A Snake in the Nest, Chapter One

**** PLEASE READ THIS!****

A.N. This is a continuation of A Twist is History. If you haven't read it, don't read this; very little will make sense. As to returning readers, I apologize that this is a bit late, but I had other matters to deal with.

Disclaimer: I will only say this once: I do not own anything besides some plot and a few OCs.

To say the summer was dull was a gross understatement. Harry had had absolutely no contact with the Wizarding World since he got off the train, and though it had only been two weeks, it felt to him as though his friends had all forgotten him.

"Potter!" Vernon Dursley's voice echoed through the house, reverberating around Harry's room as he trudged down the stairs to where the man sat on the couch, glaring. In one hand, he held a letter, and Harry was abruptly reminded that the last time a letter was involved with his uncle's anger, they'd hidden away on a rock in the sea.

"A letter. Delivered this morning by the post." He was curt, and handed the letter over as though it would bite him if he held it a moment longer. When Harry got a look at it, he could see why.

It was parchment, with a wax seal and a quill's obvious hand in the writing. To his uncle, it was obviously wizard post. But if it came by regular mail…

Yes, there was a stamp, and return address, written as neatly as his address was. The stamp was from London.

"That is quite obviously mail from… your school. If they could simply send them by post, why didn't they before?" Harry wasn't exactly sure what his uncle was angry about. Perhaps simply that he was receiving mail, an obvious sign that someone knew he existed and actually liked him was enough to annoy him.

"I dunno, maybe it's not the school." He wanted desperately to escape to his room and read the letter. The handwriting wasn't immediately familiar, but he wouldn't care if it was Malfoy at this point.

Vernon glares at him a moment more, but shoos him off to his room again and turns to the rest of the post, a newspaper already in hand by the time Harry leaves the room. He feels the letter as he walks. It is thick, and not just because it is parchment. There is more here than a school letter.

Reaching his room takes forever, as he is trying to hide his excitement at having something from the Wizarding World. As he sits on the bed, he drinks in the writing, the curls and lines striking somewhere in his memory but leaving him unsure where.

The seal is no help, either. It is red wax, with no embellishments hinting at its origin. Finally, he looks at the address, but it is unfamiliar. It might be written on the list of addresses handed out at the end of the ride home, but he hasn't had the chance to write anything and subsequently hasn't looked the list over thoroughly.

He opens the envelope, carefully breaking the seal. Several papers fall out, one plain piece of parchment and quite a few sealed letters, with various handwritings.

Picking up the plain one, Harry lets his eyes look over the writing that fills it.

Dear Harry,

When you said your aunt and uncle were disapproving of magic, I didn't think it would be as bad as that! Did you see that he was glaring at Remus the whole time we were walking out?

Were you embarrassed, or something? You haven't been answering any of your letters! Ron, Hermione and Neville are in a right state, as they think you've managed to get yourself killed within a few short days.

It's not as if any of us aren't used to odd looks, you know.

Anyway, we've all talked, and wanted to know if you would be able to visit next month. Hermione will be on vacation, but the others should be able to come.

Send your response by owl if you can, but as you haven't answered any owl mail, perhaps using Muggle mail would be better. The address is on the envelope.

The other letters here are from Ron, Hermione and Neville, all of whom would appreciate a response.

Sincerely,

Nana

P.S. Cooro wanted to write a letter as well, but he was taking too long and we wanted to get the letter out today.

Harry reread the letter seven times before moving on to the other letters. There were two from everyone, the first filled with random things and the second asking why he wasn't responding. Ron asked about his Muggle relatives, Neville about the homework, Hermione about his summer. But the simple fact that they'd written was enough.

Quickly, he sat down and began to write out responses.

Cooro sat perfectly still, looking forward at the two wizards before him. Remus was next to him, and in a similar position.

They were in the Ministry. The Department for the Regulation and Control of Unknown Magics. Dumbledore had pulled as many strings as he could, and now they were registering the four +Anima in this department. They would be prone to unannounced visits for the first few years of so to ensure they weren't misusing their abilities, but that was all they had to worry about. Remus had said that it would be rather like being an Animagaus.

"So, you can grow crow wings. And that is it?" The older wizard looked at him with piercing eyes, watching his expression carefully.

"Yes sir. Well, my arms grow feathers as well, but that's it." The man nodded while his counterpart, a younger man that was probably an intern, wrote something on a parchment.

