Chapter 13: Family matters

It was my idea to start a Duelling Club at Hogwarts. You might ask why. After all I was no great shakes with a wand at the best of times, let alone in a fight. As I have already said, Expelliarmus is the only duelling spell I ever truly mastered. I am also an unashamed coward; I have fled off more battlefields than most people ever march onto.

There were, however, some very good reasons for me to encourage a Duelling Club. First, young witches go mad for a duellist. I had firsthand experience of this following my duel with Malfoy in first year. Never mind that we both legged it as soon as Filch poked his nose through the door: the story had got around that I had fought a real, no-holds barred duel. After that I was in such demand that I wore out my mattress. I hoped to repeat this feat by wowing the ladies with a display of prowess on the public stage, as well as enhancing my (undeserved) reputation as a man of action.

My plan was to use Lockhart as my cat's-paw. First, I browbeat him into suggesting to Dumbledore that he start the Duelling Club. Then, during the first meeting, he was to invite me up to give a little demonstration to the others. I would then proceed to wipe the floor with his arse. Victory won, and looking suitably embarrassed, I would step down from the platform and depart meekly from the hall. Lockhart could then carry on with the Club or let it fold. I did not care. I would have just publically trounced one of the most celebrated duellists of the day. After that nobody was going to want to be opponent number two.

To achieve this little coup, I called in a favour from the college's premier troublemakers: the Weasley twins. I had recently used my Invisibility Cloak to hide George from the wrath of McGonagall as we were returning from a post-curfew trip to the Hog's Head, so they were more than happy to help.

"It's goblin-made," I explained to Lockhart, showing him the shirt of mail that the twins had stolen from the castle armoury, "I can wear it under my robes. Nobody will notice. It's enchanted to reflect spells back at an attacker. When we get up on the platform we'll throw some pretty lights at each other, put on a bit of a show, and then you can try to stun me. The spell will bounce back and knock you flat. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly," Lockhart growled, seething with impotent rage.

"Good man," I said, smiling. I was about to leave but turned back at the office door:

"It probably goes without saying but if you tell anybody about the plan, or try to change it during the duel, I will ruin you."

"I know!" snapped Lockhart.

"I just wanted to double check," I said, grinning. Beating Lockhart in front of my peers would be enjoyable. Forcing him to beat himself doubly so.

Interest in the Club was high, partly because of Lockhart's fame and the prestige of duelling among wizards but mainly because of the Chamber of Secrets. I was not terribly interested in it, so long as I was not the target of the next attack, but I could not help gathering snippets of information through rumours and general conversation. The Chamber was a secret room, hidden in the ever shifting interior of Hogwarts, which contained some sort of monster. It had been left there by Salazar Slytherin himself, one of the founding fathers of the college, and only his true Heir would be able to find the creature and its lair. Serious magical historians dismissed the Chamber as a legend but nobody paid any attention to them. When your history books contain things like goblin wars and the Baby Eating Teapot Plague of 1749 you can believe anything is true, and people did. People avoided walked the castle corridors alone and everybody was noticeably jumpier. I would imagine that Dumbledore welcomed Lockhart's (read, my) suggestion to form a club. Better that the students get some basic training before some poor bugger had his ears turned into custard or something.

So it was that the first meeting of the Hogwarts Duelling Club took place in the Great Hall on a Thursday evening. The tables were moved back to clear the floor and a long, narrow stage like a fencing piste was conjured up where the staff table usually stood. By the time we were ready to start it looked as if more than half the school was in attendance, all keen to hex their friends for fun. I was very happy to see so many there: the bigger the audience, the greater Lockhart's humiliation.

There was only one person there who I would have wished away. Severus Snape had insisted on helping Lockhart run the Duelling Club. I had always thought that Snape was too shrewd by half. He had probably got the measure of Lockhart and was afraid that he would get a student killed if left unsupervised. Snape's presence was an irritation but it did not change my plan.

"Attention everybody!" cried Lockhart, climbing up on to the stage. He was wearing a set of crisp white robes; the standard uniform for a sporting duellist.

"I would like to welcome everybody to the first meeting of this Duelling Club," he continued, "I can't tell you how happy I am to share even a little of my experience with you. For details, please consult my published works."

This was greeted by a sycophantic titter from the girls and a stony silence from the guys. Lockhart pressed on regardless, with the sort of desperate cheeriness of a man determined to get an unpleasant experience over with as soon as possible:

"I thought we should start with a little demonstration of basic wand work and proper duelling etiquette. Would anybody care to volunteer?"

A thicket of hands sprang up. Lockhart made a pretence of scanning the room before settling on me.

"Harry! Why don't you come up? We'll show 'em how it's –"

"If I might make a suggestion, Professor?"

