Through the Looking Glass 06 - LV/HP

[k155_me]

PREVIOUS HERE

Well, this definitely makes up for the wait, right? It isn’t beta’d because I figured I’d give it to you as soon as it was done (or as soon as, since my internet was broken all day Monday for some reason). I’ll get it beta’d and replace afterwards, so if anyone wants to wait until then, feel free! :)

Regardless, enjoy it! I have about two more chapters planned out, and then my notes run out. I have the ending, and the majority of the grown up Harry ‘middle of the story’ scenes planned, but I’m missing the young-Harry-in-between scenes. I may sit down with my trusty notebook and get planning…

* * *

Words: 7,437
Chapter 6

June 23rd 1991.

Lily and her sister hadn’t really gotten along since the day Lily received her Hogwarts invitation. Petunia had been jealous and spiteful and afraid of being left behind, forgotten, almost the same way James thought Peter was, bitter about their new relationships, their new friends and new worlds. But Peter was a firmer part of the Potters’ life now, Tarrant’s godfather, and Lily had even made up with Severus, Harry’s godfather, who had been given an open invitation to their home whenever he pleased (which Lily had refrained from extending to Peter). And so, she thought to herself, why should she not try to mend bridges with her sister too?

Petunia had burnt the first few letters she had received from Lily, and the eighth, ninth and tenth birthday cards her son, Dudley, received by owl post. For his eleventh birthday, Lily had sent the post by Muggle means, and Dudley had been the one to notice it first. He had screamed when his mother tried to take it away, and he had flailed his fist and hit his father when Vernon had attempted to burn the card, and in the end Dudley got what he had wanted. Another card, another present, more family to fawn over him and pinch his cheeks and tell him how handsome he looked in his brand-new Smeltings uniform (that he insisted on wearing to the zoo that day). He wouldn’t listen to his mother when she tried to warn him that her sister and the twins were freaks. Because as far as Dudley was concerned, anyone who sent him a card with a whole fifty-pound note in it was fantastic, and he wanted them around for all of the birthdays he would ever have, ever.

That was how Lily and James found themselves herding their boys through the entrance of London Zoo, and seeking out the family of three who did not look entirely happy to see them.

Vernon was a large man, with a wide middle and a neck so flabby his jaw and shoulders couldn’t be told apart. He stood stiffly, his face a strange shade of purple as he pressed pale lips together. Petunia, on the other hand, was unhealthily thin, but she had been as a child too. Too tall to be willowy, too broad to be beautiful, and altogether too thin. Dudley was a slightly smaller version of his father, with straw-like blond hair, and watery blue eyes. James thought he looked a little like Peter, squinting up at them in excitement, the only one pleased to see them. The child ran towards them, his trousers pulled taunt and his shirt coming un-tucked over his wobbly belly as he ran. When the boy stopped before them, he held his hand out expectantly. James shook it briefly, as did the two boys, while Lily opted to pull him into a hug.

“Where’s the money?” Dudley asked, glancing confusedly down at the empty hand he was still holding out. “It’s my birthday?”

“We sent you money in the card, did you not get it?” Lily asked, glancing at Petunia as if to accuse her of keeping the money for herself. The elder sister scowled, turning her nose up at the thought.

“Well yeah, but last year I got thirty-six presents. This year I only got thirty-four and your money, so I’m short one!” Dudley waved his hand furiously, as if to remind them that he was still waiting for a treat. When none was forthcoming, the blonde scowled, his face screwing up in anger and hate. “Why did you bother coming if you weren’t going to bring me anything?” He cried at them, eyes watering, and completely aware of the stares he was drawing from the passers-by.

“Oh,” Harry said softly after a moment of watching his aunt trying to console her wailing child. “You can have my sweets if you like?” James grinned, and Harry felt something like excitement boiling inside of him, but different, harsher, crueller, bubbling up in his chest as Dudley snatched the brightly wrapped sweets out of the palm of his offered hand.

Before Lily could stop him, Dudley had all of the sweets opened and crammed into his mouth all at once. James knew exactly where Harry had gotten those sweets from, and he was the one who convince the child it would be amusing to bring them with him, just in case. Blood began to pour from Dudley’s nose, and saliva dribbled down the sides of his mouth as his tongue began to swell to three times its size and poked out of his mouth. Tears ran down his face, and snot dripped from his nose as the sweets Sirius had bought from Zonko’s and given to Harry worked their magic on the Muggle.

“Mummy!” The boy wailed, but it sounded more like “mhugmy”, as he tried to talk using the tongue that now hung down to his chin.

