Slytherin House
- Posted by RH on 13.02.2007
- 44 comments
Ethan met some truly interesting characters on his first day. The first were Mike and Snowella, the Slytherin prefects, who led the first years down to the dungeons and showed them to their common room.
"We'd show you your dorms," said Snowella, "but we Slytherins are a kinky lot so we know you won't end up in your own beds anyway."
"There are bedrooms that way," said Mike, motioning to the left, "and that way," he added, motioning to the right. "Condoms are provided in all bedside cabinets and we've left some scattered about the common room for good measure. Apon entry to the Slytherin common room you are automatically covered by an anti-pregnancy spell, so don't worry about that, but you're not covered for sexually transmitted diseases."
Suddenly, an alarm sounded and red lights flashed around the room.
"Sorry, sorry," said Mike. "We're politically correct these days. They're sexually transmitted infections." Snowella giggled and the two of them left the first years to their own devices. Ethan looked around bewilderedly.
"Well, well," drawled a voice to his right. Ethan turned to face a short, indian-looking girl. "Tall and gangly, ginger hair, bewildered expression. You must be a Weasley," she concluded.
"'...I'm not ginger," Ethan said bemusedly.
"That's what you think!" she shot back. At this point, Ethan was moderately frightened and so with a quick nod, began shuffling away towards a larger group of people. But the stranger grabbed his arm and dragged him back.
"I'm Mili," she said, grabbing Ethan's hand and forcibly shaking it. "I'm going to be your alpha sidekick for the rest of this story."
"You are?"
"Yes, I am. You don't know it, but you're going to need a beta sidekick. I'll help you find one." Mili began pulling Ethan through the crowds in the common room.
"A beta sidekick?" Ethan echoed.
"Yes. You'll have two best friends and we'll argue constantly, but amazingly, you'll never feel the urge to take sides."
"How do you know all this?" asked Ethan.
"Look," said Mili abruptly. "I'm smarter than you. It's best if you just accept that and we'll get along just fine."
"It would be useful with you as my supposed sidekick."
"See? You're cottoning on already! I'm so proud of you." With that, she leapt up and ruffled his hair.
"I'm Ethan by the way," said Ethan, deciding that if they were going to be friends for life, they should at least be on first name terms. "I was raised as a Muggle called Gary Stu but I'm actually a pureblood. I'm the son of Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange. I'm perfect." As Ethan spoke, Mili was glancing around the room and checking out the rest of the first years, muttering 'no' and 'maybe' now and then. Finally, she settled on a boy seated on an armchair by the fire, who was chatting with a pretty young girl.
"He's gay," she declared, shooing the girl away and plonking herself on the armrest to the boy's chair.
"I was in with her!" complained the boy. "You'd better sleep with me now."
"That won't happen until the seventh fic," said Mili.
"But there isn't going to be a seventh," said the boy. "Rampant Heathen's only writing one."
"Then you're not having sex with me." At that point, the boy seemed to lose all interest in Mili and began scanning the room for other girls. "I'm not interested in your dick," said Mili.
"I am," said the boy, leaning forward to catch a glimpse of a pair of legs in a short skirt. "Excuse me," he said, rising.
"Siddown," commanded Mili, shoving him roughly back into the chair. "What's your name?"
The boy looked at Mili defiantly and then, with a melodramatic heave of his shoulders, commenced his reply.
"I'm Wakko," he declared. "I'm a flirt. I get all the girls, all the time. Now if you're not going to sleep with me, I'm afraid I'll have to-"
"Good. You'll do," decided Mili. "Ethan," she said, turning to Our Hero, "this is your beta sidekick. He's not as great as I am, but he'll do." Ethan and Wakko nodded to each other in greeting. "I've chosen Wakko for you cos he'll hopefully keep you straight."
"What?" exclaimed Ethan.
"Look," said Mili, "you're very nice and all, but a bit too metro for my liking, so I'm putting you with Wakko here to straighten you up a bit."
"You're kidding me," said Ethan. "He's over-compensating anyway!"
"True," interrupted Wakko. "I am quite dubious."
This seemed to ruffle Mili's feathers somewhat. She obviously didn't like being wrong.
