Parseltongue

English

"Talking"

Speaking in the mind

Chapter 2

"Hey Little Bitty Nickie" George clapped Nick on the back. Fred reached around the other side and nabbed the tarte off of Nick's plate. Nick tried to grab it back, but Fred popped it into his mouth in one go. George also grabbed the pumpkin juice from in front of Nick and drank the last of it.

"'On't you have your own?" Nick glared at the offending twins.

"Here's the thing," Fred sighed,

"We got in a wee bit of trouble with Snape."

"We're going to have to reschedule your lessons."

Nick frowned, eyebrow raised. The prank they had been planning wasn't due to happen until Friday, how on earth had they managed to get detention before the prank was even pulled?

Fred and George grinned knowingly.

"Marcus Flint" they chorused, "Real prat he is."

Nick turned to find Luna sitting beside him. She always seemed to know when she was needed to explain something. Luna looked up from carving happy faces into an orange. "Marcus Flint is the Slytherin quidditch captain," she mentioned with an air of nonchalance.

"I heard he called Hermione Granger a… a mudblood," Eddie murmured, uneasy with uttering the word. Nick turned to his three roommates with a keen ear. "Must be in the name, eh Marcus?" Eddie had to duck to avoid Marcus's book hitting him upside the head.

Hugo proceeded to flick a pea at Eddie, saying, "You don't ever pay attention. It was Draco Malfoy who called her….that. Flint's just the prick captain, that's all."

Nick turned to the twins, but all they did was shrug.

"Draco's a little small for anyone to be hexing."

That really wasn't the explanation he was looking for. Lucky for Nick, Luna was still right beside him.

"As the captain he really should have said something to Draco"

"Too right, Luna" George answered affirmatively.

"Did you know that Windigos are afraid of oranges?"

"Er, yeah, sure Luna." Fred took a step away from the first year and another step closer to the third years. "Anyways, we have to get to the dungeon before that greasy git gets impatient."

Luna watched the twins leave. Nick looked at the orange in her hand. There was a perfectly round face drawn into it, grinning ear from ear. Luna saw where he was looking and offered him the orange. Nick took it, placed it on the table, picked up Luna's forgotten wand and handed it back to her, all the while giving her a very pointed look. With his eyes alone he attempted to say 'for the love of god, woman, if you ever meet a windigo, you do not simply throw an orange at it. Please, use your damn wand!'

If Luna understood all that, she certainly didn't show it. All she did was smile at Nick as she took back the orange and her wand. With a bit of magic, she shrank the orange before hooking it on to a loose piece of hair.

"Loony Lovegood" one of the girls giggled in passing. The rest of the first years seemed to catch on to the remark.

"Loony Lovegood, oh, that's too perfect! You are such a dolt Luna, I mean really! What was that about Windigos, where did you read about them? The Quibbler?"

From where Nick was sitting, he could see Luna's fingures curled around her fork just a bit tighter. She continued to smile sweetly though as if blissfully unaware of the other first years cruelty.

"I wonder if there are any Windigos in the forbidden forest?" Luna pondered aloud, obviously ignoring the taunts and jeers. The other first years roared with laughter at poor Luna's expense.

Nick looked at the oblivious, wide-eyed girl beside him. He certainly hoped there were no windigos around. He'd yet to run into one, and he'd really like to keep it that way. The flesh-eating monsters were, perhaps, even worse than the Drop Bear.

"I'm going to the library. I heard there were Nargles in the astronomy section. You're welcome to come, if you'd like," Luna offered.

Nick shook his head, giving a wave goodbye as the first year left the dining hall without looking back.

"How did a girl like her ever get into Ravenclaw?" Marcus asked with a vicious spite in his tone. "She should be in Hufflepuff, that nut. Why do you spend time with her, anyways?" The last question was aimed towards Nick. Nick, on the other hand, couldn't help but wonder if there was in fact something about the name Marcus that brought out the worst in people.

"She know a lot," Nick tried to explain. He debated drawing a picture of a windigo, but really, who wanted to see that right after dinner? No one, that's who.

"She's so…. loopy though" Eddie answered, uncaring.

Nick just shrugged and got up from his seat. He figured he'd head back to the dorms, but when the other boys got up after him, Nick opted to take a detour down to the dungeons. A few Slytherins noticed and glared at him. When Nick wasn't around anyone he hissed, "Invisible" and disappeared from view. It certainly was a handy gift to have when you are the only parseltongue.

That particular spell was only really helpful if there weren't other parseltongues around. Which, as the semester dragged on, Nick was starting to think was not the case.

( break here)

As he reached the dungeon, Nick came across a trio standing in the darkly lit corridor, laughing cruelly at someone else's expense, no doubt.

