Fanfic #19 Harry Potter and the Perversion of Purity by ACI100(HarryPotter)

This is a slytherin Harry Potter fic that tries to avoid all the tropes. It has gotten off so far, but this author usually has food storylines.

Synopsis: AU: Harry Potter was a naive, malleable child when he first entered the wizarding world. What if instead of meeting a good, noble family and being guided towards the light, he met a shadier bunch and was warped and twisted in ways that led to a much darker Magical Britain? Realistic, Dark Harry, Slytherin Harry, Good Dumbledore and Weasleys, Mostly In-Character Harry at the Start

Rated: M

words: 45k

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13852147/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Perversion-of-Purity

Here's the first chapter:

July 30, 1991

A Rock in the Sea

11:56 PM

Perched haphazardly in the vast, churning sea, a small, barren rock lay exposed and helpless to the infinite power of the world around it. It lay bare to the elements which often sought to ravage it, as well as any who were unfortunate enough to be occupying the rock in question at that most inopportune time.

Around this small refuge, the sea stretched out as far as the eye could see, displaying its vast power by crashing forcefully against the island's side, as if it were trying to capsize it like a helpless canoe caught in the ruthless grasp of a vengeful current.

Situated on the rocky and remote island was a small, rickety shack. The wind brutally tore across the island, making the lone shelter shake. Between that and the surging waves occasionally crashing against the island with such force one might think it would be pulled under at any moment, it really was a wonder the shack still stood at all.

The dilapidated shack hardly gave the impression of sanctuary, and it would be apt to think someone criminally insane for going anywhere near it, let alone seeking refuge within the structure that seemed poised to fall at any moment.

The last people one would ever expect to see in such a structure were a rather well-off family who prided themselves on being perfectly normal. They were, in their opinion, the very pinnacle of what the sophisticated section of Britain's upper-middle-class should look like.

Oh, and their nearly eleven-year-old nephew.

He was… not quite so normal.

Even now — whilst doing nothing that would truly be called out of the ordinary — the small, bespectacled youth lying on the hard, moisture-soaked floor of this ravaged shack stood out from the picture of uniform normality his relatives always tried to put forth. The three of them were all fast asleep, with the parents in the bedroom while their obese, blond-haired son occupied the cramped confines of the only couch in this out-of-the-way place.

This boy, on the other hand, was very much awake.

His intense green eyes were wide open as he peered around the dark interior of the shack, reminiscing on a great number of things as thunder shook the island he rested upon, chasing the flashes of lightning that lit up the otherwise pitch–black sky. They seemed as bright in the night as ethereal camera flashes.

Harry Potter felt the island shake and he could imagine the way the jagged lines of electricity lit up the sky outside, but he wasn't focusing on any of that. He was actually doing an admirable job of ignoring it — though to do so completely would have been impossible.

Most of his attention was currently focused on something much more mundane than the unusually fierce storm raging outside, a fact his relatives may have actually been quite proud of had they not detested this boy as much as they did.

Most of Harry Potter's attention was focused on the small watch stretched to its breaking point on his cousin's fat wrist. In particular, the way both its hands ticked towards the number twelve at a pace so slow it physically pained him. When they reached the offending number, Harry Potter would no longer be ten years old. He would be eleven; and there was a small, naive part of him that liked to wish everything would change with the shifting of his age, even though he knew such thoughts were foolish and wishful.

Harry thought it reasonable to say he had never been particularly fortunate, and he couldn't see how the changing of his age might break that trend — as much as he wanted to believe it was somehow possible.

At a year old, Harry had lost his parents to a car crash and been left on the doorstep of his relatives, who would later become constantly neglectful and occasionally abusive.

From an unreasonably early age, he was forced to take on all sorts of tasks around the house, some of which had been blatantly unsafe for a child of his age to partake in at all. He had been forced to rise early and then most of his day would be spent doing a vast number of things for his horrid relatives. The worst part of all, in Harry's opinion, was living in the cramped confines of the cupboard underneath the stairs.

