'Trinovantes!' Greg ignored the magic of the common room doorway, squeezing through as soon as the opening became wide enough. 'Theo...?'

'He's downstairs,' a quiet voice carried from the fireplace, and as Greg looked across he recognised Lucas' pale face and red hair.

'Luc...' he offered. 'Are you alright? What happened in the changers after, you know,' he blushed. 'After I left?'

Lucas winced, shrinking more deeply towards the back of the black sofa as Greg sat down alongside him. 'Matt punched Oscar,' he whispered, matter-of-factly.

'What?' Greg gasped, unable to believe what his friend had told him. 'Why?'

'Oscar told him that he shouldn't have sworn at Theo like that, and that he had no right to be captain if he was going to behave like that.'

Greg swore, shaking his head as he heard the other boy retell the story. 'Where is he now?'

'Who, Oscar?' Lucas asked. 'In the hospital wing. Isaac went with him. I don't know where Matt went,' the redhead anticipated his friend's next question.

Greg swore again, remembering Hagrid's words. 'Losing does funny things to people,' he repeated. 'They do things they don't really mean.'

Lucas nodded, sadly. 'What do you think will happen now?' He bit his lip.

'I don't know,' Greg began to answer, but hesitated. 'I suppose it depends on what we do... what we make happen. I'm going to go and talk to Theo – are you coming?'

'Alright,' Lucas agreed.

'Cool,' Greg smiled, leading his friend down the stairs towards the Slytherin dormitories. 'Theo?' Greg's voice carried into the stuffy quiet of the first-years' room as the door creaked open. 'Theo?'

'He wouldn't say a word to me,' Lucas tugged on the sleeve of Greg's robes. 'He just pulled his curtains shut as soon as we got back.'

'Theo,' Greg repeated, playing for time as he wondered what to say to the other boy. 'Come on, mate,' he offered, 'please?'

'I tried,' Lucas whispered, and Greg nodded as he heard, taking the handful of steps towards his own bed and collapsing onto its sheets.

'It's my fault,' the blond boy shut his eyes. 'I should have stood up for him, like I said I would... like I promised I would, instead of just running away like a coward – like the Slytherins in the Battle of Hogwarts...' Greg felt the hot rush of moisture against the backs of his eyes once again.

'It's not your fault,' Lucas offered, timidly. 'Oscar stood up for him, and look what happened to him. You couldn't have done anything else...'

'I should still have been there!' Greg protested, sitting up suddenly and staring at Lucas through raw, tear-filled eyes. 'He's my best friend! I shouldn't have run away... I guess the stories are right after all; Slytherins are just selfish cowards.'

'You're not,' Lucas sat on the bed beside Greg, trembling as he spoke. 'You're not selfish, and you're not a coward,' he insisted. 'Remember when you stood up for me when Isaac called me a squib?'

'That was different...'

'Why? You weren't a coward then... and I've never seen you being selfish.' Lucas took a breath. 'Even on Halloween, when Kevin was having a go at me, you were the first person to ask if I was okay afterwards. That's not being selfish.'

Greg rubbed the sleeve of his robe across his eyes, before lifting the green garment off his shoulders and laying it over his bed. 'I guess...' he paused, as a jumble of thoughts collided in his mind. 'You said about not going home for Christmas...'

'I mean it,' the other boy looked down at his feet. 'I'll stay here. I'm not letting him pick on me all Christmas.'

'You don't need to stay here, Luc,' Greg shook his head. 'Come and spend Christmas in Chudleigh with us.'

'Really?' Lucas blinked.

'Yes, of course,' Greg nodded. 'Slytherins stick together, remember? We've got to be there when someone needs us, because we never know when we'll need someone,' he sniffed, before looking Lucas in the eye. 'Like just now.'

Lucas smiled, shyly. 'Thanks, Greg...'

'That's alright,' Greg shrugged. 'It's what being in Slytherin is all about,' he pulled his cotton undershirt over his head, 'and Theo still needs us now. Just let me get changed,' he drew the curtains around his bunk as Lucas jumped clear, before the emerging again moments later in jeans and a sweatshirt.

