THIS IS A REWRITE! I REPEAT, A REWRITE!
Okay, now that I have your attention, I'm actually thinking of turning this into a series. Theo's just so much fun to write, if you get him the right way.
I'm gonna assume you know what a disclaimer is.
Theodore Nott's First Fact of Life: everyone has a mask. Everyone has something to hide; no one is who they seem. An person's entire personality, reputation, their entire identity may be a mask. Sometimes, a person's only protection was their mask.
Theodore Nott was quite adept at seeing through masks.
This was supposedly an indication of his "Slytherin-ness", according to his father. Slytherin house was, after all, not the House of the Death Eaters. It was for the cunning, the clever. Slytherin was where the people too worldly for Ravenclaw and too smart for Gryffindor went.
Well, it used to be.
Now, it was the house of the purebloods, the house of the mini-Death Eaters (to borrow a phrase from the one ever-enlightened Gryffindors). How else do you think Crabbe and Goyle got in? Obviously some well-disguised genius, yes?
A seven year-old Theodore looked around at the dinner with interest. It was the first time his parents had ever taken him to one of these things, seeing he'd yet to master basic Occlumency and politics before.
He and a few of the other glorified heirs of the most powerful Most Ancient and Noble Houses of Pureblood Mania were sitting in a corner, watching the adults twirl around in a dignified crowd, somehow carrying out conversations in the course of minutes before socializing elsewhere, then elsewhere, and still keeping track of it all.
Eventually, Theodore grew bored. He turned to one of the boys sitting next to him.
What to be... oh, yes. His father said to play "chirpy little boy" for this one.
"So, what's your name?"
The boy didn't respond.
Theodore poked him in his immense neck.
He bounced slightly. "Come on, what's your name?"
The boy grunted, "Crabbe."
Theodore waited. Then, when a first name was non-forthcoming, he gave the boy a strange look. "Alright... well, what's your first name?"
The boy screwed up his face. "Vin-cent". It looked painful.
"Right... well, goodbye," Theodore moved to an exotic-looking boy in the corner.
Of course. Just some very well disguised cunning.
And Draco Malfoy was adopted from a family of ferrets.
No, Theodore Nott considered himself a true Slytherin, one the only ones that really did belong to this house.
Well, not that he danced through the halls singing that, of course. The key to being Slytherin was to make yourself seen un"Slytherin", a fact that many (Draco Malfoy especially) had yet to grasp.
Anyways, Theodore had been raised a pureblood. He had learned how to gain power; he had learned the subtle art of diplomacy. It was in these lessons that Theodore saw how incredibly obtuse the wizarding world had become.
The 'purebloods' were a dying breed, and the intermarrying had resulted in a race of idiotic trolls, mousy cowards, and lunatics. The government was corrupt, creatures with an intense hatred of wizard kind excercized singular control over the economy, and any idea that wasn't based off of some archaic, medieval concept was branded 'fanatical'.
To sum it up, the British Wizarding world was run by "pureblooded" idiots.
Theodore had vowed at a young age to never become a pureblood idiot, if he valued his life and future. Any fool should see that the tide had shifted, and that antagonizing the majority of the wizarding world would most likely have them destroyed.
Theodore, now nine years of age, furrowed his eyebrows. His father had decided today was to teach him "The Lesson", which was basically why most purebloods thought they were all that and who the Dark Lord was. They were currently sitting in a muggle park, done up in Muggle clothes.
"But Father, what about all those Muggle things you showed me? The bus thing, and that underground train! What about those?"
Theodore's father regarded him for a second. "Theodore, do you really think that Wizardkind would aknowledge those things, after all I've just told you? The other purebloods don't know about the bus, or the Underground. They've most likely never gone out into the Muggle world before, ever."
Theodore paused for a second. "What am I supposed to do, about this?"
Nott Sr. looked away for a moment, reclining on the bench with a faint smile on his lips. "Well, I don't know, Theodore, what are you going to do?"
Theodore regarded his father. "I'm going to have to keep this to myself, aren't I?"
Nott Sr. laughed, slightly bitterly. "Well, you could go out and declare it to the world, at the cost of branding the Nott family as blood-traitors and possibly getting expelled from the Wizarding society all together, if you really wanted."
Theodore nodded, silently. It wasn't even a question.
On the bus ride back to the Apparition point, Theodore looked at his father. "Father, what did you do? About the Muggles?"
"Only what I could do, Theodore. We all do we what must for ourselves... and those we protect."
A hand rose, subconciously, to rub his left forearm, as Nott Sr. gazed out at Muggle London.
Theodore had changed his worldview rather abruptly, after that day. Sad thing was, the world's view of him didn't change at all.
