Curing Ignorance… is a rather random one-shot which has been collecting figurative dust on my hard drive for a while now, so I decided I might as well upload it to see if someone wanted to try reading it.
Disclaimer: HP = not mine.
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It has been said that a single meeting can change the course of fate.
It has been said that in the end, the future is defined by the choices of man.
One person – a mere child of eleven years and an ignorant one at that – enters a compartment which was not empty, all while another him – in a parallel universe – continued looking.
"May I sit here?"
Steely grey eyes flicker to study him for a brief moment before returning once more to the tome balanced in the stranger's hands. The stranger – a raven-haired girl – turns the page. "What's stopping you?"
"Sorry."
The girl's eyes remain on the page. "What are you apologising for? Sit down or leave."
The emerald-eyed boy with messy black hair and slightly crooked round glasses takes a seat, giving his surroundings a wary look.
"Muggle-born?"
He looks up in surprise. "Pardon?"
"Are you a muggle-born?" the girl asks, raising her eyes study him more intently. At his seeming confusion, she tries again and reformulates the question. "Were your parents wizard folk?"
"Yes." The boy shifts awkwardly. "But I've been living with my aunt and her family…"
The grey eyes leave him and look back down at the page. "My condolences."
She turns the page as he voices his confusion. "Judging from the tone of your voice, they're dead, are they not?" she then asks, shooting him another look. "Your parents."
He shifts awkwardly again, hesitant. "Y-yes. Since I was one."
"So are mine," she answers back without missing a beat, her voice as lacking in emotion as her face.
"How did they die?" the boy asks, regretting the question even before it has fully passed over his lips. "Sorry, I shouldn't have-…"
"My mother died in childbirth alongside my newborn younger brother when I was three." The girl just shrugs, taking no offence. "My father… well, that bastard left me over at the orphanage, so good riddance to him."
He apologises. "I'm sorry."
She snorts. "Stop apologising. It's annoying."
Silence.
"So…" she finally says, taking note of his attire. "Starting Hogwarts this year, are you?"
Emerald eyes look up. "Yes."
She turns another page. "Where are you headed?"
He looks to her in confusion once more, prompting her to clarify. "To which House?" she repeats.
His silence tells her more than any hastily formulated answer ever could.
She arches an eyebrow. "You haven't been told about the Sorting?"
"The Sorting?"
Her eyebrow climbs even higher. She remains silent for a while, weighing her options before speaking once more. "On your first night, you get sorted into one of four Houses," she then says, looking at him for some sort of confirmation. "You've heard of those at least, haven't you?"
He shifts awkwardly again, squirming beneath the sudden intensity of her gaze. "Ehm… Gryffindor, Hufflepuff… Slytherin…"
Her look of surprise morphs into a mild frown. "Would you mind if I ask just who the Hell was in charge of your introduction into the magical society?"
"Mr. Hagrid."
Hearing his response, she snorts, slamming the book shut and depositing it on the seat next to her. "They sent the school's gamekeeper to introduce you to magic? They normally send teachers to do that…"
It starts as a seemingly innocent comment, but raises an important issue.
Irregularity.
"Either way," she eventually continues, picking her book back up. "There's Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin."
She opens it and turns a couple of pages before continuing, her eyes still on the page before her. "In a general sense, puffs are hardworking and loyal, but mostly they are a cowardly lot with a whole lot of pack mentality, though there are exceptions…"
She pauses briefly. "Ravens are studious and clever in certain senses but utterly retarded in others, and many take the written word as gospel so… yeah. Gryffindors are praised for being brave, but in truth, they're kind of like puffs, only with less cowardice, more recklessness and a more developed sense of individuality. And Slytherins…"
She pauses once more. "Slytherins… are Slytherins, cunning but surprisingly simple-minded," she then continues, a hint of a smile adorning her features. "Inbreeding probably stunted their highly prized intellect. Pureblood fanatics, you know?"
He shifts awkwardly again, because he doesn't – he doesn't know and it bothers him.
"And believe it or not," she continues, her smile growing colder. "I am a snake – that is what Slytherins are called at times, with or without the reference to us being slimy or not. We are not particularly well-liked by the other Houses or by most teachers, seeing that we belong to the very House which was once the breeding ground of a certain dark lord and a slew of more or less equally retarded followers…"
He says nothing, even though his mind is reeling with thought.
"You don't seem particularly surprised," the girl notes, emotion fading from her features as her attention is once again returned to the book in her hands. "I take it that the big guy with the beard has already given you the "Gryffindor good, Slytherin bad" speech."
