A note to potential fans, haters, "flamin' preps," well-reasoned critics, and anyone else who might give a flipping hoo ha about my writing: Now, this is going to be a fairly long fanfiction, which I hope to write into a larger series if it becomes a success. I would very much appreciate some reviews, and I definitely want to hear about inconsistencies you find with content, how I voice characters according to their ages (some of my characters are young, and I can't have them speak like adults), how I choose to use capitalization, or anything else you think of (OR TYPOS BECAUSE I HATE THOSE). (See how I cleverly avoided ending that sentence with a preposition?) I will tell you that some things might be a little inconsistent with the Rowling books, though I'll try to provide an explanation for everything. For example, why would we find a Parselmouth in someone who isn't a descendant of Slytherin? That happens a couple times throughout the book. Don't worry: I have taken that into account. If there's something you think I've missed, tell me so that I can change it or incorporate it into the plot! A small warning to anyone who wants to read this: You'll have to be in this for the long haul. I'm a slow writer. I've written the first 100 pages or so, but they need to be heavily edited. After those pages, it might take months for me to be inspired enough for another chapter. That said, I promise that each chapter will be up to the same quality. In addition, all chapters will be at least 10 pages single spaced in Microsoft Word. No need to worry about gimpy chapters from me. I will also try to keep chapter lengths somewhat consistent, because that's something that bothers me in other fanfictions that I've read.

Thanks in advance for the support that I may (or may not) receive. I know that the community here can be quite splendid with one another, and I hope that you treat me with the same respect that you give other good writers on this site. (Aka, don't review me like you would review My Immortal. I might not be the best writer, but I'm literate at least.) This is going to be a big journey for me, and hopefully for you guys as well. I want to make you laugh sometimes, and I certainly want to make you feel like crying out of happiness and out of sadness. I may never achieve those things, but those are my goals, because I want to touch all of you the way stories touch me. And now, onto the monstrosity itself!

Chapter One: Snake in the Garden

A snake twirled itself through the young girl's fingers. It was a harmless garter, one of the ones the girl found in the weedy patch of the garden. Her mother always tried to trim the weeds, but she made them grow back. She felt almost like her older brother. He was magical; he was even in Gryffindor, the "special house." Everyone wanted to be there now. She remembered a few bedtime stories with her mother, when she told of a dark time many years ago, when a young man named Harry Potter attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"Tonight," her mother began, "I will tell you of the time of Harry James Potter, the greatest hero who ever lived. He is still alive today, but he doesn't go out much." Mrs. Magelin seemed to laugh at her own private joke, and then continued. Harry Potter was born to Lily and James, who loved him very much. But then, an evil, horrible, Slytherin man came to visit them at their house."

"What's his name, mummy?" the girl asked.

"We do not speak his name. Instead we call him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or You-Know-Who."

"But I don't know who!"

"Well, you know he was a bad man, and he killed a lot of innocent people, and that's all you need to know about that." The girl's mouth opened in a silent o. Her mother looked gravely down upon her daughter's face, reveling in the innocence it still held. She heard tell of her first killing, and she couldn't fathom the grief behind it. The girl's mother wished for the days when that were still true for her. The woman continued, blinking back remembered tears. She was too young to remember the war, but she lived through the gristly aftermath, and her parents acted as soldiers. She lost three of her aunts to the cause. "Well this man, he came to their house when Harry was just a baby, and do you know what he did?"

"What?" whispered the girl.

"He killed both the parents." Her daughter hid her head under the covers.

"Mama! Don't tell me anymore! It's so scary!"

"It gets happier from that," the girl lifted her head, "He tried to kill the little baby. You-Know-Who said the magic words, and… he died. That was it. That little baby got rid of the worst wizard who ever lived. Do you want to know how?"

"Yes yes YES!" The girl's voice escalated with each repetition.

"His mother loved him so much that You-Know-Who couldn't harm him. That was it. And this Harry Potter, he grew up with his aunt and uncle. Both of them were Muggles, and boy were they shocked when they found out he could do magic! Now can you guess where Harry went when he turned eleven?"

"HOGWARTS!" the girl screamed.

"That's right! He went to Hogwarts, and Professor Minerva McGonogall placed the Sorting Hat upon its head. Do you know what it said? It didn't say Gryffindor at first. It actually told him to go to Slytherin. The hat would never say that out loud, but he told Harry in his head that Slytherin would make him great. And do you know what Harry did?" The girl shook her head solemnly, without making a word. "He said no. That was it; all he had to do was say no. The Sorting Hat realized right then and there that Harry wanted to be a good wizard instead of a bad one. And where do all the good wizards go?"

