Chapter Five
Saturday, November 9th, 1991
This year's first Quidditch match was today. Harry does not participate, and no one gets almost brutally murdered by having their brooms sabotaged midflight by a powerful Dark curse cast by a Dark Lord possessed Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
Oliver Wood is once again brained by a Bludger two minutes into the game and has to spend time in the infirmary. Also, according to James, their new Seeker is horrendous at his job. He was similarly taken out early in the game by a well-timed maneuver by Flint, and with both opposing Keeper and Seeker gone, the Slytherin team was practically guaranteed total victory. As a result, Slytherin absolutely dominated the rest of the match, and Gryffindor loses the game. I think the final result was 430 to 60 or something ridiculous like that since Higgs put off catching the Snitch to give our Chasers time to rack up points.
All is well.
She pauses her scribbling in her diary as she recalls something, and flips back multiple pages looking for a specific passage from several years ago.
Harry and co. find out about Nicholas Flamel's involvement with the Stone (they don't know what it is yet) hidden beneath the trapdoor guarded by Fluffy on the third-floor after the first Quidditch game when visiting Hagrid.
Huh, that could be a problem; she didn't know if the Golden Trio had in fact visited Hagrid after the Quidditch match. They had attended the game, she knew that much, but she didn't know where they went after. They could have just as well returned to the castle as soon as it had been over.
She thoughtfully taps the upper part of her fountain pen against her bottom lip. Did it matter whether they knew or didn't know it was the Philosopher Stone specifically being guarded? They'd figured out it was something important and shouldn't that be enough for them to want to protect it from the 'evil' Professor Snape? Hagrid was so bad at keeping secrets, he could accidentally blab about it on any other day anyway.
She'll just have to look out for Hermione's reading list in the Library. If she was checking out mainly history books and autobiographies, then they knew about Flamel. In any case, Harry was too damn curious for his own good to give up on a mystery that easily. No sense of self-preservation in that trio. Why anyone believed Hermione would have done better in Ravenclaw than in Gryffindor is beyond her. The Slytherins who didn't want to go to Slytherin for whatever reason – like the wrong sort of blood or who just didn't want to deal with all the politicking – coughKylecough – went there most often, after all, and Hermione was not a snake in any shape or form. Plus, she was a little too narrowminded to really fit in with the ravens. By nature, Ravenclaws are creative and open-minded. Hermione refuses to believe anything that isn't written out as a fact in a book.
Although, there is also that theory about Hermione that stated that she wanted Gryffindor because she sought recognition and credit for her work, while most Ravenclaws simply didn't care... Kyle is a good example. He is an individualist who wanted knowledge for knowledge's sake. Hemione is a show-off who wants knowledge to be noticed, and in Gryffindor, she would have stood out because she would have had fewer competitors in intelligence levels. She'd have been the 'best' student in the 'best' House in the eyes of the teachers. A very Slytherin scheme if it was true.
Which reminds her, why the absolute hell did the Hat want Harry in Slytherin? He'd be eaten alive in her House. Too noble, too naïve, too kind… A thirst to prove himself was nowhere nearly enough to cut it in this nest of backstabbing vipers. Honestly, the boy was a born Gryffindor with a side of Hufflepuff, and that was as clear as day. A blind man could see it, even! Ron would do better in Ravenclaw than Harry in Slytherin!
Wrinkling her nose in disgust at the mental image of Ron in blue, she returns to her writing.
Note: Hagrid might not have slipped up about Flamel to Harry and co. Should not affect the plot much, but keep an eye out, just in case.
Additional thoughts: does Harry have to have to find the Mirror? If he doesn't go looking for information about Flamel in the Restricted Section in the middle of the night, he wouldn't accidentally stumble upon it.
Why was it in the empty room in the first place? Why did Dumbledore leave it somewhere where anyone (Ex: couples looking for a quiet place) could find it? Did Dumbledore want Harry to find it? Why? The Mirror would work regardless of whether Harry knows what it is, right? Was he checking on what Harry wanted the most to make sure he wasn't turning out to be another Tom Riddle? Also, where is the Philosopher Stone now then? How is it being protected? Why not leave it where it is if no one knows it's there, but him? Why leave it somewhere it will eventually get discovered? Nearly everyone knows the Weasley twins have already braved the third floor and its promised painful death. Everyone who cares to listen already knows about the Cerberus and the Devil Snare and everything else. It became a fucking game for the older Gryffindors! Who can get through the fastest? Who can find the most effective way to pass the obstacles? Who can discover the secret of the enigmatic seemingly purposeless bare room at the end?
