This story was written for the Sixth Round of the Seventh Season of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. I'm writing as Chaser 2 for The Tutshill Tornados.

Name of the round: Much Ado About Shakespeare

The task of CHASER 2: Mistaken identity. Write about a case of mistaken identity.

These are the prompts I'm using as a chaser to score some extra points.

8. (word) starlight

9. (dialogue) "How are you okay with this? I can hardly believe it myself."

11. (word) monster

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the world J.K. Rowling has created. It's all hers, from Diagon Alley to Hogwarts to all the people living there.

Thanks to my superb team for betaing and helping me bounce ideas. I couldn't have done it without you.

wordcount by google docs

WARNING: AU and Infidelity

Starlit-Eyed Monster
Words: 2 999

In skin not his own and in borrowed robes, Voldemort moved like the tide, flowing steadily back and forth through the crowd at the recruitment rally. No eyes lingered on him. Unseen, he saw who his allies were.

With a naked ring finger and hair dyed black, Lily Potter moved like a fallen leaf, anxiously fluttering at the perimeter of the gathering for dark sympathisers. No one engaged her in conversation. Silent, she heard what her enemies planned.

Speeches, intermittent by mingling and drinks, let out into the starlit night where formality and inhibitions were discarded and monsters wooed one another into committing sins of body and mind.

So the Dark Lord and a maid of the light circled the revellers, never participating, though not for lack of enthusiastic invitations. Their paths overlapped, and as the night wore on towards morn, their paths inescapably crossed.

Tiny, elfine sprites flew around them in a mating game, spreading their lust and fertility to all that breathed in their sweet pheromones. The sprites saturated the air so heavily with magic that it tingled. Like magnets, the lord and the maid drew together, opposites without words to describe what attracted them, they were heedless to resist. Under a velvety sky littered with a million, million stars, they came together.

-—-

Harry Potter was an uncommonly handsome boy. He was tall with smooth black hair and dark eyes that held starlight within. Something far more special about Harry than his looks, though, was his magic and the hidden world of sorcery he was a part of from the moment he was invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

His education started with a year filled to the brim with excitement and monster-encounters. All students were warned with a promise of death if they went to a corridor on the third floor. Someone let a troll into the castle at Halloween. Harry was assaulted by a dark spectre, who may or may not have been the Dark Lord Voldemort, in the Forbidden Forest. And at the end of the school year, it all culminated in an undeniable confrontation with the Dark Lord who succeeded in stealing the Philosopher's Stone.

With the Elixir of Life in the hands of Lord Voldemort, everyone in the know expected war and terror to return. However, calm years followed. Harry's schooling was as normal as any young wizard's had ever been.

It all stayed thus until Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts when a portent of change came in the form of the blanching face of the new Potions Professor.

Harry allowed Hermione to bully him into going to compartment C along with Neville as the invitation from Professor Slughorn dictated. Truth be told, it didn't take many words or sour looks on her part to make Harry go. He was curious about this new professor and why he was inviting students to join him while on the train. It wasn't as if the professors normally took the Hogwarts Express.

The rotund, bald, and moustached man, who must be Slughorn, took one look at Harry and his welcoming smile slid right off his face along with all colour. His skin took on the hue of chalk and his eyes bulged in his head.

"Are you alright, sir?" Harry hurried to the Professor's side as his knees seemed about to fold under him.

Slughorn did not take the gesture well. He flinched and backed up half a step, collapsing into a seat.

Harry was left with his arms outstretched. Feeling awkward, he put them behind his back, hiding them there so he could fidget without being seen. The move only made the professor stare harder, his lips moving without sound passing them. He then made a visible effort to pull himself together, sitting up straighter.

"You know..." He cleared his throat, looking around at the gathered students, eyes sticking each time his gaze passed Harry. He pulled out a silk kerchief and patted at his forehead. "This little gathering can wait. I'm not feeling quite myself, and I must be at my best for the welcoming feast. It's been very nice to meet you all. Please take some of the food with you. Go. Go. Off with you! I'm sure you have better things to do than to watch an old man having a moment." He shooed them out of the compartment with hardly any time to take the food he had offered.

Harry, Ginny, and Neville lingered in the corridor for a bit, in answer to which Slughorn forcefully closed the blinds of the compartment door, but not before staring at Harry and blanching anew.

"So, that was odd." Ginny gestured at the compartment. "I mean, all of it was odd, but the way he looked at you, Harry… I don't know that I've ever seen someone so scared."

Neville nodded. "He looked like he'd seen a..." He floundered, mouth twitching into a strained, tight-lipped smile

Harry looked at his feet. "A monster."

"Well…"

"There's nothing monstrous about you." Ginny patted his arm, and Harry glanced at her smiling face. "And you're not too hard on the eyes either."

Heat spread through Harry's cheeks and trickled down his stomach where it bubbled like newly poured butterbeer. He scratched the back of his neck. "Thanks."

"If you're not about to frighten any more people into early graves, I'm off."

Harry grimaced. "I'm not planning on it."

