By the time eight o'clock rolled around, I was scrolling through the Instagram I barely used. Scroll. Double Tap. Scroll. Double tap. This was so boring. Scroll.

Scorpius was reading some book of his, I think this one was called Great Expectations. Professor was trying to engage an uninterested Romana in conversation who was trying her best to work on her Transfiguration essay about why Transfiguration was important.

Looking over at her paper, I rolled my eyes.
"Romana," I sighed. "You can't transfigure something into food." I took another look and shook my head in annoyance. "Why would you need to transfigure me into a porcupine?"

"I needed a fifth thing," Romana grumbled, using her eraser and erasing half her paper.

It was something that we had in common-neither of us could stand quills and ink.

"What do you think, Scorp?" Scorpius' head was basically being swallowed by the book now. "Scorp? Scorpius!" I tried a different approach. "Hi, Lucius."

At this Scorpius' head shot up and he looked around the room in distress then turned to me with a glare.
"That was not cool," He growled.
"What wasn't cool?" Rose yawned, walking into the room, stretching her arms above her head. "Ooh, pancakes!"

Scorpius just continued to glare at me.
"What?" I asked. "It got you to react!"

"But did you have to-"

I interrupted him. "Scorp," I said seriously. "You would become gay for Charles Dickens ever since I told you about him at the beginning of the year."

His face slowly turned red as Rose sat next to him with a plate of pancakes. Her hair was a frizzy, red mess piled on top of her head, held there by a bright green hair band. It was clear that she was still very tired.

"Who?" Rose mumbled, holding her head up with her hand as she continued to eat.

"Charles Dickens." Scorpius explained causing her to perk up.
"I love his work!" Rose exclaimed excitedly, noticing the book in her boyfriend's hands.

"It is brilliant," Scorpius agreed.
"How far have you gotten?"
"Well, Pip has just…"

"And off they go." I muttered as the two flew to a land of nerdy-ness.

"Hat-stall," Romana "coughed" in Scorpius' direction.

This stopped their conversation as Scorpius' face darkened to red once more. I laughed at his embarrassment.

"What about a hat-stall?" Professor asked.

"Scorpius was a hat-stall." I explained.
"I was not!" Scorpius protested, burying his face in his hands.
Romana raised her eyebrows just slightly and barked out a laugh. "Seriously, Scorp?" She said. "You were under the hat for the better part of ten minutes. Aladdin was right after you and the hat was on her head for two!"

Professor seemed to contemplate this, "Most Slytherins when I went to school were sorted in under a minute."

That startled Romana, Scorpius and I. I was the quickest sorting for Slytherin in years…

"Aladdin holds the record for fastest Slytherin sorting since Evan was in school." Romana said quietly.

"Who?" Professor asked.
"Evan was a seventh year when I first came. The fastest sorting he'd ever seen was three minutes long. Then Aladdin came and we were all shocked. My own was four minutes long." Romana explained.

"If you mind me asking," Professor began. "What houses was the hat contemplating?"
"Ravenclaw and Slytherin." Scorpius shrugged. "I think Hufflepuff was mentioned in the beginning."

"Hufflepuff and Slytherin," Romana shivered. "He said maybe Gryffindor, but decided no quickly due to my lack of wanting to save someone I don't know. I'm not sure how he thought I would make a good Hufflepuff."

"Gryffindor and Slytherin." I muttered.
"Gryffindor!" James exclaimed from the doorway. "The hat considered putting you in Gryffindor?!"

"James!" Professor scolded as Romana rolled her eyes. James sat down next to her and draped an arm around her.
"What?" He asked. "Daughter of Salazar here."

Her mouth formed a small 'o' when she was reminded of this. "Forgot."

"That is probably the only reason she was sorted into Slytherin, anyway." Scorpius laughed.
"Scorpius, no." I moaned, holding my head in my hands.
Romana covered her mouth to stop the laughter from tumbling out. "I remember that!" She exclaimed.

"Shut up!" I groaned.

"What is this?" Albus asked walking into the kitchen and sitting down next to me, so close our shoulders were brushing.

