Day Walker
Disclaimer: I'm just a writer. Most of the characters in my story belongs to JK Rowling. Only Damien and Professor Alexander Crow are mine.
Summary: A new teacher arrives at Hogwarts and an exciting new subject arrives with him.
~Chapter 7~
~Mahalé~
Two weeks after the Halloween Ball, things were starting to cool down around Harry and Draco. Some people still called 'fags' or 'queer' at them in the corridors or stared at them when they passed, but most of the students had realised and come to respect that they were a couple. Some had even approached Harry between classes to congratulate him and tell him that they thought he and Draco were brave. It was those people, and Draco, who gave Harry the strength to rise above the comments, but no one said those things to Draco. So he handled it in another manner. And the students in his house was the worst when it came to harassing him.
"Why don't you just ignore them, D? They're only doing that to you to psyche you out. None of your 'friends' from Slytherin treated you like that before you broke away from them and openly started dating me. I'm the one and only reason they're suddenly acting like this. Are they really that important to you? I dare to say that I care more about you than all of them put together. They are so not worth getting depressed over." Harry sounded a bit more harsh than he had intended to, and hoped Draco would understand that he weren't angry at him, but at the people who made his boyfriend depressed.
"They're not important to me at all... And I know that they're not worth it, but I can't help it if I listen to it. It's so hard to ignore. I really don't know how you manage it."
"I manage it because of you and the other people that care about me, and so should you."
"I know that too, luv, but it's so hard. I'm not used to being picked on like I am now. You're so much stronger than me."
"Not to make you feel guilty or anything, but you made me that strong. It took a whole lot of willpower to stand up to you and your former 'fans', you know." Harry laughed and a smile appeared on his boyfriend's face as well.
"I'm so sorry," Draco's face turned a pale shade of pink, "but I sort of have had a crush since our first year here at Hogwarts, and I couldn't think of another way I could get that close to you quite as often." He smiled again. This time with a hint of shyness in it. "Until now, that is."
"Well, it never actually occurred to me at that point. I kind of figured it out though... When you kissed me!" Harry laughed and leaned forward and stroked his boyfriend over the hair.
"Yes!" Draco punched a fist into the air. "That was a part of my plan, you see. He grinned and winked at Harry.
"You were very lucky, you know... That I fell in love with you in spite of the way you treated me." Harry grinned back at Draco and they both started to laugh.
~ ~ * ~ ~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~ ~ * ~ ~
Hermione, Damien, Harry and Draco (A/N: Wee! Initials match!) were on their way from the Dungeon and Potions up to the Great Hall for lunch. It was the first time Draco was with Harry's friends. He was a bit surprised at how welcome, accepted and relaxed he felt in their company. When they passed the magical posting board in the entrance hall Damien noticed a new note. It said:
'The optional subjects are
now starting. Lists to sign
up on will be put up in the
four house's common rooms.
-Headmaster A. Dumbledore '
"Hmmm..." said Damien, "I wonder what I'm going to choose. What subjects can you choose from here then?"
"Actually..." said Hermione.
"We don't know." Draco and Harry finished her sentence as one. Harry continued. "They sort of change. I've heard some rumours about a completely new subject this semester, but nothing about which teacher who'll teach it, so I'm not sure. If the rumours are true, we'll probably get information on it today. At dinner, most likely."
Harry was right, but the information came earlier that he had expected. Already, after lunch, Dumbledore asked for the student's attention.
"As most of you probably know, the optional subject lists are being put up this afternoon. I apologise for having you wait so long for it this semester, but we had to wait for a new member of the faculty to be released of his former duties. He arrived here this morning and has spent the day getting settled in to his new rooms. May I present," Dumbledore paused, the doors into the Great Hall swung open and a tall, slender man with black, nearly bluish, hair and black eyes entered the room. Dumbledore continued, "Professor Alexander Crow, teacher in Demonic Languages, which is, as you've most likely guessed, our new optional subject."
Professor Crow walked up to the teacher's table, smiling at the students and shaking hands with each of the teachers. He was wearing a set of black robes that were so long that they touched the floor when he walked. They were pinned together at the top by a beautiful small, silver buckle with an intricate pattern of tiny flowers and leaves.