The encounter lingered with him. He was used to people behaving exaggeratedly when first meeting him because he was famous, but this was on a different level, and it continued in Potions Class. Slughorn couldn't completely ignore Harry and still teach. He did, however, keep to the absolute minimum in his interactions, seeming especially distressed whenever Harry performed well.

After a couple of months of this treatment, Harry decided that enough was enough. He stayed behind after class.

"You best be on your way, Mr Potter. Wouldn't want to be late for dinner, would you?" Slughorn studiously kept his attention on the potion vials he'd used in his demonstration.

"Sir," Harry said, hands behind his back, his politest expression on his face. "There's—I wondered—I wanted to ask you something."

Slughorn froze. Then all at once, he flicked his wand to turn down the lights, gather up his things, and lock the ingredient store cupboard. He bustled to the door, driving Harry in front of him. "I'm terribly sorry, but I'm busy, quite busy. You'll have to ask your question another time."

Harry made himself into a block, forcing Slughorn to slow down. "That's exactly what I wanted to talk about! Why won't you talk to me? Why are you afraid of me?"

They were close, closer than they'd ever been. Harry could see every individual hair in Slughorn's silvery moustache, and as Slughorn was forced to face Harry properly for the first time, his gooseberry eyes turned misty.

"Sir?"

Slughorn sighed wistfully, looking his fill unabashedly. "You look so much like him. You even sound like him."

"Like who?"

"An old student of mine. I thought he'd go so very far. Brilliant he was. Brilliant! You look like your mother too. I taught her as well. Yes, clever Lily. You have her smile, but the rest of you could be him. Except for your eyes. There's a light in them, starlight. That's completely your own."

"You're not talking about my father, are you?"

"Who's to say? But, no, I'm not talking about James Potter."

"Who was he, and why does I looking like him make you afraid? Please, sir. I deserve to know. After how you've treated me, I deserve to know."

Slughorn's shoulders sagged, and he smiled sadly. "Alright then, but remember that you asked to be told. Before there was the Dark Lord, there was a boy by the name of Tom Riddle."

Stunned, Harry did nothing to stop Slughorn from fleeing.

Voldemort.

The monster Harry was famous for defeating. The remnant he'd faced as a first-year and failed in stopping that second time. The dark wizard who'd killed his parents.

Or… No, it couldn't be.

You're not talking about my father, are you?

Who's to say?

The only mention Harry, Ron, and Hermione could find of a Tom Riddle was that he had received an award for services to the school some fifty years ago. After that, nothing. Riddle had vanished.

If only there had been a picture of him so that Harry could compare what Riddle looked like to the images he had of James Potter. When he studies the photographs he had of James, he saw more differences than similarities. Before, it had been enough to note that they both had dark hair. Now, all Harry could see was that James' nose was nothing like his, nor the shape of his jaw, or the set of his eyebrows. There was no definitive family resemblance.

On the last day of the Christmas Holidays, after hedging around the subject and not daring to bring it up, Harry broached the topic with Sirius. They were out in the garden, with starlight above their heads, snow under their boots, and mugs of steaming tea in their hands. Harry meant to bring it up delicately, but the words that tumbled out of his mouth were, "Do you know if Mum cheated on Dad?"

Sirius choked on a sip of tea, his eyes watering. "What? What makes you ask that?"

"I don't look much like him, do I? I mean, you would know. Do I look like them, like my parents?"

"You look like Lily, no question about it. You have her stubborn chin, and when you smile, you look just like her, and from James, you have the hair."

"Dark hair isn't that uncommon. On those grounds, I could just as well be your son."

Sirius chortled. "Don't worry about that being the case!"

"Or Snape's."

Harry smirked as Sirius choked again, spilling his drink all over himself.

"Don't put such images in my head. Lily and Snivellus." He made a disgusted noise. "What put that idea into your head, though?"

"Slughorn. He said I looked a lot like someone he knew. Could it be possible? Could someone else be my father?"

"Truth be told, I don't know. I wouldn't have said that Lily would have been with someone else during that time, but we were all active members of the Order of the Phoenix, and before she got pregnant, Lily did a lot of dangerous things like going undercover, and James did the same. They spent a lot of time apart, but if there was something wrong with their relationship, they never told me. For all intents and purposes, you're James's son. He loved you. He died for you. That's what matters. And you might look like that guy old Slughorn talked about because you're related. All Purebloods are related in one way or another. Don't worry so much about it."

He did worry though. The guy old Slughorn talked about was Voldemort. Harry couldn't not worry. He had to find the truth. If Slughorn was wrong, he could stop feeling tainted, like there was a monster waiting to burst forth from within him. If it was true… Well, at least he'd know. The natural way to search for any information was to ask Hermione. So back at Hogwarts, that's what Harry did.

"I can't find any magical ways of affirming lineages. There's nothing in any of these books." Hermione tapped a finger on a towering pile of books.

"Of course not." Ron gave the books a dismissive look. "If it were that easy, all Pureblood pounces like Malfoy would strut around with a paper proclaiming his ancestry in his pocket. I'm not saying he isn't already, but you know."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "With magic not coming through, the only thing I can think of is Muggle DNA-testing, and for that, we need a tissue sample from him."

