Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters. I do, however, own the random species of reptiles that I create, as well as Parseltongue name translations.

Languages for the time being:

Parseltongue

English

Chapter 2: Gash

Harry opened his eyes and saw trees. He thought he was asleep, so he tried waking up, and when he couldn't he was confused. He tried digging his nails into his arm, to wake himself up using pain, but he couldn't.

That's when he noticed. He could actually smell the grass and flowers. It took a while to reach his brain, but when it did, he realised that he hadn't been able to smell them whenever he'd been sleeping.

Harry let out a loud cheer. He was actually in his forest somehow. It was not just a dream anymore.

He heard a rustling in the tall grass nearby. Startled, he called out, "Who's there?!" before something hit his face, knocking him down.

"You're here! I can't believe you're back! I missssed you sso much!" It took Harry a while to realize that Svils was on his face, doing the best he could to hug Harry.

"What do you mean? I was here a few minutes ago." Harry was confused. He'd always been back at around the same time every night.

"No you weren't! It'ss been yearss ssince your lasst vissit!" Harry wondered how that had happened. Suddenly, there was more rustling in the grass, before three more snakes emerged, A gold-colored one, a copper-colored one, and an onyx-colored one.

The gold one started talking first."Svils, the council needss your help with figuring out…" it trailed off when it saw Harry standing there.

There were a few moments of awkward silence before the copper one said, "Why iss there a filthy human here?!" he demanded. "You know they are forbidden in Recondita Silva! We musst kill him immediately to protect our home!"

Harry stumbled backwards. "Please don't kill me!" he pleaded with them. "I'm not like most humans, and I don't even know where we are!"

The three snakes looked startled. "What are we ssuppossed to do now?" the gold one asked.

After a few minutes, The onyx one spoke, "We take him to Khissara."

The snakes led Harry through the forest. Svils had decided to curl around Harry's shoulders. When they came to the opening of a large cave, they stopped. Onyx turned to Harry and said, "This is as far as we go. You must continue by yourself."

Svils slithered off and said, "It sshouldn't take long. I'll be here when you get back."

Harry walked into the cave. After a minute of walking, he noticed bones on the ground. The further he walked, the more bones he saw.

A sudden burst of hot air from in front of him caused Harry to stop. He looked up and saw a large pair of glowing emerald eyes. Suddenly, an oddly feminine voice from near those eyes said, "Interesting. What brings a human to my lair?"

Harry was frozen in fear for what felt like hours, before something registered. "You can speak English?" he asked the eyes.

The eyes and voice seemed to laugh at this. "That's your reaction?" It sounded extremely amused. "Your first time meeting a dragon, and you're surprised that I can speak your language? That's a first."

Harry was stunned. He was talking to a dragon. An actual, mythological, dragon. And it was laughing?

"I like you kid." she said. "But still, why did they send you in here?" Before Harry could reply, however, it said, "Wait, you amuse me. Tell me about you."

Harry hesitated for a moment, before deciding that no harm could possibly come from it, and said, "Um, I used to live with a family that hated me. Every night, I used to dream of the same forest. Eventually, in my dream, I met a nice little snake that told me his name was Svils,"

"Ah," the dragon interrupted, "little Silver does have a habit of getting into trouble."

"Silver?" Harry asked, confused.

"It's the translation of his name in your language."

"Oh. Anyway," Harry continued. "Svils and I used to meet up every night and talk about stuff. After a few months, I heard him mention that this was a real place, so I decided to try to find my way here. But whenever I tried to leave my aunt and uncle's house, the police or some weird people in robes always took me back."

At this, the dragon let out a thoughtful "Hmmmmmm." but didn't say anything else, so Harry continued.

"But two nights ago, I managed to escape, and didn't get caught until morning." He told the dragon about his brief encounter with the two men, before finishing, "And I woke up actually here, where I met the other three, who brought me here."

"Sso you can undersstand thiss language?" The dragon asked curiously.

"Of course." Harry responded, not realising the language change.

The dragon laughed again, much to Harry's confusion, before saying, "Do you want to sstay here?"

"In this cave?" Harry was confused.

The dragon laughed again, "No, ssilly, in the foresst."

The dragon saw Harry light up. "Really? I can stay here?"

"Of course." she replied. "And if the council doessn't agree, they'll have to deal with it."

Harry was slightly confused. That was the third time he'd heard the council mentioned, so he asked, "What council?"

The dragon chuckled a bit before replying, "Oh, right. The Elder Council of the Hidden Forest is a group who determines certain things in the forest. Like if a newcomer arrives, whether they get to stay. However, as I'm a dragon, there's really not much they can do if I decide otherwise."

They'd been walking out of the cave and by now, they were getting close to the entrance. "I still don't even know your name." Harry said, then remembered that he still hadn't told the dragon his name. "By the way, my name is-"

"I know what your name ussed to be." the dragon interrupted. "I will be giving you an appropriate sserpent name when the time comess." The dragon paused for a moment, before continuing, "I am Khissara, which translates to Gash in your language. I belong to a nearly extinct sspeciess of dragon known as Hero's Bane, or as we prefer, Avalonian Bone Dragons."

Harry turned towards her, and in the growing light, he could see the enormous gash on the left half of her face that she was named for. As they emerged from the cave, he saw why they were called bone dragons. Khissara had beautiful sapphire scales, but looked as if she was wearing some kind of bone or ivory armor.

She turned to him and said, "Now, let'ss go introduce you to the council."

AN - Gem: The next chapter is going to have only Parseltongue, so I won't italicize anything. I'm also going to stop accenting the hiss of the snakes.

AN - Gem: I'll usually put the invented Parseltongue translations in the chapter their introduced in (usually after) or the next one.

AN - Gem: Also, Yes, The Avalonian Bone Dragon is a type of dragon that I completely made up.