I'm glad the other Slytherins don't know about this yet. It would be a disaster. Draco Malfoy wouldn't be the only one complaining to his parents.
Manipulative old coot. When you know what I know, either he's the world's biggest idiot, or it's all part of his plan to raise Harry into a sacrificial pawn.
Finishing up her new entry, she closes her notebook with a decisive snap and carelessly throws it and the pen unto the already cluttered with stacks of precariously placed hardcovered books and piles of rolled-up parchment surface of a small desk that stood beside her bed, and stretched out on her green covers with a discontented little sigh.
Diary was a bit of a misleading name for the plain, and clearly often used book. It was more of a journal; an absolute mess jam-packed with timelines, various notes, and detailed hand-drawn sketches. Here and there the surface of the pages was dotted with sticky notes, often in the style of a collage, and she color-coded everything with colorful highlighters. More than one bookmark peeked out from the top, and not a single line had been written in plain English. It was all Sindarin.
Yes, she'd learned an entire fictional language and decided to code in it. She'd been bored as a child and it wasn't the first time – in her previous life she had also learned Mando'a (but that one was a little limited for her purposes), bits of Na'vi (not enough to be fluent so until James Cameron's Avatar came out again it was useless knowledge) and Trigedasleng (too based in English to be impossibly hard to translate if you were good at codebreaking), and that was not counting all the other official languages she knew. Everyone needed a favorite hobby, she just happened to be a polyglot. Plus, if anyone tried to read her notebook in an attempt to discover her deepest darkest secrets, well… Good luck deciphering it, Avery! She doubted even Hermione could translate her writing. Fantasy didn't seem like her thing, so unless there was a Ravenclaw Tolkien superfan she wasn't aware of, she was safe. Plus, she also had to invent a lot of words for things that didn't have a similar equivalent in Middle Earth. Like Quidditch. And Transfiguration, Horcruxes, the many, many Magical creatures… She could fill an entire dictionary with her inventions.
Many of the currently filled pages were crammed up with an in-depth synopsis of the original Harry Potter story while the newest she was steadily covering with retellings of the new version of the same events as they happened. It made it easier to compare the two and make certain the plot hadn't accidentally deviated too far from its proper course when she had both accounts written down and on hand.
The door to the dorm opens, and a pretty blond gleefully flounces in. "Potter! Is it true you've been snogging with Burke?"
She jerks upright, mouth dropping in shock and brain stalling. Burke? Craig Burke? Big-nosed, yellow-teethed, muggle-hating, likely future Death Eater Burke? That Burke?
crashing… Error… Error… Blue screen of death…
Loading… Loading… Loading…
"What?" She croaks.
"I know you've been raised by muggles," Avery says condescendingly. "but witches take their chastity very seriously. Finding yourself a good husband when you are known ah… used goods, it's going to be hard, darling. Do try to be discreet with your dalliances in the future."
She blinks, and her brain reboots. "I haven't been snogging with Burke." She pauses. "And I'm not planning on marrying." Avery looks flummoxed as if she couldn't believe someone wouldn't want to marry and pop out two kids – an heir and a spare – in short order. Preferably the first nine months after the marriage, the second nine more months after. Also, a girl or two that they could barter away like cattle would be preferable after the happy couple had their boys to secure alliances with other families. Geez, get with the times, wizards. "Where did you even hear this?"
"It's all over the school," Zabini informs her, walking in followed closely behind by the three other girls they shared the dorm room with. "It started spreading almost as soon as the match ended. They say you've been seen with Burke under the stands."
"I didn't go to the game!" She protests. "I never go to the game. James tells me everything after."
This was obviously a maliciously spread rumor with the goal of ruining her social standing with a scandal. Only, they haven't taken into account her dislike for Quidditch – she thought it boring like with most sports. She preferred the more artistic exemplars of physical activities. Synchronized swimming. Figure skating. Competitive Dancing. Gymnastics.
