Disclaimer:
I don't own anything to do with the Harry Potter universe, J. K Rowling has that honor, I'm just
borrowing them for my twisted ideas...
I also don't own anything that Dudley maybe viewing on his hideous Telly at anytime in this fic,
unless the AN at the bottom of the Fic says so.
Pairings:
None at the moment. Mostly Canon in the future. No Slash.
Warnings:
Will contain mild child abuse, language, violence and gore (but nothing overly) and severe
spoilers for all seven books. This will also have a dark, but not evil Harry in it...He has to be for
the plot to work out.
Author's Notes:
Ok, this will be my second HP fic, the first one, Harry Potter and the Sapphire King is currently
on hold due to the fact that it is in need of a rewrite and some major re-formatting. This one will
be extremely AU in many cases. Although I will try to follow all seven books as best as I can,
remember, most of the stuff will be AU. Many Canon happenings that are major events will
happen, though some of the players will be different and most of the personalities will be Canon
except for those who have to change for the plot to play out properly.
Because this is an AU fic, some things will happen that are NOT Canon to the HP world, but
that's why it is called an AU fic. I will, however, try to keep all the non Canon stuff as believable
as possible.
I know people love to sort Harry into Slytherin, and in my mind he does indeed belong there, and
I know it is has become rather popular in many fics. I will try to make this a little different than
the others you may have read with Harry being sorted into said house.
And this fic will not have any Slash in it, but there will be a Gay wizard character who is
important to this series. He won't show up much at all in First year, but will become a fixed
character by Third.
There will also be quite a few OC s in here, mostly students; this is due to the fact that not much
is known about why certain folk have a personality the way they do and instead of just tweaking
those well known characters, I will just add new ones in. Fear not, you will still see the main
Canon characters even if they don't play a major part in most of the fic.
Some parts might happen a bit fast, this is intended, mostly because I want to get the story started, not draw it out for ages before anything actually happens. Too many fics loose interest due to such
things. But I will try to keep it from being 'rushed into' as some have put it.
Wow, a lot to read before you get to the fic! But just one more thing...I do not have a Beta, so if
you find something that needs to be fixed, give me a hoot.
Summary: Harry starts to realize that they may have the wrong name listed as the
Boy-Who-Lived. Events unfold that point the young wizard to a shocking truth that will have the
whole of the wizarding world on their knees with worry by the end of his first year. Will he
accept his Father and side with him? Will he rise to his own power? Or will he choose to be
'The-Snake-That-Lived' and save the world?
Rating:
T - Just to be safe, maybe rated M later on in the series.
Extra Notes: ‟Parseltongue", ‟Normal Speech", 'Thoughts', *events*
Chapter 1: A blessing, not a curse. Part 1
*Sigh* 'How do I keep getting myself into these situations?'
A smallish young boy lay silently on a rather messy mattress, not that anyone would notice that fact
seeing as the room both he and said bed were being kept in was pitch black at the moment. He
was trying hard to view his crippled hand, holding it just inches away from his face in hope of
catching a glimpse of the wounds that were causing him so much pain. But it was a futile
attempt. There just wasn't enough of the early morning light filtering in from the open vent in his
door to give him an idea of the kind of 'fixing up' he was going to need when he got out of here.
Sighing heavily again, the small boy rolled over to face the door, keeping his eyes on the vent for
any signs of the 'shadow' that would liberate him from this evil prison he was doomed to live in
for the rest of his life. Half an hour passed without a single sound and still no movement was
detected outside the cupboard under the stairs. More light was starting to shine in now and the boy
raised his hand up to his face for what seemed like the eighteenth time in that whole hour he had
been trying to see his hand.
Now he could see them clearly. The wounds on his right hand were smaller than the ones on his
left, which was the one he had been thinking was permanently crippled, yet they were still bad
enough that he had to suppress a hiss each time he used it. The more he looked at his left hand,
the more he knew that his Aunt did indeed hate his guts more than she hated a mess in her
spotless house. Angry red welts were forming under white blisters where burn scars could be
seen, and the bones in his fingers were bent at odd angles on top of that. One would never guess
that this injury was from a frying pan that had been used to beat the small hand just because of a
little grease spill in the kitchen; really, his hand had already been punished by the bacon grease,
was the beating with the hot pan necessary?
'Obviously' he thought darkly, as he started to sit up on the bed, holding his left hand up against
his chest in order to protect it from being bumped in any way.
A creak from above forced the young boy to lean as close to the door as his small frame would
allow so that he could check the identity of the creak before relaxing. No need to be happy if it
wasn't his 'shadow'. Sure enough, the silhouette of a rather large and round man floated toward
the vent and the sound of two padlocks being removed was music to the small boy's ears.
