Chapter Five: Heir of Snakes or "Truly Evil"
Sirius Black was near by. An attack on the school had been made by an unknown source who had opened a secret chamber. Dementors were coming to Hogwarts. Harry Potter, as well as the rest of Hogwarts's occupants, had a great deal to think about.
Between listening to Malfoy and the information Hermione was able to get from Professor Binns, Harry had gathered some basic information on the "Chamber of Secrets." It had supposedly been built by Salazar Slytherin to contain a monster which would "cleanse" Hogwarts of "dirty blood".
The chamber was to be opened, and the monster controlled by Slytherin's heir. Most notably, he had gathered from numerous times of hearing Malfoy talk in the Slytherin dungeons that the chamber of secrets had been opened fifty years ago.
The annoying factor of the whole business was how it seemed to effect the simplest parts of every day life. All the Slytherins received suspicious glances from the other houses almost constantly, though at least the two Ravenclaws who sat with Harry, Tracey, and Theodore in Herbology, Mandy Brocklehurst and Terry Boot, continued to act normally.
Even the daily gatherings in the library began to get hostile. When Hermione brought up the Chamber of Secrets one time, Tracey had commented rather nastily, "You would be concerned, wouldn't you Granger?" Nott, acting withdrawn as usual, wasn't helpful in the least. Neville had been carrying around an assortment of supposed protective devices, and was often far more nervous than usual. Even the twins had problems going on, though theirs consisted of trying to cheer up their distraught little sister, Ginny. According to Hermione, however, they weren't going about it in the right way at all.
Malfoy was probably the biggest annoyance. The pale aristocrat now acted as if he owned the school, and enjoyed a great deal of attention in Slytherin house. From what Harry had heard, however, the boy didn't know any more than he did.
It was, however, with the incompetent teacher Gilderoy Lockhart that the real trouble began.
The dueling club was announced with notices all around the school. It wasn't until Harry arrived that he knew for sure that Lockhart was the one that was holding it. To he surprise, he found Snape had somehow been cajoled into assisting. The man looked positively mutinous. Lockhart found himself thrown backwards and disarmed moments later in his demonstration duel, and hastily moved things forward, having the students paired up to practice dueling. Unfortunately for Harry, Snape came around and paired him with Malfoy. He really needed to patch up things with Snape sometime soon...
Malfoy threw the first curse, and Harry dodged, keeping his wand in his hand down by his side. After dodging several more spells, he brought his wand up abruptly and sent out a jelly-legs curse mid-doge. He quickly followed it up with a tarantallegra hex. It was normally a harmless spell, merely causing the victim to dance, but combined with the jelly-legs it had Malfoy stumbling perpetually, falling over several times. Harry took advantage of the time to successfully try out the "expelliarmus" spell.
The hall was in complete chaos, until Snape took control, casting "finite incantatem" across the hall, canceling the various enchantments that had been cast during the duels. Glancing around, he could see Hermione in a headlock with Millicent. He was just walking over to pull Millicent off when a beacon of red light collided with her, causing her to fall over under a full body bind spell, and leaving Hermione free to pick up her wand from the floor. Glancing in the direction the spell had come from, he found himself looking at Tracey Davis, who was smirking as usual. Typical. She never had liked Millicent much... He turned back to keep an eye on Malfoy.
A flustered Lockhart began to speak.
"I think I'd better teach you how to block unfriendly spells. Let's have a volunteer pair- Longbottom and Finch-Fletchley, how about you-"
"A bad idea, Professor Lockhart," said Snape, gliding over, "Longbottom causes devastation with the simplest spells. We'd be sending Finch-Fletchley up to the hospital wing in a matchbox. How about Malfoy and Potter?"
Snape's face had spread into a nasty smile. Lockhart was now looking decidedly nervous.
"Are you sure that's a good idea- well if you insist..."
He nervously beckoned Harry and Malfoy into the middle of the hall as the crowd backed away to give them room.
"Now Harry," said Lockhart as Harry watched him skeptically, "when Draco points his wand at you, you do this."
He raised his own wand, attempted some sort of complex wand movement, failed miserably, and dropped his wand.
"Whoops- my wand is a little overexcited-"
Snape moved closer to Malfoy, bent down, and whispered something in his ear. Malfoy smirked, too.
Harry met the other boy's eyes cooly, eyebrows raised.
Lockhart cuffed Harry merrily on the shoulder. "Just do what I did, Harry!"
"What, drop my want?"
But Lockhart wasn't listening.
"Three- two- one- go!" he shouted.
Malfoy raised his wand quickly and bellowed, "Serpensortia!"
He fell over only seconds later as a body-bind curse from Harry's wand connected with him. Snape and Lockhart might have protested if it hadn't been for a distraction of the long black snake that had been the result of Malfoy's spell.
