Chapter Text
Harry Potter had two very different portions of his childhood. The one where he was but a husk of a person, disconnected from himself and the dreary world around him, and the time after. When something changed inside of him.
It was the eve of July 31th, and a family by the name of the Dursleys had been snoozing soundly in their beds after a perfect summer's day. Vernon Dursley, a heavyset man with a thick mustache and the proud patriarch of the family, had finally earned that promotion at the drill factory he so loyally worked for for just over a decade. He had come home that evening to another well-cooked dinner, and even broke out the ice cream for a celebratory dessert. Petunia Dursley, a tall, thin woman with curled blonde hair and Vernon's wife, also had a lovely day. As she had spent her afternoon having tea at a neighbor's house with all the local mothers and chatted away about all the latest celebrity gossip. Dudley Dursley, the family's precious, only son, had a wonderful day as well; playing all sorts of fun games in the neighborhood streets with the other local schoolchildren.
Now the sun had set on the quiet street of Little Privet Drive, and the midnight hour was now close to striking. A small shuffle, however, could be faintly heard behind the cupboard door under the family home's stairs. A barely conscious boy, that looked far too small for his age, shifted into a better position on his thin cot. His frail body littered with burns and bruises after a long day of grueling labor. What many people of the small town of Little Whinging, Surrey did not know about the Dursley family was that they had another ward. Petunia Dursley's nephew, by the name of Harry Potter. As few people as possible knew of his existence, as he was but a stain on the pristine life of the Dursley family. Thrust onto them when he was but 1 year of age after the death of his parents. He did not fit into the family's picture perfect picket-fence life, he was tainted; and the Dursleys made sure to remind him everyday of this fact.
Harry's life was not the best, but he was not one to complain, he didn't feel the need to. He didn't feel much anyway. He was a shadow of the Dursleys' home, well a busy shadow. He would cook the meals, clean the house, care for the garden, and then disappear back into his cupboard like he was never there. He didn't feel the burns from the popping oil as he cooked his uncle's extra bacon on a stool in front of the stove that morning, the bruise on his boney hip after his aunt sneered and pushed him into the wall as she left the house that afternoon, nor the tiredness in his bones as he scrubbed the mud off the floors in the foyer that Dudley trailed in that evening. His life was as grey and dull as the boring suburban house he resided in, and he did not care. He knew nothing else. Sometimes flashes of gold would shimmer and disappear in his mind’s eye, laughter would echo in his head, but only when he was alone, only when he searched deep into the tresses of his head. Only when he was within the safety of his dark and quiet cupboard.
Harry stared at the scuffed wristwatch in his hands as the long arm got closer and closer to marking the next day. He had pilfered said watch from the lost and found box at the primary school he attended with Dudley. The school he had to quickly run to to avoid being late as Petunia wanted Harry to clean up after breakfast and not be seen walking to school with her son. Harry preferred it more that way. Dudley, a spoiled and coddled boy with thick dirty blond hair and diluted blue eyes, had been more antagonistic with him when he was younger, but soon found out that bullying someone who didn’t react to his verbal or physical assaults wasn’t as fun to torment as the other unfortunate children. This meant that Harry was fine as long as he made himself as uninteresting as possible. Not that it was too hard to do so, his looks definitely helped, for the most part. He was a small and frail looking boy with paled brown skin and a plentiful amount of messy jet-black hair that sneered at the term ‘tidy’. He wore baggy secondhand clothes, Dudley’s of course, that seemed to swallow him up and unfitted glasses that slid down his bridge of his nose every other second. Hidden behind his glasses, however, lay his more unnerving traits. Bright green eyes that seemed to almost glow in low light, and a long, neat scar across his forehead and right eyelid. It cut down from his hairline and through his eyebrow and on top of his eyelid in a lighting bolt pattern. He tried his best to hide these features behind his fringe and large spectacles, as they only seemed to draw bad attention.
Petunia looked him in the eyes as little as she possibly could and when she did she’d either sneer or throw him back in his cupboard with a bit more force than was usual. Vernom liked to comment on the origin of the scar as often as he could. He loved to talk about how Harry’s parents were unemployed freaks who died in a car accident while drunk driving with a one year old Harry in the backseat. A piece of glass having supposedly sliced his face during the impact. Looking at his own reflection made him realize how lucky he was to have not lost an eye, but he would have traded both for his parents to still be alive. He just knew that they were related to the sunlight that peeked through the cracks of his psyche, he just did.
