The Slytherin Angst Sesh
Third-Person PoV: The Slytherin Common Room
Lou Ellen settled into her spot in the room, they had decided to space themselves out in the room in case they missed anything important, it didn't necessarily have to be spoken to be important it could be a gesture, a look, or a noise that would aid in giving them a clearer view of how and where the Slytherin House as a whole stands in terms of Politics and the upcoming/possible war and how the demigods can use it to their advantage.
Her body was tired, she had forgotten to go to bed as she was too immersed in an experiment of hers, it focused on the difference between Potions within the Wizarding World and Potions within the Greek World. There were some similarities but of course, at Camp, they had access to ingredients that Wizards have presumed to have died out or never heard of before, so she would dare say that there's a more raw quality to the Potions she makes at home, at least hers tasted nice. Lou Ellen absently rubbed at her wrist, trying to get rid of the feeling of Connor's tight grip on her wrist, she sucked in a deep breath and then gently let it loose. The last thing she needed was to have a panic attack from the War last year while on a mission. Looks like she was in for another night of meagre sleep.
The last few Slytherin's marched into the room, it was the most crowded that Lou had ever seen since the demigods stay here, she spied Draco, Blaise and Pansy sat on a couch together, Blaise has one arm wound around Draco's shoulder, said boy had his arms crossed with his lips thinned and grey eyes sharp with intensity, his other arm resting on the arm of the couch. Pansy lounged on the other side of Draco, her legs crossed with her hands resting in her lap.
"Is everyone here?" Xander Lofthouse slowly walked to the centre of the common room, he took his time and twirled around, waiting for any of his housemates to respond. He was only met with silence, he stilled and straightened his back again. "Very well then, now that we are all here we can start our House Meeting." Xander raised his wand and pointed it towards a table near the fireplace, he seemed to mutter a spell underneath his breath and a stack of papers zoomed towards him, 'Accio' Lou thought to herself. Xander cleared his throat, his wand was slipped back into a pocket of his trousers and he began a slow deliberate pace in the space that he had. "Like you, all know the Dark Lord arose in the Third Task of the Triwizard games last year. Many students at Hogwarts and the Wizarding World refused to believe Dumbledore and Potter at the end of the last academic year and still refuse despite the spike in dark wizard activity. We all know this as some of our parents are in.... affiliation with the Dark Lord or the Dark Lord has sent word to some of us that he wishes to recruit us for his cause once we've finished our education." Lou Ellen felt her eyebrows rise, now that was new, she quickly jotted it down onto the small notebook that she carried.
Another student stepped up, her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, "The Dark Lord continues to gather power while the rest of the world and the Ministry continue to live in their disbelief and ignorance before we move onto the topics we wish to discuss with you all tonight I'm sure that you have all read the letter that we have distributed to everyone over the last few days?" She stopped talking to allow them to nod in agreement. "Then I'll assume that you all know the curse we placed on said letter what will happen if you discuss what we talk about here with anyone outside the common room correct?" Ella Wilkins' eyes glinted with a devious sneer, the Slytherin students nodded again. "Good, good. I encourage you all to speak your mind, this is a House discussion, after all, we want to know what you all think about our current situation and what would be the best way to deal with it while representing our House as well as we can." Ella stepped back giving the floor to Xander again.
"Thank you, Wilkins, to start I want to know what you all think about what the Dark Lord's motive is. Do you agree?"
"You mean having a prejudice against muggles? Or going through with the prejudice to actually start a genocide?" Astoria Greengrass asked. Xander shrugged and gestured for her to continue, "Prejudices generally aren't good, they can often hinder progress if you allow it to control you, the Dark Lord has allowed his prejudice to control him, sure his prejudice has allowed him to progress his knowledge and power in the Dark Arts but killing people because of something they have no control over? It's ridiculous." Her dark hair bounced on her shoulders as she shook her head. "Muggles like any human are afraid of the unknown if we make ourselves known to them with the clear intention to kill them all I see is an all-out war where it very well may destroy the Wizarding World. They outnumber us, it won't take long for them to overwhelm us despite our magic." Murmurs arose in the room, a few frowns graced a few students' faces.
