meant to be (2)

33

A haze of greenish smoke was hovering over the scene. Both Neville and Justin were lying on the floor, panting; Ron was holding up an ashen-faced Seamus, apologising for whatever his broken wand had done; but Hermione and Millicent Bulstrode were still moving; Millicent had Hermione in a headlock and Hermione was whimpering in pain. Both their wands lay forgotten on the floor. Emma and Levi were both giggling uncontrollably and slapping each other on their arms repeatedly. I deeply suspected it was because of the tickling charm.

"Dear, dear" said Lockhart, skittering through the crowd, looking at the aftermath of the duels. "Up you get, Macmillan... careful there, Miss Fawcett... pinch it hard, it'll stop bleeding in a second, Boot... I think I'd better teach you how to block unfriendly spells" said Lockhart, standing flustered in the midst of the hall.

He glanced at Snape, whose black eyes glinted, and looked quickly away. "Let's have a volunteer pair - Longbottom and Finch-Fletchley, how about you?"

"A bad idea, Professor Lockhart" said Snape, gliding over like a large and malevolent bat. "Longbottom causes devastation with the simplest spells. We'll be sending whats left of Finch-Fletchley up to the hospital wing in a matchbox!" Nevill's round pink face went pinker and I started getting angrier. "How about Malfoy and Potter?" said Snape with a twisted smile.

"Excellent idea!" said Lockhart, gesturing Harry and Malfoy into the middle of the Hall as the crowd backed away to give them room.

"Now, Harry, said Lockhart "when Draco points his wand at you, you do this."

He raised his own wand, attempted a complicated sort of wiggling action and dropped it. Snape smirked as Lockhart quickly picked it up, saying "Whoops - my wand is a little over-excited!"

Snape moved closer to Malfoy, bent down and whispered something in his ear. Malfoy smirked, too. Harry looked nervously up at Lockhart and said "Professor, could you show me that blocking thing again?"

"Scared?" muttered Malfoy, so that Lockhart couldn't hear him.

"You wish" said Harry out of the corner of his mouth. Even though I would never admit it, I was scared. If Malfoy hurt Harry, I definitely wouldn't be able to control my power.

Lockhart cuffed Harry merrily on the shoulder. "Just do what I did, Harry!"

"What, drop my wand?" I gasped at Harry and quickly looked over at Lockhart to see his reaction, but he wasn't listening.

"Three - two - one - go!" he shouted.

Malfoy raised his wand quickly and bellowed: "Serpensortial!"

The end of his wand exploded. I watched, as a long black snake shot out of it, fell heavily onto the floor between the two boys and raised itself, ready to strike. There, were screams as the crowd backed swiftly away, clearing the floor.

"Don't move, Potter" said Snape lazily, clearly enjoying the sight of Harry standing motionless, eye to eye with the angry snake. "I'll get rid of it."

"Allow me!" shouted Lockhart. He brandished his wand at the snake and there was a loud bang; the snake, instead of vanishing, flew ten feet into the air and fell back to the floor with a loud smack.

Enraged, hissing furiously, it slithered straight towards Justin Finch-Fletchley and raised itself again, fangs exposed, poised to strike.

Suddenly Harry started walking towards the snake and hissed something at it. To be honest it sounded terrifying. Justin obviously thought the same.

"What do you think you're playing at?" he shouted, and before Harry could say anything, Justin had turned and stormed out of the Hall.

Snape stepped forward, waved his wand and the snake vanished in a small puff of black smoke. Snape, too, was looking at Harry in an unexpected way: it was a shrewd andcalculating look, and Harry didn't seem to like it.

Whispers filled the hall. I knew we had to get Harry out of here as quickly as possible.

"Come on" said Ron's voice in his ear. "Move - come on..."

"I'm sorry guys..." I said looking at the three Ravenclaws, who all looked quite shocked, before following Ron and Hermione.

Ron steered Harry out of the Hall, Hermione and I hurrying alongside them. As we went through the doors, the people on either side drew away as though they were frightened of catching something.

Harry looked like he didn't have a clue what was going on, and neither Ron, Hermione nor I explained anything until we had dragged him all the way up to the empty Gryffindor common room.

Then Ronpushed Harry into an armchair and said, "You're a Parselmouth. Why didn't you tell us?'"

"I'm a what?" said Harry.

"A Parselmouth!" I repeated. "You can talk to snakes!"

"I know" said Harry. "I mean, thats 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?" I said sarcastically, while raising an eyebrow.

"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, starting to sound quite angry. "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?" Ron said dramatically.

"What d'you mean? You were there... you heard me!" Harry shouted.

"We heard you speaking Parseltongue!" I argued.

"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!" Ron said

Harry gaped at us.

"I spoke a different language? But - I didn't realise - how can I speak a language without knowing I can speak it?"

I shook my head. I bet the three of us looked as though someone died while Harry looked rather unbothered.

"D'you want to tell me what's wrong with stopping a dirty great snake biting Justin's head off?" he said. "What does it matter bow I did it as long as Justin doesn't have to join the Headless Hunt?"

"It matters" said Hermione, speaking at last in a hushed 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."

Harry's mouth fell open.

"Exactly" I said. "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 a tone of panic in his voice.

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