I had a plan, and then my muse knocked me on the head with a rolled-up newspaper and ignored it completely.
As a result, this is a little shorter than I'd like and honestly reads like an interlude, but it's still kind of relevant. I'll try to make the next chapter longer though.
Thanks to everyone that commented so far, you guys make my day!
September 30th, 1988
If Michael had a cent for every time something in the wizarding world frustrated him, he would be tempted to open a vault in Gringotts. Actually, he should probably do that anyway, but the point was that he was once again exasperated at not being able to find the information he was looking for. He knew the ability to talk to snakes was referred to as being a parselmouth, which made no etymological sense as far as he could tell, and that it was rare, thanks to one of Harry's letters to Draco, but where Diagon Alley's libraries were concerned, it may as well not be something that exists, especially given the looks his questions earned him no matter how politely he phrased it.
"Oi, suit guy!" Someone called from behind him as he exited the bookshop and he turned to look for the origin, not sure if it was meant for him or not. His eyes meet narrowed brown ones a couple of inches lower in height, belonging to a gangly teen leaning against a nearby wall, "yes, you, come here."
"Yes?" He raises one brow, looking more closely at the teen.
The boy had long-ish brown hair reaching slightly past his chin and framing a thin face, probably left loose to hide the scar he could see starting at the corner of his cheek and likely spreading upwards. His clothes were a mix of something resembling dark robes but too short to cover his full frame, though the slightly faded grey trousers - looking like something he might have owned and thus not quite as wizardly - made sure to cover up the legs of the young stranger. Still, if the legs looked anything like his half-exposed arms, they were sure to be bony and thin.
All in all, Michael was pretty sure he'd never seen the teen before.
"You're not gonna find what you want over there, y'know?" The teen jutted his chin toward the bookstore as he spoke in a tone of conspiracy, "Dunno what you're asking for that's got the boss lady in a tizzy but you'll have better luck in Knockturn."
"Where?" He frowned before mentally realigning his priorities and adding, "and who are you?"
"Names have power, mate. You ain't getting mine, just some free advice," the teen answered, stepping away from the wall and riding up the robes to shove his hands in the trousers' pockets.
"I suppose," he left the suspicion out of his tone as much as he could, not sure if this was a wizarding thing or a this particular teen thing but not willing to ask about it to the stranger, "what did you mean by nocturnal?"
"Knockturn Alley," the teen elaborated, though his expression told Michael it was supposed to be obvious, "I've seen ya leave this place with a crap ton of books, thought it was some mastery research project, but guess not. You a muggle then? Don't get lots of muggles this eager for a read."
"Squib," Michael explained, slightly annoyed at the look of understanding that was levelled at him a moment later, "care to show me this nocturnally, then?"
It seemed pretty harmless to let some random advertiser show him to a different store, the kid did seem old enough to work and definitely looked like he needed the money. The chance to find some actual answers, too, was tempting enough to spur him on.
"Knock-turn," the teen corrected, "like knocking on a door, or getting knocked up," the wiggling eyebrows sent his direction did little but make him roll his eyes, "fine, the best example for it is knocked down anyway. Follow me, mate."
"Seems a tad out of the way," Michael can't help but point out after he's led through a few twists and turns into a seedier-looking part of the alley.
"Right where they like us," he barely caught the teen's mutter, sounding resentful but resigned.
He opened his mouth to inquire further into the subject but was interrupted by the boy's sudden stop in front of an old-looking door - though no older than everything in this alley looked - before he opened it and walked in, holding the door from the inside and looking at him expectantly.
Michael followed.
If Flourish and Blotts felt crowded, the room he stepped into felt like you may be drowned by books at any given time if he took a wrong step. Literal floor-to-ceiling – magic makes some gravity-defying things possible – bookcases lined every available surface in the walls, while the floor was filled not with shelving units but square wooden boxes filled to the brim with used-looking books. It was clear at first sight that this was the more likely place to find all sorts of materials usually hard to get a hold of than any of the bookshops he'd stepped into that morning.
"Back already? Did the aurors run you o- oh, hello! Welcome!" The female voice that came from behind a shelf-covered door was quickly given a face as it opened to let the woman into the room, closing behind her and becoming indistinguishable from the other bookshelves once again.
"Thank you," he smiled, offering the older woman a nod. She was also very thin and wore worn-looking robes, but they at least fit her right. The brown eyes coupled with the same shade of hair told him she was probably the boy's mother. "I'm looking for any books that mention parseltongue, I was told I might have better luck in here," he explained, motioning at the boy that brought him.
"Trey was right to bring you here, you're definitely not about to find any ministry-approved titles about parseltongue of all things, not after You-Know-Who," the woman shook her head in disapproval and moved over to a particular shelf, "let's see… certainly with magical languages… somewhere in here…"
"Trey, huh?" He mouthed at the teen, who rolled his eyes.
