Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin

Chapter 1: The Meeting Begins

CHAPTER 1: The Meeting Begins

28 June 1995
(Seven days after Little Hangleton)
The Headmaster's Office

Harry paused at a conveniently placed mirror just across from the gargoyle that guarded the entrance to the Headmaster's Office. He was already late, but as the boy was a bit cross with Professor Dumbledore at the moment, he put being presentable ahead of being punctual and so took the time to adjust his green and silver necktie and pat down the few hairs that had slipped out of place. Potter men were known for their famously unruly hair, which was one of many reason why he was glad he no longer carried that name. Satisfied with his appearance, Hadrian Remus Black ("Harry" to his friends, his teachers, and pretty much everyone else in the world except for a tiny handful of particularly officious bureaucrats) turned to the gargoyle and gave the password – "Goo-Goo Clusters," some ghastly-sounding American confection the Headmaster had discovered – and then ascended the stairs.

"Come in, Harry," said Dumbledore from inside the office before Harry even had time to knock. The young Slytherin sighed. He'd never be so uncouth as to say anything, but privately, he'd always thought it rude for the Headmaster to always invite people in before they could actually knock, the wily old man's way of asserting dominance over visitors before they even made it inside his office. Also, it had been four days since the disastrous end of the Triwizard Tournament (they kept the original name in all papers for some silly reason despite the added participants), and only now had the Headmaster finally decided it was time to speak with him again.

"A bit lax," Harry thought, "what with a lunatic snake-man back from the dead and running around loose with an army of inbred Pureblood terrorists and all."

Not that he'd had been looking forward to this meeting. Harry had forgiven Dumbledore years before for his indirect role in placing him with the Dursleys, but the Slytherin was still continually annoyed by the Headmaster's efforts to get him back on good terms with the family he'd simultaneously been thrown out of and proudly walked away from. And thus, Harry was not surprised by the tableau before him when he opened the door.

In the center of the room was Dumbledore who for once wasn't twinkling madly at Harry but was instead looking quite somber. Indeed, today, the Headmaster actually seemed to looked his age. For just a second, Harry felt almost concerned, but then he remembered he had reason to be annoyed with the man and suppressed the charitable influence.

"Bad enough the Dark Lord is back! But for him to use Dumbledore's tournament to achieve it? And with the aid of one of the Headmaster's best friends, who turned out to be a Death Eater operating right under his nose? Ridiculous! That would never have happened if Dumbledore had been a Slytherin!"

Then, annoyed with his own annoyance, Harry took a second to center himself. "Unbridled emotion is the enemy of cunning and the foe of ambition," Slytherin's memoirs had said, and they were words Harry had tried to live by pretty much since the day he first read them. If he did embroidery, the quote would be hanging over his bed in framed needlepoint. In any case, Voldemort's rise made Harry and Dumbledore into allies whatever their past conflicts.

To Dumbledore's right was an empty chair apparently meant for him. Sitting next to it were two figures Harry was pleased to see: Severus Snape and Sirius Black. Snape, of course, was Harry's Head of House. After a rough introduction, Harry and the Potions Master settled into a truce that eventually blossomed into a relatively warm (for Slytherins, anyway) mentor-apprentice relationship. Lord Black, pale and gaunt, still showed the signs of years of false imprisonment in Azkaban, but that didn't stop him from adopting Harry as his Heir to the shock and horror of most of Wizarding Britain. Harry thought his role in successfully springing Sirius out of Azkaban and into a Lordship was one of his greatest achievements, exceeded only by the monumental task of getting Snape and Black past their adolescent hatred and into an uneasy alliance. It helped that the three of them had mutual enemies.