This chapter: Will not seem as thrilling as the previous two chapters, but pay attention to the byplay between Snape, Draco and Blaise. Hints galore in this chapter, see if you can start to guess what happened in the past and let me know with a review! I'd also like comments on Hermione's soliloquy regarding Tom Riddle.
BluDiamond: Thanks. The Basilisk disappears for the bulk of the story, but returns as an important character towards the end. Glad you enjoy the concept. I hope I can keep it just as exciting.
Rain: Thanks for the conjecture. And again, thank you for your loyalty. As a reward, here are a few giveaways: I don't imagine the Slytherins and Gryffindors ever getting along, it doesn't seem realistic to me. They tolerate each other while in close quarters, but eventually their patients with each other will wear thin, as you will see in this chapter. Hermione and Blaise are going to have some more problems leading up till chapter 14 (which has been written) As for Blaise and Draco, well... that's one thing I am not giving away. I think the rest of your review was cut off, so make sure to write me another long one and see if you can't guess what happened in the past. I enjoy reading them!
Gyrlfrend, Nathonea, Wyrd, dt, Harrys lover, and tRue2u: Thanks for the review. This is a Draco/Hermione story in a special sort of way. You'll see.
Chapter nine: The Talk
"And so you all understand me, if any other reports of ... impropriety come my way, I shall be most displeased." McGonogol finished.
It was early morning, all the Gryffindors and upper-year Slytherins had been gathered prior to breakfast for the "lecture on morality" Snape had promised the night before. As Blaise had suggested, Snape had stayed to listen to the talk, which turned out to be a highly embarrassing turn of events.
Every face in the room was red, but none more so than that of Hermione Granger. McGonogol seemed to think this incident warranted a horrific birds-and-bees style talk, laced with sarcasm through and through. She went over everything from a brief overview of the human reproductive system, to lecture on proper dormitory behavior, followed by a reminder of the potions available through Madame Pomfrey and rounded the whole travesty off with a stern admonition about the dignity and honor that Gryffindors and Slytherins should maintain.
Throughout the whole lecture Snape interjected pearls of sarcasm, making girls blush and boys wince, only Blaise could look right into Snape's eyes through the whole thing.
"Are there any questions?" McGonogol asked, surveying them all beadily.
Blaise raised his hand.
"Mr. Zabini?" She prompted.
"So... let me get this straight...." Blaise began, his face very serious even though he was leaning against the wall in the Slytherin section casually. "If I am to take your meaning correctly, we are not to engage in sexual activity while in school..." McGonogol nodded. "And not even until we are married...." He smirked.
"Abstinence is the best policy, Mr. Zabini." McGonogol said sternly, her eyes going beady.
Hermione was horrified. Surely Blaise wouldn't dare to...
"So." Blaise continued. "Having never been married, you and Professor Snape are both virgins then." His voice was light, in an attempt to ask the question in a tone of polite curiosity, but the menace was there all the same.
McGonogol blushed and Snape's skin turned white, both of them displaying the signs of fury the members of their houses knew so well.
"Well!" McGonogol spluttered. "Really!"
"I mean!" Blaise continued, pushing himself from the wall with the momentum of throwing out his chest. He stood straight, looking at the teachers evenly and said. "Far be it from anyone to give advice they themselves don't follow."
All around the room, upper year's eyes were tearing-up with suppressed mirth, or widening, unable to believe anyone could have that much brass.
"Mr. Zabini, this line of questioning is highly inappro..." But Snape cut her off.
"Blaise." Snape's voice held no sarcasm, hatred, disdain, or.. emotion at all. He closed his eyes briefly and opened them, looking at Blaise with an open expression he showed very few people.
The students who had been repressing their amusement, sobered at the serious look in Snape's eye.
