What We Require

Ch4: The Welcome Home

As they disembarked the train and started making their way towards the carriages, Harry felt a sinking in his stomach at the number of students – in his class all the way down to the second years – who were stopping and staring at the Thestrals, once invisible and now standing plain as day in front of them, occasionally tossing their black, skeletal heads. He heard Luna explaining to one of her fellow Ravenclaws, "They won't harm you – they're quite gentle. They just look scary because they usually like keeping to themselves; the Hogwarts Thestrals are one of the only tame herds in Europe."

Slowly, people were getting over the seemingly sudden appearance of the beasts and were getting up into the carriages. Harry found himself sharing with Ron, Hermione and Ginny.

Once settled, Ron immediately turned to his sister as the carriages started forward with a jolt, a frown marring his freckled face.

"Oi, what's the deal with Zabini?"

Ginny shrugged, and Harry had to hide a smile – the resemblance between the two redheads wasn't obvious at first (barring their shared hair colour), but seeing the two siblings sit across from each other, Harry couldn't help but notice the similarities in their gestures. Hermione caught his eye and hid a smile by looking out the window – she'd mentioned something similar to Harry in the past.

"Nothing's the deal with Zabini – he helped us out last year. He's alright."

"He's a Slytherin!" Ron exclaimed, and Ginny's cheeks started to flush the way they did when she was trying not to get angry.

"So what? Ron, we can't be doing this anymore! This is entire bloody war was only possible because of that kind of thinking! Slytherins aren't inherently evil, just like Gryffindors aren't always good. Don't you know that's why Percy left?"

"What?" Ron stammered, confused by the sudden change in topic.

"Why he left. Why he found it so easy to walk away from us, when You-Know-Who had first returned?" Ginny's freckles were almost hidden by her flushing cheeks now, and her eyes sparkled with angry tears that refused to fall.

"No, I never asked him. He came back, it doesn't matter why he left." Ron said mulishly, and Ginny snorted.

"Of course it matters, you idiot. He left because he felt more accepted at the Ministry than he did at home. Because all his life – all our lives – we had been told that to be a Slytherin is evil. To be ambitious, and cunning, and to want to succeed in life... is wrong. Did you know that the Sorting Hat wanted to put Percy in Slytherin?"

Ron gaped at his sister, and Harry felt a pang of sympathy for Percy Weasley. When the Hat had tried to put Harry in Slytherin, he'd argued against it, and he'd barely known about the Hogwarts Houses for a day. He could only imagine how it must have affected Percy, who would have grown up with his everyone around him expecting him to go into Gryffindor like the rest of his family.

"But- he didn't. The Hat put him in Gryffindor!" Ron sputtered finally, and the uncomfortable feeling Harry got in his stomach whenever he was reminded of the Sorting Hat's wish to place him in Slytherin encouraged him to speak up.

"The Sorting Hat takes your choice into account. If Percy didn't want to go into Slytherin, the Hat wouldn't have put him there."

"And the only reason Percy didn't want to go into Slytherin was because he was scared."

"I'd be scared to go into Slytherin too!" Ron muttered, and Ginny cut over him.

"He was scared, Ron, of what Mum and Dad would say. What we would say. So he asked to be put into Gryffindor, where no one understood his ambition, and where he felt almost completely isolated for seven years. Is it any wonder he sided with the Ministry, where he was at least appreciated, when Voldemort returned?"