'Theo,' he repeated. 'I'm sure Matt didn't really mean it,' he spoke to the curtains around his friend's bunk, sighing as he heard nothing in response. 'You can't just stay there, mate.' Greg grabbed hold of the drapes, pulling them apart along the side of the bed.

Still in his Quidditch robes, Theo stared up at his friends, before shaking his head slowly and rolling away, burying his face into his pillow.

'I know I shouldn't have run away,' Greg apologised, 'but...' he tailed off as the other boy showed no sign of responding. 'Why are you doing this, Theo?' He begged. 'I don't understand...'

'Just because he's a fourth-year doesn't mean you have to listen to him,' Lucas was insistent. 'We never listen to my brother, do we?'

'At least do it for Oscar!' Greg felt his voice beginning to rise. 'He took a punch for you! At least get up and come and see him in the hospital wing...' He remembered the fears that the two boys had shared on their first night in this very room. 'Or else you're just showing that the stories really are true, that Slytherins are only ever out for themselves...'

'Is that what you think?' Theo suddenly snapped out of his stupor, jerking to his feet, his eyes watering. 'I'm just being selfish?'

'Theo...' Greg's tone instantly softened. 'I didn't mean it like that...'

'How did you mean it, then?' The other boy rounded on his friend. 'You don't understand,' he shook his head. 'Nobody does.'

'What don't I understand?' Greg asked again. 'I said sorry,' he defended himself. 'What else do you want me to do? I can't go back in time and change it all again.'

'Shut up, Greg,' Theo snarled. 'You know what I mean. Stop trying to be funny.'

'I'm not trying to be funny, Theo!' Greg protested. 'Honestly, mate! Why would I?' He asked. 'Why would I want to take the piss after what's already happened? You're my best friend...'

Theo shook his head, advancing towards the other first-year. 'You still don't get it, though, do you? You don't know what it's like to be the only one; on your own with no one to talk to; just trying to fade away and hide so no-one notices you...'

'So what if he doesn't?' Lucas spoke up, standing across Theo's path and in front of Greg. 'I do. I live with Kevin.'

Theo froze in his tracks as the red-headed boy held his stare.

'I know how it feels like,' Lucas swallowed, 'but it wasn't like that today. It's not just you or me or any of us on our own any more.'

Theo nodded slowly, before stumbling back onto the edge of his bunk. 'Sorry,' he stared down at his feet. 'It's just sometimes, things remind me of it all, and, and...' His words faded away as his head fell into his hands, hiding further behind his long fringe.

'I know what you mean,' Lucas' voice softened, 'but you don't have to let it be like that.'

Greg edged across the room towards Theo's bunk, sitting down beside his best friend and resting his arm on the other boy's shoulders. 'It's not your fault, Theo,' he insisted. 'You were just trying to stand up for us all. I'm sorry I ran away.'

'It's okay,' Theo shook his head. 'My rugby coach always says...' he tailed off, suddenly, lifting his head to look Greg in the eyes. 'You don't care, do you?'

Greg swallowed. 'Well,' he hesitated, 'you do say that a lot...' The eleven-year-old forced a smile. 'I still remember some of the things you told us, though – like the way that it's only a foul if the referee sees it.'

Theo nodded.

'What were you going to say?' Lucas asked. 'What is that your coach always said?'

Theo turned towards Lucas. 'He said it didn't matter if you made a mistake, so long as you made up for it later.'

'What about in the changing rooms?' The red-headed boy added. 'Before...'

Theo understood his friend's question before the other boy had asked it. 'Sometimes losing is part of sport. It's what makes winning worth waiting for.'

Lucas smiled. 'Your coach was good.'

'He was the best.'

'You miss him, don't you?' Greg asked. 'So that's why... when Matt said that...' He tapped his friend's shoulder kindly. 'Sorry...'

'It's okay,' Theo shrugged. 'He also said there was no point in sulking if something went wrong. He would never have let me sit here like this.' He reached for the drawstring of the curtains around his bed. 'Give me two minutes to get changed and we'll go and see Oscar.'

'Ossie...' Greg spoke first as the three Slytherin boys hurried across the hospital wing to greet their team mate.

'You took your time,' the seeker looked up from his bed.

'Sorry,' Greg began to reply automatically, before halting himself, 'but I wasn't going anywhere until I made sure Theo was alright.' He felt himself staring coldly at the fourth-year.

