Tread Among Serpents

The first night Harry spent at the Dursleys after the end of his sixth year was filled with vivid nightmares of Dumbledore falling in a burst of green light, and of hundreds of dead bodies crawling out of the water, their decaying hands desperately reaching for Harry.

Something shook Harry awake, a great jolting sensation that left his entire body tingling. Harry tried to sit up but couldn't, since his entire body was covered with his blankets. And for some unfathomable reason, Harry's arms weren't working so he was unable to push the covers away from himself.

It took Harry minutes of crawling on his belly to get free. For some reason, his bed had grown in size. As had the rest of his room. It was only then that Harry discovered that he was no longer human. As he stared down his own body, Harry came to the very unwelcome conclusion that he was in fact a snake.

A rattling noise echoed through his bedroom and it took Harry a long, terrifying moment to understand that it came from his own tail.

He was a rattlesnake. His scaly body was covered in black and grey and white markings and his tail kept rattling. The more Harry's anxiety grew, the louder his tail rattled.

The sound of locks being roughly opened announced Uncle Vernon arrival. The door burst open, revealing Uncle Vernon in his striped pyjamas filling most of the doorway. "What is this ruddy noise, boy? Us decent people are trying to sleep."

Harry's tail rattled harder still, since Harry couldn't speak a single word to explain the situation to his uncle. Then again, what was there to explain? Sorry, I somehow magically got turned into a snake but I have no idea why. Yeah, that would put his uncle right at ease, Harry thought with a quiet snort.

Uncle Vernon released a loud yelp the second he spotted Harry the snake lying on top of the covers. He moved faster than Harry ever expected him to and pushed the door to Dudley's bedroom open. "Dudders, give me your cricket bat! There's a great big bloody snake that might have eaten the freak!"

Fucking hell. Uncle Vernon was going to kill Harry and Harry had no way to stop it. Every instinct to survive activated inside Harry at once, and just as Uncle Vernon returned holding a cricket bat, Harry spotted his window which was opened just a crack. Harry threw himself from his bed onto his desk and then launched himself out of the window, thinking that falling to his death was preferrable than being beaten into a bloody pulp by his uncle.

But thankfully the fall didn't kill him and Harry landed in the hydrangea bushes beneath his window. The sun was just peaking over the roofs of the houses across the quiet street. Harry ignored his uncle's shouting and slithered down the bushes and onto the grass as fast as he could. He had no idea what he was going to do, but he would figure that out as soon as he was out of immediate danger.

At the edge of the Dursleys' front yard Harry found a surprise.

A long, brown snake with a black zigzag pattern across its back lay there, half on the grass and half on the sidewalk.

"Excuse me," Harry said to the other snake, which raised its large head the moment it spotted Harry hurrying in its direction. "My uncle is trying to kill me. I'm not really a snake. Do you know where I can find some good hiding places?" The other snake really was massive, so they must know how to hide very well in the middle of a busy town.

"Potter?" the other snake asked in a familiar voice filled with incredulity. Its dark eyes shone red in the early morning sunlight.

Harry halted abruptly, body coiling tightly as his tail started rattling again. That sounded like Voldemort. Somehow, that one word said in parseltongue sounded exactly like Voldemort. "Oh no," Harry said, trying to slither to the side.

"You did this, didn't you?" Voldemort the enormous snake demanded as he rushed towards Harry, mouth opened and long fangs bared. "You thought to be rid of me by turning me into a snake, but you got caught in your own spell."

"No, I don't know what happened." Harry opened his own mouth on instinct, showing off his own fangs.

Just then the front door flew open and Uncle Vernon barged outside, still wielding the cricket bat.

Harry shot forward, towards a parked car on the street, to take cover. A loud cry made him look over his shoulder, and he watched in shock as Voldemort sank his huge fangs into Uncle Vernon's thigh. Voldemort released the man at once, quickly ducking out of the way of the cricket bat Uncle Vernon brought down. The bat left a sizable dent in the grass as Uncle Vernon fell backwards, clutching at his leg.

Voldemort rushed away and joined Harry under the parked car. "Was that your uncle? He will most likely die from my bite. You're welcome."

"What?" Harry drew back from Voldemort in disbelief. Harry didn't like Uncle Vernon one bit, but he also didn't want the man to die like that, bitten by Voldemort the snake in his own yard. "Muggles have antivenom and stuff. They can treat snakebites."

Voldemort tilted his head and gave Harry a long look, clearly giving the impression he thought Harry was saying something particularly stupid. "I'm quite certain I am currently a Bushmaster. It's the largest viper in the world and native only to South-America. Antivenom does exist to treat a Bushmaster envenomation, but I doubt one can find it in a provincial hospital in Surrey. If your uncle is even able to properly identify what species of snake just bit him."

"Oh." Harry lowered his head and ignored Uncle Vernon's screams, now joined by Aunt Petunia's alarmed cries as she joined him on the lawn in her pink robe and fluffy slippers. His tail started rattling louder as he realized his uncle lay dying on the lawn right there and then.

"Cease that ruckus." Voldemort bumped his large head against Harry's neck. "You'll give away our position to every muggle in the vicinity."

"I can't help it," Harry argued, his whole body igniting with outrage at this entire situation. "You must have done something to turn us into snakes. Some stupid ritual that went wrong." Harry got a sudden idea and he gave Voldemort a superior look. Well, as much as he could manage while embodying a snake. "You used snake venom in that resurrection ritual, didn't you? And my blood. That might have caused this."

"That was two years ago," Voldemort said in a dry tone. "Of course that doesn't now suddenly turn us into snakes, even if there had been anything in that ritual capable of such a transformation."

Some of the neighbours had woken up and were stepping out of their homes to check out the ruckus.

"We need to go," Harry said as he realized that soon enough the whole street would be swarming with muggles, probably including police officers on the lookout for a huge, dangerous snake. Without seeing if Voldemort was coming or not, Harry slithered out from under the parked car. He kept to the dry gutter and found some shelter under the next parked car. This way he managed to leave Privet Drive without any of the muggles seeing him. As he turned the corner, he spotted Voldemort following him closely.

As some of the initial shock began to wear off, Harry started to realized how truly fucked he was. He was stuck as a snake for unknown reasons and the only person he was currently able to talk to was his arch-nemesis, who very inconveniently was also stuck as a snake.

Yeah, they were well and truly fucked, weren't they?

Sticking to the gutters they managed to make their way to the nearby park without being spotted. It helped that it was early still and most people were still in bed. In the middle of the park was a patch of trees with lots of bushes and ivy around them. Harry slithered into the plants, trying to find the most cover he could as he coiled up. Voldemort coiled up beside him and they remained quiet as they listened for any threats, their tongues flicking in and out of their mouths as they tasted the air.

A crow released a sudden caw in the tree above them and Harry's tail started rattling at once.

"Stop that or I will bite off your tail," Voldemort said with real anger in his voice.

"I can't help it," Harry insisted with a sigh. "It does that on its own. I think I'm a rattlesnake."

"Of course you're a rattlesnake," Voldemort said, sounding like he very much wanted to roll his eyes. "An Eastern Diamondback, by the looks of it. That still doesn't mean you should announce our presence at every opportunity."

Harry wanted to close his eyes and force his body to calm down, but it was at this moment that he realized that he didn't even have eyelids anymore. His tail started rattling louder as a whole new wave of anxiety swept through him.

"Be silent!" Voldemort recoiled a bit, opening his mouth to show Harry his fangs in a clear threat.

"I'm sorry," Harry hissed, feelings stuck somewhere between embarrassment and horror. "I just realized I don't have eyelids. Or arms or legs. How are we going to get out of this mess?"

Voldemort closed his mouth and flicked out his tongue a few times. "We will need assistance to reverse the ritual."

"So it can be reversed?" Harry asked, perking up a bit at that news.

"Depending on which ritual was used exactly." Voldemort lowered his head a bit, as though he was deep in thought. "It worries me that someone was able to get close enough to me to even cast any magic, let alone perform a whole ritual without me noticing. Unless…" Voldemort released a sharp hiss full of anger. "Severus. Of course."

"Snape?" A wave of cold hate filled Harry at the sound of that name. The memory of Snape casting a killing curse at Dumbledore was still fresh in Harry's mind.

