Disclaimer: The characters and canon situations in the following story belong solely to JK Rowling, Scholastic and WB. I am not making any money from the publishing or writing of this story.
AN: To any new readers, I write this story as it comes to me and am writing without purposely aiming for the epilogue, so if you're looking for something that will be strictly epilogue compliant, this may not be it. My intention with this piece is to explore the underdeveloped characters from Slytherin and experiment with a multi-character focus story. In order to make this as realistic as possible and explore human psychology, the notion of good and evil characters has been abolished. This deviates from the canon in the sense that epic fantasy stories generally have good and evil characters, eg. Harry and Voldemort. The characters in the tagging are the ones in the current chapter I have uploaded and not the pairing. For the sake of not receiving anon flames based on my ship choices (and not the story itself), I will not be including one.
To any old readers, I have decided to rewrite this story because I lost my inspiration after receiving some fairly irrelevant, but hurtful reviews for Chapter Seven – I'm not going to rant about them here but see my profile for more information – and while I'm not going to change the plot so far, I feel my writing has significantly changed and I wanted to start afresh with this idea as I'm really keen on it.
-O-O-
"To judge someone at the age of 11, to judge them, to set their future course so young, seems to me to be a very harsh thing to do. And it doesn't take into account the fact that we do change and evolve. A lot of people are, at 40, what they weren't at 11."
- Joanne Rowling in MN/TLC chat.
Defected
Part 1: The Interview
Interview 41, Day 3, 10:47pm, Friday 8th May 1998
To walk into a room of teenagers after facing the Death Eaters that had terrorised the safety of the Wizarding World should be easy as Alohomora. Kingsley Shacklebolt didn't think it would be particularly hard to interview a group of children after the day he had faced, especially as they were a new, pliant generation, but upon walking into the room and seeing eight young men and women staring unnervingly at him as he entered, he realised that for all his Auror training, for all his experience in working with madmen, he couldn't discern what they were thinking about him.
With hardened jaws sat Draco Malfoy, Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson, looking imposing despite being seated and looking older than he realised they actually were. They were adults now and that thought scared Shacklebolt. He wasn't an ignorant man but his tired mind was surprised. He wouldn't be able to play on children's trustworthiness. What did you expect, he thought to himself, toddlers? Even without wands these children were taught evil things by their families.
Those evil things had broken Gregory Goyle, who was looking blankly at the peeling paint on the wall with no indication he had heard someone enter the room. Tracey Davis, Millicent Bulstrode and Daphne Greengrass had expressions just as blank and unrevealing, giving Shacklebolt no indication of their mood or current state of mind. Shacklebolt could read people, it was part of his job, but those in front of him presented no threat he was familiar with, yet he knew there was more to them than their passivity.
The initial plan was to interview them all separately, but these were the last of the interviews that Shacklebolt had to do and he just wanted it to end. The sickening things that spewed out of the Death Eaters' mouths were foul and perverted any innocence the war had left. These interviews were supposed to determine those who may be rehabilitated and those deserving Azkaban. Most of the major Death Eaters Shacklebolt had interviewed over the last three days fell into the latter category, but these kids were only here because they either were children of major Death Eaters or had a role in the war. Arthur Weasley did have some concerns about bringing in those Slytherins who did not fall under the two categories specified above, but Shacklebolt believed it best to include all of those in the 'dark' house. Malfoy and Parkinson had openly proved themselves sympathisers at one point and that cast them all under suspicion, especially as Slytherins were known to be cunning.
Shacklebolt cleared his throat and cast a weary gaze over the seventeen and eighteen year olds. It was effort for him to don his harsh, interviewer persona again. "Are any of you sympathisers of Voldemort or his cause?" He expected them to visibly react, but asides from well concealed flinches none seemed willing to answer. He knew it was a long shot, but it took even less than that for the Lestrange brothers to start their pro-Voldemort rants.
He decided to go for something a little less severe. "What are your opinions on Muggles?"
There seemed to be some silent conferring between Zabini, Malfoy and Nott that allowed Zabini to speak as he answered, "They live outside our world without magic. We are distant to them in the same way we are close to each other." The others now looked up as if agreeing with what Zabini said.
