Harry woke up to the sound of a vague ticking noise. Something was banging against something else repeatedly. As he slowly opened his eyes and adjusted to the bright morning light flooding in from the window next to his bed, he rubbed his eyes, slowly drawing back the curtains. He blinked twice as he saw it was Hedwig who was ticking on the window pane with her beak. "What are you doing?" Harry whispered, having already sat up in his bed. Hedwig looked at him for a moment, but after a slight pause she continued ticking her beak against the window. She stopped again after eight ticks and looked at Harry curiously again. Harry got the sense that Hedwig was trying to tell him something important, and then he remembered: he was at Hogwarts, he'd just slept in the Hufflepuff dormitory, and it was the first day of classes! Hedwig probably wanted him to get up and get dressed and ready for breakfast.

Harry got up, dressing himself. He had fallen asleep in the clothes he wore the previous day: his normal baggy pants and baggy jumper he'd got from Dudley. Over that, he wore the Hogwarts school robes he had put on on the train when they were approaching Hogsmeade Station. Harry changed into thankfully normal-sized black pants and a white T-Shirt with a black jumper over it and a black-and-yellow tie with the Hufflepuff logo on it. He got the clothes from his trunk that had already been delivered to the room before he even got there. He found his school clothes he had bought in Diagon Alley when he visited it with Hagrid on his birthday, and although he had no idea how a Hufflepuff-coloured tie had appeared in his school trunk, he was not that surprised anymore that unexpected things could happen in the world of magic.

Before Harry left the dormitory, he turned around at the door opening. He wondered whether he should wake up the other boys, but in the end he decided against it. Hedwig had probably wanted him not to be late for anything on the first day of school, not even breakfast, which meant that it was still early in the morning. Goldstein and Zabini would have time to get up and eat breakfast before classes would begin. And if they did not wake up, Harry thought as he looked at Hedwig giving him a slight nod, Hedwig would wake them up either way.

Harry made his way down the spiral staircase that led to his dormitory and entered the common room. It was not very busy, although there were some students already sitting on the sofa and chairs talking with each other. Some students came down the staircases and joined them, apparently waiting for each other before going down to breakfast.

As Harry left the common room, he tried to remember the way they'd walked to the Hufflepuff common room from the Great Hall yesterday after dinner. He quickly noticed recalling it was harder than he had thought. Professor Sprout had said it right that they had a lot to process yesterday, with the train ride and seeing Hogwarts for the first time only being a scrap on the surface. Unfortunately, the way to his common room had not been one of those things.

Standing in the darkened hallway on the stone-flagged floor, Harry tried to think of a way to get to the Great Hall. He could try to just walk away from the common room and try to find the Great Hall by memory, assuming he would walk past things he remembered from yesterday. The Prefect had told them to remember certain elements to memorise the paths that led to the Great Hall, but Harry had been in awe over the surroundings and the revolving staircases, not to mention the paintings with living people inside of them. He already regretted not having listened more attentively.

Then he remembered! He could ask Pope Leo! He turned around and saw the statue of the Pope standing a little to the side of the entrance to the common room in a dark little alcove.
The Pope looked at him and smiled.

"Well, if that isn't Harry Potter," he said, smiling good-naturedly at Harry. He sounded like an old man who was permanently out of breath but who miraculously managed to get out a few words as a response.

"How do you know who I am?"

"One hears, one hears," the Pope answered mysteriously.

Harry didn't know how he should respond to that, so he decided to ask the Pope what he wanted to ask him in the first place.

"Do you know the route I need to take to get to the Great Hall?"

"If you follow your heart, you should get where you want to be."

Harry frowned. "I don't know what that means," he said. But the Pope didn't answer. It looked as if the Pope wasn't as lively anymore and that his features didn't move, but were instead rigid and set in stone. Harry was disappointed. He had a feeling that whatever he was going to ask, the Pope would answer in the same mysterious and unhelpful way that he'd responded to his question. Harry hoped the other paintings and statues in the castle would be more helpful than that.

Then the door of the common room opened and students filed out, no doubt on their way to the Great Hall for breakfast. The students appeared to be older than Harry and were talking animatedly to each other. Harry decided to follow them from a distance, not wanting to come across as a first-year student who had lost the way on his first day already.