Harry, Hermione, Damien and Draco all noticed that he looked a bit like Snape with short hair. If they removed the smile on Professor Crow's face and replaced it with a smirk, that is. The four of them returned their attention towards the teacher's table again. Professor Crow was about to speak. He cleared his throat.
"Hello. I am, as your headmaster said, the teacher of the new subject Demonic Languages. Not much more to say about that,." He ran his fingers through his short black hair and rubbed the back of his neck for a second. "But I can tell what I've been up to before I came here today." Professor Crow took a deep breath. "Where shall I start? The beginning would be the most logical place, don't you think?" He grinned and continued. "I went to a wizarding school in Ireland from I was 10 years old til I was 17. After that I decided to study Demons and it was during those studies I started to take an interest in Demonic Languages. When I had finished three years there I continued in another university to study Demonic Languages. I had to travel to Australia to find one, but it paid off. There I became a professor in D.L. It was an intensive course and took three years. I spent the next year at the same university, but to get the knowledge I needed to teach D.L. as a starters course, or in your case as an optional subject. "And I know what you're thinking now." He smiled cunningly at the students. "I have spent a larger part of my life in school. But I have actually done something fun too. For a year before I came here this morning, I was in Norway. I had a job as a dragonkeeper at a zoo there. Dragons have been an obsession of mine since I was a kid. And the reason for my late arrival is that I had to wait for the person who was to take over my job. So there you have it, and for you who haven't figured it out; I'm 25 years old. And a Libra if anyone's interested," he added cheerfully. He laughed and most of the students did too. Some of the oldest girls looked at him with admiring gases. Harry could hear them whisper things like 'He's so young' or 'He quite good looking, isn't he?' Harry didn't agree with them. Professor Crow was charming, but he wouldn't have used the phrase 'good looking'.
"He seems like a nice guy," Harry whispered in Draco's ear. "Let's just hope he'a as nice a teacher."
"I'm thinking of taking his class so I should hope so," Draco replied.
"So am I. It sounds interesting." Harry moved a little bit closer to Draco and put his head gently on his shoulder.
~ ~ * ~ ~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~ ~ * ~ ~
The first Demonic Languages class were held the next week. The third-years of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff got that honour. Professor Crow had a lot of work a head of him. A larger part of Hogwarts' students had chose D.L as one of their optional subjects. Among them were Harry, Draco and Damien. Hermione had decided to continue with her old subjects. She figured she would need them more than D.L when she was finished at Hogwarts.
"I usually never look forward to going to class," said Damien when the three boys were standing outside the Demonic Languages classroom, "but today I do. I'm quite excited actually." He looked at the two boys next to him and got a wondering expression on his face. "You know," he said and stroked his hair back with his right hand, "you two look incredibly good together. You are both blessed with beautiful slender bodies, so that matches, and your eye and hair colour create a contrast between you. It just looks good. You should hold hands too, by the way." Damien reached down and linked their hands together. Then he started to laugh. "I'm a bit hyperactive today, but I don't have to tell you that, do I?"
"No," Harry smiled at him, "let me guess. You didn't sleep last night?"
"Ten points to Mr. Potter," Damien held an imaginary microphone up to his mouth. "No, I didn't and I don't know why. I'm just like that some times." He smiled again and began to bob his head to a song only he could hear.
Harry and Draco looked at each other and laughed. At the same time Professor Crow showed up. He let the students into the classroom and let them sit down before he walked up to the teachers desk and sat on the edge of it.
Damien, Draco and Harry had found their seats to the right of the classroom on the third row. Damien was tapping the beat of his own song, and annoying Harry to the verge of insanity.
"Damien? Can you please stop? It's annoying," said Harry and put his hand over Damien's tapping hand. Harry turned to ask Draco if he agreed, but stopped when he saw his boyfriend's face. Draco stared at the hands of the other boys. The jealousy was written all over his face and his usually grey eyes had turned a shade of greyish-green.
"What's wrong, Draco? No need to get jealous here, you know," said Harry, answering his own question. He turned his attention towards the front of the classroom. Professor Crow was in the middle of finding out who was present and learning the student's names.
