The Snake Eye

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter One : Painful Graffiti

Harry's eyes flew open and he sat up. The sheets had tangled themselves around him while he slept and were stuck to him with sweat. The sharp pain that had woken him was gone. He rubbed his scar thoughtfully, he didn't think that it was his forehead that had hurt - but he wasn't sure. He sat in silence listening for any indication of what could have caused the pain. All he could hear was Ron's gentle breathing. The air was hot and heavy, the bedroom seemed claustrophobic and a weight seemed to be pushing on Harry. He slid from the bed and crept to the door of the room he shared with Ron while staying at The Burrow. He tried unsuccessfully to avoid the creaking floorboard in the hallway as he headed to the bathroom, freezing at every sound he made to try not to wake the Weasleys.

He pulled on the light near the sink, stripped off his sweat-drenched pyjama shirt and splashed some cold water on his face. Then he stood, hands on the counter, and stared into the mirror. A tall, thin, blurry, dark-haired boy stared back at him and Harry realised he had left his glasses by the bed. He stood upright slowly, still peering at his reflection. The green eyes peered back at him. Then in the mirror Harry saw a movement behind him and Ginny's head came around the open door.

"Sorry Harry...I saw the light...Harry!" her voice changed sharply. He turned to face her.

"What's wrong?"

"Turn back to the mirror." He did as she asked, still too sleepy to query. Her cold hands touched his right shoulder.

"Does this hurt Harry?"

"No," he asked warily. "Ginny can I just go back to bed?"

"Your shoulder is burned"

"Yeah well Ron and I were de-gnoming the garden yesterday. It was probably that."

"No not like sunburn. Here." She wet a flannel and held it to his shoulder.

"OW!" he gasped. "It hurts like hell now!"

"It's a nasty burn, Harry. Let me get my wand and I will try and heal it."

"No Ginny don't fuss. That a difficult spell and I can wait until the morning." He thought she looked hurt. "Not that I don't think you can do it's... just..."

"Harry - shut up!"

Her face had gone pale and she was peering at his burn. "Harry it's weird. It's gone down immediately. Looks like and old burn now. Not red and raw. Look in the mirror."

He turned and strained his eyes over his shoulder. He could see where she meant but, without his glasses, it was too blurry for him to make out much.

"I can't really see," he told her.

"Harry... it looks like letters. I mean the shape looks like a word."

"What word?"

"Um... V. then I or L. Another V and an O. Do you think it's a spell?"

"I have no idea," he sighed, suddenly exhausted. He picked up his shirt and eased it back on gently, wincing where the fabric touched his burn.

"Harry.. You shouldn't cover it..."

"Ginny this clearly isn't a normal burn. I haven't done anything that would cause it. So we aren't going to say anything to worry anyone else. Okay?"

She bit her lip. He took her by the shoulder and felt her muscles tense under her thin nightdress. "Ginny I don't want to worry anyone. At least until we find out what the word means."

"But you will tell Ron? Hermione will be here tomorrow and she might know..."

"I will tell them. But not a word to your parents or the others. Especially not Sirius. He worries as it is."

She nodded and then slipped out the door. Harry turned off the light and followed.

****

The morning of Harry's sixteenth birthday was gray and cloudy and by the time he was dressed and sitting at the breakfast table it was pouring with rain. This did not darken the mood in The Burrow in the slightest, although it did worry Mrs. Weasley who had been hoping to have the celebrations outside in order to save her furniture.

The twins were chasing Percy around the kitchen trying to read his letter from Penelope over his shoulder, while Percy kept sidestepping them, determined not to escape from the kitchen until after Harry had opened his presents. Ginny was hopping up and down from one foot to the other waiting for Harry to finish eating his enormous breakfast so that she could give him his present. Her mother had tried to send her back upstairs to get dressed several times before resigning herself to the fact that Ginny was not leaving until after the presents were opened, just in case someone else got there before her and Harry didn't get her present first.

Ron had gobbled his food and now sat opposite Harry, almost as excited as Ginny. Mrs. Weasley bustled around the kitchen making sure that everyone had enough to eat. Charlie was the only calm person in the room, paging through the newspaper as if it was a normal day, but Harry knew that Charlie was keeping an eye on the others over the pages of the paper so as not to miss anything. He was tempted to eat slowly, simply to infuriate his friends, but in the end Harry himself could not wait any longer for the multi-coloured pile of presents on the end of the table.