When they finally reached the Great Hall, it was twenty past eight as a clock near the entrance told Harry. Harry went to the Hufflepuff table and sat down on a bench. The older students went further up the table to sit with other Hufflepuffs from older years.

Harry assembled a plate of breakfast and dug into his bacon, beans, egg, and sausages. As he ate, he saw a few of the first-year students enter the Great Hall as well. He wondered how they had found their way, or if they had simply memorised the path they'd walked with their Prefect yesterday. Harry also heard a few students talking about the sorting of last night.

"It was weird, didn't you think?" a Ravenclaw boy said at the table opposite Harry, between the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor ones.

"I mean, usually, it's all happiness and clapping when new students join their houses and silence and stares and perhaps some boos when people join Slytherin, but mostly it's just a happy affair. I don't know when I've ever seen this many students mad or disappointed when they heard which House they belonged to before."

"And did you see that girl who threw the Hat on the ground?" a girl chimed in.

"Yeah, that was something, alright. But what I found most surprising of all was when Harry Potter got sorted into Hufflepuff," yet another Ravenclaw boy said. "I mean, am I the only one who expected him to be in Gryffindor, like his parents?"

"No, you're right," the girl chimed in again. "I expected him to be in Gryffindor as well. I think everybody did. I suppose he could have ended up in Ravenclaw. That wouldn't have been a bad choice, obviously. But Hufflepuff of all Houses? The House that people end up in when they don't fit any other House? The House that accepts everyone that doesn't have any particular quality?"

"At least he didn't end up in Slytherin," one of the boys said again. "Imagine that. Harry Potter getting sorted into the House of the wizard that murdered his parents."

"Shhh! He can hear us!" the Ravenclaw girl whispered loudly. She sat opposite the two Ravenclaw boys on the bench nearest the Gryffindor table and faced Harry from a table away. With a warning hiss, an urgent stare and a nod in Harry's direction she ended the conversation. The boys turned around to look at Harry. Not knowing what to do, Harry looked down at his breakfast, embarrassed, hoping the three Ravenclaw students would stop looking at him and begin talking about something else. He didn't have any experience with being the centre of attention and he apparently didn't like it either. It seemed like everybody seemed to find the sorting of the previous day weird, not just the ones that had been sorted. And it was all because he, Harry, had been sorted into a less expected, or maybe even least expected House of all. Great.

Harry was broken from his reverie when he heard someone sitting down next to him. To his surprise, it was Pansy Parkinson. Harry frowned, genuine bewilderment on his face that she would choose to sit next to him after the conversation they'd had during dinner yesterday. After all, it wasn't as if there were no more places available along the Hufflepuff table.

Parkinson noticed him staring at her and turned to face him. "You may be an idiot, Potter, but at least both of us know that you don't belong here."

Even though the first thing she called him was 'idiot', Harry was glad to have someone to talk with and who shared his fate.

"Everybody seems to think so."

"Obviously," Parkinson answered, rolling her eyes as she started to put some bread on her plate.

Harry sighed. "Why can't Hufflepuff be my House? Why does the House I belong to need to be the same House everybody expects me to be in?"

"Because the expectations are there for a reason. They're based on something. I mean, seriously, the Boy-Who-Lived who destroyed the most powerful wizard of all time ending up in Hufflepuff, the House with people with no exceptional qualities other than working hard and being friendly? Yeah, no, you're right. That does sound logical," she said, shaking her head in disbelief.

Parkinson's sarcastic response reminded Harry of the Ravenclaw girl who had said almost the exact same thing just moments ago. Harry didn't like that; it was annoying hearing people talk about which House he should have been sorted into and why the House he was in sucked. Why did other people think they had the right to decide what was good and what was bad for him?

"So what House do I belong to, then?" Harry asked, feeling slightly annoyed.

The girl looked at him with disbelieving eyes. "Are you seriously asking this? Gryffindor, you idiot! Just like the other morons who are like you."

"Can you just stop calling me things like 'idiot' and 'moron'?" Harry hissed, feeling angry now. He had stopped eating his breakfast and looked pointedly at her.

"Why? I was just stating a fact, wasn't I?" Parkinson answered, feigning innocence in a mocking tone.

