New name new game

Harry stared down at his shoes as the blue lights in the department store flickered.  You see, Harry had just blown up Aunt Marge, cast one glance at Uncle Vernon’s infuriated face and promptly grabbed his shit from the cupboard and left. He had let Hedwig free to fly around as Harry sat in the closed store. A lifetime of living in a locked cupboard taught Harry how to break locks pretty well. 

So here Harry sat, trying to think of his next move.

Maybe he could get word to the Weasleys and ask them to come get him. If he could get to Diagon Alley then the Leaky could be an option, but how the fuck was he supposed to get to the Leaky Cauldron. Plus, the Ministry probably already knew he had performed underage magic, so he was royally screwed on all levels.

It was also 12:06 in the morning, according to the clock on the adjacent wall, which meant he was officially 13. Happy birthday Harry. Thirteen. Woohoo. 

A light suddenly emerged from across the store, from the door that led to the rest of the mall. Bloody security guards. Harry quietly stood up and grabbed his trunk, wincing at the squeak of the door as he made his way out into the parking lot.

“Hedwig?” Harry called, walking towards the direction of the road with his wand in hand.

The rain pouring down was getting on his glasses, and Harry kept trying to dry it off with his sleeve. He couldn’t see shit . Hedwig finally swept down and Harry reached up his wand arm for her to land on. What Harry did not expect was a massive glaring light to pop out of nowhere. Harry fell back, looking up at a bright bus that materialized out of thin air. 

“Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board, and we can take you anywhere you want to go. My name is Stan Shunpike, and I will be your conductor this eve --" The conductor stopped abruptly. He had just caught sight of Harry, who was still sitting on the ground. Harry snatched up his wand again and scrambled to his feet.

"What were you doin' down there?" said Stan, dropping his professional manner. 

"Fell over," said Harry, sitting up and pulling down his curls over his forehead a little more to cover his scar. Harry didn’t feel like being recognized today.

"Choo fall over for?" sniggered Stan. 

"I didn't do it on purpose," said Harry, annoyed. One of the knees in his jeans was torn, and the hand he had thrown out to break his fall was bleeding.

“What’s your name?” Stan asked.

“Neville Longbottom,” Harry coolly replied without a second of hesitation.

“Well, come on, then Neville. Let's not wait for the grass to grow,” Stan said, motioning inside the bus and walking past Harry to grab his trunks.

Okay then, Harry thought. He was just going to go with the flow at this point. 

"Listen, how much would it be to get to London?" Harry asked Stan. 

"Eleven Sickles," said Stan, "but for fifteen you get 'or chocolate, and for fifteen you get an 'ot water bottle an' a toothbrush in the color of your choice." 

Harry rummaged once more in his trunk, extracted his money bag, and shoved some gold into Stan's hand. He and Stan then lifted his trunk, with Hedwig's cage balanced on top, up the steps of the bus. There were no seats; instead, half a dozen brass bedsteads stood beside the curtained windows. Candles were burning in brackets beside each bed, illuminating the wood-paneled walls. A tiny wizard in a nightcap at the rear of the bus muttered, "Not now, thanks, I'm pickling some slugs" and rolled over in his sleep. 

"You 'ave this one," Stan whispered, shoving Harry's trunk under the bed right behind the driver, who was sitting in an armchair in front of the steering wheel. "This is our driver, Ernie Prang. This, is Neville Longbottom, Ern. Take 'er away, Ern," said Stan, sitting down in the armchair next to Ernie's.

Going with the flow became increasingly more difficult when some severed heads and Ernie began driving the bus, and Harry’s already bruised body gained plenty more with the way the bus was being thrown around.

As he finally found his balance on a bed, Harry glanced up at Stan, who had unfurled a copy of the Daily Prophet and was now reading with his tongue between his teeth. A large photograph of a sunken-faced man with long, matted hair blinked slowly at Harry from the front page. He looked strangely familiar. 

"That man!" Harry said, forgetting his troubles for a moment. "He was on the Muggle news!" 

