Author's note: Posting this chapter now to make up for the extra long wait on the last one. I hope that you enjoy it. I can't believe that this is already chapter 20. Please review!

Guest: Thank you! Snape probably doesn't like supervising that many detentions in HBP, but he probably prefers it to worrying that Harry will bite it during a Quidditch game, lol. Does seem like something goes wrong every time. Of course, in 4th year it's only nice until Harry's name comes out of the goblet. Imagine what kind of a mood he'll be in then.

Warnings: Swearing (let's face it, this is pretty much a permanent warning)

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I referenced pages 140-146 of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets while writing this.

Serpensortia

There had been another Petrification: Colin Creevey, a young Gryffindor who believed that the sun shone out of Harry Potter's backside. Personally, Severus didn't think that the boy's newly-frozen state was too bad; the hyperactive child was always bouncing about the Potions classroom, knocking things over and pulling focus, not to mention that the perpetual clicking of his muggle camera grated on Severus's nerves. This was an unpopular opinion which he decided to keep to himself.

That he no longer had to tell Creevey to put down the damn camera and get to work was only a minor perk, however. Dumbledore had called another staff meeting, and he had been as hard to wiggle information out of as always.

"The Petrification, of course, is no joke," Pomona had spoken up, "but the Chamber of Secrets is only a myth."

Dumbledore shook his head. "I assure you, my dear, that the Chamber of Secrets is real," he'd said, with absolute certainty, as though he knew more than he was letting on—typical. Then, "Do you have an estimation for when the Mandrakes will be ready?"

Outside of this, life was continuing as usual. Two weeks into December, Severus's second-year Gryffindor/Slytherin class highlighted this. They were attempting to brew Swelling Solution. It was going as well as could be expected, meaning abysmally.

"And once again, the great Harry Potter thinks himself above following the instructions," Severus sneered, looking down his nose at Potter's runny potion, which was not only the wrong consistency, but also seemed to be producing a faint blue vapour. He wouldn't say that it was worse than Longbottom's, though. Longbottom's potion was a sickly green-grey and seemed to be curdling.

Severus had just turned away to go berate Longbottom when a cauldron behind him exploded, and Gregory Goyle's Swelling Solution showered the whole class. People began shrieking, stumbling around with their hands and noses and feet swelling up, at risk for knocking over more cauldrons.

"Stop it this instant." His barked command got lost in the commotion. "Be quiet. Silence! Silence!" The shrieking stopped. "Anyone who has been splashed, come here for a Deflating Draught. When I find out who did this…"

When everyone had taken a swig of the antidote and the various swellings had subsided, Severus swept over to Goyle's cauldron. As he suspected, this wasn't the result of a mere slip-up. Slip-ups at this level weren't supposed to be quite so spectacular.

He scooped out the twisted black remains of what was obviously a firework, something on Filch's list of contraband. The noise level, which had begun to creep back up, suddenly dropped again.

"If I ever find out who threw this," he whispered, staring at Potter, who looked like he was trying to act innocent but still looked suspiciously uncomfortable, "I will make sure that person is expelled."

His mood got worse when he entered his private stores that evening to find that someone had stolen Bicorn horn and Boomslang skin. He wondered if it would be possible to put Potter in detention every night for the rest of his life.

Four days later saw Severus in the Headmaster's office.

"A duelling club?" he said incredulously. "Lockhart wants to start a duelling club? Albus, this is the man who vanished thirty-three bones of the bones in Potter's arm. I wouldn't trust him to look after a rat without parental supervision."

"The children will have fun. Perhaps they'll even learn something in the process. Sherbet lemon?"

"No."

"As a matter of fact"—Dumbledore unwrapped a sweet for himself—"he will, as you put it, have 'parental supervision.'"

"Oh?" Severus raised an eyebrow. "Filius has volunteered to spend time with that preening moron?" The Ravenclaw Head was the obvious person, being a duelling champion himself.

"Actually, I was hoping that you would."

There was a long pause.

"No."

"But Severus, my boy-"

"No."

"-you said it yourself that Lockhart will need assistance, and don't you believe that if one wants a job done correctly, one must do it oneself?"

Severus opened his mouth to argue, to dispute this, and then closed it again. Damn the manipulative old wizard for using his own logic against him. Dumbledore wasn't half as senile as he pretended to be.

And at eight o'clock a few nights later, the children filed into the Great Hall, all carrying their wands and looking excited. Severus had been hoping that nobody would show up, so he could go back to his rooms and brood.

Lockhart walked onto the stage which had been set up in the middle of the Hall. Severus followed, staring daggers at the back of the man's head.

"Gather round, gather round! Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me?"

Unfortunately.

"Excellent! Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little Duelling Club, to train you all up in case you ever need to defend yourself as I myself have done on countless occasions—for full details, see my published works."

Nobody cares, you numbskull.

"Let me introduce my assistant Professor Snape. He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about duelling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now, I don't want any of you youngsters to worry—you'll still have your Potions Master when I'm through with him, never fear!"

Severus curled his lip. The only consolation was that he had explicit permission to draw his wand on Lockhart.

The two wizards turned to face each other and bowed. Lockhart's bow was decorated with much twirling of his hands, whereas Severus's bow was barely a jerk of his head. Then they raised their wands in front of them.

"As you see, we are holding our wands in the accepted combative position," Lockhart told the silent crowd. "On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course."

If you were worth life in Azkaban, I would be.

"One… two… three…"

Both of them swung their wands up and over their shoulders.

"Expelliarmus!"

There was a dazzling flash of scarlet light and Lockhart was blasted off his feet: He flew backwards off the stage, smashed into the wall and slid down it to sprawl on the floor. Draco and some of the other Slytherins cheered.

That was fun.