'Oh,' Oscar's expression softened instantly as he turned to face the other boy. 'Are you, Theo?

'Yeah,' the first-year nodded. 'Fine, cause my friends are here.' He swallowed, before repeating the first-years' last conversation. 'What about you?'

Oscar smiled wryly. 'A bloody nose, that's it. I'll be alright to go any minute.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'I'm a seeker, I'm used to getting hurt.'

'It's not usually cause of your own team mates, though, is it?' Isaac asked.

'No,' the older boy sighed, shaking his head. 'Do any of you know where Matt went?'

'No,'

'Don't know,'

'No idea,' the first-years answered in chorus, before Isaac spoke over his friends. 'He never said anything about where he was going, neither... he just went off and slammed the door behind him.'

'The memorial...' Oscar muttered.

'Where?' Theo asked.

'The memorial garden,' Isaac answered. 'Down by the lake – by Dumbledore's tomb.' He shivered. 'Why, though?'

'In the first year,' Oscar recalled. 'It was the only place we knew no one would bother us. You know what it's like.' The hospital wing fell quiet as the first-years heard the prefect's words.

'Do you think that's where he's gone now?' Greg ventured.

'It must be,' Oscar shrugged. 'If he isn't back in the dungeons, then I don't know where else he could have gone.'

'So,' Greg continued, glancing briefly over his shoulder as a patter of rainfall began to lick against the windows, 'should we try and find him, or wait for him to come back?'

'Find him,' Isaac suggested, confidently.

'Are you sure?' Greg countered. 'Glyn says he never talks to his Mum about Quidditch after her team has lost.'

'So what?' Lucas spoke up for the first time. 'Why do we need to talk to him about Quidditch? Just think how he's feeling now... He's still our friend, isn't he?'

'Yes,' Oscar nodded. 'He is.'

'Excuse me, boys,' Madam Pomfrey's motherly voice hovered towards the corner of the room. 'This is a hospital, and not a common room.'

'They'll all go if you let me go with them,' Oscar suggested, hopefully. 'I feel loads better now,' he insisted, running his hand over the bridge of his nose to emphasise his recovery.

'Suit yourself,' the nurse shrugged, 'but make sure that you go quietly.'

'Thanks, Madam Pomfrey,' the prefect grinned, pushing himself up from the hospital bed and smoothing the sheets down behind him. 'Hope I don't see you again too soon.'

'It'll be another Quidditch injury, I shouldn't wonder.' The nurse shook her head as she watched the gaggle of boys hurry through the double doors.

'Have you ever been to the gardens before?' Oscar asked, leading the first-years down the spiral of a stone staircase.

'Once,' Isaac was the only one to answer, 'two years ago, for the service – the fifth anniversary. Mum and Dad took us.'

Oscar nodded, but said nothing more as the group of boys followed him out of the castle doors into a fine mist of drizzle.

The memorial garden nestled on the shore of the Black Lake, secluded behind a high box hedge that cut it off from the rest of the school grounds.

'Can you see the monument?' Oscar whispered an obvious question to the younger boys, pointing to an obelisk that dominated the skyline long before they reached the garden's borders. 'That has got all the names of everyone Voldemort or his followers ever killed, wizards and muggles, all the way back to 1943 when he killed his own Dad.' He shook his head. 'Then there are the crosses: one for everyone who was killed at the Battle of Hogwarts.'

'We will never forget.' The first-years followed the prefect towards a corner of the box hedge that eased open into an arched doorway as the fourth-year mouthed the password. 'I know where he'll be,' Oscar offered. 'Down the back of the monument, round by the fountain. Wait here,' he gestured, pulling the hood of his robes over his head as the drizzle grew into heavier rain, 'and remember them.'

Leaving the first-years behind, Oscar paced steadily along the gravel pathway that traced the edge of the garden, trapped between the hedge on its left and the first row of crosses on its right. His boots crackled harshly against the layers of wet stones, disrupting the silent air all around, and he was grateful to reach the top step of a stone staircase that led down, beyond the obelisk, into a courtyard that echoed the grey of the autumn sky.

