Chapter 2 - Obscure herbology pyjamas

Theo sits on the edge of the Gryffindor bench through the rest of the feast. There are a bunch of second years sitting near him, ogling, and he barely manages to eat. He's in shock, probably.

For some reason, Granger has decided to do the stupidest thing imaginable and sit in the spot he vacated at the Slytherin table, between Daphne and Draco.

That was Theo's spot for five years. Sometime in the first week of first year, they'd all settled into their chosen seats and it had stayed that way. It went: Tracey, Daphne, Theo, Draco, and Crabbe on one side and Millicent, Blaise, Pansy, and Goyle on the other. They always sat in the same order. Everyone had a place where they belonged.

Theo, apparently, belongs nowhere now, unless you count being surrounded by second years. Which he doesn't.

After the food is cleared away, Dumbledore speaks, giving his usual "inspirational" start of term speech. Though Theo has trouble being inspired by a man who, despite being a great wizard, like, 50 years ago, currently can't be bothered to intervene when a fucking hat goes rogue.

Theo is so assiduously not paying attention that he's caught off guard when the people around him stand and start heading to their dormitories. He doesn't even know where the Gryffindor dormitory is.

He follows the pack of red-tied students up a winding path along several halls and numerous dimly-lit staircases to Gryffindor tower. The Slytherin common room is in a far-superior location, much easier to get to from the entrance hall.

He overhears the password, and joins the crowd as they climb through the portrait hole. (The Slytherin common room has a door. Like rooms do. No climbing required.)

The common room itself is admittedly quite comfortable looking. Plush red sofas and overstuffed gold armchairs abound. There's a crackling hearth, an abundance of cozy rugs, and he can just make out the expansive view of the grounds from the large tower windows.

The Gryffindors spare him little attention, making themselves at home in the common room as they gather in cliques and chat about their holidays. Some wander up the stairs to their bedrooms. Or so Theo presumes. He'd go to bed too, if anyone had bothered to tell him where his bed was.

He resigns himself to lurking in the corner by the portrait hole until he can spot another sixth year boy and follow them to the dorm. He will not be asking for help.

He's not that lucky. Unsurprising, considering the night he's having so far.

"Nott!" It's Potter. "What do you think you're playing at?"

Theo sighs. "Pardon?"

"Hermione!" Potter bellows. The room stares.

"What about her?" Theo replies, tone neutral.

Potter's hair has reached astronomical levels of mess. His tie is crooked. Weasley's next to him, red-faced and fuming.

"What did you do?" Potter yells again, green eyes flashing.

"I didn't do anything."

"You did! The Hat! Hermione!" Potter continues, seemingly unable to produce a sentence.

"I'm sorry, are you implying that I wanted this to happen? Potter, I understand you're upset," he replies disdainfully, "but surely you're not that delusional."

"I—" Potter sputters. "I know it was you! You and Malfoy! He's up to something, and this is part of it, it has to be!"

Potter seems utterly convinced of what he's saying, and Theo considers for the first time that the rumours that went around about him last year are true. Potter is deranged. Not about the Dark Lord's return, but you know, just in general.

Weasley has been uncharacteristically quiet, and he looks somewhat torn. He's as angry as Potter, yet he's standing between them, a hand on his friend's shoulder like he's hoping for calm. Theo would not have imagined Weasley to be the sensible one.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Potter. If Draco's done anything, it was give you brain damage along with that broken nose," Theo mutters.

"What was that?" Weasley grunts.

Potter draws his wand. The room collectively gasps.

Theo sighs and grips his own wand more thoroughly in his pocket. "Is this really necessary?"

Potter steps forward and points his wand at Theo's throat. "I'll be watching you," he says in what Theo presumes is meant to be a menacing tone.

"I'll keep that in mind," Theo says, letting a smirk twist at the corner of his mouth as Potter and Weasley stalk off towards the stairs.

He leans back against the wall, raising his eyebrows defiantly at the still ogling crowd, as if asking anyone else?

He's stuck. Now would be an ideal time to escape the common room, figure out how to get to the dormitory and go to bed, away from eager eyes and wand-happy Gryffindors. But he's not about to go up there and treat himself to some alone time with Potter and Weasley.