Tarrant looked horrified, glancing at his brother in shock because he had never seen Harry do anything that cruel before, that wasn’t in defence of Tarrant himself. Harry was supposed to be a Gryffindor, brave and honest and true, and they were supposed to be together forever and happy, and Draco, who was the cruel one, the horrid one, the Death Eater’s son, would be in Slytherin and Harry would forget all about him. But this, this was more like something Draco would do… Or Fred, or George… or Sirius or James, though Tarrant didn’t know that. He spent most of his time with Remus or Peter, neither of whom were notorious pranksters despite being members of the Marauders.

Harry had been taught by the best though, and he did enjoy a good prank now and then, but he tried not to pull too many of them, because his idea of a prank was more along the lines of Sirius sending Severus to meet a werewolf on the full moon than turning someone’s hair blue or slipping them a Canary Cream. Harry didn’t think his father would be too pleased with that. Nor would he be pleased by Harry’s smirk, despite the fact that James was laughing a little as Lily led Dudley towards a bathroom stall so she could undo the effects of the charmed sweets, because Harry wasn’t amused, Harry was vindictive. The boy, his cousin had been rude, and his mother had been so excited about meeting the estranged members of her family after so long. Harry knew that Dudley’s rudeness, his greed and real reason for wanting to meet with them, had hurt his mother’s feelings, and he couldn’t stand for that. She was his, and she deserved to be treated better than Dudley had treated her.

It was also why Harry didn’t really like Peter. Not only because the man tried his hardest to separate Harry and Tarrant, but also because he knew that Lily didn’t like Peter. There was something about him that upset Lily, that made her uncomfortable, and Harry disliked him on principle as a result. If he could hurt Peter and get away with it, he would. But tormenting Dudley Dursley would have to do for now.

XXX

Dudley had fast gotten over his fear of Harry, after Lily had healed him and Petunia had bought him several stuffed animals and the largest ice cream cone any of the children had ever seen. James, not one to be outdone, bought two of the same ice creams for his sons. They weren’t as nice as Fortescue’s ice cream, and James had ended up finishing off them both because Harry had felt a little sickly after eating half, and Tarrant hadn’t wanted one to begin with. After the ice creams had been finished, as if bolstered by the sugar rush, Dudley took it upon himself to take charge of the outing, giving directions and dictations, and demanding that they visit every place before the reptile house because snakes were stupid, boring and lazy and Dudley didn’t want to waste his time with them. But Harry liked snakes, more than any of the other boring Muggle animals at London Zoo, which had nothing on Rotterdam Zoo, with its merpeople and Hippogryffs and Dragons.

“Dad,” Harry whispered, hurrying to catch the man’s attention before Lily whisked him off in the direction the Dursleys were heading.

James turned and shot his son a grin, saying softly enough that his wife couldn’t hear, “those sweets worked brilliantly, eh? I bet we won’t ever be invited for another visit with the Muggles!” He reached out to ruffle Harry’s hair, and the boy let him, glancing up at his father with a sly smirk on his face.

“I’ll tell mum that it was your idea and that you gave them to me,” Harry said.

James interrupted with a shouted, “Sirius gave them to you!”

“Well, then it will just get Sirius in trouble as well, wouldn’t it? But I won’t tell mum, if you let me sneak away from the Muggles? I want to go see the snakes, and this zoo is pretty boring, I can tell just from looking around and anyway Dudley is annoying me.”

“Blackmail?” James asked, stifling a laugh. “That’s it; Snape isn’t allowed to babysit you anymore!”

“I’m almost eleven, dad, I don’t have babysitters anymore! Severus visits for the pleasure of my company, not because he thinks I need coddling. So, anyway, can I leave?” Harry folded his arms across his chest, before moving them to his hips and tapping his left foot impatiently on the ground.

James glanced up, searching for Lily’s hair in the crowd. She was quiet a way away from them already, too busy desperately trying to strike up a conversation with her sister to notice that only one son was trailing obediently behind her. James shook his head, “Sorry kiddo, your mother would kill me if I let you wander off by yourself!” Harry tried not to let his disappointment or annoyance show on his face, but he mustn’t have done a good job because James was laughing again and ruffling his hair. “But if we sneak off together right now we have twice the chance of hiding from your mother and her delightful family. What do you say, kiddo?”

James and Harry traded quick grins. Any resentment he had been feeling the moment his father had told him no had evaporated. He should have known that his father would hate the Dursleys as much as Harry did. James wouldn’t stand for anyone upsetting Lily either; in that respect he was very much his father’s son, though he had Sirius’ darker sense of humour, Severus’ lack of tolerance for idiots, and Lily’s love of learning. Tarrant was the only one who still believed Harry belonged in Gryffindor, but, then again, Tarrant still insisted that both he and Harry were betrothed to Draco Malfoy.

