He almost called it off the moment he saw how scared his favorite little cousin was. But he knew Albus really needed this with how challenging his home life was being, and Ethan wanted to do his best to help. Of course, it was unfortunate that it came at the expense of other people, but whatever, he'd deal with it later .

He slithered closer to them at a surprising speed. It always felt odd to Ethan how quick he could slither into this form. How well he could hide, and how he could strike before a wizard could even so far as draw their wand, provided he got the drop on them. But that wasn't the point here.

As he saw Albus bravely throwing himself in front of a really scared Elsie, and him suddenly...hissing? Ethan let out a hiss of his own, but really it was him heckling the crap out of Albus for not even doing the proper research in mimicking Parseltongue, as well as a few colorful curse words Ethan was happy couldn't be heard in his serpentine form.

A brilliant idea entered his head. Instead of backing away... Ethan decided to start swaying his head, as if Albus was a magical snake charmer, before he feigned seizing up, like he got a cobra heart attack, and then dropped back down on the ground, his golden serpentine eyes closed....and he started flopping like a fish out of water, his forked tongue hanging at the side of his snout.