He had always considered this last part to be needlessly cruel. His cupboard was terribly short on space, horribly uncomfortable, and not at all sanitary. The worst part of all was that his cousin Dudley had an entire spare room for his toys. Harry could have very easily slept in there, but the Dursleys had always viewed the cupboard as more than sufficient. In the often-vocalized opinion of his uncle, Harry should shut up, cease his moaning, and be grateful that they had taken him in at all.

For a long time, he had wished they hadn't.

He had desired nothing more than to be shipped off to an orphanage. For years, he naively believed the Dursleys to be exceptions as opposed to the norm. He had believed them to be the absolute worst of their kind, with no other possibly comparing to their cruelty and neglectfulness.

That belief had lasted until he started to regularly attend primary school.

Harry was a good student. He got stellar grades most of the time and did what he was told, keeping his head down along the way.

He had tried to make friends at first, but that hadn't lasted long. Dudley was surprisingly popular for reasons that Harry couldn't remotely comprehend. The boy had about as much brainpower as Uncle Vernon had neck. That was to say, none at all. Trying to hold a stimulating conversation with Dudley would have been as futile as attempting to outrun a cheetah. Impossible and a complete and utter waste of time, as well as possibly being detrimental to the health of any foolish enough to try.

Harry supposed his befuddlement over the situation mattered not. Dudley was much bigger than Harry, who was quite small for his age. On his own, Dudley was a handful at the best of times. With his posse of pandering followers who were almost as large and stupid as he was, Dudley was an absolute menace.

Not only did Dudley and his gang hunt Harry daily whilst at school — doing their utmost to beat him to a pulp whenever they were able — but they were shockingly effective in ensuring nobody came to his aid. No one wanted to cross Dudley or his gang. Therefore, no one wanted to befriend the strange, messy-haired youth who the group so often antagonized. The few children brave enough to break that unspoken rule had been made rather clear examples of, as had those who had picked Harry early when being team captains in PE or anything of a remotely similar nature.

This had been bad enough on its own, but what had been even worse was how the adults at the school had utterly failed him. They had ultimately turned out to be no better than the Dursleys; a fact that had been so crushing its oppressive weight was hard to describe.

None of the teachers went out of their way to help him and all of them sided with Dudley whenever they were presented the option. Perhaps if Harry had been a bit older and wiser, he might have considered the possibility of the Dursleys poisoning their perception of him from the onset. Unfortunately, at such an age, he hadn't thought with such rational clarity. It had only solidified his belief that he was alone and that no one was going to look out for him.

A belief that only grew stronger when strange, mysterious things had begun happening around him.

He hadn't been the slightest bit appalled when his teacher's hair had suddenly turned blue soon after falsely accusing him of cheating on a test on which he had earned a perfect score. What had appalled Harry had been the way she had somehow managed to blame it on him, landing him in trouble with the Dursleys in the process.

These odd instances had been yet another thing about his life. One that had not at all helped his living situation as the Dursleys detested anything odd. Harry personally thought they detested anything that was even mildly interesting, but that was a thought best left unsaid.

He had sometimes considered sneaking to the phone and calling the child services number he had heard mentioned on the television. He had never done so though, as every other adult he'd ever known had failed him. They had still shown up once though.

Mrs. Figg, the old, odd cat-lady from across the way had called them, but they had failed just as Harry had feared they would.

They had been chased off quite easily by the Dursleys and had never returned. That had been one of the most severe punishments Harry had been subjected to, even though he hadn't done anything wrong.

He was actually quite surprised he hadn't been punished for his most recent escapade involving the boa constrictor at the London Zoo beyond time in his cupboard, nor for the hundreds of letters that had followed the Dursleys all across the country. All addressed in vivid green ink to a Master H. Potter.

Then again, he supposed being stranded on this desolate rock in this shell of a shack might have been punishment for many. It was certainly not comfortable, but at least it was interesting. It was far more stimulating than looking up at the dull underside of the Dursleys' stairs, though not nearly as stimulating as the books he had frequented any time he was able to slip off to the library or sneak them into his cupboard, but he had never been able to count on those. In the last year or two, he was able to read much more frequently, but still not as much as he'd liked.

The Dursleys monopolized most of that time, as did Dudley and his cruel group of friends.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The thunderous slamming of something on the front door made the entire shack shake more than the ear-shattering claps of thunder had. Harry would likely have jumped so high he would have put his head through the boarded ceiling if not for the fact he was lying down.