"Okay, fine." Harry got up to pick up his plate and his cup of pumpkin juice, and turned around, but before he could have walked away, he got called back.

"Hey! What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm going to sit with other students who don't call me an idiot or a moron." He'd spotted Lisa Turpin and Padma Patil coming in as he was talking with Parkinson. They were now sitting some way further up the table in the direction of the teachers' table. As he faced the annoying girl now, standing up he could see Blaise Zabini and Anthony Goldstein entering the Great Hall as well. Harry thought briefly that it must be around eight thirty now and that they'd only be awake now because of Hedwig.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Parkinson asked him, sounding smug.

"Why wouldn't it be?" He had wanted to walk away as soon as possible after saying that he didn't want to sit with someone who called him a moron all the time. But it wouldn't be the same if he were to do it now after second-guessing himself. Besides, there was something in the girl's tone that made him think that maybe she was right.

"Two reasons," she stated matter-of-factly. "Firstly, you're about to sit with people who don't know you and who are not like me who couldn't care any less about the fact you're Harry Potter. They're going to ask you all sorts of questions. Need I help you remember the fact that I saved you from that Hufflepuff girl yesterday? It didn't look like you liked being asked those questions."

"I talked with Lisa yesterday during dinner. She didn't ask me questions. And I don't know about Padma, but she looks like a nice enough person as well, unlike you."

"It's true for the older students. What makes you think it isn't true for the people in the same year as us? Or do you think that since they didn't ask you yesterday, they never will in the future?"

Harry frowned in frustration. She was being unfair. She made it seem as though he couldn't be friends with anybody without being asked questions about his parents and him defeating You-Know-Who. As if he would always need to field those questions before being able to make friends, which sounded more like a business deal than a friendship; only on the condition that he answered their questions would they give him friendship in return as part of the transaction. So even if he would let people ask him questions, he couldn't ever consider them true friends. Harry tried to find somebody else at the Hufflepuff table. Somebody who looked like they wouldn't care about him being the Boy-Who-Lived. His eyes landed on Mandy Brocklehurst somewhere down the table, near the entrance to the Great Hall. She was sitting alone, reading a book while eating breakfast. She looked like the person he was looking for, but he couldn't very well give her as an example and then walk away to sit with her. She didn't look like the kind of person who easily talked with others and who would rather escape in the world of the book she was reading.

Meanwhile, Parkinson went on. "Second, do you really want to make friends with people in the wrong House? Do you really want to make friends with people you most likely won't talk to that much when you've been sorted in the right House? Between meals, classes, curfew and free time, you're going to spend most of your time with your Housemates. You're welcome to try and make friends with those Hufflepuffs, but you'd only be setting yourself up for disappointment."

Harry looked over at Lisa and Padma and considered it. If Hufflepuff truly was the wrong House for him, did he want to make friends with other Hufflepuffs? He imagined what it would be like being friends with Lisa or Padma, or even Anthony or Blaise, when he was in the right House. Either there was not enough time to spend with each other because most of that time was used in hanging out with Housemates, and they'd slowly start spending less and less time together, until they'd either only greet each other in the hallways or ignore each other completely. Or they would stick together despite House boundaries, which would mean less time spent with Housemates, which their Housemates would find weird. If he'd rather spend time with someone from another House, perhaps then they didn't want to hang out with him or study together. What if he wanted to join the Quidditch team and his Housemates wouldn't let him because they thought he was a traitor to them? Either way, it wasn't an easy deal.

The rest of his thoughts ebbed away as Blaise and Anthony took their seats up the table opposite from Lisa and Padma. It seemed like they were chatting happily. If Harry were to join now, it would feel awkward. The seating arrangement favoured four, not five.

Dejectedly, Harry turned around, facing Parkinson again. With a sigh, he sat back down and laid down his plate and cup. "So I'm stuck with you, then?" he said, resigning his fate.

"It does seem like that, doesn't it?" she answered nonchalantly, her voice tinged with just a hint of pleasure at his expenses.

Harry sighed again and hunched over his breakfast.

"Moron."

Now, Harry had had enough. He let his fork and knife fall onto his plate loudly and turned around to her angrily, ready to tell her off, but just then he saw the tiniest hint of a smile playing around Parkinson's lips. She'd meant it as a joke. Something to tease him with.

