Authors Note: while my exams are now over I have a lot of coursework that somehow didn't manage to get done that now needs doing. And summer isn't likely to be a picnic for me so as always I make no promises as to an update schedule.
This chapter serves as major plot although I will admit that I still haven't worked out what my plot actually is!
Disclaimer/Warnings: from here on in they will only appear when I have something new to say. Otherwise I refer you to the ones in the earlier chapters.
Anyway, here's the new chapter. Enjoy!
The Perfect Slytherin.
It was a well known fact that Slytherins were superior to all other houses. Slytherins were the crème de la crème of the wizarding world after all: the purest, the richest, quite simply, the best.
Gryffindors were brave, which was simply another way of saying reckless and foolhardy. It wasn't that Slytherins were cowards, because they weren't. They simply had sufficient wits to know exactly when and what action to take in order to achieve the best results for themselves.
Ravenclaws were known for their intelligence but in truth they often failed to see anything which occurred outside the pages of a book. Slytherins had to function out in the real world, they had far more practical knowledge, and naturally they were unafraid of venturing into potentially profitable areas simply because they were termed 'dark.'
Hufflepuffs, the loyal and hard working. Well, Slytherins had a very deep-seated loyalty, generally to themselves, and perhaps towards their families. As for hard work, it was all very well to work hard if you had no other choice but why make such a drama out of it? It was far more sensible to simply make other people do the grunt work, thus allowing the discerning Slytherin the freedom to work on what couldn't be left to the lesser mortals.
Of course Slytherin didn't have the best of reputations. Why did people assume that an underhanded and power-hungry personality, coupled with a perfectly justified sense of superiority and a certain admiration for the dark arts made someone a bad person?
The answer was, quite simply, the Dark Lords. Who were, quite frankly, a disgrace to the House.
Honestly, if they were truly sneaky then no one would have heard of them now would they? If they were sufficiently cunning then they would be in power now, with the rest of the world none the wiser to the fact that they had been taken over.
He could sympathise with the lust for power, he was, after all, a Slytherin himself. He wanted power as much as the next man, but there were better ways to go about it than to give yourself a ridiculously overblown title, design an ostentatious symbol of your new 'movement' and set out to acquire powerful enemies by attacking everyone who disagreed with you.
In the long run it never worked.
Did these people attend the Gryffindor School of Cunning? Perhaps they had certificates of completion from 'Subtle Scheming for Hufflepuffs'? Or maybe they had had read 'How to Conquer the World in Twelve Easy Steps' and never stopped to think that if the author had known what he was talking about then they'd have recognised the name as the Ruler of the Earth? Besides, what self respecting dictator would write a guide to toppling his own regime?
It wasn't that he didn't respect the other houses for their strengths, because he did, honestly. He was simply exceptionally aware of their many faults.
Slytherins were capable of faults. Not nearly so many of course, but a few, comparatively small, faults.
Although personally he believed that some of them were more faults of society as a whole than of Slytherin House.
Like the issue of trust. Slytherins could be trusted. It wasn't as if the Founders had sat down and said, let's see, we have houses for the brave, the intelligent and the hard-working, do we need anything else? Wait a minute! We'll need somewhere to put the all the evil eleven year olds. They do make up a quarter of the population you know, wouldn't want to neglect them or anything.
It wasn't as though Gryffindors couldn't be intelligent, look at Granger! Or Ravenclaws hard-working, after all they were the ones who generally put the most effort into their assignments. Or Hufflepuffs brave, alright maybe that was pushing it a little but he was sure there must be one or two. He smirked.
To be fair anyone could exhibit the traits of a rival house. Besides, wasn't it a bit stupid to think that ones personality was completely formed at age eleven and that you would only show one or two personality traits for the rest of your life?
Not that the wizarding world was particularly noted for its capacity to think rationally. You only had to look at last years papers to see that!
Even Slytherins were not immune. Of course they hadn't been fooled by Fudges declarations that the Dark Lord had not returned. They knew he had. They didn't believe that Potter was lying and Dumbledore barmy. Well, not any barmier than usual at any rate.
