AN: I have always loved Harry Potter and have wanted to write my own story about him for at least the last decade and I finally decided that I would do it. This story starts off after Harry and co return to Hogwarts from the DoM at the end of Order of the Phoenix. This is going to be very much AU as Harry is going to leave magical Britain behind for a quite awhile, though he will return eventually. I am sure that is going to be full of tropes or cliches or a million things that have already been done and, quite frankly, I don't really care. I am writing this for me and thought that other people might want to read it to. If you don't like this story, feel free to go find one that you do. That being said, I do not mind constructive criticism, so feel free to let me know what you think if you do enjoy the story.
If you do end up liking this story, I recommend that you check out 'A Second Chance at Life' by Miranda Flairgold. This work was greatly inspired by this amazing story and there will be some similar elements that come up later in the story. I will be putting my own spin on things but make no claim to originality. Some of the things that you will see: blood magic, magical telepathy, magical familiars, multipleanimagus forms, time displacement, alternate worlds, other magical creatures/beings, and most likely a few others. Also expect to see elemental magic and the mixing of magic and science to make technology work. The rating will start off as T but will eventually be bumped up to M, mostly because of blood and gore. There will eventually be romance in this, though there will not be canon pairings. People will probably be gay. Deal with it.
If you can deal with all of that, happy reading.
Harry was exhausted. Everywhere that Harry went it seemed that someone was staring at him. Some looked with pity, others with fear. Some looked as if they expected Harry to burst into tears at any given second while others rather seemed like they expected him to start screaming about Voldemort's return. None of them said anything, as per Dumbledore's request, but Harry knew that the Headmaster was the only thing keeping him from being pestered to no end. Still, the questioning and curious looks were quickly grating on Harry's nerves as much as verbal questions would have. He needed a place to escape, a place where no one would be able to find and even if they did come looking, a place where no one but him would be able to enter. There was only one place in Hogwarts that fit that description.
Harry used the Invisibility Cloak to sneak out of the Gryffindor common room without being noticed, holding his broom close to his body with one hand and the active Marauder's Map with the other. He didn't want to get his clothes dirty by sliding down the tube to the Chamber again so he figured that flying would be the safest and quickest way down. Thanks to the Map, Harry didn't encounter anyone in the halls on his way to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. He had decided to go rather early in the morning, it would be some time before his absence was noticed in the Gryffindor dormitory. He'd probably get an earful about it from Hermione if she ever found out about his idea of a quiet getaway, but since both she and Ron were still recovering in the Hospital Wing, Harry had at least a few days to seek refuge without anyone asking too many questions.
After the year he had, dealing with Umbridge and trying to run the DA, not to mention the Occlumency lessons with Snape that boarded on mental torture, Harry thought that he was due some time to himself. He also had the guilt of being the reason that his Godfather was killed hanging over his head. Harry was aware that he had been irritable with his friends for the last few days and that they would probably not begrudge him his space if it was what was needed to get back to his normal self.
Myrtle made a few comments as Harry removed the Cloak once safely in the bathroom, but he ignored her as he headed straight for the sink and whispered the parseltongue command to open the entrance to the chamber. Harry mounted his broom and hovered just below the entrance as he commanded the sink back into place, hiding the fact that the Chamber had been opened at all. Once sealed away, Harry directed his broom through the winding tunnel that led down to the Chamber proper.
The debris from the last time Harry had been there was still in place. He had to take a few minutes to carve out an opening large enough for him to crawl through now since he was a bit taller than his 12-year-old self. The large snakeskin remained on the other side of the rubble. It seemed smaller than Harry remembered but perhaps his perception had simply changed. He figured facing a dragon head-on would change his view on how large animals could be. Shaking himself of his ruminations, Harry continued on his way onto the Chamber. The torches lined the wall and glowed that eerie green glow as Harry walked by, bathing the Chamber in a hazy light. The carcass of the basilisk was still there, of course, and only half decomposed. The fang that Harry had used to stab the diary and destroy Tom Riddle lay in a puddle of dried ink on the floor where Ginny had once lain dying. Harry picked up the fang and turned it over in his hands.
He continued to fiddle with the fang that had almost killed him once as he gazed upon the statue of Salazar Slytherin. The basilisk had emerged from the mouth, Harry remembered, and he had always wondered if there was anything else back there. If Slytherin had created this place for his Heir, surely he left more than a really big snake, right? With nothing but time to kill and nothing better to do, Harry decided to investigate.
He hissed the command that Riddle had used to open the statue two years ago, rolling his eyes at the absurdity of the password. When the mouth opened wide enough that Harry could climb through, he set his broom and cloak on the floor where they wouldn't get wet, pulled his wand out, and made his way inside.
His suspicion that the inside of the statue was larger than the outside turned out to be correct as Harry emerged on a small platform that had a worn path that carried a gentle slope downwards to either side of him and a simple wooden door directly in his path. Assuming that the worn path was meant for the basilisk and thus wouldn't have anything of interest at the end of it, Harry made his way through the door.
