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.It wasn’t very large, barely longer than her hand, with blue-gold scales, but she knew it was absolutely lethal.Even touching it with her bare skin risked losing her hand; a single bite would kill her within seconds.Its head slowly rose, moving from side to side hypnotically.She couldn’t escape the sensation that it was biding its time before striking.She tried frantically to think of a plan.A movement, any movement, might cause the snake to strike; there was no way she could get it off her by herself.She could try to use magic, but if she alarmed the snake she might be bitten faster.And her body had to be warmer than the surrounding environment, considering the chill.It was unlikely the snake would want to move elsewhere until it got hungry, and it might bite her before then anyway.The snake hissed.Emily felt a shiver running through her body as she stared at it, wondering if she dared try to jump to her feet.If she did it fast enough, maybe she could throw the snake somehow before it could bite her.But her mind refused to believe it; fear kept her still, as motionless as possible.She knew it was only a matter of time until the snake bit her.She wanted to use magic to call Lady Barb, but her concentration was so badly shot she wasn’t sure she could cast the spell without alarming the creature.Lady Barb might find her dead and rotting body after the snake had eaten its fill.She met the golden eyes again and shuddered, despite her best efforts.The snake seemed to reach out and invade her mind, although she wasn’t sure if it was real or if it was just her imagination, aided and abetted by fear.There was something about it that held her frozen, something more than the threat of being bitten or merely touched.She felt a sudden warmth against her chest and realized, in horror, that the snake’s venom was slowly oozing through her shirt.It wouldn’t be long before the poison sank into her body and killed her outright.A thought occurred to her as she stared at the snake.She knew the spells for taking a familiar, an animal companion, but she’d never been able to bond with anything.It wasn’t common – only a handful of magicians ever bonded with an animal – but the spells had been hammered into her head in Second Year.Did she dare try to take the snake as a familiar? She tried desperately to recall what she’d been told about such creatures; they couldn’t harm their humans, if she recalled correctly, and they aided with certain types of magic.But there was a price in return.The warmth against her chest grew stronger.There wasn’t much time left.Emily braced herself and cast the spell despite the risk of provoking an immediate attack.The Death Viper hissed angrily as the magic reached out to touch it, then there was a sudden blur of sensation that threatened to overwhelm Emily’s mind.It felt like she’d been transfigured into a snake herself in some ways, but different, too.as if she was both human and snake at the same time.She had a sudden vision of her body, her pale face staring in fear, before the magic faded away.The Death Viper hissed – somehow, the sound was no longer so threatening – and slid off her chest.Emily let out a sigh of relief and, despite her exhaustion, stood upright.The Death Viper looked up at her with a curiously biddable expression, insofar as it could have an expression.It took her a moment to realize that she was reading its emotions through the familiar bond.It felt.strange.Every work of fiction she’d read concerning familiars suggested that they could talk to their pet humans.Instead, all she received from the creature were impressions, half of which didn’t even make any sense.The ground was warm, she was warm, the rest of the world was not.she shook her head, unsure what to do.Most familiar bonds were forged under controlled conditions.But she’d never heard of anyone trying to bond with a Death Viper, ever.She looked down at her shirt and gasped.There was a dark mark on her chest where the snake had sat, its poison slowly oozing through the material.Emily gritted her teeth, then carefully – very carefully – pushed the shirt away from her body and disintegrated it into dust, acidic poison and all.There was an odd resonance in her magic – it was linked to the snake now, she realized – which faded away almost as quickly as she noticed it.Her undershirt felt thin and revealing against her chest, but there was no alternative.Rudolf had hardly given her time to snatch up her bag before she’d run after him.Shaking her head, she looked down at the snake, which looked back at her.The waves of snakelike sensations grew stronger as she met the golden eyes.It loved her, she realized dimly, even though part of it realized that the feeling wasn’t natural.But then, what sort of idiot would try to domesticate a Death Viper? The snakes were so lethal that nature hadn’t even bothered to provide them with any form of camouflage.“So tell me,” she said, out loud.“What should I call you?”There was no response.Emily rolled her eyes at herself; of course there wouldn’t be any response.The snake wasn’t human, and it wasn’t even intelligent in its own right.She suspected it hadn’t even been touched by wild magic or deliberately altered to be intelligent.It was just a snake, even though it was now bonded to a human.It didn’t make it automatically intelligent enough to hold a conversation.“Maybe I should call you Voldemort,” she said.The thought made her snicker.A snake called Voldemort.It sounded like a piece of fan fiction.“Or maybe Scales.”The snake didn’t seem to like either of those names.It moved, curling up and uncurling with astonishing speed.Emily couldn’t fear it any longer, but she still felt a cold shiver as she realized just how quickly Death Vipers could move.She’d never had the impression snakes could actually chase humans down, yet now.there was an odd sense from the Death Viper, an impression that there were dead humans nearby.Emily hesitated, then followed the snake as it plunged into the undergrowth.It seemed to want to show her what it had seen.She half-expected to see Rudolf.She had no idea how Death Vipers mated and bred, but she was sure that where there was one, there would be others.Maybe Rudolf had run into a Death Viper, too, and been killed.Surely, someone who lived near such creatures would know better than to be caught by one, but the snakes were lethal.She had a vision of a snake dropping down from the trees to land on its target and realized, a moment later, that it came from her new familiar.Reluctantly, she looked up and saw.nothing.The bodies came into view a moment later, lying in a hollow off the beaten track.Emily gagged at the smell.and gagged again when she realized just how many animals had taken bites out of the corpses
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