Snakes had a habit of showing up wherever Harry Potter went. He'd wondered on it for as long as he could remember, but accepted their presence without much thought. They were never aggressive towards him. Quite the contrary—they had a tendency to gather around him almost protectively.
Well, maybe that was an exaggeration. It wasn't like any of the snakes had attacked anybody who tried to hurt him, but then again they were all very small. Privet Drive and the neighborhoods around it weren't known for their large serpents; most of them were just little grass or ground snakes. If any of them tried to protect Harry from one of his Uncle Vernon's drunken rages, they would get killed.
He didn't want that. Whenever he saw Vernon start drinking, Harry hid in his cupboard under the stairs and whispered to any of the snakes who visited him to hide. He didn't know how they understood him, nor why they seemed almost reluctant to do so, but it kept them safe. Harry would survive whatever violence Vernon dealt him and when he returned to his cupboard, bruised and battered and a little more broken, they would come out of hiding to curl around him, providing what comfort they could. He had trouble understanding the words they spoke beyond simple meaning.
Now, as a ten year-old, Harry could understand more of their whispers. It was a hissing, complicated language, and yet for some reason he understood it as easily as if it were english. They didn't want to watch him suffer anymore. They wanted him to do something about it.
How could he, Harry asked them. He was a child, not even a teenager, who was stunted from never eating enough, staying in that terribly cramped space under the stairs, and being beaten on a regular basis. His body barely had the energy to heal itself, forget grow. If he tried to fight back against Vernon, he'd just get beaten even worse. He was pretty sure that his left arm was cracked from the beating he took last night.
"There is a way," said one of the snakes. It was a grass snake, one of the first that had come to Harry as a child.
"How?" Harry whispered in their language, wincing at the way his bruised ribs flared in pain from even that simple vocalization.
"We have been…searching," said the snake. "For years, we have watched you suffer under these…brutes. Powerless to help. Too weak to intervene. But we could not allow it. Something had to be done. So we whispered to others of our race, asking, pleading, searching for an answer. And we think we have found one."
"What do I have to do?" Harry asked. He would do anything. He couldn't stand being here anymore, a slave to his relatives in every sense of the word, subject to beatings from his uncle and cousin whenever they needed to take their frustration out on something. He was going to die if this kept up.
No other person would take his pleas for help at face value. He'd gone to a teacher at the school he attended, but Vernon and Petunia had vehemently denied their involvement in his injuries and claimed he was mentally unstable. After that attempt, Vernon had beaten him especially badly, threatening worse if he ever tried it again.
A new snake, one of the ground snakes who traveled through small tunnels, flicked its tongue as it addressed Harry. "There are members of our race who are larger and more powerful than we. By bringing one of them to your side, they can protect you."
He frowned. "Where could I possibly find a snake like that? Even if I find one at the Zoo this week, I wouldn't be able to take it home…"
"Nay, that wouldn't work," agreed the ground snake. "You must hatch this snake."
Well, that was even more impossible than sneaking one home from the Zoo. "I can't get any eggs like that."
"You can!" Insisted the snake, almost excitedly. "We have found a way!"
"How?"
"There are eggs of fowl in the house, yes?"
"What, chicken eggs? Well, yeah, but they're always cold. Nothing can hatch from that…"
"Something can," the ground snake hissed. "You must trust us, child. When the brutes retreat to their dens, sneak to the kitchen and take one of the eggs. Bring it to us—we will teach you what to do."
It sounded crazy, but they obviously had something in mind. Harry waited in his cupboard under the stairs as the time passed and, at last, the clock struck nine and the Dursleys went to bed. With a smack on the door to the cupboard and a muttered threat from Vernon to not cause any trouble, Harry's atrocious relatives turned off the lights and the house went silent.
Harry waited a good hour after that to make sure they were really asleep before he slowly, carefully, unlatched the cupboard door from the inside and slipped out. He hurried to the kitchen and silently opened the fridge to retrieve a chicken egg. Harry thanked his lucky stars that Petunia had left the eggs on the side door within his reach. After snatching one of the eggs from the carton, he closed the fridge and hurriedly retreated back to the cupboard.
Once he locked the door again, Harry showed the egg to the snakes, who hissed excitedly.
"Yes! This is what we need!" The ground snake hissed. "We have also acquired the other piece."
Harry blinked as one of the larger snakes came in through a hole in the side of the cupboard, dragging with it a small toad. He was completely lost now.
"Why do we need a chicken egg and a toad?"
"They are necessary to hatch one of the mightiest of our race. The ritual requires their presence."
"What, like magic? But magic isn't real!"
"Then how can you speak with us?"
Harry opened his mouth and closed it a second later. Point. It sounded daft, but according to his relatives and everyone he knew, he was daft already. Bollocks to it.
"What do I have to do?"
The ground snake's tongue flicked out again. "The toad must be placed on the egg. Then we must speak in our language an incantation. It goes as thus—"
The snake hissed a phrase in several parts, the like of which Harry could not really interpret back to english, for it contained words that seemed exclusive to the mysterious language of serpents. But he memorized the phrase quickly and then proceeded to the next step.
"How long will it take?"
"Most of the night. We shall sing when you need rest, but you must keep the toad in place."
Harry carefully took the squirming toad and placed it on the now-warming chicken egg. He held it there between his fingers, then began to chant the serpent's phrase under his breath. He kept that up for several hours until his throat was dry, then left the rest of the chanting to the near-dozen snakes surrounding the chicken egg.