Harry Potter 02 & The Chamber Of Secrets (Illustrated) (22 page)

‘Allow me!’ shouted Lockhart. He brandished his wand at the snake and there was a loud bang; the snake, instead of vanishing, flew ten feet into the air and fell back to the floor with a loud smack. Enraged, hissing furiously, it slithered straight towards Justin Finch-Fletchley and raised itself again, fangs exposed, poised to strike.

Harry wasn’t sure what made him do it. He wasn’t even aware of deciding to do it. All he knew was that his legs were carrying him forward as though he was on castors and that he had shouted stupidly at the snake, ‘Leave him!’ And miraculously - inexplicably - the snake slumped to the floor, docile as a thick black garden hose, its eyes now on Harry. Harry felt the fear drain out of him. He knew the snake wouldn’t attack anyone now, though how he knew it, he couldn’t have explained.

He looked up at Justin, grinning, expecting to see Justin looking relieved, or puzzled, or even grateful - but certainly not angry and scared.

‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ he shouted, and before Harry could say anything, Justin had turned and stormed out of the Hall.

Snape stepped forward, waved his wand and the snake vanished in a small puff of black smoke. Snape, too, was looking at Harry in an unexpected way: it was a shrewd and calculating look, and Harry didn’t like it. He was also dimly aware of an ominous muttering all around the walls. Then he felt a tugging on the back of his robes.

‘Come on,’ said Ron’s voice in his ear. ‘Move - come
on
…’

Ron steered him out of the Hall, Hermione hurrying alongside them. As they went through the doors, the people on either side drew away as though they were frightened of catching something. Harry didn’t have a clue what was going on, and neither Ron nor Hermione explained anything until they had dragged him all the way up to the empty Gryffindor common room. Then Ron pushed Harry into an armchair and said, ‘You’re a Parselmouth. Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘I’m a what?’ said Harry.

‘A Parselmouth!’
said Ron. ‘You can talk to snakes!’

‘I know,’ said Harry. ‘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?’ Ron repeated faintly.

‘So?’ said Harry. ‘I bet loads of people here can do it.’

‘Oh no they can’t,’ said Ron. ‘It’s not a very common gift. Harry, this is bad.’

‘What’s bad?’ said Harry, starting to feel quite 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.’

Harry gaped at him.

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

Ron shook his head. Both he and Hermione were lookingas though someone had died. Harry couldn’t see what was so terrible.

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

‘It matters,’ said Hermione, speaking at last in a hushed voice, ‘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 mouth fell open.

‘Exactly,’ said Ron. ‘And now the whole school’s going to think you’re his great-great-great-great-grandson or something …’

‘But I’m not,’ said Harry, with a panic he couldn’t quite explain.

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

*

Harry lay awake for hours that night. Through a gap in the hangings round his four-poster he watched snow starting to drift past the tower window, and wondered.

Could
he be a descendant of Salazar Slytherin? He didn’t know anything about his father’s family, after all. The Dursleys had always forbidden questions about his wizarding relatives.

Quietly, Harry tried to say something in Parseltongue. The words wouldn’t come. It seemed he had to be face to face with a snake to do it.

‘But I’m in
Gryffindor
,’ Harry thought. ‘The Sorting Hat wouldn’t have put me in here if I had Slytherin blood …’

‘Ah,’
said a nasty little voice in his brain, ‘But the Sorting Hat
wanted
to put you in Slytherin, don’t you remember?’

Harry turned over. He’d see Justin next day in Herbology and he’d explain that he’d been calling the snake off, not egging it on, which (he thought angrily, pummelling his pillow) any fool should have realised.

*

By next morning, however, the snow that had begun in the night had turned into a blizzard so thick that the last Herbology lesson of term was cancelled: Professor Sprout wanted to fit socks and scarves on the Mandrakes, a tricky operation she would entrust to no one else, now that it was so important for the Mandrakes to grow quickly and revive Mrs Norris and Colin Creevey.

Harry fretted about this next to the fire in the Gryffindor common room, while Ron and Hermione used their lesson off to play a game of wizard chess.

