Conversation with a snake
The drive to the zoo went just about as well as either Harry or Tom and expected: Dudley and Piers made horribly unfunny jokes about him (thankfully there was little room for either boy to try and rough him up), while uncle Vernon moaned and complained about everything that annoyed him - which was just about everything, usually; the people at the office, Harry, city council, Harry, the bank and Harry were just a few of his favourite subjects.
Today, he seemed to have it out for motorcycle drivers, it seemed, as he pissed on: "Driving around here like madmen, those bloody rowdys...", as yet another one, a white and orange bolt of lightning shot past the Dursley car, splitting the lanes as he did. "Bloody foreigners!", uncle Vernon yelled as he slammed the horn. How he knew that the guy was a foreigner, Harry did not know - maybe he had spied the license plate?
'You know, I had this weird dream last night', Harry told Tom. 'There was a flying motorcycle in it.'
'Huh, that sounds like fun', Tom answered. 'Wonder what that means.'
'Maybe it was subliminal messaging that I should get one when I'm old enough?', he joked.
Tom laughed. 'Do that without me, then. I never liked those deathtraps.'
'You do know that motorcycles have gotten a lot better since your day?'
'And drivers have gotten a lot worse. Look at the walrus', Tom shot back.
'Good point.'
The rest of the drive went by without much more outrage, safe when that same motorcycle driver, seemingly having a deathwish, passed into uncle Vernon's lane right in front of the car, causing him to slam on the brakes, slam the horn again and yell an impressive barrage of curses. The driver simply flipped him the bird in response.
'See what I mean?', Tom commented.
Still, eventually, the group arrived at the zoo. While uncle Vernon busied himself with locking up the car (thankfully having let Harry out, because "I don't want the freak to wreck the new car"), Harry considered just making a break for it. Dudley and Piers were thankfully distracted by aunt Petunia, and uncle Vernon had his back turned to him.
Ultimately, he decided against it, though. He didn't have anything to his name, no money, no identification, not even a snack of some sort. And there was no guarantee that he'd get away; at best, the police would pick him up and send him back to the Dursleys, where he'd be punished for causing trouble; at worst, well...
And as it turned out, the zoo was quite fun. Dudley and Piers found all sorts of things to distract themselves - mostly harrassing the animals - while uncle Vernon and aunt Petunia played the part of the loving caretakers - a sick joke, from where both Harry and Tom stood.
Still, even Harry got some... care for a change. When Dudley and Piers got a big cone of chocolate ice cream each, Harry got a cheap lemon ice when the vendor asked him what he wanted. 'When life gives you lemons, make lemon ice out of it', Tom commented. 'Tastes much better than one thinks.' Harry agreed with that assessment as he licked his ice cream while watching a gorilla scratch his head - had the monkey been blonde, he'd have passed for Dudley's twin.
When they had lunch with dessert in the restaurant (Harry made himself small to avoid being noticed by Dudley and Piers, lest they grow bored and beat him up for fun), Dudley threw a tantrum (surprise, surprise) when his Hawaii ice bowl came back too small, uncle Vernon immediately sided with him, tore the waiter a new one and ordered a new bowl - Harry got the other one.
'You'd think that the possibility of public embarassment would be enough for them to teach piggy how to behave himself', Tom commented as Harry had another spoon.
'Eh, I got ice cream out of it', he answered. 'Plus, watching Dudley make a fool out of himself is always worth it. Feel sorry for the waiter, though.'
'Here's hoping it ain't all gonna go downhill from here.'
After they were finished with lunch, the group headed to the house of reptiles. It was a cooled, dark place with lit windows to peek into and watch the various reptiles - mostly snakes. 'I like this place', Tom said. 'Reminds me of... something I don't remember.'
'As always', Harry answered amused.
Dudley and Piers, of course, immediately went to the nastiest and biggest snakes the zoo had to offer, the cobras and pythons and others. Dudley soon found the biggest snake in the building - a boa constrictor, as the little sign indicated. The snake was so large, it could've looped itself around uncle Vernon's car twice and crushed it without much effort.
As it was, though, the snake lazily rested in its window, not reacting to anything, not even Dudley's glaring. "It's not doing anything", the same complained. "Dad, make it move!"
Uncle Vernon hit the glass with his fist, first once, then twice, but to no avail. At Dudley's request, he did it again, but the snake simply slept through it.
"Boring", Dudley moaned and headed off, Piers in tow. Uncle Vernon soon followed, leaving Harry behind.
For his part, Harry wouldn't have been surprised if the snake had died of boredom. After all, there was nothing to do here, other than to be gazed at and roused from sleep by Dudleys and Piers's. All the snake had was this little window, which somehow was even worse than what Harry had. True, he only had the cupboard, but he had Tom for company, and could at least see the rest of the house.
'Oh, hello, Yig', Tom suddenly piped up, drawing Harry's attention away from his thoughts and back to the snake, which now slowly opened its small eyes and raised its head until it was on Harry's heads level. And then, it did something that, as far as he knew, was highly unusual for a snake.
It winked at him.
Harry blinked in surprise before looking around if anyone else had seen it. He was alone, however, the Dursleys and Piers had already gone on to harass the next poor reptile. The snake meanwhile gazed in their direction and waggled its head, while saying: "I have to deal with that all day."