"And this girl, Nana, she can…?"

"Grow bat wings and long ears, Sir. She can also send out ultrasonic cries that are capable of knocking out a person, but she has to be fairly close and only on one or two at a time." The younger man raised his eyebrows, but didn't say a word, continuing to write.

"And Husky?" Cooro wondered if he was being asked to be sure that they weren't lying, or if they simply hadn't been paying attention when they'd came last week.

"He has a tail and a set of gills." Before the man could ask, he continued. "Senri only has a bear's claw, sprouting from his right arm. And we all have markings, wherever the anima appears. They're always visible, regardless of whether we're using it or not."

Neither of the men said a word, and for a moment there was only silence as the quill scratched on the parchment. Finally, the elder stood up.

"Well, that's all we needed. You're free to go. Expect us… well, actually, don't expect us. It's better if you don't, really." Stifling a chuckle at his serious expression, Cooro and Remus left the office. The younger man was watching them as they left.

Harry slept soundly, a trait he'd acquired from sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs, where every sound was magnified by ten.

So he didn't hear the very quiet sounds of a cat rummaging through the bushes outside, nor the tree branches scraping on the window.

And he certainly didn't hear the very faint sounds of a creature in immense pain as it slammed it's head into the back door, whimpering that it had failed.

Instead, he dreamt of Hogwarts, his friends, and a letter from a group of strange friends.

The friends shifted, morphing until they were a tall figure in a black cloak who yelled a curse that flashed green. There was pain and screaming and light and then…

Nothing.

Harry awoke to bright sun streaming through the curtains, and a voice calling from the same direction. Opening his eyes, he looked over to see what it was, pulling his glasses on as he moved.

Reaching the window, he pulled the curtains back to find an excited face poking in, brown eyes sparkling madly.

"Cooro…?" The boy in question grinned happily, slipping into the room as Harry half-fell back in surprise.

"Harry! We came to visit!" Harry stared at his friend, taking in his appearance. He was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, a change from the Hogwarts robes and his red and yellow shirt he otherwise wore.

"We?" Cooro looked at him like he was crazy, before spreading his arms (thankfully without the wings that usually accompanied them) and exclaiming loudly:

"Of course we! Nana and Husky and Senri are all here. Remus too." Harry blinked. Once. Twice. After a third time, he panicked, and began rushing around the room, looking for clothes and muttering to himself. Cooro laughed.

Vernon Dursley did not enjoy anything out of the ordinary. Especially on his day off. So when the doorbell rang, he was hoping it was simply the milkman.

It was not.

He supposed it hadn't really occurred to him that when Harry asked to spend a few days at a friend of his, that friend would be showing up to get him.

He almost hadn't agreed to it. The boy's happiness was something he'd struggled against for several years, and letting him visit someone was definitely on the list of 'Things that Will Make Him Happy.'

But the prospect of losing him for the week was far too much to resist.

So now here he was, looking at one Remus Lupin, sitting on his couch, with three other children (though one looked to be nearly full-grown) sitting next to him. Harry had come down, with a fourth, to his confusion, and sat on the loveseat.

"Good morning. I'm Remus Lupin. This is Nana, Husky and Senri. We came to pick up Harry Potter for the week." That was all he'd said, and when Vernon realized that the boy was still asleep, he'd grudgingly invited them into the living room and gone upstairs to wake Harry.

Only to find him and the last kid, a boy with messy brown hair, coming down, a packed bag over his shoulder.

And now they sat in the living room, and Vernon sighed a bit, annoyed that he would have to do this at all, let alone on his day off.

"So, how long will you have him?" Remus looked at him oddly, the same look he'd given him at the train station.

"Only a week, I'm afraid. I have… somewhere to be after that, so we can't keep him any longer."

"… I see. And do I need to…"

"I can bring him home, don't worry about it." He leaned forward.

"Here's my phone number. Call if you need to talk to Harry. Now, I hate to be rude, but we'd best be off." He stood, and the horde of children got up as well. Harry paused.

"Oh! Erm, Uncle Vernon…" He looked nervous, which was never a good sign.

"What?"

"Can I get my school things out of the closet before I leave?" Vernon twitched a bit, waited a moment, then nodded curtly.