"When Aladdin and I were first years," Scorpius started. "She was very interested in the Whomping Willow. I kept trying to tell her about how the tree would hit you if you got to close, but Aladdin didn't listen. So one night, she kidnapped me and told me that we were going to go and climb the Whomping Willow."
"Hold it!" Professor exclaimed, looking at me like I was insane. I was pretty sure my face was a tomato by now. "You wanted to climb the Whomping Willow?!"

I nodded mutely.
"Anyway," Scorpius said. "We got to the base of the Whomping Willow and of course, I, being sane, tried to talk her out of it. However she was set on it. She got within five meters of it and a branch comes, sweeps her up and started flinging her around by her leg. I ran inside and got Madam Pomfrey, she came down, stunned the tree and got Aladdin down. Her leg was broken along with numerous toes, and she had a concussion. However, once she was healed up and lying in the hospital bed she got this weird smile and stated she wanted to go again."

Everyone in the room, excluding Mrs. Grandma Weasley who was pressing a hand over her heart and looking at me with wide eyes, began cracking up. Mr Weasley had been sent into town to buy bacon and eggs.

"Thank god none of my children ever thought about doing that," Mrs. Grandma Weasley sighed, fanning her face. "Please tell me you haven't done anything like that again."

"Sure!" I laughed nervously.
"Of course," Scorpius smiled, not meeting her eyes.
"I'm so glad that I am smarter than you two," Romana proclaimed taking a bite of pancake causing me to raise an eyebrow at her.
"You thought you could transfigure something into edible food," I deadpanned.

"OK, slightly smarter than you."

Yea, right.

Later that day, in the middle of the afternoon, I was taking what I was going to start calling my "Stupid, Freaking, Gryffindork Breaks". I was trying my best to hold my tongue, to not say anything that could cause them to hate me. After all, I would probably have to live with them for the rest of my life. Ugh, can someone just wake me up when it's all over? When I'm wiser and their much older?

This break was taking place inside an old, abandoned garage made of cedar wood with a tin roof. Mr Grandpa Weasley had said that he once tinkered with muggle artifacts in here until he became over-sensitized to cedar dust. The garage had been abandoned ever since.

The garage was not that big and the only source of light was the amount of sunlight that managed to filter through the dust covered windows. Different muggle articles were on shelves and benches, tables and chairs. As I walked through, I accidentally stepped on a rubber duck causing it to let out a loud "QUAAAAAAAAAAAK!" in retaliation.

I picked up the abandoned toy and set it on a shelf next to what appeared to be a china doll. Her whole body seemed to be covered in spider web cracks, as if she had been dropped and hastily repaired numerous times.

It was funny to see how Mr Grandpa Weasley was so fascinated with things that I had grown up knowing. Scorpius had probably felt the same thing when I constantly asked him questions when we were younger.

I chuckled to myself as I picked up an old Hershey's chocolate wrapper when I heard the rusty door CREEEAAAK open.

I dropped the wrapper and turned suddenly to look at the intruder, my hand ready to grab my wand.

"Hello, Aladdin," Mr Potter said, seemingly amused by my tense posture.

I immediately relaxed when I saw that it was just him. "Hey, Mr Potter. Was there something you needed?"

"No," He admitted, amusement not leaving his features as he looked around. "I saw the door closing from the kitchen window. None of the kids come here and we adults have been locked in here with Arthur way too many times. No one's been here for years."
I laughed at the obvious statement as I swiped my index finger along a table. It came back almost black. "I can see."

"What are you doing in here, anyway?" Mr Potter asked as I wiped the dust and grime off on my holey jeans.

"Taking a break." I grumbled. "I swear to god, I'm going to bite someone's head off before I leave and it will not be pretty."

I wasn't sure what it was about Mr Potter, but I seemed much more comfortable around him. Romana had muttered under her breath numerous times about him making her uncomfortable along with Scorpius. At lunch, though, she had laughed with Professor. Not at-with! Though it probably had something to do with the fact that they shared an experience that, hopefully, no one else in the world would have to go through. The aurors in the family were having a hard time debating on whether or not they should arrest Bellatrix, but after being told that she was on bed rest and Romana had snapped her wand a year back, they decided she was harmless.

"We can't be that annoying," Mr Potter laughed slightly.

