Chapter Text
October 1995 - 5th Year
There’s something in the air.
Autumn has always been Winnie Spencer's favorite season.
For the last five years, Winnie had thought there was nothing better than the feeling of brisk Scottish wind as it whipped through the Hogwarts grounds around her. Cutting against the skin on her cheeks and lifting her robes. It was a tangible signal for the time she loved most. Autumn meant returning to school, reuniting with her friends, chatting by the fire, and running around the castle.
But this year the air felt different.
Nothing was the same.
Everything changed when Harry Potter brought Cedric Diggory’s dead body back after the last trial of the Tri-Wizard Tournament.
In June she’d left school along with everyone else. After Cedric’s funeral and the foreboding announcement from Professor Dumbledore that he had been murdered by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, it was clear that something was happening. Something bigger than all of them.
Winnie hadn’t realized the gravity of the situation until letters from her friends had begun to dwindle and the letters that she did receive shifted from their usual profundity of conversation to topical pleasantries and vague references to summer plans.
Daphne Greengrass was a notoriously prolific correspondent, but as June turned to July her letters became shorter and weirdly formal before there was absolutely nothing at all in them about what she was doing this summer.
Winnie had gotten a letter from Daph the first week of August that consisted of three paragraphs about the weather and then a book recommendation for a novel that Winnie had already owned, and had recommended to Daphne in the first place.
Winnie’s attempts at making plans to see Pansy were often met with half-hearted excuses before she’d finally come to terms with the fact that she had been resoundingly blown off.
It wasn’t as if all of her friends had cut her off. At least that would have been easy to understand. A clear message.
Sometimes Winnie wondered if she would prefer isolation to what she was receiving. The weird half-hearted attempts at maintaining their friendships felt worse as it became glaringly obvious that what was separating her from her friends was her blood status.
The scene on the Hogwarts Express on September 1st had been one of the most awkward experiences of Winnie’s life.
After being nearly run over by a group of incoming first years in the hallway Winnie had managed to find her friends in their usual compartment.
Theo, Blaise, Daphne, and Pansy were already all sitting inside. She’d seen them through the windows of the compartment, heads bent towards each other, deep in conversation until Winnie appeared at the door.
“Can I join you?” Winnie’d asked. Suddenly, for the first time since they’d all met as eleven-year-olds, she was hesitant. Nervous that maybe she was no longer welcome.
“Of course,” Theo had replied quickly as he nudged Blaise over, making room beside him.
Trust her boyfriend, the one she’d actually seen over the summer. And the only one to admit to her why everyone else had been acting so strange, to be the one to bring her in. To try and pretend like everything was normal.
“How were your summers?” She asked the group after a pregnant pause, glancing around at the others.
They seemed to all share a look before Daphne finally spoke up.
“Alright, nothing terribly interesting,” Daphne told Winnie with a shrug. “What about you?”
It was the shortest answer to a question that Daphne had ever given Winnie.
“I didn’t do much either, Mum and I spent a few weeks at the house in Saint-Tropez,” Winnie replied after a moment. She’d filled the conversation, no one else saying much of anything until Winnie had asked how they felt about 5th-year classes with their OWLs at the end of the year and they’d all talked about school for the rest of the train ride.
She’d never felt like she was walking on eggshells about her friends before. But there seemed to be an intangible line that she didn’t know how to cross.
The only one of them she’d actually seen that summer was Theo, and that was only when he’d been able to sneak out to see her. He was the one who’d clued her into what was happening. How pureblooded witches and wizards were being forced to reckon with the Dark Lord’s return.
And how many of her friends' parents had decided to treat the rumors of Voldemort’s return as the start of a second Wizarding War.
Even now that they were all back on Hogwarts’ grounds there was an almost palpable tension in the air. Blood supremacy was back on the rise. The hesitant acceptance of Winnie and her muggle mother had now run its course.
When Winnie had turned eleven and received her Hogwarts acceptance letter, her father had sat her down and explained the many ways her life would be harder than those of most of her classmates. And one of those ways had been due to her blood status.
Even as an eleven-year-old Winnie’s father had a feeling his precocious child would be sorted into Slytherin like himself if she got the chance.
