Work Text:
:Kill that one. It’s fat and lazy and will make many ingredients with which to bribe the one who serves the Enemy.:
Voldemort, clad in a brand new (if temporary) body that looked nothing like either his former or current bodies, froze just beyond the corner he was about to turn around.
:There isn’t any bribing Snape, the man hates me. Anyway, I can’t kill him. People will notice.:
That was parseltongue.
:Not if you let me bite him. Then people will think the one who serves the Enemy finally made good on his threats to invade your nest. Then you won’t need to bribe him and you can use the ingredients yourself.:
That was Potter speaking parseltongue.
:Any potion that requires human flesh isn’t going to be useful. They’re obvious.:
To a homicidal snake. That sounded very much like his own.
:Anyway, Ron isn’t that fat. If I really wanted to harvest someone for potions I’d use Neville. Or possibly Hagrid.:
How had he not known about this?
:What if I ate him instead.:
Clearly, someone had been keeping secrets.
:What have I told you about eating junk food?:
Someone was going to be punished.
:That I don’t know where it’s been?:
Someone who obviously wasn’t as loyal as he pretended to be.
:Exactly. I plan on killing Malfoy if he doesn’t stop calling me ‘Dumbledore’s Golden Boy’, you can eat him if I do.:
Several some ones. How could the fact that Potter was as Dark as he had been at that age gone unnoticed?
“Harry, your snake is hissing again. Why does it keep doing that?”
Oh, right. Parseltongue.
“She’s just happy.”
“What’s it so happy about then? Classes are dead boring.”
“Ron!”
“What, it’s true. Don’t look at me like that Hermione!”
“She likes meeting new people.”
Voldemort choked. Then, carefully, edged back down the corridor he was in and, when he was sure he was safely out of hearing distance, back out the castle.
Evidently, he needed to rethink his whole ‘Kill Potter’ thing. And invite him to join the Dark Side. Maybe send him Pettigrew’s head as a gift? Now that he thought about it, Wormtail had been unnecessarily rough during the resurrection ritual. Wouldn’t be any real loss either way.
In his hurry away to rework his plans, he completely missed the next part of the conversation between Potter and his homicidal snake.
:Kill this one!:
:No, Nagini. If you had wanted to kill people you should have stayed with Voldemort. I’ve got standards.:
:What about the one in the smelly tower?:
:….Ok, that one you can have.: