Chapter 1
Dear Mr. Potter,
Congratulations on surviving until your seventeenth year and receiving your magical inheritance. As you are seventeen, you may now take your Lordships and a Magical Aura Test at Gringotts. If you wish to take your Lordships and a Magical Aura Test, continue holding onto this letter, as it is a Portkey that will transport you to your Vault Accoutant's office at Gringotts at 530 hours.
May the rivers run with the blood of your enemies,
Director Gornuk of Gringotts Bank
Harry hadn't expected to be getting any letters on his seventeenth birthday, given that everyone that cared about him was already at the Burrow. He hadn't been able to sleep the night before, and finally, at around three in the morning, had just decided to take a walk outside.
In a different universe, he had not done this, and Molly Weasley had stopped the Gringotts letter from reaching Harry, believing it to be a trap from the Death Eaters. In this universe, Harry received the Gringotts letter at five o'clock on the morning of 31 July.
He read the letter in complete confusion and slight suspicion. No one had told Harry anything about a magical inheritance, and he had no idea what a Magical Aura Test was. And Lordships? The Potters weren't one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight or a descendant of the Hogwarts Founders, Merlin, Arthur Pendragon, or the Peverells. What Lordships was he supposed to get? The closest he could think of was the Black Lordship, but he wasn't supposed to get that until he was thirty-three, when Sirius would pass it onto him.
Harry knew, of course, that Gringotts letters couldn't be forged, because everyone who tried to forge them had forgotten that goblins had their own greetings and culture. Those who knew their greetings weren't stupid enough to try forging them. And the goblins weren't usually wrong. Which meant that either Dumbledore had lied to him (given the man's past, it was very likely) or James was supposed to have a Lordship nobody knew about.
He was intending to run inside and tell someone that he was going to Gringotts, but he'd forgotten what time it was. Harry was on the doorstep of the Burrow when he was suddenly shooting away from the crooked cottage tower.
A moment later, he was sitting in a little office across from a familiar goblin, who grinned when Harry immediately fell out of the chair.
"Bloody wixen transportation," he growled, getting back into the seat and handing Griphook the letter. "Morn, Griphook."
Usually it was supposed to be "fair morn," but goblins understood if you didn't add the "fair," as a lot of them were not morning people.
"Morn, Harry," Griphook said dryly. "May your gifts be golden."
"Thanks," Harry replied. "What the fuck is a Magical Aura Test?"
Griphook snorted as he pulled a small folder out of the desk, followed by a silver piece of parchment, a green piece of parchment, and a needle. "Put three drops of blood on this parchment and you'll see." He slid the green parchment over to Harry and handed him the needle.
Bloody goblins, Harry thought in both irritation and amusement as he pricked his left pointer finger and squeezed it onto the parchment. The wound vanished immediately as words began appearing on the paper.
Magical Aura Test for Harrison James Potter:
Core: Dark (100% BLOCKED)
Level: Death's Apprentice (ATTEMPTED BLOCK; PARTIALLY FAILED)
Affinities: Death Magic (100% BLOCKED), Soul Magic (100% BLOCKED), Dueling (70% BLOCKED), Parselmagic (100% BLOCKED)
Abilities: Animagus (direwolf); Parselmouth; Legilimens; Occlumens (ATTEMPTED BLOCK; FAILED)
Creature: None
Soulmate(s): Severus Tobias Snape, alias(es) Lord Prince, Potions Master Prince, and the Half-Blood Prince (quarter-vampire; living); Draco Lucius Malfoy, alias(es) Heir Malfoy (eighth-Veela; living)
Familiar(s): Lythiae (Basilisk; living); Hedwig (Snowy Owl; deceased)
Soul: CLEANSING REQUIRED
Compulsions: Hate Slytherins (FAILED), Distrust Slytherins (FAILED), Fight Draco Lucius Malfoy (PARTIALLY FAILED), Hate Voldemort (PARTIALLY FAILED), Distrust Tom Marvolo Riddle, Fight Tom Marvolo Riddle, Hate Dolores Umbridge, Don't Tell Anyone About the Dursleys' Abuse (PARTIALLY FAILED), Don't Tell Anyone About the Blood Quills (PARTIALLY FAILED), Hate Dark Magic, Trust Dumbledore (FAILED), Trust Molly Weasley Nee Prewett (PARTIALLY FAILED)
Other: Armortentia (keyed to Ginevra Molly Weasley; FAILED); Soul was bonded with 3.125% of Tom Marvolo Riddle's Soul (harmless) (ATTEMPTED BLOCK; PARTIALLY FAILED)
Compulsions and blocks cast by Albus Percival Wolfric Brian Dumbledore and Molly Weasley Nee Prewett.
