The next day, Hermione gathered her coven so far.
They met outside near Hagrid's cottage near dusk, all bundled up in the snow, and Hermione immediately set about creating the ritual circle they would need. It took a while to get everything perfect, and the others murmured behind her, wondering what they would be doing and grumbling about the cold.
"Do we really have to be outside for this?" Harry grumbled, shivering and rubbing his arms. "I didn't realize I was signing up for frostbite."
"Oh, hush," Blaise said, casting a warming charm on Harry with an eyeroll. "I'm much more curious why we need to be outside. Whatever are we doing, Hermione?"
"We're going to even the playing field," Hermione murmured, setting the last candle into place and charming it. "There. We're ready."
"It's quite pretty," Luna observed. "But what does this do?"
Hermione smiled.
"We're all going to learn Parseltongue."
Harry gasped while Blaise's mouth fell open, and Luna looked intrigued.
"That's possible?" Blaise demanded. "That's really a thing?"
"It is," Hermione confirmed. "I found a book written by a wizard who learned dozens of animals' languages. Snakes' was one of them."
Harry's eyes were shocked.
"That's insane," he breathed. "Absolutely mad."
"Well, we're only going to learn one animal language right now," Hermione said, tossing her hair. "Parseltongue is the one most likely to help us figure out who's the Heir of Slytherin and terrorizing the school. We'll all be able to speak with snakes." She glanced at Harry. "Then we can find the monster, and then just ask who's been bossing it around." She looked out over them. "Any objections?"
They all shook their heads, and Hermione smiled.
"Excellent. Let's get started, then."
The realization Hermione had, that Parseltongue existed, had led her to go back over The Booke of the Beastes more carefully, with a more literal eye than she had originally. As she did, she was able to realize some things were the same each time the author met a new creature: he made an offering, an animal came to him and sacrificed itself, and then he could speak with its species. Hermione highly doubted that was all of what was going on, but the book wasn't exactly a tome that detailed the logistics and requirements of what all the wizard did.
The incantation they would use for the ritual was largely taken from The Booke of the Beastes but modified to use more modern language. From what Hermione had picked up, the rhythm and intent of the words used in the incantation was more important than the specific words themselves, and Hermione had taken bits and pieces to stitch together into a new incantation for them to use.
Hermione's circle had four candles evenly spread out on the outside of a circle. There was a square inside the circle, connecting the candle points together, and then another circle inside of the square, with a triangle inside of it. There was another triangle within the circle near the edge nearest the forest that connected to the inner triangle with a curved vein. The ground being covered with snow, Hermione had made do by stomping down the snow in a large area to be flat and using colored water to mark off the lines she needed.
She stepped forward, producing three dead mice, and Harry grimaced.
"We're killing things for this?" Harry said, making a face.
"I got these already dead from the kitchen," Hermione reassured him, handing them out. "The House Elves set out traps. They don't exactly go for no-kill ones."
Harry still looked vaguely ill. Hermione passed Blaise and Luna a knife, instructing them to bleed onto the fur of one of the mice. Luna took a dead mouse with no fuss, smearing blood on its fur, and Blaise looked sickly fascinated as he gingerly held the dead rodent and tried to cut his hand at the same time. Hermione instructed them to set the mice in the lone triangle before stepping back to their candles. She took a moment to explain the chant they were going to use.
"I'm going to do most of the incantation," she reassured them. "Just make sure we all repeat the key bits together. Any questions?"
Blaise's eyes gleamed with excitement. Luna was quivering slightly, smiling, and even Harry had relaxed a bit to look interested.
"Ready?" Hermione questioned. "Here we go."
Each one of them knelt down to light their candle.
"We call upon the serpents," Hermione intoned, "to hear our words."
"We call upon the serpents to hear our words," the other three repeated.
"We offer ourselves," Hermione continued, "to join those that are yours."
"We offer ourselves to join those that are yours…"
With a nod of direction, Blaise, Harry, and Luna kept reciting the couplet over and over, while Hermione moved to the center of the circle into the inner triangle. Withdrawing the silver knife she'd never returned to Draco, she cut her hand, letting several drops of blood drip onto the snow, staining the ground red.
Gathering herself together with a deep breath and closing her eyes, Hermione centered herself and her magic.
Her eyes flickered open, and she began to recite.
"We seek the serpents, we entreat to thee; Serpents, come to us, and hear our plea…"
Luna, Harry, and Blaise were still chanting their couplet low in the background, but Hermione was focused on her part.
"We come to you mute, our songs unsung; We come to you, serpents, to learn your tongue…"
There was a feeling of pressure slowly building within the circle, an intensity that began to vibrate in the air.
"We offer you sustenance that might feed your flesh," Hermione continued, wetting her dry lips. "We offer you service; we become your crèche."
The intensity continued to build, the magic a thick, palpable presence among them. Hermione could see Blaise's eyes looking around wildly, darting rapidly from Harry to Luna and back even as he continued to recite.
