A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed! I'm really glad that people are enjoying the story so much. And sorry this is so late. I hope to have the next chapter, "Crazy Talk," posted by Sunday.

I'm afraid I really can't answer the questions I got asked without revealing too much about the plot, but this should hint at some of them.

At least, it will teach Harry not to play around with basilisks.

The Best of All Possible Worlds

Chapter Four: Ugly Words in Parseltongue

Harry swallowed, and tried to think of some response. Everything that came to mind had to be thrown away immediately. It was worse than when he was trying to think of some way to explain his presence to Dumbledore.

"I can sssmell you," said the basilisk suddenly, tongue flicking out. Harry caught a glimpse of yellow as it turned its head, and promptly ducked his own face. He didn't know what would happen if he looked into the basilisk's eyes through the Invisibility Cloak, but he didn't fancy being petrified or eaten, or both.

He started inching off to the side, hoping the basilisk would miss him. If he could just step backward and close the Chamber doors...

"Thisss isss my firssst chance at freedom," said the basilisk, and moved its body towards him, suddenly and horribly quick. "Did you think I would give it up?"

Harry hopped back, getting tangled in the Cloak, trying to avoid the basilisk's eyes, and cursing under his breath. Of course, that just made the great snake cock its head again, and then say, "You are…here!"

The fangs stabbed down. Harry dodged. There came a harsh clang off the stone, and then an odd silence.

Harry stood as still as he could, and controlled the temptation to look up. He wasn't stupid. Well, not all the time.

Then the basilisk hissed again, each word stretched oddly in a way that Harry supposed was similar to human enunciation. "I do not enjoy being made a fool of."

Then it was after him, and Harry cast off the Cloak to run faster. He couldn't fool it anyway, and he was tired of tripping. He spun when he reached the far wall and crouched, holding out his wand. He had to avert his face slightly as the basilisk coiled towards him, but he thought he was still looking in something like the right direction as he yelled out, "Incendio!"

The fire sparked at the end of the basilisk's nose, from what Harry could see. He had a moment to feel satisfaction, and then one of the coils lashed forward and wrapped around him.

Harry gasped as the scales pressed against his ribs, and he learned what a real anaconda's hold probably felt like. He struggled furiously, but the pressure was intense enough to make him almost drop his wand, so he had to give that up. He held his wand close to his chest instead, and forced himself to wait as the basilisk tilted its head down towards him, gloating in Parseltongue all the while. "Ssstupid ssspell…couldn't put out my eyesss, couldn't damage me with it…firssst sssnack in centuriesss…"

Harry had been planning to use another spell the moment he got close enough to the eyes, but it seemed as if he were going to get to the fangs first. He had felt one of them second year, and that one was quite enough. He decided that another tactic might be in order.

"Are you very hungry?" he asked.

There was a long silence. Harry sincerely hoped this wasn't as bad as the last one, and waited. At least he was no longer rising towards the mouth. On the other hand, the fangs were close enough that he imagined he could feel them brushing his hair, so he held still and hoped this would work.

"How can you underssstand me?" asked the basilisk, and its voice altered, so that it was hissing and pleading at the same time. "Are you the Heir of Ssslytherin, come to ssset me on the mudbloodsss?"

"No," Harry replied, wincing. "Mudblood" was an ugly word even in Parseltongue. "But I could get you food."

The basilisk was silent for another moment. Harry wondered if it took a long time to think about things, or was just very thorough. He wasn't sure which he hoped for.

"I could just ssslither out through the door and get my own," said the basilisk at last. "But I can eat you firssst." Seemingly satisfied with that, it once again began to lower its head. Harry caught a hint of a scent like old stone and dust, and panicked.

"Incendio!" he yelled again, this time setting the fire inside the basilisk's mouth.

There came a loud, angry roar, and Harry felt himself falling. He landed philosophically enough, he thought, considering all the falls he took lately, and rolled to absorb the blow as well as put out his hair, which was on fire. Then he lifted his head cautiously to watch the basilisk, ready to lower his face so that he couldn't get petrified.

