Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, but I am not going to say it more than once. Firstly, it is sad, and secondly, I do not like repeating myself.

Many thanks to VocalAurora for beta-reading this chapter

Icy Heart: Snakes of Ice

Chapter 1. Summer at the Dursleys'

Harry Potter woke up early this morning. He returned to this wretched place he had lived in only yesterday. Today was going to be a very important day. He stood up and went to the bathroom. After a quick shower Harry went down to the dining room, where the Dursleys were already having breakfast. They glared at him. Harry rolled his eyes and decided that a mediocre breakfast was not worth spoiling his good mood. After all, he was going to a very special place today. He might as well have breakfast in a café.

So, that was what Harry did. He found a lovely little café in muggle London, not too far from the Leakey Cauldron. One might ask, why not have your meal there instead of some muggle café? The answer would be simple: Harry didn't want to attract the attention of wizards and witches. After all, people might just start gossiping about a lonely child going to Diagon Alley. Harry was pretty sure that his appearance was pretty average, but someone might just recognize James Potter's features – you never know who you might meet.

After a small breakfast and a cup of tea, Harry made his way to the Leakey Cauldron. He donned his new invisibility cloak just before opening the door to the pub. He was already hidden from muggles by the wards, so no worries about the Statute of Secrecy.

Entering Diagon Alley wasn't hard. After all, witches and wizards are always so busy, they don't even pay attention to doors randomly opening and closing. After tapping a special combination of bricks, Diagon Alley in all its glory was revealed to Harry. He grinned. He went to a familiar white building.

Gringotts wasn't Harry's destination, however. After all, he still had a wallet, connected to his trust vault. The building itself, however, separated Diagon Alley in two. One branch was a continuation of said Alley, but another was an entirely different matter. It was called Knockturn Alley.

Knockturn Alley was a very dark place. Dark wizards had free reign there, very few aurors ever delved there, and if they did, they went in groups. Many very interesting shops were located in that alley. Harry was only interested in one at the moment. He stopped as he reached the bank and looked at himself.

Black jeans, green shirt and black jacket. That wouldn't do for a visit to Knockturn Alley. First, he would be recognized; second, muggle clothes would basically paint a target on his back for every blood purist, of which there were many in that place. No, he had to visit Madam Malkin's first.

"Hello dear." said a sales associate as soon as Harry came in. That form of address did annoy him. He sent a dozen of upper year students to the infirmary for no short periods of time; he was not a "dear". There was, however, no need to lash out. Making people underestimate oneself always helped.

"Good morning." Harry replied neutrally. "I am in need of a hooded cloak. Black in color please."

"Very well," the associate said, "look over there," she pointed at one of the corners of the shop, "we have a nice assortment of cloaks."

"Thank you." Harry replied.

Ten minutes and ten galleons later, Harry stood in front of Gringotts in his new black cloak that covered his body perfectly. The hood had obscuring charms on it, and the cloak itself was charmed to not allow any tracking spells to attach themselves to its owner. Harry turned to the left and went straight to the heart of Knockturn Alley.

xxx

Knockturn Alley wasn't just a dark place. It was a very dark place, literally and otherwise. Harry was glad there were lanterns, they allowed him to see further than ten steps before him.

The shops, however, were quite wonderful. Ritual shop. Obscure book store. Ingredient shops with things Harry had never even seen. However, Harry soon paid for letting his guard down with all the excitement.

"What is a little child doing in this place?" a voice croaked behind him. It was high-pitched and extremely obnoxious. "Have you lost your mommy?"

Harry turned around and saw a very ugly old witch. He frowned, though nobody noticed it –courtesy of the obscuring charms on his hood. Harry looked the witch over. She didn't strike him as powerful, probably just saw a child and thought he an easy prey. Boy, was she in for a rude awakening.

"None of your business." Harry stated calmly, but firmly.

"Come with me, child, I shall bring you back to Diagon Alley." The witch said, grabbing Harry's hand. He quickly used his elemental abilities, and ice covered his and the witches legs, effectively stopping them from moving.

"That was a mistake." Harry said coldly.

"What?" the witch stuttered in surprise. That was when she saw two icy-blue orbs glowing under the hood. She shrieked as a swirl of snowflakes cut off her hand that was holding Harry and then promptly turned said appendage into a pool of red goo.

