Harry Potter 1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I own nothing except for the entirely too large stack of bills next to the computer

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

Prologue 

Salriss lay stretched out on a large rock outcropping in a meadow, soaking up the sun on a pleasant summer morning. His mind drifted, thinking of nothing in particular, when a disturbance caught his attention. A small garter snake came rushing into the clearing, heading directly for Salriss.

_"What is it,"_ Salriss asked grumpily. He hated having his lazing time disturbed.

_"My Lord,"_ the smaller snake started nervously, _there is a human approaching the borders of your section of the forest. He brings a youngling with him."_

Salriss' bad mood vanished at those words. It was not often that a human would approach the inner section of the forest as they had a tendency to become his meals. Humans had learned to avoid the area after so many had disappeared around there. _"Show me,"_ he demanded of the other snake. It bowed its head and turned in the direction that the humans were in.

The two snakes quickly made their way over to the border. If there had been anyone watching them, they would have seen what looked to be a young garter snake seemingly being chased away by a 30 foot basilisk. The basilisk, Salriss, was approaching his fifth century of life and had been living in this particular forest since he ha left his mother's side four centuries ago.

As they approached the border of Salriss' territory, the two snakes slowed down and Salriss dismissed the smaller with a nod of his head. The human's voice was now audible to him as he slowly crept up on its location. Over the centuries Salriss had learned how to understand the human language that was spoken by those around the forest. That knowledge allowed him to understand what the human was screaming at the youngling. It was enough that if he had not already been planning on eating the human, he would have killed him just for the pleasure of it

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Harry lay on the ground where Uncle Vernon had thrown him after dragging him through the forest. His entire body ached from the beating he had received before they had come here for talking with that nice snake in the garden. Aunt Petunia had made him weed the garden that day, and when he had come across the snake it had been muttering about the evils of lawnmowers. He had started up a conversation with it when Uncle Vernon had come outside to tell him to hurry so he could come in and make them some dinner. He had heard the strange hissing noises coming out of his nephew's mouth and lost his temper. Harry did not remember much after that first hit on the back of his head until he had come around in the car. Uncle Vernon's face had still been a deep purple, so Harry had not dared to ask where they were going.

After another two hours driving, Uncle Vernon had finally stopped the car near the edge of a forest. Grabbing onto Harry's arm, he had then dragged him for what Harry swore was forever until he had been thrown to the ground in his current position. That was when Uncle Vernon had started his rant.

"I knew you were a freak when we found you on our doorstep, but Petunia convince me to let you stay. We've put up with your unnaturalness for the last three years, but no more! I won't have that freakishness in my house again! You are going to stay here and do what you should have done with your freakish parents and die! I hope that you starve to death so it's nice and slow, freak!"

While Vernon had been in the middle of his rant, Harry had noticed what appeared to be an extremely large snake coming up behind him. While he had thought about warning his uncle, it had not taken him long to decide not to. Harry knew what would most likely happen, having seen other snakes eat their prey, but he had a hard time caring if his uncle died, in fact he rather hoped Vernon would be swallowed alive. Let HIM die in a slow painful manner…

Vernon, having gotten his say in, spun around to stomp back to the car, only to come face to nose with the largest snake he had ever seen. Before he could do more than open his mouth to scream, the snake lunged forward, biting the fat human. Harry observed all of this dispassionately from the ground as the snake unhinged its jaw and started the long process of swallowing his uncle. When it was done, it turned its attention to him. Harry figured he would be next, so if he was going to die, he would at least show his appreciation to the snake.

_"Thanks."_

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After making a rather satisfying meal of the fat human, Salriss turned his attention to the youngling that the fat one had been ranting at. The youngling had not moved in the least since it had spotted him while the fat one had been yelling. It did not smell of fear, as he would have expected, merely resignation. While he was trying to figure out what to do with the youngling, he observed it. It had black fur, 'hair,' he reminded himself, 'humans call it hair,' on the top of its head. There were bruises all over its visible body parts, and Salriss was willing to bet that there were many more hidden beneath its clothing. The youngling opened its mouth.

_"Thanks."_

Salriss blinked. 'Well, this is an unexpected development.' The voice sound of the voice had been that of a male. His mother had told him stories when he was young of a human magic user who had been able to speak the serpent tongue. At the time, he had thought them to be mere fantasy, but it appeared that such a thing was indeed possible.

_"Your welcome,"_ he replied to the youngling. Coming to a quick decision, Salriss spoke once again to the youngling, _"Would you like to come live with me youngling?"_

The boy gaped in shock for a few moments before a smile spread across his face. _"I would love to! My name is Harry, what's yours?"_

"Hairy? What kind of a name is that? I shall call you Seth, and my name is Salriss."

With that, Salriss turned back toward his den, with the boy following close behind him.


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything…though that pile of bills has grown some more… 

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

A/N: I don't know where this came from, it was NOT what I originally had in mind….:S

Chapter 1 

It had been a week since Seth had come to live with Salriss, and there was already a noticeable difference in his attitude in such a short time. While Salriss was not overly affectionate or demonstrative, he still showed Seth more care than his relatives had since he had been placed with them. This encouraged Seth to act more like himself instead of the mask that he had been wearing for years, a truly remarkable feat considering just how young he truly was. Salriss was just surprised how snake-like the child truly was. He was quite cunning to have survived as intact as he had in an abusive home.

Seth was currently seated in front of Salriss, learning what little his new guardian knew about the human magic users. _"The tales speak of another magic user that, like you, could speak with us. Not only that, but he could take the very shape of a serpent. The speaker said that to take the shape of another species in such a way was a very rare skill that was quite difficult to achieve, though he had less of a problem than usual due to being predisposed to serpents. I am not sure what other magics he could do, as we basilisks rarely even interact with humans, let alone pay any attention to how they do their magic."_

_"Do you think I might be able to take the form of a snake of some kind," _Seth asked excitedly.

Salriss thought for a moment. _"I am not sure if you can. I suppose the only way to know for certain would be for you to try and see if it works."_

Now most wizards and witches would say that there was absolutely no way that any child, let alone one who had no knowledge of magic a week ago, could possibly do as complicated piece of magic as the animagus transformation. What they did not stop to consider was that a child has a large imagination and never took into consideration what was supposed to be impossible. So when Seth closed his eyes and imagined himself as a basilisk and wished it were true withal his will, it was little surprise that his body began to melt into a serpent form. The surprise part came when the transformation was complete.

_"You changed into a female,"_ Salriss exclaimed in shock.

Seth looked down at himself in surprise. His basilisk form was around 20 fee long, indicating the he…err, she, definitely had a more mature body in this form. She had a glossy black coloration with some faint green highlights to her scales. When she flicked her tongue out, she could smell the difference between Salriss and herself. As she was taking in all of this, a vague burning sensation started to build in Seth's new body. It was a vaguely pleasant sensation at first, but as the sensation grew, it became more painful.

_"I think that this may be a problem,"_ Salriss stated in a rather strained tone of voice. Seth turned her attention back to Salriss. There was a rather pained look in his eyes while looking at her. _"You must have transformed yourself to around the age of first heat, somewhere in late adolescence. Your body will soon demand that you mate, even though your mind may not be able to handle it, being that of an extremely young human. I doubt you will be able to change back until after the heat, and by then it will be too late. I cannot hold out from trying to mate with you much longer, just know that I had no idea that this could possibly happen."_

Seth concentrated as much as she was able to on what Salriss was saying, but her thoughts were rather muzzy from the burning sensation. She vaguely recalled hearing of this "heat" that occurred in various species. She was quite scared, but also knew that she had already advanced to the point of being unable to transform back. Trying to get out one last intelligent thing before the heat overtook her, she spoke to Salriss, _"Too late, we'll just have to figure something out later…"_ With those final words, the heat finally overtook both of them.

Salriss launched himself at the female that smelled so very wonderful, while Seth started toward him at the same time. When they met, the two twined around one another so many times it was hard to tell where one started and the other ended. Most of the following week was a blur to them, thought there were a few moments that stood out in the memories of both of them, such as the first time Salriss entered Seth. When the heat finally released its hold on the two, they collapsed in a heap and immediately fell into a deep sleep.

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Seth stirred from the exhausted slumber that she had been in for the past day. She was a bit confused for a moment when she tried to get up and found that she did not have her arms or legs until she remembered her transformation. That thought brought back what she had managed to do with what was supposed to be a simple transformation. Not only had she managed to change her gender, but she had changed to an age where she went into heat! She should have known that something would go wrong, as the entire previous week leading up to this had been the best week in her memory. Seth sighed. Hopefully Salriss would be able to tell her what to expect now that she was likely to be a…_shudder_…mother before the age of six.

Looking around, Seth did not see Salriss anywhere in the den. Since she did not want to go outside at this point in time, Seth sat thinking. The den, a moderately sized cave that would have been more than enough for just Salriss, was almost too cramped with both Salriss and her new body. There definitely would not be enough room for any eggs that she would lay, let alone once they hatched. She recalled that Salriss had spoken of staying with his mother until he was at least a century old, so she figured that basilisks were more family oriented than any other snake. The two of them would have to talk about finding a larger den once Salriss got back from wherever he was.

Seth was surprised that she was taking the fact that she was pregnant at such a young age in stride. She thought about that fact for a while. She had always been extremely intelligent for her age, though she had been forced to hide that fact from her _dear_ relatives, or they would have treated her even worse for daring to try and be better than their precious Dudley. The only things she had been lacking to be the equal of any adult was experience, some knowledge, though whenever she was locked out she would often go read at the library, not that her relatives knew about that either, and maturity of her body. It was that last bit that made her wonder. Was the fact that this body was more mature influencing her very thoughts and feelings?

A noise at the entrance of the den brought Seth out of her thoughts. She turned her head to see Salriss entering the den with a deer held in his mouth. Eyeing Seth as though she would explode at him any moment, he brought the deer to her and placed it on the ground before her. Still keeping an eye on her like she would explode at any moment, he slowly backed away.

The deer looked absolutely delicious to Seth. She was not sure on exactly how to unhinge her jaw as she had seen Salriss do before, but after a few attempts, she was able to do it. It took a while for her to get the whole thing down. As she settled in, Salriss came a bit closer and spoke cautiously.

_"We should probably speak about what happened now, and what we will do from here…"_


	3. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I can only dream of owning Harry Potter and being filthy rich like JKR… 

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

previously: "We should probably speak about what happened now, and what we will do from here…"

Chapter 2 

Seth turned her attention to Salriss. She had quite a few questions about what would be happening to her after this latest fiasco in the joke that was her life.

_"First I will tell you some of what you can expect from your body and from me. A basilisk female will go into heat at only one time for certain in her life. That would usually occur around her second century of life, and since that is the approximate age that your transformation brought you to, it triggered that heat. This one heat is to ensure the survival of our species. In order for a female to go into heat at any other time in her life, she must find her mate."_

This caught Seth's attention. While it was good to know that she would not have to worry about any more young for a while after this, she also had no idea if she would have a mate, or even need one to have more children, since she was not a natural basilisk. _"Do you think that this will affect me? And is it so rare to find your mate that females have to have this first clutch?"_

Salriss shook his head. _"I am not sure if you will be able to have more young or not. As far as I know, nothing like this has happened before. As for mates, it is not the most rare of things to find your mate, but at the same time, it is not overly common. Somewhere around a quarter to a half of all basilisks find their mates. My mother once told me that the first time you meet your mate, there is just this feeling of knowing that it is obvious to you that this is your mate. Their scent is said to be the most divine thing that you will ever smell. Usually around a month after you meet your mate, the female of the pair will once again go into heat. The two will raise the resulting hatchlings together until the young leave the nest at around a century of age. There will be a space of time anywhere from just a few days to a century when the female will once again go into heat. This routine continues until one of the two passes on. If there are still hatchlings in the nest, the other mate will remain alive to care for the young until the last one leaves. They almost always pass on at that time._

_"However, we canget into more detail about mates at a later date. For now, let us speak of whatyou can expect from your body and this clutch of eggs. A female will usually have around three to seveneggs. She will lay them around two months after they have been fertilized. The two parents then alternate watching over the eggs andgoing out and hunting. This goes on until the eggs hatch about ten months after they were lain. In total, it takes around a year for the young to hatch."_

_"Do you thing that the hatchlings will be normal?"_ This thought had been running through Seth's mind since she had realized she would be a mother. After all, she was not exactly a normal basilisk. Who knew what impact that fact would have on her children?

_"I do not know. I can promise you, however, that no matter what happens with the young or what they look like, I will help you until such time as you no longer wish my help or the young leave. It is likely that this will be my only clutch as well, as there are not many basilisks near here."_

Seth was extremely relieved. It was bad enough that she was so very young and in such an unusual situation, it would have been far worse for her if Salriss had decided to simply abandon her, though she could hardly blame him if he were to do such a thing, as he had only known her for a couple of weeks, and half of that time as a young male human. _"Do you think that I will be able to turn back into my human form now or after I lay the eggs?"_

_"I believe that you should definitely wait until you lay the eggs. There is no way of knowing if your human body will even allow the eggs to remain inside of you."_

There was one last question on Seth's mind. _"How soon can we look for a new den? This one, while adequate for just your needs, is entirely too small for both myself and the eggs to be added, once it is time to lay them."_

"I actually have a few places in mind that might suit our needs. I would be happy to take you to see them whenever you would like to go."

Seth decided to wait until the following day to go looking at the caves, as it was already mid-afternoon, and she wanted to have the entire day to look at them. The two basilisks rose with the dawn the next day and went out to look at the various caves that Salriss knew of that might work for their new den. He knew of four that would be big enough, and they had visited the first three by noon. Seth had found what she considered at least one major problem with each of them. The first one had an obvious entrance with plenty of ways to sneak up on it. The second one was entirely too cold for a cold-blooded snake. The third had been several miles from the nearest water source and had only been a few miles from an area of the forest that humans still went to regularly. She was starting to get discouraged as they came up on the last of the caves.

As they came up to the entrance, Seth noted that it was somewhat blended in with its surroundings, making it more difficult to find. It was also around halfway up a rocky slope, which would provide time for whoever was in the den to get the hatchlings hidden away and defend the den. When they entered the cave, it was warm enough to satisfy Seth. There were at least two separate sections to the cave, the first section already having at least twice as much room as the previous den. The floor to the first section was also relatively smooth, making it quite comfortable. The second section was accessible through a fairly large crack in the back of the wall. As they approached it, Seth heard a faint splashing sound coming from inside of it. A quick glance showed that the chamber was about the same size as the previous den had been, as well as a small stream along the side. That feature was what sold her on the caves. She turned to Salriss. _"This is it."_


	4. Chapter 3

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. JKR is the goddess behind Harry Potter._

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

Chapter 3 

_2 months later_

Seth shifted around irritably. She was very close to the time for her to lay the eggs, and the extra weight was making it difficult to move. Salriss had been bringing her meals, instead of Seth going out to hunt, which was where he was currently. Over the last couple of months, Salriss had taught Seth a great deal about basilisks. One of the most important things that she had learned was that basilisks were not born knowing how to use their gaze to kill. It had actually been something of a relief to her, as she had not been able to use it at first. After nearly a month of practice, she had finally learned how to do so, making her feel more secure about protecting her young once they hatched.

Over the past day, even though it was less than comfortable to move, Seth had felt an incredible urge to build a nest in the farthest corner of the main room. It had been completed only an hour ago, and she now lay loosely coiled around it.

A sharp pain spiked through Seth's body, dragging her thoughts away from the mental grumbling she had been doing. While Salriss had not been certain how long it would take for Seth to lay the eggs after she felt the first pain, they had both figured that it would be a while. What she had not been expecting was for the first pain to be quite so fierce. Granted, she had been in far more pain before in her short life, but the pain was supposed to get worse as time went on, and she was not looking forward to it.

