A/N:

Before we start this, I want to tell you that I have been reading both fanfics and paid mainstream literature for the last several years. This story is the culmination of ideas that have been infesting my mind for months. There are a lot of ideas used in this story that come both from other fanfics and from mainstream books, TV, etc.

Chapter 3

Harry was dreaming. Well, not "dreaming" per se, but he was asleep as images flickered past his mind. He knew that they were his memories, all the way from when he had first been able to retain any. Just minutes ago, he had finished going through the memories of Tom Riddle, and it seemed that it was his own turn now.

Only this time, what flowed through his mind were not facts, but full remembrances in their complete emotional glory. He remembered the joy he felt as he first laid eyes upon his mother, the love he felt for his father, and he remembered the love they had felt for him. He experienced, once more, the wonder that was magic as it first coursed through him, the tinkle of his mother's laughter, and the pride of his father as he performed accidental magic when he was barely days old.

All this he remembered, and much more.

The hatred he felt for the Dursleys since his youngest years, the beatings, the starvations. All of it passed through his mind. It went faster and faster, till at last he came back to the events just days ago. The grief he felt when he realized that he was now truly alone in the world, the sheer magnitude and depth of the power he'd felt, the stark terror of the dementors, and the blissful grasp of oblivion that came after it.

He remembered all that, and as it passed through his mind again and again, he could feel it all sorting itself out, thoughts, feelings and memories arranging themselves neatly and clearly.

When it ended, Harry felt as if he was born anew. For the first time in his life, his mind was free of the clutter that occupies the average mind. The forefront of his brain was occupied by nothing other than cool, hard logic, allowing him to actually think clearly for the first time in his life. Once again he repeated to himself 'I know what I have to do'.

And then he opened his eyes.

Naturally, being where he was, the first sound to greet his ears was the now familiar drawl of one of the four founders of the school "And so you join the land of the living once again. Welcome back, Mister Potter."

"Were you actually staring at me the whole time?" Harry couldn't help but ask.

"Well, your wit has improved at the very least." The founder said dryly, "Although, this is not the time for you to show it. We need to talk." "Of course we do. Please, start." Harry said.

"I presume you understood what you saw in my descendant's memories?" Slytherin asked.

"Of course I did." Harry replied.

"Then you understand, especially from the prophecy you heard, that he shall not be gone forever, or too long for that matter? And just how powerful an enemy you'll face when he does return?"

"Yes,"

"So you understand the need to prepare, to gain as much power as you can while you have the time, not to mention the preparations you need to make to ensure that another like him never rises again?"

"I do, and I humbly request your help in the matter"

There was a moment's silence as ancient painted eyes gazed appraisingly at the young wizard.

"You are aware what needs to be done to make things official?" the words came out in a low tone, expectant.

"I am"

"Let us begin, then" Slytherin said with a wave of his hand.

Taking a deep breath, Harry said "Lord Salazar Slytherin, I am Hadrian Potter, of the house of Potter. I have a great enemy, and I find myself in need of urgent assistance. I have heard tell of your deeds far and wide, and I humbly request you to take me as your apprentice and teach me all that I need to know. I am of high birth, and significant magical ability. I swear to keep your secrets, treat you with the utmost respect, and give you my obedience, till you deem my apprenticeship complete. So I have spoken, so it shall be."

A white flash of light filled the room, indicating the magical nature of the oath-cum-request. It was a formal entreaty for apprenticeship, modelled after Voldemort's studies of old English customs.

As far as apprenticeship entreaties went, it was fairly simple (Harry remembered hour long speeches from Voldemort's memories.) Now Slytherin would give his assent, which was usually followed by negotiations for a written contract. That was something Harry hoped to avoid, still leery of negotiating with a Slytherin, least of all the Slytherin. (Not to mention he was wondering just how the portrait would sign a contract, when he was still amazed that it had managed to perform Legilimency on him.)

