Prologue-

Cool, not the cold that made him shiver through his stretched thin shirt and overlarge trousers; no it was a nice day the kind of day he had come to expect for Dudley's birthday. The Dursley's hadn't brought him with them for his benefit, the lady who usually looked after him; Mrs. Figg was down with a bad flu, so here he was, walking with his Aunt and Uncle into the Zoo. That morning's temper tantrum barely remembered as Dudley barreled over the parking lot on a mission to the large doors of the London Zoo.

Harry kept out of Uncle Vernon's way, he wouldn't clip him the way he would at home; but irritating the large man never ended well for his scrawny nephew.

They had been walking around the park for an hour when Dudley decided that he required mass amounts of sugar. The hulk of Harry's eleven-year-old cousin was gorging himself on ice cream and chips when Harry heard it; a low voice was speaking, talking about what had to be his cousin.

"Would you look at that, it seems another warthog has escaped its pen."

"Well with all due respect Merciss, I think he escaped from some marine tank, though I don't remember this 'place' having any tanks large enough." Laughter followed that, Harry had to try and suppress his own or it would escape in a loud rush.

"How embarrassing, he can not even dislodge his jaw to make swallowing his mouthful any tidier, he is quite repulsive for a fleshy human." The first mans voice said again.

Now searching for the two men Harry couldn't seem to find them, there were three men sitting at a table on the other side of the sunny cantina, but he didn't think he could have heard them from where he sat, which was to the near the Dursley's on an orange brick retaining wall. Leaving the mystery of who said what Harry returned to admiring the pond and fish behind him. The fish were something called Koi and were from Japan, they were a mix off colours and they had patterns on their scales, some with large dots on tops of their heads others with patches like a cows.

Lunch lasted another ten minuets and then they were off, moving on to the next hall of animals. After the lion had been asleep for Dudley's visit he said that the 'man-inimals' were boring and ran off to the reptiles exhibit. Harry stood behind them eating the leftovers of Aunt Petunia' fish and chips, they tasted vinegary and new, they were cold but that didn't matter.

"Mummy, Mummy look, it's a really big snake." Dudley called, Petunia's steps quickened, a smile of adoration passing over her features. Vernon did not rush; instead he trod at the same pace not really looking at anything as he passed it.

'Insignificant,' Harry thought, his Uncle worked at a drill factory, Grunnings and didn't have much in the way of attentiveness for anything or anyone that was not his 'perfectly normal' family or his job. Harry never had fit in either of those.

Feeling content with remaining unnoticed harry finished his lunch, putting the container in the rubbish bin at the Reptile halls doors.

This is when his Uncle spoke, "Was that good boy? Did you enjoy it?" feeling a chill run down him Harry nodded, his head and eyes down. 'Just disappear please,' he thought, 'I haven't broken the rules. I was quiet, I didn't draw attention to myself.' What could I have done to garner a look from Vernon Dursley? The portly man just kept walking and Harry knew the contemplating expression firmly on his rounded face.

Dudley stood in front of a pane of glass; the poor creature inside being watched by these people, suddenly Dudley bashed his meaty fist against the glass, the long green and brown snake laying coiled around a branch, his arrow shaped head resting on the wood. Dudley's banging quickly cut off when he shrieked and fell bodily over the railing and through the now missing glass. More shrieks erupted as the glass of all the enclosures disappeared, as the multitude of snakes slithered their way over the concrete floor the other Zoo goers screaming and running from the swarming, constricting hoard as it came their way. Over the noise of retreat Harry heard the two voices from before, unlike most in the hall they sounded calm if a little excited.

"Must be a wizard in here somewhere, can't believe we're out. Off to Nockturn Alley I am, Merciss will you come with me?" Harry's eyes narrowed as he spotted the source of the voice, the 'men' he had heard earlier weren't men at all; they were snakes. One black diamond headed, seven feet long and the other a gold five footer with diamond patterns in his scales.

He hissed a reply, "In a minuet Prieth, I would like to thank our rescuer myself." He continued in an even steeper hiss, "Even if they will not understand."

The Boa sidled up to the gold snake Harry thought was Merciss, looked at the both of them, then looked over at the bespectacled boy in ill fit clothing, "It is him," the constrictor said nodding at Harry and then continued on his way green and brown scales shimmering under the skylights.

