Harry Potter: Don't touch

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All of Harry's determination not to tell about the hallucination was broken by Filch's horribly depressed look. The entire next day after the attack on his cat, the archivist had spent the entire day near the scene of the crime, trying his best to catch the culprit. His attempts were desperate rather than posing a real threat to the culprit: the Hogwarts caretaker's tactics were primitive enough - he would lunge at passing students and rudely try to ask them what they had been up to last night. It was his way of checking alibis.

Some students managed to subdue Filch and quickly prove their innocence, but some were less fortunate, such as Ginny Weasley, who was almost hysterical. And watching the extremely depressed Hogwarts caretaker fidgeting, Harry couldn't stand it. He ignored Madam Pomfrey's words that he was stressed and imagined everything, Colin's suggestions that if someone had said something then, it would have been heard by more than just Potter, Justin's arguments that it was better not to tell anyone about the strange hallucinations, and went straight to Dumbledore.Already standing by the gargoyle statues, Harry realised that he didn't know the password to the Headmaster's office, but he was lucky, after a dozen unsuccessful attempts to guess the code words, the passage opened and Albus Dumbledore himself stepped out.

- Hello Harry, did you want something? - The Headmaster asked calmly, not the least bit surprised by his presence.

- Yes, I-" Potter thought for a moment, finally convinced that he had made the right decision, and decided to spill everything at once. - The night of the attack on Mrs Norris, I heard a voice that wanted to kill someone! Colin was next to me, but he didn't hear anything, and I'm sure I wasn't imagining it. I think the owner of that voice is behind the attack. No, I don't think so, I'm sure!

With that, Harry stared expectantly at the Headmaster. The Headmaster didn't give any indication that he'd heard anything unexpected, and made an inviting gesture towards the passage.

- Come in, we'll talk in my office," Dumbledore said, and without looking back, began to walk up the stairs.

Harry followed him without a second thought.

When he entered the office, he immediately noticed the old Allocating Hat on the shelf, and remembering the difficulties with his allocation, he wanted to put it on and ask if he was in the right faculty.

- Have a seat," Dumbledore pointed to a chair and took his own seat at the headmaster's desk.

- Remember, for the future, if you have a very important matter to attend to, and you don't know the password, you can ask the gargoyle statue on the left if you can come in. It's a code phrase, once you hear it, she'll let you in, just don't tell anyone, the password is designed to keep anyone from getting in. So, let's get down to business. Before the attack on Mrs Norris, you heard a voice that Mr Creevey, who was with you, didn't hear. Am I understanding you correctly?

- Yes, that's right," Harry couldn't tell if Dumbledore believed him or not. - I definitely heard him. I'm sure you did. It wasn't my imagination.

- I believe you. Don't worry.

Potter sighed in relief.

- Tell me, have you ever interacted with any animals?

- Mm-hm... - Harry wasn't sure how he should answer. Of course he'd never talked to an animal, but Dumbledore was asking about communication, not talking. And he understood the Element... - Well... It happened... I used to communicate well with my owl, I understood her, and she understood me... I guess....

- No," Dumbledore smiled warmly. - 'That you and your pet have developed a great relationship is great, but that's not what I mean. Tell me, have you ever talked to snakes? Understood them?

- No," Harry answered confidently, not sure where the Headmaster was going with this.

- 'Are you sure? Are you sure you've never interacted with them? At the zoo, for example, did you ever notice them trying to tell you something?

- Yeah, I'm sure. I've never been to the zoo, Dudley's been twice, but I've never been taken by the Dursleys.

- Hmm," Dumbledore seemed a little surprised. - 'Let's try it this way. Serpensortia! Mobilicorpus!

A large snake with huge fangs flew out of Dumbledore's wand. It did not have time to descend to the ground, but hovered in the air, as if it was bound by many invisible threads.

- Try to talk to it. Don't worry, it won't bite you," Albus said.

Harry stared at the snake and it stared back at him. It wriggled in the air, but invisible threads held it tightly, preventing it from breaking free, it seemed as if it had many invisible wings and was flying.

- Erm... Hello? - Potter greeted the snake, feeling like a complete idiot.

But to his surprise, the snake paid attention to the phrase. It abruptly stopped wriggling and replied:

- Don't let him kill me...

