THE WITCHING HOUR ➸ h. potter

27 - rumours

Harry looked up at the crowd, grinning, obviously expecting to see people looking relieved, or puzzled, or even grateful—but certainly not angry and scared.

Snape stepped forward, waved his wand, and the snake vanished in a small puff of black smoke. At was when I unfroze, walking up to Harry as calmly as I could, grabbing his arm and tugging while trying not to look at all bothered.

"Come on," I whispered, "Let's go."

Ron, Hermione and I steered him out of the hall. As we went through the doors, the people on either side drew away as though they were frightened of catching something. I didn't have a clue what was going on, and neither Ron nor Hermione explained anything to harry or I until we had dragged him all the way up to the empty Gryffindor common room. Then Ron pushed Harry into an armchair and said, "You're a Parselmouth. Why didn't you tell us?"

"I'm a what?" said Harry. I was glad to see I wasn't alone in not knowing what they were talking about.

"A Parselmouth!" said Ron. "You can talk to snakes!"

"I know," said Harry. "I mean, that's only the second time I've ever done it. I accidentally set a boa constrictor on my cousin Dudley at the zoo once—long story—but it was telling me it had never seen Brazil and I sort of set it free without meaning to that was before I knew I was a wizard—"

"A boa constrictor told you it had never seen Brazil?" Ron repeated faintly.

"So?" said Harry. "I bet loads of people here can do it."

"Oh, no they can't," said Ron. "It's not a very common gift. Harry, this is bad."

"What's bad?" said Harry. "What's wrong with everyone? Listen, if I hadn't told that snake not to attack Justin—"

"Oh, that's what you said to it?"

"What d'you mean? You were there—you heard me—"

"I heard you speaking Parseltongue," said Ron. "Snake language. You could have been saying anything—no wonder Justin panicked, you sounded like you were egging the snake on or something—it was creepy, you know—"

Harry and I gaped at him. It was strange enough to try comprehend the fact that there were people who could talk to snake's, then add onto that the fact that it was a super rare and apparently frowned upon power, that one of my best friends just happened to have it, and that even he didn't have a clue what it was.

Yeah, things were going just splendid.

"I spoke a different language? But—I didn't realize—how can I speak a language without knowing I can speak it? D'you want to tell me what's wrong with stopping a massive snake biting off Justin's head?" he said. "What does it matter how I did it as long as Justin doesn't have to join the Headless Hunt?"

"It matters," said Hermione, speaking thankfully in a soft voice, "because being able to talk to snakes was what Salazar Slytherin was famous for. That's why the symbol of Slytherin House is a serpent."

My eyes widened as I couldn't help take a quick glance at Harry. Oh.

"Exactly," said Ron. "And now the whole school's going to think you're his great great great great grandson or something—"

"But I'm not," said Harry, with panic in his voice that made me want to tell him everything would be fine, but I couldn't lie to him. Because I really didn't know what was going to happen.

"You'll find that hard to prove," said Hermione. "He lived about a thousand years ago; for all we know, you could be."

Hermione and I sat together up late in the common room near the fire that night, talking things over. We kept trying to steer the conversation back towards our work, which is why we had sat down, but it seemed to have a mind of its own, deciding to let us talk only about what had happened that day.

By next morning, however, the snow that had begun in the night had turned into a blizzard so thick that the last Herbology lesson of the term was canceled. Professor Sprout wanted to fit socks and scarves on the Mandrakes, a tricky operation she would entrust to no one else, now that it was so important for the Mandrakes to grow quickly and revive Mrs. Norris and Colin Creevey.

Harry left the common room just as I walked back in, having gone to take a walk around the grounds before classes started again. Ron informed me he had gone to find Justin, which didn't sound like a great idea to me, but there wasn't much any of us could do to stop him once Harry had gotten an idea stuck in his head. I'd learnt that well enough last yeah.

Not even an hour later, the three of us had headed out to find Harry and see what he was up to, when we stumbled into Professor Mcgonagall and Snape speedwalking down one of the hallways, looking extremely worried.

Hermione had the courage to speak up. "Uh, excuse me, Professor, I'm so sorry to disturb you but I was just wondering if you had seen Harry Potter anywhere? We... needed to tell him something."

Snape rounded on us. "It better have been Goodbyes, as Mr Potter won't be around here much longer."

I could tell me was trying his level best to sound snarky, but there was a certain look of concern in his eyes that startled me much more than what he was implying.

I turned to Professor Mcgonagall. "What...?"

She pressed her lips into a line, looking anywhere but my face. "I'm afraid Severus is correct. I can't say much right now, but Mr Potter is with the Headmaster this second. You'll get to talk to him before... Well, we shall see what happens."

Without another word, the two of them hurried off, speaking in hushed tones, leaving Hermione, Ron and I with horrible sinking feelings.

What had he gone and gotten himself into this time?