9'A/N: This story is discontinued! I am posting it here after erroneously posting it under another story. I got so many e-mails that I have decided this will be a challenge! I dare anyone to finish this story. I couldn't, so I abandoned my handwritten chapter notes and outlines. I've dug them up, so anyone wanting to see a summary of my notes can go to my Yahoo! Group listed on my profile. This is a first chapter challenge, feel free to ADD OR SUBTRACT from this AU fic.
This AU fic assumes Harry to be slightly more abused than in cannon, shorter (naturally, not all from abuse), and decidedly darker. In this challenge Harry can be strait or gay. I have him pegged as queer because that was part of an idea I had that got so tangled in the plot that I decided to make him strait later on in my notes, but the original opening I typed was never changed.
I wash my hands of this monster, and submit it for your own use!'
-Sofia Dragon
Title:
The Serpent Rose
Disclaimer:
I only own most of this fic. The challenge and first chapter (the prologue is mine) came from Sofia Dragon.
Cannon:
Harry Potter
Character:
Sneaky Slytherin Dark but not Evil Harry/Ginny. Manipulative Dumbledore. Strong Neville. etc.
Pairings:
Harry/Ginny, Luna/Neville, Hermione/Ron, Fred/Katie Bell/George/Angelina Johnson, etc…
Genre:
Dark/Adventure
Timeline:
Post AU Ootp
Summary:
A secret organization is underway to fight Voldemort as well as undermined the wizarding world and Dumbledore. Secrets in the Shadows, those forgotten and forsaken will take control to stop the true evils of the world as a grey light. The Serpent Rose society is of a new era.
"S. Serpitongue. S." from human
"B. Beastspeak. B." from human
"S. Serpitongue. S." from animal
"B. Beastspeak. B." from animal
"adligo funis, vinculum": to make cord, imprisonment
Serpent Rose
Prologue
UnknownThe streets of England reeked with the infestation of sickness and death with the unabated sweat stains filling the air. Scavenging rats crawled through the gravel paths between the abandoned buildings and the random trash cans in the alleys. The crescent moon was waning leaving little light available to only passing strangers who knew what to look for. There was much shadow in the barely lightened pathways of the slums.
A young man, young in body but aged in mind, cascaded in the shadows like water of simple stones in a stream. Quiet. Silent. Peaceful. Determined. Maneuvering easily over debris in the steps he was to take, he watched.
Those who knew what he did talked of him as "Shadow" for that was what he was. Someone always remembered but never talked about, a distant memory always on the back of one's mind. He was feared and respected. No one knew him if he didn't want them to. When he was part of this current occupation, just one of the odd-jobs he worked for his association, he held a budding almost pure black rose in the right pocket with a violently dark green stem; one of the few colors other then black one might see if he was to step out into the light, one might notice the edges of the rose petals that were a ruby red. It was a part of his look as was the nearly solid black form curled around his neck as if it was a scarf, a scarf drafted around him as a piece of his anatomy. The ruby red part of the nearly pitch black rose stood out only when catching direct bright light.
The black snake fit in. Both coexisted in this rotten world, together, as one figure.
The snake's silky scales were pure black. There would be no other color in the light it did not wish. It wasn't twenty foot long, just under. Constricting its scales, the skin pulled and pushed to lengthen and strengthen or pull together and look altogether part of the furniture, look ordinary in this fucked up world in which Shadow's cards had been dealt with a bad amount of luck within the worst, and handled in better terms.
Ahead was a man, a dark suit that those of professions hidden behind lies and death wore. At the edge of the alley, he was traveling to the canal in the area to make a deal with a boss of his. He had no real impression because it was his job not to. All he was to do was deliver the money and then his own boss would have whatever it was he was paying for. He would do so and never think of this again. He was an in-between guy.
As if sensing a meal the snake around Shadow's shoulders looked up. If one was watching they would have seen familiar green eyes reminiscent of the Avada Kedavra curse. But if a watcher was to contemplate it, there would be no doubt how deadly the silky serpent was with scales the seconded as skin and didn't bump in touch unless to choose. Its head bobbed around until the rest of its body wasn't as tightly wound around the silent Shadow. It became apparent that the snake was not a snake but a silky serpent when it wasn't so much using the human body as leverage for the trip down, but for a warm place and a familiar fiend that helped to sway its cunning heart.
The man walked confidently now, waiting to reach the end of the alley. A dark brown suitcase handle hung the case from his hand and he sauntered. He reached a shadow until the flickering light at the side allowed him to see a brick wall stopping his acceleration. He stomped and cursed and fought the urge to hit the case against it. He assumed it was money inside but one low person in any hierarchy like himself could never be to sure. So he cursed aloud and stomped again as he turned. He didn't know why he suddenly went still but something in him crawled up his spine and his back rose enough. The chills had taken their effect it seems.
There was a low key hissing though the man neither herd nor felt the vibrations that Shadow felt and understood. Like an internal Morse code he smiled and allowed the serpent to move forward. The serpent had small wings on its back that disappeared when in use like a Snitch bird's own would in a game of Quidditch until it came silkily into view.
Eyes trying to focus on the dark in front of him, his mind felt as if there was something solid blocking his view of completing his job. He tried to assume a threatening stance before he thought that was silly and relaxed his posture. He was imagining things. If he heard anything like a snake then he was simply hearing the screeching electricity attempt to not quit in the failing street lamp light.
Until two figures made themselves known, stepping out of the dark enlightened areas.
