When they'd reached the Great Hall—Harry and Hermione went straight to their normal spot at the Gryffindor table where Ron, Ginny were sitting with Neville, Dean and Seamus. Everyone was chatting happily and talking about their summer while Lavender, Faye and Ginny were gushing over the summer season and all the handsome wizards they'd been introduced to.
"You'd think that my sister would be more interested in Quidditch than boys." Ron mumbled, his voice dripping with annoyance. Ginny just scowled at him and then proceeded to ignore him until the sorting started.
When Professor McGonagall led the first years into the Great Hall—Hermione caught Sally's eye and smiled at her. The young girl waved excitedly, which caused Hermione to chuckle. When she looked across the Hall, Malfoy's gaze was also on the young witch and his expression was almost nostalgic.
Then his eyes locked with her's and he smirked and tilted his head towards Sally and mouthed, "She's you."
Hermione's expression registered confusion for a second and then when she got the inference she nodded, chuckled and rolled her eyes. She noticed Malfoy's body shaking a bit like he was laughing to himself.
When her gaze caught a few of the other Slytherin's, one in particular was glaring at her spitefully.
Leave it to Parkinson to be in a foul mood first day of school.
Hermione then caught Theo's gaze and he shook his head fondly at her before he tilted his head in Pansy's general direction and rolled his eyes in disgust.
She had to hide her giggles behind her hand as the sorting started.
It was a while before Sally's name was called out.
"Sally Kelley."
Hermione watched with anticipation as the young girl bounded up the steps and sat upon the stool, her body radiating excitement.
About a minute later the hat yelled out, 'Gryffindor!' And everyone in Gryffindor house started cheering for the little witch...the loudest being Hermione who was accosted by the young girl with a hug, before she sat with the rest of the first years.
When she glanced up again, Malfoy nodded and smirked as if he wasn't surprised at all and when one of the boys sitting down from him murmured something, Hermione gasped in shock when Draco flicked his wand and the boy glared at him.
Then everyone around the kid started laughing as it became obvious that Malfoy had silenced him.
He then winked at her and went back to watching the sorting like it was no big deal.
What the Fuck?!
"What was that all about?" Harry whispered into her ear, not missing the strange exchange between his sister and the ferret.
"I will tell you later, okay?"
"Sure. You alright?"
"Yes. Just a bit confused I think."
"Hmmm." Harry glared at Malfoy, who just smirked back at him. Hermione nudged her brother and told him to 'stop it' under her breath.
Before Harry could respond, Dumbledore stood up to give his Start of Term speech.
"Welcome back to another year at Hogwarts. First a few announcements for students. As always the Forbidden Forest is forbidden to all students. In light of recent events, the Centaurs have sent a representative Firenze who will be helping Hagrid in his duties as well as Professor Trelawny with her classes this year. We want to welcome our new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor—well he's not new to you but he has graciously offered to teach the class this year. Severus Snape will be taking over for Delores Umbridge who is now a resident of Azkaban."
Several cheers went up in the Great Hall. Slytherin was cheering for their Head of House while the rest of the students body was cheering for the fact the the toad had been incarcerated.
"Yes, yes—so we find ourselves welcoming a new Potions Professor—or in this case welcoming back an old colleague from retirement. Professor Slughorn, former Potion's Professor and Head of Slytherin House will be taking up his old post here at Hogwarts. Please give him a Hogwarts welcome."
The students cheered for their new Potions teacher and Hermione was surprised that Professor Snape would choose to leave his favored post, but Percy Weasley had mentioned once back her first year that Snape had been actively trying to get the post for years now.
Based upon Harry's grumbling, he didn't seem too happy about it.
"Harry, look on the bright side."
"Which is?"
"Well, Snape refused to allow you into NEWT potions because you got an E on your OWL, correct?"
Harry scowled and nodded, not needing to be reminded that his dream of being an Auror had crashed and burned when he'd received his OWL results.
"Maybe Professor Slughorn accepts NEWT students with an Exceeds Expectations? It could hurt to ask Professor McGonagall, right?"
Harry's expression perked up at that thought as he smiled widely at his sister.
"You're brilliant! Why didn't I think of that?"
"Because you were too busy pouting and feeling sorry for yourself."