So he had explained to her the history of the Slytherin house. The ways in which its history was built on blood superiority and outdated beliefs regarding pureblooded witches and wizards and the false idea that they ought to remain pure through intermarriage of old wizarding families.
At the time Winnie had thought it a load of hogwash. It seemed ridiculous to her that anyone could believe that kind of ignorant, hateful nonsense.
And at first, she’d thought she was right. In their adolescence, no one cared about her blood. She’d received some ignorant comments about her mother’s status as a muggle from some of her classmates, but her friends had been quick to defend her, to reassure her that they didn’t care a lick about her blood. They were friends, and friends stuck together. Always.
But things were different now.
They weren’t kids anymore. And her status as a halfblood was something they couldn’t ignore.
So Winnie had begun sharing more of her meals with Peter and Isabella. Peter Holloway and Isabella Bogan were both a year below Winnie. Fourth-year Slytherins.
They’d always been friendly. Peter was a nervous blabber (How that boy got sorted into Slytherin was still a mystery to Winnie) and Isabella had a dry sense of humor and wasn’t afraid to speak her mind but the two were inseparable. Partially by design.
They were the only muggleborns in Slytherin.
Which is why Isabella and Peter were sitting on the far end of the Slytherin table, removed from the rest of their house when Winnie walked into the Great Hall for dinner. Isabella ranted as she gestured angrily while Peter sheepishly nodded ever so often.
“What’s happened?” Winnie asked as she slid onto the bench beside Isabella.
“Fucking child abuse,” Isabella snapped as she gestured at Peter. “It’s absolutely ridiculous, Peter got detention for skipping class and Professor Umbridge made him write lines with a quill that was enchanted to carve into his skin!”
“She did what?” Winnie hissed as she grabbed Peter’s hand and inspected it herself.
“It’s nothing, really,” Peter protested.
But the angry, red scar covering the back of his hand told a different story.
“There’s no way this is legal, we need to tell a professor, Snape, or someone about this,” Winnie hissed as she ran a finger over the raised scars that now covered the back of Peter’s hand.
“You really think Snape is going to care about the proper treatment of students?” Isabella scoffed.
“We’re in his house,” Peter replied. “That’s got to count for something, right?”
Winnie sighed. She understood the hatred most non-Slytherin students held for Snape. He was cold and aloof, and often cruel to students from other houses, especially Gryffindors, but he cared about his students in his own way. At least, he cared about the Slytherins.
And he was a bloody brilliant potions master.
But punishments were a different story. Especially if they were assigned by a fellow professor. It would be hard to complain to Snape in a way that would convince him to intervene.
“If she’s doing it it's because the ministry has cleared it, the professors can’t do anything to stop her if it’s over their heads,” Isabella pointed out.
“Shit,” Winnie muttered, realizing Isabella was probably right.
Winnie’s father worked at the Ministry, she knew all about the bureaucratic insanity of that place. And her father had warned her before the school year started, just before Umbridge’s position at Hogwarts had been officially announced, that she had the Minister of Magic in her hand. And his full support of whatever she requested so long as she brought Dumbledore and Hogwarts back under control.
“What about Harry Potter’s club, would they help?” Peter asks.
“What club?” Winnie asks, brows furrowed as her gaze flicked behind Peter at the Gryffindor table.
She could immediately spot Harry Potter. Thanks to his celebrity as the “Chosen One” he was always surrounded by a flock of his fellow Gryffindors. With a Weasley on one side and Granger on the other, it didn’t matter that Potter always looked like he’d rather eat gillyweed than interact with anyone.
Even with the student body split between those who believed him and those who thought he was full of hippogriff shit thanks to his claims that You-Know-Who was back, the Gryffindors by in large worshiped the ground he walked on.
The little trio didn’t try to attract attention. But it still seemed to follow them everywhere they went. And if Winnie were being honest the Weasley twins were a far more distracting pair, they were sat a little ways further down the Gryffindor table, either regaling a small crowd with a retelling of a prank or describing a new idea, she was sure.
