Trouble
Moon: Hello, I'm back! Again, thank you all for all your lovely reviews and encouragement - you're all so kind. Now, this chapter kicks of both the start of Slytherin Ginny and Harry's dark reputation (hence the chapter title!) I do not own Harry Potter...enjoy!
Chapter 10: Bad Reputation
Harry immediately sat down on his bed, for once not protesting when Maria hopped up on his stomach. The other boys were talking to Ron, who had been beside himself over the fact that his little sister had been sorted into Slytherin. Harry really didn't see what the problem was, but the way Ron was going on about it made it seem like the Hat's decision was some sort of personal betrayal. Dean and Seamus were trying to get him to see reason, but they didn't seem to be having much luck. Neville was hanging back, too nervous to comment on anything, as usual. That was a frustrating note about the shy boy; if you were too afraid to take risks how did he expect to do anything in life?
Ron's yelling was making it hard for him to sleep, and after the pulse-pounding expedition with the 'borrowed' car Harry could really use some. He kept wondering why the gateway to the platform had been sealed – or who could have done it.
Blaise might have a few suggestions, he mused.
He was just glad Granger hadn't seen him come in on the car. Lord knows how she would have reacted; it probably would have involved a big speech about how it was the Wrongest thing he could possibly do. You'd think he'd have committed murder or something, the way she acted when he broke a rule. It wasn't as though anything bad had happened.
He realized he didn't have much knowledge about the other two houses, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. It would be good to keep an eye on the two houses, perhaps make an acquaintance or two inside them. After all, the more you know, the better prepared you are when something goes wrong. Which things often seemed to around Harry.
He fell asleep with Dobby's warnings in his ear. The sealed door was just the start, wasn't it?
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Ginny numbly followed the other Slytherins down the halls into the dungeons, feeling very much like someone had dumped her into a tank full of hungry sharks. The Hat had insisted something about 'her brilliant mind' before sorting her here, no amount of begging had made it change its mind.
"Can you remember the last time a blood traitor was sorted into Slytherin?" Draco said in a voice that was meant to be a whisper, but pitched to carry in a way that couldn't have been anything less than intentional. "That was decades ago. Usually, when one of those – or Merlin forbid, a mudblood – was sorted into our house, they didn't last a month."
"The last recorded Honour Killing was a hundred years ago, Draco." Blaise said, his tone hard. "We've given up on that bloodthirsty tradition."
Draco seemed not to notice. "The last recorded honour killing..." he muttered, casting a glare at Ginny. "It's a pity, really...Hogwarts could use a little cleanup..."
Ginny shivered and started walking faster in an attempt to put some distance between herself and Draco. His two cronies and a few girls snickered; her distress must be obvious to them. Her father had talked about how barbaric the honour killings had been. Oh lord, what if she was targeted? She didn't want to die!
"Ignore him," Another girl who'd followed Astoria and Daphne down the halls, Tracy Davis if Ginny was remembering her name right. "The Malfoy's have very strong views on blood purity; he's just trying to frighten you. Don't let him know it, walk with your back up straight and your eyes indifferent. Sharks won't come after you if they can't smell your blood."
Astoria nodded in agreement of this. Ginny swallowed and straightened her back like she was told, forcing back tears that wanted desperately to come. It felt forced and awkward at first, but she saw what they were getting at, and held herself this way all the way to the common room.
The common room was coldly pretty, with green and silver everywhere. There were armchairs around the fireplace, a circle in the corner for duelling, and there was a skull on the mantle. Ginny tried not to look at it.
They were immediately menaced by their Head of House, Severus Snape, who launched into a monologue about honour, cleverness and tenacity that Ginny desperately hung onto, trying to absorb how she would be expected to behave.
An ideal Slytherin girl should be, according to the speech, cool and reserved, careful and clever, put thought before action, pragmatism before emotion, act instead of react, and weigh all the possible outcomes to a situation. She would never start a battle that she could not win. She would lie her way into the enemy's good graces to lower their guard, and then she would strike. She would never dishonour her allies.
Ginny fought back a shiver. It sounded so opportunistic and uncaring. She'd always been emotional and outspoken. How would she meet these expectations? The stress of her situation was high and mounting every minute.
