XX. In the Serpents’ Tongue
January 20, 2026 at 5:00 PM
‘…thus, Transfiguration—that is, magical transformation, of which conjuration from thin air is a special case—may be applied to all material, non-magical, enumerable, singular, and discrete objects.’
Thirty-five years is quite a long time, even for a witch.
Thirty-five times Minerva McGonagall had turned into a cat and leapt onto the teacher’s desk, which she then transfigured into a pig. Thirty-five cohorts of first-years had gawped at that display, silently vowing to learn the very same, and perhaps something greater besides, for what they saw drove home the principal truth: magic is boundless. Thirty-five times she had sown sparks in other hearts in order to reap a fire—an unquenchable thirst for discovery and knowledge, a pull towards true might. No, Minerva did not feel tired; if need be, she would gladly go over the same ground another thirty-five times. But it could not be denied that, over the years, she had worn herself a familiar groove, a kind of routine in which every action had been honed to exemplary clarity, and every phrase had found the most comprehensible form.
It was convenient; it was entirely proper—yet it also meant that during a lecture Minerva had room to think about matters wholly unconnected to it.
‘There are five principal exceptions to the Law of Transformation, also called Gamp’s Exceptions. The first states…’
Quills whispered faintly over parchment. There was no chattering in her lessons—Minerva rooted out undue distraction without mercy: a transfigurist who cannot concentrate will fare no better than a blind man who has set his heart on becoming a Quidditch player. Snuffly noses breathed, restless legs scuffed beneath desks, an inkwell answered with the faintest glassy note as someone tapped the rim to shake off an extra drop. Anaemic October sunshine peeped through the classroom windows, and the pale golden sky, framed by the windows’ ironwork, was cross-hatched by watercolour-faint strokes of thin cirrus cloud. The weather was just the thing for flying.
‘…it is impossible to create nourishing food from thin air, or from something that is not an edible object. According to the second…’
Evenly, along the row between the desks, went the high, buttoned boots the Head of Gryffindor preferred to frivolous shoes—such footwear would not go flying off her foot in mid-air, and on the ground she need not bother about treacherous heels. Evenly, the tip of her wand tapped the palm of her left hand. And, just as evenly, flowed from her lips the speech that had long since worn itself into them. But there was no order, no calm clarity, in Minerva’s thoughts, and how far they strayed now from Gamp’s Exceptions!
‘…no object not previously a sentient being may be transfigured into a sentient being. In accordance with the third, a magical object cannot be created from thin air, or from a non-magical object. Fourth…’
Among the dutifully bowed crowns Minerva found the black, untidy head of the one who occupied all her dour reflections. The boy-who-landed-in-Slytherin, a compromised hero, no longer her child—truth be told, he had never been, but the lioness in her, mother and mistress of the pride, who had already counted the cub as hers, refused to acknowledge it. A boy unlike Lily, who had loved magic and life with a passionate heart, and—for all the deceptive resemblance—unlike James, recklessly brave, but just a touch slapdash. A calm, quiet, very, very polite boy, with a grave, unchildlike gaze, and the vocabulary of a hardened book-lover. Harry Potter.
She was sorry, so endlessly, tearfully sorry, that she had not taken alarm sooner. That none of them had—as though some sinister dark cloud had smothered all their wits. Ten years, nearly a third of her teaching life—and perhaps even a year ago—it would not have been too late.
And now?
‘…tells us that money, as well as any items used as equivalents of money, cannot be obtained by Transfiguration from objects other than money and its analogues. And, finally, the fifth…’
At first she had been shocked, beyond question. It seemed some monstrous mistake had been made. Any moment now the Hat would laugh and say, ‘Only joking!’—and announce the correct House. But on reflection, Minerva, with a heavy heart, was forced to admit—the error had been made much earlier, and not by the Hat. Sometimes the hardships of childhood temper a character of steel, and from that character, as rust from steel, all soul rot and every kind of decay will flee.
Sometimes, alas, the reverse is true.
‘…the exception most difficult to grasp. Time does not yield to magical transformation at all.’
The longer Minerva watched, the more anxious she grew. And Severus—foolish boy—only poured oil on the fire of that anxiety; he scarcely seemed to try to rein in his ward, who was losing all sense of boundaries. Minerva stifled a gloomy sigh ill-suited to the middle of a lecture. An onerous, unpleasant conversation awaited. But it was not in Minerva’s nature to shirk her duty.
