Disclaimer: My name is not J. K. Rowling. I don't own Harry Potter and I never will.

"Parseltongue"

"Normal speech"

'Thought speech'

Flashback

"Parseltongue in Flashback"

AN: Thank you so all so much for reviewing! It really helps encourage me to write faster! Review Thanks at the bottom!

Chapter 2

The first thing Harry noticed was that he was warm.

He moaned and shifted a bit, only to find that he slid on something so soft and comfortable he felt like he was lying on a cloud. He tried to open his eyes but found that it was too bright and he immediately shut them.

"Awake now, little one?" a soft voice came from his right. Harry jerked up and scrambled left in fright, away from the source of the voice. He had nearly fallen from the bed when two strong hands latched onto his arm, preventing him from escaping further. Terrified he looked up to see not his Uncle Vernon as he'd expected but what seemed to be a blurry form of a man. He blinked rapidly and squinted to try and see who it was.

"Oh you can't see me can you little one? Here, your glasses." The man quietly said handing Harry his glasses which he immediately put on. Finally, Harry could get a good look at the man.

He seemed to be a man in his twenties with dark ebony wavy hair. He had a pale complexion, as if he didn't go out in the sun too often. But what drew Harry's attention the most were his eyes. Two vivid crimson eyes, the color of freshly spilt blood. They seemed to glow with an inner light, smothering as if they could see into his very soul. Harry shivered and lowered his eyes.

"Who… who are you?" Harry asked, stuttering in the utter turmoil he was feeling. "Where am I? How did I get here? Why doesn't it hur-"

"Shhh, slow down. You are in my manor in Scotland. I was the one who brought you here. I also healed most of your injuries, but it may take a while for all of them to completely heal." The man said patiently. "And as for who I am, you may call me Tom."

"But why?! Why did you help me? How could you have gotten me here? I don't understand!" said Harry anxiously. "And how can I be mostly healed, I'm sure some of my bones were broken!"

"Calm down! I heard you cry out for help. I apparated you to my manor and healed you through various spells and potions. It takes a while for some injuries to heal but should be completely fine in a day or two." Tom said calmly.

"Huh? What do you mean you heard me? What's does apar-apparated mean? And there's no such thing as spells and potions. Magic's not real!" Harry cried agitatedly.

"Not real?! You mean to tell me that those filthy Muggles never told you? That you don't know about magic and how you're a wizard?!" said Tom who was both astonished and infuriated. "How dare they deny you of your heritage! That you should be kept ignorant of what is your right is utterly inexcusable!"

"I'm a what?! Bu-but that's not possible! Un-Uncle Ver-Vernon said that word ma-magic was bad!" Harry stammered out.

"WHAT?!" Tom roared and leapt to his feet. At just over 6 feet, he made a very intimidating figure. Harry shrank back, not sure of what to make of him. On one hand he had apparently saved him, on the other he looked ready to kill. What Harry didn't know was that Tom was indeed angry enough to head over to Little Whinging, Surrey and start murdering the Dursleys. But when Harry let out a whimper from the killing intent Tom was leaking, Tom finally noticed the effect he was having on him.

"Oh I'm sorry little one. I didn't mean to scare you. It's just that the thought of someone growing up in such an environment is revolting to me. Combined with the fact that they kept you ignorant of such an important piece of yourself is utterly repulsive." Tom soothed. He hadn't meant to scare Harry. In fact he wanted Harry to like him.

Harry nodded slowly, wanting yet not wanting, to believe him.

"So I'm not a freak?" he asked hopefully.

Tom closed his eyes in despair. 'So similar.' He thought. 'Our lives seem to be so similar. That damn bumblebee must have had something to do with this.'

"No Harry, you are not a freak. You are just a little boy with magic. Anything bad that your relatives said about you was a lie. A lie you hear me." He said quietly, with his eyes still closed. He turned his face toward Harry and opened his eyes. Ruby met emerald. The pure honestly seen in his eyes made Harry's walls break down.

