This is a story inspired by Life as a snake, published on by FairyTails13.

Starts in summer after 5th year, although the 2 previous years are AU, will be Tom/Harry & Harry/Tom

Disclaimer : Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling

Hey people! Thanks to my wonderful new beta, here's the first chapter properly corrected.

The second one coming soon, and the third one is in progress!

An Ancient Tale :

Chapter 1 :

So far, Harry's summer had been up to the standard of the last 2 years in Hogwarts – that is to say, horrible. You see, Harry Potter wasn't exactly a normal person. If you asked his relatives, he was a freak and a delinquent. If you asked people who were like him – which meant people in the Wizarding community, he was a celebrity and either a hero or a nasty liar, depending on the moment.

And if you asked Harry, well ...it depended on the situation he was in.

He could be either the Gryffindor Golden Boy and Dumbledore's pet, or a powerful young heir from several important families. But deep down, he was always going to be just Harry, an orphan who was hated by his relatives and forced to grow up too fast with a role placed upon his shoulders at the age of eleven, while a whole world filled with adults who were doing absolutely nothing but waiting for him to save them.

At the moment, he was cursing every single member of said Wizarding World, thinking of swear words that would have make the very prim neighbors of Privet Drive completely scandalized.

His misfortune (as in, what was making his life even crappier than usual...) had begun at the beginning of his fourth year, when he was unwillingly entered into the Triwizard Tournament as a fourth champion by a Death Eater disguised as Alastor "Mad-eye" Moody, who had been working on returning his master, Lord Voldemort, to his body. During the year, all his friends had, one way or another, turned their back on him – Ron, because of his petty jealousy; Hermione for his apparent disrespect of authority, and the entire school, because it was the fashion of the moment. He had to train a lot, alone, to be up to the level of three Seventh Year champions.

It was at this time that he changed his point of view towards his studies. It was not a matter of going through school anymore, but a matter of survival. And if Harry had learned one thing at the Dursleys', it was how to survive efficiently and how to avoid other people's notice. So, he decided to study and train himself regularly, mostly in DADA, Charms, Transfiguration and Potions, often until exhaustion took over, so that his magical skill level would improve enough for him to compete with the others.

All this was done in secret; not that it was so hard, with his own house dismissing him. However, it was only possible thanks to two components, the first of which was still faithful to him (and only to him, without expectations for a change); Dobby the house-elf, and the Room of Requirement.

All of his training, though, hadn't been enough to stop Voldemort from regaining his body.

Once said resurrection was done (in a cemetery, with a dead Cedric Diggory at his side, killed as a spare), he had returned to Hogwarts, only for the entire Wizarding World – with the exception of Dumbledore and his followers – to call him an attention-seeking liar (the fact he was already rich and famous conveniently escaped their notice...).

Then occured his 5th year of schooling; certainly the worst by far. The ministry had placed a member of their own inside of Hogwarts, Dolores Umbridge. She was a pink, toad-like woman with a very high, grating voice, who apparently had her own personal mission: to make his life Hell. This was probably due to the fact that he had escaped from his trial in August without any retribution, not that the charges had been justified (he had defended himself with a Patronus against a pair of dementors who had attacked him and his cousin in Privet Drive, though he still wondered how they had found him...). She had gone so far as to use a Blood Quill, a sadistic device that used the holder's own blood as ink, as his punishment during her blasted detentions. Evidently, none of the adults had been very interested in his predicament, suggesting he lay low.

Moreover, as if that wasn't already enough, he had begun to experience a very strange series of dreams, prompting the beginning of these awful lessons in Occlumency (not that anyone saw fit to tell him why he was having them...) with Snape. The worst was that, contrary to what he pretended to Snape and Dumbledore, he did not fail in learning Occlumency, as he had begun its study the year before in order to improve his focus. However, he couldn't reveal his aptitude in the subject; they could not suspect any secret on his part. Besides, the lessons had ended rather abruptly, when he had been caught with his head in Snape's Pensieve, observing a memory of the Marauders that had soundly destroyed the ideal he'd had of his "perfect" parents. He'd felt so ashamed of his father after what he had seen; he had wanted to apologize to the Potions Master on behalf of the Potter's name, but had been certain Snape would have seen it as a prank instead.

Nonetheless, he had managed to survive the year, even if he should have known that Voldemort would have made his annual move against him; he always did...

Harry had been lured to the Department of the Mysteries, to take hold of a prophecy concerning both himself and Voldemort, under the pretense that his godfather had been captured.

It had been a rather obvious trap, but as no one had bothered to tell him that he could receive false visions, or that Voldemort had wanted a prophecy related to the two of them, and with the knowledge that no adults would lift a finger (as always) he had flown (quite literally, and on thestrals, no less!) to the Ministry, where in the end, he had helped to capture several Death Eaters – but got his godfather killed.

Sirius Black had fallen through the Veil of Death. Thus had been destroyed the last remnants of longing for a family to belong to.

He had lost his only remaining family.

Then, Dumbledore had locked him in his office, to finally tell him the exact wording of the prophecy, before shipping him back to the Dursleys – for his own safety, of course. What he didn't know was that Harry had found the time, while his friends were recovering in the hospital wing, to go to the Room of Requirements and make several orders of books to be sent to him that night at Privet Drive; in particular, books on controversial subjects: Mind Arts, Blood Magic, Dark Arts, and Parselmagic. Obviously, most of his orders were for shops in Knockturn Alley, which is why he had ordered them under the false name of Leon Aspecto.

But getting back to the present, Harry was currently cursing his luck because, not only his relatives were absent at King's Cross Station but, once he managed to get there, he had discovered that the reason for it was because they had SOLD THEIR HOUSE!

Now fortunately, everything he owned was packed away in his modified trunk, but it was still vastly inconvenient to not have a place to stay. Therefore, he had summoned the Knight Bus, had given Ernie directions to the Leaky Cauldron, where, thankfully, the barman had given him a room.

It was an exhausted and cranky Harry who went immediately to bed afterwards, hating the entire horrible day. Although, he mused as he lay between the sheets, there was a definite upside to being free of Privet Drive...

Tomorrow he would go to Gringotts; it was high time he himself took charge of his life...

Leon Aspecto

→ Leon = lion in Spanish

→ Aspecto = look in Spanish

→ the general meaning I wanted it to be : Looking like a lion to show his Gryffindor facade.