Harry Potter was four years old, and he could speak to snakes.

Snakes were very nice. They never called him rude names. They never hurt him. They talked and they listened and they told him stories.
Thanks to Dudley and his friends, the neighbourhood children didn't talk to Harry, and he was usually ignored at school.
That was okay though. He had his snake friends.

Harry's snake friends didn't have names until he gave them one.
He'd found that when he named a snake, it got smarter and talked more. He was not sure why that was.

Harry first snake friend was Brownie. He called her Brownie because she was a beautiful, brownish-greenish grass snake.
Brownie was very kind and liked to talk. She talked about all sorts of things. Frogs, mice, and grass piles were some of her favourite things. Harry liked those things too, but not as much as Brownie. Because of this, he decided to make a game with Brownie - she had to explore the neighbourhood and find the funniest story before he listened to her magnificent hunting stories.

Sometimes he heard some very peculiar things. Brownie said Mrs Number Three had many mates and must be figuring out who was the most suitable male. Brownie said it was very impressive how many mates she was able to attract. Harry mentioned this to Aunt Petunia one day, who wanted to hear all about it. Harry told her that it was very sensible that she realised snakes have the right idea about finding mates and said he was happy that Mr Number Three was okay with it. Aunt Petunia's face did a funny sort of twist, and she asked to hear all about the funniest stories each week. Harry was then allowed an extra bit of dinner if he told a very interesting story, so Brownie always tried her hardest to find the best stories.

His second snake friend was Bob. Harry called him Bob because he thought it was the funniest thing ever, and Bob said he did not want to be named after a colour. Bob was a bit mean. He was an adder, and he hated Mrs Figg's cats. He also hated foxes, badgers, and lawnmowers. Bob hated more things than he liked, but he liked Harry. Bob kept trying to bite Dudley and Piers. Harry said he could only do that if he wasn't seen, so Bob had been practising his stealth. It was easy to be stealthy in the woods and heathland, but not as easy in the fussy little gardens of Privet Drive. Bob's stealth practice made Harry think of ninjas. He read about ninjas in school, so he made a little ninja mask for Bob with an old sock. It looked a bit strange, like a moving sock puppet. Bob did not like the smell.

Harry's third snake friend was the most interesting. Her name was Charybdis, and she was a ball python. She was brown and yellow, like Bob. Unlike Bob, Charybdis had a big name. Harry had to say it very slowly at first. Kuh-rib-dis. She said that Harry sounded like a new hatchling. Charybdis escaped from a house in Guildford when her old boy left the window open. Her old boy did not speak to her, and he forgot to feed her and change her water, so she never went back. She was very smart, but very lazy, and she did not like to hunt. Harry was not very good at hunting, but if he found some big crickets, he kept them in his pocket to give to her. She still had to do a big hunt every so often, but she said they were a good snack. Harry tried one once, and he thought it tasted a bit like popcorn that someone had dropped on the ground.

Charybdis usually lived under the shed in the garden. When Harry did his outside chores, she followed him and told him stories from her life. She had a lot of stories. Her old boy was 12, and he liked science. She could not understand his language, but she watched all the funny things he did. Sometimes she gave Harry some very good ideas. When he got a good idea, he wrote it in his notebook. His notebook had no cover, so it was very floppy. It used to be Dudley's. All of Harry's things used to be Dudley's. That's okay though. He still had his snake friends.

When Harry went to school, he did his work, but he thought about snakes. One boy in his class had a snake, but he did not like snakes as much as Harry, and he did not want to talk about them all the time. Some of the other children liked dinosaurs, and Harry learned about the Titanoboa, which was the largest snake that ever lived. When he told Charybdis about the Titanoboa, she told him that she would grow 50 feet long and beat its record.

At school, Harry drew snakes. One day, he used glitter on a drawing of Charybdis. When he showed it to her later, glitter got on her scales. She made Harry hold her in front of the shed window so that she could look at herself. She decided that she would grow to be 50 feet long and also have sparkles.

When Harry had to practise his writing, he made up stories about snakes. Sometimes, if he couldn't think of one, he would tell a story that Brownie had told him. He got in a bit of trouble when he told a story about Mrs Number Three, and Mrs Clarke had a word with Aunt Petunia about not letting him watch telly programs for grown-ups. Harry wished he could watch telly.

Mrs Clarke had a few students that stood out. Lee had a hearing aid, so she was always careful not to mumble when speaking to him. Davina was still learning English, so she spoke carefully to her as well. When she spoke to Harry, she had to frame things in the context of snakes for him to really pay attention. Harry's hyperfixation alienated him from his peers, but he didn't seem to mind. She kept an eye on him though… She tried to make sure all her children were included and supported.

When Petunia Dursley first saw Harry hissing to himself while he did the gardening, she was glad he was in the back garden, so the neighbours couldn't see. It was hot outside, and the boy had just mowed the lawn, so she did not want to go outside. She opened the window and told him not to hiss to himself in the front garden, lest the neighbours see. He nodded his head and got back to the weeding.

The first time she realised that he was not hissing to himself, she almost fainted. She saw a small brown-green snake following him along in the grass, seemingly listening to him. When she walked outside and asked what he was doing, he told her he was talking to his friend about Mrs Number Three. The following story was absolutely scandalous, and perfect for telling at her book club. As much as she hated this sort of freaky thing, he was Lily's son, so she had been waiting to see what magical nonsense he would do. At least this had the potential to benefit her.

Dudley thought Harry was weird. He didn't have any friends, and he was obsessed with snakes. He didn't like riding bikes or cartoons or even Action Man. When they were really bored, Dudley and Piers would chase Harry around the neighbourhood. That was a lot of running though, and Dudley didn't like running. Usually, he just ignored Harry.

The boy was odd. Vernon thought he must have hit his head very hard when his family was attacked. He talked to himself - whispered to himself. One morning, he was up early for an important meeting, and he saw the boy trying to fit a whole egg in his mouth while making breakfast. Normally, he would have scolded the boy for eating before making the food, but he was too baffled to say anything, and the egg was gone by the time he blinked. He dismissed it as having woken up too early... But then the boy got stranger.

Vernon kept a mental list of the strangest things the boy had said or done, with the highlights including:

-While weeding, saw a cricket, caught the cricket, then immediately ate it
-Tried to peel his skin off once to see if he would have "a fresher colour underneath"
-Told an elaborate story about Mr Jones at Number Nine having a "cool science laboratory" in his attic, said his friend climbed up the gutter to look in the window, and graphically described what sounded like a drug lab
-Jumped in the compost heap and covered himself with grass clippings
-Cried when he learned that he would not grow a second penis

There was something wrong with the boy.

Author's note:

This fic becomes more complex as Harry ages.

I have cross-posted this from AO3, where my username is the same. The version on AO3 has sketches at the end as well as links to various things referenced throughout the fic.