"[…] from underneath
the rubble, sing
a rebel song."*
The arrival of the Head of Hufflepuff House was accompanied by a fanfare of clanking, screeching steel. In the field of prosthetics, even the future Moody could not compete with Professor Kettleburn. It was all the more disconcerting when the professor held out his metal claw for Harry to shake his hand after a summary of the situation by Dippet.
"Very sad circumstances to join us, but we are always happy to welcome a new companion to our burrow." He then quickly greeted Death, while congratulating her for her new position before turning back to Dippet. "If you don't mind, it's already past curfew and these days I find it risky to linger in the hallways at night."
The headmadter pointed to the door, his lips pursed, but agreeing with the teacher. Death, who had remained seated, gave Harry one last smile and resumed her conversation with Dippet and Dumbledore, as Kettleburn nudged Harry to leave the office.
As they made their way to the kitchens, Harry tried to forget Dippet and Dumbledore's prejudice against his new house.
"You're chirping like a hippogriff... What I can't figure out is why: did they flatter you or are you about to butcher a face?"
Harry replied with a grimace at first. "Let's just say wearing yellow has a double edge..."
"That!" Kettleburn's claw made a whole bunch of cracking noises as it rotated on itself. "That'll never change," he grumbled. "Remember, the hat has its own motivation, and it will always be to help you onto the right path."
"It's not so much the sorting that I question, but rather the way people perceive us."
"Well, our home can be viewed in two different ways. A pack of misfits or a bunch of merrymakers—sometimes a mixture of both. Either way, not really attractive from an outsider's perspective. No one sees the point of becoming a badger... except those who have become one."
"Yes, I can see that..."
The delicious smell of the kitchens interrupted Harry's train of thought. Even at night, he could hear the house elves working behind the stoves to prepare the next day's meals—Hermione would have been so mad to hear that...
Kettleburn led Harry into a shady stone recess where barrels were stored. The professor showed his teeth in a smile that was meant to be reassuring, probably amused by Harry judging the place. Harry's eyebrows furrowed as if to ask what they were doing there.
"Keep in mind the barrel and the pace, it's the only way in or you'll end up good and smelling like vinegar for a week."
"Is that the password? A barrel to knock?... Does it change often?"
Kettleburn's eyes went wide. "Do you change the locks on your house often?"
"Uh, never?"
"That's my point."
To get Harry to remember the password (not very complicated, as the professor pointed out, just type the rhythm of 'Helga Hufflepuff'), he hammered it a little slower with his clamp. The barrels then rolled to the side, revealing a passage.
"Go ahead!" Kettleburn encouragingly said. "Don't be shy! One of the prefects must already be waiting for you. I''ll see you in the morning when you're a bit fresher, since I''ll need to know which electives you want to take so that I can assign you a timetable"
"Of course. Thank you, sir."
The head of the house grumbled something Harry didn't hear as he headed down the tunnel, which seemed to slope gently downward as if to access a real burrow; the lush vegetation of the tunnel and the warm light at the end made it especially pleasant—as much as a hole going underground could be.
The soft light, reminiscent of the last rays of sunlight on a summer afternoon, greeted Harry as he finally stepped into the common room.
He stood in awe of where he had just arrived. The Gryffindor tower would always hold a dear place in his heart, but the Badger basement would soon compete with it…
Harry was accustomed to the cramped quarters of a tower, so he didn't expect to see such a large room used only as a living space. In the middle of the light wood floor, which reminded him of honey, there was a deep circular pit. Inside, some of the younger badgers were slumped against the edge, resting their backs on cushions, looking soft as marshmallows. In the center, the ghost of the house, Fat Friar, was telling a story—something funny judging by the laughter of the audience around him—while sitting in a rocking chair of oversized proportions.
A change in the sunlight made Harry's eyes go up to the ceiling. He blinked once, then twice...
Above the heads of the students and the ghost were the gigantic roots of a tree, from which hung a whole bunch of lanterns of different sizes and shapes, as well as various hangings and curtains that clung to the ceiling thanks to some thick ivy. The volume created on the ceiling by the fabrics made it possible to completely forget that the room was located underground. The whole thing had the feel of an enchanted cabin in the woods, so deeply symbiotic with the earth that it became fantastical.
"Amazing, right?" whispered a deep voice with a clipped Scottish accent.
Lost in contemplating the common room, Harry hadn't noticed the other student leaning against the wall next to the entrance.
