Chapter 56: Quinn vs Tracy, Parseltongue, and Gossip
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The change in his magic bought immense pleasure and delight to Quinn as he found his mood uplifted and a skip accompanying his step. Quinn looked around the crowd to see if anyone wanted to be his next opponent. And, his eyes met with those of Tracy.
He smiled and beckoned his Slytherin friend with his hands.
The gesture surprised the brunette Slytherin as she shook her head side-to-side, but Quinn relayed everything would be okay with his eyes, and it was okay to come up.
Tracy hesitated if she wanted to go up to the stage, and after some thinking, decided to go up. She stepped forward and directly climbed the steps to the stage.
There was a lot of boo-ing from the other three houses because of Tracy's status as a Slytherin. The harsh boos affected Tracy, and she did her best not to show that it affected her. But if you looked closely, you could see the slight slump in her gait.
"Ignore the other, and let's have some fun, Tracy."
It startled Tracy to hear Quinn's voice so close to her; it was like that he was directly whispering into her ear, but when she looked up, Quinn was standing a distance from her, showing a comforting smile, and when their eyes met, Quinn gave her a quick wink.
"You called me Tracy," she spoke in utter surprise. After an entire year of Mrs. Davis and Davis, she finally heard Quinn call her by her given name.
Tracy's words made Quinn realize he had called the girl by her first name, and it was quite a surprise to himself as well.
Tracey saw Quinn's lips move and once again heard his voice like he was standing right beside her. "Yes, I did. It looks like I will be calling you by Tracy from now on. You are the first one, you know? The first one I called by their first name. Ha ha ha, be honored, little girl."
Tracy's eyes sparkled with delight at being first, and she couldn't feel any negativity from the boos of the crowd. She took out her wand with confidence and aimed it at Quinn, following Quinn's lead.
"Remember, cast a Disarming spell, Expelliarmus." Tracy nodded, hearing Quinn's explanation, directly delivered to her ears and no one else's.
"One - two - three, GO!"
The second Flitwick yelled go, Tracy moved first and cast a Disarming spell.
"Expelliarmus!"
An impulse of scarlet magic burst out of her wand and buzzed towards Quinn. Quinn also pointed his fake wand and whispered Expelliarmus in the likely event anyone was listening and countered with his own scarlet burst of spell light.
The two spells made contact in between the two casters and canceled each other out.
Quinn grinned and again cast a Disarming spell towards Tracy. Tracy, who now was feeling confident, and countered with her own Disarming spell.
The crowd ooh-ed and aah-ed when they saw the two spells collided with each other. Once again, they canceled each other, giving the crowd the show they wanted.
Tracy was back in her element and showed her taking-charge personality and shot a stream of Disarming spell light which hurled towards Quinn.
"Now we are taking," laughed Quinn as he shot out a stream of the same spell towards Tracy's.
The two red jets of magic met in the middle, colliding with each other, fighting for dominance. It entranced the younger students when they saw the continuous jets of magic meeting each other.
Tracy held her wands with both her hands when she felt Quinn's magic overpowering her and tried to channel magic into her wand, trying to push back.
But, the struggle was futile as Quinn's magic continued to overpower hers, and Quinn's spell light moved closer and closer to hers.
The Slytherin students in the crowd cheered for their representative. Quinn had humiliated the last one, but she stood steadfast against Quinn, which was had redeemed the house of Slytherin.
Quinn calmly smiled as he inserted a burst of magic into the spell and overpowered Tracy's magic in one fell swoop, forcing Tracy's hand open and driving her wand out it, disarming her in the process.
The wand wheeled in the air before it landed in Quinn's hand, who caught it with a cheeky smile on his face.
"I won," he laughed, walking towards Tracy, handing her the wand back. "Good duel?"
Tracy held her wand back in her hands and grinned her usual bubbly smile, "Good duel!"
"Great," he smiled before turning to look at Flitwick and gestured that he was done for today.
Flitwick picked up the gesture and climbed up to the stage while Quinn and Tracy took the other set of steps to get down.
Tracy and Quinn parted their ways, and Tracy ran to Daphne and got looks of approval from many Slytherin students.
"Are you okay?" asked Daphne, worried about her friend. "He didn't overdo it, did he?"
Tracy swayed on her spot with her hands behind her back and grinned a boastful smile, "He called me Tracy."
Daphne tilted her head in confusion and asked, "What?"
"Quinn called me Tracy," she repeated, waiting for the news to sink in her friends' pretty head.
"What else would he call-," Daphne began speaking, but mid-sentence realization struck her, and she stopped. "He called you Tracy?"
Tracy giggled and bumped Daphne's shoulder with her's. "He said I was the first one he called by their first name. He he he."
The blonde turned her blue eyes to look at the Ravenclaw in question and saw him putting his robes back on, laughing with his friends and housemates.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked back to see Tracy gazing at her with an encouraging expression, "Don't worry, he will call you by your given name soon."
Daphne stared at her best friend and spoke in a flat voice, "I couldn't care less."
Tracy waggled her eyebrows, opting not to say anything, but gave a 'sure you do' look to her best friend.
