Chapter 10

Harry was walking alone down the corridor from the Slytherin dorms in the dungeons up to the transfiguration classroom when he though he heard something. Harry looked around to try to determine the origin of the noise, but found the hallway deserted.

Then he heard the noise again, this time recognizing the sound as a hiss.

Harry stilled and listened for the noise and the hissing noise grew into hissed words.

"Must kill!" The sourceless voice hissed.

Oh, this cannot be good. Harry thought. But, since there did not appear to be anything he could do about it or any proof to what he had heard, Harry continued on to transfiguration before he was late, hoping that he was both insane and not so at the same time.

Hearing voices was never a good sign.

Harry sat in Defense class, feeling terribly bored as he watched the show that Lockhart put on and called defense class.

"Because of recent events," Lockhart began and a shutter went through the class. A few weeks ago on Halloween Mrs. Norris had been found paralyzed with a note written on the wall in blood saying that a chamber had been opened. Harry had been more exasperated than frightened by all of this. He did not want to deal with any more chambers. And also rather unfortunately, Harry had heard a few more threatening hissed whispers since the first time he had heard the voice, which was also disconcerting. Harry was however curious as to what Lockhart could possibly want to do in light of the recent events. He had to wait much longer than he should have to find out because of the tedious, time consuming dramatic flourish with which Lockhart said and did everything. "I have been given permission by Dumbledore to host a Dueling Club." Lockhart finally concluded as he revealed a large, ornately decorated poster that was advertising the new club.

Now that had caught Harry's attention more so than anything the professor had ever said before. A dueling club, really? Was he supposed to show off? This was not part of the Orders plans to make Harry's powers known. He supposed that it was finally time that he met with Dumbledore to discuss all of the recent events.

"The first meeting will be on the 17th of December, two weeks from now, and while attendance is not mandatory, I hope that every single one of you decides to attend as it will be greatly advantageous for all of you to know how to defend yourselves."

Because you have proved to be able to teach us how to defend ourselves, Harry thought sarcastically. Draco seemed to be thinking the same thing because he raised his hand.

"Will you be the only professor leading the club, sir?" He asked.

"I will be leading the club with the assistance of Professor Snape." Lockhart answered and a dark grin tugged at Harry's lips. If Harry was going to be allowed to show off, he couldn't have any more fun than doing it in front of Snape. Harry loved surprising that man who was usually so notoriously composed.

Yes, Harry decided definitively. He would attend dueling club and he would a little less pleasingly have to set up a meeting with Dumbledore to discuss how much he should show off, and probably also tell the man about the voices he had been hearing.

Although hearing voices was a secret Harry would usually try to keep from the man, as he had been, after the attack, Harry had had to realize that if he didn't give Dumbledore the information about the threats Harry could hear, then someone could very well die. And although he wasn't so opposed to people dying occasionally, as it was only natural, he hated having anything to do with it.

A few days later Harry sat in Dumbledore's office, looking around at the busy room, noticing everything from the wall of portraits of headmasters past to the Phoenix that sat in the corner by the desk.

"Lemon drop?" The Headmaster offered, gesturing to a tray of the yellow candies that sat on his desk.

"No thanks." Harry said quickly.

"No one ever seems to take one. I sometimes wonder why I still offer." The head master said conversationally. "So, why did you call this meeting my boy?"

"Well, recently I have been informed that next week a dueling club would be held, as authorized by you, and I was just wondering how I should, er, act at such an event." Harry fumbled a little bit. Dumbledore was the only wizard Harry knew that could make him feel a bit nervous instead of him making them feel nervous.

Although Harry thought the man was a bit to idealistic for his liking, he couldn't deny that the man was an incredibly great and powerful wizard. And even if there was a good chance that Harry beat Dumbledore in pure power, although one could never really be sure with Dumbledore, but the man was at least a century older than Harry. Although Harry was trying his darnedest, Harry could not make up for a hundred years of practice in a summer. The man did not fall for Harry's power trips like everyone else seemed to. The man seemed to see right through Harry's carefully created persona sometimes, and that made Harry uncomfortable.

"Yes, of course. Well obviously you shouldn't be using your pure magic, and you shouldn't do any wandless magic either at this point. But any spell that isn't too dark," Harry looked alarmed. "Don't worry my boy; I see no use trying to stop your curiosity. And it would be foolish of me to ever expect you to go up against a dark wizard not knowing more than a stunning charm. But don't think for a moment that I'll let you get away with using that kind of magic on anyone who doesn't know that type of magic themselves.

