Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/6423181. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage Category: M/M Fandom: Harry_Potter_-_J._K._Rowling Relationship: Harry_Potter/Tom_Riddle_|_Voldemort, Luna_Lovegood_&_Harry_Potter_&_Ginny Weasley Additional Tags: Necromancer_Harry, Dark_Harry, Sane_Voldemort, Intelligent_Harry_Potter, Parselmagic, Seven_Year_Fic, Age_Difference, Dark_Magic, Harry_Potter Rewrite, Dark_Lord_Harry_Potter, The_Golden_Trio_Era, Full_Series Rewrite, Harry_Potter_Rewritten, Slytherin_Harry_Potter, Parselmouth Harry_Potter, Animagus_Harry_Potter, Insane_Harry_Potter, Evil_Harry Potter, Not_So_Evil_Voldemort Stats: Published: 2016-04-01 Chapters: 1/? Words: 1217 ****** There's A Heartbeat Under My Floorboards ****** by VultureLovesong Summary The smallest change in details can lead to vastly different outcomes. Harry James Potter is born in 1981, a year later than he was in Canon, and while some things don't change, a whole lot of other things do. After the death of his parents, the horcrux in his scar is not the only thing to come out of being hit by the killing curse, but Dumbledore does not know this when he leaves the infant boy-who-lived on the doorstep of his only relatives, sure he is making the right choice. Nearly eleven years later Harry shows him just how wrong he was, when his Hogwarts letter arrives and he is thrust into a world where everyone wants him to be a hero, but all he knows is how to be the villain. He isn't sure he even wants to save these fickle people who never did anything to help him when he still needed it, after all, is there really any reason he should he save them, when they so obviously were made to be ruled. Notes Rating: Nc-16, Explicit, MA-16+, R Themes: Necromancy, Dark Magic, Torture, Dark, Slytherin Harry Warnings: Graphic Bloody Violence, Detailed Depictions of Corpses, Torture, Death, Necromancy, Eventual Underage Sexual Content, Sexual Content, Mentioned Off-Screen Sexual Molestation of a Minor, War Violence DISCLAIMER: This Is A Work Of Fanfiction Based On The Works And World Of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Saga. I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING! All Rights To Harry Potter And His World Go To J. K. Rowling And Her Associates. Thank You! ~ V [Circle Of Death] ***** There's A Heartbeat Under My Floorboards ***** This Tease Of A Prologue Prior to 1992-1993 School Year (First Year) =============================================================================== There was once a child who would grow to become the most powerful and influential wizard to ever be, and his name was Harry. In a way, the story of Harry James Potter starts with a miscarriage. Lily Potter, nee Evans, is four months pregnant to the exact date when she looses her unborn son, the result of a badly cast dark cutting curse shattering her shield charm during a battle. Lily herself is nearly lost, as it is she looses a dangerous amount of blood and her magic is depleted drastically. In the wake of the tragedy, the mediwitches reveal the bad news that she will have a harder time getting pregnant again. They even go so far as to suggest that should she get pregnant again, it will likely result in a situation where they have to choose between the mother and the child. James and Lily are distraught and heart broken, but fate is kind. The following year, Lily gives birth to a son, Harry James Potter, named after her father and husband respectively. To James and Lily, it seems poetic how he is born almost two months early, on the exact date their previously miscarried son was due, four minutes before the death of July and birth of August. It is as if the child they previously lost has come back to them, and they love him from the second he is born, screaming and covered in birthing fluids, with the fierceness they would have loved two. On this glorious night, as they sleep soundly, Peter Pettigrew sneaks out to see his master. The cowardly rat of a man has been a follower of the unhinged but powerful Dark Lord, Voldemort, since a short week after graduating Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with low average marks in all but transfiguration. He did not join for any reason aside from fear and self preservation, wanting to show that he was not going to go against the dark lord no matter the consequences. In the three years of his following, Peter Pettigrew had proven himself to be of little worth, only useful because of his illegal animagus form and the information a year prior pertaining to the two children fitting a