After this speech, Severus Snape dismissed them with a twirl of his cape and told them to prepare for their lessons tomorrow. She was scared of him; she had heard all kinds of horror stories about Snape from her brothers. How would he treat her?
Ginny followed Astoria, Daphne and Tracy into the girl's dormitory. The first year girls took a different section from the others; Daphne and Tracy said something to Astoria before going in the other direction.
Some of the older girls who were already there gave a moment to stare at Ginny as she walked past them, some of them with coldness in their eyes, others with confusion, and still others with simple curiosity mingled with a challenge.
Pansy Parkinson stopped her, Astoria and her two other dorm mates Megan Rushman and Selena Pritchard on their way to their room. Her eyes were so dark they were almost black, and they were like chips of ice will of scorn and hate.
"What's the blood traitor doing here?" She demanded, not even looking at Ginny. "Her whole rotten, muggle-loving family's always been in Gryffindor. They should keep their disgrace away from this noble house."
"She's been sorted here, Parkinson." Astoria responded stiffly. "That makes her one of us."
Pansy tossed her hair and glared at Ginny in a way that made the redhead want to melt into the floor and disappear. "One of us? A base-born brat born of a muggle-lover who raises his children like animals?" She scoffed. "Not likely! Send her off somewhere; I don't want to share my dorm with the likes of her." Several other pureblood girls made noises of agreement.
Ginny swallowed hard, she would not cry in front of this girl; it would only egg her on. Astoria merely glared back at Pansy and said, "Parkinson, she won't be in your dorm, she'll be in mine. It's the hat's decision to put her here; therefore it falls on us to help her become a snake. She's still a pureblood, you know, and therefore you should show her a little respect."
"Respect?" Pansy growled. "Her father is so obsessed with muggles he's hardly better than one. None of them have any respect for ancient traditions or their bloodlines. They're no better than those mudbloods. I won't have her tarnishing our house honour with her presence."
"Move, Parkinson," Astoria said, her temper visible in her words. "If you have nothing constructive to say, say nothing, remember?"
Pansy gave Astoria a dirty look. "You better watch it, Greengrass. I'm not going to kowtow to you just because your Malfoy's betrothed." She spat the last words out as though they were poison to her. "You can go and host a filthy blood traitor if you'd like, but I have social standards. And I'll be keeping them."
She walked past the group, smashing Ginny with her shoulder as she went past. "You better watch your back, blood traitor." She finished scathingly. "If I catch you doing anything untoward, you're dead." The girls who'd been standing with her all shot Ginny venom-filled glares and followed Pansy to her dorm.
Ginny stumbled a bit, nearly falling over backwards over her trunk, but Megan caught her arm. "Quite the conversationalist, isn't she?" The black-haired girl asked sarcastically.
Astoria shook her head. "Girls, not here – come on, we better get to our dorm." She nodded in the direction of her dorm, and lead the other girls into the corner where the four beds were. The other Slytherin girls watched them leave.
There was a long, painful pause before Megan walked over to the far end bed and dropped her trunk in front of it. "Nice welcome. They sure know how to treat new students." If her sarcasm had a physical form, it would have been heavier than an elephant. Her blue eyes were alive with scorn.
Selena, a silver-haired girl with storm-grey eyes was still gawking back in the direction the confrontation had taken place. "Do they all talk like that?" She asked uneasily.
"A lot do. But it's hardly just them. There are bigots scattered throughout all four houses. Some are more vocal than others." Astoria said, putting her trunk on her bed. "I'm sorry Ginny, but I'm afraid there's going to be more of that in the first year."
Ginny stared at her trunk, still refusing to let herself cry. Her day had been horrid enough already without breaking down in front of a group of strangers. "About what Malfoy said...have there been any honour killings recently?" She asked, hoping that she sounded casual, and that the answer was no.
Astoria looked grimly at her. "A muggleborn disappeared during Daphne's first year. They never found him, and I have a sneaking suspicion why, especially since Drake Lehane looked so please with himself...but mostly muggleborns are just bullied so fiercely their parents pull them out."
"That's comforting," Megan muttered. "So they won't kill you, they're just make you life utterly miserable. That's so much better."