He was understandably paranoid and hated sudden jolts.

How ironic that this sudden jolt would lead to his discovery of a mythical world of magic. One that might one day present him with the things he wanted above all else.

Later that day, in Diagon Alley…

By the time the afternoon began to age, Harry had resorted to numbly following in Hagrid's wake and remaining mostly silent. He was having far too much trouble processing all he had learned internally to focus too much attention and energy on vocalizing his thoughts and feelings externally.

They had just exited Flourish and Blotts and were presently trudging their way through the crowd. All the while, Harry was hoping beyond hope that he wasn't recognized again. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of the incident that had taken place earlier that day in the Leaky Cauldron.

He had found himself surprised to learn that he was obscenely famous. A fact he was blissfully ignorant about until late last night. Or, he supposed, early that morning; since it had been past midnight when Hagrid had ripped the door of the emaciated shack forcefully off its hinges and barged inside, revealing to Harry several incomprehensible truths that still had his mind reeling.

The most obvious of these truths was that he was a wizard.

All of the strange things that had happened around him and usually resulted in him landing in great trouble had been as a result of magic.

Apparently at his age, witches and wizards' magic reacted harshly in certain situations. When magicians were particularly scared, thrilled, or upset, their magic would often react and manifest in a way that reflected their current mood. If they were suitably terrified, it might do its best to purge whatever it was that was terrifying them. If they were particularly cross with another person, it might lash out at that person.

That explained the blue hair, at least. Harry never had liked Mrs. Martin.

It explained a vast number of other things, too.

Like how he had shrunk the jumper Petunia persistently and fruitlessly tried to force him into when he was a great deal younger than he was now. How he had fixed a broken vase of Petunia's after being terrified of the repercussions he would face for inadvertently breaking it. It potentially explained how he had somehow set loose the snake at the zoo, and even how he had inexplicably appeared on a school roof one morning whilst fleeing from Dudley and his gang.

It had all been magic.

Magic was perhaps his new favourite thing in the world, despite the trouble it had landed him in numerous times over the course of his life.

It was due to his magical abilities that he would be escaping the Dursleys for ten full months come September. It was through magic that he had already decided he would no longer be vulnerable. Through magic, he would learn to ensure the Dursleys, or anyone else for that matter, wouldn't be kicking him around like a football.

Though, for all of its wonders, even magic seemed to have its evils, for it was no mere car crash that killed his parents.

No, they had died at the hands of a dark sorcerer. One the likes of which the British isles had not seen for centuries. A dark sorcerer who waged war on the entire nation through his bid for power; one whose name people up and down the country supposedly still feared speaking.

An odd name too, Voldemort. Rather… wizard-ish, Harry supposed; certainly not a name he had ever heard before that morning.

This man had supposedly decided to kill his parents when they had allegedly refused to join him. Just like all before them, they had fallen to Voldemort's might, but he had apparently failed to kill Harry — then just an infant — which made absolutely no sense to the youth in question.

It obviously made no sense to anybody, since no one had yet deduced exactly how Voldemort's curse had failed.

It was such a miraculous mystery that it was in fact the exact reason Harry was famous in the first place.

The Boy-Who-Lived, they called him.

Harry found this utterly ridiculous, but it was far better than anything he had experienced at Privet Drive, so he wasn't going to complain.

Complaining had never gotten him far in the past.

Since all of these revelations that morning, Harry's mind had been racing with questions and filled with unquenchable curiosity. Unquenchable curiosity that led him to purchase not only the standard array of Hogwarts-required books, but a small number of them for his own personal consumption. He would have to find some way of sneaking all of these into his cupboard, but he would manage.

Their next stop was a well-decorated shop that apparently sold every variety of robes, cloaks, and other wizarding attire that a person could ever need.

"Listen, Harry," said Hagrid, wearing a sheepish expression that did not at all fit a man of his imposing size and stature. "Would it be alright' fer me to duck off 'n grab meself a quick pick-me-up at the Leaky Cauldron? Thought I'd stay with yeh fer Flourish 'n Blotts, but them damn Gringotts carts do me stomach in every time."

