the tasks are. Krum was good, but you would be better. And, if you were in your final year you could just say you wanted to stay in the country of your birth after becoming a triwizard winner. The sob story Regulus would need to create would make people sympathetic to you, but winning the tournament would make them respect you."

"You mentioned Cedric a few times." Voldemort pointed out, recognizing the look on Harry's face. "I can assume that didn't end well."

"He didn't want any witnesses to his return other than his own followers, he hadn't planned on me living either. Cedric and I had helped each other out during the tournament and arrived at the cup at the same time so we decided to share the victory. Pettigrew killed him just after we arrived. Another pure blood family wiped out, Cedric is the only child of an only child, with him gone the Diggory line ended as his parents never had any other children." Harry told him sombrely.

Voldemort was thoughtful for a few minutes before a feral grin spread across his face. Making a decision he looked to his loyal followers. "When you look into the different rituals see if you can look into me gaining my teenage body rather than my adult body."

Harry smiled, pleased that Marvolo was adapting his plans to fit the changing circumstances rather than just sticking with his plans. It was a good sign that there was a certain amount of reasonability in the man. Having all of his horcruxes around himself had stabilized him as much as could be possible without fully merging them. Regulus had gone into Gringotts with Ragnar Lestrange and had been able to gain access to Bellatrix Lestrange's vault since she was in Azkaban and had been able to collect the cup.

Regulus leaned back in his seat and examined both the child and the face on the back of an old schoolmates head. He was stunned that the Dark Lord had so easily accepted the ideas of another, let alone a child. When he had originally been in service the Dark Lord listened to no one and tortured everyone, this new stable version of the Dark Lord was listening to others input and hadn't harmed any of them, or ordered them harmed.

Things were most definitely changing.

Chapter End Notes

Alright, so… The snow finally stopped after I last posted, but then it melted. This caused not just my basement to flood for the first time in over a decade, but also 3 other family members. Thankfully we all had good insurance so everything was fixed or replaced, but it took up a lot of time scheduling repair people and deliveries. Then I needed to switch from snow tires to summer tires, but the garage was a mess with everything salvageable from the basement and I tripped while carrying a tire, which resulted in a broken hand. Even now, nearly 6 months later I'm still struggling with fine motor control, like typing, for any length of time without pain, but I have exercises to help rebuild my strength so I'm hopeful I will eventually be able to type like before, it just may take a bit more time. Then I finally got to go on a vacation to Europe that had originally been planned to start 9 days after boarder closures started being put in place in 2019 so had to be cancelled. And it was great, and I managed to stay healthy even while travelling. But just my luck, on the flight home I got seated to next to one of those mask-holes who was clearly sick but didn't want to wear a mask, no matter how many times he were reminded he had agreed to wear one to be allowed on the flight. He literally took the mask down every time he coughed. So guess who tested positive after that? Thankfully I'm fully vaxxed so I was generally fine, just really sleepy, but it was still really annoying. And now we've come full circle and it's been snowing for quite some time. I switched my tires back to winter, making sure to be very careful while putting the summer tires away. Currently I'm house sitting for a friend who had a family emergency. She had recently adopted a dog and was told she couldn't get pregnant, so she assumed she was fixed, apparently they just assumed she was to old to get pregnant, turns out they were wrong. So along with running back and forth to my place to look after my animals, and her three adult dogs, there are also 11(!) week old puppies, and I am staying at her place since despite the dog being an incredibly devoted mom the vet recommended supplement feeding ever 6 hours just to take the pressure off her. But as crazy it is, anything that ends in puppy cuddles is worth it.

Dungeon Bat to Dungeon Ally

With two days left until the new semester started Harry knew he needed to get help in his plan to release Sirius. And for that he was going to need Snape, but he knew that was going to be a hard sell given he knew just how much Snape and Sirius hated each other. So he was going to need to be careful how he framed things.

Snape was a complicated person for Harry to deal with. On the one hand he had/would protect him, but at the same time he was a miserable angry person. He was not a hero, but he was also not the villain. He did good things for bad reasons, and he did bad things for good reasons. In the end, Harry had had to accept that he was human.

His plans weren't to make the man some loving kind mockery of the man he had been, but at least make him tolerable and blunt his more acerbic nature.

Severus was annoyed as he looked at the Potter spawn that was across his desk from him. The brat had pretended to be polite, but he had really all but forced his way into his office and then demanded he put up privacy and secrecy wards. Normally he wouldn't have done so, but the boy had said he wouldn't leave unless he did.

