A/N: None here.
Disclaimer: Harry doesn't belong to me, blah, blah, blah. I only own Amelia, Ebony-Crested Dragon snakes, and any and all Dark Woods harps. Oh, and I do use some of the same techniques Rowling uses with some fun lines I always enjoyed, so please don't sue me! I need all the money I can get for my student ambassador trip!
Parseltongue will be "~...~"
Chapter 13: The Snake and Her Mistress
--------------------------------------------
Harry set the bag of crisps on his trunk after settling his rules with the Dursley's. They followed him out to the entryway, and with a swish and flick of his wand, Harry pointed at his trunk and said, "Wingardium Leviosa!"
Harry, wand still holding up the trunk, turned his head and asked, "Now, where is this room I'll be staying in?"
"Second door on the right, second floor," said Petunia.
"Thank you," replied Harry, and he began leading the trunk and crisps up the stairs. He opened the door with his free left hand and looked around the room. It was completely digsuting; there were endless amounts of wrappers and bags from food left all over, and remnants of long forgotten toys and such everywhere. The only things that looked untouched in this room were the books on the shelf just above the turned over bed.
Mumbling to himself, and angrily noting the family had followed him upstairs and was watching him once more, he growled at Dudley, "My God! If this is your second bedroom, I don't even want to see the state of your first one! You people might want to back up."
Setting the floating trunk down on the mussed bed, he started pointing around the room at the wrappers and bags, moving them all into one large pile on the left of the room, and he put all the broken toys on the right in the far corner. Amelia had slithered off of him at this point, saying she wanted to explore the house. Harry told her to only go in the back yard if she went outside.
"She's going to explore your house and possibly back garden. Don't even think of bothering her," he noted, and then pointed at the left pile of trash.
"Aduro!" And the pile of stuff was ablaze in a heap of black flames. In a matter of seconds, the pile was nothing, completely burned. Not a single cinder was left on the ground, and the flames left as quickly as they had come. The Dursley's hadn't had the chance to even react by the time it was done.
This had cleaned up the room considerably, and Harry pulled his trunk off the bed and next to the broken desk across from the bed. He turned towards the Dursley's, who hadn't moved or closed their mouths in minutes, faces stuck in a look like a silent scream.
"Would you mind?" sneered Harry and closed the door in their faces. He looked at the bed and felt the sudden need to lay down in a weariness he had not noticed. However, he was going to clean this thing up first.
"Lectus converto," he said, pointing at the bed. It instantly became a miniaturized version of the bed he had at home in the chateau, a sleigh bed with dark ebony wood ornately decorated with little carvings of which would appear differently to every person who viewed them. Harry's viewing was of a forest clearing. A large orb, either a sun or a full moon, hung in the sky, and standing in the center of the clearing was a group of figures he had never understood: a dog, a wolf, a horse, a snake, a fox, and a raven. Never had they been more detailed than now, but Harry didn't care at the moment. The bed still had its original sheets on, and who knew where they had been.
"Abluo" quickly cleaned the sheets and comforter, and he quickly fixed the tan colour.
"Coloro." The sheets had become a fine jet black cotton, and the summer comforter had been turned a sumptious red, as though a fount of blood had stained the entirety of it.
"~Harry! Harry, let me in!~"
Harry walked over to the door and cracked it open for Amelia to enter and closed it again, turning the little knob which Hermione had said would lock the door. He opened his trunk and pulled out a silk pair of white boxers, changing into them and laying his robes back in his trunk to deal with later. Turning towards the bed, Harry crawled under the covers and pulled them up to his chin. Amelia curled up into a little ball under the pillow. He dazed off as he fell into sleep.
"Let me sleep between blood and death, for I will be assured the sleep of the dead."
---------------------------------------------
He awoke in the early morning of the day after his arrival, blearily blinking around at the darkness of the room. He looked at a little black box on the bedside table and at the little rectangles forming the numbers 5:41.
'Must be an electronic clock,' thought Harry rising slowly from the bed. 'Where's a light?'
