A/N: I do not own Harry Potter or any character thereof. Only the story line is mine so please don't sue! I don't own anything!

Chapter 39

"Albus, it's not went after anyone else the entire game," Minerva hissed.

"I can't do anything about it. I could hit Harry if I tried."

Albus glanced across the stands. Severus was sitting with Lucius in the parent's box. He could tell that Severus had noticed the rogue bludger as well. From where he sat, it looked like Lucius found the whole thing amusing.

"Please excuse me Severus. I need to go have a word with my son about paying attention to his surroundings."

As Lucius stalked off towards the Slytherin locker rooms, Severus headed down to the field to join the other professor's.

He waded through the sea of cheering Gryffindor's and got to Potter just in time to see Lockhart remove the boys bones from his arm.

Severus groaned and swooped off in his usual bat like manner to make sure Madam Pomphrey had Skelegrow available.

Severus was chatting quietly with Filius in the corner of the staff room when Albus walked in.

"There was another attack last night," the Headmaster announced. "Colin Creevey was found petrified."

"What does this mean Albus?" asked Sinastra.

"It means," he hesitated briefly then continued speaking, "that the Chamber of Secret's has indeed been opened again. We must continue to watch over the students more carefully and take care of ourselves as well. The coming months are certain to be stressful."

They all nodded grimly.

Severus noticed peripherally that Hagrid had become pale for some reason.

Hermione, Ron, and Harry were in the stall at the far end of the girl's bathroom adding the final touches to the polyjuice potion before they left it to brew. Harry was impressed with Hermione's understanding of this potion. He had simply looked at the book and his mind went blank. It was like he was looking at a foreign language.

"It'll be ready around Christmas," said Hermione as she looked from the book to the potion.

Harry watched as the potion bubbled. It looked nasty. He hoped that after it was finished brewing, it would look better.

Harry looked down at the Astronomy essay he was supposed to be writing on how Jupiter's moons affected potions ingredients. He had two words written, which was sad because he had been working on it for over an hour.

"Ron, this came for you."

Harry looked up and saw Ginny hand her brother a letter.

"Hi Ginny," said Harry politely.

He watched, quite befuddled, as her eyes widened and she slowly backed away and then turned and ran.

Harry shook his head. Girls were strange.

He then returned to his work after sending a glare at the parchment he was supposed to be writing on.

December 17th, 1992

There's a dueling club starting today. As long as Lockhart isn't teaching it, it should be awesome.

I got some books on magical methods of travel out of the library yesterday. Hopefully after we get a confession out of Malfoy, everyone can relax, and I'll be able to read them.

-Harry

Harry, Ron, and Hermione had just watched Snape send Lockhart flying with a disarming charm. While Hermione was fretting if Lockhart was alright, Harry and Ron were rolling their eyes at her and wondering if Snape would do it again.

A few minutes later found Harry and Draco up on center stage.

"Rictumsempra," shouted Harry.

"Tarantallegra," yelled Draco after he dodged the hex. Harry dove out of the way and watched it hit Lockhart - who proceeded to start dancing uncontrollably.

"Densaugeo," yelled Harry. Draco barely dodged out of the way.

"Furnunculus," yelled Draco.

Harry realized what that curse would do and immediately slashed his wand through the air and yelled, "Protego!" The curse bounced off his shield and hit the wall harmlessly.

However, before Harry could return fire, Draco yelled, "Serpensortia".

The snake slithered towards Harry that burst out of the end of Draco's wand. Everyone gasped. Severus shook himself out of his stupor and said, "Don't worry Potter, I'll get rid of it."

Before he could move though, Lockhart said that he would do it (he had finally stopped dancing) and proceeded to throw it in the air - which pissed the snake off.

Harry watched the snake turn towards Justin Finch-Fletchley and yelled, "Stop! Don't attack! Leave him alone!" to the snake.

When the snake backed off he was surprised to find everyone looking at him strangely. Even Snape was giving him a shrewd calculating look.

"Come on Harry. Let's go!" Ron pulled Harry down off of the stage and he found himself being dragged up to the Gryffindor common room.

Everyone backed away from him as he passed, as if he were suddenly contagious with some deadly disease.

"Albus, the boy is a parselmouth. Why is Lily's son a parselmouth?"

Severus was pacing around the Headmaster's office very agitatedly. He had been shocked when Potter cast a perfect shield - that he would learn in his 5th year, but he about had a heart attack when he heard Potter talk to the snake.

"Severus sit down and drink this."

Recognizing a calming potion, he drank it and sat in a chair.

"Now, what's this about Harry being a parselmouth?"

Severus tried for a minute to explain but in the end retrieved Albus' pensieve.

They came out from the memory a few minutes later.

"That's a 5th year shielding spell - that he cast with ease as if he'd been doing it his entire life."

Severus nodded.

Albus sighed. "Being a parselmouth does not automatically make one evil Severus."

Severus glared. "I'm not an imbecile. I'm fully aware of that. What I want to know is why Lily's son can speak to snakes."

"Can you find it hard to believe that he could have been born with it?"

"Yes," Severus stated simply.

Albus just groaned and fire called for some tea. He could tell Severus wasn't going to leave without some type of explanation.

Severus rubbed the bridge of his temples. He could feel a headache coming on. He had just dismissed his 5th year Slytherin - Ravenclaw class and idly wondered if any of them would pass their OWLS. There had been 2 melting cauldrons during the lesson.

A knock at the door caused him to look up. Potter was standing there.

"What do you want Potter?"

He watched as indecision flickered through the boys eyes briefly then determination.