Severus fully intended to go straight to Albus and tell him about this latest disregard for rules from his little wonder boy. He knew Albus probably wouldn't do anything, he hadn't so far after all, but at least he could get it on the record what a brat the boy was, once again. It was just unfortunate he couldn't deduct points or assign detention like normal, since it was the holidays the students were allowed to get away with more and he didn't need another lecture from Albus about the 'joys' of the season.

"Say what you need to say Potter and get out." Severus snapped when the boy just stared at him in the oddest way.

Harry needed a moment, just a moment. He had sat with this man while he died. And now he was sitting in front of him spitting mad. Harry really wanted to break down in hysterical giggles, or cry, could go either way.

"Speak!" Severus snapped, although even he was worried by the way the boys eyes had glazed over like he was lost in some memory.

"I…" Harry took a slow deep breath and forced himself to talk, though he was careful with where he looked. He believed Snape didn't intentionally use legilimency on the students, but he knew from experience that once one was a master in legilimency surface thoughts could filter through unintentionally. "I need help, and she said I could trust you."

Severus assumed the only 'she' Potter could be referring to at that time was Minerva since his other little dunderhead friend had gone home, thankfully. He didn't understand why

Minerva would send the brat to him, she knew he did not like the boy, but he also knew that Minerva never had time for her students.

"If you have already spoken about whatever little problem you have with Professor McGonagall Potter then just let her deal with it. I do not have time to deal with every little bit of drama occurring in the precious Boy-Who-Lived's life."

Harry snorted at the idea of going to McGonagall, he didn't think he would ever forgive her for her complete neglect of her students. "Why would anyone go to McGonagall, she never pays attention."

"Professor McGonagall, Potter." Severus corrected the boy. "And you go to her because she is your head of house, and she panders to those like you, it is how you convinced her to break the rules to put you on the quidditch team after all."

"I had no say in that." Harry quickly told him. "And she is head of house in name only, and everyone knows it. But that isn't why I'm here.

I am here because I need help. And I didn't know who to talk to but she said you would be able to help me without over reacting or making foolish mistakes."

"If it was not Professor McGonagall who sent you, then who was it?" Snape demanded, already done with this conversation.

Harry hesitated for a moment, in all his imaginings of just how this meeting would go the one thing he had never been able to figure out was just how he was going to explain to Snape he was talking to his long dead mother. "Well… You see…"

"Potter!" Snape snapped.

"I have this… pen friend." Harry said, making a decision on just which excuse he was going to use. "We've been writing back and forth for a little while, and he felt like I needed closure, so he sent me something to help."

Snape looked at the stone the brat placed on his desk. "Congratulations Potter, you have a pen friend even dumber than you who sent you a pet rock. Who sent you here?"

Harry snorted at the idea Snape was calling Voldemort dumb, and his belief that the resurrection stone was a simple pet rock. Glancing up for a second he saw the rage growing in the mans eyes and knew he needed to get to the point immediately or this was going to go from bad to worse. "Mum sent me."

"Get out!" Snape snarled in outrage. How dare this boy try and use Lily to excuse away his stupidity. "I will not listen to you…"

Harry just decided to ignore Snape's rant and instead grabbed the stone, turning it as he focused on his parents. He just hoped they remembered what he needed from them. He had called them up just before coming down and explained some of what was going on but he

didn't know if they would have held on to that information, but he was really really hopeful, either that or he was in serious trouble.

"Stop yelling at my son Snape." James snapped as he glared at the man his old school rival had grown up to be.

"Shut up James." Lily ordered when she saw her husband was about to start fighting with Severus, she knew Harry needed their help, and once that was done she could go back to her rest, she was not going to let James mess that up. "Harry darling, you were supposed to explain things to Sev first, then call us."

"I tried." Harry said defensively. "But you try and figure out how to nicely explain a friend sent you a stone that can allow you to call up the spirits of your dead parents and that they want to have a word with someone in a way that doesn't cause that." Harry indicated his shocked professor that was staring open mouthed at his mother.

"Point taken." Lily acquiesced. "James, you and Harry go into the class room and go over Harry's homework, Sev and I need to have a little chat. No, I said go." Lily ordered when she saw James was about to argue with her.

Once Harry and James were out she turned to give a soft smile to her old friend. "Sev, will you be a dear and put a silencing charm on the door, I don't trust James not to try his luck at spying."

