The next morning, I wake up to find a warm sunlight streaming through the windows, and Harry already awake next to me. His eyes are fixed on Colin's stiff body. I slide out of bed and limp over to him.
"Its okay, big brother," I say, giving him a hug. "Dumbledore will make sure that he gets back to normal."
"I know," Harry says miserably. "But I feel like its my fault."
"Harry, if its your fault, then its my fault, too. We do almost everything together. We're twins, remember?" I say soothingly.
~~~~~~~~~~
Half an hour later, Harry and I are dressed and have eaten breakfast. Poppy has wrapped my leg in a flexible cast-type thing and ordered me to be careful and walk gently. The bones aren't broken anymore, but it still hurts like hell.
"Rory! Come on, I've got the ingredients needed to start the you-know-what!" Hermione's voice squeals from behind me. "You can come too, Harry, let's go!"
When we reach Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, I immediately get started on the Polyjuice potion while Harry, Ron, and Hermione talk about how the Chamber has been opened before. Ron accuses Draco every other sentence, but I'm too absorbed in making the potion and the dull ache from my leg to argue that I don't think its him.
~~~~~~~~~~
Two weeks into December, McGonagall comes around with the list of who is staying at Hogwarts for the holidays. Harry, Ron, Hermione and I sign it; as does Draco, which just makes the other three even more suspicious.
I've only got the Polyjuice potion half finished, mostly because we haven't stolen the bicorn horn and boomslang skin. Hermione has a plan though, and she's doing the actual stealing. Harry, Ron and I are going to act as a diversion so she can sneak in and get the last two ingredients.
Hermione meets our eyes and nods. Harry, Ron and I duck under the table, each pulling out a Filibuster firework I had enticed Fred to give me earlier today. We poke them with our wands and, knowing we only have seconds, straighten up and lob them.
They all land perfectly on target: mine in Crabbe's potion, Ron's in Goyle's, and Harry's in Draco's. A moment later, all three cauldrons explode, showering the class with half-finished swelling solution. Ron, Harry, and I are fine, because we knew it was coming and ducked under the table, but others got facefuls. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Hermione slip off. Snape loses it.
About five minutes later, everyone has been reduced to normal, and Hermione is sitting in her seat again, the front of her robes bulging. She sneaks the ingredients into her bag and gives me a thumbs up sign as Snape rants to the class about the punishment we'll get if he ever finds out who did it.
Luckily, the bell rings at that moment, saving us from Snape's wrath. The four of us sprint to the bathroom again, where I add the two ingredients to the potion and stir it happily, saying, "Only two more weeks until its finished!"
~~~~~~~~~~
"They're staring a Dueling Club!" Seamus says excitedly. "First meeting is in ten minutes! Are you guys gonna come?"
"What, do you reckon that Slytherin's monster can duel?" Ron asks, but he shows signs of great interest.
"Let's go!" Harry says happily. Hermione and I nod in agreement and follow the boys as they run to the Great Hall, where the club will be taking place. The long dinner tables have been replaced with an immense golden stage, and various people are already crowded around, waiting with earnest for the teacher to appear.
And who is that teacher but Lockhart. My first thought is, How the name of Merlin does that idiot know how to duel properly? My second thought is, Why did Dumbledore agree to do this?!
"Gather round, gather round," Lockhart calls, sweeping his arm in a dramatic arc. "Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent!"
"Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little dueling club, to train you all up in case you ever need to defend yourselves like I myself have done on countless occasions - for full details, see my published works."
"Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape," says Lockhart, flashing a wide smile that makes Hermione sigh dreamily. "He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about dueling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now, I don't want any of you youngsters to worry - you'll still have your Potions master when I'm through with him, never fear!"
"Wouldn't it be great if they finished each other off?" Ron says with glee. Harry and I hide laughs behind our hands as Hermione gives us a look.
Snape's upper lip is curled up in a look of pure loathing. Vaguely, I wonder why Lockhart is still smiling; if Snape looked at me like that, I'd be running as fast as I could in the opposite direction.
And then they begin. Lockhart exaggerates all his movements to try to look more masterful, whereas Snape jerks through the motions irritably.
"One - Two - Three - " Lockhart yells.