"Gryffindor of course," answered the girl matter-of-factly.

"Very good! That' where your father and I both went, and that's your brother Jerrod's house at school. The Ravenclaws are wonderful because they're very smart, but they don't think about each other. They simply want to beat one another to the finish line, and see who learns the most by the time they get there. The Hufflepuffs are great, but what if they're loyal to each other based around an unworthy cause? Then you've got a mindless army of followers who would die for whatever their friends supported. Hufflepuffs need to grow a bit of a backbone. And then we have Slytherin. They're manipulative, like snakes, and they feed ideas into your brain about how they can make you better. Powerful wizards come out of Slytherin, but they're not often good ones."

"Oh no," the girl whimpered softly.

"Yes, you have to be very careful of these Slytherin types. Of course, a whole group of people wanted to live there. They're called the "purebloods" because their blood was only from wizards for generations and generations. They married their own cousins to keep their blood within the wizards only."

"Ewww…" The girl thought of marrying her brother and stuck out her tongue.

"Exactly. Slytherin became the house for pureblooded wizards, and they liked to take over the Ministry of Magic when they graduated so they got all the money and hid it from everyone else. All in all, these Slytherins weren't good people. You did see the occasional Slytherin, like Professor Severus Snape, who became an exceptional wizard, but even he turned to the dark side. Being Slytherin is a one-way ticket to evil." She shook her head quickly, trying to clear it of such politically incorrect statements, and corrected herself, "You can come back from it of course, and I would never say that everyone in Slytherin is evil because I think the best of everyone," the mother paused to take a breath and continued in a sickly sweet tone, "honey, but it's a bad place to be. Do you understand? If the Sorting Hat ever asks you where you want to be, what is your answer?"

"Gryffindor of course. That's where all the good guys are!"

"Very good." The mother kissed her daughter's forehead and readied herself for bed, her training finished for the day.

The girl laughed to herself; even as a five-year-old she knew only fools wanted to live in Slytherin.

As a nine-year-old, having heard years of those bedtime stories, the girl didn't know what to think about this snake. She looked down at the snake again; it flicked its tongue at her, repeatedly, shaking somewhat. "Are you laughing too?" she asked him, still chuckling over the rather ridiculous way her mother told her wartime stories.

"Of course I am laughing. What you think is funny must be so," it hissed at her.

"I was just thinking about Slytherin. It would be silly for me to go there. Only the bad people go there."

"Have you ever encountered such a person?"

"No, but they're obviously bad."

"Why?"

"They talk to snakes."

"Aren't you talking to me right now?"

"You won't tell anyone, will you? I don't think this counts, since you're just a little snake, like me, and I'm not eleven yet."

"You will cease speaking to me once you become eleven? This is a human year, no? You are…" he calculated for a second, "I have no clue. You value time differently than I."

"I'm five. Of course I won't stop talking to you! We'll just need to be secretive about it. Okay? People here don't like kids who can speak to snakes."

The snake started mumbling to himself, "Such a peculiar race, you humans. You do not respect those with an added talent, simply because you are afraid of their abilities. It's curious as to why you even accept each other when you all look different." He raised his voice in question to the small girl, "Are we not being secretive at this time?"

"Even more secret," the girl said and giggled as the snake slithered to her chest and flicked his tongue at her face, similar to how a dog would lick his master. Though he would normally keep from degrading himself to the role of a simple pet, the snake understood that this human was small and did not understand many things. He never quite understood why he had taken such a liking to her, or she to him, but she never laughed with other snakes in the garden. She played with only him, he who loved her like what the humans would call a kitten. He would call a kitten, that-furball-that-is-unfortunately-too-large-to-consume-and-that-eats-my-mice, but the name seemed too long to teach to the human child.

The snake looked at the girl closely. Small strands of straight hair touched every bit of dirt around her. They were much darker than they had been the summer before. They were golden then, and now they were brown. He could see they would turn black by the following summer. "Do these humans show off their hair as we do our scales?" he wondered to himself, "They must, for their skin is not beautiful. Yet, it is not so ugly as that of the elephant."

