Interhouse Relations

"So Slughorn's holding this party, eh?"

It was one of the last bearably chill evenings before the onset of a heavy winter and Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini and Millicent Bulstrode were huddled together - albeit in a dignified Slytherin way - underneath one of the large windows in the library that afforded a good view of the grounds. Pansy and Millicent were hard at work on the latest Transfiguration essay, their quills scratching harshly across the page, while Blaise - who had finished the same essay early that morning - was lounging back in his chair, surveying the students that passed by in an impersonal manner. It was he who had spoken just then.

"Ooh, a party." The other two gave Pansy looks that carried a hint of disdain. "Well, any excuse to buy a new gown is a good excuse," she shrugged. "You're just not enough of a hedonist, Millicent."

"I don't consider you qualified to make that statement," Millicent drawled. "Given that I don't do my own kind, there's a limit to how much of my particular form of hedonism that you could reasonably expect to be exposed to." Blaise smirked.

"Blaise - the party." Pansy, who seemed eager to change the topic, jabbed a burgundy nail in the direction of Blaise's Adam's Apple. Perhaps she hadn't been too drunk to remember the bicurious incident she had attempted to instigate after the house's most recent Quidditch victory. Interesting - and yet not enough so. At least from Millicent's perspective. "Spill."

"As you know, our illustrious house head never neglects a chance to network." Blaise's tone dripped with sarcasm. Slytherin house heads were admired rather than liked, but even by those standards Slughorn wasn't especially popular. Due to his connections the students tolerated his presence, but only that. "So we will be hosting a Yule Ball, with rights to the Great Hall for the night. Alcohol will be served and consumed. And partners are mandatory for anyone who wishes to attend."

Millicent and Pansy shared a look. The best quarter of the students in the school, the run of the place to themselves, and social lubricant of the highest calibre and house elves at their disposal. This actually looked promising. Blaise's slanted emerald eyes flickered from girl to girl. "The catch is," he said eventually, "that those partners cannot be Slytherins."

"What?" Pansy blanched.

"You're joking," Millicent breathed. Pansy had clasped her hands over her mouth.

"I am not." Blaise gazed back at her with a look of serene satisfaction. He had probably been planning how to deliver this ever since Fifth. Bastard. "Believe me, I am as loathe to dip my fingers into the dregs of society as you." He looked anything but pained. "And here I was, hoping to land myself a nice old-money bucket and end up as a trophy bitch, just like my mother."

"Well, Theo and I are prefects," Pansy began to muse. It was now Theodore and Pansy. After Draco had gone into rumoured hiding over the summer she had mourned, then got over it - spectacularly. "We have to go. So it looks like we'll be separated for the night. I don't really mind who he takes," she continued philosophically, ignoring a sceptical half-cough from Blaise, "as long as it's not that little Ginevra Weasley, and as long as she's uglier than me."

"That may be a physical impossibility," Blaise quipped. "Particularly now that Edgecombes left the school - and she was only ugly because of a curse." Pansy's lips thinned and she reached towards her cloak pocket. Blaise's eyes slid half-shut as he gave her an idle scowl.

"Well, I suppose I'll be asked by a Ravenclaw," Millicent cut in quickly. She didn't want to have to deal with one of their altercations. Again. "One of those who can't see far enough beyond a book to detect the house rivalries in the air. Or, Merlin forbid, an exceptionally bold Gryffindor."

"Millicent, don't you see?" Pansy was looking at her almost pityingly. "We're Slytherins. Slytherin seventh years. There aren't two more intimidating girls in the school. No one outside of our own house will be asking us - and we can't go with someone from our own house. Therefore you won't be going."

"And why is that?" Millicent stared levelly back at her.

"Millicent won't dare ask someone to go as her date." Rather than addressing her, Pansy responded to Blaise. Sliding her arm through his. Going from adversary to ally in a Slytherin minute. "Millicent is far too traditional. Millicent is saving herself for Gregory Goyle."

"I am not," Millicent said sourly.

