Age: 4-5

The first time he left his body that he could remember, Harry was only four years old. One moment he was uncharacteristically and furiously angry at being slapped for burning breakfast, because it wasn't his fault this time because Aunt Petunia had told him to bring the orange juice now and he'd done what she'd said but then the eggs burned. And the next moment… he was slithering on his belly through giant blades of grass in the middle of a forest of truly enormous trees, and the colours were all strange and washed out. He panicked of course. In his wild thrashing about he saw he had a tail, and his attempts to yell for help only emerged from his mouth as the softest of hisses. He was a snake. A small, brown snake.

There was only one logical conclusion. He was dreaming. He curled up and tried to close his eyes to sleep, but they wouldn't close so he just slithered under a bush and waited to wake up on his cot in the cupboard under the stairs. If he'd gotten to choose what to dream, he would've liked to have been Batman. He wasn't sure why he was having such a vivid dream about being a snake.

After what seemed like an endless eternity of doing nothing but watching leaves blow about on the breeze, he woke up. But he wasn't in his sorry excuse for a bed in his cupboard. He was sitting at the breakfast table with the Dursleys, and they were looking at him so strangely – almost terrified – and there was a full plate of food in front of him bigger than Uncle Vernon's portion. Steam wafted up from the freshly cooked fluffy scrambled eggs piled high on some lightly-browned toast, and the bacon looked crisp and inviting, and smelled delicious. His mouth watered with anticipation just thinking about getting to eat it.

He stared at the plate, and then stared at his relatives, waiting for the trick, for the threat. Because he never got that much food.

Dudley broke first, and with a whine said, "Can we eat now, Harry?"

And his mother gave a terrified glance at Harry, and with a brittle smile pleaded, "He meant please. If you're ready."

Harry smiled, and said, "Sure!" and started eating as fast as he could. He knew now what was going on. He was still dreaming, and it was the best dream ever because he had all the hot food he'd ever wanted, and the Dursleys were being nice to him, and that was worth slithering around as a snake for a while.

But as the day wore on, he didn't wake up. He realised he was already awake. It had been tricky to tell, at first. The snake dream seemed just as vibrant and real as actually being awake – it was hard to tell the difference except that his eyes worked properly now.

He didn't talk about what had happened. He knew the "M word" was banned, and Uncle Vernon never wanted to hear about any strange dreams. They didn't talk about their strange behaviour either – the reason behind it remained a mystery to Harry.

After about a week of his relatives treating him with kid gloves, things went back to normal at Privet Drive.

Until the next time it happened.

-000-

Harry was five, and at school with Dudley in the playground. Dudley had just snatched away his drawing of a dinosaur he'd worked on all break, and ripped it into little pieces in front of him and stomped on the bits, while laughing at him and calling him a freak. At least he'd drawn his dinosaur without the wings that would have made it into a dragon – he knew better than to risk drawing that kind of attention from even the youngest of the Dursleys.

Usually placid and beaten-down in the face of bullying, Harry was tipped over the edge into rage when Dudley started taunting him about how Harry would never get his pictures put on the fridge like his mum did for Dudley, because Harry's mum was dead, and Harry was a freak.

Suddenly Harry was a snake again, with a mouse stuck in his mouth and he couldn't spit it out and he had to swallow it. It was really disgusting and weird as his jaw dislocated to fit it down and the mouse was wiggling, and then it was the best thing because it felt so gratifyingly warm as it went down his throat. Then he was full, so full like he never got to be at home. Not since after the last time he'd been a snake.

The sharp piercing cry of a hawk somewhere above the canopy sent him slithering into the undergrowth, though he didn't feel especially quick about it with a mouse in his belly. He didn't want to be eaten by a bird. What if he didn't wake up? He found a fallen branch on the ground covered in moss, surrounded by ferns, and wiggled in between the ferns and the log to wait patiently to go back to his body. He wondered why he was a grey snake this time, and looked at his tail curiously. He wasn't very good at reading yet – he knew the alphabet and a handful of words which was more than Dudley did – but thought maybe if he found a picture book of snakes in the school library he could try and find out what kind of snake he was. But "kind of grey-brown and boring looking" might not help much. His sense of smell was amazing. He could still smell the mouse, even though it was long since swallowed, and thought he could probably follow where it had run through the grass. It smelled delicious, and reminded him of the smell of roast beef – meaty and inviting. It was weird to feel like that about smelling a mouse. But he guessed it was sensible for a snake to like the smell of mice.

He wondered how you could tell if something was a dream. He couldn't pinch himself – he had no hands! Maybe it wasn't a dream. Maybe it was magic. Like in that fairytale that like Miss Jones told once during "Terrific Tale Time", where the prince got turned into a swan. Maybe he was a prince. Maybe his father, the king, had insulted an old witch and so he got snatched away as a baby to live with the evil Dursleys and had to turn into a snake sometimes and he wouldn't get to go home until his father apologised to the witch. It was a much nicer story than that they'd simply died in a car crash because his father had been drinking.

When he switched back to the real world he was sitting on a bench in the playground and there was a hand on his shoulder, and he hunched his shoulders and ducked his head in wary expectation of pain, but it never came. Dudley was standing in front of him, looking surly and upset.

He glanced up to see that Mr Ellis who taught the year four class was the one who had his hand on Harry's shoulder. And even though he always took Dudley's side, something seemed different this time.

He seemed to be halfway through talking to them both at the moment when Harry had switched back.

"…and I expect you to apologise to Harry immediately, young man. And if I see any more of this kind of behaviour it will be straight to the principal's office for you."

"Sorry," muttered Dudley, and was permitted to run off to complain to Piers and anyone else who would listen about the unfairness of it all.

Mr Ellis squatted down on the ground so he could look Harry in the eyes. Harry watched him warily. "I can't do anything about your placement this year, Harry," he said apologetically. "But I'll put in your request to be placed in a different class to Dudley for next year, okay? And of course I won't tell your guardians since you asked – I understand you don't want to hurt their feelings."

"Okay," Harry said uncertainly. "Thank you, sir?"

With a kind smile, Mr Ellis patted him on the shoulder and walked off.

Harry realised then that the snake wasn't him. Things happened while he was gone, that he didn't make happen. He switched places with a magic snake. And the snake was smart and was his friend, who would look after him and his body while Harry was busy being a snake. The snake was really good at being Harry.

He found a new sketchpad of paper and a pencil sitting next to him on the slatted wooden bench. He started to draw a snake, with a great big smile to show how happy it was. Snakes were the best. Way better than dinosaurs.

A/N: Hello everyone! I've been slowly recovering from RSI/Carpal Tunnel Syndrome issues of some kind this past month, so writing's gone glacially slowly lately but I'm happy to say I'm well on the mend now.

If you ever want to peek at my writing progress, I post occasional updates on my fanfiction dot net profile page, and on my Goodreads author blog (Brilliant Lady).