Hiya!

This story has enough elements from the Merlin series to be marked as a crossover, but I don't plan on having his character appear at all. Still, my writing usually gets away from me so I won't make any promises.

Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize in this story belongs to me, and probably some you don't recognize too.

This will be the only disclaimer in the story.

As it is, I have another fanfic in progress (a Merlin one) and plan on dividing my attention to both of them, but I'll give the same warning I gave on the other: I can't guarantee fast updates at all.

If you've read all this and still plan to stick with me and this story, happy reading!


He was sleeping; it is what he is used to doing most of the time, after all, but the sound of footsteps woke him from his slumber.

The boy was back, he noticed with a touch of hopefulness, the boy with the lightning scar. He had seen what had happened in the chamber, being aware for most of it, but had not dared to hope for him to come back.

The child looked thinner than the last time, if that was possible. He looked down to see the boy eyeing the basilisk's carcass warily.

"Dobby" the boy called, and he would have frowned if he could, but as soon as a house elf appeared in front of the boy he understood.

"Harry Potter Sir called for Dobby?" The elf asked, but as usual, he could not make out many words.

"Um – yes, Dobby. Is there anything that can be done with that?" he points at the basilisk

"Yes Sir! Basilisks are good for many things; the hide is rare but making very good armor, venom, nerves, brain and other organs be good for potions and rituals, blood too, and heartstrings for wands and staffs. The eyes still good for staffs too. Tootsies make good knives and daggers. The meat is prized by many magical species; all very valuable Sir, little things go to waste" Dobby lists as the boy's eyes widen.

"Can you take care of it?" Harry wonders

"Not me alone, no Sir, but Dobby can call friends to help?" the boy seems hesitant, so the elf adds, "Friends Dobby trusts, they won't tell about secret room"

"Alright, thank you Dobby" Harry smiles and the elf pops away.

He watched as the boy sat on the ground and just stayed there, looking at nothing. After a few boring moments, he sees him move his hand and concentrate on it. A small flame appears and the bo– Harry's face widens into a grin, watching it dance in his palm. He could swear he saw the child's eyes shine gold for a moment.

Soon enough his efforts to stay awake took their tool and he allowed unconsciousness to take him, the last image in his mind being the boy and his dancing flame.

He was back again, that was the first thing he noticed once he found himself awake enough to see the chamber around him.

The house elves had cleaned it and the basilisk's body was no longer there, but the boy had not returned until now.

"It's a lot less terrifying when it's cleaner" He heard the child's voice and wished he could tell what he was saying.

The boy sat in the middle of the chamber once again, legs crossed and hands in front of himself.

Harry was practicing, he realized. Did he not know there was more to the chamber than the main entrance?

The answer was most likely no, he decided after some time of watching the boy and his wandless magic. He would have to find a way to show harry what else was hidden there, if only he could direct his magic…

Maybe next time, he thought as his energy failed him and he went back to sleep.

He did not know how much time had passed, but he woke to the sound of one of the passages opening.

It was Harry again, and apparently, he had managed to open the entrance. The boy spoke parseltongue, then. Could he be another descendant? Anyone was better than the previous visitor he had, one Tom Riddle. Maybe this one could do what the other could not.

The bad side of the boy finding another room was that he no longer practiced magic on the entrance, in his view. It had been so long, he missed seeing it, feeling the magic in the air.

On the next time he saw Harry, the boy was reading a familiar book. Oh, he thought at recognizing it, He knows his kind of magic.

If he could smile, his lips would be tilting upwards the moment the boy discovered he could do more than flames and move things without a wand. He read the book in a fast pace and did not take long to learn a few spells. The pronunciation was still off sometimes; after all, it was not the same as regular spells, but he managed well enough for the age he appeared to have.

It was some time later, in another of the child's irregular visits – he never knew when the boy would return, and it made him a little nervous – that his hopes were renewed.

He knew that spell.

"Berbay odothey arisun quickan" The boy's voice was unsure as he pointed the palm of his hand at one of the snake statues. Nothing happened.

He tried a few more times in between other spells, but if it ever worked, he was not awake to see it.

The next time he is aware, a strange feeling is making itself known around him. Was that… yes, he confirms by forcing his own magic to feel around him. It was exactly what he needed, but it did not feel strong enough.

Concentrating, he focused more than ever before. This was his chance, he figured, or else the boy might give up. Gathering all his remaining power, he thrust his own magic to interact with the one around him, but not in a defensive way.

He felt the both his magic and the boy's interact for a moment before becoming one, and the last thing he heard was the thud of something falling to the ground.

•••

Harry had somehow always known he was different.

A freak, his aunt said, but he knew better, because she lied too much for that to be true.

She lied about his parents, telling him they had died in a car crash, but he remembered seeing his mother beg for his life before a green light took the warmth of her soul away, his father already gone before her. It was always the image of his worst nightmares.

She lied about him to people, telling them he was a delinquent and a criminal and in all an awful boy, while making him clean, garden and cook for her as a personal servant.

