Chapter Text
The Dursleys were human. They were human by definition, four limbs, bipedal, spoke a language recognized by other humans, but outside of that definition, they were monsters.
Harry learned that lesson from the start. Since he could remember, Harry had been treated like he was an unbearable burden. When he was three, he did the laundry and dusted the furniture. Now that he was seven, he was vacuuming the house, dusting, trimming the bushes, gardening, cooking every meal, making all the beds, cleaning Dudley's room, sweeping, mopping, polishing the wooden stairs, and cleaning the windows. According to his aunt, he had to do this silently, quickly, and efficiently.
When Harry was eight, he yelled out when a bit of grease hit his hand while cooking bacon. That had been a mistake. Uncle Vernon had pulled him aside upstairs in the guest room. Telling Harry to take off his shirt, he had him stand with his hands against the wall, and his back bare to Vernon. Ordering Harry not to move, Vernon went to his room to grab something. When he came back, he was carrying a whip.
Wasting no time, he lashed Harry across the back, unrelenting no matter how desperate the pleas from his nephew got. After ten minutes of lashing, Harry fell to the ground, unconscious. When he awoke, he curled up in a ball and moved to the corner of the room. Rocking back and forth, Harry made himself forget.
That was how the new routine had started. If Harry made a mistake, Vernon would pull him aside and lash him. Over time, if Harry so much as whimpered, more lashes would be doled out.
Harry's final strike was when "he" accidentally broke Dudley's TV. In reality, Piers had been the one to break it, but Harry was the easy scapegoat that nobody thought to question. Harry had long-since-dried tears well up in his eyes.
That night, Harry tried to run. That only made the punishment worse. When Uncle Vernon ordered him up to the guest room, Harry immediately took off his shirt.
======You can guess what happened, I'm not going to describe it...so=======
Harry was numb. He couldn't feel the wooden floor, the wall, or the air on his bare skin. He dug his fingernail into himself until he bled. Still, it wasn't enough.
After many hours, Harry had gathered himself up with enough courage to redress himself and painfully make his way toward the door. When Harry tried to turn the doorknob, the door wouldn't budge. He'd been locked in.
Harry started suffocating, the walls were pressing in on him. He was trapped with no way out. This was a new nightmare, and he didn't like it at all.
The day after the next, Vernon came back into the room. Harry got two pieces of stale bread and a half glass of water. Then the punishment started again. Soon this became all that Harry knew. No longer did he labor doing the chores, he was stuck with an endless punishment.
One day after Vernon had left, the temperature in the room began to quickly rise. In the next few minutes, the temperature only went up, and smoke started to fill the room. Harry couldn't help it, he broke down. He was trapped with no way out, and he was about to burn to death.
There's one thing that magic does. It listens. But there are always consequences. When it heard Harry's heartfelt pleas, it responded, letting him have a way to escape.
Harry's world got bigger, or he got smaller. Feeling his body, Harry felt claustrophobic. He couldn't feel his arms or legs, and it felt like he had a never-ending torso. Then the temperature and reality sank back in, and Harry reacting on pure instinct. Finding that he could climb up the wall, Harry climbed up to the window. From there he was the crack in the window, where he'd raised it several inches above the windowsill. Slithering through the window and down the house, Harry made his way into the backyard. Hiding under a bush, Harry fell asleep, the adrenaline taking him.
Next thing he knew, he woke up to a large man dressed in black. "I'll take her." And Harry noticed he was in a cage surrounded by cages. Beside him were other snakes looking at him like he was a new sort of puzzle to figure out.
Much later, Harry found himself in a room that seemed to be a common area. It was themed green with silver accents. "Here's your new home, feel free to roam about. When I come back and say, "New arrivals!" I want you to slither back to me and I will pick you up. Go along, now."
-Severus POV-
Severus knew he was putting too much stock in the ability of the serpent, but he could tell by the magical signature that something was off. This was not an ordinary snake by any means.