Chapter Eighteen: Halloween

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: To the reviewer who told me that Quirrell shouldn't have listed a war in Afghanistan because it hadn't started yet, please keep in mind that there were wars in Afghanistan before the current one. The one Quirrell was referring to was the Soviet invasion which only ended two years prior.

Harry woke up Halloween morning at the usual time to find that, for once, his dorm room was completely empty. He shrugged it off because for all he knew the others had gotten up earlier because, a Thursday with classes or not, this was a holiday.

His parents had died today and so, as he had every year since learning that his parents had passed away on Halloween, he decided to wear black as a sign of mourning. He didn't miss his parents themselves, per se, no he was too young for that. Instead, he mourned for the life he could have had with them. He was thrilled with the life he currently lived, of course, and couldn't imagine being raised by anyone else but there was still that sense of loss, particularly on Halloween. Since his school robes were already black, Harry simply forewent his typical Slytherin tie so he was wearing nothing but black.

Once he was finished getting ready for the day, he went downstairs to the Common Room to discover that that was also completely empty save Daphne.

"I feel like I'm missing something," Harry told her.

Daphne rolled her eyes. "You are but I can't blame you for not getting it. It's a little…unnecessarily paranoid, I think."

"Go on," Harry prompted.

"Today, as you're probably aware, is Halloween," Daphne began.

"And? Do the Slytherins usually all clear out of the Common Room at the crack of dawn on holidays? Or is it only Halloween?" Harry inquired. We wondered if Daphne would even know since she was in her first year as well.

"Normally, they don't," Daphne replied. "But they're kind of…well, they'd disagree with how I'm putting it but it is what it is. They're hiding from you."

"From me?" Harry asked, baffled. "What did I do? Or, more to the point, what did they do?"

"Nothing," Daphne replied. "But your parents were killed on Halloween and everyone assumes that everyone in Slytherin is a Death Eater in training, anyway. In fact, some Slytherins are even related to actual Death Eaters. Draco's aunt, for instance, is Bellatrix Black who attacked the Longbottoms right after the Dark Lord vanished."

"So…what?" Harry asked, still not quite getting it. "They're hiding from me because it's awkward that some of their relatives might not have been pleased about my miraculous survival ten years ago? Surely not all the Slytherins are related in some way to Death Eaters."

"You'd be surprised," Daphne said dryly. "In fact, we both are related to them as well, albeit more distantly. That's not it, though."

"Then why?" Harry wondered.

"They're worried that you might be upset today or angry and take it out on the most convenient targets," Daphne informed him.

"Because they're from a house that I'm in and that I don't agree is entirely evil and because they can't help but be related to people?" Harry asked. "Snape actually was a Death Eater, no matter what side he was really on."

"Something that no one can ever really agree on," Daphne remarked. "But he's our professor and can make your life more miserable than any of us so he's really not a very convenient target. And you already annoy him a lot so good luck stepping that up without spending the rest of your Hogwarts career in detention. Gryffindor detention."

"I can understand the other first years or maybe even second and third years being worried but don't the upperclassmen, some of whom are legal adults, secure enough that they wouldn't worry about an eleven-year-old?" Harry asked in disbelief.

Daphne shrugged. "You would think. Of course, by that point it was more about not being around if you reacted to your fellow Slytherins badly today than it was about you actually being able to do any damage. They all went to breakfast about an hour and a half ago."

"And you've just been sitting here all this time?" Harry inquired.

Daphne nodded. "Yes, it gave me plenty of time to catch up on my reading. It's usually so very difficult to manage to be alone in the dormitories and even if other people are trying to be quiet, it's not quite the same as being alone."

Harry nodded. "Well I'm glad that worked out for you. Why were you the one supposed to ask me if I was planning on flying off the handle, anyway? Are you the bravest Slytherin around?"

"You know that that word is practically a curse among Slytherins, right?" Daphne asked casually. "And no, it's because Draco reminded everyone that I had a – and I quote – 'Mudblood-loving cousin' I still acknowledged so they thought I'd be the safest."

"Using words like that really doesn't do much to distance him from Death Eaters," Harry remarked idly.

"Well if you'll notice, he never uses them around you," Daphne pointed out.

"So your family never supported You-Know-Who?" Harry asked curiously.

Daphne grinned. "Like anyone would actually be stupid enough to admit such a thing to you of all people. On today of all days."

"You're making it sound like I'm a snitch," Harry complained.

"To answer your question, they never were," Daphne replied. "They never spoke out against him, either. My parents are big in international trading and they felt that it would be best if they stayed neutral. Being diplomatic about any controversial issue is smart and if you don't feel strongly about it you don't have any reason not to."

"I can't imagine that anyone was happy with your family's neutral stance," Harry told her.

