Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Slytherin Heirs	By : SilverAngel621 Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male Views: 9448 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I make nothing from this fic.

Chapter List
- 8
- 9
- 10
Chapter 9
“Sir, we can't seem to find Ri-“a scream cut off his words as the death eater fell writhing to the floor from a Crucio.
“Crucio, Crucio, CRUCIO!” Tom exploded as an intense burst from his elder wand cast the spell on everyone in the room. He ignored their cries, extending the spell as complete bloodlust overtook him. He was deterred from killing everyone in the room when Fenrir apparated into the empty warehouse with a crack.
“Uh, am I interrupting something important?”
Hissing, Tom ended the spell. “Yes, you insufferable beast. Unless you have anything useful, you'll meet the same end.”
The werewolf tiptoed over the twitching bodies as he walked closer to Tom's throne. “Blondie and baby Blondie told me they've stopped publication of the morning paper. The editor said he had no idea that was being published. Said he only saw the fake story, Dolohov didn't see the real article either. Said something about a spell that hid the real story or something.”
That made sense, and it was clever. Once the head editor sends a story to the publication floor, no human hands touch the paper. Still hot from the press, owls deliver it right to the hands of wizards. The article only appeared once Harry had touched it, and the same happened when Alfred touched his paper. But that was already out, what concerned him more were the books.
“And the books? Did Crouch get there in time?”
“Twitchy said he shut down the store and tracked this warehouse as the only one keeping the spare ones. Burned the lot of them at the store. Almost burned the store down too. Ya think he's a closet arsonist?” When Tom continued to glare at him, Fenrir cleared his throats and became serious again. “You’re lucky they were gonna release the books at midnight and not this morning. They already had lines of you magic folk at the store.”
“Have Barty track down all the early release books and kill them. And I want the ones waiting at the store all captured and brought to the ministry. Have the trainees practice on them.” Tom said lowly.
Looking surprised, Fenrir took an unconscious step back. “Uh, sure you wanna be doin’ that? All of ‘em?”
Tom bared his teeth dangerously. “All of them, you flea infested mutt. I want them all killed! Now!”
The werewolf nodded hastily, not wanting to set the wizard off more than he already was. A large hand cupped his healed throat. If Tom had tortured him with silver last night for a few jokes, then the alpha could only imagine what Tom would do for this.
Tom turned from the werewolf and paced among his fallen minions. He didn't believe in coincidences. He didn't believe in fate. Harry said he was too practical, too egotistical, too controlling to believe in a force independent of his rule.
He'd found this warehouse by sheer, dumb luck and was that a blow to his pride. He'd dispatched a half dozen death eaters to this warehouse because it had been one of the addresses Umbridge confessed. They had only waited and monitored the warehouse, to see if any of the W.A.N.D.S. members would come. The place had been heavily warded, but they hadn’t wanted to bother their dark lord over a trifling warehouse. Of course, once Tom found out the warehouse held those cursed books, he'd crucio’d the lot of them.
As soon as he'd left his family at breakfast, he'd gathered his closest advisors and quickly sent them off to do damage control. He'd wanted to look through all their minds to see if any of them had betrayed him but he hadn't had the time. Lucius interviewed the editor of the Daily Prophet and from here they'd gone through all written records of Rita Skeeter before tracking the book down to Flourish and Botts. Tom apparated there immediately to find the infernal woman's book. From the terrified owner, he'd learned there was one other store, The Bookworms’ Corner, that was also releasing the books and sent Barty to that store to destroy the other books.
“Get out...” When no one moved, Tom screamed out loud. The angry cry echoed in the now empty warehouse. “GET OUT!” They all scurried to obey, some reduced to crawling on their knees and bellies. Even Fenrir who finally realized the man was at the edge of his sanity, made a hasty retreat and left the dark lord alone.
He needed to calm down. The easy solution would be to burn everything and everyone down with feindfyre but then he'd have no one to torture for this. And then of course there was Harry's ire to consider.
No, he had to be calm. Being impulsive and trigger happy hadn't gotten him to where he was. He needed to think, to plan, to gain intel. The fact that he had been surprised with an article that should have never been written, let alone published was alarming. He had death eaters everywhere, and specially at the daily prophet monitoring what was being written and manipulating the tone the stories were told in. If he happened to kill a group of wizards for vexing him, they wrote that off as an Order resurgent mounting an attack on the ministry. If certain prominent members of society went missing, his spies slandered their name until even their families turned their backs on them. But those minions hadn't heard a whisper of this.
And the book? Tom glared daggers at the innocuous thing resting in his hands. He'd kept one copy before burning the rest. This thing had the power to tear down nations. He didn't have to read it to know he was not going to like the contents. How it had even been published was worrisome. The only lead he had was Umbridge. With an impatient growl, he apparated out of the warehouse and to the ministry.
