Chapter Text
November quickly became December hostilities between the Slytherins and Gryffindors only seemed to worsen. Last year, when conflict arose between the first year Slytherins and Gryffindors, it hadn’t been a big deal. After all, first years were expected to be immature, and the older students didn’t see a reason to let themselves be pulled into petty childish drama. However, when sixth and seventh years were engaged in strife against the Gryffindors, it was considered ‘serious.’ The older students had enough respect and power to let their battles become the battles of the younger students. And while Hogwarts could hardly be called a war zone, Filch and the professors were busier than ever, giving out detentions, and trying to stop jinxes and hexes from being cast in hallways.
Of course, the older Slytherins tended to be much more sneaky than their younger counterparts. Many of them (excluding Flint and his ilk) were more likely to try and subtly sabotage the Gryffindors than to try and hex them in hallways. The result of the feud was that the atmosphere in Hogwarts felt much more antagonistic than before. The Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws kept their heads down, not wanting to get involved. Suspicious and hostile looks increased. And of course, anytime anything went wrong, the Slytherins or Gryffindors were blamed.
During this period, Harry and Callidus managed to find more opportunities to try and hex Rowle. But they quickly learned that there was no real pleasure in it when she thought it was just those ‘nasty Gryffindors.’ She never believed that she was being specifically targeted - rather, she believed she was being targeted simply because she was a Slytherin. Instead of becoming cautious and timid like Lockhart, it seemed to make her more arrogant and rude.
To Callidus, it was starting to feel pointless to even try and do anything to Rowle. It wasn’t that he felt like giving up - it was simply that he had other priorities to focus on, such as the progress of his potions projects. However, Harry was more determined than ever to try and take Rowle down. It required a personal solution, and since Callidus didn’t feel like devoting energy to the project, he told Harry that he would support him, but he preferred to use his efforts on other things.
It was early in the month of December when Callidus finally managed to create a stable and effective container for his vapourized potions. The containers weren’t perfect - if it were up to Callidus, the containers themselves would also vapourize, leaving no evidence behind. Instead, the potions containers were sturdy cylindrical vials, made of a strong inert material that had a special magical seal. Hard impact, such as throwing the vials, would cause the magical seals to activate and vapourize the potions within. It was a surprisingly simple solution, and Callidus wondered why he didn’t think of it months ago. It was fortunate that he had received help from Madam Filodoxos. That had provided the biggest clue to solve the container issue.
Knowing that he finally had the last piece of his project in place meant that the trio could finally go forward with their prank. Everything else that they had been doing in the prior months had been minor, and mostly involved embarrassing Lockhart. Now, they could finally implement a prank on a larger scale. Unfortunately, the feud between the Slytherins and Gryffindors created a very negative situation, and Callidus worried about somehow making the situation worse. If Hermione, Caiside and Ginny weren’t his friends, perhaps he wouldn’t care quite so much, but the Gryffindor girls gave him insight on the ‘other side,’ and while he would never truly be a Gryffindor sympathizer, he didn’t hate them either.
Because of this, Callidus found himself keeping updates on his project to himself. It felt strange to intentionally be vague about his progress to Harry and Draco, but the idea of a large scale prank in the current antagonistic climate made him feel troubled and uneasy. Of course, he still reported his results to Professor Slughorn, who had declared: “Brilliant! Utterly brilliant, m’boy! I knew you wouldn’t disappointment when I gave you access to that lab! You’re going to go far, mark my words. Do you plan on bringing your results to market?”
Callidus had modestly told Slughorn that he wanted to focus on his schooling, rather than expending too much effort bringing his ideas to the marketplace. He didn’t mention that he was worried about vapourized potions being abused. Slughorn may have been supportive, but he was also still a Slytherin, and Callidus preferred to keep his cards close.
If Callidus had thought it would be difficult to keep his secrets, he was soon proven wrong. Harry and Draco both seemed so preoccupied that Callidus probably could have hidden a murder victim under his bed and his friends wouldn’t have noticed. Quidditch still took up a great deal of Harry and Draco’s time and effort, but Harry’s attention also seemed to be fixated on how he could ‘bring Rowle down.’ At first, Callidus didn’t think much of it, but when he noticed Harry reading up on dark spells instead of doing homework, he began to worry. Harry seemed to be getting obsessive about vengeance against Rowle. That intensity might have served Harry well on the Quidditch pitch or when it came to mastering Transfigurations, but it didn’t strike Callidus as being healthy for Harry to be so determined to ruin the seventh year.