Slytherin now had an amused expression on his face. "You do, of course, realize that I can still perform Legilimency. And to answer your question it is one of the many special features that the original painted me with. And no, we shall not be signing a contract. This is, and shall remain, a purely oral deal. Which reminds me, I, Salazar Slytherin, The Six thousand Seven hundred and eleventh Lord of the Bloodline of the Serpent masters, Nineteenth Duke of Parsellsia and the Sixteenth Warden of the Southern Mountains acknowledge and accept your request for apprenticeship. I vow to teach you to the best of my ability, to protect you from all harm while in my care, and to give you the tools to do so yourself when you leave it. I vow not to use this apprenticeship for my personal gain, neither to prolong it to undue lengths. So I say, so it shall be."

At this, a golden thread of magic connected the heads of the portrait and Harry, signifying the establishment of the bond.

"And now that the formalities are complete, let us begin forming our plans. The first thing that we need to do is to go back to the infirmary, and satisfy the curiosities of your companions and that headmaster. Apart from that, you need to arrange a burial for your godfather befitting a Lord of his stature.""Of course, speaking of that, just how long have I been here anyway?" Harry said. He felt oddly numb when thinking of Sirius. He supposed his new clarity of thought was to thank for that. After all, the man had been a murderer to him just days ago. His death had brought about the impulse that had allowed Harry's own survival, but now that he thought clearly, he realized that there never really had been much of a connexion between them.

"It is currently nine P.M.," Salazar replied. "You came to the chamber this morning. Your last exam was yesterday. You assimilated Voldemort's memories this afternoon. It has been roughly twenty-five hours since you destroyed over two dozen dementors, and freed yourself from your bindings."

"Yeah, about that…What exactly happened? How did I destroy the dementors? How did I get those memories?"

"Answering the questions one at a time, you had until yesterday, a number of mental and magical blocks binding your power. What happened was that the dementor, as it tried to claim your soul, eroded quite a few of the mental blocks. It was this weakening, in addition to the extreme stress you felt as a result of your grief and survival instincts that allowed your heritage to surface and tear away what remained of the mental blocks and a portion of the magical ones." Salazar said.

"OK, but what about the dementors, or the memories?"

"Patience, boy!" the portrait rebuked irritably. "I'm getting to that. As your heritage surfaced for the first time, it went uncontrolled. Arcane magic is powerful like that. At the moment, you wanted nothing more than to destroy the ones who had caused you such grief. Your power answered, you saw the result.

"As far as the memories are concerned, it appears that you had a soul shard in your mind. When the dementor drew closer, the block keeping it separate was among the ones to go, and that allowed it to invade your mind, trying to possess you. Once again, you repelled it, throwing it out of your psyche for the dementor to feed, while retaining anything your magic deemed useful. It is, in fact, this phenomenon that is a large reason for my interest."

"And why would that be?" Harry asked.

"Because the particular talent required for something like this is called mind magic, and the sheer magnitude of the feat means that you may very well be a true mind mage. Should that be true, in addition to your ability to speak Parseltongue …well, suffice to say that there are some very interesting possibilities, especially coupled with the other things I saw. We shall need to perform a proper inheritance ritual, and soon, to be certain.

"But that can be done later. Right now we need to work out just what to tell to your friends above us."

That reminded Harry "But just what am I going to do? I've been absent for the last whole day! Dumbledore is sure to use Legilimency and I don't have any proper shields set up yet. Nor do I have the time to set them up."

In contrary to Harry's worries, Salazar seemed totally relaxed. "Don't worry child, didn't I swear an oath to protect you just moments ago? You will find that there is much I can do, even if the scope is limited to my castle. First of all, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, you have been unconscious, in full view of the world, for the whole day. Nor are they aware of your destroying the dementors. In addition to that, Dumbledore shall believe that your mind is far too weakened to be toyed with right now, and he shall refrain from his tricks. These are things I have already arranged, and all we need to discuss is what you shall tell them when they inevitably ask for the reasons of your prolonged slumber."

"That shouldn't be too difficult. I can tell them that I heard my mother screaming, and that I felt drained by my exposure to the dementor. This, followed by an 'I have no idea' to the rest of their questions should suffice well enough. What I'm more interested in is just how you managed your end?"Harry responded.

"I agree. As to your question, I placed a simulacrum in your hospital bed moments after you left. It was fashioned from raw flesh here in this very chamber, and taken to the infirmary well in advance to await you gaining wakefulness. You didn't notice in your hurry, but you were both invisible and intangible when you came to the chamber. As for Dumbledore, a small compulsion here and there is only the least of what I can do within Hogwarts." was the answer from the Serpent founder.

