Harry sat in shock. This could not be happening. Gryffindor could not be evil. We were the good guys!
He looked up at Professor McGonagall who was looking at him with a mixture of pity and sadness on her face. He swallowed, trying to bring some moisture to his now dry mouth.
When he felt like he could answer he asked ''And what would you like me to do about it Professor?'' He had no control in Hogwarts so he didn't know how she expected him to help. Perhaps she thought people would do anything I ask them to because I'm Harry Potter. But how do you ask someone to stop being evil?
''We need you to find the Slytherins and restore the balance,'' answered McGonagall briskly.
Harry considered this before answering, ''Professor I worked on this case years ago, if we were going to find them we would have done so by now.''
''Well, Mr Potter, I should like you to at least try again, the fate of Gryffindor House rests in your hands.'' McGonagall looked at him pleadingly and Harry had to agree, after all he didn't want Gryffindor's to be known as evil in the years to come.
Later that night Harry sat in his cluttered living room rereading the case files for the Disappearances, and it was a big file what with almost two thousand profiles. Harry just wished they'd had as many leads 'cause so far he had nothing to go on.
Yawning, he checked his watch. 11:45. He put the file he had been reading to the side and went to bed where he drifted into a deep sleep.
(Dream)
He was surrounded by bright light and he was falling, and as he was falling he heard voices chanting, as if from a distance, though he could not quite make out the words. Suddenly, he stopped falling and everything came into focus.
He was standing in a forest clearing, light filtering down onto faces circled around him that he recognized from his school days. There was Blaise Zabini, Daphne Greengrass, Draco Malfoy, Severus Snape, Pansy Parkinson and many others. Harry focused on Malfoy expecting him to be the one to speak but instead Pansy Parkinson stepped forward, but made no move to talk.
Harry broke the silence. ''Where are we?'' If he knew where they were then he would be able to take them home, but the Slytherins didn't answer, instead laughing loudly as if he'd told a funny joke.
Pansy was the first to recover, answering him in a voice so different from Hogwarts that at first he did not recognise it, ''If we told you that then you'd be able to find us.''
Harry waited for her to say something else but when she did not he asked a different question, hoping to get them talking so they might let slip where they were, ''Why did you leave?''
Pansy smirked and replied ''Because you crossed the line. Insulting us and killing we can handle but we won't stand for being tagged and having limits put on our magic like some pet.'' She was referring to when Minister Shacklebolt had the Slytherins charmed so that they couldn't use certain types of magic.
''That was for our safety!'' Harry argued.
The Slytherins laughed. ''You don't know anything about keeping yourselves safe, Potter! That's been our job for the last thousand years!''
Harry was confused, what did they mean? ''What do you mean? You guys hated us, the last thing on your mind was keeping us safe.''
''See that's where your wrong Potter'' Said Snape. ''I had to endure years of teaching brainless Hufflepuffs and know-it-all Ravenclaws, all the while pretending to hate them all and only like my house, just to keep you all safe.''
''Why? How? What were you protecting us from?''
''We protected you because we're Slytherins and it's what we do, what we have done for a thousand years,'' explained Pansy. ''You see, back when Hogwarts was founded, Godric Gryffindor was convinced that Salazar Slytherin was evil and refused to let his House mix with ours. And, of course, Slytherin realised that the four Houses could never work in harmony: one would always end up being thought of as evil, thereby creating distrust amongst all the Houses instead of just between two. So, being the noble wizard that he was, Slytherin sacrificed his own House for the good of the others. He created Purebloods and Mudbloods and started saying that he was better than Muggles because he was Pureblood. Later on he fought with Gryffindor and left the castle, but we continued on his quest and made enemies with the other Houses. We have to pretend to hate you in public and make it believable which means we have to practice at home, it basically takes up our entire lives. But now we've had enough, we're sick of you thinking you're better than us so we've left.''
It took Harry a long time to process this. Eventually he thought he'd made sense of it all.
''You were protecting us from us?''
''Yes,'' said Malfoy. '' We practised the Dark Arts in the hope that you'd think us truly evil, distracting you from your own darkness, although some of us got sucked in and became Dark Wizards.''
''The only reason we followed Voldemort was because we didn't know how powerful he was and we thought that it'd convince you once and for all that we're evil,'' and Blaise Zabini.
''Yeah and it worked. Ron was convinced you were all Death Eaters in sixth year,'' Harry agreed.
''But we were sick of being thought of like that, so we came here,'' Pansy gestured to the forest. ''And we're not coming back, it's your fault we left. I wouldn't be surprised if, in a thousand years' time, the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws are celebrating the downfall of the Gryffindor Dark Lord. And then the balance will have been upset again and they'll fight amongst themselves until there's only one House left.''
Harry was aghast. He couldn't let that happen, imagine having only one House.
''You've got to come back'' he said.
The Slytherins laughed again, and suddenly everything was going blurry. He could hear the voices chanting again but this time he could make out the words:
We used to live to protect,
Never any gratitude did we collect,
Sacrificing our lives for yours,
We battled through all the wars,
We were Dark, we knew,
But you failed to see yourselves,
As others saw you,
Now you're going to live in endless plight,
Because you refused to see that there is no Dark and Light.
Harry felt as if he was falling again, and then there was a second flash of light…
He awoke with a start, trying to remember what he'd been dreaming about. He knew it had something to do with the Slytherins but the more he tried to grasp the details the faster they drained away. He lay back down and closed his eyes. Even though he couldn't remember the dream he had learned something from it: it was impossible to find the Slytherins. Where ever they were or whatever they were doing they wouldn't be found if they didn't want to be. He would still try, yes. But only because he'd promised McGonagall - he knew it was hopeless. Maybe, Harry mused, it was always meant to be like this. Or perhaps it was Gods way of punishing us, we'd had our shot at being good and we blew it so now we have to be evil for the rest of our lives. Or maybe we aren't evil, maybe we're just Grey. Because, after all, is there really such a thing as Dark and Light?
End~
a/n: hey guys thanks for reading. I will not be writing any more for this fic but if you have suggestions on what topic I should write about next pm me and I'll consider it,
REMEMBER TO REVIEW-M/E