"Like you said we have magic? How can muggles beat that?" A second-year, Malcolm Baddock questioned a hint of arrogance visible in his voice, a lot of the Slytherin's agreed with the boy.
"Well, you clearly haven't been keeping up with the Muggle World then." Blaise snorted. "Have any of you heard of a gun? Shoots a projectile called a bullet at an average of 1700 miles per hour and there are different kinds, some can do long distances, some fire quickly, others can be completely silent, and some can shoot 500 to 1000 bullets per minute."
"We'll just use a Sheild Charm then." Someone shouted out.
"But how long can you hold it for? You don't know how many guns or how many muggles there will be, or where they're even positioned, all they need to do is wait for you to tire and shoot you." Pansy dismissed them with a wave of her hand.
"Muggles also have this thing called Nuclear Weapons. At the press of a button a bomb of 20, 000 tons of TNT will fly towards a directed target, how would we defend against that? They've used Nuclear Weapons only twice in history and destroyed a single city with one bomb. We don't know how many they even have or when they could use them." Daphne spoke up.
"She's right I guess, so we can agree that we shouldn't underestimate muggles. They've had the time to develop while we've lived in our ignorance of the old ways and have never moved forwards with anything."
"So we should just abandon centuries of traditions so that we may appease to catch up with muggles in their development?"
"No, we shouldn't reject the old ways per say, we just need to find a balance between the two. Find a way to progress as a society and still acknowledge our traditions."
"Exactly, who knows what could happen in the future, the muggles could reject and hunt us down like they have in the past or they could accept us, and strive to allow our two societies to interact."
"True, but I feel that the muggles will accept and reject us."
"Could you elaborate?" Xander motioned for Tracey Davis to go on.
"They'd accept that wizards are real, that we exist and have been in hiding from them for centuries, yet they would also be scared of us and wary. They might have their own prejudices against us because they don't know anything about us and our society. A human's greatest fear is the fear of the unknown after all." Grunts and murmurs of agreement tickled Lou Ellen's ears. So Slytherin was wary of muggles and allowed their prejudice to lead to hate and blood supremacy which could be compared to racism. They looked down on muggles, still seeing the muggles' progression as the same as when the two societies last interacted yet muggles had made progress far beyond what they knew. She could understand their thoughts somewhat. Demigods were wary of mortals too, at least they had the Mist to help with dealing with them, but demigods had the privilege to start off in the mortal world and then drift towards the Supernatural World. Every Half-Blood at some point has worried that the Mist would suddenly disappear and stop protecting them, what the wizards didn't seem to know is that the governments would most likely imprison them and experiment on them. Try to find their weaknesses, strengths, anything they could find out, and then they'd be forced to work for them.
"-convince our families to have a closer look at muggles then?" Lou Ellen shook her head, clearly, she had let her thoughts run wild and missed out on what was said.
"Perhaps, but it might have some negative effects." Xander tapped his foot "They may believe that they need to destroy muggles even more. From what I've heard we all seem to agree that we're still unsure about muggles but will keep our prejudices to ourselves?"
"We agree." They chanted to him.
"I have a question about traditions." Adrian stood up, Xander extended a hand in permission. "How do we uphold some of our traditions without being assumed that we're blood supremacists? It often feels like an insult that we celebrate them in private just because of what the rest of the school thinks."
"I would love to do May Day in public." A first-year muttered in the silence.
"Couldn't we... I dunno ask Dumbledore to celebrate them? The old coot would love that, always smiling with that ridiculous twinkle in his eye." Millicent Bulstrode said.
"What about using the Americans? They don't hide their traditions and celebrate them with no shame. Perhaps we start a conversation about differences between our traditions and encourage them to ask Umbridge, she'd eat it right out of their hands just to stay on their good side and then demand that the school learns about some traditions and celebrate them."
"That could work. Do we agree?"
"We agree."
"Alright, Malfoy, Zabini, Parkinson. I want you three to work on that." The trio hummed and nodded their heads in acknowledgment. "Speaking of the Americans, what do you all think about them?"
There was silence at first, Lou bristled, her muscles tensed and her hands itched to do something, hold something, anything.
"I like them." Draco broke the silence first. "They don't care much about what people have done, what house they're in, or what family they're from. They judge you individually as a person and what you can do to be better.