James glanced at his son from the corner of his eyes, as they ran hand in hand towards the reptile house. Both of them were laughing, but there was something about the way Harry kept glancing over his shoulder in the Dursleys direction that worried James. “Harry?” he asked, as they finally came to a stop just in the doorway of the reptile house, “it’s not because they are Muggles right? Because I know Muggles are strange and sort of boring, regardless of what Arthur thinks, but they can’t help not having magic, just like a Squib. It’s not their fault, you know that right kiddo?”

“I know, dad. I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and suddenly decide all Muggles should die, I just don’t like those Muggles. Did you see the look on mum’s face, when Dudley started talking? He hurt her feelings, and Petunia has been ignoring her for years. Even Peter’s not that rude to mum! She had no right… no right! And the way she let her child speak to an adult!”

“I know, Harry,” James said, placing a calming hand on Harry’s shoulder. “It was rude and cruel, and Lily deserves so much better. But just because they are ignorant and offensive doesn’t mean you have the right to hurt them.”

“Dad!” Harry exclaimed with a laugh. He pressed a palm against the glass closest to him. “It was your idea to give him the sweets.”

“Just checking to make sure you weren’t planning to do anything else, for my own peace of mind, you know. Your mother wouldn’t be too pleased with me if you did and I didn’t think of checking.” James smiled, feeling much calmer now. Harry wouldn’t hurt anyone who didn’t offend Tarrant first, or upset Lily, or insult James, Sirius or Severus. Harry was protective, but he wasn’t unnecessarily cruel. James knew that, knew that no matter what house Harry got into (even Slytherin), he wouldn’t be that sort of person. Harry was too good to be that sort of person, even though he was prone to terrible bouts of temper. But he was hardly ever jealous or petty, not like his brother, and he’d never wished anything horrible on another person like Tarrant did on Draco. And knowing some of the thoughts Tarrant had about the blond, gave Albus more reason to worry about him, than James had to worry about his eldest son.

Lost in his musings, it took James a few moments to grasp what was happening right in front of his eyes. The snake, which had previously been asleep curled up upon a rock, was now swaying side to side with its nose pressed up against the glass where Harry’s palm was still held. If not for the glass, Harry would have been able to pet the boa constrictor’s nose. The snake was hissing furiously, tongue flicking rapidly against the glass, and James was seconds away from pulling Harry back to safety as the snake butted up against the glass as if trying to get free. But then Harry spoke, and he didn’t just speak to the snake, he spoke to it, in hisses and rasps and small flicks of his own tongue.

“What?” James gasped, mouth hanging open unattractively as he stared with wide hazel eyes at his Parseltongue-speaking tongue.

“What?” Harry repeated, still unconsciously using the snake-tongue.

“You’re speaking to the snake, Harry. Did you know that? How long-?” James swallowed heavily, his hands shook as he reached to grab Harry by the shoulders.

“Dad?” Harry asked, watching his father warily. “Are you angry with me? Severus said you’d be angry with me, but it’s just like what you said about Muggles and Squibs. I can’t help it, dad. It’s just something I can do, like you can turn into Prongs.”

“Snape knows?” James rasped out. His throat felt like it had closed up, and it was becoming harder to breathe as he thought about what that meant. Was his view on Slytherins, or anything related, so close-minded that Harry had been afraid to come to him when he learnt that he could speak to snakes, something only Lord Voldemort and the descendants of Slytherin could do? He had gone to Snape, who was a Slytherin, and a Death Eater spy, and the boy’s godfather, but he had been afraid to come to him, to James, his father. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Even though he knew the answer, he had to ask. It was because Harry would have known James was prejudice and biased, and would have reacted angrily.

“I didn’t want you to hate me.” It was soft, almost silent, but James heard him anyway and his head snapped up sharply.

“What? No! No, Harry! I could never hate you! It doesn’t matter what you do, or what you can do, or can’t do, you are my son and I love you. I could never hate you, or disown you, or anything stupid like that. The thought of it alone! Merlin, kiddo, did you really believe that?”

Harry gave a small half-shrug, looking away uncomfortably as he said, “Severus said that too, but I couldn’t help it. I mean, Sirius’ family disowned him, and Andromeda, Draco says that if he gets into Hufflepuff then his father will disown him and he’d have to leave Hogwarts, so I mean, it was sort of reasonable, right?”

“Harry, Lucius wasn’t being serious, and Draco was most certainly teasing you. Do you think the man who engaged his son to another boy because they liked each other, regardless of the threat of remaining heirless, would hate that child for being a Hufflepuff?” James raised an eyebrow, pulling Harry towards him so their foreheads could touch.

“No, I guess not.”