The little girl looked down at him, eyes as wide as supper plates. "What are you thinking, Snakey? Is it a secret? I love secrets! I keep them really good, you know."

"It's 'well', my dear. Please use correct grammar. You know I cannot stand bad grammar." The snake found her exceedingly adorable with her toddler-like lisp in her hissing, but no amount of cuteness could deter him from his love of correct grammar. He didn't care how young the child was; she would learn correct grammar if it killed him. T

"Sorry," she hissed back. "Why do I speak different when I'm with you? It's so weird."

"I am personally offended by that remark. What is so 'weird' about my language? It is magnificent, the patterns of intricate hisses and motions of the tongue. It is an ancient art, and you are privileged to have been born with the skill. Many would have killed to speak with me years ago. And you speak differently with me because your parents are not snakes and do not know how to speak to them."

"I mean that talking with my parents is weird! The words are all so harsh! I only get to hiss on the words that have s's in them. It makes me sad, Snakey. Why doesn't everything start with s? Ssssssssss," she hissed and smiled.

The snake had given up on trying to teach her differences between his native language and her own, for now. Adverbs and adjectives eluded her, though it did for most at such a young age, or so he'd heard from older snakes, those who'd had many a human with whom to converse. Though, he thought again, they were both her native languages. She had spoken with him for the first time when she was one year old, before she spoke the exotic human tongue. Her mother held her in the garden when he crept up, and she hissed at him softly. The large woman, easily nine times the size of her daughter, called for what he assumed to be her mate who shooed him away with a broom. This part of the world, or any part for that matter, no longer revered the snake. The Dark One had seen to that. Snakes were all given a bad name, simply because this man could speak to them. It was rare for all the snakes across the world to know the name of a particular human, but almost every snake knew his. If he were not dead, an army of his 'controlled subjects' would probably find a way to kill him.

"Rae, sweetheart, come in now. Time for supper."

"Yes, mummy!" the girl called and toddled away. The snake cast his eyes upon the ground; a sign of disappointment. The gesture was reserved for magical snakes before it evolved into human culture. The girl ran back to him, and he lifted his head immediately. "Don't worry, Snakey. I'll be back tomorrow, okay?"

The snake chucked; it sounded like a few strangled hisses strung together. However, a Parselmouth would understand what he meant. "Goodbye, young one. We will meet on the morrow, I believe."

The girl nodded her head, completely ignorant as to what he said, and sprinted full tilt back to her home. "Sorry, mummy!" she yelled when she entered the house. Usually, she yelled very little around her parents, but she thought it was time she do so or they would become worried. Being only five, she couldn't totally understand why screaming about everything would keep her parents happy, but she knew that they'd be worried if she didn't. She sometimes saw a concerned glance from her father if she kept too quiet. So she smiled, showing her somewhat crooked teeth, and her dimpled cheeks.

Her father came into the room, picked her up, and swung her in a circle. "Hi, Pretty! Where did you go today? To a castle in the sky? Across an ocean with fairies? To see robed wizards in white?"

"Silly daddy. I went underground today. On a safari! I saw lions, and tigers, and bears!"

"Oh my," her mother said as she came into the room. She and her husband chuckled; they had seen the Muggle 'movie,' The Wizard of Oz, as part of a Muggle Studies class. It was fairly ridiculous that Muggles dreamed of such things. A city of green, how ridiculous! It would be against Gryffindor! Both of them would much rather have seen a city clad in red and gold.

It was startling how similar their family looked to one another, almost as if they had followed the pureblood custom of marrying within families. The father shuddered inwardly. "Disgusting custom," he thought. "Like the rest of their customs, all disgusting. No wonder everyone hates them." He and his wife, both quarter-bloods and proud of it, now had quarter-blood children, assuring their line did not possess any more wizard blood than it needed to. Surprisingly, he and his wife looked the same, though they came from areas nowhere near each other in Britain, he from London, and she from a small town on the coast. They both had dark brown hair, though his was straight and thin while hers was thick and curly, and light eyes. His were gray, his wife's were blue, and his son had one of each. His daughter's eyes changed at will. Her hair was originally golden, like the Gryffindor lion, but it had soon become the same tone as his and his wife's. It was thick, very bushy, and always filled with debris. Rae hated having it brushed.

