Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It is a flash of silver in the corner of her eye. The noise is a swooping sound like that of a crane. The blade finds its mark and her head rolls. She can’t even scream or hiss as it is severed from her neck. And she hits the ground below her. Her very last thought is that he will die now. He will die without her protection. The young man that has grown to be something that only something like her can love. She would have saved him if she could… change it for the both of them. She has no eyelids so there is not a single tear that can be shed and she knows that none will ever miss a snake. None but the boy that found her hiding in the great forests of Europe. None will ever wonder who Nagini was, what she wanted, how she felt. Why she would do the things that she has done.

~~~¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.-<>< ~~~

She feels like she is endlessly falling, her scaled body unraveling into darkness. Scales falling away like falling petals and stars that twinkle and reflect more light than she has ever been able to give in her lifetime. It's like ink being placed in water, the darkness swirls around her. It twists, turns, and deepens. It passes around her and through her. Drifts like Credence's magic used to. The horrifyingly beautiful power that had been all his own.

She can not feel anything. Not her body, not her surroundings, nothing. She doesn’t know how long she is pulled towards the inevitable ground. The time though feels endless. And slowly the black gives way. The light is near blinding.

And she wakes after what feels like a lifetime. The cool, light, spring breeze carrying the sweet, subtle smell of daisies, foxglove, and the honey-like scent of daffodils, and the soothing aroma of lavender. The petals scattered in the wind and she slowly stood in the midst of a great field with flowers that stretched as far as the eye could see. Down lower there is a lake that shimmers with calm waters. It's beautiful. More so than anything that he has ever seen. Not that she has ever had the chance to see much. She takes a few careful steps forward. The ground is steep, and hilled. She can see a small station and railway that is at the very end of her vision. She blinks out tears. She takes in deep and wonderful, calming breaths. She looks at her pale skin and hands. It's her. She turns her hands over and looks at her palms and nails. She curls her fingers testing them. She can not remember the last time that she stood on legs, and hers are unsure and hard to move. Her dress catches on the grass. The black reminding her of the darkened scales that had once been smooth and covered all over her.

She has spent her whole life in confined spaces, under the stairs, a tent, and a prison cell. Her life had been running from one place to another, one adventure to sweep him up into another. She closes her eyes this is the first time she has really felt at peace, total peace. She is not confined to the body that can not fit her soul and her magic is limited. Though she has always been limited magically with her curse and lack of education. It does not mean she isn’t smart. She can read basic words. She can read people better than most. Her animal instincts are always heightened by her curse. Sometimes near overwhelming. She feels against the nearest flowers petals the soft feeling under her thumbs something she can’t really describe as anything other than pleasant.

There is a darkness behind her, but it is starting to be forgotten, like a bad rain cloud that has been blown away by the breeze. The hum of life and voices distorted to the sound of birds, cooing doves, and the buzzing of the hummingbirds echo within this space. There is a very familiar sound of the wind blowing through the beautiful green vines of the weeping willow beyond. The grass beneath is a delicate yet plush foundation that she can stride through. She bends the branches out of her way, no direction set in mind. Just a wanding to move forward and experience. Perhaps she would lay down soon. Rest in this peaceful place.

She feels tired. Very tired. She has been moving too long. Her blood curse forced her to live on longer than should have been her life span. Forever as a snake, that is the curse. She is older than this new body reflects and she can feel it in her soul, that old ache that will not go away. Still memories are disappearing, becoming less troubling. This fuzzy lightness is a little intoxicating.

Her sights are moved to the heavens, fluffy, soft, white clouds can be seen with the sharp contrast of a bright blue sky behind. In this particular garden, nothing seems amiss. In this special place, it seems that the world that has so much hate, fear, and pain, is no longer. It is a place of peaceful solitude; the type of seclusion that just seems like sheer excellence. Nagini smiles slightly. Credence would have liked this place, so would Tom. It's far from the busy city and she enjoys the freedom of this place. It hits her then like little raindrops, small memories that trickle in and back to her now she is thinking about it. Worrying about it.

Her form twisting and tangling, no matter how she thrashes she will not turn back.

A monster…

A beast….

She shuts her eyes. Gripping at her head and hair.

How long had she wandered alone?

No one to talk to.

No one to miss her.

She grabs onto herself hugging herself tightly, hunching in on herself. Her skin is smooth unlike her scales, but there are scars, old ones, that are from chains. She rubs at her face. Even in her hysteria, she can hardly give a few tears. There is nothing that can calm her. Not even breathing in the smell of fresh dew and wet earth. She can picture herself crawling in it. Forced to be something that she never asked to be. She had never wanted to be, a snake. But a snake she had become. She really hates humans even if she herself is one; belongs in the form that she is now. Humans were all cruel and liars.

Nagini had been cast to the woods, the deep grasses, and swamps. There wasn’t anyone alive that had treated her kindly. Credence was the last, and he had left her to her cursed form. She had slipped into living just another day, forcing down food in a body she despised. Then there was a man exploring caves and he dared to speak to her, save himself from her fangs. Tom had not just spoken to her. He had petted her head and promised to look into blood curses. A handsome, calming, confident person. He feared death when she would have welcomed it at the time. Gave her hope that they would meet again, asking her to think if she really wanted to die that badly or if she would realize her gifts and look for a cure? He asked her to think about joining him.

And those words haunted her for years after, what gifts could a creature like her have?

Nagini had suffered between their meetings again at the hands of man. Nearly dead she had slunk into the deeper woods of Albania. Where she found him nothing better than a wraith and she had followed him down a dark path. Followed the only one to break her from the madness and loneliness. A person that could understand her conviction, her needs.

She had loved him. She thinks. Even with the divide that had been made in Voldemort's humanity and sanity. He was a constant companion and the only one to give her real comfort. They were two monsters created by wicked people, propelling themselves further down the destructive path. She did not know who tempted who more in some instances. She can not say she was innocent. But she had loved him as much as someone as flawed of her could. And he is dead. She knew it was coming. She knew that there was only one logical conclusion to their fate. Even if she wishes it differently, she will be the only one that mourns him. The only one that probably understood him.

She felt the prickly blades of the grass beneath her feet and wondered if it was all a dream. A horrible nightmare that she had turned into a snake. A nightmare that she has been dreaming for what seems like years. Surly she did not deserve the fate that had befallen her. No person nor animal deserved to be caged or left to struggle alone. But if it was a dream it is the only life she has ever known. She can not recall a mother or father. She can not recall much of a village either.

Just eyes.

Always fearful eyes.

She looks into the water and can see her reflection. Slowly reaching up and touching her black hair and attempting to fix it like those proper women of London. The ones that she is told are beautiful and she herself is not. She is the snake woman. It is the name that they had given her. She knows not her true name. She was sold without one. Nagini… she will always be known by it.

Voldemort had at least used it affectionately and un-mockingly.

She could stay here and the place had a strange way of being rather calming even with her strong emotions raging inside of her. But it is almost too perfect. Reality is harsh and she has always been a victim of circumstance. She had never pushed back the tides. She had accepted her fate and fell into depression. Her once friends forget about her and her sacrifice. Dumbledore had ruined everything…

Credence…

Her Tom…

Her lip curls and she can see her sharper canine teeth. Ones that had been her fangs to strike back at the world. The very ones she had barred at the boy destined to take Tom from her. But he had been talked into that position. He had acted like the perfect sacrificial lamb and her dear Tom had taken that bait. But that boy was also cursed she supposed with a name, face, and Horcrux accidental or not. Tom hadn’t believed her that there had been something off. She empathizes with Harry now that she has her mind again. No one asked for fate to curse them. No one asked for misery and tragedy to mar their lives.

She dipped her hand into the water disrupting the surface. There is the shimmering of scales that form as she pushes at the liquid. Those glittering black and brown patches are her truest of forms. She had been a snake more than she had ever been a woman.

Nagini lets out a deep breath that almost slips into a hiss. This place was not for her. It is too peaceful for the things that she has done. She had even stooped as low to try and eat humans to access their magical cores in an attempt to be healed. She had increasingly become desperate to become human for there had been no other goal to go for. No other wish than to be a real use to Tom. She could feel the Horcruxes being destroyed. She could feel his pain. They had been tied till the end.

Now she is cleared from his muddled emotions and can only feel her own. Her own heartbeats and her own thoughts. It feels though as if there is something missing. If there is no rage to her, no drive to protect at all costs, what is she?

What is a familiar without their other half?

She truly had become something fearsome, hadn’t she? Truly every bit of a beast the old man at the carnival used to claim she would become. Tom had called her greater than the Basilisk that laid under the school. The queen of serpents, smarter, more formidable than any but himself. She laughs softly. She doesn’t wish to be such a Queen any longer. That rule ended on the steps of a castle. Executed by children that she was too mindless to realize did not deserve her vengeance.

If she could go back… she would find a better way to protect him. She would save them both from that time of isolation in the magical wasteland in Albania. She would help mend his shredded soul. So he would have a chance at a better afterlife. One that she seemed to have gotten with the place around her. One that he would never have with a fragmented soul.

If Tom could be given one thing… she would like that when he died that he could rest peacefully. His life had been just as tormented as hers.

The lake shatters as if it is breaking glass.

Is it not to your liking? A being appears beyond the shadow. He is taller than any person that she has met. Thinner as well. He smells like dust, old earth, and parchment. There is the faint odor of rot as he moves closer. I tried to find a place where both halves of you would be happy.

She would have liked it many years ago when she had been contemplating her end, not now though.

“Am I not a woman, but a snake?” She stares at the skull beyond the hood. It reminds her of the graveyard and the large stone that she had climbed. The night that Tom brought himself back. The night that everything had started to change for the worst.

You are a woman. The voice is nearly swept up by the wind. The place around them is fading to nothing but black mists. But, I would say the snake is every bit a part of you. The snake I can not claim is solely responsible for the way things ended, nor is the human side.

She stands back up. “I suppose they worked together, though it doesn’t matter now.”

It perhaps does. You had a wish before you died reaching out to make a contract that I just stopped you from making. The skeletal hand rests on her shoulder. Do you remember what it was?

She can feel her own neck being sliced into. Hear Tom screaming. She can see the last bit of the battlefield full of bodies.

Children… Children that should never have been harmed.

“I wished to save Tom.” Nagini looks into the glowing eyes behind the hood. “Though I suppose that saving him would help to stop the tragedies that were to be.”

Death if that was what the being was or an angel nod. It could.

“But you do not believe that it would.” Nagini can feel the entity's emotions. They drift to her like a melody. The sadness at his words.

There are things that are even with the most will unchangeable.

Tom was stubborn, he was twisted. She knows that. She knows it better than anyone.

“If I could, I would still try. When he first talked with me, treated me as a person, a person he cared for. At that moment, I felt free. Free from my memories. Free from my burdens. Free from everything. I would like him to feel that way. Free him from those mistakes.”

Even if that meant putting him to rest after she collected his soul for him. He could not be allowed to take life the way that he had been. He can not become the person that leads to the great castle crumbling.

If that is your wish… There are deals that can be made. The question is would you risk your soul for it? This afterlife?

Nagini looks back through a mirror below them. The flowers blow in the wind and there are pleasant smells and an open space that she was able to be out in the open. An afterlife of peace and she would never have to hide. But it would be lonely. She had spent nearly 60 years alone after Credence's death. Her first love she doesn’t think she can save. He had not listened to her then and he would not have listened to her now even if she could seemingly tell him his future. But there were others that she could be of use to. To return to the world of the living as she now understands her journey would entitle, would be to feel the hate of magical society again. If she was to choose that path; If she was to return then she at least knew how to bare her fangs. Tom had taught her how to fight if nothing else.

“I would.” She smiles slightly.

~~~ ¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.-<>< ~~~

There are a lot of rocks below her. Sharp against her belly. Small blank eyes look around her and her tongue flicks in and out of her mouth so that she could taste the air. She twists her body up onto the brighter side of the rocks good for basking. There are fake plants covering and old wood that smells of rot. She hisses softly to herself as she remembers this smelly demeaning place.

Death did promise there would be some compromises. She looks up at the glass and measures herself with her body. Testing the strength of it and looking at the door that has a knob to let whoever it was into the enclosure that needed to come in and out. It would not have been too hard to escape but then she would not succeed in getting herself where she needs to go. There were people she was to save and others that she needed to bite. One particularly annoying old coot needed to be pumped with as much venom as she could provide. It is a pity that she was not brought back to a different time.

She sweeps over her enclosure again. There is no real good way to get stimulation for her. The people, ugly, disgusting, humans press their faces against the glass. And she welcomes calling them such things. It of course earns her more shouts that hurt her sensitive ears as it is apparently very interesting to see her move. She lets out a deep breath through her nostrils, flaring them the best that she could and flicking her tongue in a few times as she pressed down another violent hiss from escaping her. She doesn’t hate children. Just prefers quiet.

Tom understood this even silenced his Death Eaters when they became too loud for her. She longed for a good fire and nice hardwood floors that were easy to glide across. She would even take aluminum over mulch.

Whoever thought that sharp rock and bark were great habit material should be strangled.

It mattered not. She would meet the person she had to first promise to save in order to get to her Tom. He would come soon. So she will wait. She knows just the way to get in his good graces. In the meantime, she looks over her scales and makes them as shiny and well kept as she can. She will not be rescued in filth and she will make her ‘keepers’ do their work.

She had better not have to wait long to get out of this.

~~~ ¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.-<>< ~~~

She makes a plan then again she is not really sure that it is much of one. Nagini was not really a planner. She had always had big dreams as a child, breaking her curse, exploring the world, falling in love, having a small place of her own. At one time she had thought about having children and marrying Credence. They said dreams without a plan were fantasy and well she had to have been living in one for far too long in her past life.

So rather she has bullet points on what needed to happen.

The first part of it is upholding her end to Death. Making sure that Harry Potter is well taken care of and shall never become his master. Death liked being a free agent. Her task thus must be divided. Raise Harry Potter to collect the soul pieces and not destroy them. Bring her Tom back with a full soul, power intact. The younger more sane version was preferable. Vows should be able to fix the end she had seen. Voldemort does not want to die and his war will bring his death. So making him agree to work in other ways to hold power and push magic is perhaps do-able.

She moves her tail through the bark to make important marks. She knows of 6 Horcruxes and their respected locations. Crown, cup, ring, locket, boy, and book. She had met him when he had only made Book and Ring. The young ambitious and hopeful person might still be in there if she was to use those to bring him back.

Yes, she would need hands for that. She let out a small hiss of annoyance. The rat would not be able to hear her and the wraith was who she had listened to before and knew full well that small part of him was already succumbing to madness. Even if she had loved Tom she is not foolish enough to try that again.

She runs her belly over the bark again flattening it. Banging her head against the tank glass for inspiration. Everything would have been so much easier if she was human. Not that she had been the best at being human. She never had the chance to do the things she heard about. Curse Love and not wanting to be lonely. A flower field sounded nice about now.

She stuck out her tongue in a large sigh and quickly moved behind the large log when she noticed a janitor looking at her with wide eyes.

~~~ ¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.-<>< ~~~

Soft blankets and small dresses are all neatly folded and placed in front of her. She slowly reaches out a trembling hand and takes the blanket that is offered its fluffy and she rubs her dirty face into it. It smells nice and she hasn’t seen anything this colorful before. She likes warmth, she built her nests from scraps she can find. Her bright brown eyes reflect in the man’s blue that is smiling at her. He has pale skin unlike that of any she has ever seen. He has hair that is short and graying.

“ Dear child how long have you been out here?” There are people all crowding around her. Looking at her with greedy eyes.

She fearfully lets out a low hiss of warning.

She jerks awake her head slamming into the log behind the fake foliage and the side of the water bowl. She rubs her head into her many coils. She is no longer that scared little girl, she is no longer foolish, or trusting. She will never let false people take advantage of her or the ones she is going to protect again.

~~~ ¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.-<>< ~~~

It is the ugliest child that she has ever seen. He is pudgy and there are a walrus and a rat-faced woman standing beside him. They are looking at her with fascination. The one boy reminds her slightly of a younger version of Tom like the small part of his soul that she had taken into herself. His hair is messy and his clothes far too large. They look like extra rolls of stretched skin as they are dyed an awful gray color. The boy has a mitch-matched shirt on over the top to hide the many bruises that he no doubt has. Thin as death he was. Unhealthy is the way his eyes are sunken in. She looks at him and he looks back at her.

“Make him move.” Comes the bratty child's voice.

The large man does what all the other annoying adults did. He bangs on the glass. If she was not pretending to be asleep then perhaps she would have shown just how much she dislikes loud people. If she got wound enough the keepers would close the curtain around the enclosure to help her calm down.

“Move.” He adds to the effect sounding like an oversized cow.

At her not even batting a non-existing eyelid. The pygmy hippo proceeds to scream and bang on the glass the repeated message of “MOVE.” The man’s eyes widen and the woman weakly smiles at her son.

The only one that seems to find fault besides Nagini in the behavior is the twig boy in glasses.

“He’s asleep.” He defends her.

“He’s boring.” The pig decides to leave.

~“Sorry about him. He doesn’t know what it's like lying there day after day. Having people press their ugly faces in on you.” ~

She moves her head towards him slowly. Showing that she is listening. She shakes her head back and forwards a bit as she rises off the tank's old wood. His eyes widen comically large. It must be his first time speaking to one as impressive as herself.

~“Can you hear me?” ~

She flicks her tongue in and out. ~Yes.~

She chuckles as he nearly falls backward.

~” It’s just I have never talked with a snake before.”~ He tries to defend. He already sounds brave. There is hope for him. She will make hope if there is none, but it is reassuring. ~“Do you… I mean do you talk to people often.”~

She shakes her head.

~“You're from Burma aren't you? Was it nice there do you miss your family?”~

~Little one I am not from Burma, nor do I have any family.~

~”I never met my real family. I never knew my parents. My name's Harry, what's yours?”~

She shakes her head slightly. Little children really did give things away, didn’t they? Naive and fragile was this little hatchling… Her snake instincts told her how easy it would be to eat him. Cute, fragile, things were for eating. The more human side pointed out how children needed to be cared for. Not that boas and mixed magical species like herself really watched their young. The only child she had been around was Draco for a bit and he was nearly insufferable always flinching and panicking at her every movement.

~ I wish to leave.~ She hissed to him. ~ I do not like this place. It is not the place I come from. ~

~ And where is it that you come from? ~ Harry Potter asks her. His big eyes glistened with wonder. She moves closer to the glass.

~ I will tell you if you help me to leave. ~

Harry opens his little mouth but finds himself on the ground as the larger more annoying animal plows into him. “Mummy! Daddy! You will never believe what the snake is doing!”

As he bangs more against the glass leaning closer to Nagini the glass disappears and the pudgy mass falls right over and topples into her water dish. She hisses with disgust she did not want to drink salty water or taste where he had been. She slowly extends herself over the railing and over the lip of the cage. She drops down next to Harry and motions at him to follow her.

~Thanks, run now with me.~ She hisses encouragement as she knows perfectly well that the parents are distracted and it will give her time to explain some things to the boy. There are people already screaming snake as the small child gives in to her wish and runs with the backpack and supplies he had been carrying for his worthless family.

They make it decently far to the more secluded area of the zoo. Nagini hides into the bushes and flattens herself down so that she will blend in better. ~It was best to give them time to cool off. ~

~ They won’t cool. They are going to be even worse when they do get a hold of me. ~ Harry admits. His face is so tiny she bumps her face into his leg.

~ Hush.~ Her voice dips to the stereotype of a longer hiss of the word. ~ They will not harm you. Not while I live. ~ She shows him her large fangs and he looks quite confused by them.

~I didn’t think boas or pythons had fangs.~

~They don't. I am magical. ~ She preened. It made her special besides the part that she could not change about herself.

~ You can’t be magical. ~

She rolls her head which is about as good as she is going to get to rolling her eyes. ~ And yet the hatchling is talking to me. If I am not magical and you are not magical. How is it that we are having this conversation?~

~ I could be hallucinating.~ The boy hunches in on himself. ~Uncle Vernon thinks I have too wild of an imagination.~

~ Do not make me bite you to prove that I am real. It would be a very unpleasant experience for both of us. ~

She coils herself slowly around him. She had done this to Tom on occasion to calm him down a bit. He would brush her scales and feel relief. It is the best human thing she can do. Give a hug. Not too hard of course. It would be too easy to kill with one of her strangleholds. He would not stand a chance. She had tired things Tom’s way through with bloodshed and as she brushes up against his face with hers she can tell that there still is a part of Voldemort's soul in there. She flicks her tongue out and in taking in his scent and imprinting hers onto him.

~Okay, you are real.~ He closes his eyes to her affections. ~But Magical?~

~ Magical people are drawn to one another. ~ She hissed softly. ~And I was drawn to you. ~

Harry this time looks really surprised. He has no idea that he is magical. The idea is sickening.

~ I have been waiting~ She cuts off any questions that he might have. ~Waiting for someone that could speak to me. And you child are the only one that can, that is worth my talents. So we will make familiar vows and we shall work on punishing the hippo for harming you.~

He looks a little scared of that. ~ I don’t really want to punish the Dursleys …~ She tilts her head at this. Normally most people are at least eager to get even. She has met so many that wish for this. Harry takes that as a need to continue speaking and runs on with his explanation. ~They don’t like anything that is magical… and well I live with them…~

~Yes and they mistreat you. To mistreat a Magical child is a great insult. To be raised by non-magical people is a crime. ~

Harry pulls up on his clothes as if that has shown some of the bruises off to her that she knows that he has.

~Do not worry. I will just make them remember that they are your parental figures, no matter how unfitting that they may be and I will help catch you up to speed.~ She gives him another affectionate bump of her nose into him. ~ I will take care of you. ~

~Your tongue tickles.~ Harry laughed. His smile is nice. She can not name many times that she has gotten Tom to smile at her. It sends a very warm feeling from her insides. As quickly as his smile comes he frowns. ~ How am I supposed to get you out of the zoo? And what are even vows for familiars.~

She might be lying about familiar vows, she just wants a little assurance that she will not be beheaded later on. She will reveal the truth about her condition at a later date. Nagini climbs off of him and points her tail at the bag. Harry tilts his head and opens it up and Nagini squeezes herself inside the little magic that she has helped her condense herself to fit inside. Her instincts tell her how safe this space is, how she can sleep here. Dark small places are safe.

~That’s brilliant.~ Harry smiles widely. ~You know that you didn’t give me your name. Do you have one? Do snakes even have a reason for them?~

He is a quiet child even when excited. She can get used to this excitability and already fondness of his tone. She doesn’t think there has been anyone so quite ecstatic about her abilities. She is more used to Horror. The large proud snake of Lord Voldemort can fit nearly anywhere she so chooses to squeeze her head through.

~ My name is Nagini. It was given to me long ago. I have no use for any other name nor do other serpents demand titles.~ She answers for him. Sticking her snout out of the space, tasting the air again to make sure that they are still alone.

~Nagini~ Harry tries it out. ~It is a pretty name.~

Her heart warms again to the child. ~Harry is a nice title as well.~

~~~ ¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.-<>< ~~~

Harry is found by his relatives. The child is a very poor liar and can not sell them on the fact that he had been separated in the commotion of the snake escape. They would have to work on that. She nods her head to herself. Lying is something that Nagini hates anyone to do to her, but she knows the relevance of it. Necessity. Even with their rough handling, Harry protects the bag she is in. He is careful not to jerk her around and holds on tight during the car ride.

The pudgy boy smells of old water and blankets. He is hamming up shaking in the seat next to them. The day is warm and there is not a single reason that such a massive creature should be cold with such fat stores. The rat-faced woman keeps commenting in a shrill voice how worried she is about Dudders and the fact that they were facing legal issues for releasing a snake and trespassing into a forbidden area.

Nagini supposes that is the best Muggle minds can come up with to try and explain how exactly a child had gotten into her enclosure. She would not miss the loud voices nor the lack of warm touches. She might miss the rats though, they were rather large and easy to eat. Her favorite would always be rabbits that had been preskinned. She doesn’t like feathers or fur.

It is the second that the car stops that she feels the tension in the car. Vernon was the man’s name and he yanks Harry roughly that just manages to keep her bag from hitting the ground. She waits till there is a change in the air and she hears the door shut.

“What did I say freak?” Harry lets out a very loud audible gasp of pain.

“No meals for a week.” Harry managed. “But it wasn’t my fault. One minute the glass was there and then the next it was gone. It was like magic.”

“There is no such thing as magic.” The man roared and shoved Harry hard as there was the sound of him being knocked into something and then the fumbling of locks.

Yes, it is time to make herself known. Nagini presses hard on the bag. The zipper releases and she slithers out in her largest and most intimidating form. She blocks the door and lets out a deep warning hiss. Harry adjusts his glasses that are yet again nearly in half and stares at her massive form. She can feel the trembles of his heart. She can sense the fear in the air. The disgust and she resists actually attacking the Muggles for it. She needs to use her intimidation now. The woman lets out a high-pitched scream and the boy cowers into her. The massive man’s red face quickly drains of color.

~Tell them to listen well, speaker. ~ She instructs. ~ I have chosen my wizard and if they do not want to face the magical world's wrath and mine they will consider treating the boy that defeated the great Dark Lord Voldemort as a baby with all the care and ressspect that he deserves. ~

Her large eyes make sure that they are even with the larger man. She dares him to even touch the little one under her protection now. She hates those that harm others without reason. She has been on the receiving end too long. Too long have they bullied Harry. He plays translator and they go even paler.

“When we took him in we said we would put a stop to this rubbish. Freakyness has no place with the right people.” Vernon is backing towards the hall closet and Nagini can smell the gunpowder. She lunged at him and hisses deeply. Her tail shakes with a warning and she could tackle the man and strangle him should he attempt it again.

“I don’t think she liked that terminology,” Harry said standing up.

~ Tell him the gun will not help him. ~

“Ummm she says the gun will not help you… against magic.” Harry infers rather wonderfully and moves behind her and all is well. She doesn’t wish for him to be in any danger. She dares him to call her bluff. She doesn’t have Tom’s soul in her. She is not as immune to death as she would have liked. She could kill them all easily but she knows well enough that Harry would not approve of such a thing. He has a soft heart. There isn’t anything wrong with mercy to those that deserved it. She is not as sure if they were deserving of anything less than a painful end.

The woman takes another step back. She is blocking her only child and Nagini can at least respect that. It might be the woman’s only redeeming quality.

~ We will be leaving for the magic academy soon. Tell them I am to keep an eye and if I do not like what I see the Magical authorities will get involved and they will do far worse things than Muggle protective services ever could do to them. They will treat us well, host us, and there will be no need for harm. ~

Harry glances between his family and then her. She huffs, moving back towards him. Rubbing her body against him and nuzzling his side as he recounts what has been said.

See I care about you.

See I can protect you.

They will be terrified of me and leave you alone.

She demands he understands that if nothing else.

The hall is silent and there is nothing but the breathing of heavy land mammals. She motions for the boy to follow her by using her body weight as a guide for him, nudging him to the living room. Harry sits on the ugly pink sofa hesitantly as if it is a sin that he was sitting on it. Confidence she would have to help him learn it. Tom had taught her to take pride in herself. The world could beat one down only as much as one allowed for. Voldemort had confidence, he struck fear, and if anything ever bothered him passed his show of anger over it. He never let others know it.

Nagini curled herself protectively around the boy. She rubs against his scar as the Dursleys scramble to get Harry a room set up and to get out from under her gaze. She can feel that small bit of Tom tucked away, resting, and she doesn’t know how to get it out of him. The magic of it though is comforting, reassuring her of her choice.

~Thanks~ Harry hissed to her after a bit. His hands were hesitant to touch her. His hands are rough and the sensation is not unpleasant. With practice, he would be much better at getting the gunk off her scales or helping get rid of loose shedding.

~ You can pet my scales, Harry.~ She tells him softly. She soaks up the affection that is so freely given. She levels out her breathing no longer as on guard nor ready to spit venom at the oppressors. ~ I am sure that you have many questions.~

~ Many ~ Harry admits shyly.

She starts by running him through the basics. Government, Hogwarts, and other magical schools, and basics of politics. She mentioned Voldemort in passing and Harry’s supposed fame. She is not ready to talk about him. Tom is a hard subject. It takes a bit and then there was breaking the world down to Muggles and Magical People. Not all were created equally. Some were recognized as creatures over people. Thus there was a social system. Purebloods thought of themselves as the top and the lowest Muggles. Nagini agrees with the assessment of Muggles being inferior. Even though Harry doesn’t seem to think so. It is most likely because Nagini has many years under her belt of seeing the savagery of Muggles. She has seen Magical people do similar actions. But even at his absolute worst Voldemort had not dropped bombs that killed millions.

~ I suppose humans would all be inferior to Snakes. ~ Harry smiles slightly.

She nods her head, not bothering to argue. She is slightly cold and therefore needs to conserve energy. Vows can wait until after she has a good nap.

~~~ ¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.-<>< ~~~

The Dursleys leave the large snake living in their home alone. It is a scandal as Harry told her waiting to happen. Their son not only broke into the Reptile exhibit and let one of the large boa’s out but also had the audacity to steal one of them and try to hide it in their home.

She spends the next month of summer endearing herself to Harry and being charmed herself she supposes. She has become fond of him. He has spirit and sarcasm. His humor is not dark like she is used to or at others' expenses. He has small bouts of optimism under her encouragement to ask her things.

Nagini takes her time educating Harry the best she can about the Magical world. She has a rather limited lens to give advice from. She has opinions on things of course. They are some of her own ideas, some of Toms, and some of the few people she had once trusted. School is the best route for Harry to take to become a competent well-rounded individual. She abides by the rule that he needs to be 11 before getting his school supplies but encourages him to practice penmanship with ink and calligraphy pen. She has him study stars and a few other important subjects like botany and anatomy. It’s the best that she can do. She can not read books. She has a very limited reading ability and there are words that are far too complex for her to read nor are there exactly the words in the limited language of snakes she can translate.

Harry takes this as an opportunity to help her, with his limited reading abilities. He has held himself back as not to be better than Dudley at anything. She coils around him and puts her head on his shoulder as he reads.

~ What's this word?~ He asks.

~My eyes are not like yours~ She looks over the pictures of the stars. She can not focus on the words for long and they give her a headache.

~We both have bad eyes.~ Harry smiles at her and she presses her snout into his face to push against his glasses.

~We will get you new ones.~

~~~ ¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.-<>< ~~~

When the letter arrives in the second bedroom window. Harry excitedly reads off the strange school supplies. Nagini listens intently to him. It is part of her work on encouragement. He has become in tune with her movements. Leaning into her and letting her move him when needed. She dares to think she has become something that she had long forgotten the possibility of being. Motherly. She gives him both love and chastising. Building him up is more important, so is drying his tears from nightmares about glowing green flashes of light.

~ Don’t call me Nagini in front of other Magical people. ~ She tells him as they sit by the window waiting for someone to show up and take them for supplies. ~That title is for you and you to use alone.~

~People will expect you to have a name.~ Harry says stroking her spine. ~ I also would not feel right calling you just snake or something. It seems wrong like the Dursleys calling me a freak. ~

~A nickname can be used to refer to me in the presence of others ~ She relents.

~Nagi~ Harry shortens her name. ~ It means calm.~

She doesn’t think that many would have considered that word in her past life, but perhaps she has mellowed out in her older years?

~Suitable.~ She moves from the curtains and into the backpack as there is a large man coming up the drive. They have met before in the final battle. She can not say that she was all that thrilled with him. He did not have a present smell, but at least he would not intentionally hurt the boy. It's the person that he works for that Nagini needs to worry about.

Chapter Text

Hagrid doesn't as much knock as he does pound and Harry quickly heads outside before the Dursleys can make a comment. He unafraid makes his way out onto the stoop. The large man is just how she remembers him. He smells funny and he towers over Harry. Even if she knew well enough that Harry was not in danger she pokes her nose out of the bag to make sure that she can see, hear, and smell everything.

"Hagrid." Harry greets. "I expected you from the letter I received." Actually, that is half of the truth.

Nagini knows full well that she is the one that told the other his name. The school had just claimed that they would send someone. She is not really impressed by the groundskeeper. He hardly knew magic. How was he supposed to help Harry other than carry heavy things? Tom never had anyone really move things for him. He would just wave his wand and whatever it was became light as air. Nagini had always liked the idea of the bubbles the circus had. It would have been fun to be able to fly in them for a short time, be as light as air. Her musings are cut off as Harry tries to move them from the front yard.

The hag is peering through the blinds and there are people starting to come to peek over their fences. It was best that they move along. She doesn't really like the onlookers. Not that she would face any backlash if the Dursleys did not look right. She is more than capable of biting them and they wouldn't live to do anything else to herself or Harry.

"I haven't seen yah since you were a baby. I am so glad to be taken yah to get your school supplies." The large man reached a large hand down and patted him on the back. Nagini lets out a warning hiss as it is too close to her and she doesn't want to be squished.

Hagrid's eyes widened a little as he takes her in. She pulls herself a little more out of the bag to give him a better view of her. See my head shape she hinted. I have fangs.

"Don't mind Nagi." Harry smiled. "She just was telling you not to hurt her or me."

'Don't mind me.' she wants to hiss. 'You should watch me carefully. I could kill you both in seconds if I wanted.'

Not that she actually would.

"Nagi." Hagrid greeted. "Quite a strange pattern she has." His big hand pats her head a little too roughly and she swears that her brain is bashed into her skull. There is a slight ringing in her ears and she just manages not to bite him.

"She is beautiful." Harry says and Nagini despite seeing stars manages to lean into him.

Such a sweet boy. The only other person to ever call her that.

"Do yah like animals Harry?" The man holds out an umbrella even though there is not a sign of rain as they walk down the street a bit towards the bus stop. The man is just holding back excitement and unlike Harry he is loud.

"Kind of." Harry shrinks a little into his baggy clothes. "I'm not exactly fond of dogs."

"Dogs are like their owners they pick up things." Hagrid nods his head once in agreement. "Well, that en If they aren't trained right they act up."

"My Aunt... well she is not really my aunt has a bulldog and it chased me up trees." Harry says softly.

"Have you met any friendly dogs?" Hagrid tilts his enormous head down to keep an eye on Harry and to make sure that he is not actually going to step on the child.

"No but there is a poodle down the road that at least wags its tail when it sees me."

"Odd name for a dog Poodle an't it?" The giant rubs at his beard.

" its a type of breed."

The conversation ends when they get onto a magical bus that will take them to Diagonally. Both Harry and herself get sick with the way that the thing jerks about. Harry lets Hagrid rattle on about magical creatures and if he could he would own a dragon. He does not seem like the type that would have been able to handle that sort of responsibility but that was just Nagini's opinion and no one had bothered to ask it since they got into the magical contraption.

The leaky cauldron is a small pub and had she not known there was an entrance to the magical world hidden beyond it. She might have kicked or rather slithered up a fuss on the fact that Hagrid was taking her young vulnerable, naïve, hatchling into such a dodgy place. They are swarmed as they enter and Hagrid announces who he is there with like the fool she took him for.

~BACK OFF~ She hisses loudly and darkly as they dare to try and touch Harry. She tightens around his neck to make herself known and how easy it would be to lash out at them. As long as some of her stayed in the bag she would remain easy enough for Harry to hold. At full size, if she tried this she just might have crushed his delicate little windpipe.

~ It's okay.~ Harry tells her softly. ~ They are just excited. Nagi, please don't bite anyone. ~

~I won't have to if they don't touch you.~

Harry laughs softly at this and she bops her head into his cheek affectionately even though she is annoyed that he would stop her from doing her duty. And at the moment all of hell breaks loose. There are people stunned silent and then there is murmuring loud and upset. They look at her Harry like he is a freak and some look at him as if he is Lord Slytherin born again. Someone that held power and promise.

"He can talk to snakes." Someone blabbed near the right.

"Just like he that shouldn't be named." Another whispered to the left.

"Shh. He will hear us." A Witch in at one of the far tables waves her hands.

"Signs of a dark wizard." Muttered the man she was with in response.

Harry starts to back up into Hagrid who looks just as startled by the action. It takes a couple of moments for everyone to settle again. As Hagrid makes excuses that they need to be on their way. Still, one person blocks the path if just slightly. He is rubbing his hands together nervously. Nagini stares at him, there is something there. It just feels like there is something familiar about him. She has never met this man in her life. She can tell that by the curved features he possesses. His eyes are not the right color. He is too short and sickly looking.

She tastes the air. There are so many scents all bleeding together. Too many people. Nagini never liked to be crowded.

"Ah professor." Hagrid introduces as they get closer. "Harry this is the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Yah will have class with em. Imagine he will teach yah well."

One did not need protection from the Dark Arts if they knew what they were doing and not to go trifling with it. Tom had used magic that was Dark for Dark purposes, but he had used it for good things too. She bumps Harry to encourage him to move forward more towards the man. She wants to know what is wrong with him.

As she gets closer she can distinguish his smell. He smells like parchment, age, dark magic, and home. He wears a turban full of garlic, throwing her off only slightly, but Nagini had been a snake too long to be fooled. She was well trained in finding those she needed to hunt. He can't be the person she knows. But he smells like him and gives off the same feeling of magic if not weaker. He is watching her with fascination.

"Not th-that you need it P-P-Potter." The man reaches out his hand a little bit and it shakes as bad as the rest of him and then takes it back before Harry even realizes that they could or should have shaken hands. The interaction causes Harry to rub his scar and she no longer has any doubts.

She will not speak while he is here. He might already know her and she is not ready to face him yet. Regardless though he stands before her. Voldemort possesses a weak human body. Voldemort was going to be teaching at the school. She now partially remembers one of his rantings about a Stone at Hogwarts. The interaction ends seemingly as quickly as it began and Hagrid takes them outback. She watches him as they leave and he watches her or perhaps he is watching Harry Potter. The boy that he had failed to kill.

