Chapter 1
24th of May 1989
There sat a young boy in the shadow of large bushes. He was small for his age and covered in bruises. He was trying to hide from his tormentors and bushes was the best place at the moment. He had broken glasses taped together on his nose and his dark messy hair covered his forehead and a strange scar on it. He had a lot of scars but that was the strangest. It looked just like a lightning bolt.
The boy heard a noise and looked quickly up wondering if they had finally found him. Instead there was a small grey snake in front of him looking at him as if waiting for him to notice her. When the boy finally noticed the snake, it said something that sounded suspiciously like “I finally found you, The Great King of Reynes.”
The boy looked surprised for a moment before he collected himself and asked “How can I understand you? And what do you mean by King?” The boy was more observant than normal for his age and noticed the weird way of addressing.
The snake looked at the boy and tilted her head slightly to the right. “The tongue of serpents runs through your veins, Your Greatness”, answered the snake. ”As for the King, you are the last of the blood of Great King Reynes”, the snake continued. After a while the snake added: “You smell like blood and you have the smell of those who don’t eat enough."
The boy stared at the snake for a while wondering why the snake looked so familiar. Finally he realised it was the same snake he had dreamed of a few days ago. The colouring was exactly the same to every dot and the snake's eyes were the same weird greenish colour which wasn't usual for its species. Also there was the same weird symbol in the snake's skin which looked like a scorpion. And the boy asked about it.
“My great ancestors were born to your family and they blessed us with magic when they were in power. My mother taught me about your family and how to find you. My family have been looking for you for ages. We shared the information to the next generation in hopes to find you and take our place as your companions. The scorpion is the signet of Reynes family. Finally I have found you and it's my responsibility to bring you back to the power worthy of your House”, answered the snake.
The boy looked at the snake and tried to comprehend what he had heard. It would take a while so the boy focused on a different topic next. “What should I do next? I can't just leave my relatives. I don’t have any other place to sleep”, the boy wondered.
The snake looked like she was thinking and after a while she nodded her head like she had come to a conclusion. The snake looked at the boy and said: “I’ll go for the goblins and they will notice my mark and know that there is some of your blood alive. Your blood has always been kinder to creatures than normal wizards and witches so they will surely help me and come up with a plan."
The word “magic" finally caught up with the boy's brain and he looked at the snake with a mix of surprise and suspicion and asked: “What did you say about magic? Magic isn’t even real.”
Now the snake looked like someone had slapped her. “You don’t know about magic!” the snake asked angrily. “How could you not know about magic? I was prepared for you not knowing about being the blood of the Royal line of Reynes but this, this is way worse than I thought”, the snake continued her raving.
The boy listened fascinated by the snake’s raving and the creative swear words that the snake was now spouting.
Suddenly the snake stopped as if realising what she was doing. She looked at the boy and asked: “What is your name?” “My name is Harry Potter”, the boy, Harry, said warily.
The snake started swearing again even more creatively and the boy, Harry, looked at the snake more warily. Harry wondered what was wrong with his name. It wasn’t like it was something special or anything. He hadn’t even known his name before he started primary school. He said that and the snake somehow looked like she wanted to murder someone.
The snake calmed down and decided that she was going to get the boy justice. She could smell how sick the boy was. She could also see the bruises on his arms and how he favoured his right side over left. She looked determined and nodded to herself.
“We are totally going to get goblins’ on this”, the snake finally said. “I'll go to them and I'll be back in two sunrises here in the same place.” “If you aren't here, I'll come and find you.”
Harry suddenly thought how he knew that the snake was a girl even though the snake hadn’t said anything about her gender. “What is your name and how can I already tell that you are a girl even though you haven’t said anything?” Harry asked.
The snake looked at him weirdly but answered: “You are of the same blood and magic as those who blessed us. It's your magic and blood telling you these things. And we don’t have names because we identify others by smell.” “Do you have this weird feeling that you can trust me even though I sound suspicious?” the snake asked.
Harry thought for a while and nodded. He had had this weird feeling the whole time they had been talking.
“There is a connection between us even though it is now diluted. It’s possible to renew but you need magic for it so it’s safest to wait for the goblins”, the snake continued after getting an affirmation.
“How can I call you if you don’t have a name?” Harry asked. ”Can I call you Amyntas? It means defender and it’s from Latin American”, Harry added to which the snake answered “Yes you can. That is a perfect name for a perfect snake like me.” That snake’s moods switched fast from angry to smug Harry realised.