She finished another circuit of the classroom, halted by the desk, back to the board, and, just as crisply, concluded: ‘Since, in practical terms, the restrictions associated with Gamp’s Exceptions have a multitude of nuances and subtleties, we shall devote the next few lessons to a detailed analysis of them. By Tuesday, be so good as to present an essay, five and a half inches long, on today’s topic. Just for you, Miss Granger, I stress: five and a half, not eleven. Learn brevity. And now, off you go. Mr Potter! Stay. You are summoned to the Headmaster. I have been instructed to escort you.’
Potter, rustling a sheet of parchment, started almost imperceptibly, then mastered himself at once and inclined his head, composed.
‘Yes, Professor McGonagall.’
At midday the corridors were full of hurrying children, but neither the flow of bodies nor the lively chatter seemed to touch the two of them, as if an invisible bubble had spun itself about them, swollen with pent-up tension. In silence they made their way to the stone gargoyle. Harry did not enquire as to the cause of his summons, and that, all by itself, gave him away. Or did it? He might be quite certain there was nothing against him—or, contrariwise, he might know his sins all too well. Which was it? Minerva glanced sidelong at the boy the whole way, but not once did he lift his eyes to her in return.
Severus was already in place, nodding with a sour, bored look at some admonitions from Albus. Minerva caught a snatch of a phrase: ‘…to set prejudice aside…’—but on their arrival the conversation fell to pieces and ceased. Severus half-rose, and greeted her with a slight nod. The Headmaster cleared his throat.
‘Minerva, just in time! Thank you. Harry, my boy! Do come in, do come in!’
Potter murmured a greeting under his breath and slipped into a chair opposite the Headmaster’s desk. With a flick of her wand, Minerva conjured a seat for herself and sat as well. Now they sat in a row—Potter in the middle, in the crossfire of three pairs of eyes studying him at once.
‘I am sorry to say this, but I think you know why you are here, do you not, Harry?’ Albus asked, suavely, smoothing his beard. The boy’s brows shot up, and he blinked with an expression of genuine—or perfectly played—bewilderment.
‘I regret to say it, but I am afraid, Headmaster, that I do not understand you in the slightest,’ he declared, and in his intonation, as in his very phrasing, she heard something distinctly Snape-like, skirting the edge of mimicry. Severus’s children picked up his manner with alarming speed—choosing, of course, the worst traits to emulate.
The Headmaster sighed, disconsolate.
‘Complaints are being made about you, my boy. Minerva?…’
She barely restrained a sigh as heartfelt as his. The Headmaster had passed the buck to her—and to whom was she to pass it on? Unworthy thoughts.
‘Mr Potter,’ she said, crisp and dry. ‘Is it true that you tortured another student?’
Harry’s eyebrows climbed higher, up under his fringe—he always brushed his hair over his forehead with care, hiding his scar. The boy turned to her, smiled crookedly, and shook his head.
‘Tortured? Merlin forbid. I mean to say—of course not, Professor. I would never do such a thing. Might I know who… my supposed victim is?’
Minerva frowned. The victim, in fact, was due any minute. Luckily, just then there was a knock at the door. Percy Weasley peered into the office—the most sensible representative of that scatter-brained brood, who had earned himself a prefect’s badge with fanatical zeal for study and devotion to discipline. He shoved in Lesley McLean, one of her second-years, dragged from the lunch table (as one could easily tell from the breadcrumbs on the boy’s robes), murmured a greeting, and left just as quietly. McLean scowled at the gathering from under his brows. He did not hurry to come up to the desk.
‘Come here, my boy, over here!’ the Headmaster called, kindly. Lesley sat down, legs swinging, on the chair conjured for him, and stared at Harry glumly.
‘Mr McLean, would you be so good as to repeat, briefly, the substance of your accusations?’ Severus said, with acid politeness. The boy paled, then flushed, and at last got out: ‘Potter ambushed me in the corridor last night after dinner. He… he used a torture curse, sir.’
The last word was dragged out of him—he regarded the Slytherin Head of House with dislike and disgust, which was, alas, no rarity among Minerva’s students. Severus’s offensive bias was poorly borne by the children. To be frank, Minerva herself was far from fond of it—they had more than one unseemly row to their discredit on that account, but Severus stuck to his own methods of upbringing with a doggedness truly worthy of better employment.