"Harry yah didn't tell me yah could speak to snakes."

"I know not many people can. Nagi told me." Harry shifts his weight. "Is it really that bad to talk to them?"

Even with how scared he is. Harry doesn't seem to buy that it is bad to be able to talk to her. After all, Nagini had cemented herself as something important. She was the one to take care of him. Not the Muggles. She was the one that protected him Not Wizards or Witches. Nagi is his familiar and he is her hatchling.

~No don't let foolish cowardly people influence you.~ Nagini gives her part. She dares anyone to say that again to her Hatchling. No one would undo all the work she had already accomplished. Harry would be prideful, confident, and powerful.

"No don't be getting funny ideas." Hagrid taps at the bricks and they start moving. "It's a rare gift I will give yah that. But just cus you can speak to snakes doesn't mean your evil or anything. Its just scary to em is all."

"But why is it scary Hagrid?" Harry asks his annoyance at the whole mess starting to bleed into his tone.

"I'm not really sure I'm qualified to tell you that."

~Then who is?~ Nagini blurts before she can help herself. She has spent so many years listening to Death Eater excuses and bumbling words. Just tell the boy or don't. There was no need to dance around it.

Harry flinches a little at her angry tone. ~Oh Harry. It's not your fault our guide to getting things is not the best at explaining things. Let Nagini tell you whatever he doesn't later. I know far more about speakers than him.~

Harry relaxes to her voice and looks back at Hagrid that is waiting for an explanation to what he had not been included in. "If you won't tell me, Nagi will later. She is knowledgeable about speakers."

'I just don't know much bout it. Hagrid defended. "The only speaker as Nagi calls them in the last hundred years is... is you know who."

"No I don't know who." Harry finally bursts. "No one has told me anything. The only reason I know I have magic is because Nagi told me I do. She was drawn to me because we can speak together. Why is it bad to speak to snakes when they are nicer than people?"

~Calm Harry.~ Nagini hisses sweetly, her heart has truly become endeared to this little boy. ~ It will be alright.~

"Voldemort." Hagrid all but whispered. "He was the last person that could speak to snakes. Do yah... er.. know what he did."

"Yes." Harry says the fight drained out of him. "He killed my parents because of a prophecy."

Hagrid shushes him. "Look Harry I don't know what yer know bout that. But don't be speakin where others can hear yah. There are still those that follow you know who's last wishes."

Harry looks around himself. His heart rate rising just slightly and there was the catching of breath. Out of the corner of her eye, Nagini can see her old friend looking out of the Leaky Cauldron's windows at them.

~Do not worry, hatchling.~ Nagini again offers her comfort twisting like the creature she was as both a way to continue to endear herself but also to assure him. ~I can smell bad intentions. I will not let any that are under that title close.~

Harry lets out another deep breath as a sigh of relief.

~Tell him to get you, your supplies.~ Nagini encourages and Harry takes out his school list and begins to ask questions he had not felt comfortable enough on the bus to ask about.

The brick wall gives way to the magical busy world. And Nagini can not help but feel slightly disappointed. The streets are no different than any busy city, it’s dirty, crowded. The buildings are old and perhaps that was meant to be charming. But it did not have that warmth to it. Not that her memories that Tom had given her seemed to suggest.

It was the first time that I have ever been Happy without mal intent. His voice is warm like sunlight and she can feel the magic to it. It mesmerized her because she did not have nearly as nice memories to visit. I was a little boy that had nothing and I stood at the gates of a kingdom I never thought or imagined could open for me. Filled with people like me.

Voldemort told her as he sat inside her chest. A possession that was not harmful, their mutual arrangement in the wastes to survive till the Rat did what needed to be done. It was as if his thoughts echoed hers, warmed her, made her feel whole. The cold was nothing as she had burrowed them deep under the soil in her nest and she was not alone.

She would never be alone again and all she wanted to do was understand the person that had chosen to be so close with her. People like you? she tilted her head as if listening more to him.

“Magical people. I thought it all wonderful. Owls of all shapes and sizes, people in colorful clothing, and strange creatures around me. Of course, it wasn't as grand once I knew how the people actually were. Scared foolish sheep.”

“Like mice.” Nagini agrees. She knows what they are like fickle and love is never free.

"Yes all foolish and scared of even what they would consider to be abnormal."

"Were you abnormal?" She can not stop herself from asking.

“I was special.” Tom disagreed. “Just like you Nagini.”

The place does not have the magic that Tom had promised she would see. But it seems magical to Harry that has his head on a swivel trying to look at everything and not get lost in the crowded space. Nagini took a better hiding place in the backpack and only kept her head out. There were so many people that were all talking too loudly and bumping into them. When they make it to the bank she is relieved by the silence. Hagrid gave over Harry Potter's key and Nagini told Harry he had best take it afterward because it was his money and no one should have keys to what belonged to him except Harry.

The vaults are deep under the earth. She has been down here before with Tom. She likes the dark, just not how cool it is, the rush of wind makes her just decide it was better to hide in the backpack.

~~~¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.-<>< ~~~

Shopping grows tiresome with every place that they must enter. There are always people looking at him and he stands out far too greatly. Nagini turns up her nose at the thought of cheap dress robes.

~Harry you must look the part. Even if you do not want to play it.~ She insists. ~There are many that will want to influence you and use you. Looking like you are untouchable will help them to keep their distance and think twice.~

~It’s just that it's all so expensive. Nagini.~ He misspoke but there is none that would have been able to understand him. The robe shop attendant is very startled. Nagini disregards her as a threat.

There is a blond boy that is staring at them intensely and she recognizes him after staring at him long enough. Draco Malfoy the little heir and the one that was rather pathetic. He wasn’t trembling to look at her this time. But then she was not her very intimidating size if she stayed mostly in the bag.

~Do not worry about the price. You have funds for this.~ She repeats herself.

“Fine.” Harry huffs out. “Nagi is insistent that I go with a wardrobe overhaul.”

The seamstress looks far too delighted and “What name can I put this under?”

The blond boy is leaning a little to hear.

“Potter.” He whispers to her. “I don’t want to make a scene.” He wisely adds.

Nagini is so proud of him at that moment as it sends the woman into a frenzy to get the best of the best made for Harry Potter the wizarding Savior. Harry takes a stand near the other boy.

“Hello.” Draco greets.

“Hi.” Harry answers a little cautiously.

He had been dealing with super fans all day even when he had tried to cover his scar. Going with Hagrid and talking with Nagini had caused all sorts of problems. Including one near snake bite as she had missed the man that suggested that Harry sell her for potion ingredients. Potion ingredients…

“So you're attending Hogwarts too.” Draco is peering at his face and Nagini raises herself to block him a little.

“Yes.” Harry shrugged.

“Do you think that you will be in Slytherin?” His eyes are bright and sparkling.

“Maybe.” Harry lifts his arm for the measurements.

“You can speak to snakes.” Draco is trying his best to hide his enthusiasm about it but failing. “Only really powerful wizards can. It's why the house is a snake! My family has been sorted there for generations. Course none of us got the gift which is unfortunate.”

Harry smiles a small smile at that. “It's nice that someone likes the gift besides me. Snakes are wonderful companions.”

“I don’t have a snake. My father wouldn’t let me have one. He said that an owl would be better to teach me responsibility and to make sure that I kept writing to all the other noble houses.”

“Ah.” Harry has nothing else to say to that.

“Do you have an owl?” Malfoy asks as a not-so-subtle hint that he would write to him.

“No. I have no need for Owls. I have no one I want to write to.”

She supposes that is better than him saying that he has no one to send letters to. Harry might be able to play with the baby snakes. The blonde opens his mouth again but never gets to finish his sentence because the seamstress that is working on his measurements interrupts.

“Well see you at school.” The boy waves and Nagini hisses softly at the cheery nature.

~Did you not like his smell?~ Harry asks, watching as the young Slytherin to be rushed towards his parents and embraces them. There is a small shift in Harry’s body as he watches them make their way towards the wand shop.

~No. I just disliked what he implied. Not all speakers are good nor powerful.~ Nagini lets herself be set onto the floor as the last measurements for everything but the tops and coats are done.

~Is Slytherin a bad house? I thought that you said someone dear to you was one.~ Harry’s eyes drifted down towards her and she knows that he is having a hard time seeing her by the way that his green eyes squint.

~ It is not a bad house. There have been great Wizards that have come through it. But not all of them and not all of them were good. It is the same for every house. Slytherin is just built differently. It is old and noble and lacks vision. That boy comes from a rather rotten line. ~

~Not all people are their parents though.~ Harry spoke almost sadly.

~No. They are not. ~ Nagini agrees. ~ my last speaker before you certainly wasn’t like his parents.~

~~~¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.-<>< ~~~

The wand shop, glasses shop, and heading home are a bit of a disaster. Harry was certainly frightened by the odd old wandmaker. Nagini felt like Olivander was far too smart for his own good. The way that he had eyed her was unnerving. Hagrid had offered to buy Harry a pet on the recommendations list. But Harry had strongly insisted that a bird would not be good to have and a snake. Until Nagini mentioned that when he made friends and or needed to send letters it was best to have his own bird that he can insure not to be traced. Nagini is grateful Harry doesn’t see her as a pet but knows that birds are something that she is uncomfortable with. It is nice to be thought of.

Home feels nice. She will have to wait and see what the old man’s game would be once he found out that Harry was a parsel mouth and unlike Tom did not bother to hide it. Harry sets her down carefully and reorganizes his small bedroom space to accommodate the new additions. The owl sits on a perch free to roam the room. Nagini naps in the backpack as it feels like a good nest, not like under the bed, but she is too tired to really move for that spot right now. Harry looks over a few books and it gets late into the night.

~Nagi do you know anything about my parents? I mean I could not help…~ Harry’s eyes shine a little. She is used to tears. She has dried Harry’s a few times. She doesn’t know why this time is so painful.

~Notice the other families today.~ Nagini slips from the bag and climbs to her unusual place at the boy's side. ~Do not worry. They might have families that are different than yours but you are not alone. ~

~Right the Dursleys…~ Harry will not meet her eyes.

~Not them. They do not count. I am your family. ~ She bobs her head excitedly. ~I will protect you and keep you safe. You don’t need anyone else.~

Tom hadn’t and she was sure Harry would be the same. He could have friends of course, but there was no need for family or deep connections. If Harry did not want them.

~I would like to make friends.~ Harry says wistfully. ~Do you think that I can make them?~

~You are very special. People will flock to you. I will help you pick.~

Harry laughs and it's a bit broken. ~I am happy to have you Nagi. It feels like a dream and I will wake up. I don’t want to go to public school or wear rags or be locked up under the stairs again.~

Oh this dear child. So big in many ways and so small in others.

~I have always wanted hatchlings. I was just never able to, so you Harry will be my child. I promise that this is not a dream and things will get better as time goes on.~ She coils tightly around him and Harry hugs her back tightly and she feels nothing but warmth. Warm inside, warm on her glittering scales, and with each pump of her heart she knows that her deception is becoming less and less of just a means to make sure that she fulfills her mission to Death. Tom had cared for Nagini in many ways. But she doesn’t know if he had ever been more than fond of her. Harry has love in his heart to give and she no longer wishes to take advantage of that. Not completely at least.

~~~¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.-<>< ~~~

Nagini easily is able to convince the Dursleys to drive Harry to the train station. She has no wish to be traveling on the magical bus again. Harry is dressed nicely. He can not wear his robes in public but the rest of the nice uniform is pleasant to look at. Her hatchling looks handsome with his dark green eyes and messy hair. She hides safely until they make it through the barrier by watching a group of very loud redheads.

~Should I have said something to them.~ Harry asks after they have made it past the wall. ~They seemed to be watching me and I know I covered my scar.~

~They are of no concern or importance. ~ She knows the man. She had bitten him. He had been in the department. Tom had asked to borrow her power for a little to get them inside and he directed her to the one she had to attack.

The larger, older brothers of that red-headed family helped Harry to place his bags in the baggage car and as expected overreacted when Harry gave them his name. It is going to be a long school year. The traitorous Severus Snape had been completely wrong about Harry having a good home life and him liking his fame. Honestly, she needs to teach him to be colder. It would drive some of them away. They sit in an empty train car and students start to distribute themselves. Nagini takes up nearly half the bench. Her large eyes staring down any that would approach the car. Harry has pulled out his book on magical creatures again. He really is a big fan of the idea of dragons. Nagini had in her lifetime seen a few and one of them was made of fire.

“Uh-Uh Could I perhaps ride with you.” A boy stammers out. “Everywhere else is sort of full. My-y Name’s Neville.”

“Sure.” Harry looks up from his book and then goes back to it.

“I-I didn’t know that we could bring snakes.” The boy looked at her and she knew him. He is the boy that cut off her head. She gives a deep-throated hiss of warning. Moving towards Harry scratching herself. It is instinctual maybe for her to seek some comfort when confronted with her would-be killer. How had this boy done it? He was shaking and his toad was struggling in his hands.

She still knows the feeling of Death…That same despair threatens to drown her and Harry just pats along her head.

“Sorry Nagi is very protective of me and she is not a pet. She is my familiar and I can’t leave her at home with my relatives.”

“Is- Is she dangerous?” Longbottom’s hold on his toad increases and he sits there across from them.

Harry smiled. “Yes, but so are they. She wouldn’t be safe with them because they both are likely to attack each other. Nagi will not hurt you.”

He gives her another pat and rubs her scales just right. Nagini huffed. She wouldn’t at the moment but if she ever sees him near her with a sword she will not hesitate to end him.

~ He seems okay ~ She gives and relaxes flat against the cushions.

Harry smiled again. “She says that you're alright.”

Neville gives another small smile and his toad breaks loose from his grip. Nagini watches it hop and hits the car door that is lucky closed.

“Trevor!” The boy moves pretty fast after the thing as it hops all around the car. The boys chase it, crawling over seats and under them. Nagini is tempted to intervene but she might just cause the thing to have a heart attack and if it jerks too much she might bite down because she could not help herself. So she leaves it up to both boys, that. have mixed results as they do manage to trap it under the bench after it runs around in many circles. They aren't able with their short arms to reach it.

“What are you doing.” A girl with a wild mane opens the door to the car and Trevor bolts.

“Close it.” Harry lunges and just manages to keep the toad from getting out and Trevor is at last trapped between the girls and his feet. Her child is successful. He pins the girl a little into the door by his movement and she looks at him with wide crazy eyes. He then just bends down and grabs the toad nearly looking under her skirt with the action.

“What are you…” The girl manages.

~ Not bad for your first hunt.~ Nagini laughs to herself.

Harry flushes. ~Not my fault that the thing is slimy~

~You will not touch me till you wash your hands.~ Nagini would have narrowed her eyes if she could. The best she can do is stare intensely.

Harry rubs his hands on his shirt as he passes the toad off.

“Is that a snake?” The thin girl blinks, recovering from her shock rather quickly. “I didn’t think they were allowed.”

“Nagi is my familiar.” Harry says as they practiced and she had a feeling he will be repeating himself very often. “She goes where I go.”

“But isn’t she a bit big?” Her words are cut off as there is a boy with red hair standing next to the closed car door.

“Whooa.” The largemouth kid manages. “That has to be the biggest snake I have ever seen.”

She was not that big. She had rather trimmed down in her time at the Zoo. She was just eating enough with Hunts long after Harry had drifted off to dreamland. Her eating one of the neighbor's cats in front of Dudley was sure to be scary enough to encourage him to leave them alone.

Harry just sighs sitting back down in his seat as his compartment welcomes 2 new guests. “Nagi’s size can be adjusted if she wants to have it that way. She is not a pet, don’t call her a pet. And make sure the car door is shut and secure just in case.”

Harry surprises her a little. She rubs up against him to check if he is feeling well. He said that he wanted to make friends this is not how that happened. Not at all. Tom could pull off being alone, he prided himself on being standoffish sometimes, she thinks. She doesn't think that Harry wanted to be that way.

“Sorry…” Harry's confidence dives. “It’s just ever since I got on the train people have been looking for me, talking about me, and it's really annoying.” He ran a hand through his hair and the girl's eyes widened.

“You’re Harry Potter.” The redhead says far too loudly.

Nagini sighed for Harry's children were rather tiring.

~~~¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.-<>< ~~~

The children do calm down when Harry explains himself a little better on the issues and personal boundaries that had been crossed in the short time that he had been in the Wizarding World. He skips over the Dursleys rather skillfully and then lets everyone else talk about their respective families and what subjects they were interested in. Talking to snakes becomes a small side topic as Hermione has never heard of the idea of being a Mudblood. Nagini refrained from calling her such a thing in front of Harry as this person became very, very close to him. She knows though that Granger was the supposed brain of the operations. She wonders if they were lovers or really just friends. She leans into Harry to see if she can tell if he is blushing or not. The car is a bit warm and Harry’s heart is not racing. Hermione looks over at her and reaches out her hand slowly. Nagini dodges the attempted pet.

Their personalities were very different. Hermione is insistent and almost has a chip in her shoulder so large that it would be her downfall should she end up somewhere like Slytherin. She has something to prove but came off overbearing and blunt. It made her seem almost cold. Neville had no confidence and Ron seemed to pick up on that and was able to drive the conversation. Ron was outgoing and had a way of making Neville laugh. There was a very rodent smell on him and she lazily looked at the boy’s pocket. Watching as the rat dared to poke his head out of the pocket. She lets out a very high-pitched hiss.

“Sorry Ron. Nagi has instincts…” Harry puts his hand in front of her face.

She can’t tell Harry that she knows that is not a real rat. She can’t chase Peter off yet. He could be useful even if he can not understand her for when she has to confront Tom and needs to give him semi capable hands to help them. Sometimes she wishes that she was a Basilisk and could kill with a gaze. Even if she might need him later…She settles herself again with her head on the boy’s lap. She and Peter were playing similar games of hiding in plain sight.

The Malfoy boy stalks the train and eventually presses his face in the car and looks far too excited about her. He starts with a wave and she finds herself getting up to pull the curtains closed with her mouth. It is a difficult feat but not impossible. She has had enough people peeking into their car. She did not want to add someone that seemed so excited about meeting Harry Potter.

“Nagi they just are going to keep coming.” Harry stops his conversation with Hermione who watches as Nagini lets go of the shade in fascination.

~Yes dear boy and having windows for them to gawk through just adds to the problem.~

“She is really intelligent.” Hermione smiles exposing far too many teeth.

Flattery ? Or insult? She doesn’t think any have said that she was smart in a way that was not condescending apart from Tom and Harry. The people that gathered at the circus and the Death Eaters had always thought that she was just a well-performing animal. Peter is watching her and shaking something awful. She smiles showing her fangs and plays it off as a yawn.

'Does my talking bother you? Good, you're the reason that Voldemort went and got himself killed by giving him what was a baited trap for himself and the Potters. Severus gave us the prophecy but you delivered them to us. You are the reason that I had the displeasure of meeting the Dursleys. Though you are also the reason that I was reunited with Tom.' It's very frustrating. She wants to just hate Peter, but without him, many important events would not have come to pass.

There are a lot of things she is uncomfortable with being shoved into one train car. She will explore the castle to relieve her nerves once she has the chance. She needs to think and she can not do that with all the chattering that is going on.

~~~¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.-<>< ~~~

Hagrid greets them. Harry lets himself be led to the boats and Nagini stays as tightly balled in the bag as she can. She doesn’t like being on the water. Even if the sky up until this point has been nice to look at. Cloudy with a few stars that are able to slip past the dark swirling mist. The four of them end up in the boat together and Hermione can’t stop talking about how pretty everything is. And even with how annoying it is. There is such a contagious feeling of wonder that she dares to look out at the castle that Tom loved so very much. The place he had sieged and nearly burnt to the ground. Where they both had died. It looks better this way, lit up with children all excited to become part of the magical world for real. She knows though about the politics at play. She knows school was a battleground not so different than that of the Death Eaters and those that wanted to climb the ladders. There was fun to be had, studying to be done, but also more importantly networking. Building social status needed to be done correctly, friends gathered well. It was the Slytherin way. And Harry could be friends with anyone that he wanted. She would not stop him. But she knows there will be riffs and ripples made. Harry is the boy who lived, their savior. Even if he never wanted to be, Voldemort had marked him and she didn’t know the rest of the prophecy; she only knew what Tom knew but she can already foresee issues arising. And She needed to figure out her own place in that. She suddenly feels woeful under-prepared for all this now that she is about to take center stage with Harry.

~~~¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.-<>< ~~~

Inside the halls they stand before a door Nagini knows that it is to the great hall. The place they had laid the dead. She looks about herself and there are already children whispering amongst themselves trying to figure out which one was really Harry Potter. There were probably some strong guesses but with her menacing gaze and Harry’s down expression clouded by nerves they should consider themselves lucky that no one approached.

The stars are glistening through the ceiling. Had there ever been something so pretty? She stretches ignoring the people around them and the looks are given. It's all sparling. Harry giggled at her expression. She ignores him. Just soaks up how it looks. It never looked this way when she had been forced to visit the school nor in the battle.

The only home I have ever known.

She suddenly knows what he means. She would have liked to be educated here. She looks at the children that surround them. All posed and waiting to clap and welcome them. The names start and sorting takes place after a catchy little song by the hat.

What house would her dear hatchling end up in?

Her eyes drift from the wonders to the enemy that she can now feel looking at them. Dumbledore sits at the head table, the floor is upward and the staff sits above the student body. They are supposedly the brightest witches and wizards, qualified educators, scholars, and they with the execution of Voldemort that was in disguise all were servants of the light. The wisest of them all, he sits in the middle, in the largest of the chairs; like the lord of light, he is bathed in sparking candle flame and flashy robes. Wrapped up in the spotlight and focal point of the enchanted moon above him and the stained glass behind him. The shadows stretched far from someone that was so bright and she has seen some of the monster's things that lurk in that shadow and the plans that are locked behind those seeming glittering eyes. Nagini looked at him. She stares at the person that condemned Harry and Tom to this game and she feels fear as she knows he is looking at Harry. His calculating, scheming, gaze is deciding Harry's fate. Just like he had decided Tom's at Wools. His smile is ever so slightly faltering on his face. His blue eyes lose their twinkle as they come to rest on her. She turns as not to look too intelligent. Severus and Voldemort are both staring for their own reasoning. Snape is being more obvious and Harry stares back intensely, his concentration only broken when Hermione leaves his side and gets sorted into Gryffindor.

At last Harry is called and every eye falls upon them and Nagini nudges her dear child forward.

~Do not worry about the house you are placed in. ~ She whispers. ~ No matter the house, I will be with you. ~

And so to everyone's bated breath Harry Potter has the sorting hat placed upon his head. It takes a few minutes. The hat and Harry seem to be having a conversation the way that Harry has his eyes closed and his hands tightening around his robe.

‘Snakes are nice.’ Harry says softly. And the older woman that had placed the hat on his head raised an eyebrow and looked back at Nagini that swayed a little at the thought of her being part of the consideration process.

“I KNOW JUST WHERE TO PLACE YOU.” The hat finally speaks and Harry sits up straighter. “SLYTHERIN.”

There are wide eyes and the room is quiet before there are some enthusiastic claps coming from the Slytherin table. Harry carefully takes the sorting hat off his head and places it on the stool. He then picks up his bag and walks as fast as he can without looking like he is running towards the open spot at the end of the table where there would be fewer people that can sit next to him.

Chapter Text

Harry is soon moved to more of the edge of the table as a few people slide down to meet him. Nagini can feel his shoulders sagging with the increased whispers that could be heard over the rest of the sorting. Potter after all is just at P and they have the rest of the alphabet to go.

"Never thought that a Potter would end up in Slytherin or would be carrying a snake." Is just some of the conversation that drifts in and out of the tables.

Most of the comments are unpleasant from the Gryffindor table as a lot of people are hush murmuring that Dark Wizards are the ones to come out of Slytherin. Harry Potter the supposed Wizarding Savior was a Slytherin of all things. Everyone was looking over at him and Harry didn't crumble, but he was not comfortable. Nagini was not exactly sure what she should do in this situation.

~Nagi this is annoying.~ Harry hissed.

~Bear with it hatchling. The idea of a celebrity among them will eventually calm down.~

~Why did I have to be the chosen one?~ Harry gripes. ~ Why can't I be a normal student~

‘Because Tom was a fool.’ She decides not to say that though, just calmly repeats what she had told him several times in the few months to school.

~There is nothing about you that is not special Harry. Remember what we talked about, do not underperform because you do not want attention and do not feel obligated to be the best there is in everything. Only try.~ She hisses in his ear directly.

And even above the whispering, there are those that hear this, and the looks in his direction increase.

"See he can talk to snakes," Draco said enthusiastically.

"Looks that way." A darker-skinned boy huffs. "Potter, are you really talking to that snake or having us?'

Harry pushes his glasses up a little. "No, I am just making hissing noises because it calms her." They blink. "It was a joke." Harry flushes. "Of course I can talk to Nagi, the language just sounds like hisses to those that don't understand it."

"You can understand it all?" A blond girl raises delicate eyebrows.

"It just sounds like English to me. Not sure what to tell you. I didn't really know I was a speaker until Nagi mentioned that not many people can understand her."

"Are snakes intelligent?" A girl with black hair and slightly indented like a pug's face asked loudly.

"Nagi is, but she is magical. Other snakes are not exactly that great of conversationalists." Harry explains much as he had to Hermione on the train and Nagini tunes most of it out.

Especially when Malfoy starts talking about the old myth that Salazar Slytherin had in fact had one more child that he sent into the future to help bring back an era of traditions. It sounded way too close to something she had been forced to hear over the telly when the horse-faced woman and her walrus husband decided to stay home instead of attending church correctly. Harry politely reminds them that he knows both his parents, one of them was Muggle-born, and yes by blood tests done for him at the bank to make sure it was okay for him to keep his vault key. He does in fact know for sure that he is a half-blood and not descended or in any way connected to this weird tale. Malfoy doesn't look too convinced as Harry's apparent use of apparition at a young age proved that he had tremendous magical capabilities if he wasn't lying. And he wasn't. Nagini knew the pulse changes and body muscles of her Harry well enough to know when he was lying. She had gotten that good with Voldemort as well. She never was frightened when he lashed out because she could see him metaphorically coiling and posing himself to strike verbally or through spells. Not all people were as easy to read. By the end of dinner, it seemed Harry had made some allies in the snake pit.

~/*\~

The dungeons were colder than Nagini remembered them. She knew that Severus's chamber was nearby as well as the potions classrooms and his private lab. The dorms it seemed were on the complete opposite side of the place. She can not wait to get out of this backpack and stretch out again. The prefects led them all into a very pretty common room. It seemed that they were located under the lake and there was a glass window that peered out into the blackness of the water. The interior had nice leather sofas and low hanging light. It was warm in the enclosed space with an enchanting fireplace.

Severus stalked his way in just as the prefects finished up their brief speech about the history of the dorms and some ground rules. She tilted her head to the side and slipped further into the confined space of the bag. She might otherwise be tempted to bite him for looking at Harry the way that he was.

"Slytherin is a noble house." Severus starts. "It has deep-running traditions that set it apart from many of the other houses. Because of this, there are many that will look down on you or foolishly lump you in with 'Darker' members that have come from these walls. Too often do many forget that dark wizard can come from any house. As Slytherins, this common room and dorms are your home, make it something to be proud of and protect one's own. The hat has placed us all here..." The beady dark eyes trail the room. "For some reason or purpose. It saw some sort of potential in you and thus I will not tolerate a loss of points nor low scores."

The man folds his hands behind his back. "There are 3 tasks for new students. First is making sure that all your medical records have been turned in or checking in for the needed potions. Second is the class schedules should be memorized as well as the respective locations of courses. No Slytherin should walk to class alone. If you are the type to make problems for your group, I will assign a Perfect to your side until things are straightened out. Is that clear?"

He waits for the children to nod.

"Lastly, ally yourself with those in your own house and outside of it. The other houses might have bias in place; it is your job not to fall into the stereotypes. Though do not let this translate to letting others take advantage of you. If you are going to break rules make sure that I am never aware of it. Slytherins do not get caught. "

There are sly smiles that only children can give one another. Nagini could at least tell Severus did not waste time on setting high standards that she knows some of them are sure to fail.

"The rooms are labeled for their occupants. I trust you all can read, but on the off chance that I have taken you to be far too intelligent not to need help with that task, Flint will be able to help you."

The first few students push past Harry to get towards the rooms. Severus watches them all pass him with a look that is unreadable, yet not unwelcoming.

"Potter a word." He stops them before they are able to get past.

"Yes professor." Harry straightens up.

"I have just made a point about making sure that you are not caught breaking the rules did I not."

"You did mention that professor." Harry straightened up the best that he could.

"Why is it then that you have brought a pet snake to the dungeons?"

"Nagi is not a pet." Harry blurted. Very smooth, she can not help but shake her head as she sticks her head further out to even her gaze at the greasy man.

"A pet." Severus repeats, with a slight edge in tone.

Harry bristles already annoyed by this conversation. "She is my partner, familiar, magical assistant, whatever you want to call it. And there were lots of animals on the train not on the list." He adds bitterly.

~Harry dear.~ She reminds. ~He will not know what you told the others.~

~He was staring at me all dinner~ Harry hissed back. ~He called me out on purpose. You saw the canaries that Flint had.~

~Prehaps he doesn't want me flaunted around the school.~ Nagini responds diplomatically knowing full well that Harry was more than likely correct about Severus just wanting to cause Harry problems.

"I apologize for flaunting her, but she goes everywhere I go," Harry says in a much more controlled manner but no less demanding. "Nagi is my companion and has taken care of me since I was small. I would not know about magic if it was not for her nor would I have made the train."

Oh, Harry can lie when he needs to, he just has to twist his words mixed with truth. He seems so serious too. She could purr with how proud she is, he was learning.

"Explain." Severus folds his arms, his expression has shifted to show a slight interest in actually listening to what Harry is saying.

"My aunt does not like Magic." Harry starts to shut down. "I think hate might be a better word and well I am magic... so you can kind of guess how that went when I said I wanted to go to magic school."

"Enlighten me." Severus prompts his voice is not nearly as cold as before.

"They were not that bad." Harry tried to back peddle and Nagini wished that this boy could have faith in adults. "Just screamed a bit."

Severus was a sleazy weasel but at least he had a heart in his chest. He was capable of some compassion. She let out a loud hiss and looked at Severus before moving her head towards Harry's rolled-up sleeves, the movement making him follow her with his gaze. There were no bruises but there were a few old scars from scraps with Dudley and a larger burn one on Harry's hand from having to learn to use the kitchen equipment early. There were more from Ripper on Harry's leg as the dog had bitten him several times.

"Forgive me." The man turned over his arm and took in the many small marks. Dare she think it concern washed over the man's face. "You should see a healer."

"They never beat me or anything." Harry pulled back a little. "They were awful, but I got most of these myself."

Nagini hissed again. ~This is important. Harry, please do not lie.~

"I'm not lying." Harry blurted and since it was not in her language Severus who had let go raised his eyebrows in surprise."I burned myself making the food and doing chores, you can't blame that on them Nagi and the others were when I was getting away from Dudley and Pierce."

"Potter." Snape looked into his eyes. "I will not force you to go there tonight. However, I would like to have you checked out when you get your physical. I can already tell that you are a bit too thin."

~Thank you~ Nagini huffed and Harry scowled at her.

~/*\~

Their room is located towards the back, it seems that they are with a boy named Theo-door. Harry had to read it to her as the lighting was not the best. The boy was quite alarmed when she had pulled herself the rest of the way out of the bag, tangled herself up into the canopy. She liked the height advantage and the idea that if she wanted to she could get the drop on nearly anything. She would slip out later to hunt. She was sure there were many different things to eat.

Once her dear little child was safely tucked in, Nagini slithered her way through the corridors. She passed Severus's room and the potions lab, she brought herself up into the main parts of the castle, content to refamiliarize herself with the routes and to hunt for the many mice that scurried. She could hear their hearts, their little feet. She had long ago forgotten discomfort in hunting, biting, tearing them, and eating them. She hunted herself a great deal of them so that she wouldn't need to leave Harry's side for a long time.

A mangy cat that is walking the corridors for her master looks at her, the red eyes meet hers.

‘Looking at me as a threat, good.’ She coiled and looked the caretaker in the face as he froze seeing her. She bared her fangs and he ran off to seek someone proper with a wand. By the time that he returned she would be long gone. Slipping into older corridors and wandering to the floor that was off-limits, to scout it for this proclaimed danger. It's so dusty that her body makes trails in the dust, she listens and tastes the air. There is something large and smelly at the end of the hall in one of the closed-off rooms. That might have been the danger that was mentioned but she can not tell. There is no dark magic, nothing worrying here but old statues and rotting boards to older doors. She could have sworn there was something important about this place, by how much it was fussed over. She knows of a stone once hidden here, but this seems too easy to be where it was kept.

‘Why keep the stone of immortality in anything but the headmaster's office, where the scheming old man could keep his gaze on it?’

She hides when she hears movement towards the end of the corridor, echoing footsteps, too light to be the caretaker. The man that she has been avoiding looks down the way, his thin figure, even more, skinny in the dark, the turban turning funny. She breathes softly, tongue stuck in her mouth.

He was making it harder for her.

Tom… Such a horrid thing that he had become. She knows the smell of rot, dark, and musty pages. And now that they are close, now that there is nothing between them, she can feel that old soul.

She is ashamed that she doesn’t have it in her to face him, to tell him how she feels, what she knows. Because they were not bound in this life, they did not know each other like that. She was scared that he wouldn’t listen, even more, that he would hurt the child that was sleeping down below them. She needs more, she needs to be careful in what she tells him, what she gives away. Her mind is an open book for those that know how to look, and she doesn’t want him to know that he should read it. Still, Nagini longs to speak to him. She wants to mend that soul that she knows is in shreds, to tell him that she never would abandon him. He can be great again, better, with mercy.

She waits for him to turn and make his way off into the darkness. Only when he is gone does her heart rate settle, with her nerves.

If nothing else she has a certainty that the stone is somehow guarded, hidden on the 3rd floor behind that seemingly locked door. She might have a need for it, so she would see what she could do to get around the enchantments. If she kept Voldemort from it, made it a part of a deal, a condition then she would have some more leverage over him in setting her own terms.

Harry Potter is only one part of her obligations to Death after all.

~/*\~

Nagini greeted Harry by waking him with a boop on the nose with her own. She hissed softly and Harry snorted moving away from her.

"Your breath is horrid." He said.

~So is yours.~ She answers and watches Theo-doors little eyes widen at their interaction.

She made sure that Harry remembers all his things, reminding him how to tie his tie. She has no hands so she does the best she can in directing the way that he should by tying herself a bit into knots. The first day passes easily, she keeps Harry from getting lost and stares darkly at any that might approach him with ill intentions.

This does not change the fact. They are the talk of the school. It's not exactly ideal but she does her best. Harry talks to Nevile and Hermione in their shared charms class and Malfoy does his best to tread into all of their conversations. He ‘knew’ Harry the longest and thought perhaps himself deserving of the Best Friend Role. Draco and Ron were at odds the moment that they all squeezed into Herbology near each other. Draco’s name makes Ron snort because he found it a silly name and Draco carries over the hate for all things Weasley from his father.

It takes a threat from her to eat the both of them for annoying Harry and placing him in the middle of their petty squabbles for them to back down. She can tell it's not the end of it, but she has other things to worry about. Tom’s watching them closely from his classroom and Severus as if he had just come to the idea of being a mother hen is watching just as intensely. The old man from his head table, the one that pulled too many strings adds the final set of eyes that matter.

~/*\~

The second day goes much the same as the third. Harry is enjoying school and eating as much as he wishes. Nagini has patiently waited for potions and defense. She had a feeling that Severus would not outright embarrass her boy, but she did not put it past him to try and test something.

And she isn’t wrong. They sit next to Hermione Granger, a bold move considering that the houses in potions seem to be split right down the middle. There are jars of everything lining the walls in bookshelves. The jars hold everything from bat wings to snake scales. She squints uneasy to see the floating head of another venomous snake in one of the murky ones.

Snape enters the room, his robes blow outward reminding her of Tom, his robes used to billow outward too. The door slams and he stalks towards the front of the class. The steps are loud across the dungeon floor and Nagini twists herself a little deeper into Harry’s bag. Her large black eyes followed his movement. If he notices her he says nothing as he looks around the crowd of first years.

“There will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class.” He looks to the boy that had been blowing things up all week and then back towards Harry. “ As such, I don't expect many of you to appreciate the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. For those few that possess the predisposition, I can teach you to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory and even put a stopper in death.”

If he could just do that thing with his cloak again she would continue to be bewitched. She looked about herself if students were not sold on the need for this class. Nagini certainly was. She needed a potion to brew with her venom the necessary potion to bring back Tom. A stopper in death could and would always be useful when it seemed that her beloved hatchling was a magnet for all things trouble. Yes, this was a class to get first row seats for, even if she didn’t have the hands to correctly prepare ingredients.

“Then again, maybe some of you have come to Hogwarts with such formidable skills that you are confident enough not to pay attention.”

Oh, they were still at the grudge stage or were testing the waters to see how he would respond to ridicule. She followed his beady eyes to Harry that was writing down everything that he had said. She nudged Harry that looked up from his scribbles, very confused to be the other that Snape had singled out. Hermione looked at what he was doing and then back at Severus with a furrowed brow just as off-put by the man’s need to try and call out anyone who could fit his narrative. Harry put his quill back into the ink and folded his hands neatly in front of himself as if to prove that all he had been doing was writing. Nagini let out a soft hiss of disapproval.

The eyes sweep back to her and she meets that intense gaze, trying her best to conceal her thoughts. Not that she was sure that those that did not speak her language could read her mind.