Harry always stayed up on the night of his birthday to watch the clock hit midnight. He wasn’t sure when he started this tradition, but he just felt it was the right thing to do. This feeling had amplified tenfold on this particular birthday, and Harry made sure he fought off sleep long enough to witness the occasion. Seconds before the clock struck midnight, Harry felt a pressure build behind his skull. His scar burned and his eyes teared up before his world suddenly exploded in pain. Harry opened his mouth in a silent scream and clutched the fabric of his oversized sleep shirt in a deathgrip as his head felt like it had been split in half. His very being felt like something had been violently torn off of it. The last thing he felt before he passed out was warm blood streaming down his face, a soft hand caressing his cheek, and the sound of childish laughter and cheers ringing out from somewhere deep inside of him.
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Harry rose from the depths of slumber calmly, not knowing what woke him as his mornings usually started with his Aunt banging harshly on his cupboard door and yelling at him to make breakfast. She really had a shrill voice like a demented parakeet when she yelled. Harry giggled joyfully at the thought, the sound was so foreign to his ears that he stopped abruptly. His confusion was put on pause with the sound of gentle hissing permeating the otherwise silent cupboard. He opened his eyes to what looked like a murder scene on his shirt and cot, and suddenly the memories of last night came flooding back. Before he could panic a voice that bore striking resemblance to a serpent's sibilation from somewhere close to Harry calls out: “Finally! I’ve been waiting for hoursss!”
Harry frantically looks all around for the source of the strange voice but his search seemed fruitless, he was alone in his cupboard.
“Look down you foolish child!”
Harry does so and is stunned at what he sees, lifting his left arm up to his face. A tattoo of the black outline of a fanged snake was wrapped around his forearm, but the more shocking revelation was that it seemed to be the thing that was speaking to him. The snake stared up at him with what seemed like an unamused look and impatiently flicked out its tongue. Harry felt his jaw drop at that seemingly sentient tattoo he somehow acquired in his sleep. Harry had not seen many tattoos in his short life, but he knew for a fact they did not move or speak. He could see the image of the snake shift as its body curled more tightly around his arm, its body expanding and deflating in subtle breaths. The life-like movement was fascinating to watch. He must have been staring stupidly for quite some time as the snake opened its mouth to speak again.
“Are you being purposssefully daft or did my emergenccce actually knock ssssome screwssss loossse?” the serpent snapped.
Instead of responding to the quite rude remark Harry asked his own question:
“Why would a tattoo need to breathe?”
The snake gave Harry the harshest glare a tattoo had ever given him, this being the only one he felt it lacking in its goal to intimidate him. This snake was on his bloody arm for heaven's sake! Harry opened his mouth to tell off this unwelcome addition to his appendage when it interrupted him.
“Hush you insssolent imp! Don’t you want to know what I am or why I am here? Perhapsss why you're covered in blood and can actually feel for oncce? Then shut up and lisssten!”
Harry stopped to think on the snake’s words for a moment. He did feel quite different, he just couldn’t put his finger on it before the pratty reptile pointed it out. His mind felt open, that was the best way he could describe it. His head also hurt like the dickens, but moving on. Thoughts and emotions whirled around his psyche in a metaphorically colorful barrage, something that was completely foreign to him. All his life his thinking was straightforward and not very emotional. He sometimes wondered why he didn’t cry or laugh when other people did; he knew his reactions, or lack there of, disturbed people. His uncle would look at him bewildered and then angry when didn’t react to his kicks or slaps, his peers would talk about his lack of facial expressions when they thought he couldn’t hear them. He didn’t really care what others thought, because he didn’t care for much at all. He had no interests, no friends, and no urge to have them. He walked through life doing what was told of him before going back into his cupboard to dream of his elusive sunshine.
Harry’s pause seemed to signal to the snake to continue as it began to speak once again.
