A Slytherin Black Sheep

Before her arrival at Hogwarts, Edana had never taken an actual class in anything. Her mother taught her at home, preferring both to keep her last child close to her and to protect her from what other children might say about their family. Like the long dead Lucinda Malfoy Rosier, Lenore Mulciber Rosier found that the rumors of her husband’s involvement in the Dark Arts refused to die a natural death.

To Edana’s surprise, however, the scholastic adjustment was not as difficult as she had feared. Her mother had instructed her with the knowledge that she would one day attend Hogwarts in mind, and the Hogwarts curriculum had been designed to facilitate both those from magical and Muggle backgrounds.

Easily her best and favorite classes were Charms and Flying. Edana had been on brooms almost as soon she could walk. Charms seemed to come naturally to her, though the only bit of magic she knew from the outset was ‘Finite Incantantem’, she sopped up new spells like a sponge. The Charms teacher Professor Flitwick was quick to notice her knack and often called upon her to demonstrate new spells.

In Potions, Edana was in the middle of the pack along with Malina. She was by no means as skilled as Kali but not as inept as Alex Amiti. She paired with Malina and between them; they usually worked out what to do, though their efforts seldom garnered points for Slytherin.

On a dreary Thursday while rain lashed against the windows, the class was brewing up a batch of drought potion. It was sprinkled on plants in areas of drought to protect them from the sun and help them survive with less water.

Edana stirred as Malina carefully added three drops of the condensed crocodile tears they had prepared in class the previous week. While the potion simmered for seven minutes, they ground the dried sage root into a fine powder and chopped the cactus.

Their unattended caldron presented a flame to the moth of one of the Gryffindor students, who were always eager to get stirred up into mischief with the Slytherins. Malcolm Edwards was Patrick Rollins friend, and the Muggle-born boy had not forgotten Edana’s insult on the train. In the weeks since his arrival, Patrick had been educated in the Wizarding world thanks to his housemates and understood that Muggle-born students were not accepted by all those from old pure-blood families, especially Slytherins.

As Patrick added the ground sage to his potion, Malcolm poked him in the side to get his attention.

“What would happen if I dropped this into Cross and Rosier’s caldron?” Malcolm whispered, holding up a full phial of crocodile tears.

“It would start smoking when they added the sage.” Patrick replied. Potions was his best subject, perhaps because it was similar to chemistry. He had always excelled in the sciences at his old Muggle school. “But, don’t waste the tears. You’ll need them for the Truth potion we’ll be brewing next lesson.”

Malcolm brushed the last comment aside. He checked to make sure the Slytherins were preoccupied before he dropped the whole phial of crocodile tears into the caldron. Patrick scooted away so that he would be farther from the inevitable explosion.

When Malina added the sage, the potion turned a strange pinkish brown and thick smoke began to spew from the caldron. Professor Wormwood appeared by their side in seconds and dispelled the smoke with a well placed charm before studying the mess. She found the empty phial in the caldron and pulled it up to examine.

“This is not your phial.” Wormwood noted, tapping the side of the phial. It was glass. Both Malina and Edana used crystal phial sets since they retained magical properties for longer than glass sets.

“No, Professor.” The pair chorused.

“Whose is this?” Wormwood demanded. No one spoke. “Very well then. Each of you prepared two phials of crocodile tears. Whoever is missing a phial must be our culprit, and since our culprit was cowardly enough not to come forward immediately, the penalty will have gathered interest.”

Edana and Malina exchanged grins. They both knew that the person who sabotaged their potion was a Gryffindor, and being called a coward was about the worst insult in their book.

Professor Wormwood walked up and down the aisle, her shoes beating against the stone floor like an executioner’s drum, as she carefully checked every student’s phials until she came to Malcolm Edwards. He showed her two phials, but she snatched up the second and held it up to the light, smirking.

“Observe class. In a glass phial crocodile tears distort light, making it impossible to see clearly through the phial. Yet Mr. Edwards phial is as clear as if the phial were filled with water. Detention, Edwards, and twenty points from Gryffindor.”