"Mr. Harry Potter?" Professor Crow looked around the classroom and spotted Harry. "There you are, Mr. Potter, and then you have to be Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Ness, if I'm not mistaken." He smiled at the three boys who just nodded in consent. He called out the rest of the names on his list and sat down. He took up some scrolls from his bag and cleared his throat.
"Well. You won't need your own books in this class. The books we'll use are in the school library. They arrived the day after me. For you who might develop a special interest in this subject I have some scrolls and private books you can borrow. We won't start on the language today, but I will tell you about the demons whose languages I'll teach you some of this semester. I don't want to try to complete your knowledge on the subject. I wouldn't be able to either even though I tried since this is just optional and we get only two hours a week. My goal is only that some of you might like it and continue to study it later in life. It can become a powerful weapon in the future. But back to the demons. I have selected three quite different demons for you. The Shadow Crawler, the Chareeze Demon and the Whitesnake Demon.
The Shadow Crawlers can disappear in the shadow and look like a shadow at will. They are not dangerous, but can be quite frightening with their big yellow eyes and blue scaly skin, but they are actually quite playful and love to scare people. Their language are very simple. Instead of saying 'I love to scare you' they say 'love scare you', and they have no particular grammar system. They just use the words in the same way in all sentences. Let's take the sentence I used earlier, 'love scare you'. Translated to the Shadow Crawlers' language. Oh. A question. What's you name again?"
"Dean Thomas, professor. I was just wondering. You refer to the language as 'The Shadow Crawlers' language'. Has it no name of it's own? Like ours is called English, I mean."
"Actually Dean, it hasn't. Maybe in their language, but not in English. Someone suggested to call it 'Crawlerian', but he was the only one in the wizarding world who thought it was a good idea. So that was dumped. But as I was saying; 'love scare you' translated to the Shadow Crawlers' language is 'mahalé anii delar'. I said that you weren't going to learn anything regarding the language today, but I want you to write this down." Then he got up, grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote the demonic words and their meaning on the blackboard.
Mahalé - love
Anii - scare
Delar - you
"As you can hear the Shadow Crawlers' language is softer and more beautiful then you'd expect. You'll get what I've said about the demons on a scroll next week, one copy for each of you, but please try to remember it anyway." He put away some scrolls that obviously contained information on the Shadow Crawlers. "There we go." Professor Crow folded his hands and put them on the desktop. "Let's go on to the other demons I've chosen. First we have the Chareeze demon. This demon is quite rare. We don't know much about it or its language, but I'm going to teach you the little that is known. It's mostly basics like 'food', 'hunt' or 'kill'. The Chareeze demon is small, brown and furry. Looks much like a small grizzly bear. It can be dangerous to humans if it feels threatened, but other than that it doesn't pose much of a threat to us. As I said we don't know much about it. That's one of the reasons why I chose this demon, and the previous one. Their languages are easy to learn, and they're so completely different, because the Chareeze's language is dark and growly, in comparrasent to the Shadow Crawlers'. The last demon I've selected will not be that easy. The Whitesnake demon is a tricky one. It looks a lot like humans most of the time except that their eyes are totally black, their skin is milky-white and they have fangs. It might sound like I'm describing a vampire," Damien stiffened for a second, but regained control quickly, "but they're not. Far from it. This demon can take the form of a snake. A large white snake. When they are in their snake form they are poisonous and speak only Parseltongue. I've heard some rumours that one of you has got that gift." Everyone's eyes turned to Harry. 'Gift?' he thought, 'more of a curse if you ask me.' But he still raised his hand. "That someone is me, professor, but I would hardly call it a gift."
"Ah," the professor pointed at Harry, "but it is. Especially when it comes to these demons. In their, shall I say, human form they're using vocal chords to speak, with some interruptions from hissing, but in their snake form they use their tongues to hiss. Sometimes they shift shape to avoid communication, they're quite intelligent these creatures. That's where the brilliance of being able to speak Parseltongue comes in."
"I see," said Harry, "but people's view of Parselmouths are not exactly nice. They don't see it as a gift."
"You're right, Mr. Potter, but keep this in mind; It might come in handy. But that was a small diversion. The Whitesnake's language is more complicated than both of the other demons' It's a mix of the beautiful and melodic sound that the Shadow Crawlers use and the hard and growly sound of the Chareeze demon, but I'll try to teach you as much as of it as I can during this semester and might continue next semester. Any questions?"