"Never said the power my name had wasn't the one to get me arrested if you decided I was too much of a bother," Trey explained in a flippant tone, "happened before."
"Why would you be arrested for advertising a business?" Michael can't help but frown, he noticed the difference between the two alleys but surely simply mentioning a store on this side wasn't cause for arrest.
"Aurors take any excuse to rough up some knockers," the teen shrugs, "plus barge into the stores to take away anything they deem too dark."
"Sounds like a serious abuse of authority," he points out.
"You must be new here," a mocking tone bleeds through Trey's response.
"Here you go!" His view was suddenly filled with a small pile of books being held out to him, "take a look, some are in different languages but nothing a translating glass can't fix. Unless you read Greek, Japanese or Sanskrit?"
"Just Japanese," he replied as he accepted the books, "anything in French, Italian or Latin also works," he added as his focus went to scanning the covers and contents of the books.
The English ones were on magical languages in general, barely sparing a full page for parseltongue, though one did have an entire chapter on Salazar Slytherin and his doomed legacy, as they put it. The Japanese one was more of a story than any sort of factual information, but he still set it aside to buy since reading to Harry about a hebi-ben-sha - the Japanese term for snake-speaker - and a shapeshifter stuck as a snake sounded like a fun way to reinforce that it was alright to have this ability. He leafed through the Greek book and it was some sort of illustrated children's story with a parselmouth as the main character, while the Sanskrit one looked like a more medical type of text, at least from the drawings depicting the human body.
"Oh, here's one more," a small booklet was dropped on top of his current read as the woman resumed her hurricane-like search through the store, "French regulations on animal communication, there's some on fourchelangue."
"I'll take it too," he decides after another moment of looking through it, mostly because it's related to regulations than the two pages on what a fourchelang is allowed to use their ability for in the French magical industry, "how does a translation glass work?" he adds, immediately earning himself a weird look and sighing, "squib, never seen it."
"You shouldn't go around volunteering that around these parts," the lady chides as she takes his chosen books off his hands and starts to run her wand over something on the back cover before setting them aside on top of each other, "some people will take offence and make it your problem. This," she shoves a hand into a robe pocket and pulls out a square glass the size of her palm, "is a translating glass. Just put it on top of the words and it'll read as English, only works with my books though. Still cheaper and less painful than a language potion."
He frowned at the warning but nodded in understanding, holding back from asking what exactly was a language potion and, if it was what he thought it sounded like, where to find some. He was here for a reason and not about to be sidetracked by the wonders of magic, no matter how much he would rather stay and look through every single book in sight.
"I'll have two if you've got them," he decides, figuring Harry would appreciate reading on his own.
It doesn't take long for galleons to trade hands and Michael makes a point of leaving a little more as a tip for Trey. The woman introduces herself as Claire and tells him to come back anytime, but he keeps his own name to himself at her warning, having his feelings confirmed that Knockturn Alley wasn't a place he should be heard of or seen at unless he lived in it. It reminded him of the areas around Red Bank or Devil's Acre, overpopulated slums filled with people society loved to forget, and where most of his pro-bono clients usually came from.
The ride back home is filled with anxious energy and Michael is itching to look through the books for some sort of explanation, but he has other things to do such as pick Harry up from school and join him for lunch before heading to work. It's only at the end of the day that he manages to find the time to sit in his office and peruse his findings, gliding the translating glass through the pages he wouldn't be able to understand without it and flying through the ones he would read perfectly well.
His frustration had yet to abate once he was done reading, since few of the books spoke about the origin of the language and the few that did mention it being a trait belonging to descendants of some notable dead figure depending on the language it was written in, ranging from Salazar Slytherin to Asclepius. Still, he would at least be able to tell Harry with complete confidence that it was a normal - if uncommon - wizarding trait and nothing close to freaky. The connotations of the language's association with Voldemort couldn't be ignored though, and he planned to explain to his ward that it would be better to hide the ability if he didn't want to call any undue attention onto himself.
As for why he could understand it, having no magic of his own? He was no closer to an answer.
Michael goes from Harry-won't-go-where-I-can't-protect-him to I-will-follow-a-random-stranger-in-pursuit-of-knowledge real quick, huh? Where's that self-preservation, buddy?
Sorry if anyone thought there would be some actual canon plot advancement here but no dice. Things are still advancing, sure, but it's gonna take a minute before anything changes on the Michael side of things. If you don't know what I'm talking about, good XD means I'm not entirely obvious
Hebi-ben-sha (蛇弁者) - Snake Speaker was a term made up by me with the help of translating websites. If any of you guys know Japanese and can think of a more correct term, feel free to suggest it.