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Chapter Text

It was Thursday afternoon, just after Potions let out, and Harry was on his way to the Great Hall for dinner. He rounded a corner, and then:

"Harry, mate, I'm so sorry," Seamus Finnegan clapped him on the shoulder. "This must be so hard for you."

Harry blinked. "..What?" It was just Potions, it wasn't that bad. Slughorn was loads better than Snape had been, after all.

"Your dad, mate!" Seamus insisted, holding up an evening edition of the Prophet. "Everyone knows now, you don't have to hide it anymore-"

"My dad's dead," said Harry flatly. "Voldemort killed him. Everyone knows that-"

Then he read the headline.

Draco had had more than a year's worth of the Dark Lord's terrible company at his family manor, by now, and it was enough for what Muggles would call a Pavlovian response to develop: he flinched at loud voices, and high-pitched yelling in particular. He froze in the face of others' anger despite his best efforts to compose himself. He shivered and paled at the sound of hissing.

Hogwarts, thankfully, had very little of any of that, so his stress this year had mostly been from the task he'd been set to complete-

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!"

Draco nearly fell over in his haste to look in the direction of the shouting, the blood draining from his face. He was not the only one in the hallway to do so - Potter's expression, or what he could see of it, was no less than murderous, the newspaper in his hands gripped so hard it might tear. One of the Gryffindor boys he'd never bothered to learn the name of was standing nearby, looking equal parts confused and amused; Draco envied the bloke's steel bollocks, because if he were standing any closer he was pretty sure his heart would have given out, vision darkening at the edges just like it was right now-

"Breathe, Dray," Theo said in his ear, hand gentle on his arm. Theo knew what the summers at Malfoy Manor were like; he'd been there for part of August.

"Who does Voldemort think he is," Potter snarled, "spouting this filthy lie to the world-?" He shoved the newspaper back into the unnamed Gryffindor's hands, whirling around to storm down the hallway, Granger and Weasley at his heels. Only Draco's excellent hearing let him catch Weasley's words to the Boy-Who-Lived as they passed.

"Your dad, apparently."

His- his what?

Oh, Merlin, that made so much sense. Draco's hands were shaking. Potter was- was His son - Potter had been following him around all term, monitoring him, more than usual, just when the Dark Lord had given him his mission, like he knew what Draco was up to-

Theo handed him a Calming Draught and Draco downed it without a moment's hesitation, leaning against the wall.

Dark Lord Tells All!
"1981 Was A Family Matter."

Readers, shocking news this week as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named came forward to reveal the true story of the infamous night at Godric's Hollow...

  ...Dumbledore's hiding-away of young 'Harry Potter' was not in concern for James and Lily Potter's safety, but a complicated kidnapping attempt - one which succeeded so well that the world believed it without question, until now.

"My grief and anger at the loss of my heir to political enemies I believed would soon kill him were used to perpetuate the narrative of my insanity," claims You-Know-Who in the written statement submitted to the Prophet earlier this week which spurred our investigation...

"And what, readers, will You-Know-Who be doing now? We can only wonder," Hermione read aloud, more astonished with every word. "But the most pressing question of all is: what is Harry Potter's real name?"

She glanced at Ron, who was eyeing the empty place at the Gryffindor table where Harry would normally be. “This is a really long article,” she murmured, flipping through several more pages. “They haven’t had a feature with this many pages since the Triwizard Tournament.”

“And they have a whole section on that,” Ron observed, prodding one of the pages with his finger. “Dumb reporters can’t decide whether Harry won the Tournament on a fluke because of You-Know-Who secretly helping him-” a proposal substantiated by the reveal of Moody being Crouch Junior, and the now-acknowledged return of Voldemort at the end of the Third Task, which had only been sparsely covered in the media that year due to the Ministry’s suppression of the truth- “or because, ‘as the son of You-Know-Who, he’s more powerful than people his age and so it’s only natural that he won’ - so bloody stupid!” He stabbed a sausage with his fork with unnecessary force. “Harry worked his arse off to win the Tournament, and everyone knows it!”