"I can slice you until your meat and bone become nothing more than a powder." Harry hissed. "Don't you know that children do not wear cloaks with obscuring charms in Knockturn Alley, filth?" Ah, finally the woman's left hand went to retrieve her wand, but before she could do anything, her body was assaulted by a small blizzard of thousands of snowflakes. After a minute, her entire body was turned into a red pool of mash. Harry looked at the blood stain on his shoulder, where the witch grabbed him. Did she have to bleed over his cloak? He shook his head and continued to search for a wand shop, fully on guard.

After half an hour of search, Harry had finally found it. The shop itself was dark, like every other building in the alley. The shop's window was made of dark wood and grey glass. The sign read "Zaubermann's Custom-Made Wands". Harry shrugged and stepped inside.

"Hm, a powerful young man steps inside my shop." Harry looked for a source of the voice and found a man sitting behind the counter. He was rather tall, his hair was grey and his face wrinkled. His posture and mannerisms could only be described as stiff. Like, McGonagall stiff. "And why would he come here? Surely he wouldn't want to break the law by having a custom-made trace-free wand made for him?"

"Of course not." Harry smirked. For a moment, he thought that the man was using Legilimency, but then realized that it would be impossible without eye contact. "Wait," he looked under the counter, "I think you have dropped this pouch." Harry said, smiling sweetly as he placed a rather large pouch, full of galleons, in front of the man.

"Good day, Mr…?" the seller asked.

"Schwarz." Harry supplied. Well, he did learn a couple of German words during his stay at Hogwarts, why not use them, especially since the name of the shop is so obviously of German origin? The man raised an eyebrow, but Harry's face did not change.

"Very well, Mr. Schwarz." the man said. "My name is Klaus Zaubermann. Thank you for returning this pouch, I was looking for these galleons for so long… Anyway, would you like some tea, Mr. Schwarz? Then follow me to the basement."

Harry followed Klaus to the basement of the shop, where he saw rows upon rows of drawers.

"Well, let your magic flow freely." Zaubermann instructed. "It will guide you to the materials needed for your wand."

After doing just that Harry felt multiple tingles in multiple directions. He decided to follow the strongest tingle. It led him to a drawer with label 'Elder'. 'Huh, wand of elder. Nice.' Harry thought and grabbed a piece of the wood. He focused on other tingles.

Fifteen minutes later Harry stood in front of Zaubermann, various pieces of wood and core materials lying between them on a table. Zaubermann looked the table over and raised an eyebrow.

"Interesting." Zaubermann mused. "Elder, Cherry, Ebony for main body of the wand. Dragon heartstring, Dementor's breath, and frozen star essence for cores…" the wandmaker appeared to be thoughtfull. "Mr. Schwarz, I think I can combine all the cores in your wand, but not woods. You should chose only one type. What reacts to you the most?"

"Cherry." Harry replied almost instantly. He thought that elder had the strongest pull, but then he understood that cherry was simply in one of the more distant drawers and its pull was disrupted by many other pieces of wood. Zaubermann nodded.

"Very well. Your wand will be ready in a week, Mr. Schwarz." the man smiled. "I will not add the Trace to it. Would you like me to add any other modifications to it?"

"Additional modifications?" Harry asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Yes." Zaubermann smiled. "Runes, gems, metals?"

"What would they do?" Harry asked. Zaubermann sighed, muttering about crappy education and ignorant brats.

"What would you like them to do?" Zaubermann sighed. "Enhance the wand's response to certain elements, branch of magic or perhaps something more general, like easy draw, or anti-summoning wards?"

"Anti-summoning ward for sure." Harry replied. "Maybe something to enhance its performance with ice magic?"

"Chalcedony, aquamarine, diamond." Zaubermann replied. "Without metals."

"Good." Harry nodded. "I would like all those modifications. The gems… Well, I would like them hidden inside the wand, not on display." He finished.

"Very well, it will take a week to construct." Zaubermann said. "The whole thing will cost you one thousand galleons."

"Good." Harry replied. "Inside that pouch I gave you there are five hundred. I will pay the rest upon completion." Zaubermann nodded. "Actually," Harry said as the pair reached the foyer of the shop, "if theoretically, a friend of mine wanted to learn some dark magic, where would you recommend him to go?"

"That's one dark friend you have." Zaubermann smirked. "Borgin and Burkes if you want something of local origin, Schwarz&Schwarz if you want something more exotic."

"Thank you." Harry smirked in return. "My friend will no doubt be very grateful."

"He is welcome, Mr. Schwarz." Zaubermann replied.

"Good day, Mr. Zaubermann." Harry said.

"Good day, Mr. Schwarz." The wandmaker replied.

xxx

"What do you want here, brat?" A raw voice distracted Harry from browsing a bookshelf on various branches of dark magic. "Go find your parents before you destroy something."

