Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The castle had not stirred this way in decades.

Cold wind rattled the high windows of the Great Hall as the doors groaned open, heavy with age and weight — as if even the stones themselves hesitated to welcome the boy who crossed the threshold.

Sixteen. Black robes stitched in blood-warded runes. Silver clasp carved with ancestral magic. Black hair combed cleanly back, skin pale as moonlight, and eyes—

Eyes the colour of the Killing Curse.

He didn’t flinch when every head turned. He didn’t blink when the whispers began. A name hadn’t even been spoken, and already, silence was breaking like glass.

At the staff table, Dippet leaned forward slightly, squinting. Beside him, Dumbledore straightened, just barely. There was something in his expression—not recognition, but familiarity. The kind that brushed against the edges of memory and didn’t quite land.

“Who is that?” Professor Merrythought murmured under her breath.

“Not on the list,” said Slughorn softly. “Not supposed to be here.”

But he was. And Hogwarts felt it.

The boy paused a few paces from the entrance, scanning the Hall slowly. Calculated. Controlled. Like one surveying a battleground before choosing where to land the first strike.

The Sorting Hat sat silent on its stool. It had sung earlier that night, just before the first years entered. Now it was quiet. Watching.

“What in Merlin’s name is he wearing?” muttered Walburga Black from the Slytherin table. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it didn’t need to be. The words reached.

Alphard Black stared openly. Lucretia beside him whispered something he ignored.

Orion said nothing.

But it was Tom Riddle who moved first.

He stood slowly from his seat at the Slytherin table, every inch of him composed, but eyes alert, calculating. Like a serpent facing another predator.

“You don’t belong to any of the Houses,” Tom said evenly. “You weren’t Sorted.”

The boy—Hadrian—tilted his head slightly. The gesture was almost amused.

“Why would I need to be?” he asked, voice soft and ancient. “The castle already knows who I am.”

He walked forward then, passing the dumbstruck students, straight to the front of the Hall. Eyes followed him like shadows.

“State your name,” Dippet called, confused but trying to sound authoritative.

Hadrian turned. Slowly. With elegance that didn’t feel learned but bred into the bone.

“Hadrian Regulus Peverell Caliban,” he said clearly.

There was a sound. A shift.

Not from the students. Not from the staff.

From the castle.

The floor thrummed faintly underfoot. The enchanted ceiling flickered. The flame sconces flared.

Peverell.
Caliban.

Half the staff sat straighter. Slughorn let out a breath he hadn’t meant to hold. Merrythought dropped her fork. Dumbledore was stone-still.

The student body was silent.

The Blacks were pale. Even Walburga.

It was Lucretia who whispered it aloud.

“He’s supposed to be dead.”

Hadrian turned to face the tables now, letting them see the rings he wore. Each bore the seal of a House long-thought extinct or dissolved. Ravenclaw. Peverell. Emrys. Pendragon.

Tom Riddle’s jaw tensed.

“Impossible,” someone said.

Three generations had passed since the Houses of Hadrian were last seen in the halls of Hogwarts. Some students didn’t even recognize the names. Others only knew them from whisper and war.

“He should be in Slytherin,” McGonagall said quietly to a friend across the Gryffindor table. “If his lines are true.”

Hadrian smiled faintly. Not warm. Not cold. Just knowing.

The Sorting Hat said nothing. Didn’t move.

Dippet opened his mouth to say something, but Hadrian spoke first.

“There is no need for the Sorting.”

“Excuse me?”

Hadrian turned to him. “The Wards have already accepted my claim. The castle knows me. My blood was written into the stone before your name ever reached parchment.”

Gasps. Disbelief.

Slughorn slowly stood.

“You—you’re the Caliban boy. Your grandfather—Modric Lucan Caliban.”

“Incarcerated,” Hadrian said simply. “Awaiting death or madness.”

“And your sire?”

“Dead.”

“Your bearer?” Dumbledore spoke this time, his voice gentle. Curious.

“Also dead.”

“You were homeschooled,” Tom Riddle said. Not a question.

Hadrian looked at him for the first time.

And something passed between them. Not magic. Not hostility. Recognition.

“I was trained,” Hadrian said.

