Fanfic / Harry Potter and the Ashes of Chaos

Harry Potter and the Ashes of Chaos is a Harry Potter fanfiction written by ACI 100, who can be found here on Archive of Our Own, and here on Fanfiction.net.

The fanfiction series itself can be found here on Archive of Our Own, and here on Fanfiction.net.

Voldemort had no idea what she was starting when she attacked the Potters on Halloween night. Not only did she create a living legend in Charlus Potter, The Boy Who Lived, but she touched the life of another just as deeply.

Harry Potter grew up abused and alone and unlike his brother, he quickly had to learn to fend for himself. Abuse changes people on both a physical and psychological level, so when Harry Potter showed up at Hogwarts just a little bit different to how people may have expected, they really ought not to have been surprised. They should not have asked themselves what had happened, they should have asked themselves what would possibly happen next.

1. Book 1 - The Forsaken’s Ascension
2. Book 2 - The Sacrificial Slytherin
3. Book 3 - The Blackest of Truths

---

This fic provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents:
  • The Dursley family where both mentally and physically abusive to their nephew, Harry, treating him as little more then a slave, and even beating him to the point of him needing to be hospitilised. Sort of subverted since both Vernon and Petunia had a compulsion spell cast on them by Peter Pettigrew to hate Harry back when he was first sent to them as a baby.
  • Lucius Malfoy used the Cruciatus Curse on his son, Draco, for attempting to interrupt him.
  • Bellatrix Black gave birth to Ares just so she could be used as a tool to resurrect Voldemort. She sent her own daughter off to Hogwarts with the horcrux diary and told her to write in it knowing full well that it would result in her death.
• Accidental Murder: Peter Pettigrew uses the Imperius Curse on Terence Higgs: the Slytherin Quidditch Seeker, to find out what is hidden behind the door on the third-floor corridor before reporting back on his findings the next day. Terence ended up getting killed by the cerberus hidden behind the door. Whilst Peter doesn't feel any empathy for his role in the boy's death, he does admit that he didn't want him to die.
• Adaptational Backstory Change:
  • In canon James Potter's parents where Fleamont and Euphemia Potter. In this story his parents where Charlus Potter and Dorea Black. In the after chapter notes, the author stated:
    "Also, before somebody tries to correct me on it, yes, in canon, Harry’s grandfather is named Fleamont. I always liked the name Charlus, and I can not picture a man named Fleamont fulfilling the backstory I have worked up for Charlus Sr. so I have chosen to change it."
  • In canon Gilderoy Lockhart's father was a muggle and his mother was a witch. In this story his father was a wizard and his mother was the muggle. His father, Sigmund Lockhart, is one of the very few Hogwarts students to get an O+ grade in the last 100 years.
• Adaptational Badass: This version of Gilderoy Lockhart isn't a fraud, and has actually done all the things he's written about in his books. He is also the one who kills Fenrir Greyback and his pack in revenge for turning and later killing his mother. Consequently, he is much more competent as a teacher and, judging by the chapter on his backstory, has genuinely good motivations for becoming a teacher and writing those books.
• Adaptation Name Change: Harry names his owl Nemesis instead of Hedwig.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Or girl in this case. Despite still not being a good person, Voldemort seems a lot less evil then her canon counterpart. She didn't kill James Potter when she easily could have, nor did she want to kill Lily Potter; only doing so when she refused to back down. She showed deep regret at having to kill Harry Potter, thinking he could've been a worthy ally one day. She attempted to soothe him by kissing his forehead, and telling him that she'd make his death quick and painless. After reuniting with him in the last chapter of Book 1 she doesn't want to kill him anymore, and instead wants him to join her. Even after he attacks her she only uses non-lethal spells to subdue him. She does still want to kill Charlus though.
• Animal Espionage: Harry buys a large number of snakes at Knockturn Alley, then releases them all over Hogwarts to act as his spies.
• Ascended Extra: Due to Harry being sorted into Slytherin, we get to see a lot more from some of the more minor characters in that house, some of whom don't even have a line of dialogue in canon. These characters include Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis, Blaise Zabini, Theodore Nott, and Pansy Parkinson.
• Badass Bookworm: One of Harry's main hobbies is reading books, and learning new information. Before entering Hogwarts both himself and a few of the people he talked to thought he'd be sorted into Ravenclaw. He is also one of, if not the most talented student in his year when it comes to using magic. He even managed to hold off Cassius Warrington, a 4th year student, in a duel for a few minutes when he was in his 1st year.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • Gender-flipped with Grace Weitts, who acts this way for her actual little sister: Charlotte, family friend: Daphne Greengrass, and Harry Potter, who she later comes to see as a little brother figure.
