Chapter 52: The House Point Calamity
The next morning, the students passing by the House hourglasses were stunned.
The Gryffindors were in a state of shock. They were used to being in last place, but they had never been so far in the negatives. The rumors were true: they hadn't just lost all their points; they were over a hundred points in debt. And the ringleader of the rule-breaking had been none other than their own prefect, the model student, Percy Weasley.
The accomplices had been Fred and George, the life and soul of Gryffindor Tower. And even worse, three of them had been first-years! The famous Harry Potter, the vanquisher of the Dark Lord, had become a problem student. And Hermione Granger, the only first-year in the entire school to have passed the Adventurers' Club assessment, had also been caught. In the minds of the Gryffindors, the brilliant young witch had always seemed like a Ravenclaw who had been misplaced by the Sorting Hat, a relentless, point-earning machine, a positive-connotation "know-it-all." And now, this model student had been caught breaking the rules in her first month. The third first-year had been Percy's younger brother.
Who could have imagined that these three first-years would have gone so astray, so quickly?
Even with the Weasleys' good standing in Gryffindor, Harry Potter's fame, and Hermione's point-earning prowess, a murmur of discontent rippled through the common room.
Harry was trying to blend in with the crowd, inwardly cursing his luck.
Hermione, according to her roommates, had cried herself to sleep and was now hiding in the girls' lavatory, vowing not to come out until it was time for Professor Welles's class.
Percy, according to Fred and George, had spent the morning with his head bowed, had removed his prefect's badge, and had even declared his intention to sit in the corner for the rest of his classes.
Only Fred and George, seasoned criminals that they were, seemed completely unfazed.
The mood in the Slytherin common room was the polar opposite. They had been unhappy about losing fifty points, but after Malfoy had swaggered in and regaled them with his version of the night's events, they had quickly come to a new conclusion. Fifty of their points in exchange for three hundred of Gryffindor's? A bargain!
Malfoy was now a hero. A crowd of younger Slytherins followed him as he paraded past the despondent Gryffindors. He spotted Harry trying to hide in the crowd. "Potter!" he yelled. "Let's do it again sometime!" The shout drew every eye in the corridor to Harry, who, blushing furiously, wished he knew Vaisey's Disillusionment Charm. He could only stand there, a deer in the headlights.
Seeing Harry's mortification, Malfoy laughed triumphantly and led his entourage away. A new rumor quickly spread through the Slytherin dungeons: a pure-blood Slytherin had put Harry Potter in his place, and Potter hadn't even dared to respond. The "Death Eater Juniors"—the children of Voldemort's former followers, raised in an environment of "Harry Potter is the enemy"—were ecstatic. Harry Potter could be beaten! Victory would belong to the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters!
They all wanted to know which brave, black-hearted hero had accomplished this great feat.
"It was Malfoy," someone informed them. "And I heard Vaisey was there too."
The Death Eater Juniors' faces fell. Malfoy and Selwyn had both abandoned the glorious cause of the Dark Lord to join Ryan Welles's upstart club. Vaisey was already an outcast in Slytherin for his association with Ryan—a Ryan who had the audacity to not recognize their inherent superiority.
And now, the scion of the Malfoy family, a leader among pure-bloods, had also joined the enemy camp. In their eyes, Malfoy had forsaken his destiny as a future Death Eater to side with their master's rival. They had all written to their parents, urging them to speak with Lucius Malfoy, to bring his wayward son back to the correct path. But now, they could wait no longer. They would take matters into their own hands.
"This is unacceptable! We can't have such a powerful figure in Slytherin going against us!"
"That's right! We have to bring them back to our side, to make them break ties with that orphan!"
"My family has a beautiful manor in Devonshire. Could we use that to persuade Malfoy?"
"I doubt it. The Malfoys are not lacking in manors."
After a lengthy discussion, they realized that they had no material goods with which to bribe the sole heir of the Malfoy family. And as for persuading him with magic… as those who considered themselves Ryan's true rivals, they were all too aware of his prodigious skill. They weren't suicidal.
Their only option was to appeal to his reason, to his sense of honor. They would explain to him the error of his ways, the betrayal of his pure-blood heritage. They would make him see the immeasurable harm he was doing to their cause, that he would go down in history as a traitor, and that the Dark Lord would nail his family's name to the pillar of shame.
They found Malfoy and delivered their impassioned speeches.
"So," Malfoy said after they had finished, a thoughtful expression on his face, "if I shun Vaisey and break ties with Ryan, I will once again be an exemplary Slytherin, worthy of joining your ranks?"
"Yes," their leader said, his chest puffed out with self-importance. "For the good of the entire wizarding world, we believe the noble House of Malfoy will make the right choice."
Malfoy cleared his throat, as if about to deliver a grand oration. Just as the Death Eater Juniors were expecting to hear a formal declaration of his severance with Ryan, Malfoy turned to the side and theatrically spat on the floor.
"You can't even tell the winning side when it's staring you in the face," he sneered, and walked away, shaking his head. "And you call yourselves Slytherins?"
After a moment of stunned silence, the Death Eater Juniors exploded in a torrent of furious sputtering. "Malfoy! How dare you! The Dark Lord will punish you! The wizarding world will shun you! Your father will never allow this!"
Malfoy turned back, a look of grim determination on his young face, a look that had never been there before. "My name," he said, his voice cold and clear, "is Draco."
~~~
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