Unplottable Island

Chapter 18: Speaking English

Biana woke up without any recollection of going to sleep. She was lying on her back, and it was very dark. Where was she? What was going on? Her body hurt, a dull, bruising ache that intensified along her arms and upper back, and she couldn't fathom how that had happened.

It hurt where her body had hit the water. Biana sat up suddenly, her pain forgotten. The man. The man who was taller than Boaz by half a meter. Where had he taken her? Where was she?

She stood up, cracking her head on the low ceiling. Her eyes could see nothing in the pitch black; she groped her way along the wall, nearly panicking when it seemed not to end. Was she in a maze of some sort? That would be just the sort of thing Voldemort would do to punish her, put her in a pitch-black maze. Biana sighed in relief when her hands met a corner, then another. In five minutes, she had assessed the size of the room. It was large, about ten meters long and five wide. In the center of one wall there was a door. It was locked, and though she threw her weight into it, she couldn't budge it. The hinges were on the other side of the door. Biana swore creatively.

Tentatively she moved into the center of the room. Her thighs hit a table, and she ran her hands over it. Biana recognized a pot of some sort, along with small glass jars full of a heavy liquid; honey, perhaps? She knew better than to try and drink it: listening to Snape's babble for months had taught her something about unknown liquid.

A noise in the dark! Biana whirled, trying to find where it came from. No sign of any light, nor was there any other noise. Biana began to pace the length of one wall, up and down, trying to keep herself reasonable. She knew that if her mind didn't see anything, it would start making up things for her to 'see' and 'hear'. Panic was rapidly setting in.

"Let me out," she whispered. "Please, please."

No answer. She was going to go nuts before she even found out where the hell she was. Though sleep was impossible, Biana lay down on one of the tables, carefully clearing it of all burdens before stretching out. Her feet hung off the edge; she pulled them in. Lying in a fetal position, she whispered to herself.

"My name is Biana Razi. I am one thousand six hundred and forty-five years old. I am seven feet eight inches tall." She sat up. "This is not comforting. I would give a finger to have a light, any light in here. I would give my whole hand for someone else to talk to."

A sound! A sound, in the dark! Her joy at knowing she was not alone was quickly replaced by her fear of the unknown. "Who is there?"

No answer. Biana wanted to scream, but she mastered the urge. Very well then. She would make her presence known to those who refused to acknowledge her.

It took only a sweep of her hand to knock the row of glass bottles to the floor. She heard the loud explosion as the vials burst on the stone floor, releasing their contents onto the floor. It was satisfying. There were more bottles on every table, and every one was smashed. Biana only relented when she stepped on the shards. She hopped around, finding a table and sucking on the injured pad of her foot. "Let me out!" she cried. The soft hissing echoes of her voice faded fast.

Biana rested her head in her hands, feeling the heat of her wrath fade away. It smelled foul in the room now, which didn't ease her disposition. It was useless. Who ever had her probably couldn't understand Parseltounge anyway. "This is hopeless," she moaned aloud. In a place of no light and few sounds, her voice seemed loud and over-enunciated—the hisses sounded in her ears like a foreign language.

But was that the only thing Parseltounge was? Another foreign language? Then English, or Manspeak (as Boaz not so fondly referred to it as)…wasn't that just another foreign language? Creatures with forked tongues can speak no mortal languages…but if Voldemort, whose tongue was most definently not forked—she shuddered at the memory—could speak Parseltounge—why couldn't Biana, a creature with a forked tongue, speak English? It was worth a shot.

At first, her noises were only variations on a hiss. She tried to remember how Snape had spoken. How had he made that sound? She tried humming with her tongue pressed against the back of her teeth.

"Nnnnnnya," she intoned. Elated, Biana tried again, this time for the whole word. "Nnnnyo. Nnn—O. N—o. No." She clapped her hands, as delighted as a mere child. She thought hard. What would she most like to say in English?

"Leeetttthhm—meh geeeeeew." Now that was pathetic, she lectured herself. Try again. "Le—T me geew. Let me go."

