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After almost dying one too many times, Harry’s magic is forced to call forward his magical inheritance several years early...almost five years early to be exact.
“You’re dead, Harry Potter.” Riddle’s voice came from above him, taunting him as the Basilisk’s venom coursed through his veins. “I think I will sit here and watch as you die.”
Harry groaned as the white hot pain continued to burn, hotter and hotter. He squeezed his eyes shut and missed the flash of his magic, the glowing of his skin as his magic surged.
“What? What is happening?” He heard Riddle demand as he writhed in pain.
“It hurts.” Harry had a feeling that this wasn’t just the venom, that something more was happening. Shouldn’t he be dead already otherwise?
“Of course it does.” Riddle scoffed. “It looks like your magic is fighting the venom, how...interesting.”
His magic was fighting the venom? No other thought passed through his mind as finally the pain was too much and he blacked out.
When Harry woke, he wasn’t in any pain. In fact he felt a lot better than he had in a long time; Aches and pains that he didn’t realise were always there, were gone. He blinked slowly and noticed that his eyesight was clearer although his head felt heavier than before but not in a painful way? It felt as if he was wearing something heavy? It was weird.
“How long are you going to lay there for, Potter?” A voice echoed through the room they were in.
Harry shot up to a sitting position as he recognised the voice. It was Riddle. Riddle was Voldemort and they had been in the Chamber of Secrets and Ginny was dying and-
“I’m alive?” He couldn’t help but ask.
“It would seem so.” Riddle drawled. “Looks like the boy who lived, lived again.” He stepped into view, his footsteps splashing in the thin layer of water that covered the floor of the chamber. In Riddle’s hand was the diary. “Oh, by the way Ginny is dead and you have antlers.”
“What?” Harry was dumbfounded.
“You were too late to save your little girlfriend and whatever your magic did to save you gave you antlers.” He smirked. “Good luck explaining that to Dumbledore. So long!” He waved and walked away, twirling Harry’s wand in his empty hand.
“Hey!” Harry tried to get to his feet to go after him but his head was heavy and he had to catch himself before he landed face first on the wet floor. “Wait!”
“I have nothing more to say to you Potter, I got what I wanted.” Riddle smirked. “It looks like it's you that now needs something from me, so make it worth my while.” He crossed his arms and Harry wanted to smack that stupid smug look off his face. “Well?”
“Why?” Harry asked in the end. “Why did you have to kill Ginny? We could have come up with another way.” He had liked Riddle before he had found out that he was Voldemort and that he was the one behind the attacks. They had so much in common, both of them were orphans, both hated where they had to live and they were both parselmouths! So why? Why did his friend grow up to be Voldemort?
“Oh, Harry.” Riddle sighed and approached him. Warm, corporeal hands cupped Harry’s face. “There was no other way.”
“If you had told me that you needed someone in order to become a person again, I would have given you to my Aunt or Uncle.” Harry confessed. He wasn’t sure why he was still talking to this murderer but he didn’t want him to leave. If he left then that meant that Harry would have to think of a way to deal with what had happened. He would have to find a way out of the chamber, tell Ron that his sister was dead and find out why he had grown a pair of antlers.
“Oh.” Riddle titled his head in a reptile-like way. “You would have killed one of your relatives? Because that is what you would have done if you had given me to them.”
“Yes.” He admitted giving into the urge to lean into the hand cupping his face. Tom Riddle was the first person to truly understand Harry and it didn’t help that the teenager was attractive and charming.
“Maybe I should take you with me then?” Riddle mused as he stroked Harry’s cheek. “I will need someone loyal and I am curious about your new additions.”
Was Harry going to do this? Was he really going to go with the younger version of his parent’s murder? The murderer of Ginny Weasley? He had even tried to kill Harry with the Basilisk...but he wanted to go with him. With the orphan he had grown close to through written words, with the older teenager that had comforted him when he was so upset with how the school was treating him.
“Yes please.”
When Tom Riddle left the Chamber of Secrets through a tunnel that lead into the Forbidden Forest, Harry went with him.
Apparently the Malfoys were still followers of Voldemort and they had welcomed Tom and Harry with stiff smiles and welcoming if not shaky arms. Mrs Malfoy took one look at Harry’s new Antlers and immediately knew what had happened to him.
“You’re awfully young to have gone through your creature inheritance.” She commented as she gave him a guided tour. Tom was with Mr Malfoy talking about who knows what but Harry wished that he was still with him. It felt odd to be separated from Tom.
“A what?” Harry frowned. He had never heard of a creature's inheritance.
“A creature inheritance is in a case where someone has creature blood in their line, like elf, goblin, dwarve, Fae, Demon, and they inherit certain traits.” She explained. “Although I was unaware that the Potter line had any creature blood.”
