Harry Potter: How I Met Your Mother
Peacock versus Snape

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter, its characters, or its settings. They belong to JK Rowling, Warner Brothers, and Wizarding World. I do claim my original characters: Hands Off!

I am writing this story for my own amusement and ego gratification. I neither expect nor deserve any sort of financial reward for this work of fiction. If you like this story, please write and post a positive review.

This story has no relation to the How I Met Your Mother television program

Harry Potter: How I Met Your Mother* Harry Potter: How I Met Your Mother* Harry Potter: How I Met Your Mother

On the Monday of the third week of December, I saw that there was not only a new parchment on the notice board in the Common Room, but several younger students crowding around it.

"A dueling club?" said Marcus Shoales, a Third Year.

"It says that there will be a demonstration in the Great Hall this evening after dinner!" said Blaise Zabini, a second-year.

"I wonder who will be teaching it? I hope it will be Professor Lockhart," sighed Letty Thorngrove, a petite First-Year. I rolled my eyes. I could not see what girls saw in that man. I'd already concluded that he was a fraud.

I decided that I'd attend the meeting, even if there was a risk of Professor Lockhart being the one to proctor the club. I hoped we'd get someone else. Professor Flitwick had been a talented professional duelist before he retired from the sport and took up teaching, and I'd heard stories that our very own Professor Snape had considerable talent in that area, too. And I was scared, despite my affiliation with the House of the Serpents. Regardless of what rubbish the Malfoy Prat and other Old Family fools might wish to believe, I saw no reason to believe that my house affiliation or Titus' and my coming from magical families made us safe from attack. Shortly before 8:00 PM that evening, I made my way to the Great Hall to attend the Dueling Club's first meeting.

I was delighted, then dismayed by what I saw in the Great Hall. The first meeting had attracted a large crowd of students from all the houses. The tables and benches had been cleared away and had been replaced by a long stage stretching down the middle. If that Lockhart idiot wasn't going to be the instructor, this club could hold promise. I joined a crowd of my fellow Slytherins standing next to a crowd of Hufflepuffs and waited with anticipation. Then Lockhart mounted the stage.

I scowled when I saw him. I'd hoped that he would have the prudence or decency to take a back role. In spite of my disappointment, I felt a brief moment of jealousy when I saw his outfit: fraud or not, liar or not, Lockhart was a good dresser. "Bloody peacock," said a tall Puff standing next to me. I learned later that his epithet spread like Fiendfire among the upperclassmen and that he didn't have to pay for butterbeers at Hogsmeade for the rest of the school year.

Lockhart smiled, then waved his arm for silence, then called "Gather round! Gather round!" Still preening, he called out "Can you all hear me? Can you all see me?"

"In light of the dark events of recent weeks, Professor Dumbledore has given me permission to start a dueling club, so as to train you all up in case you ever need to defend yourselves against the dark forces, as I have done on countless occasions—for full details, see my published works."

Still preening, the prat, I thought sourly. I scowled as he untied the cape he was wearing and tossed it into the audience. A clutch of Gryffindor girls squealed with delight when it landed among them.

"Allow me to introduce my assistant, Professor Snape!" he continued. Our Head of House mounted the stage, wearing his customary dark robes and dour expression. I'd been thinking of leaving but abruptly changed my mind. "He tells me that he knows something about dueling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. I don't want any of you to worry, you'll still have your Potions Master when I'm through with him, never fear!"

That I didn't doubt, but I wanted to see what happened next. The two of them looked at each other and I could tell that our Head of House was looking suspiciously relaxed. Lockhart and Snape then bowed at each other and stood back-to-back. I noted that Professor Snape's bow was short and perfunctory; clearly he didn't have that much respect for Lockhart.

"As you can see, we are holding our wands in the accepted combat positions," said Lockhart. I learned later that Lockhart's position was actually something derived from Muggle fencing. "On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Nothing deadly: our spells will be to disarm only."

"On the count of three. "One, two, three!" My eyes were on our Head of House. On the count of three, his wand was already in motion and less than a second later, he shouted "Expelliaramus!" and Lockhart went flying. I was grinning ear-to-ear: the sight was highly gratifying even before Lockhart landed on the stage.

Professor Lockhart unsteadily got up and smiled. "Excellent idea to show them that but it was pretty obvious that that was what you were going to do and had I wanted to, I could easily have blocked that spell," he said, trying to regain face.

Bollocks, I thought. Professor Snape had the advantage of you from the outset. I was still uncertain as to whether I should join the dueling club but the proceedings were proving highly entertaining.

Our Head of House gave a visible shrug, then said "Perhaps it would have been prudent to first teach First-Year students how to block unfriendly spells, Professor."

