Sarah's Free Snake
Sarah loved the rain.
She sat on a windowsill and watched it fall over the grounds in relentless, grey sheets. The trees of the Forbidden Forest shimmered as heavy drops shook their deep green leaves. The Black Lake had flooded its banks, and the rain’s unceasing assault on the water made it seem it was the lake falling into the sky. Echoing thuds, like distant drums, came from the pumpkin patch. The pumpkins were the size of carriages. Hagrid’s hut had been rebuilt, and sometimes she saw the man poking the pumpkins with his umbrella. Sarah added it to her list of crimes committed by Hagrid.
Hedwig gave a low hoot, lifting her wings hopefully. Sarah placed a hand lightly on her back; she knew Hedwig wanted to fly, but the rain was too heavy. Hedwig was strong enough, but it would make her really tired. There were charms to repel rain, which Sarah had cast on her glasses, shoes, and cloak, but she didn’t want to use it on Hedwig without testing it on other living things first. What if it made all of Hedwig repel water? How would she drink?
Sarah loved the rain and how it transformed the world. She imagined the best day would be being at home—a place Sarah didn’t have yet, but would one day—reading a book, eating and drinking whatever she wanted, listening to the rain.
She would have preferred to stay in her dormitory to enjoy the rainy weather, but the grounds were flooding and all of the windows in the Hufflepuff Basement were busy holding the water back. Sarah had to venture out to the Owlery to fetch Hedwig.
A cackle broke Sarah out of her thoughts. Goosebumps raised all along her skin, and she shuddered. Slowly, Sarah scooted around to see who it was
“Potter, Potter, look at all the water,” sang Peeves, casually tossing a large, black and gold cabinet in the air. “Shan’t say a word unless you’ve caught her!”
Hedwig hissed at the poltergeist, but it only made him laugh harder. Sarah frowned, annoyed that her quiet time had been intruded upon but unsurprised it was by the most annoying person. Most days, Sarah found Peeves and his hijinks amusing. He was colorful in a bright green coat and orange trousers, his cap and bells swinging jauntily from his head.
Unfortunately, Sarah had Peeves’ attention, more so than the cabinet he held. He started singing another mocking ditty, grinning like the fool he was, but there was a strange rushing sound in Sarah’s ears. Peeves would follow her around all day until he got some reaction, she was sure of it. And only the Bloody Baron could control him, so everyone said. Nothing the prefects or professors did could get Peeves to stop when he had his mind set.
But there was something Sarah could do.
She pointed her wand at Peeves and thought, Silencio!
Sarah had never cast the charm on a person before, and definitely not a poltergeist. She was thus surprised to discover that this lack of practice meant she hadn’t cast the spell properly. In fact, it backfired in the worst way possible.
It made Peeves louder.
Sarah stared at Peeves, her wand dangling from her hand, as he got bigger and bigger, swelling to a remarkable size, filling the corridor, his voice booming through the castle. Sarah covered her ears, and Hedwig immediately flew into the rain, preferring that to the giant poltergeist laughing madly at his good fortune.
“Peeves!” roared a creaky old voice.
Peeves blew a raspberry with the force of a hurricane, nearly toppling Sarah out of the window. He began sinking into the floor, his color washing out. He was off to terrorize the castle as a giant poltergeist, leaving the black and gold cabinet behind.
Filch stormed onto the scene just in time to see Peeves’ immense hand make an obscene gesture. Filch was followed closely by Mrs. Norris, who turned her big yellow eyes to Sarah. Filch went red, looked at where Peeves had disappeared, to the cabinet, and finally landed on Sarah. He pointed an accusing, gnarled finger at her.
“You’re behind this,” growled Filch, his face twitching horribly. He gave a big sniff, sucking a glob of mucus back into his nose. “Professor Snape warned me about you, oh yes he did! Just like your father, he says, and I’ve got a whole cabinet dedicated to him. Follow me, Potter!”
