Hey all! Outliner here with a new story. This is the first time I've written a Harry Potter Fic, so any feedback you can give me will be much appreciated. Those who know me for my other works and are waiting for updates, my RWBY Story will be updated on the 28th. Enjoy this till then. For those of you who don't know me, feel free to leave your opinion in a review.
You're going to figure it out by the end of this chapter, but I'm just going to go ahead and say it now: This is majorly AU. The entire structure of the wizarding world is similar, but different than what you're used to. People will be competent; protagonists and antagonists alike. Hogwarts and its curriculum will probably undergo some changes.
People looking for a badass Harry, you will get a badass Harry. Eventually. Because realistically, preteens aren't all that badass, even if they are wizards. None the less, he will get there.
As for the pairing, I'm open to suggestions. Might be a single pairing, might be a poly-relationship. I'm undecided. It's a non-issue until around late third year anyway, which is a ways down the line. Let me know your thoughts on who Harry annoys into falling for him.
That's basically it. Enjoy and leave a review!
A Slithery Tongue
The ten-year-old boy stared through two layers of glass into the beady black eyes on the other side. He wasn't quite sure when the staring contest had started, or if his opponent was even aware it had, but he was committed. Victory would be his. He refused to lose!
...Wait, that wasn't what was important right now.
"You can talk?"
"Obviously."
"How?"
"The same way you can."
He huffed. "Don't give me that, you cheeky sod. You know perfectly well that you shouldn't be able to." He paused and tilted his head uncertainly. "Right?"
"And what, pray tell, is unusual about my speaking?" a posh, British accent asked.
"Well, for one, you speak my language better than I do, which is a bit shaming considering-"
"Mommy, why is that boy trying to talk to that snake?"
A hurried shush followed the question. "He might be like your cousin Andrew, sweetie."
There was a bit of a pause, before the girl softly said, "I hope he doesn't poop on the floor too." That was shushed too, in a slightly harsher manner.
Harry Potter sighed as the rather presumptuous mother and daughter walked out of earshot. "Considering you're a reptile," he muttered, shooting a quick scowl at the duo. "As they so politely pointed out."
The boa on the other side of the glass somehow chuckled. "Have you considered the possibility that we are talking in my language rather than yours?"
Harry blinked. "We are clearly speaking English."
The snake bobbed it's head at something over his shoulder. "That family behind you would beg to differ."
The boy turned and saw that there was indeed a family of three standing by the chameleon exhibit and staring at him with slight apprehension. The couple's son, a child of perhaps seven or eight, stood stock still as his balloon, emblazoned with the zoo's logo, swayed in the breeze. Several seconds of awkward silence commenced, in which the two parties looked at each other in obvious discomfort. Harry felt the urge to break eye contact grow with each passing moment. Hesitantly, he opened his mouth to speak. "Was I… I don't know, hissing, just now?"
The couple sent each other looks while their child slowly nodded.
Harry sighed. "Fantastic."
He turned back to the boa, ignoring how they edged away from him, the mother and father shuffling their son along like a family of nervous penguins. He would know; he had visited that exhibit before coming here.
"Ok then," he said, folding his arms and leaning against the glass. "So we're speaking Snake."
The boa's look didn't change, but Harry felt a certain dryness enter it's gaze. The boy flinched back as an eruption of harsh S's and V's burst from it's mouth.
"What?"
"The language we are speaking is called-" it made the same sound. "Or, that's what we serpents call it, at least. I have heard from some recent arrivals that you humans have your own word for it."
They did? Had he been daydreaming when they'd covered that in class? "I really don't think we do," Harry told the snake after a several seconds of frowning in thought.
The boa bobbed it's head from side to side in a so-so gesture. "Maybe. I do not know myself; that is simply what Freddie and Matilda told me."
"Are they the recent arrivals you mentioned?"
The snake curled himself around the dead tree limb that had been placed in its habitat and gave a brief nod of his head before resting it in a fork in the branch. "A pair of Cape cobras that arrived last month." Now that Harry was listening carefully, he could definitely recognise the sounds leaving the reptile as actual hissing rather than an English vocabulary. "A wonderful couple, Freddie and Matilda are. They are talking about making a nest, you know."