“And Sirius’ family were nuts. They were really big supporters of You-Know-Who-”

“It’s Voldemort, dad.” Harry interrupted, rolling his eyes at his father’s use of the Dark Lord’s moniker.

“-and when Sirius and Andromeda did what they did, the family took it to mean that they wouldn’t be joining the ‘cause’ with them, and of course they wouldn’t be, but that had nothing to do with what House Sirius and Andy were sorted into. Even if you were a Slytherin, Harry,” James said, pressing a soft kiss to his son’s forehead, thinking about Voldemort and Harry and some of the theories Dumbledore had shared with him, “I would love you to the moon and back. Nothing, not even you waking up tomorrow and wanting to kill all Muggles, will stop me loving you.”

“I love you too, daddy,” Harry whispered. He reached up, tugging the elder man down into a hug, and James squeezed him back tightly.

He thought about his options. Gryffindor was out; Harry just wasn’t a Gryffindor, despite both of his parents having been sorted into that House. Hufflepuff was a potential choice, because Harry was loyal and kind, and he was smart, so he could be a Ravenclaw either. Or a Slytherin, especially if he really was Lord Voldemort’s mate. Just the thought of it made James shudder with dread, but it was either that, or Harry really was the one that would have to fight Voldemort and defeat him, or risk dying in the process. What was better, James wondered as he hugged his son, a prophesised death sentence or a fate worse than death?

“What was the snake saying, kiddo?” James asked when they pulled apart.

So Harry told him, and they moved through the enclosure, Harry talking with different snakes and translated for his father who watched raptured and excited. “And that one? What does that one have to say?” James would ask, pointing at a different breed, and Harry would dash in that direction to strike up a conversation with that snake, and James would follow, listen, exclaim, and ask once again, “What about that one? Over there!”

They kept it up, until they were back to where they had started, back in front of the boa constrictor’s enclosure, where the snake was begging to be let out so Harry could pet him. Harry was trying to explain that it wasn’t possible, that he wasn’t allowed, he didn’t even know a spell to vanish the glass, when someone shoved into him. He fell to his knees with a cry, narrowing his eyes, as he glanced up at Dudley, who had his nose pressed against the glass. The blonde’s mouth was open wide with excitement, “Look, daddy! Look, mummy!” He exclaimed, “Look at the snake; it’s actually doing something interesting!”

Harry glared, his fists clenching at his sides. Tarrant scowled in Dudley’s direction as well, before leaning down to help his brother to his feet. “Where were you?” Tarrant asked softly.

Harry didn’t answer. He kept staring at the glass, and the snake, and the boy who had shoved him to the ground. As James and Lily demanded apologises from the adult Muggles, Harry held out his hand, anger thrumming inside of his veins, and he felt the urge to humiliate, to punish the boy’s cruelty. The glass disappeared, and Dudley fell forward with a scream and a splash as he landed in the small pool of water just inside of the glass. The snake glanced down at him, then up at Harry, who was watching in astonishment, and then down at the prey lying at his theoretical feet.

“Don’t hurt him!” Harry shouted, glancing around in panic to see if anyone was paying them any attention.

The snake did as he was told, and instead of darting forward and coiling around the Muggle who was whimpering pitifully, it shot forward, striking like lightning and wrapped itself around Harry’s legs. It coiled upwards, slithering its way up Harry’s body until it hung around his torso, neck and shoulders. “Now, pet me, human,” the snake commanded, “and do not dare put me back in the prison.” It squeezed once in warning, before loosening its coils as Harry’s hand slowly, hesitantly, began to stroke the top of his head, before getting braver, bolder.

As the Muggles finally realised something unnatural was going on, James broke out of his amusement long enough to shepherd his family out of the reptile house. Lily had cast quick disillusionment charms, on Harry and the snake, and Notice-Me-Not’s on the rest of her immediate family. She scowled, irritated both with Petunia’s son and her own, as she led them to the exit of the Zoo.

“Mum, you know I still have the snake, right?”
Lily stopped when Harry spoke, turning to him with wide, horrified eyes. “What? Oh dear,” she gasped after a moment.

“Dudley is stuck in the snake tank. The glass reappeared as we were leaving.” James told them, sounding smug and amused. “Serves the nasty boy right well, I think.” Harry might have been good and loyal, but James was both of those things and petty, which was probably where Tarrant had gotten it from. No one had the right to hurt his family without James seeking retribution!

“Hey, Tarrant, kid, you try talking to the snake!” James grinned, like it was the best idea anyone had ever had throughout history, and he bounced on the balls of his feet as they were finally away from the Muggles enough for Lily to cancel the disillusionment charm on her eldest son.