Sarah slid off the windowsill and put her wand away. She was glad Filch didn’t try to grab her, but instead had Mrs. Norris herd her to his office. Sarah was relieved Hedwig had got away so quickly; there was little Hedwig could do against giant poltergeists or mean caretakers, unless she carried off Mrs. Norris, and that would only make Filch angrier.
Sarah had never been to Filch’s office before, and in fact avoided it due to the fishy smell that emanated from the room. The smell intensified when Filch ripped the door open and pointed for Sarah to sit in the sole, moth-eaten chair. She covered her nose and sat down, looking around the room. It was a dingy, cramped space lit by a single, cruddy oil lamp, and packed with overflowing cabinets. The only decoration in the room was a collection of chains, fetters, and manacles hanging behind Filch’s desk.
Filch had got out a parchment and quill and was muttering to himself, wiping his nose on a sleeve.
“Name, Sarah Potter. Crime…”
Filch glared at her through bleary eyes. Sarah realized the old caretaker was sick.
“What did you do, girl?” demanded Filch.
Sarah reached for the quill, and Filch reluctantly handed it to her.
I cast a Silencing Charm on Peeves and it went wrong. It made him swell up a lot.
Filch stared at the words, then stared at Sarah, then snatched the quill back.
“Crime,” said Filch, a vindictive light in his eyes, “using magic in the corridors. Suggested sentence, detention.”
As Filch set down his quill, there was a loud crash, followed by screams. Sarah could only imagine what Peeves had got his giant hands on, and she shrank back in the seat as Filch renewed his glare.
“You stay right there, Potter,” growled Filch, his nose streaming freely. “I’ll need the professors on this one.”
Sarah watched Filch run from his office, followed closely by Mrs. Norris. After a moment, she got out of the chair and looked at the parchment. She glanced at the door, then took out her wand. After spilling ink all over her bed the year before, Sarah had a brief but intense interest in cleaning spells. Knocking over ink bottles was common enough, and annoying.
Dygir, Sarah thought, smiling as the ink on the parchment was sucked away, as if by a vacuum. It worked on all sorts of things. She wished she knew a spell to put the ink back in the bottle, or a spilled drink back in its cup.
Whatever trouble giant Peeves was causing sounded like it was in the Great Hall. Sarah wasn’t going to stick around and get blamed for that, but something else caught her attention. A shiny purple envelope with pretty silver letters.
KWIKSPELL
A Correspondence Course in Beginners’ Magic
Frowning to herself, Sarah slipped out of the office and began running in a direction opposite that of the ongoing chaos. She ducked behind a tapestry that hid a narrow staircase and hurried up the steps. She had never seen Filch use magic, and all the cleaning he did could easily be accomplished by magic, or more likely a house-elf. Had he not attended Hogwarts? Was he a muggle?
Puzzling over how a muggle got a job at a magical school, Sarah made her way to the Owlery, where a very wet and surly Hedwig awaited her. Sarah laughed when Hedwig shook off her feathers, spraying her with water. A piece of bacon later and Hedwig was in a better mood.
Sarah cleared off a spot near one of the windows, then sat down to continue reading her book.
Evading detention was not as easy as erasing her name. After Peeves was shrunk by Professor Flitwick, the tables in the Great Hall repaired, and a written apology to Hagrid for the pumpkins Peeves had hurled at the Whomping Willow, and one to Professor Sprout for the damage to the Whomping Willow, Sarah was sentenced to polishing everything in the trophy room.
Filch breathing down her neck was horrible. He was in an absolutely foul mood, his ears steaming from a Pepperup Potion and red as a tomato. Sarah had plenty of experience polishing the silver at the Dursleys, and with angry men shouting at her and making threats. The only difference was she was polishing shields and quidditch cups instead of spoons and forks.
She did discover several interesting things as she worked. Sarah hadn’t known her dad had played quidditch for the Gryffindor team, nor that he had been the captain. She hardly knew anything about her parents. The history books left out things like that. Sarah thought about the photo album Hagrid had given her, and resolved to actually look through it instead of pretending it didn’t exist simply because it was from someone she hated.
