Vellum Voices •Harry Potter X Blaise Zabini•

Chapter one

Harry sits at a table in the library, his hands wrapped around his head. English words still echo in his thoughts, mostly ones spoken by other people.

Freak! What kind of freak speaks like a snake?

What do you mean, he can't speak English anymore?

But how are we going to break this curse, Professor Dumbledore?

I do not know that it can be broken, Miss Granger.

Harry, what do you want for lunch? Oh, um, sorry, I mean, do you want soup? Nod yes or shake your head.

Harry lifts his head and forces away all emotions with a long hiss that means something worse than "Fuck." The one advantage of being cursed to speak only in Parseltongue, he thinks as he reaches for his quills and parchment. No one can scold you for swearing.

A bag heavy with books thumps down on the table next to him. Harry narrows his eyes and lays his hand on his wand, even though that's an empty threat for right now. He still hasn't mastered more than a few spells that he can cast without words.

"Mind if I sit here, Potter?"

The voice that speaks is utterly unfamiliar, but the face isn't. Harry blinks and stares for a second. The boy leaning one hip against the table and looking as if no answer would surprise him has dark skin, dark hair, and ink-splattered hands that clutch a thick Potions book. He also has a Slytherin crest on his robes.

Harry draws the ever-present parchment towards him so he can scribble on it. Going to carry back tales to Malfoy and his minions? He turns it around so the Slytherin can read it.

The boy does read it, and snorts. "Honestly, he's not that interesting. Besides, he spends all his time licking Umbridge's boots now. He wouldn't have time for friends if they promised to write all his Transfiguration essays for him." He seems to take Harry's permission as a given and throws himself into a chair across from Harry. "Blaise Zabini." He holds out his hand.

Harry glances at it warily, mostly to make sure that he doesn't have one of the twins' pranks in it, and then shakes it. He does recognize Zabini, now that he thinks of it. He's always sitting quietly in the back of the Potions classroom, or partnering with Theodore Nott over a cauldron. Harry can't remember if he's ever laughed at Harry when Malfoy threw something into his cauldron or this year when Snape made every cruel joke imaginable on muteness, but he probably did.

"Don't need to look at me like I'll bite, Potter," Zabini murmurs, opening his Potions book. "I have an essay to write, same as you."

And you don't care about writing it with the human snake at the table next to you?

"I wish I could convey how little that matters to me," Zabini says, twisting back upright in his seat after craning his neck to read the parchment. Harry feels a little offended. He would have pushed it all the way across the table so that Zabini could read it if he had just waited. "But you don't know Legilimency, so you'll have to take my word for it."

Legilimency?

"The art of reading someone's thoughts," Zabini says. He's flipping through his Potions book and frowning. "Did I write down the wrong page number? There's nothing on here about the Draught of Peace."

Harry hesitates. On the other hand, Zabini isn't ignoring him the way so many people do because they don't want to hear him hissing. Page two hundred twenty-three, he scribbles.