I was alone in the library this time, sitting at an empty table with a thick, thousand pages long codex before me, accompanied by another one, almost just as thick, while constantly scribbling on a very long parchment with my quill. I already lost time when I started or how long since I have been here. I know that Quincy came by once, but she was gone by now, and I don''t know when she left.


    "Ugh…" I leaned back, rubbing my wrist with a sigh. I was hurting beyond belief, but my face was plastered with a satisfied smile; I was sure of it.


    "What is that?" Asked a voice, and I almost replied when I realized it wasn''t Quincy but Draco who asked, standing beside my table.


    "I am translating it," I answered simply, rolling up my parchment. "It is an ancient book, so I must translate it myself."


    "Looks like too much trouble for something useless."


    "How do you know it is useless?" I asked, but he just snorted.


    "If it would be useful, it would have an official translation in the library. Isn''t that obvious?"


    "What if others don''t know if it''s useful?" I countered with a smile, getting exactly the same response that Quincy had given me previously.


    "Yeah, and you, a first-year student, discovered its secrets. Sure."


    "Whatever." I shrugged, ignoring his snarky tone, "What do you want? Besides annoying me."


    "Come. Walk with me." he strolled away, and I just stood up, tapping the books with my wand, muttering one of my newest spells as they flew back to their places while I followed Draco out of the library.


    We walked silently for a long time, heading out of the castle and strolling alongside the lake. Looking at the sky and the slowly setting sun, I just realized I had been in the library for a very long time… and I was starving.


    "This should be far enough." He said, stopping suddenly, making me almost bump into him. I made it the perfect opportunity to grab my wand under my cloak''s sleeve, ready to cast magic as soon as necessary without him realizing it.


    "What? Are you going to ask me out?" I questioned, studying his face, riling him up instantly. Good. That way, he won''t notice that I am nervous and getting ready for battle.


    "You are disgusting." He spat, stepping back a little.


    "Thank god… I am not looking for partners anyway. Sooo… what''s up? Why are we here?"


    "Talking inside the castle is not a good idea. She could have ears hidden anywhere!" He said, fixing his Slytherin robes, speaking to me matter-of-factly.


    "Aaaaha. Okay."


    "I am talking about Professor Umbridge, you donkey!"


    "Aaaaaaand?" I yawned, placing my wand back into its hidden slot in my sleeve that I recently added to it. "Come on, Mr. Malfoy, please… get to the main issue, okay? I am not really in the mood for stupid mind games!"


    "You have no subtlety! I can''t fathom how in the world you and your family managed to rise so high in ranks!"


    "With skills. Duh."


    "I want to know what you are working on." He said, ignoring my remarks, making me raise my eyebrows suspiciously. What the hell was he on about? Even being so blunt and straight, I wasn''t getting what he wanted.


    "Why?"


    "You are planning on taking revenge, are you not? Against Umbridge?" He asked, getting really impatient.


    "Subtlety, Mr. Malfoy. Subtlety." I warned him, and I won''t lie; for a moment, I thought he may be looking for information to turn over to that Umbridge woman and get into her good sides or something.


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    "Just answer me!"


    "Why?" I asked again, looking at him skeptically.


    "Because I want in if you do!" He said firmly, crossing his hands before his chest, his silvery eyes looking honest and sincere.


    "Oooh. I see…" I smiled, and I already had multiple ideas come to my mind. I could use someone like Malfoy…


    "So?" He asked impatiently.


    "I may… have some thoughts… about some... Things. Let''s just say that for now!" I answered in the end, smacking my lips. "Nothing concrete yet. But the question is that Mr. Malfoy, can you work together with someone like my poor self or Miss Black?"


    "If you stop with this fake politeness, yes. It racks my nerves and makes me irritated." He answered coldly.


    "Ahaha, sure, sure! Look… I have multiple ideas, in fact. I am now looking into a... beast. If that does not work out, I have something related to spells... But, as you saw before, I am still researching. If you are serious about it, you could do something for me!"