"I have a question about the assignment you gave us."

Snape raised an eyebrow. Very rarely did students ever come to him about clarification on their homework and even more rarely did a non-Slytherin ask for help.

His headache was starting to gain momentum so he bit out," well, what is it?"

He watched as Potter placed three books on the front table. "For the hair growth potion we are supposed to brew next week, I don't understand why it calls for sardine tails instead of something like Palmarosa or even eel spleens."

"Where did you even read about Palmarosa?" Severus noticed the boy's cheek's flush.

"I bought some extra potion books this summer sir." The boy pointed at the books he had placed on the table.

"Cheating Potter?" Severus asked glancing down at the book titles.

"No sir." He watched the brat take a deep calming breath. "I happen to like potions so I got some extra books to read."

Severus raised an eyebrow in disbelief at the thought of James Potter's son liking potions but opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a piece of parchment to write down a book title.

"Here. This should be in the library," and since he couldn't seem to stop himself, he added, "even someone with your limited brain usage should be able to understand it. If that's all, remove yourself from my class room."

He watched as Potter took the paper and left.

Harry was upset. He finally got enough courage to ask a potion question and was insulted.

Honestly, he should have known better. He looked down at the book title and sighed.

His journey to the library was interrupted though because he stumbled (quite literally) across Justin Finch-Fletchley. As he picked himself up off of the floor, he saw Sir Nicholas floating nearby.

They were both petrified.

And to make matters worse, Peeves just spotted him.

Albus watched Harry leave his office. After he made sure Fawkes was alright, he went and sat down at his desk.

He had wanted to use a brief touch of legillimency on Harry but didn't. If the boy had anything to tell him, it would be of his own volition. He knew that Harry had nothing to do with the recent petrification of Justin Finch-Fletchy and Sir Nicholas, though the petrification of Sir Nicholas left him worried.

It was then that he noticed the sorting hat trying to get his attention.

"Yes?" he asked the hat after he put it on his desk.

"Potter and I had a little chat."

"And?" Albus prompted after a minute.

"Seems he's concerned that he might have been placed in the wrong house."

"What did you tell him?"

"That I stood by my decision in that he would have done well in Slytherin. He told me that I was wrong."

Albus thought that the hat sounded upset at being told it was wrong and chuckled.

It was three days before term was to let out for Christmas break. Harry was the last to leave the Quidditch locker room, having taken his time because he needed to be able to sneak back into Myrtle's bathroom to see Hermione and Ron, which would be easier to do if he was by himself.

"Hey Scar Head!"

"What do you want Malfoy?" Harry asked as he looked up from tying his shoe laces. He saw Malfoy enter the locker room.

Harry hadn't realized that Slytherin had the pitch booked next, otherwise he would have been first out of there.

"Just thought I'd see how everyone's favorite villain is today," he said with a smug look.

"Piss off Malfoy." Harry grabbed his broom and headed towards the exit.

"Language Potter. Didn't your mother ever tell you not to back talk to your superiors?" He paused for half a second then continued speaking. "Oh, that's right. Your mother was murdered. Seems you need some education on how to act around your betters."

Crabbe and Goyle then appeared around the corner.

Harry quickly pointed his wand at them and yelled, "Incarcerous!" He dodged the hex Malfoy sent his way and pointed his wand at him. "Have fun during practice."

Before Malfoy could respond, Harry muttered a curse and ran.

Ten seconds later, he heard Draco screaming, "You're mine Potter!"

Harry chuckled and headed up towards Myrtles bathroom. It would be amusing to see the normally pale blonde with red hair and golden highlights the next morning at breakfast.

The next morning, most of the Gryffindors were watching for Malfoy to enter the Great Hall. Harry had told them about his ambush and how he had responded.

"Mr. Potter, please come with me."

Harry groaned. It was McGonagall. He followed her up to the hospital wing. There he saw Malfoy scowling, sitting on a bed, with red and gold hair.

"Mr. Potter, kindly reverse the spell on Mr. Malfoy."

Harry frowned. The teachers should have been able to do it not to mention the fact that he didn't want to.

"Do I have to Professor? Can't you let him go to one breakfast like that?" asked Harry hopefully.

"Yes, you have to Mr. Potter."

Harry started at how loud McGonagalls' voice was. He pulled his wand out, pointed it at Malfoy (who flinched), and simply said, "Finite Incantatem".

The blondes normal hair returned. "Ten points from Gryffindor for an unprovoked attack."

"But Professor, him and his two goons tried to ambush me as I was leaving the locker rooms after Quidditch practice yesterday."

"There is no evidence of that. You will also be serving detention with Professor Snape after the Christmas Holidays."

Harry groaned - out loud.

After he and Malfoy were dismissed, Madam Pomphrey looked at McGonagall and said, "yes, I tried finite so don't even ask me that."

McGonagall chuckled. "The counter probably needed to come from his wand."

"Wonder when he learned to interweave that into his spells," the medi-witch mused.

Minerva smiled thinly. "He probably didn't mean to. If he asks, I'll tell him that part of his punishment was that he fix his mistake."

The nurse chuckled. "Never minding the fact that we couldn't?"

A/N: So, as I was doing some last minute changes to book 2 (I had forgotten to include a very important thing in an upcoming chapter), I realized that I had like no Malfoy/Potter interaction and that just couldn't continue ... and besides .. I thought Draco'd look good with red and gold hair. *grins*

As an aside, there are only three more chapter's to go in my version of book 2, so the next chapter (which I am also about to post) speeds things up a little bit in the timeline.