PRINCESS ➳ harry potter , draco malfoy (OLD VERSION)

26 || Parselmouth

"Perhaps it would be prudent to first teach the students to block unfriendly spells, Professor." Snape said.

"An excellent suggestion, Professor Snape!" Lockhart exclaimed and spun around to the students. "Uh, let's have a volunteer pair. Potter, Weasley, how about you?"

Excitement flooded Ron's face, but the moment was over all too soon when Snape spoiled the fun. "Weasley's wand causes devastation with the simplest spells. We'll be sending Potter to the hospital wing in a matchbox."

Ron huffed and sulked like a child.

"Might I suggest someone from my own house?"

"Oh no..." Katie whispered, seeing where this was going.

"Malfoy perhaps?" Snape shrugged nonchalantly.

"Oh no..." Hermione echoed.

With his usual smirk on his face, Malfoy stepped up onto the stage and stood in front of Harry. They glared at each other.

"Scared, Potter?"

"You wish."

The other Gryffindor boys were glowing with pride and they nodded slowly. Harry and Draco done as the Professors had done — walked away, turned around, aimed. The was a humid tension lingering in the air.

"On the count of three, cast your spells to disarm your opponent. Only to disarm! We don't want any accidents here." Lockhart order. It was clear by their hateful facial expressions that both Harry and Draco had other things on their minds other than disarming. "One... two... three..."

Harry was about to cast a spell, but Malfoy had already started on two.

"Serpensortia!"

A huge, brown snake with sharp fangs erupted from the end of Malfoy's wand, landing only mere feet away from Harry. Frozen from fear, Harry stood rooted to the spot with his eyes fixed on the snake. Katie and Hermione clung onto each other and they both breathed heavily.

Snape watched with an evil grin, as though he enjoyed the sight of Harry being so helpless. Eventually, however, Snape intervened. "Don't move, Potter. I'll get rid of it for you."

"Allow me, Professor Snape!" Lockhart bellowed.

"Oh, bloody hell." Katie and Ron muttered together, exchanging a quick glance of amusement at their harmony.

"Alarte Ascendare!" Lockhart belted confidently. Instead of disappearing, the snake flew ten feet into the air, before landing back on the stage with a loud thud. This attack by Lockhart seemed to only make the snake angrier. It hissed violently and turned to a rather terrified looking Hufflepuff, namely Justin. He looked as though his was going to cry as the large snake slowly edged closer to him.

Katie watched, stunned, as Harry bravely stepped towards the Snake. Although, she wasn't entirely sure that it was courage that made him do it, as he looked to be in some sort of a trance as he gained on the snake and said, "Leave him."

The entire room gasped in shock. The snake turned away from Justin, whom Harry was grinning at, and didn't understand why Justin yelled, "What are you playing at?"

Quite frankly, Katie didn't understand why either. Both she and Harry wore identical expressions of bewilderment and the hall erupted with whispers and chaos. Ron tugged at the bottom of Harry's cloak.

"Come on." he said. Still clutching onto each other, Katie and Hermione followed Harry and Ron out of the Great Hall and into an empty classroom.

"You're a Parselmouth. Why didn't you tell us?" Ron spoke finally.

"I'm a what?" Harry furrowed his eyebrows. Katie felt her blood run cold. The pieces of the puzzle were coming together, and suddenly she understood why everyone went into shock when Harry told the snake to leave Justin alone.

"A Parselmouth!" Hermione hissed. "You can talk to snakes."

"I know," Harry responded, sounding as confused as ever. "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. His cheeks had been completely drained of colour.

"So?" Harry shrugged. "I bet loads of people here can do it."

Katie still had not said a word since the four had entered the deserted classroom. There was a certain thought on her mind, a thought that both puzzled and scared her.

"No, they can't," Hermione said firmly. "It's not a very common gift, Harry. This is bad."

"What's bad? 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!" Ron exclaimed. Katie felt her whole world flip. Her worst fear had come true.

"What do you mean? You were there... you heard me."

"I heard you speaking Parseltongue," Ron said, "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."

Katie felt her stomach lurch and churn. She had broke out into a cold sweat and had grown awfully faint. She took slow breaths, trying to maintain both her sanity and conciousness.

So, if everyone else heard Harry speaking Parseltongue and not English, how had Katie have heard his words so clearly?

The Slytherin girl asked herself this question when, deep down, she already knew the answer, and it terrified her.

"I-I... I have to go." Katie said quickly. She sprinted from the room before any of her friends could say anything. Head spinning, vision blurred by tears, Katie stumbled down to the Slytherin common room. To her relief, there was no one else there. She collapsed in front of the roaring fire.

Half an hour passed and Katie was still sat alone in the common room. The whole time she stared blankly into the crackling red flames of the whirring fire. Her head was pounding with thoughts and fears.

Katie's mind was so preoccupied that she did not notice the common room door opening, or the blonde-haired boy making his way over to where she sat. Malfoy was about to make a sly comment about Harry until he caught sight of Katie's pale, troubled face. He twisted his eyebrows together in concern and confusion and stayed silent for many moments, before finally choosing to speak in a tone that was somewhat caring, for a Malfoy, at least.

"Are you all right, Blair?"

Katie didn't move her petrified eyes from the fire. At first, Malfoy thought she hadn't heard him, but finally came to the conclusion that she had in fact ignored him. Sighing, Malfoy turned to leave, when Katie decided to speak.

Her words passed through her chapped lips in no more than a weak breath. They were filled with terror, dread, as though the very words feared themselves.

"I'm a Parselmouth."

Draco froze. "I beg your pardon?"

Finally, Katie tore her gaze away from the raging fire. She turned her head to look at Draco. The boy almost fell over at the sight of her wide, red-rimmed and glassy eyes. Terror swirled in her eyes like a grey storm as she repeated her words from before.

"I'm a Parselmouth."