Title: Life as a Snake

Author: FairyTails13

Disclaimer: I own nothing…but the plot.

Rating: M

Summary: What do you do when the only person you know can understand you is your most hated enemy? And I don't mean this figuratively people. Harry, after making some weird witch mad, has found himself seeing from a different angle, with no arms and with scales.

He is a snake, very literally.

How the hell is he supposed to defeat Voldemort now! Or does he want to after meeting Nagini from a different perspective.

Warnings: SLASH(Male/Male parings) Dark Harry, Snake Harry

Parings: Lord Voldemort/Harry, Severus/Remus, Draco/Hermione

Spoilers: Books one – five, I will not include book six, and though I am finally getting around to reading seven, I will not include it either. Dumbledore is alive. Also, please refer to the HP Warning on my profile, please.

Key:

"Talking"

'Thoughts'

"Parseltongue"

"Mind link between Voldemort and Harry"

A/n: Okay, after this you have to wait a week for the next update, okay?

Chapter: Intruders

It is a bustling day at the Order HQ as everyone got ready for battle; Severus had warned them of an attack that would take place and they wanted to be ready for it.

Remus, however did not care as he sits in his room, surrounded by objects designed to keep track of the moon's movements in the sky. He could not shake the feeling something is wrong. It had started a week ago, and had started to build up until it is a mass of worry in the pit of his stomach. He just could not shake it.

He did not care about the mission tonight because he would not be allowed to go on it, the full moon shown on all of his interments making sure of that. In a few hours he would be locked up in the room whose door is behind him. The only thing keeping him from already locking himself up being the potion he had yet to receive.

After the night at Hogwarts when he had endangered the life of another teacher and his students he made the promise to himself to never be so careless again. If he had bitten Harry he did not know how he would have lived with himself. The werewolf brought his hands up to his face, massaging the on-coming headache away.

He had come to realize he would do anything for that boy, even die for him. After Sirius died that is all he saw left to live for. But he is not sure how he would do that when the Headmaster will not let him get close to the green eyed boy, cutting off any advances he makes to help the last member of his pack.

It really kills him inside to not be able to be there for his last pack member, and it made it even worse that the man he looked up to is not willing to help in the least. He is starting to doubt his trust in the Light's leader and wonder if he would be better off with his sire. The wolf in him howls in agreement.

A fellow werewolf would at least understand his pain and try to ease it.

These thought are cut off with a strong knock on his door reminds him of why he is waiting.

He hurries to the door that leads to the hallway, opening it for the Potion's master who is using both hands to hold his precious cargo of goblet full of Wolfsbane. Remus suspected he used his foot to knock. "Thank you Severus."

The black haired man just snorted, "Just take it already Lupin."

The werewolf had grown used to the treatment placed on him because of his condition so he just shrugged the words off and gently took the potion away, swallowing it in one flow, wanting the get the taste over with as soon as possible. Once drained he set the goblet down and turned to the cage chamber.

As he walked, Severus fallowed, knowing the wolf would need his help to lock it. Once in Remus sat in the middle of the chamber. Behind him Severus swished his wand and the solid steel collar and chain next the wolf locked it's self around his neck. The chain is dead-bolted to the stone floor with the aid of magic to make sure they could not break, even under the incredible strength of the werewolf they are meant to restrain.

"I still don't understand why you bother with that Lupin."

Remus did not turn to him, but he answered, "Better safe than sorry. I don't want to bite anyone."

"Do you not trust my potion making skills?"

Remus did turn at the offended tone, "No, the potion does wonders for me. I would express how thankful I am for your help every full moon but I believe that would just annoy you."

They stared at each other before Severus turned to leave, "Just don't hurt yourself to much this time around. I keep depleting my supplies healing you."

Even with the rude tone in the Potion Master's voice Remus could read between the lines, "Thank you Severus."

The man just snorted and locked up the wolf with a flick of his wand, the heavy door slamming shut and many locks keeping it tight. In the chamber Remus let his head hang, "What happened to us Sev…?"

