UPDATED: Deception is the Point of Winning CH. 3

[Anime Monster]

This is the toned down version. In other words, it has all the bad *cough*good*cough* stuff cut from it. This would be the version I would publish on ff.net if I was still posting fics there. I'm only doing this because I told a few people I'd try reworking this fic into a PG-13 level fic.

Disclaimer: If I owned it Ginny would never be with Harry and this would be book seven ^_^

Author's Note: I tried to start this story awhile ago, but The Silver Snitch, the site I was going to publish it on, died on me. So now I'm pulling it out of the closet and rewriting it.

Warning: Slash, Het, and s*x abound. Lots of violence, some angst, unbelievable happenings, and character deaths. SPOILERS FOR HBP!

Rating: PG-13, this version only for the more mature version get the password for the HP Above Teen section.

Summary: Using the oldest trick in the book Harry is going to win the war by destroying Voldemort from the inside out, literally. HBP SPOILERS!

Deception is the Point of Winning
Chapter 1: Sleeping with the Enemy

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"It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
--J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
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Clothes lay scattered around the simple, yet elegant, bedroom who's center point was a large four poster bed in which slept two people, a man and a woman. At least one of them slept, the other, the male, was wide awake, his emerald green eyes counting the ceiling tiles, not that they were actually tiles, but planks of wood.

He was waiting to make sure the woman beside him was in a deep sleep before he left, it was after all a one night stand, and the man didn't even like the woman. In fact, he hated her with a passion.

She mumbled something, her fingers brushed against his jet black hair as she rolled over, away from him, as if sensing his loathing and malevolent thoughts that involved her in varying degrees of pain resulting in her long drawn out and anything but painless death.

He was only with her for one reason. She knew some information he needed and while he could have legilimens her mind and extracted the information followed by an Obliviate, powerful witches and wizards could get rid of those covers, and when one was betraying a very powerful wizard one could not obliviate one of his most trusted followers.

Bellatrix Lestrange still had her uses to the man who was now quietly getting out of bed. She provided an excellent cover for him to destroy the horcrux which she had been entrusted with protecting. Yes, the Dark Lord had entrusted something so precious to one of his followers.

It took forever to get it out of her, he had gotten her drunk and taken her to bed until she finally reveled, unintentionally, of course, to him what he wanted. It was quiet ingenious.

He slowly crept to where she threw his robe and slid it on, hiding the dark splotch marring his perfect skin.

It was a splotch that was imperative to his goal and it resided on his left arm. The Dark Mark...

End Chapter

Next Time: Harry reminisces towards what happened.

As I said, the better version, which doesn't truly go above R for a couple more chapters, after all it can't be all whips and roses, is under the Above Teen section. This version is already two chapters behind the other, at least when I type up chapter 3 it will be.

[livnaravul]

Woo- great beginning! Very dark picture you've created- looking forward to the next installment!!

Liv

[Anime Monster]

It will be out later today since the original version is up, I don't even think I have to cut anything. Chapter 3 has a lot to cut out, though...

[Anime Monster]

Didn't have to cut anything from this chapter.

Chapter 2: Seventeen at Number 4
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"The further behind I leave the past, the closer I am to forging my own character."
--Isabelle Eberhardt
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The train ride back from Hogwarts that year was different. The students on the train were quieter and the mood matched the weather, cloudy with a ninety percent chance of rain. And raining it was, inside at least. Every girl on the train could be found in the arms of someone, nose red, body quaking with sobs, as the tears streamed forth from tightly shut eyelids. Some were silent, some were loud and were accompanied by wailing. Some of the guys had tears in their eyes or were shamelessly letting them fall.

Harry Potter was not one of these. As the train moved closer and closer to it's final destination of London he made a sharp discovery. The past could not be dwelled upon. To look to the past for all the answers met ignoring the present and forgetting the future. It also met that people were immune from change.

Sure he had to destroy the horcruxes and he needed to know the past to know that he had to do that, but to dwell on plans laid out before would be a mistake. After all it is said, "The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry." And while he may not have been a mouse the plans of Albus Dumbledore often times fell through.