"Millicent has probably been betrothed since she was ten," Blaise slid in. "Millicent is prepared to do missionary for the rest of her life."

"Can you just get off my back for a minute?" Millicent snapped. The other two stared back at her, shocked. "I'm tired of feeling ganged up on all the time. I am going to the ball, and I am going to ask the next pureblood boy who walks through that door." And so, the statement delivered, the verdict sealed, she turned and waited for the next Terry Boot to walk in. Or Crabbe or Goyle. Or anyone positioned elsewhere on the scale of dating eligibility between these two extremes.

Ernie Macmillan walked in.

Head Boy? Millicent thought to herself with narrowed eyes. She attempted valiantly to tune out the snigger Pansy had produced to her left. I'm going to the ball with the Head Boy? Great, my evening will be reduced to hors d'ouvres and making small talk with McGonagall. But Blaise and Pansy had cocked their heads to the side and were watching her expectantly, both sporting their best teasing smirks. While not possessing the foolhardy courageousness of the Gryffindors, Slytherins liked to be seen as being made of sterner stuff and it would not be wise to be seen as backing out of a challenge. Stiffening her backbone, she put down her quill (which she had come dangerously close to putting to use as a missile and poking out Blaise's eyes) and walked over to the desk where Ernie had deposited his books.

Ernie looked up as she approached. His expression, which had been the beginnings of a look of polite inquiry and the sort of sympathetic, big-brotherly look that one expected the first Hufflepuff Head Boy since 1972 to have, quickly became guarded at first sight of her Slytherin badge. Millicent sighed internally.

"Can I help you?" Ernie asked. His tone was polite. Well, as polite as someone discretely telling you to fuck off could be. In spite of her irritation Millicent felt a grudging sense of respect. She had no idea that Hufflepuffs could possess such subtlety. It was a trait that required a certain class, which in her opinion few outside of her own house had.

"Actually, you can," she began. And stopped. She could feel a trickle of sweat descending down her nape. How the hell did boys manage these things? "Erm, I'm not - well, that is to say - I'm not one for small talk."

Ernie gave her a look as if to say Well, that's obvious.

"Basically, I'm going to the ball, and you're coming with me," Millicent blurted out. And having said that, turned and strode off, leaving the Head Boy open-mouthed in her wake.

Subtlety, her arse.

Pansy and Blaise had collapsed against each other.

* * * * *

"So, Head Boy, huh? That sounds promising," Blaise mused, a glint in his eyes.

The three were sitting in the common room, Blaise stretched out languorously on the leather sofa and Pansy pacing majestically around in front of the hearth. If Millicent had been sorted into the same house as her perhaps-date, she would have been sitting on the aforementioned sofa with her head in hands bemoaning the Macmillan debacle with Blaise sympathising and Pansy reassuringly rubbing her back. However, this was Slytherin. Therefore - not happening.

"Blaise, you are neither amusing nor original," Pansy paused, mid-pace, to give him one of her lazily condescending looks. "What would you say, Millicent?"

"I'm not even going to dignify it with a response," Millicent muttered.

"You just did," Blaise smirked.

Millicent didn't really have a comeback to that one.

"Well, I'm going to bed," Pansy stretched theatrically, then proceeding to gather her belongings, which in the short space of time they had been down here had managed to deposit themselves onto a coffee table, a footstool and three separate chairs. Millicent wasn't half so messy, but then Millicent grown up with a house elf running around after her. "Coming, Millicent?"

"No, but I bet Theo is," Blaise smirked.

"If you weren't gay, I would never let you get away with that," Pansy drawled.

Alone in the stairwell, Millicent allowed herself to relax for the first time that evening. She respected her friends, liked them even, but never truly felt at ease around them. And sometimes she got tired of the manipulation, the dynamics of gameplay. While she could appreciate that being in this house had taught her some valuable life skills, she had forgotten what it was like not to have to sift every utterance for ulterior motives. And wished she could remember.