"That's good, they either genuinely don't care or don't allow their prejudices to cloud their decisions. That would be beneficial when war does break out."
"But whose to say they'll help in the war?"
"Exactly they could just allow us to fight it out and depending on who the winner is they'll deal with them."
"Mmm, that's a good point, but then what is the point of them even coming here to represent their family then?"
"To monitor." Daphne shrugged, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "The House of Olympia have clearly sent their children as a front to observe the status of the government and how prepared we are as a community to go to war. I've heard from my parents that they've just resolved a conflict before coming here, I'm not sure what but it was big. Perhaps they either don't want to get involved in a war soon after resolving a conflict or it wouldn't be the best for their Auror's to lend their aid without having an adequate amount of time to heal mentally and possibly physically." A buzz of gentle chatter arose in the room, Lou bit her lips as she jotted down some more notes. When Slytherin actually came together, which from the way they ran this meeting evidently happened often, they easily found out the reason for the demigod's visit. Who knew what else they could discover.
"I think our only concern is what side they would choose."
"They won't side with the Dark Lord," Adrian said. Eyes rested on him once again, his lips pinched together he squirmed slightly.
"Could you elaborate, Pucey," Xander asked.
"A lot of the children of The House of Olympia are half-bloods, the Dark Lord tolerates Half-Bloods at most, I'm sure that the heads and the heirs of the House of Olympia would wish to side with someone who would tolerate them at best."
"So they'd side with the Gryffindors then?"
Well, that made more sense. The Gryffindors seemed to be the 'light House', most likely where most of the people from the Order or who are against Voldemort are from. While most of Voldemort's supporters are from Slytherin, reinforcing Slytherin as the 'evil House', that was definitely an issue, if they allow their resistance to be formed of people mostly from one house it weakens them. Just thinking about the traits from all of the Houses working together made her skin buzz with magic. The courage and braveness of a Gryffindor, the loyalty and patience of a Hufflepuff, the wit and intelligence of a Ravenclaw, the ambition and cunningness of a Slytherin. If only they could learn to work together and start to let go of centuries of prejudice.
"I'm unsure. I was talking with the Stoll in our year just before the meeting, he implied that he believed that the rivalries between the Houses here are stupid, the rivalries they have between the Houses at their school clearly are not as serious as ours, seeming to mostly be from games. He describes them to be like...siblings, they may fight and claim to hate each other but they will always have each other's back. But he praised us for changing the way we are, and he quickly picked up on how we feel about traditions and wished to celebrate them. They are most likely to side with them but there are quite a lot of problems they have with them too."
"So for now we're unsure about their standing but that's fine, we still have the rest of the year to figure it out. Anything else?" Xander glanced around.
"I have a question for Malfoy. Do you know anything about the Dark Lord's status? Like if he's gathered more allies?" Tracey Nettlebed asked.
Draco visibly swallowed, Lou Ellen could see his knuckles tighten in his lap, turning white from how tight his fists were. "Truthfully, I haven't been home much last summer so I've only heard from what my father has told me. He's rapidly gaining followers, calling all the Death Eaters that are not in Azkaban back to follow him again. He's recruiting some of his old allies, the werewolves, the giants, the vampires, but I'm unsure if they've actually accepted to join him yet."
"And with the Ministry in denial, it's even easier for him to do so."
"I believe that's enough for tonight, that will conclude our meeting for tonight. Everyone to bed now." Everyone began to move, grumbling good nights to each other and shuffling towards the dorms to get settled for the night. The three demigods waited for ten more minutes in silence, once it was clear that there was no one else left they exited their hiding places and met at the stairwell.
"Καταφέρατε να πάρετε μερικές καλές σημειώσεις;" (Were you two able to get down some good notes?) Travis questioned.
"Ναι, ο Slytherin είναι πραγματικά ένα Σώμα που πρέπει να υπολογίσουμε, δεν είναι περίεργο που η φοβία του θανάτου ήταν σε αυτό το Σώμα." (Yeah, Slytherin really is a House to be reckoned with, no wonder Death-phobia was in this House.) Lou Ellen responded.
"Ας γυρίσουμε πίσω, ποιος ξέρει τι καταστροφή έχει προκληθεί ενώ μας περιμένει." (Let's head back, who knows what destruction has been caused while waiting for us.) Connor gave a lopsided smirk as he began to ascend the stairs.