"Severus has been brewing several potions for me since my return," Voldemort explained without looking at Harry. "It is possible that he managed to slip something in them, to render me unconscious long enough to perform a ritual."

"But why would he do this?" Harry asked, sounded just a bit hysterical. He really did not want to be a bloody snake, and he wanted to share the whole experience with Voldemort even less. "He just murdered Dumbledore for you. Why now betray you?"

"That is the question, isn't it?" Voldemort said quietly, his whole body taught with tension as he slid his coils against each other.

"We need to find someone close by who can help," Harry said, though he immediately realized it wasn't as simple as that. How were they going to communicate with whoever they sought out? That person would find two venomous snakes on their doorstep and chances were they would curse first and ask questions later.

"My closest followers who could help us are in Wiltshire," Voldemort said absentmindedly.

"I have a friend who lives in north London," Harry said, thinking of Hermione. "That's closest. I also have a friend who lives in Devon." Harry wasn't sure how the Weasleys were going to react to two venomous snakes turning up at the Burrow, though. Hermione was probably a safer bet, since Harry was certain he could find a way to convince Hermione he wasn't an ordinary snake but in fact her best friend stuck as a serpent.

Harry slid to the side a bit in the ivy until he found a small patch of bare earth. He turned his body around a few times until he could position his tail above the dirt. Harry tried desperately to drag his tail through the earth in a way that would create the letter H.

"What on earth are you doing?" Voldemort asked, looking at Harry with a tilt of his head.

"Trying to write my name." Harry couldn't get enough control of his tail, no matter how hard he tried. His whole body kept coiling up for some reason. "This way I can convince Hermione I'm her friend and not some random snake there to hurt her."

"Hmm." Voldemort all but pushed Harry out of the way so he could try writing in the dirt with his tail. He had a bit more success than Harry, though his letters were nearly indecipherable as well. Still, Harry had good hopes that Hermione would understand that the snakes on her doorstep were trying to communicate with her once she saw them dragging their tails around. They could figure out the rest from there.

"We should travel at night," Voldemort said once they were both resting again, bodies coiled up besides each other. "That way the muggles won't see us."

"We can follow the M23 north and then go straight through London to Hampstead," Harry said as he tried to figure out the exact distance they had to travel. "It might take us a while to get there, though."

"Well, it's not like we have anything better to do," Voldemort said in a dry tone, causing Harry to release an unexpected chuckle.

What an entirely fucked up situation they were stuck in, Harry mused as he sat there side by side with Voldemort as hours passed by. Harry had no idea if their plan was even feasible. If a couple of snakes could even travel that far across roads and a crowded city without being spotted. Or without getting runover by a car.

The weirdest part of this whole predicament was that Harry was now apparently working together with Voldemort of all people. But what else could he do at that moment? He didn't really want to work with Voldemort on anything, but Harry wanted to be by himself even less in their current situation. The idea of having to travel across the entirety of London all by himself as a bloody snake was terrifying enough that it gave him so much anxiety that it rendered him practically paralyzed. So, travelling with Voldemort it was, at least for the foreseeable future. Once they got to Hermione they could figure out the rest.

Hours passed as they remained hidden beneath the ivy, resting quietly beside each other. It must have something to do with their current bodies, but lying in wait like that wasn't even all that uncomfortable.

Occasionally Harry would ask a question when something popped up in his mind.

"Can't you do any magic in this body?" Harry asked once the sun stood high in the sky. "Nothing at all?"

"I am a snake, Potter," Voldemort said, voice full of frustration. "I have been actively trying to apparate for hours now, so you can draw your own conclusions from that."

Some time after that, Harry said, "You cannot harm my friend once we meet her. You have to promise."

"I promise I will not bite the one witch who might be able to turn us back to ourselves." Voldemort sniffed as though Harry was a fool for even suggesting Voldemort might do such a thing in the first place. Harry refused to apologize for worrying about Hermione, when he vividly remembered Voldemort biting Uncle Vernon.

Harry wondered if Uncle Vernon was still alive or not. He had no idea, and no way to safely find out without exposing himself.

Since it was the end of June, the sun didn't set until very late into the evening. Right as dusk approached, a familiar crack sounded outside the small cops of trees they were hiding in.

Harry's tail started rattling before he could even try to stop it.