‘For heaven’s sake, Harry,’ said Hermione, exasperated, as one of Ron’s bishops wrestled her knight off his horse and dragged him off the board. ‘Go and
find
Justin if it’s so important to you.’

So Harry got up and left through the portrait hole, wondering where Justin might be.

The castle was darker than it usually was in daytime, because of the thick, swirling grey snow at every window. Shivering, Harry walked past classrooms where lessons were taking place, catching snatches of what was happening within. Professor McGonagall was shouting at someone who, by the sound of it, had turned his friend into a badger. Resisting the urge to take a look, Harry walked on by, thinking that Justin might be using his free lesson to catch up on some work, and deciding to check the library first.

A group of the Hufflepuffs who should have been in Herbology were indeed sitting at the back of the library, but they didn’t seem to be working. Between the long lines of high bookshelves, Harry could see that their heads were close together and they were having what looked like an absorbing conversation. He couldn’t see whether Justin was among them. He was walking towards them when something of what they were saying met his ears, and he paused to listen, hidden in the Invisibility section.

‘So anyway,’ a stout boy was saying, ‘I told Justin to hide up in our dormitory. I mean to say, if Potter’s marked him down as his next victim, it’s best if he keeps a low profile for a while. Of course, Justin’s been waiting for something like this to happen ever since he let slip to Potter he was Muggle-born. Justin actually
told
him he’d been down for Eton. That’s not the kind of thing you bandy about with Slytherin’s heir on the loose, is it?’

‘You definitely think it
is
Potter, then, Ernie?’ said a girl with blonde pigtails anxiously.

‘Hannah,’ said the stout boy solemnly, ‘he’s a Parselmouth. Everyone knows that’s the mark of a dark wizard. Have you ever heard of a decent one who could talk to snakes? They called Slytherin himself Serpent-tongue.’

There was some heavy murmuring at this, and Ernie went on, ‘Remember what was written on the wall?
Enemies of the Heir Beware.
Potter had some sort of run-in with Filch. Next thing we know, Filch’s cat’s attacked. That first-year, Creevey, was annoying Potter at the Quidditch match, taking pictures of him while he was lying in the mud. Next thing we know, Creevey’s been attacked.’

‘He always seems so nice, though,’ said Hannah uncertainly, ‘and, well, he’s the one who made You Know Who disappear. He can’t be all bad, can he?’

Ernie lowered his voice mysteriously, the Hufflepuffs bent closer, and Harry edged nearer so that he could catch Ernie’s words.

‘No one knows how he survived that attack by You Know Who. I mean to say, he was only a baby when it happened. He should have been blasted into smithereens. Only a really powerful Dark Wizard could have survived a curse like that.’ He dropped his voice until it was barely more than a whisper, and said,
‘That’s
probably why You Know Who wanted to kill him in the first place. Didn’t want another Dark Lord
competing
with him. I wonder what other powers Potter’s been hiding?’

Harry couldn’t take any more. Clearing his throat loudly, he stepped out from behind the bookshelves. If he hadn’t been feeling so angry, he would have found the sight that greeted him funny: every one of the Hufflepuffs looked as though they had been Petrified by the sight of him, and the colour was draining out of Ernie’s face.

‘Hello,’ said Harry. ‘I’m looking for Justin Finch-Fletchley.’

The Hufflepuffs’ worst fears had clearly been confirmed. They all looked fearfully at Ernie.

‘What do you want with him?’ said Ernie, in a quavering voice.

‘I wanted to tell him what really happened with that snake at the Duelling Club,’ said Harry.

Ernie bit his white lips and then, taking a deep breath, said, ‘We were all there. We saw what happened.’

‘Then you noticed that, after I spoke to it, the snake backed off?’ said Harry.

‘All I saw,’ said Ernie stubbornly, though he was trembling as he spoke, ‘was you speaking Parseltongue and chasing the snake towards Justin.’

‘I didn’t chase it at him!’ Harry said, his voice shaking with anger. ‘It didn’t even
touch
him!’

‘It was a very near miss,’ said Ernie. ‘And in case you’re getting ideas,’ he added hastily, ‘I might tell you that you can trace my family back through nine generations of witches and warlocks and my blood’s as pure as anyone’s, so -‘

‘I don’t care what sort of blood you’ve got!’ said Harry fiercely. ‘Why would I want to attack Muggle-borns?’