Harry felt a large amount of nervousness rise like an elevator in the pit of his stomach at the prospect of being left alone; especially so soon after his entrance into a world which he was still vastly ignorant of. Yet, his immediate reaction was still to assure Hagrid that such a thing was perfectly acceptable and that Harry would manage just fine without him.

The bell chimed softly as Harry stepped through the door. As if she had been waiting for a signal, a rather well-dressed woman quickly bustled her way over to Harry, appraising him kindly as she did so.

"Hogwarts, dear?"

Harry nodded shyly in return. "Yes, ma'am."

She smiled at him. "Right you are. There's another young boy getting fitted in the back, if you'll follow me."

Harry did just that and she led him to the back of the shop where several stepping-stools stood ready and waiting. Standing atop one of these stools was a fairly tall boy with perfectly slicked, platinum-blond hair. When Harry clambered onto the stool beside him, he could make out the boy's well-defined countenance and his cool grey eyes.

"Hello," said the boy, "Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes."

"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," said the boy. He had a bored, drawling sort of voice. "Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."

Harry was strongly reminded of Dudley, something that did not immediately ingratiate this boy to him. Then again, he was considerate enough to at least speak with him, which was far more than he could say for his oaf of a cousin; who only spoke with Harry when it was a necessary component of whatever form of torment the large boy had planned.

"Have you got your own broom?" the boy went on.

"No," said Harry.

"Play Quidditch at all?"

"No," Harry said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch could be.

Well, he supposed it logically must have been a game or sport of some sort — since people apparently 'played it' — but that hardly narrowed it down.

"I do — Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?"

"No," Harry answered again, looking anywhere but at the boy beside him.

"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they? I know I'll be in Slytherin — all our family have been. Imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"

"Now, now, Draco," said a calm, cool voice from behind them, "no need to take shots at the poor 'Puffs. What have they ever done to you?"

The voice — which sounded a mix of amused and lightly chiding — apparently belonged to a girl who appeared to be a few years older than either Harry or the boy stood beside him. He supposed the boy's name must be Draco, judging by this girl's address.

He got a good look at her a second or two later when she stepped out from behind them and instead chose to stand at their front. She was quite a bit taller than either Harry or Draco. She had the same coloured hair as the blond beside Harry, though hers was long, silky, and flowed elegantly down her back. Her eyes were grey as well, but not exactly the same shade as the boy who Harry was quickly realizing could be nobody but this girl's little brother. They were several shades brighter and had a bluish sort of hue to them, whereas Draco's were darker and purer in their colouration.

The boy beside Harry made a face at her. "What does it matter?" he asked. "It's not like I'll be in Hufflepuff, anyway."

"Things aren't always that simple," the new arrival said patiently. "There are plenty of important people in Hufflepuff, even if you're not one of them. You would do well not to offend all of them as soon as you meet."

Draco turned a rather obvious shade of pink and the girl now turned her attention to Harry. This was odd, as Harry could never remember a time when an older girl had ever spared him anything more than a passing glance.

Her stare swept quickly over his battered, second-hand robes before slowly roaming up over his face. He thought he saw her eyes widen for a fraction of a second and he immediately feared she had discovered him.

But a rather polite smile was plastered on her face as she properly addressed him for the first time.

"I'm sorry if my brother came off a bit… brash. He's excited to start Hogwarts, as you can obviously tell."

"That's… okay," Harry answered, having to scramble for the words, surprised that this conversation was taking place at all.

Her smile widened and she held out her hand; still standing on the floor in front of where Harry was just now getting the finishing touches put on his robes.

"I don't think my brother ever introduced himself, so let me fix that. I'm Diana Malfoy, Heiress of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Malfoy. This is my little brother, Draco. He'll be starting his first year at Hogwarts in September." Harry hesitantly took her offered hand with the air of somebody holding something particularly intriguing that might explode at any moment. "What's your name, if you don't mind me asking?"

There was a pause of about three seconds during which Harry seriously considered refusing to answer or giving a fake name. He quickly decided against either, as the first would be rude and the second would necessitate him coming up with a fake name — something he was entirely too fatigued to bother with right now.

"I'm Harry. Harry Potter."

