Disclaimer: I Do Not Own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does.

Light Up The Darkness I: The Philosopher's Stone

Summary: AU. The Killing Curse didn't transfer just some of Voldemort's powers to Harry that night, but his memories as well. After apparating onto the school roof Harry unlocks them. Learning from Voldemort's knowledge, Harry attends his First Year knowing a lot more than he should. SlytherinHarry, eventual HP/DG.

Chapter 1: Memories Unlocked

"ANYMORE OF YOUR FREAKISHNESS AND YOU'LL WISH YOU HAD NEVER BEEN BORN!"

'Great,' thought 7 year old Harry Potter 'more time in the bloody cupboard for my 'Freakishness''. Harry was still unsure of what had actually happened. It was the last day of term at school before the summer holidays began and not much had occurred. Which was strange for Harry since Dudley and his gang seemed to think that a day not spent tormenting and beating up Harry was a day wasted.

So when Harry heard someone yell "there's the freak, get him!" he was already running across the playground and jumping over the fence towards the school. But then his path to the doors was blocked by Piers Polkiss, Dudley's best friend.

"We've got you now Potty." Piers had sneered, his ratty face lighting up with excitement.

Panicking, Harry was forced to change directions and head towards the school kitchens at the back of the school in hopes of hiding there. But just as he went to jump over some bins to hide behind, a strange compressing sensation enveloped him and Harry found himself on the school roof.

Harry's hiding place worked, but Uncle Vernon wasn't very pleased after receiving a call from the Headmistress informing him that his nephew had been found climbing school buildings. When Harry claimed he didn't know how he'd gotten on the roof and had just been trying to hide from Dudley, Uncle Vernon only seemed to get even angrier.

Harry had always been very clever for his age, he'd picked up reading very quickly and school wasn't difficult at all, the answers seemed to pop into his head as though he already knew what they were learning. This seemed to particularly annoy the Dursley's when Harry returned home with the top marks in class, meanwhile their 'Precious Diddikins' still had difficulty spelling his own name. Harry had of course been punished and from then on needed to hide his intelligence by only achieving average marks, so as not to make Dudley look bad.

The Dursleys had always neglected Harry, and were quick to blame him for everything. Harry's upbringing meant he quickly learnt to be independent. His punishments normally involved long and tedious chores or extended periods in the cupboard. Although the Dursleys treated him badly they never hit Harry, except for Dudley of course.

But Harry still couldn't figure out how he'd ended up on the roof, it seemed as though unexplainable things occurred around Harry regularly. Just last year Aunt Petunia had had enough of his 'awful hair' and proceeded to cut it so short he was almost bald except for his fringe, which she left 'to cover that hideous scar'. Harry spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day. The next day however, he got up to find his hair back to how it was before Aunt Petunia had sheared it all off. He was ignored when trying to explain that he didn't know how it had grown back over night and was forced to spend a week in the cupboard.

Another time, his teacher's wig had turned blue in front of the whole class, when Dudley informed his parents they blamed Harry for it.

Whenever these strange things happened the Dursleys blamed Harry and his 'freakishness'. But what was Harry's 'Freakishness'? Was it strange powers that could transport him onto the school roof or change an object's colour… almost like magic?

As Harry thought the word he recalled a flash of green light, high cold laughter and a burning pain on his forehead, his scar gave a sharp throb of pain and then Harry slumped into unconsciousness...

Memories started to flash before Harry's eyes, but they weren't Harry's memories, they belonged to a boy named Tom, who lived in an orphanage. Tom had strange powers just like him and could talk to snakes, but Tom seemed to use them to bully the other children at the orphanage.

A man named Albus Dumbledore came to the orphanage and told Tom he was wizard, 'is that what I am?', and offered him a place at Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry to learn magic.

Tom arrived at Hogwarts and was sorted into Slytherin house, Tom was extremely gifted at magic, Tom realised he was the Heir of Slytherin and began looking for the legendary Chamber of Secrets.

Tom didn't have any friends, he didn't need or want them, but his housemates began to fear him and would do what he told them to do, Tom enjoyed the power.

In his Fifth year, Tom found the chamber and used the Basilisk inside to attack mudbloods. The school was prepared to close after a mudblood was killed, but Tom didn't want to return to the orphanage, so he was forced to cease the attacks and framed the oaf Hagrid for the crime, Tom even received an award for it.