Dumbledore was human, after all. He was entitled to make mistakes. One of his greatest was ignoring Harry all through fifth year, not telling him the prophecy from the beginning, and letting Snape teach him Occlumency.

Another mistake had been Snape himself. However, Harry had to admit, denying the ability to change would make him worst than Dumbledore, who trusted the wrong person.

It was during this tangent that he realized something. Turn about would be fear play. After all wasn't there another saying that said, "All's fear in love and war?" And while he may not be in love, it was war.

With a tentative plan forming in his mind he pulled out a piece of parchment and wrote a note to Professor McGonagall, he only had two months to prepare after all.

The letter was off with Hedwig when the train coasted to a stop at Platform 9 and 3/4.

"See you later, Harry," Hermione whispered, hugging him and kissing him on the cheek.

"Stay safe," he whispered.

"Shouldn't we be saying that to you?" Ron said.

"No, I know what I'm getting myself into," he said, "you don't."

"Harry, we've stuck by you through thick and thin, do you think we wouldn't continue to do so?"

"I know, and no one could ask for better friends, but this is something I have to do alone," he said, a tear dripping from his eye.

They looked him in the eye and nodded.

Harry reached Number 4 Privet Drive via cab which was paid with Muggle money exchanged from his vault via owl post. The cabby helped him get his trunk out and he paid the driver watching him drive away.

He walked to the door and knocked. A few minutes later and Petunia Evans-Dursley opened the door. "Harry?" she whispered.

"Hello, Aunt Petunia," he said.

"Why?"

"There was an attack about a week ago and they sent the students home early."

She opened the door wider and allowed him in. The house was silent and Harry just realized Vernon was at work and Dudley still at school.

Going to his room he was surprised to see Hedwig and several of the Hogwarts post owls waiting with several large packages. Smiling for the first time in weeks he removed the packages and watched the owls fly away.

Two months later

Harry Potter had stayed in his room the entire summer reading books that he requested from Professor McGonagall. Now the time was ticking down to the last minutes, he was now following through with the last phase of his plan.

The potion vials were filled with a silvery substance that only someone experienced in obscure magics would recognize as someones' memory. They were Harry's memories, precious ones, horrible ones, and safe guards. Harry had used the memories as a bit of a recording.

Gathering them up, he stuffed them in a nap sack and heard the shout. "Your cab is here, Potter."

He pulled his trunk and his nap sack down the stairs and got the cabby to help put the former in the boot of the cab then he gave the approximate Muggle address for The Leaky Cauldron.

He thanked, paid, and tipped the driver who helped him get everything out and he entered the Leaky Cauldron.

Heading to Gringotts.

End Chapter 2

Next Chapter: Harry gets the Dark Mark with a lot of things cut.

[Anime Monster]

This chapter is the first truly cut chapter. It'll be strong PG-13.

Chapter 3: An Unlikely Break
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"Beginning is easy--Continuing is hard."
--Japanese Proverb
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Harry exited Gringotts wondering if he would ever grace those white marble steps with his footsteps again. Whether he would remove the vials of memories kept in a time safe until either Voldemort is dead and he returned or he was dead. If the latter should occur than they would be opened and a list of people would be gathered to view the memories. He had made a pensive will. It was the only way he could explain everything that he was about to do, he only hoped that it would be alright.

He quickly apperated near the Ministry, he had to get his apperation licenses, and while it was the middle of the night, something told him the office of magical transportation, especially during war times, never closed during the summer.

Harry went into the office and waited until a tired looking witch came out and told him a location to apperate to and he apperated. Without even bothering to find out if he had spliched myself she handed over the licenses only having him sign a document that agreed he was seventeen, he did so and she disapperated.

With his licenses in his pocket, Harry apperated to Number 12 and began to set up his "new home."

It was quicker than he realized. First, he had gotten rid of Kreacher, the only way he could without letting his secrets go, the elf was quite happy about it, though. Second, he put in an order for a new house elf, mentally berating himself for doing so. Third, he began making the home respectable. It was during this step that his lucky break occurred.