Shacklebolt nodded slightly to encourage talking, but Zabini didn't say any more, managing to dodge the question. "What about Muggleborns?" There was nothing distant about people they went to school with.
This time Nott gave Malfoy a look and he answered for the group, "They," he took a moment to compose his answer, "Have different customs to us."
"Customs?"
Malfoy replied without hesitation this time. "Different cultures have different customs." There was an unnatural and unnerving feel to the way their responses.
"Of course," he replied calmly, "Just like other witches and wizards do from other countries. Tell me, Mr Malfoy, do those customs affect the way you behave to them?"
Malfoy's jaw hardened, mostly likely from being cornered into answered the question he dodged earlier. "I act with my customs. If their customs do not match…"
Then you kill them. "Are you saying you are acting with the customs instilled in you by Death Eaters?" It was a leading question really, but Kingsley wanted to wrap this up and go to sleep.
"No," he replied curtly and quickly.
"Then what customs are you acting with, Mr Malfoy?" His voice was hard and Kingsley had been so focussed on getting an answer from Malfoy he was taken aback by the calm and collected voice that came from his right to answer him.
"If I may interject," said Daphne Greengrass, "We have been brought up to believe these values are correct and any others are wrong. You forget we have been living under the rules of our ancestors, rules that we are expected to obey without question. To disobey would mean to be disowned from our family, the only people we know, with no means of supporting ourselves. The war has only just finished; that has not allowed sufficient time to revaluate our customs and decide our own." It was a very refined speech from the blonde girl and her manner was polite and respectful; a change from the defensive tones Kingsley had heard throughout the day.
"Can I understand from that, Miss Greengrass, that you are willing to change your customs and values?" Kingsley was surprised that the outcome he had been hoping for had sprung up out of nowhere.
She hesitated in answering, perhaps regretting having spoken at all. "I will revaluate them, yes." She had left out the doubt of whether they'd match what Shacklebolt wanted them to be and because of it, her answer lacked the assurance that Kingsley needed.
Frustrated with the loaded questions, Malfoy blurted out, "What do you really want from us? What was the point of bringing us all here? Most of this lot haven't even done anything. Their parents aren't even Death Eaters."
If Shacklebolt was fazed by the direct question then he did not show it. In normal circumstances, he would not dream of actually answering the question, but he was exhausted and his brain was not thinking properly. "Mr Malfoy, what I want is to go home and to wake up tomorrow to find things the way they were before the war. But I know that will never be the case, and I'm the one in charge of clearing up this mess. Believe it or not, not all Gryffindors have a hero complex; we simply adopt it when we have no other choice." He sighed heavily as he realised how misled students were by the housing system. What he did not realise, however, was that he too, was also, if not more, misled than the children were.
Malfoy, however, did. "Believe it or not, not all Slytherins want to start another war." He mimicked, once again, throwing Shacklebolt. "Once again I ask: why are we here?" Some of the confidence had returned to his voice and his previous drawl had started to come through. Shacklebolt began to feel like the interviewee rather than the interviewer.
He opened and closed his mouth a few times before managing to make sound. "Rehabilitation. And reintegration into society."
Both Draco and Nott raised their eyebrows; Nott in surprise and Malfoy challenging the statement he made.
"You would do that?" asked Tracey Davis, lifting up her head. Besides Greengrass, the girls had not participated much to the discussion, fitting the role of future pureblooded wives.
"He wouldn't do that." barked Zabini sardonically.
"I would." countered Shacklebolt evenly.
Even though Shacklebolt betrayed no outward hesitations in his statement, after glancing towards Nott, Greengrass enquired, "For all of us?"
Shacklebolt faltered but replied smoothly, "For those willing to undergo therapy and adopt the morals and values we wish to rebuild our society with." This was the line he had hoped to deliver for three days but had not been able to. As the acting Minister of Magic, he had been designated the most harsh offenders to interview while Arthur and a few others had interviewed anyone vaguely related to the cause. This was the line that would begin the rehabilitation project.
"I do." spoke out Tracey Davis unexpectedly. "I don't care what you guys say, I'm fed up with this. I want to be able to talk to the other side of my family again without being cut out by the rest of my family." She lowered her head, perhaps to hide the teary eyes caused by the catharsis of releasing her personal issues.
