James Potter called quietly for one of his house elves, and waited for Tizzy to appear. Technically Tizzy was Lily's elf. He'd been rather startled when his wife, who'd found the concept of House elf servitude appalling - had brought one home from Nocturn ally. He'd soon learned of her pregnancy and of the fact that she'd acquired the elf for their sons.

Sighing he looked down at the scroll occupying his desk. He didn't think this was relevant, after all in a few short hours the well would do its job and ride the world of another evil slitherin. But still it was best to officially disown Harry now, rather than post mortem, it would look better. Besides this way no body claiming to be Harry could access the vaults that where rightfully Nicolas's. it was better this way, Nick should have been heir to begin with.

Nick was the boy who lived

If not for twenty minutes, Nick would have been heir to begin with. Deftly he signed his name at the bottom of the page. Technically Lily had to sign the form as well. However she was in a coma, and by the time She awoke, if she ever did Harry would be dead.

He handed the scroll over to Tizzy when she appeared with orders to take it to the department of pureblood family affairs. He watched quietly as the elf popped out of the room. Watching the small boy playing with a tissue in the corner of the room he began to have doubts. What if the boy wasn't really a parselmouth?

What if he'd just been mimicking the sounds the snake was making? Or playing at talking to the snake? He could remember pretending to be able to speak knuzzle, as a little boy. What if Harry had just been doing the same?

He was still going to give the child away, but maybe he didn't have to die.

Walking over to the boy, he drew his wand and cast a spell. Smiling as the snake materialized in front of the boy. Silver Mamba's where notoriously temperamental magical venomous snakes. Taking a few steps back, he waited.

~~~***~~~

'where am I?'

Harry looked up at the question and found himself staring into the eyes of a beautiful snake.

'I no know where were we are.' Harry replied calmly.

The snake reared up and cocked its head to the side, small leathery wings flicking open and closed in a sign of agitation. 'hello speaker.'

'whass a speaker?' Harry asked.

'you are young one.' The snake replied, 'a speaker is one who has the gift of speech. Our kinds can converse. when we were born, mother told us that should we meets a speaker we should binds our self to them. Familiar's right, Familiar's promise. I am Sylvana, hatchling I am yours.' Sylvanna paused and turning her head, grabbed hold of one glistening silver scale and pulled it free. Turning back to the child she dropped it at his feet. 'you are too young to summon me and I am too young to follow with magic; should we get separated, you can summon through that scale as soon as you are able.'

Harry looked up as his father took a step forward. Sylvanna, flung all four feet of herself between him and his father rearing up so that a full foot of her body was off the ground she flattened out her neck into a mock hood and hissed threateningly at the man. 'if you try to hurt what is mine I wills kill you.'

~~~***~~~

Sylvanna gazed up at the huge two-legger towering over her and her young familiar, she could taste his malice on the air. He would harm her boy, she could tell. She had to take him out before he got the chance, but she was only one very young snake, as an adult she would be huge, a full 18 feet long, with enough venom to drop a basilisk or a full grown demon. But for now she was small and her venom sacks were fare from fully developed and she lacked the strength in her wings to do more than glide.

Still she would do what she could to protect her boy.

She advanced on the man, dropping her lower jaw to reveal the midnight black inside that marked her as the most deadly magical snake alive.

He drew his stick and there was a spark of light, before a feeling like being sucked through a very narrow fissure in a rock, and then she was back in the tree she'd been in before this all started. The only evidence that what she had just experienced was real was the scale missing from between her wings. To other's of her kind it marked her as belonging to a speaker. When she shed next that scale would come in black. She snorted, blowing air out of her nares and slithered forward for her next meal, when the time came her speaker would call her, or she would go to him. The one thing that made her sorry was the knowledge that her boy would die eons before she.

It didn't matter she would follow his speaker through his life and when he died she would guard his grave.

~~~***~~

James Potter gazed down at his son with disgust and hatred. The boy who was so innocently playing with a bit of silver scale, had set a very venomous snake on him!

The worthless little dark wizard.

It didn't matter he would be rid of the boy tonight.

He could keep the damned scale he was so determinedly holding on to. It wasn't like he wanted Nickolas playing with the disgusting thing.

