I don't own Harry Potter…creators of the awesome fanfiction, recognize the fact already!

...

In two days it would be time for them to return to Hogwarts. Two days until Harry would have to face his peers, despite the fact that he most definitely did not feel ready. Even though he had been practicing all the spells he could draw from his memory, he still did not feel up to the task of facing the Slytherins, who were bound to do more than taunt him.

He was happy that he would be able to see Hermione again, however. Hopefully she would have some ideas on his "magic block," as he had come to call it.

He did feel that there was one more thing he should do before "facing the world."

Harry had so far refused to read any of the issues of the Daily Prophet that the Weasleys had had delivered to the Burrow. He didn't want to see what the rest of the world was saying about the latest drama surrounding their "chosen one." But if Harry was going to Hogwarts, it would be a good idea to know what the latest rumors concerning himself were.

Harry knew that Mr. Weasley had been saving issues of the Daily Prophet for Harry to read, when he was ready. So that night Harry asked Mr. Weasley if he might have the papers.

"You do know that the Prophet has been having a field day concerning you, Harry. Are you sure you want to read all this?" Mr. Weasley asked.

"I need to know what people have been saying about me before I get to Hogwarts."

"I understand. The papers are in one of the kitchen cupboards; Molly will show you which one. I've only saved the pages regarding you, Harry. You won't have to sort through everything." Harry nodded his thanks and entered the kitchen, where Mrs. Weasley pointed him to a small cupboard containing the entire wizarding world's gossip on their "hero."

Harry gathered the papers and retreated to Ron's room. He didn't want to read these with everyone watching.

He settled on his cot and decided to read the papers from oldest to newest. Thankfully, all the newest papers had just been piled on top of the previous ones, so all Harry had to do was flip the stack and start reading.

The first papers weren't too bad. They simply reported that there were rumors that Harry had been severely injured in the attack on Hogwarts which resulted in the murder of Albus Dumbledore. Then they confirmed the rumors, and then, the true facts leaked out. All this had happened as a result from students writing letters to their parents, Harry was sure.

The prophet reported that Harry had been made "dumb." Harry scowled at the name for his disability. He didn't like the fact that it applied to him, but if he could choose what people called him, he preferred "mute."

Next they started to get vicious as they realized that their precious Boy-Who-Lived couldn't do magic. They felt cheated, Harry thought, that he couldn't be their stupid champion for them. Tough for them, he thought viciously. They could do some of their own fighting.

Rita Skeeter even made a joke about his handicap! She said that, "Harry Potter has been made dumb, in the physical sense. Let us hope it does not also apply to his mental state!" Harry tore that paper to shreds.

Then, after the reporters had gotten their insults out, came the speculation. What had happened in the attack to make Harry "dumb"? Was it a spell? Had Harry accidentally cursed himself? Or had a death eater gotten a hold of him and tortured him? The press seemed to be leaning towards the "Harry made a mistake in the attack, leading to his temporary capture by death eaters, who tortured him until they took away his ability to speak."

Then the insults returned, as the Prophet painted him as incompetent. They compared him to squibs, saying that, while he did have magic, he could not access it, and was therefore useless.

The last paper contained Harry's next new nickname: "The Boy-who-Squibbed." Harry didn't even have to look at the author of the article to know it had been written by Rita Skeeter. Harry tossed all of the papers into a crumpled heap by his bed. He clenched his fists.

"Do they not realize what these do to me? Don't they think that maybe, I'm actually just human? Don''t they realize how difficult they make my poor, miserable life? That's just brilliant. The Slytherins are going to have a party, calling me all sorts of names. ''Boy who Squibbed.' I want to hex that Skeeter until she runs all the way to the North Pole and stays there, for fear of returning to face me again!"

His hissed rant over, Harry finally realized that the pile of Prophets had caught fire from his anger, and the flames were beginning to lick his cot. Hastily Harry shot a jet of water at the small fire, extinguishing them.