"But not everyone is aware of your situation as I am, and not everyone would be so forgiving of your interest in such spells and so trusting of you to know when and when such spells are appropriate. But as far as dueling club goes, it would probably best if you avoided such magic. You can also probably get away with some nonverbal magic, but only on very simple spells for now." Dumbledore concluded.

"Got it, the use of nonverbal, wandless, leg locking curses would be inappropriate." Harry joked, while her tried to sort out in his head what spells in his repertoire he would be able to use.

"Yes, that is exactly the type of spell that should not be used in dueling club. Did you have anything else that you wished to discuss with me?" Dumbledore asked, twinkling a little more than usual, which Harry knew that the headmaster expected Harry to provide him with more information.

"Er, yeah. Something else has come up that I think I should tell you about."

"Oh?" Dumbledore raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah, recently I've been hearing things." Harry looked at Dumbledore and the man's face was unreadable. "Voices, I guess. Hissing voices that are stating their desires to kill." Dumbledore's face remained unreadable and Harry began to panic. "I mean maybe I'm crazy and overtired and have been practicing too many dark spells and I should take some time off from training. But with the whole thing about the chamber and Mrs. Norris, I didn't want whatever is attached to this voice to succeed in what it wants to do. I don't want someone to die again because I just kind of ignored it until it's too late again. So I just thought I'd tell you. Because you would know more about what's going on than I am, and maybe my own little bit of insight into whatever is going on it could keep people safe. If someone dies here again, I don't want it to be my fault." Harry rambled on, trying to see something on his headmasters face.

"Harry, have you ever talked to a snake before?" Dumbledore asked curiously.

"What? Wizards can't talk to animals, even powerful ones." Harry said, confused.

"Harry, would you be willing to try?"

"What?" Harry asked again in confusion as a meter long deep green snake with a golden diamond pattern running down its back suddenly appeared on the desk before Dumbledore.

"Go on Harry, be polite." Dumbledore said nodding towards the snake as if he expected Harry to greet the snake. Harry gaped at the man and looked at the snake for a few moments before finally just giving up.

"Hello," He said to the snake. "What's your name?" He paused "Mine's Harry."

"Ondula," The snake hissed back much to Harry's surprise. "I've heard about men who can speak to snakess, but there weren't thought to be any left." The snake looked Harry up and down as well as a snake could. "None the less a boy."

"I'm a boy only in size and age." Harry hissed back as he let a cloud of dark magic surround the snake as he coiled a thread of light magic around the snake. "I could strangle you easier than you could strangle me." Harry said he gave his magic a jerk, tightening it around the snake, before pulling it pack.

"Oh, so much power in such an unassuming little boy."

"Yesss ,and I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Harry, have you ever heard of Parseltongue?" Dumbledore interrupted.

"Oh," Harry said, suddenly remembering the strange and rare power of Salazar Slytherin. It had never occurred to Harry that he might be a Parseltongue, and he had been too caught up in the mystery of the voices to consider that they might be in the rare language.

"How could I be speaking a language and not know it? How could I have not known that I was a parselmouth?" Harry asked in confusion as Ondula slithered across the desk and into Harry's lap.

"And you're so warm. Would you be my powerful little boy?" Ondula hissed. Harry scoffed at the snake.

"I'm not sure if I should be honored or creeped out." Harry told the snake.

"You should be so honored." Ondula hissed proudly as she worked her way up around Harry's shoulders. Harry smirked.

"Well, I'm not sure what Dumbledore intended to do with you." Harry stated.

"The old man, I can deal with him." Ondula began to make her way from Harry over to Dumbledore.

"I'm sure you can," Harry laughed as the snake prepared to strangle to the wizard. "But why don't I just ask him?"

"Ondula wants to know if I can keep her. She might try to strangle you if you don't say yes." Harry told Dumbledore, deciding not to use the undignified wording that the snake had provided in describing their potential relationship. Dumbledore finally looked a little taken a back, but Harry was not satisfied because of it. Out of all the things that he had said to Dumbledore this evening that should not have been the thing that caught him by surprise. Dumbledore composed himself and spoke.

"Sure, my boy. But it would be best if you didn't talk to her in public just yet. Or take her out of your dormitory." Dumbledore responded after considering the situation carefully.

"He said yes, I just am not allowed to speak to you in public and you have to stay in the dungeons." Harry told the snake.

