Summary of the last chapter:

Harry tells Professor Snape about Dobby's visit to the Hospital Wing. He says he will see to it that the wards are adjusted. Draco, intending to fuel the rumour that Harry is the Heir of Slytherin despite being son of a Muggleborn and friend of another, comes up with a rumour of his own making: That Harry's mother and Hermione might not truly be Muggleborn at all, but have a secret wizarding ancestry through affairs or because one of their parent was in truth a Squib. Slytherins quickly take up that idea, as it fits in their narrative that Muggleborns have weaker magic, which doesn't seem to be true for Hermione.

The friends are none too pleased about this falsification of their heritage. They start to research bloodlines, monsters and former graduates hoping to find the real heir. While there seem to be no animals that can petrify people, they find out that the Gaunt family descended from Salazar Slytherin, and that they're Parselmouths. They plan to continue their research.

Under Suspicion

By the end of November, Harry really thought things were lightening up. DADA had changed for the better – for one, they were actually learning spells, though lessons were rather chaotic, as Lockhart simply demonstrated how to cast them and then let them practice on each other. A few pupils took advantage by settling grievances they had with each other in class. Ronald Weasley and Zacharias Smith were constantly at odds with each other, which was of little surprise. Like Ron, Zacharias had no functional brain-to-mouth barrier, was easily provoked and had a short temper. It had always been a mystery why he'd been sorted into Hufflepuff, as he seemed to lack all of that house's virtues. There had been speculation that the Smith family was descended from Helga Hufflepuff, and since the Hogwarts' Founder's friendliness was apparently no inheritable trait, this relationship might have been the deciding factor for the Sorting Hat when no other house seemed to fit any better.

Not surprisingly, Zacharias was one of those who was firmly convinced that Harry was the Heir of Slytherin and wouldn't tire of spouting his accusations to anyone who would listen. But Zacharias never confronted Harry directly, probably figuring that he couldn't take it up with a rising dark wizard. So as long as Harry and his friends made sure to be in a different corner of the room, safe from any stray hexes, they were fine and even began to enjoy the lessons.

Lockhart himself, however, had lost some his cheer, literally: He had stopped constantly flashing Witch Weekly's most charming smile at them, and not only because he had been made to stick to the syllabus. His teeth seemed to be giving him trouble. Hermione had noticed that they had gradually lost their perfect whiteness over the last weeks, making his signature smile look somewhat yellowish. He was now often found pulling weird grimaces, as he sometimes forgot about his problem and clamped his lips shut last minute. Harry couldn't help but feel a frisson of schadenfreude at Lockhart's mysterious misfortune, whatever the cause. After all the pain he had given Harry, one could hardly expect him to be sympathetic.

By mid-December, Lockhart seemed to have figured out what the problem was (or he had changed his toothpaste): He was suddenly back to flashy white smiles and full of bright ideas, like starting a duelling club. For whatever reason, this sparked a wave of enthusiasm among the students. How they could still hope to learn anything useful from their highly incompetent teacher was a mystery to Harry. Even Hermione had lost all her previous respect for him, after Harry and Tom (the latter anonymously) had proven to her that the events described in his books couldn't possibly have happened as claimed, as the timeline just didn't fit - unless Lockhart had the impressive ability to be in two places at the same time, which wasn't even possible in the wizarding world.

The Great Hall had been cleared of all furniture and a duelling platform had been installed. Harry really enjoyed the opening duel between Lockhart and his Head of House, who literally wiped the floor with the pretentious, incompetent wizard. Lockhart, of course, claimed that his poor performance had been intentional and cheerfully suggested that the students should now duel each other. They really had fun at first. Harry, Hermione and Neville partnered up, taking turns in sending tickling charms and leg-lockers each other's way.

Other students did the same, and soon hexes were flying wildly across the Great Hall, sometimes landing vastly off target and hitting bystanders instead. Professor Snape quickly called an end to it before students could land each other in the hospital wing, and suggested show duels on the platform under the teacher's supervision instead. Lockhart immediately had his eyes on Harry, completely ignoring his wish to not be put in the spotlight. As Draco seemed eager to participate, Snape chose him as his opponent and waved him onto the platform. Why they decided to use second years instead of students from upper classes was beyond Tom and Harry, though Harry was grateful that Professor Snape hadn't picked an older student to confront Harry.