Theodore was already on the wrong foot with the rest of the student body due to his Slytherin pureblood status. It was darkly amusing to see how the rest of the world, who hated him for his 'judgement' and 'prejudice' would immediately be prejudiced and judging to him. He never said anything to anyone, yet they hated him all the same... idiots.
A girl walked into the classroom, nervously. Theodore could understand her sentiments; it was the first Potions lesson for the first years, and no one had heard anything good about their professor.
She looked frantically around the room, not spotting any of her house mates, Theodore supposed.
She caught his eye.
Hmm. Well, he was raised to be a gentleman.
Theodore gestured to the seat next to him.
She rushed up quickly, and muttered a quick thanks before collapsing into a chair.
"Thanks, I was getting worried. You're Theodore Nott, from Slytherin, aren't you? I saw you getting sorted, right before Harry. I'm Hermione Granger, from Gryffindor. Do all Slytherins really hate Muggleborns?"
Theodore reeled back slightly in his chair as the barrage of words was cut off as quickly as it had started. The girl, Granger, stared at him with wide eyes. He scrambled to get his diplomacy, the very thing he'd been raised on, back to action. A stray thought commented on how strange this girl was, if she managed to offset ingrained rituals.
He paused.
"You see, Hermione, Slytherins are-"
Theodore's hasty defense was shattered by a shout from the entryway to the room. A ginger boy, Weasley by the look of it, stumbled towards Theodore's table.
"Hermione, what're you doing talking to a Slytherin? You're a Gryffindor!"
The Granger girl looked at the Weasley cooly. "Well, Ronald, you'll have to excuse me for not accepting your stereotypes as proven fact. Theodore and I were merely discussing Slytherin ideals on pressing issues, such as racial discrimination, and he was here first. So I'd suggest that you-"
Theodore never got to find out, though he wished dearly to, what Ron should do. The rest of the Gryffindor house stumbled in, along with a few late Slytherins. They quickly noticed the spat, and warily set down their bags on their respective sides of the room. A battle was in the making.
Granger seemed to notice this as well, and gave Theodore an apologetic glance and joined the rest of Gryffindor.
She never spoke to Theodore again.
Then again, Theodore couldn't judge them too harshly; every word that came out of Draco Malfoy's mouth made him want to hate himself, too.
Draco Malfoy was one of the most annoying, idiotic people he had ever had the displeasure to meet (besides a certain Weasley). Honestly, the boy had been handed from birth a position of practically unlimited, yet had to be heavy handed, snobbish, egotistical, and didn't even know how to butter someone up! Malfoy strutted around, waving his status around like a flag and bragging all about how his father was a great big Death Eater! Theodore wondered if Malfoy knew just what Lord Voldemort did during his reign of horror and death. But then, Malfoy was truly like a ferret; he was loyal to whoever pampered him.
Despite his loathing of Malfoy and his mauling of the Slytherin name, he had to admit Malfoy provided a good cover. Who'd suspect, after meeting him, that there was such thing as an intelligent Slytherin?
Yes, the idiotic pureblood; this was Theodore's mask. As a nasty, mean Slytherin, he was ignored and ostracized. As such, no one ever cared if Theodore was there, or what he was doing. He was practically invisible.
His roommates had been a nuisance at first. Every pureblood parent had told their children that the first thing to do at Hogwarts was make allies, especially the pureblood ones. Diplomacy was drilled in pureblood children at a young age, whether they took to it or not. Theodore had taken to it like a fish to water; Theodore wasn't even sure if Malfoy and Co. knew what it meant. Theodore had no intention of letting a boy like that associating with him.
So, Theodore had let his roommates make their introductions, then pulled out his quiet bookworm persona to get them off his back. It had worked disappointingly well- for the most part (you could never count Zabinis in any assumption). The nerve of those boys, calling themselves Slytherins...
A pale boy, shadowed by two hulking tro- other boys entered the room loudly complaining about how someone or another thought he was all that. (Looking back now, Theodore found this immensely amusing.) Another boy following, but not shadowing, was nodding half-mindedly while analyzing his accomodations. He knew them, of course. Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, and Blaise Zabini. They'd seen each other before, at the frequent socials hosted between purebloods. However, now they were really meeting each other, preparing for life outside Hogwarts. Theodore had been previously reading, lounging in his bed, but now sat up and stared at the intrud- his housemates.
Might as well get this done with, he thought grimly.
He approached Draco Malfoy (the ramifications of this were immense in pureblood society; they put him in a position of supposed deference. It also got Malfoy to not consider him a rival. Pride could be put on the shelf for these things.) "Draco. Enchanting, as always, to see you and your... comrades." Malfoy nodded, then continued ranting to the thu- "comrades" about- Harry Potter, was it? Interesting.