The basilisk was rolling and thrashing, tongue flickering frantically, but breathing more flames than air by the look of it. The fangs were as long and deadly as Harry remembered, but they seemed oddly helpless to bite down and put the fire out. The basilisk began hissing once again, and Harry's eyes widened. He hadn't known that Parseltongue had those words in it, either.

Then the head half-turned, and Harry just saw yellow. He ducked, and ran towards the corner where he had left the Invisibility Cloak.

Nothing pursued him. Harry looked over his shoulder and saw the basilisk slithering as fast as it could go for the open door.

Harry hissed, "Close!' before he could even consider the consequences.

The doors shut, just in front of the basilisk's snout. It made one attempt to fit part of its body through the gap, but it must have seen that it was going to be chopped in half if it persisted. It coiled in place instead, and watched the doors until they were shut completely.

Then it began turning its head back towards him.

Harry ducked under the Cloak. Maybe that would do something to slow the gaze, after all.

"You are trapped in here with me, boy," said the basilisk, coming towards him again. The scales rasped almost gently on the stone. "You didn't even consssider that, did you? Trapped, and no way to essscape. I will find you. A most tassty sssnack, and then I am no worssse than before."

"You don't have to do this," said Harry, backing away along the wall. He didn't want to let the basilisk corner him. His grip on his wand had never been tighter, and he just hoped that his shaking voice didn't affect the pronunciation of the words and turn them into some kind of insult to the snake's parentage. "I told you that I would fetch food for you. You can eat, as long as you stay in the chamber."

"You are no dessscendant of Sssalazar Ssslytherin," said the basilisk. "You care more about mudbloodsss than whether or not I eat." It said that as if it were the worst crime it could imagine, then flicked its tongue to catch Harry's scent again. Its head started to turn towards him. Harry ducked his head and scurried along the floor, trying not to imagine how much he must look like a mouse.

"I could bring you other things to eat," he offered. "There must be all kinds of meat in the kitchens."

"I want it alive, not dead," said the basilisk.

Harry felt an intense surge of irritation. The basilisk resembled everyone else in his life at the moment: not willing to listen to him, not willing to take what he could offer, but demanding something that Harry didn't want to give instead. He stopped running and glared as directly as he thought he could risk. "You're hungry right now. This at least gets you something to eat."

There was another long silence. Harry couldn't read this one any better than the others. Obviously, just because he could speak Parseltongue didn't mean he knew what a snake was thinking.

On the other hand, I'm not exactly in the habit of chatting up snakes for a long conversation.

"I am hungry," said the basilisk at last. "But if you do not come back, then I will find you. I know your ssscent now. You are not the Heir of Ssslytherin, and I do not have to obey you."

Harry breathed out, for what felt like the first time since the basilisk had started chasing him, and said, "I know. What I promise, I will keep."

"You should." The basilisk's tongue flickered once more. "I can sssmell if you are lying."

It slid away, towards the statue of Salazar Slytherin. Harry shook his head. He didn't know why the basilisk was content to obey Slytherin's Heirs. Ugly-looking thing

Of course, it might be content to obey him, too. It was letting him go, wasn't it? Harry thought it must be very hungry or very desperate.

He edged towards the Chamber doors, keeping an eye on the statue, but the basilisk didn't re-emerge. Quickly, he muttered the command, ducked out, closed the doors again, and then ran towards the pipe as fast as he could go. There had to be a way of getting back up it, or finding some other exit.

~*~

Three hours later, slimy and dirty and tired, Harry reemerged from a bathroom on the third floor. This one really did seem to be one that nobody used, and he rested his head on his hands for a moment, panting. He had searched the pipes until he had found one that had a ladder, and no dead end. Whoever had made the Hogwarts pipes had a sense of humor.

Didn't Salazar Slytherin build the Chamber of Secrets? A really ugly sense of humor, then.

He straightened up, aware that he was pressing his forehead against dirty stones, and that he had almost reached his limit. He would get to Dumbledore. Dumbledore would know how to fix everything, would have some explanation for how Harry had gotten here and what he was supposed to do to get home and why there was another him running around without a scar on his forehead. Dumbledore probably wouldn't even blink when Harry told him about the basilisk and having to get food for it. He would just nod and help Harry, his eyes twinkling. It was what he always did.

