While the other Slytherin boys were at breakfast, he swung by the dormitory to pick up his books. He knew he'd have to face them in class, but he preferred to delay that confontation for as long as possible, and to assure as many witnesses as he could.
When he stepped through the Slyther wall, he found that Evalyn was sitting in the common room, watching the hall leading to the boys rooms. He cleared his throat. She startled and turned toward him. "There you are! I was starting to get worried." The question 'where have you been?' was implicit.
"I spent the night up in the hospital wing."
At that admission, Evalyn did look worried.
"Did you hear that me and Avery got in a fight?"
She pressed her lips together. "I'd heard," she said shortly. She plainly did not approve.
"Well, nobody got hurt too bad, but I got a week of detention, and I convinced Madam Pomfrey to let me stay in the Hospital wing cuz my room mates might retaliate if I didn't give them a chance to cool down." He shrugged. "I don't think I was really lying, either." He hesitated a moment before asking the question he'd been considering since the night before. He didn't want to sound pathetic, but he really feared for the safety of most of his posessions. "Um, could I keep some of my stuff in your dorm? I mean, you've got the room, right?" With four absent beds, he knew perfectly well that they had plenty of space.
She seemed to realized that she was being manipulated, judging by the sidelong look she gave him, but she shrugged back at him. "Yeah, sure."
He smiled his thanks, then glanced at the boy's hall. He forced the smile to stay fixed in place. "Well, I guess I'll go see what's left. Coming?" he tagged on the invitation almost as an afterthought, but silently begged for her to agree. He didn't really want to go in there by himself, devoid of Avery though it was.
She made a show of considering it, then nodded, "I guess. Who needs breakfast anyway, right?"
He grinned at her briefly, then led her to the first years' room. The carnage really wasn't as bad as he was expecting. Evalyn still gasped, but Jansten's room had looked far worse after the twins had turned it inside out looking for something or other that they had thought their older brother had confiscated from them. Or was it Valr who had exacted revenge, after getting tattled on, by messing with the insane neatness and organization of Jansten's domain? Whichever. Jansten's room had been in shambles. This was nothing by comparison.
The pile of clothes, books, and other personal effects that had been heaped on his bed were now spread evenly across the mattress, and dumped onto the floor. It looked like Avery and Martin had been going through it looking for something. Harris glanced through the mess, but didn't notice anything missing. He was relieved to see that his books and other school supplies were all still in one piece.
"You don't have time to clean that all up now," Evalyn commented, oh-so-helpfully.
Harris nodded, "I know. I just want to get my texts and notebooks out of their reach. Maybe a change of clothes. The telescope." He looked at her. "You sure you don't mind?"
She gave him an exasperated look. "We're three people living in a eight-person room. I think we can spare the space for a telescope and a pile of books." He collected the endangered items, and gave the telescope and a small bundle of clothes to Evalyn to carry, and took the books himself. Struggling under their weight, he gave another look around his disarray of belongings. "The cauldron should be all right. I need most of my clothes here. Let's go."
As they stowed the things away in a corner of the girl's room, Evalyn cleared her throat, and straightened. Harris looked over at her, raising an eyebrow. "What?"
"What was the fight about?"
Harris frowned. "I don't see that it's any of your concern."
She scowled right back at him. "If it was about yesterday afternoon -"
"It wasn't," he interrupted, sharply.
Somewhat taken aback, Evalyn only said, "Oh."
"It was about Aurora Merriweather," he continued, outraged, not at her, but at Avery. As he spoke, he realized he was answering her question, but was unable to stop the words.
Evalyn's eyes narrowed in bafflement. "Who's Aurora Merriweather?"
Harris sank onto one of the beds, not looking at Evalyn. "She's one of the other first years. Gryffindor. Her Mum and mine were best friends. The Merriweathers were more like cousins than any of our real cousins. We tutored with each other until -" he stopped, and fought down emotion. He would not cry, not in front of Evalyn. "Death Eaters killed them all but Aurora. They'd'a killed her, too, if they'd known she was home, but she was always real good at hide-and seek, and they never found her. They tortured and killed her whole family but she never made a sound. She watched -" Harris forced his voice to remain even. "I haven't seen her much lately, but she's different now. She doesn't laugh. Almost never smiles, and when she does, it's scary. I wouldn't get into a staring contest with her, either. It's too eerie. I don't think she can blink anymore, except on purpose." He lifted his gaze from his shoes to Evalyn's face.