Trying to distract herself, Seth turned her mind to several things that she had been wondering about over the past couple of months. How many eggs would she lay? Salriss had said there could be anywhere from three to seven, and she was fairly certain that she would only have three or four. Would they be all males, all females, or some combination thereof? Would they be normal basilisks, or some combination of human and snake? Once she laid the eggs and returned to human form, would she still be a human male? What age would she be in human terms? Her snake form was at the end of adolescence, so would her human form be the same, or somewhere in between her original age and that of his basilisk form?

Seth was able to distract herself for several hours musing over those questions, until finally she felt the urge to push out the eggs. The first egg took a good half an hour of pushing to get out. The second one only took around ten minutes, and the third took a grand total of five minutes. She waited a few more minutes, just to make sure that there were no more eggs coming before moving her head around to put it next to her eggs. They looked like what Salriss had told her that basilisk eggs were supposed to look like, which was an off white color with brown speckles.

Exhausted, Seth struggled to stay awake until Salriss returned to watch over the eggs. Just as she was about to lose the fight, Salriss entered the den with a small deer. When he saw the eggs with Seth curled up around them, he stopped for a moment in surprise. He had known she was close, but had thought that he would be back in time to watch over the birthing. Placing the deer down beside the entrance, he quickly made his way over to check on Seth and the eggs. During the past couple of months, he had come to car for Seth as he would a sibling, and he was worried about what the birth may have taken out of her. She looked up at him with an expression of both blinding joy and absolute exhaustion. _"Ah, good, you're back. I wouldn't have been able to stay awake much longer."_

_"Sleep. I will be here if anything happens."_

With that reassurance, Seth finally succumbed to her exhaustion. Salriss looked on fondly for a moment before moving up toward the front of the cave to watch for any signs of trouble. Unknowingly, a few of the same question that had been on Seth's mind while she was in labor were repeated in Salriss' mind. Knowing it would be a while before Seth was awake enough to find anything out, Salriss settled in for a long vigil.

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Seth woke up to an aching body. For a moment, she was confused as to what was going on, but once it came back to her, she was wide-awake. Raising her head up, she looked at her eggs, feeling a surge of love when she saw them. They were around fifteen inches long and twenty inches around. There was no difference in the scent that she could detect, so Seth figured that she would have to wait until they were born to know if they were males or females. Turning her attention from the eggs, she saw that Salriss was guarding the entrance of the den, just as she had been hoping he would. He obviously knew that she had woken up, but was waiting for her to tear herself away from the eggs for a while.

_"I would like to try and transform back into my human form right away. We might as well figure out what effects this has had on my original form."_

Salriss nodded his head in acknowledgement. Even if he had been against doing so, he realized that Seth was just too anxious to know to wait any longer. Seth uncoiled herself from around the nest and moved more toward the center of the chamber. Closing her eyes, she focused on making herself human once again. Her body blurred like it had the first time and started to reshape itself. Taking a deep breath, Seth opened her eyes to see what she looked like now.

The first thing that Seth checked out was to see whether she was male or female now. A quick exam showed that her male organs were indeed back, but when he felt a little further back, he felt an opening behind his sac that should not have been there. He was now a hermaphrodite. Having braced himself for possibly being only female, he decided this was not as bad of a fate as it could have been. Now that what Seth considered the most important question had been answered, he looked the rest of his body over.

Seth found that he was now a little over five feet tall, whereas before he had only been around three feet. He also found that he had hair growing under his arms as well as around his pubic area. Given those two facts, he guessed that his physical development had jumped up to somewhere around thirteen or fourteen years of age.

His feet and lower legs were solidly covered in flesh colored scales that started to taper off at his knees and finally ended around mid-thigh. His hands and arms were similarly scaled. Craning his head around to look down his back, as well as his front, he saw that there were v-shaped scaled areas working up his body starting at navel and tailbone. When he felt around to find where they ended, he found that they completely encircled his neck and ended along his jaw-line in the front and disappeared into his hair in the back. There were scales coming toward the center of his face from his hairline in the front, fading within an inch. There were also some faint patterns in some scales around his eyes. Wanting to know if there were any other changes he might have but was unable to see on his face, he turned to Salriss. _"Is there anything else that you can see that has changed?"_

Salriss moved forward for a closer look at Seth's face. A quick exam brought one other change to his attention. _"Your eyes have changed, or rather they have not changed. They are still the yellow slit eyes of a basilisk. I believe that you will be able to use your killing gaze in your human form as well now."_

All in all, Seth was not too displeased. His changes may make it a bit hard to blend in if he ever had to go back among the humans, but Salriss had shown him more kindness than he could ever remember getting from humans, so he preferred snakes anyway. Satisfied that they knew the answers to at least some of their questions, Seth and Salriss settled in for a long wait until their questions about their young would be answered.


	5. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I own nothing. shakes tin can oh, sorry, I own about $0.17 

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

Chapter 4 

_10 months later_

The months seemed to flyby for Seth and Salriss. Seth spent a lot of time during those months in human form, trying to learn all he could about taking care of himself in that form. One important fact that they had learned only days after he had returned to his human form was that in that form, he still ate like a basilisk. His metabolism had also remained that of a basilisk so he only needed to eat once every two or three days. Also, since his human body was so much smaller than his basilisk form, Seth only needed smaller game, such as rabbits or squirrels instead of larger game, like deer. Salriss and Seth had agreed that staying in human form would be a good idea, so that the two of them would not tax the forest's large animal supply.

Seth had also taught himself how to do several useful things with magic. The first thing he had learned was how to warm an area and keep it warm, which was especially useful since snakes are cold-blooded. He was also able to move objects as needed and various other useful skills. While he desperately wanted to learn more, the only way to do so was to go find some humans to teach him or find human books on the subject, and there was absolutely no way that Seth would leave Salriss and their young behind.

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Both Seth and Salriss had been keeping a very close eye on the eggs for the past few days, watching for any sign that they were about to hatch. So far there had not been a single change. Seth had begun pacing around the den, due to being so anxious. Salriss figured he must have walked at least one hundred miles since he had started pacing.

Finally Seth became so impatient that he burst out, _"Will you just hatch already?"_

As if it had been waiting for those words, one of the eggs started rocking. Salriss and Seth quickly made their way over to watch, even though they both knew that it would take a while for the youngling to actually hatch from the eggs. There was no movement from the other two eggs just yet, but Seth figured it would not take them too much longer. He sat down and leaned back against Salriss' coils. _"I hope they can take care of themselves like a snake can when they hatch. From what I can remember, human babies are pretty much helpless at birth,"_ Seth commented.

Salriss nodded absent-mindedly. He was not really paying attention to anything Seth was saying, since he knew that it was just nervous ramblings. The eggs were currently of far more interest to him at the moment. They had speculated on just what the younglings would look like quite frequently, and now they were about to find out. While he already loved them and would not care what they looked like, he was still insatiably curious.

A cracking sound reverberated throughout the cave around a half an hour after the first movement. Salriss and Seth leaned forward eagerly, wanting to see what their first hatchling would look like. Five minutes later, the hatchling was out of its shell and they had their answer.

The hatchling was a female with the lower body of a basilisk and the torso, arms, and head of a human. The human features were more like those of a miniature ten year old than a baby, making Seth think of the human myth of the lamia. The basilisk portion of her body was the same as what would typically be found on a female basilisk. The human part had scale patterns similar to those that Seth had while in human form decorating her body, though her scales were not flesh colored. Her scales were a matte black with blood red highlights, which she inherited from her father. The facial features of the hatchling were almost identical to Seth's, though her hair was blood red.

_"Sithra. Her name is Sithra,"_ Seth decided.

The newly named Sithra blinked up at her parents with a look on her face as if she were asking who they were. She managed to raise herself up on her tail, though she was a bit unsteady, still keeping her eyes on them. It was obvious that she had the ability to take care of herself like a baby snake, rather than the helplessness of a human. She opened her mouth and hissed her first word. _"Mama."_

Seth leaned forward, picked Sithra up, and cuddled her close. _"Yes, I'm your mama, and he is your papa."_ He point to Salriss as he said this. Sithra flicked her tongue out, trying to memorize her parents' scents. Satisfied that she knew them, Sithra snuggled in closer to her mother and promptly went to sleep.

Wondering what Salriss would think of their daughter now that an unusual offspring was a certainty, Seth glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. There was no sign of disgust, as he had feared there would be, instead, there was an expression of pure parental love on his face as he gazed down at Sithra. A knot that Seth had not been aware of loosened in his chest. _"Isn't she beautiful?"_

_"She is perfect,"_ Salriss replied. _"A wonderful blend of the two of us."_

Nothing else happened for about an hour, so the new parents used the time to study their new daughter, learning all they could about her physical appearance. They managed to drag their attention from Sithra when there was another cracking sound, indicating that another one of the eggs was about to hatch. Once again, Salriss and Seth leaned forward, eagerly awaiting the next hatchling.

This egg produced a male hatchling that was almost entirely basilisk. He had his mother's coloring and original brilliant green eye color, but all of his features were purely his father's. The newest addition was once again fairly self-sufficient straight from the egg, which he proved by quickly making his way over to his parents and sister. They decided to name him Se'sith (pronounced Say Sith). Se'sith curled up in his father's coils, much like his sister had cuddled up to their mother. The new parents settled in again, waiting for the final egg to hatch.

Salriss and Seth sat chatting with each other for a good three hours before the final egg started to hatch. It took nearly twice as long as the other two to hatch, and once it had, they understood why.

Their final hatchling was also male and looked nearly as human as Seth did in his new human form. He had similar features to his mother, much like his sister. He did not have any hair on his head, though, instead it was covered in scales which were the same matte black color as his father instead of the flesh colored scales of his mother. The reason he had taken so long to hatch was that his physical development was only that of a nine-month-old human baby. While his physical development was not as advanced as his siblings, mentally he appeared to be on par with them. The name that they chose for their final hatchling was Rassir. He had almost immediately joined his siblings in sleep.

Seth was relieved that the younglings had finally hatched. The previous days had been extremely nerve-wracking for him, waiting to find out what the hatchlings would be like. Seth wondered if he would eventually be able to teach the hatchlings to switch forms. It would be useful if they could, as they would be able to blend in with human society if there was ever a need to do so. Shaking his self from his thoughts, Seth looked around at his small family one more time before following his children into slumber.

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	6. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I still don't own a thing. I'm going to go over there and cry about that… 

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

A/N: I am making it so that the young snakes are at the genius level of intelligence, as is Harry/Seth. They will be above average in power, but this will NOT be a super!harry fic.

Chapter 5 

Time passed swiftly for the little family. The hatchlings grew quickly, and as they grew, their personalities emerged. Sithra was an outgoing and outspoken child who was up fro almost anything that a person could think of. She was the leader in the small group of children. Se'sith had an acidic tongue, which he took great pleasure in using if you upset him. He had little patience for foolish stunts, which helped to curb some of his sister's more radical ideas. He was also surprisingly protective of their younger brother. Rassir remained physically weaker than his older siblings, but he more than made up for it with sheer brilliance. Whenever he put his mind to doing something, there was nothing that could stop him.

Lessons for the children started when they were around a year old, which were around four hours every day. Seth had decided that he would teach the children everything that he knew, and once his knowledge was exhausted he would pass them on to Salriss for further teaching.

A year into the lessons, Rassir asked his mother a question that he had been wondering about for several months. _"Mama, how is it that you were able to have us with papa? You are a human and he is a basilisk. I thought that there was no way for two different species to have children like you did?"_

Seth thought about how best to answer Rassir's question. Deciding that the best answer would be to just show them, Seth changed to his basilisk form for the first time in over two years. He was gratified to see the awe in the children's eyes when they saw their mother in that form for the first time. _"It is quite simple, my dear. I got pregnant and laid your eggs while I was in this form. I became compatible enough with your papa to have children while in this form."_

_"How did you do that, mama?"_ This came from Sithra.

_"I am a magic user as a human. While basilisks don't know much about human magic or what can be done with it, there was a legend that your papa told be about another human that could take the form of a snake. I decided that I wanted to try and see if I could do the same thing. I had been treated better by every snake that I had ever met than I had by my human relatives by that point in my life, so the thought of leaving my humanity behind was enticing to me. I closed my eyes and willed myself into this form that you see now, and my magic made it so._

"I had been planning on talking to you about this a few months from now anyway, but I believe that this would be the most opportune time. I would like to see if you three could each take on similar forms to those of your two siblings. For Sithra, that would be the human and basilisk forms, for Se'sith human and lamia, and for Rassir lamia and basilisk. I will be trying the lamia form myself at the same time. Would you like to try it?"

The children exchanged a look then turned back to their mother. _"Yes, mama. We would like that very much."_

_"All right then. I want you to close your eyes. Imagine what you would look like if you were to be in another form. New remember that pool of power that you use to do magic. Use that power to will your body into the shape in your mind."_ Seth sat back and watched the children try to transform. He was hoping that they would be able to transform as readily as he had. Salriss had agreed with him when he said that he thought they had an advantage of already being part snake and part human.

The first one to start blurring into another form was, not surprisingly, Rassir. He had always hated the limitations that were put on hum by his own body being in human form, compared to his siblings' stronger serpentine forms. The finished product was Rassir in full basilisk form. Once again, he took his mother's features, only this time they were the same features as her basilisk form. His scales were still the same coloring as his father's, though.

Right after Rassir had finished his change, Sithra's started. She went from her usual lamia form to that of a human that was almost identical to her brother's. The only real differences were the fact that she was a female instead of a male, which also influenced her face slightly, and the fact that she had hair on her head instead of just scales. Her hair and scale colors remained the same as her natural form.

The final one to change was Se'sith. He changed into the lamia form. He, like his siblings, kept his scale coloring. He also did not have hair on his head, instead having scales like his brother. His face was triangular in shape with a pointed chin, full lips, a fine straight nose, high cheekbones, and the same gorgeous green eyes.

Seth beamed with pride at his children. They had managed to transform quite easily, and he could not have been more proud of them. _"Well done! Each of you work on transforming into the form that you have not yet accomplished, then practice often. You never know which of your forms will be the most useful in any given situation. You will be allowed to leave for the day after you finish the final transformation."_

It only took a couple of minutes for all three of the children to take their final forms. Seth dismissed them for the day after that.

Watching the children as they cheered and ran off for their free time, Seth felt a rush of love and pride. They were each beautiful to his eyes, no matter which form they were in. Now that the children knew about the transformations, Seth felt more comfortable in trying to achieve the lamia form, as the children would not be shocked if they came across her in that form. Closing his eyes, Seth willed himself into lamia form. It took more energy to reach this form than it did for him to go back and forth from his human and basilisk forms, but Seth managed it. He decided to stay in this form for a while to get as used to it as he was with his other forms.

HPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLV

Life continued on, the children became familiar with their new forms, and now that they had mouths that were able to form the words properly, Seth taught them how to speak in English as well as parseltongue. After teaching the younglings for another year, Seth had run out of things that he could teach them, and he passed their lessons on to Salriss.

One night, only a few weeks after Salriss had taken over the lessons, Seth decided to talk to him about something that had been on his mind. _"I have been thinking,"_ Seth started. _"I am certain that I could find where there are other human magic users. I can feel them. I believe that it would be best if I were to go there and see if there is any way that I could learn more about how to do magic. I have having an ability like this that is simply going to waste without proper instruction. I would hopefully only be gone a few weeks at most, and now that you are in charge of lessons for a time, it really is the most opportune time for me to go. The only thing that I want to know is if you would be okay with watching the children for such a long time by yourself."_

Salriss thought about it for a few minutes. _"I think that I should be able to take care of them for a while. I know that you would not have brought this up if it were not important to you. You rarely ask for anything for yourself. When were you thinking of leaving?"_

_"I was thinking of going in two days. That will give me time to say goodbye to the children."_

"That will be acceptable. Don't forget that you will have to create those coverings that humans like to put on their bodies. I will never understand why they insist on doing that…"

The following day Seth told the three younglings that he would be leaving the following day. They were less than thrilled that their mother would be gone for so long, but they knew from the look in their mother's eyes that any protests they made would be pointless. The four of them spent the rest of the day together.