It was what he better do. Harry was so fed up, he had started thinking he would hex the next person to cross his path, because it was better than blowing the entire castle up.

He let out his breath, a little startled to find himself still shaking, and winced when he felt the pull of his bruises. Maybe he would ask Dumbledore for some pumpkin juice and some healing Potions before he asked for anything else.

He stepped out of the bathroom and glanced up and down the halls from habit. Of course, no one could see him, but brushing against an invisible person in the hallway was something most people would notice.

"Come, my sweet…we must find them…"

Harry stiffened, then ducked back into the bathroom. Filch came around the corner, looking exactly the same as he always did, talking to the cat that followed at his heels. And it was definitely a cat, nor Mrs. Norris. Harry blinked at the white kitten with a blue ribbon around its neck, and wondered if he wanted to know.

No, he did not. Bloody other Harry and his bloody other world, anyway. Harry couldn't understand the differences. If he was here as part of some complex cosmic game or riddle, he refused to play and he refused to figure it out. He was going home, the minute he saw Dumbledore.

"At the feast…left the school in the care of old Argus…don't worry, I'll take good care of it…"

Harry sighed. No use going back to Dumbledore's office, then. He would have to trek down to the Great Hall and wait for the Headmaster to finish eating, then follow him when he left. Harry only hoped that this Hogwarts didn't have some secret way back to the Headmaster's office that didn't exist in his own castle.

He found his way down easily enough, bar some moving staircases that had joined the conspiracy to make his life difficult. He reached the Great Hall at last, and slid in, glancing at the Head Table. He let out his breath in a little annoyed huff. Every other teacher looked to be there, but Dumbledore hadn't shown up yet.

Despite himself, Harry grew interested again as he studied the other teachers. Snape was still smiling madly, or at least in what constituted mad happiness for him. McGonagall looked no different than she did back home in Harry's world, speaking quietly to Hagrid, who sat beside her. Hagrid looked more dignified than Harry remembered, though, with an odd light in his eyes and full robes that had obviously been tailored to fit him. Harry wondered at it for a moment, then smiled. Of course. Hagrid never got expelled, I bet.

His eyes moved past Hagrid, and his breath caught. He knew the man sitting in the next seat and didn't know him, all at the same time, the same way he had known and not known Sirius. Remus Lupin had much less gray in his hair, and his robes actually looked comfortable, not tattered. He turned and laughed at something Professor Sprout said, and even though Harry couldn't hear it above the roar of the Great Hall, he was sure that it was full and genuine laughter.

His mind filled with an image of what Professor Lupin had looked like when he saw him at the end of this last summer, and he turned his head, blinking his eyes.

I'm glad it's different, he thought. At least this Professor Lupin gets to be happy.

He looked around the Great Hall one more time. Everyone seemed to be waiting for Dumbledore, since there was no food on any of the plates yet, although many people were drinking pumpkin juice. There were many more people drinking that juice, though, Harry noted with a slow curiosity. There were Gryffindors he'd never seen before, and the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables looked swollen. There were even unfamiliar Slytherins at their table.

Harry felt himself sneer as he saw Draco Malfoy, holding forth among the Slytherins just as he always did at home. He was about to look away when Pansy Parkinson picked up her pumpkin juice and dumped it over Malfoy's head. Malfoy squawked and swiped at the juice dripping down his face, but Pansy and most of the other Slytherins just laughed.

Harry blinked a little. Well, maybe some things are different.

The noise of a tapping fork caught his attention, and he turned expectantly around, thinking Dumbledore must have arrived while he was watching the Slytherins. Instead, though, Professor McGonagall was on her feet, and smiling as warmly as she could at the students.

"I know that you have had a busy first day of classes," she announced, when the noise had somewhat calmed down. "And I would not normally trouble you with announcements on the first day of school, but I felt it fitting to inform you of the most important change now.

"Just as you have arrived for your first day, so your new Headmaster has just successfully completed his first day." She turned with a warm smile to the seat beside her. "Headmaster Hagrid, will you please stand so the students can welcome you?"

Amid a burst of enthusiastic applause from three tables and polite clapping mixed with jeers from the fourth, Harry sagged back against the wall and tried to think of what he was going to do now.