The Benefits of Being a Parselmouth in Slytherin

A/N from Mick Gesitt: Welcome to my Slytherin branch. Just so you know going into this storyline and going forward, I pushed the start of the Harry Potter story back two years and have effectively aged them two years. Hogwarts starts at age 13 and Harry's first year begins in 1993. Students spend 7 years at school and, because of magical folks' longer life expectancy, are considered 'of age' at 19. This will hopefully make me feel like less of a creep for writing Gaunt as a hormonal teenager and will hopefully keep this story out of trouble when I start to include sexy scenes beginning in third year. __

Two seventeen-year-old fifth year students stood up to address you and the rest of the new first years. The badges on their robes denoted them as the the house prefects. The pair introduced themselves as Damian Perriss and Gemma Farley. Their severe expressions made a clear impression that they weren’t the friendly and approachable type.

“First years, follow us,” Damian Perriss ordered while Gemma gave an expectant nod from beside him.

Everyone complied and you formed two orderly lines behind the two prefects. Ten of you in total. Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson were the first in line in an obvious ploy to gain favor with the Slytherin prefects. Malfoy’s enforcers Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle lurked behind them. They already seemed to have the act of serving bodyguards down pat. Perhaps they received training before coming to Hogwarts? The two larger boys made the two girls behind them - Tracey Davis and Daphne Greengrass - look even smaller by comparison. The thin and stringy Theodore Nott was behind them with the much larger Millicent Bulstrode beside him. This left you in the back of the line, conveniently as far from the pompous Draco Malfoy as possible.

Blaise Zabini was next to you and gave a casual shrug as the two prefects led you out of the Great Hall. “With the name Zabini, I’m used to being last. To be honest, I’m surprised you were sorted after me.”

“We’ll be showing you the most direct route to the Slytherin common room from the Great Hall,” Gemma addressed everyone as they led your year out into the entrance hall. “Remember it, because you’ll have to manage it on your own in order to make it back here for breakfast tomorrow morning.”

You glanced further down the entrance hall and spotted the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws being led up the marble grand staircase. Obviously, that meant their common rooms were located in towers somewhere on the upper floors of the castle.

Damian Perriss led you to a door on the left side of the entrance hall and opened it to reveal a set of stone steps that appeared to descend all the way down to the dungeons.

“Come to think of it,” Blaise Zabini spoke up again as you followed the group downward. “Why were you sorted after me?”

“I’m not sure,” you admitted. “Perhaps it’s because I’m the last of my family line? Most people didn’t even know I existed until the news broke this summer.”

“Why didn’t anyone know?” Zabini asked. You saw Theodore Nott look back with thinly-veiled interest and even Daphne Greengrass cast a glance back at you. At the front of the line, Draco Malfoy was regaling the two prefects with stories about his influential father. But it appeared as though you had the attention of everyone in the back half of the line. You probably should have seen questions like this coming after being sorted into Slytherin. Slytherin is widely acknowledged as the house where blood status carries the most weight.

“The ministry did some digging and explained the story to me,” I explained. “My grandfather Morfin Gaunt had a child out of wedlock. My grandmother wanted nothing to do with him afterward. Especially after he was sent to Azkaban so my father was raised under her name.” You kept your eyes locked on the back of the girl in front of you as you said the next part of the story the ministry officials had explained to you. “He eventually married Octavia Bulstrode and had me.”

“Wot!?” Millicent Bulstrode stopped short and you were rather pleased that managed to avoid bumping into her. “Did you say ‘Bulstrode’?”

“Octavia Bulstrode,” you repeated as the large girl looked back at you. “Do you know her?”

Millicent’s face scrunched up as she mentally recited her family tree like every pureblood heir or heiress had been raised to do. “Third cousin once removed. But she died during the war.”

“And so did my father,” you added. “His true blood status wasn’t discovered until after his ****. And that’s when they found me. The last of the Gaunts. Considering how many sacred bloodlines were nearly wiped out during the war, the ministry took it upon themselves to ensure that my family line could live on. I was kept a secret and raised by various Ministry officials until the information that I was sent a Hogwarts letter got leaked.”

Blaise and Theodore both looked thoughtful. Daphne was quietly whispering something in Tracey’s ear. Millicent was smiling faintly. “I suppose this makes us distant cousins then.”

You would be living with these kids at Hogwarts for seven years. It made sense to make friends. So you smiled back, “I suppose it does.”

You expected the questions about your origin to come eventually. But you didn’t think they’d come so soon. You hadn’t even made it down to common room yet. Hopefully, now that you had explained the story once, it would spread and you wouldn’t have to keep repeating it for the rest of the year.

The prefects led your group along a dim torch-lit dungeon corridor. They eventually stopped next to a nondescript section of stone wall.

“This is the entrance to the Slytherin common room,” Damian informed the group. “The current password is ‘Slytherins slither in’. Don’t forget it. The password changes every month and is posted in the common room.”

