The Slytherin quidditch players left the "locker room", and many Slytherin students were waiting for them. Draco could not help but draw a smirk on his face, liking the attention he was getting. And in a completely opposite situation, Harry tried to avoid people as hard as he could.
Unfortunately for Harry, his quidditch partners did not notice it and hugged him and tried to be part of the celebrations. The only one that could escape was the team's Capitan, the person everybody was searching for. He was still in the locker room, thinking about the game, their playing style, the good points and their luck. Gryffindor was easy because they just knew how to go to the front. Still, Ravenclaw was different as they also had their strategies, and Hufflepuff, too, as they played as a real team, unlike the others.
Outside, where all the commotion was happening, Draco was just left by a couple of first years who congratulated him. Suddenly a bushy hair girl opened herself away and hugged Draco out of nowhere, congratulating him on the game. Behind her were Draco's parents, who only nodded and smiled at him. A simple gesture that made Draco's day. After that, Hermione hugged Harry, who was walking to them. Draco looked at his parents, and Lucious nodded slightly.
Draco got closer to Harry, "We should go to the common room to celebrate with the rest".
Harry smiled, "in a minute." He turned to see Hermione, "can we talk for a moment?"
"Sure", answered Hermione, shrugging. The two walked a bit to get away from the people around. Most of the students were still walking to the castle.
Harry looked at them, and Hermione only shook her head, "so much noise for only one game."
The Suzuki heir shrugged, "It's their local derby. It's not like there are many games. Still, the real-life rivalry between Salazar Slytherin and Godric Gryffindor was translated into a sports rivalry. In my opinion, it's better than the original rivalry."
"I guess so", said the bushy-haired girl and then returned to see her friend. "So, what do you want to talk about?"
"I wanted to ask you for more of your time with Pansy. Now, I know that you two are best friends", said Harry Hermione was about to protest, but he continued. "But she hasn't been herself since the start of the year. Draco's friendship has fractured because of some politics. I know that Draco would try to be a better friend, but he is also trying to look after his family."
Hermione turned to see where Pansy was. The Slytherin princess was standing next to Harry's mother. She looked to be just accompanying her and her husband while a thin, tall, half-bald redhead man wearing glasses was talking enthusiastically to the Suzuki patriarch.
Albedo was only smiling, and Pansy was also trying to fake the same smile. Pansy wanted that the conversation to end or for Harry to rescue her. Harry's father, Satorou, was stopped by not other than Arthur Weasley, who, after learning that the Suzuki owned a Muggle company, he decided to talk to him extensively.
"I would love to talk to you about your company and many other things. I worked for the Ministry in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office. Still, due to the statute of secrecy, the information of the uses of many artefacts are unknown even to me." Said the redhead man.
Satorou was taken aback by the energy of the man. He remembered Pandora Actor when he was talking about the objects in Nazarick's treasury.
"It's not every day that a person arrives in our society and helps us create progress almost immediately. Although it is about Quidditch, I think that is the first step to sharing the muggle views of fairness. Such wonderful people they are, creating rules that help everyone; that is something we should also thrive on", said the Weasley patriarch.
Momonga nodded, "you are correct. Now, I need to apologize, but I need to return to work. Perhaps you can send us an owl to talk better on another occasion." 'Hopefully never,' thought Momonga.
Arthur Weasley smiled and extended his hand to Satorou, who shook it. Pansy wished for that to end already. Then Albedo giggled a little, "You may want to go back to Harry. He is waiting for you there". The young girl nodded and said goodbye to Momonga and Albedo with a slight curtsy gesture.
She walked in Harry's direction, who was standing with Hermione at his side. He nodded at his parents and then smiled at Pansy.
"You traitor", said Pansy to the Slytherin boy.
"Whatever you mean", answered Harry.
"You knew that the Weasley's father was there and don't even get close. Could you imagine, he was Muggles this, Muggles that", said Pansy with her arms crossed and then turned to Hermione. "And before you start. No, the man is just an idiot and doesn't know the word's meaning."
"Really. Even when their last name appeared in the sacred 28, their knowledge of our world is closer to none", said Pansy ending with a sigh.
