Victory over the girls brought a brief flicker of satisfaction.
Not pride — I wasn't foolish enough to mistake dominance in a duel for mastery — but reassurance.
The blade was still sharp.
Yet when the adrenaline faded, my mind returned, inevitably, to the one subject I could not simply hex into obedience.
Language.
Not Latin or Greek or even the ancient visual language of runes.
Something older.
Something truly unique among humans.
Parseltongue.
It was a curiosity I'd shelved for years — a relic of my childhood, something i had tested out during my time in Austria.
When I first realized I could speak to snakes, I'd treated it as a novelty.
A party trick for a private audience of one.
But after seeing Harry's pitiful attempt at controlling that summoned cobra with my very eyes, I felt a twinge of something else.
He had commanded a mere basic summoned serpent to stop, to obey him and yet it resisted almost disobeying outright.
If I was to stand before the ancient guardian buried beneath Hogwarts — the Basilisk of legend, the twisted relic of Salazar's pride — I would need more than a basic understanding, i would need proficiency.
The ability to wield my speech like a weapon, with force and verve behind it to make the beast submit to my control.
~
I waited until the others slept.
The Draconis dormitory was carved from darker stone than most — basalt veins streaked with faint silver, like starlight caught underground.
Our torches burned low, more shadow than flame, and the fire in the central hearth gave off the faint scent of burning myrrh, courtesy of Daphne's preference for "aromatic study environments."
Perfect.
Rising from my bed and sealing the door behind me with a silent locking charm, keeping all others from entering the room.
Drawing out my Thunderbird wand, i mimiced the wand movements of malfoy before chanting out the spell name.
[Serpensortia]
From the tip of my wand shot a simple thing black snake.
From sciene lessons on biology this sleek black snake looked similar to a Black Mamba from Africa, an extremely poisonous breed of snake.
Seeing as it was my own 'summon' i felt no reason to fear it, seeing as how i could simply end the spell sending it back from whence it came.
"Ehhh ayaeeh ayaeeh ssaah ssss saahthay ssss seyythaa aayaa seyythaa ehhh " I hissed softly. 'Good evening'
The snake's head lifted, tongue flicking out like a pink thread of wool.
"Massster?" it replied, hesitant.
I had never thought of this to be a valid training method previously, since it was up for debate on whether a summoned serpent had enough conciousness to actually understand when someone is speaking to it.
That was one theory about why the snake hadnt listened to harry from the fans, but after having heard the cobra of Draco speaking during the dueling club i knew this was not the case.
"Yesss," I answered, careful to keep the sibilance steady. "I wissssh to practisssse my ssssspeach with you."
The little snakling nodded it's head in approval of my intent.
I began to test phrases.
Simple commands at first — move, come, stay, silence.
The serpent obeyed, though clumsily.
The language wasn't mere words; it demanded intent, almost emotion.
The snake responded as much to dominance as clarity.
Almost as if magical power was being relayed behind each word spoke to reinforce its intent and meaning.
When questioned during a break in practice, the summoned snake even admitted to feeling compelled to comply most of the time when i issued an order, however it was still not all the time.
I had yet to find the reason behind why that was.
At least until more hours of practice passed and i had reached a conclusion.
The realization thrilled and unsettled me in equal measure.
The reason for my previous failures was because i had simply been speaking, however orders were partial sucess.
If i was to go one step further and not just order but practically demand obedience then the successrate rose to nearly 100% save for specific complex orders that went against a living beings own instincts.
~
When the first rays of dawn began to ghost through the narrow windows, I finally let the creature return, undoing my spell and letting it fade away into a black hazy mist that dispersed into the air like dust in the wind.
Leaning back against the headboard, throat dry, voice aching from hours of hissing and whispering.
"So my heir," came Lady Draconis's silken tone. "You chose to forsake your rest to play with a crude childlike language."
I froze.
Of course she could bypass measures for privacy.
Simply phasing herself through the walls to peek or peer where she wanted.
She glided through the far wall, her translucent form haloed by the faint blue of pre-dawn light.
"I was practicing a skill i will need." I replied groggily the fatigue of staying up all night catching up to me.
Her eyes regarded me with the patience of a predator watching a cub. "Useful, perhaps. But crude in the end. Parseltongue is a child's dialect. My son Salazaars own after he failed to inherit my true power."
I arched a brow. "Oh? So what is superior to Parseltongue?"
Her lips curved. "Draconic. Of course."
Draconic... the language to speak the language of Dragons.
The mere though stunned Cassius.
He belonged to House Draconis, and had heard more than a few tales from Lady Draconis about her time as an active witch during the 10th century.
But his was the first time she had dropped a bombshell such as this.
True dragons were seen as the symbol of our house, but true dragons had died out or degenerated to the state of modern day dragons which were mere shadows of their former selves according to her.
For Muggles dragons were a feat of evolution, evolution specifically of snakes.
With a snake evolving into dragons, specifically in the far east, Dragons are depicted as Serpentine like creatures often without limbs at all, it was in the west that Dragon were depicted to be evolutions of other reptiles or lizards to become the limbed forms know as Western Dragons.
For Lady Draconis, the ability to converse in Draconic was more than just a means to speak with dragons.
Just like how she had witnessed Cassius intoning some spells with a language she did not know (Elvish) her own Draconic could be used to activate spell, calling forth a form of primordial magic which could activate supremely powerful forms of magic.