He sat on his cot for a second, getting his breath back from his shock. Then he realized something: his wand was still in his back pocket. He had, in his shock, performed wandless magic! Harry tried to lift a nearby book wandlessly, but to no avail. But he knew that he could do it. He had the magical power in him to allow him access and control of his magic without a wand. He''d just have to work at it, like he had with the silent magic.

His excitement abating, Harry went back to pondering his imminent return to the public eye. He was unsure of quite a few things, including his relationship with Ginny, the treatment he would receive from the Slytherins, and how he could answer questions in class without a translator.

But he was certain of one thing: returning to Hogwarts would be the emotional equivalent of entering a tornado filled with shards of glass.

...

That evening Harry had once again been roped into playing chess with Ron. This time, however, they used Harry's new Parseltongue chess set, and the pieces gave Harry tactical advice. As a result from this private guidance, Harry managed to hold his own longer than he ever had before. Even though he eventually lost, He counted the game as a personal victory.

Then Fred put on the Wizarding Wireless, and they all gathered around the radio to finish homework.

Harry was working on his transfiguration homework. He had to change a carpet into a platter, and he wasn't making any progress. He had never seen the spell worked before, and had no idea what the transformations should look like.

What if he just ditched the spell and just concentrated on what he wanted to do? According to the theories in his silent magic book, the spell was supposed to just act as a link in the mind between the intent and the action. You didn't really need the spell, so long as you knew what you wanted to do.

His mind made up, Harry shoved the incantation to the back of his mind and instead pictured the small carpet his wand was aimed at morphing into a wooden platter.

He pictured the transformation several times, before deciding that he had the image firmly pictured and could now put his magic behind it.

Keeping the image of the morphing carpet in his mind, Harry pushed his magic outwards at the carpet.

Nothing happened.

Harry frowned and was about to try again when the carpet suddenly shrunk. Then it changed from a circular carpet into an oval. Harry realized that the carpet was going through the exact stages of change that he had envisioned.

Now the edges lifted, and the carpet color changed from deep red to a wooden brown. Then the grain of the wood appeared, shooting from the center out to the edges.

And now, instead of a slightly tatty, red carpet; a smooth yet plain wooden platter lay in front of Harry.

Harry stared in amazement. It had happened just as he had imagined it! He couldn't have envisioned the transformation so accurately, could he?

He frowned in concentration, having decided that he would now transform the platter back to a carpet. But this time, he wouldn't focus on the process of transformation so much as the finished item.

Now he envisioned the platter just suddenly changing back into the same red carpet, without the whole process of gradual changes.

Again, he sort of shoved his magic out of him, through his wand, at the platter.

But now the platter had returned to being a carpet.

Harry performed the change several more times, all with the same degree of abruptness. The carpet changed into the platter, and back, about three times, before Harry realized he had an audience.

Everyone was gathered around him, watching the changing carpet/platter fixatedly.

Harry stopped the transformations and placed his wand in his back pocket.

"How did you do that, Harry?" Ron asked, wonder in his tone.

"I sort of just thought about precisely what I wanted to happen, then I let the magic flow out and it just did what I wanted it to do."

"You didn't use the incantation?" Ginny asked bemusedly.

"No, magic works through intent. The words themselves don't have power; they just sort of help your mind focus on what you want to happen. All you need is to focus really well on what you want, instead of the words.""

"Where did you learn that, Harry?" George asked.

"My silent magic textbook."

"Mind if we borrow it?" Fred requested.

"Not at all. Just send it back to me at Hogwarts when you've finished."

Ginny had gotten her wand out and was attempting the same piece of magic that Harry had just performed. He tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention.

"You know that that is seventh-year magic, right?"

"Yes, I know, but I can still try it."

"What about your trace?"

"The ministry won't know that it was me. This spell was removed from the trace list, so as long as you and Ron are here, they won't know that it was me who did it."

