Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter nor any of the characters, locations, or any other aspect of the Harry Potter universe; J.K. Rowling does.

Parseltongue will be placed in italics

Chapter 1 – The Snake and the Parselmouth

Sunday September 4, 1988

"Not again," Harry exclaimed as he turned the corner onto Privet Drive, just to find himself face to face with Dudley and his friends Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon. They were constantly going "Harry Hunting," and Harry felt fortunate to have only been caught twice that summer. It was the last day before Harry was going to begin his fourth year of primary school, and he was not looking forward to the start of the new semester. During the summer vacation, he could easily hide from Dudley and his friends, but during the school year, everyone knew where his class was and where he would be at nearly any given time.

But he had more pressing concerns. Piers lunged out and barely missed grabbing onto Harry's arms. Harry bolted the other way and turned down one of the side streets. After being chased for a couple of minutes, he reached a nearby park.

I can definitely lose them here, Harry thought to himself, diving into a nearby bush and falling silent to escape his pursuers. He watched as five sets of feet ran by, and he stopped himself from breathing a sigh of relief that could have led to him being found. It would not be the first time that happened: a prior year, Harry had thought he was in the clear after Piers walked past one of his hiding spots, but he had exhaled too loudly and was caught.

A few minutes later, as Harry was about to crawl out of his hiding spot, he noticed a large grass snake, about three feet in length. Unnoticed by the snake, but not by Harry, was a corvid that thought it spotted lunch in the grass. Harry was not exactly sure why he reacted as he did, but he hissed, "Watch out."

The snake looked up and spotted the bird swooping toward it. With the warning it received from Harry, it rolled to the left, away from where the bird was diving. Not expecting the snake to move, the corvid's initial dive missed. As it went to resume its attack, it saw Harry beginning to walk towards the snake to protect it. The bird decided that there would be easier prey to target, and it flew away.

"Thank you for saving me," hissed the snake.

Harry, confused as to what had just happened, asked the snake. "Why can I understand what you are saying? And how did you understand what I said? What kind of freaky business is going on?"

"You are a Parselmouth, Speaker. That means you can speak Parseltongue, the language of snakes. You can understand snakes, and snakes can understand you. It is a very rare ability among wizards; I did not expect–"

"Wait! What's this about wizards? My uncle always said that magic is not real and that there is no such thing as witches and wizards."

"Do you really believe your uncle?" asked the snake. "Can you come up with any other explanation for how we can understand each other?" When Harry remained silent and shook his head, the snake continued, "By the way, what is your name?

Harry remembered some of the other times weird things happened around him: he had turned his teacher's hair blue when he was angry at his math teacher, and he had ended up on the school roof when he was running away from Dudley and his friends. Both times, Uncle Vernon had been furious with him, and those was among the few times when he had hit Harry. Harry had no explanation for how those weird things happened, and he tried to consider if it was possible that magic could exist. However, he realized that he had no way of understanding any of it on his own. He figured it could not hurt to continue talking to the snake – whether he stopped now or continued, the whole conversation would have to be kept secret from his relatives. He slowly said, "My name in school is Harry Potter, but my relatives always call me 'Freak' or 'Boy.' "

"Great Salazar!" exclaimed the snake. "There is clearly something wrong with those relatives of yours. I will explain what I can about the wizarding world, but you cannot let people without magic, muggles, in on the secret. Before I begin, I need to ask you a question that may be difficult for you, but is very important. What do you remember about the night your parents died, the night you began living with your relatives?"

"I remember a man standing over my crib pointing a stick at me, and then a flash of green light. I don't remember anything after that. I don't think I remember anything before that either. But that doesn't make any sense because my parents were drunks who died in a car crash."

"What?! Who told you your parents died in a car crash? Was is these relatives you told me about?" Harry nodded, and the snake continued, "That is just one more thing they lied to you about. The truth is that there was an evil wizard, Lord Voldemort, and he was trying to take over the wizarding world. Your parents had fought him a few times, but each time they were outmatched and ended up fleeing. When you were born, they went into hiding. Their house was put under a charm so that only the person who cast the charm could tell anyone where they were.

