A/N:
An awful new password for the Slytherin common room door sparks a schoolwide show of unity.
Contains a couple of OCs
WARNING: Contains plot details from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child so... if you have anything against Cursed Child... sorry...
Password Protection
Quidditch practice was getting longer and longer. Albus could feel the cold evening air on the back of his neck as he descended through the castle. Scorpius had stayed behind to pack up after the practices – "doing the duties of a house Quidditch captain", he said – so he had come down by himself first. He shuddered a little as he entered the dungeons, his footsteps echoing deafeningly in the gloom. He was really looking forward to crashing on the common room couch after a long session of zooming around the Quidditch pitch trying to steal the Quaffle from his teammates. Albus didn't understand how flying a broom could be so tiring, but never mind.
He rounded the corner and stood in front of the grey wall concealing the common room entrance. The lights from the wall-torches cast fleeting shadows on the drab stone, and that was when he realised, with an unpleasant pang in his gut, that he didn't know the password.
Albus spun around and sat down on the floor, after yelling a string of curses that you'd rather not hear. His face burned with bitter shame. He, a fifth-year Slytherin, not know the password to his own common room? Wasn't he already an object of ridicule for being the first Slytherin Potter in history? And now he had to sit outside the common room door and wait for someone else to open the door for him. He folded his arms and pouted into the darkness.
"Gripe all you want, but I'm glad I'm staying out here," snapped a familiar voice sardonically. He turned his head and squinted into the darkness beyond. There sat a blonde-haired third-year girl, rolling her eyes as she leaned lazily against the opposite wall, knees pulled up to her chin. In her hands, she held a thin paperback book. Albus could just make out the words printed on the cover: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
He blinked, confused. "Lori? Why are you sitting in the corridor? I mean, it's a rather comfy corridor, but…" he stopped suddenly, fighting the urge to kick himself. "What are you doing out here? Have you forgotten the password too?" he asked, half hopeful and half apprehensive, at the same time wanting to dunk his head in a cauldron of acid for hoping that she had forgotten as well.
Lorayne Scamander shrugged indifferently. "I haven't forgotten the password. I simply refuse to use it. They changed the password at around three in the afternoon. I have no idea why, and I don't care. I can tell you if you like, but I'm not going in there."
Albus frowned, even more confused now. She knew the password but didn't want to use it? If Lori wanted to boycott something, it was usually extremely offensive or worth boycotting. But boycotting the common room password?
"What is the password? Is it really that bad?" Lori was about to reply when a pair of Slytherin students tumbled, giggling and gossiping, down the stairs to the dungeon. Barely noticing the two of them, they sidled in front of the wall. "No Mudbloods allowed!" managed one of the girls with some effort, gasping for air between violent guffaws.
There was a slight rumble as the wall slid aside to reveal the secret passage leading to the common room. Still tittering incessantly, the two girls made their way inside, and Albus could hear their voices reverberating faintly in the stone dungeon walls.
For a long while, Albus stood there, shell-shocked. Hadn't the wizarding world progressed past its Muggle-hating roots by now? He backed away from the wall, sinking to the ground next to Lori.
"Merlin's pants," he mumbled dully. He kicked a random stone next to his shoe, and it skittered down the corridor, clattering arrhythmically in the darkness.
Beside him, Lori shuddered in revulsion. "You see?" she said quietly.
"What…" Albus swallowed the lump of disgust in his throat and blinked. He realised that he was blinking a lot and stopped. "What are you going to do?"
"I don't know. Probably camp out here for the night. I guess I'll have to go up to Ravenclaw tower to borrow some blankets or something, but it's okay." She rose from her seat slowly, stretching her arms obscenely wide. "Catch you later, Potter."
Albus considered for a while, watching her go. "Hey, Lori!"
"What up, bro?"
"You mind grabbing an extra blanket or two?"
She turned to stare at him querulously. "Why?"
"'Cos you're gonna have a corridormate for the night," he said.
Lori grinned appreciatively and continued up the steps.
The corridor had transformed into a protester camp. Scorpius was handing out steaming mugs of hot chocolate and marshmallows to a huddle of first-years shivering in the corner. (Albus strongly suspected he'd stolen them from the kitchens with Lori's help, but didn't say anything. It was hot chocolate, after all.) Off to the right, some sixth-year students sat in a rough circle, comparing notes animatedly as they rushed to finish their homework.
"The heck is going on here?" shrilled a high-pitched voice distantly.
Albus tilted his head and saw someone standing at the top of the staircase. The lining of his hood glowed sunshine yellow in the light from behind him. In the heat of the moment, they'd completely forgotten that Slytherin wasn't the only house with a common room below ground. Come to think of it, where was the Hufflepuff common room? Albus couldn't help but wonder.