"Can I assume you will be willing to undergo therapy and then integrate yourself into the Wizarding society with the morals and values that we want to rebuild our society with?"
Tracey nodded, hesitantly at first, but then gaining confidence as she realised that she would not have to go back to the state of life she was in before.
Shacklebolt sensed that the frown of Daphne's face was one of deliberation rather than disapproval and prompted her gently. "Miss Greengrass?"
Daphne spoke very carefully, "What exactly does this 'therapy' and 'rehabilitation' entail?"
Most people would assume that anyone in their position would jump at the chance to live a normal life again, but all those in the room knew that the Ministry was in a state and had no clue what to do with a bunch of teenagers who, other than one, had done nothing wrong but be sorted into a house associated with evil.
Kingsley didn't want to scare them off, but he knew that in order to get them to agree with his plan he would have to tell them it. Perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad idea to have bright kids in their next generation.
He began explaining his idea cautiously, not wanting to divulge too much. "What are your relationships with Harry Potter and his friends?"
A general uneasiness fell across the group. A few warning glances fell on Parkinson, but she remained still, with her posture erect and defensive.
It was exactly what he feared would happen; they all had closed off and if they didn't agree then Kingsley would have to think of another plan to rebuild their broken society. "From your silence I grant that your opinions on them are not positive?"
Nott spoke out brazenly this time, without those secretive glances to his housemates. "Not all of us hated them, if that's what you were thinking. Yeah, Weasley was an idiot, Potter got away with things we would have been expelled for but Granger made an okay Ancient Runes partner when she wasn't being a stuck up know-it-all. We're Slytherins. We're used to Gryffindors getting all the glory while we get all the blame. I guess it's what we have to bear for producing a dark wizard every century or so." His expression remained impassive but the other Slytherins could see his unspoken resentment.
Shacklebolt was surprised at his openness to say the least. It was the most amount of sane opinion he had heard in the last three days of conversations.
"And are you all of that opinion?" asked Shacklebolt hopefully. He did not wish to think badly of all them.
Daphne Greengrass openly nodded while Davis caught onto her housemate's nod and joined it with her own. Millicent Bulstrode looked away when Shacklebolt came to her, as did Pansy Parkinson. Blaise gave some sort of agreement while the other two boys did not give any indication. Malfoy would be questioned later, but it was Parkinson he was concerned about now.
"Do you regret any decisions you made regarding them? Miss Parkinson?"
Parkinson shot him a sharp glare. "I stand by the decision I made." Her stance was even more defiant than it had been earlier.
"Pansy, shut up," muttered Malfoy from next to her. Zabini gave her a small shake of the head. Greengrass' hands were gesturing to keep down.
"Do you now?" countered Shacklebolt.
She gazed at him coolly, "Potter ran towards the Dark Lord willingly. He wanted to go to him. If we'd only done what he wanted to do, but simply earlier, then more lives would have been saved."
There was a stunned silence in the room. Parkinson may have been loud, but she had never spoken about her role in the war. Surprisingly, her logic did make some sense, even if it was a product of hindsight and self-preservation.
"That was a very Gryffindor-like statement to say Miss Parkinson."
Parkinson frowned at being compared to a Gryffindor and looked at Shacklebolt distrustfully. "It's not a Gryffindor thing to say. It's what anyone would say if they'd lost a friend. You're not the only side to have lost friends."
Shacklebolt had the decency to look guilty; it was easy to forget that war left innocent casualties on both sides.
"I apologise." He meant it sincerely but the Slytherins' cold exterior made it hard for him to empathise. "Does this mean you'll do something to prevent another war?"
Parkinson's face twisted into a scowl and she spat out, "I didn't wish to cause one any more than you did."
Kingsley maintained his composure, practised at having interviewees break apart in front of him, "So it would seem we are on the same page Miss Parkinson." He took a pile of parchments out from a folder and handed them round to the group. "This is a contract that states that if you cooperate and agree to therapy and rehabilitation then you will be under Ministry protection."
"And if we don't agree?" drawled Nott.