In the centre of the courtyard there stood a granite statue, where a lion, eagle, badger and snake joined together to raise aloft a single wand, from which there emerged a constant plume of water. Today, the fountain's stream combined with the November rain that tumbled down from the sky above to scatter across a shimmering pond, surrounded on each side by a solitary bench, and on the nearest seat – just as Oscar had predicted – the back of Matthew's brown hair was visible. Without a word, the prefect crept down the staircase and onto the bench beside Matthew. It was nearly five minutes before either of the boys spoke.

'I remember in our first year,' Oscar offered. 'After that first History study class. The first time we saw the garden,' he took a deep breath. 'The first time we knew.'

Slowly, Matthew turned his head to face the other boy, pushing a rain-drenched forelock away from his eyes, before shaking his head and staring back at his own feet.

'When I didn't come back to the dungeons that night,' Oscar continued to retell his memory. 'There was one boy who realised, and went out and looked for me... almost everywhere in the whole castle.'

Matthew looked up once again, shaking the same saturated strand of hair out of his view, and this time holding the prefect's gaze. 'I remember, too,' he whispered. 'I wonder what that boy would have thought if he had been in the changing rooms today.'

Oscar swallowed. 'I don't know,' he hesitated. 'I guess... I guess he would have wondered why?'

Matthew shuddered. 'I wish I knew.' He shook his head again, staring down at the ground before sharply looking back up to face the prefect. 'I haven't even said sorry…' he stammered.

'Don't worry about it...'

'Of course I'm worried about it!' Matthew snapped. 'I just hit you in the face, and, and...' The fourth-year swallowed, shivering as he heard his own words. He swore. 'What the hell is wrong with me?'

'I guess...' Oscar began, hesitantly. 'I guess it's cause the Quidditch team is so important to you, and we got so close to winning, to doing what you've been desperate to do, to proving everyone wrong. If I'd've caught the snitch...'

'It wasn't your fault, Ossie. No-one's beaten Newitt in years...' Matthew sighed. 'Merlin,' he kicked out at the gravel on the damp courtyard by his feet. 'We had four first-years playing their first ever games, and we kept Gryffindor to 30-0 in nearly two hours... and I didn't even tell them how well they'd done.' He shook his head. 'You were right. I don't deserve to be captain.'

'Yes, you do. It doesn't matter if you make mistakes,' Oscar began, remembering something the first-years had mentioned in the hospital wing. 'Not as long as you make up for them.'

Matthew managed a thin smile. 'I suppose,' he nodded, 'if you put it like that.'

The prefect couldn't keep himself from grinning. 'That was what Theo's rugby coach always said.' Oscar laughed as he watched his best friend's head sink into his hands.

'Merlin, I've been such a tosser...' Matthew sunk back onto the sodden bench. 'All he was trying to do was help, and all I did was tell him to piss off,' he sighed. 'What the hell are they all going to think?'

'I don't know,' Oscar shook his head. 'I suppose we could go up those steps and ask them, though.'

The captain sat bolt upright. 'They came with you? After... after all that...?'

The prefect nodded.

'Wow,' Matthew felt himself beginning to blush. 'It looks like Greg really meant it when he said Slytherins stick together.'

'And you wanted him to Sort anywhere but Slytherin,' Oscar observed, a wry smile spreading across his face. 'Now come on, let's go – it's hammering it down out here!'

'I'm glad you're so good at potions, Zac,' Greg offered as the six boys clustered around a cauldron that simmered gently on the floor of the first-year dormitory.

'It's just a warming draught,' Isaac shrugged.

'Yeah,' Matthew put in, 'but it's a bloody good one.' He took a long mouthful of the liquid, draining the mug that the first-year had filled only moments earlier. 'A hell of a lot better than anything I ever made.'

'How come you're so good?' Theo took a sip from his own mug, savouring the tingling sensation that spread comfort back along his arms and legs. 'Your potions always do exactly what they're meant to do,' he remembered the sleeping draught that had paralysed him a handful of weeks ago, 'or even more than that.'

'I don't know,' Isaac shook his head, modestly. 'I've always been quite good at them. I guess it's just in my blood.'

'That's rubbish.' Lucas raised his voice, and the others jerked their heads around towards him.

