Friends with Snakes
Rating: G
Summary: Even cold hearts have a difficult time resisting Harry's charm.
Friends with Snakes
Ahhsitha slithered circles around the basket in confusion. The young speaker's scent permeated the basket, and it was clear that he had brought the acromantula eggs to her chamber for her pleasure. But, that in itself, was confusing.
Her first interactions with the child had reminded her that young speakers were so often delicate unknown quantities: where one might display great bravado to cover intense fear – another might offer great compassion. The last speaker that she had known before this one had been the former while this child had seemed the latter.
The previous speaker, despite all her efforts, had been truly a lost cause. Rather than releasing her from her ancient pact as she had hoped, that child had been so inculcated in fear that he could see no other option than using her to force his own terror on others. In an incident that she had long regretted, he had even called on the pact to demand that she protect the school from muggle incursion. Finding the castle more heavily scented with muggles than it had been in centuries past, Ahhsitha had responded to the perceived threat on instinct and threw herself out the nearest opening that she sensed turmoil near, ending the life of an innocent student before she came to her senses enough to know that the threat he had warned her of was false. Her rage at the deceitful human had lasted several weeks and she had refused to answer his calls after that, knowing that he could not be trusted to release her.
The risk she had taken in doing so had been unsettling when, year after year, no other speaker had come to dispute his claim that he was the last heir of Slytherin.
By the time the little one had arrived, Ahhsitha had resigned herself to spending her long-remaining life trapped in the misery of the castle's stifling, cold, stone chambers. But the little one had been an entirely different kind of being than the other. When Ahhsitha gently explained the life she had lead, confined to the castle's inner recesses, without purpose or distraction – the child had immediately taken it upon himself to release her from the pact without question of what she could offer in exchange.
Unexpectedly freed, Ahhsitha paused to give her thanks and found herself surprised yet again when the little speaker asked after her plans, whether she had a new place to go, and whether she would need any help to leave the castle. His questions were a surprise in more than one way. It had been so long since she had truly credited the possibility of escaping her confinement that she had given up on her expectations even before she felt the distinctive magics of the forest growing more and more distant.
What the outer world would be like, she had no idea. Would there be enough forest left to take shelter in? To hunt in? What beasts were left? At night, she still, on occasion, heard the distant clicking and clattering of Acromantula. But, was she up to the swift and difficult hunts required to bring down the fearsome tree-dwellers? Or, would she find, after generations of surviving on what rats and small creatures she could catch in the few pipes and paths she could travel through the castle, her hunt turned back on her to make a feast for the eight-legged horde?. She was uncertain even of whether the caves of her youth remained to shelter her through the winter.
Sensing her hesitancy, the little one had suggested that they look to make certain that she had an exit to come and go as she pleased but that she use the chambers until she found a new home to her liking. Ahhsitha had easily agreed, in spite of her surprise at his generosity, but, that had not been her last surprise.
When Ahhsitha had returned from an ill-fated hunt, weakened by and bleeding from centaur's caustic bolts, the youngling had suffered her pain-dirven snappishness to dig out each bolt so that she could heal. Then, in an act that defied explanation, the little one used a detention, with the small giant that roamed the school's grounds, to meet with the centaurs and convince the stubborn half-nags to allow her safe passage through the forest on the sole proviso that she hunt neither them nor the unicorn. Less than a moon's passage later, the little one returned to inform her of a similar agreement with the acromantula. That agreement was what made his current gift so confusing.
Although unused to trusting another being, Ahhsitha had grown to trust the little one and did not quite credit the boy with jeopardizing the truce that he had, quite possibly, risked his life to arrange without asking for anything in return.
"Are the tree-dweller's eggs soured? I had hoped you might like them?" The little one's voice inquired from the shadows.
"Explain. What of the truc-sss-e?" Ahhsitha asked in return, pleased that her recent practice speaking with him was slowly improving her control of her hiss-like speech.
"Oh, no, it shouldn't affect that at all. These eggs did not come from the nearby tree-dwellers. They were…" he tried several words that simply did not translate, but finally found one close to his meaning: "gathered from tree-dwellers far away who have been raised to give their eggs away for poison mixers. The poison mixer who guards my nest helped me… get them for you."
"Ahh, then…" Ahhsitha dismissed aside her hesitation and swiftly devoured the eggs, turning her head to block his vision as she pierced the larvae with a fang before swallowing them – responding to an instinct, which warned her that, though the little one have gathered the eggs for her, he might not be prepared to cope with the deaths of the infant tree-dwellers. When she was certain that her fangs was free of their ichor, she finally turned back and complimented: "They were rich and filling. Thank you."
"You're quite welcome. I'm visiting my nestmate's home for …" None of the phrases that he came up with made sense, so he finally went on with his explanation, "but I wanted to be certain that you had your gift before I left. I wasn't sure what the castle keepers would do with tree-dweller's eggs if they found them, or how long they took to hatch."
"You will return sssoon?" Ahhsitha asked anxiously.
"Oh, yes, the visit will only be for half-a- moon's passage; the poison maker wants us to return to the castle earlier than the other nest mates so that he can teach me other things."
"Good. Sstay ssafe, little one. Return with a new skin."
"Oh, you too... I almost forgot; my nestmate taught me a new spell." Pulling his wand, the little one softly muttered some of the humans' magic words and smiled as Ahhsitha's chambers began to warm. Silent with amazement at feeling bone-deep comfort for the first time since the pact maker left the castle, Ahhsitha stared at him with fondness as he waved to her before calling "Happy Christmas" in his own language and slipping back down the hall toward the poison maker's nest.