It was a sad group that gathered at the entrance of the den the following morning. _"I will only be gone for a few weeks to a month. In the mean time, I want you to be good, listen to your papa, and learn all that you can, just like I will."_ Seth kissed each of his children on the forehead before taking his basilisk form, which he could travel at faster speeds in.

As he vanished from sight, three dejected children turned back to the den, already looking forward to the time that their mother would be back.

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	7. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: It is not mine. My book is still stuck in my head, and will likely remain there… 

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

A/N: There will be some derogatory language in this chapter toward a homosexual couple. This is in no way a reflection of my own personal opinion.

Chapter 6 

Seth made his way toward the largest concentration of human magic he could sense. It was about one hundred miles north of the den that he had been living in for the past four years. There was only one other area that had more human magic, but that was at least 250 miles from the den. During the three days that it took for Seth to reach the magic area, he wondered what it would be like to be among humans once again. The only humans he truly remembered anymore were his relatives, and they had not been worth pissing on if one of them had been on fire. He also knew that he would have to hide his appearance, since he doubted that even among the magic users it was common to have snake-like features. He would try to blend in as much as possible while he was there.

By the time Seth reached the edge of the forest on the third day, it was already evening. Since he would be able to use his basilisk for to blend in with the shadows at night, he decided to wait until then to go to the small town to learn what he would need to know in order to blend in the following day. With around an hour left until it was truly dark out, Seth scouted the nearby forested area for a suitable temporary den. He eventually found a smallish cave that, while too small for his full basilisk form, was just the right size for while he was in his lamia form.

Once he had gotten the den set up, it was dark enough out that Seth felt safe in approaching the town. He switched to his snake form, since its coloration was better for blending into the shadows than his human form, and made his way over. Stopping about one hundred yards from the nearest building, Seth settled in to observe the humans.

Seth's main goal for the evening was to see how these magic users dressed. Several of the humans had referred to their clothing as robes. The garment would start around a person's throat and extend all the way down to their ankles. There were some subtle differences between the clothing of males and females, but they were quite similar for the most part. Most of the people that he could see were wearing boots of some kind on their feet. There were also garments that went on over their main clothing that were called cloaks. Many of these cloaks had hoods that could be pulled low over a person's face. A cloak would be extremely useful to Seth for hiding his unusual features. He had also noticed a few people who wore gloves on their hands, even though it was a mild summer evening. All of these coverings combined would make it possible for Seth to hide his scales and serpentine features from the humans.

The humans also wore pouches on their waists that seemed to contain some form of currency. While living in the forest, Seth had not needed any money, and now that he most likely would, he was not sure what he would do to get some.

While he was quite curious to find out more about these humans, Seth forced himself to wait for the following day before venturing in. Turning around, he headed back toward his temporary den. When he got back, he had a hard time falling asleep. Once he finally managed it, he dreamed of what could happen the next day.

HPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLVHPLV

Seth was awake before sunrise the next morning. He changed back into his human form and went out to hunt, as he had not eaten since he had left home and was getting hungry. After a satisfying meal, he took some leaves and changed them into suitable clothing for a visit into town. It had taken Seth nearly a year to be able to change one thing into something else, but now that he could, they stayed that way for around five or six hours before reverting to their previous state. Hopefully by that time, he would have gotten some money somehow and would be able to buy the necessary clothing.

Making his way over to the town, Seth made certain that was completely covered from prying eyes. By the time he reached the town, there were already quite a few people out and about. While he got a few wary looks at first, soon people started to ignore him. This suited Seth, since it allowed him to listen in on conversations while he made his was around town.

"…and Abby said that Mary said that…"

"…said that they would have the newest one out by…"

"…there are 29 knuts to a sickle and 14 sickles to a galleon. Why can't they just use pounds like…"

"…cannot believe these prices!"

"Oh, I know. I had to make a healing potion just the other day, when I realized that I was out of bat spleens. When I wet to got some from the apothecary, he wanted three whole sickles for a pound! (A/N: I have no idea on proper pricing…) I might as well have gone out and harvested them myself for that price!"

Seth heard all that he needed to, and quickly turned away from the women. He headed toward the building just up the street that the women had come from, which he was assuming was the apothecary. His mind was working furiously as he entered the shop. Not many basilisks would have anything to do with humans of any kind, and if there was anything that he could easily harvest from himself while in basilisk form that was sold there, he could likely make a deal with the sales clerk. From what the women had been saying, it might solve his money issues.

Browsing through the shelves, Seth did not find much until he came to a shelf that had a shield over it. There were several parts of a basilisk listed, including powdered fang, venom, skin, and various organs. While he obviously could not donate some of those, Seth figured that he could find a way to milk himself of some of his venom. The phial that they had in the store was rather small and only half full. The price it was listed for was 300 galleons per ounce. Recalling the one person muttering to herself about currency, he figured that this was a fairly large amount of money for such a small thing. Since Seth did not know how much it would cost to buy all of the books that he wanted, as well as the necessary clothes, he decided that before he even started gathering, he would see how much money he would need. Heading out of the apothecary, he turned toward the bookstore.

As he was walking along, Seth noted a confrontation that was taking place a short way in front of him. He slipped into the shadows and crept forward for a closer look. The best way, at least to Seth's mind, to learn about people was to see them at their worst, as well as what they are like every day. There were two men who were obviously romantically involved with one another that were backed against the side of a building by five others.

"Damn faggots. You shouldn't be allowed around decent people!"

"Cocksuckers! Why don't you do the world a favor and just die!"

"Of course, it would be bloody Slytherins that allow perverts like you to exist!"

While other jeers and taunts were being thrown at the unfortunate couple, another pair of men who had been strolling along overheard what the group was saying and swiftly made their way over to them. One of the men had the whitest blonde hair that Seth had ever seen, while the other had rather greasy black hair. The blonde was extremely hansom with mercurial silver eyes, high sharp cheekbones, a straight nose, a strong chin, and sensual lips. His companion was as homely as he was gorgeous. He had intense black eyes, sallow skin, a beaky hooked nose, rather thin lips, and yellow teeth. However, despite his appearance, there was something about the second man that commanded respect from those around him. When the couple that had been cornered saw the pair approaching, the relief in their eyes was quite obvious to Seth.

"Well, well, what do we have here," questioned the blonde.

"It looks like a bunch of mudbloods and blood traitors to me, Lucius," came the rejoinder from the black haired man.

"Ah, I had been wondering what that foul stench was." The blonde, Lucius, sneered at the five who had been attacking the couple. "I suppose that the obvious homophobia that runs rampant through them should have been a dead giveaway, not to mention the substandard insults that indicate a grievous lack of intelligence. Did you ever manage to get anything through their thick skulls into their miniscule brains, Severus?"

"They were Gryffindors, Lucius. Their minds are incapable of grasping anything that is even slightly subtle, let alone the fine art of potion making." Severus glared at the offenders, who visibly shrank away from the feared potions master. "May I suggest that you get out of my sight before you start making a useful contribution to potions…as ingredients!"

The five troublemakers scampered off like death was on their heals. Their obvious terror had Seth stifling snickers in his hand. While he had to admit that Severus' glare was the most intimidating one he had seen from a human, it had nothing on Salriss' glare when he was angry. Of course, it was rather difficult to beat the stare of a creature that truly can kill you in such a way.

The elder pair watched the troublemakers run off with satisfied expressions, then turned to the couple that they had rescued. "Misters Flint and Parkinson, are you all right?"

"Yes, sir. We're fine now, thanks to you. I am ashamed to admit that they caught us completely off guard. My fiancé and myself were out looking for our engagement rings and were not thinking of potential trouble. Thank you very much for you timely intervention."

"You are quite welcome, gentlemen. Next time, however, do not forget to watch yourselves. With all of the mudbloods running around with Dumbledore's approval these days, it is not surprising that their prejudices are infecting our people more and more. We all do what we can to keep them from spreading. Congratulations on year engagement, boys. May your lives together be long and fruitful."

The four conversed for a few more minutes before going their separate ways. Seth used this time to try and leave without drawing any attention to his self, but before he got more than a few steps away, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"And what do we have here? Another troublemaker, perhaps," came a low voice. Seth slowly turned around and saw Lucius and Severus had come up right behind him. He thought that it was Lucius who had spoken.

"I want no trouble, good sssirsss. I sssimply wasss in the wrong placsse at the wrong time." Seth had never been more conscious of the hiss that had developed in his voice due to the fangs that had carried over from his transformation. From the look on Lucius and Severus' faces, it was quite noticeable to humans as well. Lucius grabbed Seth's arm and dragged him into a nearby alley. He pulled out a stick of wood and held it in a threatening manner on Seth. He was guessing that it was supposed to be a weapon of some kind, and while he was curious as to what kind of damage a stick could do, he had no interest in having the man demonstrate its use on him, so he kept perfectly still and his manner was unthreatening.

"Who and what are you? What do you want," Lucius demanded in a hard voice.

"My name isss Ssseth. What I am isss quite complicated, and it would take far too long to tell that tell jussst now. Asss for what I want, I merely wisssh to learn about your kind without drawing trouble. Obviousssly that lassst did not happen."

Lucius smirked. "If you truly mean no harm, take down your hood, so I may see who I am dealing with."

Seth hesitated for a moment, but he knew he was beaten, so he brought his hand up and pulled his hood down. His face drew gasps from both of the men standing in front of him. Seth allowed a hint of a smirk to appear for a moment at their reactions. From what he had seen earlier, it took quite a bit to rattle the two, and he was pleased that he had been able to do so. To their credit, Lucius and Severus managed to pull themselves together fairly quickly.

"Lucius, I do not believe that this is the best place to be holding this conversation," Severus told his friend while he glanced around nervously, looking for any of Dumbledore's people.

"I have to agree, Severus. I believe that it would be best to return to the manor." Lucius pulled a pendant out from underneath his robe and turned to Seth. "This is a portkey. If you would take hold, we will be transported to somewhere safer." Not liking that he had to trust these two humans, Seth reluctantly placed his finger on the portkey when the other two did. The next moment the three of them were gone.

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	8. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I wish I owned Harry Potter…he'd be as straight as a circle… 

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

Chapter 7 

Seth hated portkeys. He decided that as soon as he felt the sensation of a hook behind his navel yanking him somewhere. It was only reinforced when he was absolutely humiliated by falling to the floor on the landing, while his travel companions landed lightly on their feet. There was a faint blush on his face as he scrambled onto his feet. Calming his self, Seth cautiously looked around at his new location. They had landed in a large, open room inside what had to be an absolutely enormous dwelling. The color scheme seemed to be predominantly black and white with dark woodwork as accents.

After assuring himself that there were no threats nearby, Seth turned his attention back to Lucius and Severus. The two had been waiting patiently for him to complete his survey. When Lucius saw that they once again had his attention, he beckoned the other two to follow him. He led Seth and Severus to his office, closing the doors behind them, which activated various privacy wards around the room to keep what happened in the room from prying eyes and ears. He gestured for the other two to take a seat, as he took his own behind the desk.

"Now then, you said that what you are is complicated. We now have the time to hear about it, as no one can bother us while we are in here." Lucius smirked at Seth.

Seth sighed. He had been hoping that he would be able to avoid interacting with humans too much, let alone having to have to tell them about his self! Resigned to what must be done, he started his story. "In my earliessst memory, I wasss asss human in body asss you, but my cursssed aunt and uncle had been calling me freak sssincsse long before then…" Over the next several hours, Seth told his story, though he avoided mentioning his children. He would die before saying anything that could potentially bring them harm.

When Seth had finally finished his story with the two of them finding him in the human town, the room was silent for a time while Lucius and Severus came to terms with the information that they had been given.

Severus was the first to break the silence. "Fascinating. You must be the only human in centuries to come across a basilisk without either you or the basilisk dieing, let alone make friends with it. And an animagus, at your age! Not only that, but a magical animagus form. You have just told a story that breaks just about every rule that we are taught about children. Well, I do not know about Lucius here, but if you were willing to give me three ounces of your venom, I would be more than happy to tutor you in some of our magic, specifically Potions, the Dark Arts, and Defense Against the Dark Arts."

Seth considered the offer. While he still did not trust humans for the most part, it would be quite helpful to have someone around to actually demonstrate things for him, as well as answer any questions that he might have. "Very well. Oncsse we are done here, I will transssform and you can gather sssome of my venom then. I mussst remind you that I have no idea how you humansss ussse your magic. You will have to start me off on the absssolute basssic principles of magic, jussst asss you would need to for a sssmall child."

Severus nodded in agreement. Normally he would be less than thrilled to have to teach someone the basics, but since he was getting the venom in return, he could always use that as a reminder to calm down when he got angry.

While Severus and Seth had been talking, Lucius had been doing some thinking of his own. After adding up the years that Seth had spoken of, it became obvious to him that the boy was far younger than he appeared to be. While he seemed to be in his mid teens, he had to be somewhere around the same age as his son, Draco. The parseltongue ability that he had spoken of had never occurred in a mudblood, so there was no way he could be one, but he was unsure if the boy was a pureblood or a half-blood. While he was none to fond of half-bloods for the most part, there were a few that were exceptional and could be accepted into pureblood society. The boy, Seth, would certainly be one of those exceptions if he were a half-blood. Not only could he speak parseltongue, but he also managed the animagus transformation at the age of four! If he were to be taught all of the little things that a pureblood should be raised knowing, he could be a powerful ally for his Lord once he was brought back.

Seeing that Seth and Severus had finished speaking, Lucius offered his own proposal. "I would like to offer to teach you etiquette, as well as assist you in hiring tutors for anything else that you would like to learn. In exchange, I would like the skin from your basilisk form from the next time you shed it. I would also like for you to consider meeting with my Lord some time in the future, once he returns to us."

Seth thought over his offer carefully. The bonus of the etiquette lessons was a major draw for him, as it was yet another thing that would allow his children as well as himself to blend into human society if it ever became necessary. While he had not told Salriss of this, over the past year he had been getting these dreams and feelings that were slowly growing and telling him that something was going to happen to force him back to live among the humans once again. They had been another reason that he had come back to learn what he could at this time.

"Very well. I am not yet sssure if I will meet with your Lord, though I am not sssaying no either. I will sssee what I think in a few monthsss after ssspending sssome time with you. I will, however, accssssept the assssssissstancsse in finding tutorsss, asss well asss your tutoring. When would you like to ssset up thessse sssessssssionsss for?"

"As it is the end of June, I will have the next two months completely free. After that, I must return to Hogwarts, where I teach, for the next school year. I may be able to get away a couple of weekends a month after that until midwinter, when I have two full weeks open. I believe that, given these facts, I would like to have as many lessons as we can cram into the net couple of months before our time becomes restricted." This was from Severus.

"I, on the other hand, have things to do at the Ministry year round, though that is not as restrictive as Severus' job. I can start etiquette lessons a few times a week in the afternoons until Severus has to start teaching. We can then increase them to five times a week. We will have to see what schedule you will have when it comes to tutors; I will have to contact them and find out the best way to arrange that schedule. Will this be acceptable to you?"

Seth hesitated, debating what to do or say about his children. If he were to agree to these terms, he would have to be away from his children for far too long, but if he were to tell the two of them, there was no telling how safe they would be. He was torn as to what to do. "If I were to agree, there isss sssomething that we would need to dissscussssss firssst. Isss there any way that would guarantee that you would not be able to reveal what I would need to tell you?"

Lucius and Severus exchanged looks. After all that Seth had told them, what could be so important that he would requite such a thing from them? They were both curious enough that they were willing to give their oaths. "I Severus/Lucius, do swear on my magic to never reveal to another soul that which Seth is about to tell without his permission."