He had known since the end of the TriWizard Tournament that war was coming, and that choices would have to be made. With the Dark Lords return now public knowledge they wouldn't be able to stand on the sidelines long. Neutrality was never an option against Dark Lords, they tended to have the 'if you're not with us, you're against us' mentality.
He had to admit that this Dark Lord had at least had the wits to take advantage of the Ministries blindness and the earlier escape by Black to further his own ends for a year but other than that he really wasn't terribly impressive.
'Purebloods are superior!' As if that wasn't already perfectly obvious to anyone with sense.
'Join me and I shall make you powerful!' As if he really needed the Dark Lord to make him powerful. He was, in fact, perfectly capable of managing that on his own, and he had every intention of doing so, in time.
'Let's go up against the strongest wizard in the world in our quest to rid the world of everyone I dislike!' Thank you but no. What's the point of having a wizarding lifespan if you aren't alive to enjoy it? Besides, physical torture is just so…crude. There are so many more refined methods of revenge, such as abject and sustained humiliation.
No, his methods and his beliefs weren't really all that appealing. He wanted to purge all the Muggleborns. What was the point?
He agreed that noble families and purebloods were naturally superior in some areas, except for those uniquely inbred Slytherin families who only married within other prominent Dark families. Little wonder they ended up producing such stunning examples of the superiority of pure blood as Crabbe and Goyle. Although that could be the result of interbreeding with Trolls.
Look at Granger as opposed to those two. She was far more powerful. So why waste a perfectly good resource? Muggleborns could be used.
Eliminating them only meant that the purebloods would be forced to do things that would be considered beneath them because there would be no one else around to do them. Far better to use Muggleborns to your own advantage.
As for the Muggles themselves, well, there were just too bloody many of them to simply exterminate. They outnumbered the wizards by millions to one! Yes Wizards had an advantage, Muggle technology wouldn't be much use if they were Imperio'd into turning it on their allies, or simply hit with the killing curse, but sheer weight of numbers would eventually overwhelm the wizards. And even muggles have their uses. Why waste a potential resource?
Besides all that why would anyone choose to entrust their safety to a man who was given a fourteen year set back by a baby?
It was, he supposed, possible to overlook the fact that Potter had separated him from his body for so long. After all, no one had ever survived the Killing Curse before; there was no real way he could have been prepared for what happened, but what about the rest of it?
He might have managed to avoid Dumbledore's detection for years, launch various fairly subtle attacks on the school under his very nose and still have most of the world believing he was dead. On the other hand, all those attacks had failed. Look at his track record.
He had possessed a teacher in First Year, and was stopped by the combined efforts of three eleven year olds. Alright so he supposed you could argue that you can't expect too much of a simple spirit.
What about Second Year then? Okay, so he was essentially a sixteen year old memory. And Enchanted objects do come with inherent weaknesses. Nevertheless he had had a bloody basilisk! Defeated again, this time by a twelve year old and a phoenix. There was some rumour about the sorting hat being involved and something about a sword but he really wasn't sure where they had come in.
So he could maybe excuse the first three, note that, three attempts on Potters life. Third Year saw Blacks escape but nothing from the Dark Lord. Fourth Year he was resurrected and still Potter got away! Perhaps he wasn't at his best having just crawled out of his cauldron (yes he had read the interview in the Quibbler) but how, how in the name of Merlin, could anyone possibly excuse his last attempt?
He'd had a year to recover from being brought back, a year to plan and build up his strength. He had a number of Death Eaters, his inner circle of powerful wizards, highly trained in the Dark Arts. And the whole lot of them were given the run around by a bunch of fifteen year olds. Didn't that seem just a bit ineffectual for a Dark Lord? Maybe a tad pathetic even?
Voicing such a comment in the Dungeons would probably end in a very nasty accident that would be blamed on someone else, precisely the reason he had never voiced such opinions among his housemates
Of course such repeated failure didn't stop the more moronic students from wishing to follow him, but it was more than enough to persuade him that joining up would not be in his best interests.
Not that he had any intention of joining with the Ministry either, mind you.
