The next several years saw very little change in their day-to-day activities. The rag-tag bunch of outsiders were close, albeit at somewhat of a distance. They still rotated dinners at each other's houses, and they celebrated holidays together and exchanged gifts as appropriate. Going-away parties were held for Mary Anne and Joe's children the evenings before they departed for school – someone they didn't know came to collect them to buy supplies and returned the children home, just as someone else they didn't know collected them several days before school began to send them off in several legs of roundabout travel.
Geoff and Frank married two women from the neighbourhood, and Bertram married the dark-haired woman who had shown up right before Reginald's screaming fit. The others dated – each other and random neighbours – but Reginald never did, at least not that anyone noticed. They all privately wondered about it – he wasn't overly shy, but nobody said anything, especially after he was approached by neighbours of either sex and simply smiled them off charmingly, saying he wasn't "in a good place for a relationship". He didn't even seem offended when he was simply offered a casual shag. The blonde got it in her head one night to wake him up and was greeted with a very angry man towering over her, saying he didn't appreciate uninvited visitors, but he didn't threaten her and never mentioned it again or acted any differently toward her afterwards.
Daylight hours found them engaged in varying activities which grew increasingly communal, but Reginald never joined them, although he unfailingly showed up to dinner. He had learned some fantastic techniques over the years and always prepared the group a special meal which he was invariably quite proud of.
Although his manner couldn't be described as aloof or standoffish, he gave the impression of not wanting any more than exactly what he had with them and eventually they stopped trying to force him to participate in their daily activities.
This suited him just fine, as he had some difficult personal projects he was working on.
One blisteringly hot day as he sat outside engrossed in a novel, he heard a raspy voice asking for water, and without thinking he glanced around, trying to figure out who was talking to him. His eyes narrowed in confusion when he saw no one near.
Am I having auditory hallucinations? he wondered – then his heart filled with dread when he realised whence the sound had come, and that he'd already reacted to it.
"Down here!" hissed the sibilant voice, and he couldn't stop himself from looking to the ground.
"Would you mind terribly turning the hosepipe on for a moment?" requested what was unmistakably an adder, sitting patiently at his feet.
Reginald leapt up, booted foot hovering threateningly over the viper, and spat, "How did you know I was here?! Who sent you?!"
"Oi, calm yourself. You've lived here since before I was born. You talk in your sleep, you know – we all know you can speak to us."
"We who??"
"All the snakes in the area. But you seemed to want to keep to yourself. It's just – I'm thirsty and your house is closer than the stream."
"Who sent you?" he repeated.
"Nobody sent me. I'm thirsty. Oi, forget it if you're going to be that way about it!"
But not for nothing had he survived to be in exile. He lowered his foot safely away from the snake and took a few steps back. "Begging your pardon. Of course I'll turn the water on for you."
The snake happily followed him to the side of the house, and he turned the water on to a trickle.
When the animal had had its fill, it flicked its tongue out at him by way of thank you.
"Does anyone else in the area talk to you?" he asked apprehensively.
"No – we haven't had a human to talk to in many generations."
"It's very important that nobody ever know that I can talk to any of you, do you understand?" he said, making it an imperative, not a request.
"Sure. Hey, you like dogs, right?"
"What? Where did that come from?" he asked in abject confusion.
"If you go that way," the snake pointed, using its head, "some little human girl has a big, black, shaggy dog with dog children they're giving away."
He closed his eyes as if the idea pained him, then nodded.
"Thank you. Will you come back tomorrow?" he asked the snake.
"Sure. Want me to bring friends?"
"Why not?"
And so it came to pass that Reginald adopted a puppy, upon which he lavished an unusual amount of affection. One of the twins remarked it was as if Reginald was trying to make up for the lack of human companionship in his life by showering the animal with adoration.
Reginald merely shook his head and smiled.
"But I don't understand WHY you want to do this!" the adder protested. "And moreover, I don't understand how. I've never seen a human become a snake!"
Reginald merely snorted and rolled his eyes. "Yeah – well . . . look. It's important, to me. I can go places as a snake that I couldn't go as a human."
"Where, the sewer?! You can go more places as a human, you know!"
"Yes, yes, I know. But really, I haven't all the equipment I'd need – or the people to consult, so I have to do this from memory, and this wasn't my best subject in school, you know."
"What happens if you don't succeed?"
"I don't know. I might die."
"Then don't!"
"Why? I'm already dead. Nobody will miss me."
Two months later, and much the same conversation was taking place.
"I must be doing this wrong. Look – how do you feel?"
"'Feel'? I feel like a snake! I'm hot when it's hot, I'm cold when it's cold, and when I'm going over rocky terrain it hurts!"
"What about when you move?"
The snake stared at him for a few seconds. "I just move!" it said, in an exasperated tone, wiggling back and forth for emphasis.
"And when you eat?"
"I'm full. For a week. And you're crazy!"
Reginald snickered in amusement, but tried to empty his mind of all thoughts except serpentine ones.
You'd think that would be easy for me, but no . . .
He slowly stood up and closed his eyes, willing himself to ground, while trying to remember everything he'd been taught about human transfiguration. He flattened his lips and flared his nose, arms tight to his side, envisioning all his bones collapsing into his spine, and a strange shiver came over him. He ignored it, but his eyes flashed open when it suddenly became difficult to breathe.
And everything looked very, very strange.
He opened his mouth to ask the adder what had happened and was taken aback at the enormous forked tongue that flickered in front of him – and the incredibly vivid taste and smell that accompanied it.
"What happened?" he rasped, not recognising his own voice, not even in Parseltongue.
But the adder had fled.
That's odd, he thought to himself, but decided to see explore his environment.
First things first, though, he had to get an idea of what he looked like.
He slithered (now that's an interesting sensation) to the back of the house and flattened himself just enough to be able to get under the door. (Also a strange sensation.) He made his way through his house, which looked totally different from his new vantage point, and into the lavatory.
He noted he could see, even in the relative darkness of the interior of the house. Now that could be useful.
He gazed at himself admiringly in the mirror and flexed the muscles in his head, rewarded by the flaring of a hood.
He'd become an Equatorial Spitting Cobra.