She lied about his dreams, of flying brooms and motorcycles, of a dog, a deer and a rat playing with him, of magical things.

Magic is not real, she said.

She lied about his punishments, telling him they would beat the freakishness out of him and that it was for his own good, but pain was not good!

She lied about the accidents, the freakish things that happened around him, floating objects, disappearing homework, fixed toys and fast healing bruises. They did not like the last one, he noticed, they usually reopened them as soon as they healed.

However, the one thing he was surer of, she lied about not seeing his eyes burn faintly with gold before returning to their usual green.

Still, he endured it.

Adults always lied, after all.

He could not trust any of them.

Then came the letters, and Hagrid and magic! So maybe some adults were worth trusting after all.

Being famous was a bit of a surprise, of course, but he managed to go unnoticed most of the time if he kept his head down and hair covering the scar. He had spent so much time being invisible, unwanted, that being the center of attention made him decidedly uncomfortable.

Hogwarts was too good to be true. He was with other children like him and even making friends. Everyone in Griffindor was nice and welcoming and he felt wanted. It did not matter if it was because of his fame or something else, it just felt so great to belong.

He had known it was too good to be true. He did not belong there, not even amongst his own kind. They used sticks – wands – to do magic, not their hands. They had to use words, focus, and make wand movements to acquire the desired result. And their eyes… they stayed the same, not even a fleck of gold to be seen. Still, he pretended. He hid his unusual ability and used the wand, because it was what was expected of him, and it was normal. People, he had learned, feared the unknown.

His first year was… unique. He had never expected his parent's murderer to be alive, let alone to face him. Fortunately, he remained alive. Another thing he had not expected were such loyal friends to be by his side. Hermione was smart – what else to expect from a know-it-all – and her knowledge had been very useful to overcome the challenges on their way to the stone, along with Ron's strategic mind. On the subject of the challenges, there was still something about them bugging Harry, but he decided not to think much of it then.

Going back to the Dursleys was a bucket of cold water on his warm and fuzzy mood, but he endured, as always.

Second year had proved to be another challenge. A basilisk in the school, could he not have one peaceful year? He stopped it, of course. Almost died in the process, but Ginny was safe and that was all that mattered. The petrified people were brought back, Lockhart was sent to St. Mungo's because of his little memory problem and Harry… well, he was back with the Dursleys.

Still, he could not stop thinking about the Chamber of Secrets. He made a promise to himself that he would look at it as soon as he could on third year. He did fulfill the promise, returning to it and even having Dobby and his friends clean it up a little. It was less terrifying once clean and rid of the giant basilisk body, he decided.

It was also a safe place for him to practice magic freely, his kind of magic. At first, he only practiced in the middle of the room, alternating with a few meditation exercises he had read that helped with concentration, but then he became curious about the doors. Going on a hunch, he approached one of them.

"Open" He hissed in parseltongue, and the doors obeyed with only a few seconds of delay.

What he found inside would have made Hermione cry with happiness. It was a wide room, its left side completely covered in bookshelves and each book looked older than the next. In the center, a round wooden table with a few chairs around it and lots of other books, maps and trinkets on it. The right side, by the wall, had a half-moon kind of pool, the disturbing image of the giant basilisk appearing from it suddenly assaulted his mind, and he took a subconscious step back.

Still, his curiosity was bigger than his fear and soon he approached the table in the center, looking at the book open in the center of it. For about a second, it looked like absolute gibberish, and then suddenly the writings changed to perfectly readable English.

"Neat" He mutters, picking it up properly and looking over a few pages.

It looked like a compendium of spells, each page more different than the other, which brings the assumption that it was added to as time passed. The strange thing was the spells; they were not in any language he could recognize, even if the instructions had shifted to English.

He spent some time reading it, hesitating but for a moment before settling on the chair. The book never once mentioned a wand movement, only hand movements and that was solemnly for rituals as far as he had read. Maybe it was some type of ancient magic.

His eyes caught a bit of blank parchment on the table and he looked around for something to write with, but seeing no signs of a quill and ink, he decided he had better just memorize the foreign language and hope his memory was enough when researching later.

Casting a Tempus, he discovered he might miss Herbology class if he did not hurry. Sighing, he cast a regretful look at the book and left, making sure to close both entrances behind him. No one else in the school spoke Parseltongue, at least not to his knowledge, but better be safe than sorry.

As soon as he could, he managed to sneak into the library. Miss Venisen was not too helpful; the old woman probably should retire since she does not seem to like children any more than Snape, but that was unlikely to happen. Still, he found out after few hours that the unknown language was in fact Old English, making it easier to find a dictionary, even if it was almost at the end of the furthest shelves where no one ever went, since it apparently was the place for the not-useful-anymore-but-too-historically-significant-to-throw-away books that mostly only teachers read.

At night, he made some time to sneak out of the tower and into the Chamber. If his friends had noticed his nightly escapades, they did not comment on it.