The door opened and the 'shadow' reached in to ever so gently pull the injured lad out into the hall, appraising his small form with slightly watering eyes.
‟She really did a job on you this time. You alright there Harry?" he asked in a low whisper, his mustache twitching in a manner that answered his own question.
Harry looked up at his savior and shrugged his tiny shoulders. ‟As alright as I can be Uncle Vernon."
Vernon nodded quickly and led Harry away from the cupboard and into the dining area. The two
took a seat at the table and started to go over the wounds that were bothering the boy the most. It
took little over an hour for them to get his hand bandaged up enough that he could do his chores
without hurting it too much and not get it infected. Once they were both satisfied with the results,
Vernon headed back upstairs to put away the supplies he had been using and Harry headed into
the kitchen to start breakfast.
Soon the house was filled with the smells of coffee, bacon, eggs and toast. Harry was glad that
his Aunt and Cousin normally chose to wait until he or Vernon called them down to eat before
rising out of bed. It gave him the time alone he wanted and needed to spend with his Uncle.
Vernon had always been there for Harry, since day one he has made it his job to look after Harry
whenever he needed it. Food, fixing up, clothes. True, he didn't step in to stop Harry's beatings
unless they were really bad, but that was hurting him more than the boy; really it was.
'The Boy' or 'Freak' as Petunia referred to him, was a godsend, a blessing in Vernon's eyes.
Magic had always fascinated him since he was a small lad himself and to find out that there were
people who actually lived by it only made him want to steal the child away into this magical
world that he belonged to even more. Though he would never tell his wife or child this, oh no.
This was his and Harry's secret only, well Mrs. Figg was in on it too, and that was only because
she had been mumbling to herself one evening about Kneazles and Hogwarts, and Vernon being the excitable person he was, had
literally chased her all the way back to her house to beg more information about the wizarding
world. His excuse was that he needed and wanted to understand his nephew better and would of course relay the information back to the boy as well. Vernon knew all about Hogwarts and most of the wizarding world from his chats
with Mrs. Figg, when he could afford to escape from the house and not be noticed by his wife or
spy of a son, who both thought he was on the same page as them when it came to the ‟Freak".
But they were just being fooled by a rather excellent actor. Vernon had always been afraid of
Petunia, for more than just the reason that she could use a frying pan on him. Oh no, she was
much more dangerous than even she knew. Petunia wasn't magical per say, but she could have
what Vernon and Harry now call 'fits'. It was where she somehow tapped into what little magic
must be inside her and preformed accidental magic and it was never noticed by her. When she
was angry, she could set things ablaze but never associate it with being magic. And the times
when she did notice it, the magic was blamed on Harry. No, Petunia did not know she caused
these things to happen, rare occasions that they are, and there was no need to tell her either, or
else she could start to use it to her advantage.
So on one hand, Vernon told Harry everything he knew about the wizarding world, even going as
far as asking Mrs. Figg for the addresses of several Muggle friendly witches and wizards who
kindly gave the large Muggle all he needed to know about raising a magical child. And on the
other hand, he played the part of the loathing Uncle who would shout at the boy and lock him in
the cupboard whenever Petunia and Dudley were near. Today was no different than any of the
other days. Vernon sat at the table reading his newspaper while Harry piled the food on the table
and stood ready to serve the two 'demons' when they came down. But this morning both Harry and Vernon
hesitated to call them. Instead, the two stood in silence, eyes twinkling madly as Harry pulled out
a letter that he had managed to sneak out of the mail a few weeks prior. As Vernon's eyes slid
down from Harry's grinning face to the letter he held in his hand, he too broke out in the wide
grin.
Harry had gotten his Hogwarts letter, which meant the two were going to get to visit Diagon
Alley soon. But right now they needed to get Petunia and Dudley fed, watered and packed.
Petunia was taking a four day holiday with Dudley to some strange group gathering. She had
wanted to bring Vernon along and leave the boy to tend to the house. But Vernon had told her
that was a bad idea, reminding her what happened last time the 'boy' was left at the house alone.
He had been red in the face through the whole conversion about it. To Petunia, it seemed he was too angry to say any
more on the matter at just the memory of what happened. But in reality, he had been trying hard
to stop himself from laughing like a mad hyena.
The three of them had gone out for two days on a business trip of Vernon's and had come home
to a forest of pink. Everything in the house was neon, glowing pink. The wallpaper, the paint, the
wood, the porcelain, the sheets, drapes, clothes...Even the water ran pink and the food in the Frig
was stained as such. Nothing was spared. Even the windows were tinted pink. Now at the time
they were all shocked, and Petunia was sure it was Harry's way of getting back at her and her
family for treating him poorly. She had locked the boy up in the cupboard for days while they
sorted out the house. The food was chucked out and the water ran pink for a few hours before
becoming normal again. But the house had to be repainted and the wallpaper needed redoing.