He had just cleared the kitchen and made it so that a person could eat in there without fear of poisoning themselves, when an owl swooped in and delivered a black parchment envelope into his hands. He was hesitant at first, but the owl settled in, so obviously the writer expected a reply.

"Accio parchment. Accio quill. Accio inkwell. Accio dagger," at the last he ducked and the owl took off for higher ground as the dagger embedded itself into the table top. Harry sat down and used the dagger as a letter opener.

~Dear Mr. Potter,~

~I write with a proposition. Now that the medaling old fool is out of the way and you are seventeen, legally old enough to make your own decisions, I write to invite you, for the last time, to join the winning side. Join me.~

~I was a fool, though, to say if you join you would only be a Death Eater. You have, too much power for that. I could offer you a place among my elite, a place occupied by some that you know. Bella, Wormtail, Lucius, Snape, and your former class mate, Draco. You have more power than half of them, and potential as a leader.~

~We are so much alike, would be a shame, to fight on opposite sides.~

~Lord Voldemort~

Harry looked at the letter with it's odd snake like watermark and realized, it was written in parseltongue. Voldemort was trying to make him feel like an equal while making him feel inferior, not that it was working, but it gave Harry an idea for a reply.

Opening his ink well, blood red, he quickly put the same sort of moving watermark on the paper and penned the letter:

~Dear Lord Voldemort~

When the letter was finished and sent off Harry headed to bed. He had a sudden thought that it would be his last action as Harry James Potter, and didn't know how right he was.

The next morning, only five hours after he went to bed he woke up to the sound of someone knocking on the door. Sitting up he grabbed his bath robe and headed down to the door. His house elf request had been filled and a ministry official was there to bind the elf to it's new master as well as introduce the servant.

Harry's elf was named Binky and Harry had a fleeting memory of Lavender Brown as he gave his elf it's first task, after the annoying ministry official left, of course.

"I want this house presentable to proper people. Any jewelry you find should be placed on the kitchen table. Try to remove the picture behind the curtain, the family tree tapestry, and the heads from the wall afterwords."

The little elf did as she was told without fuss and started with the parlor, which Harry was currently leaving for the kitchen.

His reply came as he was making himself dinner, when Binky found him cooking, he told her to finish the job he set her and that he could cook his own breakfast until the work was done, though she was to sleep when she was tired and eat when she was hungry, and take care of personal hygiene related business when she needed to.

The reply was brief and only said:

~Graveyard. Full moon. Midnight. Alone. Black. LV~

He briefly wondered how many of these very impersonal, only personal by the fact that it was written in parseltongue, letters had gone out.

It was a week until the full moon. A week that went by very fast and soon Harry was donning his blackest robes and hooded cloak ready to apperate to the graveyard as requested.

The night was chilly and the graveyard was exceptionally spooky, despite being mid summer. He figured it was from being so far north, but reasoned that that was foolish.

There was a single figure in the middle and Harry pushed all the memories of his past life into a mental safe while pushing all his false "memories" to the surface. It had taken him two months to successfully master Occulmency and creating false memories, but he had done so. Now he was striding towards the Dark Lord, mentally, a cunning man with a pure-blood racists view of things.

He bowed low, kneeling, and stayed until Voldemort bid him to rise and pointed to a spot, wordlessly. He could tell he was early as not even pathetic Wormtail was there, yet. However, that was quickly remedied. Many started arriving and he briefly wondered if he was invited to a full meeting or led into a trap.

Soon all the spots in the circle, that I was already standing in, were filled in and Voldemort spoke, "Good evening, my faithful. Tonight we are going to induct a new recruit. Recruit, step forward." Knowing it was him, he did so and bowed. "Tonight we will go to a muggle neighborhood and cleanse it of residence. Our recruit and myself will take one house on the street and afterwords we will return to this spot where I will either induct him or kill him."

A shiver ran through the Death Eaters as they waited for their location. He spoke to Harry in a whisper, "Private Drive," before disapperating. The death eaters quickly disapperated, the dark mark obviously signaling and I followed.

The Muggle neighborhood was dark with the only light coming from street lamps. Voldemort sat off for Number 4 with Harry following, his eyes downcast and manner subservient to the house.

The family was quickly gathered by Harry, who used a multi-mobilius corpus to gather them in the living room. He than waited for his orders, "Kill them creatively."

Harry understood and said, "Imperio," to Vernon. He would get all three unforgivables, as well as other dark curses he knew out. Vernon grabbed Petunia by the hair and pulled her into the center of the room where he proceeded to brutaly rape her while singing "God Save the Queen."

Voldemort interrupted by asking, "What are his orders?"

"To follow his deepest desire with her," he said. "Muggles are sick creatures. They don't deserve to live, if this is his deepest desire."

Dudley's screams of horror at what his father was doing to his mother were drowned out by her screams.

Harry ended the curse with a simple, "Finite." The look of horror on his face was coupled by the fact that he remembered his orders made him jump back, naked like the animal he was into a corner.

"You deserve the torture, don't you, freak," Harry whispered deadly. He nodded, crying, and clawing his eyes out. "Crucio." His screams cut through the night as it was held for way longer than the recommended time of two minutes.

It was held until his fingers clawed bloody runs into his skin and he was laughing instead of screaming. Harry than said, "Stupefy," he had more plans for the insane man after all.

He than turned to Petunia, who was still breathing, and whispered a low level healing spell. It sealed the cuts and dulled the pain, at a look from the Dark Lord he knew this had never been done before, "Imperio," he said again.

She got up and headed out of the room, only to return moments later with a dull butcher knife. Heading towards her son she began to hack into him. Again half way through, before she killed him, he said, "Finite."

She screamed so loud dogs on Magnolia Crescent began barking.

"Avada Kedavra," Harry said, killing Dudley.

Turning to Vernon he said, "Ennervate." The insane man came too and jumped on Petunia, ending himself on her knife and crushing her lungs. Just to make sure they were dead he said, "Avada Kedavra," twice.

The Dark Lord nodded and apperated, Harry followed. Returning to the grave yard Harry was shocked to see that all the other death eaters were back.

"Well," the Dark Lord said, sounding a bit ill, "our new recruit showed some ingenuity and genius tonight that I hadn't thought in him. Recruit, step forward," coming from his spot in the circle Harry stepped forward and knelled, his head bowed. "Left arm please," for some strange reason Harry felt giddy that he was getting the dark mark, maybe he was a bit insane like Vernon was. "Morsmordre." The mark burned, but Harry gritted his teeth and bore it, it wasn't anything compared to other pains he had endured after all. "You are dismissed," he said.

Harry stood and followed the other Death Eaters, after a brief bow, a respectable distance and disapperated back home. He was shocked to find a package wrapped in black parchment waiting. Opening it he found a hooded black robe and a white death eater's mask...

End chapter 3

Next Chapter: Harry's plan is working until his conscious in the form of a very unlikely source comes to visit.

[Anime Monster]

I can't believe I made the same mistake twice. It was supposed to say "conscience" not "conscious."

Chapter 4: An Unlikely Conscience
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"Courage without conscience is a wild beast."
--Robert Ingersoll
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Harry looked at the mask dispassionately as he gathered the new articles of clothing and put them in his wardrobe. They were obviously for when he would be called, so he would keep them close.

He looked at the time and realized he might as well stay awake, so taking a pepper up potion he went to the restroom to start a shower. He wasn't too sure when wizards started to use showers, but it had to be awhile, after all the pure-blood racist Blacks had a shower. Of course a wizard's shower had benefits. Depending on whether or not the family knew anything about potions the shower may be filled with a delightful blend of healing, relaxing, and other such potions or it could, if the family were particularly good at charms, be charmed to be the perfect temperature, despite someone doing dishes with all the hot water, or, if someone knew a thing or two about transfiguration, be transfigured into different watery solutions. The Prefect's bath at Hogwart's could do all these things, but Harry didn't particularly care. He had charmed it to be the right temperature, transfigured the water into distilled water, and added a relaxing and cleaning potion which he had brewed.

Harry used the shower to figuratively wash the sins of the night down the drain, he knew his friends wouldn't send anything. He had asked them not to, for their safety, of course, send him any mail. He still received the Daily Prophet and he knew their reactions would be in there.

