"Mud is Thicker than Water"
A/N: My next fic! Okay, this idea came to me, literally, in a bus driving into town for groceries few weeks ago. In know the overall concept is done, but Imagonna try and flip it to make it original in the Sadie tradition. Enjoy!
Summary: Dudley, post HP, has twins, a boy and a girl. His daughter, Castora, is a witch and goes off to Hogwarts. By definition, the wizarding world is 'a better place' post-war…but not for everyone. Prejudices against Muggle-borns are on the rise again, and now at Hogwarts, the Houses of Slytherin and Gryffindor are at full-out war within its student body. What happens when, out of nowhere, Castora Dursleyand Scorpius Malfoy see each other for the first time, and see not bloodlines and money…but just each other?
I was tempted not to post this because it is going to be so clichéd, I know, but it's a plot bunny nonetheless, so sue me!! I'm going to put my own unique spin on the genre…hope you like! I'm going to let the reviewers decide if this first chapter decide whether to keep this or nix it, kay
Veterans of the Modern War era could tell you that they fought the Death Eaters and Lord Voldemort in order to make the world a better place for their children. A world free of prejudice, spite, and evil. Many died in doing so, and their portraits hang in Hogwarts' School for Witchcraft and Wizardry in an old lobby now known as "The Hall of the Honored." Many of the teachers come to these portraits for advice and support in these new times. It is a sacred shrine to those who died for justice and rights for all magic folk.
But the world in which these veterans' children have to grow up is not a world of happiness and love as their parents had hoped. Prejudice against one another has risen again in force. Without even a Dark Lord to channel these new rages into a single society or thought, the resulting world is much worse than the previous: a world of chaos, untamable violence, and unstable relationships. Even at a school, this new mutiny reigns, and sometimes it reigns higher than in the streets. The Ministry cannot control the mass chaos in the wizarding world, although it tries. But it has just become too much for anyone to handle.
Two Houses of Hogwarts, Slytherin and Gryffindor, are now sworn rivals. Professors constantly try to keep the peace, but always to no avail. The Houses Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw stand on the neutral sideline as the pureblooded, conniving Slytherins and the brave, mixed-blood Gryffindors fan their rages into a pure hate year after year. It is a hate that no one can seem to dissolve. A hate that has yet to claim any lives…but it is only a matter of time.
No one is safe at Hogwarts.
Very early in the overcast morning, two blonde men walked on Platform 9-3/4 in front of the resting Hogwarts Express. The morning was dank, fog-laced, and gloomy. The platform was silent other than the footsteps from the blonde men, and the rhythmic tapping of the older man's cane. They were a father and son pair, and it was quite obvious that they were father and son. The father wore a long black cloak that went high up on his neck. The other, a fifteen year old boy, wore his hair long and in a snooty ponytail. The two men looked very similar in face, except the boy had a different shade of eye, quite possibly his mother's eye. The father looked refined. The son looked annoyed to be there. He walked with his hands in his pockets at an erractic pace, going for quick steps before stopping for three seconds, than taking a few slow steps, then quickening the pace again.
"Father, the train doesn't leave for several hours!" protested the son, looking half-reluctant, half-tired.
"Scorpius, we do this almost every year. With all this business between the mudblood Gryffindors and the Slytherins, you could easily be hurt in a crowd!"
"Not a crowd full of kids like me!" Scorpius protested. He looked behind him as the small House-Elf trudging behind with all of his luggage on a trolley. He felt sorry for the elf. He turned back to his father and groaned.
"You clearly forgot what happened last year AND the year before…"
"Dad, no one's DIED! Sure it's intense, but I'm not a moron! I can protect myself!"
"I WON'T have to associating with mudbloods and Gryffindors! You're my only son after your mother passed. The only heir to both Black and Slytherin Houses! In the name of your ancestors, you cannot afford to die. That would be wiping out two families that went back generations with one stroke!"
"But shoving me in a plastic bubble doesn't help ME!" Scorpius protested. The father's cane plunked rhythmically on the platform. It was a slow, steady pace Scorpius was used to hearing.
"I want to wait and board with my friends!"
"Come off it! You'll see them for a whole school year once you get to Hogwarts! I TOLD your mum that you were better off at Durmstrang! THEY don't HAVE houses! Oh, Astoria, if you were here now…"
"She's dead now, Dad! So why don't you just transfer me out?!"
"Because then it will look like we're running away! Malfoys DON'T run!" insisted Scorpius' father.
Scorpius decided to drown out his father. He muttered to himself. "I wonder if A-Sev is coming early?"
Scorpius' father moaned at hearing this. Scorpius rolled his eyes and turned to his father. "Dad! A-Sev isn't bad! He's a Slytherin! He's NOT a mudblood either!"
"He's a POTTER!" said the father.