“Potter’s running some sort of underground Defense Against the Dark Arts practical. It’s supposed to be a secret,” Peter explained. “But I overheard some of them at the Hog’s Head during the last Hogsmeade trip.”
“And you didn’t want to share that with the group until now?” Isabella hissed.
“You always tell me I have an eavesdropping problem!” Peter complained in a low whine as he glanced at Winnie for some sort of support as Isabella’s usual berating began. “And a staring problem, and a not announcing myself when I walk into a room prob-”
“Yeah, yeah, we get it,” Isabella replies as she waves her hand dismissively, cutting him off. “It’s a problem when you do it to us, but when you hear something that might be useful… you really should tell us!”
“So how does someone join?” Winnie asks Peter curiously as she glances over at the Gryffindors again.
The next day after Transfiguration with the Gryffindors, Winnie found her chance.
Winnie awkwardly made her way up to the all-important Boy-Who-Lived.
“Hey, Potter, can I talk to you for a second?” She asked. Winnie saw the curious look that Ron Weasley gave Harry, but Harry just nodded to her and told Ron to go on without him.
“Yeah?” Harry asked as she pulled him into a quieter corridor, away from other students.
Winnie sighed, “I’m just going to cut to the chase. I heard about your Defense Against the Dark Arts club, and I was wondering if you were still accepting members.”
Harry just stares at her, forcing Winnie to realize she needs to further explain. “I have no interest in shutting you down. Actually, myself, and maybe two other Slytherins, both muggleborn would like to join. I obviously don’t want to overstep and interject us in where we’re not wanted, but we want to learn.”
She watched as Potter considered it.
They’d never really had a proper interaction before. Winnie and Harry had been paired up once or twice in Charms last year when they’d shared the class, but there wasn’t much conversation required in the throwing charms at each other, and Potter had been focused on not dying during the Tri-wizard Tournament for a majority of the year, so she assumed he didn’t recall too much of their interactions.
“We’d be happy to have you,” Harry finally said to the Slytherin with a small smile, “Next meeting is Friday night, I’ll tell Hermione to get you the information.”
“Thanks, Harry,” She replied with a small smile. “I believe you, by the way, about You-Know-Who,” She adds as an afterthought before she can help herself, as Harry starts to walk away, causing him to glance back at her and nod.
Harry made his way back to where Hermione had now joined Ron in waiting for them and told them what had happened, and that they were going to be accepting a few new members.
“Why the hell are you letting a Slytherin join?” Ron hissed in response. “We’re not going to last a bloody week before those snakes report us right to Umbridge! I’m pretty sure she’s dating the son of a bloody death eater!”
“Who’s she dating?” Harry asked, having never been particularly observant, particularly of the romantic relationships of Slytherins.
Hermione sighed, “Do you both live under a rock? She and Theodore Nott had an incredibly public and dramatic breakup in the hallway right at the beginning of the semester.”
When both boys just stared at her blankly she huffed.
“It was a huge screaming match before breakfast a few weeks ago… Seriously? Where were you?!”
“Do you two really not pay any attention to anyone but yourselves?” Hermione muttered as she began walking towards Charms.
Harry just shrugged.
“So is she looking to get back at her pureblood ex by slumming it with us?” Ron asked as he glanced back at where the witch was now chatting with a few other Slytherins in the courtyard.
The look Hermione sent him nearly made him combust on the spot.
“She’s a halfblood. Her mum’s a muggle. I don't know if her old friends were expecting her to renounce it or something. But she didn't. The breakup was nasty. Theo called her a filthy ‘you-know-what’ lover and then she hexed him.”
“I’ll catch her later when she’s alone and make sure she and the others who want to join sign the paper, but I’m pretty sure we can trust her. Okay?” Hermione told Ron with such finality that all three of them knew that the conversation was done and the decision had been made.
The D.A. would welcome Slytherin members.
The next Friday, Winnie, Peter, and Isabella all made their way to the Room of Requirement, the meeting place that Hermione Granger had told them was the headquarters for the so-called ‘Dumbledore’s Army’.
Granger had caught Winnie after Potions a few days ago and explained the agreement they were making if they signed the paper and became members.