“Mr. Potter”, his robes swept as he unfolded his arms. “Our newest celebrity.”

Harry blinked, looked around a little, and then back at his teacher. His face said it all, how uncomfortable he was with that tile.

“Tell me what did I say about that snake.” Snape continued his assault.

“Not to flaunt it, sir.” Harry met that look.

“And what is it doing in my classroom?”

“Nothing,” Harry answered honestly. “She just was sitting in my bag sir.”

“There will be no use for a snake in potions unless a recipe calls for it.” He continues unbothered by Harry’s look of anger. Nagini on the other hand felt the coils of dread enter her and she let out a darkened hiss at it. The thought of how great the class was was no longer part of her senses, not even close.

Snakes hold power, all one has to do is eat them.

She twists, hisses, curses, and mercifully is able to turn back into a little girl, wide-eyed, horrified as it doesn’t make a difference in the way that they look at her with hungry eyes.

“Nagi.” Harry’s voice is soft, his fingers are light against her, she blinks, clams by the friendly touch against her. ~He didn’t mean that, he wouldn’t dare.~

“She will not be brought in again.” Harry glares at his teacher, “But I would prefer if you didn’t terrify her with such threats.”

“See she doesn’t become a distraction, more than what she has today.” The potions master turns and starts class. No one has to tell her, she knows that he knows she isn’t normal and it is the first week. She is going to have to have a proper confrontation soon.

Maybe she should tell Harry more about herself, but even worse dread seeps into her at the thought. As much as she wanted to believe that it would not change anything, that she was a valuable asset, there were things that even she cannot love about herself. There are things that she has done or would have done without this second chance, and when everything comes back to her choice to come back to this life. She loved, still loves Tom Riddle and he is the one that killed Harry’s parents.

Death must be laughing at her now. The deal was certainly not in her favor.

~/*\~

She almost leaves Harry to defend himself alone. She can’t face Tom in her already weakened state, but she can’t leave him alone. So she hides mostly in the bag, watching. Trying to seem like nothing but an interesting little snake and nothing else.

She never has been an actor before so she doesn’t think that she sells it, but she doesn’t hiss anything loud enough for the others to hear her. Professor Quirrell does leave an impression, not the type that one would perhaps like to be associated with. He is cowardly, the voice wavering more than necessary. An act she starts to pick up at mid hour because she had a great experience with body language. Tom has possessed him, the turban when it faces Harry makes him wince. He takes to rubbing his scar, and she remembers the small bit of burning that she at times would feel when Tom was feeling particularly upset. It must have been extremely irritating to see the child that he failed to kill sitting in front of him. Probably infuriating that he was openly talking to a snake-like he belonged to that line. Tom had struggled his whole life to be noticed, and something that made him special and unique was now shared with his attempted murder victim.

‘How can’t you feel your own soul?’

She had noticed it the very moment that she had touched him.

Maybe he was too far gone…

Maybe if she could find a couple of the pieces…

Maybe then he would be alright again.

~/*\~

She wanders the halls again. The children are getting used to her. A boa did not have venom so as long as she didn’t flash her teeth they would not have reason to think she would harm anything but perhaps the other animals in the castle. She was a familiar after all, they couldn’t do much to hinder her and her nightly hunts and quest to find other important things within the castle walls will not be infringed.

It didn't stop the lion’s head of house from placing a tracking spell on her so that Harry would easily be able to locate her. The old haag probably wanted to make sure that she isn't eating any cats. The woman made a very convincing cat, she would give her that and her concern for the other children was admirable. Unlike her it was temporary. She could always change back. Nagini knows herself, she knows that she is a proud creature. She is an important symbol to Slytherin and as much as she hates this form, she knows that at least there are those that can understand her in it. This however does not dim her jealousy that others could choose their shifts, and they could be cuter much more loveable animals.

She does her rounds, careful of Tom that lurks in the corridors. The Stone is safe and if she has it her way Harry will never know to go looking for it. He will never encounter Quirrell in the halls or nearly die needlessly over an object of power and immortality. No one should live forever, she has come to think. She never seems to age, and she feels that her life time is already too long. She has met Death now and knew there was nothing to fear but not completing what needed to be done in the time given. Tom didn’t needlessly need to seek more than reuniting with his bits of soul.

She has a need for another thing stored here besides the stone and if she were to call it to her, if she can make it take root in her, it is one less worry about it being destroyed. For their bound souls would make her immune to deadly magic, and ensure that Tom would live if other vessels were destroyed before they could get to them. It also was the last bargaining chip that she needed to insure some sort of cooperation.

Tom could not afford to lose 2 soul shards, and he wouldn’t risk it no matter what madness might have overtaken him, or desperation.

She doesn’t know where the room is though, she has never been inside of it. She knows only that it shows itself to those that need it. She needs it more than any. The room of forgotten things. She sweeps the halls hugging the walls, listening to the way that magic sang in the place. Wishing that the magic in her was enough to do more than live longer than she should, to keep a being like her cursed. If only she had the training, if only she were human. It would be so much easier.

She meets the eyes of Severus as she turns back to the dorms. He stands blocking her way. She eyes his wand, with trained practice, coiled. She lets out a warning. She doesn’t like that it only seems to make him more cautious of her, perhaps a real snake would have continued to try and find its ‘master’. Maybe a real snake would have hissed at him, looked at him, and continued on, unaware that wands were weapons far scarier than anything Muggle made. But she does know better, and she is a person. She will not be looked at like that again, treated as an object. Not by anyone, not EVER again. She does not fear him. She does not fear the man that locked her in a cage that made her transform. She has grown stronger than that fear. She will not be threatened, she will not be caged.

He locks her with a spell, she feels as if her body is frozen, ceased up, so nothing moves. It's like her scales have turned to stone, the muscles not able to constrict, yet she will not yield. She thrashes, she pushes with all that she is, and she hisses, she curses, and she feels her magic surge against his.

How scared, surprised he seemed. She has always been strong, even stunner spells lose their effectiveness over her. Because she, like him, was magical. She had instincts that raged against him. Magic that helped her and hindered her. Worked accidentally almost when she became panicked or enraged.

His wand hovers over her as she snaps at him and he quickly yanks his hand back away from her. She is starting to feel all of herself again, the magic washing off of her, rolling away like water.

‘I killed you once, I can do it again.’

“You’re not a normal snake.” Severus frowns at her. “But you're not an animagus either.”

Nagini thrashes then, making herself her full size, that can tower over the man that she tackles. She grapples him easily, careful of his wand, pinning him with his arms at his sides. How easy it would be to eat him, crush him. The beast in her is screaming at her to bite and not let go.

The man that delivered the prophecy to her love.

The man that doomed Harry.

That like Peter took and took for jealousy's sake.

Yet she stops herself. She holds her face, her nose to his crooked nose. She looks him in the eyes, opens her mouth to show her teeth, and then snaps it shut.

“What are you?” He manages and she squeezes a little tighter in a warning.

She is the little girl abandoned in the jungles that starved at the edge of villages. She is the teenager that was sold to a circus barely escaping being turned into some dark magic healing potion. She is a lady that was abused, beaten, and left to her ailment. She is a woman that fell in love to loses them in twisted games of politics and war. She is a warrior that fought Grindelwald. She is the terror that protected and housed the Dark Lord’s Soul. She is a creature of vengeance and rage against the man that stole everything from her. She is a companion to the boy who lived and a mother.

‘I am Nagini.’ She wants to say for the world to hear her. ‘And none shall stop me from fulfilling my vow.’

She loosens her coils and again snaps at him showing how easily she could kill him before releasing him. Moving slowly across the floor towards his office. Severus might be a traitorous Death Eater, but he did show loyalty to the boy who lived. Tom had questioned him multiple times about his willingness to kill the boy and his ability to move past Lily. Now that she no longer carries delusions from her own version of insanity she can tell that there is never a way to forgive such a grave sin as killing the person that one loved. Tom had stolen something great from Severus, something precious. She would not let him steal another.

She sits herself on one of the chairs for children, her tail pointing to the other side of the desk. She was showing her hand, not all of it but most of it. At least by doing this partially she could make it so that she wasn’t removed from Harry’s side. If she got Severus on her side she could poison those close to Dumbledore until he had none left. He deserved nothing less.

Severus raised an eyebrow.

She motioned towards the quill and ink.

“I'm playing charades with a snake.” The craziness of the situation must have dawned on him. Yet he was playing along, so that was something. She dipped her tail measly into the ink near spilling it as she drew a lightning bolt across the parchment. With that same tail, she whipped it to herself and back.

“Potter… It’s always a Potter.” Snape cursed. “So are you saying you're his?”

She nodded her head.

“Ah, so we can converse, with yes and no.” He ran a hand over his sweaty face. One that she had spit a little onto with her snap.

“Are you human?” He eyes her darkly.

She tilted her head before She nodded and shook her whole self for no.

“Helpful.” His face fell back into one of indifference. “Or maybe it is both, that you are near human but aren't.”

She nodded close enough.

“You have been around the 3rd floor, so I can not help but wonder why you need to be there.”

He was coming out swinging. Probably thought that she could be an agent of Voldemort. She wants to laugh because she was in a way. Instead, she pointed at the lightning bolt again.

“Potter wanted you to investigate it.” He was nearly out of his chair, how things never changed. Ready to blame the other for anything, though this time it is not the father that takes most of the blunt anger.

She snorted, the air rushing out of her nose as she shook her head no. She hisses slowly and she looks toward the skulls that are in jars. Coiling herself up.

“There are deadly traps there…” Severus starts.

She nods, points at herself, and then the drawing again.

“To protect him.” He closes his eyes for a moment and then opens them. “Is that your only purpose for being there?”

She tilts her head again. They both know that no one did things without reason. Yet she would lie the best that she could with the truth. Ink again, she used to craft a picture, this time of a poor made heart.

“Love.” He says it like a curse word.

Maybe it was, they both are motivated by it in their own ways. Both surviving to love long dead, except hers might be able to return unlike his.

“Love for the boy.”

And then some, but she nods.

The man takes a long deep breath. “I don’t suppose that you would have let me live or revealed yourself like this if you had intentions to kill me.”

Smart. No, it would be unwise to kill him. There were too many eyes in this castle and there were only so many snakes. She again bore her fangs.

‘I will kill you if I have to.’

She made the treat she was unsure if she could follow through with. Before pointing at him, herself, and then Harry. The man just glares at her with stormy eyes, the thing about being a snake was she did not have to blink. So she would win any stare off.

“You want me to protect him too.”

She nodded once and repeated the motion.

“The other night you pointed to his arm. Has the boy been hurt before?”

She could smile.

She really could.

~Yes~

She wanted him to put an end to the Dursleys for her, but she knew that was unlikely to happen. There had always been a reason that Voldemort could not get to that house. So she feels there has to be a reason, but she is not above painting them in unfavorable lighting if that meant that they would face consequences for their actions. Her abusers never faced anything other than financial loss for everything that they had done to her.

Chapter Text

Black, blue, shimmering, starlight silver. The dark has shades, so many shades. The universe unravels in small pearls and is ordered into constellations, more than will ever have a name, small, and brighter. Guiding lights, a roadmap to the few that could read them and to infinity. She watched them often, looking for the instant that they would shoot across the sky in fiery streaks, like fireworks, that fizzled out long ago, the tails still evident.

She had seen them bold in the velvet sky as a child, a predictable, reliable, friend and guide later in her life. Stars would always have a close place in her heart, for they had witnessed everything that she had ever gone through.

It is no wonder why Nagini loves astronomy class. At the highest of towers, nothing can make someone feel so very small and one with their place in the universe. Harry draws eagerly on his star chart. Filling in each space with his drawings and predictions. She likes to watch because she can not chart her own. She feels content despite the night air being slightly cool against her scales come late October and November she will not be able to be out here. She will miss this. So she decides to soak up as much of this feeling, this freedom as she can.

~You seem happy~ Harry hissed to her.

~I am~ She replied. ~It has been a long time since I could see the stars.~

~Because of the Zoo?~ Harry asks and she is glad that he hardly hesitates anymore to talk to her even on more difficult topics.

~I was caged long before that.~ She hisses slowly. Her eyes were half-lidded, though no real change has happened to her face. She was tired, very tired she realized. ~Before I was in the zoo, I was part of a circus.~

She dares to look at him and Harry has stopped his scribbling in his journal.

~Did you like it?~

~No.~ She closes her eyes to the darkness.

The hot tent, a stick banging against the cage walls. She had been called many names, as the sun sank down and she forced transformation beguain. She can still hear their jeers, their excitement, and disgust at the creature that they saw before them. For Nagini was not human to them. She was a beast for their entertainment, bought and paid for and so she must dance for them. She must twist her body to suit what they find interesting. How she hates to look at herself in that dress.

Harry pets her along the crown of her scales and she sighs deeply, letting the air expand her chest and fill her nose and tongue with scent.

~I'm Sorry.~

~Whatever for?~

~How you were treated.~

~I didn't tell you how they treated me~

~ I could just tell.~ Harry responded. ~Like you can tell~

~I cheat~ She smiled to herself. ~ I can feel your pulse.~

~Doesn't matter how you know. Just that you do.~ Harry says defensively. She leaned into him. Her little one was going to be such a charmer in his older years if he kept the kind heart that he holds in his chest. She hoped he would, the world was far too cruel and there were very few that were caring.

Severus watched her closely that evening on the way back to Harry’s room. Not that she was hiding her location as part of her was draped over Harry’s shoulders. She has backed off looking for the soul piece at this time. In order to give the illusion that she is satisfied with her request to protect Harry, as it was met.

No, she would have to wait to go after the stone. But she would be back again once his eyes were not so focused on her. Certainly, his eyes would drift towards Voldemort eventually. He was the main event after all, not the strange serpent that knew too much for her own good. She wondered briefly if he had mentioned their conversation to the headmaster. It wouldn't matter if he did. She would love the chance to confront him.

She was not going to be meek this time. She would not have Harry be another credence and she certainly would not allow him to become another Tom. Murderous intent filled her, the muscles curling with anticipation, and need. Dumbledore was still her enemy and nothing would ever change that.

"Nagi?" Harry pulled a little at her coil and she realized now was not the time to have such thoughts. Soon though it might be, for she knows the old man is an opportunist and Harry had yet to sort out who he wanted to be friends with.

Nagini avoids entering the potions classroom on one of the double blocks for potions. She again chooses to 'mind her own' in the halls between the walls and just far enough from the plumbing. In this case, she was directly above the dungeon classroom looking through one of the vents created to ease the potion fumes.

She was perfectly minding Harry's business and making sure that Severus Slimy Snape kept to their arrangement.

She would hate to have to kill him, well... not really, but she was supposed to be on the straight and narrow now. She could not afford such a slip-up on her newly clean record. She would probably have to find another way to make him suffer if he was consistent in making Harry uncomfortable.

She at first had sought to avoid this wall route, much preferring her small backpack, but that would have been too easy. With the need to be inconspicuous as a large snake was able, she had taken to ensure that she did not get lost or trapped between the confined spaces. She was not a fan of this side of the castle, particularly because she knows what sleep far below herself, further than the darkest and farthest downward, but to protect what is hers she supposes that she would sink lower figuratively and metaphorically. She hopes that her counterpart does not stir and that the Diary never comes to Hogwarts.

The class seems to start as it usually did. Snape's billowing robes and soothing monotone voice seeped through the stone. If it had been any other man she might have let it guide her to sleep, but since he was a bully she had to keep herself transfixed. He goes over instructions that only half the class seems to have been listening to and she is glad that while he looks incredibly bored with it all that Harry is still setting about taking notes. He was squinting a little and she wondered if the new glasses were not sufficient enough or if it was just the cursive that was throwing him off. She would have been able to help him interprate the directions if she had been down there. It was about when they were to start actually making the potion that Snape descended on Harry.

"Mr. Potter, where is your serpent?"

"I didn't bring her, sir. Harry's sir was spoken like a curse word she could not help but note.

"Why?"

"Well Sir, you said the last time that if I bought her that you would use her in a potion."

"None of your cheek Mr. Potter. I was just inquiring if you knew of its whereabouts. I think most of us would feel safer knowing where it is."

"She is." Harry corrected it automatically. "Nagi is in our room."

Despite Harry's answer, Snape's beady little rodent eyes scanned the room as if she was stupid enough to slink out into the open. The class went well after that. Harry manages to brew a good potion if the less of a scowl on Severus's face is anything to go by. When the hour lets out Harry is held after class.

"Bring her to class next time. I will not use her as an ingredient."

Oh, he missed her, did he? She huffs to herself. She didn't need a babysitter.

"And Mr. Potter our healer will have a look at you Friday after flying lessons."

Harry's fist tightens but he wisely says nothing.

~He was asking about you.~ Harry tried to pick her up when she slithered from her hiding place in the common room.

~I bet he was.~

~First he asks me not to bring you, has the nerve to threaten you, and then asks me to bring you.~ He seethes.

~Something's not right with the man.~ She patiently agrees with him. She knows more than most why he was the way he was. Not that it excused all his horrible behavior to his own students. Poor little Neville was going to have a heart attack at this rate.

~ It's like he wants to get me in double jeopardy.~

The old damned if you do damned if you don't. Tom had been in that mindset when he had half the country searching for Harry Potter. If he let the boy go his reputation would suffer, but if he hunted him endlessly then he would look weak for needing others to find him. She had been in favor of finding him herself. Which landed her in the guard duty of Godric's hollow. She shuddered to think of that experience.

~Perhaps~ She manages.

~You're not listening.~ Harry shakes his head. He felt ignored because she had been spacing out.

~Of course I am, dear hatchling.~ She cooed. ~I understand why you worry about him hurting me. I would think you would know he has far more to worry about if he saw fit to try his little ingredient idea. No, I think we just have simply come to an understanding.~

~When?~

~When I looked him dead in the eye the other night after my hunt.~

~Did you threaten him?~

She could not tell if Harry wanted the answer to be yes or no. He didn't really seem to like his potions teacher, though this time around she had a feeling that the interactions were a little better. The two of them did not seem to hate each other for one.

~Not with so many words.~

~I bet he was scared.~ Harry smiled a little. It reminded her so very much of Tom at that moment. She wondered briefly if the shard could influence him as it had at one point herself.

~Oh he was rightfully terrified.~ She yawned and her fangs flashed.

~You're amazing I haven’t had anyone threaten someone on my behalf before.~

~Of course I am.~ She basked in his affection. ~And I shall never cease to be.~

~You are also quite humble.~

~Only when I need to be. Harry don’t think that I have not reached lows you saw me in the zoo did you not?~

That made him smile. ~And I rescued you.~

~Very wonderfully I might add. So now that this is all squared away what other news do you have?~

So Harry talks about what she already knows. How class went, who he thinks he is getting along with, and his hopes for what they will learn later in the year.

The first flying lesson has Harry in excitement. Draco and the Theo child are happy with the course basics being covered and then it moves on to flying games, and what to do in an emergency. More than anything they are glad to be given an activity that they can move around a bit to do and a chance to show off. Malfoy is constantly recounting times that he had made daring moves with his broom. Most of it sounds like nonsense and most people that had to listen to him recount his encounter with a helicopter find it to be nothing but hogwash. She finds it humorous for if his head had been any bigger it might have toppled him or snapped his thin little neck.

She tunes most of it out and uses it as a good chattering noise to put her to sleep. If there is nothing posing a danger, nothing to help study, or to direct, she often finds herself napping. Harry and Theo tell him to knock it off and Hermione the one time that she actually overhears it tells him that if he's going to lie, he might as well learn about the things he is lying about. It made a lecture that hurt her ears. The redhead, she can honestly not tell how he feels about the whole thing. He might want to punch Draco, he might still have been trying to figure out what it was that the Mudblood was talking about. Just when she thought the only color the Dragon would have on him was green, he got quite red in the face. Like an old splotchy tomato from the Dursley garden. He was so embarrassed and annoyed with Granger that he told her he hoped she fell off her broom so he could show her really how easy it would be to catch someone.

It was not Nagini's problem if the boy was getting confused about his attraction to a girl that he had been taught to hate. She was not going to touch the whole boys and girls, girls and girls, boys and boys, dynamics of love until Harry was old enough to understand. The others could just figure it out themselves.

The small Weasel boy and Hermione will be in attendance it seems for the flying lesson. It is one of the few courses that they will all have together besides potions. Which with only one month of class under them was Nagini's second to least favorite class. She still doesn’t like seeing what Tom has been reduced to. So that has to be the worst class but potions is just as bad in her opinion. She is still upset with the hook-nosed bastard that runs it for threatening to Turn her into ingredients for just wanting to learn. Didn't matter that she was invited back. Her neck puffs with the mere thought of it. If anything being in his class was a battle of stares. With one attempt to poke at her mind. He's very lucky she hadn't bit him. She still could if he ever tries it again.

Harry is a natural at flying; she can not say the same for Longbottom. While Harry's broom jumps up into his hand in the first instance that he calls on it to come, Nevilles does a few flips and flops like a fish. Hermione is not having much luck either. Draco seemingly putting his gold where his mouth was, did in fact seem to be able to bend a broom to his will.

A few instructions are in and Neville is spinning off into the sky at high speed. She actually starts twisting herself into knots watching it, for she knew it would end badly. Hooch shouts his name rather than any useful directions and he falls from his broom rather horribly and breaks his wrist. If that was not the pinnacle of teaching, the woman dares to leave all the children unattended when they have dangerous vehicles to ride. Nagini takes to hissing at anyone that had not dropped their broom. Her full size is enough to intimidate some of the gremlins into listening to Hooch's request.

Oh, she hates humans. They were so very foolish.

"Maybe if he remembered to use this he would have remembered how to fall properly." Draco holds up the rememberal from earlier. A few of the Slytherins laughed at the small ball.

"Maybe he would have landed worse if he tried to fall correctly." Hermione huffed. "Sometimes trying to compensate causes worse problems."

"Oh, he was compensating for something." Theo chuckled.

Malfoy nodded, tossing the ball up and catching it.

"Careful with that." Harry held out his hand. "His grandmother gave that to him."

"I mean would he really know it was missing?"

"I mean doesn't your dad buy you everything so you don't need to take his?" The Little Red Head popped in.

"Granny would have been better to give him a new cauldron, considering he melted his." A pug-faced girl spoke up.

"It's not his fault that Professor Snape is a harsh teacher." Granger insisted but was quickly overshadowed.

"My father could buy one."

"Then don't steal Nevilles." She huffs.

"I wasn't going to steal it."

"Then why don't you have it over." Ron interrupted.

"So you can break it?" Draco tilted his head.

"So I can give it back to him. I'm in his house ain't I?"

All the bickering was giving her a headache. She knocked the rememberal out of the blond's hand and coiled around it for safekeeping. By the time Hooch comes back, the class has descended into the chaos of petty squabbling about houses and backgrounds. Ronald and Draco actually managed to make the biggest fools of themselves, resulting in challenging each other to a duel and throwing off a few punches.

The medical ward is not a place that Nagini likes, it reminds her too much of what happened with Credence at the end, where he was hurt, and weakened. She can smell chemicals and old magic in the place. Death had happened in these walls, and she had seen many injured in the battle that still haunts her dreams.

Pomfrey is an old woman, she smells of healing balms and salves. Her voice is soft and firm; she sits Harry on one of the many beds and starts waving her wand over him to check over him. Diagnostic spells she called them. She is quick to point out that Harry does not weigh enough for his height and age bracket. She accounts for old injuries with a scowl and pinched face.

Harry had not been forthcoming with why he had the old wounds that he had, nor what the Dursleys had done. Faced with the knowledge of brittle bones and other health risks that Harry now faced, she wished that she had done far worse than being intimidating to them.

“Harry… if something is going on at home I need to know.”

“Nothing is going on Mame.”

“They can not harm you here, Harry. You won’t get in trouble for being honest.”

“I’m not being abused,” Harry shouts getting up from the bed and grabbing his robe. “Nothing is going on at home. I got those scars by playing too rough with my cousin and trying to make food.”

~Harry~ She hisses softly.

“Not you too Nagi.” Harry shook his head.

~You and I both know what they did to you was wrong~ Nagini stretched herself up onto the bed so that they would be at eye level. ~You know they shouldn’t get away with it.~

Perhaps that was the more vindictive part of her talking but she had never been so angry, not since Tom had told her of his treatment at wools. She would not let him squander his chance for help. Not for pride, not for worry of retaliation. She would protect him and he needed to know that. He needed to trust her.

~They deserve to face the consequences of harming you.~

That doesn't seem to move Harry so he tries something else.

~We also wouldn’t have to go back to them. You would never be hit, starved, or locked in the cupboard again. We could have a real Family Harry.~ She plays on his one wish, his truest of desires and it weakens him.

“Nagi…”

~You didn’t deserve any of it, Harry. They are liars. Just as they lied to you about what happened to your parents. They were good people. It is unfortunate that they could not see that, nor the value in you. Please tell the healer, I can not bear to see you suffer.~

Harry cried a little when he talked about his Family and their loving treatment of him. He has to take several breaks in what he is saying and even then it is more of prompting of yes or no questions that get most of it out of him. Nagini hoped that this conversation would lead to the final nail needed for the Dursley's coffin. For the healer was already promising that he would never have to return there. When Harry stops crying they go down to the kitchens for a snack. Pomfrey didn't approve of anything too sweet but she was moved enough to make sure that Harry had something like a nice crisp apple. Snape showed up to escort them back to the dorm rooms and Pomfrey quickly explained the situation to him.

"It seems that I will be brewing you a few potions, Mr. Potter," Severus says as they make their way down the steps towards the dungeon.

Harry doesn't say anything.

"It will be important that you take them." The man continued and it seemed that he was a little uncomfortable with the whole thing as his sagging shoulders were anything to go by. For a man that was supposed to be a teacher, he was horrible at talking with children. She gave him a rather unimpressed look from her place inside of the backpack.

"Your Snake has she been banned from other classrooms."

Oh, that was quite the switch in topics. She grunts in displeasure.

Harry shrugged. "Not really."

"You don't find her distracting."

"She tells me to stay focused. She thinks that my studies are key to becoming a great Wizard."

"In that, she would be correct." He eyed her again and she stared right back. "Of your courses, which do you like most?"

"I don't know if it has been long enough to tell." Harry shuffles awkwardly.

"Don't think you would offend me if you didn't choose potions." The man almost looks like he might smile, there is a slight crease at the eyes and a subtle twitch at the lips.

"I like Astronomy," Harry confesses. "I really like flying as well. I wanted to try out for the teams but Malfoy says that first years can't play."

"While they can not play on the house teams they can play in scrimmages that take place with the flying club."

Harry looks up at him with wide eyes and she can see a shift in Severus' face again when he gets a full look at them. There was still evidence of his crying and rubbing at them.

"We aren't allowed Brooms though."

"The School has plenty of brooms." Severus stops just outside the wall of the common room. Where he nods and bids him goodnight.

~He's Strange.~ Harry mutters watching him go.

~He is.~ She agrees.

“Potter, where have you been?” Draco latched himself onto Harry when he made his way through the newly formed opening into the common room.

Harry rubbed again at his eyes and shrugged it was late and he was tired.

“You had your examination right?” Theo butted in. “They didn’t hurt you or anything?”

“Some of the immunity boosting potions are the worst.” Draco bats at Theo. “They taste awful.”

“Needles are worse,” Theo interjects. “Anything with blood count me out.”

“Needles?” Draco blinks.

“Yeah, sometimes they have to test your blood so they stick you with one.”

“They didn’t stick you did they, Harry?” Pug girl almost seems concerned about him.

“No.” Harry sighs. “They didn’t stick me with anything. I just have to take nutrition potions for a few weeks.”

“It will be over before you know it,” Theo says comfortingly.

“You can always eat a sweet after.” Draco agrees. “My mother sends cookies, you can have one.”

“Thanks,” Harry says weakly and lets himself be handed a few sugary treats.

Saturday Morning Hagrid sends a letter to go have tea at his small hut down by the forest. Harry, being annoyed with everyone, decided to sneak off alone. Nagini doesn’t think the others are mean to annoy him, they are just concerned about him, and a bit clingy. She doesn’t doubt that some of them still have a bit of star-struckness in their eyes over him being the Boy-who-lived. Hagrid doesn’t really have that star-struckness. He is just a man that knew Harry’s family. Bias as he might have been to Slytherins he doesn’t seem to mind all that much when Harry shows up to his hut in their colors.

"Might of known yah would be Slytherin what with your gift en all." Hagrid put the teapot on and sat in his seat with a big huff. "Didn't think yah would come 'round alone though."

"Nagi came."

"Human friends." The man smiles at him but Nagini wonders if he ever had any friends that were not Animals.

"I don't think that they would want to come." Harry put his head on his hand. "They are a little..." He trails off not knowing perhaps how to end those thoughts.

"They'd be embarrassed would they?"

"I don't know." Harry sighed. "They are so full of themselves...no that's not it... they just don't understand what it's like to not have all that stuff."

"What kind of stuff 'Arry?" Hagrid got up to get the pot and set it on the table with a large thud that jiggled the top and made some of the brown liquid coming out of the raised lid.

"A nice home, servants..." Harry shrugs.

A family Nagini knows this is what he means.

"There's more to life than that," Hagrid says kindly, filling him with a brimming cup.

"I know." Harry took a spoon and added sugar to his watch as it melted before he dared to take a sip.

"Enough moping. I'm sure yah will make better friends and the like. How’re classes going?”

“Alright. I liked flying.”

“Your father did too.” Hagrid scratched at his bread and starts to recount a few tales of when he stopped a group of four friends from getting themselves into all kinds of trouble. Nagini never would have heard such things from Tom. Her Tom was studious and his methods of getting even were ways to ensure that they wouldn’t ever attempt something against him again. James Potter seemed to want to have others come after him, almost like he created danger and excitement. Harry seemed to like the tales though. He seemed enamored with the mention of his mother and her disapproval of James’s antics.

“She made ‘em grow up she did.” Hagrid finished his cup. “Your mother was a brave, brave woman. I don’t think there was a person alive that didn’t fear when she was angry.”

Nagini had never met Lily Potter. She, though, can imagine her well from the small stories. She sees a woman of grace with Harry’s eyes and heart. She sees her protecting Harry, standing in front of Tom who had long lost his sanity, and telling him no, that she would not move. One could only aspire to be as brave as she. If she was going to do anything in this life, change anything, she would need that will. She couldn’t be afraid to confront the one she loved.

At the end of the visit, Hagrid promises to track down a few pictures for Harry seeing that he had never seen what they looked like. Nagini is almost certain that Harry never had a photo taken besides the school’s mandatory ones. It seems like a shame to her, but then she never really had her photo taken either. Hagrid remedies that by taking a few of them out in front of his garden. She poses well for it and wants to see it as soon as it is developed.

With Pictures done and a new subscription to the Ministry’s rag of a newspaper, they made their way up to the castle.

~Do you think that it is strange there was a break-in at the bank the day that we were there?~ Harry asks as they make their way towards the common room. Harry takes the long way to make it look like he was coming from the library at such a late hour.

~No~ She answers. ~There are more break-ins that happen, this one they just chose to report on because the person wasn’t found dead inside the bank.~

Harry didn’t show any more curiosity over what was taken and she relaxed just a bit.

The weeks blend together. Nagini finds herself ‘banned’ from most of Harry’s classes probably because she would hiss in his ears hints on what he should do and thus one could think of it as almost cheating. It is not her fault that Tom knew spells that were far beyond that of a first year, some of it might not have been all that safe in retrospect.

Magic was all about will. Tom had told her that, he invented a lot of spells using the language that they shared. It might be why some of the things come easier that way to Harry. Latin was much harder to enunciate than something that came naturally to him. He took to muttering the spells to himself and making them appear to be the ones in the designated curriculum. Severus did not seem to like when he would hiss to himself in class, even though she was technically invited into that space.

Time away gives her access to a room, a room of many things, endless heaps of lost objects and books. There were riches within its spaces that one could only dream of and yet she wants to find, needs to find only one of them. Yet the Horcrux is hidden from her. She can not smell it under the charms that it no doubt has placed upon it. She can not hear its whispers for she doesn’t have her own shard to listen to. She would need Harry should she ever truly wish to find it and when she finds it she has little of a plan of what to do with it other than hide it in one of the walls so that only she can reach it. It could be used as leverage then for Tom would not kill her no matter how crazed if he would lose that part of himself forever.

Immortality was only ensured by the safeguard of those objects she no wish for these secrets to be exposed. After all, how could one heal if they were missing several chunks? Not that Tom would want to heal, not unless he knew what was in store for him. And even then she has doubts, about how much Tom feared Death.

Harry finds stable ground with Granger, Neville, and Theo. The red-headed Weasel and Draco sometimes when they were not acting insufferably. For the most part, they seem to understand that most of their comments are not appreciated. Ronald doesn’t seem to want to do school all that much even though that was partially why they were at the institution and Malfoy was just too full of other people's thoughts on how the world should work. He would say things that were similar to what Tom would have said but without any of the charm or grace. His insistence on how important he was also was quite tiresome. Harry tended to tune him out in favor of saying something offensive. Most of the others in their house seemed to do the same thing as well.

Hermione was a good friend only in the sense that she was good at studying. Neville balances her out by quietly helping her to understand how her comments could be seen as abrasive. She toned them down a little and with a Pureblood that did know the traditions but was not as horrible as Malfoy Harry was at least given another perspective on what was the appropriate way to behave.

Of the good with the bad, she thinks defense against the dark arts is the worst. She didn’t like the stuttering of the professor and she didn’t think he could teach with the illness of possession. She tried to commit the spells into her memory for the times when she would need to instruct Harry. She knows that he is going to need them because if it’s not Voldemort that is going to try and kill him it’s going to be followers of the old way of things that will see him as a blood traitor for his friends he keeps and his Mudblood mother. Not that Nagini doesn’t greatly respect Lily. She enjoys the pictures that Hagrid has brought them. She lies near Harry when he looks through them and sees the faces of a family that he has never seen or known. He cresses the pictures like he can actually feel them there. He puts them under his pillow so they are close to him, that he can be closer to them.

She wants to tell him. At that moment she wants to tell him that his parents loved him more than anything and that was what mattered. Yes, they were gone, but they still lived on through him. There was not a single thought in her mind that the Potters were happy with their decision to protect him and that she would be happy to do the same. But she can’t voice it right and by the time that she thinks she can, put aside everything that has happened, everything she knows. It feels like it would fall flat for what she is, what she has done, and who she loves. There is no excuse for what Tom has taken and there is no way to ever replace it.

The booklet has pictures in the back of people he knows. Nagini, Hagrid, and himself. There is an advanced gift from Hagrid for Christmas in the form of Harry’s very own camera to make more memories. It sits on Harry’s dresser with the first photo taken by it Hedwig that sits proudly on the windowsill. When Harry speaks about his desire to fill several books worth of photos she finds, even more, resolve to make it so.

Halloween comes with cold weather and heavy rain. It comes with a possessed man screaming about a troll in the dungeons and Snape rushing to cut off anyone that might be on the third floor. She takes it upon herself to help Harry hunt down the missing classmate with Longbottom as Hermione had been crying in the bathroom after a rather horrible encounter with Weaslebee and Draco. For both of them had been put out when she had explained to them how to actually pronounce the word they were using for the spell. It had to lead to a comment from Weasel that she was more insufferable than him, which had prompted the hard Mudblood issue from Draco, which dragged out a discussion about blood that left Hermione running off to cry. Harry and Neville had not been there for the fight and as such, she had not been either. As she was more concerned with minding Harry than caring about the extra children.

~I smell her.~ She hissed. ~The Troll though is close.~

“I just had a thought.” Neville stammered. “What happens if we run into the Troll Harry.”

“We run. We’re just trying to grab Hermione and get back to the dorm.”

“I know but what If we run into it.” Neville insisted. “I mean it could move from the Dungeons.”

“She needs to know,” Harry argued. “All the upperclassmen and teachers just left without a care.”

“I just don’t know anything that would work on a troll.” Neville continued as they made their way around the bend.

Nagini knew that she wouldn’t be able to do much about a troll either as her fangs would not make their way through its thick hide.

“It won’t come to that.”

Nagini should have realized those were famous last words.

Chapter Text

The Troll lumbered into the Girl's Bathroom, the frame to the door splinted with the force of its shoulder slamming into it. It dragged its club behind it and the stone to the wall chipped as it forced the rest of itself inside. Immediately there is a scream and Neville nearly jumps out of his skin.

"Harry," he whimpers.

Harry drew his wand and gripped it between his small fingers. "Looks like we're going to have to see what spells can affect a Troll."

Before Nagini can say anything to her child he is already running down the hallway and nearly made his way into the bathroom. Neville, despite himself shaking, comes stumbling after. She is left in the dust of trying to catch up with them. Her heart races as she makes her way over the sharper parts of old wood. Harry is trying every spell he knows and Granger is screaming trying to crawl away from the damaged stalls and crushed porcelain of the sinks and toilet. Her hands are bleeding from the attempt.

Trolls are stupid perhaps they can distract it.

There is not much space in the bathroom. The Troll keeps swinging and the 3 small children keep bearly dodging the heavy blunt object. She hisses loudly but the beast will not look at her, she is too soft a noise buried under the sounds of gushing water. The spells that come to her are not acceptable. The main spell she thinks of is the killing curse. It would have instantly solved her problem but she can't cast it and if Harry did he would be carted off to some correctional facility if not Azkaban.

No, it seemed that she was going to have to put herself in harm's way. That was what a good mother would do, not what a snake would do. A snake would have stayed well out of this mess, Tom would have found someone else to handle it. She doubted that the others would be alive if she went to look for help.