There was a brief flash of light from both wands as the oaths were accepted. Seth blinked the spots from his eyes, then looked at the other two in the room, who seemed quite eager to hear what he had to say.

"What I did not tell you wasss that when I took my basssilisssk form, I sssomehow became a female in the later ssstagesss of adolescssencsse. While that may not ssseem too important, I can assssssure you that it wasss. A female basssilisssk goesss into heat only one time for cssertain in her life, and that isss the age that I became. By the time my companion realized what wasss happening, it wasss too late. O had gone into heat, and could not change back in time. We mated. One year later, I wasss a mother to three wonderful hatchlingsss. We alssso found that I became a hermaphrodite in my human form, oncsse I changed back. My children, Sssithra, Ssse'sssith, and Rassssssir, are currently ssstaying with their father. Becaussse of them, there isss sssimply no way that I could ssstay away for two or more monthsss. Can either of you think of sssomething elssse that we could do that would not require me to move here?"

Neither of the two men listening could believe what they had heard. As far as anyone knew, no such thing had ever happened before! Lucius was the first to get over his shock. Being a parent himself, he could understand Seth's reluctance to reveal anything about his children. If he had been in a similar situation, he would have been hesitant as well, and Draco was just a normal wizard. Given how unique the children must be, he was amazed Seth was willing to say anything, even with the oath. Severus took an extra couple of minutes to pull his self together, but eventually he did.

The two men thought about what they could do so that Seth could stay with his children. There were only three ways to travel a long distance in a short time. The first, using the Floo, would not work, since Seth did not live in a house, therefore he did not have a fireplace. Besides that, the Ministry would need to be told if they were to try and hook him up to the system, something they all considered to be a very bad thing. The second possible thing that they could use would be a permanent portkey, but to make one without Ministry approval was illegal, and they monitored all use of them. The final possibility was apparition. Apparition would work the best, if they could get Seth licensed. He would be allowed to come and go without any problems from the Ministry, as well as being able to rely just on himself instead of any outside objects, which could be lost or stolen. After a few minutes of debating, it was decided that they would forge a birth certificate for Seth to use at the ministry for licensing once he learned how to apparate.

"So over the next few days, we shall teach you how to apparate, then get you a license with the forged birth certificate. Once you have gotten that, you may return home for a day before we start the rest of your lessons. Your daily schedule for the rest of the summer will have you coming here when your children's lessons start in the mornings, then staying until the evening meal, at which time you will return to your family. We will find out when the tutors are going to be available starting in two months time before we set anything in stone for then. Are there any objections," Lucius asked.

"No, I have no objectionsss. Thisss will allow me to ssspend at leassst sssome time with my children every day, ssso I am happy with the ssschedule."

"I do not have any objections either. Though I would ask if we may collect Seth's venom before we do anything else, if that is alright with you."

"That isss fine. However, we will need to go to a larger area if I am to change formsss. My basssilisssk form isss far too large to fit in sssuch a sssmall ssspacsse."

"Very well," Lucius replied. "If you will follow me, I will show you outside so that you may change without possibly damaging anything." With that, he stood up and walked out with the other two following closely behind. When they got outside, Severus put on a pair of dragonhide gloves and produced a glass phial to hold the venom in.

"I believe I ssshould warn you, oncsse I change back into human form, I will not have any clothing. I wasss going to buy sssome today, asss my current clothing isss merely changed leavesss. If thisss will offend you, perhapsss while Severus gathers my venom, Lucssiusss could find me sssomething to wear for the moment."

"Hmm, yes, I suppose that it is not exactly common to wear clothing when living out in the wild, is it. Very well, I will go find you some clothing for now, though I do believe that I will also call the tailor so that we can get you a whole new wardrobe. I will cover the cost for the moment, and we can go to Gringotts at a later date to see if you have any kind of inheritance from anyone. If you will excuse me." With that, Lucius turned and headed into the house.

Seth quickly changed to his basilisk form. Severus stood there for a few moments, admiring such a beautiful creature before approaching with the phial. It took a surprisingly short amount of time to milk Seth of the three ounces that they had agreed on. Since Lucius had not yet returned by the time they had finished, Seth decided to change into his lamia form so that he could speak with Severus in English.

"Sweet Merlin! How did you do that," Severus exclaimed in shock.

Startled, Seth looked over at Severus, who had an expression of complete amazement on his face. "I have been able to take thisss form for around a year now. One of my children wasss born like thisss. Isss it so unusssual to have a halfway form?"

Severus nodded. "I have never heard of someone being able to do so. The only time that I know of that is even close to being similar is if someone panics halfway through the first transformation and gets stuck halfway through until a Healer can reverse it. You certainly are full of surprises, aren't you?"

Seth ducked his head to hide his blush. Salriss teased him about the same thing all of the time. Just then, Lucius came out of the house, drawing Severus' attention, as well as his own. The only sign of the man's surprise at his new form was a raised eyebrow.

"Severus, I believe I can take care of anything that comes up for the rest of the day, if you would like the time to set up lessons for Seth here." Severus nodded in acknowledgement. "In the meantime, I will show you where I have some clothes laid out for you until the tailor arrives. Will you require him to take an oath as well?"

"Yesss, I would like that. I would prefer if there were asss few humansss asss possssssible who know about me at the presssent time. In the meantime, pleassse, lead the way to the clothing."

Severus bid the two a good evening and headed back to his own home to plan, while Lucius and Seth headed into the house to get Seth dressed and wait for the tailor. As they were making there way in, Seth reflected on how it had only been a few days since he had left home, but already his life had changed drastically.

Please Review


	9. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. If I did, he would curse the Weaselette and run far, far away.

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

A/N: I cannot do house elf speech. I apologize in advance.

A/N2: Next week I will be going on vacation, so it will probably be around 2 weeks before I get any more chapters up. After that, my goal is to add a new chapter at least once a week.

Chapter 8 

The clothing that Lucius had set out for Seth was rather ill fitting due to the fact that Lucius was a good four inches taller than him, as well as the fact that Seth had a rather slender form due to being a hermaphrodite, whereas Lucius was rather muscular. There was not much of a choice, however, since Draco was only eight, and therefore far too small for Seth to fit into any of his clothes, and Narcissa never left any clothes behind while she was not at the Manor. Thankfully, it only took about an hour for the tailor to arrive.

After Lucius extracted an oath from the tailor not to reveal anything that he would see that night, he was taken into the room with Seth, who had left his features uncovered. A look of absolute terror came over the tailor's face for a few moments before he put on a professional mask. Seth thought it a rather odd reaction and resolved to ask Lucius about it later. When he stripped out of the borrowed clothes, he got another couple of odd looks from both the tailor and Lucius.

"What? I told you I became a hermaphrodite," Seth hissed in annoyance.

Lucius blushed lightly. "Forgive me, but I did not translate that into you growing breasts, no matter what size they are. I feel I must also point out that in most circumstances it is not considered polite for a woman to simply strip down as you just did. A woman's breasts are considered sexual and therefore private among humans."

"Hmm. I think that humansss have far too many thingsss that are consssidered taboo. Why ssshould a female have a problem with ssshowing the fact that ssshe can feed her young? Foolissshnessssss," Seth said with a shake of his head.

"Perhaps," Lucius agreed, "but if you truly wish to learn to blend in with humans, this is one of the many things you must learn."

Seth nodded his acceptance of what Lucius was saying. He then turned his attention to the tailor. "I do not know what isss needed, so you will lisssten to what Lucssiusss sssaysss in thisss matter."

"Very well, my Lord," the tailor replied.

Lucius spoke with thee man while he took Seth's measurements. When the tailor heard that Seth would require a whole new wardrobe, his eyes lit up with greed. The two agreed on darker colors, including a green so dark, it was almost the color of Seth's hair, black, and midnight blue. These would help him to keep from drawing too much notice and would help him to blend in. They also agreed on three pairs of boots, seven pairs of gloves, four sets of dress robes, two cloaks, and two dozen everyday robes. The tailor even managed to complete one robe in the dark green color in the hour that he was there. He promised another handful of robes and one of each of the other items by the following afternoon. The final shipment would arrive in somewhere around one week.

Once the tailor had left, Lucius turned to Seth. "Dinner will be served momentarily. Would you care to join my son and myself?"

"No thank you, Lucssiusss. I only eat oncsse every few daysss, and I doubt that you would have what I eat at your table. If you would be ssso kind, I will sssettle in while you eat, then perhapsss you can come sssee me. I have many quessstionsss about your world, asss I am sssure you have ssseveral for me."

"Very well. I will have Bobbet, one of our house elves, show you to your rooms. After we are done eating, I would like to first introduce you to my son, as I am sure you will run into each other at some point in time, and I would prefer if you had met first. My wife rarely shows herself in the manor, usually she is off around the world, so the next time she is in, I will introduce you to her as well. After that, yes, I have many questions that you could answer. Bobbet!"

A small green creature appeared with a small pop. It was around three feet tall and had large floppy ears, tennis ball yellow eyes, and a bulbous nose. It was dressed in a neatly pressed pillowcase. Noticing the look that Seth was giving Bobbet, Lucius told him, "House elves are the servants of the wizarding world. They enjoy serving their masters by taking care of the various household chores. I should warn you that there is a rather odd one running around here somewhere in the manor that seems to think it would be better off free, which is ridiculous, as an elf slowly loses its magic the longer it is not bound."

Turning to Bobbet, Lucius ordered, "Bobbet, you are to show Seth to the green suite. Also, while he is here, you are to serve his needs personally." Bobbet nodded its head vigorously, an expression of joy on its face from getting such an important job. Lucius inclined his head to Seth and left the room.

"If Master Seth sir would follow Bobbet, Bobbet will show Master Seth sir to his rooms," the house elf said. Seth gestured for it to show him the way. While following Bobbet, he discreetly flicked his tongue out to scent the creature in front of him. The scent told him that it was a female and that it was healthy and happy.

They stopped in front of a set of double doors. "This is to be Master Seth sir's suite while he is a guest here. Will Master Seth sir be needing anything else from Bobbet right now?"

"No, Bobbet, I do not require anything elssse from you right now. How do I get a hold of you if I need you?"

"If Master Seth sir is needing Bobbet, he only needs to call Bobbet's name out loud and Bobbet will hear him."

"Very well, Bobbet," Seth began, "you may leave." Bobbet popped away, satisfied that she had completed her assigned task.

Seth entered the suite that he had been given for the time being. The first room was a sitting room of some sort with a couch and a couple of chairs situated around the fireplace. The furniture was dark green with some silver accents. There was a large green rug covering half of the black marble floor. The walls were also marble, only they were black and white in coloring. Seth found the total effect of the room to be quite restful.

There were two other doors in the room besides the entrance doors. The one on the right led to a palatial bathroom. It, too, was black and white marble with green rugs and linens. The tub was the size of a small swimming pool, awing Seth. The other door led to a bedroom with a huge bed. The room itself was designed to look like a forest, which he found rather surprising to see in a human home. There was a door connecting the bedroom and bathroom, as well.

Since he did not know how long it would take Lucius to eat, Seth wandered back into the sitting room and settled in on the couch, contemplating the strange turn his life had taken since just that morning.

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Lucius was wondering about his guest as he walked down to dinner. Seth's emotional maturity level matched that of his body's, which he found to be rather surprising considering that the boy was technically only eight years old. Of course, the fact that he had been a parent for nearly half of his life would definitely explain at least part of it. What was troubling him was who the child could have originally been. He did not know of any pureblood families that were missing a child, and from what Seth had said about his human family, they had not been able to do any magic, either. He must be a half-blood, but who?

By that time, Lucius had reached the dining room, so he pushed it to the back of his mind, so that he could concentrate on his son during the meal. Nothing was more important to him than Draco, not even their mysterious guest. He spent a pleasant meal listening to Draco talk about what he had done that day. As the two were eating dessert, Lucius brought up their guest.

"Draco, we have a guest that arrived earlier today. I would like to introduce the two of you after dinner, but you have to promise me you will not speak of him to anyone outside you Uncle Sev and myself."

Draco was curious about just who this guest could be. His father never had company other than Uncle Sev. "I promise father. Who is he?"

"His name is Seth. He was raised by a basilisk, and does not know much about being human. He also has a basilisk as his animagus form. Due to complications, he kept a somewhat snakelike appearance after he turned back into a human. You don't need to be afraid, though, he is a rather nice young man."

"Okay, father." Draco started to eat faster, as he was rather curious about this Seth person.

The two swiftly made their way toward the suite that Lucius had given to Seth, each lost in their own thoughts. Draco was wondering what Seth would be like, and if he would be a friend to him. It would be nice to have another friend instead of just acquaintances. He only had Blaise at the moment. Lucius, on the other hand, was once again wondering who their guest could be. 'Let's see,' he thought. 'He is eight years old, there is something familiar about his face, and a scar on his forehead.' Just as they reached the door, the answer hit him. The Savior of the Wizarding World.

Harry Potter.


	10. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I don't own it. runs off sobbing 

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

A/N: Darn muse. It would not let go of this no matter how hard I tried, so the story is now HP/LV/LM…..stupid muse….

Chapter 9 

Lucius stood in front of the door absolutely stunned. The very person hailed as the one who had defeated his Lord, even temporarily, and was expected to save the supposed "Light" side was abandoned by the muggles, raised by a basilisk, and was so Slytherin Lucius would almost swear that he was the reincarnation of Salazar himself. Draco shifted beside him, drawing his attention back to the here and now. He threw the boy a reassuring smile before knocking on the door. A soft "Come in" drifted through. Lucius opened the door, ushering his son inside.

Seth had obviously been making himself at home. He had undone several buttons on his new robes leaving what most would consider an indecent amount of skin showing. Currently, he was stretched out on the couch, looking like an invitation to sin. Even knowing that the gorgeous young man in front of him was not only the same age as his son, and Harry Potter on top of that, he could not help the surge of lust that shot through him when he saw Seth in such a disheveled state.

Flicking his tongue out a tiny bit, Seth's attention was caught by the scent of lust coming from Lucius. He turned and gave Lucius an intense look, watching as the blonde tried not to squirm under the blazing yellow eyes that were focused on him. A contemplative look crossed Seth's face before he wiped off all emotion and turned his attention to Draco. Lucius breathed out in relief, then put aside the thoughts and feelings that the past few minutes had brought out in him for later contemplation and stepped into his role as host.

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After he had settled in to wait, Seth thought about something that had been unsettling him all day. Lucius' scent. The first time that he had gotten a hint of the scent, his instincts had perked up, urging him to trust the human. Not only that, but his body was reacting in unexpected and embarrassing ways to the beautiful blonde. This was extremely disconcerting to Seth, as he had sworn to never truly trust a human again, and now his own instincts were betraying him. It had also been one of the reasons that he had been unable to kill the two men when they had cornered him in the first place.

Seth was jolted out of his thoughts by a knock on the door. "Come in."

The door opened, revealing the object of Seth's thoughts, as well as a miniature version of him, who simply had to be the son that Lucius had mentioned bringing over earlier. He flicked his tongue out to catch the scent of the newest human of his acquaintance. The boy's scent was pleasant enough, but it was the addition to Lucius' scent that sent a jolt through his and had all of his blood rushing south. It was the scent of his mate, yet at the same time, it seemed incomplete, almost like it was only half there. A memory came to mind suddenly, one of the children's lessons he had overheard a few months back.

flashback

_Salriss was coiled in front of the children for their lesson. "I know that I have told you about what to expect if and when you meet your mate, however I feel that you should know about something that rarely happens. Every once in a great while, a basilisk will have two mates instead of only one. There have only been a handful of times when this was the case, but each time that it has happened, there were great changes among the basilisks, and I cannot help but feel that you three being born the way you are is a herald for even greater changes to come. Now, the way to tell if you have more than one mate is actually quite simple. The scent of the first one you meet will scream mate to you, as usual, but it will also feel like there is something missing. That feeling will only stop when you meet with you third mate. Also, the heat will not occur in any females until all three are together. Other than that, the relationship is basically the same as any other, only with an extra person. Do you have any questions?" The children shook there heads as Seth headed outside._

end flashback

'Well,' Seth thought to himself, 'I guess that answers the question of whether or not I will have a mate.' Not only would he have a mate, he would be one of the handful ever to have two! When he realized that he had one of his mates right there in the room with him, Seth studied Lucius more intently than ever. The lust that he had scented earlier increased even more as the two stared at one another. Satisfied that there was noting that he could find to indicate any weaknesses, Seth's thoughts turned to more carnal things. There was no doubt in his mind that the sex would be fantastic. Now he just had to discover who their third mate was. Seth pondered that for a moment before deciding that he would worry about it when the time came. He turned his attention back to Draco, waiting for an introduction.