She looked horrified. Good. What happened to Aurora was horrible. He continued, "Then, on top of all that, Weston Avery," Harris twisted the name into something disgusting found only under rocks, "goes and makes some stupid joke about her, like she's already his favorite Gryffindor target. It was sick. I had to punch him in the face."
"Oh," Evalyn said in a very small voice.
"We should get to class."
She looked at the clock hanging on the wall. They had only three minutes to get to the Transfiguration classroom, but her agreement was subdued, "Yeah."
They arrived four minutes late. A cat, sitting on the teacher's desk, watched them enter with what Harris would swear was disapproval. He and Evalyn took an empty table at the back of the classroom, leaving another between them and the one shared by Avery and Martin. In the front row, Madeline and Candice shared the table two in front of the boys. On the Gryffindor side, Pam and Tommy shared the back one. Walrus, still wearing his high tops, sat in front of them with Charlie Weasley. Harris scanned over the others, who he didn't know, until he saw Aurora Merriweather sitting at the table second from the front. He swallowed, and looked down at his tabletop. Somebody had carved "Transfigure this" into the wood.
A hushed muttering filled the room, and Harris looked up again. The cat had jumped down from the desk. As he watched, it transformed into Professor McGonagall. "Welcome to Transfigurations," she welcomed. A glance toward him and Evalyn somehow gave the words an acerbic connotation in their case. Harris wished he knew how she did that.
McGonagall's stern disipline kept Avery from making comments during class. A number of harsh glares had been shot in his direction over the course of the lecture, and from what he could make of the Slytherin leader's body language, given that he could only see his back, Harris guessed she had quelled several attempts at disrespectful remarks. Avery had apparently learned not to badger a teacher in her own classroom, at least. It would be bad for his own grade as well as Slytherin's point count.
But once the class was over, and the students filed from the room, her authority ended. Harris had wanted to escape as quickly as possible. Bravery was not his strong suit after all; he was Slytherin not Gryffindor. But Evalyn hung back, waiting for Madeline and Candice. The Gryffindor quartet, Pam, Tommy, Walrus, and Charlie, came out first. Remembering them from the train, Pam and Tommy offered him and Evalyn hesitant smiles, as though not sure if getting Sorted into Slytherin had suddenly changed them into horrible beasts that would attack with dripping fangs at any perceived provacation.
Harris smiled sourly back. "We don't bite, you know," he commented dryly, with a wave to indicate that the four Gryffindors were giving them an overly large berth as they passed.
"Tell that to last night's dinner," Pam returned, though the small grin showed she was joking. It was as good an invitation for friendship as a Slytherin could expect from a Gryffindor.
"Hmm," Harris pretended to consider. "I think you're right. We do bite. And we eat bowls of cereal for breakfast," he added in a tone normally reserved for intimidation.
Tommy laughed, and the other three Gryffindors grinned. Almost without conscious thought, they moved nearer, to a more normal conversation distance.
"I'm Harris Tragyl, and this is Evalyn Watson," he introduced, since that seemed the polite thing to do now. Though he knew all their names, formal introductions had never been made to either Charlie or Walrus.
"Richard Jackson, but call me Walrus, all the Gryffindors do," Walrus grinned, "Never thought George, Ringo, Paul, and John would be responsible for my name."
"Who?" Evalyn asked, her face and voice exactly duplicating the utter bafflement Harris felt.
"George, Paul, John, and Ringo," Walrus repeated, as though the names meant something. "The Beatles." When the Slytherins' confusion did not lessen, he rolled his eyes. "They're the muggle music group who's song I named on Saturday. 'I am the Walrus.'"
"Oh," Harris and Evalyn said together.
"You should hear it. It's wicked," Charlie added, a devilish light in his eyes. "Walrus has a Walking Man that can play the song right into your ears."
"Don't ask me why it's called that, though," Tommy chimed in, "It looks nothing like a man, and it doesn't even walk. It's just a little black box, with earmuffs, that you can put a music casket into." Walrus and Pam exchanged long-suffering sighs, but didn't try to defend the naming scheme of the muggle object.
Harris looked at Evalyn, who shrugged back, a dubious look on her face. Her mental image of the thing must be as much a monstrosity as his own. Why would a box need to wear earmuffs, anyway? And what, in the name of Merlin, was a music casket? Were they used to bury unspeakably wretched songs? If so, perhaps the wizarding world should consider introducing them.