~~~***~~~

James apperated just outside of the well house on the Higurashi shrine. He'd called Tizzy to look after Nick, he didn't want any of the boy's tainted magic rubbing off on his precious, famous, Nickolas. It was a miracle little Nick had survived long enough to be born, let alone to save their world when he'd had to share a womb with this dark creature. It was a good thing he'd caught this now otherwise he would have been fostering the cobra in his son's crib! Great Merlin, he'd given the boy the food and clothing that should have been Nicolas's. The good for nothing little freeloader! Ugh he couldn't believe the boy's nerve He consoled himself with the fact that this would all soon be over. Carefully he slipped into the well house. Once inside he threw the boy violently into the well, if the magic of the well didn't kill him, the fall would. He turned his back to the well when it flared blue, and walked away content that the magic he felt rolling off the well had handled the 'clean up'. Once he was outside he apperated.

Quietly, he dismissed Tizzy, and went to check on Nickolas, the boy was sleeping soundly. Idly he thought about the young woman who'd been working at the shrine. The one with the baby in her arms and the 4 year old playing at her heels, maybe he could get to know her.

He could feel some odd form of power coming from her. It was nothing like the power he felt coming from Lily, or any other witch or wizard. It was more subtle, more like a water trickling form a slowly melting icicle.

Yes he would get to know the woman, and her children.

~~~***~~~

Harry opened his eyes when he was deposited gently on the floor of a dark space. Rain fell in sheets around him, but it ran off, to the side of his face. A block of splintered wood diverting the water's path, diverting it to the side to keep it out of his face and preventing him from drowning. he was cold, wet and alone, yet he did not cry. No one came to him when he cried.

Not since the nice lady.

~~~***~~~

She was hungry, and he could smell a human a young one.

Alone by the smell of it

Alone, and young enough to be an easy meal

Moving forward with a weasel's natural stealth, she followed the scent street to the child in question. Idly she wondered why the human's had abandoned this son. It didn't matter, the loss of one human, would feed her for the day. She hesitated at finding the boy at the bottom of the bone eaters well, but hunger and the promise of an easy meal, made her stupid. She dove into the well snatched the child up in her Jaws and scrambled back up out of the well. She should have just eaten the child there, but she wanted to take her time over this kill. Human's this young where not tough or gammy at all. They where a delicacy her kind was rarely able to catch, the baby's themselves where not the problem, it was the adults that where the problem. They guarded the little dumplings quite jealously.

That in mind she set off with the squirming, muddy, thing in her mouth; headed for a nearby small forest glade, with a small pound that she could wash her meal in.

~~~***~~~

She washed her meal with a swift attention to detail, that ran just deep enough to ensure she wouldn't have to choke down any mud. That done she picked up her meal almost gentally in her jaws and scampered up a tree. The child, unlike the ones she was used to, seemed more amused by all of her preperations then anything, if his giggling and constant chatter was anything to go by. Apperantly the child thought she was a 'puppy'.

She snorted, set the boy down, liking her lips she leaned in, but just as she was about to take the first bight, another scent drifted past her nose, another human child was out in the woods alone. This one was older and female – but that didn't matter. She would still make a fine meal. The two of them together would feed her for a few days at least.

She was a bit concerned about the heavy scent of dog demon that clung to the child, but it didn't matter the dog's hunting mishap was her gain.

She shifted slightly preparing to launch herself at the unsuspecting child, but her slight movement dislodged the boy from his resting place. She watched with mild annoyance as the child fell to his death out of her claimed tree. Eating him while his blood still flowed would have been best but she was fine with scrambled brains.

To her utter astonishment the boy didn't die – he bounced!

And kept right on bouncing until he came to rest at the feet of a small girl in a silk kimono, the girl stooped and scooped the child into her arms, softly asking the small child where he'd came from.

Cursing softly at the prospect of losing both potential meals entirely she lunged for her soon to be kills.

The girl screamed and used her own body to shield the smaller form in her arms. She only had a split second to contemplate the best way to eat the two when –

The dog demon appeared out of nowhere!

