Title: The Peverell Curse
Author: The Oddness
A/N: This is my first ever Harry Potter fanfiction and I hope you like and enjoy it.
Summary: A strange curse or some say a blessing has been passed down the Peverell line since its name began. The young boy Harry Potter has carried this curse since the day he was born; unknown to almost everyone, including the emerald eyed child himself.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Harry Potter and its characters belong to J.K.R.
(Italics) means Parseltongue.
Harry Potter was ten years old, nearly eleven in a few weeks time. At the moment he was asleep in the cupboard under the stairs but not for long. The shrill screech of his aunt's voice made the first sound of the day.
"Up! Get up! Now!"
Harry woke with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again.
"Up!" She shrieked like a banshee.
The previously slumbering Harry heard her walking down the hall with a faint shuffle of impeccably clean clothes and tapping of polished shoes on the spotless wooden floor. Harry rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It was a good one. Harry was floating about totally at ease in cool crystal waters, the little silver glittering charm around his neck twinkled like a captured star in the underwater sunlight that filtered through the blue canopy above him. Harry had a funny feeling he had the same dream before.
His aunt was back outside his door.
"Are you up yet!" She screeched at him once again.
"Nearly," yawned Harry.
"Well get a move on you ungrateful brat! You need to cook breakfast. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."
Harry groaned.
"What did you say?" His aunt snapped through the door.
"Nothing, nothing…"
Dudley's birthday – how could have he forgotten?
Harry slunk out of bed and started looking for clothes. He found a pair of socks under his bed and some old hand-me-down clothes of Dudley's hanging on the bed post. After shedding a spider or two from his clothing, Harry got dressed into the oversized circus tent like garments.
Once Harry had gotten fully dressed, he cautiously peeked out of his cupboard, his emerald eyes glinting in the early morning sun. The coast was clear. Often in the mornings when Harry's uncle or cousin had just woken up and were in a ghastly mood, they would give Harry a hard whack just to make themselves feel better. Harry stole down the hall into the kitchen, silent as a ghost.
The table was absolutely covered in presents; a few had even overflowed onto the tiled floor making it hard for Harry to get breakfast ready and cooking. But it was no meaning feat after all, Harry had been cooking for the Dursley's ever since he was tall enough to reach the stove, so he was used to it. While the eggs were frying, Harry glanced around the room, stopping his glance at the brightly colored wrapped boxes.
It looked as though Dudley had gotten that new computer he wanted, not mention the second television and the racing bike he's been crying for. Exactly why Dudley wanted the racing bike was a mystery to Harry. As Dudley was very fat and hated to exercise – unless it involved punching somebody.
Unfortunately that somebody was usually Harry. Yet on the up side Harry had a knack of being able to almost merge with shadows and hide very effectively. Plus his surprising speed let him get far enough away to hide from his cousin.
Perhaps it had something to do with living in a small dark cramped cupboard, but Harry had always been very small and slim for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he was when he was forced to wear Dudley's old clothes. Harry was about four times smaller than the fat lump of lard that paraded as his cousin.
Harry had a thin pale face with high aristocratic cheekbones. Chin length wavy black hair that framed his face like an onyx curtain of water and glinted almost silver in the sun, long elegant limbs and glowing green eyes with flecks of silver dotted around in the pool of emerald like tiny glinting fish scales. Harry wore round glasses with sellotape fusing them together because of all the times Dudley or his uncle had punched him on the nose.
Harry also had a thin silvery scar shaped like a lightning bolt above his left eye. This was the only thing Harry really liked about his appearance. But the only thing that was truly Harry's favorite thing about himself was a tiny silver pendant. It was a miniscule little glass jar no bigger than his baby finger nail and inside of the pendant's glass was a soft silver glow. This jar hung on a thin silver chain that glinted in the sun and hung snake like around Harry's pale elegant neck.
This was the first question Harry could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was what was inside of it and how he had gotten the necklace.
"Your parents gave it to you before they died. And you must never take it off!" she had snapped. "And don't ask questions."
Don't ask questions- that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursley's.
Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon.
"Comb your hair boy!" the large beefy man barked as a way of a morning greeting.
About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. It wasn't proper for boys to have long hair. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together. But it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way; never shorter than under his chin.
Harry was plating up the food when Dudley arrived waddling into the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked and acted a lot like his father.
He had a large flabby pink face, several chins which gave him the appearance of a sunburnt bull frog, small piggy eyes and a thick layer of straw like hair that thatched his scalp. Harry associated the word repulsion with Dudley. Because that was what he was to Harry: repulsive.
