Heir to the Dark Lord

Disclaimer: I do not and never will own Harry Potter.
Summary: AU. Harry grows up knowing everything about his real parents even though Voldemort raised him. But where does the devil and incubi fit into this? Severus/Harry
-Parseltongue-
“Normal speaking”
Heir to the Dark Lord
Chapter Two
As dinnertime came around, Voldemort went back into the side room to check on his son Damon and to wake him. After all it would not do to let his own son starve, he refused to do to his son what they had done to him while he was in the Orphanage all those years ago. Gently, Voldemort brushed the locks of inky black hair off his son’s face revealing the scar. The light brushing of his hair, waking the very sensitive child from his deep sleep.
“Father, what time is it?” Damon asked as he rubbed his eyes.
He was a little confused, since his father had said that he would wake him for lunch and yet the clock on the bedside table was contracting him at best.
“Damon, right now it is almost dinner time. I came in to check on you at lunchtime, but it looked like you could use the sleep more than you could use food. So I let you sleep a little bit longer,” Voldemort told him. “Now, go and get dressed, we will dine together tonight, afterwards we will use the hereditary potion and find out exactly what you are. Then you can go and have your first lesson with your new Potions teacher, Severus.”
Damon nodded still a bit sleepy, but awake enough to understand what he had just been told. Slipping out from under the soft silky covers, not at all ashamed of the fact that he was entirely naked in front of his father, and walked sleepily over to his clothes. Voldemort frowned, he was sure that children didn’t usually do that in front of their parents after they could dress themselves. Just another thing to add to the list of unusual behaviours that Damon was exhibiting. Another one of these unusual behaviours that Voldemort had noticed was that Damon preferred to wear as little clothing as possible. Since he never went outside and the inside temperature was magically controlled, he could wear as little as he wanted and it wouldn’t matter too much. A pair of pants, and perhaps a top of some sort with a robe over top if he felt like it. The only piece of clothing that he would wear all the time was a pair of pants, otherwise it was up to whether he felt like it or not.
Replacing all of his clothing on himself, he turned back to his father who was looking at his son with a confused expression, but let it go as he saw him waiting. Standing, Voldemort led the way to their Private dinning hall, Damon not too far behind him. They sat together on either side of the table, big enough for four, the table was already set and all the food was sitting on the plates waiting to be eaten. Most of it was his favourite type of dishes. Damon assumed that it was to make up for the fact that he had not come to see him for so long.
A familiar smile graced Damon’s lips as he saw his favourite dish of all time. Voldemort couldn’t help but smile at his son as he began digging into the one dish that he knew he wouldn’t get any off, and yet the dish in question would be completely gone by the end of dinner.
They ate in a comfortable silence, the room was lit up softly by candles and had a homely presence to it. Damon looked up once he was finished. His father was not quite done, but he didn’t mind having to wait. Voldemort had long ago taught his son the etiquette of dinning, and he knew it would be rude to leave the table until his father was also finished. So sitting in his chair he observed his manners by remaining seated and made no noises as he waited for his father to finish.
Voldemort looked up as he finished the last spoonful of stew. As per usual, Damon had finished eating first. It had always amused him that Damon would respectfully wait until he was done, unlike other children that he had the displeasure of meeting during his lifetime. They would immediately demand to be let go from the table, or if they couldn’t get their own way make as many irritating noises as possible so that their parents would yell at them to leave. Damon was a little angel and sat patiently without fidgeting, and without so much as a sound, or some other nasty childish habit to amuse himself while he waited.
Standing up, Voldemort motioned to Damon to do the same. They left the dinning hall to the many house elves to clean up at their leisure.
Making their way through the very large and very maze like halls of the mansion, they arrived at the door to Voldemort’s Private Study. Opening the door, he let Damon proceed himself before shutting the door with a click behind them. Taking up his seat behind the desk, Voldemort motioned for Damon to take the seat on the other side.
