"Again?" asked Hermione, surprised, when Harry finished telling them what he had heard Dumbledore tell the other teachers last night, when they took a petrified Colin Creevey to the hospital wing.

They were now in the second floor girl's bathroom, brewing the Polyjuice Potion. Hermione had insisted on doing it there, and they didn't feel like arguing, so they accepted, though it was quite weird to be inside there.

"You mean the Chamber of Secrets has already been opened before?"

"Of course!" exclaimed Ron, standing with his shoulder against the cubicle door. "Don't you see? Lucius Malfoy must've opened it when he was at school here. And now he's taught Draco how to do it."

"Maybe," shrugged Hermione. "We'll have to wait for the Polyjuice Potion to know for sure."

"Enlighten me. Why are we brewing this potion in broad daylight... in the middle of a girl's lavatory?" Ron asked. "Don't you think we'll get caught?"

"No, nobody ever comes here." Hermione chuckled to herself.

"Why?"

"Moaning Myrtle," shrugged Hermione, like it wasn't that big of a deal.

"Moaning?" repeated Ben, convinced he had heard it wrong. "How did she get that nickname-"

Hermione gave him a very serious look.

"Who's Moaning Myrtle?" asked Ron.

"I'm Moaning Myrtle!" exclaimed a girl, inches away from Ron's face. Dark hair was neatly tied into a pair of pigtails, and a set of round glasses perched upon her nose. Clad in a Ravenclaw uniform, her body held a subtle transparency, revealing she was a ghost.

Ron looked like he had been close to having a heart attack. Myrtle floated above the sinks, and looked down to glare at them harshly. "I wouldn't expect you to know me. Who would ever talk about ugly, miserable, moping, Moaning Myrtle?"

She sobbed, and let out a terribly high-pitched shriek while she floated down to one of the toilets, splashing quite a lot of water.

"I'm going to have nightmares about that scream," said Ben, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

"She's a little sensitive," commented Hermione.

"Just a little," scoffed Ron.

———————————————

"Gather round!" Shouted Lockhart, climbing onto the duelling platform that had come to replace the tables in the great hall. The students were around it, chatting happily as they waited for the Duel Club to begin.

"Gather round!" The man repeated as he walked to the centre of the hall. "Can everybody see me? Can you all... hear me? Excellent. In light of the dark events in recent weeks, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little duelling club, to train you all up as you ever need to defend yourselves. As I myself have done on countless occasions. For further details, see my published work." Lockhart threw his cape dramatically, and a bunch of girls began shouting and fighting over it. Ron looked absolutely disgusted. "I would now like to welcome Professor Snape." The black-haired man walked onto the duelling platform looking as though he was being forced to be there. "He has sportingly agreed to assist me in a demonstration. Now you youngsters mustn't worry, you'll still have your potions teacher when I'm done. Never fear."

Ben had to bite his tongue to stop himself from laughing. He doubted that anyone in the whole hall thought Lockhart could manage to hurt Snape.

They turned to face each other and bowed; at least, Lockhart did, with much twirling of his hands, whereas Snape jerked his head irritably. Then they raised their wands like swords in front of them.

"As you see, we are holding our wands in the accepted combative position," Lockhart told the silent crowd. "On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course."

"I wouldn't bet on that..." murmured Harry, making Ron and Ben laugh.

"One. Two. Three."

"Expelliarmus!" cried Snape, unnecessarily stretching out the 'x'.

There was a dazzling flash of scarlet light, and Lockhart flew backward off the stage. Some Slytherins, including Malfoy, cheered happily.

Hermione, however, looked aghast. "Do you think he's alright?"

"Who cares?" Harry and Ron said at the same time, and shared amused glances.

"How can you say something like that?" the girl put her hands on her hips, looking at them angrily.

"Relax, Hermione," said Ben, brushing a dark curl from his eyes, "he's disarmed him, he hasn't put a torture curse on him."

Lockhart got up unsteadily, his dark blonde hair looking messy. "Well, there you have it!" he said, tottering back onto the platform. "That was a Disarming Charm. As you see, I've lost my wand-" Lavender Brown, from Gryffindor, had found it, and handed it to him with a giggle. "Thank you, Miss Brown. Yes, an excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don't mind my saying so, it was very obvious what you were about to do. If I had wanted to stop you it would have been only too easy. However, I felt it would be instructive to let them see..."

But he then seemed to notice the murderous look on Snape's face, and he decided to change his plans. "Enough demonstrating! I'm going to come amongst you now and put you all into pairs. Professor Snape, if you'd like to help me..."