A Slytherin boy with red hair and rat like eyes raised his hand. "How complicated is it? I mean, has their language got as many words as ours and do they have a grammar system like we do?"
"Yes and yes. The Whitesnake demon has an incredible vocabulary. Most demonic languages has few words and a quite primitive grammar system, but the Whitesnake's language has developed alongside most of the modern languages that humans use." Professor Crow looked at the magical clock over the classroom door. The female clock smiled and said: "3.45pm"
"Class is dismissed in five minutes. Since this is your last class of the day I wish you all a good evening." The professor smiled at the students. "You can go now." He sat down and gathered his things while the students left the room.
Harry and Draco left last. Damien went ahead of them to give them some time alone to talk.
"What was up with you in there, D? You looked like you were about to kill Damien. Don't even try to deny that you were jealous. Your eyes were nearly as green as mine. But why?" Harry stared at the blonde boy with a sad look in his eyes.
"You touched him.. You touched his hand like you some times touch mine. So I got jealous." Draco looked down at his feet.
"Oh D. You silly little boy. It didn't mean anything. I was just stopping him from tapping his annoying beat." Harry put his arm around Draco's waist and started to walk up the corridor. Draco was quiet until they reached the staircases up to the Gryffindor's tower and down to the Slytherin's dungeon.
"Harry?" The pale, slender boy turned to face his boyfriend.
"Mm-hm."
"I know it didn't mean anything, but I just freaked. It's because I. Well. I." He leaned forward, gave Harry a long kiss and whispered in his ear: "Because I. Ummm. I. Mahalé delar" Draco stepped away from a shocked Harry and smiled.
"Erm." Harry couldn't get out a single word, even though he wanted to. 'I love you too,' his mind screamed, but his mouth said nothing.
"Ummm."
"Don't worry, luv." Draco smiled again. "I know." And then he went down the stairs to his dormitory and left his boyfriend standing there like he was struck by lightning.
As Draco's shape disappeared down the stairs Harry heard his own voice whisper softly: "I love you too, D."
Disclaimer: I'm just a writer. Most of the characters in my story belongs to JK Rowling. Only Damien and Professor Alexander Crow are mine.
Summary: A new teacher arrives at Hogwarts and an exciting new subject arrives with him.
~Chapter 7~
~Mahalé~
Two weeks after the Halloween Ball, things were starting to cool down around Harry and Draco. Some people still called 'fags' or 'queer' at them in the corridors or stared at them when they passed, but most of the students had realised and come to respect that they were a couple. Some had even approached Harry between classes to congratulate him and tell him that they thought he and Draco were brave. It was those people, and Draco, who gave Harry the strength to rise above the comments, but no one said those things to Draco. So he handled it in another manner. And the students in his house was the worst when it came to harassing him.
"Why don't you just ignore them, D? They're only doing that to you to psyche you out. None of your 'friends' from Slytherin treated you like that before you broke away from them and openly started dating me. I'm the one and only reason they're suddenly acting like this. Are they really that important to you? I dare to say that I care more about you than all of them put together. They are so not worth getting depressed over." Harry sounded a bit more harsh than he had intended to, and hoped Draco would understand that he weren't angry at him, but at the people who made his boyfriend depressed.
"They're not important to me at all... And I know that they're not worth it, but I can't help it if I listen to it. It's so hard to ignore. I really don't know how you manage it."
"I manage it because of you and the other people that care about me, and so should you."
"I know that too, luv, but it's so hard. I'm not used to being picked on like I am now. You're so much stronger than me."
"Not to make you feel guilty or anything, but you made me that strong. It took a whole lot of willpower to stand up to you and your former 'fans', you know." Harry laughed and a smile appeared on his boyfriend's face as well.
"I'm so sorry," Draco's face turned a pale shade of pink, "but I sort of have had a crush since our first year here at Hogwarts, and I couldn't think of another way I could get that close to you quite as often." He smiled again. This time with a hint of shyness in it. "Until now, that is."
"Well, it never actually occurred to me at that point. I kind of figured it out though... When you kissed me!" Harry laughed and leaned forward and stroked his boyfriend over the hair.