“Severus will be a hard, but fair teacher. As will all your other teachers when I introduce them to you later,” Voldemort warned his son. “If you do something wrong he will give you a fair a just punishment for doing it. If you have an accident or it was in no way your fault, he will not punish you for it. As such, you will treat them with the respect they deserve, as they are all masters in the fields in which they will be teaching you. I will not be hearing that you are criticizing their teachings, or you will be reporting to me, am I clear?” He looked straight into his son’s eyes as he finished, to make sure that his words were not just floating through one ear and right back out the other.
“Yes, father,” Damon, responded.
Damon was highly confused as to why his father would think that he would do such things as he had just suggested. And how else would you treat someone, if not with the respect that he treated his father with.
Severus choose that moment to knock on the door, Voldemort simply waved his hand towards the door, a curl of magic flowed across the room and opened the door. Opening the door wider, Severus walked in with a vial in his hand.
Closing the door, Severus turned to the occupants of the room.
“Good evening, Severus,” Voldemort greeted his potions master. “Very good of you to arrive on time and with the potion.”
“Greetings Potions Master Snape,” Damon added politely.
“Good evening My Lord,” Severus spoke first to his master. “The potion is ready for you. Greetings to you Young Master,” he finished looking at Damon.
Having reached the desk, he handed the vial to Voldemort and took the empty seat beside Damon.
Voldemort looked over his desk and spied a spare, clean sheet of parchment. Pulling it away from the rest of his paper work he stood and walked around the desk uncorking the vial, leaving it to fall to the desk from his hand. A small swirl of green smoke furled from the vial of dark green liquid. He pulled a knife from his robes, as he knelt down in front of his son.
“Damon, all I need is a few drops of blood, okay,” Voldemort told his son. “It shouldn’t hurt too much.”
Holding out his hand to his father, Damon watched as he felt the sharp edge of the knife pierce the flesh of his finger, and blood welled up at the cut. Placing the vial under his son’s finger where the cut was, Voldemort squeezed a few drops of blood from his finger, and catching them in the potion.
Replacing the cork back on the vial, Voldemort shook it to mix the blood into it properly. Clearing a space on his desk he dropped the clear sheet of paper down and reopened the vial. Pouring the vial onto the sheet of paper, he watched as it was sucked into the paper, not a single drop falling onto the desk underneath. Once the vial was empty, he handed it and the cork back to Severus.
Picking up the piece of paper, so that Severus, who had no right to know what it would say, would not be able to see what the potion spelt out. Blood red letters began forming on the paper as if someone was writing them with an invisible pen. It spelt out in cursive, ‘incubus’.
The instant Voldemort saw the word be stood stock still stunned.
His son was part incubus!
It had been said, even when the incubus were commonly found in the wizarding world that it was almost impossible for them to reproduce with another wizard or witch, or even a human being for that matter. It was how the incubus race survived through needing sex that they were practically infertile to any but the one that they mate with for life. Otherwise there would have been thousands of incubi in the world due to the promiscuous unmated full incubi. Only twenty-seven cases of half-incubi were recorded in the whole history of the wizarding world, which spanned over longer than a thousand years.
The last one to be recorded had had no children and that was over five hundred years ago. It was around that time that the incubi had decided that they would evict themselves from wizarding society, having apparently had enough of the wizards who were accusing them of all sorts of evil misdeeds. After that time there was no new-recorded evidence that any incubus had had any type of relations with wizards. There even were no more recordings of sightings either.
So how the heck could Damon have incubi blood running through his veins…unless it was the mother? The only way that could be possible is if she was a half blooded muggle incubus or a full incubus. Or the father was just very good at hiding the effects of the being part incubus. Were they a part of the Royal blood lines of the incubi, as they were the ones who when trained correctly could hold back on the urges to have sex or some form of sexual contact.
If he remembered correctly, the urges always began at puberty, or just after normal puberty had just finished. If held back too long they took control of the body in an attempt to remain alive, a survival instinct, if you will.
Damon watched his father suspicious by the way that he had reacted when he had stopped and remained totally silent and seemed to be absolutely miles away.
Finally he looked up from the paper and caught his sons eyes with his own.
“Go with Severus for your potions lesson. I will explain everything to you later,” Voldemort cautiously stated.
