Annabeth landed lightly on the ground, blowing her hair from her face. "That was fun!" She said.

Harry landed next to her, holding a soccer ball. "You and Jason are both pretty good. There's only one spot though, I'm pretty sure Wood'll have a hard time choosing."

Annabeth shrugged. "If he picks Jason, I'm okay with that."

"And vice versa," Jason reminded Annabeth. "Well, we'd better go start our homework. Hermione will kill us if we ask for help again."

They walked into the castle, goosebumps on their skin from the cold air, into the Great Hall.

"You guys are staying for Christmas, right?" Ron asked as they slid into the seats. He and Jason had become less tense and were talking again.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "No, they're going to jump forward in time, visit New York and San Francisco in a week and a half, and jump back into time. All for Christmas, a holiday that goes against their religion."

Ron frowned. "Well, when you put it that way, my question sounds stupid."

"Because it is—"

"Anyways." Percy piled some pie onto his plate. "We still heed the bicorn horn and the bloomslang skin for the potion."

Jason frowned. "You're still sticking with it, huh? I'm still asking Piper, by the way."

Ron waved his hand indifferently. "It's the safer, more foolproof option. You do your way, we do ours."

"Whatever."

"We have potions first tomorrow," Hermione reminded them. "Anyone have any ideas on how we're getting the ingredients?"

"Well, we could ask Travis and Conner, if they weren't ahead a decade or two into the future, and across the Atlantic Ocean," Nico said, sighing.

"How about make a diversion? I bet Fred and George have loads of tricks up their sleeves," Harry said. Ron nodded. "I'll ask them for one of their fireworks. That should do the job."

>>>•O•<<<

Annabeth watched Harry out of the corner of her eye as he lobbed the smoking firework in the direction of Goyle's cauldron. It landed in it with a plop. As soon as the flame hit the potion, Annabeth ducked under her table, pulling down Thalia and Percy with her.

The potion exploded.

Drops hit the ground, steaming, while the rest of the potion splattered the students. Annabeth peeked over the table and saw Malfoy hurrying over to Snape's desk, his head the size of a large watermelon. She stifled a small laugh at the sight of Piper, who was looking at Annabeth with a small smile, her right shoulder inflated to the size of a cauldron.

That was interesting, she mouthed, before taking a gulp of antidote. Her shoulder deflated like a balloon.

Annabeth prayed to the gods there wasn't a DNA tracking spell.

"He knew it was me," Harry muttered as they hurried out of the dungeon. "I could tell."

"Well, good job. Your sacrifice was not in vain," Percy said very seriously. "May your valor be forever known among the stories of Hogwarts."

They laughed as they entered the bathroom.

Annabeth wrinkled her nose. "So, this is the famous polyjuice potion?"

The key to finding the Heir of Slytherin was a red pot of sludge.

"Yep!" Hermione added the shredded skin into the pot enthusiastically, which glowed and promptly turned a lovely rotten mustard yellow. Percy shook his head.

"Stir fourteen times counterclockwise and three times clockwise before adding the powdered horn all at once," he advised. Hermione raised an eyebrow but did as he instructed. The mustard yellow thinned into a sparkling orange.

"The potions master strikes again!" Percy smiled cockily and bowed. Annabeth slapped his arm.

"Don't be so prideful," she chided him as the potion bubbled.

>>>•O•<<<

A few days later, Annabeth and Thalia came out of the girls dormitories only to find a large crowd of Gryffindors surrounding the notice board.

"What's going on?" Annabeth asked, standing on her toes to see above the fifth and sixth years.

"They've started a dueling club!" Ginny told her from the armchairs. "First meeting tonight. A lot of students are going." The little red-haired girl seemed more pale and nervous lately. Annabeth assumed it was from the attacks recently.

Thalia looked at Annabeth and shrugged. "It could be useful," she said. "If we ever need to kill a monster with only our wands. We could use the training too."

>>>•O•<<<

At eight o'clock, they hurried to the Great Hall with Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the others.

"I heard Flitwick was a dueling champion when he was younger," Hermione chatted to Annabeth. "I wonder if he'll be teaching us."

"Just as long as it isn't—" Harry stopped with a groan. The Great Hall was clear of tables and instead had a stage in the middle like a runway. And standing on that stage, beaming in deep plum robes, was Gilderoy Lockhart.

"Oh joy," Ron said sarcastically. "Double the fun."

Snape had joined Lockhart on the stage, wearing his usual black.

