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twenty two
dueling and disagreements
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No student could speak of anything other than the petrification the next day. There were whispers around every corner and in every stairwell about who the 'heir' could be and what the Chamber of Secrets was.
Ottilie was no exception to this.
After lunch, she joined Justin and Ernie in the library to finish homework before Monday's lessons. However, she found herself having trouble focusing on much.
"Hey, Ernie?" she asked. He lifted his head. "What's a Squib?"
His eyes widened slightly. It appeared he was trying to stifle laughter. "A Squib is essentially a Muggle-born in reverse—someone with magical parents who can't use magic. They're not Muggles, really, but they aren't wizards, either. Why do you ask?"
Filch's hatred towards Hogwarts students and their magic suddenly made a lot of sense. She wondered why he'd even want to work in a school of magic.
"No reason," she said with a shrug. "Just that I bet Squibs need to watch out too. If the heir doesn't like Muggle-borns, they'd certainly be no friend to Squibs." Which could explain why the heir had gone after Filch's cat.
"Are there even Squibs at Hogwarts? Could they even be admitted?" asked Justin.
"Sure they can. They even let them teach Defense Against the Dark Arts!" Ottilie said.
Justin's mouth fell open. "How can you suggest that Lockhart's a Squib? Have you read any of his books? Look at all of the creatures he's defeated, how many lives he's saved! He's a marvelous wizard!"
"Yeah, I've read his books. He's only a slightly better fiction writer than he is a wizard—which is to say he's not a very good fiction writer at all."
Ernie groaned. "Come on, please, not this again!"
Since the beginning of the year, Justin and Ottilie had been butting heads about Lockhart. Justin thought the sun shone out of his arse, and Ottilie firmly disagreed.
Justin ignored Ernie. "Are you accusing him of making it all up?"
"Well done, Justin, two points to Hufflepuff."
"It really is true. The Ministry of Magic awarded him with the Order of Merlin! Didn't you see the photograph in Voyages with Vampires? There objectively was a vampire terrorizing that little village in the Midlands, and Lockhart got a medal after it was stopped. How could it not be him who did it?"
"So, the great Gilderoy Lockhart can handle a vampire on his own, no problem. But, when it comes to pixies, he crumbles? I mean, come on, Justin, the man is a joke!"
"He may be a bit vain, fine, but he's extremely talented and has the right intentions!"
"You sound like Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass," Ottilie said. "Tell me, do you have little hearts drawn around his name on your class schedule, too?"
Justin thrust an accusatory finger at Ottilie's face. "I think you just don't like him because he doesn't like you!"
"More like he doesn't like me because I don't swoon every time I pass him in the corridors."
"Okay, can we please talk about something else?" Ernie said wearily. "In case you haven't noticed, we've got bigger problems than Lockhart."
"Yeah, Justin, haven't you heard? A chamber of—get this—secrets is opened!" Ottilie gave a spooky oooh while wiggling her fingers at a thoroughly irate Justin.
Ernie tapped his quill against his jaw. "Wonder who they think they're fooling. Everyone knows the Chamber of Secrets is a myth."
Ottilie dropped her hands. "What do you mean? You've heard of it?"
"Well, it's Hogwarts lore that gets passed down through the generations," said Ernie. "I don't remember exactly how the story goes, but the gist is that when the founders were building Hogwarts castle, Slytherin—Salazar Slytherin—included a chamber he kept secret from the others. So, supposedly, he sealed some beast in the chamber, and it's been waiting since then to be released by Slytherin's true heir."
Justin's anger was replaced by fear. "What is the beast?"
"Dunno." Ernie shrugged. "Don't worry about it, Justin. It's only a story. Really, the whole Mrs. Norris thing and the writing on the wall was probably just some blood elitist Slytherin's stupid prank to scare everyone."
"No..." Ottilie said slowly. "Dumbledore told Filch that Petrifying Mrs. Norris like that requires extremely advanced Dark magic. How likely do you think it is there's someone at this school who has that kind of talent and would waste it on a prank?"