"Silence." Harry said, not even turning around. He took out another pouch and demonstrated it. "I am a customer, or does Schwarz&Schwarz shop have no need of customers?"

"No, of course not." the same voice replied. Harry didn't need to turn to feel greed emanating from the owner of the voice. He hid the pouch under his cloak again and returned to browsing the bookshelf.

"Dark Creatures and Their Properties…" Harry mused as he looked at the title of the book. 'Might be useful…' He took it. "Unforgivables". A book with this name caught Harry's attention. The grin on his face could have frightened anybody – as it was, nobody saw it. 'Bingo!' He took this book as well. "Influence One's Will" brought another frightening grin. 'This is certainly a jack pot!'

Three books in his hands, Harry walked from books to artifacts. There were so many, and they were all so different. Egyptian artifacts, Celtic artifacts, Sumerian, European, Roman, Norse – it was amazing! Harry grinned evilly under his hood. Now he just had to find something interesting in there.

A special necklace caught Harry's attention. Harry carefully picked the necklace up and inspected it closely. It was covered in runes. Harry couldn't even guess the origin of these runes – they weren't like any that he had seen. They were like cracks.

"I am sorry to disturb you," Harry told the seller, "but could you tell me about this artifact?"

"This?" the man glanced at the necklace and frowned. "I actually can't tell you anything about it. We don't know what these runes mean, hell, we can't even identify them. The only thing I can tell though is that it was found in the Atlantic Ocean, deep underwater. We don't even know what the thing does."

The runes seemed familiar, like Harry either saw or was supposed to know them already. They called out to him. The necklace felt warm, even though it was made of some translucent metal-like crystal.

"I'll take it." Harry said. The seller looked at him oddly.

"One hundred and fifty galleons for the necklace and three hundred galleons for books, so four hundred and fifty galleons in total." The man said. Harry nodded and paid, before swiftly leaving.

xxx

When Harry returned home, he was met by Imperious, sitting on a windowsill in his room. Harry smiled and petted the bird.

"Have a nice flight?" He asked. Imperious nodded. Harry grinned. "Good, sorry that I didn't use you much at Hogwarts. You did fly from time to time, did you not?" The bird nodded again. "I should write to Theo and Blaise."

The next hour was dedicated to writing letters to his friends. Harry explained, albeit very vaguely, what he was up to these last two days and his plans for summer. In the end Harry asked both Theo and Blaise if their parents were giving them trouble for being friends with him.

xxx

Two weeks after his visit to Knockturn Alley, Harry was sitting in his room. It was surrounded by a silencing ward and the door was protected by both evasion and notice-me-not wards. Harry toyed with the idea of adding a muggle-repelling ward, but decided against it. After all, muggle-repelling wards were not created for the use on small area. It would cover the whole house, had Harry actually used it. As amusing as it would be to not let Vernon, Petunia or Dudley into their own home, they were very likely to tell everything to the Potters afterwards. That would be as unpleasant as things could get.

So now, Harry was undisturbed and out of reach of the Dursleys, and so he was testing his new wand. It was wonderful. Cherry was really Harry's wood, but dragon heartstring didn't actually represent Harry. Sure it did represent his desire for power and his inner strength, but that wasn't everything there was to Harry's personality. In the new wand, there were also Dementor's breath - the residual energy of death left around a person kissed by a Dementor - and frozen star essence. Harry wasn't sure about the lest ingredient, though. He had never encountered this term – "frozen star essence". He had to find something about it. Anyway, this wand was working perfectly for Harry. It enabled him to go through his Dark Arts books with frightening speed.

Just then, Imperious flew into the room with two letters attached to his right leg. Harry smiled slightly and took the letters, after which Imperious puffed his chest and went to sleep on his new perch that Harry bought in Diagon Alley when he went to collect his new wand.

"Hello, Harry

I am alright. Our vacation in France is going splendidly. My parents objected to our friendship at first, but after I told them about your power and skill, they relented. I didn't tell them any of our plans for Slytherin hous,e though. Neither did I tell them about your special… abilities.

Anyway, how is your summer? Did you find a way around the Trace? If yes, then do you practice on muggles? How about we all – you, Blaise, and I, that is - meet in Diagon Alley on August 13th? We can catch up and just plot a little.

Cheers,

Theo."