"People grow to make their own decisions about things.... To make their own mistakes, as you well know." Blaise's eyes narrowed in fury. "That will always be the case. But it does not stop parents from warning their children against the path they themselves had chosen, and praying that they be the wiser. Ours is a generation lost to war and foolishness... too long have we clouded our minds with the bounty and temptations of this world, never giving thought to our own mortality. Now, as our age advances, and we face the prospect of death.... Are we aware... alive... awake... Only now do we turn our attention to penitence, and try to find a way to absolution."
Hermione's eyes watered, understanding Snape's words as she was sure no one else in the room did. Only she knew about his role as a death-eater-turned-spy, and his affair with the astronomy teacher.
She turned to look at Harry, standing close to Blaise and Malfoy, and saw the understanding in his eyes as well. She was shocked to see Malfoy's eyes reflecting empathy and comprehension.
Blaise only looked angrier. Snape waylaid him with a hand before he could speak.
"That excuse... the war we've been living in... doesn't stop this generation from being angry with us, of course. Likewise, we cannot stop all of you from making your own set of mistakes, and later generations will judge you for them, as you in turn judge us." Snape looked more tired than anyone had ever seen him.
"So all that is left I suppose... are talks like these.... Where we try to warn you, try to stop you, and you ignore it, as will your children." He sighed.
"You're wrong." It was Malfoy who was speaking now. His voice low, his expression pained, his eyes locked on the floor. "We didn't ignore it... we took it to heart and lived by your word... and then realized not to trust what you said, when we saw you didn't believe in your words enough to follow them."
"Then you just expected us to keep going... like nothing happened... like our beliefs had never been betrayed... like we had never been betrayed." Blaise spat, continuing Draco's thought as if he'd spoken it. "What the hell were we supposed to do with ourselves?" There was silence for a time.
"Find your own way I suppose.... That's exactly what we did." Snape said. "Perhaps we are not so different." He said as an afterthought.
Snape looked at the two boys for a few more moments, then strode from the room.
Professor McGonogol was speechless, unable to believe Snape would tolerate such audacity and disrespect from his students.
"Well..." She began, loosing the thread of the discussion. "If you have any other concerns, please come and see myself or Professor Snape. I do hope none of you will give cause for another talk such as this." She looked pointedly at Ms. Granger, who blushed and inched herself behind Zabini. McGonogol frowned, knowing she would have to speak to Hermione, if her romance with the Zabini-boy was real—she would have to be warned.
"Can you believe that rubbish?" Ron asked Harry, after the teachers were gone, and the common room settled down into the normal routine. Harry shook his head, deep in thought.
Many people were discussing the esoteric conversation between Snape, Zabini and Malfoy, and attempting to find out what they were talking about.
Malfoy and Blaise were sitting at opposite ends of the Slyherin section, glaring at each other like they'd just exchanged an insult instead of sharing an opinion. Millicent, Crabbe and Goyle were all trying to force conversation, in an attempt to lighten the mood.
"Did you see McGonogol's face when Blaise asked if she were a virgin? Can't imagine a man who'd suffer bedding that old bat." Goyle attempted, and received an unenthusiastic snigger from Crabbe, and a false snort from Bulstrode.
All of them were careful to skirt the subject of Snape's sex life, as well as the discussion between Snape and Blaise.
"And that lecture on reproduction... honestly, you'd think we never opened a book." Millicent sneered.
"Quiditch soon... Ravenclaw vs. Gryffindor... what do you reckon?" Crabbe asked Malfoy, with forced enthusiasm.
Draco remained silent, still seething over angst he'd hoped was long forgotten. Blaise was actually taking deep calming breaths, his eyes screwed shut in anger. The other slytherins shuddered delicately.
"Hey... Blaise... fancy a fly?" Goyle attempted... rather bravely.
"I don't like to fly. I feel like it's a loss of control." Blaise ground out through clenched teeth. "Bastards... all of them." He added, his eyes snapping open. "I hope the dark lord kills him.... Tortures him into insanity before subjecting him to a slow and painful murder." Blaise spat.
"You... you don't mean that." Hermione said, coming from behind Blaise and overhearing his death wish.