"Dungeonsss" The snake hissed with disgust.

"Would you really think that your powerful little wizard could not cast a decant warming charm for his queen?." Harry said jestingly.

"I guess that makes you my little Prince." The snake jested back.

"You'll call me that until the day I die won't you?"Harry sighed.

"And you should be so honored, my little prince." Harry knew that if a snake could smirk, Ondula would be smirking with that comment.

"Well I can see that you'd like to get acquainted with your new familiar. Thank you for the information Harry, it was very enlightening and I will need some time to consider its implications." He said as he rose and began to walk towards the door.

Harry got up and followed, not sure about the man's haste to kick him out.

"But will you tell me when you have determined what this means?" Harry said as he was ushered out the door with Ondula now curled up inside his robes.

"Yes, of course my boy."

But Harry new that he would spend the next week researching Parseltongue and the Chamber on his own and would never discuss it with Dumbledore again until after he happened to end up fighting the giant snake that was apparently living in the walls of the school.

And Harry remembered why, despite the man's power and experience, he did not particularly like or trust Dumbledore.

But at least Harry had tried and his own conscious could be clean.

Gilderoy Lockhart looked across the crowd of first years before his eyes locked on Harry.

"Mr. Potter, why don't you come up here for a demonstration? With your father being an Auror and all I'm sure he's taught you a little bit about dueling." Lockhart said and Harry nodded and made his way up onto the platform, eager to get to have a bit of fun.

"And who shall your partner be?"

"Why don't you just do the demonstration with me professor? I mean, it's not as if we're dueling to the death or anything and you'll end up murdering a student. You're just trying to disarm me after all." Harry said innocently.

"Oh, I hardly think it would be very effective if the duel only lasted a few moments, Harry." Lockhart said, not apparently having decided that his usual clearly false modestly was overrated. Harry looked around the room to see Neville smirk knowingly at the professor's arrogance in relation to what the reality of the situation was.

"I'll duel the boy, Gilderoy." Snape said suddenly and Harry spun to look at the man in confusion. What on earth is going through that man's head? Harry wondered

"Well, Severus, I know that your dueling skills aren't quite up to snuff with mine, but I hardly think you're any better of a match for a second year." Lockhart said, but Snape ignored him and mad his way up onto the platform to stand opposite Harry.

"What are you hoping to accomplish with this, sir?" Harry softly hissed at the man so that no one would hear him.

"You want to put on a show, right Mr. Potter? I hardly think Lockhart is going to do that." Snape murmured back with a straightforwardness that surprised Harry.

"But what about when you lose?" Harry whispered dumbly.

"Who said I'm going to lose?" Snape said as he smirked and stepped away from Harry, taking dueling position.

"Oh, you're on professor." Harry hummed darkly as he mimicked his Snape's stance, bowing to the professor before the professor returned the bow and shot a non verbal disarming spell at Harry.

Harry erected a shield that absorbed the charm before sending a non verbal disarming charm back at the professor, who stepped out of the way of the spell before casting something that wasn't an expelliarmus.

Harry quickly put up a more powerful shield, and fired a knockback jinx at the professor. The professor stepped out of the way again.

"You're boring me, Potter." The professor sighed haughtily.

"Fine, do you want to see something new professor?" Harry said as he and Snape circled the platform with their wands drawn, trading places.

"Please do, Potter."

"I was working on this last week." Harry said as he pointed his wand straight at Snape.

There was a gasp from within the crowd of students and for a second Snape and Harry turned to see Draco straightening his robes nonchalantly. Harry had practiced his new technique with Draco last week, and the Slytherin new exactly what Harry's intentions were.

Harry looked back at Snape and smirked. Then a ray of golden light shot out of his wand and towards Snape, wrapping around the professor. After realizing he would need to be discrete with his powers, but hating not being able to use them in public, Harry had worked on redirecting his pure magic through his wand. That magic fought it at first; apparently not liking the added focus and restraint of the wand, but eventually his magic did comply.

Harry began to tighten the magic around the professor's arms. Snape tried to raise his wand at Harry, but he could only slightly raise his lower arm as he was strangled. He settled for the wands aim on the middle of the platform and muttered a spell, making a snake appear on the platform.

Really? More snakes. Ondula is already enough of a pain. Harry muttered in his head, although he had grown quite fond of the majestic reptile.

The snake began to make its way towards Harry, rearing its head at him as it drew close. Harry smiled innocently.