Ginny squeezed her hands around the handle of her trunk. Her parents couldn't afford to move her to a different school; the tuition would be too much for their already shaky finances.
"What do you guys think?" She whispered. "Me being a blood traitor? Should I be thrown out? Am I a disgrace of a witch?"
"No." Astoria said flatly. "We can't help who our family is. And I don't think blood is an appropriate measure of magical ability – after all, wasn't it Harry Potter, half-blood, who defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? Besides, regardless of blood, I'm not treating another girl my age that way."
"I don't hold that against you," Megan said. "My eldest brother eloped with a muggle lady not too long ago; he escaped to Australia, of all places. You should have seen my parents – believe me, that's not a scene you want to step into. But I still love him, and I don't think he would have chosen her if it was wrong, somehow."
Selena shifted. "I...I don't really have an opinion," she whispered. "But you don't seem...wrong, Ginny."
Ginny listened to this, burying herself in those words and trying to put out Pansy's vicious statements about her being dirty and worthless out of her mind. Her shoulder was aching and probably bruised. "What's her family like?" She asked quietly.
"Oh, Pansy gets all her unpleasantness from her father, Evan Parkinson." Astoria said darkly. "He works alongside Lucius in the Ministry, trying to pass laws that would put further restrictions on what muggleborns can and cannot do...he also claimed imperious after the first war with You-Know-Who... they're like minds, Malfoy and Parkinson. Everyone was expecting them to form an official alliance via marriage contract, but for some reason Malfoy came to my father instead."
Megan nodded. "I heard about your betrothal. My father was surprised by it, too. I think he meant to offer my brother Hadrian as a husband for you, but Malfoy got there first. I think he might have his eye on your older sister, though."
Astoria shook her head. "I think my dad's aiming to have Potter for Daphne's husband." She said. "Especially after the way he talked to him when he first met him at the robe store."
"I can see why," Selena said quietly. "The Potters are one of the oldest families still alive, and have relatively healthy blood. My mother is certainly willing to overlook the fact he's half-blood if it means marrying me to him." She sighed. "I'm a little worried about that. If he turns me down my other choices seem to be Marcus Flint or Drake Lehane, and they're awful brutes, both of them."
Astoria nodded. "You have my sympathy if you get stuck with one of them, Pritchard." She said. "What about you, Rushman? How's your future looking?"
Megan managed a sarcastic smile. "At least one of my choices looks like a half-decent fellow, at least. Lucky for me," she muttered. "It's Nathan Clearwater. He's a Ravenclaw. Frankly, I'd rather him – or death – over my other option."
"Who's that?" Ginny asked, her mind spinning with this talk of marriage contracts and old families between the other girls. Her mum and dad had tried to distance themselves from pureblood tradition and history and hadn't told her about these things, so she was feeling hopelessly confused. The girls referred to themselves by their last names instead of their first – was that a sign of respect? Or wariness? Should she use their last names too?
"Theodore Nott." Megan replied with a grimace. "If there's a more unpleasant bigot, I'm yet to meet him. How about you, Weasley?" She turned her attention to Ginny. "Considering your...status, let's call it, I'm not sure if your parents are looking at marriage contracts, but are they thinking about it?"
"I..." Ginny took a breath to steady her voice, and did her best to match Megan's cool, indifferent tone. "Not as of yet, no. My father doesn't think some of the old traditions have my best interests in mind."
Astoria looked seriously at Ginny. "Are you familiar with any pureblood customs?"
"...No."
The blonde girl let out her breath. "Okay. You going to want to get up to speed on those for your duration in the Slytherin house. I'm not asking you to change what you believe, but it will be much easier for you if you outwardly meet the model the other Slytherins are expecting."
"We'll help you." Selena offered.
Ginny looked hopefully at her dorm mates. She already had a target painted on her, but with some help maybe she'd be able to make it through her school year. "Thank you! That means a lot to me."
"You might want to leave it mostly to us, Greengrass," Megan warned Astoria. "I don't need to talk to Malfoy to know he's angry enough about you chatting with Potter without you publicly lending a hand to a known blood traitor."
Astoria's eyes narrowed angrily, and she exhaled through her teeth. "You have a point. Right. Ugh, damn him. Sorry Ginny, but I won't be of much help to you in class. Only when we're here." She gestured to the dorm. "We might as well start now."