"An excellent suggestion!" said Professor Lockhart, trying to recapture the conversation from someone who was showing himself to be far more competent than he. "Let me come amongst you and pair you up." He stepped off the stage and began to pair students up with each other. He made nearly half a dozen pairings, and I noted that most of his choices were Second-Year students. He had just paired Harry Potter with Ronald Weasley when Professor Snape intervened.

"A poor choice, Professor," he said. "Weasley's wand causes devastation wherever it goes. We'd be sending what's left of Potter to the Hospital Wing in a matchbox. Perhaps we should partner Potter with someone from my house." He turned his back on Lockhart and gestured to someone in the audience. I wasn't entirely surprised to see that it was Draco Malfoy.

Malfoy and Potter squared off against each other. It was amusing to see them glower at each other, bow, then stand back-to-back to duel each other. I could tell by looking that Malfoy had more experience than Potter did: not surprising, since his father was not only a Pureblood but also reputedly a former Death Eater. The Death Eaters had been horrible, but they did know how to fight.

On the count of three, the two drew at each other. During the first round, young Draco knocked Potter off his feet. Snape and Lockhart paired them off again. During the second round, I learned that young Potter had more talent than most Muggle-raised wizards: he disarmed Malfoy and the blond git had to be hauled to his feet again. Not so bright and shiny, are you, lad, I thought.

On the third try, Malfoy managed to cast a Serpensortia spell and conjured a magical cobra. That caught everyone's attention. Most Second-Years were not able to conjure such creatures.

It also caught both Professor Lockhart's and Professor Snape's attention. "Allow me," said Lockhart. He tried to get rid of it, but only succeeded in causing it to fly up in the air, then land back on the stage. The serpent was furious. Professor Snape stepped forward to banish it. Then something very strange occurred: Harry Potter started talking to it. I don't know what he said to it, but I do know that he was talking to it, and that he was speaking to it in Parseltongue when he did so.

Potter's speaking Parselmouth frightened the Ickles watching the match and convinced many of them that Potter was a Dark Wizard in training. I didn't believe it: for a potential Dark Lord, Potter was off to a poor start. Part of my reasoning was his choice of targets: I didn't believe that Potter was going to set a spitting cobra loose on some random Hufflepuff.

Toole had been watching Potter face off with Malfoy and was fascinated by the sight of Potter trying to talk to the serpent. "Bloody Hell, the lad speaks Parseltongue," he said.

Most of the Ickles of the other houses were terrified and all set to believe that Potter was the real Heir of Slytherin. We older and wiser lads of Slytherin knew better. Whatever talents The Boy Who Lived may have possessed, we could tell by his expression and body language that he was not living up to gossip: he was too unsure of himself, and he wore an expression that looked like a deer staring at the headlights of an oncoming automobile. He did not carry himself like a budding dark lord.

"I thought only dark wizards and dark wizards could speak Parseltongue," said Aiden.

"Actually, no," said Toole.

No? I thought. "So who else could speak Parseltongue?" I asked.

"Speaking Parseltongue used to be more widespread," said Tool. "Centuries ago, there were a lot of wizards and witches in the Near East who could speak it. Not so many these days, but there are still wizards and witches in India who can speak it."

Really? I thought. "Who else?" I said.

"There used to be witches and wizards in Central Mexico and in North America who could speak it," Toole continued. "Don't know how many there are nowadays."

"Anyone else?" asked Aiden.

"The Gaunts used to be famous for speaking it, but they died out," said Toole. "Also there were those loony American hillbillies. The Randalls, I think. Some of them could speak it. Of course they were murderous lunatics."

I shivered. Even then I knew that the Dark Lord claimed to be a Gaunt. I had heard of the Randalls: they'd gotten into a major feud with their neighbors over seventy years ago. It had gotten so large that it changed from a feud to an insurrection: the MACUSA had to step in to put it down, but not before the Randalls did a lot of damage. Snake-charming Randalls were supposed to be far and few between these days, and I doubted that young Potter had any Randall ancestry.

"I doubt that Potter is a secret Randall," said Edgar.

We all laughed.

Author's notes:

I'm not happy with this chapter. To me, this chapter looks too much like a mash-up between the book and movie versions of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets without much original material. I did borrow the idea of there being South Asian Parseltongue speakers from Seekeronthepath, but I was already thinking that there ought to be more Parseltongue speakers than in Harry Potter canon. The Aztecs and other Central Mexican cultures had a fascination with snakes and serpents, and snakes play at least bit parts in Native American myths north of the Mexican frontier. And who can forget the Minoan snake goddess statues found in Crete and elsewhere? So I decided that in spite of their also being Britons or Irishmen, the older Slytherins did not jump to the same conclusion as younger students from other houses.