The Dark Lord's Son
by teddylonglong

All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story.
I am not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes.

Warnings: Completely AU! Partly OOC. Partly dark!Harry

When Harry arrived in Severus' rooms the following morning, the professor's amused look was enough for him to know that they had managed to cure his colleague.

"We can probably prepare ourselves to spend lots of time brewing the cure I suppose," Harry spoke up, giving his godfather a questioning look.

Severus rolled his eyes before replying, "I've already informed the headmaster that we'll only be able to brew one batch every weekend, maybe two if we have time." He quirked an eyebrow in silent question, and Harry quietly agreed by nodding his head.

HP

As the first of September approached, Draco's apparent excitement of going to Hogwarts spread over to Harry, who thought of his becoming a student at the school with mixed feelings.

"Where do you think you're going to be sorted?" Draco enquired a few days before the big day.

"Slytherin of course," Harry replied, looking at his best friend and surrogate brother in surprise.

"Yeah, me too, although you don't know," Draco said, pensively, "considering that your birth father is the head of Gryffindor."

"Who cares?" Harry queried, quirking an eyebrow.

"Hopefully not the Sorting Hat," Draco replied, smirking.

HP

"Uncle Severus, is it possible to bribe the Sorting Hat?" Harry enquired, when he stepped into his godfather's living room the following morning, causing the older wizard to look at him with apparent amusement.

"Not that I know of," he replied, thoughtfully. "Why would you want to do such a thing?"

"I don't want to end up in bloody Gryffindor with Potter as my head of house," Harry replied, darkly, averting his eyes to view the pattern on the carpet.

"Harry," Severus said, sighing, "look at me." When the boy complied, he continued, "First of all, you'll do well in any house. Secondly, as my student assistant, I'm going to have a say about matters concerning you. Come to my office right after the last afternoon class on the first day of classes, so that we can fix a schedule for you to assist me. Considering that you're a first-year, you'll only be able to assist in the potions lab, so it'll mostly be in the evenings or after the afternoon classes. When, for example, anyone wants to assign you a detention, they have to clear it with me first. When you'll be in a higher year, I can as well have you teach first-year classes or such, provided that you have a free period to do so. Anyway, don't worry. No matter where you're going to be sorted, I'm here for you, and no one will be able to complain about me looking out for you, because you're my student assistant."

"Thank you, Uncle Severus," Harry replied, feeling very much consoled by his godfather's assurance.

HP

Too soon for Harry's liking, it was time for him and Draco to ready themselves for their first travel to Hogwarts as students. On the one hand, Harry was looking forward to become Severus' student assistant, but on the other hand, he was dreading having to meet his birth parents and their friends. 'Well, they can't do anything to me, and I can always go to see Uncle Severus if I need him,' he consoled himself, when he arrived on platform nine and three quarters together with Draco and their parents.

"Let's go and see if we can get a compartment together with the other Death Eater children," Draco whispered and – after being pulled in fierce hugs by Narcissa and Lucius – the boys ran off to board the Hogwarts Express. Luckily, they found Blaise sitting in a compartment just by himself and happily joined the boy, who was their friend, just like he had been in Harry's old dimension. Soon, Pansy, Vincent, Gregory and Millicent arrived, and the children spent the hours before they reached Hogsmeade chatting and laughing.

'I just hope I'm going to be sorted into Slytherin together with everyone else,' Harry thought, wondering if he should quickly pop into the founders' quarters and ask the castle for help. However, before he could unobtrusively leave his friends to put his idea into action, Draco pulled him into one of the boats that took the first-years across the lake to the castle.

Harry thoroughly enjoyed himself, thinking that even if he had visited Hogwarts so often before, he had never seen her as beautifully as from the lake. 'She's very pretty, and she's mine. I'm the owner,' he thought, suddenly feeling very happy at the thought of being able to live in his own castle.

'I wonder if anyone knows that I own her,' he mused, when he followed his fellow first-years up a flight of stairs, where a stern, old witch was awaiting them. 'She must be McGonagall,' Harry thought in disdain, having heard a lot about the Gryffindor head from Voldemort. When the professor made them wait for a few minutes, Harry realised in surprise that most of his classmates seemed to know each other.

"We attended the Hogwarts primary school together," a girl with bushy-brown hair was just explaining to a red-headed boy, when Harry's eyes met hers. His heart made a little jump, as he realised, 'That's Hermione. Oh well, I knew that she'd be in my class,' he thought, unobtrusively watching the girl from the corners of his eyes. 'She seems really nice,' he thought, surprised at his feelings towards the girl, who was a mudblood after all.

HP

When he stood in the Great Hall in front of the high table, he could not help feeling extremely uncomfortable, as he noticed that his birth parents along with Professor Lupin and another teacher, whom he recalled having seen in Hogsmeade together with James Potter, were observing him with apparent enthusiasm. He glanced at the other side of the table, where Severus was sitting next to Madam Pomfrey, and both adults were smiling at him. After returning a small smile, he quickly averted his eyes.

'I just hope I'll be able to talk to the Sorting Hat,' Harry mused, as he let his eyes wander around the Great Hall, following everyone's view upwards, as Hermione informed her classmates that the ceiling was charmed to look like the sky. When the Sorting Hat finally finished his song, Harry had not heard a single word of it, however, he did not care at all. 'I should have changed my last name,' he suddenly realised, inwardly groaning at his own stupidity, while he observed Hermione becoming sorted into Gryffindor and Draco into Slytherin. 'I should have changed it to Riddle or at least Malfoy or whatever.'