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It was like someone pasted a permanent smile on Quinn's face causing him to beam like the happiest person in the world. He was experiencing something like a euphoric high. The change in his magic was becoming more pronounced to Quinn when he took a moment to feel it and could sense the enchanting feel of his magic under his control better than ever.
He just wanted to let his magic loose and cast a massive freeze wave in the Great hall or transfiguring the floor to change the terrain of the hall. Anything would do as long as it would allow him to flex his magical capabilities, but he held back and looked at the stage, watching the duels.
His interest deepened when he saw Harry Potter climb up the stage with a swagger in his step and confidence in his gait. The boy-who-lived looked comfortable on the big stage and under the gaze of the majority of the student population.
Harry walked near the Slytherin side and pointed at Draco, hooking his index finger to beckon his enemy/rival to come up to the stage to duel him.
"You won't be a no-show like that last time, would you Malfoy? Because last year was an utter disappointment. Let's have the duel you so much wanted," said the boy-who-lived, speaking so that everyone could hear him.
Draco's face heated up with anger as he growled, "POTTAH!"
The blonde Malfoy stepped onto the stage, stepping up to face Harry Potter in a duel.
Both second-year students faced each other on the circular stage and looked at each other with their chins raised slightly, not bothering to bow to each other.
Flitwick looked side-to-side at Harry and Draco and didn't bother telling them to use Disarming spells. From the looks the two gave each other, it didn't look like they would listen to him.
The half-goblin wasn't actually worried about the spells the two would use against each other. If they got injured, that would only serve as a lesson to them that the spells were dangerous.
"One - two - three, GO!"
Harry swung his wand high, but Malfoy had already started on 'two,' his spell hit Harry so hard that Harry felt as though someone had hit him over the head with a saucepan. He stumbled, but everything still seemed to work, and wasting no more time, Harry pointed his wand straight at Malfoy and shouted,
"Rictusempra!"
A jet of silver light hit Malfoy in the stomach, and he doubled up, wheezing with laughter. Harry had hit him with a Tickling charm, and he could barely move for laughing.
Malfoy pointed his wand at Harry's knees, choked,
"Tarantallegra!"
And the next second, Harry's legs jerked around out of his control in a kind of quickstep. It was the spell that made a target's legs spasm wildly out of control, making it appear as though they were dancing.
Harry was startled but cast a Finite on his knees, stopping them from spasming. Draco, on the other side, did the same to make himself stop laughing.
Below the stage, Quinn, with his arms crossed, observed the duel and thought, 'I would have obliterated both of them together multiple times by now.'
"Serpensortia!"
Bellowed Draco, and Quinn watched as the end of Draco's wand exploded with light as a long black snake shot out of it, fell heavily onto the floor between them, and raised itself, ready to strike.
'... It is happening,' thought Quinn, stepping a step forward while everybody stepped back in fear.
Harry brandished his wand at the snake, and there was a loud bang; the snake was pushed back with force. Enraged, hissing furiously, it slithered straight toward Justin Finch-Fletchley, who was standing a bit too close to the stage and raised itself again, fangs exposed, poised to strike.
Quinn wasn't looking at the snake of Justin Finch-Fletchley and trained his eyes on Harry Potter. Quinn's eyes opened a fraction when he saw Harry walk towards the snake.
A green shade bloomed on Quinn's nape as he heard the boy-who-lived hiss as the snake and saw miraculously - inexplicably - the snake slumped to the floor, docile as a thick, black garden hose, its eyes now on Harry.
"Parseltongue, the language of serpents," spoke Quinn, not knowing that everyone around him heard him. Quinn's words bought them out of their fear and set a fire of murmurs across the students.
Everybody had one thought in their heads; Is Harry Potter - The heir of Slytherin?
Quinn didn't have thoughts like that. He just stared at Harry with an envious gaze. Harry Potter had a magical ability that he didn't have. The ability to communicate and command another species to a degree was always a plus point. It was an uncommon skill and was known to be an almost exclusively hereditary trait.
Quinn was jealous that he did not have the ability to speak Parseltongue. Neither did he know if it was possible to learn Parseltongue; he had heard the lore that Dumbledore could speak it, but Quinn wasn't sure if it was true. He had been to India, and the Parselmouths there told him it was something you were born with.
The green patch deepened with Quinn's emotions, planting its roots in Quinn, but it stopped when Quinn heard a screech from the snake that burned into the nothingness from a spell from Flitwick.
The charms professor had lost the excited smile he had on his face and had an urgent look on his face and a suspicious look in his eyes as he looked at Harry.
Suddenly, Ivy ran up to the stage and pulled on Harry's robes, dragging her twin off the stage. Ron Weasley shoved the students aside, making way for the golden squad so that they could leave the Great Hall and the suspicious eyes that bore into the back of Harry.
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- (Scene Break) -
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Quinn groaned as he woke up in the morning and sat in his bed. He didn't want to get up from his bed and contemplated skipping his morning run.