    "I''m listening."


    "I know that your Father once was really close to… HIM." Just by mentioning that, I saw his body flinch, and his pupils shrink, but I continued, raising a hand. "I know that some blunders happened, and your family was less trusted later on."


    "You-" He said through gritted teeth.


    "Relax, I am not insulting you!" I snapped at him, getting annoyed myself, "My family is also not as trusted as the Lestranges, Rookwoods, or like the Crouches! You are hopeless, are you not?" I moaned, rubbing my forehead. If he is going to be like this every time, I need to think about this twice.


    "Continue." He said coolly, or at least trying to sound like that, hiding his sudden anger.


    "I need information about HIM."


    "Are you mad?! Ask your Father if you want that!"


    "No, no, not like that!" I quickly explained, "Your family should know more about this! Listen, I asked the same from Quincy, and she said she may try to get something about it from back home. We are waiting for an owl!" The fact that Quincy already agreed was seemingly doing its job as he immediately became much more eager. I could see it in his eyes; he was taking offense to the fact that Quincy was seemingly more capable than him.


    "Speak frankly."


    "Deja vu." I murmured but added quickly, "I want information about being a Parseltongue. As the only one we have knowledge about is… HIM, I thought your family may have some information about the gift. Either from HIS mouth or from other sources."


    "Why?"


    "Look, I just need that… Okay?"


    "..."


    "Well?" I asked after waiting a minute, watching him in silence.


    "I''ll see. No promises, though."


    "Good enough! When I have more information at my disposal and can continue my research, I will tell you. And we can continue working together. Sounds good?"


    "Mhm." He nodded, momentarily considering it and watching me stretch out my hand.


    "Deal then?"


    "Deal." He shook it, and then, with a flur of his robes, he left. When he was finally out of sight, I looked towards the treeline, a few dozen of meters away, and watched as Quincy appeared, rushing towards me.


    "What did he want?" She asked, panting. Clearly, she was following us through the woods, which was a much more challenging terrain to travel.


    "Get in on our plans," I said, picking out a huge leaf stuck into her black hair.


    "Your plans. I''m just tagging along." She said, turning a bit red.


    "You are helping. So we are in this together. And now he is too."


    "Nah, I am not! If you get busted, I don''t want to catch on fire too!"


    "Hah!" I laughed out loudly, grinning, "Sure! Anyway, let''s return; I''ll tell you everything before dinner!"


    …


    ….


    ……


    Even though tomorrow was going to start with a double potion, and it was already close to midnight, I was still up, sitting on my bed, reading the parchment I had written earlier. Even though I deciphered most of what I was looking for, I still had to rearrange the sentences and try to make sense of it, which was even more complicated than translating the old texts.


    "Haahh… It seems Herpo the Foul liked to speak in multiple tongues because this still barely makes sense!" I moaned, rubbing my aching head.


    The things I was reading about in the past days were magical beasts and snakes. At first, I was looking for inspiration to complete my Serpensortia spell because so far, I had only managed to summon a water snake which, let''s be honest, was not good for anything. While doing so, it led me to a particular ancient book discovered by following indexes of indexes through many codices. It was mostly a historical collection about ancient, famous wizards, one of them being Herpo the Foul and one of the earliest recorded Dark Wizards and Parselmouths. More importantly… the one who birthed the Basilisks into our world.


    Since finding out about him, I have been trying to learn everything and translate all the information related to him, landing me with more and more ancient books than I could count. I managed to learn a lot about basilisks, and it got increasingly clearer that controlling one was only possible if you could speak to it. Now… That was the tricky part. Being able to talk to snakes was… well, there was only one person known to be able to do it, and he was someone I was not even willing to mention even in my own mind. So I thought about it; there had to be another way. It was a tongue, and tongues could be learned. I don''t know how… not yet, at least.


    "But if one thing that the muggles are right with is that; magic could be the answer to all problems." I smiled to myself before deciding to go to sleep. Maybe once I manage to do that, I could order my nightmare-snake to stop showing up too...