A talking snake. Again.

In the middle of his room, on a dark blue carpet with many Alchemy Circles, lay completely naked Sirius Regulus Black.

After another two weeks of hard training - constant use of Pride and Alchemy to get used to their existence - Sirius collapsed. No, everything was fine with his body, the new kitchen helped him to remember his love of cooking. It also helped start healing the damage done by the Buttergems and three years of outdoor living. But mentally he was exhausted.

A constant flow of information when using shadow eyes, the need to remember structures of various elements every time he used Alchemy, even reading and memorizing books added even more pain to his migraine. Previously, he could easily get rid of such pain with the help of Occlumency, but now. . .

"Higher Powers, I would give anything for a Pepper-up now." Unfortunately, all magical plants either lost their properties or simply disappeared from the face of the Earth.

Sirius was deep in thought, if he continues like this, then he'll fry his brain. He still remembers Hermione's state when she was overworked, it was painful to even look at the young Witch. He didn't want to end up like that.

So, gathering his will into a fist, Sirius came to a bold decision.

"I need to fucking rest."

The only question that remained was how exactly he should rest. Over the past two weeks, Sirius has traveled to different parts of Japan and has done many things - including buying an untrackable SIM card. So the decision was pretty tricky. But the teenager knew for sure that in the near future he did not want to think at all.

After some more thought, he had a good idea. Black got up and dressed, after that he looked at himself in the mirror and frowned. Sirius' clothes looked good, but his hair was still a mess. Knowing that he could not win this battle, he just sighed heavily and left everything as it is.

Sirius' white loose shirt was tucked into jet black pants with a matching black belt. Normally, he would have walked out in warm weather without wearing anything over it, but his new hatred of the cold made Black put on a golden-colored jacket on top. His clothes combined with his hair gave him a handsome, but roguish look.

Sirius put on black leather gloves and opened the door to the street. Bright light hit his eyes, causing his migraine to increase tenfold. So the door was shut in a second. The annoyed teenager power-walked down to the basement and ten seconds later left the house with a pair of narrow oval sunglasses. His regular round ones would look a little too weird with this getup.

Today was much warmer than yesterday, so Sirius allowed himself to walk slower than usual. Warm rays of the sun danced on his skin, and a light breeze fluttered his hair. He liked the days like this, they reminded him of his last lazy days at Hogwarts.

The teenager shook his head and continued walking through the crowded streets of Musutafu. His destination?

"To the Zoo, we go!"

The last time Sirius was at the Zoo, things didn't end well. His Magic decided to prove itself and make a joke by locking Dudley behind the glass of the cage. Unfortunately, Vernon didn't like that, and Sirius was beaten upon returning to the Dursleys' house. So he decided to get rid of bad memories and replace them with good ones.

There were enough Zoos in Japan, but Sirius chose Zoorasia in Kanagawa. Zoorasia sets itself apart from Nogeyama - another Zoo in a nearby area - in that they built the facility with as few fences as possible to allow visitors to enjoy the animals in an environment similar to their natural habitat. The zoo is divided into zones distinguished by climate and is also home to an off-limit facility, the Yokohama City Breeding Center, dedicated to the research and preservation of rare animals.

Besides resting, Sirius was hoping to find out whether he was still a Parcelmouth. He could not be one hundred percent sure that his not very "light" ability had disappeared forever.

After a rather quick trip to the outskirts of Tokyo, Sirius got to the Zoo and started looking at different animals. He especially enjoyed watching panthers - elegant and deadly creatures. But after a few hours of wandering between the territories of various animals, the teenager came to the territory of some lovely snakes.

There were not so many snakes to talk to, even those that were under strict supervision. Although, on the other hand, all the animals were under the supervision of at least one of the workers. No one wanted to have a death mark in their record.

A plump woman in uniform stood by the fence and looked with a smile at a couple of fearless children who decided to approach the snakes. She looked like a mixture of a human and dragon with her long face and horns that towered over her blonde hair. Sirius approached her with a smile - for forty years of Harry's life and four hundred years of Selim's life, this friendly smile stuck to his face when he pretended to be an ordinary person.

"Good afternoon, can I get close to the snakes?"

The woman turned around and her smile grew even more.

"Of course! But I advise you not to provoke them, young man. Although I can calm the snakes with my quirk, nothing can stop a very angry snake."

And wasn't it the truth? Sirius wouldn't have told anyone to annoy predators, but he knew it would fall on deaf ears - at least for those people who hadn't got enough brain capacity at birth.

"I take that even here a lot of people don't like the scaly ones, huh?"

The woman - Koda Minure, as it was written on her badge - smiled and shook her head.

"No, you just came in a calm time. You should've seen this place on Saturday. . ." Fatigue flashed in her eyes for a second. "Well, I won't bother you for much longer, come in."