Severus just nodded, still shocked, as he flicked his wand at the door.

"Hello Sev." Lily greeted once she was sure her husband wasn't eavesdropping, merlin, she loved the toe rag, but even death hadn't settled him down.

"I'm sorry… I'm so so sorry." Severus gasped out with a shuddering sob.

"Oh Severus, do stop your blathering." Lily ordered. Emotions were hard for her to hold on to by this time, the longer one was dead the less the world of the living mattered, the only reason she was there was because her son needed her, and she still loved him enough to take a little bit of time away from her rest to help him.

"It's my fault." Severus confessed, all his guild from the past decade bubbling to the surface. "I told the Dark Lord the prophecy. It's my fault he killed you."

"Severus, I died because I decided to fight in a war. Prophecy or no prophecy I was always going to be a target, I had fought against him 3 times previously after all." Lily scolded, she remembered her former friend, and it was unsettling to see him fall apart like that. "At least give me the basic respect of giving me the credit for living my own life, I lived it, not anyone else, it was mine, and my responsibility. I made my own decisions, no one else, I could have run, I could have left the country, I chose to stay, I chose to fight. And no matter how much Albus tries to guilt you about what happened and belittle who I was in the process it doesn't change anything, I died for my son and for what I believed in, and I bloody well deserve the respect of not having someone try and claim credit or blame for what became of me in the end, good and bad."

Severus was kind of shocked by Lily's little speech, but it did make sense. Lily, like her mother before her, had been an outspoken feminist. She always swore no man was going to control her life, and whoever she became would be the result of her choices, not some mans.

"I asked the Dark Lord to spare you." Severus confessed. "I begged Albus to protect you. I tried…"

"At least Voldemort tried to keep his word." Lily muttered.

"He killed you." Severus reminded her. "Albus protected you."

"Protected us? Not really." Lily said. "I understand why you would think like that, I used to think the same way. But being dead puts things in perspective. Albus never really did anything. He showed up for the final few minutes of battles and acted like he was the hero. He took credit for anything that went right, but never accepted blame when his plans failed, then it was always someone else's failures."

"He protected you." Severus argued again. "He helped you go into hiding. He protected your home."

"No Severus, you protected us." Lily pointed out strongly. "Albus knew about the prophecy just as long as you did, but he never warned Alice and Frank or James and I. It wasn't until you offered your loyalty in exchange for our protection that he did anything. Albus's only contribution to us going into hiding was passing along the warning from you, he was basically a glorified owl.

Do you want to know the full extent of what Albus did… He passed your message and picked out two books from his own library and lent them to me. Not, allowed me to go through his books to look for information, he picked out two books and told me he was letting me borrow them, for a single week. That's it.

The homes and safe houses we stayed in before moving to Godric's Hollow were found by James. The Godric's Hollow property was an old Potter Family Home. And I was the one that found the fidelius charm and did the warding on the house. Albus just pretended to others he was involved."

"But he…"

"Did nothing!" Lily snapped. "Severus Snape, when we were children the last thing I ever thought you were was a simple minded follower, so do us all a favour, STOP ACTING LIKE ONE!"

"The Dark Lord…"

"Tried."

"HE KILLED YOU!" Severus yelled back. "He swore to spare you… Then he killed you."

"Yes, he did. But don't try and use that as an excuse for Albus's lies." Lily replied.

"You've repeatedly said he tried, just what is that supposed to mean?"

Severus questioned.

"It means he tried to keep his word to you, but I was stubborn, as usual." Lily gave her old friend a soft smile. "He called me a silly girl, told me I didn't need to die. He ordered me to step aside, I refused."

"Why?" Severus gasped desperately. He didn't understand, Lily could have lived, why didn't she just do what she was told for once in her life.

"Oh Severus." Lily sighed mournfully as she looked at her old friend. "I should have known you wouldn't understand, not with a mother like yours."

"What does my mother have to do with anything?" Severus questioned in confusion.

"She gave you a very warped idea of what a mother is." Lily told him. "She stayed with your father because she loved him, no matter what he did to her, and you. I can't count how many times my parents, or others in the neighbourhood, offered to help her take you and leave him. I never understood why she stayed with him, she had options, but then again I have never been in an abusive relationship.