Harry and the snake were revealed with a wave of Lily’s wand. Tarrant licked his lips, looking and feeling nervous. Lord Voldemort could talk to snakes, Tarrant had read that somewhere before. Harry could talk to snakes, but that didn’t mean anything special. Tarrant was the one who was betrothed to someone special, someone powerful, to Peter’s Lord. A Lord! That meant he was better than his brother, even if Mr. Dumbledore and his parents insisted they were equal, despite that. He was the special one, and if Harry could speak Parseltongue then so could he, because he was better, stronger, smarter and Peter’s Lord was going to love him more than Draco would ever love Harry.

Tarrant opened his mouth, and said, “I can speak to you, snake, because I am a Parseltongue too.”

“No, you are not human,” the snake replied, with a hissy sort of laugh.

Harry cringed, watching something ugly and horrible roll across his brother’s face like a storm. Tarrant gritted his teeth, eyeing Harry with as much distaste as the ten-year-old could muster. “Mother, I’m tired. I want to go home.” He grabbed hold of Lily’s hand, refusing to look in his brother’s direction or at the father who seemed so pleased and accepting of his eldest son’s Dark gift. “I want to go now.”

Lily side-apparated him away, after sharing a worried glance with her husband. James brought Harry along a few minutes later, after explaining to him that some people were just naturally jealous, and sometimes they didn’t mean it, but jealousy was horrible and hurtful anyway, and Harry needed to be the one to rise above it in this instance. “Keep a tight hold on that snake, yeah kiddo? You ready?”

Harry gave a firm nod, promising silently to apologise to his brother once he was home. He steeled himself as James apparated, taking Harry with him with a soft crack and a sickening, squeezing feeling in the pit of his stomach. Harry let the snake loose in the garden, promising to leave the backdoor open for the snake when he decided to return after his explorations and then went in search of Tarrant.

But Tarrant was curled up in Peter’s lap, crying, when Harry found him. Harry glanced at the sight, and took in the ugly sneer that Peter sent him, the Chosen One, but the one not Chosen by the Dark Lord’s creature (or so he believed), and he couldn’t muster up enough bravery to make himself enter the room and face a person who hated and another who was supposed to love him, but didn’t seem to be acting that way lately.

Harry left. He’d apologize later. And he did try, the next day, and the day after, but Tarrant didn’t want to listen, so Harry gave up and left his brother alone.

XXX

July 31st 1991.

“Look at mine!” Harry said, grinning from ear to ear. He waved his Hogwarts letter up in Draco’s face. The boy snatched it out of his hand, and opened it up. It said the exact thing as Draco’s letter had, apart from a name change, but Draco read it out in a terrible imitation of Dumbledore’s voice, just as he had read out his own.

The children laughed, excited and pleased with themselves, despite the fact that just by having usable magic practically guaranteed them admittance to Hogwarts. They still felt as if they had earned it, as if they had done something to prove that they belonged in their world. They were special.

Tarrant stood silently at the back of the group, most of whom were future Slytherins, or Ginny and Luna who wouldn’t be going to school till the following September. Ron stood beside him, both of them glaring at the back of Malfoy’s head.

“Can’t wait to get to Hogwarts and get into Gryffindor and be rid of that stupid prat,” Ron muttered, rolling his eyes as Draco started bragging about having already bought his wand. Ron had been given one that his brother had stopped using a few years ago, and Percy’s old pet owl. His family couldn’t afford a fancy new eagle owl, like Malfoy’s could, or a new wand with a dragon heartstring core, ya-de-da. Harry and Tarrant had gotten their wands the day before, and their parents had bought them an owl each, but they weren’t bragging to anyone who would listen. And they deffinately weren’t shooting Ron superior glances with every other sentence like Malfoy was.

“I know. Maybe then Harry will realise how wrong all of this is, his being friends with them, talking to snakes, practising Dark magic with Snape.” Ron shot him a horrified look, mouthing the words ‘snakes’ and ‘dark’ repeatedly to himself. Tarrant ignored him though, knowing he was overreacting a little, but any Lord was bound to be powerful and accomplished, and Harry getting private duelling lessons from Snape meant he would be more accomplished than Tarrant, and he must be powerful if he was a Parseltongue. There was no way Tarrant could compete, which didn’t matter as his Lord didn’t want Harry, but Tarrant couldn’t help the burn of jealousy in his heart.

When they were at Hogwarts, when they were in Gryffindor, together without Draco, together, they way it was always meant to be, everything would be ok again. It would all go back to the way it had been when they were children, and Tarrant wasn’t always jealous or bitter and Harry loved him more than Draco. Not to say that Harry didn’t love his brother, because he did, but Tarrant just found it so much harder to see the good things lately, and Peter didn’t want him to remember them either.