"We offer you our blood, fresh from the knife; We offer you our loyalty, in exchange for a life…"
The others' chant grew louder and louder as the intensity built. Harry at some point had changed over to hissing the incantation along with the others, and wasn't that interesting?
"We offer all this to you, to become one of yours. Come now, serpents, and heed our words!"
As Hermione yelled out the final words, there was a rush of magic that swept through the circle almost violently, before breaking free and darting out into the forest. Nearly stumbling, Hermione fought to catch her breath as she surveyed her coven members, all of whom seemed to be panting, and she moved carefully back over to her own candle outside of the circle.
"Now what?" Blaise said hoarsely.
"Now we wait," Hermione said. "I don't think we'll have to wait long."
They watched the forest.
The trees were silent in the night, the sky clear and cold.
There was nothing.
Then, there was something.
They could see something large moving on the ground toward them, undulating unnaturally, a dark blur against the snow. The blur grew as it slowly came closer, but it widened at the back, and soon Hermione realized that not just one snake had come, but a lot of snakes had heeded their call, so much it seemed like the ground itself had become alive, rippling with dark waves.
Hermione gulped. She wasn't afraid of snakes, but it was a lot of snakes for anyone to see approaching them.
"Did we mean to call so many of them?" Harry asked faintly.
"I think it was dependent on how much power we used," Blaise said, casting a sideways glance at Hermione. "And I don't think any of us thought to moderate our level of magic."
"Look," Luna said. "They're waiting."
The snakes were stopping as they arrived at the circle, waiting maybe three feet from the border of the circle closest to them. They waited in a cluster; there were dozens of them, and all kinds of snakes had come.
There was a hissing, and Harry looked surprised.
"Err, they're saying they have heeded our call," Harry said. He blinked. "They're… discussing who will die?"
"Blaise, Luna, with me," Hermione directed, and the three stepped into the circle, each taking a seat at one of the points of the inner triangle. She passed the knife around, and they each let drops of blood drip onto their point of the triangle and into the middle of it, marking them as the newcomers. Harry, already knowing Parseltongue, remained on the outside.
"They're discussing who is sick," Harry continued. "They're… Hermione, are some of the snakes going to die in this ritual?"
"I don't know," Hermione told him honestly. "The book I took this from used a lot of flowery language… but Harry, I suspect so."
Harry gave her a venomous look. "You said this wasn't Dark!"
"And it's not," Hermione said patiently. "Hear yourself; you said they are discussing amongst themselves who will come. They are offering themselves freely, not forcing each other to be sacrificed."
Harry still looked upset, but he was distracted by three snakes winding their way forwards. They stopped just short of the circle, and they seemed to be looking to them for direction.
"They're, umm…" Harry paused. "…they want to hear your promise?"
"Oh," said Hermione. "I guess they were pretty far away in the woods."
"You did say 'come to us and hear our words'," Blaise commented.
Carefully, Hermione recited the five couplets she'd intoned earlier, watching the snakes. There was a feeling of magic building once again, but this time, she could feel it in the circle in front of her, traveling along the triangle, out through the vein to the other triangle, and back again. Blaise and Luna were looking to each other, excitement and nervousness in their eyes, and as Hermione intoned the last words, all three snakes lunged forward and devoured a mouse.
Magic rushed towards them, and pain exploded behind her eyes. Hermione cried out, falling forward, and she could hear Blaise and Luna cry out next to her. It was like lightning had struck her brain directly inside her skull, like a cluster headache had decided to torture her with a vengeance. Hermione clutched her hands into painful fists and clenched her eyes tightly shut, shaking and trying to endure the sudden agony.
Almost as suddenly as it came, the pain left, dissipating into the air as if wisps of smoke. Gingerly, Hermione opened her eyes, rubbing her head, and her eyes took in the scene.
At the opposite end of the circle lay three dead snakes – the ones that had eaten the mice. It struck Hermione as ironic that the ones who ate their sacrifice were the ones sacrificed in the end.
Rituals had a weird way of making circles like that.
The feeling of magic was gone, and all the candles had gone out. Blaise and Luna looked to her expectantly, and Hermione wet her lips.
"Hello," she tried, looking at the thick snake at the front of the throng. "We greet you as friends and allies."
Immediately, Hermione knew something was different – the words came out all wrong, wet and soft and slippery from her tongue. But she'd said the words in English… hadn't she?
From the look the others were giving her, she suspected not.
A thick snake slithered forward and seemed to nod to her.
"Greetings, speakers, students of the serpent-tongue," the snake hissed. Its beady eyes met Hermione's. "It is uncommon for your kind to respect our ways and seek our tongue."
Blaise spoke this time, looking excited to try his Parseltongue out. "We wanted to learn your language. We suspect a large snake is in our school trying to kill our kind."