"I guess that it's more of lack of language knowledge than his ascendency", said Harry. Pansy only rolled her eyes, and Hermione snorted at her reaction.
The Suzuki heir looked at the two girls and smiled.
Harry was angry. He could cover his genuine emotions with a polite smile, but when he woke up, Pandora's Actor approached him and told him about an attack on one student. He asked Pandora about it, but he said that he had no details about it but that he would investigate.
Harry was at the great hall, eating breakfast. This day was different; all the students were asked to be present.
The hall was buzzing. Just a few people knew about the attack, so the reason for the buzzing was more about the previous Quidditch match and the speculations of the sudden call.
The headmaster stood up and used the sonorous charm on himself, "May I have your attention, please".
The students stopped talking, and all the eyes were directed to the old headmaster, "Yesterday, one of our students was attacked. Mr Colin Creevey was the victim of such. Fortunately, he was only petrified, and he will be back to normal. His life is not in danger."
"Nonetheless, we are going to investigate it. That is why we advise you to be careful, and if you have any information that can help us, please, don't hesitate to approach us. My door and the door of your professors will always be open. Thank you, and please continue with your meal."
Harry started to gaze at his food. He was not paying attention to the others around him, as his mind asked, 'Who may have been? This person interferes with my plan. Who could have found out? No student should be able to understand it. Maybe a professor? The petrification spell should be easily removed, but if he was petrified as Filch's cat, they used another way. I will need to ask Pandora for his assistance.'
The deep thought and the frown on Harry's face made the students believe many things. The only one that approached him was Pansy, who only said, "You need to eat".
Harry nodded and started to eat, then she asked in a low voice, "Why do you care about that boy? He was way too annoying."
Suddenly, Blaise and Bulstrode sat close to them. They could not hear them talk, but they were close enough to understand that they were again with them. Pansy rolled her eyes when she saw the two, and Harry did not comment, but it was apparent they had fallen from his grace.
At the Gryffindor table, the buzzing was still going. Dean and Hermione were speaking with older students. It was a fact that, even when she was a descendant from a magical family, and like Malfoy eloquently put it, she was a half-blood in a non-conventional way; for any other person, she would be a first generation, meaning that she could be a target.
Then someone said, "It has to be Potter."
Hermione looked in the direction of the source, and surprisingly it was not Ron Weasley, who again surprised Hermione when he said, "I don't know, mate. They were all right with him. Not like a friend but not hostile either. I guess they are fine with him as long as they can get something."
Hermione may not like him, but Ron Weasley resolved the problem swiftly.
Suddenly the twins arrived and hugged Ron, "Oh, our little brother has grown up".
Then Fred and George started to talk, "Just look at him." "It feels like just a few days ago", "he was saying that", "the Slytherins petrified the cat," "and now he is here," "been the voice of reason". The twins were mimicking as if they were crying.
"Oh, bugger off", said Ron moving his shoulders to escape from the twin's embrace. "One thing was a prank against a cat, another is to attack a person. And even when I don't like Potter, I don't think he will attack his fans".
Hermione was going to smile, but then Ron said, "Maybe it was that Malfoy. He has always said things against Muggle-borns".
The bushy hair girl sighed deeply, and Dean said, "Hey, he is halfway there. And only took him a year and a half and a student to be attacked to open to Harry. Maybe if there was a werewolf attack, he might open to the rest of the house or at least to Pansy".
"Ha! Even if Weasley was the heir of Slytherin, I still doubt that Pansy would befriend him", interjected Seamus. The small group of friends laughed together.
The heavy environment changed once the mail arrived when many owls flew from the top of the hall with different packages of different shapes and sizes.
Pansy received a small package. And when she opened it, she saw the most beautiful white gloves. It did not look like a gardening tool but a piece of cloth to match a beautiful dress. Harry took a look and smiled, "Oh, you got gardening gloves? That's good. Aura and Mare had similar gloves."
Pansy nodded and looked at the gloves. Harry just confirmed that it was not for a party dress. She took them and saved them in her pocket. She will be using them after classes on Monday. Pansy also made a mental note to steal the mandrake seeds and send them to the Suzukis as soon as possible.
