AN: So, Ginny. Yes. Her. I think she MIGHT go Dark. MIGHT. Read Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin by The Sinister Man. It's very very very good. Again, forgive me for the canon text. I'll try and give you original stuff to help ease the pain :).
Neville: I bet you're wondering HOW Neville is a Ravenclaw. I kinda was too. Kidding. The reason is that he might not be super-smart, but he's wise, and that's what matters. And admittedly he is definitely a Herbology nerd.
Date Updated: 1/29/2021(so sorry a day late)
Words: 3595
Astra watched as the other Houses hustled their first years out. Ravenclaw was relatively strict, the students walked slowly and easily and none of them spoke too loudly. Hufflepuff was not loud, but wasn't quiet either. They chattered eagerly as they trotted after their prefects.
Gryffindor, of course, was entirely unorganized.
She heard murmurs from that table from the other side of the Great Hall.
"Can you believe Potter got into Slytherin?"
"Can you believe she's a Malfoy?!"
"I thought she was your best friend, Ron!"
The last one nearly had Astra inhaling her chocolate milk. Draco, who had heard as well, snorted rather loudly. "Best friends?!"
"It was a rumour," Astra muttered.
"If you want, I can escort you to your best friend, Weasley…" He added with a smirk on his face.
"Stuff it." She poked him in the chest.
"Suuure," Draco said with an exaggerated sigh. His face became serious as he beamed a thought to her. Astra, I have some questions-
This is about Hermione and Neville, isn't it?
Yes! That GRANGER? And Longbottom? I cannot tolerate this!
It is not for you to tolerate, Draco! They are my friends.
Oh, well if they're your friends then I suppose it's all fine, he said sarcastically.
They are. You heard Hermione - she's intelligent and has an eidetic memory!
But she's a mudblood!
Mudblood?! My mother was a mudblood!
Fine..I should...tolerate….Granger. But Longbottom?!
I couldn't well be rude to Hermione by telling her friend to get out!
I suppose. But why did you cheer for his Sorting?
I cheered because his parents were powerful and he is most likely too.
Okay…
"You lot!" A Seventh Year boy yelled, breaking Astra out of her thoughts. She glanced at him and saw the shiny Prefect badge on his chest. "Let's go!"
Slytherin House robotically all stood up as one. They moved into single file, those who knew the tradition telling those who didn't.
"I'm your Seventh Year prefect," The boy told them. "For the rest of the year, you can come to me with any issues. But I want it understood now," he glared at them, "they must be serious issues. Slytherin House does not tolerate whiners." Astra straightened up. She wasn't a whiner. "I'm Lucas Rosier, and you can also talk to my Seventh Year Prefect counterpart Rhea Cavendish." He waved an arm lightly, and another Seventh Year girl with light brown hair stood up.
"Let's go." Cavendish said. Astra followed the person in front of her - a Fifth Year Prefect named Adrian Pucey - as they headed towards the right side of the entrance hall. Astra saw a simple brown door on it and figured it must be theirs as they neared it.
Rosier opened the door and the students filed in silently. They would not lower themselves to chatter like some pack of uncouth Gryffindors.
They descended the dark stone steps quickly, but quietly. Astra's feet were cold, but she soldiered on, because she was a Malfoy. And Malfoys never quit.
"We are Slytherin House." Said Rosier. "We are cunning and resourceful. We are disdained because the Dark Lord was in our House. We stick together."
When they neared another door, the Prefect said quietly, "Toujours Pur."
Astra was startled. She knew that motto. It was engraved on every seal of the Black Family. It meant Always Pure.
Draco voiced the words she was about to. "That's the Black Family motto!"
"We use this to honour the many Blacks that have reigned supreme in our House." Rosier added.
"What do you mean, reigned-" Astra started, but Rosier cut her off.
"Not here." He glanced around a little cynically. "Gemma!" He beckoned a Fifth Year Prefect first. "Check the walls. Bugs."
Gemma looked confused at first, but then, it dawned upon her what Rosier meant. She nodded. "Yes-sure, Rosier." She surveyed the wall before plucking off a little speck of amber from it.
"You think?" Rosier leaned closer to Gemma's hand.