Lockhart stepped forward, brandishing his wand. There was a loud bang, and the snake flew ten feet into the air and fell back to the floor. It slithered, hissing furiously, towards the nearest student, a Hufflepuff that was in Harry's charm's class whom he didn't know the name of. The snake raised itself, fangs exposed.
Harry acted on instinct- something he'd become accustomed to from living on the streets. He stepped forward quickly, telling the snake to "leave him alone." Then the snake slumped docilely to the floor, its eyes now on Harry. He glanced around the hall, which was filled with ominous muttering. He supposed something about the display must have been suspicious, though he was unsure whether it was Malfoy summoning a snake, or that it had obeyed him. He had a nasty feeling it was the later. Snape had began walking towards it, wand out. Harry, acted quickly, scooping up the snake from the floor and heading over to where Tracey was waiting for him. Nott had decided against coming to the club.
"So you're a parselmouth," she commented as he reached her, glancing around the hall with an amused look, "and you seem to have scare the poor likkle Hufflepuffs with your hissing. Nice Snake, by the way."
"Thanks." Hissing? Had he not been speaking normally, than? Parselmouth, like Salazar Slytherin? They walked back down to the Slytherin dungeons without further comment, paying no heed to the fearful whispers from other houses- or to the admiring (and for Tracey, who was walking at Harry's side, jealous) glances from their own.
"Albus, you can't seriously deny it now. The boy's a parselmouth!"
"Don't be silly, Severus. He's hardly the only parselmouth in the world."
"So who do you think is, then?"
"I think, Severus, that it is not a question of who, but of how."
The next day found Hermione sitting in a corner of the Gryffindor common room, working. She hears a familiar voice inform her that it's nearly seven thirty, and she looks up. Neville Longbottom is standing there with his bag, looking at her expectantly.
"So?" she inquires.
"Aren't you coming?"
Hermione sighs. "I'm not sure."
"What? Why not?"
"Haven't you heard what people have been saying, Neville?"
"You can't possibly believe that."
"Why not! Why should I trust someone who doesn't trust me?"
"He trusts us," Neville argues stubbornly. "He spends time with us, doesn't he? Helps us, talks with us, laughs with us. He trusts easily enough."
"Ah yes. But that's the extent of it, isn't it, of Harry Potter's trust. But we heard Quirrel had gone evil, and tried to steal some powerful magical artifact but was stopped. Just around the time Harry disappeared. And he never told me anything about what was going on, not then, not after. I'm not sure I can trust someone like that."
"I can."
She stares at him.
"You really trust him. Why?"
Neville shrugs. "Because I think I know him well enough to say he isn't the heir. And, well... someone has to."
She looks at him consideringly for a moment, then nods. "Just wait a second while I get my books together."
The day after the dueling club, Malfoy approached the library table where Harry (the snake curled lazily around his shoulders), Tracey, and Theodore sat. He wore expression that was slightly wary, grudgingly respectful- and somehow still arrogant.
"Ah, hello Harry," Malfoy said, reaching for a chair. Malfoy's gang, close behind, are watching intently.
"Just because our house suddenly holds me in higher esteem doesn't mean we want your company, Malfoy," Harry replied, pulling the chair away from Malfoy's reach.
"Come on, Potter, there's plenty of room at the table-"
"No there isn't. This table's taken." Tracey cut in. "Hey, Fred, George, Neville, Hermione! Hurry up, will you? Unwanted people are trying to invade our table!"
Malfoy gaped, astonished, as the said Gryffindors who had just entered the library hurried over. Surveying the scene, a smile spread across Hermione's face, and surprisingly, she reached across the table to high-five a smirking Tracey.
Perhaps relations with the rest of the school were worse in general, Harry thought, but somehow he didn't regret having attended the dueling club in the least.
The intense suspicion from the rest of the school did not fade in the days following. Harry, who felt he might as well enjoy the unease of his classmates if they were going to insist on assuming the worst of him decided to keep the snake with him at all times. Hermione and Neville seemed to trust him unconditionally, for which he was grateful. The twins simply made a joke of the entire thing, parading around, bowing to Harry, and announcing for people to "make way for the heir of Slytherin, truly evil guy..." whenever they came across him. As for Tracey and Theodore- well, they didn't really seem to care whether he was the heir of Slytherin or not. Tracey took advantage of the situation in every possible way- annoying Malfoy as much as possible and having first years fetch things for her, sometimes allowing these youngsters to sit near them in the Slytherin common room as a reward.
Harry found the constant suspicion rather annoying, but he was for more concerned with Black, and with who the real heir of Slytherin might be.
A/N: Many thanks to everyone who reviewed. There's some art of the last chapter, as well as a ghost!Harry pic, up at the yahoo community (you can get there from the 'homepage' link on my profile.)