September 1991, 1st year
The Slytherin Quidditch trials were held at the end of the second week and Harry went to watch them along with the other Quidditch fanatics, while Lynea joined the rest to be a diligent student and work on their homework in the library.
Another week went by and there had still been no incidents so far. The first-years weren't ungrateful, but still getting rather anxious, waiting for the shoe to drop. They hoped they would be left in peace for Mabon, at least.
The autumn equinox was one of the eight sabbats, celebrations of the old traditions. The old traditions had been disappearing more and more in recent centuries as the magical world evolved and adapted to modern times. Most of the purebloods – the pureblood-elitists, anyway – were blaming the muggleborn for this development, but according to grand-aunt Naenia it was just the way progress went sometimes – after all, most witches and wizards had forgotten all about the Old Magics as well and those were as close to the origins of their magic as you could get, not to mention the most powerful of magics.
Mabon was one of the two sabbats that represented balance – the balance between night and day, dark and light, masculinity and femininity. The other one was the spring equinox, Ostara. They celebrated the second harvest and took this as a chance to give thanks to the earth for providing them with crops and animals and food. Hogwarts didn't uphold the old traditions anymore, instead opting to celebrate Muggle holidays like Halloween, Christmas and Easter, but the teachers allowed the students to observe the traditions, if they wanted to. Most of the purebloods and some of the halfbloods did, those from Slytherin first and foremost – their house was known for its traditionalism, after all, even if that wasn't always a good thing.
The first years joined the gathering crowd in front of the castle at sunset and together they all set of to take a walk through nature, pick apples and perform rituals for balance, harmony and to express their gratitude for the bountiful harvest (that none of them had reaped). It was a fun and happy evening shared between all houses.
o
The first incident to happen to the first-year Slytherins was, surprisingly, not targeted at Harry. At least not solely.
Lynea was walking from the library to the Great Hall with Daphne, Harry, Theodore and Blaise for lunch, when they came upon a group of Gryffindors in the hallway. The Slytherins deliberately went to one side of the corridor to avoid the older students as best they could, Blaise even physically dragged Theodore to the side, who had his head buried in a book. The Gryffindors, however, foiled their plan by simply being Gryffindors – they were talking about some professional Quidditch match, animatedly gesturing and laughing, while completely disregarding their surroundings and so the inevitable happened: One of them bumped into their little group, knocking Theodore, Blaise and Lynea to the ground, while Daphne stumbled into Harry, who managed to pull them upright again.
"Watch where you're going," the offender hissed at them.
Blaise was the first to get back to his feet and he held out a hand for Lynea and Theodore each to help them up.
"Excuse me?" Harry snapped, before anyone could stop him. "If anyone should watch where they're going it should be you."
"Harry," Daphne whispered, but to no avail.
"What did you just say?" the Gryffindor said with narrowed eyes.
Harry defiantly raised his chin. "You heard me."
One of the other Gryffindors laughed. "Look at him, little Potter playing the hero." His voice dropped, "What are you going to do? Bite me with your little snake fangs?"
Lynea discreetly reached for her wand, just in case, as Harry faced off against the older students. It was an incredibly stupid thing to do, but no one could say whether the Gryffindors would have actually left them alone had they just kept their heads down.
"Mister Towler!" a stern voice rang through the hallway and everyone turned around to see Professor McGonagall march towards them, a bushy haired Ravenclaw at her side.
Their Transfiguration teacher made short process of the older Gryffindors, berating them for their insolent behaviour and taking points. The Gryffindors glared at Lynea and the others and then stomped off.
"I expect all of you to come by my office later and explain to me what happened here," McGonagall said to the Slytherins and then she left, too.
"Great," Blaise said. "Now we're in trouble for being assaulted by some stupid lions."
"That's just not true," Hermione said, who hadn't moved since her arrival at the scene.
"What do you want, Granger?" Blaise asked.
"I just –" She sighed. "Look, I saw them bumping into you and it looked like they were going to hex you all – which I find highly immature, it was really all their fault, after all – and I thought I might better go and fetch a teacher."
Blaise narrowed his eyes. "So you are responsible for getting us into trouble."
"I just wanted to help," Hermione said indignantly. "I'm sure Professor McGonagall just wants to hear your side of the story."