The wood faded back to normal and so did the windows, clothes, porcelain and Frig. Vernon had
taken Harry aside to ask him how it happened, only to get a simple, not quite as exciting as Vernon expected, answer.
‟Well I was thinking about how much Aunt Petunia would hate for me to leave that smear of
pink paint Dudley wiped on the floor because I couldn't clear it away. And as I thought about
it...I sneezed"
Seeing as both the demons were out at the time Harry confessed this, Vernon had no problem in
letting himself roar with laughter for a good ten minutes while Harry just smirked.
And that brought up another issue with Harry. He smirked a lot, very rarely did he grin or truly
smile, it was always a smirk if he did try to smile at all. Or a sneer if he was feeling extremely rebellious.
Grins and wide beaming smiles were reserved for times of bartering or simply to charm someone intodoing something they wouldn't normally do for him, or if he was REALLY happy.
Vernon noticed that the older Harry got, the more different he seemed. Gone were the bright,
innocent emerald eyes and raven black hair he used to sport. Now he had teal-ish eyes that
screamed supreme intelligence and deep, chocolate brown hair that seemed quite content with
just sitting flat on his head instead of sticking up like it used to. He was also thinner, but stronger
than before and his face, even though it was still childly round, looked less like the one picture
Vernon had of both of the boy's parents and more like a skeleton. His nose was a little flatter in a
sense, it didn't stick out quite as much and his lips were much thinner. All in all Harry was much too
gaunt for a boy his age.
But it was the difference in his personality that really made Vernon wonder if there was a spell
on Harry that was wearing off. The boy went from the shy, quiet and meek boy of before, to the
quiet, calm and deadly sly being that now stood before him, stuffing his letter back into the pocket of his pants.
Vernon always knew the boy could talk to snakes, that was obvious every time Harry went out
into the garden and ran across a snake there. Vernon would find him talking to said snake making
it do things that no one, not even a magical person should be able to make it do. This brought up
a question, well one of many, that Vernon asked his wizarding contacts about, but he didn't come
out and say his Nephew could do that, only asking if there was a spell that would allow him to speak to them because
he didn't want to hurt the little things but they were really messing up his garden.
Well they were none the wiser about the situation and stated that although there were no spells to allow such, there were people who could speak to snakes. The gossipers filled him in on Parselmouths and Salazar
Slytherin, letting him know that it was a dark and rare gift, one that the Dark Lord He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had possessed.
Once this information made it back to Harry, the two vowed to keep it to themselves in
case someone wanted to hurt Harry for that ability. Back to Harry's personality, Vernon also
noticed that his accidental magic had become more dangerous with each passing year, really
coming to a peak last year with Harry having launched half the knife set at Petunia after she made
a rather nasty comment about Harry's mother. Thankfully, Petunia was on her way out of the
room so the knives missed her and landed in the wall behind her. She didn't even hear them land
and Vernon rushed over with a frightened grimace on his face to pull them out of the wall and put
them back in their proper place. He then covered up the incident by putting tacks in the wall with
chores attached to them so that no one would question the holes.
The really frightening part of the whole thing was that Harry's eyes had gone from teal, to scarlet
with slitted pupils, something Vernon knew had nothing to do with him just being a wizard.
Something was changing about Harry and it was not a good thing.
The two then started rummaging through their various routines. Vernon summoned his wife and
son and Harry went to clear away the mess he had left in the kitchen. Petunia's voice was soon
heard in the dining area, giving Vernon the run down on what she had packed in a singsong
sort of way. It sent shivers up Harry's spine in the kitchen and he was sure it was doing the same to
Uncle Vernon, who was no doubt sitting right next to her. The rest of the morning passed in a
rush, which Harry was grateful for; it meant his Aunt wouldn't have time to scold him while she
was busy getting her son ready to leave.
At half past noon, a cab pulled up in front of the house to receive both demons. But Vernon and
Harry couldn't escape Petunia that easy, she had one last thing to say before she left.
‟Don't blow up this house or my husband like your Freak parents did their house...Or else"
She had drawn out that last 'S' so long and perfectly, Harry had to stop himself from responding
in Parseltongue. ‟Yes ma'am" he replied obediently, his eyes locked firmly on hers to prove that he meant it.
With a sharp nod and brisk kiss on Vernon's cheek, Petunia herded Dudley out the door and
toward the cab. They had everything so they wouldn't be back until the end of the four day
gathering. This thought ran through both Harry's and Vernon's minds as they watched the cab
pull away from the curb and disappear around the corner.