He approached Harry and whispered a little lower, "we didn't expect you to join us. Just in case, our prefects asked me to take their place if we were to welcome you. They're busy managing the others. Follow me, you don't want to stay here… not with the first years. They are hectic enough as it is."
As they climbed a flight of stairs with convoluted railings made of rough, uncarved tree branches, Harry's shoulders tensed. He felt a film of electricity vibrate against his skin and then split as if to allow him access.
The other Hufflepuff commented on this fact, "a little bit jumpy, aren't you? Relax. It's just a Silencing Bubble Charm. Powerful enough to isolate the floor."
And indeed, the isolation bubble was definitely needed. Compared to the quietness of the ground floor, Harry's eardrums were now ringing from the high volume. He could hear music—a sort of rock ancestor—that matched the general aura of chaos.
Another pit was carved out among the wooden planks, except that the large center spot was not occupied by a rocking chair. On this floor, it was occupied by multiple round tables. They were all empty, except for the largest one where more than a dozen students were gathered around. Most of them were standing, arguing, and trying to shout louder than their neighbors.
It was at this point that Harry noticed that there was more than just yellow lining or badger crests on the school robes.
"I thought it was forbidden to enter any other common room than your own." Harry was careful not to add, 'and especially impossible to get into the badger one if you weren't one yourself.'
The student who had greeted him looked away and cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. "Extenuating circumstances. I think you'll figure it out soon enough… Every badger was okay with that, they know it's for the safety of Hogwarts."
"Safety?—Oh. Yeah, err, I already see what you're talking about."
Or at least, the reasons that could explain a gathering of this magnitude in what Harry imagined to be some sort of inter-house alliance…
Between the Basilisk attacks and the current terrifying situation of Europe under the threat of Grindelwald, Harry thought it was only natural that the students of Hogwarts should seek an united front. Now, what Harry wanted to know was what would be their next move.
"We're already up to nine statues decorating the infirmary, Septimus! Trust me, at the tenth one, we'll be floo straight back home!"
"If the Ministry was really worried about it, they would have closed the school immediately after the first one!"
"Both of you are half troll to be so stupid?!" a Gryffindor girl shouted angrily. "Myrtle is dead! We have a murderer on the loose—as if a serial-petrifier wasn't enough!"
"But that's Septimus' point, Tolga," stated another girl, who was presumably her twin, who was wearing Hufflepuff colors. "The Ministry is actually crumbling under problems, and it's us who suffer from the consequences… Even after a week without solving the case, they still haven't closed the school because they need our parents at work. Not at home, busy taking care of us—"
"Everyone! Be quiet!" interrupted an authoritative bark.
A large figure stood up from a wide chair in front of one of the room's fireplaces. For a brief moment, Harry thought he was hallucinating: Alastor, already 'Mad-Eye' Moody, was coming out of the darkness, his staff clattering against the wooden floor.
The sight made Harry frown. He was sure he had heard rumours that the origin of Moody's injuries dated back to the First Wizarding War. Was this another of the minor changes caused by his appearance in the past? Or were the rumours wrong?
Moody's intimidating and fierce appearance gave prominence to his prefect badge, as if to reflect his authority in the Badger's house. It was beyond Harry that others could belittle Hufflepuff when Moody was the perfect embodiment of the badger you don't want to mess with.
"Funny!" Moody laughed with a rough voice. "Even I couldn't even imagine the new guy joining us under the yellow banner."
The hushed whisper and laughs were interrupted by a squeak. An older Slytherin was stepping away from the table, pressing her wrist against her chest.
"Dory'? Is everything alright?" a Gryffindor asked worringly, as he gently hugged her waist.
Dory' glanced at the assembly who now dared not utter a word. "Yes. Just…surprised. The next meeting was not until this weekend; I don't understand—I have to hurry up to get there at the same time as the others!"
She gave the Gryffindor a quick kiss and sprinted towards the stairs.
Another Hufflepuff girl pulled herself out of Septimus' arms and held Dory back to hand her a small mirror. "Call Charis. She can tell you where the others are. Don't break communication until you get there."
Dory, the Syltherin, took the mirror and quickly hugged the Hufflepuff. "You're the best 'Ella. I'll catch you later." She gave one last hurried wave to the party before leaving for good.
Another Syltherin crossed her arms over her chest, eyebrows furrowed as she glared at the stairs. "As if we don't have enough problems without them."
"Euphemia..."
Harry's neck cracked as he turned to another Gryffindor—there were many, six in all. All it took was this particular first name and seeing who was speaking to figure out who these two people were.
Damn, Harry was going to have a stroke: he was in the presence of his grandparents.