One day he intended to be Minister for Magic but after the display of sheer bureaucratic incompetence they had treated the wizarding world to in the past year he had absolutely no intention of trusting his safety to them.
They had alienated their most powerful allies, pissed off other potential allies (that werewolf legislation for example), ingratiated themselves with the Dark Lords minions (Malfoy had owned the Minister) and topped it all off by allowing the Dark Lord to simply waltz into the most important parts of the Ministry itself before they would concede that he had, in fact, returned. No way was he putting his life in their hands. He had the distinct feeling that they'd drop it.
So who else was there? Dumbledore? He was the only wizard the Dark Lord had ever feared. He was certainly very powerful. He even made the Dark Lord turn tail and run in the Ministry, so he would seem a good choice. Nonetheless he had to admit he had reservations.
Maybe Dumbledore was capable of outfighting the Dark Lord, but the Dark Lord wasn't really the sort to generally favour a nice open fight. At least in that way he showed a little of the Slytherin cunning. And Dumbledore had shown an unfortunate tendency to be out thought.
The Dark Lord may never have been able to defeat him but he'd certainly managed to out-manoeuvre him.
One of his teachers had been possessed by the Dark Lord and another one had been a Death Eater in disguise and Dumbledore hadn't even seemed to notice. He had been removed from the school twice during times of crisis, leaving others to deal with Umbridge and the Basilisk. Clearly he wasn't as on top of things as he liked to make out.
So who to support in the coming war? Neutrality wasn't an option, and there were serious drawbacks to the Dark Lord, Dumbledore and the Ministry. Which really only left him with one choice: Potter.
Of course, it wouldn't be as simple as just walking up and declaring his newfound allegiance. Potter had shown enough Slytherin traits that he felt safe in saying that the Gryffindor would be more wary than that. Besides, hadn't one of the Ravenclaws betrayed his little Defence group? He was going to be a lot more cautious after that.
If he was lucky he had time. His family were often overlooked, they weren't considered influential enough for the Dark Lord to pay too much attention to them and they weren't as confrontational as many of the Slytherins so the Light didn't see them as so dangerous they needed watching.
He grimaced suddenly. The attitude of many of his year mates fell far short of traditional Slytherin standards.
Look at his Head of House. The man was, according to which rumours you listened to, a highly ranked Death Eater who served as the Dark Lords eyes and ears within the school or a close friend of Dumbledore's who had risked his life as a spy in the enemy ranks. He was called a double agent but both sides seemed to feel they had his ultimate loyalty. Did any of them know for sure?
On the other hand look at the self styled Slytherin Prince. Malfoy had been mouthing off since first year about his desire to serve the Dark Lord. He tormented the most important children on the light side, openly called Muggleborns 'Mudbloods,' made no secret of the fact that he reported everything that went on at the school to his father, boasted of his families ties to the Dark and relished each and every misfortune suffered by the headmaster and his friends. Had the boy never heard of subtlety?
Merlin, but Malfoy was as easy to read as a Hufflepuff!
Not that it was so very surprising, his father was much the same way although perhaps not quite so open in his allegiances. Of course he had been suspected of being Dark but with him it had been a matter of rumour. Some 'dubious' acquaintances, a few 'questionable' dealings.
Everyone may have known but he had never been so outright in his support for the Dark that anything could really be proved.
At least not under the sort of Ministry that the wizarding world had had to cope with since Dumbledore had turned down the post of Minister.
If you wanted to alert people to the fact that you most emphatically weren't on their side then what better way than to attend the school they run and shove the fact in their faces daily? And then have your father openly plotting against them from outside the school.
It was obvious that the Malfoys had inherited all the brains and ability to reason traditionally attributed to their hair colour!
Not that many of his other year mates were much better. Crabbe and Goyle (there was no plain Crabbe or just Goyle, the two were inseparable) reminded him of the Greek Myth with the three crones who shared a single eye and tooth between them. He was fairly sure those two were sharing a brain cell.
People whose main form of communication seemed to be grunts did not embody the sort of dangerously sharp intellect that Slytherin was said to have possessed. It truly was a shame that the house values had fallen so far. He suspected they only got in because they were from two of the oldest pureblood families. Even if they were inbred long past the point of imbecility.