He looked around the room in which everything was slightly blurred at the edges. It had been like this for a few weeks, ever since his trip through the trap door, but he blamed it on exhaustion. He not slept very soundly at all since that night except for just now. His dreams were constantly filled with childhood memories of Tom, and he always took such a long time to get back to sleep after one.
He found what he had been looking for as he stumbled over to the door and flicked a little switch. The room instantly flooded with light, and Harry was in awe. He flipped the little switch again and the light was extinguished just as quickly. He finally flicked it back on again and went over to the bed, folding the sheets and comforter back in place. Amelia came out from under her pillow and laid her full length on the bed, seemingly stretching.
"~Hey Amelia, do you want another Sickle?~"
"~Surely, Harry. I can already feel my magic coming back.~"
Harry dug through his trunk and pulled out a Sickle, walking back over to the bed and setting it in front of his familiar. She easily picked the piece of silver up in her mouth and swallowed it whole. Her eyes, already a shade of pale silver, shone a moment a luminous silver and faded back their normal color.
"~So, what kind of magic do you have?~"
"~Well, you would find out if you read the book Blaise gave you for the holidays on my kind, but I'll be nice and tell you.~" Here she pulled herself in a bit more, and Harry sat on the floor so as to look at her at eye level.
"~Our species was formed thousands years ago. A Dark witch by the name of Silecia created us. Ah, I still remember her. She was a vision of beauty, as though one of the goddesses that the ancient civilizations worshipped had come to earth.~"
"~Wait a moment. You say you remember her?~"
"~Oh yes. I was of the first brood she made. I daresay I was her favourite out of the six broods she created.~"
"~But Nott had said you were young for your kind.~"
"~That man had no knowledge of our species, simply our name. He just told you that because of my size, which isn't even close to my true size. Simply a space saving form, I assure you.~"
"~Go on.~"
"~Thank you. Well, I remember our Mistress quite well, and I say she thought of me as her favourite because I was different from my siblings. The first brood, while all quite intelligent, never had taken on personalities. They were just simply there, living with no sense of self. I was the only one that had any sort of sense of self among fifty siblings.
"~Now, I was deeply devoted to my Silecia, and she to me. We were as sisters, and she being a Parselmouth only brought us closer. Of course, many men and even a few women had fallen in love with her. I could not blame them. Her vibrant white and silver tresses fell in a light shower to her feet, and she always wore long flowing garments of the same type on her form, reminding one of the ever graceful willow. She walked with such a grace to seem like she was merely gliding. She had skin like the moon had bestowed her with its pale radiance, and her red eyes gave off a depth and intelligence that I've never seen since. She was a wise and rich young woman, and she surely could have had any man or woman she wanted. However, she denied all relationships or lovers, for she was completely devoted to her learning, and all her followers were the same way.~"
"~Followers?~"
"~Yes. My Mistress was the only witch for miles and miles around, and she would take in young children that she found possessed the gift to teach them. This was the way it had worked back then before the schools of magical learning came into being. Masters would take on apprentices, and they would pass on the knowledge to the next generation.
One lovely day, when all around was green and fresh, and she sat in her long, flowing gown, I remember curling up in her lap in this very form and asking, 'My dear Mistress, so intelligent and caring of heart, how did you create us, myself, my fellow sisters and brothers?'
And she answered, in her voice that would be able to make the very angels weep in its beauty, answered, 'My dear beloved Amicus (for that was my name at the time), I will tell you, for you are the only to ask, and I will tell you so the knowledge will not be lost to the ages that you will endure.
Now, it was on a day such as this that I had begun plans for creating you and the first brood. I would take the eggs my Occamy familiar produced and use these as the basis for this new creature. I never had to ask her permission, for as soon as she laid them, she had died; how, I do not know. I took the eggs of purest silver back to this place. I soaked them in a potion for a year, a potion consisting of great foreign dragons. The fringed dragon, the violet-eyed dragon, and the rare dragon with the most ravenous need for the flesh of my kind. You hatched of your own accord, naturally.'
I asked her, 'But why then do I desire the taste of silver to flesh unlike other snakes I have met?'
'Because it holds your powers in check until such a time that you need them and makes them grow over the years.'~"
Harry rested his arms on the bed and laid his head down on them.
