"Has it been set in motion?" intoned an imperious voice.
"Yes, my lord, all was done as you bid me."
The dark voice chuckled, "It is always to one's favor to keep game winning secrets from your enemies. Even if you never intend to use them."
Draco was furious. Being reduced to status to the level of an owl was beyond humiliating. One second of hesitation cost him for more than it could possibly be worth. Had Draco known that failing to kill Dumbledore would have lead to hiding, crouched in a muggle back garden, the deed would have been gladly performed by Draco at the very start of 6th year.
The muggle stench of the back garden was seeping into Draco's robes and merely served to infuriate him further. Rage at the slow moving members of the Opposition clouded his eyes over with red and deafened him with high-pitched ringing. Draco's heart nearly startled to a stop when a soft hissing sound pierced though the buzz in his ears. Wand in hand, he whirled around to blast the bloody snake into oblivion, only to be faced with two unknown, yet familiar, faces set with each a pair of serious, sable eyes.
"Where's the damn snake?" growled Draco.
"Mama says that's a bad word," one of the boys, obviously twins, gravely said.
"Where's the damn snake? Don't make me ask again!"
The spiky blond heads turned to face each other and Draco was left with the severely uncomfortable notion that they were discussing him and judging him mad. Then, abruptly, they turned back and the one who spoke before, with a calm far beyond his years, said, "All the snakes are in the house. You didn't hear a snake."
"I heard a snake. Don't think you can play with me. Tell me, where is it?" Draco demanded as he began to wildly swish his wand in the boys' faces.
Two sets of dark eyes darted together, deciding. Draco's stomach began to sink as he realized he wasn't going to like the answer. With one last eye flicker to his brother, the boy spoke again, confirming his suspicions, "You didn't hear a snake. You heard us talking to each other."
"Fucking Parselmouths," he muttered, at further proof of the injustice of it all. "Damn it all. Fucking mudblood Parselmouths."
"Your mama should wash out your mouth with soap," was the regal sentence from one of the boys.
"My mother should what?" asked Draco, startled out of his angry reverie.
"Wash out your mouth with soap because you said a bad word. Mama washed ours yesterday. She washed my mouth out for saying a bad word and Caspian's for thinking it."
"I seriously doubt my mother with engage in any bizarre Muggle customs and since when was thinking it wrong, too?"
The dominant twin didn't answer but was currently engrossed with his brother. They seemed to communicating internally, using odd hissing to punctuate their vehemence. Although one brother had yet to speak a word of English, they both appeared to be fully functioning Parselmouths. The brotherly conference ended with the same twin telling Draco, "Caspian said that Mama told us not tell anyone we spoke Snake, especially strangers, 'cause it would scare them. But you're not scared, so we think we should introduce ourselves. My name is Taran Gray and his name's Caspian Gray. We're clones and we're 6. Do you speak Snake, too?"
Draco sat back, mildly alarmed by this turn of events, and snapped in annoyance, "Stop calling it speaking Snake. Its called Parseltongue and you are Parselmouths."
"Parselmouths," breathed two awed voices. Taran, the "speaker" as Draco began to think of him, continued one with, "Do you know anymore people like us?"
"Two, just two. Damn it, I'm leaving," huffed Draco as he began to scale the garden's back brick wall.
"Mister, please come back and tell us more about Parselmouths," pleaded two voices.
The only response was a non-committal sound from Draco as he finished the leap over the wall. Once he made it over the wall and was swiftly on his way, a thought occurred to him. It struck him that he was certain those boys reminded him of someone. But who?
It was weeks before Draco thought of those strange twins again. Pure jealousy of their talents with Parseltongue prompted the thought. His lord, again, bemoaned the lack of Parselmouths and, again, noted that the only other known Parselmouth was firmly entrenched on the side of the Opposition. That was the moment, when Draco realized his route back to his rightful place in his lord's good graces.
Winding his way through Muggle London was more difficult than Draco anticipated. His way to the back garden of the strange little boys was obscured from memory by the haste in which he had moved to be shed of his enemies and he had merely thought it unnecessary to note landmarks on his way out. After wandering about for far too long, Draco, at long last, saw the wildly verdant back garden he had been searching for. The sight of the back garden wall halted Draco, until that moment he had forgotten something important. In all his machinations and plans, he neglected to plan his entry into the garden and the boys' little world.
Draco, being the lucky son of a Death Eater he was, got lucky. A ball sailed over the wall and plopped softly at his feet. As he contemplated the possible, fortunate, ownership of the ball and the easy access to their lives the little sphere could give him, a heretofore unnoticed gate swung open. Out popped two towheads, just the heads Draco intended to manipulate and subvert for his master's service and his own advancement.
Like Christmas trees on the first magical night they're turned on, both boys' faces lit up and, in stereo, they shrieked joyously, "You came back!"