Deleted Scenes

AN: Surprise! To celebrate the completion of this story a year ago have some deleted scenes. Both of these scenes are not canonical to "Snake Pit" and got cut during editing. Harry might seem a bit off from his "Snake Pit" self because of it. The first scene "Pet Shop Snakes" was a set up for a plot thread that got cut during editing, but for the most part still could have happened like this even after the changes. The second scene "Reveal-All Investigations" got cut because I shuffled around the timeline a fair bit in editing, which meant that Snape didn't manage to finish brewing the Reveal-All before the Order meeting where he found out it was Molly who tried to kill Harry.

Many thanks again to my betas for this story Slytherclaw and KaGoGoGadgetMe.

Pet Shop Snakes

Snakes had become very unpopular after the second war with Voldemort. Sure, they never were favored pets to begin with, but after living in fear of any snake possibly being Voldemort's ally their popularity was at an all time low. Harry personally thought that it was ridiculous. Just like humans, snakes had a mind of their own and, really, there was no way Voldemort could get into contact with every bloody snake in Britain. No, in Harry's opinion hating snakes because Voldemort was a parselmouth was just as stupid as hating wizards because Voldemort was one.

His opinions on snakes were not the reason he found himself in a pet shop one sunny afternoon. It had taken a while for Ron, Hermione and Ginny, with a lot of help from his other friends, to convince him to get a new owl.

"Hedwig, was a lovely owl," they said.

"But really Harry, you have no way to contact us," they said.

"Please, please, please, get yourself an owl," they said.

So a little over a year after Hedwig's death, Harry found himself in a pet store with the intention to buy an owl. He didn't even spare the snowy owls in the shop a second glance, there was no need to torment himself unnecessarily. Instead he looked at the other kinds, from common barn owl to majestic eagle owl. His perusal brought him closer and closer to the back corner of the store, where the snakes were held. Harry was mildly surprised the store had any at all with the mood so against them.

°Nice and sunny…°

°Go away that's my rock!°

°No, it's mine!°

°Is not!°

°Is too!°

Startled by the voices, Harry turned to the source only to be staring at a snake tank by a small window facing the back alley. Two little garden snakes were hissing at each other fighting over a spot in the sun. The three other snakes in the store were a lot larger and held in individual tanks. Harry just stared at them in surprise. He shouldn't be able to understand what they were saying. The horcrux was gone, he was one hundred percent sure, the rediscovery of parseltongue could not make him doubt that. Lost in thought, he barely noticed a shop assistant coming up next to him.

"No one, wants them anymore. It's a pity, we've had them since before the war," she said, following Harry's gaze to the arguing snakes. Harry nodded absentmindedly.

"I'd take one, but my girlfriend really hates snakes."

"Ginny Weasley?"

Harry shot her an annoyed look. Even after all this time, he hated that his name was all over the papers.

"Yes," he replied curtly, "bad experiences."

That shut her up nicely. Sometimes he really wished he could just walk around cursing people that annoyed him a la Voldemort. Or maybe, he should get a snake to take care of annoying people for him. Just ask it to hiss at people on signal and voila one person annoying him less. Sadly, Ginny really hated snakes and he didn't want to imagine what the public would say if he got one or worse spoke to one.

'No,' he thought resolutely, 'I'd better keep this to myself.'

Reveal-All Investigations

That afternoon Harry found Voldemort in his study looking at the layout of a distinctly familiar building.

°Is that Hogwarts?° he asked without preamble.

°Yes,° the Dark Lord agreed absentmindedly still staring at what looked to be the passage from the Whomping Willow to the Shrieking Shack. °I'm trying to find out how to get into the castle without alerting the Order,° frustration seeped into his voice, °According to Wormtail, Lupin probably has alerted the Order to all the secret passages off the grounds. So the wards that alert the Headmaster and Deputy of beings entering and leaving Hogwarts's grounds probably extend to them.°

°If things played out the way they did in my dimension, Fred and George Weasley have the map Lupin, Pettigrew, Sirius Black and my father made of Hogwarts. It can be blocked with a not-here-tag, though.°

Voldemort nodded, °That is good to know, but doesn't solve the main issue.°

°Do you know that there is a vanishing cabinet in Hogwarts?° Harry asked after a few moments of thinking on how people had gotten in an out of Hogwarts in his dimension.

°No,° Voldemort said, finally dragging his attention away from the map of Hogwarts to focus on Harry.

