Harry ran into the house, slightly wet. It was just his luck that it starting raining on his way home. Severus was waiting for him in the entrance way as soon as he got there, looking cross, so Harry gently closed the door behind himself and looked down on the ground.

"They currently start lighting the lanterns on this block at eight. It is now eight thirty," Severus said flatly, and Harry blushed slightly. He didn’t realize it was that late. "Now, I could understand ten after, since they lanterns are not lit all at one time, but half an hour late? And you will show me respect by looking at me when I am speaking to you." Harry looked up, tears threatening to leave his eyes and trail down his cheeks. He hadn’t even been living with his brother for two days and he was already messing up. No wonder the Dursleys always called him unlovable.

"I’m sorry," Harry whispered, then looked back down at the floor, embarrassed by the tears now falling.

"As this is your first offense and you are new to the area, I will dismiss it this once. Look at me, Silias," Severus said, his voice no longer as flat as before, and Harry looked up once again. "Did you meet anyone?" Harry was stunned at the sudden change of attitude, but he felt better being asked. No one ever cared if he was happy before.

"No," he answered quietly. "There was two other people at the park, but I didn’t say anything. I just was on the swings."

"You were on the swings for two hours?" Severus asked, surprised. He had never been one much for swings, so being able to spend that amount of time swinging back and forth was beyond him.

"Yeah. Is there something wrong with that?" Harry asked, no longer feeling meek.

"No, there is not. And say, ‘yes’, not ‘yeah’," Severus said offhandedly. Now that everything had been settled, he was at a loss of what to do with the boy. Entertaining a ten year old boy was not something he had to do much before. The few times he took care of Draco, the boy wanted to learn about potions or some other magical topic. He knew Silias was interested, too, but it was getting late in the evening. Speaking of which, he also had no idea what time a ten year old should go to bed. Realizing he didn’t know much about his younger brother other than he liked reading and was neglected by the muggles, Severus led him to the living room.

"What do you liked doing besides reading and swinging?" Severus asked the young boy, and was granted with a surprised look. He supposed that the boy wasn’t asked that very often.

"Er . . . not much, I guess. I wasn’t really allowed to do much more than that," Harry answered, embarrassed. He didn’t like talking about the Dursleys. In fact, he hoped he never had to see or even think about them again. Looked like that wasn’t going to happen.

"Alright, then. What do you like to read?"

"Lots of stuff," Harry answered.

"Stuff," sneered Severus. "We must work on your vocabulary. It is rather . . . limited. What type of material do you prefer to read?" he asked again.

"Well, usually whatever I can get," Harry replied after some contemplation. "The books in my school library are nice. The stuff . . . er . . . books about space and animals I think are my favorite."

"Space? As in astronomy?"

"Yea-er, yes."

"They teach astronomy at Hogwarts."

"Really? What does that have to do with magic?" Harry asked, and Severus sighed.

"Enough. I do not pay much attention to the magic that corresponds to it." Severus, making a last minute decision, beckoned Harry to follow him to the library. "I never understood why I kept these books," he said, looking on a shelve near the back of the room. While Severus was looking for the books, Harry looked around. The room wasn’t very big for a library, but it was the biggest room in the house that Harry had seen so far. There wasn’t much room between the shelves; only enough to comfortably get books down, and the shelves reached to the ceiling. There were numerous footstools around for reaching the higher shelves. There was also a desk in the far corner of the room, hidden from view from the doorway.

Finally, Severus found what he was looking for and took down several books. Double checking they were the correct books, he lead Harry to the desk and set the books down.

"These were a few books my mother insisted I work with before I went to Hogwarts. The first one is on grammar, the second on writing style, and the third on vocabulary, and all have exercises which I expect you to do. I will supply a few muggle notebooks for your use, as I find them easier to use for organization. The fourth is a book on learning Latin. You will also start that." Harry looked at the books, his mouth hanging open.

"I have to finish those this summer?" he asked. He was fine with reading and learning during the summer, but from the looks of those books, he’d be doing nothing but!

"No, you will not have to finish. It took me three years to go through the first three, and an additional two for the Latin." Harry nodded, relieved, and yawned. "These books are now yours. Take them to your room, then it is time for you to go to bed."

"Okay," Harry said slowly.

The next morning, Harry arrived to breakfast late, but Severus didn’t say anything, much to Harry’s relief. At the Dursley’s, if he was late he was always punished, usually by not being allowed to eat. Harry knew that Severus would not refuse him a meal, but he had no idea what type of punishments his brother would give him. And he didn’t want to learn.

"I will be working in the garden and greenhouse today," Severus said, not looking up from his paper. After Harry looked up, Severus put the paper aside. "All the potion ingredients that I can grow myself are in either of the two places. I am not requiring you to join me, but it would give you a head start in Herbology."

