Charmolypi

Chapter 65

The common room swung open and Thea walked in, her eyes fixated on her slightly bloody knucks. Hermione rushed to her friend but the moment she reached her hand out but Thea swatted her away.

"What happened to her hand?"

"She's too violent for her own good."

"Back off my daughter!"

Harry turned away from his sister and looked back at Ron. "I'm a what?"

"A Parselmouth!" Ron said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Thea rolled her eyes at the pair. "It means you can talk to snakes."

"I know," Harry told them. "I mean, that's only the second time I've ever done it. I accidently set a boa constrictor on my cousin Dudley at the zoo once-"

"I remember that story-" Thea sighed happily.

"Anyways, it was telling me it had never seen Brazil and I sort of set it free without meaning to. But that was before I knew I was 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."

"Does he really not understand how weird that sounds?"

"Obviously not..."

"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 —"

"He heard you, but he didn't understand what you were saying because you weren't speaking a language he can understand," Thea told him.

"Thank you Thea, for stating the obvious to these incompetent people, once again," Bellatrix said, rolling her eyes at the sight.

"I heard you speaking Parseltongue," Ron said, nodding his head in Thea's direction. "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 realize — how can I speak a language without knowing I can speak it?"

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

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

"The problem isn't that you saved Justin, it's that you did it by being a Parselmouth. Even it all you said to the snake was 'leave him alone.'" Hermione and Ron's heads snapped in Thea's direction instantly. "Being able to talk to snakes was what Salazar Slytherin known for. It's why Slytherin's house symbol is a serpent." Harry's mouth fell open, but Thea wasn't done. "Which means that the whole school is going to think that we're somehow related to Slytherin and considering that he lived about a thousand years ago, it's going to be really difficult to prove."

When Thea's rant was done, Hermione was nodding her head, aggreging with what she had said; Ron looked slightly uncomfortable, and Harry looked completely distraught.