"Don't 'Euphemia' me, Fleamont! Just because Dorea is the only one capable of getting into their demented cult doesn't mean we should encourage her to dive deeper to go fishing information."
"Not like there's much use for it anyway," scoffed an older Hufflepuff.
"Pay attention to Mad-Eye and shut up, Umbridge," snarled the student with the thick Scottish accent who had welcomed Harry. "You're certainly not the one who's gonna help us figure out what's going on right now."
"Keep it up, I could almost believe you're worried about it," Umbridge sneered in return. He crossed his arms over the table to lean forward. "Admit it, you don't care about the petrified students or the murder. It's just our little ones getting into fist fights that worry you, right? But you know what, McGonagall, I've got a news for you, if your sister wasn't a little lioness pest who roared at the wrong people we wouldn't be here—"
Another Gryffindor pulled out his wand in a big, threatening gesture and pointed it so close to Umbridge's face that he had to cross his eyes to watch the tip. This other Gryffindor too, had a thick Scottish accent, "I dare you to repeat what you just said about my sister."
His grandparents, a relative of the pink toad, Moody... Yes, great, Harry was also in the same year as his former head of house's brothers.
Before any other wand could be whipped out, Moody was pounding the ground with his staff again. "Enough!" he growled. "I said enough! Put those wands away! McGonagall, Umbridge, you'll settle your differences later."
Going back in time, Harry was already prepared to run into some ancestors or young versions of people he knew, but at this point it was starting to look like a nightmare.
Another Hufflepuff was coming out of the dining area, a steaming mug in her hands. She joined Moody's side, another perfect badge pinned on her school uniform. She stood out from anyone in the room with her bee-yellow hair streaked with black, somehow Harry couldn't help but compare her to Tonks with her goofy hair colors.
"A little decency, folks! Come on!" she commanded cheerfully with a fist on her hips. "Maybe our new friend will be interested in the other club. Who knows?" Then, she arched an eyebrow in Harry's direction. "What's your name, New Guy?"
"Ha-Henry. Henry Peverell."
"Peverell?" Dorea's boyfriend repeated, before turning to Euphemia's. "Hey, Fleamont. Doesn't that ring a bell?"
"Now that you mention it… I think my dad already mentioned it." He asked Harry, "maybe Charlus or I know your parents?"
"Even I don't know them." Harry shrugged and said, "they're dead."
Both Potters' faces immediately broke down.
Beside Fleamont, a tall Hufflepuff with crew-cut blond hair patted his shoulder. "Still all delicate, eh?"
"Perfect! Another orphan! Just hope he doesn't turn out like the other one," Tolga grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest.
There was an awkward silence where a few of the students around the table gave the Gryffindor girl a disapproving look, almost shocked at her lack of empathy or bluntness.
"Don't listen to Tolga, New Guy. She's been like that since Riddle rejected her," another redhead who was not Septimus—Harry assumed he was a Prewett—tried to joke awkwardly.
Tolga immediately turned red, as she grumbled some curses.
Her twin, stifled a laugh into her sleeve as she gave her sister a gentle poke. "No, you're wrong... She has always been as pleasant as a Jarvey—"
"Tahlia!"
The first to laugh was the Hufflepuff with the bee-yellow hair. "Well, who will go and ask him?"
"Merlin… You're a prefect now. Behave." Mad-Eye sighed as he nudged her ribs with a light tap of his staff.
"But Merlin is right!—"
It took a few seconds for Harry to fully process the information that the girl in question was actually named Merlin and not that the boys swore by the name of the legendary wizard.
"Since the banquet ended, everyone has been talking about him or the new DADA teacher!" a Hufflepuff—who had remained silent until then—suddenly exlaimed.
According to Harry he has not been silent by his own volition. Several wands were now pointed discreetly in his direction, ready to silence him at the slightest wrong word. The wands followed his path as he walked around the table and slapped Harry on the back in greeting.
"By the way, I'm Egon! Ignore the others—they are just rude not to introduce themselves. So? Did the owl with your letter get lost on the way? Or did you miss the train four times in a row?"
"No, I definitely got my letter when I was eleven… like all of you. I just never made my way to King Cross."
The other students exchanged a few frowns and wondered in hushed tones about what Harry had meant by that, but, before any more questions could be asked, the isolation bubble allowed a new arrival into the floor. The Ravenclaw girl was totally out of breath, as if she had run all over the castle to find them as fast as possible.
