Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction based on the Harry Potter universe. All recognizable characters, plots and settings are the exclusive property of J.K Rowling. I make no claim to ownership nor do I make any profit.

Acknowledgments: Thank you to my betas James Marx and Umar for their work on this story.

Self Promotion: I have a discord server where you can chat and read all of my chapters early. If you would like to join, simply copy the link on my profile and for . I had to write it in that format for the site to allow it on my profile.

Authors Note 1:

So, a very different story as opposed to what I normally write. I figured as I've done so many Slytherin Harry stories, I'd show the other side some love. Also, I just kind of wanted to write a more competent Gryffindor Harry, but one that is not going to turn into a Dark Lord.

Authors Note 2:

Sorry this took so long to come out; I've been extremely busy this summer.

Authors Note 3:

I'm going to try and keep Harry somewhat close to his canon character, but there will definitely be differences. More realistically, I'm going for a sort of cross between him and his father with some additional traits that neither of them really ever posessed, so we'll see what happens. The story will be somewhat AU, but I won't be changing much before the actual story begins; anything I do change will be explained later on.

Recommendations:

Harry Potter and The Prince of Slytherin by The Sinister Man.

Harry Potter and The Boy-Who-Lived by The Santi.

Growing Up Black by ElvindorkNigellus.

The Hero and The Veela by JackPotter.

Stepping Back, and Honour Thy Blood by TheBlack'sResurgence.

The Mind Arts by Wu Gang.

A Cadmean Victory by DarknessEnthroned.

"Speech."

'Internal Dialogue.

Parseltongue.

Memories/In Story Text.

Harry Potter and The Dark Lord's Equal

By ACI100.

Year 1: The Saviour's Return.

Chapter 1: A Different Beginning.

June 23rd 1991.

Number 4. Privet Drive.

7:05 AM.

Knock knock knock!

That was the first sound that could be heard by a small, raven haired ten year old boy who sharply awoke from his uneasy slumber, groggily throwing the thin, beat up sheet he used to sleep with off to the side as he clumsily fumbled for his glasses with one hand, while the other tried in vain to remove the sleep from his eyes.

"Up! Get up! Now!"

Harry groaned as he roughly jammed his glasses onto his face, glasses that had been broken so long ago he couldn't remember how it had been done; no doubt an escapade of his cousin and his gang.

"Up!" she screeched. Harry heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before.

His aunt was back outside the door.

"Are you up yet?" she demanded.

"Nearly." said Harry.

"Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."

Harry groaned.

"What did you say?" his aunt snapped through the door.

"Nothing, nothing…"

Dudley's birthday — how could he have forgotten? Harry slowly got out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.

Reluctantly, Harry slowly pushed the door to his cupboard open, leaving the comfort of sleep behind him; or, at least whatever passed for comfort in the sad life that he led.

The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise — unless of course it involved punching somebody. Dudley's favorite punching bag was Harry, but he couldn't often catch him. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast.

Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. He had had it for as long as he could remember, and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had gotten it.

"In the car crash when your parents died," she had said. "And don't ask questions."

Don't ask questions — that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.

Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon.

"Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting.

About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way — all over the place.

Harry was frying eggs as usual by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel — Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.

Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.

"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."

'Brat.' Thought Harry, doing everything in his power to not scowl at his whale of a cousin as he had the audacity to complain about the mountain of gifts laid out in front of him.

"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."

"All right, thirty-seven then." said Dudley, going red in the face. Harry, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over. Aunt Petunia obviously sensed danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that alright?"

Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work, Harry wasn't quite sure if he was capable of the task. Finally he said slowly. "So I'll have thirty… thirty…"

Again, Harry had to hide his reaction, though this time it would have been a snicker rather than a smile.

"Thirty-nine, sweetums." Aunt Petunia offered.

"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."

Uncle Vernon chuckled.

"Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair.

'Yeah," thought Harry, 'because he could tell the difference between a pound and a pence.'

At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.

"Bad news, Vernon." she said. "Mrs. Figg's broken her leg. She can't take him." She jerked her head in Harry's direction.

Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but Harry's ears perked up, though he didn't dare to truly get his hopes up. Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made him look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.

"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry as though he'd planned this. Harry knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when he reminded himself it would be a whole year before he had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr. Paws, and Tufty again.

"We could phone Marge..." Uncle Vernon suggested.

"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the boy."

The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn't there — or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.

"What about what's-her-name, your friend — Yvonne?"

"On vacation in Majorca." snapped Aunt Petunia

Harry wanted to put in, at that moment, that the Dursleys could simply leave him at the house. If they truly didn't want his company, which was fine by him, then surely the sensible thing was to do what most normal families did and simply leave him behind. But for all of the Dursleys delusions of normality, Harry knew they weren't. Normal people would not treat a child the way the Dursleys treated him, this was something he knew to be true. It was a byproduct of that belief that stopped Harry from voicing his suggestion, as he knew that it would not be received well, and though his uncle currently seemed in a fairly good mood, Harry knew from experience that he could make that change very quickly, simply by uttering the most ordinary and reasonable of statements.