"'m not a freak. 'm not." He started sobbing. "Not. Not. Not." As he began chanting, Tom leaned forward and awkwardly enveloped Harry in a hug. Harry fisted Tom's silk shirt and soon it became damp with tears. The weeping slowly subsided to a few hiccupping sobs and then it stopped altogether with Harry limp in Tom's arms.

"Harry?" Tom said quietly. A tiny snore was his response. Chuckling, he tried to get up only to find Harry was still tightly holding onto his shirt. Pausing, he made up his mind and crawled onto the bed beside Harry. After drying his shirt with a sweep of his hand, he awkwardly held Harry to him. Harry immediately snuggled towards the warmth Tom provided.

Chuckling again, Tom hissed, "Sleep well, my little snakeling."

Meanwhile at Hogwarts

Tweeeeet! Tweeeeet! Tweeeeet!

A shrill whistle rang over and over in the headmaster's office causing many portraits to be roused from their dreams.

One hot-pink and aqua robe wearing headmaster tried to cover his ears with his pillow in the adjacent room to no avail. If it were possible the whistle began to shrill even more loudly. Finally one of the portraits, a Phineas Nigellus Black, cried out. "ALBUS DUMBLEDORE COME HERE AND STOP YOUR WHISTLE'S INFERNAL SHRIEKING!"

Unable to take the combined assault of both the portrait's yelling and the shrill whistling, Dumbledore finally forced himself to get up to check what was the matter.

Picking up the orange and lime-green whistle, he spoke the password in which to activate command that stops the whistle and revealed what was the source of the emergency. The whistle gave one last extremely loud shriek, as if to annoy the already annoyed occupant of the office, and spat out a small slip of pink paper out of the mouth of the whistle. Dumbledore took one look at the paper and paled drastically.

At 21:17 pm Harry Potter was removed from Little Whinging, Surrey, England.

Albus Dumbledore was now wide awake and was feeling the beginnings of a headache that would likely rival the one he had when he was told Honeydukes was considering discontinuing lemon drops.

Back at Slytherin Manor

"Hmmn…" Harry sighed as he slowly gained consciousness. He was enveloped in warmth. Never had he ever felt so comfortable. He snuggled into his breathing pillow to try and sleep some more before Aunt Petunia came to wake him up. 'Wait a minute. Breathing pillow?' His eyes snapped open to the sight of a silk covered chest. He looked higher and blushed when he saw Tom's amused visage come into view.

"Good morning. Did you sleep well?" Tom rumbled gently to Harry's ears. Harry blushed and started to scramble away. He was sure he wasn't allowed to stay on the bed. In his panic he nearly fell from the bed again. Tom only just managed to grab a hold of him before he tumbled off. "Be more careful. I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

"It wasn't a dream." Breathed Harry, amazed at the fact. He also was confused as to why Tom was being so nice to him. "Why are you so nice to me? I mean, thank you for helping me, but I don't know you. I don't think I've met you in my life."

"We have met but in the distant past when you only a young infant. As to why I'm so nice to you… Well I have a vested interest in you." Tom replied.

"Huh? What does vested mean? And why are you interested in me? I'm nothing special." Harry said, feeling both perplexed and dejected.

"Vested interest means a special interest in protecting whatever is to one's own advantage. Your relatives might not have thought so but you are a very special boy. I know that because I can feel it. Your untrained magic swirls gently around you from time to time. Just from the feel of it I can tell you're going to be powerful."

"You can feel my magic?" said Harry in wonderment. "How can you do that? I can't even feel it."

"Haven't you ever experienced a euphoria of something surging deep inside you at times? Especially when you are angry or scared?" replied Tom, watching closely as a look of puzzlement appeared on Harry's face. "Euphoria means elation, joy, and exhilaration. Comprehension flashed across Harry's face as well as excitement as Harry apparently remembered the events that it had occurred.

