The unknown creature had now also attacked Colin Creevey after the Quidditch match that broke Harry's arm.
Sallyya was walking across the entrance hall when she saw a small clot of people gathered around the notice board, reading a piece of parchment that had just been recently pinned up. Snake beckoned her over, looking excited.
"They're starting a Duelling Club!" said Snake, "First meeting tonight! I wouldn't mind duelling lessons; they might come in handy one of these days…"
"What, you reckon Slytherin's monster can duel?" said Natalia Finchly (who was a first year Gryffindor).
"Could be useful," Sallyya said with a smile. Natalia stared at her then walked off with Ginny Weasley. "More like it's an opportunity to show how brilliant you are," Snake mocked as he walked after them into the great hall. Sallyya shook her head, headed for dinner as well.
Harry, Hermione and Ron were all for it as well. So at eight o'clock that evening they hurried back to the Great Hall. The long dining tables had vanished and a golden stage had appeared along one wall, lit by thousands of candles floating overhead. The ceiling was velvety black once more and most of the school seemed to be packed beneath it, all carrying their wands and looking excited.
"I wonder who'll be teaching us?" said Hermione as they edged into the chattering crowd. "Flitwick was a duelling champion when he was young — maybe it'll be him," Sallyya mumbled, before wandering off to find Snake
She found him standing near the stage as far as he could get from the rest of the students.
Snake smiled at her, "You're going to love this." Sallyya spun around and growled in disgust; Gilderoy Lockhart (the 'Defence against the dark arts' teacher), was walking onto the stage, his blonde hair combed back and under a hat, resplendent in robes of deep plum and accompanied by Severus, wearing his usual black.
Lockhart waved an arm for silence and called "Gather round, gather round! Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent!
"Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this 'little' duelling club, to train you all 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," said Lockhart, flashing a wide white smile. "He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about duelling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. 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!"
"More like we won't have Gilderoy, after Sev's finished with him" Sallyya muttered in Snake's ear, who snorted back his laugher.
Severus's upper lip was curling. Sallyya wondered why Lockhart was still smiling; if Snape had been looking at Sallyya like that she'd have been running as fast as she could in the opposite direction.
Lockhart and Severus turned to face each other and bowed; at least, Lockhart did, with much twirling of his hands (earning an eye-roll from Snake), whereas Snape jerked his head irritably. Then they raised their wands like swords in front of them.
"As you see, we are holding our wands in the accepted combative position," Lockhart told the silent crowd. "On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course."
"One — two — three."
Both of them swung their wands above their heads and pointed them at their opponent; Severus cried: "Expelliarmus!" There was a dazzling flash of scarlet light and Lockhart was blasted off his feet: He flew backward off the stage, smashed into the wall, and slid down it to sprawl on the floor.
Malfoy and some of the other Slytherins (and Sallyya quietly) cheered. She could see Hermione was dancing on tiptoes, biting her fingertips.
Lockhart was getting unsteadily to his feet. His hat had fallen off and his blonde hair was standing on end.
"Well, there you have it!" he said, tottering back onto the platform, "That was a Disarming Charm — as you see, I've lost my wand — ah, thank you, Miss Brown — yes, an excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don't mind my saying so, it was very obvious what you were about to do. If I had wanted to stop you it would have been only too easy — however, I felt it would be instructive to let them see…"
Severus was looking murderous. Possibly Lockhart had noticed, because he said, "Enough demonstrating! I'm going to come amongst you now and put you all into pairs. Professor Snape, if you'd like to help me."
They moved through the crowd, matching up partners. Lockhart teamed Neville with Justin Finch-Fletchley and Natalia with Lavender Brown, but Snape reached Sallyya and Snake first.
"Time to see how you two do," he laughed, "Sallyya please make sure I have a son at the end of this."
"Face your partners!" called Lockhart, back on the platform. "And bow!"
Sallyya barely inclined her head, but Snake bowed as Lockhart had (less hand twirling though).
"Wands at the ready!" shouted Lockhart, "When I count to three, cast your charms to disarm your opponents — only to disarm them — we don't want any accidents — one… two… three."
Sallyya swung her wand high, wordlessly. Her spell had hit Snake before he was unable to move. Snake stumbled, but everything still seemed to be working, and wasting no more time, he pointed his wand straight at Sallyya and shouted, "Flipendo!"
A jet of scarlet light that should have hit Sallyya in the stomach was rebounded with ease.
"I said disarm only," Lockhart shouted in alarm over the heads of the battling crowd. Sallyya and Snake burst laughing, but Sallyya realized that it was aimed at Harry and Malfoy, who were either dancing or on the floor in giggles.
"Stop! Stop!" screamed Lockhart, but Snape took charge. "Finite Incantatem!" he shouted; Harry's feet stopped dancing, Malfoy stopped laughing, and they were able to look up.
A haze of greenish smoke was hovering over the scene. Both Neville and Justin were lying on the floor, panting; Ron was staring stupidly at Sallyya, holding up an ashen face Seamus; 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.
