The Other Side of the Coin
--a fanfiction by las brujas
chismosas
Disclaimer: Original story and characters have been
created by J.K. Rowling and are therefore hers. We're just borrowing them like everyone else, so we better not
get sued.
Chapter 1: From the Shadows
Alexandra Moonstone Saavedra had to be the only student at
Hogwarts who didn't dread Potions Class. It was the one class where she felt
truly confident in herself, where she knew exactly what she was doing.
Professor Snape had been a problem at first, but soon he recognized her vast
aptitude for potions. He didn't mind that she rarely spoke up in class or chose
to work without a partner whenever possible.
Today, however, Severus Snape noticed that she was acting
especially peculiar, with her head resting on her hands, staring off into
space. She doesn't really need to hear all this, anyway, he thought. She could
make this potion in her sleep, and still get perfect marks on it, he thought
with a hint of a smile, and let her be.
Still thinking about the letter she'd received two days
earlier, Alex hit her elbow against a jar of frog warts, nearly knocking it
over. This drew a curious look from Snape, but she was too deep into her
thoughts to notice.
She had never tried to attract much attention to herself, at
least, not since she'd come to Hogwarts. She often thought about what her life
would have been like, had she never been a witch. It was a futile way to pass
the time, but she indulged herself just this once, after the letter had thrown
her world into complete confusion.
Hogwarts had not seemed so bad, at first: to be presented to
an entire magical world will always be an exciting thing, especially if you're
11. When the letter came, Alex had been in England for only four days, still
sleeping on the floor of her new room. Looking back on it now, 4 years later, she supposed that had her father
not been offered a lucrative deal to join a British architectural firm, she
would have gone to a muggle school and would not have found out about her
magical capabilities until much later. But as it was, her father jumped at the
chance to make partner with anyone, and packed his family off to Cheltenham as
soon as he'd found a house. The fact that her parents were as astounded as she
was by the letter's contents led her to believe that her grandmother, Kietowah
Rose, had been hiding others from both her and her family while they were still
living in California. Whether she had been contacted at all in the United
States was a question she had continually asked herself, until her grandmother
confessed that she had magically blocked all the letters from the Salem Magical
Conservatory for Girls. She didn't
understand then, as she did now, that her grandmother had been protecting her,
rather than trying to hurt her. Being different was a plague her grandmother
had endured, though Alex supposed that it had been much worse for her, being
the only Native American in her school, and with magical abilities, at that.
Though her mother and father were hardcore muggles,
Alexandra Moonstone Saavedra had magic coming to her from both sides of her
family. Her father's father, 'Buelo Mo, had been an active Santería
practitioner until he moved in with the family a few years earlier, after his
wife died. Alex's father had asked him to discontinue his "voodoo practices"
while he lived with them, and he had, for a while. But as soon as he recognized
talent in Alex, he introduced her to the world of the orichas.
'Buelo Mo, however, died before he could teach her anything
significant. By this time, Alex had begun school, and even though she tried her
hardest to fit in, the occasional magical slip-up set her far apart from her
classmates. She tried, on occasion, to put into practice the little her
grandfather had taught her, but failed miserably each time.
It wasn't until her grandmother Kietowah Rose moved from New
Jersey to Phoenix, that she truly began to learn magic. Alex and her little
brother Emmanuel were sent to spend the summer with her while their parents made
the house ready for the new baby who was on its way. Grandma Rose had taken
Alex under her wing, comforting her with the stories of her tribe. She returned
to Grandma Rose's three more times before she moved to England, and in those
three summers, learned as much as she could about various potions for healing
that Rose had learned from her grandmother.
Alex sighed, a bit too loudly, perhaps.
"I'm glad you find this discussion so beyond you, Ms.
Saavedra", said Professor Severus Snape, causing most of the class to
snigger behind their steamy cauldrons.
"I'm afraid", he continued, "that I will be
forced to take off points from Slytherin if I hear another outburst of this
nature. I understand that today is the
first day of term, but that does not give any of you an excuse to stop paying
attention."
As the lesson progressed, the Potions classroom, located in
the very bowels of Hogwarts' dungeons, became unusually cold, and Alex
shivered. She usually enjoyed Potions,
where, immersed in the creation of some poison, or its antidote, she could
easily tune out the jeering of her classmates. Her hard work consistently won Slytherin points, but even this did not
ingratiate her to her fellow Slytherins. For she was what they rudely called a "Mudblood", the only one
in Slytherin House since Tom Riddle, better known as Lord Voldemort. As hard as she tried, she could not distance
herself from this fact. Because she was an oddity in the house, her fellow
house-mates treated her as such, nagging and taunting her incessantly. None of
them, however, were as cruel as Draco Malfoy, who simply chose to ignore her.
She supposed he was too busy hating Harry Potter and his friends to waste any
energy making fun of her as well, but Alex had to admit that there had been a time
when she would have been happy with a mere "Mudblood" directed her
way. Now, however, she hated Draco as much as he hated Harry Potter.
It took quite a bit of self-control on Alex's part to remind
herself that she was, at heart, a good person. It was Hogwarts, after all, that
had made her the bitter person she was now.