The night passed uneventfully: Rae pleased both her parents with talk of meeting a mythical creature in the garden who introduced her to the tigers. When her friend flicked his little finger, the tigers rolled onto their back like common housecats. She told him the creature had taught her a language, though she fibbed slightly when they told her to speak it. She made a few babbling noises, similar to the Goblin language, gobbledegook. It worked its magic; her parents wouldn't suspect a thing for a while. After supper she bathed and went to bed, quickly falling asleep in anticipation for meeting her snake the following day.

"Snakey!" she nearly shouted as she reached the garden. The garter snake poked his head out of the weeds obediently. Though he usually would have slept during this time of the day, she was awake, and he made her happy. Thus, he remained awake, learning to sleep at night like a human.

"What should we play today?"she asked, petting his head softly with her finger.

"What would you like to play? I know you usually like to do something with mudpies on Mondays, but if you changed your mind, I would understand."

"Mudpies! Yay! Mudpie means it's Monday!—" The take took a moment to curse himself silently for bringing up the infamous mudpies. "—And I go to school in two weeks since it's Monday! And then, I will make more friends, and I will show them to you, and we will have lots of fun, and we will eat ice cream with cherries and chocolate sauce and whipped cream and have crumpets and tea and play with dolls!" The snake sighed, for more reasons than one. Clearly, his human didn't understand the meaning of "secret." He also disdained ice cream and all manners of sweet food, and the run-on sentences that such treats apparently caused. "Disgusting piece of human trash. My human is clearly the exception," he hissed to himself.

"What's that, Snakey?"

"Nothing, Sweet. Just hissing to myself about what fun we'll have making mudpies." He was surprised that he hissed aloud, but the girl never paid him too close attention, for now anyway. He flicked his tail in irritation at the thought of making mudipes; they dirtied his scales.

Three hours of solid dirt turned to mud later, the snake and his human were thoroughly filthy. Some would call the pair of them repulsive, but the smile on Rae's face kept the snake from feeling that. "Odd that I know her name yet she does not know mine," he thought, "Yet, she is a child. She has time to learn it. I will wait until she can formulate a sentence without committing some atrocious transgression of language."

At almost that precise moment, Rae's mother jogged onto the lawn, shaking her head in mock disbelief. "Young lady! What have you gotten yourself into this morning?" she asked, scolding her, but with a smile barely concealed behind her lips.

"I was making mud pies, mummy!" Rae said, smiling pleasantly. She knew her snake had promptly hidden himself as soon as he heard the creak of their screen door opening.

"I see that. Now, we need to get you cleaned up before your father comes home." She grabbed the little girl by the hand and made to bring her inside.

"Wait, mummy! I need to say goodbye to my friends!" the girl protested and ran back to the weeds.

"Bye! I'll see you Wednesday! Miss you, Sn—" she stopped herself; she sensed she'd gone too far. Though she was small, it was hard to ignore the opinions her parents had of snakes and Slytherins.

"Who's your friend, Rae?" her mother asked, barely keeping her voice from trembling. She wasn't sure if it was from agitation or fear, but it was probably a combination of both.

The little girl looked down at her mud-splattered trainers. "I-I didn't want you to know. You don't like him."

"Who is he, Rae?" her mother asked again, her voice taking on a steely edge.

She rocked back and forth from one foot to the other. "A snake. I don't know his name. But he's nice, mummy! I swear it on the Sword of Gryffindor!"

(From behind the bush, the snake held back a hiss of exasperation. "Note to self: five-year-olds named Rae cannot keep secrets under any circumstances," he thought.)

Mrs. Magelin's voice felt like an ice injection into Rae's eardrums. "Don't you dare say his name with that unclean mouth of yours. Young lady, come here." Rae took a couple relunctant steps forward and received the deserved swat on the bum. She could barely hold back her tears, but she knew her mother wouldn't want to see them. She broke the family rules, and breaking rules meant consequences in her family. "Go upstairs, and wash your mouth with soap. I do not condone Parselmouths in my house, young lady."

"Yes, mummy. I—" her voice broke, "I'm s-sorry," the girl said between hiccoughs, as large tears dripped down her face and onto her jumper.

"Run along now," was all her mother could say as she tried to keep the ringing out of her ears.

