Diospyros

When the snow took over the ground and all the heat from the light was cut off by the air itself, Harry admitted it was time to bundle up. His cover had appeared two days ago, so it was almost perfect timing. It was almost difficult to move around the Slytherin dormitories, having to rely only on the green lamps that did nothing to accommodate the human eye. If he could, he would replace the greenish flames with a pearly white one as soon as Prof. Snape turned away.

The corridors were busier than usual: fifth and seventh years that Harry had rarely seen outside of meals and even less in the dormitories were shuffling across the stone floor, looking too tired to express anything else, but still fiercely happy. They took different paths from each other, some going to the library, others going to the dungeons and others, these being the most energetic and nervous, squeezing into the monitors' bathroom. If it weren't for the strong smell of passion fruit, Harry might have thought they were doing other things.

Something else, however, came with so many people in the corridor. Something not exactly new, but which he felt had a much more intimate reason than before: looks. From the corner, from glances or open, glances followed him since he left his room. Some anxious, others nervous, some calculating and others merely curious. Harry didn't know exactly why that was.

Morag also looked at him; he stared at him for longer than their friendship allowed, at least.

— What is it?

— What?

— Why are you staring at me?

— Hmm – the boy mumbled. – Nothing.

Zabini smiled at them, like someone who understood something particularly funny and wasn't going to share it. This time Harry joins in the staring moment, although his expression of strangeness is much less announced than the others' stumbles.

The forays through the castle became pointless for Harry every moment of the day, as part of the classes were cancelled. Prof. Flitwick developed a very violent nasal congestion, which made his high-pitched voice sound like a horn and took him to the infirmary so Madam Pomfrey could medicate him. At the same time, Professor Sprout cancelled all her classes for the day so she could bundle up the mandrakes on her plantation against the cold, declaring the matter too serious to do in any way other than alone, even if it took a long time. So, seeing nowhere else to go (and not wanting to hear Professor McGonagall yell at the older students if he walked into one of her classes as an observer), the library became a target.

It was much fuller than usual. Madam Pince was nowhere to be seen, so the noise was much louder than was normally allowed, sometimes even some loud laughter ringing out. A group of Ravenclaws were gathered in a corner, whispering, all hunched over their notebooks with incomplete scribbles. Some fourth-year Gryffindors were playing cards on the beanbags, alongside two couples who were chatting snuggly in the out-of-place armchairs that for some reason were in the library. One of them strangely smelled like mint.

Further away from everyone, among the bookshelves, a group of Hufflepuffs who were supposed to be in Herbology class were actually sitting at the back of the library, but they didn't seem to be working. Between the long rows of bookshelves, Harry could see that their heads were very close together and that they were apparently carrying on an absorbing conversation. He politely walked past them to go to the Magical Inventions section, but ended up stopping at the Invisibility section when he saw Adrien parked there listening to the Hufflepuffs whispering.

— Rude – he commented coldly, making his brother jump in fright.

— Harry! – the boy hissed, in whispers. – Shiiii!

Harry narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to question his brother, but instinctively closed it to hear what one of the Hufflepuffs was going to say.

— So, in any case – said a strong boy –, I told Justin to hide in our dorm. I mean, if Potter chose him as his next victim, he'd better stay out of sight for a while. Of course, Justin had been waiting for something like this to happen ever since he let it slip to Potter that he came from a Muggle family. Justin even said that his parents had made a reservation for him at Eton. This isn't the kind of thing you talk about like that, with Slytherin's heir on the loose, is it?

— So you definitely think it's Potter, Ernie? – Hannah Abbott asked anxiously.

— Hannah – said the strong boy, Ernest Macmillan, solemnly. – He's a parselmouth. Everyone knows this is the mark of the dark wizard. Have you ever heard of a decent wizard who could talk to snakes? They called Slytherin himself Serpenttongue.

Many murmurs followed after that and Ernest opened his mouth to say something more, but was interrupted:

— I imagine that you, Macmillan, are in fact aware of all the news about all the Parselmouths on the planet to be so sure that there is no normal person with such capacity. – Harry said coldly, facing the huddled Hufflepuffs.

If he hadn't been so angry, he would have found the scene that awaited him amusing: every Hufflepuff student seemed to have petrified at the sight of him, and the colour drained from Ernest's face.

— What do you want? – Ernest asked shakily.

— I wish you seemed to be talking nonsense about my brother — Harry replied bluntly, without question.

Adrien shyly came out from behind the bookshelf, waving to the Hufflepuffs.

— Hello – said Adrien. – I'm looking for Justin Finch-Fletchley.

The Hufflepuffs' fears were clearly confirmed. Everyone looked fearfully at Macmillan.

— What do you want with him? – asked the boy, shaking more than when Harry confronted him.

— I wanted to tell him what really happened to that snake in the Dueling Club.

Ernest bit his white lips, took a breath and said:

— We were all there. We saw what happened.

— So did you notice that the snake retreated as soon as Adrien spoke to it? – Harry asked coldly.

— All I saw – said Macmillan, insistent, although he trembled as he spoke – was him speaking Parseltongue and baiting the animal at Justin.

Harry was filled with the most violent fury he had ever had in his life.

—You stupid, idiot, waste of a wizard! How deep is your own dick buried in your ass to touch your pathetic excuse for a brain to try to understand a language you don't know, and try to accuse my brother for ordering something without saying anything?! – In a long, long time the red rose to Harry's ears and his entire body radiated a furious heat.

