A sneak peek:
"SNAPE!" Theodore shouted from upstairs. "GET YOUR CHILD UNDER CONTROL!"
Severus groaned as he looked mournfully down at his freshly brewed cappuccino. Reheated cappuccinos just were not the same. Severus had yet to have a fresh one since summer began, which he blamed solely on Potter.
"What is the problem now?" Severus sighed as he entered the boys' room.
... and immediately saw for himself what the problem was.
"Absolute not," Severus snapped. "Harry, where on Earth did you acquire a King Cobra?"
Potter was laying on his bed, tenderly wrapped up in the grip of a ten foot long, dark brown cobra. Worse yet, Potter was hissing at it lovingly in Parsletongue.
"I needed him," Potter said casually, easily switching back to English. "Timmy has a snake. So I'm going to use Stevie to kill Nagini."
"Where did you get it?" Severus repeated, ignoring the deplorable name Potter chose.
'Sevvie' 'Stevie' 'Mister Snoop'.
Severus wished his ward would quit mocking his name at every given chance. It was hardly as if he chose it
Additionally, Severus also prayed that Potter did not receive an opportunity to name a child any time soon.
"What's going on?" Barty asked, poking his head in the room behind Severus. "MERLIN! Is that a King Cobra?"
"Yup." Potter stroked the cobra's head gently as it hissed loudly at Severus and Barty. "His name's Stevie."
"He's brilliant," Barty sighed, eyeing the reptile with the look of a man intent upon learning all there was to know about the venomous and deadly snake in their home.
"Snape, he's trying to keep it in here!" Theodore cried, huddling carefully as far from Potter as possible while still remaining in the same room. "Tell him he can't keep a King Cobra in our bedroom! It'll kill me in my sleep!"
"Not if I tell him not to," Potter said. The three others watched as Potter switched to Parsletongue and began carrying on a conversation with the deadly serpent.
"He says he won't kill you unless I tell him to," Potter smiled sweetly at Theodore after the snake hissed back at Potter. "So it's fine."
"IT IS NOT FINE!" Theodore shouted shrilly. "HERMIONE WON'T COME OVER WHILE ITS HERE! SNAPE! HE IS YOUR PSYCHOTIC TEENAGER - THIS IS ENTIRELY YOUR PROBLEM!"
Severus sighed heavily as Theodore shoved past him and stormed down the stairs.
Miss Granger refusing to return to their home was almost reason enough to allow Potter to keep the snake. If Frederick Weasley held the same qualms, it would seal the deal.
Though, Severus was quite sure that any fool who fell in love with a dangerous young man such as Potter would hardly fear one of the largest and most deadly snakes in the world.
"I think we should keep it," Barty said as he took a few slow steps towards Potter and the snake. "It'll be like a guard venomous snake for our family."
"We are not a family," Severus sighed. Although, he was beginning to feel as if he were an exhausted parent with the three mad housemates he had to protect and raise.
"Exactly!" Potter beamed at Barty after rolling his eyes at Severus. "I knew you'd get it."
Of course Barty 'got it'. Because he was as mentally ill, and possibly deranged, as Potter was.
Which meant that Severus had to find a way to convince Potter to get rid of the cobra.
Apparently without the assistance of the other adult in the household.
"Where did it come from Harry?" he repeated once more, quite sternly.
Severus groaned out loud at Potter's suddenly evasive look and mentally corrected his previous thought:
Severus then had to find a way to convince Potter to get rid of the definitely illegally imported, dangerous cobra.
~~~
"Have you lost your god damned mind?!" Severus yelled, drawing the eyes of Potter's friends from their gathering place around Potter.
"What?" Lucius said defensively, sharing a bewildered look with Barty, who shrugged at him helplessly. "Potter likes weapons! He has a whole wall of them! You let him take Pettigrew's dagger! What's the problem here?"
Severus absolutely did not 'let Potter' steal a dagger from the man he killed last month.
However, that issue was quite aside the point at present.
"The problem is that you have gifted my impulsive fifteen year old with a semi-automatic pistol," Severus seethed.
"Which is a weapon... right?" Lucius clarified slowly. "I know it's a muggle thing, but Borgin assured me of its rarity in the magical world and I thought Potter may enjoy it? How is it different from the knives, swords, and spears?"
"Will it even work then? If it's a muggle weapon?" Barty asked curiously, eyeing the gun Potter was awkwardly handling. "If it's a muggle thing, it might not, right? Because of the high concentration of magic?"
BANG!
"It works!" Potter cried with a blindingly bright smile.
Severus looked at the fucking hole in the wall of their house and felt his eye beginning to twitch. He wondered which was the bigger threat to his life:
Attempting to raise Harry God Damned Potter, or being in the top three of the Dark Lord's 'to kill' List?
Definitely Potter, he decided quickly as Potter tossed an apple to Ronald Weasley and Severus immediately had to step in to stop what was supposed to be 'a brill idea' that Potter 'saw in a movie with Susan'.