"Yes," Zabini says. "Burke had been busy denying the rumors in the common room for all to hear for the last half-hour. We've gotten real sick of him and his voice."
She perplexedly shakes her head. "Who would spread such lies about me? I don't recall provoking anyone to deserve such a reaction lately. Well, except maybe…" Here she trails off, frowning heavier in realization.
"The entirety of Gryffindor?" Avery states drily. "Not their usual modus operandi, I'll admit, but perhaps their latest Quidditch loss had been the last straw."
She huffs angrily. "You're Quidditch mad." She accuses hotly. "All of you! It's only a game! There is no need to drag my reputation through the mud for attempting to protect my only close blood relative in the Wizarding World from easily avoidable harm. Surely they can wait one more year before letting Harry on their team."
"They're Gryffindors," Yaxley says like it explained everything. Which it probably did.
She silently seethes. If she ever finds out who started the rumors… There was a damn good reason why she was on decent terms with most of her Housemates, and it wasn't her charming personality.
For fuck's sake, she was thirteen! Didn't matter what her mental age was, her body was still the one of a child with all the accompanying hormones. She's barely hit puberty! Kissing, much less sex had yet to even cross her mind beyond the odd 'it was something she used to do and enjoyed' thought.
She exits the dormitory in an angry huff and starts sulking even harder when the moment she enters the common room, the noise level lowers in a way that suggested they had been talking about her.
"Potter!" Burke exclaims, leaping up from the couch he was sitting on, surrounded by a large crowd. He almost trips over the small brazier that stood in the middle of his seating area in his haste.
She stalks over to him, crossing her arms and cocking her hip. Her gaze runs up and down and up again the length of his body. "I'm sorry, but I wouldn't kiss you even if you were the last man on earth, Burke." She proclaims loudly.
The boy colors and there are sniggers around the room.
"The Gryffindors went too far this time," James claims furiously from where he was pacing in another small seating area deftly avoiding his own brazier. The other boys of their year were sitting there too, looking just as pissed.
To a Slytherin, their reputation was everything, especially among their social circle of the many aristocratic pureblood families of Britain. They avoided anything that may ruin that carefully crafted reputation with almost obsessive fervor.
For a witch, keeping their virginity for their husbands was as important as to a muggle woman before feminism was a thing and the Catholic Church had ruled over them with an iron fist. Though the rules a witch had to follow had been greatly relaxed in the late twentieth century, such as chaperonage which persisted only with the extremely traditional families, being found in a compromising position with anyone but her husband was still enough to ruin the poor girl. Rumors, even the ones without proof like the ones being currently spread about her, could follow the witch for the rest of her life. She would be shunned and bullied and considered a whore by everyone from her closest family members to mere acquaintances to complete strangers.
Worse, with magic checking for virginity is much easier and physically, if not emotionally, less invasive than anything muggles had invented to do the same thing. A wizard – or a witch – could cast the spell without the consent of the one they were testing. There was little more shameful or ruinous than being revealed as sexually active before marriage in the middle of a crowded ballroom in front of everyone you considered as important by a spiteful rival. Many a family feud had started that way in the past. There was a book about it. It had been an… interesting read. Did the impossible and made her glad she had been reborn in the 1970s as Harry Potter's sister with all the troubles it caused her and not back then when it was common.
In short, to maliciously suggest an unmarried witch was no longer a virgin knowing it was false was an incredibly cruel thing to do. Anyone who knew it was untrue and cared about the victim would be outraged on their behalf.
She hadn't set out with the goal to learn as much as possible about the Wizarding World's antiquated opinion on a woman's virginity. It had been James' mother who had sat her down and had 'the talk' with her that summer when the woman had realized she didn't have a proper older female role model of the witch kind. Allegra Whitlock had been relieved to know she wouldn't have to go through 'the birds and the bees' in full with her, although it hadn't been the same with her period. She'd been horrified to learn exactly how muggle women dealt with that particular problem and went about muttering about cups and soft sticks for an entire week after to the confusion of both her husband and son. On her part, she was just glad she would no longer have to deal with pads, and tampons, and menstruation cups. As disgusting as potions were, it was so much easier. And prevented unwelcome surprises.
"Does anyone know who started the rumors?" She asks the room.
