Everyone Has A Dark Heart
A/N: WOW, this chapter is huge! I would have split it up, but the effect is much better this way. This is so fun by the way. If you haven't tried writing, you really should. Also, Hermione's birthday is September 19th, according to JK Rowling on her website. Therefore, she is going to be 17 soon in my story. I know this is skewed, because she's only supposed to be of age in 7th year, but I've already got her as 16 now. If you think I should actually change it to she turns 16 now, just tell me.
I may have Fleur as DADA teacher, I liked the idea. I'll answer all your review questions at the bottom, I'm sorry if I haven't done it sooner. Enjoy this chapter, I did.
(Anna, I want you to review this too. You can make unsigned reveiws. Just click SUBMIT REVIEW.)
Chapter 9: Slytherins vs. DA
At dinner, Hermione saw Ginny whispering to Ron and Harry. They looked toward her and then talked some more. Hermione scowled as she ate fruit salad.
"What's up?" Pansy asked.
Hermione told her about her conversation with Ginny. "So she comes over looking friendly, but she really just wants to hear a first hand account of what happened and to find out if what her dad's friend said was true. I didn't lie to her, because she used to be a really good friend. I can't just turn on my friends like Prince Potter and Weasel. When I told her what happened, she looked all horrified and said that she had hoped there had been some mistake. She said that she could not 'associate' with me anymore. Not that I care, of course!"
Pansy replied, "She is so mean! Since when is it your fault who your parents are? I mean, it's nice you are here in Slytherin and stuff, but you said you knew her five years? I would never, ever just turn on a friend like that!"
Hermione nodded, "I know, I just can't believe how all the Gryffindors are acting. Harry ran into Draco in Knockturn Alley four years ago, but no one treated him like dirt," she said in disgust.
Pansy said wisely, "Well, its not just the fact that you were in Knockturn Alley that's bothering people, it's a combination of things. First, the Laviniers were well known for being on the Dark Side, so your friends would have been suspicious. Then you turn up with Draco, whose family is often associated with the Dark Side as well. To add to that, you are now in Slytherin and spend all day with us."
"Your friends have obviously decided they know where your loyalties lied. They are horrible though. Perhaps you should just try to forget them. Try to get to know more Slytherins. There's a Hogsmeade weekend in a couple weeks. Blaise, Sarah, and I are planning to go look at dresses for the sixth and seventh year formal on Halloween. Do you want to come with us?" Pansy asked kindly.
"What?" yelped Hermione. "I mean, I'd like to come, but what formal are you talking about? I know we had that Yule Ball thing in fourth year," she blushed remembering that she had gone with Victor Krum, an internationally known Quidditch Player, "But I thought that was just a one time thing."
"Oh, it was on the common room notice board. Don't worry, you've got a month to get ready." Pansy laughed. "And don't' worry about a date, there's always Vincent and Gregory (AN: Crabbe and Goyle's first names as in PS and OotP). Just kidding, just kidding," she said quickly seeing Hermione's expression. "There are so many cute guys in Slytherin. It'll be okay."
Classes the next few days were quiet. However, on Friday, Pavarti and Lavender plopped down by Blaise and Hermione in Care of Magical Creatures Class. Hermione looked up warily. "Hello?"
"Uh, hi there, Hermione." Lavender said hesitantly. "We kinda wanted to ask you why Harry, Ron, and Ginny are so mad at you. They are going around to every one and telling them that you are mean, and spreading a rumor that-" she paused, looked around, and then hissed, "-That you're on the Dark Side." She said 'Dark Side' like it was a really bad word.
Blaise giggled and attempted to disguise it as a cough. Most of the school knew that the parents of almost all of the sixth year Slytherins were on the Dark side, so Blaise found Lavender's revulsion amusing. "Actually, that's not a bad rumor. When I was in second year, someone spread a false rumor that I was going out with a Gryffindor."
"We weren't really talking to you," said Pavarti rudely to Blaise.
"Hey, watch it Pavarti, this is my friend Blaise Zabini that you're talking to," interjected Hermione hurriedly. "You know we're supposed to be feeding the Krups right now."
" You're already friends with the Slytherins?!" Pavarti said, shocked.
Lavender glared at Pavarti and persisted, "Aren't you going to tell us why Harry, Ron, and Ginny have freaked out?"
'Fine, if it will shut you up' thought Hermione. "Well, as you know, this summer I found out my parents are Jennifer and Charles Lavinier. They were Death Eaters. Also, when I was shopping, one of Ron's father's friends saw me in Knockturn Alley with certain Slytherins. Ron and Harry seem to feel that those two facts, along with me being sorted into Slytherin, make me despicable. Happy now?" she snapped.
At that moment, Pansy, Sarah, Draco, and Theodore Nott came over, too.
"What are you to doing here?" Demanded Draco of the Gryffindor girls.
