LORD OF THE SNAKES
by VG Jekyll

Part Four; Chapter Two


"Everything," Draco repeated and smirked again, effectively riling up the hot-tempered redhead who carelessly dropped the with bloodstone en red garnet encrusted crown to take a threatening step towards the blond.

"Everything?" the Weasley muttered affronted and then spat on the ground showing what he thought of the other's statement. It earned him a raised brow from the blond for his lack of manners. "Yeah right! Like that's believable!"

"Tell me, Weasley," Draco started, clearly enjoying aggravating the other. "Isn't it curious that of all the people here, only I am the one who really knows?"

"Knows what!? You great prat?"

The blond shrugged and his bemused eyes sought out those of the Lord again. "Like I said: everything," he said, his voice sounded like a promise.

"Ron, he's only messing with you," one of the twins said.

"Malfoy is just saying that to make you angry," the other twin added.

Malfoy only grinned. "His best friend? Yeah, right…" he muttered softly. His silver eyes were still connected with those of the Lord's, making him realize that Malfoy had said it only for his ears to hear. But why? Friends? Who was the best friend of who? Had the redhead once been a friend of Malfoy perhaps? And did they now have a feud of some sort?

The Lord didn't really understand. Malfoy was apparently trying to make him understand something. Perhaps something important. But what could it be? What did the other know? Did he know where the Lord's strange titles came from perhaps? Or maybe even how he got to live in the tower?

The Lord was certainly intruged, but Malfoy turned his eyes away from him to study the other people. The Lord followed his example, even though the urge to ask for more information was not easy to ignore.

The twins had discovered what appeared to be the most unusal thing amonst the tower's objects: a hat. It was battered and old, patched, frayed and extremely dirty with a tear along its brim that almost could be mistaken for a mouth. One of them immidiately put it on and posed like a model.

"Why Gred," the twin then suddenly said as he dropped the pose. "The hat is talking to me!"

Gred tilted confused his head to the side. "What does it say, Feorge?"

Feorge was silent as he listened to the hat. "It tells us to reach deep inside of him." He took it off and they shared a secret glance. "That's funny: all my girlfriends used to say the exact same thing."

Gred swatted his hand away and reached inside of the hat. "I think I feel something cold-"

"It's not one of the snakes, is it?"

"No it's hard, metal I think." Gred pulled back his arm from the hat and with it followed a long, silver sword. Feorge whistled impressed as the light fell on its handle that was gleaming with rubies the size of eggs.

Gred let his fingers slide over the name that was engraved on it just below the hilt. "Gryffindor," he read and the Lord knew that one of them would try to take it with them. He sighed and glanced at the tall man that was admiring a quill made of a phoenix feather.

The others didn't seem to pay much attention to him, which could be explained by them not knowing him, though the Lord had the suspicion it was more because he seemed to keep bumping into things. At first the man kept trying to put everything back in their place and he kept casting panicked looks into his direction.

Though when the Lord didn't seem mad about it, the tall man had become less anxious and simply made his way through the treasure.

"Oh my," Hermione suddenly exclaimed as she stared in awe at the diadem in her hands. "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure," she read the etched words on the diadem. "Snake Lord?" she then asked. "To who belonged this tiara?"

The Lord was about to reply when Malfoy beat him to it. "It's Lord of the Snakes, Mu-" He glanced back at the Lord and swallowed the last syllables of what he had wanted to say. "-Granger," he then said instead. "Do use the proper titles when adressing people."

Hermione simply send him a glare. "I mean, Lord of the Snakes."

The Lord walked over to her and gave her a small smile, hoping it would comfort her. "I don't mind in what manner I'm adressed," he admitted, soft enough so only the brunette could hear. She smiled relieved.

"This belonged to the lady Ravenclaw," he answered her question, as he stared down at the diadem. He then waved with a hand to a pile of large animal bones with an enormous curved, crystal horn amongst them. "That belonged to her too. Though she didn't like the snakes, she wished to stay with me here in the tower."

"She wanted to stay?" Draco suddenly asked, though he didn't move away from his spot.

"Why didn't she?" Hermione asked at the same time.

"The tower wouldn't allow it."

"Oh," Hermione carefully held the diadem in her hands, stuck on the part: 'man's greatest treasure'. Could this be the most precious object of the tower?

It was then that the blonde girl found a rolled up carpet and rolled it out. On it she could see the intricate picture of what looked like a labyrinth in which serveral humans were fighting legendary creatures. She was about to roll it up again when one of the corners jerked oddly.

