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Act II - The Warlock of Hogwarts
Chapter 18 - Parseltongue
Some things just weren't meant to go together. Things like oil and water. Orange juice and toothpaste.
Harry Potter and Normalcy.
Harry ignored the glare Daphne was giving him, and instead looked around the Chamber. The last time he had been there, he had been too caught up with the adrenaline rush of finding a mythical Chamber, saving his friend's little sister and of course, grasping for ideas at surviving a basilisk. Not necessarily in that order. Professor Kettleburn was a rather chummy professor, all things considered, but he had never talked about the Top Five Things To Do when facing an XXXXX creature. In Kettleburn's defense, he was teaching twelve-year-old schmucks that weren't supposed to have any business near a basilisk either.
"This is a magnificent serpent king!" hissed the left-head of the runespoor.
"A magnificent and dead serpent king!" corrected the right-head.
"The Speaker killed it," spat the middle-head in a deep echoing voice. "The blood runs strong in this one."
"The blood?" Harry hissed back, wondering what she meant. "I don't have Slytherin blood in me."
"Foolish Speaker," cooed the left. "You do not have to slither in anywhere. You are a human, not a snake. The blood of the serpent king runs strongly in you."
The blood of the Serpent King? Harry wondered, eyeing the basilisk, before it hit him. "Wait. I don't have β I mean, it bit me when I killed it. Butβ"
"The blood and poison of the serpent king runs within you, Speaker," offered the middle-head. "We sensed it long ago. But a serpent-king such as this? It must be so potent."
"That makes no sense," said Harry.
"Yes it does," claimed the left.
"The Speaker might be addled," suggested the right.
"The blood is too strong in the Speaker to need to make sense," the middle-head finished sagely.
"Well," asked Daphne, "For the benefit of those of us who don't speak Snake, what did they say?"
Harry cupped his chin and frowned. "They say that I have basilisk blood in me. This basilisk's blood, probably from when it bit me."
He conveniently omitted the part about him not needing sense. He didn't want to be made into a fool in front of her by his own blasted familiar.
"And?" Daphne asked. "What do you think?"
He ran his fingers through his hair. "Honestly, I don't know. It kind of makes sense but at the same time, I really wish it didn't."
"Tell me."
He turned to her. "You know how Riddle claimed that we're both alike in many ways?"
Daphne nodded.
"Well, after that incident, I talked to Dumbledore about it. He told me that on the night Voldemort tried to kill me, the night he gave me this scar," he touched his forehead where the scar had been all these years ago. It had started to fade away after the events of the graveyard, but he could still feel a little unevenness if he traced it right. "Dumbledore told me that Voldemort gave me powers that night. Put a bit of himself, so to say. He said that's how I became a Parselmouth in the first place."
"Nonsense, Harry," Daphne retorted. "I get it that's a curse scar, but there's no way a curse can transfer powers like that. Certainly not Parseltongue."
"And why's that?"
"Because Parseltongue is a Gaunt Family trait. That's why. Every member of the Ancient and Noble House of Gaunt is born with it. It's in their blood."
"How do you know all that?"
She rolled her eyes. "Because of you. Dad went nutters when we found out you were a parselmouth back in second year. His first thought was that your mother was some squib Gaunt descendant."
"She wasn't," he murmured, thinking back at his inheritance results. "The only magical family she had ties to was Von Hohenheim, and even that was a weak one."
"Von Hohenheim? You mean Paracelsus Von Hohenheim?"
Harry did a double take. He hadn't quite expected her to catch that. "Yeah."
Daphne whistled. "That was quite an old family. Pureblood, but not Ancient. Paracelsus was a parselmouth too, you know? Does that meanβ¦"
He shook his head. "The goblins said that her connection was too weak for her to even take the name. Wait, does that mean that Paracelsus was related to the Gaunts?"