°In my sixth year Draco Malfoy let your Death Eaters in through that. I'm not quite sure where it was located in Hogwarts before he moved it to the Room of Requirement, but the counterpart should be at Borgin and Burkes. The pair is broken though.°

°If he used it like that in your sixth year it is possible none of the Order know of it since that was after our time lines diverged,° Voldemort mused not really paying attention to Harry anymore as he went over the new possibilities in his mind.

°I'll tell you if I remember where it used to be in my dimension,° Harry offered.

°Do that,° Voldemort agreed. Then as an afterthought he added, °Severus arrived with the Reveal-All while you were gone. I had it brought to your rooms for your use, though I require any you don't need back.°

A pleased smile curled on Harry's lips at that pronouncement. A hissed, °See you later,° and he was out of the room hurrying to the chambers Voldemort had given him. As promised several vials of the clear potion were on his desk. Harry frowned. He needed a clear, uncontaminated bowl for this to work properly. After a moments thought he grabbed two vials of the potion and the vial that had held the basilisk venom. The latter was in a clear evidence bag he had conjured after he had been sure he had gotten all magical information off it down in the Chamber of Secrets. Not that it had helped him any, as he had half expected, Hogwarts ambient magic had muddled the signature way too much for him to get anything off it. Leaving his office he almost ran into Voldemort.

°What are you doing here?° he asked surprise coloring his voice.

°I'd like to see the potion in action.°

°I'm going to the potions lab. I need a clear, uncontaminated bowl. Otherwise I won't be able to read the results properly,° Harry told him already walking past him towards the lab.

°Why does it need to be that kind of bowl?° Voldemort asked keeping step.

°Different colors mean different things. For example, red stands for body fluids, brown for things like skin flakes or hair. That's normally easy enough to pick out even in an opaque or contaminated bowl. But the shades can tell me more precisely what I'm looking at. For example a deep mossy green would probably mean a root of some plant while a lighter grass green would probably be part of the lower stem or trunk. That would be difficult to see in a green or even yellow bowl. And small specks are more easily missed if you can't look at all sides. The more information I get from the potion, the better I can plan my next steps.°

Voldemort nodded thoughtfully. The more he heard about this potion, the more useful it seemed. By the sound of it Harry had much more experience in reading the potions results than anyone else did. Having read up on the potion now that it had come to his attention he knew that none of the publications on the potion said anything about getting such precise results. It abruptly reminded Voldemort that Harry didn't only come from a different dimension but also from a few years in the future. He knew that the research division of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was putting forth a lot of effort into understanding the potions readings. With something new like this a few years of experience gave Harry an edge no one else had.

°Would you care to teach others about Reveal-All? I don't think anyone has your expertise,° Voldemort asked.

°Magical forensics is sort of my area of expertise,° Harry admitted a bit embarrassed by the praise. In his original dimension people rarely thought to praise him, he had defeated that dimension's Voldemort at seventeen after all. People expected him either to be good at everything or have no skills whatsoever. And no amount of rubbing reality in their face could change their minds.

°From what you said in your letters I would have thought on scene investigation or actual fighting would be your best area.°

°Magical forensics and on scene investigation are not as strictly separated as they are in the muggle world. Acting fast before the magical residue dissipates is too important. As for battle, I've been fighting for my life ever since I was eleven. It's just a hell of a lot more experience than even most people twice my age have. I could hold off most of my teachers at the Auror Academy for long enough for reinforcements to arrive before I ever was trained to fight properly. After formal training I only got better. I suck at interrogations though or even getting the best information out of casual witnesses. I always...°

Abruptly Harry stopped talking, they had arrived at the potions lab.

°There are glass cauldrons in that cupboard,° Voldemort pointed out when he saw Harry's searching look. °They are all decontaminated after every brewing, so that shouldn't be an issue. In any case, decontamination potions are in the same cupboard.°

°Thanks,° Harry said gratefully, heading for the indicated cupboard. With practiced movements he placed the smallest glass cauldron on the table and used his wand to swirl the decontamination potion through the inside. Another short spell evaporated all the potion residue. Only then did he carefully pour a vial of Reveal-All into the cauldron tapping the surface with his wand. When the potion stayed completely clear he gave a small pleased smile and went on to gently levitate the vial that had contained the venom into the cauldron. If the stopper of the vial had been off it wouldn't have been immersed completely.

Harry cast a spell to project a magnified three dimensional image of the cauldron and it's contents in the air above and waited. It didn't take long for different colors to be speckled across the vial. Most ranged from red to brown, Voldemort noticed, but there were some light greens, deep blues, and tiny, brilliantly white dots mixed in there, too.