‘Torture?!’ The ‘accused’ threw up his hands, indignant. ‘For shame, Lesley! Headmaster,’ he appealed warmly, ‘it was nothing more than a friendly joke!’
‘Are you taking the mickey?!’ McLean yelled, no longer shy of the Headmaster and professors. He practically sprang from his seat—his face blazing scarlet, eyes narrowed, fists clenched in fury.
‘Since when has a Tickling Jinx counted as torture?’ Harry scowled, folding his arms. ‘You were the first to fire it at me, remember?’
‘No! That was different! You used something else!’ Lesley stamped his foot.
‘Boys!’ Albus intervened and, waiting for a measure of quiet, went on weightily: ‘This is extremely serious. We are talking about expulsion, Harry, do you understand?’
‘Headmaster, sir!’ Potter responded. ‘Honestly, this is beyond the pale… I mean, sir, our House is treated with prejudice…’
‘Quite so,’ Snape put in, in a venomous tone.
‘…but this is sheer madness. I do not even know the torture curse, I swear by whatever you like.’ Potter’s lips trembled; it looked as though he was about to burst into tears. Minerva was doubtful again—an act? Or not?
‘Liar!’ McLean hissed, also plainly struggling not to cry.
‘Fortunately, we have reliable means of getting at the truth. Your wand, Mr Potter,’ she demanded.
After a beat, he drew it from his sleeve. Minerva held out her hand, and Harry passed the wand to her.
‘Prior Incantato!’
The onlookers were treated to an unremarkable string of lesson spells and simple household charms, mixed with perfectly innocent joke hexes, among which, indeed, the Tickling Jinx cropped up a couple of times. The effect of the Prior ran out on a Lumos; the wand showed no further activity. Minerva was pleasantly surprised.
Just then there was another knock at the door. It was the school nurse.
‘Headmaster, colleagues!’ she greeted them, casting a brisk look round. ‘Where is the patient? You, Mr Potter?’
‘No, Madam Pomfrey,’ Albus hastened to correct her. ‘I should like you to run a diagnostic test on this young man.’ He indicated McLean, who was glowering sideways at Harry.
‘Perfectly healthy,’ Pomfrey pronounced after a few quick passes, accompanied by Latin patter. The Headmaster raised a finger.
‘Be so kind as to check for any traces of the Unforgivable Curses as well,’ he requested. The matron snorted, astonished.
‘Of course,’ she said, with the tiniest pause, and lifted her wand again, weaving the necessary charms. ‘I see nothing of the sort,’ she concluded. ‘Mr…?’
‘McLean, ma’am,’ Lesley reminded her, vexed.
‘Mr McLean has not been subjected to Dark magic, or else it happened quite some time ago. I would recommend St Mungo’s, if required—they have true experts there, for example, my former classmate Janus Thickey…’
‘What time frame are we talking about?’ Albus cut in insistently.
‘How far back could the hex have been cast?’ Pomfrey looked up, thoughtful. ‘Well, I can guarantee a couple of weeks. Still, you would do better to…’
‘Yes, yes.’ The Headmaster waved her off. ‘We understand. Thank you! We will not keep you; do return to your duties.’
Pomfrey, an incorrigible gossip, drooped in disappointment, but left without protest. Those remaining exchanged looks that were anything but friendly; only Albus seemed to withdraw into himself, absently stroking his beard.
‘Professor McGonagall,’ Harry whispered. ‘My wand—might you return it?’
Minerva, discovering it in her hand with some surprise, passed it back to him. That seemed to act as a signal—everyone stirred.
‘Harry… I offer our apologies, on behalf of us all,’ the Headmaster announced. Severus grimaced.
‘No need. I imagine Potter understands. Do you not, Potter?’ The boy nodded fervently. ‘Permit us to take our leave? If memory serves, Mr Potter has lessons after lunch.’
‘Two weeks’ detention, two hours apiece, for magic outside class,’ Minerva said, lips tight.
‘I shall see he serves his punishment,’ Severus said with a grim smile, and Potter cringed, fearful. He looked, just now, like any ordinary child—or was the sinister aura about him a figment of Minerva’s imagination all along?
‘That applies to you as well, Mr McLean,’ she added sternly.
