Right, sorry. I'm Auror healer Aure

Right, sorry. I'm Auror healer Aurelia Swiftwind. My twin is helping your colleagues with the paintings. The two of us were ordered to monitor and help with the case."

"Is this truly necessary?" – asked Albus in his grandfatherly tone, his eyes twinkling.

"I'm afraid so. This is already the second death at Hogwarts, so the DMLE really can't ignore it. You know what they say, 'better safe than sorry'."

Finally Severus Snape and Pomona Sprout returned to the Hospital Wing. It was already close to sunrise and both were very tired. They were accompanied by a witch in her early thirties with brown eyes and short purple hair. This was Aurora Swiftwind, twin sister of Aurelia Swiftwind. The two women were sent by Amelia Bones, head of the DMLE, to find out just what was going on at Hogwarts. So far it was only obvious that Dumbledore forgot to install safety wards on the staircases, but since no one ever fell down in the 1000 years that the school existed, it was understandable. There was however one peculiar detail that worried Aurora – the petrified portrait.

"Well?" – asked Minerva McGonagall impatiently – "What did you find?"

Severus shrugged:

"Nothing much unfortunately. The portrait of Jesabel Leroux on the fifth floor says Ms. Clearwater came running down the hallway, constantly glancing back and since her head was turned, she didn't see that the staircase had moved and fell down."

"So we went to question the portraits on the fifth floor. Most of them were asleep, so didn't see anything." – continued Pomona, while Severus drank some water – "We did however find a petrified portrait."

"Petrified portrait?" – repeated Minerva & Poppy incredulously.

Albus sighed. Aurors knowing what was going on at Hogwarts was certainly not what he needed. After all if the mess wouldn't be solved by the Potter boy, then it would all be in vain.

"There are some spells like that." – he said to the two witches – "I will have to have a talk with Gilderoy about appropriate attention seeking ways…" – with that he swept out of the Hospital Wing, his mind planning just how to set up his incompetent Defense professor.

The Swiftwind twins blinked at the bizarre behavior of the lemon drop loving headmaster and after saying their goodbyes went back to the Ministry.


The following day was a solemn one. Penelope Clearwater was a very good student, liked by both the professors and students, thus many were upset about her death. However the one whom this death hit the hardest was Percy Weasley, Penelope's boyfriend. The Gryffindor prefect became very subdued it was like he was functioning on autopilot. Ron, the insensitive git that he was didn't seem to care and neither did Ginny, so the twins took it upon themselves to care for their older brother, thus they were not present in the Great Hall, when Dumbledore made his heartfelt speech about how Gilderoy Lockhart felt his fame dimming and thus decided to stage his another adventure by impersonating the heir of Slytherin. The majority of the student body believed him, as did most of the professors. However there were those who knew he was lying, the four heads of Houses for one and of course Harry Potter.

Harry gathered his friends that day and finally came clean about the voice he'd been hearing at random times.

"What do you mean by 'a voice'?" – asked Pansy softly. Her mother was a mind healer, so the girl knew that there could be different reasons for hearing voices.

Harry scrunched up his face in thought:

"Just a voice, but somehow different… with a weird accent… $like thiss$... "

This caused everyone to yelp in shock.

"What?" – asked a very confused Harry.

Draco eyed his friend with a very weird expression:

"You mean to tell me that you're a Parselmouth and you don't even realize it?" – he asked in total shock.

"What's a Parcel… parcel… whatever?" – enquired Harry.

"It's snake language." – said Neville nervously.

"So then what? I can speak a language I never learnt?"

"It's not a language you can learn, Harry, it's a blood trait of the Slytherin family!" – exclaimed Pansy.

"Oh…" – was all Harry could say. He knew of course that he was descended from Salazar through the Gaunt family, but he didn't realize he would get some specific magical traits.

"'Oh' and that's it?" – enquired George – "You don't seem overly surprised…"

Harry sighed. Apparently he would have to start revealing his heritage much sooner than he wanted to:

"That's because I'm not. My mother was part of the Gaunt family, thus I am related to Salazar Slytherin."

"But your mother was muggleborn!" – exclaimed Pansy – "That's a known fact!"

"Not really." – muttered Harry – "Her family were squibs, not muggles."

He decided that there was no need to tell them the details yet. Thus the six friends spent the night talking about the 'voice' and what sort of serpent it could belong to.


Author's Note: Would you look at that? Another death at Hogwarts :) Poor poor Gilderoy, taking the fall for Dumbledore like that... but oh well, not like I liked him to begin with. Harry's meeting with the solicitor and Weasleys going to court in the near future :)
And thank you so much for the lovely reviews =)