Mindset

The sun was falling behind the mountains by the time she had a chance to get away from the castle. As she walked beside the lake, watching the sunset with eyes that never seemed to dull, she contemplated the reason she was even here. Sure, she loved Hogwarts, and her friends, and her magic, but in the end everything came back to the same old prejudice. As a Slytherin, she was outcast, distrusted and unliked by three-quarters of the population simply because she wore green and silver as her House colors.

Slytherins were never given a chance; the Gryffindors, in everyone's eyes, were perfect and brave and trustworthy. It was said that a Gryffindor could never go dark; she knew that was a lie. Peter Pettigrew had been a Gryffindor, and look what he'd done; betrayed his friends, killed innocents, and resurrected the Dark Lord to boot.

So they were cunning and ambitious? Was that necessarily a bad thing? Not if ambition didn't lead you down the dark path in that metaphorical 'fork in the road'. In her opinion, ambition was not a bad thing- without it the world would be a bunch of lazy, good-for-nothings with no goals in life.

Never let it be said that Slytherins were stupid. True, Crabbe and Goyle weren't exactly wonderful candidates for Ravenclaw, but they understood enough about the world to realize that not everything was sunshine and rainbows. To survive in a school of people that thought you were evil for having the ambition to do well in life, you had to have brains in your head instead of rocks. At least, that was what she told herself.

While she was on the topic, she added mentally, why was there House prejudices in the first place? How could the Headmaster let things go unchecked for so long? True, he was a Gryffindor to the core, but he was as calculating and sly as any Slytherin. If he understood their mindset, why was he so biased against Slytherin, she wondered to herself.

Of course, asking herself questions she didn't know the answer to didn't really help much, but she wasn't particularly picky about who she railed about things to. If the only person she could find was herself, then why not?

As she walked, she got the feeling that she was being watched. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as she registered the fact that someone was staring at her. Trying to be subtle, she looked around and found no one. Shivering, she shrugged it off and continued on her trek around the lake, watching for the Giant Squid just in case it decided to make an appearance.

[I]<< Mindset >>[/I]

Harry Potter was sitting in his usual thinking place, in an empty classroom on the 4^th floor. It had a wonderful view of the lake and the edge of the Forbidden Forest, and he found that the peaceful scenery helped him think.

At the moment, he was struggling through a Potions essay, muttering to himself at the unfairness of Professor Snape's assignment.

"18 inches on the Wolfsbane Potion? Is he mad?" he muttered, glaring at the small stack of books he'd checked out from the library for the purpose of copying down anything that would add the last 6 inches to his already rather long essay. Of course, it was his luck that though several of the books contained quite the description of how the potion was made, there was nothing detailing what exactly it did.

He knew it helped a werewolf keep his mind during the full moon, and made the transformation less painful, but that wasn't really very helpful, considering that he'd said that in his first two sentences and proceeded to hit a metaphorical stone wall as to what to write next.

Sighing, he set his quill aside and glanced out the window, hoping to find some inspiration from the scenery in the distance. The sun was sinking below the horizon already, turning the sky a dazzling shade of pink, mixed with orange, blue, purple, and red. It was quite the sight, and he took a moment to simply look at it, admiring its intensity.

Movement far below caught his eye, and he trained his Seeker's gaze on the figure of a girl walking around the lake. Her long dark hair was dancing in the gentle breeze as she strolled along the shoreline, avoiding the mud down near the water.

He couldn't make out her features, but the emerald and silver cloak she wore told him what he needed to know. A Slytherin. She didn't seem all that horrible from his point of view, not like Malfoy and his cronies. In fact, she looked lonely, contemplative, maybe.

He tried to ignore her, to turn his gaze to the forest in the distance, but his attention kept drifting back to the nameless girl by the lake. After a while, she made her way back to the castle, and he found himself staring at the clear, motionless surface of the lake without anything else to hold his interest.

With a heavy sigh, he turned back to his Potions work, hoping that something would come of his efforts. Flipping through the pages of [I]Magical Drafts and Potions[/I], he caught sight of the words he was looking for.

[I]<< Mindset >>[/I]

The next morning was Potions with the Slytherins, and he found himself yet again scrambling to get there in time. Hurrying to a seat next to Hermione, he found that the same girl from the lake was sitting in front of him. Frowning slightly, he tried to place her name, but couldn't.

Professor Snape swooped into the room, as batlike and greasy as ever, and he dragged his attention away from her and toward what the Potions Master was saying.

Apparently he was too late, because a moment later, the Slytherin Head of House snapped, "Potter, 10 points from Gryffindor. Pay attention!"

He struggled for a moment with forcing himself to keep his mouth shut, and just barely succeeded. Glaring balefully at the obviously biased Professor, he acted like he was listening and made a face at Hermione, who looked ready to tell him off for ignoring the Professor. She hated Snape too, but she was a stickler for authority and he shouldn't have been 'daydreaming' in class. Class went on like that for the rest of the period, until the bell sounded and they were free to go to lunch.

Harry was one of the first out, and as they walked away, he asked her, "Who's that?"

Following his pointed look, she said matter-of-factly, "Tracy Davis, why?"

Tracy Davis. Her name was Tracy Davis.