Divine Intervention

Day blinked into being as the sun began its steady climb through the sky. A stifling heat was already building up for the day, despite being only just after dawn.

Harry blinked into wakefulness with a large yawn. He awoke with sore limbs and heavy eyes and it took him a few moments before he became aware of a large weight cocooning his body.

Turning his head as much as the weight would allow, he came face-to-face with Namira’s unblinking eyes. “Namira?” He hissed out. “Why are you wrapped around me?”

“To keep you warm hatchling. And to stop your from hurting yourself as you went through the Change.”

“The Change? It worked then!” Harry exclaimed, excitedly.

Namira nodded her head. “Indeed Hatchling. Your are True Kin now. Look.”

She pointed her tail towards a small, cracked mirror resting next to an overloaded bin.

Harry tried to get up and walk over, only to fall flat on his face instead. His legs weren’t working. In fact it didn’t feel like he had legs at all anymore. Glancing down, he caught sight of a tail where there should have been legs. “Namira! What happened to my legs?”

His tone was panicked and confused.

“Calm Hatchling,” Namira hissed as she stroked her tail down his spine soothingly. “It is part of the change. You will have three forms now. A full one like me, a two legs one and this. Your true form. You legs are not gone, simply changed. Hidden. It will take a few days before you can change back to your two legs one. Your body will need time to recover from the change and properly acclimatise. When it is time, I will help you learn to change into both forms.”

“Really?” Harry sighed relieved.

Namira nodded again. “This is not the only change. Look.”

Harry tried sitting up with little success. Eventually he settled for rolling onto his back and curving round so he could properly inspect his new tail. His tail was several feet long and extended down from just below his belly button. It was covered in smooth green scales that glittered like emeralds in the early morning light. A smattering of scales ran up his hips, melding with his tanned skin. He ran his fingers over the rest of his body, finding several more smatterings of scales on his back, climbing up his spine and a dusting across his shoulders and around his neck, finally curving up around his eyes.

Pulling himself over to the shattered mirror, he took in the rest of the changes. His eyes were the first thing he noticed. His pupils, once round, were now slitted like Namira’s. His previously jade eyes, seemed luminous and glowed an almost deathly green. His hair had lengthened so now reached down to brush his neck. Almost reaching his shoulders. The additional weight seemed to help reduce its usual chaotic mess.

Feeling something prick his bottom lip, he turned his attention to his mouth. Two fangs poked down in place of his canines. He ran his tongue over them, wincing at the sharpness and instinctively knew, that if he bit someone, a dangerous venom would enter their blood stream.

When Harry had finished taking in his new appearance, Namira slithered over and curled her tail around his wrist. “You are very pretty hatchling. Your scales are bright. A sign of strength and vitality. You will grow to be strong. Now come. I have much to teach you.”

Harry attempted to follow after her as she moved away towards the entrance to the alley. He only managed a step or so before falling flat on his face again.

He looked up to meet Namira’s hypnotising eyes and grinned sheepishly.

She sighed. “It seems we must start with how to move then.”

-

Harry got the hang of moving with his new tail quickly. It took him a few hours before he could move properly and even then, only in stilted, jerky movements.

With Namira’s patient instruction, he was slithering around as naturally as though he had been born to it within a week. What came after took longer to learn however.

Harry soon grew accustomed to the city he now called home. At first the heat had been stifling and the crowds and busy rush terrifying, but he soon grew used to it and even learnt to appreciate the anonymity all the people afforded him.

He learnt to be quiet in his steps and which parts of the city to avoid. He came to know the streets like the back of his hand. He knew the best places to sleep and where he could find food. The cleanest water sources and the highest places he could watch people from.

Food could be hard to come by but still in more abundance than he was used to with the Dursleys. Harry would forage for berries and roots in the various parks and sometimes dig food out of the bins when he had to. Namira was quick to teach him how to hunt. Though young and new to it as he was, it was a slow progression.

He still needed to eat more often than Namira, who was satisfied with a few mice and rats a week. She had been so proud of him when he had managed to catch his first mouse. Eating it had been easier than he expected. His new physique also seemed to come with a new appreciation for raw meat. Harry didn’t bother to think about it too much, only stopping briefly to think how it made living rough easier.