Rae wept as she sprinted towards the house, away from her only friend, and into what this friend could only consider as darkness. The snake watched from the reeds, wishing now that she knew his name. But no one had called him by that name for a long while, for he had lived longer than was possible for snakes to live. His family had long departed. When a snake had a human, she kept him alive without realizing it. He watched his brothers, his sisters, his mate, and his children die around him. He never met his grandchildren, and he probably never would because of this girl. Her name sounded much finer in Parseltongue, but even in English the sound was beautiful. He felt like a version of her father, though he knew he could not be one. If snakes could cry, "or would cry with our amount of pride," he thought with self-loathing, "I would be now." She did look back to him, and he told himself it was because she knew he would always be there. He hoped to whatever God snakes worshiped that he was right.

That night, as her parents argued over what to do with her, the snake visited her room. He slithered through the door the Magelins carelessly opened to let in cool air in the August heat and crossed the floor to where he felt she would be. Her room, luckily on the first floor of the house, was easy to enter. She saw his tongue flick under the door a couple times and opened it for him. Her parents, fighting in the next room ignored her, though she was the subject of discussion. "But we can't just put her out on the street! What are you saying? Are you sane right now? Do your precious friends matter that much to you?" Rae could hear her father shouting. She saw a vein bulge from his red neck, and his words slammed against her mother's ears like a punch to the face. Her mother stood opposed to him, her arms crossed over her chest, and her lips pursed into a thin line. "I don't want to kick her onto the street, but I'm sure there's a place we could put her," she hissed, "I just don't want people finding out about this!" The snake slunk in while Rae watched the scene unfold for a few seconds. He didn't lift his head to see what he knew would be a tear-stained face. "Why did you come?" she hissed, "I'll get in trouble!"

"You are already in trouble."

"And they say you're bad. That you make people into Dark Wizards. Why would you do that to me?" her voice carried the accusation of the century. Of course, she applied it only to him, but at one point every human (and animal, reflected the snake) asked why fate would treat them so unfairly.

"I would never turn you into a Dark Wizard? Do you feel like a Dark Wizard?"

Rae sniffled, "No," she said glumly.

"Good. Listen, I am simply your friend, and I care about you." The snake tried to look as reassuring as he could. He tried to look like her parents, so that his expression best matched ones she recognized as comforting. Unfortunately, inter-species barriers prevented him from getting very far with that strategy.

"How can you be? I get punished when I stay with you! My mummy made me wash my mouth with soap for hissing. It tasted so awful I thought my tongue would fall off." Her eyes welled with more tears.

"Shhhhhh," the snake murmured, a little unfamiliar with the custom, and hoped it was the correct thing to do to sooth a crying child. He had seen her mother do it many times when she cried over a scraped knee in the garden. The sound was similar to the word for "dead mouse," in Parseltongue, and he hoped she understood his intent.

Rae quieted immediately. "But Snaaakeeey!" she protested, her tone still low, still afraid to express herself with her parents in the next room, "What'll I do? They won't love me!"

"They will always love you," replied the snake, completely oblivious to the argument in the next room. He wanted to add that they were genetically programmed to do so as well as the fact that she was an adorable child, but neither would make sense to an irrationally upset five-year-old. Though, as he considered the situation more, her worries were not irrational at all. The desire to be loved was one of the strongest human beings and many other animals held dear. To say that only humans needed love was something a Gryffindor might say. He hoped her parents would love her, even with her snake-like qualities, but the woman today put him in further doubt than he thought he could reach with matters of love. Her eyes pierced through the grass with intent to kill, regardless of whether the thing she killed was her daughter's best and only friend. He couldn't understand the argument just outside the door, but he heard rumors of parents who cast their children out as orphans for their abilities. The snake made an executive decision to keep that fact to himself. "She need not know things that only cause harm," he whispered to himself, afraid to speak loudly even in his mind.

She sniffed, wiping her running nose with the back of her sleeve. "I hope so, Snakey"

Her mother turned the handle on the door. "Quick! Hide!" Rae whispered, but the snake did not need to be told. He wriggled under the bed just before Rae's mother twisted the knob and pushed into the room. "It's not eavesdropping," the snake rationalized, "It will be good that I hear this, so I can better help the little girl through her problems tomorrow, if her family doesn't cast her onto the street right now." If she left, he would willingly go with her. It would not be fair to force a girl, especially one so young, to leave her family. Besides, he didn't know if he could survive without her magic.

The woman knelt before her daughter, who had started crying profusely again. "Sweetie," she smiled, "We know you're not evil. Don't worry. We love you."

"Then why did you fight with daddy?"

