Author's Note:

A question was asked in a few reviews: "Why didn't they use the animagus reversal spell?"

The answer is quite simple - because they didn't think it necessary. People who turn into animagi can't speak like a human in their animal form - unless the animal is capable of it like ravens and parrots. But most importantly, it is impossible to become an animagus on accident. Precise steps need to be taken to become one, and it's certainly not something a five year old could do.

Instead, perhaps they could apply a reverse transfiguration. However, without knowing precisely how he was turned into a snake - especially for this long - it would be very dangerous, especially now that he grew up a bit and thus the possible transfiguration changed with him. After all, it would be quite disastrous to change an 11-year-old snake into a 5-year-old boy.

Harry settled in with the Tonkses quite easily despite the initially apprehensive attitude of Edward Tonks - he, just like the absolute majority of muggleborns, didn't like anything associated with Slytherin, his wife being one of the very few exceptions. However, he soon learned that Harry didn't reflect the bigotries of the house that used the snake as its symbol. The snake-boy was polite, friendly, and rather shy. So, even Ted came to accept Harry despite his snakeness.

Harry was absolutely ecstatic - he finally had a family! Sure, Sssisus was a great friend to him, the best - and, unfortunately, the first - he had ever had, but nothing could replace a proper family. Unlike the Dursleys, they cared for him, even if it wasn't love quite yet. They took him in willingly and showed him what he was looking for in the Dursleys before - acceptance. A hug here and there, a bit of a rub on the head - it would tussle his hair if he still had it - and even some time to play. Neither Vernon nor Petunia ever played with him, and Dudley's idea of 'playing with Harry' oftentimes involved pain for the smaller boy.

The youngest Tonks was more than happy to have Harry in the family - the two of them hit off without any issue whatsoever. While she, unfortunately, couldn't fully turn into an animal, she could still imitate certain snake features like scales, eyes, nostrils, or tongue. But even then, she couldn't talk like a snake - it came out like hissed English instead, which was hilarious to Harry. After all, no snake talked like that - their hissing was perfectly understandable English without any 's' being stretched. One time during one of their together times, Harry found out something interesting about himself. He was, in fact, a metamorphmagus. Unfortunately, he could do nothing beyond changing the colour and pattern of his scales to fit the environment. Still, he supposed it was a useful skill to have and it did explain why he often stayed unnoticed in seemingly impossible situations.

He was also told he very likely had inherited this ability from the Black family - at least one of his great-something-grandparents married into it at some point. He was quite happy about it, too, deeming it a good thing that he was, in some way, related to his new family. He certainly liked it far better than his much closer relation to the Dursleys.

Now that he had a certain freedom of movement - as long as he stayed within the boundaries of the Tonks property - he spent a lot of his time slithering around the house and finding plenty of hiding spots. As a somewhat narrow snake, there were plenty of spaces for him: under the bed, under the wardrobe, behind the wardrobe, behind the kitchen counter, anywhere in the basement, and in various drawers - except the underwear drawer of Dora, he was far too young for that. However, it didn't stop him from slithering into the bathroom while she was showering. He found he liked being coiled up in a sink under a warm flow of water. It felt nice, and it made him smell and look better.

"Harry, you can't be here!" Dora exclaimed, covering herself when he appeared on the sink.

"Why?" he asked, curiously looking at her.

"Boys aren't supposed to look at nude girls," she said, "Not until you're older. And definitely not without consent."

"Oh," was his intelligent reply, "Um, sorry, I didn't know. Um, call me when you're done, okay?"

"Yeah yeah, now get out."

Harry could point out that he was quite a nude snake and no one seemed to have a problem with it, but decided not to. After all, humans, he knew, weren't like snakes. Now that he spent the majority of his life as a snake, he didn't learn the social rules humans had. After all, why would he? No human talked to him for years, and the best he got were yelps or screams if he was ever spotted. And then he knew humans were quite weird. A snake life was certainly simpler. Why should humans care about being nude beyond protecting themselves from bad weather? Weird humans.