Lockhart beamed at all the students. "Gather round, gather round! Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me?"

"Unfortunately," Nico grumbled.

"Excellent!" Lockhart continued. "Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little dueling club, to train you all in case you ever need to defend yourselves—" Thalia snorted "—as I myself have done on countless occasions. For full details, see my published works."

He paused to smile at everyone again. "Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape. He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about dueling himself and has 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!"

"Oh, it would be lovely if they finished each other off," Ron whispered. Hermione shot him a disapproving look. "There's no way Lockhart could get finished off by Snape— you've seen his works!"

"Unfortunately," Nico grumbled again.

They watched as Lockhart instructed them on some proper dueling stances and such while Snape was glaring at the blonde baboon, his upper lip curling in disgust.

"—Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course." Lockhart assured the silent crowd. For a moment, Annabeth almost believed him, then she looked at Snape baring his teeth again and all doubt disappeared.

"One— two— three!"

They both swung their wands out above their heads and pointed them at the other.

"Expelliarmus!" Snape drawled almost lazily. There was a flash of scarlet light and Lockhart was blasted off his feet from the force of the spell. He smashed into the wall behind him and crumpled to the ground.

Several Slytherins cheered, Piper among them. Annabeth could understand why— Lockhart was pushing her limits with the 'fame' talk.

"Do you think he'll be alright?" Hermione squeaked, her hands wringing worriedly.

"Who cares?" They all said together.

Lockhart was climbing back unsteadily to the stage. "Well there you have it!" he said cheerfully. "That was a Disarming Charm. As you see, I've lost my wand— oh thank you Miss Brown— yes, an excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don't mind me saying so, it was very obvious what you were about to do. If I had wanted to stop you, it would've been only too easy, however, I felt it would benefit them to see..."

Snape was looking murderous, and possibly Lockhart noticed because he cleared his throat. "Enough demonstrating! Now, I'm putting you into groups, if Professor Snape would kindly join me—"

Snape reached their group first.

"Oh, Potter, Weasley, time to split up the dream team, I'm afraid," he sneered. "Weasley, you're with diAngelo. Potter— you're with Mr. Malfoy. Miss Granger, you can have Miss Bulstrode."

Malfoy strutted over, his wand hanging lazily to his side. Behind him was a large girl that reminded Annabeth of the troll they defeated last year.

"Now as for you," Snape turned to them. "Mr. Grace, you have Mr. Goyle. Jackson, you have Mr. Crabbe. Miss Grace, you get Miss Parkinson. Chase—"

"Mrs. Jackson," Thalia coughed into her fist. Percy turned slightly pink and Snape actually smirked, though it was miniscule.

"Chase," he said again. "You're with Miss McLean." Annabeth turned and tried not to smile at Piper, who was making her way over to Annabeth.

"Face your partners, and bow!" Lockhart called cheerfully, back on the platform. Annabeth turned to Piper.

"This is like sparring," she said under her breath.

Piper flashed a smile and turned to her. "Ready, Chase?"

"You're on, McLean!" Annabeth said, smirking as she bowed.

"Wands at the ready!" Lockhart shouted. "When I count to three, cast your disarming charms—" disarming only! One... two... three—!"

Annabeth fired her spell, thank goodness for her quick acting wand, but Piper dodged the spell and fired her own back. Annabeth ducked under the jet of scarlet light as they both shot another one at each other— the spells collided and crashed in red sparks, creating a small beam of light in between. Annabeth pressed harder and hers broke through Pipers, disarming the daughter of Aphrodite.

"I win!" she said through a smile, reaching a hand down to help her up. Piper grinned back and took it, retrieving her wand.

"You've had a year more practice."

"Tarantallegra!" a shout brought them both to realize that Malfoy and Harry were still going. Harry was doing a rapid version of the can-can and Malfoy was on the floor, laughing like he'd just seen the funniest thing in the world. Which would make sense, as Harry proceeded to do a double pirouette while doing a sprinkler mixed with that one move from the Charlie Brown comics.

"Finite Incantatem!" a pale light shot from Snape's wand and the boys charms wore off. They fell on the floor.

Around them was other mishaps. Ron was apologizing profusely to a paint splattered Nico, Thalia had tackled Parkinson and was currently choking her, Percy had just tripped Crabbe and was holding his wand while a green stream of water dripped out of the end of it, Jason seemed to have electrocuted Goyle, and Hermione was in a headlock by the troll girl.

Annabeth leapt forward and pulled Bulstrode off of Hermione, who winced and rolled her neck.