Stanley turned to the front page and chuckled. "Sirius Black," he said, nodding. "'Course 'e was on the Muggle news, Neville, where you been?" He gave a superior sort of chuckle at the blank look on Harry's face, removed the front page, and handed it to Harry. "You oughta read the papers more, Neville." 

Harry held the paper up to the candlelight and read: 

BLACK STILL AT LARGE. 

Sirius Black, possibly the most infamous prisoner ever to be held in Azkaban fortress, is still eluding capture, the Ministry of Magic confirmed today. "We are doing all we can to recapture Black," said the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, this morning, "and we beg the magical community to remain calm." Fudge has been criticized by some members of the International Federation of Warlocks for informing the Muggle Prime Minister of the crisis. "Well, really, I had to, don't you know," said an irritable Fudge. "Black is mad. He's a danger to anyone who crosses him, magic or Muggle. I have the Prime Minister's assurance that he will not breathe a word of Black's true identity to anyone. And let's face it-who'd believe him if he did?" While Muggles have been told that Black is carrying a gun (a kind of metal wand that Muggles use to kill each other), the magical community lives in fear of a massacre like that of twelve years ago, when Black murdered thirteen people with a single curse.

Harry looked into the shadowed eyes of Sirius Black, the only part of the sunken face that seemed alive. Harry had never met a vampire, but he had seen pictures of them in his Defense Against the Dark Arts classes, and Black, with his waxy white skin, looked just like one.

"Scary-lookin' fing, inee?" said Stan, who had been watching Harry read. 

"He murdered thirteen people?" asked Harry, handing the page back to Stan, "with one curse?" 

"Yep," said Stan, "in front of witnesses an' all. Broad daylight. Big trouble it caused, dinnit, Ern?" 

"Ar," said Ern darkly. 

Stan swiveled in his armchair, his hands on the back, to look better at Harry. "Black woz a big supporter of You-Know-'Oo," he said. 

"What, Voldemort?" said Harry, without thinking. 

Even Stan's pimples went white; Ern jerked the steering wheel so hard that a whole farmhouse had to jump aside to avoid the bus. "You outta your tree?" yelped Stan. "'Choo say 'is name for?"

"Sorry," said Harry hastily. "Sorry, I -- I forgot --" "Forgot!" said Stan weakly. "Blimey, my 'eart's goin' that fast ..." 

"So -- so Black was a supporter of You-Know-Who?" Harry prompted apologetically. 

"Yeah," said Stan, still rubbing his chest. "Yeah, that's right. Very close to You-Know-'Oo, they say. Anyway, when little 'Arry Potter got the better of You-Know-'Oo --"

Harry nervously flattened his bangs down again, finding his hair’s curls more defined and tame than usual. Weird.

"-- all You-Know-'Oo's supporters was tracked down, wasn't they, Ern? Most of 'em knew it was all over, wiv You-Know-'Oo gone, and they came quiet. But not Sirius Black. I 'eard he thought 'e'd be second-in-command once You-Know-'Oo 'ad taken over. Anyway, they cornered Black in the middle of a street full of Muggles an' Black took out 'is wand and 'e blasted 'alf the street apart, an' a wizard got it, an' so did a dozen Muggles what got in the way. 'Orrible, eh? An' you know what Black did then?" Stan continued in a dramatic whisper. 

"What?" asked Harry.

"Laughed," said Stan. "Jus' stood there an' laughed. An' when reinforcements from the Ministry of Magic got there, I 'e went wiv em quiet as anyfink, still laughing 'is 'ead off. 'Cos 'e's mad, inee, Ern? Inee mad?" "If he weren't when he went to Azkaban, he will be now," said Ern in his slow voice. "I'd blow meself up before I set foot in that place. Serves him right, mind you ... after what he did....They 'ad a job coverin' it up, din' they, Ern?" Stan said. "'Ole street blown up an' all them Muggles dead. What was it they said ad 'appened, Ern?"

"Gas explosion," grunted Ernie. 

