Serpent Gals - Slytherin HP AU Fanfiction

Prologue

"The password?"

"Tenebris serpens."

"You may pass."

The stone from beneath her hand slid open. Arwyn, taking another look around to make sure no one was watching and slipped in, the secret door to the dungeon sliding back into the wall behind her.

"Welcome back, Ar," Pamela's silvery voice sounded through the shadows of the dungeon, contrasted well with all things green-glow. Arwyn could even see Pamela's poofy spirals of dark hair outlined by the emerald light somewhere farther off.

Ar sighed with relief. The sure, confident, somewhat sexy posture she confined herself into wore off as soon as she could smell the homey, pine scent of the Slytherin Dungeon.

Before even taking another step, her hands reached behind her head to do what she had dreamed of doing all day - to reach behind her head and remove the various hair-pins and hair clips biting into her hair to form something that looked like a folded ponytail or a messy bun. Only after freeing her hair from the what she called 'the classy out-of-your-league hairdo ' did she strode over to Pam, who sat in a cozy green armchair, the runology textbook spread out on her lap.

"Hi Pam," She said quietly, sitting down as Pam shuffled to the side to let her sit.

"You've lost one," Pam said suddenly, fishing out a small hairpin in the shape of a silver snake with little emeralds for eyes out of her pocket. "It lay on your desk in Charms class. "

"Thanks," Arwyn felt the familiar urge to supress the smile that crawled on her lips. After so much time she still couldn't get used to the fact that it was okay, but only at certain times, in a certain dungeon illuminated by the depths of the lake by Hogwarts.

Arwyn put the pin into the cluster locked in her fist, and shuffled, leaning back in the seat. The thick window, seaweed speckling the corners, shone the turquoise light of the lake on their faces.

"It's hard sometimes," Ar said quietly.

Pam lay her head on her shoulder.

"It is." She answered just as quietly. "But we'll manage." Arwyn saw her hand squeeze gently into a fist.

"We will."

----

Arwyn remembered the Sorting Ceremony. Dressed in a gown a bit too long for her short figure, she tripped over the stairs when her name was called. But she barely noticed. Back then it seemed to her she was made out of two things; awkward and nervous. That was it. That was her character. In her hometown of Crickhowell she was known as the girl who never talks and seems to try to hide in her hair all the time as well as clothes. She actually chose the oversized gown she was now tripping over because she felt safer in it.

And now she walked up those stairs, knowing that her life stood on a crossway of four directions. It's okay, she comforted herself, there's only one way in front of me. Its sure, its straight, its a road towards the stable, quiet life...

The quiet simple life. She hated it. Maybe that's why she hated life in general. Arwyn felt like a grain of sand lost in the sand, meaningless, ignited ash flying upwards doomed to burn out.

But with a muggle father and a pureblood mother that could count at least twelve generations of Hufflepuffs there was only one way.

She sat in the chair and awaited for life to throw her into the oblivion she knew she'd spend her life in.

That's why the words Slytherin, a rough sound over her head and the roar of the crowd with robes rimmed in green seemed distant and far off. She felt herself collapsing into a dream. Slytherin? Slytherin? The house of the feared and revered serpents? The breath that she took was stuck in her throat. Was she really a serpent?

Afterwards she could never remember how she got up, only remembered standing straight, in front of the largest room she'd ever seen and feeling like the world was handed to her.

A memory almost as vivid was that of the first time she saw the dungeon. It was the antonym of the place she'd called home, the small sunny cottage at the edge of a little town. The magnificent, stern room that stood with quiet dignity before Arwyn was the definition of grand, with its high ceiling and tapestries hung around.

The house prefect, Gaia, gathered them in the center and stepped up onto the table.

"Welcome to Slytherin," Her voice echoed against the silence. "Some of you may have been expecting to find themselves here, others might have been surprised. Whatever is the case, if you were sorted in here, you harbour reatness somewhere within you."

She gave a meaningful pause.

"As so many of you know, Slytherin has a long and proud history. Some of the greatest wizards and witches to walk on this earth have spent in these dormitories seven years of their lives, learning the serpent's values. Yet in the light of recent events, the serpent had become associated with hostility, pure-blood elitists, followers of Voldemort, even murderers...Our name has been tarnished. Tarnished in blood and tarnished in mud."

Arwyn saw Gaia's hand ball into a fist as if she wanted to fix all of the bad reputations of her house.

"We must now work to clear this name. As your prefect, I will make sure that by the end of this year the other houses know that Slytherin is a force to be reckoned with... But not in blood."

She finished her long monologue with a talk about schedules. Arwyn listened with half an ear, from one side wanting to know everything she needed not to get lost on her first day, from the other side unable to tear herself away from one thought.

After Gaia dismissed them, Arwyn chose a cozy bed by the window, dumped her belongings and ran down the stairs back into the common room, tripping about three times before she reached the bottom.

And Gaia really was where Ar presumed she would be, quietly talking with a couple of older Slytherins by the windows that emitted that strange blue-and-green light.

The sight of them almost froze her in her tracks as she felt her familiar, too familiar fear creep into her chest.

But this time it was different.

Her hands rolled into fists. She scrapped up every miniscule piece of courage from her body. If the hat sorted me this way, I will not be afraid.

Arwyn marched up to Gaia. By the way the Slytherin prefect and the others stopped talking and looked at her, she must have looked red as a beet, but she wasn't about to stop when she already went so far.

"Miss Gaia, can I ask you a question?" Arwyn tried to make her voice sure and confident but it came out cracked and squeaky.

"Go ahead," She replies after a short silence that to Arwyn seemed a decade.

"I want to help Slytherin. What can I do?"