Chapter Three

Poppy looked with interest at the news that had made a portion of the front page of the local paper.

'Snake Stolen from Surrey Show'.

Police are currently making enquiries into an exotic snake allegedly stolen from Joe Fox, a Carnie at the Surrey Annual Show.

The Snake in question is a non-venomous Opheodrys aestivus, otherwise known as a Rough Green Snake, that originates from South East Asia.

"Ah, so that's what you are," Poppy hummed, stroking the reptilian skin of the snake in question which was wrapped around her neck under a jumper and scarf.

"Talking to yourself again?" Vernon sneered as he made his way into the kitchen, moving to the place that Poppy had set up for him at the table.

He dragged the newspaper forward as he started to shovel oil sodden bacon and eggs into his mouth.

"No, I'm talking to the voices in my head. They keep telling me to do the darndest things," Poppy said slowly.

Vernon raised his eyes, the edges of the newspaper crumpling in his fists. "You know you don't fool me for a second with all your mind games, and one day I will see you kicked out, damned what those weirdos say!" he sneered, before snapping the newspaper out.

Poppy rolled her eyes before grabbing her back pack to start the walk to the bus stop.

These days Vernon kept dropping comments that Poppy would end up in the juvenile justice system by the time she was thirteen. Poppy would scoff and say that she was much too smart to ever get caught. Vernon in turn would scowl, clouting her over the back of the head.

If her relationship with the Dursley's had been bad before the 'Child Protection debacle', as Petunia referred to it, the relationship was now closer to the tensions between Russia and the US during the Cold War.

Dudley, picking up on his parents increased animosity towards his cousin, took it as permission to beat her up whenever he could.

Poppy had then commented to Vernon and Petunia that the bruises provided by Dudley may raise concerns with Child Protection. Dudley had gotten rather imaginative with his corporal punishment schemes after that. More imaginative than Poppy ever gave him credit of having the brain cells to be.

Poppy had been two months away from turning eleven when she met up with Mister Death again.

"We have to stop meeting like this Mister Death!" she said as a greeting, as she took a seat next to him on the bench at the train station, ensuring she rolled the suffix like a proper Boston Crim.

Death looked over to her as if unsurprised. "Aren't you just a regular death magnet – what happened this time?

"Dudley accidentally drowned me in a bucket of water I think," she shrugged.

Death looked at her sharply, assessing her countenance as if it held a deep mystery.

"I never would have taken Dudley for a murderer," Death spoke softly, his voice gravelly, his thoughts obviously far away.

"I think he just got a little overzealous with my corporal punishment. Dudley seems to like inflicting pain and misery, but I don't think he would do too well in the prison system, what with the strict food rations and bigger nastier fish in the pond. They would make him their bitch before he could claim a bunk."

Death choked, his eyebrows raised, "What would you know about prison?"

"Plenty, I've been raised by the TV," she grinned wolfishly.

"I wouldn't think the Dursley's would let you watch a whole lot of TV," Death frowned.

"They don't, I normally watch it from the stairs or when they go to bed. Wouldn't you know Vernon really enjoys adult movies, especially the ones with threesomes food fetishes."

Death had looked a strange mixture of queasy and alarmed and Poppy had found him dull conversation after that.

Poppy found she liked Death and counted him as the only interesting and worthwhile person in her otherwise monotonous life.

And then everything changed, with the delivery of a letter. Poppy had grabbed the stack from the front entrance, and it was only by chance that she had noticed her own name in eloquent script on the front of a crisp envelope mixed in between the bills and mountains of shopping catalogues that Petunia was always subscribing to. With reflexes and stealth born from a lifetime of defensive and criminal tendencies, she shoved the envelope down her pants just as Dudley rounded the corner, eyeing her up and down with malice, like a walking overfed shark.

She dumped the letters in the middle of the table and walked leisurely up the stairs, tearing open the letter once she got the door closed.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme

Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Miss Potter,

We are Pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

Poppy probably read and re-read the letter and attached list of stationary and supplies thirty or so times, not able to believe it, but hoping all the same that it was true.

But was it not a possibility? Nothing on television noted that people could talk to snakes, and yet she could have intelligent and sentient conversations with her own. Also people didn't report coming back from death the way she did. She had always thought she was different.

