Potioneer potter

Ch5

At first, no one noticed the snake. Alex would spend the day either coiled up, hidden beneath Harry's robes, or out on the hogwarts grounds, hunting down some probably xxx category beasts from the forbidden forest. By night, he would slip, unnoticed, into Harry's bed and would remain there until morning, or at least until he got fed up with being awoken time and again by Harry's nightmares. Harry shared his irritation but had not discovered a way of dealing with them yet.

Maybe I need another trip to the library he often thought. In the end he decided that firstly, there would not be many books on 'how to stop having nightmares about an evil dark lord that has you at the top of his to kill list' and secondly, Dumbledore would certainly have a way of tracking his activities and Harry wasn't too keen on revealing his nightmares to the old man just yet.

He sat on the gryffindor table, that morning, with Hermione and Ron in front of him and Ginny and Neville either side. He had half an ear in their conversation complaining about Umbridge but the rest of his mind was ruminating on the most recent chapter of his current potions book, a topic which he had come to rather enjoy outside of the classroom, meanwhile his hands were preoccupied with the journey from his bowl of cornflakes to his robes pockets.

For some reason or another, Alex had become very taken with the school breakfasts and frequently asked (although Harry would argue it was bullying) him to slip frosted cornflakes to where Alex would sit, usually hissing threats at passersby.

"Alex shush, someone will hear you if you keep hissing so loudly and I don't need any 'heir of slytherin' rumours to return thank you"

"Your house of the snake is an insult to serpents everywhere" Alex hissed back angrily

"Yes, they're a disappointment to us all but its not my house, I'm in gryffindor and we're like lions or something"

"Send me more sugared corn, man of magic, or I shall bite your friend with the head of fire"

"That's Ron and his head's not on fire, he's just ginger" Harry wasn't sure what the restrictions we're on snakes and sugar, but he complied anyway. A second later, a loud shout echoed through the hall.

"IT'S A SNAKE! HARRY POTTER HAS A SNAKE!"

Oh bollocks

Harry froze as the shock rippled across the room and every head turned to look at him.

"It's eating his cornflakes." A second year ravenclaw stated dimly, perhaps not doing his house as proud as one would hope.

The whispering and muttering showed no sign of dying down and as Harry stole a quick glance at the staff table, he saw Umbridge beginning to look suspicious.

"Errrr, guys...I think we need to go to potions now" he prayed that his friends would understand follow him without question and to his greatest relief, they did not disappoint.

With a rushed goodbye to Ginny and Neville, who were now deep in conversation about what they thought Voldemort's favourite part of herbology was, Harry and his two closest friends sped out of the great hall and consequently arrived early at the necessary potions classroom. The three of them stood in silence in the corridor with Harry drawing shapes on the floor with his shoe, Hermione looking rather invested in a book, and Ron seeming very very interested in the newest cracks in the wall. Harry was fed up with the tension and so he chose to break the silence.

"You can ask me about it yknow" he said suddenly.

Ron chose to look perplexed as to what he was on about whereas Hermione broke out into a grin.

"Oh, Harry it's wonderful" she sounded as if she genuinely meant it, "I mean I knew about the snake ages ago, but I wanted to wait until you introduced us"