"Someone particularly stupid." Malfoy the Older answer lazily. He was royally lounging on a divan by the fireplace with his friends seated around him on the carpeted floor and his girlfriend in his arms. "Potter did announce her lack of love for Quidditch for everyone to hear a few weeks ago."
"I'd have suspected the Weasley twins," Saunders musses. "but…"
"They don't do rumors." Rowle agrees.
Gemma Farley, the female fifth-year prefect, enters the Snake Pit, the wall behind her shifting close. "None of my contacts in the other Houses know who the rumors about Potter originated from, though the general consensus it was started by Gryffindors." She announces at once.
"Why do we even care what the Gryffindors are saying about Potter?" Pansy Parkinson sniffs haughtily. "It's her problem, not ours."
Yeah, she was kind of wondering that herself. When Avery had told her about it she'd had thought the rest of the Slytherins would simply ignore it and that a few might even believe it. She hadn't expected at all that they'd get outraged on her behalf. Truthfully, she was a little overwhelmed by the support her House was showing her.
"Because," Malfoy the Older drawls. "no one else will stick up for Slytherin. It's us against the rest of the world. If we don't take care of our own, who will?"
Well, when put like that… It really was sad that a quarter of the students at Hogwarts were automatically assumed to be evil at the young age of eleven for the crime of being Sorted into the wrong House. And that idiotic prejudice followed them into adulthood. She rather suspected so many of her Housemates were bullies because they had no other choice. Either they hit first and established themselves as strong from the very beginning or they spend the rest of their life being bullied themselves. Other than Snape, the teachers at Hogwarts were more likely to believe anyone else over Slytherins as it was proven only last year when Sprout had punished a third-year who had been in actuality defending himself against four older Ravenclaws just because he had cast the first spell. All the House points their Head of House took from the other Houses in his classroom for the smallest slip-up and the ones he awarded to them for the most mundane of reasons were a last-ditch effort to keep Slytherin in the game for the House Cup. Without him, they would always be last, and for their inner perfectionists, it was unacceptable.
"She's Harry Potter's sister!" Malfoy the Younger objected loudly.
James scoffs angrily, and the platinum blond boy steps back in surprise. He had not expected such intense reaction to his words, even from her friend.
"And?" Flint raises an eyebrow. "Didn't stop her from hexing us silly as a tiny firstie when we got too nasty with her."
She'd had spent a lot of time in the Library that year researching spells and then practicing them in forgotten corners all over the school. Once she had felt ready, she'd single-handedly waged war against the rest of her House. Slytherins respected power so she'd been determined to not be thought of as weak. She hadn't been able to do much being a firstie on her lonesome, but they'd stopped with their mean-pirited pranks, suitably impressed with her guts if not her smarts. She'd proved she wasn't a pushover.
The current firsties fall quiet under the glares of the rest of their House, and the older students return their attention to the problem at hand.
"How do we retaliate then?" Burke asks. He had gotten over his embarrassment and looked pretty irritated. She feels a little ashamed by her reaction when she remembers she wasn't the only one targeted by lies though he was most likely chosen for his lack of good looks than anything else as her fictitious partner. His reputation wasn't in danger of being ruined. Unfortunately for any witch, the same double standards as in the Muggle World applied; a woman could not have premarital sex, and after, she was allowed to only with her husband, but a man was encouraged to sleep around even before his balls dropped.
"If we knew whose idea this was," She answers her year-mate in a gentler tone to show she wasn't truly angry at him. "I'd have suggested a counter-rumor strategy against them, give them a taste of their own medicine, so to say."
"But that's not possible since we don't know who it was." Moon completes for her, looking up from the chess game she had been quietly playing with Blishwick in a corner.
"We start rumors about a random Gryffindor. One of their favorites." Pucey suggested.
Her mouth stretches into something spiteful. "Since they like them so much, why not a Quidditch player? Wood? Johnson? Bell? Spinnet? Personally, I volunteer the twins."
Malfoy the Older laughs. "And I suppose you already know what you would say?"
Her smirk turns wicked. "I'm afraid it's not for polite company."
Farley nods resolutely. "We'll leave it to you then, Potter."
"Don't be shy asking for help!" Flint calls over the slowly rising in volume chatter of the rest of the Slytherins as they start breaking off into smaller groups now that their unofficial House meeting was over.