"I gardened some at the Dursley’s," Harry said. "Au-Petunia taught me how to do it so she wouldn’t always have to." Severus nodded, but sighed internally. It seemed like the boy found any opportunity he could to talk about the muggles, which was excessively annoying. He made a note to ask Lucius or the headmaster about it.

Although Dumbledore wasn’t Severus’ favorite person, he did understand some things that Severus didn’t, and if you were willing to listen to his round about way of talking, there was often good advice there.

"Then I’m assuming you wish to help?" Severus asked for clarification.

"Yeah," Harry answered slowly. Severus gave him a small glare, and Harry corrected himself. "Yes."

"Good. We will start after breakfast," Severus said. Perhaps something good will come out of having a younger brother, he thought. If he does some of my work, I will have more time on my hands.

Harry looked at the food on his plate. Like before, there was a lot on it, and once again, he felt as if he couldn’t finish it. He took a few bites of the scrambled eggs and one sausage link before he felt he couldn’t eat anything more, so instead of eating, he drank the juice in front of him (Harry wasn’t entirely sure what the juice was, but he liked it) and pushed around the food on his plate. He didn’t notice that Severus was watching him.

"Are you not hungry?" the potions master asked, and Harry shook his head. "Your stomach will not grow if you do not eat more than you think you are capable of. You should have no worries about being ill, the potions you are taking will cover that. Eat half of the eggs and one more sausage link."

Ten minutes later, Harry feeling too full to be comfortable, they were headed outside. After visiting a tool shed, Severus set Harry to weed the garden, making sure nothing he pulled was something useful, then went on his own way to check the status of each plant.

Harry set himself to the familiar rhythm of pulling weeds: Pull (making sure you have the root), put in bucket, pull, put in bucket. The situation wasn’t much different that at the Durlsey’s, only that the garden was much bigger and he had someone helping him. He was about to pull another weed when a movement caught his eye.

"Annoying, annoying," Harry heard a voice. "Wake me up, always waking me up."

"Who are you?" Harry asked in the direction of the voice. A snake came out from behind the plants.

"A Speaker? I have only heard of a human speaker before."

"You . . . you can understand me?" he asked, surprised.

"You can understand me, so I can understand you, human," the snake said, irritated.

"I guess," replied Harry, thinking about it. "But just because I can understand you, doesn’t mean you can understand me. I mean, what if I can understand your language, but I’m not speaking it, and you can understand mine?"

"Humans," hissed the snake, sounding irritated. "They don’t understand anything." Harry was about to protest when Severus scared him by sneaking up from behind.

"You are talking to the snake?" his brother wondered.

"Er . . . yea-yes. Why . . . is that a bad thing?" Harry asked, nervous. He wasn’t trying to talk to the snake. It just . . . happened.

"A parselmouth," Severus said to himself. "My brother is a parselmouth." Severus shook his head and walked away, ignoring Harry’s question. Harry, feeling as if he did something wrong, pulled another weed from the garden, finishing the area he was working on, then went back inside.

His first thought was to go back to his room, but then he changed his mind, entering the library as he passed. Severus was talking about him being a parselmouth, whatever that was, and he wanted to know what that was.

Not knowing where to start, Harry wandered around looking over the books. After a few minutes, he noticed that the books were organized by subject. What Harry wanted was some sort of dictionary on magical terms. There had to be one somewhere in all these books.

In the history section, Harry’s eyes stopped on a book called Magical Abilities. Harry briefly wondered why such a book was in the history section, but when he picked it up, he saw that it did look like a history book. Thankful it was set up in alphabetical order, he turned to the P’s and flipped through. Parselmouth was on the third page, and such a small bit that Harry almost skipped over it.

While Harry read the two paragraphs, Severus walked up behind him. He didn’t know whether to be pleased or disheartened by the fact that his brother was a parselmouth. It was a great ability, but it was thought to be a Dark ability. Therefore, it would have to be kept a secret.

Severus wondered where the ability came from. He knew for a fact that his family line did not have any Parselmouths. The Dark Lord was, though, and that thought made Severus uneasy.

"So, does this mean I’m evil?" Harry asked, bringing Severus out of his thoughts.

"No," he answered sharply. It is believed to be a Dark Ability because it appeared that everyone who had the ability was a Dark Wizard. This was not true. Salzaar Slytherin, the first known parselmouth, was not a Dark Wizard, contrary to popular belief."

"Slytherin? Was that one of the founders?" Harry asked. He skimmed a few pages of Hogwarts: A History, but didn’t read it in depth.

"Yes," Severus answered. "What was the snake talking about?"