He traveled directly into the lowest level inside the heavily warded white room. The death eater guards startled at his sudden appearance, their wands drawn out and at the ready with spells and hexes tripping from hasty tongues. With an impatient wave of his wand, he disarmed them and walked straight to the woman in the middle of the room.
“My lord, should I call Pa-,” Tom flung the man against the wall, barely noticing the crunch of a head hitting tile then crumpling to the ground in a lifeless heap. Another death eater went to check on the man's pulse.
Biting back an irritable growl, Tom pointed at the fallen man and transferred him to the infirmary. “Get out, all of you.” The command was low, full of authority and they instantly obeyed. Once he was left alone in the room with her, Tom exhaled and let his eyes bleed red.
Umbridge, her hands tied by an invisible forced and lifted over her head tottered on her tiptoes. Her head lolled to the side, clumps of hair missing from her head and her face battered beyond recognition. Ugly masses of uneven skin not yet properly healed adorned her entire body. Her clothes hung in a tattered mess over her misshaped body. Her shoulder had popped out at one time and one of her legs was bent at an odd angle. Low moans of distress intermittently left her swollen lips.
He paced over to the potions table and returned to Umbridge with an opalescent vial in hand. Cupping her cheek almost gently, he tipped her head back and fed her the potion. Murky brown eyes cleared of pain, blinking up at him rapidly. When he'd probed her mind before, he'd worked over her defenses to get what he'd wanted. But he'd had specific requirements in mind when he'd gone looking through her mind. He couldn’t exactly waste time looking through all her memories.
From this close, he could see small pink dots uniformly marring her former clear complexion. They looked a bit swollen, standing out from the rest of the skin with a slight convex curve.
Leaning in closer, he whispered directly into her ear. “I am only going to ask this once. What do you know about Rita Skeeter and her book?”
“M-my l-lo-lord, I k-know no-nothing, ah-I c-ca-ame ha-here to-“
Through with the niceties, Tom grabbed her head in both hands and viciously tore into her mind. He callously discarded each memory as he came across it, permanently damaging more and more of her psyche as he stormed through. Abruptly he came to a distorted memory, the images playing slowly and the sounds sluggish and distorted, as if the audio was coming from underwater. The image blurred in and out. He saw Skeeter, Umbridge and a few others in a meeting. But they weren’t the ones who stood out. A man with bright red hair and freckles across his obscured features looked nervously around the room. Umbridge turned from Rita and sneered at the man.
“You are sure this will work? A Weasley like you…” the words became lost in a low buzz as the man lost his uncertainly and stood up confidently, before canting an unfamiliar spell and a wash of light blue filled the room. The memory dissolved then, just as quickly as he'd found it. He tried frantically to grasp at it but as he searched for more, found nothing but blanks. She had somehow been obliviated! No magic could enter the white room but it seemed as if The instant he'd seen that memory, someone had obligated her from a distance. Finding that memory had been a trigger. But he'd never heard of such magic.
Pulling out of her mind with a snarl, he flung himself from her. A dopey smile overtook her grotesque face.
“Hello, where am I? Why am I hung up here?” She simpered so pathetically. Tom turned to her with a growl. She was useless to him now.
The invisible cord holding her up snapped in half and her body crumpled to the floor in a gross parody of a marionette cut from its strings. She squeaked in surprise as she looked at her leg, the limb twisted and broken from her abrupt fall. A bit of jagged bone poked out from a large gash on her calf but only when she touched a curious finger to her bone did she scream. Short staccato screams, she took a deep breath between each and was half way to passing out from lack of air. Tom grasped her hair, or what was left of it and pulled her up until her toes dangled inches from the ground and her hands scratched at at his wrist.
“Excoricopellis!”
He dropped her at his feet and watched dispassionately as strips of her skin began peeling off, as if invisible fingers pricked at the thin layer and ever so slowly pulled back. Umbridge choked on her panic, her frantic hands trying to smooth down her skin but she was no match for his magic. Strips peeled off from her face, muscles and tendons resisting futilely against the invisible force. Pain flared at her every nerve ending and the only thing she could do was scream. Strips came off from her eyelid, leaving her eyes bulging. Blood poured into the defenseless opening, blinding her in a blanket of blood, but the sting to her eyeballs was minuscule compared to the rest of what she was feeling. Strips fell around her pain stricken body like red confetti, and the pile continued to grow in a bloody mound. Slowly, inch by inch, minute by minute, the first layer of skin fell off, then the second layer started to strip off, and then the third layer of skin and so on until a thin film of red covered her exposed bones. She was long dead but Tom continued to watch the macabre show until a bloody skeleton and loose organs lay cushioned among shavings of skin.
