Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. JKR does.
Notes: This was written for the Halloween 2004 fic challenge on the Yahoo! Group, thegreenflametorch.
Requirements: a pumpkin, someone punching somebody in the face, a spell gone wrong, a ghost, a shower cap and a few live bats.
It should be noted that I ship Lily Evans as a Slytherin and I ship Blaise Zabini as a girl.
If you must question my mental health, sanity, or anything else, feel free to do so. Your comments on that aspect of myself will be recorded and shown to my psychatrist, as soon as I find one willing to examine me.
Rating: Agi says it's sort of R-ish, but not too bad — so R it is.
Thanks: To Agi, for looking this over and assuring me it wasn't too bad ...
By: Mistri, Cho's Observer, Tonks' Admirer
Tradition. Only Slytherin House has really ever got to grips with this word. The dictionary says 'tradition n. belief or custom handed down from one generation to another; long-established procedure; handing down of beliefs etc. traditional a., traditionally adv.' If you entered Slytherin House and went to the dorms ... you would find four dorms. Fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh year. Salazar believed in co-habitation between boys and girls. Though originally there were seven dorms.
"Why are there only four dorms?" asked Lily Evans.
"That's for me to know and for you to find out, ickle firstie," said the prefect. "And you'll be finding out soon enough, missy. Now get that ass of yours in there!"
Lily struggled ineffectively to hold back her tears as she entered the fifth years dorm, feeling immensely violated.
The Slytherin first to third year females are the most pitied and cared for in Hogwarts by the teachers. For it is their screams that the Slytherin Head of House always hears when in their quarters. Always do the Silencing Charms go wrong, for it is their screams that rent the air, breaking through any Silencing Charms activated and now the only ones who put up the Silencing Charms are those people who believe they have a quiet screamer.
"Another hard night, Severus?" asked Albus quietly.
"Blaise, Tracey and Daphne were shrieking, Albus. They were shrieking like I have only heard one other do," said Severus, turning distraught eyes upon the headmaster. "Only Lily Evans could shriek like that."
"It was especially hard for them?" asked Flitwick, gently.
"I could only assume so, from their screams."
"Then they shall be reprieved, then," said Minerva. "For this is not their fault."
Please!" shrieked Lily. "Please
"Oh, fuck a duck," muttered the Slytherin. "Why aren't you a quiet screamer? You've gone and broken the Silencing Charms! Oh well, that's life in Slytherin House," he said, before returning to business.
And all Lily could do was writhe and scream.
"Please," she shuddered. "Have mercy on me, I'm a girl."
"You're a girl alright," he agreed. "And a girl to be used in the name of tradition."
But there are no quiet screamers. Just ones who scream and beg and plead for mercy ... for they are only girls and they are used and defiled in the name of tradition. You may well ask, if the teachers pity them ... why do they not end it? Why would they allow it to go on? And the answer is simple. The Slytherin House ghost, the Bloody Baron serves as the reminder to not end it. When Hogwarts was first built, the first ghost that came was the Grey Lady, followed by Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Porpington.
"Do not think of ending it, Albus," said Severus. "You will not be able to."
Why?" demanded Albus, the twinkle gone from his eyes."Because the Bloody Baron tried to. And look at him now."
The Slytherin tradition began five years after Hogwarts was began and as Salazar liked to hear the girls screaming, he set up a spell that would always allow the Slytherin Head of House to hear them, when in their quarters. The Baron became Head of Slytherin in Hogwarts' twentieth year, after the last Head of Slytherin had a nasty encounter with a few live bats. He tried to end the Slytherin girls' torment after two months of enduring their screams of agony, believing it to be unjust. He was brutally killed and chose to come back to be the Slytherin ghost to watch over the girls and protect them. Not that he has ever been able to.
"I cannot take this!" the Baron said to himself. "This is unjust! For two months I have put up with this and I can take it no more! I shall put an end to it!"
And so that night, he stood up at the table and addressed the school, the headmaster and deputy being absent.
"It has come to my attention that illegal activities are taking place. I shall have them stopped. If you are guilty, then you have reason to fear. Otherwise, you need not fear."
