Here's the newest chapter for the "Harry Potter: the Serpent Lord", enjoy!

* Review response:
jozs001, jafr86, Naginator, raw666, ElementalMaster16, MayonakaNoArashi, Armacryss, Super-Saiyan-3-Vegeta, Kine X, obsessivegirl73, .owered, twilightnemo, Alphawolfy288, Dark Neko 4000, Still Not Dead Yet, Penny is wise, JPElles,
Impstar, answered you via PM. (at least I think I did).
Orchamus, the all MIGHT go. though... *scribbles in his notebook* You'll see what I have in my mind later on.
NaruAndHarrHaremFan, jealous. And, yes, she, eventually, will go after Harry.
fragglemaster, I write to surprise you. =)
The Sinful, sorry, I already have another idea in my mind. It also helps with explaining some 'improvements' to Harry next summer (the eye, it revolves around the eye; not what you, perverts, thought).
Awsomeness7, she has a private room in the dungeons. Like every other Slytherin. I think I wrote about that sometime during the first several chapters.
Rhagar, quite honestly, I can remember only two stories with fem-Draco, and neither of those have a pairing for her with Harry. There might be more stories, but I'm not aware of them. If you find one, do PM me with the link - I'd like to try reading them too.

* Author's Note: I'm putting this story (again) on a month-long hiatus - I'm running low on inspiration, plus I need to polish the ideas for the next chapters. I'll be back sometime about 20th February. Hopefully with something you will like.
Also, to those who will have a question about when Harry/Draconica will actually start (I'm sure there will be some with this question after this chapter), I'm going to tell this: two or three chapters after this one, depending on how the plot will develop.

* Disclaimer: I DO NOT own "Harry Potter" and its characters in any shape or form.

"human speech"
"wraith speech"
'human thoughts'
"powered speech / true prophecies by the seer"
"spells / parseltongue"

This chapter is not beta-read yet.

chapter 37: Prophecy for the darkness' rise

Since the classes haven't even started yet, only the most hardcore students (and some very curious first years) could be found in the library. Hermione, being her usual self, was doing some light reading – so light that she couldn't be seen behind the stack of the books in front of her. Deciding that he shouldn't disturb her, Harry picked another table for himself, before going to the bookshelves in searches for the books that could possibly contain any clues about how to deal with his Dark lord problem.

It took him about fifteen minutes, but he got half a dozen of books on various magical disciplines that might help him. Thinking that this would be enough for now, Harry headed back to 'his' table for some of his own 'light' reading...

Harry spent next several hours looking through the tomes he chose for something that could help him with his Voldemort problem. But as much interesting information was there in the books, nothing was of any real use for him. But then again, did he really expect to find a way to off a dark lord with horcruxes in a book that wasn't even in restricted section? Well, no, but something that might give him an idea could have been there... So, the young lord Potter-Slytherin decided not to stop his search yet, even though so far he had no luck.

There was another thing that occupied his mind: even though it was clear that Tom wasn't the only one to find the Room of the lost things, for it to work not all the stuff in it must be from the students or staff: a lot more must have been there when the first of those 'lost' things was placed there. In other words, the room must be providing the environment in which one could easily hide something. And this made Harry wonder: what else could the room do? And the house elves of Hogwarts surely knew something about the room, so the young wizard decided to ask one of them. That is, when he met one, as Hogwarts elves were good elves, and good elves weren't to be seen...

Still, that could wait for a bit as right now he had more important things to work on: the lack of results from his search through the tomes hadn't discouraged him – if not the method, he could find an idea how to defeat Voldemort there... But as it was almost two in the afternoon, he had to make a break for some (late) lunch. Even Hermione had left the library already.

The two Gryffindor students returned to the library together forty minutes later, quietly discussing dementors – this was what the bushy-haired witch was reading about today (and Harry was a bit surprised with now many books mentioning them his friend managed to find). The problem though was when Hermione asked him what he was looking for: he couldn't just say her the truth, and he doubted that he could successfully lie to her. So he settled for a compromise, saying that he was just looking for something interesting... Thankfully, the witch didn't pester him about it anymore.