"I suppose we could take him to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly. "… and leave him in the car…"

"That car's new, he's not sitting in it alone…"

Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn't really crying — it had been years since he'd really cried — but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.

'Typical.' Thought Harry, dreading the worst that the Dursleys were sure to come up with.

"Dinky Duddydums, don't cry, Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.

"I… don't… want… him… t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "He always sp-spoils everything!" He shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms.

Just then, the doorbell rang — "Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically — and a moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.

Half an hour later, Harry, who couldn't believe his luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life. His aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside, grabbing him roughly by the shoulders and pinning him up against the wall, glaring down at him with a near murderous glint in his eye as he spoke.

"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's. "I'm warning you now, boy — any funny business, anything at all — and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."

"I'm not going to do anything," said Harry. "honestly…"

But Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No one ever did.

The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn't make them happen.

Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his bangs, which she left "to hide that horrible scar." Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and taped glasses. Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. He had been given a week in his cupboard for this, even though he had tried to explain that he couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly.

Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old sweater of Dudley's (brown with orange puff balls). The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry wasn't punished.

On the other hand, he'd received one of the worst beatings he could remember from Uncle Vernon for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry's surprise as anyone else's, there he was sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he'd tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him in mid-jump.

Harry wanted to believe that today nothing would go wrong, but he was not foolish enough to believe it. These odd things had always happened at the weirdest of times, and they were almost never something Harry had managed to control; well, he thought he may have had some measure of control over his hair, but he did not understand what that was, or how it had happened, and therefore had little chance of controlling whatever kept happening to him now.

Uncle Vernon complained loudly to Aunt Petunia and Harry only half listened, tuning in and out of both his own thoughts and the conversation taking place in front of him. He caught something about motorbikes before his thoughts wandered back to the dream he had been rudely awoken from by his Aunt Petunia. He could not remember it well, as often seemed to be the case with Harry and his dreams, but he quite vividly remembered something about a flying motorbike on a cold fall night.

For a moment, Harry imagined Vernon and Petunia's reaction if he were to confess this dream aloud, he figured they, as well as Uncle Vernon's brand new car would likely find themselves in the ditch seconds after the proclamation. The Dursleys had never tolerated Harry's imagination, no matter how obscure or impossible the things were that he imagined. On the contrary, they seemed to take it as a personal insult the more obscure and impossible things were that he imagined. He also knew that his "it was a dream" excuse would not placate them, as far better explanations had failed in the past.

So instead he simply thought on his dream, and more particularly, attempted to remember its contents. He couldn't, but this did not surprise him. The same thing had been happening for years, though the contents of those dreams were far less pleasant, and always the same; always managing to leave him rather uneasy when he awoke, often drenched in a cold sweat he could not explain. These dreams usually consisted of a women's scream and a blinding flash of green light, followed by an excruciating pain from his forehead, around the place his scar resided, that would always wake him. For years he had thought this to be some sort of flashback to the car crash that had claimed the lives of his parents, but now he wasn't so sure. He could not imagine where the green light had come from, unless it was smoke and he had hit his head so hard in the car crash he simply remembered it as green light? But he doubted it, as the theory of trauma compromising his memory was one that he had been proving wrong for years, as he had a stellar memory; one of his teachers had even gone as far as to call it eidetic.

It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn't bad, either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.

Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time, though in truth, that wasn't saying much; but he would happily accept small miracles. He was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first.

Most boys in his position would have internally gloated, or praised their lucky stars, but not Harry. Harry had always had a keen sense for danger, or in more realistic terms, a sick sense for trouble, and his senses were doing far more than tingling, they were screaming at him, warning him of the oncoming storm that he somehow knew to be fast approaching.

After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can — but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.

Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.

"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.

"Do it again!" Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.

"This is boring." Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.

Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself — no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least he got to visit the rest of the house.

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's.

It winked.

Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. He looked back at the snake and winked, too.

The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly:

"I get that all the time."

"I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. "It must be really annoying."

The snake nodded vigorously.

"Where do you come from, anyway?" Harry asked.

The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it.

Boa Constrictor, Brazil.

"Was it nice there?"

The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see — so you've never been to Brazil?"

As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump. "DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"

Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.

"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened — one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror. The glass had vanished from off of the display, and in a blur of motion, the snake had lunged forward, sinking its fangs into Dudley's shoulder causing him to scream in complete agony as the serpent pulled away, fangs now tinged with blood as it slithered past the fallen boy and his companion, making for the exit as it used everyone's panic as an ideal distraction.

As it slithered past Harry on it's way to the exit, Harry could have swore he made out the faintest trace of a hiss directed at him from the serpent. "Thanks, Amigo."

But Harry had no time to ponder that, for as he looked on the fallen, bloody form of his cousin he knew one thing and one thing only, soon, very soon he was going to have hell to pay.