He swallows soundly, his mouth oddly dry. "He did say… that all dark wizards came from that House…"
She snorts. "Which is a load of shit. Then again, what else could be expected from Fumbledore's man?"
He doesn't say anything, simply waiting for her to continue – eager to know what else she has to say, yet dreading it at the same time.
"Voldemort's Death Eaters came from all Houses as well as from abroad, even though he did find quite a few of them in Slytherin," she finally says, flipping through a couple of pages. "Then again, people who are shunned by the rest of their school on the basis of the colour of their robes do perhaps have a reason to hold some sort of grudge, even though all that pureblood superiority they keep on spewing is ridiculous nonsense…"
"Pureblood superiority?"
He vaguely recalls Hagrid saying something about it back in the alley, but nothing useful comes to mind.
"Yes," she says, giving him a meaningful look. "Because, according to them, the purity of blood is what truly determines your true value rather than your magical ability or your character – that it is solely determined on the basis of blood."
Her words bring the blond boy from the alley to mind.
"From their way of seeing things, a person like me is a bit of dirt on a clean surface," she continues. "My magical blood is tainted – muddled by muggle blood – and as such my dear classmates like to call me what they see me as – a mudblood."
Mudblood.
The way she utters it makes it sound like a curse.
"Being called a mudblood in this world is a great offence," she explains. "However, my hands are tied since any seemingly unwarranted misdemeanour on my end brings about the risk of me losing my scholarship… and I'd rather be at school with those dicks than back at the orphanage."
Orphanage.
He suppresses a shudder.
"Look," she continues after a while, slamming her book shut once more. "I'm not telling you that the "Gryffindor good, Slytherin bad" is completely wrong; people do have a tendency to become what is expected of them, and if you expect someone to behave in certain ways then they likely will."
She pauses, giving him another meaningful look. "I'm not going to tell you how to think and what to believe," she says. "However, I will tell you only one thing… Open your eyes, see for yourself and make your own assumptions rather than buying into those of others."
Her words strike a chord in him, though at the time he fails to realise why. "Open… my eyes?"
Grey eyes continue to study him intently. Dull, yet strangely vivid, they bore into him, leaving an impression on his character as sharp words cut deeply, carving themselves into memory. "Stupidity is only curable by death, but ignorance can be cured by knowledge," she says. "You're terribly ignorant, but I imagine it's no fault of yours. Still, it's up to you to cure it. Truths are nothing which can be fed to you by someone else, because then they are someone else's truths; the only way to find one's own truth is to make observations and to think – to truly think – and to draw one's conclusions from that."
"But that's just some friendly advice." She holds the book out to him, waiting for him to take it. "You can take it or leave it; I don't particularly care which."
Still, the impatient frown on her face tells him that he is expected to take it and he does so, albeit hesitantly. "What's your name?" he asks, unable to stifle his curiosity any longer.
"My name?" She looks at him, tilting her head slightly to the side. "My name is of no consequence, as I am a nobody."
"I'm Harry," he says, holding the book to his chest.
She arches an eyebrow in response. "Harry Potter?"
He nods, and her eyebrow lowers. She directs her eyes out towards the landscape which is flashing by outside the window. "Well, that explains a lot then," she says. "My condolences."
He doesn't ask why she says that; he doesn't get the chance to.
"You'll see soon enough," she offers him simply.
He wants to see the truth which is there, but he doesn't. It frustrates him to no end, because for some reason, he really wants to know.
- o0o -
"RAVENCLAW!" is the verdict of the Sorting Hat, after a whole minute of debate.
He removes the hat and joins his new housemates during the sound of a polite but evidently surprised applause.
He wants to know.
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Days come and go and he adapts to life as a raven, though the surprise in his surroundings still lingers. He enters the library, looking for answers.
The strange girl is there, seated at once of the tables, half-hidden behind piles made out of several thick tomes. Her only visible reaction to his appearance is a slight twitch. "You again?"
She looks vaguely annoyed, and he realises he has bothered her at a bad time. Even so, knowing it may be the only opportunity he will ever get, he still pushes onward. "Help me out," he says, holding a book out to her.
Grey eyes narrow slightly at the sight of the course book in his hand. "How?" she inquires, deadpan. "With what?"
With everything.
He straightens up, holding the book out to her still. "I want to be cured."
She eyes him critically then, taking in his scrawny appearance. "Of your stupidity or of your ignorance?"
He smiles hesitantly. "The latter."
She takes the book, seemingly a bit unwilling. "Fine…"
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A single meeting can change the course of fate.
Because that single meeting can have a huge impact on a person's life and future choices.
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"What's your name?"
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And in the end, it is our choices that define us.
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