Harry pushed his shoulder into her's and quipped, "Bossy."
"Prat."
"You both need to get your priorities straight." Ron hummed as the food appeared before them and he didn't waste any time tucking into the feast.
"Why? Just because we're not obsessed with only Quidditch mate?"
Ron mumbled a response that was drowned out by the food in his mouth. Hermione scrunched her face in disgust and murmured, 'lost cause' under her breath which had Harry bowling over in laughter. Even Ginny grinned and nodded as she'd heard it too.
"What?" Ron mumbled as food fell from his lips and that was it...Hermione threw her head back and lost herself.
She didn't notice everyone staring at her either.
"What's so funny?" Ron groused out and Hermione just grinned at her friend, before shaking her head at him.
"Ron, you really need to learn to chew with your mouth closed."
"Oh, not you too!"
"Yes. No talking while you're eating. It's just the polite thing to do, okay?"
Ron just blushed and held his head down, mumbling under his breath while everyone around them seemed amused by his embarrassment.
"You should listen to your cousin, Weasley. She has good advice." A voice from the same side as Hermione was sitting must a few seats down piped in.
"Shove off McLaggen. No one asked for your opinion."
"Just stating facts. You still planning on trying out for Keeper this year?"
Ron glowered at the older Gryffindor, who was a seventh year and nodded.
"Well, I hope you're up for a bit of competition because I plan to try out myself. May the best wizard win!"
Harry just rolled his eyes and Ginny scoffed at the older boy, but Ron seemed a bit unsure—as his tendency to feel inadequate rearing its ugly head.
"Don't listen to him Ron," Hermione whispered placatingly, "I'm sure you'll do fine at tryouts. When is it? I'll come cheer you on!"
"Really?" Ron grinned at this and Hermione was glad to see his confidence return a bit. "That'd be great Mione. Uhm...when are tryouts Harry?"
"Two Saturdays from now—at least I'm hoping to book the pitch for that day. Madam Hooch should have the sign up sheet posted sometime tomorrow by her office."
"Brilliant. I'll get myself ready then. Maybe if I make the team I can talk Da into buying me a new Nimbus broom. Ginny got one this summer."
"Really?" Harry glanced over at the red-headed witch and she nodded.
"Yeah, Da was pretty chuffed when he got that inheritance. I got a broom, Ron got new robes for school."
"Seems like a fair trade off." Seamus grinned and Ron just glared at his friend telling him to 'piss off.'
Hermione's reprimand of 'Ronald!' had the wizard blushing and mumbling an apology.
Once the feast was done, Harry and Hermione went to grab their firstie's to take them to the Gryffindor common room.
Elsewhere Draco and Pansy were leading their first years to the dungeons and Pansy was in rare form.
"Selwyn told me what happened on the train, Draco. Are you really going to go after your own House for putting the filth in their proper place?"
Draco didn't immediately respond but waited until they were in the common room and when the door opened, he inwardly smirked at all his housemates waiting for him. He saw Blaise and Theo out of the corner of his eye and politely nodded to them both.
"I see word travels fast. This is good, as I have something to say."
"Why should we listen to you Malfoy? You've become a mudblood lover now?"
Draco whipped out his wand and faster than a blink of an eye he had Avery strung up against the wall with a well placed incarcerous and silenced for good measure.
"Anyone else want to interrupt me while I'm speaking?"
He twirled his wand menacingly and stared down his Housemates...who all were looking back at him with awe, fear and anger.
"The Dark Lord is dead. Whatever you choose to believe privately is your choice but publicly that's a different issue. Who are we? Does anyone wish to give it a go?"
The room was quiet until a young female voice spoke up.
Astoria Greengrass.
"We are Slytherin's. Purebloods. Well, most of us."
"Okay." Draco nodded looking over to a few in his house who were half-bloods.
"And those that aren't...are we loyal or not?"
Everyone nodded as it was the one truth of Slytherin House—they were loyal to each other.