Harry felt himself slowly starting to smile and he shook his head as he turned away from the girl to face his breakfast again, hiding his grin. It was an annoying quality of Parkinson that she called him names, but a quality that maybe, just maybe, he was able to deal with.

They quietly ate breakfast. Harry was thinking again about the sorting last night. About the House he'd been expected to be sorted into, the House he ended up in, and what House was the right one for him. He was startled to realise something so big that he was completely mystified as to how he hadn't considered it before. Everybody had expected him to be in Gryffindor, and although Hufflepuff wasn't too bad, he had hoped to end up in Gryffindor as well. But if Gryffindor was the House he belonged to, how would he end up there? The sorting had been done, the result was fixed. Nothing could be changed about that.

He was about to ask Pansy about it, but he didn't get the chance as Professor McGonagall was standing behind him and handed him and Pansy their timetables.

"I will be seeing you in Transfiguration in about ten minutes, Mr. Potter. The same goes for you, Miss Parkinson," the professor said as she handed Pansy her timetable. As the professor started to walk away, ready to hand out a timetable to the next student, Harry heard Pansy mutter under her breath "Obviously".

Harry looked over his schedule. It seemed to consist mostly of double periods with some free time in-between. He couldn't resist a sigh as he thought that it was only his first day of school; September 2 - and it was a Monday. He had two hours of Transfiguration from nine to eleven and a free hour before lunch. After lunch, he'd have two hours of Charms, followed by two periods of History of Magic, which would be the end of the day. Classes started at nine and ended at twelve for lunch break. Classes resumed again at one and ended again at five with a free period before dinner would start at six.

Tuesdays, he had Herbology, Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Potions, all double periods as well. Wednesdays, he had Transfiguration, Herbology and Potions, all double periods as well, and Astronomy scheduled at midnight. That'll make for a good night, he thought secretly.

When he looked at Thursday, he was relieved to find that classes started at ten instead of nine, probably intended to lessen the burden of the Astronomy class the night before that.

He had Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts, and History of Magic again, but also his first flying lesson. Well, in his second week anyway, but he didn't mind since he got a free period instead in the first. On the other hand he had never flown on a broom before and he looked forward to it a lot. Fridays, he only had a double period of Potions and the afternoon off.

When he was done studying his schedule, Harry looked up to see students leaving the tables and making their way into the castle again. "We'd better get going too," he said to Pansy as he stood up. She took a last sip of her pumpkin juice, pushed her plate away and stood up, picked up her school bag and adjusted the shoulder strap to rest comfortably on her shoulder. Harry eyed the bag nervously. "Oh, I forgot…" Pansy followed his gaze toward her bag and realised what he meant. She rolled her eyes.

"Idiot."

"Yeah, I know that."

"Well, you'd better go and fetch it before class starts."

It was a miracle that, after having picked up his bag from his dormitory and having lost his way twice in trying to retrace his steps back to the Great Hall and from there to the correct classroom, Harry arrived there only five minutes late. It was not late enough to miss the instruction professor McGonagall was giving the class, but it was late enough to cost Hufflepuff House. "Five points from Hufflepuff, Mr. Potter. I suggest you be on time in future."

Harry made his way over to the table where Parkinson was sitting.

"The first day of classes, forgetting your bag, and already costing your House points. You're on fire today, Potter."

Harry grimaced and sat down. He took out a quill, an ink bottle and parchment out of his bag to write notes. Professor McGonagall was instructing them to turn a match she would hand out shortly into a needle. Harry jotted down the spell for the appropriate transfiguration act: acusignis. Professor McGonagall ended her short lecture and started to pass around matches, after which the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor students began their attempt to turn a match into a needle with varying degrees of success. As the professor went around the classroom to give individual feedback, the other students cried out their triumphs or expressions of disappointment or just talked with the person sitting next to them while performing the transfiguration.

Harry tried the spell two times, but with no result. The third time, he only managed to make the match quiver a little.

"Nice job, Potter," Pansy said sarcastically.

Harry looked over at his deskmate and saw the match still lying in front of her.

"Apparently you're doing no better than I am," Harry said, gesturing toward Pansy's match."