A pause.

“You will need to be sorted,” Dippet insisted. “It is school tradition.”

The Sorting Hat suddenly stirred. Its voice came, quiet and rasping.

“He already belongs.”

“Where?” Dippet asked.

The hat laughed. Low. Slow.

“Slytherin, of course.”

And just like that, Hadrian turned and walked to the Slytherin table.

Every student moved out of the way.

Except Tom Riddle, who remained standing.

Hadrian stopped before him.

“Room for one more, Riddle?”

Tom studied him. Hard. Measured.

Then slowly sat down.

Hadrian took the space beside him.

The Great Hall was quiet for a long time.

And Hogwarts remembered what it had almost forgotten.

The Slytherin table was quiet. Too quiet.

Hadrian’s presence weighed on the air like an ancient spell left to simmer — one that still hadn’t finished unfolding.

He hadn’t said a word since sitting beside Tom. He didn’t need to. Silence seemed to settle around him like armor.

And that’s when it began.

His robes — once pitch black — began to change.

Slowly. Like shadows sliding over stone, like ink bleeding into silk. Not green exactly. Not the polished emerald of the Slytherin crest. This was darker. Older. A green so deep it was nearly black, stitched with glints of serpentine silver that moved when they shouldn’t — like the fabric breathed.

“Blood-tuned,” someone whispered under their breath. “Those robes—”

“Not enchanted,” muttered Lucretia Black, wide-eyed. “They’re alive.”

Hadrian said nothing. He merely adjusted one of the rings on his finger — the Peverell one — and continued eating, as if all of this was routine.

Tom Riddle glanced sideways, studying the robes. Then the runes. Then the ring. Always calculating. Always hunting.

“Blood magic,” he murmured under his breath. “Woven into the seams.”

Hadrian gave a small hum in reply. Not an answer. Just… acknowledgment.

Slughorn watched from the High Table, his goblet untouched.

His mind was somewhere else entirely.

“…Your grandfather,” he said aloud after a moment, not addressing anyone in particular, as if trying to remember out loud. “Modric Lucan Caliban. He sat exactly where you do now.”

Heads turned. No one dared interrupt.

“I remember… second year, he invented a potion that dissolved through silver. Nearly melted half the dungeon. Brilliant, but reckless. Always knew more than he let on.” Slughorn’s voice had gone distant. “Never smiled. Always dressed in robes stitched by hand — like yours. Same eyes too.”

Hadrian didn’t look up.

“He spoke the old tongue,” Slughorn added. “Even when no one else remembered it.”

Still no reply.

Just a faint twitch of Hadrian’s mouth. Not quite amusement. Not quite a smile.

Down the table, something strange happened.

One by one, the members of the Black family stood.

Lucretia first. Then Orion. Then Alphard. Walburga hesitated — just a beat — then followed.

They did not speak.

They only bowed.

Not deeply. Not theatrically.

But the way one bowed to a name older than law. To a house older than thrones. To something that their ancestors had taught them not to question.

Tom Riddle's eyes narrowed, sharp and dark. “You taught them to do that?”

“No,” Hadrian murmured, his voice soft. “Their blood did.”

That made something behind Tom’s eyes flicker. Just briefly.

Power recognizes power.

And Tom Riddle hated not being the oldest force in the room.

Across the hall, McGonagall leaned toward her friend, her voice quiet.

“He’s not just any heir,” she said, brow furrowed. “He didn’t just inherit those rings. He carries the weight of them. You can feel it.”

“He’s not going to be easy to ignore,” the friend replied.

McGonagall glanced back at the Slytherin table.

Hadrian was sitting there like he had always belonged. Like the school had been built around him.

Tom finally spoke again, voice low, meant only for Hadrian.

“You’re not afraid of me.”

It wasn’t a question.

Hadrian didn’t even blink.

“Should I be?”

Tom didn’t answer.

He smiled instead — sharp and slow.

The kind of smile he gave just before he started tearing someone apart.

But Hadrian didn’t look away.

He lifted his goblet and took a quiet sip of water.

And Tom saw his own reflection in the ring on Hadrian’s hand.

Only — it didn’t look like him.

-----

### 🐍 After the Feast

The feast ended, but the tension didn’t.