I raised my eyebrows at him, "Not 'we', so much, more like Weasel…and Fred. Fred better watch out for what he did to Abby and Farrah."

"Weasel? Who's We-Wait…Ron? Never mind, I don't want to know." Mr Potter said shaking his head. "What did Fred do?"

"Technically," I said, winding up an old toy monkey. You know, the classic circus one dressed as a bell hop with a drum and the circle gold…banging thing-y's that I forgot the name of. "Nothing. No one believed Jacob and me when we had to take them into the infirmary last year. And it wasn't just Fred-there were some Ravenclaws with him as well…three, I think. I was helping Jacob with some homework when we turned down the hallway that connects to the Slytherin dorm entrance and saw the two lying in blood. I barely caught the sight of Fred leaving the hallway."

Mr Potter furrowed his eyebrows. "Then how do you know it was Fred? Forgive me, but he is family and all…"

"It's OK," I sighed, stopping the monkey from falling off the edge of the table. "Gryffins can never not brag about their latest conquest. And since in the eyes of other houses, I'm considered the 'Queen' because I speak up more often, they like to tell me especially when they've hurt one of us."

Mr Potter sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, looking at me sadly. "I swear, this never happened when I was a Gryffindor."

I rolled my eyes. "I know," I laughed as I turned my back on him to inspect another object. "Draco makes sure we know that. However, as he's said multiple times, Slytherins aren't what they used to be." I looked over my shoulder at Mr Potter. "Maybe Gryffindors aren't what they used to be either."

That night, I had the worst night of sleep in ages. It seemed as if every time I got to the brink of sleep, I would have horrible flash backs from what I was starting to call "The Before". Just as I would start drifting off, BAM! The worst fight with Helena. I got over that then, SLAP! When my parents first told me about the prophecy. And it kept going on…and on…and on!
I gave up on sleep around three AM and decided to just watch the ceiling. It seemed that the memories couldn't attack me if I didn't put down my guard. As I laid there, feeling rather cold from the rush of bad memories, I heard my name being called softly.
"Aladdin?" Turning my head, I saw Albus sleeping not too far away from me with his sister.

"Memories?" I guessed.
"The worst."

Quietly, I stood up and quietly made my way through the bodies of sleeping people and towards the kitchen. The sound of footsteps behind me alerted me to the fact that Albus was following me.

In the kitchen, I started the kettle and as I did, Albus wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me close to him and burrowing his face in my neck.

Surprised, I turned around, still in his arms, and looked at his face in worry. We were going faster than we had thought we would because the truth was, we already knew almost everything about each other. Our tastes in food and everything else hadn't changed all that much, nor did our personalities.

"You OK?" I asked, furrowing my eyes. Albus put his forehead against mine.

"You died first." He whispered, his eyes closed as if he were in pain. "And it wasn't peaceful, god, no. You were laughing one minute and then all of a sudden screaming as if you were under the Cruciatus Curse." A tear slid down his face. "God, Cory, you were begging me, and anyone who would listen, for help, but the healers didn't know what was wrong with you! The only thing they could think of is that you were being placed under a curse. Your dad blamed mine, they'd recently started fighting, and said that he was the only one with cause to do it. Then I was in that pain and I could briefly hear that my dad was blaming yours…it was a mess."

"The main one I remembered was the time we were in the library. My father had thought I was feeding the Basilisk, while I thought he was, and so it went hunting. It tried to go after you and I had never been more thankful that you were holding the mirror and that I was there to send him away." I muttered, not meeting his eyes.

More than a lifetime later, and I still blamed myself for that. I was supposed to be feeding it, how could I have just forgotten?! When I found out this year, I hadn't forgotten to feed it since. Thank goodness it only needs to be fed a large quantity of meat once a month due to its being a snake.

Albus glared at me slightly. "That was not your fault."|
"Yes," I sighed, turning away and out of his embrace when the kettle whistled. I got out the ingredients and two mugs, beginning to make the tea. I loved coffee, but tea would always hold a special place in my heart, especially the chamomile I was making. "It was. I was supposed to feed the overgrown reptile."
"If you weren't there," Albus said, leaning against the counter next to me, watching me intensely. "I would have died."
I scoffed at this. "No, you wouldn't have." I protested. "The basilisk isn't particularly fond of human prey. The thing is, is that once you look at it, you're dead. Served its purpose."

