Chapter 1
So this is the chosen one. The child of prophecy. He doesn’t look like much, but then, he’s spent most of his life in the muggle world, so mayhap that influenced how he grew up. It took me some time to gather enough strength to do this, and I can feel a part of me in the child, so I think I’ll stay close, and see what I might be able to do here. Unknown to everyone in the train car, the specter slowly drifted down and hovered behind Harry Potter, who shivered at the sudden draft on his neck. The talk in the cabin was about the escaped murderer, Sirius Black, and when he would be coming to Hogwarts to kill Harry. Of course, no one wanted to put it like that, but those thoughts were never far from the minds of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.
The only adult in the car was feigning sleep and listening closely to the conversations, aware that the son of his best friend was just inches away from him, but not wanting to do anything to alert the child to his position with regards to James and Lily. “Is the Minister mad?” Hermione queried, eyes wide with shock. “I mean, to put dementors around the school for just one man is a bit mental.”
“He has to be seen protecting the Boy Who Lived,” Ron replied matter-of-factly. Harry winced at the title and scowled at his best friend.
“You do know that I hate that title,” the brunet snarked angrily. “In fact, I hate all the titles that the Prophet seems to invent for me; the good and the bad. I just wish that, for once, everyone would leave me alone so that I can get my magical education. If I could just be normal, for once…” His voice trailed off as the temperature in the cabin dropped appreciably, eyes wide as he and his friends shivered with fear.
“What’s going on?” Ron asked shakily. “Why’s the train stopped?” Before anyone could say anything else, screams down the train alerted them to the danger, but they didn’t move fast enough to escape as one of the soul-sucking demons shoved the cabin door open and leaned in, mouth open and heading greedily for the emerald eyed teen.
“No… No… Not Harry! Please, not Harry!”
“Stand aside you silly girl.”
“No… No… Kill me! Don’t kill my baby! Not my Harry!”
“Stand aside, and I’ll let you live. I only want the boy.”
“Not Harry! You can’t have Harry!” The sudden flash of a green light, accompanied by high-pitched, cruel laughter, and pain, like none other ever felt before…
“Harry? Harry!” a girl’s voice screeched as he felt his body being shaken. Emerald eyes drifted slowly open, and for a moment, the teen didn’t remember where he was, but then memories soon flooded his mind, and a slow, cruel smile crawled across his face. Hermione continued to shake the prostrate teen as she looked over at the redhead sitting on the bench beside the boy’s body. “Ron! I think something’s wrong with Harry!”
“I’m all right,” the raven haired teen groaned, hand rising and covering his face to hide his smile. It worked, he thought gleefully. As soon as the dementor took the boy’s soul, I slid into place, hoping that I could use this body for my own. With the horcrux already in the child, I was able to anchor myself to it, and now I have the perfect disguise. I can do whatever I want now, for who would dare deny the Boy Who Lived.
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The train arrived at Hogsmeade, and everyone piled off, surprised to see some of the professors waiting for them. The conductor had sent word ahead to the castle, informing the headmaster of the dementor attack, and that a couple of the students were a little shaken by the experience. He had Severus, Flitwick and Sinistra waiting for them as they disembarked. “Is everyone all right?” Filius queried as he bustled forward, checking over the students as they passed.
“We’re fine, professor,” Harry replied, emerald eyes locked onto the ebony gaze of his potions professor. He let a red glow invade his verdant orbs for a moment, and Snape paled drastically, hands trembling as he realized exactly at whom he was looking. With a barely-there nod, the Potions Master acknowledged the Dark Lord, then spun on his heels, cloak flaring out like great bat wings as he marched back to the castle to report.
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“It was a very near thing, Albus,” Remus Lupin told the old man frantically. He was pacing back and forth in the headmaster’s office, still thrumming from the adrenaline rush of seeing his friends’ son nearly killed by a dementor. Snape was standing in his usual place, watching the wolf pace back and forth with a curl of disdain curving his lips. “It had its mouth open and was sucking, but I couldn’t get to it right away because the other kids in the compartment were piled on top of me and preventing me from reaching my wand. It was a struggle, but I finally got it out and sent the dementor away. Harry was passed out on the floor, and it took several moments before he finally came around.”
“Good thing you were there, Remus, my boy,” Dumbledore said in a calming tone. A couple more circuits around the office, and the werewolf finally settled in one of the squashy chairs in front of the antique desk. “You’re sure that nothing out of the ordinary happened. That the dementor wasn’t successful in taking Harry’s soul.”
“I’m sure,” the lycan reassured his mentor gently. “I think that Harry passed out from whatever memories he was shown during the short exchange. What I want to know is what Fudge thinks he’s doing by placing all these dementors all over the place. A whole train full of the wizarding world’s future hung in the balance today because of that man’s stupidity.”
“He’s trying to protect Harry from Sirius Black,” Dumbledore explained softly, hand stroking his beard in comfort. The other professors saw his hand tremble, but weren’t cruel enough to point it out. “He’s assured me that they won’t get near the students; that they’ll be stationed outside the wards.”