She rolls her eyes in response to the Quidditch Captain's request. Help was never free when it came to Slytherins. And regrettably, she had little she could repay her Housemates with other than granting them favors for later.
Owning favors to a snake was a dangerous thing.
But sometimes, it was inevitable.
"Avery!" She hurries after her roommate. "How would you like to get back at the Weasley twins for ruining that potion of yours a couple of classes ago?"
Blue eyes glint in the shadows, reflecting the green flames of the lanterns surrounding them. "What do you have in mind?"
Apparently, House solidarity really did trump all, even several years of bitter rivalry. Asking Avery to do this one thing for her left a bad taste in her mouth, but at least the girl was a known entity. With her personality, Avery would likely ask her to do something particularly humiliating in public, but ultimately harmless in return for her help. Flint, surprisingly patient, would wait for a few years, then ask for something sexual in nature. Not necessarily full-out sex, he wouldn't go that far, but a blowjob? In a heartbeat.
The next several days' whispers and snide giggles hidden behind hands followed her wherever she went. Despite desperately wanting to duck her head and slump her shoulders, she walked with her head held high and her back straighter than a ramrod. Ah, pride, one of the seven deadly sins and one of her greatest shortcomings.
Beside her, James strode determinedly forward with a scowl on his face, and a hand tightly gripping his satchel's strap. He had been in a foul mood all weekend, and that was with both of them shut in the Common Room. Now that they were in public, he was ready to blow.
Both Ava and Kyle had already cornered her and reassured her that they didn't believe any of the rumors being spread about her. They had, as such things tend to do, grew and evolved until she was not only making out with Burke under the Quidditch stands, but also fucking most of the Slytherins boys in her year, Kyle, and several more of the male students she occasionally talked to and looked to be friendly with. Disgusting.
She enters the classroom and immediately begins a mental rendition of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance as she slinks by Quirrelmort. Settling down in her usual spot for this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts class – near the door for a quick escape if the professor ever decides to try and kill her during his lesson – she ignores the whispering of the Gryffindors. Avery, passing by to sit down two desks over, gives a short nod with a conspiratorial smirk.
As it happened, that day they were coincidentally going over succubi and incubi, beings of humanoid looks and human intelligence. With beauty comparable to that of a Veela, they also possessed scaly wings, demon tails, and horns. Their main food source was the energy they collected from their partners when having sex.
Of course, at that piece of news, the Gryffindors can't quite contain their amusement. Even staring straight ahead at the blackboard, she can feel their unfriendly gazes on her. Her hand clenches around her fountain pen and James' leg starts bouncing up and down angrily.
"I don't know what you find so funny." Avery suddenly comments in an uncaring tone. She continues preening in front of her fancy little compact mirror even as everyone – including Quirrelmort who she had unapologetically interrupted during his explanation of the rare half-human offsprings called cambions – turns to look at her with astonished eyes. "By the way, I hear your Weasley twins are sleeping together. Is it true?"
This time, it's the Slytherins who laugh. And it's a loud, vindictive laugh too. Because it was true, there had been whispers being spread all over school about the twins' sordid affair. They know they were probably not genuine, that this was likely to be Dahlia's act of revenge, but they genuinely can't help it when most of the lions jump up to their feet with outraged shouts. Her own shoulders start shaking when a few peek uncertainly at the two redheads.
She wonders if she'd gone too far by asking Avery to use her gossip network in such a way for a second. But… it was a well-known fact that magical twins could be… weird, for a lack of a better word. Best part was; sleeping together would not be that unbelievable for a pair of them. Not after the discovery of what exactly the Abbot twins were doing in the 1890s or the MacDougals in the 1740s. The Lannisters had nothing on them.
The twins' fellow Gryffindors will defend them, but they will also have a small seed of doubt about the sincerity of their claims of innocence. And they deserved it, annoying pricks they were.
The situation escalates. Some of the Gryffindors pull out wands. The Slytherins get to their feet too and follow suit, unwilling to remain unarmed when facing their greatest enemies. It would have been a scene right out of a Spaghetti Western film if the cowboys with guns had been replaced by magic students with thin sticks, and instead of a long, dusty road, the only thing separating the two warring factions was a thin aisle between their halves of the classroom.
