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HPTD - CH 127 - A German and a Snake Walk into a Bar
🕑 Added 2025-05-13 15:23:59 +0000 UTCBen stopped right in front of Marietta's end of the bench. Several girls turned to look up, one of them smirking.
She looked up as he approached, took in the scowl, and gave a slow blink. "Well, look who walked over from the loser's end of the bench."
Ben didn't smile. "Yeah. Thought I'd visit the world-famous Coven of Half-Wits. Hide a first-year's shoes lately, find it funny, do you?"
Marietta raised her eyebrows, casually swirling her spoon in her porridge. "If you're talking about Loony Lovegood, she's not exactly making it hard. Honestly, that moss jar probably asked for it."
The girls around her giggled. Ben did not.
"She's a first-year," he said flatly. "You and your little fan club have been hexing her books, her shoes, her hair. Charms that last for days. What's the plan, see if you can get her to cry in the corridor for house points?"
"She doesn't even notice half of it," one of the girls said with a shrug.
Ben smiled faintly. "She does. She just doesn't let you win."
"Oh, please," Marietta said. "It's not our fault she walks around talking to fungus and writing essays about imaginary creatures. She's practically begging for attention."
Ben stepped in closer. "You think this is funny?"
"I think it's pathetic. What, are you her knight now? Going to hiss at me until I behave?"
He smiled then, slow and not at all kind. "Don't tempt me. I could fill your bed with snakes tonight and no one would hear you scream."
That wiped the smirk right off her face.
"You wouldn't dare," she said, but her voice had lost its sneer.
Ben leaned in slightly. "Try me. One more prank, Edgecombe. One more hexed book, or shoe, or backpack, and you'll find out exactly what it sounds like when snakes whisper your name at night."
The silence was sharp as glass. Around them, students had gone still. Even the owls overhead seemed quieter.
Marietta's face twisted, somewhere between fear and fury. "You're insane."
"And you're a coward," Ben said simply. "Pick on someone your own size. Or don't. Just know next time, I won't be warning you first."
"Brown!"
Ben turned instinctively, scanning eye-level across the Great Hall. No one.
A small, pointed cough sounded near his elbow.
He glanced down and saw Professor Flitwick standing there, arms folded, clearly unimpressed.
"If you're quite done threatening your housemates with reptiles," Flitwick said, "the Headmaster would like a word. Now, if you please."
Ben didn't reply straight away. He turned back to Marietta and gave her one last look. No anger. No smugness. Just a calm, level look that made her shift like her robes had sprouted nettles.
Then he nodded at Flitwick. "Lead on, Professor."
"And try not to loom so dramatically while we walk," Flitwick muttered, already tottering off toward the double doors at a brisk pace.
Ben followed, hands in his pockets, leaving behind the murmurs of the Hall — and a table of girls who, for once, had nothing clever to say.
"Honestly," Flitwick grumbled without looking back. "You're supposed to be the sensible second-year."
"I probably overdid it," Ben said quietly. "But someone had to say something."
Flitwick made a noise, somewhere between a sigh and a grunt. Hard to tell with his short-legged power walk.
"You're not wrong," he said after a beat. "But next time, maybe skip the snake-bed threats, yes?"
Ben gave a faint smirk. "That was the polite version."
Flitwick sighed — more resigned than annoyed.
"Merlin help me."
-
Ben stood outside the office, arms folded. He'd only been here a few weeks ago, after the Chamber. Apparently, this was becoming a thing.
The door creaked open.
Flitwick stepped out and gave a short nod. "He'll see you now."
Ben pushed off the wall and stepped inside.
Dumbledore was by the window, hands behind his back, watching the grey sky like it had something interesting to say. Ben stopped a few steps in and waited.
"Storm on the horizon," Dumbledore said, almost to himself. "You can smell it, if you try. Cold stone, wet leaves."
Ben said nothing. He'd learned by now that the old man liked his openings vague. Usually meant something was bothering him.
"Funny thing, storms," Dumbledore went on, still not turning. "Some make all sorts of noise and pass us by. Others arrive quiet... and split the sky before we know they're here."
Ben shifted his weight. "If this is a metaphor for my personality, you're laying it on a bit thick."
Dumbledore's lips twitched as he finally turned. He moved to his chair with a soft sigh and sat down.
"You've always had a gift for cutting through the fog. Rare in someone so young."
Ben shrugged and walked over to the chair in front of the desk.
"Good thing I'm not really that young," he said evenly. "As I'm sure you already know, professor." The rest— 'from poking around in the heads of unsuspecting little girls'—he left unsaid.
Dumbledore's eyes met his over the rims of his glasses. He didn't answer the jab. Instead, he shifted gears, voice gentler.
"Tell me, Benedict… do you believe the ability to speak to serpents can decide if someone's good or evil?"
Ben stared at him.
'Ah. So we're doing the quiet, wise moral test bit again. Lovely.'
"Honestly? I don't think it means anything. Parseltongue's just a language. So's German. Depends what you're saying with it."
Dumbledore didn't flinch — he just began adjusting the cuff of his robe, as if Ben had asked him about rain.
'Right. Say 'serpent' and 'German' in the same sentence, and suddenly the sleeve needs urgent attention. Touchy subject, that one.'
"Quite right," Dumbledore said at last, smoothing the fold down. "And yet… the world doesn't see it that way. It sees symbols before it sees people. You and I both know how power — especially strange power — tends to write its own story around us...
Ben let out a quiet breath. "Right. So. I'll skip the dramatic build-up. About the Parseltongue thing, you don't have to worry, Headmaster," he said, cutting across whatever gentle prologue Dumbledore had been preparing.
He leaned forward a little. "I'm nothing like Voldemort. Or Harry, for that matter. I didn't inherit it. I... picked it up. What can I say, I'm a Ravenclaw."
Dumbledore regarded him with a curious, unreadable expression.
"You picked it up," he said.
Ben nodded. "When the diary was destroyed, I saw things— Tom Riddle's whole life. That thing wasn't just a diary— it was him. A piece of him."
Dumbledore stilled. The soft ticking of the instruments behind the desk suddenly felt louder. Dumbledore's hands rested lightly on the arms of his chair, still.
"You... saw Tom's memories?" he asked, voice quieter now. "All of them?"
"Yeah. Everything the diary had. Up to the day he killed Myrtle and made it." Ben paused. "I didn't just see it. I felt it. I felt how proud he was of it. I felt how easy it was for him. It was... sickening."
Dumbledore stood up slowly, pacing a few steps behind the desk. "Then you understand what it was. The diary?"
Ben looked at him. "It was, as I'm guessing you already suspected, Headmaster... one of the Horcruxes."
Dumbledore went very still. Even the air in the room felt like it paused.
"One of em," he repeated. "As in… not the only one?"
Ben's voice didn't waver. "No. There are more."
Dumbledore crossed the room in two steps and gripped Ben's shoulders. "How many?"
Ben blinked. "He wanted to make six, split his soul into seven pieces. I'm not sure if he managed that exact number, but… that was the plan."
Dumbledore let go and sat back down, looking older than he had a moment ago.
"Seven," he said quietly.
-To be Continued...
Comments
Pseudo
So.. is Ben going to grab Marvolo Gaunt's ring now? Seems like the sensible thing to do.
Mitchell Bizon
Thanks for the Chapter.
