A/N: This is the first chapter of a series of oneshots about the Slytherins in Harry's year. There is no particular pattern or order; they're just posted when I write them. Anyway, here's the first, monstrously long, oneshot, about Theodore Nott.

I love Theodore Nott, because we know nothing about him except for that he's Slytherin and according to JK Rowling, is a 'clever loner'. That is enough to get me interested in him, and as I've always imagined him somewhat neutral, I finally got a good enough idea to express his personality.

Disclaimer: The Slytherins aren't evil people. I think that's enough for me to say.

Refraining from Standing

I remember my experience with the Sorting Hat. It wasn't mind blowing or awe inspiring or epiphany inducing. Yet, I still remember the exact words the Sorting Hat said to me before sorting me into Slytherin.

"You're a Slytherin through and through. But after recent history, I'm not surprised. You're a Death Eater's son, after all. Hope you're not one of the many who'll be lost to him."

And as I took of the Hat and walked to the Slytherin table where the already sorted first years were sitting, mostly kids I had known for a while: Draco Malfoy, Gregory Goyle, Vincent Crabbe, Daphne Greengrass, Millicent Bulstrode, and Tracy Davis. I had no doubt Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini would soon join our ranks.

You're a Slytherin through and through.

That was the first thing the Sorting Hat had said to me, quashing my hopes of being surprised by my sorting, not that I thought I'd get one.

Recent history…Part of the second. Rather obvious euphemism. Why's he surprised I'm Slytherin because of the Dark Lord Voldemort?

You're a Death Eater's son, after all. The third sentence, the label I've always been known as; a Death Eater's son. It seemed to me to fit Crabbe and Goyle and Malfoy more than it did me.

Hope you're not one of the many who'll be lost to him. I had to wonder if he'd said that to kids he'd sorted into Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Gryffindor, kids who weren't A Death Eater's Son. I doubted it. Did A Death Eater's Son (or daughter) inherit evil and supporting Voldemort? If so, where did the original Death Eaters get it? From being in Slytherin House?

Not that it wasn't all lies, I had thought when I glanced at Draco. He certainly supported the assumption.

I looked at the current first year at the Sorting Hat. Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.

Though he was there for a minute, he still became a Gryffindor. Of course.

You're a Slytherin through and through…

A Death Eater's son, after all…

Who'll be lost to him…

Slytherin through and through

Who'll be lost to him, after all…

A Death Eater who'll be lost to him…

A Slytherin who'll be lost to him…

You're a Death Eater's son, a Slytherin through and through…

Death Eater through and through…

You're a Death Eater, through and through…

No.

You're a Death Eater, through and through.

No. No.

The words were getting twisted inside my head, but they were a sort of twisted truth, patched together in a mind's ramblings but real. Was that what the Sorting Hat had meant?

My gaze skimmed over where the professors were sitting, then wandered over to where Professor McGonagall was standing calling out names to be sorted. But her eyes weren't on the parchment; they were inspecting. Inspecting the students. Inspecting…inspecting Slytherin.

I saw distrust in her eyes, I saw suspicion. I saw feelings of repulse and hate and disgust.

Distrust and suspicion and repulse and hate and disgust for eleven year olds that just happened to be sorted into Slytherin.

For Death Eater's Sons and Death Eater's Daughters.

And her kind wondered why we despised them.

But I'd been told about McGonagall. Strict, appreciated those with good grades. Maybe I'd try a lot for my first year, and she might see I didn't need to be distrusted and suspected and repulsive and hated and disgusting. I could be a smart and cunning and ambitious; a Slytherin.

I went through with it, simply because it was the only thing to do that whole year. Draco was Draco: an arrogant, annoying git. I could tell Pansy was clever, but she hid it too much under the girly, gossipy side so she could be with Draco and thus let her parents get in closer with the Malfoys. Goyle had about a fifth of a brain cell in his whole head. (Actually, I wasn't sure about this. He did seem to have a thinking expression quite a lot, so he actually may have preferred to let us think that and laugh at us in his head for doing so. I wouldn't have been surprised; he's a Slytherin, after all.)Vincent actually was average in intelligence but weak in will and was more of the servile type. Millicent held everything behind a fighting and wrestling stance; Daphne and Tracey just watched and exchanged words only with each other. Blaise switched groups and friends daily and just wasn't worth it; he also loved dramatics a bit too much for me. Sally-Anne Perks cunningly held her true personality behind a veer of friendly perkiness, just as her surname suggested. Though I knew it was a fake, she was so good at it I could barely stand to be near her. Mix it in with the fact I was also pretty quiet and preferred to speculate instead of talk, and the result was nothing to do but see if I what I could do would change McGonagall's thoughts.

So that whole year, I behaved like a Ravenclaw, or to put it more accurately for recent occurrences, like the Gryffindor Hermione Granger, but even swottier.

Every paper I got back received an O or an E, and Draco coined me the Slytherin Granger, though it only really caught on with Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle. My other fellow Slytherins had noticed a thick History of Magic book in my trunk and figured some sort of charm had been put on it to disguise what it really was; they were right and decided not to go too far in insulting me in any way, and so decided not to call me the Slytherin Granger. When Draco got two buck teeth just like Granger's from a potion in his pumpkin juice one morning, he had no evidence to blame me, though my classmates besides Pansy and Draco's cronies all chuckled behind his back.

