Astor
Zoos were terribly boring places. All these animals, caged up for the amusement of others, content in their imprisonment as they lazed about or shrieked and demanded more attention. It was incredibly depressing.
Bryony, however, moved from exhibit to exhibit, always keeping a careful distance between herself and the Dursleys as she gawked at all the animals. I trailed dutifully after her.
A group of children, younger than me, slid between us, waved on by a frazzled looking woman.
I paused, waiting for them to go by, and–
Bryony had vanished. My heart skipped a beat. I whirled around, scanning the crowd–
There, the Dursleys, Dudley sulking at the lack of viciousness from the animals.
Faces, dozens of them, overeager children and worried parents and bored employees and–
Here, a flash of red hair. I whirled towards it, but it wasn't here, and where was she–
I pushed through the crowd, calling, "Bryony! Bry! Where are you?"
Oh, God, what if someone had taken her? What if she'd gotten hurt? What if–
A girl by the tigers, red hair bright against the darker hues of those around her, her white sneakers tattered and dirty.
Thank God.
I darted forwards, using knees and elbows to get through the crowd. "Bry, what were you thinking? You can't run off like that."
"Sorry," she said, staring at the creature lounging before us. "What'd you think it'd be like, to be an animal?"
I glanced at the tiger. "Very dull." And dangerous, if you are too weak. "Come on. We have to stay close to the Dursleys."
She sighed, but followed me anyway. We trailed after the three Dursleys and one Polkiss, always keeping a distance between us to avoid sneering words or swats to the head or Dudley and Piers' jabs or shoves.
Eventually, we trailed into the reptile house, and my stomach twisted. The lizards ignored my passing, but the snakes… the snakes raised their heads, opened their eyes, gazes drifting to me or Bryony as we passed. I glanced at the Dursleys, up ahead, but they were too distracted by a massive snake, big enough to crush Uncle Vernon's shiny new car into a dustbin to notice this latest bout of freakishness.
Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils. "Make it move!" he whined to his father, and Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass. The snake didn't budge.
"Jerks," Bryony muttered, eyeing them as well.
I nodded, and carefully drew her away from the Dursleys. Bryony looked over the assorted snakes, some pale yellow or bright red or a dark, dark brown, some thin as twigs and others thicker than my head. Each and every one of them stirred for us, and Bryony smiled at them and hissed hellos–
"Stop that," I whispered. "Someone could hear."
Bryony rolled her eyes. "We're children. We're supposed to be weird. Besides, nobody noticed. I'm quiet."
I glanced around, but she was right; nobody was paying us any attention, parents trying to wrangle excitable children, couples smiling at each other, a group listening to a tour guide prattle on about a particularly poisonous serpent.
Bryony looked past me, towards the massive snake, then slipped past me and over to the tank.
"Bryony!" I hissed, following after, but the Dursleys had moved on, and she reached the tank unimpeded.
"Hello," Bryony hissed softly; nobody looked her way, wondering why a girl was hissing, thankfully. "I'm sorry for them. They should know better than that."
The snake raised its head to peer at her, head level with Bryony's. "I get that all the time."
I reached out, about to draw Bryony away, but she nodded and said, "It must be awful, being locked away day after day, all alone."
Her tone was so gentle, soft and understanding. A pang went through my heart. I didn't want her to empathize with the snake, to understand what it was like to be locked away and gawked at, to be alone and unloved.
"I don't think I'd like being gawked at by strange people," she continued, the same gentle look on her face that she had when she'd found a spider in our room and had gone to get a jar to carry it outside. "Do they look strange to you, in their funny clothes and with all that hair?"
"Humans do look odd," the snake agreed, watching her closely.
Of course, that spider had still died. Aunt Petunia had caught her, and had smashed the spider with a hissed warning not to bother her over such silliness again. Bryony had cried, and I'd held her and told her that the Dursleys were rotten people and that one day they wouldn't be able to harm innocent spiders again.
Bryony had continued talking, and now the snake's attention had drawn to me, and she said, "... This is my sister, Astor. She can speak to snakes, too, but she's worried that someone will catch and hurt us for it."
The snake hissed, agitated. "Speakers should not be harmed. It is blasphemy."
"Our family disagrees," I told the snake quietly. "They say we're the freaks, and don't like anything 'unnatural.'"
"DUDLEY!" Piers Polkiss shouted. "MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"
And then he and Dudley came barreling over, shoving me out of the way. Bryony stabled back just fast enough for me to miss her, and I hit the ground with a thud, scrapping my palms on the floor.
A screech and a splash came, and I jerked my head up–
The snake rose up in its cage, eyes locked on two oversized boys who'd somehow fallen right in, water soaking their clothes, Piers still screaming, and the snake was going to attack, to bit down and kill, and I knew that and my mouth opened… and closed again, because hadn't they bullied me and Bryony for years, wouldn't it be easier if they were gone–
"NO!" Bryony cried.
