Disclaimers: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter universe and no money is being made from this story.

This story diverges from the Harry Potter universe from Christmas the year Harry is eight all the way through year five. Book Six and Book Seven are not mentioned here because I do not like either book. Spoilers from the first five books will move the story along until only the characters remain the same sex. To fit the criteria of the challenge it will also be SLASH. If you don't like, please don't read and then complain. As usual, I do not write canon well and do not care enough to try. Also consider the fact that there are a few million HP stories out there and that means several ideas have already been done in other stories. However, there will be a few items which I think are my original work, but since I usually only read FF and AFF I could be mistaken. Having said that; here is the first chapter.

Included in this story which is being written as a NaNo 08 entry is a challenge I found on fan fiction. The challenge is listed under story id 4569954:

Harry Potter
Rating: M
Genre: Romance
Pairing: Harry/Salazar S.
Summary: A witch from the past, has put a curse on Harry saying 'He will be a beast by morning and a human by night.' Since then, Harry has been changing to a black dragon as soon as the sun raises and changes back to a human when it sets. What would happen if one of the four founders captured him in his dragon form?
Conditions:
Harry has a slight feminine build.
Salazar does think Harry is actually human until he sees him change one night.
Anything else you want to add, then go ahead.

Harry Potter was not an ordinary child by any circumstances. He was not the freak that his aunt and uncle insisted that he was, but he was just a bit more extraordinary than your average child. The reason he was different was because he was a wizard.

He came by it honestly; both of his parents were magical. His mother was a witch and his father was a wizard. Actually, on his father's side of the family he was what one considered a Pureblood; meaning that he came from a very long line of wizards and witches. His mother's side of the family insisted that they were muggles which meant that they were non-magical folks. That meant that his mother was referred to as a mudblood, or a first generation witch.

However it was that Harry came into his power; it was a great deal of power. Before he was even born there had been a prophecy made and witnessed that set his life on its present course. There had been other people involved in the course also; a spy who went straight to the bad guy and reported what he had heard; there was a bad guy posing as the Potter's friend; there was the really bad guy who plotted to kill the baby as soon as he had been identified; and there was the master manipulator who had orchestrated the whole comedy of errors.

And so Harry James Potter became an orphan at the age of fifteen months because his parent's friends had betrayed him to the really bad guy. Severus Snape, spy and friend of Lily, had taken the news of the Prophecy to Voldemort, the really bad guy, who with help from Peter Pettigrew, James's supposed friend, and Albus Dumbledore, supposed leader of the Light, managed to kill the elder Potters. Voldemort would have killed baby Harry also, but the power he knew not was somehow invoked and the boy managed to survive while the bad wizard was temporarily defeated.

Harry knew he was different from the time he could understand his relatives. He knew that his real name was not Freak or Boy, not just because those names were stupid, but because he noticed fairly quickly that his aunt and uncle behaved differently when they had him out in public as opposed to when he was at home. They were not particularly nice even in public, but they managed to switch the generic nouns from freak, pathetic excuse etc... to Boy which was said much the same way one refers to their pastor on Sundays when he reminds you of your monetary obligations to the church.

Eventually he noticed that whenever he was stressed out or angry strange things tended to happen. Since he was a very bright boy he figured out that the reason they called him a freak was because he was different from them. He could do things that they could not. Having a few pet spiders might have actually qualified him for the 'freak', but no one knew about them...

At the age of seven Harry began keeping a secret journal of odd things that happened around him when he was truly upset. The journal didn't really fill up quickly because some of the things he did he did not recognize as magic. There were some instances that made their way into the book.

Some of the 'magic' that made him different and caused his relatives to be vexed with him included regrowing his hair so that it would not look horrible the next day at school (by his standards, not theirs) after Aunt Petunia gave him a really bad haircut. There was the time he had accidentally turned a teacher's wig blue, he had apparated to the roof of the school to get away from his horrible cousin and his miserable gang of bullies.

And there were lots of secrets that the family did not know about. They sometimes saw strange people bowing to Harry in the streets of London when they were forced to take him with them, but they did not notice that there were also strange animals that often found their way to him. Had they bothered to really look they would have absolutely died of embarrassment to know their house was the least normal house on the block and was infested with a dozen different types of magical creatures... For example the yard always bloomed so beautifully because unicorns like flowers, and the house was always immaculate because of the hobgoblin. Well, you get the point, right?