At the end of my first year, I earned O's on all of my exams. I felt certain this might have changed McGonagall's opinion of me, a Slytherin.

Then one Saturday, while every other student was enjoying their free time outside, I was stalking the Hogwarts corridors for no reason at all, when I saw the door to a teacher's office slightly ajar – it was McGonagall's. From the squeaky voice also speaking in there, I guessed she was in the middle of a conversation with Professor Flitwick.

"And what of the Slytherin Firsties?" I heard Flitwick squeak.

"Nearly everyone is the child of a Death Eater," McGonagall replied, her voice low and husky. "Draco, Lucius's son, Pansy, daughter of the Parkinsons, Vincent and Gregory, sons of the Crabbes and Goyles…Blaise Zabini's family is neutral, but closer to support of You-Know-Who…The Greengrasses recently turned neutral, as did the Davises. The Perkses are Dark, as are the Bulstrodes. The Notts are also Dark. I've decided to pay special attention to Draco and Theodore – their fathers were part of You-Know-Who's inner circle…"

I froze.

"That Theodore Nott has quite good grades," Flitwick put in. "He learns quickly."

"Just what You-Know-Who would have wanted."

I could almost hear suspicion dripping of McGonagall's tongue.

"Something about it seems wrong, Filius," McGonagall said. "Those grades just don't seem natural. What's he trying to do – attempting to convince me he's not Dark and neither is his family? He's fighting a losing battle."

She knew what I was doing, though she'd gotten some of it wrong. But she thought I was Dark trying to convince her I wasn't; she was seeing through prejudice colored glasses.

I left Hogwarts that year angry and disillusioned. Maybe that was why I just stood off to the side and watched while Draco and his gang bullied McGonagall's precious Light Gryffindors, and remembered when my father, laughing after having several empty bottles of Ogden's Firewhiskey lined up on the table, had told me about how the Ministry twits carted Sirius Black off to Azkaban instead of Peter Pettigrew, who had been a Gryffindor.

The Slytherin Heir had to be evil, no matter what their intentions and motivations that lie hidden were.

Or so Hogwarts's students and teachers said, besides the Slytherins, of course. They all quaked in fear, as one student after another turned up petrified, supposedly from the monster that Salazar Slytherin placed in the Chamber of Secrets.

Yet I wondered what would have been happing if these rumors were of any other House Heir besides Slytherin. A Hufflepuff heir would have a bit of derision directed toward them – Who would want to be the heir of the woman who founded a house for slow plodding duffers, the students would say. But under it there would be a certain amount of admiration and respect for an heir of a Hogwarts founder, even if it was Helga Hufflepuff.

There would be rather high expectations for Rowena Ravenclaw's hair. Everyone would expect him or her to be somewhat of a genius, as Ravenclaw was renowned for her intelligence and wit. They would be respected and admired, especially among their fellow Ravenclaws. It would be somewhat of a small awe surrounding them throughout their Hogwarts year.

Godric Gryffindor's heir, on the other hand...students and teachers would go wild. They'd be famous and followed for all of their Hogwarts years, and have more fame than any other heir among the wizarding world. They'd be expected to be brave and smart and warm and kind...you get the image. Even if they weren't all of that, everyone would think they were because they'd just be so awed. Gryffindor's heir would be loved, because they were the heir of Gryffindor.

Oh, but the heir of the infamous Salazar Slytherin…only two words would describe that. Hated and feared. Of course, Slytherin's heir would be cruel, mean, cold, arrogant, evil, a muggleborn hater, a Dark witch or wizard…the possibilities went on. Anything negative and of course the heir of Slytherin would have to be it. Admiration and respect? You must be joking, unless you mean by the other evil witches and wizards.

Call my thinking bollocks, but I saw something that didn't fit in that.

All that year, as I walked along the corridors, students from other houses gave me suspicious looks, not that I wasn't used to that already, being a Slytherin. But these suspecting looks had an undertone of horror, after students starting turning up petrified. Eventually they all became directed toward Harry Potter, but I still got some my way every once in a while.

I knew he wasn't, but I was in favor of Potter being the heir, just for the reaction because he was a Gryffindor and not a Slytherin. The wizarding world would be in turmoil just because of houses at a magical school in Scotland.

Most of second year passed as I thought about these supposed reactions and once again shook my head at how Slytherin was so different from the others, and ignored the suspicious glares.

Then Penelope Clearwater became petrified.

That, in itself, wasn't much of a surprise. She was muggleborn, after all, and petrified along with Granger, another muggleborn.

Then there was Daniel Clearwater, younger brother of Penelope Clearwater, second year in Hufflepuff, very close to his sister and, like most muggleborns, with a very strong belief of the Slytherin stereotype.

I'd been wandering around with no place in mind to go; at the time I was near the infirmary, trying to decide if I should get lost by going off to the right or to the left. After some speculation, I set my sights on wandering around lost at the left when Daniel ran out of the infirmary, positively desperate to strangle Slytherin's heir, whether it be with magic or brute force. He had to do it now, and no other time would suffice.