“There is, however, one exception among you,” Gemma added, “Gaunt. Come up here.” The two lines part and you make your way forward until you’re standing between Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson. “It’s been said that Salazar Slytherin designed the Slytherin common room so that his descendants could always enter it. The theory is, you can get the door to open if you speak Parseltongue to it. The Gaunt Family are said to have been Parselmouths. Can you speak Parseltongue?”

You know that most people consider being a Parselmouth a bad thing. Salazar Slytherin was noted for his stance on blood purity and was considered a Dark Wizard. That was the source of your family’s ‘evil’ reputation. The fact that the last recorded Parselmouth in the United Kingdom was the Dark Lord made being a Parselmouth a mostly reviled trait for light-side families.

However, for Slytherins and for the children who came from traditional pureblood families who were often considered ‘dark’, being a Parselmouth and a descendant of one of the Hogwarts Founders was something to be revered. You could see the faint excitement shining in the eyes of the two fifth year Slytherins as you approached the stone wall.

You reached out and placed your fingers on the cool stone and let out a low hiss.

§Open§

You pulled your hand back as the wall started to move. The section in front of you became a door which swung open to reveal the Slytherin common room. The two prefects ushered your group inside.

It was a long, low underground room with rough stone walls and ceiling, from which round, greenish lamps were hanging on chains. A fire was crackling under an elaborately carved mantelpiece. Several Slytherins were seated around it in carved chairs and low backed black and dark green button-tufted, leather sofas. The room was decorated with a number of tapestries featuring the adventures of famous Medieval Slytherins

“Hold on, is this safe?” Draco Malfoy spoke up. “Does that mean any Parselmouth can enter our common room whenever they want?”

Damian Perriss gave him a hard look, “After the Dark Lord’s downfall, Marvolo Gaunt became the last recorded Parselmouth in the United Kingdom. So unless you plan on contracting some of those snake charmers from India to break in here, you won’t have anything to worry about.”

“It could be worse,” Gemma Farley chimed in. “You could be in Ravenclaw. All you have to do to gain access to their common room is answer a riddle. There’s only one Parselmouth here at Hogwarts and he’s in our house so there’s nothing to worry about. A non-Slytherin hasn’t set foot in this common room for seven centuries and we’d like to keep it that way. So make sure to keep the password to yourselves.”

The light in the room had a green tint. You looked out one of the windows and realised that you were staring into the dark water of the Black Lake.

“It looks better during the day,” Gemma informed you when she noticed where you were looking. “During the day the water’s not as dark. Sometimes we can see the Giant Squid or some of the merpeople from the window. It makes it look like you’re in an underwater shipwreck. The swishing water grows on you and in time you’ll find it relaxing.”

Damian stood by two hallways that led away from the common room. “Your rooms are this way. Girls, follow Gemma to the right. Boys, follow me.”

Draco Malfoy pushed passed you to ensure he was once again first in line. Crabbe and Goyle boxed you out and you were left trailing behind the trio along with Theodore and Blaise.

“Our dorms are designed differently than the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws,” Damian explained. “They each have a floor in a tower assigned to house all the students from each year. We have more space since our dungeon expands outward under the lake. All of our rooms are on the same floor and you’re divided up in rooms of two.” The Slytherin prefect began to point out doors that you noticed had nameplates on them. “Crabbe and Goyle, you’re the first on the left. Nott and Zabini you’re second on the left. Gaunt and Malfoy, you’re first on the right.”

Wonderful. Seven years stuck sleeping in the same room as Draco Malfoy.

“WHAT!?” Your new roommate shouted in indignation. Apparently, you weren’t the only one unsatisfied with this arrangement. “You mean I have to… share? My father said I could have my own room if I was sorted into Slytherin!”

“That’s only the case when there's an odd number of students,” Damian countered coolly. “There’s ten of you in your year. Six boys and four girls. It works out evenly. If you don’t like it, the couches start to empty at around ten or eleven each night. You’re welcome to try sleeping there. Because if you think we’re going to kick a descendant of Salazar Slytherin out of his room in the Slytherin dorms… you’ve got another thing coming.”

Malfoy’s pale face had gone pink. But even he seemed to realize that this was a losing battle. “In that case… I suppose I can tolerate him.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m not used to sharing a room either,” you inform the pale-haired boy. You looked at the door to your new room and saw the engraved nameplates that had been mounted on it.

‘Draco Malfoy’

‘Marvolo Gaunt’

It was odd that Draco’s name was listed first. You looked over your shoulder at the two rooms across from yours and saw that they were listed Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle and Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini. Their names were listed in alphabetical order. But then again you had been sorted last. Perhaps Draco Malfoy had been about to get his own room but you getting sorted into Slytherin threw that off.

“Don’t go in yet,” Damian warned you. “There’s still one last matter of business to tend to before you lot turn in for the night.”