"I had a frank conversation with my parents this summer and they shared some harsh truths that I didn't want to acknowledge but that I needed to hear. For the past five years, I've spent an inordinate amount of time bullying someone whom I thought was a Muggleborn and it turned out not only was she not one...but she is a Sorceress. But the larger issue at play is we have a choice—now that the Dark Lord is gone—in how we wish for our great house to be viewed by the rest of the school. Do we want to be seen as bullies forever? Do we really need to assert our superiority by being hateful to others? Isn't our place assured in our world by reason of who we are? I don't want to hear that word anymore and definitely not outside this common room. If you say it, I'm going to take points and if you bully or hurt some unsuspecting Muggleborn—I'm going to make you regret it. Believe what you want in private, but in public we have a new image we need to maintain."
Draco waited to see who would speak up and he wasn't disappointed when Theo decided to do so.
"Draco's right." Theo admitted with a sigh. "Whether we disagree with Dumbledore's ideology or the Ministry...the truth of the matter is that Muggleborns are always going to have a place in our society. Now you may hiss and groan all you want (his eyes landed on a group of fourth and fifth year's) but the truth is each one of us here—by reason of our births—will find it far easier to find a place within our society—jobs, careers and so forth. Muggleborns and even half-bloods will find it more difficult because of who they are and you might think it's fair—but there are just as many outside this common room—who don't. You don't need to be their friends if that's too much for you to bear—but we do need to try and make Slytherin respected in this school again. The other houses hate us and as much as we act like we don't care—many of us secretly do. Some of us even have secret friendships outside of this common room with others in different houses, but we need to stop giving the other houses reasons to hate us, blame us when something goes wrong and in general ignore us because we are Slytherin's."
"I noticed you're all chummy with your new cousin now, Theodore." Pansy quipped nastily. "So it's easy for you to comment when you're her new best friend."
Theo just chuckled. "It's a new day Pansy and my cousin could end anyone of us with a snap of her fingers. I personally don't intend to do anything to invoke her wrath but that's not the pressing issue here and not the one Draco is trying to drill into your thick skulls. We need to do better and stop giving the others in this school a reason to despise us. We are better than that...aren't we?"
The generalized murmurs within the common room were to be expected and some of his classmates nodded in agreement but there were a few—Pansy included—who looked as if they weren't going to comply at all.
Theo glanced at Draco and shook his head.
"I've spoken with my parents and my Father, as Head of the Board of Governor's—agrees that certain things need to change but we can't make those changes if we are consistently seen as the bad guys."
"What do you mean Draco?"
This was from Goyle.
"Muggle studies as we all know, and from what I've heard the Muggleborns complain about—is woefully outdated. Professor Burbage is a Pureblood teaching a Muggle class. There is no Magical Studies equivalent for Muggleborns in this school—does anyone wonder why that is?"
"Because our traditions are all held tightly within our own families." Daphne offered and Draco nodded.
"True, but many of them aren't. How we dress for instance, how we deal with magical creatures, etiquette, social hierarchy. All these things could be taught here at Hogwarts but it's not. Again...why is that?"
It was a few moments before anyone spoke up but it was Millicent who did at last.
"Dumbledore is prejudiced against us because he knows we hate Muggleborns and don't want them here. He's afraid if he allows a class that teaches our traditions, that it's going to alienate Muggleborns even more and give us Purebloods more power."
Draco smirked. "Do we need more power Millicent?"
The beefy girl just chuckled. "Power is never a bad thing to have Draco."
"No, but as we saw with the Dark Lord—fear at the heart of ones power doesn't inspire true loyalty, which is what is at the heart of being a Slytherin. It only inspires more fear. So we need to try and inspire that loyalty outside of our house without the fear. And if we do that?"
"We have power." Crabbe grinned and Draco bowed his head at his friend.
"You may never know who might seek to do you a favor and who you might do a favor for in return. Part of our motto is self-preservation but it is also cunning and loyalty. All I'm asking for is your loyalty to try something different. A new way of acting—of being...and if by the end of next year we don't see a change in how we are perceived within these walls, then when I'm no longer here, you can decide if you want to go back to being a group of pedantic bullies. But if this works—"
Draco lifted an eyebrow and stared down each of his classmates and watched as they all nodded in sudden understanding. Oh, there would be a few hold-outs but if this worked?
Draco smirked inwardly at what a bunch of sheep his housemates really were, but that wasn't a bad thing. If he really hoped to make the changes he wanted here at Hogwarts—he needed to get his classmates on board.