'Luc...?' Greg ventured. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean what I said,' Lucas snapped back. 'Nothing's in your blood. Kevin's always going on about how important your blood is, and how it matters so much in deciding the sort of person you are.' He thumped his fist against the low chest of drawers by his side. 'So, just because his father was a pureblood and mine wasn't, he thinks...' He tailed off instantly, and the room fell into a sudden quiet, only punctuated by the bubbling cauldron as the other Slytherins stared at the redhead.

'I, uh, uh...' Lucas snapped his head away from the other boys, pushing himself up and heading for the dormitory door.

'Colloportus,' Oscar stood, pointing his wand over the first-year's shoulder. 'Lucas,' he called the boy's name as the eleven-year-old grabbed at the handle of the now-locked door. 'It doesn't matter. We're not going to tell Kevin. We're not going to tell anyone.'

'You're still our friend,' Greg stood up alongside the prefect. 'I don't care if you're pureblood or half-blood or quarter-blood. Like you said,' he paused, 'that doesn't change the sort of person you are. It doesn't change anything.'

Lucas let go of the door handle, despondently. 'I wish that was true...' He stumbled back towards the circle of boys, slumping down beside the prefect.

'What?' Theo exclaimed. 'You just said...'

'Just look around you,' Lucas shivered. 'Remember what we saw this afternoon. Why did that war start?'

Oscar reached an arm onto the first-year's shoulder, supporting Lucas as the eleven-year-old began to sob quietly. 'Theo,' the older boy began to explain, 'I guess the real truth doesn't matter if everyone believes something else.'

Theo nodded, slowly. 'But...' he began, 'isn't that war over now? You know how no one wants to be in Slytherin any more.'

Oscar shook his head. 'That war won't start again, but it won't stop people believing that pure blood is superior. They'll just find different ways to show it.'

'Why, though?' Theo questioned. 'What's the difference? How does it affect them?'

Oscar paused. 'Tell me what you thought of all the immigrants in your school in London.'

'Why did they all have to come here?' The blond-haired boy snapped. 'They don't try to learn our language or play our sports. They just take over.'

Greg felt his mouth fall open as he heard his best friend's words. 'Theo, you can't say that! That's racist!'

'No it's not; it's true,' the other boy shot back. 'How would you know, anyway? How many Indians were there at your old school?'

'None, but Jai's Indian,' Greg protested, 'and he's my friend, and he speaks English just as well as we do.'

'I bet he speaks something else as well.'

'So what?' Greg couldn't believe what he was hearing. 'So does Glyn, he speaks Welsh. That doesn't change the sort of person he is.'

'That's not the same thing,' Theo countered, his voice quickening. 'It's not the same thing as having your school full of them, then being left out and being treated like crap, when it was your country in the first place...'

'I think that's how the wars all began,' Oscar spoke calmly over the first-years' budding argument. 'Having your school full of mudbloods, ignoring your traditions, and just taking over,' he paraphrased the Londoner. 'Do you think you're racist, Theo?'

The first-year shook his head.

'Just standing up for your traditions?'

Theo nodded.

What do you think the first few people who agreed with Voldemort would have said if you'd asked them if they were racist, or prejudiced, or just standing up for their traditions?'

'I'm not like that!' Theo insisted.

'Then what's the difference?' Greg asked, remembering the way his friend had talked Glyn and Jai around in a Transfiguration lesson.

'I...' Theo shook his head, his eyes beginning to water. 'I don't know...'

'I think you're right, Ossie,' Isaac broke his silence. 'I remember at a Puddlemere game against Falmouth last year. There were a load of fans signing a song at their seeker, and the last line...' He hesitated, sensing the other boys' attention. 'The last line was, "You can't even use your wand, you dirty little mudblood".'

'Did you join in?' Greg stared at Isaac, who nodded forlornly, before looking down at the dormitory floor.

Greg shook his head, disgusted. 'How could you? Didn't you know everything that had happened?'

'Leave it out, Greg,' Oscar interrupted. 'He's the only pureblood in here, and he owned up to saying that in front of all of us.'

The first-year nodded. 'It's just... I thought...' he stuttered, looking around the circle of his friends with their recent revelations echoing in his mind.

'The world's not as simple as you thought it was, right?' Matthew spoke up. 'Welcome to Hogwarts.'