A Little Help from a Snake // Tomarry

0: Prologue

Reposted (meaning no changes): July 4, 2021

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Summary: Harry learns new things about himself — and the world he came from.

He was used to being called "boy" and "freak" by his relatives. For the first few years of his life at number four, Privet Drive, he genuinely thought that those were his names. It wasn't until preschool, when his teacher asked him why he put "Freak" at the top of his assignment that he learned that his name was Harry Potter.

Of course, that didn't change anything, really. He was still called "boy" and "freak," except when there were other people around. But at least now Harry felt a little better. Personally, he thought Harry was a better name than Dudley, but he would never share this thought out loud. To do so would earn him a punishment, usually some kicks and punches followed by Harry being thrown into the cupboard under the stairs. Not that he hadn't endured enough of that. Both Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon found every single thing he did to be suspicious, and if Harry was even slightly off, he was punished.

Dudley, though, was perfect in their eyes. He was their "ickle Dudleykins," their precious, and more importantly, normal son. Nothing he did earned him a punishment. In fact, his parents sang praises at everything he did, no matter how badly he finished something.

In school, for example, Dudley had gotten C's on his report cards. Aunt Petunia found that as a perfectly plausible excuse to celebrate. Harry foolishly believed they would have been proud of him when he received all A's and a B. Instead, he had been shoved into his cupboard with the promise of no food for a week for daring to do better than their son. So Harry learned to deliberately fail every assignment, even if he was actually intellectually advanced for his age.

Unlike Dudley, Harry was forced to do all the work. Every Saturday, he was given a list of chores to finish by the end of the day. Vacuum the living room, dust the furniture, clean the windows, tend to the garden, you name it. The garden was probably Harry's favorite chore, as it was pretty much the only time he got to spend any time outdoors. It was during one particular summer that everything changed.

Harry was almost ten years old, not that the Dursleys celebrated or even bothered to remember his birthday, when he heard a soft hissing. Curious, he turned just in time to see a few blades of grass quiver. Harry glanced back at the house; the others had left for the water park, leaving Harry all by himself. Normally, he would have had company in the form of Arabella Figg, but his relatives had conveniently forgotten to call her over.

Safe in the knowledge that he wouldn't be beaten for slacking off, Harry cautiously crawled over to where he had spotted the movement. He grabbed a stick and carefully parted the grass to reveal a slender black shape.

'Pssh! Tiny hatchling dared to disturb me!'

"Sorry," Harry said automatically. "I didn't realize you were resting." He suddenly realized something. "Wait, how am I talking to you?"

The snake gazed up at him, its stance no longer threatening, merely curious. 'You do not know?' it asked.

'Um, no,' Harry said, unknowingly slipping into the snake's language.

'What is your name?'

'Harry. Harry Potter.'

'Well, Harry, make yourself comfortable,' the snake hissed. 'I have a lot to tell you.'

And boy, did the snake have a lot of information. 'So you're saying,' Harry said, trying to comprehend everything he had learned the past twenty minutes, 'that my parents were not drunks that died in a car crash and that they're... magical?'