Lamia's Lament

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and the original concept belongs to Dreamwind though my muses kind of went into left field with it.


Sorry for the wait but lately I've been working more than one close and open at my work, which leaves me with two hours of sleep if I'm lucky. I've pretty much mastered sleeping with my eyes open while standing up, so that's something, right?


Just so you know, I will almost never let Sirius die, he's one of my favorite characters and his death pretty much killed the series for me.

Harry's POV

I could almost feel the exact moment that the taint on my magic was removed, it was like being stuck in a tiny little room and then walking into the sunshine. My eyes opened to find that Voldemort was leaning against the arm of one of the lounge chairs looking more than a little worse for wear. "That took a lot more out of me than I thought it would. I do believe that I am going to have to sit down a bit before I'm good for much else."


He looked almost ghostly as he somehow elegantly flopped into the rather comfy chair and leaned back with a sigh.


I moved over to the bed and slid onto it with the quiet sound of scales on satin and analyzed everything that I could remember. Ever since that accident in Potions nothing has made the slightest bit of sense but nothing feels out of place. I may not have been born a Lamia but the potion seems to have made it so much a part of me that I can hardly remember what it was like as a human.


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Severus' POV

Now I can fully understand why the Dark Lord could be so out of sorts about Harry spending any time alone with me. Even though I knew that Harry would not be open to anything that my mind supplied, the urge to enter his rooms and make sure that he was alright was almost overwhelming. Of course even if there was something going on there would be very little I could do about it other than get myself into more trouble than Harry manages in a school year.


I was so focused on the closed door between my room and Harry's that when it swung open to reveal a rather agitated Harry I admittedly jumped a bit, though in my defense it was a very small jump.


"Severus, Voldemort managed to exhaust himself helping me with my magic, could you help me get him to his room." Harry looked back into his room with a sigh. "He fell asleep in one of the chairs and if he stays like that there will be no dealing with him when he wakes up with a crick in his neck."


I found the curiosity almost blinding as I slithered over to the open doorway for the chance to see the Dark Lord in such a human position. It was incredibly humorous to see such a powerful man asleep in a chair with his head cocked to the side and one leg slung over the arm. I would almost venture to say that the man looked rather adorable but somehow it doesn't seem quite right to call one of the most terrifying men in the world 'adorable'.


"I'm not big enough to carry him but I can open the doors for you so we can get him back into his room." Harry slithered over to the chair and looked down at the Dark Lord briefly before turning his bright eyes on me. Somehow the slit pupils made puppy dog eyes twice as effective. "You have a lot more muscle on you than I do so you shouldn't have any trouble carrying him."


The man was heavier than he looked but was little trouble to carry, though the idea of having the Dark Lord wake up as I was carrying him to his room with Harry slithering in front was enough to make him feel twice as heavy as he should have. The entire manor was decorated in dark colors and the house elves could be seen moving quickly through the shadows, making sure that everything was as it should be without making the slightest bit of noise. For the home of a Dark Lord it was rather comfortable if somewhat cold.


The man's room was guarded by a very large and ornate door with so many serpents carved into the front you could hardly tell where one ended and another began. Every one of the serpents looked at us the moment we entered the hallway and kept their eyes on us as we came to a stop in front of them. "What is the password?"


"We don't know the password, but we need to get in to put Voldemort to bed. You wouldn't want him to find out that he had to sleep on the floor because the enchanted door couldn't figure out that anyone who could speak to them was allowed in do you?" It seemed a bit strange to watch Harry argue with a door but all of the snakes looked at each other before looking at the sleeping Dark Lord and swinging open with nary a sound.


The inside of the suite was predictably decorated in greens and silvers but was far more tasteful than some would think. The man's bed was more than big enough for several people and was draped in black silk sheets. The man didn't even shift as I laid him under the covers and both Harry and I left the room as quietly as we entered.


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Sirius' POV

"I'm sure that if something happened to Harry Dumbledore would immediately let you know even if there is nothing that you can do for him." Molly's voice was as shrill and spiteful as ever as she once more managed to make me feel like a failure. Her mission in life seems to be to make sure that I know that she has had more of a hand in my pup's life than I have. "Now, the drawing room still has several Dark objects in it so you could take care of that while I cook dinner."


It was harder than usual to hold in the sneer as I swept pass Mother's portrait and up the stairs to my room. There is no way that I'm going to obey the orders of a worthless little blood traitor like her. I never thought that I would use that term for anyone but there isn't a better one for a woman like that hag. She comes from a completely pureblooded line but she knows absolutely nothing about her family's history and she doesn't celebrate any of the traditional wizarding holidays, she sticks to the fluffy muggle holidays that Dumbledore favors. She ran her husband into the ground until it is honestly hard to tell that he is a man and she does it constantly in front of her children. Its really no wonder that all of her adult children lived as far away as they could possibly get.


Bill moved all the way out to Egypt to work as a curse-breaker for Gringotts and only came home on the holidays despite the fact the digs he worked on always had an open floo somewhere nearby. Charlie worked on a dragon reservation in Romania and ignored the open floos just like Bill, only he used the dragons as an excuse to only come home for one holiday a year. Percy worked at the Ministry and should have been able to visit home or even live at home with no problem but he used his busy job as an excuse to stay at the Ministry almost non-stop. The Twins were spending all of their time working in their shop, making new products and causing general panic. The only time the Twins came to Grimmauld was for the occasional Order meeting and to wreck havoc on the place in general.


The room that Dumbledore had confined me to was the same one that my father and mother shared for my entire childhood, they were one of the few pureblood couples that still shared a room after having an heir. The room was dark and depressing but there were a lot of fond memories of before I joined Hogwarts. I was the normal rebellious child but when I got to Hogwarts I wanted to be different, I didn't want to be the normal little heir that got into Slytherin and made the family proud. I already rebelled by making friends with James, but that wasn't enough so I forced the hat to put me in Gryffindor and became everything that my family didn't like. Now I would give almost anything to have my round-eyes little brother, proud father and overprotective mother back.


I stared at the canopy above the bed and started to plot. There had to be something up with Harry, every since I almost died the year before he had made very sure to write me almost every other day to let me know what was going on and to keep me from getting too lonely. He hadn't written in a week and no one would tell me what was going on, they just kept telling me that Dumbledore would tell me if something went wrong but the man hadn't even shown up to do his little weekly check up on the little escaped convict, had to make sure that I wasn't too far gone to be useful after all.


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