Unfortunately all I own is Dracaena.
"They were doing what?"
"Why the bloody hell would they do that?"
The two exclamations came from Neville and Seamus, Harry, Hermione and Ginny were still in shock over what the two oldest Weasleys had told them.
Slytherins bowing to Gryffindors, even former Gryffindors, it couldn't be.
"What are you so surprised about? You two are part of our court. It's a sign of respect."
Drey then dismissed the problem and went back to talking about some modifications for the coronation spell with the other Slytherins. It took them a few minutes to realise that everyone else was silent, still staring at them with shock.
"What?"
This time it was Pansy, her voice a little bit nervous, but when they were all staring at you it was a very weird feeling, especially those blank, kind of accusing stares.
"Slytherins are the proudest people in this school! They don't bow to anyone, not even other Slytherins, never mind if they're called the court or not. They just wouldn't do it."
"'Called the court!' 'Called the court!'"
Draco's voice rose in disbelief.
"Do you still not see it? The reason we're called the court isn't just because of a spell that worked when it wasn't meant to when we were younger, and the bonds just getting stronger over time.
When Salazar Slytherin first created Slytherin house it lived in harmony with the other houses, but as time passed the other three pulled away. Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff didn't agree with Salazar's belief that there was no black magic, no spells or potions that are inherently evil. Just magic and power and those who used it. As those three houses unified against him Salazar created his own world within his house, complete with a ruling system. The theory as that while the students of the other houses were taught magic to the old laws and codes, complete with all the old honour rituals, Slytherins weren't treated as fairly, so they had to learn all of the honour stuff within the house, and that was the job of the King and Queen and their court. That being us now.
It was always kept hidden, but now with our public acceptance of the court and new members there's no need to hide it anymore. Just ignore it.
Come on you lot, we need some of the library books for this, and the Slytherins walked out, leaving the Gryffindors to wonder. Neville was flabbergasted; his family had always told him that Slytherins were evil soulless wizards, only allowed in Hogwarts because of tradition and what they could do if they weren't trained. But not only had he found out how nice they were, even his Gran had been civil when she saw them. But they had a proper in house system for the old ways, or at least they did at one point, and if it had disappeared Drey and Draco would probably bring it back. It was incredible.
There was silence as everyone digested what they had been told, but it was punctuated by a loud crash as Harry threw a crystal glass against a wall, shouting: "It's all his fault!" Over and over again, and when asked who's fault what was he said:
"Ron, he's the one who told me how evil Slytherins were, Draco was just trying to be nice that day in Diagon Alley, an he didn't know who I was, Ron did! Draco and I could have been together…friends I mean…for years and we weren't because of that bloody redhead. No offence guys."
"None taken."
"You've got a point."
The rest of the evening was spent on autopilot, they had dinner in their suite and Hermione stayed and for once didn't object to the use of house elves. No one said anything when she went into Ginny's room later that night and slept on the large sofa. The court didn't return until much later that night, and immediately Drey noticed Hermione's presence. A quick conference was held between the six Slytherins, using no words, mental or verbal, their eyes said everything they needed to hear. While Vince and Greg went into Ginny's room, being careful not to make a noise, and carried her out, making sure she was still asleep, Drey and Draco opened the door and they carried her through. There was a soft thump as her trunk landed and then the Slytherins left her in peace. As they walked away there was movement on the door, and Hermione was engraved on the mahogany.
Time passed by in Hogwarts and Christmas approached, the morning after that revelatory night had been interesting. Hermione had seen that she wasn't in Ginny's room, seen a large room similar to her friend's, her trunk on the floor, had immediately run outside screaming intelligible words, and promptly tripped over. Of course the whole thing had been excessively funny to the others, but after they had explained things and she had spent the next few hours acting like a vegetable things had worked out very well. Ron had of course caused problems, shouting, heckling, hexing. One day Hermione had come home with skin that continually changed colour, luminous green, hot pink, day-glo orange, the list went on and on. The court fixed it of course, but unfortunately for Ron and the other Gryffindors they had chosen such bright colours that Hermione's eyes were affected. It took everyone there to hold Drey back; meanwhile they missed Draco and Blaise. The Gryffindor common room hasn't been the same since, neither had Ron, his hair was still growing back from where the streak down the middle had been shaven away, and some of the worst bruises still lingered.