In a corner of the zoo, watching the action unfold with very different outlooks were two individuals. Two individuals who had gone to the zoo together for the day, in search of something to pass the time that day.

The first was a tall, broad shouldered man with dark hair and eyes. He was quite old, but didn't appear it. He looked as if he were an athletic man in his late 30's, when in reality he was several decades passed that point in his life. As this man looked upon the creatures in the zoo, it was with mainly indifference, as if he were partaking in an essential task that had to be completed.

The boy standing to his side was, in many ways, a stark contrast to his older escort. Where the other man was old and well built, this boy was young and not built quite so favourably. He was perhaps an inch or two taller than the average for his age, with pale skin, a bit of pudge and a round, kind face. Unlike his escort, this boy watched the zoo exhibits with great interest, relishing the chance to see creatures that until now, had been unknown to him.

When the glass vanished on a large exhibit constraining what the tag described to be a Brazilian Boa Constrictor, their reactions were quite different as well. The older man's eyes widened as he examined the room, his eyes sharpening when they spotted a small boy on the floor. As he saw the serpent take a chunk out of the arm of a much larger boy, he couldn't help but give a soft chuckle, not really caring one way or another about the state of the muggle boy.

His companion however, had a very different reaction. He felt not only horror at the snake's escape, but pity for the boy who had been bitten. The one similarity between their takes however, is that like the older man, this boys eyes focused on the boy on the floor, and though he could not explain it, he felt a sort of connection to the boy on the ground, almost like the feeling one felt when they saw someone they knew they had met before, but couldn't place who they were or where they had met.

"Come on son," said the older man, "it's time we get you out of here. Shouldn't be here when all hell breaks loose."

The boy wanted to argue, but he knew it would not end favourably for him if he did, his uncle would never actually hurt him, but the sharp remarks he would receive at his hand was enough of a deterrent for the round faced boy to bite back his protest and choose a far more diplomatic response. "Yes, Uncle Algie." He said, following the older man out of the zoo.

"Good lad." His uncle responded, and as he seized hold of Neville Longbottom's arm, turning on the spot and vanishing into nothing, the older man missed the fact that his nephew's eyes had not once left the raven haired boy who had lay prone on the floor. Nor had he noticed Neville's eyes widen in shock as he had seen a vivid mark on the boy's forehead; a mark that was known by every child in their world.

Harry had endured many long nights under the not so tender care of his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon over the years. However, the night of Dudley's eleventh birthday was perhaps the worst in living memory.

He did get a brief reprieve, as he was simply dropped off at the house while his aunt and uncle accompanied Dudley to the hospital; clearly more concerned with the health of their son as opposed to the punishment they would lay upon their nephew.

Or so Harry had thought, later upon reflection, he had come to the conclusion that his uncle had spent the time thinking of all of the ways he could punish Harry.

He knew he was in trouble when the front door opened, but even he could never have guessed the extent.

For the next hour, Harry faded in and out of consciousness several times, his cries falling on deaf ears as he was punched, kicked, stomped on, and physically thrown across the room. After a long time and what Harry later learned to be a large number of physical injuries, Harry could vaguely feel himself being roughly thrown over his uncles shoulder and thrown somewhere cramped and uncomfortable. In his haze of pain and confusion, it took Harry several minutes to realize that he was in the trunk of Uncle Vernon's new car.

They drove for what to Harry seemed like an eternity. Every bump in the road did no favours for what he was sure to be broken ribs, and he was fairly certain that his uncle was doing his absolute best to hit every single bump possible without damaging his priceless car.

At long last, after coming back to consciousness for the umpteenth time in the last god only knew how long, the car came to a stop. Before Harry could wonder where they were or what they were doing there, the trunk was ripped open, and Harry cried out in pain and surprise as his uncle roughly threw him over one shoulder again and began marching him across the street on which they had parked.

Harry had just enough time to wonder what his uncle was doing when he was no longer on a shoulder, he was sailing through the air, and before that had any time to register, he hit the ground with a sickening crack, causing him to cry out again, which only intensified the pain in his ribs. On top of that, he barely made a sound, as all the air had been knocked from his lungs moments earlier.

He had just enough time to hear Vernon's triumphant humph before he heard wheels screech, and he didn't need to look up to know what had happened; Vernon Dursley had beaten him to the door of death and left him out to die. Of all the horrible things the Dursleys had done to Harry over the years, this had to take the cake.

Just as Harry could feel the blackness closing in, he could have sworn he felt thin arms wrap around him, as he was pulled into a suffocating vortex right before losing consciousness, his only thought being that death had come to claim him.

Authors Endnote:

Ok, so for those of you who haven't figured out what just happened, I will not spoil it, but I will tell you this. No, Harry obviously did not die, and he is still very much alive.

As far as uploads go for this story, I am thinking once every two weeks should do. I could probably do once a week in the summer, but I doubt I could maintain it during the school year, and I don't want to have to promise something and then scale it back later.