°Whoever stored this took their material purity seriously,° Harry commented looking at the vial intently, °This is unusually uncontaminated.°

°How so?° It looked pretty contaminated to Voldemort with all those colors all over it. There was barely any clear area left.

°For one, there are actually clear areas,° Harry started contradicting Voldemort's thoughts, °For another, there are so few colors. The white is dust material so old the potion can't properly identify it, that at the very least should normally cover the entire thing unless it was kept incredibly clean. The greens are old plant fibers. The darker ones only at the foot are definitely from wood. Probably the storage the vial was kept in, but I can easily test that in a minute. The lighter greens are probably from my clothes, I'm afraid. I'll have to see how the pocket of the robe I arrived in this dimension with lights up in the potion. I keep my robes very clean with spells to not contaminate evidence, which is the only reason this is not completely green. Anything that doesn't match could be from my assailant. Two items of clothing rarely match up unless made from the same material, produced from plants harvested together or the same animal. Blue, is mostly near the stopper but there is also some further down, but not at the foot. That's because it's stopper shavings, nothing is completely free of shavings – see?°

When Harry said the words the stopper turned the same blue the marks on the vial were for a moment. Then to Voldemort's growing fascination it turned back to it's normal dull gray that provided a much better contrast to the reddish-brown smears on it.

°How did it do that?°

°Like with all magic this reacts to intention. I didn't want to see the vial's 'natural' colors, so I didn't. It requires some practice. A novice wouldn't see the blue or white on the vial at all, because they think it's part of the vial's 'natural' colors. It's very easy to miss clues like that. That's why we always have everything double checked by two people working completely independently form each other. But even if I hadn't already used the potion in your presence I doubt you could have done that for me,° Harry abruptly snapped his mouth shut realizing what he had just told the Dark Lord.

Voldemort just chuckled, °I freely admit ignorance in this. I doubt anyone could get your precision at this time.° Voldemort laughed some more when he saw Harry relax at his words, °So what does the rest mean?°

°Ah well, only the reds and browns left. That's all some form of human residue, what exactly isn't important until I know what of it isn't mine. I'll check that in a moment. I really wasn't thinking when I first woke up after the poisoning. Normally, I'd never have directly touched evidence. Much less put it into my robe.

Do you have parchment anywhere?°

Voldemort wordlessly summoned Harry a roll curious as to what he was up to now.

°Thank you,° Harry said. With a little twirl of his wand the parchment was laid out flat on the table. Voldemort watched impressed as he twisted his wand in some complicated movement ending in the swish and flick of levitation. The potion and vial lifted out of the cauldron and drifted over the parchment. There the potion ran down the vial and onto the parchment where a three dimensional replica of the vial appeared with all the colors that had been visible on the vial. Once all the Reveal-All was off the vial Harry cast a few spells – °Yes, the dark green was long dead wood.° – and placed it back in a newly conjured evidence bag.

The glass cauldron was cleaned thoroughly, the decontamination potion was used twice, then Harry poured in the second vial of Reveal-All. Unceremoniously, he dunked his left hand into the potion. Immediately his entire hand turned various shades of red and brown. Harry studied them intensely for more then half an hour comparing them with the results on the parchment. Voldemort was silent, not wanting to break Harry's concentration. Shaking his head, Harry asked for a second roll and transferred the results again. All the human residue seemed to be Harry's. It was possible the assailant had left no traces of themselves on the vial. Two more hours passed, Voldemort's attention never wavered, despite Harry's silent casting making it difficult to follow what he was doing.

°Dammit,° Harry cursed coming back to the present. He looked at Voldemort just now noticing that the man hadn't left, °I need to get another vial of Reveal-All and the robe I wore in the Chamber of Secrets.° With those words he stormed out of the room, only to return a few moments later with the two items.

Another three hours passed in which Harry compared the greens of his robes with the greens the vial had produced in the first potion. More curses came form Harry's mouth in that time. As it neared ten o'clock he finally stopped working.

°It seems whoever it was Arthur or Molly, never touched this vial or placed it on any of their clothes. I suspect the vial was only levitated and placed in a conjured bag or box. I don't know of any other mode of transportation that wouldn't leave behind any matter as residue. Or maybe it was transported in a wood box. That can cause dark green residue, but without anything to compare to, it doesn't help me any,° he told Voldemort from between clenched teeth.

°If Severus can't find out who of them it was, we can always capture them and search their minds,° Voldemort offered.

°We'll do that,° Harry agreed. A moment later he gave Voldemort a sheepish look, °You'll have to search their minds though. I'm no good at mind magics.°

°I will,° Voldemort answered, eyes flashing in amusement.