Turned on End (Slytherin gen) *repost*

[storypaint]

Comm: 50fantastic
Words: 495
Title: Turned On End
Prompt: 13. Harry Potter, Slytherin Tower - When everyone woke up, things were...different.
Written for: amarin_rose
Genre: somewhat angsty gen
Rating/Warnings: G, no warnings
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Note: EXTREMELY Jossed by Book 7 because I wrote this last November.

Excerpt: They had all anticipated this happening, even as they declared that it wouldn't. The spell was broken. Voldemort was gone.

When everyone woke up, things were different. The younger ones couldn't put a finger on it, but the older ones were grim. They had all anticipated this happening, even as they declared that it wouldn't.

The spell was broken. Voldemort was gone.

The owls that came in over breakfast were more of a flock than usual. They waited to reopen the school until they were certain that Voldemort had left England (of course, Harry Potter was on his heels, but in Slytherin Tower he wasn't someone they talked about). The year had been half-over, and barely half of the students had returned, especially since said Harry Potter was gone. He had helped a lot of the students feel safe, sensibly or not.

The Slytherins had returned, almost all of them, because to be absent was conspicious. People would talk, perhaps inquiries would be made, and many of the Slytherin families had things that, although swept under the rug, made a noticable hump there.

For a few short weeks, they had been running the school behind the scenes, because McGonagall couldn't be everywhere, not the way that Dumbledore was, but there was something strange in the air and the news flew in on owl's wings.

The first to stand and announce it was a first-year Hufflepuff whose father was in the Ministry. His mother wrote him every day without fail, and he had read her letter (moving his lips, even) and then it had dropped from his hands and he had stood and yelled.

"Voldemort is defeated! We're all safe again!"

Immediately some of the other tables had erupted into cheers. The Slytherins stared down at the letters on their plates with sullen rage. This wasn't how things were supposed to be. It wasn't! Why wasn't the world working properly?

The envelopes were plain white, with no hint of personality, most of them; a few were stained, with shaky writing, but most of their parents hadn't a chance to get a letter out, and the Ministry had written for them, form letters mostly

Mr. and Mrs... currently in custody... charged with conspiring to commit... Azkaban... seen with the Dark Lord... Arrangements will be made...

Of course, there were a few breathing sighs of relief-- those whose parents weren't caught, those whose parents had done nothing (because ambition drove Slytherins, but not necessarily evil).

By instinct the older ones looked to a place at the table always left absent, but Harry Potter had not returned to Hogwarts, and neither had Draco Malfoy.

The final battle had been fought halfway around the world in America, and Voldemort wasn't coming back to Britain triumphantly. Harry Potter wasn't coming back either, except in a box, but the death of the Dark Lord seemed much more important in context. While they all slept, the final spells had been cast, the final words said, the last hope of a pureblood wizarding world vanquished.

And when they had woken up, things were different.