"I remember." Whispered Harry, so low that Tom almost didn't catch the last part. "I felt it when I ended on top of the school roof after being chased by Dudley."

Tom felt a surge of anger at the words. 'How dare those revolting Muggles do that to my Harry!' he seethed. He was pulled from his brooding by the sound of Harry speaking.

"-still doesn't explain why you can feel my magic." Harry said, curious. 'How did Tom feel my magic when I know he was there during those times.'

Tom debated on how to explain thing to Harry and finally decided on a portion of the truth.

"A long time ago when I first met you we… accidentally formed a bond. It connects us in a way that we can feel each other's emotions and can mentally communicate as well." Tom said carefully, omitting many of the details and distracting Harry with another piece of information.

"Oh, that's why you heard me! I tried to cry out for-" Harry stopped midsentence, horrified.

"For who?" Tom asked feeling an emotion deep in his chest that he could not quite identify.

"Neko!" Harry cried out. "I forgot all about her! She is going to be so worried! I need to find her!" Harry was horrified that he had forgotten his best friend in such a short time.

"Hold on, there's no way you could get to Little Whinging right now so calm down. Now tell me who this "Neko" is?" Tom was horrified to realize the emotion he was feeling was jealousy. 'Ridiculous, I've only really known him for a few hours, How can I feel jealous?' he thought, completely ignoring how he had felt when he had heard of the abuse Harry's relatives had done to him.

"Neko is my best friend! She's a cat that I got a long time ago!" Harry said agitatedly. Tom mentally sighed with relief and then immediately berated himself. 'I don't care. I am only taking care of him so he'll be loyal to my cause and not to that damn coot's.' He thought unconvincingly to himself. 'I'm only angry because I want him to be loyal to me and only me.'

"Tom." Harry whispered. Tom frowned and broke out of his musings to face him. "Tom, can you get Neko? Neko is my only friend. She was the only who didn't hate me and I don't want to lose her."

Tom shifted uncomfortably. He still distantly remembered what it was like to be alone with only a single creature friend. When he had had his first snake friend, he had cared deeply her. Later he had avenged her death by killing the pet rabbit of the boy who had beheaded her. He looked into Harry's distraught face and sighed. 'I will do this to make him trust me.' He thought to himself in vain; the argument sounded weak even to him.

"Alright, I will apparate to Little Whinging to search for your cat later. But first we have to get up and eat something." Tom said sternly.

Just then, Harry's stomach gave a loud rumble. He blushed and said, "Oh I guess I am a bit hungry." He heard a soft rumbling sound and looked up to realize that Tom was chuckling. 'He looks so amazing when he's laughing.' Harry thought a bit dazed. Embarrassed he tried to distract Tom by asking a question.

"What's apparate mean?"

Tom's chuckles slowly subsided enough for his to answer. "To apparate is to move from one location instantly to another. It is similar to the muggle idea of teleporting." He explained while getting up and walking to his wardrobe to look for a set of robes.

"Muggle?" Harry wondered aloud as he accepted a set of robes from Tom. He watched in amazement when with a swish of his hand, Tom had shrunk the robes into a small enough size to fit Harry.

"Yes, muggle. A muggle is a person who does not have magic. You and I are called wizards. There are three kinds of wizards; pure-bloods, half-bloods, and mud-bloods. Pure-bloods are those who were born from a wizarding family; they are usually considered the elite. Half-bloods are those who were born one magical parent and one muggle. Mud-bloods or muggle-borns as some people call them are those that are born to muggle parents. No one knows why they have magic. The opposite of mud-bloods are squibs. Squibs are people who were born with no magical ability but have two magical parents. You and I are both half-bloods." Tom lectured as he changed robes and helped Harry into his robes when he saw Harry struggling.

"We're half-bloods? So my Mum or Dad was a muggle?" Harry asked softly curious. He had never known anything about his parents. To hear anything made his heart ache for what he did not have yet he still wished to know more about the ones who had borne him into the world.