"We're worried about our friends, who don't know you. They're scared people, scared of other people, people like you." Her mother hoped that by using the word people enough times she might confuse her daughter into thinking the situation hadn't really been an argument. From the tears still in her daughter's eyes, apparently her method failed. "Honey, we both know nothing bad will ever come from you. We love you, darling." She said these words to reassure her daughter, and partially herself. She desperately hoped they were true, but the matrons at You-Know-Who's orphanage hadn't suspected him of wreaking havoc on the world.

Rae sniffed and wrapped her arms around her mother, who picked her up and cradled her in her arms. Her father came in as well and the three of them embraced for what felt like an eternity to the outsider under the bed. He would never experience that again, nor could he hope to. He had chosen his path, to be with Rae. Though the road would be tough, he would protect her all he could, hopefully with as much support as he could muster. "Though now," he thought, "is not the time for support-mustering. Now is the time for watching and waiting." He purposely left out the feeling of self-pity. "Upstanding snakes do not feel self-pity," he reminded himself. He did not add that they might wish or hope to; such feelings must always be repressed. It was not his nature.

Rae Magelin lived a happy, carefree life for four years. Mr. and Mrs. Magelin were prominent members of the wizarding community, at least in their village. Unfortunately, bad news rode a fast broomstick when a neighbor saw her speaking to her snake one afternoon over the back garden fence. Word reached the ears of the largest gossip in town within a week. The Magelins lived across from her only because that house was the only house on the market, and for good reason. She saw everything, particularly Rae presenting her snake friend to her parents and showing them the phonetics of Parseltongue. Only seeing half of the story, she did not notice the uncomfortable looks on Magelins' faces, save their daughter's, when they saw the snake conversing with Rae as easily as one would order a basket of chips off the street . She saw it as the Magelin family teaching their daughter one of the Darkest Arts, one associated with the He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named himself, or the Dark One, as he snake lore dubbed him. It had been at least eighty years, the wizarding community was still scarred by the wounds inflicted by Tom Riddle, the orphan boy who surprisingly turned against them all. Only Harry Potter had saved them, still alive, on a small estate in Godric's Hollow. His children had grown, and had children of their own; the youngest was about the same age as Rae. The legacy of the Potter family remained, and Harry, as much as he hated it, gritted his teeth and answered his fan mail, probably due to the influence of his wife, Ginny. Ginny, who passed two months ago, always answered his fan mail with him on Sunday afternoons, and Harry still kept the custom as one of his many reminders of his late wife. And though Harry, in his letters and elsewhere, tried to show that not all Slytherins were as bad as Tom Riddle, he never tried too hard. Harry gave the impression that it was a miracle for a Slytherin became a good wizard, like Severus Snape. For all his beliefs that he shared with his children about Slytherin being a noble house, he followed his father in believing that Slytherin was an ugly house, full of the children of dark wizards and purebloods who only wanted to steal magic from the rest of the wizarding community.

Thus, because Harry said it, though not explicitly, the wizarding world took the opportunity to eradicate such profane evil from its presence. Slytherin graduates suddenly lost their jobs at the Ministry of Magic for issues such as tardiness, ink smudges on paperwork, or failure to provide cookies for the entire office. A couple fringe groups eradicated the heirs to prominent Slytherin Households, though the Ministry "tried" to stop them. The entirety of Slytherin house was expelled from Hogwarts and left the school with three houses for a spell. The Board of Governors and the new Headmaster soon realized that, though the original Slytherins were stopped from entering Hogwarts, new ones would enter, and the Sorting Hat refused to stop sorting them into the house where they truly belonged.

Slytherin House became the bane of the Hogwarts experience. If someone failed a test, it was a Slytherin's fault. Pranks were constantly played upon the Slytherins, especially the first year students. It went so far as to have a student pelted with food from the trolley on the Hogwarts Express as soon as he was sorted. He and his brother, a Ravenclaw, had expected him to become a Ravenclaw as well and gathered sweets from the trolley to pelt at the poor, arriving Slytherins to help them understand their true place at Hogwarts. Of course, the plan backfired on the boy, and some teachers did not want to stop it. They did, but only after his brother had landed a few well-placed shots. Most of the teachers gave points to other houses when a Slytherin student got an answer correct, saying they forgot the house of the student in question. Then, when the Slytherin tried to protest, points were taken from his house. Often, Slytherin ended the year with negative House Points.