Hermione skimmed over the last few pages of speculation - what kind of magic could have been used to suppress this, the paper claimed to wonder; is an illegal blood ritual the reason our Boy-Who-Lived looks so much like his alleged non-parents? “I think we should go look for him,” she told Ron. “He’s probably brooding upstairs.”

Ron cleared the last of his plate, before piling a bunch of food onto the unused plate left for Harry. A neat household spell charmed it to stay warm. “Yeah,” he turned to her, “let’s go.”

They decidedly ignored the muttering and the staring from the other students, as they went.

The sight of a door in the seventh-floor hallway, across from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, was a good sign. Harry could have asked the Room not to let anyone else in. If he hadn’t, then he welcomed their company.

(Or he was so enraged that he’d forgotten.)

They shared a look before approaching the polished wooden double-doors, ignoring the somewhat menacing carvings on the doorframes, and went inside.

Last year, over the course of many meetings held within the Room of Requirement, it had been determined through experimentation that the Room would make itself a little different for each person who asked for it, even if their request was phrased exactly the same. Some days, the DA’s club room would have light walls, or bright wallpaper, with a row of plants by a set of windows on one wall; other days, it would be in House colors, or the vibrant purple of the unofficial club logo. And some days, particularly Harry’s days, it had been… well, more like this.

Stone-wrought, windowless, and dark, torches just barely bright enough to light their way where they hung on walls which slanted faintly inward to a high, sharp ceiling, menacingly shadowed like a moonless sky. The large stone fireplace that was the focal point of the space had a roaring fire going, yet the air still felt cold: and against the brightness of the flames, Harry’s backlit silhouette, the lines of his figure all tense with restrained emotion, held something ominous, cast sharp shadows colored with his rage.

“I thought,” said Harry lowly, when Ron and Hermione had taken their seats at Harry’s round table, “that Rita Skeeter had been handled?”

Ron wordlessly laid the plate and a rolled napkin containing utensils in front of him, knowing it would take time for their friend’s mood to improve. Harry got the message without needing to be prodded about it; he set about cutting his food into meticulous, even pieces, the way he always did in times like these, while he waited for an answer.

Hermione waited until he’d at least eaten a little before giving one. “It wasn’t like she signed a contract,” she pointed out, “and You-Know-Who is… probably threatening her life, Harry. If she isn’t under the Imperius outright.”

“Tch.” Harry ate, contemplative, and they were content to let him. Ron had swiped a butter dish for his baked potato; he mashed butter into the soft insides, then ate the skin too, using pieces to wipe up the juice and gravies on the plate. “Should have reported her to the Ministry at the end of term. Then she wouldn’t have been around to write at all, last year.”

Ron grimaced. “Kind of a Slytherin move, innit though? Not that I’m defending her, it’s just. Azkaban.”

“Hm,” Harry finished off his plate, and pushed it aside. “Still. It would have been… expedient.”

Ron sent Hermione  another look, as if to say, oh dear. When Harry was angry enough that he started sounding posh? It wasn’t going to be over anytime soon. “D’you want us to stay?” he ventured. “Beat up some dummies, maybe a spar?” The Room could get large enough to accommodate half of a Quidditch pitch, even.

“...No. Go back to the Tower,” Harry decided, after a minute. “I’m just going to sit and think.”

“Are you sure?” Hermione asked. “We can-”

“Leave me.”

So they did.

Alone, Harry turned back to stare into the fire. Hermione had left a copy of the Prophet on the table for him; slowly, as the hour passed, he began to tear each page into shreds, and toss those shreds into the flames. Here he’d thought the worst of this year would be whatever Malfoy was up to; but no. Once again, people were buying into shite that the Prophet spewed out, just like last year, and the year before, and second year.

Second year, when they’d thought he was the Heir of Slytherin. Harry stared at the scrap of paper in his hands - what is Harry Potter’s real name? - and barked out a derisive laugh: this scandal was claiming exactly the same .

Which meant there would be frightened looks sent in his direction, again, and murmuring whenever he entered a room - but then, I’ve had to get used to that, Harry thought darkly.

If he couldn’t have no attention this year - if the choice was hatred or fear - this time, he’d choose their fear.

