I'm sorry everyone! And by everyone, I mean anyone who added this thing to their story alert and then waited over a year for me to update it… I'm really a terrible person. My deepest apologies. But I remembered to add on to it eventually… it's to my unending surprise that I find that people are reading my stories even when I leave my account alone for ages on end. I have no idea why, but it pleases me immensely. Anyway, rant ends now. Thank you for reading! Now on to the actual story.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling and I am simply borrowing her characters for my own use.


7. In Which Scorpius is a Deviant and Tries to talk to Snakes

It was an ordinary day in April, and Scorpius was lathering a piece of toast in jam while Al sat beside him devouring a stack of pancakes and maple syrup. Rose had yet to appear, which was unusual, but the two Gryffindor boys were too preoccupied with breakfast to question it. They hardly even paid attention to the post arriving, even though a package was dropped off in front of them, along with one for each of the separate House tables. The Great Hall erupted into discussion around them, and the pair wouldn't have given any notice whatsoever, except that it seemed that everyone was looking at them. Scor finally lifted his blond head to peer around at the rest of his classmates only to find them gawking at him and Al. He lifted a puzzled brow.

"What's going on?" he asked Al, who had a mouthful of pancake halfway to his mouth.

The other boy blinked a few times before noticing that they were the center of everyone's gaze. He shrugged one shoulder half-heartedly, "Dunno."

Then, Scor's grey eyes rested on the unopened package, and he used a hastily muttered spell to slit it open. Out fell several pictures, unmoving ones. He scrunched his nose as he examined one. It portrayed Al dressed up in girls' dress robes dancing with Scorpius, who was wearing normal robes.

"Oh, that must have been from the Valentine's Ball," Al rolled his eyes. "I remember Rose took that, actually…"

"When she took it, I don't think it had this scrawled at the bottom…" Scor pointed out the colourful loops.

Al looked closer and snorted, "According to this, I'm a cross-dresser and you're some sort of sexual deviant. This looks like Lily's handwriting."

"I'm hardly surprised," the blond boy sighed. "It's not so much that one that I'm worried about. The rest of them rather alarm me."

The rest of the pictures featured Al in different female attire, both wizarding and muggle alike. Scor was also in them, all with his arms around the shorter boy. Al's eyebrows shot upward.

"Well, that's different," he managed to say.

In the next moment, the doors to the Great Hall opened, and Rose arrived, very belatedly, head hanging despairingly, although she looked up when she realized how noisy it was in the room.

"I'm so sorry!" she wailed as soon as she saw them. "I didn't know why she wanted those pictures! I should have suspected!"

"So, these are manipped pics, right?" Al asked, squinting at one. "She's good! I can't even tell!"

"That's cause those are natural poses…" Rose said. "I remember taking them of you two, she just added different clothes."

"I see," Scor groaned. "I suppose this is her so-called 'revenge' then."

"Why didn't she get revenge on you?" whined Al as he pushed his plate away, appetite gone.

Rose shrugged, "She's got nothing on me."

Al wrote to his mother the same night detailing Lily's devious manipulated artwork and got a letter in return cheerfully assuring Al that she'd already seen it. In fact, Lily had shown them to her before she'd sent them all, asking if her mother could tell they were fakes. The letter had gone on to say that Ginny had found the pictures 'adorable', and that Lily had just been 'having some fun'.

"What!" Al cried out. "This was sanctioned by Mom? What is this world coming to?"

Meanwhile, the rest of the school assumed that Al was, in fact, a cross-dresser, and after a week of thorough teasing, they left him somewhat alone. He handled the harassment quite well, considering. Scor asked him about it later in the week, wondering why his friend didn't seem to care all that much.

"Hey, you're the 'sexual deviant', not me," Al reminded him.

"I didn't even know Lily knew the word 'deviant', never mind being able to apply it to 'sexual'", Scor groaned, palm hitting his face.