"~What kind of powers did you have?~"
The snake shifted slightly, so that her head was looking out the window at the sunrise flooding the room.
"~Oh, we were all influenced differently. I myself have the power to change my size at will, be able to dive to the deepest depths of waters, withstand the strongest heat, and have a venom that cannot be held in any sort of container as it melts things from the inside out. It doesn't matter what it is, whether it be metal, wood, or flesh. Anything and everything will burn and melt. My Mistress said I was bestowed with the best gifts of all the others.~"
"~What happened to her?~"
"~Ah, mortal death. What a sad day it was for all of us. Her followers quickly left after she was placed in her snake-engraved tomb, and one by one, we six broods dispersed until I was the only left, living in the silver mine she had been entombed in. We, my brothers and sisters, are widely dispersed and many of us have perished over the years. I believe I'm the only one in Britain.~"
"Boy! It's time for breakfast! Get down here quick if you want anything!" came the unwelcome roar of Vernon Dursley, breaking the air of nostalgia in the room. Harry glanced at the electronic clock which now read 7:28.
"~Come on Amelia, or, would you like to be referrred to by your Mistress' name for you?~"
"~I am perfectly fine with your name, Harry. Go down to your own breakfast; I think I'm going to lay around here for a bit.~"
"~See you later then,~" said Harry, and he left the door open a crack as he left for the kitchen.
"~Goodbye, my Master, my Sidereus,~" hissed the little snake, sleeping in the face of the red dawn.
------------------------------------------
Wingardium Leviosa- Well, of course we all know that one.
Aduro-
Lectus Converto- Lectus-bed Converto- to convert
Coloro- to colour
A/N: A bit of filler here; we get to learn a bit more about Amelia, or Amicus. She looks pretty good for being at least 2,000 years old, doesn't she? And she talks about her true size, and this body being merely a space saver? What's up with that? Well, I know, but you don't. Only Shorty knows, as I've discussed certain ideas with her which she will not be allowed to reveal to anyone.
Review responses:
None, as I posted this with Chapter 12.
Again, would you rather be Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas or a vampire?
(December 5, 2003)
Disclaimer: Harry doesn't belong to me, blah, blah, blah. I only own Amelia, Ebony-Crested Dragon snakes, and any and all Dark Woods harps. Oh, and I do use some of the same techniques Rowling uses with some fun lines I always enjoyed, so please don't sue me! I need all the money I can get for my student ambassador trip!
Parseltongue will be "~...~"
Chapter 13: The Snake and Her Mistress
--------------------------------------------
Harry set the bag of crisps on his trunk after settling his rules with the Dursley's. They followed him out to the entryway, and with a swish and flick of his wand, Harry pointed at his trunk and said, "Wingardium Leviosa!"
Harry, wand still holding up the trunk, turned his head and asked, "Now, where is this room I'll be staying in?"
"Second door on the right, second floor," said Petunia.
"Thank you," replied Harry, and he began leading the trunk and crisps up the stairs. He opened the door with his free left hand and looked around the room. It was completely digsuting; there were endless amounts of wrappers and bags from food left all over, and remnants of long forgotten toys and such everywhere. The only things that looked untouched in this room were the books on the shelf just above the turned over bed.
Mumbling to himself, and angrily noting the family had followed him upstairs and was watching him once more, he growled at Dudley, "My God! If this is your second bedroom, I don't even want to see the state of your first one! You people might want to back up."
Setting the floating trunk down on the mussed bed, he started pointing around the room at the wrappers and bags, moving them all into one large pile on the left of the room, and he put all the broken toys on the right in the far corner. Amelia had slithered off of him at this point, saying she wanted to explore the house. Harry told her to only go in the back yard if she went outside.
"She's going to explore your house and possibly back garden. Don't even think of bothering her," he noted, and then pointed at the left pile of trash.
"Aduro!" And the pile of stuff was ablaze in a heap of black flames. In a matter of seconds, the pile was nothing, completely burned. Not a single cinder was left on the ground, and the flames left as quickly as they had come. The Dursley's hadn't had the chance to even react by the time it was done.