As the golden plates vanished and students rose in murmurs and scattered groups, none of the Slytherins moved first.

Tom stood.

So Hadrian stood with him.

The others followed.

They filed out of the Great Hall in practiced lines — but this time, the formation shifted. Hadrian was not pushed to the back, not shoved aside as any newcomer might’ve been.

He walked just behind Tom. Equal in stride. Shadow to shadow.

They descended into the dungeons.

The portraits on the walls — usually indifferent or dozing — stirred as they passed. One ancient witch, crooked and grim-faced, actually blinked awake and leaned forward.

"Well, well…" she rasped. “The blood returns to the stone.”

She bowed.

Hadrian glanced at her, just for a second, then kept walking.

---

### 🖤 In the Slytherin Common Room

The wall slid open without a word.

The common room was silent.

A few older students cast quick glances at Hadrian, unsure whether to speak. Most didn't.

But Alphard Black stepped forward, eyes lowered.

He bowed again.

This time deeper.

“Welcome home,” he murmured.

Hadrian regarded him for a moment. “You're Alphard.”

“Yes, my lord—”

“No.”

Alphard blinked.

Hadrian’s voice softened.

“No titles. Not here. Not yet.”

Orion shifted from where he stood near the fireplace. “We thought… your House was ended. Grandfather said—”

“Your grandfather was not wrong,” Hadrian said simply. “But we are not finished.”

Lucretia swallowed. “Do you remember us?”

“I remember your blood,” Hadrian replied, not unkindly. “That’s enough.”

---

### 🪞 The Dormitory

Later that night, Hadrian stood in the quiet of the boys’ sixth-year dorm.

The others pretended to sleep. Tom didn’t.

He watched Hadrian from his bed across the room.

The green glow from the sconces cast patterns across Hadrian’s face as he unpacked a small, ancient trunk. Not a magical suitcase. No extension charms. Just… a trunk.

Inside were books older than Hogwarts, handwritten in curling, forgotten script. A vial of silver flame sealed with glass. A dagger wrapped in black silk. A wand — yes — but nothing ordinary about it.

The wood was gray as bone.

Hadrian didn’t use it.

Not yet.

He placed each item carefully on the small bedside table and sat, spine straight, hands folded on his lap.

Not praying. Waiting.

Across the room, Tom’s curiosity finally got the better of him.

“You came here for a reason.”

Hadrian didn’t turn.

“Of course.”

“What is it?”

“To finish something that was left undone.”

Tom narrowed his eyes. “You speak like you're older than you look.”

Hadrian finally glanced at him. “And you speak like someone who has only just discovered how young he still is.”

Tom said nothing after that.

Not because he had no words — but because none felt safe.

---

### 🏰 Hogwarts Reacts

The staircases moved for him.

No delay. No shifting labyrinth.

The castle — usually willful, temperamental, and fond of mischief — treated Hadrian like a returning king.

When he walked past windows, they opened slightly to let in wind.

When he passed portraits, they straightened, bowed, or fell silent.

He paused before a hallway on the seventh floor one afternoon.

There should’ve been a blank wall.

Instead, a door shimmered into being — dark wood with no handle, engraved with the same rune on Hadrian’s ring.

The Room of Requirement.

It had opened before he walked once, or thought once, or asked once.

It remembered him.

He stepped inside and found not a training hall. Not a sanctuary.

But an ancestral chamber — filled with relics that should’ve been destroyed long ago.

And a single floating candle, as if left burning for centuries, waiting for him to return.

---

# The Portrait Conversation

Days passed.

Hadrian began mapping Hogwarts quietly — not with quills, but with memory.

He walked corridors most students avoided. He spoke little. He watched.

One afternoon, in a forgotten third-floor gallery, a portrait called to him.

Not loudly. Not with words.

Just a feeling. A pull.

It was a painting no one remembered — buried behind a tapestry, cracked with age.

The woman in the frame wore layered robes of deep green and silver. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, but sharp.

“You are not late,” she said when he pulled the tapestry aside.

“You’ve been waiting,” Hadrian replied.

“A long time.”

“Who painted you?”

“No one living.”

Silence.