The Slytherins were delighted. Twenty points cost Gryffindor their lead.

* * * * *

Defense Against the Dark Arts had fallen out of favor with Slytherin students ever since Professor Stoker took up the position the previous year. It was hoped by the governors that since he had taught the class briefly before Nyssa, he might elude the curse. At least it was hoped by the three quarters of the students who did not have green and silver stripes on their ties.

Stoker was a grizzled man who appeared to have been carved out of old driftwood. His strange yellowish eyes seemed to narrow whenever a Slytherin crossed his path. There was nothing overt about his demeanor to suggest that he disliked Slytherins, but he put out many subtle clues that when tallied together produced the truth. He always took just a few more points off a Slytherin, he hesitated to impart certain knowledge, he did not regale them with stories of his time as an Auror and kindly offer assistance to troubled Slytherins.

Most Slytherins seemed to take Stoker in stride since they had learned to cope with him the year before, but Edana struggled with the class. To her great disappointment she had no skill whatsoever with curses. When she did manage one, it was weak and easily shrugged off. To make matters worse, Stoker appeared pleased by this.

“At least there is one we won’t have to worry about.” Stoker muttered under his breathe as he watched Edana struggle with a simple leg-locker curse. She ducked her head to hide her flaming cheeks.

“Don’t mind that git,” Malina instructed her after class. “He won’t last much longer.”

“How can you be certain?” Edana asked.

Malina shrugged. “The position is cursed, isn’t it?”

Edana did not share her housemate’s confidence. Though Stoker was by far the worst, all the professors save their own head of house seemed at least a little wary of Slytherins. The other students shared in this attitude and treated the Slytherins as one might treat an animal suspected of carrying rabies. The Prefects cautioned them not to complain or even act as though they noticed this. They had seen too many fights and expulsions over this issue.

The first years were thoroughly warned: “They are just trying to provoke you. They’re jealous.”

It was good advice, but hard to remember when the Ravenclaw student sitting next to you in Herbology class would scoot so far away they were nearly in the aisle. Harder to hold their heads high when Hufflepuffs said unkind things in loud voices with only a token amount of points taken off them. Had a Slytherin said the very same thing, a detention would also have been dished out to them.

Most difficult of all to deal with were the Gryffindors. They shared Potions and Flying with Slytherins. Malina broke her ankle when Gryffindor Elisabeth Kirkley purposefully winged her, causing her to fall off her broom. Kirkley lost thirty points and spent an evening scrubbing out Professor Wormwood’s caldrons, but only because Madam Hootch had seen her do it.

“They are bastards.” Malina moaned. Despite the best of magical healing, Malina complained her ankle bothered her at the end of the day. She flopped onto her bed, pulled off her shoes and socks, and proceeded to rub her ankle. Even since the incident Malina refused to go higher than five feet off the ground, and whenever Gryffindors were in the area, Dru and Edana had taken to acting as aerial bodyguards.

“They hate us.” Dru said bitterly. “They think we are all Death Eaters in training and are personally responsible for what is going on. Haven’t you noticed that they get nastier when the Daily Prophet reports a murder?”

“I noticed.” Malina spat. “The day before she attacked me, Kirkley got word her uncle was found wandering in the Muggle part of London, screaming whenever anyone got within ten feet of him. He‘s since been committed to St. Mungo‘s.”

Kali shuddered. “My cousin was found like that. He killed himself before they could get him to St. Mungo’s.”

Dru shook her head. “They hate us because every time they arrest a Death Eater who was in Slytherin, the Prophet makes certain to note that. When they got Mulciber there was not a word about his being a Ravenclaw alum.”

“We are not all Death Eaters. It is no reason to attack other students.” Kali said, the others agreed but could do nothing to rectify the situation. Slytherin comprised slightly less than one quarter of the student population and they had only one real ally among the teachers and staff.

Malina had her own explanation. “Its in their blood. The other houses have lower standards with regard to purity of blood. They allow Mudbloods and the like.”

Edana nodded, recognizing from her tone the start of one of Malina’s rants. When she ranted it was best to just nod and keep quiet until she ran out of steam.