Blaise's letter was somewhat similar, though Blaise wrote that he had already agreed to meeting on August 13th. Harry wondered if he should tell his friends, that he was really not just a second best Potter but heir to the Ancient House of Black, but in the end decided against it. It would not do for somebody to know anything before he took his family seat on the Wizengamot – no need for there to be prepared parties. Harry was going to enter the wizarding parliament on his own terms.

He did of course read everything there was on the Unforgivables in that book he bought in Schwarz&Schwarz, but he dared not use them. In all honesty, Harry didn't like two of the three unforgivables. Harry didn't really like killing, for him it was just another tool. When everything else fails, use death, but he couldn't bring himself to wish death onto somebody for the sake of killing them. Righteous anger wouldn't work, that much was written in the book. The same could be said about the Cruciatus curse. It was so barbaric. Why would Harry need to torture one for the sake of torturing someone? If he ever wanted information out of somebody's unwilling mouth, he would just use Veritaserum or Legilimency, when he learned it.

The Imperius curse, though – that was a useful spell in Harry's book. Taking control of anyone. The possibilities! What was important, he did have very strong desire to control, so he expected this particular Unforgivable be exceptionally strong when cast by himself. Practicing it, though, was out of the question. The Ministry no doubt had many monitoring devices in that fancy dungeon of theirs that are always looking out for the Unforgivables. Harry sighed' he would have to wait until Hogwarts started.

On the brighter note, Harry had read all three books he had bought in Knockturm Alley, and he really liked Dark creatures, especially Dementors. These creatures actually sucked all happiness from their surroundings and instilled pure fear into the hearts of those unfortunate enough to be in their immediate vicinity. And, of course, one would like to know about the creature that had helped to create his wand.

Compulsion charms were also a gold mine. Harry grinned. Until this summer he had only known the most basic compulsion charm, one that was very easy to detect and wore out very quickly. Now though, there were ten compulsion charms in his arsenal, many of them for different occasions and circumstances. Harry could even create a compulsion carcass around a human. That would allow him to dictate the very basics of his victim's personality. The spell was draining and rather difficult to use, but it was well worth it. Harry actually created compulsion carcasses around his aunt, uncle and cousin. He made them nice citizens, who took part in different charities and didn't like but respected their nephew. Each time he remembered how much of a success that had been, Harry would laugh.

One of the best parts about this carcass was the fact that it was just that – a carcass. It didn't conflict with other compulsion charms, it integrated them into itself, changing their program in a way that would suit the carcass's program. And it was more or less permanent. Here you go – a legal version of the Imperius curse.

Not everything was so good, however. These idiots Dursleys told everyone who would listen, that Harry went to some ridiculous school for young criminals. Well, when Harry learned about it, he made his relatives go and tell everybody who would listen that they lied and Harry actually went to a private school in Scotland. The Dursleys' reputation in the neighborhood was in ruins, while Harry was actually made into a martyr. Of course, there were some people, who were suspicious, but they provided very good practice dummies for Harry's compulsion charms. Yes, compulsion charms were definitely a success!

After mastering compulsion charms, Harry started reading the books on Charms that Flitwick gave him. They were actually quite interesting. This time there was not only theory, but some new spells, which Harry used. There were also some tips on silent spellcasting. Right now, Harry was trying to create a dicta-quill. It was fourth year material, but it wasn't all that hard, however. Harry didn't get the spell yet, but he was pretty sure that he was close.

Occlumency was progressing nicely. Harry noticed that the necklace he bought was calming him. It helped him center himself and form his core. To Harry's great shock, he even managed to make the core transparent, ethereal, and now he was working on making the limbo of unimportant memories more substantial and more noticeable.

Suddenly Harry was yanked from his mindscape rather violently. He opened is eyes and groaned. Being forcefully pulled from one's mindscape is never pleasant. He looked around the room, hoping to find the source of current problem. To his surprise, his trunk was shaking. Harry took his untraceable wand and cautiously opened the trunk. One of the compartments was glowing. Harry looked inside. The source of the glow was the book on the elementals. The snowflake on its cover were shining sky-blue. Harry opened the book and was pleasantly surprised. It had new entries.

Contents:

1. History of ice elementals and Castle Polaris

2. Ice Occlumency

3. Taking control of one's abilities, easiest techniques

(Next is some gibberish)

Harry anxiously turned the pages back to introduction. To his disappointment, the sentence after the introduction by one of the masters of Castle Polaris was still gibberish. Apparently his Occlumency still wasn't good enough.

"Damn." Harry swore. He sighed. "Oh well, I still have three chapters to read." With that thought, Harry turned the page with a splitting grin.