Twelve minutes later, Harry had his trunk packed up, with only a minor incident of falling above-head objects. He dragged it out, stowing it in the boot of Remus' truck before clambering into the back and settling between Husky and Nana. Grinning cheekily, he waved goodbye as they drove away from Privet Drive. He wouldn't have to deal with them for a week! One of Ron's letters invited him to stay from a bit after his birthday to September first, but he wasn't sure if he could count on that happening, so he would savor this bit of freedom until then.

A picture is worth a thousand words, Sirius thought irritably for the seventh time that morning. If that was true, then why couldn't they speak? Was it only paintings that received that luxury?

He waved and grinned again as Harry looked in at them, a face floating in the wall of the wedding. He'd only ever seen him here; Harry hadn't ever seen any of his school pictures. Even when he looked in, he only had eyes for his parents.

The book closed, and he sighed, sitting down. He thought of what he remembered today. He could access the real Sirius' memories, but there hadn't been anything new in nearly eleven years. He wasn't really Sirius anymore.

Not that he himself was, either. Simply a snapshot of time, preserved as a memory of better days. Meanwhile he knew in real life what had happened after. Peter's betrayal, the explosions. Azkaban. He wished he was a mindlessly moving piece of paper instead.

There was silence here. No sounds could come out. It drove him mad! There used to be a theory that when a snapshot was taken, a bit of that person's soul was trapped inside. When the wizards had found a way to make them move, Sirius believed it actually did.

Not that it mattered. Real people didn't know of this silent world's existence; whenever someone looked at a photo, the occupants went back to what they'd been doing at the time, regardless of what they'd wanted to do.

Sirius flashed his mind to other photos of himself, wondering if anything more interesting was happening.

There were only a few to look at; most photos of himself had been destroyed after the betrayal. A few lay in old newspapers, boxes of old things that the owners hadn't cleaned in years. Several were in one box that lay in the top of a closet nearby.

As he sat in the sun of their seventh year, under the beech tree, the box shifted, shaking the contents and allowing a moments worth of light illuminate the inside. Then it was gone, and he sighed, shifting back to the wedding.

It was the last happy picture of all of them. Peter wasn't there; he'd been in another picture at the time. He wasn't ever really there; his body went through the motions of that day, but there was no mind. When the viewer left again, he simply fell to the ground. Sirius supposed he spent his time elsewhere, either following the real Pettigrew or in a picture with people that didn't know what he had done.

Because the people in photos knew the secrets that the real world didn't.

Maybe that was why they were silent; to keep the real world away from discovering the truth.

James stood in front of him now, gesturing for him to stand. They'd tried to learn to sign, or lip-read even, but it was only in it's base form right now. He stood, raising a brow in question. James simply grinned and shoved him in another direction.

He stumbled into Moony, who laughs, yanking him into a dance around the room. The other people there are joining in, James and Lily laughing as they lead it. It is messy and it is chaos and it is exactly what he needed to feel better.

He spots the Dursleys in the back, both looking annoyed and awkward and a bit envious all in one. This was their only picture, so they spent most of their time in the real world, watching their son grow up.

With one hand still holding Remus' shoulder, he gestures at them, trying to coax them to join. In the fourteen years he's been in this picture, he's learned that even they could be alright, despite their abhorrence of anything different.

Haughtily, as though it was almost beneath them, the couple joins in, and now everyone is spinning through the room, a moment of happiness in their small place in the world.

Sirius continues to dance, and they switch partners. Now he has Lily, who smiles up at him. She had been the first to forgive him of his crime, coaxing him to write of what had happened on scraps of paper with conjured ink. The explanation spread, as knowledge was prone to in the world, through photos and pictures and so on until everyone knew what had really happened.

It was a small blessing, being forgiven.

They switched again, and he was with Remus, whose face was slightly flushed.

Most of the people in the photo were dead. From what he could gather, once they were dead, they could leave anytime. Plenty from the war chose not to, preferring to stay in the places where their friends were still accessible, even if no words could be spoken.

The dancers continued their frenzied movements, and Sirius let himself forget everything that had happened, simply reveling in the feeling of the dance, of the joy he'd felt watching his two best friends get married.

In the back of his mind, where the real Sirius's thoughts and feelings resided, a lone dog howled pitifully out the window of it's cell, high in a half-forgotten tower.

Well, here it is, beginning of the Chamber of Secrets. It's here, specifically because those of you that voted mostly wanted it separate. Don't know why, but you did.