began to notice that Muggleborns weren't any different. Now it's a big political issue instead of something that everyone just believes without thinking about it. And the correct answer is that Muggleborns aren't any weaker than purebloods. So now the people who end up siding with what Salazar once believed, are either people who grew up in very closed pureblood environments like you, or people who are so pathetic themselves that they're desperate for someone to feel superior to, people who love to hate."
"That doesn't... that doesn't sound right..." Draco's voice said. His ears listened, and wondered that he couldn't come up with anything better to say.
"It doesn't? Draco, you know now there's nothing wrong with Hermione Granger. You had trouble dropping her off a roof, I hear. Even though you knew she'd taken a Feather-Falling Potion, even though you knew she was safe. What sort of person do you think wants to kill her, not for any wrong she did to them, just because she's a Muggleborn? Even though she's, she's just a young girl who would help them with their homework in a second, if they ever asked her," Harry's voice broke, "what sort of person wants her to die?"
Father -
Draco felt split in two, he seemed to be having a problem with dual vision, Granger is a mudblood, she should die and a girl hanging from his hand on the rooftop, like seeing double, seeing double -
"And anyone who doesn't want Hermione Granger to die, won't want to hang around the sort of people who do! That's all people think Slytherin is now, not clever planning, not trying to achieve greatness, just hating Muggleborns! I paid Morag a Sickle to ask Padma why she hadn't gone to Slytherin, we both know she got the option. And Morag told me that Padma just gave her a look and said that she wasn't Pansy Parkinson. You see? The best students with the virtues of more than one House, the students with choices, they go under the Hat thinking anywhere but Slytherin, and someone like Padma ends up in Ravenclaw. And... I think the Sorting Hat tries to maintain a balance in the Sorting, so it fills out the ranks of Slytherin with anyone who isn't repelled by all the hatred. So instead of Padma Patil, Slytherin gets Pansy Parkinson. She's not very cunning, and she's not very ambitious, but she's the sort of person who doesn't mind what Slytherin is turning into. And the more Padmas go to Ravenclaw and the more Pansies go to Slytherin, the more the process accelerates. It's destroying Slytherin House, Draco!"
It had a ring of awful truth, Padma had belonged in Slytherin... and instead Slytherin got Pansy... Father rallied lesser families like the Parkinsons because they were convenient sources of support, but Father hadn't realized the consequences of associating Slytherin's name with them...
"I can't -" Draco said, but he wasn't even sure what he couldn't do - "What do you want from me?"
"I'm not sure how to heal Slytherin House," Harry said slowly. "But I know it's something you and I will end up having to do. It took centuries for science to dawn over the Muggle world, it only happened slowly, but the stronger science got, the further that sort of hatred retreated." Harry's voice was quiet, now. "I don't know exactly why it worked that way, but that's how it happened historically. As though there's something in science like the shine of the Patronus Charm, driving back all sorts of darkness and madness, not right away, but it seems to follow wherever science goes. The Enlightenment, that was what it was called in the Muggle world. It has something to do with seeking the truth, I think... with being able to change your mind from what you grew up believing... with thinking logically, realizing that there's no reason to hate someone because their skin is a different color, just like there's no reason to hate Hermione Granger... or maybe there's something to it that even I don't understand. But the Enlightenment is something that you and I belong to now, both of us. Fixing Slytherin House is just one of the things we have to do."
"Let me think," Draco said, his voice coming out in something of a croak, "please," and he rested his head in his hands, and thought.
Draco thought for a while, with his palms over his eyes to shut out the world, no sound but his and Harry's breathing. All the persuasive reasonableness of what Harry said, the evident grains of truth that it contained; and against that, the obvious, the perfectly and entirely obvious hypothesis about what was really going on...
After a time, Draco finally raised his head.
"It sounds right," Draco said quietly.
A huge smile broke out on Harry's face.
"So," Draco continued, "is this where you bring me to Dumbledore, to make it official?"
He kept his voice very casual as he said it.
"Oh, yeah," Harry said. "That was the thing I was going to ask you about, actually -"
Draco's blood froze in his veins, froze solid and shattered -
"Professor Quirrell said something to me that got me thinking, and, well, no matter how you answer this question, I'm already stupid for having not asked you a lot earlier. Everyone in Gryffindor thinks Dumbledore is a saint, the Hufflepuffs think he's crazy, the Ravenclaws are all proud of themselves for having worked out that he's only pretending to be crazy, but I never asked anyone in Slytherin. I'm supposed to know better than to make that sort of mistake. But if even you think Dumbledore's okay to conspire with on fixing Slytherin House, I guess I didn't miss anything important."
...
...
...
"You know," Draco said, his voice remarkably calm, all things considered, "every time I wonder if you do things like this just to annoy me, I tell myself that it has to be accidental, no one could possibly do this sort of thing on purpose even if they tried until blood trickled out of their ears. That's the only reason I'm not going to strangle you now."
"Huh?"
And then strangle himself, because Harry had grown up with Muggles, and then Dumbledore had smoothly diverted him from Slytherin to Ravenclaw, so it was perfectly