"Annoying me," said Hermione. "Will you two leave?" she said two Pavarti and Lavender.
Pavarti said audibly to Lavender, "They were right! She is a Slytherin."
Angrily, Blaise said, "Get lost, will you!"
Draco hissed, "and you and the rest of that Gryffindor lot stop bothering Hermione."
The two Gryffindor girls looked at the six Slytherins incredulously and walked off.
"What is with them?" asked Hermione.
"Frankly, I think they're jealous," said Blaise, "You see, they throw you out and hope you'll be miserable with only us for company, and then they fined you've got all these great new friends. They're probably mad that their tactic didn't work. They're also lightly going to be angry next year when both the Head Girl and the Head Boy are from Slytherin."
When Hermione thought about this, she realized Blaise was right. She kind of knew she would be Head Girl, what with her grades, but she hadn't given much thought to who would be Head Boy. Prince Potter might hope it would be him, being Dumbledore's favorite boy, but now that Hermione considered it, Draco was right behind her in grades. His parents also had plenty of influence at Hogwarts. There was no doubt he would be Head Boy next year. "Goodness, I hadn't realized that. They are probably going to be despicable next year."
As Hermione walked up a flight of stairs to Transfiguration, she suddenly felt her pocket get really hot. She extracted a galleon from it. She realized this was one of the fake galleons she had made for the DA meetings last year. The Gryffindors must have decided to continue meetings, even though Umbrige was gone.
To tell the truth, this made plenty of sense; with Voldemort in the open, the better you could defend yourself, the better chance you had of staying alive.
Peering closely at the coin, she read the numbers 7301209. The meeting would be held at 7:30 on the twelfth of September, which was next Wednesday. Remembering how she enjoyed seeing her otter Patronus, Heroine decided she would attend the meeting, whether or not the Gryffindors wanted her there. She had just as much right to learn how to defend her self well as Ron or Ginny did.
The next couple of days passed in a blur of work, studying, and (already!) tests. Soon, it was Wednesday evening, and Hermione picked up her wand and went down into the common room and over to the door.
"Where are you going?" inquired Pansy curiously.
"Don't tell anyone else, but, well, you know that defense club some of the students did last year? You guys and Umbrige kinda stopped it." Hermione said quietly. "Well, they are still having meetings and I decided to go because the stuff we learnt was so helpful with exams." She looked at Pansy to see her reaction.
"Can I come along?" she asked, surprising Hermione. "I'm good in Defense Against the Dark Arts, but practice is always good."
"I suppose you can, but I'm not sure how the Gryffindors will react to the two of us. They might try to kick us out." Said Hermione.
They left the common room and went up the now familiar path to the Entrance Hall, then wound up to the seventh floor where the Room of Requirement was located.
Hermione sighed, "Here we go." She opened the door quietly. Most of the members, and some new people, were gathered chatting in the center of the room. Some seemed to be signing up on some sort of list. However, every single person in the room had one thing in cowman: they were from a house other than Slytherin.
A few people looked to see who was entering and fell silent. Gradually, the room quieted as everyone realized that something was wrong. They parted so the Gryffindors, who were furthest from the door, could see the new arrivals. The two girls slipped though the doors and took seats among some startled Hufflepuffs. Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbot stared nervously at them.
Suddenly angry Gryffindors surrounded them.
"What do you think you are doing!"
"No Slytherins are allowed!"
"Who told you about the meeting?"
"GET OUT!"
Hermione shot pansy and apologetic look and they both stood up but stayed silent. Harry, Ron, Ginny, Dean, the Creevy brothers, even Cho Chang confronted them. "What are you doing here?" asked Harry simply.
"Hermione did not want the DA to stop using the coins, so she lied, "I heard Anthony Goldstien telling Terry Boot about the meeting on Saturday." The two mentioned Ravenclaws looked sheepish.
"Well, you are going to have to leave. Seeing as the purpose of this group is to protect ourselves from Voldemort, we can't really let two Death Eaters come and spy on us, can we?" Said Harry menacingly. Some of the DA members gasped at his accusation.
"Pansy and I aren't Death Eaters, and neither are our friends.
"Not even dear Malfoy?" said Ron patronizingly. "'Thanks for saving me, Draco'," he mimicked Hermione's whisper to Draco from Care of Magical Creatures class.
"Draco isn't a Death Eater!" the two Slytherin girls chorused. Hermione was blushing slightly.
"Oh, since when is that git Malfoy 'Draco' to you, Lavinier?" Said Harry harshly.
Hermione blushed deeper. "Since he quit being a git and stopped you two attacking me. Attacking your best friend. I'm the girl you came to for advice when you dated Cho, Harry. I'm the girl who advised you when you tried to ask Fleur to the Yule Ball, Ron. But now I'm the girl whose parents were Death Eaters! Fine. You can insult me as much as you like, but I'm not leaving. You have only got an hour or two for the DA meeting, and I suggest you use it."