The snake jerked, looked at her for a moment, then slithered out of the cage, through the glass that suddenly wasn't there anymore, dropping onto the ground in glistening coils.
More screams came from around us, and people took off for the entrance, parents hauling young children, but if they were heading away from the snake then they were going the wrong way, because that's exactly where he slithered towards, hissing, "Thanks, amigo," to us as he passed–
Soft pounding on glass came from behind me, and I twisted… Dudley stood on the other side of the glass (Piers still in the small pond and deathly pale) and pounded on it, blue eyes wide.
"Mummy! Mummy!" he cried, and I had to bite my lip to keep from smiling.
And that's when Uncle Vernon descended on us, face purple and furious, and Aunt Petunia began shrieking for help, for someone to "get my son out of this awful cage!"
Uh-oh.
Marvolo
MISHAP AT MUGGLE ZOO! a minor news article, all the way on the tenth page of the Daily Prophet, read. Perhaps if the editor of the propaganda thinly disguised as news knew that the Girls-Who-Lived were involved, they would've placed it in the front page, and Skeeter likely would've framed it as some brutal attack on Muggles by the twins.
Thankfully, no one but a small circle knew what had happened. Unfortunately, one of these people happened to be the man commonly known to the public as Marvolo Cadmus Gaunt.
"Dumbledore has been thorough in covering this up," he noted, setting down his tea cup, "and, of course, expunging it from the girl's record."
"Yes, well," the rodent disguised as a man shifted uncomfortably in his seat, tiny eyes carefully avoiding Marvolo's, "it would probably be inconvenient to have his prophesied chosen one locked up in Azkaban for Muggle-baiting."
Marvolo snorted. "I suppose so." He looked up from his paper, meeting the man's eyes, and he flinched back, trembling. "Now, you know what you're to do, don't you?"
"Yes, my Lord," he choked out.
"Good." Marvolo smiled. "See to it that there are no mistakes. It would be most… inconvenient should Dumbledore come to suspect you."
The man gulped, then hurried out his assurances and stumbled out of the room.
Across from Marvolo, the shadows stirred, red eyes gleaming, and a man asked, "Are you certain he can accomplish his task?"
"Perhaps." Marvolo shrugged carelessly, as if it was of no matter to him if the rat failed. "If he does, I'm certain Avery can handle the rest."
"Hmm."
Marvolo tilted his head. "You're concerned over the Quirrell issue."
"It's a poor idea," the other man replied. "He can't be contained. We know that better than anyone."
Marvolo smiled. "You say that because it means you must spend excessive time with Dumbledore."
The other man's face tightened. It was miniscule, a quick flash of his eyes, a slight rigidness to his jaw, but Marvolo knew the other man as well as he knew himself. "I say that because his resurrection could be beneficial to our plans."
"He's mad," Marvolo countered. "I will not have him destroyed and endanger the existence of us all. Containment is the wisest solution."
The other man scowled, but said no more on the matter as he settled across from Marvolo, creating a new chair – one more ostentatious than Marvolo's own – with a wave of his wand. Only when he had his own tea cup in hand did he speak again.
"The girl will be starting Hogwarts this year."
"She will." Marvolo kept himself relaxed, casual, though he suspected he knew where the other was going.
"It may allow us an opportunity," he said. "To study her further, and ascertain whether she should be eliminated." Or can be cultivated.
"We don't know which it is," Marvolo reminded the man, and oh, how wretched that was. None of the fools at St. Mungo's had been able to determine which twin survived the curse, and even Dumbledore remained uncertain who was his prophesied doom.
The other shrugged. "It likely wouldn't be difficult to determine once I come close enough to them."
Marvolo nodded, looking out the window at the wide stride below. Men and women bustled to and fro, although none of the noise reached the room. "Perhaps. We should keep a distance for now."
"Observe, yet don't draw too near," he agreed. It was… eerie, sometimes, how similar and yet how different their thoughts became.
Marvolo rose. "I have business to attend to."
"Ah, yes," he said, leaning back and tapping his fingers against his armrest, eyes glimmering, "the Minister is such a simple minded sheep, is he not?"
Marvolo tilted his head. "He has his uses."
The other rolled his eyes. "I'm certain we'll be rid of the need soon."
Marvolo left the room without another word, wandlessly adjusting his clothing as he marched down the staircase – unrolling his sleeves, summoning and slipping on his coat, doing up the buttons, and casting a glamour over his eyes. By the time he stepped out into the sunlight, the mask of Senior Undersecretary Gaunt was firmly in place.
Leaving no one the wiser to the monster within.