Once again Harry browsed the library for anything that could help him solve his dark lord problem in any way, selecting another group of books on various areas of magical knowledge. And while these books indeed had some really interesting things described in them, nothing was of any use to him in his secret quest, as Harry learned throughout the several hours he spent with his nose in the tomes...

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Later that evening the green-eyed wizard was sitting with his friends in the Gryffindor common room, a book on magical healing in his lap, when a decidedly nervous and slightly blushing Katie Bell approached him – this was rather strange as Harry couldn't remember when he last saw her alone, and not in the company of the two other 'vixens', when they was not attending their classes. She stopped just next to the armchair he was occupying, looking like she wanted something, yet wasn't sure how to ask for it or something; and she blushed more when he looked up at her, silently asking her what she wanted.

"Mm?" He 'asked' as he put the bookmark into the tome as he closed it, while turning to face the (slightly older) girl. She seemed to become even more uneasy from this, but still she finally answered him:

"C-Can I have you... can I have a minute of your time, Harry?" She asked, blushing pretty and a lot from her 'slip of a tongue'. Even though something was telling Harry that Katie acting this unusually bashful could lead him into some kind of embarrassing situation, he didn't see any reasons to deny her her request. Raising his eyebrow, he silently asked her again what she wanted, but instead he got a bashful: "Not here... S-Someplace more private, please." Now this was interesting, but the young wizard still saw nothing wrong with going and listening to what she had to say...

"Very well." He said, before getting out of the armchair and placing his book on the seat, so that it won't be occupied by someone else (even if Hermione and Neville would keep it for him anyway). The young Potter then followed the 'vixen' as she headed to the secluded corner of the Gryffindor common room, looking back from time to time to check that he was with her, all the while her blush refused to leave her face.

"Harry..." The witch said once they were there. Though, it looked like the rest of what she wanted to say refused to leave her mouth at the moment. "Do you... Do you want me, Harry?" I took her a moment to understand what exactly she said, and when she did, she hastily added "As you girlfriend." while looking away and blushing a much deeper shade of red. The green-eyed wizard now too had a blush not unlike Katie's on his face. And with how her question caught him off guard (especially since he knew her to be such a tease, much like the other two 'vixens'), he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind:

"Are you serious?" The girl didn't answer him with words. Instead she pushed him against the wall and pressed her lips to his, effectively stealing his first kiss. Katie, despite having him at her mercy at the moment, didn't push forward – she herself had kind of rushed into this: yes, she was attracted to him, but was it love? – and their kiss didn't evolve into a french one. It was more than enough to show that this was not a prank of some kind and she was indeed serious about this. Well, it would be the case if the young Potter could think straight... "Wow." This was the only thing he could say at the moment... Katie silently agreed with him there: while this wasn't her first kiss – Alicia and Angelina made sure of that – she had never kissed any guy for real before, as well as this was the first time she was the dominant one... And it did feel great.

For the next several and very long moments, both teens were silent; they both also were blushing and not daring to look into each others' eyes. Harry also seemed to be in some sort of trance from their kiss. But this couldn't last forever, and soon the brown-haired witch broke this uneasy silence:

"So?.." She said carefully, while tilting her head to the side a bit. "What do you say?" It seemed, though, that the wizard in front of her wasn't completely back to reality yet, as he could only nod dumbly. Still, that was the answer Katie wanted, and without much thought, she kissed him again. And was it just her, or was he really kissing her back?

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Next morning Harry woke up like normal – meaning really early – and since he was sure that his new girlfriend will be asleep for another couple of hours, he decided do something productive meanwhile. First of all, he went downstairs to the common room to collect the paper that Hermione had put on the bulletin board to collect the signatures for the lawsuit he was preparing... Not unexpectedly, almost if not everyone in Gryffindor, as well as their head of the house, had signed on this paper.

