A World Cast in Shadow

Walking into his study, Horace Slughorn tosses his cap with an errant hand into the armchair he keeps by the fireplace of his rooms. He paces the width of the room several times, brooding on the Head of House meeting he had just returned from. It had been unsettling, to say the least. They are barely into the school year, but already the other heads of houses are reporting problems with the children of his house. Slytherin prefects are taking points from other houses due to the smallest infractions from students and Slytherin students not tied to prefect-roles have been caught heckling the youngest Muggleborns of Hogwarts by other professors at a worrisome frequency. Yet both of those issues easily fell away in the face of the problems his newest batch of Slytherins brought to the table.

Stopping mid-stride, Horace gave a heavy sigh before going to sit behind his desk. His hands brush over framed photos of past he keeps there. Bright, smiling students stare back at him from the frames. As he reaches the last frame, his hand hesitates before it can brush over the new Slug Club picture. Sighing once more, Horace lets his eyes pick out the faces of his Slytherin students. None of them smile, a few smirk, but not one of his house looks the least bit happy. Running his thumb down the length of the photo, he puts it back and settles more comfortably into his creaky desk chair.

He shuffles the first year assignments into a pile and put down them before him. Horace dabs his quill in the inkwell, but the whetted-end never touches the paper. Eyes on the name at the top, Slughorn puts his quill down. Severus Snape. He's one of the troublesome new Slytherins.

The lad's only a month into his schooling and he's made enemies of half of Gryffindor while keeping a tenuous friendship with a Muggleborn from the same house. There is no doubt in Slughorn's mind - even now - that the boy will be something; his advanced knowledge and inherent skill in potions is something to behold. But what will the boy become? He's intelligent and on occasion, Horace has seen how considerate he is with his Gryffindor friend, other times, though, the boy is downright vindictive (the same could be said for nearly all of Slytherin). Severus Snape is walking a tightrope and depending on which way the wind blows, the youth will find himself on a side without truly knowing how he's gotten there.

Uncomfortable with his line of thoughts, Horace's eyes drift back to the photo on his desk and there, staring back at him, is the solemn face of Lucius Malfoy, the newest Head Boy. He is suave and popular among the Slytherins. Personable, Horace might have called him, if he was a Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or Gryffindor. Not in Slytherin, though. No, in Slytherin it means he is conniving, a snake waiting to strike. Studying the picture further, Horace sees the glint in the youth's steely eyes for what it is, a fire. Horace knows it's not the fire of brilliance or warmth, however. No, it's a fire that promises destruction of someone or something that Slughorn can only guess at. If he were to be truthful, Horace might admit he has an idea as to what the boy has planned. The way he's caught him looking at the Potter heir from the professor's table in the Great Hall makes him fearful. The only time he's witnessed that flame lessen was in the presence of one:

The faultless Narcissa Malfoy.

The girl is delicate in appearance and very pretty (though, not quite as much as Miss Zabini was, but she was cruel, cruel, cruel – a demon playing an angel), she and Lucius make quite the pair. However, her eyes are closed and her smile cold, she uses her wand like a weapon, and she has an unsettling sway over the girls in her house. Horace can remember once - just last year when the girl wasn't even considered an upper-year - how she made all of Slytherin shun her elder sister with a single glacial glance. The girl is dangerous, not in the ways he fears with the Carrows, Lestranges, or even Wilkes, but in the way that he can easily see her changing a whole groups beliefs with a single word. She knows how to manipulate more than the hearts of men; she knows how to change them.

The other Black sister - the one still in Hogwarts's halls - she's different. He can see it in the way she frowns and isolates herself (even without her sister's prompting). Slughorn likes her more than he likes so many of his children these days and he thinks with the right course or person, she could be something great. All she needs is to get away from her family's reputation - like her cousin Sirius (Horace knows there will be one more Black, what will become of that one is unknown to him still). Andromeda's smart and he believes she views the world in a way so many of his students don't, she sees it as a tool for bettering herself; not something that needs to be bettered.

The world, though, could do with bettering - so much bettering - the bruises on his children, their masks and actions speak of this. The Rosiers, Averys, Wilkes, Zabinis, Lestranges, Carrows, Bulstrodes, Boles, Higgs, Montagues and all the others are in need of guidance. They may not hold the promise the select few do, but he knows they will matter just as much in these coming years. They need care; understanding, acceptance, and most of all they need a future bright and shining.

Yet Horace Slughorn fears the children of Slytherin will never have what they deserve. They are stuck in cycles; cycles of pain, neglect, fear, hate, and death. So many of his students will repeat them and those who don't will fall in some other way. Horace wants to save them, guide them, give them a world where they can be validated. He wants to give them a future where all of them get their greatest wish, the wish to prove to all that they are worth it. They are important. They are needed…

Horace, though, is a fearful, selfish man. He is as much a Slytherin as his children, he looks out for himself and everyone else after. Connections only matter so long as they are useful and meet with what he aspires for. He does not want destruction, pain, death, and suppression, or even to be superior to all. Grindelwald was enough of a warning for his generation. What of the children after him, though? They're are of a different world, a world where tension is thick, silent accusations from that first war still heavy in the minds of those before them and pain's just a prick away.

He is afraid of this budding world and so, he ignores it.

It's because of this Horace knows he will not be the one to save the children of Slytherin. He's already lost them - he lost the first one - and from here on out, the lambs will all become the wolves of a madman's army.

Isn't this a little melodramatic? How did you like Horace's lament?

Thanks for reading and please review to let me know what you think! :)

Edited: 10/7/16