On the other side, Harry found a simply decorated yet overflowing study. There were two worn chairs situated in the corner between two bookshelves that climbed high above Harry's head, each shelf filled to the brim. Across from the chairs sat what had once been a rather ornate desk that time and filth had worn into what could barely be described as a table with an upholstered desk chair in front of it that was colored a faded green, same as the two reading chairs. Harry hissed softly, trying to request some light in the room, and was rewarded with the torches in the room instantly coming to life with bright, merry fire. With the room properly lit, Harry noticed a slim journal resting on the desk and made his way to it.
The journal was made with faded brown leather, the parchment inside woven to the cover with thick strings. Judging by the rest of the study, Harry figured that it was probably fairly old. Harry blew the dust off the cover and then coughed as the resulting particles rushed back at him. Deciding to brush the rest of the dust off rather than have another go at attempting to cough up a lung, Harry used the edge of his robe to clean the dust and flicked through the journal. He was somewhat surprised to find that only the first few pages had writing on them. Curious, Harry began to read.
To whoever finds this journal,
It is with a heavy heart that I, Salazar Slytherin, have decided to leave Hogwarts. My friends and I have worked so very hard to build this school into something that we can be proud of, our great legacy. I am sad to say that in my eyes, our legacy is a sham.
Hogwarts is meant to be the best school of magic in the world, a lofty goal and one that I fear will never be reached. The simple truth of the matter is that what we have been teaching here at Hogwarts can hardly be called magic at all. There is only wand-waving and incantations. There is none of the true aspects of magic, nothing that will teach our students how to understand and utilize their own power. I cannot in good conscience continue to pretend that Hogwarts is the best that I have to offer to my students.
Perhaps it was the long friendship between myself and the others that have seen me see this project through as long as I have. The fact of the matter is that neither Godric nor Rowena nor Helga had studied magic in the ways that I have. They are all-powerful in their own right, yes, but even they do not know that magic is and can be so much more. Godric cannot see past my insistence that our Muggleborn students require basic education before they attend Hogwarts. He believes the issue to be with blood purity rather than access to education. Unless our Muggleborn students have come from a noble Muggle family, they do not know the basics of reading and writing, nor would they be able to study at the level that is required to truly learn magic. There are entire realms of magic that are out there, realms that will never be discovered at Hogwarts.
I have made plans to return to the land where I spent the majority of my youth. Serpent's Isle has served me well as a student in the past and I hope it will continue to serve me well in the future. Perhaps I should share my knowledge with wizarding communities outside of Great Britain.
If you have found this journal, I can only assume that you have discovered my study in the Chamber of Secrets. All the contents therein are now yours to do with as you please. If Hogwarts has remained the school that I believe it to be generations from now, I beseech you to seek out the knowledge hidden on Serpent's Isle. The books contained in this study will tell you more about the subjects you may not know about studying at Hogwarts. Below the study, you will find the nest of the basilisk which holds secrets of its own. I have found that oftentimes, all you need is one true friend to listen to your thoughts.
I leave you with my sincerest hope that Hogwarts will serve you well and that if she doesn't, you will find somewhere else that will.
Salazar Slytherin
Stunned, Harry set the open journal back on the table. He couldn't believe that one of the Founders was so disappointed in their creation that he would leave. Of course, he knew the legend that Salazar left the school over disagreeing with Godric about the allowance of muggleborns to attend. Harry had never thought to look any deeper than that. Why would he? The feud between Slytherin and Gryffindor was as old as the school itself. There was no sense questioning what everyone knew to be fact. Still pondering the implications of Salazar's letter, Harry turned to the bookshelves across the room.
Perusing through the titles, the few that he could read along the fading spines, Harry immediately knew that nothing of the sort would ever be taught at Hogwarts. There were books on elemental magic, necromancy, blood magic, enchanting, thread magic, and a myriad of other topics that Harry had never once considered to exist in the magical world. Salazar had called the Hogwarts curriculum a sham that barely scratched the surface of what magic was and could do. Harry was certain that at least half of the books contained in this study would be considered Dark by most wizards' standards and that a fair bit more were Grey. These were subjects that would never be discussed at Hogwarts but, Harry knew with unerring certainty, they were subjects that would help him defeat Voldemort.
Harry was well aware that he would have to face Voldemort again. The prophecy had made that very clear, but Harry feared that he wouldn't be prepared enough. He saw the power that Voldemort has when he dueled Dumbledore at the Ministry. Harry couldn't hope to match that level of power and skill, not when he was fairly certain the only O.W.L. that he did even remotely good on was Defense. Harry would need to expand his knowledge, study and practice, all things that he wouldn't be able to do for the next two months while living with his relatives.