Again, Ernie shrugged. "A prejudiced but gifted seventh-year Slytherin who did it for sport to terrorize the Muggle-borns? I mean, it's a bit far-fetched, but not impossible."
"Why does it have to be a Slytherin, Ernie?" Ottilie snapped, and Ernie gave her an apologetic look. "No. I don't think so. Harry heard some voice that led us to find Mrs. Norris. Hermione, Ron, and I couldn't hear anything." Her eyebrows knit as she worked through something. "Do you think the voice he heard was Slytherin's beast?"
"What?" Ernie and Justin cried out together.
Ottilie frowned at them. "Don't tell anyone I said anything. I don't think Harry would like that I've told people."
"Well, that's the solution, is it not?" Justin said, eyes huge. "That means he's the Heir of Slytherin, right?"
Ottilie scoffed. "No, Justin, it is not. Harry isn't the heir."
"How can you be so sure? You yourself said you think he heard the beast in the Chamber of Secrets!"
"Because he was at Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party with me long before he started to hear the voice, and we all happened upon the writing and the cat together."
Justin dropped the argument but did not seem convinced.
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An air of unease was ubiquitous within the castle.
Though the whispers about the Chamber of Secrets had died down, they never entirely went away. Students wore pensive looks in the corridors, flinching as they turned corners as if expecting to find another frozen feline.
Ottilie noticed that the library's history section was unusually busy as students searched for information about the Chamber.
She also spent time researching but couldn't find much more information than Ernie had originally offered her. The only other tidbit she managed to find was not comforting: Slytherin had apparently placed the creature there to purge the school of Muggle-born students.
She even asked Binns about the Chamber one evening.
Uncharacteristically, he heaved a great sigh. "Not you as well, Ottilie," he said, explaining that his students wouldn't stop derailing class to demand information on the Chamber.
"All those stories—they're apocryphal," he insisted but relented by offering the same old story. He didn't know what the beast was supposed to be either.
Still, the eerie feeling only simmered under the surface. It began to boil over when Slytherin's monster claimed its first human victim a little over a week after the incident with Mrs. Norris. The morning after the Gryffindor v. Slytherin Quidditch match, news traveled fast that a first-year Gryffindor named Colin Creevey had been Petrified.
Colin Creevey was a Muggle-born. It was proof that the Chamber of Secrets was, in fact, open.
Throughout that fateful morning, Ernie couldn't stop looking between Ottilie and Justin anxiously.
"You know, I think we should spend our time outside today," he said while Ottilie and Justin were in the middle of a chess match.
Ottilie turned to look out of the library window. "There's a blizzard outside, Ernest."
"But the Heir of Slytherin can't Petrify you two out there."
"Hm. Be Petrified by a monster or succumb to hypothermia?" She held up her palms and moved them up and down as though weighing her options. "Tough call."
"You should take this more seriously," said Justin. "We're both Muggle-borns. We're at risk. And you're in Slytherin. Who could Slytherin hate more than a Muggle-born in his House?"
She shook her head at Justin. "So, what, am I to drop out of school?"
His brow furrowed. "No."
"You should stay in your dormitory," said Ernie. "And does Harry know if you're Muggle-born? Justin, the idiot—" ("Hey!") "—told Harry that he's Muggle-born by admitting he was meant to go to that Muggle school. You know, Eton or whatever."
"I thought he was all right then!" Justin said, affronted.
Ottilie groaned. "Jesus Christ, Ernie, Justin's got you drinking the Kool-Aid! Come on, mate, I thought you were better than that!"
"Drinking the...?" Ernie shook his head to get back on track. "It's not crazy. Think about it: Harry Potter is the only known person in history to survive the Killing Curse. Don't you think only an immensely powerful Dark wizard could have done it?"
Justin added, "And he hates the Muggles he lives with, I heard. Despises going back to them for the summer. So, you know, hating Muggle-borns isn't too much of a leap in logic."
Ottilie threw up her hands. "One of his best friends is Muggle-born!"
