Parseltongue

Gryffindor Common Room.

"This. Is. Im. Possible!"

After Hermione relayed several possibilities Professor Lin Du had mentioned—from stress-induced auditory hallucinations to an inherited ability to speak Rat—to Harry and Ron, Harry flushed red and argued indignantly.

He absolutely refused to admit that he might have an ancestor fluent in Rat!

Hermione folded her arms and looked at him thoughtfully. "All right, not Rat. Then perhaps the first possibility Professor Lin Du mentioned—'stress-induced auditory hallucinations'—is worth considering?

"You know, Harry, your Quidditch training has been exhausting lately, and you still have to deal with Snape's essays..."

"I'm not hallucinating!" Harry immediately cut her off, feeling offended. "I'm perfectly sane! That voice was very clear. It was inside the walls!"

"Everyone who hallucinates thinks the voices are real."

Hermione spoke in a tone that said, "I'm stating an objective fact." "If you insist that you're completely fine, so full of energy that you don't need any adjustments... then fine."

She suddenly changed tack and pulled out her Potions Class textbook from her bag. "Perfect. I think it's time to redistribute the workload for our group assignment. Since you're in such excellent condition, starting tomorrow, your portion of the essay—"

"Wait!" Harry panicked at once.

Hermione's notes and guidance were half the reason he managed to get through assignments in every subject.

"I mean... my mental state is fine, but that voice... it had to be real! It must have been something else..."

He scratched at his messy black hair, his mind racing as he tried to find an explanation that could convince Hermione without sounding too ridiculous.

Then an image flashed through his mind: a dim reptile house, thick glass, a huge Brazilian boa constrictor...

"A snake!" he blurted out. "Could it have been a snake?"

"A snake?"

Ron and Hermione fell silent at once. They exchanged glances, their expressions becoming extremely strange.

"You mean... you can talk to snakes?" Ron's voice was a little dry.

"Yeah." Harry failed to notice the subtle shift in the atmosphere and excitedly told them how he had accidentally spoken to a boa at the zoo and set it free.

"...That boa told me it had never been to Brazil..."

"A huge snake told you... that it had never been to Brazil?" Ron's voice grew even weaker, and his face turned pale.

"What's so strange about that?" Harry was still trying to explain. "I bet lots of people can do it! It's that... talent Professor Lin Du mentioned!"

Ron said nothing. Hermione took a deep breath, lowering her voice. "Harry, speaking to snakes... that ability is called 'Parseltongue.' And it was Salazar Slytherin's famous gift. That's why the symbol of Slytherin House is a snake."

Harry froze, the color draining from his face.

He suddenly remembered that during the Sorting Hat ceremony in his first year, the Sorting Hat had indeed strongly recommended Slytherin... Could it be...?

"But... but I'm not!" he protested weakly, though his voice dropped despite himself.

"It's all right, mate." Ron patted his shoulder as if trying to sound casual, but the alarm in his eyes had not faded. "Pure-blood wizarding families all intermarry. Maybe one of your ancestors was related to Slytherin."

Seeing that Harry had not relaxed at all, he added quietly, "Really, if you looked into it closely, most pure-blood wizarding families would be related somehow. Malfoy and I are relatives too."

"You and Malfoy?" Harry was stunned.

Ron shrugged. "There are only so many pure-blood wizards. It's normal for them to marry each other. If you ask me, there aren't any truly pure-blood families left. Their bloodlines couldn't have stayed pure until now."

Harry finally calmed down.

Just then, Hermione seemed to remember something. Her eyes widened. "Wait! Professor Lin Du also mentioned... he said Slytherin might have left a Chamber of Secrets somewhere in the castle, with some kind of monster inside meant to eliminate 'those unworthy of learning magic.'"

"Eliminate?" Ron frowned. "What does that mean?"

"It means targeting Muggle-borns and half-blood wizards." Hermione's voice trembled slightly. "And Professor Lin Du said that according to legend, the monster might be a Basilisk!"

"A Basilisk?" Harry felt his blood turn cold again.

"I read about them in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," Hermione said quickly. "Extremely dangerous creatures, whose gaze can kill, with extraordinarily long lifespans..."

Ron sucked in a breath. "Merlin's beard! So what Harry heard might have been..."

The three of them looked at one another, all stunned by the terrifying possibility.

Hermione cried out in disbelief, "Slytherin really kept a Basilisk in the castle? That's absurd!"

"I thought the three-headed hellhound we saw last term was outrageous enough," Ron said, smacking his lips with a complicated expression.

"And now there's supposedly a Basilisk whose gaze can kill? It... it should still be safely locked up somewhere, right? It hasn't gotten out?" There was a trace of wishful hope in his voice.

"So what do we do now?" Ron immediately asked, his voice rising unconsciously. "Tell a professor right away?"

"Wait!" Harry stopped him at once.

For some reason, after learning that he was a Parselmouth, he instinctively felt repulsed by the whole matter and did not want too many people to know.

"We should confirm it first! How about we go find Hagrid? Maybe it's some... er... 'special' pet of his again?"

Even he found that guess unconvincing.

"This can't have anything to do with Hagrid." Hermione shook her head, dismissing the idea, but then she added:

"Still, I don't object to asking him about it first. He knows a great deal about Hogwarts' secrets and magical creatures. We might discover something new."

"Why couldn't it have anything to do with him?" Ron argued, making an exaggerated gesture.

"He even dared to keep a drooling three-headed dog! Keeping a Basilisk dozens of feet long that kills anyone it looks at..."

He suddenly trailed off, realizing himself how absurd the idea sounded.

"Wait," Harry cut in, frowning deeply. "If it really is a Basilisk, what has it been eating to survive for a thousand years? And why would it start roaming the castle now of all times?"

Hermione's eyes lit up. "You're right! Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them says that Basilisks need to feed regularly. If there really were a Basilisk that had lived in the castle for a thousand years, we should have noticed animals disappearing long ago."

"Not to mention," Ron took over, sounding much more relaxed, "even for Hagrid, keeping a three-headed dog as a guard dog might make sense. Secretly keeping a Basilisk that could kill every student at any moment? That's mad. Even he ought to know where to draw the line."

The three looked at one another and all felt that their earlier panic was a little ridiculous.

"So," Harry said with a long breath, "what I heard was probably just an ordinary snake? Maybe it slipped in from the Forbidden Forest and was hunting mice in the pipes?"

"That's very likely." Hermione nodded. "A snake crawling through the walls, saying things about 'tearing' and 'killing'... perhaps it was only hunting prey? You know, snakes might simply think in such direct terms."

Ron had completely relaxed. "If you ask me, it might just be a little snake that got lost. Remember when Fred and George threw fake snakes into the Slytherin Common Room? Maybe this time it's a real one."

"Still," Hermione added cautiously, "we should ask Hagrid tomorrow. Even if it's only an ordinary snake, having it crawl through the castle walls is strange enough."

"Maybe it can tell us where the secret passage to the kitchens is." Ron quipped, successfully making Harry laugh.

And so, the three Gryffindors decided to put the terrifying possibility of a Basilisk out of their minds.

None of them realized that, even as they joked and laughed, something terrifying that had slept for a thousand years deep within the castle walls was being deliberately awakened.

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