"Did your dad really make it to weed out muggleborns from the school?" Albus asked worriedly. He never would have in The Before, but after fifteen years of hating the person who had once been his Uncle a seed of doubt had been planted.
"No," I laughed. "Helena made that up to scare some kids in her dorm that were annoying her. Before Hogwarts became a school and our parents were just living there with us, the Basilisk was used as a sort of security system for unwanted guests." I handed Albus his cup of tea as he laughed slightly.
"Leave it to Uncle Sal to create a security system that involves death first and question later." Albus said.

"Hey!" I exclaimed softly. "Uncle Ric lived by the 'punch first, ask later'. It became a Gryffindor trait!"

"Did not," Albus scoffed.

"Uh...did too," I protested.

"Did not!"
"Did too!"

"Not!"
"Did!"

"Not!"

"Not!"
"Did, and that's final!"

"OK."

When his mind finally caught up with him, he gaped at me. "You tricked me!"

"Pride and Joy of Slytherin, Golden Boy." I reminded him with a smirk. "Pride and Joy."

He sipped his tea whilst pouting an adorable pout. I smirked over the rim of my tea cup.

The door suddenly banged open and I turned around to see Mr Potter, looking quite alarmed, Professor, clutching at her dressing robe and seeming very glad we weren't intruders, and Mr Weasel…holding a Beater's bat.

"What do you think you two are doing?!" Professor screeched in a toned down voice so as to not wake anyone up.
"Couldn't sleep." I answered jovially. "Would anyone care for a cup of tea?"

"Get to bed!" Mr Weasel exclaimed angrily. "I'm sure that everything will be fine in the end, Miss Slytherin."

"I'm not even going to try to sleep after what I saw, Uncle Ron." Albus muttered quietly. It was clear that it had come out louder than he had meant.

Mr Potter's eyes flitted between the two of us. "Ah," He said. "Nightmares?"

"Well-bad memories." I said.

"Sit down," Mr Potter gestured to the kitchen table, we followed his request and were soon sitting right next to each other watching the adults.

"Harry!" Professor exclaimed. "This is completely unacceptable! They are dating and up in the middle of the night!"
"Plus, she's a Slytherin!" Mr Weasel protested. "Who knows what potion she slipped in that drink?!"

"No potion," A cool voice said from the doorway. "Allie sucks at potions. Now, would someone like to explain why we are up in the wee hours of the morning?"

"What are you doing up?" Mr Weasel groaned causing Scorpius to bark out a laugh.
"I am a very light sleeper." He explained. "It comes with having to comfort sobbing first years."

"What the hell is going on?" Romana yawned coming up behind Scorpius.

Professor groaned. "Do all Slytherins sleep this lightly?!"

"Yes." All Slytherins in the room chorused. Most people would think that having to sleep in a room filled with other kids would make you a heavy sleeper. However, do to us always being tense and looking out for trouble during the day, even at night we don't really relax. Plus, if a younger child needed you, you were required by the Slytherin rules we had set to attend to them.

"Go to bed, guys, nothing's wrong." I said waving my hand. Please don't let them

"Liar." Scorpius smirked.

Catch onto that blatant lie. Goddammit. A Slytherin couldn't even lie to a Slytherin.

"I can't believe you would try to lie to us, Allie!" Romana feigned hurt as she clutched at her heart, sitting down at the table with Scorpius in tow.
"Seriously," I said, putting on my 'I am not kidding right now' tone. "Go to bed."
"Wha-Allie," Scorpius said not understanding.

"I'll tell you in the morning," I said. "But I am running on no sleep and bad memories."

The two left, throwing concerned glances over their shoulders. I ran my fingers through my hair. Tomorrow was not looking to be fun.

Mr Potter sat down in the middle of Professor and Mr Weasel, across the table from Albus and me.

"So, what is going on exactly?" Mr Potter asked.
"Every time I try to go to sleep, I keep getting assaulted by bad memories from…Before." I explained tiredly.

"The last thing I saw before giving up was when Allie was…" Albus struggled to get the last word out. "Dying."