Macmillan took unsteady steps back, startled by Harry's sudden outburst. Madam Pince, buzzard that she was, appeared at the exact moment Harry started yelling.

— What are you doing? – It was close to the lady not letting out a growl. – Get out of the library now! Out! All of you!

The Hufflepuffs hurriedly gathered their things, some leaving hastily and others running openly. Ernest had been the first to run, nervously, under the fervent gazes of Madam Pince and Harry. He didn't feel bad at all about scaring the boy.

Adrien didn't say anything to him about his outburst or anything else, just said a quick goodbye to his brother and hurriedly took his own direction away from the library. Harry exhaled deeply and went down to the dungeons, seeking the cold so he could calm down like a snake lies under the sun for comfort.

Whether or not the snakes in the tapestries were hissing incessantly at him and offering him praise and grace was a problem only for him and whoever tried to understand snake language. Although, from the looks of the other Slytherins, it seemed like they wouldn't dare try to understand, even if they openly stared at Harry now.

***

ATTACK AT HOGWARTS! TWO STUDENTS PETRIFIED AND A THREAT ON THE LOOSE! Could Adrien Potter be the Heir of Slytherin?

by Rita Skeeter

On the last day of Halloween, October 31, 1992, Hogwarts was stormed by a bloody threat within its hallowed walls: “ THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS IS OPEN! ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BE CAREFUL! ”, was what the crimson letters announced to all the students who had just left the annual banquet.

Many may think that it was nothing more than a joke, a prank, organised by a student or a group of juvenile troublemakers who thought it was good form to use a colourful legend to scare other students on Halloween. This, however, was quickly ruled out as a possibility when in November a Muggle-born first-year student, Colin Creevey, was found petrified in front of the living staircases.

There were whispers, murmurs, some gossip among the students, who watched over their shoulders the entire next time, nervous that they might be the next victim.

“We were all very scared when we heard that Colin had been petrified,” says Ernest Macmillan, Hufflepuff student and Heir to House Macmillan . “There was great insecurity among the other students, even though the professors said they were investigating the situation. Headmaster Dumbledore even allowed the Dueling Club to return, so that we could train spells to defend ourselves. If it weren’t for the Club, we would never have discovered who should be watched.”

Mr. Macmillan is specifically referring to Adrien Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. This is due to the fact that, in the middle of a duel, Adrien Potter revealed himself to the school as a Parselmouth, a characteristic mark of Dark wizards, which he used to control a snake that wanted to attack Justin Finch-Fletchley, Muggle-born second-year Hufflepuff , found petrified in a hallway in the presence of the Boy-Who-Lived.

A member of the Defense Against the Dark Arts League, who prefers to remain anonymous, stated that he would consider any parselmouth wizard “worthy of investigation. Personally, I would view anyone who talked to snakes with great suspicion, as these animals are generally used in the worst types of black magic and have historically been associated with evil wizards.”

Albus Dumbledore should consider a period of observation on such a boy, and consider whether it would be wise to summon the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to investigate how he may have attacked the other students.

For more about Parseltongue and its most famous users, page 4

When Harry went upstairs to eat his breakfast, his mind was filled with sleep. He had stayed up late doing Muggle school exercises, not wanting to fall too far behind the other students. His steps were mechanised, controlled, his mind was confused with sleep, but a confusion organised enough to allow him to follow his usual routine: getting up, resting for two minutes sitting on the bed, putting on his slippers, using the bathroom, taking a shower, brushing his hair. teeth and get dressed. He allowed, for the first time in years, to leave his hair messy. He left the room with less than normal enthusiasm, walking lethargically out of the dungeons and climbing, step by step, the marble stairs. The sun showed no presence, trapped behind the clouds, and the dew found no place to run off, becoming a thin layer of ice on the windowsills. The Great Hall glowed white and red, greenery cut into the walls in the shape of Christmas trees, and fairies twinkled around decorated mistletoe and holly alongside candles, which illuminated a ceiling covered in white clouds. Coffee was replaced with chocolate, and wheat cookies with gingerbread. The tea got hotter, and the breads got heavier. There was, during the first part of the morning, a feeling of comfort and satisfaction that Harry rarely found when he let himself fall asleep. The other half, however, was a heartbreak that sank his stomach beyond his feet.

— Harry? – Morag fearfully poked him. – Um... are you okay?

— I'm lethargic, and I'll be even more so soon, but I'm fine. – Harry said, calmly, folding the newspaper. – Cover your ears for a moment, Morag.

— Why?

— Cover them, please. You too, Blaise.

— Asking like this – Zabini hummed, but covered his ears with his hands, just like MacDougal.

Harry placed his finger between his neck and head, lifting it towards the artificial sky, and shouted:

— IDIOTS, DUMBERS, WASTE OF NERVE CELLS AND BIOLOGICAL MATERIAL! LIARS, SCAMMERS, KICKS AND DICKS IN THE ASS! BOOT LICKERS, HAVERS, COWARDS, SPOILED BRATS!

The clouds shook in the enchantment, and the candle flames trembled with the sound amplified thousands of times. The fairies flew scared, disoriented, dizzy, crashing into each other and falling on the students and on the food plates. The younger years covered their ears tightly, scared, and the seventh years seemed to become depressed through an involuntary reflex. If everyone hadn't had labyrinthitis, the panic caused by the primitive terror artificially created by the UK's lame historians about Parseltongue would have wracked the entire Great Hall and unleashed terror.

— Potter! – Not surprisingly, Snape was the one who screamed. - Detention!

Harry, with a mixed feeling, was pleased to receive detention.