The boys ignored this. Ernie leaned in towards Ottilie and whispered ardently, "Colin was annoying him—trying to photograph him with his broken arm—he gave Harry a reason. Please don't give the Heir of Slytherin a reason."
She shook her head slowly at them and then sighed.
"You two are cracked."
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It didn't take long for Ottilie to get fed up with the Chamber of Secrets nonsense.
By December, she was so sick of Ernie's insistence that she'd be in his sight at all times and Justin's constant conspiracy theories about Harry, that she sort of wished the thing would just Petrify her so she could catch a break.
While having to deal with Ernie's overbearing protectiveness over Justin and her was annoying, the way the Slytherins were treating her was far more infuriating.
She couldn't show her face in the common room without people asking her if she'd seen any monsters lately. Some even threatened to incapacitate her somehow to leave her as bait somewhere in the castle.
One day, on her way back from Astronomy, her Slytherin classmates beat her to the common room, and a few members of the Quidditch team shoved a bookcase in front of the entrance into to keep her out.
Millicent had been stuck out there with her and seemed terrified. She offered to get Snape, but Ottilie waved her off.
Instead, she threatened to blast the shelf to smithereens if they didn't let them in. Before she could, however, she heard Graham from the other side yell that he'd blast his teammates to smithereens if they didn't move the bookcase right away. They listened to him. When Ottilie reached the other side, Graham looked murderous and told her to come to him if anyone gave her trouble.
It made her feel a lot better.
As they neared the holidays, Ottilie barely even thought about Slytherin's monster.
Not too long before Christmas, on a Sunday morning, Ottilie woke up to see people huddled around the noticeboard in the common room. She caught up with Millicent to ask what had piqued everyone's interest.
"They're holding a dueling club tonight," she said. "I'm thinking about going. What about you?"
Ottilie considered. She hadn't ever dueled anyone. Still, she reckoned she'd be rather good at it.
"Sounds fun!"
That evening, Ottilie and Millicent hurried to the Great Hall. They were running late because Millicent had taken a detour to go Marvin-wrangling with Nora Jenson in the dungeons.
"Don't you know the monster is after cats, Marv?" Nora had whispered as she took the writhing Maine Coon from Millicent's arms.
Ottilie and Millicent arrived under the Great Hall's moonless black ceiling at five past eight. The place was packed. They met up with Ernie and Justin, who were standing right by a long, golden stage. The normal House tables were stacked against the wall to make room for it.
"Who's leading it, d'ya reckon?" Justin asked, having to raise his voice over the commotion. "I hope it's Lockhart."
Ottilie exchanged a look with Millicent, who raised an eyebrow curiously at Justin.
"Have you forgotten that Lockhart recently deboned a kid? No, you do not want him to teach you to duel," Ottilie said.
"Everyone makes mistakes sometimes! Harry was making it difficult for him to—"
"Gather round, gather round!" Lockhart himself had just taken the stage in ostentatious plum-colored robes. He was waving his arm around to catch the crowd's attention. Snape was standing just behind him, his lip curled in irritation.
"Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little dueling club, to train you all in case you ever need to defend yourself as I myself have done on countless occasions—for full details, see my published works."
Ottilie groaned and rolled her head back dramatically, making Millicent giggle and Justin glare.
"Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape. 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."
"What about when he's through with you?" Ottilie asked. Both Millicent and Ernie laughed.
Justin couldn't even protest because the look Snape was giving Lockhart could only be described as homicidal.
The men stood facing each other. Lockhart bowed affectedly, though Snape only nodded briskly. They held their wands at each other.
"As you see, we are holding our wands in the accepted combative position. On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course." Lockhart chuckled, eyeing his dueling partner uneasily.
"One—two—three—"
They lifted their wands above their head together, but Snape brought his down much faster and shouted, "Expelliarmus!"
A bright flash of scarlet light barreled directly into Lockhart's chest, lifting him off his feet. He was blasted back clear off the stage, and slammed into the wall. The crowd gasped as he crumpled to the floor.
Ottilie and Millicent cheered with the Slytherins, and Justin gave Ottilie a look reminiscent of the one Snape gave Lockhart.