But when Callidus brought up his concerns to Harry, his raven-haired friend shrugged him off.
“I’m still getting my homework done,” Harry defended. “I’m not sacrificing myself just to take down Rowle. It’s just - interesting, all right? I just like thinking about how I’m going to do it.”
“In our last two Transfiguration classes, you weren’t the first to successfully make the Transfiguration,” Callidus noted.
“So?” Harry retorted. “I don’t need to be first. McGonagall hasn’t said anything.”
Callidus snorted. “No. She has just been giving you looks instead. You really think someone like McGonagall wouldn’t notice? Listen. I agree that knocking Rowle off her pedestal is important. But there are other important things to worry about as well. We’ll figure something out with Rowle. But it bothers me to see this eating you up.”
Harry huffed. “It’s not eating me up,” he grumbled. “But -” he sighed, “I guess I should focus more on school stuff.”
Harry didn’t sound to convinced, but Callidus didn’t feel like pushing him. He wasn’t like the girls where ‘mothering’ his friends came easily. If anything, Callidus didn’t want to be stuck in a role of telling his friends what to do, even if he did secretly think that he had better judgement than they did. But there was nothing to really do other than to let the matter go.
Though Callidus had finally reached success in his personal potions project, he found himself faced with new problems due to the Slytherin-Gryffindor conflict. Prior to the older students’ feud, no one had really cared that Callidus had befriended a group of Gryffindor girls. True, many Slytherins thought it was strange, and some speculated that Callidus might have unsavoury motives for spending time with the girls, but it hadn’t been a big deal.
However, after the new feud, Callidus started to receive more and more suspicious looks from both Slytherins and Gryffindors. It was reaching a point where Callidus was starting to feel uncomfortable. He wasn’t the sort of person who enjoyed attention simply for the sake of having attention. Knowing that both the Slytherins and Gryffindors were questioning his actions made him self-conscious and jumpy.
Callidus wasn’t the only one. As he sat down at the library table where Hermione, Caiside and Ginny usually sat, Ginny remarked: “Hi, Callidus. Have you been getting a whole bunch of looks and comments lately?”
Callidus twisted his lips. He wasn’t surprised by Ginny’s comment but he wasn’t pleased to hear it. “It’s been - an unfortunate turn of events.”
“That’s putting it lightly,” Caiside muttered. “I’ve heard the word ‘snake’ uttered more in the past week than I’ve heard the rest of the year.”
“Ron accused me of conspiring,” Ginny piped.
Caiside rolled her eyes. “Knowing what I know of your brother, he probably thought you were conspiring far earlier than this feud ever began. He’s a suspicious one, Ron is.”
“I thought he was a terrible person almost all of last year,” Hermione recalled. “But now that I’ve had time to think about it, I wonder if he’s just defensive. My parents always like to remind me of the merits of reason and logic, and it’s the most logical answer I’ve come up with.”
Caiside sighed. “Why must you always be so generous-minded? The point is, this situation is getting uncomfortable.”
Callidus tensed up. “Are you suggesting -”
“We’re not suggesting that we don’t want you to meet us here anymore!” Caiside quickly added, as if sensing his thoughts. “Just -”
“It might be best for us to find a new place to meet and study. Some place with more - privacy,” Hermione finished.
Ginny nodded. “Maybe then, my brothers’ll get off my case.”
“I think they’re just trying to protect you,” Hermione opined.
Ginny’s expression turned stubborn. “Do I seem like the type of person that needs protecting? I can take care of myself!”
“I know - but your brothers are probably predisposed to see you as -”
“A weakling?” Ginny questioned angrily. “Because I’m not.”
“So - where would you want to meet?” Callidus cut in, not wanting to listen to the girls bickering. “Even if we meet elsewhere, won’t people notice that we’re no longer in the library?”
Hermione sighed. “That’s true. But there’ll still be less eyes, and perhaps people will focus on other things. My parents have also told me that people often notice less than you think. It wouldn’t be accurate to assume that everyone knows what we would be up to.”
Callidus frowned. He could see that being true of Gryffindors but not of Slytherins. Nonetheless, the thought of meeting somewhere other than the library struck him as a good idea. Especially since Ginny still wasn’t very good at moderating her volume and continued to get dirty looks from Madam Pince.
