Harry Potter was five years old and he had been practising stealth with Bob every day at school. He was a very dedicated learner and had reached a point that when, if he focused very hard, everyone ignored him. Half the time, it was because he unwittingly performed a Disillusionment Charm. The other half of the time, people were just ignoring the weird child hissing to himself.

In addition to stealth, Harry had been practising smelling with his tongue. Bob had explained how he gathered scents on his tongue, then touched his tongue to a special spot on the roof of his mouth to recognise them. Harry wanted to learn more about it, so he read up on the area. He was becoming an excellent reader, with in-depth knowledge about many highly advanced topics of snake biology. Unfortunately, while he could now both explain what a vomeronasal organ is and spell it, his advanced knowledge was restricted to snakes only, and he somewhat lacked common sense.

"It says human vomeronasal organs are in their nose!"

Harry spent a few minutes trying to get his tongue to reach inside his nose before giving up. He was getting rather frustrated at the limitations of his body.

Outside, during playground time, Harry practised smelling things without trying to get his tongue into his nose.

"It's a plant!" Harry exclaimed, excitedly holding up the bit of shrubbery.

Bob was remarkably expressive for a snake and somehow managed to put forth a look of exasperation. "You have to close your eyes and then guess."

Harry then spent the next few minutes stumbling around with his eyes closed and tongue out, before tripping on a tree root and landing face down at the bottom of a large tree.

"Uh… look at your cousin…" Nathan murmured, pointing to where Harry was still lying. Annoyed and slightly worried about what his mum would say, Dudley went to check on Harry, only to find him sniffing a hole at the base of the tree.

"Look, Dudley! It's perfect for tasting because I can't see what's in there!"

Dudley did not know what to say to that, so he walked back to where Piers and Nathan were playing Top Trumps.

Thanks to the morning stretches, Charybdis and Harry had both grown a fair bit. Unfortunately, Mr Number Six had seen Harry stretching when peering out of his upstairs window. Aunt Petunia had explained this away as morning yoga, to which Mr Number Six replied that yoga would do Dudley some good. Afraid of having to explain Harry to the neighbours, Aunt Petunia agreed.

Dudley agreed to morning yoga because Aunt Petunia bought him a wicked cool sports set. As Mr Number Six could see the garden from his window, she also bought a kit for Harry. Since then, Dudley had been joining him in the mornings and they had to do lots of different poses. Harry and Dudley both liked flat-on-the-ground stretches best.

Charybdis had moved from under the shed to Harry's room, as Petunia was worried about what Mr Samson from next door would think if he saw her. Petunia was still amazed that he did not notice the massive snake stretched out next to Harry that day. It made her think about when her sister started showing magic, but she quickly changed the subject because that was off limits and not good to think about.

Bob was always with Harry these days, curled around his neck. Petunia bought Harry a bunch of turtleneck shirts and jumpers to make sure nobody saw him. She didn't want to deal with teachers and their comments, and Harry did look rather smart in the new clothes.

Brownie still came and went, and always had interesting stories when she popped in. Since she first started speaking with Harry, she had somehow become much better at understanding human speech and knowing what was or wasn't interesting. If there was nothing going on in Privet Drive, she sat on the windowsill and watched EastEnders. Petunia noticed her one day and ended up putting planters on all the windowsills so she could hide while watching. It wouldn't do for the best source of gossip to get snatched by a bird, after all.

Harry continued to hunt frequently with Bob. Aunt Petunia bought him trousers with zip pockets because she got cross with him for letting his snacks escape. Sometimes he left crickets in his pockets for a while because he liked the noises they make.

One day, after smelling something interesting, Harry came across a nest with baby birds. Bob immediately ate one and offered the other to Harry. There was something uncomfortable about eating a baby bird, and he explained this to Bob.

"Would you prefer one with the feathers on? I did not think you would like the feathers, but we can wait stealthily until the mother arrives…" Bob hissed, slightly muffled by the bird he had only just swallowed.

Harry scrunched his nose up at the thought of a mouthful of feathers. "I just think it's a bit sad killing a baby one," he explained.

Bob nodded as best as he could with the lump in his throat, then imparted his words of wisdom, "Things die sometimes. If you feel bad about things like this, only kill things that are hurting you, or things you can eat."

Harry ended up leaving the baby bird because he wasn't that hungry anyway.

When Harry faceplanted into the tree at school, he had knocked a tooth loose. He had since been fiddling with it, trying to get it to fall out. Aunt Petunia told him off when she noticed him wobbling it. Bob encouraged him to wobble it because he wanted Harry to grow his sharp new tooth already. Harry did not know that was not how it worked for humans.

Vernon sat at the table, thinking things over, but still did not know what to make of the boy.

He was confused when he walked into the kitchen the other day to find the boy helping Petunia talk about soap operas with the little brown snake. Though, better to talk with the snake than to let any of the neighbours know she watched such common telly shows.

He was reluctantly impressed that he had gotten Dudley into fitness, but wished that it was something more respectable like rugby or boxing. Still, it was in the back garden, so nobody except for nosy neighbour Samson could see.

He was most unimpressed when the large snake was brought indoors, but had to admit that he had been a bit nervous mowing the lawn knowing that it lived out there. Better to have it indoors than accidentally mow the damn thing and make a huge mess of the grass.

Harry was reading his latest book about snakes when he learned about heat pits. He was already getting good at stealth and smelling with his tongue, and decided that thermal vision was his next goal. Bob was thoroughly supportive.

Now, while doing his smell practise, Harry also focused on trying to sense heat signatures.

Vernon watched the boy place steaming mugs of tea all over the garden, wandering around with his eyes closed and tongue out.

"Definitely something wrong with him…"