Then she said, “The boy with the red eyes watches you.”

Hadrian said nothing.

She smiled.

“Good. You won’t underestimate him.”

“Nor overestimate him,” Hadrian answered.

The portrait bowed her head slightly.

“Your lines run deep,” she murmured. “But your choices will cut deeper.”

Chapter Text

### 🐍 When the Blacks Chose

The next morning, Hadrian left the Slytherin dormitory before breakfast. He didn’t need directions — the castle made way for him, opening familiar paths as if his footsteps had never left the stone.

He walked in silence, robes whispering behind him like water.

But when he reached the stairs, he paused.

Behind him: Alphard. Then Lucretia. Orion. Walburga — three paces back, her face guarded but her posture deferential.

Not a word spoken.

Just loyalty.

Old blood remembering older oaths.

“Are you following me?” Hadrian asked quietly, without turning.

“We walk where our line walks,” Alphard replied.

Hadrian turned his head slightly.

“I am not a lord.”

“No,” Lucretia agreed. “You are something else.”

---

### 🧙‍♂️ The Headmaster’s Summons

By midday, an owl delivered a brief summons in ink so old it cracked at the edges.

> *The Headmaster requests your presence.*
> *Now.*

Hadrian folded the parchment once and rose without ceremony.

He made his way to the stone gargoyle guarding the Headmaster’s office.

It moved before he spoke.

The staircase revealed itself without a password.

Dippet’s door was already ajar when Hadrian reached the top.

Inside: no wand drawn, no stern lecture waiting. Just the weary, puzzled eyes of a man who had been Headmaster too long.

“Close the door, Mr. Caliban.”

Hadrian did.

Dippet gestured to the chair in front of his desk. “Sit.”

He did.

For a while, they didn’t speak. The air between them settled like dust.

“I remember your grandfather,” Dippet said finally. “Though… I was much younger then. He was terrifying.”

“I’ve heard.”

“Not because of what he did,” the Headmaster said, more to himself than anyone else, “but because he knew things that should not have been knowable.”

He looked up.

“And now here you are. Descended from Houses I only know from tomb markers and warnings in Ministry records.”

Hadrian didn’t flinch.

“I’ve read your file,” Dippet said.

“I was told there isn’t one,” Hadrian replied.

“There isn’t,” the old man admitted. “That’s what makes it worse.”

He leaned forward slightly.

“Where were you?”

Hadrian’s voice was calm. “Where we were always meant to be. Hidden. Waiting. Enduring.”

“Why reveal yourself now?”

Hadrian tilted his head.

“Because prophecy and politics have a poor sense of timing.”

Dippet let out a slow, tired breath.

“This school is not built for war.”

Hadrian's expression remained unreadable. “Then it is not built for what’s coming.”

A long silence.

Dippet finally leaned back.

“You are not a student like the others.”

“No,” Hadrian agreed. “And neither is he.”

Dippet didn’t need to ask who *he* was.

He already knew.

---

### 🐍 The Shift in Shadows

Back in the common room, the shift had become visible.

When Hadrian entered, the Blacks — all of them — rose to acknowledge him. Alphard offered his chair. Walburga moved aside to make space.

Tom sat alone near the hearth, a book unopened on his lap.

He said nothing.

But his eyes followed everything.

Later, when a younger student nervously approached Hadrian with a question about Potions, it was **Hadrian** who gave the answer — not Tom.

When Slughorn entered the dungeon classroom, he greeted Hadrian before anyone else.

And when they paired off for wandwork, Lucretia moved to stand at Hadrian’s side before Tom even opened his mouth.

The purebloods knew.

The shadows had shifted.

And Tom Riddle?

He was no longer the serpent in the center of the nest.

He was watching the viper that *should’ve never been born at all*

---

The castle had a memory older than stone.

It remembered things no one alive had ever spoken aloud — names carved from blood and salt, buried in places no student dared tread. And it remembered Hadrian.

Somewhere deep within the north wing — in a corridor unused for over a century — a mirror stood beneath a torn velvet curtain.

It was not there yesterday.

And yet that morning, Hadrian walked directly to it.

The Blacks followed him in silence.