Sallyya leapt forward and pulled Millicent off Hermione. It was difficult: She was a lot bigger than she was.
"Dear, dear," said Lockhart, skittering through the crowd, looking at the aftermath of the duels. "Up you go, Macmillan…Careful there, Miss Fawcett… Pinch it hard, it'll stop bleeding in a second..."
"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 what's left of Finch-Fletchley up to the hospital wing in a matchbox." Neville's round, pink face went pinker and Sallyya glared at Snape.
"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.
Sallyya watched as Lockhart made a complete fool of himself as he talked to Harry. Severus however moved closer to Malfoy, bent down, and whispered something in his ear. Malfoy smirked, too. Harry looked up nervously at Lockhart and said, "Professor, could you show me that blocking thing again?"
Lockhart stepped back. "Three — two — one — go!" he shouted.
Malfoy raised his wand quickly and bellowed, "Serpensortia!"
The end of his wand exploded. Sallyya watched, as a long black snake shot out of it, fell heavily onto the floor between them, and raised itself, ready to strike. There were screams as the crowd backed swiftly away, clearing the floor.
"Don't move, Potter," said professor 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 toward Justin Finch-Fletchley and raised itself again, fangs exposed, poised to strike.
Harry shouted at the serpent, "Leave him alone!" And miraculously — inexplicably — the snake slumped to the floor, docile as a thick, black garden hose, its eyes now on Harry. Harry felt the fear drain out of him.
The snake suddenly flew at Sallyya, who whispered "Don't even think about it!" The snake eyed her, then huffed (well, as well as a snake can huff!) and turned its back on her.
Harry looked up at Justin, grinning, expecting to see Justin looking relieved, or puzzled, or even grateful — but certainly not angry and scared.
"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. Severus, too, was looking at Harry and Sallyya (he was only the person close enough to hear Sallyya) in an unexpected way: It was a shrewd and calculating look.
"Come on," said Ron's voice in Harry's ear, while Snake pulled Sallyya's back. "Move — come on."
Snake steered Sallyya out of the hall, after Harry, Ron and Hermione. As they went through the doors, the people on either side drew away as though they were frightened of catching something. Sallyya didn't have a clue what was going on, but allowed Snake to lead her down into the dungeon into Severus's office.
Professor Snape glided into the room glaring at Sallyya. "You're Parselmouths," he uttered.
"She's what?" asked Snake as he sat on the chair by the window.
"It means I have the ability to speak to serpents," Sallyya explained, looking at Snape who had begun to rummage through his shelves of ingredients. Sallyya sat on his desk waiting for one of them to respond.
The door swung open and Dumbledore strolled in. "Well that's interesting," he said. Severus stared at the headmaster. "It shows that Sallyya here is the same as her brother."
"No I'm not," Sallyya snapped.
"I'm sorry, Sallyya, but Harry is going to be branded as the heir of Slytherin. You now Salazar Slytherin was famous for it," Dumbledore explained. Sallyya gaped at him.
"But…"
Sallyya lay awake for hours that night. Through a gap in the curtains around her four-poster she watched snow starting to drift past the tower window and wondered…
Could she and Harry be descendants of Salazar Slytherin? She didn't know much about their family, after all, but the signs within their family showed them to be Gryffindors.
"But I'm Gryffindor," Sallyya whimpered before being sent to sleep by a note from the phoenix that watched over her.
By next afternoon, however, the snow that had begun in the night had turned into a blizzard so thick that the last Herbology lesson of the term was cancelled: Professor Sprout wanted to fit socks and scarves on the Mandrakes, a tricky operation she would entrust to no one else, now that it was so important for the Mandrakes to grow quickly and revive Mrs Norris and Colin Creevey.
Harry seemed to be in disarray next to the fire in the Gryffindor common room, while Ron and Hermione used their time off to play a game of wizard chess. So she left in search of Snake, who should be free by now
She found Snake quickly after apparating down to the entrance hall. He jumped at her sudden appearance.
"Sal," he shrieked. Sallyya laughed, but when she stopped and looked at Snake face, she just cracked up again. Snake sighed and began to walk away. "Wait, I'm sorry Snake," Sallyya said grabbing his wrist. He looked at her and sighed. "Draco saw us, during the duelling club. He's—he's—"
"He's what?" asked Sallyya.
"He's threatened me, Sal," he cried, "He said that if I still hang around with you, he'll start taking every opportunity to hurt one of us." Sallyya hugged Snake. "If he tried that, he'll have another thing coming," she whispered in his ear. Snake hugged her more tightly. "Thanks, Sal," he said quietly, "by the way I don't think you or Harry is the heir of Slytherin." Sallyya smiled at Snake as she pulled out the hug. Words were not needed, he simply nodded and walked with Sallyya discussing spells that they (more Sallyya) could use in the next duelling club session.
and thats duelling club. i did question on making sallyya be a show off and have her and snake chosn to demostrate, but i know i still haveto be true to the story. well anyhow good night my students. please review and tell me anything you might like to read more of. (might do a side story).