Daphne shook her head. "They weren't, of course, but as long as my family was willing to do business with them, they were too valuable to kill."

"And the legal consequences of doing business with everyone?" Harry asked.

Daphne shrugged. "None, actually. There was no law against doing business with dark lords or Death Eaters – and no way to prove my family knew who they were – and we don't smuggle."

"How very Slytherin of you," Harry complimented.

"Thanks," Daphne said, smiling again. "Now let's get down to breakfast before everyone assumes you've murdered me in your mad, grieving rage."

"Why, do you think they'll come back here to rescue you?" Harry inquired.

Daphne snorted. "Please, these people are Slytherins; they won't save me a seat."

Harry's classmates were still a little wary of him during Charms class, a fact that he thought was completely unconnected from the way he kept drawing his finger across his throat when they happened to be glancing his way or sending his feather to poke them insistently. As it happened, Harry already knew how to levitate an object since that was one of the basic spells his father expected them to learn right off and so he'd mastered that over the summer. Still, he spent a good ten minutes pretending to be trying to learn it before he started actually doing the spell and gained ten points for Slytherin.

By the Halloween feast, however, everyone seemed to have relaxed around him.

"No really," Draco was claiming. "It's a proud Malfoy tradition to wake up early on Halloween and then go down to breakfast. That way we can enjoy more of the holiday and I know we're not the only one."

"Then why didn't I wake up?" Harry queried.

"It would have been rude to wake you up," Draco claimed. "And if there's one thing a Slytherin is not, it's rude."

"Theodore?" Harry asked, turning to him.

"Don't listen to him, Harry," Theodore said promptly. "Everyone was concerned you'd discover your inner Gryffindor and decided that the most cunning thing to do would be to leave. Except for Daphne, but then she seems to have found her own inner Gryffindor."

Without pausing from her conversation with Tracey, Daphne threw a roll at Theodore's head.

"And now that I've revealed her secret, she's just tried to assassinate me," Theodore declared dramatically. "You all saw that, right? You'll be my witnesses?"

"Why is that even a question?" Harry wondered. "I mean, we're all right here and you know we saw her throw that at you."

"She could be paying you off," Theodore replied reasonably.

"Paying us off?" Harry repeated. "But she didn't throw it until you accused her of having her own-" he shuddered "- inner Gryffindor."

"Clearly she's been stalking me and knows me well enough to know that of course I would say that about her and that of course Harry would ask me what happened since of course everyone else would deny it," Theodore said matter-of-factly.

"It's not much of an assassination attempt if she only threw a roll at you which, even though it hit, didn't even hurt you," Draco pointed out. "And in front of so many witnesses, too!"

"That's only her first attempt," Theodore claimed. "And look what it's done already! You two don't even believe that my life is in danger."

"We don't, sorry," Harry said apologetically. "But hey, since you had the same story Daphne did – more or less – I'm officially more convinced that your conspiracy theories are true. Well, some of them at any rate."

Theodore sighed theatrically. "I wish that Blaise was here. He'd understand."

Draco looked around. "Ah, that's a good point, actually. Where is Blaise anyway?"

"Pansy told him that he was having a bad hair day after Charms so he ran straight to the bathroom and hasn't come out since," Theodore explained. "I'm actually supposed to take some of the feast upstairs to him at some point so I should probably set that aside now…"

Draco made a face. "Food in the bathroom? How unhygienic!"

Theodore rolled his eyes. "Presumably he won't be eating it on the toilet and the sink area is perfectly clean. The House Elves clean up every night and after every big mess made, after all."

"It kind of makes you wonder why we even need a caretaker since the House Elves do all of the work, anyway," Harry mused.

"My father said that Filch is just a Squib that Dumbledore feels sorry for and it's yet further proof of what a muggle-loving fool he is," Draco confided.

"But he's not a muggle," Harry argued. "Even if he is a Squib, that's not quite the same thing."

"He's more muggle than wizard, no matter who his parents may have been," Draco insisted.

Suddenly Professor Quirrell, who no one had noticed was missing from the head table, ran into the Great Hall like the hounds of hell were chasing after him. "TROLL! IN THE DUNGEON! Thought you ought to know…" With that, he collapsed into a faint.

"Considering that the only things in the dungeon are Snape's classroom and office and the Slytherin Common Room, why was he even in the dungeon in the first place?" Theodore asked suspiciously. "I bet he let the troll in in the first place. Although I didn't know that there was an entrance to the castle through the dungeons. I don't like not knowing things like that."

"Please, it's Quirrell," Draco scoffed. "He fainted just from thinking about the troll. He's far too pathetic for something like that."

"Or maybe that's just what he wants you to think," Theodore returned.

Dumbledore set off several purple firecrackers to get everyone's attention back. ""Prefects lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!" he shouted.