Harry stared at the paper, a mixture of emotions swirling in his mind like an angry tornado. Anger (Who the fuck blocked his magic? Snape and Malfoy were his SOULMATES? Ginny tried to give him a love potion? He was a Horcrux?) pain (Snape and Malfoy were his soulmates! He missed Hedwig so much) shock (He was Dark? Snape and Malfoy were his soulmates?) and confusion (What did 'Death's Apprentice' mean? Lyth was his Familiar? Why did his soul bond with Voldemort's?)
"Griphook," he said blankly.
Griphook looked a little alarmed. "What's wrong?"
Wordlessly, Harry slid the paper back over, and Griphook scanned it, anger and shock sliding across his face.
"Bladvac!" he exclaimed when he'd finished it. "We need to remove these blocks and compulsions before we do anything else!" He snapped his fingers. A moment later, the door opened, and a female goblin appeared.
"Fair morn, sir wizard," she said. "My name is Nilfang. I will be your healer today."
"Morn, Lady Nilfang," Harry said flatly. Her lips twitched.
Griphook handed her the Magical Aura Test and she read it. Anger and shock appeared on her face as well. She whispered something to Griphook in Goblin Tongue and he nodded.
"I'll answer any questions you have when you wake up," Griphook told him.
"Can you write a letter to Remus and Sirius Lupin-Black?" Harry asked as he stood up. "I don't want them to worry that I've been kidnapped."
"Yes, of course."
Harry followed Nilfang out of the office, realizing that there was a note of respect in Griphook's voice that hadn't been there before. It was probably something to do with the 'Death's Apprentice' thing, because the goblins were very worshipful of the deity.
Nilfang led him down the hall and into a room that was very similar to a hospital room, minus the I.V. and the Muggle machinery. Harry took off his shoes and glasses and laid down on the hospital bed at Nilfang's instruction.
"When I finish chanting, you'll drink this," Nilfang said bluntly, handing him a little vial of eerie green liquid. "Drink it quickly, we don't want you to faint before you drink it."
When Harry woke up, he felt very different.
His mind was clearer, making it easier to process all his emotions (now he was just left with fury). His magic was stronger and very Dark, and it was a lot calmer -- instead of the tornado of chaos it had used to be.
Harry blinked. He could see. He'd thought the walls and ceiling were gray, but they were white. Nilfang had come into a much sharper focus, and he could tell what color her eyes were now (very dark gray).
He stood up and blinked again. He was taller. His clothes felt different on him, too; they weren't as loose as they had been.
"May I have a mirror?" he asked slowly. Harry's voice had also changed; it was smoother and deeper.
Nilfang snapped her fingers in response. A full-body mirror appeared in front of Harry.
What the fuck.
The only thing that hadn't changed was his hair color (raven black) and skin color (pale as fuck). But his hair wasn't messy anymore, and his eyes were Avada Kedavra green instead of Lily's emerald green. Harry's facial structure had changed as well: smoother edges, a smaller nose, thinner eyebrows.
He looked a lot like Tom Riddle.
"What the fuck."
Nilfang snorted. "You have many questions, I'm sure. Griphook will answer them. I'll take you back." She made the mirror disappear again and left the room.
Harry followed, feeling amused and irritated -- the usual emotions when he dealt with goblins.
Griphook was no longer alone in his office. Sirius and Remus had joined him. The goblin and Harry's godfather were fast asleep, but Remus was pacing the office, eyes gold.
"Cub?" he exclaimed when he saw Harry, looking shocked.
Sirius jerked awake. "Where'smybaby!" he yelped.
Harry snorted as Griphook sat up, yawning. "Hi," he deadpanned.
"Bloody fuck, Harry," Sirius said admiringly, once he'd woken up properly. "You look-"
"Sirius, that is our cub," Remus said sharply, pulling Harry into a tight hug. "Keep it P.G."
"I'm an adult, Moony," Harry grumbled into Remus' robes.
"Hmm."
Griphook cleared his throat and they broke apart. "Please have a seat," he said to Harry.
"I have many fucking questions," Harry said bluntly, earning a snicker from Sirius (Remus swatted his husband in response), "but let's start with: why the fuck do I look like Voldemort had a kid with James Potter?"
Sirius and Remus looked startled.
"Do you know what a Horcrux is?" was Griphook's response.
Sirius went an amusing mixture of gray and green, but Remus looked confused.
"Yes," Harry said sourly. "Dumbledore wants me to destroy all of Voldy's Horcruxes so I can kill him."