She stared blinking at it and then without hesitation she stepped on it. She immidiately fell down on her knees and grabbed the corners of the carpet as it moved upwards and started to soar up into the air. The others stared in facination as the flying carpet swirled around and upwards into the vast space of the tower.

And then it was suddenly tumbling down. The blonde girl gave a loud scream, which sounded quite happy compaired to that of the brunette that yelled with fear in her voice.

"Luna! By Merlin! Get off it! You will fall!!!"

The carpet only seemed to go faster as Luna crouched down lower and then with a final swoop, the carpet drew up above a pile of with gold-dread embroided silks and deposited Luna gentily onto the pile. The carpet then went back to its previous spot and rolled itself up for a well-deserved rest. It hadn't flown like that in ages.

Luna stared blinking into space and then smiled. "That was fun," she commented calmly as Hermione ran to her side to see if she was unharmed, while Ron muttered: "Raving bonkers."

The Lord heard the soft snicker from Malfoy, who hadn't left his side yet to search around the treasure, and glanced curiously at him. Malfoy seemed amused and the Lord was about to ask him what he thought was funny about the situation when somewthing made the blond glance to his other side.

He frowned and then kneeled to pick up something. When he stood up again, the Lord studied what he was holding. It was a small, walnut-sized golden ball with silver wings. The wings slowly unfurled and then started to beat. It took only moments for his wings to go as fast as that of a hummingbird.

Malfoy realized he was being watched and glanced up. Their eyes met and the Lord was asthounished to see the challenge in them. Then Malfoy losened his grip on the small ball that immidiately leaped from his hand and shot up, only to be snatched out of the air by the Lord.

It had taken him less than tw seconds and Malfoy smirked satified. "Guess your body doesn't forget as easily as your mind," he said enigmatic.

The Lord couldn't stop the shiver that ran down his back at those words and he quickly looked away again. He wasn't really sure why but he felt oddly embaressed? He couldn't remember ever having felt embaressed, yet Malfoy's words affected him in ways he couldn't explain.

Observing the others would be better, wouldn't it? Malfoy made him curious. His words made the Lord think that perhaps there was something else for him, somewthing else besides his tower in the vast desert. Perhaps he would be able to expand his horizon. To remember...

On the other hand, the Lord couldn't help feeling slightly scared; yet another emotion he hadn't felt in centuries. What if Malfoy was indeed just saying things like 'he knew' just to agitate people? The Lord was afraid that if he started to hope that there was a way to fill that gab inside of him, and it then turned out to be nothing more but false hope... What would it to him?

He shook his head to get rid of that trail of thought and deliberately focussed on the tall man that was now standing near a wall.

In his hands he held the remains of what earlier had been a jar with the note stating 'Antipodean Opaleye dragon eggshells' on it. It had been empty though and was now also broken as the tall man had accidentically knocked it off the shelve.

The tall man stared facinated at the shelves that had taken possessionof an entire wall. On them were glass pots containing various potions ingredients; basilisk blood, powderd dragon blood, poisoned dragon liver, newt's eyes, lizard gizzards, gillywater, leech juice, pureed jobberknoll feathers, fluxweed juice, shredded boomslang skin , dried billiwig stings, powdered bicorn horn, sliced caterpillars, lacewing flies, puffer fish eyes, crushed snake fangs, crushed scarab beetles.

There was a even a jar with what looked like dirt on a shelve.

He backed away from it to see how high the shelves went, when he nearly tripped over something solid on the ground. As he turned around, he discovered the silver statue of the person that once had been called Snivelus Snape. He studied its odd form with vague interest.

"He looks slightly familiar," he finally said and the Lord noticed Malfoy looking appraisingly at him. "Though it's quite a strange position for a statue to lie in."

Malfoy walked to his side to stare down at the statue and the Lord was intrigued to see a bit of sadness but also acceptance in his stance. The blond's shoulders tightened then relaxed as he put his hands in his pockets. "He'd been a good Potions Master," he finally said. "It's still a pity though."

The Lord came interested to his side. "He was a Potions Master? I hadn't know." He gave a short sigh as he also stared down at the statue. "He was rather rude. Didn't really listen to my advise. Called me a lier."

"That sounds like him alright," Malfoy said and then quickly glanced up and caught the Lord's eyes again, who found himself compairing the blond's eyes with the texture of the statue. "Did he tell you anything?" Malfoy suddenly questioned, effectively startling the Lord out of his scrutnizing.

"About what?"

"I see..." the man said after a moment of silence and then shook his head. "Nevermind then. He probably didn't know either."

To Be Continued