A/N: Sorry as always for the long wait! Here's a longer than usual chapter to make up for it, and a promise that I won't leave you hanging in suspense for too long- the next chapter will come very soon!
Chapter Seven: Opening the Void
Harry scurried down a corridor in the dungeons he'd never seen before, or at least not one he remembered. Aside from the ones he used frequently, they all seemed to blur together into a mix of stone walls and floors, with only portraits and statues to mark one's way. The portraits weren't as great a guiding point as Harry had first thought they might be, as the residents often traveled to visit their friends in other frames, mucking things up even further. Then again, as Higgs had pointed out when Harry mentioned this, they didn't exist solely for first years to find their way around the school.
"You didn't hear it from me," a blonde woman said, walking into the frame of her portrait and setting herself across a low chaise. "But they're two corridors over to your right. Or at least they were a moment ago."
"Thanks!" Harry called back, grinning at the painting and doubling back the way he'd come. The portraits who were willing to play along were brilliant when it came to hide and seek, especially the version of hide and seek Slytherins played, in which one wasn't bound to just one hiding spot and could leave at any time to find a new one if they thought they were close to being discovered. Of course, that was a risk unto itself, because if one was spotted in between spots, it was an automatic game over. That, and sometimes the portraits lied for their own amusement, but that just added to the thrill.
Harry had been in the process of finding a new place to hide after Gregory nearly found him flattened against a wall behind a tapestry near the Potions classroom after said tapestry had tickled his nose enough to force a sneeze from him that echoed magnificently down the nearby corridors. Gregory had since found Daphne, and while Gregory could be a bit slow, Daphne was a force to contend with, and Harry knew he needed to find a good spot fast.
He rounded a corner, and before he could process what was happening he'd bounced off something solid and landed on his arse on the hard stone floor. Looking up, he was momentarily relieved not to see Gregory (or worse, Snape), but his stomach instantly sank as he saw it was Professor McGonagall with a Potions book under her arm- no doubt she was returning it to Snape.
"Sorry!" he said quickly, scrambling to his feet. "Sorry, Professor- are you all right?"
"My goodness!" Professor McGonagall said, clutching her chest and fixing him with a steely glare. "Potter! Just what do you think you're doing? Five points from Slytherin!"
"Sorry," Harry repeated, flushing red. "We're playing hide and seek, and..."
He trailed off. McGonagall's expression didn't change, exactly, but it did soften, and though she was still frowning something seemed different than it had a moment ago.
"You do know it's possible to play hide and seek without barreling down the corridors like a hippogriff and nearly killing your schoolteachers, don't you, Potter?"
"Yes, Professor," Harry said with just the right amount of contriteness. "I didn't mean to hurt you. Are you all right?"
"I'll survive," McGonagall said drily. "But you may have noticed I'm not as young as I once was."
"I'm sorry," Harry said again, hoping he sounded as sincere as he felt. "I shouldn't have been running. I'll be more careful in the future."
The corners of Professor McGonagall's lips twitched, and Harry knew then that he was safe. "Thank you for the concern."
Harry wondered for a moment if he should mention the Remembrall incident; although that had been nearly two weeks ago, the school was still buzzing about it, and aside from a mumbled apology in Snape's classroom after she'd hauled him and Draco there it hadn't really been acknowledged. It was a well known fact that Professor McGonagall held grudges, even though she would have denied it.
"Draco Malfoy said my parents were in Gryffindor," he said instead, not knowing that was what would come out of his mouth until it already had. "And Terence Higgs said you've been the head of Gryffindor since forever."
It wasn't an apology, and it wasn't question, not really. More an observation- an acknowledgment that McGonagall must have known his parents. Must have looked over them the way Snape did Slytherin, though he couldn't imagine her ruling over her house with an iron fist the way he did his. From what he'd gathered from older Slytherins, she wasn't around very much, and never spent evenings in their common room the way Snape did with them. And yet... she'd known them. Until now, he hadn't known it had even been on his mind.