"That's right, run away, Mudblood!" The boy in the center of the trio hollered to the back of a quickly retreating figure. "I don't see any reason why that muggle-lover Dumbledore is allowed to run this school. The likes of those…" The boy sneered at the fleeing figure, "should never be taught in a school like Hogwarts, if at all."

Nick glared at the pompous little slytherin boy. He recognized the middle figure as one of the members of the slytherin house quidditch team. The blond-haired kid was a seeker, and not a terribly good one if the last game against the gryffindor team was anything to go by. Nick pointed to the middle boy's robes and hissed "Turn Gold." He pointed to the other and hissed again, "Turn Red." The group yelped in surprise as soon as they noticed the change of colors in each other's robes. Each of them glared suspiciously at one another.

Nick could only grin as he pointed to their robes once against and hissed "Gryffindor pride." Unless there really was a parseltongue in Slytherin, those robes were never going to be changed back. With any luck.

The trio looked just about ready to kill each other over their horrendous taste in wardrobe. With practiced stealth, Nick slipped further down the halls before he could get caught in the crossfire.

"And just where do you think you're going?" a voice hissed. Nick whirled around to find himself looking at a painting of a very intimidating man with with a long, silver beard. The man was dressed in the most absurdly ornate green and silver robe. Complete with a talisman hanging from his neck that looked as if it might pull the man's neck to the floor if he tried to stand.

Nick blinked owlishly at the painting. He opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out.

"Well?"

Nick cleared his throat. "Ah.. well.. you see sir… I was just looking.. trying to find actually… I was hoping that… that there were other parseltongues around" The painting suddenly swung open to reveal a small, circular library. With caution, Nick stepped into the little room and found that the man in the painting had moved to a canvas hanging over the fireplace.

"I haven't seen a parselmouth in ages. Feel free to read" the man motioned to the books around the room, then took out a book of his own from the painthed library shelves above the fire placr and said nothing more to Nick.

Nick looked around the room and pulled out one of the first books he found. "Parseltongue Patronus," he breathed, reading the title aloud, and sat down on the floor by the fire. There were just two chairs in the little library, but they did not appear sturdy enough to hold up the weight of the dust that had settled on them much less an actual person.

The book was an interesting read, and incredibly relaxing too, after having to struggle through so many English books. After reading about the Patronus's Latin roots, he gave the spell a shot. First in latin: "Expecto Patronum." He tried to think of his happiest memory but every time he thought of one, an equally miserable memory came to mind, and the light would sputter out in a pitiful puff of magic. He tried parseltongue as well, but the only difference was a mildly greenish light coming to another sputtering end, rather than a pale blue one.

"You must concentrate on your happiest memories" the painting pointed out, flipping a page of his book with a dull expression on his painted face.

Nick flopped back onto the ground. "I'm trying but it's harder than you make it sound." The painting made a curious noise, but encouraged Nick again to go on. "Well most of my happiest moments have been in 'the eye of the storm' so to speak. They all have heavily affiliation with rather terrible memories. The first time I flew a broom for example, I was nine and I was trying to escape a rather angry dragon. The flying part was amazing but the fear of being eaten still gives me nightmares from time to time."

"Surely there have been holidays? Festive seasons that have gone unmarred?" The painting suggested, urging Nick on.

Nick frowned at the ceiling, racking his brain for something. "There was a christmas when I was six…. No, that's when Uncle Flagole betrayed us and tried to kill Alex. Hmmm...here was Halloween last year… ah, no, Amelia had a miscarriage. No I don't really think there has been anything. Nothing at all."

Nick sat up and sighed, looking over at the Parseltongue Patronum book. He picked it up and rested it on the seat of one of the chairs.

"Well, I'll think on that and come back in a bit to work on it. I have defense against the dark arts with the puffs now and I don't want to be late."

"Come back anytime you desire. It has been a very long time since I have had anyone to speak with."

Nick said his goodbye and headed out into the corridor. He passed a few Slytherins on their way to a Herbology Class, a few of them whining about mandrakes as they walked by.

He entered the Defense Against the Dark classroom, and found a seat by Eddie.

"Now, students, as you know I am Gilderoy Lockhart. I have earned the Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and I am also five times winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award. I am, dare I say, one of the most accomplished wizards to date. As such, I want you to know that absolutely no harm can or will come to you while you are in my classroom."

"Why do I even bother showing up?" Nick hissed to himself.

"Nick," Eddie elbowed the boy gently and pointed towards Professor Lockhart, "You might want to pay attention, I heard he let a flock of cornish pixies on the Gryffindors and Slytherins when he gave this speech last. Best not to doze off now. Wouldn't want to be caught unprepared."