The hope Shacklebolt had been feeling vanished. "House arrest. Without wands." It may have been a drastic punishment, but he was using it as a blackmail to get them to cooperate; at least it wasn't Azkaban. He wouldn't follow it through with any of them other than Malfoy.
It was the quiet Tracy Davis that ventured to speak. "Even though we did nothing? I have nothing against Muggles, Mr Shacklebolt, half of my family is Muggle."
Kingsley was taken aback by finding out that Davis was a half-blood, and even after hearing she had family issues he didn't think it would be due to blood. He had checked their files for their names and any other information he should know, but he hadn't checked the blood status section because he assumed they were all Pureblood.
"Then it shouldn't be an issue for you to cooperate, should it, Miss Davis?"
She nodded tentatively and gave her confirmation.
He looked round next at Pansy and addressed the question to her. "Will you be willing to undergo rehabilitation and then integrate yourself into the Wizarding society with the morals and values that we want to rebuild our society with?"
Pansy was dubious at first about the conditions and morals she was accepting, but then at eighteen, the only values she had were the dated ones passed down by her family – the ones that caused so much death and destruction. "I will be willing to do whatever it takes it reassure the safety of me and my family."
Shacklebolt nodded in acknowledgement and allowed a small smile to grace his face. Perhaps it would not be so bad after all.
Pansy added quietly to herself, "That's all we've been doing for our whole lives."
The smile slipped off the Minister's face; this would not be as easy as he had thought, it was too far rooted.
He asked the remaining as a group, hoping they would follow their housemates' decisions.
"Do we have a choice?" asked Nott brazenly.
Shacklebolt feared this question. There was no way he could send children to Azkaban, but then he could not let them loose in a society they hated. It would be irresponsible and could possibly cause an uprising.
"What would you like to choose between?"
"Nothing. I just wanted to know whether we were the Ministry's new puppets." The bitterness that was not visible before was starting to seep out.
"Mr Nott, does this mean we will have your cooperation or not?"
"It's a childhood dream to become friends with the Gryffindorks so why not?" His tone was light hearted but coupled with the unusual choice of words, Shacklebolt struggled to figure this boy out. He would definitely be one of the first to see the psychologist.
"I need you all to sign this contract. It declares that we will do all we can to ensure your protection as long as you agree to meetings with the therapist and to more interviews if needed. We can also provide you with accommodation if necessary. However, the only thing I ask is that if you would like to leave either your house or the provided accommodations, you do so accompanied by an Auror."
To his surprise, none of the Slytherins contradicted his offer. "Are you okay with that?"
"Of course we are," replied Zabini, "We're not fools, there are still people out there that want to kill us. Any protection is gladly welcomed. We'll take your offer Shacklebolt as long as we aren't abused by it."
One by one they signed the contract that Shacklebolt offered them; some feeling constrained, others feeling like they had signed the form of their release.
-O-O-
Part 2: Kingsley's Speech
Some days later, Tuesday 12th May 1998
Everyone dreams of being Minister of Magic at some point in their lives if they have an interest in politics, and Kingsley had never imagined his first speech to his people would be like this. Every person standing in front of him was harmed in some way during the war and it reflected in the faces in front of him. People looked tired and empty and there were gaps in the crowds for their missing family. It was not a sight Kingsley wished to see. There was so much hurt and Kingsley couldn't do a goddamn thing about it because it was irreversible. You couldn't bring people back to life and you couldn't expect people to go back to the lives they used to live when nothing was the same any more.
As Kingsley cast a weary gaze over the mass of people huddled in the rebuilt Atrium, he was just aware of how many people were relying on him to make this time around better. To heal the wound the war caused, and sew it up tight enough to stop the stuffing of society from falling out. It wasn't just a case of the deluded and power hungry following a cause initiated by a madman, there was a divide socialised into society. It was that wall that needed to be broken.
"Thank you all for taking time to come here today." He swallowed heavily. "I appreciate that we need time to grieve as individuals, but as acting Minister of Magic, I felt it was important to bring you all together and assure you that I will try my utmost hardest to make the Wizarding World a safe place to live in. I know words will mean little to some, but hopefully the actions I take will help rebuild security and trust in our society. I believe the best way to do this is to come together as a community and rebuild the future as we want it to be, as our families would want it to be. We can change the future for our children - we can make sure they don't have to go through what we did."
