alchemical blurb

[mswoods]

The following day, Sadde has Transfiguration in the morning.

She is all over it at lunch.

"Okay, so, Transfig is just about the coolest thing," she says first thing to the Ravenclaws as soon as she sits at the table.

Comments

[chanuphis]

"There was? What else constitutes proper Slytherin behavior?"

[mrwoods]

He starts making a list. "It's good Slytherin behaviour to have inscrutable goals; it's Proper Slytherin Behaviour to have very clear and obviously correct public goals that are not in fact your real goals. It's good Slytherin behaviour to technically-not-break-rules; it's Proper Slytherin Behaviour to not be found out while doing that; it's Extra Proper Slytherin Behaviour to be the one making the rules. It's good Slytherin behaviour to know your enemies better than your friends; it's Proper Slytherin Behaviour to never let other people think of you as their enemy no matter what you think of them." He shrugs. "There was more, but at some point I had to pay more attention to holding my giggles than to listening because this is the House that supported a Dark Lord and thinks muggles aren't people. Most of them couldn't recognise a cunning plot if it danced on the table and threw its bra at them."

[msmaxwell]

Willow snorts milk at the image and starts giggling uncontrollably.

[chanuphis]

Miranda laughs too. "Yeah, Slytherin has not been exhibiting especially Slytherin behavior in recent memory."

[mrwoods]

"Tell me about it," he says, shaking his head and offering Willow a napkin to clean up the mess. "I'm going to rescue their reputation, though! Starting with Jacob. I'm gonna teach him how to Slytherin properly. Starting by not being seen in public with me or my friends, for as long as Slytherins are stupid it's best for his image if he doesn't associate with the scummy muggleborn."

[chanuphis]

"How very magnanimous of you not to expect public shows of loyalty."

[mrwoods]

"Why, thank you," he grins.

[pleating]

"I wonder what it would be like to have a Slytherin House with a good reputation." Pause. "Where would the hat even put the evil kids?"

[mrwoods]

"Well, they'll probably be evenly divided, there's no reason why evil kids can't be Ravenclaw and Gryffindor." Beat. "Probably no Hufflepuffs though."

[pleating]

"Hufflepuffs could be evil, maybe. It would just be a weird kind of evil."

[chanuphis]

"Tight-knit, tireless conspiracies. Unethical prosocial mind magic."

[msmaxwell]

"Hufflepuffs can totally be evil," Willow says, and cackles like a mad scientist, before dissolving into more giggles.

[mrwoods]

Sadde shudders. "I'm starting to have second thoughts about my project."

[chanuphis]

"If there are Hufflepuff-type evil kids I'm not sure you can stop them by declining to save Slytherin's reputation."

[mrwoods]

"Well if right now they're all going to Slytherin because that's where the Hat defaults to putting evil kids, they might not be as effective at evil as they'd be if they went to Hufflepuff instead."

[chanuphis]

"Well, the Slytherins aren't as effective at evil as they could be because everyone's suspicious of them, so your project will be helping those ones too."

[mrwoods]

"But my project isn't just rescuing their reputation, it's restoring Salazar's legacy! The glory of old! Or some such. You know, untangling 'cunning' from 'evil.' Though I guess that'd be invariably true. Hmmm." He shrugs. "I think it's still a net good, though, if this is what the world looks like when we have witless Slytherins running the place I am definitely not impressed and need to fix it. Of course, if we do end up taking over the world then that'll be moot and just my altruistic act of the day. Or something."

[chanuphis]

"I don't think I'd describe the situation as witless Slytherins running the place. The Headmistress was a Gryffindor and the Minister of Magic was a Hufflepuff."

[mrwoods]

"Even more reason to get some actually decent Slytherins! Although I like the Headmistress, she looks competent, if a bit uptight."

[chanuphis]

"Well, you might have slow going. Maybe you should talk to the hat about your project."

[mrwoods]

"Ohh that's a good idea! You think I could do that? I wonder if the Headmistress would allow that."

[chanuphis]

"Can't hurt to ask."

[mrwoods]

"I probably should come up with some actually operational ideas before just going to the Hat and saying 'hi I wanna fix Slytherin.'"

[chanuphis]

"Well, that depends on if you think you can get to talk to it multiple times or not."

[mrwoods]

"A priori I'm not even sure Professor McGonagall would even want to let me talk to it at all, talking to it multiple times would be awesome!"