"What's this?" a cold voice asked.
Harris startled, and retreated a defensive step away from the speaker. He'd been dreading this confrontation since the prefects had taken him from the dorm room. Beside him, Evalyn scowled and turned toward the voice, not backing down an inch. "Weston," she stated his name with waning patience.
Madam Pomfrey had evidently done as good a job cleaning him up as she had patching up Harris. There were no obvious signs that Avery'd broken his nose in a fight less than twelve hours before. Of his own injuries, only the bite on his arm was even remotely visible, and the mediwitch had promised it, too, would be gone by tonight.
"Evalyn," Avery stated her name in the same tone. The Gryffindors and Harris backed away, leaving the two facing each other in the center of a growing circle as more students came out of the transfiguration classroom, and stayed to watch what promised to be a nasty Slytherin vs Slytherin fight. The tension in the air between them was palpable.
Martin pushed his way into the circle's center, and flanked Avery. Madeline and Candice wiggled free of the spectators and stood at either side of Evalyn. Getting involved was the very last thing Harris wanted to do. Hiding under his bed, blending with the crowd; these seemed much more acceptable options. But his feet took him to stand next to Candice.
"Fight!" someone yelled. But it wasn't. So far, it was only a stand-off. Evalyn and Avery matched each other stare for stare, oblivious to the crowd around them. Even should the tension break into violence, 'brawl' would be the better descriptor. He didn't think Evalyn would let it reach that, though. A brawl would surely loose them house points.
"I suggest you leave off," Evalyn said, cooly.
"Or what?" Avery challenged. "You'll sic your dog Harris on me again? As I recall, he was the one who spent the night in the Hospital Wing."
Harris drew in a sharp angry breath and his fists clenched at his sides as he took an involuntary half-step forward. Evalyn sharply waved him back, which really did nothing good for his image, but he obediently subsided.
"Good doggy," Martin sneered. Harris sneered back, as best he could, though he guessed Martin had far more practice with the expression.
A shrill whistle cut the air, slicing apart the glares of Evalyn and Avery. Both turned toward the sound, along with everyone else. McGonagall made for a very stern figure, her mouth pinched into a small, tight line. Her hard eyes flickered among the combatants, reading intent and events from stance and expression. "You," she pointed at Avery, "and you," Evalyn, "Come with me."
Evalyn was at her side first. "Nothing happened, Professor. We were just discussing things," she tried to explain as they walked away.
McGonagall's response was not encouraging. "'Discussions', Ms. Watson, such as you were having with Mr. Avery, often lead to visits to the Hospital Wing." Any further discussion was lost to distance. Avery followed, scowling, several paces behind.
Outnumbered, without his leader, Martin slinked away in the opposite direction. Candice, Madeline, and Harris exchanged nervous looks, still surrounded by Gryffindors. Charlie stepped forward, breaking the renewed tension. "What was that all about, Cousin?" he asked Harris, obviously speaking for all the spectators.
Candice and Madeline pulled away slightly, Slytherin instinct to distance themselves from Gryffindor relations, no doubt. Harris tried not gape at Charlie. He knew their parents were second cousins. Mum had said so in that joke shop. But he had never expected Charlie to acknowledge it, especially since Harris himself had been Sorted into Slytherin. His own first cousins on Mum's side didn't consort with the Tragyls, because Father was a Slytherin. Yet, here was a distant relation he'd only just met, blithely calling him 'Cousin' as though they'd known each other for ages and were the best of friends.
"I, that is, Evalyn and Avery, they haven't gotten along that well since yesterday when Evalyn told him to leave the Ravenclaws alone. This was a continuation of that argument. I think. Cousin."
If Harris was mildly surprised by getting called 'Cousin', it was nothing to Charlie's reaction when it was returned. The Weasley grinned hugely, as though Harris had granted him an inheritance of a million galleons, then flung his arm across Harris's shoulders. Harris staggered under the sudden weight, blushing furiously, eyes wide in shock at the overly friendly touch. "Lookit this, guys," Charlie called to his Gryffindor buddies, "My Slytherin coz is actually a decent guy. He called me Cousin." By the pride in the last sentence, Harris would have thought he'd done something remarkable, like saved Charlie's life or called him the greatest and most brilliant Quiddich player to ever grace Earth with his presence. Not something so simple as calling a cousin 'Cousin'.