The Baron's body was found the next morning. And since that day, the Bloody Baron has become as much a part of the woodwork as any other ghost.
The tradition is simple. The fourth years give the first years a little quiz, a short, two question quiz. And then, the fifth years talk amongst themselves and debate with each other about values and shortcomings and favours and come to their agreements and then they choose a first year. Most often it is one gender to another ... but in some cases over the years, a girl has taken a girl.
The fifth year looked at the quiz, looking closely. "Anyone particularly interested in the Mudblood?"
"You can have her!" chorused the other Slytherins.
"Good." The Slytherin boy waited and when at last came his turn, he announced, "I choose Lily Evans." He ran his eyes over the red haired girl, who looked defiantly back at him.
"What do you mean, 'choose me'?" she spat.
All of the girls are then taken into the showers and stripped by the female sixth years. Each sixth year has a shower cap which is used to gag the first year they are temporarily responsible for. The shower cap has been spelled to release a liquid, which the first years have no choice but to swallow and this liquid makes them docile and obedient for a short while. The gags remain to muffle their screams, for what comes next is so painful that their screams literally rip their throats apart.
Blaise, Tracey and Daphne huddled together, the sixth year girls quickly and efficiently disposing of their clothing. When each girl was naked, their mouths were forced open and gagged with the shower cap. Each of the girls felt a cold, thick, honey tasting liquid ooze down their throat and as it did, they felt themselves become detached from their bodies, rendering them obedient and docile.
It is well remembered that when this was done to Lily Evans, she overcame the liquid's effects and turned around and punched the seventh year so hard in the face that she was out cold for a month. The seventh year who is always there to heal their throats so no marks remain, had said 'I only healed her because I didn't want to have to answer awkward questions.'
Lily obediently knelt on all fours, her eyes dreamy. The girl muttered the first spell, then moved her wand and muttered the second. Lily's eyes grew wide and before anyone knew what was going on, she had swung around and punched the seventh year out, before shrieking so loudly that it was heard all over the castle.
Poppy Pompfrey looked uncertainly at the others, not sure whether to heal Lily or not. But as Lily was rapidly losing blood, Poppy muttered the healing spell.
Why would the fifth to seventh year females let this go on? Because they are Slytherin ... and as no one rescued them, the ones that suffer now will also not be rescued. There are those few ... very few ... that will not condone it nor partake of it, having taken the pact of the Abused, but also know the futility of trying to stop it. So they go about, as if nothing untoward is happening. Yet, the pain hurts them each day, as they see the girls suffering as they did.
"Blaise, it is unfair," said Tracey.
"I only know that too well," Blaise said. "But we can do nothing; the Bloody Baron has told us as much."
"So we let it go on?" asked Daphne.
"We let it go on," said Blaise, her eyes downcast. "As much as we would love to stop it, we must let it go on."
So ... the seventh year performs their two spells on each first year, preparing them for the pain and torment that is inflicted upon them for their first three years at Hogwarts. And then they are given to their Master, for under Slytherin House law, each slave is subject to their Master. And every night, at least fifteen out of eighteen voices are heard in the Slytherin dorms and the Head of House's quarters, screaming and begging for mercy that never comes.
"It is done," said the seventh year.
"Good," said the fifth year, looking at Daphne Greengrass with pleasure. He leaned over to Daphne and whispered in her ear. No one but Daphne heard what he said, but everyone heard Daphne's reaction.
"No way in fucking Hell am I going to do that!" exploded Daphne. "And don't call me Daffy! Only my bestest friends call me Daffy!"
"But I will be your bestest friend, Daffy," the fifth year said. "And you are required to do as I say, under Slytherin House law. The penalties for not doing so are even more severe. You have heard the second and third years screaming ... what if that were only you?"
"One," counted Severus. "Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen." And with each girl's scream imprinted in his mind, he rolled over to go to sleep, a sleep haunted by phantom screaming and girls crying.
But why is it that the older girls do not scream? They do not scream for they have paid their service and are left alone. And they have their own task, which they do — they train the Slytherin boys so the boys will be ready to do as was done to the girls that train them. It could all so easily stop — but the girls are Slytherin and as such, as has been stated before, they will not stop it for it was not stopped in their time.
