Because We Are Snakes

Chapter 8

Because We Are Snakes - The Snakelike Ferret

'Oh Joy! Malfoy.'

It seemed to Harry that everyone these days was trying their best to indeed drive him to premeditated murder. He was almost ready to risk Azkaban... almost.

There was Ron with his insensitive bitching, Hermione with her current overwhelming concern for his going off on his own, Umbridge with being her horrid self, Fudge making him a pariah, Dumbledore who refused to even look at him -and he wanted answers damn it!-, Filch the disgusting creature chasing them about trying to make life in general impossible... the list went on and on and on and on and on.... The idea was clear... if people don't let up on him and at the very least give him some space he was seriously going to fuck up someone... badly.

At the top of it all though -presently- was Draco fucking Malfoy.

The little shit was on a Prefect power trip and was giving detentions to Harry and his friends left and right for the most inane shit imaginable and all of Harry's detentions were served with the pink bitch.

Essence of Dittany Could no longer erase the words and Murtlap Essence though it temporally soothed the cuts it did little to help them heal properly anymore... that shit was going to stay there forever now, one more scar for him to wear, as if he didn't have enough already.

Draco was really starting to piss him off... more than normal that is.

It was during one of their meetings that the pain started to come back. The pain and the unquenchable hunger. He had just dispatched the students from the RoR and managed to convince Ron and Hermione to use his cloak to get back on their own because he had 'something to do'. Convincing them took a painfully long time and it was now way pass curfew. But he knew the pain would only get worse as it had been doing for the past five days already, it was an encroaching wave that became searing and overwhelming at its peak and there was no way in hell he would be able to fake not being in pain with their eyes on him at the dorm.

Pain potions were not working anymore so he tended to get a bit screamy at points.

So there he was, making his way to the warm fur pile in the humid room in the dungeons where he could go through the pain and screaming in solitude.

What were the odds that as he came out of a secret passage into the dungeon corridor just two turns from his secret room, and his much enticing fur pile, Draco bloody freaking Malfoy happened to be coming by apparently back from a late night visit to the kitchens judging by the cookie he had just finished eating.

It was the smell that had alerted Harry that someone was currently traversing the corridor, it made him pause just before entering the corridor and he was glad he had this new ability because Slytherins could be quite as silent as they were sneaky it appeared and if he had not smelt Malfoy he would have literally bumped onto him. It only took one whiff of ferret, perhaps a remnant from his forced transfiguration by Barty the previous year which left the blond with the lingering smell of the animal as his own, to alert of the annoying boy's presence and Harry knew that if he were to be found he would be in deep shit.
The smell passed the hidden entrance to the passage and it made Harry's mouth salivate with hunger... which was not a good thing.

He waited and the smell kept moving just as the pain kept growing. He had little time to make it to a safe place before it got too bad so he left the passage in hurried yet quiet steps when all of a sudden the pain spiked and he doubled over holding his abdomen as he bit his lower lip to try to keep himself from screaming, exposed as he was in the middle of the dungeon corridor.

Impossibly, the pain spiked again and this time he could not contain himself.
Harry let out the beginnings of a scream that thankfully he managed to morph into a whimper before it got loud enough to call someone's attention.