Lucius visibly drew himself together and made the introductions. "Seth, this is my son Draco. Draco, this is our guest Seth."

"Pleasssed to meet you, Draco," Seth greeted.

Though he was visibly startled by the hissing quality of Seth's voice, Draco recovered quickly and replied, "I am pleased to meet you as well." As with all children, Draco was insatiably curious, and Seth could almost see the question the boy had welling up inside of him.

"I sssee that you have quessstionsss, Draco. I do not have much time to anssswer them all tonight, but I would be willing to anssswer at leassst a few of them."

Draco's face lit up and he started firing questions at him. "What does it feel like to have scales? Are you cold-blooded like a snake? Is the rest of your family like you? How old are you? Do you know how to fly?" He opened his mouth to ask more questions, but Seth held up his hand.

"It hasss been ssso long sssincsse I did not have ssscalesss that I do not really remember what it isss like to not have them. Yesss, I am cold-blooded. The ressst of my family, well, let'sss jussst sssay that they are unique. I will tell you more about them when there isss more time. I am not cssertain how old I am, I lossst track of time sssincsse my human family left me in the foressst. Asss for flying, if that isss sssomething that humansss can do with their magic, no I cannot at the moment, but maybe you could teach me, Draco." That last answer brought an interesting look of amazement, pity, and joy to Draco's face.

Seth smiled at the boy indulgently. It took so little to please Draco. Hopefully he would get along with Seth's children, whom he would be bringing to the manor with him occasionally now that he knew that Lucius was one of his mates. "Thossse lessssssonsss will have to wait for a short while, though. Firssst I mussst learn a few other thingsss. Maybe we will be able to ssstart them in a few weeksss. In the meantime, I have sssome quessstionsss of my own for your father. Perhapsss we can ssspeak more tomorrow night and get to know one another better."

While Draco appeared less than pleased to have to leave so soon after meeting such an interesting person, he did not make any objections. He made his goodbyes and left the room.

After Draco left, the two men still in the room became acutely aware that they were now completely alone with nothing to interrupt them for the rest of the evening. While Lucius struggled against the lust raging through his body, convinced that he would scare away his young guest, Seth embraced it, intending to claim the first of his mates. Wearing what he hoped was a seductive look, Seth slithered off the couch and started stalking his mate.

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I cannot write sex scenes, so just assume they screwed each other into unconsciousness.

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After waking from a sated sleep, Lucius' mind finally started to work again, but he was extremely confused. He had had a similar reaction to only one other person in his life, and he had thought that it had meant that the other person who had gotten the reaction was his mate. While he was trying to figure out what had happened, Seth woke up next to him and could sense his turmoil, if not the cause of it.

"What troublesss you ssso Lucssiusss?"

Lucius sighed heavily. "I don't know what is happening and why I had such a strong physical reaction to you when I had thought that I had already found my mate. I dislike not knowing what is going on."

Seth was astonished by what Lucius had said. Here he had been thinking that it would take forever to find their second mate now that he had found the first one, but it appeared that he was actually the last one to be found. "You know who our other mate isss? Where isss he? When can we go sssee him?"

Unsure which surprised him more, the fact that they could possibly be a trio or the fact that Seth did not seem surprised by that fact, Lucius could only stare at Seth. By the time Seth had finished his questions, he had managed to pull himself together. "How can you be so sure that you are my mate, let alone that we have a third?"

Seth looked at Lucius, surprised once again "Are you humansss unable to tell when you meet your mate? Among the basssilisssksss, the ssscent of the other is the telling thing. Your ssscent ssscreams mate to me, but at the sssame time it isss missssssing sssomething. That isss how a basssilisssk knowsss that there isss ssstill another mate out there, though I mussst admit that there have only been a few timesss in hissstory where there were a trio of matesss. Isss it unusssual among humansss asss well?"

"Yes, though it sounds like it is not quite as rare among us as it is with basilisks. There is usually only one trio every three or four generations. As for our other mate, he is the one I also call Lord. His name is Voldemort. As to where he is…" Here Lucius trailed off as a new thought occurred to him. Everyone had been wondering exactly how it was that a mere baby could survive the killing cures, and here was the answer, staring him right in the face. Mates were unable to kill each other. It was such a simple, obvious answer, it was a wonder no one else had thought of it. Hoping that Seth would be understanding, Lucius started his explanation of what had happened to their other mate.

"To tell you about what happened to our mate, I will need to give you some background information on the wizarding world, so I beg your indulgence for the rather lengthy explanation. There are many different groups among the magical population. The main ones are the purebloods, those who can trace their family back through at least five generations of magical people, whether human or not, on both sides of the family. Muggleborns are magical people who were born to non-magical parents. We call the non-magical people muggles, hence the term. Finally there are the half-bloods. They are those that have a muggle or muggleborn in their family tree sometime in the last five generations. Within each group there are many subgroups, but these are the important ones for the moment.

"The problem comes in with muggleborns and quite a few of the half-bloods as well. The magical strength of the average muggleborn is far lower than that of the average pureblood. Most half-bloods are stronger than a muggleborn, though still not as strong as the average pureblood. There are usually only one or two half-bloods every generation that are as strong as a pureblood. While this is somewhat alarming, it would not be too large of a problem in and of itself. The main problem that is causing a great deal of friction is the fact that there are so many muggleborns and half-bloods in the magical community that are bringing in many of the muggle prejudices. They have been known to have problems with couples of the same sex, or even trios like us. They limit some of their people based on what sex they are, what color their skin is, and just about anything else that makes a person different than they are. When they entered the wizarding world, new prejudices were created against existing creatures here as well. In the past one hundred years, there have been more and more problems cropping up from these prejudices brought into our world.

"Into this volatile situation came a young half-blood named Tom Riddle. He had been raised at a muggle orphanage where he was treated horribly due to being different. After he had entered the wizarding world, had had to watch as the prejudices that he had thought he had left behind in the muggle world crept into his beloved new home. After watching for several years, he decided that he would do whatever it took to keep us from becoming as much of a travesty as the muggle world was. He proposed many radical changes that were not well received, as they were rather anti-muggle, especially since a new icon of the light side in the form of the muggle loving old coot known more commonly as Dumbledore had emerged. Finally getting frustrated with the resistance to his ideas, he took off some time to attempt to gain immortality, as it had become obvious to him that the changes he wanted would not happen in his natural lifetime. He used many dark rituals and eventually gained at least a measure of the immortality he so desperately wanted.

"He then started to gather together the people that he found that agreed with his ideas, who he called Death Eaters in honor of his immortality. They were all willing to do whatever was necessary to save their way of life, up to and including killing. Now, this terrified many of the people of the wizarding world, and eventually another group was formed from the people who followed Dumbledore's beliefs called the Order of the Phoenix. This action brought about the war. The fighting went on for over ten years when news leaked that there was a prophecy. The one that Voldemort heard stated that one of two children who were going to be born at the end of July would be able to defeat him. Having heard this, he made plans that went into effect a bit over a year later. While he was not very happy with the idea of killing off babies, he would not let anything stand in his way. He thought it better that a few died rather than be raised in a world similar to the muggle world. On October 31, 1981 he went after the first of the two boys and that is where everything went wrong.

"The baby's parents refused to give him up, as any real parent would. They believed that Dumbledore's idea of the world would be better, so Voldemort killed them first, then went to the child to finish him off. What he did not know then, and still likely does not know is that the prophecy was a fake and the boy was in fact his mate. My guess is that Dumbledore either heard a different prophecy or somehow managed to figure out ahead of time that one of the boys was Voldemort's mate and used it against him, as not only can one mate not kill the other, but also if they try their magic backfires on them and kill the one who tried. Thankfully, in his efforts to gain immortality Voldemort had found a way around it, however it rendered him a mere spirit without a body. He came to me that very night and told me what had happened.

"I was told to remain behind while he went in search of a way to gain back his body, as the only way he knew would require another parselmouth. Since then he has been wandering the world with an occasional visit back here. The length of time between visits can vary anywhere from one to two years, and I do not have any way of contacting his while he is gone. As he was here only a couple of months ago, we will have to wait to speak with him until he returns. This brings me to a question. Will you help Voldemort get his body back, even though his is the one who killed your parents?"

Lucius waited for Seth's reaction as he finished the story and asked his question. He was ready for just about any reaction, after all, it was not every day that you found out that your mate had tried to kill you and did kill your parents. Yet in spite of that, he was almost certain that Seth would accept it as any true Slytherin would.

Seth was thinking through everything that he had been told. In the end, he decided it was hard to get angry at his mate for trying to protect himself and his ideals. Also, if he had not done so, Seth would have likely been raised by muggle loving parents to despise his mates and everything that they stood for. No, the person he was most angry with was Dumbledore, who had set up the whole mess. "While I dissslike the fact that one of my matesss came after me in sssuch a way, I find that I cannot blame him, either. I am jussst thankful that I wasss not raisssed to hate my matesss, asss I sssurely would have been otherwissse. I would be mossst willing to help him gain hisss body back."

Lucius breathed a sigh of relief. "I am certain that once Voldemort learns of the trickery, he will be more than happy to have you join us, especially once he knows that you are also a parselmouth." He stifled a yawn. "For now, though, I believe that it is time to turn in for the night. Do you want me to stay with you?"

"Yesss, pleassse, ssstay," Seth mumbled as he drifted off. Lucius looked down at his young mate affectionately before he too closed his eyes and succumbed to Morpheus.


	11. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, JKR does. Screams at the sky WHY NOT ME?

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

A/N: Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out and that it is so short, but my muse has gone on a long vacation without me. Hopefully I will be able to get more out shortly, though.

Chapter 10 

Seth drifted awake slowly. He was surrounded by an unusual feeling of warmth die to the fact that he was currently wrapped tightly in Lucius' embrace. While he would have liked to stay there, nature was calling, so he slipped out of Lucius' arms and headed into the bathroom. When he was done, Seth decided that since he was already up and in the bathroom anyway, he might as well get into the shower. The hot water relaxed him, and he let his mind drift while standing under the spray. Eventually his thoughts turned to everything that he had learned about his second mate the previous night. To him, it sounded like Voldemort was one of those people who would only take advice when it came from behind closed doors, though it seemed that he had good reason. No on followed an indecisive leader, let alone such a ruthless group. Seth only hoped that Voldemort would be as quick to overlook their mutual past as he had been.

The sudden press of a body against his back jerked Seth from his thoughts. "Mmmm. Good morning, Lucssiusss. What isss the plan for the day?"

"Well, first I'm going to pound into you until you scream. Then I though we could go down to breakfast. I know that you said you don't eat like a human anymore, but I would enjoy the company. After that, we'll start teaching you how to apparate. Hopefully it will not take you more that a couple of days to learn how to do so. Once Severus arrives, I will have him work with you while I get a hold of my contacts to get you that birth certificate. The rest of the day depends on if you learn how to apparate or not."

"Oncsse I manage to learn to apparate, I would like to get back to sssee my children and check up on them asss sssoon asss possssssible. I will alssso be ssspeaking with their father about letting them at leassst come to visssit with me occasssionally."

"That will be acceptable." That was the last bit of intelligent conversation heard from either of them for quite some time as Lucius carried out the first part of his plan for the day.

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When Lucius and Seth finally entered the dining room, Draco was already there and had started in on his own breakfast. He looked up when he heard the two entering and offered a smile. "Good morning Father, Seth. How are you doing today?"

Lucius smiled back at his son. Good morning to you as well, Draco. I am quite well, thank you."

Seth offered his own greeting as he and Lucius joined Draco at the table. "How wasss you night, Draco? Did you sssleep well?"

"It was great! I dreamt I was flying and playing quidditch. I was the captain of the Slytherin team at Hogwarts, and everybody loved how good I could fly." Draco went on describing his dream, while Seth smiled at his softly. He was already growing to love Draco as a son. He already thought of him as such, since he was mated with the boy's father. He only hoped that Lucius would love Seth's own children as much as he loved Draco.

That led Seth to another thought. How would his children react to him having two mates? Not only that, but how would Salriss react? Would they be accepting of the two humans in their lives? Where would they all live, and would they live together or separately? There were so many questions running through Seth's mind, but no answers were readily available. He would just have to wait until he could get over to see Salriss and the children so that they could discuss the matter.

Breakfast passed quickly for the three, and before they knew it, it was time for Draco to go to his daily lessons, and Lucius and Seth headed outside to start teaching Seth how to apparate.

Lucius led Seth to a large open area. "This should do," he stated. "To apparate, first you must know where it is that you are apparating to. In this case, we will set a location just a few feet away from you. Next, visualize yourself there. Finally, you draw on your magic and will your body to be there instead of where you currently are. Given what you have learned to do on your own already, I don't foresee this taking you more than a day or two at most to get it. One word of warning, though. You should not attempt to learn to apparate while you are alone. There is something known as splinching where you accidentally leave a part of you body behind while the rest of you goes to the new location. It is reversible, but until it is taken care of, it is quite painful. Any questions?"

Seth shook his head in answer, trying not to think about splinching himself. Lucius made a white circle on the grass and they settled in for a long day of training.

After a couple of hours of practice, Severus arrived to help teach Seth. Once Lucius spotted him, he approached Severus to speak with him for a moment. "Severus, if you would take over for a little while by yourself, I need to get in contact with a few people about getting the birth certificate set up. So far there has not been much progress, but I did not want to leave him on his own in case of a splinching accident."

Severus agreed and headed over to watch Seth's attempts to apparate while Lucius headed back into the house. While Lucius may have figured out that Seth was actually Harry Potter, Severus had not yet made the connection. He had been thinking about it all night, and he still could not figure out who the boy was, and it was driving him insane. Of course, it never crossed his mind that the boy could possibly be Potter since the Headmaster at his school, the old fool Dumbledore, he not been panicking about his precious "savior" being missing. The idea that he might not know if anything happened to Harry had never crossed his mind, since the boy was supposed to be so very important. After all, if it had been anyone on Voldemort's side of the war, they would never have let the boy out of their sight, and he would have been guarded zealously. The fact that he had not worked out that Seth was actually so much younger than his appearance suggested did not help any.

The rest of the day passed swiftly as Lucius worked on getting the birth certificate while Severus watched over Seth in his attempt to learn how to apparate. Lucius rejoined the other two toward the end of the afternoon, happy that he had completed his task and had the forged birth certificate in his hand. Now all that was left was for Seth to actually apparate.

Severus was about to call it a day when Seth finally managed to apparate to the circle. His face lit up and he whirled around to face Lucius and Severus. They both smiled at him proudly. It was not often that someone could learn to apparate in a single day. Seth quickly made his way over to the two men.

"Thank you for your assssssissstancsse. I fell that I need to return home for the night to ssspeak with my children and Sssalrissssss. You both may know about them, but I feel I ssshould tell them asss sssoon asss possssssible ssso we may dissscussssss how we will work thingsss out from here." After giving Severus a nod and Lucius a quick peck on the lips, Seth disappeared.