He cast feindfyre over the refuse but kept it contained until the demonic fire consumed all of the dead body then stopped the spell. It must have taken hours. And he'd watched it all without as much as a twinge of emotion. No disgust, no satisfaction, nothing…. just a yawning emptiness that grew and grew until it threatened to consume him in its ravenous hunger.
The body was gone, the blood was gone. Not even scorch marks on the tile left remnants of the woman. He saw white, an endless white and he was one small, black smear in the pristine pureness of the room. All alone.
………….
Excerpt from The Making of a Tragedy by Rita Skeeter
The name Thomas Marvolo Riddle is little known to many. We know our Dark Lord as Lord Marvolo Riddle, Lord Voldemort, Heir to Slytherin. But on more than one occasion Lord Harry has called him “Tom” and I have wondered why only he can call the dark lord as such. There was an instance a few years ago when a the dark lord killed an Order member when the foolish man called him Thomas. I wondered why he has such an aversion to his given name. So, I investigated and unearthed a history so dark, so terrible that it will leave you immobile. I, dear readers, have discovered the great lord’s childhood.
With great skill, I recovered Albus Dumbledore’s pensive memories from his home and his office at Hogwarts during the chaos of the final battle in Hogwarts. I risked life and limb but with my magic I escaped the death eaters who scoured the place after it fell. And from ministry documents I have pieced together the blank pages of this story. And I have kept it from you, dear readers, just waiting for the right moment to release it.
Thomas Marvolo Riddle, Jr. was born to a poor witch who used an illegal love potion to trick a muggle, a Mr. Thomas Riddle, Sr. into marrying her and conceived the dark lord. As we all know from sixth year potions, love potions are highly volatile and children born of love potions are usually born squibs because of the love potion mixing with the affected party. But in a few instances, there are perfectly normal wizards born. But our dark lord is neither of those things.
His mother pinned away from her love of the muggle. She had released him from the potion, thinking he would love her after all those years and stay for her and Tom, as the dark lord was called back then. The muggle, however, left her to starve to death.
A neighbor that came to investigate the smell coming from their small house found Tom, nursing at the dead woman’s breast. It had been a week since she died. The neighbor took the child to the town doctor. How the baby survived, to this day, the doctor does not know. Child services were called and they tracked Tom’s remaining parent to Mr. Riddle Sr. through a marriage certificate and Tom’s birth certificate. However, the muggle denied parentage and turned the official and baby Tom away.
Tom was given to a muggle orphanage, St. Bartholomew’s Orphanage. There the boy spent most of his formative years. He was a sickly boy, prone to a hacking cough during the colder months. The caretakers at the orphanage did not think he would survive too long. The few couples that came to adopt him left with haunted eyes, always saying there was something wrong about the child.
The child acted out in the orphanage. He mostly kept to himself and rarely interacted with the other children. The younger ones tended to avoid him but the older ones were curious. I did a few interviews with some the older and younger children who went to the orphanage. Tom had odd habits. He would stay up the entire night, going into the forest and coming back with dirty clothes. He would talk to himself having full conversations, hearing things the other children did not. He stole from the other children, he was disruptive in class, he got into numerous fights with many of the children, the list goes on and on.
As a magical child, his magic acted up when he was agitated or angry. Often, the fights would involve some form of magical retaliation. One woman told me Tom had made all her hair fall out. Another confided that Tom made all his nails fall off. Another found a nest of spiders hatching inside his ears. Things escalated from there on.
There was a teacher named Gregory Allen who grew tired of the countless fights and complaints. So, he took Tom in hand. And here is where it gets dark, my fellow readers. I tracked him down at his death bed and with a few spells, uncovered the truth.
Mr. Allen was a muggle who had previously been employed as a priest at a conversion camp for homosexuals. He reported to me that he had found the methods he used to be effective on unruly youth and so applied them to Tom. He suspected that some form of the devil had inhabited the boy. Everyone knew the story of how Tom had been found. Many of the other children admitted to teasing Tom, some hearing that he had been eating her face off to sustain himself and calling him corpse baby. On particular cruel prank had been when a few of the older children bought a fake skeleton and put it next to Tom while he slept. The next day, the entire orphanage fell sick, the only one left unscathed was Tom.
Because of how he was found, Mr. Allen suspected that when death come to take his mother’s soul, something demonic went inside Tom to use as a host. Now my dear readers I know this sounds silly but muggles have their own beliefs and they view anything magical as something to fear.
