Dramione: WANTED

CHAPTER 24: EVERYONE DECIDES TO GO TO HOGWARTS

CHAPTER 24: EVERYONE DECIDES TO GO TO HOGWARTS

"Why are you trying to make us accepted, Granger? Why are you trying to make us out to be the good guys?"

"Because none of you are evil. You're all my classmates and there is no way that I could stand by and do nothing when the wrong people are blamed for something terrible. It's not fair."

Blaise Zabini made a face at the newspaper, trying not to get irritated by the blasphemous words of Rita Skeeter and her stupidity.

Why was is that people always believed the most ludicrous things first, before they even had all the facts? Hermione Granger being a murderer was ridiculous to say the least, if anyone knew that, it would be the Slytherin house.

Blaise could still remember his last year at Hogwarts as clear as light, it had been the greatest after all, the only year where he'd felt like he'd learned anything worthwhile, and it had all been thanks to Hermione. After the war, things had gotten harder for everyone who'd lost people precious to them, there'd been a lot of people who'd wanted nothing to do with the Slytherin house anymore.

There'd been hundreds of petitions to even cast the children of Death Eaters into Azkaban for their involvement or the involvement of their parents, or to strip of their magic and make them live like squibs or muggles for the rest of their lives, and things had never looked so bleak for his house before.

In fact, if he could recall correctly, they'd even been discussions of removing Slytherin as a house from then forth, everyone presuming that anyone and everyone in the house of the snake was evil and corrupt. And just when the house of Slytherin thought that their lives were over, that they were fated to live out the rest of their lives in a prison, Hermione Granger had appeared.

Second week in of the school year, she'd sat beside him and Draco at dinner, like it was no big deal, making small talk about the weather and the homework that was piling on, eating by their side like it was something she did every day. The hall had been silent that night, everyone on edge, watching her eat with them, like they expected her to drop dead at any moment. Like just by being near them, she would die too.

At the end of the meal, she'd smiled at all of them, wished them pleasant dreams, reminded Draco and Pansy and him of the Charms essay due tomorrow and headed off to bed, ignoring the looks and whispers following her out.

That night, the Slytherin house had been silent. The kind of silence that meant everyone was confused and thinking about what the resident good girl of Gryffindor was planning by doing something so brash like that.

That had just been the beginning though. She'd begun to eat at least one meal with them on a daily basis, their talks and conversations getting more and more interesting as the repeating seventh year students began to talk back to her easier. It was easily to trust her when she was so open about herself.

It had taken a few months, but she'd managed to befriend him pretty easily, and their talks had always been fun. She was honest and innocent and as widely amusing as anyone could be.

She'd asked for nothing in return for the fact that she was slowly making people look at Slytherin differently again. The fact that she was hanging out with them, eating and studying and going to Hogsmede with them, and the fact that she even managed to convince her friends along too, had made the wizarding wold hesitate to decree all of them as evil.

The very fact that she thought it wasn't fair to blame them for the mess that had occurred had made the world change its mind. That's the kind of person she was. She'd made them all realise what it was like to be young and free from the troubles that they'd faced before.