"We need a piece of You-Know-Who? That's mental." Ron crinkled his nose.

"And impossible," Harry said.

"Not impossible, no."

"What do you mean? No one's seen him since he took the Stone."

"We don't need it to be fresh. Back in the thirties and forties blood-supremacy was at an all-time high. The Ministry decreed that all Hogwarts students had to leave a blood sample. Some time after, the political winds changed, and the practice stopped. But he was a student back then, and his record should still be around. All we need to do is find it, and I know exactly where to start looking."

It took several nights of sneaking around under the invisibility cloak, their ankles well visible as they were much taller than they used to be, but it was as easy as that. In a cavernous room down in the dungeons, records were kept of all students who had attended Hogwarts from the 16th century onward, and for a scant few decades, those records included blood samples.

The trio sneaked in after Professor McGonagall, who was there to record the results of some midterm tests, and without further trouble, they located the right file and the vial of blood held within.

Then there was nothing to do but wait. They couldn't submit the DNA-sample for testing before school let out. The days, weeks, and months crept forward agonisingly slowly with Harry going spare wondering if his father was a murderer or not. And maybe Slughorn had it all wrong to begin with. Sure, maybe his father was Tom Riddle, Prefect, Headboy, and recipient of an award for special services, but Tom Riddle didn't have to be Voldemort, didn't have to be the red-eyed monster that haunted Harry's dreams.

Summer eventually came, as it was wont to do, the pile of gold in Harry's Gringotts vault grew significantly smaller, and the DNA-samples were submitted to a laboratory in London, which promised they would be able to discover any close relationships.

In time for his seventeenth birthday, the results arrived. The postman who came to the Burrow was very confused about the address he'd never been to before, and even more puzzled about the impossibly crooked house. Ron hit him with a subtle confounds charm, and he wandered off with a faraway look in his eyes, leaving the trio free to discover the truth in peace.

Harry scanned the letter, quickly finding the relevant information, heart thudding wildly.

Probability of paternity: 99.999997%

His stomach dropped low, cold sweeping through him. Slughorn had been right. James wasn't his father. Not biologically.

His hands shook, and Hermione reached out to steady them. Ron leaned close to him, their warmth combating the cold. They weren't abandoning him. They weren't afraid of him.

"What do you want to do?" Hermione whispered.

"I want to find him."

Hedwig had never failed Harry before, and he took a chance, writing out a letter requesting a meeting, the name Tom Riddle written on the envelope, and a copy of the paternity test included inside. Hedwig flew into the night on silent wings, the white of them illuminated by starlight.

At dusk, ten days later just as the first stars were coming out, Harry waited in a secluded meadow not far from the Weasley home, and upon the agreed time, a man joined him. He Apparated there near-silently, the mark of a powerful wizard. He was tall and cloaked, his face hidden in shadow. Only his eyes reflected some light, glinting crimson.

"Hello, Harry." His voice was high and cold. Harry knew it. He'd not heard it in six years, but it wasn't a voice you forgot.

"Voldemort."

He should be afraid. The darkest wizard in a century stood before him, a man dubbed a monster, yet he was calm. His body was relaxed. His mind was clear.

Voldemort let down the hood of his cloak. He wasn't handsome by any means, his skin waxy, his dark hair drawn back from his forehead, and his face skeletal, but it was much improved from when Harry had last seen him, and there were remnants of the boy he used to be, of the young man Harry so resembled.

Voldemort approached him, walking whisper-silent through the dewy grass. "I had never thought to have a child. I've not had the best experience with fathers, you see, and neither have you. For me, it's far too late. My father's bones rot in a grave. We, however, have a chance to make something better."

Harry gaped at him. "How are you okay with this? I can hardly believe it myself."

"The idea has been in my mind since the first time I saw you. You looked so much like I did at that age that I couldn't help but wonder. The timing was right. I might have fathered a child, and I never knew who the woman was. In hindsight, it being Lily Potter is not surprising."

"Do you trust in the Muggle test? You're not known for liking them."

"I don't need the test to know. There was magic in the air the night you were conceived, and the starlight of that eve still lives in your eyes. Besides"—his thin lips formed into a vague smirk—"have you not noticed the language we are speaking? Listen with your ears, not only with your mind."

Doing as bid, Harry heard the sibilant quality to the words. "We're not speaking English."

"It's parseltongue, the noble language of serpents, passed down through generations from Salazar Slytherin himself. Only those of his lineage can speak it. As you speak it, you must be of my blood."

As Harry continued listening to Voldemort, he didn't seem as much of a monster as the stories made him out to be. Death may have changed him. He could risk giving Voldemort a chance. He was a Gryffindor, like both his parents, and he believed that everyone deserves a second chance. So that was what Harry would give him.

The End

A/N 30th June 2019:

This story was very self-indulgent, diving into one of my favourite tropes aka James Potter isn't Harry's Dad. Such a good way to make crossovers work. And fun like this too. Hope you agree.