A New Snake

Chapter 29

         

Harry found himself in a familiar feeling place, but one he didn't fully recognize. It started out a room of pure, blinding white, but quickly faded to show a little nursery. Each wall was a different color. One, a pastel yellow; another, a pale red-pink; the next, a soft blue; and the last, a gentle green. Each of the house colors. There was a baby's cot under a wide window. It was dark outside the window—night—and snowflakes floated down from the black sky.

At the head of the cot, on the inside, was engraved the initials H.J.P. The carpet was soft under his feet and off-white. White and painted with a snake, an eagle, a lion, and a honey badger which moved like the portraits at Hogwarts—the door was closed and light was coming into the room. There were toys and stuffed animals scattered tastefully around the room in places that wouldn't be in the way. In the crib were some stuffed animals: a wolf, a dog, a stag, and a snake. They were settled carefully on top of a baby blanket. The very blanket that he kept in his school trunk during the school year, but was now in the bedside table in his room at home.

The H.J.P. on the cot was for Harry James Potter. He was in his old nursery. Suddenly, the door opened, letting the yellow hall-light into the dark room. The silhouette in the doorway was that of a woman. She speaks and Harry nearly cries when he hears her voice, "Is that you, Harry?" His mother. The woman who gave him life, who gave her own life so that he may live. He threw himself into her arms. Yet, being in her arms didn't feel quite right. It didn't feel wrong but it didn't feel right either. Like he really wasn't supposed to be there yet.

"You've grown so much child. I wish I had been there to see it. I'm so sorry your father and I had to leave you. I wish one of us could have stayed but there was no way around it."

"It's alright, mum. I understand. I'm not angry at you or dad. I know you both were just doing what you could to protect me. I'm living with Professor Snape now. His daughter and I are both good friends."

"What do you mean you're living with him now? Were you living with Sirius before? I doubt he would have given guardianship over you to Severus. He's always loved you a lot."

"Actually, I was living Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon until the middle of Fourth Year."

Lily suddenly froze, like she suddenly couldn't comprehend what he was telling her. "You were with... my sister?"

Harry nodded.

"And... her horrible husband?"

Again, Harry nodded, though more hesitantly.

"For thirteen years?" Harry didn't respond this time, he only looked at her with concern. Was she alright? She sat heavily in the rocking chair beside the baby bed. "Why didn't you go to Sirius? Your father's will specifically said you were to go to Sirius if we died."

"He was wrongly accused of betraying you, being a Death Eater, and killing Peter Pettigrew as well as a dozen or so muggles. They sent him to Azkaban without a trial. He escaped in my Third Year and he's been a fugitive ever since."

Lily had dropped her forehead into one hand. "Then why weren't you with Severus all along?" Harry couldn't answer that one. He heard her mutter, "Damn, meddling, old man."

Lily stood, shook herself out of her mood and addressed what had bothered her since she came upon him, "Why are you here? You're not..."

"I don't think so. But I think I'm probably pretty close. It feels like I'm supposed to be her eventually, but not yet. Like I don't belong here yet. So I think I'm supposed to go back." Silence. "So, you don't know anything that goes on in the living world?"

Lily shook her head, "Not unless someone I know dies and they can tell me what's happened. And I've heard nothing about you or your life that seemed at all plausible." As Lily was talking, her voice started sounding a bit like it was behind glass. Like there was something between them muffling her voice. She began to grow blurry and Harry reached towards her, but his hands were stopped by some invisible force. She called to him one last time, "I will watch over you through another. Do not be afraid. You will see me again." He heard another voice calling his name. Familiar, comfortable. He could no longer hear his mother as she was pushed farther and farther away from him. As she became fainter the other voice became more and more clear. Instead of whiteness or even blackness, his vision was filled with a red-orange. He realized he was looking at the back of his eyelids and there was light shining on him.

He opened his eyes to be blinded by midday sunlight. When he had blinked the spots from his vision he looked around him. Back in the hospital wing. For some time as he looked around his vision was tinted a little grey. He looked around to figure out who had called him from his death-like sleep. Lily was in an armchair beside him, but her head was in her arms on the side of his bed. She was asleep. Madam Pomfrey was nowhere to be found and the other patients in the Hospital Wing were sleeping or doing their own things quietly—like reading or catching up on homework. No professors or other visitors were anywhere in Harry's line of sight. That must mean it was the middle of class. So what is Lily doing here? She must have been there a while because her things were scattered over the floor and her side of the bed.

He hear the voice call his name again, but this time he knew exactly who it was. He could laugh at the predictability of it. He looked down at his lap—he had sat up—and saw Theseus curled atop his sheets. He chuckled at Theseus' enthusiasm that Harry was awake and his short laughter woke Lily up. She jerked awake and sat up quickly once her brain comprehended where she was and why she had woken up. She looked at him in shock and just sat here with her mouth hanging open and a bit of drool on her cheek. He gave another chuckle and reached a hand forward, using his thumb to wipe away the drool. He wiped it on his sheets and looked back up at her. She had a hand to her cheek and her cheeks had flushed. For reasons unknown to him, Harry blushed as well and looked down at his lap and at Theseus. He heard Theseus laugh in Parseltongue and hissed at him to shut up.

Lily had shaken herself out of her shock and excused herself to get Madam Pomfrey. Harry sat for a few minutes wondering why he had reacted the way he had. And why, in Merlin's name, did Theseus laugh?

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