He was stepping out of the shower when a knock came, "Binky, answer the door," he said. Binky did so saying it was a reporter from the Daily Prophet. "Show them to the Drawing Room, I'll join them as soon as I'm dressed."

Wrapping his bathrobe around himself he went upstairs trying to figure out how the Prophet knew about the attack so soon. Entering his bedroom, Harry quickly grabbed a robe just as an owl flew in. He opened the letter finding it to be about the attack and the fact that the Dursley's were dead. Nodding to himself he grabbed black robes, might as well live it up.

He put on his best mournful face, after doning the robes, making sure his Dark Mark was hidden, and headed to the Drawing Room.

"Good morning, Mr. Potter," Rita Skeeter said. He should have known. "Do you mind if I use a Quick Quotes' Quill to interview you about the recent Death Eater attack?"

"You may interview me, but I ask you not use that vial quill. I'm in mourning and do not need fan mail or howlers in my time of grief," he said.

"Very well," she looked like someone told her Christmas was canceled, but took out a normal quill and asked the first question. "When did you find out about the attack?"

"Moments ago, which makes me ask, how did the Prophet find out before I did?"

"The Prophet has it's ways," she said. "What was your relation to those attacked?"

"You mean brutly masacreed," she scribbled the quote. "They were my neighbors and only living family, my aunt, uncle, and cousin lived at one of the residences."

"And what was your reaction?"

"Bittersweet. I won't lie and say there was a family love between us, but they were blood, and the last of mine, and for that I mourn."

"Why do you say that?"

"When I grew up with them I was the freak who was treated like a poorly treated house elf--"

"Like the ones on the walls of this house?"

"As far as I know, they were not treated poorly, marely killed as a tradition by a very disturbed witch. I inherited this house from my godfather. He didn't much love his family, either. I have been trying to get them down, but they seem to be stuck with a permanent sticking charm, if you have any hints, though, I'm all ears."

"So you were treated like a poorly treated house elf?"

"Yes, and I slept in the cupboard under the stairs until I received my Hogwarts letter just before my eleventh birthday. I was moved to Dudley's second bedroom, the smallest bedroom, after that."

"There are rumors you dated Ginny--"

"Let's stay on subject, Miss Skeeter, it is Miss, isn't it?"

"Yes," she said with a blush, the only normal reaction he ever got out of her. "How much do you know about their cause of death?"

"Only that the funeral will be closed casket for Dudley."

"Yes, did you know about the brutality of the murders?"

"No, but I hazard a guess it wasn't just an Avada Kedavra?"

"No, there's evidence that your aunt--"

"Please," he whispered, putting on the water works, and holding out his right hand, "don't talk about what happened to her."

Writing quickly she nodded and asked, "How do you feel about the Death Eaters who did this?"

"That they probably have a sick sense of humor and should be locked in a dark cell in Azkaban," he said.

"You don't wish them dead?" she asked, shock coloring her voice.

"No," he whispered. "I don't. History is written by the winners, Miss Skeeter," she started writing really fast, "we can not fault those with death who choose to accept the history of the losers."

"But this is not history?"

"History is present, past, and future. It's the events that shape day and night, our lives, and the lives of many a nation great and small, history is happening as we speak and it will happen again in the future."

"What do you think the future will hold?"

"I do not know, but we will face it when that comes, won't we, Miss Skeeter?" he said. "Now if you don't mind, I need time I doubt the Ministry has contacted Vernon's sister and it should be family that handles funeral arrangements."

"Good day, Mr. Potter," she said, "will you show me out?"

He nodded standing up and offering her his right arm. They walked to the door in silence and there she asked, "One last question, did you know your godfather was Sirius Black?"

"Yes, but I saw Peter Petigrew bring Voldemort back to life, so you can see my opinion on the matter," he said. "Good day, Miss. Skeeter," he opened the door and she exited, apperating at the property line.

Harry shut the door, and smirked, reporters taken care of, now for the hard part...

End Chapter

Next Chapter: A funeral and answering to his lord.

[alanna]

did i mention that i like this a lot it is really good
LUV AL