"Yes!" Draco punched a fist into the air. "That was a part of my plan, you see. He grinned and winked at Harry.
"You were very lucky, you know... That I fell in love with you in spite of the way you treated me." Harry grinned back at Draco and they both started to laugh.
~ ~ * ~ ~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~ ~ * ~ ~
Hermione, Damien, Harry and Draco (A/N: Wee! Initials match!) were on their way from the Dungeon and Potions up to the Great Hall for lunch. It was the first time Draco was with Harry's friends. He was a bit surprised at how welcome, accepted and relaxed he felt in their company. When they passed the magical posting board in the entrance hall Damien noticed a new note. It said:
'The optional subjects are
now starting. Lists to sign
up on will be put up in the
four house's common rooms.
-Headmaster A. Dumbledore '
"Hmmm..." said Damien, "I wonder what I'm going to choose. What subjects can you choose from here then?"
"Actually..." said Hermione.
"We don't know." Draco and Harry finished her sentence as one. Harry continued. "They sort of change. I've heard some rumours about a completely new subject this semester, but nothing about which teacher who'll teach it, so I'm not sure. If the rumours are true, we'll probably get information on it today. At dinner, most likely."
Harry was right, but the information came earlier that he had expected. Already, after lunch, Dumbledore asked for the student's attention.
"As most of you probably know, the optional subject lists are being put up this afternoon. I apologise for having you wait so long for it this semester, but we had to wait for a new member of the faculty to be released of his former duties. He arrived here this morning and has spent the day getting settled in to his new rooms. May I present," Dumbledore paused, the doors into the Great Hall swung open and a tall, slender man with black, nearly bluish, hair and black eyes entered the room. Dumbledore continued, "Professor Alexander Crow, teacher in Demonic Languages, which is, as you've most likely guessed, our new optional subject."
Professor Crow walked up to the teacher's table, smiling at the students and shaking hands with each of the teachers. He was wearing a set of black robes that were so long that they touched the floor when he walked. They were pinned together at the top by a beautiful small, silver buckle with an intricate pattern of tiny flowers and leaves.
Harry, Hermione, Damien and Draco all noticed that he looked a bit like Snape with short hair. If they removed the smile on Professor Crow's face and replaced it with a smirk, that is. The four of them returned their attention towards the teacher's table again. Professor Crow was about to speak. He cleared his throat.
"Hello. I am, as your headmaster said, the teacher of the new subject Demonic Languages. Not much more to say about that,." He ran his fingers through his short black hair and rubbed the back of his neck for a second. "But I can tell what I've been up to before I came here today." Professor Crow took a deep breath. "Where shall I start? The beginning would be the most logical place, don't you think?" He grinned and continued. "I went to a wizarding school in Ireland from I was 10 years old til I was 17. After that I decided to study Demons and it was during those studies I started to take an interest in Demonic Languages. When I had finished three years there I continued in another university to study Demonic Languages. I had to travel to Australia to find one, but it paid off. There I became a professor in D.L. It was an intensive course and took three years. I spent the next year at the same university, but to get the knowledge I needed to teach D.L. as a starters course, or in your case as an optional subject. "And I know what you're thinking now." He smiled cunningly at the students. "I have spent a larger part of my life in school. But I have actually done something fun too. For a year before I came here this morning, I was in Norway. I had a job as a dragonkeeper at a zoo there. Dragons have been an obsession of mine since I was a kid. And the reason for my late arrival is that I had to wait for the person who was to take over my job. So there you have it, and for you who haven't figured it out; I'm 25 years old. And a Libra if anyone's interested," he added cheerfully. He laughed and most of the students did too. Some of the oldest girls looked at him with admiring gases. Harry could hear them whisper things like 'He's so young' or 'He quite good looking, isn't he?' Harry didn't agree with them. Professor Crow was charming, but he wouldn't have used the phrase 'good looking'.
"He seems like a nice guy," Harry whispered in Draco's ear. "Let's just hope he'a as nice a teacher."
"I'm thinking of taking his class so I should hope so," Draco replied.
"So am I. It sounds interesting." Harry moved a little bit closer to Draco and put his head gently on his shoulder.
