Chapter 2-Transience

Chapter 2: Transience

Snakes, Harry soon learned, were transient creatures. Khasa hadn't stuck around long, and neither had his successor, Xelos. They stayed with him about half a year each, and during that time, Harry had become quite fond of them - more fond than he'd ever been of any human being. Snakes were much better people than actual people, he had quickly decided; it was no coincidence that the language of serpents had no word for 'freak'. They had other unsavoury words for sure, but the absence of that one word was enough to make Harry believe that, in general, snakes were far superior in moral quality than human beings. They understood little of the cares and troubles of the human world, and Harry found that he preferred that - spending time with the little creatures provided an escape from the drear ordeal that was his life. They showed him kindness no human ever had, and accepted him without judgement, and with an innocence he was sure humans weren't capable of. He enjoyed their company more than anything - there was nothing that made him happier than chatting with them cheerily while he knelt over Aunt Petunia's garden, pulling weeds, and listening to their skillful narrations when he sat on the grass eating his lunch. Snakes had the best stories to tell; Khasa in particular had quite the silver tongue.

:It had been snowing heavily since three days prior and the winds had come in naught more than ghostly wisps, doing little more than whispering sweet nothings to no one. It was truly beautiful.

:But that's not the point, is it? For despite the tranquility of the forest of fathomless trees, my foe, that persistent viper, stood in my way. He was larger, faster, and to the outside observer, it would have seemed I had no chance to win. Defeat was imminent. But the outside observer would not know that I was, in fact, far cleverer than he. For you see, I had not only noticed the abundance of snow and absence of wind, but also deduced the strategic advantage the weather had made available to me. It took little more than the tap of my tail on the trunk of a young yew tree to send a great torrent of snow from its place on the tree top to the ground where my foe stood, waiting to strike. The snow engulfed him quickly, giving me the chance to slither away unharmed. So you see, Harry never be strong when you can be clever.:

It turned out snakes live quite exciting lives, what with their hunting small rodents and fleeing from birds of prey, not to mention fighting with other snakes. But Khasa and Xelos were young, and by the time a few months had passed, their collection of stories ran dry. It was then that Harry noticed their sluggish movements, and their volatile mood swings; as time wore on they became more distracted, distant. In the end, it became evident that they couldn't stay with him – it wasn't right for them, lingering in one place so long; they needed to move on, and Harry needed to stay, trapped during the day in Classroom 5a, and during the night in the cupboard under the stairs of Number 4 Privet Drive.

He wouldn't deny it – when Khasa first left, he was heartbroken. He had never felt anything like the pain of losing a friend before, and he was not prepared for it at all. But he was a better person for it, or so he told himself. He was one step closer to being a real person, not a mere freak, for he now knew of the pain that seemed to haunt all normal people. It wasn't the fear of being hunted, nor the weight of the knowledge that he would never amount to more than being a worthless freak – it was the pain of loss, a universal ailment of the human race.

Grief had always confused him – he didn't really understand the concept. Often, his mind would wander to the stricken faces of the characters of Aunt Petunia's soap operas – he would commit the raw emotion on their faces to memory, and after his chores were finished and he was finally allowed to return to his cupboard, he would return to these memories, revelling in the unfamiliar sentiments those skilled actors portrayed. Harry was familiar with pain. Intimately familiar, he'd dare say, but there was more to it than that. There was something deeper in the expressions of the blonde man and woman on the telly, as they mourned their four year old daughter – they knew something that he didn't.

Harry knew loneliness, too; the pain of absence. And yet, the grim faces of the funeral attendees held something more. There was something important he was missing, some shared human experience common enough that professional actors could capture it on the television screen, but profound enough that the full implications of it eluded Harry constantly.

But he finally understood. The departure of Khasa left a gaping hole deep in Harry's chest – a dull ache and a sharp feeling of dread – the realization that he had had something wonderful, and would never have it again. Khasa was not coming back.

Xelos's arrival filled the hole, but not entirely. It was just different. Xelos's presence cured the illness that was loneliness, but his presence didn't erase the grief. It was then that Harry came to understand that friends could not be replaced, a lesson that he would surely take to heart.

:Cici! Cici! Stop hiding! I want to talk to you!:

Again, there was no reply.

He had done this every night for the last week – wandering in circles around the yard, calling Cici's name in soft hisses only she could hear. Seven nights she had eluded him; seven nights Tom had failed to locate his only friend. He would find her - that's what he told himself, at first, but deep down in in his recently thawed heart, he knew the truth. She was gone.

The boy sunk to his knees in the cold grass, heart pounding audibly in his chest. Either she was hiding from him, or she had left. Either way, Cici was no longer his friend. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he gasped - but the moment passed quickly and his face grew cold and hard like stone; he refused to cry. That's what the other children would do – that's what stupid Billy Stubbs would do – and he was better than them. So much better.

But if he was better, why couldn't he hold onto his only friend? Cici had left, no doubt to become someone else's friend, leaving him behind - how dare she toss him aside like that? If he was so much better, what reason could she possibly have to leave him?

He refused to believe that there was something wrong with him. He refused to believe that he had been deprived of something he needed due to his own deficiencies. He refused to believe that he had failed in any way - but then why did Cici leave? There was only one answer. She left because he didn't need her. He didn't need friends. Cici knew this, and comforted by this knowledge, she had the audacity to leave. She knew Tom was superior enough that he didn't need to lean on friendship like a crutch, leeching off of others to cover up his own deficiencies.

