Potter Manor
Harry looked down, and saw five House-Elves standing there, looking up into his face. "Hello," he greeted them with a welcoming smile; it felt so good to smile after so long being blank. "Are you the Potter family elves?"
It was more to confirm his guess than anything else; the Potters like the Malfoys and the Crouch's would have owned House Elves, considering their age. But meeting them had been the furthest from his mind when he had arrived here. He had just expected to explore Potter Manor alone.
The lead Elf blinked in surprise. "Yes, sir," she replied, and for the first time he noticed the Potter elves were very healthy looking, and to his surprise, all of them had a full head of hair. Each of them was dressed in clean and serviceable-looking uniforms, rather than filthy tea cosies or anything that would fit. "Who be you?" she asked.
Harry licked his lips. "I'm Harry Potter, Lily and James Potter's son."
The Elves gasped in shock. "Master Harry!" They cheered, rushing him and hugging him in welcome. "Youse comes home!"
Harry was startled by the hugging elves, but he couldn't help but smile at them. House Elves were possibly one of the more charming magical beings in the world. They were inoffensive, and they were nice. A part of him was tempted to tell them he wasn't sure if he could call Potter Manor his home, but he didn't have the heart to hurt their feelings, or them. They'd been waiting for him to return for donkey's years.
"Master, why is your hair white?" One of the Elves asked.
Harry blinked at the question and he was further convinced the Potters had given their House Elvers a lot of leeway to speak over the years. From what he'd seen and heard and learnt over the years since he had first met the Hogwarts House Elves, different families tortured and oppressed their elves, seeing them as slaves, to be seen and not heard. They would not have tolerated questions. But for some families it was different. That made sense; unlike many other magical families, who cared more about the purity of their bloodlines, the Potters had married whomever they loved, which was one of the reasons why they were such a powerful bunch.
Oh, sure there was not a shred of doubt in his head at all some of the Potters had treated the House Elves as if they were vermin, but he was not one of them.
"Long story short, I was framed for mass murder and I was thrown into Azkaban," the House Elves gasped and whispered in horror before Harry spoke again, "I've only just been freed. As for the reason why my hair's white," Harry sighed and closed his eyes, managing to lock away his innermost memories of every single moment he was exposed to a Dementor being blocked off by his occlumency, "Well, Dementors have a nasty effect on me, and the wizarding world didn't care. I claimed the family head ring, and I came here on my birthday."
"Happy Birthday, Master Harry!" The elves called, trying to cheer him up. Their genuine friendliness made Harry's ice-cold heart thaw. But only for them. Harry had always preferred the House Elves to humans.
"Thanks. Is it okay if I explore the manor by myself? I'll give you a call if I need anything," Harry said.
"Of course, Master Harry!" The Elves said.
Once he was alone, Harry walked through the Hall of Potter Manor. It wasn't a particularly large house, but it was larger than Privet Drive. And grander. The hall was full of magical artworks, with cockatrices, dragons, and even a naga. One of the more interesting paintings depicted a battle in a city; judging from the clothing, which intrigued him the most, this painting had been done in the mid-20th century.
Finding the plague, Harry read;
"Here is the final battle between the forces of Grindelwald - before that posturing fool, Albus Dumbledore claimed the credit of fighting the Dark Lord, when he just ran and hid away in Hogwarts."
Indeed, the scene showed two men in particular, exchanging wand fire. One of them sported a beard that was already down to his heart. It was obviously a younger version of Dumbledore. There had been Potters involved in the war with Grindelwald, and they remembered a version of History, one that James Potter had clearly dismissed.
But after studying them for a moment he lost interest, although he made up his mind so then if he ever had children, they would see what their father had gone through, more than once - visions of the child abuse he'd gone through, the mess with the basilisk, and the Dementor attack while he made the mistake of not crippling Pettigrew and turning both him and Black over to the foul wraiths which he wouldn't even dream of hesitating to do right now, and the scenes from the Triwizard Tournament - the awesome stupidity of the teachers, the attacks from the students, the treachery of his so-called friends, all the way to outflying that Horntail and saving little Gabrielle Delacour from the lake, all the way to Voldemort's final act of revenge before he was sent to prison - came through his mind, but he battered them away, and he walked onwards through the manor.
Navigating the corridors and the rooms in the manor was made much easier thanks to the plaques on the doors. In the hall alone there was a door leading to a lounge. Curious, Harry opened the door and walked inside.
I've been here before.