He jerked and snorted in indignation, but held back from arguing—thank Godric for that, or Minerva might have snapped. To think, such a vile lie, and from one of hers! Albus sighed and tugged at his beard. The little bells braided into the grey strands chimed with an inappropriately frivolous tinkle.
‘Off you go, Severus. Minerva, you two may go as well. And Mr McLean…’ The Headmaster shook his head in reproof. ‘You ought to reflect on your behaviour, do you not think? I should like the House to be proud of you, but you have made a poor start. Good day to you all!’
Lesley, biting his lip; Minerva, irritated; Harry, subdued; and Severus, sullen as ever, filed out in a ragged little crowd and went their separate ways. Minerva, scarcely waiting for a semblance of privacy, seized Lesley by the ear. He let out a wounded howl.
‘You little wretch!’ Minerva hissed, a furious cat. ‘I’ll make you sorry!’
‘But, ma’am…!’ he protested, involuntarily rising on tiptoe. Minerva snorted.
‘I will not hear a word! You can spin your yarns to Hagrid’s pumpkins in the patch! Harry is a good boy!’
* * *
‘You are treading on thin ice,’ Professor Snape observed, once the tentacles of justice had slackened and left Harry unscathed. They set off side by side—for the moment, the way to Defence Against the Dark Arts and the road to Snape’s office ran in the same direction. Harry beamed. ‘They would have found nothing, sir,’ he assured him. ‘I won’t be caught!’ ‘You’ve already been!’ the man growled, displeased, but his curiosity was piqued. ‘What exactly would they not have found? What was it you used? You might at least share it with me.’ ‘The Tickling Jinx, sir!’ Harry reported. Laughter bubbled up in him—the aftermath of nerves; the ice, after all, was indeed rather thin. But Tom was a genius—and he had, besides, been through all this once already, and the methods of discipline he had evolved had not failed them yet. Better still, with a little creative refinement to suit their unique opportunities, those methods sparkled with new facets, like a diamond in the Heir of Slytherin’s crown. ‘Really?’ Snape arched a sceptical brow. Harry nodded vigorously. After a moment’s hesitation, he shared the secret—not the whole secret, but enough to satisfy his Head of House, for now. ‘It is where you cast it, sir, and how long you hold it.’ The little sod Lesley—bless him, Mordred—had needed seven minutes. That, however, was not the problem—the problem was finding a quiet corner, and stopping in time. Harry still had a long way to go before he reached the cool indifference with which Tom could torture. Snape slowed, and sent him a long, unreadable look. ‘Original,’ he said, impassive, in the end, and Harry took it as praise. He dropped his gaze, modestly. Here their ways parted, and Harry, sighing for his lost lunch—the Hogwarts table was so abundant and generous that even Kreacher would have struggled to compete—turned the corner, and wound through the corridors towards his least favourite class. He arrived first, and chose to wait outside, passing the time on the windowsill. Out over the distant pitch a Quidditch team was in training—Harry recognised Hufflepuff by the yellow robes. He had begun reading Quidditch Through the Ages the other day—the book was meant to help him fit better into a school obsessed with that mad sport. Perhaps, for the sake of prestige, it was worth considering a place for himself on the House team—but first-years were not taken, so that was a matter for another day. Presently his dear classmates turned up, led by Draco, nervously worrying at his bag strap, and Harry had to tear himself away from watching the flyers. He took his own satchel back from Goyle, thanking him with a curt nod, and clapped Malfoy on the shoulder. ‘All sorted,’ he assured him, with a meaningful wink, and Draco, who had been studying his face closely, relaxed and smirked. Alas, any remaining good humour evaporated the instant they stepped into the classroom. The Defence classroom stank. Worse, Harry began to think that, through the all-pervading garlicky fug, a different whiff was pushing through, nastier and faintly ominous. He saw again a dead crow he had once found in a park—a beak gaping with a black tongue lolling, a mess of slick feathers, maggots writhing where its eyes had been. Had a rat died under the floorboards? Poisoned by the garlic, no doubt. And what were the house-elves playing at? The atmosphere felt stale in another sense as well. Quirrell was useless. Today, again, he set them to read a paragraph on their own, while he sat behind his desk, staring into space with a fixed gaze, and twitching now and then. Harry, watching him on the sly, noted that the professor was worse today. Yesterday he