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Tom, I've been sorted into Slytherin.
You have? I told you before, that's my old House. You must be pleased to have been placed in the most noble of Hogwart's houses.
I was a little scared actually; remember I said my whole family was in Gryffindor? What if they're angry? What if they don't like me?
There's no reason they should be! They should be proud of a Slytherin daughter. There's so much you can do, and what you can become...none of the other houses can – or are willing to – offer you what Slytherin can and will.
That's nice to know. Some of the other girls don't seem to like me very much, and my dorm mates are going to have to catch me up on pureblood tradition and how Slytherin girls behave. I don't know anything about it and some of the girls are already being awful to me. Malfoy was whispering about honour killings just as we were coming in, I'm sure he meant for me to hear.
I see. I've heard about a number of honour killings in my time. But you aren't a muggleborn.
No. This girl Pansy Parkinson called me a blood traitor, though, because my parents didn't raise me or any of my siblings by the traditions.
You'll have to prove to her that you can carry yourself like an honourable pureblood. She will repeal her words if you prove her wrong.
Thanks. Malfoy also doesn't want my friend Astoria openly associating with me because I'm a blood traitor. They're betrothed, she said. How is that fair?
It is most likely he's merely going overboard protecting his intended. Once you establish yourself there shouldn't be any problems. Of course, you'll have to do a lot to prove your family still has honour.
My parents are honourable! They just think differently from the others!
Of course. I'm simply stating that their different though process will not do you many favours among your peers.
I noticed; it isn't just Parkinson who's giving me nasty looks.
The gateway to school was sealed today. Harry Potter convinced me to fly my dad's car to Hogwarts. Was that wrong of me? Will my dad hate me?
Someone sealed the gate? Dreadful, trying to keep students from reaching school. No, you were absolutely within your right to get to school any way you could. Your father may be angry for a little, but news that your in Slytherin should change his tune.
Will he think Harry is a bad influence? I mean, he did talk me into breaking an important rule, and if we had been spotted we could have been expelled. Will he make me stop seeing Harry if I tell him?
It shouldn't matter to him; the Potters are an ancient family. Closeness to him could potentially erase your poverty forever and establish your family as a kingpin among British civilization. He'd be a fool to throw that away over a single violation; after all, you weren't caught.
I've been told his family is really old before. My friend Selene Pritchard said that her mother was considering offering Harry a marriage contract for having Selene as a bride. And Astoria's betrothed to Malfoy. Isn't that strange? I mean, we're all eleven – well, Harry is twelve, but that's still really young to get married!
It wasn't that strange when I was in school. Girls often married young, especially in times when there was danger on the horizon.
Do you think Parkinson will try to make me a victim of an honour killing, if she thought she could get away with it?
Hmm...the Parkinsons have considerable political clout, you may want to keep an eye on her. It would be...brazen...of her, considering that Headmaster Dumbledore seems to have a soft spot for families such as yours, but she may attempt it.
Thank you, Tom. You always have such helpful advice. It's so nice to have a friend in my pocket in such a scary position. I have to sleep now, though. Goodnight.
Good night, Ginny.
Inside the confines of the diary, Tom Riddle boded his time. Listening to this blood traitor's worried prattling, and pretending to be sympathetic was exceptionally irritating. Of all the people who could have picked up his diary, why did it have to be a preteen girl? If he had hair, he'd be ripping at it.
However, her being sorted into Slytherin would have her writing in his diary more than she usually did, which was all the better for him. He was gaining more power steadily the more she poured her fears and hopes into him.
She was putting so much of herself into him, he would be able to unlock the Chamber sooner than he had expected! This was more than he had initially hoped for. If she kept up like this, he'd be releasing the Basilisk within the week. Then all would come to fear Slytherin's heir, and he could begin what he had meant to do years before – purge the world of those unworthy of studying magic, until only the pure remained. And he'd start with his former home, Hogwarts, which had undoubtedly been sullied even further since that doddering old fool Dumbledore had become Headmaster.
And the stupid brat was already offering him potential targets, without even realizing it. Perhaps he should have it attack the Parkinson girl; her father had renounced his service to him and lived on his gold like a coward, after all. She mentioned this Granger mudblood, her bizarre and half-blood friend Lovegood, her blood traitor siblings, and of course Potter himself.
