...And Justice For All?

     ...AND JUSTICE FOR ALL?

     by Scott K. Jamison

     Chapter Six: And They're All Made Out Of Ticky-Tacky

     After a third helping of dessert, Duncan reluctantly pried himself away from the table to follow his fellow Slytherins to their quarters. He wondered who was going to clean up the mess; there hadn't been any servers visible, and even with magic, someone surely had to control it.

     "Hurry up, Duncan Dursley!" snapped Genevieve. "I swear, you're a regular Billy Bunter."

     He cast a last longing glance at the backs of the Hufflepuffs, leaving by another door. Ah well, time to face his fate.

     The Slytherin group's path led down a twisting set of steps into the dungeons of the castle. Gunnar halted them in front of what seemed a stone wall no different than any other down here and said, "Sang real." The wall folded in on itself to reveal a doorway, and the Slytherins passed through.

     On the other side was a spacious and comfortably-furnished room with a large fireplace, already lit with a roaring flame. The fire went a long way towards dispelling the chill of the dungeons. Duncan couldn't place the era that the couches and overstuffed chairs had come from, but they all looked old-fashioned and well-used.

     "Welcome to the Slytherin common room," said Gunnar, "We all have to use it, so it's neutral ground. No matter what sort of feud you might have going, you do *not* attack in the common room, either by overt or covert means. Professor Snape, our Head of House, does not have a sense of humor about these things. Any questions?"

     Cosmo raised his hand somewhat hesitantly. "Excuse me, Prefect, but why were there so few of us sorted into Slytherin? All the other Houses got at least twice as many students. My mother doesn't talk much about her school days, but surely it wasn't always like this?"

     Gunnar adjusted his robes, in what looked like a habitual gesture, and said, "I'm glad you asked that question--"

     Several of the older Slytherins who were still in the common room groaned, and a girl who looked almost too old to be a student said, "Not the lecture again!"

     "You needn't stay for it, Hyacinth," chided Gunnar. He turned back to the four new students. "I had to do an make-up paper on this very subject for Professor Binns once, and after three months of research, I feel the need to spread the knowledge whenever I can slip it in."

     "Oh," said Cosmo in what sounded like a worried voice. The remaining older students were rapidly departing.

     Gunnar gestured the newcomers to a sofa, where Genevieve made a point of putting Cosmo between herself and the other two boys. The prefect then pulled up a throne-like chair and began.

     "Some deep history first. Back at the beginning, more than a thousand years ago, there weren't any real schools for wizards and witches in Europe. Sometimes a witch would settle down and take on multiple disciples, or for a generation or two there'd be regular meetings in a particular town for wizards who wanted to learn from each other. But mostly you had to find an experienced witch to apprentice to, or learn catch-as-catch-can.

     "And those weren't good times for wizards. Most Muggles hated and feared wizards, and not always unjustifiably. If they caught someone they thought was a witch, they'd kill her. Now, a fully trained and prepared wizard is in no real danger from Muggles, but an off-guard one, or one only semi-trained, or a poor Muggle woman mistaken for a witch...they tended to die."

     Gunnar took his wand from a pocket and drew a rough version of the Hogwarts crest in midair. "But four wizards had a plan. The greatest wizards and witches of their age, Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw, Godric Gryffindor and Helga Hufflepuff. They took ideas from the Irish bardic schools, the monasteries and the other places of Muggle learning, and came to this remote valley. And here they built the first keep that would become the basis for Hogwarts."

     "First keep?" asked Quentin.

     Gunnar nodded. "Castle-building techniques were still pretty crude at the time. Most of Hogwarts was accreted around that original keep a piece at a time. Slytherin was the architect of the group, which is important later.

     "At first, their students were anyone who happened to hear of the school and applied to join. And they taught as they saw fit. But it quickly became evident that some students didn't get along with the methods and philosophies of some teachers. Ravenclaw came up with the idea of sorting the students into groups suited to each teacher, and Gryffindor offered his best hat for the process."

     "The Sorting Hat!" cried Duncan, happy to be catching on.

     "Right," continued Gunnar, "the Sorting Hat. It kind of has a copy of each Founder's mind inside it, and looks into your mind to see which of them you're the best match for. Mostly.

     "And that worked just fine for a while. But eventually, another issue split the Founders."

     "Mudbloods," spat Genevieve.

     Gunnar glared at her. "We don't use that word in polite conversation, L'Arc. Snape will take five points from Slytherin if he hears it, and the other teachers are even less forgiving. We use 'Muggleborn.'