Well, the young lord Potter-Slytherin still had to get the signatures from the other three houses before sending the letter to Violet tonight, but that didn't mean that he couldn't start composing it right now... But thirty minutes later he was done with it for now, and most of the students in the Gryffindor house, including his friends and his new girlfriend, aside from Hermione, were still sleeping, so he decided to join the bushy-haired witch for some 'early' breakfast.

There were quite a few more students down there in the Great hall, but all in all, it seemed like this day will be as lazy as the previous one was... Or not, as about ten minutes later Oliver Wood, already partially in his quidditch gear, appeared, along with Gred and Forge, who looked like they were still sleeping, thus making an impression of two red-headed walking dead.

"You're already up, Potter?" The Gryffindor team captain said. "Good. We can't have our first training this season without our seeker." He made a pause, looking at the Weasley twins that were piling food on their plates. "We will be starting in forty minutes." And with those words he went to an empty seat not far away from where Harry was to have some breakfast himself...

The chaser trio soon too arrived to the Great hall, and Katie went to sit next to her new boyfriend, whom she greeted with a kiss on his cheek. This caused the twins to wake up for long enough to whistle and congratulate Harry with scoring such a girl, but they still preferred to save their energy for (undoubtedly) brutal training their resident quidditch fanatic will surely put them through.

"You're with Katie now, right, Potter?" A voice asked Harry while two hands were put onto his shoulders heavily. Looking up, he saw Angelina and Alicia standing behind him with serious expressions on their faces... He nodded. "Break her heart and we will break your head." Angelina threatened. Unfortunately for her, the impression she wanted to make was spoiled by Oliver Wood who shouted about not allowing his star seeker to be harmed 'till Gryffindor team won the cup... Aside from this, though, the breakfast passed quietly for Harry, and he was quite thankful for this.

Surprisingly enough, Wood limited the training today only to three and a half hours, ending it just as the lunch was about to start, before telling the team that they were free for the rest of the day. Of course with how much of a slave-driver he was, no one waited for him to change his mind...

The lunch, while much more lively than breakfast several hours ago (mostly because entire school was up by now), too was rather quiet and without any major incidents. Katie and Harry again said together at the table, and now they were holding each others' hands under the table from time to time. Hermione and Neville sat across from them. The two had instantly accepted the older witch as their friend's girlfriend and included her into their circle of fellowship – Katie being a year older than them normally hanged around Alicia, Angelina and the rest of the Gryffindor house quidditch team, as well as her yearmates and not with the younger students.

While the lunch indeed passed without any incidents for Harry and his friends, just as they were leaving the Great hall, heading back to their common room, they were confronted by Daphne, Astoria and Tracey. Interestingly enough, Draconica wasn't with them, though. Of course, if the young Potter saw her (or, more accurately, her reaction to him getting a girlfriend) during the lunch, he'd understand why she wasn't there now...

"These are the signatures from house Slytherin." The older of the Greengrass sisters said as she passed a folded piece of parchment to Harry. "Ms. Bones said that she will give you the rest of the signatures during dinner." Nodding, the green-eyed wizard took the parchment.

"Thank you." He said, unfolding it and looking through it. While there weren't as many signatures, the majority of the 'snakes' still wanted the one who ordered the unsupervised dementor to check them to be punished... Surprisingly enough, Harry could see Snape's signature on the list: he was under the impression that the Hogwarts' potions master wouldn't agree with a Potter even if he said that the sky was blue. Though it was possible that Daphne – it looked like she was the one to organize the whole thing in her house – just forgot to mention that it was him, who would be filing the lawsuit... Folding the parchment back, Harry thanked her again, and then he, along with his Gryffindor friends, was back on his way to their tower.