When Sarah got to the plaque of former Head Boys and Girls, she was in for another surprise.
James Potter. Lily Evans.
She stopped polishing. Filch threatened her with a birching. Sarah ignored him, staring at the names of the Head Boy and Girl for 1977.
No one had said her dad had been Head Boy, nor that her mum had been Head Girl. While Sarah knew her mum’s name was Lily, she had not known her maiden name. Aunt Petunia only went by Dursley. It was too big a coincidence for Lily Evans to not be her mum.
Sarah went back to polishing, taking extra care to make her parents’ names stand out more brightly than the others.
When midnight came, Sarah had finished polishing every trophy in the room. She had even cleaned the glass on all the cases, which Filch grumbled about. Seemingly finished with her, Filch and Mrs. Norris stalked off, leaving Sarah to make her own way back to her common room.
Sometime over the holiday, the trophy room had migrated from the third floor to the fourth floor, though it looked the same as when Sarah had first seen it. It did make her journey to her dormitory slightly longer, but it gave her something to think about on the way. The stairs moved all the time, but Sarah hadn’t known the rooms could move too.
As she walked through a second floor corridor, Sarah heard something.
“Hungry…”
Sarah stopped walking and took out her wand.
“Let me tear you…”
It was a cold voice, and while Sarah didn’t think tear was very threatening, the way the voice spoke made it sound like a promise. It sounded…evil.
“Let me kill you…”
Unnerved, Sarah crept down the hall. She couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from, and something about it made Sarah think it wasn’t a ghost. Ghosts couldn’t kill people, unless perhaps by scaring them to death. They certainly couldn’t tear anything. And Sarah didn’t think it was Peeves either, since he was in bigger trouble than she was. She glanced at some portraits, but they were all asleep. She tightened her grip on her wand and kept walking.
It was another creature, it had to be. Something else had broken into the castle to attack students. Sarah strained her ears, and held her wand out for her entire walk back to her dormitory, but she never heard the voice again.
The rainy weather continued through October. Despite this, as Halloween neared, Sarah’s mood fell. Her scar had started prickling at strange times, like when she was walking to class or while in the lavatory. It sometimes happened when she was goaded into eating with everyone in the Great Hall, which Professor Sprout insisted on as part of her punishment for the giant Peeves incident.
Sarah had given Professor Sprout a note about the voice she heard, and her speculations about another monster being set loose in the school. Professor Sprout promised to look into it, but hadn’t found anything. Sarah was glad Professor Sprout didn’t doubt she had heard something, but was frustrated that nothing had been found. That the professors had missed a troll being set loose by Quirrell, and Hagrid hiding a dragon in his hut, didn’t exactly fill Sarah with confidence. The mysterious voice made exploring the castle at night, and finding rooms to practice magic in, less appealing, and potentially dangerous.
A flu went through the castle like wildfire. Sarah could not recall ever getting sick, not even after Filch was breathing all over her. Since she suspected Filch was a muggle, and everyone in Little Whinging was too, Sarah attributed this to her being a witch. She couldn’t catch muggle diseases. The same could not be said for magical ones, and Sarah eventually fell victim to the one spreading through Hogwarts.
That Sarah got sick on Halloween was only fitting. Halloween was a bad day. It was the day her parents had been killed, and the day she had been left with the Dursleys. Hermione Granger had been killed on Halloween the year before. Sarah had no intention of attending the Halloween Feast, even if she wasn’t sick. So, Sarah stayed in her dormitory, sipping at a Pepperup Potion she had got from Madam Pomfrey, coughing wetly. Hedwig was resting in her cage, preferring that to the drafty Owlery.
The house-elves had sent a large pot of soup, which sustained Sarah throughout the day. The other girls in her dormitory promised to bring back sweets from the feast.
Sarah wasn’t up to eating any sweets.
Eventually, she decided to look at the photo album.