She let out another deep hiss. She lowered herself to the floor and then struck at the ankles. It was a weak spot, she coiled dodging the feet that stumbled trying to look at her. The club hits the wall, the ceiling, and even the Troll itself. She is not meant to move this way shes an ambush predator she doesn't have the mobility. She is hissing her mouth is full of venom and it is slick in her mouth. The Troll forgets about the students now facing a large snake that is grappling at its legs. Harsh hands attempt to pry her loose. She feels her tooth chip as she does manage to get a good grip on the softer leg tissue. She does not let go. She bites down harder and harder.

The Troll howls and pries at her and she goes flying. She hits something hard, maybe it is a wall, maybe the floor. Dazed, she lies in a heap on the floor. Her head was swimming.

~Run~ She is not sure whether she manages to hiss it out or not. As the world goes black.

The light comes back in blinding brightness. She curses, shakes herself, and tries to get free of the strong hold upon her. She hisses with vengeance, forgetting where she was, who she is, only feeling pain from her broken tooth, her aching jaw. She lashes out with full intent to get free and remain it. For her soul feels empty, there is a part of her missing and her head is throbbing like a second heartbeat. She needs to hide, hide and stay hidden. Her teeth make no contact with anything. She hears a small scream, but it hardly registers.

Tom, where was Tom?

~Tom~ She tries to hiss but all that comes is blood to her mouth and she fears for him. They will be coming for him.

"Nagi." The voice is desperate and she comes back to herself. That is her name, her new one.

She is not on a staircase, she is not dead.

She twists in on herself again feeling the ache go up her spine and down it. It's that pain that brings her clarity and the voice of a little boy.

She is in a bathroom, she can feel the wood sticking into her, and she can feel the coldness of the water and the ruined tile. She feels a struggle with each breath that she never would have felt if she still had a Horcrux inside of her.

She is mortal for all of its horrible drawbacks.

The whiteness of the ceiling and the grayness of the tiles takes focus to more things in the room. She sees Harry's chest shaking and sobs as he holds onto her far too tightly. She feels him trembling and she can nearly taste his tears by how close his face is now to hers. She can't get the taste of blood and venom from her mouth even with coughs. If she were human and if she had been capable of it she might have thrown up. She can't form words but she looks at him and he looks back with broken glasses.

Such a foolish child.

She pulls a little and Harry releases his grip a little and she takes another shaking breath.

"You're Alive." He says quietly. "I thought that I would lose you too."

They were going to have to have a long conversation. She is so angry at him for putting them both into this predicament. She is going to flay him alive with her tongue, for daring to rush in like this but at the moment all she wants to do is hug him. Thank Salazar and everything that Harry is still with her.

"Nagi." Harry will not be moved and the teachers are inspecting the troll that has fallen onto the ground. Her venom had incapacitated it or killed it. She couldn't bring herself to care either way.

She keeps swallowing and forcing air into her lungs.

"You are going to be okay." Harry tries to assure her, and she has little doubt that she would. She has had much worse wounds than this and her fangs will grow back. Eating will be painful for a time, but she will heal.

~I will mend.~ She brushes her face closer to his ~Are you alright?~

~I am okay.~ Harry nods ~I was more worried about you and Hermione.~

She wished that Harry would care about himself more, but she knows that the boy is far too selfless for his own good. His relatives have put it into his head that he is only as good as the actions that he takes in their favor. She hoped that Pomfrey did get Child Services involved. She hoped they lost everything. Still, with those wide eyes looking at her, she again feels something loosen in her chest. As angry as she is, she is just glad that it is over.

~I am disappointed in you.~ She chooses her words carefully. ~But I am glad that you are alright.~

What is to come from there is very rushed words from teachers that are very lucky that she had been there to take care of the problem. She wonders in the other timeline, the other life, if anyone had come after the troll or if anyone else had gotten hurt. It is gross negligence that she has no opportunity to express her extreme displeasure over it all.

"Why on earth would you think that it was a good idea to go after a fully grown mountain troll!" McGonagall rants at the 3 students. Coming down from her worry with a fury of wanting them to understand just what they had done and how lucky they were to survive. "That snake of yours, Mr. Potter, it killed the Troll."

Snape stares at her and she looks back at him.

"Nagi didn't mean to kill it, she just wanted to keep us safe."

"Be that as it may, what would you have done without her?" The old woman looked down at Harry who went a little white.

"I suppose that I would be dead." He says quietly. "But if we hadn't thought to come after Hermione then she would have died here too."

"What were you doing, Ms. Granger?"

"I..." The girl seemed to be trying to muster up the courage to say something.

"It was Malfoy and Weasley," Neville spoke for the first time since the incident. "They called her horrible things and we just heard about it at dinner that she had been crying in the bathroom and when the Troll came we went to get her because everyone else was running in the other direction."

His voice stutters out the words but he has earned her respect at the very least. He would need to train up a bit and then she can see him doing much of what he had done in the final battle.

"The teachers all went to the Dungans." Harry agreed, reaching for Hermione's hand which was trembling. "We just wanted to make sure she would be alright."

This seems to satisfy the teachers. Nagini sees Tom's vessel has finally arrived. He looked at the Troll and then at the group of teachers with intelligent enough eyes. He then looks to her and she feels a slight pressure on her head. She looks away from him, her neck and head bobbing as she frees herself from that look.

"How is your snake, Mr. Potter?" Snape asks.

Harry reaches a hand for her, his eyes questioning.

~In need of healing.~ She responds.

"She's hurt, but not saying how badly. I think she should go to see Madam Pumfrey."

"I think you all should." Dumbledore has chosen this moment to come out from the shadows. "Perhaps Professor Snape would accompany the group down there. I don't think we have the appropriate potions for such a loyal companion but our resident healer might have a few ideas."

She doesn’t want to look at the headmaster he seems to also understand that she is something different. Though they had only met when she was in her human form, he knew of her. He knew of her Credence… Her Tom.

They all start to leave but she can not move well. It hurts too much she falls behind moments after attempting to move. Severus levitates her and she lets out a surprised snap and hisses.

She receives a very simple healing paste over the wounds and they heal over to scabs. The children thankfully need about the same. They are sent off to bed and she is able to be carried down back to the dorm room. She is going to sleep well tonight knowing that they are okay and that everything was alright for now.

"Potter, I think that you, your snake, and myself should have words." The potions master paused by his office. "But another time. It is late." He stumbles into his room and it is then that she notices the blood on his leg and comes to understand that he had been bitten by the dog. Harry's eyes seem to follow that and his eyes narrow in suspicion.

~He was bleeding why was bleeding?~ Harry asked as they made their way into their dorm room. He wasn't there for the troll attack, he didn't brush into anything. He must have let it in.~

She in another situation might have praised him for being observant, but she is doing her very best to keep him out of this stone business.

~Severus did not let the troll in.~ She sighs as she is helped onto the bed and she isn’t going to move after she closes her eyes. It's so much warmer here.

~Severus?~

~ It's his first name.~ She takes a deep breath in.

~Oh are you on a first-name basis with him now?~

He dares to sound upset with her when he is at fault here for placing them in danger. She bites her tongue though, trying not to let anger get to her. She would not have this child shy away from her.

~No child. I just know his name. ~

~Why was he bleeding though!~

~Harry there are things going on in this school that does not concern you.~ She adds a little bite to her words. Harry opened his mouth to protest. ~No, listen to me now. This night will not repeat itself. I have lost the only family I had, I will not lose another. Tonight your recklessness nearly got me, Neville, and yourself killed.~

~But Hermione...~

~She needed help. I can not deny that the teachers could have been smarter in this. Next time we will get someone else to help or an older year that knows more advanced spells.~

Harry bit his lip.

~I was really worried.~ She says it both to guilt him and because she was. ~There is no coming back from Death Harry.~

~I was really scared. And I am sorry.~ Harry admitted. It is very quiet then. The only sound that of the other years milling about in the common room. ~ If there are things that don't concern me happening I know I should get help... ~but can you at least tell me why Snape was bleeding.~

~Would it help your peace of mind to know his heart is in the right place?~

He nodded.

She was probably going to regret this.

She took a deep breath. ~Do you remember why you are not to go to the third floor?~

~Because it's forbidden~ He recited why she did not let him go to that floor. ~And it's dangerous ~ He added as an afterthought.

~Yes. There are a few things that are stored there that would be thieves would want. He went to make sure no one was using the troll as a diversion to steal things that belong to the school.~

~So he got hurt trying to make sure no one took it?~ Harry tilts his head seeming to think it over. ~Are you sure he didn't try and steal it?~

~Trust me. Severus is many things but a thief isn't one of them. Besides if he got any ideas he would have me to deal with and we saw what I could do to a troll.

Harry smiled then.

It does not take long for the whole school to know about the first years that had decided to take on a mountain Troll. Harry gains a little bit of infamy and she is feared far more than she was before. She is wondering when Severus will get around to doing more than watching them closely she knows that he wants Harry to surve detention for the other night, but the points had already been taken and it seemed that Severus finally had other things to worry about as he probably encountered Quirrell rushing up towards the 3rd floor.

She knows that Tom has an interest in her and she knows that they will need to speak to one another soon. The weather gets cold and Nagini can not travel as far from the common room’s warm roaring fire. She becomes sluggish and her nagging is sparring. She has to conserve it for hunts and for the times that she must go to defense against the dark arts for she refuses to leave Harry unguarded.

Harry becomes closer with his little friend group, not that he doesn’t speak to the others in his house. He just has enough of certain comments. The word Mudblood is weaponized and Harry despises it as it is foul according to him and since his mother and Granger have that in common. He gets very agitated when anyone mutters it. She noticed that some of their houses had started to at least refrain from saying it in his presence. It seemed Troll insistent was good for one or two things only. Gaining Harry close friends and making others respect him for his handlement of the creature.

Harry’s friends do seem to think that something is up with Snape. Hermione had seen the blood as well and wasn’t sure that Nagi would be an authority on all things. Harry pointed out that Nagini was very smart and that her instincts were usually right about things.

Winter comes and everyone clears out of the castle. Harry is to stay at the school even if he wanted to go home the adults do not wish for him to be near his abusive family. The Dursleys are under investigation and so they do not send him any letters and Harry doesn’t write them any. Christmas Harry fills out mail orders for some of the things he wants to give his friends. He takes a few photos that he wants to get developed and gets frames for them. He orders a book for Hermione and a few seeds for Neville to grow some house plants he can have in his dorm room.

He won’t let her see what he is getting her and Nagini resolves to look in the room of junk for something for the boy. It is not like snakes had gold in which to buy things. Even though Harry insists that she doesn’t need to get him anything she wouldn’t feel right if she didn’t. Her child had never had a proper birthday or holiday and so she wanted things to be perfect.

So she slips into the Potion’s Masters rooms. She greets him with a newly formed smile. She has with her a teddy bear from the room and an old uniform. She motions to it and to him.

“Absolutely not.” He states.

She hisses again. His eyes narrow. They have a stare off and he leaves her there very rudely for the entire night. She of course waits for him, follows him around a bit, and finally he caves after gaining in his own words his own most annoying shadow on his days off that he doesn’t and shouldn't have to deal with children.

“Why come to me with this?” He takes a seat in the chair nearest the oil lamp.

Nagini tilts her head.

“Right, Yes or no questions only.” The man pinched the bridge of his nose. “Did you have anyone else?”

She shook her head.

“Wonderful.” His words dripped with sarcasm. “I doubt that if I do this that you would leave me alone.”

She wiggles to show it would be more or less. She had no reason to for the rest of the holiday if he would do this small thing for her. Which he does very begrudgingly in less than 5 minutes leading to her wondering why he didn’t just do that in the first place.

Christmas the castle is near empty besides the teachers and a few students. None of which are Slytherins. They all have gone home to nice homes full of families. The gifts under the tree were more than she had expected. Harry got more film from Hagrid and a flute that made owl sounds that were hand carved. Hermione sent Harry a book about the founding of Hogwarts and Neville sent a nice scarf and hat. Her gift was the bear that was dressed in a vintage shrunk Slytherin uniform. The bear was placed on the bed right against the pillows. There was a strange package that held an invisibility cloak that was once Harry’s fathers'. It explained a lot of things. Harry was more excited about it than she was. She just makes him promise to use it responsibly. Which she knows is going to translate to using it to sneak around after bed hours only when they might risk points if they were caught.

What surprised her was the gifts for her. There was a very long snake sweater from Harry so that she could regulate her body temperature better the silver and green looks good against her scales. There is a basket from Neville that is large enough to shove the blanket from Hermione into it to allow for extra warmth. Hagrid had gotten her a bunch of larger eggs to eat. They were charmed not to spoil and she happily ate most of them while watching Harry mill about the smaller gifts from his housemates. The chess board was of the most interest and he was busy teaching himself to play. Hedwig was his opponent and she was getting treats just for sitting on the other side of the board.

At the meal time they noticed that Ronald Weasley is there and his entire family. It seems that they had not gone back home for Christmas. All the students that were present were moved together so that they could celebrate the day together. They admired her sweater she likes to think and while not being the best of friends Ron did offer to play a few rounds of chess with Harry.

On the following day, Harry went to visit Hagrid at his hut. Nagini wished him the best as she could not make that far in the weather even with the sweater and heating charms that McGonagall had taught him.

“Nagini!” Harry shook her awake from her basket of warmth. “Nagini!”

She opened her eyes and stared at the child that had most of himself floating. She immediately knew that he had spent far longer at the giant’s home.

“I saw my parents.” He started rushing out how he had been trying to avoid Filtch under his cloak and had to duck into a classroom. And in this classroom was a mirror and in the mirror was his family and she had to come. She had to come to see it so he knew he wasn’t crazy. He also spilled as an afterthought that Snape was standing guard over the hall near the 3rd floor.

She finds herself in a school bag being carried to a remote part of the building. She has not been here before, the air is cold.

“There.” Harry points to a mirror.

She knows of a mirror that had been used to hide the stone. She slowly slips out of the bag feeling the cold on her scales and she nearly cries when she sees it.

Nagini stands human. Her hair is pulled back into a long braid. There are jewels in her hair as others of her culture would wear they were woven with flowers into a delicate display of beauty. She is wearing comfortable clothing, respectively loose and with grand patterns those of which she never would have been able to afford. She moves with ease and grace that she never had been able to achieve having not enough human interaction to mimic some of their movements correctly. She had always wobbled on her feet, they were foreign to her, and she had always struggled to touch others.

Yet, she moves like a dancer as she spins her skirts flair out. Tom is next to a boy that she has come to love. He doesn’t seem to mind him. His smile is warm and his hand rests gently against his shoulders. Credence is older, he has his long hair pulled back. He holds a smile that he never would have had in life. He seems content to work with his hands on a project away from Tom and Harry.

Such a thing… is not possible. She knows what she has traded to be here at this time. She had given up her chance at a normal life, a life in a human body. Still, she puts her head to the glass.

~You see them, don’t you?~ Harry seems excited.

~I see only us.~ She says her voice wobbles. ~I see what I was like before.~

~Before?~ Harry questions.

~Before I was cursed.~ She lowers her head and there are no tears that she can shed for they do not come. Her form has been stolen from her.

~Cursed how?~ Harry asks and she turns from the mirror to look at him.

~I will tell you another time. This Mirror is evil Harry, it shows what can not be. No matter how I wish it~ Her voice strains in her throat. ~I can feel the dark magic that it holds. It lies to get one closer to it, to take some of the person looking’s magical energy.~

“So my parents are not really in it…” Harry’s head hangs and she quickly moves to wrap herself around him. She hugs him to steady him and herself. She needs to remember what is real, and what is possible.

~They are real in your heart Harry.~

He cries a single tear quietly holding onto her. “I wish they were here Nagi. I wish they were here.”

~I wish for the same child.~ She responds, rubbing her face to his cheek, catching precious tears. ~Come now, let us go rest.~

On their way back to the common room they encounter Severus pressing Quirrell into a wall threatening him to remember where his loyalty lies. Harry while being willing to believe her about the mirror will not be talked out of how suspicious that encounter was.

Harry ends up confessing a few weeks later to her that Dumbledore had moved the mirror from the room that they had been in. She grows angry at him for going back there, but she knows about the lure of dark magic more than anything and she is glad there is nothing there to tempt him anymore.

“He told me that he saw socks in the mirror.” Harry shifts his weight. “I know that he lied. I don’t know how, but it just was this tingling when I looked into his eyes. I could almost glimpse something that was there, a man.”

~Gindlewald.~ She says without thinking to much about it.

~Gindlewald?~

~When he was young he was in love, the person he loved is long gone now~ She responded more tired than before.

~You told me that you would talk to me about your curse.~ Harry pressed.

~It is tangled with that mess.~ She responds. ~I just do not wish to talk of it. It is painful to talk about.~

~You don’t have to talk about it, I just want to know more about you.~

She took in a deep breath that shook her body. It comforted her and wrapped herself around every inch of him, to be grounded in reality. Harry holds her tightly back a questioning and hopeful look on his face. And who is she to deny him that?

She didn’t think that he would hate her to know what she was at one point. She just would leave Tom well out of it.

~Once, long ago there was a little girl. She was born in a village in Indonesia. Her family so the story goes was cursed by a Wizard that wished to punish her grandfather for a sin that he had committed. She was born with scales and when the moon would rise nearly every night she would transform into a snake. She could not control it and the village when they learned of this child grew to despise her, seeing her as the reason that they all suffered. They cast her out never to be allowed back or they would kill her.~

She paused her memories stirring and she blinks them away.

~The little girl was eventually captured by other magical people that sought to sell her as a magical ingredient but a man from a traveling Carnival instead bought her. He promised her a world with better food and safety, but instead, put her in a cage and forced her to transform into a serpent in front of large audiences. Nagini they called her, the snake girl. As time went on the curse became worse, turning happened more and more often and would last longer and longer each time.~

Harry’s breathing is warm on her scales and his hands were soft in petting her.

~I knew one day that my curse would trap me in the body of a snake. I feared the day that I would lose my humanity completely. Yet I never lost hope that there was a cure and if there wasn’t that I would escape. I met a boy named Credence and I fell foolishly in love with him. While he did get me the freedom I so desperately wanted from the cage he eventually left me in the human world. War had come you see. Grindelwald a dark wizard of the time promised Credence a home and knowledge, and when faced with this choice he left me. I sought a great wizard that promised to defeat Grindlewald and would help Credence. He was not evil, just misguided. He needed help.~

~And this Wizard was Dumbledore?~ Harry asked.

~Yes.~ She breathed. ~I was naive to think they would try to save him. Credence was cursed like me, worse than me, and humans they never can understand what that is like. They killed the boy I loved, just as they would kill my first speaker.~

~Your first speaker what were they like?~

~ Like You my dear hatchling in many ways. Before he lost himself.~

Chapter Text

Nagini liked to think that things were a little better from there. The holiday passed smoothly with not much more than lounging and reading. Harry sent small gifts back to the other members of his house as a thank-you for their gifts. He wasn't as close with his housemates as Nagini would have liked, but then again of the students that were Harry's age, there were not great options. Acquaintances and friendly terms might be the best that they can do.

For Draco was full of himself, he might mellow with time but having known his peacock of a father she doubted it. His followers were thick, not just in shape but in the head. A brick might have had a better conversation. Pansy was a rather ugly girl inside and out. She picked on Granger in particular very often and to varying degrees of success in hurtful comments. That left a few options there were 2 girls she didn't know the names of but they were close with Pansy so it didn't seem they would be that great of choices either. Theo was not a bad child, just much more likely to go with the crowd and what they were doing. He and the darker-skinned student kept mostly to themselves, though they would let Draco pull them into things. She didn't spend too much more time musing about possible friendships and alliances. No, instead she slept the days away as the cold of January and the warmth of the sweater and fire were the only thing that kept her going.

She wished that Hogwarts was in a warmer country then she wouldn't have been so sluggish. Her mind is as sharp as it ever was, but her body is not able to keep up with it. She prays for spring to come soon so that she will be able to be more active.

She does enjoy hearing of Harry's adventures trekking through the snow and of the flights that he watched Hedwig take.

She should have been praying for something else. Harry's safety had not been called into question over the last few weeks. He hadn't had any classes with the Grifferndors that were notorious for melting and exploding cauldrons. He had not had any possible rogue bludgers moving towards him from his stand in the bleachers either.

No, she had grown complacent and Tom was very good at acting when others were complacent. When things seemed to be going well, too well. That was usually when things had a tendency to come crashing down.

It is in the first month back that Harry has an accident. She is not there for it, nor are his friends. He had been alone between classes, most likely looking to retire to the dorms early rather than spend time in the great hall. She didn't even want to consider that he was going to see her. She would have blamed herself for it and she already blames herself enough for not being there. She also wants to blame Severus too for not keeping the other safe, but it wasn't as if he could always be following Harry around. It wouldn't be possible.

So she just has to stew over it. Harry had been shoved down a large flight of stairs and broken a few of his too-tiny frail little bones. And there was nothing that she could do to make the healing go faster, nothing she could do to reverse what had happened.

The only thing that she could do was ensure that it never happened again. So that was her plan. Stop Tom from attempting another go on Harry's life.

"I'll be okay," Harry says when he notices her practically on his lap.

The MedWatch had attempted to remove her but she being a person could not be accioed off and anything short of a permanent levitation spell wouldn't be strong enough to keep her off him for long. She had multiple ways through the walls to get back into the medical ward if needed and had proved to be far too slippery for the woman to handle.

~I know, but the fact that you had to go through such a thing, makes it anything but.~

~I'm fine mum~ Harry might have meant it as a joke as he had said something similar to Hermione's nagging. But he had never said anything like that to her before and it slid in between her ribs and gave her an ache, a longing. She had called herself a mother but Harry had never completely acknowledged the fact that he might think of her as one. Someone more than a simple family or companion. Harry's face seemed to heat up and he turned a wondrous shade of pink. "I..."

~I have always considered you my child, if you want to call me mom I would be honored.~ She could not keep the sentiment from entering her words, they still caught funny in her throat. ~You're not replacing Lily by calling me such a name.~

The boy blinks tears, holds her tightly and she leans into him to make sure he knows just how much she loves him.

Harry is out a single day in the hospital wing, though he can not tell her who pushed him on one of the higher staircases or caused them to change at the wrong time. Harry is lucky that he is agile, a smaller, weaker child might not have thought to grab at the handrails of the switching one below. He is happy to be returning to classes even with the stern warning that since it was a head wound that he had received that he needed to take it easy and if he felt the pain to stop entirely. Head injuries were serious, brains were fragile as she started to understand. If one was to be hit just right they could lose the ability to understand language, lose memories, or have their personalities altered permanently. Considering everything that Harry could have lost, even if he had survived, makes her very angry. If she had fingers she would have been able to count the times that she had ever reached this level of fury. She was almost blinded by it, the red that would come each time that she could glimpse the turbin.

Part of her knows that Tom has no idea what he has done or could have done. He of course knew he could have killed him but not of what it would have done to his soul and how he could have made her whole time travel point mute. What he was trying to do by harming a child felt like an overwhelming betrayal. Yet he could never have done so in this life as they have not known each other so intimately. He would torture Harry, he would not care or give it a second glance. She was fooling herself… Tom would only give up this fate if she brought hell nipping at his heels. She will have to be a reluctant enemy that toed the line. She must be cruel to be kind. If it saves his soul, if she can force him to change then that was what she needed to do. He would hate her… and she found… she found that she might have been okay with that.

It scares her, but she finds that she loves Harry more than she ever loved Tom. It would have been enough to bring tears to her eyes if she could hold them because she cared about the little boy she had seen in the memories, the one so full of life, the one that really did want to solve the problems he saw in the world. She doesn’t know when that part died, if it was all the Horcruxes if it was dying and being a wreath, she didn’t know if it was the paranoia that came with being at the top, and the schemes to overtake the ministry by force rather than civilly or something else that had stolen it.

The world would not change without bloodshed. She had known that from the moment that Credence had been slayed in front of her by spells that she can’t name. She knew it from the change of the old ways and religions. She knew it from the laws that saw her as a beast rather than a human. Tom was not wrong to want to take it over and remake it from the ground up, but he lost himself and their goal somewhere between gaining a body and killing the man that helped to run in both of their lives.

She had lost herself…

She would choose to save Harry, this time around. She would choose to believe that there was a better way. Harry had inspired a rebellion, he had led it and they should do it again. They should have dismal faith in the ministry, headmaster, and noble families. They should do so at whatever cost would earn them a place in the sun, warmth, where it was safe to be whatever blood or beast a person may be.

Yes, she would forfeit her afterlife, and soul if Tom could not be reasoned with in reaching this goal for her child. Harry had been through nearly as much horror as Tom and he still had a heart, he still cared for the world. When she looked at what the future could bring, the good that could come into this world, Harry is one of the key pieces to that.

“Nagi?” Harry petted her scales. His fingers lingered on the shed that was starting to peel.

~What is it, child?~

~I am worried about you…~

~Don’t worry about me. I am fine. I have just come to realize something.~

~Was it bad?~ The boy hazards.

~No, just a little painful.~

She stands guard over him and she hisses angrily at any that come to close the following few days. Despite pushing herself to the point that she might develop poor health she wouldn't dare to leave him alone as she set about making a more concrete plan.

With Harry well she has him come with her to the room of things. She asks him to close his eyes and see if he could think of a hiding place for an object. He does. He points down one of the winding shelves and heeps and tells her the way that is called to him. He helps her to find the box she needs. She turns him towards books while she takes to committing the place of the Horcrux to memory.

The crown is just as pretty as she had seen it in Tom's memories. It shines a deep blue that is darker than the turning of the sky or the deepest of oceans. It reflects her body well in the shining silver that never tarnishes. She knows why others might be tempted to place it on their heads, she has no such temptations as it wouldn't fit. The soul sleeps within the gemstone, she can see the darkened twisting shape.

What Tom has done... She closes her eyes. She can hear it. She can hear it softly calling out to the void around them. How cut off, how isolated it must feel.

She comes back for it when Harry is asleep. She whispers to the soul shard inside of the box and it responds.

~Hello Tom.~

"How do you know my name?"

~That is a long story.~

"You are not human, yet you have a larger soul than that of an animal." The soul shard questions her.

~I was once human.~

"A maledictus."

He already knew. He was just as brilliant as he was when she had first met him, for this shard would have been made not long after that.

~Yes.~ She bows her head over the shard.

"Were we close?"

~At one time a part of you sat inside of me.~

She tells him about herself, about her experience with Tom in Romania and she tells him of what he has become. He doesn't believe her. He doesn't remember meeting her or caring. She tries not to let that bother her. But it makes her pause. It makes her seek out Harry and hold onto him a bit too tightly. He questions her clinginess to him, but she claimed that it was within a mother’s right to worry after nothing came of the attack on his person. She relents in telling him that she doesn’t trust the headmaster to have Harry’s best interests at heart when he could not figure out who it was that harmed him.

Harry is too forgiving in this sense too. He asks Nagini to forgive him in at least that regard, not for the other things because this out of the many things that he was at fault for was probably not his fault. She would argue long into the night that his negligence to bring something to hide in the castle was a good enough reason.

She tries again the following day and the next and the soul shard starts to try and tempt her to help it find a body. If she truly cared then she would do that for it. And she tells it because she cares she will do no such thing. It must feel remorse, it must want to join back with the other part of its soul.

She then leaves it be a few days at a time, poking at its defensiveness but making no headway. She moves its resting place but dares not to touch it. She doesn't know if she will have a better time with the host but she can hope. For she decides to confront Querrill and she intends to make good on her promise to herself to put things right.

She stakes out halls near the defense classroom. She's cold, miserable, and not at full strength but she doesn't feel like she can put it off much longer. Once she has figured out where Quirrell's rooms are she knows that she can visit him when he is alone. With the slightly warmer spring air sweeping through the castle, she decides to make her move. She crawls through a narrow gap and sits herself up on the sofa. It's late before the defense professor closes the chamber door behind him. He jumps as he notices her glowing eyes in the dim candlelight.

~Back from a stroll in the forest~ she hisses.

He flinches and he is silent. It's strange to see a puppet without the strings being pulled. He is trying to figure out how to play it and he reaches for his wand. She lets out a deep-throated warning.

~I know that you can understand me. But I don't wish to talk to you. I wish to talk to Lord Voldemort.~

The man stops his trembling and he wards the door. His wand falls on her again and she knows with the posture changing that Voldemort has taken over his host for the moment. He was strong enough after feeding well off of the life force of unicorns. Hagrid had expressed his concern over the beasts earlier in the school year.

"Now this is interesting." The words fall differently from his tongue; she prefers the other voice, the one of the boy and later the master she had fallen in love with. "I have a feeling that we have met before."

~We have, but that was long ago. You had a body of your own then and were traveling to become a great Wizard.~

"Nagini." He knows her and it feels good to have someone recognize her. Tom the real one always did listen and remember. "I did not recognize you, your scales have darkened."

~I have aged.~ And she had far more than she would have liked. ~Do you remember what you asked me in that cave?~

"I told you to live." The man smiles and even though it is a different face it is his smile that she has come to love. She feels pain seeing it.

~You did.~

"I also asked that in the future if you decided to, for you to consider joining me. I have doubts that you would wish to do that, with you being so close to the boy who lived."

~You are not completely wrong.~ Nagini twisted a little in her seat. ~I care deeply about my hatchling which is why I am here.~

"To make a deal." The man thought that he had her. She can see he wants to pull on her seems, make her come undone, and she wouldn’t allow him. Not this time. No, this time she would keep herself composed and together for both of their benefits.

~To offer you more knowledge than perhaps you will know what to do with.~ She corrected. ~ You see I know many things. I have done things that even you can not. I have truly died and returned. I met the being called Death and he told me what he wanted from me in return to be reborn.~

The man starts to laugh.

~Do not laugh at me, Tom Riddle.~

And he does stop laughing because when they met he had already introduced himself by the title that he crafted. She took a deep breath and stared into his eyes. The red she is so familiar with shows under the normal color that belonged to another man.

~I once in another life held your soul against mine. I felt your feelings, I saw your memories, and listened to your dreams. I loved you with a fierceness that only can be rivaled by how much I love my second child.~ She hisses with more confidence than she feels. She poses herself like the mighty basilisk that she has seen in dreams and she looks to where she hopes the chunk of the soul remains. Her scales puff and her fangs glisten. She reminds him of her status, while being once human she is now a legendary beast with unique venom all her own. ~In that life I died and your soul was cast into the void between this world and the next. Death, you could say, was rather displeased.~

"So he sent a serpent to tempt me?" Riddle tilted his head.

~You could say that.~ She hissed bitterly. ~You had torn something precious into 7 pieces for now it is only 6.~

“I have…” He seems to think better than to correct the number.

~Made one that you did not mean to make. You have tried to kill something very precious and by doing so would have already condemned yourself to the worst afterlife possible. You would have set yourself down the path I know to have killed you in my first life.~

“The boy can not be a Horcrux.”

~It is your soul that allows him to speak to me. ~ She responds unfazed. ~A living Horcrux is possible, however, I would say it is problematic. It is much easier to spot where Harry gets some of his talents from and eyes already have turned towards him and wondered what it will take to push him in the right direction.~

"Dumbledore." A voice should not hold as much malice as Tom's does. It sounds very wrong coming out of Quirrell's mouth.

~He already believes that the boy acquired powers from you that night, he knows that you are not gone. How long is it till he discovers what Harry is? About the rest of them.~

"And when he does, you believe that he will destroy the boy?" Tom tilted his host's head in the other direction much like a predatory bird.

~He led him to slaughter, you killed him.~

A very competitive look crossed, the young man's face. He brought his hands up to balance them on his knees and play with his fingers under his chin. "You understand this changes a lot of things."

~We have just begun to scratch the surface of what I know and what can and will happen if you continue on the way you are.~

“But this is enough for me to think on for now I think. I grow tired you will find quickly nowadays.” She can see that in his face and the ache returns to her, the want to curl around him and assure him it can get better, it will be better.

~The body that is holding you is weak and frail.~ She says instead.

“That is why I have got to get the stone.”

~The stone is guarded as a trap for you. Dumbledore made it easy enough for a child to do. So one must question if he is sending my son after you or if he is just ensuring that you are emboldened to try and take it. Then again perhaps it is a little of both.~

“Yes, I can see why we might have gotten along in your past life.”

~You would call me the smartest in the room but considering the followers you had gathered, and the ones that were half mad from Azkaban, that was not saying much.~

“I would to look into your memories when I am stronger.”

~I will give you access within reason and I expect an apology from you.~

“For?”

~If you can manage a sincere one then we will talk.~

And for their first encounter, it had not gone as horrible as she had thought. She does her best to settle with the unknown. She has confidence with her leverage of 2 parts of his soul that Tom will fall in line, or as much as someone like him could.

Hagrid invites Harry down for tea a few more times over the course of the next few weeks. The warm air has finally come and Nagini is able to die down there with him. She spends the day hissing at the dog and wishing that the fire would burn just a little warmer. Harry does his best to entertain Hagrid going as far as pretending to eat the rock cakes and bringing Neville with him. Which leads to one of their visits going horribly wrong. On a surprise trip down to visit the man, Harry witnessed the birth of something magical, a dragon.

It seemed that the boy felt that it was his job to make sure that Hagrid wouldn’t get into trouble. This savior complex needed to be nipped in the bud. She had no idea if it was genetic or not, but she certainly had not encouraged this sort of behavior.

“He has a wooden house Nagi, I can’t just do nothing! I’m pretty sure owning a dragon is illegal too.”

“What’s this about a dragon?” Theo asked and Harry went a little white.

“I forgot that other people lived here.” He rubbed at his head. “I was just telling mo- Nagi about something I read in a book.”

Oh Harry, Nagini thought that was a horrible lie. She thought that she had taught him better than that.

Theo didn’t look like he believed him, but Harry was already rushing off to go and get Hermione’s thoughts on what they should do about it, leaving her far behind. She knew that it was only just that children would want to handle things by themselves but she could not help the hurt that he had not included her in the plans. Moreover now she had to worry about where it was Hagrid was getting such dangerous things. He had a 3 headed dog on the 3rd floor after all.

How many more illegal and incredibly hazardous beasts did he have access to?

She didn’t want to think about what was scurrying around in the dark forest. If she got things her way she would make sure that he never became a teacher in this life. He was giving her enough heart attacks as it was.

“Back again I see.” Seveurs glares at her. “I thought I locked this place up tighter since your last visit.”

And so he did she had to use an alternative route. She rather hoped that he did not find that one, she did not fancy using the plumbing. Toilets were such mazes for no reason. She peered more at him since he seemed to wish to pretend that she is not there. He was grading some papers of some sort. The top of which had in red ink that had yet to dry and neat scroll.

[𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓬𝓸𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓷𝓽 𝓲𝓼 𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓷 𝓶𝓸𝓻𝓮 𝓹𝓲𝓽𝓲𝓯𝓾𝓵 𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓷 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓰𝓻𝓪𝓶𝓶𝓪𝓻]

Nagini tilted her head at him as he went back to another essay. She wound around the desk and placed her head close to his. She was sure that he could smell her rat-scented breath. His fingers twitched and she watched him grip harder on his quill trying very, very hard to pretend that she wasn’t there.

One would have thought that he would have remembered what happened the last time.

“What is it that you want so I can refuse you.” He sighed heavily and she retreated towards the door and pointed towards his coat.

The man wasn’t easy to strong-arm into heading outside, it took threatening to eat one of his precious first additions to make him put on his shoes and follow her out into the halls and then out into the night. The whole way he complained that teachers did not get enough sleep, and while he knew that it would not do much for his appearance he was not about to waste the few precious hours that he got on a “stroll in the moonlight.” She tuned out most of his complaints about his colleagues' belief that he was an insomniac and how they always were forcing him into the night’s graveyard shifts. What was the point of having a caretaker and the like if the staff had to sacrifice so much of their already far too few hours free of students?

She didn't have an answer and she suppose she felt a twinge of pity for the man.

“Well?” He snapped as they reached the edge of the grounds. She beckoned to the wooden house. “Hagrid.” He seemed to mutter the name with about as much venom as he had put into saying that she was an annoyance and Harry was an idiot.

She knocked for him and there was the sound of stumbling, a thud, and Fang barking. The potion master looked more tired than ever in the faint lighting of the hanging lamp.

“Norbert no! Fang knock it off!”

The door swung open with a bang that didn’t make Severus as much as flinch, just blinking at the fact that it had been centimeters away from taking his large nose clean off.

“Oh, er Professor. What can I do yah for.” He said in surprise.

He hardly noticed when Nagini pushed her way inside to see the small-scaled thing poking out of the blankets. It was not hidden at all and was about the size of a large house cat. It hissed at her in what was old baby-like language. She hissed back and it fell over itself and its wings trying to get a better look at her. It stumbled and tumbled due to the blankets on its feet. The home smelt of fresh meat and there were bloodied prints from the place where it had been eating. It coughed and a large stream of fire came out of its mouth and shot towards the wide open door. Snape stared absolutely dumbfounded before he started turning purple. It was the most color that she had ever seen on his face. It looked like her work here was done as she had not a single doubt that the headmaster would be forced to deal with this mess in the morning or in the next hour when Severus tired himself out from yelling at Hagrid and would have to make his way back to the castle to do the same to the headmaster.

Chapter Text

Being a snake Nagini was well versed in body language. She could read anyone even from a distance and she knew Harry well enough to know that he was angry. He was her child and she could read him better than anyone else. So she knew long before he reached her that he was upset with her.

~How could you?~ Harry hissed.

~How could I, what, child?~ She asked patiently.

Harry bristled and she could see the way his eyes seemed to flash in that way that Tom’s would when he was upset. Her Tom had been real quiet since they had their little chat. The diadem had been as mouthy as ever but the actual man himself hadn’t spoken to her nor sought her out. He had been facing Harry more in class, seeming to try and find the soul that she had told him to be there.

~You told Snape about the dragon~ Harry exclaimed.