"An' now 'e's out," said Stan, examining the newspaper picture of Black's gaunt face again. "Never been a breakout from Azkaban before, 'as there, Ern? Beats me 'ow 'e did it. Frightenin', eh? Mind, I don't fancy 'is chances against them Azkaban guards, eh, Ern?" Ernie suddenly shivered. 

"Talk about summat else, Stan, there's a good lad. Them Azkaban guards give me the collywobbles." 

Stan put the paper away reluctantly, and Harry leaned against the window of the Knight Bus, feeling worse than ever. He couldn't help imagining what Stan might be telling his passengers in a few nights' time. "'Ear about that 'Arry Potter? Blew up 'is aunt! We 'ad 'im 'ere on the Knight Bus, di'n't we, Ern? 'E was tryin' I to run for it...." He, Harry, had broken wizard law just like Sirius Black. Was inflating Aunt Marge bad enough to land him in Azkaban? Harry didn't know anything about the wizard prison, though everyone he'd ever heard speak of it did so in the same fearful tone. Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, had spent two months there only last year. Harry wouldn't soon forget the look of terror on Hagrid's face when he had been told where he was going, and Hagrid was one of the bravest people Harry knew. 

The Knight Bus rolled through the darkness, scattering bushes and wastebaskets, telephone booths and trees, and Harry lay, restless and miserable, on his feather bed. After a while, Stan remembered that Harry had paid for hot chocolate, but poured it all over Harry's pillow when the bus moved abruptly from Anglesea to Aberdeen. One by one, wizards and witches in dressing gowns and slippers descended from the upper floors to leave the bus. They all looked very pleased to go. Finally, Harry was the only passenger left. "Right then, Neville," said Stan, clapping his hands, “where abouts in London?”

"Diagon Alley," said Harry. 

"Righto," said Stan. "'Old tight, then."

BANG. 

They were thundering along Charing Cross Road. Harry sat up and watched buildings and benches squeezing themselves out of the Knight Bus's way. The sky was getting a little lighter. He would lie low for a couple of hours, go to Gringotts the moment it opened, then set off -- where? He didn't know. Ern slammed on the brakes and the Knight Bus skidded to a halt in front of a small and shabby-looking pub, the Leaky Cauldron, behind which lay the magical entrance to Diagon Alley. 

"Thanks," Harry said to Ern. He jumped down the steps and helped Stan lower his trunk and Hedwig's cage onto the pavement. 

"Well," said Harry. "'Bye then!" But Stan wasn't paying attention. Still standing in the doorway to the bus and goggling at the shadowy entrance to the Leaky Cauldron.

Harry saw a man standing outside of the entrance, who Stan was staring at, and realized it was Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic himself.

The Minister didn’t so much as glance at Harry, so he looked down and made his way past him to enter the pub. Harry was not about to draw attention to himself, especially because he was pretty sure he had broken some underage magic rule.

The owner of the Leaky Cauldron Harry knew as Tom was standing behind the bar, and he didn’t seem to even recognize Harry. He wasn’t about to complain.

“Ah young lad, need a room?” Tom asked, wiping a glass with a towel.

“Yes please, just one,” Harry responded, pulling out his money bag and placing Hedwig’s cage on the table.

“Of course, how many nights?” Tom asked, writing something down.

“Um, let’s start with a week,” Harry said, unsure of his current living arrangements.

Harry quickly paid Tom and made his way up to his room, where he promptly collapsed onto his bed after letting Hedwig out through the window to hunt to her heart’s content.

-

As Harry cracked open his eyes to the sun beams flowing through the window, last night all came flooding back to him. Harry was impossibly sore, and even hit his head on the beam of the bed when he went to get out of it.

Harry smiled as he saw Hedwig asleep in the room, and he desperately needed a shower.

He grabbed a change of clothes and made his way toward the bathroom, but the items in his hands were abruptly dropped as he caught his reflection in the mirror. 