They did not speak. Not in these halls. Alphard walked half a step behind, eyes lowered in instinctual deference. Lucretia traced her fingers along the old stone walls, her mouth moving silently — perhaps reciting something she’d once read in a half-burnt tome. Orion walked ahead with the slow, regal gait of someone raised to believe the world should move for him.

Only Walburga hesitated.

Hadrian could feel it in the way her footfalls stuttered, the way her breath caught slightly at every turn. She was trying to remember what their blood had sworn and whether she still believed in it.

“Where are we?” Alphard asked quietly.

“Where the truth waits,” Hadrian replied.

They turned a final corner and stopped.

The mirror stood like a relic forgotten by time. Tall. Framed in weather-worn brass, its surface was flawless. Empty.

Hadrian stepped forward. The others stayed back.

He pulled away the curtain slowly.

And the world… held its breath.

The Mirror of Erised did not shimmer. It did not glow.

Instead, a fine line etched itself across the glass — a hairline crack, sudden and violent — when Hadrian met his own gaze in the reflection.

He stared. And stared.

Lucretia’s breath hitched. “What do you see?”

Hadrian did not answer.

In the glass, he stood alone — older, cloaked in black and silver flame, a diadem on his brow that pulsed like a second heartbeat. At his feet: broken chains. A sword across his back. And behind him, shadowed figures bowed so low their faces were lost.

But it was not victory. It was not joy.

It was inevitability.

The mirror whispered in a voice only he heard: *“Born bound. You must choose what breaks.”*

He turned away.

The crack in the mirror sealed itself with a sound like bone knitting shut.

---

Back in the common room, Tom Riddle sat in the highest-backed chair nearest the fire.

His book lay open, but unread.

He didn’t look up when Hadrian entered.

But his hand tightened subtly on the armrest.

Across the room, younger students noticed the Blacks’ formation. They moved with Hadrian now. Not beside him. Not behind him. Around him.

Walburga flinched when Hadrian’s gaze passed her. Something in her posture screamed defiance not yet born — a question building like pressure in the spine.

But she bowed her head anyway.

Tom stood when Hadrian neared. For once, the smile was missing.

“You’re collecting them,” he said, eyes cutting toward Alphard.

“No,” Hadrian replied. “They’re remembering.”

A pause. Slow-burning.

“And you?” Hadrian asked softly. “Have you remembered what you came here to become?”

Tom’s smile returned — smaller, colder. “I remember that I don’t like being surprised.”

“Then the world will be very cruel to you.”

Tom stepped closer.

Students were watching now.

“You're not cleverer than me.”

Hadrian tilted his head. “I don’t have to be.”

Tom blinked. “What does that mean?”

“I was carved for this. You were shaped.”

Something flared in Tom’s eyes — fury wrapped in disbelief.

And that’s when he tried.

No warning. No wand raised. Just *reach.*

Hadrian felt it — the mental hook, sharp and sliding — as Tom’s will lunged forward like a blade.

**Legilimency.**

A stab into memory. Into self. Into thought.

But what Tom found was *not* a mind.

It was a cathedral of screams.

Endless halls lined with runes that bled. Books bound in human breath. Doors sealed in salt. At the center — something with eyes. It saw him.

And *it smiled.*

Tom staggered back with a gasp, face pale, breath ragged.

Hadrian did not move.

“You tried to look inside me,” Hadrian said softly.

Tom didn’t reply.

The room was dead silent.

Then Walburga — voice unsteady, too loud — broke it.

“No one in this House uses dark magic against another—”

She stopped.

Hadrian turned his eyes to her.

And she flinched.

Orion touched her arm sharply, a silent warning.

The moment passed.

But something inside her had already cracked.

---

That night, a whisper led Hadrian out of bed.

Not a voice. Not a dream.

Just a feeling. Cold. Familiar.

He walked alone this time.

Down corridors that hadn’t been walked in decades.

He passed a shattered window. Frost curled inward, though the season had yet to turn.

He turned left at a portrait — but the portrait wasn’t still.

It moved. Awake.

The figure inside wore robes of battle-cut velvet and a crown half-melted by fire. Her eyes were silver, her face half-lost to time.

“You took too long,” she said.

