The morning greeted Harry with an unusual surprise.

“Professor Dumbledore has allowed me to start up a duelling club to teach you to defend yourself from dangerous spells. As I have on countless occasions, for full details see my published works. May I introduce my assistant Professor Snape. He has sportingly agreed to help with a short demonstration, now I don’t want any of you youngsters to worry, you will still have your potions master when I am through with him, never fear,” Gilderoy Lockhart stated.

Snape? Snape? Why would Snape agree to a thing like this? Why would Lockhart even want to use someone like Snape..yet there he was standing at the other side of the table.

A mixture of emotions swept over Harry when he saw Snape appear at the other side of the table. On the one hand he was the hated potions master, on the other...he was his dad and he didn’t want anything bad to happen to him..mind you..against this brainless idiot anybody could see that even a child could push him over and make him run away like a little girl. Snape and Lockhart greeted each other and showed the wizard bow with their wand arm outstretched. Then walked a few feet away from each other to face one another.

“1, 2, 3” Gilderoy Lockhart said. Snape stood forward and said “Expelliumus!” expecting to have some great retaliation from Lockhart, but what happened? Lockhart flew into the air and landed fair square on his butt on the other side of the table! “And that,” Lockhart said brushing himself off, “An excellent idea to show them that Professor Snape, however it was obvious what you were doing and had I wanted to stop you it would have been only too easy.” So what...he wanted to fly and land on his butt making a fool of himself? Hmmm....this teachers style leads a lot to be desired.

“Perhaps it would be prudent to first teach the students how to block nasty spells?” Snape sneered.

Lockhart agreed and asked for Harry and Ron to stand to face each other. “wands at the ready!”

Snape watched as his son? He still had to get used to that idea but it was a fact of life now. Stood up to face his friend...oh he hoped nothing would go wrong. Ronald Weasley was not exactly the best person in the world with a wand. After all he had only just needed a replacement at the beginning of the year for being stupid enough to bang it against the steering wheel when that blasted car drove into the whomping willow.

“Come on Ron, don’t be such a wimp!” Harry stated, starting to enjoy the idea of a real duel even if it was against one of his best friends. But Ron being the hotheaded red head that he was took his wand and cast a spell which produced a snake onto the middle of the table heading towards Harry. Harry put his wand to his side and spoke to the snake. Everybody started staring..why were they staring at him?

“Come with me Potter,” Snape stated as he made the snake disappear,

“Oh I will handle it Professor Snape,” Lockhart stated walking towards them.

 “What’s your game Potter?” Justin asked with fear clearly showing on his face. Snape chose to ignore him and the look that Snape showed could have set Lockhart on fire with less than a whisper. How dare that idiot tell him how to raise his son? But he somehow gathered his posture and stated “no thank you.” Sneered and then left with his hand on Harry’s shoulder.

He led Harry down to his office where he made him sit down.

“What did you do that for?” Snape asked.

“Do what? If I hadn’t have told that Snake to leave Justin alone,” Harry said.

“No Harry, you didn’t just speak to that snake,” Snape sighed.

“What do you mean?” Harry asked curiously.

“some wizards, have the extraordinary ability to talk to snakes. It isn’t a very common talent to be a parselmouth, talk to snakes, in fact the last person who could speak to snakes that I am aware of was....” Snape cleared his throat, “or is, Lord Voldemort.”

“What?? But!!” Harry gasped.

“My guess Potter....I mean Harry...is that Voldemort somehow gave you that little gift when he gave you that scar. I would be interested in knowing just how much he has gifted you with but that’s something that we can investigate further at a later time. For now, you are dismissed. If you have any problems with any student after this event you can come back and talk to me at any time...remember that Harry...any time,” Snape knew that there would be problems after this event. But all he could do for now was watch Harry...his son....Harry as best as he could and try to notice any changes in his or the other students behaviour towards him.

Harry heard it again as he left Snape’s office.

PEOPLE MUST DIE! KILL! KILL! TIME TO KILL!

He was completely shocked to see Nearly Headless Nick floating in mid air, without any movement or anything, as if he got hung again. Looking down at another student who was petrified and the spiders...still crawling out the window. McGonagall was shocked when she saw Harry at the scene and took him straight to Professor Dumbledore’s office “sherbert lemon” she stated. “Professor Dumbledore sir?” Harry asked as he entered the room. He didn’t see him anywhere but what he did see was the sorting hat.

“Bee in your bonnet Potter?” said the hat

“I was wondering if you put me in the right house,” Harry asked.

“yes,” the hat said “you were particularly hard to place, but I’ll stand by what I said last year, you would have done well in slytherin”

“You’re wrong,” Harry said.

He walked further into the office to see a phoenix set fire, completely shocked he stepped away.

“Fascinating creatures Phoenixs, I’m sorry you had to see him on a burning day, they are simply reborn from the ashes.” Harry was amazed to see a little chick coming out from the ashes, “they are truely amazing creatures, they can carry immensely heavy loads and their tears have healing powers,” Dumbledore gently explained.

Then there was a sound at the door as Snape and Hagrid came rushing through. “Professor Dumbledore sir, it wasn’t Harry, I’d be prepared to swear it in front of the Minister of Magic himself, I promise...”

“Hagrid!!” I don’t believe that Harry was responsible. However I must ask you Harry, is there something you haven’t told me?”