They were alone...They had four completely demon free days to just be themselves...Oh...Four
days to explore Diagon Alley!
In a mad dash to waste not a single second of their freedom, Vernon and Harry ran through the
house and after changing clothes they both met at the front door with Cheshire Cat smiles planted
firmly on their faces. Next stop, Mrs. Figg's for a quick chat.
They trooped down the street, chatting idly about what they might see there and the possibility of
Vernon being able to move out of the house and divorcing Petunia.
‟Now that you have your letter, there is no way we can continue to pretend you and I are
enemies, I mean, she will figure out I took you to Diagon Alley" Vernon stated in a tone that
simply suggested that his idea was the only way to go.
Harry looked up with an amused expression before taking note that Vernon was getting ready to
start rambling. His face always took on that bored look, with his eyes being half closed and his
mustache twitching every two words.
‟Plus, I hate living this lie, it would be better for the both of us if we just moved in someplace
where you can be Magical and I can like it without repercussions." This time he flailed his arms
about in a fashion that imitated a wizard casting some complex spell. And Harry had to duck to
avoid being smacked by Vernon's right hand as it swept over his head. He didn't mind it and
Vernon didn't seem to notice the near perfect nose whacking he almost preformed.
This line of conversation went on for the duration of the walk and soon Mrs. Figg's house was
now upon them. Two knocked in unison, wanting to get over to Diagon Alley as fast as humanly
possible. They really didn't need Mrs. Figg or her permission to do it, but it would be polite at least to let her know
they were headed off there. She answered the door and looked the two over, noticing that Harry
was well dressed this time compared to every other time he had arrived on her doorstep.
‟Off to buy school supplies I guess?" she asked in a rather bored tone.
Vernon, who appeared to be the more excited of the two, quickly clasped his hands together in
front of him and wrung them tightly.
‟Yes, yes, we are headed off to Diagon Alley now, just thought we would let you know we
wouldn't be home at all till late-" he didn't even to bother finishing the sentence and he pushed
Harry away from the house with his hand between his shoulder blades. It was obvious to Figg
that he was really going to enjoy being in the Alley and she didn't see the quick departure as rude due to this.
‟Too bad all Muggles aren't as accepting of magic like you are Vernon..." she muttered as the
door closed on the two sprinting figures who were heading back to number four to fetch the car.
‟Would be nice to have a few more friendly faces around here..."
But neither Vernon nor Harry heard her because not only were they out of ear shot of her, they
were now screaming at each other as they ran.
‟I'll get there first you know that don't you? I'm smaller and fast as the wind!" Harry crowed. He
was so happy to be able to just let go with his Uncle. They never had the chance to do it before so
when Petunia had announced that she would be going away and taking Dudley with her, the two
were ecstatic.
Harry charged down the street, pushing his legs to go faster and faster, urging them with his
magic to carry him across the ground with the same speed that his serpentine friends could move
with. He was in front of Vernon by only two feet, but was gaining ground quickly.
‟Not if I have anything to say about it!"
Vernon then grabbed Harry by the seat of his pants and lifted him off the ground. He held Harry
out behind him, but continued to run toward the car with the young boy flying behind him by-the-
seat-of-his-pants...literally. Vernon's feet pounded the ground with such force, the sound echoed
off the houses around them.
‟Hey! What the-"
Harry looked around for some way of getting out of this situation long enough to get ahead of his
Uncle, who was cheating by holding him at arms length behind him. It was hard to look angry on
the outside, when on the inside he was bursting at the seams with laughter. If only he could
remember how he got away from Dudley that time and ended up on the roof...
‟Really Uncle Vernon this is cheating!"
But Vernon would hear nothing of the sort, he just cackled madly and picked up speed, plastering
a wicked grin on his previously closed lips. Harry was a rather light boy, and although he wasn't in the best of shape, Vernon found carrying the boy with one arm a pretty easy job; even with all of Harry's struggling. Finally he made to put the boy down just as they were about to reach the car, but there was one major dent in that plan...
Harry was already standing there in front of the car, leaning on it with his legs crossed and a smile plastered on his face.
With a groan, Vernon belatedly realized that there wasn't a weight on his outstretched arm anymore, and that Harry had preformed a miniature kind of Apparition, using it to free himself from his grasp to win the race. But just to make sure, Vernon looked back at his still closed fist. Nope, no boy.
‟Now that was cheating Harry...Very Sneaky-" Vernon chided while wagging his finger in
Harry's still grinning face, until his sentence was finished by a third person.
‟Like a snake tha' one"
Both man and boy froze in place and slowly turned to see who in the world they would have to
explain Harry's bit of magic to.