But the moment he looked around, he realised that he had been there. This was the same room Lily and James had met Fleamont and Euphemia with him as a baby before the Death Eaters attacked the manor. It looked like the entire room had been cleared and there was no damage whatsoever. The room was slightly bigger on the inside than on the outside, and on the walls were hundreds of portraits of various members of the Potter family.
And they were all awake and looking at him.
"Hello, who are you?" One of them asked.
With that, they all began bombarding him with questions until the room was full of overlapping voices that he couldn't make sense of. Suddenly he waved his hands. "No, no, no, shut up! I cannot think!" He shouted, looking at the faces before he saw a man and a woman he did know; the Potters's genes were so strong the men looked alike, with a few minor differences, and it was the same with women.
But he knew these two, and he also knew the familiar redheaded woman and the man in the portraits next to them. His heart raced, thudding in his chest as he looked at Fleamont and Euphemia Potter, and Lily and James Potter.
The portraits noticed he was paying them a lot of attention. "Who are you?" Euphemia asked.
"You're Euphemia and Fleamont Potter, aren't you?" Just because he knew who they were, he still needed to confirm it in his mind. And it also allowed him to ignore Lily and James, he would get to them soon.
"Yes, that's right," Fleamont replied, glancing at his wife for a moment before turning back to face Harry. "Who are you? And how did you get into the manor? Are you a Potter?"
Harry just stared back, wondering how he was going to tell them the news. Bluntness was the best answer. "I'm Harry Potter," he said.
"What?" Lily gasped.
"You can't be," James replied.
"Why not?" Harry lifted his hand where his Head of House ring was. "I'm the Head of the Potter family now, or do I simply don't match the image you have of me in your minds? Of a little baby who laughed and cried? Think again, I haven't been that baby for years."
"Harry!" James scolded him, but Harry ignored him.
"Harry, its really you?" Tears had appeared and were trickling down Lily's painted animated face. "It's you."
Harry just stared back at her, his emotions warring within him. "Yeah, it's me," Harry replied.
"What's happened to you, your hair?" Euphemia asked.
"Is it some new fad?" The portrait of a female member of the family asked; she was wearing clothes from the 1920s, a fashionable for the time dress.
"Not unless you call being thrown into a stinking cell in Azkaban a fad, a fad where you are affected terribly by the Dementors," Harry spat, unable to hide his hatred for the Ministry in his voice.
"Azkaban? Why were you sent to Azkaban?" Lily's portrait was confused by her son's coldness. But she was horrified by what he was telling her.
"Voldemort had returned after being transformed into a wraith. He came back after being out of the country, and he had an agent put me into the Triwizard Tournament so that he could get my blood, and use it for a ritual to bring him back and give him an homunculus form. I tried to kill him, drain his magic because I'd discovered he had split his soul several times, and I found a way to destroy it and him for good, but during the fight, I couldn't cast the spell so I decided to escape and try again some other time, but before I could escape the bastard had cast a curse on the Triwizard Trophy, and it went off when someone touched it. I don't even know how many people, it all happened so fast; the next thing I knew was Fudge, the corrupt little bastard of a Minister for Magic, had posted Dementors near me, so I was disorientated during a rushed trial.
"Fudge had learnt that I had a nasty reaction to the Dementors, so he had two of them near me so when I went into the trial, it was so disorientating for me. I was thrown into Azkaban, while Andromeda's little bitch of a daughter laughed when I had magical restraining cuffs put on me. I lost a whole year of my life in that cell, where the Dementors plucked out every nasty memory they could," Harry looked into the faces of all of the portraits, pleased to see the looks of horror and denial on the faces of the portraits. "Time had little meaning when you were thrown into a dark hole. And a year later, I decided enough was enough. I had a piece of Voldemort's soul in my head, and after a year I had enough time to hack into his mind, and force three Death Eaters to get themselves caught out, and confess the truth."
"A piece of his soul? But that means he used Horcruxes!" One of the Potters shouted.
"Correct. Voldemort was obsessed with immortality, and I looked into his head often enough to see why. Some people have Voldemort all wrong; they had known he wanted to live forever, just to spite the laws of nature and of magic, but when you took a look at his childhood you could see the reasons why he went so far to the point of desperation," Harry said thoughtfully.
"You sound like you sympathise with that monster," James accused.
"Yeah, and you sound like an arrogant bullying tosser," Harry smirked when he heard the reactions; the cries of indignant disbelief were music to his ears. But his parents were stunned by their son's rudeness. "Did you know Voldemort was a Half-Blood, a boy who was raised in a muggle orphanage? Dumbledore went for him and introduced him to the magical world. He was a Slytherin, but he was forced to go back to the muggle world so often that when the muggle world erupted into war, Voldemort was terrified of being killed. That's why he went out of his way to become an immortal. Do you know what World War 2 was like? Hundreds of people were killed, and so much of London was levelled, and Voldemort pleaded with Dippet and Dumbledore countless times, but they refused to listen to reason."