Lockhart got unsteadily to his feet. His hat had fallen off and his wavy hair was standing on end.

"Well, there you have it!" he said, tottering back onto the platform. "That was a Disarming Charm—as you see, I've lost my wand—ah, thank you, Miss Brown. Yes, an excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don't mind my saying so, it was very obvious what you were about to do. If I had wanted to stop you it would have been only too easy. However, I felt it would be instructive to let them see…."

The thing at which Lockhart was best was saving face, and he wasn't even particularly good at that. Severus was thoroughly tempted to curse him as he spewed his crap, but losing his temper like that wouldn't have set a good example for his snakes.

"Enough demonstrating!" Lockhart said, perhaps cluing in to the murderous look on Severus's face. "I'm going to come amongst you now and put you all into pairs. Professor Snape, if you'd like to help me…."

To Severus's delight, he reached the Golden Trio before Lockhart did. "Time to split up the dream team, I think," he sneered. "Weasley, you can partner Finnigan. Potter"—the boy moved towards Hermione—"I don't think so. Mister Malfoy, come over here. Let's see what you make of the famous Potter. And you, Miss Granger, you can partner Miss Bulstrode."

Severus felt a smug satisfaction knowing that Dumbledore couldn't complain about anything he did at this meeting, as he was the one who had talked Severus into doing this in the first place.

"Face your partners!" called Lockhart, back on the platform, "and bow! Wands at ready! When I count to three, cast your charms to disarm your opponent—only to disarm them—we don't want any accidents. One…two…"

Draco cast his spell on "two," and Potter stumbled backwards.

"Rictusempra!" he yelled as soon as he'd recovered.

A jet of silver light hit Draco in the stomach and he doubled up, wheezing.

"I said disarm only!" Lockhart shouted in alarm over the heads of the battling crowd.

"Tarantallegra!"

Now Draco was on the floor laughing hysterically and Potter's feet were dancing, the rest of his body going along for the ride.

"Stop!" screamed Lockhart. "Stop!"

Severus took a step forward. "Finite Incantatem!"

The mock duels of the rest of Potter's Gryffindor comrades had gone just as poorly. Both Longbottom and Justin Finch-Fletchley were lying on the floor, panting; Weasley was holding up an ashen-faced Seamus; Bulstrode had decided to make things physical and had Granger in a headlock. Potter strode forward and pulled the Slytherin girl away from his friend.

"Dear, dear," Lockhart said, skittering through the crowd, looking at the aftermath of the duels. "Up you get, Macmillan… careful there, Miss Fawcett… pinch it hard, it'll stop bleeding in a second Boot…

"I think I'd better teach you how to block unfriendly spells." Lockhart glanced back at Severus and then quickly away again. It seemed that he didn't want to go up against the Potions Master if offensive spells were guaranteed to be involved. "Let's have a volunteer pair—Longbottom and Finch-Fletchley, how about you?"

"A bad idea, Professor Lockhart," Severus cut in. "Longbottom causes devastation with the simplest spells. We'll be sending what's left of Finch-Fletchley up to the hospital wing in a matchbox."

He actually didn't know if this was true, as he had never seen the boy cast a spell, that he could recall, but it seemed a fair assumption based on the boy's dreadful potions.

"How about Malfoy and Potter?" he suggested, figuring that he might as well enjoy this as much as possible, if he couldn't aim his own wand at Lockhart.

"Excellent idea!" Lockhart said, gesturing Potter and Draco into the middle of the Hall as the crowd backed away to give them room.

"Now, Harry, when Draco points his wand at you, you do this." He raised his wand, attempted a completely unnecessary wiggling manoeuver, and dropped it.

Does he even realize what an ass he makes of himself?

"Whoops—my wand is a little over-excited."

Severus moved closer to Draco and whispered, "I assume your father has taught you the Serpensortia spell?"

He took the Malfoy heir's smirk to mean "yes."

"Professor, could you show me that blocking thing again?" Potter asked nervously, and Severus held back a snort. As if any instruction from Lockhart was going to be of use.

"Just do what I did, Harry!"

"What, drop my wand?"

"Three… two… three… go!"

"Serpensortia!"

The end of Draco's wand exploded, and a long black snake shot out of it. The snake fell heavily onto the floor between the two second-years and raised itself, ready to strike. There were screams as the other children backed swiftly away, clearing the floor.

"Don't move, Potter," Severus said, finding himself incredibly amused. "I'll get rid of it."

"Allow me!" Lockhart shouted. He brandished his wand at the snake and there was a loud bang; the snake, instead of vanishing, flew ten feet into the air and fell back to the floor with a loud smack. Enraged, hissing furiously, it slithered straight towards Justin Finch-Fletchley and raised itself again, fangs exposed, poised to strike.

People's attention was suddenly drawn from the snake to Potter, as he strode forward and began hissing. The snake slumped to the floor and lay there passively, eyes on Potter.

Severus felt like his stomach had just dropped to the floor.

After a stunned silence, Finch-Fletchley demanded angrily, "What do you think you're playing at?" and stormed from the Hall.

Moving almost automatically, Severus vanished the snake with a puff of black smoke.

Potter couldn't be a Parselmouth. He couldn't be. All of the known Parselmouths had been descendants of Salazar Slytherin. Potter was the resident Golden Boy, the poster child for Gryffindor arrogance and impulsive heroics. Both of his parents had been Gryffindors. It was in no way possible, and yet...

Shocked and suspicious muttering filled the room. Weasley, acting sensibly for once in his irritating life, took Potter by the arm and steered him towards the exit, with Granger following closely on Potter's other side. The crowd parted to let them pass, as though afraid of catching a nasty infection.

Severus left through the staff door and hurried back to his rooms. Alone again, he pinched the bridge of his nose.

Well isn't this just bloody fantastic.