Speaking of whom. It seemed that the boy was more of a risk-taker and a rulebreaker than he would have expected of Dumbledore's Golden Boy; it may require a different approach for when he went after the boy again. But with that in mind, it would be easier to drive a wedge in between him and that meddling old coot if that was his normal behaviour.
The boy seemed to be ready to break rules to look out for himself...and the coot was of the mindset that anything can be sacrificed for the Greater Good. Oh yes, it should be easy to push the two apart. Divide and conquer had always been his preferred methods.
For years he had been trapped within this diary. But it wouldn't go on much longer. No, soon Tom Riddle would be released, and he would reign over all.
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Harry woke the next morning with a headache he couldn't explain. Must be left over from the altitude yesterday, he reasoned, swinging his legs off the bed and getting dressed. He grabbed his books and his timetable and headed downstairs.
And of course, Defence Against the Dark Arts was every bit the joke it was last year, with Professor Lockhart still in the position. He hadn't stopped his self-interested boasting since last year; in fact Harry was getting the impression that he was more arrogant and overblown than the last time he had seen him. At the beginning of the lesson, he let loose a cage full of pixies into the classroom and then couldn't contain them; Hermione Granger of all people had had to freeze them and put them away.
At this point Harry would rather be taught Defence by a werewolf and cut class right after this, halfway through the man's rambled explanation. If he flashes those teeth at me one more time, Harry thought, I'll probably go blind. Whoever hired this guy should be fired from breathing.
He ended up catching up with the Weasley Twins, who had the sense to leave long before he had. This, of course, got him on the wrong end of a Canary Cream, so he walked into his next class – Herbology – plotting revenge. He would rather die than admit that, yeah, it had been kind of funny.
In Herbology, they were repotting Mandrakes. The little creature's cries gave him a splitting headache, and he nearly passed out since everyone had pulled their Mandrake up at the same time, but he pulled through nonetheless.
On his way to his next class, he walked into a smaller kid. The kid had mousy hair and reminded Harry of Ginny for some reason, in size and in expression. He scrambled to pick up his camera and looked up at Harry, eyes wide.
"Harry! Harry. All right? I'm sorry. I – I'm Colin Creevy," He said excitedly. "I'm in Gryffindor, too. Do you mind – would it be alright if I took you picture?"
"Oh-uh-all right." Harry said, trying to keep the smile of his face. Another fan? Wow. Colin wasn't a girl, but it was still a nice feeling to see someone in such awe of you.
"Taking photographs now, Potter? What do you do with your spare time?"
Harry rolled his eyes and turned in the direction of the ever-present Draco Malfoy and his cronies. He'd walked across the Courtyard at some point and said it loudly enough to catch some of the surrounding student's attention. More fool him.
"I was going to ask you the same thing, Draco," He said in a bored tone. "Don't you ever get tired of following me around? I swear, it's like I have a stalker. Man – if we were a little older, and in a muggle school, you'd be expected to declare your intentions." When he said this last sentence, he raised his eyebrows in a way that his meaning couldn't be mistaken.
Draco turned several interesting colours and it was all Harry could take not to burst out laughing. "You – you – Potter – what kind of – how dare -"
"It's funny seeing you at loss for words, Malfoy," Harry said with a smirk. "Maybe you should freeze your face like that."
Colin started giggling, a motion that was followed by the other students. Draco's mouth opened and closed and repeated this several times. Harry returned his attention to Colin. "Sure Colin, but maybe later, I don't like the backdrop." He gestured to the wall and then walked off, leaving a hyperactive Colin and a gaping Malfoy, who was still hadn't quite processed his response.
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Harry stepped back into the hallways of the school and then stopped. An uneasy feeling had washed over him, and he had a feeling that he wasn't alone.
"let me rip let me tear let me kill-"
The voice hissed from the walls, making him spin around. But he was alone, there was no one who could have said it. It was resonating within his head. It was old, and angry.
Harry started walking down the hall. Magic or no, hearing voices inside your head was never a good sign. The voice was heavy with malevolence; he picked up the pace, trying to find out where it was coming from -
"letmekill!"
