Snake And Wolf: The Finding

I hope you have as much fun reading this as I have writing it.

Snake and Wolf: The Finding

Chapter 4

* * * * *

Harry Potter sighed and leaned back into the comfortable back of the seat. It was September 1 once again and he was heading back to Hogwart’s for his fifth year. He looked forward to seeing the huge castle again and especially the gamekeeper, Hagrid.

The only things he didn’t want to see were Filch and Snape, both of whom really didn’t like him for one reason or another.

Turning his head, he saw Ron leaning against the side of the car, asleep and snoring loudly. Shaking his head he looked at Hermione, who was sitting beside Ron and giving him scowls between reading a large book in her lap.

Harry shook his head and at two and turned to look back out the window. All he could see where large, grassy fields speckled with cows. Sighing he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wand. The wood was smudged with fingerprints and had a few scratches but beyond that it looked normal.

Only it wasn’t.

Harry closed his eyes, remembering what had happened at the end of fourth year.

* * * * *

“Harry’s wand and Voldemort’s wand share cores. Each of them contains a feather from the tail of the same phoenix. This phoenix, in fact,” added Dumbledore, and he pointed at the scarlet-and-gold bird, perching peacefully on Harry’s knee.

“My wand’s feather came from Fawkes?” said Harry, amazed.

“Yes,” said Dumbledore. “Mr. Ollivander wrote to tell me you had bought the second wand, the moment you left his shop four years ago.”

“So what happens when a wand meets its brother?” said Sirius.

“They will not work properly against each other,” said Dumbledore. “If, however, the owners of the wand force the wands to do battle . . . a very rare effect will take place. One of the wands will force the other to regurgitate spells it has performed – in reverse. The most recent first . . . and then those which preceded it . . .”

* * * * *

Harry sighed again, drifting out of memory and back into the present. Hermione looked up from her book at his sigh and asked, “Are you okay Harry?”

Nodding absently, Harry stuffed his wand back into his pocket and went back to staring out the window.

Hermione watched her friend for a moment, before turning back to her book. Only she paused when she noticed something strange. Looking back up she blinked. Harry’s hair was longer, hanging to almost below his ears. And he almost seemed . . paler.

Shaking her head Hermione went back to her book. She thought, I must be imagining things.

A long silence swept through the room, only broken by Ron’s snores and the cheerful hooting of Pigwidgeon, who was muffled by a ragged blanket Ron had put over the tiny owls cage.

Suddenly the door slid open, causing Harry and Hermione to wake up and Ron to wake up.

Draco Malfoy walked into the cab, Crabbe and Goyle right behind him. He smirked and said, “Still here Potter? I’d have thought you’d be to scared to show your face after what you did to Diggory.”

Hermione gasped and Ron turned red with anger as he yelled, “Sod off Malfoy!” But Harry simply narrowed his eyes at Draco, glaring coldly at him.

Draco blinked and took a step back, his gray eyes wide.

Hermione stared at her friend while Ron snapped, “Go back to your snake friends Ferret.”

Draco’s attention abruptly changed from Harry to Ron and his smirk returned. “Shut up Weasley. You don’t have enough money to talk bad about them.”

“And I wouldn’t want to!”

Draco was about to say something when suddenly a wand was pressed against his throat. Everyone turned to stare at Harry, who was standing, his eyes blazing. He pressed his wand up against Draco’s throat, causing the Slytherin to hiss in pain, and snarled, “Get the hell out Malfoy. I’m really tired of looking at your face and hearing your voice.” Pushing the wand harder against Draco’s throat, he leaned close to him, and said in a soft voice that carried a load of hatred and rage upon and sound dangerous at the same time, “Get. Out.”

Gray eyes wide, Draco pushed himself backwards, falling into Crabbe and Goyle, who were staring at Harry. Draco immediately regained some composure and straightened, his smirk coming back into place.

He snarled, “You’ll regret this Potter.”

Harry raised his wand to point directly between Draco’s eyes. He said again, “Get. Out,” putting force on the first syllable of each word and spacing them out.”

Draco sneered and walked off, his two cronies following him.

Harry watched them go before lowering his wand and closing the door. He then stuffed his wand back into his pocket and sat back down as if nothing had happened. Hermione and Ron however continued to stare at their friend.

Finally Harry turned to them and snapped, “What?”

The two blinked and Ron said, “Nothing. You just . . you just kinda reminded me of Snape when you were glaring at Malfoy.”

Now Harry blinked, shock flooding his face.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

“I’m not.”

Hermione nodded and said, “You really did Harry. It was weird.”

Ron shook his head. “No, it was strange. Hey, what happened to your hair?”

At the quick change of subject Harry blinked again and was speechless for a moment. He glanced up at his hair and shrugged.

“You don’t know?”

“It just started doing that a few weeks after my birthday.”

Hermione leaned forward, eyes showing concern. “And you didn’t tell anybody?”

Harry looked down at the floor and replied, “I didn’t think it was anything to worry about.”

“It is!”

Ron gaped at Hermione for a moment then said in a serious voice, “Herm, hair growing longer is nothing to worry about.”

“It could be!”

Ron shook his head and turned to look out the window. Hermione looked about to say something else when an amplified voice rang through the train.

“We are about to come to Hogwart’s. All students get ready to get off the train in three minutes.”

Whatever Hermione was about to say was forgotten as the three pulled their school robes on and left their cab. As the train pulled to a stop they got off and began walking towards the spot where the horseless carriages waited to take them up to the castle.

“’arry!”

Harry turned to see Hagrid waving at him over a sea of first years. Waving back, he gave the half-giant a forced smile then ran to catch up with Hermione and Ron.

As he settled back into the carriage he wondered what was going on with him.