Harry looked away from the mirror, and looked back expecting to see his normal self. Instead, the foreign face remained. Sharp cheekbones, still a little soft from his young age, a sharper nose, curly yet tame hair that seemed much darker than before, impossibly greener eyes with almost a crimson touch, and overall a very different boy, If Harry didn’t know any better he almost looked like the diary Tom Riddle from last year’s encounter in the Chamber of Secrets. 

He looked posh, and kind of like a little shit. The type of boy who would be in expensive robes and sitting with Malfoy, Nott, and Zabini, not in muggle pajama pants and Harry .

Harry’s breathing picked up. Why did he look like this? What the fuck was happening? Harry had so many questions, and realized this was why no one recognized him last night. Fudge may have very well been waiting for Harry Potter, afterall. The only problem was, Harry Potter never arrived.

Harry touched his face, just to make sure it was real, and noticed he forgot to put on his glasses but could see more clearly than he had ever been able to previously, even spotting the slight freckles on his nose. The only thing that seemed the same about him was the scar that still was visible on his forehead. Harry never thought he would find that scar reassuring.

Harry got ready quickly and made his way downstairs, thankfully seeing no one he recognized, and tapped the bricks that would lead him into Diagon Alley. He needed to figure out what was happening, and fast . The easiest way to seek knowledge, at least according to Hermione, was by reading books.

Harry got a surprise as he looked in the bookshop window. Instead of the usual display of gold- embossed spellbooks the size of paving slabs, there was a large iron cage behind the glass that held about a hundred copies of The Monster Book of Monsters. Torn pages were flying everywhere as the books grappled with each other, locked together in furious wrestling matches and snapping aggressively. 

Harry walked in and made his way over to books on runes and charms. The first way he discovered to alter an appearance from quickly flipping through books, other than polyjuice- which Harry was sure he did not have purely because it tasted so awful- was the use of glamours. Harry grabbed a few books and threw them in his bag, figuring that one of the texts must yield answers.

Harry pulled his school booklist out of his pocket and consulted it for the first time, figuring he could get that out of the way today as well.

“Hogwarts is it? Anything I can help you find?” the book manager asked after he saw Harry wander aimlessly.

"Yes, thank you," said Harry, looking down his booklist, "I need Unfogging the Future by Cassandra Vablatsky."

"Ah, starting Divination, are you?" asked the manager, stripping off his gloves and leading Harry into the back of the shop, where there was a corner devoted to fortune-telling. A small table was stacked with volumes such as Predicting the Unpredictable: Insulate Yourself Against Shocks and Broken Balls: When Fortunes Turn Foul. "Here you are,” said the manager, who had climbed a set of steps to take down a thick, black- bound book. "Unfogging the Future. Very good guide to all your basic fortune-telling methods - palmistry, crystal balls, bird entrails.”

Harry smiled gratefully, but really did not look forward to Divination. He would have rather taken arithmancy, something that had come easily to him in muggle school but could also give him a challenge. Of course, Ron declared that they would take Divination, so Harry was stuck with it.

Harry emerged from Flourish and Blotts with his new books under his arms and made his way back to the Leaky Cauldron, hardly noticing where he was going and bumping into several people. He tramped up the stairs to his room, went inside, and tipped his books onto his bed. Somebody had been in to tidy; the windows were open and sun was pouring inside. Harry could hear the buses rolling by in the unseen Muggle street behind him and the sound of the invisible crowd below in Diagon Alley. He caught sight of himself in the mirror over the basin, still not used to his new look whatsoever.

“I need to figure this the fuck out,” Harry declared to Hedwig.

Was it possible that someone had cast a glamour on him last night? Harry thought it wasn’t likely after reading some of the texts obsessively for hours, given that glamours often required runes or some object to center the spell on. That or blood glamours, which he was sure did not happen last night.

The final book offered one last piece of advice: see a cursebreaker, so that’s how Harry found himself at Levski Curse Breakers, a shop situated right next to Ollivanders and looking equally uninhabited.

Harry pushed open the door and peered inside, seeing the top of a head sticking up behind the counter.

“Excuse me?” Harry asked as the head shot up, and Harry was met with a tall blonde man who looked around Charlie Weasley’s age.