"It was annoyed that I woke it up. I don’t think he likes humans very much. Do you have any more books on parselmouths and Slytherin?"

"Not on parselmouths. Those are hard to come by, but I have many on Slytherin. Some rare ones too; ones that you cannot buy easily. I don’t know where they came from since they have been in my family for generations," Severus said, starting to look for certain books. "Here is two good books. They are old, so be very careful with them. I am going to finish with the garden and greenhouse, then . . . perhaps I could teach you some potions?"

"Could I brew one?" Harry asked, his eyes lighting up.

"A simple one, yes. If you wish, look for an easy one you wish to brew." At that, Severus left the library, and Harry picked up the first book. It was on the legends and myths that surround Salzaar Slytherin and tried to prove the either right or wrong. Not in the mood to start from the beginning, Harry opened the book to a random page.

"No. You need to chop it finer," Severus said, irritated. The boy choose a slightly harder potion for his first try, and for the most part, he was doing okay. Severus could tell that he read the book that described the potion, but his experience with potions wasn’t enough to do the potion well. So, at this time, he was regretting his decision on letting Silas make it.

Harry chopped the root more, then gave a questioning look to his older brother. At Severus’ nod, Harry gently put the root into the boiling potion. This was the last step. If it turned a blue color, then it was made correctly. Harry really hoped he made it correctly, because he wanted to impress Severus.

After waiting five minutes, the potion slowly started to turn a blue color. It didn’t quite reach the shade of blue that the picture showed, but it was close. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Severus nod, and a grin unwilling appeared on Harry’s face. He did it right!

"Decent," was all Severus said, but from the short time he was living with the man, he realized that it was as good of a compliment he was going to get.

"Thank you," Harry replied quietly, then turned to look at his messy tabletop.

"But I want you to study the different chopping, cutting, and slicing methods more. Sometimes even the slightest difference could mess up the more complicated potions." Harry nodded, just glad that he got it correct and wasn’t going to get yelled at.

"Can I see Draco soon?" Harry asked, starting to clean up the table, and Severus nodded.

"May I, and yes, you may," Severus said, making a quick decision. "For a potion I am making, I need snake skin that was recently shed. Since you are able to speak with snakes, perhaps you could help me find some?"

"Sure, but I don’t know if they’ll talk to me. The last one seemed kinda rude."

"Kind of, not kinda," corrected Severus. "We will go no. The woods that we will be searching in are about a 15 minutes walk from here."

"A woods?" Harry asked.

"Yes," replied the older wizard flatly. "Is that a problem?"

"No, it’s just . . . nothing," Harry replied quickly, not wanting to upset Severus. The potions master didn’t say anything, just glared suspiciously at Harry, then left the room.

Half an hour later, the two were entering the woods, Harry rather reluctantly. He didn’t have a very good history in the woods. Bad things happened there. These are different woods, Harry told himself. And Severus is here. Nothing is going to happen.

"Keep an eye out for snakes and snake skins. I assume you know what snake skin looks like?" Severus asked, and Harry answered with a nod. Severus started walking a fast pace, for Harry at least, off the trail, and Harry tried to follow when Severus turned and shook his head.

"If we split up, we will be able to cover more ground. I would like to be done with this soon, as I have other activities I need to do," Severus said, handing Harry a black, book size bag.

"But . . ."

"Just go. As you are able to talk to snakes, and there are no dangerous animals in these woods, you will be safe. Meet here in an hour." Without waiting for a reply, Severus turned and continued off the trail, leaving Harry.

Harry was pretty sure he wouldn’t get lost. After all, he learned awhile back how to find his way back in a woods. That was a different woods, though, and . . . well, right now, he just hoped nothing bad was going to happen.

Walking along, Harry jumped when the grass near one of the bigger trees moved.

"Hello?" Harry asked, trying to speak in parseltongue. He didn’t know if it worked, though, because it all sounded the same to him.

"Another human," Harry heard something hiss.

"Hello?" Harry asked again. There wasn’t an answer immediately, but the snake did show it’s head. "Hi," Harry continued, almost shyly. He didn’t want this snake to be rude to him like the other snake, so he tried to be as polite as possible.

"Another Speaker . . ." the snake said, almost to himself.

"Another? You mean there is another Speaker around here?" Harry asked the snake, and it gave a quiet hiss.

"Yes. Another Youngling. Younger than you, Speaker."

"Can I meet him? I mean, is the Speaker a him?" he asked with curiosity.

"The young Speaker is a male. If you wish, I will bring you to him. He is scared of other humans, but perhaps because you Speak, he will not be afraid of you."