He turned to Zabini. Zabini was a problem. He was smart, much smarter than Malfoy, yet entertained himself by messing with people's minds. If he was going to even partially enjoy the next few years, they'd have to come to an understanding.
He looked Zabini in the eye, and held out his hand. "Zabini." This was said in a neutral tone (conveying Theodore's proposal of a treaty).
Zabini smirked. "Nott. Ever so lovely to see you again. How are those books of yours?" This meant yes, I'll play along. Good, Theodore needed an alliance with the Zabinis as much as they needed an alliance with the Notts.
Theodore flashed a matching smirk, but then shrugged and said in a vague tone, "Oh, books are books. If you'll excuse me..." and drifted over to his bed, shutting the curtains with a yank.
Done.
From then on, Theodore had spent his time readying himself for the world of politics. He practiced on his peers, all of Hogwarts, dissecting them quickly and discretely. He understood most of them better than they did themselves.
Now, afterwards, he half regretted it.
Why? His findings: more than half the population of Hogwarts was shallow, spoiled, and/or naive.
Most Muggleborns didn't know that Voldemort was the Dark Lord's name, or practically about him. Practically all the knew that he was a bad, evil Slytherin, killed a bunch of Muggles, and was killed by the ever-so-amazing-Golden-Boy Harry freakin' Potter, the humble and heroic Gryffindor. All the halfbloods, while normally the most tolerable of Hogwarts, were normally set against Slytherin upon arrival at school. The purebloods... well, he'd made his opinion clear.
Well, despite how disturbing his foray had been had been, the practice had paid off. He'd only ever been caught once, while analysing the entire school. It was some strange girl, all platinum hair and dazed eyes. Luna Lovegood, that was her name.
Theodore was sitting outside, beneath the dock steps. Why?
He was hiding.
Zabini had got in in his head to stir up some trouble between Draco and Goyle, who had gone missing the night before, along with Draco's sweets from home (no one had yet thought to look for Goyle, but instead watched Draco tearing through the room). While amusing, this had the unfortunate effect of driving Draco into a frenzied hunt for Goyle, enlisting the help of the other Slytherins.
Well, he wasn't under the dock steps.
He didn't actually care (shocking) about what Draco wanted. He just loved that he had an opportunity to put Draco in his debt. A small one, but a debt none the less.
He was reading about the Goblin Wards of the 1400s, an actually fascinating political debacle that still had the Ministry embarassed, when a girl passed by.
Normally, Theodore wouldn't care.
Normally, girls didn't wear bottle caps and radishes, while twirling down a remote road... alone.
Theodore stared at the girl.
She twirled by.
Theodore stared after her for a second, then shook his head and returned to his book. He was in no mood to question the purpose behind this.
Then, not a minute later, she twirled back up.
She twirled down.
She twirled up.
She twirled down.
She- "Would you stop that already, please?" Theodore nearly shouted. He shouldn't let himself get so riled up, but she was just so distracting!
The girl gave him a dreamy smile, and plopped down next to Theodore.
"All you had to do was ask, Theodore Nott."
Alright, thought Theodore. This is possibly some strange spirit coming to tell me of my future, or I have a stalker. He glanced at the girl, who had somehow managed to flip upside down when he wasn't looking, and immediately looked back to his book. Alright... I'm leaning towards stalker. Is there a sanitorium nearby?
The girl, completely oblivious to his inner struggle between stalker and loon, began humming through her nose and talking at the same time.
"I've seen you at lunch, Theodore Nott. You don't sit at talk to people, but you look at them funny. I saw a nargle running away from you head. Tell me, are you a Narglemonstroficator?"
Darn you, child! thought Theodore. Are you a stalker and a loon?
"No. I don't happen to know what that is." Theodore said through gritted teeth.
"Oh, well," said Luna (rather vaguely) who was still humming. "I'd so hoped. I suppose you're just being Slytherin, than. There aren't many Slytherins who act Slytherin, but you do. You're really good at it, too. Of course, you should probably talk to people, because they don't know that you know all about them. Power is a relative thing, you know."
Theodore jerked up, half-ready to berate this strange girl next to him, but she was already gone. With a twirl, she skipped down towards the Forbidden Forest.
Theodore didn't look twice before running away.
Luna Lovegood was insane, but to Theodore's knowledge, the insane ones always got the most power (Dumbledore, the Dark Lord, Ollivander, etc.). Or was it that the ones with power always went insane? No matter. Theodore took her words to heart, because you should always listen to the insane people.
Theodore Nott went on to lead an illustrious career at the Ministry, making Head of International Cooperation at twenty-seven. When asked if there was a reason he could credit to his success, he looked seriously at the reporter. "Well," he said slowly. "I'd suppose it's because I figured out what it meant to be a sneaky, slimy, Slytherin."
Those words went down in history.