"What?" Sirius yelped. "Voldemort made multiple Horcruxes? Dumbledore wants you to destroy them? Doesn't he know how they work?!"
"All he said was that not much was known about them," said Harry stiffly.
"That might be true for Light families," Griphook said with a faint sneer, "but Dark families have a far wider knowledge of them.
"A Horcrux is an object housing part of a wixen's soul," Griphook told Remus. "The only way to split one's soul is to commit murder.
"That is basically the extent of the Light's knowledge of Horcruxes. This is what the Dark knows:
"When one makes a Horcrux, they don't just split a little bit of the soul off. They rip it in half. If they split their soul too many times, it becomes so unstable that it can split again if someone tries to kill them. Because you had 3.125% of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's soul, he made five Horcruxes before that bit of soul entered yours. The only reason your souls combined instead of immediately rejecting it was because you were so young."
Sirius blanched, and Remus' eyes went gold again.
"No humanoid can have more or less than 100% of a soul. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named still has his entire soul," Griphook added when the two humans and werewolf frowned, "it's just split into objects."
"But I destroyed one of his Horcruxes," Harry frowned. "At the end of my second year."
"You destroyed the container," Griphook corrected. "It would have immediately attached to a different object."
"What about the bit of soul that was attached to me, and bonded with my soul?" Harry frowned.
"His soul would grow to have 6.25% again."
"How are you so good at math?" Sirius grumbled.
Griphook ignored him. "Do you know if he made another Horcrux after he returned?"
"Dumbledore believes he did, since he almost died even though he had five Horcruxes already," Harry replied. "We watched a memory of Horace Slughorn's where a teenage Riddle mentioned wanting to split his soul seven times. He thinks he turned his snake, Nagini, into a Horcrux."
"Seven!" Griphook and Sirius chorused in alarm. "He's fucking insane," Griphook snarled.
"I don't think he was," Harry admitted. "I did my own math to figure out when he was born. He was in a Muggle orphanage in the literal center of the Blitz."
Remus looked horrified, and Griphook winced.
"What's the Blitz?" Sirius asked.
"Do you know what bombs are?" Harry asked Sirius. He made a face. "Do you know what warplanes are?" Sirius nodded. "Imagine hundreds of those dropping bombs on civilians almost every night for eight months straight. I only know how many Muggle casualties there were, but I'm sure wixen were affected as well: 430 people died and about 1600 were injured. According to my math, Riddle was five or six years old during that time."
"How do you know when Riddle was born?" Remus asked, as Sirius and Griphook looked nauseated and horrified.
Harry snorted. "In my second year -- 1992 -- Riddle told me he opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years earlier, in his seventh year -- 1942. I don't know when exactly his birthday was, so he could have been sixteen or seventeen at the time he opened the Chamber. The Blitz happened from September 1931 to May 1932."
"The orphanage wasn't that great either," Harry added darkly.
"What do you mean?" Griphook frowned.
"I'm pretty sure he was bullied until his accidental magic killed one of his bullies' pets, when he was seven years old," Harry said bluntly. The three winced. "He was adopted many times, but they were all Muggles and didn't like his 'talents,' so they sent him back. The staff also didn't really trust him. I know more happened, given the look on eleven-year-old Tom Riddle's face when Dumbledore told him he was a wizard, but I don't know what."
"I kind of understand why he hates Muggles now," Sirius said grudgingly.
Griphook cleared his throat. "As enlightening as this is, we still have a lot of work to do."
Harry nodded. "You were explaining why I look a lot like teenage Riddle."
"When his soul joined with yours, it made it so he was essentially a third parent," Griphook said simply. Harry, Remus, and Sirius stared at him. "One third of each of your parents' DNA was replaced with his. Had Dumbledore not tried blocking the soul-changing process, that is what would have happened, anyway. Now that the block has been completely removed, that's what will happen now."
"So... some of my old habits and talents will be gone and some of my personality will change?" Harry guessed.
"Yes." Griphook handed Harry back the Magical Aura Test. "Do you have any other questions before you take the Inheritance Test?"
His tone indicated that they needed to hurry.
"Just one, I guess," Harry said with a sigh. "What's Death's Apprentice?"
Both Sirius and Remus looked confused this time. Griphook rolled his eyes at them. "Have you read the tales of Beedle the Bard?"
"No," Harry said shortly. "My lovely Muggle relatives didn't even let me read Muggle children's stories. But I know what some of them are; Ron and Neville told me about them. Luna mentioned her favorite story of Beedle's was The Tale of the Three Brothers."
"That is the story I want to talk about," Griphook said. "Unlike the other stories Beedle wrote, which were fables, this story is actually true, to a point.