"Hold it!" Mr Weasel exclaimed, looking at me. "You died?!"

I raised an eyebrow at him. "If I didn't, I wouldn't be sitting here right now. In fact, I wouldn't even know you because I would still hate every child in this family. I'd be at the Malfoys, trying to figure out how to stop the damn rebellion you caused."
"Rebellion?!" Professor yelped.

I turned to Mr Potter who just held his head in his hands and rubbed at his eyes. "I told you two this already," He groaned in annoyance. "A group of graduated Slytherins is trying to change the Wizarding World's perspective on them."

I rolled my eyes at this. "It's mainly the Decrees." I explained. "They want them revoked. And they want an apology from Hogwarts."

"Why the hell would they want an apology from Hogwarts?" Mr Weasel spat.

I looked at him with a deadpan expression. "Do you hate me?"

"Wha-" His face turned a beet red at being called out.

"The answer is yes," I prompted. "Anyway, if you are an adult and still hate me for having ambition, and you raised two children to hate Slytherins. Then all the other adults during the war teach their children to hate Slytherins, and then those children went to school with said Slytherins, what do you think is going to happen?"

"The normal house rivalry?" Mr Weasel guessed causing me to burst out laughing.

"Are you kidding?" I asked as I started to calm down. "No! Hell no! I didn't know what the war was as a first year, so when J-someone was yelling at me about it, I asked what it was. I was then shoved into a suit of armor and pushed down the stairs."

Mr Weasel blanched, his jaw dropped and his face pale. Professor raised a hand to her mouth in shock. Mr Potter raised his eyebrows in shock.

"So, yea," I said. "I, too, think they deserve an apology. However, their going about it in the wrong way. The way their writing, it's clear that they don't care about lives right know." I shook my head sadly. "I don't know what has made them decide this, but there is something that is suggesting, to me, that we aren't just dealing with some student revolution."

"What is it?" Mr Potter asked causing me to sigh.

"I know these kids," I said. "I shared a dorm with them for years, their family. I even know ones that graduated years before I even came. They aren't killers."

"Look," Professor sighed. "It is way too early to deal with a rebellion. If you two aren't going to go to bed, then just entertain yourselves quietly please."

As she went to stand, I remembered something. "You are the one that makes the Decrees, right?"

She turned around and looked at me, seemingly confused. "Yes, I am…"

"Please," I begged. "Revoke them. If you do that, we could avoid this entirely."
Professor raised her chin defiantly. "I am sorry," She said. "But I will not. Those decrees have prevented-"

"Nothing!" I exclaimed, standing up quickly causing the chair to fall down behind me, my hands planted on the table. "They have prevented nothing! All it has done is caused graduated Slytherins to hate you even more! Most of the people who are talked about in those Decrees of yours don't even know what the hell they are! Trust me when I say that they didn't want to stay around."

"You don't know what you are talking about." Professor insisted.

"I don't?!" I laughed humorlessly. "I know Slytherins! I know how their brain works! Most of those Deatheaters weren't in it because they thought the cause worthy. They were in it to protect their family! We are not Gryffindors-we are loyal, yes, but we aren't going to give up our lives for anyone. And, no, we don't really trust or care that much about people we don't know, especially if it's at the risk of our own family. People like Severus Snape, though we revere him dearly, were the rare people that changed erratically during their lifetime. If he had been sorted later, there is no doubt in my mind he would have been a Gryffindor. And I'm telling you, the longer those Decrees are up, the worse this is going to get!"

Professor looked at me with disdain, "I guess that is just something we're going to have to risk."

And people say I'm stubborn!

That was a looong chapter...wow. Hope you liked Aladdin's mini-blow out. There will be a worse one. It is coming. I am so sorry that it took so long for me to update this-however, I am living without wifi until Tuesday, bleh. That is why I am sitting in a crowded Starbucks updating and running on caffeine.

On another note-101 reviews. OH. MY. MERLIN. I know I never ask people to review in these things, that's cause it annoys me when I'm reading a story and they beg for reviews. However, that doesn't mean that they are any less appreciated! I never thought I would get to even eighty reviews! THANK YOU SO MUCH AND COOKIES TO YOU ALL!

Hope you enjoyed the chapter :)

Raven