RON: You're a Parselmouth! Why didn't you tell us?
HARRY: I'm a what?
HERMIONE: You can talk to snakes.
HARRY: I know. I mean, I accidentally set a
python on my cousin Dudley at the zoo once... once! But so what?
I bet loads of people here can do
it.
HERMIONE: No. They can't. It's not a very common gift, Harry. This is bad.
HARRY: What's bad? If I hadn't told that snake not to
attack Justin -
RON: Oh, that's what you said to it.
HARRY: You were there! You heard me!
RON: I heard you speaking Parseltongue. Snake language.
HARRY: I spoke a different language? But I didn't realize -- how can I speak
a language without knowing I can?
HERMIONE: I don't know, Harry. But it sounded like you were egging the snake on or something. Harry, listen to
me. There's a reason the symbol of Slytherin House is a serpent. Salazar
Slytherin was a Parselmouth. He could talk to snakes, too.
RON: Exactly. And now the whole school's gonna to think you're his
great-great-great grandson or something.
HARRY: But I'm not. I can't be.
HERMIONE: He lived a thousand years ago. For all we know... you could be.
妙語佳句，活學活用
1. Play at
Play at 在這里的意思是"做，參加，從事于"， What are you playing at? 的意思就是"你在耍什么把戲？"此外，play at
還有以下一些常用意義： 1) 玩，做游戲，假扮……玩，例如：The children are playing at hide-and-seek. The
children are playing at policemen and robbers. 2) 打球，打牌，例如：Can we play at
cards this evening? 3) 兒戲似地做，不認真地干，例如：She was just playing at keeping house,
letting the others do all the work.
2. Set on
這個片語也寫做set upon，意思是"to attack or cause to attack someone physically or
emotionally"，例如：The man sets his dog on a stranger.
3. Loads of
Loads of 表示"許多的，大量的"，也可以用 a load of 來表示同樣的意思，例如：loads of parties during the
holiday season，To the reader's disappointment, the leading article in this issue
of the magazine is a load of rubbish.
4. Egg on
"慫恿，煽動某人做某事"的意思，例如：Jack is always egging me on to drive faster.
JUSTIN: What are you playing at?
