Chapter one – Prologue

Small 3-year-old Harry Potter cowered on his mattress, terrified at the purple-faced rage of his uncle. He'd done something wrong again, complained of the unfairness between him and his cousin. All he'd wanted was some breakfast too. Honest! But now, his uncle Vernon stood on the other side of the small door into his broom-closet-turned-room, hammering at it and yelling for him to open up.

"I swear to all that's holy, boy! If you don't undo whatever unnaturalness you've done to this door and come out right now, I will whip your back free of skin with my belt! COME OUT! NOW!"

Harry didn't understand what his uncle meant by 'unnatural', nor did he really care. All he could focus on was his intense, focused desire for the door to remain firmly shut. His need for it to be shut.

His need to be safe.

He wasn't. Eventually, he'd had to come out. And Vernon had made good on his promise.


A 4-year-old Harry Potter was gardening. It was his most enjoyable chore. So much so, that he often prolonged it, being overly cautious with handling the plants and overdoing the weeding. It was also, not unrelatedly, the only time in his life where he had friendly social contact. An adder snake had decided to take residence under his aunt Petunia's rosebushes, in the backyard.

It had been a frightening experience, suddenly coming face-to-face with a snake hissing at him, but it had quickly calmed down when he had apologised. In fact, it had been downright respectful and subservient as soon as it had discovered he was 'a speaker'. Harry didn't know what that was, but he was very grateful he was one, because it meant he had been able to make his first and only friend.

Harry had managed to read up on adder snakes, and indeed, discover what kind of snake it was in the first place, the one and only time he and Dudley had been taken to the local library. It had been at the behest of their playschool, to find a book about something that interested them. Dudley had despised the place, and so, they had never returned again.

He had found that the adder was the only venomous snake in Britain, and to his surprise, that they did not commonly have the ability to talk. Harry had wondered at that, but quickly realised the need to keep it secret from his aunt, uncle and cousin. There was no knowing what they would do to a talking snake, or to him for discovering it. The snake had looked at him funny when he'd asked how it could talk. It insisted that all snakes could, so long as they were talking to, or with, a speaker.

In the end, it didn't really matter anyway. Harry had a friend, and could spend time with them everyday for a couple of hours. That was all he needed.


7-year-old Harry Potter was running. Running for his life. Dudley and his friends had decided to engage in yet another game of Harry Hunting. It had begun just after school. Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, had caught him as he was collecting his things at his desk and informed him that the entire gang would be waiting for him to come out.

Harry had dithered, hummed and hawed, but he hadn't been able to find a way to exit without running into his bullies. So he'd just run, stormed out of the main doorway, and sprinted down the road before the group of five boys had a chance to cut him off. They'd quickly followed him, but most of them were nearly as big as Dudley, so he had a good chance of getting away. It was really only Piers who had any chance of catching him, and Harry knew how to get out from under him, if he caught up to him.

Because of that, Harry was pretty hopeful of getting away. Storming around a corner, he grinned, expecting to make another quick turn down a well known alley and losing his tormentors, when he ran face first into a fence. A wire fence. A wire fence, that had not been where it was now two days ago, when he had last come this way.

Harry glanced around quickly, immediately realising he couldn't go anywhere. He could already hear Dudley and his gang tearing their way to the corner he'd just turned. He'd barely managed to face back around, when Piers turned the corner and saw him trapped. A sadistic grin lit up his face, and he shouted over his shoulder,

"Hey, Dudley! The freak is trapped, ran right into a fence!"

A panting and huffing Dudley & co. caught up, stopping to catch their breath. Dudley gave Piers a slap to his shoulder in acknowledgement, then turned to Harry.

"That was dumb, freak, running like that. Don't you know you can't get away? Even if you got away here, mum and dad would just lock you up later, and we'd get you there!"

Harry hunched his shoulders and looked at the pavement. Dudley was technically right, but he had hoped he could get to mrs. Figg and spend the afternoon there before returning to his aunt and uncle. Dudley would usually have forgotten or lost interest in Harry Hunting at that point.

"Now, put your bag down, freak. You're going to take your beating, and be glad it isn't worse!"

Harry gulped, but did as he was told. A small part of him was incensed, furious that some idiot had put up a fence on one of his best escape routes. If it wasn't for that, he'd already be long gone, Piers had been keeping close to the others, so had been as good as guaranteed to get away.

As Dudley and his gang closed in, all Harry could focus on was his fury at being caught and his fervent wish to be anywhere but where he was. He should have gone for the fire escape at the school. He would have been trapped on the roof, but Dudley and the others wouldn't have known where to look for him.