Professor McGonagall stared at him for a very long moment, and Harry felt himself flush harder. Why had he said that? He hadn't even been asking a question. What had the point of bringing up his dead parents been, aside from looking like a pathetic little first year who couldn't handle being an orphan when, in fact, he'd been dealing with it just fine nearly his entire life?
"Thirty-five years of teaching isn't quite forever, Potter," she finally said. "But yes, I taught both your parents. It was an exceptional privilege to be their head of house for seven years."
A million questions were flying through Harry's mind, passing so quickly he couldn't grasp onto one without letting twenty others zoom past. Professor McGonagall hesitated, then added, "They were exceptional students, and exceptional people."
Harry just nodded, then added, "Thank you, Professor."
"I hear voices! This way!"
Harry hesitated as Daphne's voice, joined by those of Gregory, Millicent, and Theo echoed down the corridor, growing louder alongside their footsteps. Professor McGonagall flicked her wand, and Harry found himself hurtling through a suddenly opened doorway into a walk-in cupboard used by the house elves. The door shut behind him, and all Harry could make out were muffled voices, followed by McGonagall's slightly louder remark that she'd last seen Potter clear on the other side of the dungeons. By the time the door finally opened, both she and his housemates were gone.
The weeks bore on. Before Harry knew it, it was nearly Halloween, and although he never would have imagined it that first night at Hogwarts, he was happier in Slytherin than he'd been anywhere in his life. He hadn't been back in Snape's office since the incident with the Remembrall, and no one was talking about that anymore since Lucian Bole and Reggie Derrick had been caught selling tiny airline-sized bottles of liquor to the third year and up from their dorm. When Snape had appeared in the common room that unfortunate evening with several of the empty bottles, the two boys instantly knew the jig was up, and while they were preoccupied in Snape's study, the entire house devolved into paranoid whispers as to whether Snape knew about their hidden alcohol, with more than a few students hurtling down the corridor to the dorms to hide their own contraband.
"Do you think they'll be expelled?" Harry asked Vincent, but before the latter could answer, Ellen, the prefect who'd pried him off Draco when they'd fought last month (though it felt more like a lifetime ago), spoke up.
"Don't be silly. Snape's always talking about expelling students, but he never actually does it, except for when he first started teaching. He just makes it so that you wish you'd been expelled."
Harry wondered about this. What could a student do that was worse than fighting, or flying out of bounds, or selling cheap scotch to their housemates? He knew magic could be dangerous, but what was Snape's line? What would make him actually expel someone? What had happened to make him actually do it when he first started teaching?
"That was all before my time," was all Ellen would say, as would Terence, as would any other older student Harry asked, even though he suspected they damn well knew the details but just weren't telling him. It was said the seventh years remembered personally what Snape's early days of teaching were like, but even then, they weren't there for those first few years after the war that students occasionally referenced in hushed tones.
Not that it really mattered; that was all back then, during that ancient hazy time before Harry had any real memories aside from his earliest days at the Dursleys, which he didn't really care to think much about, such as when he'd tentatively called Aunt Petunia 'Mummy' at the supermarket and she all but bit his head off, telling him never to say such a horrid thing again. Those strange days of cupboards and expulsions were over, and now he had something sort of resembling a family at last, even if that family did stuff tadpoles from the lake into the first years' pillowcases for fun sometimes.
Even things with Draco weren't as bad as they had been. After their reckoning in Snape's office after the Remembrall incident and subsequent truce, things settled down for the most part. Harry still didn't like Draco, and it was clear that the feeling was mutual, but they were... well, they were, and that was all one could really say about it. There hadn't been any more fights, and though Draco still had snide comments about Harry's clothing and his lack of knowledge about the magical world, there were no more comments about his dead parents or his mother's lineage.
It was something, at least.
If Harry saw Ron in the hallway between classes, he nodded and said hello, which Ron returned, but for the most part he didn't mingle with the other houses. Not for lack of trying; he'd once invited Ron and his friends Dean and Seamus to join him in a game of Exploding Snap, but they'd mumbled vague excuses and hurried on their way. He'd tried a few more times after that, and when their excuses grew flimsier and flimsier he gave up and moved on to Ernie Macmillan and Justin Finch-Fletchley in Hufflepuff. He didn't know either very well, and Ernie could be a bit pompous, but they both seemed all right, and as much as Harry liked his own house it bothered him that no one ever seemed to want to do anything to change the perception of the rest of the school that they were all a bunch of evil gits.
