Chapter 4
The dim light of the study flickered as Sirius Black rubbed a hand over his face, exhaustion settling deep into his bones. Five damn years. Five years of searching, chasing leads, bribing informants, and sifting through every rumor, every whisper, and every ridiculous conspiracy that so much as hinted at the whereabouts of his missing godson.
And still—nothing.
Across from him, Remus Lupin sat hunched over a stack of parchment, his amber eyes scanning the latest reports they had gathered. The werewolf looked as tired as Sirius felt, his worn robes loose on his frame, a testament to years of struggle.
“This one’s from a contact in Cairo,” Remus murmured, flipping through a letter. “Mentions an angrez—a foreigner—seen traveling through the outskirts of the Indian wilderness with what some described as a feral child. But no mention of a scar.”
Sirius exhaled sharply, slamming his fist onto the desk. “It’s always the same. A whisper here, a sighting there. A boy seen in a jungle, living like a ghost. But nothing solid.” He ran a hand through his now shorter, well-groomed hair—a stark contrast to the wild mess it had been five years ago.
Remus sighed, setting the parchment down. “At least we know he’s alive. And more importantly—he’s not in Britain.”
Sirius scowled. “I figured that out years ago, Moony. The moment we realized there was no trace of him anywhere in the Isles, I knew whoever took him had taken him far away.”
“And they’ve kept him hidden ever since,” Remus added, voice thoughtful. “No school records, no magical traces strong enough to be tracked, no sightings in wizarding communities. Whoever took him didn’t just kidnap him, Sirius. They’re raising him.”
Sirius gritted his teeth. That had been his worst fear. That someone had stolen Harry to mold him into something else. But the rumors… the whispers of a boy surviving in the wild, seen only in glimpses across vast jungles and ancient forests… they painted a different picture.
“They’re keeping him away from wizards,” Sirius muttered, his brow furrowing. “Hiding him in places most of us would never think to look.”
Remus leaned back in his chair. “The primeval world, not the civilized one.”
Sirius gave a humorless laugh. “Well, that really narrows it down, doesn’t it?” He gestured to the scattered maps and notes littering the table. “Moony, there are multiple bloody jungles across the world. India, Africa, the Amazon—hell, even parts of Southeast Asia! I’m an Auror, not some Muggle explorer from those adventure books.”
Remus smirked faintly. “You mean like those Muggle travelers you keep reading about?”
Sirius huffed. “Shut up.”
But the reality was, he was stuck. He had leads, but no way to narrow them down. He knew Harry was out there, somewhere in the untamed wilderness, hidden from the eyes of the wizarding world. But without a precise location, it was like searching for a single star in a vast night sky.
“I need to find him,” Sirius murmured, his voice tight with emotion. “I promised James and Lily I’d protect him.” He clenched his fists. “I failed once. I won’t fail again.”
Remus sighed, reaching over to squeeze his shoulder. “We’ll find him, Sirius. Somehow, we will.”
Sirius exhaled, steeling himself. He had spent five years chasing shadows.
He wasn’t about to stop now.
The thick canopy of the Indian jungle was alive with the sounds of the wild—chirping insects, distant calls of monkeys, and the occasional rustling of unseen creatures. But all of that barely registered to Jorun Dask, a wizard poacher with years of experience hunting magical creatures for profit.
Tonight, he wasn’t after the usual fare of Ashwinder eggs or the occasional illegally trapped Thunderbird chick. No, tonight’s target was Noctalis Gigantus, a species of massive magical bats whose blood could be used in high-end potion crafting. A single vial could fetch a fortune, and he and his crew had been tracking a colony for days now.
But then he saw something worth even more.
A boy—barely five or six years old—moving through the trees like he belonged there.
Jorun had seen many strange things in his time, but this was something else. The child ran across the branches of the towering trees with unnatural grace, his bare feet barely making a sound. His skin was tanned from the sun, his dark, messy hair whipping in the wind.
Even from a distance, Jorun saw the boy’s eyes.
Glowing green.
He grinned, turning to the two other poachers with him. “That,” he whispered, “will fetch a fortune.”
Magical children, especially feral ones, were a rare commodity. There were always pureblood families who loved the idea of buying a wild child with strong magic to raise as their own personal pet—trained and conditioned from a young age.