‘I’ve heard you hate those Muggles you live with,’ said Ernie swiftly.

‘It’s not possible to live with the Dursleys and not hate them,’ said Harry. ‘I’d like to see you try it.’

He turned on his heel and stormed out of the library, earning himself a reproving glare from Madam Pince, who was polishing the gilded cover of a large spellbook.

Harry blundered up the corridor, barely noticing where he was going, he was in such a fury. The result was that he walked into something very large and solid, which knocked him backwards onto the floor.

‘Oh, hullo, Hagrid,’ Harry said, looking up.

Hagrid’s face was entirely hidden by a woolly, snow-covered balaclava, but it couldn’t possibly be anyone else, as he filled most of the corridor in his moleskin overcoat. A dead rooster was hanging from one of his massive, gloved hands.

‘All righ’, Harry?’ he said, pulling up the balaclava so he could speak. ‘Why aren’t yeh in class?’

‘Cancelled,’ said Harry, getting up. ‘What’re you doing in here?’

Hagrid held up the limp rooster.

‘Second one killed this term,’ he explained. ‘It’s either foxes or a Blood-Suckin’ Bugbear, an’ I need the Headmaster’s permission ter put a charm round the hen-coop.’

He peered more closely at Harry from under his thick, snow-flecked eyebrows.

‘Yeh sure yeh’re all righ’? Yeh look all hot an’ bothered.’

Harry couldn’t bring himself to repeat what Ernie and the rest of the Hufflepuffs had been saying about him.

‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘I’d better get going, Hagrid, it’s Transfiguration next and I’ve got to pick up my books.’

He walked off, his mind still full of what Ernie had said about him.

‘Justin’s been waiting for something like this to happen ever since he let slip to Potter he was Muggle-born …’

Harry stamped up the stairs and turned along another corridor, which was particularly dark; the torches had been extinguished by a strong, icy draught which was blowing through a loose window pane. He was halfway down the passage when he tripped headlong over something lying on the floor.

He turned to squint at what he’d fallen over, and felt as though his stomach had dissolved.

Justin Finch-Fletchley was lying on the floor, rigid and cold, a look of shock frozen on his face, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. And that wasn’t all. Next to him was another figure, the strangest sight Harry had ever seen.

It was Nearly Headless Nick, no longer pearly-white and transparent, but black and smoky, floating immobile and horizontal, six inches off the floor. His head was half off and his face wore an expression of shock identical to Justin’s.

Harry got to his feet, his breathing fast and shallow, his heart doing a kind of drum-roll against his ribs. He looked wildly up and down the deserted corridor and saw a line of spiders scuttling as fast as they could away from the bodies. The only sounds were the muffled voices of teachers from the classes on either side.

He could run, and no one would ever know he had been there. But he couldn’t just leave them lying here … he had to get help. Would anyone believe he hadn’t had anything to do with this?

As he stood there, panicking, a door right next to him opened with a bang. Peeves the poltergeist came shooting out.

‘Why, it’s potty wee Potter!’ cackled Peeves, knocking Harry’s glasses askew as he bounced past him. ‘What’s Potter up to? Why’s Potter lurking -‘

Peeves stopped, halfway through a mid-air somersault. Upside-down, he spotted Justin and Nearly Headless Nick. He flipped the right way up, filled his lungs and, before Harry could stop him, screamed, ‘ATTACK! ATTACK! ANOTHER ATTACK! NO MORTAL OR GHOST IS SAFE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! ATTAAAACK!’

Crash - crash - crash: door after door flew open along the corridor and people flooded out. For several long minutes, there was a scene of such confusion that Justin was in danger of being squashed and people kept standing in Nearly Headless Nick. Harry found himself pinned against the wall as the teachers shouted for quiet. Professor McGonagall came running, followed by her own class, one of whom still had black and white striped hair. She used her wand to set off a loud bang, which restored silence, and ordered everyone back into their classes. No sooner had the scene cleared somewhat than Ernie the Hufflepuff arrived, panting, on the scene.