Our Choices Define Us

A/N: I will be changing my penname from ChaoticBliss to PicuresqueNightmare, just so y’all know. I want them to be the same for all the sites. Omg! I’m a total scatterbrain, I forgot to put it in last chapter, but, you can leave suggestions for what Harry’s animal will be. I have some ideas but I would love to hear yours! Thank you to my awesome beta, badluck, for fixing the huge amount of mistakes in this chapter! And of course, thank you reviewers! Cookies for all!

Chapter Eight

After Transfiguration, the Slytherins headed to dinner. Dinner soon ended and the group found themselves in the Slytherin Common Room, sitting around the fire.

“Alright, it’s a Friday night, what ever shall we do?” Emily said with a glint in her eyes and a smirk on her face. Harry recognized this look, she was about to involve them in something dirty.

“Why don’t you tell us?” Harry said slightly bored. Why prolong the inevitable? Emily would eventually convince them all into doing what she planned.

“Well, since y’all are lames and don’t have anything to do on a Friday night, I have taken it upon myself to come up with an activity. I am going to teach y’all, except Harry, how to play a Muggle card game called poker. Now usually you’d bet with money or, my favorite Skittles, but since that is no fun for a Friday night, we shall be playing strip poker.” Emily said quickly. She then launched into an explanation of how to play poker and the rules. “Now here’s where it gets a little different. The way we play strip poker is you’re not allowed to fold and the person who has the worst hand ditches a piece of clothing. Shoes and socks come off in pairs. Got it?” Emily looked on as everyone nodded. “Alright, sweet. Now all we need is a place to play. Unless you guys wanna play here and get naked in front of the munchkins.”

“We can play in our room.” Harry offered. Their room probably had the most space in it, as only he and Draco were in it.

Everyone agreed and they made their way to Draco and Harry’s room.

Soon, Blaise, Pansy, Theo, Emily, Harry, and Draco were sitting around the table that Harry conjured. They played a few games that didn’t count, just to make sure everyone understood the rules and knew what they were doing.

Halfway through their first real game, there was a pecking at the window.

“God damn it!” Emily said.

Harry looked at her and shook his head. “I’ll get it.” Harry walked over to the ground-level window and opened it. In flew a regal looking bird, which winged itself over to Draco. Draco quickly took the proffered letter and the bird took off out the still open window.

“Who’s it from?” Emily said, looking over Harry’s empty chair and trying to get a look at the letter.

Draco gulped and replied, “My father,” He shakily opened the letter, knowing it had to be bad news, for him at least. His father never sent evening post.

The room was silent as Draco read the letter, his eyes getting steadily bigger.

“Oh, oh, oh! You finally found out that your mama was born to a beetle?!” Emily exclaimed as she saw Draco’s face. Yeah, M&M’s had that effect on her. She started giggling and put her face in her hands to muffle the sound.

Harry rolled his eyes at his friend’s bad joke and turned to Draco and spoke softly. Well as softly as he could while still being heard over Emily’s laughter “What’s the letter say?”

Draco silently handed Harry the letter. He moved to his seat and sat to read. He begun and was vaguely aware that Emily had moved to stand behind him, reading over Harry’s shoulder.

“Wow,” was all Emily could muster a few moments later.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed.

“What was the bloody letter about?!” Blaise exploded. He didn’t like being kept in the dark.

Harry decided to answer. “It basically said that the Death Eaters have found a way into the castle, this guy thought to use the Vanishing Cabinets, and that they planned to attack in like two months. Lucius ordered Draco to alert all the resident Death Eaters to steer clear of the Great Hall on Halloween. There are, of course, death threats sprinkled throughout the letter.

“Well then, it looks like I’ll have to miss all the fun.” Pansy pouted.

Harry and Emily froze.

“What do you mean, ‘miss all the fun’?” Harry asked, fighting to keep the whirlwind of emotions that he was feeling out of his voice. If Pansy’s a Death Eater, we’re screwed. Harry thought. He bristled as he felt a little burst of magic coming from Emily. He looked discreetly and she in turn subtly shook her head.

“Well if the Dark Lord ordered all of his followers to stay away, then who are we to disobey him?” Pansy said, not realizing that Theo was fuming beside her, but for some reason not saying anything.

“We?” this came from Emily.

“Well me and Theo, of course! We were honored with positions in the Dark Lord’s ranks this summer.” Pansy replied smugly, expecting them to be jealous of her.

