Disclaimer: I'm just a fan trying to further my writing prowess. Nothing you recognize is mine. This applies to this and all following chapters. Thank you.

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Harry Potter was not a normal boy.

He was a freak. That's what his family called him, anyway. Normal people couldn't do what he could, he knew that. He knew a great many things. He seemed to absorb information like a sponge, devouring books like his cousin Dudley did food. By contrast, he was fed the scraps and whatever he could sneak out of the kitchen while cooking, or at night when his uncle Vernon forgot to lock his cupboard door.

Harry was small for his age, with a mop of black hair in a perpetual mess and a thin face marred only by a thinner scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. But his most striking feature were his eyes. Large and an unnaturally bright green, they seemed to stare into your soul, laying your sins bare for him to see. He was always looking at the ground, avoiding peoples gazes, if only because his uncle would beat him if he didn't.

But the freakiest thing about Harry Potter was the things he did when no one was watching. The thing he tentatively called magic. He had read books on science and physics, he knew how the world was said to work. But he could not think of anything that most seemed like his powers then magic.

At first he could just move things, have them float to his hand if he wanted them. So he'd called it the force, like in a movie Dudley watched once on the telly. But quickly he started to do other things. Transforming rocks, making fire in his hand that didn't burn him, conjuring bubbles. He was pretty sure the force couldn't conjure bubbles. So, magic.

As soon as he'd reached that conclusion, that there was a kind of power inside him no one else had, he'd started to experiment. He could get the magic to do whatever he wanted. Just small things at first, but as he practiced his strength grew, and soon he was able to pop from one place to another and fly in the air. He also found, that if he thought hard enough, he could make people do things. Anything.

Not all the time, in order to keep control he needed to concentrate on them, keep thinking of things for them to do. But, it was still useful. He was no longer beat, he was able to eat like a normal child and he managed to scare them into giving him Dudley's second bedroom. So now on the outside, the Dursleys looked completely normal. The inside was very different, though.

The Dursleys hated Harry, and growing up Harry learned to hate them in return. He had even thought a few times what it would be like to kill them, but he knew he'd get in trouble if that happened. Plus, while the Dursleys were awful, being in an orphanage would be worse, so he tolerated them. But the day he could leave forever would the best day of his life.

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It was just after Harry's seventh birthday that the dream had started.

It wasn't very detailed, a crumby ring laying in a shack, but the sight of the ring filled his little heart with longing like he'd never experienced in his short life. He wanted the ring, it felt like his very being, his soul, was crying for it.

But he didn't know how to get to it. He'd tried to teleport there, but he didn't know where 'there' was exactly, and he'd ended up losing his right foot and a pinkie, reappearing a foot from his starting point. He'd been able to reattach them, but he'd lost quite a bit of blood and had been anemic for days afterward.

That had taught him to try and teleport somewhere if he didn't know where it was. So he waited, thinking maybe the dream would expand and show him a sign of some sort. After his desire for the ring had calmed some with his decision to be patient, it stopped coming as frequently. Just often enough that he remembered the ring, and the desire for it was always in the back of his mind.

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Dudley's birthday was always an event Harry dreaded. Watching his already spoiled cousin wallow in gifts he didn't need, or even particularly want, except to have them was disgusting, as was watching him gorge on cake when he was already in the same weight class as a baby whale.

Being dragged to the zoo wasn't on his list of things he wanted to do today either. He had wanted to spend the time alone sneaking himself some cake, and maybe continuing his magic practice. Or, heck, he needed to wash his clothes. But, he thought, wedged between Piers and Dudley, the zoo would be a nice opportunity to try his mind magic on animals. Vernon hadn't wanted him home alone, not after they'd come home early from the theater and all the furniture was stuck to the ceiling.

Harry followed at a distance, enough that it looked like he wasn't with them. After getting a lion to get up and prance around, and the zebras to line up, he figured his magic worked fine on animals as well as people. Animals were in fact a little easier to control, since they weren't resisting as hard.

He followed the Dursleys into the reptile house, glad to be out of the sun. He was in a better mood then he had been earlier, finding that he was rather enjoying himself, ignoring the Dursleys and testing his magic as he hadn't been able to before.

He glanced over at Dudley as he and Piers pounded the glass, trying to get a boa constrictor to move. It was doing a good job ignoring them, he smiled. After they had moved on he approached the glass, admiring the scales of the constrictor gleaming in the light of it's tank. He leaned on the railing, just gazing at the huge snake, when it woke, and stared into his eyes.

Harry was filled with a feeling of purpose as he stared at the snake, and he felt almost as if fate was guiding his hand as he reached out and touched the glass. The snake continued to look at him, seeming confused, though how he knew that he didn't know.

"Do you... want out?" he murmured, tracing a line on the glass. The snake seemed surprised, but slowly, if Harry was to believe his eyes, it nodded. He breathed out, feeling shaky, and then the snake did something even more shocking. It spoke.

"If you would free me, I would be very grateful. It gets very boring in here, and you are the first speaker I've met."

Harry stared, eyes huge, at the reptile in front of him. If he didn't have magic, he would have thought he was imagining it.

"You can speak?" he asked, looking over his shoulder first to see if anyone was watching.

The snake nodded again, this time it was unmistakable.