"He's not bad," said a quiet voice, almost lost in the laughter following Charlie's declaration.
Harris pulled away from Charlie, seeking the speaker in the crowd, his face pale, though it had been bright red only moments before.
She stood near the door to McGonagall's classroom. Her robes looked used, and her short hair was cropped unevenly, and stood up in spiked clumps. Her hands were dirty, and her shoes didn't exactly match. She looked straight at Harris, not sparing a glance for anyone else now that she had him in her sights. It was a disturbing sensation, but he pretended to smile in a friendly fashion, "Aurora. Hi."
The specatator's earlier exuberance drained precipitously. Even her housemates weren't quite sure how to take Aurora's intensity, and they stepped back, leaving a clear line of sight between the strange girl and Harris. "How's it going?" Harris asked casually, but winced inwardly. Obviously, it wasn't going well. Her parents, brothers, and sisters were all dead, her new schoolmates all thought she was freak who needed pity more than anything else, and even if she didn't know it yet, Avery was going to make her life miserable. More so that it already was.
"It's going. How's your Mum?"
"She's good." Couldn't ask how hers was. "Like Hogwarts, so far?"
"'Salright. How's little Janny?"
Harris couldn't help it. He started to laugh. Caught up in his own laughter, he couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw her crack a genuine smile. "Jansten," he wheezed when he could, stressing the full name, "will hunt you down and kill you if he finds out you called him 'little Janny'." There were sharp intakes of breath from the Gryffindors at this, though Aurora did not seem to find it nearly so blasphemous as the others. In fact, her nearly unrecognizable quirk of a smile broadened a fraction of a millimeter.
"So how is he?"
"He's taller than I am by a good four inches, for starters. He'll be here next year and you can ask little Janny yourself what he's been up to."
She nodded thoughtfully. "That's a long time, Harris. What house is he likely to get?"
"Even money between Gryffindor and Slytherin. Clarence is accepting bets if you want to take Gryffindor."
"Kid Genius thinks he'll be Slytherin? Why's that?"
Harris shrugged. "It's where Jansten wants to go."
Aurora frowned, the expression looking far more natural on her face than the near smile, much to Harris' dismay. "He does? Why?"
Harris stepped nearer, and lowered his voice. "Don't let this get passed around certain Slytherin circles, but he's gonna be an Auror, and he wants to know the enemy as well as he possibly can."
Aurora's frown was gone, but the smile was still missing, too. Still, she somehow managed to look smug as she nodded acceptance of this explanation. Then all expression left as she asked, "What's your excuse, Harris?"
Harris' brows lifted. "My excuse?"
"What are you doing in that wretched hive?" He thought he saw Walrus smirk briefly at her words, but it was gone too quickly to be sure.
Harris shrugged. "The hat said I was ambitious, like Dad, and I was only a little bit brave." He flushed faintly.
Surprisingly, Charlie put an arm around his shoulders again. "That's alright, coz. We won't hold it against you, will we, guys?"
Walrus grinned. "Nah. We'll even make you lots brave by the time you get out of here."
The look of perfect alarm that crossed Harris' face at that moment was enough to make even Aurora almost laugh.
Harris returned to the Slytherin common room with Candice and Madeline. They keep sneaking odd looks at him, as though expecting his robes to suddenly turn red and gold. Frankly, he wouldn't really mind if they did. Gryffindors were a much nicer bunch, if somewhat weird. Though, he did have to admit that green and silver were far superior house colors. He reflected breifly that it was a very sad state of affairs that his only source of Slytherin pride was directed toward their colors.
Evalyn was waiting for them. "What took you three so long?" she asked curiously. "I got a detention, and still got back before you."
"A detention?" Harris asked, surprised. He'd had every confidence that she would get out of trouble scot-free.
She made a face. "Yeah. I'll be with you, Martin, and Weston tonight. We're scrubbing the trophy room. Bring a toothbrush. We did manage not to lose any house points, though, which is what I was most worried about. The detention was for 'disturbing the peace'."
"Should've been just Avery then," Harris commented. "His mere existence disturbs the peace."
"His father's, too," Candice agreed.
Harris grinned at Madeline and Candice, "You two should start a row in front of McGonagall, then the whole Slytherin first year class can have detention together."
