Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité

This is where the story begins, with Hannah Abbot lying on her bed, crying, and wishing that she had been sorted into any house but Hufflepuff.

But this, perhaps, is not the place to begin the story. Tears were not really unusual for Hannah. She was well known for being prone to sudden eal collapse, often at the slightest thing, having had the somewhat dubious distinction the previous year of being the first fifth year student to succumb to exam nerves. Her housemates were well aware of this and knew to tread carefully around her.

Perhaps, then, the story is better begun several years previously, when a pink cheeked little girl with blonde pigtails had perched on a stool, wearing an old hat, which to her amazement had spoken to her.

'A lot of good qualities there,' it had muttered, thoughtfully, 'but none stand out: they all seem to balance each other...so you shall go to HUFFLEPUFF!'

Hannah had not known which house she wanted to be at that point. Everything at Hogwarts was so new. But over time, 'none stands out' had become 'none outstanding'. There was, Hannah felt, nothing special about her. Gryffindors were brave; Ravenclaws clever; Slytherins were able to do what they wanted. Hufflepuff, however, was a house for the average, for those who would never achieve anything notable, at least in Hannah's eyes, and, she felt, in those of the members of the other three houses.

This alone, however, does not explain Hannah's misery on this particular occasion. Being in her sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry meant that she had grown to realise that there was little she could do about her house status, and had not even thought about it for some time. Hufflepuff was where she was, and she had some good friends there.

The Sorting Hat then, is not the beginning of the story. Look on it like a prologue, if you will, something that had to happen for this to follow.

But if a clear beginning is needed, a worse point could be chosen than the sixth year Potions class, a few days previously.

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Although Potions was one of Hannah's better classes, Professor Snape was not a good person with whom to spend time if one was of a sensitive disposition. Over Hannah's years in school, he had reduced her to a weeping heap in the common room on more than one occasion.

On the day that this story begins, Snape was instructing them on how to produce a Misery Draught, designed to create a deep depression in anyone who drank it. This particular potion had, unsurprisingly, been unpopular with the sixth year class. Although no natural light entered the dungeon where the lesson was held, outside it was a bright, although cold day. Most of the sixth year Hufflepuffs had been looking forward to enjoying the sunlight which filtered through the skylight of their cellar common room after the class. Now, as Ernie MacMillan noted under his breath to his partner, they had an unattractive choice between getting the potion right and being miserable, or getting it wrong and Snape making them miserable.

Hannah, on the other hand, hardly heard the details on the lesson's tasks being given out; her mind was on other things. Since term had begun again after Christmas, she had been working in Potions with a Ravenclaw boy, named Kevin Entwhistle. Hannah had never really noticed him before; he was quiet in class, giving the answers required correctly, but without drawing any attention to himself, waiting to be asked, rather than volunteering information.

Recently though, Hannah's attention had been drawn to him. He was, like most Ravenclaw students a good person to work with in Potions, listening carefully with a thoughtful expression, his long fingers deftly weighing and preparing ingredients. Hannah was finding herself having to wrench her gaze away from his dark eyes increasingly often, and restrain herself from constantly touching his arm to gain his attention. On the day when this story begins, she was considering his hair, which unlike that of most of the boys in Hogwarts, was cut very short. Hannah clasped her hands together under the desk to remove the temptation to stroke it; it looked so soft.

Hannah's mind was still far away as they began mixing their potions, stirring the cauldron absently as Kevin prepared the ingredients. Occasionally, he would ask her a question, and the sound of his voice would bring her momentarily back to the classroom, but as soon as she had mumbled a brief answer, she would drift away again. This was the pattern that most of their classes together took, with a combination of shyness and fear of Snape rendering Hannah too scared to say anything more than the absolutely necessary, or to even consider taking a conversation beyond the neutral ground of Potions.

It was while she was attempting to watch him methodically shredding black rose petals while still stirring the cauldron that disaster occurred.

Snape, wandering around the classroom offering various criticisms, had suddenly made a diversion in order to descend upon Hannah and Kevin's desk. He was looking furious.