Noticing the look that Severus was giving him, Lucius said, "Let me tell you what happened last night, my friend…"

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	12. Chapter 11

_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. JKR is the genius behind these characters._

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

A/N: Yes! I finally managed to get some more of this story out. does a happy dance Once again it is a rather short chapter, but it is still something.

Chapter 11 

Seth appeared with a crack in a clearing a short distance away from the den. He had decided that he did not want to risk surprising Salriss and the hatchlings, as Salriss would most likely attack before even realizing it was him and the hatchlings would be thrown into a panic.

Quickly making his way to the den, Seth could not help but feel more than a little anxious about the upcoming discussion. Salriss was none too fond of humans for the most part, and the hatchlings had never encountered one other than Seth himself, and now he was expecting them to deal with his human mates, the boy Draco, and various other humans. The only real things going for them were that Lucius and Voldemort were his mates, and Draco was Lucius' family, as well as Seth's instincts. Hopefully they would see just how snake-like they were and eventually except them.

As he drew closer to the den, Seth noticed something that did not belong in this part of the forest, the voiced and movements of a lot of humans. It had been ages since there had been any other humans in their part of the forest, as most were terrified of what made everyone that came here disappear, and now this. Seth quickly changed into his basilisk form, as it was able to travel at higher speeds than either of his other two forms and raced off toward the den.

Once he was within voice range, Seth called out, _"Sssalrissssss! Sssithra! Ssse'sssith! Rassssssir! Isss anyone there?"_

Sithra stuck her head cautiously out of the den. _"Mother! Father went out to hunt, and then thessse humansss appeared out of nowhere and ssstarted trampling around calling out for sssomeone, and Father isss ssstill not back and we're ssscared,"_ she ended with a wail. Seth hurried over to where the hatchlings were huddled together in the corner and coiled his self around them comfortingly.

_"It'sss okay now, Mother isss here. I'll take care of everything."_ Seth continued to comfort his children while keeping an ear open to make certain that none of the intruding humans came too close to the den. After a few minutes there was a loud ruckus from the direction the humans were in. From the shouts and screams that were heard, Seth concluded that Salriss had attacked the intruders to turn their attention to him in hopes of keeping them away from the hatchlings in the den. Another few tense minutes later there were a series of cracks followed by an abrupt silence. Seth was practically vibrating with tension by this point. He just hoped Salriss was okay after driving the humans off.

A rustling sound came from one of the bushes around the den, drawing Seth's attention and he prepared to attack in case it was one of the humans. He uncoiled his self from around the hatchlings and warned them, _"Ssstay here. I'm going to go and check outsssideto sssee what isss happening. I will be back ssshortly."_

Moving his self to the front of the den, Seth stared at the bushes. A moment later he relaxed when he saw it was Salriss making his way back to the den. The breath then caught in his throat as he truly saw just how injured Salriss was. One of his eyes had been destroyed and was still oozing. There were two dangerously large gashes that were near his head, as well as numerous minor gashes spread out over his body. Unable to sense any more humans nearby at the moment, Seth quickly made his way over to Salriss.

_"Ssseth,"_ Salriss hissed in surprise and relief. _"You mussst get the hatchlingsss out of here quickly! I heard thossse humansss sssaythat they would come back later with reinforcssementsss. We can't let thossse creaturessss find our hatchlingsss!"_

Seth felt a bolt of fear strike, but he kept himself calm. _"I know a placsse we can ALL get to quickly and be sssafe, but you are going to have to trussst me when I sssay that the onesss that we are going to will not try to harm usss or the hatchlingsss."_

Salriss did not hesitate for a moment. In the short time (to him at least) that he had known Seth, he had come to trust the instincts of the young human. If Seth said to trust him, no matter how hard it was, Salriss would do so. _"I trussst you, Ssseth."_

_"I will be going to go and get sssomeone with a devicsse called a portkey. While it isss not the mossst pleasssant of waysss to travel, it isss possssssible to transssport all of usss at oncsse with it. Jussst try not to attack the one that I will be bringing here, asss he isss one of my matesss."_ With those final words, Seth disapparated with a loud crack.

Salriss stayed still as he tried to process the fact that not lonely had Seth found a mate in just five days, he was actually a part of a triad. Though he supposed it was not really that surprising, as the youngling seemed to always beat the odds. He quickly shook himself from his thoughts and headed toward the den once again. After all, no matter what had happened, there would be time later to contemplate the mystery that was Seth. Besides, no mater how quickly Seth brought help, there was always a chance that the humans would be the first ones back, and he would make sure the hatchlings were safe no matter what.

Please review


	13. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing in regards to Harry Potter. JKR is the genius behind these fascinating characters and their world.

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

A/N: Okay, once again it took me forever to get out a chapter due to an uncooperative muse, but here it finally is.

Chapter 12 

After Seth's rather abrupt departure, Lucius and Severus headed to one of the multiple sitting rooms in the manor. Severus stayed silent while Lucius poured the two of them each a glass of brandy. To most people, Lucius would have appeared as calm and collected as he usually did, but to Severus it was rather obvious he was nervous about something rather big that he needed to talk to Severus about, so he sat and patiently waited for Lucius to gather his thoughts and broach the subject of whatever it was that was on his mind.

After several minutes of swirling his glass and staring down at its contents intently, Lucius finally looked up at Severs. "Did you know that Harry Potter is not where he is supposed to be?"

Severus was completely thrown by this question, which seemed, to him at least, come from out of nowhere. "How do you know this Lucius?"

"At first I felt this nagging sensation, like I was missing something. I felt there was something about our guest that was familiar; I just could not place what it was. Then there was the fact that I had noticed something on his forehead, but it was so distorted by the scales around his eyes that I could not make out what it was. It was only as I was about to enter his rooms last night to introduce Draco to him that it finally hit me. The distorted thing was a lightning bolt-shaped scar." Lucius watched Severus' face as he was talking and was thoroughly enjoying the gob-smacked expression on his friend's face. It was so rare he could take him by surprise like this.

Meanwhile, Severus' mind was awhirl as he tried to process the fact that not only did he Like and respect the son of his school days tormentor, but that he was so very obviously a Slytherin. A rather gleeful smirk spread across his face as he realized that James Potter must have been rolling over in his grave at the way his son had turned out. After quickly wiping the vestiges of shock from his face, a quick glance at Lucius showed that his friend was rather amused at having caught his so off guard, but there was something else inn his expression that made Severus think that there was more to it. "What else?"

"You know, of all the things that could happen, I never thought that this would happen to me. You know how I married Narcissa simply to keep up appearances only and that our Lord is my actual mate. What no one but the two of us know was that something was slightly unsettled between us, like there was something off or missing. Last night, I finally found out what it was that was missing from our relationship. Our third mate. Seth."

Severus had thought that nothing could top what Lucius had already revealed to him, but this new information threw him completely off balance. While other magical beings could find their mates through various methods, such as scent or the first time they heard the other's voice, humans tended to have problems doing so. They only real indicator that they were aware of was a rather strong attraction. That Lucius was so certain after only one day with the boy was rather startling. "What makes you so sure that he is your third mate? It took you and the Dark Lord several months to finally figure out that the two of you were mates, and here you are saying that he is your third after so short a time."

Lucius raised an eyebrow at Severus, though he really could not blame the other man for having his doubts. After all, everything he had said was true. "There are three main reasons that managed to convince me. The first was the overwhelming attraction that I had only felt with one other before, Voldemort. The second reason is that, according to Seth, basilisks can scent their mates immediately. He took a little longer to scent it as he is not a full basilisk, but he was able to tell last night. The third and final reason is that the killing curse had to have rebounded for some reason, and I cannot think of a more plausible explanation than the fact that no one mate can kill the other."

Severus had to admit that it made a lot of sense when Lucius put it that way, especially the part about the curse. He had also been trying to figure out how it had been possible for a small child to survive the killing curse. The Old Coot, his polite way of thinking of the Headmaster, seemed to think it had something to do with Lily sacrificing herself for the boy, but Severus had been highly skeptical when Dumbledore had confided his reasoning to him. There were so many other mothers out there on both sides, no matter what Dumbledore wanted people to think that had died for their children, so why had they not survived as well? Severus was about to reassure his friend that he would accept the boy in Lucius' life when a chiming sound echoed throughout the Manor.

Exchanging a quick glance, the two men got up and hurried toward the apparition room. If a person was not keyed into the wards around the Manor, they would automatically be shuffled to the apparition room when they tried to get in no matter where they had tried to appear. A chime would then sound throughout the Manor and the surrounding lands to alert the occupants that someone had arrived.

As no one was expected to arrive at the Manor for the rest of the day, the two men were understandably wary as they approached the chamber. After a quick glance in the viewing crystal that showed their guest inside the room, Lucius hurried to enter to find out what was going on.

Once inside, Lucius wasted no time in making his way to the side of a distraught looking Seth. He knew that whatever was wrong had to be bad since the only time he had seen Seth look his control like this was during sex, and here he was looking ready to panic. "What's wrong," Lucius asked gently, or at least what passed as gently for him.

"Wizardsss, in the foressst. Sssalrissssss attacked them to draw them away from the children. They're gone for the moment, but they sssaid they would come back and Sssalrissssss iss already hurt badly. Pleassse help!"

Please review


	14. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Harry Potter or anything else, really. JKR is the lucky owner of everything to do with Harry Potter.

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

A/N: Once again it took me forever to actually write this chapter. RL has gotten rather busy and interesting lately.

Chapter 13 

Lucius thought quickly. There was no way that Seth would be able to do a side-along apparition to take Severus and himself to where ever it was that the den was located, as he had only just learned to apparate himself. Severus, however, would be able to bring him along in such a way if he could get the location from Seth's mind with legimancy. He disliked the thought of anyone going into his mate's head, but it was the only thing they could do at the moment to get the location. Also, while his personal portkey would not be large enough to accommodate more than four beings due to lack of space to touch it, there was a large disk shaped portkey that he dept in his study for a situation just like this one. The other problem would be if Severus or himself were to be identified by the other witches and wizards if the came back before they were done with the evacuation. They would have to go cloaked and masked to be safe. Lucius felt that Lord Voldemort would be pleased by what they were about to do, so they would go in Death Eater garb.

"Of course we will help. Here is what we will need to do. Seth, Severus can see into a person's mind. I want you to think of a safe place for us to apparate to near the den, and bring a picture of it to the forefront of your mind so that Severus can read it easily. While he is doing that, I will be getting a larger portkey so that we may all return at once instead of several trips. Once I get back, Severus and myself will transfigure our clothing into Death Eater robes, which will prevent anyone from identifying us if they manage to make it back before we leave. Severus will then do what is called a side-along apparition, where he will take both him and myself to the area. You will apparate yourself. From there we will make our way to the den as quickly as possible, then portkey everyone back. Any questions?"

Seth shook his head no then gave Lucius a quick hard kiss of thanks. Severus answered, "Just one or two suggestions. I believe it would be best if Seth were to go ahead of us by a minute or two to give him time to forewarn his family that we are coming. While they will recognize him, we have no guarantee that such will be the case with us. Also, I feel given what I have been told, we shall have to discuss the possibility of teaching Seth how to do Occlumency at a later point in time." Lucius threw Severus a thankful look as he rose to his feet and headed out of the room to the study to grab the portkey. Severus approached Seth.

"I need you to think of a safe place for us to apparate to and keep it firmly in your mind until I tell you otherwise."

"Very well." With that, Seth pictured the far end of the open area surrounding the cave, which would give him time to warn Salriss and the children about the two humans even if they were to follow a little too soon.

"You may let the picture go now, I have the image."

Seth was surprised and more than a little disturbed. He had not felt a thing when the other man had entered his mind. He was extremely grateful that Severus had already brought up the idea of finding him a teacher to keep others out of his mind. Just then Lucius came back into the room, drawing Seth from his thoughts.

"I have the portkey here, do you have the location Severus?"

"I do. Seth made it extremely easy for me to find it."

"All right. Seth, I want you to head out now. Severus and I will be along in a minute to give you the time to warn your family that we are coming and allow us to transfigure our robes," Lucius instructed.

"I ssshall sssee you in a minute then," Seth replied. With that, he apparated back to the den.

HPLMLVHPLMLVHPLMLVHPLMLVHPLMLVHPLMLVHPLMLVHPLMLV

Seth appeared near the entrance to the den with a loud crack. After a quick glance around to make sure that no other humans had arrived in the short amount of time that he had been gone, he quickly made his way inside calling out to Salriss and the children on the way in, _"It isss jussst me. There will be two humansss coming behind me in jussst a moment. Do not attack them, they are friendsss."_

When Seth stepped inside the den, he found the children huddled around the damaged form of their father. Salriss did not even lift his head, merely flicking his tongue out to make sure that it was really Seth, though it was more of a precaution than anything else since he knew of no other human that was a parselmouth that was currently around. Seth quickly made his way over to the injured basilisk, mourning his lovely eyes as he had not had time to earlier. It was a terrible thing for any being to lose their eyes and with it their sight, but for a basilisk it was even worse since they lost not only their sight, but also one of their weapons against the world.

A sharp crack sounded from the clearing, indicating that someone had just arrived. To be on the safe side, Seth had Salriss and the children stay back while he made sure it was just Lucius and Severus instead of any of the other witches or wizards from the earlier attack. A quick glance out the den entrance showed that it was indeed their rescuers instead of their attackers, and Seth gestured for the two men to come over. He then turned back toward Salriss and his children and said, _"The two humansss I told you about jussst arrived and they will be coming in now. The one with the blonde hair isss my mate and the one with the black hair isss a trusssted friend of my mate."_ Seth looked at his children. _"I need you three to change into at leassst your lamina form if not your human form. We will all need to touch sssomething and it would be best if we left asss much room asss possssssible for your father, which meansss you ussse fingersss."_ The children nodded and changed, Rassir to his natural mostly human form, while Sithra and Se'sith used their lamia forms.

By this time, Lucius and Severus had reached the entrance of the den and were politely waiting to be invited in. Just then a series of cracks sounded throughout the area and took the decision of whether to keep waiting out of their hands, especially once a shout of "DEATH EATERS!!!" was sounded from nearby with a storm of curses flying at them within moments. The two full humans immediately dove through the entrance and came up on either side of it, wands out and ready. Lucius glanced behind them quickly to judge approximately where the others were. He quickly removed the portkey from under his robes. Tossing it back, he shouted, "Everyone take a hold of that. To activate it you need to say 'Pureblood Safety' once you are all touching it. We will apparate out right behind you."

Seth grabbed the portkey and touched it to Salriss' back while motioning for the children to grab on at the same time. Once he was sure they were all touching it, Seth said, "Pureblood Sssafety." With that, they were gone.

Lucius and Severus shared a quick glance. They then whipped around the corner, focused on a target and simultaneously cast, "AVADA KEDAVRA!" The two did not wait around to see if either of the curses hit, and with a sharp double crack, the two Death Eaters disappeared.

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	15. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: empties pockets Let's see, half a piece of gum, two nickels, a penny, and some lint. Nope, no Harry Potter here. That genius creation belongs solely to JKR.

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

A/N: Wow, it has been FOREVER since I updated. My muses were on a rather long sabatical, on top of that, I moved, did a bit of schooling, and kicked my husband out. Hopefully they'll start coming around more now…

Chapter 14 

Seth, Salriss and the children landed together in a large tangle of arms, legs, and tails. After he managed to extract himself from the pile, Seth quickly but gently disentangled the children from Salriss, trying to jostle him as little as possible. A quick check showed that there was only minimal additional damage dome to Salriss. Just as Seth was finishing his once over, dual cracks sounded through the room announcing the arrival of Lucius and Severus as they returned from the den.

