An American at Hogwarts

Harry Speaks Snake

The next morning, Harry, thankfully, was back to normal, albeit a bit shaken from the painful process of regrowing bones. More importantly, he had found out that Dobby had been behind both the incident at King's Cross and the bludger. Confusingly, however, it seemed that he was acting not on the orders of his master, who we were all but certain was Malfoy at this point, but out of some strange, misguided attempt to protect Harry from... something. He wouldn't say what, just that something was going to happen this year. Worse yet, there had been another attack. This time, on Collin Creevy, a first year. Thankfully, he was simply petrified like Mrs. Norris, but it was a bit terrifying to now know this wasn't some one off thing. As a result of this, Dumbledore had approved the start of a dueling club, which I guess he hoped would make students feel a bit safer. I wasn't sure if any amount of extracurricular training would be particularly helpful against whoever was behind this, they were clearly a very powerful wizard, but it was better than nothing I suppose. As we made our way into the Great Hall for the first meeting, we were all trying to guess who would be teaching it. The consensus was that it would probably be Flitwick, which I was very much hoping for. Unfortunately, when we entered, I saw the last two teachers I wanted to. Snape, who wasn't that bad, and... Lockhart.

"Oh come on." I exclaimed, dumbfounded. "Who put him in charge of teaching us how to defend ourselves?"

Even Hermione seemed to somewhat agree with me on this, the incident with Harry's arm seemingly finally convincing her that he was incompetent as all hell.

"Welcome! Welcome! Now, I'm sure you are aware of my adventures, and I have decided to take it upon myself to use those as a basis from which to teach you, children! Before I let you all loose, I believe that it would be best to give you a bit of a demonstration! Severus, if you would?"

"Gilderoy, if you do not mind, I would like to nominate Mr. L/N to be your partner here. I hear he is quite the gifted duelist." Snape smirked at me as he said this, and I could have sworn he winked slightly.

"I... are you quite sure that is alright? I would not wish to hurt him."

"If L/N is ok with it, I believe it would be fine. Surely you would be able to... temper your skills as needed?"

Lockhart looked around for a moment and nodded. "Very well! Y/N? If you so wish?"

I smiled and stepped atop the table that had been converted to a makeshift dueling platform. Snape pulled me aside for a moment.

"I do realize it is a bit late, but happy birthday Y/N..."

Before I had a chance to respond, he stepped back, a smirk still adorning his face. I really had to thank him when I got a chance later on. I got in position and drew my wand, leveling it at Lockhart.

"Now! I will only be using simple, relatively safe spells, so as not to injure young Y/N! I expect all of you to do the same when we break off into pairs! On the count of three..."

Soon enough, Lockhart's first spell shot towards me, a simple stunner. I quickly cast the shielding charm and sent it ricocheting into the ceiling, and fired back.

Depulso!

Lockhart shielded the spell off, but I could see the shimmering dome that appeared in front of him crack slightly as my spell made contact. He fired back once more and I stepped to the side, avoiding it and quickly firing back once more and putting more power and focus into it.

Depulso!

The shield cracked a bit more this time, and Lockhart stumbled back slightly. Before he could fire back, I quickly fired a stunner at him, which hit him square in the chest and sent him flying back, falling to the floor unconscious. Half the room gasped, and the other half cheered. I could see Marie doubled over in laughter, and Hermione with a mixture of concern and shock on her face. Ok, maybe she wasn't entirely on board with hating Lockhart yet. Snape quickly rushed over and got Lockhart back up, who shook his head slightly and chuckled.

"Excellent! Of course, I let him do that! Let that serve as a lesson to you all, never let your guard down, even against an opponent you know you can beat!"

I rolled my eyes. I'd normally feel a bit insulted by what he said, but frankly even his insults sucked. It wasn't like anyone in their right mind would believe him, anyways. I made my way back over to my friends, all of whom except Hermione were overjoyed at Lockhart's defeat. Before we had time to celebrate, though, he cleared his throat.

"Well! I believe we ought to get two students to duel first! Potter and Weasley, perhaps?"

Snape quickly shook his head. "Weasley causes devastation with the simplest spells because of that broken wand of his. May I suggest someone from my own house? Malfoy perhaps?"

"Very well! Harry, Draco?"

"Go get him mate!" Said Ron, pushing Harry forward. I gave him a quick thumbs up as he made his way to the table. The two of them got in position, and began.

Everte Statum!

Malfoy's first spell hit Harry and sent him flying back. He quickly got up, and sent one flying back.

Flipendo!

Malfoy flew back, doing a full backflip as he did so. He got back up, a look of pure rage on his face.

Serpensortium!

That was a new one to me. A snake came flying out of Draco's wand, and made its way towards Harry. Snape stepped forward, preparing to intervene, but Lockhart jumped in before he could. He cast... something, I couldn't hear it clearly, but all it did was make the snake float up for a moment and then fall to the floor, simply angrier than before. It turned towards the side of the table and made it's way over to Justin, the kid from Herbology. As it approached him, Harry stepped forward and... started hissing? It seemed like he was talking to the snake. Of course he's a damn parseltongue. Nothing with him could be simple, could it. Snape quickly evaporated the snake, and, predictably, after a moment of shocked silence, most of the class screamed and ran out. Harry made his way over to us, a look of confusion on his face.

"Did I do something wrong?"

I sighed. "You talked to the snake. You're a parseltongue, people usually don't like that. Why didn't you tell us?"

Harry frowned. "I didn't know. Anyways, all I did was tell it to leave him alone, surely thats a good thing?"

I nodded. "Yeah, if we could understand you it would be. But all we heard was you hissing. For all we knew you could have been ordering it to attack him."

Hermione nodded. "And worse yet, Salazar Slytherin himself was a parseltongue. With everything going on..."

Harry's jaw dropped. "Surely you four don't..."

Ron shook his head. "Of course not mate, but the rest of the school doesn't know you like we do."

I nodded. "This is going to be a mess..."