As Harry had a bone to pick with his dorm mate, he didn't even try to protest. He felt confident that he could evade whatever jinx Draco might throw at him – he had years of practice evading Dudley and was very agile. And he knew he had the incantation for the hexes they had learned well memorized and was reasonably quick at casting them.

Their duel was pretty balanced for a while. Each of them landed some hits, the effects of which were immediately cancelled by their teachers. Then Lockhart suggested demonstrating some new charms to their audience, and Snape whispered something into Draco's ear.

Lockhart bent down to Harry and told him to execute a twitchy-ears hex, demonstrating the wand movement and having him repeat the incantation. Harry thought it was rather lame for a duel, as nobody would know Malfoy's ears twitched even if Harry managed to successfully execute it with the meagre instructions he was given.

He never knew himself whether his spell had landed. They both waved their wands, and suddenly, a rather large snake appeared out of nowhere, clearly angry at having been ripped from whatever piece of earth it had come from.

Harry stared at it aghast, completely empathizing with its rightful indignation. Lockhart, the idiot, probably thought himself helpful and directed a charm at it. Whatever it was supposed to do, it was probably not what happened: It flung the snake high up in the air, only for it to fall back down hard, landing in the middle of the platform. Harry winced. That must have hurt!

Hissing, the snake turned to attack the next standing person whom it held responsible for the unprovoked assault and the reason it found itself in such a perilous situation. This person happened to be Justin, a fellow second-year Hufflepuff, who tried to step back, but couldn't due to the crowd behind him.

"No, stop! Don't attack him please, he's not the one who harmed you!" Harry urgently addressed the snake, who was now raising his head high and wildly swaying to and fro, trying to see where the voice was coming from.

"Who's speaking?" it hissed. "Show yourself!"

Before Harry could say anything else, however, a spell from Professor Snape's wand hit it straight, vanishing the snake in an instant.

"Oh no! What have you done to it?" Harry wailed, feeling really bad for the snake. He really hoped the spell had transported the poor thing back to wherever it had come from.

Only then did he notice that dead silence had fallen, and more than one student was staring at him in shock. Justin Finch-Fletchley's eyes were wide and full of fright. He turned and fled the hall.

"Oops," Harry said to Tom, realizing that he had just spoken Parsel in front of the entire castle.

"Yeah, that's one way to put it," said Tom pensively. "Well, this is going to be interesting."

Snape stepped forward, catching Harry's slightly lost gaze. "Come with me, Potter," he said pointing to the exit with a nod of his head. Louder he said: "I think that's it for the first meeting of the duelling club. No sure if we're going to have a second."

*'*'*'*'*'*

In his office, his Head of House looked at Harry with a face that was carefully devoid of emotions. "You're a Parselmouth. How long have you known?"

"Since I was eight," Harry confessed, now fully aware of the impact this was most likely going to have, and anxious what his Head of House was going to think. "I was able to speak to a snake in our biology classroom. And to the garden snakes. And then to Marvolo, of course."

"Marvolo?"

"My pet snake – the one you kept for a couple of days last year. I got him when I was in Diagon Alley with Hagrid."

"So Hagrid knew? Why didn't you ever tell anybody else?"

"He probably means 'why didn't you tell me'," Tom helpfully provided.

Harry hung his head. He hated disappointing his Head of House, though he had no idea why. "Hagrid said only dark wizards can speak with snakes. He warned me not to tell anybody."

Now Professor Snape gave the inevitable sigh Harry had been waiting for.

"Mr. Potter, Parsel alone does not make a dark wizard. It's just a really rare ability that you happen to share with the Dark Lord and Salazar Slytherin. I have no idea why – it might be genetics, it might have something to do with the killing curse you survived, it might just be coincidence. Apart from that ability, I don't see much in you that screams 'dark wizard ' to me."

"You don't?" Harry looked up hopefully. So his Head of House and favourite professor was not concerned that he might turn dark?

"I admittedly don't know what to look for, exactly, as I have no idea what the Dark Lord was like at your age. But you have not given me the impression that you secretly strive for world domination, are involved in anything sinister or find fun in hurting others. So no. However, a majority of students are going to see it differently. I'm afraid the damage has been done."

"But I'm not the heir of Slytherin! I didn't do anything!"

"I didn't think you were. But people aren't likely to believe you now that they've seen you giving orders to a snake."