The existence of the photo album, and the pictures within, gave Sarah conflicting feelings. She was happy to have so many pictures of her parents, but it was from Hagrid who she hated. Sarah was still dismayed to learn of the existence of friends, which each picture including people not her parents reminded her of. No one had bothered to tell her any of their names, which was just as well. They clearly didn’t care about Sarah, and she didn’t care about these absent people either.
It didn’t make sense to Sarah. Everyone was obsessed with the Girl-Who-Lived thing, but no one cared where she had been for the past ten years? Didn’t it bother anyone that a baby had vanished, the only child of two beloved heroes? Did all those witches and wizards who approached her in public simply not say anything? Surely someone had seen how the Dursleys treated her, but Professor McGonagall had been shocked. Professor McGonagall, who had been there the night Sarah was left on a porch.
She shut the album, and wiped her eyes. It wasn’t like she was interested in these people, but if they were friends with her parents, they had to be better than the Dursleys. If her being famous for having dead parents was worth anything, why had she slept in a cupboard and gone hungry and been cold and worn ragged old clothes and got hurt all the time?
Sarah threw herself back on her pillows. Hedwig gave a sleepy chirp. Sarah just…she just didn’t understand. She didn’t even know what she wanted, other than her parents to be alive and to have someone who could have...who wanted to take care of her. She hated feeling like this, hated feeling so helpless, hated her stupid life and all the bad things that kept happening.
Exhausted from being sick and working herself up, Sarah slowly drifted into sleep.
“Rip…tear…kill…”
Sarah’s eyes flew open, her heart pounding. She sharply inhaled, and started coughing. Hedwig gave a questioning hoot. Sarah looked at her.
“It’s the voice again,” she whispered, her voice thin and wheezy.
Hedwig cocked her head and hooted again.
“So hungry…”
“You can’t hear it?” asked Sarah, her anxiety growing. Hedwig had exceptional hearing, far better than any human.
In an unusually human-like manner, Hedwig shook her head. That was as clear a no as anything. Sarah grabbed her wand from under her pillow, her mind racing. She had seen the skeleton horses, which no one else around her had been able to see. Now she was hearing a voice that Hedwig was unable to hear. The horses, the thestrals, turned out to be real. What did it mean that Sarah could hear the voice, but Hedwig couldn’t?
Sarah picked up Hedwig’s cage and moved it into the safety of her bed. Her invisibility cloak was never far from her, and she threw it over both of them. Sarah had no idea what else to do. She had already told Professor Sprout about it. Should she tell her about this second incident?
As she considered her options, her wand gripped painfully in her hand, the door to the dormitory burst open.
“Sarah, are you in here?”
It was Hannah. Sarah quickly hid her invisibility cloak, then opened her curtains.
“Oh, thank goodness,” said Susan, appearing at Hannah’s side. The other two girls, Sally-Anne and Megan, were close behind. All four looked scared. It didn’t take long for the story to come out, as they were all in a rush to tell it.
Mrs. Norris had been found hanging from a torch. A message in blood had been written above her. The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.
After the girls confirmed that Sarah was alright, and ran off to tell the prefects and Professor Sprout, Sarah closed her curtains again and laid back down.
The Chamber of Secrets.
Sarah sat bolt upright, then found her copy of Hogwarts: A History in her trunk. She had read some of it in the weeks leading up to first year, but hadn’t looked at it in a while. She flipped through the pages until she found it.
The Chamber of Secrets. Salazar Slytherin. A horror within to purge the school of the unworthy. To purge the school of students from non-magical families. Sarah kept reading, finding a biography of Salazar Slytherin, the founder of Slytherin with a preference for all-magical families. Sarah frowned. All-magical families were not exactly the same as pureblood families. Her family, Sarah and her parents, had been all-magical.
Salazar Slytherin. Serpent-tongue. His symbol was a snake. It was a snake because he was a parselmouth. Someone with the power to speak to and command snakes. A dark wizard.
Sarah stared at the word.
Parselmouth.
