Chapter Text
The point of Hogwarts was supposed to be that it was the safest place for magical minors in all of Wizarding Britain. But if this was safe, Harry Potter-Black really didn't want to know what their idea of unsafe entailed. It was bad enough the youngest Weasley boy was still in a coma from when he'd tried to enter the chamber of secrets alone (Fred and George would never forgive themselves if he hadn't been found, and it took Harry and Hermione three days to track him down), Hermione and Harry had almost been killed by a basilisk to rescue his younger sister Ginevra too!
The philosopher's stone had taken up a permanent place in the Black Family vaults at Gringott's at the end of Harry's second year, much to Headmaster Dumbledore's disapproval. Not that Harry really cared much for what the man approved of or didn't. He'd almost died down there but they were twelve year old kids who'd been able to evade all the tricks and traps set by the Headmaster. The safest place for the stone was Gringott's, regardless of any other details.
Harry had set the horcrux in Tom Riddle's diary free the middle of first year to find its way back to its master. Shortly thereafter he'd stumbled upon the riddle of Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem and spent the winter holiday with Hermione puzzling it out. By the continuation of the school year Harry had collected another in the form of a locket and they had found the diadem as well (No riddle was ever a match for Hermione Granger, and he himself loved puzzles almost as much as she). Three horcruxes returned Tom Riddle to himself, and he had sought sanctuary with Bellatrix Black Lestrange to collect himself. She'd brought him to the Black Family Keep where they'd come across her cousin Sirius.
Sirius had escaped Azkaban and was currently looking for his godson. One Harry Potter. The boy who lived wasn't particularly hard to find, but he was uniquely difficult to get to. It was Bellatrix who suggested the Shrieking Shack, and Tom who suggested contacting Remus Lupin for help. Together, they got a hold of Remus, who had been hired to the DADA position at Hogwarts and set up a meeting in the shack, which Remus led Harry, Hermione, their friend Neville, and Draco Malfoy to under the guise of a special lesson. As they were his best students in their year, it wasn't difficult to pass it off as normal. Especially seeing as he had taken one student from each house so it wouldn't seem like he was playing favorites. Hermione from Ravenclaw, Draco from Slytherin, Neville from Hufflepuff and Harry himself from Gryffindor.
In the shack waited Sirius, chained to a chair and flanked on either side by the form of Tom Riddle, all Chestnut hair and turquoise eyes, and Bellatrix, wild black hair and wilder eyes. Neville might've had to be restrained, had it not been for a hand on his shoulder from Hermione Granger, and an almost imperceptible shake of her head.
They were safe enough with Remus, and he, on request of Hermione and with consent from Sirius and Bellatrix, cast a truth spell over the two supposed criminals. The night revealed quite a lot. The night Neville's parents had been cursed was not one Bellatrix would soon forget. Not because she had been proud of it, but because she had been forced by a third party to hurt the Longbottom family. And so she had used an Unforgivable curse against Frank and Alice and doomed their only child to life without his parents ever knowing who he was, though it cost her dearly and even sent her on the run. An attack by an auror during her mad scramble to escape and find her husband had not only caused a miscarriage for the then pregnant Bellatrix, but nearly done her in. Worse yet, her husband was caught before she could reach him and was now trapped in Azkaban himself. He had already been there to claim a blood debt. Frank and Alicia Longbottom has caused the death of his brother, and he had gone to collect by way of Cruciatus. Not so long to drive them insane, but enough to satisfy him. He would never have taken parents away from her child. Not like she had been forced to.
Sirius was revealed to be innocent of the crime be was accused of too. Peter Pettigrew had been James and Lily Potter's secret keeper, and he had betrayed them, ultimately leading to their death and framed Sirius for all of it, adding on the charge of killing twelve muggles when the little rat blew up a gas line in his escape.
It was around this point that Tom asked to be put under the truth spell as well so he could explain a few missing details. Details such as Dumbledore's poor impressions of him, and the subtle ways in which he had shaped Tom from the brilliant young mind he had been (not kind, by any stretch of the imagination but certainly not evil) into Voldemort. The ways in which he had suffered ever since, a shell of a man who had unwittingly been put back together by an unknown party (who was revealed to have been Harry and Hermione all along). He also pointed out that Dumbledore had been the one with the most to gain from all their suffering. Bellatrix hadn't seen the person who'd cast the imperious on her that night, but Sirius knew full well that when he'd found Harry as a baby in his destroyed home, Lily and James dead, he too had been Impiriused in order to make him leave Harry and go looking for revenge on Peter, and the only person he'd seen was Hagrid, who was as likely to hurt someone as a baby kneazle despite his size.
Bellatrix didn't even know who Hagrid was, but a quick description showed she too had seen the half giant before she had been forced to act against her will. And there was only one person in the world who could convince Hagrid to do things so heinous despite those acts being objectively terrible. Albus Dumbledore hadn't been placed at any of the scenes, but he was also the one who was supposed to look after Harry after Sirius was taken into custody and Bellatrix had gone on the run. Remus had seen James write his will and knew Harry was to be put in the care of the Black family should anything befall he and his wife. And he knew enough of Lily to know that she would never sentence her child to suffer so much as he undoubtedly would at the hands of her maddeningly stupid sister Petunia. Not to mention that Andromeda Tonks neé Black was still in hiding but could've easily been found had anyone actually read those wills. Which meant someone had enough power to seal them so no one ever heard the truth.
Draco also brought up that he and the rest of Wizarding Britain were under the impression Harry was raised by a respectable wizard family and taught everything he would need to know to take on his seats on the Wizengamot and his titles. Come to realize that Harry barely knew what the Wizengamot was, and he didn't even know he was to have a title, let alone more.