Harry was probably eight when he first learned about the magical world. It was just prior to Christmas and he had been sent up to the attic to vacuum it and rearrange the boxes so that after Boxing Day Dudley's toys could be stored properly. Harry had found the trunks with the initials JP and LE on them. He had known right away that the trunks belonged to his parents. At the time he did not wonder how they got there, he was just happy to have found something that belonged to his parents.

It was only after moving the trunks over to where there was a small window that he realized that Aunt Petunia did not know the trunks were there and presumably could not see them. It was pretty safe to assume that since she did not know that the trunks were there, that she did not know someone had been in her house and had stored them there.

He opened his mother's trunk first and spent most of the Christmas holidays up in the attic sorting through the trunk and learning about magic. Being the smart boy he was it had not taken long for him to access the 'calling' spells and get the attic sparkling like the rest of the house. With that done, he had all the time in the world to play in his new toy chests. The calling spell which he activated filled out a form at the Ministry of Magic's Office of Employment for Magical Creatures. It gave the specifics for the job and suitable candidates were matched to the position. In Harry's case a hobgoblin had been employed because he fit the 'needs' description better than a house elf would have.

Playing in the trunks was an incredibly enlightening experience. He learned all sorts of interesting bits of information. He learned that he was supposed to be living with a boy named Neville Longbottom, not at the Dursley house; he was supposed to be learning things like how to manage his estate; French, Latin, Greek, Mathematics, the Physical Sciences, Social Sciences and English. He had a difficult time at first with not understanding some of the words he was reading, but some of that was soon fixed when he stole one of Petunia's dictionaries.

His mother had also drawn up a list of subjects that he was to do light research into. Developing into a classically trained gentleman seemed to be of some great importance to the parents.

Harry realized immediately that he would never be able to catch up on the schedule his mother had set for him by himself. He would need to find a tutor who could direct him. With that in mind he picked up the letter his mother had written and after reading it through, and while not understanding half of it, he still resolved to send it off.

After discussing the letter with the hobgoblin that now resided in the back left corner of the attic, with the letter in his pocket he descended the stairs and went into the kitchen to see what he could find to eat while no one was around. He noticed the list of chores that Petunia had left for him and decided to practice the household charms while he prepared an omelet with just a touch of sausage, a small nip of parsley, a sprinkle of cheese, and a bite of tomato he found left on a plate.

The hobgoblin, whom Harry referred to as Broom, coached him through the cleaning charms he would need to use then left him to work as the creature popped away to visit with his family for a few hours. It had been fun to follow along behind his new helper and learn to cast a scourgify on the dishes then point his finger and watch them float up to their respective spots in the cabinet. The dusting, vacuuming, and laundry folding also went without hitch and he found himself with almost two hours before the Dursleys and Marge would be returning home. He had time to post the letter!

He grabbed the heaviest shirt that he owned and pulled it on over his other two shirts before setting foot out the back door, intending to go the long way around to a post box so that the neighbors would not see him and rat him out to his relatives. He found it annoying already that the neighbors believed Petunia when she said he was a trouble maker. He was not the neighborhood bully and resented her lies.

It was therefore a bit surprising to find an owl waiting on the railing that Vernon had put up around the patio to form a bit of a privacy area where he and Petty could sit and watch Dudley tear up the garden with his big wheel. Harry was entranced with the beautiful bird and immediately went to it and began stroking it and complimenting it on being such a beautiful, smart bird.

For some strange reason the beautiful Gringotts owl decided that Harry was quite a suitable pet and determined to help the boy along. It did not take the owl long at all to let the boy know that he was there to take the letter away that was stashed in his coat pocket.

Harry looked at the owl bemusedly as it stuck its head into his pocket and removed the letter. Then with letter still in his beak, he extended his leg while bobbing his head up and down at it a few times.

Harry soon saw the small string that the bird was indicating and realized that it wanted him to tie the letter to its leg. He soon had it rolled up and tied comfortably to the bird for carrying.

It hooted happily to him and took off.

Harry watched the owl disappear and wondered if he had done the correct thing by letting it have the letter. After all, that was a letter that his mother had written to a man named Mr. Axebiter. He just hoped that Mr. Axebiter could help him with all the problems that living with the Dursleys seemed to cause him. Harry really did want to make his parents proud of him, and he knew that one way to do that was to make sure that he followed his mother's educational plan for him. According to her, he was going to need to know how to do a lot of stuff. If it that was true, then he would really need to get busy.