So Mr. Allen began weekly sessions with Tom. It started out small with reading penances and writing lines. But Tom's behavior progressively worsened, and with it came more punishments. He would be left alone inside an airless and lightless room for hours, then days when he hurt another child at the orphanage. When Tom set fire to a shed, Mr. Allen brought out the leather whip and gave several lashes across Tom's hands. He alternated that with beating the bottom of Tom's feet with a wooden paddle then making him stand and recite bible verses for hours on end.
When a child was found coughing up blood, Tom was blamed. Mr. Allen brought in equipment that has a muggle discovery called electricity. Muggles usually use this for many day to day things like light or washing or cooking. But this equipment generated the electricity and transfers it to two rods that are placed one a person’s head. Mr. Allen informed me it is called electro shock therapy.
I have included a picture of the machine, found dilapidated at the home of Mr. Allen.
He used the machine on Tom many times. And that helped for some time. Tom became even more of a recluse. That was when his Slytherin blood made its appearance. He began talking to snakes. Weeks later, children reported that they had been bitten by snakes or found snakes in their bed or belongings.
Mr. Allen followed Tom around and found him in the middle of talking to a snake. The muggle killed the snake and grabbed up Tom to administer increased levels of electro shock therapy. But something changed that day. Mr. Allen, at the time began seizing up and we had to stop the interview. I discovered from old records from the orphanage that a great portion of the orphanage burned down that very same night.
Mr. Allen and a few other children and adults had been caught in that fire. Two of the younger kids died from smoke inhalation and three adults had to be hospitalized with minor burns. The right Side of Mr. Allen’s face was burned off and he was left with permanent burn scars. I have included a picture of the muggle below.
After that day, everyone gave Tom a wide berth. After Mr. Allen’s recovery, he came back and avoided Tom too. But then he began experiencing nightmares of gruesome dead people coming and dragging him to hell. Mr. Allen accused Tom of the dreams. So, he called in a few colleagues who were experienced with a muggle practice called exorcism.
Mr. Allen described the ritual to me. They tied Tom down to the bed and intoned from a religious book. Here, Mr. Allen refused to say anything and began seizing up again. This author surmises something terrible must have happened. He refused to speak more on this subject, or anything else to me at all.
This would have been the end of my investigation but as you know, dear reader, this author does not stop when she meets an obstacle. She overcomes it.
So, I tracked down a few of the teachers, caretakers, even employees such as maids, cooks, butlers but they all told me the same things I'd been told or found out myself before. But during my investigation, a woman came to me. Her name is Mary Morstan. Mrs. Morstan was married to the village butcher and they often donated meats for the orphanage during holidays and children's birthdays. Mr. Morstan, a previous child from the orphanage also did chores for the orphanage, such as fixing up small things and lending the orphanage his car for transportation. Mrs. Morstan baked pies and cakes for the children as well, so both were there during that day.
It was a few months after the fire. Mr. Morstan helped rebuild the orphanage. He was called that day, and he merely thought he was being called to finish up a quick repair or to transport new building material or furniture. Mrs. Morstan, though not invited tagged along with her husband to deliver a new batch of baked goods.
But when she arrived, she was pulled aside by the orphanage cook. The other woman took the cookies she baked and took them to the kitchen, saying she wanted to save them for after the lunch time meal. It was an odd behavior. Whenever Mrs. Morstan brought any sweets, they were given out by her hand the instance she brought them. Mrs. Morstan confided to me she started that tradition because she did not trust the orphanage employees not to keep the sweets for themselves.
Wanting to wait for her husband, she went to visit the children. During their play, she heard some frantic shouts from upstairs. The other caretakers pointedly ignored it and urged her to do the same. But she became curious and sneaked away with the excuse to use the bathroom. Snooping around, she saw some men and her husband outside. She only recognized Mr. Allen among the group, the others were strangers. Without their knowing, she followed them outside.
The group of men went to the Morstan car and put a large sack in the trunk. They left her husband before leaving. She asked him later what they wanted and he explained they merely wanted the use of his car to transport some goods. Mr. Morstan left her and went to work on some repairs while Mrs. Morstan went to play with the children.
It was growing dark into the evening and still their car did not return. The couple grew concerned. They decided to stay until night, as they needed the car for deliveries for work in the morning. They stayed inside, watching the driveway for their familiar car. A few hours later, coming up the driveway they saw a dark figure. Too small to be an adult, but too big to be an animal. Mrs. Morstan went outside and coming towards her out of the veil of the night, was Tom. Shivering with cold, his clothes were dripping with water. His hair was plastered to his head and covered half his face but even so Mrs. Morstan reported seeing red eyes stare at nothing. She later dismissed that as a trick on the night but as we all know the dark lord does indeed possess red eyes. He collapsed in her arms and the doctor had to be called. He had a high fever and later contracted pneumonia. I dug through numerous medical records in the late doctors’ records and found an anonymous report of a John Doe that matched the year and description of the event.