This gossip spread each and every one of these facts, like a pernicious weed spreading over a meadow. Almost immediately, the community turned against the Magelins. Mrs. Magelin noticed a few dirty looks one day or a couple "accidental hexes" the next.

On a short trip to the local wizard's market, Rae remembered women shoving their hat brims down over their eyes to avoid looking at them. A couple probably thought Rae could turn them to stone with a single, malice-filled glance. "What would you like help with today, Mrs. Magelin?" said the shopkeeper, who came out to speak with Mrs. Magelin since every assistant refused. The shop's owner, a former Hufflepuff and friend to Mrs. Magelin, remained the sole person in their village who didn't think their daughter would possess them all with demons and kill their children.

"Let's see," Mrs. Magelin pulled out her exquisitely written shopping list. "A couple bezoars," neighbors whispered about her daughter testing different snake venoms and having a bezoar nearby just in case, "Butterscotch," neighbors thought only a possessed freak would buy something so sinfully sweet on a Tuesday and ignored the fact that they also purchased some, "and some flobberworm mucus." The chorus of neighbors rose into a heated debate over how many powerful sleeping draughts the evil child had produced, and how many people the child's unfortunate mother needed to wake up with a wiggenweld potion. Rae looked straight ahead, and tried to think of how good her afternoon snack would taste when she returned home. Mrs. Magelin looked anxiously over her shoulder. The neighbors didn't pretend to stop staring, since they feared they'd be eaten alive if they looked aware for more than a second.

"Quickly, if you don't mind," Mrs. Magelin urged the shopkeeper.

"Agatha," Rae flinched at the sound of her mother's first name; she didn't hear it often. "Might I talk to you in private for a little after I ring you up? I'll walk back with you if you want; the assistants can take care of the shop for an hour."

"Yes, I suppose that would be fine. I asked George to make me a little tea for when I returned anyway. Errands seem to be a little trying these days." She shot a pointed glance over her shoulder, one that was answered with more than a few glares.

A few minutes later, the women sat in the Magelins' parlor, discussing Rae's future. Rae had grown rather tired of hearing all this. She pulled out her snake from her back pocket; he had been allowed to stay with her at all times since her parents learned she was a Parselmouth. "Better a garter snake than one with venom," reasoned her father in an attempt to persuade his wife to let Rae keep her friend. Sitting down with her snake, she embarked on what would prove to be a ravishing lesson on the difference between adjectives and adverbs in Parseltongue.

"Aggie, I really don't think she should live here anymore. Look at what it's doing to you! You're going to go gray in the next week if you keep her in your house. It's not that she's a bad kid, never met a sweeter one in my life to tell you the truth, but the neighborhood is ridiculous. You would think after so many years people would have gotten over this anti-Slytherin nonsense. In any event, maybe you can send her to one of those houses and get whatever this is squashed out of her. I've heard rumors that abuse can turn witches to squibs because it traumatizes that part of the mind. Perhaps training her to think a certain way will cause your daughter to lose her ability to speak to snakes. Then everything will be just fine, and she can keep the snake as an amusing pet or something." The old woman trapped a piece of wispy hair behind her left ear, a nervous habit. She was afraid that she lay her words on too thickly. She hardly sounded believable now, but Mrs. Magelin still might be persuaded to see sense. If that girl still lived on the street, people would stop going to her shop because of her association with the Magelins. She had a business to think of, after all.

"Poppy, I don't reall—" Mrs. Magelin began.

"You're going to get hurt. Your husband will get hurt, and so will your daughter! Can't you see that she's only unharmed because of your respect around here? Once that runs out, she'll be a target. Maybe the adults won't get her themselves, but their children certainly will. And you can't keep her locked up here. She needs to be with kids, since she's getting older. Trust me, it's for the best."

"Thanks Poppy, and let me think about it. There are places for children like her, right?"

"Of course! Do you think I'd want your poor daughter out on the street? She hasn't done anything wrong, and I don't think she's going to kill everyone on the street any time in the future. I just want to see her safe, and this isn't a place where she can feel that right now. Anyway, I'd better run before the assistants muck something up. I'll see myself out, no need to get up." The shopkeeper left, looking down at the ground. She prided herself on giving good advice, but this advice felt awful.

