Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Warnings: Slash: male/male, graphic violence, torture, sexual situations, sexual intercourse, adult language, morbid-ness, and mentions of child abuse. Boy!Blaise

Note: This is AU seventh-year. Dumbledore is still alive. Voldemort came back at the end of fifth-year, using Slytherin's Locket. He has spent the last year gaining followers and searching for Harry Potter.

Pairings: Blaise/Harry, Draco/Neville, and Severus/Luna

Onyx Snow

-Assassin Handbook-

Every assassin is born with a heritage birthmark.

Albus Dumbledore placed the child on the doorstep of the Muggles' house and set a letter next to the sleeping baby. He turned around and left with Minerva McGonagall, abandoning the savior of the wizarding world to a family of Muggles. They Apparated away, believing Harry Potter should grow up away from the wizarding world in order to keep him from becoming an arrogant, selfish child. It was for the best, really.

Dumbledore couldn't have known there would be a storm that night with winds so fierce that the letter got blown away, nor could he have guessed what Vernon Dursley's reaction to having a child dumped on his doorstep would be. If they had known, they would have taken Harry Potter anywhere else. However, they remained ignorant and had no way of knowing that they wouldn't see Harry Potter again for a great many years.

—

Vernon Dursley opened his front door early that Tuesday morning to get the daily newspaper. When he looked down, he saw a small child wrapped in blankets on his doorstep. In shock, the beefy man lifted the boy and took in the ebony hair and sleeping face.

He glanced around, checking to see if anyone was nearby and, after seeing no one, he looked for a note, but didn't see one of those either; the child had been abandoned. Now Vernon Dursley was by no means a nice man, but he wasn't a hateful one either, so he brought the boy into his home thinking to keep him until the child could be taken to an orphanage.

He took the child into the nursery that his own infant son slept in and unwrapped the infant from the blanket, before setting him gently on the changing cot. He began undoing the fastenings on the baby's sleeper to see if the infant needed his nappy changed, when the child's eyes opened and burned into him with green fire. The pale boy squirmed, twisting over onto his stomach revealing the skin of his back and the black birthmark on it: a circle of ancient runes.

Vernon Dursley immediately jerked his hands away from the child. He had seen that same mark before, and the person who had it had warned him that he was never to touch the skin of anyone who had that mark, for to do so would mean his death.

He glanced at the cot the baby was on, ensuring the child wouldn't be able to get out of it, as he fled the room and hurried to the telephone in his room. Vernon removed a blank business card from a drawer and flipped it over to reveal a number in black ink. He set the card on the mahogany table holding the phone and dialed the numbers.

"Name?" A cold voice answered after the second ring.

"This is Vernon Dursley."

"What can I do for you, Mr. Dursley? Are you in need of another loan?" the freezing voice questioned.

Vernon Dursley shook slightly; he didn't even want to think of borrowing money from this man again. People died when they didn't pay back their loans on time. "No sir, I don't need a loan."

"Then what are you calling for, Dursley?" the voice asked.

"A child was left on my doorstep sometime during the night. I found him this morning when I went –"

"And you called to tell me this?" the voice growled, interrupting the explanation.

Vernon Dursley's gulp was audible to the man on the other end of the phone. "He has a mark just like your men do." He held his breath at the silence that came over the line.

"Are you sure, Dursley? Because if you're wrong –"

"I'm sure. I swear it, sir. It's the same circle of weird shapes, the only difference is the shape in the center is different from the one I saw on your men," Vernon hurriedly told the man.

The silence lasted longer this time. "I'll be there shortly, Dursley. You are not to touch him. Do you understand?" the quiet voice threatened.

"Yes sir!" As soon as he answered, the call was cut off.

A little over forty minutes later Vernon Dursley heard a knock on his front door and opened it. His guest was a little over six feet tall. He had pale skin, black hair that fell to his shoulders, and hard silver eyes. The man reeked of power, strength, and wealth.

He silently followed Dursley up the stairs to the nursery on the second floor, entering behind the large man and following the gesturing hand to the cot in the corner.

The dark figure walked to the cot and picked up the child, gazing briefly into the assessing green eyes. The child didn't make a sound as he was carefully inspected. The man turned him around in his hands and gazed at the birthmark declaring the child to be one of them and of Evans Lineage. Lily's child. The man absorbed the information quickly, as he always did, and wrapped the child up carefully, holding him close.

He turned to Vernon Dursley and said with an expressionless face, "You did the right thing by calling me, Dursley. I'm pleased." He tuned out the mutterings of the large man and walked behind him whispering, "Obliviate." He left the Muggle house with a slight sneer on his face; this place wasn't worthy of their kind.

At the end of the drive, a chauffeur stepped from the front seat of the car and hurried to open the door for the imposing man. "My Lord." The chauffeur bowed, closing the door after his superior had slid inside.

As the car pulled away from the curb, the man in the back seat was having a staring contest with the young child. They were assessing each other carefully. The man smiled down at the precocious boy and smirked. "Not many have the courage to look me in the eye, little one. You'll do. You will do very well." He placed his hand on the baby's brow and said, "Harry James Potter, I claim you as my heir."