IMPORTANT A/N: This is the last chapter where this story will be named Our Choices Define Us. Right before I post chapter six, I will be changing the name to Fixing Past Mistakes. I am not following J.K.R.'s timeline. Please read warnings regularly. I'm getting a better feel for the story and they might change. They haven't yet, but please watch out. Please enjoy the super-long chapter. I didn't like that three chapters all happened in one day so I took the original chapter six and stuck it in here. )
Chapter Five: Let the Games Begin
"Potter?" Draco asked his eyes slightly widened with surprise. The entire table was staring at Harry. Harry's name had never been announced to the Hall, but was heard by everyone when Dumbledore was speaking to him.
"Yeah," Harry replied, raising a brow.
"Am I correct in saying that there is a lot to all of this that we don't know?" Blaise asked calmly.
"Yup, but now is not the time or place to talk about it. For now you'll have to live with the fact that a hell of a lot has changed, including Harry. He's no longer the Gryffindor Golden Boy." Emily said firmly. She reached for the potatoes and began eating. The others soon followed suit.
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After dinner Harry and Emily let themselves be led to the Slytherin Common Room.
"Not exactly homey, but I like it." Emily said as she looked around the Common Room.
The Common Room was decorated, of course, in black, green, and silver. The couches and arm chairs were black leather with green and silver throw pillows on them. The tables and chairs were made of red mahogany. The room was lit by candlelight, of which there wasn't much. The portraits and tapestries on the walls were of battles between different species, thunderstorms, and dark castles.
"Hasn't changed much," Harry noted with a smirk, waiting for the question.
"When have you ever been here?" Pansy asked nastily.
"Second year, I used the Polyjuice Potion to be Goyle to see if Draco was the heir of Slytherin." He smiled at Draco and sat on the couch nearest to the roaring fireplace. The blonde's eyebrow raised at the use of his first name and the smile. The rest followed him, Emily plopping next to him.
"Where shall we start?" Emily asked, taking charge. For that Harry was glad. His change had not affected his hatred of speaking about himself to a bunch of people. He gave Emily a grateful smile. When no one answered the question she continued. "Well, I'm assuming you guys want to know why Harry's here and not with the Gryffindors." Everyone nodded. "Well, to tell you that, we'd need to tell you a whole bunch of shit that we really can't tell in one night. So the short version, Dumbledore told the Weasley's to befriend Harry. Being Dumbledore worshipers, they did. When Harry became friends with Granger, Dumbledore invested time in her and convincing her that Harry was an attention-spotlight-seeking bastard and the future Dark Lord. He also convinced her that she and Weasley needed to report to him everything Harry did in order to keep him off the path of darkness." Emily and Harry rolled their eyes. "We basically found all this crap out over the last month of summer plus a lot of other shit. Harry decided to get out from under Dumbledore's thumb, starting by getting away from his soldiers and into his rightful House."
"What other things did you find out?"
"What do you mean 'rightful House'?"
"The other things we discovered aren't something that we're going to go into right now. The Sorting Hat originally wanted to put me in Slytherin, but I fought it, so I ended up in the next best House, Gryffindor." Harry spoke up and answered Blaise and Theo's questions.
"Where are the dorms?" Emily asked, looking around the Common Room.
"Girl's are down the left hallway and the boy's are down the right." Draco answered, nodding his head to the left of them. "The doors all have plaques on them with the owner's names."
"Thanks," Emily acknowledged Draco and got off the couch and went down the left hallway.
"Well, I think I'm going to turn in as well." Harry said hastily. Being around the Slytherins without Emily made him kind of uneasy. She was undoubtedly the mediator between him and the Slytherins. He knew for a fact that he wouldn't be accepted with open arms, and he was right. Harry could feel an underlying sense of caution and not being trusted. They'd been enemies for the past five years, hadn't they?
Harry got up and walked over to the right corridor. As he went down the long hallway, he scanned the plaques. Not only were the names on them, but the year as well. It seemed that the first years were at the beginning of the hallway and went on from there. Harry also noticed that no more than two people shared a room and you only roomed with year mates.
As he neared the end of the hallway, he slowed and began paying attention to the names on the doors. "Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini. Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle." He murmured aloud. The next door belonged to two seventh years, so he turned to his left and he felt a sense of excitement and dread.