When they were back at Hogwarts everything would be ok again.

XXX

The adults watched them. Lucius and James standing to one side, whispering softly between themselves about Parseltongue and the future bonding that would never take place if Lord Voldemort returned. Lily and Albus snuck away to the kitchen, and the boa constrictor they had accidentally stolen from the zoo and decided to keep slithered in after them. They spoke about Parseltongue too, nervously wringing their hands in front of them or weaving fingers through beards or dress hems.

“I was looking at the family tapestry. James is descended from the Peverells. You once told me that Voldemort was too. Wouldn’t it make more sense for Harry to have received the gift through James’ bloodline, the way Voldemort inherited from his mother?”

“Tarrant should have inherited it too then.” Albus argued, steepling his fingers in front of his stomach. “I think it has to do with the prophecy. Tom was too proud of his gift and heritage as a child, he likely still is. I doubt he’d willingly destroy another Parseltongue if he knew. Perhaps that is the power we know not?”

“Or it could be the mate bond, Albus! He won’t kill his mate!”

“We don’t know-” Albus tried to insist, but he didn’t get far before Lily shushed him.

“We know. It’s just a matter of making sure Harry doesn’t find out. James is happy to believe it could be either outcome, a mating or a duel to the death, but you and I both know differently, Albus. The Dark Lord is mated to Harry. I found the bloodstone; he still sleeps with it under his pillow. He has dreams about a boy named Tom who is searching for him. Harry doesn’t understand what they mean, but considering you always call Voldemort ‘Tom’ I felt it was safe to assume they were the same person. Harry is his mate. Harry is a descendant of Salazar Slytherin too.”

“As is Tarrant,” Dumbledore said. Lily agreed. James and Tarrant were both descendants too.

“But Harry is the only Parseltongue.” The kitchen door inched open a little, and hazel eyes peered through the crack. “You know why Albus, you know why. Despite how often you insist they are equal, no matter how hard we try to treat them equally, Harry is so much more powerful. I can practically taste the magic off of him sometimes, when he’s angry, or scared, and he wakes up shaking after a nightmare and everything in his room is floating inches off of the ground or caught in a tornado that doesn’t dissipate until Harry calms down. Tarrant never does that.”

Albus considered arguing that was because Tarrant might have better control, but he knew it would be a lie. Harry was more powerful, more outgoing, more of a people person but not in the way that Tom Riddle had been, manipulating and controlling the crowds to get his desired result. Harry was one of those people that was genuinely liked and whose company was sought after for nothing more than the company. Tarrant though, while not as magically powerful as his brother, was better at reading faces and body languages, and giving people what they wanted or thought they wanted, acting perfectly, saying all the right things, pleasing everyone when it suited him. Just like Tom Riddle. Like Lucius had once thought, Tarrant would make a great spy. But, Albus did not think he had what it would take to entertain Lord Voldemort for long. The man would grow bored of him, suspicious, and then upon realising they were not mates, angry and vicious. But Harry. Harry had, if anyone had it, what it took to defeat Voldemort.

Albus Dumbledore had long stopped believing the prophecy meant for them to fight. He could have defeated Gellert another way, if he hadn’t been such a coward and so greedy, if his sister hadn’t been caught in the crossfire. But Harry was better than him, a stronger person. And he could do it, Albus thought, he could save himself, the world, and Voldemort too if everything worked out well.

So, Dumbledore only had to worry about saving Tarrant Potter.

XXX

Tarrant had followed them to the kitchen, pushing the door open a little, just in time to hear his mother claim Harry was stronger than him, more magical somehow. Dumbledore had replied, softly exclaiming he hoped Voldemort realised that too, and Tarrant had run. He had left the door nudged open a crack, but hopefully they wouldn’t think it had been him eavesdropping.

He ran in search of Peter Pettigrew, the only adult he trusted with his best interests, the only family member he had that thought he was better, stronger, the one who didn’t worship at the altar of the Boy-Who-Lived. It wasn’t Harry’s fault, he knew, but Peter often whispered to him as he slept that if it wasn’t for Harry, Tarrant would be the acclaimed one, the one with the statue, with the riches donated from thankful strangers, the one his parents loved the most (even though he knew they loved them equally). When he woke, it was hard to push those thought away, because they whispered through his head every moment his eyes were open, making it harder and harder to remember the good things about his family.

Sirius was a traitor to his family.

Snape was a traitor to the cause.

Dumbledore thought he was evil.

Remus was a filthy animal, nothing like the wonderful man Tarrant had thought him to be growing up. A werewolf. A creature. A monster.

Lily and James loved Harry more.