~Harry, dear, I can’t tell anyone anything that isn’t a speaker.~ She reminded him. ~I can only talk with people like you~

~You lead him there then.~ Harry snipped. ~I know that you can communicate without speaking to someone.~

Well, that was certainly true she was pretty good about getting what she wanted with limited ways in which to express herself.

~See, you can’t twist that wording.~ Harry latched on and as she had taught him he did not let go. ~You know I hate him. Why would you tell him?~

~I do not intend to twist my words.~ She sighed as best that she was capable of. It more of came out as a strangled hiss. ~I want to make it clear. I am very honest when it comes to you, Harry. As honest as I can be. There are things that even I do not know. I did what I thought was best for everyone.~

Harry made an angry noise that really sounded like the whine of a raged animal then an 11-year-old boy. ~By getting Hagrid in trouble!~

~By ensuring you and your friend’s safety. Do not think that I am silly enough to buy that you wouldn’t be trying to get Hagrid out of the trouble that he placed himself in. You are my hatchling. I do not wish for this to become like Halloween. A dragon can bite and it is no laughing matter when it can cause 3rd degree burns.~

~I could have handled it.~ Harry started.

~You are capable~ She moved to wrap herself around him. ~But you should not have to handle it alone. I am able to help as well. ~

~Hagrid is in so much trouble.~ Harry pulled at his hair and revealed the scar that he does his best to hide. It pokes out of his forehead like a spiderweb of broken glass. She can't help but lean into it.

~The headmaster will not let anything bad happen to him. Despite his criminal record he is able to stay on the property. This will just be another small bump in the road.~

Harry blinked.

~Do not think that this is the first of illegal animals that man has held onto and I suspect that it will not be the last. This time at least it was not a poisonous spider.~

~A spider?~ Harry rubbed his eyes. Ah so he was not just angry but scared as well for what would happen to dear old Hagrid. The man did seem to be one of his more close friends for better or worse.

~Oh yes, there is a reason even I do not travel into the forbidden forest, Harry. There are spiders the size of large cars.~

Harry went a little pale. ~And… umm… He wanted one as a pet?~

~He has a taste for the dangerous. I however think that others would argue that you do as well.~ She bumped into him knowingly.

~I still don’t like you telling Snape.~

~Trust me, Severus, despite his demeanor, does care about what happens at the school. I know that he would at least make sure that it was no longer a threat.~

The bat probably cared the most and that was saying something. He had a horrible snappish way of showing it but he did enforce the rules however unfairly. Nagini trusted him to do what she was unable to care for Harry if nothing else. She would not trust Tom’s safety to him. Not unless she could somehow force him into it… and even if she could there was the inevitable betrayal if that were to happen.

~Will they kill it.~ Harry shook a little. ~I mean I could almost understand some of the words it was saying.~

~You will find that most reptiles are capable of hissing and thus you can understand some of the language. Rest assured dragons are endangered and I doubt that they will risk losing an infant one. They most likely will take it to a reserve where it can live out its days safe from human interference.~

~I never really thought about a wildlife preserve for all the magical creatures we’re learning about in defense. But I suppose that the animals have to hide somewhere. I bet Hermione would know.~

~Then go talk to her about it.~ Nagini encouraged. ~Or learn for yourself.~

Harry paused though and held onto her. His fingers ran down her scales. She tilted her head and retreated a little from him. ~What is it my hatchling.~

~I never had someone care so much about me.~ Harry rubbed more at her scales and another rubbed a bit harder at his eyes. ~Nagini~

The words ‘I would die for you’ were on her tongue but she did not say it. She knew too many people had died for Harry and he would not like those words to be repeated to him no matter how well she meant by it. She was so caught off guard by him.

~I love you.~ Harry sniffled. ~I am sorry that I was mad at you~

The words wash over her and Nagini can hardly fight to keep herself upright. She longed for those words and yet did not feel that she completely was worthy of them. She had yet to take care of the most dangerous adversary hanging over them. She had so much that she could not yet tell him. For the first time she wondered what would happen if she was to tell him the whole truth. How those words would spiral and unfold until he hated her.

She had never feared someone hating her as much as she feared Harry doing so. For those before him it was expected, but he had wormed his way into her heart and it was rotten for him now. Infested with love that just like with Credence would be the end for her.

She was a mother now and she knew that children sometimes could grow to hate their parents no matter their good intentions. She would take what she could get at the moment. She would worry about everything later. For now she would curl around him more so. She licked at the tears that had formed near his eyes and could taste the salt that reminded her of worse memories where none would dry her tears.

~I adore you.~ She tells him because she is scared to tell him that she loves him. Everything that Nagini has ever loved has been taken from her and she is scared to say the words out loud. Scared that it might be like an incantation that will bring out the very worst of outcomes.

~Can I stay here a bit longer before I go to talk to Hermione about magical reserves.~ Harry said quietly.

~You can stay as long as you want.~ She says just as quietly.

She had held onto the body of Credence until it had lost all of its warmth. She had held on when the maggots started to crawl over him and he began to rot and blot. She curled over a skeleton in grief so harsh that she had been overwhelmed and could not move. She had been in shock then and she had nothing else. She had given her life for this boy and she had loved him like she had loved no one else. Not her own mother, not even the forests that she had dreams about running in. She had held onto the bones and scared away anything that would take them from her and she watched as the grass and moss overtook them and made a mound. She had stayed there wrapped in her anger and her loss till she would starve if she did not move and she had fled into the wilderness and there had been no escape from that emptiness. She had run and run till there was nothing that reminded her of the black hair of the man she loved or the world that she had known to reject them both.

She would stay with Harry until he wanted to move. She would coil herself around him so many times that she was a chair and a blanket of coils that made its way safely around him in a protective shield. Harry leans into her and he reads. He reads to her about magical creatures and she sleeps to the sound of his heartbeats and his words wash over her into her dreams.

Nagini dreams of a different world than that of a schoolyard. She dreams of the rain-filled swamps and forests of her homeland. She dreams of large prey and a full belly. She dreams of a skeleton that waits in the darkened rain-dusted treetops. A being that has invested in her and given her another chance. It tilts its head and she finds herself falling into the river beds, being swept into the larger river.

She wakes with a pit in her belly and worries in her heart. The sort that makes her near sick. Her little one is already gone and she hisses because she misses him.

Nagini knows what she must do in the way that many people look at something in dread at the edge of oblivion and knows that they must make a decision. Before her, she saw no good ending if she did not take action and she did not force her hands to tip in the way that she needed them to.

Once long ago she had been Tom’s confident she had learned a lot about the way that he thought and it was easy enough to slip back into the mindset. She knew it like an old skin, one that she had outgrown. It was uncomfortable and tight. She did not delight in causing others harm any longer. No, she liked she found to comfort others in their pain and in turn have them comfort and love her back.

Yes, she would do this for Harry, and she would do this for herself. Making this decision is not too hard. She had kept Harry far from anything that would be stone-related. So it came down to her retrieving it or protecting it. She knew well enough that Tom would need to make a move on it sooner rather than later. The end of the year was upon them and she had a suspicion that Voldemort was trying to keep his options open.

She would have to give him another push and ultimatum as she was certain that he was not going to give up on his plan of getting the stone. If he had a better body to hold him then he would probably have gotten what he needed already. He however did not and that put him on a losing front. He had not apologized for hurting Harry but she did not expect him to.

Voldemort was a Narcissist and a psychopath. While Nagini did not know the medical diagnosis and all that it entitled she knew that he did not feel remorse. He could empathize if one was able to show just as twisted wording and thoughts as he. For Voldemort ultimately cared more about himself than any other and he understood logic over most feelings. He knew anger well and he knew it would disappear. There was not much room after that, however he did possess the ability to recognize that others were just as integral to his ego and his identity.

Voldemort needed people to praise him, he needed people to recognize his greatness, and she knew well enough that his happiness could be tied to the people around him. Happy servants did what was needed with glee and happy people brought their own form of satisfaction to him. He had cared for Nagini because she fit well into roles and things that Voldemrot so desperately needed and craved.

He had been alone when she had found him or was it that he found her? She can no longer recognize the difference. She had provided him safety and comfort. She had fed his ego as she knew that he was many things and great was only one part of him. He was cruel, cynical, and violent. Yet there was a side that was scared of vulnerability and trusted deeply that he was important enough that he could never truly be forgotten.

She could fit in again into the vacant role that she had taken before. She would advise and she would protect if he would have it. She though had much firmer limits this time around and so she was certain that this forced confrontation and conversation would be the determining factor of if she would work in another way to destroy him and her afterlife or if she would stir him to make better choices if for nothing more than his and Harry’s benefit.

She had no issue slipping up to the third floor. She knew the castle well now and she had no issue sidestepping the 3 headed dog that was already asleep. She had no issue moving past the intertwined vines of a deadly plant. She wriggled with ease past the keys with a slip in the cracked wall. The chess pieces noticed a magical signature but they did not react to her as she shimmied over and past them. The wall of fire gave her the briefest of pauses but she found herself able to climb over them. She sat herself down on the other side.

~It seems that you are instant on making a fool of yourself.~ She hissed to the man that looked into the mirror with no avail. He turned to her and she stared back at him. ~I warned you about this place and yet you have come.~

“Dumbledore was out of the castle and so this was my best chance if not the only one that remained.” The voice contorted to that in which she is familiar with.

~Dumbledore has played you and will be coming shortly. Surely you have determined this. Nothing he does is so simple or careless.~

“I know very well that it is a trap, I intend to break out of it all the same.”

~At full strength you might even have stood a chance but you are not. And should you fail this attempt you will not get another.~

“Do not threaten me.”

~I am speaking the truth. You just do not like it.~

“And why are you here Nagini?”

~I am here to, I believe your words, not mine, to make a deal with you~ There was a brief look of triumph in the man’s face. ~Make no mistake this deal is not in your favor. I will not tie myself to a sinking ship as it were.~

She is terrified. She can feel her heart slamming so hard into her ribs that she is scared that it might escape out of them. Yet she holds herself still as possessed as ever the serpent. She has no idea if this will work or not and yet she will try. She will try to help him as she had once done.

~I care deeply for the boy that I once knew. The one that cried in the attic and spoke to snakes as they were his only companions and trusted counterparts. I let him sit in my chest against my heart and I protected him from the form that he did not know would be so painful to be in. I learned of the magical world that shut both of us out for blood, for hypocrisy, for some greater good that left anyone that wasn’t the Right sort Behind. It was 14 years of torment that none should have to endure. ~

She moved closer.

~I wish to save you from that fate. 2 more years and you will be further gone than you are now. You will bathe the world in blood. The population will shrink again to such a small number it can not hope to recover from. Hogwarts burns and the magical children are almost all killed. I do not wish for you to become the monster that the world came together to kill. Voldemort doesn’t have to come back in order for you to do extraordinary things. He does not have to bring this distruction to be revered.~

She doesn’t let the plea enter her voice as that would sound weak to Voldemort and she doesn’t wish for him to capitalize on it. She knows that he is angry because she has brought up his weakened state yet again. She knows better than anyone how horrible it is to feel weak and as if there is nothing that can be done.

~I know how you crave power, I know how you seek to ruin the houses that have wronged you, I feel that pain, and I will not stop you from your vengeance. I wish only to implore you to take down only those that deserve it.~

~And what if I were to say your son deserves my vengeance~

~Then you are further gone than I ever thought possible and I will gladly take my ruined afterlife in order to stop you.~ She flashed her fangs.

~The child killed me.~

~The mother killed you with a set trap you walked into like you are now. You provided a death for a death, an eye for an eye, and the spell was the sacrifice it needed. You fulfilled the prophecy on your own. Harry has already done what was needed for him to do.~

~And how do I know dear Nagini that he will not go on to try and defeat me again?~

~Because you will give him no reason to.~ She said firmly, ready to give her last push. ~if there is no great and evil Voldemort there is no need for the child to be pushed into a role I will not allow.~

~We both know that the old man has plans for him.~

~As he no doubt had plans for my Credence and you.~ Nagini tilted her head. ~Ceratinly you will not let him manipulate you like that.~

~I am entertaining you, but don’t think that isn’t what you are trying to do.~

~Oooh I know what I am doing. I am playing for my afterlife and for yours.~

~Then what is it that you purpose that I do? My time is running short.~

She finds this to be the truest of tests. She closed her eyes for a moment and then fixed her gaze back on him. ~ You can not go for the stone. You will displace yourself again. You will be lost. This time perhaps choose a better vessel. I can hold you. ~

~And so you show your true colors.~ The man's face smiles and it stretches funny and his voice drips with hostility. ~

~I saw Voldemort do great things and return from his partial grave in human form. I know the way in which to do it. You are free to leave here and check it. I will even give you one of your followers to help in this endeavor. Peter is hidden in this castle and can act as a temporary middle ground so to speak.~

~The mere thought of inhabiting him disgusts me.~

~And so we have returned to the starting point.~

~Perhaps not. I have a bit longer in this body. The unicorn blood has sustained me. I could be convinced to leave the stone temporarily in exchange for one of my loyal death eaters to assist me. And your lead of course as long as it is solid.~

And you would trust the validity of my claims just at my word.

“No, I would like to see it in your mind. I wish to see how you see.”

Dangerous! Her instincts raced!

“This I can do.” She agrees and she mentally puts up the barriers that she needed to shield parts of her mind. Not because she wanted to hide it, but because she did not want to see it again… she did not want to feel the cold of death again.

There is a soft presence at the front of her mind that asks and knocks. For this is not an attack, it is a prayer and a hope for sincerity. Voldemort is vulnerable but he is not as weak as he pretends to be. He could very well hurt her. Yet curiosity had always been one of his strongest traits, a willingness to learn and a stubbornness to accomplish anything.

He is wary of her, but interested.

She lets him in and floods her mind of those days in hiding.

The earth is cool and wet. They hid from the rain in one of the burrows deep in the earth. She breathes in the damp and she feels his soul against her own. Tom is there, sleeping, resting. She can feel the flutter of what would have been a second heart. She coils tighter as if he is below her. She gives him her strength and her care. She feeds him her remaining magic and she wills for him to be strong.

The next shift brings other memories forward.

Tom rages and she feels his blood boiling with her own. Dumbledore had rejected both of them. There is a boy with a wardrobe that is on fire. A boy that wants to be praised for being different and for overcoming the things that have been hard for him. He has skills to get what he needs, he can steal to fend for himself, he can fix broken things and mend them. He is powerful enough to harm those that would do worse to him if they could. He can do things that are special. Yet the cold eyes look at him with nothing but indifference. The look that he is so used to seeing. The small bit of soul that is part of her wilters under the look and a need to change that look… to be worthy in the eyes of someone great… it’s too much for Tom not to have even the smallest bit of acceptance or praise.

Tom would try harder and he would be rejected in each turn. His work was never as appreciated as the others. He would gain favor with all but the man that he wanted it from. The darkness that had always been a part of him is fed by the Purebloods that call him a filthy mudblood and this Tom, this one understands what Nagini feels.

The unwanted disgusting snake girl. The one that mothers shielded their children from and refused to touch for fear of being infected. The one that was hurt, caged, rejected for the very thing that she was. She lets him feel this again. That kinship, that wish to be accepted.

He refused to acknowledge Tom’s brilliance and help him from a world at war. He let everything stay stagnant at hogwarts. He had left Nagini to die and failed in protecting his own family. He had let Credence die for the very reason that he was fearful of Tom. “He will pay.” Tom promises her and the noble serpent that is inside of her rises with purpose.

She lets him move the space of her mind.

He has a body and one of the first things that he does is cress her scales and pull her close to him and she holds tight to the frail rudimentary body that she has helped to create. She hisses comforts in his ears and she promises him her venom and blood and scales.

The memories turn again and threaten to swallow them.

The halls of Hogwarts are filled with bodies. There is the pungent smell of blood and there is no end to the damage and the wreckage. She lets him taste the death that he brings the world. She lets him see the endless wanted posters and the darkness that envelops everything. She lets him see his paranoia and the degradation of the wizarding world. She lets him feel with her as each part of his soul dies and the fear that surrounds the end of the both of them.

The other presses more and she can’t stop the forceful one that turns to a way she did not wish for him to go. She feels the strain on her mind.

Her death greats her. Her head comes free from her neck as she makes a move to protect him. She can feel the steel and she can feel the heat and burning from inside her as the spark that they shared that bound them dies with her. She feels death again. The cold that is all-consuming. She hisses and she lashes out. Her human body grabs at the man she can clearly picture in her head. She pushes him hard with her thin arms and….

Tom Riddle pulls from her mind and his current body falls from the reeling of leaving it.

~You pushed too far.~ She felt the venom enter her mouth as she felt more rage than she could control.

“I felt it...” He gasped and held onto the body that he was inhibiting. “I felt… it.”

Of course, he was fearful… for he had felt death and he before that had never died. Not fully.

~Death.~ She hissed the word. ~I died for you and you followed me not much later I would suspect.~

The red bloodshot eyes of Quarrell look into hers.

~You will feel it again if they find your Horcruxes~

“That body...”

~Was hard to make.~ She stated. ~You would need me for it.~

“Bring me Peter and I will have faith in this alliance.”

~Keep away from Harry.~ She warns. ~And we have a deal.~

Chapter Text

That night a servant would be delivered to his master and one rat would go missing. The Professor for Defense against the Dark Arts would disappear and the stone would remain behind the glass of a very old and dangerous mirror. A small crown makes its way out of the castle in a box and hopefully, it goes where it will be safe. The wind takes her past love with it and a promises to see each other again when the ritual needs to be completed. She isn’t sure what she feels.

Maybe it is a relief that for now it is over. Maybe it is excitement and worry about how things will turn out between them. Mostly though she is just glad that her heart has stopped racing as it could not be good for her all this stress. She isn’t going to miss looking over her metaphoric shoulder every so often to make sure Tom had not turned Murdery and forget that Harry was his Horcrux.

Nagini found herself at the entranceway to the dungeons in the wee hours of the morning. There is a creeping of the light through the small windows that welcomes her back into the dark. She feels in that place on the stairway the exhaustion enters her bones, a tiredness she has not felt for a long time. She blinks tired eyes and lets out a soft hissed sigh. She is getting too old for this; far too old. Her body has a few scrapes and the tip of her tail longs to shed. She pushes a lot of air into her lungs and then out. Her tongue darts in and out of her mouth as she feels the shift in magic. She can see Severus slinking about in the dark and she coils a little as she watches his wand and the way that the light dances in front of it. He suspects her involvement with Quarrell. She puffs up by first attacking him as there is a smaller shape behind him. Harry rubs his eyes and follows their interactions closely. The boy does not know that things are shifting towards hostility.

~Nagini~ Harry yawns. ~I was worried. You don’t usually hunt so long.~

She flicks her tongue in and out of her mouth. ~Child tell Severus the stone is safe but only just.~

Harry seems to blink back to life at this. “Umm…” He bites his lip a little. “Professor. Nagi says that the stone is safe but only just.”

The dark eyes widened and she found herself relaxed ever so slightly as he didn’t seem to be going to curse her as long as she played this right, Harry would be safe and she would have everything under control for the time being.

~Tell him that he has fled.~

“Who has fled Nagi.” Harry asked, forgetting to play the translator.

“Albus.” Severus starts.

“I think you and I should have a talk, Nagini.” An old voice entered the conversation. “It has been a long time has it not?”

She reared back and hissed her voice filling with animal more than woman. ~ You ~

“Nagini.” Harry says bewildered and makes a move to protect her or to stop her from attacking the headmaster.

~You~ She hisses again more in control of herself. ~Harry, don't worry child. I will handle this. Please just translate the best that you can between us.~

“Nagi wants me to translate her words.” Harry said softly his green eyes shined with confusion.

“I do not doubt that she would, however, some things perhaps a child should not hear about.” Albus said kindly. “There is a Gaunt’s portate in the headmaster's office that will translate just fine.”

~Tell him whatever he is to speak about he had best just say to the both of us, as there is nothing, I keep from my child. A child he left on a doorstep and could not be bothered to check in on.”

Harry flushed at this as his fist tightened. “You left me with them!” His voice lowers much like Tom’s did. She wrapped herself around him. “You were the one that left me with the Dursleys?”

“Harry, I know how you must feel about your relatives. It so happens that we have to speak on that as well.”

“No! Harry all but shouted. “You have no idea what they are like. I don’t… I can’t go back there.” His eyes shifted from Nagini to Severus and back.

“You won’t let them right, sir?” He asked his head of the house. “You helped with the nutrition potions.”

Severus was silent for a moment and Harry moved backward as if he had been struck. Nagini tightened around him. His silence was as good as a no to a child.

~You will not go back to them.~ She promised whispering in his ear. ~We have gold and we can stay elsewhere.~

“There are protections on the house.” Dumbledore started.

~Just like there were enchantments to protect Credence!~ Nagini spat. ~Just like my speaker would be safe at the orphanage~

“Nagini asked about Credence.” Harry watches as Dumbledore’s face grows ashy and a little pale. “Nagini hasn’t told me much about how he died, she said it was your fault. That you killed your own family.”

Dumbeldore is speechless.

~Tell him that not all families are good, that sometimes it is safer away from that. Enchantments or not.~ She says calmer than before as the feeling of fight leaves her bones.

She was so tired of being angry. Yes, she had it boiling and she could feel the red at the edge of her vision, but it wasn’t the time for it. No, Tom would be a crafter. He would cut and then he would fix.

“Perhaps all 4 of us should head to my office.” The old man finally says. “There are further adjustments to make if we can not rely on the wards in place.”

The walk there is nearly silent and Nagini makes sure that Harry is protected by her body over his. Her eyes are sharp and she looks over the two men that she mixed feelings for. She doesn’t trust them all that much. Dumbledore, she can count on only wanting Voldemort not to be an issue any longer and Severus that he wants to protect Harry. That protection might not extend to him if he is found to be a Horcrux. She will have to maneuver this properly. This would be so much easier if she did not have to rely on someone twisting her words intentionally or unintentionally as they didn’t quite remember what she said and needed to paraphrase. Harry tries but he is only 11.

The office is large and she and Fawkes share a look as Albus wakes one of the older paintings in the back of the tower. The old man in the frame adjusts his hat and there is a quick exchange of words before it begrudgingly decides to answer to the demand.

“Please let us have a seat. A house-elf will bring some tea and biscuits.” Albus gestures and a table appears and it is set for four. Nagini stares at the empty cup and wants to throw the tea into his face. It’s not like she can have any of it and not that she would ever trust it. She hoped that Harry had enough sense to avoid it. She had not versed him as much as she should on the possibility of poisons and potions being slipped into one's drink

“Headmaster.” Snape hisses a bit like a snake. “We don’t have time for this, the Dark Lord…”

“Is long gone, if Nagini is to be believed.” The old man held up a hand to silence the other.

~He is no longer here.~ She says and nearly a second later the portrait is repeating what she said flawlessly. ~The stone you will find however in its proper place.~

The conversation pauses for a moment for the translator to catch them up.

“I would like to know how it is that you stopped him.” Albus cut to the chase.

~The same way I suspect that you stopped him all year. ~ She says coyly ~I did nothing but watch and wait. I put on a bigger show than he did. Certainly, you knew he was possessing Quarrell. It is why I never let him near Harry and why I never left him alone.~

Severus turned an unhealthy shade of white that was more pasty than his usual. He looked like he might vomit. He is looking as if the Headmaster has grown 2 heads and is probably rethinking every encounter that he has had this school year with his ‘peer’.

“I was unaware that he was possessing Quarrell but I did suspect that he was working with him.”

~And yet you let him teach children~ If Nagini could she would raise an eyebrow at this. ~The stuttering and the discoloration of his eyes and face should have told you that something was off.~

“My failings aside. How did you find Mr. Potter? It’s a large coincidence that you were able to come into contact with one of the only remaining parcel mouths. ”

~Oh do you seek to sow distrust between us?~ She hissed slowly, almost forgetting that her child was present as the bitterness threatened to drown her.

She hated this man. She hated him so deeply that no matter what Tom decided to do with his new chance she could never hate him as much as the man in front of her.

~How very rich. After Credence was murdered . I mourned him. I held his bones and buried him alone under stones that I carried to him. The man that promised to help me was nowhere to be seen. He was busy mourning his loss I suspect. Nonetheless, I was captured like an animal not long after and locked in a zoo as my final transformation took place. Harry freed me from said zoo and I have been watching over him ever since.~

There is a stunned silence and she moves her head to the side. ~Imagine one moment would you please that not everyone wants to know Harry Potter because he defeated the Dark Lord. Some of us care deeply for his welfare because he is a brilliant and kind child. Imagine would you please my disgust at another Dark Lord stealing an innocent life. Credence was fooled by Grindelwald. Voldemort will not have Harry.~

This answer seems to satisfy the old man. His eyes twinkle a little and she stares into those eyes and dares him to try his little trick. She has the memory of Credence rotting and the grief that nearly killed her at the forefront of her mind. She wants him to look. She wants him to experience that pain for himself.

“I am happy that you have found someone to care so deeply for.” The old man decides and she has the urge to latch herself onto his throat. It would be easy too. She doubted that he would react in time.

~I am sure you are.~ She flashes her fangs. ~Now that you know how deeply I care for Harry I demand to know why you would place the stone key to Voldemort’s return in a school full of children and let a suspected Death Eater teach. Severus I can understand. But Quarrell was an accident waiting to happen.~

Harry made a strangled noise and Nagini shifted herself again on her chair to be closer to him. The tea and the like appeared but she paid it no mind. No, she was near an enemy and she could not afford to let her guard down for even a moment.

“I thought there might still have been a chance for Quarrell.” Albus said grimly. “He was a teacher here a few years before he decided to switch positions.”

~His second chance nearly saw Harry dead at the bottom of a staircase.~ Nagini cut him off. ~No manner of apologies can fix that. I would have killed him had I known that I wouldn’t be put down for it.~

“I suspect you would.” Dumbledore said simply and he seemed to have similar ideas. Well, it was strange to see that glimmer in his face again. She had always taken him for a coward until she saw him coming for her Tom in the ministry.

~We are on the same page then. Voldemort can not be allowed to return.~

And he wouldn’t at least not in the same way that he had been. Her goal was to bring back Tom. Her wonderful Tom.

“Of that we are agreed.”

“Excuse me.” Harry cut in. “So Voldemort wanted this stone thing because it would bring him back to life?”

~Yes, my hatchling is correct.~

“Why didn’t you tell me!”

~ I warned you dear child not to get involved because I didn’t want Vodemort’s attention to move towards you. In the future, I will inform you as I can tell that it has upset you greatly.~

Albus looked like he wanted to protest this matter but he didn’t get the chance.

“I believe I am following just fine.” Severus interjected. “However I am trying to understand just who Nagini is.”

“She was once a human woman with a blood curse.” Dumbledore looked over his glasses at her. “She helped in the fight against Grindelwald. She fought fiercely and saved many lives. Now she is still a wonderful and brave woman but is trapped in the body of a snake permanently. For that I apologize to Nagini I was caught up in my grief and the trials and clean up. I failed you.”

She did not care if he sounded apologetic. She knew it was a lie. She would not be fooled. Severus was looking at her with slightly skeptical eyes but she paid it no mind. She cared very little about what people thought about her these days. She cared only for Harry and Tom. Of which Her child’s opinion mattered far more greatly.

~See that you do not fail me again.~ She says pointedly. ~Help protect this child and do not send him back where he will be unsafe for a different reason than a Dark Lord after his head.~

‘Do not send my child to die in a war that does not have to be.’ She willed him ‘at least have that decency. See past the scheme and see what Harry is.’

“What would you have me do then?” Dumbledore raised a brow. “There is nothing stronger than the blood wards that Lily Potter placed on her sister’s home.”

She had thought of that. She knew well that there had to be some other option.

~A secret keeper is needed and that is all~ She responds looking towards Snape. She was winning this battle of wills and while she was not foolish enough to believe that Dumbledore believed her full-heartedly, she knew for at least now she had his trust. She just needed to play on that a little more. Get herself and Harry a small place to stay that was easy enough to be checked on. She wouldn't leave Harry but to hunt and to give Tom his ingredients.

“No.” Severus bellows, “Absolutely not! The last time… the last time it failed.” His voice nearly broke at that last part. Harry looked over at Nagini for clarification but she would have to do that later. She would be talking a lot to her hatchling in the near future she feared.

~There is no traitor here to give it away.~ Nagini responded. ~And I will be present to protect him.~

“A snake will be no match for trained Death Eaters.”

~This Snake took you down pretty easily.~ Nagini defended. ~You would be surprised how quickly I can move when I need to. I was never a very skilled witch but I am a very deadly snake. My poison is lethal even in very small amounts.~

“You can not survive a killing curse, which is exactly what they will hurl at you.”

~Only if they find us.~ Nagini hissed over him. ~I want you to keep the secret unless you are saying that you would tell like Black under the slightest bit of pressure from old acquaintances.~

“Of course not!” Severus sputters.

“I don’t want just to be placed and stored somewhere like a stone.” Harry interjected.

Nagini quickly moved to comfort him. ~Never, Never my sweet hatchling. I would never let any cage you, we just need a safe place to hide if needed and a portkey to get there. We have plans this summer to visit all your friends don’t we~

Harry coughed awkwardly. ~Mum…~ This gets unfortunately translated and the small teen gets even more red in the face and ears. “You don’t need to coddle me. I know that Voldemort’s dangerous. I just wanted to know if I had to be worried about being attacked in the street or something and if that was the case if I could get more practice with defensive spells and such.”

~Not a bad idea.~ She states. This also could give her a small bit of time away from the others where it wouldn't be questioned. ~but there are foolish regulations in that regard.~

“The laws are in place for a reason.” Albus shakes his head.

~I could explain how the law further isolates the muggle-born community but we will not go there.~ She dismisses him in a way that Tom often did with his Death Eaters. ~ It is late and we still have better things to decide than our view on politics. Harry will need to learn to defend himself. I can help with physical attacks and awareness but the magic will need to be directed by someone very familiar. One of you should teach him.~

Dumbledore rubbed at his beard.

~This would be a way to redeem yourself in my eyes. I can’t speak for Harry but the Dursleys were your fault.~

“Perhaps I should.” The headmaster relents. “Voldemort has taken an interest no doubt in vengeance against the boy. And while I don't think we need to suspect an attack so soon it is inevitable. It gives us time to prepare. Voldemort would not be strong enough now for it and his followers that remain would need a bit more persuasion that he was back before they would outwardly risk the attack in a public place. Individually and in the shadows or where they can not be seen doing the act is a different matter. The boy will need to be watched carefully.

/p>

“The boy is right here.” Harry said bitterly. And Nagini is reminded how he hates the word boy. His Uncle called him boy... They called him a freak and anything but his name.

~Harry~ She hissed softly. ~I am sorry you should indeed have a say in this.~

Severus cleared his throat. “That comes down again to where we should have him live. I am with Nagini to the point that he can not go back to the Dursleys. The healers also would argue that point.”

Bless Severus he had that subtle little push and hidden threatening ability. He was a true Slytherin. If he wasn’t one of the reasons that Tom had died she could almost forgive him for the annoying slights this year.

“I thank you for volunteering, Severus.” Albus pounced.

Wait... No!

~I am his mother.~ Nagini hissed.

“Not in the eyes of the law.” Albus shook his head. “They would never recognize it, but a head of house taking a ward would make sense. They work as Magical representational guardians as needed. Severus would have the legal authority and he was very close to Lily.”

~ That magical law would see me as a potion ingredient.~ Nagini thundered. Her voice nearly gave out. ~ I care nothing about their petty laws.~

“You and I are in agreement about their unfairness and the injustice in them, however, they need to be obeyed at least on paper for the time being.”

He was trying so hard to push her out of this. Legally she knew that she didn’t have a prayer but she had hoped to appeal to the sense of morality in the man. She would not be placed with a spy that would report everything back to the headmaster.

No, this is greatly upsetting.

“It would just be on paper.” Albus tries to soothe but only makes her mouth fill with venom. “You are a fine guardian. Severus would just be able to give the shelter and the correct outward appearance that is all.”

Compromises. Tom had hated them. He told her often that he would not use Werewolves if he had a choice. Yet Greyback was an effective scare tactic. He always had his reasons. Much like Dumbledore… She took in a deep breath that flared her nostrils and she brought her tongue in and out.

What would Tom do?

He would use this as an opportunity to turn the informer against the master or to send purposeful misdirections.

Yes!

She could do this.

~IF it is what Harry agrees to then I suppose that we shall be at Severus’s mercy of hospitality.~ She sends a small careful barb to the man who looks far from pleased.

It wouldn’t take long for Nagini to let the compromise and arrangements be made. She watches the magic settle in a vow to help shelter and keep a secret that must not be spoken. A house in Spinner’s End is revealed to her and she thinks nothing less of it. Though Severus looks at her and Harry like he expects them to have something to say. She had lived in far worse places. She had lived in a hole in the ground, a tent, and a cage, this was nice in comparison. To Harry, it was just a house. He had been in a cupboard. They cared nothing for the outward appearance or the shabby furniture.

Harry doesn’t have anything to say. He already expressed his reluctance in the headmaster’s office but also his resolve to make it possible for Nagini to be recognized as more than the form that she is stuck in.

She is my mother, I didn’t get to meet my real one, but Nagi takes care of me like the one that I always wanted.

Now as she moves in, she makes sure that she is at his side to ease the uncertainty of it all. She is desperate to be worthy of the love that has been granted to her so freely. She is going to have to find the right balance. In the coming months, there will be a need for her scales and her venom. Tom will be building his fragile body and she knows that he will need more protection than ever. She doesn’t trust Peter but perhaps if he did manage to free Barty then she wouldn’t have to worry about the rat running off on them. She hopes Quarrel's body holds out. She hopes that Tom will come back better with the shard she has trusted him to take back.

He was so tiny… so fragile the last time. She didn’t want him to be hurt. She still is angry at him. He is foolish and brash, but she loves him.

“Nagini” Her name is like a prayer on his lips. He whispers it in her ear as he shudders in the small blanket. She holds herself around the bundle, she puts her head into his small trembling hands. She had already given him all that she could. Even her heart. It is not enough though. He is not whole, he needs blood. And she needs his soul to sit correctly in her again. She needs him. He promised her forever. He would give her a part of himself. He would make her immortal as he. And after what felt like an eternity alone it doesn't seem enough. Yet, it is enough to hear him call her name like that at the moment. No one had ever needed her as much as he did. She bared her teeth at the neglectful rat.

She lays on the small rug by the fireplace and hisses softly to herself. Severus spares her a look but they are not able to communicate without the portrait, well not unless they want to play charades, or ask Harry. Nagini has a feeling that Severus would rather do anything else than acknowledge the awkward situation that they found themselves in. So she doesn't press it. She has enough to worry about without adding offending an oversized bat to the list.

Chapter Text

Nagini did not sleep well that evening. She curls hard around the bed frame and lets herself drift in and out of sleep. Every time that she manages to close her eyes she finds herself in a dream that quickly makes her wake. She has too many worries that are swirling in her mind. One could only see their love die so many times and experience their own death again before they could not stand to be even in the same room as the child that now calls her mother. They never would have anything to do with her should they have access to that timeline.

She was currently in her way deceiving him.

She didn’t deserve his care in many ways.

Disgusted with herself she slid to the floor with a loud thud and made her way down the stairs. She would stare at the bricks and breathe in the faint smell of dust and dark memories that were scattered in this home for a few hours. She paces. The dark cast long shadows across the floors. She pauses by the mirror that is in the hall. The parts that are not covered by a traveling cloak and large scarf show her just fine. She leans a little and looks at herself. There are many times that she can not bear to look at the creature that she has become. For all her pride in who she is, she never cared too much for what she is. The dark eyes look back at her and she imagines them brown like they had been when she was just a girl. She pictures her hair and wonders how it would have fallen now if she could change as her scales have started to darken and she feels as if that means something. She wonders if she would have white hair and if there would be wrinkles. She wonders if that form too is loveable. If it ever would be attainable If she could be loved like that. She tilts her head and looks at the way the scales slide and move.

Credence never reached old age. He never gained any white hair and neither had Tom. No, they both died before there was any sign of that. She wonders how Harry would have lived on in the world where he was forced to fight Tom to the bitter end.

She wants him to reach an old age this time around, have a family, and find something that makes him happy. Her heart starts to ache again and while she knows that she will be at his side until he does not need her, she still can’t help but feel that ache at the thought of possible replacement. She knew he had a Godfather in prison and she knew that should she take the rat back after he served his usefulness there was a chance that she could free him and give Harry another family member.

Was that the right thing to do?

Give him more family and those who care for him. People that would be seen as just that, people, when she would never be anything but a snake in the eyes of the law and those that held and welded power?

She still hates that she is this. if she were human this might have been a little easier. She could have learned to provide, she could have learned what it took to shelter, and she would be able to do more than worry about the future and what it held politically. She would have been able to tell others more easily what she knew and just what she thought of them.

Yet in this form, she was loved by a little boy and she could not have gone with him to school the way she had if she had been human. And Nagini still feared that if she were to give Harry more family no matter how much he deserved to be loved she would be replaced.

How important could she be when she didn’t know as much as the others when it came to Magic? She couldn’t provide more than love and care. She had no home, no gold to support at the current time and that didn’t seem likely to change. Perhaps this really was the best option for them to stay with Severus so she wouldn’t have to worry about the financial situation and Harry Potter could save his money.

No, all that she could offer was her heart and that had not been enough for Credence when it came to the wonders of the big and large world around them. Nagini had never feared being replaced when they were with the Dursleys because they were unsuitable, they were horrible, and she was far above them. While she was better at reading and caring for Harry than Snape ever would… She was still worried about the power shift. The more people that entered the picture the more dangerous. the truth would be uncovered and who was to say that they would have her child’s best interest at heart?