"Well, that's good then, but I remember that you said something about an inheritance test?"

"I suggest we adjourn to the study for this, unless, of course you wish to remain on your hospital bed?"

"Oh yes, of course. Well, lead the way."

"Actually, there is a better way. Look in my eyes." Harry did so and suddenly found that he knew the exact layout of the entire chamber. After that it took him only moments to get to the office, which was once again decorated in Slytherin colours. A magnificent oak desk dominated the room, behind which was another life sized portrait of the Founder.

"Well, let's get on with it. You will find a potion and a quill and parchment in the topmost drawer of the desk. Take them out. Drink the potion, and place a droplet of your blood on the tip of the quill. Then set it on the parchment." Slytherin said, settling into his new frame.

Harry did so, and soon he could feel strange warmth grow within him. A couple of moments later, the quill gave a jerk, and started scratching away at the parchment. Soon Harry saw it stop, and picked up the parchment, now covered in elaborate calligraphy.

The contents made him gasp. From Voldemort's memories, he knew that it was unusual for a person to be heir to more than one house. Two happened a couple times in a century, three had happened once or twice a millennium, and four had happened half a dozen times in a history going back millions of years.

There were six names on the page.

This was completely unprecedented, he doubted even Salazar had known such an occurrence.

Getting over his shock, he focused on the contents, reading each line carefully

Paternal:

Potter: by blood and magic
Black: by blood and magic
Gryffindor: by blood and magic
Peverell: by blood and magic

Maternal:

Slytherin: by blood and magic
Sharr: by blood and magic

Harry thought he must be looking like a buffoon, but he was still too out of it to care. He knew somewhat how magical successions went (Voldemort had spent a large part of his life trying to secure the Slytherin lordship.), but nothing could have prepared him for this. Potter was expected, and he supposed Black made sense. Not to mention he remembered a few unsubstantiated theories that may have landed him the founder houses, but Peverell and Sharr?

He showed the parchment to Salazar, who gazed in clear fascination, before gaining a shrewd look. Eventually, he asked "By the expression on your face, I suppose you know exactly what this means?"

"Yes, this is huge, but I don't understand. I believed my mother was Muggleborn. How could I have any maternal inheritance? Apart from that, the Sharrs? They are believed extinct!" because Harry knew about the Sharrs. There existed legends about them that made Voldemort and his merry band of terrorists look like choirboys!

Hell, there had been Sharr Stormlords that had sunken and raised continents! Whole civilizations had fallen as a result of angering the house of Sharr. Sumer and Carthage were two examples.

His mother had descent from them?

"Indeed this is a surprise ..." Salazar said thoughtfully, "But easily clarified. You know the spell, I believe?"

Harry did. Tapping the Sharr name with his wand, he said "Ostendo sum meus Progenies".

It was a spell used for tracing genealogies up to three generations, suited for exactly these situations. It was one of dozens he knew (Voldemort had really wanted to become Lord Slytherin), but one of the only ones he felt sure he could perform with any effectiveness. What it did was to display the family tree of the source of the particular heritage, in this case his mother.

It did its work, and the letters on the page faded away, replaced by his mother's family tree, depicted in brilliant colours. And once again, it was a surprise.

As far as he knew, his mother's full maiden name had been Lily Evelyn Evans.

The first name on the page read Liliana Aideen Sharr.

It was connected by golden lines to the names Ambrosius and Rheanna Sharr. Ambrosius, in turn, was connected to Darius and Marya Sharr.

Darius's name was in brilliant silver, while those of Ambrosius and Liliana were a dull grey. Marya and Rheanna were plain black. What it signified was that Darius had been Lord Sharr, while neither Ambrosius nor Lily had ascended to it.

"Well, isn't that interesting. It seems that you do in fact have a perfectly legitimate claim on the house of Sharr." Salazar said.

"Yes, but what about the rest? Peverell? Gryffindor? Your Family? How is all this possible?" Harry was still bewildered.

Slytherin explained "Actually, I know exactly how those appeared. It has to do with the old succession laws. There are criteria that have to be satisfied, and you have done so. This is what I was referring to when I talked about you being a potential mind mage as well as a Parselmouth. Being both is a necessity to activate the Slytherin estate from dormancy.