Damon understood the full meaning behind the sentence, he had seen the word ‘incubus’ appear on the paper. He was under no circumstances to reveal what he had seen, including no telling Severus if he should ask what the potion had revealed. He nodded at his father showing that he had understood the double meaning, and stood awaiting Severus to lead him out of the room and to where ever they were going to have the potions lesson. No doubt Severus had a whole pile of rooms in the mansion dedicated to working on potions that Voldemort had wanted to use.
Severus heard the dismissal in Voldemort’s voice and knew that they were free to go and have the lesson that he had been order to teach to the child. Standing, he didn’t bother to check if Damon was following him or not. He had been instructed to teach the boy, as the boy had probably been told to learn from him. No one in their right mind would wilfully defy Voldemort, especially if that someone had to live with him day in and day out. Or at least they didn’t live long enough to tell the tale. So the child was bound to follow without being told to or be checked upon.
Following close behind his teacher, Damon was curious as to how the man was making his cape flair out behind himself as he walked through the halls. It had a very subtle effect that made Severus seem more dangerous than he appeared to look.
Reaching a fairly non-descript door in the mansion, Severus pulled out his wand and perform a very dark locking charm that Damon had read about a few times. It was a very effective way of keeping unwanted visitors from entering without permission. Or a very easy way of slowly killing someone should they try to go inside when they know they shouldn’t.
Once inside, Damon shut the door with a click behind him. Severus moved so that he was standing behind a workbench with several cauldrons pre-set up. Damon pulled out a stool that was sitting just under the desk and sat down.
“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making. As there is no foolish wand-waving here, you may hardly believe that this is magic. I don’t expect you to understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with it’s shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses…” Severus paused for a moment to watch Damon’s reaction. “I can teach you to bottle fame, brew glory, even put a stopper in death – if you are not a dunderhead like the many bunches of students that I have to teach at Hogwarts.”
Damon memorized the words careful not to miss a single one. Ever since he was extremely young he and Voldemort had discovered that he had a very uncanny ability to remember anything that he had been read or said to him. Even if it was only said once or read once, it stuck like super glue, and when he need to remember it, it came back to him as if he had just read or heard it seconds before.
The first book that Voldemort had ever read to him when he was a child, a muggle book for children called Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss, he could remember it word for word after having only been read it once. That had been when he was three years old. Voldemort had hidden the book away and two years later when he was five, he had found it where it had been stuffed away. When he had found it, Damon asked his father to read it to him again, just as his father started to read it, Damon began to read it from his memory, reciting it so that he was reading out the next page before Voldemort had turned the page. It had been the start of the testing on how much he could remember or if it wad just a fluke. Turned out it wasn’t a fluke, but bloody indescribable memory.
“Damon,” Severus snapped out. “What would I get if I added powered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?
Damon thought for a moment and looked through his mind for the answer, when he recalled reading a potions book entitled Potions for Insomnia. It had referred to the recipe to the potion that that reaction was in.
“Asphodel and wormwood would create a very powerful sleeping potion. I believe that it is called the Draught of Living Death. Living up to it’s names sake, it causes a sort of coma like sleep on people who should induce it,” Damon answered thoughtfully.
Severus nodded with a small smile to the young boy, perhaps he wouldn’t be so bad to teach, and he seemed to really have done some research into potions.
“Perhaps you are more intelligent than I originally gave you credit for. Let’s try again least it only be pure luck. Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?” Severus enquired.
“A bezoar,” Damon quietly repeated.
It was a good thing that he had researched what he should do if he was ever poisoned. When he was much younger, Voldemort had told him all about what he did and how traitors were always going to be a threat. So Voldemort was always extremely wary with food and drinks. One of the first things that he could remember was Voldemort telling him if he thought that he had been poisoned, because the food tasted not quite how it should if it was cooked properly, that he should quickly eat a bezoar stone, as it would most likely subdue the poison before it did any real damage.
“They can be found in goats. To be precise, the stomach of a goat. They are a very important ingredient in potions to sure poison victims. The small stone by itself can save your life from most poisons if it is swallowed before the poison takes over the whole bloodstream.” Damon stated.
