Susan stared at Theo when he announced his opinion of her relatives. There was another long silence and everyone looked from him to her until she said, "Damn right. Fucking arseholes," and the whole room relaxed.

Hannah took a deep breath and then said, "So… I wrote to Professor McGongagall, I mean, uh, Headmistress McGonagall over the summer and said that maybe we could all use some place to talk about things that happened. I'm sure we all had a bit of a rough year - "

"Understatement," Pansy muttered.

" - last year and maybe it would help to talk about it."

"I don't 'do' talking about feelings," Pansy said, her eyes narrowed. "And even if I did why would I trust you people?"

"Just a place to hang out?" Hannah said. "A place where we listen to anyone who wants to talk and if you just want to sit that's fine too. There's a chess set on one of the shelves and - "

"It's important we don't - " Neville interrupted her and then tried again. "We have to all promise that we won't… anything anyone says here doesn't get blabbed all over school." He swallowed hard. "This has to be a safe place."

"Your fee fees are not interesting enough for me to talk about," Pansy said. Hannah gave her a long, steady look until she added, in a mutter, "But, yeah, no sharing outside of here, I agree."

One by one everyone in the room agreed to keep anything shared private, no matter how seemingly innocuous. When they were done Hannah asked, "So… how was everyone else's summer?"

"Shitty." Theo spoke first. "My father's in prison, my house is huge and empty, and I had nothing to do except sit around and feel like dirt." He looked around, his eyes finally coming to rest on Neville. "Next."

"Weird," Neville said. "Everyone wanted a part of me." He gave a funny grin to Hermione. "I kind of realized what it was like being Harry, I think." The grin faded and he sighed. "It wasn't that great. I mean, at least my gran was finally proud of me, and it was suddenly okay to not be that powerful magically - "

"Neville," Hermione started to say.

"I'm not," he said. "It's okay, I'm okay with that. I'm good with plants and I can wield a mean sword and I'm pretty good at organizing people - "

"Yeah," Padma whispered from her seat.

" - but I'm never going to be the greatest mage or the strongest wizard and I… I'm okay with that now." He looked around at everyone. "I wanted to be like all of you," he said. "You're all… Merlin, Hermione, you're scary, and Malfoy is too, and Nott." He nodded at Theodore who nodded back. Neville looked down and muttered something and when Theodore coughed he said, "I fucking feel guilty that it took a war where people died for me to not feel like I'm worthless because I'm not the wizard my father was."

There was another long pause before Pansy said, "Only a goddamned Gryffindor would feel guilty for not feeling worthless."

"Are you always a bitch, Parkinson?" Susan demanded. "I've known you for seven years and you've never said a nice thing ever."

Hermione watched Pansy stiffen and open her mouth but it was Draco who spoke first. "Pansy's always been nice to me," he said. "She's nice to Millie. Nice to Theo. Nice to little kids in our House. You just don't see that because you don't see us as anything but the enemy. When you know that people already hate you for wearing green it's usually not worth the bother to try to befriend them."

"Did you ever even try?" Susan asked. When he didn't answer she looked at Theodore. "How about you?"

Theodore pulled himself off the wall and said, "I think I'm done." He held a hand out toward Pansy who rose from her seat, snatched up her bag, and crossed the room to him. Hermione could see him squeeze her hand tightly once he had it in his grasp, could see the way the girl swallowed and blinked rapidly a couple of times, her face tilted so her hair mostly hid her from the view of the room. At the door Theo turned and looked at Susan who seemed to wither under his gaze. "I never tried," he said. "Would it have mattered? Really?" He looked around the room. "When I was eleven years old I realized three-quarters of this school hated me for the colour of my tie."

"You - we - could try now," Hannah said to his back but he'd already shut the door. She turned back to the room and put a smile on her face. "Well, that went well."

"Not to sound like Pansy," Hermione said with disbelief, "but are you high?"

. . . . . . . . . . .

A/N - A second chapter because of the anon ask on tumblr