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When Thalia and Snape marched out of the small bathroom, Thalia's head resting on Snape's shoulder, the man's arm wrapped around her waist, they were surprised to find a different common room than the one they had left about half-an-hour before. The students, rather than split up in different small groups, had gathered on the ground, forming one huge, silent entity. The food was gone, the tables and couches were lined up by the wall, and Thalia's set of different divination artifacts was placed in the center of the circular room. Finally, holding a thin deck of cards was Albus Dumbledore. "I thought you didn't thrust your Tarot anymore," he pointed out. The couple froze about a meter before the old man, uncertain of what to do. Thalia finally decided to reply. "I understood what was wrong with it, and started using it more often. It's actually this very deck of cards that brought me here, in Hogwarts."

"I believe it is only one of the factors," Dumbledore added.

He smiled shortly and threw the cards on the table. The man then let out a small sigh, and addressed the teachers. "They could have been attacked, you know."

"You know they wouldn't," Thalia objected.

"We never know."

"In this case, we do."

Thalia was the only one speaking, and Harry observed Snape's face. Cold. Emotionless. He did not dare to speak before the Headmaster. In Dumbledore's eyes he could see reproach, and in Snape's, submission, hinted with fear. Harry could simply not understand: the woman was to be punished, not the man. Still, the boy could see Dumbledore was clearly angry with Snape. Only Snape. He kept conversing with Thalia. "I can see you have also decided to ignore my orders," he said, glancing at the unlocked entrance door. Thalia gave a small smile. "I never accepted being in any form of cage," she explained.

"And in the event of an attack?"

"Don't tell me you doubt our capacity to defend ourselves?" she replied, amused.

"You are not very effective when hidden in a bathroom."

On that remark she went silent. Harry saw guilt appear on her expression. Apparently she had not measured the consequences of her retreat. Strange fact, Snape did not dare to defend her. He remained silent. Terrified.

"I… I was in a strange…" Thalia started.

"I know," Dumbledore let out, interrupting her. "And I happen to understand."

A silent sigh formed itself on the woman's lips.

"That does not mean I agree," he continued, causing her old expression to appear on her features again. "I thought that having you two in a fight could push you to obey…" On that Thalia, and also Snape, though in a much more subtle way, grinned. "You gave us a common enemy. Just what we needed."

Hermione's breath hit Harry's neck. "Survival instinct," she whispered. "It's crazy. It's like they don't even know how to live in a normal society, only how to survive a dangerous situation." Harry nodded, pretending to have been aware of such a situation, but amazed by Hermione's capacity to analyze situations. "You two would gave a headache to any psychiatrist…" Dumbledore resumed, winking at Hermione. "But I'm afraid we'll have to split you up anyways. Snape, they're in the dungeons. You know those passages like the back of your hand. MacGonagall and Flitwick are waiting in the corridor." Harry saw the teacher's fingers curl into a small fist he kept hidden in the shadows of his long robes. As he nodded once in the Headmaster's direction, his knuckles whitened, but he nevertheless left the room within seconds. Dumbledore's features suddenly softened. "I'll send someone in to replace him as soon as I can," he told Miss. Beauregard.

"It's fine. The little ones are asleep. I can deal with teenagers." Harry saw a flash cross the room as they both shared what seemed to be a joke, and then the Headmaster left, addressing the students with a low "farewell". The room fell silent, Thalia approached the low coffee table, picked up the deck of cards Dumbledore had been holding and started shuffling them automatically, her eyes not seeing the world around her. Focused in the world inside her mind, Harry would have thought if it had not reminded him of Mrs. Trewlaney's class. Seconds later, Ron was by his side, followed by Hermione. "Hey," Harry told his friend, who simply didn't reply.

"He's angry that I woke him up," Hermione explained.

"It is only four in the morning!" he complained.

"Yeah, well, apparently that's when all the fun happens."

The redhead starred wide-eyes at the people surrounding him. "That's what you call all the fun?"

"Actually, no, you just missed it," she replied.

"Because that was fun?" Harry objected.

"Of course! It's crazy trying to understand how their heads work."

"They don't work, that's the secret. Why else would they be together," Ron joked with a cruel sneer.

Hermione chose to ignore him and continued for Harry's benefit. "Dumbledore is trying to stay on Thalia's good side, so he didn't dare complaining about her behavior."

"So then why is he angry at Snape?"

"You saw it too, eh? Well, I think he was supposed to stop her from leaving, and he didn't."

"And so Dumbledore didn't shout at Snape because…?"

"Because Thalia would know he's trying to control her. You heard her, she can't stand seeing her decisions taken by another. The cage thing…" she added as Harry frowned, clueless.

Harry was glad to see, once again, Hermione had not failed at understanding every little thing she could catch sight of. And Ron was not glad to hear his two friends converse about something he simply could not understand. "Where are Fred and George?"

***

"But you were, theoretically, a Gryffondor."

"I'm telling you, I was both!"

"But you can't be both!"

"I am well aware of that."

