Hello! This is my first published fanfiction, so please let me know if there are gaping mistakes or whatever. Read and enjoy!
Summary: Voldemort fell. The first years ignored the parties and the celebrations. They saw the root of the problem. They also saw the solution.
When Harry Potter goes to Hogwarts, he forms his suspicions, but it isn't until Ron Weasley comes out with a secret only the upper years are privy to that he discovers the truth behind the odd occurrences.
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Passing Notes
A Harry Potter fanfiction
By peaceloveFANG
Harry looked over at the other boy, who studied him a moment.
"Hullo," said the boy in an almost undetectably hesitant way, "my name is Draco Malfoy. What's yours?"
"Harry Potter. Pleased to meet you," Harry said. Draco's eyes widened.
:-:
The first years were meeting with each other.
You-Know-Who had been defeated that Halloween; Lily and James Potter had died, and the Boy-Who-Lived rose to fame. Tension had been drained from faces and figures throughout the Wizarding World.
And the first years whispered.
A Slytherin girl walked through the hallways with her head held high, a Hufflepuff boy gave her an appraising look as she walked by. Later that night the two met in the Come and Go Room and talked.
A Ravenclaw boy talked to a boy in red and gold, while a Badger piped up occasionally.
Two in the Hidden Things Room became four.
And the teachers never saw it, and the upper years only even suspected, but as those four first years became second years and then third years and on and on, the younger years knew.
"Nothing good ever came of Slytherin."
"Hufflepuffs are a load of duffers."
"Ravenclaws are nerds."
"All Gryffindors are fools."
While their parents celebrated a war won, four first years spread the word.
Things were changing at Hogwarts.
:-:
Harry looked around the Gryffindor common room with wide eyes.
He hadn't noticed it before, but the entire room was tense. Anticipatory. Even as arguments broke out and homework was done and laughter filled there air, it seemed like everyone was waiting for something.
In the middle of the room were, of course, the first years. But—and Harry was again struck wide-eyed—the girls were sitting differently than the boys were.
The Indian girl Patil-or-something was sitting by Lavender Brown on one side of the couch, with Hermione Granger on the other. Hermione had a thick book open on her lap and was reading avidly. The other two girls were chattering excitedly, but had their bodies angled toward Hermione in a way that seemed…almost…deferent.
The first year boys, though, sat in a decidedly unorganized fashion. Harry compared their postures and body language to the rest of the Common Room and found something off.
But it wasn't the other Gryffindors that were odd.
No, the first year boys were the ones missing something.
The Common Room waited…
:-:
Bill Weasley told Charlie about the Agreement when he was old enough to keep things to himself. Percy was told not a year later.
Ron certainly knew about it.
He knew enough to realize that he wasn't going to be The Gryffindor Firstie like Bill had been. And when he met Harry Potter, he held out a week before telling him about the Agreement.
Harry had blinked at him and then sighed.
"Did you know that Hermione's leading the girls?" he asked. Ron blinked.
"Granger?"
Harry smiled at his tone of voice and nodded. "Yeah. I didn't know what I was seeing, at first, but now I suppose she got some sort of subtle message from a book. So I figure we're going to need to ally ourselves with them."
Ron nodded. "Yeah. We need to work together."
Harry nodded again, decisively. "Okay. We need a leader to approach the girls."
"You've got my vote, mate. It was your idea," Ron said. Harry looked taken aback and then smiled brilliantly.
"Thanks, Ron. But I'm rooting for you because you knew first, so I guess we'll have to get a second opinion."
And a third and a fourth, as it turned out. Harry, as the unanimous leader of the first year boy's dorm, sat across from Hermione at breakfast.
"An alliance would be mutually beneficial," he said, cutting his eggs.
Hermione narrowed her eyes and then smiled. "I agree."
Harry nodded, smiled back, and they talked like old friends for the rest of the meal.
:-:
Neville didn't mean for his cauldron to explode. It was an accident. He followed the instructions carefully, but he had always been a bit absentminded and the board was so far away and Professor Snape was terrifying.