It is similar for the other families. Gryffindor requires you to be a war mage, while Peverell demands necromantic talent. I know for a fact that you have both, seeing as I read them in your aura when you destroyed those dementors.

No, what I'm interested is that if you can claim the lordships right now. Unfortunately, there is no way to know till you visit either Gringotts or the Ministry. And I refuse to allow you to go to either place till you master Occlumency, not to mention some lessons in Magical traditions and etiquette. There is much you have to learn, and not nearly enough time, the way things are.

"Speaking of visiting places, you will need to go up sometime soon, and then talk to your friends and the headmaster in the morning."

Harry had, till now, avoided thinking about his friends on the surface. Because now that he wasn't a brain affected, attention starved child, he knew that whatever his connection with Granger and Weasley may be, they were not friends.

Ron was a jealous little pig, more interested in the benefits that came with Harry's association, than in Harry himself. That was the reason he'd blown up at Hermione for the Firebolt incident. It hadn't been for any love towards Harry, but the idea that he could lose the popularity that would inevitably come with such a broom. Speaking of which, that was just another entry in the long list of Hermione's crimes against him. He hadn't realized just how blind he had been.

Hermione called herself the cleverest witch in their year. Harry had never bothered verifying this, but there wasn't any need to. After all, it was so simple that he couldn't believe he hadn't realized earlier, even with the blocks and whatnot.

Hermione spent over eight months out of the ten they had at Hogwarts in rote memorization, nose deep in a book. Harry felt pretty certain that if she was anywhere nearly as intelligent as she claimed (or even moderately decent), she could have understood it, and done it in one.

The Hogwarts course was just that easy.

No, Hermione Granger was nothing more than an average student, albeit one with an ability to stare at a book until she had the words printed in her mind. She would make the perfect librarian, and her sheer mule-headedness could land her a researching job. That was about as far in life as she could hope to go, though.

But right now, he had just remembered something. He said, "Yeah, they'll keep. By the way, master, can you tell me just what blocks were there on my mind?"

"Unfortunately, I can't. Remember that I am, after all, just a painting. It's not a matter of skill. Having had an extra millennium to hone myself, I'm better than the original himself in that regard. No, the truth is that I have taxed too much of my power doing what I've already done. I'll need to recharge the runes before I can go into your mind, trace out the remnants of the enchantments, and then identify them. You can do it, though. I know for a fact that Voldemort knew much about them. You can also take the opportunity to sort out your Occlumency." Salazar answered with a shrug.

Yeah, he could do that. Actually, that was a plan. He could go up right now, spend the rest of the night setting up proper Occlumency shields, and then go through Voldemort's memories of mental enchantments, comparing them to the traces in his own mind. Then in the morning, he would deal with Dumbledore.

There were still two weeks left before the end of the term, and Harry intended to use every single day to get himself to where he needed to be. There were plans already forming in his mind, and he would need all his resources to enact them. But first, he needed accurate information about the goings on of the school.

He said as much to the founder, who immediately launched in an explanation detailing all the events of the last day. Lupin had resigned, and his so called friends had been released at noon that day. They had then spent the day in Hogsmeade, with nary a care for their supposed best friend, who, as far as they knew, had been in a coma. Still, that was good news, as he would have time before they showed their face at his bedside. Dumbledore would keep his Legilimency to himself for the time being, courtesy of Salazar's compulsions.

Decision made, Harry was back in his bed in the infirmary just minutes later, the doppelganger Salazar had mentioned in his pocket, shrunken to the size of a matchstick.

He thanked magic that Pomfrey was just a school nurse, as any half decent healer knew spells to inform them of change in patients' status. Those would have made the whole thing quite unnecessarily complicated. Within seconds, he was in his mind, once again among his memories.

The thing about Occlumency was, it was inherently impossible to master, unless a person was willing to completely accept and understand what they were to their very core. Many fiction novels and the like depicted people visiting their mindscapes and creating defences like walls, moats and beast guards, limited only by their imagination.

Now, that was a viable way to learn Occlumency, just a very simplistic one. It was also an inefficient one, as people often lost track of just what they'd built, making things incredibly easy for an intruder who knew what he was doing. Another option was to focus on one thought to the exclusion of all else, but that one required immense personal attention.