"Merci mais le non," Madeline declined. "I like idea of no detention much better."
"I'm with her," Candice agreed. "I think your Gryffindor cousin rubbed off on you a bit too much."
Harris conceded that it was possible. "Maybe. But Mum's a Gryffindor, too, and I know at least some of my brothers will be there. Could be any of their influence."
"You will net believe what happened after you left," Madeline told Evalyn.
"What?" she asked, curiously. "You didn't lose any points, did you?"
"Non! Nothing like that."
Candice grinned, "The Gryffindors just showed that they can tell the difference between good Slytherins and Avery Slytherins. Maybe they're not as black-and-white as Mum made them out to be. They all but adopted Harris into their House. Him and Charlie Weasley are on a Cousin-Cousin name basis."
"Cousin-coz name basis," Harris corrected, half-bemused, half-apalled. "After that first time, he called me 'coz'."
"They're going to try to Gryffindorize him, too. Make him braver," Candice added, clearly amused.
Evalyn could not quite surpress a smirk. "Well, we'll need to trade, then. If they Gryffindorize our Harris, we'll need to Slytherinate one or more of them. Only fair, right? There are already more of them then there are of us. Which one seems most amiable to the transformation?"
The two other girls shrugged at each other. "Perhaps Charlie himself? Cousin for cousin?" Madeline suggested dubiously.
"Not a chance. Charlie's pure Weasley. Try that Walrus guy. The hat probably just put him in Gryffindor because he's muggle born, and he'll be accepted there easiest."
"Aurora," Harris said quietly.
All three of the girls stared at him. "Harris, she hates Slytherins," Candice said carefully, as though speaking to someone who was dangerously insane. Which she doubtless thought Aurora was.
"You heard what I said about Jansten and Slytherins, right?"
Madeline and Candice nodded slowly, Evalyn looked lost. "Same would apply to Aurora."
"Who's Jansten?" Evalyn asked.
"Nevermind," Harris brushed past it, partly because he expected the other girls to explain it later, and partly because he hoped they wouldn't. It wasn't exactly that he thought Evalyn could ever be one of the 'enemy' that Jansten wanted to learn about, but of the three girls, she was the only one he suspected might have a Death Eater in the near branches of her family tree. Though, truth to tell, being French didn't neccessarily disqualify Madeline's family, either. "I'm just saying that if we want to . . . Slytherinate a Gryffindor, our best bet is Aurora. She's already scary."
"Can't argue that," Candice muttered under her breath.
Evalyn nodded slowly. "Sounds good, then. When the Gryffindors steal away Harris to pull their stupid, impractical, and reckless stunts, we'll befriend Aurora Merriweather and teach her the values of Slytherin." Candice and Madeline nodded reluctantly.
Harris hoped that Aurora wouldn't kill him for trying to make her some friends, even if they were in Slytherin. He additionally hoped she wouldn't kill Evalyn for suggesting Slytherin tactics in her war against the Dark.
Harris also hoped that Walrus, Weasley, and gang wouldn't get him killed during one of their aforementioned stupid, impractical, and reckless stunts.
Harris hoped finally that Avery wouldn't kill him as he slept because of his new Gryffindor friendships.
This was all in additon to the worries that he'd blow up a potion and kill himself, or fall off his broom and kill himself, or mess up something in Charms or, potentially worse, Defense Against the Dark Arts and kill himself. Or even choke on a chicken bone and kill himself.
By the looks of that Filch caretaker guy, even tracking mud into the castle might be fatal.
He made a mental note to owl Mum to tell her that his life was constantly in danger and he wanted to go home. The twins and Valr had the good grace to make life-threatening seem interesting instead of stressful and terrifying.
Lunch that day was a tense affair at the first years' end of the Slytherin table. The seating arangement had changed since their Sorting night. Avery still sat with his back to the other Houses, in the seat nearest to the older students. Opposite him, Evalyn claimed the highest seat on the other side. Harris sat between her and Candice. Martin sat next to Avery and across from Harris. Madeline and Candice occupied the last chairs at the table, at the end nearest the teachers. Harris wasn't sure if he ranked higher than the other two girls, or if they simply wanted to sit across from each other and as far from Avery as possible. He suspected the latter.