“Do you know what I could be?”
“No, however I am sure we will be able to find out.” She pushed open a large door. “We have quite the extensive library after all.”
It was an extensive library. The room was bigger than the whole lower half of the Dursleys’ house and each wall had floor to ceiling bookcases and there was a maze of bookcases throughout the room too. It was a lot like the Hogwarts’ library.
“Wow.”
“You can use this to find what you need.” She walked over to a plinth with an open book. “Merely write down what you are interested in looking up, in this case Creature Inheritance.” She wrote the words. “And you will be offered a list of books that contain that topic.”
“Wicked.” He’d bet that Tom was friendly with the Malfoy’s just for their library!
“Indeed.” A corner of her mouth quirked up in a half smile for a second. “Now, I would start with this one.” She tapped her manicured figure on a title. The title glowed white and then suddenly the book was in front of her. “This will give you an overview of what creature inheritances are and some of the more unusual ones.”
“Thank you.” Harry took the book from her, eager to get reading. He wanted to know what he was and he wanted to distract himself from the fact that he had almost blindly ran away with a murderer.
“Call for a house elf if you need anything.” And with that Harry was left alone in the Library of Malfoy Manor.
Harry made himself comfortable on a high back chair that was surprisingly comfortable before opening the book. He decided to skip the explanation of what a creature inheritance was, as Mrs Malfoy’s description was enough for him to get the gist and instead flipped through the creatures.
Naga- snake people , nope.
Sasquatch- A humanoid ape-like creature native to North America. Apparently bigfoot was real but no, Harry wasn’t one.
Dugbog – A crocodilian-like creature resembling a piece of dead wood while stationary. Nope.
Erkling – An elvish creature that uses music to lure in human children and eat them. Nope.
Fairy – A small human-like creature with insect wings. Immensely proud and rather stupid. Nope but it reminded Harry of Malfoy and he had to bite his cheek to stop himself from laughing.
Griffin – A creature that is part-eagle, part-lion. Nope
Kelpie – A shapeshifting aquatic creature that often appears as a horse with kelp as a mane. When mounted, it drags down and drowns the unfortunate rider. Nope
Wampus cat – A six-legged puma-like creature Nope.
Just as Harry was despairing that he would ever find out what creature he was from this book he turned to the next page and found it.
Peryton -is a creature combining the physical features of a stag and a bird, they are also known as a nightmare stag and has three forms:
The full form: have the head, neck, forelegs and antlers of a stag, combined with the plumage, wings and hindquarters of a large bird. The species of bird and deer depends entirely upon the region the creature is from.
Half form: Mostly human but with a full head of antlers and hair turning into feathers.
Human form: self explanatory.
That sounded a lot like Harry. He currently had antlers and, he reached up to touch his hair only to find that they had the same texture as Hedwig’s feathers, he had feathers for hair.
“I’m a Peryton.” Harry said to himself as he traced the image with his eyes. They looked rather magnificent to be honest.
There wasn’t much more written about the creature in the book so he returned to the plinth and copied what Mrs Malfoy had done earlier.
Peryton , he wrote in his chicken scratch.
Only one title appeared: Hybrid Creatures. Harry touched the title and it glowed briefly before a rather thick, leather bound book appeared. Harry took it and returned to his seat. The book thankfully had a contents page otherwise Harry would have to flip through over five hundred pages in order to find something about Perytons.
Perytons
The Perytons lived in Atlantis until an earthquake destroyed the civilization and the creatures escaped by flight.
A Peryton's feathered and winged body is about 7 feet long and 5 feet tall, although their antlers can add up to another foot to their height. In their half form they are the same height as their human form just with antlers and feathered hair. Every Peryton has a set of extremely sharp and strong antlers, which are as hard as steel and usually jet black in colour. They have a deceptively strong hide that was nearly impervious to anything bar fiendfyre or cursed blades…
No wonder his magic pulled out this inheritance as it looks like they were immune to basically everything. That was pretty brilliant. Then Harry spotted something that made him freeze for a moment.
...Peryton’s mate for life and are drawn to their mates at first sight. Regardless of what kind of relationship they had previously, once a Peryton finds their mate, they are loath to be apart from them. They can be rather protective and possessive of their mate and young…
It would explain why he had wanted to follow Riddle despite everything he had done. Why even now, being away from him, despite being the same manor, was anxiety inducing. Maybe he should be more stressed over the fact that his mate was Tom Riddle aka Voldemort, but he could only really focus on the fact that he was a strong mate and would protect him well. Not that he needed much protecting in his full form but his other forms were rather vulnerable.
Now he just needed to tell Tom and then hopefully never leave his side. Oh, and he wanted to try shifting into his full form, that would be brilliant.