Parkinson? She was only tolerated because her father was so very rich. In pureblood circles she was still little more than a jumped up cit, aping her betters, because her family certainly wasn't as pure as they made out. She tried very hard to conceal that fact however, looking down on everyone, slavishly following the guidance of the 'best' of the pureblood families, in other words acting as Malfoys lapdog. Appropriate really, considering her looks. Or lack thereof.
Bulstrode? The feminine form of Crabbe and Goyle, thick as swamp water. Davis? Greengrass? They were as much Parkinson's toadies as Crabbe and Goyle were Malfoys. Always following her about, laughing shrilly at all her jokes, dancing attendance on her. Pathetic. They want to be just like her, Merlin knows why.
No matter how pure their bloodlines or how packed their vaults he just couldn't see them as 'proper' Slytherins. They had too few brains.
The only other member of his Slytherin year mates that he considered worth a damn, besides himself, was Theodore Nott. He smiled fondly. Nott was underestimated by everyone, including his own family, who were in deep with the Dark Lord. He felt sure they would eventually pay, dearly, for the way they'd treated him.
None of the others had an ounce of true house pride or the wit to see that serving the Dark Lord meant just that, you were considered his servant, or, perhaps more accurately, his slave.
He'd heard the stories, about how his followers were punished for 'mistakes.' Hardly something to aspire to really, having to ask permission and justify all your actions to your Master. It wasn't his idea of power. He wasn't the type to beg, or grovel, or serve really. He wanted to be the one in charge. That was his idea of ambition.
Not that he was ever going to become a Dark Lord. Trying to take over the world had never worked and he wanted to be able to bask in his power, to enjoy it, not spend his life fighting for it. Which was why he intended to take over the Ministry. It wasn't as if he could possibly be a worse Minister than the one they'd got!
Of course he wouldn't have the chance until the Dark Lord was defeated which brought his thought back to Potter. He had the regrettable Gryffindor habit of rushing into things without thinking them through but he had displayed hints of the Slytherin mindset.
He could do with someone to help him nurture that, like a Slytherin adviser to help him on his way to greatness. He felt sure there would be benefits to taking on such a job. If he was going to be joining the light then he might as well get something out of it.
Potter did not enjoy the limelight. If Potter won, and he had certainly given the Dark Lord a good run for his galleons so far, then he felt sure that he would ensure that all those who helped him were recognised, if only to take the focus off him! The Gryffindor just didn't seem to want the glory and recognition that came with his fame.
Being friends with the Boy-Who-Lived certainly wouldn't hinder his career if he did end up vanquishing the Dark Lord. There was also the chance that Potter would be more reasonable than most when it came to those things which were classified as 'dark.'
He had befriended a werewolf, and a half-Giant, and stuck by them when things got tough. He was a Parselmouth himself as well as being Muggle raised so he didn't have quite the same prejudices as many in the wizarding world. He felt sure he could make him see the difference between 'dark' and 'evil.'
Zabinis were dark, like any good Slytherin, but they were hardly evil. They were in fact one of the most consistently overlooked of the pureblooded families, both within the Snake House and outside. And that was just how they wanted it.
Blaise wasn't sure if the ability to fade into the background was just the product of centuries of good Slytherin genes or whether it was in fact the result of intermarrying with an extremely prominent Vampire family up in the Carpathian Mountains.
Power, to Zabinis, was power. It didn't matter too much where you got it from. Too many Slytherins neglected opportunities for gain because they weren't strictly wizarding. Most wouldn't be seen dead investing in the muggle world because they saw muggles as so inferior.
So did Zabinis to be perfectly honest but they also saw them as an exploitable resource to be taken advantage of. Which had earned the Zabini family a great deal of money over the years. People like the Parkinson's underestimated the Zabini wealth because a significant portion of it was in Muggle accounts. Even more gold was tied up in other countries.
Families like the Malfoys hid their non-wizarding blood like a dirty little secret. It was no secret that there was Veela blood in the line somewhere, and there were even rumours in the Dungeons that there may have been an Ice Demon in the family tree too. They just didn't seem to realise that this opened up new realms of influence, new roads to power for them.