Little was spoken, except in whispers between Madeline and Candice. Harris spent most of the meal glaring at Martin everytime he got kicked under the table. Harris felt like he should receive bonus House points for resisting the urge to kick back, but no teacher noticed his valiant effort, and so the Slytherin point score remained the same.
Harris wasn't quite sure how Evalyn and Avery managed to eat. They locked gazes the moment they sat down, and never once looked away from the other. Luck alone seemed responsible for getting food onto their forks. No words passed between them, or to their followers. Their full attention was relegated to mantaining their intense staring contest. At the end of the meal, by some unspoken signal, they stood up as one. Then, without warning, it was over.
Evalyn looked down the table at the other girls and Harris, and said, as though continuing some previous conversation, "History of Magic next. Let's get our books."
History of Magic was with the Ravenclaws. Harris wasn't sure if he should be more glad that it wasn't the Gryffindors again so soon, or anxious because Avery would surely not leave Emily Holland alone and a repeat of yesterday seemed almost inevitable.
Fortunately, Emily was one of the last to arrive before Binns started his lecture, and, as in McGonagall's class, Avery and Martin did try to behave during classtime. However, the ghostly professor was as dead boring as rumour made him out to be, and the other Slytherin boys, along with some of the rest of the class, soon found they could not focus on the professor's words without dropping into a stupor. Harris suspected the percentage of those paying attention was actually relatively high this period. He saw three Ravenclaws taking meticulous notes, including Emily, two more obviously listening closely, and even Evalyn seemed capable of taking sporadic notes.
Within fifteen minutes of the start of class, Candice, Martin, and two Ravenclaws had fallen asleep. Next to him, Madeline was telling the Ravenclaw girl on her other side a story in whispered french. Avery, like Harris, watched the rest of the class. The last Ravenclaw had pulled out a book and started reading. Without anything interesting to watch, Harris soon fell to doodling in his notebook. The next time he looked up, Avery, too, had succumbed to sleep. Evalyn had apparently developed full immunity, and was now scribbling away notes with the best of the Ravenclaws. Either that, or she was writing something totatally unrelated. One of the listening Ravenclaws had worn out his resistance, now dozing fitfully and looking around with a glazed expression during his moments of semi-lucidity.
When the two-hour class finally drew to a close, Emily, and the other Ravenclaw note-takers were gone before the sleepers managed to wake up. Harris was glad to see that the confrontation had gotten postponed, once Evalyn shook him awake. Madeline was shaking Candice awake, as he rubbed gummy sleep from his eyes and noted Emily's absence and Avery's still sleeping form. The four Slytherins left the classroom without bothering to awaken their housemates. On his way out, Harris 'accidently' bumped into one of the sleeping Ravenclaws, left for dead by their own. She startled awake from the jostling, cleverly deduced that class was over, and proceeded to wake the boy next to her. Harris left, feeling accomplished after his good deed for the day.
He wondered briefly if having a good deed of the day made him a poor excuse of a Slytherin. Then he consoled himself with the fact that his idea of a good deed was bumping into someone. Surely even Avery couldn't complain about that.
The difference between dinner and lunch was that Evalyn and Avery pretended that the other did not exist. It was only a guess, but Harris suspected that after lunch, they just couldn't stand the idea of looking at each other ever again. That much Avery in so short a time had to do bad things to one's sanity, so he really couldn't blame Evalyn.
Detention that night was remarkably unremarkable. Filch and his spooky cat kept things quiet, and each student took a rag, a bucket of water, a bottle of cleaning solution, and a corner of the trophy room. Three hours passed in absolute silence save for the splash of water or the slap of a wet rag hitting something in need of washing.
Harris liked to believe that if Filch had had the good sense to escort them back to their dormitory, the night would have passed uneventfully, and nothing would have changed. Instead, at the end of the detention period, the caretaker dismissed them, and trudged away, to return the cleaning supplies to whatever niche they had come from. This left the four Slytherin students, alone, in a seemingly deserted castle, after curfew.
At first, nothing happened. They left the trophy room and began the trek back to the dungeons without incident. The halls were dark, and despite their dislike of one another, the four drew closer together. Harris didn't really know what, exactly, they were worried about. They knew the school was well protected. The ghosts were mostly on a first name (or nick name) basis with the students, and even Peeves would just try to bring down Filch upon them with his 'STUDENTS OUT OF BED' alarm. But Filch already knew they were out and about, so that wasn't a problem, either.