Harry leaned against a table. "D'you want to know what Dumbledore did when Voldemort attacked us?" He asked his distraught parents. "He sent me to your filthy muggle sister, Mother."
Lily shook her head, horrified by what he was saying, but what Lily's personality was more horrified by was how hateful Harry was acting. "No, he couldn't have. We left instructions you were never to be raised by them. Dumbledore was one of the witnesses to our will reading. You were to be raised-."
"HE LIED, YOU FUCKING BITCH!" Harry yelled, stunning his mother's portrait into silence as he lost his patience and his disdain for his mother's naivety broke through his control. "He lied to your face. What made you think Albus Dumbledore could ever be trusted? He's a liar, a manipulator. He dropped me on the doorstep of your sister, right after you were dead. During your little war, the pair of you," he glared at his father's portrait as well, "fought Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Oh yes. But did it never occur to you to do the right and smart thing, and run away from this country? Did it never occur to you both to not be the good little Gryffindors, and martyr yourselves to a cause that wouldn't even acknowledge you for anything but a sacrifice that would mean nothing because Voldemort would survive and come back?" Harry clenched his fists with grief and rage. "Did you never stop to think Dumbledore didn't care about you both and wanted you out of the way so that he would make me into a weapon to use against Voldemort?"
"No," James was shaking his head in disbelief while Lily's 'ghost' was shaken by the way her son had spoken to her. "He couldn't, he wouldn't -."
"Wouldn't he, James? Your mother and I told you more than once when we learnt you'd sided with Dumbledore the man has a nasty habit of sacrificing everyone….even if it's not necessary. I don't have a problem believing this," Fleamont interrupted sadly.
"We both told you that Dumbledore wasn't to be trusted. He might think he has the best interests of everyone at heart, but in truth, all of his plans are badly informed and he never asks for help," Euphemia added.
"Even worse, Dumbledore did nothing during the war with Grindelwald, even when so many visited the school and pleaded with him to do something to help," another Potter portrait piped up.
"Agreed, he couldn't be trusted," she said.
"Harry," Lily said.
Harry turned to her, his eyes chips of emerald ice. "What?"
"Was….was Petunia good?" Lily said quietly. "Was she horrible to you?"
Harry couldn't help himself, he laughed at her scornfully. "Horrible? She and her fucking husband abused me. They spread lies about me. Do you know how I look at the pair of you?" He looked between his parents scornfully, and he went on, taking note of their horrified silences. Their sense of horror grew and grew as he went on. "That petty, filthy, disgusting muggle bitch and her equally bigoted and fat pig of a husband spread lies, telling me you, Mother, were a whore pleased to spread your legs for everyone! And you, Father, were a drunken, unemployed crook!"
"Y-you didn't believe them, did you?" James asked faintly.
"Of course I fucking did! I had nothing else, nobody else to tell me the truth. I didn't even enter the wizarding world until I was 11 and then I learnt Albus Dumbledore had a god complex large enough to shove me on that doorstep without once bothering to check on my progress even if he sent several of his lackeys, who shook my hand and bowed to me in the street," Harry said in a cold voice. "Even when Hagrid told me the truth, my feelings towards you barely changed. It's hard to suddenly change your views after being abused for so long. And when I learnt you were betrayed by Pettigrew, I realised just how weak the pair of you were. You were stupid, you both trusted the wrong people and you paid for it. You put your trust in a cowardly werewolf, who would just walk away, and not lift a finger to better himself or care about the child you two had left behind. Black…he went after Pettigrew, believing he was avenging you, but in truth he also got himself locked up in Azkaban for the crime of betraying you. He did that because he didn't have the bottle to look after a kid.
"I hate you, Lily and James Potter," Harry spat at his horrified parents, "I hate you both. You abandoned me to a life of pure hell. I have lost ten years of my life in a cupboard under the stairs, putting up with beatings and even rapes...all because you listened to a pompous old man with delusions of grandeur!" Harry yelled. "You could have run away if you had truly wanted me, but instead, I my entire childhood before Dumbledore brought in spies to watch my every move before I was accused of things I never even did. I've also lost a year in Azkaban. So, give me one good reason why I shouldn't burn your portraits out of existence right now, and rid the world of the final memories of Lily and James fucking Potter!"
Harry took out his wands and fired a spell against the wall.
The Potter's portraits screamed in protest.