HP

"Harry Potter," Professor McGonagall finally called from her list, and Harry stepped forward, carefully ignoring the persons sitting at the high table. He hesitantly sat on the stool, allowing the professor to place the Hat onto his head.

Just when he realised that the Hat's brim was large enough to completely cover his eyes turning his surroundings black, a small voice penetrated his mind.

'Hmm, what am I going to do with you? As the owner of Hogwarts, you'd fit everywhere.'

'Please not Gryffindor,' Harry thought back. 'I'd like to be in Slytherin, especially as I'm going to be Professor Snape's student assistant. Please put me into Slytherin.'

'Hmmm, you'd do well in Gryffindor, too though, and I know for a fact that your family would be very happy…'

'No, they're not my family. Please don't force them on me,' Harry thought, slightly panicking, when the Hat finally shouted into the Great Hall.

"Slytherin."

"Thank you very much," Harry whispered to the Hat that was already being taken from his head and quickly made his way over to the Slytherin table, where Draco and Blaise already made space for him. Sitting between his friends, Harry smiled broadly. "Thank Merlin," he whispered, only for the students around him to hear.

"Yeah, Slytherin is a great house," one of the older students, who was sitting opposite of him, spoke up, seemingly proud of his house affiliation.

Harry glanced at the high table, noticing that while his birth parents were staring at him in obvious shock, Severus and Madam Pomfrey were smiling at him.

Dinner at Hogwarts was overwhelming. The house-elves at Malfoy Manor cooked extremely well, however, there was not the choice of food, which was piled on the Slytherin house table. Harry tried a little of everything, while he listened to the older students' babbling with interest. They spoke about Hogwarts, the houses, the teachers and Quidditch, and Harry was asked if he was related to James and Lily Potter.

"They're no family of mine," he replied, shrugging, pleased when his housemates left it at that.

He was tempted to get a closer look at his birth parents and their friends, however, knowing that they were probably still watching him, he decided to keep his curiosity under control. 'I'm going to see them soon enough during classes,' he thought, inwardly groaning at the prospect.

HP

Right after dinner, the prefects ushered the first-years to the Slytherin common room, where they made everyone sit in a circle on the floor for the house-meeting which was going to take place soon.

Harry hang on Severus' lips, when the professor told the first-years about the rules within Slytherin house. They had their own curfew as well as their own system of merits and demerits. Somehow, he could not help feeling proud that their head of house had chosen him to become his student assistant. Severus had, however, told him that he wished to keep quiet about the matter for the first few weeks, so as to not alert the other students about the fact that they already knew each other quite well.

HP

The first-year Slytherins' first class was Transfiguration together with the Gryffindors. The task of changing a match into a needle was not overly difficult for Harry, as Narcissa Malfoy had trained him and Draco well, and even Voldemort had taught Harry all kinds of useful things, even if he had mostly concentrated on self-defence and the Dark Arts.

Just after Hermione had been awarded five points for Gryffindor for her perfect needle, Harry and Draco received five points each for their house.

While the two boys continued to practise, Harry unobtrusively observed Hermione, who was sitting a bit to the left in the row in front of him. 'Well, I can't let anyone know that I know her, not even her,' he thought, 'but it would be cool if I could be friends with her. Somehow, I like her.'

However, knowing that he had to keep the matter to himself, he stuck to his housemates, when they left the Transfiguration classroom, and before he knew what he was doing, he ended up leading his whole class to the Potions classroom.

"You seem to know your way around Hogwarts quite well," someone addressed him from behind, and Harry turned around, noticing in shock that it was Hermione.

"I'm a Slytherin," he replied, shrugging, before he demonstratively turned to Draco with a quickly thought up question about Quidditch.

HP

Harry's last afternoon class was Defence Against the Dark Arts. Ever since he had received his timetable from Severus at breakfast, he had dreaded the class, which was held by his birth father. 'I just hope he leaves me in peace,' he thought, as he took a seat in the last row between Draco and Blaise.

To his relief, James Potter seemed to ignore him, and Harry slowly relaxed. The first-years practised two spells during their first lesson, one of them being a simple shield spell, while the other was the Expelliarmus spell – both of which Harry was able to do in absolute perfection.

During the second half of the class, the professor made all tables and chairs hover to the side of the classroom and have the students pair up to practise duelling using the two spells. At the same time, Potter singled students out trying to take their wand from them.

From the corner of his eyes, Harry saw the teacher turn to him and quickly put up a strong shield charm and cast the Expelliarmus spell at the teacher the instant the professor raised his wand to attack.

While the Gryffindors observed in shock how James Potter was blast into the nearby wall, his wand flying into Harry's hand, the Slytherins laughed at the teacher's predicament.

'Oops, I shouldn't have done that,' Harry thought, remorsefully. 'I can't let them know how easy these spells are for me.' Placing the professor's wand on the teachers' table, he grabbed his bookbag and left the classroom, noticing from the corners of his eyes how Hermione and Neville helped James Potter up from the floor.

Just another chapter my muse decided to come up with - Happy Easter!