"I haven't done anything yet. I was too busy enjoying myself watching you fail."

"Very funny. You try it, then."

Pansy faced the match before her. As she swung her wand, she said the incantation 'acusignis' and pointed her wand at the match. The match quivered at first, before changing into a glittering silver needle smoothly. She'd done it effortlessly and she made it seem like the simplest thing in the world.

"See that, Potter?" she asked, looking sideways at Harry with a raised eyebrow and a wicked grin on her face.

"Well done," Harry said nonplussed, still looking perplexed at the silver needle on Pansy's desk.

Professor McGonagall had spotted Pansy's success also and came over to their table.

"Well done, Miss Parkinson! Five points to Hufflepuff." She picked up the needle and examined it more closely. "An absolutely marvellous attempt! A perfect combination of incantation and wand movement." As she looked over at Harry's match, her face turned more sour. "No luck I take it, Mr. Potter? You should take Miss Parkinson as an example. Look at how she does it and then try again." Professor McGonagall turned Pansy's needle into a match again before walking over to the table in front of them.

"You heard that? Perfect combination of incantation and wand movement. You should follow my lead, Potter."

"Yeah, yeah, no need to be so smug about it, Parkinson."

Harry tried another flick of his wand and another incantation, but it didn't work.

"And you can call me Harry."

Harry tried the spell again, and again, and again. Still no result, although he could swear he saw the match quivering more than before. As Pansy was making no comments about his shoddy spellwork, he looked over at her to catch her staring at him.

"What?"

"You said I can call you Harry."

"Yeah?" Harry asked uncertainly.

"Why?"

"Well, because it's my name," he began, a bit bewildered by the question still. "And it sounds weird if you keep calling me by my last name all the time."

"But… we're not friends," she answered, looking at him strangely. For the first time, Harry spotted a bit of insecurity in her voice.

Harry didn't know what to say. Perhaps it was a little early to be calling each other friends. After all, they only knew each other since yesterday evening. But at the same time, she was the only person whom he could consider a friend at the moment, since they had already talked multiple times and had had breakfast together and were now again sharing a desk in Transfiguration. Besides, calling his yearmate by their last name felt painfully formal.
"I didn't say that," he began slowly, unsurely. "But do we need to keep calling each other by our last names if we're not friends? We are stuck together in the wrong House after all. If we're going to be stuck together, we might as well be on a first name basis. Or are you that adamant about only using first names with friends?"

"Yes, I mean… no, it's okay," Pansy said quickly. "I… I'll call you Harry, then."

"So… Can I call you Pansy, then?"

"I guess." Although he wasn't sure, Harry thought he could see a faint smile crossing Pansy's face.

Harry smiled to himself and tried the 'acusignis' spell again. This time, to his surprise, it worked and he produced a silver needle as a puff of smoke emitted from his wand.

"I did it!" He looked at Pansy.

"What? Do you want me to say 'good job'? I gave you permission to use my first name, Harry. Don't expect me to commend you on everything you do."

"Fair enough," Harry said, though slightly crestfallen. He supposed he had reached the end of her generosity for today.

Pansy performed the transfiguration spell on her new match again and in an instant, a silver needle appeared again. They continued doing and reversing the spells as Professor McGonagall walked around the classroom, overseeing the students' progress.

"So," Harry began, after they'd been silent for a while, "what makes you so sure you belong in Slytherin?"

"It's where I want to be and it's who I am. I'm not someone who wants to spend the rest of their life with their nose in a book like Ravenclaws, I'm not someone known only for my 'friendliness' - emphasising the word sarcastically - like Hufflepuffs, and I don't even want to associate myself with that reckless courage characteristic of Gryffindors. No, I'm a Slytherin. Plus, my whole family went there as well. The fact I'm not there now is as much a shock and embarrassment to me as you being in Hufflepuff and not in Gryffindor."

"But, isn't Slytherin a bad House?" Harry asked tentatively.

"Why?"

"Well, wasn't You-Know-Who in Slytherin? And there's not a single witch or wizard that went bad that wasn't in Slytherin."

"Who told you that?" Pansy asked him, suspicious.

"I mean… it's public knowledge, isn't it? But errr… it was Hagrid who told me."

"Who?"

