The Dursleys
Harry dutifully wrapped his fingers around yet another weed and yanked, dirt exploding from the dry garden bed and onto his oversized t-shirt; yet another Dudley hand-me-down. The sun beat down onto every corner of #4 Privet Drive, to include, unfortunately, the front lawn of the Dursleys’ picturesque England home.
The malnourished eight-year-old wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, looking more like a garden hand than a resident of the middle-class neighborhood. Scrutinizing the finished garden bed, Harry picked apart the rows of flowers and shrubbery with narrowed eyes. He knew from experience that should even one unwanted sproutling disturb his aunt’s garden, he would be taken out to the backyard shed and imprisoned there for days.
What hurt most wasn't really the hunger--that he was used to. What coiled thickly in the pit of his stomach was that no one seemed to need him. Sure, Aunt Petunia yelled at him every morning with something to the effect of "If you don't cook breakfast, no one will!", but was Harry selfish to wish that his purpose in life was something a little more than a glorified cook?
On those rare occasions where he was allowed to sit at the breakfast table, his only family in the world looked straight through him as though he were a ghost, just like all the kids at the elementary school who feared that Dudley and his gang would turn on them instead. Even now during the summer, Dudley and his gang of menaces haunted him day in and day out. Harry breathed a sigh of relief that they and Uncle Vernon had disappeared to the zoo on this particular day—he didn’t think he had the patience for their antics today.
Satisfied that he hadn’t missed anything, Harry stood and began collecting the tools. Watering can—check. Hose—check. Snake…snake!? But indeed, there is was: a glistening green garden snake with a tail that looked as if it had been dipped in a bucket of oil, coiled rather possessively around his shovel.
Harry stared at it in silence, lips thinning and eyes void of emotion. If he was bitten, he most definitely wouldn’t be taken to the hospital—been there done that. They would press cold compresses onto his injuries and tell him to lay In the cupboard until he got better. And like the cherry on the top of some metaphorical sundae shitstorm, Uncle Vernon would turn purple yelling about the costs of medical bills and the garbage that was the British healthcare system. Because Harry was so selfish to have hurt himself.
He decided to fish out the hose he held to gently prod the snake away-- maybe like a fellow snake friend to coax the other snake away. When the metal tip of the hose finally touched the languid snake, to Harry’s horror and (reluctantly, he would later admit) expectation, it reared up and hissed angrily.
"Cursed humans! I should have drowned myself eons ago,"
“Oh, sorry. I just need the shovel. Sorry.” Harry reflexively apologized, flinching away from the peeved snake. Said snake blinked slowly, then moved off the shovel and slithered towards him.
“Speaker?" The snake inquired, and Harry could have sworn it was smiling.
Harry responded with an awkward smile that didn't reach his eyes. "The snake talks. The snake is talking to me. The fumes from the weed killer maybe?" He mused as he retreated.
“I do,” The snake replied smoothly, “Talk, that is. Or rather, you’re talking to me,”
"Right, that's…" Harry glanced at the shovel and tried to determine how best to avoid the snake, grab his tools, and clear the game. "That's right. Look over there," He pointed at an indistinguishable location in the garden, far away from the shovel.
"Where?" The snake turned and, upon finding nothing, moved to turn back around.
"No! There! Keep looking," Harry called, already halfway to the shovel.
"What, exactly, am I looking for, Speaker?" The snake asked, still squinting into the distance.
"Uh, I think I saw another snake there," Harry replied, hoisting the shovel up onto his shoulders, "Really…uh…slender, nice scales, a girl snake, I think,"
The snake turned back around with a huff and found Harry already climbing up the stairs to the house.
"Wait, where goes you?" Harry heard the snake call. He had beat the snake with the good old 'made you look'. If that wasn't a success he didn't know what was.
***
The next day, he was out in the garden again. He had made a point of avoiding the weed killer, and instead picked the dandelions poking out between the cracks in the pavement with his own strength.
"Pleasant to see you outside again," A familiar hiss sounded, and Harry's spine froze. He turned around to face the snake he had conned, a smile that looked more like a grimace marring his delicate face.
"You as well," Harry forced out through gritted teeth. He had deliberately avoided the weed killer today. Was it something else?
"As you so hastily left the last time, I felt the need to follow up on our conversation," It elaborated.
"Right, um, what, exactly, did you want to talk about?"
"Nothing in particular, just wanted to catch up on the magic world. The last time I encountered a Speaker was eons ago,"
Harry nodded like he understood. "How old are you?"
The snake laughed with a breath that sounded like someone sniffed in rapid succession. "At least 200 summers, Speaker,"
"Do snakes even live that long?'
"Magic snakes, yes. I've been sold and used and been on countless displays. I really shouldn't have chosen to live this long," The snake said, still speaking in an amused tone that made Harry feel like a child.
"Of course you're magic," Harry mumbled to himself. Weed killer sure was potent. "Do you have a name, by chance?"
"I have no concept of names, Speaker,"
"What does that…how…" Here, Harry decided to give up. "Ok, then do you have something you want to be called?"
"Supreme Master of All Living and De-"
"Listen, I'm called Harry. Harry Potter. And you could be?"
"Gary Cotte-"
"No," Harry closed his eyes and gave him the first name he thought of. "You can be Louis. Yes?"
"Louissss." The snake enunciated. "I am Louissss,"
"Good," Harry praised, beginning to find a little but of affection for the snake. "You-"
“HARRY!” The shrill voice of Aunt Petunia broke the silence. “Come inside, I need you to clean this mess!” The door slammed shut as she stepped back inside—according to her, her skin was much too sensitive for the afternoon heat.
“You make lunch?" Louis asked.
“I have to. If I don’t…they, well…they beat me,” Usually, Harry made excuses when presented with such questions, but he was talking to a snake, a magic snake that wasn't even real. What was there to lose?
“Why do you not just…leave?”
“I can’t…it’s not that...look, I gotta go.” Harry hoisted the rest of the tools up under his arms.
“Harry,” Said boy turned back around. “It is said, said by my parents and my parents’ parents, that tonight is a magical night. Perhaps if you wished upon the star—”
“HARRY!”
“Sorry, sorry, I gotta go” Harry whispered as the snake looked at him pointedly. Harry directed an apologetic grimace in its direction before yelling, “COMING!”
***
Now, five hours later, with palms red and aching from scrubbing the grease off of Uncle Vernon’s destroyed barbeque, Harry was almost certain that he had imagined the whole thing. But, nevertheless, curled up on the thin mattress in the living-hell-under-the-stairs, Harry remembered Louis's mysterious words: “Perhaps if you wished upon the star—”
The star? What star? And even if he wished, he couldn’t see the sky under the stairs, much less “the” star! Harry stuck his palms under his armpits and shivered as the sun set and the last rays of daylight seeped in through the crack under the door. He wanted to be anywhere but here…if only whoever had left him on the doorstep had taken him in instead!
“I wish…" He already felt ridiculous, “I was somewhere needed,” Seconds passed and his face reddened. Of course, nothing would happen! That cursed weed killer!
Harry turned over on his side and shoved him head into the threadbare blankets with embarrassment, and then something unfamiliar sparked in his gut. Suddenly, the world seemed to spin in shades of blue and gray, and the fabric of the pillow pressing up against his face disappeared.
And then it all turned to black.