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Chapter 3
The walk to the Slytherin house had been an exciting one with the first years tittering enthusiastically about their new home for the next seven years, yet Santana tried her best to appear bored by it all. She walked with her shoulders squared and her chin high, paying little attention as the blonde fifth year from earlier, who turned out to be a prefect, demanded that they keep close and pay attention to his directions even closer.
It wasn't as if Santana needed his directions, anyway. Her mother had gone over the layout of the castle with her so many times that she felt as if she could navigate around the aging school blindfolded if need be. She had also lost Quinn somewhere along the way on the journey, the one-time, would-be Gryffindor having fallen to the back of the group as she fell deeper into the recesses and fears of her own mind, but Santana didn't even notice. When thinking of this moment, her first walk with her new peers, her first trip to the Slytherin Common Room, Quinn had never been there with her since even in her musings and dreams, Quinn had always been sorted into Gryffindor and would presumably be somewhere else in the castle, walking with her own house at this moment. So, Santana barely registered when Quinn fell to the back of the group, leaving her alone in a crowd of her classmates.
Finally, after winding their way down beneath the school, they came to a stop in front of a bare stone wall. Santana stood up even straighter.
"Listen up, first years," the blonde prefect called out. "The password for now is 'Long Live Salazar Slytherin'. It will do you well no to forget it. The password does and will change, and when that happens, you will be notified by myself of one of my fellow prefects. It will also be posted on the noticeboard, so check it frequently. And lastly, do not go around giving out our password to non-Slytherin. The consequences for anyone caught doing so will be most severe."
Santana started to roll her eyes. As if she were going to be intimidated by some fifth year on a power trip.
"And word to the wise," the prefect continued, "those are Professor Sylvester's warnings, not mine."
Santana's eyes snapped still mid-eye roll. If Santana were going to be intimidated by anyone in this school, it was going to be Professor Sylvester. The professor's reputation as an icy, no nonsense woman was legendary. According to her parents' stories of when they were in school, it was considered a slow day for Professor Sylvester when her quick tongue would only send ten students running out of her class in tears, but, and this was a rare but, but if you were able to get onto the professor's good side, then you would have it made for the rest of your school career.
The prefect turned around to face the stone wall and spoke the password clearly and precisely as if trying to demonstrate to the first years the proper way for them to do it in the future. The scraping of stone filled the hall and soon a passageway formed before them, just like Santana knew it would. She smirked at the other first years awe-filled faces as they followed the prefect through the passage into the low-ceilinged, dimly lit Slytherin common room. Black and green leather sofas filled the room that was filled with skulls and dark wood cupboards lining the walls.
"Why does everything look…green?" Rachel asked as she stopped next to Santana.
Santana snorted, "What? Does your precious book not mention that?"
Even in the green tinged atmosphere, Santana could see Rachel's cheeks turning a bright pink.
"It's because we are partially under the Great Lake, Pinocchio," Santana informed before stepping further into the room. A slow smile formed on her face. It was exactly like her parents had described in all of their stories. It was exactly how she had been picturing it in her dreams. It was perfect.
++gw++
Santana stretched as she woke up the next morning, well rested after her first night of sleep in her new dormitory, thanks in large part to the gentle lapping of water against the windows that lulled her into a deep sleep. She pulled back the green silk hangings around her bed to be greeted by what appeared to be an empty dormitory. All of the other bed's hangings, bar one, were pulled back, revealing empty beds. She glanced at the old pocket watch her father had given her-knowing that her digital watch she used to wear would be rendered useless by all of the magic flowing within the halls of the school-that was resting on her black bedside table. It was nearly noon. Rising early was never a strength of Santana's.
Santana stretched slowly, cocking her head as the sound of sniveling reached her ears. She crawled out of her four poster bed and slowly crept her way over to the only bed that hadn't had its curtains drawn yet. She silently hoped to find the large nosed, midget Rachel writing home, asking for her parents to send for her, realizing that she didn't have what it takes to be counted among Slytherin's elite. But as Santana made her way closer and recognized the trunk at the foot of the bed, she knew that wasn't the case.
She carefully pulled the green curtains around the bed back and was met by a young girl crying over a blank page as she held a quill in her hand. It wasn't Rachel, though, as Santana had originally hoped. It was Quinn.
"Q…" Santana began, but had no idea where to go.
"I thought everybody had risen and left," Quinn offered by way of explanation as she hurriedly wiped the tears from her cheeks.
"You know I don't wake up before lunch on the weekends," Santana forced a chuckle.
"You definitely do need your beauty sleep," Quinn nodded.
Santana gave a genuine smile. With that derogatory remark, she at least new Quinn's body hadn't been invaded by some alien like in that old movie she watched with her dad that one time—old sci-fi was his favorite movie genre.
"What's going on?" Santana asked, knowing that when it was just the two of them there was no point in beating around the bush.