He rounded the corner and stopped. The voice had retreated, but there was something on the floor that wasn't the leaking water.
A Ravenclaw was lying still on the floor. Justin, if Harry was remembering his name right. Ginny was kneeling next to him, putting a hand on his and then pulling it back, fear in her eyes.
"What happened?" Harry asked, running up to the unmoving body.
Ginny's head shot up. "Harry! I don't know. I was just wandering in the halls and I found him like this! But I don't know what's wrong, he's so cold, is he dead?"
Harry looked down at Justin and put two fingers on his neck. His skin was cold, but there was a stiffness and a hardness to it that a dead person didn't. "I don't know," he told her, he knew that didn't sound very comforting, but he couldn't tell her what he didn't know.
He caught sight of her left arm. Although it was mostly obscured by her sleeve, there was a nasty-looking scar that started at her wrist and went up. "Hey, what happened-?"
"Bulstrode's work," Ginny muttered, pulling her sleeve down further. "Do you think we can pick him up-"
"Hah!"
Harry and Ginny looked up to see Filch, the caretaker, standing over them, his face twisted into a horrible grimace. "Caught in act!" He shouted.
"What?" Ginny said in a small voice.
"I knew you were trouble from the first minute you stepped into this castle, Potter," Filch went on, "And here's the end proof – you've attacked another student?"
"I didn't!" Harry said hotly, "I found him like this, Ginny called me over-"
"So you have an accomplice!" Filch said, "That changes nothing. Headmaster!"
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Harry and Ginny were hauled through the school and up into the Headmaster's office. This in and of itself wouldn't have bothered Harry, who was familiar with such offices, if it hadn't been because a boy had been turned to stone. Both their Heads of house, McGonagall and Snape, came in along with them when they heard Filch's shouting.
Ginny was shaking and looking positively terrified. This was truly the cap-off of a terrible week – being suspected of causing students harm. She clutched her arm, where the curse was still stinging her. No, she'd been on the receiving end of student harm, not the perpetrator.
Her fingers locked around Tom's diary, seeking comfort as Headmaster Dumbledore appeared from his study. Her mother talked about Dumbledore all the time and called him the 'greatest, most fair person you'd ever meet'. She desperately hoped that it was all true.
Harry, on the other hand, was feeling distinctively uncomfortable with the way Dumbledore's twinkling eyes seemed to bore into him and refused to meet them directly, instead settling for staring over his shoulder at the brilliant red phoenix on the perch in the far corner. No matter how many people sang Dumbledore's praises, something about him just felt off, and he was going to stay on his toes around the man.
"I've heard about what happened to poor Justin," He began in a grandfatherly voice, but perhaps the two of you could tell me what happened?"
Ginny immediately started, "I was just walking down the hallways, you know to get to my next class – I turned the corner, and I saw Justin on the floor! I went over to him, but he didn't answer me and his skin was so cold. A minute later Harry found me, and we were about to find a teacher when Filch came over." She subsided, her brown eyes wide and beseeching.
"A likely story!" Filch exclaimed. "He's using you as a cover-up...Potter, nothing but trouble ever since he got here, has no respect for anything, he's probably trying to see what he can get away with."
Harry bit down on an exceptionally foul-worded retort. It wouldn't do him any favours when he was trying to prove his innocence.
"No second year could have done this," Dumbledore said firmly. "But that means that someone else has. Did either of you, per chance, see anything suspicious in the halls before you came upon Justin?"
Harry shook his head no and looked at Ginny. She blinked once, twice, and seemed to be looking at something that wasn't there. "No sir," She whispered.
Something was wrong. Maybe it was her arm that was bothering her.
Maybe.
Dumbledore shook his head. "You both may go. Severus, Minerva, please remain, there are some things we should discuss..."
Harry and Ginny left the room, Harry straining to hear whatever he could before he was shuffled out the door. "...Chamber...can't be back..."
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At dinner, Harry picked at his food, deep in thought. Something strange had happened in the halls – he had heard that voice, and then he'd found Justin. He forbore mentioning that to the teachers, because it probably would only have served to make him look worse.
If the voice and the attack were connected, why hadn't Ginny heard it? She was fairly close by when he had heard it.
What was going on?