"Help," Theodore spat. "As if we needed help from a mudblood."
"Theodore!" Lynea hissed.
"Well, if you don't appreciate my help, then there is no need for me to linger around." Hermione raised her chin and turned on her heel.
The others watched her retreating back, until Harry asked, "What's a mudblood?"
"Shush, Harry," Lynea said. "Do not mention that word here, where anyone might overhear." She fixed Theodore with a glare. "And you really ought to know better than to call someone that."
"It's what she is, Lynea," Theodore hissed.
"Guys," Daphne said. "No fights in public."
Lynea sighed. "Let's go. We can discuss this after lunch."
There was no visible tension during lunch, but Draco and the others who hadn't been there to witness the incident immediately knew that something had happened. They also knew not to bring it up in the Great Hall of all places and after they had all eaten, they went to the dungeons together without having to ask why.
Lynea was the one to explain what had happened and she tried to keep her speech neutral, but she couldn't help the irritation seeping in when she came to what Theodore had said.
Draco sneered. "Who does that mudblood think she is?"
Tracey breathed in sharply and Draco sent her a glare.
"Do you have a problem?"
"Yes," Lynea answered in Tracey's stead. "Hermione Granger is a muggleborn. That does not make her blood filthy."
Draco narrowed his eyes. "Since when have you been a Muggle lover?"
"I don't particularly care for the Muggles," Lynea said. "But in the end, all are equal in death."
"You sound like a Lémure," Draco said.
"Where do you think I got that from?"
Both of her parents had been devout believers of the pureblood supremacy – her father still was to this day. Her mother, though, had slowly begun changing her view of the world ever since the Lémures had taken them in, because grand-aunt Naenia had helped her see things differently. Lynea had never really thought about it all that much. There had been only a handful of halfbloods and certainly no muggleborn she had met before coming to Hogwarts and it wasn't like she wanted to think back to the times when her father had still been around. They weren't very fond memories.
"The Lémures are right," she continued, "or do you want to question the most ancient and powerful pureblood family left in existence?"
Draco looked like he very much wanted to argue but thought better of it.
"What is so bad about being muggleborn?" Harry asked quietly. "My mother was a muggleborn."
"They are lesser than us," Draco said. "They don't deserve to use magic."
"But why?"
Lynea held up a hand to stop Draco from going on a rant about dirty blood and he let her. Being on top did have its advantages – it was only the reasons why the others had put her in that position that bothered her, after all.
"Do you remember what we told you about the eight sabbats?" she asked and waited for Harry to nod, before she continued. "The old traditions honour the eight cyclical days of the year, because there is a special meaning to them – they hold a special kind of power that the Muggle holidays do not. Unfortunately, the old traditions are starting to fall into obscurity, just as the Old Magics did – and most blame the muggleborn and some even the halbloods for that. Christmas and Easter are their holidays, not ours. We're starting to celebrate their holidays instead of ours and with that we lose a bit more of the power we once held."
"Exactly," Draco said with emphasis. "They are inferior to us. They will never be as good at magic and if we mingle with them, then our blood will weaken as well. It already has."
"That," Lynea said primly, "is our own fault. It wasn't the muggleborn who made us forget how to use the Old Magics. It was laziness. There is no actual proof that purebloods are better than muggleborn – just look at Hermione Granger. That girl might be an annoying know-it-all, but you can't deny that she's a brilliant witch."
"That's rich coming from you – the Lémures are one of the purest families out there."
"Because no Necromancers have been found among halfbloods and muggleborn so far."
"That just proves my point that purebloods are better than the rest."
"No, it doesn't," Lynea said and held up her hand again, so Draco wouldn't interrupt her. "My grand-aunt Naenia theorized that the actual reason for that is not because of blood purity, but because of the way halbloods and muggleborn grow up with different views of the magical world – or none at all. It is hard enough to find someone with an aptitude for Necromancy among the purebloods, who are more open-minded about the different kinds of magic, because they grew up learning about every aspect, because the older families still remember the times when all magic was equal and free. The Muggles only remember the evil witches and wizards they hunted down and that all magic is bad, the Dark Arts and the Forbidden Arts in particular.
"That is also another point why pureblood supremacy came to be," she said to Harry. "History, especially the witch hunts, has shown us time and again that Muggles are evil. And muggleborn witches and wizards come from the world of the 'evil Muggles'."