~~~***~~~

Sesshomaru watched as Rin ran and played ahead of him. He was content that his scent covering her own would at the very least make any other demon in the area pause, it was well known that he had taken in a human child. He silently marveled at how peaceful the world had become since the defeat of that idiot Spider demon Naraku. He would never admit how much he enjoyed the piece, but it gave him more time to wander his territory and look after his ward. He hated to admit it but he'd come to see that little girl as his own pup.

He snorted InuYokai, like wolf Demons and other canine types had a set mate. A single mate that they would spend their entire lives with. He had yet to find his, and the council were pressuring him for an heir. Every time he returned home to the western palace, he was accosted by his own advisors, all of whom where currently throwing their own daughters at him. They kept reminding him –rather repetitively -that it would be a great honor on their families for him to simply sire an heir on one of their daughters.

Even if he didn't take one of them for his mate.

The idea was repugnant!

Loathed though he was to admit it, he wanted his mate. He had plenty of concubines, and he took great care not to give any of them the honor. For now he was content to simply raise his human pup. He often wished there was a way that he could turn her into a demon. Human's lived such short lives in comparison to demons, Rin was already eleven, and soon she would become a woman. Human woman bleed once a month he knew that much, but he had no idea how to handle this.

Loathed as he was to admit it he may have to go see Inuyasha's human friend Songo, and see if the slayer would be willing to explain things to his daughter.

Idly he wondered how Inuyasha, Kouga, and little Shippo where doing now that his little brother had married into the wolf clan and taken his fox child with him.

Fish he decided would make a good meal for Rin, quietly he called her over and sent her off to pull some wild vegetables for her lunch while he caught the fish from the river.

He'd just caught a rather large fish when the scent of a weasel demon caught his attention, it was coming from the direction Rin had wandered. He rose, abandoning his kill in favor checking on his ward. He'd just reached the small clearing when Rin screamed, doing exactly what he'd told her never to do, she turned her back on the advancing demon and protected, whatever was in her arms. Silently he cursed his decision to remove his armor, and weapons before fishing.

He didn't stop to think he had to protect the pup.

He lunged and flung himself between Rin and the weasel demon.

His only thought as the other demon's claws ripped into his flesh was of protecting his human pup.

He snarled and lashed out with his own claws, -tearing bleeding furrows across the weasel's throat. Blood, both his own and the weasel's flew in all directions. He turned immediately at the odd power rolling off of Rin and whatever she was protecting. And found himself gazing down at two small dog demon pups.

He approached them cautiously, scenting the air but all he could determine from their scents was that they where his. He buried his nose in Rin's hair instintivly. Her scent declared her as still being Rin, but it also declared her to be his pup and a full blooded demon. Carefully he sniffed at what was probably a almost 2 year old pup, his scent was different, but still declared him to be Sesshomaru's blood, his pup, his heir, and a full demon just like Rin now was.

Utterly bewildered he sat down, to stunned to stand. Carefully Rin settled herself down in front of him and he found himself the subject of scrutiny from two sets of eyes. Rin's where a dark golden brown, closer to amber then his own Golden, the boy pup's however where a startling shade of green, highlighted with his own gold.

Gathering his control and dignity around him like a cloak, he advanced towards the now dead weasel demon. It was time his pups had their first taste of warm bloody meat. After they where all fed, he would take his pups home to the western palace so that the boy's feeding could be suplimented with milk. Demon's aged similarly to human's until they reached the age of 11 when they simply started growing at a much slower pace.

He needed to name the boy.

Hyōrimaru– he would call the boy Hyorimaru, it meant Ice Ring, and was a reference to the full moon. He found it appropriate considering the fact that the boy's markings where identical to his own but in an ice blue.