Later in the afternoon, when the Gryffindor flying foxes were busy with whatever they were doing, the young lord Potter-Slytherin decided to do some 'exploring' and find out what the Room of the lost things really was. But before going to where the room itself was, he decided to ask the house elves about it, so he headed to the kitchens – the only place where he surely would meet some of them.

Indeed, when he arrived to the kitchen, several dozens of the house elves were there, working hard to prepare the dinner for tonight. But as soon as Harry entered the kitchens one of the elves, who was chopping some vegetables before then, approached him:

"What young master be wanting?" The little creature asked, looking up at him with its big eyes.

"Um..." The young wizard began, feeling a bit uneasy under elf's devoted gaze. "What can you tell me about the Room of the lost things?" He finally asked. The elf thought for a couple of seconds before answering:

"You be talking about Come and go Room?" The little creature said. "This be very good room. It be helpful to who be needing help." The elf made a small pause, before continuing: "It be always there, be waiting for when it be needed, young master. You be needing to walk trice where it is, thinking of what you be needing, and Come and go Room will appear with what you be needing." Harry thought about it for a moment: a room with almost limitless uses... This was some really incredible magic that created and supported it... Thanking the elf for the information it shared with him, the young wizard headed to the seventh floor to see it for himself – it was really hard to believe that something like this was made...

Harry was just a corridor away from where the Room of the lost things – or Come and go Room, as the house elves called it – was, when he came across the Divination professor Sibyll Trelawny, a thin witch who wore large glasses that magnified her eyes to several times their natural size and made her look like some kind of an insect. She was draped in a gauzy spangled shawl and had innumerable chains and beads hung around her spindly neck, and her arms and hands were encrusted with bangles and rings. Also, she seemed to be drunk and was carrying an empty bottle of sherry.

"Ah, my dear, how nice to finally meet you in the physical world." The Divination professor said in an eerie (and more than slightly drunk) voice. "I foresaw our meeting today from a long time ago..." The young Gryffindor couldn't help but ask:

"And what would our meeting be about then?" Sibyll was silent for several seconds, far too long for one to believe that she had truly predicted this meeting.

"Fates hadn't told me why this would be happening..." Shrugging this off as a quackery, Harry continued walking towards the Room of the lost things, even if he had a suspicion that the Divination professor was going there herself. But just a couple of steps later, he caught an unusual movement from the corner of his eye. Turning around he saw that professor Trelawny was in some sort of a trans, and her eyes were faintly glowing. "Soon..." The witch said in a raspy voice that was so unlike her normal one. "It will happen soon... Before the third moon as the day once more dominates the night... Soon the shackled servant shall break free... and rejoin his master... And the master shall rise again with his aid, greater than before... It will happen soon... Before the third moon of the dominating day..." Just as she finished speaking, Sibyll lost her balance and fell heavily against the wall. "Is everything alright, my dear? Something happened?" She asked, once again speaking in her normal voice...

For some reason Harry suddenly wanted get somewhere far away from the witch so, shaking his head to say 'nothing', he hurried back to the Gryffindor common room: exploring the Come and go room could wait until later.

Even though the young lord Potter-Slytherin was almost sure that what he had heard today was a true prophesy, and rather important one, judging by its content, he did his best to put it out of his mind. And Katie helped him a lot with this, even if she didn't knew a thing about his encounter with Sibyll Trelawny...

During the dinner, just like Daphne told him, Susan Bones gave him the signature lists of both Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw houses, which meant that he finally could sent the package to Violet. And he almost did that as soon as he returned to the Gryffindor common room – Hedwig, feeling that she will be needed, was already there – but a though occurred to him. He could do so much more damage with this than just a single lawsuit that most likely will never be publicly known. So, smirking evilly, he added a postscript to his letter to Violet, telling her to anonymously send a copy of the draft of the lawsuit along with the copies of signature lists to the 'Daily Prophet' redaction. Yes, this would be a fine payback to the Ministry for that fake trial they had put him through...

That's all, folks!
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