A/N: Happy New Year's Eve/Day, and welcome to the prologue of Breaking Boundaries! This prologue takes place early on in DH, in what would be Harry's 7th year. Later on-in about the next chapter-the story will get AU in DH, then even later, AU in 1940's Hogwarts. On a side note, this was written for Tom's birthday today, the 31st, but by the time this gets published it'll probably be January 1 already...^^;; Anyways. As I said, this is the prologue, so it's meant to be short and (hopefully) successive chapters will be longer. Let's cross our fingers, hmm?
~lovely complexities (a.k.a. Tatianna)
"No. I-I won't do it—I refuse."
SMACK.
Elizabeth Hurst flinched at the sound of contact, gray eyes wide in a sort of horrified disbelief as Neville Longbottom staggered backwards, an angry red mark in the shape of a hand imprinted onto the otherwise flawless pale flesh of his cheek. A stunned silence filled the room.
"That's what you get for thinking you're better than us, you filthy little blood traitor. Maybe next time you won't hesitate to curse that first-year," Amycus Carrow, the Dark Arts professor, growled.
Elizabeth, for the life of her, could not understand what the Gryffindor was thinking. All he had to do was Crucio the bloody first-year, for crying out loud! Neville likely did not know the first-year, nor would he be looked down upon for performing an Unforgivable if it meant avoiding one of the Carrow's severe punishments. What then, was the reason for this display of—in his case, deadly—rebelliousness?
As she racked her brain for the answer, the Gryffindor in question began to make his way towards his desk in the back. As he passed by her, Elizabeth caught a glimpse of his face. He did not have the look of one who has accepted defeat as she had expected to find, rather, everything about his face— from focused brown eyes to a mouth set in a thin line to the swollen bruise turning a dark shade of purple with spots of yellow—radiated a sort of quiet defiance.
It was then that she realized what his motivation was, and almost immediately she scoffed: It was his Gryffindor pride. These two words entailed many things, from recklessly throwing your life away for someone to mouthing off people who did the slightest thing to offend you. It also meant standing up for your beliefs, despite any form of resistance you may run into.
Elizabeth knew this not because she herself was a Gryffindor, no; rather, she was amongst the people who scorned those who were. Slytherins. Reputably the worst of the bunch, Slytherins were known for their cunning, selfishness, and ambition. Almost a direct foil to Gryffindors. The way Elizabeth saw it, there was a fine line between Slytherins and Gryffindors. Take this hypothetical (yet completely plausible) situation for example: Amycus Carrow has cornered a first-year and is about to punish him for bad-mouthing the Dark Lord, perhaps through the use of his personal favorite—The Cruciatus Curse. Now, if there was a Gryffindor there, he would jump in between them, prepared to sacrifice his physical well-being for the weaker first-year. On the other hand, if a Slytherin were there, she would most certainly not jump between them, especially if Amycus was feeling in a particularly vengeful mood. Perhaps if the first-year was secretly an Auror in disguise, and Carrow had had one too many drinks and was Stupified beyond belief. Maybe then she would. But in any other circumstances, it would be a definite and absolute no.
This was one of the distinctions she was familiar with, amongst others. The yin and the yang. The red and the green. The black and the white.
But, as she soon learned, there are millions of shades of gray between the two sides.
And sometimes, it's a danger in itself to discover them.