"But that wizard betrayed them, and Lord Voldemort found them and attacked their home on Halloween, 1981. He killed both your parents, but then when he tried to kill you, the killing curse deflected off of you and hit him. I don't think it killed him. He was also a Parselmouth, and I think I recall other snakes talking about him fleeing as a spirit or something. No one knows how you survived, but you did. After that happened, you became famous in the wizarding world, known as the Boy-Who-Lived, for being the only person to survive the killing curse.

"Albus Dumbledore, the most famous and influential wizard alive in Britain, felt it would not be safe for you to be raised with wizards in case some of Voldemort's followers came after you, so he hid you away, apparently with these relatives of yours. He seems to have kept the wizarding world hidden from you for seven years. I don't know if he would have waited until you were 11 and would go to Hogwarts before revealing that you are a wizard, but that would have been a terrible idea because you would not have had enough time to learn about a world you would be expected to completely understand."

Harry stood there, eagerly listening to the snake's tale. He supposed it was possible, as it would explain the green light he sometimes remembered seeing, as well as the contradiction between the little he remembered and the tale his relative told him. But the whole tale sounded completely unrealistic, like the kind of thing one would might expect to happen in a fantasy novel. Or at least he thought so; there were only so many fantasy books he had actually read because he knew his aunt and uncle would not have approved of it if they found out. He cautiously asked the snake, "What happened to the wizards after the bad wizard was defeated?"

"You think I know everything that happened? I am just a snake. The violence definitely stopped shortly after that, but many of Voldemort's followers avoided being punished by claiming that they were under the imperious curse, a curse that forces the target to do whatever the caster wants them to do. It was likely a complete lie, but they bribed or possibly blackmailed enough people into voting for their innocence."

Harry thought for a moment. "This just seems so hard to believe. Is there any way you can verify what you are saying? For all I know, this could be a set-up to make me look like a fool."

"Actually there is," noted the snake. "There is a place in London where there is a major wizarding town hidden from muggles. You can go there and meet with the goblins who run the wizard bank Gringotts. They might be able to explain more about your family. In fact, your family may even have properties you could live at instead of Privet Drive. But if you go into the wizarding world, you will need to be disguised, and you definitely will need to hide that scar of yours."

"Thank you, uh, snake. And what is your name; I don't think it would be polite for me to call you 'snake.' That sounds like a great idea, though, but I don't have any money, and it is not like I can ask the Dursleys for any. I don't want to steal any either."

"You can call me Sal, short for Salazar, the name of a great wizard who could also talk to snakes. And to get money, why don't you ask your relatives if you can do some chores? And if you already do chores or other work for them, and are not paid for it, why do you feel you should not take from them? And you do not even need to get too much; a train ticket from Surrey to London costs under 10 pounds, and you shouldn't need more than £20-30 to get everything you need to disguise yourself."

"You're right, Sal. I suppose I can take a little bit of money from the Dursleys. But I don't want them to know if I take any. I guess I can look through the attic for old toys Dudley never even opened and see if I can return them to the stores; I doubt they would even notice the toys missing. I should be able to get enough money from that."

Harry and Sal continued talking, and they planned out when and how they would leave. They wanted to make sure that they left at a time when the Dursleys would not immediately be aware of it, but they also wanted to be careful about travelling during school hours to avoid being found breaking truancy laws. They discussed how Sal would hide when they were travelling, as people would likely be scared if they saw a snake slithering around; they decided that the snake could hide under Harry's shirt, as his hand-me-downs were baggy enough that the snake would not be noticed. They realized that they needed to wait until they had a better idea of what kind of schedule he would be expected to follow once school began, so they returned to Privet Drive, and the snake hid in the backyard.

Harry cooked dinner that night, and then Petunia instructed Harry about what would be expected of him once the school year began. He would be required to complete his chores – weeding the garden, cleaning the house, and cooking dinner for everyone – before Uncle Vernon returns home from work around 6PM, three hours after the school day ends. Harry nodded in agreement to those rules, not that he had much of a choice or any intention of obeying. It was clear, however, that if he were to leave after school one day, his aunt and uncle would not know until that evening. He told Sal to meet him at the Surrey train station at 3:20 the next day. Before he went to sleep, he climbed the stairs to the attic and looked around for unopened games: he found boxes of Scrabble, Mastermind, and Stratego that he could sell. All of those games were unopened because they involved too much thinking for Dudley to even try to play, and Harry placed them into his backpack.