The car, nor the men, came back that day. Mr. Allen sent a letter of resignation a day later. Mr. Morstan found his car a week later, abandoned near an obscure clearing next to the town lake. A month later, four bodies floated into the dock of a local businessman. The authorities traced the path of the dead men to the lake, reporting that the murders had occurred in the forest surround the lake and then dumped in the large body of water. Mrs. Morstan told me she suspected those men were the same men she saw that day at the orphanage though she never saw the faces of the dead men. The murders were never solved.
Soon, Albus Dumbledore, then a professor at Hogwarts came to investigate the boy. Dumbledore, concerned at the behavior exhibited, was wary to invite the boy to Hogwarts. But it was his duty and so he introduced the wonderful world of magic to Tom, and the boy took to it like a mermaid to water. The orphanage was relieved when they were told Tom would be going away to a school for special children. For them their prayers had been answered. They asked no questions of Dumbledore, practically shoved the odd boy out the orphanage doors into the company of a virtual stranger.
Tbc
……..
“Mother, tell me these are lies. Exaggerations. This-this picture is Severus helping you after an order member attacked you. Mother!” Hadrian banged against Harry's closed doors. They weren't warded closed but he'd never invade his mother's personal rooms without invitation.
“Mother, open the bloody door!” He didn’t mean to, but this time when he banged with both hands his magic, usually under his control, thrust the doors wide with a powerful gust of air and cleared a perimeter of about twenty feet into the suite. Furniture were all pushed to the walls. Sparking glass shattered from the chandeliers above rained down in front of him. Harry opened his bedroom door and looked on at the chaos in dismay. Hadrian hadn’t lost control like this since he'd been a teen. He'd worked so hard to keep this under control. Harry hurried to Hadrian and reached to his face.
“Hadrian, I need you look at me, okay, look at me. It's okay, I'm here now, you're okay,” Harry chanting, trying to make them both believe it. Hadrian looked down at his mother with terrified eyes. But not for himself, for Harry.
“Mother,” he croaked, before stumbling forward and shoving his face into Harry's neck. “Please tell me it's not true, please…” Hadrian sobbed out, clenching his mother's body tighter, near to cutting off his air flow. But Harry didn't mind. He ran his hands through Hadrian's hair, as pitch black as Tom's with the same wildness of all Potters. Magic still cracked around the room dangerously.
Salazar stood behind them, unable to enter the room with all the force Hadrian was exerting. Hadrian couldn’t handle his other siblings right now here with him. When he became like this, he only let Harry near him, the only person who could soothe him at times like this. He faintly heard running footsteps, then Lily and Alfred skidding to a stop as Salazar held out an arm to stop them from hurting themselves.
Hadrian tried, he really did as he forced himself to lower the shield he'd put up a around Harry and him. They weren't in danger; his brothers and sister would never hurt Harry. They were family. Harry had drilled it into their head countless times family didn't hurt family when the twins cursed Salazar or Cerise with a spell or when Cerise physically attacked Rom and Reggie or when Salazar sent him a stinging curse. Family didn't hurt family. But what the article said, what the picture insinuated, what his own father's angry disappearance told him was different. His mother’s own silence was condemning.
His father, a man he looked up to had done something terrible and his mother had stayed. And Hadrian blamed himself, he blamed his siblings. For what other reason did Harry have not to leave his abuser. The haunted look in Harry's eyes, the urgency with which he'd fled the breakfast room to his suite said it all. It filled in all the terrible suspicions Hadrian had, it told him more than what those words and that single picture screamed to anyone with half a brain.
His question was rhetorical. He already had his answer and Harry had given it to him by his silence.
“…Hadrian, you're safe, we’re safe. I love you…. you are loved.. and safe…Hadrian, come back to me…”
Slowly, so very slowly Hadrian relaxed. He didn't let go of Harry, instead he slowly lowered the shield. Salazar took a tentative step into the room before deeming it safe and let go of Lily and Alfred. The fiery girl ran to Hadrian and Harry, flung herself at them and hugging them both.
“Oh Hadrian.” Lily nuzzled into his arm but he took no notice of her.
Harry struggled to look over Hadrian’s shoulder. He could practically feel the guilt wafting off his mother’s chilled skin.
“Salazar, Alfred, where are the twins and Cerise?”
“I called Daphne to keep them company.” After a bit of hesitation, Salazar added “As soon as father left, he dispatched the deaths eaters to destroy all the papers entering the palace.” Hadrian was glad she his older brother didn't mention a shield had gone up over the grounds and burned all birds carrying the newspaper. Hundreds of dead owls lay in a perfect ring surround Slytherin palace. Salazar directed some death eaters to clean up the mess before Hadrian stormed after Harry.