'Miss Abbott,' he asked, in tones which were quiet and level, but still dangerous, 'what on earth do you think you are doing?'

Hannah dragged her eyes away from Kevin's hands and looked at the purple mixture in her cauldron, bubbling away contentedly and emitting dark red steam. Out of the corner of her eye, she tried to see the cauldron at the next desk. Its contents were dark blue.

Slowly, she raised her eyes to meet Snape's.

'Did I not expressly say,' he said, still quietly, 'that the potion should be stirred briskly with a clockwise figure eight motion?'

Hannah nodded, dumbly, her hand still slowly tracing anticlockwise circles within the cauldron. Beside her, Kevin stopped shredding rose petals. He narrowed his eyes at her. Hannah didn't notice.

Snape slammed his hand down on the table, causing Hannah to jump and lose her grip on the spoon she had been stirring with. It slowly sank into the contents of the cauldron with an awful sucking sound.

'Can you tell me why then,' Snape continued, his voice rising in a crescendo, 'why you have made a mistake that I would have expected even the infamous Mr Longbottom to have avoided, and stirred in completely the opposite direction?'

Hannah bit her lip.

'I'm sorry sir,' she whispered.

There were two saving graces to the situation. The first was that somehow the pair of them had avoided detention, being given only an extra foot of parchment to complete on the importance of technique in Potion making. Which, Justin Finch-Fletchley commented when she told him about it, wasn't really a punishment at all for a Ravenclaw.

The other consolation was that Hannah did not look too out of place walking back to the common room in floods of tears that afternoon.

To return, however, to Hannah lying on her bed and crying. On this particular day, her tears were not due to Snape, although he could be indirectly blamed for them.

It was, in fact, Kevin, who was the direct source of Hannah's current misery. Hannah had, in the process of enjoying a good cry, momentarily forgotten this, but now it suddenly came to mind again, prompting a fresh outbreak of sobbing, and causing her to curl up into a foetal position.

As she did so, she became aware of someone watching her.

Susan Bones, another sixth year Hufflepuff girl, paused in the doorway to the dormitory, uncertain as to whether she should interrupt. On the one hand, Susan did not feel herself particularly well equipped to deal with tears, rarely feeling the need to cry herself. In addition, she was almost sure that Ernie would be better able to deal with Hannah in this state, being well used to it. However, she knew that he would be unable to enter the girls' dormitory, and so she had agreed to go and see what was the matter.

Sighing, Susan entered the room, and sat down on the bed beside Hannah, wondering what trivial event had prompted this particular outburst.

Hannah uncurled herself and sat up, sniffing. Susan put her arm around her, slightly awkwardly. Although having shared a room for the best part of six years, the two girls were on good terms, they were hardly best friends; Hannah tended to favour the company of the Hufflepuff boys.

'Ernie was wondering where you were,' Susan said, slightly embarrassed by Hannah's continuing tears.

There was no response, except more sniffs and sobs. Susan sighed again. Clearly this was not going to be a quick task.

'Do you want to tell me what's the matter?'

In between sobs, Susan just managed to hear something which sounded like a name. It took a moment for her to decipher it, and then another moment while she attached it to a face.

'Isn't he that Ravenclaw boy...the one you work with in Potions?'

Hannah nodded, swallowing another sob.

Susan frowned, puzzled.

'I don't understand. You hardly know him, how's he got you so upset?'

Hannah tucked a strand of blonde hair back behind her ear. 'He called me a...a...'

The rest of her sentence was drowned in a fresh flood of tears. Susan got up and went over to her own bed, rummaging in her trunk beside it. 'Here,' she said, 'have a Chocolate Frog; it'll make you feel better.'

Hannah took it, with something that might have looked like a smile, had she not still had tears running down her round cheeks. Susan sat down on the bed again. 'Right,' she said firmly, 'you're going to tell me what the matter is. It's not like you to vanish like this; Ernie and Justin were wondering where you'd gone.

'Just between you and me', she added, lowering her voice a little and attempting to lighten the situation, 'I think they were hoping for a little help with their Charms homework.'