His favourite place was under the bed in the guest bedroom, which became his own. Dumbledore was kind enough to bring all his things to his new home, too. He asked about how Harry came across them, and the snake decided it would be for the best not to reveal their true origins. Instead, he said that he rescued those items from the trash. Which, in a certain way, was true - Dudley either discarded something he didn't like quickly or broke it until he couldn't use it, and piles of those things in the spare bedroom could very well be considered trash. And, of course, humans tended to be quite wasteful, so he had no difficulty finding other things that nobody would miss. So, now there was an arrangement of items on the shelves: the battery-powered lamp with a slightly dented shade, Polaroid instant camera with barely a scratch, a stack of paper, a bunch of pens and pencils in various conditions, a stuffed bear with slightly ragged fur, a children's map of the UK with a splotch of cola in the corner, a small world globe without a stand, a mostly-intact science kit, a bunch of books with minimal damage, and various knick-knacks of uncertain origin and purpose. The bed was messy, made to resemble a snake nest. Underneath the bed, a blanket lay in the same messy way as well.

A few days after he moved in, the Tonkses decided it was time to get him his Hogwarts supplies. Dora volunteered to carry him on her shoulders. So, after a spinning through the floo, the family emerged in the Leaky Cauldron one by one.

"Good day, Mrs. Tonks," Tom the bartender politely nodded, his eyes drifting to the snake, "I didn't know you had pet snakes."

"A woman has her secrets," Andromeda mysteriously replied while the youngest Tonks simply offered a smile. The family agreed to keep Harry nondescript for the time-being. Of course he was going to attract attention either way, but barely anyone else knew Harry was a snake, and the family intended to keep it this way until he was in Hogwarts. It would certainly be impossible to hide him then. The family made their way behind the pub and into the Diagon Alley.

"Whoa..." Harry couldn't help but gawk at the sight. The introduction to the proper magical place left quite an impression on the young snake. The streets were covered not in asphalt or concrete but cobblestone, and the houses looked like they came straight from the Medieval period. Timber frames with white plaster, bright hand-made signs, and a crowd of people in all sorts of colours. At this point, Harry wished he could be a spider - having two eyes wasn't enough to capture the entire Diagon Alley. He curiously turned his head in every direction, taking a look at a cauldron shop nearest to the entrance, then at a shop selling various strange things like dragon liver or bat spleens and eels' eyes. They passed by a dark shop, the sign of which said Eeylops Owl Emporium - Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy.

"We're going to stop at Gringotts first - the bank," Andromeda explained to him, "Dumbledore told us your parents left you quite a sum for your school purchases. It should certainly last you all your seven years before you can gain access to the main Potter vault or find a job to earn something by yourself."

Harry only nodded, still amazed at what Diagon Alley had to offer. He was a wizard! Sure, he was a snake too, but he was also a wizard! He would be able to do magic! No snake could do magic, but he could. So, he started bobbing around in anticipation and excitement.

Soon, the family reached a snowy white building that towered over all the other little shops. Beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, a goblin stood. He was about half as tall as the shortest member of the Tonks family at best. They walked up the white stone steps towards him. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and very long fingers and feet. He bowed politely as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, this time they were silver, and words were engraved upon them:

Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed,

For those who take, but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn.

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours,

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there.

Harry was quite a smart snake and understood the meaning perfectly - don't steal or bad things will happen to you. From what little the Tonkses told him about Gringotts while they were walking to it, one would have to be mad or very desperate to steal from it.

A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors, and they were now in a vast marble hall. Many more goblins - perhaps a hundred or so - were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, examining precious stones through eyeglasses or talking with various wizards and witches in the bank. Many doors, too many to count, led off the hall, and even more goblins were showing people in and out of them. The Tonkses approached the counter.

"Good day," Andromeda said to a free goblin, "We've come to take some money out of Mr. Harry Potter's trust vault," she handed a tiny golden key to the goblin. He examined it, looking at it closely.

"That seems to be in order," the goblin concluded after taking a long look at the snake around Dora's shoulders, "I will have someone take you down to the vault. Griphook!"

Griphook was yet another goblin, and he led the Tonkses toward one of the doors leading off the hall. The goblin eyed the snake with interest as well as surprise.

"Mr. Potter?" he asked quietly, making sure not to attract other wizards' attention.

"Um, yeah, that's me, sir," Harry nodded, "I turned into a snake when I was five."