"Dunno." Gemma said. She closed her hand into a fist around the speck. "They can't hear."
"Let's test." Rosier took out his wand and twitched it simply with a cry of, "Revelio magicae."
Green fumes spread from the amber speck in Gemma's hand. Astra saw fear in the Prefect's eyes as the smoke rose higher and higher. Slowly, the fumes solidified into a name: George Gideon Weasley. Then, another name appeared below, Frederick Fabian Weasley.
Gemma swore. "Oops." she said.
"It's fine," Rosier waved an arm flippantly. His gaze was serious as he grimly said, "that is a listening device."
"What?!"
"Yes. Listening charms and things are cast upon Slytherins daily simply to discover the secret of our Common Room. An outsider has not entered Slytherin House for seven centuries." He explained. "Naturally, pranksters such as the Gryffindor Weasley Twins are curious."
Astra made a note to get pranking tips from those twins soon, Gryffindors or no.
"But." Rosier held up a hand. "That was simply a warning. You should know that listening charms are washed away by the door before you enter this hallway. I simply allowed it to stay as a warning, of sorts. Gemma?"
Gemma opened her palm.
"Weasleys," Rosier hissed in a masterfully Slytherin voice. He looked aristocratic as he added softly, "do not mess with us."
Then, he plucked the device from Gemma's hand and crushed it under his boot.
"So," he said cheerfully, "shall we?"
There was a clang, and the ornate door opened.
They followed him into the Common Room.
The Slytherin common room was a long, low underground room with rough stone walls and ceiling, from which round, greenish lamps were hanging on chains. The tint from them was slightly comforting in a way Astra loved. A fire was crackling under an elaborately carved mantelpiece ahead of them, and there were many unoccupied black and green leather sofas. Most of the sofas had a Wizard Chess set sat upon the table directly in front of them. Tapestries of famous Slytherins were all over the wall.
There were two short staircases on opposite sides leading to a short balcony, where there was a throne for someone - it was going to be her, she thought - to watch over the entire common room. Behind the throne was a door which Astra presumed led to the dorms. It was closed though, so she couldn't see in.
"Your Prince of Slytherin welcomes you to the dorms," said Rosier.
Astra had never heard of any Prince of Slytherin. Apparently, neither had the other firsties.
"Prince of Whaterwhat?" Gregory Goyle was the first to speak.
"I assume you want an explanation?" Rosier raised an eyebrow elegantly.
"YES!"
Rosier walked over to an old, weathered chest that lay beneath the throne and the balcony. The lock clicked as Rosier undid it and pulled out a stack of books. He waved his wand and Levitated them over to the First Years, who eagerly grabbed the books and began to read.
Astra and Draco shared.
The Prince of Slytherin was basically the one who ruled Slytherin behind the scene. The Prince's orders were final, no matter what. A new Prince could be chosen at any given time, provided it was the beginning of the school year. That was why every year, the whole of Slytherin House was commanded to try and seat themselves in the Throne of Cunning. If the seat rejected them, they were usually flung over the balcony about four feet before they hit the ground.
Astra was delighted to read that the Prince could be a boy or a girl. There had in fact been many Princesses of Slytherin, one of them including Astra's grandmother Dorea Potter née Black! Her father(Lucius), rather unsurprisingly, had been Prince of Slytherin. It was noted that the worst offender of his time had been Astra's dad, James Potter.
She almost snorted at this - almost - but honestly wasn't surprised, given his reputation for pranks, which he obviously had passed down to Astra. Draco wasn't as good as Planking(pranking + planning) as she was, but he managed to pull off the pranks surprisingly well.
Astra made a vow in her head that some day, she would be the Princess. Maybe not today.
But some time, soon.
The first class(on Monday) was Herbology with Ravenclaw. A dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout helped them learn how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for.
Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. When Astra found out he was actually half-goblin, she was surprised and amazed. She made a note to see if she could suck up to him and possibly gain some insight into goblin culture.
Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was the only one taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff room fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him, as the legend said. Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates, and got Emeric the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up.
Professor McGonagall was again different. Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class.
"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."
Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, but soon realized they weren't going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time.