The next morning Harry snuck out and left for school 30 minutes early, stopping at a toy store along the way to return the three unopened boxes. There was a very short line at the check-out aisle, and a few minutes later, he exchanged the games for £35. Pocketing his cash, he continued on toward his school. He got to class a few minutes before the teacher began taking attendance. When the teacher got to Harry's name, he warned Harry that if his behavior did not improve, then he would be spending a lot of time in detentions. Apparently the previous year's teacher had mentioned that Harry was a trouble maker. Dudley snickered, and Harry was about to retort that he does behave and that anyone who actually believed he was responsible for all of Dudley's wrongdoings is an idiot. However, before he could say something that would get him in trouble, he realized that it does not matter because he would be leaving later that day.

The rest of the day went better than Harry expected because he did not need to worry about paying attention to all of the rules and expectations for the class; learning multiplication and reading whatever literature they were supposed to could wait until he was safely away from the Dursleys. Instead, he could listen in on the bullies plotting against him, and he heard that they planned on confronting him outside the entrance to the school at the end of the day. During the day, Harry wondered how he could avoid them, and he decided that he could sneak out from one of the side exits that the students are not supposed to use.

At the end of the day, Dudley and Gordon waited outside of the school to catch Harry as he came outside. When 20 minutes had past, and they still did not see him, they assumed Harry must still be inside the school. They walked back into the school to look for him, and they got caught by one of the teachers. They said that they were waiting for Harry outside but that he did not leave and therefore must still be inside, and that they were only in the building because they were looking for him. The teacher thanked them for alerting him and told them to leave (and that Harry would be in trouble either when he gets found, or when he returns to school). They left and looked for other students to bully.

Meanwhile, Harry made sure to take a little bit of time packing his backpack so he would be behind the rest of the students as he left. He followed the mass of students exiting the school, and when no one was looking, he turned down a corridor, towards a different exit that he would be able to use. He did not realize that the door he used was alarmed, and a piercing sound could be heard as soon as he opened the door. Harry could feel his heart thumping rapidly and almost panicked, but he immediately began considering his options: flee, hide back inside the school, or hide just outside the school. Not being able to change his plans because his snake was already supposed to be at the train station, Harry decided that fleeing would be the best option. He sped up and began walking very quickly to the train station. Moments later, he heard someone yell out to him to stop, but he just began running. Before he turned onto a larger road close to the train station, he glanced back and saw that he was not being followed.

He slowed down to a walk so that he would not appear suspicious if someone saw him. A few minutes later, he met up with Sal, bought a train ticket to London, and waited for the train taking him away from his aunt and uncle. As the train approached, Harry thought about all of the reasons he had for leaving and how he finally had a chance of starting over a new life somewhere away from the Dursleys. He boarded the train, saying goodbye to Surrey and wondering if he would ever return to the town that treated him terribly.

When Harry began his plan to leave Privet Drive, the wards around the house began weakening. These were meant to prevent any witch or wizard from harming Harry while he was within the vicinity of the wards, and they had been effective for this purpose. But Dumbledore did not consider the possibility of the muggles being the problem. The wards slowly deteriorated as Harry's plans had come along, but they did not collapse entirely until the train doors closed with Harry on board. Magic apparently thought that up until that point, Harry could still change his mind about leaving and go back to the Dursleys, but boarding the train was the Rubicon that committed Harry to his escape plan.

The wards crashing down did not go unnoticed by a bunch of magical devices in a castle approximately 500 miles away in Scotland. Those were supposed to alert Dumbledore if Harry had left Surrey without his relatives or was in life-threatening danger, but while the devices noticed that Harry had left, Dumbledore did not. They had not done anything in the seven years Harry was with the Dursleys because even though he was not treated well, he was never in any sort of grave danger, and Dumbledore had stopped paying attention to them. They just became part of the background in his office, hidden in plain sight among other magical apparatuses with functions long forgotten. Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, would have alerted Dumbledore, but he had just had a burning day and thus was in no condition to do so.