And just some random Slytherin – in the house of Slytherin whose heir was causing all this trouble – hanging outside the infirmary was sufficient enough as a replacement for a short while.

"You petrified Penny!" he shouted as he hurtled toward me, his tear streaked, wet cheeks a rapidly darkening red. "You're going to pay, you wicked Slytherin, you're going to pay for killing my sister!"

I had always concentrated on my intelligence and magic, not my strength. From what I heard, Daniel had come from a sports family and played in many muggle sports. Add in the fact he was also burly and I was weedy, and one could infer that I got throttled in a few minutes.

"That'll teach you to mess with 'mudbloods'," Daniel hissed as he walked away and left me on the floor with several bruises, cuts, scrapes, and any other noun that applies to what you get when you're beat up.

Call me very selfish and grudge-bearing, but after that I didn't feel quite so sorry for the victimized muggleborns.

By my third year, I concluded that there were Old Slytherins and there were New Slytherins.

Old Slytherins were the ones Salazar Slytherin had thought of when he had created his house: subtle, cunning, ambitious, intelligent, observant, and persuasive. They didn't try to draw attention to themselves, but watched instead, looking for good opportunities to gain power, to manipulate, to accomplish.

New Slytherins were the people Slytherin House was now filling up with, the type that everyone else now thought Slytherins always had been and what Salazar Slytherin was. They spouted pureblood philosophy because they believed that was what Slytherin would like. They were Voldemort supporters. They were unsubtle and lazy, bloated from their wealth and thinking themselves deserving of everything good in life.

Their poster boy was Draco Malfoy.

One day, while Draco, Vincent, and Gregory were in detention, I herded Daphne, Pansy, Tracey, Blaise, Sally-Anne, and Millicent into the boys dormitory.

"Aren't you all worried about our house's reputation?" I began, pacing from side to side. "Years ago, we were known as the cunning and ambitious ones. Now we're known as evil in every way. We're hated, loathed, despised, suspected, and gossiped about. And certain Slytherins don't do much to discourage the stereotype."

Ever the cool, unfazed one outside of the perky mask she used outside of the Slytherin common room, Sally-Anne raised her eyebrows. "Be that as it may," she said softly, using the same talent that Snape used to speak quietly yet get everyone to listen to her, "as destructive as this prejudice is, we are feared yet respected for it. They are wary of us, and for good reason. As long as we know who we are, it doesn't matter what they think." She rose and dipped her head. "I feel I have made my point. If you excuse me, I have a Transfiguration essay to write." She gave her icy cool trademark smile and walked out. It always somewhat frightened me how she transitioned easily from a perky, annoying girl in our lessons and among the other students to an icy, almost psychically observant Slytherin in the common room; I had expected this reaction from her, though.

Tracey stood. "I understand you completely, Theo," she said, head held high, "as I'm muggleborn yet supposed to hate my own kind because I'm Slytherin. However, I feel this cause would be better achieved outside or after Hogwarts. But what you say makes quite a point."

"I agree somewhat with Tracey," said Daphne, as she got up. "But I feel it could be very well accomplished here, where most of Wizarding Britain's citizens are schooled. Here they will be more convinced to change their ways, which makes them more susceptible to our persuasion. However, we have stone blocks in front of us – the teachers. They are set in their ways and can manage to find out everything. With them here, your plan would be nigh impossible." She and Tracey left the dorms together.

Now Pansy rose. "You know my family's plans," she said in an apologetic tone which she never used outside of the common room. "And I know who you're directing much of this at. It could never work out for me; Draco treats me more as an object who can simper over him than a witch with opinions he could do well to listen to. The Gryffindors already think I'm an ugly, cruel hearted slut, and they hold sway over many opinions here at Hogwarts. Sorry, Theo," she finished with, and walked out.

By now, only Blaise and Millicent were left. Angular, square jawed Millicent stood up and flicked strands of her short, choppy dark hair out of her eyes. "We all know they think I'm an ugly, dumb brute who only knows of wrestling," Millicent muttered. "If I tried to reason with them about Slytherin prejudice, they would think I was taught how to speak." Shaking her head, Millicent strode out.

I sighed and sat on my bed as Blaise sat on his. "That didn't do much, did it?" I muttered.

Blaise shrugged. "Don't worry about it," he said. "They still respect us and fear us, and at least that's an ounce of knowing what a true Slytherin is. One day some Slytherin will annihilate all the prejudice and stereotyping of Salazar and his great house. Until then, I'm just content to wait."

Blaise had a point.

I grunted in half-agreement and settled down on my bed with a book about the history of the Founders. I knew what Blaise was saying was sensible, but I felt as if I was being cowardly, as if I was meekly accepting Hogwarts' prejudice and stereotyping of us Slytherins. I felt as if I was staying sitting down, hoping to go unnoticed, instead of standing.

I finished the section on Hufflepuff. The next page was embossed in fancy lettering with the words "Godric Gryffindor", and a portrait of a man with a mane of ginger hair and bright blue eyes.

I sighed.