Dumbledore had become suspicious of Tom, but attacking children was no longer his goal, he had new plans. Tom wanted power and began searching for ways to achieve immortality. After discovering his Father was alive and nothing more than a 'filthy muggle', Tom changed his name to Lord Voldemort and discovered Horcruxes, the darkest of magics.

Tom murdered his Father and Grandparents and then framed his Uncle Morfin Gaunt for their murders. Tom used his Father's death to create his first Horcrux, a diary. Tom planned to turn the ring stolen from his uncle into a Horcrux, but first he had to confirm it was possible, after all 7 was the most powerfully magical number.

The memories continued and Harry learned of the rest of Tom's life, Tom charming the Grey Lady to reveal to him the location of Ravenclaw's Lost Diadem, Tom working at Borgin and Burkes, murdering Hepzibah Smith and stealing Hufflepuff's Cup and Slytherin's Locket.

Tom then began to travel, first to Albania to collect Ravenclaw's Diadem and then the rest of the world to learn as much magic as possible.

Tom's experiments had changed him and when he returned to Hogwarts to hide the Diadem and request the DADA job from Dumbledore, he was unrecognisable to Tom Riddle. Dumbledore had heard of Tom's new name and his followers, the Death Eaters.

As the memories continued they became more sickening to Harry, he learned of the war and Dumbledore's resistance group the Order of the Phoenix, and saw first-hand all the pain and suffering Voldemort had caused. And then Harry received his first glimpse of his parents as they fought and escaped Voldemort.

Voldemort received disturbing information from a Death Eater named Snape, a prophecy had been made predicting the Dark Lord's downfall. He hadn't heard all of it, but Tom was worried and became obsessed with finding and eliminating the threat. After discovering only two possible candidates, Tom decided the Potter child was the one referred to in the Prophecy as he was a Half-blood like Tom and his spy Pettigrew spoke of the child having already displayed great magical talent and at an extremely young age.

When he began searching for the Potters, his informant Snape made an unusual request of Tom to spare the mudblood Mother, which he grudgingly agreed to.

The next few memories enraged Harry, as the spy Pettigrew, who was his Father's friend, betrayed the Potters after being entrusted with the secret of their location. Tom found it amusing that they had been foolish enough to trust the 'rat', as Peter had explained all about The Marauders after Tom took an interest in the Potters.

And then Harry was forced to watch the memory of his parents' murders, his Father killed while unarmed as his Mother attempted to escape with him. But she was trapped and her barricading of the door was useless against Lord Voldemort, Tom had thought with faint amusement. Lily was offered the chance to live, but still refused to move, so Tom killed her. After stepping over the mudblood's corpse ,Tom pointed his wand into the face of his supposed vanquisher, he wanted to see it happen, the destruction of this one, inexplicable danger.

"Avada Kedavra!"

And then he broke, and he felt himself being torn from his body.

This was the end of the memories it seemed. Harry wondered whether he was sane, it all seemed so impossible. But it would explain all the strange things that happened around him. His scar must have been the result of the killing curse which seemed to have rebounded and Harry had always had dreams of a flash of green light and high cold laughter, and if the Dursleys knew of magic it explained their contempt for him as they hated anything they thought unnatural and always became angry when strange thing happened around Harry, accidental magic as he had discovered.

But how had he ended up with Tom's memories?

There was a whole magical world hidden away from the 'muggles' and he belonged to it, thought Harry with excitement. It seemed that Harry had survived the unblockable killing curse and the curse had hit Tom instead. But Tom would return eventually thanks to his Horcruxes and Harry wouldn't be safe from him. Harry assumed that Voldemort's defeat by a baby must have been big news in the Wizarding World, so he was probably well-known. Now that Harry thought about it, he did recall a few times when out with his Aunt when people wearing strange clothes, robes Harry now realised, had shaken his hand and thanked him for no apparent reason.

Because of the prophecy, Dumbledore would most probably have taken charge of Harry's protection after his parents died. The Headmaster would have understood the danger posed to Harry from any remaining Death Eaters or Voldemort if he were to return before Harry could defend himself. This explained why Harry was living in the muggle world, where it would be difficult to find him. Dumbledore would likely have assigned someone to watch over Harry, so he would need to be discreet about his new-found knowledge to prevent this possible sentinel from learning he had any knowledge of the Wizarding World.