With barely a week left at Hogwarts, Harry decided that he would learn as much as he could from the books in Salazar's study before the train left for King's Cross. If he found the information more useful than what he had been learning in school, Harry would seek out Serpent's Isle. There must have been some more information on the Isle in the study, not to mention a myriad of other things that might help him. Perhaps he could find a way to use magic outside of school.
For the next week, Harry spent every waking hour in the Chamber that he could. With his O.W.L.s already completed, Harry didn't have classes to attend and was free to spend as much of his day in the Chamber as he wished. A trip to the kitchens after his first trip to the Chamber ensured that Harry could have everything he needed in the Chamber. He woke early each morning and made his way to the Chamber, dodging the questions that Hermione sent his way each time he saw her. Ron didn't bother to ask where Harry had been disappearing to, knowing that Harry wouldn't answer, but he did send the occasional concerned glance in Harry's direction when Harry returned to the dorm room each night. Harry appreciated the silent support of his best friends and vowed that he would share where he had gone and what he had been up to with them one day.
On his second day in the Chamber, Harry followed the sloping path into the study down and found the basilisk's nest. The space was just as dank and dusty as the study above, evidence that the great beast had been sleeping, or something of a similar sort until Riddle had woken it up two years ago. The same green torches lit the area for Harry and he found another door, wooden like the study but this one was also charmed to open only when directed to do so in parseltongue. Behind the door, Harry found rows upon rows of eggs held in magical stasis. There were no indications as to what creatures would hatch from any of the eggs, though Harry suspected that they must have been different species of snakes. He wandered up and down the rows for a while, admiring the eggs until he felt a pull on his magic.
The egg that called to him was black, veins of red running along the surface. This one, unlike all the other eggs that Harry had passed, had an air of warmth around it. He reached for the egg and upon touching it, felt the same warmth that he had when his wand had chosen him at Ollivander's. Slowly, almost reverently, Harry plucked the egg from its place and cradled it against his body. As he moved back up to the study, Harry wondered if he could find any books in the Study that dealt with magical familiars.
By the end of the last week of school, Harry had learned more from the books in the study than he had in his first three years of Hogwarts combined. Granted, most of his work was theoretical at best, but Harry was beginning to agree with Salazar's assessment of Hogwarts' curriculum. A bit of digging around the study eventually produced a very old map of Old Europe with the location of Serpent's Isle marked clearly just off the Grecian Islands. Harry would need to compare the map to a current version to get a more exact location but he had hope that he would be able to find it easily enough. As it became increasingly clear that Harry would be seeking out whatever secrets were hidden on Serpent's Isle, Harry began looking for ways to bring the wealth of knowledge stored in the study with him when he left Hogwarts. There were no clues as to what Harry would find on the Isle other than the curious wording of Salazar's letter, but he suspected that there was a strong probability that Harry wouldn't be coming back to Hogwarts right away.
To Harry's immense unsurprise, the study held the solution to his problem. One of the books he found described how to place expansion charms and other charms on bags and trunks. Harry decided to try the spells on the bag he had used to carry his school things around for the past five years. He applied both expansion and shrinking charms to the satchel. The space inside wasn't infinite, which meant that Harry wouldn't be able to take all of the books in the study with him, but he could take a large portion of the library. He collected most of the books on blood magic, elemental magic, necromancy, Fey magic, various magical creatures, as well as books on transfiguration, charms, potions, dark arts, defense, arithmancy, and runes. The expansion spell remained just big enough for Harry to place his Firebolt and the Cloak inside as well, along with the map to Serpent's Isle and the egg that he had taken from the hatchery below.
When Harry boarded the Hogwarts Express, his newly improved satchel was tucked into his pocket. He was sure that his things would be confiscated as soon as he returned to the Dursleys and he didn't want to take the chance that he would lose his new library. With his regular school trunk stowed away like normal, Harry settled in for the ride to London with Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and Luna.
Hermione clearly wanted to question Harry about his whereabouts for the last week of school and was halfway through a lecture on the importance of sitting through school exams when Ron finally annoyed her enough to switch her ire on to him. Harry nodded gratefully at him and engaged in a game of Exploding Snap with Ginny and Neville before Hermione could begin lecturing him again.
Harry allowed Hermione to hug him goodbye, feeling a little bad that he was lying when he said he'd see them later that summer and shook hands with Ron and the twins. Molly fussed over him for a moment and reminded him to stay safe that summer. Harry agreed cordially and then made his way through the barrier to find Uncle Vernon waiting impatiently on the muggle side of the station. Vernon barely acknowledged Harry as he stepped through, simply turning on his heel to make his way out to the car. Harry followed silently, dragging his trunk and Hedwig's empty cage behind him. While loading the trunk into the boot, Harry used the raised hood as a cover to slip his wand into his satchel as well so that it wouldn't be taken away.
Just as Harry suspected, Vernon had him put his trunk in the cupboard that was once his bedroom, locking the door straight away and then sending Harry up to his room.