Draco Malfoy, 6th Year
Harry Potter, 6th Year
How did he know that he would be sharing a room with Malfoy? Harry shook his head and opened the door.
The room was very spacious. It had two double beds, two desks with chairs, and two wardrobes. The bed sheets were black and made of what appeared to be silk. The pillows were green and silk as well. The comforter was green with silver accents with the Slytherin crest in the center. The hangings were black.
The perks of being a Slytherin, Harry thought as he observed his new room. He noticed a door on the far side of the room. He went over and opened it to see the magnificent bathroom.
It was done in black marble. It contained two sinks, two shower stalls, and a tub to rival the Prefects, with just as many taps. He exited the bathroom and changed into his pajamas. The bed was as soft as a cloud. Yes, he was going to like it here.
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"Psst… Harry,"
Harry grunted and cracked an eye open. He saw Emily about an inch from his face. "What da ya want?" he mumbled, still half asleep.
"Come on! We gotsta go run!" Emily said quietly.
"Now?" Harry groaned. The sun wasn't even up!
"Yes, now. We start earlier here, so we have to run earlier in order to be on time. So up!" She poked him in the ribs.
"Ugh, fine." Harry reluctantly agreed. He did need to keep up with his physical wellness. Besides, Emily wouldn't be able to get up this early forever; she liked to sleep in just as much as he did. So until then, he'd go along with it.
Emily left the room to allow him to change. He got up and shuffled to the bathroom.
He quickly brushed his teeth and threw some cold water on his face to wake him up. He'd shower after running. He put on his running clothes, grabbed his iPod and left his room.
"Finally!" Emily said sarcastically. She got up from the floor and began hopping on the balls of her feet. "Let's go!"
"How can you be so damn happy?" Harry asked bitterly. It was way too early to be that happy. He should be sleeping right now, not going to run in probably freezing weather.
Emily paused her skipping and thought for a moment. "I have no idea. Probably sleep deprivation."
"How can you have trouble falling asleep in beds that comfortable?" Harry asked. It had taken him all of three seconds to succumb to sleep.
"Insomnia doesn't care if you are sleeping on rocks or clouds, it comes when it wants," Harry chuckled. "What's funny?"
"No, it's just you used the same comparison that I did with the beds."
"Riiight," Emily gave him a weird look. "Well, let's go."
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After two laps around the lake and a shower, Harry and Emily both went to breakfast ravenous. They sat with their year mates and piled food on their plates.
"Are you both going to eat all that?" Draco asked, slightly disgusted at the amount of food on their plates.
"Hey, you wake up at like five in the morning, run twice around that big ass lake and tell me if you think this is too much food." Emily said and began her meal.
"You both ran around the lake twice?" Blaise asked, astonished. That lake was huge! They both nodded. "You're both mad."
"Nope, just awesomely cool." Emily replied. Harry opted for silence. He really missed Hogwarts food.
A few minutes later Snape came around handing out the schedules. When he reached their group he coldly handed out the pieces of parchment, glared nastily at Harry and moved on.
"Who was that and why did he give Harry the I'd-kill-you-if-I-could look?" Emily asked as she looked at the retreating back of their Head of House.
"That was Professor Snape," was all Harry said. He looked at his schedule and groaned.
"What?" Emily asked as she looked across the table to get a look at Harry's timetable.
"Potions with the Gryffindors first thing," Harry glared at the parchment.
"Aww, it's otay, Harry, we'll blow up their potion and hopefully scar them for life." Emily said with a large grin and turned to her own schedule.
"Is she serious?" Blaise asked in a whisper.
"Probably," Harry replied with a smirk. The thought of the Weasel and Bitch covered in boils was a fine image indeed.
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Breakfast soon ended and the Slytherins gathered their things and headed to the dungeons.
"Yay! I love potions!" Emily squealed as she jumped around the corridor.
"Well, Emily, Professor Snape will probably change that. He's a right bastard." Harry said disdainfully.
"Watch it, Potter, that's my godfather you're talking about." Draco growled.
"Hey! No fights on the first day. It wouldn't do to get in the negatives by getting points taken away." Emily said sternly. She was extremely competitive and wasn't about to get behind in the race just because of something so stupid. "Harry has one view of Snape while you, Draco, have another. Let it be and let's go before we're late!" She turned and began walking ahead of everyone.