She was intensely curious about what he'd said to Snape.
The Slytherins' eyes widened in horror, and they tried to tell Granger, with silent gestures, to leave the subject of Snape alone.
"Oh yes I do." Blaise whispered. "I want him dead. I want them all dead." He stood up and turned around to face the girl. He was taken aback by the tears in her eyes.
"They're still people, Blaise."
Behind Blaise, the Slytherins stood up and were now making frantic gestures for Hermione to stop talking.
"You don't know what they are!" he snapped at her. "They aren't people.... They aren't human... they lost their humanity when they took Voldemort for a god."
Everyone in the room stopped, some gasped or jumped at the sound of the name.
"Shut it, Zabini." Draco said, getting to his feet lazily. Blaise snorted.
"Your dad in particular Malfoy....I want him dead... I want them all dead." He turned his head slightly to eye Malfoy... to dare the blond to contradict him.
Malfoy's face contorted with rage.
"Tom Riddle is no god." Hermione said quietly. All eyes turned to her. "He was just a boy... an orphaned boy... raised in a muggle orphanage by strict nuns who he hated... small, and dark, and full of magical power he hadn't learned to control... he was ostracized by the other children, and labled as violent and withdrawn by the adults.
"The nuns whipped him when he accidentally performed magic... telling him it was the work of the devil... that it was evil... to Tom Riddle, magic was the reason his muggle father abandoned his mother... magic was the reason he was an orphan... magic was the reason he was the odd-man-out in the orphanage.. magic was evil.. and he was magical..
"so he was evil."
"already believing himself forsaken by god... and facing eternal damnation upon pain of death.... He sought to overcome his own mortality.. to ascend to a status of god-hood himself...... to cheat death, and establish a kingdom for himself on earth, where he was in charge and where his justice reigned... where no one magical would ever be made to suffer at the hands of his muggle inferior ever again...."
"But even after all that.... He was still a boy once.. a man, once. His driving force remains rooted in his past trauma... as the twig is bent, so grows the tree. Tom Riddle is a product of his environment... and... hate him, curse him, or worship him.. it doesn't make him anything other than that."
Blaise snorted is disbelief, but looked visibly calmer. He nodded at Hermione in approval.
Tears were leaking out of Ginny's eyes: Finally someone understood her... Understood what Tom really was.
Harry, however, was angry.
"Yeah... poor Riddle... killed my parents and hundreds more, but all he needs is a little understanding and a big hug." Harry spat. "Zabini is right. They all need to drop dead... every last one of them."
The tension in the room was palpable. The Slyherins would take it from Zabini, he was one of there's, but not from Potter.
"Watch it, Potter... you don't want to go making any enemies." Bulstrode's voice was menacing.
"They are my enemies already... who else wants on the list?" Potter spat back.
"And what are you going to do Harry.. kill them all?" Hermione asked lightly.
"Hermione! I just can't believe you!" Ron snapped, popping up on Harry's other side. "You... you... you saw first hand, we were all there... Lucious Malfoy threaten to kill us all with blood lust in his eyes... he wanted to do it Hermione, he relished the thought.
"Belatrix Lestrange asking permission to torture Ginny and Neville.. just for the fun of seeing how long before Neville cracked like his parents. She killed Sirius.. and any of them would've killed us without a second thought...
"Jesus, Hermione! Dolohov nearly killed you! He cut you open like a fish, and smiled as he did it... and what... you just want to let them live?" He finished in a roar.
Blaise was looking at Hermione, an odd twinkle in his eyes as he surveyed her. In truth, everyone else was looking at her too.
Hermione looked pained at the memory, tears gathering in her eyes, but not falling.
"Malfoy." She said quietly, at long last. "Who taught you to fly?" She asked, her voice barely a whisper.
He looked taken aback.
"My dad..." he replied defensively. It was the first time Harry had ever heard him use the word "dad" instead of "father."
"And who took care of you when you were ill?" She continued.