Ernie and Justin made their excuses whenever Harry tried to invite them to Slytherin-led games as well, and after that he simply stopped trying. Perhaps he could have tried harder, he thought to himself much later when he'd grown older and been blessed with the opportunity of hindsight. Perhaps they truly had been busy, and he'd interpreted it as something more backhanded than it actually was. Though even older Harry had to admit, they probably hadn't been.
"Why does the rest of the school hate us so much?" Harry asked Tracey Davis one evening over a game of Snakes and Ladders. He didn't much like Snakes and Ladders, as it was based entirely on luck, but the second years had taken all the good games for themselves that night, informing him that even if he was Harry bloody Potter there was still an hierarchy to Slytherin, and that was just the way it was.
Honestly, fair enough, Harry thought. He'd have hated it if everyone bent over backwards for him just because his skull deflected some dumb curse ten years ago.
"What, d'you mean first years?" Tracey said, rolling her die and grimacing as she landed on a tile that depicted a boy pulling the emergency brake on a train and sending her back several rows. This particular version of the game was at least forty years old, if not older, and while the artwork was more amusing than the simple, bare-bones version Dudley had back home, there was still a stupid moral depicted in every square containing a snake or ladder about swotty good boys and girls succeeding over everyone else. "No one hates first years, not really."
"I mean Slytherins," Harry said, rolling his own die and not landing on a ladder or a snake. "I get that Voldemort was in Slytherin, but why do they act like we're all going to hex them in their sleep?"
"Would you stop saying his name?" Tracey shot back at him. "People don't like it. I don't like it."
"Fine, sorry, You-Know-Who." Harry watched as Tracey rolled her die and found herself regaining half her ground for landing on a tile that showed the same little boy as before taking his seat when asked. "This game is so stupid. I hate games that try to teach you a lesson."
"Do you want to try to take Monopoly from the second years?"
Harry did not. Besides, no one ever finished a game of Monopoly.
"So?" Harry asked after a moment, rolling the die for his turn.
"So what? Why do they hate us? I dunno." Tracey shrugged. "I don't think a lot of them actually do hate us, they just have more to do with their time than hang out with other houses. And the ones who do think we're all evil... who knows? Some Slytherins are real rotters. Half my family doesn't speak to us because my dad's a Muggle, and they're all Slytherin. I wouldn't blame my Dad for thinking we're all a bunch of miserable jerks."
"But your mum married him, and she was a Slytherin, wasn't she? Besides, my aunt and uncle hated my parents because they were wizards," Harry said. It was the first time he'd admitted that to anyone other than Draco while they'd waited outside Snape's office, and even then he'd sugarcoated it, but with Tracey he felt safe. "But I don't think all Muggles are rotten."
"Then goody for you," Tracey said. "I agree. But Mum and Dad taught me that you can't make people think the way you do, even if you're right. And that some people will always assume the inside of your mind is different than it actually is, and no matter what you do that's just how it is. You just have to do your best to coexist and be the bigger person."
"Are we the bigger people, then?" Harry asked, as though the eleven-year-old girl sitting across from him with her head propped up by her forearm would know.
"Who bloody knows?" Tracey didn't look up from the game, but Harry could tell her attention was focused more on him than the tiny squares below. "Mum always says everyone thinks they're the one who's right, and to not worry who says what, but to just do things that make the world a happier place for everyone. And not to care about who sees you doing it, or to do it to score imaginary points with the rest of the world. She says to do it just to do it. So I don't really care about which group is the bigger or better one, or what other people think about me."
It would take Harry years to fully understand the wisdom of what Mrs. Davis had told her daughter, but even now it made sense. He just nodded, and they returned to their game with the much lighter topic of whether that was actually Professor Sprout's surname, or if she'd changed it once she started teaching Herbology.