"I…I was trying to…I was going to…I need to," Quinn stuttered out, her eyes tearing up once more.
Santana's chest tightened in worry. She had never seen Quinn so undone before.
Quinn sniffed hard before starting again, "I was trying to write my parents to tell them, but every time I start…what am I supposed to write? Dear Mummy and Daddy, I know you have spent the past eleven years doing everything in your power to ensure that I would be sorted into the family house, but guess what? Not only was I not sorted into Gryffindor, but I was sorted into the very near demonic house that you loathe. Sorry for being such a disappointment and crushing all of your hopes and dreams for the future of our family. Love, your baby girl."
Santana bit her tongue to keep from countering Quinn's attack on Slytherin, knowing that it was just how Quinn was mistakenly raised, much like how she herself was properly raised to absolutely abhor Gryffindor, simple facts that the two consciously chose to bury and not bring up while growing up together. The girls did it because they had both come to realize that they were too different from the other children their age, too above them, to ever consider any of them friends, so all they were left with were each other. The girls' parents did it because they had also realized that when it came to the class of people they wanted their children to be surrounded by, any other kids just did not make the cut.
"Now I just think it would be better if I don't tell them," Quinn sighed.
"Don't tell them?" Santana raised both her eyebrows.
"Yes, like ever. I mean, I do not see why they have to know."
"You don't think that if they don't hear from you by Monday, they will just assume that you got sorted into Gryffindor and will start bragging to their friends accordingly?"
"And? How will they find out otherwise if I never tell them?"
"How?" Santana sputtered. "How? There are a million ways how they could find out."
"Name one," Quinn challenged.
"Ok, how about when you go home for the holidays with Slytherin robes instead of Gryffindor ones? Or how about when your head of hose writes home about some achievement that your achievement loving self is bound to acquire, and it is signed by Professor Sylvester instead of Professor Holiday? Or how about when your dad comes to watch a Gryffindor Quidditch match like he has at least once a year every year since he graduated? Or how about—"
"Ok!" Quinn snapped sharply. "Okay…I just said one, you know."
"Sorry," Santana frowned. "You have to tell them, though, Q."
Quinn's shoulders dropped.
"It will be way worse if you don't tell them now, and they tell all their friends you are in Gryffindor, but then find out otherwise later. They will be so much more upset with you for embarrassing them like that, you know that, right?"
"I know," Quinn sniffed, pulling out a handkerchief seemingly out of thin air to wipe her nose. "Can you, you know…"
Santana froze, half expecting Quinn to ask for her help in writing the letter, and knowing that if she did then her initial fears would have been correct and Quinn had in fact been invaded by a body snatcher.
"Stay with me while I write it? Then maybe we can go explore a bit of the dungeons and stuff?"
Santana let out a relieved breath and nodded, figuring that like her own parents, Quinn's had probably gone over a layout of the castle with her. But, unlike her own parents, Quinn's wouldn't have had extensive knowledge of the sub-levels.
++gw++
Santana adjusted her green and white tie before smoothing her robes, running a hand over the Slytherin crest in the process as she made her way through the dungeons with the rest of the first year Slytherins. She stood even straighter than normal, proud of the fact that she was one of only two first years with the proper green lined robes that members of the Slytherin House wore. Normally, first years bought plain black robes, like the ones Santana had worn to the sorting ceremony, since they did not know for certain what house they would be sorted into. Then, their parents could buy them the proper robes and send them in the mail, or the student could just wait to buy new ones before their second year.
Santana could feel a smirk forming at the thought of her parents having enough faith—and money, just in case they had to go and buy a third set of robes after the plain black and the green lined if she had been sorted into a different house (as if)—in her to go ahead and buy her the proper robes of a Slytherin. The only other first year that had a set of green lined robes, the boy named Azimio, seemed to be fit to burst through the robes' worn seams at any moment, making it known—to Santana at least—that the robes were mere hand me downs, either from an older sibling or even his parents.
Santana glanced at Quinn who was walking next to her, picture perfect posture as always. She had caught a glimpse of the crimson lined robes in Quinn's trunk as they were getting ready that morning.
"Have you heard from your parents after you know…the incident?" she asked. The incident she was referring to was the howler that arrived for Quinn the afternoon before as the two of them sat out by the Great Lake, enjoying the sunshine while they could before the start of classes. It had been a brutal one, and, Santana knew, one that had been timed to arrive later than the other mail, which normally arrived in the Great Hall, in order to lessen the number of witnesses. The Fabrays were never ones for public commotions.
"My mum wrote to me last night," Quinn nodded. "She tried to write everything she remembered about Slytherin, anything that could be important. She said she and Daddy talked, a lot, and while he is incredibly angry still, he realizes that I am still representing the Fabray family, and that above all else, I need to excel. So, I am to embrace the Slytherin House and act as if this was the house I wanted to be sorted into."
