Title: Voldemort's Daughter
Author: Tsubasa Kya
Chapter nine: Slytherin Separation
Chavi grinned at Kagome's impatience, but it didn't last long. She sighed and continued, "Slytherin is two separate groups; it always has been."
Kagome knew her confusion showed on her face, just as Chavi's face displayed a look of boredom that contradicted her somewhat frustrated tone. "Do you want to know what my first thought was in the Common Room?" Kagome asked the girl. She received a brisk nod, so continued. "I thought the atmosphere was split. Is that why?"
Chavi nodded again. "Probably," she said. "There are a lot of bad tensions here, and now that you've been sorted into Slytherin, the tension is undoubtedly going to increase ten-fold."
"Increase? What does my arrival have to do with everything?" she wanted to know. Internally, her mind screamed at her, Warning! They must know about the Shikon no Tama! What will I do if one of them is in contact or in league with Naraku? She attempted to keep her thoughts from her face but wasn't sure if she managed. Will these people worship my feet too? Will they try getting close because of the power I have? She didn't want them to. She wanted to be liked for who she was as a person, not because of what she could do.
"Think about it," Chavi said, "There aren't many transfer students that come to Hogwarts. If they're going to go to another school, they'll go to Durmstrang, or Beauxbatons, or the academy in Japan." That was true enough. Japan had several transfers a year, and not all of them came in the beginning of the year either. People hardly noticed the coming and going of the transfers there. "That's why your sorting was such a big deal, and why Slytherins everywhere are gloating. We got the transfer student. Do you get that much?"
"Yes, I think I understand that part, but why does it matter to the two groups of Slytherins? I'm here aren't I?"
"Because," Chavi said with excessive patience, "both groups are going to want to win you."
Kagome practically spluttered her irritation, "Win?!" she demanded. "I am not a prize! What the hell? And here I thought this school would be different!" She stood from the bed to practice the formal art of pacing. It wasn't a comfort, but it kept her from screaming loud enough to wake the dead.
"Try telling that to a band of Slytherins," Chavi chuckled humorlessly. "To the majority of us, there is nothing that can't be won. Living or not, if we want something, we're going to get it, no matter what it takes. We have that drive to get it."
Kagome pinned Chavi with a furious, narrow-eyed stare. "And you? Are you going to try 'winning' me too?"
Chavi stood up, a smile on her face. She looked almost like she'd done something she was incredibly pleased about. "I've already won," she said matter-of-factly. Kagome opened her mouth to speak, most likely to yell something about how Chavi shouldn't be so sure, but Chavi held up a hand to stop the coming argument.
"Look, you," she said. "I'm not usually one to warm up so easily to anyone. You could ask any Slytherin here; I'm a cold bitch. Blaise and my other friends I have known since childhood; I haven't stretched a hand to help anyone—not even a fellow Slytherin—that I haven't known longer than ten years. But you, darling…" Chavi smiled the first non-smirk, very real smile Kagome had seen on her face all day, "You came in, not knowing who I am or who my father is or what that could mean for you if you got close to me. That meant a lot to my twisted little nearly-non-existent Slytherin heart."
Kagome gulped, thinking about her last year at the Magic Academy. Before she had the jewel, she was a nothing. She was nobody. After the jewel came out of her, suddenly everyone wanted to be her friend. Everyone wanted what she could bring them; power, prestige, control. No one wanted her because she was Kagome Higurashi. Only her few friends from childhood were what kept her from breaking down most of the time. They, and especially her best friend, didn't care about the jewel. Her best friend had offered to transfigure his wand into a hammer and smash the damn thing several times (though it always made her laugh because transfiguration was one of his worst subjects).
So she could definitely see where Chavi was coming from. "Oh," was all she could think of to respond with.
"That's why I'm here now, telling you all this. I think you should prepare yourself, because both groups of Slytherins are going to approach you eventually. If you don't want to join one of those groups, your best bet is to not talk to any Slytherin anymore or it will look like you have."
"Even you?" Kagome asked. "Or Blaise?"
Chavi nodded somewhat regretfully. "Yes. I chose a side when I couldn't stay out of it anymore. Nasty things happen when you're involved in these groups; there are duels, malicious pranks, and rarely a day goes by when some poor bloke doesn't end up in the hospital wing with third degree burns or something similar injurious. If you don't involve yourself in one group or another, nothing should happen to you. But if you get involved, there's no turning back. You can't leave that group, because if you did, it would be ten times worse. Both groups would turn on you and you'd have the entire Slytherin House against you. It's happened before; two years ago, a Slytherin did that."
"What happened to them?" Kagome asked, not really sure she wanted to know. She asked anyway.
Chavi answered in a dead-serious voice. "He was in St. Mungo's Insane Asylum for over half a year before he disappeared for a month. They found him in his parent's chicken coop, hanging from the rafters. I have my suspicions who did it, but I have no proof otherwise."
Kagome gulped. And I was happy to be in Slytherin with Chavi and Blaise?! she screamed at her mind. Is that hat insane? It needs to be locked up! This house should be disbanded. I should be in Japan, where I belong… "It… it wasn't suicide?"
Chavi shrugged. "Looked that way, and that's what it was ruled as, but honestly? I think it was murder."
"Was it… was it someone in your group, do you think?" she asked, incredibly nervous.