All eyes turned to Snape.

"Yes, Severus?" said Lockhart.

"Perhaps it would be more appropriate if we used two students for the first demonstration?" said Snape mildly,

"Oh I think Harry will do just fine," said Lockhart quickly, a look of desperation creeping into his eyes. He was obviously terrified that I would blame him if the plan fell through and rat him out to the Prophet in revenge.

"Come now, Gilderoy," said Snape, slightly more forcibly. "Pitting a teenage boy against a… formidable opponent like you is hardly sporting, is it? Might I suggest a student of his own age? Malfoy, for example?"

"Y-yes… Yes, that sounds much better," said Lockhart. He was still smiling but he kept glancing at me with eyes that pleaded for understanding. Inside I was fuming but I kept my outward expression indifferent.

"Whatever you say, Professor," I said to Snape. Had the greasy bastard somehow worked out my plan? I would not put it past him. He was as shrewd as a fox and knew my dishonest nature as well as I did. Or he might have done it simply for devilment. Torturing me was a favourite pastime of his.

Malfoy and I took our places on the stage. He looked eager and aggressive. I did my best to look cool but in truth I was almost frantic with nerves. I did not know how good Malfoy actually was. I knew I was in pretty poor shape. If he was clumsy, and I was lucky, I could probably disarm him. The goblin mail, hidden beneath my robes, would reflect a direct attack but what if he did something unexpected like tie me up or play tricks with my mind? I decided that I would just have to improvise and, if I could not beat Malfoy, try to lose with flair.

Lockhart and Snape talked us through the correct duelling posture: side-on, back foot at a right angle to the front foot, free hand held out behind for balance and ease of breathing. Experienced duellists can glide smoothly up and down the stage like this but Malfoy and I looked more like deformed penguins, waddling back and forth. We were then told to bow, salute one another and the referee (Snape, worst luck) and then:

"On your guard. Ready? Play!"

"Expelliarmus!" I yelled, sending a jet of scarlet light sailing harmlessly over Malfoy's shoulder.

"Serpensortia!" cried Malfoy. A huge black snake erupted from the end of his wand and landed on the stage between us.

Now you may recall that I am not particularly fond of reptiles. In fact I am bloody terrified of the things. With this huge, fanged monstrosity gliding towards me, I lost my composure. My all-conquering survival instinct took hold. I staggered backwards, screaming:

"Aaagh! Go away! Go away, you vicious thing! Leave me alone, d'you hear? Go away, I said!"

To my surprise, the snake stopped. It turned around and began to slither towards Malfoy. Malfoy yelped like he had been scalded and leapt right off the stage. Snape leapt forward, his wand drawn.

"Finite Incantatem," he said. The snake dissolved into a wisp of black smoke. Then he turned and looked at me with a keen, almost calculating expression.

It was only then that I realised that the hall was silent. Every pair of eyes was fixed on me. I just stared back. I had expected jeers and laughter for my display of trouser-soiling cowardice. All I got was a stunned, almost awed hush.

Suddenly Ron and Hermione were there. They dragged me off the stage and out of the Hall. I followed, too confused to argue. The other students let us pass. Some of them actively got out of our way. We climbed the main staircase and entered the first free classroom we came to.

"Harry, what the… ?" Ron trailed off into a look of stunned dismay. Hermione was more eloquent and forceful:

"What the fuck do you think you're playing at?"

"What do you mean?" I said, utterly bewildered.

"Speaking Parseltongue in front of half the school?" said Hermione, "It's a wonder you didn't start a riot!"

"What? Speak English!"

Hermione made a noise halfway between a groan and a scream.

"You – are – a – Parselmouth," she said slowly, emphasising every word, "You – can – talk – to – snakes. Right?"

"Yeah," I said, still clueless.

"And they understand you?"

"Yeah. You mean you can't?" I said. I had assumed that speaking to animals was a generic wizard's trick.

"No. It's very rare," said Hermione, "You can't learn Parseltongue the way you learn another language. You can either speak it or you can't."

"Hold on," I said, "so nobody back there understood what I was saying?"

"When you set the snake on Malfoy? It just sounded like a load of weird hissing," said Ron. I grinned like a Cheshire cat. My reputation was saved! Everyone thought I was some furious snake charmer, setting my scaly servant on Malfoy. Trust Hermione to dispel my illusions almost as soon as they were formed.

"Nobody understood what you said but anybody with even a passing knowledge of magical history," she gave me a caustic look, "will understand what it could mean. Parseltongue runs in the blood; only certain families can speak it. And the most famous Parselmouth of all was Salazar Slytherin."

"The chap who built this Chamber of Secrets?" I said, horror rising in my voice. I knew how people's minds worked at Hogwarts.