Yesterday, he had gotten excited about his new magical improvement and had run an obstacle course full of moving targets and dummies placed around an irregular terrain. He had run laps around the course while shooting magic-heavy spells while running, jumping, and doing all kinds of physical exertion.
He rolled in his bed for a while before noticing something. The sleepy boy looked towards his legs and felt something peculiar. He lifted his sheet to what was inside.
There was a tent standing in his pant. Quinn watched it with an intrigued look on his face.
"Hmm, heh."
Quinn stared at the tent and the tent... well, didn't stare back, but stayed tent-like.
A pink hue developed on Quinn's nape as he looked at the tent, and thoughts appeared in his mind. Minute changes took place in Quinn's magic happened as the pink shade stayed on Quinn's nape.
"Alright," Quinn smiled, hopped off his bed, and walked to the bathroom. He looked at his right hand and smirked, "I am counting on you, buddy. Let's go and have a good time."
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For the next few days, the major topic of conversation in Hogwarts was how Harry Potter was the Heir of Slytherin, and he was out for all muggleborns in the castle.
Sitting in the library, Quinn could hear the conversation of a group of the Hufflepuff who should have been in Herbology classes. But because of the heavy snow outside, they canceled the classes. He could see that their heads were close together, and they were having what looked like an absorbing conversation.
"So anyway," a stout boy was saying, "I told Justin to hide up in our dormitory. I mean to say, if Potter's marked him down as his next victim, it's best if he keeps a low profile for a while. Of course, Justin has been waiting for something like this to happen ever since he let it slip to Potter that he was a muggleborn. That's not the kind of thing you band about with Slytherin's heir on the loose, is it?"
"You definitely think it is Potter, then, Ernie?" said a girl with blonde
pigtails, anxiously.
"Hannah," said the stout boy solemnly, "He is a Parselmouth. Everyone knows that is the mark of a Dark wizard. Have you ever heard of a decent one who could talk to snakes? They called Slytherin himself Serpent-tongue."
There was some heavy murmuring at this, and Ernie went on, "Remember what was written on the wall? Enemies of the Heir, Beware. Potter had some sort of run-in with Filch. Next thing we know, Filch's cat's attacked. That first year, Creevey was annoying Potter at the Quidditch match, taking pictures of him while lying in the mud. Next thing we know - Creevey's been attacked."
"Does this mean that Potter would go after professor Potter," said Hannah Abbot uncertainly, "She is a muggleborn as well." A pitiful look appeared on her face, "Professor Potter seems so nice. Now, she will become his target."
Ernie lowered his voice mysteriously. The Hufflepuff's bent closer and Quinn balanced his chair on its back two legs to get nearer so that he could catch Ernie's words.
"No one knows how he survived that attack by You-Know-Who. I mean to say, he was only a baby when it happened. He should have been blasted into smithereens. Only a powerful Dark wizard could have survived a curse like that." He dropped his voice until it was barely more than a whisper and said, "That probably is why You-Know-Who wanted to kill him in the first place. Didn't want another Dark Lord competing with him. I wonder what other things Potter's been hiding?"
Then suddenly, the person in question barged in and slapped his hands on the question and leaned on it as he peered at the group of Hufflepuffs, "Alright, dumb tweaks. I am looking for Finch-Fletchley Where is he?"
The Hufflepuffs' worst fears had clearly been confirmed. They all looked fearfully at Ernie.
"What do you want with him?" asked Ernie in a quavering voice.
"He has been running his trap about me being the Heir of Slytherin," Harry sneered and continued, "I need to get it inside his head that I was just trying to help him."
Ernie bit his white lips and then, taking a deep breath, said, "We were all there. We saw what happened."
"Then you all saw that the bloody snake backed off when I spoke to it," Harry made hissing noises at the group and continued, "Or, are you guy blind as well?"
"All I saw," said Ernie stubbornly, though he was trembling as he spoke, "Was you speaking Parseltongue and chasing the snake toward Justin."
"I didn't chase it at him!" Harry said, his voice shaking with anger. "It
didn't even touch him!"
"It was a very near miss," said Ernie. "And in case you're getting ideas," he added hastily, "I might tell you that you can trace my family back through nine generations of witches and warlocks, and my blood's as pure as anyone's, so -"
Harry kicked the leg of the table and yelled, "I don't give rat's ass about what sort of blood you have got! Urgh!"
He turned on his heel and stormed out of the library, earning himself a reproving glare from Madam Pince, who was polishing the gilded cover of a large spellbook.
'Oh boy, you made he made it much worse,' thought Quinn looking at the Hufflepuff group, 'Look how scared they are. He hissed at them for Merlin's sake.'
He shook his head and sighed, 'This Harry Potter isn't good at damage control. Boy, this is going to blow up... goody!'
A smirk surfaced on Quinn's face as a green appeared on his neck, deepening by the second, changing Quinn's magic.
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Blue - _ _ O T _ <-- > _ _ _ _ _ _
Pink - _ _ S _ <-- > _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Red - _ R _ _ H <-- > _ _ _
Yellow - _ _ E E _ <-- > _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Violet - _ R I _ E <-- > _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Green - _ _ V _ <-- > _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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