But Sev, I was never going to be that kind of mother. From the moment I found out I was pregnant Harry was the most important person in the world to me. If James had ever spoken to me the way your father spoke to your mother, or if I ever thought for a single second he might hurt Harry, I would have cursed him to hell and back before leaving him. There is nothing I wouldn't do for Harry.

And if my death could help protect him, then so be it, I accept death. Besides, there was no way out for me. I was never going to survive."

"You could have." Severus argued, not liking how accepting of her own death Lily was.

"No, I couldn't. The first book Albus lent me was the one I found the information about the fidelius charm in, the second was filled with protection rituals. The strongest one was a sacrificial ritual." Lily explained. "The ritual wasn't intended to stop a killing curse, none that I found could, but it would have helped Albus with his plans for the war."

"How could the ritual have helped Albus?" Severus questioned.

"Albus fought Voldemort numerous times, but he could never defeat him, he was just to strong. The ritual would have caused significant damage to the core of the one who attacked us, meaning if we had used that ritual as it was Voldemort would have lost a lot of his magical power, allowing Albus to finally beat him." Lily said. "Harry's survival and Voldemorts death was a fluke really."

"But if the ritual wasn't meant to stop a killing curse then why did it?" Severus asked.

"The ritual in the book wouldn't, but we didn't use that exact ritual." Lily told him. "I had access to not just the two books Albus lent me, I was also able to access the Potter family

library, and Sirius may have snuck into his families home and 'borrowed' a few ritual books for me. I combined a bunch of different rituals together. Even still, based on my arithmatic calculations the odds of Harry's survival were only 17%."

"Then how did he survive?"

"I think it was a combination of factors. First was the ritual we used. The second is that apparently James's many times great grandmother was born to the Slytherin family. We found that out when Harry started hissing with the garden snakes shortly after his first birthday."

"He's a parselmouth?"

"Apparently. James said that if you go back far enough all pure blood families are connected in some way. Harry just inherited an old family gift. But there is a special magic about parselmouths that make it hard for them to kill one another." Lily continued as she started to rub her arms like she was feeling a chill. "And the last thing that I believe contributed to Harry's survival was you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you." Lily smiled at him. "Because you asked him to spare my life he told me to step aside, multiple times. I offered my life in exchange for Harry's, and it would seem magic accepted the deal when he killed me. If you hadn't asked for my life, he would have just killed me when he came in the room, and there is a good chance the protections on Harry simply wouldn't have been strong enough for him to survive, or to kill Voldemort. Harry could have died, and Voldemort would have survived, even if he was injured by it. Harry is alive because of you."

"But none of that means you had to die. You could have lived." Severus argued.

"No, I couldn't. And not just because I would never exchange my life for the life of my childs." Lily said. "James and I knew we would die when we set up the ritual. The ritual was tied to our blood, the moment the ritual was activated our deaths were assured. Even if Voldemort had simply stopped by for tea, nothing would have changed, the price for the ritual, whether we were attacked or not, was our lives."

"So Potter just let you die." Severus sneered.

Lily gave Severus a disappointed look. "No. In the end he couldn't do it.

We knew we were targets. We knew there was always the chance he would find us. We knew that if he did we needed to activate the ritual. But that night, when James saw him coming, he couldn't do it. He told me to take Harry and run. He wouldn't just follow the plan, he wanted me to run with Harry. So I activated the ritual. It was my choice. If I could hurt Voldemort, I was going to do it."

"Albus…" Severus forced his mind to start working again, the shock of seeing Lily again had really messed with his thought process, something he had always prided himself on. "Albus expected you all to die. You said it, the ritual book he gave you didn't have anything that

could have saved you, only hurt your attacker… Albus wanted the Dark Lord weakened, even if it cost your life."

"I believe so, yes." Lily nodded. "I don't think Albus is evil or anything, I just think he is a man that thinks he can do no wrong. So long as something serves his greater good he will make excuses for it. Just look at how many of those loyal to him died in the war, and while it saddened him, he always brushed it away because they served the purpose he wanted them too. What was one more family in comparison to everyone else? He has always been willing to sacrifice the few for the many, but never himself of course."

"I gave him my loyalty in exchange for your life, and he didn't even try to save you." Severus snarled.

"Yes." Lily agreed. "But now is not the time for anger Severus. Even if you did it wouldn't do any good, nothing you say or do will ever make Albus believe he did the wrong thing. He will always excuse his own actions because he sees himself as infallible. He will talk about how sorry he is we had to die, which I actually believe he is, but then he would start talking about the greater good and how we died to save others so you need to honour our sacrifice by being willing to sacrifice yourself as well, and then he would sit back and have some candy in his comfortable office while others pay the price he demands of them.