“Good. Asss to what I am, I am not quite ssssure. My mind isss a fratured messs of memoriesss and emotionsss. All I know issss that I have been resssiding in your ssssoul for quite ssssome time. Trapped mossst likely being the better dessscriptorr of my ssssituationn. Sssomething quite temperamental was wrapped tightly around your ssssoull, and me by asssoccciation, and it took quite a lot of magic and convincccing for her to loosssen her hold on you.”
Harry’s mind was reeling at this confusing information suddenly thrust onto his 7 year old psyche, but his mind hooked onto word magic like a moth to a flame.
“You mean that magic is real? Like the tooth fairy or Santa Claus? I thought it was just a way for my aunt and uncle to blame someone else when Dudley complained about not getting enough money or presents.”
“What?? No! I don't even know what a Sssanndy Clawsss isss or what horror would be named a teeth fairy- Moving on! Of coursssee magic issss real, it’sss what makesss uss wiccan better than thossse ussselesss mugglesss!” the snake spat.
“Oh good. The tooth fairy seemed really inconvenient, mostly because Dudley told me one time that if I gave her any of my teeth that she would try and rip out the rest too. I made sure to hide them really good so just in case she went looking elsewhere that she’d never find them. I don’t think I will be able to eat anything without them, and I already don’t eat that much.” Harry said innocently.
“Oh for Merlin’sss sssake- enough!” the snake hissed angrily. “You are a wizzzzard Harry Jamesss Potter, capable of extraordinary featsss that no muggle could ever hope to compare to. You are to sssstand up for yourrssself for onccce and not let thoss-ss-sse deplorable excussesss for blood relativesss treat you like the dirt beneath their bootsss! Fortunately for you, I can teach you how.”
“My middle name is James? Wait, who is Merlin?”
“For the love of -”
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After trying to explain to Harry, quite painfully, about what it means to be a wizard and how it is different from being a muggle, the other occupants of the house were beginning to make themselves known.
“Great. It ssseems to finally be morning, and unfortunately thosse mugglesss did not perish in their ssslumber. My mistake for hoping.”
Harry yawned wide at the mention of sleep, but his mind was still running amuck like a hyper dog in his skull. Barking and begging for more information on his new status as a wizard. There, however, was not enough time to ask much more, so he decided on asking something else that he was curious about.
“My aunt will be down any minute to kindly bang on my door and yell at me to make breakfast so I want to ask one last thing. What is your name? I can't exactly call you the grumpy snake I have stuck on my arm. Doesn’t have a good ring to it.”
Ignoring the childish insult the definitely-not-grumpy snake thinks on it.
“I believe I had a name before my ssserpentine fate, but the sspecificitiess of it elude me. I believe it started with v, or maybe t . . .”
“Well the only v name I can think of is Vernon, and I don’t think I’d curse anyone, snake tattoo or not, with that. For t, hm . . . ah! The perfect name! I’ll call you ‘Toad’!”
“What?? No! Absss-ssolutely not! Why would you even think to inssssult me in sssuch a-”
“No! Wait! It’ll make sense in a minute! I think toads are cool, mostly because I watched Dudley lick one when he thought no one was looking during break-time at school and then he was really really sick for a whole week. He said he didn’t know why he was sick, but I think it was definitely because of the toad. That makes toads pretty wicked in my opinion. Also I can hear my Aunt about to come downstairs so you need to choose really fast before she’s here. You also need to hide somehow!!”
The snake did indeed hear footsteps start to come down the stairs above them.
“Fine! But thisss is not going to be permanent! We’ll sspeak on this later. I can move to other partsss of you so I'll try to sstay hidden under your clothess when in the presencce of othersss. Just don’t do something sssstupid like try and sspeak to me and we should be fine.”
‘Toad’ slithered up Harry’s arm and disappeared under his sleeve just as Petunia banged on his cupboard door with a to-be-expected screech of: “Get up! Up! Before I make you!”
The day began as it always did, with Harry making the Dursley family's breakfast and scarfing down what he could without getting caught, but his spirits remained lightened. Practically aflame with all the potential that had been brought into his life. The presence of Toad safely tucked away on his person was a more than comforting thought as he went about his daily summer chores in a trance. He never thought he would make a friend, or even want to have one, but it seems the tides have turned for a young boy named Harry Potter.
They never did speak on the name later.