"Exactly," said Hermione with a certain look of grim satisfaction, "You just became suspect number one in the hunt for the Heir of Slytherin."

"But that's insane! I'm in Gryffindor, for a start!" I cried, while doing my best not to recall my conversation with the college Sorting Hat in my first year.

"Doesn't matter," said Ron, "The Patils are twin sisters and they are in different Houses."

"You could easily be a distant descendent of Slytherin's. What do you know about your family?" asked Hermione.

"Not much," I said with a frown, "I'm Muggle on my mother's side. Descended from the Flashmans of Leicestershire, I believe. That's how I got my first name: old family tradition."

"And on your dad's?"

I shrugged.

"Haven't the foggiest. My aunt and uncle weren't exactly keen on my father."

"Well I'm sure you can find out if you did a bit of digging in the library," said Hermione, "The old magical families are obsessed with genealogy. They like to know how pure their blood is." She wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"The library's not really my scene. I don't suppose you could…?" I said, giving her my most charming smile. Once again, it failed to have the desired effect.

"No," said Hermione flatly, "I have too much work on already."

"Oh come on…!"

"No! It's your family. You look it up."

"Have you met Hufflepuff's new Chaser? Cadwaller?" I asked innocently.

"You mean the big one with the blue eyes?" said Hermione, a little too quickly.

"I'll get you a date with him if you help me look up the family tree."

Hermione bit her lip, torn between time on her essays and a prime piece of Quidditch beefcake.

"Oh alright," she sighed, "But you have to help me with the research, okay?"

I knew when not to push her, so I agreed to meet Hermione in the library on Saturday afternoon for a little private study. It took us well over an hour, trawling through great tomes of genealogy and family trees so closely interwoven that they looked more like a spider's web. I found it all extremely dull. Until then the most time I had ever spent in the library was about twenty minutes and that was because I had Eloise Midgen bent over one of the reading desks. Ah, those were indeed the days…

"Right, I think I've got it," said Hermione at last, "Salazar Slytherin's bloodline; that is, direct line of descent, is quite clear up until the middle of the fifteenth century."

"What happens then?" I asked, already bored.

"Absalom Slytherin had three children," Hermione continued, showing me a picture of the family tree, "The eldest, Morgan, was murdered by his brother, the Dark Lord Morgus. Morgan had no children.

"Morgus went on to have an affair with the Muggle Queen, disguised as a Scottish lord."

"What did he do that for?"

"He wanted to put a Dark wizard on the throne. But the child turned out to be a Squib and the plan failed. The child may have known about his heritage though; his crest is some sort of black snake. It's almost identical to the Slytherins'."

"So I'm descended from a bastard Squib of the Slytherin family?"

Hermione shook her head.

"Purebloods wouldn't recognise that as legitimate descent. Officially, Morgus had no children either."

"So the line died out?"

"No. There was a third child: a girl, Morgana. If the male heirs die without issue, the line passes to the eldest female heir. Morgana married Ignotus Peverell. And they…"

Hermione unrolled a very long scroll. It ran along the table and dropped onto the floor. I picked up the far end of it.

"… are my ancestors," I said. My father, James Potter, was one of the last entries on the Peverell tree.

"You are a direct descendent of Salazar Slytherin," said Hermione quietly, "If anybody has the right to call themselves his Heir, it's you Harry."

"But I'm not the one who attacked Filch!" I whispered, terrified that we might be overheard.

"I know," she replied coolly, "But if I were you I would keep this very quiet."

She did not need to tell me. My reception at breakfast the next morning, and over the following weeks, was chilly at best. Being a Parselmouth was not illegal but it had all sorts of Dark connotations. Combine that with the rumours about the Chamber and my connection to the attack on Filch and people started to actively cross the corridor to avoid walking past me. And, much to my chagrin, my opportunities to score dropped to almost Ron Weasley levels. Far from compelling a stream of nymphomaniac totty into my bed, my stunt at the duelling club had actually put me under an involuntary vow of celibacy.

I was reflecting on this frustrating state of affairs one wet November night as I trudged, battered and muddy from Quidditch practice, up through the castle towards Gryffindor Tower. So wrapped up in my thoughts was I that I did not notice the corpse until I almost tripped over it.

I froze. It was Justin Finch Fletchley, a toffy little Hufflepuff from my year. He was lying on his back with a slightly surprised look on his face. Burned deep into his forehead were the words 'THE FATE OF ALL MUDBLOODS'.

My reaction was pure, mindless instinct: I ran, as fast as I could. I did not care where I ran, as long as it was away from the body. I turned the corner and nearly collided with somebody coming the other way.

"What do you think you're doing, Potter?" asked Professor Snape.

I really am one unlucky bastard.