People started giving suggestions again:
"Let's get the meeting started!"
"They can't stay, they are Death Eaters!"
"Just ignore them!"
"Make them get out!"
"Lets practice hexes on them!"
Harry had made his own decision, however. "You can't stay. You're a Lavinier and you are both Slytherins." Her said to Hermione. "Get out now, or we'll force you to."
"Harry, in case you have forgotten, I started the DA, I held the first meeting in Hogsmeade, I even made it possible to identify that sneak Marietta Edgecome. This might as well me my organization." Retorted Hermione.
"Wasn't it you who wrote all our names down on that list and left it here for that member of Umbrige's little gang to find?" Harry shot back, pointing straight at Pansy with his wand. "What are you doing hanging out with the people who almost got us all expelled?"
Pansy had her own reply ready, "For your information, Hermione's sticking with us because she's figured out that we are better friends than any Gryffindor could ever hope to be! I would never turn on my friends just because I saw them talking with a Gryffindor" she said venomously.
"Why did you and the rest of the Slytherins try to get us expelled?' Demanded Ron furiously while Harry swelled with surpressed anger due to Pansy's comment.
"Because Slytherins have learned that if you want to stay honorable and out of trouble, you should go with whoever is beeps thought of at the moment. If you guys had acted like you totally backed Umbrige, you could still have done what you wanted because she wouldn't have felt it necessary to make all kinds of rules to control you. Then once she had been gotten rid off at the end of the year, you could go back to openly hating her. It's called adaptation. If you can adapt to the situation, you can get what you want and stay out of trouble." Pansy explained. "We never like Umbrige a whole lot, but since we acted like we backed her, Umbrige left us to do what we wanted and used up her energy punishing you."
Although Harry could see the wisdom in Pansy's words, he was unable to acknowledge that a Slytherin could be right. He had hated the Slytherins for just too long. "That's stupid. If you do that, no one can ever trust you because they won't know whether or not you are showing your true feelings." He said aloud.
"Great, but can you get on with the meeting?" said Hermione in exasperation. To Pansy though she whispered, "Good thinking, that was a great speech!"
"Hang on, we didn't say you could stay! How do we know you aren't just adapting by sounding so sincere? You just want to spy on us!" said Ron immediately.
Hermione tried to stay calm. "Ron, there are a lot of Death Eaters out here, and Pansy and I want to stay alive, like the rest of you. We just want to be able to defend ourselves."
Ron and Harry talked quietly so the two girls couldn't hear. Meanwhile, Pansy said, "If they do decide to fight us, just be careful, because-" She dropped her voice. "-Harry can do the Cruciatus Curse."
"What? That's illegal!"
"I know it is, but apparently he did it on a Death Eater during you excursion last summer. The told someone, who told their kids, who told Draco, who told me," whispered Pansy.
"Wow! Why didn't he get sent to Azkaban?" Asked Hermione quietly.
"Dumbledore probably got poor Prince Potter out of trouble. If things get messy though, I know a couple handy spells that they won't know. Flamacto," Pansy showed the appropriate wand movement, "shoots a jet of flame at the person, so they catch on fire. That normally distracts them for a while. Pulstior, you flick your wand like this, and it's like a giant arm, so you can knock stuff out of the way. Do you know the body bind hex, Locomotor mortis? Good, so it's just those and them shields, disarming, stunning, impediment charms, the basic stuff." Hermione was amazed Pansy knew all this, but then she was sure to have fought with people in her House before.
Harry and Ron came back over, they had evidently decided on a course of action. "You two have to leave. You will have until the count of twenty to get out of the room, or we will start using our wands." Said harry. Some of the DA members smiled and pulled out their wands.
Ron muttered, "Get lost!" angrily, glaring at the two girls.
"Do we leave of fight?" whispered Pansy.
"How about we get a couple of them, then go out quick." Hermione grinned evilly. "We can't let them think they kicked us out without a fight!" Pansy signaled thumbs up.
Harry had started counting, "…18, 17, 16…" The two girls edged back until they were ear the door, then Hermione hissed, "Now!"
"Stupefy!"
"Rictusempra!"
"Incarcerous!"
"Furnunculus!"
"Impedimenta!"
"Petrificus Totalus!"
"Flamacto!"
The girls aimed carefully and were rewarded by six screams from the group, before anyone had time to react.
"Stupefy!"
"Expeliarmus!"
The DA members aimed at the girls, shooting jets of light at them.
"Protego!" yelled both Slytherins, deflecting the oncoming hexes, which rebounded on the casters. They shot more spells at the DA group.
Suddenly, there were way too many curses shooting at them, and the two girls slipped out of the Room of Requirement. They dashed down the hall as spells bounced of their shields. Hermione and Pansy took refuge in a nearby bathroom.