Who was to say that they wouldn’t see the good that Nagini had done and turn her hatchling away from her. Dumbledore had already tried.

She would not be replaced!

She wouldn’t be abandoned, she would not allow it.

She huffed.

Tom and she had that fear in common, they both had been abandoned far too many times. It was why she believed he would be different. It is why they made vows to one another. They had always been written on her heart and she had trusted in him not to break them. He simply couldn’t.

“You hold something I wouldn’t give another.” Tom’s voice is soft and he says it so that only they can understand one another. The house has walls and it has ears. They are never alone and they never are completely safe. He holds his hand over her thick body as he runs his thin fingers over her. She doesn’t believe him.

“You seem to have given away another piece of you.” She had hissed lowly at him. She doesn’t like Bella. She holds too tight to what she considers to be hers. Much Like Tom would hold tight to the precious items that he had acquired.

“I gave them it to hide. I don’t wish for you to hide. Our time for that is over.” He pauses before her head tilts so that she will look him in the eyes. They were always so mesmerizing. They were once a brown so deep that they were pools like her own. Now they are rubies and hot coals. “We are free.”

And yet they weren’t. Tom was so interested in vengeance and securing himself a future that he ignored the fact that when they had been in Albania they had been more free than they ever were in Britain. There had been no one to hunt them then, but there had been no assurance of survival then either.

Just like there isn’t a clear answer to their futures now.

She wonders what Tom is feeling right now… if he felt that emptiness that she did at the moment. That longing to just be held and never let go of.

She blinks and takes several deep breaths. It was going to be harder when he had a body to leave him… wasn’t it?

This Muggle home seeped with sadness. She wondered if anyone else felt it the way that she did. Then again not many had her heightened senses to it. Perhaps it was just another part of her curse.

Harry would wake a few hours later and he would start to clean up the house and make breakfast. It wasn’t as if he had to do it but she could tell that Harry was craving for something to make sense and be somewhat normal.

~Harry.~ She sits herself up on a chair. Despite her worry about Tom and the things that were well out of her control she wouldn’t let it show in her voice. ~How did you sleep?~

~Had a nightmare.~ He responded as he scrubbed the hell out of the frying pan so that he could use the eggs that he had placed in a bowl. Everything was stored under a stasis spell to stay good and well Harry was testing all that out with whatever he was putting together.

~About.~ She moves closer.

~It was just off-putting.~ Harry amended going a little pink. ~ It was a creepy house in the middle of a graveyard or something. It was dirty and decrepit. There were endless shadows and someone was screaming. It felt so real that I really couldn’t wake up and so I was scared of the place. ~

She blinked.

~I know it’s not as scary as dreaming about the killing curse or whatever Voldemrot is supposed to look like… but…~ He just shrugged.

~It’s just a dream.~ She said softly.

~I know.~ Harry shook his head. ~Anyway I think we should tell Snape to get some fresh rodents or something for you. I know you couldn’t have eaten the other night as you were busy dealing with the whole stone thing and then helping me get everything ready to leave for the summer.~

~I can go a while without eating.~ She had to hunt for something but she wasn’t going to leave quite yet. She needed to make sure that she tested each of the wards and ensure that it was safe. It seems dreams and impressions from Voldemort were going to come trickling through as he started to gain a bit of strength or perhaps touched one of the other Horcroxes. Nagini used to feel it when anything happened to them.

~You shouldn’t have to.~ Harry shook his head hard.

“What is this…” Snape came into the room rubbing at his black eyes. It looked like no one slept well.

“Making food,” Harry responded. “I’m making it for you too.” He added as an afterthought.

“You don’t need to cook…” The man started.

“Not you too.” Harry threw his hands up a little. “First Nagini said that she doesn’t need to eat, which she does but can’t eat this. You and I need to eat, it's healthy to eat every meal. Nagi told me so. The Dursleys perhaps could have eaten a bit less mind you, but you have to eat to start the day…”

Oh her poor child is rambling.

She shakes her head.

“Do you normally not eat?” Harry tilted his head. “Is that why you're so skinny?”

Severus coughed to clear his throat. “I don’t usually eat a large breakfast.”

~He skips it and drinks nothing but Coffee.~ Nagini shared her observation.

“I can make coffee!” Harry went to grab the saucepan so he could boil and make some. Severus stopped him.

“I have a machine for that.” He said simply.

“Oh, that will make it so much easier.” Harry chirped.

~Just let him do it.~ Nagini hissed. ~He needs it.~

Severus just didn’t seem to see that the child wanted to help. A few small things that the other allowed him to do or if they switched off would make everyone feel more at ease.

“I want to help though,” Harry protested.

~I meant Severus should let you be helpful if you want.~

Harry decided to restate the message matter of factually. The man sits heavily in the chair and puts his head into his hands. He definitely was not prepared for this. She wasn’t either. She could smell his morning breath from her place at the table. She flared her nostrils a little.

“For future reference, Mr. Potter…”

“Harry.” The boy responds without looking up from putting his eggs into the now clean skillet. “If I have to spend the whole summer with you sir, the least you can do is call me my name.”

Nagini snorts and Severus looks over to her.

“Harry.” He settles with. “I don’t want you to think you need to be a house elf to stay here. Nothing will be withheld from you that you need.”

“I know that.” Harry leaned against the counter. “Nagi would never allow you to do anything bad to me.” He hesitated. “Well, and your boss is making me stay here right?”

The man looks a little stunned.

“I just like cooking. It’s easy for me. It makes me feel calm.”

~See.~ She hisses.

The man sighed again. “Very well but you are not cooking all of the meals.”

“You say that now.” Harry beamed.

“No, I mean it would not be fair to you.” Snape ran a hand through his dirty and greasy hair. “I have already devised a tentative schedule for how we can pass the days before the new term.”

Harry wrinkled his nose. “You sound like Hermione.”

There is an insult or something perhaps mean at the tip of the bitter potion teacher's tongue but as he looks at the smiling boy he seems to think better of insulting the child’s friend.

~What does this schedule entitle?~

Harry passes the question off to Snape as he puts a plate of eggs in front of the other and sets about pulling a chair over to reach the higher cabinets.

“I think an hour or two of study a day for a chosen subject until the summer homework is completed would be a good start as well as set meal times to make sure that you don’t need to go back on the nutrition potions.”

Harry sat down and forked a bite of the food he prepared. “Not planning on skipping meals. No one is going to try and lock me in my cupboard.”

“I am sorry, cupboard?” The man raises a dark eyebrow.

Harry’s face turned a little pink again. “Um… well… before Nagi they used to lock me in the cupboard under the stairs when they were upset with me.”

Severus slammed his hands on the table and the coffee cup moved with force as he slowly clenched his fists. Harry flinched and that made the scary bat wilt a little.

“Shit.” he cursed. “I... just…Every time I think that it could not possibly get any worse it just does.”

Harry blinked and then slowly reached for the toast that he had made and took a small bite. “Nagi said something similar when she found out that I never had seen an eye doctor and that Aunt Petunia had gotten my glasses out of a charity bin.”

“I am going to throttle Petunia.”

Nagini hummed in agreement.

“I’m away from them so it doesn’t matter.” Harry stopped chewing on his bread slice. “I mean…”

Severus rubbed at his face. “It of course matters. Had I known… I promised your mother I would keep you safe.” There was silence after that for a long moment. Harry studied him and Severus met those green eyes that seemed to search him too much. Nagini wondered if Harry could use the mind arts like Tom to peer inside, but didn’t know he was doing it, it just was too intense of a look.

“You can teach me more about potions.” Harry ripped a little at the crust to his bread picking at it and then eating the edge he took off. “I mean I like the subject when you're not yelling at the class.”

Severus laughed but there wasn’t a real warmth to it. “I doubt that I would have to worry about you making the same mistakes as your classmates. There have been too many close calls. It is a miracle that Longbottom is alive.”

“Neville makes more mistakes when you yell.” Harry looks at his food more than he looks at the man. “You scare him and then he just drops whatever it is in.”

“I yell to try and warn him and others of the danger that a mistake poses. Those pine needles would have caused an acid that can melt flesh, not to mention the cauldron.”

“Well… maybe just explain it like you are now.” The child's voice hardens a little. “I think it would at least help not to make him cry. And maybe you could stop calling him a dunderhead. I don’t like when people pick on others.”

Nagini laughed a little to herself. You tell him, Harry.

Severus cleans the kitchen and sends them both outside. For such an ugly house the yard is nice and has several spots for plants to grow and a few nice places to sit in the warm sun that was beating down. Harry crouched down to look at the different plants and held up the botany book he had taken from his trunk. Nagini let herself relax a little. Just enough to take a very light nap in the sunbeams.

~Which type of fungus do you think is growing on this one?~ He asked her and she opened one eye.

~I don’t know.~ She says groggily. ~ Severus might know.~

~I don’t want to bother him.~ Harry sat down fully and flipped through his book.

~I don’t think he is doing anything that would need his full attention.~ Nagini huffed.

~He said he was working on ensuring that everything gets ordered for next year.~

~And he can take a break I am sure. We have been out here a while.~

Harry shook his head. ~He promised to help with potions later, so I’ll just wait till then.~

The first round of potion-making turns into a bit more of a show and tell than anything. Severus spends an hour explaining how to properly clean the knives that Harry had been using the whole year and apparently hadn’t been taken care of properly and then from there it devolved into a lecture about the risks of contamination. Harry to his credit didn’t take offense to the fact that Seveurs didn’t teach him any of this in class.

The first real test of their working together abilities happens when it's dinner time and Severus and Harry are working while trying to share the same space with 2 very different ways of doing things. Nagini watches from her place at the table. Harry has a system and so does Sererus and it clashes with them both getting into each other's way.

Despite stepping on each other's toes it seemed that something edible was going to be made by the end of it. It smelt nice, she supposed. She had long given up the dream of trying other types of food, though she could be a bit jealous of the activity that they could do with each other.

She hasn't cooked before. The thought struck her. She had put things together from otter things for sure, she liked butter on bread just fine and meats and jams. She however hadn't ever cooked anything. Never having a kitchen of her own nor the time to do so. She watched how their hands moved so easily to cut things into small pieces and she wondered if she could do that? Not for the first time she wondered if she had skills enough to be a housewife. Long ago she had thought herself capable of it. She could sew and she could clean. She did so often for she did not have many clothes that had been 'gifted' to her by the ringmaster and she was expected to earn her keep outside of the endless shows that she gave them. Credence had taken care of obtaining them food when she herself could not.

Had anyone needed she could have hunted for them. Her form now was good for catching rabbits and birds. If she was in a forest she might be able to take down a deer or a larger mammal.

~I will be back.~ She hisses. ~I have to hunt.~

“Wait!” Harry stops his mixing. “Professor Snape has raw eggs. You could hunt some other time.”

She curls her tail around the chair. ~I need to hunt.~ She repeats. ~It’s not about survival.~

Harry tilts his head. “I don’t understand.”

Severus eyes her and she lets out a deep breath.

~I don’t know how to explain it. It is something that the snake part of me needs to do.~

She wants to bite something and it helps her to move. Hunting turns off many of the more human-like thoughts, thoughts that at the moment are too loud in her head.

~I will scout the area too.~ She moves towards the door.

They fall into a routine of sorts. Severus and she take turns watching over Harry. He progresses with his studies for a few hours a day and then spends the rest of his time doing whatever it is he wants. Harry tended to like to read over some of the more interesting books in his room and blast music through the old radio that he found.

There had been a few times that they had been to town to gather ingredients to make food with and bring more books back home. Harry wrote off 2 letters since the first 2 weeks of Summer had passed to Hermione Granger and Hagrid. The giant had sent Harry another roll of film to take pictures over his break and Harry hoped that Hermione was still interested in going to a football game.

Nagini did not see the appeal in kicking a spotted ball around a field but then again she wasn’t that interested in Quidditch either and Harry was desperate to get Severus to agree to let him ride a broomstick to practice. Nagini saw no issue in it if they could find a place where he wouldn’t be noticed. Severus did not want to ‘heal any broken bones’ or make ‘ unnecessary trips to the healer’.

He had only agreed to look into it when Harry proudly pointed out that he would be playing for Slytherin and ensuring that the win streak continued.

Think about how much Professor McGonagall will dislike it when her team loses again.

That had been all that it took to get the man on their side over it. Nagini suspected that Harry looked a little too much like James Potter when he played with the small snitch in his room that he had mail ordered to practice catching without a broom.

Nagini watched it hover over the boy’s hand and then it nearly bopped her on the nose as it moved and started to make its small patterns lazily waiting for Harry to make a quick grab at it.

Her scales are warm and her scales feel a slight tightening. It’s not painful. It's just as if a small hand has rubbed against her spine. It’s a call, a soft whisper to her. It wants her to come home.

Tom.

Yet this isn’t the same Tom as the one that she had known. He is not her home. She doesn’t have one at the moment.

She slips out of the house as she has every night to hunt and do what would be her rounds. Severus and Harry are used to this because she has exposed them to the odd hour hunts for the last few weeks. She had taken her time to make it a pattern. If she has a nightmare, she makes it clear to them that at those times it was best that they did not have a frightened snake ready to bite.

“It’s hard to remember that you are a human sometimes.” Severus says to her when she returns one evening from a hunt. There is blood on her face and she doesn’t dignify him with a response to such a statement. She hisses deeply and moves to make her way up the stairs. “That isn’t quite how I meant that to come out.”

She ignores him.

“What I meant is, that I didn’t think that you could dream.

She had looked at him with a harsh look that made him turn a little paler. She had made it clear to Harry that she wouldn’t be accepting an apology any time soon for the offense. He can try and make her calming droughts all he wants.

She won’t drink them.

Nagini doesn’t like potions. She had had too many people interested in using her for them.

She made her way to the park that she had visited often and where she had shed her skin and hid it. It would act as her ticket to Tom. Portkeys were not her fondest way to travel but seeing that she couldn’t exactly apparate herself nor tell anyone where to pick her up it was the best solution.

The Riddle house stands on old grounds. The grass is high as she lands and swallows her up. She wouldn’t have had an issue hunting in this thick forest of weeds. She can not stay here though. She has a feeling like the past is nipping at her metaphorical heels.

She swallows the uncertainty and she makes her way inside.

The house is exactly how she recalled it. In her memories, she is climbing through the dark halls protecting a frail body that is placed carefully into an armchair where he can sit. This time there are lights and the place is much cleaner. The home feels like magic and there is a sign of life as someone has taken care to make it seem almost inviting. She makes her way to the lit room and she can see 3 people that all have stakes in Voldemort getting a body. Barty Crouch is twitching a little from his place nearest Quirrell which looks like a skeleton more than a living person. Peter is busy rubbing his hands together in the far corner. He is removed from the group that is formed. She feels a wave of sickness at seeing him standing there as if he belonged in the same room as them. She knows why he is needed but it doesn’t make her all that happy to see him.

She still sees him as the negligent, cowardly, rat that let her Tom suffer needlessly. She hates him even more for selling out the Potters. If he had held out maybe Tom never would have died. Maybe Harry would still have parents.

“Nagini.” Voldemort greets her. “We are just about ready to create the rudimentary form that you showed me in your memories. I will need your venom to complete the potion.”

He says it as if they are discussing the weather and not like they are going to be breaking the laws of nature. Tom always had a way with words.

She tilts her head. ~Very well. I would however request before we get started that my portkey be updated.~ She placed a few of her worn scales onto the hardwood floor. ~My child sleeps and I must return to him in the morning. You will need my venom a few more times before the full moon and the true body can be made.~

“Barty will ensure that you make it home safely.”

~Barty will drop me in a park and I will make my way from there.~ She didn’t hesitate to correct. ~My child’s unwanted protector thought it best to place him under a well-warded home. It would defeat the purpose for you to know where to find us.~

Voldemort frowned at this. “You don’t trust me.”

~ I trust you and your word. I however know just how we can bend those types of things to mean what we need them to.~

~I suppose that I should not expect anything else from someone who has sheltered my other self. I will not harm the boy. He holds my soul and thus he must be protected.~

She nodded her head. ~I will trust you more if this alliance plays out and Dumbledore doesn’t have the opportunity to try and kill him for housing it for you.~

~If you help me, I will kill the old man for you. You would have nothing to fear then.~

~Tempting.~ Nagini shook her head. ~However I know that you are probably already planning on that. So I will hold off on that offer.~

Voldemort smiles a little at that. The sides of his possessed body’s lips pull a little upward.

“For the other ritual I was going to ask…” He switched back to a language that others could hear. She could only interpret that he wanted his helpers to hear her answer to this. Too bad she doesn't want him to finish that sentence.

~If it involves the blood of the enemy you will not have a drop of Harry’s.~ Her eyes narrow and her voice gets a defensive growl. She had never used such a tone to Tom before, but then she had never been a mother before. ~Find another.~

“I could, but it wouldn't be as powerful.”

For one brief moment, she wondered if he would try and take what he wanted by force from her. But as soon as she thinks of it, she dismisses it. Tom is too interested in her help at the moment to do so. Her as an unwilling participant would only hinder his chances and Voldemort always used people up until their end and he was always careful not to inhibit his goals. He needed her at the moment.

~I will not compromise on this.~ She stared deeply into his eyes and she didn’t feel any pressure but she knew that he understood just fine that she wouldn’t budge on it.

“Very well.” He sighed. “If you can not be persuaded.” Had he had his old face, that tone of voice might have been enough to make her heart flutter, but it doesn’t move her when it comes to what she is protecting. Those days of love were for the moment not possible. Not, when she had to be on guard.

~I can’t be.~ She must be cruel in some ways to be kind. ~I care for you, but not enough to jeopardize my other mission.~

The dark eyes glitter and she can’t help but feel a little cold creep up her spine as she has no idea what that means.

Magic. It is like electricity in the air. It drifts through the air like a pungent cloud. It's intoxicating, it's nauseating and dizzying. It is so cold and had she had hair it would have stood on end. Each bone feels cold enter it. On each scale, she feels as if they each have their own heartbeats. The raw ability in the air. It is that of a soul being bound to the mortal realm. It’s not bound to her though. It's a soul being released from the diadem and being combined with the remnant of a blackened shadow. One that has the burning eyes that she had come to care so deeply for in a time very different than this one. It's stronger with a bit of soul behind it.

The shadow screams, it screams so loud, that it hurts her head. It stretches unnaturally thin as it is pulled into a husk that is given shape. Bones that are dug from the graves near them fuse and they crack and bend as the body is forced into a shape by the being that is inhabiting it. The smell of death and earth enters her nose. The rotting putrid smell doesn't bother her. It reminds her of the days she held the remains of her first love. She watches as the skin pulls over thin ribs and the spine curves in then out. The body gives a shuttered breath that is a rasp that devolves into wheezes as the rudimentary lungs force air into them.

This small babe of a creature is shaped with her venom, her scales, and that of blood magic from the sacrifice of the men that have been called here. She closed her eyes as the flesh grew hair and a few scales. If she ever was to have a child this would be how they most likely would look; bulbous and inhuman. Those with the curse were advised never to have children.

She moves to its cries as he tries his vocal cords for the first time. She is overcome with a soft feeling.

~Oh Tom.~ She curls around him and is the first person that he sees, just like the last time. She sees herself reflected in the red in his eyes and she sees how tired he is. She looks over the thin red and blackened skin and feels him grip against her scales. How was she to ever leave him when he was like this? And yet she can not stay here.

Chapter Text

Once a very long time ago a girl had been born with scales like freckles on her face. Her eyes were brown, the color of the earth and her scales were that of the wild vines and the high trees that shaded her home. She had a spark of magic that grew inside of her and it was powerful. It manifested itself in powerful shifts in the breeze and the floating of objects. Her mother hid her among the blankets and she would put her hand to her lips to keep her quiet when she thought to cry. The ceiling to their home she remembers vividly and the boards to the window. She can see the small carved animals on the nightstand by the crib and feel the thick blanket that she would be wrapped in. She can smell it if she closes her eyes.

If she were to cast a patronus she thinks this is what she might think of as Happiness in its most simple and of innocent forms. She can hear murmurs of her mother and her grandfather worrying over her. For each night she would shift in and out of the form of a little snake. And the transformations were painful. Her bones would snap and reshape themselves. She would wail and be shushed as quickly as the sound would escape her mouth. It had been a curse that her mother carried and died with, and so it was a curse she inherited. Nagini did not remember more than the darkness of her hair and her longer sharp fingernails. Much like Harry did not remember more than the red to his mother and her screams for mercy. Much like Tom swore that he remembers a small hiss as his first memory.

It was all over too soon.

She remembers the torches and the fire. She remembers the village running her out of town, the cold in the night and the heat of the day. The first time that she had ever experienced true hatred. It wouldn’t be even close to the amount that she would later feel. No, that fire was worse and it burned brighter and more bitter than any blaze that the villagers ever could have lit. The medicine woman told her what she was. Told her of her curse and what others would use her parts for. They would cut her into small bits and they would drink to their health and their well-being.

At 6 years old Nagini knew that she could never hope for much. Yet she had fought back. She had bitten and she had devoured. It was her first taste for violence and she had never relished in it. However, it became a part of her. The power behind her fangs would protect her. She knew her survival was dependent on her other form.

At 10 she was strong enough to break most enchantments and normal traps, but she wasn’t strong enough. She failed and they locked her so tightly in a box that she didn’t know if she ever would see the sun again. She was taken and shipped to a place she didn’t even know the language and no one looked like her.

At 15 she learned that humans, especially men, were monsters. She learned what it meant to be a woman and the role that women were expected to play. She didn’t like it. However, her form was that how it was, two flawed things that would forever dictate what she was allowed and could do. Women were caregivers and they were meek. She observed pretty ladies from her cage who had their hair done up with really nice and colored paint on their faces. She had pulled her hair into shapes to match. She had watched them with their pretty families and their wonderful smiles and she had coveted them. She wasn’t anything like them. No matter how she wanted it to be so. For them, love was something simple and it was beautiful and Nagini longed… she longed for that feeling. She wanted to be wanted. She put the darkened paint to her eyes to draw them to her. She hoped that her prince charming would come. He would see the beauty behind the monster that lurked under the surface. The form that she had come to despise. She wanted them to see the human within her.

Yet they couldn’t. No matter how she wished for it. So much like the pain of her transformations. Nagini became used to the empty feeling in her chest. She gave in to the inevitable.

She could never see herself willingly with a man the way that she had seen in the nights before she met Credence. It terrified her. It enticed her. But her curse was a constant reminder of what she would never and could never have. When she had met Credence she had forgotten. Her heart had burned with such desires that she did not know how to act. Her lips longed and she kissed him. He had kissed her back.

Their love was soft. Nagini had never thought that love could be gentle. She had given up on it. She breathed him in and though their time was short together it was everything. She had been too wrapped up in him to worry about any offspring that she could have unintentionally brought into this world and when she had met Tom she had given up those things long ago. For she had stopped being a woman that sometimes was a snake, and then a snake that was sometimes human, and became a woman that was forever a snake. She doesn’t even want to think what could have happened should she have had a child when her transformations became more and more erratic. She had nothing to worry about when she had fallen for Tom. Tom loved her too, of that she was certain. It had been in his distorted way but he had given her as much as he had been able.

She stood now on the break of something of which she wasn't sure.

It's hard not to care for something that is made of her, from her. It is her scales that dot his face. It is her venom that courses through his veins with the borrowed blood. To try and pull herself away from something so precious... something so vile; an abomination of magic, that held soft eyes. She isn’t sure that her heart will survive it.

She is reminded so much in that moment of how much she still needed and missed him. He was who taught her best how to survive in a world that cared so little for them.

~For who else am I to trust if not you Nagini?~ Voldemort hissed at her. ~They would rather that I never returned. They can try and hide it by the way that they fall into line and profess their love for me. Yet it is only you that came to me. Only you ensured that I would be reborn. Not one came to look for me. Not one was loyal enough. ~

Voldemort stands by the curtains to the grand study that he has taken over in Malfoy Manor. He studies the garden that is full of life and large white birds that are tasty to eat. His eyes look back at her. His hands clenched into fists. His magic is unstable and it flows out of him much easier than it had when they had first met. He is angry and justified in it. Everything he had tried to achieve had been undone. His war, his reasons, lost. ~They fear me, they respect me, only for the power that I hold.~

His features are sharp and they are uninviting. Nagini however sees the vulnerability in that statement. ~The second that I falter they will seek my demise. It comes from all sides this time.~

~ I will not let them harm you~ Nagini moved closer to his side. She feels his hand move towards her head and then it goes lower as if thinking better of if.

~Nor shall I let them harm you. You are mine~ His eyes bore into hers. ~My soul is protected with you.~

~And so we plan?~ She questions.

~And so shall we enact them.~ Voldemort's eyes returned to staring out the window. The shadows stretch around his robe and make for a stoic and powerful silhouette. Nagini however thinks he looks lonely so she uses her body to lean on him now that he has the ability to support her.

~This world needs to change, Nagini.~ He scratches lightly against her glistening scales. ~But first I think I must burn it down. Rebuild it from the ashes up. I must get rid of the weak and the sentimental.~

She coils so that her head rests on his shoulder and he hardly moves under the weight of her. He was strong now. He could take care of himself and yet he lets her close still. ~The Minister must go.~ She agrees. ~So must Dumbledore.~

~I have not forgotten my promise. He will die for what he stole from you.~

~Tom~ She says his name again and it catches in her throat a little because it isn’t the same. It’s different eyes that look into hers and yet the same.

“Nagini?” It is a question and she feels her heart break a little in the way that his voice cracks. As if he would question her. Question her love for him… her devotion. Yet this version did not have that to fall back on.

~I am here for you, rest.~ She hisses softly.

The dark eyes glance over her towards those around them.

~I will kill them if they breathe wrong near you.~ She whispers. ~I know it’s hard to believe but I gave up my afterlife for you. So rest. I will not leave until the morning and you are stronger.~

She wraps around tightly and watches as Barty moves to help Quirrell or what is left of him. He looks so sickly that she isn’t sure that he is going to live. She thinks that the sickly end might be better than facing the defensive magic that crumbled him to dust the first time. Harry’s mother had placed a very strong magic onto him; her death had bought and paid for it.

~Close your eyes, Tom.~ She hissed against his ears. She promises to return to him in the evenings to give him what he needs in order

Nagini lives a double life. When she was younger that life involved when the woman would be just that a woman and then the other side at night or randomly when she became too overwhelmed the snake would come out. In those times she would almost forget herself with the sudden rush of instincts and needs. She would balance it the best that she could. She however always felt that she was one night or mistake away from exposing the half that no one would like or could love.

A snake was meant to hide. They were meant to be patient. They needed to be because they had to wait for their prey to come to them. They needed to hide from things that were far larger and could harm them. Nagini had not been hiding as much as she should have. She had exposed herself to the vulnerability of being known and therefore she must be extra cautious in all that she does.

Her second name suits her in that way. Nagi is calm. She is Harry’s and Harry’s only. She is loyal to that in the daylight. She makes sure that Harry does get to see that soccer game with his friends. She is encouraging when it comes to studies and she ensures that Harry asks Severus all sorts of questions. She can’t help herself from liking to see the man squirm a little at some of the more pointed questions that Harry has no subtlety in asking.

“Did my mum like gardening?” Harry asks as he and Snape are managing the actual weeds among his homegrown ingredients. “I think I really like it. When I can get out of the sun and take breaks. Aunt Petunia used to yell at me if I drank any water from the hose but she wouldn’t allow me into the house for water.

“If you knew Mum did you know my dad?

“If someone wanted to go about cursing someone not that I would, is there a way that someone could know they were cursed? For instance, is there a bad luck spell or one that is for clumsiness? Or one that makes you sad? Because sir you always seem sad or upset and it can’t be normal to always be sad or mad about something…” Harry frowns” like you're getting that upset red look in your face again and I just asked a simple question!

“How come Hogwarts doesn’t teach anything else after Intro to Flying that involves brooms? In my old school, they had something called a gym. I think it would do some of my classmates some good to run around. Slytherin should have an exercise room or something.

Severus always looks towards her in those moments as if she will rescue him. They are not friends. Nagini doesn’t have it in her to trust him completely, not when he is one of the active forces that is working against Tom. But she can begrudgingly respect him for his craft and for taking on a role that he doesn’t feel comfortable doing.

He cares about Harry and she will respect anyone as long as they do that. Harry seems to like Snape though. He probably would like anyone that saved him from having to go back to his relatives and did at the very least try to save the school from Voldemort. He also knew his mother and In Harry’s book that had only added in the positive favor. And Snape to his credit seemed to be smiling as much as he was frowning about having to answer absurd questions. Every so often he would catch himself and he would mope even harder like he didn’t get to be happy.

Dumbledore has only stopped by once this summer to give Harry a few important defense books that are supposed to introduce him to the basics of Dueling. Nagini is far from impressed when it comes to the headmaster. She doesn’t think that he is upholding his end of their bargain at all, but she supposes that she doesn’t want him meddling all that much in her and Harry’s lives. Not when she has to be away as much as she does at the moment. Nagini just wants Harry to be happy and that can’t happen if he gets any ideas in his head about battling Dark Lords. So far she has just been able to convince him that most of his worries about the future needed to be handled by adults and that she would handle anything that came their way.

Nagi is patient and she is calm even when faced with Severus Snape's raised eyebrow at the dinner table. She is tolerant when Harry’s friends call her his pet. She is composed when she watches Dumbledore purposely sidestep her more pointed questions. Nagi is the better part of herself that she shows others on this side of things.

Nagini however is impulsive when it comes to her anger. She is quick to think the worst. She is jaded and she blames herself for her delusional dreams. She had come back for a man who is not who she really loves. It is no fault to this Tom that he is not completely what she misses or desires. He could perhaps become once again the person that she loves unconditionally, he however is not quite that person at the moment. Nagini doesn’t dislike the time spent with him. She often looks at Tom and his teachings when she needs to handle any difficult situation that heads her way. She however does so in a less dangerous and murderish fashion.

Barty, whom she has never completely disliked or liked, is doing an admirable job this time around in keeping his Lord alive and Quirrell alive. He brews most of the potions and because he is not off trying to kidnap Harry and make a farce out of a tournament for teenagers he is probably the most well-adjusted of the group. Not to say that the boy doesn’t carry a lot of his trauma with him from his time in Azkaban and how long he was under the Imperius curse. His father wasn’t dead yet. Nagini had a feeling that Voldemort would reward his follower by ensuring that the man suffered for what he had done. She does feel for him. He is in his early 20’s and he had these horrible shakes every so often from whatever the dementors had done to him. His eyes darted every so often as if there were people still watching his every move.

Quirrell had survived being a vessel but he was bed-bound and she didn’t quite know what to make of him. He is fidgety and flighty. He reminds her a lot of Peter and she hates Peter. He helps run small errands and slinks in and out of the home. Barty is the only one besides Tom that has a wand and for that she is grateful. She is preparing herself to ask for the rat. After he offered his hand of course and she doesn’t want there to be a single chance that he gets away.

Voldemort, Tom it is getting harder to pull herself away from him. As much as he is not quite what she has come to be devoted to, he is still in there. He is awake more and he is starting to be able to sit up on his own. Their conversations had been but a few words since he received his new form. He says her name though, he says it in that weakened voice that makes her drift into the past. He doesn’t call for others like that. No, just her.

He asks her to stay each time and each time she denies him. The body that he has will last just as long as she keeps giving them the ingredients. It made sense for him to want to keep her safe, close to him. Once he had a real body he would not need her. The turning of the Summer to Fall moon will be the night he receives a real body and it will be the night that she makes her request and depending on his answer she will reevaluate how she was going to proceed in all this. Her thoughts still weigh on her. She is more tired than ever. She is more worried about making a mistake.

“Do you wish to talk about what causes you to leave nearly every night?” Severus sits at the kitchen table in the morning light.

She blinked at him. It wasn’t like they could communicate… well that was what she thought until she saw that there was a small painting that had made its way onto the wall.

“Albus thought that it might help to have a direct messenger to and from Hogwarts. And so that we might be able to communicate.”

That was new. She would have known if it had been there the night before. It seemed the headmaster had made a stop when she wasn’t around to observe it and placed another spy among them.

~You first.~ She said.

He raised an eyebrow.

~You wake from nightmares as well or simply do not sleep.~

“Ah.” The man wraps his hands around his cup in front of him.

~I can imagine why you have regrets. I however don’t think that you should torture yourself over them.~

“You say that because you don’t understand.”

~Trust me. I know what it is like to lose someone that I loved by a combination of poor choices.~

Snape grunted. “You however were not the direct cause.”

~I could blame myself for not being able to convince Credence not to join Grindelwald. I could blame myself for going to Dumbledore and Aurors and expecting them to be sympathetic and understanding to a 17-year-old who had a curse similar to mine. I lead them to him. I watched him die choosing to save others and his curse as well as dark unfriendly magic from both sides become the reason he is dead.~

Nagini hooks herself up onto the chair and folds her body over and over itself. ~Your turn.~

Snape looks to the stairs but there is no sound in the house. Nagini knows each way that it moves. She had spent hours ensuring that she knew each small noise that each part made. She had a child to protect.

“Did Dumbledore inform you at any point the reason that I am no longer a Death Eater?”

No, the old man had not told her anything. Just as he hadn’t when there was a war that a foolish snake girl from the circus couldn’t quite understand.

~No, but I do think I have it figured out.~ She tactfully answers. ~You knew Harry’s mother well. I don’t believe that sort of love can be overcome by a war that places you on opposite sides.~

Severus looks at her knowingly for she has shared with him something very truthful.

“I loved her.” He says so softly. “I was so angry that I forgot that. Until it was too late.”

~Lily Potter died for the boy upstairs.~ Nagini leans onto the table so her face is closer to his. ~She loved him more than anything. It is the most honorable thing a mother can do to die so her child can live. You have made amends by taking on the most dangerous job possible. You choose to spy on Voldemort. The Dark Lord doesn’t forgive and he doesn’t forget. You did this even with the thought that she might never forgive you even if she lived. That is the very definition of bravery. It is just as brave to ensure that my hatchling continues to be protected. The people that are after him will not stop and they will not believe you should you try to enter their lives again after watching and taking such good care of him.~

Severus holds his mug closer and his hands are shaking. She flicks her tongue in and out. ~Let Harry love you. Give him what I can not.~

Severus clears his throat. “And what do you think that is, that you can not provide.”

~Stability. I am a snake for all that I wish I were. There are things that I can not provide from a legal and otherwise standpoint. I did not know his mother. I don’t know who else knew them, but you do. You can give him that.~

“Do you worry that I might replace you? Is that why you leave so frequently?”

~No.~ She answers by moving away from him. ~I don’t fear being replaced. I don’t fear being forgotten. I fear losing what I have gained by things that are well outside of my control.~

The best lies were not lies after all. She feared a great deal of things.

She leans against the cushions that make up the sofa that Tom rests on. He is much stronger and is making the proper demands and plans after he gains himself a body. Barty will not tell her much of anything but that is probably because he doesn’t have the ability to fully converse with her..

~You are strange to me~ Tom breaks the silence that has fallen over the room. His servants are hiding somewhere in the manor. It shows that he trusts her a little to have them out of his sight. Peter knows enough to be scared of her and she would know his stink anywhere if he were to come even near her. She had expressed her dislike of him on her last visit.

~How?~

~You just are.~ He says almost childishly. ~I don’t understand you.~ His magic is weak but it flares around them with a small burst of anger and then an eerie calm. It was unstable in this state.

~I would say that you don’t need to, however, you would only obsess over it more.~ She tilts her head. ~Is it not enough to know that I care for you.~

~And that is what makes you strange.~ The weak voice let out a hoarse laugh. ~Protecting the child makes sense to me. He is one of the few people you would be able to converse with, regardless of the fact that my soul resides in him. Yet, you sought to help me far more than just warning me not to kill him.~

~And that is what is strange to you? Certainly, you can understand the concept of love.~

His eyes are level with hers. ~We, both, I feel know what kind of love I inspire.~

~So you are unlovable outside of a desirable way or ways in which someone can obsess and get something from you?~

~You do want things from me.~ Tom reminds her with slightly narrowed eyes. “However you continue to help beyond the point in which you need to.~

~Ah… that is what confuses you.~ Nagini winds herself more up onto the soft arm and back of the long sofa.

~You died for me. I saw it, and you chose to come back to me with no insurance that I wouldn’t break my word to you or would give you the new world that you no doubt are envisioning..~

~Now, you are just trying to rile me up.~ She flicks her tongue out so that it brushes against his cheek. They are so close and she has the urge to wrap herself even more around him. ~Do you wish to see if I would consider killing you?~ She makes a show of shaking the sofa a little. ~I don’t claim to know you perfectly, but I trust you not to break your word to me.~

~And how do you know that?~

She tilts her head. ~It’s not something that I can explain. It is just something that I know.~

He laughs then and it ends with wheezes.

Chapter Text

Harry’s Birthday is a small event that is held at the Grangers. In attendance are Ronald Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Severus Snape, Hagrid, Harry and herself. Hagrid takes to starting strange party games. Nagini is content to let them play catch the niffler; it is no skin on her nose for them to do such ridiculous things.

Neville has given Harry a plant that Harry is all too excited about as Snape had been helping him garden and he is sure that the plant will love the backyard.

“You are staying with Pro-professor Snape?” Neville asks nervously.

“Yeah, Severus isn’t so bad.” Harry smiles a little. “I know he is an awful teacher, but I think that’s because he is scared we're going to get hurt and it makes him extra snippy. He gets mad before he gets sad. I told him not to call you a dunderhead because it made him a jerk.”

“You did…” Neville looks over at the professor that Nagini had ensured stayed trapped in conversation between the other adults and thus could not leave. He would be angry at her later.

“Yep.”

“And you’re still alive?” Ron tilted his head. “He didn’t curse you or anything.”