This had cleaned up the room considerably, and Harry pulled his trunk off the bed and next to the broken desk across from the bed. He turned towards the Dursley's, who hadn't moved or closed their mouths in minutes, faces stuck in a look like a silent scream.
"Would you mind?" sneered Harry and closed the door in their faces. He looked at the bed and felt the sudden need to lay down in a weariness he had not noticed. However, he was going to clean this thing up first.
"Lectus converto," he said, pointing at the bed. It instantly became a miniaturized version of the bed he had at home in the chateau, a sleigh bed with dark ebony wood ornately decorated with little carvings of which would appear differently to every person who viewed them. Harry's viewing was of a forest clearing. A large orb, either a sun or a full moon, hung in the sky, and standing in the center of the clearing was a group of figures he had never understood: a dog, a wolf, a horse, a snake, a fox, and a raven. Never had they been more detailed than now, but Harry didn't care at the moment. The bed still had its original sheets on, and who knew where they had been.
"Abluo" quickly cleaned the sheets and comforter, and he quickly fixed the tan colour.
"Coloro." The sheets had become a fine jet black cotton, and the summer comforter had been turned a sumptious red, as though a fount of blood had stained the entirety of it.
"~Harry! Harry, let me in!~"
Harry walked over to the door and cracked it open for Amelia to enter and closed it again, turning the little knob which Hermione had said would lock the door. He opened his trunk and pulled out a silk pair of white boxers, changing into them and laying his robes back in his trunk to deal with later. Turning towards the bed, Harry crawled under the covers and pulled them up to his chin. Amelia curled up into a little ball under the pillow. He dazed off as he fell into sleep.
"Let me sleep between blood and death, for I will be assured the sleep of the dead."
---------------------------------------------
He awoke in the early morning of the day after his arrival, blearily blinking around at the darkness of the room. He looked at a little black box on the bedside table and at the little rectangles forming the numbers 5:41.
'Must be an electronic clock,' thought Harry rising slowly from the bed. 'Where's a light?'
He looked around the room in which everything was slightly blurred at the edges. It had been like this for a few weeks, ever since his trip through the trap door, but he blamed it on exhaustion. He not slept very soundly at all since that night except for just now. His dreams were constantly filled with childhood memories of Tom, and he always took such a long time to get back to sleep after one.
He found what he had been looking for as he stumbled over to the door and flicked a little switch. The room instantly flooded with light, and Harry was in awe. He flipped the little switch again and the light was extinguished just as quickly. He finally flicked it back on again and went over to the bed, folding the sheets and comforter back in place. Amelia came out from under her pillow and laid her full length on the bed, seemingly stretching.
"~Hey Amelia, do you want another Sickle?~"
"~Surely, Harry. I can already feel my magic coming back.~"
Harry dug through his trunk and pulled out a Sickle, walking back over to the bed and setting it in front of his familiar. She easily picked the piece of silver up in her mouth and swallowed it whole. Her eyes, already a shade of pale silver, shone a moment a luminous silver and faded back their normal color.
"~So, what kind of magic do you have?~"
"~Well, you would find out if you read the book Blaise gave you for the holidays on my kind, but I'll be nice and tell you.~" Here she pulled herself in a bit more, and Harry sat on the floor so as to look at her at eye level.
"~Our species was formed thousands years ago. A Dark witch by the name of Silecia created us. Ah, I still remember her. She was a vision of beauty, as though one of the goddesses that the ancient civilizations worshipped had come to earth.~"
"~Wait a moment. You say you remember her?~"
"~Oh yes. I was of the first brood she made. I daresay I was her favourite out of the six broods she created.~"
"~But Nott had said you were young for your kind.~"
"~That man had no knowledge of our species, simply our name. He just told you that because of my size, which isn't even close to my true size. Simply a space saving form, I assure you.~"
"~Go on.~"
"~Thank you. Well, I remember our Mistress quite well, and I say she thought of me as her favourite because I was different from my siblings. The first brood, while all quite intelligent, never had taken on personalities. They were just simply there, living with no sense of self. I was the only one that had any sort of sense of self among fifty siblings.