"But it was angry. I thought it was going to attack Justin, so begged it to stop. I told it that he wasn't at fault. Where did you send it to?"

"I used a banishing charm. It's supposed to send anything summoned back to where it came from."

Harry and Tom were happy to hear it. Hopefully, the snake would be alright. "I know we aren't supposed to keep snakes as familiars. Though I wonder if some other student secretly has one. I've heard a snake in the corridors a couple of times. I never saw one, though."

"And you're sure that it wasn't your own pet roaming the hallways?"

"No it wasn't Marvolo. He's perfectly happy staying with Hagrid. He also isn't quite as ferocious when hunting. The snake I heard sounded pretty desperate, hungry and eager to catch its prey. Maybe someone conjured it to practice the charm and wasn't quick enough to banish it afterwards?"

"It would still go back to where it came from eventually. Let's hope that the problem has already solved itself."

"Or maybe it's a wild snake that got inside the castle. Are there snakes in Scotland?"

"Just the common adder. Report to me if you hear a snake in the corridors again, but please don't try to catch it! If it was indeed conjured from god knows where it might be poisonous."

Harry nodded. "Thank you, Professor," he said sincerely.

"For what now, Potter?"

"For believing me and for believing in me. I don't think I would enjoy being a dark wizard."

"No, Mr. Potter, I don't think anyone would, not even the Dark Lord. Now we only have to convince the rest of the castle of that."

*'*'*'*'*'*'*

Severus thought that it'd be hard enough to convince the headmaster. The old man had been shocked when he had heard Harry speaking Parsel. Severus had caught his gaze across the hall, and Severus knew that Albus had been just as surprised as himself.

Indeed, when Severus found him in his office that evening, the headmaster with his usually serene disposition was visibly agitated. He didn't even offer Severus one of his infernal lemon drops.

"Did you know, Severus?" he asked, as soon as his Potion Master entered his office.

"No. But Hagrid apparently knew, given that he's housing Potter's snake. He told the boy that only dark wizards speak Parsel and advised him not to tell anybody. Harry was afraid we might think badly of him. It seems he was right."

"It is concerning, Severus. Harry's not the heir of Slytherin. I looked into his pedigree once more – the Potters are not related to Salazar Slytherin, not as far as we can retrace. Everything points to Parseltongue being hereditary, though."

"Maybe it's not. It's rare enough in Britain, so we probably don't have sufficient data. And it's not uncommon at all in India or Africa."

"I think it has to do with whatever happened in Godric's Hollow. Somehow, Voldemort left an imprint on Harry when the killing curse backfired."

"You mean he passed on a skill with a misdirected curse? I can't see how that could have happened – it's totally unheard of."

"A lot of mysterious things happened that night. No one had ever survived an Avada before."

True enough. With Harry, the unusual seemed to be the norm. Severus pretended nonchalance and shrugged. "So what? That doesn't make the boy evil. He told me he had first spoken to a snake when he was about eight. And he speaks to his pet snake, Marvolo."

"Mar… what?" Albus spun around as if he'd been hit by a Bludger.

"Marvolo. What is it, Albus? What's so shocking?"

"Don't you know, Severus? Voldemort's name before he became the Dark Lord, was Tom Marvolo Riddle!"

Severus stared at him uncomprehendingly. "Harry named his snake after the Dark Lord?"

"I don't believe Harry knows Voldemort's Muggle name. Hardly anybody does. Tom Marvolo Riddle vanished in the 1950s, travelled far and sank deep into the dark arts. When he returned more than ten years later, he didn't look much like himself anymore and went by the moniker 'Lord Voldemort'."

"Can this be a coincidence, then?" It would certainly be a funny one. Maybe Harry came across the name in a book somewhere?

"I don't know, Severus," said the headmaster gravely, who really seemed most perturbed by the news. "I really don't know."

A/N: I've slightly altered this chapter last minute after azielmirror commented on chapter 13 (on A03) how much he hated Lockhart and hoped that Snape would make HIM apologize to Harry. While I couldn't picture that, I wondered what our Potion's Master might do when thoroughly fed up with the narcissistic idiot after his latest stunt … Have the house-elves swap ped his toothpaste for something Severus brewed himself? Adding a slow-acting colourant to the herbal infusion he always drank for breakfast? And did the problem really go away, or has Gilderoy now simply taken to wearing a glamour? I've only recently discovered Severus' vindictive streak, but I'm starting to like it!