had been worse than on Tuesday, and Tuesday worse than last week. One could only wonder when he would finally fall to pieces. Perhaps that would at least prompt the school administration to find someone worthier to replace him. But not only good things come to an end sooner or later—the bad have an end too—and the Charms lesson that followed made Harry almost forget a stray thought that had flitted through his head in Defence. Later, however, it returned with perfect clarity, and Harry actually stumbled on level ground, so that Draco, walking beside him on their way down to the dungeons, only just managed to catch him by the elbow. The thought was of the library in the Blacks’ ancestral house. He saw, as if before him, the low table buried in books, a tea tray and a basket of pastries on one corner, an open folio on the other, and Tom, bent over the pages, tapping a line with his finger. ‘I did mention that the body begins to decompose immediately after habitation?’ ‘Oh, do me a favour,’ Harry said aloud, a shiver running through him. ‘What?’ Malfoy asked, astonished. Harry waved it away: ‘No, nothing. It’s nothing’—and he really did think so. What are the chances that not one of the staff would recognise possession? And what do they keep the Chief Warlock for—to sweep the floor with his beard? They hired Quirrell somehow, which means things of this sort ought to have been checked. And are teachers not given periodic medicals? No, most likely the hapless professor had picked up some particularly filthy curse—people said he had previously taught Muggle Studies, and had only turned to Defence Against the Dark Arts this year. A thoroughly ill-judged career move, whichever way you looked at it. The Slytherin common room greeted the first-years returning from lessons with its accustomed cosiness. Low voices, someone’s muffled laughter, older students bent over their notes at the tables—there would be more of them by year’s end, but the most disciplined were already swotting away in earnest, some for their mid-years, others for their NEWTs. The prefects, who had once and for all staked out the armchairs by the fire, were all deep in a game of Exploding Snap—and by the looks of it, Blishwick was losing again. Rumour had it that after lights-out they sometimes played for forfeits of the undressing kind, though Harry found that rather hard to believe. He could not, somehow, imagine Rowle, or Bletchley, for that matter, allowing herself to be publicly undressed. Farley, perhaps—but then, she was not yet betrothed. As if in answer to his thoughts, the prefect looked up and waved to him. He went over without much enthusiasm—attention from the older years rarely boded well—but Gemma seemed in a rare good humour. ‘When are you going to give us a show, Heir?’ she asked, drily amused. Harry blinked. Did she seriously expect to be shown the Chamber? ‘Show you what?’ he asked, just to be safe. ‘Parseltongue,’ Selwyn answered for her, rubbing the lobe of his ear with its earring. ‘We thought you’d have boasted of it long since, and yet here we are. Or do our sources lie?’ ‘I did boast… once,’ Harry muttered, folding his arms, and worrying at the plush carpet with the toe of his shoe. ‘It didn’t go well.’ ‘Stop playing coy; I want to see,’ Bletchley said, peevishly, as she shuffled the cards. ‘Or is there nothing to see, mm?’ With a flick of her wand, Rowle summoned a snake—yes, thanks to McGonagall’s lectures, Harry now knew that Serpensortia summoned a snake, rather than conjuring one from thin air. He found himself wondering where the source lay—some Muggle zoo? Where was the nearest, he wondered? The keepers must be baffled when their snakes keep vanishing. ‘Go on, then,’ the House prefect invited, pointing her wand at the serpent sliding over the carpet—an adder again, as far as Harry could tell. He crouched. ‘Hello. Come here, don’t go slithering towards the fire. There’s flame there; it will harm you. I’m warm too. Here, climb on.’ The snake, tongue flickering, sniffed his outstretched hand dubiously, then deigned to coil round his wrist. ‘Speaker? I want food. I want a mouse.’ Snakes, it had to be admitted, were not the most intellectual of conversationalists. ‘It’s all party tricks,’ Bletchley said, sourly, pulling a face that might have curdled milk. ‘I can hiss as well. How will you prove it understands you?’ The other prefects watched with interest, but none hurried to silence Bletchley. Harry considered the problem he had been set. ‘I’ll turn away, and you show it a card. Or several, and then it will tell me which you chose. Will that do?’ After a bit of fuss, the adder was transferred to Blishwick’s shoulders; he had the armchair nearest the fire. They conjured a blindfold for Harry, and, to the sniggers of schoolmates who had dropped whatever they were doing, led him to the far end of the room. He only sighed inwardly—what Slytherin would pass up a chance to hear Parseltongue? Those who were in lessons, or missing the Heir’s benefit for some other reason, would be kicking themselves for it later. He suspected, though, that there were no truants—Farley was unlikely to have chosen the moment by chance. Unless someone had fallen out of favour and been denied the entertainment as punishment. Harry worried a little that the snake might struggle to distinguish suits, but evidently Blishwick took care to hold the pictures close enough. Harry did the same, once the shuffled pack was handed to him. He showed the adder each card, and, guided by his new, cold-blooded friend, separated from the deck three—the queen of hearts, the jack of spades, and the seven of clubs. With each card the onlookers grew louder; at the seven they burst into applause. Harry gathered that Blishwick, a born showman, had made sure everyone saw which card was being chosen. ‘Well? Convinced?’ he called over the racket, suppressing the urge to bow and blow a couple of kisses. A circus, and no mistake. ‘I still don’t believe it,’ Bletchley, who had taken possession of the snake, said, her expression sour enough to curdle milk. ‘You’re cheating somehow.’ No one was listening to her by then. A crowd had gathered round Harry—yes, a Slytherin crowd, and therefore comparatively decorous and without jostling, but a crowd nonetheless. ‘Say something else!’ ‘Say “hello”!’ ‘Say “Salazar Slytherin”!’ ‘Can Parseltongue be recorded?’ ‘Do dragons understand you too?’ ‘Do you know where the Chamber of Secrets is?’ ‘You twit, of course he knows—he opened it!’ Some only wanted to shake Harry’s hand. Zabini was particularly zealous—he pumped Harry’s hand with both hands, all the while exclaiming, ‘Didn’t believe it! Forgive me—didn’t believe it!’ and then tried to hug him into the bargain. Goyle rewarded Harry with a thumping clap between the shoulder blades, accompanied by a rare smile, and Crabbe exchanged a solemn, silent handshake with their newly minted Heir. Only Draco did absolutely nothing—he merely took up position at Harry’s left shoulder, so as not to block those coming up to clasp hands. After a minute or two, he slung an elbow round Harry’s shoulders—the difference in height allowed him to carry off the manoeuvre as though by chance. Harry almost laughed aloud; it was too obvious—the only way to be more blatant would have been to unfurl a banner reading, ‘Eat your hearts out—I got to him first!’ The merry scrum was interrupted by a panicked shriek. Bletchley, whose robes were suspiciously wriggling at the waist, was fighting her tie, trying at once to loosen her collar and peer down her blouse. ‘Potter!’ she squealed. ‘Tell it to come out this instant! And no biting!’ Harry grinned from ear to ear. ‘Oh, do give over,’ he sang, sweet as treacle. ‘You tell it—I’m cheating, remember—it won’t listen to me.’ ‘Potter,’ Rowle said, sharply, and Harry obeyed with a sigh. He was hardly going to confess that one of the phrases he had earlier hissed in Parseltongue had not been ‘Slytherin is best!’ at all. The adder, as soon as it poked its head out between the blouse buttons, was banished with a crisp ‘Vipera Evanesca’, but the general excitement did not die down. Butterbeer appeared from somewhere—and in such quantities that Harry’s last doubts about the carefully staged nature of the evening evaporated. An enchanted gramophone was spinning a record by the Weird Sisters. Harry took a place by the fire—Blishwick sat him on the arm of his chair, which was none too comfortable, but decidedly an honour. Draco hovered nearby—flushed, and with his hair unusually ruffled. The butterbeer, delicious though it was, plainly came with a sting in the tail—two bottles in, Harry caught himself trying to render Yeats into Parseltongue. The prefects, who were quietly topping up their own glasses from a hip flask passing from hand to hand, were, by then, so jolly that they welcomed his improvisation with delight. Snape’s appearance put a dent in the impromptu party. To Harry’s surprise, he did not put a stop to the revels, though he did sniff the air, suspiciously. He did, however, take away the hero of the hour—not that many noticed. ‘Mr Potter,’ Snape intoned, having settled Harry by the hearth in his office and seated himself opposite—praise Salazar, here there was scope for each to have his own chair—‘I am a grown man, but I am curious as well. Show me.’ Harry hiccupped, covering his mouth bashfully. ‘Would you summon a snake, sir?’ he asked; he did not trust his wand-work just then. The little brown serpent that appeared, with a zigzag of triangles along its spine, set him idly wondering whether the spell was tuned to summon only venomous snakes. Or only adders. A grass snake would have been nice, but no. ‘Hello. You’re only a little one. Come on, slither over here. Sir, could you conjure a mouse as well?’ Snape, who had been listening with interest, remarked: ‘Most curious. You appear to have assumed you were speaking English, but you were not.’ Harry tried to focus on the Potions master rather than the adder. ‘A mouse?’ ‘And now—yes. Do you yourself perceive the difference?’ Harry considered the question. ‘If I concentrate, sir.’ ‘Speaker,’ the snake had, by then, ripened for conversation. ‘Is there food here?’ ‘That chap will give you food if you behave.’ The professor suddenly laughed, and Harry realised three things at once: first, that Snape was younger than he seemed, thanks to that perpetual scowl; second, that Harry had just said the last phrase in English after all, not in snake; and third, that one ought to be more careful with butterbeer in future. ‘Phenomenal,’ Snape said, thoughtful rather than offended at being the ‘chap’, tapping his interlaced fingers against his chin. ‘I should dearly like to know how it is possible. Parseltongue has always been considered a hereditary gift. In his time, the Dark Lord cited it as proof of kinship with Slytherin.’ Harry puffed up. ‘And me, sir? Is my proof any worse?’ he objected. The snake, scooped from the floor, did not care for being held aloft—it disliked being off the ground—and Harry let it slither onto his forearm. ‘You cannot possibly be the Heir of Slytherin,’ Snape explained, readily. ‘The Potters are proved to be connected to the Peverells—through the distaff side, of course; the male line died out long ago. Slytherin’s last descendants, however, were the Gaunts, and the Dark Lord was their sole surviving representative, alas.’ Harry, who had all but learnt Nature’s Nobility by heart back in August in search of fresh surprises lurking in his lineage, knew all this, of course, and merely waved it aside. ‘You are leaving my mother out of the equation, sir,’ he protested. Snape’s eyes flashed unpleasantly, and he stiffened. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, far less at ease than before. Something odd struck Harry in his behaviour—it was not the first time Snape had reacted with undue sharpness to any mention of Lily Potter, née Evans. ‘I mean her blood status.’ Snape grew tenser still, and Harry realised he was not imagining it. Well, well. ‘What if she were not Muggle-born at all, but of a reawakened line? Would you stake your word that the Evanses were not descended from Squibs?’ That was clearly not what Snape had expected to hear. He was plainly surprised—and deeply thoughtful. ‘I, for one, would not.’ ‘So you suppose your kinship derives from a bloodline thought lost?’ The snake had reached his shoulder, and nearly toppled from there into his lap. With a sigh, Harry offered his palm. ‘Facts, sir. My gift speaks for itself.’ Snape took his meaning. ‘You seriously claim that ridiculous title?’ He frowned. ‘Exactly so, sir.’ Harry chose to take no offence at the unflattering epithet. Envy is a frightful thing, and greatness always stokes envy. He yawned, unexpectedly, then looked abashed. ‘With your leave, I should like to go to bed.’ Snape, not for the first time ignoring a flagrant breach of curfew—evidently, it did not count as a breach in his presence, or so long as the consequences did not spread beyond the House common room—inclined his head graciously. ‘Off with you, Potter. No, leave that here.’ He raised his wand, but Harry shielded the little adder with his hand. ‘Sir, may I keep it?’ he asked, on the off-chance. Snakes were not on the approved list of pets, but they had let Weasley keep that mangy rat, had they not? ‘An adder?’ Professor Snape said, astonished, but he lowered his wand. ‘Yes. They are amusing, if not very bright. I have even thought of a name.’ Harry launched into his pleas, attempting the most winsome expression he could manage. ‘Please, sir? And you will not have to summon a snake afresh every time you wish to study their language further.’ The last argument was weak, but the entreaty worked nonetheless. Snape shook his head, and relented. ‘Keep an antidote to hand at all times. We do not need you accused of murder as well as torture.’ ‘Yes, sir! Of course, sir!’ Harry rattled off, beaming. ‘And what will you call your new friend?’ Snape snorted. ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’ Harry asked the snake. ‘Oh! It’s a boy. Then—Nag. If it were a girl, I would call her Nagini. As in Kipling. Though not a cobra… Oh, what is it, sir? Are you unwell?’