No, confronting him will not change anything. Instead, I need your help Severus."

"Anything." Severus offered.

Lily giggled. "I'd be careful about how willing you are to do anything Sev. Because you might not like what I'm asking you to do. I need you to help Harry."

Severus snorted. "The brat is fine. Gryffindors little golden boy. Just like his father."

"It's time to take of those rose tinted glasses Albus gave you Severus." Lily snapped. "Who told you how much Harry is like James? Why would that person want to blind you with your old anger so you never properly looked at him?

For all the talk about how smart you are Severus you can really be rather dumb. I know James and you didn't get along, I know he bullied you, but don't try and act all innocent to me, I know very well you gave as good as you got. After all, I helped you get your revenge for years. James still had scars when he died from what we did in our third year. Harry is not James. He may look a fair bit like him, but he is not an exact copy of his father, and if you ever bothered to actually look you would know that.

Do you know what Albus and Minerva did with my little boy after we died? Do you know where they put him?"

"Albus just said he put him somewhere safe." Severus said, not wanting to anger Lily any more, he knew the kind of temper she had. "He was always going on about how much like James Harry was while he was growing up. And Minerva never really talked about it?"

Lily snorted in disgust. "And just how would Albus know anything about how Harry was growing up. He never bothered to go and check on him. He just abandoned him and left him there. He put a squib in the neighbour hood to make sure Harry didn't run away, but the woman is blind as a bat and obsessed with her kneazles, she never really did a damn thing to help Harry. She never even told him magic was real."

"He didn't visit…?" Severus was surprised at that, the way Albus talked it was like he spent every other weekend with the boy while he had been growing up. But come to think of it, Albus very rarely left Hogwarts to go anywhere other than the Ministry or ICW meetings. "He didn't know about magic, how is that possible?"

"After James and I were killed the Wizengamot, under the guidance of the brilliant Albus Dumbledore, sealed our wills and gave guardianship of Harry to Albus. Albus then met with Minerva and Hagrid and left Harry on the doorstep of my sisters house." Lily seethed. "Those idiots didn't even ring the bell. Harry was out there all night. Petunia found him in the morning. They could've killed him. It was bloody November."

"Petunia?" Severus was confused. He knew Lily and Petunia didn't get along, but he also knew Petunia knew about magic. "Surely she would have…"

"What, told Harry about magic? Don't be thick Severus." Lily snapped. "You know very well how my sister felt about magic. She hated it, and she hated anything magical. So how do you think she reacted to getting up one morning and finding her magical nephew on the doorstep with a note telling her about my murder and that she was now expected to raise a magical child? Well let me tell you, she did not react well at all.

She lied to Harry, about everything. She told him James and I died in a car crash, a crash that we caused because we were drunk, and that that was how he got his scar. Anytime anything magical happened around him they lied about it and just told him he was a freak. Those bastards lived in a four bedroom house and my son slept on an old crib mattress in the cupboard under the stairs. His Hogwarts letter was even addressed to that cupboard. It was only after they got the letter they moved Harry to their sons second bedroom because they thought someone might be spying on them. I mean, just look at him, and I mean really look, don't just look at the features that remind you of James, he's too small.

You want to know the truth, Harry actually reminds me a lot of you when we first met. He's too thin, avoids physical contact, tries to always keep his eye on others, especially older males. And when someone tries to intimidate him he refuses to show weakness because he has already been taught that backing down or crying just makes the tormenting worse."

"But he… It can't…" Severus was trying to think. He remembered Potter's first potions class, he remembered how the boy initially started to curl in on himself before he sat up straight, refused to back down, and made a snarky comment. He wanted to see James Potter in that, so he had, but he also knew it was what he would have done, Potter would have been snarky from the beginning and not waited.

"I need you to look past James when you see my son Severus, I need you to help. I can't protect him anymore, I'm already gone, so I need your help. I know you've already sworn to protect him, I just need you to do it and not let Albus mislead you anymore." Lily said.

Severus sat in shock for a moment. So much of what he had believed for the past decade was a lie. Albus had betrayed him, he had let Lily die, and after putting the boy in an unsafe home he had made Severus swear an oath to protect him. "I'll do it."