“If today is an indication of his ‘assurances’, I’d rather take my chances with Black!” Lupin snapped angrily, hands flailing about in his agitation. “What do we do if they get near the children again? Merlin, how will we protect Harry from them? There’s far too many for all of us to handle at once if they decide to go rogue.”
“Relax, Remus,” the old man soothed, hands moving slowly up and down in front of him in a calming gesture. “You’ll give Harry private lessons on the patronus charm, but I don’t want you to tell him that you knew his parents.”
“Why not?” the werewolf queried, confused. “If I can establish a closer relationship with him, he’ll be more likely to trust me.”
“While that is true, I don’t want to encourage the boy to think that he could turn to you for shelter from the muggle world,” the headmaster explained. “He’s staying with his mother’s sister and her family, where the sacrificial blood wards will anchor best. He’s safe there, and if he finds out that you knew James and Lily, he’ll try anything to convince you to take him away from that safety.”
“If he likes it there, why would he want to leave?” Lupin asked, confused.
“He’ll most likely wish to be closer to his father, and Lily’s sister didn’t ever know James,” Albus explained blithely. “Just keep your connections to his parents to yourself for the time being.”
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After speaking to the Slytherins, Severus left the common room and made his way to his private quarters, located between Slytherin house and the potions classroom. Standing by the door was the bane of his existence, and, almost as if the boy had heard the older man’s thoughts, emerald eyes turned a glowing crimson, and a malicious smirk graced the young face, making Severus flinch. His Dark Mark was humming on his arm, and that, more than anything, convinced the potions professor that all was no longer right with his world. Without a word, he opened the door and let the teenager enter in front of him. Once the portal was closed, the Dark Lord whipped out Potter’s wand and cast parsel privacy wards over the entire room.
“Hello, Severus,” Voldemort purred softly. “Long time, no see.”
“How...how did this happen?” Snape queried, voice shaking alarmingly with fear.
“Funny story, that,” the Dark Lord quipped, the malevolent smile never leaving that young face. “I was on the Hogwarts Express, spying on my nemesis when a dementor came in and sucked out the boy’s soul. Of course, I could sense the bit of my soul inside him, so I slid in and filled that empty space with myself.”
“But...but from where did you come? How were you able to find him?”
“Sit, Severus, and I’ll explain as best as I can,” Riddle told his minion softly. Once they were comfortable, the boy continued. “I was unaware that I’d made a living horcrux the night I killed the Potters. Of course, the protections that mudblood bitch put around the boy resulted in my temporary loss of corporeality, but it didn’t halt my thirst for world domination. I drifted for some time as a wraith, and let me tell you how inconvenient and monotonous that was. I thought that if I could find my way back to England, then I might be able to contact some of my followers and have them help me get a body back.
“It took nearly eleven long years, but through a series of possessions of the weaker creatures, I was able to...migrate, for lack of a better term, back here to check out the lay of the land. I found out that my horcruxes were still safe, but that I would need to move them as soon as I was solid again. I also discovered how many of my people denied serving me just so that they could return to their cushy lives. No one bothered to come look for me, and I was infuriated.
“It was as I was cruising through a Surrey neighborhood inside a large dog that I felt a vibration that resonated with me. It called to me, and I left my current transportation to try and discover what that feeling was, and where. I finally located it inside a boy of about twelve. It was summer by the time I reached England, and he was outside, doing the gardening at this drab, ugly muggle home. I drifted around him for a while, recognizing him as the Potter child, and I saw bruises and starvation in this child’s face, and on his body. I thought, ‘He’s not going to amount to anything being raised like this, so I’ll just use him as I need him’.
“The news of Black’s escape from Azkaban, and the Minister putting dementors at Hogwarts to protect my future body were delightfully hilarious, and I realized that I could use this to my advantage, as long as I made sure a few things worked in my favor. I would have waited until we reached the school, and stayed with the boy until an ‘accident’ could be arranged, but this worked out much better. If Albus improved the wards since my possession of Quirrell, I might not have been able to enter the castle with the Potter brat. Being him, however, has its own benefits. As long as I continue to pretend to be that brat, I’ll be able to accomplish many more of my goals from the inside, using his popularity and heroism to my advantage.”
“You...ah...you won’t be able to fool his friends, my Lord,” Severus told the...man?...child? softly. “They’re all quite close, and have been with each other since first year. If you act too differently, you’ll make them suspicious, and Granger would run to Dumbledore at the first sign of difficulty.”
“Hmm...you may be right,” Voldemort told his minion with a troubled look. “Since Potter had such a bad reaction to the dementor, perhaps you should volunteer to keep an eye on him for the next few days. That’ll give me time to scan through the memories that survived the dementor’s assault, and try to assimilate his mind to mine. If I stay here until the sixth, which is next Monday, I should be able to gather enough of his memories and quirks to do a passable impersonation.
“Then, as the months wear on, I can change a little at a time, as I ‘mature’ into a ‘better’ person. I’ll also be examining the student body very closely, to see which of them would serve me and help me achieve my goals. If I work it just right, I could have everyone kneeling to me, since I’ll be the Boy Who Lived.”