Jorun gave a silent signal, and the three of them moved quickly, weaving through the jungle with expert ease.
The boy hadn’t seen them.
Or so they thought.
They pursued him for what felt like minutes, the thick foliage making it difficult to move as swiftly as the child did. But they were gaining on him. He was heading toward a mangrove swamp, the twisted trees growing from black, brackish water.
Jorun grinned.
Nowhere left to run, kid.
Then, the jungle went silent.
Jorun stopped, his breath hitching.
No insects. No night birds. No rustling of leaves.
The silence was unnatural. The kind that sent a shiver up a man’s spine.
His two companions stiffened beside him, their wands half-raised as they scanned the trees. The mangrove ahead loomed like a graveyard—massive roots twisted like gnarled fingers, the dark water motionless, not even a ripple disturbing its surface.
Something was wrong.
Jorun licked his lips. “You feel that?” he whispered.
Before either of his men could answer, the trees above moved.
A shadow blurred from the branches, too fast, too big, a massive form dropping from the canopy.
Then, pain.
Jorun gasped as two enormous fangs sank into his chest, piercing through muscle, slicing into bone.
His vision swam, his veins burned.
Poison.
No, he realized dimly, venom.
His knees buckled as he choked, barely able to register the screams of his men. Something massive coiled around him, scales as dark as the water below, stretching on and on—a snake. No, not a snake—something beyond that.
It was nearly forty-eight feet long, thick as a tree trunk, its coils crushing, twisting.
And its head…
Golden eyes, staring into his soul.
Jorun’s body convulsed, the venom scorching through his blood, his heart hammering erratically in his chest. His vision blurred, but through the haze of pain, he saw movement.
The boy.
He crawled down the twisted mangrove trunks, his glowing emerald eyes locking onto Jorun’s fading ones. His movements were slow, deliberate, inhumanly fluid.
Then, the boy hissed.
Not a word. Not a scream. A hiss—low and drawn out, like the whisper of the jungle itself.
Jorun tried to speak, tried to ask what he was, but the question died on his tongue.
Because in the next second, he did too.
The jungle night was alive again, the eerie silence from before replaced by the usual chorus of chirping insects, rustling leaves, and distant calls of nocturnal creatures. The wind carried the scent of damp earth, blooming flowers, and the faint metallic tang of spilled blood from the unfortunate poachers who had dared trespass.
Nagini, her massive coils draped lazily across a low-hanging branch, let out a long, slow sigh as she stared at the small figure in front of her.
Her son.
Her impossible, frustrating, utterly incorrigible son.
"Harry." Her voice carried the weight of tired patience. "What have I told you about leading hapless poachers into the jungle?"
Harry, perched cross-legged atop the thick root of an ancient tree, grinned unabashedly. His wild mess of dark hair was even more unruly than usual, his sun-kissed skin smeared with streaks of dirt and remnants of jungle fruit. His emerald eyes—glowing faintly in the moonlight—gleamed with mischief.
"That it is rude?" he offered, feigning innocence.
Nagini narrowed her golden eyes.
"And yet, you have done it again."
Harry stretched, completely unrepentant. "In my defense, they were poachers."
Nagini let out a hissing breath, exasperation clear in her tone. "Yes, and we both loathe them. But five years of being hunted by fools with wands and crossbows is enough to tire any mother, Harry. Would it kill you to avoid them?"
Harry tilted his head, considering. "Maybe? But it is so much more fun this way."
Nagini gave him a long, unimpressed stare.
Harry’s grin widened. "Besides," he continued, "I was going to send them to the DMLE."
Nagini flicked her tongue in dry amusement. "Oh? Were you planning to just drop their bodies into the nearest Ministry office like a gift-wrapped package?"
Harry chuckled. "No, that would be rude." He leaned back against the trunk. "The tribal folk wouldn’t like that either. Just dumping bodies into their lands would be a rather terrible thing to do."
Nagini sighed again. "At least you have some manners."
Harry kicked his legs idly. "I spotted them long before they saw me, you know. They were hunting the bats." His expression became more animated. "The big ones with the soft wings. I like snuggling up to them."
Nagini shook her head, amused despite herself. Of course he did. Most children clung to stuffed toys at his age—Harry, on the other hand, had decided that giant nocturnal creatures made the best pillows.