Its forked tongue flickered and it let out a long, low huffing sound that Harry managed to recognise as a sigh. "I get the sense they feel sorry for me." A note of despondency had entered its voice. "They keep telling me stories of South Africa, as distorted as the ventilation system makes them. They tell me about all the mongooses they fought to the death, animals they've eaten and silly mountain bikers they've bitten." It sighed again, wistfully.
"Oh," Harry said, working through the knowledge that Freddie and Matilda had probably killed people. "That's nice."
"Oh, I am sure they mean to be," the boa agreed, nodding its head, "but that is rarely how it turns out. Every time the conversation ends I am left feeling depressed."
"Oh?" Harry asked, suddenly feeling awkward again. They were talking about feelings now? Why? His eyes flickered around the snake's enclosure and he winced as he realised how small it was in the context of housing a living creature. The cage was suddenly thrown into uncomfortable focus. "You miss the outside then?"
The boa's tail flicked lazily toward the plaque beside it's enclosure and Harry winced as he read the words written there.
BRED IN CAPTIVITY
Faux pas, indeed.
"You cannot miss something you have never experienced," it said bitterly. "All I have ever known is this zoo and my handlers."
There was a pregnant pause between boy and snake as the former mulled over the latter's words. He was mildly surprised when a twinge of empathy shot through him. The boa sounded lonely - a feeling he could relate to all too well. His own home situation was brought to mind; it wasn't bad by any meaningful measure, but there were days where his isolated existence, devoid of affection, was cause for melancholy.
Still, he had a good quality of life and all the freedom in the world. This snake had two square meters, a dead tree and a window that allowed all manner of people to gawk at him for hours each day.
Harry found he could understand wanting to escape.
The boa gave itself a little shake and raised its head in the air, its nose pointed at an upward angle. It's body formed a little bow-arch just behind its head that quickly rose and lowered in an action that Harry immediately interpreted as a shrug. This snake was quite adept at conveying human emotion.
"It is not all bad, really," it said, sounding forcibly uncaring. "I get fed live rats five times a day, my handlers pamper me like you would not believe, poking and prodigy every inch of me, and I have got an excellent view." It tapped the glass window with its tail. "Honestly, what more could a snake want?"
Harry remained silent for a while, staring at the posh, scaly creature. "Would you like me to break you out?"
The boa's head whipped around to look directly into his eyes. "Oh God, would you? Please?"
"Sure," Harry said, smiling. Sympathy and empathy aside, the prospect of performing a heist was exciting. A grin grew on his face as he thought about it. He was sure he had a chance of pulling it off, at the very least. He had done things far more ridiculous in the past, and he was much too familiar with being in trouble for the thought of getting caught to bother him.
He nodded, determined. Today, he would jail-break a boa constrictor. A grin stole across his face; if he could pull this off, it might be an even greater accomplishment than the Great Sweet Caper of '89.
"Hey, do you think you could spring Freddie and Matilda while you are-"
"Absolutely not."
It did not take Harry long to come up with a plan. According to Sam - that was the boa's name, despite its insistence that it was called Bemsworth. Bemsworth wasn't a name - there was a passage that ran the length of the reptile house behind the enclosures. It was through this passage that the handlers accessed the cages, removing animals on the regular to allow for check-ups and feeding.
There was a door that led to this passage two enclosures down from Sam's - "My name is Bemsworth!" - a big, fat 'No Entry' sign slapped on its front. Harry had already tried it on the off chance that it was unlocked. Unsurprisingly, it was not. Hoping and praying, a valid tactic in his case, hadn't changed that.
Fine, he would need to find the key then. And he did.
Attached to the belt of a nearby zookeeper by a retractable lead.
Fine, he would need to find a way to lift it off her then. But how?
His eyes landed on the reptile house's gift shop, a small wooden kiosk near the entrance. Fantastic.
"How much for this and this?" he asked the clerk.
"Eight pounds thirty."