He closed his eyes, allowing the midnight cold to wash over him and hold him tightly; he took a deep breath and then he felt. It was the way the cold nipped at his skin, the whispering of the autumn breeze; the taste of gathering dew and the smell of a rainstorm approaching – this was his world. Like the natural phenomena surrounding him, he was a force unimpeded by human frailty, untroubled by the cares of the miserable little people crawling about and corrupting. He was above all that – he was free.

And even as a frigid smile formed upon his face, a single tear fell from his eyes – the last tear that would ever escape his cold, dark eyes.

If Cici ever returned, he would kill her. Then she'd never leave again.

Harry woke up crying.

After the initial shock of Khasa and Xenos's respective departures had faded into the greyish blur that was Harry's past, he was resolved to find himself another friend – a human friend, this time. They, at the very least, tended to stay in one place. It had been an entire year since he had attempted to befriend Lisa, and the pain of rejection was little more than a faded memory, and the lesson learned had become a lesson forgotten.

It was worth the risk, he told himself. Human friends were stationary, and, well, human. It was rather pathetic, he knew, that he was eight years old and the only friends he'd ever had were adolescent reptiles. Even Harry, as socially isolated as he was, knew that friend-making was a sort of human rite-of-passage. If he ever wanted to amount to anything more than a freak, he needed a human friend.

This was no easy goal he'd set for himself; all the children in his school were either afraid of him or too afraid of Dudley to befriend him. Not to mention, he'd spent enough time with them to know that none of them were really ideal friend material. Most children were unkind and silly, with little or no redeeming qualities. But, as it turned out, the start of third grade provided the perfect opportunity: the new kid, Sam Stewart – the magician. Samuel the Spectacular, he called himself.

He was tall for his age, a sandy blonde with rosy cheeks and a mischievous smile. The boy often wore a top hat to class, and delighted in pulling strange objects out of it with a triumphant 'Abra Cadabra!'

Harry always winced when the boy said that. He wasn't quite sure why.

Despite this, Harry knew a perfect opportunity had presented itself. Sam would have a hard time making close friends, Harry predicted. Sure, the other children would be intrigued by the tricks he was so skilled at, but they'd keep their distance all the same. The boy was too loud, too happy, and too lost in his own little world to quickly endear himself too deeply to any of his predictably boring classmates.

That was why, after class had ended on September 27th, 1988, Harry slowly (and rather stealthily, he thought), made his way over to Sam's desk.

"I think it was pretty neat, how you pulled that rabbit out of your hat," Harry greeted without prelude.

The boy looked up at him, eyes wide with surprise at first, before his face morphed into a grin. "You did, did you? That was one of my cleverer ideas, I think. I can't believe Miss Jenkins took it away from me! It was a rather pathetic creature you know, it's not like it'd hurt anyone."

Harry nodded in agreement, and Sam seemed to take this as encouragement to continue talking.

"I'm having trouble coming up with a new idea, though. You see, I started with card tricks, and then moved on to vanishing coins. The natural progression, of course, was pulling ribbons out of the hat next, but I think I jumped the gun with the rabbit, a bit."

"Err..."

"I mean, how do you top that?"

Harry was pretty sure it was meant as a rhetorical question, but he wondered about it nonetheless – how do you top pulling a rabbit out of a hat?

Meanwhile, Sam tugged at his long blonde hair as he frantically continued to chatter on.

Oh, he's still talking.

"I won't be able to think about anything else for ages..."

The boy kept talking, but Harry stopped listening; an idea had come to him – it was risky, but it might very well be worth the risk, he thought. Sam didn't seem like the suspicious type, so as long as he did as Harry asked, everything would be fine. Yes, there really wasn't any particular reason not to go along with this newly hatched plan. After all, he didn't really have anything to lose. "I think I can help you with that."

Sam's tirade stuttered to a stop. "What?"

"I think I can help you come up with a new idea. Something better to pull out of your hat."

Sam stared at him with wide eyes. "Really? You think so?"

Harry nodded. "I have an idea."

"What is it?"

Harry allowed a small grin to form on his face. This was his chance, to be of value to someone. Everything would be fine, he told himself, he'd get it right. "It's a surprise."

Sam pouted, and opened his mouth to complain, but Harry interrupted him.

"Meet me behind the big bush in the playground at precisely 8:23 in the morning tomorrow."

Sam blinked. "Uhh...why 8:23?"

"23 is a good number," Harry said awkwardly. It was true – Dudley had never beat him up on the 23rd of any month before.

Sam recovered quickly. "Alright then! Let's shake on it."

Harry grasped the vivacious boy's hand. He'd done it. He'd implemented the first stage of his plan. If he didn't mess this up, by tomorrow afternoon he'd have a new friend.

As it turned out, everything did go according to plan. Harry had managed to convince one of the friendlier snakes that lived behind the school to aid Sam in his little magic trick - it had taken a little bit of begging, but the end, the youngest serpent, Chi, had agreed.

Sam, of course, was thrilled when Harry presented him with his gift, and quickly and easily agreed that Harry was indeed a good friend. The plan was a success.