"Hagrid. The Ground-Keeper. You know, the big guy who led us to the boats."

"Him? And why would you ever listen to anything that brainless half-giant has to say, apart from the fact you're a moron?"

"Hey! Hagrid's a kind person. He knows a lot about the wizarding world. He introduced me to it, after all." Harry answered, brushing past the remark at his own expense.

"What?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did you seriously just say that the Ground-Keeper introduced you to the wizarding world?"

"Yes?"

"What do you mean 'introduced you'? I mean, weren't you… I…"

Harry seemed to know where the misunderstanding happened. "I wasn't brought up in the wizarding world. After You-Know-Who killed my parents, Hagrid left me at my aunt's place. She's not magical." Harry grimaced inwardly at the unintentional deeper meaning of his aunt's description.

"You mean," Pansy began, and paused. "You were raised by muggles?"

"Yeah."

There was a silence as the students around them continued with their wand swinging and spell incantation.

"Well, that changes things," Pansy began, suddenly sounding a lot less harsh. "Of course you believed what he had to say. You didn't know any better. How could you…?"

For some reason Harry felt as though Pansy was feeling a lot sadder about the fact he grew up with his aunt and uncle than he did himself. He brushed it off as an impossibility and focused his attention on her again.

"But obviously, everyone who isn't from Slytherin is going to badmouth Slytherin."

"And why is that?"

"Because we're the only House that represents true wizarding values."

"What do you mean?" It seemed to Harry as though with each question he asked, the more puzzled he was with the answers he got.

"It's simple, really. We believe that, as a rule, wizarding society should only consist of magical people. Sounds logical, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, but… that's already the case, isn't it? Only magical people can perform magic. So only magical people can attend Hogwarts and go to Diagon Alley and be witches and wizards."

"True, but only partly." As Pansy went on to explain, the wizarding world existed of people who had two magical parents, one magical parent, or none at all. The ones with both magical parents were called "purebloods", the ones with one magical parent "half-bloods", and the ones with muggle parents "muggleborns". Purebloods were in general the most powerful wizards because they had purely magical blood running through their veins, the muggleborns typically the least powerful, and the half-bloods somewhere in-between. Even though people with two magical parents, be they both purebloods, half-bloods, or muggleborns, were nowadays considered purebloods by very liberal standards, officially only people whose parents and grandparents had magical blood were considered purebloods.

As Pansy explained further, witches and wizards having relationships with and marrying muggles posed a danger to wizarding society. Not only because children born of such a marriage would have diluted magical blood, making the child less magically powerful, but also because such a relationship brought with it the risk of exposing the wizarding world to a muggle, via whom it could be exposed to many more. Half-bloods were begrudgingly accepted though, since even though they were born of such a marriage, half-bloods often proved to be very powerful and at least they already had ties to the Wizarding World. Muggleborns, or mudbloods as most purebloods used to call them, were definitely not accepted by the "people who respect magic at least a little bit" though. In most cases, they were not nearly as powerful as half-bloods and purebloods and even when they were, it was too much of a risk to have them be a part of wizarding society.

"So, what does that make me, then?" Harry said after Pansy's little monologue. He was confused and tried to process the huge amount of information Pansy had just hit him with.

"Well, you said you were brought up by muggles while I thought you were brought up in the magical world, so that confuses me a bit, but if what I learned is still right, that your father was a pureblood and that your mother was a mu- muggleborn witch, then you're a half-blood."

"Yeah, it's right, I think. My aunt is my mother's sister. She always used to say my mother was the freak of the family, the weird one. So I guess she was saying my mother was the only magical one in the family… a muggleborn." Harry paused and remembered something.

"She also used to say that my father corrupted her or something. That he turned her away from them." As if she needed any further encouragement to do so with Petunia's behaviour, he secretly thought. "Now that I think of it, it sounds like she thought my father was part of the magical world more than my mother and turned her away from the muggle world to live in the magical world. So I think he's a pureblood."

Then, Harry thought too late of how Hagrid had told him the same things, confirming that what Pansy had been taught was true. Apparently everybody knew him better than he himself, he thought bitterly.

"Well, then, yeah, you're a half-blood," Pansy answered, breaking through his internal thoughts.

"And what are you?" he asked, curious.