Just as Namira had said, he was able to change back to his normal human form, two legs and all, a few days after his transformation. She still insisted he spend as much time as possible in his hybrid form though. Especially at night, when they would curl up together in a wall nook or in the corner of some alleyway. Wrapped tightly around each other for warmth and tails entwined.

Harry traveled very lightly. He learnt the lack of need for materialistic things. The only things he kept were the clothes on his back, even as they became worn with wear and time. They were kept in just wearable condition by the few spells he knew, taught to him by Namira.

He was intrigued to learn that Namira had actually been born into a wizarding household to a parselmouth, who bred different snake breeds together in order to study them. Many of her siblings and the other hatchlings had either been sold to other wizards or released into the jungles. The parselmouth had kept her when she expressed a set of unique talents. Including the ability to breathe fire.

The first time she had done it, Harry had gasped in awe. She sometimes used it to cook their food but her control was shaky and the food normally ended up mostly charred. Namira said she preferred her food raw anyway.

Namira had spent several years with the parselmouth, who delighted in teaching her about magic and would go off on long rants about magical theory and spells. Whilst this was of no specific use to Namira, she did use her acquired knowledge to impart spells to Harry and basic magical theory. She also taught him of what little she knew of the magical world and it’s different creatures, as well as her limited knowledge of his own race’s history.

Without a wand to hinder him (or the knowledge he even needed one, as decided upon by the European wizarding world), Harry took easily to using his hands to cast spells, often with no chant or spoken word at all. Namira insisted he learnt to cast silently as the city whilst relatively safe, could still be dangerous and silence was a gift not to be wasted. Harry was soon able to use spells to keep his clothes and himself clean and in good enough condition. He learnt how to make a small ball of light and had great fun shaping it into different things and turning it different colours. He could levitate small objects, making pickpocketing when necessary much easier and spells that would keep him and Namira vaguely warm at night.

It was slow going to begin with, as his magical core was still developing and he didn’t understand what Namira meant when she said to ‘feel the magic.’ But then he remembered the tingly sensation that always happened when he made something strange happen. He pulled on that memory and dug deep into himself, eventually drawing that matching sensation to the surface. Soon feeling his magic became as easy as breathing. Almost second nature to him.

It wasn’t just his growing magical skills or the fact he now had a tail that had changed when he had. Harry was quick to become aware of the glittering colours that embraced some people. Most people were very pale colours, their auras small and lacklustre compared to others. They shifted and moved all in different ways. Harry was quick to learn that a person’s aura could tell him a lot about the actual person. Who they were and how they felt at that current time.

Whilst most auras were pale, some burst with brilliance and life. Their colours burned brighter and were slightly overwhelming at first. Namira explained to him that the people with bright colours were magic like him. The colours he could see were people’s innate magic, little or as much as they had. The brighter a person’s colours, the stronger their magic. This led to another convoluted lesson on magical theory. Harry listened on aptly with an eager face and a desire to learn.

Their lives persisted in this peaceful way for close to a year. Harry’s seventh birthday slipped by with him almost none the wiser. His skills with magic grew and he became used to the heat and how smooth his scales felt. The dreary cold of England all but forgotten. His grasp on the language grew as he did until he was almost fluent from speaking it every day and his body stretched up another inch.

Harry adored the peace and freedom Mumbai offered him. Namira was almost like a mum, the way he imagined his own might have been. Comforting and warm but not afraid to chastise him when he did something she didn’t approve of. He had everything he needed. (He often repeated this to himself when he sometimes felt the void of loneliness that dwelt deep inside him rise up. The ache for a family he never knew and would probably never have, settling into his bones with a stubborn insistence. He always quashed those emotions as much as possible when they did stir. There was no use in wanting something that would never be).

Their lives moved forward as the seasons changed and the days flew by. Peaceful and free. (Though sometimes lonely) Harry learnt and grew quickly in a short time. And the bond between them grew and strengthened.

It wasn’t until a very hot day the following June, almost a year later, that something changed. And destiny shifted yet again.