"It's okay, Neville," Harry said after class was dismissed. "I'm sure you'll get better."
Neville smiled tremulously at his friend and, apparently, leader. "Thanks, Harry."
"Potter."
They turned.
Malfoy stood with his arms crossed, an eyebrow raised, and two larger boys on either side of him. Two other Slytherins—first years, from their size—were further down the corridor.
"Malfoy," Harry nodded.
"So you've gotten control of your group?" Malfoy asked, interested. Neville blinked at the tone. It seemed that after the formalities he thought he was somehow equal to Harry. A hand on his shoulder made him realize he was scowling and he flushed, giving Harry an embarrassed glance.
"I'm fine, Neville. Go to class," Harry said.
Neville's eyes flicked over to the intrigued Slytherins.
"If they do anything to me you'll be able to tell people who it was. Go on," Harry encouraged. Neville nodded, bade his friend farewell, and hurried back up to ground level.
Harry turned to Draco. "Of the boys. Hermione's got the girls under her thumb."
Draco smirked. "Then you'll be contested for superiority. That should be interesting."
Harry shook his head, and then shook it again to get the hair out of his eyes. "We've got an alliance, actually. We hashed out the details on the way to Transfiguration," he said. Draco tilted his head.
"I don't know that that's ever been done before," he said. Harry shrugged.
"Well, I guess Hogwarts is in for an interesting year."
Draco nodded, and then seemed to snap into business mode. "I noticed that Longbottom was having trouble with Potions," he began. Harry nodded, grimacing slightly. Draco paused. "Did you get hit with that awful concoction?"
"Burnt like fire," Harry replied glumly. "You were saying?"
"Yes, well, I expect it would be better for all of us if he were taught how to not endanger a classroom unwittingly. If he's doing it on purpose, we'll be having another conversation." There was a hint of warning in his tone that startled Harry into laughter.
"Neville? I don't think he's wanted to hurt anybody in his entire life," Harry said. "But I'll see if I can get him to agree to getting extra lessons."
Draco nodded. "Good. I'll contact you with details if you tell me when he accepts. And…Potter?"
"Yeah?" said Harry.
"It's going to take more than five minutes to decide on the terms of our alliance, so I'll expect you to set aside a time later. After dinner, preferably."
Harry found himself grinning. "Sure, Malfoy. See you."
Draco glanced away and narrowed his eyes at the wall. "See you, Potter. Crabbe, Goyle, lets go." The Slytherins left, including the two lingering further down the corridor, and left Harry standing there before he turned and ran like mad for the Greenhouses.
:-:
Hermione hadn't just read the current edition of Hogwarts, A History. She'd read twenty three of the previous editions as well. Not that she'd do something as foolish as buy them all, not when Lumbary's Library let her borrow them for free.
Starting with the books that mentioned the fall of You-Know-Who, though, she noticed something off. In the previous editions she had been able to tell which House the author had been in by how they wrote. It wasn't anything as minuscule as their writing style, because while she was intelligent she was still eleven, but more along the lines of content.
A former Slytherin would slip in phrases like "typically Gryffindor" or "unfortunately Hufflepuff," while a Gryffindor would gloss over the details of Slytherin House and make subtle jokes about Hufflepuffs. The Badger House was typically unbiased, but they showed only the good side of things, and Ravenclaws tended to go into every nuance that made the House in question the House in question.
But in the most recent editions, that was absent. Instead, a Gryffindor author gave some oddly specific details of Slytherin, like they knew someone who had described it for them with the experience of daily life, and they praised the Hufflepuff loyalty and the Ravenclaw determination. It was an entirely new book if she looked at it by how the author sounded.
So by the time Hermione was on the train, she had a better idea of the Agreement than nearly anyone else.
And she had a plan; at Hogwarts, at least, she refused to be overlooked.
A/N: So that's the first chapter! Please, if you see any errors, let me know.