“And Harry plans to take your betrothed away from you.” Peter hissed into his ear, as Tarrant sobbed against his chest. “He wants the Lord for himself and Dumbledore is planning to help him, to take the Lord away from you.”

“Who is he?” Tarrant asked, wiping his face with the sleeve of his robe.

Peter swallowed nervously. This was the deciding moment, where he would learn if all of his plots had worked or if they would blow up in his face. “Lord Voldemort, the greatest, Darkest Wizard this world has ever known. He will rise again, Tarrant, and come for you, to claim you and reward you for your loyalty.”

Tarrant looked up with wide hopeful eyes. He licked his lips nervously. “I’ve read about him. He sounded amazing, but father took the book from me before I could finish it.”

“I’ll owl you some when you get to Hogwarts.” Peter promised. He waved his wand, drying Tarrant’s face and straightening his robes and removing the tear stains from his sleeve.

“Will I be good enough?” Tarrant asked, worrying his bottom lip. “Better than Harry? Good enough that he’ll want me?”

Peter used one hand to raise Tarrant’s chin, the fingers curled into the boy’s right cheek painfully. “You will be the best. I’ll make sure of it.” Peter smirked, the curl of his lips reminding Tarrant of a shark about to attack. “And when He returns, He will award me with gratitude the likes of which have never been seen before, and it will all be thanks to you, child.”

After that, Harry Potter, the prophecy child, would die.

XXX

September 1st 1991. Hogwarts.

After his talk with Peter, after the assurances that he had desperately needed that he could be better than his brother, would be better, and had no reason to be jealous, Harry and Tarrant’s relationship went almost back to normal. Harry began sneaking into Tarrant’s room after bedtime, lying on top of the covers, talking and laughing breathlessly as they talked about all of the adventures they would have at Hogwarts, and then listening to Tarrant breathe deeply in his sleep until Harry felt tired enough to sneak back to his room.

Kreacher watched him sometimes, appearing in Harry’s room in Potter Manor under the guise of passing correspondence to Lord Black (who he had decided should be the Parseltongue-speaking Harry, and not the blood traitor Sirius Black), and instead telling him all about ‘the young Master Black’, and about Lord Voldemort whom he had met once, to his great honour. Harry would speak to his snake, which he had eventually agreed upon the name ‘Elphaba’ with, because not only did the snake turn out to be female, but the only Wizard the snake could name off the top of her head was the ‘Wonderful Wizard of Oz’. Kreacher took great delights in cramming as much history regarding actual wonderful Wizards into both Harry and the snake’s head in the last months before Hogwarts. And the one that interested Harry the most was Lord Voldemort. He also happened to be the one Kreacher spoke about the most.

Harry found that he was interested in that Wizard, the one who had done such great things, wonderful and wild changes, and then suddenly out of nowhere appeared to have succumbed to madness and the overwhelming desire to kill Harry. He didn’t know Voldemort was part Faerie, or that he was Voldemort’s mate, or that Peter was teaching Tarrant all about the Darker side of the Dark Lord while Harry only learnt about all of the good things he had attempted. He didn’t know why Voldemort wanted to kill him, because his parents and Sirius refused to answer his questions, and Severus and Remus looked uncomfortable when he brought Voldemort up and Kreacher didn’t know. But Harry wanted to know, because when Voldemort came back, like his grandfather warned that he would, it wouldn’t do to admire a man who would kill him the first chance he got. So even as he learnt all he could about Voldemort, he accepted Severus’ duelling lessons and planned to become great, like Ollivander said he could be, and do great things and terrible things too if that was what became necessary in order to protect his family.

But that wasn’t important right now, because he had other things on his mind at this particular moment. Names were being called alphabetically, from a’s to b’s to c’s and it seemed to take forever until Professor McGonagall started reading out the surnames beginning with p.

Kreacher had warned him, sneaking into Harry’s bedroom as he finished packing his trunk for Hogwarts, Elphaba coiled around his shoulders and chest, that everything would change when he got to Hogwarts. Tarrant and Harry thought things would go back to the way things used to be, the way things had been this last wonderful month of August, but Kreacher had insisted that Sirius and his brother’s lives had changed drastically once they started Hogwarts. That was because they had been sorted into different Houses.

Harry had laughed it off, because Tarrant had been so vocal about getting into Gryffindor, that Harry would beg if he had to, to make sure he was in the same House as his brother despite not fitting the characteristics at all. Tarrant wanted them to be together, and a resorting was a small sacrifice to make to keep his brother happy. He had told Tarrant this on the train, and Tarrant had smiled, relieved. Harry thought it was gratitude, from Harry’s offer to stay with him. But Tarrant no longer wanted to go to Gryffindor. Lord Voldemort had been a Slytherin, and the more Tarrant learned of him, the more he wanted to be like him in every way. The way to start doing that? He had to be sorted into Slytherin, and if Harry didn’t fit Gryffindor, he might end up in Slytherin with him, or Ravenclaw which wouldn’t be too bad because it wasn’t Gryffindor and they could still be friends.