“I wasn’t meant to come until now.”

She nodded.

“I watched your father die,” she said. “He screamed in three languages. He didn’t beg. You look like him.”

“I’m told I look like many things.”

The portrait leaned forward.

“He said your name as the blood boiled.”

Hadrian’s jaw tightened.

“Why are you speaking to me?”

“Because you’re the only one who can hear me.”

A pause.

“You know who I am?”

“No.”

“I’m the ghost they didn’t bury.”

The torch beside him flickered violently.

“You will come back here soon,” the portrait said. “When the walls scream again. When the Black girl asks the wrong question.”

Hadrian turned. “Walburga?”

“She doesn’t yet know what she wants. But she will. And it will cost you.”

---

The next day, students whispered before class had even begun.

Dippet had announced an assembly.

Unusual.

The reason, however, became clear when a seventh-year Slytherin stormed up to Hadrian between classes, spit at his feet, and declared he’d never bow to a bastard heir.

By dinner, he was gone.

His bed? Gone.

His wand? Snapped.

The crest on his uniform? Burned clean.

He had been erased.

Some said it was the castle.

Others said it was Hadrian.

But the most terrifying explanation was the quietest: that it had been neither. That magic itself had remembered its true master.

---

That evening, a letter appeared on Hadrian’s desk.

Not by owl.

By ink — slow, blooming black — rising in the pages of his closed journal.

The message was short.

*The war never ended.*
*They only put it to sleep.*
*Find the dagger beneath the tomb of frost.*
*The last Caliban sealed it there.*
*And your hands are the key.*

He stared at the words until they bled into smoke.

And then, as if it had always been part of the ink, a final sentence appeared.

*He watches you even now. The boy with no father, no name, and no crown.*

---

As Hadrian closed the journal, a soft knock came at his door.

Professor Dumbledore stood there.

Not smiling.

Not offering lemon drops.

Just watching.

“I was hoping we could talk,” the professor said quietly. “About your… history.”

Hadrian stepped aside. Barely.

Dumbledore entered.

But the warmth didn’t follow him.

Chapter Text

📣 A Note from the Author:

Hi everyone! 🌙

I wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you to those who read, liked, bookmarked, or even just clicked on my first fanfic project. It honestly started as a fun idea — no real plot, just pure vibes — but I’ve decided not to continue it.

It wasn’t the right story for me.

That said… I didn’t want to disappear without saying anything.

To the lovely person who commented “next please” — you made my day. Truly. Even a single comment can echo louder than you think.

As an apology (and a promise), I’ve started working on a new fanfic — something that matters more, something that has soul, lore, emotion, and the plot I wish I’d written from the start.

So… this next story is for you. 💫

Thank you for your kindness and patience. I'm still growing as a writer, but I hope you’ll stay with me for this next adventure.

With all my gratitude,

— [Demdem]

✦ Story Summary:

"The Ashen Heir: Hadrian Regulus Potter Black"
An alternate universe of bloodlines, shadows, and legacy.

Hadrian Regulus Potter Black was never the Boy Who Lived — not in the way the world thinks. Born to James Potter and Regulus Black, raised in silence among the remnants of ancient houses, Hadrian enters Hogwarts at eleven already cloaked in mystery.

Heir to Peverell, Black, Caliban, Emrys, Pendragon, Le Fay — his blood sings with forgotten magic, cursed artifacts, and a destiny older than any prophecy.

But he’s not here to save the world.

He’s here to uncover the lies that built it.

With a cold smile and a sharper wand, Hadrian navigates Hogwarts not as a wide-eyed child, but as a bearer of history’s deepest secrets — secrets that Dumbledore would rather keep buried.

🗝️ A cunning child trained in old magic.
🕯️ A shadowed inheritance sealed in blood and bone.
🐍 A Slytherin first year who sees through every façade.

He doesn’t seek friends. He attracts loyalty.
He doesn’t seek power. He is legacy incarnate.
He doesn’t fear darkness. He was born from it.

“The world keeps asking who I am. I think it’s time I showed them what I remember.”

This is not the story you remember.
This is the one that was hidden.

i will post this tomorrow!
it has already 10 chapters and long!
😉

already Posted!
just click my username