~ ~ * ~ ~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~ ~ * ~ ~
The first Demonic Languages class were held the next week. The third-years of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff got that honour. Professor Crow had a lot of work a head of him. A larger part of Hogwarts' students had chose D.L as one of their optional subjects. Among them were Harry, Draco and Damien. Hermione had decided to continue with her old subjects. She figured she would need them more than D.L when she was finished at Hogwarts.
"I usually never look forward to going to class," said Damien when the three boys were standing outside the Demonic Languages classroom, "but today I do. I'm quite excited actually." He looked at the two boys next to him and got a wondering expression on his face. "You know," he said and stroked his hair back with his right hand, "you two look incredibly good together. You are both blessed with beautiful slender bodies, so that matches, and your eye and hair colour create a contrast between you. It just looks good. You should hold hands too, by the way." Damien reached down and linked their hands together. Then he started to laugh. "I'm a bit hyperactive today, but I don't have to tell you that, do I?"
"No," Harry smiled at him, "let me guess. You didn't sleep last night?"
"Ten points to Mr. Potter," Damien held an imaginary microphone up to his mouth. "No, I didn't and I don't know why. I'm just like that some times." He smiled again and began to bob his head to a song only he could hear.
Harry and Draco looked at each other and laughed. At the same time Professor Crow showed up. He let the students into the classroom and let them sit down before he walked up to the teachers desk and sat on the edge of it.
Damien, Draco and Harry had found their seats to the right of the classroom on the third row. Damien was tapping the beat of his own song, and annoying Harry to the verge of insanity.
"Damien? Can you please stop? It's annoying," said Harry and put his hand over Damien's tapping hand. Harry turned to ask Draco if he agreed, but stopped when he saw his boyfriend's face. Draco stared at the hands of the other boys. The jealousy was written all over his face and his usually grey eyes had turned a shade of greyish-green.
"What's wrong, Draco? No need to get jealous here, you know," said Harry, answering his own question. He turned his attention towards the front of the classroom. Professor Crow was in the middle of finding out who was present and learning the student's names.
"Mr. Harry Potter?" Professor Crow looked around the classroom and spotted Harry. "There you are, Mr. Potter, and then you have to be Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Ness, if I'm not mistaken." He smiled at the three boys who just nodded in consent. He called out the rest of the names on his list and sat down. He took up some scrolls from his bag and cleared his throat.
"Well. You won't need your own books in this class. The books we'll use are in the school library. They arrived the day after me. For you who might develop a special interest in this subject I have some scrolls and private books you can borrow. We won't start on the language today, but I will tell you about the demons whose languages I'll teach you some of this semester. I don't want to try to complete your knowledge on the subject. I wouldn't be able to either even though I tried since this is just optional and we get only two hours a week. My goal is only that some of you might like it and continue to study it later in life. It can become a powerful weapon in the future. But back to the demons. I have selected three quite different demons for you. The Shadow Crawler, the Chareeze Demon and the Whitesnake Demon.
The Shadow Crawlers can disappear in the shadow and look like a shadow at will. They are not dangerous, but can be quite frightening with their big yellow eyes and blue scaly skin, but they are actually quite playful and love to scare people. Their language are very simple. Instead of saying 'I love to scare you' they say 'love scare you', and they have no particular grammar system. They just use the words in the same way in all sentences. Let's take the sentence I used earlier, 'love scare you'. Translated to the Shadow Crawlers' language. Oh. A question. What's you name again?"
"Dean Thomas, professor. I was just wondering. You refer to the language as 'The Shadow Crawlers' language'. Has it no name of it's own? Like ours is called English, I mean."
"Actually Dean, it hasn't. Maybe in their language, but not in English. Someone suggested to call it 'Crawlerian', but he was the only one in the wizarding world who thought it was a good idea. So that was dumped. But as I was saying; 'love scare you' translated to the Shadow Crawlers' language is 'mahalé anii delar'. I said that you weren't going to learn anything regarding the language today, but I want you to write this down." Then he got up, grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote the demonic words and their meaning on the blackboard.