     "But, yes, that was the problem. Gryffindor wanted Hogwarts to admit Muggleborns as a matter of course. His idea was that the more wizards who were properly trained, the harder it would be to stamp them out. He also had the notion that if wizarding blood were spread out among all the people, eventually there wouldn't need to be a distinction between wizards and Muggles, because everyone would be a wizard.

     "Slytherin, on the other hand, was convinced that Muggleborns, if it came down to a decision, would side with their Muggle parents and betray the pureblooded wizards. It may be that this had already happened to him once; a lot of Salazar Slytherin's background is unknown. He also believed that purebloods should only marry other purebloods, as this would result in more powerful witches and wizards, without the non-magical taint." Gunnar frowned, and drew a lion wrestling a serpent with his wand.

     "You're wicked good with that," said Quentin, obviously impressed.

     Gunnar smiled. "It's a talent. To continue, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff fell somewhere in the middle on the subject. Rowena Ravenclaw was only for admitting Muggleborns who showed extraordinary talent, and Helga Hufflepuff was for admitting any Muggleborn who'd take an oath of solidarity, but neither of them wanted to ban them outright. So in the end it was the other three against Slytherin."

     "They...kicked him out?" guessed Duncan.

     "Certainly not! He left of his own will. But before Slytherin left, he devised a legacy. Within the walls of Hogwarts, there was placed a hidden vault--"

     "The Chamber of Secrets!" said Quentin and Genevieve simultaneously, then glared at each other.

     "Exactly so." Gunnar drew a massive serpent. "And in it, Salazar Slytherin placed a basilisk, the most poisonous of reptiles. Now, no matter what some of the other Houses may say, Slytherin was *not* an evil wizard. In those days, if someone attacked you, you killed them, because there was no higher wizarding law to appeal to. Godric Gryffindor's sword didn't start as a ceremonial tool, but as a working weapon, and even gentle Hufflepuff would not hold back against a foe.

     "So the use of a basilisk doubtless seemed like a perfectly reasonable option to our founder. He sealed the Chamber against the day that he was sure would come; the day when the Muggleborns would betray the school to the Muggles. On that day, a Heir of Slytherin, a Parseltongue of our House, would open the Chamber of Secrets, and use that which lay within to purge Hogwarts of all who were unworthy to be there. That was the plan, in any case. Then Slytherin left Hogwarts, and faded from known history."

     "Let me guess," said Cosmo. "Something went wrong."

     Gunnar smiled. "Not exactly. The other three Founders, while they didn't share Slytherin's pessimism about Muggleborns, decided to minimize the possibility that his prediction would come true. Most of the Wizarding rules about keeping things secret from the Muggles date from about that period. By this time, some of Salazar Slytherin's disciples were qualified to teach themselves, so House Slytherin continued as a part of Hogwarts.

     "While the Sorting Hat mostly works by your personality, it also tends to put people who have the same bloodline in the same House. So, for example, if your father or mother was in Hufflepuff, you'll likely get into Hufflepuff too, unless your personality is completely wrong for it, or the Sorting Hat sees something in you that overrides its normal tendencies. You may have noticed all the Weasleys in Gryffindor, for example."

     Duncan nodded sadly.

     "Because of this tendency, the various Houses came to reflect the class system of the time. Ravenclaw gravitated to the learned professions, Gryffindor were knights, Hufflepuff sturdy yeomen...and Slytherin were nobility, the old pureblooded families, the upper crust of wizardry. Except...Salazar Slytherin admired ambition, cunning and the will to power, and sometimes the people with those qualities aren't very nice people. So we've also had more than our share of criminals and madmen. All in all, though, Slytherin was the prestige House." Gunnar's wand placed the green and silver crest above the other three.

     "Over the centuries, Hogwarts changed and grew, but always at a slower pace than the Muggle world, because we wizards live longer than Muggles, and have more respect for tradition. It became possible for many wizards to live their entire lives never interacting with a Muggle at all. And Slytherin House was the most conservative of the Houses of Hogwarts. But then, in the middle of the last century, things finally went wrong."

     "Voldemort?" guessed Cosmo. "My mother really hates him."

     "Fairly obvious, yes." Gunnar drew a picture of a cruel-looking face. "But at the time, he was just a halfblood student named Tom Marvolo Riddle. His Muggle father abandoned his witch mother when he learned of her magical nature, and she died after naming her baby. Tom grew up in a cruel Muggle orphanage, unaware of his true heritage. But he always knew he was special, and dreamed of the day he'd be powerful enough to get his revenge on his tormentors.