- What, who wants to kill you? - Harry asked.

While he was pondering who the snake was asking him to protect him from, Dumbledore raised his wand again:

- Evanesco!"Excellent, Harry, you can talk to snakes, I thought so. It's a very rare skill, it's often associated with the dark arts, so I wouldn't advise you to tell anyone about it; I don't think I'd be wrong in saying that no one else at Hogwarts has it... Although, given recent events, there might be one person who does.

- So that voice..." Harry began to understand.

- Yes, it was a snake. And Mr Creevey can't understand snakes, so it was just a hiss to him.

- But why didn't I see it?

- I don't know," Dumbledore shrugged his shoulders. - 'I am, unlike my image formed by general opinion, not omniscient. I think only you know the answer to that question, I can only guess....

- What are your guesses?

- Maybe it was too small and you didn't see it, or maybe there was a disillusionment spell on it. She could also move through pipes, but that's only if she was very small, otherwise she wouldn't fit.

Potter still had a lot of questions.

- What had happened to Mrs Norris? Why had she gone numb? Snakes on the other hand... At least those snakes that live in the Muggle world bite their prey, well, it happens, some still strangle, I've read. And this... Strange... I've never heard of snakes putting their victim into a coma. How did that happen?

- I don't know, Harry, what do you think?

- Well..." Potter thought for a moment.

He was sure the Headmaster had many guesses, but he was probably not sure of any of them. If Dumbledore himself didn't know, how was he, a second year, supposed to figure out the secret of attacking a cat? But one must at least try.

- Back in my first year, I read a legend about the Chamber of Secrets... There's supposed to be an heir to Salazar Slytherin, one of the Founders, or maybe there was a man walking around with a snake who stunned... Or rather, cast some sort of spell of torpor on the cat, and the snake... Exactly! The snake said that it wanted to kill and eat someone and that it smelled blood, our blood and Creevey's blood, but the heir offered it an ordinary cat, so it was afraid to eat it. What do you think? - Harry stared hopefully at Dumbledore.

- 'It could very well be... Thank you Harry, you've been a great help, I have something I want to ask you. That voice can only be heard by you, and if you hear it again, run as fast as you can to me or the nearest teacher, even Professor Snape, there can be no room for hostility in such matters, if a second attack is being prepared you need to get the information to me as soon as possible.

Returning from Dumbledore's office, Harry came across Filch again. He was still sitting near the crime scene, pestering some freshman. If Potter still had any doubts, they had now completely evaporated. He was even more convinced that he had done the right thing by telling Dumbledore everything. Not only had he helped the Headmaster and Hogwarts immensely, but he had also learnt a lot about himself. It turns out that he can talk to snakes. And no one else can do that. This opens up incredible possibilities! You can call a snake and ask it to crawl into Malfoy's bedroom or check the house for Mad-Eye. Snakes can be used for any other purpose at all, and no one will associate their actions with him, because the snake is the symbol of Slytherin. If he could communicate with badgers, that would be much worse. And summoning snakes seems to be very easy. It was the first time Dumbledore had ever spoken the spells aloud.

Harry stopped in the middle of the corridor leading towards the Hufflepuff common room, he suddenly had a very strong urge to try to summon a snake. He raised his wand and exclaimed:

- Serpensortia!

Of course, nothing happened.

* * *

Potter had been preparing incredibly thoroughly for his first match as the Hufflepuff team's paddler. The fact that they were playing against the reigning Hogwarts champion, Ravenclaw, gave the team extra motivation to win. By the end of November, which was when the first Quidditch matches were to take place, Harry had learnt to play at a pretty good level. He had a good idea of what was required of him on the pitch, and he had learnt to adjust his bludgers to the wind speed, so that they were at least close to the target, if not on it, and Justin was doing even better.

Cedric was pleased with this progress, but the hunters were suddenly the weak link in the team. Neither Bones, Appleby, nor Preece were up to the level of the Ravenclaw hunters. Cedric had a talk with each of them, but it didn't make the game any better. Susan, in Potter's opinion, had a panicky fear of heights and was incredibly surprised that she had made the team at all. Appleby was too lazy to practise, passing the quaffle with some laziness and often in the wrong place. Preece, on the other hand, was easy, he just couldn't play well. But the qualifiers were already done and it was too late to change the team anyway. Cedric would have to be a quick snitch to win, and Herbert would have to kick more balls than the Ravenclaw goalkeeper. For the first match against the unchanged Ravenclaw champion squad, Diggory had set a simple goal of not losing, and the entire team had been preparing carefully to fulfil that goal.