But Harry would need to make sure that anyone he didn't trust was unable to discover that Voldemort had unintentionally transferred his memories to Harry that night. From Tom's memories Harry knew it was possible to extract information from a person's mind using Legilimency; so he would need to build Occlumency shields to protect his mind. Voldemort was still out there somewhere, searching for a way to resurrect himself. And when he did, Voldemort would hunt Harry down because of the prophecy. Harry would need to learn all he could from Tom's memories before Voldemort managed to return.

During the next five days of his time in the cupboard as punishment, after coming to terms with what he had discovered, Harry began building Occlumency shields around his mind. This involved constructing walls from useless or even false memories to protect the more valuable and important memories. The walls consisting of so many memories would slow down the Legilimens and hide important memories, giving the occlumens time to force the intruder from their mind. Harry used three layers of walls, with Tom's memories and knowledge in the inner most core and the progressively less important memories from his own life in the other two outer cores, each protected by a layer of false or useless memories.

Harry also began to work out a plan; he wasn't going to allow himself to be treated so disgustingly by the Dursleys anymore, to do this he'd need to give them a demonstration of his new found talents.

After completing his time of punishment in the cupboard Harry continued building Occlumency shields and began practicing wandless magic in a discreet area of the park, shielded by trees. Only the most powerful wizards were capable of wandless magic, Voldemort and Dumbledore being perhaps the only wizards capable of it in Britain, other than Harry. Wandless magic was extremely limited and users could only really accomplish feats such as summoning, banishing, levitation, and a few other simple spells. But it would be extremely useful being able to summon your wand back if you were to lose it in a duel. It would also be extremely beneficial to Harry as the ministry were unable to detect it through the trace placed on magical children. Once Harry managed to obtain a wand and brewed the same potion that he knew Tom himself had used to break the trace, he could begin using Tom's memories to learn magic and how to defend himself. Tom's memories hadn't made him capable of performing the spells within Tom's knowledge instantly. It would take a while to go through all that Tom had learnt both at Hogwarts and during his travels, but Harry still had several years until attending Hogwarts as he would only be eight years old at the end of July.

Harry also needed to find out what had been happening in the Wizarding world since the defeat of Voldemort, to do this he would need to visit Diagon Alley, so he would have to persuade his Uncle to take him to London.

Harry decided Dumbledore must surely have someone monitoring Privet Drive, Harry would need to be careful about his use of magic if he were to break the trace and get a wand, as he didn't want it known that he had already begun to practice magic.

By the end of the week Harry was ready to confront the Dursleys, and decided to do so after dinner. Dudley had just finished his fourth serving, when Harry decided to begin the conversation by getting straight to the point.

"I know I'm a Wizard."

The result was instantaneous, Dudley looked confused, an expression he wore regularly in class. Petunia let out a shrill screech and Vernon, his face constantly turning a darker shade of puce, gripped his glass so tight it cracked and broke.

"I will not have you speaking of such unnaturalness in my house boy!" Vernon growled out through clenched teeth, his rage at the mention of anything related to the 'M – word' causing him not to question how Harry had found out.

"And if I do?" asked Harry casually.

"THEN I'LL GIVE YOU A THRASHING SO BAD YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO STEP OUT OF THAT CUPBOARD FOR WEEKS!" Exploded Uncle Vernon, the vein on his temple standing out.

"What if I decide to use my talent against you?" smirked Harry while also levitating the kitchen knives from the worktop and directing them towards the Dursleys with his palm outstretched. The Dursleys all shrank back in fear and Dudley let out a pig-like squeal as he realised his cousin wasn't joking. "From now on you're to at least treat me civilly and you can no longer refer to me as boy, my name is Harry and I expect you to use it. Also I want clothes that actually fit me and a reasonable portion of food. I'll also be moving into Dudley's second bedroom…"

"But that's Dudley's room!" interrupted Uncle Vernon.

"Dudley second bedroom" continued Harry. "He can still use it to store his broken toys in, but I won't be sleeping in that tiny cupboard any longer. What would the neighbours think if they knew that was my room?" said Harry while turning to see Petunia's horrified expression. "Also, I need you to give me a lift into London on your way to work tomorrow Uncle Vernon. If you agree to this I won't use my freakishness on you, are we agreed?" asked Harry.

They all nodded, still looking terrified that Harry would change his mind and butcher them with the levitated knives. Harry left the kitchen after putting the knives away. Harry was particularly surprised that Dudley hadn't made any protests about Harry taking his second bedroom.

'That went well' thought Harry as he climbed the stairs to his new bedroom.