"No," said Daphne. "Paracelsus was a snake animagus. Uncle Quintus once told me that part of becoming an animagus was to gain an understanding of the animal form you were shifting into. A rabbit animagus could understand rabbits, an owl animagus could understand owls. You know, the like. But it takes a rare animagus that can not only communicate, but only learn the magical aspects of their language and thought, and make it their own."
"Like parseltongue?"
Exactly," said Daphne. "And that's why Paracelsus is so famous. He's most renowned for using Parseltongue for healing."
Harry blinked. "But the Gaunts β"
"The Gaunts are obsessed with it. Maybe they had several snake animagi up in their ancestry. Someone must have done something to tie this trait into their bloodline. That's why every Gaunt ever was a snake animagus, and they were all parselmouths."
Harry looked at her, amazed.
Daphne laughed. "Don't be impressed by all this. Most traditional families have dossiers on other houses, and uncle Quintus actually wrote a thesis on Animagi and Family Traits as part of his Mastery. He's an animagus too, you know."
"Who's that?"
A spark of amusement filled her eyes. "Quintus Parkinson. Pansy's father."
He gave her a self-conscious glance. Despite all the upheavals in his life recently, he hadn't stopped viewing people on the other side as anything beyond being Death Eaters, men of power that bribed and manipulated the Ministry and tortured halfbloods, muggleborns and muggles for fun. He had never thought that they too were once students, acquired their NEWTs, and went on to do something significant with their life before the war tore everything apart.
"I thought there were like, seven registered animagi in the twentieth century."
Daphne snorted. "Seven registered animagi according to the Ministry of Magic's Conscription list. Lots of people become animagi and never care to register. It's a useful ace to have up their sleeve if things go south. And even if they get caught, the maximum fine is seven hundred galleons. For a wealthy pureblood family, that's pocket change."
"But I digress," she said. "Even if your mum had Von Hohenheim blood in her, it wouldn't have made her a parselmouth. It's got to be Gaunt. Like, everyone knew that the Dark Lord must be related to the Gaunt family, which helped him in getting credibility with the extremist purebloods."
Harry frowned. "I thought it was because he claimed to be the Heir of Slytherin."
Daphne snorted. "Harry, House Slytherin is a branch of House Gaunt, when Ignacio Gaunt, then Lord of House, chose his nephew Shezar over his own son Salazar as the Heir, because Salazar was not born with Family Magic. Salazar walked out the family and fashioned himself a new name, a name that would leave his own legacy for generations to come. Salazar Slytherin."
"And his own family?"
Daphne shook his head. "Salazar never married and instead devoted all his time to understanding the nature of Family Magic. Even the other Founders claimed that Slytherin devoted more time to his own experiments and less to actively teaching students. In fact, Hufflepuff's memoir paints Slytherin as someone little inclined with anything to do with education."
"Sounds like an introvert." Harry muttered, ignoring her snort. "Where did you get that memoir?"
"From Obscurus Books," said Daphne, smiling like a cherub. She looked rather proud of that little achievement."It was a really old tattered version, written sometime in the seventeenth century. Then Hepzibah Smith, that's Zacharias Smith's great grandmotherβ she filed an injunction at the Wizengamot, and burnt all the copies, citing how Hufflepuff's memoirs were Smith property and not for the general public. It was a hassle."
Harry suddenly had this idea of Daphne sitting in an old bookshop, with large, full moon glasses on her nose, peering into dusty books. He snorted.
"What are you laughing at?" She asked, frowning.
"Oh nothing," he said with a chuckle, before he quickly sombered up. "But I am not a Gaunt."
"And yet, you can speak to snakes."
"Obviously he can speak to snakes!" The left head said drolly.
"A right demented dearie that one is," cackled the right.
"Can we eat her?" asked the middle.
The left one hissed. The right one hissed.
"Owww! Okay, sowie! No eating the Speaker's mate until the Speaker has laid eggs with her."
"Acceptable," said the left.
"You're easily satisfied," grumbled the right.