Her hands tightened on the book, and Hedwig gave a worried whistle. Sarah thought the snake at the zoo had been speaking English. Later, she thought it must have been a magical snake, as snakes generally could not speak. Sarah had never considered some people could talk to and understand snakes. That it was a rare magical ability. She had never heard of such a thing, but she also hadn’t heard of magical schools or delivery owls or anything until her Hogwarts letter had arrived.
Sarah coughed a few times, and at Hedwig’s insistence had some more soup and finished the Pepperup Potion.
Somehow, Sarah was a parselmouth like Salazar Slytherin. And, based on what she had read, and what she knew of how people treated those who were different, it was not a smart idea to let anyone know. People already thought she was a dark witch because of the whole dragon killing thing.
Sarah released a shuddering breath, then quietly returned the book to her trunk. She had already told Professor Sprout she heard something. Anyone with an ounce of sense would think whatever monster was in the Chamber of Secrets was a snake. And if anyone knew Sarah was a parselmouth—there was no doubt in her mind, she had spoken to a snake—they would think she was the Heir of Slytherin.
Sarah laid on her side and pulled Hedwig’s cage close. Making sure her curtains were secure, she covered herself and Hedwig with her invisibility cloak again. If Mrs. Norris could get attacked, so could Hedwig. Sarah had to keep them both safe.
The drama surrounding quidditch was exhausting to listen to, and Sarah had more important concerns than who had which broom and who was seeker and whatever other nonsense people were going on about.
In the week since the attack on Mrs. Norris, which turned out to be a petrification, the castle had been filled with whispers and gossip and rumors about the Chamber of Secrets, and speculation as to who the Heir of Slytherin was. As Sarah had been sick in bed, and had no recollection of opening any secret chambers, she knew it wasn’t her.
Given how easily trolls and the wraiths of dark lords strolled in and out of the castle, it occurred to Sarah that someone could have snuck in, written that message, done something weird to Mrs. Norris, then run off. Other than the evil-sounding voice she had heard—which in retrospect might not have been evil so much as snakey—there was no proof any chambers had been opened or any monsters had been released.
Sarah hadn’t told Professor Sprout about hearing the voice again on Halloween. She wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea. Professor Sprout was alright, and had helped Sarah out with keeping Lockhart away and making Potions bearable—Snape’s latest tactic was pretending Sarah didn’t exist, which was fantastic—but Sarah didn’t know if Professor Sprout could be trusted with knowing that she could, theoretically, talk to snakes.
She had thus far completely avoided looking at the area where Mrs. Norris had been found, but Sarah was curious. While everyone else was at the quidditch game, she ventured to the girls’ lavatory on the first floor. She knew about Moaning Myrtle, the ghost who haunted one of the toilets, and had generally avoided the area. Someone snooping on Sarah while she was on the toilet was a horrible thought. People, other girls, had followed her into lavatories before. There was one red-haired girl who watched Sarah constantly, and who was on par with the mousy-haired camera boy for being creepy.
Sarah quietly made her way towards the girls’ lavatory, but when she reached the corridor that led to it she backpedaled. She wasn’t the only one missing the quidditch match. Filch was standing on a stool, scrubbing vigorously at the message written in blood. Sarah spun around and walked away. She could understand how Filch felt. If it had been Hedwig, Sarah would have been inconsolable. She would not have stopped until she found out who or what had done it.
If the monster was a snake, and if parselmouths could control snakes, then perhaps if the monster came for Sarah she would be able to use parseltongue to stop it. She had only had the one, very brief, exchange with a boa constrictor, so she wasn’t at all confident such a thing was possible.
As she walked back down the grand marble staircase, Sarah decided to check the library for any information. Since Salazar Slytherin had been a founder, it made sense that he would have left books to teach other parselmouths. Then again, it was widely considered dark magic, which made sense if it could be used to control snakes. Simply talking to them didn’t warrant the term dark, in Sarah’s opinion. There had to be more to it.
“Sarah Potter lied.”
Sarah froze halfway down the staircase. She knew that voice. She pulled out her wand and spun around to face Dobby the house-elf, who was standing above her on the staircase.