"I heard Morcades talking to Dippet ! W-when, when…" She struggled to catch her breath. "The librarian threw me out! s-so…" Another deep breath. "I was on my way to join you a-and…!"
"Damn it, breathe, Lucretia! or you'll pass out," advised the supposed Prewett Gryffindor while he was approaching her.
"I couldn't resist spying on them a little!" she resumed, ignoring him as she was now jumping up and down, her eyes shining. "And you'll never guess! The new guy. He was kidnapped when he was younger, and trained by Grindelwald!"
It didn't take much to start a rumor, and now, all the ingredients had just been spilled over.
The Potters gave an outraged grunt, as if their own family had been insulted, for the rest, their reactions were divided between gasps of surprise and low-voiced curses. Harry sighed, wondering if Death had done it on purpose.
"Morcades is a little bit too chatty sometimes," Harry grumbled, taking a step forward so that he could be seen out of McGonagall's shadow.
The Ravenclaw, Lucretia, gave a little cry of surprise when she noticed Harry's presence. She immediately clamped her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide open, revealing a mixture of confusion and apology, as if she regretted revealing what she had heard. The damage was already done, and Harry would not hold it against her, especially if Death had provoked it on purpose.
For the rest of the assembly, the news was too big to ignore, but no one dared speak in Harry's presence, at least not until he said something about it. Which he wasn't going to do. So he preferred to find a way to get out of there and let the group speculate in his absence.
"Well…Would someone please tell me where the dorms are?"
Mad-Eye would break away from Merlin and began walk down the stairs. "Follow me. I'll show you where you can get settled." He would turn to the others. "Merlin, you watch them. No more drama until I get back. Clear?"
Harry followed Moody downstairs after the others had given various sounds of acknowledgement—ranging from enthusiastic chirps to grunts of deep boredom. Their voices were muffled after the silencing bubble closed behind them.
The ground floor was now completely empty and immersed in a twilight atmosphere.
"Look, I cannot imagine what it looks like from the outside," Moody said, scratching his jaw, looking like he didn't exactly know where to begin. "Probably quite intense as an introduction… The general opinion was split on your sorting, but you were expected to be at least a Gryffindor or a Syltherin. That's why we had our group discussion in our common room tonight… It was not in our plans to include you in this. Especially not for your first night here."
Harry nodded. "Indeed, it is a lot. I never thought I'd step in on something like this… But now, I know. I can see that you are up to something and I need to understand. So explain to me, what exactly is going on here?"
"In short, at the beginning of the year, after the first petrification, we set up a watch group with the Gryffindors. Well, that's how everything started…"
"And it looks like a little more than that now."
Moody laughed hoarsely as he cracked his neck. "That's just the origin story, new guy. After the third victim, Lucretia—the ravenclaw you just met—found out a pattern: they were all Muggleborns... After that, her theory has been proven right. It kept on fitting for each new victim—we have been at almost one per week since September."
"I was right, it's much more... " Harry remained silent for a few moments to consider Moody's words. When he resumed, he said slowly, "you're convinced that the attacks are motivated by blood status, if I understand correctly? You went from a watch group to a detective agency? Then—Wait a minute. Everyone here tonight is against the Pure-Blood philosophy?"
"That's... That's a good question, but a complicated one." Moody took a long moment to study Harry, his prosthetic eye whirring, analyzing every aspect of Harry's face and particularly targeting his gaze, as if he could read the intentions behind it. Whatever he found there seemed to encourage him to be honest. "Before that, some of us were questioning the ideology of our parents and the usefulness of relying solely on the bloodline of our family. This case has only amplified this questioning." Moody paused briefly while shaking his head. "I think I think we've gone from a watch group to a demolition crew."
"A demolition crew?" Harry parroted, clueless.
"We no longer want to hold on to what we have, but dismantle what exists to change what awaits us... I think that at first we were all united only to defend our last years of carefree life. When the hypothesis of targeted attacks was raised, everyone saw what they were trying to defend disappear. It was no longer a prank that had gone wrong, but an affirmation that we had become adults with bigger problems than a failed potion test. We can see it now.
"We can see that teachers favor the names of old families and are harsher on those who are not, or that the ministry lets things drag on here because the victims are not children from prominent families... Personally, I want to change that, and I imagine many of us do too. But for that to happen, it all starts here. If we let these attacks pass it would be like agreeing to continue the tradition of denigrating others because of their blood. The victims were all precious wizards or witches; or even just someone's friends or siblings... And I think that all this makes us de facto opponents of the Pureblood mentality. Or at least, I know it upsets a lot of them here, when I tell them that the origin of magical blood doesn't matter, and that it's no less valuable than theirs." In conclusion, Moody shrugged, as if he didn't mind that his opinion was frowned upon by the Purebloods at Hogwarts.