There was an air of suspense in the weeks before we found out the champions of each school for the Triwizard Tournament. Clusters of students stood around whispering excitedly, saying things like, "I wonder who the champion will be?" and "What do you think they'll use for challenges?" When Cedric Diggory put his name in the goblet, several students speculated that he might be the champion, though he was a Hufflepuff. Some thought that a Ravenclaw would be good, with their logic, intelligence, and reasoning. Most, though, thought a Gryffindor would do the part, with their courage, bravery, recklessness, and adventurous spirit.

One of my fellow Slytherins, a sixth or seventh year, Chester Warrington, put his name in the goblet as a crowd hung by the goblet, watching the Triwizard hopefuls. He was the first Slytherin to do so, and I had watched him sitting by the flickering fire in the common room for several nights, speculating on the pros and cons of participating and trying to decide if he should have a go at it or not. At last, he made up his mind and wrote his name on a slip of paper and dropped it in the goblet, striding away.

That was when the whispers began. Whispers like, "Oh, I do hope Hogwarts isn't represented by a Slytherin," and, "That Slytherin ape Warrington better not be chosen!" Little snatches of murmurs that suggested Slytherins were wholly unfit to represent Hogwarts, despite being one fourth of the people at the school.

When Cedric Diggory was announced as the representative for Hogwarts in the tournament, the students all went wild. Not only because he was smart, popular, and all that, but also because he wasn't a Slytherin. Everyone was relieved because now they knew a Slytherin wouldn't be representing the great school of Hogwarts.

Then Potter was announced as the (insert a gasp here) second champion for Hogwarts. Unlike many others, who were probably thinking, "How did he get past the goblet?" and other such things, I just shook my head; the Hogwarts champion was a Hufflepuff, get a wonderful Gryffindor was also still one, too. I knew he hadn't done it himself, though; Potter wasn't clever enough.

Sure, Diggory was the rightful representative, but I didn't accept one of Draco's badges saying Diggory was the rightful champion and that Potter stunk. I didn't want to be a walking Muggle billboard supporting Draco's ideas, thanks.

You think the subject would have been dropped after we found out the champions, but I'd still occasionally hear students of old Hoggy saying statements like, "I can't imagine how Harry Potter got himself as champion, but at least it's him and Cedric Diggory and not a Slytherin." Of course, they'd immediately stop and begin chatting about lessons as soon as they saw me near them, eyes narrowed and the hand with my wand held in it clenched.

I didn't do anything to them. I didn't try anything. It was useless.

In the seconds Potter and Diggory came out from the maze and we thought they had simply both tied, I didn't cheer.

I knew Voldemort was back, but of course I knew; my dad was a Death Eater. Potter was rather annoying, but I did feel sorry for him; couldn't those thick Ministry gits lay off him for once?

Not that Potter would think I was somewhat on his side. After all, I was a Slytherin. And especially not after that awful Umbridge made the Inquisitorial Squad, consisting of Draco, Vincent, Gregory, Pansy, Millicent, Warrington, Montague, and a few others. I'm still wondering why Millicent ever joined it. Whenever I asked her, she never told me.

Umbridge asked me to join. I refused, and I and the Slytherins that didn't join are the reasons she'd actually take points from Slytherin every so often.

After the Inquisitorial Squad was introduced, I'd get plenty of glares, insults, hexes, and jinxes thrown my way, despite the fact there was no glistening silver "I" for Inquisitorial Squad pinned to my robe. Those that cast the hexes and jinxes at me usually ended up in the hospital wing. Never mess with a Slytherin, bastards. Remember we're also cunning.

Umbridge asked me to join the Inquisitorial Squad a second time, and I refused, asking if she was so horrible at magic she needed those that were still in training to help her out.

Then I got my first experience with a Blood Quill. My father kept one, too. I thought it looked strange, and asked what it was once. My father just told me Slytherins didn't mess with Blood Quill owners.

I noticed Umbridge had several more standing in a (no surprise) pink, heart shaped vase. Maybe there was one Blood Quill owner in the world Slytherins could mess with.

Apparently Umbridge couldn't think of one phrase that accurately expressed what I had done wrong, so I received two scars instead of one; "Do not question" on top, and "Humility is best" below it.

I noticed Potter had a scar also. It read "I must not tell lies".

A grim smile on my face, that was when I decided that in my mind, my scars read "Always question" and "Humility is rarely needed". After that, the scars didn't seem to matter much to me anymore.

But the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and even the usually intelligent Ravenclaws didn't notice what was really there. Instead, they preferred to imagine a sneer on my face and a silver I pinned to my robes.

Maybe that was when, overhearing about this DA Potter had started up with Weasley and Granger, I decided not to be a fool and try to join. The DA wouldn't accept Slytherins who supposedly had I's on their robes.

They wouldn't accept Slytherins without I's either.

Unknown to me, I had gotten a tattoo over the summer. Also unknown to me, I had gotten giant words hovering above me that blinked on and off and shouted "BEWARE! EVIL SLYTHERIN DEATH EATER HERE! BEWARE!"

They were both invisible. To me, at least. To those from any other house, they were clear as day.

