The echo of the hiss still clung to the walls like smoke.
No one moved.
Not even Dumbledore.
Lily's hand was still pressed to her mouth, her eyes wide — too wide — the green of them dulling to glassy jade.
Her fingers trembled as though she'd been caught mid-crime.
The silence stretched, taut as a bowstring, until even the whirring silver instruments on Dumbledore's shelves faltered and fell still.
It wasn't Harry who had spoken.
It wasn't me.
It was her.
Lady Draconis was the first to break the stillness.
"Well," she murmured, tone light, but her spectral eyes glowed faintly. "I did not expect that."
"Mother?" Harry whispered, voice cracking. "Mum—what was that? What did you just—"
Lily swallowed hard, but no words came.
The sound that escaped her was half a sob, half a laugh of disbelief.
"I—" she tried, shaking her head, "I didn't mean to—"
But Dumbledore leaned forward, his chair creaking.
His eyes — ancient, endless blue — watched her with a kind of quiet awe.
"Lily," he said softly. "That was Parseltongue."
Her hand fell from her lips.
The tremor in her shoulders was unmistakable.
"It can't be. I haven't— not since—" She stopped, eyes darting to me for the briefest of moments before flicking away.
Harry blinked. "You… can speak it too?"
Lily's voice cracked. "I didn't want to. I swore I never would."
Dumbledore's tone gentled. "My dear girl… you've carried this gift your entire life?"
"Curse," she said bitterly. "Not gift. Headmaster i've denied its use as long as i've known about it."
The mere implication was startling.
Lily Evans after all was a muggleborn, one born from a family without magical blood.
So how could one such as her bear a magical genetic trait such as Parseltongue in her blood?
Even Dumbledore's calm faltered.
"Curious," he murmured, stroking his beard, "most curious indeed. There has never been record of one born of non-magical lineage manifesting that talent. It is an inheritance of blood — ancient blood, old as Hogwarts itself."
He glanced toward Lady Draconis, then back to her.
"Tell me, Lily, have you ever wondered from where yours might have come?"
She didn't answer.
The ghost of Lady Draconis drifted closer, expression unreadable.
"There are few bloodlines ancient enough to carry the serpent's song," she said softly. "Fewer still that could survive its passing. My son's blood mingled far and wide through centuries — hidden, diluted, but never entirely gone."
Her gaze flicked pointedly to Lily.
The implication settled like frost on the back of my neck.
Harry looked between us all, confusion bleeding into fear. "Wait—what does that mean? Are you saying—Mum's related to Slytherin?"
Lily closed her eyes as if fearing the truth.
"Indeed, perhaps an ancestor generations ago was a squib, resulting in their return to the muggle world where the bloodline remained hidden dormant awaiting the chance to be awakened once more." Lady Draconis stated her theory all the while keeping here eyes transfixed upon Cassius himself.
"Inherited," I repeated, tasting the word with a smirk. "So it's plain as day, Headmaster. Parseltongue isn't a dark miracle of the boy's own making — it's a hand-me-down from the Slytherin founder himself."
I let the silence breathe, then added softly, "From mother… to son."
Lily's eyes snapped open, meeting mine for half a heartbeat.
The color drained from her face as though I had reached into her chest and torn something out by name.
Dumbledore watched the exchange, something sharp flickering behind his calm.
"So the heir mentioned indeed would be-"
"No! Harry is innocent! Just because he is a descendant does not make him this mentioned heir! Surely there must be others."
Lily cried out in shock as the suspicions once more turned towards her favored son.
Meanwhile her own eyes looked across to Cassius who'd retaken him seat, eyes burning with fury.
Desperately wanting to ask the question lingering in her mind.
'If Harry inherited the gift... then did also Cassius?'
But she was forced to withhold speaking out.
She could not run the risk of it being known she was this boys mother, for to do so would also mean exposing her own part in his life, abandoning the boy right after he was born before casting him out, not just from her life but from the magical world itself.
Image after all was everything, and while Cassiu had returned she could not claim him without ruining her own image, while giving him a boost thanks to the pity others would feel for him.
But this revelation of information had instead shifted the dynamic, the attention was no longer pointed to the mysterious Cassius and his heirship over house Draconis, and now back over to Harry as the heir of Slytherin.
"Huh hmmmm." Dumbledore, cleared his throat looking to carry the discussion in another direction. "Lady Draconis, do you happen to known how your son meant to deal with his enemies?"
"Oh that." Lady Draconis responded. "As my best guess it would be his studies into Herpo the foul. that fool always sought to create a means of reaching his own mothers height."
Herpo the foul...
That was a name that caused Dumbledore to fall back in his chair.
And for good reason.
He was most known for his creation of a beast most foul.
the creator of the mutant magical species known as the basilisk.
A monsterous snake, with scales like steel, fangs as sharp as swords, a venom so potent there existed no antidote, and a piercing gaze capable of killing on contact, while causing petrification when witnessed indirectly.
A leading light in the field which later would come to be known as dark or forbidden magic.
With the release of this new information even greater suspicion was lain at the feet of the potters.
Both mother and son could speak to snakes, and if the monster within this chamber indeed was a basilisk they could speak to and command it.
Lily was worried enough had already happened to her son, and now more was happening, she even had a mind to pull him from the school transfering to another magical school in attempt of avoiding the seemingly unavoidable.
The discussion carried on for only a short while longer achieving nothing, as Lady Draconis could only speculate, Cassius refused to reveal what he knew, and Lily had become to defensive of Harry to be a willing participant in the interrogation any longer.