“Sarah Potter promised Dobby she would not return to Hogwarts!”
Sarah pointed her wand at him.
“Dobby must keep Sarah Potter—”
Another house-elf appeared and tackled Dobby. Sarah recognized her as Bippo, the one who said the school house-elves would keep an eye out for Dobby.
“No! Sarah Potter is in danger!”
“Dobby is a bad elf! Dobby is disobeying his masters!”
Sarah tried to get out of the way, knowing any spell she cast could accidentally hit Bippo, but there was a blinding burst of magic and the house-elves blasted apart. Dobby crashed into her, sending Sarah flying down the stairs. Someone cried out, and Sarah felt herself slowing, but not quickly enough. There was an agonizing crack, and then darkness.
Sarah woke in the middle of the night to a horrible pain in the back of her head. She squeezed her eyes shut again, a few tears trickling out. It felt like needles were stabbing her brain. She knew she must have hit her head on the staircase. Because of Dobby.
There was a soft hoot, and Hedwig fluttered onto a chair. Sarah squinted, patted around and found her glasses on the bedside table. She was glad they weren’t broken, nor was her wand.
There were footsteps approaching. Sarah looked at the doors to the hospital wing, and after a moment they opened. The headmaster walked in, carrying something in his arms, followed by Professor McGonagall.
“I’ll get Poppy,” she said, her voice trembling.
Dumbledore sighed, laying what he held on a bed. Sarah realized with a start what it was.
A body.
“There is nothing she can do at this point,” said the headmaster quietly. “But yes, perhaps she can ascertain the cause. We will need to contact Mr. Creevey’s parents.”
Sarah covered her mouth and kept as still as possible. Creevey. Colin Creevey. The first-year muggleborn with a camera. The camera was nowhere in sight.
Madam Pomfrey hurried past Sarah’s bed, letting out a sob when she saw the body.
“What happened?” she asked.
Sarah closed her eyes. It was another attack. Something had attacked Colin Creevey. It had killed him. He had been carrying a bunch of grapes. They thought he was trying to visit Sarah. She hadn’t known the whole school had heard about her falling down the stairs. She had just woken up.
Hedwig silently flew to her bed, nuzzling close to Sarah. The pain in her head was forgotten.
Colin Creevey was dead.
Sarah did not leave the infirmary for several days. Madam Pomfrey explained how a house-elf had gone for help, that Dobby had fled, that it had been a bad fall.
Sarah had fallen down stairs before. More accurately, she had been shoved down stairs by Dudley. She had never got that badly hurt.
Colin Creevey’s parents came for his body. Sarah saw them, though she pretended she was asleep. Colin Creevey had a little brother who also had magic. His little brother had been excited to attend Hogwarts year after next. But Colin Creevey was dead, another tragic accident.
One morning, Madam Pomfrey told Sarah she could leave after eating breakfast. Sarah was not entirely sure she wanted to leave. Sarah ate her food indifferently, more as something to do than out of hunger.
Sarah looked out of the windows, across the grounds, and was surprised to see Hagrid being led out of his cabin by several people in red robes. She squinted, and made out a portly man with a lime-green bowler hat, and a taller man in a purple cloak. The headmaster. Someone was hurrying down the lawn in sleek green robes. Professor McGonagall.
“If you are finished,” began Madam Pomfrey, cutting herself off with gasp. “No!”
Sarah looked up at her, wondering why she was surprised Hagrid was finally being brought to justice.
“They must think he’s behind this,” said Madam Pomfrey, tearing up. “Poor Mr. Creevey…”
Sarah looked back to watch Hagrid be escorted off the grounds, her breakfast forgotten.
November passed Sarah by. Another student had been killed. Another first-year. Another Gryffindor. Sally-Anne’s parents withdrew her from Hogwarts, and rumor had it they were sending her to another school, somewhere in France. There was another Ministry investigation, and talk of suspending Dumbledore. Sarah could tell this made others uneasy, as everyone knew Dumbledore was a very powerful and wise wizard. Sarah didn’t think it mattered one way or the other. Another student had been killed, and simply being powerful and wise hadn’t stopped it from happening.
