Short chapter but, hey, I last updated two days ago or something. I considered combining this with the next chapter but I like the ending here way too much. And, with this, the story should be on almost 6000 words! In my old fics that would have been just one chapter, but apparently my brain won't let me write long chapters any more...

Thanks again to those who've reviewed! I really do like to hear what people think. Hopefully people might review more now that the interesting things are starting to happen.

Question: What do people think of the way I wrote the Parseltongue? I started with it just in italics, but I like the extra 's's. I'm just worried it might annoy people...

It was a few hours later, just as the sun was dipping past the horizon, when the small snake finally woke, flicking its tail in a way reminiscent of a human stretching. Harry had just returned from finding himself a snack and was in the process of refilling Hedwig's food and water when she suddenly twisted her head, focusing on the window, and clacked her beak excitedly.

Harry turned just as fast, almost spilling the water he was holding, before hurriedly finishing his job so that he could race over to the small creature on the sill.

Nearing the snake, Harry slowed his footsteps, trying to not frighten it. Unfortunately the snake had already sensed Harry, and curled protectively in on itself, mouth gaping wide as a soft hissing escaped its throat.

"Ssilly two-leg and winged-hunter. Thought they could creep up on me, did they? Thought they could trap me with thiss clear-web, did they? I'll attack, yesss, then esscape, and they won't be able to sstop me-"

Harry stared at the irate snake, holding back a laugh at how confident it was, then grinned as he let his mind shift into a now familiar state.

"Hello."

The snake, had it have been human, would have jumped. As it was, its head and tail jerked as its tongue flickered out, tasting the air all around it. Harry saw it lean towards him then, as if dismissing the human, start peering around the room, tongue still sliding in and out frantically.

"Who'ss there? Who ssaid that?"

"Me." Harry slowly sat down in the chair that still sat beside the window, keeping the snake's gaze as it watched him with curious eyes. "I am Harry Potter. It is an honour to meet you."

Surprise echoed through the snake's voice as it said, "You are a two-leg."

Harry smiled and extended one hand, stopping it a few centimetres from the snake's nose, palm up and open. He hoped that the peaceful gesture translated into the animal kingdom, because otherwise he was about to get bitten by a potentially venomous snake. "Yesss, I am. But I can alsso sspeak to the great no-legsss like yoursself."

Tail twitching to-and-fro, the snake slowly uncoiled until its head was almost touching Harry's hand, tongue flickering madly as it examined his scent. Suddenly it recoiled slightly, before it moved forward again, even closer than before, head brushing against Harry's hand, tongue brushing against his fingers. "You ssmell like the Great Onesss - the no-legsss of power and death. But, it isss not on you, like a foreign sskin you've borrowed, but within. You are a two-leg; why do you ssmell of the Great Onesss?"

Perplexed, at first Harry could only blink at the snake in surprise. Then his mind brought forward memories of the Chamber and the basilisk within and Harry smiled guiltily, forcing back the shivers that threatened to wrack his body. "I met a Great One a-" Harry froze as he realised that 'a week ago' didn't translate - apparently snakes didn't measure time like humans, which made sense - before continuing, "a little while ago."

"That doesss not explain why you ssmell of them sstill." The snake paused for a moment, an unintelligible hiss replacing words. Harry assumed it was the snake version of humming, and gave it time to think. If, indeed, that's what it was doing. "Did they bite you?"

Harry held back a wince at the memory that surfaced then, hand automatically going to clench where he should have had a scar from the large bite wound on his arm. "Yes. But a... winged-hunter of power," here Harry guessed some of the words, knowing that 'phoenix' wouldn't translate and assuming that 'power' was 'magic' or at least close enough, "healed me."

The snake gave another hiss - this one sounding rather like a sigh - and its head drooped slightly, coiling back towards its body. "You are lucky. I, and many otherss, would give anything to meet a Great One." Head lifting slightly, it added, "How are they, the Great One?"

Actually wincing this time, Harry nervously scrubbed one hand across the back of his head. "Uh, dead."

"What!" The snake's head whipped up to stare at him, and its tail swished agitatedly. "How? Why?"

"It was threatening my- my nesst, and my nesst-matesss! I had to do ssomething, and then it bit me and- and-"

Harry's voice choked off as memories and emotions washed over him. He could vaguely hear Hedwig's soft, concerned hooting from somewhere behind him but it hardly mattered then. Oh, what he wouldn't have done to have things turn out differently. Sure, everyone had been fine in the end and he'd destroyed the diary and the basilisk but, still, so many things could have gone wrong! Even as it was, he wished he hadn't had to kill the basilisk. It had been beautiful, deadly nature aside, and he would have much preferred to relocate it to somewhere safe, letting it live on. Maybe he could have talked to it, calmed it down and brought it under his control. If it was indeed a creature that Salazar Slytherin had placed there, then it would be a direct link to Hogwarts's Founders. The stories it could have told!

A cautious hissing and a gentle pressure on his hand drew Harry out of thoughts. The snake, voice crooning in a way that only snakes could, had wrapped itself around his fingers in a way that was almost comforting.

"There are storiesss, brave two-leg Harry Potter, that each nest-mother passsesss down to her eggsss that tell of the two-leg Great Onesss - thosse who lie on level ground with our Great Onesss and who are the only two-legsss able to kill them. We sspeak of them with both fear and reverance, because it is from them that the two-leg speakers come. The few who hold such power and can Speak are very rare, but every snake is told at their hatching to listen out for them. We even have a name for them."

"A name?" Harry repeated, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that this snake wasn't mad at him for killing the Basilisk and apparently thought he was some kind of super-rare, super-powerful figure of snake mythology.

The snake hissed unintelligibly again, sounding awfully like it was laughing at him, and waved its head in what could have been a nod. Did snakes nod?

"Do you know what we call those two-legsss, Harry Potter?"

"No. What?"

"We call them Lord."