After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. Astra's went silver with a sharp point and was pleasantly surprised when McGonagall came over and saw her needle and gave her a miniscule smile. She was unsurprised, though, when that smile vanished quickly when McGonagall's eyes fell to the color of Astra's robes.
"Two points to...Slytherin," she said stiffly, then turned around to give tips to her precious Gryffindors.
The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell's lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke. His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he'd met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days.
His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but they weren't sure they believed this story. For one thing, when Seamus Finnigan asked eagerly to hear how Quirrell had fought off the zombie, Quirrell went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, they had noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban, which Millicent Bulstrode promptly told everyone must be garlic, but no one took her word for it after she let slip she had heard it from the Weasley Twins.
The class Astra had been most looking forward to was Potions with her godfather. Even if, unfortunately, it was with the Gryffindors, she could still look forward to laughing at Ronald Weasley behind his back when he utterly failed at brewing the Cure for Boils.
Severus, like Flitwick, started the class with roll call. When he got to Astra's name, he paused, but just for a second. Then he continued calling out names, locking his eyes with Astra's occasionally.
The cure for boils wasn't hard at all to make. Astra stifled snickers as Weasley was called out repeatedly for "breathing loudly" and "looking stupid" and "acting like a dunderhead" and finally, when he snapped and shouted, "I'm not a dunderhead!", Severus took fifteen points for disrespect, Astra could no longer hold her laughter in. She laughed like a madman.
Weasley finally decided fame was not worth playing nice to a snake, and screamed about her and her band of junior Death Eaters shutting up and slimy snakes. Severus took five points for "being rude to a fellow classmate".
Ha, ha ha.
Ha, indeed.
Hermione Granger liked Ravenclaw House. She liked having kind, gentle friends like Neville and silly but smart friends like Astoria. She liked being in an environment where she could learn and read about anything she wanted without being chastised, without being told that children her age couldn't read stuff like that, because it wasn't child-appropriate.
Before she met Astra Malfoy, everything she saw had been through rose-tinted glasses. She had seen it all in black and white - Slytherins bad, Gryffindors good, Dark magic bad, Light magic good. She didn't doubt that if she hadn't met Astra, she'd be a Gryffindor. The Hat had said it itself - she was brave.
And Hermione was fine with that. She was fine with being smart. She was fine with being brave. And she knew that even if she had seen everything before in black and white, it didn't mean that everything was good. She saw the disgusted glances Astra's brother sent her. She saw the sour face Theodore Nott made when he spoke with her.
But she liked them anyway. She thought that it was best to take it like a champ. Astra had pulled her aside after Charms once and told her she was trying to get her friends to accept Hermione, and it would be a while before they did. Hermione had nodded. She didn't care.
She wasn't stupid, either. She knew the only reason Astra's friends didn't hex her backwards was because of her brain. But she took comfort anyways knowing that she still had Neville and Astoria, even if Astoria had been friends with Astra longer. And being in the same House as Nott was improving things for them.
They had once gotten into a heated discussion about duelling, and Hermione found that maybe he wasn't so bigoted after all. She observed him closely the entire argument, and didn't see a flash of disgust in his eyes. So she decided to try and test the waters by "accidentally" bumping into him in the Common Room.
As she murmured an apology and raised her eyes to his face, she saw the telltale creasing of his brow and the way his body stiffened. Hermione felt tears pricking in her eyes. She knew what would come next. As usual, he(just like Daphne, or Draco, or Pansy) would mutter an excuse and rush off.
But he didn't. Instead, Nott - Theodore - said no problem, picked up the papers she had dropped and handed them back to her. "Here you go, Hermione."
Hermione. He had called her Hermione. He usually only called her Granger. Hermione. Hermione. Hermione held back a smile as she thanked him and set to finishing her homework.
Neville Longbottom did not belong in Ravenclaw. He knew it when Hermione or Astoria made a joke he didn't understand, or when he had trouble with his homework, or when he just didn't know the answer. This particular day, he got a D in Potions. A D. He could just hear the snickers of all the Ravenclaws about "that silly Longbottom" and how he only got by because "Granger bails him out".
He wished it wasn't true.
He really wished it wasn't true as he pretended to read One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. He loved it - it was his favorite book, actually - but right now, his heart just wasn't in it. Neville's eyes skimmed page 32 - gillyweed - without him actually registering what he was reading.