"One day," she mused, "you will give me a heart attack, my little one."
Harry laughed, hopping down from the root and padding over to her. He had long since adapted to moving through the jungle barefoot, his steps noiseless, his movements as fluid as any serpent’s. He climbed onto her coils without hesitation, nestling into the warmth of her scales as he had done since infancy.
"But you love me anyway," he murmured, pressing a hand against her side.
Nagini let out a soft, affectionate hiss, curling her tail protectively around him.
"Always."
(Near the Jungles of Madhya Pradesh, Central India)
The air inside the Bhopal DMLE Headquarters was thick with the familiar scent of parchment, ink, and the sharp tang of antiseptic potions. Inside one of the morgue chambers, a team of Aurors and post-mortem healers stood around three lifeless bodies, each laid out on an examination table under glowing enchanted lights.
It was the fourth time this year.
And it was becoming an annoying pattern.
Auror Dhruv Kashyap sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose, staring down at the latest unfortunate trio of wizarding poachers who had met their untimely end in the depths of the jungle. His patience had already been worn thin the last time this had happened, but now?
Now it was just ridiculous.
“Let me guess,” he muttered, glancing at Healer Jahan Mehta, who was conducting the examination. “More poachers who met their match?”
Jahan hummed, peering at the deep puncture wounds on the first corpse’s chest. “Oh, most definitely,” he confirmed, tapping his wand over the body’s cold skin. “Cause of death: massive envenomation. The venom spread through the bloodstream in seconds—far too fast for any common snake. This was a magical one.”
Dhruv’s partner, Auror Aisha Rao, crossed her arms. “So they wandered into the wrong part of the jungle and got themselves killed. Again.”
Jahan nodded. “And again, someone decided to Portkey their bodiesdirectly into our offices.”
There was an exasperated silence.
Dhruv ran a hand down his face. “I’m sorry—how in the name of the ancestors is this still happening? Portkeys are tracked. Someone should have picked up on the unauthorized usage by now.”
Aisha snorted. “Whoever is doing this isn’t stupid, Dhruv. They’ve been at this for nearly a year. The Portkeys are subtle, with zero magical signatures attached to them. Not even our best enchanters have figured out how they’re being made.”
Jahan raised an eyebrow. “So, in short—some unknown person is going around hunting poachers, letting them die to the jungle, and then casually dropping their bodies into the DMLE like it’s a parcel delivery service?”
“That is exactly what is happening.” Aisha let out an annoyed sigh. “And frankly, it’s getting on my nerves.”
Dhruv grumbled under his breath. “Let’s go over this again. What do we know?”
Aisha listed the facts off on her fingers. “One: the poachers all die in the jungle, far from any civilized wizarding areas. Two: every time, they die under wildlife-related circumstances. Never a Killing Curse, never a spell—always nature doing the work. And three…” She gestured at the bodies. “They always end up here, neatly dumped into the DMLE with no clues left behind.”
Jahan tapped the largest corpse. “Well, here’s something new. This one was bitten by something massive. The venom melted through his insides in seconds.” He whistled lowly. “A snake that large? Magical or not, there aren’t many that match the description.”
Dhruv’s frown deepened. “A Runespoor?”
Jahan shook his head. “Too small. And Runespoors have three sets of puncture wounds. This is one bite. That means a single head. A constrictor-sized venomous serpent shouldn’t exist, but…” He gestured at the corpse. “Well, here we are.”
Aisha let out an exaggerated groan. “Brilliant. So now we have an unknown giant venomous snake running around, and a mystery benefactor sending us poacher corpses like festival gifts.”
Dhruv exhaled sharply. “At this point, I don’t know whether we’re dealing with a rogue vigilante, a sentient magical beast, or some kind of jungle guardian spirit that really, really hates poachers.”
Jahan smirked. “Who says it can’t be all three?”
Aisha rubbed her temples. “We need to track the next Portkey as soon as it happens.”
Dhruv nodded. “Agreed. We’re not letting whoever is doing this keep making fools of us. I don’t care if it’s a wizard, a snake, or bloody Shiva himself—we’re finding out who is behind this.”
Silence settled in the room again as they all stared down at the lifeless bodies, their expressions a mixture of irritation, confusion, and begrudging admiration.
This wasn’t just a case anymore.
Now?
Now it was personal.