18 November 1992, Hogwarts
Neville Longbottom had no idea what had happened. He vividly remembered humiliating Malfoy in their little practice duel after the ponce started to seriously attack him. It was easy. The training he had received in the Summer from a former Auror made his encounters with Malfoy little more than a piece of cake. For some reason, his grandmother gave him a proud look when he suddenly came to her and told her that he wanted to learn how to fight properly. She had arranged for his instructor, and every time the boy who lived wanted to quit, he remembered the infuriating smirk on Potter's face as he played with him and Ron.
He was looking forward to challenging Potter after humiliating Malfoy. Get back at the traitorous godbrother that humiliated him so many times in the previous year. But the traitorous snake decided not to lose graciously, but thankfully Snape killed it. But for some reason, people just kept staring at him with fear and horror on their faces.
He barely even registered his friends pulling him outside the Great Hall for no reason. Maybe they thought that the other Slytherins might attack him for humiliating one of their own.
Ron steered him out of the hall, Hermione hurrying alongside them. As they went through the doors, the people on either side drew away as though they were frightened of catching something. Neville didn't have a clue what was going on, and neither Ron nor Hermione explained anything until they had dragged him all the way up to the empty Gryffindor common room.
"When the hell were you going to tell us?"
Neville felt even more confusion flood his already clogged brain. What the hell was the redhead on about? Was he talking about the training for some reason? His grandmother had told him not to advertise that he could defend himself, this way any attacker wouldn't be prepared. Ron would have probably asked to attend the sessions as well and the Longbottom Matriarch really didn't like Ron Weasley. She seemed somewhat neutral to the rest of the family, except for Percy whom she disliked by instinct because he wanted to be a politician, and she admitted to him reluctantly that she admired the twins' innovation, even if their work ethic could be better. Anyway, she really hated Ron. She never said anything about it, but she obviously thought that he was dragging her only grandson down.
Reluctantly, the Longbottom scion would admit that Ron wasn't the sort of person you wanted around if your goal is to be productive. The sad thing was that he had a very good tactical mind, he was just not inclined to school, or just hard work in general. But he was brave and loyal to a fault, and Neville appreciated that more than him being some sort of magical savant.
Anyway, Neville realized that his friends were looking at him expectingly and just muttered, "Tell you?"
Yes, tell us!"
"Tell you what, exactly?"
"That you're a bloody Parselmouth!"
Wait… what? Neville wasn't a Parselmouth, that's for sure. His Grandmother had made him memorize over a thousand years of ancestry ever since he was a little boy. None of them is a Parselmouth, "What are you on about? I'm not a Parselmouth. Believe me, if there was one in the family, I would know. Hell, my grandmother would definitely know, and you know that it's a family trait that's passed on by blood."
"Well, it sure looked like you were," Ron exclaimed.
That didn't make any sense. Where would he have even looked like a Parselmouth? Thankfully, Hermione interjected, "The snake, Neville. You commanded it, didn't you?"
Yeah, but he was scared out of his mind and that thing was huge, he just asked the thing to stop out of desperation, "But, I only told it to stop."
"Oh, is that what you said to it?"
"What do you mean? You heard me! I said it in front of the whole hall!" Both of his friends shook their heads.
"Neville," Hermione said after taking a deep, heavy breath, "we didn't hear anything you said. We just heard you speaking Parseltongue. To us, it just sounded like a bunch of incomprehensible hissing."
Neville's mind just froze, "You're not having me on, are you?"
"Of course not. Did you look at everyone's faces in the Great Hall," Ron exclaimed.
How the hell could he have been a parselmouth? How did he even use it without realizing it? Even when he was a child and used accidental magic, Neville knew that he used magic somehow. And the Longbottoms didn't even have a link to Salazar Slytherin in any way. The man was rumoured to be the greatest user of the snake tongue in history. Apparently, he did things with it that just weren't possible, especially considering the primitive magic that nomadic tribes tended to use the tongue for. This skill had turned him into a legend.
Being a descendant of a founder of Hogwarts, even if it was Slytherin, was an honour, one that his ancestors would have bragged about, instead of their druidic origin. It just didn't make any sense.
A small voice at the back of his head told him that one of them could have hidden it. Maybe a descendant of a squib from a half-blood that married into the family. There was a possibility that maybe his family was light aligned just wanted to deny, one that he accidentally revealed to the world. He needed to send an owl to his grandmother telling her what happened. This could have a large impact on the family's reputation after all.
Neville opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again and tried to say anything. No words came out. He looked to Ron imploringly. Ron looked sheepish. "You were speaking it, mate," he said apologetically. "We all heard you, clear as day. We had no idea what you even said to it."
"But… obviously I was telling it to stop!"
.....
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