"Do you think I could be a witch, Viper?" Poppy asked her green companion, who was wrapped loosely around her neck under her jumper and scarf, seemingly her favourite place.

"I have heard whisperings of magic during my travels, and I taste it on your skin, Enchantress."

Poppy had a long-term love of comic books, with a deep fascination for the comic book villains especially. So she had named her snake Madame Viper, who was the leader of Hydra and enemy of Captain America and SHIELD.

When Viper had asked what she should call her human, Poppy had given herself the nickname Enchantress after her favourite character from the Thor series.

Enchantress was an Asgardian sorceress, banished from Asgard for her undisciplined use of her magic when she was young. Enchantress trained herself in the ways of magic by seducing other sorcerers and forcing them to reveal their ancient secrets to her, eventually becoming the most powerful sorceress in all of Asgard and Thor's biggest foe.

That night Poppy, with the help of Viper's superior night time vision, gallivanted around the neighbourhood, climbing trees trying to find an owl. It turned out that finding an owl wasn't the hardest part, it was catching it.

"Let me catch one Enchantress, they are no more than fat flying rodents," Viper hissed.

"Will it come back to me alive?" Poppy frowned, getting fed up.

"More or less, if not a bit chewed on," Viper hissed, as she slid away into the grass. Poppy kept her distance.

What Viper eventually brought back caught within her fanged maw, struggling weakly, with crooked wings probably wasn't fit to return correspondence to a letterbox next door let alone whatever mystical plan this magical school existed in.

With thin lips Poppy took the half dead bird up to her room and wrapped it up in blankets with water near it. Watching the injured bird, she came up with her next plan, wondering why she hadn't first thought of it. Glancing at the clock, noting that it was 2am, she wrapped Viper around her neck again.

Poppy went out back to the small garden shed where Vernon kept all his old tools that he had brought but never used because he hired a gardener.

"What are you doing Enchantress?" Viper asked as Poppy weighed up the machete, which was dull and rusty from neglect. Poppy didn't know why Vernon had thought to buy a machete, as the shrubs and bushes edging their property was no dense jungle that needed to be cut away. Maybe he had brought it to do away with her, Poppy thought with a quirk of her lips, as she found the tool sharpener and started on her quest.

"I'm going to go visit Death," Poppy shrugged, moving Viper down to her chest away from her throat before taking a seat against the wall. "Bonvoyage."

"I thought you didn't have any human friends," was the last words Poppy heard from her pet snake, as she put her plan into action.

Poppy found that non-spontaneous death was much more grisly than it being sprung on her unexpectedly. Poppy hoped that Death appreciated the gesture of her visiting him, it was more than just a trivial drive to the next suburb over.

"I tried to bring you a hot chocolate but it didn't pass over with me," Poppy lied as she sat beside Death.

"So what happened this time?" Death asked warily.

"Well you see I don't really like people, but you have achieved the great honour of being one of the few individuals, other than my pet snake, that I can stand," Poppy smiled prettily as if she had bestowed a great compliment.

"So your visit was premeditated?" Death asked in a monotone.

"Don't sound so glum, Death, from the slow pace of the station it doesn't look like you have the privilege of being finicky about company," she smirked.

Death gave a world weary sigh.

"So I got a letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and it's asking for a reply via owl post and though I tried to commandeer an owl, it seems they are hard to catch without damaging their fragile wings –"

Death moved to look at her so quickly he got whiplash, "how did you get the letter off Dudley?" he asked.

"Er, I just didn't let him get it in the first place, which is easy as he's as slow as a mule," Poppy shrugged.

"Things have happened differently from the start," Death frowned. Poppy cocked her head in confusion at his strange words. "You don't need to send a letter as Hogwarts will send a representative named Hagrid to give your response and take you to buy your supplies; make sure you be nice to him, you will very much need his friendship in the future," Death practically growled.

Poppy raised her hands in the air mockingly, "it's like you don't trust me to be a decent human being".

At Death's severe look Poppy chuckled, "don't worry I will be er nice to this Hagrid – I wouldn't be so stupid as to disregard your omniscient knowledge."

Poppy dropped a charming grin as she stood from the seat, "well it was lovely catching up, we should do this again – maybe I'll try to sneak a brownie across the great divide next time, it looks like you could do with a good dose of endorphins!"

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