“We don’t have any place in mind yet,” Caiside told him.
“But we’ve been looking!” Ginny interjected. “With place as big as Hogwarts there has to be someplace good we can meet. It’s just too bad that a lot of the empty classrooms are kept locked up.”
Caiside sighed and nodded. “And the empty ones that aren’t locked are used.”
“Have you tried Alohomora ?” Callidus asked, referring to the unlocking charm.
Hermione’s expression became uncertain. “I don’t want to have to break rules -”
“I don’t recall hearing any rules that stated that students couldn’t unlock doors,” Callidus pointed out.
“That’s true!” Ginny chimed.
“But there are rules against using spells in the halls,” Hermione noted.
“And you think the Gryffindors and Slytherins who are casting spells at each other care about that sort of thing?” Caiside questioned. “If everyone else is already casting spells, it would be foolish of us not to.”
Callidus smirked at Caiside. “How very Slytherin of you to think so.”
Caiside shrugged. “Slytherins don’t have a monopoly on cleverness. You may perceive the lot of us Gryffindors as reckless and foolish, but I believe we use it to our advantage.”
“That or Gryffindors just happen to have the luck of having Dumbledore on their side,” Callidus drawled. “Well, what do you plan in the interim? Will we continue to meet here?”
The girls nodded. “Just because we’re being accused of fraternizing with so-called ‘snakes,’ it doesn’t mean that we’d ever abandon you,” Hermione reassured him.
“Besides, Gryffindors are supposed to be brave!” Ginny declared. “And we stick by our friends.”
Callidus felt both embarrassed but pleased by the support of the girls, and Caiside, who noticed his expression, gave him an amused smile. “That we do, Ginny,” she agreed.
The group soon turned their attention to their school work, but the girls’ words continued to echo in Callidus’s mind. He never imagined himself being in a position where he'd call a group of Gryffindor his friends, and his memories of his mother had done nothing to endear him to Gryffindors as a whole. Still, now that he had befriended them, he was glad to have done so. The three girls might not have changed his opinion of Gryffindors as a whole, but they did give him a more nuanced understanding of the lions’ mindsets.
In the days that followed, the students that weren’t preoccupied with the Slytherin-Gryffindor feud began to discuss their Christmas or Yuletide plans. There was a mixture of excitement as well as anxiety in the air. After all, the issue with the Orange Madness was worse outside of Hogwarts. More than one student had received letters from home suggesting that it might be safest to remain at the school over the holidays. Callidus, however, wasn’t in this situation. Not only were the Filodoxos suggesting that he spend Yuletide with them, but Draco wanted Harry and Callidus to visit the manor over the holidays.
Callidus felt conflicted. He would have preferred to spend the holidays with Harry and Draco, but the Filodoxos had been so welcoming that he couldn’t help feeling guilty. His Slytherin side argued that staying with the Malfoys would serve his self-interests better. However, the time spend with his Gryffindor friends must have been rubbing off on him because he felt like he ought to be showing his adopted family his gratitude.
Since neither the Malfoys nor the Filodoxos demanded an immediate answer, Callidus still had time to think about the whole matter. While some part of him looked forward to the break, he mostly felt a constant gnawing of low-level anxiety as he tried to endure the Slytherin-Gryffindor hostilities, worried about assignments and examinations, and debated where to spend to his holidays.
There was one major positive in his life: since he finished his vapourized potion project, it meant that he was free to start a new project. He already knew he wanted to do something related to ‘seeing’ magic, and had already started reading everything he could find about the topic from the library. The material was, of course, scant, but he did find some information about owl-sight, as well as other tangentially related information. The new project, combined with Callidus’s desire to avoid the conflict around him, meant that he ended up spending longer hours in his lab as he lost track of time.
It was on one of these evenings that Callidus abruptly sat up from his notes, realizing that it was getting perilously close to curfew. He shook his head. If he continued such late hours, Harry and Draco would start asking questions, and Callidus wasn’t in a frame of mind to handle questions. Being around Gryffindors really must have been affecting him - thinking about not telling Harry and Draco that he had finished his friendliness potion bomb was making him feel guilty. Was there really a need for secrecy? Was he really doubting Harry’s and Draco’s intentions so much? Besides, he was in control of the potion and if he wanted, he could lower the dose substantially so that however the vapourized potion was used, the effects would be mild. With a sigh, Callidus decided he should at least tell Harry. What had he been thinking, by trying to keep the information to himself? Harry was Harry, and it was probably just paranoia that kept Callidus quiet.