The boy gaped at him, incredulous. "For a bottle opener and a tote bag?" He only had a fiver on him.
"I don't label the goods, brat, just sell them," the teenager on the other side of the counter said, giving him a dispassionate look.
Harry gave the nastiest sneer he could muster while placing both items back where he'd found them. "Fine, I'll take a balloon then."
The clerk gave him a look up and down, before reaching over and handing him the indicated item. "Ain't you a bit old for that?" he asked as Harry handed over the money, looking down his nose at the boy.
Said boy's face twisted into an ugly expression. "What idiot put you in a position to deal with customers?"
The two parties separated as soon as the transaction was complete, both muttering unsavoury things about the other under their breath.
There were little oblong islands that ran down the middle of the reptile house's aisle. Steel railings surrounded an area where vegetation had been allowed to grow in an effort to further the jungle theme the place had going on. It was against one of these railings that the zookeeper was leaning, keeping a watchful eye on the surrounding area. Harry tied the balloon to the railing on the other other side of the island and, trusting that no one would touch it, marched back toward the gift shop. He needed that bag and bottle opener.
He waited nearby for four or five minutes before a large family came by and stopped to browse the wares. Being discreet, Harry walked over and made as if he was examining the bottle opener. Waiting until he was sure the shopkeeper's attention was on the father and not him, he easily slipped the small object into a tote bag that hung beside the counter, grabbed it and walked off without looking back.
He didn't feel any guilt over stealing them, especially if it was from that tosser. Besides, at those prices he was essentially stealing from thieves.
Seriously, there was nothing about either item that warranted such extortion. The bag was a simple thing made from cheap cotton and the bottle opener's extra utility extended as far as a corkscrew and a small blade meant to cut the plastic seals off wine bottles.
Thankfully the balloon was where he had left it. Getting as close to the zookeeper as was polite, Harry bent and examined the fine gravel that lined the inside of the island's boundary. Other than a few cursory glances, nobody paid him mind. Picking up several particularly jagged and pointed stones he stood back up and, making sure the zookeeper wouldn't see, started discreetly flicking them at the balloon with his fingers.
It took a few tries; he missed often and the ones that did hit bounced off. Eventually one struck true and the rubber vessel burst with a loud pop.
The people in the immediate area started and turned to look at the balloon, including the zookeeper. Moving swiftly, Harry slid up right next to her, pulled on the key ring so that the lead was exposed, pinched it into a loop and attempted to cut it with the bottle opener's blade.
Attempted.
The blade bit into the plastic coating that surrounded a metal wire - a metal wire Harry had not counted on being there. Panic shot through him as he whipped his head up to look at the zookeeper. Her head was still turned away, searching for whoever or whatever had popped the balloon, but he knew that he had one or two seconds at best.
Gritting his teeth he frantically sawed at the inside of the loop, his fingers making sure the rest of the lead remained slack.
'Come on, come on, come on,' he pleaded.
It wasn't working.
'Damn it!'
The zookeeper's head started to turn back slowly, giving the crowd one last searching look. Just as Harry was about to give up and slip away, the blade slid the rest of the way through the lead and keys were free. Not wasting a single second, he slid them into his pocket and hurriedly turned and walked away, not daring to look back.
His heart thundered in his chest as he walked over to Sam's enclosure, a shaky grin on his face and eyes flickering over the crowd in search of any suspicious looks thrown his way.
He chanced quick glance over his shoulder as he came to a stop in front of the boa exhibit; the woman he had just stolen from was back in her original position, leaning against the railing with her arms folded and completely oblivious to the fact she had just been outwitted by a ten-year-old.
He let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding and looked down at the bottle opener in his hands; the blade's edge was now rolled and blunt, lined with nicks and divots. It looked as if it couldn't have cut through a warm block of butter.
He gave an amused huff. As previously stated, there were times when hoping and praying worked.
"And?"
Harry locked eyes with the eager reptile and showed him the keys. "I'll have you out in a jiffy. Sit tight, Sam."
A shouted - "Bemsworth!" - followed after him as he walked away.
