A/N: HP Assassin Competition - prompt: '"Did you really kill a giant snake with a sword?"' from the fic Something You Just Have to Endure. (Again, I'll come back and edit the writer in when the competition is over.)

Harry knew that he was in trouble the moment he disembarked from the Hogwarts Express and saw the pinched expressions on his parents' usually welcoming faces. Although they were both smiling at him in a show that might fool some people into thinking that everything was alright, their mouths were stiff and forced.

"I think they've heard," Harry muttered to Ron and Hermione.

"Blimey," Ron said, "you never catch a break, do you?"

"Apparently not. I'll owl you tonight if I can."

In turn, they hugged him tightly to them, as if they were trying to give him strength through osmosis. Then, steeling himself, he turned and walked towards his parents.

"Harry," his mother said, sweeping him into a hug. "It's so good to see you happy and alive."

Oh, they knew, alright.

His father sat with his head in his hands, looking wearier and older than Harry had ever seen him. "I don't know what you two were thinking," he repeated.

While Harry hated seeing him look so defeated, he felt compelled to defend himself. It hadn't been a wise thing to do, and he had known that his parents would disapprove, but it wasn't like he'd had much of an option. Time had been of the essence, and he had been the only one who could speak Parseltongue. "We had to. Ron's sister was down there, and Hermione was petrified. We had to help them!"

"That's very noble of you, Harry," his mother said in a tone that let him know that she didn't really care about how noble it had been, "but that didn't mean you had to go down there by yourselves. Why didn't you tell Professor McGonagall that you thought you knew where the Chamber was? You could have opened it for her so the professors could take care of it. Even trained professionals never take on a basilisk without the proper support - and a twelve-year-old boy and an incompetent professor do not count as backup."

"We're proud of you for killing the thing, Harry. We are. But it was unnecessarily dangerous and foolhardy. We understood the fiasco with the stone last year - it was reckless, but you had already tried talking to a professor - but now... Don't you dare start making a habit out of risking your life like this."

Harry almost pointed out that his father did lots of dangerous and foolhardy things when he was at Hogwarts. Almost. But he had brought it up before, after he and his friends had recovered the Philosopher's Stone, and he suspected that his parents' response would be the same as they had been then; there was a difference between taking a risk that no one else could and taking a risk that other people were infinitely more qualified for.

"I understand," he muttered.

"We just want you to be safe," his mother said. "You know that Voldemort is targeting you. It's safe here, and at Hogwarts, but it isn't safe when you purposefully throw yourself into danger."

"I'll be careful next year," he promised.

"Alright. Do you want to go tell your Uncle Sirius that he can come in now?"

Harry slipped off the kitchen stool and hurried to the door. As he slipped through the threshold and made his way into the adjoining room, he heard his mother say, "We're going to have the same issue next year, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't say that," his father replied. "I'm sure it will be an entirely different issue next year; and that's the problem."

"Uncle Sirius?" Harry asked as he reached his godfather, who was reclining on the floor as he cheerfully played with the Potters' cat. "We're done."

"Great." Giving the feline another scratch behind her ears, he swiftly jumped up and hurried over to him. "Your parents said you had an interesting year. Did you really kill a giant snake with a sword?"

"Er..."

A broad grin spread across the older man's face. "That's awesome." After a pause, he added almost bashfully, "Don't tell your parents I said that."