"Appearances," Santana nodded in understanding.
"Yes," Quinn nodded. "As for, you know, the disappointment side, well…Mum said that Daddy said we'll deal with it when I go home for the holidays."
Santana swallowed, "Happy Christmas."
Quinn offered a half forced chuckle as they walked through the doorway of their very first lesson: Potions with the infamous instructor, Professor Sue Sylvester, to be exact.
The room was dark and the dank air belied the sun that Santana had witnessed warming the environs outside on her brief trip above ground for breakfast in the Dining Hall. Santana outwardly shivered as she followed Quinn into the sublevel classroom, making a mental note to pack her sweater in her book bag the next time her potions class met.
"How lucky is it that our very first lesson is to be taught by our own head of house?" an overly enthusiastic voice popped up beside her.
Santana groaned loudly, "What is with you and what do I have to do to make it stop?"
"Look, Santana," Rachel began, "I know we seemed to have gotten off on the wrong foot, but—"
"First off," Quinn cut her off, "I am pretty sure it's Lady Santana to you, Commoner. Secondly, we did not get off on the wrong foot, you simply cannot read social cues like the one that clearly puts us in a position far, far above you, thereby creating a wall of sorts between us and you. That wall is impenetrable; you cannot and will not ever be able to break through it. So why don't you save us all a lot of time and crawl back into whatever hole you came out of and stay there."
Santana watched in a mixture of shock and awe as Rachel scurried off. It had been a while since she had gotten to bear witness to Quinn really sinking her claws into someone. "Bloody hell, Fabray."
"Yes, well, you know how people like that—people who don't know their place—push my buttons."
"All the entertaining ones," she chuckled.
Quinn rolled her eyes and started to make her way towards the front of the classroom, "Come on, let's go find a table before the other house shows up and takes all the good ones."
"Wait, I'm not going up there," Santana protested from where she stood. Santana Lopez did not sit at the front of the class like some brown-noser.
"Oh, quit being a hoodlum," Quinn sighed.
"You quit being a teacher's pet," Santana countered.
Quinn walked back to where she stood with a firm frown setting her mouth into a thin line. When she opened her mouth to talk, it was in a voice barely above a whisper, "Look, I know you and I have always differed in our seating choices, but it's not for every class, just this one. You know Professor Sylvester's reputation. She is easily the meanest, hardest teacher here, and she is our head of house. We need to get on her good side, and you can bet it won't be easy. But if we do, if we make it onto her good side, we'll have it made. My mum said in her letter that Professor Sylvester's favorites were practically able to get away with murder. So, it's just one class, Lopez, then we can be delinquents in every other class if you'd like."
But Santana shook her head; she didn't know where Quinn got off thinking that after one letter from her parents, she knew more about Slytherin and its infamous head of house than Santana, whose parents had been lecturing her about all things Slytherin from the moment of conception.
"You're forgetting one thing: no one likes a suck up."
"Fine, take the hard way," Quinn straightened up. "I'll be in the front, riding down easy street; you are welcome to join me when you come to your senses."
It was Santana's turn now to roll her eyes as Quinn turned on her heel and walked to the front of the room, taking a seat in the very first row. Santana, on the other hand, chose a spot in the second to last row at the middle table, as far away from the damp walls as possible.
The sound of the heavy door scratching against the stone floor caused Santana to turn to see which house they would be sharing their potions lesson with. "And the day just keeps getting better," she huffed at the sight of the gold and red tie clad children entering the classroom. Santana hefted up her book bag from the floor and placed it on the empty chair beside her, not wanting to have to share a table with some snot-nose from Gryffindor all year. She then folded her arms on the table before her and rested her forehead on top of them, content with the idea of catching a few more minutes of sleep before the actual lesson started up. She was just about to enter dreamland when a hushed voice broke through the fogginess warmly enveloping her brain.
"Shh…Tubbington, if you don't behave, you're not going to be able to come to anymore classes."
Santana turned her head over towards the voice, wondering how someone had managed to actually move her bag from and sit on a chair that was less than a foot away from her, without waking her up. But when she opened her eyes and took in the petite blonde beside her, hands clutching a tiny lump beneath her sweater to which she was currently talking, Santana nodded in understanding as she sat up. "Brittany." Of course it would be her, the amount of grace Santana had bore witness to in their short time together on the train was probably more than enough to allow the small girl to flit about, undetected.
"Santana," Brittany turned to her with a toothy smile that quickly faded. "We didn't wake you, did we? I'm sorry, I was trying to keep quiet but Tubbington keeps trying to tickle me."
Santana blinked her eyes several times, staving off the last few seconds of sleep that were continuing to cloud her brain. "What…wait, what are you doing here?" she asked curiously, but she froze as soon as her eyes landed on the striped tie that was draped over Brittany's shoulders, the colors red and gold alternating down on either side. "Oh. You're in Gryffindor. I'd almost forgotten about that."