The small smile had brightened to a genuinely happy smile which you would never thin would appear on Severus’ face after knowing what he was normally like. The child, in his opinion, was absolutely amazing. Most children who attended first lesson of their first year of Hogwarts could not answer these same questions that he used every year with that much detail.
“Well done,” Severus congratulated him. “Lastly, what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?”
Severus’ tone was slightly amused at the way Damon sent him an odd look half way through the question. Almost as he was trying to discern if it was a trick question, or if he was being serious.
“They are both classed under the genus of Aconite and are the exact same plant just with minor differences in the flowers. Wolfsbane has yellow hood-like flowers. Meanwhile monkshood has hooded blue-purple flowers,” Damon carefully answered recalling the pictures in Poisonous Fauna of the World.
Severus hid his shocked face at the answer, to say the least he was surprised. Damon had exceeded all his expectations. He had thought that he might know that they were the same plant and were also called Aconite. He had however not expected him to know what the minute difference between the plants were.
“Yes, I can now see what the Dark Lord was speaking of when he spoke of your intelligence. You are much more intelligent than a child who is double your own age,” Severus commented proud of the child. “Today you will be brewing a simple potion to cure boils. You will find the necessary ingredients in the store cupboard. I buy the supplies regularly, so if something should begin to run out, tell me. The book that you will need is on the bookshelf, Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger, the potion is on page thirty-seven. Once you have read through the potion, I will retrieve your work tools.”
Nodding, Damon went first to the bookcase and found the book after looking carefully through the many dozens of potions titles. Singling out a worn copy of the book he pulled it out careful not to disturb any of the books around it. Opening the book as he took it back to his seat, he read through the ingredients and the step-by-step guide to the boil cure. He wanted to know what he had to do before he attempted to do it. That way he knew what he had to have prepared before he to do it.
Severus meanwhile was in the store cupboard pulling out ingredients for the potions he was expected to make to restock the Hogwarts Infirmary before the Holidays were over. Coming out with a range of different ingredients he looked over to Damon who was sitting reading over the potion.
“Excuse me professor,” Damon said.
“Yes,” Severus responded placing the ingredients down on the bench.
“I have read through the instructions, as per your instructions. You said that you would retrieve my work equipment afterwards?” Damon enquired.
Severus nodded, he walked to the wall of cauldrons, each set in a cubby hole in a shelf that made it look like it was set into the wall itself. The cauldrons were all different sizes, shapes and metals. He pulled out a small pewter one.
“This cauldron is a pewter, standard size two cauldron. This is the cauldron you are to use fro most of the potions that I will have you making, unless I specify otherwise. This is because certain potions when mixed in difference metal cauldron have entirely different effects. A antidote in a pewter cauldron can be made the same in a silver cauldron and end up a poison,” Severus warned. “Pull down a set of brass scales. Then from the draw under the desk you will find a few pairs of spare sets of Dragonhide gloves. Take one pair, they automatically resize to fit anyone’s hands.”
Damon followed the instructions to the letter, not wanting to anger Severus. Retrieving a set of brass scales, he set them down on his workbench space beside the pewter cauldron. Finding the draw, he pulled it open and rifled through the gloves to find a pair that didn’t have any small holes in them. Finding a relatively new pair, he put them on and was amused when they shrunk and became like a second skin to his own.
“You will wear those gloves when ever you are working with a potion,” Severus sternly warned. “They are to protect your hands from any accidents that you should make. If your hands get injured it makes potion making a very arduous task. I will also not be responsible for ruining your hands, your father is not very forgiving, and since you are his son I imagine that the punishment for doing any bodily harm to you would be very extravagant.”
“Yes sir,” Damon answered knowing fair well Severus would most likely be killed if he in some way mutilated any part of himself when it could have been prevented.
A set of crystal vials had also been placed on the desk along with a set of knives, a chopping board, a stirring rod, and a pair of small tongs.
“This is now your equipment to use as you need to. Treat it with care a I will not replace it if you do not treat it properly,” Severus advised.
To be continued…