~!~

It is nearly eleven at night and Harry found himself contently reading a book. He found the book on the night stand where Tom had placed it before leaving with Nagini. The Dark wizard had not been able to sleep well that night and had gotten the book to occupy his busy mind.

Harry took it as a blessing and gently cradled it in his coils, occupying his own mind.

He found the book utterly interesting as it gave advantages and disadvantages to using spells in Parseltongue versus the usual spells in Latin. They were just as effective if not more, but incredibly hard to cast; not because of the user's skill but the person's understanding of the snake language.

It is one thing to be able to speak it and understand it he found, but a whole different thing to read it and write it. Like any other language those parts of it does not come naturally, you have to learn.

But unlike other languages, for a human to understand a snake is not natural, it's magical. And the first part of the book gets that out of the way with small incantations and little lessons. By the time he had gone through those chapters with a mild understanding it is good because the rest of the book is written in the language it teaches.

He kind of hated that he could not gain the help of those small incantations as it took him an hour to read a paragraph and another hour to understand it. He could not even ponder the idea of getting Tom –he still felt it odd to refer to the Dark Lord as such- to cast them for him, suspicion is the thing he is trying to avoid.

Harry closed the book with a snap, done hurting his brain for the moment. He uncoiled himself from around it and carefully placed it on the bedside table where he found it.

The serpent gives forth yawn and rubbed his eyes with the tip of his tail, not needing to but did it out of habit. He turned to the grandfather clock against the far wall and found it had been nearly four hours since the Death Eater meeting had started; they had most likely started the raid by this point.

It had shocked the boy-who-lived to see just how much the attack is planned, not at all being at random like the order had thought the attacks were. Each battle is a strategic move in the war, and Harry knows that if Dumbledore does not figure that out soon the light is going to start to lose their footing.

Then he wondered if the headmaster already knows, but then doubts it. The old man is knowledgeable, but even he can not know about these well laid out plans and not have told the order about them. Or him for that matter.

On second thought, Dumbledore's goal seems to be to leave the Boy-Who-Lived, the one he is placing the weight of the world on, in the dark.

Deciding he would do some laps around the room to stretch and clear his mind Harry slides off the bed with a thump; a moment later another thumps sounded off in the room, startling him. He looks around for the source and frowns, 'Well, that is odd. Am I hearing things now?'

Letting it go as a figment of his imagination, Harry makes his way around the bed, letting his body stretch out it its full length to get all the kinks from holding a book for so long out. Half way through his stretch another thump sounds off, this time louder, bringing Harry to full alert. He looks around quickly, but notes nothing different about the room.

So he let his over sensitive tongue do the work.

There were no new scents but he felt a new warmth. Just as he concluded that they were too big to be rodents the door to the Dark Lord's bed room burst open and two figures hurried in to the room. He scented the air and knew he had never smelled them before. Both were human and dressed as Death Eaters so Harry started to calm.

That's before he looked into Tom's study -the only way into the privet bed room from the hallway outside- and saw papers thrown everywhere and furniture over turned: A complete and utter mess.

A Death Eater would rather die than create such a mess in their master's private rooms. Harry glares at the two figures, pushing up against the sheets of the bed to make sure he is hidden from their sites. Suspicions are proven right when they talk.

"Are you sure he has it?"

"Would we be putting our lives a risk like this if we were sure he did not?"

"Then where the hell did that damn rat say it would be?"

"I don't know! He just said it would be here in You-know-who's privet rooms."

They are not Death Eaters; when the followers of Voldemort refer to their Lord they refrain from calling him anything but 'Dark Lord'. Hidden in the shadows cast by the candles hanging on the wall, the young wizard decides that he will watch them for a little bit longer, and then see if he could do something to capture them. He is not really sure how at that point, but a plan is forming.

One of the cloaked figures walks past the bed and Harry watched his feet and smelled them to memorize the scent, then wished he did not as the smell of body odor almost makes his eyes water and he does not even have tear ducts.

The figure stops in front of the library door and opens it with a confidence of someone who does not belong should not have, "It's a book. Maybe it's in here."

