On the upside, the chaos that enveloped Slytherin had meant that the first years were in flux.
It had been expected by everyone that Malfoy would take up the mantle of command (as much as an eleven-year-old could manage).
Without the upper years to enforce that, he was having to rely on his father, which impressed no one.
Since he spent much of his time apparently injuring himself, he failed to gather the respect needed to capitalize even on his family’s power.
With the Malfoy heir failing to live up to the potential of useless lout, the Parkinson family was no longer pursuing a marriage alliance.
That, in turn, meant that the originally presumed power structure amongst the girls in the year was thrown.
It had been assumed that Pansy would take up leadership by virtue of a connection with Malfoy.
With that gone, she was no longer the rising star, nor did she have to worry about being one.
Daphne had an advantage of sorts.
She had been close friends with Tracy Davis before Hogwarts.
During their first months, Tracy had distanced herself wisely.
As a halfblood daughter of a death eater and a muggle woman, she could hardly afford the risk of being associated with Daphne and thus Harry Potter.
Once it became clear that those above them were too busy to bother with such things, she was more than happy to resume her friendship with the young woman who, in turn, was glad to have someone to share the oddness with in the hopes that it could be diluted.
She was dismayed to find that it merely seemed to increase sufficient to supply both of them.
Because of the involvement of Davis, Daphne was the only person in the year with two friends whom she could count on.
Though she was still unsure about Hari.
The complexities of Slytherin meant that power was attractive to both those with daggers and those seeking shelter therefrom.
Pansy, bereft of her position (grateful to not have to worry about being at the top) now sought protection, turning to the only member of their year with an existing alliance.
The fact that this brought her into the orbit of Hari did not make her life any less complicated.
With three of the four girls in their year aligned together, it was a natural result that Milicent would follow suit.
The boys were then faced with the problem that their nominal leader was absent or failing and half the house wouldn’t answer to him anyway.
Crabbe and Goyle had no choice but to stand by Malfoy because of their own familial responsibilities.
Nott was stuck in the unenviable position of either submitting to the matriarchy that was forming as a de facto rulership in his year, or try and rally allies—which consisted of Blaise Zabini.
The problem was that Blaise was a wildcard whose mother wasn’t English and was rich enough (because of a series of truly unfortunate accidents that happened to her succession of rich, older husbands) that he didn’t need to worry about the, as he called it, “petty, parochial fights of the Englander.” He also had no problem with female authority, given that his mother was a formidable woman able to convince a succession of men to marry her despite the tragedies that followed her around.
The politics of the first year Slytherins thusly looked something like:
Hari—outlier
Tracy Davis, Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Busltrode—ladies in waiting
Blaise Zabini—wildcard/knight
Theodore Nott—poor bastard out in the cold
Draco Malfoy—loser’s loser
Vincent Crabbe Jr.
Gregory Goyle Jr.—loser’s loser’s losers
Worryingly, Hari totally missed much of these developments.
He focused heavily on the crippling of the upper years and had done enough careful damage to destroy any chance of them having much power for at least a year.
While he did so, he hadn’t really been paying attention to his own peers.
As a result, by the time he could have noticed, he had spent several weeks in the company of four girls and sometimes Blaise and had registered it as the new normal.
His new friends, meanwhile, found that they had somehow ended up befriending someone who was currently competing with Albus-Many-Names-Dumbledore for weirdness.
Like Daphne (and Hermione) they were constantly aware that their .
.
.
friend .
.
.
was regularly violating rules of magic and was explaining how they could do so as well.
Since Daphne put up with him, so did they, and much like a fungus, he grew on them with a mix of youthful good humor and mature chicanery that reminded them of a Gryffindor .
.
.
except that he didn’t get in trouble.
“So,” said Daphne over breakfast.
“Halloween is tonight.”
He was having a bowl of dried fruit that had been rehydrated as part of cooking the rice that was also in the bowl.
“I think I read something about that.
Night of spirits where the dead walk or something, right?”
“Uh .
.
.
yes,” Pansy seemed a bit reluctant to broach the topic.
“But it’s also ‘Harry Potter Day’.”
Hari looked up.
“Wait, wait.
What?”
Pansy looked around to discover that her companions had apparently decided to allow her the joy of explaining the concept to their mercurial friend.
“People celebrate it as the day you defeated the Dark Lord.”
“Oh.
I’m still a bit lost.
I mean, it’s badass that I killed someone at eighteen months, but I’m not sure how I did it or anything.
I don’t remember it—that’s for sure.
Didn’t some of our housemates hate me for it or something?”
There was a certain amount of sheepish nodding.
“Pretty much.
But these days, everyone’s busy.” Tracy Davis looked at the other end of the table.
As usual there was a gulf between the first years and the rest of the house, occupied only by the four boys who were unaligned with anyone.
“And you’ve rather grown on us.”