She thought ahead to tomorrow. It would get around that she, a Slytherin from one of the most esteemed and traditional pureblood families in Britain, had asked a boy to the ball - and a Hufflepuff to boot. Pansy and Blaise would make sure that it did. They were her friends, but within that friendship there was a strict hierarchy, and they had to make sure that Millicent stayed at her rightful place. Which was at the bottom. She sighed and tucked a fold of raven-black hair behind one ear. A Gryffindor would have been worse, but a Ravenclaw would have been better. They at least had a reputation of being intelligent and properly conservative, if a little underassertive, and after six years in Slytherin she had enough assertiveness for the both of them. Hufflepuff was full of duffers. Well, Ernie didn't seem to be a duffer - at least by their standards.

The next morning she received an owl. The envelope was of an elegant cream colour and sealed with a stamp of a family crest. Only the wealthier pureblood families used family crests, Millicent realised with a sinking feeling. And to further confirm the identity of the sender, the wax was half black and half yellow. She distractedly wondered how he got it like that before the prickling of the hairs on the back of her neck alerted her to her being watched.

Blaise was seated further down the table. He glanced at her surreptitiously and whispered something to Theodore Nott, who was at his elbow. Theodore smirked. Millicent could feel a very un-Slytherin blush heating up her cheeks. She wanted to sneak off somewhere and open the letter in private, but that would make the object even more of a Pandora's Box. Sighing inwardly, she wiped her knife clean on her napkin and slid it under the seal.

Dear Millicent,

You always seemed like a bit of a traditional girl. That's why I was so stunned by your asking me to the ball. And since you do seem like a traditional girl and are perhaps new to this whole "asking" thing, you seemed to have forgotten a crucial part - waiting for my response!

This line was followed by a smiley face. Millicent hated smiley faces and anyone who drew them, but she didn't focus too much attention on it because of what was written underneath.

For the record, it is yes.

Yours Sincerely,
Ernie Macmillan

Unconsciously her gaze drifted up from the page and over to the Hufflepuff table. Ernie was watching her. She hadn't thought that it was possible for someone as pompous and as extroverted to look as introspective as he did now. It seemed too - subtle - for him. She felt a prickle of intrigue. What had she gotten herself into?

It was two weeks before the ball. And two weeks during which she wouldn't allow herself to ponder those last two points.

* * * * *

Millicent's lack of pondering was short-lived. Ernie cornered her after their first period Transfiguration class. While, he most likely hadn't cornered her per se, but that was how she felt.

"Do you have a minute?" he asked.

"I suppose," she said grudgingly. She didn't really want to talk. Chit-chat was not her forte. But it wouldn't do to be unpleasant to him before the ball.

"Are you going to Hogsmeades this weekend?" he asked.

"I might be," she replied evasively. "Why?"

Ernie gave her a smile that was a half-grimace of what would have been self-consciousness if it had been coming from anyone else other than Hogwarts' self-styled soapbox orator and rubbed the back of his neck. "I was wondering if we could, you know, go to the Three Broomsticks for a pint of Butterbeer together or something."

"Why?" Millicent asked baldly.

"I'd like to talk to you bit more beforehand if we're to be spending a whole evening together, that's all."

"Oh. That's very interesting. Whereas I'd prefer to save what little conversation we have for a situation where we can't escape from each other." She turned to leave but Ernie caught her elbow. Not in a rough way, but with a steady grip that would take a lot to pull out of. True Slytherin, she didn't want to make a scene. So she stayed put.

"You seem awfully certain that we'd bore each other to pieces. Myself, I'm not so sure." Ernie wore a searching and distinctly un-Hufflepuff like look on his face. She'd never noticed how his blue eyes had little specks of brown in them. She found herself examining a crack in the tile with her toe. An awkward moment passed. "Err, this ball thing isn't going to turn into a Death Eater recruiting fair-come-orgy, is it?" he asked finally.

"Not unless you want it to." The corners of Millicent's mouth twitched.

"What?"

"It was a joke. In between torturing mudbloods and making virgin sacrifices at full moon, we Slytherins are sometimes known to make them." Ernie continued to stare quizzically at her. "Nevermind."