Griphook nodded, accepting the explanation without a fuss. After all, it didn't matter to the goblins what wizards did as long as it didn't concern goblins. Once they were at the door, he held it for the family. Harry expected to see more marble behind the door but was surprised. It was plain and narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downward and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled, and a small cart came around the bend toward them. They climbed in and were off.

Harry yelped when the cart sped away through a maze of twisting passages. He tried to remember, left, right, right, left, middle fork, right, left, left, right, but it was impossible. The cart rattled underneath him, making him constrict slightly around Dora, afraid he would fall off. Griphook wasn't steering, so Harry guessed the cart somehow knew its own way. They sped through a burst of cold air, then Harry spotted fire at the end of a passage, too quick for him to see more, but he suspected there was a dragon. They plunged deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor. At last, the cart stopped beside a small door in the passage wall. The Tonkses - some more gracefully than others - got out of the cart. Dora managed not to fall despite her stumble, and Harry remained on her shoulders. Griphook unlocked the door, and a lot of green smoke came billowing out of it. Once it cleared, Harry gasped - inside the vault, there were piles and mounds of gold coins, columns of silver, and heaps of little bronze knuts.

"It's all mine?" he asked, flabbergasted. He slid off the shoulders of Dora and slithered into the vault.

"It is indeed all yours," Andromeda confirmed with a smile, "I'll collect the needed amount for your first year supplies if you don't mind."

"Yeah, go ahead," Harry said absentmindedly as he climbed straight into the gold piles, feeling them under his belly. All these piles, and they were all his. The Dursleys would be jealous if they knew, and he was slightly tempted to send them a letter describing everything they could have if only they didn't kick him out. But this was the only thought about them, and it quickly disappeared when he considered that he, finally, had money to spend on himself.

A happy snake and a smiling family returned from the vault and exited Gringotts, only to meet the Malfoy family. Lucius, his wife Narcissa, and their son Draco were ascending the steps to the bank, dressed as impeccably as ever. The senior Malfoy narrowed his eyes a bit when he saw the family.

"Good day, Andromeda," he greeted politely. As much as he disliked Tonks family, he was always decent towards the matron of the family, if only because of his wife.

"Lucius," she nodded, then turned to Narcissa, "Cissy."

"Dromeda," she nodded in turn. Despite their differences, they remained on relatively friendly terms.

"Mr. and Mrs. Tonks, Heiress Tonks," Draco bowed politely as well. Harry almost sneezed - the amount of hair care products on his head made him a bit dizzy.

"I wasn't aware you were embracing the Slytherin roots again," Lucius commented on the snake.

"We're not," Andromeda said, looking him in the eyes.

His eyes narrowed when he looked closer at the snake. Something wasn't quite right with it... And then it hit him. There, on the snake's head, there was a lightning bolt scar - the most famous scar in all of British Wizarding World history. Yet it wasn't on the head of a boy but on a snake instead. Lucius was not a stupid man - he noted it and showed no reaction to figuring the situation out. There were two possibilities, one of them being that Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, was somehow an animagus at the age of eleven. Considering all the myths and legends surrounding him, it seemed plausible. If so, he was a powerful wizard already, one not to get on the bad side of, and Lucius knew how to act in such situations. However, there existed a second possibility - a curse of some sort that turned him into a snake permanently. Considering that the boy was hidden within hours of the Dark Lord's defeat, it seemed possible the death of such magnitude would leave a curse in place on the boy. Voldemort had many curses and hexes in his arsenal, more than even Lucius knew. In which case, Harry Potter would be unable to use magic as a wizard... supposedly. But there existed a possibility that he would still attend Hogwarts despite the curse, maybe even excel. Lucius decided he would keep a close eye on him and his family from then on.

After exchanging polite goodbyes, the two families separated, going their own separate directions. Harry was wary of the family - they tasted strange, and the older Malfoy was tainted in some way, although he didn't know precisely how. Either way, he needed to keep an eye out.

However, his mood quickly changed when the family offered to get him his wand first. They went to Ollivanders right away - Harry was told he was the best wandmaker of all of Britain. The shop was narrow and shabby, looking nothing like what Harry would imagine the shop of the best wandmaker would be. The peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382b.c. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window. Harry considered that maybe the shop looked like it did because it was more than two thousand years old. However, it didn't really look the style, but then who knew if wizards changed all that much since then?