"Hi there, I'm Harry. What's your name?" Harry hissed. The room, which was already silent, seemed to grow even quieter as Harry spoke to the snake. Snape, who was still being restrained by Harry's magic looked at the boy with curiosity. Even the snake looked confused for a moment.

"A speaker? My name is Forshue." The large yellow snake hissed back at Harry.

"Come here." Harry beckoned to the snake, who slithered over to Harry and began to coil itself up Harry's leg until it rested on Harry's shoulders

"How would you like to be King?" Harry asked, thinking of Ondula and the inside joke that Harry had with her.

"King, king of what?" Forshue asked in response.

"Not much right now, but I have a queen for you. And of course I'm the prince."

"And why would I want to stay with you?"

"Do you see what I'm doing to the man who summoned you?" Harry asked the snake.

"Yesss. So?"

"I can do that without a wand. And I can do a similar thing with dark magic."Harry said as he tightened his magic around Snape causing the man to choke a little.

"I think the arrangement you've offered would be quite satisfactory." Forshue said slowly after a few moments of considering the situation, clearly trying to appear uninterested.

"I knew you would say that, my King. Why don't I take you to my queen?" Harry smirked.

"Of course, princeling." Harry sighed. That was no better than little prince. Harry looked to Snape and pulled back his magic.

"Well, this has been fun, but I've got other work to do. Thank you for the experience Professors." Harry said as he stepped off the platform and walked out of the classroom with the large and imposing snake casually coiled around his neck as the entire room stared at him with a mixture of awe and horror.

Harry made his way down to the dungeons and into the boy's dorms where he pulled open curtains of his bed. Ondula sat coiled up on his pillow under a sphere of light that Harry had created and left for her in the mornings to keep her warm.

"Hello your majesty. I'd hate to interrupt you from your beauty sleep, but I've brought someone for you to meet." Harry smirked as Ondula deigned to look up at him. Forshue slid off of Harry's shoulders and down on to the bed across for Ondula. "This is Forshue. I've had made him king to your queen." Harry hissed.

"Who said I needed a king?" Ondula hissed haughtily.

"Look, that greasy haired git of a potions professor I was telling you about summoned him in a duel. And you've been complaining for the past week about how lonely and bored you are. At the very least I brought you someone to argue with, just like we would do if I stayed with you all day." Harry explained. Ondula looked at Forshue appraisingly. "Now I have to get to dinner, if you two will excuse me." Harry said as he closed the curtains behind him and left the snakes.

He grinned as he heard the snakes already beginning to argue behind him as he left.

"Try not to kill each other while I'm gone." Harry called as he threw a silencing charm behind him and walked out the door and out of dormitories.

Harry began making his way towards the Great hall when he saw Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, and less and less surprisingly, but still surprisingly all the same, Draco.

"Harry! Where have you been?" Hermione asked sternly as she pulled Harry into a bathroom to talk.

"Hermione! This is girl's bathroom. We can't go in there!" Ron complained from the door. Harry rolled his eyes and pulled himself from Hermione's grasp and looked around the bathroom.

"This is Myrtle's bathroom, Ron. No one ever uses it. No one is going to see you in here. Don't get your knickers in a twist." Hermione said as Ron, Neville, and Draco grudgingly stepped into the bathroom.

"Hey, what's this?" Harry asked as he spotted something on the floor. He went to pick it up as he heard an unfamiliar voice choke out a sob.

"Someone threw it at me." A transparent girl cried as she appeared floating in front of Harry.

"Who threw it at you?" Harry asked, acting unfazed by the ghost.

"Well I don't know." The girl hiccupped.

"Myrtle, we really need to talk to Harry right now. Could you excuse us?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, so it doesn't matter that someone assaulted Myrtle? After all she's only a ghost! What does she matter?" The girl wailed.

"It goes right through her right? It wouldn't even hurt." Ron muttered to Neville.

"Oh, of course it doesn't matter because it doesn't hurt! How would you feel of someone threw something at you, even if it didn't hurt!" Myrtle screamed before zooming off into a toilet stall, sobbing hysterically.

Harry had picked up what he had discovered to be a diary and was flipping through it.

"There is nothing in here." Harry stated.

"Oh, enough about the book!" Hermione said in frustration and joined Ron, Neville, and Draco in covering up their ears to block out the Myrtle's wailing.

Harry sighed and shoved the diary into the pocket of his robe before casting a silencing charm over Myrtles stall.

"I'm standing in a girl's bathroom with a banshee because?" He said, expressing his annoyance.