"No," Chavi said and shook her head. "My group is the lesser of two evils; literally. We threaten, blackmail, bribe, and hex to get our way. There's a very fine line we don't cross, that the others will. No matter who it is, what they have done, or what they may do in the future, we aren't going to take a life. Hell, one of my friends is a Hemophobic."
"A, a what?"
"They suffer from an abnormal fear of blood, in other words." Chavi explained. "But what I was getting at, is that you should really think about this. It won't bother me if you join the other side. They have most of the Slytherin House anyway because of how afraid everyone is of them. Fear is understandable. And if you're into that kind of violence, I don't really care to associate with you anyway."
"I'm not," Kagome assured her, "really, I'm not. But, but how… How do I stay out of it, if it's as big as you make it sound? I mean, from what I heard, you graduate after seventh year and I'm only in sixth. That's two years."
"Theodore Nott," Chavi said. She put a hand on her hip. "He's stayed out of it all; said he doesn't want to get involved. He's a loner in Slytherin and has been since he got here. If you decide to stay out of it, then…" she trailed off. "Anyway, I've been here too long."
"Won't people think oddly of you for being in my room? I mean… they won't… think I've chosen a side, will they?" It wasn't at all that she didn't want to be seen with Chavi, but she had her safety to consider as selfish as that sounded. She almost laughed at the thought. Ha, Kagome Higurashi, putting her well-being ahead of her social-life. A year ago she would have laughed if someone told her she would do that.
Chavi seemed to understand her hesitation. She smirked and shrugged, walking to the door. At first, Kagome panicked, thinking it meant she had 'picked a side' as it were. Instead, Chavi opened the door, checked in the hall for anyone looking, before opening the door wide to show Kagome the name plates. Kagome was the last one, and right above that was Chavi's nameplate.
Chaviah Melody Snape, it read. "I'm going into the Common Room. You think about what I said, good and hard; this is not a decision you should make lightly. If you get involved, there is no turning back. We're Slytherins, so if you get involved, you have to watch your own back. We're not going to do it for you. Oh, and a word of warning: stay away from the Common Room if you can avoid it. You've plenty of space in here for studying, or there's always the libraries. It's cold in here, but it's hell out there."
Kagome gulped slightly. "Thank you, Chavi," she whispered, but Chavi heard.
She brushed the comment off. "I only did it because it suited my purposes. I'm a Slytherin heart, Kagome. Black as coal, I never do anything that doesn't benefit me in the long-run." Kagome felt that was a lie, but it seemed to her that Slytherins had more than one deceptive type of quality. Lying would be a minor detail.
"Maybe… maybe after we graduate, we could get together," Kagome told the girl. It was a somewhat off-topic way of saying, 'I think I won't be getting involved.' Kagome felt it was safer for her not to get involved.
Chavi smiled a second very real smile. "Perhaps," she said. Then she walked out and closed the door behind her. I want to go home, she thought before resuming her tasks around the room. She had to finish preparing for the next day, but after a few minutes fumbling around with things, she decided to just peel her clothes off, throw them in the hamper, and pull on pajamas.
Kiyoshi mewled his complaints as she moved him to crawl under the covers. The glow globes dimmed in her dungeon-like room. What caused this separation of the Slytherins? She wondered. It wasn't even the first day of classes yet, and already she had more questions than answers. Malfoy is in Slytherin. Which side is he on? I'll bet he took a side.
She was on the brink of sleep when she had a sudden thought. That hat knew! It knew about the Slytherins separation! she screamed mentally, no longer tired as the thought smacked her. That's why it put me here!
Chavi's words came back to her. "We're Slytherins, so if you get involved, you have to watch your own back. We're not going to do it for you." It was just like that hat said; the Slytherins would teach her to protect herself. That's why the hat put her here. She remembered the qualities of the other three houses that Chavi had ticked off; if she were in those houses, and especially like the hat said, in Gryffindor, it would set her back. Already, just from what Chavi said and from what she'd seen and heard at the dinner table and just how the House was laid out (everyone had their own room), she could see that Slytherins were self-reliant.
The Gryffindor qualities nearly explained her best friend exactly (though he would never admit to being chivalrous). Back home, her friends had always protected her. They were quick to jump to her defense, especially if it meant they could beat up someone they had a beef against. If she were in Gryffindor, it would be very similar, wouldn't it?
The hat was right; she had a lot to come to terms with. Her family's deaths, her near-rape, being tortured, and the near death of her Guardian. He might look okay now, but what if he wasn't? So far she was coping alright enough, but she wasn't thinking about any of those things, really. She did her best to avoid it.
She wiped the tear streaks off her cheeks. Thinking about anything like that hurt, but who could she talk to about it? Harry knew enough about it to know her family was killed, but she didn't tell him anything really. What was she supposed to do? Walk up to Sesshoumaru and say, "Hey, I'm the reason your arm was cut off, but can we talk about the emotional trauma I'm suffering? I mean, really, it's a load on my chest."
Other than him, Kikyou, and Dumbledore, she didn't think anyone here would know what really happened that night to really talk about it. She was pretty much on her own on this, wasn't she?
Her eyes turned to the bedside table where she'd put the Shikon no Tama. Sesshoumaru would scold her for not sleeping with it on. "Anyone could walk up and take it," he would tell her. That jewel was the cause of most of her problems. If only she could take a hammer to it…
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