Thusly decided, Callidus felt like a weight was lifted from his shoulders. He put aways his books and notes, feeling much more eager to return to the common room. If anything, he was sure that Harry would be pleased to hear that the friendliness bomb was finished, and wouldn’t have any intention of using it maliciously unlike Draco, who was loyal to his own friends, but seemed to have little to no empathy for anyone else.
Callidus slung his rucksack across his shoulder and closed the lab door. He was (perhaps foolishly) distracted as he turned a corner, and found himself face to face with a group of four fifth year Slytherins. The fifth years seemed to be loitering, and all of them looked towards Callidus when they spotted him. Their expressions as openly dark and cruel as Marcus Flint’s. A chill of foreboding ran down Callidus’s spine.
Nonetheless, they were members of his own House, so he nodded his head respectfully and attempted to pass them by.
“Hey. You. Firstie!” one of the older boys called out.
Callidus glanced towards them. There was no one else they could have been speaking to - the corridor was empty. “I’m a second year,” he corrected.
“So? Who cares. You hang out with firsties, don’t you?”
“Yeah, this is the one,” said the lone girl in the group. Her expression was just as mean as her friends, and alarms were starting to ring in Callidus’s mind. But he reminded himself that it was considered dishonourable for fellow Slytherins to hex or jinx him. What could they do? Try to ostracize him? It would be unfortunate, but Callidus was certain enough of his friendships to believe Harry and Draco would still stand by him.
“Soo,” the first, mousey-haired boy drawled. “You’re the little traitor in our midst. The one who spends his time with Gryffindors .” This last word was spat out with deep loathing. The alarms in Callidus’s mind were definitely screaming at this point.
“I apologize but I can’t stay and chat,” Callidus told the group. “My friends are expecting me back in the common room.” He turned and began to walk away, but before he even managed a few steps, he felt a hand fall upon his shoulder, holding him in place.
“I don’t think so,” the older boy declared.
Callidus looked at the boy and narrowed his eyes, determined not to let his fear show. “What do you want from me?”
“We want -” the boy began.
“No, we demand ,” the girl corrected.
The mousey-haired boy nodded. “We demand that you stop seeing those Gryffindors.”
“A snake who spends his time with lions is no true snake,” another dark-skinned boy affirmed.
“We won’t tolerate a little traitor in our midst, will we?” the girl remarked, her tone of voice filled with the promise of cruelty. “And if you keep spending time with Gryffindors, we’re going to have to do something about it.”
“We’ll make you scream like a little piggy. It’s no less than what a Gryffindor would deserve,” the last boy told him, sounding far too eager for Callidus’s liking.
“You would break the Slytherin code?” Callidus questioned with all the bravado he could muster.
“We wouldn’t have to,” the eager boy answered. “There are other ways. So many other ways.” His face broke into a hungry grin.
“And there’s no sympathy for traitors,” the mousey-haired boy pointed out.
At this point, Callidus’s self-preservation instinct began to act. He knew that his Gryffindor friends were planning a new place to meet. The wise thing to do would be to lie to the Slytherins. “I won’t meet them anymore. I was just -” Callidus paused, “- using them. For my own gain. But I see now that it’s a foolish endeavour”
The girl narrowed her eyes, making her features look almost lizard-like. “We’ll be keeping our eyes on you. In the meantime -” she pulled out her wand, and Callidus’s eyes widened with alarm. He tried to pull away, but the mousey-haired boy tightened his grip on Callidus’s shoulder. The girl touched her wand to Callidus’s temple and muttered a string of syllables that Callidus didn’t recognize. There was a faint prickly feeling from the tip of her wand, but it soon disappeared.
“What did you do?” Callidus asked, feeling panicked. “What did you curse me with?”
The group of fifth years smirked. The dark-skinned boy answered. “It wasn’t a curse. Wasn’t a jinx or hex either, so don’t assume that we’ve broken the code.”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” the mousey-haired boy told him with a mean smile before releasing him. “Now get your ugly mug out of our faces.”
Callidus frowned, but he had no desire to linger, so he quickly left. Behind him, the girl called out in a sing-song voice: “Sweet dreams, little traitor!”
The words made Callidus feel sick to his stomach.