Ron and Ginny had bought Harry a watch, which Harry suspected had cost them a good portion of their Christmas money. The twins gave Harry a pot of sugar cubes that turned his teeth sky blue and Charlie gave him a pair of dragonhide gloves. Mrs. Weasley had made a huge chocolate cake with 'Happy Birthday Harry' written on in red letters, but which she said they could "certainly not cut at breakfast!" and told them they had to wait until the guests arrived. Even Percy gave Harry a quill enchanted to correct his spelling. Mr. Weasley had left a singing card with his regards, and his apologies for having been called to work before the others rose.

By mid morning the guests had arrived. Hermione flew into the room, hair wet and wild from the weather and flung her arms first around Harry and then Ron. Her touch on his back pulled at Harry's shirt and the twinge of pain at his shoulder and the ominous feeling he got thinking about the burn almost threatened to ruin his fun. But Hermione's shining eyes and wide smile made him forget his injury, at least temporarily.

"I brought you this," she said, presenting him with a awkwardly-shaped present with a red bow. Harry ripped the paper off eagerly, for which Hermione told him off soundly - he could have reused it, she said, and saved trees - revealing a wooden hairbrush which Hermione told him was enchanted to tame his somewhat unruly hair. This announcement was greeted with gales of laughter from Ron and his brothers, but Harry thanked Hermione very seriously, knowing the time she must have spent researching the spell.

Then the sun came out and Mrs. Weasley reclaimed her sitting room and threw them all out into the garden. Although the grass was wet, Harry and his friends spend a good hour playing an improvised version of broomstick-less Quidditch with tennis balls that Fred had enchanted to fly. Although she was not an avid follower of Quidditch, even Hermione was having a good time, giggling hysterically with Ginny who was trying unsuccessfully to teach Hermione to catch. A good-natured rivalry developed between Harry and Charlie as to who was the better seeker and the others was devising a means of testing the dispute when Sirius arrived.

He had been cleared of the murder the previous year, but was still not widely welcomed or trusted in the wizarding community and had taken to being abroad frequently and avoiding contact with anyone but Harry, and Harry suspected, Dumbledore.

His gift to Harry was a cardboard box, which he put on the kitchen table before joining the others outside, and told Mrs. Weasley it was not to opened until the last guest arrived.

"You are the last guest!" she told him. But Sirius shook his head and winked at her. Flustered she resigned herself to preparing the birthday meal and contented herself with curious glances at the box, which rocked itself gently every now and again.

The game broke off somewhat when the friends saw Sirius. He had brought cards from Lupin and Hagrid to add to the growing pile on the table.

Harry ran across the damp lawn, a huge grin illuminating his face at the sight of his godfather. They shook hands enthusiastically then, regardless of embarrassing Harry, Sirius pulled him into a huge bear hug. When they pulled apart, Sirius stood with his hands resting on Harry's shoulders, surprised to discover that in the year since their last meeting Harry had grown and was now almost as tall as Sirius, if still a good bit shorter than Ron. "I hear you are staying with the Weasley's for the rest of the summer, Harry."

The glow in Harry's eyes at the reminder he did not have to return to Privet Drive made Sirius feel guilty. He cleared his throat, relieved that at last he could offer Harry an alternative.

"Now that I have been cleared you could spend summers with me, Harry. I can't promise you will be happy. I am still blamed by many for what happened even though legally they can't touch me. As you know I have been travelling quite a bit. But I guess you could come with me next year if, um, if you wanted to..."

Harry's eyes were so like James's in the way they suddenly sparkled with delight that Sirius had to swallow hard and even so the lump in his throat refused to disappear. Again a grin threatened to split Harry's face into and Sirius couldn't help laughing in response.

"Where have you been recently?" Harry asked, drawing Sirius down to sit beside him on the bench.

"I've just got back from Egypt. Actually I didn't come back alone..."

A squeal from Ginny and shout from Charlie brought them both tumbling back to the damp garden and the crowd of happy guests now crowded around the latecomers. "Bill!" sobbed Mrs. Weasley into her son's shirt. "Why didn't you warn me you were coming?"

"That would have ruined the surprise, Mum," he replied trying to extract himself from her grasp. "Sirius met me in Egypt last month, it inspired me to come home for a bit - I've just finished the project I was working on and so I've got a bit of leave. Mum, Mum, let go of me a second!" He smiled down fondly at the woman who barely reached his shoulder. Then he was enveloped in a hug from all sides as the rest of the Wesley clan welcomed home their oldest brother.