“No sir, not a thing!” Harry said...but Snape could tell when a student was lying and his senses spoke to him...it was time for Harry and himself to have a little conversation to see what could be done about whatever this issue was. But he had already sprung one piece of news on the poor boy and that was enough for one day.

Whilst walking towards charms class he found that there was water on the floor. He walked towards what he believed the source was, the bathroom. There he saw much to his dismay Nearly Headless Nick, his favourite ghost at Hogwarts. Oh he remembered the first day that Nearly Headless Nick appeared in the middle of the Gryffindor table when he was in first year and how he showed them how it is possibly to be a part of a botched beheading. He felt so bad for the ghost, wanting so desperately to join the headless hunt as he loved sports so much but without the ability to completely remove his head how could he play things like soccer head and mismatch? Harry then saw behind the ghost. There was Justin, petrified. Oh this was not going to be good particularly after the events of duelling class earlier that day!

“Today we shall be transforming animals into water goblets, like this,” McGonagall showed the class, “ 1, 2, 3 veriverto,” and her bird turned into a beautiful crystal wine goblet.

Ron attempted this, under the guidance of McGonagall and what did he achieve? A squeaking furry goblet with a tail which turned into a quite disgruntled rat a few seconds later which bit him and ran back into its cage.

“Professor I was wondering if you could tell us about...the chamber of secrets.” Hermione said in the middle of the class. Suddenly there was silence in the room, enough that you could have heard a pin drop. “Very well,” Professor McGonagall thought this would be a good chance for a history lesson and explained to the students about how Slytherin had separated himself from the founding wizards of the school and created a hidden cave, for his monster.

“Now you all know that Hogwarts was founded by four of the most powerful wizards of the age, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin, now three of these founders worked quite harmoniously, one did not. He believed that magic should be kept only within all magic families, that way preventing muggles from ever gaining access to our world. However now we all know that being a mudblood, or dirty blood, is not truely a fact. Many wonderful witches and wizards have been half blood or less. Why we have a wonderful, top of the school student in our room with us now who is what would be considered mudblood. And imagine the learning and ideas we would lose from keeping this view. But some people..still like to hold to old ideals. There is a myth that when the heir of Slytherin returns to Hogwarts they can open a chamber created by Salazar himself to purge the school from anyone in his views that was unworthy to study magic. Naturally the school has been searched for the chamber many times, no such chamber has been found. Now can we resume the class for another 20 minutes?” There was silence in the room, so McGonagall asked Seamus to show her veriverto...and what happened? His owl caught fire!!! Much to his dismay! Thanks to some quick thinking from Hermione his bird was not seriously harmed...but a few burned feathers occurred. “You should take your owl to Hagrid, he would know what to do about it,” Hermione stated putting an arm around a really upset Seamus.

And so it was that Hermione, Seamus and Harry walked down to Hagrid’s hut. Hermione knocked on the door, only to be greeted by Hagrid’s crossbow! “Sorry Hermione, I was expecting...um well it doesn’t matter who I was expecting..come on in! And Seamus!” Hagrid bent down a little to be nearer to his level, “Hello”

Seamus clearly looked terrified of the prospect of being in the same room as the giant but Hermione was acting like she was right at home.

“Oh and who is this?” Hagrid said kindly taking the owl.

“It’s Brownie,” Seamus said.

“Oh well let me take a look, yes” Seamus gently handed over the barn owl and Hagrid took it so gently, so lovingly, that Seamus found his nerves simply fading away, “yes there’s a few ruffled feathers but no real harm done. Just don’t let him make any long flights and he should be fine. And..”

There was a knock on the door.

“Under the cloak. Quick!” Hagrid said.

Somehow they managed to squeeze under the cloak together.

“Professor Dumbledore sir, Minister!” Hagrid opened his door to three people. He nodded at Lucius Malfoy as he walked into the room.

“I’m sorry Hagrid but after three attacks the ministry has to act. You shall be removed from your post and sent directly to Azkaban,” stated Fudge. Lucius Malfoy sneered with a sly smile at the thought of Hagrid being thrown to the dementors to feast on. If only he could be kissed before any more of his cunning plan continued at the school. Oh things were going nicely and he enjoyed seeing it. The Dark Lord would be so impressed with him he might even reward him! Oh how the Dark Lord liked to dote on those few followers that had done things that truely impressed him. The legend was not known to many, but to Lucius just seeing the pride in Voldemorts eyes would mean the world...but then again...a mansion by the beach might be nice as well.

“Headmaster, Headmaster you know that I wouldn’t..you know that he never...please headmaster!” Hagrid begged.

“I want it understood Cornelius that Hagrid has my full support in this matter. He shouldn’t need to be removed as he is completely innocent,” Dumbledore stated.

“The ministry has to act Albus and we shall take him with or without your permission,” Cornelius stated.

Lucius Malfoy was the first to reach out for Hagrid’s arm. Taking him like a possession, like he would take his own house elf. Hagrid hung his head low with a tear in his eye. But aside from thowing himself in front of them and demanding Hagrid’s release which would then jepordise the students at the school even further what was Dumbledore capable of doing? Hagrid left being held between the minister and Lucius Malfoy.

“If someone was looking for some information all that they would have to do would be follow the spiders. That would lead them to some all right. Follow the spiders. Oh and somebody will have to feed Fang whilst I am gone.”

Harry looked at Hagrid’s overgrown dog and sighed. I guess someone has to do it. He thought.

“Goodbye,” Cornelius Fudge stated as he closed the door.