Hermione could hear this time that Blaise was hissing out the words, but despite him literally hissing, she could somehow understand him.
Hermione was abruptly aware that this was the coolest thing in the world, and she immediately understood how Harry hadn't realized he's spoken Parseltongue at all.
Hermione glanced at Harry, who seemed to be vibrating with excitement. Gone was his anger; now he seemed thrilled.
"This is true," the leader snake hissed. "Our elders and our sick knew this and knew of the danger we all face. They knew they were not long for this world, and they offered to gift themselves and our language to you instead of lingering for longer."
Ha! There! The snake had just said it was a choice, a willing sacrifice! Hermione's eyes flew to Harry, but he was too focused on the what was going on.
"So it is true?" Harry asked "There is a giant snake inside the school?"
"There is a serpent," the snake hissed. "And it is large."
Harry looked triumphant and satisfied with this confirmation, but Hermione was nowhere near done.
"Do you ever explore the grounds, the school?" Hermione asked them. "We are looking for another speaker, one who we suspect controls the serpent."
There was a murmur amongst the snakes, though it sounded almost like a hive of bees with the low hissing. They were discussing amongst themselves, Hermione realized, and she was momentarily struck with the implications of this. Were snakes sentient, or was the magic of Parseltongue allowing them to verbalize instinct and memory into conscious thought?
A pale yellow snake slithered forward.
"I have heard another speaker," it said. "The speaker came to the structure near the ferrets, and it killed all the fowl, wringing their necks. The speaker spoke to themselves, as if unaware they were doing so."
Harry blinked. "What?"
"Hagrid has ferrets near his hut, in the garden," Hermione explained quickly. She turned back to the snake. "You are saying the speaker came to this place and killed all the roosters there?"
The snake's tongue flickered out, tasting the air. "Yes."
"Roosters?" Blaise wondered aloud. "Did they need to feed the giant snake or something?"
"Do you know what they looked like?" Hermione asked. "Were they tall, short? Did they have trousers on or a skirt?"
The snake considered.
"The speaker was small," it said. It jabbed its tail at Luna. "Perhaps as small as her. The speaker had bare legs and wore the swishy cloth. It had a mane like hers as well, but shorter."
"What color was the hair?" Hermione pressed. "Was it brown? Red? Yellow?"
The snake hissed, but not words, before speaking again.
"Our color is not yours," it said grudgingly. "The hair was not dark, but that is all I can say that is yours."
Hermione knew when to retreat. "Thank you," she said, grateful. "We will use this knowledge to help us all."
The original front snake almost seemed to nod.
"The wild serpent threatens us all," it said. "The spiders fleeing alone have overrun several burrows. Iff you speakers are true friends of the snakes, you will ensure the rogue serpent meets its end."
Hermione bowed in thanks to the snake, and the others all copied her and bowed as well. Seemingly satisfied with this gesture, the snakes all turned and slithered away back into the woods. Hermione was amazed to hear them chatter amongst themselves slightly as they went, though their hissing voices trailed off as they trekked across the snow.
Now, the air was silent, and Hermione looked around, from one member of her coven to another to another.
"That," Harry said, his tone grave, "was the coolest thing I have ever seen."
The tension broken, they burst out into laughter, their nervousness and excess energy coming out in giggles and laughs.
"I spoke to a snake!" Luna said, bouncing slightly. "I can speak to snakes now!"
Blaise grinned at Hermione.
"That was the coolest. We are now the most Slytherin Slytherins ever," he pronounced, and Hermione laughed.
"I'm just relieved I'm not going mad," Harry told them all. "When Hermione started speaking to it and it spoke back… Merlin, I'm just so relieved I won't be alone in this anymore!"
There were hugs all around – well, Hermione hugged everyone, but Harry and Blaise didn't hug, just sort of grinned – and Hermione began to pack up their candles, kicking snow around and covering up their circle and the blood staining the ground.
"No one needs to see this," she said. "It would raise questions we don't need or want."
The others helped her kick snow over the circle's colored water until the only trace of them was a bunch of messed-up snow — a perfectly normal thing for a bunch of children to leave behind – and they began their trek back to the castle.
"So now what?" Harry asked Hermione, as they led the way.
"Well, we know the Heir is a girl," Hermione reflected.
Harry's eyes opened wider. "We do?"
"The snake said the speaker had longish hair and wore a skirt, not trousers," Hermione said. "That makes me think it's a girl. And the speaker said she was short – probably someone before her growth spurt, third year or under, I'd guess."
"Oh wow," Harry said. "Though… that's still a lot of suspects."
"It is," Hermione admitted. "But at least we've narrowed the field more than from before."
Harry gave her a tentative smile.
"Hey, it's okay," he told her, comforting. "You'll think of something to figure it out."
Hermione found it ironic that now he was the one trying to reassure her.
"How do you even know that?" she asked, rolling her eyes.
"Easy." Harry's eyes sparkled. "You always do."
