Title: Unusual Inheritance
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: None
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I do not own Hermione, or Susan, or Su Li, or Tracey, or... I would buy them all but I am broke.
Summary: While staying at the Leaky Cauldron after his 'incident' with Marge, Harry finds out that he has an unusual inheritance. One that could change the course of his life forever.
Severus Snape sat at the Staff Table in the Great Hall watching the idiot students file in for another year. Interesting, there was Potter's friend Weasley but he was not with Potter. Ahh, there was the brat, along with the Mudblood Know-It-All. There was also the Gryffindor Gossip, the Hufflepuff tagalong to Bones and the little Asian Slut from Ravenclaw. The Ravenclaw even had a sword at her belt. And there they were going to the Gryffindor table.
He was thinking of how best to insult the little brat. Yelling at them for not sitting at their own table. A barb at the sword. Maybe an insult about no Slytherin deeming him worthy, even though he would have severely punished any Slytherin who joined the brat. As he opened his mouth to speak when a pain shot through his arm. Looking down he saw Flitwick squeezing his wrist.
"You will say and do nothing." Flitwick hissed. "If you do, I will break every bone in your body before referring you to Director Bones. They are his retainers, thus protected by law."
"But the sword is…" Snape began.
"She is his bodyguard." Flitwick replied. "Even Malfoy won't back you on this one."
Snape just sat there and fumed.
Professor McGonagall escorted Harry and his four Retainers to the Private Quarters. It had been almost a century since the last time an Heir Presumptive had fellow students as Retainers and thus required multi-room Private Quarters. When McGonagall opened the door to the Quarters, Su prevented her from entering, instead drawing her sword and stalking into the suite of rooms while the others waited outside. After a few moments Su re-emerged from the rooms and nodded to Harry that it was safe.
The group entered with Harry in the lead and the Professor bringing up the rear. The Quarters had a large living room, with a few couches and recliners spaced around the room. Just off the living room at the back was a kitchen/dining area with a table with eight seats and a few stools on the off side of the kitchen bench. The door on the right side of the room was the Lord's Chambers, a series of connected rooms with a large bedroom with a king-sized bed and a walk-in wardrobe, a study and bathroom containing a shower, bath and toilet. The study had both a hutched writing desk, a book case and a recliner chair.
To the left of the living room was a corridor with three rooms on either side and a bathroom at the far end. Each of the bedrooms had a bed, a study desk and a small bookshelf above the desk. None of the House Potter group said much as Professor McGonagall showed them around the Quarters, and as she left the Professor showed them how to set the password on the entry portrait. There were no portraits or fireplaces inside the Quarters for security purposes, though the rooms were lit by gas lamps and kept at a comfortable temperature by charms on the walls, floor and ceiling.
Each of the girls claimed a bedroom down the corridor. Su claimed the first room on the right as her bedroom and the first on the left as an armoury/training room. Hannah and Lavender took the two middle bedrooms and Hermione claimed the two far bedrooms, claiming the left hand one as her bedroom and the right hand one as a combination of reference library and a room to use the time turner without the chance of running into anyone else.
"Can I get a Hogwarts Elf please?" Hannah asked.
An Elf popped into the room.
"I be Tilly." The elf said. "Hows can Tilly help?"
"Tilly, can you please clear out the beds and desks from the first room on the left and the last room on the right down the corridor?" Hannah continued.
"Can we get bookcases along the walls in the last room on the right?" Hermione asked.
"One wall only, Hermione." Harry added, getting a reluctant nod from his Magister.
"Do you have access to weapons racks?" Su asked.
"Yes, Miss." Tilly replied. "Ifs you be wanting weapons, we's need 'fessor permission."
"No weapons, just racks." Su confirmed
"I's can do that." Tilly advised. "Needs few hours to get done."
"That's fine." Harry said.
Tracey Davis was unpacking her trunk in the Slytherin Girls Dorms. She shared the Dorm with her long-time acquaintance Daphne Greengrass, anyone else would have called Tracey and Daphne friends, but Daphne Greengrass did not do friends; the quite unpleasant Pansy Parkinson, who had her nose so far up Draco's ass that she was the first to know if he farted; and the large but quiet Millicent Bulstrode.
Strange as it may seem to outsiders, politics in Slytherin House was a shifting mass of subtle alliances and betrayals where self interest governed everything and a metaphorical knife in the back was both inevitable and expected. Ironically that meant that the small group that Draco could count on, made up of Pansy, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, were never trusted by Draco himself to be brought into his confidence because they would never think to betray him.
For most of Slytherin House, it was like trying to play chess in the dark, with nothing seen or heard able to be trusted. Draco Malfoy, Theodore Nott and Marcus Flint were 'seen' to be the most powerful and in charge members of the House, but like most things Slytherin that was just an illusion. Draco was simply arrogant enough to believe he held the power in the House, but he was a paper tiger, more allowed to strut and make believe he was in power as a foil to the Gryffindors, Potter in particular, than for any other reason. His constant bragging about his father also was detrimental to his position, and at times his life expectancy.
Theodore Nott was a puppet, plain and simple, and it was Daphne calling his shots with the idiot not even realising it, thinking it was all his own idea. Marcus Flint, like Draco, was a distraction for the rest of the school and only had the appearance of power due to his role as Captain of the Quidditch Team.
The real power brokers were the deft manipulators, like Daphne, or the ones in the shadows who had dirt on everyone but never drew attention to themselves, like Millicent or Tracey herself.
Tracey would not use that power within Slytherin so she was often seen as a Wallflower, but she paid attention and tentatively cultivated some good contacts. That being said, she had to be careful. While backstabbing was acceptable, it was only acceptable inside the House. Anyone caught feeding information to an outside source, particularly to a Gryffindor, would be harshly dealt with. So much so that she would rather take the option of the cyanide pill concealed in a tooth if it came to that. Death she could handle, betraying Potter she could not. Even in her own head, she forced herself to refer to her Master and his Retainers by their surname. It hurt, even thinking of them as his Retainers instead of her Sisters hurt, but she made herself do it so she would not slip up and call them by their first names aloud.
For as long as she could remember, her duty to her future owner had been drummed into her, and that duty superseded everything else, including her own life, House Loyalty and even Family. With Daphne as a 'Puppet Master', Milicent as a 'Shadow Broker' and Pansy as a toady to Draco, Tracey could not expect any of the girls in her year to be good sources. Of the boys in her year, only Blaise Zabani was not a puppet, target or idiot, and he was an Isolationist, keeping to himself and refusing to play the political game at all. It was only the reputation of how deadly his mother was, spread by others and never himself, that kept him safe from the reprisals that Isolationists usually faced.
Tracey would have to go to other year levels to get the good information, but in the long run it would be worth it. In the meantime, Li would be able to use the basic political overview of Slytherin House to form a security assessment. Brown and Abbott could probably find some useful relationships and pressure points. Granger… well who knows what a genius like Granger would be able to tell from the data. Probably either a lot more than anyone ever suspected or next to nothing at all. Geniuses were like that sometimes.
The first study group meeting, where she could pass a report to Abbott, was in three days, so she would have until then to feel out any changes in the currents of Slytherin politics and any new emerging players.
TBC….