After a moment, Lockhart was back on his feet, looking unsteady. His hair was standing on end like he'd been electrocuted.
"Well, there you have it!" He wobbled his way back onto the platform. "That was a Disarming Charm—as you see, I've lost my wand—ah, 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..."
If possible, Snape was looking even more murderous than before. Lockhart seemed to lose his nerve after that and began to pair up students.
Lockhart paired Justin with Neville Longbottom, Ernie with Anthony Goldstein, and Millicent with Hermione Granger.
Snape approached Dean Thomas, who was looking anxious after his best friend, Seamus Finnigan, was paired with Ron Weasley.
"Mr. Thomas, you can partner Miss van der Hoeven," Snape said, gesturing to Ottilie. Dean looked reluctant when she went to stand across from him. Ottilie wasn't thrilled either—Dean was way taller than her. She knew size made little difference with magical dueling, but it still was a bit intimidating to see him literally looking down at her.
Lockhart instructed them to bow. Ottilie bowed stiffly. Dean just dipped his head a bit.
"Wands at the ready! 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—"
Eyes locked onto one another, Ottilie and Dean swung their wands in the air. Both shouted the incantation, but only Ottilie cast it successfully. From her wand burst a jet of red light powerful enough that the recoil almost made her lose her balance. It cracked against Dean's shoulder, throwing him off his feet and flinging his wand right at her. The spell wasn't nearly as powerful as Snape's, but Dean windmilled as he flew sideways through the air. He met the ground and rolled once before he landed on his back. He seemed dazed, dark brown eyes blinking into the night sky above him, his chest heaving in pain.
Surprised by her power, Ottilie glanced around to see if Snape or Lockhart had noticed, but both were too busy coaching Draco and Harry, respectively.
Snape called out Finite Incantatem to stop whatever spell was causing Harry to dance some kind of foxtrot. Strangely, there was some green smoke hanging above their heads. Perhaps some spell gone wrong.
Dean was still panting in pain, Justin and Neville were supine on the floor, Ernie was groaning, clutching at a bleeding nose, and, to Ottilie's astonishment, Millicent had Hermione in a headlock.
Harry rushed to Hermione's assistance, Ottilie following close behind. He was trying and failing to pull Millicent off Hermione—Millicent was much larger than him.
"What the hell, Millie? Let her go!" Ottilie said. "What are you doing!"
"She stabbed my eye!" Millicent exclaimed, looking up at Ottilie. Sure enough, one of her eyes was a bit bloodshot.
"Because you were on top of me! It was an accident!" Hermione cried in a strangled voice. Millicent reluctantly released Hermione and gave her a sour look as she stood.
"That was Goldstein's fault! He used a Knockback Jinx instead of a Disarming Charm and sent me flying into Buldstrode!" Ernie called from where he was still lying on the floor.
"That's not true!" Anthony protested.
Ottilie turned around to see where Dean was now sitting up, grimacing.
"Here's your wand," she said. He reached up to take it from her. "You good?"
"God," he breathed out. "Do you practice Disarming in your free time or something?"
"No," said Ottilie.
"I think I want a new partner," Dean muttered under his breath, getting to his feet. Ottilie grinned smugly to herself as she went back to her friends.
After assessing the damage done, Lockhart returned to the stage. "I think I'd better teach you how to block unfriendly spells." He glanced at Snape warily. "Let's have a volunteer pair—Longbottom and Finch-Fletchley, how about you—"
Justin's face began to glow at the mention of his name, but the look didn't last long after Snape marched back over to Draco.
"A bad idea, Professor Lockhart. 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 face went pink, and Justin looked furious to be dismissed.
"How about Malfoy and Potter?" He offered Lockhart a wry smile.
"Excellent idea!" Lockhart said, and they shuffled the boys to the middle of the Great Hall, Lockhart waving people away to make room.
While Lockhart tried (unsuccessfully) to teach Harry how to block an attack, Snape bent down to level himself with Draco, whispering something that caused a mischievous grin to grow on Draco's face.