Diana's eyes narrowed with a look he had seen from the Dursleys many a time. A look they often wore right before accusing him of something. He couldn't ponder on it for long, though. He almost fell off the stool as the woman finishing up with his robes suddenly stabbed him painfully with the pin.

"Gah!" he exclaimed, only saved from falling by the girl in front of him reaching up and placing a brief, yet steadying hand on his shoulder. It made him tense, but it was gone so fast it hardly mattered.

"I'm terribly sorry, dear!" the woman behind him exclaimed, hastening to apologize for her error. "It's just… well, I was ever so surprised, you see?"

"Are you really Harry Potter?" Draco Malfoy asked from beside him, stepping down off his own stool and gazing at Harry with much more interest than he had shown before.

Harry had to forcefully resist the urge to shrink back as irrational thoughts of retreating to his cupboard made themselves known at the corners of his mind.

This was not the time for nonsense like that.

"I am, yes," answered Harry, looking down at the floor once more.

"I'm sorry if I came across as rude," Draco said hastily. "You caught me on a bit of a long day, is all. Sorry if I said anything that upset you."

This baffled Harry more than anything else.

He wasn't sure if anyone had ever apologized to him in all of his life. If they had, he certainly couldn't remember it happening.

"Don't mention it," he returned with a small smile, stepping off the stool as he saw Hagrid approaching down the street from out the large, front window. "You didn't say anything that offended me."

"Good," said Draco, noticeably relaxing as he held out his own hand to Harry. "I hope we can talk more at Hogwarts then?" When Harry slowly nodded, he smiled.

"You can always owl, too," Diana reminded them.

"Um… I'm new to all this," Harry admitted reluctantly. "How does that work, exactly? Do I need to write an address, or…"

Draco looked about as stunned as if somebody had just punched him in the face, but Diana rested what looked to be a firm hand on his shoulder before he could speak; taking it upon herself to do so in his place.

"There's no need for an address, no. Just write the name of the person you want the letter to get to. The owl will find them; they always do." She smiled warmly at the way Harry's shoulders seemed to sag in relief as all tension ebbed immediately out of his body. "If you have any questions over the summer, we would be happy to help. Just write a letter to Draco or I, and we'll write back to you as soon as we can."

"You're… sure?" Harry asked with wide eyes, blown completely away by the sudden kindness shown to him by a complete and total stranger.

Two of them, even.

She smiled at him once more. "Of course. It's no trouble at all. There's no reason you shouldn't get help if you need it, and I'd be happy to be of assistance. Draco too, I'm sure."

"Of course," Draco said primly, straightening his posture and looking extremely modest. "I say," he said, nodding towards the front window, "Look at that man!" Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Harry and pointing at two large ice creams to show he couldn't come in.

"That's Hagrid," said Harry, oddly pleased to know something this Draco Malfoy didn't. "He works at Hogwarts."

"Oh," Draco hummed, "I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"

"He's the gamekeeper," said Diana, glancing out of the window with a rather puzzled-looking expression. "Why he would be here doing… that, I have no idea."

"He's my escort," Harry explained. "He's the one who took me here and is showing me around."

Again, Diana jumped into the conversation just as Draco was opening his mouth. His face flushed, but he didn't comment on it.

"That's strange. If you only just found out about the magical world, it should be Professor McGonagall escorting you — she teaches Transfiguration and is the Deputy Headmistress."

Harry shrugged, having no real idea how best to respond to that. It wasn't as if he could answer her unasked question.

"You had better get back to him, anyway," Diana continued, looking back towards Harry as opposed to out of the open window. "He seems a bit… impatient. Just remember, you can write us anytime you need."

"Thank you," said Harry, sharing one last smile with the two siblings before thanking the shopkeeper, taking the bag of robes she offered, and striding out the door before rejoining Hagrid on this odd, magical journey.

From a ways down the street, a tall, well-dressed man with long, luscious hair watched the retreating forms of a hulking, rough-looking man and a much smaller, raven-haired boy with great interest.

Interest that only mounted when his son and daughter exited the same store that the black-haired youth in question had just left himself. Interest that swelled still more when his two children cast furtive, meaningful glances in the boy's direction while conversing in low, hurried whispers.

Yes, Lucius would most certainly be inquiring about all of this