"You know, it just sounds odd when you say "mudblood"," Ernie told her. "Besides the whole fact that it's an extremely offensive way to refer to a Muggleborn. It just doesn't sound right on your lips. And I would prefer it if you didn't use that term in front of me. My best friend is a Muggleborn."

"Shouldn't you be asking me not to use it at all?"

"Yeah, but how you speak in the privacy of your own house is beyond my control," Ernie said sagely. "However if you continue to use it in front of me, I'll have little choice to and be quite happy to put you in detention."

"My, aren't we a feisty one?" Millicent drawled. Ernie continued to stare at her challengingly. "Alright, I didn't really mean it," she conceded. "I don't really think of them as having dirty blood or anything like that. I was just making a joke, you know, playing upon what everyone else outside of our house thinks of us. However, I will say that their dress sense is another matter. Alright, I think we've officially used up our conversational limit, and if you'll excuse me, I have a class to get to."

"What colour is your dress?" Ernie asked.

This time, Millicent halted of her own accord. "Why?"

"I want to make sure that my tie matches it. And the flowers too." Millicent shot him a look loaded with disdain, then turned and started to walk off. "What did I say?" She continued walking. "Well, lovely talking to you too!" he called after her.

* * * * *

For almost two weeks she was troubled no further by Ernie Macmillan. This was their NEWT year and if they as fifth years had thought that their noses were grazing the grindstones, as seventh years they realised that their suffering had been previously ill-informed. As the professors piled on the scrolls closer to the holidays, socialising and sleep became luxuries. Yet whenever Millicent grew too tired of concentrating on the innards of a Flobberworm or the intricacies of the Protean Charm, her mind wandered to a certain Hufflepuff.

On the morning of the ball, a knock on the door awoke her. Unlike the Gryffindors, the Slytherins were not peasants to follow that communal crap and sleep in a dorm and had their own chambers, and being the room's only occupant she was the only one disturbed. Anyone other than Millicent would have been thankful for this, but Millicent herself wanted others present to share in her misery. She pulled on her robe and gave her face a moment to compose itself before she opened the door. She was a Slytherin and despite the earliness of the hour it would not do to be caught looking too off-guard. "What?" she barked.

"I was given something for you at breakfast," the waiting first year scowled. The first years in the other houses seemed scared of their older housemates, but their Slytherin counterparts had inherited their seniors' lack of respect for authority. For the first time Millicent wondered if it wouldn't be such a bad thing to be sorted into a house other than her own. She wanted to smack the little blighter, who stood there eyeing her pink robe with distaste. He smirked and thrust a bunch of flowers at her. "Funny, I thought you wouldn't want to go out with an old-blood traitor."

I'll old-blood traitor you, Millicent thought, her free hand sneaking behind the door to grab for her wand, which she had left on her desk the night before. A good Bat Bogey would have gone yards to making her feel better. But by the time she found the wand, the boy had turned the corner. She turned her attention to the waiting magnolias and pushed herself into her usual scornful mode, but a smile tugged at her lips.

* * * * *

She had planned to spent the time up until the point where she had to start getting ready studying, but her mind was twitching all over the place with the excitement of the occasion - she told herself. Around mid-afternoon she gave it up and spent the rest of the time taking far longer than she needed to get ready. Millicent needed time pressure in order to be productive. If she had a week to write a Charms essay, she took a week. If she had three hours to write the same essay, she took three hours. Her figure not needing any more enhancements (although Pansy in her kinder moments reassured her that it was merely curvy, not fat), she chose a flattering black halternecked gown and a emerald broach edged with silver to subtly show house pride - or not so subtly, given that it was nestled in her cleavage. Like a lot of witches from the "traditional" pureblood families, she had never pierced her ears, though she quite liked the look. Expectations. They had no perceivable form, yet they were as heavy as a ball and chain. Collecting her clutch, she departed.