“Honestly, Ron, you think he would do that?” Hermione huffed. “He is a Hogwarts professor, he can't kill students.”

“He was a Death Eater.” Ron pointed out.

“Dumbledore vouched for him.” Hermione repeats perhaps the wrong thing in this situation because Harry pulls a face at the mention of the old man.

She leaves the children to it and encourages the adults to move on making the cake happen. She wants to see Harry smile again and put any unpleasantness from his mind. He deserved the very best. It wasn’t every day that someone turned 12 after all. He was getting so tall. She sighed happily.

Harry finds a way to make everyone stand together for a photo. Hagrid extends his long arms so that they all can be in the frame. Severus looks mortified as Harry takes his arm and yanks him into range. The Grangers and Nagini do a good job of boxing him in so that he has no choice in the matter but to scowl.

She sits with Tom and while he is stronger there isn’t much more that he can do than spend a few hours awake in the form that he was in. Still, she came even when he didn’t need her scales and when her venom wasn’t needed. She talks with him. She tells him about the small garden that Harry is growing. She doesn’t tell him who they are staying with as she wants to protect that secret in case things do take a turn for the worse no matter how much she believes in the other. She talks about the classes that her son has an interest in and a little about his friends.

Tom listens. He always has been very good at that. He remembers details better than anyone that she has ever known. He tells her that he is tired of Barty fretting over him and that he despises Quirrell's whining. The timid man is starting to be able to move around with extreme difficulty. He is prone to fainting as his magic comes in spurts and when he is magically charged he can almost seem normal. When he isn’t he collapses. It isn’t very pleasant to Tom. He particularly hates Peter and his groveling about this and that.

Tom has never liked when others touched him. Nagini in her old life had to work up to his comfortability. Sharing a body certainly helped.

~Harry reads to me.~ Nagini says absent-mindedly as she helps to hold the book up for the others. Tom’s eyes are glazing over as he looks over the ritual that they will be performing.

~You can read this though.~ Tom’s eyes look over at her but his head is too heavy it seems to shift.

~Yes.~ She nods. ~I don’t understand a lot of it because I never had the opportunity to go to wizarding school before now and as such only have about a 1st year's worth of curriculum. Maybe less if I count Quirrell’s abysmal lessons.~

Tom has the faintest hint of a smile at that remark. “I didn’t have time to help him plan better. I was preoccupied.”

~Yes, antagonizing Dumbledore. I am sure he had to write all sorts of letters home about the troll and explain how it made it into one of the most secure places in Britain.

~Sure Secure.~ Tom hisses a laugh and coughs for several moments after it.

~It will be no less safe this year if I remember correctly they will hire Lockhart to be the defense teacher.”

~I have not heard of him.~ Tom tilts his head from his reading, now invested in this conversation.

~He’s a fraud.~ She responds. ~One that has published a bunch of rubbish and plays it up for the media. I don’t want him anywhere near Harry. He needs a proper education.~

Voldemort hums at this. His amber eyes glistened.

She curls around Tom as he sleeps. She watches the man that he possessed shiver in a chair near them. Barty Crouch jr. has made something to eat and is force feeding the man that keeps shaking his head to whatever smelts burnt. She doesn’t blame Tom for wanting nothing to do with them. Barty might be gifted at potions but it didn’t seem to translate to cooking.

“It’s good that you are shedding,” Barty says looking over at her. “The Dark Lord is going to need a bit more than I originally thought. He seems more tired than he ought to be.”

She inclines her head.

“It's good that’s all I am saying for you to come.” Barty waves a hand. His smile is that of a mad cat, it stretches a bit too far. “Nice of you to donate. I know that you aren’t a normal snake but he won’t talk much about you.”

She huffs.

“If there ever is a way for me to repay you I will. My Lord came for me because he said that you told him where to find me. I’m not sure how you knew but it’s apprated.”

She nods her head in acceptance of his gratitude. Quirrell stutters out the little more that he knows about the situation. She wonders if he can understand a few of the words that she speaks. He had been a vessel for Voldemort’s soul after all and that kind of magic left traces.

It’s a night with dark clouds that cover the moon and the house shakes with the high winds. The air was pressed hard against the windows and the trees shuddered under the weight of the current. The rain slapped harshly against the pavement and acted as another heart to the roof. Nagini was confident that if there weren't enchantments on the old house that they would have been missing some of the paneling. It was not the kind of weather that Nagini would have ever stepped foot out in. Not for anything. Yet, she holds herself up against the sill and watches as each cloud lights with a bright yellow, and feels the aftermath rattle in her bones. The air smells thick and hard to breathe. The power flickers again and she watches as the house nearest to them goes black. Severus waves his wand to create an illusion to make it look like they also lost power. The magic is keeping the room lit. The candles that are enchanted to never drip wax brighten under the surge of his spell.

“I don’t like storms,” Harry says softly. This was a boy that wasn’t scared of anything. He ran to help handle a baby dragon and would have stepped up to try and stop Voldemort had he had the opportunity and knowledge that the other was after the stone.

“It can not harm you. It’s just noise.” Severus responds logically.

“I know that.” Harry snips. “I just don’t like it.”

Snape scowled in response to his tone.

~It's alright Hatchling.~ Nagini moves over to him and shoots Severus a look. He was closest but didn’t seem to understand that what Harry needed was a hug not empty words. The man was dense and socially inept for someone who was supposed to be a spy. Then again he was infinitely better adjusted than Tom. ~The storm will pass and we are safe in the house.~

“You shouldn’t baby him.” Severus meets her look. “It is just a storm.”

Harry leans into her and she sticks her tongue out at Severus in a dignified way to show just what she thinks of his ability to take care of a child.

~Harry, tell Severus to be silent.~

Harry doesn’t but he does snort in response.

Tom would have called her sentimental. He would have said something similar to Severus but then he would act much like Harry when there was too loud of a sound. It brought him back to the war. He would relive the air raids. Nagini is glad that she never had to worry about that. She hadn’t been exposed to the muggle end of things.

The siren test is loud enough to shake the room. The pulsing noise of it is a warning from the Ministry of Magic. Voldemort moves away from his followers gritting out orders, there is a hurry to his step that only she would notice, and she follows him as he shuts the office with a pulse of too-strong magic. He is gripping his wand far too tightly. His eyes are darting around the room and he is shaking violently. It's not the kind that came from rage. His heart rate is high. He is pale and he grabs the desk to keep himself upright, his wand hard pressed into the wood. The glass near him explodes with uncontrolled ability. Nagini moves around it so that she is with him. She has never seen Tom scared before. She moves her head to his side. He whirls and his magic almost hits her. His breath hitches. His eyes are too wide and he reaches for her and she puts all her weight into supporting him.

Voldemort never had another attack like that again that she knew of. He made sure that no alarms similar to that noise were ever used in his presence. He couldn’t afford to look weak. He had to keep fighting the worst of his death eaters and keep them under his control. The world they planned to burn had become quite dark.

Nagini feels the cold feeling of hands on her scales and she is broken from her thoughts. ~It is bedtime for my Hatchling.~

Harry yawned and got up leaning hard onto her as she helped lead him up the stairs.

~Can you stay?~ Harry asked quietly. ~I keep having dreams about the dark house and people whispering about killing someone.~

~Yes, I can stay.~ She says wrapping around the edge of the bed.

~Good. I don’t like waking up and not knowing where you are.~ Harry yawned again and pulled the blankets up to his nose.

~I have had a few things that needed to be taken care of but they should die down soon. I will never be far from you~

Harry nods again in acceptance of this.

~Can you talk with me until I fall asleep?~

~What would my Harry like to talk about?~

~Can you tell me about your speaker or your travels?~

She felt her heart squeeze funny. ~Yes, I suppose I can tell a story about Marvolo and myself.~

So she tells a small story of how she met a very ambitious man in the mountains. One who had dreams to change the world and how she believed that he could do it. How she would have followed him to the end for he saw her as more than the snake.

~He told me to live.~ She told Harry softly. ~I had before him given up. I thought that without Credence there wasn’t a point to it. Yet, he inspired me. ~

“What happened to him?” Harry asks. And she thought she had mentioned this to him before but perhaps he did not remember as he was tired.

~I lost him.~ She responds because it is the truth.

Nagini watches the large clock as it moves the pendulum back and forward and the second hand chases the minute one. She flicks her tongue in and out of her mouth and lets out a deep breath that fills her lungs. Her ribs sit uncomfortably as she hasn’t fed in the last few days. She has been too preoccupied with other things. Her thoughts were too heavy as the end of Summer was coming and there were so many uncertainties.

“You can’t be considering heading out into this,” Severus says as she makes her way downstairs from Harry’s bedroom.

~No~ She moves to the long rug by the fireplace. The portrait has moved to the living room space and the man inside it doesn’t look too pleased to be playing interpreter this late into the night. ~I will not go out in this storm.~

“I know that you can’t only be going hunting when you disappear.” The man digs.

~We both have ways of ensuring Harry’s safety.~ She responds plainly. ~The wards hold one way but they are not the only protection needed.~

“There hasn’t been any magic done in the area in some time that hasn’t been from either Harry accidentally or myself.”

~I have magic.~ She responds harshly. ~While it might not be like yours it is not less capable. I have fought wars before.~

“We are not at war.”

~ You know as well as I that he is out there and gaining strength. We are not at peace. Not even close. His followers post their perfect lives in the papers and they push their laws in the courts. The type of evil that was rampant in the times of the Dark Lord is not gone. It is just rebranded and repackaged to be more palatable to those that are not looking for it.~

They are stuck in silence for a long moment before Severus nods. “I can’t always turn it off either.”

~We are not talking about this.~ Nagini cuts him off. ~I am not…~

She falls silent because it never has ended for her. She still feels like she is at odds with everything. She came back for Tom and she has been fighting it feels like for an entire year to keep Harry as safe as she possibly can. She wants to fix things so that Tom will be alright, but if she does then she is going to bring about more issues that she is going to have to fix. She cares for quite a few people who stand to be hurt if Tom can’t or more than likely will not change.

“We don’t need to talk about it.” Severus decides on. “However, if there is something dangerous I would expect that you would tell me.”

~I warned you about the stone and the dragon did I not.~

“Yes, however, you went to stop the Dark Lord alone.” He reminds her.

And while she had never thought herself to be in true danger with Tom she knows quite well how it could have ended.

The summer passes quickly after that and the day that Nagini has been dreading and looking forward to all at the same time comes. She feels near numb taking her portkey towards the desired location.

“Nagini.” Tom greets her. His voice is small, weak, and soft.

She bobs her head in greeting. ~Tom.~

He doesn’t seem bothered by the name. He just looks at her with an expression that she has a hard time reading. His eyes search hers and she wonders what it is that he is looking for from her. She tilts her head.

“Everything is ready.” Barty breaks the silence.

“We will begin then.”

Tom is lifted carefully into the younger man’s arms and Nagini follows them out into the moonlight. It’s a clear evening and the stars shine down on them. It reminds her of all the nights on top of the astronomy tower with Harry. She is reminded of all the dreams that she had when Tom was a part of her when they faced the unknown together. She supposes this time she faces that vastness and she does it alone. There is no one to guide her and she no longer can be a follower. She knows that she holds her fate in her hands. It is no longer the stars that hold the power. She is the one who is actively changing things. It is she who is rewriting what has been done.

They twinkle at her like shining eyes and she looks at the cauldron and the graves that tower over them. The old statues weep and the large trees russell in the breeze. The ritual begins as all old and powerful spells do, with blood. Peter pays the price to give his hand and Riddle’s father provides his bones, and an unknown enemy’s blood is added to the concoction. She watches again as the small form morphs into a more human shape. The very darkness from the sky pulled to make a robe around a far too-skinny figure. The eyes that she had always seen as rubies are different this time. When they meet hers they are brown, so brown that they could be that of dried blood. He has hair and he pushes it away from a slightly aged face.

It is the man who met her years ago. The one that was still dreaming. The one that had yet to try and build his empire. The small bit of soul that had been used this time to help form the temporary body has an apparent side effect. She moves closer to him as Barty quickly brings the man his wand and Nagini watches it.

~The new body suits you.~ She says to gather attention back to herself and to see if she could figure out what his plans from this point would be.

~Yes, I can feel the magic that you contributed.~

She nodded. ~This time you have a nose.~

He hummed and it was that warm sound that used to make her heart skip beats. His nose wrinkles as if making sure that it works. ~From what I saw in your memories you seemed fond of me regardless.~

Yes, they stepped back into something hadn’t they? She wasn’t sure though exactly where the line was, it was quickly becoming too blurred. He moves a little closer to her. Ignoring Barty and the others rather well. Peter is still cradling his stump, but Nagini can’t bring herself to care. In her book, he had been too close to children for the last few years and she can’t forget that he had betrayed his original friends and then Voldemort by letting Harry escape the manor. It probably was the most honorable thing the rat ever did but it was always a matter of time before he betrayed them.

~I have a question, more of a request from you.~ She straightened.

~I will see if I can help you with it. You have been most helpful to me.~ Tom cresses his wand. He seemed to have been expecting her to ask for something and it helped to settle him because it was familiar territory.

~I would like the rat when you no longer have use for him to give Harry back his Godfather.~

~I must confess that was not the request that I was picturing.~ The thin lips are pursed. He almost looked disappointed.

~It isn’t a request that I originally would have thought to make. However, I desire Harry to be happy far more than I ever anticipated and I know in the other life that Black died protecting him and Harry used the torture curse in retaliation. That kind of love and devotion is needed when Dumbledore eventually makes his move against him.~

~Interesting.~ Tom tilted his head. ~ I don’t need Peter If I keep Barty and Quirrell. I was planning to use Quirrell however to complete the final Horcrux of my set.~

~You and I have had this discussion, what will happen to you when you die and you do not have a complete soul.~

~Which is why I thought to make another.~

~Which is all the more reason not to.~ Nagini did her best to keep her voice level. ~ Right now you have more soul than you did the last time. Can you not feel your magic? It is more stable. You are sane.~

Tom is silent for a moment. He turns his wand over in his hand a few times in contemplation. ~I will not strip away my protections.~

~And I do not want you to suffer unendingly.~ Nagini met his eyes. ~Death promised me that is what would happen to you if I couldn’t convince you to put it back together.~

~And here I thought that you might house my soul again..~

Her heart lurches. ~I can not do that.~

This she can tell affects him.

~I will do a great many things for you. I will help you achieve your vengeance. I will protect the soul that resides in my child and hope that one day you can safely remove it from him. I will however not take part of your soul from you even for safekeeping. I love you enough to deny you this.~

~Even if it would keep you safe like last time.~

~I do not need protection. I am just a snake and none would target me.~ She says a little sadly.

~You are not just a snake.~ Voldemort sounds offended on her behalf.

~It is kind of you to say so, but it doesn’t change that I would take mortality over keeping you from a proper afterlife.~

~If you hold my soul there wouldn’t be a worry of an afterlife. If the parts are safe then I can never die.~

~Eventually everyone dies.~ Nagini disagrees. ~And I know that you fear death…~

~I don’t fear anything.~ There was the familiar rage. She can feel it, taste it.

~Death will win one way or another, eventually, however, if that is hard at the moment to accept then I will not discuss it with you more tonight. Just know I have no intention of outliving my hatchling.~

Tom lets her leave after that with the promise to return the rat to her the next time that they see each other. Now that she doesn’t need to give her scales or her venom she has no idea when that will be. She supposes she has more things to worry about as the new school year will be starting soon and she is in desperate need to make sure that Harry gets his proper defense training in before Lockhart comes around to screw it all up.

Chapter Text

The night air is heavy in his lungs. He has gone a long time without functioning ones and so his are extra sensitive. He hasn’t been able to feel much of anything in the last few years. Just an endless ache and the pain of not knowing, being scattered without much more than a few thoughts that can be strung together. The months passed him in a blur and the madness of being bodiless is still etched into him. The pain was indescribable. His fingers tingle as he holds his wand between them. He doesn’t wish to go back to that. In many ways this feels like a dream that his mind has put together from the endless fragments that he had left of it.

He stands in the graveyard that is close to his father's home. The disgusting Muggle home that he has inhabited for the last few months. He feels the cold to his skin that comes with the summer turning to fall. The crisp feeling of it tickles his lungs and he looks to the burning remnants of dying suns above him. Each one of them has burned out and each one of them a pale imitation of what they were once. Voldemort feels that fire in him weaning and fading.

He will wake any moment and he will find himself in that godforsaken forest… alone. No one had come for him. No one had thought to… or perhaps they had and they hated him just as much as he figured that they always did. It doesn’t matter now. It never mattered what lesser people thought of him. He will make them suffer when the time comes, suffer just as he has.

He blinks again to place himself. The dream of being actually alive doesn’t end as he moves among the headstones treading a bit back the way that he had been carried. He tested his footing and the stiff legs that he hasn’t had the ability to use until this moment. He manages to make it look graceful though he feels like they might stop working any second. He had nearly given up when he had stumbled upon the fool that was hiding from his gaze behind Barty who looked at him with nothing but adoration.

While he should be revered he feels exhausted moving on his own two feet. He is strong. He can feel that in the way that his magic dances and he feels it in his veins from his heart to his fingertips. Despite his new body being perfectly fine physically the emotional part of himself isn’t.

No… he thinks he might be spiraling into a new form of madness. Something is missing and there is a part of him that is weak. It is sentimental and it is curious. He can not stop picking at it, wondering where it will go. It's new, it's exciting, it's thrilling, it's aggravating.

There are endless possibilities spread before him and he has nothing but ambition to capitalize on it. He has his sanity and he has his assurances he will not die. It is all thanks to a snake that has left his side to be with the child that part of his soul now rests inside.

Nagini.

The name is enough to send some strange feelings to his core. It’s a drowning feeling, a strange ache. It makes him restless. He wants to strangle her for making him feel this as much as he appreciates what she has done for him and promises to continue to do. Her stubbornness and drive are admirable. He hasn’t met another woman that he could say shared that trait besides perhaps Bella. Lestrange however had that sickening love for him that was more of an obsession that he had bent to his will because why shouldn’t he? She was using him and as such he used her and strung her along.

Nagini claimed to love him too. Yet she did not act like anyone that he had ever met. She had died for him and she had sought him out again. She had knowledge of the future that he could use to suit his needs and his many plans. He had figured that she would be easy to manipulate considering that she had such a devotion to his other self. However, she had proven to be resilient to his charms and saw through them. She used that infuriating dead name of his and he finds himself coming to respect her. She is useful for many reasons and that is why he finds himself slightly fond of her. Yes, as long as she had a use there was no harm in a little indulgence.

However, as he makes his way inside to rest. He thinks that perhaps he misses her company a bit too much. The sofa feels a little empty without her soft whispering about nothing.

Chapter Text

Nagini has been doing a fine job of keeping her Harry alive thank you very much. She is balancing her life with her secret Tom admirably. She just isn’t sure what they are, if anything, at this point and time. That’s fine though just fine. Everything is fine if she ignores the overgrown serpent in the plumbing and the overzealous hack Lockhart.

Chapter Text

The fall air reaches her nose as they step through the brick wall diagonally. There are a lot of students following around their parents and parents trying to carrall their children. The streets are loud, almost too loud. Harry comforts her with a stiff pat on her thick body, the part that she is letting out of the bag. Severus Snape Is standing close but not too close to them with his arms folded defensively around himself. He gives off the feeling that he would rather be anywhere else. He had expressed himself well enough before they left the house about his distaste for seeing people outside of the school year. He however hasn’t left because he, like Nagini, knows that they need to be cautious. There is a lot that could happen. Mainly there has been a small surgent of curse objects and outcry among the old families about what constituted breaking the new embargo. A lot of people had been encouraged to get rid of anything that might cause the ministry to want to knock on their doors.

Nagini doesn’t think that they will take out their misery on Harry but Severus is paranoid enough to set her on edge. She finds herself scanning the crowd and sticking her tongue out often to taste the air for any strange magic. Harry has gotten most of his supplies throughout the summer but has waited on getting a few new robes and a few of his textbooks. Mostly because the Defense teacher had been announced late in the holidays because Dumbledore had an issue filling the slot. The Grangers are with them and Hermione is gushing over the new textbook list. She keeps mentioning how there might not be enough room in her trunk for all the things that she wants to get on her list.

Harry and Ron are exchanging looks. The twins are ignoring the blabbing in favor of looking over some parchment that might have some elaborate ideas on it for pranks. They are whispering and glancing often towards Severus who watches them with harsh eyes that only a truly dedicated and feared professor could make. They probably wouldn’t be trying anything at least on this shopping trip.

The bookstore is full of people as there is a book signing going on and Nagini looks horrified at the standie of Lockhart and his blinding white smile. His merch covered nearly everything in the bookstore. Severus looks about equally disgusted and stands outside the store rather than enter. Reluctant students start to come up to him and introduce their parents. He is swallowed up by his distracting crowd despite his nasty comments that a few of them he can only hope gained some brain cells over the holidays. They slowly make their way towards the center of the shop to try and get the required books which happen to be a full set of the man’s books. She lets out a horrified hiss. No wonder the Weasleys were muttering about funds. These books were hardly worth the parchment that they were printed on and yet… they had to upcharge them by an obscene amount. She was so busy pulling herself out of the bag that she didn’t notice all the eyes that were falling on them. Lockhart has the look that Yule had come early. She wants to bite him. How did a man like him have such perfect hair? It was criminal. It had to be spelled somehow!

That horrible smile is all teeth and had he been any other animal it would have acted as a warning sign to others. Harry starts to push at her head a tad because there is a photographer who is now looking at them. Nagini lets out a deep hiss as the man and puffs herself up.

~No pictures~ She snips.

“No pictures,” Harry repeats firmly. “I came for my school books and that is all.”

Lockhart seems to recover that his plan for the front page is ruined by just a few seconds as he quickly offers them a complete book set free of charge. Which moves the crowd but only serves to make Nagini wriggle in the bag at just how annoying his voice is.

“I already have a set.” Harry lies beautifully. “I think I will donate them to the next student in line that needs them.”

“I thought you said you needed the books,” Hermione whispers to him, holding at his sleeve.

“Nope.” Harry shook his head. “I read a bit of them over the summer and am confident that I do not need to know anything else.” He whispered back.

“We can share.” She decides and Malfoy moves towards them.

Nagini looks proudly at him. Perhaps this was the year that love started? She did think they were together in the other timeline.

“Potter.” Draco’s voice calls over the crowd and Harry gives a small wave to the other.

“Malfoy.” Harry greets. Hermione hovers a little closer to him as the other descends the staircase.

“Causing quite the commotion aren't you.”

“Comeplety unintentional I assure you,” Harry mutters. “Nagi says that Lockharts a tart.”

Hermione coughed. “She what?”

“I asked her what she meant so she wouldn’t elaborate.”

“He is flamboyant.” Draco clears his throat. “I will give her that.”

“You got your books already.” Hermione shifted topics.

“Yes.” Draco’s eyes darted. “See that you haven’t.”

“I have most of them, the lines are just long. Mrs. Weasley was kind enough to stand in line to get them all shrunk and paid for.”

“Father is having our elf do that.” Draco shifts his weight and Nagini knows that he is trying to make sure that his father doesn’t embarrass him in front of Harry, but also is implying that Ron’s family is a bit better suited for servant work.

“Where is your father?” Harry asks, looking over the crowd. “We didn’t get to visit each other this Summer because he was hosting a lot of events right? I would like to meet him.”

A man clears his throat and Draco smiles a small smile. “This is my father. Potter, my father Lucious Malfoy.”

Harry holds out his hand to the other but Malfoy makes a move to look at his scar. Nagini winds herself out further from the backpack and gives a small hiss of warning as the man’s hand brushes his hairline.

“Forgive me. Your scar is a legend as of course is the wizard that gave it to you.”

Harry now grasping where this conversation and everything has been leading up to swiftly stepped back. “Voldemort wasn’t anything but a murderer.”

“Very brave of you to say his name or foolish.”

Oh… this was ridiculous. A death eater in a wand measuring contest with a child. Tom really could pick them, couldn’t he? When she had met this serpent though she found that might have been insulting to those that actually did wear the color green un-ironically, he had been a sniveling mess because he had ‘misplaced’ part of the Dark Lord's soul… Wait

“Fear of a name only increases the fear of the thing itself.” Hermione pipes in. It seemed that the other Weasleys were starting to be drawn to the encounter. Good because they could hold her back if this man decided to do anything more foolish.

“Ah, you must be Miss Granger. Yes, Draco has told me all about you and your family. Muggles aren't they?”

“Yes, and there is nothing wrong with that,” Harry says definitively and she watches as the man’s eyebrows raise.

“Of course, you would see it that way with your… Upbringing. ”

Oh, that was quite enough of that. Nagini let out a very deep hiss. ~Tell him Harry that one should be careful when mentioning their upbringing. Abraxious wasn’t exactly the kindest of people was he?~

Harry, out of surprise at her response, repeated that bit of information.

Lucious looks from Harry to her and then back seeming to understand that she was perhaps not all that she appeared. He takes a step forward holding the cane a little too close.

“Leave him alone!” Ginny the smallest and only female of the siblings boldly steps in between. And Malfoy sneers at her and the contents of her gathered school supplies, commenting on the shame of the name of wizards under his breath.

~Tell him that he best be careful in giving away anything that he would regret surfacing at this time.~ She has no idea when he gave up the Horcrux that Tom had given him, just that it had to be during Harry’s second year because the Chamber of Secrets was opened.

Harry doesn’t repeat that completely, just manages the first half before the man whips his head around and Ginny’s cauldron takes a tumble. Harry looks at her questioningly as Severus has caught wind of what might be happening and quickly intervenes. It gives enough time for Ron to help pick up their books and put them back safely where they belong.

“Lucius. I see you have introduced yourself to our house celebratory.” The familiar tone of his voice seems to put the man at odds. He seemed not to want to make a poor impression on his child’s educator or know full well what Severus Snape was capable of. It didn’t matter because it was enough to de-escalate the situation. “Potter it would be wise not to antagonize our school’s board chairmen. We rely quite greatly on his funding and admirable work in changing our policies.”

Harry tilted his head and Nagini whispered for him to let it go at the moment. She was more concerned now with Lockhart who was taking the opportunity to move a bit out of his signing booth to no doubt eavesdrop.

“We had best be going.” Lucius takes the hint that Severus has things under control or is going to scold the group at his behest and makes his way out of the shop. Nearly dragging Draco stumbling after him.

“Well, that was pleasant.” Hermione huffs. “I now know where Draco gets it from.”

"Delightful." Harry mirrors her humor.

Severus’s eyes travel to hers and then back to Harry. “What I said still stands. It is not a good idea to antagonize Mr. Malfoy.”

“He started it.” Harry bristled. “He thinks there is something wrong with being a Muggleborn.”

“There are many that do,” Snape responds coolly. “And we will not be able to change their minds.”

“So we should just let them say that because someone doesn’t have as much as someone else or was born to the ‘wrong’ sort of parents they are a disgrace to the name of wizard?” Harry’s voice rises a little.

“No, what I am saying…” Severus leans closer and lowers his voice. “Is that Lucius was one of the Dark Lord’s closest followers and we should not be calling unwanted attention to ourselves in a bookshop.”

“If he didn’t want to do that. He shouldn’t have touched my scar.” Harry folds his arms tightly around himself. “I won’t let him say those things, but I won’t go looking for a fight with him either.”

Severus gives him a withering look. “I suppose that is the best thing I can hope for from a Potter .” He says the last name just a little too heatedly for Harry not to get that suspicious look in his eyes.

Arthur saved them as he cleared his throat and reminded everyone that they still had a few things on their shopping list to get. Things became just a little more light-hearted after that.

Harry finds himself in the robe shop with Hermione and they converse over potion making. Harry has been getting the rather hands-on experience that Hermione would have loved and she is very jealous of that fact. The updated wardrobe for Harry includes a set of 6 new pairs of trousers. He had grown a few inches over the summer and his old ones were almost flooded on him. If Ron had been a bit closer in size Harry might have offered to give them to him, but the waist was a bit too thin, and Harry didn’t think that the other would want any more handie-downs when he had complained so much about not even having his own wand. It probably did not help that Ginny was getting a brand-new one.

Nagini finds herself buried a few times under the fabrics that are rolled out in preparation for making the new garments. The red one shakes her the most.

The air is cold and hints of rain. A little girl stands on thin legs. She tilts her head to the side and then to the other. Before her is a small red dress. She had never seen quite that color before. She hisses quietly to herself as she picks it up. She feels at the fabric and she rubs her face into it because it is soft and she has not felt something soft in a long time.

“No.” The man yells harshly at her and she drops it startled. “Ware it.”

She doesn’t fully understand him, but she knows well what stupid and foolish means. She takes a deep breath and she puts the clothes onto her body. Standing on her tiptoes to see what it looks like in the mirror. It looks all wrong. She is too pale for this color. She doesn’t like it. Yet it’s soft and other girls are wearing more colorful things. She must conform… She wants so desperately to be normal.

Nagini blinks back as the red fabric is removed in time for another more palatable color of gray to be tossed to the side and the measuring tape to bump her nose. She sneezed and Hermione made an excited aww sound.

They will be leaving soon to go to Hogwarts and she hasn’t seen Tom since he had gotten himself a body. She hasn’t felt the call to see him and as such has been avoiding going. Not because she doesn’t like Tom and not because she has any reason to be angry with him, not really, it's just she wants him to call her. She wants him to make the first move. She wanted perhaps to know if he still needed her or wanted her now that he had gotten what he wanted from her. So far it has been radio silence which can mean only a handful of things when it comes to Tom. Tom being quiet in a reflective way means that either he knows that he messed up by asking her to become a vessel again, knows that he offended her, and is actively looking for a way to rectify or come to terms that he wasn’t getting what he wanted. OR and it was a big or, he was plotting how to get her to say yes or his revenge for her not doing what he asked.

Nagini was really hoping that it would be the first.

Nagini did not want to think about the possibility that Tom had never really loved her in her past life and had simply been using her. She had always had doubts about how the others felt for her. How could she not when her whole life she had been told that she was not worthy of love, praise, adoration? Tom had given that to her. She had held his soul next to hers and she had felt some feelings for her, but now… she wondered if that had just been wishful thinking. Had Bellatrix Lestrange not hoped, and longed for the same thing?

She on the other side of the coin knows Tom very well. She knows that when Dumbledore says that Tom can not love he is wrong. Tom loves a great deal of things. He loves history, magic, wine, and music. He was fond of her. She knows that much. It was enough of a fondness that it could not be faked. She has to wonder though if that fondness came from actually liking Nagini for who she was… or if it was the usefulness that she brought.

This was her test in a way. Would Tom call her back to his side to give her the rat? Would he call her back to give her more than the debt that they had built between them? She longed for good conversation that she couldn’t get from Harry and the kind that could be freely exchanged without translation. No offense to Snape intended but he wasn’t all that interesting outside of his potions knowledge.

When the first of September comes, Nagini does her best not to be disappointed in Tom. She really does. She focuses on getting Harry all of his things packed and not rolling her eyes metaphorically at Severus when he insists that Harry leave some of his acquisitions behind. He is so very bad at all things children.

“What I mean is, you have a place here.” Severus puts a hand on Harry’s shoulder as he argues about taking the small library he had accumulated through the used bookstore and from the books that Snape claimed that he no longer needed or wanted. “You can leave your room as it is and it will be waiting for you to come home on the break.”

Harry gets a little sniffly the moment he mentions the word home and that it would be waiting for him. He rubs at his eyes fiercely. “You mean that?”

“Of course, I do, child.” Severus snips, however, it lacks a lot of the bite that his normal tone would entitle. “You think that I would go through the trouble of making this room to your liking only to have you spend only one summer in it? Do I look like a person who wastes my time on fruitless things?”

Harry shook his head.

“Then there you have it.” Snape lets his hand drop. “I don’t want you to spread this around. I have a reputation to uphold and I think Granger would try to impose herself. ”

Hermione would if she could. The secret kept the house safe from all unwanted guests, but Nagini could already see it now a small bushy-haired girl standing on the street corner trying to figure out where she had taken a wrong turn.

Severus drops Harry at the Weasley’s for breakfast. He has other things to get ready and trust that Harry can make the train and sit with his friends. The only thing that Harry has to worry about is bringing himself and his small travel bag to the station. Severus had taken the liberty of ensuring that the trunk would be in its proper place in Hogwarts long before the train would arrive. He claimed it was because Harry was too disorganized and more than likely to forget it on the platform and then remember to place it in a compartment, but Nagini could see right through it and she suspected that Harry could too, because he thanked Snape for his consideration despite the man calling him a careless nitwit.

Breakfast was wonderful if the clattering of plates and the mouths that were too full of food was anything to go by. Harry thankfully had not picked up their eating habits and had politely put food in his mouth, and swallowed, before talking and asking when they were leaving for the train because it was going to leave in less than an hour. This note led to rushing their way to the barrier in a panic of trunks and school supplies. Nagini was certain that the twins lost several quills as they yanked their bags from the trunk of their blue car. The adults did not even look back as they ran through the wall to the other side. The last to reach the wall was Harry and Ron. Ron however smacked first into the wall and fell before Harry could catch up to even begin to wonder what had happened.

“It’s like the wall sealed itself.” Harry rubbed and tapped at the bricks.

“If it did that, do you think that Mum and Dad can get back?” Ron asked, concerned.

“I don’t know…” Harry tilted his head. “What do you think, Nagini?”

~I can smell magic on the wall, but not the bad sort. It might be a malfunction in the protective wards. Muggles aren’t supposed to be able to make it through after all.~

“ I suppose that's one explanation. I bet Hermione would know.” Harry kicked at it.

“What should we do?” Ron moaned. “We already missed the train and if we don’t encounter someone from the Ministry how can we report that there is an issue?”

“Maybe we should wait by the car.” Harry sighed. “At least then when they do get out they can easily find us.”

“The Car.” Ron’s eyes glinted in a way that Nagini thought only the twins could. This couldn’t be good.

Chapter Text

"We could take the car and try to find them. I think I watched Dad enough to get it flying."

"Have you driven before?" Harry tilted his head like he was actually considering this madness. She thought that she raised him better than this.

~Absolutely not.~ Nagini puts her metaphorical foot down when they reach the car. There wasn't a single way that she was letting them get into a flying death trap. Broomsticks were bad enough! She saw some of the things that Harry did during flying class and they had given her worse heart attacks than facing a Dark Wizard during the second world war or one of the many Order members in the current one

"You're saying that this car can fly?" Harry blinked.

"Dad might have put a few not completely legal spells on it to see if it were possible," Ron muttered, kicking at the ground a little bit. "I know he's supposed to work in the Muggle safety department to protect people from this sort of thing, but you have to admit that it would be really useful for wizard travel."

~More like a safety hazard~ Nagini hissed. ~There are other things that fly already.~

Harry was too busy looking at the car to acknowledge that comment.

~Harry she lowers her tone. The barrier closing could be more than a malfunction. We need to stop wasting time as it seems the other adults are not coming yet. I suggest that we use the portkey and return to Severus's place and flue call from there.~

"Yeah... that is probably a better idea than letting Ron try to drive when he has never driven before. I remember when the neighbor was learning and they took out the mailbox. Uncle Vernon was so mad."

"Hey, I could do it." Ron protested. "The twins took it for a joy ride. How hard could it be?"

Very hard when one would hardly be able to reach the pedals.

"Nagi says that we should use the portkey. Whoever did this if it wasn't some type of fluke could be hovering around. After the whole Voldemort in disguise and almost killing me thing last year, I think it's a safe assumption." Harry cut him off.

Ron went a little pale. "You know who was at the school?!!"

Harry rubs the back of his head. "I really wasn't supposed to say that Qurriell was more than an attempted theft. Because it would scare some people to know that Voldemort's not really dead. Sorry."

Ron was leaning very heavily on the car now. "You said that you were staying with Snape because the Dursleys were awful and since he was your head of house and knew your mum it was the safest place for you."

"Well, they are horrible," Harry admitted. "But it wasn't the only reason, I think Snape told your mum that."

~We really should not be doing this right now.~ Nagini reminded. ~Possible Danger and all~

"Right anyway I was given a portkey in the off chance that someone did try and go after me again." Harry rubbed at the small snake pin on his robe. It was a nice work of transfiguration by the Headmaster, though Nagini loathed to admit it. "You should um all hold onto me and your things so they come with us."

Harry took hold of Ron's hand and Nagini put herself all the way back into the backpack. There was an unpleasant sensation of being squeezed and then whisked in a howl of wind back to the small house in Spinner's end. They were deposited right into the tall grassy backyard with all the potion ingredients.

"Where are we?" Ron stood shaking the dirt off himself. He used his trunk to help him stand up.

"Severus's house," Harry says simply.

"Snape's?" Ron looked at the old aging house with narrowed eyes. "I thought that the burrow was in need of repair."

"Your house is wonderful." Harry was quick to defend. "I love it!"

"That's because you don't have to share it with 5 brothers and a sister." Ron shook his head. "There are only 2 bathrooms and one of them is in our parent's room so we don't get to use it."

"I still would like to have siblings."

"You can have Fred and George." Ron huffed. "All they did was prank me this summer."

"I don't think Severus would let anyone besides myself and Nagi live here," Harry says absent-mindedly. "It is probably for the best."

Ron sputters a little as they head inside. He hurries along as he doesn't want to be left. As the wards recognize Harry and because he has brought Ron he is able to enter. Ron looks around himself with a small frown as they cross the threshold.

“What?” Harry turns back to him.

“It’s just normal looking,” Ron commented.

“Wait, you don’t actually believe the rumors that he is a Vampire do you?”

“Of course not… It’s just that his classroom is full of creepy ingredients.”

“He has plenty of weird pickled things in the lab space downstairs and in the pantry.” Harry laughed. As he went to the fireplace and threw some of the powder in like he had been shown for emergencies. The fire roared a green color for a moment before tapering to a blue and Professor Snape’s office came into view through the fire. A startled-looking Snape scrambled to get closer to the blaze.

“Potter!”

“Hi.” Harry waved. “I.. um… didn’t make the train.”

Severus looked to be turning redder and redder by the moment.

“Before you get too mad at us. The Gate seemed to have somehow closed early. Nagi seems to think that there is an issue with the barrier wards but just to be safe, we came here. Someone might have targeted me and made sure that I missed the train so they could attack me or something.”

This seems to calm Snape down a little. His hands were still twitching but with less of a need to shake the other. “That was responsible of you.”

“I thought you would like that better than the flying car idea.”

“Flying car?” He blinked, seeming to be thrown.

“Ron’s dad has a flying car. I didn’t think we should fly to find help.”

Severus pinched his nose and closed his eyes, muttering to himself about Weasleys. When he had opened his eyes seemed much more composed. He waved his wand and a small doe appeared in silver. It ran off with a message that he whispered to it. “I am going to come through the flue.”

“Okay.” Harry stepped back and let the flames rise up and Snape to move freely out of them. Nagini hissed at him and tilted her head and the professor seemed to get the drift.

“I am glad that you used your better judgment and did not take the no doubt foolish idea of young Mr. Weasley to drive the car to the school building.”

He rested his hand on Harry’s shoulder and smiled at the gesture weakly. He obviously liked the praise but didn’t want to make it seem as such. She made a mental note to keep building his confidence that he would need more than herself praising him.

Ron rubbed his foot into the carpet. “I think I could have flown it.”

“I hardly think you could reach the pedals, let alone have the skills to steer it. I saw your practice flying.” Snape’s voice was neutral and not as biting as it could have been. “Nonetheless, that car is no doubt a breach of magic, and you would have exposed numerous unnecessary people to that knowledge. Your father had best register it or make sure that you all don’t spread this. Malfoy and a few other of the older houses are very upset with your father’s push to help protect Muggles from cursed objects at the moment and this would only give them leverage.”

“I don’t understand why they hate Muggles so much.” Harry shook his head. “Like I understand that there were burnings, but some wizards and the like didn’t mind them. They even thought that they were enjoyable when they had time to prepare themselves for them and that was generations ago.”

“There are many people that you will find that hate without probable cause,” Severus responded softly. “You are young now so I don’t expect it to make sense to you, but years and years of repeated hatred are not always logically removed.”

~The war also played a role.~ Nagini hissed and the portrait responded in kind. The act made Ron jump. ~When Grindelwald brought up the idea of exposing all Muggles to Magic again, his want for power over them was a sentiment shared by many. However, there were just as many people that wanted just to be able to use Magic out in the open again. Voldemort shared a bit of both philosophies .~

Ron and Severus flinched at his name being used.

“Fear of the name only increases the fear of the thing itself,” Harry repeated Hermione’s words at the bookshop.

“Be that as it may, there is risk in saying it.” Severus rubs a little at his arm. “The name had a trace in the war. If one was to dare to use it, it would bring either the Dark Lord himself or it would bring his followers.”

“The more I hear about Voldemort the more he sounds like one of the crazy Muggle cult leaders I used to hear about from the Tele… well that and when they say not to take the Lord’s name in vain it's usually with a risk of damnation but with a twist in this case.”

Severus is silent for a very long moment. “I suppose that is one way to think of it.”

Harry was getting so elegant with words. Nagini was proud.

~We had best head to the school~ Nagini reminded them. ~And tell the Weasleys that their son who did not make the platform is alright.~

The man nodded. “I already informed the Headmaster that we will be arriving shortly. He is aware of the situation. I hope as Harry originally suggested that it is a fluke.”

“You don’t believe that though, do you sir.” Harry said wisely.

“No.” Severus shook his head and beckoned them to follow him through the flue. “I did not make it as far as I did as a spy by believing in coincidence.”

Nagini could not agree more, however, it did beg the question of who would do such a thing. Tom wasn’t about to ruin their truce and there were much better ways of attacking a second year than stopping them from making the train. The diary couldn’t be that aware yet. I

The castle greeted them nearly 3 hours early. Dumbledore takes care to express his concern and his will to look into the matter. Nagini doubts that he will do much. She is still pessimistic if the only thing the other was willing to do was give him a book on defense. She found herself disappointed and she had not expected anything. It was definitely 3 strikes against that man. She would bite him for his next screw-up.

Harry and Ron busied themselves with helping Hagrid and Filch to set up the carriages after the short debrief. Severus looks grateful that they will not be bothering him as he sets up his classroom. So them being out of his hair was probably for the best.

Harry couldn’t see Thrisles and neither could Ron but they did their best to help with the other parts of getting everything ready for one of the biggest days of the year. This included untangling the harnesses and preparing the carts themselves. Filch was helping as well and Nagini liked to believe his grumpy mood was lessening with Harry’s insistent conversation.

“Nope, Never used a cleaning spell.” Harry shook his head. “I like to keep my hands busy. I cooked all summer and I think I am getting better.”

Filch tilted his head. “Hmm didn’t ask.”

“You have a cat, right? I have an owl. I like her a lot. She’s smarter than most people.” Harry continues unbothered and Nagini is starting to suspect that Harry genuinely wants to make people feel better. He isn’t just asking certain questions to get a ruse. He is doing so to get others to talk about themselves.

Filch is silent.

“Ms. Norris is a nice name.” Harry continued unbothered. “I was wondering where it came from.”

“A book.” The caretaker responded. “A book I read a long time ago.” He worked his jaw a little as Ron avoided taking one of the cleaners from him.

“Cool!” Harry smiled. “I named Hedwig after I read a History of Magic. I was struck by the witch who helped others and thought well, magic should be used for that.”

Filch grunted at that. Harry helped him with untangling a bit of the reins so that Hagrid could place them properly.

Nagini left them to it. Finding it easier to trust that her Hatchling would be protected within the castle wards and took the opportunity to try and rest. She had a feeling this year was going to be just as eventful as the previous one and she was going to need all the sleep for it. She felt like she was disturbing the winged horses as they could tell there was something strange about her. Ron was also looking at her far more than he would have if he just thought of her as a normal snake. She suspected that Harry would have to tell her about her origin.

“You had us all worried.” Hermione shook Harry a little by his shoulders. “I even recruited the twins to try and track you down.” This was a big deal because Hermione was a stickler for the rules and if she had to ask them for help she must have been truly desperate.

“Dumbledore said that he was going to inform everyone.” Harry rubbed at the back of his head.

“You know how the old man is.” Draco huffed. “He lost it long ago.”

“He at least told my mom.” Ron started. “She would have killed me if whatever caused me to go missing didn’t.”

“He could at least have told your brothers.” Draco raised a brow. “The twins insisted on checking even the baggage compartment. He couldn’t have messaged before the trunks started being pulled apart?”

“Don’t start,” Theo muttered. “I just got him to stop.”

“I’m just happy th-that you are okay.” Neville smiled weakly.

“ Thanks, Neville. We just took an emergency portkey and waited to be picked up.” Harry shrugs. “Still have no idea why we weren’t allowed through. Nagi thought it was an issue with the barrier itself. Snape thinks that someone deliberately blocked it.”

Theo shifted his weight a little uncomfortably. “You don’t think someone was trying to kidnap you do you?”

“He’s an important figure.” Draco snipped. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Father always has me stick close to him in public for that exact reason.”

“Th-that's horrible.” Neville shook his head.

“Well, at least nothing happened.” Hermione smiled a little weakly, slowly releasing Harry. “I’m glad you both are okay.”

“We should probably sit at our tables.” Theo cut in. “The first years are going to be coming through in a bit.”

“Right.” Harry sighed. “We'll see each other tomorrow.”

“Of course…” Ron nodded. “Try not to be dragged into anything weird until then.”

“We Slytherins, with the exception of Harry, don’t do trouble.” Draco scuffed.

“Hey!” Harry snipped. “It’s not my fault that the school has all sorts of issues.”

“It’s your fault for seeking them out.” Draco countered. “Now come on, we need good seats.”

When the first days of school passed with no issues Nagini almost could forget that there was a risk that the diary had already been unleashed onto the school. She kept an ear on the pipes and any places that a large serpent might have been able to move between, yet so far there was nothing. The castle is about as silent as it can be and she huffs to herself about the possibility that she had gotten the year wrong that this part of Tom’s soul was destroyed. She would have thought there would have been some signs of it. But so far it's just like last year. The stares are a little less as the older students have gotten used to Harry’s presence and hers. However, the younger years were a little more interested in them. There was a little blond that had a particularly annoying camera.

“Can you get her to hiss at me again?” The boy held the camera too close to her nose. Harry shielded her away from him.

The teachers once again were allowing her into classrooms so she just slipped into the bag wondering who knew exactly who she was or her importance. She only came out when it was necessary. And she was necessary. It seemed the first day of the defense against the dark arts.

Lockhart had thankfully issues in finding his way down to the dungeons. Probably because Snape deterred him and the Slytherins were not willing to feed his ego. Harry was blessed not to have the man try and interact with him until they were on their way from the gardens up to his classroom.

“Harry. I heard that you were allowing people to take pictures of you.”

“Define letting.” Harry retorted. “The Creevey is just camera happy.”

“Still, you have to market yourself. Never let anyone do anything like that for free.”

“He does have a point.” Draco leaned too close. “You really should sue.”

“We are not suing a first year. I already told you that.”

“Not sue, Harry.” Lockhart tutted. “Just charge a fee or make him the only one that they can buy prints from and ones that they have taken that flatter you. We could do a photo shoot together.”

“Nope, not happening.” Harry shook his head. “Nagi says to stay away from you and she is an exceptional judge of character.”

“She likes Ronald.” Draco scoffs. “I don’t understand that one then.”

“Not helping, Malfoy.” Theo elbowed him.

Lockhart looks at her and then to Harry. “Your snake, she is intelligent is she?”

“She is smarter than the previous Defense Teachers we have had,” Harry responds dryly.

Lockhart doesn’t seem to take the bait or register that he is being insulted. “I haven’t seen a snake that can change sizes the way that she does.” He reached out a hand towards her.

Nagini hissed because he was treading dangerous territory. She didn’t like when anyone talked about her as if she was a thing and Harry seemed to recognize this. He put his hand over her and she didn’t still with it. She bristled. She felt that rage that she often shared with Tom surface. It didn’t mean that she would act on it, at least not with witnesses, but it made her mouth fill with venom.

“Oh, she has teeth.” Lockhart paled a little.

~Tell him if he tries to touch me. He will lose a hand.~

“Like I said, she doesn’t like you. I wouldn’t touch her. Unless you want to get bit and she killed a troll last year. I don’t know what the venom would do to you.”

At that reminder, Draco looked at her with some respect. He did like her scales. He told her that a great number of times. She couldn’t fault him for liking them. They could be quite nice after a shed and he did give a few good scratches to help get some of the leftovers off. Harry was better at it though.

“We need to head to your class, sir.” Theo reminded with a clear of his throat, “We should be going.”

“Yes, of course, you're right. I know a shortcut.”

It turned out that his shortcut was really just getting them a little lost and then stumbling onto the location of his classroom a few minutes before it was set to start. What was to follow was one of the most egotistical moves that she had ever seen from another person and she had lived with Tom. He proceeded to give them a quiz about himself and not about the actual content that he was supposed to be teaching.

She suddenly missed Qurrell's horrible stuttering. Thinking about the man brought her thoughts back to Tom and she didn’t want to think about Voldemort. Not when she had to plan a way to kill Lockhart and ensure that someone more capable took his place. Barty might be able to do it. Polyjuice couldn’t be all that hard to make and keep taking.

“I was hoping that you would come and see me.” Severus looks down at her as she pulls herself through the doorway. The portrait that had once sat at their house in Spinner's end is now present in his office space.

~Hmm.~ She hummed as she wound herself up onto the available sitting space. ~Do you know anything else about Harry’s issue crossing the barrier?~

“Yes, that is what I wanted to speak with you alone about.” Snape poured himself a generous amount of coffee and put something into it that she doubted was creamer.

She sighed. ~So who do I need to keep an eye out for?~

“It's not a who but a what.” Snape took a sip of his drink. The steam made small whiffs off the top of the mug. Had she been a seer she briefly wondered if there was a message hidden in the steam. There was certainly one in the relaxed stance and tired eyes of the man in front of her. “It was a house elf by our current understanding but it is not possible to know what house that it came from.”

~And house elves do not act on their own.~ She bobbed her head. ~So it has to be a wealthy family.~

“Yes, and there unfortunately are quite a great deal of ones that are owned by those that wouldn’t wish the nicest things to happen to the boy.”

She shut her eyes a moment, racking her brain to see if she could remember any plots going on beyond the one of Lucius. She couldn’t tell anyone about Tom’s soul shard. She needed to find it first and ensure that it was protected. She needed to do this before there was any more possible evidence in front of Dumbledore.

~I can try to keep an eye out for them. But my senses are not trained exactly for that.~

“Our wards are being altered to try and stop anyone that wouldn’t be registered to belong to Hogwarts able to traverse the place. It is the best that we can hope for at the moment.”

She nodded. ~How did the first week of classes go? Lockhart can not be easy to have to share a staff room with.~

“I see that we are switching topics rather quickly.”

~I see you are getting defensive. I only asked a simple question.~ If she had eyebrows she would have raised them. ~The way that I see it there is nothing else to be done to ensure Harry’s safety other than getting rid of the man.”

“I would like nothing better but poisoning him would be too obvious.”

~And so would biting him.~ She agreed. ~We’ll just have to hope that curse gets him early. I don't think this, whatever he calls his classes, is good for young minds.~

Severus raised his glass a little to that and took another generous sip.

Potions on Friday is a double set for second years and Severus has the board covered in instructions. Harry tilts his head as the man makes his all too-familiar flared entrance.

“A reminder that there is to be no foolish wand-waving in this class. The summer may have dulled your senses and rotted your minds, but you will find that no excuses will save you from a deduction of points.” Nagini watched as he took his place at the front of the room. “It has come to my attention that most of you need to learn how to properly take care of your equipment after seeing the amount of cross-contamination from this group last year and the inability to follow directions. I have mercifully decided to teach you what you should already know.”

Nagini wasn’t going to lie; it was probably one of the better lessons that the other had ever given. He let students ask questions and Harry, who had received this lecture over the summer, was happy to break it down to simpler terms for those that weren’t answering questions.

“Longbottom, don't polish it so hard, you will wear the finish off.”

The boy's ears grew red and he waited for some other harsh comment but Snape was already moving away to talk to Greengrass who was handling the knives like they were going to jump up and stab her if she were to try and dip them into the soapy compound.

Harry shifted his weight and waited until everyone left the room after the long dings of the bell told them to move along.

“Yes, Potter.” Severus sounded exhausted but willing to deal with the child’s antics which was a good sign that the man was learning patience.

“Thanks for being nice to Neville.”

“I hardly treated him any differently than I normally do.”

“Well, you didn’t make fun of him for not polishing the cauldron right? So I think that counts as nice for you.”

“Potter, you have a strange idea of what constitutes as nice.”

“Can you still call me Harry?” His hand tightened on the strap to his bag. “When we’re alone… I mean. It’s weird to hear you say it.”

“I’ll try not to use Potter when we’re alone.” Severus relented.

“Can I still call you Severus when it’s just us?”Harry’s fingers rubbed nervously at the bag.

“I see no reason that you can’t.”

“Great!!” Harry chirped a little too loudly. “I will see you this weekend.”

“What…” The man started but Harry had already spun on his heels and happily rushed out of the room.

Chapter Text

Her darling hatchling had plans for the weekend that led him to pull Severus Snape to Hagrids. It seemed it was tradition for them to have tea the first weekend of the year. Harry last year had only brought her as he had not been confident that his friends would want to come. This time he doesn’t bring friends that are his own age but rather 2 older individuals.

“Hi, Hagrid.” Harry waved as they got closer.

“Why hello, Harry, and professor!?” Hagrid seemed just as confused as Severus for being there. “When I said you could bring whoever you wanted I didn’t think it would be you professor… err… no offense.”

“See I brought a human friend this time.” Harry beamed. “Last time you said that I needed to bring one that wasn’t of the animal variety. However, Nagini is really more human than a lot of people.”

“I was more of hope’in that you could make friends a bit more yer age is all.” Hagrid ran a hand through his dirty hair.

“You are my friend Hagrid and you are much older than me.” Harry pointed out.

“He does have friends his age.” Severus scowled down at Harry. “Why he insisted on bringing me is beyond me.”

“I mean they are my friends, but they aren’t really like you 3.”

Severus raised an eyebrow.

“I have fun with you guys and while Hermione can be fun to talk about books with, she doesn’t like to do much else and Ron and Draco only want to ride brooms and argue. It can be fun but there is more to life than Quidditch. I like gardening, cards, tea, and talking about family.” Harry rambled.

“Ah.” Was all the older man could manage.

“Besides I always have fun with Hagrid playing games and I thought that you would like to play too.” He tugs at Severus’s sleeve.

“I could be grading.” Severus sighed deeply.

“Lockheart would find you.” Harry tilted his head. “He would start talking to you endlessly. He never comes out this far. I know because I have been avoiding him.”

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can stay for one cup of tea if that is okay with Hagrid.”

Nagini had the feeling he was begging Hagrid to tell Harry that it wasn’t.

“No problem at all.” Hagrid nodded swiftly, seeming to want to make Harry happy or just oblivious to Snape’s needs.

Regardless of its rocky start cards at least seemed to go over well. Nagini helped Harry to know when Snape was bluffing as it wasn’t all that hard when it came to Hagrid the giant wore his heart on his sleeve.

Even though the old caretaker wants nothing to do with Harry. The boy still finds him and talks his ear off about random things that are cat-related. He even went out of his way to ask Creevey for a picture of the thing when Filch had mentioned that he only had a few photos of his cat as a kitten.

Harry’s friends don’t seem to get it, but they don’t have to. Harry has explained to her that he thinks the man needs a friend and wouldn’t be nearly as grumpy if the other students were not as mean to him.

“I just want to help.” Harry insisted when pressed by Ron. “I know what it's like to work like a house elf and only receive complaints for my effort.”

The defense against the Dark Arts class has become the bane of her existence. Nagini has a tough enough job keeping tabs on all of Harry’s little friends and making sure that a snake greater than herself doesn’t decide to rise from the plumbing. Lockheart has a way of ensuring that even the most simple of spells or tasks becomes an hour-long lecture on how great he is.

“I have not learned anything useful this year.” Harry lays over the Study table dramatically. Nagini makes an effort to roll one of the runaway quills back toward his person.

“Potter. I would hope that you learned at least something for your next potions exam.” Severus raised an eyebrow at him. He had to supervise the study break and he didn’t seem to be enjoying looking at the half-done essay that was rolled up on Harry’s desk.

“I wasn’t talking about potions.” Severus tilted his head. “Sir.” Harry wisely sat a little up.

“I should hope not.” The man scuffed.

“It’s for defense. I mean pixies. He released an army of pixies and couldn’t return them to the cage. I had to get Neville down from the ceiling. Now he just wants to talk about his books. I got a deduction of points because I refuse to play an actor.”

Draco nodded. “It’s true sir. I haven’t learned anything of interest either. I can’t imagine how the older students are going to pass OWLs.”

“OWLs?” Harry tilted his head.

“Wizarding test,” Theo commented for Harry's sake.

“Why is he even here?” One of the older Slytherins that Nagini didn’t know the name of cut in. “He doesn't have the credentials.”

“My sister needs to pass her NEWTs.” A boy cuts in.

“If you have an issue with the staff, I would recommend that you write to your parents and the governing board.” Harry opened his mouth. Severus gave him a warning glance. “A letter.” He repeated. “The other professors can not make a call on the removal of each other. Only the headmaster and the education board have that role. In the meantime I suggest gaining the points necessary to pass.”

Harry colored a little as the others moved to check on another batch of students.

“New plan.” Harry rubbed Nagini's head soothingly and picked up his quill again. “We finish our essays but all write the same thing. See how he grades them. We can come with more proof that way to the governors. Draco said that his father commented it's a little too early for them to remove him yet. He hasn’t done anything too egregious.”

“Teaching us wrong and not what is in the curriculum is egregious,” Draco mumbled.

“Having me pretend to be a girl in danger was….” Crabbe tried.

“Egregious,” Harry said for him.

“Yeah, that.” The boy nodded.

“And dumb.” Goyle agreed. “His books hurt my head.”

“He is unnecessarily wordy.” Theo rolled his shoulders. “I think he does it to cover his less-than-intelligent ideas on how to write dialogue.”

“And the truth.” Harry agrees. “Severus says that the books hold no water or semblance of correct magical theory.”

“Severus? You really have been spending a lot of time with Professor Snape.” Draco raised an eyebrow.

Harry just shrugged. “I can’t say that I don’t like learning new words. Besides I am going to try and write a very wordy and nonsensical answer to these personality questions that Lockhart asked for.”

“Let me know when you are done.” Theo leaned back in his chair. “I’ll just copy you.”

“Or you can help with a few of them and we can trade papers between us.” Harry raises an eyebrow.

“I just put my ink away.”

“Better take it out again.” Draco yawned. “I much rather have these done soon so I can practice flying. I want to be on the team and tryouts are next week.”

“We could write the governor's letters instead and then maybe we can just skip this assignment altogether.”

“I think I will ask Hermione for help with those letters.” Harry shakes his head. “Between the two of you, I think they will be much stronger. Besides, Snape said that we should take the easy points.”

“You are starting to sound like Granger too.” Theo shook his head.

Nagini just rested contently after their little exchange, proud that her hatchling was learning and building his own little circle of friends and allies.

Harry and Draco have been practicing flying together and she admittedly is a little worried. They both like the seeker position and they both have skill at it. There was only one Seeker spot and there were two of them. Maybe one could be placed in reserves but she worried that it would make them have a rift in their friendship.

Draco was a vain little being like his father and he would feel less if he lost to Harry. A bruised fragile ego might be enough for him to retreat fully from Harry’s little group. It was a miracle enough that Malfoy’s son was willing to hang out with a Muggle-born and seemed to enjoy doing so. He might become petty and unbearable should he not get his way. While Harry was much better in tune with others' feelings, he would not like to lose. He wouldn’t be bitter about not making the team. He would perhaps try even harder the following year. He just would get a little wilty and she wanted him more than anything to be happy. Flying made Harry happy.

There was also the fact that if Draco were to win then he would never stop bothering Harry over it. Maybe she should suggest that he try for Chaser just in case he didn’t get the seeker.

“Come on mate, you can’t be there. The other Slytherins would have kittens. Your brothers are on the other team and they are already going to be upset that Granger insists on being there.”

Granger had turned a little pink then and she glanced towards Harry as he and Draco continued to argue over broom models. Draco was convinced that 2001’s model was far superior to the 2000’s one that Harry had gotten at a discount. It was already far faster than the one that Severus had stored in the attic and allowed for Harry to practice on.

“Oh, they are taking off.” Hermione fidgeted and it made Nagini bounce with the bleachers.

Harry has always made her nervous when he is too high for her to be of any use to him. She watches as he makes a show of his aerial abilities. He is fast, slim, and lightweight. All things that made him agile. It made her breath catch with each dive that he made. She knew that he would be pulling out his best moves to ensure himself a spot, it did not however make her feel any easier. Draco was putting on just as nice a show but he did not have the reckless skill that Harry had. No, Harry flew like he didn’t care what would happen to him or was just that confident in himself and his broom. Harry glided through the harder obstacles. The bludgers stood no chance in his maneuvers.

Some people were stopping their exercises to watch the way that he moved. The snitches were his in record time. He followed their movement in the same way that Tom would follow every small movement in a Death Eater meeting. He was in a trance and there was a look on his face. It was so relaxed and free.

Nagini felt her whole body warm with the weight of that smile.

Harry took the Seeker position. Draco became a backup for both the Chaser and the Seeker role. He surprisingly showed a great deal of grace in his defeat.

Theo threw his arms around his two friends. “Looks like we are going to win this year. What do you think, Granger?”

“Without a doubt.” The girl scratched her cheek and looked away from the beaming faces of Potter and Malfoy. “Don’t tell Ron but there isn’t a prayer for Griffendor to catch the snitch.”

“Exactly.” Theo chirped happily. “We have the best set up even if Harry throws himself in danger we have an equally skilled backup.

“I will surpass you.” Draco pried his friend's hands from his shoulder. “I just have to find a way to avoid the insanity of nearly falling off my broom to catch a snitch.”

“Sure,” Harry says unbothered. “I think the will to fall is why I have the spot, though you can easily have the Chaser spot next year when our current one graduates.”

“I don’t want to get it because of that.” Draco scoffed. “I want there to be no question that I am the best.”

“Mmmm.” Harry hummed. “Maybe you can be the best chaser then.”

“No. I will be the best seeker!” Draco huffed. “And I am a Malfoy. I will get what I want. I will make it happen.”

Halloween comes and Nagini is exhausted from roaming the corridors and rests on the bench of the great hall Slytherin table. Harry is poking at his food and Hermione keeps shooting him concerned looks from Griffendor’s table.

~We can head back to the common room.~ She offers softly. ~I know that this day is never going to be an easy one for you.~

Harry nodded and picked up his school bag. He held it open for her and she slipped inside.

~I feel guilty.~ Harry says as they head down the main hall.

~Harry.~

~I know. I know. My Mum and Dad wouldn’t want me to feel that way, but I can’t help it. I feel their absence a lot.~

She nudged him with her head with a lack of a better action to comfort him. She doesn’t know quite what to say. She wants to assure him that she is there, but she is not his real mother. Lily couldn’t be replaced and neither could James. She can fill the role well enough, but it isn’t the same. Tom had left a hole in Harry. Just as he had left a hole in Severus.

~I am happy you are my Mum.~ Harry reaches up and pulls her a bit out of the bag. ~I don’t mean to say that I don’t feel loved by you. Even if it can be a little annoying not to just tell my friends exactly what you mean to me.~

~It’s okay.~ She doesn’t want him to ramble. She doesn’t want him to feel any worse than he did at the moment. ~I do not expect to replace them. I don’t wish to. One day we can share who I am with others, however at the moment that needs to stay between us for both our safety.”

~You don’t think that the ministry would do anything to you… when you were the one who cared for me when no one else did.~ Harry’s face hardens. She feels his shoulders tighten.

~The government is run by cowards. I can’t see them trying to separate us or using me for an ingredient if that is what you are worried about. Severus currently is your guardian. No, more likely that information could be used as a way in which to target you. The fact you view me as a mother could mean they would seek to use me to control you.~

~There are Death Eaters in the Ministry and High positions.~ Harry knows that. He however seemed particularly irritated about it today. Not that she blames him. It is depressing to think that his parent's murder might have stopped the war out in the open but had done nothing for the politicians or those who were able to excuse their connections. It was the same horrible people, just different words, and branding.

~Yes and those that even though they are not Death Eaters would like nothing better than to use your name to earn them something.~

~I wouldn’t let that happen.~ Harry says with a viciousness that reminds her so very much of Tom.

~Neither would I.~ She placates him. ~Perhaps we can ask Severus to take us to see your parent’s graves tonight or this weekend.~

Harry was still with this and she thought that perhaps she had pushed too far. But she now hears it too. The deep voice that is moving in the walls.

KILL

Harry’s green eyes bore into the wall.

~No.~ She demands. ~Harry we need to get someone.~

The boy however is moving as if danger has sung to him. The siren makes him run towards it or maybe it was the King of the Snake's powerful voice that echoes in her head that draws him.

KILL

The voice comes again.

KILL KILL KILL

Faster than before the voice calls. They end up at a wall with blood dripping down the bricks.

ＴＨＥ ＣＨＡＭＢＥＲ ＯＦ ＳＥＣＲＥＴＳ ＨＡＳ ＢＥＥＮ ＯＰＥＮＥＤ． ＥＮＥＭＩＥＳ ＯＦ ＴＨＥ ＨＥＩＲ， ＢＥＷＡＲＥ

Harry’s mouth hangs open and when he sees the cat that is hanging vomits. He is hardly able to make a high-pitched wheezing noise as the air enters his lungs and out of them. He isn’t seeing her. She doesn't know what he is seeing. She however knows that it must be horrible. The shaking has started to overtake him. There are other students' voices coming up the hall and Harry has his hands over his ears, clutching his head. He has a few tears running down his face. He has dropped to the floor.

~Harry~ She whispers.

He keeps shaking and she can’t get him to snap out of it.

~Harry~

She holds tightly around him and she hisses loudly a warning as people are moving far too close for her liking. They are all staring at her child. They are all ignoring his pain in favor of gawking. The headmaster chooses now to make his appearance and she can’t say that she is impressed with him or the deputy as they are frozen by the message.

“Get the students to their houses.” The old man commands. Filch has pushed his way forward and starts having a breakdown of his own over his cat. The prefects and the other professors started acting as instructed pushing the children down the other hallway towards the stairs.

“My cat. My cat.” He starts screaming at anyone who can hear him.

Severus, however, moves to collect Harry from the ground. He bends down despite the mess on the stone floors and puts both of his hands on Harry’s wrists. He puts a good amount of pressure there and Harry starts to show some sign of still being in there.

“Come on Potter.” His voice is harsh and laced with worry. “Breathe. Breathe with me.”

~Breathe.~ Nagini agrees with him. ~Breathe.~ The remainder of it helps her to calm down as well. It helps to take nearly a step back from it. Lockhart steps a bit closer and she cuts that off by placing herself in between. The people that are trying to help and those that would just get in the way.

Harry slowly opens his eyes wider and his breathing becomes normal.

“What happened?” Snape asks slowly.

Harry shakes his head. He shakes it hard. “I… It was green.”

“Green, what does that mean?” The blowhard eavesdropped.

“Headmaster is somewhere we could meet more privately.” Snape cuts him off thankfully. “I think Harry would feel best with just myself, his familiar, and you.”

“We will use Minerva’s office.” Dumbledore nodded. “Ms. Norris has been petrified. She is still alive. I will send Pumfery to have a look at her.” He pats the nearly crying, disheveled, man on the back. “I am sure we can find a way to restore her.”

“Headmaster…” Lockhart starts. “My office is closer.”

Nagini trips him as he moves to follow and bares her fangs again at him. The man stumbled back a little and a harsher look crossed his face. He was dangerous in a way. The people in his books that he stole from so as not to call him out on the lies and intricacies had to be silenced somehow. He dealt with memory charms but that wouldn’t do much against a snake. Certainly, he wouldn’t even consider it or harm her. Because if he did try. She would end him regardless of how it turned out.

“This is not a conversation that everyone needs to be privy to.” Severus helps Harry to a stand. He wobbles and Nagini immediately moves to be out of the way and yet within eyesight and reach.

“It was green,” Harry repeated and he clutched at Severus’s arm. “I have dreamed about it before… but it was like…” He squeezed his eyes closed.

They make their way into Minervia’s office. The old woman sends for tea before excusing herself to check in on the lions and the snakes that would be missing their head of house. The old man sent for the Guant portrait to come and sit in another frame. Severus would perhaps have gotten a drought of peace but he is kept rooted by Harry’s refusal to let go of his arm.

Tea is passed around and Nagini sits at the table closest to Harry and a divide and shield between

“Now.” Dumbledore pressed. “What happened?”

“Nagini and I were going to retire for the night. I hate Halloween… when I heard a voice. It wasn’t like any that I had heard before. I am not sure how to describe it. It was like it was in my head.”

This explanation made Severus rigid.

~I could hear it too.~ Nagini said for the other’s benefit. ~The writing on the wall is clear. Voldemort is influencing this school again, the heir to Slytherin is a direct reference to him.~

“We do not know that for sure.” The old man sat heavily on one of the desk chairs. “There are plenty that would think of this as a poorly timed prank.”

“A prank.” Severus barked. “I suppose that a direct attack on one of the staff's familiars is all harmless fun. Should I bring up the werewolf incident?”

Harry looked back at the adults and she was reminded that this had started with him and his well-being should be considered. She needed to wrap this up and have Harry rest before it went into territory that would only upset the young teen more.

“Severus, it is best that we don’t bring up the past at the moment. What matters now is ensuring that those who are responsible for this are found and that there is no more direct harm to students. ”

~Exactly, why, I will not have you pin this on a sick prank. ~ Nagini cut them off. ~Regardless of whether you think Voldemort is at fault or not this is an attack on another living being. Who is to say that it will not happen to a student next? The enemies of the heir are a direct threat to Muggle-borns. The last time it was opened a girl died.~

“That girl was a victim of Tom Riddle when he went to school here.”

~And you were watching him no doubt at the time.~ Nagini huffed. ~The voice that Harry heard wasn’t Voldemort’s. It was a serpent and it was much larger than me. The chamber was opened, only an heir can open that chamber according to the story and Voldemort is the only one left from that line.~

Dumbledore folded his hands in front of him.

“Headmaster, if there is a dangerous creature in the school then we must find someone to dispatch it. If Voldemort has opened the chamber and plans on using this creature to attack students then it might be safer to close the school down for a while. Send the students home so the place can be properly searched.”

“Tom more than likely would stop the attacks if there were no one here to bear witness to it. The person that is working with him then, if that is what this is, would more than likely disappear with the students. They would still be able to attack with or without the large snake.”

~You want to keep the school open and have the students act as bait again?~ Nagini puffed. She needed a distraction to find the diary but this was ridiculous. She had hoped that the snake hunt would buy her time; she didn’t think that Albus was stupid enough to use the school in that manner again. Especially because a lot of the staff knew of the issues that last year had brought.

“Not as bait.” Dumbledore tried to appease her. He held up his hand as if that was enough to silence her. “I can’t close the school without evidence that there is a large snake in the castle that may put the students in danger. Lucius Malfoy has been trying to get rid of me for the last few years. He will question why I would believe a boy who might just be hearing things or did the painting on the wall himself as a prank.”

~How dare you.~ Nagini hissed deeply. ~Harry would never.~

“I didn’t do it.” Harry shook his head.

“I know but the board will find it difficult to believe as far as they will be concerned Harry is a parcel mouth and very well could have done the writing as he left the feast early. I will need more evidence to shut the school down. Until then all we can do is remain vigilant.”

Nagini needed to find the diary and she needed to do it quickly. This man was just as crazy as he claimed Tom was. The only benefit was that Severus seemed to be on the same page as her.

Harry sleeps in Severus’s quarters that night in his bed and the potions professor takes the coach. The small boy looked even tinier in the sea of blankets. It had been difficult to put him to bed. Harry didn’t want to dream of his parents and the house that Voldemort resided in. Not that she would tell him that there was a truth to what he was seeing.

“Filch is going to think that I did it.” Harry’s voice was small. “He will probably hate me now. The whole school going to think I did it…”

~No one could ever hate you if they knew you~ Nagini tried to assure him. ~And if they believe that you are capable of hurting others they are not worth your time.~

Harry didn’t seem to believe her and she knew that her reasoning wouldn’t be enough. She hoped that none of Harry’s friends would be foolish enough to say anything to him about it when he returned to classes. Harry had nearly begged to have the day off. It might make him look guilty to some but a mental health day was exactly what her Harry needed.

Severus sat down on the sofa with a large drink in his hand, the other was running its way through his hair. “He remembers hearing her die.”

“Yes. The green flash has haunted him most of his childhood.”

The potions professor let out a deep shattering breath. “It’s my fault.”

~We had this discussion before.~

“It’s my fault” Severus drinks the liquid in his glass and looks like he wants to throw the glass but her look changes his mind. He put it down hard onto the coffee table.

She slowly puts herself up next to him on the cushions and wraps herself around him. He flinches and stills under her scales. ~It is not your fault. If you had not shared that prophecy it would have found a different way to surface and he would have gone after Harry anyway.~

“I can't…. I can’t…” His voice gets softer.

She thought about telling him that he could, that he needed to stay strong; however, that felt wrong to say. Dumbledore seemed to be pressing onto Severus that the only way to atone was to stay alive and do what was asked of him. The man who is hunched into himself is already strong. He gets up every day despite not liking his job. He does his best to teach when his patience is frayed. He forces food down his throat at breakfast because Harry insists that he should eat. He doesn’t need to be reminded to be that way.

~It’s alright.~ She takes the tone that she often did with Harry. ~Take the day off tomorrow. You don’t have to hide the emotion inside. Let it out if you need to and reset for what is ahead of us.~

Severus just remained quiet and he shook but did not cry. He didn’t seem like he was able to. He twisted his fingers in his long robe and he breathed harder but that was all. She let the silence be around them for a very long time. Severus never untensed. He just sat and he dwelled. He drank. He blamed himself but not out loud. He was self-destructive and she feared for him if he didn't take her advice to rest tomorrow.

~I am grateful for you helping Harry.~ She tries something else.

“Helping him.” Severus pinched his face, his large black eyes looking at her. “Is that what I am doing? I feel like I pale in comparison to comforting him.”

~You helped him when I couldn’t. You care for him. He doesn’t need anything else.~

Severus shook his head.

~He likes you, you know.~

“I can’t imagine why.”

~Because you care~ She repeated. ~To people like myself and Harry that have lost and been through much it is a great comfort to have someone that can understand. I would like you to know that I extend my care to you as well. If you need to talk about things. I am here for that.~

“The things that I would say should not be said in front of our current translator.” His voice was lower than a whisper.

~There are many ways to communicate.~ That does not involve a translator that will carry that information back to unforgiving and unwanted ears. She left it unsaid but when she looked into his eyes she knew that he understood.

She would need to talk with Tom sooner than later. It did not matter that he had not sought her out. She had things in which to speak to him about that couldn’t wait. Her heart had not grown fonder in his absence. It rather had grown colder and annoyed.