THIRTY-SEVEN: Unity in Adversity

Unfortunately, it was not to be. Within moments of his arrival on the ground floor, a second-year ran into him, literally.

"Sorry, Professor!" the boy exclaimed. "Professor McGonagall wants to see you, though! Glad I found you, she told all of us to let you know if we saw you..."

Harry found this was all too true as he was stopped by not one, not two, but five second-years, all flushed with the importance of carrying the Transfiguration Professor’s message, so puffed up with the responsibility that he didn’t have the heart to stop any of them halfway through. Instead, he nodded gravely every time, and continued heading for the Deputy Headmistress’s office.

Professor McGonagall looked up as he entered, starting as she caught sight of the Slytherin scarf that he was still wearing. Harry smiled awkwardly and sat across from her.

"Well, Potter?" she inquired. "Anything you’d like to tell me?"

Harry fidgeted nervously, wondering why she had called him into her office to ask him if he had anything to discuss.

"I was up in the Headmaster’s office debating the finer points of House law for two hours," she said with some asperity. "The least you can do is tell me if I was wasting my time."

Harry slumped. "I don’t imagine any time with Professor Dumbledore is wasted..."

"A very Slytherin answer," she replied sharply, shifting her glasses up on her nose with one, rigid finger.

"Yes, well," Harry replied. "The Hat told me I’d be great in Slytherin," he tacked on, feeling slightly rebellious.

"But?"

"But I’d just heard that only Dark wizards were in Slytherin," Harry supplied. "Gryffindor was the Hat’s second choice."

Minerva McGonagall sighed, the rigidity of her shoulders the only other sign of her distress. "Severus is probably chuckling to himself as we speak. Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived – a Slytherin."

"First of all," Harry said, feeling more than a bit put out, "Severus is every bit as discomfited by this as you are, if not more. Second, I prefer to be referred to as ‘Harry’, or maybe ‘Mister Potter’, or even ‘Potter’, if you’re in a hurry. I get enough Harry-Potter-the-Boy-Who-Lived from the Prophet, thanks."

McGonagall eyed him, looking not the least bit disturbed by his outburst; but then, she’d dealt with them before, along with the various indignities brought on by the presence of one Dolores Umbridge, and seemed none the worse for wear.

Under her steadfast gaze and bland expression, Harry wilted.

"Your outbursts – Potter – on the other hand... now, they are quite Gryffindor. You had best learn how to control them," she tacked on firmly, "if you want to be an Assistant Professor for very long."

Harry hadn’t considered that his newfound position might be at risk because of what he had done at breakfast, and after a moment he said so. At least, he silently reflected, the outburst hadn’t been an Obscura-level difficulty.

"Even you are not completely immune to decorum and to school regulations," McGonagall replied. "A certain degree of professionalism is upheld by the staff. Tomorrow, you might want to show up in robes a bit cleaner than those you wear today, Professor Potter."

Harry gaped.

"And smarten up your hair a bit, if that’s at all possible," she tacked on, a twist to her lips much like Mrs. Weasley wore when Ron had tracked mud all over her clean kitchen. McGonagall’s eyes roamed over his hair and his robes, as if to catalogue his flaws, as though she was planning on making check-marks as he overcame them. "Don’t you know the charm?" she demanded sharply.

"Erm..." He winced. "Draco Malfoy used to do it."

"Come again, Potter?" Minerva sat up in her chair even more rigidly than before, and her eyes narrowed.

When Harry opened his mouth to explain, she cut him off with a brusque gesture.

"Never mind it, Potter, you’ll have to learn to do it yourself now. Repeat after me: Sortis!"

Harry pointed to his hair and flicked his wand. "Sortis!"

"There you are, Potter, much better." She frowned. "You may have to do it rather frequently."

He eyed her sardonically and pocketed his wand. "So, am I graduating a Slytherin?" he inquired.

She pursed her lips. "Not if I have anything to say about it," she replied. "You do realize, however, that this means you cannot play Quidditch for Gryffindor tomorrow."

"But what about Hermione? Hermione still enjoys all of the privileges of Gryffindor – she eats at our table and sleeps in our dorms – even though she’s said she was initially Sorted into Ravenclaw."

"Yes, Potter, but there’s a small difference. Miss Granger did not set the new Sorting Hat on her head. It did not proclaim her a Ravenclaw. And, due to that prudence on her part – and, if I may say so, imprudence on yours – she is still technically a Gryffindor. You are technically a Slytherin, because the Hat has proclaimed you so."

"What if I proclaim myself Unsorted?" Harry inquired.