"What are you getting at Granger?" Pansy asked, defensive over Draco.
"Did he love you? Did he let you know he did? Did he tell you, or just show you?"
Draco's face was completely open- slightly shocked, slightly pained, and full of other emotions as memories crossed his face like sunlight through a tree in the wind.
"Everyday....... He told me. He showed me. He raised me." His voice was oddly choked.
"He tried to kill me." Hermione said, approaching Draco to stand in front of him. "But even so... I'm sorry I was one of the ones.... To take him away from you."
Draco's face contorted with pain, and he turned towards the wall, hiding his face in his chin length hair.
"I'm not." Harry said, breaking the moment of empathy. "I'm not for one second sorry- that he's in Azkaban."
"Harry..." Hermione began, but he cut across her.
"I'm an orphan." He began, his voice devoid of all emotion, his face blank. "Raised by muggles who despise me... who think I'm unnatural, even evil... Forced to live the majority of my life in a cage that wouldn't suit an animal... suffering under death threats and starvation, all the while being bullied by Dudley and his friends... That is how the twig was bent, Hermione... and you don't see me turning to the dark arts for revenge... you don't see me conversing with the worst type of people... or trying to take over the world.
"Riddle and me... we've had the same start... Hell, I begged to be put in an orphanage after what I'd been through!" He yelled. "And I'm not a killer!" He stopped, his eyes widening as he choked on his own words. "Not yet... anyway." He looked down, unable to face anyone.
"But I will kill. I will kill Voldemort... I will kill Tom Riddle... the boy, the man, the murderer."
"Why?" Blaise asked, looking closely at Harry. "Why bother? Just let him be, one of his followers will betray him eventually... kill him... and they'll squabble for power and kill each other... that's what happens to people who seek power.
Like calls to like."
The slytherins were petrified by the phrase.
"Like calls..." Harry's face opened up.
"To like." Blaise finished, looking at him evenly. "He who lives in violence, must return to violence." He added, embittered.
"My dad didn't live in violence.... But he died fighting Voldemort... straight backed, and proud, and defending me and my mother. That's why I'm going to kill him Zabini, because it's the right thing to do."
Blaise snorted.
"I wondered when you'd get around to the eventual ethical argument. Right and wrong." He snorted again. "There is no such thing."
"Funny, that's exactly what Voldemort told me... he said there was no right and wrong, only power and those strong enough to wield it. Is that what you believe Zabini?" Potter's voice was dangerous.
"Power is an illusion Potter. Didn't I tell you what happens to people who seek power? The dark lord understands only the most basic principle of power: that it is indifferent, but often corrupting. He doesn't understand that this entire world is indifferent, and often corrupting... because it's fleeting, shallow, and over in an instant for each of us... you could spend your time attaining power like the dark lord... or knowledge, like Granger... or even..." He laughed. "Absolution... salvation. In the end, you're dead, just the same as everyone else is... and it matters very little what you were, when your body returns to the earth."
"Right little ray of sunshine, aren't you?" Ron jeered.
"So what's the point, if everything's fleeting? Do we just let the world become corrupted? Just let maniacs like Voldemort take over and make our lives miserable? Who is going to fight the good fight?" Harry asked.
"If god wants evil vanquished... if god wants Voldemort dead... he can come down here and do it himself." Blaise hissed, to more gasps of outrage and terror.
"That's going too far Zabini!" Seamus exploded, his Catholic mother's lessons ringing in his ears. "It isn't for you to say those things about God. You should fear and love God. " There were murmurs of agreement all over the room.
"And yet, you don't fear him at all. He created you and gave you an order to preserve your chastity among other things... did you do that Finnigan?" Blaise retorted, his eyes traveling over to Lavender, who blushed.
"You're one to talk.. getting caught with Granger upstairs doing God knows what..." Blaise's wand was on him, making him fall silent.
The room was silent and tense. Hermione cut through the silence with rich ringing laughter. She laughed so hard she had to steady herself on a nearby chair.