"There you are," a very unwelcome voice said as a large body moved through the bushes in their direction.

Voldemort lunged forward, mouth opened and fangs poised to strike, but Snape was faster with his wand and rendered them both immobile as he levitated them in the air a few feet.

"This is a welcome surprise," Snape said as he crouched down in the shadowy undergrowth so he could look them both in the eye. "I had meant to only curse the Dark Lord, but getting rid of you, Potter, is a pleasant little bonus."

"What did you do?" Harry demanded, but of course Snape didn't understand a word he was saying. Harry might still be able to understand English, but Snape did not speak parseltongue.

Still, Snape seemed to get the gist of Harry's furious hiss. "I was betrayed, you see," Snape said, black eyes narrowed. "Dumbledore made me swear to always protect Lily's child, give up my entire life to keep you safe, only to then reveal you were always meant to die. The old man then forced me to take the blame for his murder, while he'd been dying for a year already."

Harry really wished he still had eyelids so he could blink in surprise and confusion. What the fuck was Snape talking about? Why did Harry have to die? Beside him, Voldemort released a long, furious hiss, as though he suddenly realized something.

Snape gave Harry a look that seemed full of quiet triumph. "You are a horcrux, Potter. You share a part of the Dark Lord's soul. That is why you were transformed as well when I performed the ritual, and that is why the Dark Lord was transported to you once the ritual was completed. Souls want to be whole, especially when subjected to powerful, dark magic."

Harry's head spun as he realized what Snape was saying. Harry was a horcrux himself, and apparently Dumbledore knew, had always known, that Harry had to die.

"Your uncle is dead," Snape continued, pulling Harry from his how horrified thoughts. "Which is the perfect setup for what happened to you, Potter. The Order will soon be convinced Death Eaters, or perhaps even the Dark Lord himself, took you from your bed in the early hours of the morning. Your uncle was clearly the victim of the Dark Lord's faithful companion, who is known for biting her Lord's enemies. I have already passed all the necessary information to the Auror department on where they can find all the Death Eaters. They will also find evidence of both of your demise, I'm afraid."

Fucking hell. If people believed that Harry was taken by Voldemort and was presumed dead, no one would even be looking for him. Harry tried to trash around in outrage, but Snape's magic kept his body immobile. This was a nightmare. And utter nightmare. This couldn't be true. Harry was asleep in his bed at the Dursleys, and he was stuck in a strange and terrible nightmare and any moment now he was going to wake up.

"Consider this a favour, Potter," Snape said with a smug smirk. "This way you at least get to live for a few years more. If you were still a human, I'd be forced to kill you." Snape stood up, stretching his body as he went. "That is my plan, you see. I am going to destroy the remaining horcruxes and then I'm going to move to a warm country where I can brew as many potions in peace and quiet as I want to without worrying about the Ministry trying to arrest me for murder. And since the transformation is permanent, you two get to live out your lives safely tucked away, together. Once you die, you will die for good," Snape said with a pointed look at Voldemort. "And my work will be done."

Harry tried to strike at Snape but was still unable to move. Snape conjured a burlap bag and manoeuvred Harry and Voldemort inside without any delay. Harry and Voldemort soon found their bodies wound together in a ball of coils as they tried to find a way out of the bag. The sensation of apparition made them both pause for a moment before they resumed their struggle.

Snape walked for perhaps five minutes, the bag swinging in his grip. "Imperio," he said as he came to a stop. Harry had no idea who Snape had just put under the imperius curse. "These are the snakes. Be sure to house them together. They are… unlikely friends."

"We don't usually house snakes together, especially not when they're such different species, but we can make an exception for them," an unknown male voice said. "Thank you for your donation. Many visitors will enjoy seeing them from now on."

The bag they were in jostled and was placed on a flat surface. They remained there for a long time. Harry and Voldemort both flicked their tongues almost desperately, trying to figure out where they were. They tasted many other snakes nearby, and other reptiles. There was even the taste of many kinds of mammals and birds in the air.

Harry had an idea of where they were, though he dare not speak it, since the thought was too terrible to even contemplate. Eventually their bag moved again and was finally opened, revealing that Harry's worst fears had become reality.