They both swing their wands above their heads and Snape yells, "Expelliarmus!" There's a dazzling flash of scarlet light, and Lockhart is blasted off his feet: He flies backward off the stage, smashes into the wall, and slides down to sprawl on the stage. His wand is nowhere in sight.
Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, and several other Slytherins are cheering. Hermione is dancing on her tiptoes, and squeaks through her fingers, "Do you think he's alright!?"
"Who cares?!" Harry, Ron, and I say together as Lockhart staggers back onto the stage, his hair standing on end.
"What an excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don't mind me saying, it was very much 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 . . . "
Snape looks like he's going to murder Lockhart any moment. I think that the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher notices, as he quickly says, "Enough demonstrating! I'm going to come amongst you now and put you all in pairs. Professor Snape, if you'd like to help me . . . "
I instinctively move next to Hermione, but it's Snape that reaches Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I first.
"Time to split up the dream teams, I think," he sneers. "Weasley, you can partner with Finnigan. Granger, with Bulstrode. Mr Potter, how about you partner with Mafloy? And his sister . . . with Parkinson."
Draco swaggers up to Harry, followed by Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode. Pansy doesn't look like her name leads me to think. She's tall, has a rather large bust and a squarish figure with a big nose and tiny eyes and lips . . . All in all, she looks like a troll in a wig.
"Alright, face your partner!' Lockhart shouts. I face the hulking Slytherin girl, who is a good five inches taller than me. She gives me a menacing look and we barely bow when Lockhart tells us to.
"Wands at the ready! Cast your spells to disarm your partner - disarm only!"
Pansy jumps on me, abandoning her wand, and punches me across the jaw. My head snaps to the right and the blow sends me to my knees. Seconds later, I'm up again. I deliver a considerably weaker blow to her stomach, and she doubles over with an angry wheeze. What happens next, I don't know, but I know Pansy is on top of me, tackling me to the floor.
I let out a screech when her full weight lands on my still sore leg, then grab a handful of her hair and pull it, jerking her head back so she rolls off of me. Then a thought hits me. I pull out a few strands of her hair and pocket them as Harry drags me upright and away from the seething Pansy.
Lockhart is yelling furiously, "Enough! Enough! Stop it, stop it!!"
Once things have calmed down a bit, Snape suggests that Harry and Draco go up to the stage and demonstrate how to duel. My heart nearly stops. Please don't hurt each other, I silently beg the two boys. They clamber onto the stage and I crowd close, next to Ron, Hermione, and a Hufflepuff boy who introduces himself as Justin Finch-Fletchley.
"Scared, Potter?" Draco demands quietly. I suck in a breath and hold it as Harry replies, "You wish."
"Three - two - one!" Lockhart bellows.
Draco twirls his wand and shouts, "Seprensortia!"
A long black snake erupts from the end of Draco's wand and I gasp, backing away slightly. I'm terrified of snakes. The snake raises itself to look into Harry's eyes, ready to strike. I hold my breath.
"Allow me, Potter!" Lockhart yells, leaping forward. "Alarte ascendere!"
The snake doesn't disappear: instead it flies ten feet into the air and drops down again. Now it's angry. It raises itself up again, this time, staring unblinkingly at Justin. Harry jumps forward, hissing something. The snake edges closer to the terrified Hufflepuff, hissing angrily. Harry does the same noise again, and then I jump forward, screeching, "Stop! Stop! Leave him alone!" Then I consciously switch to speaking in Parseltongue: "Sssssaaaeeehasssaaaa!"
The snake backs away, and Snape runs forward, vanishing it with a wave of his wand. Justin looks at Harry and demands, "What are you playing at!? If your sister hadn't called that thing off, I'd be dead!"
"Come on, Harry!" Ron breathes, grabbing his robes and dragging him off the stage. Hermione and I run after them, giving each other worried looks.
"You're both Parselmouths!" Ron pants. "Why didn't you tell us?!"
"What's a Parselmouth?" Harry asks.
"We can talk to snakes, Harry," I tell him.
"Wait, how do you know?" my brother demands, looking from me to Hermione to Ron and back again.
"We heard you, back there. We heard you speaking Parceltongue!" Hermione tells him.
"You mean I spoke a different language without realizing it?" Harry demands.