Thalia let out a small laugh as the twins gasped. A third voice then came from behind her. "How long was I alseep?" Ron asked in astonishment.

"I told you you missed all the fun," Hermione pointed out as she sat beside her teacher. "So speaking of Houses… you're going to have to explain to me how you survived being in two of them."

"She wasn't!" Fred objected.

Harry laughed. "Still trying to make her admit she was once a Gryffondor?" he asked with a smile, more for Ron's benefit than anything else.

"Yes, and she won't!" George answered.

"I never said that…" Thalia pointed out.

"Alright. My bad. Trying to make you understand you were only a Gryffondor."

"And that is false."

Both the boys let out a cry of despair, and fell on their backs, heads tightly clasped in their hands. Hermione pushed George's head away from her lap, and took the lead in the conversation.

"So how long were you officially in the Gryffondor house. Meaning, did you take your classes with Gryffondors," she added as Thalia was about to speak.

"For six years and about a half."

"So from the beginning of your education, to…" Hermione hesitated.

"The incident," Thalia explained in her place, giving her a thankful smile for avoiding the subject.

"So you were a Gryffondor way longer?"

"Officially, yes."

Harry guessed here was something more to it. "But…?" he asked.

"But," Thalia said with a smile. "I was never really attached to my House. I didn't mind eating at other House's tables, or visiting other common rooms. That's how I found out I wasn't necessarily allowed to do so…"

"Ok. But you wore a Gryffondor insignia?" Hermione continued.

"Yes."

"Well then why did they give any importance to the few months during which you were a Slytherin?"

"Because they are the most important. When I did my NEWTS, at prom, when I got my diploma… I was with the Slytherins."

"But that was only for a few months," Fred tried objecting.

"Yeah. But that's how it is."

"Thalia, try understanding how ridiculous this is…" the boy continued.

"I understand how strange it can seem. Only, today I see that I am a Gryffondor in many ways, and at that time I was a pure Slytherin. I was both, anything else is simply false."

"Isn't today what matters?" Fred continued.

"How?"

The question, asked by George, caused silence in the small group. "How what?" Thalia finally burst, seeing no other sound would leave the boy's lips. "How did you get to a point where you are part of two Houses? Two Houses that hate and that have hated each other for thousands of years," he slowly stated. "How is it that you never felt any attachment to your original House, how is it that the Sorting Hat went so wrong that you couldn't find any friends of your own kind where he put you?" Harry stared intently at George. He seemed hurt, his eyes were gleaming with what seemed to be pain, and deception. Harry glimpsed at Fred: for once, the twin did not seem to know what was in his brother's mind.

"You blame the Sorting Hat?"

"Yes, I blame the Sorting Hat."

"Don't. It… it didn't go wrong. Destiny went wrong, or something ridiculously cliché like that. When the Sorting Hat was placed on my head, apparently it took a very long while to decide where I was to go. You know, Voldemort wasn't known yet. Slytherin didn't rhyme with enemy at that time. A big part of my family had been into Slytherin: my father was a pure blood, and so I was part of that huge family tree that includes more or less all of us. I didn't mind being a Slytherin. I didn't necessarily want to be a Gryffondor. My mother didn't want me to go to Hogwarts: she intended on teaching me magic herself, somewhere in the woods, like her mother had done. My father didn't want her to. My grand-father ,my mother's father, neither – he was a muggle-born, and he didn't really believe in ancestors. I guess you can see why. So when I got into Hogwarts, no one had told me about the Houses. I didn't care." Harry could understand too well how long the Hat's decision could have been. He remembered the hesitation in the Hat's words – and remembered how he had taken the decision himself in the end. If Thalia had given him no clue of what her heart desired, the sorting could have had taken hours. "Why did you end up with us, then?" Hermione asked in Goerge's place. "I never really found out. I was in the first ones to go, so he didn't have any of my friends to send me with. I guess he saw my cousins Molly and Arthur waving at me from the Gryffondor table."

"Your cousins with my parents?" Ron asked.

"No, not really. We just call each other cousins, because it's simpler. We're just… somehow related."

Harry looked at George once again. The pain was still there. Now he understood it. Betrayal. "So, you are sent into the Gryffondor house because of your family, and most you friends probably joined you, right?" the boy spat out, in a rather provocative way.

"Yeah, most of them," answered Thalia, having not guessed George's thought yet. "Regulus was already in Slytherin and Sirius was sent in Gryffondor, so they sort of canceled each other out. And then I had met Lupin and James in the train, so I was happy they joined. And Lily was with me, so I was glad."

"My mom and dad were friends in first grade?" Harry exclaimed.

"Erm, not, no at all. I was the link between them I guess…"

As Harry absorbed this information, George spoke again, his words sounding harsh, his throat, dry. "And so friends, family.. You spat on them to change sides."

Thalia's shoulders suddenly dropped. Her eyes were watery as she replied. "Oh George, don't take it that way. I loved your parents so, so much. But you know, they left Hogwarts when I was in third grade, I wasn't thinking about them when I changed. I switched out of anger, you know why, George."

