Harry was unbearably hot. The June sun was beating down on his back and he was sweating bullets. His back was on fire and Harry was wondering absent mindedly whether or not he should be concerned about the gashes becoming infected, or at the least making him greatly ill. He gazed hopelessly at his near completed efforts outside and realized, just as he always had, that worrying about it really wouldn't help his situation.

His stomach then rumbled and he groaned deeply at the gnawing inside his stomach. He hadn't eaten since the soup from this morning and at this point even Petunia's tomato plants started looking edible. He contemplated eating them as bare amusement now, since he had tried once. He had tried to eat a lot of things that simply weren't edible to begin with.

Like grass. Once. The dry heaving and green stomach acid hadn't been worth the short relief he had had from his growling stomach. Well, it had been until he'd puked the whole mess of it up, he supposed. Then he had just hurt more.

"What are you doing?" a small voice called suddenly, startling Harry out of his ruminations. He glanced around, but didn't see anyone, and called out softly, "Is anyone there?"

"A speaker! Magnificent! Magnificent!" the small voice crooned loudly before Harry saw it emerge from underneath the brush that concealed it. It was a snake and he seemed very happy with Harry. He crawled quickly over to the boy and rose back to study his face, hissing out quick bursts of "Excellent!" and "You will do nicely."

"Excuse me," Harry said politely, " but what are you talking about?"

"Why you are to be my new person. You must feed me and care for me, as you are a wizard and a speaker to boot, and I am both beautiful and deadly." the snake said calmly.

"Err, I dunno. You won't fit in my cupboard with me and how am I to take you to school?"Harry questioned slightly, confused and bewildered about the snake who had wandered over to him.

Suddenly, Harry heard his cousins thunderous footfalls inside and paled thinking of the potential backlash his cousin could cause if he stumbled on the scene that Harry was now embroiled in.

"Sorry," he told the strange snake, and grabbed it, pushing it back underneath the brush,"Stay there just a moment, please." And then his wonderful cousin Dudley was standing by the back door sneering darkly at Harry.

Harry didn't think Dudley knew much in the way of sneering, Snape and even Draco could do it much better than the round beach ball he called his cousin. Dudley just looked constipated as he stormed angrily over to Harry.

"You're such a bloody freak! It's because of you Mum had to cancel my new game system! I hate you!" Dudley's fist came swing down faster than Harry expected to, and managed to land against the back of his head with a loud crack. Dudley let out a small yelp, but then changed his mind and grabbed Harry by his hair and started kicking him ruthlessly.

"Stop! Please! Stop!" Harry gasped loudly and tried to curl up into a ball but Dudley held fast to Harry's hair to prevent the movement. The large boys blows hurt of course, but they were nothing compared to the blows Vernon could deal out.

Fortunately, Dudley had the endurance of an old man and was soon hunched over breathing heavily. Despite the pathetic scene he made, Dudley mumbled out congratulations to himself for teaching the freak his rightful place, and fought for breath rapidly until he managed to puh himself up and waddle back inside of Privet Drive.

"That was disgraceful! You must allow me to bite him! For someone to treat a speaker in that manner!" The snake reemerged spitting mad at Dudley.

"You can't. He's my cousin and if anything bad happened to him I would be blamed." Harry told the snake sadly. "He's not too bad I suppose. It's Uncle Vernon you need to watch out for... What is your name?"

"Name?" the snake repeated confused. "What is that?"

"Well, I suppose you could say it's a word in reference to yourself. My name is Harry. People often have more than one name though, so my full name is Harry James Potter."

"Hmm... well you must name me, and I will live with you. Take me to your nest so I can protect you from the nasty smelling boy." The snake decided quickly.

"I already told you, I don't have room in my cupboard. Now let me finish my chores before Aunt Petunia comes out here to find out why I'm taking so long."

When Severus Snape apparated to Wisteria Walk and exited Mrs. Figgs backyard, he expected to walk down the street to Privet Drive and observe Harry Potter being indulged, spoiled, and -frankly- coddled near to death. After all, Harry was the savior of the wizarding world, the boy who lived, and all that garbage. It appeared that his hopes for the day were to go ignored.

Arabella had immediately pulled him inside for tea and cookies and he had been several minutes later to the Dursley household than he had intended. Still, the largest surprise was yet to come.

Instead of coddling he found on the first day of his observations a fact that made his mouth go dry and his hands become clammy. Harry was upon his knees in his backyard with a snake. Not only was the boy conversing with the animal as if he did it every other day, the boy seemed to have completely ignored that it was an inland Taipan snake he spoke to.

Severus had no idea how a snake native to Australia had ended up in Potter's backyard, but it probably had something to do with the boy's horrible luck and some inept muggle who had lost a huge venomous snake a few hundred miles from where it ought to be.

Merlin save them all from idiot muggles.

The boy ended up shoving the massive six foot snake away from himself, rising to his feet, and giving one last definite hiss to the Taipan before going inside. Severus had found himself actually holding his breath for most of the conversation since he had no way to identify what the boy was actually saying to the infernal creature, and he had no desire to reveal his presence on his first day of spying.

Beside he hated snakes, even if he was one, and the boy looked as if he was in little danger as he could speak to the reptile. He shuddered as the snake resumed its perch underneath the flowers. The fact that the boy could speak to them was distinctly dark and reminded him entirely too much of his service to the Dark Lord.

Severus watched the Dursley home for hours that Monday. The house left an insidious feeling in his gut. Potter did more chores around the house than anyone else. He didn't like watching an almost twelve year old prepare dinner with both ability and a practiced air around him. He didn't like watching Petunia snarl herself hoarse at the boy, and the double standard he observed between Harry and his older cousin was disturbing at best.

Vernon Dursley was the one who actually made him enter Privet Drive number four.