"Hello." A voice startled him. He glanced up and saw a blonde-haired girl with pointy ears standing in front of him.
"Hi," Neville said uneasily.
"Have the Wrackspurts floated around you, Neville Longbottom?" She asked him dreamily.
Neville felt his blood boil when she said his name. She and her friends had probably been laughing about how bad he was at everything and she probably was sent here on a dare and- "What does that mean?! Look, whoever sent you here, it's not funny! You might think stupid Longbottom can't figure out when someone's making fun of him, but I can! So leave me alone!" He nearly shouted, days of pent-up rage breaking through.
The blonde didn't look perturbed. "I'm not making fun of you," she said. Neville noticed suddenly she had an odd-looking-cork necklace and was wearing very odd glasses. "And you really should do something about that Wrackspurt infection."
Somehow, he knew she was telling the truth. "I'm...sorry for yelling at you. What's your name?"
"Luna," she answered a little shyly, "Luna Lovegood."
"It's nice to meet you, Luna...guess you already know my name," he said a little ruefully.
"Yes." She admitted.
"How?" Neville asked.
"The Blibbering Humdingers told me." She explained.
"The whats?" He did a double take.
Luna laughed, a clear tinkling sound. "They look like- here, look." She reached deep into the little satchel she'd been carrying and yanked out a sketchpad. She flipped through it until landing on a lovely drawing of a purplish-blue creature with leaf-shaped wings and pale silver eyes just like Luna's. She knelt on the floor and Neville followed her, peering over the drawing with wide eyes.
"It's...so pretty, Luna.." He was awestruck.
"Thanks, Neville." Luna smiled bashfully.
"It looks like a butterfly." He murmured.
"It does, doesn't it? A purple butterfly with leaf wings." She agreed.
"Hey, it has eyes like you!" Neville realized.
"Unfortunately, the Daggerblimps do not let me create new eyes, so I use the ones I've seen," Luna explained. "Those," she indicated the eyes of the Blibbering Humdinger, "are my mother's." A sadness came over her face but it was washed away quickly.
Neville knew that expression. It was the expression Molly Weasley got when she spoke of her dead brothers. It was the expression his grandmother got when Alice or Frank Longbottom were mentioned in conversation.
Luna's mother was dead.
"I'm sorry," he placed a hand on her knee.
"Thanks." For a second, Luna's voice was clear. Then it reverted to its dreamy fashion as she asked if he wanted to see more. "Sure," Neville answered. "Let's start from the beginning." He gently flipped to the first page, which was a picture of Luna and another, older boy with deep, Avada Kedavra green eyes.
"Wh-who's that?" Neville asked curiously.
"My best friend," Luna said fondly. She turned to Neville and her expression grew serious. "Don't tell anyone, though. He's a secret."
"A secret?" Neville echoed.
"A secret." Luna said.
"I promise." Neville shook Luna's hand. "A secret."
AN Again: Hey, don't wanna seem like I'm copying The Sinister Man's Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin. This is a wayyyyy different story. Another thing - NO ROMANCE PRIOR TO FOURTH YEAR. Maybe hints in Third, but NOTHING BEFORE. Don't worry about the weenie eleven-year-old Firsties snogging. Also. Luna speak:
Nargles - creatures that usually infest something enchanted negatively. I.e. Mistletoe or a Love Potion.
Wrackspurts - confusion
Daggerblimps: bad emotions. How that works: Luna misses her mother, so she feels like she's dishonoring her mother when she doesn't use her eyes.
As for Luna's mysterious best friend, he is no enemy, but around Fifth Year he will play a very serious role in Astra's life. You can ponder all you want, but I guarantee there is no way you'll guess no matter how many little clues I drop. So just wait till Fifth Year for the case closed. Of course, if the genius among you guys does guess, I'll PM you about whether you got it right. But don't sweat it.
Neville won't tell a soul and Luna's best friend won't appear until Fifth Year. This was partly a clue and a way to cement Luna & Neville's friendship.
Hope you guys liked this entirely new material chapter.
By the way, Question(if this works out, I'll start doing it always from now on.)
What would your House be?