"That could get you back onto the Gryffindor Quidditch team." McGonagall eyed him. "Very sneaky, as a matter of fact."

"I’ll take that as a compliment," he replied. "Uhm – actually, I’m sort of glad I ran into you. I had – erm... a teaching problem today."

The woman’s eyes flashed, and she leaned slightly forward. "Yes? Do tell."

"I don’t think detentions are going to work out," he said, flushing. "Professor Snape said he won’t take my detentions, and after he explained why, I think I understand. But detentions probably won’t be a good punishment for my – uhm–"

"Feel free to say ‘students’, Potter. It is not a presumption. You are teaching them."

"Er... yeah. Anyway, I don’t want to be taking off House points, either. I don’t like what it does to them, how it makes them think." He took a deep breath. "I told my – my students that they can’t say anything nasty about anyone else’s house, and if they did they’d eventually get a detention. But then–"

"Let me guess. A score of young things practically volunteered for the job."

Harry laughed. "So to speak. I think I have ideas about what detention will be like tonight, but I need some sort of punishment that is not House points or detentions, for tomorrow and the next day."

Minerva McGonagall smiled shrewdly. "A long time ago, when I was working at an office as a secretary, we had a curse jar. One of the other secretaries thought it lowered the class of the place to have verbal sewage polluting the air." She arched a pencil-thin eyebrow and shared a smile with Harry. "Of course, there were some who believed in the less subtle sort of cursing: the bat-bogey hex, Furnunculus and so on... schoolboy pranks, you understand. The idea was, if you cursed, you had to place a knut into the jar. At the end of every month, the money was used to hold an office party. After awhile, no one wanted to curse anymore because they had lost quite enough pocket change." Her smile grew. "Once the jar was too empty to throw a party – five knuts, I think it was – our boss took us all out to dinner. Those were hard times, so it was quite an extravagance."

Harry nodded slowly, some ideas coming to him. "Hmm... thanks, Professor."

"You’re welcome, Professor Potter."

Harry examined her to gauge whether the older woman was kidding or not, but couldn’t read the sharpness of her features.

"Make certain you’re heard declaring your utter lack of House loyalty before tomorrow," she said with a nod. "And abandon that bloody Slytherin scarf wherever you found it."

"That’s one knut, Professor," Harry deadpanned.

She rolled her eyes, but she also smiled her old, warm smile for him; and for a just a moment, Harry felt like a Gryffindor again.

Then he stood, and, nodding at the older woman, made his way back to the DADA classroom to hold his detentions.

"Welcome," he drawled in a surprisingly passable imitation of his Potions Master. One of the little girls up front looked ready to swoon, so he backed off on that one, literally and figuratively, scooting an unconscious step away from her. "Follow me, please."

The girls got up with excited titters, which Harry cut off with a slicing motion.

"In silence," he said. "This is detention, not Hogsmeade weekend."

There was quiet, now, behind him, except for the shuffling of feet and the occasional panicked-sounding whisper. Harry led the students to the Great Hall and flung open the doors, not looking back once to see if they were all still following him.

A slip of a girl with dark brown hair and heavily lashed hazel eyes raised her hand.

"Name?"

"Er – Corrie Lawson, Harr – er, sir. Uhm, what are we doing here?"

Harry smiled evilly. "Well, Corrie, I’ve been wondering whether the House Elves were really doing such a great job keeping up the Hall. I could swear I noticed a thin layer of dust at the foot of the teachers’ table this morning."

Corrie gulped as Harry conjured buckets, sponges, and a great deal of water.

"You’re kidding," Phil said, backing away from the cleaning implements distastefully. "I’ll get all wrinkledy!"

"What’s all that for, anyway?" a blonde girl demanded. "We can just use an Evanesco!"

"That reminds me," Harry said, offering his hand, palm up. "Wands, please."

"W-what?" one girl demanded.

"You can’t do that!" Phil exclaimed at the same time.

"I can. Hand them over, now." He raised one eyebrow in cool demand and prayed it would work.

Slowly, a veritable plethora of wands were laid across his open palm: cherry, walnut, oak, yew, willow, and a handful of woods Harry could not place a name to. "Thank you," Harry said quietly, stowing them carefully away. "You’ll get them back once you’re through."

"The whole place?!" one tiny girl screeched, patting hair that she had obviously carefully styled for the occasion. "It’ll be morning before we’re through!"

Harry eyed the room. He’d been cleaning for his Aunt Petunia since he’d been old enough to hold a sponge, so, after a quick bit of mental arithmetic, he knew perfectly well how long the Great Hall would take with eleven people working together.