"Nothing wrong with that! He's a very cool guy, he IS a Slytherin…even some of the Gryffindors like him—"
"—because his brother and sister are Gryffindors, you stupid fool!" barked Mr. Malfoy. Scorpius backed down. When his father got mad, he got MAD. It was better not to take the argument further. The two blonde men followed by the House Elf with the trolley wandered further down the platform, still not a single other person in sight.
"Margot, please don't dilly-dally!"
"DA-AD! How many times MUST I explain it to you? I'm on Platform 9-3/4 now! My NAME is Castora!!"
A fifth-year girl, still dressed in Muggle clothing, brushed her mid-length kinky red hair out of her face, rolling her eyes. She stood next to her father, a round man with blonde hair and a chubby face. The girl, who was curvy, but not nearly as fat as her father, looked like she could be a House-Elf beside her father. Meanwhile, her twin brother, a Muggle, pushed the trolley with all of her luggage behind the both of them.
"Your name is Margot Olivia Dursley. It is the name your mum and I gave you. It is the name on your birth certificate. It is the name I will call you, Platform 9-3/4 or NO Platform 9-3/4!" yelled the man, his voice shrill and loud. A few people turned to stare, and Castora blushed.
"Do what you want! Castora is a mystically magical name. I am a Castora at heart, so there," the redheaded girl stated plainly. The father rolled his eyes and didn't bother to stay angry too long. Meanwhile, Castora's twin brother, who looked more like a skinnier version of his father than of his twin, rolled his eyes as well.
"You really take this witch thing seriously, don't you, Oddball?" he asked, playfully punching his sister in the arm.
"Because it IS serious, Jack! Cousin Harry's a wizard, and all our second cousins are too! YOU'RE the 'Oddball' of the family!" Castora bragged, returning the punch, only harder. Jack Dursley winced.
"Bite me!"
"No thanks!"
"That's enough, both of you!" barked the fat father. He actually chuckled to himself a moment later. Oh…his own parents would be rolling in their graves if they knew one of their grandchildren was magical!
The Platform that morning was crowded with young students getting ready to go off to another year at Hogwarts. Castora loved the rush and excitement of the day. Sometimes it grew too much for her father, Dudley Dursley.
Castora suddenly waved enthusiastically at a small crowd of people that was off to a side of the crowd. Four adults and five kids of various ages and heights were set somewhat apart from the crowd. One of the two grown men, with dark, shaggy hair, turned as his own redheaded daughter grinned. The brown-haired daughter of the other man grinned as well. She was Castora's best friend, and she always shared a dorm room with her: Rose Weasley. The shaggy dark-haired man gave a civil nod to Dudley Dursley, who smiled subtly and gave one back. Castora ran to join the group, her two male escorts trying to keep up.
She hugged Rose Weasley and gasped. "You look great!"
"You grew your hair out, Cas!" Rose squealed back. Albus Severus, the boy in the group in their same year, rolled his eyes.
"You girls are such airheads!" he said, although the smile on his face told Castora he was glad to see her too. He detached himself from the small group to join some boys from Ravenclaw who were hooting for him. Castora looked after Albus Severus (or 'A-Sev' to his male friends) and sighed. With all the high tensions and fighting between her house and his, A-Sev was the ONE guy who was a go-between. He was too cool for both houses. Both Gryffindors and Slytherins respected him. It made his older brother James, a seventh-year Gryffindor, sick to his stomach sometimes.
James Potter was a prankster, a light-hearted fool. He, being the small groups' resident seventh year, he acted (and always had acted) as a big brother to Rose and her brother Hugo, Castora, and their little sister Lily Potter, all Gryffindors. He was like a father-figure, except in the case of his brother. Some say it was jealousy, some say sibling rivalry, some say it was House loyalty. But whatever the reason, James Potter wasn't fond of his little brother as much as two men of the same family should. Their parents, Harry and Ginny Potter, kept trying to renew the frayed bonds between their sons, but nothing worked. It was like having Eteocles and Polynices in the family.
Hugo Weasley looked at his older sister and sighed. "Can we GO now?"
His father, Ron, nodded. "Yes, my boy, we can go. But all of you, no getting into this fallout between your houses—"
"—and be nice to Albus, just because he's on the other side…" advised Ginny.
"Ginny!" warned Harry. "Don't refer to it as 'The Other Side!' You know how that—"
"—LET'S just get the children on the train…" interrupted Ron's wife, Hermione. Ginny looked at Hermione and nodded. Castora quickly ran over to her father and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.
"See you at Christmas!" she said. Mr. Dursley smiled and kissed his daughter back, and then turned with Jack to leave. Castora smiled and turned again to join James, Hugo, Lily, and Rose to board the train. Albus was off in the crowd elsewhere with his Slytherin friends.
James leaned down in Castora's ear and muttered, "Well, another year of kicking Slytherin ass…"
Castora ignored him. Something about the Slytherins didn't seem so wrong to her…something she just didn't quite understand…