"~Now, I was deeply devoted to my Silecia, and she to me. We were as sisters, and she being a Parselmouth only brought us closer. Of course, many men and even a few women had fallen in love with her. I could not blame them. Her vibrant white and silver tresses fell in a light shower to her feet, and she always wore long flowing garments of the same type on her form, reminding one of the ever graceful willow. She walked with such a grace to seem like she was merely gliding. She had skin like the moon had bestowed her with its pale radiance, and her red eyes gave off a depth and intelligence that I've never seen since. She was a wise and rich young woman, and she surely could have had any man or woman she wanted. However, she denied all relationships or lovers, for she was completely devoted to her learning, and all her followers were the same way.~"
"~Followers?~"
"~Yes. My Mistress was the only witch for miles and miles around, and she would take in young children that she found possessed the gift to teach them. This was the way it had worked back then before the schools of magical learning came into being. Masters would take on apprentices, and they would pass on the knowledge to the next generation.
One lovely day, when all around was green and fresh, and she sat in her long, flowing gown, I remember curling up in her lap in this very form and asking, 'My dear Mistress, so intelligent and caring of heart, how did you create us, myself, my fellow sisters and brothers?'
And she answered, in her voice that would be able to make the very angels weep in its beauty, answered, 'My dear beloved Amicus (for that was my name at the time), I will tell you, for you are the only to ask, and I will tell you so the knowledge will not be lost to the ages that you will endure.
Now, it was on a day such as this that I had begun plans for creating you and the first brood. I would take the eggs my Occamy familiar produced and use these as the basis for this new creature. I never had to ask her permission, for as soon as she laid them, she had died; how, I do not know. I took the eggs of purest silver back to this place. I soaked them in a potion for a year, a potion consisting of great foreign dragons. The fringed dragon, the violet-eyed dragon, and the rare dragon with the most ravenous need for the flesh of my kind. You hatched of your own accord, naturally.'
I asked her, 'But why then do I desire the taste of silver to flesh unlike other snakes I have met?'
'Because it holds your powers in check until such a time that you need them and makes them grow over the years.'~"
Harry rested his arms on the bed and laid his head down on them.
"~What kind of powers did you have?~"
The snake shifted slightly, so that her head was looking out the window at the sunrise flooding the room.
"~Oh, we were all influenced differently. I myself have the power to change my size at will, be able to dive to the deepest depths of waters, withstand the strongest heat, and have a venom that cannot be held in any sort of container as it melts things from the inside out. It doesn't matter what it is, whether it be metal, wood, or flesh. Anything and everything will burn and melt. My Mistress said I was bestowed with the best gifts of all the others.~"
"~What happened to her?~"
"~Ah, mortal death. What a sad day it was for all of us. Her followers quickly left after she was placed in her snake-engraved tomb, and one by one, we six broods dispersed until I was the only left, living in the silver mine she had been entombed in. We, my brothers and sisters, are widely dispersed and many of us have perished over the years. I believe I'm the only one in Britain.~"
"Boy! It's time for breakfast! Get down here quick if you want anything!" came the unwelcome roar of Vernon Dursley, breaking the air of nostalgia in the room. Harry glanced at the electronic clock which now read 7:28.
"~Come on Amelia, or, would you like to be referrred to by your Mistress' name for you?~"
"~I am perfectly fine with your name, Harry. Go down to your own breakfast; I think I'm going to lay around here for a bit.~"
"~See you later then,~" said Harry, and he left the door open a crack as he left for the kitchen.
"~Goodbye, my Master, my Sidereus,~" hissed the little snake, sleeping in the face of the red dawn.
------------------------------------------
Wingardium Leviosa- Well, of course we all know that one.
Aduro-
Lectus Converto- Lectus-bed Converto- to convert
Coloro- to colour
A/N: A bit of filler here; we get to learn a bit more about Amelia, or Amicus. She looks pretty good for being at least 2,000 years old, doesn't she? And she talks about her true size, and this body being merely a space saver? What's up with that? Well, I know, but you don't. Only Shorty knows, as I've discussed certain ideas with her which she will not be allowed to reveal to anyone.
Review responses:
None, as I posted this with Chapter 12.
Again, would you rather be Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas or a vampire?
(December 5, 2003)