As Harry set out the orange juice, which was rather difficult seeing as there was now next to no room on the kitchen table, Dudley was counting his presents. Dudley's face fell.
"Thirty-six." He scowled, looking up at his parents. "That's two less than last year."
"Darling Diddums you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from mummy and daddy."
"All right, thirty-seven then." Dudley was going red in the face. Harry who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on so he quickly wolfed down his bread and butter just in case his cousin decided to turn the table over.
Harry's aunt also seemed to sense the danger so she quickly calmed her son by promising him two more presents when they went out for his birthday that day.
Dudley screwed up his face in thought for a moment. "So I'll have… thirty…"
"Thirty nine sweetums," rushed out Aunt Petunia.
Dudley had a smug self-satisfied grin on his face and reached out with his pudgy hands for the closest brightly wrapped parcel.
Uncle Vernon chuckled. "Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. Atta boy Dudley!" Vernon ruffled Dudley's straw like hair with his large podgy hand.
At that moment the telephone rang and Petunia went to answer it. She returned to the kitchen with a grave face a few moments later.
"Bad news Vernon, Mrs. Figg has broken her leg." Petunia jerked her head in Harry's direction, "She can't take him."
Dudley looked outraged but Harry's heart jumped for joy. Because every year Dudley went out for his birthday to amazing fun places like theme parks and burger bars, Harry was always left with smelly old Mrs. Figg.
"Were going to have to take him with us," was the final conclusion to the Dursley's problem.
Before Harry knew what was going on, he was carted into the back of the car, sandwiched between the door and Piers Polkis, Dudley's friend, on the way to the zoo.
At one point Harry absentmindedly mentioned his dream about breathing under cool blue waters. Uncle Vernon nearly crashed the car.
"PEOPLE DO NOT BREATH UNDERWATER!" He bellowed while Piers and Dudley snickered out loud.
The Dursley's, Piers and Harry had been wondering around the zoo all of the morning and afterward, they had stopped for lunch where Dudley had a tantrum about his Knickerbocker Glory not being big enough. They retreated to the cool shade of the reptile house in order to hopefully appease him.
Harry wondered aimlessly through the darkness of the reptile house. Piers and Dudley had rushed off to look at man crushing pythons and venomous cobras. After a while Harry sat down in a dark corner and was surprised to hear a tiny hissing voice.
"Psss green eyes watch where you're going!" Harry looked right into the dark corner of the reptile house and was startled to see a tiny snake hatchling curled up in the corner. It was pale white with dark black rings banded around its body at regular intervals and it had a paddled tail. Harry swallowed noticing what it was; a sea krait, one of the most venomous sea snakes in the world.
"Did you say that!" It was safe to say Harry was terrified. Was he going mental?
"Yes stupid, but I don't know how you're talking to me. I have never come across one of your race who can speak the tongue of serpents." The tiny snakeling's voice sounded female.
"I didn't know I could speak to snakes… oh gods I think I'm going mental." Harry sighed and ran a hand through his onyx hair.
"Green eyes take me with you; I have been trying very hard to escape. When I mature they want me to breed with this oversized boar of a snake that I hate. Now I have come this far it's a pity to waste my effort. Plus if you try to take me back I'll bite you." The little snake's eyes glowed softly in the darkness.
"Well I can't argue with that. But little snake I wouldn't know where to take you and my family would kill you if they found you." Harry fidgeted in the corner.
"I don't care, but you must hide me. I won't show myself now. Let me crawl up your sleeve. I will wind myself around one of your belt loops. Your oversized shirt will hide me." The little snake didn't even wait for an answer and she slithered up Harry's sleeve and down his shirt to hang around one of his belt loops.
"Boy! We're leaving! Hurry up!" Vernon's loud angry voice rang throughout the reptile house and Harry quickly hurried after him, his little stowaway an almost comforting weight hanging on his waist.
Maybe Harry did have a friend...well more of an acquaintance. Even if it was an extremely venomous sea snake and Harry may or may not be totally bonkers.
Okay how was that for a first chapter?
A/N: Don't worry about my writing and the story line it will become more my own eventually. I just wanted you to get the feel of what was going on and such. So I know the chapter is quite short but I just write that way shorter quicker chapters. So I hoped you liked it. Oh by the way I only have a vague plot so this story line might veer off into uncharted territory for me so there is much space for suggestion and requests, so once it got going a bit you can request for scenes you'd like to see if you wish.
Thanks Oddness x