The professors backed up to give the boys some room. The crowd watched in silence.
"Three—two—one—go!"
Draco barely raised his wand before pointing it at Harry and yelling Serpensortia!
A black spiral of smoke erupted from the end of his wand, though it quickly gained corporeality and landed on the ground in the form of a large, black snake. It raised its head and hissed at Harry, who backed away with his mouth open.
"Go Slytherin, I guess," Ottilie whispered out of the corner of her mouth to Millicent, who smiled in response. There were scattered screams from the rest of the crowd.
"Don't move, Potter. I'll get rid of it...," Snape began, pleased with himself.
However, Lockhart stepped in front of him and aimed his wand at the serpent. "Allow me!"
Lockhart did not get rid of the snake at all. Instead, he threw it ten feet in the air, right above Ottilie's and her friends' heads.
Millicent grabbed Justin's and Ottilie's sleeves and forced them to step back, so the snake landed right in front of them rather than on them.
The snake was moving erratically. It lifted its head suddenly and slithered directly in front of Justin and Ottilie, its forked tongue a foot away from their faces. Justin stared back at it in terror, but Ottilie immediately stepped away.
And then, a strange airy noise was coming from somewhere else. Ottilie looked over to see Harry, eyes burning with intensity, hissing like he was possessed.
The serpent drew nearer to Justin, showing off its fangs inches from his face. Justin whimpered. But then, the snake lowered its head and stopped moving.
Harry was staring expectedly at Justin.
"What do you think you're playing at?" Justin shouted with a mix of fury and terror. Harry was speechless.
Justin roughly grabbed Ottilie's upper arm and began to drag her through the crowd, Ernie scrambling after them.
"What, Justin?" Ottilie asked when they were in the entrance hall, and he'd released her.
"What do you mean, what Justin?" he shouted. He was shaking a bit. "Potter tried to set a snake on me!"
"I-I..." Ottilie couldn't find the words. It had been very strange. The snake started moving in on Justin just as Harry began speaking, but it backed down only moments later.
Ernie kept glancing over his shoulder and then was suddenly frantically moving the two of them towards the staircase leading to the Hufflepuff basement. Ottilie nearly tripped several times but managed to make it down safely. Ernie grabbed her by the collar to ensure she was out of sight if anyone were to glance down the stairs.
"You two don't understand," he said in a wild whisper. "Harry Potter is a Parselmouth."
"Parselmouth?" asked Ottilie and Justin together.
Ernie couldn't stop looking behind him. He stepped in closer so he could lower his voice further. "It means he can talk to snakes."
"You know, Ernie, I actually did manage to connect those dots on my own," Ottilie said.
He gave a frustrated groan and shook his head. "No, no, you still don't get it. Parseltongue isn't a language you can just learn. It's a hereditary skill."
Ottilie and Justin stared at him blankly.
"Ever wonder why Slytherin's symbol is a serpent? It's because Salazar Slytherin was a Parselmouth. He was famous for it," Ernie said slowly. "Get it now? You can only speak Parseltongue if you're a descendant of Slytherin."
"The...Heir of...oh god," Justin said barely audibly. "So I was right about Harry." He turned to Ottilie. "See? I was right about Harry. You can't deny it now!"
She stared helplessly between the boys. Could Harry be Slytherin's heir without being the Heir of Slytherin?
None of it made any sense. She'd been with Harry when Mrs. Norris was Petrified. And, even if not, it was obvious to her that Harry was no Dark wizard. She knew what Dark magic felt like—quiet, dangerous, cold. But Harry's was as abrasive, loud, and Light as magic could be.
Hell, she fit the offender profile better than Harry, even as a Muggle-born: drawn to the Dark Arts, connected to ancient magic (according to the Bloody Baron, at least), and a Slytherin, of course.
But she knew that none of this would ever convince Justin and Ernie, so she decided that playing along with them was the path of least resistance.
"Okay, you've convinced me. Maybe it is Harry. I'll be careful around him."
They looked relieved.