Harry only gave a cursory glance around before unlocking the door and walking inside as if he had God-given authority to do so. He found himself in a concrete room; against the wall opposite him were a grid of black boxes that slid into a metal framework and a freezebox squeezed in between it and the wall. Adjacent to that was what looked like a workstation, outfitted with a small filing cabinet and computer setup. A counter and drawers ran the length of the room, a steel basin on one end and a terrarium on the other. Jars and containers of varying sizes had been stacked upon every available surface, completely covering the countertop. A steel operating table sat in the centre of the room surrounded by what looked like oversized desk lamps.
There was another door to his left. That was the one he needed to go through. Locking the door behind him he made his way over to it, but paused when he heard a rustling sound coming from the boxes. His frown deepened when he heard a squeak.
Unable to help his curiosity, he padded over and slid one of the boxes out a few inches. Peeking in, he beheld the ten or so mice that scurried and skittered over a bed of shredded newspaper. A bowl and water canister sat in the corner of the box.
'Oh.'
Giving the rodents his most solemn condolences, he slid the box back into place. He took a quick peek into the icebox as well as he made his way back toward the door. Same content as the boxes, only stuffed en masse into ziplock bags and quite obviously dead. Harry let the lid fall with a grimace and decided to stop opening things.
The long, bare passage behind the door was lit by fluorescent lights. The wall to his left was lined with a series of metal hatches spaced a few meters apart; next to each one was what looked like an electrical box. Harry made his way to the third one and briefly examined the lock before trying the keys one by one. He got worried he might not have the right one when he had gone through five without success. He was sure of it three keys later. None of them worked.
Cursing, he turned to go and search the office and stopped dead in his tracks as he heard a shriek come from the other side of the door.
"Quick, close the door before they get out!"
A wide-eyed Harry slowly backed away as he heard a door slam shut.
"Oh, calm down Moira! They're just mice, stop dancing about."
"But-
"You're going to step on one and squish it. Stop and help me catch them."
Had he not closed the box properly? Damn it. Harry bit his lip as he continued backing away from the door. Would they believe him if he played dumb and said he'd gotten lost?
"I told you someone stole my keys!"
No, they wouldn't.
"Moira-"
"The cord was cut, Brian! These damn things didn't escape by themselves!"
Panic was now clawing its way up his throat. If they'd just caught him trespassing, it probably would have been fine. He would play up his age, act bashful, say the door had been unlocked and that he had been curious and that he was really sorry. A stern talking to, maybe, and they would send him on his way.
But there would be no lying to them now. He couldn't have gotten in here without a key. A key that he stole and the zookeeper had noticed missing. Deliberate theft and knowingly entering a restricted area. Why? You were trying to steal a snake!?
That wasn't something they'd just let go. And that wasn't even mentioning the stuff he'd taken from the gift shop.
Would they call security? The poli-?
Harry went cold.
The Dursley's.
Vernon.
The light above his head flickered. His breathing became slightly erratic. He turned and looked over his shoulder. There was nowhere to hide; the passage was a dead end. He glanced back back at the door. The hinges were set too close to the wall; there was no space to hide behind it if - when - it opened.
The light flickered again.
Swallowing, he jerked back toward Sam's hatch and frantically started trying the keys again, hoping he had missed one or that the lock was just a little sticky.
The keys swung forward on their ring and clanged against the hatch.
"Did you hear that?"
His breath hitched and he frantically looked around, already knowing there wasn't a way out. He was done for. Trapped.
Flicker. Harry flinched as several loud clicks echoed throughout the hallway. His head whipped up and down the passage as the hatches popped open, all their locks undone. He stared at the one he'd been trying, then the door. Someone's shadow was moving along the crack at the bottom, growing more distinct with each passing millisecond.
He made his decision. Leaping toward the hatch and, hoping he'd gotten it right and he wasn't about to meet Freddie and Matilda, he scrambled into the enclosure. He hooked the hatch door with his foot on the way through and closed it. He heard the door open just before it clicked shut.
"What the hell?"
Harry winced. That wasn't Sam's voice. Looking up, he met the combined gazes of an attractive and very startled couple who had been admiring the boa that rested on the branch before him. Sam too was staring at him in what seemed to be surprise.