"It's official: Dumbledore is trying to kill his Slytherin students," Theodore announced.

"Even me?" Harry asked.

"Good point," Theodore admitted reluctantly. "Oh, I know! He's hoping that you'll discover an inner Gryffindor of your own and do something stupid like wandering off to go find it."

"Do you think that the Gryffindors taunt each other about having inner Slytherins?" Harry wondered aloud.

"Nah, they're not interesting enough to do anything like that," Draco said dismissively. "Besides, who wouldn't want an inner Slytherin?"

"A Gryffindor," Pansy said, coming to stand by them. "So is it just me or is returning to our dormitories in the dungeon when that's where the troll is supposed to be a really stupid idea?"

"Well what are we supposed to do?" Draco asked. "Just sit here in the Great Hall? They'd never let us."

"We can always go and find Blaise," Theodore suggested.

"Oh, that would give us a nice excuse if we're caught. We're trying to warn the oblivious Blaise about the troll. When he's done hiding in the bathroom then he'll go back down to the dungeons where the troll is," Harry said, snapping his fingers.

"Slytherins don't hide, Harry," Draco sniffed.

"He saw no one in the Common Room this morning," Daphne pointed out. "I'm coming with you, by the way."

"Well I'm not," Tracey said, shuddering. "All of this sounds far too stupidly brave for me. What if you run into the troll?"

"The troll is supposed to be in the dungeons," Pansy pointed out.

"Well if Quirrell let it in then he could be lying about where it was," Theodore pointed out.

Daphne shook her head. "That doesn't make any sense. If he let the troll in as some sort of distraction for…something then wouldn't it be best if he sent the professors to actually deal with it? Otherwise they might not believe that the troll is actually in the castle."

"So it's going to be the five of us looking for the troll?" Draco asked. "Excellent."

"I didn't even agree to this," Harry complained.

"But you don't want to go back to the dungeon so what choice do you have?" Pansy asked reasonably.

Harry sighed. "Okay, that's a good point."

The five of them slipped in with some Hufflepuffs and then ducked around a corner and started heading for the bathroom that Theodore insisted Blaise was in.

"Footsteps!" Pansy hissed and they flattened themselves against a wall. She peered around the corner. "It's Snape."

"Snape?" Harry asked, alarmed. "What, did he set the troll lose and is now using the distraction to…do something?"

"I hope so," Draco said grimly.

Harry started. "What do you mean you hope so? That would make him the bad guy here."

"I do not share your plainly plebian mentality, Harry," Draco sniffed. "And if the alternative is that he's doing something Gryffindor like trying to stop whoever did do this or protecting something then I'll take him sneaking a troll into the castle any day."

"Well I wouldn't," Harry said firmly. "I annoy him so much that if he does turn out to be evil, I'm probably going to be the first to go."

"It doesn't matter how you act around him because if he's evil then he'll want you dead anyway," Daphne pointed out. She paused. "Though, of course, you really don't help your own case."

"It could, of course, be a complete coincidence and he's taking advantage of the troll to do…whatever it is he's doing," Theodore pointed out.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Do you ever not take the minority opinion?"

"I form my opinions regardless of what anyone else thinks," Theodore claimed.

"Okay, Snape's gone," Pansy announced.

"Where was he going, anyway?" Harry wondered as they started moving again.

"What could possibly be so interesting that he'd have to rush off and check it in the middle of a troll attack?" Daphne asked, biting her lip. "Theodore?"

"That forbidden third floor corridor that we're not supposed to go near under penalty of death?" Theodore suggested.

"I don't think it's under penalty of death, just that going there could get us killed," Daphne disagreed.

"Believe what you will," Theodore said airily. "Maybe Snape's just curious about what's inside and is taking this opportunity when Dumbledore's distracted to investigate."

"Wouldn't the professors already know what's hidden there?" Draco asked.

"I doubt Dumbledore would have told them unless they absolutely needed to know and I further suggest that his list of people who need to know is much shorter than most people's would be," Theodore said. "But what could be in that corridor…"

"Well, there was a break-in at Gringott's awhile back but nothing was stolen," Pansy said slowly. "Then again, why would they admit that something was stolen?"

"Why would they admit that there was a break-in at all if nothing got stolen?" Daphne countered. "In fact…why would they admit that there was a break-in at all? That seems like it would really hurt their reputation."

"Better question: why would anyone hide something that wasn't safe at Gringott's in a school full of children?" Draco demanded. "That would be so reckless and idiotic that I can't believe even a Gryffindor would think it was a good idea."

"You're probably right," Harry agreed. He made a face. "That smells nasty!"

"Troll! In the corridor! Thought you ought to know," Theodore said dryly as the creature started to lumber towards them.

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