Two days before the match, practice began every day. Potter didn't have time to learn the snake summoning spell, he could barely keep up with his homework. Only rarely did he allow himself to do anything outside of work. However, the evening trip to Lockhart's was an exception. Gilderoy at one of the lessons declared that he knew where the Chamber of Secrets was, who was guarding it and how to kill someone. When asked why he hadn't gotten rid of the monster himself yet, Lockharts replied that he had tried, but couldn't, as the monster hid thoroughly every time he entered the monster's abode.

Harry thought that he, as the best student in Defence Against the Dark Arts, would be able to convince his teacher to share the knowledge of the location of the hiding place, but he failed utterly. Lockhart flatly refused to give any information about the Chamber of Secrets:

- Harry, understand me, you are too young for such information... Even though you have already accomplished several feats: ridding the world of the Dark Lord, becoming my best student. That's not bad for a start, not bad at all. You'd know how many people would hire you for any job when they knew you'd studied with me, but that's not enough to defeat the monster of the Chamber of Secrets. That's something only I can do at Hogwarts. But this beast has learnt that Gilderoy Lockhart himself has taken care of it, and not only will it no longer attack... It won't even stick its nose out of hiding.

Potter had a double impression of these words. On the one hand there was nothing to worry about, Lockhart had said that everything was fine, there would be no more attacks, but on the other hand... What if it wasn't like that? After all, the professor did not provide a single proof. Of course, Gilderoy had performed many feats during his life, and it was wrong to doubt his words, it was quite possible for him to get rid of not the biggest, but quite aggressive snake... Still, the reluctance to reveal details was quite suspicious.

There was no one in Harry's bedroom: Justin was in the library with Hermione, Ernie was at the spit-stone club meeting, and Zachariah was in the middle of who knows where. Potter lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. It would be nice if he could get to bed early and finally get some sleep, because he had to have practice tomorrow morning.

- Harry Potter!

A loud shriek startled Potter, he jumped up from the bed and with a familiar wand movement sent a stun spell in the direction of the sound. A small man suddenly appeared right in front of him, who raised his hands and spoke in a thin voice:

- Stop, don't, sir!

- Who are you? - Harry asked, but as soon as he said his question he realised he already knew the answer to it.

Standing in front of him was the House elf from the Hogwarts kitchen. Potter had a strong urge to wring the neck of the careless elf, so much had happened lately... And every living thing was trying to scare him.

- I'm Dobby, sir, Dobby the houseboy, just Dobby.

- And what do you want, just Dobby? - Potter tried to make his voice sound like a normal person should, not like a homicidal maniac before launching an attack.

- Dobby can't talk to you for long. You need to leave Hogwarts now! - shrieked the houseboy. - The bad wizards are plotting, it's already coming to fruition, Dobby tried to tell you back in the summer but he was thwarted.

- You're a Malfoy houseboy! - Harry suddenly realised.

Everything fell into place. Draco had sent Dobby to ruin his life over the summer, but as luck would have it Potter had accidentally stunned the houseboy, and now Malfoy had decided to try again.

- Dobby warns you of danger! The masters don't know Dobby is here! Dobby will have to pin his ears back with the oven door.

- I don't believe you. You tried to hurt me in the summer, and you're trying to hurt me now. Go away, Dobby!

- If you refuse to leave Hogwarts, Dobby will have to use force, the life of Harry Potter...

When Harry heard "use force", he finally lost his patience and started to act. He didn't even listen to the lies the House elf kept telling, he quickly raised his wand and exclaimed:

- Stupefy!

Dobby could not finish the phrase about Harry Potter's life - he, not expecting a sudden attack in the middle of his speech, fell unconsciously on the bed.

What to do next, Potter decided quickly. He left the living room and followed the Dean of Hufflepuff to the Herbalogy room. Once the professor saw the Malfoy houseboy in his bedroom, Draco would not escape punishment. However, when he and Professor Stable returned to the bedroom, Dobby was no longer on the bed.