So Theo waits. He stays against the wall by the portrait hole for over an hour, not moving, not speaking to anyone, just stuck. He doesn't realise he's waiting to be saved.

At some point, he figures he'll have to go up and just open a bunch of doors until he finds his stuff, which he's not particularly looking forward to doing.

Eventually, as the population density of the room gets thinner and thinner, someone comes back down the stairs from the dormitories. It's Longbottom. He's wearing pyjamas with Snargaluff pods on them.

The concept of Longbottom and his obscure herbology pyjamas coming to save him is a special kind of pathetic.

Theo lurches forward off the wall at his approach.

"Erm, do you know where the dormitory is?" Longbottom asks gently.

"Obviously," says Theo shortly. "I'm just standing in the corner for my own amusement."

"Well, I can show you if you want," Longbottom says, unfazed.

Theo searches for another cuttingly witty remark, but comes up empty. "Yeah, fine."

"Great! Let's go!" Longbottom says, unreasonably chipper. Then he hesitates. "Unless, I mean, we don't have to go right now if you don't want…"

"It's fine, Longbottom."

"Okay." He leads Theo across the common room and up a set of narrow, spiral stairs.

Longbottom stops in front of the third door and gestures at it lamely. "This is us. It's the third door if you ever forget."

Theo almost makes a rude comment about how he, unlike some people, is unlikely to forget the location of his own bedroom.

"Right," he says instead. "Thanks, Longbottom."

Longbottom nods and goes to open the door. Then he turns back. "Erm, could you not call me that?" he says. "It's just, I don't like it when people call me by my last name."

"Oh." Theo's momentarily stunned. Not that Neville doesn't like being called by his last name, that makes sense, but that he'd tell Theo about it. That kind of vulnerability wouldn't fly in Slytherin. Although, he's not sure if the excessive honesty is a Gryffindor thing, or a Neville thing. "Yeah, sure."

"Thanks." He smiles gratefully.

Neville opens the door, revealing a perfectly round room with six four-poster beds. It's quite a lot like his old dorm. Though this room's garish red colour scheme is not nearly as pleasant as the cool, calming green of Slytherin.

He recognises his trunk at the end of one of the beds. He does not recognise the pile of red and gold ties and lion-crested robe badges. Those are new.

"That one's yours," Neville says, pointing unnecessarily. "And the bathroom's through there," he continues, gesturing at the only possible place a bathroom could be located.

"Right, thanks," Theo says again.

Neville smiles kindly and goes over to his own bed, leaving Theo to surreptitiously take in the room while he digs through his trunk.

The dynamics are easy to pick up on. Potter and Weasley sit on one bed, heads bent into each other's space, muttering together in between glaring at Theo. The other two, Thomas and Finnegan, are doing much the same. Neville is obviously the odd one out.

He finds what he needs and disappears to the bathroom to brush his teeth and change for bed. When he gets back, he slides into his four-poster, and shuts the curtains around him.

He's homesick, but not for Nott Manor.


At the feast, Hermione helps herself to a full plate of food, though she's not hungry.

She keeps her head up and her eyes open, though she would like nothing more than to stare down at the plate in front of her and avoid the world.

Hermione's not intimidated by the table of Slytherin students she sits with. Certainly not.

The dramatic urge to bite her nails is totally unrelated.

And what the Sorting Hat said to her – well, that was nonsense. She most certainly does not belong at this table. And how it tried to justify it! It was positively outrageous. She – well, she can't think about it just now.

This is simply a predicament that she will have to grin and bear until she can figure a way out of it. She'll go to the library tomorrow.

"So, Granger," Pansy Parkinson begins, breaking several minutes of silence, apart from the tense whispers passing between Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis. "Missing the Weasel yet?"

"I would rather be having dinner with my friends, yes," she replies evenly, missing only a beat.

"Would you?" Pansy continues with a lilt of mock surprise. "Because they seem a bit… violent to me. Potter's not doing much for that reputation of his, is he?"

Hermione tries not to wince. It's true, Harry is throwing a small fit. And though she appreciates his outrage on her behalf, she's the one who has to sit over here with the snakes. If she can maintain the appearance of calm, there's absolutely no reason for him not to do the same.