After the family had finished supper one night, Rae's mother approached her. She looked bigger, her mother noticed, though her birthday wouldn't be for another few months. March 13th, was a Friday when she was born, and it always seemed so magical to her. Her preschool told her it was good luck to be born on a Friday the 13th. However, it seemed that this day, October the 16th was very unlucky for such people, or for Rae at least. "Rae," her mother began. Her father looked at his toes.

"Yes, mum? »

Her mother sighed. "I have to tell you something very important."

"You don't love me anymore," Rae said with certainty. Her heartbeat fluttered like a hummingbird's. Seat pooled on her palms, and she wiped them nervously on her pants.

"Not at all! We love you just as much as we did the day you were born, as we did the day you showed us your— special friend. It's just that… we've been hearing things from neighbors, and they're not very happy with us right now."

"That's what you and dad fight about, right? How dad's and your friends would be angry? Have they made you angry with me too?"

"Only at them," her father almost growled.

"What he means to say is that they're scared, and people do bad things when they're scared. Remember the time you broke the window with your magic when there was a thunderstorm?"

"Yes. But they're adults," she sniffed, immediately worried.

« Yes, but dear, these people, they're like you were. They're frightened because they don't like snakes and they don't know you. They want us to send you away or they'll do it themselves. And they won't be very nice about it."

"Why don't they meet me?"

"They're already too scared, honey," her mother tried to use as many endearing words as possible when she spoke to her daughter about such serious matters. Already her lip was quivering. "Now dearest, we need you to go somewhere for a while. A really nice place. And we'll send you lots of letters and sweets if you want. It's like Hogwarts, but for little girls like you!"

Rae brightened as soon as her mother mentioned Hogwarts. She thought she wouldn't be allowed to attend. "I love Hogwarts,» she said uncertainly. « And this place is just like it? »

"Of course. And we'll send you owls all the time if you start to miss us. And we have a mirror that lets you talk to us whenever you need to. Okay?"

« That sounds, okay I guess, » said Rae, more than a little resigned. « When do I go?"

"When would you like to leave?" her father asked meekly.

« Now seems a better time than any. » she exclaimed.

"How about we wait a bit, since we won't see you again for a while. Can you wait until tomorrow?" her father asked her, hiding the sadness in his voice. "It was for her own good," he convinced himself, "Better her away than dead."

"Okay. But first thing. Promise?" she held up her small pinky finger to her father. She knew full well what reminding him of the childish tradition would do, and frankly at this point, she didn't care. He obviously didn't feel bad enough to keep from sending away his own daughter.

"Now honey, go on up and get yourself ready for bed. We love you, and we'll give you a kiss goodnight when you come down to go to sleep."

"Yes, mum," the little girl chanted obediently. She raced up the stairs, and the shower water ran like what Mr. Magelin thought sounded like tears falling in quick succession.

"Remember to wash behind your ears!" her mother shouted. Her daughter's response was muffled by the sound of the water rushing through their pipes.

When Mrs. Magelin left the room to check if Rae had actually bothered to wash behind her ears, her father called to the snake, as he had heard his daughter do before. He made a complicated hissing noise, and the snake appeared almost immediately, its head seemingly cocked in confusion. The man, so giant compared to the snake, looked down upon him and rubbed the faint stubble on his chin. "I know you can't understand me, God what am I even saying? The stupid snake won't even understand me!" He closed his eyes for a few moments, and tried to speak to the snake again, even if the words were mostly for his own benefit. "I need you to protect her. She's going to that house of Slytherins. You probably know the one. Anyway, she's leaving us, and I don't want her to. I said to let the neighbors talk, let them threaten us, but my wife, she doesn't want anything to even think about threatening our little girl. So, we're letting her go. Please protect her, keep her safe. Other children will be bigger than her by far. And some will be mean, and others still will be nice with selfish intentions. Just because she can speak Parseltongue, doesn't mean she'll be Slytherin. I don't want to see her become one, and I trust you to help." He wondered for a moment exactly how much good he could do by asking a snake to keep her out of the house of serpents at Hogwarts, but pushed that thought away. Thoughts like that could be saved for a rainy day three years in the future, after his daughter had been decidedly sorted into Gryffindor. He put his head in his hands, "My own daughter, sentenced to exile by my friends—" his voice broke, "She hasn't even been sorted into Slytherin yet! She could be a Ravenclaw, or a Hufflepuff!" He buried his head even further, no longer realizing he was speaking to the snake. "No matter how strong I get, I'll never be able to keep her with me." And with that, he left the room. The snake was utterly confused.