Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything else I could be sued for and I am poor as hell.

A.N:I will continue writing this even if it gets flames, but I would prefer a more useful review. Please enjoy the story. I will probably not be updating frequently as my imagination tends to wax and wane. My grammar isn't fantastic so if you can easily spot grammar errors than expect to see a lot of them. If this sounds anything like another story than please tell and link me the other story so I can change mine so I can change it.

Harry and Paracelsus's Pearl

Chapter 1: Meeting the voice

Harry sat in his room thinking of the various events that had occurred throughout the last year at his school. Of course calling it a room was a definite stretch of his modest imagination. The reality of the matter was that his Uncle Vernon had not seen fit to allow him the use of the second bedroom upstairs after he learned he would not be able to avoid the "Freaks" abnormalities in his house. He had been immediately returned to the cupboard under the stairs and relegated back to his original house duties. As he sat there he nursed the bruise on his shoulder from Dudley having pushed him none to gently through the door. Uncle Vernon had taken away his trunk and stored it in Dudley's second bedroom.

'Huh, even my trunk gets more space than me.' Harry thought to himself, he reached into his pants and pulled out his wand. He had chosen to replace it with a stick of wood he had had one of the weasley twins transfigure into a copy of his wand. Although he had learned soon after that he would not be allowed to do magic outside of school he still felt comforted by the holly wand with phoenix feather core. He sometimes felt the wand warm up in his hand, although he had no idea why it did it always felt as though it were trying to warn him of something.

"Well partner, it seems I'm not allowed to use you this summer." Harry said while beginning to polish his wand with the excess cloth of his shirt.

"The end of the year was pretty rough huh? I hope Ron and Hermione are alright. Its too bad I won't be able to get any letters from them. As a matter of fact Harry wasn't even able to send out any letters to his friends. Upon meeting his relatives at Kings cross Harry had been told he could either "let the ruddy" bird go free or watch his Uncle wring its neck and cook it for dinner. Of course Harry would have been the one forced to cook, and it didn't even bear thinking about. Harry had immediately set Hedwig free from her cage and told her in a quite whisper to stay at Hogwarts for the summer. Harry did not want to leave Hedwig with his friends, not because he didn't trust them but because he worried that they might send Hedwig with a letter back to him. He couldn't bear to see Hedwig killed because she delivered a letter to him.

Later that night as Harry laid in his covers he thought about his encounter with Lord Voldemort and Professor Quirrell, he wondered what it was that had made him so very lethal to Voldemort. The headmaster had told him that it was love, but Harry had no idea what love was. He supposed that if his mother had done some magic that relied heavily on the emotion than her love for he could have continued to protect him after his first encounter with the dark lord. It seemed like such a dream though; did his parents really love him? He would like to think so, but was not so sure. After all who could love a "freak"? Furthermore Harry wasn't sure that Dumbledore was telling him the whole truth, he knew the man was keeping secrets and he suspected that his headmaster might have more than just a passing interest in him.

"Stupid, annoying, crazy old coot. How the old man manages to not be embarrassed by what he wears I'll never know." He voiced out load, He was startled when he heard from behind him, "Who speaks in our tongue, of the old man in lackadaisical robes?"

"Agh, who the hell, what the hell…"

"Oh yes, that is such an articulate answer, I know all I need to know, thank you so much," The voice intoned, its words dripping in sarcasm. Harry turned on the spot looking for the source of the voice, his wand pointing directly in front of him.

"Careful boy, wouldn't want the ministry after you now would you?"

"Show yourself or I'll b-b-blast you," Harry tried to sound calmer then he felt but knew he had failed miserably, 'stupid, stupid, stupid, you fights down a famous dark lord in possession of another persons body but you afraid of a stupid voice.'

"Perhaps some light would shed light upon this situation yes? I believe you should be able to get away with a small lumos spell here, what with all the ward magic around this house."

"Ward magic?"

"yes indeed, a lumos spell should be weak enough that the ministry will not differentiate the focused magic from the ambient."

"Differentiate? Focused? Ambient?" Harry repeating the strange terminology the voice used. He was getting more confused by the second, and was starting to panic.

"Please cast the spell before you panic, though I suppose you'll probably panic afterwards, ah well what can you do eh?"