Ernie was waiting for her at the end of the hall leading to the Slytherin common room, as they had arranged. When he saw her, his eyes widened and a small smile caught on his lips, as if he was nurturing some private secret that was too good to keep to himself. Millicent, who was not used to being looked at for the right reasons, snapped, "What? Didn't you realise I was a girl until now?"

"I did realise," Ernie told her.

"Well, you can jolly well get that smirk off your face," Millicent rapped out. "I know I'm not as skinny as some of your housemates, but that's because we Slytherin girls are tough. We don't force ourselves to look like a stick just because it will make other people happy. I look the way a woman is supposed to look."

"You certainly do," Ernie murmured.

"What was that?" Millicent asked with soft menace.

"Nothing," Ernie responded jerkily. "You look nice. I wasn't trying to be crude or anything. And if you think that Hufflepuff girls can't be tough simply because they treat the people around them with respect, well, you haven't been on the end of one of Susan Bones' lectures after you've left your notes on one of the common room tables. Do you always cross-examine people like this when they're just trying to be nice?"

"Maybe that's because niceness is overrated," Millicent shrugged. "I mean, look at Mandy Brocklehurst. She just lets people march all over her. She doesn't know the meaning of the word no."

"That's not being nice," Ernie insisted. "That's being weak. And for someone who values being mean and tough so much, you certainly seem to have to work hard at it. You know, the thing about you Slytherins is that you act as though you're being all rebellious and original, but when you really look at it, you're the biggest bunch of the lot in terms of in-group conformity. Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, they've both made their names through pushing boundaries; Ravenclaw through innovation and academic risks, Gryffindor through risks in every other field. And we Hufflepuffs, well, we've never been guided in one direction or another. We're taught the importance in finding our own way. I can't imagine the pressure of being put in a house where you're supposed to be the bravest, the most intelligent or the purest out of any other group in the school. We were only eleven year olds, for Merlin's sake. Why should we be told what we were supposed to be? And for your information, for all your slyness and flouting of authority, your house is the most reactionary in the school. And if you're anything to go by, its students are the most trapped. Maybe you should just drop it all for one evening. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? You may actually enjoy yourself? Look, all I'm trying to say is that if you continue to cross-examine everything that comes out of my mouth, then we're going to have one hell of a time at the ball tonight, aren't we? Not everyone is guided by ulterior motives."

"That's not true," Millicent insisted. Her mouth was operating on autopilot. The rest of her head was still reeling from Ernie's eerily accurate diatribe. If only she could confide in him, tell him how true it all was. But she couldn't. Or could she? "Everything is guided by an ulterior motive. You say, "I'm hungry." You want to be fed. You say, "It's cold in here." You want someone to hurry and get up to close the bloody window. Ulterior motives. Every speech act has one."

"That may be the case," Ernie said slowly, "but that doesn't mean that there's no genuine feeling behind the ulterior motive. A bloke tells his girlfriend she looks pretty. She's having a bad day and he wants to make her feel better. And he knows that by telling her she looks pretty, he will do that. Calculated, but still genuine."

"Fascinating," Millicent drawled unconvincingly.

"You know I have a point," Ernie pressed. "Stop pretending that you're not interested simply because you don't want to admit it." Millicent gazed back at him in shock. "You're not as difficult to read as you think you are, you know. If people know what they're looking for."

Millicent stared steadily back at him. Steadily, so to disguise the butterflies mounting in her stomach. She had thought him only a simpleton who knew how to talk the talk and worm himself into the professors' good graces, but once again he was revealing layer after layer. It would have been so much simpler if she had gone with someone who she was not interested in. And who would be acceptable to have that last thought about. Her father would not approve. "Do you?"

"We'll see," he said, maintaining her gaze.

A wave of panic rose up in her throat. "I don't do small talk," she warned.

"It's not small talk that I'm interested in," Ernie assured her seriously. He held out his arm. She took it, and they started their journey towards the Great Hall. She could feel the eyes of the students that they passed upon her, sensing how their reactions ranged from mild curiosity at their odd pairing to disdain - but the warm and gentle yet firm pressure of the contact between her and Ernie's arms was stronger.

The End