Winnie knew a charmed parchment when she saw one. She had a feeling something nasty would happen to any of them if they decided to rat out the group. If any of Granger’s previous hexes were anything to go by it was probably a creative and complex hex that would take a professor’s help to get removed, but Winnie knew that none of them had any interest in doing so.
So they’d signed and Granger gave them each a charmed galleon that she explained would update with the time for each meeting.
The three Slytherins made their way through the door into the Room of Requirement to find most of the group already there. It was a good mix of houses. Mostly Gryffindors, but plenty of Hufflepuffs too, and a few Ravenclaws.
They were the only Slytherins.
And the room fell deathly silent when everyone noticed their presence.
“What the hell are they doing here?” A voice asked harshly from the back of the group. Though Winnie couldn’t tell who had said it specifically, she was pretty sure it was one of the Hufflepuff boys.
“Slytherins? You’re letting Slytherins join DA? You might as well just send our meeting information straight to Umbridge!”
“Why’d you swear us to secrecy if you were just going to let a bunch of known death eater sympathizers in?”
“They’re probably Umbridge’s Spies!”
“Hey!” Harry shouted as he tried to quiet the dissenters.
“You all don’t have a monopoly on hating Umbridge,” Winnie hissed as she addressed the group. “Do you really think the Slytherin robes disqualify us from being discriminated against? That our housemates let our differences go so we can all sing kumbaya in the common room?”
“They hate us even more because we tarnish their pureblood house,” Isabella added.
“Listen, if any of you have a problem with Peter, Isabella, or Winnie joining, you can bring it up with me, I asked them to come,” Harry told the room, silencing the whispers around them.
“Or me,” Hermione piped up. “They’re here the same as all of you. To learn. End of discussion. If you don’t like it you don’t have to stay.”
Winnie shot her an appreciative smile as everyone seemed to accept Hermione’s statement as the end of the discussion.
“Now let’s get started,” Potter said, clapping his hands together. “Pair up, we’re going to keep working on disarming.”
As everyone pairs off, the Weasley twins sauntered over to Winnie.
“Alright, Spencer?” One of them asked. Lord only knows how she’s supposed to tell which is which when they’re completely identical.
“Weasleys,” She greeted them with a stiff nod. Trying to figure out why the Seventh-year boys wanted to speak with her specifically.
“We wanted to give you a proper welcome to the club since everyone else was a tad bit frosty,” The other twin replied.
“Yeah, we are thrilled to have a few Slytherins joining the ranks. Reckon you can give us the inside scoop on your housemate’s weaknesses? Like, is Malfoy afraid of the dark? Or maybe product-free hair?” The first twin added.
“Does he have a lucky rabbit’s foot he keeps in his pocket that we could steal off him?” The other twin continued.
“Sod off,” Winnie scoffed.
“But then you wouldn’t have a partner,” They pointed out in unison.
Winnie glanced around to see the pairs forming. Peter and Isabella are already grouped together. No one else so much as glanced over at her, causing Winnie to realize finding someone willing to work with her would be an issue.
“Aren’t you two connected via umbilical cord? What do you need with a partner?” Winnie asked, her brow furrowing.
“Fortunately we are not, that would make getting up to proper mischief much more difficult,” One of the twins replied as he smirked down at her.
“Freddie’s already partnered up with Lee so I also find myself in need of a partner,” The other said. Meaning it’s George that’s speaking to her.
“Are you sure you don’t want to find a partner who isn’t in cahoots with the enemy?” Winnie asked. She doesn’t love the idea that a Weasley of all people is taking pity on her.
“Where’s the fun in that?” He asked.
“Fine,” Winnie huffed. “You can be my partner.”
“Oh, thank you, Your Majesty, for blessing me with the privilege and honor,” George replied sarcastically as he bows to her deeply.
Fred returns to where Lee Jordan is standing and the pair begin loudly practicing their disarming spells in horrible French accents.
Meanwhile, Winnie puts a good ten feet between her and George Weasley.
“No offense to Potter or anything, but doesn’t every second-year learn to disarm?” Winnie asked once the two of them are a proper distance apart and Winnie is facing George again.