Hermione cuts a small piece of green bean and takes a bite.

"Last I heard, Harry's reputation was quite good actually. I mean, what with fighting You-Know-Who at the Ministry and sending several Death Eaters to Azkaban, and all," she says conversationally.

Crabbe bangs his fist on the table and Hermione can sense without looking that Malfoy is seething with anger beside her.

She takes another small bite of green bean.

"Don't talk about my father, Granger," Malfoy says dangerously.

"I didn't mention your father, Malfoy. I was being intentionally vague." She gently slices a roast potato. "I'm a considerate person, generally. But if you would like to discuss him…"

Malfoy slams his cutlery to the table and goes to reach for his wand, but Pansy clears her throat and jerks her head toward the staff table, giving Malfoy a significant look.

He grimaces and glares at Pansy, then picks up his cutlery again and starts stabbing randomly at his chicken.

Hermione finds herself rather impressed with Pansy. She's never managed to get Harry or Ron to put their wands away with just a look. Then again, she's not dating either of them. That must be the difference.

She refuses to believe that Pansy Parkinson could have a more powerful stern look than she does.

A tense silence settles back over the table and lasts several minutes.

"Anyway…" Blaise Zabini ventures eventually. "Should we discuss what classes everyone plans to take?"

That more or less keeps the group occupied until Dumbledore stands to speak.

He tells them that Snape will be the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, a fact that leads to cheers from everyone at the table except Hermione.

Then he talks about Voldemort and the new safety rules. It's not unexpected, and everything about it makes sense, except Hermione can't help but find it all a tad underwhelming. Be vigilant, look out for each other, follow the rules, now go to bed? Shouldn't there be more?

When he finishes speaking, she rises reluctantly with the rest of the Slytherin table, and follows the group of sixth years to the dungeons, taking one last look across the hall at the departing Gryffindors and meeting Ron's eye for just a flash.

The first thing Hermione notices when they arrive in the common room is the eerie green-blue light coming from under the lake. The second thing she notices is that it's bloody cold. The warmth from the fireplace along the far wall does not appear to spread very far.

Hermione wraps her hands around herself and pulls her bottom lip into her mouth, as she watches the Slytherins get comfortable. Some of them flop down onto the black leather couches and stately armchairs, while others wander through the sets of doors at the back of the room, laughing and chatting easily.

Somehow, when Hermione pictured this common room in the past, she hadn't imagined there to be so much laughter. Slytherins, perhaps, have just as much fun as Gryffindors.

She makes her way to the doors that must lead to the dormitories, ready to find her bed and crawl into it, with no plans to emerge for at least twelve hours.

"Off to bed?"

Hermione nearly jumps out of her skin. Malfoy's snuck up on her.

"Did I scare you?" he says, voice slippery, when she turns around. "You want to be more careful, Granger. You never know what might happen down here."

She shivers. From the cold, obviously. Malfoy's poorly veiled threats don't intimidate her.

"You don't scare me, Malfoy," she says, standing up to her full height.

He leans in close, whispering just to her, his mouth a breath away from her ear. "I beg to differ."

Goosebumps spread over Hermione's skin. Blood rushes to her face and she closes her eyes for half a moment, pushing away the fear, before breathing in and turning to make another retort.

But Malfoy's already gone, strutting away and claiming the best couch in front of the fire. He puts his feet up and laughs loudly at something some seventh year said, like he fits right in, like he owns the place, like he's some kind of prince.

It's horrid. He's horrid. And here in Slytherin, he gets rewarded for it.

She can't possibly stay here in this cold, twisted dungeon of a house.

And yet, she's stuck. For now. Hermione gives Malfoy one final look, and carries on in her search for her bed. She finds it easily enough. Her trunk is there, at the end of a four-poster with green velvet curtains.

Crookshanks is there too, piled into his crate, looking warily at the sleek tabby cat in the crate at the end of Millicent Bulstrode's bed. Hermione shudders. She'd forgotten that cat was going to be here.

She pulls Crooks out of his crate and sets him in her lap as she sits cross-legged on her new bed. She hugs him tightly until he squirms, then she contents herself with stroking his soft orange fur and absorbing his warm weight on her legs as she takes in the room around her.