Harry decides he will make his move when the other figure stops shifting through Tom's dresser, making his way across the room to the door of the library. With practice from snagging rats, Harry jetted his head out at the second figure's legs as the cloak shifted to the side and revealed ankle, and sinks his fangs into the tender flesh, blood filling his mouth.

As a reaction the leg kicks, flinging Harry's slender form across the room. Not willing to let his fangs be ripped out he let go, only to suffer the consequences with a thump against the wall that had him seeing stars.

"Bloody Hell! What is that?"

Harry looked up, a little more than dazed, as the second figure got down on a knee to check on his bleeding joint. The first figure spots him where he fell onto the floor, blood smeared around his mouth, "Don't fret yourself, it's just a non-poisonous snake."

The second figure's head jerks up, his beady eyes snapping to the green snakes position, "Well don't let it get away! You-know-who can talk to snakes! That damn thing is a witness we cannot afford!"

Harry is not able to get away as the first figure charged at him, wand drawn. He waited until the idiot is close enough and strikes, sinking his fangs in once again. This time he is swung into the air and he wrapped his body around the first thing he came in contact with, the man's neck. He released the man's thigh and goes for the face, biting in with no mercy as the man screams in anguish.

Refusing to loosen his hold on the intruder's neck he tightens as much as he can, not giving any holds to grip his slick form.

"Damn it you idiot!" the second man grunted, "Hold still."

A blast from the second man's wand cut into Harry's back and he let a scream of his own letting free a high pitched screech. Another blast and he is falling to the ground, pain blinding him and making him numb as his body instinctively coils upon its self to protect vitals body parts.

A kick connects with his head and Harry again goes flying, this time against the side of the bed. Falling to the floor he tries his hardest to slide under the bed, to get a barrier between him and his attacker, but another blast from the second man's wand stills him. Deep cuts marred his once beautiful scaled body as he struggled to stay awake.

"Shit! An Alarm went off! They are coming back!"

"Fuck the mission! Let's get out of here!"

Another kick sent Harry under the bed, a pool of his own blood making it easier to be slid against the carpet, "Damn snake! If you weren't here we would have found it!"

With a loud 'pop' their scents disappear and become still fresh remnants of their presence, Finally Harry allows himself to blacked out, hoping he will be found before he passes.

~!~

Tom had felt it in the mist of battle, one of his alarms going off with a faint tingle in the back of his mind.

The Dark Lord is an over suspicious man, so nearly everything in his rooms has an alarm on it, not just the doors like most people. He had placed an alarm on Drake, just to make sure he stayed safe. Whoever hurt the snake must have been pretty good if that is the only alarm that went off.

The plan is going accordingly, Dumbledore had fallen for the information Severus had told him. But when that single alarm went off everything is halted for him and his inner circle. They had to work hard to keep a HQ, for one to be found and destroyed is a large blow to their side.

So at the slightest sign of a disturbance, he and the inner circle left the lower Death Eater's to finish the mission so they could go protect the manor. When they arrived they separated throughout the grounds and then entered the manor through all exits, checking every Death Eater to be found and looking for anyone else that might not belong.

After finding a hole in the wards Voldemort flew down the halls of Riddle Manor, checking the wards on hidden rooms that kept dark treasures and other valuables from plain sire before going to his own room, more specifically, his library.

Every book in his collection is priceless, Slytherin Family Heirlooms or Dark volumes found nowhere else.

But oddly, above all else the Dark Lord found himself worried for Drake. The green snake had grown on him, his cunning and intelligence giving the snake a home in the Slytherin heir's tiny black heart. As he jets down the halls he does not worry about checking on the Death Eaters he passed, knowing who they were the instant he felt their Dark Mark in the edge of his guarded mind.

Around his waist he could feel Nagini growing worried. She is the only living being that had near limitless assess to his thoughts and she had also felt the alarm. "Hurry Tom!"

Her words bit at his feet, making him run faster until he slides to a stop in front of his rooms where he nearly froze, shocked at what his eyes find.

The usually securely shut door is wide open, a window to the chaos which lay on the other side.

His study before him lies in ruins, his papers everywhere with his desk drawers and the desk itself out of place. The chairs where broken and thrown about; his cloak cabinet doors are also open and the contents tossed about becoming a part of the mess.