The only Slytherin in my year that actually had one of those was Draco, unsurprisingly, though I was pretty sure that Crabbe and Goyle would be getting theirs next year. Despite what others might think, the Slytherins of my year wouldn't have some Mass Migration to join the Death Eaters. Besides Pansy, who wouldn't be a Death Eater but on the whim of her Death Eater parents, would be on their side, one of the reasons so as to get herself in a firm, cemented relationship with Draco. Draco was staring at Daphne's younger sister, though, despite the many slaps and hexes he got from Daphne for doing so. Blaise was neutral, like the Zabinis had been in all wizard wars. Daphne was neutral. Tracey obviously wasn't on Voldemort's side; she was a muggleborn. Perhaps if she was sorted into a house other than Slytherin she would have been on Potter's side; but she was neutral, thanks to the wonderful treatment she was given here at dear old Hoggy. Millicent was still deciding, as far as I knew. Sally-Anne was one of the truest Slytherins I'd ever met; she would never join Voldemort. I wouldn't be surprised if Perks was a fake name and her real name was Gaunt or Slytherin.

I was neutral. One would think that if one had Death Eater parents, they'd grow up being on the Death Eater side; being Death Eater offspring, I knew that wasn't true. I didn't want to grow up with a Dark Mark on my arm, or kowtowing to an insane man who, as far as I saw, didn't even really try to accomplish what he had said he would. He seemed to spend far more time trying to become immortal and the most powerful man in the world than destroy the muggles to make a safer world for the witches and wizards. He chased Harry Potter, a boy that was fated to either destroy Voldemort or be destroyed by Voldemort, something that didn't even affect his followers.

I didn't want to kill innocents, as much as I hated some of them.

But Hogwarts' students and teachers (excepting Dumbledore and Snape; wasn't it obvious they were each Occlumens and Legilimens?) couldn't read the inner workings of my mind, and they had no way of knowing that. So it was a supposed Dark Mark and a huge sign saying I was an evil Slytherin Death Eater for me.

This year, I was in the hospital wing for a considerable amount of time. Despite reading and learning far ahead and being a Slytherin, those seventh year Ravenclaws that hadn't managed to figure out that I couldn't possibly be a Death Eater could still catch me, and those Gryffindors that were really determined to fight on the good side that caught me while I was distracted. The Hufflepuffs, with their common sense which I had never had the common sense enough to thank them madly for, caught on that I wasn't a Death Eater. Well, most of them. The first years and the ones who just had relatives murdered would shoot glares at me, but I understood.

All the Slytherins had an almost permanent pensive look on their faces the entire year, including me. It was all coming: an extreme suspicion of us from our fellow students and much of the wizarding world, our parents, most of whom were Death Eaters and Voldemort supporters giving us meaningful looks, and the feeling of a war starting.

It all felt much worse than it seemed.

And then Dumbledore died. Now, I had to say, I didn't like Dumbledore much. He basically encouraged the Slytherin stereotype and never bothered to curb the prejudices. He also blatantly favored the Gryffindors, and could get a tad annoying with his "speeches" (Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!) and his obsession for lemon drops. I'm sure anyone who has ever met with him as been offered a lemon drop.

Really, they're not half bad. But I would never admit that to anyone.

But despite his many flaws, he was probably one of the only ones that could stop Voldemort. Despite Harry Potter the "Chosen One", I still had my doubts. With him dead, Voldemort's job of conquering the wizarding world had suddenly got a lot easier.

Despite my dislike and my neutrality, I tried to get a seat near the front at his funeral; something in me just tugged and I knew I had to.

Many of the Gryffindors, such as Potter, sat in the very front. When I attempted to get a seat near the front, I was shunted to almost near the very back.

Where I joined all the other Slytherins.

There was no neutral. You liked the Carrows, Snape, and thus, Voldemort, or you hated them. You couldn't be anything else.

For the first time, many Slytherins joined the "good side". But though the other students had gotten what they wanted, they still wouldn't accept it. They thought it was a disguise, a spy technique. We were Slytherins and a war was raging; we definitely had to be evil.

At first, the Carrows loved me. They knew my father, who was high up in Voldemort's Inner Circle, and they expected me to love them and my new lessons, being a Death Eater's son and a Slytherin.

Boy, did they get a surprise.

They found a boy who was very Slytherin, for sure – but not with the ingredients needed to be a Death Eater. I acted a bit like one, but I could tell they still had this vague suspicion.

Tracey, Blaise, Millicent, Daphne, Sally-Anne, and I usually kept quiet. We hated it, but we were Slytherins, and knew we couldn't get hurt. Well, hurt was rather an understatement. The correct word for it was mildly tortured. Oxymoronic, but true. We let the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors get "mildly tortured", while we sat unscarred, without signs showing our hands had been nailed to the desk, that we had been Crucio'd, that we had been hung upside down from the walls with iron chains on our feet.

And the other houses hated us for it. Even the Ravenclaws that hadn't been tortured wrote papers that mocked everything the Carrows stood for, included words like "Dark Lord", "filthy, dirty mudbloods" and "Crucio" and got O's for it, something even us cunning Slytherins hadn't thought of. We were confronted and insulted, nasty words spat at us.

We hated it, too. For all our cunning, we were cowards, we were too scared to resist.