Nick was tempted to point out that Cornish Pixies didn't exactly have any reason to put off a perfectly good, well-deserved nap just to attack a classroom filled with students, but he settled for writing nasty things about the self-proclaimed "most accomplished wizard" in the margins of his paper in parselscript.

"Now, I have brought in some freshly rounded up pixies for you lot to work with. Try to get all of them back into the cage by the end of class. I'm just going to...wait over here… I'm watching though, not to worry…. And good luck" Professor Lockhart called as he fled the quickly swarming flock of pixies. The professor disappeared into his office to cower, leaving the class to fend for themselves.

In the sudden upheaval most students tried to strike the pixies with an immobulus charm or swat them away with the otherwise useless books written by their professor. On the whole though, there really wasn't much of an effort to get the pixies back into their cage.

"I figure we let the little blighters stay out for the next class" Eddie recommended, passing one of the immobile pixies to Hugo, who in turn straightened the pixie and used it to create one of the towers of his newly constructed, frozen-pixie Hogwarts replica. It was quite a work of art.

Nick pointed his wand to one of the Pixies trying to grab his wand, then cast the "immobulus" charm himself. The Pixie he had aimed for stiffened mid-flight. Nick plucked the blue critter out of the air and passed it to Hugo.

"Thanks, mate. You know, we could always put them all back in the cage and use the rest of class to do a group recap." Hugo pointed out. Marcus walked back over to their desks and passed Hugo three more immobilized pixies.

"I wouldn't mind practicing my 'Expelliarmus.' I understand the theory, but I always struggle with the practice part." Hugo gently bent another pixie into place. Then, happy with his handiwork, he sat back and admired his creation with immense satisfaction. When he looked around the group, wveryone just shrugged with a kind of resigned acceptance. It wasn't that everyone wanted to work, but if they were caught in the halls when they were supposed to be in class, they would get into trouble. And playing with pixies was really more trouble than it was worth.

Finally, the last of the pixies were rounded up and put back into their cage and the group moved into pairs to begin working on their "expelliarmus" spellwork.

The only time Nick had ever used the Latin version of the disarming spell was in his testing period, over a month ago. Within first few rounds of practice, Nick was sent onto his ass with Marcus laughing merrily down at him, but after a few tries Nick felt like he was getting the hang of it.

"Come on Nickie, don't be afwaid!" Marcus sang as Nick dove behind an overturned desk to avoid the incoming expelliarmus.

Nick shifted his weight around behind the pile of chairs he was ducked behind. A curse wizzed over his ear and blasted into a nearby table sending a shower of stinging glitter down on Nick.

He let out a low curse and took a blind leap to the left. Nearly colliding with possible the only desk still up right, Nick sent three consecutive disarming charms all approximately where Marcus was. He used the distraction to dive over the upright desk and behind a small fort of overturned desk the pixies had started.

Somethings was sent crashing to the ground. Nick risked peeking out from behind his fort to see the pile of chairs scattered on the ground.

"Not. Afraid." Nick hissed back , "you?". He sent an expelliarmus at the wall above Marcus's head, and when the boy moved out of the way Nick sent another one where he figured the boy would move to. Sure enough, there came the sound of someone hitting the floor, followed by a painful yelp from Marcus. That was enough for Nick to stand up from his hiding spot, and he sauntered over to his dorm mate. He didn't say anything, simply leaned casually against the desk that Marcus had previously tried to dive behind.

"Yeah Nick" Eddie and Hugo cheered from their place of relative safety at the back of the classroom with the rest of the third year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs.

"That was not proper dueling," One of the girls from Ravenclaw pointed out dryly. The girls behind her tittered and grinned at one another in agreement.

"It was very… athletic," one of the girls said. A blush crept into her cheeks when Nick and Marcus both delivered a graceful bow in her direction.

"Why, thank you" they said in unison. Granted, it didn't sound nearly as cool as when the twins spoke at the same time, since Nick still sounded like he was hissing most of the time.

"Perhaps we could work on some other spells now?" one of the hufflepuffs asked. The group all turned to look at the boy who'd spoken. He smiled sheepishly back. "I was hoping we could work on the Reparo spell? I can't ever get it right."

"That's a stellar idea, we could maybe get into groups and work on different spells," one of the Ravenclaw girls suggested, "I wanted to work on my Lumos, it's not exactly bright."

The group slowly split up into smaller groups of four or five people each, and began to work on spells. Nick found himself wandering between groups. He had particular affinity for the Bombarda spell, and gave several demonstrations with a little miniature door Eddie had transfigured from a desk. With a lazy flick of his wrist, he uttered the word, "Bombarda," and the door swung open gently. A more forceful swish, and a rather terse "Bombarda," and the door practically slammed open. Just for fun, Nick tried yelling "Bombarda" and found the door flying across the classroom, where it collided with one of the overturned desks at the front.