"Well fine. Wakko will do until we find you a better beta sidekick. Let's go shotgun a dorm." Grabbing the two boys by their collars, she dragged them out of the common room and down one of the ajoining corridors. Snowella hadn't lied about the supposed promiscuity. The three of them encountered a lot of people in rather compromising positions in most rooms and Ethan and Mili had a great deal of trouble convincing Wakko not to join in. There was also a secret Death Eater meeting in the second bedroom by the first stairwell and they had to run away when threatened with Teletubbies videos.
"Death Eaters in Slytherin," commented Wakko. "Who'd have thought?"
Eventually they settled on a room at the end of a long, curving corridor, which Ethan supposed was the one furthest from the Slytherin common room. It was elaborately decorated green and silver and the Slytherin house crest was proudly imprinted on the bedsheets, doorknobs and torch holders. Strangely, although they had only just chosen the room, their belongings were already there. Ethan began unpacking and placing his clothes in his wardrobe, his quills and parchment in the desk drawers and he carefully placed his dictionary on the shelf above the desk.
"Jesus, couldn't find a shabbier dictionary, could you?" taunted Wakko. Suddenly, the small, red dictionary leapt off the shelf and heaved itself toward Wakko, startling the latter enormously.
"Thou art as loathsome as a toad!" exclaimed the dictionary. "Were I like thee I'd throw away myself!" With that, the dictionary leapt on Wakko's face and began flicking its pages across his nose with ferocity.
"Collin, no!" exclaimed Ethan, running forward to help Wakko, who had been momentarily stunned. He pulled the old, yellowed dictionary off his roommate and placed it back on the shelf, telling it off.
"T'isn't I that deserves admonishing!" claimed the dictionary.
"I know, Collin, I'm sorry. But you can't just go attacking people. You know how much trouble you got into last time."
"It was a particularly cutting remark!"
"He said you were red!"
"No one has read me! I cannot be read cover to cover like a common novel!"
"Say goodnight, Collin," said Ethan with finality, jamming the dictionary between two particularly heavy text books.
"Farewell," bade the book.
"Is your nose alright?" said Ethan, turning back to Wakko, who was being nursed by Mili. "I'm sorry about Collin, he's a little self conscious." Wakko made a snorting noise as he delved through the trunk at the end of his bed. He pulled out an Oxford English Dictionary.
"Yell at it," he said.
"Wakko-" began Ethan.
"Shout at it!" said Wakko. He threw it to the floor and began jumping on it. "Abuse it! See how often it attacks YOU!"
"I said I was sorry!" yelled Ethan over the ruckus Wakko was causing. "The thing is, he's not really a dictionary."
Wakko suddenly stopped jumping and muffled screams of defiance could be heard from the bookshelf. Ethan glanced back at the dictionary and continued in a hushed tone.
"He's actually a House Elf. A cursed one. He's never told me why he was cursed, but when I got my Hogwarts letter he explained to me that my mother - Bellatrix - sent him to keep an eye on me. He insists that she doesn't care though. Apparently she only does it to make sure I don't become too powerful."
"So... you're keeping an object that wants to spy on you?" asked Mili incredulously.
"He's loyal to me," said Ethan simply. "I've cared for him all these years, scribbled in his margins, used him for homework."
"Pulled him off unsuspecting victims," muttered Wakko. Ethan smiled sympathetically.
"House Elves don't just change loyalty," stated Mili. "He must still be spying on you, unless Bellatrix has told him otherwise." Ethan shook his head.
"He's loyal, I haven't a doubt in my mind."
Wakko yawned, prompting a mass watch-check.
"Yep, my watch is still here, how about you?" asked Ethan. The other two nodded.
"Wow, it's late," commented Mili. "I'm going to bed."
"Night Mili," chorused the boys. To Ethan's surprise she crawled into the last bed in the room.
"Erm... Mili?"
"Yes Ethan?"
"Aren't you going to find a girls' dorm?"
"Why would I do that, Ethan?" she called from beneath the green and silver duvet.
"Cos you're a girl?"
"Am I?"
"Are you?"
"You wonder, don't you?"
And yes. He did.
Author's notes:
"Thou art as loathsome as a toad!"
~ Taken from Shakespeare's 'Troilus And Cressida'
"Were I like thee I'd throw away myself!"
~ Taken from Shakespeare's 'Timon of Athens'