Life continued on, and Harry found himself not caring as much that the rest of Hogwarts didn't seem to want anything to do with Slytherin, aside from whispering in none-too-hushed voices their theories about him being the next Dark Lord in training. Even that didn't bother him as much when his own dormmates and the older Slytherin students would instantly turn to the offending party and say with a deadpan face that they were absolutely right, that whenever Harry was angry his eyes would turn red and head would spin around in circles, and that every night You-Know-Who's ghost came to visit the Slytherin common room with chocolate biscuits and milk to visit his dearest protégée.
"You shouldn't joke about things like that!" Lavender Brown once said, puffing herself up with righteous indignation.
"Well, maybe you should stop joking about me being the same as the person who murdered my parents when I haven't done anything wrong," Harry shot back, and while she didn't say she was sorry, she did deflate a bit, and after that the comments died down a bit, at least from the Gryffindors, who'd been the loudest to begin with.
Later that evening, when passing each other on the way out of the Great Hall, Ron murmured to him, "We think Lavender's a pain in Gryffindor, too, if that makes you feel better."
Not like you said anything to stop her, Harry thought, but he found he didn't care, not really. He'd come from a school where, thanks to Dudley, no one gave him the time of day. At least at Hogwarts he had friends. Ron and the others gave him strange looks, but there wasn't any real animosity, just ignorance. Harry still remembered the wonderful afternoon they'd spent together on the Hogwarts Express, and he was pretty sure Ron did too. The fact that they were in polar opposite houses made a friendship not quite as possible as it might have been had things been different, but Harry didn't have any hard feelings toward him for not being the first Gryffindor to want to sit at the Slytherin table in living memory.
That person turned out to be Neville, actually.
Harry didn't even see him coming, that evening just days before Halloween. One moment Harry was shoving a forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth, and the next Neville was sliding onto the bench next to him, his eyes as wide as saucers, nearly trembling as he all but whispered, "Hi."
Their immediate vicinity fell silent. Hell, nearly the entire Great Hall fell silent, followed by hushed whispers. If there was one thing the students of Hogwarts weren't, it was subtle. Harry lowered his fork, painfully aware of all the eyes locked onto them. "Hey, Neville."
Neville's eyes darted back and forth at all the Slytherins staring at the two of them, then immediately shot down to his lap. When he didn't say anything, Harry cleared his throat, causing the boy to nearly jump out of his skin.
"Is there something I can help you with?" Harry asked, shooting daggers at Draco, who'd already opened his mouth to say something horrible, no doubt.
"No," Neville said quietly, so quietly Harry could barely hear him. "Well, yes. Pass the carrots, please?"
The carrots were out of Harry's reach, but Terence Higgs was already passing them his way, along with a question. "You're Longbottom, aren't you?"
Neville couldn't even make eye contact with him, instead just taking the bowl and nodding, along with a quiet thank you. For several excruciating moments, no one quite knew what to do aside from eat. Draco mouthed What is he doing here? with a wrinkled nose to Harry, who responded with a shrug and an equally silent I don't know.
It was Millicent who finally spoke up. "Longbottom, you do know this is the Slytherin table, don't you? Or are you mixing things up like you always do in Potions?"
Neville shriveled into his seat, and Harry shot her a look. This was just how Millicent talked, how all the Slytherins talked- insults flowing as freely as water. But Harry could see Neville wasn't accustomed to this type of banter.
"She's joking," he said quickly. "I mean, this is the Slytherin table, but- you know what I mean."
Neville said something so softly that Harry had to ask him to repeat himself. Flushing deep scarlet, Neville tried again, his voice squeaking this time. "You said I could sit with you sometime, if I wanted. When I invited you to sit with Gryffindor."
Harry stared at him for a moment, then remembered. That had been a month and a half ago, at lunch after Draco had reluctantly returned the Remembrall and Neville thanked Harry for retrieving it. Had it taken him this long to muster up the nerve to take him up on the offer? Harry continued to stare at the clearly petrified boy and saw yes, yes it had.
"Of course," he said after another moment had passed. "Any time you want, Neville. Welcome."