And suddenly, with a sharp pop! there he was, on the school roof! He stared around in wonder and confusion, noting that it was definitely the school roof, recognising the various exhausts, chimneys and the top of the fire escape on the one side. Had he - had he teleported?!

Harry laughed, loudly and delightedly as he savoured his freedom. He could teleport! And talk to snakes!

"What the bloody hell!"

All he could do was laugh, and celebrate that he could go around anywhere as he wished, free.


9-year-old Harry Potter hummed to himself, enjoying his favourite part of the day, gardening chores. He was alone, in decent weather, tending to rosebushes and chatting with the polite adder snake who made its home there. Recently, he had even been able to find a pair of gardening gloves. He hadn't been allowed a pair of Petunias, and they would be taken from him if any of his family saw them, but had been able to hide them away on the roof facing the backyard, by soundlessly popping up and down to get them with his teleporting.

He had been practising since he had discovered he could do it, the day he had escaped from the Dudley gang, and could as of 2 weeks ago do it soundlessly. Or near enough, that no one noticed so long as there was even a small amount of background noise to cover for it. He hadn't even been caught for Harry Hunting in 2 years! At least, not without his aunt and uncle locking him up for Dudley and his followers to find.

But Harry determinately turned his thoughts from that topic, and focused instead on the snake, who had slithered around the bottom of the rosebushes to catch a bit of sun getting through the leaves. He smiled, and quietly asked if it was prepared for its hibernation, since it was nearing october. From inside the house, his aunts voice rang,

"Freak!"

Harry's eyes widened, quickly tearing the gloves from his hands and beginning to pack them under the bush. With any luck, Petunia wouldn't notice them.

"Freak! Answer when I call! I need to go to th-"

The abrupt stop in the middle of a sentence made Harry's head snap up. His eyes widened, as he saw where her eyes were focused. Following his arms under the rosebushes, she was staring at the gloves he was in the process of hiding. The gloves, and the snake who had moved onto his hands!

"Aunt Petunia! It isn't wh-"

Her shriek interrupted him, and he didn't get to go on, as great lumbering strides could be heard from through the open doors, leading into the house.

"Boy!" his uncles voice thundered, "What are you doing out there?!"

"Vernon! Vernon, it's a snake! He's keeping a snake in our garden!"

Aunt Petunia's answer caused a brief stop, then his uncle's running came loudly, before he burst out into the garden. He spared only a brief, thunderous look at Harry, before he made a straight line to the garden shed. Tearing the door open, Harry saw him grab a shovel, and couldn't stop himself from speaking out.

"Uncle Vernon, please! It hasn't done anything. It only hunts small small mice and insects, it helps the garden! Please!"

Vernon didn't react beyond the beginning of an ugly purple flush in his cheeks. He grabbed Harry roughly by the shoulder and shoved him away, Harry giving a choked-off gasp of pain at the treatment. The snake evidently didn't like that, as it reared up and hissed at his uncle, as well as a cry that only Harry understood.

"Do not hurt the sspeaker!"

Vernon stopped, and Petunia gave a small shriek as she took a couple of steps back. His uncle didn't stay still for long however, and with a venomous look at Harry, lifted the shovel and gave a powerful swing down, cracking the snake over the head with the flat of it. Harry choked as he stiflied the beginnings of tears, watching as his uncle Vernon brought the shovel down two times more times, and finally kicked his only friend over, where the snake lay still, dead.

"Boy! How dare you keep this snake here, in our garden! Scaring my wife like that..! You won't get food for a week! You'll stay in your clo- room for that long as well! And your back will have my belt, like it's never gotten it before! You won't be able to lie on your back for a month, when I'm done with you!"

Harry barely heard the tirade of abuse that followed the proclamation, as he stared numbly on the dead body of his only friend. That snake had been with him for nearly as long as he could remember, certainly for the majority of his life. He couldn't breathe, couldn't hear, couldn't think. But most of all, he couldn't feel anything but helpless.

It was later that day, when he lay on his stomach in his closet, crying softly from the pain of his bleeding back, at the start of his week-long punishment, that he promised himself. Swore to himself. He would never be this helpless, this powerless again. He would find a way. A way to be safe, to have friends, to go wherever he wished to, and most of all, to protect and defend all those things from people like the Dursleys, so he could never lose them again!


And 2 weeks before his eleventh birthday, a letter, handwritten with ink, on thick off-white paper, arrived and told Harry Potter of that way. That wondrous, incredible and magical way, he was going to fulfil that promise. That vow.