That had marked the final separation from the Gryffindors, Seamus and Blaise were ever apart anymore, the Irish boy and Dean had been just as close as Harry and Ron, and when Seamus had come stumbling into the suite once, practically in tears because of the things Dean had been saying to him. Blaise had had to be locked into his room for the next few hours with Draco and Drey. According to Pansy he always got into really awful rages when someone he loved was hurt, and it was better to let him work it out with the twins until it became a calculated anger instead of the fiery passionate ones. He hadn't actually killed dean, but he had come close, and he hadn't left his boyfriend's side since, and the threatening figure he cut when he staked through the hallways, robes swirling behind him. That hadn't been it of course, the other houses had joined in, and the first years in particularly got into a lot of fights trying to prove their loyalty to their houses. There were other little things, incidents with teachers that really didn't bother anyone except Hermione, Ginny, and in a smaller fashion Neville. Those among the teachers who hated the Slytherins were taking it out on the court and the house, especially McGonagall for the loss of two thirds of her Golden Trio. But the court banded together, points that were unfairly taken away in Transfiguration and Herbology (that really hurt Neville), were given back in Charms, Care of Magical Creatures and Potions (that had shocked the Gryffindors).
Their potion projects were progressing nicely, Hermione had nearly had a heart attack when she found that her and Drey's project was tied for top with Harry and Draco and Vince and Greg, she hadn't been able to speak for ten minutes. But that passed and now the three of them usually spent several evenings week, if not more talking about topics that no one else particularly cared about.
The Quidditch pitch was where all the animosity really came out Slytherin and Court games against other houses degenerated from the good quality, skilled games that Madame Hooch and the rest of the teachers wanted to encourage. Instead there were violent altercations in the air that sent many people to hospital, one awful example when Ron dive-bombed Slytherins seeker, a very petite third year girl, very delicate, who had been in the hospital wing for a week afterwards. The first Court vs. Slytherin game had been a two weeks after that game. For those few on the side of the Slytherins it had been a wonderful game, for anyone else it was a nightmare. The court was obviously playing with the Gryffindor team, Drey, Draco and Blaise hadn't dropped the quaffle once. If a bludger did mysteriously decide to head right for Drey's broom, nearly breaking the wood and her leg, and causing her to loose the quaffle, another timely bludger sent it flying into Blaise's hands, and from there straight into the goal post. The whole team was playing with the quaffle, only the chasers were shooting or holding the ball, but brooms and bludgers had collided with the red ball more than once and sent it on it's correct path. Ron had been made the new Gryffindor seeker, Harry had a fit apoplexy, Draco and the other Slytherin boys weren't much better. But then they had decided that they might as well have some fun with the redhead, and so the whole team had headed into the forest, and for the rest of that day they had taught Harry how to act. Over the years that Draco had been playing seeker opposite Harry he had learnt how his face changed once he saw the snitch, a subtle twist on the left side of his mouth, a miniscule rise in his left eyebrow (Harry had been amazed and strangely pleased at how much attention Draco had been paying to him), of course those gestures had to be exaggerated because of the Weasel's miniscule intelligence. But with a bit of practice Harry had been able to direct the red head anywhere he wanted (usually into the stands) by pretending that he'd seen the snitch. The court had kept the game going that way for an hour, and the final score had been 310 to 0. Needless to say they hadn't been that popular with Gryffindor.
But by that time the frequent spats had become a daily part of Hogwarts life, Ginny, Hermione, Seamus and Harry had stopped being so upset by Ron's disloyalty, Neville had never been that close to Ron, or many of the other Gryffindors. He got along well with most of them, but Ginny was his best friend, and as she was there it wasn't really a problem for him, he could just shake the comments off. The two older Weasleys didn't really care what the kids thought of them, if they heard anything in their lessons or in corridors they gave the perpetrators the worst detentions in the history of Hogwarts, it was a rapidly growing school of thought that the two oldest Weasleys were worse than the twins. A seventh year Hufflepuff had called Drey and Pansy 'Slytherin whores', as well as some other, even worse names, and the two red-headed teachers had brought the two girls along with them on the detention, to help supervise. That was three weeks ago and the seventh year hadn't looked the same since.
