Harry was seven years old, and Aunt Petunia kept making him do different magical things. It was nice in a way to have her so interested in his powers, but none of them were remotely related to snakes, so he got bored very fast. One of the weirder things she had him do was point the green magic at some of the neighbours' gardens. That one was very boring and needed a lot of focus, and Bob said it tasted funny. Harry couldn't taste his powers, but he had started to get a much better sense of smell and taste, as well as the beginnings of thermal vision. It didn't work the way Bob described it, but Harry now had a sort of sixth sense for where warm, living things were. Additionally, his loose teeth had finally fallen out, and had been replaced by slightly sharp adult teeth which curved ever so slightly backwards. They kept getting caught, giving Harry an odd sort of snaggletoothed look at times.

Another thing Aunt Petunia had done was give him a bunch of books about magic. She said that it was important to know about things other than snake stuff, because he never knew how it might benefit him and the snakes in the future. When Harry realised the magician in one of the books was also called Harry, he actually was rather interested. Aunt Petunia had said it was normal people magic, so even Dudley could learn to do it. That led to Harry and Dudley learning sleight of hand and normal people magic, without ever using Harry's snake powers. Unfortunately, Uncle Vernon had not been told that they were learning normal people magic, and he almost fainted when he saw Dudley make an apple disappear. Dudley was a bit nervous at first, but when he Uncle Vernon realised what was going on, he was very proud of Dudley for having learned such an interesting trick. Harry thought it was a bit weird, because he could remember Uncle Vernon very much not enjoying Harry accidentally disappearing things… but maybe that's because he couldn't always bring them back again.

Petunia and Brownie still watched their programs together and Petunia was at the point that she could somewhat converse with Brownie without Harry's help. She only did it with the curtains closed, in the confines of the living room, of course. Brownie thought Petunia had a really dreadful accent, like she was missing teeth and part of her tongue, but it was still nice to be able to speak to a human other than Harry – especially because Harry had lost interest in the programs. Petunia, meanwhile, was very secretly overjoyed to be able to do something as magical as speaking to a snake and wondered if there were other no-wands-needed sorts of magic she could do.

Harry had been unable to find buried treasure or antiques after reading the book Petunia had got him, so she had turned to Brownie instead. After haltingly pointing out certain valuable artefacts and trinkets in somewhat broken sentences, Brownie got the gist and ended up bringing some interesting Roman coins and small artefacts to Petunia. Some of these now had a place on the mantlepiece and others had been sold for a shiny sum.

Dudley had got much fitter over the past few months and was now working on his health even outside of morning stretches. He could now sunbathe on the roof with Harry and Bob and could climb even bigger trees at school. Nathan and Piers thought his magic tricks were really cool, and Bob said that he was actually gaining the skills needed to be an "Awesome Spy Human". That prompted Dudley to start watching James Bond films so he could learn everything else he needed to know about being a spy.

Bob had a comfortable life. He was now in Year 3 with Harry, learning all about multiplication and fractions. During recess, Harry would chat with Bob behind the shrubbery or play spy missions with Dudley. Bob had been giving Dudley tips on stealth, spying, and general sneakiness, and he was quite pleased with how Dudley was coming along. He had even convinced Dudley to learn more Parseltongue as a way to talk about things secretly. Of course, Bob's version of Parseltongue was rife with swears and unsavoury language, but it's not like any other humans would understand.

Charybdis was just over 10 feet long now and had shed her black and yellow pattern for good. She knew she did not want to go back to that colour, as it was dreadfully basic. Much like Petunia using different handbags for different outfits, Charybdis had gotten into the habit of different coloured scales depending on how she felt that day. Today, she was sporting a pale blue with white flecks, somewhat like a summer sky. Petunia gave her an approving nod. Very fashionable indeed.

Vernon had almost fifty thousand pounds in his safe. Some of that money had come from Harry and Dudley's misadventure a couple of years ago, but much had come from Brownie bringing back treasures from her outings. She'd brought expensive watches, jewelled rings, credit cards, and even loose cash, though any bills had to be carefully dried after she brought them up.

The snakes weren't all that bad. Granted, Marge never visited anymore, but she did grudgingly admit over the phone that Ripper was in the best health ever, after the incident…

When reading his book on the occult, Harry came across the idea of religion. He asked Aunt Petunia if they had any religious books.

She looked at him in an odd sort of way and gave him a rather old and dusty looking bible. "That was my grandmother's – don't muck it up!"

The rest of the afternoon, Harry read from the book.

"Oh, look! The first people could speak to snakes as well."

Bob was rather impressed by this book. The snake in the garden sounded like a main character, and the Jesus fellow seemed to have magic powers too.

"I think the snake is supposed to be a bad guy." Harry was always annoyed at negative portrayal of snakes.

"What have we said about human morals?"

"They're stupid and don't apply to us, as snakes." Harry had long since decided that he was at least part snake.

"Spot on…Do you think that fellow had powers like you?"

Harry squinted, thinking. "I'm not sure. He did heal people like I did with Ripper, but I don't see him speaking to snakes in this."

Bob tapped his tail to his snout, a habit he had picked up from Dudley putting his finger to his mouth when thinking. "Why don't you try some things he did then?"

That night, Uncle Vernon was very pleased when he found that Harry could create wine from water. He asked him to try making whisky next.