"Well, we can ask her about it over Easter Break," Al reminded him. "You and your dad are gonna come over at some point, right?"

"Totally, I'll drag my dad outta bed if I have to!" Scor affirmed with determination.

He did, in fact, drag his father out of bed as soon as there was light enough to fly by broom. Scor was not to be denied, his father's bedraggled appearance and bed-head hair notwithstanding. They were met at the door by Harry, who smiled a bit at Draco's ruffled appearance and vague scowl. Scorpius was about to rush in to see Al when he suddenly noticed something resting in the dark shade of a hedge and stooped to pick it up by the back of the neck. It was about half a yard long and had a zigzag pattern in black running down its spine, with the rest a uniform gray.

"Scor, that's an adder!" his father seemed frozen with fear.

"Oh, is it?" he leaned closer to examine it as his father made a strangled noise that sounded a bit like a mouse being stepped on.

The snake itself gave an angry sounding hiss, but was unable to move thanks to Scor's grip on its neck.

Suddenly, to the young Gryffindor's surprise, Harry leaned over so that his green eyes were level with the snake, and similar sibilant noises emerged from between his lips. Scor's grey orbs grew wide in astonishment as the snake hissed back in response. The two almost seemed to have a conversation, before a word from Harry in English started the blond boy out of his shock.

"Scorpius, put him down, please," Harry instructed firmly.

"Are you mad?" snapped his father incredulously. "It might bite him!"

"No he won't," Harry assured him. "I asked him not to."

Scor did as he was told, even as his father cried out in alarm. The adder shot him a glance that seemed somewhat venomous, but slithered back into the bushes without another glance.

"You're a parselmouth!" he turned on Al's father accusingly.

"That I am," Harry admitted with a half-shrug that reminded him strongly of his friend.

"You're not surprised?" Scor tugged on his father's sleeve.

"No," his father shook his head. "I'm the reason he even figured out he was a parselmouth in the first place."

"Yeah, by shooting a viper at my face," retorted Harry.

"Snape told me to!" his father protested. "Besides, I was twelve."

"That's no excuse!" Harry cried.

Scor decided they were talking about grown-up stuff again and left them there to argue it out on the front step. He hurried inside and immediately ran into Al, who glomped him happily.

"Did you know your dad can speak parseltongue?" he asked once Al had let go.

"No…" Al frowned. "He never told us anything like that."

"Well, he is," Scor announced. "I'll bet he's been hiding it for a reason, so we should try to find out, okay?"

Al shrugged and then said, "Let's go play Quidditch! My brother's already up in the air, and Lily's getting kitted out. Come on! Besides, we need to practice. We don't want Slytherin to beat us!"

Scor acquiesced to this idea, and the two took off running into the backyard, Harry's parselmouth tendencies forgotten for the moment.

What was not forgotten was Quidditch. Al and Scor were determined to do well in their last game against Slytherin. Vance had been driving them hard in practice, and along with all the homework they had and their upcoming exams, they hardly had any energy left to spare to think about parseltongue. The two boys were sure it was all worth it if they could just win against Slytherin, and be able to rub it in Edwin Nott's face. It wasn't as if they had anything particularly against the boy, it was just that Lily seemed to like him. It was the principal of the thing! That, and he was a chaser for the other team, which made him their enemy automatically.

The day of the match, Al hardly took a bite of his pancakes, even though they were his favorite. Scor tried to cajole him into eating, even as he himself scarfed down a stack of toast slathered in jam. Rose had turned up with a bunch of little Gryffindor flags to hand out for everyone to wave, but Al could hardly even muster a smile. Scor practically had to drag his friend out to the changing rooms. He might have been nervous before the game started, but as soon as the balls were in the air, he got a determined look on his face.

"We're not going to lose!" he told Scor fiercely as the two of them readied their bats in anticipation of the oncoming bludgers.

"No, of course we're not," Scor told him.