Hannah swallowed the last of her chocolate, looked briefly at the card and then discarded it. 'Sounds like those two,' she said. 'Although...I'm not really sure why they would want to ask me.'

Susan raised her eyebrows, questioning.

Hannah, although the chocolate had made her feel a little better, felt like crying again, remembering the scene. However, for some reason, she didn't want to cry again in front of Susan. They really didn't know each other that well, and there was something about Susan which slightly intimidated Hannah. She seemed so self-assured, never afraid to say what she thought, and so different from Hannah, who was in fact mildly surprised that Susan was being so sympathetic.

Hannah looked for a moment as if she were going to start crying again, but instead she blinked a few times and said, slowly, 'He, Kev--...that Ravenclaw you mentioned earlier - he thinks I'm a stupid little girl. I just went over him to ask him a question about the Potions' homework...' Her eyes were beginning to fill up again, despite her best intentions. 'He said he didn't want anything to do with me, that I was a disgrace. He...he said that I made Hufflepuff look w..w..worse than it already was.'

Susan was surprised. It was unlike a Ravenclaw to make an emotional statement like that, or indeed to insult someone in such uncreative, petty terms. It was true that Ravenclaws prized their intellectual superiority, but while they respected intelligence, they were rarely, if ever openly critical of a lack of it, placing themselves above it. If you made a mistake in class, you expected a Ravenclaw to politely ignore it while rectifying the problem.

And, of course, there was the danger associated with making enemies at a time like this, especially for a Muggle-born like Hannah. Even within the secure walls of Hogwarts, there were whispered rumours about terrible things beginning to happen in the outside world. Some people, you just knew whose side they were on and avoided them. Other cases were more shadowy.

Beside her, Hannah continued to pour out her story.

'And I came up here, and I realised he was right. I mean, I couldn't think of anything to say back to him, I just stood there and let him insult me...

'I hate being a Hufflepuff!' she burst out suddenly, her cheeks reddening. 'Everyone looks down on us, however nice they are to our faces! We can't do anything! We aren't supposed to be ambitious, nobody thinks we're brave and everyone thinks we're only hardworking because we're stupid!'

At this, she began to cry again. Beside her, Susan tried to take in what she had said. It could not be denied that there was some truth in Hannah's words. Hufflepuff house was often not taken seriously. Susan supposed that had it not been for the fact that she herself had relatives who had been in Hufflepuff, she might have felt herself to be without any special outstanding quality, just one of a faceless crowd. It was, Susan suppose, very easy to feel like that when your house had done nothing of particular note in the last century. But then it worked both ways. They might not have produced any Albus Dumbledores, but neither were there any Lord Voldemorts in Hufflepuff's recent past. And sometimes it was safer to simply be overlooked.

She turned to Hannah.

'Firstly, you're not stupid. Look at some of the things you did with the DA last year! And, Hannah,' she said, getting off the bed and gesturing around the room, 'you're in the best place. Hufflepuff is a great house to be in.'

Hannah rubbed tears from her eyes, and looked about the dormitory. She had to admit that it was a pleasant place to spend time. Even though it was located in a cellar, there were no other buildings over it, and evening sunshine was spilling through the large skylights. The floor was wooden and varnished, and the furnishings were mainly yellow, making the room appear cheerful and welcoming even on grey days.

'Can you seriously say,' asked Susan, smiling, 'that you'd rather be living in a draughty tower or a dungeon?'

Hannah smiled back, in spite of herself. 'Of course not. But that wasn't really what I meant. It was just...'

She paused, trying to order her thoughts. Susan waited for her to continue, moving to sit on the bed next to Hannah's. She was slightly worried that she might be required to put her arm around Hannah again. Hannah took a deep breath.

'I just felt so helpless,' she said, slowly. 'I know you think that I'm overreacting. but I didn't expect it from him. You might not have noticed', she added, now blushing a little, 'and don't tell anyone...but I...sort of liked him.'

Susan allowed herself a small inner smile, she had noticed.