He shot Draco the hardest look he was capable of, but not even Draco had something nasty to say, not with the hall as hushed as it was and the eyes of the teachers (namely, Snape) almost certainly on them. Harry glanced sideways, and while most of the professors were being subtle about it, he was right; it wasn't just the students watching what was happening.
When Neville Longbottom lowered himself onto the bench, Minerva's fingernails dug so sharply into Severus that he gasped aloud and yanked his arm away.
"For God's sake, woman, I have eyes!" he hissed in her ear, rubbing his forearm.
"What is he doing?" Minerva whispered back. "He's not actually-"
"He is!" Pomona's voice was far too loud, but not loud enough to carry down to the students. "Oh, isn't that lovely. Severus, I haven't seen a student sit with your house since-"
"Since before the war," Filius finished for her, emphasizing his words with his fork. "How lovely of him. A student finally sitting with Slytherin."
Severus glared at the lot of them. No thanks to any of you. Albus didn't say a word, just beamed like a blithering idiot and winked at Severus before returning to his roast. Fools, all of them. Their students had treated his house like little Dark Lords for years without a word to the contrary, and now that one simply sat with them it was like the second coming of Christ.
"Timid boy. I didn't think he had it in him," Minerva said, unable to hide the shock from her voice.
"Ah, yes, because Slytherins are demons to be feared," Severus said a little more sharply than he meant to. "What a brave little lion."
"Oh, be quiet," Minerva shot back at him with a wearying mixture of annoyance and saintly patience. "You have to admit it's a surprise. Think of what happened to his parents."
"The same thing that happened to Potter's parents," Severus said, scanning up and down the Slytherin table to make certain no one even thought of pulling something. "And you don't see him trembling every waking moment."
Well, he had, that first night, Severus recalled. He'd nearly dissolved into a puddle when the Baron had to help him find his way back to his dorm. Then after a day or so he'd gotten over himself and settled into Slytherin life just fine. Meanwhile, Neville Longbottom still couldn't follow basic instructions without knocking things over or stumbling over his own feet as though he'd just learned to walk.
"Not all students are like yours, Severus," Minerva said simply, though Severus had seen her lose her temper with the boy before herself. "Be patient with him."
Severus just gave her a look- did she know him at all? He was anything but patient, and besides that, she was just as hard on the boy as he was. Minerva just rolled her eyes and returned to her dinner, though her eyes, along with his, continuously flitted across the hall.
"I really don't think that's a good idea," Neville squeaked in the entrance hall forty minutes later. "Thank you for offering, but... I can't, Harry."
"Why not?" Harry asked, keeping his voice low as the throngs of students passed them, none hiding their open fascination at what had just occurred. "We'd love to have you. I'd love to have you. We have board games, and the fourth years are trying to teach themselves to ballroom dance. They're awful; it's really funny to watch."
"I can't just go to the Slytherin common room!" Neville shook his head back and forth. "It's- it's not allowed!"
"Isn't it?" Harry paused, recalling Snape's speech their first night at Hogwarts. "Snape makes us follow all the school rules, plus about a billion more, and there wasn't anything in there about our common room not allowing other students. Besides, I'm inviting you, so it has to be all right."
Deep down, Harry knew what he was proposing probably wouldn't end well, that it couldn't end well- but what if it didn't? The way the houses acted toward one another was just stupid, something Harry had understood as soon as he understood that Slytherin wasn't actually a breeding ground for evil. Slytherins always said Gryffindors were a bunch of loud, brash idiots who wanted to act superior, but even if a lot of them were, how did that explain Neville? Gryffindors kept saying Slytherins were a bunch of evil monsters, but Harry knew damn well they weren't. Were they just supposed to go seven years acting like they were mortal enemies when the whole thing was just a load of bollocks? Had he been sorted into Gryffindor, would he spend that entire time thinking Slytherin was a den of horror and misery?
It was stupid, was what it was, and gripped by the righteous indignation of the young just beginning to find their voice, Harry said, "So what if no one does it? Let's be the first."
Neville let out a short, horrified laugh, but didn't argue, instead saying, "Professor Snape really makes you follow the school rules?"