"No, both your parents had magic. You are considered a half-blood because your mother was a muggle-born." Tom replied.

"I thought you called them mud-bloods? Why are there two names for it?" asked Harry, his curiosity piqued.

"Well yes I did. However, generally mud-blood is considered an offensive term for muggle-born, which is more commonly accepted." Tom said a bit uncomfortably. "I generally use mud-blood but I use muggle-born when referring to someone I respect." Tom ushered Harry into the bathroom where they proceeded to brush their teeth and do other various morning activities. Through out this Tom constantly answered questions about this and that, slowly allowing Harry to become more comfortable with him. Harry was still a bit wary but much more relaxed when they finally sat down for breakfast.

"Boppy." Tom called. With a pop, a small creature appeared. Harry yelped and nearly fell from his chair. In from of him was a 2-3 feet tall creature with thin limbs, a huge head, and tennis ball sized eyes. What made it more bizarre was the fact that it wore a mini set of deep forest green wizarding robes.

"What is that?" Harry said cautiously, both curious and wary.

"Boppy is a house-elf. House-elves are magical beings who work for wizarding families. They do all the house-hold chores from cleaning to cooking." Tom replied, amused at Harry's reaction. Granted, he should have warned Harry but he couldn't help but give into his darker half, even if it were only minor things. "Bobby, please prepare two plates of eggs, bacon, and sausage with toast. I would also like some vanilla-bean coffee. What would you like to drink Harry?" he turned to Harry.

Harry could only stare at Tom. He was going to let him eat at the table with him. He had expected to at most only get a slice of toast and watch while Tom ate but this… He was offering to let him eat with him. Like Harry was his equal. Harry started to tear up and Boppy immediately panicked.

"Oh noes sirs! Boppy is sorry! Boppy is so sorry for upsetting Master Harr-" the poor house-elf cried ready to burst into tears.

"Shhh. It's alright Boppy, I don't think it was you who upset Harry." Tom said soothingly. "Harry? Harry what's wrong? Please don't cry."

"It's- It's just that I've never been allowed to eat with the Dursleys. I only got the leftovers or a slice of toast once they started eating. They've never ever asked me what I wanted or were as nice as you've been to me. I mean, you barely know me and are this nice but they…" at this he silently broken down in tears. Tom stood up and crouched by him and gently enfolded Harry in a hug that was less awkward then the ones he had given before. 'Those damn muggles will pay when I get my hands on them.' Tom silently vowed as he gently rocked Harry back and forth.

"Master Tom is a wonderful master! He is much kinder to Boppy and all the other house-elves than any other master. He let us take breaks and choose whatever we wish to wear. We is very proud to work for such a nice master." Boppy declared as she wiped away her tears with an enormous sky-blue handkerchief.

Harry smiled and managed to stop crying. When he looked up he saw that Tom's shirt was damp from his tears. Dismayed he chanced a glace at Tom's face, only to be stunned at what he saw.

Tom was looking at him with those warm scarlet eyes, his visage in a gentle expression. Tom patted Harry's head, wiped away his tears, and got up. He dried his shirt with a wave of his hand and asked Harry again, "What would you like to drink Harry?"

Trembling slightly, Harry softly replied, "I'd like to try some orange juice please."

"Boppy will get the food right aways sirs!" Boppy chirped enthusiastically. And with a pop, she was gone.

As they waited quietly, Harry peeked at Tom. As usual, he was quietly brooding away with a serene expression on his face. 'I think I'll peel the skin off their bodies while accioing each fingernail off.' Tom thought viciously as he plotted what to do with the Dursleys when he had the chance. 'Unfortunately, with the way things are going now, I won't have any real chances to go kill them as long as Harry is around. I think I'll let them live for now and when Harry is older we'll go together.' Tom thought ominously.

