Double Double Toil and Trouble // Two // [ON HOLD]

Chapter One

I squealed as my brother Harry chased me through the garden, my black hair sticking to my sweaty forehead. I had played a harmless prank on him (if you consider putting an ice cold water balloon in his chair just before he sat down harmless), and he was trying to get revenge. We were only six years old and our dad, James, was already getting us mixed up in the wonderful world of mischief.

Eventually, Harry caught up to me and tackled me from behind about three feet from the base of a large tree behind our house. I landed with a thud and groaned when I felt his weight on my back. I lifted my face from the grass and tried to lift him off of me, but a moving figure caught my eye. A scaly head poked out from the bushes, its black eyes trained on me as well. Harry must have seen it as well because I felt him go rigid above me. He carefully moved away, trying not to make any sudden motions. Our mum, Lily, always told us that if we ever saw a snake, not to move that quickly, because it may think we're attacking it.

We both backed away from the reptile, the smell of fear probably radiating off of us like stink bombs. The snake slithered towards us and raised its head in the air. It's mouth opened and we weren't prepared for what happened next: it spoke. "What'sss the matter?" It asked. We froze and stared at it in awe. "You talk?" Harry asked. "Yesss." My brother and I shared a look of utter shock.

The next thing I knew, the snake was coming closer towards me and wrapping its body around my forearm. I didn't dare move, mainly due to the fact that I felt like I couldn't. "I don't bite." It assured, but I didn't let my guard down. "Then what are your teeth for?" Harry inquired. It looked at him. "Well, I have to bite when I'm being threatened, but you two ssseem more ssscared of me." "You're not going to hurt us then?" "If I wasss going to, I would have already." My body started to allow me to relax a bit at his words. "Do all snakes talk?" I asked. "Of courssse. It's not like we have handsss to ussse assign language."

"Harry! Lex! Come inside and wash up for lunch!" Our mum called from the back door. Our backs were facing her, so she couldn't see the cold-blooded mammal that was coiled around her daughter's arm. In a matter of no more than two seconds, the snake had unwrapped itself from me and slithered back into the bushes and underneath the fence.

~
   
My vision suddenly changed completely. One second, I was sitting in the garden with Harry, and the next I was years older and sitting in a car with my head resting against the window pane. My dad's hand was on my shoulder. I realized I had been dreaming. That made sense because I didn't remember talking to a snake throughout any of my childhood.

Let me back up. Hello again, it's me, Lex Potter. I'll give you all a quick summary of what happened the last time you were here. When we turned eleven, my twin brother, Harry Potter, and I got accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where we went for ten months to study magic. At Hogwarts, there are four houses we could've been sorted into by The Sorting Hat: Gryffindor for the brave and chivalrous, Hufflepuff for the loyal and honest, Ravenclaw for the intelligent and creative, and Slytherin for the cunning and ambitious. Harry was sorted into Gryffindor, much like everyone else in our family, while I was sorted into Slytherin. I was pretty much the black sheep of the lot, and I loved it.

We went to school with our three friends: Ron Weasley, a redheaded boy that we grew up with, Hermione Granger, a muggleborn girl who was probably the most talented in our year, and Natalia Cummings, or Nat as we liked to call her, who was the only one of the the three of them that was in Slytherin with me. The two of us also spent a lot of our time with another Slytherin boy named Draco Malfoy. He never really joined us when it came to Harry, Ron, and Hermione, but we never exactly begged him to either.

Not long after we arrived at Hogwarts, Harry and I joined our house Quidditch teams and became the youngest seekers in at least a century. Quidditch was a popular sport throughout the wizarding world that I've already explained before and don't really feel like explaining again.