The two men rushed over to where the family was located, splitting aart as they drew near. Lucius headed over to Seth and the children while Severus headed for Salriss. After a quick check over Seth and the children to make sure that nothing had happened to them, Lucius set about reassuring them. "Severus has some basic healing skills, as it is one of the requirements of being a potions Master. After all, if you do not know how your potions affect people, how will you know if something is wrong with them? Anyway, he will do what he can to help Salriss along on the way to recovery. We are not sure just how much he will actually be able to do, though, because of a basilisk's natural resistance to magic as well as the fact that he mainly knows human pfysiology." As much as Lucius would have liked to reassure them that Salriss would be healed up quickly with no problems, he knew that lying would not be a good way to start a relationship with his new children or mate.

Salriss, who had tensed up when he had heard a human heading toward him, no matter what Seth said about their trustworthiness, relaxed somewhat at the explanation that Seth's mate had given. While he was still more than a bit wary, he let the human come close to him.

To take his mind off what was happeneing, Salriss scented the air, trying to pinpoint the scents of the two humans. The one that was a bit stronger, indicating that it was closer, must have been the human that was currently trying to heal him, the one that was not Seth's mate. The strongest part of the scent was a mixture of many different plants and animals that were commonly used in the potions that the human, Severus, mad. Underneath those scents was the actual scent of the man himself, a musky scent indicating that he was male with hints of an almost reptilian scent and a sharp tangy scent. All in all, he found it to be a decent scent, especially for a human.

The scent of Seth's mate was a surprise to Salriss. While there was a bit of musk to his scent as well, it was extremely snakelike for a human, even more so than Severus'. Salriss felt that this was a good indication of the character of the human, and he was glad that Seth had found someone that was so very snakelike. Now he would just have to meet this other mate of Seth's and approve of him. He would be happy then. If only Salriss could find his own mate, things would be perfect.

Severus' voice drew Salriss out of his thoughts. "Is there anywhere that you feel any deeper pains of numbness aside from your face?"

Salriss concentrated on his body to see if there was anything in particula that he could feel besides the throbbing of his face. Trusting Seth to translate properly, he replied, "Nothing that I can feel in particular. Mossstly, I jussst feel my facsse and where my eyes usssed to be." There was a slight hitch in Salriss' voice when he mentioned his missing eyes. Seth mannaged to keep his voice even when translating, though he too felt anguished at the thought.

"Very well," the human said. "I believe that it would be best to have you unconscious while I take a look at your eyes and face, as it is going to be extremely painful. If you feel too uncomfortable with that thought, I would be willing to swear on my magic that I will not cause you any intentional harm while you are unconscious, as well as protect you until such time as you wake back up."

Salriss pondered what to do. While it was true that he was uncomfortable with the idea, the fact that the human was willing to swear such an oath was rather telling about his intentions. After a couple of minutes of debating with himself, Salriss finally decided to give the human a chance to prove himself. "Very well. I ssshall excssept your oath."

"I, Severus Salazar Snape, do swear on my magic that I will do no intentional harm to the basilisk known as Salriss while he is unconscious for the purpose of his healing. Furthermore, I swear to protect Salriss until such time as he awakens. As I will, so mote it be." A flash of white light followed those words, indicating that the oath had been accepted. A quick spell later, and Salriss slipped away into Hypnos' realm.

HPLMLVHPLMLVHPLMLVHPLMLVHPLMLVHPLMLVHPLMLVHPLMLV

Seth sat with his children cuddled up to hum on the couch in one of the more informal of the numerous sittting rooms of the manor. The poor things were still in shock from everything that had happened. While they knew that death was a part of life, how could they not after all they were predators, this was the first time that they had actually been in any danger themselves, let alone the danger to their parents, who that had thought of as untouchable. The sound of the door opening drew the attention of those in the room.

Lucius stood in the doorway with Draco almost hidden behind him. Seth wondered what Lucius had told the boy to cause the almost shy expression to appear on Draco's face. Stepping inside, Lucius gestured for Draco to come around in front of him. Giving Seth's children a compassionate look, Lucius spoke, "Severus says that your father will be fine, little ones. While he will not be able to restore his eyes, there will be no other permanent damage save some minor scarring. In the mean time, I thought that you would like to meet your new brother, my son Draco."

'That would explain the look on Draco's face,' Seth thought to himself.

"Now since I do not knew which face goes with which name, how about you three introduce yourselves."

After a quick glance at Seth for reassurances, Sithra started the introductions. "My name isss Sssithra. I wasss the firssst of usss to hatch. It isss nicsse to meet you, Draco."

Draco nodded while Lucius put the first name and face together. He remembered Seth saying that the children could take all three of the forms that he could take as well, but he figured there would be time later to learn the differences in their basilisk forms. Lucius turned his attention back to the proceedings when the next child slithered forward in lamia form.

"My name isss Ssse'sssith. I wasss hatched after Sssithra." Again Draco nodded and Lucius affixed the new name and face in his memory. They both then turned to the final child.

"My name isss Rassssssir. I am the youngessst hatchling, asss well asss the sssmartessst." Rassir made the jab at his siblings' intelligence while smirking at them. They immediately started to jeer at him in retaliation. The joke did, however, do what Rassir wanted it to do and broke the ice betweenthe children. They migrated to a spot in front of the fire, getting to know one another. Lucius walked over to take a seat next to Seth and held him close when he curled up against Lucius.

'The only thing,' Seth thought to himself, 'that would make this perfect would be if out other mate was here with us.' Knowing that dwelling on what currently could not be was pointless, Seth settled in to enjoy their first night together as a family.

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	16. Chapter 15

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. JKR owns everything. Drat it all._

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

A/N: Hello my dears. I know it has been forever since I updated, but hopefully this will make up for it. I have already finished this chapter and the following one, which I will be adding either later today or tomorrow. My muse stopped in for a brief stay over, so enjoy the fruits of it!

**Chapter 15**

It had been three years since Seth, Salriss, and the children had arrived at Malfoy Manor. They had been rather busy at first with everyone getting to know one another and figuring out how they could all live together without killing each other off. Thankfully, with the Manor being so large, if someone was getting annoyed, they could just go off on their own for a while until things settled down some.

Lucius and Draco worked on getting to know everything they could about the basilisk side of their family during this time. There were many things that they learned about the basilisk species itself that no human had known about since Salazar Slytherin himself, as well as just getting to know the characters of their new family. They two of them found all of the new knowledge fascinating and took any chance they could get to learn more.

As for the basilisks, well, Salriss spent a lot of time with Severus while he was healing, due to the fact that the human wanted to keep an eye on him to make sure no complications arose. He learned a lot about that particular human and found that he was actually growing found of him to his great surprise. After they had known each other for a couple of months, Severus felt he could trust Salriss enough that he revealed a secret that few knew about and changed into his animagus form of a black mamba. While Severus could not understand snakes in his human form, he and Salriss were able to converse quite will while he was in snake form. They also experimented to see if Severus could take on a lamia form, but it appeared that he would be unable to do so. As for Salriss' relationships with Lucius and Draco, he found himself thankful that Seth had found himself such a good mate and child.

The children had quickly grown to love each other as siblings. In almost no time at all Seth and Lucius found themselves the parents of four closely knit children. That was not to say that there were no squabbles between them, just that they were the usual sibling fights.

Seth found that Lucius was everything he could ask for in a mate, though at times they both would miss their third keenly, Lucius more so than Seth as he already knew their mate and had a relationship built with him. Seth's relationship with Draco quickly developed into a close father-son bond. He had been a bit worried on how that relationship would develop at first. He had vague memories of hearing of human children who resented new parental figures moving in on their biological parent's territory, but as Draco had never really been close to his mother and he had already known of one other mate of his father's, there was very little friction from Seth apparently taking his mother's place in his father's and his own lives. Seth had known that his own children would not react too badly, as they had known from the very start that their parents were never truly meant to be together in any way other than friends.

The new additions had been living in the Manor for around six months when a most unexpected and unwelcome visitor arrived. Narcissa Malfoy had come home.



The family had not been informed beforehand to expect Narcissa's arrival, so there was no one there to receive her when she arrived. Feeling insulted that there was no one there to greet her, never mind that no one could possibly have known she was coming, Narcissa stormed off to find someone to take her anger out on. The fact that it was ludicrous to expect anyone to know she was coming did not even occur to Narcissa. In her own self-centered view of the world, Narcissa felt that everyone should be so privileged to know her every little move. Unfortunately, the first person that she came across was someone that she did not know, so there was an even worse reaction on Narcissa's part.

"Who are you? What are you doing in _my_ house? Are you a thief? I bet you are a thief. Well, I don't know how you got through the wards, but I know what it is that we should do with thieves," the blonde banshee shrieked at the unfortunate Seth as she drew her wand.

Seth was not sure of what exactly he should do. The vague resemblance to Draco and the fact that she had called this her house indicated that this woman must be his mate's estranged spouse, which meant that he could not hurt or kill her outright for the insult that she had delivered as that could cause problems for them, but at the same time, the shrieking woman was reaching for her wand, and Seth was not about to let anyone curse him. Making a quick decision, Seth changed into his lamia form, which was slightly more spell resistant, and hissed at Narcissa hoping that it would startle her enough to give him time to get to Lucius and warn him that the harpy was here.

Narcissa watched as the strange young man that she had stumbled across as his form started to blur and shift. A few seconds later, there was a human-snake hybrid where there one had been a man. The creature then hissed at her. The fact that the new form of the being had breasts tipped her over the edge from shocked to fainting.

When the harridan fell over in a dead faint, Seth could not help but feel a bit smug. This creature had made life miserable for his mate and his new son every time she had been around. It was only fair that he would make her life miserable, too. A sadistic smirk crossed Seth's face as he thought of all the things he would like to do to this female.

Sighing at the fact that he probably would not be allowed to do anything much to the irritating harridan at the moment, Seth levitated her and headed off to find Lucius. IF the female just so happened to 'accidentally' hit the walls and doorways quite often, well, Seth could not help it if he was a bit clumsy. As he was walking along, it occurred to Seth that he should probably see if he could focus more on learning how to defend himself with magic so he would not be caught so flatfooted that he needed to change his form to defend himself.

After a good ten minutes of searching through the Manor, Seth finally found Lucius in the library. He stood in the doorway for a moment, simply soaking in the sight of his mate.

"You know, if you needed me for something important, you had better stop staring at me before whatever it is has to wait a few hours while we go have some quality time together involving me buried deep inside you," Lucius told Seth without even glancing up from his book. Seth shivered in pleasure at the thought, but had the self control to simply step aside to bring Narcissa into view. As much as he would like to put it off, he knew Lucius would want to deal with the current mess before anything else.

When Lucius glanced up in response to Seth's movement his face hardened at the sight of his erstwhile wife. A quick glance showed that Narcissa was not truly harmed in any significant way. By this time, Lucius had learned that while his younger mate would retaliate, often quite viciously, to an attack, he would never be the one to start a fight, which made him wonder just what Narcissa had done to upset the younger man to such a degree. "What did she do?"



"I wasss walking along lossst in my thoughtssss when I ran into the female. Firssst ssshe demanded to know who I wasss and what I wasss doing in _her_ houssse, then in her nexsst breath ssshe accusssed me of being a thief and ssstarted to draw her wand on me. I wasss not about to allow her to curssse me, but I alssso knew it would not be a good idea to kill her, asss it would raissse too many quessstionsss. Ssso I transssfromed, asss you can sssee. Ssshe passssssed out when I hissssssed at her. Thisss doesss bring up a point, though. I would like to be trained on defensssive magic asss sssoon asss possssssible."

Lucius smiled warmly at his mate's thinking, and nodded his head in acknowledgement of his idea about his training. When he turned his attention back to his wife, Lucius' smile turned evil. The laws regarding hospitality in the wizarding world were far stricter than those of the muggle world. To insult a guest was a major faux pas, but to try and attack a guest in your own home was considered one of the greatest insults you could deal not only to the person you attacked, but also to anyone else in the family that had no knowledge of what you had planned. When Narcissa attacked Seth, who was still _officially_ a guest, it had given Lucius a perfect excuse to divorce her. Not only that, but when it got out as to why exactly Lucius had divorced Narcissa, she would no longer be accepted by society and Lucius intended to see to it that she did not get a single knut more from him than she had come into the marriage with. He was not quite sure just which would hurt her more.

Lucius made his way over to his desk, where he had been keeping a copy of the divorce papers for several years, just waiting for a chance to be able to use them. After taking a minute to write in the reason for the divorce, Lucius then turned his attention to his unconscious wife. With a rather pleased smirk on his face, Lucius drew his wand and revived the harpy. "Hello, my _dear_ wife. I have something here for you to sign…"

It took a while to convince Narcissa to sign the papers, but in the end they got the signature. Lucius and Seth then went back to their room to celebrate for several hours.

Narcissa's visit was the only event of any real significance that happened over the years. Seth's grasp of magic improved by leaps and bounds, and his children quickly caught up to Draco's level in lessons.

It was now July 31st and Seth was officially turning eleven years old, though his physical and emotional maturity level was more on par with a twenty year old human. The arrival of two unfamiliar owls at breakfast was nothing unusual for the family, as Severus and Lucius had many contacts throughout the wizarding world that would occasionally need to get in touch with them for one reason or another. Seth accepted the mail from one of the owls, while Draco accepted the other. Draco's shout of excitement drew Seth's attention for a moment.

"It's my Hogwarts letter! I've been accepted to Hogwarts!"

"Congratulations, Draco," Lucius said proudly.

"Humph, well, at least I shall have one competent student to teach this year," came Severus' rejoinder.

Seth just smiled at Draco, happy that he was happy. Sithra and Se'sith congratulated their brother with smiles, while Rassir immediately started to demand that his big brother write to him all the time and tell him everything about what he was learning while he was away.

Turning his attention to the envelope in his own hand, Seth saw that it was also from Hogwarts, though it was the name on it that surprised him. His gasp drew everyone's attention to him. Seth looked up to find every eye fixed on him. "It isss from Hogwartsss. It isss addressssssed to Harry Potter."



Please Review


	17. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. If I did, Snape would not have died, and Harry would have been a flaming queen.

"speech"

'thoughts'

"parseltongue"

A/N: Ok, sorry it took so long and I left you all hanging, but the next chapter is finally here. I would like to thank my reviewers, as they gave me the kick I needed to continue. Enjoy!

Chapter 16

Previously:

Turning his attention to the envelope in his own hand, Seth saw that it was also from Hogwarts, though it was the name on it that surprised him. His gasp quickly drew everyone's attention to him. Seth looked up to find every eye fixed on him. "It isss from Hogwartsss. It isss addressssssed to Harry Potter."

Everyone was quiet for a moment as they processed what Seth had just told them. Each person there knew that Seth was actually Harry Potter, but for the most part, it was just now something that truly mattered to any of them anymore. Despite not really caring, though, they had all wondered if this day would come and they had come up with a basic plan just in case.

Severus was the first to act, pulling out his wand and casting a revealing spell to show any spells that may have been on the letter. The spell showed that there was a tracking charm on it as well as a charm to alert Dumbledore when the intended recipient touched the envelope. As he relayed this information to the rest of the room, the group burst into action, knowing that the old bastard would be there as soon as he could.

Sithra, Se'sith, and Rassir all changed into their purely basilisk forms and headed down to the dungeons, where their father had decided to reside once he was as healed as he would get. No on wanted the Light side to know that such crossbreeds existed, let alone who exactly their "mother" was. Draco summoned the house elves and told them to make sure that everything in the faux bedroom that they had created for Seth was cleaned and looked like it was in use. Severus apparated to his own much humbler house both in case Dumbledore decided to summon him and also to get to work on a potion that would allow Seth to age back and forth between his true age and the age that his body currently was. They had put off making the potion in hopes that it would not be needed as it was even more difficult to make than the Wolfsbane potion. Seth had immediately grabbed the de-aging potion that he had been carrying around for the past few months. It would only last for about eight hours, but he had several more vials on him if he needed more. Lucius headed to the fireplace and tossed some floo powder to the fire to connect to the Ministry. He had a contact there that had set it up so that as soon as he gave the word, he would officially be the legal guardian of Harry Potter. This was to make sure that Dumbledore could not just carry Seth off without some major legal consequences. Just as everyone had completed their various tasks, the chime to indicate that someone had arrived rang throughout the Manor.