Just then, Boppy popped back in. Harry's mouth watered as he smelled the delicious food that was set before him. He hadn't eaten anything except for the grapes and toast from the day before. When he thought of the grapes he automatically thought of Neko and it tugged his heartstrings to think that he had in a way abandoned her.

Once he was sure he was allowed to eat, Harry dug in, eating as fast as possible.

"Slow down Harry. We don't want you throwing all that up later if you eat too much too fast." Tom admonished.

Swallowing his mouthful, Harry continued to eat but at a much slower pace. This time he managed to savor each individual favor he had never been allowed to eat except in cold scraps he snuck away. Once he was done he eagerly waited for Tom to finish. When Tom was done too, he waved his hand and the empty dishes disappeared. Harry frowned at the sight.

"Tom? How do you do that? I know you do it with magic but how?" Harry wondered.

"Normally most wizards and witches have wands. They speak an incantation, wave their wand in a certain way, and the spell shoots from their wand. There is also non-verbal spells where the spell caster only thinks their incantation and does not voice it. Another one is wandless magic in which no wand is used. It takes a strong wizard to do either one. It takes an extremely powerful wizard to do both." Tom explained. "Now, I promised to go look for Neko. I need you to visualize what she looks like. I will be using Legilimency to look into your mind to see what you see. It is similar to the muggle idea of mind reading."

Harry closed his eyes and thought hard about Neko. He thought about her sleek black and white fur and her dainty feet. He though about the way she refused the food he tried to give her and how her tried to help feed him. But the thing he thought about most was how beautiful her eyes were and how her left eye was exactly the same beautiful shade of ruby as his were. He felt a light nudging in the back of his mind but after a few probing feelings the pressure was gone and he opened his eyes.

"I'm going to go there and perform a special locating spell. It was specially made for lost pets. All you need is a visualization of the pet in mind. If that does not work, I'm afraid I won't be able to bring Neko here. It that alright Harry?" Tom asked quietly.

Harry nodded frantically, "Yes that's alright. Will I go there with you?"

"No, not now. It is too dangerous. I will explain when I come back. It shouldn't take more than ten minutes at the most." Tom said firmly.

"Oh, okay. Please bring Neko back." Harry pleaded.

"I'll try." With that, Tom vanished with the faintest of pops.

Harry paced frantically. Minute after minute passed with him becoming more agitated. Soon he was starting to imagine wild scenes of impossible situations that could have delayed Tom.

Pop.

Harry turned around so fast he nearly fell. When he saw Tom he nearly collapsed in relief. Then he noticed something was missing. Neko was not with Tom. Heart sinking he looked at Tom.

"I'm sorry Harry. I looked around repeating the spell many times. I even apparated around the area saying the spell. That was why I took so long. I'm sorry, I couldn't find her." Tom said sadly. With a great cry, Harry launched himself towards Tom and started to cry.

He cried over how Tom had tried so hard to help him. He cried over how he had lost his best friend. But he cried the most over how he felt he had betrayed Neko.

To be continued…

AN: Thanks again for reading this!

Ostensibly Lucidina: Mr. Bunny agrees and thinks he might set his plans into action soon.

potteraddict1210: Yay cookie! dances

Soler: Thanks for the tip! I changed it as soon as I saw your review. ;p

animegurl088: Why thank you!

VoicesInTheWalls: Thankies! ;)

Cursa: Thank you. I love HPLV nut sometimes it's so hard to find well-written ones. I hope this one will be consider good to you! ;p

Jynx101: Thank you! I have great plot plans for this fic!

Shizuka Yuui: Curious hmm? Did you guess right who was the voice? ;)

brandygurl016: I hope you liked my update!

Thanks again to all who read this. Those who faved this, put it on their alert, and/or reviewed; you make me feel so love! theatric sob

P.S. Mr. Bunny said he's going to try and make me update at least once a week. I have a lot of HW that I ignore in favor of this. (bleah HW)

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