“And James? Where is he now?”
“With Teddy. The werewolf took him out into the grounds, a dozen death eaters have been dispatched to follow them.”
Harry smiled wanly and wiggled out a hand, before beckoning Salazar forward. Hadrian pulled back a bit to make it easier for Harry. His mother cupped Salazar’s jaw in a lingering caress in thanks before looking over them both. His gaze flickered to Lily and Alfred before he pulled his arms back and curled them over his stomach.
“I never wanted you to see that. It was a dark time for me” Harry finally whispered.
“Father did that to you.” Hadrian started.
Harry tipped his head in the barest of nods.
“You looked like you were in your teens. You told us the Father took you from the Orders control when you were still at Hogwarts. You said you had Salazar when you were a teen. Did father hurt you all that time? Does he hate you for fighting for the Order? You were a child, you didn't know how treacherous the Order was!” Hadrian snarled, pacing away from them. Lily held out her harm to hold him back but he shrugged her off.
“Hadrian, no…its complicated. There was a misunderstanding-,”
Hadrian took out his crumbled newspaper, the single one Salazar hadn’t taken and being and shoved the image in Harry face. “This is a misunderstanding? A misunderstanding is when Salazar hexes me when thinks I haven't turned in my report when he's just misplaced it. That's a misunderstanding. This…this is abuse. This is torture, god, mother, what did father do to you?” Desperate Hadrian surged forward and took Harry's shoulders in his hands and shook. When Harry cried out in surprise, Hadrian took a quick step back with his eyes wide.
This was the first time he'd touch Harry with a rough hand. He knew his mother was a powerful wizard, his name inspired awe in witches and wizards all over the world. But Hadrian always touched him with a delicate hand, because to him Harry was his mother, not this powerful wizard everyone seemed to know. To him, Harry was gentle and loving and he would be treated accordingly.
He was horrified that he could hurt Harry.
It was the blood running through is veins, his father's blood. The blood of a monster.
Sorrowful green eyes met his and Hadrian lost it. His mother would never tell him. He lunged forward and did something unforgivable. He tried to look into Harry's mind, looking for things his mother would never tell him. But before he even had the chance to see one memory, Salazar punched him in the face and sent him sprawling to the carpeted floor.
“Hadrian!” Harry screamed, followed by the screams of Lily and Alfred. He fell over Hadrian in a fanatic heap of worry, his hands running over his face and gingerly touching at his abused jaw. It was already beginning to swell from the punch.
“God, I'm sorry. I'm just like him, aren't I?” Hadrian asked miserably. But no matter how much he may be hating himself, he still took comfort in Harry's soothing hands like the greedy boy he was. He remembered as a child how jealous he'd be when a young Salazar took away Harry’s attention. He'd act out, force a shield between Salazar and Harry until Salazar walked away with stiff shoulders and Harry murmured and shushed him. Like he was doing so now. He was the one apologizing, as if Hadrian hadn't been the one to mentally attack him. Saying it wasn’t his fault.
But it was his fault.
Hadrian inhaled his mother’s scent one last time before gazing into the emerald green orbs. “I'm sorry, I'll hope you forgive me.” With that Hadrian apparated out of the palace to a small clearing. He made a slash on his wrist and when the blood welled generously, he cast the familiar spell to track his father down. The ministry. It was fortunate he came to a clearing where the palace thestrals were grazing in the grass, still dewy and wet from the morning mist. When he'd made his first kill at thirteen, his mother had brushed the tears off his cheeks and brought him to them. Harry had shown him the wonderful beasts and he'd forgotten all about the terrible thing he'd accidentally done.
He approached one at random. They didn't shy away from him, they knew him. This herd had been transferred from the Riddle manor to here for the week. The beast allowed him to mount it. Great black wings unfurled and they were off, headed to the ministry. It was all a blur. They cut through the sky at a neck breaking speed and before he knew it the thestral landed on top of the ministry building.
He ignored all the people, that tried to stop him as he emerged into the building. He went straight for the ground level and before he knew it, stark white doors stood between him and his father. He shoved them open none too gently and shot a curse blindly into the room.
He purposefully missed, hit the wall right above Tom's shoulder but it got him his father’s attention. Umbridge was nowhere to be seen but Hadrian was more concerned about his father.
“You missed.”
“Consider it a warning shot. Tell me what you did to mother.”
Tom tilted his head to the side and looked him up and down. He felt like a specimen being examined and found lacking. Hadrian bristled.
“Ask him yourself.”
“I did. He defended you.”