"Yea, I think the sorting hat must've completely misunderstood me because this isn't what I had in mind when I told him where I needed to go," Brittany frowned thoughtfully.
Santana nodded, only half listening as she turned back to the front. She had been so busy over the course of the weekend, moving in to her dormitory, familiarizing herself with as much of the castle as she could, and getting acquainted with her new classmates—the ones she and Quinn deemed important enough to acquaint themselves with, at least—that she had all but forgotten about the curious girl whose life she'd saved.
But now, here she was, faced with the girl that she, Santana-I-don't-need-anyone-Lopez had not only deemed important enough to save, but also briefly entertained the idea of letting her into her inner circle of peers, a circle which had up until that point only consisted of one other person: Quinn Fabray, and she was stuck. Quinn, herself, had seen something in Brittany that had kept her from kicking her out of their compartment the second she barged in, something useful, yet none of that mattered anymore now that Brittany had been sorted into Gryffindor. One of the first things her mother had taught her was that Slytherins completely loathed Gryffindors…and that the feeling was one of mutuality. Although, apparently, no one had bothered to share that memo with Brittany because here she was, sitting next to her and talking to her as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to be doing.
"It's not that bad, though," Brittany shrugged. "The living room is really cozy, and the students are nice…I think."
"Whoa, you think?" Santana raised a questioning eyebrow as she found herself pulled from her troublesome thoughts.
"Well, when I stopped this boy and asked if he could tell me how to get to, well, here, he looked at my schedule and wished me luck. I guess he got distracted because he walked off without giving me the directions, but that's okay because I found some other first years I recognized and just followed them. But then, when I asked if one of them would tie my tie for me, they just rolled their eyes and called me a Yankee," Brittany's bottom lip fell into a pout. "I don't even like baseball."
Santana frowned, her eyes darting around the room to quickly assess the other Gryffindor first years. Her gaze eventually settled back on Brittany and the lump in her sweater, "Wait a minute…who is Tubbington?"
"My cat," Brittany raised her sweater and the white oxford beneath it to reveal a gray ball of fur. "Remember? You met him on the train."
"Brittany, you really shouldn't bring him to class, especially not one with so many dangerous ingredients being handled by so many incompetent first years."
"I know, but he's not used to spending so much time away from me, he's just a baby…" Brittany's pout deepened as she scratched behind the kitten's ears.
"Santana," an agitated voice from behind them made Brittany tug her clothing back down in a hurry.
Santana spun on her chair to find Quinn standing there, a hand on her hip, but an apologetic look in her eyes.
"Have you come to your senses, yet?" Quinn asked.
"What? Class hasn't even started yet," Santana looked around in confusion, but when she caught sight of the seat in the first row that Quinn had left vacant, and more importantly the person occupying the seat beside the empty chair, she let out a throaty laugh. "Oh, this is just beautiful."
"Shut up, Lopez. Just come sit with me and kick that troll to the back where she belongs."
"Look, I told you, Fabray, I'd rather have a sit down dinner with a dragon than be caught sitting in the front row like some nerd."
"Well, I guess I'll just sit back here with you, then. Move it, Gryffindork—oh, Brittany…"
"Hey Quinn," Brittany smiled as she turned around to greet her.
"Hey, sorry, but I need this chair, and seeing as you've had the disadvantage of being sorted into Gryffindor, however unfortunate," her eyes darted forlornly to Brittany's crimson and gold tie, "means you need to hurry back to your own kind, so…"
Santana looked back and forth between the two blondes, from Quinn's calculated glare to Brittany's open confusion and soft pout that had found its way back to her lips.
"Wait a minute," Santana held an arm out, preventing Brittany from standing up and walking away. "Just because you bit the big one, Fabray, doesn't mean you get to come back here and take it out on everyone else. Brittany chose to sit next to me, and not just because it was her last option. So, how about you go back to your spot in the front row and enjoy the semester…oh, and tell Rachel I said, hi," Santana added with a smirk as Quinn narrowed her eyes at her before walking back to her previous seat.
"Thanks," Brittany smiled widely.
"She needs to remember that I am not one of her little minions that'll do whatever she says," Santana shrugged off the gratitude as she reached out and turned Brittany until they were facing each other, knees touching. She raised her hands to the other girl's tie, pausing briefly as she made note of the fact that it would be opposite of tying her own, before her fingers set to work. "Now, I'll tie it for you today. But, I'll meet up with you after classes later and teach you how to tie it on your own."
"Really?" Blue eyes lit up excitedly.
"Yea, well, I happen to know that Professor Sylvester is a stickler for appearance, so if you're going to sit by me then you have to have to follow the uniform code to a 't'," Santana replied as she pulled back, giving a satisfied nod as she looked over her work.