The student listening quietly at the door nearly gave away his presence with a gasp. English? The creature spoke English? This changed everything. He ran upstairs to tell Dumbledore. She heard him go.

"No!! Let me go!" Biana cried. "Let me go!" The harsh echo of English was the only thing left in the dark.

Dumbledore looked up in interest as Harry Potter entered his office. "Hello, Mr. Potter. How are you?"

"Dumbledore, sir, I was on my way to visit my brother," he paused, wondering if Dumbledore would object to this. The old man said nothing, but nodded for him to continue. "I heard a voice."

"What sort of voice?" Dumbledore asked, the mild arch of his silver eyebrows betraying only interest.

"Female, sir. But—it was in Parseltounge. Well—the last time I heard voices it was important. So I went to see where it was coming from." Harry gulped, nervous. "It was coming from the…"

"Potions classroom," Dumbledore finished, dipping his quill into a bottle of green ink.

Harry stared back at the Headmaster, stunned. "But—how?"

"There is a Dreki in there. Hagrid found her while visiting centaur tribes," Dumbledore answered, signing a paper and smiling at Harry. "We know that her name is Biana Razi, and she says she's not working for Voldemort." He placed the quill in its holder, folded the signed parchment, and tucked into a drawer on his desk. "Unfortunately, our communication with her is currently limited due to a language barrier. She speaks only Parsel—"

"Actually, she's speaking English—a little bit, anyway…" he trailed off, realizing he had interrupted Albus Dumbledore. "Sorry, sir."

"Oh, it's quite all right. This changes a lot of things, but I would be quite honored if you would come with me when I go to talk things over with her. She can't possibly be fluent yet, can she?"

"No," Harry replied. "When I left, she'd gotten to 'no' and 'let me out'."

Dumbledore stood up, stretched a crick in his neck, and pulled a cloak around his neck. "Well then. We should go see how much she's improved."

"Now, sir?"

"Better now than when she blows up Hogwarts with the ingredients to those potions that Professor Snape keeps in there." Dumbledore smiled. "Please keep your wand ready."

Biana nearly fell off the table in shock when she heard the voices approaching the door. She'd been practicing her sounds, particularly the vowels: "Ay, ee, aye, oh, you," and then, unmistakably, she had heard voices. She still heard them. They were coming closer.

"'Oo's there?" she slurred the words in her haste to get them out. "WH-o is there?"

There was a knock on the door. "Biana Razi?" Biana didn't reply. "We are here to talk to you. We won't hurt you, but we are going to turn on some lights." It was a voice that reminded her a little of Snape's, but older and deeper-pitched—wiser, too.

The brilliance of the single beam of light that pierced her sensitive pupils nearly made her gasp in pain. Biana's eyes watered, sending streams of water down her face. Throwing up her hand to block the most brilliant of the beam, she wiped her face on her sleeve. "Who's there?" she asked. Pleased that her voice was nearly without any accent at all, she ventured further: "I sthwear I don't work for Volthdemor—Voldemort," she corrected herself.

"My name is Albus Dumbledore," said the wise old voice. It came from somewhere near the center of the brilliant light. "One of my students is with me, a boy named Harry Potter."

"Hello, Albusth—Albuz Dumbledore."

Her eyes were adjusting to the lights now. As the bright streaks faded from her vision, she saw the old man move forward cautiously. He was tall, about six feet, with very long gray hair that added to his impressive height. Albus Dumbledore was not bent with age, but he wore it almost like a cloak. He was old, but wise and still very cunning. The boy remained behind. He was tall, but skinny, with a shock of black hair and green eyes.

"Are you Laura's son?" she blurted, forgetting to speak English. "I apologithe. I forgot."

"No, I'm not—and it's quite alright," the boy—his name was Harry. She must remember that. "I—I can understand Parseltounge. You're English is very good."

"Thank you." She wished they would stand closer together. Biana was having a hard time keeping tabs on both of them at once. "You withed to talk to me?"