"Who the hell are you!" demanded the suitcase man, voice tightening out of fear that he failed to hide and failed to notice that he didn't hide.
Shadow sauntered in much like the manner the man had earlier before he had noticed the bricked up wall. Mocking the man, looking at him like a child or a piece of meet. Not wanting him in any real way but knowing he was better than the man. The business man swallowed the chill under his skin and the goosebumps that followed the earlier wave as it climbed up his spine. It told him that nothing good could come from this.
Acting out of fear that anyone would have had while unknowingly facing this Shadow man, the man's eyes blazed in anger, the fear showing without his will or knowledge. "Who are you!" he tried to get answers. "What do you want, a puny guy like you," Shadow wasn't puny but the man was working on the assumption that he himself was scary and the man in front of him would fall on any battle.
As if hearing these thoughts, the Shadow man chuckled amused. His serpent was crawling around the man in a wide berth, circling the man, watching the man unaware that he himself was prey. As if sensing a predator that could easily swallow him up whole without a drop of sweat the man unconsciously dropped the suitcase and his eyes snapped towards the slithering serpent.
"Snake! Think you could scare me with a little animal."
Apparently he had never watched the Discovery Channel and was unaware that many snakes held poison in their bite, and though this black beauty was not really a snake, the serpent body of the animal raised its head to show deadly fangs nearly dripping with poison that burnt when it touched the ground like acid through tissue paper. It steamed like the whistle blow of a kettle and the man in the suit fought against the involuntary urge to loose control of his bowels.
And he was utterly stupid in his knowledge of battle. He was like a grunt figure, but Shadow took humor in this job as he knew too many fools he wished it could be.
But the grunt finally did realize when he was cornered. His bowels gave him no choice this time. Though it mind have not been seen, the Shadow man that he wouldn't admit but still terrified him, rubbed his nose, the scent of new warm urine an acidic no-no to his sensitive nostrils. The serpent gave a sharp hiss as it turned its head away for a quick second and then seemed to glare at the business man.
Some more hissing and the man went pale though unsure why. In his quickly failing mind the man had a thought. 'It was almost like the snake was talking to him.' he though.
"S. Hee isss poor ssstock. I wisssh to sssnack. Hee will do no good tooosss anyone, and I am feeling the urgee toooosss feeed. He isss a disssgracsse to your specssiesss. S." the serpent hissed this aloud in its own language, parts of the words falling longer with the tongue she had. Though she had grown up to speak almost humanly even with her own ancestral genes, she was anticipating something she knew her bonded would allow her, so her words were long.
The Shadow man heard this mentally. It was not the famed Parseltongue that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had, but Serpitongue, the real gift of Salazar Slytherin learnt by his heirs and a few descendants, in which no one really knew. Serpitongue was the speak of anything with serpent blood running through them, whether snake, dragon, or hybrid. A single drop of serpent blood gave an animal this speak of choice. One might wonder if the Slytherin founder had performed a ritual or something to receive this blood. In truth, Salazar was gifted this by his bonded animal, a hybrid small dragon about the size of a Great Dane when fully grown.
Of course, most hybrid were difficult to breed altogether; that's why basilisks are so rare and horse-bodied once-humans like the many that lived in the forbidden forest were long ago parted from the wizarding society.
The man's last thoughts became the very ones of the snake looking like it was 'speaking'. He never saw he fangs elongating and coming towards him in slow motion while also practically in the speed of light. Before he knew it he was thrown to the floor by the heavy body of the serpent with nearly-invisible wings. He never had the chance to scream before the serpent had bitten into him and lodged the poison into his blood system, quickly slowing its heart to the slowest pace without killing him. The man was poised, paralyzed. And he had no chance.
Shadow watched with his disturbing glowy eyes as his second bonded swallowed the human male. It took some hacking of its make-shift throat, but she got it down smoothly. His friendly serpent seemed to shake as if in cardiac arrest before it's body elongated as fast and smooth as its fangs had earlier until it was well over fifty feet long. She seemed to stretch as if basking in the quickly failing light before doing the opposite. Within a few minutes his friend had gone back to her preferred size and wiggled to her bonded human.
"S. My tummy isss fulfilled now. Home? S." she asked, speaking of going to her nesting grounds in the area of an estate that house part of his own running association.
He laughed and reached for the silky serpent with his left hand while his right hand played with the rose in his pocket budding with life. When the serpent was curling around him unseen in the bulk of comfortable dark clothes, he smiled at the completed job as he placed the shrunken suitcase in his pocket and topped it off with the plant edge a good friend had grown for him.
Above him nestled in the shadows he was aptly named for was his first bonded a bird that mothered him so. She watched this and for a moment her soft blue eyes flashed the unnatural Avada Kedavra green the serpent's own remained. When she was sure that her two friends were safe, she flew ahead, watching for anyone that wished to ambush them. Her sharp eyes honed for preying found nothing dangerous ahead that night.
"B. Happy huntings, love. B." her bonded greeted her.
She hooted down towards them as she arrived back and took her place on Shadow's shoulder hidden beneath a woven invisibility/notice-me-not fixed to only allow a few to see her at all. She hooted once more, "S. safe ahead, S.", in Serpitongue, and nestled to sleep on her perch she had come to think of as home. He walked back to a safe place. A few magic words and wards and they were safe as he traveled by, foot, tweaked floo, and a newer type of portkey to their HQ hidden and unplotable with ancient wards.
TBC