But then came the day when I couldn't stand it anymore. In Muggle Studies Alecto Carrow was rambling on, once again, about how dirty mudbloods and muggles were and how stupid and idiotic and unfit to walk the earth. I noticed the Ravenclaws glaring at us, thinking we believed it all and thought so, too, and I couldn't stand it from either Carrow or what was left of the Ravenclaws, the ones who were halfblood and pureblood.

I raised my hand, the image of a perfect student.

"Yes, Master Nott?" Carrow asked, voice dripping with a sudden sweetness and like.

"Professor Carrow," I said politely, while the Ravenclaws – Cornfoot, Goldstein, Patil, Li, MacDougal, Corner, Boot – glared at me, "If mudbloods and muggles are so filthy and dirty, then why was the Dark Lord's father a muggle?" I raised my eyebrows, as if I was simply confused by a spell or fact.

It was so easy. Many knew the fact, but they never said it, thinking it too unoriginal and simple. But few remember simplicity is usually the best.

The classroom went dead silent for a few moments, while Carrow appeared to suddenly become the twin of a tomato, the Ravenclaws stared at me, disbelieving a Slytherin had suddenly said such a thing, and my fellow Slytherins stared at me, too, in disbelief that Theo Nott, one of the most cautious and cool Slytherins had been so Gryffindorish and impulsive, had doomed himself so badly. Tracey had her face in her hands, and Sally-Anne seemed to retain her usual demeanor – she had begun to abandon the perky one – except for that her widened, awestruck eyes betrayed it all, eyes asking, Theo, what have you done?

If it was someone like Lucius Malfoy who I had said this too, the blood would drain out of their cheeks and they'd turn pale, very pale. But as this was Carrow, her cheeks were red and puffy and her eyes burned with rage.

"You!" she screamed. "You have betrayed your honorable kin, you have doomed yourself, Nott! How dare you even suggest such a thing! Our Dark Lord has the purest of all blood imaginable, and he is a mudblood as much as I am a troll!"

All kept straight faces at that, but we were all laughing at her justification of the Dark Lord being near mudblood inside.

"You will pay for dirtying our Dark Lord in such a way, Nott!" she screeched, her wand raised. "You will get due punishment, severe punishment!"

She shouted something unintelligible – obviously the Cruciatus curse – and I fell out of my chair, writhing on the floor as a pain I had never known before struck me. Non-Slytherins might have been used to this by now, with their smart mouths, but no Slytherin and certainly not me wasn't, being good little students on the outside. Then I vaguely heard Carrow yell something more, and a throbbing pain flashed in my forehead, leaving me unconscious.

When I woke up, I was in a small room I had never been in before. Madam Pomfrey was hovering about above me, with a small bottle in her hand. My head ached something awful, and was as pretty damn close to a migraine as I had ever gotten. My arms and legs still throbbed and stung, and I felt sore everywhere.

"What…what happened?" I croaked, forcing the words out of my mouth.

"I…I found you, Mr. Nott, strewn about like a kicked about doll on the floor near the dungeons," Pomfrey replied, some stammering managing to show through her usually crisp and brisk voice. "One of the Ravenclaws, Anthony Goldstein, was near and told me Alecto Carrow had Crucio'd you and cursed you in some other way – he couldn't hear the words – a week ago in Muggle Studies, and after that you fell unconscious.

"Wait," I rasped. "A week ago?"

Pomfrey sighed. "No one knew where you went after the class. The day after, Mr. Goldstein found you by the dungeons, and alerted me immediately. You know how the Carrows won't let me treat any of their punished students, so I took you to my private rooms and put a very strong disillusionment spell on you, like I do with the other students."

I nodded weakly.

"It would be best if you would go back to sleep now," Madam Pomfrey said. "You'll heal quicker."

I quite agreed.

Weeks later, I heard Neville Longbottom whisper to another Gryffindor, Seamus Finnigan, "We'll need to go there soon."

I had to wonder what there meant. Maybe they were referring to the place they had had that DA in during fifth year? Draco called it The Room of Hidden Things.

Either way, I had to join them. And drag Daphne, Tracey, Sally-Anne, and Blaise with me, too. I would have dragged Millicent, too, but she had since decided to join Voldemort, because a madman or something had escaped from a muggle asylum and killed her parents. Millicent told me this man had lived near them and had always thought they were strange. She was still enraged about it, and even though I kept on telling Millicent that right now Voldemort and his Death Eaters were currently focusing on Potter and not the original cause of destroying muggles and muggleborns, she still decided to join.

Blaise, I mused, wouldn't want to at all. He was somewhat a mix of Old and New Slytherin. Tracey might, and Daphne would probably go just to stay with Tracey, but neither would be happy about it because the kids that would be in The Room of Hidden Things would be on the good side, and we were neutral.

But right now there couldn't be neutral, and I thought better to be on the side that was killing an insane maniac that wasn't even focusing on what he originally meant to do than joining with him.

I momentarily thought about bringing all the other Slytherins, but then remembered I hardly even knew them. Sure, they had it bad, but I focused on getting myself and my friends out of this, not strangers. Besides, the teachers (besides the Carrows, of course) would look out for them. Especially the firsties. They had a soft spot for ickle firsties. I didn't need to worry about them.