"I want you to meet someone," Bill told his family once the hysteria had lessened. He indicated the woman and little girl who had followed him into the garden. "Two someones actually."

It took less than a second for Harry to recognise the tall, silver-blonde girl. "Um... This is Fleur, my girlfriend." Bill introduced her. Harry could see by the widening of eyes that Bill's youngest siblings, at least, recognised Bill's newest sweetheart as one of the Triwizard Champions who had competed against Harry two years previously. "And this is her sister, Gabrielle."

Politely the Weasley's greeted the girls, Ron's face scarlet as his hair as he remembered the fool he had made himself over Fleur. Once again Mrs. Weasley was bustling around trying to hug her eldest son and make her newest guests welcome at the same time. Gabrielle came quietly over to Harry while the others were talking.

" 'Arry, I never got the chance to thank you for saving me," the self-possessed ten-year-old declared. "I am deeply grateful."

Harry flushed. "It was nothing," he murmured. "I am glad I could help."

"I brought you a birthday gift." She held out a small box immaculately wrapped in silver paper with silky, purple ribbon. Harry thanked her and unwrapped it, ripping the paper, which he realised ruefully later Hermione would have liked him to have saved for her. Inside was a small, black box. Lifting the lid he found green stone suspended on a fine silver chain. Harry was not the sort of boy who normally admired jewellery, but this pendant intrigued him and drew him in. The deeper he gazed into the stone the further it seemed to go, ledges beyond ledges like twisting catacombs, pulling him in and enchanting him until Harry felt he was standing on the brink of a cliff, teetering...

"Beautiful, isn't it." Bill's voice pulled Harry back to reality, like a guiding rope back to safety.

"Yes," Harry replied, quietly.

"It was the colour zat attracted me to it, 'Arry," Gabrielle continued. "I zought it was ze same colour as your eyes."

Harry dragged his eyes up out of the crystal and smiled his thanks to her, realising with uncomfortable shock that the girl was trying to flirt with him.

Hermione's appearance at his elbow rescued him from his embarrassment. She took the chain from his hand and held it up so that the stone caught the sunlight that was streaming down through the still-dripping leaves above their heads.

"Isn't that gorgeous, Harry," she sighed, watching the tiny flashes of light dancing across her hands and arms where they were reflected from the crystalline surface.

Wrenching her eyes away from the stone with an effort that Harry recognised, she leant forward and fastened the delicate chain around his neck.

****

It was not until they had eaten the magnificent birthday tea that Mrs. Weasley had prepared, culminating in the huge cake, that Harry received Sirius's gift. As Sirius moved the box, Harry was sure he heard a small meow from inside it. And sure enough, when he removed the carefully punctured lid two small, blue eyes peered back up at him. They belonged to a tiny, honey-coloured kitten. Harry lifted it out of the box and onto his lap, allowing the small, fuzzy head to nuzzle his hand. In the light he could see that the edges of the kitten's fur were gray, softening the outline of its body as if it was swathed it fine smoke, particularly in the shadows of its round stomach and the underside of its chin and tiny ears.

"She is an unusual little thing," Sirius told them. "I think she picked me rather than the other way around!"

Harry lifted the kitten to his face, and her azure eyes gazed back at him, unblinking. On settling back on his lap she sat up regally, surveying everyone around her with intelligent eyes. "She looks like she is trying to decide what to think of us!" Ginny laughed. As if in response, the kitten miaowed decisively and began to wash her face, before curling up to sleep on Harry's knees as his hand gently rubbed her ears.

****

It wasn't until they were heading upstairs to bed that Harry remembered to ask Hermione about the burn. He called her into the room he was sharing with Ron and stripped off his shirt to show them both what Ginny had seen.

Hermione opened her mouth to tease him about showing off his seeker's body, but a look in his eyes silenced her. Her turned away, baring his shoulder.

"The pain woke me," he explained. "But then I couldn't feel it until Ginny put cold water on it. Now it is tender.. Ow!" He broke off as Hermione touched it gently. "Yes - tender as in it hurts when you poke it! And Ginny says it looks like letters. I can't really tell by the reflection in the mirror. What do you think?"

"It does look like letters," Ron confirmed. "I think it says 'Vivo'. Is that a spell..." he broke off as the colour drained from Hermione's face.

"Oh, Harry!" she sighed anxiously. "That's Latin. It means 'I am alive'."