A Muggle-born had been attacked.
Harry spent the night in the hospital wing, and the next morning, he rushed to Katie at breakfast to tell her that Colin Creevey had been brought in during the night — petrified.
Katie's face was horror struck.
"That's not all," Harry continued, sitting himself down. "Dobby paid me a visit last night."
"The house elf?" Katie inquired. Harry nodded.
"He said that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened before, and I've got a hunch that it was Mr Malfoy that opened it. Oh, and you won't believe it! The gateway sealing itself? The rogue Bludger? It was all Dobby — all part of his plan to keep me away from Hogwarts."
And so the plot thickens.
***
Katie and her friends had signed up for a Duelling Club that was advertised on the wall by the Great Hall.
"It can't hurt to try it out." Ron had said.
So, that evening, Katie, Harry, Ron and Hermione made there way down to the Hall. The tables had vanished and, at the end of the hall, there sat a long, golden stage. The room was packed with students, most of whom were first and second years. Katie spotted Chris and Niall, and their friend Oscar. She sent them a friendly smile and wave.
"Oooh, I can't wait to see who'll be teaching us!" Hermione said excitedly. "Someone told me Flitwick was a duelling champion when he was young, maybe it'll be him.
Ron had just opened his mouth to say that he didn't care who taught them, as long as it wasn't Lockhart, when lo and behold, Professor Lockhart, flashing his dazzling smile and dressed in plum robes, strode onto the stage and gave a little bow. He was joined by none other than Professor Snape, who couldn't have looked more bored if he tried.
"Gather round! Gather round!" Lockhart called out. "Can you all see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent!"
Harry leaned across to Katie and muttered, "Lets get out of here while we still can."
The girl chuckled.
"Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little duelling club, to train you all up in case you ever need to defend yourself as I myself have done on countless occasions — for full details, see my published works."
"Does he ever shut up?" Ron grumbled, earning a slap on the arm from Hermione.
"Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape. He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about duelling 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!" Lockhart laughed to himself.
"It'd be great if they finished each other off, wouldn't it?" Katie joked, making Harry and Ron snort.
Lockhart and Snape stepped up close to each other and whipped out their wands, holding them in front of their own faces. They then flipped them down, bowed curtly, and turned their backs on each other. Once the Professors had reached opposite ends of the stage, they wheeled back around and aimed their wands at each other as though they were swords.
"One... two... three..." Lockhart said.
"Expelliarmus!" Snape yelled. With a burst of light, Lockhart was flung backwards. He let out a yell as he landed on his back and his wand flew from his grasp. Harry and Ron both laughed.
"Oh, do you think he's all right?" Hermione whimpered.
"Who cares?" Ron said.
Lockhart bounced back to his feet, still sporting his smile. "Well, there you have it! That was a Disarming Charm — as you see, I've lost my wand — ah, thank you, Miss Brown." Lockhart babbled to cover up his embarrassment. "An excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don't mind me saying, it was pretty obvious what you were about to do, and if I had wanted to stop you, it would've been only too easy."
"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."