In the dormitories (boys of course, since the girls could access it), I proposed this to them.

"Hell no," said Blaise, blunt as always. Slytherins could be blunt, especially when they were angry. "I'm not staying with a bunch of Slytherin-haters and mudblood-lovers."

"You might as well be on Vol – The Dark Lord's side, using that word," I snapped, mentally cursing the Taboo that had been put on Voldemort's name.

Blaise fell silent. His father – the one he'd actually been related to, not the other six husbands his mother had – had been killed for refusing to join, years and years ago.

"He has a point, though," Daphne muttered. "They all hate us Slytherins, that prejudiced lot. They'd kill us if we put one toe in there, because we're sensible enough not to mouth off to those Carrows. And they call us prejudiced…"

"We're not going in there, Theo," Tracey said in a calm and steady voice – quite unlike Blaise's snarl or Daphne's quiet mutter. "Even though I'm muggleborn, I'm not going in."

I sighed. Failed plan. Again.

"But you are," Tracey added.

I think it would have been more appropriate for me to just gape and blink, but being a Slytherin, I couldn't be surprised.

"What?" I said.

Or at least, speechless surprise.

"Come on," Tracey snorted. "After that little scenario a couple weeks ago, you're on the Carrows' hate list, even though you've been skipping their classes and avoiding them since. If they see you – and they will, soon – you're dead. You need to get in with those DA people; tear away their prejudices. It'll be pretty easy – there are Ravenclaws in it, and they saw what happened in Muggle Studies."

I sighed, in no mood to argue. "Fine." But I glanced at the four Slytherins. "You know, you're still going to have to fight. I swear there's going to be a battle soon here. If you don't fight, non-Slytherins will have tons of evidence to fuel their Slytherin prejudice for years."

I saw Blaise bite his lip, Tracey's solemn expression become firm and grim, Daphne squeeze handle of her bookbag, and Sally-Anne's intimidating gaze harden.

"There's no more neutral anymore," Blaise murmured, jaw set.

"The best of Salazar's luck to you," I said, using a formal farewell that was taught to every Slytherin on the first day of school.

Sally-Anne nodded. "Returned from us all," she said.

Now, it was time to accomplish a nigh impossible task…

"Honestly. I'm not a Carrow, you know."

Despite this statement, right now Neville Longbottom seemed pretty close.

I decided not to speak my thoughts. "Neither am I," I said flatly.

"But you're as good as," Longbottom snapped. "You're a Slytherin, which is basically saying you support V – You-Know-Who."

"And how would you know that?" I demanded. "You don't even know me. All you know about me is my house and the stereotypes that go with it. What would you think if you knew muggleborns were in Slytherin? Would you think they supported Vold – You-Know-Who, too, even if he wanted to exterminate him? Do you think if we grow up with a Death Eater for a father we'll automatically become a Death Eater, too? Do you think only Gryffindor can make their own opinions and thoughts and be on the good side? Do you think it's all right if the good side opposes prejudice but has Slytherin prejudice themselves? Do you think hypocrisy is justified if it comes from a good Gryffindor? Well. Do you?"

Longbottom swallowed and chewed his lip.

"He also spoke up against the Carrows in Muggle Studies, Neville. Got Crucio'd near twenty times and left in the dungeons for me to find a day later. I, for one, think he's serious."

I just noticed Anthony Goldstein standing near Longbottom. He always seemed like part of the wall until he spoke.

I waited for a minute or so, until it looked like Longbottom had digested the unbelievable fact that a Slytherin had done something that wasn't evil.

"Okay," he said rather grudgingly, though I had the feeling he was just saying it grudgingly because he wanted to, "you can come."

My heart leaped; I had accomplished something I had subconsciously been trying to do since I was a first year: persuade a Gryffindor I wasn't evil.

"But," Longbottom said, making my heart suddenly fall; buts were wickeder than Voldemort at times, "you can't stay there looking like you do. I may know you're not a spy anything, and so would the seventh year Ravenclaws, but I doubt anyone else would think so.

Something in my chest plummeted at that moment; I think it was my heart falling down an abyss.

"Great, just great," I said. "I can become part of the DA and live with you all in The Room of Hidden Things or whatever," – Longbottom and Goldstein's eyes widened at the mention of The Room of Hidden Things – "but I can't be there as a Slytherin, because all the fighters against Vol – You-Know-Who and his muggle and muggleborn prejudice have too much Slytherin prejudice. So I have to have a glamour over me that makes me look like a Hufflepuff firstie or something." I snorted, and added bitterly. "Really lovely, that."

"Well, I'm actually thinking a seventh year Ravenclaw," Goldstein put in.

Still thinking of my heart forever falling, I replied, "Yes, because everyone knows seventh year Ravenclaws come out of nowhere all the time."

"Actually," Goldstein said, "there is another seventh year Ravenclaw. David Moon. He was sorted into my house, but he was some sort of genius, and went to his own lessons. By second year he didn't even live in Hogwarts anymore – he finished everything, even the magic in seventh year. Since he lives in Hogsmeade, he used to come a couple times a week to learn the magic that you don't ordinarily learn in regular school – Warding, Dueling, and that kind of thing. But he finished with that by his fourth or fifth year. I don't know what he does now. But you could pose as him and no one would know you were Theodore Nott."