It was a week before Hogwarts broke up for Christmas and all the ex-Gryffindors were wondering what would happen. They didn't want to ask if the Slytherins were also staying at school, because they didn't really want to know if they were going to be deserted in the castle. Bill told them not to be stupid, that of course the Slytherins would stay with them, but everyone told him that was because Drey was his girlfriend. None of what any of them was thinking was actually making that much sense. Charlie and pansy had been flirting and spending a lot of time together, but they hadn't actually said if it was a relationship or anything so he had no claim on her time, Seamus didn't want Blaise to feel obligated to stay with him, Harry wanted to be with Draco over Christmas, but wouldn't say anything to him. They had been growing closer in the last few weeks, spending time together in the suite or flying together over the Forest, but he was holding back from Draco, and the other boy knew it, a few weeks after that drunken night he had remembered what he and Draco did. He remembered kissing him and not stopping, and liking it and never wanting to stop. If he had been paying attention he would have known that Draco had also remembered and was holding back. But of course Draco either had it easier or harder that the other boy, he had known about his feelings for Harry for a long time, but he also had to deal with his sister, and that took any step forward he might have made way back.
All of the Slytherins had noticed the ex-Gryffindors withdrawing from them slightly, but they thought it was just the actions of Ron and the teachers. It usually was, and neither of the twins would ever mentally spy on their friends. By various strings of coincidences the subject of Christmas holiday accommodations had never been brought up within the Court. And so the first morning of the holidays was one full of surprises.
"Drey do you know what time the carriage gets here?"
"Eleven thirty Blaise, for the third time half past eleven!"
The vibrant blonde stalked out of her friends room, sweeping into Pansy's, just managing to evade a head on collision with her brother who was dashing into Vince's and Greg's room, shouting something about dress robes. The rest of the Court was sitting in the main room of the suite, lounging all over the couches, not a word had been spoken between them for the last three hours. The others would have asked them what was wrong, but they had let the packing slip away from them and they had woken up late. It was ten thirty and the carriage was due to arrive in an hour. For the next twenty minutes the inner balcony was permanently in motion, Vince and Greg were piling all the trunks and fine leather cases by the door. Eventually the motion slowed and they moved from the gallery to the heap, double checking all their cases. Thirty minutes before the carriage arrived, they were finally done, all of them were spread out over their cases, looking like they'd run a hundred mile marathon. But still the ex-Gryffindors were perfectly still, staring morosely at their friends.
Drey was spread out over her trunk and Pansy's dragon-hide carry-case, her eyes were closed and she was the picture of fatigued exhaustion, but somehow she managed to pull a few syllables out of her voice box.
"I swear we didn't pack that much when we were coming to school."
"I know. And we didn't even pack everything."
"The end of the year is going to be a nightmare."
After Pansy's last statement the whole group groaned, depressed beyond belief, whenever they went away they had house elves to pack for them, none of them had ever got used to packing their own things at school. They always seemed to accumulate things, and they hadn't even been to Hogsmeade that much! Drey had it slightly better; she hadn't had house elves for years, but wondering around Egyptian archaeological camps wasn't exactly conducive for heavy packing. Flickering her eyes open she glared at her red headed boyfriend who was staring at her, a strangely blank look on his face.
"I can't believe you lot have finished packing already."
"Yeah." Blaise chimed in, looking at his boyfriend through exhausted eyes. "When did you pack anyway? I haven't seen you packing anything, and it doesn't look as though you've even moved anything."
"Blaise darling, it doesn't look as though you've packed anything either. You've got as much stuff spread out as you did before we even started."
Grimacing at his smirking friend Blaise, along with the others were totally unprepared for Seamus' answer. His tone was monotone and depressed when he said:
"That's because I haven't packed babe. Why would I? It's not like any of us are going anywhere."