"Lumos," Harry whispered softly. His wand flared into a bright white light, blinding Harry and startling him so much he got some serious air time. "Nox," harry muttered, breathing a sigh of relief that the light was gone. He was still seeing mostly white, but slowly dark spots were appearing, eventually replacing the white, and Harry was once again in the dark. Harry heard a hissing sound coming from in front of him and as he focused in on the sound the voice returned.

"Ah, you can understand me now yes? Perhaps using parselmagic was not the best idea yes?"

"Parselmagic? Excuse me but I still don't know who you are."

"Yes well, my name is Paraclesus, but you can call me Pearl, after all I suit the name well"

"Pearl, how did you get here, and where are you?"

"I'm right here boy, try focusing on a dim light from your wand and cast lumos again."

After bracing himself, by covering his eyes with his arms and looking away, Harry focused on only a dim light from his wand and cast "lumos". The Cupboard was still dark but Harry could see that his wand had lit itself. Moving his arm and turning his head back to look in front of him Harry's was met with the head of a rather large snake, "AGH," Harry yelled, his hand immediately clamped to his mouth as he backed away from the creature.

"Boy, you had better shut up before I come down there and pound you." His Uncle Vernon yelled from the top of the stairs, with a rather loud stomp Vernon retreated back to his bedroom, congratulating himself on shutting up that freak and showing him whose boss.

"Silly boy, don't be so startled, surely you realized you were talking to a snake?"

"No Pearl, I didn't realize you were a snake, I thought, well I don't know what I thought," Harry said helplessly. He was working past his fear, and slowly checked the snake out. Pearl was coiled around the entirety of the cupboard; Harry had about six inches between him and the snake in any given direction. Even considering how small the cupboard was Harry knew the snake had to be over twelve feet in length and probably more considering he couldn't find the tail. The body was probably three to five inches wide. Most amazing Pearl really was a fitting name for the snake; the body was a gleaming pearlescent color that reminded him of the Viper he had once seen driving past the house while he was working on the lawn. He remembered the subsequent trip to the library he had taken to learn about the color, though avoiding Dudley had been an added bonus. That fat slob would never enter a library. Pearl's emerald violet eyes met with Harry's and Harry felt as if his entire mind was open to those eyes.

"Not far off there, your mind is indeed open to me, but I was only reading your surface thoughts and not your memories," Pearl answered Harry's internal question.

"So I can talk to snakes?"

"Obviously," Pearl drawled, his head swayed back and forth, his forked tongue flicking out every now and then.

"How?"

"I cannot be sure, usually the trait is passed down through dark families and while the potter line is connected to Salazar's line and thus the parseltongue ability; you would be the first potter to actually have the ability."

"So it's a genetic trait then?"

"I don't really get what you just said, but I'll say yes if it helps."

"It doesn't"

"Bummer"

"So, how did you get here?"

"Magic"

"That's a lame response"

"You know you liked it," Pearl responded with obvious amusement.

"How did you know I would be able to use lumos?"

"That might take a bit of time to explain, and frankly we don't have much time left. You need to leave Harry, this place may be safe but it isn't going to provide you with what you need."

"I know," Harry sighed; he did realize that staying here wasn't beneficial to him. With Voldemort's soul floating around, he knew the creep wasn't dead yet, he couldn't afford to take it easy. Plus it wasn't exactly like he wanted to stick around number four privet drive anyway. The problem lied with getting away. He had no means of getting away even if he could get his trunk.

"Escape is easier than you think; getting your trunk is merely a matter of some stealth."

"I realize I can get to my trunk but how could I bring it with me, its not exactly light."

"I suppose you are correct, I shall have to take the trunk for you then."

"You're going to take my trunk?" Harry asked in disbelief, "I don't see how."

"Simple, I shall swallow it and carry it around inside me."

"Ew, you're going to swallow my trunk? Can you even open your jaw that wide?"

"Yes and no, I will swallow your trunk using magic and no I can't open my mouth that wide." Pearl response to my query with amusement, "You will leave yes?"

"I still have nowhere to go," Harry replied despondently, he hung his head in despair and wrapped his arms around his knees, careful to keep the wand tip pointing at the snakes head.

"If you can get to the forest outside the town in the next two hours I promise you'll have both a place to stay and food."

"How can you promise that so easily?"

"Simple my friend, magic," Pearl responded. He left the cupboard leaving behind an echoing hiss that sounded eerily like laughter.