Chapter Text

Severus Snape knew for a fact that the Dark Lord’s latest claim against Dumbledore was complete bollocks. For better or worse, Potter was indeed James Potter and Lily’s son, and no one else’s - of this, he was absolutely certain.

This certainty did not waver with Potter’s arrival to the Great Hall: plenty of people could storm into a large room in a huff and get attention. And it was Potter’s preexisting celebrity that generated the sweeping hush over the assembled students, not some wave of Dark menace; besides, conversation at the other tables was picking up again as soon as the boy had passed them by.

It was only typical Gryffindor stupidity that that House table remained silent as Potter strode down to the very end of the table, where his yearmates were. (Severus was one of many who eyed him sharply when he, finding no space made for him among his peers, conjured a seat at the table’s head. Arrogant brat.)

And it was - merely an instance of similarity, Severus thought firmly, that the Gryffindors would watch him, tense and unspeaking, the way the Death Eaters at the Dark Lord’s table often did, so that his words carried further than they ought to in the silence.

“I would have thought,” Potter murmured, low and carrying, “that after all these years, at least my House would have learned loyalty.”

It was only coincidence, Severus told himself, that the boy’s tone and inflection were just like the Dark Lord’s, enough to send a cold shiver down his spine.

(Lily hadn’t always liked James Potter, but she had married him. She wouldn’t have changed her mind and cheated on him… would she?)

Harry’s expectations for his treatment had been proven absolutely right the minute he stepped into the Great Hall for breakfast.

He’d spent the night brooding in the Room of Requirement, and borrowed a spare set of robes the Room left beside him to replace his rumpled uniform, spelling the Slytherin trim to Gryffindor colors. The plain shirt and trousers underneath the robe were black, another difference from what he usually wore, but Harry had noticed with some satisfaction that they fit better than the Dudley cast-offs. He’d smiled at his reflection, in passing, and left the Room for the day in a forcibly cheerful mood.

Then the entire population of the Great Hall had gone dead silent the second he crossed the threshold. Of course, Harry thought, rolling his eyes, and headed for the Gryffindor table.

Murmurs followed him, because of course they did. Harry didn’t give a damn about that. But the cringing, anxious way his housemates stared up at him as he passed, and noticeably didn’t move over to give him space at the table, was not so easily ignored.

Harry remembered, then, his decision the previous night, to let them fear. He decided now to let himself be angry. With a spell he vaguely recalled learning at some point, he summoned a chair from elsewhere in the castle - the one he’d brooded in, in the Room of Requirement - to the head of the table, next to Ron and Hermione and Neville, who had likely been ostracized within their House for associating with Harry.

(At least they hadn’t abandoned him, this time.)

And it was still quiet at the Gryffindor table, like the others were waiting for him to speak.

So Harry did.

“I would have thought,” he began, staring down the table at the others, “that after all these years, at least my House would have learned loyalty.”

They shifted uneasily beneath his gaze - even his friends, if only momentarily. Let them fear, Harry reminded himself, and glared at the rest of them a moment longer, flaring his presence out over the Great Hall the way Snape did in his classroom.

Then he started on his breakfast, meticulously cutting everything on his plate into small bits, and pretended the rest of the student body did not exist.

Ron shot Hermione a glance while Harry was occupied with his food. He’s still mad, he mouthed at her when he’d caught her eye.

She looked to the side and saw what he meant: Harry was being posh with his cutlery, too. Everything, even his posture, was that over-formal style that he only ever used unconsciously, when he was brooding over things.

“Hey, mate,” Ron murmured, passing him the carafe of pumpkin juice. “How’d you sleep?”

Harry paused with his teacup held delicately up to his lips. “You know,” he mused, “I don’t think I did.”

Chapter Text

Harry finished his breakfast at a deliberate pace, meticulous with his food in a way he found relaxing, so they would see he didn’t care about the tense silence in his vicinity, or the wary looks he was getting from not only other students, but also several teachers. Let them fear me, he’d decided, and he was sticking to it.

Ron and Hermione disappointed him by not trying to do the same, the tension visible in their frames; he wondered when they’d become so easily swayed, but then, Ron had abandoned him before, in fourth year. He had learned better - Harry had taught him better the year after - but a small part of Harry thought that his friend was still… unworthy.