"Sorry, Elliot, but we're kinda in the middle of a non-violent demonstration to change the discriminatory language that constitutes our common room password," Lori replied cheerfully. "Sorry about the racket. We'll try to keep the SFX down around here."
Elliot Macmillan could not have looked more appalled. His eyes swept around the dank walls of the corridor. "And… you're just gonna stay out here?" he asked, unsure. "For the rest of the night?"
"Until they change the password," Lori answered, her tone still insanely jolly. Elliot chewed his lip and looked around at them before hurrying off the way he'd came.
They were graced once more by Elliot's presence five minutes later.
"The Hufflepuff common room committee has held an emergency meeting and decided that, as of now, until the password had been changed, you can crash with us if you want!" he twittered happily, sounding as if he'd swallowed half a dozen helium balloons and spent the entire day annoying Filch by singing Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You on loop for ten hours. (Unfortunately, no one except James Sirius Potter did that kind of thing nowadays.)
There was a momentary silence before a general cheer went up from the protesters. Several of the younger Slytherins leaped up from their places and tripped over their cloaks trying to get to Elliot, but most of the older students politely declined and stayed.
"Come on!" they heard Elliot call from down the corridor, as the troop flooded up the stairwell like water poured into a pitcher. "Pillows and blankets and marshmallows for everyone! It's gonna be awesome!"
As the footsteps gradually subsided into the default sound of shuffling parchment and murmuring voices, Scorpius gave a tired but relieved smile. "Thank Dumbledore, I was scared that they'd all catch chills and we'd get a dozen Howlers from angry parents asking why their kids have been taking part in peaceful protests during term."
Sitting in the dim corridor, surrounded by friends, Albus let out a genuine laugh. For once, everyone laughed along with him.
"It's not working, Lorc! I've changed the password, it should be 'Open' now, but it's not working –"
"Oh, shut up, Lys."
"Mini, you wanna give it a go?"
Albus threw off the blanket Lori had taken from Hufflepuff common room and sat there blearily, watching as the students in blue and bronze gathered around the wall, debating heatedly on how best to solve the issue.
Dominique Weasley sashayed to the door, her blond braid standing out starkly from her Ravenclaw sweater. Albus looked on as she muttered incantations loudly and brandished her wand at the door and –
BANG!
"ARGH, THE LIGHT," screeched Lysander Scamander, clutching his eyes.
"I'M BLIND, I'M BLIND!" wailed Lorcan woefully.
"Shut up, you two!" Dominique chided, hands on hips. Sometimes she sounded just like Fleur.
They shut up. Dominique turned back to the door and said, "Open."
Nothing happened.
The rest of the crowd was woken up by an enraged Dominique screaming, "WHY DIDN'T IT WORK?! HOW COULD IT NOT WORK?! I HATE THIS HECKING DOOR!"
Albus chuckled to himself as he and Lori led the way up to the Great Hall for breakfast.
After classes had ended, they arrived outside the door to find a small squadron of red-cloaked students taking turns at the attempted demolishing of the entrance.
"Confringo!" commanded Lily Potter. There was a flash of light and an acrid burning smell, but the door did not budge.
"Aw, come on, little sister, lemme show you how it's done," James drawled, elbowing his way across to the door. He waved his wand and yelled, "BOMBARDA MAXIMA!"
The ensuing explosion blew everyone at the scene flat against the dungeon walls. James was the first to his feet, his long face coated with a generous layer of soot. He was grinning widely, like he might have after a detention from singing in Filch's ear all day long (see above prank about helium balloons).
"Oh, for Dumbledore's sake, all of you! You're pronouncing it wrong," Rose Granger-Weasley scolded her housemates as she took her place in front of the door. She planted her feet apart and incanted, "Expulso!"
This time, it was Rose's turn to cough up gunpowder bunnies.
"Forget it," she gagged. "I'm getting Professor McGonagall."
The next day, Albus sighed in contentment as he collapsed into his favourite green velvet armchair by the fire. After having his first proper shower in two days, he'd proceeded to finish his homework under a proper light before getting rushed off to the pitch the next morning by Scorpius for Quidditch practice.
"You know, we could have called the Headmistress from the start," Scorpius thought out loud as he chewed his quill. "Then we wouldn't have had to camp outside the common room for that long."
"I know," said Lori, eyeing them over the top of her Quibbler magazine. "But I wanted to see," she smiled, "if our school was able to practise being united as one – as wizardkind should be, not in the Voldemort or Grindelwald way, but working together to help one another in times of trouble."
The Slytherins listening all nodded in agreement. Albus thought about this for a while, and he realised that he was totally ready to do it again if it meant taking the first proper step to equality in the wizarding world.
Finally, it was Scorpius who broke the pensive silence.
"That is freaking great, and I second that," he announced. "Now who wants some cocoa?"
Fandom: Harry Potter
Venue: Slytherin common room entrance, Hogwarts
Time: Post-Cursed Child
POV: Albus Potter
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