Asmodeus(2)

"We are here," Harry said under the invisibility cloak as he walked into the dragon handlers' camp.

"I know, I can feel them. All four of them," Ash hissed back from his shoulder.

"Did they finally decide to bring the lasst dragon then? By the way, wass that a rare display of the magical ssensse you keep sspouting about?" he asked sarcastically.

"Yess to both, and need I mention that you would have also been able to feel them had you sstopped acting like a child and formed a familiar bond with me," he asked in a clearly annoyed tone.

Since a week after the trio learned about the first task's danger, Ash had constantly been trying to get Harry and form a familiar bond with him.

'Why can't he see sense? Forming a bond with me will grant him the ability to sense magic. Though no doubt lesser than my own, it will surely be beneficial to him and may even come in handy at the task,' Ash thought dejectedly.

Yeah, apparently Ash wasn't a good old Grass Snake as Harry had initially thought.

FLASHBACK

"Uh, Harry?" Ash hissed, slowly slithering on Harry and curling around his neck.

"What's wrong?" he asked, having noticed his friend's reluctance.

"Nothing'ss wrong. I just wanted to assk your opinion on familiarss?"

"I thought you'd never assk! You gave me the impression that you weren't interessted in thingss like that… You are not feeling jealous because of the Fawkess plan, are you?" Harry asked, feeling amused.

"I do not!" he hiss-shouted affronted.

Harry though, believed otherwise and kept staring expectantly at his snake friend.

"Fine, but only a tiny bit! And I'll have you know that the fire chicken is very suspiciousss. Who knowss what kind of perverted "good moralss" it may try to impart on you through your bond if it's left unsupervissed."

"Yeah, sure… Anything elsse you might want to add?"

"If you form a bond with me, you'll gain the ability to sensse magic," Ash stated, magnanimity creeping in his tone. If he had arms, he would have no doubt flexed them in a benevolent way

"Huh? Do you mean that you can ssense magic? Since when are grasss snakes able to sense magic?" Harry asked confused.

"I'm no grasss ssnake, you idiot. Well not fully at least… My father was a magical rhabdophisss, while my mum was ssupposedly a grasss ssnake."

"What? And what do you mean by saying ssupposedly?"

"SShe left right after laying my, and my siblings' eggs. I grew up with my father and his masster…"

"Talk about parental love," Harry hissed bitterly, choosing not to comment on the last part.

He could feel Ash's bitterness as he hissed the word "master". It wasn't much different to the tone his voice got when talking about Dumbledore.

"My mother'ss treatment was pretty normal actually. Mundane snakess don't usually care about their offspringss," Ash revealed, causing Harry to mutter something about snakes and bitches.

PRESENT

"However convenient it may be for me to have the ability to ssensse magic, it'ss not worth your life. You know that, unlike Fawkess, upon my death, you'll alsso die," Harry said in full seriousness.

"Yess, and that iss my choice to make, not yourssss," Ash hissed back.

'This snake has gone mental, I swear…' Harry thought annoyed.

Why would Ash, a snake that he had met just three weeks ago, want to endanger his life for him? Harry simply couldn't wrap his head around that piece of logic, although he would also have opted to do that, had the roles been reversed.

'Stupid, stupid, stupid human. I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE AGAIN,' he almost shouted.

Ash didn't say anything however…

He wasn't quite ready to share the rest of his story with Harry yet.

Not how his whole family was killed, nor how being the only one left alive made him feel guilty and unworthy of his siblings' sacrifices and how before meeting Harry, he had no friends.

'I can't go back to that,' Ash thought depressed.

Harry having taken notice of the snake's stiffness, stopped walking.

"Sigh. Are you ssure that you want to become my familiar?" he asked defeated.

He could see how much his rejection bothered Ash.

In addition, despite the snake's continuous use of excuses and sarcasm enlaced with his requests, Harry had some ideas about why his friend wanted to form a bond with him.

'Am I being selfish?' the human wondered deep in his mind.

"Yesss," Ash hissed, slithering around Harry's neck excitedly.