The Demigod's Common Room...
The chaos in the room was... mild. Travis has walked in on worse so what he was seeing wasn't that big of a problem, to be honest. Percy and Thalia were wrestling on the floor, Clarisse yelling at the son of Poseidon to cream the daughter of Zeus. Annabeth and Rachel were in the process of building a large castle made of an assortment of objects that had been in the room before, Travis was about to make a comment about phoning the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest castle built of miscellaneous objects when Clovis slammed his head onto the table, letting out a loud snore causing the castle to fall down. Rachel shrugged it off while Annabeth was fuming, frozen from where her hand was about to place another object on top. Pollux, Piper, Butch, and Reyna appeared to be playing a game of snap, they all dove for the pile of cards at the centre, Pollux threw his cards down as he was the last person to put his hand on top. Leo was trying to fix a machine he had built which was currently letting out fumes of fire into the air, he was then drenched in water from Jason's and Hazel's wands, the latter giving him a sheepish shrug as he stared blankly at them. Nico and Will were bickering on the coach, Katie and Frank appeared to be in a deep conversation about something.
"Thalia if you lose I'll rip your Green Day shirt!" Connor yelled.
"You best win Percy or I'll snap your skateboard in half!" Travis shouted at the older ravenette, well older biologically.
"You'll fucking what Stoll?!" The two stood up, sending agitated looks at the brothers.
"Finally you're back, hurry up and spill the beans, I'm tired." Clarisse settled onto a coach just as the rest began to crowd onto the coaches and chairs placed around the fireplace. "Go on then." She grunted.
"Well, the Slytherin's really do match with their cunning nature as they've deduced the reason why we've come to their school." Lou Ellen flopped down directly in front of the fire, the place where had hidden was near a draft so her fingers and toes were freezing. "Voldemort is steadily gaining allies while the Ministry continues to be ignorant. From what Draco knows he's attempting to gain allies from werewolves, vampires, and giants."
"Wait, wizarding giants or giant giants?" Leo looked up from where he was meddling with his drenched machine.
"Wizarding giants." Lou Ellen confirmed, the stiffness in the demigod's shoulders immediately melted.
"They are kinda cautious of us though, they want to see which side we'll side with if we become involved somewhat." Travis lowered himself to sit next to the daughter of Hecate. "Oh, and they want us to encourage celebrating their old traditions again, which I don't mind, not many of their tradition directly means they're blood supremacists anyway." He added.
"I think that's ok, it's not like there are any malicious intentions behind it." Reyna absently nodded.
"Also their thoughts on muggles is pretty much what Pansy and Draco have said, although there's more on the hate slash tolerating side of the spectrum," Connor spoke up.
"That's good, much better than I anticipated actually. Voldemort clearly has wasted no time in gathering allies, he knows that he has a limited amount of time to do this before his cover is blown. The only issue is that we don't know how many he's gathered so far and who's there willingly, he's good at using the Imperius curse." Annabeth tapped her fingers on her bouncing knee.
"I might be able to ask the Hunters to keep an ear out for werewolves more than usual, it could help cut down Voldemort's numbers," Thalia suggested.
"That's good but these werewolves are probably more in Europe than America. We should research where the most common packs are in Europe too." Clarisse said.
"What else should we do?" Piper inquired.
"I'm not sure what else we can do, maybe the celebrating traditions may help bring the Houses together. We just need to keep an ear out for anything else that could be important and see what we can do to reduce Voldemort's numbers." Percy sighed.
"How about we try harder to get the Ministry to accept that there is definitely something going on?" Pollux proposed.
"Definitely. The quicker they accept the harder it will be for Voldemort to gather his allies, the only question is how?"
"We can think about that tomorrow or another day, we should head to bed, I have to go over my plans with my first session with Harry tomorrow." Will stood up to stretch his back.
"Nothing more refreshing than dealing with teenage angst." Nico gave Will a double thumbs-up, the son of Apollo frowned at him and raised an eyebrow.
"I deal with you every day so this should be a walk in the park." The group descends into laughs and cackles as the dark-haired boy stared at his boyfriend in a mix of betrayal and disbelief.