Mahalé - love
Anii - scare
Delar - you
"As you can hear the Shadow Crawlers' language is softer and more beautiful then you'd expect. You'll get what I've said about the demons on a scroll next week, one copy for each of you, but please try to remember it anyway." He put away some scrolls that obviously contained information on the Shadow Crawlers. "There we go." Professor Crow folded his hands and put them on the desktop. "Let's go on to the other demons I've chosen. First we have the Chareeze demon. This demon is quite rare. We don't know much about it or its language, but I'm going to teach you the little that is known. It's mostly basics like 'food', 'hunt' or 'kill'. The Chareeze demon is small, brown and furry. Looks much like a small grizzly bear. It can be dangerous to humans if it feels threatened, but other than that it doesn't pose much of a threat to us. As I said we don't know much about it. That's one of the reasons why I chose this demon, and the previous one. Their languages are easy to learn, and they're so completely different, because the Chareeze's language is dark and growly, in comparrasent to the Shadow Crawlers'. The last demon I've selected will not be that easy. The Whitesnake demon is a tricky one. It looks a lot like humans most of the time except that their eyes are totally black, their skin is milky-white and they have fangs. It might sound like I'm describing a vampire," Damien stiffened for a second, but regained control quickly, "but they're not. Far from it. This demon can take the form of a snake. A large white snake. When they are in their snake form they are poisonous and speak only Parseltongue. I've heard some rumours that one of you has got that gift." Everyone's eyes turned to Harry. 'Gift?' he thought, 'more of a curse if you ask me.' But he still raised his hand. "That someone is me, professor, but I would hardly call it a gift."
"Ah," the professor pointed at Harry, "but it is. Especially when it comes to these demons. In their, shall I say, human form they're using vocal chords to speak, with some interruptions from hissing, but in their snake form they use their tongues to hiss. Sometimes they shift shape to avoid communication, they're quite intelligent these creatures. That's where the brilliance of being able to speak Parseltongue comes in."
"I see," said Harry, "but people's view of Parselmouths are not exactly nice. They don't see it as a gift."
"You're right, Mr. Potter, but keep this in mind; It might come in handy. But that was a small diversion. The Whitesnake's language is more complicated than both of the other demons' It's a mix of the beautiful and melodic sound that the Shadow Crawlers use and the hard and growly sound of the Chareeze demon, but I'll try to teach you as much as of it as I can during this semester and might continue next semester. Any questions?"
A Slytherin boy with red hair and rat like eyes raised his hand. "How complicated is it? I mean, has their language got as many words as ours and do they have a grammar system like we do?"
"Yes and yes. The Whitesnake demon has an incredible vocabulary. Most demonic languages has few words and a quite primitive grammar system, but the Whitesnake's language has developed alongside most of the modern languages that humans use." Professor Crow looked at the magical clock over the classroom door. The female clock smiled and said: "3.45pm"
"Class is dismissed in five minutes. Since this is your last class of the day I wish you all a good evening." The professor smiled at the students. "You can go now." He sat down and gathered his things while the students left the room.
Harry and Draco left last. Damien went ahead of them to give them some time alone to talk.
"What was up with you in there, D? You looked like you were about to kill Damien. Don't even try to deny that you were jealous. Your eyes were nearly as green as mine. But why?" Harry stared at the blonde boy with a sad look in his eyes.
"You touched him.. You touched his hand like you some times touch mine. So I got jealous." Draco looked down at his feet.
"Oh D. You silly little boy. It didn't mean anything. I was just stopping him from tapping his annoying beat." Harry put his arm around Draco's waist and started to walk up the corridor. Draco was quiet until they reached the staircases up to the Gryffindor's tower and down to the Slytherin's dungeon.
"Harry?" The pale, slender boy turned to face his boyfriend.
"Mm-hm."
"I know it didn't mean anything, but I just freaked. It's because I. Well. I." He leaned forward, gave Harry a long kiss and whispered in his ear: "Because I. Ummm. I. Mahalé delar" Draco stepped away from a shocked Harry and smiled.
"Erm." Harry couldn't get out a single word, even though he wanted to. 'I love you too,' his mind screamed, but his mouth said nothing.
"Ummm."
"Don't worry, luv." Draco smiled again. "I know." And then he went down the stairs to his dormitory and left his boyfriend standing there like he was struck by lightning.
As Draco's shape disappeared down the stairs Harry heard his own voice whisper softly: "I love you too, D."