I nod, saying, "If you've known how to do it for a while, you can consciously switch from language to language. That's what I did."
"But you spoke in English the entire time!"
"No, she didn't. She switched to Parseltongue halfway through," Hermione explains. "But you speak that language too, so you heard English when she switched. And I'm worried, it sounded like you were egging that thing on, or something."
"I told it to stop, but it didn't listen! How come Rory doesn't get blamed for these kinds of things?! It's always Rory that gets off easy! Always me that gets in trouble!"
"Harry, that is in know way true! We're twins, we almost always get in trouble together, remember?" I say soothingly, putting a hand on my brother's arm. "And now the whole school probably thinks that there's two heirs of Slytherin; Paseltongue is a very rare talent. And Salazar Slytherin could speak it. But we have Ron and 'Mione, and each other. We'll figure this out, big brother, I promise."
~~~~~~~~~~
The next morning, we find out that Hebology has been cancelled. Hermione and I take turns losing to Ron at wizard's chess while Harry mopes by the fireplace. Hermione, Ron, and I have tried countless times to cheer him up, but he ignores us and frets over Justin Finch-Fletchley.
"You know what, Harry?" I ask irritably after a particularly spectacular loss to Ronald. "Come with me. If its so important to you, let's go find him."
My brother and I enter the library and find a group of Hufflepuff students that should have been in Herbology with us crowded around a table, talking fast in hushed voices. Every once and a while, one of them will look up suspiciously, but Harry and I hide behind a bookshelf to avoid being seen.
"I told Justin to hide in our dormitory. I mean, if the Potters have marked him as their next target it seems wise to lay low for a while," says a stout boy whose name I know not.
"'Potters', you said, Ernie?" asks a girl with blonde pigtails. "Why both of them; Rory saved Justin from her own brother yesterday!"
"They're twins, Hannah. They're both Parselmouths. Everyone knows that's the mark of a Dark wizard. Have you ever heard of a decent witch or wizard who was a Serpent-tongue?"
"Well, they both seem so nice! Why would they ever do anything like that?" asks the girl, Hannah.
"The both of them should have been blasted to bits, but they survived with nothing but scars. They've got to be really powerful, only an accomplished Dark wizard could have done that. That's why You-Know-Who wanted to kill them in the first place. What other powers are those two hiding?"
With that, Harry steps out into the open clearing his throat loudly. The facial expressions of the students are hilarious, and I hide a giggle behind a cough as I step out after Harry to stop him from making the situation worse.
"Do any of you know where Justin is?" he asks politely.
After several terrified responses from the Hufflepuffs to my brother's questions, I manage to drag him away, mumbling an apology to the petrified students. Harry runs off, and I chase after him, calling, "Harry! Harry! Wait up, you know they don't mean it, right? They're scared, Harry! Oh for Merlin's sake, get back here!"
I find him talking to Hagrid, who has a dead rooster hanging from his glove. A moment later, we bid Hagrid goodbye and I run off after my brother again, but this time, we end up separated.
The first thing I see is Nearly Headless Nick. He's turned from pearly white transparent to a dusky black, floating horizontally six inches above the floor. And next to him is Justin, who has also been Petrified.
I back away, but trip and fall on my bottom. Then I scuttle backwards, not wanting to take my eyes off of the ghost and Justin.
"Harry!!!" I scream. "Harry, come quick!!! Harry!!"
A second later, my brother appears at my side, gasping, "Rory, little sis', what is it!?"
Then he sees it. He recoils in horror, whether from the sight before us or that my scream attracted more than just my brother. McGonagall enters the hallway, then falters in shock.
"Mr Potter, Miss Potter - what on earth - ?" she stammers.
"It wasn't us, professor, I swear!" Harry defends.
"Yes, professor, we just walked in on the scene - " I start.
"SILENCE," McGonagall barks. Harry and I flich, shutting up. "This is out of my hands, you two. Follow me."
She leads us straight to who's office but Dumbledore's.
YOU ARE READING
Rory Potter, the Girl Who Lived
FanfictionRory Potter is Harry's twin sister, but she doesn't know it. After Lord Voldemort killed her parents, she and Harry were separated. Under Albums Dumbledore's orders, Remus Lupin raised her as Rory Lupin, and leaves her out when he tells her the lege...