Sarah told herself it wasn’t her fault.
It didn’t stop the rumors about her. People knew about her detention with Filch. They knew about her breaking Colin Creevey’s camera. It didn’t matter that she had been sick in her dormitory, or injured in the hospital wing, when the attacks occurred. Even Hagrid’s arrest, which as far as Sarah knew hadn’t even made the news, wasn’t enough to stop all the whispering about her.
It was getting to the point where Sarah wanted to stop going to classes completely, but one of the Hufflepuff prefects, who was apparently the Head Girl, had been assigned to take Sarah to and from classes and meals. This ended up including all the second-year Hufflepuffs, and various other second-years, who were afraid to travel anywhere alone. The first-years were also moving in packs.
“Look, they’re starting a dueling club!”
Sarah, who had been forced to eat lunch in the Great Hall in the name of safety, looked over to where students were clustering.
“A dueling club?” asked Susan, standing on her tiptoes to look. “Do you think it’s Professor Flitwick?”
“It sounds useful,” said Justin. “I’m going.”
That was enough to get everyone to agree. Justin Finch-Fletchley was a muggleborn. Sarah didn’t really like him, nor had she liked Colin Creevey, but she didn’t want them dead.
That evening, Sarah trailed after her housemates. Once she saw what waited inside the Great Hall she tried to turn around and leave, but there were too many people in the way. It seemed the entire castle had turned out, and no one understood what the ostentatious golden stage replacing their dining tables meant.
Gilderoy Lockhart walked onto the stage.
Sarah shrank away, hoping the man wouldn’t see her. Now that she was being taken to classes like a little kid, Sarah had been obligated to attend Defense classes. While Lockhart avoided looking at her, it was still awful. He had people act out scenes from his books. He didn’t teach them anything. It was, as she knew from seeing the booklist, a waste of time.
Things got worse when Professor Snape walked onto the stage, and then they got better when he blasted Lockhart across the room with a Disarming Charm.
Then things got worse again when Sarah was paired with Draco Malfoy. He smirked at her.
“Face your partners and bow!” Lockhart called out.
Sarah wasn’t going to bow to anyone. Malfoy’s smile grew.
“Better watch yourself, Potter,” sneered Malfoy. “Or you’ll go the same way as those mudbloods.”
Lockhart said something about disarming. Sarah was too furious to hear him.
“One,” counted Lockhart. Sarah raised her wand, her eyes never leaving Malfoy. “Two.”
Malfoy cast a spell before Lockhart finished counting, something with a sickly orange color.
Protego! Sarah thought, smiling grimly as Malfoy’s spell splashed harmless against her shield.
“Three!”
Expelliarmus!
A narrow, dark red light streaked towards Malfoy. His wand was torn from his hand, and arced through the air.
“You’ll pay for that, Potter!” shouted Malfoy, his face splotchy red with anger.
“I said disarm only!”
Sarah caught Malfoy’s wand. She was briefly tempted to snap it. Two kids had died, and Malfoy thought it was funny. It made her sick.
Snape stormed over and demanded Sarah return Malfoy’s wand. She threw it at the boy, which might have been why she and Malfoy were chosen to demonstrate how to block spells.
“Now, Sarah,” began Lockhart, bending towards her.
Sarah pointed her wand at him and he retreated. She looked over at Malfoy. Snape was whispering something in his ear. Both of them were smirking. She gripped her wand tightly. Did Snape also think it was funny that two of his students had died?
“Scared, Potter?” asked Malfoy.
Sarah narrowed her eyes.
“Three, two, one, go!”
“Serpensortia!” bellowed Malfoy.
There was an explosion at the end of his wand, and a snake shot out. It landed with a painful thud and began hissing in anger.
Sarah glanced at the snake, wondering how it was meant to be an attack, then looked back at Malfoy. He was cruel, and an idiot. Sarah flicked her wand at him.