"We could stop all this," mused Pansy.
"We could. But no one stopped it for us, so these new youngsters too shall suffer," said Millicent.
"You speak wisely," said Pansy, smirking.
The young girls of Slytherin — if they ever had any hope of being a 'good' Slytherin — are wrenched from that hope by the events of the first three years. Though not that many have any hope at the beginning. Only four ever have had had such hope.
Lily Evans. Blaise Zabini. Tracey Davis. Daphne Greengrass.
"Lily," said the Slytherin Head of House and Divination Professor. "Why do you turn away from the Light?"
"The Light has nothing to offer me," the fourth year Slytherin spat. "Not after what I have endured."
"You are so wrong," the Head of House said. "It has much to offer you, if you would not turn away from it. Yes, you have endured pain, but it has only made you stronger. And stronger you must be, to face the coming tide."
"Blaise, Tracey, Daphne," said Severus. "You wanted to see me."
"We are tired of this," the fourth year girls said. "We have suffered too much and know we could never do it to another. Yet we are expected to follow in these footsteps."
"You believe I know of what you speak," said Severus, inwardly rejoicing.
"You and Lily Evans began the pact of the Abused," said Blaise. "We too would wish to take it."
"It is inconceivable that we could do this as we are expected to," said Daphne.
"Very well. You shall take the pact of the Abused, then," said Severus. "You know then what you must do?"
"We do," said Tracey. "We know the rituals and the observances and the words."
"Go then and do it, my Slytherin daughters," said Severus. And as they left, he said softly, "Your Slytherin mother would be proud."
Lily Evans, Severus Snape, Blaise Zabini, Tracey Davis and Daphne Greengrass remain to this day, the only Slytherins who have taken the pact of the Abused. Around a pumpkin, freshly taken from the gamekeeper's stock, they swore never to use another as they themselves had been used.
"By the word of Slytherin, our founder," said Blaise.
"Do we utter these words," said Lily.
"And seal them with our blood," said Tracey.
"Never to use another as we ourselves have been used," said Severus.
"For mercy was begged to be had upon us/them ... as we/they were only girls," said Daphne.
Severus sighed as he undressed for bed after the Halloween Feast. Tonight, the screams would start afresh, he supposed, after a much welcomed break — by him and of course the girls — of several days. There would be eighteen voices screaming, no doubt ... and he would hear each and every one of them.
"Will it ever end, Lily?" he said to himself. "Will the pain of Slytherin House be freed from its earthly bonds?" He asked as he had asked before, never expecting an answer.
It will, my friend. It will.
"Lily?" Severus asked, looking around sharply.
The pain will end when the Line of Salazar is defeated. For only as long as the blood of Slytherin is still present, will this pain continue.
"Well, pardon me if I don't find that at all comforting," said Severus.
Until then, it goes on.
Severus swore and then strode out of his quarters.
Tracey, Blaise and Daphne sat in the Slytherin Common Room, quietly studying, even as shrieks and cries and pleading tore the air around them.
"I think it is time for bed," said Blaise, rising and flicking her wand. "Join me?"
"Indeed," said Tracey.
"Of course," said Daphne. They too, packed up their stuff and left, heading for their sixth year dorms. Some fourth year girls watched them as they calmly exited, not phased at all by the screaming.
"How do they do that? They don't even notice the screaming," one said.
"Maybe they're not even human," said another.
"I assure you both," came the icy voice of Severus, "that those three ladies have far more humanity than anyone else in Slytherin House. Judge them not, for their history may be tainted, but they're sober enough to know blood when they see it. Now be off with you." The fourth years nodded, a little scared and left themselves.
Severus immersed himself in the screams and crying and begging ...
"Please ... " sobbed one.
"Mmmmeeeerrrrlllliiiinnnn!!" shrieked another.
And worst of all, the whimpering that came in shuddered gasps and hitches.
... and found himself hoping that that bloody hero Potter would manage to destroy the sodding bastard Voldemort.