"It’ll be midnight before you’re through, I expect," he said, "so I’ve taken the liberty of writing out a handful of special passes that will get you back to your dorm rooms with your points and your head intact." When hands reached out imperiously, he shook his head with a snort of disbelief. "Not until you’re through." He strode to the door, ready to go out and make those passes, because he had done no such thing.

"P-Professor! Where are you going?"

Harry whirled to face them, noting that his cloak billowed rather dramatically with the abrupt turn. "I will be back to check on you in two hours, then in four," he replied. He eyed them. "You had best get started, Miss Edgecombe, or you will be here all night."

Harry departed, but hung back just out of sight, watching his students bitch and moan for a good five minutes before resolutely picking up sponges. After the first fifteen minutes, a leader had emerged, and she was directing the rest of her brethren: ‘no, we ought to start on basically the same side of the room and work our way back, or no one will know if anything’s been cleaned already’ – and Harry felt ready to go and face his housemates.

Or, well, knew he had to, or it’d be especially tough to find someplace to sleep.

"Harry!" Ron exclaimed, standing and nearly upsetting the board. Hermione extricated herself from her book – Harry could swear he heard a tearing noise – and Neville turned around to face him. Ginny blinked in surprise. "Hello," the redheaded girl tacked on. "Where have you been?"

"Detention," Harry said.

"What happened, mate?" Ron inquired. "Did Snape decide you were at fault this morning?"

"Er, no," Harry clarified. "I, erm, gave detention. How were classes?"

Predictably, Hermione was already handing him a small stack of parchment. "We didn’t take many notes today, it was mostly practical work," she murmured.

Since Harry didn’t take fourteen pages of notes on a day when all they did was book work, he exchanged a smile with Ron.

"I saw that, you know," Hermione said disapprovingly, but her lips twitched into a smile, too. Harry retreated to the stuffed chairs by the fire, seating himself at the foot of one and resting his back against it as Hermione folded herself back into it, tucking her feet under her. Neville arranged himself similarly by Ginny, and Ron leaned against the back of Ginny’s chair.

"You, ah, weren’t all waiting on me, were you?" Harry inquired nervously.

"I heard you were a Slytherin," Neville replied in a deceptively calm sort of voice. "I heard that the Sorting Hat was right."

Harry swallowed. "Uhm – Neville... it, er..."

"You don’t have to bother about that, Harry," Ron protested. "I mean, come on! Slytherin? You? Just because some people," – and here he glared significantly at Neville – "...some people’ll believe anything a bit of canvas says..."

"Come on," Ginny said, frowning, directing her comment to Harry. "Detentions couldn’t have taken all that long. What else were you up to?"

"Well, no," Harry temporized, eyes sweeping the Common Room, suddenly realizing he was still wearing the Slytherin scarf. "There were some, uh, other things..."

"Did you get chewed out by Dumbledore?"

"No... Snape," Harry replied. "Sort of."

Ginny and Ron groaned in tandem. "Oh, no," the fifth-year moaned. "How many points did we lose?"

"I think he was too busy being shocked to deduct points," Harry muttered. He turned on Neville, who still looked vaguely upset. "Well, Neville? Isn’t there something you wanted to say? I thought this was your especial kind of courage."

Neville frowned for a moment, looking puzzled, an expression that rendered him rather childlike. Then he looked up and shrugged. "If you already know what I’m going to say," he told Harry thoughtfully, "there’s no reason to put my foot in it, is there?"

Harry laughed, his anger dissipating. "Guess not," he replied, liking the way that Neville had told him in no uncertain terms he was being a fool without really harming his pride. He wondered when he’d started to require that ability in his friends.

"Was there something you wanted to tell us, Harry?" Hermione prompted gently, closing her book.

Harry eyed his four housemates thoughtfully. Neville was bumbling but could occasionally utter profound truths, the same way that Ron could occasionally be quite clever, putting things together that no one else saw. Ginny’s mind was sharp, and he knew that saving her life gave him a special connection to her. He took a deep breath and nodded, casting the strongest wards he knew around the five of them.

Hermione frowned in concentration, eyeing the area around him as though she could actually see the magic there. "What was that?"

"It’s a combination Silencio Perispherico and Sophia Terminalis," Harry said. "I saw Snape do them once."

When Hermione nodded and Ginny tilted her head to one side in an expression of curiosity, Harry began.

"Hermione," he began, licking his lips nervously, "could you ask Yolande about making another one of those Unsorted House badges?"

Ron crowed triumphantly. "That’s perfect!" he announced. "Malfoy’ll be in a right state when you give him that to wear, never mind Muggle clothes..."