In the end, Harry recalled that he'd seen the name Peter Pettigrew on the map passing him (a gift from the twins after the whole incident with their youngest brother), but he hadn't seen anyone. Upon being told his animagus form was a rat, Harry knew exactly where to find him and delivered him personally to one Amelia Bones at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She was known to be a fair, no nonsense sort of person, and upon hearing that Lord Sirius and his cousin Lady Bellatrix had never been given a trial, she organized them immediately. Under Veritaserum, the two were found innocent of anything the Ministry had convicted them for (it helped that once Voldemort returned to be the brilliant, sane man he had been in his youth he had released the Death Eaters of their vows to him, including Bellatrix so they couldn't prove she had ever been a death eater to begin with) and immediately pursued custody of Harry to get him away from those awful muggles he'd been forced to live with.
Gryffindor hated him for being related to the House of Black. They jeered at him, tripped him in the halls, vandalized his things, and one of his quidditch teammates Angelina even knocked him off his broom on purpose, losing them the game but still they celebrated because he'd 'knocked that pompous Black git into the muck where he belonged'. Much to the ire of the Weasley twins, who were seething by the time they had checked him over and made sure he made it back to Gryffindor Tower unharmed. Something had to be done.
Professor Snape and Professor Lupin got together to call for a re-sort of one Harry Potter into a different house. It was a long shot, but well worth it if it got him away from those awful Gryffindor brats. As much as Severus tended to favor his Slytherins, no student would be so blatantly terrorized under his watch. There was no love lost between he and Harry Potter (pending Potter-Black) but he was just a child, and no child deserved that.
Surprisingly, the re-sorting worked. The hat proclaimed that he had wanted to put the boy in Slytherin since the day he'd first arrived, and though he had missed the benefit of spending his first year making connections, he could still do great things in Slytherin.
By the tail end of the year, Harry Potter was under the custody of his godfather Sirius Black and his Aunt Bellatrix Black Lestrange, who had started to petition for a trial for her husband. Azkaban was no place for him either, and she would have her family back if she had to tear down the Ministry of Magic brick by brick.
Which meant that by he started his fourth year of Hogwarts, Harry Potter had been blood adopted by Bellatrix (she and Sirius had thought long and hard but eventually come to the understanding that Bellatrix was less likely to stand out until her name came up as she looked like a perfectly normal Noble lady) and formally recognized at Lord Hadrian Potter-Black of the Most Noble house of Potter, Heir to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black, Lord to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Peverell, Heir to the Most Accident and Most Noble House of Slytherin. He boarded the train at Platform 9 3/4 with his cousin Draco at his side, (they had actually become fast friends between Harry being outed as a parselmouth and being adopted by Bellatrix and made a proper Black first year, having to catch up on wizarding customs and history all of that first summer while they toured the Black Family properties to decide where to live, the Philosopher's Stone incident in second year and actually finding and having a chat with the basillisk in third year so he could help her to find easier prey to keep her from scaring and possibly petrifying or killing any more students like she had little Ginevra Weasley. Thankfully only petrified but she had a rather unhealthy hero worship of Harry after he had saved her.) chatting in the disinterested but also very important way only purebloods could. The facade of which they dropped upon sliding into a compartment with both Neville and Hermione already waiting for them. They both dropped into seats across from each other and groaned loudly.
"Hazz, if I have to bow to one more Lord this week I'm going to bite my own arm off just to avoid the stuffy conversation that follows after."
Harry chuckled across from him, shaking his head.
"Wait till it's common knowledge we're related, they'll blame it on the Black Family Madness and claim it skipped over your mother because she's a woman."
A musical giggle sounded, and a small blonde peered around Neville from the window seat. Neither had seen her, but they didn't bother to straighten. She had already seen them, why bother? Aside from that, she didn't exactly look like the stuffy pureblood type. She had radishes for earrings and a bottle cap necklace, Hogwarts robes stamped with the same crest as Hermione's. A Ravenclaw then, and a little one too. Neville just shook his head.
"This is Luna Lovegood, she's in our year and she tends to get picked on by the other Ravenclaw girls. I've given her my protection."
Which meant he'd given her the rest of their protection as well, and they would discuss it later. He wouldn't have done it if he didn't think she needed it. Hermione as the smartest, most ruthlessly honest Ravenclaw, had a good bit of pull where Hogwarts was concerned, and Draco and Harry were the Slytherin princes. Neville was no slouch either- a wiz in both potions and herbology, he'd been known to brew potions that could be deadly with one step mildly altered, and do it perfectly. No one would ever think he'd hurt someone either, seeing as how Hufflepuff's had a reputation for being kind and helpful. Still, everyone knew not to get on his bad side.
It hardly mattered why he'd done it, they'd never go back on their word. But Neville was a boy with a heart too big, and a brain to match, so if he thought they should protect her, there was also likely something in it for them. Harry and Draco simply shrugged.
"Draco thought we should add another girl to the group anyways."
The Malfoy heir just tossed a jelly bean at Harry from the snack trolly, which has just stopped by their compartment. Harry simply laughed. This year would be okay. He was a Slytherin, he'd spent his summer learning more of the family magic, a bit about his creature inheritance courtesy of a Gringotts Inheritance Test though he was told most of it would be instinctual, politics, and the pull he had as both a lord and heir and he was basically solid Teflon. They couldn't hurt him again.
Or at least that was what he though until Albus Dumbledore opened his big mouth, holding the fourth slip of paper the Goblet had mysteriously spit out, and turned wizened eyes sparkling with mischief to the Slytherin table.
"Harry Potter. Come up here my boy."
From across the table, Draco snickered.
"Somebody is trying to kill you again Hazz."
Harry scowled. So much for his peaceful year.