But when Harry’s name was finally called, and he sat upon the small three-legged stool with the pointed, ragged sorting hat upon his head, he begged for Gryffindor, despite the fact that Slytherin would lead him on his way to greatness. The hat was about to agree, opening its brim to shout the word “GRYFFINDOR”, as Harry curled his hands in his robe pockets, one clenching around the bloodstone that he had insisted on carrying with him because he couldn’t sleep without it. With a pulse of magic, as Harry squeezed it tight, the stone glowed red in his pocket, and one of the teachers at the Head Table, a pale man in a purple turban narrowed his eyes at the back of Harry’s head in suspicion. Was this Tarrant, he wondered, perhaps McGonagall had gotten them confused. He waited with bated breath for the sorting hat to speak, even as his Lord’s magic surged within their shared body, feeling the call of his mate and the pulse of magic the stone emitted as Harry continued to squeeze it tightly.

The hat felt the pulse too, and it blinked lazily, changing its mind with the same breath it had been about to expel and shouted, “SLYTHERIN!”

Tarrant clapped the loudest out of all the first years, and even louder than some of the students at any House but Slytherin, who welcomed Harry over with wide smiles and loud applause. Draco shifted over to make room for his betrothed, who his father had warned him never to fall in love with though he hadn’t been told why not. Harry sat beside him, and then Tarrant’s name was called, second to Harry because ‘t’ came after ‘h’ after all.

They would be in Slytherin together, him and Harry, and even though Draco was there it wouldn’t be hard to find someone older who would be willing to frighten Draco off for him, once he established himself as Lord Voldemort’s mate. Once he was in charge of Slytherin house, Draco wouldn’t dare come near his brother again.

All his plans came crashing down around his ears as the hat spoke to him, in a horrid drawl that sounded half-amused and half-mocking. It made Tarrant’s jaw tick, and his hands clench from anger rather than nerves, and he drowned out it’s irritating voice and it’s ridiculous words, chanting in his mind, “Slytherin, Slytherin, have to be in Slytherin. The Dark Lord’s mate has to be in Slytherin.”

“Yes, he probably should be, and he is, don’t you worry. But you, what about you?” The hat said, and Tarrant shouted back inside his head, telling the hat to stop lying, stop trying to help Harry steal the Dark Lord away from him, but it wasn’t a lie, because the hat had recognized the magic of the bloodstone and the aura of the Wizard who had made it, remembering it from Tom Riddle’s own sorting. “So unafraid, so angry. Do you not fear the Dark Lord? He is capable of terrible evils, child, quite terrible, and he will not be quick to forgive this trickery, so whoever is putting such ideas in your head should stop at once.”

“Shut up you stupid hat and put me where I belong!” Tarrant almost jumped off the stool, jaw clenched, but McGonagall shoved him back down with her hands on his trembling shoulders.

“So rash, so demanding,” the hat chuckled, its brim moving though no sound escaped it. “As you wish Tarrant Potter. Where you belong is… GRYFFINDOR!”

Tarrant moved towards the red and gold table in a daze. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t hear the applause, louder than what Harry had received from the school body. He couldn’t see his mother’s worried gaze from the Head Table or Dumbledore’s contemplative one, or the strange pale professor’s disdainful frown. But he could see Harry, sitting surrounded by green and silver, beside the blond haired Draco Malfoy who would never be as good as Lord Voldemort, and he was cheering and clapping and standing in his seat, grinning widely because he thought Tarrant would be pleased with his sorting.

You were supposed to force the hat to put you in Gryffindor, Tarrant thought in Harry’s direction, with narrowed, angry eyes. Lily watched him, sitting stiffly next to Ron Weasley once the sorting was over and the food had been served, the anger on his face quiet apparent, and she worried. She worried because she had never ever seen either of her sons look at the other with that much hate in their gaze.

And Harry, surrounded by Slytherins, smiling and laughing and eating, didn’t seem to notice Tarrant’s upset or anger, but Lily did. She watched, unable to do anything, as Tarrant slipped that little bit further away from them.

XXX

* * *

Thank you for reading. I hope you liked the chapter (and the length because I doubt the next one will be quite so long)! On another note, updated Butterfly recently as well, in case you missed it… And am completely obsessed with the Wicked musical’s soundtrack… My family are sick of listening to me listen to it at top volume on repeat lol. Happy Ishtar!

Words: 5,671
Chapter 7
NEXT CHAPTER HERE