"Malfoy?" Harry pondered. "I didn’t mean Malfoy, but that’s a good idea. Yeah, make it two then."

Ron gaped in horror, but Hermione was pinking with pleasure. "Really, Harry? Really, you’ll wear one? Oh my – there’ll be a wave of orders in, I know there will! Harry, you may not know it, but you have such an effect on the rest of the student body–"

"I am well aware," Harry replied dryly.

"...and I just know that if you wear one, loads of people will!"

"We’ll see, Hermione," Harry said, not wanting to promise anything. "It’s true I have an effect, but sometimes it’s positive, and sometimes it's not. You may get a flood of people – on the other hand, you may have people turning in the badges you’ve given out."

"Oh, Harry, don’t be ridiculous!" Hermione said, laughing and throwing her arms around his neck. "But what made you change your mind?"

Harry carefully extricated himself from Hermione’s embrace under Ron’s watchful eye. "Look, it’s like Hermione says, I love you both, but, uhm, I didn’t really want to tell anyone this. Ever. But, well..." Harry addressed himself to the bushy-haired girl. "Uhm, the truth is that I was mis-Sorted too."

Hermione clapped her hands to her mouth and Ron leaned suddenly and heavily on the chair back.

"One in five?" Hermione crowed. "I don’t believe that anymore! All right, Ron, fess up – where were you Sorted?"

"Gryffindor!" Ron grumbled. "I mean, of course Gryffindor..."

"I think you’re more loyal than anything else," Hermione said. "Are you sure it was Gryffindor?"

"Yes, it was, thanks!"

"There’s nothing the matter with loyalty," Neville offered quietly.

"Ugh, Harry, can you imagine having been Sorted into Hufflepuff?"

Harry winced. "Well, it wasn’t Hufflepuff in my case," he said.

"Harry, you can’t mean you were really–" Hermione began, then trailed off at the expression on Harry’s face.

Ron was staring at him, slack-jawed. The expression on Ginny’s face was so similar to Ron’s that it was almost comical.

Harry knew he should be allowing them some time to absorb the fact of his being a Slytherin – but it was as though he couldn’t help himself. "The Hat said I had good qualities for all of the Houses, it was really nice, but... but then it said I ought to be in Slytherin, that I could be really great there, that it was all in my head to... to be sneaky, I guess," he finished miserably. He chanced a glance up at the group to note that Neville looked slightly ill - more miserable than surprised.

"How’d you get Sorted to Gryffindor, then?" Hermione wasn’t looking at him, she was playing with a thread that was coming undone off of her pyjamas.

"Well, I’d just met you and Ron on the train, recall," Harry said, thinking back, "and Ron had said that all the witches and wizards who were Sorted into Slytherin were evil–"

"I said that all the evil witches and wizards were Sorted into Slytherin!" Ron countered, and he rather obviously was willing to look at Harry; his gaze was hard and challenging.

"Same thing," Harry said.

"No it’s not. Think about it for a minute."

Harry did. "All right, but that’s what I thought you meant, anyway. So when I put the Hat on, I said not Slytherin, not Slytherin, anything but Slytherin, and the Hat said that it had better send me on to Gryffindor, then." He shrugged sheepishly.

"You’re not having us on?" Ron inquired.

"No, sorry."

Hermione shrugged in return. "I suppose I can see it, Harry. I mean, you’re not exactly forthcoming lately – not that you ever have been. You keep your secrets, and other people’s, pretty well. And all the sneaking about we’ve ever done, you’ve planned, haven’t you?"

Harry smiled awkwardly. "Guess so."

"Just when were you planning on telling us?" Ron demanded, flushing.

"I wanted to," Harry replied fervently. "Especially second-year, when everyone thought I was the Heir of Slytherin... I wanted to tell you and Hermione so much, but I wasn’t certain of you back then."

"Like you still aren’t now?"

Harry frowned. "If I’m certain of anything, it’s you and Hermione, and Neville and Ginny and all of the other Gryffindors. I’ve just been a bit – under the weather lately, that’s all. It’s not a Slytherin plot, on my honor," he joked, raising his hand in the air, avowing innocence.

"Good," Hermione said in her most businesslike tone of voice. "Yolande and I are going to be busy tomorrow, stitching badges, but I expect the members of the Unsorted House will be happy for some more upperclassmen they can rely on."

"That’s kind of the plan," Harry replied. "Listen, I’ll bet you’re all exhausted. I have stuff left to do tonight, so..."

Neville took the hint, rolling to his feet with unaccustomed grace; Harry wondered if Neville had finally stopped growing. He must be six feet, or nearly, he realized jealously. Ginny went up the stairs as well, but Hermione and Ron both lingered.