"No. That's only when you officially changed. You were with the Slytherins long before."

"With them as much as with any other house."

"And why wasn't Gryffondor enough?" George shouted.

"It was never about replacing Gryffondor. I simply didn't see the walls between the houses. I followed the friends I had," Thalia whispered.

"You followed one in particular."

"Of course I followed him, I loved him."

"He didn't love you."

Thalia leaned back slightly when the words hit her like a bullet. She gasped and tears finally formed themselves in her eyes. She tightly clasped her arms around her elbows, forming a shield around her body, her nails carving into her flesh. She closed her eyelids. "I'm not going to try to comfort you if you try hurting me like this."

"I… I'm sorry," George muttered under Hermione's horrified stare. "All I meant was… You left the love you already had to run after the love you might get."

"What love are you talking about?" the teacher asked, curious.

"I heard there was a very hopeful student residing in your own House."

"Please, Sirius wanted to date any girl that was somewhat pretty."

"I'm not talking about Sirius."

"Your parents told you," she stated with a sad smile.

"Yes. And so I know that you turned your back on your kind to follow Snape."

"But I loved him! And seeing that years later I'm still by his side can only prove that point."

"Yes. You chose his side, and followed it."

"If things had not turned out this way, it might have been the one to drag him in my side, and not the opposite."

"Do you really believe such a lie?"

There was a silence. "No. But I did at that time."

"How did you even know Snape."

"It appears to be you already know the answer to the question."

Her answer took Geroge by surprise. "Erm… I actually don't."

"Huh. So you tortured me by accident then… I knew him through Lily. They were friends when they first arrived at Hogwarts."

Harry laughed at the irony. Lily introduced Snape to Thalia, and Thalia introduced James to Lily. Even funnier, there had once been a time were all of these people had lived closely together in some form of harmony.

"So you left Gryffondor."

"Before Snape. And even until seventh grade, I had friends in every House."

"But in the end you chose Slytherin."

"Yes. And no one can tell me my reason wasn't good enough."

"You think you had reasons to hate all Gryffondors."

Thalia smiled once again. "You're unfair. Today I realize I should have forgiven to a few. Lily, for instance. I was too late for that, sadly. But I had two days to take my decision. I didn't have time to analyze who was right, who was wrong. And I wasn't enough at peace in my mind to understand I had to forgive. They were all accomplices in a way though."

"Even Remus?"

"No, not Remus."

"Then why did you reject him like the others?"

"I never rejected his friendship. But I loved another one."

"You think exposing your relationship to his face while ignoring him was a way of accepting his friendship?"

"How do you know all this?"

"I… I heard it from my parents. When I was young. When you came back to him, probably right after you left He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's ranks. He had come home in the middle of the night and I was awoken when he left. They said Thalia Beauregard had switched sides again, I remember them saying your name clearly. I had to be about five, nothing more than that. It's one of my first memories. They said they were glad. That you had finally understood that werewolves were people, and Death Eater's weren't."

"Dear God. They thought I rejected him because of that?"

"Apparently, yes."

"That's not it. Not at all. Oh, George, do you mind if I tell them about this?"

"Er… Sort of?"

"I just… don't want them to keep believing I'm such a horrible person."

"It's fine them. I'll tell them."

"Thanks."

She addressed him a soft smile. The three other boys were silent, and Hermione simply gazed at the scene, glad to discover new pieces of the huge puzzle she was building in her mind. Harry was sure she would present it to him some day, when it was finished, just like she always had. He stared at his teacher. Why did he and his friends always end up meddling with such subjects. Around him students were talking about things of all sorts. Not betrayal, forgotten love and the eternal battle of good versus evil. He still had to admit he slightly enjoyed the conversation. Of course, he hated diving in such troubled matters, but he loved learning more about his parents and their friends, about the members of the Order of the Phoenix, about the world and its divisions just before Voldemort changed it all. It was frightening as well as fascinating. And so helpful.

"If you've known this for a while… Why are you only angry now?" Thalia asked, George's thirst for answers seeming finally quenched.

"Well… My parents had said that your return was a proof that you had been on our side the entire time. That you were good, that you had only been manipulated and angry. And that switching to Slytherin only had been a mistake you would regret your entire life. And," he said, choking on his saliva, "I just learned it wasn't true."

Thalia didn't reply, her absence of words forming a proof of guilt. She nevertheless stayed calm, as opposite to George who seemed very affected by Thalia's silent confession. She stared at her arm for while, and then spoke again. "You're good," she muttered, "remembering such a conversation. And associating it with all you know now."

"Yeah, I guess. Your name marked me in some way, the memory just came out when we first met."

"Good."

"Yeah."

Thalia stared at George's afflicted face, and at Fred's disappointed features. A small gasp, that resembled a sob, shook her for a second, but then it was gone. "Stop," she ordered. "You look so much like him."

On that she got up, whispered them "good night", and walked to the sole empty couch that rested by the fireplace. She let herself fall into the heavy cushions and closed her eyes, her head hidden by her hand, her thumb under her chin, fingers rested on her temples.