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Last Of The Fae Chapter 102: Let The Dice Roll
🕑 Added 2025-01-20 04:25:28 +0000 UTCThane's sudden switch to parseltongue caught Rose, Hermione, and Ron off guard, and they all stared at him as if he had grown a second head. But Harry only frowned slightly as he opened his mouth to respond, "Sss’karr ithhh sssilthhh’ethhh, nathsss sss’kithhh harrrrsssthh’karr?"
Thane smiled, and his eyes reverted to their normal state, "Well, that confirms it; you're a parseltongue, Harry. Though that does open up far more questions than it answers."
"What the bloody hell was that?!" Ron exclaimed, looking between Harry and Thane, "Why were you making all those weird noises?!
Harry stared at Ron just as confused, "What do you mean noises? All I did was answer Thane's stupid question."
"You weren't speaking English, Harry, or even words," Hermione explained tentatively, "Did you really not notice?"
"N-no," Harry replied as he glanced from Hermione to Thane, "W-what did you do to me?"
Thane raised his hands in mock surrender, "I did nothing. You're born a Parselmouth, not made into one. It's an inherited magical trait that is extremely rare in Europe, with most known users tracing their lineage back to the most famous Parselmouth Salazar Slytherin."
"That can't be; Harry's a Gryffindor!" Ron insisted, taking great offense at Thane's proclamation.
"We can talk later about how stupid what you just said is," Thane replied with a long sigh. What you should be concerned about is the fact that a four-hundred-year-old snake is roaming through the plumbing."
"Does this mean I should stop using the toilets?" Rose asked with a straight face, drawing everyone's concerned gaze, "Jesus, it was a joke. Have you ever heard of sarcasm?"
"There's also the person responsible for releasing the Basilisk," Hermione reminded the room, moving past Rose's attempt at humor, "Which is why we need to find the ingredients to make this potion."
Thane glanced over at the still-boiling pot and the jars of the more common ingredients, "How is making a polyjuice potion going to help you figure out who the heir is?"
"H-how did you know?" Hermione stammered, only for Thane to roll his eyes, "Oh, I don't know, just the fact that I own one of the biggest alchemical supply companies in Britain."
"Wow, real humble of you," Ron muttered, but Thane ignored him, "So what's your plan? Make the potion imitate someone close to Draco and ask him if he opened the chamber of secrets?"
Once more, Thane was being sarcastic, but as Harry, Hermione, and Ron failed to meet his eye, he couldn't help but groan in frustration, "It's the Philosopher's Stone all over again. What is it with your obsession of getting involved with things far beyond your ability to handle."
Harry frowned, "You always think you're so much better than everyone, always talking down to people as if you know what's best!"
"Yeah!" Ron exclaimed, stepping forward and pointing his finger at Thane, "For the record, I never liked you, but ever since you became 'Lord Fae,' you've been a snobbish shite. Who knows, maybe you're the heir commanding the basilisk to hunt people down!"
"Is anyone else getting a sense of deja vu," Thane asked, his eyes narrowing dangerously, "Because I'm pretty sure the last time the three of you accused me of something on a whim and tried to stop me with force I didn't end well."
"A lot can change in a year," Harry muttered, but with his eyes darting back and forth, he clearly wasn't very confident.
"Stop it, both of you," Hermione snapped, glaring at Ron and Harry. We should be working together, not fighting amongst ourselves."
Thane shook his head. "There is no we in this endeavor. You all are woefully unprepared. My suggestion is that you go about your regular lives. All of this will be over soon."
"We don't have to listen to you!" Ron practically screamed, going red in the face, "You insufferable bloody-!"
Before Ron could finish his sentence, a sliver of ice shot past his ear, nicking his skin and drawing a thin line of blood.
Everyone turned to stare at Rose, whose arm was still extended and coated in frost from where she had thrown the ice dagger, "Speak another word, and I the next one will take your ear, you ginger prick."
Just like her magic, Rose's voice was ice cold, and her open hostility made Ron go pale in the face.
Thane smiled at Rose before turning back to the trio, "Well, you heard the girl; I think it's best we go our separate ways for now."
There was a tense moment before Hermione scowled and began to pack up all her potion supplies.
Neither Ron nor Harry said a word the former, too afraid that the slightest noise would have Rose fulfill her promise, while Harry was too fixated on trying to figure out just exactly who his sister had turned into.
"Come on, let's get out of here," Hermione muttered as she stormed ahead, brushing past Thane with Ron and Harry quickly in tow.
For a moment, neither Thane nor Rose spoke until the latter lowered hand with a snort, "I can see why you despise them. They don't think anything through and are entirely too confident in their abilities."
Thane sighed, "I wouldn't use the word despise, though I agree with your assessment. They mean well, but our ways of thinking and ideologies are far too different for me and them to see eye to eye."
Rose snorted and crossed her arms, "Do you think they have even the slightest chance of getting to the Basilisk and figuring out the heir before you do?"
"No," Thane replied with a sly grin, "Because thanks to them, I already figured it out."
"How?" Rose asked, surprised as Thane moved over to the group of sinks in the middle of the bathroom and focused on one spout in particular, which was shaped like a serpent's head.
It had stood out to Thane the first time he had inspected the bathroom, but after giving it a once over and trying all sorts of things, the spout hadn't reacted in any sort of way. Thane ended up chalking up the strange appearance to the bathroom's proximity to the potions room, which had always been counted as Slytherin territory. The same way Hufflepuffs had Herbology and Magical Beast, Raven Claws with Charms, and Griffyindor with Defense against the Dark Arts.
But Thane should have known there were no such things as coincidences. So when the spout sent up a flare of magic when he and Harry spoke parseltongue, he wanted to kick himself in the face. 'Of course, the entrance to a secret chamber that Salazar only intended for his descendants to open requires a parselmouth to activate.'
Staring at the spout, Thane decided not to activate it for fear that it would simply release the Basilisk outright.
Thane quickly explained his findings to Rose, who stared in disbelief at the simple stone spout and quickly scanned it with her aura. She found nothing, which was to be expected. Whatever methods were used to conceal the magical means of opening the chamber of secrets were far beyond her and even Thane's means of detection.
"Alright, so you found the entrance, but what about the other part? Who opened it in the first place?" Rose asked, looking from the sink to Thane.
"Well, I don't know precisely, but I've narrowed it down to anyone in the Wesley Family, excluding Ron," Thane answered, "The day after I got here, I came to this bathroom, and I could smell a human had been in here with the Basilisk. Ron was a nearly identical match, but there's a slight difference, meaning he's a close relative."
"But that doesn't make sense," Rose said with a frown, "None of them belong to House Slytherin, and historically, their House has been at odds with anything related to blood supremacy."
"I know, which is why I can't dive into all of this blindly," Thane replied as he took a step back from the sink, "I need this to play out until I'm certain I can cut this off at the source."
"So what? You're just going to let a massive snake roam around unchecked," Rose asked accusingly before she smirked, "This is going to be interesting."
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First_Steps
nice