“Fitz Levski, how might I help you?” The man asked with a smile on his face.

“Well…it’s difficult to explain,” Harry started.

“Come, sit down,” Fitz said, motioning to the small sofa and chair to the left. 

Harry must have looked hesitant to reveal any information after they sat down because Fitz said, “not to worry, this business has complete client confidentiality. I cannot share anything you tell me, any curse and I’ll try my very best to help,” Fitz said, still smiling.

“I don’t normally look like this,” Harry said pointing at his face. “The night before last I looked normal and I woke up yesterday looking completely different,” Harry said.

“Did anything happen? Any ritual?” Fitz asked.

“Well…no. But, it was my thirteenth birthday, yesterday I mean,” Harry said.

“Happy birthday mate, it could be related to that, almost definitely related to that. Let me run some diagnostics- and, what did you say your name was again?” Fitz asked.

Harry thought about offering a fake persona, but decided fuck it. “Harry potter, you can call me Harry,” he said, smiling and holding out a hand at Fitz while the man’s jaw dropped.

“Wow, I see,” Fitz said, accepting the handshake. “Come on, let’s go downstairs to start the diagnostics,” he said, leading the way to a door.

Harry followed the man down the steps and into a stone room with a table Harry was supposed to lay on.

“This shouldn't be painful, unless there are somehow other glamours or blocks on your body. Are you aware of any?” Fitz asked, taking out his wand.

“Fuck no,” Harry blatantly responded.

“Alright then, I’ll begin,” Fitz said. And yeah, he fucking began. A few seconds in Harry began to feel a searing hot pain across his body, and he gasped out in pain. Then a cold chill came along that slowly got to the point of numbing and then like shards of ice penetrating every part of his skin, and then just when he thought that was over he felt like he was being buried alive under sharp rocks and then like a tornado was ripping every part of his body away from his mind. Harry was aware he must have been screaming, but he couldn’t hear anything, or see anything for that matter. He could only feel pain.

When it all finally stopped he felt like he could breathe again and Fitz looked like he had just walked through literal hell. Fitz conjured a parchment, still not speaking, and read a list of results.

“Okay, yeah,” Fitz said out of breath. “You had a glamour, and I am not qualified enough for this shit,” he honestly said.

“Wait…I had one? Did you get it off?” Harry said, feeling his face to try and see if he was back to his old self and still shaking from the pain of the tests.

“No, your old self was the glamour. This is your true self,” Fitz said cautiously.

“What? No, I don’t understand. I looked just like my dad before,” Harry said, taking in a lot of information all at once.

“I don’t know, but there was a blood glamour on you, I have it right here on this result,” Fitz said, showing the parchment.

“Is there a way to look like myself before?” Harry asked.

“I can give you a glamour, now, for an extra charge,” Fitz offered.

Harry quickly agreed and soon found himself wearing a black stone on a silver chain, runes carved on the back as Fitz asked Harry to visualize his previous appearance. As long as Harry was wearing the necklace, according to Fitz, he would look like Harry Potter.

“What does all of this mean,” Harry said, shoving his face in his hands and shaking his head.

“I think you should go to Gringotts, and get a blood test. If this is who you are, there’s a chance you were blood adopted. It might have necessitated a blood glamour,” Fitz said.

The only part of that sentence that Harry understood was ‘go to Gringotts’ so that’s where he headed after thanking and paying Fitz, with the promise that he would go to Fitz or write to him if he ever needed help. That might not have even been a false promise, Harry did like the man. Harry decided to continue his new look when he went to Gringotts to go unrecognized, and tucked the necklace into his pocket.

It was getting late now, so Harry quickly made his way to Gringotts and approached the goblin at the front desk. “Good evening, I was wondering if I could receive a blood test?” Harry asked.

The goblin didn’t look up when he said, “5 galleons.” 

Harry quickly dug out the money and paid the goblin, who looked at Harry with a curious look. 

“Ah, you’re finally here for your heirships,” the goblin said.

“Sorry?” Harry questioned.