     "Half blood and ambition got Tom Riddle into Slytherin, and his Parselmouth ability to talk to snakes earned him the keeping of the Chamber of Secrets. But Slytherin's prophecy had become garbled over the years; no longer was it *an* heir to Slytherin, but *the* Heir. Tom despised the Muggle blood in his own veins, and hated it in others. So he decided that he was Slytherin's Heir, destined to wipe the Muggleborn from Hogwarts."

     Duncan shuddered a bit. If he understood correctly, *he* was Muggleborn.

     Gunnar leaned in closer. "Tom Riddle wasn't ready for total war just yet, so he staged a series of near-miss attacks, hoping to frighten the school's Headmaster at the time, Dippett, into expelling the Muggleborns. Finally, he actually killed a girl, though it might have been an accident. His plan backfired, though. Dippett was going to close the school down entirely. That would have meant that Riddle would have to go back to the orphanage.

     "So Tom Riddle found a patsy to frame for the attacks, and sealed the Chamber. No one knew that he was responsible, though there were those who had their suspicions."

     Gunnar brought the Slytherin crest down even with the others. "That's when Slytherin started losing prestige," he said. "With the Chamber of Secrets proved real and dangerous, the other Houses became afraid that Slytherin's Heir would attack again."

     "And he did!" said Quentin.

     "Yes, but not for quite a long time. We don't know all the details, but Voldemort went off to build a power base. When he went public again, he'd taken over a small order of wizards called the Death Eaters, that were trying to attain immortality." Gunnar paused. "Apparently, Voldemort had gotten further along the path than anyone else could without the Philosopher's Stone, and he was promising his followers that they could have a taste too.

     "And he made other promises too, Voldemort did, and he exploited all the old fear and hatred of the Muggles. By that time, their technology and population growth was getting to the point that even the stodgiest wizards began to notice. Voldemort promised he'd put the Muggles in their place, and the old Slytherin families really responded to that message."

     Gunnar made a picture of a skull with a green snake crawling from its mouth. Duncan flinched as he recognized it. "The Death Eaters began a reign of terror, killing almost at will. The Ministry of Magic was just about as bad on the other side. A lot of people died. Voldemort looked like he was going to win, and then Harry Potter happened."

     "Was Harry Potter really ten feet tall, and able to shoot lightning from his eyes?" asked Genevieve.

     "At the time, he was just a baby. One of those coincidences that happen every so often just happened to protect Potter and bounce the killing curse back on Voldemort. Pure luck. But the Death Eaters fell apart with their leader apparently gone, and Potter was whisked into hiding.

     "Since most of the Death Eaters, and some of the worst ones, had come from Slytherin House, the Slyth reputation was severely damaged, plus the ones who'd died in the war obviously weren't going to have more kids."

     "But Voldemort came back again, right?" asked Cosmo.

     Gunnar nodded. "Right. When Harry Potter came to Hogwarts. It was almost as if the two were fated to be archenemies, despite how much younger Potter was. Eventually, Voldemort regained his full power, and gathered followers both old and new. The war, and the deaths, began again."

     Duncan ventured, "And then Harry Potter defeated Voldemort once and for all?"

     "Not without a lot of help, he didn't. And it came at a terrible cost. But the worst cost was to Slytherin. Once again, Voldemort's followers were overwhelmingly from this House, and the taint was not soon expunged. Even now, a lot of the old families are sending their children to the Continent, or even America to avoid the possibility of them being sorted into Slytherin." Gunnar frowned.

     "But Slytherin House can't be gotten rid of, because it's part of the Sorting Hat. So we're the smallest House--but I'll tell you a secret."

     The firsties huddled closer.

     "We're still the best House, and someday we'll be on top again, just you wait and see!"

     After such a long lecture, Duncan was feeling sleepy again, so he was glad to have Gunnar show them where the first-year boys slept. The four-poster beds with curtains looked very luxurious.

     "Rrr..." growled Quentin as he stretched. "Classes tomorrow."

     "Maybe they won't be so bad?" suggested Duncan.

     Cosmo, the sullen expression back on his face, said, "And maybe pigs will fly. But I would not wager upon it. Good night."

     "G'night."

     "Night."

     Duncan lay awake after the candles were extinguished, for just a little while. Even if there were classes, this was still a castle of wonders....