Their enclosure was quite big, it had to be said. There were warm rocks to bask on and a few branches to crawl over. There was even a small waterfall with a shallow pool to soak in. One wall was made entirely out of glass, while the other walls were painted with rock formations and large, green leaves.

"We're in a fucking zoo," Harry said, coiling up in a corner as he stared around their prison in shock.

"I am going to kill Severus," Voldemort said, coiling up in the opposite corner. "I am going to take my time torturing him and once I am done they'll be finding him for months."

"How?" Harry demanded, feeling as though this was all Voldemort's fault. "You're a bloody snake locked up in a zoo. There is no escaping this place."

"Watch me." Over the coming days and weeks, Voldemort would restlessly explore their enclosure over and over again, looking for ways to escape that simply didn't exist.

The first time they were fed thawed rats, Harry recoiled for a moment. He did not want to eat a whole fucking rat, thank you very much. But he was hungry and soon his instincts took over and he worked the whole rat down in minutes, his jaws stretching in ways he hadn't even known was possible. From that moment on, Harry ate the rats he was offered without complaint, because his body enjoyed the rodents plenty, even if his mind still freaked out a little at the thought of eating nothing but rats.

Harry liked to soak in their pool in the morning while Voldemort usually bathed in the evening. Harry's body was too thick and heavy to climb any of the branches in their enclosure. He'd tried once, but he quickly fell down with a loud thump, so he remained on the floor from that moment on.

Sometimes Harry and Voldemort would talk. They exchanged stories about their times at Hogwarts until they both ached with homesickness. Other times they wouldn't say a word for days and days as they simply went through the motions of existing as snakes.

Harry missed being a wizard desperately, but there was nothing he could do to change his situation. No matter how long and hard he thought about a way to fix the mess they were in, he was never able to come up with a realistic plan.

Lots of people shuffled by their window every day. Small children placing sticky fingers against the glass as they exclaimed in awe at the sight of the two large, venomous snakes. There was a sign below their enclosure that Harry could see reflected in the glass of the enclosure opposite theirs. It said Unlikely Friends, and told the story about how they were donated to the zoo by a private benefactor who'd kept the two snakes together successfully.

Harry tried talking to the other snakes around them, just to pass the time. Across from them lived a large King Cobra who was very vocal about wanting to eat the majority of the snakes around them. On their right lived a green mamba who seemed like a polite girl who was captured in the wild and who spent a lot of time reminiscing about the forests she'd been forced to leave behind. To their left lived a puff adder who was far too cranky to have a conversation with.

"I'm going to kill him," Voldemort muttered at least a hundred times a day, though of course nothing ever came of it.

Harry had no idea how much time passed. The corridor outside their enclosure was always dark and that made it difficult to tell time. Or perhaps being stuck as a snake made it impossible to understand how much time passed. Harry found that giving into his animal instincts more often than not made it easier to get through the days being stuck in a prison with Voldemort of all people.

Voldemort seemed to have found the same solution, since he hardly complained about anything, except often assuring no one at all that he was going to kill Snape. Being a snake and giving into your snake instincts at least came with a boatload of patience and the ability to sit still without ever getting bored, so they at least capitalized on that to keep themselves as sane as possible.

Harry had given up the idea that they'd ever be saved long ago. At first he'd hoped to one day see Hermione and Ron's faces show up outside their prison, but they never did. Just countless muggles gawping at them for a few seconds before moving on.

Eventually Snape visited them. His long, black hair was greying and he had it tied back under the black fedora he wore. "I have destroyed all your horcruxes," Snape whispered, but they heard him just fine through the glass.

With a furious hiss, both Harry and Voldemort threw themselves at the window, baring their fangs.

Snape chuckled and looked more amused than Harry had ever seen them. "I suppose snakes like yourselves live for a decade or two at the most. That means you have a few years left. Enjoy it. I'll stop by again soon to see how you're doing." Snape tipped his fedora at them and moved on with a smirk on his face.

"I am going to kill him so slowly it's going to take me a century to finally take his life," Voldemort said with a dangerous hiss.

Harry's tail rattled as he watched Snape's retreating back. If they ever got out of there, Harry was going to kill Snape himself before Voldemort could even think to torture the man.

If they ever got out of there.

The end.