Tom chuckled without mirth. “Always the self-sacrificing type, your mother. He never understood his own value, so quick to put other above him.”
“It seems neither did you if you could do this to him!” Hadrian flung his own copy of the paper at Tom. Before the crumpled ball could fall to the floor, Tom levitated it to himself and smoothed out it out. He looked dispassionately at the picture before setting fire to it.
“I have done much worse to him.”
Hadrian snarled and sent a cutting hex, which Tom easily dodged. His aim was skewed due to his anger, his magic struggling to be contained in his mortal body. His hands trembled from the power of it and for once Hadrian did not to wish to leash it. He wanted his magic free, free to lash out at Tom.
Tom hit back with his own curses, a few hitting Hadrian but it only caused minimal damage. It incensed him that the hexes were only meant to slow him down, as if Tom didn't think him worthy of a real fight. By now, if anyone else had attacked, Tom would have had them begging for their lives. A small, rational part of him reasoned that he was his son, that Tom wouldn't want to hurt him. But another, more sinister part goaded Hadrian. This man had also put those bruises and cuts on Harry.
The man Hadrian knew was his father, distant but still his father. It was hard reconciling the man he'd looked up to, a father he loved to the man who caused Harry so much injury. He needed Tom to attack him, to show Hadrian that he was right to think that his father was the villain of this story. That would make it easier for Hadrian to play the hero and vanquish the villain. But those were the thought of a boy; real life rarely stayed in strict shades of black and white. And in this story no one was the hero or villain.
Hadrian concocted a poisonous cloud but Tom defended himself with summoned form of a snake. The transparent creature had wings that blew gusts of air and blew his cloud back at him. Hadrian threw up a shield around himself and set fire to the cloud, which reached the spelled creature and burned through the body. Tom used the smoke as a cloak as he apparated inside the room to different locations before appearing behind Hadrian and hit him with a spell.
Hadrian screamed in pain as he fell to his knees, the burn curse shooting over his every nerve.
Standing over his fallen son, Tom bared his teeth and hissed. “I value him above all else, even you children; so do not say I do not know his value.”
“But not more than yourself. Tell me, why did you do it? Because he killed a few of your deaths eaters when he was in the Order? Because he opposed you? Tell me!” Hadrian hissed through gritted teeth. It was his father that taught him to never let his enemies see him on his knees lest they come under the impression he could be brought to his knees in the first place. It set a dangerous precedent. But it was his mother that taught him those who faced their weakness were unbeatable, because they knew where to defend themselves. Knowing their weakness, knowing what they could loose, made them all the more determined. And Harry had proved to him determination beat out sheer power every day. He was living proof of that.
“Because he is mine.” Tom turned from him, utterly dismissing him as he headed for the exit. Hadrian shot a spell at the doors and the seams of the doors melted into the walls until they were in a completely secluded room.
“No! No, he is not yours. He is not property!” Hadrian shot to his feet and let out a burst of energy that pushed Tom against the walls. The explosion loosened some of the white tile, a piece flying in the air and striking Tom in his forehead. A large gash split into his eyebrow.
“His collar says otherwise.” Tom said as he reached up and fingered the dripping blood. He brought his fingers in front of him and scrutinized the fluid, rubbing it in between his fingers. He glared up at his son and sent a cutting hex that caught Hadrian unaware. Large slashes appeared on his chest and thighs. Hadrian staggered back, but his magic was pulsing throughout his entire body. He felt nothing, only a burning hatred and a need to expel all of it.
“Then I will destroy it, after I finish with you.”
Tom hit him with another curse that Hadrian was quick to deflect. “Learn your place boy. I am the dark lord, and you a mere child playing dress up. You understand nothing. You are too soft. Harry coddled you.”
“Don't dare speak his name, you don't deserve him. You bastard!” Hadrian dropped his wand. While wands helped normal wizards focus their magic and congeal the erratic energy to the wand to form a spell, a wand for him was a restricting collar. His magic, much denser in essence than the average wizards would explode out of him at all angles. It was as if he wielded a hundred wands. His own specially commissioned wand damped his power and allowed him to focus a trickle of it safely.
He was unaware of the complete destruction of the room, the rubble raining down on him in a cloud of dust. It wasn’t focused, not without his wand; he had never been able to focus his magic. However powerful he was, he had no aim. But he didn’t need it. They were secluded in a heavily warded room and Tom had nowhere else to escape. He would suffer for making his mother hurt.
“Hadrian…Hadrian…Hadrian…” the call of his name got progressively louder. Hadrian opened his eyes-when had he closed them? -and saw Harry in front of him, crouching over Tom’s fallen and unconscious body. And for the first time in his life he saw fear in his mother’s eyes. Fear of him- Hadrian. He’d been trying to protect Harry, but not like this. He had wanted his father to hurt, not die.