Hermione was panting hard. "Gosh! That was something."
"Didn't you just love that? What an awesome revenge!" Shrieked Pansy.
"You're right, that was fun. We hit at least 8 of them, I think."
Pansy laughed, "The buffoons probably took down a few of their own with their bad aim. Plus, the spells we deflected went back into the crowd."
They had to stay hidden in the bathroom for a while, since DA members kept patrolling the hall, trying to find them. Soon they heard Harry and Ron directing pairs of people to search throughout the castle to find them. "Wow, they must be furious! I'd better stay out of their way tomorrow," Hermione whispered.
"Uh, we have Potions and Care of Magical Creatures tomorrow," Pansy reminded her.
"Damn! I hope the Gryffindors won't bother us too much. Do you think any of the Slytherins will be mad at us for annoying the DA?" asked Hermione worriedly.
Pansy smirked, "I wouldn't worry about that. They will be congratulating us all week. It will just give us excuses to fight the Gryffindor. 'But Professor Vector, Potter hexed me first.'" She mimicked.
They snuck off down to the dormitories as soon as they could, still silently laughing. The Slytherins already knew what had happened, due to agitated DA members asking them where 'Parkinson and Lavinier were.' "Great job guys," said a seventh year heartily, "I heard Weasley got a face full of boils and Longbottom had to go to the hospital wing!"
"Not so perfectly behaved after all, are we?" Draco asked Hermione. "Great job, I heard half of that organization are still unconscious."
"Thanks Draco. We actually just wanted to see what they were up to; but when they decide to make us leave, we made up our minds not to go without a fight. Pansy is really good, by the way!"
"So how did you find out about their meeting?" Blaise inquired. She had just come over. Hermione took out her fake galleon and explained how it worked. "Pretty nifty." Blaise admitted, "Hold onto that, if they keep using those, we might all be able to turn up for the meeting."
A/N: Coming up, Pansy reveals something of interest to Hermione and the girls go shopping. Please Review, I appreciate all your feedback!
-Alianne-
REVIEW RESPONSES:
Rock and Sarcasm: I'd love you to post my story, please do so! You rock! What's the URL of your site?
Dodgerismine: Hmm, Fleur, that's an idea, lets hope she has 'emproved 'er english
Silly bandit: the deal with her family is that now that the second war has started, people are paranoid about death eaters, so anyone with a name that is thought of as infamous will be mistrusted, no matter who they are. The robes must be some spell set on the hat maybe. A hilarious teacher will work well. Lets go play with the Cornish pixies!
Avery88: smile away! Does your name come from the death eater Avery? Also, I know harry and ron were not nice, but they are really put out at Mia. I need them to act like that for the plot to work out too.
Portia-brit: the Slytherins seem so nice because they are from the same house as Hermione. The Slytherins are nice to Blaise and pansy because they are Slytherins, and since Hermione is a Slytherin, its the same thing. I understand what a big difference it is though, we are so used to the Slytherins being gits. Some spell to change the uniforms might work well. As for DADA teachers, the OoP people are busy fighting, but Fleur would work. Hmm.
Midnight lily: true, but just like people will think a person called jewel Malfoy is rude like Draco, people judge Hermione by her name, not her personality, unfortunately.
HD: I didn't think of that before, but they are god siblings. I hope that won't affect them liking each other : ( well, I'll work it out
Mark Anthony: YES! A like-minded thinker. I intend to do just that. One of my friends suggested she go on a killing spree, that might be a bit much, but she defiantly will join the dark side. (bad me, I'm a spoiler, sorry)
Black rose 23: I'm not sure I get what you mean by what's coming to them. Coming to whom? If you mean the Gryffindors get punished for being so mean, I can assure you they will (like what happened today in the DA meeting.) Other entry: You and I really think alike, I'm really wanting the Slytherins to be good guys and the griffys bad guys, so I'm glad you like the way its going.
Tara yo: Well thanx for keeping me on, that's all that matters. Also, yip, the griffins are going to pay later. He, he, he.
La la: yes, I'm really showing my morbid side. Hermione's going to get evil, and yes, DE is the way. Avada Kedavra.
Darkprincesspyro99: I have the magnet thing going on with D and H. : )
Scholcomp25; thankyou, I see you've stuck with my story for a long time!
Cris: Great! Keep reading.
SaturnNeko: while I do advocate reading the books, that's okay, at least you know what's what.
PotterHolicNumeroUno YES! You are another of those people who think evilly like me! I'm thrilled you like it, keep reading!
CharmedAngel: okay then
Samantha: I'm so sorry! I hope you come back, I want you to be able to find out the end
Natyslacks: come back please!
AslyFan: please return!
Every one out there, thank you for your comments, I really appreciate them. Keep it up.
Luv ya all
Alianne