Chapter 1

*The Meeting Begins* is the first chapter of the first book in the POS-verse, Prince of Slytherin.

## Summary

A preview of the fourth year, after Harry and Jim survived the resurrection of the Dark Lord at the final task of the Triwizard Tournament.

## Plot

### June 28th, 1995

Harry Potter, a Slytherin student who now goes by the name of Hadrian Remus Black, enters a meeting in Albus Dumbledore's office at Hogwarts a few days after the Triwizard Tournament's disastrous end. Other attendees of the meeting are Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape , Sirius Black and the members of House Potter: James , Lily and Jim.

Upon entering the office, James yells at Harry for being late, however Harry tells him he was given no time constraint and thus saw Theodore No-Name off before coming. James attempts to scold him but Harry cuts him off who claims he'll try to be more punctual in the future. Dumbledore queries into the Theo's wellbeing with Harry responding should the legal issues be processed smoothly, Theodore No-Name will become Theodore Black in the future.

When Jim remarks about them getting matching Dark Marks, Dumbledore snaps at the group stating "Things have changed" and that the time for bickering is over with Voldemort's return. As such, he asks Jim to stop badgering Harry and the other Slytherins, as he doesn't won't to risk ruining Harry's work in persuading his house-mates away from Voldemort due to the bigotries of House Potter.

As James starts to give his report to Dumbledore on the current state of the DMLE, Harry ignores the report and starts thinking about the events that led to this point, with his first thought being "Some things would never change".

## Characters

* Hadrian Remus Black né Potter (Harry)
* Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
* Severus Snape
* Sirius Black
* James Potter
* Lily Potter née Evans
* James Potter Jr. (Jim)
* Bathsheda Babbling
* Theodore No-Name né Nott

## Author Notes

AN 1: My goal with this fic is to take the bog-standard Slytherin Harry/WBWL story and subvert its traditional elements. Of course, in order to subvert those tropes, one first has to establish them, so year one basically follows the standard arc for a Slytherin Harry/WBWL story with a few deviations, leading up to some BIG deviations at the end. Year Two diverges pretty significantly from canon, and by Year Three, I don't anticipate following the canon plot at all beyond the basic plot point of Sirius getting out of jail. The novel break-down (for people who don't want to read 300,000+ words at one go) is as follows:

Chapter 1: Prologue. What you're reading now, a flashfoward set at the end of Harry's Fourth Year before we go back to the beginning.

Chapter 2: Halloween 1981 and the tale of how Sirius ended up in Azkaban despite living Potters.

Chapters 3-34: Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin (Harry's first year).

Chapters 35-82: Harry Potter and the Secret Enemy (Harry's second year).

Chapters 83-ongoing: Harry Potter and the Death Eater Menace (Harry's third year)

AN 2: Harry is relatively OC compared to canon, which, I think, is inevitable for a Slytherin Harry story. This is Harry if he learned on his 11th birthday that his parents had faked their death and dumped him with the Dursleys for contrived reasons that imply they love the WBWL more than him. The result is a Harry who's basically canon-Harry plus a certain amount of bitterness and a monomanical obsession with proving himself superior to his brother. He is also much smarter than canon-Harry for reasons that will be revealed later. Also, for what it's worth, Jim Potter is basically canon-Harry if he'd had two loving parents and had grown up with the privileges and responsibilities of being the Boy-Who-Lived as well as being terribly spoiled by his father and godfather (who isn't who you think it is). While he may not acquit himself well either in this chapter or the first few chapters of Year One, he is not the gibbering idiot who normally plays the role of WBWL and will undergo significant character development starting with the end of Year 1.

AN 3: I freely confess that I can't write like an 11-year-old worth a damn and at a certain point I just gave up and hand-waved it away with a magical explanation for why children this young were so well-spoken. For one thing, there is a good bit of humor as well as drama in this work, and frankly, 11-year-olds aren't generally very witty. If 11-year-olds who frequently talk like well-educated and occasionally smart-ass 14-year-olds is a complete deal-breaker for you, you should probably move along.

AN 4: Harry is the hero if this story, albeit a more reluctant one than canon. He acknowledges that he has a strong Gryffindor instinct with which he grapples from time to time. This will not be a "Dark Harry tortures everyone to death while laughing maniacally" story.

AN 6: The firstborn child of a Wizengamot Lord is deemed the Heir Presumptive as soon as he or she demonstrates accidental magic. The Heir Presumptive is elevated to Heir Apparent upon passing a certain number of OWLs or otherwise demonstrating competency as a wizard. These two statuses confer certain legal benefits on the Heir which can protect the Heir even against mistreatment by his parents (benefits which Harry will use to protect himself from a father who would much rather have the second son as his heir). For example, while James Potter desires to disinherit Harry in favor of Jim, he lost the legal right to do so the second Harry's Hogwarts letter was generated. I am aware that these terms have different meanings for Muggle nobility, but this is what they mean for wizards. Please do not leave me angry reviews or messages because I say Heir Presumptive when you think it should be Heir Apparent.

AN 7: No romantic pairings among minor children before Year 4 at the earliest. No slash for Harry, but there will likely be at least one gay character, possibly more, among Harry's peer group. Deal with it.

AN 8: The first few chapters were me finding my way as a writer and, admittedly, are a little rough. I've edited Chapter 1 and may come back and edit some later chapters when time permits. That said, I feel that I found my "voice" sometime around the Halloween 1991 arc (Chapters 11-14). If you read that far and still hate it, you probably won't like it any better by Chapter 50 or Chapter 100.