The Dark Lord suddenly feels a dread that pauses the breath in his throat. He cannot believe someone has been able to break into his rooms without him knowing it. As he walks in House elves pop up and look about with as much shock as he feels.

Mind snapping out of shock, Tom quickly gained some control in the chaos by ordering some of them to find the inner circle and summon them to his rooms. The others he ordered to start cleaning and search for anything missing as he looks for Drake.

Stepping over his broken and misplaced possessions he hurries to his room where he an Nagini left Drake hours ago, resting in the bed. The pool of blood that travels under his bed makes his heart drop, but does not hold him back from action.

The Dark Lord springs forward, pushing the bed away with potion gained inhuman strength, finding the green boa covered in its own blood and not moving.

"Milord!" From the other room Narcissa is the first to arrive and see the mess.

He called for her and urged the medic to heal his pet. She nearly blocked him out as she set to work, her wand out. She weaves spells around the green reptile and fixed anything that she found needed it and her lord let her work, stepping back after Nagini slipped to the floor, resizing.

Tom had never seen his long-time friend so worried about anyone but him and yet he is not jealous like he thought he would be. He finds himself just as worried as the constrictor and cursed whoever did this and vowed that they would regret it with their lives.

He hears sounds of shock from the other room and knows the rest of his Inner Circle have arrived, but by that time the House Elves had half the mess picked up so they did not know the shock he had known. The Dark Lord barely saw his potion's master rush next the Malfoy Medic with potions to help.

Spells could only go so far before blood replenishing potions are needed.

Looking around he finally shook himself from the odd state he had unknowingly shifted into, realizing that the room is not in as bad condition as his study had been. His head whipped to the nearly dead serpent, recollection that Drake had stopped who ever had done this from getting any further dawning on him.

Again he finds himself in utter shock; he had only known the creature for a week and it is already willing to risk its life for him.

A house elf popped up next to him, startling him from his thoughts, "Nothing is missing Master Riddle."

The blood gone from his bedroom floor the Dark Lord is able to think again. His room is back in order, his two snakes on his bed and his followers waiting on the tip of their toes for his orders. He nodded to the elf, dismissing it.

Red eyes found his medic and she answered without waiting, "He will be in a coma as he heals for the next few days but he will be back to normal after he wakes. Any later and he would have been un-savable from blood loss." She paused, "There is blood around his mouth, not his. Whoever did this did not leave without some punishment."

A slight smirk lifted to her lips and Voldemort found himself feeling proud before he got down to business, "Whoever broke in is incredibly skilled at disarming my wards and alarms. If Drake had not attacked them we would not have known they were here until after the raid. Nothing is missing so we won't have any idea on what they were looking for until our only witness wakes."

Bellatrix stepped next to her sister, the only other female in the inner circle; not because of the rumors of her sleeping with her master but her knowledge and connections with the vampires. Fangs shined in the flame light as she spoke, "Then for now that means we need to find how they got in."

There were nods around the room and the thoughts sunk in. Whoever it is, they had to be sure that what they wanted is here before they even thought of breaking into the most dangerous Dark wizard's privet rooms. And to be sure they needed someone on the inside to assure them, someone on the inside to get them in.

"Whoever it is, they broke out of the wards to escape," Severus muttered more to himself than the rest of them. He held up a vile of blood he had collected from the boa's mouth, it would be useful in potions he knew his master would want to be brewed once the culprits were caught. The potion's master felt anger boil up in him, and knew he is not the only one.

As Slytherins they had held tight on what they gained, and this HQ is like sacred ground for the Dark Order, not even prisoners are kept within the wall, let alone killed on the grounds. Riddle manor is a sacred home to most of them, a place where they do not have to worry about being persecuted by the outside world, the world against not only them but what they stand for.

And it had just been violated, broken into and destroyed with the help of someone on the inside. That someone had just signed their death warrant and now they had the darkest wizards at their necks, waiting for revenge.

TBC

A/n: Edited: 2/27/11

Four down, two to go.

Thank you for reading this,

~FT