"Now now" Lockhart stood, flustered, in the middle of the Hall, where several duels had gone similar ways as Percy and Jason's. "Maybe it would be best to teach you how to block unfriendly spells" he said. "Let's have a volunteer pair— how about Miss Chase and Miss McLean?"

"I would suggest Mr. Malfoy and Potter" Snape said with a twisted smile. "I'm afraid Miss Chase might have an idea of physical abuse." Annabeth's jaw dropped open. She had never done anything of the sort!

Lockhart beamed. "An excellent idea! Come, Harry, Draco!" He pulled on their arms and they both looked equally disgruntled.

Lockhart pulled Harry to the side and attempted to show a charm, dropping his wand, while Snape whispered something into Malfoy's ear, smiling evilly.

"One... two... three... go!" Lockhart stepped back, his eyes twinkling like he'd just given them both candy.

"Serpensortia!" Malfoy shouted and jabbed his wand forward. The end of his wand exploded in black sparks as a long black serpent shot out of hit, fell heavily on the floor, and raised his venomous head to strike.

"Don't move, Potter," Snape said lazily, "I'll get rid of it..."

"Allow me!" Lockhart shouted and stepped forward, beaming like he was about to save another helpless lad. He brandished his wand at the snake and there was a loud bang— the serpent flew into the air and landed on the floor with a thump. The snake turned it's beady eyes to Hazel, who was standing nearest to it, and slithered towards her, an murderous look in its eyes.

Harry froze, his wand out in front of him, before he hissed.

"Sssssssth essssssss sssfsssss!"

Thalia's hand edged toward her hunting knife. "That's exactly what an Elapidae sounds like!" she whispered. "They're a family of venomous snakes—"

"I know what an Elapidae is," Annabeth whispered back. "Why is Harry hissing though?"

The black serpent turned it's eyes to Harry, who instead of tensing up and firing a spell, relaxed. Hazel looked at Harry strangely before grabbing Frank's hand and leaving the hall.

Ron and Hermione both lunged forward and also pushed Harry out, amongst the muttering students.

"C'mon." Annabeth followed them to an empty classroom. As soon as Ron shut the door, he turned to Harry with a disbelieving expression.

"You're a parselmouth! Why didn't you tell us?" Ron looked at Harry angrily.

Harry looked confused. "I'm a what?"

"A parselmouth. You can talk to snakes!"

"I know," Harry said, confused even more. "I mean, that's the second time I've ever done it. I accidentally set a boa constrictor on my cousin Dudley at the zoo once— long story— but it was telling me it had never seen Brazil and I sort of set it free without meaning too— that was before I found out I was a wizard—"

"A boa constrictor told you it had never seen Brazil," Ron repeated faintly.

"So?" Harry asked. "I bet loads of people here can do it."

"Oh no, they can't," Hermione said, eyes narrowing. "It's not a very common gift. Harry, this is really bad."

"What's bad about it!" Harry stood up. "Listen, if I hadn't told that snake not to attack Hazel-"

"So that's what you said to it?" Percy nodded. "That makes sense."

"You were there! You heard me!" Harry looked at their faces disbelievingly.

"You were speaking snake," Thalia interrupted. "It was creepy you know. You could've said anything, no wonder Hazel left—"

Harry gaped at them. "I spoke a different language? But— I'd know if I was, right?"

Nico shook his head. "I sometimes speak Greek instead of Italian without knowing it, or vice versa."

"And Chiron tested me with Latin, only I couldn't tell what was different," Jason offered.

Harry sank into a chair. "Do you want to tell me what's wrong with stopping a massive snake from biting off Hazel's head?" He demanded his courage growing back. "What does it matter how I did it, as long as Hazel doesn't have to join the Headless Hunt?"

"They're not a hunt," Thalia muttered under her breath. "They're a group of ghosts who decide to be death discriminating and go around playing head hockey now and then—"

"That's not the point!" Hermione interrupted worriedly. "Harry, being able to talk to snakes was what Salazar Slytherin was famous for. That's why the symbol of the Slytherin House is a serpent."

Harry's mouth fell open.

"Exactly," Ron said in the same tone. "And now the whole school is going to think you're his great-great-great-great grandson or something—"

"But I'm not!" Harry said, panicking. There was something in his voice that showed there was more than what he was saying.

"You'll find it hard to prove," Hermione said, exchanging glances with Ron. "He lived thousands of years ago. For all we know, you could be."