prophecy of great importance overheard by another spy in the August of two years earlier. On August 01, 1981, at 02:00 am sharp, Peter Pettigrew shows himself to be a useful spy once more, revealing to his lord the birth of a child once more fitting the prophecy. Lord Voldemort seethes and flies into a rage at the newest revelation. For nearly a year and a half he has been planning the downfall of the Longbottoms, but now the Potters have a child fitting the criteria for his prophesied vanquisher, as they had a year earlier. It means he has to go back to choosing between the children. One one hand, a pureblood boy of a family of the light since the beginning of magic, born on the thirtieth day of the seventh month as the sun rose. On the other, a half-blood like himself, born to a family known to jump about in their views of magic, more grey than dark or light, during the last minutes of the last day of July. In the end, the Dark Lord decides that the newly born child of the Potters is the most likely candidate to destroy him if he is allowed to live, and he switches tactics and targets the Potters. Of course, Voldemort is not the only one to realize the significance of his birth-date, and how he fits the prophecy. The Potter's had known the unborn miscarried child fit the prophecy, and now their newborn fits the criteria as well. They immediately have Albus Dumbledore put them under the Fidelius Charm, as he had been about to do before the miscarriage, and all seems well, even though it won't be for much longer. On October 31, 1981, Voldemort makes his way to the Potter residence with Peter Pettigrew by his side. The traitor whispers in his ear the secret hidden under the Fidelius Charm, and the two story cottage in Godric's Hollow is revealed. Pettigrew transforms back to his rat form and disappears, leaving his Lord alone with the friends he just betrayed. James Potter falls first. He fights to his last breath, refusing to stand aside and allow his wife and son to die. Lily Potter falls next, her sacrifice invoking an ancient ritual she had prepared in advance for just in case. They die for love, and it is that power, that magic, that sacrifice, that destroys the body of the Dark Lord and splits his already shattered soul. He is thrown into the forests of Albania, and a shard of his soul, half of his remaining soul to be precise, is thrown into the only living thing it can latch onto. Harry James Potter. The soul of a newborn is small, minuscule even, not yet fully formed until their twelfth or thirteenth month of life. As such, the piece of Voldemort's soul is not recognized as a separate spirit, too small a shard on it's own to be seen as it's own soul, and it melds into the still forming soul of Harry Potter. The newborn's soul shatters in that moment, ripped apart and sewn back together with Voldemort's own soul as the thread. All that is left to even hint at these eerie and life-shattering events is a cut upon the child's forehead, an angry, bleeding, open wound like a bolt of lightning from the sky, pouring blood down his face and into his eyes when he is finally rescued from the ruins of the Potters' honeymoon cottage and home for the first three months of Harry's life. Following the death of the young parents, the obituaries of the Lady Lily Amalthea Paige Evans-Potter and Lord James Charlus Fleamont Potter share the front page with the news of their son's unprecedented survival of the killing curse. The two deceased parents are hailed as hero, and their eulogies are bold and grand in ways that neither Lily nor James would have approved of in their modesty. Had they the choice, the notice of their deaths would have been a scarce footnote, with no mention of the grand titles they so abhorred in life, or great paragraphs of deeds beyond being loving parents to their son. By the time the funeral comes around, Sirius Black is in Azkaban for treason, Peter Pettigrew is presumed dead, little Harry James Potter is laying in a basket on the doorstep of his mother's sister's home, and Remus Lupin stands surrounded by more strangers than friends as his two best friends are lowered into the ground. On November 07, 1981, after getting back to Hogwarts after the funeral, Albus Dumbledore sits calmly in his office, safe and secure in his knowledge that he has made the right choice concerning the fate of Harry James Potter. It isn't until much later that he realizes that leaving Harry Potter alone in the care of the Dursley's was the worst mistake he ever made in his life. Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!