“You’d think, but I guess a few of the Defense teachers in the last few years have left it off,” George replied. “Plus you have to get used to using it on someone who’s expecting it.”
“Huh,” Winnie replied as she gets into the dueling stance her father had taught her.
“Expelliarmus!” She shouted as she threw her wand arm out.
“Protego,” George cast at practically the same time, easily deflecting the charm.
“Is that the best you’ve got, Spencer?” George taunted her as he waves his wand at her. “I thought you Slytherins were supposed to be cunning.”
Winnie huffed in annoyance.
“Just keep going,” She told him as she readies herself for his attempt.
“Fine,” George replied casually. “Expelliarmus!”
“Protego!” Winnie casts at the exact same time.
The pair go back and forth, neither one being able to catch the other out no matter how quickly they begin to alternate who’s disarming and who’s defending.
“I need a break,” Winnie finally said. Breathing heavily as she pulled her hair off her neck and over her shoulder. She’d never realized that spellwork could be so physically taxing, let alone that you could break a sweat over something that didn’t usually require much physicality at all.
And they’re evenly matched. She and George. Neither one has been able to outmaneuver the other.
“C’mon, admit defeat and I’ll let you take a water break,” George cajoled her.
“Defeat?” Winnie questioned, her left eyebrow arching up. “If anything it’s a draw.”
“C’mon, you’re used to it,” George continued. “Slytherins lose all the time!”
“Expelliarmus!” She shouted before George could fully finish his insult.
George tried to raise his wand to defend himself from her attack but he was already too late. By the time his wand hand was outstretched his wand itself was on the floor halfway across the room.
“Finally,” George said with a grin as he went to grab his wand off the ground. “I knew you had it in you.”
“Are you seriously going to pretend you let me beat you?” Winnie hissed in disbelief at his audacity.
“Of course not,” George replied calmly.
“But I did manage to rile you up enough that you actually landed your spell,” He told her with a shrug. “So you’re welcome.”
Winnie simply stared at him in disbelief. She’d never met someone so ridiculously infuriating in her entire life.
“Good work today, Spencer, see you next week,” George added with a smirk as he patted her on the shoulder before moving to rejoin his brother and Lee across the room.
“Looked like you and Weasley were having fun,” Peter teases as Winnie finally moves over to where he and Isabella are waiting for her.
“I hate him,” Winnie grumbled.
“Professor Snape?” Winnie asked softly as she knocked on his office door.
Winnie honestly didn’t love the dungeons, she’d always wondered why on earth Salazaar Slytherin had actively chosen to place his house in the recesses of the castle, where the criminals would have been held. But she supposed he was an odd man and maybe there hadn’t been some logical reason for it.
Either way, it did mean that finding Professor Snape was easy. He spent most of the time he wasn’t teaching holed away in his office so it was a quick walk from the dorms to find him.
“Miss Spencer,” Snape greeted her with the tone of cool indifference she had come to appreciate from her Head of House. “How can I help you?”
“I was hoping to speak to you about the recent developments regarding the staff here at Hogwarts,” Winnie explained hesitantly. Her father had tried to assure her that her secret would be safe, that she could trust her teachers with her secret and didn’t need to worry about it getting out.
But with the continued rumors about Umbridge’s…uncouth detentions Winnie couldn't help but worry.
“Professor Umbridge, you mean,” Snape replied.
“Well, yes,” Winnie said. “She’s doing quite a bit of poking around, Professor, what if…”
“That woman is a menace,” Snape sneered. “But I can assure you that Professor Dumbledore, Madam Pomfrey, and I are more than capable of ensuring that the specifics of your health issues remain private.”
“Right, of course,” Winnie said with a quick nod.
“Even a ministry official can’t supersede doctor-patient confidentiality,” Snape reminded her.
“What about your friends, are you worried one of them might suspect, and could tell her?” He asked.
“No, no,” Winnie replied quickly. “No one else knows,” She told her Head of House.
Of course, there’s one person who knows. But Winnie just has to hope and pray that their agreement to keep this secret would continue to hold. Despite everything.