He did not actually have long to fret about things. He went back inside and had just made his way up the stairs to what he was rapidly coming to think of as his room when he heard a small popping noise in the attic close to where he had left the trunk open. Knowing he was supposed to be the only one in the house, he rushed up the steps to make sure nothing was wrong with either his precious possessions, or the hobgoblin's meager stash. He was quite shocked to see an ugly little creature that closely resembled the funny little goblins in the movie Labyrinth that Petunia had purchased for Dudley last week.

It turned out that goblins ARE real. They controlled the magical world's banking business. It would also appear that they are quite whimsical creatures and enjoy a good challenge. Once Harry explained to the goblin what he had done to accidentally call him there, there was no stopping the goblin.

The original recipient of Mrs. Potter's letter had been a goblin named Axebiter. Axebiter's instructions were to help her by presenting a shortlist of teaching candidates. He did not actually misinterpret the letter; he simply did not think that Lily would necessarily want to limit her son's education to the Wizarding world. Therefore after he interpreted the wish magic overlaying the original letter, he knew exactly who to send.

Harry James Potter had used wish magic to help Axebiter find the most capable teacher available in order to begin fulfilling his parents' plan for his education. The goblin that fit the requirements, Bookgrabber, was a middle-aged goblin who had recently been medically retired from the bank's elite guard and had not yet decided on what to do next since he was several years away from passing on to the next plane of existence. One minute he was sitting comfortably at dinner with his parents, the next moment he found himself in a room that was so strangely clean that he felt he might have inadvertently been summoned by one of his generic cousins known as a hobgoblin.

In reality what had happened was Axebiter had activated Harry's overlay spell by reading the letter and then saying, "Now, who do I know that can actually do this job?" That was all it took for magic to do the rest.

For such a little wizard to be powerful enough to call him through several layers of warding at both residences without actually using his name seemed to be some type of compliment that would bestow great honor on him if he performed his duties properly.

Once Harry and Bookgrabber had established exactly why he had shown up, they had introduced themselves. Harry then showed him the educational plan and they got down to business. Bookgrabber magically copied the file created by Lily and told Harry that he would take it to Harry's Gringotts manager. They would then arrange for him to visit his vaults with them where they would remove books, weapons, and other items as needed to work their way through everything.

Harry had been so excited that someone would really help him that he squealed ecstatically and hugged the goblin before it could get away. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Bookgrabber. I am so happy that you came to visit."

The goblin just shook his head at the boy's antics and gave him a bit of a hug in return. Some goblins would see that as a breach of etiquette, but Harry really had summoned the one teacher who would be perfect for him. Bookgrabber was from a large family and although he had chosen to live at home and help his parents raise the younger children, he had recently become rather broody about having his own heir. This child would help immensely in showing him the next direction he needed to move in.

Harry would never tell his Aunt Petunia about the goblin who visited him several times a week and instructed him in the ways of magic. Bookgrabber had become a large part of Harry's life in a very short time. The two of them got on like a house on fire and Bookgrabber often finished Harry's chores with magic that Broom could not finish so that they would have time to get in a few extra lessons of whatever caught their interest.

It was an arrangement that worked wonderfully from the day it was set up until the day Harry had to go off to Hogwarts. Harry was still a few months behind the projected learning curve that Lily had set for him had he started studying when he was supposed to, but he had made great strides in all the subjects.

It had been fun for Harry to pretend he did not know what was happening when the first Hogwarts letter arrived. Predictably, Uncle Vernon had confiscated the letter, and then he and Aunt Petunia had begun to act even more strangely than they already were.

Harry had genuinely enjoyed the trip out to the little island. While everyone else had huddled inside, He and Bookgrabber had explored the coastline and the goblin had managed to help him with some of his physical science by showing and lecturing on time-and-tide and how it related to the magical rhythms of his own core.

They had even managed to catch some fish which Bookgrabber and he promptly cooked over a nice fire made from driftwood. Harry had not really wanted to gut and debone a fish at first, but Bookgrabber turned it into another lesson; this time covering the anatomy of a cod fish. He also learned how important it was for the goblins to eat small portions of ocean produced foodstuffs.