"Yeah, I imagine. That's gotta be annoying", Harry answered, lost in thought.
Hold on. 'Did I just understand a snake?!', he suddenly thought.
'And you answered it in its language', Tom immediately added. 'Most peculiar indeed. I wonder how...'
Images flashed before Harry's mind, images of snakes, some small, some large, with a young boy Harry strongly suspected to be a young Tom being in all of them, making hissing sounds, hissing sounds which Harry understood.
How the hell was that possible?
"It's rare to meet a speaker these days", the boa stated, oblivious to his inner turmoil. "I'm glad to have done so, though. It does get quite lonely in here, with only these hairless apes as 'company."
Harry dumbly nodded, not sure how to react to this. "So.... I'm guessing you spent most of your time in the zoo, then?", he finally lamely asked.
The snake made a nodding movement. "Hatched and raised, much to my chagrin. I would love to visit Brasil one day", it mused.
Harry opened his mouth to respond something, when a yell stopped his thoughts dead in its tracks. "DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME QUICK! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT THAT SNAKE IS DOING!"
Betrayed by the rat. Again.
Sure enough, Dudley and uncle Vernon came waddling over, Dudley roughly pushing Harry out of the way. "Move it", he grunted as he moved to press his fat face into the glass window.
Only... the window wasn't there anymore. Instead, Dudley fell face first into the terrarium while a large dark shape fell out of it, untangling itself on the ground and raising its head, letting out a mocking hiss.
"Ah, now that is fun", it commented as horrified onlookers screamed in terror. ""Brasil, here I come... adeus, amigo!"
And just like that, the boa constrictor slithered past the screaming people towards the exit, Harry dumbly watching as it did.
A banging sound tore him away from the snake's shape and back to the terrarium, and he chortled a laugh at the sight. The glass had made a sudden reappearance, trapping Dudley inside. His cousin was now screaming and bawling as he banged the glass, begging to be let out.
'Huh, looks like Piggy found his pen', Tom, having been drawn from his own thoughts by Dudley's misfortune.
The zoo director himself brewed aunt Petunia a cup of calming tea, while trying to placate uncle Vernon with apologies, who was busy yelling about suing the zoo, the director, and just about everyone. Dudley and Piers meanwhile had apparently made a game out of coming up with things the snake - which had (fortunately!) gotten away - had done or tried to do. Harry did his best to keep his head down while trying to wrap it around the fact that he had actually spoken with a snake.
Unfortunately, Piers had apparently noticed at least some of it, and, when he got his wits back, brought that fact to everyone's attention like the rat he was. At least uncle Vernon, possibly sensing the potential dangers to himself if he lost his temper in the office, waited until they were home to blow off his top. By then, he was so short of breath that all he did was press out the words "Go - cupboard - stay - no food!" before he fell into a chair and yelled at aunt Petunia to fetch him a cognac.
Harry obliged, seeing how he had no other choice. At least he had gotten off light, though he did not fancy having to sneak out in the middle of night again to steal some food from the kitchen. This however was not at the forefront of his mind, as he still tried to process the day's events, from the vanishing glass to the conversation with the snake.
In that instance, Tom made his return, having returned to his own thoughts earlier. 'Did that really happen?', Harry immediately asked - though he knew that asking an imaginary friend whether something weird had happened was bound to be problematic.
'It did, and good thing too', Tom answered. He sounded... different, more self assured, but also surprised at something or other.
'I'm locked in the cupboard again, and lost my food privileges. How is that a good thing?', Harry asked.
'Well, for starters, you could've gotten off worse', Tom plainly stated. 'Second, that little chat with the snake stirred something in my memories, something which might well explain this whole mess we find ourselves in.'
'You mean the window disappearing? Or why I'm even in this hellhole?', Harry wondered.
'I mean the window, yes, and I suspect that your presence with the Dursleys may well be related to it, as well, but I was rather referring to the fact why I'm even in your head', Tom answered. 'Oh, and why you can talk to snakes to begin with.'
Harry pondered on that for a bit. 'Alright, I'll bite', he finally said. 'But if you say that it's magic, I will hit you.'
'That would mean hitting yourself, and I do not need to see your thoughts to know you have no desire to do that', Tom replied. 'Besides, if you take a look at the memories which made a return earlier, you'll not find this explanation to be so far-fetched.'
Memories rushed forward, Tom's memories. Him accidentally turning the hair of a woman - a nurse, by the looks of her clothes - blue (a familiar sight!). Him making a few dolls dance, causing a girl to laugh in delight. Him talking with an old man when a wardrobe suddenly burst into flames. Him walking down a stone hallway in some sort of castle, wearing a robe of sorts. Him wielding a wooden stick which suddenly glowed with light, something which caused Tom to smile - a rare sight.
Then, it switched to Harry's memories. Him turning Mrs. Joanne's hair blue. Him running towards the school kitchen to try and escape Dudley's gang and suddenly appearing on its roof. A bald man in a purple coat - no, a purple robe, not unlike the black one Tom had worn in that other memory - shaking his hand in the middle of the road.
'Magic is... real?', Harry asked.
'It is', Tom confirmed. 'And you, Harry Potter, are a wizard.'