Ginny went back to her attempts to duplicate the magic Harry had done, and the others dissipated back to their own homework assignments or personal prank objects plans, as in the case of the twins.

...

The next night, Harry had finished his homework and decided to start reading the book Hermione had gotten him on Parselmouths and Parselmagic. It was extremely interesting.

Even though Parselmouths were rare, there had been enough of them in the course of history to scare the other wizards badly. The main reason for this fear was the sheer power that Parsel magic possessed, if performed correctly. Parseltongue – when spoken by Parselmouth wizards - was the only true magical language, and as such was the only language that contained actual magical power within the words.

Snakes didn't perform magic when they spoke because they didn't have magic in them. But when their language was spoken by a species that hadn't been made to speak it – humans – magic got involved.

The only reason why magic didn't occur whenever a wizard spoke Parseltongue was because they usually didn't have the intent of performing magic. Otherwise one could do anything with Parseltongue. There were no specific spells, only pieces of magic that had become notorious because they were used prominently by Parselmouths in history.

One such piece of magic was first used by Salazar Slytherin. He evidently called all nearby snakes to him during a duel in Africa, and commanded them to attack his opponent. Of course, venomous cobras had been amidst the called serpents, and they killed the wizard Slytherin had been dueling.

There were other pieces of notorious Parselmagic that had been used by dark wizards, as well. Unfortunately, most Parselmouths had been dark, and so Parsel magic had gained its reputation as dark magic. But one could also perform healing spells, household spells, and anything else that was within the limits of magic with Parseltongue.

The one drawback to Parselmagic, Harry's book said, was that it was impossible to perform silently. Because of the fact that it was the actual words that held magic within them, Parselmagic just didn't exist in a silent form. So, when dueling with another Parselmouth, one did not have the element of surprise that was the main advantage of silent magic. But, most of the time this didn't matter, as it was rare that two Parselmouths dueled.

There was only one recorded instance when two Parselmouths fought. It had been in ancient times, before even the Hogwarts founders. The evidence of the encounter had been found within an Egyptian Pharaoh's pyramid, written in Hieroglyphics.

Harry read the loose translation of the text.

"Pharaoh Tutankhamen was sent to the afterlife by a cloaked man, with power matching the Pharaoh's own. They fought for the right of the Egyptian throne, both commanding the snakes. The cloaked man injured the Pharaoh before being driven away. The Pharaoh''s injuries killed him after a few weeks, but the cloaked man has not returned."

Harry vaguely remembered "King Tut" from his muggle school. He recalled that the young king's body had had all sorts of weird deformities, such as club feet. Harry wondered if the deformities had been caused by this battle that the apparent Parselmouth had fought.

And who had the cloaked man been?

He also wondered why the muggles hadn't found the ancient text suspicious. Maybe the wizards had covered it up? But the text would be re-read…maybe they had cast a notice-me-not charm on the section of text and went back occasionally to renew the charm.

Harry found the answer to the question in his next paragraph of reading.

A curse had been placed on the tomb, and even though the majority of the muggles did not believe in magic, the tomb had been sealed, and the curse on the tomb was widely known.

There were suspicions as to who the man had been. One of the most prevalent theories was that the man had been an exiled minor dark wizard by the name of Morgor who had been defeated by a young Merlin in Europe, and who had decided to try to garner power in some other region of the earth.

Harry closed his book as he yawned. He was exhausted, and needed to get some sleep in preparation for the chaos of the next day. But, he vowed to himself that he would keep reading about the Parselmouths. He needed to know exactly what reputation they had; all he had known about them had been what Hermione had told him back in second year. That they were hated and considered dark. That had been it.

Another reason to study Parselmagic was the fact that Voldemort would surely have looked into it and at the very least dabbled in it. Harry was aiming to at least be on even footing with Voldemort. Knowing how to manipulate Parselmagic would be an excellent ability to have in the inevitable duel.