บท 47: Parseltongue

"I have something interesting to show you." Draco said dragging Pansy and Daphne.

"What is it?" Daphne asked, "Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise," Draco said not looking back at them

Pansy and Daphe looked at Theodore who was following them with a questioning look.

"You will know when you get there," Theodore said shrugging his shoulders. "I am sure you will like it."

Daphne and Pansy were confused since Draco was acting excited ever since he received a letter this morning and as soon as the Herbology class ended, he started dragging them towards the edge of the forest.

"Why are we here?" Pansy asked looking at Hagrid's hut.

"You'll see." Draco said knocking on the door.

Hagrid opened the door looking flushed and excited.

"I see you brought friends over." Hagrid said, "Well come on in, It's nearly out." He ushered them inside.

All of them went inside to find Ron, Harry, and Hermione already over there.

"Why are they here?" Daphne said.

Pansy was quite as she signaled Daphne pointing at the egg on the table.

"Draco is that a dragon egg?" Pansy asked. "And is it about to hatch?"

"Yeah!" Draco said excitedly. Hagrid gave all of them, chairs to sit on and all of them started focusing on the egg.

The egg was lying on the table. There were deep cracks in it. Something was moving inside; a funny clicking noise was coming from it. They all drew their chairs up to the table and watched with bated breath.

All at once there was a scraping noise and the egg split open. The baby dragon flopped onto the table. It wasn't exactly pretty; it looked like a crumpled, black umbrella. Its spiny wings were huge compared to its skinny jet body, it had a long snout with wide nostrils, the stubs of horns and bulging, orange eyes.

It sneezed. A couple of sparks flew out of its snout.

"Isn't he beautiful?" Hagrid murmured. He reached out a hand to stroke the dragon's head. It snapped at his fingers, showing pointed fangs.

While everyone was excited looking at the Dragon, Draco, on the other hand, felt a weird connection between him and the Dragon. Draco slowly reached out his hand towards the dragon as it turned back towards him,

"Be careful!" Hagrid said but Draco wasn't listening to any of it.

The Dragon curiously looked at his hands and instead of snapping at his finger, it started stroking it with its head, as it climbed on to his hands.

"Curious, little fellow aren't you?" Draco said smiling,

The Dragon looked at him and nodded as if it understood him and started climbing up towards his shoulders.

"Hahaha, what are you saying?" Theodore started laughing out loud.

Pansy and the others looked at Draco funnily too.

"I just said, if he was curious, what's so funny about that?" Draco said raising his eyebrows annoyed.

"You just made random noises just now." Hermione said looking at Draco weirdly.

"But, I-" Draco looked at the Dragon which was halfway towards his arm. He caught it with another hand and bought it close to his face, caressing its scaly back.

The dragon made a cute noise in comfort as it sneezed fire out of its mouth in the opposite direction.

"You're so cute!" Draco said rubbing it more. The dragon started rubbing its head on Draco's hand in bliss.

"See there you go making that noise again." Theodore said barely holding back his laughter.

Draco looked at them weirdly, "What kind of noise, am I making?"

"I don't know its kind of a whisper, really." Pansy said coming close, "Looks like its really attached to you."

She stretched out her hand trying to touch it but the dragon snapped at her hand, luckily she moved her hand quickly and avoided getting bitten.

"Don't bite her!" Draco said, the dragon looked at him and looked back at Pansy again.

Pansy looked at the Dragon, "It's really scary."

"Do it slowly, I don't think it will try to bite again." Draco said with a bit of uncertainty.

Pansy nodded and slowly reached out her hand, shaking a little bit, she slowly got more and more, closer towards the Dragon and this time it really didn't snap at her instead allowed her to caress it.

"It feels weird." Pansy said smiling, "It's really scaly but it's not that bad either."

"Let me try!" Daphne said coming towards them.

"Don't bite the girls." Draco said again, wondering if it will still work.

Soon Hermione also came over and took the Dragon from his hand, the three girls then started petting the Dragon like if it was a puppy and the Dragon really seemed to enjoy it.

On the other hand, Hagrid, Ron, Harry, and Theodore were surprised looking at the Dragon's behavior, especially Hagrid since it had tried to bite him before but now it was like a harmless animal getting petted by the girls.

"Did you learn to calm Dragon's down?" Theodore asked, "It tried to bite Hagrid but when it came to you, it became calm and docile, is it the whisper?"

Draco was still wondering what was going on when he heard Theodore,

"I guess so." He said in an unsure voice, "Maybe it thinks of me as his mother."

"Maybe." Theodore said raising his eyebrows.

Draco was confused as to why people were hearing whispers when he was talking to the dragon and in return, it really seemed to understand him as well.

Draco was thinking what was going on when a sudden thought struck his head, he looked at Harry who was busy chatting with Ron.

'Is it Parseltongue?' Draco thought.

Parseltongue is the language of serpents and those who can converse with them. An individual who can speak Parseltongue is known as a Parselmouth. It is a very uncommon skill and is known to be an almost exclusively hereditary trait. Not counting Herpo the Foul, who predated him by several centuries, nearly all known parselmouths are descended from Salazar Slytherin, with Harry and Herpo the Foul, being two notable exceptions.

Parseltongue is, when spoken, a hissing sound, similar to that of a snake; as such, normal people cannot understand it, which is very similar to his situation right now. Apart from merely communicating with serpentine lifeforms, Parselmouths are also able to influence the will of serpents to a certain extent. Aside from serpent-based creatures, Parselmouths can communicate with each other with the language. While inherited, Parseltongue usually requires the speaker to face a snake-based creature or object shaped like a snake like a carving; It is also said that the more proficient speakers like the Gaunt family were able to speak it at will and even communicate in it.

'No, it can't be, Parseltongue can only speak to serpents but this is a Dragon we are talking about, but with all the weird things going on...' Draco thought rubbing the marks on his arms, 'Maybe...'

Draco went up to the Dragon and said, "Hop on." stretching his hands forward.

The Drago looked at him and came stumbling towards his hand.

"Draco you have to teach me that." Daphne said excitedly, "By the way is it ours?"

"Ours?" Hermione and Pansy both said at the same time with a sour voice.

*Cough* "I meant to ask if Draco owns it or not." Daphne said blushing as she started rubbing her necklace.

Draco looked at her necklace and realized that it was the one he gave her.

"Glad you liked the present." Draco said.

"Yeah! It was my first time seeing a Dragon hatch." Daphne replied smiling. "It's really awesome."

"I didn't mea--." Draco was about to say something but stopped halfway through, "Sigh!, yeah I own it."

"Really?" Pansy asked getting excited, "Where are you going to keep it? As far as I know, it is illegal to own one, without a proper document, oh wait are you going to keep it in the suit--"

"No, I am planning to send it to Romania." Draco said cutting off Pansy, "I have sent a letter to father and he has agreed to it."

Pansy understanding that she almost slipped out the secret, stuck her tongue out.

Draco had already sent a letter back to his father, lying to him about how he found a Dragon egg on the forbidden forest and was raising it till it hatched. Lucius quickly tried to manage a Dragon farm but all of them were far expensive than expected so he booked a private place in a Dragon Sanctuary which is cheaper considering the caretakers for the Dragon's come for free as they keep it there for study purposes. Draco after thinking for a while agreed to it but now thinking about the new changes he might have to change his plans.