Suddenly there was a commotion. Harry jumped up and looked scarcely around as if waiting for someone to attack him. The snake looked around and without seeing anyone said fast “I’ll go now but I will be back here in two sunrises at the latest.”
The snake left so fast that Harry didn’t even have time to react. He stood there and looked around for the boys who wanted to beat him. He had totally forgotten them because of the snake. He sneaked out of the bushes for the familiar route to home.
-
The next two days couldn’t have gone any slower but today was finally the day that he was supposed to meet Amyntas again. He would go after getting dinner ready. Harry was lucky that Vernon was back to work and he didn’t stay home all day. Otherwise he wouldn’t have the chance to sneak out to meet the snake. Luckily Petunia didn’t care where he was if he got things done in time.
He had spent his time worrying if the snake had been some kind of sick joke by the Dursleys. Then he realised that the Dursleys didn’t have humour and they didn’t understand jokes. Also they wouldn’t pay someone to prank him because they always said that he was a burden and cost a lot of money.
There was a smell of smoke and Harry looked up fast. He had burnt the chicken on the pan because of his musings. He knew he was going to be in so much trouble. Nothing could save him from Vernon when he would be home.
“What have you ungrateful brat done now?” shouted Petunia startling Harry and making him drop the pan and making an even bigger mess. “Can’t you do anything right! Go to your cupboard right now and stay there until Vernon is home and he can deal with you!”
Harry left quickly and went into the cupboard without a word. He sat there in silence and waited with a scared air around him. He knew already that he wouldn’t be able to meet the snake today. He hoped that Amyntas would wait for him. He listened in silence when Vernon’s car drove in the driveway and he came inside. He was already fuming. That was a really bad sign. Harry heard when Petunia told Vernon what he had done. The whole house went silent. It was the worst type of silence. The silence before a storm, type of silence.
Then the screaming started.
Harry didn’t have time to do anything before Vernon had pulled him out of the cupboard and slammed him against a wall. Harry had a hard time catching his breath with the large hand around his throat.
“What have you done boy! You don’t ever really learn! I’m going to give you a lesson.”
Harry had never seen Vernon this angry.
Vernon started hitting him with his other hand while the other was around his throat. Harry struggled against Vernon’s hand while desperately trying to get air. After a while Vernon dropped Harry to the ground and started kicking him. Harry tried to curl up as small as possible while getting some air. His throat was sore and breathing hurt. He smelled blood and started to see black and every voice sounded like they were going on and off.
Everything was muffled and after what felt like hours, the last thing he heard was growling before falling unconscious.
-
There was an emergency alarm going off in Galena’s office and she looked up quickly. Last time the emergency alarm went off was during Voldemort’s reign and now she was worried about what had happened. A light appeared in a machine in her office. She held a button and there was a gruntled voice “Subject of today’s operation has been found badly beaten. He might not survive so we are sending him straight to the ward. You have 30 seconds to prepare before we send him through.”
Galena jumped up and pushed another button on the wall. There was another alarm and ten goblins burst in the room. Galena pointed to a bed and shouted “Human and almost dead! We have to do everything we can because our future is possibly in his hands!” Everyone went running to gather things. They didn’t have time to ask questions. Everyone did as they had during the War.
Suddenly there was bright light and a young boy appeared in the bed. He was bloody and barely breathing. Five goblins started to chant as soon as the light had fully disappeared. The other five were ready to give them tools as they needed. Galena stood there looking that everything went as it should.
The chanting went on and on changing its tone and rhythm. At first it looked like it wasn’t working but then the cuts started to close and the bruises disappeared slowly. The chanting stopped and Galena ran next to the bed and started casting diagnostic scans over the boy and shouted orders to the goblins around.
Potions were given rapidly and every scan, potion, healing charm and chant was documented for later. They didn’t even know yet who they were dealing with because nobody of all the goblins’ knew who the mysterious new possible King was. The snake hadn’t told the name of the boy, just the age and place where they would meet. They would get their answer for that when the boy woke up and was able to speak. Though they had their suspicions because there was only one boy with that famous scar on his forehead.
Even goblins weren’t that heartless that they did an inheritance test while the victim was unconscious. Especially when it was a child. In goblins’ minds’ children were the most precious thing ever.