The playing was rough, and Al already had a black eye from a mid-air scuffle when something strange started happening. One of the Slytherin chasers suddenly came to an abrupt halt and was still for a moment or two, before his broom started jerking around and bucking about. The boy struggled to get it back under control, but it flipped over, trying to dump him upside down. Everyone was enthralled by this spectacle, until a sharp yelp sounded from somewhere above them. The two Gryffindors looked up to see Nott caught in a similar predicament, but he seemed less skilled at holding on to his broom. He was flipped off over the end, and he let out another shriek as he began to plummet towards the ground. Scor didn't even think twice before maneuvering his own broom underneath Nott to slow down his rapid descent from the sky. A moment later Al joined him, so that between the two they had stabilized their downward movement.

A glance around the pitch showed that almost everyone on the Slytherin team was riding double with a Gryffindor, with only one who had ended up hanging on to one of the goalposts. The match was immediately cancelled, and everyone was sent back to their common rooms.

"What the heck was that about?" Al asked. "What's going on?"

Rose rolled her eyes, "Obviously, another attempt has been made to somehow make the Slytherins 'pay'. I'm not sure who, or what they think they'll accomplish from this, but it's happening somehow. But I think that they must not have thought this out very well, because I can't really see how any of this really does anything for anyone. If they're trying to make Purebloods angry, this fails because not all Slytherins are Purebloods!"

"But Slytherin sort of stands for the typical Pureblood view, so this is the closest they can get to making it difficult for them," Scor pointed out. "Besides, we don't even know who is doing it!"

"Well, who can get into the broomshed and can tamper with the Slytherin's brooms?" Al asked. "It has to be either students or a teacher, cause Hogwarts' wards prevent anyone else from getting in!"

"Well, I'm sure your dad will get involved anyway," Scor rolled his eyes. "Ever the hero, your dad."

"It's not his fault!" Al said indignantly. "Someone has to do it!"

And yet another deep conversation disintegrated into childish squabbling.

"Scor, we finished the Polyjuice already. Why in the name of Merlin's saggy y-fronts are we back in Moaning Myrtle's bathroon?" Al, in spite of his complaints, was leaning against one of the stalls, watching.

"I'm looking for the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets!" Scor was leaned over the edge of a toilet and gazing solemnly into one of the empty bowls.

"In a loo?"

"Yes! You know there's an entrance to the Ministry that is in the toilets, right?"

"I'm just going to ignore you now."

"You could help me look!"

"You're completely balmly, mate."

Scor leaned over yet another toilet bowl, only to discover large, wet eyes staring back at him. With a very undignified yelp, he leapt backwards, slipped in the puddled water on the floor and catapulted straight into Al. Myrtle rose out of the toilet, watching them curiously.

"So, you're back. What are you doing now? And why is it always boys that are sneaking into my bathroom?"

"This is where the party's at!" Scor said, nodding wisely.

"He's trying to find the Chamber of Secrets," Al rolled his eyes. "I don't suppose you know where it is, eh?"

Myrtle looked pleased with herself as she replied, "Of course I do, silly! I saw your father open it when he was a boy! I hoped he would die, and join me in my toilet. Alas, it was not to be."

"Will you tell us?" Scor shoved himself away from Al in excitement.

"It's in that sink, right over there."

As the two of them approached it, with Al muttering in the background about Scor obviously searching in the wrong places, she added, "It won't do you any good. Harry used Parseltongue to open it."

"Parseltongue?" Al turned to his friend. "You did say you heard him speaking it, didn't you?"

"I did!" Scor straightened, grinning. "We should get him to open it for us!"

Al fixed him with a blank stare for a moment or two, and then raised an eyebrow.

Scor sighed, "Okay, yeah. That won't work. I wonder if it's hereditary?"

Scor's brilliant idea at testing this was to find a snake and try to make Al talk to it. "Where the hell are we going to find a bloody snake, Scor?" Al rolled his eyes. "Let's ask Rose. She'd totally know what we should do."