"Pppplease, ppputt aaaway yyour waands," Quirellmort begs them. It was no use. After weeks of covert back and forth skirmishes in the halls, their tempers have finally boiled over.
A spell flies over her head and she ducks for cover beneath her desk with a yelp, almost hitting James' nose with her skull when he has the same idea. She leans out to shoot off an Avis Oppugno, followed by a couple of Disarming Charms while the Gryffindors were distracted by the flock of birds suddenly attacking them, before ducking back to avoid the violet light of a Densaugeo.
Multiple people collapse to the floor from Tickling Charms, and Yaxley is forced to waltz in the aisle by a Tarantallegra. Jordan was sporting a face full of gross pustules and Spinnet had been petrified mid curse by a Petrificus Totalus.
It was pure chaos. There was yelling and crying and someone had begun the construction of a pair of forts from the abandoned desks. Using the Levitation Charm to carry their own desk so that it could continue acting as their shield, she and James make their way to the one being erected on the Slytherin side of the room.
Zabini, Pucey, Warrington, and Montague welcome them with open arms, and Bletchley, sporting a fetching set of antlers, attempts a suicide run to join them. He's felled by a well-cast Arresto Momentum from one of the Weasley twins which was then followed by a Bat-Bogey Hex from the other, a Hair-Loss Curse from Jordan, and a Colloshoo from Towler.
It was a schoolyard fight, the likes of which could only happen in a school of magic. No one was seriously hurt, and most of the spells being flung around were the pranking type. There was no Dark Magic being cast and there was going to be no irreparable damage to those who'd been hit. They'd spend a day in the Hospital Wing, max.
Still, when the classroom door is flung open with an echoing bang by a furious Professor McGonagall, they all freeze as if they had been caught casting Unforgivables.
"Never! In all my years!" She gasps out, chest heaving with fury.
Johnson claps a hand around her mouth to stifle the opera song she kept trying to burst into. Cantis; caused its victims to sing uncontrollably. Burke was good at it.
"Fighting! In the classroom! In full view of your professor! During lesson time!" The older woman continues. Quirellmort warily leans away from her. He'd been the one to inform her of their current situation and had been hiding behind her back.
"Fifty points off! Each! And detention!"
"They started it!" A twin complains loudly.
"You threw the first spell." She mutters snidely under her breath.
Professor McGonagall's glasses flash at the Weasley. "Ten more points off from Gryffindor!"
"Pppperhaps, wwe ssshould hhelp?" Quirellmort suggests, noting all the dancing, laughing, jabbering, whatever, students. "Finite Incantatem."
It doesn't undo everything; Bletchley remains bald, and Jordan continues sporting his pustules, but she bites her tongue having been unprepared to stop talking so suddenly, and has to spit out a glob of blood. The Babbling Curse she'd been hit with towards the end of the fight was one of the worse spells that could have possibly affected her. She'd been concentrating on keeping her voice a whisper and her steady stream of babble irrelevant shit for the last five minutes.
She's also been unable to properly cast, since non-verbal spells were beyond her reach for now, and had discovered she was pretty skilled at helping her allies by distracting their opponents by throwing inkwells and textbooks at them.
"To the Hospital Wing, all of you." Professor McGonagall orders. "Merlin knows what you did to yourselves."
They obediently collect their belongings from where they have been thrown about the classroom and fill out.
I don't own Harry Potter.
Edit: Somebody just accused me of bashing characters and called me a pathetic abuse apologist in the reviews after reading the first chapter and my profile page on my account. I'm confused? And a little hurt? I honestly have no idea where this is coming from. I know I've been a little harsh on some people like Dumbledore and a bit of McGonagall, but I hadn't realized I was bashing anyone.
And the abuse apologist thing? Is this about the Dursleys? Snape? Something else on my profile page? I actually explain that I don't like the Harry/Voldemort, Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqui, Steve/Tony, Dick/Slade pairings because they seemed to much like abuse to me. I don't even like Alpha/Omega dynamics Aus because of that!
I don't condone abuse. I'm sorry if I ever gave such an impression. If the guest commentator who wrote that comment is still reading this, please specify the part where I did.
Everyone else, I don't have a beta, so if anyone is willing to go through my stuff and tell me where the commentator could have gotten such an impression, I would be very grateful and change it immediately.