They moved through the crowd, making pairs. Ben, who knew Harry would like to go with Ron, tried to go with Neville. But Lockhart paired the boy with some Hufflepuff called Justin Finch-Fletchley.

"Time to split up the dream team, I think," sneered Snape, approaching Harry and Ron. "Weasley, you can partner Finnigan. Potter-"

Harry immediately moved towards Ben.

"No, I don't think so," the professor smiled coldly. "Mr. Malfoy, come over here. Let's see what you make of the famous Potter." Harry looked horrified. "Mr. Nott, you will partner Mr. Walker."

Ben had to fight to keep from smiling at the sound of the boy's name. Maybe he could find a way to get one of his hairs, and Ron would have to stop pestering him about transforming into his sister.

A very tall and skinny brunette boy approached him while Snape paired Hermione with a corpulent Slytherin girl called Millicent Bulstrode.

"Hey," greeted Theodore Nott without much emotion.

"Hi."

"Face your partners!" called Lockhart, back on the platform. "And bow!" 

Nott bowed his head a little before Ben, which made him nervous, afraid that he would cast a spell on him first.

"Wands at the ready!" shouted Lockhart. "When I count to three, cast your charms to disarm your opponents. Only to disarm them, we don't want any accidents! One, two... three."

Ben was about to use the spell when Harry suddenly fell backwards. Malfoy had cast the spell before Lockhart had finished counting, and caught Harry off guard.

He got up angrily, glaring at Malfoy, pointed his wand at him and yelled, "Rictusempra!"

Malfoy burst into laughter, wheezing so hard he doubled up. Lockhart was visibly alarmed by it, "I said disarm only!"

Ben began chuckling to himself, until Malfoy raised his wand at Harry's knees, and made an effort to say, "Tarantallegra!" through his laughs.

He didn't manage to see what that spell was for, because Snape was getting closer, and Nott was pointing his wand at Ben again.

"Expelliarmus!" yelled the Gryffindor before the other boy could attack him. He didn't even know if Nott was going to copy Malfoy, but he decided not to take the risk of checking it out.

Theodore lost his balance and fell on his back, while his wand was shot back and hit a brown-haired Hufflepuff girl in the head. To Ben's surprise, the boy turned to him with a smile, and said, "Well done, that was cool!"

"Thanks!"

They looked around to see Harry and Malfoy, both red in the face; Neville and the boy he was paired up with lying on the floor, panting; Ron apologising to Seamus while helping him get up; and Millicent had Hermione in a headlock, making her cry in pain.

Harry tried to push the Slytherin girl off Hermione, but barely moved her a bit, so Ben went to help him.

"Are you okay?" he asked Hermione once they had gotten rid of Millicent.

The girl, who was red in the face and seemed to be struggling to breathe, nodded quickly, and got up, patting her robe to remove the dust from being on the ground.

Ben suddenly had an idea.

"Hey, Nott?" he called, making the boy turn around.

"Yeah?"

"You've got something on your hair," he told him, narrowing his eyes. Nott's hands flew to his hair, trying to find whatever Ben was talking about.

"Where?"

"Hold up, I'll take it out," said Ben, and rushed to stand on tiptoes as he pretended to be taking something out of his hair. "It might hurt a bit, it's quite stuck."

"It's fine."

And he plucked a hair from him with a quick movement.

"Done," he grinned, and made a throwing gesture to make it look like he was getting rid of whatever was in the boy's hair. "It was just a piece of thread, it had gotten quite caught in your hair."

"Alright, thanks Walker."

"I think I'd better teach you how to block unfriendly spells," said Lockhart, standing flustered in the middle of the crowd. "Let's have a volunteer pair... Longbottom and Finch-Fletchley, how about you-"

"A bad idea, Professor Lockhart," Snape shook his head slowly, gliding over like a large and malevolent bat. "Longbottom causes devastation with the simplest spells. We'll be sending what's left of Finch-Fletchley up to the hospital wing in a matchbox."

Neville's round face turned pink, and he looked down in embarrassment.

"How about Malfoy and Potter?" suggested Snape with a twisted smile.

Harry looked horrified.

"Excellent idea!" exclaimed Lockhart, gesturing Harry and Malfoy into the middle of the hall as the crowd backed away to give them room.

"Now, Harry," said Lockhart. "When Draco points his wand at you, you do this." 

He raised his own wand, attempted a complicated sort of wiggling action, and dropped it. The crowd giggled as Lockhart chuckled embarrassedly while picking his wand up again. Even Snape was smirking to himself. "Whoops! My wand is a little overexcited!"

Snape whispered something in Malfoy's ear, making the blond smirk devilishly. Ben had a chill, fearing for his friend.