  • After Ginny gets sorted into Slytherin, Percy makes sure to meet up with her privately on a regular basis to make sure she is okay, and also to offer advice on how to fit in with the other Slytherins.
• Big Fancy House: Most of the important Wizengamot families live in manor houses.
• Bittersweet Ending: In the last chapter of Book 1: "The Forsaken’s Ascension", Harry and Charlus work together to stop Voldemort from getting the Philosopher's Stone, and manage to vanquish her once more. Harry also manages to get straight Os in all his classes, and even got three O+s, which has only ever been done once before by someone in their 1st year at Hogwarts.... but due to Harry hesitating when Voldemort asks him to join her, him and Charlus are once more at odds with each other. Not to mention Harry is also forced to go back to the Dursleys instead of going to live with his father and brother like what was originally planned. This, according to Dumbledore, is because if Harry stops living with the Dursleys then the protection wards around their house will deactivate, which Dumbledore doesn't want to happen in case Voldemort ever truly returns in the future and Charlus needs somewhere to safely hide away.
• The Chessmaster: Albus Dumbledore. After Snape confronts him in the first chapter of Book 2, Dumbledore admits to deliberately leading Charlus Potter into a confrontation with Voldemort. Even the puzzles guarding the Philosopher's Stone where tailor made to be beaten by Charlus, Ron, and Hermione. He did this both to confirm his own theory that Voldemort would be unable to harm Charlus, and also for the small hope that Charlus would be able to finish off Voldemort once and for all.
• Child Prodigy: Despite growing up with muggles and not knowing about the existence of magic, Harry has quite skilled at using magic even before getting his Hogwarts letter. He was able to perform both low-level nonverbal, and wandless magic, he once accidentally apparated to a roof to get away from Dudley, he is a skilled Legilimens, and he can talk to snakes. Then he enters Hogwarts and starts properly learning magic.
• The Chosen One: Charlus Potter is hailed as "The-Boy-Who-Lived" for surviving the killing curse, and defeating Lady Voldemort as an infant.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Vernon, Petunia and Marge Dursley all die within a few days of each other. Vernon gets killed by Grace Weitts out of revenge for his mistreatment of Harry. Petunia gets strangled by Marge Dursley, who was put under the Imperius Curse by Peter Pettigrew. Marge kills herself after murdering Petunia under the instructions of Pettigrew.
  • Fenrir Greyback, along with his entire werewolf pack are killed by Gilderoy Lockhart via fiendfyre in revenge for first turning, and then killing his mother. This takes place years before he's even introduced in canon.
• A Death in the Limelight: In Book 2 Chapter 13 we get a POV from the minor character, John Doe: an up and coming reporter for the Daily Prophet. This POV goes over his entire backstory, from how his parents died shortly after his birth, to him being sent to live at an orphanage, to him attending Hogwarts, and finally him getting a job at the Daily Prophet. The chapter then ends with him being murdered on his way back to his apartment.
• Didn't Think This Through: Charlus, Ron, and Hermione in regards to their polyjuice scheme. The plan was to infiltrate the Slytherin common room in order to question Harry about the Heir of Slytherin incidents. The problem is that they planned to go as Crabbe, Goyle, and Bulstrode: three people they know absolutely nothing about. So not only did they not know that Harry wasn't on speaking terms with any of those three, they also didn't know how to act like them at all. Hermione didn't even make it to the common room, since she added Bulstrode's cat's hair to her potion, rather then the hair of the girl herself. To add insult to injury they had no chance of getting away with it anyway, due to Harry being warned about their plan weeks in advance by Pansy, who found out their whole plan by speaking to Moaning Myrtle.
• Entropy and Chaos Magic: There is a branch of magic called Chaos Magic. It is considered to be so taboo that all knowledge of it has been buried, to the point where only a select few people know it even exists, and even those that do rarely speak of it. Those who do try to speak of it publically tend to be silenced. Magic that fall under this catagory include Priori Incantatem and Fiendfyre.
• Epic Fail: After missing the Hogwarts Express, Charlus convinces Ron that they should use Arthur Weasley's flying car to get to Hogwarts. He thought it would be an exciting journey that would leave Hogwarts students talking about it for years to come, when in actuality they spent seven long hours flying around aimlessly in the baking hot sun with no fun way to pass the time. As if this wasn't enough, the journey then ends with them being knocked out of the sky by the Whomping Willow, which results in Ron's wand getting snapped during the assault.