It's much like her old dorm, but square, not round, and with twice the number of beds. The space seems perfectly sized for six, so it must have been enlarged for her arrival tonight. Probably by the house elves when they came by to bring the trunks. Clever things.

Her old room in Gryffindor must have been resized too. Lavender and Parvati will have it to themselves. They might prefer it that way, she thinks, with only passing bitterness.

"Granger." Pansy prances into the room. "I've given my prefect speech to the first years, now it's your turn." Her tone is brisk, business-like.

"I think I'll manage, thanks," Hermione says, in a tone that implies an eye-roll. "Seeing as I'm a sixth year. And a prefect myself."

"You get a different speech." Pansy sits elegantly down on the edge of the bed next to Hermione's and crosses her ankles.

Hermione grinds her teeth. She does not want to deal with this right now.

"What, Pansy?" she spits out.

"Believe me, I like this less than you do," Pansy starts with a sneer. "I'm going to say this once. Do not make me repeat myself. Understood?"

Hermione nods impatiently, though admittedly, she's almost curious.

"You're in Slytherin now. I don't know if you'll be here forever. I hope not," Pansy continues bluntly. "But for now, you need to know how things work around here."

"Is this where you remind me who's boss? To not get any ideas above my station?" Hermione's tone continues to imply an eye-roll, even as she schools her face into a mask of neutrality.

"Why yes, Granger, it is. Now let me finish." Pansy remains clipped and professional. "First of all, you will not toss your shit all over the dorm room. This room stays clean. And if you're going to make noise, silence your curtains. Secondly, you will sit in the same seat at meals, between Daphne and Draco, as you did tonight. We always sit in the same spots, it's tradition. Thirdly—"

Is she serious? After the night Hermione's had, this is what they're doing?

"Are you serious? All this is to lecture me on decorum? Do you think I'm some sort of—"

"Yes, whatever, you're going to say, yes I do think of you that way. As I was saying, thirdly, you will not take the good seats in the common room. The couches by the fire have to be earned, and quite frankly, I don't think you stand a chance. Get a jumper or get good at warming charms if you plan to be in the common room."

If Hermione had very little interest in spending any time in the common room before, now she definitely doesn't plan to. She has no need for this hierarchy nonsense.

"Fourth," Pansy continues, "you will not argue. I assume that you… disagree with many of the beliefs that the majority of this house holds. Remember that you are in our house, not the other way around. You're not going to win an argument here, and you'd do better not to try."

"I—" Hermione scarcely knows what to say. "If people don't believe in my humanity, you can't expect me to—"

"What did I just say, Granger? Don't argue." Hermione opens her mouth to keep arguing, and Pansy talks over her. "FIFTH — and this is the most important so shut up — keep your wand with you. Don't walk the halls or go to the common room by yourself at night." She pauses, her gaze boring straight into Hermione. "Like I said, there are a lot of people here with… particular beliefs. They're not all as nice as I am."

Hermione is still. She can tell Pansy means every word she says. She thinks of Malfoy's earlier threat, and wonders if he's one of the people Pansy means.

"That's all," Pansy finishes calmly. "I tell you this, not because I give a single fuck about you, but because you're here. You're not one of us, you never will be, but you're here. So."

"So?"

"While you're here, you're not going to be alone," Pansy says simply. "Don't mistake this for friendship. And don't you dare do anything that hurts a single member of this house. If you do, then you'll be on your own."

Hermione is getting rather tired of being threatened.

"Fine," is all she can think to say.

"Good," Pansy says briskly, standing up and starting to walk out of the room.

"What would Malfoy think of you telling me all this?" she calls after her, for reasons unclear even to herself.

"Draco?"

"Yeah. I can't imagine he's happy to have me here."

"He's not."

"Aren't you worried he'll be mad at you?"

"Why would I give a fuck if Draco were mad at me?"

"Well you're his girlfriend, aren't you?"

"Ha." Pansy half-laughs. "Don't be disgusting. He's my best friend."

"Oh."

"Oh," she mimics. "Goodnight, Granger. Keep your wand close and don't make a mess."


A/N: Thanks for reading and see you back here in a week!

Beta appreciation to Sunshine_celine, without whom we would not have the delightful phrase that is 'obscure herbology pyjamas'.