Harry looked up at Lockhart nervously. "Professor, could you show me that blocking thing again?"

"Scared, Potter?" taunted Malfoy.

"You wish," he retorted.

Lockhart cuffed Harry merrily on the shoulder. "Just do what I did, Harry!"

"What, drop my wand?"

The crowd giggled again, though Lockhart either didn't hear him or decided to ignore his comment. Instead, he walked a couple of steps away before yelling,

"Three, two, one- Go!"

Malfoy raised his wand faster than Harry, and bellowed. "Serpensortia!"

A long black snake was shot out of Draco's wand, and slithered its way to Harry, who looked around in fear. Many people from the crowd began shouting and backing away.

"Don't move, Potter," said Snape lazily. "I'll get rid of it..."

"Allow me!" shouted Lockhart at the top of his lungs. He swung his wand at the snake and there was a loud bang. The snake, instead of disappearing, flew ten feet into the air and fell back to the ground with a loud thud.

That made the animal very angry. It slithered straight toward Justin Finch-Fletchley and raised itself again, fangs exposed, poised to strike.

Harry suddenly moved towards the snake, and began whispering something unintelligible. "What's he saying?" asked Hermione, eyebrows furrowed. "I can't hear him."

"It's... Parseltongue," said Ron, looking horrified. He shared worried glances with Ben.

The snake had backed away from Justin, and it was now staring at Harry, who looked up happily. But then he saw that the Hufflepuff was glaring at him, and shouted, "What do you think you're playing at?" before storming out of the hall.

"Let's take him out of here, Ron," muttered Ben, receiving a quick nod from the redhead. They made their way to the platform, in which a puzzled Harry looked at Snape as he made the snake vanish.

Ron tugged the back of the boy's robes, and Harry turned to them, looking more confused than ever. "Come on."

Ben shoved his way through the whispering crowd, not caring to be nice for once, though it wasn't necessary, because people were backing away from Harry as he got carried out by Ron, and Hermione ran after them.

"What's going on?" kept asking Harry, but neither of them answered until they arrived at the Gryffindor common room.

Ron pushed Harry into an armchair. "You're a parselmouth. Why didn't you tell us?"

"A parselmouth? What's that?"

"Someone who speaks parseltongue," explained Ben.

"Thanks for such a useful explanation," replied Harry monotonously.

"Parseltongue is the language of snakes," said Ben. "You can talk to snakes!"

"Oh, yes," commented Harry casually. "I mean, that's only the second time I've ever done it. I accidentally set a boa constrictor on my cousin Dudley at the zoo once- long story... But it was telling me it had never seen Brazil and I sort of set it free without meaning to. That was before I knew I was a wizard-"

"A boa constrictor told you it had never seen Brazil?" repeated Ron faintly.

"You set a boa constrictor on your cousin?" gasped Ben, horrified.

"It was an accident!" Harry raised his eyebrows. "But it's not that big of a deal, right? I bet loads of people here can talk to snakes."

Ben shook his head. "No, Harry, they can't- We can't."

"There's only a few people who can, it's a very rare gift," Ron told him. "Harry, this is bad."

"What's bad?" Harry was starting to yell, getting angry. "What's wrong with everyone? Listen, if I hadn't told that snake not to attack Justin-"

"Oh, that's what you said to it?"

"What d'you mean? You were there, you heard me..."

"I heard you speaking Parseltongue," said Ron. "Snake language. You could have been saying anything, no wonder Justin panicked, you sounded like you were egging the snake on or something. It was creepy, you know..."

"I spoke a different language? But- I didn't realise- how can I speak a language without knowing I can speak it?"

They shrugged. Ben didn't understand how Harry could sit there without panicking, knowing what was very probably going to happen after that. Perhaps he just didn't know.

"D'you want to tell me what's wrong with stopping a massive snake biting off Justin's head?" he said. "What does it matter how I did it as long as Justin doesn't have to join the Headless Hunt?"

"It matters," whispered Hermione, who had been oddly quiet for a long time, "because being able to talk to snakes was what Salazar Slytherin was famous for. That's why the symbol of Slytherin House is a serpent."

Harry's jaw dropped, and Ron gave him a pity look. "And now the whole school's going to think you're his great-great-great-great grandson or something-"

"But I'm not!"

"You'll find that hard to prove," said Hermione. "He lived about a thousand years ago; for all we know, you could be."

"People are going to think you are the Heir of Slytherin," muttered Ben, and instantly regretted speaking when he saw the worried look on Harry's face.

"Shit."

"Shit, indeed."