“Follow me,” the goblin gruffed.

Harry complied, but remained confused about the heirships. They made their way into an office where Griphook was sitting behind a desk, the Potter account manager and someone that Harry had seen once when visiting with Hagrid.

The goblins talked to each other and Griphook looked at Harry with the same curious look the other goblin had given him earlier. 

“Please, take a seat,” Griphook announced to Harry, who did just that. Griphook grabbed a parchment and small dagger, as well as a vial of clear liquid. Griphook placed a drop of the clear liquid on the parchment before he turned back to Harry and offered the dagger. “Three drops of blood, please,” Griphook said.

Harry figured this made sense. It was called a blood test, after all, so he sliced the dagger on part of his finger and let three drops hit the parchment. If only Harry knew how much he would come to regret taking that fucking dagger.

Words started appearing on the parchment, filling the page with dark letters that made absolutely no sense to Harry.

Because the words before him couldn’t be real.

They weren’t real.

Harry knew.

He knew his parents.

He knew his family.

He knew who he was.

He wasn’t….

He wasn’t him .

He could never be…Damian.

Damian Marvolo Riddle Black

Harrison James Potter - Blood Adoption

Born October 27, 1980

Father:

 Tom Marvolo Riddle

James Fleamont Potter - Blood Adoption

Mother:

 Bellatrix Druella Black

Lily Evans Potter - Blood Adoption

Godfathers: 

Lucius Malfoy

Severus Snape

Tiberius Nott

Regulus Black

Bartemius Crouch Jr

Sirius Black - Blood adoption

Godmothers: 

Narcissa Malfoy

Lucrezia Zabini

Heirships:

Slytherin

Black

Peverell

Potter

Gaunt

Harry didn’t really know what to do with this information. He might have been in shock, because there was no fucking way. Actually no fucking way in the history of the whole ass universe that somehow he has been living 13- no 12 years as a…what? A fucking riddle? A son of fucking Voldemort. No chance in hell. Harry was waiting for Fred and George to pop out and declare their best prank to date, but no, Griphook was acting like this was normal.

Griphook called something to a goblin standing outside the room, and soon another goblin walked in. Harry was still sitting at the parchment silently, but they were talking about something.Harry was just too out of it to listen.

Eventually, after a few minutes Harry snapped out of it and tuned into their conversation. The new goblin said, “I must call my clients, Griphook. They must know their heir has returned.”

Griphook was fuming, saying, “the heir is not ready and there is no policy requiring us to reveal this to his family. We are both aware of their current alliances, we cannot risk anything.”

“Wait…no. You can’t tell them I’m him. You can’t!” Harry yelled.

“Heir Black, your family has waited for you for so long. They haven’t stopped looking,” the other goblin said.

“What’s your name?” Harry asked.

“Steelclaw,” the goblin responded.

“Okay well, Steelclaw, fuck you and fuck this. I will empty every single one of my fucking vaults in this place and seek a new bank if you even whisper a word about my true identity outside of this room. My apparent father has attempted to kill me three times, so don’t even start with the family shit. I don’t want to know them, they won’t want to know me, understand?” Harry asked, fuming now. Griphook smiled.

“I believe we are done here, unless you require anything else, Mr. Potter?” Griphook asked.

“I just need to visit my vault,” Harry said, glaring at Steelclaw and following Griphook out.

-

Later, when Harry was back in his room in the Leaky Cauldron, he allowed everything to sink in. Harry never cried, he had learned at a young age that crying only made his aunt and uncle more angry. But, Harry cried. He cried because his dream had come true. The dream that one day, he would have a family. And now, it was all for nothing, because his family was the Dark Lord himself and all of his followers. So, Harry cried as Hedwig tried to comfort him. 

He cried for the loss of two families all at once. He cried for the loss of who he was, his identity, his reason for living. He cried because of the entirely indisputable fact that right now, he was alone in the world. Ron had a family, Hermione had a family, Harry had Hedwig. It was Harry and Hedwig against the world, and the world was content on firing missile after missile at them.