"Thank you, Mrs. Koda." Sirius bowed slightly and entered the fenced-in area.

"Sue, show yourself to a new visitor," Koda said looking at one of the snakes and it nodded its head and slid to Sirius's feet.

'Some kind of animal talk Quirk.' Flashed through Sirius' mind.

The teen just smiled and sat down on the grass next to Sue. He stroked her head and the snake leaned into his touch in delight.

§Can you underssstand me?§ Sirius hissed softly, drawing the attention of the python and frightening the children along with Minure at the same time. The rest of the snakes turned sharply in his direction with undisguised interest in their eyes.

A dozen serpents started hissing from all directions.

§Ssspeaker?§

§The noble one?§

This made him understand two things: that he speaks Parseltongue and that this language still sounds fucking scary.

§A nessstling Ssspeaker? We haven't sssen your kin in generationsss.§ Sue looked at him as if judging his soul.

§All of my kin isss dead, young one.§ He answered sadly. §I am the lassst one.§

§Lassst one? Where isss your companionsss, Ssspeaker?§

One of the oldest snakes crawled towards Sirius - if not the oldest - even its hiss somehow sounded older than everyone else's. It looked like a python, but much longer and heavier. Its beige scales reflected the sun's rays straight into Sirius's eyes.

§Companionsss?§

§Every Ssspeaker had one. The old one ssspoke about the clan of the royal blood from the Sssouth, but thessse legendsss are older than me by many generationsss.§

Sirius's eyes widened in recognition. The old serpent talked about Krowen the Bloodied. The wizard because of whom all Parcelmouths began to be considered Dark and Evil.

The madman raised himself an army of Basilisks and destroyed a quarter of the population in the Middle East during the 9th century, magicians and Muggles indiscriminately. No one could stop the Wizard with fifty beasts behind him. After that, he simply disappeared, leaving behind only destroyed cities, blood, and corpses.

§No Wizard with royal blood ssshould walk the land without hisss companionsss.§ Sirius was pulled out of his thoughts and turned his attention to the serpent again. §Don't wait too long to hatch them, it will cossst you your life.§

The old snake turned around and slithered away without turning around. Sirius and Sue looked at each other and shrugged - at least the snake looked like it shrugged. . . you know, no shoulders and all.

"Um. . . Was that your Quirk?" The girl sitting next to him asked uncertainly.

Minure and the two children saw everything from start to finish. None of them expected to hear those horrifying hisses from the handsome teenager.

"Not really. I learned to speak and understand the serpent tongue from one. . ." How can you say 'psycho' more kindly? "Man with a Quirk that allowed him to understand snakes. I'm Quirkless."

Their looks, previously full of fear and disbelief, changed to pity and surprise. None of the three expected that this ability can be learned, especially by someone Quirkless. The smile returned to Koda's face.

"Well, I rarely see people who can talk to animals. I thought my son and I were the only ones in Japan. This man you were talking about, is he-"

"Dead." Sirius cut her off, patting Sue on the back. "He wasn't a good person."

Silence reigned in the zoo for a couple of seconds, but Sirius decided to break it.

"I apologize for that, I didn't want to spoil anyone's mood. I haven't spoken to snakes for several years and came to see if I had become rusty." He smiled softly at the woman. "Can you understand them?"

"No, my vocal cords are special so that animals can understand my words. But sadly, I don't understand them, although my son does."

"Can you tell them to do something?" The boy asked with stars in his eyes.

Sirius's smile became mischievous and he looked towards the snakes.

§We can't let the little nestlings leave sad, can we?§

Sue nodded and hissed at her siblings, beckoning them closer. Within a couple of seconds, dozens of snakes appeared from the grass and bushes. The children looked at this in shock, and Koda just continued to smile. She perfectly knew the power of the animals, it was sometimes scary to look at.

"This is so cool!! If a Villain saw this, they would've definitely get scared away!" The boy said and the girl just nodded in agreement.

The snakes began to crawl in strange patterns, leaving crumpled grass on the ground. Sirius would sometimes give commands to do something else and watch their reactions.

'Krowin's army was probably hundreds of times larger. . . at least in size.'

The teenager's eyes fell on Sue in his lap.

'Maybe I need my own little army. Or more like a personal squad.'

---

After his trip to the Zoo, Sirius transmutated an empty water tank, but he hasn't bought any toads yet. He knew the way Basilisks were hatched since he was the sole owner of the Black library - a place full of dark magic books.

Besides the usual "toad on a chicken egg," the mage needed to be Parcelmouth and feed the eggs with his magic. But there was one problem.

All his magic was absorbed by the Philosopher's Stone.

So now Sirius was sitting in a lotus position on the floor of his room and trying to somehow connect with his soul where the Philosopher's Stone was. He used the same method as during the practice of his Occlumency - Hermione almost bit his head off when she heard that he had given up on mind arts - after ten years he could consider himself a master of the craft. As it turned out without a piece of someone else's soul in his skull, it was pretty easy.