"Why is he afraid of other humans?" Harry asked, wondering if the young boy ran away, like Harry did when he was younger. It would explain why he was in the woods alone.

"You ask too many questions, young Speaker. Our Younglings do not ask as much," the snake replied, successfully shutting Harry up. I was only asking, thought Harry with a huff. Following the snake at a very slow pace, he made his way even further into the woods.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Severus checked the time with a small charm, very irritated. It was half an hour past the meeting time, and Silas still wasn’t there. The damn boy probably got himself lost, he thought.

"Point me, Silas," Severus said, activating the charm. His wand pointed to the direction opposite that he came from, and he started walking, checking the direction ever so often. Silas is either staying in one place, or continuing along the same direction, he thought when the direction never changed.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, Severus heard some quiet hissing, so he froze and listened. It sounded like a conversation in a similar fashion to when Silas was talking to the garden snake.

"Silas?" he asked aloud, and was surprised to hear a small scream then a panicky cry. Quietly walking forward, Severus spotted his brother with a snake wrapped around his arm (the species was unfamiliar to him), and a small child, he guessed about three years old, clinging to the opposite side from the snake. The boy only cowered more when he look up and saw Severus standing there.

"Silas, what are you doing? Who is that?" he asked flatly.

"You’re scaring him," Silas answered. "He’s scared of humans." Silas, Severus guess, spoke something to the small boy in parseltongue, and the child calmed down slightly. This scene confused Severus until Silas spoke again. "I don’t think he understands English. He won’t respond to it, anyway. I don’t know why he’s here."

"Did you find snake skin?" Severus asked, buying time to think. Silas shook head.

"He brought me here almost right away . . ."

"Who’s he?" Severus wondered, and Harry indicated the snake on his arm.

"Can we bring him home?" Silas asked, and Severus nearly rolled his eyes.

"We cannot leave a small child in the woods," he sneered, and the older child picked up the younger. The snake transferred itself from Silas’s arm to the small boy’s neck, and Severus almost yelled, but decided against it. If the snake lead Silas to the boy, the snake wasn’t going to hurt the boy. "We will contact the headmaster. He will know what to do."

"Dumbledore? But . . . he left me with the Dursley’s. How do you know that he won’t do the same thing to him?"

"I’ll make sure," replied Severus curtly. "Now, come on," Severus said, grabbing Silas’s arm and apparating to an enclosed area immediately outside of his property. This scared the child even more.

Harry watched as Severus stalked into the house leaving him, the boy, and the snake outside.

"What was that?" hissed the snake. Harry shook his head, not able to answer. The word didn’t translate into parseltongue; it just came out in English. Not knowing what else to do, Harry made his way into the house, trying to comfort the hysterical boy at the same time. It was really hard to carry the boy, since Harry was small himself, so he ended up putting him down and leading him by the hand into the house. It was at that moment that Severus came in with Dumbledore, causing the little boy to run and hide under a table. Harry could hear the snake and boy talking, the snake trying to convince the boy to get out from under the table.

"Silas, how good to see you again. How is the young boy?" Dumbledore asked, too cheerful for Harry’s current mood.

"Scared," Harry answered, narrowing his eyes.

"Ah, yes, I’d imagine so. Could you bring him out from under that small table? I’m assuming it would be very uncomfortable."

"What are you going to do with him?" Harry asked, and the old man smiled.

"We are going to try to find any living relatives. If he does not have any, then we will find a family that is willing to love and work with him."

"What if you find family that doesn’t want him? I don’t want him growing up with someone who doesn’t want him."

"We won’t allow that to happen, Silas. I promise," the old man said. Harry narrowed his eyes again, but was inclined to believe the man. He didn’t seem like he was lying, and Severus seemed to trust the man to some point, so there really wasn’t a reason to argue. Carefully, Harry coaxed the young child out from under the table, and sat him down on it to talk to him.

"You are going to have to go with this man," Harry told him, and the boy shook his head. "He won’t hurt you," he said, then turned to Dumbledore. "Will I get to see him again."

"I am sure that whoever is willing to take him in would love for you to visit."

"I will see you again later, I am sure," Harry told the boy. "But they want to find you a good home, okay?"

"You," the boy said.

"I’m sorry, I can’t," he said grimly. "But they will find you someone nice." The boy didn’t answer, just looked down. Harry picked him up and handed him to Dumbledore, somewhat reluctantly. He felt like he was abandoning the boy, even though this wasn’t his choice. Harry knew he had no say in the matter. He knew that Severus wouldn’t take in another kid, especially one that could only speak parseltongue. Harry watched grimly as Dumbledore and Severus talked, and as Dumbledore left the room to take the floo to wherever. Not in the mood to talk, Harry went to his room, locking the door and taking out a book.