It had been a long interesting afternoon for both of them, but like all good things, it had to end. Bookgrabber returned to his modest abode in one of the tunnels under Gringotts with a sack full of delicacies while Harry had to enter the hut where he knew things would come to a head between him being in the muggle world and belonging in the Wizarding one.

It took all of Harry's courage to come out of the corner he was hiding in and speak to the huge man who had been sent to deliver his Hogwarts letter. Being scared out of his wits made it easier to stutter and stumble over words when he protested being anything except 'just Harry'. He thought that he might have overdone it when he glared at Petunia and accused her of lying about how his parents had died.

Petunia's rant regarding Lily being a witch reinforced his belief that he was doing the correct thing by leaning as much as he could with the help of his true friends. It actually reinforced what he had been told by the goblins; they had explained that there was a conspiracy going on regarding him living with these people. The goblins did not have enough information to put everything together, but they had done as much as they could by educating him and introducing him to the people whom Lily and James had wanted him to grow up knowing.

The huge man finally introduced himself to Harry as Hagrid. Rubeus Hagrid was the Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. The man was a fountain of knowledge and with a few well directed questions and a few subtle goblin compulsion charms Harry was learning all manner of useful things regarding the Wizarding world and its prejudices.

Hagrid, after proclaiming Harry a 'thumping good wizard', completely underestimated Harry. He never remembered speaking freely regarding Hogwarts house prejudices, the real reason behind sending him to deliver Harry's letter instead of one of the regular teachers, and all manner of secrets.

Harry had no trouble casting a small sleeping suggestion at his relatives so they all wandered off to sleep where they could not witness Harry's blatant manipulation of the half-giant. He spoke long into the night regarding things that he knew to be true, but was never meant to be said to the young boy.

Hours later as the sun rose, Hagrid stood up and stretched. "Blimey, Harry, that couch is too small and uncomfortable to catch a kip on. We should have left here ages ago."

Harry looked up through big sleepy green eyes. "What do you mean 'we should have gone ages ago?"

Hagrid straightened his beard back off his face. "Well we should have gone to Diagon Alley last night and slept at the Leaky Cauldron. I can't imagine why we stayed here."

He patted his pockets down and soon had a pleased look on his face. "Ah, here it is." He pulled a slightly battered owl out of a pocket and said, "I will just go ahead and send a letter to Dumbledore to say that I found you finally and will take you to get your school supplies this morning."

"How are we going away from here?"

"Dumbledore gave me a portkey to get us to Diagon Alley. Now go get your things."

"I don't have any things to get ready."

"Then come over here and stand quietly while I find that blasted portkey. I know I stuck in my pocket." He proceeded to thump at his coat until a fine layer of dust had dislodged from it and was now gracing the floor. Finally he quit thumping and said, "Ah, here we are. I knew I didn't lose it." He looked at Harry who had not moved the whole time he was 'checking' his pockets. "Are you ready then? Put your hand on this here sock and we will soon get the shopping done."

Harry nodded at the man then added, "Hagrid, I haven't got any money. How am I supposed to pay for my school supplies?"

Hagrid just shook his head. "Hurry up and get over here so we can be on our way." He looked around and shook his head. "This place really does not look like the kind of place your aunt would want to live. Why did they come out here?"

Harry saw his Aunt Petunia standing at the bottom of the steps and decided to spare her some shame. "I think Uncle Vernon's boss sent him out here. Sometimes he lets us come with him. It would have been a really fun vacation for Dudley and me if it had not started raining last night."

Hagrid looked around with a little better appreciation. "OH, I can see that part. I just did not think women folks liked this sort of thing."

Harry shook his head. "Hagrid, women don't usually like this sort of thing. Why do you think Aunt Petunia was in such a bad mood?"

Hagrid finally noticed Petunia, but disregarded Harry's peacemaking attempts since he liked living dangerously. "I reckon 'cause she is a shrew."

The resulting shriek and thump as she threw a piece of wood at his head had the two males portkeying away before she got in enough practice to correct her aim at his head.

A/N: Thus ends chapter 1. Please gift wrap all complaints and send them to a different cyber address since most of these ideas are not original. Compliments and words of wisdom on how to improve things (in a positive manner, please) are gratefully accepted and may be sent to this address.