The young Homunculus Wizard Alchemist focused on himself, on the warm feeling in his chest that appeared with every movement of the shadows. His mind calmed down, and gradually the real world remained outside, leaving Sirius alone with his soul.

The transition into his soul - or mind, it was never easy to understand that bit - happened rather imperceptibly. At one moment Sirius was sitting in his room with his eyes closed, and at another, he found himself opposite two bright spheres. One of them was dark green and several times larger than the second, blood-red one. These were his Magic Core and the Philosopher's Stone.

The space where they were was an endless black abyss, where you can get lost in a second if you do not know where you are going. This was the first and only defense of Sirius's mind. Whenever a Wizard or a Witch attacked him with Legilemecy, they found themselves completely blind, deaf and mute. They lost all sense of direction and sooner rather than later were forced to leave due to constant headaches and fear.

Sirius moved closer to them and bent down to get a better look at them. The blood-red sphere was a little larger than his finger and seemed to slowly revolve in an invisible orbit around his Magic Core. There were also small cracks on the Stone, but for now, Sirius decided to ignore them. Its Core was as green as ever, so nothing was interesting here either.

"I might start calling myself a traffic light if something yellow shows up."

Sirius thought for a moment and shrugged. In his mind - or soul - everything was built on visualization. So he waved his hand between the two spheres as if breaking an invisible bond and braced himself for the consequences.

Oddly enough, he didn't die and didn't even feel even an ounce of pain. It almost felt like that time when Lockhart vanished the bones in his right hand, but on his powers. They were still inside him, but they were no longer working. So now, besides the ability to speak with snakes, Sirius was the most ordinary thirteen years old boy.

Both spheres were still in the air, but the Stone stopped moving around his Core, although this was expected. In its visualizations, for something to work, it must move. If something is standing still, then it doesn't work or it is broken.

After making sure that everything was okay, Black came out of his trance and returned to reality. His head was spinning a little and he felt weak, but overall, everything was fine. He glanced at his watch and shuddered when he saw that this simple action had ten minutes.

"Well, at least not an hour. . ."

He stretched and felt his familiar magic flowing in his veins. Sirius smiled and looked at the book on the table. The wizard thought a little and tried to test his Wandless magic, he focused his will and desire on making it fly up, but nothing happened.

Growling a little in annoyance, he raised his hand and waved his palm up, trying to make the book fly, but the result remained the same. The fucking stack of paper in the leather casing wasn't moving. Sirius sighed heavily and laid down on the carpet.

"Well, Jasmine warned that the magic had changed, but couldn't she cut me some slack? How can I even use it?"

Black pointed his finger at a piece of wood that was lying on the floor and poured his magic inside. For some time nothing happened, but after a few seconds of "charging," it lit up and trembled. Sirius's eyes widened in shock and he jumped up immediately.

The wizard grabbed the wood and threw it through the open window with all his might. It flew ten meters up and without even having time to fall to the ground, it exploded, leaving behind nothing but the smell of ozone.

From the explosion, the grass in the radius of the blast wave simply evaporated, and the ground turned black. Of course, the residual magic will restore the damage by tomorrow, but that didn't change the fact that Sirius ALMOST BLEW UP HALF OF HIS HOUSE! But after a while, Sirius was finally able to calm down.

"How the fuck? I can make Magic Bombs that easy?!" Well, maybe not.

Magic Bombs were one of the Wizard's most powerful and dangerous weapons. All one has to do is fill a suitable item with their magic and throw it at the enemy so that he turns into ash. Their creation was very simple but far too taxing. Even a child could create Magic Bombs with the correct instructions. . . If said child has more magic than seven adult Wizards.

The main reasons for their rare use were their magic consumption and their instability. They could be compared to a barrel of explosives smeared with napalm and kept in the same room with flammable materials. In short: expensive, dangerous, and will most likely explode in your face even at the stage of creation.

". . . I can use that."

Sirius sat down at the table and rubbed his temples. This has been added to the "Fucking Problems" list. Pushing thoughts of Magic Bombs into the back of his mind, he began to think about toads that could be used to hatch Basilisks. The book from the Black library clearly stated that the toad's species would critically influence the Basilisk subspecies, so he must choose carefully.

'Maybe it will be like with the Wands? The road chooses the Wizard. Well, I hope everything will be easy, otherwise, I'll have to research a shitton of information."

Solving this problem in one of his favorite ways - forgetting about it - Sirius walked over to the water tank. It was made of reinforced glass and was relatively empty at the moment. Inside there was a layer of water for the toads, four nest-islands, and feeders. All and all, it was simple but good.

"Well, in a month I'll have five new friends who could grow up to forty meters. . ." Something clicked in his head. "Shit, how am I going to feed them?"