"I'm a pureblood," she said, smiling at him smugly.

"So you are accepted in the wizard society and I am as well, but only just?"

Pansy tilted her head as if she were admitting something she didn't like. "Well, technically, yes. But don't worry. I think most, if not all, witches and wizards, purebloods, and half-bloods accept you gladly. After all, you're the one who defeated the Dark Lord, even though he was fighting for a just cause.

Harry did a double take. Did she really just say that? "What… What did you say?"

Pansy instantly knew what he was talking about and did not feign any ignorance. Instantly she stared straight into his eyes. "I said the Dark Lord died fighting for a just cause."

"Wait, are you saying that what he did was right?! He killed my parents!"

"No, I didn't say that."

"You did!"

"No, I didn't. Have you even been listening to what I've told you? I told you about the Slytherin ideals, right? About pureblood supremacy? The reasons why Salazar Slytherin only wanted to admit pureblood students to Hogwarts and how his ideas are still relevant today?"

Harry nodded impatiently. "Yeah, you told me that already."

"And I told you how people can think that way and that it's actually very reasonable?"

"Yeah, you told me that. What are you trying to say?"

"Well, there you go. The Dark Lord was a Slytherin who obviously defended Slytherin's ideals and whom you can't blame for believing in those ideals."

"But you also said you thought it was right what he did!"

"No, I didn't!"

"You said he died fighting for a just cause!"

"Because he did! You're counting all people who believe in pureblood supremacy as one big group! You don't see a difference between people who believed in those ideals and people who supported the Dark Lord! The fact that I agree with the same ideals doesn't make me a murderer!"

Harry fell silent. As their heated argument came to an end, he became aware again of the tumultuous and noisy surroundings of the Transfiguration classroom. He was lucky the class was so noisy, or else everybody would have heard their argument, which would have been disastrous to say the least. He thought about what Pansy had said.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. You're not a murderer." He paused. After gathering his thoughts, he asked another question about something which bothered him a great deal. "Why does there have to be a pureblood supremacy? Why can't everybody just be equals? And you said that muggleborns are not accepted in wizard society because they pose too much of a threat, but at the same time you want only magical people to be a part of wizard society. So do you want them in or out?"

Pansy was quiet. She looked at him for a long time, before answering. "There doesn't have to be a pureblood supremacy. It already exists, no matter if you like it or not, it's real. Magically more powerful witches and wizards will perform the most difficult jobs in wizard society and get rewarded appropriately, just like the magically less talented witches and wizards will perform less demanding jobs and get rewarded less than the more powerful witches and wizards. And ideally, muggleborns should be given a choice. They can only be allowed to be a part of one society. If they choose to be a part of the wizard society, they will need to be obliviated so they will lose all memories of their muggle upbringing so they can function properly in the wizarding world without posing any threat to it."

"And what happens when they choose the muggle world?" Harry asked nervously when Pansy didn't finish her thought. If he wanted to be honest with himself, he wasn't sure that he wanted to know, as he felt like the worst was yet to come. They wouldn't chuck disagreeing muggleborns into prison, right? he asked himself, feeling worried about the answer. He wondered briefly if that was possible. Did wizard prisons even exist?

"Well, that can't be allowed to happen, them having magic but at the same time functioning in the muggle world. They would risk the exposure of wizard society." She paused, and stared at him before concluding with her voice being louder than a whisper: "They should be killed."

"What?!" Harry almost shouted at her, he completely forgot about himself after hearing that brutal idea. He was so loud that a couple of heads turned at him, Malfoy's head being one of them, who simply scowled at him. Thankfully McGonagall was too busy correcting Tracey Davis' wand work to hear him.

"What did you just say?" he turned to Pansy again, this time in a whisper after the class wasn't watching him anymore.

"Believe me, that's far better than the alternative."

"How can killing be any better than any alternative?"

"Because the alternative is muggleborns realising their agenda, including more and more people in wizard society with muggle connections, which will eventually lead to exposure of the wizarding world. And every single time that has happened in the past, witches and wizards die. There is a reason why the wizarding world is kept quiet from muggles. Even Hogwarts tells the parents of muggleborns to not tell anyone about the existence of the magical world."

Harry didn't respond. He was processing what Pansy was telling him.

