Sound's Strange (Part 2)

You can find Part 1 over here.

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“This Sasuke, will he actually help me?” Harry hissed at the purple snake around his neck.

The snake shifted, it's scales rubbing against his skin. “He didn't understand you calling him Itachi, so maybe. I haven't really heard anything much about him.”

The large grey snake that was coiled loosely around Harry, hissed in laughter. “That's because there's nothing to say about him. He doesn't summon us often and when he does it's all business. Isn't that right, Acid-eyes?”

“Acid-eyes?” Harry repeated as he looked at the yellow snake that Orochimaru had summoned. “That's your name?”

Acid-eyes leaned her large head close to Harry. “That's a name that humans don't know because they can't can't say like we do. Not even Orochimaru, though he has been our summoner long before I hatched.”

“I see,” Harry said, feeling slightly awkward at having all snakes' attention focused on him.

“And that's why Orochimaru is going to steal your speaking ability,” the grey snake said. “Even Manda-sama will have to acknowledge this ability to speak like one of us. No human has been able to do so before.”

The small purple snake around Harry's neck nodded, “That's right, I heard what they were saying when they captured you. With everything Kabuto was spouting, I told Stone-eater that we needed to help you.”

“I didn't believe him,” the grey snake, Stone-eater hissed. “But I wouldn't miss a chance to make things difficult for high and mighty Kabuto.”

“He wants my ability to talk to you? He won't get it,” Harry said, confident that as a rare magical ability, Parseltongue couldn't just be taken from him.

“That's why he's going to have that dumb Kabuto cut you open and take it,” Stone-eater hissed with open distaste.

“We can't let that happen,” the small purple snake around Harry's neck hissed with impatience. “We should tell Manda-sama and he'll have to intervene.”

“Have to?” Acid-eyes hissed as she raised her head high to loom over them. “Manda-sama follows the laws of a summoning contract. He won't go against his own summoner, especially his oldest and longest living one, for a stranger.”

“I'm not a stranger,” the purple snake hissed.

“You might be the youngest of Manda-sama's newest hatchlings. But you don't even have a name.”

Harry raised a hand to shield the small snake around his neck.

But the purple snake reared up and hissed over Harry's hand. “Fine, then I will protect him by myself.”

Both of the larger snakes reared back in surprise.

Harry interrupted. “Maybe I can talk and...”

“No,” the purple snake hissed. “Words won't work.”

“And either way, the time for words has long passed,” Stone-eater said, his grey eyes fixed on the humans. “It looks like you've used up all of Orochimaru's patience.”

As though he knew what they were talking about, Orochimaru stalked forward, his lips curled back in a mocking smile and his gold slitted eyes narrowed in rage.

Harry mentally cursed himself for not paying attention.

“Don't worry,” the purple snake reassured him. “I won't let him get you.”

Harry didn't believe the small snake. Not when the other two snakes- who were much larger than Harry- were worried.

Harry still didn't believe it as he knelt in the middle of a smouldering crater much later, after surviving the most unbelievable battle of his life. Waving a bruised and battered hand to magically disperse all the fumes and smoke around him, Harry popped the bubble head charm around his head. As Harry looked around at the carnage they had managed to wrought, he swallowed, “Well, that happened.”

Sasuke turned to him, his dark and leathery skin from the fight smoothing back to pale and unblemished skin. “You can speak.” His blinked and fell forward in a dead faint.

Harry groaned as he leaned forward just in time for the other teen to fall onto his injured arms. “Why couldn't you be closer to the ground if you were going to faint, idiot.”

The little purple snake, covered with soot, slithered back to Harry. “I can't detect any life from those two. They're both definitely dead now after the scary stuff you managed.”

Harry grimaced as he went over the few healing spells he knew. “That, I didn't mean to do any of that.”

The snake climbed up his bare and bruised arm. “If you hadn't changed Kabuto then I wouldn't have been able to kill him. And then he would have killed you.”

Harry grimaced. “I don't understand why this Sasuke helped me.”

“You're really lucky he didn't understand you calling him Itachi. Every snake knows how much he despises his brother,” the snake said, as though that explained anything. “But I think he just took advantage of the situation to kill Orochimaru.”

“Is he really dead” Harry asked, his voice a hesitant whisper.

The snake shuddered against the skin of Harry's neck. “I hope so. I didn't know he was so... I guess that's why he was still Manda-sama's main summoner.”

“Could he turn into that snake form because...”

“I don't know,” the snake replied. “None of the others mentioned it. And Stone-eater looked so surprised.”

“Is he going to be all right?” Harry asked.

“Maybe,” the purple snake hissed back. “It's a good thing he was summoned by Kabuto. He went back to the summoning realm so maybe they can fix him.”

Harry looked down at the snake's singed and cut scales. “You can't go back like that?”

“I wasn't summoned. I left the cave to earn a name that would let me grow.”

“Earn a name?” Harry asked as he cleaned the grime off of his skin.

“Names are a gift that need to be earned,” the snake hissed as though quoting an old and crotchety somebody with his hissing.

Harry snorted before he could help himself but frowned as he got a closer look at the snake's scales, “You're a lot more injured than you let on.”

The snake hissed. “Not like anything can be done about it.”

Harry took the snake down from around his neck and used a quick Episkey. “Better?”

The snake curled and slithered around Harry's hands with open fascination. “You healed me.”

“You think I was hovering next to this violent idiot for fun?” Harry asked, motioning to the unconscious Sasuke. “He had some bad injuries on the inside.”

“Humans can heal up by themselves, can't they?” the snake asked.

“I don't think Kabuto or Orochimaru should count as normal humans,” Harry said with a frown.

The snake raised his head. “Neither are you. You didn't even use any chakra in that fight.”

“How did things turn out this way? I was going to Konoha but instead I get kidnapped and end up in the middle of a ninja fight. And it's all because I saved you.” Harry looked down at the snake. “I think if you had a name, it would something like Trouble.”

“Trouble,” the purple snake hissed with something like wonder. “That's a good name. I like it. It feels right. To think that I would earn a name so early in my life. None of the others got a name so young.”

Harry frowned. “Wait, I didn't... what?”

“A name spoken to us in our tongue means that we have earned a name.”

“I'm sure that means if another snake spoke your name.”

“No, the law states, when a name is spoken in our tongue. It doesn't say it has to be spoken by another snake. Besides, I felt the power of getting a name welling up inside me. Trouble's my name now,” Trouble hissed with delight.

Hedwig, who had thankfully left the moment the battle started, returned with a loud hoot accompanied by what seemed like a stampede of people.

“Orochimaru-sama!” One of the man called out, almost hesitantly.

Harry and Trouble shared a look and turned to the group of people who stopped well away from the crater.

Trouble slithered up until he was around Harry's neck again.

“Orochimaru is dead,” Harry declared as he stood in front of the unconscious Sasuke.

The man in front of the group, stared between Harry's face and the snake around his neck, swallowed and fell to one knee with a bow. “Nidaime-sama.”

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First a deer and now a snake named “Trouble”, yeah, I'm going to need to make some more AUs with different animals that I can give the same name to. 

Polar