"Of course he does." Harry couldn't help but let out a laugh of his own at this- Snape had more rules than Harry had ever dreamed were possible, and he'd grown up with the Dursleys. "He's got more than I can count. He just doesn't say anything in front of the other houses. But he doesn't let us get away with anything, Neville."
"Ron said he does. That Slytherins can do whatever they want, and Snape just comes after the rest of the school."
"Ron's full of it," Harry said flatly. "It's up to you. You can come and see for yourself. Snape's a grouchy git a lot of the time, and he snarls a lot, but he's all right."
Neville hesitated for so long that Harry kept talking. "I was scared of him at first too, you know."
"...Yeah?"
"Yeah. Listen, you don't have to come if you're too scared. But when I was sorted into Slytherin, I thought I'd been sorted into the most evil place there is. Vold- erm, You-Know-Who killed my parents, and he was in Slytherin. I thought someone would hex me my first night there. But aside from Draco being a bit of a jerk sometimes, they're all pretty decent."
"I'm not scared," Neville mumbled, though his face (and everything else) betrayed him. "And I know they're all right. They were all right tonight, at least."
This was true. All through dinner Draco had kept his mouth shut, probably aware of what Snape would do if he ran his mouth in his presence, and the rest of the Slytherins... well, no one had wrapped their arms around Neville and sung campfire songs, but no one in Slytherin did that, not even with each other. They included him in the conversation, kept the insults to a minimum, and Neville seemed to understand fairly quickly that no one actually thought he had a face like a toad.
Harry leaned against the stone wall. The hall had emptied out, and now just the teachers were passing by.
"How sweet," Professor Sprout said, clutching her hands to her chest as she passed. "Just the sweetest thing I've ever seen."
Harry thought he might be sick, but he forced a smile that was immediately dropped once her back was turned. Professor Snape and McGonagall approached as well, but they didn't say a word or even acknowledge them, which Harry preferred, wishing all professors would just stay out of the business of their students unless someone's hair was on fire. Neville flinched as Snape's eyes glanced over him, but Snape didn't say anything and instead vanished down the stairs to the dungeons, while McGonagall started up the grand staircase.
"Inter-house unity is a wonderful thing," came a soft voice to their right, and Harry nearly jumped out of his skin as Professor Dumbledore walked by. He hadn't heard him coming, and didn't quite know what to say, but the Headmaster just smiled and followed Professor McGonagall up the stairs.
"You heard him," Harry said in as jokey a voice as he could muster. "But really, you don't have to. I'm sorry if I'm pressuring you."
"You're not," Neville said, in a voice that attempted to be brave but instead just sounded more frightened than before. "Fine. Let's do it."
"Really?"
"Yeah." Neville nodded and added, "Let's go. Let's go see the Slytherin common room."
Harry grinned, though a pit was forming in his stomach and he wondered to himself, am I doing the right thing?
The Slytherin common room fell silent the moment the stone wall slid open. Harry's conversation with Neville had taken time, as had the slow walk to the dungeons, and they were the last ones to arrive. No one said a word for an excruciatingly long moment, and Harry was certain that Neville was about to flee.
"C'mon, then," he said, nodding into the room and motioning for Neville to follow him. "Want to play Gobstones?"
"Absolutely not." Marcus Flint was in front of them before Harry could blink, blocking their way in.
"I wasn't asking you," Harry shot back at the sixth year with significantly more bravery in his demeanor than he actually felt. "But you're welcome to join if you change your mind."
A roar of laughter erupted from the other sixth years, and quite a few other students, and for a moment Harry thought everything would be all right.
"Are you bloody stupid, Potter? Did that scar give you brain damage?" Flint took a step closer, his sneer intensifying. "What the hell is wrong with you? He has his own common room. We have ours. Get out of here, Longbottom."
Harry's hand darted out and grabbed Neville by the wrist, yanking him back. "There isn't any rule that says we have to go to our own common room only, is there?"
"There's literally a password at the door!" Draco Malfoy burst out, looking at Harry with such undisguised disgust that it was only then that he understood the magnitude of his mistake. "We don't allow Mudblood lovers here!"