"Harry," he muttered, sounding somewhat astonished. "You actually made it!" He slithered down from the branch so that his face was right in front of Harry's, much to the distress of the man and woman before him. "Well of course you made it. You said you would! And I did not doubt you at all. No, not for a second!"
The boy narrowed his eyes at him.
"Son, don't move," the man whispered, holding out his hand. "Just stay-"
It was at this point, when his hand was well past where the glass should be, that the man realised he and his partner were in just as much danger as Harry. The two's eyes widened as they found their only protection against an animal known to kill and swallow cows whole, gone. Harry watched as the woman's mouth opened to scream. Someone else beat her to it.
Several someones, actually.
Harry crawled over to where the window used to be and peeked his head around the corner. His eyes widened and dread pooled in his stomach.
Harry was fully aware there was a certain abnormality about him. He didn't know what it was, or how or why it was there, but it was. Sometimes when he was desperate or afraid or just really wanted something to happen, it did; flipping the finger toward common sense, logic and the laws of nature and physics both as it did so.
That time his homework book had closed itself, in full view of all four members of his household. The way the lights sometimes flickered whenever he was angry or upset. The fond memory of an armchair booting Aunt Marge out of it and across the room. Other incidents that held not a hint of rationality. It was as if he had his own personal deity granting every other errant desire that crossed his mind.
He also knew that if such a deity did exist, it was either lazy or incredibly prone to misunderstanding. Unpredictable. Unreliable, to be sure. Things didn't always happen when or in the way he wanted to. In the week following the day when his hair had turned blonde he'd made minor cosmetic changes to himself each day to mess with his classmates, using the ability with near perfect control. Then one day, he had simply been unable to do it and it had stayed that way ever since.
This incident would also go on to become a prime example of why not to rely too much on his unique sway with the state of the universe. He'd been trapped and wanted a way to escape. A way had opened. Unsurprisingly, in a zoo, there were many other creatures with similar desires.
Ways opened for them too.
Harry watched with amused horror as snakes, lizards and assorted reptiles of all species slithered and skittered through the space that glass windows had occupied and out into the open. Understandably, this caused a small amount of mass hysteria. People everywhere were screaming and running toward the exits in panic. Some were doing inelegant windmill-dances that would have been hilarious were it not in order to avoid the possibly venomous species at their feet. More zookeepers had appeared from somewhere and were vainly trying to keep order and prevent animals and people alike from being trampled.
"Sam?" Harry called, a little breathless. This train had derailed and plunged straight off a cliff, passengers screaming. "Sam, we need to go. Now!" He threw the tote bag down on the ground and held it open. "Get in!"
Harry could tell he wanted to, but was grateful when the snake didn't insist on the correct usage of his name. He slithered into the bag, curling up into a coil as he did so. Harry had underestimated his size; the boa almost didn't fit. As it was, the bag bulged like he was carrying two or three soccer balls, but Sam managed to squeeze himself in.
He hopped out of the exhibit and, watching where he walked, hurried over to the exit. The couple had disappeared when he wasn't looking. He sent a silent apology to them; he imagined his unusual appearance and the subsequent chaos wasn't conducive to a romantic day out.
There was no shortage of pushing and shoving and Harry apologising to Sam for the uncomfortable ride, but eventually boy and snake made it out of the reptile house and into the open air. People streamed and disappeared into the crowd that had gathered a few meters away to see what all the fuss was about. Harry pushed his way through them and walked on. He continued walking and walking until he reached the fence that marked the edge of the zoo. It faced out onto a meadow that then disappeared into the woods. He looked around. Quite possibly due to the dramatic scene he had left behind him, there was no one within sight.
"Sorry about this," Harry said as he lifted the bag over the fence and let it drop.
A muttered, "Ouch," aside, Sam didn't appear to be injured by the fall and slithered out of the bag. Harry crouched down and spoke to the snake through the fence.
"You should be fine from here on out. They're probably going to come looking for you, so get as far away as possible and do it quickly."
