The next morning, as the students arose and were led back to their regular dormitories, Harry managed to find Oliver Wood and take him aside for a moment.
"Oliver, you've got to know this," he said. "I've overheard some Slytherins talking about Malfoy, and they said he was planning to use his fake injury to weasel out of the Quidditch match against Gryffindor."
Oliver frowned. "That's bad. If they plan to substitute a seeker who actually knows what he's doing at the last minute, that could make planning impossible."
"No, the way I understood them, the whole Slytherin team wants to get out, so that we'd have to play one of the other houses."
Oliver snorted. "Cowardly little bastards. Don't want to play in the lousy weather that's coming up, I bet. But that's actually better than having to face Slytherin with an unknown seeker. We know what the other houses are like, and we've still got enough time to drill manoeuvres to counter them. I'll see whether I can find out which team we're likely to face. Probably Hufflepuff, because they've got a new captain and Cedric has been training them a lot. Don't you worry, Harry - and good job!"
"So we're training even harder now, to be ready for anything they try to pull," explained Harry, as he strolled towards Hagrid's hut with Ron and Hermione.
"But how do you know those Slytherins weren't feeding you false information?" asked Hermione.
"Hey, that's right!" said Ron. "They could have said that for you to overhear, so that the Gryffindor team stops training against Slytherin."
Harry shook his head. "They couldn't have known I was there - it was completely accidental. And... it was Kodachi with her friends. I don't think they'd help Malfoy's scheme that way."
"That Kodachi is weird," said Ron. "I just can't figure her out. She's just 11, but sometimes she talks like a sixth-year. She's got a crush on you, but she keeps talking about you as an 'opponent'. She's working like crazy in Potions to beat out Hermione, but she's trying just as hard to beat Malfoy. Half the time she behaves like a typical Slytherin, and the other half she doesn't. I just don't get her."
They had reached Hagrid's hut and were walking around it to the back, where they could hear Hagrid puttering about.
"Either way we can be thankful that the conflict between her and Malfoy is distracting Slytherin House." said Hermione, turning to Ron. "They've been a lot less annoying this year." She turned back - and came face to face with a huge, red, gaping maw, full of terrible, sharp, pointy teeth.
Hermione shrieked in panic and jumped back, bumping into Ron and Harry, sending all three of them tumbling to the ground.
"Careful there, 'ermione!" they heard Hagrid from somewhere behind that monstrous mouth. "'e's not settled in prop'ly, so 'e's still a mite tetchy. Don' scare 'im, all righ'?"
"Scare him?!" asked Ron, his wide eyes locked on the terrible teeth looming before them, poised to gore them and rip them to shreds. "What about us?"
Suddenly they heard a girlish squeal of happiness and a black blur flew through the air above their heads, arcing over the open mouth and landing somewhere behind it. A young voice shouted "Midorigame!" followed by a string of rapid Japanese. The horrible maw finally closed, and they could see that it belonged to a giant alligator - which was currently being hugged and cuddled by a happily cooing Kodachi Hecate.
"Oh Hagrid, you wonderful, wonderful man! How did you get him here?"
Hagrid blushed, embarrassed by her compliment. "Well, I got a frien' who's buyin' and sellin' exotic animals, an' he tol' me 'e's got this offer from a Muggle in Tokyo. So I thought, how many thirty foot alley gaters are likely ter be on sale by private cit'zens in Japan, righ' after 'dachi had ter leave hers behin'? I got a yearly budget fer buyin' new wildlife anyway, an' I thought it's about time Hogwarts got a proper reptile house, an'-"
"Thank you, Hagrid!" said Kodachi, hugging the giant alligator's neck again. "You are the most wonderful person alive!"
The three Gryffindors stared at the spectacle.
"Now I get her," said Ron finally. "She's mental."
Severus Snape was torn. He brooded in his study over the latest developments within his house, and could not find a solution to the problem.
No, that was not quite true. He knew very well that there were two solutions to the current schism - he could support Kodachi Hecate, or he could support Draco Malfoy. The trouble was: he couldn't decide. He knew which of the two was the better choice for House Slytherin, and he knew which one he wanted to support - only it wasn't the same person.
Kodachi Hecate was a very promising young student and a true prodigy in the area of Potions. She brought such enthusiasm, instinctive aptitude and natural flair to the subject that she was rivalling Granger's methodical, scholarly perfection. If he teamed those two up, he knew that Hogwarts could easily win the next European Interscholastic Potions Competition - although he had heard rumours that the event would be postponed in favour of some other competition, next year.
What was more important, Kodachi had the attitude and ambition of a true Slytherin, as they were meant to be - as they had been, half a century earlier, before Lord Voldemort had killed almost all of Slytherin's best and brightest and elevated all of its worst and most craven to positions of power. Slytherin was meant to be the home of the ambitious, just as Gryffindor was the home of the curageous - but Voldemort had no appreciation for ambition in people other than himself. He had wanted thugs and toadies, and when he was done, that was pretty much all that was left of House Slytherin. Even now, twelve years after his defeat, Slytherin had not yet found back to its true purpose.
Rationally Snape knew that Kodachi was the first ray of hope for Slytherin to return to its former greatness - but his feelings prevented him from dropping Draco Malfoy. It might have surprised many to find out that Snape held no great love for Draco. Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were perfect examples of everything that was wrong with Slytherin - their parents had been servants of Voldemort, and the children certainly followed in their footsteps by being nasty, brutish bullies. But whatever else Draco was, he certainly was one thing: an enemy of Harry Potter. And that was all that mattered to Snape.
Potter! That thrice damned spawn of his thrice damned father! He was everything bad about James Potter, only worse! Voldemort's own carelessness had finally rid the world of the bastard, and the moronic mob was praising Potter for it, as if it had been his work! Somebody had to oppose him, before that self-important little brat led the bleating sheep who adored him to their doom! Couldn't they see that he was nothing but a rule-breaking, arrogant little bastard, just like his father had been?
That was the reason why he had been supporting Malfoy and his cronies for over two years, grooming Draco into the perfect weapon against Potter. How could he drop all that in favour of Kodachi Hecate, who had obviously fallen for the propaganda and admired Potter, even if she nominally viewed him as a competitor.
But on the other hand, how could he not? He knew perfectly well that Dumbledore's comment about petty grudges had been aimed at him as much as at the two students. How could he keep from doing what he knew was the right thing for his house, out of his personal feelings towards Potter?
He couldn't decide, and yet he had to. The conflict between the two students was splitting House Slytherin in half. The lower two years were almost exclusively following Kodachi, while Draco's support was strongest among third and fourth year students. The upper three years were largely keeping out of the conflict, either because they felt uninvolved and already focussed on life after their schooling, or because they were waiting to see who came out on top. On the whole, there was perhaps a slight bias towards Kodachi, since Draco had already been throwing his weight around for two years, which had annoyed some of the older students.
Vito Malaghieri, the current prefect, was behaving in true Slytherin fashion, that is to say he was being a cagey bastard who kept his cards close to the chest and didn't betray which way he would jump if pressed.
And thus Severus Snape was brooding in his study, turning the matter over and over in his head without reaching a solution. Finally he decided
(Posted Tue, 24 Dec 2002 15:08)
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