The method Harry was using was the most effective method he knew of. It wasn't even to be found in the public domain, as Tommy dearest had learned it from some of Salazar's books in the chamber.

It involved a person delving into themselves, right down to the very core of their subconscious. Once there, one examined every facet of their personality. Each and every memory, emotion and random thought was dissected and absorbed again and again, until the person in question knew all that was to know about them.

Another myth about Occlumency was that it granted eidetic memory. Well…. in this case, that wasn't a myth. Thing was, everyone had photographic memory. What happened was that the information gained without active effort (And a large part of what was gained by active effort) always, without exception, went to the subconscious.

And the subconscious never forgot.

Ordinary wizards couldn't access the subconscious (not without a Pensieve, at least), but those who had spent hours in meditation upon themselves, reaching in and examining themselves could. This meant that they could access all of those memories whenever they chose. This had been what had clinched this method for Voldemort, and this was what clinched it for Harry.

A side effect of this was the complete absence of emotions in the person. This was something Tom had damaged when he created his Horcruxes. What it meant was that organizing the mind in tightly defined rings left no room for emotions. Or, for that matter, any emotions, all of them already placed in the rings.

After one understood themselves to a satisfactory degree, they could start on defending themselves. The results of the introspection, the stark, vulnerable truths were kept at the very core, and around them the rest of the mind was rebuilt in rings. The valuable things first; important facts and plans, names, places, images, sound, anything, followed by the increasingly less important ones, all the way out to the outermost rings, which were mostly utter rubbish, imagined memories, irrelevant plans, and the like.

This arrangement, by its very nature, formed a passive defence. Apart from it, the familiarization with their own mind allowed an Occlumens to know the moment something foreign entered their mind, and throw them out immediately.

There were other bells and whistles attached, all of which Harry would be using, but this formed the core of his defence.

It took several hours for him to reach his subconscious, but soon enough he had started with the rings. In the innermost rings went the information about Salazar, the events of the night before last, the chamber's happenings and the details of his heritage. He worked outwards, placing both his own memories and Voldemort's, until he came to the outermost rings. Now, Voldemort had mastered many traps, baits and tricks, all of which Harry was using. Memories of the pain of the Cruciatus curse disguised as important plans, gigantic pieces of junk information feeling like vital memories, memories of eating, of simply staring into darkness, all were used and shaped into shields around his psyche.

It was long, tiring work, but well worth it in the end.

Finally, as the last of his memories fell into place, all that was left were the destroyed enchantments. These he analysed carefully, comparing at every step to the examples he knew. Had he been able to feel, the results would've made him furious. What he found was enough to make any person's personality do a complete one-eighty: Spells to dampen Ambition and Intellect, potions to cause a continuous guilt syndrome, enchantments to make him completely unable to hate, to feel pride, or paranoia. You name it, it was there. And it was painfully obvious just who was responsible.

Dumbledore would die for this.

It wasn't an oath of vengeance, or a promise to him, or anything as cheesy. It was a simple fact. Harry Potter had been betrayed, repeatedly and heinously, by one of the people he had trusted the most. And he was a Slytherin. He knew what was to be done in such a situation.

Betrayal begot blood.

There would be no confrontations, no loud accusations, and no newspaper carrying Dumbledore's deeds and sending him to Azkaban. No waiting because 'he wanted him to know why he died'.

Just a shadow descending in the man's room while he slept, followed by a green flash.

A list had begun to form in Harry's mind, of the people he intended to see inside a grave before he was satisfied. Dumbledore had just established himself on the top of it.

There would be more names to come in the near future, as he found out more about his life, but one thing was certain. Betrayal begot blood. He would never forgive, he would never forget.

His mind resolute, Harry closed his mind and decided to sleep. He had a performance to give in the morning.

A.N:

I will never understand the fanverse's fascination with Hermione. I am a student, and I know that intelligence is the ability to grasp knowledge with little guidance/reading. Taking that into account, I don't see how someone who needs to practically move in into the library to do well in exams can be considered even decently talented.

And before anyone questions me about the easiness of wizarding exams, I recall a first year question in the O.W.L paper. How many of you have been asked first grade theory question in high school exams, I'd like to know? And what would you think of a system that asked such questions?