Harry blushed at their running commentary, and cleared his throat. "Yeah, I can speak Snake. And if I didn't get them from Voldemortβ¦" He looked at her. "I was browsing through my family's books, and it turns out my ancestor Hardwin Potter married Iolanthe Peverell and started off the Potter family. Turns out, the Peverell name was once called the Apepi, servants of Apophis, a dark necromancer witch who was so feared that the ancient Egyptians thought she was a dark goddess. Turns out Apophis could turn into a cobra. So I thoughtβ¦."
"That you get it from her instead?" Daphne surmised. "I can't say no, you know. I mean, the Gaunts did that, and the Peverells have been extinct for over a millenia so⦠who can tell?"
He nodded. "I used to think that too, but now Hecate says something else."
"The basilisk," Daphne murmured. "Well, I can't say it's without its merits. I saw you hissing back in second year, and it was scary, but by Morgana, you sound just⦠nasty now. Just hearing you speak makes me shiver and⦠it's like there's a freaking snake slithering under my skin and I want to tear it out."
He narrowed his eyes. That was an odd reaction. It certainly hadn't been like that when he had used it against the Death Eaters. Afraid, yes. But not the way Daphne was describing. Perhaps a side-effect of Death? As she put it, all bets were off when it came to Family Magic and he had already seen the effect Death had on his freezing spells.
He looked around at the vastness of the chamber around him. The last time he only had eyes for Ginny and then Riddle. This time thoughβ¦
He considered the statue.
"Speak to me, Slytherin. Greatest of Hogwarts Four," he hissed. Maybe he had just gotten used to it, but Parseltongue came to him easy now. Unlike before, he didn't need a snake as a prop.
Just like the last time, the mouth opened with a stony scape. Chill fingers seized his spine, fearing that there might be more monsters around. Almost by instinct, he raised his wand and looked away. Daphne got the memo and did likewise.
Nothing came hissing or screaming out of the mouth at them. Nobody started shooting curses either. So far so good.
"We should go up and check it out." Daphne said.
Harry looked up. The mouth had to be easily thirty feet away from the ground. "You're gonna climb it? For I don't have a broom on me."
Daphne cocked her head. "Are you a wizard or not?"
Harry blinked. Daphne had a point. He had used the Rocket charm to propel himself out of the water during the second task. But just pushing him up there was quite risky, especially if his hand slipped and he fell.
"Look sharp," she said. "I'll get you up there, and then you pull me up. And don't you dare get into that thing without me."
"Yes, professor."
With a scowl, Daphne brandished her wand and yelled, "Wingardium Leviosa."
The spell vaulted him upwards, and he could feel the inexorable power of gravity as Daphne's magic pushed him all the way upwards. The upward drift slowed down as he reached the mouth-level, and could find nothing but pitch black darkness inside it.
"Make it quick!" He heard Daphne yell from the bottom. "It isn't that easy to maintain it at that height."
Easier said than done, Harry thought, slowly crawling across the invisible layer of air beneath him, crouching on all fours, as he crossed to the other side. He felt Daphne's spell waver twice, reading himself to cast a propelling charm just in case, and continued his journey. Only once he was perched at the opening of the mouth did the charm dissipate.
He looked down at Daphne who was already on her knees, panting.
"Are you sure you want to climb up?" He teased.
"Are you sure you don't want me to kill you?" She shot back.
Harry grinned at her, amused. "Fine, but you're taking the Express route." And then he pointed his wand at her.
"Alarte Ascendare."
"What do you mean Expβ" Daphne couldn't finish her question as an invisible force bodily gripped her and pulled her all the way up to the mouth. He couldn't wait to tell Astoria that her sister squealed like a baby. In less than three seconds, she was standing right next to her, overlooking the dark pit in front of them.
"Okay," said Harry, "you wait here and I'll see what's inside. If everything is fine, then I'll call for you."
"That'll be the day," said Daphne, and rushed in, before Harry could stop her. Two seconds later, he heard a small rummaging sound.
"You coming?" she asked.
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