"Well," Ron said with a cheerfulness that was just a hair too bright, "I’d ask you if you wanted to talk, but I think you have talked, haven’t you?"

"No, I’d still like to talk," Harry replied. "There’s more I need to say." He frowned. "But maybe tomorrow night. I’m beyond knackered."

When Ron eyed him skeptically, Harry rose and moved to sit on the edge of Hermione’s chair so that he could look Ron full in the face. "I mean it, Ron, I’ll talk. You’ve been awfully patient with me the past year or so. You too, Hermione. I know I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you two, but that’s almost besides the point." He felt himself turning red, unaccustomed to such blatant words of affection. "You’re both more to me than that." He saw that both Hermione and Ron were pink, too, similarly unaccustomed – both to voicing their feelings and listening to him voice his.

"That’s all right," Ron finally stammered. "I mean, we feel the same way, don’t we, Hermione?"

Hermione bobbed her head almost frantically, obviously happy she didn’t have to form a coherent sentence.

"It – it really doesn’t matter I’m Slytherin?" Harry said in a small voice. He hadn’t realized how scared out of his mind he had been until just now.

Ron moved around to face he and Hermione, his dark blue eyes earnestly searching Harry’s features. "You’re Harry," he said simply. "Well – I mean, ‘Harry’ and ‘Slytherin’ don’t really fit, as concepts go..." His expression shifted under Harry’s desperate gaze, first to pain, then to reassurance. "Blimey, Harry, you could’ve turned purple for all I care."

Harry made a small, strangled noise and threw his arms around Ron, practically knocking him to the floor and ending in a half-wrestle that had Hermione looking pleased and anxious by turns.

When Harry released Ron, he grinned at them both. "Thanks – I mean, I know neither of you really like Slytherins, but I’m glad you still like me..."

"Honestly, Harry," Hermione tsked. "Was there ever any doubt?"

"I’ll just have to change my definitions a bit, reckon," Ron replied, scratching the back of his head. He frowned at Harry. "What made you ever think we’d stop being friends?"

Harry grumped a bit before responding. "Well, I don’t know, Ron. Maybe my first clue was when you said that if there weren’t Houses, you’d never know who to associate with."

"What? I never!" Ron exclaimed.

"You did so, Ronald Weasley," Hermione exclaimed. "We had a fight about it!"

"Did we?" Ron scratched his head. "Well, if you both say we did, I guess we did... but, I mean, Malfoy isn’t that bad, is he?"

Harry shivered suddenly. "Wow," he said. "Did you feel that, Hermione?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes, it feels as though the temperature of the room just dropped several degrees," she mused.

"My feet," Harry said, "seem to be especially cold."

They both turned to raise one eyebrow at Ron.

"Yeah, yeah," Ron grumbled. "I got it. It’s a cold day in hell, I know." He shivered, himself. "And don’t do that identical-expression thing. That’s spooky, that is."

Hermione grinned at Harry, then at Ron. "Well, it is late..."

"Yeah," Harry said. "I’ve just got to check up on my detentions, I’ll be up in a bit." He said his goodnights and exited the picture frame, yawning widely.

He wanted to find some way of thanking the students for listening to him and respecting him enough to complete their punishments, but there was hardly a way of rewarding them without implying that their actions had been acceptable. He wanted to grin at them or at least pat them on the back, but he could do neither.

Still, Harry noted an odd change in atmosphere. Phillip MacDermott was chatting amicably to Corrie, whom Harry was certain was a Ravenclaw. The giggling group of girls, all Gryffindors, had obviously not remained cohesive in the face of such shared trauma as cleaning the entire Hall: somewhere along the way they all had become one group, one group fighting against him, and it was a wonderful thing to behold. Harry was certain that they would spend fifteen minutes or so happily abusing his character before heading off to their respective dorms.

This being-the-bad-guy thing wasn’t so bad, if you kept an eye on what you were doing.

Harry then called them up one by one to hand them their wands along with the special passes he had promised. For a moment, they milled uncertainly, and Harry realized that they were waiting to be dismissed.

"I trust that, in the future, you will learn to pay more attention to what you say," Harry told them.

There was a smattering of muttered, "Yes, Professor Potter"s that Harry found a bit off-putting. But then, he didn’t really know what else to say. He was so new at this that he could scarcely believe none of the students had yet pointed at him and shouted ‘fraud!’ at the top of their lungs.

"Goodnight, then," he added awkwardly.

Now it was a genuine chorus: "Goodnight, Professor Potter."

Slowly, the students dispersed, in clumps of threes and fours, and no longer by House.