Harry Potter was five and a half and had not gotten into any trouble for a few weeks. The last spot of trouble he was in had started with his neighbour's house on fire and ended with Aunt Petunia confiscating both his money and his gun. Harry had made sure to hide his treasures better since, and had moved everything to a space under his floorboards. While getting told off wasn't fun, Harry didn't get in as much trouble as he had expected. In fact, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon seemed much happier now, even though they were really quite cross the day of his adventure.

On the day of Harry and Dudley's "adventure", Vernon had spotted the plume of smoke from the motorway when driving back from Marge's. He thought nothing of it at first, but as he got closer and closer to home, he had the horrid realisation that the source was Little Whinging. His anxiety was steadily increasing as he neared Privet Drive, and it was not until he saw the commotion outside Mr Jones' that his panic subsided.

Vernon and Petunia had ultimately decided to keep the money and lock the gun in the safe, had grounded both Harry and Dudley for a week, and urged them never to speak of the incident again.

Since their adventure, Dudley had been much more interested in Harry's snake powers. Harry and Dudley still did their morning stretches together, but now they talked a lot more and played outside of doing the stretches as well. Dudley thought that Harry's powers meant he must be from another planet, like Superman, but Harry wasn't convinced. Mummy didn't like to talk about Harry's parents, which meant they must have been aliens and it's all very top secret.

Nathan's older brother collected comic books and was quite happy to trade the ones with snake characters for some of Dudley's pocket money. One of the comics mentioned a group of villains called the Serpent Society. Dudley, Harry, and Bob all thought that sounded really cool, so they had briefly tried naming their group that. Unfortunately, they shortened it to the SS, leading to an awkward conversation with Miss Librarian about Nazis and the Schutzstaffel. After that, they all agreed that their group didn't need a name.

After their stretches in the mornings, Dudley supervised while Harry practiced his snake powers.

"The comic says that King Cobra has flexibility like a snake and can fit in a gap that's 4 inches wide! You need to try that one."

Harry had already seen the tiny gaps that Bob could fit through, but didn't think to try it himself. Bob agreed that it would be quite cool, so Harry set to practising.

"Come on, you can do it! Try harder!"

Wondering what his boy was shouting about, Vernon peered into the garden only to see Harry lying on the ground, attempting to push his face through the pipe on the side of the house. Well, as long as the boys weren't getting into any trouble.

"Oh, and it also says he can't break any bones or hurt his muscles because he's so flexible! We should test that!"

…Blast it all.

With the several thousand pounds that Dudley and Harry had brought back, Petunia had been able to buy all sorts of new things for the house and garden. One of the things she bought was a custom dollhouse that looked like Number Four. This was not really a dollhouse though; Petunia had paid a man to set the inside up as a snake house. There were hiding holes, a heated area, and a water dish. There were neither a food dish nor a front door though, as Brownie enjoyed her freedom.

Petunia and Brownie continued to watch their programmes together, and Petunia had even become rather friendly with Charybdis. Harry had said that Charybdis wanted to grow large and beautiful, so Petunia had been showing her fashion magazines with the latest styles.

Becky loved being a librarian; she was able to help children on their quests for information and fun. Some patrons of the library were more challenging to serve than others, but she did enjoy a challenge. Harry Potter was one of the more difficult cases. She had watched him devour every wildlife book on snakes and reptiles, briefly move onto books about dinosaurs, and most recently move onto books about mythological snakes. She had a deal with Harry wherein he must read one non-reptile book if he wanted her to order a new snake book for the library. He learned rather quickly that many non-reptile books could relate back to snakes.

While his teachers fretted, the only rules of the library were to take care of the books, return them on time, and be respectful of others in the library. Becky wished that all children had such a voracious interest in learning, even if only about one topic.

"Harry! It says here that the villain Sidewinder can teleport!"

Bob said that snakes couldn't usually do that, but Harry could do things that normal snakes can't, so he tried anyway. Harry closed his eyes, focused very hard, felt an odd tug, and opened his eyes to find himself on the roof.

Next door, Mr Samson, who had been up all night playing computer games, stood up from his computer and went to bed, acknowledging that he had finally reached the stage of sleep deprivation that results in hallucinations.