"That's the gist of it," Daphne said.
Her family had a more neutral stance towards muggleborn witches and wizards, but Lynea had never been quite sure what exactly their thoughts on the whole topic were.
"It started slowly and evolved over time," Daphne continued. "History has a way of turning simple things into extremes."
"And then the Dark Lord rose to power and made everything worse," Millicent said.
"Didn't it already start with Grindelwald, though?" Daphne asked.
Lynea shook her head. "Grindelwald only distinguished between magical and non-magical people. All he wanted was to abolish the Statute of Secrecy and let the magical people rule over the non-magical. It made the reputation of Slytherin house worse, because people are just that stupid – but Grindelwald, himself, didn't actually care about pureblood supremacy."
"I've heard differently," Blaise said.
Lynea shrugged. "My grand-aunt met him in person, she should know."
Her grand-aunt had also met the Dark Lord in person, probably had quite a history with him, but that was neither here nor there.
"So what do we do, now?" Pansy asked. "We are obviously not in agreement on the whole issue."
"I don't exactly care what you all believe in," Lynea said, "as long as we can still discuss things calmly like this and don't argue in public."
"Which we nearly did," Theodore said.
"Because you used a slur that could have gotten us into serious trouble." Lynea turned around. "Harry, what do you think about all of this?"
"I –" Harry looked at them with wide eyes. "I don't think I like all of this very much."
"So?" Draco asked.
Harry hunched his shoulders and looked to the side. "I would find it better if we could all just get along – with the muggleborn, I mean, no matter our blood status."
"Not a chance," Draco hissed.
"Manners, Draco," Lynea said and earned herself a glare. "We can all be civil and polite about this. We're not Gryffindors, who behave like immature little children that throw temper tantrums whenever they don't get what they want."
The blonde boy sobered up at that and nodded. "You're right. We are more civilised than that."
Harry frowned. "I don't like that either – the way you talk about other houses."
"They earned it, Harry," Blaise said. "Or did you already forget what happened earlier today?"
"We still need to talk about that, as well," Daphne said. "After we sorted the blood status issue."
Their discussion took up the whole afternoon and continued well into the night after they came back from dinner. Some of the older students even joined in to contribute their own beliefs and experiences and how their respective years dealt with having very different opinions on the matter.
Lynea, just like Harry, Tracey and Millicent, would have liked for everyone to just see past the prejudice and realize that the whole pureblood elitism was actually quite stupid at its core. But people didn't change overnight. And she had to wonder – had her relationship with her father been a different one, had it been like Draco's or Theodore's … Maybe she would have stood on a different side that day.
The next morning, Lynea deliberately split off from her group once they had reached the library to seek out a certain bushy haired, dark skinned Ravenclaw.
"Hello," she said in a low voice, so the librarian wouldn't hear.
Hermione raised her head and regarded her warily.
Lynea smiled. "I would like to thank you for yesterday."
"Oh," Hermione said, her eyes widening. "It – It was no problem. Anyone would have done it."
Lynea shrugged. "I just wanted to express my gratitude. And also tell you that my housemates will not call you by that name anymore." The corner of her mouth quirked up. "They might still call you other names though."
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Like a know-it-all? That's fine. Everyone does, I've gotten rather used to it." She wrinkled her nose. "Although that Weasley boy could really back off. I don't know why he has to be so mean to me all the time. Thank goodness, I don't have to share a house with him on top of attending the same class sometimes."
Lynea raised an eyebrow at that, but chose not comment on the Weasley boy. Instead, pulled up a chair and sat down next to Hermione. "Maybe you could try actually sharing your knowledge instead of looking down on everyone for not knowing?"
"But I am sharing my knowledge!" Hermione protested. "They just don't appreciate it."
Lynea huffed in amusement. "You are basically forcing it down our throats. You could maybe try to, I don't know, ask people whether they would like to hear about specific information? Or offer to teach them what you know?"
Hermione put a thoughtful hand to her chin.
"Hey," a voice said from behind them and they both turned around.
They found Harry standing there, shifting from one foot to another. "Uhm, can I sit with you guys?"
Lynea looked at Hermione, who smiled brightly at him. "Sure, go ahead."