The invitation to Hogwarts seemed like a reprieve from
having to be the new girl, something she'd dreaded since hearing her father's
news. After all, everyone in her year would be new to Hogwarts. When she
and her family met Professor Flitwick, along with other Muggle families and
their magical offspring, in front of the Leaky Cauldron, her dream seemed to be
coming true. Her parents, though hesitant at first, had talked with other
parents and were then convinced that this was the best recourse for their
daughter. Alex even got the nerve up to talk to some of the other students, and
though they were nice, her being an American initially shocked them. Only one
girl, who appeared to be quite bossy, didn't seem surprised. But she was too
busy bragging about how much she knew, discouraging Alex from starting a
conversation with her.
The train ride had been pleasant, as she slept the whole way
there, but things didn't start to go downhill until the sorting. She hadn't
really talked to any other students, and so she had no idea about the
characteristics of each of the houses. As a result, she slipped the sorting hat
over her head with an open mind.
"Hmm, interesting," said a small voice in her ear,
"You certainly have a high capacity for learning, and I see a definite
stubborn streak there. Ahhh, what is this? Ambitious, are we? Where shall I put
you?" Alex had been nodding off under the muggy warmth of the hat.
I really don't know, she thought, exhausted. Isn't it your
job to decide?
"Ahhh, well, in that case, I see you are perfect for
SLYTHERIN!" He screamed the last word, jarring Alex from her
fatigue-induced stupor.
Alex didn't know what sort of fate the sorting hat had
assigned her until she slid into her seat at the Slytherin table. She sat down
next to Draco Malfoy, who only looked at her and quickly scooted away, mumbling
something about "muggles" under his breath. She didn't know then what
he was talking about, but learned soon enough. From that point on, she came to
hate Hogwarts. All the Slytherin students regularly picked on her: she was the
only muggle-born wizard to be sent to Slytherin since Voldemort, and this
frightened nearly everyone, though the Slytherins were the only ones who dared
to pick on her. Her thick, long black hair was constantly pulled in class,
whether it was braided, hanging loose, or in a ponytail. Her roommates avoided
her, always complaining about how they were stuck with her, not caring whether
she was around to hear their biting comments. The boys were worse; every day they reminded her that she was an
outcast, a muggle-born who did not deserve to be in Slytherin.
She might have made friends with the Gryffindors in her
classes, but the stigma of being the only muggle in Slytherin severely
curtailed her interaction with them as well; the ones who weren't afraid of her
avoided her anyway. It helped that she didn't do much on her part to get to
know anyone outside of Slytherin, but by then, she'd been burned far too
harshly by her housemates to really try and get to know anyone else.
A small explosion in the far corner startled Alex back to
her senses. Neville Longbottom had once again added the wrong amount of monkey
brains to his Foresight Potion, and as always, Professor Snape was scolding him
harshly for it, taking 50 points away from Gryffindor for his mistake. Alex
hated when Snape picked on Neville; though she didn't know him, she thought he
looked nice enough, if somewhat on the short side. She quickly glanced over at
Harry Potter, his friend Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, who were huddled
over their cauldrons, anger plain on their faces. Alex looked away sadly,
returning to her thoughts.
When she had returned home for Christmas vacation that first
year, she found herself in the middle of a war zone. Her mother, a web
designer, had been unhappy with the overseas move from the start. What with her
inability to find a job over the past few months, she wanted to return to the
States. Her father disagreed, and they argued loudly, every night after the
children had supposedly gone to sleep. Her brother and baby sister would climb
into her bed and cry as they listened to their parents shout and scream at each
other all night long. Christmas itself was a decidedly haggard affair, tense
and forced, and when Alex had to leave again for Hogwarts, bitter tears were
shed on both sides.
Alex consequently paid little attention to Quidditch, or the
House Cup, and thankfully, the next semester passed quickly for her. She
happily left Hogwarts as soon as she could, and was ecstatic to hear that her
mother was going to spend the summer with Grandma Rose, and that she and her
siblings were to accompany her. That summer was one of the most idyllic; she spent
most of her time showing her grandmother what she had learned.
It came as a shock to Alex when her mother announced that
she would not be returning to England. Her siblings were going to live with
Grandma Rose until her mother had found a job and an apartment, but the letter
Alex received from Hogwarts had sealed her fate; she found herself on a flight
back to England, to spend a week with her father before returning to school.
Alex looked up to see her classmates cleaning up their work
stations, and began to do the same. Blaise Zabini, one of her roommates, bumped
into her, knocking her books to the floor.
"Mudblood," the thick-necked witch whispered. The insult brought her back to reality, and
reminded her of her imminent meeting with Dumbledore. She turned her back to
the girl, and quickly began to put her books away. She wasn't looking forward
to the meeting, but she didn't want to be late either.
"What's the rush, Mudblood? Late for a date?"
Blaise asked, laughing at her own joke.
"In fact, I am. I would invite you to come, but I
couldn't find anyone near to dumb enough to suit your mental prowess,"
Alex retorted, exiting the room before Blaise was able to process the comment.
Alex hurried to Dumbledore's office, not wanting to arrive
late. She was so out of breath, she had
to repeat the password to the guardian gargoyle twice before she was allowed
in. She stopped in front of a spiral staircase, taking time to collect herself,
but when she opened her eyes, she saw that she was standing in front of a large
oak door. Although this unsettled her as well, she did not hesitate to rap on
the door, which immediately sprang open. She was faced with a large circular
room, which already contained seven other students, all of whom were staring at
her, dumbfounded. Dumbledore, who was standing behind his desk, smiled.
"Ahhh, Miss Saavedra. We've been expecting you."