Harry was taking advantage of having to walk down another flight of stairs to digest what Moody had just told him. It was huge and awesome at the same time. However, he couldn't help but wonder why it never paid off.
Why, in his younger years, did he never hear about this general desire among the older generation to change society?
Would this ancient need have been the origin of this generation's involvement in the Order of the Phoenix later on?
Harry didn't know what it was yet, but he was certain that in the immediate future of this timeline something was going to erode the general urge to pursue this goal.
Aside from that, he found it sadly interesting that Myrtle's death was not in vain; it was one of the final catalysts to spark the protest. It was good for Harry to know that he was not alone in realizing that their world needed change.
"I like the way you put it. It's ambitious, but nonetheless I think it's a fair goal worth trying for, even if more than a lifetime would be needed to get there..."
"Please, don't take us for fools. We are aware that we will not be the ones to benefit from these changes, perhaps we will not even see while we are still alive… But what I wish is that we do not remain passive in front of what happens around us. If we take action, maybe future witches and wizards will follow our path."
Harry found it amusing to hear this when he himself came from a future where nothing had changed, yet he was still trying to reshape fate. Why would he settle for preventing wars when he was sure he had the power to change the entire course of events?
"It's no longer just a goal you're talking about, it's hope… and when you think about it, it is a good motivator. It makes people believe in the future, in the aftermath of the dark times. It makes them think about the reconstruction after the destruction. Listening to you, I want to believe in it too…"
Moody approved with a grunt. "Either way, everything is pretty much destroyed already, and Grindelwald doesn't make our job easier. The only thing he's kept and strengthened is fear and hatred of others."
Harry watched the corridor they were walking down; dark enough with only small lights mimicking the twilight of the ground floor to move around without fear of tripping over the paving. On either side there were huge barrels lined up, big enough to hold a student of Moody's size without him having to bend over.
"In short, everything is probably related to a question of the origin of the families' magical blood… but, there is still something I don't understand. Dorea spies on another group—why? Do you think they are involved in the petrifications? Or the murder?"
Moody's mechanical eye whirred in its socket, inspecting Harry from head to toe. "We are not sure yet... The group we're talking about is very selective and on the Slytherin side. We assume that it existed in secret before ours, but it has become more active this year. Enough that it is starting to get noticed. Especially the younger members. They are the ones who are particularly… fierce , in their way to express their views on the Muggleborns."
The wires were slowly connecting in Harry's mind.
"Fierce? Are you referring to what Umbridge mentioned? How can fighting with the Gryffindors be aimed at the Muggleborns? And why isn't anyone stopping them, anyway? Don't the teachers intervene?"
"Think of it as open warfare that the teachers would rather ignore. I can understand them… they have enough on their plate with a dead student and the petrification business threatening the school. But yes, the younger Syltherins lead multiple fights. Especially against children from Pure-Blood families who befriended Muggleborns. Referring to them as Blood Traitors—bullshit, if you want my opinion… Lately, it's become quite common to see third and fourth years involved in illegal duels, or for those even younger to fight barehanded since their spell arsenals are too limited."
Harry took off his glasses to massage his eyelids. An open warfare, taking place in front of the teachers' eyes without them interfering: pure madness. Maybe he was still dead and this was all a figment of his imagination? In any case, he knew the origin of this general supremacist mania. And he needed to stop it.
Moody's staff stopped hitting the ground, Harry understood that they had reached their destination. Still using his staff, Moody applied pressure to the flat face of one of the giant barrels until a soft click sounded. The panel slowly opened, revealing the inside of the barrel that had been spelled with an extension charm, allowing a fully furnished bedroom to fit inside. Harry squinted, at the back of the room was a window that revealed a sunny meadow landscape.
Although it was a lovely view, the light was too strong for Harry, who was used to the twilight atmosphere of the hallway. He quickly pointed his wand at the window and projected the idea of a forest in the middle of the night. Immediately, the sun rays faded and the pale rays of a full moon came through the window to cradle the room.
"Once inside, close the door and choose a password by hitting it. Preferably a different rhythm than the one we use to enter our common room. I'll leave you to think about our discussion... Come see me if you want to know more about it or if you're interested."
He took a step back as Harry slid inside the barrel, then, before the door closed, Harry heard, "By the way, welcome to the Badgers."