"Where did my father find you?" Adrian asked, running his hand down Nagini's back once more.
The sun had begun to set, his father had called a meeting which led to the three to be confined to the room.
The light shone through the window in flickering tones of red and orange, lighting across Nagini's scales in bright shimmers, holding tints of deep green between the normal markings. Lutain's own skin, having lightened to an earthy brown for some odd reason, glowed like a smoldering fire from the sun's light. Nagini's awesome bulk was always awe inspiring, yet somehow she didn't quite hold the same beauty Lutain possessed with the changing colours of his dark and brown scales.
"Where found?" Nagini asked, humming lowly and contently from where she curled around Adrian, "In store, near castle."
"Hogwarts?" Adrian blinked in surprise, "You mean the town, Hogsmeade?"
Nagini gave a hum and lazily flicked her tongue against his cheek.
"Well, what else? Did he buy you?"
"Yes, expensive." Nagini coiled lightly on herself, seeming proud of her price. "I was hatchling, small and cold. I spoke and Master heard, and asked me if I would serve him. I said yes and came with."
"Nagini always speak well?" Lutain curled onto his master's chest. It was a good question, Lutain's own vocabulary was painfully simple when Adrian first found him. Nagini was able to hold entire conversations and even use sarcasm on the rare instance.
"No. Master use the magic and I learn the words, he speak and I become." She hissed, mouth opening to menacing proportions if not for her boastful words, "Master make me great."
"You were always strong, my beautiful," The three glanced up at the door where the tall red eyed man slipped past the previously locked doors. "I just offered to you a greater opportunity for your potential."
There was something pointed in the tone, and Adrian knew better than to think it was coincidental. His father had taken Nagini as a hatchling, sheltering her and nurturing her into a beautiful creation of lethal awe. He raised her and tended to her like a poisonous flower, as deadly and as tantalizing as opium from a poppy.
Then what was he, what was Adrian, supposed to be?
(Against his rationality, he felt like a kneezle; so eager to crawl to his feet and begging for his father's praise.)
Lutain had never quite obtaining the level of fear Adrian held for his father, and slithered over eagerly and gazing upwards expectantly.
A small smile graced thin lips as, wordlessly, a small mouse was conjured. Lutain struck it without thought, the mouse shrieking before slowly going still.
Lutain's coils pulsated, struggling to orient the mouse in a posture where the snake could better consume the creature. The rodent flailed, spasming post mortem in a gruesome display as small amounts of blood already dribbled across Lutain's body.
"You have a quick strike." his father mentioned, eyeing the limp mouse and the strangely coloured snake. "An interesting patterning as well."
Lutain peered down at his body, observing the alteration in his colour. From dark black, almost bluish, he had somehow changed in just a series of days to speckled yellow and brown.
"Summer." Lutain offered, twisting and dancing in a signature S to appear more majestic. "It is warm, and summer now."
"Your scales alter with the seasons? Perhaps a lasting warming charm would appeal to you."
Adrian didn't know how to cast a lasting warming charm. He didn't want Lutain to indulge in a spell that he hadn't cast.
Lutain hissed wordlessly, rising as high as he could without falling to the floor. It was an impressive height, just shy of his father's naval.
"Make scales dark?" Lutain hissed curiously, twisting in a cobra-esq dance. "Make strong?"
"Lutain," Adrian choked out, reaching to snatch the dangerous snake away and back onto the bed. Lutain squirmed in Adrian's frantic grasp.
His father watched him with a blank expression. His mouth was twitching into a slight frown, Adrian had no hope for understanding the expression.
"No?" Nagini asked, lifting her body up and resting her head on Adrian's bed once again, "Master make you fast."
"He's fast enough," Adrian snapped out, swallowing once he realized his insolent outburst.
Nagini opened her mouth for protest, only for Voldemort to stroke down her large head, "Silence, my dear. The spell is quite difficult, otherwise I would long ago have taught young Adrian it. I don't believe he possesses the innate ability for such magic, even if he had years to practice."
The words were ambiguous and bordering the line of praise and insult. Adrian felt almost like keening pathetically, fighting the urge to try and show him wrong.
He could, he could practice and he could do that magic, easily!
And yet, he mused on if his father intended for him to give in so easily. Why else would he have phrased it such as that, if not for Adrian to beg him to teach him anyways?
This wasn't about him though, it was about Lutain. He couldn't throw his familiar in the same danger he faced every day. He wouldn't.
It wasn't that he didn't trust his father, the man had done a remarkable job of tending to his wounds and making sure that he was always alright. He just suspected that everything was beyond his control- everything was orchestrated and practiced and no matter what Adrian did he couldn't escape.
By saying no...this was his chance, this was his choice and not his father's.
He didn't want to disappoint his father. He didn't want to hurt Lutain.
....
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