They were too blinded by the mere fact that they were wizards to see that they were…what was the muggle phrase again? Ah yes, big fish in a small pond. Zabinis weren't satisfied with that. Why stick to one pond when you could have influence in many?
And they were achieving it too. There were Zabinis all over the world, with the ears of many powerful people. They were powerful in the wizarding world but they were subtle about it. The slim build, olive complexion and dark good looks characteristic of the line came from generations of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese ancestors. Zabinis did not limit their ambition to one sphere, or one country.
Their influence reached far further than most families, who limited their influence to one or two countries at best. The Malfoys had ancestral ties with France and 'professional contacts' in certain areas of Eastern Europe but that was about it. They limited their power to a rather small pond. Zabinis didn't.
His own sister was studying at the Grande Palazzo School of Magic in Venice and his younger brother was contemplating a school in Prague. Some of his more Vampiric cousins attended Durmstrang while his squib cousin Elliot was exceptionally proud of making it into Oxford.
Unlike most pureblooded families the Zabinis did not cast off the few squibs they produced. Instead they were encouraged to marry other squibs of good standing and then sent to make their way in the Muggle world, since they would otherwise have been forced to take the same sort of menial work that Filch did. And Zabinis were above that sort of thing.
With the support of the family they were able to indulge their own ambitions, becoming lawyers, politicians, investment brokers. It had been a lot more profitable than the usual disinheritance then ignoring of the problem favoured by the other purebloods.
Of course, such blindness could work in his favour now.
The scions of the more prominent Slytherin families didn't bother courting his favour, supposing that a Zabini wasn't quite pure enough or rich enough to be important. They were going to find out it was dangerous to underestimate a true Slytherin. And he was pure, and rich, and dark enough to be accepted among them, which gave him a distinct advantage in the game he was choosing to play.
Meanwhile the rest of the wizarding world, more concerned about the more prominent Slytherins, tended to overlook the quiet, passive and non-confrontational Zabini family. Blaise was glad he had continued the tradition, not being too enthusiastic a member of the Inquisitorial Squad or too heavily involved with the tortures Malfoy and Parkinson were forever dishing out to other students.
He was one of the least objectionable Slytherins and so felt sure that not only could he offer his services in the knowledge that they would be useful but also that he was unlikely to be hexed on sight. Winning over the other students and keeping his activities secret from his own House, on the other hand, was not going to be easy.
Of course he couldn't risk moving too fast and possibly blowing his chance with Potter. He would have to go slowly at first, win his trust a little, but he thought Potter would be smart enough to see the advantages, the possibilities, in having him as an ally. Meanwhile, hopefully, the other Slytherins would continue to see him as an unimportant member of their own and so would never even suspect what he was up to. Until it was too late of course.
He just hoped the Dark Lord gave him enough time.
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Well, this is a redone version that I think works a whole lot better than the last, hope you all agree.
Thanks as always to my reviewers:
Kjkit: thanks for the encouragement! I'll get there in the end. x
Jemma Blackwell: hopefully I answered all your questions in the email (which I re-sent!) but it's always good to get a review that makes you think and helps advance the story. Yours definitely did that so thanks again!
Nphipps: glad you enjoyed it, as you can see I'm not letting a little thing like my finals get in the way of my fic…even though I really should!
Tansy1354: I'm glad you enjoyed it. Neville's definitely going to have a big part to play and the motorbike will definitely reappear later, though I'm still working on a major plot for it to be part of. As for the lessons, well, I'm having a lot of fun with those!
Lady Melime Alasse: it is certainly heading in that direction. Everyone underestimates them even though they've proven that they're capable. Now they want to take things into their own hands. It's their future and I'm making sure they have more of a say in it. Hope you stick around for more!
Well that's it for the next little while, I'll try and update again fairly quickly once the rest of my exams are done. Next chapter should have Diagon Alley and the new Minister, depending on length it may even see them heading back to Hogwarts.
I look forward to hearing what you thought and any other ideas about the story. Wish me luck! T.T.F.N.