Knowing that had all just come straight out of his mind in a minute or less, a small, skeptical part of my mind finally confirmed for itself that the Sorting Hat actually sorts correctly.

"Fine," I said, knowing I'd much rather pretend to be a Ravenclaw genius than a Hufflepuff firstie. "So, are you going to put the glamour on me now?"

Goldstein nodded. "We should go to that loo Moaning Myrtle haunts. I would suggest The Room of Requirement except for that the Gryffindors have already moved in – the Carrows hate them the most, so they're going in first. Then the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, because they're less hated."

Around half an hour later I stepped out of the girls' loo looking like David Moon, with well kept dark brown hair, pale skin, a small nose, short height and a modest dark blue robe, which Goldstein explained was the robe Moon usually wore. I resembled Moon down to the last hair, except for my eyes, which remained my usual dark brown.

"That's the annoying thing about glamours," Goldstein told me. "At least one thing has to stay the same. When you get more advanced in glamours you can make it only be a freckle or something, but I'm not that far yet so I can only make it something prominent like eyes."

I nodded, not really paying attention to his rambling.

"Have to go," Goldstein said. "I have Arithmancy next, and Vector hates getting tardy students." And he darted off.

"Well," said Longbottom, looking at Goldstein's running form. "Come on No – Moon. We've got to get you to The Room of Requirement."

"You mean The Room of Hidden Things?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Probably." Then he started walking and I trailed after him…

A couple months later, instead of just the Gryffindors and me in The Room of Hidden Things or The Room of Requirement, the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were there, too.

No Slytherins, of course. I continuously wondered how Daphne, Tracey, Blaise, and Sally-Anne were doing. But Blaise, always on the morbid side, probably thought I had died. Graphically. I tried to get a scene of Blaise describing animatedly how exactly I had been killed by reading a thick book that Anthony Goldstein had just left aside.

All of a sudden, the tome was jerked out of my hands by Mandy Brocklehurst, a muggleborn Ravenclaw who had gotten in here by way of The Hog's Head almost a month ago, and she shouted, "Harry Potter's here! Harry Potter's here!"

Potter just always had to cause a ruckus whenever he came somewhere, didn't he? I got out of the hammock and walked out of the Ravenclaw section into the main part of The Room of Requirement, and sure enough, there was Potter in all his scrawny black-haired, green-eyed glory, along with his friends Granger and Weasley; a Gryffindor, Dean Thomas, who was probably a muggleborn, considering I hadn't seen him for the better part of the year; and that loony Ravenclaw Luna Lovegood. Not to mention a few other people. I nearly thought Potter's gaze would find me and he'd go apeshit because there was an evil Slytherin in the DA for all the shining good people, but then I remembered I was David Moon, Ravenclaw genius, and that I looked like him as well.

I watched Seamus Finnigan roar and hug Thomas, and I watched Potter smiling from ear to ear as if there wasn't a damn war going on, and just watched some more.

But a few minutes later, he stopped smiling, and adopted the grim, rather brooding face he had used for much of fifth year, and started talking. I heard him talk about "a mission" and how "he had to do this" and how he "wished he could tell them".

He, Weasley, and Granger stayed for a couple more minutes, though, and studied what The Room of Requirement had become. As I watched his gaze travel over the Gryffindor hangings, the Hufflepuff hangings, and the Ravenclaw hangings, his eyes went to the next space and then suddenly stopped; he had noticed the absence of any Slytherin hangings.

He and his friends would put it down to Slytherins being evil, of course. Not because they couldn't be there because of the stereotypes and prejudice.

And then they left, dashing off to the Ravenclaw common room (The Ravenclaw Common Room?) on their important mission, with Lovegood leading them…

And then what seemed seconds later, we were all in the Great Hall and McGonagall was directing underage students out, plus all the Slytherins – or so she thought. She was probably too frantic to notice the absence of one Theodore Nott, who had shed his David Moon glamour. Perhaps the mere presence of Pansy Parkinson seemed to mean that all the seventh year Slytherins were being led out, or maybe that McGonagall didn't notice Blaise, Tracey, Daphne, and Sally-Anne slip out of the crowd, and never noticed they had mysteriously disappeared.

If she had, she had probably thought they had joined the Death Eaters.

Sweet Merlin, how long had this stereotyping gone on?

But I didn't really matter. I, a Slytherin, was fighting, and I knew that. Who cared about those ignorant prats? I fought when neutrality disappeared.

Finally, I stood.

A/N: This turned out be a much lengthier oneshot than I thought it would be, but that may be explainable, as I believe I started this in February or January, and the idea for this much changed, from being a stand alone oneshot to being the first of an anthology of oneshots about Theodore Nott to what I have finally decided it should be, a collection of oneshots about the Slytherins in Harry's year. Don't worry; I doubt any will be as long as this one, which is fifteen pages single spaced on Microsoft Word.

On a different topic, I have found my Theodore Nott to be a very hard character to write. That provides a challenge for me, at least.

Constructive criticism appreciated.