This chapter was entirely RandomMuggle's idea, I just wrote it down. Sorry it took so long, I was waiting for RM's approval, but she's been absolutely swamped at work. If she comes back with an edited version, I'll replace this one with it. But for now, we don't own HP and Enjoy.
Talks of an Alliance
June 13th, 1992
Third Year
"How would you feel about an alliance? Between Slytherin and Hufflepuff," Marcus Flint asked. It was the last Hogsmeade weekend, two days before the train came to take them home, and, after a bit of searching, he'd found Jo and Leilani at the Three Broomsticks and pulled up a chair at their table. They'd both given him funny looks when he'd sat down. He suspected they weren't accustomed to Slytherins being nice to them, let alone sitting down and proposing an alliance.
Leilani held out her arm and said, "Pinch me," Jo pinched her, hard. "Ouch!" She looked back at Flint, "He's still here."
"I think he's serious. Probably ought to stop talking about him as though he weren't there," Jo said with just a hint of admonishment, thoroughly masked by amusement.
"You think?"
"I think."
"Ok," Leilani stood and walked to the counter. She returned with three butterbeers and gave one to Flint, part in welcome and part in apology for being rude. Leili tried to view all the houses as equal, as the founders had wanted, but there were a few centuries of bad blood between the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs, which made it difficult to remain objective. Still, she valued fairness so she tried not to let the inherited prejudice color her judgment too heavily.
"An alliance, with Slytherin?" he prompted.
"What exactly would this alliance do?" Jo asked.
"It would cut down on the bullying for one thing, you'd be free to send back wayward Slytherins, we're generally more likely to consider doing something if it comes from another Slytherin, as opposed to, say, a Hufflepuff, so you'd be free to make requests. If there's anything you, or your Hufflepuffs, need, you could to come to us for help. It would increase communication, that's for sure."
"What's in it for you?" Jo asked.
"You don't believe I'm doing this for the good of both our houses?" Flint asked, an eyebrow quirked over his bottle of butterbeer.
"Not really, no," Leili said. "I could be wrong though, it has happened before," she joked.
"A better name for Slytherins. Right now, most students dread the idea of being sorted into Slytherin, most people see Slytherin House as the house those with the potential to become Dark Wizards go. Just because we value cunning and ambition, doesn't mean we're all evil. Slytherin is not well favoured. What's in it for me is that the name of a proud house stops getting dragged through the mud."
"With intentions like that, you could almost have been a Hufflepuff," Leili said in some wonder. Flint shot her a look that said he was quite happy as a snake, Thankyouverymuch.
"Do you have a name for this alliance?" Jo asked. Flint took this as a sign that they were in, so he told them what he'd thought to call it.
"The SlytherPuff Alliance."
Well, there you go, that's Harry's first year wrapped. I hope you enjoyed it. Stay tuned and we'll be back with more. (School starts this week so I don't know how often I'll be able to update, have patience.)