The Parselmouth and the Basilisk {Jade Book 2}

Chapter 9

One afternoon in mid-December, Blaise, Anja and I came into the Slytherin Common Room to see a large group of students gathered around the notice board.

We walked over to have a closer look and saw a piece of parchment that said the school was starting a Duelling Club. The first meeting was going to be at 8:00 tonight.

"Wow, a Duelling Club!" Anja exclaimed with interest. "Wonder who's running it?"

I laughed darkly. "It better not be Lockhart."

We entered the Great Hall to see none other than Gilderoy Lockhart walk onto the stage. I groaned.

"Gather round, gather round! Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent! Now, Professor Dumbledore has given me permission to start this little Duelling Club, to train you all up in case you ever need to defend yourselves as I myself have done on countless occasions – for full details, see my published works. Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape," he said, indicating my father, who was now walking up to the stage. "He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about duelling himself and had 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, never fear!"

I hoped we wouldn't have our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher when Father was finished with him.

They then demonstrated how to duel.

Apparently, we had to bow, raise our wands, and then cast our spells.

Father used the Disarming Charm and Lockhart was thrown backwards off the stage.

Lockhart then began rambling on and on about how he knew what Father was going to do.

Finally, he decided to put us into pairs.

I was put with Blaise and Anja with Evangeline, who was standing nearby.

Lockhart told us to Disarm our opponents only. "One...two...three..."

"Expelliarmus!" I shouted, and Blaise's wand flew out of his hand.

"How did you do that?" he asked in amazement as I picked his wand off the floor and gave it back to him.

But then we were distracted by Harry and Draco at the other end of the Hall.

"Tarantallegra!" Draco shouted and Harry's legs began jerking around.

Father quickly fixed him and Lockhart said he would tell us how to block spells.

I suspected it wasn't going to go well.

Father suggested Draco and Harry for a demonstration. Lockhart agreed.

"Three – two – one – go!"

"Serpentsortia!" Draco yelled, and a long black snake shot out of his wand.

Lockhart shouted an indistinct spell and the snake flew ten feet into the air. When it landed on the ground again, it was furious and slithered over to Justin Finch-Fletchley, a Hufflepuff.

I was about to step forward and tell the snake to leave Justin alone, when Harry stepped forward.

"Leave him!" he shouted, but the words came out in a kind of hiss and I realised he was speaking Parseltongue.

The snake obeyed Harry and moved away.

I frowned. "Harry's a Parselmouth?"

Next to me, Blaise nodded. "This isn't good. People are going to suspect him of being the Heir of Slytherin, especially after him being right next to Mrs Norris when she was discovered."