• Fake Memories: Evan Rosier plants false memories in Charlus' head to make him think it was Harry that taught him dark magic, rather then himself. This is done with the intention to both get Harry expelled from Hogwarts, and to cause further rift between the Potter twins, the latter of which succeeds.
• Friendless Background: Harry didn't have any friends before going to Hogwarts, since his cousin Dudley would bully anyone who tries to get close to him.
• Gender Flip: Emily Riddle: Lady Voldemort/The Dark Lady.
• The Glasses Gotta Go: Harry gets his eyesight fixed before his 1st year at Hogwarts at Knockturn Alley. The procedure involved blood magic and was quite expensive, costing 100 galleons.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Due to always seeing the best in people, Dumbledore wasn't able to understand just how bad of a decision it was to send Harry back to Privet Drive after his first year at Hogwarts. He assumed that at the very worst Harry would be a little neglected, but he had no idea just how awful the Dursleys could be.
• Happily Adopted:
  • Tracey Davis is adopted by her mother's best friend and her husband after her birth father accidentally kills her birth mother in a fit of rage by pushing her down the stairs. She very much loves both of her adopted parents.
  • Harry Potter is taken in by the Weitts family, who become his new magical guardians after James' trial. Harry is much happier with his new guardians than his previous one.
• Hate at First Sight: Harry feels this way for both Charlus Potter and Draco Malfoy, who he met for the first time on the Hogwarts Express and at Madam Malkin's Robes respectively. This is due to their spoiled and self-important characteristics reminding him of his cousin, Dudley.
• Icy Blue Eyes: Daphne Greengrass has pale, ice blue eyes. They are often described as "icy" when she's angry, or calculating.
• I Kiss Your Hand: It is common wizarding etiquette for a man to kiss the hand of a woman when meeting them, particularly in a formal setting.
• Invisibility Cloak: Charlus gets one from his father. He uses to sneak around Hogwarts at night, listen in on secret meetings, and even to escape from Professor Snape's classroom before he could be escorted to Dumbledore's office.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Lucius Malfoy, sends a letter to his son, Draco, telling him to stop antagonizing Harry Potter, since the former's plan to have the latter set up for dragon smuggling failed, which resulted in Rita Skeeter writing a scathing article in the Daily Prophet, ruining the Malfoy's reputation.
• Literal Bastard: Benedict Cuffe is the bastard son of Barnabas Cuffe, and his lover, Rita Skeeter. His parents orchestrated the death of Barnabas' actual wife to make it look like she died giving birth to Benedict.
• The Nicknamer: To differentiate the Potter twins, Snape calls Harry "Competent Potter", and Charlus "Incompetent Potter".
• Not Himself: Over the course of Book 2, Ron Weasley shows animosity to anything relating to the Slytherin House at Hogwarts. He even starts to dislike his own sister, Ginny, after she gets sorted into Slytherin. Both his friends and family find this strange, as he's never shown this hatred before his 2nd year at Hogwarts. Its revealed in Book 3 that the summer before he went off to his 2nd year at Hogwarts, Peter Pettigrew put him under the Imperius Curse and ordered him to hate anything relating to Slytherin House, Harry Potter in particular. This was done with the ultimate goal of further driving a wedge between the Potter twins. The Imperius Curse eventually gets broken in Book 3.
• Odd Friendship: Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis. Both of them being Slytherins is where the similarity ends. The former is a quiet and stoic Pure-Blooded witch, whose family is one of the Founding Twelve Families: the families that founded the Wizengamot, and have been in Magical Britain since 1008. The latter is an outgoing Half-Blooded witch whose family is relatively new to Magical Britain.
• Original Character:
  • Charlus Potter: Harry's younger twin brother, and The-Boy-Who-Lived.
  • The Weitts family, consisting of Giaus, Adriana, Sigmund, Grace, and Charlotte.
• Parental Abandonment: James Potter gives away his oldest son, Harry, to be raised by his wife's sister and her family, the Dursleys. With Lily dead, he doesn't think he can raise two children, especially with one of them being a prophesied child. He worries that Harry would either feel jealous of all the attention his twin brother would recieve, or feel neglected.
• Photographic Memory: Harry has a near eidetic memory. His earliest memory is Voldemort firing the killing curse at him. He even remembers the incantation: "Avada Kedavra".
• Power Levels: There are 7 levels to both Occlumency and Legilimency, with each level focusing on one or two major components that must be mastered before you can safely advance to the next.
• Put on a Bus: Draco Malfoy gets pulled out of Hogwarts by his parents during the middle of his second year and gets sent to Beauxbatons. This is due to all the bad publicity he accumulated for the Malfoy family during his time there.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Potter twins: Charlus (Red) / Harry (Blue).