"Emily, do you know where you're going?" Harry called to Emily, who was quite a ways ahead of them.
"No!" Emily turned and waited with her hands on her hips.
They made it to class just before the door slammed open and the Professor made his entrance.
"Today we will be working on the Blood Replenishing Potion. This is a rather difficult potion to make. I have taken it upon myself to make pairs of everyone in the class, in order to make sure there will be no mishaps," at this Snape looked directly at Harry. "When I call out your name, move to your partner. Zabini, Weasley. Thomas, Nott. Granger, Alarice."
Harry heard Emily swear Snape to hell and back under her breath as she gathered her things and went to the empty seat next to Granger. He gave her a small reassuring smile from across the room. Harry's attention was pulled back to Snape when he heard his name.
"Potter… Malfoy."
Great, he thought to himself sarcastically. He looked over at the next bench and saw Malfoy glaring at him, obviously not moving to sit next to Harry. Harry sighed and went over to sit next to his partner. Emily was right. It wouldn't do to get into a fight with Malfoy. It certainly wouldn't help his goal of getting into the Slytherin's pants. He smirked at the thought.
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Harry looked at Draco and sat down next to him. He took a deep breath. "Look, I know we haven't exactly been on each other's good side for the past five years. I think it's time we put this childish rivalry behind us, especially now that we share a dorm." Harry said and looked at Draco for any type of reaction.
Draco looked Harry over, as if deciding if Harry was worth making amends with. "Well, if you got into Slytherin and now that you're not Dumbledore's lap dog you can't be so bad."
Harry gave Draco a small smile and stuck out his hand. "Harry Potter,"
"Draco Malfoy," Draco grabbed his hand and gave it a firm shake. Harry started laughing a little. "What's so funny?" Draco appeared to have gone back to his nasty I-hate-Harry-Potter attitude. Draco believed that Harry was laughing at him.
"Nothing, it's just if someone would have told me I was going to be making friends with Draco Malfoy four months ago, I would have hexed them into next year."
Draco smirked and started the fire under their cauldron.
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The rest of the class passed in relative silence. Snape was going around the room, surveying everyone as they completed the final stage.
"What do you call this, Longbottom?" snarled Snape as he looked into Neville and Seamus' cauldron. The potion actually looked pretty good, for once.
"Umm… a Blood Replenishing Potion, sir?" Seamus spoke up quietly and afraid. Gryffindors, as much as they hated Snape, were terrified of him and Seamus was no exception.
"You call this pile of rubbish a potion? Clean it up immediately; you both get a zero for today." Snape sneered down at the silently furious Gryffindors. He was about to move on to the next cauldron when-
"How can you do that?!" Granger had jumped up from her seat and began to rant. "They had a perfectly good potion! You had absolutely no right to give them zeros, you biased pig! You al-"
"That is quite enough, Ms. Granger! Sit down and shut up." Snape was pissed and had a furious blaze in his eyes. He visibly took a deep breath and calmed himself. It wouldn't be very good if he hexed the little bitch into next week. "You will be serving detention with me for the next month for disrespecting a teacher and disrupting the class." He began to walk to the next cauldron. "And one hundred points from Gryffindor." He added as an afterthought.
"One hundred points and a month of detention for pointing out that you favor those slimy snakes and hate everyone else?!" it was now Weasley's turn to have an outburst.
As Snape totally lost his cool and ripped into Weasley, Harry looked over at Emily. He caught her eye and raised an eyebrow. He knew that no matter how unfair Snape was, Weasley and Granger would never do what they just did. They would simply bitch and moan about it the second they walked out the door.
"Great idea, I know." Emily smirked and mouthed. She turned back to Snape, who had returned to his desk after giving Weasley two months of detention and taking another hundred points. Both Granger and Weasley had looks of confusion and fury on their faces and Harry smirked.
This is way better than boils. Watch out you bastards. This is only the beginning for you two. Harry thought nastily.
Harry began to pack up his things after taking up his and Draco's potion to Snape. He quickly made his way over to Emily.
"Until we're outside," she murmured. They walked side by side out of the classroom.
As soon as they were out of Gryffindor earshot, "What did you do to them?"
"Oh, just a little spell I picked up." Emily smirked at him. Harry gave Emily a smile and a high five.
"So you're responsible for the little show in Potions today?" Draco had come up alongside them and had apparently caught the last bit of what Emily said.