There was a pause. Hannah seemed to be avoiding Susan's eyes; for her part she pretended to be very interested in the end of her plait. It seemed very strange to be having this conversation with someone who was not a close friend. Susan had never really been one for confidences.

Hannah interrupted the silence. 'Susan, what does a Hufflepuff do to get revenge? I mean, I was in Gryffindor, I'd probably have just started a fight there and then, never mind we were just coming into the Great Hall. If I were a Ravenclaw I'd probably know some really clever hex to put on him or at least something to answer back with, and a Slytherin wouldn't be crying....they'd be plotting something elaborate to really humiliate them. But all I can do is sit up here and cry...' Her lip began to wobble dangerously again.

Susan frowned slightly. 'Revenge?'

She thought about going home last summer, with the knowledge that You-Know-Who was really back and that in all probability it was a battle that she would have to take a personal role in. It had made the DA and all the other things that Harry Potter had talked about that year take on a darker hue. Stunning a person standing in front of a pile of cushions was one thing, but knowing that one day she might be in a situation where she needed to use that same wand as a weapon was frightening. The DA was no longer a way of getting around a weak teacher, of filling a few free hours with something exciting.

Oak, nine and a half inches, rigid, core of unicorn hair. It might as well have been a sword and shield for what she now knew what to do with it.

Arriving at home, there was a different air about the place. Susan only dimly remembered the celebrations at the first fall of Voldemort; now she saw how things must have been before. She had not been home a week when her father drew her aside.

'Your mother wanted me to talk to you,' he had said, awkwardly. 'Do you have any idea what you would like to do with your life?'

Susan had shrugged. 'Teach, maybe. I haven't got my O.W.L grades yet though.'

'I'm sure they'll be fine.' He didn't really seem to know what to say. They stood together, in the garden, underneath the oak tree from which Susan's swing had hung as a child.

'Well,' her father had said, 'just remember....remember that you always have choices, no matter what you might think.' He had glanced around the garden, almost as if he were afraid that somebody might be listening.

'Poor Su, it looks like things aren't going to be easy for you. If you ever need any help...'

It had been an awkward moment, her father clearly slightly uneasy with the fact of her growing up, worried about something happening that he had thought he would never see in his lifetime, but now, sitting in the darkening dormitory with Hannah, Susan began to see what he had meant.

Susan looked directly at Hannah.

'You could have done any of those things,' she said softly. 'I think that's what being a Hufflepuff is all about.'

Hannah looked confused, but further tears seemed to have been averted.

Susan ploughed on. 'Don't you see? Being a Hufflepuff gives you the freedom to be your own person. Think about it! You said yourself what you'd have done if you'd been in one of the other houses. They're almost obliged to act in a certain way. If a Slytherin were nice to you, you'd want to know what they were up to.'

A look of comprehension was beginning to dawn on Hannah's face. Susan smiled at her. 'Being a Hufflepuff...it gives you the freedom to be yourself, to decide what you want to do with your life. That takes a lot more than simply following your house stereotype.'

'Liberté, égalité, fraternité,' Hannah murmured, almost to herself.

'What's that?'

Susan, who was responsible for the buttercup yellow that was currently making Kevin look as though he was suffering from an advanced stage of jaundice, reflected that the canary yellow robes were something that she could imagine Gilderoy Lockhart wearing, and conjured a bunch of daffodils on top of Kevin's hat just for good measure.

Hannah looked at him, a small smile at her success playing around her mouth. 'I just wanted to show you,' she said, in tones that could be heard by almost every student in the vicinity, 'that there's more to us than you think. We're not stupid. We work hard, but we know there's more important things in life. Like thinking about others, and helping them.

'It's nice you agree and want to show our colours.'

And with that, she turned to Susan, and taking her arm, walked into the Great Hall with the rest of the Hufflepuffs.

Behind them, Ron Weasley, his robe spotted with yellow from one of Ernie's charms which had been slightly over enthusiastic, was watching the group, open mouthed.