"Yes, about many things, before anyone else monopolizes your attention. I know for a fact that Mr. Newt Scamander would gladly cut off his left hand to speak to you for five minutes." Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkled, but his hand remained near a pocket in his robes.

"He won't, will he?" she protested. "There are many Dreki he could speak to for a lesther cost!"

"It's a figure of speech. And if you'll forgive me my insult to your race, we haven't been on the best terms over the past millennium." He bowed slightly from the waist. "Now, to business. What do you know about the man named Lord Voldemort?" Something about the blue eyes changed, becoming harder than steel. "If wish, you may speak to Harry in Parseltounge, and he will translate for me."

"Thatth okay," she assured him. "I believe I could usthe some practice." Biana began her tale, starting with the day Voldemort had come to the mountain home of the Dreki. She told Dumbledore of the false promises he had made, the Dreki he had killed six weeks (was it truly only that long ago?) earlier, his capture of Snape and the woman Laura.

"You were their warden?"

"Pardon?"

"One who watches over the prisoners?"

"Yeth." Biana shook her head. "You'd think with how Partheltongue is thpoken, it would be simple for me to thay the letter eth," she added ruefully.

"Apart from your lisp, your English is flawless," Dumbledore reassured her. "Snape and Laura. Are they alive and well?"

"Alive, maybe," Biana replied. "I left Voldemorth dwelling plathe ath quickly as possible." Her jaw was beginning to ach from the many constrictions and tongue variations of the English language. Would it insult Dumbledore if she asked to speak Parseltounge? He said it wouldn't, but she wasn't sure. She definitely didn't want to be rude. "I know where they are kept."

"Are they fed? Do they get any water?" Harry blurted. Dumbledore said nothing, but looked a little more grave than usual. Biana blinked in surprise.

"Voldemorth would never feed hith prithoner." She studied the table. "I fed them what I could. Dreki food doeth not agree with the tathes of humankind."

They continued the questions. Once Dumbledore had finished, he allowed Biana to ask some questions of her own. She was in Hogwarts castle, in Scotland. She'd floated nearly five hundred miles in the space of two days. She was not a prisoner, but some humans would be more than eager to ram her with a killing curse if they got the chance. She would be introduced to some other students the next day (she was tickled to know that they'd been learning about her kind in lessons). Today Dumbledore would be very pleased if she'd allow herself to be moved to more comfortable accommodations and meet some of the teachers.

Biana was pleased, but still slightly apprehensive. Voldemort was her only experience with any mortal human over the age of forty. Did Dumbledore hold similar purposes for his Dreki prisoner?

"Biana? Ms. Razi," said an insistent voice from outside her thoughts. Biana blinked, focusing on the thin face and green eyes of Harry Potter.

"Yez?" Biana replied. She found that if she made her s's a little hard, then they rolled out better.

"Dumbledore wanted me to give you these." He handed her a folded packet of fabric that most promisingly resembled a dress. "He's just left to talk to Professor Gahlapault."

"Thank you," Biana said. Her jaw muscles were cracking audibly.

"You're welcome," Harry replied. It was strange to see the same hissing noises that Voldemort made coming out of this—well, he wasn't a boy, but not quite a man—teenager? Was that the word? "Can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead. I'll see if I know the answer."

"Is Laura really okay? She's not—insane, is she?"

Biana closed her eyes, bringing to light her memory of Laura as she'd last seen her. "She's completely sane, and angry as hell at Snape."

"What did he do?" Harry asked, breaking into English. "I'm sorry, it's just that Parseltounge hurts my jaw a bit."

She tried to restrain herself, but she began to laugh, hard. "Englizth hurtz too!" she choked out between giggles. "Sorry. Snape and Laura are sharing a cell. They fight with words all the time. It's amusing." She held up the dress and sighed. It would be short on her—no surprise, reflecting on the size of its inhabitants. She followed Harry as he left, hoping that her room had a high ceiling so she could stand up straight.

They were about halfway down the stone corridor when Biana felt the prick of cold steel at the base of her neck.

"Well, well," said a cold male voice from just behind her. "Fancy seeing one of you with a Potter."