Chapter 33

Next morning Harry Potter woke up and saw a number of faces looking at him. He was sad that he could not Hermione, but then remembered that she was petrified and could not check how he was doing. As the boy slowly got up, he saw the faces of his mother, Minerva and Luna, "What happened?" asked Harry

"The Basilisk was in the Hospital Wing and almost ate the petrified students but you saved them just in time" His mother looked at her son sympathetically. Harry tried to remember what happened the previous night and soon remembered it fully.

"Why have I not been petrified?" asked Harry as he looked at his mother and friends.

"We talked about this Harry but we are not sure. I think that this could be because you are a parselmouth." Answered Minerva as she looked at the raven-haired boy. The group did not know what to say next before they got interrupted by the tall figure of the dungeon bat.

"She is right, Parselmouths cannot be killed or petrified by the Basilisk's look but they still can be killed by its venom" Severus Snape tried to speak coldly, like he usually did although the three women and Harry remembered how scared the former Potions Master was at night.

"But that does not make sense, that means that you should be a Parselmouth as well!" exclaimed Harry.

"I knew that I am a Parselmouth, you silly boy! Unlike you, I am not as ignorant to not know the facts. Most members of the Salazar's line have this ability. In fact, Salazar Slytherin was the first wizard in Britain to have that gift and as such all Parselmouths are his descendants." Harry thought about what he just learned and a realization came into his head.

"Hermione! She is related to Slytherin!" he exclaimed loudly

"Good job Potter, I am amused that you did not figure it earlier"

"But why was she petrified in the first place? I mean she is related to him albeit very distantly." He asked his Professor.

"My niece is not a Parselmouth and as such is not immune to the gaze. You however, are a Parselmouth and therefore the snake can not kill you with its look" Snape hated to make things simple to his students, especially the Potter brat as he called him but he tried to be at least somewhat decent to the boy as he knew that if he were abusive to the boy, he would never again receive a single kiss from the love of his life.

Harry Potter got up slowly and put on his school uniform, after which he went to the Great Hall to eat breakfast; the three friends left two Professors alone. As the students arrived at the Great Hall, they encountered a lot if mixed reactions, as the whole school by now knew what happened the previous night.

One House that was in particular very pleasant to him was the badger house, as the majority of students knew that the "apparent Dark Lord" and "Muggle born petrified" risked his life to save the petrified students and fought the snake. And with the help of Hufflepuff Prefects like Cedric Diggory, the house was very relaxed when they were in the presence of Harry. As Harry learned later, he later got a new nickname, "He-Who-Talks-To-Snakes".

The Ravenclaw house was still indifferent to Harry but the boy could feel that the majority of the house warmed up to him at least a bit as he saved among others their favorite Prefect, Penelope Clearwater, who was Head Girl that year.

In most Slytherin's eyes Harry was not their King, as he could talk to snakes and the majority of the house realized that he was the direct descendent of Salazar Slytherin. However, there was a splinter group in Slytherin that loathed Harry; that group consisted mostly of the children of former Death Eaters and was led by Pansy Parkinson, who used Crabb and Goyle as well as Bullstrode as her bodyguards.

The Gryffindor House had very mixed reaction to the newly discovered knowledge. One part of the house now saw that Harry was their ally as he fought the snake to save numerous lives, including some Gryffindors but the other half that was lead by Percy and Ron were anti Harry as they thought that the boy was a threat to the school and in Percy's case the boy thought that the young parselmouth had harmed his girlfriend on purpose.

As Harry ate his breakfast, he knew that many people eyed him and that made him uneasy. He hated to be in the center of attention and wished to be surrounded by only few people, with whom he could have meaningful conversations. And despite all his hunger, he could not eat a lot, as he felt uneasy to eat since he was looked and talked about by the rest of the school.

Harry looked briefly at his Gryffindor enemy Ronald Weasley and saw that he was eating like a gluttonous pig. That disgusted the boy and he looked at the other tables.

As Harry was finishing his meal, he saw that his owl flew towards him and as soon as it reached the boy, the bird dropped a letter on his plate, after which she flew away to the Owlry. Harry looked at the letter and opened it.

"Dear Prongslet,

I am sorry to inform you but I was unsuccessful in freeing Hagrid from his sentence. He will have to go to Azkaban, which is one of the most depressing places to be. Imagine if I were there for say ten years or more. I would probably go crazy!

On the more positive note, I heard that Professor Dumbledore will return to Hogwarts as I managed to convince the Board of Governors that if the Headmaster was there, yesterday night's events would not have occurred. So expect the old senile man to return to Hogwarts.

See you,

Sirius Black"

Harry finished his letter and was a bit pleased, as he knew that Hogwarts would be more protected from the snake. However, that was not enough for him, as Harry was determined to stop the snake from petrifying anyone else. Weeks passed and one day in early April he thought about Hagrid's words "Follow the spiders" as well as the information on Acromantula's fear of the Basilisk, coupled with the fact that Hagrid did have a spider in his Hogwarts years, the boy decided to investigate more about the Basilisk.

"Harry, are you all right? I see Nargles all around you" told him Luna

"I think that we should check Hagrid's former spider and see if it knows anything important. " he replied to Luna. The two friends then were joined by Minerva, who also expressed the desire to help Harry and the three friends planned to go to visit the spider later at night.

A/N: next chapter the trio goes to meet Aragog, will they survive their visit to the forest as well as learn anything new?

The following chapter: The Chamber of Secrets! Will anybody die? Who will survive? Read and find out!