"Shut up, Malfoy!" Terence snapped, and clamped a hand down on Marcus's shoulder. "Stand aside, Flint. Let him in."
"Why don't you stand aside, Higgs?" Marcus shot back at him. "You've been abso-fucking-lutely insufferable ever since Snape made you a prefect- no one likes you!"
"No one has to like me," Terence snarled in his ear. "But you do have to listen to me- unless you want me to tell Snape what's in the false bottom of your nightstand?"
Marcus's eyes widened in surprise and horror. "You fucking shit!"
Neville's eyes were as wide as saucers at both the threats and the profanity, none of which were particularly uncommon in the Slytherin common room. What wasn't common, however, was the tension that only seemed to rise with each moment.
"Neville, right?" Ellen's voice rang out and she took a few steps forward. "Come on in. Ignore Marcus, he's just not used to visitors. We're happy to have you."
"We're bloody well not!" Marcus shot back, and Harry's stomach sank even further when several voices chimed in agreement.
"It's the Slytherin common room!"
"I don't care that he's a Gryffindor, but it's not the same as sitting at our table!"
"I think I should go," Neville said quietly, trying to pull his wrist free. "Harry-"
"Why did you think you'd be welcome here?" Draco stepped closer. "Don't you remember what happened to your parents?"
Neville let out a noise that Harry would remember for the rest of his life and yanked his arm free. But instead of running, he stood there for a moment and then shouted, "Shut up, Malfoy!"
Then he ran, and the common room exploded into chaos. It was almost impossible to make anything out in the enormous din, but it was clear that there was an even divide over whether Harry had done the right thing- and each side was furious with the other. Harry didn't understand his wand was out and that blinding white sparks had erupted from its tip until they'd hit Draco square in the face, and then he whirled on Marcus, who sneered down at him with exactly the kind of face Dudley had when he was about to shove his head into a toilet.
"You're an arsehole!" Harry shouted at the sixteen-year-old.
"And you're a half-blood," Marcus shot back. "So I win."
Harry turned back the way he'd come and hurtled down the corridor, straight into the solid mass that was Severus Snape. Not now, he thought, dodging the hand that shot out to grab him, instead continuing to run, even if it meant holy hell later.
"Potter!" Snape shouted after him.
"I have to find Neville!" Harry shouted over his shoulder and Snape, perhaps seeing the chaos unfolding through the open common room door ahead, chose to hurry in.
It took twenty minutes, but he eventually found him in an unused room near a corridor an older student had once told him led to the kitchens. He wasn't alone. Harry slowed to a stop as he saw not just Neville on a wooden bench, but Tracey Davis, Vincent Crabbe, a second year named Carl Riggle, two fifth years called Alice Robertson and George Lambourne, and Terence Higgs.
"What are you doing here?" Harry asked, his voice sticking in his throat.
"While you were busy hexing Malfoy and slamming into Snape, we grabbed this one," Tracey said with a jerk of her head toward Neville, "And made sure he was all right."
"About half the house would have gone after him, but Snape must have the common room on lockdown by now." Carl sat cross-legged on the floor and motioned to the spot next to him. "He's okay. Don't worry."
Harry lowered himself onto the floor nervously and stared at Neville, who didn't look okay. Tears were streaming down his face, though he tried to hide it by staring at his lap and wiping furiously at his eyes.
"I'm fine," Neville mumbled. "I'm sorry to start a fight."
"You have nothing to be sorry about!" Harry protested. "Neville, I'm so sorry. I had no idea that would happen. Malfoy's a tit, and Marcus..."
"He's been getting better, but..." Alice shook her head. "Slytherin is complicated, Potter. Our parents are complicated."
"I thought it would be all right," Harry said, feeling like the biggest fool in the world. "I thought..."
"A lot of students, when they come to Hogwarts, they're just like Malfoy," Terence spoke up. "Our families are a mess, Potter. We were raised our whole lives to believe in the sort of awful rubbish Voldemort spread, and then we're sorted into Slytherin because our parents have made it clear that's the only option. Professor Snape is the way he is for a reason- he's trying to get it out of us. Why do you think Malfoy is still spending every Wednesday after supper cleaning cauldrons?"