Sam's tongue flickered as he looked toward the open field and the trees beyond. "I did not fully expect you to do it," he murmured softly. "I woke up today with no idea I would be free in a few hours." He turned back to Harry and dipped his head. "Thank you."
Harry gave him a weak smile. "No problem. Goodluck, Sam."
The snake's grateful look withered and Harry nearly did too. All was silent for a moment before Sam turned and slithered off into the grass. "My name is bloody Bemsworth," were the last, near-petulant words he heard.
Harry watched his tail disappear with a smile, which dropped right off his paling face as he heard sirens in the distance. Police sirens. He stood upon shaking legs and robotically turned and headed for the parking lot. There would be hell to pay, he knew.
And neither the police nor the zoo were the creditors.
The Dursley's and Piers were waiting by the car. He tried to keep a neutral expression, but there was no hiding the guilt that seeped through when his uncle fixed him with a familiar, penetrating gaze. Petunia was looking at him with something wavering between pity and outrage. Dudley made a point not to look at him at all, but Harry could feel the animosity rolling off the porky boy during the entire trip back home. Piers, a boy normally brimming with nasty, malevolent energy, stewed awkwardly and silently next to Harry, sensing the tension but not quite knowing what it was about.
Only a handful of curt, suffocating words were spoken in the time it took Mrs Polkiss to arrive. Harry, who normally rejoiced at Piers' departures, despaired as he watched the two walk out the door. The boy sat stock still on the sofa as his uncle's slow, menacing footsteps traveled from the foyer to the sitting room and stopped right in front of him. The way the polished floorboards squeaked under his weight only added to his fear.
Harry tentatively raised his head to meet his uncle's eyes and immediately leapt out of his seat. He hadn't seen that particular expression on his uncle too many times, but it was best to be mobile when it made an appearance.
"Was it you?" Vernon whispered.
Harry opened his mouth, but a small choking sound was all that came out.
"Was - It - You?"
"I didn't mean for it to happen! I couldn't control-!"
The icy fury on Vernon's face exploded into fiery rage. He raised his hand to slap Harry, stopped, closed his eyes and seemed to calm himself, then slapped him anyway.
Harry, who had flinched away at the first movement was caught unawares by the second. A meaty ring, then silence. He held his hot, stinging cheek and glared at the ground sullenly. When he looked back up, it was to see that his uncle's anger had been replaced by the usual cold impassivity.
"Go to your room," the man eventually muttered. "I don't want to see you for a good, long while."
Harry complied, walking stiffly out through the doorway and toward his bedroom. It was the one right at the end of the cottage, as far removed from the kitchen, sitting room and dining room as possible. He took a look over his shoulder as he left; as usual, Vernon was standing hands in pockets and frowning at the shotgun that sat on the mantle above the stone fireplace. Harry always wondered if he were contemplating taking it down and shooting him with it.
The passage that contained the various bedrooms, hampers and bathrooms was lined with family photos, neatly framed and precisely placed. Family dinners, camping trips, holidays and vacation pictures. He wasn't in a single one of them. He'd been present when they were taken, just conveniently left out of the frame. Sometimes he was the one taking the pictures, and he couldn't help but feel his relatives knew they were being cruel when they made him do so.
Though, as he walked into his spacious, carpeted room and flopped down onto his bed, he had to acknowledge that they weren't completely terrible people. Vernon rarely hit him, and never with excessive force. The status quo was usually indifference. He lived comfortably, went wherever they went and was given whatever he asked for, but there was never any affection in it. He tagged along on vacations and days out. He sat with them at meals and on holidays, but didn't participate in the conversations or usual family traditions. He was always separate - a protrusion that had been grafted onto a smooth surface with a visible seam remaining. Forever the obligation.
There were moments, fleeting they may be, when Petunia and Dudley gave him looks of pity or acknowledging nods, and the even rarer moments he felt he and Vernon had a mutual understanding of each other, but even then….
There was no one who loved him, and there were days when he felt it.
Harry breathed out a long sigh through his nose as he stared out the window beside his bed and wondered if Sam was doing alright.