"Fine, I hope I won't come to regret thisss…"

That said, Harry closed his eyes and concentrated on feeling his soul just like Salazar had taught him.

The ability to sense one's soul wasn't a complicated thing. One simply had to reach a certain level of occlumency and know a few, very basic, concepts about soul magic.

The required level of occlumency while not being a quickly achievable milestone by the average talent, was doable if one had enough patience to keep evolving their mind shields and improving their understanding of the psyche.

Needless to say, with Salazar's help and Harry's unfair talent with the mind arts, meeting the two requirements was no problem.

It was also one of the stepping stones of embracing his Peverell legacy…

After a few moments, Harry had managed to block everything and focus on his soul.

In his peripheral soul sense, he could feel a malicious and hungry presence, trying to hide.

That was Voldemort's soul piece as he had found out very quickly.

When he first entered his soul-scape and laid his senses on it, it tried to devour his consciousness. After a thorough beating though, it became quite subdued…

'As lovely as never,' Harry thought with resentment.

Ignoring it, he shifted his attention to the second presence he felt, trying to get inside his soul bubble.

The presence slithered around him in what felt like a friendly and playful manner, asking to be let in.

Sighing, Harry did just that and promptly felt his soul sense fading as he struggled to breathe.

The last thing he noticed inside his soul before his concentration couldn't keep up the sixth sense anymore, was a weak presence which was different from the other two, sending an accepting, fiery pulse…

"Ash, you are c-choking me-e," Harry barely managed to hiss.

That seemed to have brought the snake back to its senses as it immediately relaxed its grip on Harry's neck.

"Thank you, thank you, Harry," Ash hissed while wiggling his tail excitedly.

'Are you a dog? Stop doing that, and you are welcome… Now let's focus on our task,' he mused, trying to make use of one of the familiar bond's perks and convey his thoughts through the soul bond the two now shared.

It seemed to work as Ash stopped moving his tail and glared at Harry.

'Dog he says… The audacity of that stupid piece of-'

'You know I can hear you, right?' Harry asked while chuckling.

Asmodeus didn't seem to have grasped control of his thought stream as quickly as him.

"Laugh it up dumbasss," he hissed, prompting Harry to offer him a lopsided grin.

Ignoring Ash, Harry moved to where he knew the previously empty pit was located.

As he closed in on his destination, he started sensing something.

At first, it started as a weak and old presence one might expect coming off, of a mundane grandpa. However, as he drew closer, he realised he couldn't have been more wrong.

"It's terrifying, truly monstrous… It reeks of an arrogant and unchecked bloodthirst. What kind of monster did they bring?" Harry muttered.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to go closer; his new ability definitely suggested otherwise.

"Ash?" he questioned, but got no reply.

The snake was stiff as a board.

Harry's ability wasn't only weaker than Ash's, it was also untrained.

While Harry felt like the fourth dragon was simply extremely dangerous, Ash would have begged to differ.

He felt as if they were nearing an unnamed horror, death's personification or perhaps the world's doom.

While Harry's senses didn't ring as many bells' as Ash's, he could feel the primordial fear the snake felt through their recently established bond and backed off.

'This should be far enough,' he mused after walking some distance away from the pit, far enough that he didn't feel the presence at all.

"Can you wait here for a bit while I go check the dragon? While I'm not planning to fight that, it wouldn't hurt uss to know what speciess it isss," Harry hissed.

"Are you absolutely ssure you want to go back to that freak of nature?" Ash asked weakly. Unlike Harry, he wasn't quite out of the dragon's aura range.

"Yess.'

"Alright, be careful," the snake hissed, earning a mental nod from Harry as he slithered off him and onto the ground.

Harry quickly made his way back and without any hesitation searched for the dragon.

'Huh? It's not in the pit. My senses are screaming that it's somewhere around here tho-'

Harry's thoughts were rudely interrupted when a colossal figure landed in the middle of the pit, scattering dust and dirt in every direction.

The ground shook as it accepted the new presence.

'Oh fuck... It broke free!'

(Last edit: 18/07/2024)

"Yes, apparently snakes have tails. Who knew right?

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