"Is THAT what you lot think? I'm still able to touch unicorns Seamus, you needn't worry about that. But thank you for the lovely display of friendship and loyalty." Hermione added rather nastily.
"Loyalty is right, Granger." Seamus spat. "Whose side are you on."
Unconsciously, the room had divided. Slytherins on one half and Gryffindors on the other, and Hermione was standing with the Slytherins.
"I think the lot of this is ridiculous." Hermione replied. "I agree with Snape." She continued, ignoring Blaise and Draco's looks of mutiny. "I think our generation is making the same mistake as the past one... Growing up in a completely one-sided environment, and believing in the propaganda we've been fed, only to reach adulthood and realize that it's all rubbish, but be already too deeply entrenched in battle to do anything but fight for our lives."
"That's what they did, that's what they are doing. At this point, no one is following V-Voldemort...." Winces and hisses. "Because they actually want to.. with!" She snapped, cutting off Harry before he could utter the protest he'd opened his mouth to say. "With... the notable exception of a few... enthusiasts, shall we say.
"Nothing proved that better than the quiditch world cup.. summer of third year... You were there Seamus, you saw what those X-death eaters were doing, and you saw how they reacted when the dark mark was cast into the sky... they ran. They didn't want him to be back, it was their greatest fear that he was back, because they didn't want to serve him anymore.
"If they did, than he would've been back ages ago.. perhaps hours after Harry first defeated him... but when they thought he'd gone, they all broke up and left him mostly-dead.... Four... count them: Barty Crouche Jr., Bellatrix, Rudolphus and Rabastian Lestrange ... that was it, they were the only four who tried to find Riddle... who tried to help him, who went to Azkaban for him. Five if you count Peter Pettigrew, and that's it.
"How many death eaters are there, compared those five who tried to help him. But they're stuck following him... bound to him by the darkmark that he put on those foolish enough to make one lousy, stupid mistake... to prevent them from backing out once they'd realized what they'd done." Hermione finished, and took a deep breath.
"And now..." Ginny continued for Hermione, thinking it was about time someone stood up for her. "Now it's happening again. Riddle is back, using the same tactics of intimidation, promise of power, or revenge to rope people into taking the mark... and after they do, they're stuck, though the may regret it for the rest of their lives, and hate it with all their heart..... they'll live by it, and force their kids to do the same...." She walked to stand next to Hermione.
Hermione took her hand and squeezed it in gratitude.
"Even if they hate it... it's still a war." Ron protested. "It's still kill or be killed. We can't waste time feeling sorry for the other side."
"What other-side, Ron? Aren't we just kids at school?" Ginny retorted.
"Ask Riddle if he cares whether you're a kid or not next time he possesses you." Ron spat.
"Ron!" Hermione screamed, as Ginny burst into tears. But Ron stormed from the common room without another word. The door slammed shut and silence reigned for a time.
"What are we supposed to do Hermione?" Harry asked quietly.
"Aren't I always the one following you everywhere, Harry?" Hermione said, her eyes full of emotion as she looked at him, desperate for him to understand.
"And look what happened the last time I didn't listen to you... You.. Ginny.. Neville... Luna... Ron... Sirius..." he choked on the last name. "What is there to be done?"
"Stand together Harry... as students, not as houses. That's what needs to be done." Hermione whispered. "Just like Dumbledore and the sorting hat said."
Harry's eyes were fixed on the floor.
"I'll try if they will." He said at last.
"Harry!" Hermione gasped, joy coursing through her, and she threw herself on him in a tight hug. She felt Ginny's arms around them both, and heard Harry's soft chuckle.
The tension in the room was gone after that. Some people laughed at the two girls continuing to embrace the boy who lived so hard, that the three of them fell over as one.
Only two faces seemed tight with worry. Draco Malfoy skirted the edge of the common room to disappear up the boy's stair case. Blaise Zabini, noticing his normal retreat was taken, cast a quick attention-repelling charm on himself and exited the common room.
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