To Kill You With a Kiss

Chapter 3

"Over here, Elias!"

Harry slipped into the open seat next to Cygnus Black at the Slytherin table. Cygnus was wearing a gleaming prefect badge pinned to his school robes now. A prefect? Playing by the rules for now, are you Cygnus? Cygnus noticed Harry's glance and smiled.

"Yes, I'm a prefect, Elias, and so is Druella. Gives us the right to dock points from the Gryffindors. Just let us know if any of them annoy you, will you? Or you can tell Abraxas or Araminta - they are the seventh year prefects for Slytherin."

Not bad, Malfoy - Quidditch captain and prefect! Harry gazed at the blond Slytherin for a moment. Somehow, it felt wrong to think of him as "Malfoy"; that appellation belonged, in Harry's mind, to a far more unpleasant specimen of the Malfoy clan. Abraxas. This one is just Abraxas.

"Are Abraxas and Araminta Head Boy and Head Girl, then?"

Cygnus' dark eyes glittered. "You would think so, wouldn't you? But I'm afraid not, Elias. The senile old Professor Dippet has a bizarre prejudice against Slytherins. Tom Riddle was Head Boy when he was a student, that goes without saying, but otherwise, Dippet always manages to find someone from another house to be Head Boy or Head Girl. Obviously, Abraxas would have made a great Head Boy, and the younger students are so smitten with Araminta's beauty, they'd obey her if she asked them to use the Cruciatus curse on themselves."

Harry glanced at Araminta and shuddered when her sapphire gaze met his. Sounds like the sort of thing she would have the younger students do, too.

"The idiot headmaster picked the appalling Enid Spore from Gryffindor to be Head Girl." Cygnus indicated a plain, but pleasant-looking girl at the Gryffindor table. "Algie Longbottom's girlfriend." He grimaced.

"Algie's the round-faced one," added Orion helpfully. "Really into toads, for some reason. He just can't stop talking about them."

Harry grinned. This must be the barmy uncle Neville talked about, the one who gave him Trevor.

"And the Head Boy is the insufferable Oswald Fudge from Ravenclaw. The obsequious little tadpole flattered and fawned over the headmaster until the old moron made him Head Boy. " Cygnus pointed out a rather pompous boy with straw-colored hair who was pontificating at the Ravenclaw table. The other Ravenclaws appeared to ignore him, for the most part, but the slender dark-haired boy next to him regarded him with a rapt expression. Wait.. Isn't that-? Harry smiled when he recognized the vampire Sanguini, who was gazing dreamily at Fudge's neck. And there's Sanguini's friend Worple, too, the worried-looking one with the glasses.

How odd it felt to sit at the Slytherin table during dinner! So this is what it looks like, the view from Slytherin... Harry was not used to seeing the Great Hall from this angle; it made everything seem strangely warped, as if reality itself had become slightly distorted. Harry secretly scanned the faces at the Gryffindor table, longing for a glimpse of someone familiar. Perhaps the red hair of a Weasley? Or a young McGonagall?

No.

He felt disappointed. It would have been nice to have some pleasant company while I'm trapped inside this delusion. I could have used a Weasley. Well, there was always Algie Longbottom. And surely the tall, grave boy next to him must be John Lupin, the seeker? His hair was darker than his future son's, but his face was quite similar. I hope I can get to know him. Somehow, I have to warn him against Fenrir Greyback. One day, you will insult a werewolf, John Lupin, and he will never forget it. One day, when you least expect it, he will come after your child.

A few other faces at the distant Gryffindor table were beginning to seem familiar as well as Harry continued to scrutinize them. Wasn't that a very young "Dangerous" Dai Llewellyn? No wonder the Slytherin Quidditch team was in trouble this season! Harry's heart began to race a little at the prospect of playing Quidditch against the famous beater.