Disclaimer: Nope, Rowling's. not mine
A/N: I've been reading some very good Slytherin fics lately and so I've tried to write a sort of introspective of my own. This is much darker than what I normally write but enjoy anyway.
Slytherin Choices
There are many shades of grey. Slytherin is not all black marks and DEs and DEs are not all black marks and Slytherins. Pansy knows this which makes it harder to reject.
"Know your enemies" her mother had whispered, "You cannot reject a thing until you try to understand it" With Divination, this was easy. It had only taken a year.
Her mother had encouraged Muggle Studies. Pansy had protested vehemently wondering why she had to learn about such filthy useless stuff. That was when her mother had whispered her advice.
"You see, those who are Muggle-born allow their parents to know that there are still witches and wizards and what if this is revealed to the other Muggles? There will be dark times again, burnings, drowning and all of that. Know your enemies for then you can attack them at their heart"
Pansy knows this too. She has seen it, in the ancient restored portraits that still bear the scars of knives and from the scorch marks on the frames and from the stories that the ancestors in the portraits and the ghosts that wander the halls tell. Of torture, Muggle-invented torture that preceded and inspired the Cruciatus curse, of frantic struggles to get to out of reach wands, of Muggle men laughing and urging each other on as they raped their believed (beloved?) demonesses, stonings and jeers.
Queues at the front of the houses for magic solutions until something went wrong and there were still queues but this time, they were queues with torches. Refusal from thought friends to help. Accusations from friends of bewitchment. The horror of drowning, the water rushing past and the weeds entangling and pulling along with the grindylows the Muggles don't know are down there. The cheering of the crowd as the witch is drowned again and again and her desperate efforts to escape are met with cries of joy in her guilt. Pansy has heard this from a dripping ghost that wails along the halls.
Death Eaters is an interesting name, she thinks. It could be interpreted that they eat death, that they conquer it and prevent it. And again this makes it hard to reject. But Muggle Studies has made a difference.
She has seen and studied that not all Muggles would be evil (such a narrow word) witch hunters. Some of their inventions fascinate her. For example, the film she watched which suggested that Muggles are not entirely ignorant and gave her a feeling of not being quite real as though she were living a dream. And she cannot support the destruction of something that gave her this, that while she was not quite real, she was also more real than she's ever been.
And the dragon from the movie twists through her dream, but she knows from it's silver eyes and grey flanks that it is Draco, however cliché that might be. And he is like a dragon she thinks, bigger in a way than everyone else and knowing when to spit fire. The Dark Mark hovers above the dragon and as she looks back, the dragon is no longer a dragon, but Draco, a tiny child Draco who chirps at her "Come on Pansy, let's play, I want to build a castle but I can't see" She looks and sees the cheerful expression but where his sparking silver eyes should be are two great holes, empty sockets and as she watches a snake twists from his mouth making he, himself a Dark Mark. And the snake undulates toward her, the snake has ruby eyes and it almost seems to be grinning if snakes can grin and it strikes, leaving the mark on her forearm and the mark grows and grows until she can feel it consuming her and Draco is laughing, babbling about his castle and there is blood pouring from his mouth where the snake has exited and she feels herself screaming but there is no sound until from somewhere above, there is the silver dragon which is descending on her and rapidly changing. It takes her in its mouth as though she were its child and shakes her.
"Pansy, Pansy, wake up!"
She wakes, covered in sweat, the nightmares are getting worse. The pale pointed face above her wears concern.
"Was it another dream?" Draco asks, "Do you want a Dreamless Sleep Potion? You don't look well"
"I know, no, I'm all right"
"You can have the rest of my Chocolate Frogs, if you like" Vincent offers clumsily.
And the simplicity of it brings tears to her eyes. Gryffindors needn't think they have a monopoly on friendship. Slytherins make friends that are useful to them, yes, but once they've made those friends, they remain loyal to them. The friendship between Draco, Greg and Vincent may not be as lauded as the Trio but it is just as strong even if the others are too blind to see it. One could say the same about Pansy, Millicent, Daphne and Tracey.
"No, thank you, Vincent, I'll just have one" she answers, voice shaking. And in that instant, she has made her choice. To side with Voldemort, yes, she can think his name, would be to destroy this, to destroy her loves and friendship and, in true Slytherin fashion of saving her own skin and her life, she rejects him.
She is a Slytherin, but she is not and never will be a Death Eater.