"Yup, I was just telling Harry that it was just a spell that forces the person to speak their mind."
"But why?" Draco looked at Harry and Emily.
"Wow… He really isn't a bottle blonde." Emily said, looking at Draco in sarcastic awe.
"That wasn't very nice, Em." Harry chastised playfully.
"Pssh, like I care."
"Someone care to fill me in?" Draco did look a little lost.
"Well, I said that you weren't a bottle blonde, which means you dyed or spelled your hair blonde, because you had what Americans call a 'blonde moment'. I'm not sure what British people call it. I say this because back home, and maybe here I don't know, blondes are stereotyped as stupid." Emily said really fast, in one breath.
"Oh, I see," Draco said. He still looked slightly puzzled, but neither Harry nor Emily felt like explaining it again.
They walked for a few minutes in silence until they reached the Grand Staircase.
"Where are you headed?" Draco asked.
"We're both going to Arithmacy, double period." Harry answered.
"You've never been in my class." Draco said, directing this at Harry.
"We went to the Ministry and went to the place where the school people are, you know, the people that gave you your owls-" Emily began.
"O.W.L.s," Harry interrupted.
"Whatever. Well, we told them that Harry wanted to change from Care of Magical Creatures and Divination to Arithmacy and Ancient Runes. They had him take a bunch of tests and he got in. So, yeah." Emily finished as she pulled open the door to their classroom.
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After class, Emily dragged Draco and Harry out of the room and into the Great Hall.
"Why were you so eager to get here?" Draco asked as he took his seat. He wasn't all too happy about his arm almost being pulled out of its socket.
"I am one hungry mofo," Emily said with a large smile. She turned down to look at the food in front of her. "Definitely not," She took her wand out and waved it over her plate. On her plate was two big slices of cheese pizza with a large pile of ranch dressing next to them.
Harry looked at the pizza on Emily plate and then at the food on his. "Get me some of that shit." Harry loved his pizza. Emily laughed and conjured some pizza for Harry. "Thanks," Emily nodded.
"What is that?" Blaise, who had joined them a moment ago, asked.
"Pizza, duh." Emily said. She reached under the table and grabbed her book bag. She took out her Arithmacy homework and began working.
Seeing that Emily was not going to clarify, Harry answered Blaise. "It's a Muggle dish. It's basically tomato sauce and melted cheese on a bread crust. Very tasty, espically with ranch dressing."
"I don't see how anything made by Muggles can be appetizing." Draco sneered at the food.
Emily looked up from her work. "Oh, get over yourself, Draco. Just because they don't have magic doesn't mean they're totally incompetent. I suggest you lose the superiority complex you have going. It's rather annoying." Draco was about to protest when Emily held up her hand. "I know you think that you're superior to Muggles and Half-Bloods and that they shouldn't be able to use magic." At this Draco nodded, glad that she got the point. "But I have a question. What would eventually happen if only Purebloods married and had kids?"
"The magic race would be purged of dirty blood." Draco smirked, thinking he had Emily in a corner. Theo and Pansy had joined them and were watching Draco and Emily with Blaise and Harry.
"Wrong! You all would die out because you'd end up screwing your sister. There aren't that many Purebloods left and they're already banging their second cousins. Half- and Muggle-borne are essential to the survival of magic. Now, I know it's not cool that Muggle-borne come here, learn magic, and go back to the Muggle world. But the strong ones would be able to keep magical folk from getting weird deformities by having kids with their close relatives and keep magic strong. Do you know what I'm saying?" Emily finished. She took a bite out of her slice, waiting for Draco to reply.
"I am above Mudbloods in every way." Draco said haughtily. He returned to his meal.
Emily rolled her eyes and mumbled to herself, "Well it's not like I was expecting to get through to him this easy." Harry just shook his head. They'd eventually get though to them. Just not anytime soon.
"Draco's right. Mudbloods shouldn't be here. They taint us." Pansy said, eagerly agreeing with Draco. Harry noticed that she was still the clingy, obsessed pug she was for the past five years.
Harry was relieved to hear the bell ring. He didn't want a fight to break out between his friends. He didn't totally notice that he now thought of the Slytherins as his friends.
A/N: Review, yes? Thank you to everyone that has already taken time to review. I may not reply, but each and every one are appreciated. Grilled cheese for everyone!