Stupefy!
The red light struck Malfoy dead center. He flew through the air and crashed into a wall, unconscious. There was a long silence, then Snape pushed his way through the crowd to check on him.
The snake hissed again, not words, just incoherent anger, and raised itself up as if to strike. Sarah wasn’t sure what to do with it. Then Lockhart shot some spell at it that made the snake fly into the air. It slammed down again, right in front of Justin.
Petrificus totalus! Sarah thought desperately, hoping the spell worked on snakes.
It did. The snake stiffened, locked in its pose.
Justin, who looked terrified, gave Sarah a shaky smile. She shrugged, then walked up to the snake. She knew that the snake must have been scared, suddenly appearing in a room full of people, in the middle of a duel, then flung through the air. She picked up the petrified snake. It was about nine feet long, thicker than her arm, and heavy. Close up, the snake was not a solid black, but was iridescent all over. It was pretty, but Sarah got an intense impression that the snake was very stressed.
“I’ll get rid of it,” said a deep, disdainful voice right behind her.
Sarah jerked, then looked up to glare at Snape. She was going to keep the snake. If Snape didn’t like that, he shouldn’t have told Malfoy the incantation.
“Give it here, Potter,” said Snape. Sarah shook her head and backed away, holding the petrified snake to her chest. It was her snake now.
Snape bared his teeth at her. “Very well. I shall have to bring this to the headmaster. Both the snake, and you disobeying…Professor…Lockhart’s instructions.”
Sarah looked pointedly at Malfoy, who was being propped up by his two Dudleys, then got off the stage. People pulled away from her, but she didn’t care. She had successfully cast a Stunning Spell, and she got a free snake. The dueling club had gone far better than expected.
Sarah’s new snake, once unpetrified, tried to constrict her and released a musk that made her bed and curtains stink like a skunk that had been set on fire. After a quiet but intense hissing session, the snake let her know that he lived underground, hated being handled, and had a diet consisting solely of other snakes. Sarah let him hide in her trunk for the night.
The next day, Sarah had to seek out Professor Sprout, during a snowstorm that had canceled Herbology, for a crate and dirt for her snake to live in.
The other girls in her dormitory didn’t seem very happy about having a massive snake in the room, but Sarah wrote a note letting them know it was a constrictor, and not venomous. For some reason, this did not put them at ease, and the three girls left to join the second-year boys in the library.
Once she had levitated the large crate next to her bed, and dumped in the bags of soil, Sarah opened her trunk to retrieve the snake.
“Stop touching me,” hissed the snake.
“I have to pick you up to move you,” Sarah hissed back.
The snake then tried to whack her in the face with his head, but Sarah dodged and lowered him into his new home. The snake immediately burrowed under the dirt, completely submerging himself. Sarah hadn’t thought it was possible given his size, but once he was finished Sarah couldn’t see a single scale.
“It’s too dry,” came a muffled hiss.
Sarah rolled her eyes, but used an aguamenti to soak part of the soil. She was glad they could communicate, otherwise learning what sort of care the snake needed would have been more difficult.
Since History of Magic was her last class of the day, Sarah stayed in her dormitory to practice the snake conjuration spell Malfoy had done. Sarah had no idea how he had managed it on his first try, and was a little unsettled. Unless he already knew the spell, and Snape had simply told him to use it. She eventually conjured a small adder, and dropped it in her snake’s crate.
“Not hungry.”
Sarah sighed, and opened her mouth to respond, but the door to the dormitory flew open. She spun around, reaching for her wand.
“Justin,” Hannah managed to say, before bursting into tears. Susan was with her, hugging the other girl, while Megan hovered around them, looking ashen.
Sarah moved closer to them, not sure what was going on or what to do.
“Justin’s been petrified,” said Susan, her voice breaking on the words. “So has Nearly Headless Nick.”
Sarah stared at them helplessly, frozen with shock. Her only thought was, At least he wasn’t killed.