Ariana Dumbledore || Harry Potter

09| parseltounge

"Again? You mean the Chamber of Secrets has been opened before?" I asked Harry as he told us about what he overheard in the hospital wing that night. "Of course. Don't you see? Lucius Malfoy must have opened it when he was at school here. And now he's taught Draco how to do it." Ron said.

"Maybe. We'll have to wait for the Polyjuice Potion to know for sure." Hermione said as she stirred the potion. "Enlighten me. Why are we brewing this potion in broad daylight, in the middle of a girl's lavatory? Don't you think we'll get caught?"

"No. No one ever comes in here." I say looking around. "Why?" Harry and Ron say at the same time.

"Moaning Myrtle."

"Who?" They asked again.

"Moaning Myrtle." I say once more. "Who's Moaning Myrtle?"

"I'm Moaning Myrtle! I wouldn't expect you to know me! Who would ever talk about ugly, miserable, moping Moaning Myrtle?" She then disappeared into a toilet. "She's a little sensitive."

"Gather round, gather round! Can everybody see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent! In light of the dark events of recent weeks, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little Dueling Club to train you all up in case you ever need to defend yourselves, as I myself have done on countless occasions, for full details, see my published works. Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape. He has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration. Now, I don't want any of you youngsters to worry you'll still have your Potions master when I'm through with him, never fear. One, two, three-"

"Expelliarmus!"

Snape sent Lockhart straight back, him landing harshly on his back. "Do you think he's all right?" Hermione says looking at me worriedly.
"Who cares?" Ron says annoyingly

"An excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don't mind me saying, it was pretty obvious what you were about to do. And if I had wanted to stop you, it would have been only too easy."  Lockhart stand and brushes himself off. "Perhaps it would be prudent to first teach the students to block unfriendly spells, Professor." Snape looked at Professor Lockhart with pure hate, And I could sense the awkwardness in the room.

"An excellent suggestion, Professor Snape! Let's have a volunteer pair! Potter, Weasley, how about you?" Lockhart looks over towards us. "Weasley's wand causes devastation with the simplest spells. We'll be sending Potter to the hospital wing in a matchbox. Might I suggest someone from my own house? Malfoy, perhaps?"

We watch as both Harry and Malfoy climb there way onto the platform. "Wands at the ready." I feel my hands begin to sweat intently.

"Scared, Potter?" Malfoy said cockily, looking towards my direction giving me a quick wink.

I scoffed loudly, many around looking towards me.

Harry resounded cleverly. "You wish."

"On the count of three, cast your charms to disarm your opponent, only to disarm. We don't want any accidents here. One, two-"

"Everte statium!" Malfoy disobeys the rules once again. My eyes go wide as Harry is thrown back viscously. Malfoy's friends Crabbe and Goyle laugh obnoxiously loud. "You think that's funny do you? Oh you wait till I-"

Hermione grabbed my arm and pulled me back. "Pull it together Ariana, Harry's got this." I brushed myself off and collected my thoughts as I looked up at Harry.

"Rictusempra!"

I laughed extremely loud when Malfoy was thrown back as he lands perfectly at Professor Snape's feet."I said disarm only!" Professor Lockhart snapped at the both of them.

"Serpensortia!"

A snake appears on the platform and I felt scared for Harry, not knowing how he will react. "Don't move, Potter. I'll get rid of it for you."

"Allow me, Professor Snape." Lockhart says.

"Alarte ascendare!" Lockhart's spell made the snake fly up in the air, which just added to the snakes rage. Harry slowly walked up to the creature and began speaking to it. Everyone around me was confused, not knowing the foreign language he was so fluent it.

"That's parseltounge. How does he know that?" I asked Hermione who said nothing and stared in disbelief. The snake looked to Justin Fletchley, and looked as if it was ready to attack.

"Vipera evenesca." The snake burned and disappeared by Snape's wand.

Harry came if the platform, not aware of what he had just done. "You're a Parselmouth? Why didn't you tell us?" Ron asked confused.

"I'm a what?"

"You can talk to snakes and they can understand you." I said looking at Harry. "I know. I mean, I accidentally set a python on my cousin Dudley at the zoo once. But, so what? I bet loads of people here can do it."

"No, they can't. It's not a very common gift, Harry. This is bad." Hermione's said nervously.
"What's bad? If I hadn't told that snake not to attack Justin-"

"That's what you said to it?" Ron asked Harry.

"You guys were there! You heard me!"

"No actually we didn't, we heard you speaking Parseltongue. Snake language?" Hermiome refuted. "I spoke a different language? But I didn't realize I, how can I speak a language without knowing I can?"

"I don't know, Harry, but it sounded like you were egging the snake on, or something. Harry, listen to me. There's a reason the symbol of Slytherin House is a serpent. Salazar Slytherin was a Parselmouth. He could talk to snakes, too." I said too him.

"Now everyone is going to think I'm his great great grandson." He rolled his eyes. We all exchanged looks, "That was thousands of years ago, for all we know, you could be."

We all sat in the common room, silence overtaking the room. Everyone was on edge, not knowing what to say next to Harry.
Harry got up and went to his dorm, returning a few moments later with his coat and scarf. He left the room without a word.

I sighed and stood up to follow him.

I found him overlooking the lake, and I knew his thoughts were too much to bear with. "Harry, are you alright?" I say as I stand next to him. "No. I don't even know who I am Ariana. I'm scared." I nodded my head. "I understand what you mean. I'm sorry this is happening, you don't deserve any of  this."

"I know nothing about my parents, or this parseltounge that I'm speaking. I don't even know who I am." His head drops at the words.

"It's going to be alright Harry, we will help you get through this. You know we will." He smiled at me and looked down.

"Thank you, for everything." He said to me.

"Of course. Always."

He smiled at me again. "Now let's get inside, it's too cold out here for my liking."