James has a snake draped over his shoulders and is shaking his stuff to the radio, a mass of snakes filling the library either on the ground or wrapped around shelves, watching on with their heads raised and swaying with James.

They have never before seen a human dance so half of them are entranced and the other half are confused and asking each other -or Harry- what's happening, where's the threat, is he shedding?

Harry sits on a nearby armchair, reading a Parselscript book Voldemort shoved at him because the Dark Lord overheard Harry try to explain to James how talking to snakes worked, and clearly Voldemort did not approve.

So Harry is reading Parseltongue, listening to too many snakes talking, and trying to answer them as best he can.

"What are you doing with my snakes?" Tom demands, having come around a shelf holding several books.

Voldemort has ditched them to go talk to the werewolves which is concerning but not enough that Harry would willingly get himself involved with James still here. Surely Voldemort can contain himself for one afternoon.

"They want to dance with me!" James calls out over the music and shakes his ships, the snakes darting side to side with him.

"Not exactly," Harry admits.

"What?" James asks.

"They're more curious."

"You're hissing at me," James says with a laugh, raising his scarf snake over his head and swaying.

"Sorry," Harry mutters sheepishly and looks up at the ceiling so he isn't staring at a mosh pit full of snakes. "Better?"

Tom raises an eyebrow. "Are you…stuck?"

"Stuck in snake?" James asks. "That happens to me sometimes because Siri starts in another language and I get confused trying to one-up him, 你知道我的意思?" He winks.

"I'm not stuck, I just need a moment," Harry tries.

« éteignez-le et rallumez-le, » James jokes.

"Do you know occlumency?" Tom asks. "Clear your mind."

And the radio fades into the next song, a bubbly pop singing Βγαίνω απ' το store, είναι όλα new new. Δεν φεύγει από πάνω μου σαν να 'πιε MD.

"I'm – there's a lot of snakes, I'll just duck out for a bit," Harry reassures.

"Estoy seguro de que está bien," James says dismissively.

"I can't believe you're this old and can't control it, I mastered the switch when I was six," Tom scoffs.

"You are not helping when you talk to me in Parseltongue!" Harry snaps.

„Glaubst du, es gibt Parsel-Lieder?" James muses.

„Konzentriere dich nicht, du solltest dich nicht konzentrieren müssen," Tom insists.

"What language even is that?" Harry complains but then realises of course Tom learned German in case they were the winning side.

Tom's expression blanks as he realises what happened and then he pulls out a wand.

James reels back and Harry jumps in front of him, wand in hand and raised in preparation.

"Out, all of you snakes!" Tom orders and with a flick of his wand the radio whines into a stuttered silence. He then turns on James, a scowl twisting his handsome face. "If you speak anything but English without my permission, I'll unmake you."

" Hasalt ealayk," James says and then slaps a hand over his mouth. "I - that slipped out!"

Tom huffs but his wand snaps up his sleeve. "Good luck fixing it yourself, I suppose."

Harry only relaxes when Tom leaves the room and straightens up, tucking his wand away. "Please don't antagonise him, James."

"You're still hissing," James points out.

Harry is stuck in Parseltongue for the next two days and it's actually not that bad because James has always been chatty enough for the both of them, plus playing charades is kind of fun and James is all for learning new Parseltongue words that Harry uses a lot.

But it's frustrating not being understood, mainly because Harry should be able to speak English but it's gone and he doesn't know long he'll be stuck like this and he's just getting really tired and upset.

At breakfast, Harry is grumpily buttering his toast.

"Still stuck?" Voldemort muses, popping a slice of orange into his mouth. He found it incredibly amusing when he was told what happened.

"Yes," Harry mutters.

"I can use legilimency to try and restart you," Voldemort offers. "I'm not sure if it will work so it depends on how desperate you are."

Harry pauses. It's been two days and Harry can't manage a single English word so yes he's very desperate but also he doesn't want Voldemort in his head because he's still hiding a lot from the man.

"Only a restart?" Harry clarifies. "No memories?"

"It's a completely different section," Voldemort explains. "Some memories might slip in but the language sector is more like the area for muscle memory, it's all instinct - quite literally in the case of Parseltongue."

Harry sighs and drops his toast into his plate. "Yeah, do it."

.

A/N: I've got some original works (and by that I mean a couple chapters barely) over on ScribbleHub now so you can just google Ourliazo, or find one of my stories like Gaslighting the Gods in Your Prayers.