Kingsley breathed heavily before beginning the part that he knew would be met with the most resistance, "Which is why we need to bring together every aspect of our society until 'they' becomes a 'we'. I know many people here wish to cut ties with anyone involved on the other side of the war, but that would be like cutting off an arm of our society. We need to heal this wound in us and stand together as a united front. I ask everyone here to welcome those who are being rehabilitated back into society in order to prevent a further divide between blood groups."
Muttering had broken out at his last sentence, just as Kingsley knew it would. Simply saying it would not help. People were convinced they were not the ones at fault, yet when tested, most of them would fail to not discriminate. He thought back to the interviews he himself had conducted with leading questions. Sometimes, the only thing that could convince people was proof.
"I want to talk about James and Lily Potter. They were betrayed by one of their most trusted friends - Peter Pettigrew - a Gryffindor. Not all Gryffindors are good and not all dark wizards come from Slytherin. To blame them exclusively would be excusing people like Pettigrew who can hide under this mask of prejudice. Likewise, not all dark wizards are bad. Severus Snape was one of many Death Eaters who have defected. They have fought for the light, at the expense of more than just their lives."
-O-O-
Part 3: Recruitment
Later that day
Kingsley paced the length of the conference room he had been given for this meeting. The speech, although touching on the correct topics, had not been received as well as he had hoped. There were some in the crowd who had understood exactly what he intimated and were not pleased at all. Some had even come up to him and protested forthrightly against the changes he had proposed. In a sense, these people were as prejudiced as the Death Eaters who contributed to the war. This prejudice would eventually kill the whole society.
There was a strange sense of similarity when Kingsley stood in front of a second group of young adults, prepared to present his plan. They too were older than they should be and as adults, they were somehow on a level playing field with him. They were of a generation that he didn't understand and couldn't predict. Many here had faced just as much as he had and Kingsley would often think experience was the biggest indicator of age, and in terms of gravitas, they had experienced just as much, if not worse than he had.
"Now you're all here I need to tell you something," said Kingsley in a blunt tone. He did not have any energy to gloss over the details like he did for the speech. "As you know, we want to rehabilitate the pureblood families and integrate them back into society."
"Kingsley," said Harry, "What does that mean exactly?"
Kingsley had repeated that phrase so often that sometimes even he forgot what it meant. "I want you to publically appear with the Slytherin students in your year. As friends." He added the last bit when no one started actively protesting straight away.
Ron's jaw dropped open and a babble of protesting erupted.
"Be friends with them?" cried Hermione incredulously.
"Publically? What for?"
"But Minister-"
"Bloody hell."
"I don't mind doing it," came Luna's ethereal voice from amidst all the rest.
Kingsley released the mental breath he had been holding and grabbed the only bit of positivity he could. "That's what we want to hear Luna. Some positivity would be good.
"Listen to my reasoning. You all heard my speech earlier. Tolerance isn't just from one side, it's from both. That's how we're going to rebuild a community that isn't going to be at each other throats fifteen years from now. I need you, as the war heroes and heroines to be the saviours of our society and to set an example to the rest of the community."
Kingsley looked around optimistically, hoping that more than one person would take to the idea.
Hermione looked around to make sure no one else wanted to say something before she began, "Minister, I see your point but to become friends with them? Is that even possible?"
"Only in the public eye. Perhaps not even as friends, but civil at least. We cannot shun then and let them fester in anger."
They all sat in silence, thinking about the implications of rejecting Kingsley's proposal.
After a few moments, Hermione said, "Is there no other way?"
"There's got to be another way," said Ron, shaking his head. "I see where you're coming from but this-"
"If you have any other ideas I'm open to them."
A few minutes later, Harry proposed, "Can they not do community service or something? Why do they have to be involved with us?"
Kingsley sat down and placed his hands on his knees. "I just don't want them to socialise with only Purebloods and then have children who do the same. That won't change if they stick to themselves. I've asked them to change their values and they agreed."