Turns out translating the spells was harder than he imagined, so he gave up on that. After all, he did not need to know the exact meaning of Wingardium Leviosa to enchant it. Instead, he focused on finding the right pronunciation to every word until he could try to perform one of the spells successfully.

Taking a piece of parchment, he decided to try one of the spells that seemed most harmless and easier to practice.

"Icues bison raditani hihnan" He said, pointing his wand at it and stared hopefully at the blank parchment, but nothing happened.

Neither did it happen on his tenth nor twentieth try and variation of pronunciation.

"Icuis bisan raditani huhnan!" He exclaimed the spell in annoyance, throwing his wand away over the book and parchment, making it roll off the table and fall to the ground.

With wide eyes, he noticed the blank parchment starting to fill up with a perfect copy of the page of the spell book.

"It worked!" He grinned, and then promptly frowned. Why hadn't it worked before?

He did use the same that pronunciation at least five or six times, since it was the one that gave him a feeling of his magic stirring like something warm inside his body, but all his wand did was grow heated in his hand at those times, so he assumed it was the wrong incantation.

Turning the parchment around, he went on a hunch and incanted the spell again, with the same pronunciation, but simply moving his hand over the book and parchment. For a second there, he felt silly, but then the next page appeared on the back of the parchment.

A grin made its way into his face.

This was going to be fun.

Soon enough Harry found that he could make less spells in Old English than in Latin before he was too tired to continue. He figured it took more power, since it was wandless. There were variations of a same spell available and quite a few of them seemed to be about healing, which was very useful to him since he hated the infirmary. After healing a few of his bruises from his last stay in the Dursleys, he discovered those were even more tiring. Maybe he should avoid needing those.

The other books in the chamber were also interesting, but most of them did not seem to have the same charm as the one he found on the table and he had no hope of translating them any time soon. Still, there were books on plants and potions that had the charm and were actually an interesting read. He would probably have been more enthusiastic about potions class if Snape was not such an awful teacher to every house but Slytherin.

It was a month and so into the year that Harry found a spell he was determined to make work. In fact, he spent most part of a night on the Chamber's entrance hall trying to practice it, only to fail miserably every time.

Apparently, the stone snakes did not want to become real. That or he could not find the right pronunciation.

He tried it a few more times the next day, in between other spells, but no good came from it. Maybe he could not affect anything in the Chamber… but he had done that already, one of the last spells blew a snake statue to bits – Dobby saw to it that it was fixed later - e e so that could not be the reason.

Sighing, he sat down on the ground, sliding into it until he was staring at the ceiling. Then, a thought came to him at the sight of the tall statue of Salazar Slytherin.

"It's worth a try," He mutters to himself, then snorts because maybe his recent isolation is making him do that more times than expected.

Well, it was nice to talk without anyone to judge him around. He very much doubted the stone snakes held an opinion on his last potions mishap nor on how much of an ass Malfoy was, after all.

Walking to stand in front of the giant statue, he raised his hands in its direction and started incanting in every possible variation of pronunciation he could think of.

He was about to give up when he felt it, the familiar warm feeling in his body and behind his eyes.

"Berbay odothay arisan quicken!" He repeated with more intent behind his words.

Suddenly, the warm feeling around his body began to feel like a burning heat flowing in the direction of his hands. His legs started to shake slightly, but he boldly incanted the spell one more time.

The last thing he saw were grey stones melting into a dark green color.

•••

When he came to, his head was hurting. Where was he, again? He had left the tower… but why did it feel like there was a soft bed under him? Wasn't he supposed to be on the…

Eyes widening, he sat up rapidly on the bed.

It was not the best course of action, he decided as his head started to hurt more and his vision blurred.

Oh, he did not have his glasses.

He moved his hands to feel around for them, dread making his stomach churn. No one had access to the chamber, except…

A voice came, making him jump from the bed and reach for his wand, which was not where he kept it. He did not understand a word of it, but he could make out the figure of a man standing on the doorway.

"Who are you?" He enquired defiantly.

The answer was the same as the previous words: absolute gibberish.

"I can't understand a word you're saying" He decides to announce, since the man did not seem too keen on attacking him yet.

He saw the man take out something from his clothes and even through his blurry vision, he could make out the shape of a wand. He prepared himself to run out of the room at the first sign of magic used on him, no matter that he would have push the man out.

As it was, the man incanted a few words with the wand pointed clearly to himself.

"Apologies, I could not identify and reproduce the correct language without you being awake to speak it," The man said, and if the lack of an attack did not tell Harry that this was not Voldemort, the reassurance in the words did the job "I believe you are looking for these?"

Harry eyes the man's hand as he extended it, holding something out for him. His glasses, he noticed with surprise at taking it. He puts them on and blinks a few times, his vision finally clearing from the awful blurry perception of the world.

"Who are you?" He looks again at the man by the door.

He was tall, maybe almost as tall as Dumbleodore. He wore long dark green robes that covered his feet and seemed much more regal looking than any others he had ever seen. His wand was also unusual, seemingly coming from two types of wood if the different tones of color intertwined meant that.

"Salazar Slytherin" The man extended his hand.