"Yes, but I am more surprised at you, little one. Those humans who can speak to us are rare."

"Is it because of my magic that I can speak to you?" he asked.

The snake shook it's great head.

"No, while only magic users may speak our tongue, it is only those descended from the first speaker who may converse with us. But," it said, "I wish to continue this conversation outside this horrible box, if you would release me." It sounded hopeful.

Harry looked around. The reptile house was fairly empty by now, and no one was looking his way. He turned back to the snake.

"Alright, but you can't eat anyone, and I'll have to make you invisible first."

The snake nodded vigorously, eager to be free.

Harry focused his magic on his fingers, letting it flow through them to the glass to make it vanish. The snake reached it's head over the railing, letting Harry do the same to it. As it's long body flowed from the tank, he ran his hand along it, the scales disappearing below his palm. Finally, he called the glass back in place, feeling the constrictor slither over his feet.

"You are very powerful..."

Harry could detect a faint hiss in the way it spoke, like another snake in the background. He looked around, seeing a slight shimmer in the air where the snake was. As long as no one touched the snake it would remain undetected. But, he realized belatedly, how would he transport the snake back to the Dursleys? Should he even keep the snake there, or would setting it free be better? It was warm now, but what of winter? He felt a sinking in his gut. He really didn't think this through.

"What am I going to do with you?" he sighed. The car was too small, and though his cousin was stupid, he wasn't stupid enough to not notice if suddenly there was a huge weight pinning him down. He could teleport it there, but he didn't want to risk losing a piece of his new friend.

Friend? Where had that come from? Harry didn't have friends. But, if he was honest with himself, he did rather like the snake. It was a beautiful creature, and the fact that it was also intelligent helped.

He sighed and made to catch up with the Dursleys, the snake following him.

While the car was small, if he floated the snake... or stuck it to the top of the car... Harry looked down at the shimmer following him.

"I don't suppose you have any idea how I'm to get you home?" he asked quietly, "Or rather, how much discomfort you're willing to put up with to get there?"

"If it is your home, master, I am willing to put up with much to get there."

"You don't need to call me master," he said. "I'm just Harry. Actually, I never asked your name, or if you're a girl snake or a boy snake. I'm sorry I can't tell," he said, embarrassed. The snake gave what amounted to a chuckle.

"I am a girl snake, human boy Harry, and I am known as Nagini."

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Harry ended up putting Nagini in the trunk of the car, after shrinking her a little. The whole ride home he had to focus on her presence in order to make sure the spell didn't wear off, so he ended up spending the ride in less discomfort then the ride to the zoo, since he was distracted. Harry had left the zoo before his family to sneak Nagini into the car, and had only just gotten back to tailing them before they were leaving, Dudley claiming boredom and Piers echoing him like the good little underling he was.

After they were home, Harry whispered to the trunk that he would be back soon. He couldn't open the trunk with Vernon watching, the man would ask questions. That night, he opened his window and floated down to the ground, casting a sort of cloak of silence around him as he unlocked the trunk with magic.

He held his hand out and Nagini put her head on it. As she slithered out, he undid the shrinking charm, leaving the invisibility for now. He gestured for her to follow him, floating her up to his window first amid her hissing. She didn't like flying. Harry followed, closing the window behind him and removing all the charms he had cast. Holding a spell for that long had taken a lot out of him, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Nagini was examining her surroundings curiously. Harry looked around for somewhere she could sleep. His aunt didn't come in his room often, but it would still be good if she was out of sight. Eventually they decided on under his bed, which she fit under curled up. He tried to anchor a spell to an object, weaving it into the molecules so he could ignore it once cast and it would stay. After a few tries he had a blanket that had a warming charm woven into it, and the floor under his bed was cushioned. He was ecstatic now that he had this kind of skill at his disposal. He could do so much with it...

Finally he raised the bed a few inches to give her more wiggle room. Nagini curled up under his bed and pronounced it satisfactory. Harry then bought up something he'd been worrying about.

"How am I to feed you?" he asked, laying back on his bed.

Nagini hissed, the snake version of a sigh.

"You could let me out to hunt when I'm hungry."

"But what's there to hunt out here but house pets? People would start to notice if they all started to go missing, and the zoo is probably looking for you by now."

They were silent for a minute, both thinking. Harry spoke after a while.

"What if I made a door in here? A door that led to some woods or something. That would work, right?"

Nagini hissed in agreement.

"That would be good. Goodnight Harry."

"Goodnight Nagini."

It was only after Nagini had fallen asleep that he remembered something odd she'd said. She had said 'only magic users'. There were people like him out there? Other freaks? He eventually fell into a deep sleep, drained by all the magic he had used that day.

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AN: Alright, against my better judgement I'm posting this. I'm only working on chapter three now, and this is probably going to be shoddy, but this is only practice since I would like to be able to write well. Harry's probably going to be way over powered in this, but I'll try and power up his foes too, so he doesn't just cream everything in his way. I'm also going to put in this every little odd thing I have in my head, things not really seen elsewhere, so prepare yourself.

And the title is subject to change, if I can think of a better one.

Reviews to tell me how bad I write would be appreciated greatly. Thank you for reading this, if you bothered. I always read AN's, but...