• Rejected Apology: In the last chapter of Book 2, Charlus tries apologising to Harry for the way he's treated him for the past two years. Harry responds by punching him in the face.
• Ring of Power: Harry is given a ring for Christmas by Voldemort in his first year at Hogwarts with multiple abilities. He can sense both people and magic around him, can eavesdrop into conversations around him with unmatched precision, and can turn invisible when he holds his breath.
• Scars Are Forever: Charlotte Weitts gets a cut on her forearm courtesy of Derrick Mulciber who used a cursed blade, from which any damage taken is permanent.
• Secret Identity:
  • Amelia Hurst, the Defense Against The Dark Arts professor during Harry's first year at Hogwarts, is actually an unnamed American witch being possessed by Voldemort.
  • Mr. Bellona, Charlus' magic tutor, is actually Evan Rosier: a Death Eater, and member of Lady Voldemort's inner circle.
  • Emily Nigma, the new Hogwarts transfer student, is actually the horcrux diary Emily Riddle in a new body.
• Secret Legacy: The Potter family are secret descendants of the Peverell Family: one of the 12 families who founded the Wizengamot.
• Secret Room: There is a hidden area behind one of the walls in the Slytherin common room called The Speaker's Den. It can only be opened by a parselmouth. The main room contains several full bookshelves, and a long table with many chairs around it, one of which looks throne like. There are also a few other rooms including a study, a sitting room, an empty library, and a restroom.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Whilst Snape isn't particularly nice to anyone, he's especially mean to Charlus and Harry Potter, whose father, James Potter, bullied him in school. He isn't as bad with Harry, likely due to him acting nothing like his father, and more like his mother; who Snape loved.
• The Sociopath: The author confirms that Derrick Mulciber is one of these.
• Spared by the Adaptation: James Potter. When attacking Godric's Hollow, Voldemort knocks James out rather then killing him like in canon.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Emily Riddle (Voldemort), Harry Potter, and Charlus Potter can speak parseltongue.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Charlus Potter looks exactly like his father, James Potter, with his dark unruly hair, hazel eyes, and glasses. Harry Potter also use to look more like his father, aside from his green eyes, but has since used some currently unknown magic to will his hair to be tidy, and had his eyesight fixed through some kind of blood magic in a shop down Knockturn Alley.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Draco Malfoy, Theodore Nott, Daniel Selwyn, and Andrew Macnair tried to get Harry wrongfully accused of dragon smuggling, which not only would've gotten him expelled from Hogwarts, but would've also landed him a 5 year sentence in Azkaban. They tried doing this to him when he was 11 years old.
• Wedding Episode: In Book 3 - Chapter 9, we get the wedding of Blaise Zabini's mother, Antonia ... and also the death of her husband at the end of the same chapter.
• Wham Episode:
  • Book 2 - Chapter 31 reveals that Ares Black was the one being possessed by Emily Riddle this whole time. She then manages to quickly overpower Harry, and takes him down to the Chamber of Secrets with the plan to use him as part of a ritual to create a body for herself.
  • Book 2 - Chapter 33 ends with the horcrux diary Emily Riddle partially succeeding in her plan to revive herself, and ends up with a new body of her own. There are now two versions of Emily Riddle out in the world.
• Wham Line:
  • When Harry went to Hephaestus’ Custom Wands shop at the end of Chapter 2, there was only one other customer: Charlotte Weiss. The shop owner, Hephestentine Gregorovich, worryingly thinks to himself later that night that not only is Harry's wand linked to the wand of Voldemort, but Charlotte's wand is linked to the wand of Gellert Grindelwald:
    ‘What are the odds?’ he thought to himself. The boy had been as curious as the girl before him. Both had favoured Ebony, though their cores differed greatly. The girl had gone for a dragon heartstring from a Ukrainian Iron Belly and the boy had gone for a feather from the tail of a phoenix. Beyond that though, what made the phenomena so mystifying and worrying was that, if the rumour on the Iron Belly heartstring was to be believed, a heartstring he had salvaged from the remains of his grandfather’s shop years earlier, both young children were now in possession of wands irrevocably linked to the two greatest dark sorcerers of the past century.
  • At the end of Chapter 18, its revealed that the prophecy involving Charlus and Voldemort not only also includes Harry, but also has multiple stanzas that Dumbledore hasn't told anyone about. Before we only knew the first stanza, but the last paragraph of this chapter revealed the third stanza:
    “Only when the twins’ bond is broken by the cruelty of betrayal will The Eternal War come to pass, and either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives. As The Eternal War nears its crescendo, darkness shall suppress all light and only when the fabric of Death is torn to the wayside shall The Saviour make his final stand.”

---