First they had to explain what they'd found out about the Chamber of Secrets, which Scor was only too happy to brag about.

Rose deflated him rather quickly by saying, "Why didn't you just ask me in the first place? I could have told you all that. It's in 'Hogwarts: a history."'

"Well then, if you're so smart, then how are we supposed to find a snake so that we can test if Al can speak Parseltongue?" Scor shot back at her triumphantly.

In response, she smiled smugly before pointing her wand at a point on the floor and declaring, "Serpensortia!"

A viper shot out the end of her wand, landing on the floor a few meters away from them, hissing angrily.

"I read about the spell in 'Hogwarts: a history' too," she explained, watching as the viper coiled up protectively and raise its spade-shaped head. "Did you know it was your dad that did the spell and discovered Al's dad was a Parselmouth? I think it's fascinating."

"Yeah, great. Um, so… how do we figure out if I can talk to it or not?" Al asked nervously.

"Just tell it to go away or something," Scor suggested, looking at it curiously. "Or make friends with it. Cause that would be cool."

"Um, hi there," Al said to the viper.

It rose up angrily, hissing and spitting, slitted eyes focused on them. Lightning-fast, it struck out at them, and all three of them jumped back.

"That was English, Al," Rose told him. "Hurry up and do something before it attacks us again!"

As they started backing up, the viper began its advance, tail lashing out behind it viciously.

"Uh, please don't kill us!" Al squeaked out.

"This isn't working," Rose murmured. "I don't think Al is a Parselmouth after all!"

"Well piss. Rose, make it go away," Scro instructed, still backing away.

"I… I don't know how!"

Both boys whirled on her incredulously.

"What do you mean, you don't know how? Of all the things to not know, this is one of the worst ones at this moment!" Al flailed, and the sudden movements caused the snake to rear its head again.

"The book told me how to summon it, not make it go away!" Rose's voice was getting shriller by the moment.

"You mean to tell me that there is an angry snake after us and we don't know how to get rid of it," Scor said.

"This was your idea!"

"It was not! Okay, I have a better idea."

"Which is?"

"Run!"

Dear father

If you get a letter from the Headmistress saying that we let loose an angry viper on the school, I can assure you that it was not my fault in the least. It was most definitely because Rose wanted to prove she knew more than me. Actually, it was because she found out that YOU summoned one to go after Al's dad! So, really, this is your fault and I am an innocent bystander.

We are all fine, obviously, otherwise I would not be writing to you. Also, we didn't cause too much damage, so it's all very fine. I don't know what the Head's on about, saying we are a menace to the Wizarding World and all that rot. Honestly, it was a mistake!

Anyways, we all have detention again. Also, if Neville tells you that I had to go visit Madame Pomfrey, it was over a very minor injury, so don't worry.

Your son, Scorpius

Scorpius

What were you thinking, summoning a Water Moccasin in the school! I don't even know how you managed it, since those are native to North America and therefore nowhere near England. I decline to accept responsibility for this most recent catastrophe, and Potter (the older one, not Al) deserved it.

The Headmistress informs me that the thing got lose in the Great Hall during mealtime and that the entire room had to be evacuated in order to catch it. I'm sure I didn't raise you like this.

I was further informed that you were actually bitten by the damn thing and had to be taken to the Hospital Wing in order for the appropriate anti-venom to be administered. That is NOT fine in any definition, and minor is not a way in which I would describe it at all!

Please try to take better care of yourself,

Father


I hope that wasn't too bad. A few times when actual plot struggles valiantly to raise its head, but really, this is just supposed to be funny. And idiotic. I hope I succeeded.

If you read this far, thank you ever so much!

Also, if you are a Slytherin, I am not tormenting your kind because I don't like you. In fact, I adore you, even though I am a Gryff. All will become clear at some point, I swear!

Suou Out