The low, silky voice coming from down a seldom used side passage into the dungeons was the first indication that something was amiss. Being Slytherins, their first instinct was to eavesdrop, so, as one, they sidled against the wall, and crept nearer. They were nearly to the corner before they could make out words.
"I fail to see how this concerns me, Minerva," the silky voice commented sourly.
"They are students of your House, I don't see how it doesn't concern you." The second, curt voice voice could belong only to McGonagall.
"Perhaps when I am Head of Slytherin House, it may become my problem, but they will likely have graduated by then. You should be talking to Wallsby, not me."
There was a hiss that made Harris wonder if the Gryffindor Head of House might have turned back into a cat momentarily, but the voice that spoke next was both human and McGongall's. "I tried. He will hear none of it."
"Neither will I, Minerva. I will not and cannot go over Wallsby's head. It is the boy's own fault in any case. If you insist on forcing the issue, talk to the Headmaster. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to teach in the morning."
The meeting, such as it was, broke up, and light footsteps approached them. Evalyn ducked behind a suit of armor, Avery and Martin slipped into dark doorway. Harris looked around for a place to hide, panic rising. The footsteps were ever closer. He dashed back the way they had come, and took refuge in the next shadowed doorway he came to. After a minute or two, he saw McGonagall pass, alone, less than two feet from his hiding place. He hoped ferverently that he would not sneeze anytime in the very near future.
When she passed out of sight, he more fell out of hiding than stepped into the hall. Evalyn, Avery, and Martin were waiting for him. He joined them. "Who was the Slytherin teacher?"
"Snape, likely," Avery answered. "Father says he's the only other teacher besides Wallsby who was Slytherin. We've got him first thing tomorrow for potions. His voice should be pretty easy to identify."
Evalyn nodded her agreement. "That's for sure. What do you suppose they were talking about?"
"Some idiot Slytherins who got in trouble, probably," Martin guessed.
Harris couldn't contain a short laugh. "It's only the first day of classes, how many idiot Slytherins could have gotten in trouble already? I mean, besides us four."
"You don't suppose it was us they were talking about?" Evalyn asked him, doubtfully.
"It makes a certain kind of symmetry, doesn't it? I mean, we were the ones who overheard it."
"What I want to know is, what does McGonagall care?" Avery asked. "If we were picking on one of her precious Gryffindors, I could see it, but we were fighting ourselves." No evidence of said fighting was detectable now, as the four stood in close proximity, trying to determine what, exactly, it was that they had just overheard. The Slytherins were united again, if only for a short while.
"Snape said something about it being 'his own fault'," Evalyn remembered, "Who's 'he'?"
Harris thought that was obvious enough. "Avery. He was the one involved in every confrontation."
Avery shook his head. "No. Whoever 'he' is, McGonagall must feel bad for him, or she wouldn't being trying to get Snape, Wallsby, or Dumbledore involved. She wouldn't give a rat's rear end about me."
Evalyn looked toward Harris suddenly enough for Avery and Martin to notice.
Avery's expression clouded in confusion. "I don't think she cares much for Harris, either, Evalyn. When she broke up the fight this afternoon, she glared him worse than she did Martin. I'm sure she almost made him come with us, since he was the one who almost hit somebody."
"That was before she started hearing rumours from her Gryffindors," Evalyn disagreed. Harris shot her a look of panic and betrayal. Surely, she wasn't thinking of telling Avery about the plan to Gryffindorize him. Ignoring him, Evalyn continued, "It has to be Harris."
"Why?" More clinical than curious, and not at all accusatory. They could have been discussing strangers, for all the emotion either were showing.
"His cousin, Charlie Weasley, and his friend, Aurora Merriweather, reunited with him while we were getting our detention. Candice and Madeline say the whole group of Gryffindors all but adopted him."
Harris stared at her, face white with shock, fear, and betrayal. Avery looked at him, calculatingly. "That would explain it," he told Evalyn, as though Harris were not present, or, perhaps worse, a nonentity.
Evalyn regarded him without pity. "Honestly, Harris, did you really expect to be Gryffindorized, and still be accepted among us? We have our reputations to maintain, you know."
Harris liked to believe that if Filch had had the good sense to escort them back to their dormitory, the night would have passed uneventfully, and nothing would have changed. Then he could blame Filch instead of Evalyn.
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