Pansy continued. " The way I see it, only two scenarios can happen. Either the muggleborns win, and dilute magical blood, making wizards less and less powerful, exposing the wizarding world and getting thousands of witches and wizards killed. Or the purebloods win, only allowing pureblood relationships. This will allow them to not dilute magical blood, making wizards only more powerful. They will include muggleborns who want to be included, and exclude the ones who don't want to be. In the end, all of this is to not expose the wizarding world and safeguard the lives of all witches and wizards in wizard society."

"But what about locking them up in prison until they change their mind? Sure, it isn't the best solution either, but way better than murdering people for not agreeing to lose a ton of memories," Harry asked, now using his previously dreaded idea.

"Not even nearly safe enough, Pot- Harry." She rolled her eyes. "It's enough for one of them to escape, and it can cause unstoppable disasters."

Harry kept quiet still, thinking about Pansy's words, carefully weighing them. He desperately wanted people to be equal. If they weren't equal, it sounded all too much like a recipe for disaster like the ones he'd read about in his history books in primary school. He couldn't come up with any good arguments, but he refused to believe that what Pansy was saying was true. He decided to go with his gut.

"But why can't everybody just be equals? I mean, if the muggleborns were winning… You said that even muggleborns can be magically powerful. And surely they can make laws to prevent exposure of the wizarding world to the muggle world!"

"Because purebloods will never cease to exist. They will always keep fighting for their beliefs. And you know why that is? It's because they have an instinct called survival, ingrained in them through centuries of history of muggles persecuting witches and wizards. Something you might benefit from familiarising yourself with, actually."

"And why's that?"

"Because every time in history muggles persecuted witches and wizards, they killed the most powerful ones first."

"And who are the most powerful witches and wizards now, then?" Harry asked, irritated.

"Wizards. And Dumbledore. But after that… probably you."

Harry paled. He had never realised muggles could be his enemy. He'd walked through Privet Drive, he'd been in London. He'd seen countless other people, even played with a few kids at the playground on Magnolia Road. To think that they could all come to hate him, and try to murder him if they were aware he was magical.

As Harry didn't say anything, Pansy continued. "So that's why it's better to unfortunately kill a few of the muggleborns in order to save many more lives."

Harry still didn't speak. He looked down at his desk, his brow furrowed, looking immensely troubled. Pansy continued.

"You're still seeing it as a problem, because you think pureblood supremacy supporters and supporters of the Dark Lord are the same, but they simply are not. Whereas true believers of pureblood supremacy support the ideal because they want to improve wizard society, the Dark Lord perverted the ideal for his personal desire to gain power. He killed, but not only muggleborns. Purebloods as well, the ones he had vowed to protect. And not for any ideal, because by killing them he had betrayed that already, but for his own power. Because he liked it."

"In fact," Pansy said, as Harry continued to stay quiet, "everything that happened because of the Dark Lord might have been prevented if the pureblood supremacy had been implemented earlier."

Harry broke out of his reverie and looked up at her incredulously. "What do you mean by that?"

"If the pureblood supremacy had been implemented way before we were even born, and there hadn't been any muggleborns and other people to protest it, everything might have been different. Only pureblood marriages would have been allowed, so there would have been more pureblooded witches and wizards. As a result, there would have been less muggleborns and half-bloods and there would not even have been a possibility for someone like the Dark Lord to take advantage of the support of purebloods because they were feeling threatened. And even if the Dark Lord would still have come into power because there were too many muggleborns threatening the pureblood supremacy, things still would have been different. You would have had two pureblooded parents instead of just one. You would have been more magically powerful. You would have destroyed the Dark Lord with even more force than you have now. Perhaps you would have destroyed the Dark Lord before he killed your parents. Who knows, if the pureblood supremacy had been implemented earlier, your parents might still be alive."

"My parents… might still be alive?"

"It's definitely a possibility."

The bell rang as Harry stared at his desk in front of him, feeling conflicted and confused more than ever.

A/N: Hope you liked the chapter! Sorry for the late upload, but rest assured: business will be as usual again! Expect the next chapter to come out around December 31st! Since the next chapter, thus, will be posted around New Year's Eve, I will say this now: Merry Christmas and happy holidays! As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!