Chapter 197: Herpo the Mad (Edited)

After returning from the Forbidden Forest, Harry seemed a bit... no, very worried.

In fact, he was speaking Parseltongue....

Once again, he remembered again what the Sorting Hat had said at the sorting ceremony.

"Ugh..."

Harry couldn't remember the last time he had sighed.

Ever since he'd been introduced to the magical world, he'd been taught that there were few good Slytherins, and that the two people he disliked most at school, Malfoy and Snape, were from Slytherin.

Finding out that he might be a descendant of the founder of Slytherin made Harry's mood complicated.

"Come on, mate, it's no big deal."

Ron reached over and patted Harry on the shoulder, reassuring him, "And it's okay, isn't it? you can talk to snakes! Before this, only Fish could do it."

'Didn't you tell me earlier not to reveal that I can speak Parseltongue?' Harry rolled his eyes, muttering in his mind, but not really contradicting Ron.

He knew Ron had said it to make him feel better and that it would be ungrateful of him to take it personally.

"So what if you really are a Slytherin descendant? you're a Gryffindor now! I bet if the other Slytherins, especially Malfoy, found out, they'd be angry and jealous."

Ron's comment, especially the last sentence, really made Harry feel better, and he couldn't help but smile as he imagined Malfoy's furious face when he found out he spoke Parseltongue.

"That's right" Ron smiled as he saw his friend's mood improve and handed him a chocolate frog, "Come on, have a piece of chocolate, we have Quidditch training tonight."

Yesterday morning's training had been spoiled by the Slytherin gang, and most of the team had complained about waking up so early, and not many of them had listened to his ramblings about tactics, so Wood had rescheduled training for the afternoon.

After handing Harry a chocolate frog, Ron himself took one from the pile of snacks at the foot of his bed and popped it into his mouth.

Thanks to Fish, there was never a shortage of snacks in the dormitory, and for the first time Ron knew what it was like to be bored with snacks..... It was a real blessing!

Harry opened the box of chocolate frogs and, with great dexterity, grabbed the frog before it could jump out and bit its head off, the struggling frog stopped moving immediately.

"Whose letter did you get?" Ron craned his neck and asked, and shook the image in his hand in disgust, "Mine's Alberic Grunnion again, the guy who invented the stink bomb."

I didn't have enough money to eat snacks before, and I didn't have the financial fortitude to collect all the letters.

Before he entered Hogwarts, most of the letters Ron had collected were duplicates that his older siblings had thrown at him, so what he had were basically useless letters....

Like Dumbledore, and the ones he had now, like Alberic.

Now that they had more snacks than they could eat in their dormitory, Ron finally saw the hope of collecting all the Chocolate Frogs' letters, and in the last year alone, he had collected twice as many new pictures as he had in the previous years combined.

The desire to collect is a desire shared by most humans, even animals, and even Fish had been collecting Chocolate Frogs cards...though he soon lost interest, he had collected them, and still had several in a corner of his magic bag.

Harry was no exception, and being relatively new to the wizarding world, he was able to learn more about it from the pictures, so last year he had joined the ranks of the card collectors that came in the Chocolate Frog packs, and now had as many as Ron did.

Popping the chocolate frog into his mouth in two bites, Harry puffed out his cheeks and pulled a picture out of the box....

"Let's see... it looks like a letter I haven't seen before!"

Harry was delighted.

The letter showed a grim-looking old man with a ring of grass around his head and a carved snake-shaped staff in his hand....

The corner of Harry's eye twitched slightly at the sight of the staff, the joy he had felt faded instantly as he was now allergic to snakes.

Looking down, Harry noticed the name at the bottom of the letter....

"Is his name... Herpo the Mad? Who is it?"

"Oh, Herpo the Mad! That's a super weird letter." Ron had never seen this letter before either, but that didn't stop him from knowing them like the back of his hand, and he exclaimed excitedly, "It's even weirder than Agrippa!"

Harry remembered Agrippa's name, when he had met Ron on the Hogwarts Express last year, he had told him that he wanted a letter from Agrippa.... Unfortunately, he hadn't been able to get one until now.

"See what he says, Herpo the Fool...he doesn't sound like a good wizard." Ron urged eagerly, since he knew the names of all the characters on the Chocolate Frog cards, but not the descriptions or anything else.

And the Chocolate Frog cards were arbitrary, from famous wizards like Dumbledore, to singers like the members of the Weird Sisters, and even ordinary wizards like Chauncey Oldridge, who had nothing more to say than that he was the first dragon pox sufferer.

But the master alchemist and owner of the Philosopher's Stone, Nicolas Flamel, was not included.

It was unclear what the criteria were for selecting the letters.

Harry, also curious, turned the letter over, and on the back of it was the description of Vile Helper.

"Herpo the Mad was a dark wizard of ancient Greece. He was one of the earliest known dark wizards and much of his research still influences today's dark magic, plus, he invented many evil curses..."

Harry read the back in passing, Herpo the Mad wasn't really good, he pursed his lips and continued reading, "And he is also believed to be the first wizard to create a basilisk and one of the first people to speak Parseltongue..."

"Snap!"

Harry unconsciously threw the letter in his hand against the floor with force.

What the fuck is this!

I just can't get along with speaking Parseltongue today, can I?!

"..."

"..."

After throwing the letter down, Harry and Ron were silent at the same time.

"Ahem, not really a problem," Ron broke the silence first, "Maybe, Harry, you're not a descendant of Slytherin, but a descendant of Herpo the Mad."

Harry looked at the letter he had thrown on the floor and then looked at Ron, who was actually consoling him....

The old man could be worse than Slytherin!

At least Slytherin was barely a wizard on the side of justice before splitting from the other three founders.

Ron scratched his head, then realized there was something wrong with what he had just said.

"So... anyway, did you at least get a rare photo?" said Ron dryly, unable to think of anything comforting to say.

Harry rolled his eyes again and, even though he was disgusted by the letter, his body bent over, picked it up and put it away.