'That,' he said, slowly, 'is possibly the best thing I have seen since Malfoy got turned into a ferret.'

Beside him, Hermione Granger tutted disapprovingly, muttering something about magic in the corridors and points.

'I'd never have thought they had it in them,' Ron continued in wonder as the three of them followed the Hufflepuffs into the Great Hall. Behind them, they could already hear Professor McGonagall asking Kevin just what he thought he was wearing.

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Hannah spent the day in a state of nerves about Potions, which was her final class of the day. After all, she knew the chances of Snape allowing her to work with anyone other than Kevin were non-existent. The courage which she had found that morning seemed to have evaporated, leaving her nervously imagining all the things which Kevin could do to her in retaliation.

To her surprise, however, everything went smoothly. She forced herself not to stare at Kevin, or daydream about him, and by the end of the lesson, they had produced between them a reasonable Elixir of Concentration.

Hannah breathed a sigh of relief as she tidied up at the end of the lesson, neatly shelving ingredients and less neatly throwing quills and parchment into her bag. Then she dropped her spare hair ribbon and had to scrabble around under the desk to retrieve it. In the process she knocked her bag from the seat where she had left it, scattering parchment. By the time she had retrieved it, the rest of the class had left, and Snape was beginning to look threatening.

She left the dungeon quickly, before he could hand out any kind of punishment. However, she had only gone a few steps before a heavy hand clamped down on her shoulder.

Hannah stopped, expecting to see Snape, following to her to give out yet another detention.

She was wrong. It was Kevin.

He had managed to remove most of the yellow from himself, but there were still splashes of colour in his dark hair, and whatever he had used to reverse the charm had had no effect on his fingernails, which were still a beautiful shade of primrose. He did not look happy.

'It's Hannah, isn't it,' he said quietly.

Hannah nodded, not trusting her voice.

'I wanted a word.'

Hannah nodded again.

'About this morning,' he began.

Hannah forced herself to interrupt him.

'I'm sorry about this morning,' she said, with a great effort to keep her voice level. 'I suppose public humiliation was a little cruel. But then you were hardly nice to me.'

With a sudden rush of courage, she added, 'I don't suppose you want to tell me what all that was about?'

If Susan had been there, she would have noticed that the same closed look which Kevin had worn in the hall that morning had passed over his face again. Hannah did not; she was still bracing herself to resist any forthcoming insults.

No insults arrived. Nor, however, did any response to Hannah's question. Silence stretched on, until Hannah, sighing, turned to leave.

'I was impressed with what you did this morning.'

Startled, Hannah turned back around to face him.

'I mean, it was a well done charm, very effective,' he said, ruefully waving his hand so that his yellow nails were prominently displayed, 'and to stand up and do it in front of half the school...'

Hannah could hardly believe what she was hearing.

'I just wanted to show you,' she said, carefully, 'that I'm not a stupid little girl. That Hufflepuff House might be different from what you're used to, but we're just as good as you.

'Not better', she added, before Kevin could interrupt, 'because we're all in favour of equality. But you should remember that just because we aren't top of every class, doesn't mean we're any less intelligent.'

She stopped, amazed at her own daring in being able to give such a speech to this boy, who had occupied so much of her mind in the past weeks, and not only that, but who was intelligent enough to pick out all of the holes in her argument as an enjoyable warm up for utterly demolishing her. He did not even need to say something clever to reduce her to being a lowly Hufflepuff; at best undistinguished, at worst wholly inept.

Kevin was speaking again.

'Of course you're intelligent,' he said, as if addressing a small child.

Hannah's heart sank: obviously this was the put down. He was going to accuse her of parroting an argument she'd seen elsewhere, tell her she was a clever girl for learning her lines.

'Wasn't that French you were yelling this morning, before you and your friends painted me?'

Hannah was surprised for the second time in as many minutes. She blushed.

'I don't, ummm, actually speak French as such...'

'Your accent was good.'

She waited for him to add, 'for a stupid little Hufflepuff', or something of the like, but it never came.

Shyly, she ventured, 'I learnt a little from holidays...that bit was from history class at school, though.'