Harry didn't answer, and Terence kept speaking. "Every year there's at least a first year or two who has to spend an evening a week with Snape. He's talking with them, and trying to undo the damage their parents have done. I spent nearly my entire first year in Snape's classroom after dinner."
"My dad was a Death Eater," Vincent mumbled, not making eye contact. "He said I should be friends with you if you ended up in Slytherin. Because if you were in Slytherin, you'd be the next best thing to the Dark Lord."
"Do you agree with him?" Harry asked, his voice low.
"I don't know. I don't know anything," Vincent said angrily- though the anger wasn't directed at him, or seemingly at any one person in general. "I know Muggles are supposed to be bad, but you were raised by them, and you're all right. You don't like the Dark Lord, but you're not a bad person either. You're... you're just a kid like me."
"My dad's a Muggle," Tracey said to Vincent, her voice soft. "He's one of the smartest, bravest people I know. You'd like him if you met him."
"Maybe I would. Besides, you're better at every class than I am," Vincent said in response. "My dad always says people with Muggle blood are stupid. If that's not true, then what else isn't true?" He ran a hand through his hair and let out a grunt of frustration. "I don't like any of this. I don't understand it."
"Our parents are wrong, is what it is," George spoke up. "Most of us end up coming to terms with it by the end of our first year, maybe our second. But there's always a few people who don't."
"Marcus?" Harry asked, a single word question.
"He's still figuring it out," George said, and clapped a hand on Neville's shoulder. "I'm sorry about what happened back there. Slytherin can be a bit... harsh. And insular. We've never had another student walk in like that. No one knew what to do. But you're just a kid. I'm sorry you were treated like that."
"I'm an idiot," Neville sniffled. "A big, stupid idiot."
"You're not," Harry said quickly. "I promise, you're not."
"You're really not, Neville," Tracey said, climbing up next to him on the bench and ruffling his hair. Neville winced, but didn't protest. "We wouldn't have come after you if you were." She paused for a moment, then said, "A lot of my mum's family doesn't talk to us because she married my dad. They're all Slytherins. But a lot of my mum's family does talk to us, and loves us, and are the best people in the world. They're also Slytherins. There's a lot of rotten people out there, but it's not because of what house they come from. It's because they're just... rotten people."
"Two of my uncles and my aunt were killed by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named because they refused to follow him," Carl said. "Some of my cousins think he's amazing, but the rest of my family hates what he's done to the Dark Arts. We've never supported him, or what happened to your parents."
Harry looked at Neville, unable to ask, but he figured he more or less knew by now why Neville lived with his grandmother. "I hate Voldemort. He destroyed my family, and a lot of other families too. You're always welcome with us- with the real Slytherins."
"There's more of us than you know," Tracey said to him, and Neville gave her a small, shaky smile.
Harry glanced up, and his heart nearly stopped in his chest at the sight of Snape standing in the doorway. How long had he been there? A deathly hush fell over the room, and the Slytherins scrambled to their feet. Neville let out a terrified squeak and jumped to his feet as well.
"To your dorms," Snape said, his voice nearly a hiss, but-
He wasn't angry. Not at them. His brow was furrowed, his eyes narrowed, his lips thinner than Harry had ever seen them, but he knew one thing for sure, and it was that Snape wasn't angry with them. As Harry made to follow the rest of his housemates, Snape's hand reached out and stopped him and Neville from going any further.
"I'll walk you back to your common room," Snape said to Neville, his voice clipped. Over Neville's protests that he was fine, really, he snapped, "Don't be stupid, boy. Potter, wait outside my office. We need to talk."
Harry nodded, somehow knowing that he wouldn't be leaving with a sore backside this time, but dreading what was to come, whatever it was, all the same. "You're all right, Neville?"
Neville just nodded, but as Harry turned his back to leave, he called after him, "Thank you for inviting me, Harry. No one invites me to do anything in Gryffindor."
Harry didn't know how to respond to this, so he just nodded and, under Snape's watchful eye, started toward his office.