The remaining three of the group put on their public masks as they rose together and headed toward the unwelcome visitor in the receiving room. Seth felt rather awkward as he walked, as he was used to another foot and a half of height, though he did a rather good job of hiding it. None of the three were used to Seth looking so young, either. Lucius felt especially odd, since it drove home the fact that 

his mate was in actuality the same age as his son, in body if not in maturity. While he had known it intellectually, to see it made him feel almost like he was taking advantage of the youth. He had to keep reminding himself that despite his current appearance, Seth was for more mature than his true age. Then there was no more time to think as they reached their destination. Lucius checked to make sure they all looked impeccable and opened the door to see Dumbledore waiting on the other side.

Lucius stood in front with Seth and Draco slightly behind and to either side of Lucius to give an impression of solidarity. This was Seth's first actual sight of the wizard that had tried to kill part of his family and destroy the rest in one way or another. He was not impressed. The old man had long silver hair and a beard of the same color that was tucked into a belt at his waist. He was currently wearing a bright purple robe with neon green geometric shapes on it. Seth just barely resisted the urge to cover his eyes from the hideous garment. The best part was the stunned look on the old goat's face as he took in Seth's appearance. The potion that Seth had taken had not changed any of the more snakish characteristics of his appearance, only his age. Seth smirked to himself. This was going to be fun.

Dumbledore blinked and forced his features back into a bland smile and twinkling eyes. "Ah, Lucius, the most curios thing happened this morning. The Hogwarts letter addressed to Harry Potter was actually received by him. I traced it to the most surprising of places, here. Would you be any chance be willing to let him speak with me?"

Lucius sneered and Dumbledore's not so subtle digging to see if Seth, or rather his supposed enemy Harry Potter, was allowed any freedom. He knew that if they did not nip Dumbledore's initial plans in the bud, it would cause more problems later. It was best to project a strong front from the start. "Follow me," Lucius replied curtly. He did an about-face and started toward the most formal of the sitting rooms in the Manor. Seth and Draco quickly followed Lucius' example, leaving Dumbledore to follow in their wake in a state of bemusement. Once they reached the sitting room, Lucius gestured for Dumbledore to have a seat while the three of them all sat next to one another on a sofa in a show of solidarity. They then turned to Dumbledore, waiting for him to speak first.

Dumbledore cleared his throat and stared speaking. "As you know, the entire wizarding world has been looking for young Mr. Potter here for quite some time. I find myself rather curious as to how exactly he came to be here and why you have not seen fit to let us know that he has been found."

Lucius was to one to answer. The family had decided to keep as close to the truth as possible to keep from tripping up too much and this is what Lucius now told Dumbledore. "Ah, now that is quite the tale to tell. Around three years ago, I was in Hogsmeade on a bit of business when I came across a young snake. The poor thing had been rather battered and was extremely exhausted. I did not know what had happened to get it in such a state, but I thought that as long as it was not overly aggressive it would make a good pet for Draco. I do not remember exactly what I said as I approached it, but I did try to project a soothing quality in my voice. Eventually I was able to pick it up and I headed back to the Manor.

"To make a long story short, the next two and a half years I had no idea that I had brought home anything other than a snake. Then one day about six months ago, the snake came into my office in what I thought was a rather peculiar manner for a snake. When he could not get me to follow him in snake form, which was what the actions were about, Harry here startled me rather badly by changing back to human form, or at least as close as he can get anymore after such a prolonged time in his animagus form. He then dragged me out of the room to Draco's room where I found my son unconscious from a knock on the head. Harry has refused to talk about his past, though I do know just how those…people treated him before abandoning him in the forest.

"As to why I never told anyone about Harry, I decided to apply for guardianship of him as he and my son had already grown close, and I would be more than happy to take care of him. The fact that there would be a huge media circus around him being found was also a factor, as Harry is not comfortable in large groups. I knew it would be easier to get custody if I made certain that no one other 

than myself and as few others in the court system knew about him. By the way, as of earlier this morning, I was named the legal guardian of Harry Potter."

The small family could almost see the cogs turning in Dumbledore's head as he tried to get his little pawn out of the influence of the Malfoys and back in his control. "I suppose that congratulations are in order then. Now, Harry, I was wondering if you would tell my how you came to be in Hogsmeade in such a state. There may be something that we can do about whoever it was that injured you if it was a human."

Seth had to keep himself from laughing out loud at this weak attempt to weasel out some supposedly new information and win his favor. Instead he donned a faintly hesitant expression and glanced quickly toward Lucius, who gave him a supposedly encouraging nod. Taking a deep breath, he started, "When HE took me to the foressst, a basssilisssk found me." Here Seth had to look down to control himself at the gob smacked expression on Dumbledore's face at his rather noticeable lisp. "From him, I found out that all sssnake ssspeakersss like me can take the form of a sssnake. I took my sssnake form and lived with the basssilisssk for ssseveral yearsss. He became like a father to me. One sssummer we were attacked by a bunch of humansss. I did not really underssstand human ssspeech at all by that time, but I think I remember the wordsss Auror and then later sssomething called Death Eatersss. Thessse Aurorsss attacked usss and asss we were fleeing them, sssome Death Eatersss attacked the Aurorsss for whatever reassson. The Death Eatersss attacking wasss the only reassson I managed to get away. The basssilisssk dead from the damage that wasss inflicted on him, and I wasss injured by sssome of the ssspellsss the Aurorsss had used before I managed to get away. Can you do anything to find thessse Aurorsss that hurt me and killed my mentor?" Seth gazed up at Dumbledore with a faintly hopeful expression on his face while the two Malfoys struggled to keep their masks up. All three of them knew that Dumbledore had assisted in that raid and to truly look into it would implicate him as well, and from his expression, he knew it.

"I shall have to see if I can do anything, young Harry. Such raids are very common though, so I do not know that I will be able to find out much about it." Here Seth, Draco, and Lucius all snorted to themselves at such a bold faced lie. "In the mean time, I shall leave you to your new family and I look forward to seeing you on September first." So saying, Dumbledore rose to his feet. Lucius also rose to escort him back to the receiving room, leaning the boys behind by themselves. The two waited until they were certain that Dumbledore was out of voice range before they broke out into laughter at pulling one over on the "Great Albus Dumbledore".

Just as they were calming down, Lucius reentered the room and gathered the two in his arms. "I am very proud of the two of you. You did well. Do not forget, though, that this was just the first round. I can guarantee that Dumbledore will not give up so easily. In the mean time, we shall prepare to send the two of you off to Hogwarts."

Please Review


	18. Chapter 17

_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am not genius enough to have come u with such an amazing story. sob_

"speech"

'thoughts'

"_parseltongue"_

A/N: Yes, my pretties, I'm finally updating! I should mention that no longer how long it takes to update, I have NO intention of abandoning this story. On that note, sorry it took so long to update, but one of my co-workers has been out due to surgery, so I have been working some insane hours.

A/N2: To those of you who are wondering about when Seth will meet Voldemort, it will probably take place in about 4 or 5 more chapters. Don't quote me on that, though, 'cause the story likes to mutate on me and take off in unexpected directions. Enjoy!

Chapter 17

A week later, after a debate at breakfast, Lucius, Draco, and Seth were getting ready to head to Diagon Alley to go shopping for the necessary school supplies. It had been decided that Seth would go with while under a glamour spell to hide his appearance so that he would have a chance to get at least a little more used to crowds without the risk of being found out as Harry Potter. His new persona was that of a French cousin of the Malfoys' that was getting his own school supplies while he was visiting his English cousins. They had given Seth the trademark white blond hair of the Malfoy family, lightened his eye color from the vivid green he normally had to a very pale green, changed the pupil of his eyes back to a human shape, and covered his scar and scales to appear as normal human skin. They left the rest of his body the same, as the snake characteristics that he had taken on from the transformation had changed his body and face enough that he would never be connected to one James Potter.

The three males were currently going over Seth's cover story. "Seth's name will be Auguste Malfoy," Lucius told the boys. "He is eleven years old as well and came to stay with his cousins for a few weeks before his first school year. If anyone tries to get any more information from either of you, ignore them, or somehow get my attention, as they will likely be either reporters or Light wizards. Any questions?"

Both Seth and Draco shook their heads in response.

"Very well," Lucius continued on as he made sure that his robes and hair were impeccable. "I shall floo first, then Seth, and finally Draco will come through. Do not forget, Seth, that you must add a French accent to your speech." With that, Lucius grabbed a handful of Floo powder and threw it into the fireplace. When he stepped in, he stated, "Diagon Alley."

Seth waited for several seconds after Lucius had been whisked off before repeating the process, with Draco following shortly after. Upon arriving at the Leaky Cauldron, Seth was relieved to find that it was early enough in the day that the place was not too overly busy yet. It was the hope of the Malfoys' that the crowd would start smaller and gradually build, giving Seth a chance to keep from being overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. It took him only a moment to spot Lucius and he quickly made his way over to join him while the two of them waited for Draco.

Once Draco had joined the the duo, Lucius turned and led the way out to the Diagon Alley exit of the Leaky Cauldron. In the entryway, he was sure to show Seth the exact bricks to touch and what order to touch them in. As the doorway opened and the Alley appeared, Seth had to struggle to keep the shock from showing on his face at the sight. While he had known intellectually that there would be a large group of humans here, there was a large difference between knowing such things and actually seeing them firsthand.

After giving Seth a moment's break to adjust a bit, Lucius strode into the Alley and headed toward Gringotts, the goblin run bank. As they entered the bank, Lucius looked around to find the goblin with the fewest people nearby. After spotting one that was in a fairly empty area, Lucius led the way to him. When they arrived, the goblin looked up with a sneer which quickly turned to a slightly more neutral expression when he noticed it was one of the bank's richest customers. The goblin then glanced at the two boys accompanying Lucius. His gaze sharpened and started to become extremely unfriendly when he seemed to notice something unusual about Seth. This made Seth rather uncomfortable, but before the goblin drew any attention, Lucius intervened.

"We need to speak with someone in private about a certain matter that I am sure you have noticed. Once we are out of the view of the general public, we shall reveal all of the details about the current issue that is troubling you." None of the small group had any doubts as to what Lucius was talking about.

"Very well," the goblin replied. "It had better be a satisfactory explanation." With that, the teller motioned another goblin to them. "Griphook, show these people to a private room. I will let Clawfist know that he is needed there." So saying, the goblin turned his attention to a short note to be sent to the goblin mentioned. The goblin that had joined them, Griphook, turned and headed in another direction, with the humans quickly falling into step behind him.

Griphook led the family to a room that had a couple of goblins standing guard on either side of the door. As they walked through, the Malfoys noticed that there was also a set of guards on the inside as well. Both Lucius and Seth caught the implications that while what was about to happen would be private, if the goblins did not like what they were about to hear, the guards would be used to detain them. Neither, however, was too worried about the implied threat, as they had every intention of being completely honest with the goblins now that they were out of the general public's eye. Lucius knew from experience that goblins were discrete in their dealings, so long as you were straightforward with them, and had assured both Seth and Draco that they would have nothing to fear. The little family sat at the table and waited for Clawfist to arrive. They did not have to wait long.

The door that they had entered through opened once again letting in a goblin that, while somewhat older than the previous two had been, was in no way feeble. The door was shut firmly behind him and he quickly made his was over to the table, taking one of the chairs that was obviously created for a goblin. The goblin turned his attention to the humans in the room. "I am Clawfist. Why did one of you come into our bank with a glamour on," Clawfist demanded of them.

Lucius, in an effort to appear unthreatening, put his hands on the table without his wand before answering. "The glamour is not there to try and fool you, as I realize that a goblin can see when someone is wearing one, rather it is to hide the identity of my companion from the humans outside. We wished to avoid the scene that would surely have occurred had they seen his true appearance. If they had figured out what his identity is on top of that, there would have been absolute chaos. With your permission, I will take out my wand to cancel the glamour."

Clawfist glanced in the direction of the guards before nodding abruptly. As Lucius reached for his wand, the goblins in the room grew tense. It did not take a genius to see that they were awaiting treachery. Lucius made sure that as he drew his wand, he avoided pointing it at any of the goblins, which most likely would have been seen as a threatening action. A wave of the wand, and the glamour that was hiding Seth's true appearance was removed. Out of the corner of his eye, Lucius watched with carefully hidden amusement as an expression of shock crossed the older goblin's face, though it was quickly hidden.

"Allow me true introducsse myssself. My name isss Ssseth, alssso known to thisss world asss Harry Potter. According to the Minissstry I am Lucssiusss' ward. I am alssso hisss mate."

Clawfist struggled to maintain his composure at the shocks that he had been dealt in those few short moments. His expression was flickering between shock and disgust, as Seth still appeared as a child due to having taken the de-aging potion earlier that day. Seth noticed the disgust and felt compelled to defend his mate.

"In addition to the ssspell, I have alssso taken a potion to de-age my physssical body. Though thisss isss my actual age, my physssical body isss that of a human of approxssimately twenty yearsss of age. My mental and emotional maturity levelsss are about the sssame asss well. There isss truly nothing untoward going on between my mate and myssself," he hastened to reassure the goblin. The disgust that had been showing on Clawfist's face faded somewhat, though he did seem to still be mildly disturbed.

"I am sure you can understand why we would not want most people to know just what Seth looks like, let alone who he is just yet. The general population among the humans would mob us in a heartbeat and we would never be able to get anywhere, let alone get our shopping done. As for our reason for being here, I believe that Seth should have inherited something from his parents, and I thought it prudent to bring him in to see you so that we could work out any details necessary to get him access to any vaults he may have, as well as where his keys are," Lucius stated.

This managed to bring Clawfist's attention back to the matter at hand. "Ah, yes, as to that. Seth has indeed inherited several vaults, as well as various properties if I recall correctly. As to his keys, we here at Gringotts suspect a certain Headmaster of having gotten his hands on them." Seeing the darkening expressions on all three of the faces before him, Clawfist hurried to reassure them. "No one has had any access to the vaults, though various people have tried to claim them often enough, including Dumbledore. Now, in this case, there are two things that we can do. We could simply summon the keys back into Gringotts' possession, which is the more common thing we do, or we can change the locks on the vault doors and give you the new keys, leaving the old ones where they are."

Seth knew immediately which option he wanted to choose. "I would like to change the locksss and get new keysss. I don't want the old bassstard to realizsse that he hasss lossst control over my fundsss. He will already be enough of a problem when he triesss to get control over me while I am at Hogwartsss. I do not need him to caussse a scssene over thisss asss well. On top of that, if he keepsss the keysss around, we can ussse them againssst him later." Lucius smirked at Seth to show his approval of this course of action.

"Very well, it will be done. Now, do you wish to go over your parents' will at this time?"

"No, I don't think ssso. We have much to do today, and I have a feeling that going over the willsss will take quite sssome time, which we do not have at the moment."

Clawfist nodded in agreement. "In that case, I will order the changes you have decided to make. It should take somewhere around one week to complete the work. In the mean time, I will pass on that you are allowed to have the glamour on in the bank until such time as you come out to the public as yourself. You may use this room to reapply the glamour before you go, as well. Will there be anything else today," he inquired.

Lucius replied, "Not at this time."

At that, Clawfist rose, nodded once in acknowledgement, and left as abruptly as he had arrived. As he was putting Seth's glamour back in place, Lucius mentioned something that they had all forgotten about. "Seth, your speech still has the lisp to it. It would be best if you were to try and minimize it as best you can when talking to anyone for the moment." Seth nodded in agreement, feeling somewhat foolish for not thinking of it himself.

After the glamour was back in place, the small family left the room and headed out of Gringotts to start the shopping part of the day.


End file.
