The Stand

The Chamber of Secrets

"Did you hear about Colin" Parvati asked "He got attacked too."

"That sucks" Harry shook his head "He seemed nice."

"I thought you hated him" Padma inquired.

"He's just excited" Harry explained "He's new to the Wizarding World since he's a muggleborn. He's going to be excited to see anything remotely interesting. And then when you see a boy who survived a killing curse, you're bound to excited to meet him. I don't blame him."

Rishi nodded knowingly "You were like that too. For a year, you were amazed by any form of magic even the most simple kind."

"I remember when he saw a broom" Neville laughed "He looked like he was in heaven."

While everyone laughed, Hermione's face stayed stoic "Did you look in the journal?"

Harry nodded "It has a map to the Chamber. The only thing it doesn't have is how to get inside."

"It could be parseltongue" Draco calmly said, unaware of the group's collective confusion. Upon seeing it, he elaborated "Apparently, Salazar had the ability to speak with snakes and passed this to his descendants. If he wanted to make sure that only descendants could enter, speaking in parseltongue would be a great way to ensure that."

"There's only one issue. How do I speak in parseltongue" Harry asked.

"We could always bring a snake here" Daphne replied "And then we could hope that the ability comes out naturally."

"Where could we even get one" Neville was not in love with the idea of getting a snake.

Draco let out a grin "We have some snakes in there. None are poisonous so no need to worry, Neville."

Neville sighed in relief at that. After he got a nod of agreement from all in the group, Draco raced off to grab a snake. He returned an Eastern Garden Snake. He then put it in front of Harry and began waiting expectantly like the others. Harry and the snake simply stared at each other until Harry heard a voice hiss "Hello."

Harry turned to the others "I think it said something. Did you guys hear that?" Upon a shake of their heads, Harry turned back to the snake in shock. He then heard it speak again "Is something wrong speaker?"

"I'm trying to speak parseltongue" Harry bemoaned "I know I can. I just don't know how."

"You just spoke it" the garden snake hissed at Harry.

Harry turned to the friends who all sported huge grins except Draco who was smirking as if he knew it all along. He turned back to the snake "Thank you."

"My pleasure young speaker" Draco then picked the snake back up and ran to quickly return it. When he got back, everyone exploded into talk. But in the end, they came up with a general plan. Tomorrow, they would go into the Chamber to stop the attacks. Right now, they had Lockhart's dueling club which Hermione convinced to attend saying that the experience would be very useful. Harry doubted that but attended for Hermione's sake. The group headed to the dueling club, ready to be bored.

"Hello students" Lockhart yelled, a fake smile adorning his face "Headmaster Dumbledore has allowed me to create this dueling club in order to teach you all to properly duel."

"Can he even duel himself" Rishi whispered to Draco. Draco and Harry snickered at this while Hermione threw them a stern look. She seemed to be soaking all this up eagerly.

"Here is my partner, Professor Snape" Lockhart continued after giving Rishi an annoyed glance "Today, we will show you the basics of duelling. Me and Severus will do a mock duel."