Whatever.

After breakfast was Potions, and in the absence of conversation to hold him in the Great Hall, Harry found himself there a fair while before class began.

“Harry, m’boy,” Slughorn greeted with particular ebullience, “early today, I see? Come in, come in…”

“Erm, thanks, sir,” Harry offered, a little thrown by the friendly attitude. “I got a little bit frustrated at breakfast, so I came down early.”

“Just as well!” the portly professor laughed, patting Harry on the shoulder as he crossed the threshold, beelining for his usual seat in the back row. This time, however, Slughorn followed him, jolly as ever; and with a faint sinking feeling, Harry realized he had a suspicion as to why.

He was proven right by the way Slughorn glanced back at the door to the classroom - ajar, but still unoccupied, as it really was quite early yet - before speaking again. “Now, Harry, far be it from me to dictate your mind to you,” the wizard began, confiding, “but I’m sure you have already concluded that these… rumors… will die down sooner or later. That said, if you find you need some extra time on any assignments while managing the, ah, emotional strain of the situation, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

Slughorn colored. “Your - alleged father experienced something like it in his time, after discovering his own heritage. Not to assume you’re acknowledging the fellow!” Slughorn held up placating hands. “Goodness knows you’ve the right not to, but if you did-”

Uncomfortable with this line of discussion, Harry retreated into formality. “Thank you, Professor,” he interrupted before the rambling could go on any longer. “I understand, and am grateful for your consideration, regardless of its context.” He offered Slughorn his very best charming smile.

“Ah, of course, my boy, of course - be that as it may, for what it’s worth, Tom Riddle was quite the prodigy, even moreso than James or Lily-”

Harry sent him a somewhat sharper smile, resisting the urge to grit his teeth. “I appreciate the compliment, sir, mistaken as it may be.”

Slughorn flinched.

Snape, at least, treated Harry the same as always, as he found out after lunch - another meal eaten surrounded by gawking idiots. But Harry found himself distracted during Defense by the uncharacteristic niceness of the Slytherin contingent who, in direct contrast to the rest of the school, had all decided they now wanted to be his friend.

Except Malfoy, who was obviously terrified of him - nice - and Theo Nott, one of Malfoy’s few friends, who kept eyeing Harry warily from the far side of the room.

“Mister Potter,” Snape interrupted Harry’s impromptu staring contest with Nott, “barring the revelation of some hidden mastery of wordless, wandless magic, you are expected to perform to standard, not bask idly in the awe of your peers.”

Harry shot him a glare, but his heart wasn’t really in it - not when it was obvious Snape didn’t buy into the rumors. (It was also hilarious how the suck-up Slytherins were cringing at every word out of their Head of House’s mouth.) “Yes, Professor,” he replied evenly, staring the man straight in the eyes. “My apologies.”

Snape’s eyelid twitched, but he had no further insults. Harry thought, while practicing a series of wordless hexes, that the usual spiel of ‘just like your father’ probably wouldn’t have gone over well with the latest gossip.

Eventually, the bell rang.

“Remain behind, Mr. Potter.”

Ugh.

The rest of the class departed for the Great Hall for dinner, leaving just Harry and Snape in the classroom. The door closed and locked behind the last person with a gesture from Snape; Harry watched the man return to a chair behind his desk.

There was a moment of silence.

“...Sir?”

“It has come to my attention,” Snape began, his tone surprisingly neutral, “that you have made no further denials of the Dark Lord’s accusations, Potter.”

So it was about that, then. “At no point in the last five years,” Harry replied, leaning back in his chair, “have my words of denial carried any weight.” He watched Snape with narrowed eyes. “That does not mean I am not livid about this.”

For a moment, Harry thought he saw surprise on the man’s face. “...I see,” Snape said, eventually. “Have you considered an inheritance test, then? The results of such a test, performed by a neutral third party, would be sufficient to dispel the rumors.”

Harry blinked. “What’s an inheritance test?”

Chapter Text

“One drop of blood will suffice.”