A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as the family entered it. The shop seemed far smaller than it should be because of all the shelves full of long and narrow boxes, piled all the way to the ceiling. The very air smelled and tasted of power, of magic. Harry sneezed - it was also quite dusty.

"Good day," said a soft voice from somewhere behind them. Harry quickly slithered around, facing an old man. His eyes were wide and pale, shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.

"Mr. Ollivander," Andromeda turned and nodded, not bothered by this. Reluctantly, the other families with the exception of Harry offered their greetings as well.

"I admit it's not quite how I expected to meet you, Harry Potter," the old man said, making the boy jump slightly.

"You... know I'm a snake?" he replied slowly.

"Your scar is quite unmistakable," he nodded, gliding over to the shelves, "I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it. Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and, well... in the wrong hands... and if I'd known what that wand was to do to the world..."

He seemed to be deep in thought for some time before Andromeda coughed lightly.

"Ah yes, I believe it's time I found a wand for you," Mr. Ollivander said, looking at Harry, "Despite your... new body, your eyes look remarkably like your mother's. Why, I still remember her as if it was yesterday, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work," he moved a bit closer to Harry, his gaze as unblinking as the boy's, "Your father favoured a mahogany wand, on the other hand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favoured it, but it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course. Now, Mr. Potter, may you please make your way over on the counter?"

The youngest Tonks let him slide down her right arm and onto the counter where he coiled himself, raising his head, looking at the old wandmaker with interest.

"Now, Mr. Potter, let me see," he pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket, "I suppose you hold objects with your tail?"

"Um, yes, sir," said Harry.

"Straighten your tail, if you will. That's it," he measured the length of the tail, then its circumference, then he asked him to make his entire body straight so that he could measure his total length, then he went round his head. He explained that a wand contained a core within - Ollivander used unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands were the same, and he also explained how wands from other wizards would never work as well as the chosen wand. Harry noticed that the tape measure was now on its own, measuring all sorts of things on his body while Mr. Ollivander was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes.

"That will do," he said, and the tape measure collapsed into a heap on the floor, quickly becoming still. Then he spent the next while trying to pick the proper wand for Harry. Some did nothing and felt like ordinary pieces of wood, others felt slightly warm but never quite enough, and others still responded quite violently to Harry's attempts to even touch them. Fifth, tenth, twentieth wand passed, all of them not right for him. Harry was growing worried - what if he couldn't get a wand because he was a snake? He voiced his concerns to the old wandmaker.

"Nonsense, Mr. Potter," he replied, "You were born a wizard, and you remain a wizard. I would never consider even letting you into my shop if you couldn't wield a wand. Do not worry, we will find the perfect match here somewhere. I wonder, now - yes, why not - unusual combination - holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple."

Harry wrapped his tail around the wand. It felt pleasantly warm to touch, much warmer than the rest. He raised it and then brought it down with a swish, and a stream of green and red sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on the walls. The Tonkses clapped, and Mr. Ollivander cried.

"Oh, bravo!" he congratulated, "Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well... how curious... how very curious..."

That got the family's attention. He put Harry's wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper, still muttering.

"Sorry, sir," said Harry, "But what is curious about my wand?"

Mr. Ollivander fixed Harry with his pale stare.

"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather - just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother - why, its brother gave you that scar."

Harry swallowed, and the Tonkses looked slightly alarmed.

"It's alright, Harry" Dora assured him, "This wand didn't pick you because you're like You-Know-Who."

"Wands never pick others because of some vague quality of 'good' or 'evil'," Ollivander nodded, "There are certainly some qualities both you and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named hold, but it would be wrong to say that these similarities make you as terrible as him. Why, then every one of us is terrible - we breathe the same air he did, we walk the same roads he walked, and we went or will go to the same school he once did."

Harry nodded, accepting the answer. Even if the wands were similar, it didn't mean he and You-Know-Who were the same. He calmed down now, the family paid for the wand, and Mr. Ollivander bowed them from his shop.

Author's Note:

I decided to separate the Diagon Alley in two chapters so that I had something to post yet have more time to think about some other things. I've a few more ideas for Harry Potter fanfics, and I want to explore them.