Lily sighed in relief, glad she had managed to get through to Severus as Harry had asked her to do. Most of the information she had had came from her son after all, once one was dead they couldn't exactly stick around and watch others, not unless they became a ghost, and she hadn't wanted to do that. "Thank you Sev. Now, it's time we get the others in here. Protecting Harry and getting him away from my despicable bitch of a sister is much easier than you might think, so long as you do this right."

Severus was still slightly in shock as he took the spell off his door and opened it to let the two Potter males in.

The first thing Harry did when he entered the office was to look to his mother. She gave him a small smile and nod and he knew she had been successful in getting Snape on their side.

"Before we go any further there is something I need to say." James didn't really like having to do this, but for Harry he would. "I apologize for being a jerk when we were kids Snape."

Severus sneered at the other man. "And you just expect me to forgive you?"

James glanced down at his slightly floating body and then around at the others in the room. "I'm dead, I don't really care. But if you want to spend your own life obsessing over me, ok."

Lily loudly cleared her throat before James and Severus could start arguing. She knew Harry had made her husband apologize, something that was impressive since she had never managed it, but she didn't want it to take up too much time since she didn't want to be there longer than they had to be. "Focus. We need to deal with the Death Eater in Harry's dorm."

"What?" Severus gasped in confusion.

"Sirius…" James started but was cut off by Snape.

"Black is in Azkaban." Severus snapped, how he hated Black. "After betraying you he killed Pettigrew and a bunch of muggles.

"No." James argued.

"Don't start." Lily ordered the two men. "But, James is right Severus. Sirius was never our secret keeper. He was too obvious a choice, so he agreed to be the decoy. We all thought it was clever, we hadn't realized that Peter was a Death Eater by that time. It was Peter that betrayed us to our deaths, not Sirius."

"And Siri didn't kill anyone." James snapped in defence of his brother in all but blood. "Siri went after Peter to arrest him, it was Peter that killed all those people."

"But he died." Severus pointed out. He couldn't believe that little Peter Pettigrew had managed to join the Death Eaters without him knowing, but he trusted Lily not to lie to him.

"No, Peter is most certainly not dead." Lily assured.

"He cut off his finger and blew up the street." James said. "Only after he laid the blame on Sirius for what he had done. Cowardly little rat that he is framed Sirius for everything and the idiots at the Ministry just ate it up."

"But how could he have escaped. Aurors were there within minutes." Severus questioned.

"When James calls him a cowardly rat he means it." Lily said. "Peter is an unregistered animagus. His form is a rat."

"He needed to keep an eye on things so he could wait to hear if his 'master' was returning so he could go suck up to him for protection." James sneered. "So he went to live with a magical family."

"Peter Pettigrew got himself taken in as a pet to the Weasley family." Lily said in disgust. "When Harry first called us James spotted him sleeping comfortably on the youngest Weasley boys bed. I told him to come to you since I knew you are smart enough to out Peter in a way that can get us everything we need."

"You easily could have sent him to Albus or Minerva, both of them would do anything you wanted." Severus said.

Lily scoffed. "The same Albus and Minerva that abandoned my son on my sisters doorstep at night. The same Albus and Minerva that gave that idiot Gilderoy the minimum punishment after he slipped me a love potion when I was a third year. No, I will never trust either of them with my sons safety, I never should have trusted them again after the Gilderoy incident, but the war made me forget just how useless they were at doing the right thing.

If we spoke to Minerva she would run right to Albus since she can't think for herself. And Albus would try and use the information in a way that would benefit his greater good. He wants Harry to stay with my harpy of a sister, Sirius is on the custody list in our wills, but he would no doubt find a way to strip Sirius of Harry's custody if he had time to plan. No, we need to do this in a public way when Albus can not play his games."

"Which is why we were thinking about your potions class when classes restart." James grinned as he thought of their plan.

"What about my class?" Severus questioned, it wasn't like he could argue Albus and Minerva wouldn't do exactly what Lily had said. He knew Albus had used his grief to manipulate him all the time, and he was going to be putting an end to that now he knew the truth.

"Albus always misses the first week of classes to attend the ICW meeting. If you assign the children to brew the restoration potion to test who much of their previous lessons they remember. And if Harry ensured Ronald brought his 'pet' you could test Harry's potion on him.

The restoration potion reverses magics and would force Peter back into his human form. Then you stun him and call the DMLE. Given an adult man has been masquerading as a

childs pet for years they would have to investigate."