The same day, after classes, Hermione walked alongside Harry and Pansy, who were on their way to the library.
"Do you really think that the heir exists?" asked Hermine.
Harry pointed at himself and smiled, "I am the heir of the Suzuki family, and I exist". Pansy and Hermione rolled their eyes, and then he continued, "Well until dad and mom have a kid on their own. But even then, I am the heir for the Potters too".
"I am talking about the attacks, Harry", said Hermione in a busy tone. "I mean, how evil you could be to have a monster that can kill".
"Oh, so you don't like the half-giant anymore?" asked Pansy teasingly.
"I am talking about Salazar Slytherin. He wanted to kill all first generations only because they don't have magical parents", replied the Gryffindor girl.
"You know that is not that simple", said the Suzuki heir.
Hermione turned to see the other two and said, "It is. I know you are in his house, but that doesn't mean that you should try to protect him."
Then he sighed a little and explained, "The world is not that simple. True, for simplistic reasons. History books tend to use the idea of good versus evil, and the winner, weirdly enough, is always the good person. That, and the times' changes, which is why they portrayed Slytherin as a bad person. To prevent the hate of the non-wizard people from increasing, they have put information out of context and painted him as a great evil."
Hermione frown at Harry, somehow hurt it was him who was defending Slytherin, "you sound like trying to protect him, but I still don't see why".
Pansy, for her part, has not spoken. She has talked about it with her parents, and they always talked about the mug… the non-magical and first-generations as less powerful. However, in retrospect, she could see that their parents never had a real problem with them. Only maybe because they could not grow up in their society, which meant that her parents would not gain anything from befriending them, but outside that, they were like any other person in a lower class inside the magical world.
Harry then explained, "ok. Look, do you remember that this castle was built by the four founders, right?"
Hermione nodded, and then Harry continued, "Well, they built this castle together, far from prying Muggle eyes, for it was an age when magic was feared by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution."
The three students started to walk again, and Harry continued, "In those years, the persecution of any wizard was commonplace in many parts of the country, thanks to the religious radicals. You may have read about this in your history classes in elementary school, right?"
"Not in class, but yes, I read about it", answered Hermione.
Harry nodded, "So, you may understand the problem what it represented. People were trying to kill wizards and witches, and they would even hunt their own families if they believed it to be magical. This cause not that innocent maho-nashi to die but also young wizards who did not know how to defend themselves. That's why Salazar wanted to be more selective."
Hermione refuted, "But wouldn't Hogwarts offer them a place to hide? He only wanted students to be with magical families".
Harry shook his head and said, "That's a half-truth, and a half-truth as good as a lie."
Pansy remembered something about Salazar Slytherin, "He wanted students with a magical family… This could mean that as long as one of their family is already a wizard, they could come."
Harry nodded, "exactly. Having someone who already knows about magic would help them to keep everything secrete."
Hermione then sighed deeply, "ok, I understand that. Which would answer why there are half-bloods in Slytherin, but that still doesn't answer why there is a monster."
Pansy smirked, "a monster that could be controlled. It is not that different than giving a weapon to a student, like, I don't know, a sword."
Harry smiled, "or a cup to hold alcohol".
Hermione wanted to stay serious but laughed, "ok, maybe the only one with common sense was Ravenclaw and her diadem of wisdom".
Harry then thought about the Ravenclaw diadem. An object that increases your intelligence drastically. He doubted that could help him to be as wise as Momonga-sama, but maybe he could be close to Demiurge or Albedo.
When the three were close to the library, they saw a small group of students around a noticeboard. The bushy-haired girl was almost jumping and with her face lit up. Hermione could not help and open her way to see what was happening. Then a shrink noise sounded.
"This is amazing! A duelling club opened, and guess who will be the Professor who would oversee it?" asked Hermione with a big smile.
Pansy rolled her eyes while Harry only smiled and asked, "Who?"
"LOCKHART!" screamed Hermione. Harry chuckled at it. Soon after, Pansy started to talk with Hermione.
Although for everyone else, Pansy and Hermione were discussing and almost fighting, for Harry, they were only having a good talk. They looked like Aura and Shalltear. Pansy was without that gloomy expression in her at the moment. Which was a good thing.
