Of friends and stones

It has been almost ten years since the boy went to live with his aunt and uncle, but the houses of Privet Drive remained unchanged. The rising sun moved over the same homes making their numberplates shine brightly. The Dursley house stayed as it was on that fateful night the only thing showing the passage of time were the pictures decorating the house. It was of a seemingly happy and average family father mother and their son, their only son. If a stranger came there they would believe the building had only three occupants, and they would be wrong in that as their only nephew lived with them there too. He was a young little thing ten years old almost eleven with messy jet-black hair and vibrant green eyes. His aunt could not decide which of those features she hated more. On this morning, he was still asleep unaware of what kind of changes will this day bring into his life and unaware that someone was watching.

Outside in a rather tall tree lay a woman unseen by the ordinary people of this world waiting. She was there out of curiosity; she had promised a long time ago to someone not to meddle with the boy’s life for at least until he was school-aged, and he was almost there, only short by a few months. She had been watching him for a few days by then. Today she did not have to wait long for something to happen. Like clockwork came his aunt yelling at him to wake up and make them breakfast. She slowly crept closer to the house to get a better look still unnoticed. Watching him from the kitchen windows she was surprised by how small the boy looked in comparison to his family which’s male members were large by human standards. As she looked around more, she could not help but be surprised by the amount of neatly wrapped gifts that were in there. One child spoiled like a prince and the other was treated worse than a servant. She had not been witnessing things for a long time but already hated how they were going on. Watching the child cook without help for his oversized family made her angry and when she saw the bruises on his arm when he lifted the pan, she became downright furious. When the family finally sat down to enjoy their meal came the first temper tantrum of the day in the form of not enough presents from none other than Dudley Dursley the youngest Dursley of the family. The thing that finally calmed the boy down was the promise of two more presents. Disgusting. That was the first thought that came to her mind these parents have no backbone when it comes to their son. Their peace was short-lived though and soon came the ringing of the phone from out the hall and his aunt went there to answer it. During this time she had the pleasure of watching the blond boy open a bicycle, a camera, some remote-controlled plane, and more than two dozen games for his computer. The child was in the process of making a large mess when his mom finally came back thin-lipped and pale it was clear that she was trying to control her displeasure.

“Vernon, we have a problem,” she spoke with barely contained rage in her voice. “Mrs Figg just called she cannot watch the boy she broke her leg. What are we going to do with him now?

She watched as they tried to think of someone who could watch the child but came up empty handed laughing at the boy’s idea of him remaining home alone while they went out. Their only option was to take him with them to the zoo too. This was where Dudley’s second tantrum of the day came. He was wailing throwing things even hitting his mother in the process but in the end, he remained unsuccessful in his attempt to persuade his parents to leave his cousin at home. His tantrum only ended because someone rang the doorbell to the house.

A woman and a young boy had arrived at the Dursley residence. It was Piers Polkiss Dudley’s best friend and his mother dropping him off. Not long after that the little group was in Vernon’s car and off to the zoo. She decided to follow them and observe how this odd group would act in public. While tailing them from above she could not hear the conversation that happened in the car, but it must have been something as his uncle almost crashed the car.

“Motorcycles cannot fly” she could faintly hear a man scream. Well, that’s interesting she mused to herself as she had heard that the uncle knew of magic and if that was the case why would he deny it so aggressively.

It was a beautiful day bright and sunny simply perfect for a little trip like this. She watched the boy’s family begrudgingly buy him a little cone of ice cream it was the cheapest one, but he did not seem to mind it in the slightest. He tried to stay at a respectful distance from his cousin and his friend who by noon seemed to become bored out of their minds.

After lunch, their little group went inside to explore reptile inclusions. The boys immediately went to look at the largest of the snakes sticking their faces right onto the glass panel that separated animal from human, but it remained unmoving.

“Wake it up!” came the yells of the blond boy and to his command his father tapped at the glass to try to do so. Nothing. “Do it again.” and he did with even more force. His fist made the glass shake a bit. Even after all that it remained as it was still and unresponsive. “This is boring,” he said pouting at his father.

After all this commotion something unexpected happened when Harry went up to the glass. He started to speak to the snake and to his surprise it answered back but he was not the only one shocked as she was watching him talk to it. She was so surprised to see this play out that she almost missed an excited Piers run over to them pushing the boy from the enclosure to down to the ground.

“Dudley, Uncle Vernon look at this snake. You would not believe what it is doing right now.”

No one tried to help the boy get back up from the ground as they pushed in front of him with no care as to whether they had kicked him or not. before he could get up, he heard a yell and a splash as if someone had fallen into the enclosure, and sure enough Dudley had just done that. His parents screamed his name and yelled at the snake to stay away but it paid no mind to them uncoiling itself quickly and making an escape.

Shortly after this, the whole group was sitting in the director’s office who could not stop apologizing to them. He did not understand what had happened to the glass pane, but it wasn’t very surprising as he was just an ordinary man unknowing of the magic of this world. Shortly after they got back into the car, she decided to look for the snake figuring she had enough time to do so and make it back to Privet Drive before they did. Walking to where she thought the snake would hide out for the daytime, she watched the people evacuate in an orderly manner as there was still a giant snake on the loose. She located it quickly and without a problem crouching down next to it, she slowly started to pet it. Startled by the sudden presence at its side the snake pulled away as fast as it could positioning itself in a clearly defensive posture.

“Sorry for startling you,” she spoke gently.

The snake looked at her perplexed someone else could also speak to them then it realised just who it was before them.

“Grand Serpent?” came the question.

“Oh, my it has been some time since I’ve been called that.” she chuckled. ”Yes, I am. Would you like to come with me? Away from here.” she asked.

“Yes, Grand Serpent” came the reply.

“Great, but none of that Grand Serpent business you can call me Rae. Now would tell me your name darling?”

“I do not have one Gra- Rae.”

“Well, that is no good everyone should have a name. Would you like one?”

“I would yes.”

“Okay how about Pierre?” she asked jokingly and seeing his expression she quickly added so. ”I’m just joking but if you have any preference, I would love to hear it”.

“Well, I would not mind being called Dante. It was the name of the human who took care of me after hatching.”

“Okay then Dante would you like to come with me to visit the child who spoke to you before me?”

“Yes, I would thank you,” he replied wrapping himself around her torso and resting his head on the top of hers.

“Okay then hold on tight 'cause we are going to travel my way and I would not want to lose you,” she spoke to him, and both vanished in a swirl of black smoke with no one the wiser around them.

As soon as she arrived at Privet Drive, she heard the car pull into the street and come to a halt at the garage. His uncle waited for Piers to be picked up by his mother before he unleashed all his furry on his nephew.

“You go back to your cupboard and stay there no food for you. You hear me do not let me see you or there will be consequences,” he yelled at the boy.

What an unreasonable man she thought. Did no one tell them that children could not control their magic as well as adults could? Even if that was the case his aunt should know better seeing as she grew up with his mother who was a witch herself. In the end, she decided to remain there and watch the family until the boy gets his acceptance letter to Hogwarts as she was certain he would be getting one for his eleventh birthday.