"Why didn't you tell me that you are a parselmouth?" Draco asked accusingly.

"I didn't know until about a week ago. And Dumbledore advised me not to tell anyone yet. But well, this opportunity was too good to pass up. Plus Ondula has been bothering me and now at least she has someone else to banter with."

"Ondula?" Neville asked.

"Yeah. She's a snake Dumbledore summoned when he was trying to figure out if I was a parselmouth."

"So you really didn't know until recently?" Hermione asked.

"Er, yeah. I mean I know it's rare and the only person thought to be able to do it is Voldemort, but everyone already thought that I was a little dark and I am in Slytherin, so having a Slytherin talent is hardly the end of the world. I mean maybe the Potter line was connected to Slytherin somewhere along the way or my mom is descended from a squib who was a descendant of Slytherin. It's really not too huge of a deal, at least not in comparison to my pure magic." Harry explained the conclusion that he had come to after researching in the libraries restricted section over the past week.

"But Harry," Hermione began. "With the recent events and you now apparently being the heir of Slytherin, everyone already thinks that you're the one who's opened the chamber!" Hermione said exasperatedly.

"But I'm not." Was all Harry could manage to say. Harry felt like a moron for not having considered the implications of his newfound ability on the opening of the chamber. Of course everyone would think that Harry was responsible for the opening of the chamber. Harry had wanted to be known as powerful, but he didn't want to be known as an attempted murder.

"Well it isn't looking very good Harry."

"Well I'm not doing it and it's not as if anyone has any real proof, so let them think what they want. I don't care." Harry said as he stormed out of the bathroom and up to the library. He wasn't hungry any more.

A/N: Ondula is a namified version of the word for 'wave' in various languages including French, Spanish and Italian, which can also be portrayed to mean 'slither,' particularly in French with the verb 'onduler,' more or less anyway.

Forshue is a bastardized spelling of fourchu, which is French for forked… cause snakes have forked tongues… and all the other snake related words I could think of were cognates. And while I would never name a child either, I think that Ondula and Forshue (Which is pronounced like Four-Shoe in my mind anyway just in case there was doubt about that and Ondula is On-do-la just in case…) sound like such a cute snake couple :P

How is Harry a parselmouth if he isn't a Horcrux? Mostly because I like him that way.

POSSIBLY IMPORTANT: Someone asked about pairings, and I completely understand wanting to know. As I said in the first chapter this is a Harry/Voldemort fic, and their relationship will definitely start off more mentor than romantic, and I honestly haven't decided yet if by the end of the story it will be romantic or still just a mentor relationship (If you have strong opinions on this going one way or the other feel free to tell me. You could probably easily talk me into appeasing you). Right now I'm sort of developing a bit of a Harry/Draco thing potentially, if you didn't pick that up… but that definitely will not be the pairing at the end of the story. I actually think that I'll put Draco and Hermione together in the end, because I think that's always interesting. At this point Snape will probably get an OC, but I am thinking he'll be gay (And will probably be the only other pairing of that variety within this story besides Harry. This will not be the kind of slash story where suddenly everyone is gay).

But really this story isn't written to be one great romance, though it will have its moments. As long as you don't mind the Harry and Voldemort dynamic to varying extents, most other pairings will be mentioned but probably not seen in too much detail, so if you don't love a pairing you should be able to ignore it and tell yourself that right after my story ends they break up or you could review and try to talk me out of something I've just mentioned. Nothing is set in stone yet… Or you can stop reading if you really want to, but I'd be a little sad.

I'm pretty sure I took 'princeling' from another fic, but I like it. So I'm using it. So yeah. Sorry. I hope that's okay. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. It is an endearment anyway and not an entire plot or original character, so hopefully I won't face the wrath of all of fanfiction for it or something. But if for some reason someone is highly offended by this just tell me and I'll happily remove it.

And I really just can't remember exactly when Harry found the diary, if it was before or after the holidays. Or maybe it was during them. It was probably afterwards. Oh well…. But it doesn't matter. I think actually most of the things that are happening in my version of second year aren't happening/going to happen at exactly the right time. Well, it is my version after all. And I already fact check so much, just give me this.

So sorry about the ridiculously long A/N. I promise to never write one this long ever again. But there kept being things that I wanted to address. I always have this ridiculous feeling that I need to explain myself when I really probably don't.

Up Next: Okay, it's finally happening: Tom Riddle. Well, at least in diary form.