“Hadrian.” Harry spoke sharply. He pointed his wand at him and Hadrian watched the burst of white flow from his mother’s wand in slow motion. The white formed a stag that canted over to him and shot forward into his chest, dissolving into a translucent smoke and enveloping him in the slightly warm pulsing of magic. It had Harry's unique magical signature all over it. The patronus obliterated of the dark hate and anger consuming him. Hadrian’s oppressive magic slowly abated from the room.
It wasn’t quiet anymore. The low buzzing of death eaters shouting, the crumbling of concrete, the harsh panting of Harry, and there, just under all the noise, quiet and hidden was Tom’s low breathing. Alive, he was alive. Hadrian looked around him at the destruction. He was a bloody mess, as if he’d bathed in the stuff. It was his own blood, his skin and bone body a measly cage for his magic. His fallen father looked worse.
Harry flung his arms across Tom’s chest and with one last look at Hadrian, apparated away. Unable to face what he’d wrought, Hadrian pushed through the destroyed room to face the group of concerned death eaters standing warily. He looked at each of their faces, and though they all looked different they had the same look of fear stamped on their faces. He pushed past them and ran. He ran until he tasted fresh air, the crisp touch of rain on his skin. He ran until his lungs screamed for air, and then ran even farther and harder until he collapsed. His legs felt like jelly and his body was beaten down. He looked around and found himself in a park, thankfully abandoned.
He couldn’t go home, not now. He couldn’t face the consternation sure to be present in Harry’s eyes. He couldn’t face his siblings, or Severus or Rabastan or Rudolphus…
Hadrian closed his eyes and apparated to the one place he knew he could forget himself for a few hours.
Standing bloodied and dirtied, he knocked on a bright red door of a brick stone house. The streets were abandoned, the lights glowing and warding off the night.
It opened to the grumpy face of one Theo Nott. Rumpled from sleep, his eyes blinked rapidly to focus on the sight before him.
“What in merlin’s name happened to you?” Theo reached forward but stopped himself just in time. He pulled back and the look of concern was replaced with an annoyed glare.
“Let me in beautiful. I'm hurt and I did something stupid.” Hadrian was suddenly bone tired. He slumped against the frame of the door.
Theo huffed. “I most certainly will not, Mr. Riddle. You can go to St. Mungo’s or better yet, call on your personal healer. Goodnight.” He went to close the door but Hadrian slapped his large hand over the door and pushed back, pushing Theo with it. Without waiting for an invitation, he entered.
“Mr. Riddle this is highly inappropriate!”
Hadrian ignored Theo’s screech and stumbled to the living room. He took off his bloody shirt and pants until he was down to his boxers and collapsed on the comfy sofa. Numerous fluffy pillows broke his fall. Hadrian ignored Theo’s affronted gasp. It's not like the man hadn’t seen him in less. He liked Theo’s place. It was chic and modern, but with small homey touches. He'd expected that being a Slytherin and a pureblood lord, Theo would prefer the oppressive opulence found in abundance at Slytherin palace but the older man surprised him with his simpler tastes.
“Seriously, I've been inside of you, and you still insist on calling me Mr. Riddle. Is that a secret kink of yours?” Hadrian closed his eyes tiredly. God, he just wanted to sleep for a thousand years.
“That was a one night stand and you took advantage of my drunken state, Mr. Riddle!” Theo said through gritted teeth. He stomped over to Hadrian and yanked the pillow from underneath his head.
Opening one eye, Hadrian peered up at Theo. “It was one drink.”
“With a ridiculously high alcohol content!”
“It was hard pumpkin cider.”
“I have a low tolerance.”
Hadrian grinned and pulled Theo right down on top of him. He ignored the man's shouts, although he did take a sharp elbow to his solar plexus before he had his arms wrapped tight around those bony joints.
“Shhhh…. let me just hold you…please…” he whispered.
Theo bit his lip and quietened down. “Hadrian, what did you… Why did you come to my door all bloody?”
“Because you’re the only one I can go to forget, at least for a while.”
Theo huffed and tried to struggle away from him. “Well, it’s nice to know what I'm good for. A pint of ale does the same thing.”
“Hmmm, but it's not as cuddly as you.” Hadrian was sure Theo was going to cut him to ribbons for that remark. So, he cupped a hand over Theo’s mouth, muffling his insults and sighed in content. This reprieve wouldn't last. He'd have to face his mother, his father. So he let Theo’s muffled complains lull him to sleep, dreading the time he'd wake again.
- 8
- 9
- 10
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Harry Potter and the Slytherin Heirs