Apparently, Dru had not yet learned that particular lesson. “There is nothing wrong with a little Muggle blood.” She retorted defensively.

“You are just saying that because of your Muggle father.” Malina snapped, sliding off the bed, then wincing as she came down too hard on her bad ankle.

Dru stormed out of the room. She slammed the door so hard a second year came to check on them to see if they were all right.

Edana sought out Dru and found her staring into the fire in the Common Room, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her robes.

“Are you all right?” Edana asked, not sure what to say. Comforting people was not something she was very good at.

“Yes,” Dru sniffled, making more of an effort to stop crying. “It’s just, well, there are not many known half-bloods in Slytherin. We tend to stand out like dragons amid the sheep.”

“I noticed.”

“Malina is one of those purity of blood fanatics. She does not believe she should have to associate with anyone who can’t prove that they have no Muggle ancestors before 1750. My dad's side are Muggles. I won‘t apologize for that.”

Edana did not know how to respond. She had been raised to believe in the superiority of pure magical blood, but Dru was as good a witch as she was and certainly her better in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Edana shook her head to dispel her confusion.

“Malina says a lot of things. Most of them are rubbish.” Edana declared. “I doubt she bothers to consider her words before speaking the, she just repeats what the older kids tell her.”

Dru smiled a little but her blue eyes were still red rimmed. “Thanks.”

* * * * *

It was the end of Dru and Malina’s friendship. By the time November arrived, Dru and Malina’s relationship had improved only in that they no longer fought. The Prefects, other Slytherins and Professors had to drag them apart the first few days. Then they made the mistake of fighting around Stoker and lost twenty points. Malcolm Edwards had been thrilled and made loud comments about wanting to thank Dru and Malina for correcting the point deficit.

After that, Dru and Malina settled for pretending the other did not exist when they were forced to be in the same room. Kali and Edana were thoroughly sick of the two girls attitudes toward each other by then and found the tense silences to be a welcome relief from arguments. Now Malina made occasional snide comments about Dru, while Dru made disparaging remarks about Malina. Neither one was able to assert dominance over the other and the situation quickly became an impasse since none of the other students would take a side.

On the second of November, the temperature plummeted thirty degrees overnight. Even the dormitories seemed like iceboxes. Edana put on her black wool jumper under her school uniform and fished about in her trunk for a second pair of socks. The two she came up with did not exactly match, but were both black so she put them on her feet. In spite of the additional layer of clothing, Edana’s feet were so cold in Stoker’s class she had the feeling they would snap off at the ankles like twigs when she finally got up. At least in Potions she could huddle close to the fire under her caldron for warmth.

“My ears are cold!” Kali complained through chattering teeth, using her hands to cover her ears in after Professor Stoker told her off for wearing earmuffs in class.

“Just ten more minutes,” Dru whispered after glancing to the front of the room to make certain Professor Stoker was still occupied writing the various methods used to deal with pogrebins on the blackboard. Slytherin was already down eight points after Braedon Zeno knocked his books to the floor and she did not wish to be the one responsible for losing so much as a single point.

Kali smiled a little, her lips quivering as she tried to still her chattering teeth.

Just then someone rapped sharply on the door.

Professor Stoker did not like to be interrupted. He scowled before barking “Enter.”

The door slid open to reveal a haggard Professor Wormwood in a thick black cloak clutching two rolls of parchment tied with official Ministry seals. She thrust one of the parchments at Stoker, who unrolled it and scanned its contents quickly before wordlessly handing it back to Wormwood.

Stoker swiveled about to face the class, his expression unreadable and as frozen as Edana‘s feet felt. “Miss Rosier, gather your books, and go with Professor Wormwood. You are excused from the rest of your classes today.”

Edana shoved her things into her book bag, trying to ignore the questioning eyes on her and the peculiar feeling that her blood had just been replaced by ice water. She followed Professor Wormwood out the door and into the hall. Wormwood stared at her for a long moment before composing herself.

“There is no easy way to say this: your brother - Evan - is dead.”