"And Mini would be in charge of the school when Albus is away and she would be much easier to control than Albus." James carried on, getting excited to be planning pranks again. "Each child that has stayed in the room with Peter would need to be examined since anything could have happened. Pomfrey is a medi-witch, she isn't qualified to do the kinds of in-depth scans that would be needed to make sure that none of the children were hurt or spelled so you would need to call in a full healer from St. Mungo's."

"And a proper healer would only need a look at Harry's health scan to know he was in an abusive home." Lily continued.

"And they would be able to immediately strip Petunia and Albus of guardianship of Harry, and there would be nothing Albus could do about it. And it would force them to look into Siri's case since Siri obviously couldn't have killed Peter since Peter is alive, and they would find those corrupt assholes at the Ministry hadn't even given Siri a trial to begin with." James was thrilled by the idea. "And once free Sirius could force our wills to be read, granting him Harry's custody."

"You can't know the healers would remove the boy." Severus pointed out. He didn't like the idea of freeing Black, not after everything that had happened when they were teens, but he also knew, from personal experience, just how awful Azkaban was, and even the likes of Sirius Black deserved a trial.

"My mother was a healer." James pointed out. "When it comes to child welfare they are oath bound to protect the child. It's how mum managed to force custody of Siri away from his parents when he ran away."

"What does Black have to do with healers?" Severus sneered.

"Oh come on Snape, you didn't think you were the only one from a bad home did you?" James sneered right back. "Walburga may have doted on Regulus, but she hated Siri. When Siri finally had enough and ran away and told my parents the truth about the abuse my mum ran a health check and was able to prove Walburga had been using whipping and blood boiling hexes on Siri since before he even started Hogwarts."

Severus couldn't deal with that. The idea that his own tormenter was tormented as a child was something he didn't want to think about, he didn't want to have sympathy for the likes of Black so instead he changed the topic. "And what makes you think the Potter spawn could brew a proper restoration potion and not just kill the rat outright?"

"Would you like to tell him, or should I?" Lily questioned her son.

Harry looked at his hands and fidgeted slightly. He had already told his mum about him not trying his best and knew this was her way to excuse his grades going up since he didn't intend to hold back anymore. If his grades had suddenly gone up Snape would without doubt accuse him of cheating so this would be justification for his increasing grades, he just needed to play it right.

"Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn't like me doing better than Dudley, and he's an idiot."

"I'm sure your cousin can't be that bad." Lily cut in thoughtfully, both playing her role as well as slightly defending the nephew she had never met, as bad as Petunia had become she wasn't sure about blaming her child. "Petunia may have never wanted to be anything more than a housewife and mother, but she still did rather well in school."

"On his birthday this summer he got 37 presents, which was one less than the year before, so he threw a temper tantrum. Aunt Petunia promised that when they took him to the zoo they would buy him two more presents. He couldn't figure out how many presents that meant he would have. He is 11 and couldn't figure out what 37 2 was." Harry deadpanned.

"And just how many presents did you get for your birthday?" Severus questioned with a slight sneer, sure that if Petunia was spoiling her son so much the boy just didn't understand normal treatment so was acting all hard done by since he only got an average amount or something.

"This year was the best." Harry smiled, actually happy when he thought of the presents he got. "Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon tried to run away from my Hogwarts letter so Hagrid had to come and give me my letter himself. He brought me a cake the house elves made, but I only got a little since Dudley went for it when Hagrid was explaining magic to me. And then he bought me my owl, Hedwig, and got me some ice cream. Last year I got a pair of Uncle Vernons old socks he didn't want anymore since there was a hole in the toe and a coat hanger, but I didn't have a coat so it wasn't really useful."

Severus actually gaped at that. Even he got more than a coat hanger and a pair of old socks, even if it was just some clothes from the second hand shop.

"But like I was saying, they didn't like it when I did better than Dudley so I always made sure I got enough answers wrong so I wouldn't get in trouble." Harry continued. "And then it was obvious Ron didn't want to work hard, and he gets mad at people that do better than him… He was my first friend and I didn't want to lose him. And then we became friends with Hermione, and she's so obsessed with being the best…"

"You have been sabotaging your work." Severus snarled in outrage. "Do you realize just how dangerous that is. What if you had used the wrong thing to sabotage your potion, you could have killed your classmates, or yourself."