Harry accepted a plain gold needle from Snape, considered where to use it, and decided on his upper arm, where it wouldn’t hurt much at all. The Potions Master raised an eyebrow; if Harry was reading him right, that was a ‘reluctantly impressed’ eyebrow.

Snape had spent the whole walk down to his office grumbling, first about Harry’s ignorance of wizarding life, and then - when Harry acidly reminded him that he had been raised outside of the wizarding world - about the extremely limited education available to Muggle-raised students at Hogwarts, which after hearing Hermione’s thoughts on the matter for years, Harry quite agreed with.

(“Absolute bollocks - they’ve had the Encyclopedia Britannica in print since the eighteenth century but I have to spend all weekend scouring the library for the answer to a simple question?!”)

Once sequestered in Snape’s office, behind a locked and warded door, the man had poured pearlescent green potion onto a large sheet of parchment, and while they waited the few minutes necessary for it to soak in and dry, proceeded to be surprisingly patient in explaining to Harry how it would work.

“Official tests use the same materials as we have here, but are certified by a neutral third party, typically Gringotts’ legal department, to become matters of record. Confirming the results ahead of time will make documentation much easier,” Snape had murmured, but something in his tone told Harry that that was not his only motivation in conducting the unofficial inheritance test.

Now, as ink bloomed from the spot where his blood had dripped onto the parchment, Harry caught the intense stare Snape was sending at the table and realized that even he had begun to have doubts. Ha! Seriously? Even Snape?

He saw Snape frown suddenly, and looked back down at the test, which should have outlined three generations of a family tree-

And immediately saw the problem.

“Why the fuck,” Harry demanded, voice cracking, “is he on here as a third parent?”

He looked at Snape again and found the man had gone ashen, bracing himself on the table. “That should not have happened,” he declared, firmly, but with his brows drawn together in something like… fear?

“Well, is there some error with the potion, then?” Harry rasped, then coughed to clear his throat. “Was it expired or something?”

“No, Potter, it was not expired.” Snape had recovered from his shock, it seemed; he summoned a chair for each of them. “Third parents are possible, in magical lineage, if certain stringent requirements are met; but there is no way in hell that the Dark Lord could have - contributed - to your conception…” He shuddered, as if the very concept pained him; belatedly, Harry realized what ‘contributing’ would have meant, and shuddered too.

“...So what now?”

“Now,” Snape grimaced, “we demand answers from the headmaster.”

To demand answers from Albus Dumbledore was no easy feat.

Even on a good day, it was like pulling teeth with the man - last year, when the headmaster had been out on Order business, had actually been easier, because he’d delegated his duties to Minerva and didn’t need to be reached for Hogwarts matters.

But Severus was not inquiring about Hogwarts matters, this time, and Albus was proving even more unhelpful than usual, for all that he’d at least deigned to show up to Severus’ office when he’d called.

It felt like they had been talking in circles for the past half hour, ever since the headmaster looked at Harry’s lineage results and went as pale as he’d been on the night that he’d found that cursed ring. Oh, dear, he’d said, and then had to sit down for a minute to recover. Then he had said some vague shite about ‘having thoughts as to what the cause may be’, and had not elaborated on what those thoughts were, which brought them to the present.

Severus spared a glance at Potter, who had been silent for the last ten minutes, and found the boy’s face blank, but with a dark look in his eyes: a taut neutrality which was… uncomfortably familiar, in light of his supposed third inheritance.

“Enough,” Potter said at last, his tone gone ice-cold. Severus instinctively braced himself for a Cruciatus, before he remembered the time and place.

“If you insist on keeping secrets,” he stared at Albus, “again,” Severus felt the air chill, “then so be it. Leave.”

It was with some surprise that Severus saw the headmaster actually do so. Which left him once more alone with Potter - whose gaze had gone distant, a tiny smirk curving up one side of his mouth.

That is the Dark Lord’s ‘scheming’ face, he thought, stomach twisting in dread.

Because the Dark Lord’s schemes never ended well.

“What will you do now?” Severus asked, then cringed inside at the deferential tone he had used.

“Now,” Potter murmured, not deigning to look at him, “I will write a letter.”