Redo - Harry Potter Fanfiction

Chapter Twenty-three

Somehow Harry and the female snake had made it out of there. Looking back, the way they had managed to creep past that manticore was fantastic. It was terrifying but impressive. Especially since Harry was in a partial daze.

But now Harry was staring at the door into his dormitory, the mamba curled around his arm. His mind was utterly blank; honestly, he wasn't there. The snake did snap him out of it with a sharp hiss, and by the way, she tightened around his forearm.

"Speaker! What are you waiting for?" Harry blinked dumbly, then met her slitted eyes. His mind cleared enough for him to speak to the snake.

"I've got another snake..." He muttered, still feeling quite numb. He wasn't sure why he felt so ungrounded, but Harry couldn't focus well right then. The snake, meanwhile, had a confused expression on her face, well, confused as a snake could get.

"Another snake? I knew you smelt a little bit like a viper, but I wasn't sure. It doesn't matter anyway, I'm old, and they wouldn't dare try anything. I know better than some pet snake." Harry shrugged at her reply but still hesitated at the door.

His hand was on the knob, but he couldn't turn it. It felt like, after this point, something big was going to happen, and Harry wasn't sure if he was ready. But the tightening of the bright green mamba on his arm pushed him to open the door.

Immediately he saw Rio's head peek up from under the bedsheets. He looked relieved for a moment before he spotted the green mamba. Harry's never seen Rio aggressive before, but he had his sharp fangs visible right then, and his entire body language screamed hostile.

"Who is that with you, Harry?" Hissed out Rio; his yellow eyes were gleaming. But the mamba wasn't fazed at all by Rio; instead, she slithered down Harry and onto the floor. Rio looked ready to strike as the green snake kept coming closer to him.

She stopped and met his eyes from her place on the floor. Her eyes were dark and wise, she may be old, but she didn't lack fierceness. In fact, even Harry was intimidated by the mamba, and he wasn't even the target of her gaze. Rio shrunk a little, her dominant energy forcing him to submit to her.

"Listen here, young one, I don't aim to hurt you, but I will. I made a deal with your human, and he allowed me to live with him for my remaining days. You better shut up and deal with it before I bite your head off." Rio looked miffed, but he ducked back into his warm blankets. Rio glared at Harry as if to say they'd be talking about this later. The mamba went onto Harry's bed and curled up herself, letting out a snaky sigh of comfort.

"You humans have it so nice, you know." Harry could guess the world hadn't been nice to her. Scars of battles fought and won littered her green body. And though she was bright green, her eyes showed the dullness of age and weary traumas.

Harry realized he had nothing to call her, and he also had so many questions for her.
"What should I call you?" She opened her dark eyes, looking a bit peeved, but she let out a string off hisses that had no meaning to him, even in parseltongue.

"What was that?" He asked, alarmed, having no idea what she had just said. She rolled her eyes, groaning at his puzzlement.

"My name, but I guess you're too stupid for my true name. Call me what you want, speaker." She'd been calling him speaker since he summoned her. If he remembered correctly, so did that garden snake, Sasha. Rio never referred to him as speaker, but maybe that was because he wasn't raised in the wild.

"Why do you call me speaker?" Harry asked, giving in to his interest. The green snake just gave him a deadpanned look, as if his question was straightforward. But to Harry, at least, the answer wasn't apparent at all. The female snake exhaled deeply, reminding Harry of McGonagall when she was annoyed.