"Which is why I think you should assign Harry weekend detentions for January and have him rebrew each potion you have previously assigned." Lily said.

"MUM!" "LILY!" Harry and James cried out at the same time.

"I could add recommending he have to rewrite all the essays as well?" Lily asked in a viciously sweet voice.

"I'll rebrew the potions." Harry quickly replied in a meek voice.

"Good idea." Lily shared a smile with Severus who seemed to be enjoying this. "Harry is more than capable of brewing the potion correctly. And in doing so it should be easy enough to direct things the way we want. It will get Sirius out of Azkaban, and Harry away from my sister. But Severus, I do have one more request for you. If it becomes evident Sirius can't, or won't, take Harry, I would like you to apply for his custody, I included you in my will and on the custody list just in case."

"I…" Severus was stunned. "Yes Lily. Your friend had better step up Potter, I think we both know I am not exactly parent material."

"Lily!" James was once again shocked at his wife before looking to his old rival. "I swear Snape, Sirius will do right by Harry, if I have to come back from the dead and kick his ass to ensure it."

"It's time for us to go." Lily said as she started to shake.

"She's right." James agreed, pain clear in his voice.

"Stay." Severus pleaded.

"It hurts." Lily sobbed out. "Please Harry, you need to let us go."

"I love you." Harry told his parents. "Professor Snape, do you want to say goodbye?"

"No, let Lily stay." Severus ordered his student.

"Sev, I have to go." Lily pleaded. "It hurts worse the longer we are here. Please, just say a proper goodbye. I left a letter for you with my will that says the things I don't have time to say now. Please Sev, be my friend, say goodbye, let me go."

After being confined in the safe houses Lily had had plenty of time to think. She had been grown up enough to realize she had been unfair to Severus when they were children when she rejected his dozens of apologies. She had chosen to make an addendum to her will to tell him she accepted his apology while also apologizing for taking so long to do so. If a child is exposed to racism for a prolonged time they will naturally mimic and incorporate it into their world view but can grow out of it if given the chance and the right information. The simple fact is children are dumb, and punishing them their entire life for what they said as a child did not make one a good person, it just made you part of the problem. People needed to be allowed to grow and change their opinions.

Severus couldn't deny Lily anything as pearly tears started to drip down her cheek. "Goodbye Lily."

As soon as his professor had said the words Harry turned the resurrection stone over and let his parents return to their rest.

"When can you bring Lily back?" Severus questioned, he wondered if there was a time limit on the stone or something.

"I won't do it Professor." Harry said sadly, still looking at where his parents had previously stood.

"Why not?" Severus would never admit the slight whine in his voice.

"You saw what being here did to them." Harry pointed out. "My pen friend, the one who let me borrow this stone warned me first. If you call a spirit back from the dead you can not keep them here. Being pulled through the vale for them is like having sand paper rubbed against their skin, the longer they are here the more coarse the sand paper, until it is agony for them.

If a soul is brought back across the vale and kept here they change. Their pain and anger makes them into something else. They become a dementor. It is why dementors want our souls. Because if they have an unbound soul inside them they can use it to get back to the other side and return to their rest. I love them too much to put them through that for my own momentary joy."

"Ghosts don't become dementors." Severus pointed out, wanting to just take the stone from the boy and call Lily back himself, but at the same time he never wanted to see her in that kind of pain again.

"Because they choose to stay." Harry said calmly as he sat down opposite his still standing professor at the desk. "Mum chose peace. To drag her away from that is the ultimate cruelty."

Severus slowly sank into his own chair and put his head in his hands, he couldn't argue it, but by the gods he wished he could.

Seeing his professor in that state was not pleasant. After everything Harry himself had been through he knew just how painful it was to let go. But there was still one more thing he needed to do, and Snape's state would make it that much easier. He needed to get Snape to vow to never tell anyone about the stone and his conversation with Harry's dead parents. Albus Dumbledore could never know Harry had had the resurrection stone.

It took a bit of work, but Harry got his way in the end. When he left the office he knew things were about to change, and they were going to change fast.

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Preface

What Happened Next

Thinking and Freaking Out

Harry Proves he can Still be an Idiot

Chapter 4: Meeting and Planning with Voldyquirrell

Voldyquirrell Plays with the Malfoys and Gets the Job Done

When Harry Met Dobby

Welcome Back Regulus Black, Goodbye

Dungeon Bat to Dungeon Ally

Afterword