Title: Serpentine

Summary: Harry's relatives never raised him. In fact, they abandoned him the day they found him on their doorstep. It's going to be a very different Harry Potter than Albus Dumbledore expects who shows up at Hogwarts ten years later...

Warnings: 1. This is a SLASH fanfiction. It contains yaoi. Male/male relationships. People who dislike fanfics like that should press that lovely back button right now.

2. I can promise you that Harry is NOT a Griffindor here. Nor is he likely to leap before he looks. So sorry to disappoint.

3. Harry. Is. DARK. In. This. Fanfic. I don't care if you think he's OOC. He's supposed to be.

4. There will probably be character deaths. Please, do not flame me if your favorite character dies. You have been warned.

5. I'm not experienced in writing human characters. If you don't want your eyes burned out by massive OOCness and bad character writing, you'd probably be better off reading someone else's writing.

Disclaimer: Me? Own Harry Potter? HA! That's a laugh. If I owned HP, Snape wouldn't have died, but he DID, so obviously, I DON'T own HP.

OoOoO

Dumbledore snarled and knocked his dish of lemon drops to the floor, where the glass bowl shattered with a sharp crack. How had that ruffian known he was coming?! The initial scan of the rooms had revealed two motionless individuals, one older than the other. He'd assumed that they were both sleeping. So he hadn't been careful. He'd thought they wouldn't wake in time to stop him.

He'd been wrong. He'd been caught. And he'd been completely off-guard. Faced with that knife, he hadn't thought of disarming the child or banishing the blade with magic. No, he'd done the human thing - he'd frozen and his brain had gone into 'fight-or-flight' mode. He was lucky that he'd had the sense to banish the potion he'd tried to slip Harry.

But they'd be on their guard from now on. He was sure of that. He growled. He had less than two weeks before the child turned eleven. From there he had a month to convince the child that Hogwarts was the best place for him. But how to do that? Harry's...guardian wasn't likely to let him near the boy.

Dumbledore needed someone the two hadn't yet encountered. Not a child - a child wouldn't be taken seriously.

Then it hit him: Severus.

He grabbed his Floo powder and threw some into the fire. Time to contact his Potions Master.

OoOoO

"Let me get this straight," the greasy-haired man said half an hour after he'd been called to Dumbledore's office. "You want me to talk to these people and somehow convince them that it's in their best interest to let the child - who you have yet to prove to me is really Harry Potter - stay here and learn magic when we have no proof he is a wizard." He shifted, crossing his legs and frowning at the Headmaster. "That said, on the chance that he is just a Muggle, what are we going to do with him? You've kept him here for three days. We can't Obliviate him and send them back to where the came from - the chances we'd damage their minds permanently are too great."

Severus Snape watched as the Headmaster scowled darkly. Clearly, Dumbledore, master of manipulations that he was, had not thought of this. The old man was losing his edge. But was it really so surprising, given how agitated he'd been when he'd called the Potions Master here.

"Severus, I'm merely asking you to gain their trust."

"Fine," Severus snapped, rising from his seat. With a sudden smirk, he added, "I'd like to meet the man who pissed off the famously calm Albus Dumbledore anyway." Without waiting for an answer, he strode from the room.

OoOoO

When he reached the portrait Dumbledore had described, Severus knocked instead of giving the password and waited for an answer. He didn't have to wait long. Not a minute later, the door swung open and in front of him stood a young man. Wild chestnut-brown hair fell into his dark chocolate colored eyes. A long-sleeved sky blue shirt covered the upper half of his body, and torn, ragged jeans covered the lower.

"Can I help you?"

Severus forced himself not to sneer and said, "My name is Severus Snape. I am a professor at this school. May I come in? I'd like to meet the young man Dumbledore is ranting about."

He decided the young man looked more clever than most his age. The look in his eyes was calculating, yet carefully guarded. After a moment, the younger nodded and stood back from the door to let the professor in. He led Severus to a small kitchen and said shortly, "You wait here." Then he was gone again. Severus had barely two minutes to stare around idly before he returned, leading a small child.

When the two had seated themselves, the young man who had answered Severus' knock said, "If you've been talking to that old fart, then you probably know our names. But just so there aren't any mix-ups, I'll introduce us both. My name is Evan Ventulus. This little squirt over here is my brother, Zephyr Ventulus." The child looked up, and Severus had to breathe in deeply to control his shock. Those eyes...

Lily's eyes. And...in the center of his forehead...a scar shaped like a lightning bolt. Harry Potter, he thought, unable to tear his gaze away. This kid had been missing ten years - everyone had assumed he'd been killed like his parents, James and Lily, and Voldemort. And yet here he was, alive and well. Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived.

Evan coughed lightly. "Before there are any annoying comments," he muttered, "I think I should mention that Zephyr got that scar in an accident. He fell during a raid and cut himself on a piece of broken glass."

Severus slumped back, confused. "He looks just like the Potter boy," he muttered. "He even has the scar...and yet...people are always getting injured." But somehow, he couldn't believe that a mark like that came from broken glass. It didn't make sense, unless it was pulled out jaggedly.

"Yes," Evan replied firmly. "They are." He brushed his long bangs out of his eyes and Severus caught a glinpse of a long, thin scar on his forehead above his eyebrow. "We lived on the streets, but then, I'm sure the old fart told you that. Very easy to get injured if you don't know what you're doing out there." He clasped his hands together and reached as far above his head as he could manage. "Hell, it's easy to get hurt even if you do know what you're doing."

An odd smell came to Severus then. He blinked in surprise, then breathed in deeply, casually. No, he hadn't been mistaken. Lilacs and copper.

Since he was a small child, he'd been able to smell people's scents quite clearly. His own was scent was that of smoke. It was subtle to other people - they wouldn't really smell it unless they buried their faces in his clothes and inhaled. It was a both gift and a curse, because women often had sweet smells laced with the scents of their perfumes. It was nauseating, at best.

When he'd grown older, he'd learned to tone out the smells that he didn't want to notice. But if he looked directly at someone, their scent assaulted him. And as he was studying Evan curiously, he received a blast of the strange man's unique smell. Lilacs and copper, an unusual combination, though not unpleasant. And Zephyr...Severus turned his head, pretending to be studying the boy as he had Evan. The child smelled like vanilla. Severus glanced back at Evan and said, trying to sound bored, "Well, I must be going. No doubt Dumbledore's raging up a storm in his office."

He stood and left the rooms, trying not to appear too rushed. Lilacs and copper, and vanilla, he repeated to himself. Unusual, but it meant the two were good for each other, in his experience. Evan would be the shield to Zephyr, protecting the child's innocence until the boy was ready to face the world. And the older obviously cared deeply for his little brother.

Severus tried, however, not to think of how similar Zephyr's scent was to Lily's. They'd both smelled like vanilla, a scent he'd loved when he was around her. Now...it brought back only painful memories.

Memories of how a switch of sides had led to the deaths of Lily and James Potter.