One of the Ravenclaw girls, Cho Chang, was kind enough to go over Petrificus Totalus with Nick and two Hufflepuff girls. Spells with 't's in them were the ones that Nick normally found particularly difficult, but by the time class was over, he could get it once every three tries or so.

The group of Puffs and Ravenclaws walked and chatted all the way back to the great hall. Eddie, Marcus, Hugo, and Nick took their regular seats, but when Nick noticed Luna (and her odd lack of shoes), he moved himself between her and Hugo. For good measure, he shot his dorm mates a warning glare to behave.

If Luna noticed anything out of the ordinary, she didn't say so. The other firsties looked almost disappointed to not have their favorite target of verbal ridicule, but quickly found amusement in gossiping about Draco Malfoy's second-rate placement in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Apparently, some muggleborn had out-performed him every year running.

"Nicholas," Luna greeted Nick turned to his favorite firstie and smiled. "You haven't happened to see my Herbology homework with your books, have you?" Nick shook his head. "Ah, well, I'm sure it will show up eventually."

Nick frowned and looked between the other first year girls, and Luna and raised an eyebrow. With a shrug, she assured, "Oh, it's all in good fun." Nick opened his mouth to argue but Luna gave him a disarmingly happy smile, so he shut his mouth and just accepted it for the time being.

( page break )

After dinner, the Ravenclaws collectively moved to the library with but a few exceptions. Nick found himself seated with Luna and a Gryffindor first year.

"Nick, this is Ginny Weasley. Ginny, Nick Broda," Luna introduced the two merrily. Nick nodded towards the girl with fierce eyes and hair the colour of autumn leafs.

He opened his potions homework. Snape had been… kind enough to assign extra work on identification of potions to Nick, after he had failed to read the instructions properly yet again. That incident had ended with him producing a perfectly brewed Draught of Living Death- rather than a much easier-to-produce Dreamless Sleep Potion. It was better than detention, writing lines or scrubbing cauldrons, as Nick had already been given both after two other failed attempts at translating the title of the potion on the board. Typical.

"Are you going to go to Hogsmeade?," Luna implored. Nick looked up from his work and appeared deep in thought for a moment.

"Oh, you really should!" Ginny encouraged, chiming into the conversation. Her eyes widened when Nick gave her a look, and she turned back to her work as if trying to blend into the books on her desk.

Nick gave Luna a quizzical look, but Luna only smiled back. He guessed Luna didn't know why Ginny didn't feel comfortable talking to him.

"I migh' go... Did you wan' some'ing?" Nick asked Luna with genuine curiosity.

"Hmm.. Chocolate" Luna said decisively. "I will need chocolate".

"An' you, Ginny?" Nick asked. The redheaded girl looked up and gave him a shy smile.

"I'm fine, thanks, my brothers are going, I'll get them to pick me up a little chocolate."

Nick frowned, "Weasley? Fred and George?" The idea of trusting the twins with getting untampered edibles was clearly being questioned, that much was evident in his tone of voice.

Ginny could only laugh at the reaction. "It's fine, they only mess with Ron's food. Not mine. Plus, I can always ask Percy to pick it up, I trust him more with this sort of thing."

"You, Ron, George, Fred..." Nick motioned as if to ask how many siblings she had.

"Percy, Charles and William" Ginny smiled bashfully.

"I always wanted a sister, or a brother" Luna commented.

Nick turned to Luna and with a very straight face. He began to fix her hair, straightened her robes, and refastened the miniature carrot in her hair. "No boys," Nick demanded, rather unexpectedly. With a final brush of the shoulders, he nodded his approval and let Luna turn back to her work.

"Best be careful Luna, brothers can be a right pain most of the time," Ginny warned as well.

Nick's face fell and he shot Ginny a look of miserable brokenheartedness. At first, Ginny appeared surprised and started trying to backpedal, but when she caught sight of the mischievous twinkle in Nick's eyes, she tossed a quill at him.

"You're as bad as the twins, honestly."

( page break here)

That weekend, Fred and George met Nick at the Entrance Hall, and together, the three headed down to Hogsmeade village.

"Lets start at Zonko's Joke Shop," Fred suggested.

"I 'ave few 'ings from Potage's Cauldron Shop, but I meet you at joke shop?" Nick replied.

George flung an arm around the younger boy in an act of comradery. "Na, itty bitty Nickie, we'll come with you. Maybe there will be something to…"

"Inspire us" the twins chorused together.

"Alright, but Honeydukes af'er," Nick said.

The twins nodded in understanding. "Don't you worry, we'll save time for Honeydukes. Promise."