A/N: Short one shot, and first Harry Potter fic. Let me know what you think! All reviews welcome, thanks!
Slytherins. Slytherins were the bane of the Gryffindor world. Her world.
They cheated, they lied, they were mean and they picked on anyone that was not in their own house. They undermined you, blackmail you. Made snide comments and pushed you in the hallways. They made lewd remarks, and were not ashamed of knocking you unconscious during a quidditch game.
She hated them, and they hated her. It was that simple.
Who would have ever thought that she would be thankful for the Slytherins.
Other things in her life changed. Defence against the Dark Arts professors. Her parent's divorce. The relationships with her friends. The weasley's drove her mad, to the brink of insanity with their pranks and tricks, for the amount of house points they lost, and the number she had to regain.
Oliver Wood and the number of last minute quidditch practises he used to call. The pressures of being Quidditch Captain. The mood swings of Katie and Alicia depending on the pranks of Weasley's, or where Lee's tarantula had been found lately.
Younger children looked up to her, wanted her help and advice. Wanted reassurance about their fears from Voldemort. The fearless Quidditch Captain who had once punched Montague in a match. No one had been able to find out what he had said. What had inspired such rage in the usually cool headed girl. No-one had been able to provoke her like that before or after. Only him.
The teachers wanted her to be the responsible person they 'knew' she was. They needed her to talk sense into her house mates, to try and keep the twins out of trouble.
She had to deal with Umbridge, had to deal with the responsibility of finding new Quidditch players and training them in a ridiculously short time. Had to deal with all the pressures that now put strain on her slim shoulders, shoulders that had once seemed broad enough to hold them. Now she stumbled, almost buckled under their weight.
Everyone wanted something from her. Even slytherins to a point. They wanted her attention as they teased her. They wanted to provoke a reaction. They wanted her to crumble while they laughed. They wanted to punish her on the quidditch pitch.
But the Slytherins, Montague in particular were the one constant in her life. They remained the same. You knew what to expect, you just had to expect the worst. They lied. They cheated. They aligned themselves with the most powerful.
Evil, cold bastards they were. But they never changed, they never changed in their insults, in the brutal way they played quidditch, in the way they hated Gryffindor and mudbloods.
She could rely upon them in a way she could rely on no-one else. When it would become too much she just had to look across at their table in the great hall, see their glares and smirks, hear their hisses to be reminded that some things never change.
She was thankful for that. Thankful for the life line that they provided. Thankful that some things never changed, no matter how the world whirled around her, dragging her in every conceivable direction.
Her centre was the hate and competitiveness their relationship was based on, was him. God, how he would laugh to know that. That her sanity was based on him. That one look at him and what he stood for, and the world would stop spinning around her, if for only seconds.
And so when they bumped into each other, five o'clock in the morning down at the quidditch pitch on the day they were leaving Hogwarts for the final time, she had ignored his insults, and with a small smile told him 'thankyou'. She took one last look at his speechless expression, fixing his face and all that he stood for in her mind's eye so that when the world was spinning, she could think back to him, and their years at hogwarts and it would still for a moment. Spinning around on her heel, she strode away before he could say anything else.
He never knew what he was being thanked for.
Any good? Sequel?