He nodded.

'Tell me why you were so horrible to me yesterday.' Hannah repeated her earlier request.

He looked embarrassed.

'I'll just give you the work, if you like,' he said, quickly.

Hannah shook her head, firmly. She was very confused by the conversation which they were having, and was feeling thoroughly out of her depth. She was hoping that Kevin was going to at least apologise, and preferably explain his actions the day before. As she stood there, leaning against the cold wall in the corridor leading to the Potions dungeon and listening to him speak, she was wondering if the insults had been given by somebody different altogether.

'It's hard to explain,' he was saying, and Hannah forced herself to concentrate.

'Try,' she said, encouragingly.

There was a moment's pause, in which she watched him closely, making the most of being alone with him, despite the situation.

'I suppose I should begin by saying I'm sorry,' he said. 'I shouldn't have called you stupid, when it's quite obvious that you're not. I've seen you in Potions, and those Charms you did this morning were pretty good too, like I said.

'I haven't got any real excuse. It was partly because I was annoyed with you for getting the pair of us set extra work. After all, it was your fault that we went wrong in that lesson, you were the one doing all the cauldron work.'

Hannah looked at him. 'I thought that Ravenclaws liked to work,' she said.

Kevin shrugged. 'We like to learn,' he said, slightly contemptuously. 'We don't see the point of work for work's sake, especially when we aren't getting anything new from it. That's what nobody understands about us. Of course we don't enjoy exams, it's just reviewing what we already know. But we do well, because we enjoyed learning it the first time around.'

'So, you insulted me because you were angry that I'd made a mistake which landed you with extra work, which you thought was pointless. But I don't see what that has to do with why you insulted my house, insulted a quarter of the students in this place.' Things were not becoming any clearer for Hannah.

Kevin sighed. 'We're in sixth year now, Hannah. I've been thinking about my future, and I don't know what to do. Everyone expects me to do something clever and important, discover something new.'

He started at the sound of footsteps coming down the corridor. A small, scared looking student, a first or second year, obviously on their way to a detention with Snape, scurried past.

'There's a war coming,' he continued, 'and I'm going to be expected to contribute. But all I'm expected to do is be able to learn obscure information. Nobody expects me to go out and actively do something, to make a decision based on something other than what I've read. I think this is one situation where books won't be a lot of help.'

He gave a small, bitter laugh.

'I'm sorry Hannah, you were the wrong person at the wrong time yesterday. I just needed somebody to feel superior too, and you asking for help gave me the opportunity. You're in a house where nobody expects anything of you; where there's no pressure; where you're free to do whatever you want.'

His voice shook, just the tiniest amount.

'I don't even want to be studying Potions, but it's what you do when you're a Ravenclaw.'

Hannah considered all of this. 'Apology accepted,' she said eventually, 'but you're wrong, you know. We all expect things of each other. We'd just never say so out loud.'

She thought about everything that she and Susan had discussed the previous afternoon. 'Liberté, égalité, fraternité isn't just a meaningless phrase, you know. Maybe you should try applying it to yourself sometimes.

'You shouldn't be so hard on yourself,' she added. 'You're more than just a Ravenclaw, Kevin. First of all, you're a person. I think I understand why you did what you did.'

Saying this, Hannah realised that, what she felt more than anything, was pity. Although she had always hated her own position, where people expected little, seeing Kevin's face made her realise just how difficult it must be when there were things that one was supposed to do that you could not or would not do.

Impulsively, she flung her arms around him, as she would have done to Justin or Ernie. He stood stiffly at first, but did not push her away, and she felt him gradually relax and then put his arms around her.

'I think,' he said quietly, 'that you have just shown me why calling you and your house a disgrace was so unfair. If anyone's a disgrace, it's me.'

Hannah pulled away slightly to look at him.

'No,' she said, 'you just need to remember what I said this morning. Liberté, égalité, fraternité.'

She met his eyes, for the first time since she had begun to notice him.

'We're going to need as much of those things as we can get.'

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This is not where the story ends.