"I'll just summarize instead of telling the whole story," the goblin decided, looking a little annoyed. "It stars the three famous Peverell brothers -- Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus. Your father is descended from Ignotus, the youngest brother," Griphook added. Harry's jaw dropped. "Most of history don't know this, but they were the most powerful Death Mages of this time."
"Do you mean Necromancers?" Sirius frowned.
Griphook spat out an insult in Goblin Tongue, making Sirius and Remus jump in surprise. "Pretenders! False worshippers!"
"Griphook, you can yell at them later," Harry said dryly.
He was scowling, but Griphook moved on. "Entitatem Death gave each of them a gift of their choosing. Antioch, the eldest, asked for the most powerful wand in existence, so Entitatem Death made him one from an Elder tree, with a Thestral tail hair for the core. Cadmus, the middle child, asked for a stone that would bring people back to life, as he had lost his wife in childbirth. No one can bring back the dead except for Entitatem Death and their apprentice-" Harry started "-so the best they could do was give him the power to speak to the dead. Entitatem Death gave him the Spirit's Stone, which could summon the spirits of the dead. Ignotus, the wisest (and some rumors say he was the lover of Entitatem Death) asked for something that would hide him from his enemies. Entitatem Death gave him a piece of their own cloak. This is the first recorded incident of an Invisibility Cloak, but this one is supposed to never fade, and no magic can work against it, and it cannot be destroyed."
Sirius sputtered. "That's why James' cloak still works?! Merlin's fucking balls-"
"Sirius!"
swat
"Ow!"
"I have Death's bloody Invisibility Cloak," Harry said blankly, ignoring the chaos that was his honorary parents.
"Death's Shroud, is what it's called," Griphook corrected, looking faintly amused. "Yes, apparently you do."
"How did I become Death's Apprentice?" Harry asked.
"According to legend," Griphook said with a sneer, "if one masters all three Hallows, they become Master of Death. That is a mis-translation -- it's supposed to be 'Death is the Master.' And you own two of the three Hallows anyway: the Spirit's Stone and Death's Shroud."
"How do I own the Spirit's Stone?" Harry asked. "I thought Voldemort owned it. He's descended from the second brother," he told Sirius and Remus, who looked puzzled.
"You conquered him three times, making you Lord Slytherin and Lord Peverell," Griphook said dryly. "Ownership of the Elder's Wand is a little more difficult, because wands are sentient, and they choose who owns them. The previous owner of the wand, according to rumor, was Albus Dumbledore. Did you disarm him?" he asked wryly.
"No, but Draco Malfoy did at the end of last year, and I disarmed him in anger afterward," Harry said slowly.
"What!" Sirius yelped.
"He was terrified, Sirius," Harry said coldly. "He only did it because Voldemort was either threatening to kill him or his parents. He was supposed to kill Dumbledore, but Voldemort knew he wouldn't be able to do it anyway."
"Voldemort ordered a child to kill Dumbledore?" Remus asked angrily.
"Because He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named split his soul," Griphook said bluntly, "his mind and his magic are also fractured."
"So if I want to be happy and bloody alive," Harry grumbled, "I have to put his soul back together?"
"What!"
Harry turned to Sirius. "I think I'm tired of doing whatever Dumbledore tells me to do. I think teenage Tom Riddle had a lot more potential than the homicidal maniac he is now. If he has his soul and his mind back, he might actually be helpful instead of a hindrance. He's very clever and patient, and I think he can persuade people to stop being dicks to so-called 'Dark' creatures."
Remus looked pained. One look at his husband's face and Sirius sighed. "Fiiiiiiiiiinnnnnne," he said dramatically.
Harry snorted. "What do I have to do as Death's Apprentice?" he asked Griphook.
"Just do as they say," Griphook replied. "It's an apprenticeship for Death Magic and Soul Magic," he added. "Are you ready to take your Inheritance Test now?"
Inheritance Test for Harrison James Potter:
Name: Harrison James Potter
Parents: Tom Marvolo Riddle, alias(es) Lord Voldemort, The Dark Lord, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, You-Know-Who (Parent, unspecified; living); James Fleamont Potter, alias(es) Prongs (Sire; deceased); Lily Potter Nee Evans (Bearer; deceased)
Godparents: Sirius Orion Lupin-Black, alias(es) Lord Black, Padfoot (living); Alice Longbottom Nee Selwin (living)
Lord to:
Griffindor (through J.F.P.)
Ravenclaw (through S.O.L.-B.)
Hufflepuff (through L.P. Nee E.)
Slytherin (through conquest)
Peverell (through conquest)
Gaunt (through T.M.R.)
Heir to:
Black (through S.O.L.-B.)