It was a rare moment of peace in the garden, the afternoon sun stretching lazily across the small patch of grass that barely counted as a backyard. Harry had been sent outside to "get some fresh air"—a command that came only after an hour of incessant nagging from Petunia about his "unruly behavior." His hands were dirty from the weeds he'd been forced to pull, his fingernails caked with the earth that clung to them like a second skin. But he didn't mind. The garden was the only place in the house that didn't feel suffocating.
He wandered toward the far corner, where the garden met the overgrown hedge. There, hidden beneath the shade of a thick rosebush, something shifted. A low hiss filled the air, so faint he almost missed it, until a glint of movement caught his eye. At first, he thought it was a trick of the light—a snake-shaped shadow darting in and out of the thicket.
But no. As he stepped closer, the snake came into full view, coiled at the base of the rosebush, its dark green scales gleaming in the sunlight. Its eyes were striking—yellow, like two burning orbs, watching him with an intensity that made the hair on the back of Harry's neck stand up.
"Are you lost?" Harry whispered, unable to stop himself. The words felt strange, as though he was speaking a language he hadn't meant to know.
The snake blinked slowly, then uncoiled itself, slithering closer. Its movements were graceful, almost deliberate, as if it knew exactly what it was doing.
"I am not lost," it replied, the voice a soft, slithering hiss that wrapped around Harry's thoughts, somehow clear despite the strangeness of it. "But you… you are."
Harry froze, his heart skipping a beat. He glanced around the garden, half-expecting someone to be watching, but there was no one. The air was thick with the scent of roses and damp earth, and the only sound was the faint rustle of the leaves above. Yet, the snake's voice was unmistakable.
"You can hear me?" Harry asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Of course I can," the snake replied, its tongue flicking in and out. "You can hear me, too. Can't you?"
Harry's breath caught in his throat. He could hear it, he realized. Not just the words, but the feeling behind them—a deep, ancient pull that seemed to reverberate through his very bones. He had never been able to talk to animals before. This was… different. This was something he couldn't explain.
"What are you?" Harry asked, his voice hoarse now, unsure if he should be afraid or fascinated.
The snake tilted its head, considering him for a long moment, as if weighing how much to reveal. "I am nothing, and yet everything. But I am not here to explain what I am. I am here to explain what you are."
Harry's brow furrowed. "What I am?"
"Yes," the snake whispered, its voice slipping into Harry's mind like cool water. "You are a creature of power, a vessel of something… far greater than this world." It paused, as though searching for the right words. "You have inherited what should have been lost to time, a legacy that stretches back to a time when the world was different. A time when the blood of the serpent ran through all things."
Harry's heart pounded in his chest, confusion and something darker curling within him. "I don't understand."
The snake's eyes glinted. "You don't need to understand yet. But one day, you will. The power you feel within you, the strange things that happen when you're angry, scared, or in pain—these are not accidents. These are signs of what lies beneath."
"What lies beneath?" Harry repeated, his voice barely audible, his mind racing.
"There are many things beneath the surface, boy," the snake hissed, its voice low and coaxing, "but you will not find them all at once. Not yet." It paused, a flicker of something ancient passing through its eyes. "But know this—what you are is not something the Dursleys can hide. They can lock you away, try to stifle the truth, but it is there. And one day, it will find you."
The words hung heavy in the air, pressing down on Harry as though the very garden itself had shifted beneath him. The snake's eyes burned into his, the weight of its gaze pulling him deeper into a place he couldn't quite name.
Before Harry could respond, the snake slithered back into the shadows beneath the rosebush, disappearing from sight as if it had never been there at all.
The garden felt still again, but Harry's thoughts were a storm. The words of the serpent rattled in his mind like a cage, turning over and over, making his heart race. He didn't understand what the snake had meant—how could he? It wasn't even possible, was it? Magic was just a story. A thing that belonged in books, not in real life.
But deep down, something inside him knew. Knew that the snake had told him something important. Something true.
And as he stood there, alone in the garden, Harry realized that the strange, dark power he had felt before—the power that had made the lights explode—was only the beginning.