Harry didn't know what was happening, snakes spoke, he could hear them; he must be going mad.

The constrictors moved over to him, Harry felt as if he should run but couldn't out of fear he imagined. When the two very large snakes stopped a few feet away, Merciss coiled up arching to look at him, coming to Harry' waist before addressing him. "Thank you young wizard, I've longed to be rid of this place for some time." Harry felt himself swaying with Merciss' movements, "I feel that I owe you something, what is your year?"

"Ah, eleven in July." Harry answered dumfounded.

"So you can speak it. I thought maybe…. I will see you when you go to Diagon Alley for your school stuffs."

"I'm sorry I don't know what's going on, how am I understanding you?"

The two snakes exchanged glances, you are a magic person, and the kinds that can speak to us are called Parcel mouths. They hide from the rest of the world but can not hide from animals."

Prieth spoke next saying, "My mother once knew a boy like you, and I have been here for a very long time you see; I have seen many of your kind walk past my case, but not any like you. Mother spoke of a boy; young and sad, alone paraded around by one and lead with many. She would tell my fellow hatchlings and I the story of the day she met him the first time. She would say, he spoke like a snakling, not like men but would switch. He did not know who or what but knew he was different. He came back every year in the summer, when it was hot and the sun shone more than it fled." Prieth looked out the doors, out to that sunny day Harry had thought rather spectacular. "Mother said his name was Tom, but that he changed. He stopped coming before I was hatched, but mothers stories made me wonder if maybe he would return." The dark snake looked to him then, a sadness Harry couldn't see but felt rushing out at him. "But you are not him." with that he quieted.

"You will meet us again we will search for you in the Diagon Alley of London. Snakling tell us your name? We do not know it, I would like it though."

"It's Harry, Harry Potter."

"Than we will be seeing you Harry." Merciss and Prieth said in parting.

Harry was left in the reptile exhibit, alone. He didn't know if he could move, he had been frozen since Merciss and Prieth had left, disappearing into the gardens.

Snake wranglers came in four minuets later, dressed in thick cloth with bags and hooks, they didn't find any snakes though just a boy of maybe nine years old in rags who kept as still as a statue.

They took the boy out-front of the Zoo, an ambulance had been set up and people stood around covered in blankets and talking to press, it was a mess. But despite walking through all of these people to get to the paramedics no one came to claim the boy. Wrangler Steve was starting to wonder if the kid had come alone when a women with a horsey face came forward, she pointed at the boy and said he was her nephew, Steve didn't know what to do, he was a junior hardly field tested, he understood that protocol should allow him to hand the boy over to his Aunt, no one else had come forward for the child, but he felt he needed to get the poor shocked boy to the paramedics and hopefully on the road to feeling better. A second off doing exactly that, his co-worker Johnson ordered that he release the child to the horsewoman.

Giving Johnson a look Steve shook his head subtly.

"Just do it, you're not in command on this job I am and I'm telling you to release the kid to his guardian."

That's how the Dursley' got away with not having him examined, they had thought maybe jut leave him there, pretend they didn't know the boy. But then those freaks would just drop the brat back on their step again anyway, best not to let him be examined and the results of that exam lead back to them.

When they had arrived back a number 4 Privet Drive Harry was shoved into his 'room' under the stairs, and Uncle Vernon shouted at him through the grate, he didn't know for certain but he must have made the glass vanish, his Uncle said he had, that he was a freak; maybe this is what that meant.

"You won't be coming out of that cupboard without my say so for another three days for your freakishness back there."

The snakes had said that there were others like him that there was another world, that this one surrounded by Little Whinging's perfectly normal suburban lawns and pastel painted houses couldn't see.

'That you exposed Dudley to it as well will see that you get no meals until you earn them back!" his menacing whispers couldn't pull Harry form his thoughts. He wondered, what would come for him on his birthday this year that would lead him to the world Merciss and Prieth had spoken how?

That night he fell asleep to the idea of not being as terribly alone as he'd always thought, maybe out there…. There could be someone who would become a friend to him. His first.

If that were the case than yes, magic had to be real. Which meant he'd tossed Dudley into a snake enclosure' pond without lifting a finger.

I have magic.