There was an immediate reaction: exhaustion was replaced with surprise and the Slytherin Court components bolted upright into seating positions and shouted out in unified disbelief. Ignoring the slightly scared looks their friends were sending them the Slytherins kept starting disjointed sentences of disbelief. It was entirely possible that they would have kept going until New Years if it weren't for Draco clapping a hand over his sister's mouth and shouting for everyone else to shut up. Taking a few deep breaths he finally managed to get one some words out.
"What do you mean none of you are going anywhere you bloody pillock! You're coming to the Manor with us!"
No one ever said they were polite words. Harry and his fellow Gryffindors looked positively gobsmacked. So in a slightly less sure voice he added.
"You are coming with us, aren't you?"
He was talking straight to Harry, who seemed to be torn between staring at Draco and blushing or looking away and blushing. Then he started to stammer, but no one could tell as all the others were stammering as well.
"Going with you?"
"To Malfoy Manor?"
"For Christmas?"
"At Malfoy Manor?"
"Of course." Drey had freed her self from her brother and had moved over to Bill. "You're family, why wouldn't you be with us at Christmas?"
Despite them having every reason for not being too sure about where they were going to be for the holidays, Bill, Harry, Seamus and all of the others began to feel remarkably stupid.
"Well, you never said anything, we didn't know."
There was flabbergasted silence for a few moments, during which incredulous eyes bored through the Gryffindors. Finally eyes rolled, heads shook, hands flew up into the air before the tired packers managed to haul themselves to a standing position and trudged up to the gallery, Drey and Draco issuing orders.
"Pansy you take Hermione's things and I'll get Ginny's."
"Blaise you can pack for Seamus, I'll sort Harry's things. Vince get Charlie's stuff, Greg take Bill's. Blaise you'll probably be the fastest can you get Neville's things, anyone who finishes can help him."
One by one they all disappeared into different rooms, Drey poked her head out for a second though and spoke to the bemused crowd on the sofas.
"If you lot wouldn't mind making yourself the slightest bit useful, could you shrink those cases? We didn't think we'd have quite so much stuff so we didn't ask for Mother to send us one of the largest carriages. The one we asked for should be fit all of us, but the luggage will need to be about half it's size, so if you wouldn't mind."
Seeing no one was moving she added:
"Come on people chop chop. We've only got half an hour you know. Honestly, thinking we were going to leave you here."
The last sentence was muttered quietly under her breath as she headed off to do Ginny's packing. Once again the Gryffindors were left in the echoing silence of the suite, a quiet only broken by various thumps, thuds and exclamations, and after a few minutes, quiet laughter that came from the two oldest Weasleys. Ignoring any strange looks they were receiving the two brothers started shrinking luggage, with everyone else gradually joining in. By the time the Slytherins emerged fifteen minutes later, along with yet more trunks, everything was ready. A few levitation charms eradicated the need for anyone to try and carry the bags, and with a bit of chivvying and chiding the Slytherins finally managed to get everyone to the main door, through the crowds of kids who were staring in shock and wonder at something outside the gates.
The crowds parted like water as they walked past, and the Gryffindors had to forcibly stop themselves from stopping and gaping at what they saw. They knew the twins had asked for a carriage to come and pick them up, something the Slytherins had never done in the past five years, but this was unbelievable. Two coachmen in a back and silver livery jumped down from the cab at the front and took charge of all the luggage, carefully loading it onto the hold at the back. Another man in an identical livery opened the black door emblazoned with the Malfoy family crest, holding out a hand to help the girls into the plush interior. Not a word was spoken as all of this took place; the Gryffindors knew that their friends were using this as an opportunity to show off their power, not for any specific purpose, just to do it, and remind the Ron Weasleys of the world, who were staring at the black carriage and pure white winged horses with loathing, that they were the one's in charge. After making sure that everyone was settled Draco knocked on the partition to the cap where the driver and coachmen sat and said.
"Lets get going boys, we've got some guests that Mother in anxious to meet, and you know it's never a good idea to keep her waiting."
Hey everyone, sorry it's been a while.
SaintEmo: sorry it's been a while, glad you like it so far, and I hope you like this chapter too.
Morena Evensong: that's what I was trying to do with those two, and I'm sorry about that bit where I switched perspectives, I thought I'd put a line in but apparently I hadn't, but I have now. I hope you like this chapter.
Please review everyone, I love getting them. :)