Before Harry knew it, all the Slytherins present were on the floor, out cold and stiff as boards. Harry looked at Emily.

“Well it’s not like I could take the chance that all of them are Death Munchers.” Emily said defensively. She walked over to Draco and lifted up both of his sleeves. Upon finding unmarred skin and no charms that could cover the Mark, she woke him up.

“Why the fuck did you do that for?!” Draco demanded angrily when he noticed that he was on the ground.

“Couldn’t take the chance, sorry,” Emily said sincerely. She extended her hand to Draco. He gave her a half-hearted glare and took the proffered hand and let himself be hauled up. After all, if he had been in the same position, he would’ve done the same.

After doing the same to Blaise, and finding similar results, Emily woke him up and apologized.

“Now what do we do with these little shits?” Harry said nastily.

“Well, we could modify their memories and pretend that noting happened, or modify their memories and turn them into the Ministry.” Emily said as she looked at the still forms of her housemates. Honestly, she’d never understand why people would follow an idiot like Voldemort… or Dumbledore, for that matter.

“I vote for the latter. Two less minions that Moldy has.” Harry said.

“But why would we need to modify their memories?” Blaise asked in confusion. He didn’t really see what good it’d do.

“Well, would you like it to get back to your parents that you found out that your peers had joined the Dark Lord and turned them in? I don’t think they’d be too happy about that little tidbit.” Emily looked at her two friends as understanding crossed their face and they nodded. Yes, screwing with their memories before turning them in was the best thing to do.

“Alright, you guys have to promise that you won’t say anything about what you’re about to see.” Emily said looking at Blaise and Draco, letting her seriousness show through her eyes.

After having them swear on their magic, Emily did her stuff.

She began humming and soon a red flowing, transparent ribbon appeared above Theo’s head. It slowly circled his head and entered through the crown. A few moments later, the ribbon appeared from his forehead, this time sporting what appeared to be something like a movie. The moving picture was of the last hour or so, everything after, and a little bit before, the arrival of Lucius’ owl. Emily hummed a high pitched note and the ribbon made its way to her and Emily absorbed it. After a little more humming, another movie like ribbon appeared. This one was of them playing cards as intended, getting drunk, and what appeared to be an attack. The ribbon went over to Theo and sunk into his head. It soon came out, solid red. Emily repeated this process with Pansy and turned to her friends.

“I’ve substituted their old memories with one that consists of us playing cards, getting drunk, going to bed really late, and the two of them being attacked by a few students. They won’t remember faces and they will be inclined to believe that their Mark was discovered when the charm hiding it failed after they were knocked out. We’ll dress them in short sleeved tops and jeans or something and leave them at Ministry. They can take it from there. That sound good?” Emily asked, looking totally drained.

“Yeah, but you’ve yet to explain what you did as even Dumbledore can’t do what you did just by humming.” Draco pointed out.

“Yeah, I know, but right now I’m totally worn out and I’m going to bed. I promise on the future growth of my boobs that I’ll tell you tomorrow. And, Harry, I think I found a way to get into Dumbles’ office to get the Hat and a way to take the spell off. I’ll tell you about it later. Night all.” Emily said and then left the room to head to her dorm.

After Emily had left the room, Harry just chuckled and levitated Theo out of the room and into his bed. When he returned, Draco and Blaise were in the room and Pansy’s immobile body was gone. Harry assumed one of them had put her in her dorm.

“You know how Emily did that don’t you?” Blaise accused as Harry began getting ready for bed.

“Well aren’t you just a fuchsia crayon.” Harry replied, thinking of a saying he’d remember hearing. That comment just earned him two stares from his friends that told him they thought he was from Jupiter. Harry shook his head, while changing into his pajama shirt. “Has to do with a Muggle saying, but yes, I do know how she does it and no, I’m not going to tell you.” With that Harry changed into his sleep pants and closed the curtains, taking extra care to spell them to repel any unwanted visitors. It’s a real shame he never noticed a salivating blonde.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Emily, Harry, and Blaise all sat down at the breakfast table with large smirks on their faces. Emily had returned form the Ministry with good news: Pansy and Theo had been left near the Justice Department and no one had seen her. Now all they had to do was wait for the word to get out.

“Yay!” Moldy’s ranks are now short two spies!” Emily said happily as she piled some food onto her plate. “So, now my lovely friends, what shall we do on this fine Saturday morning?”

Blaise laughed and said, “I think we should go swimming. The weather won’t stay this nice for long and I think we should take advantage of it.”

“Heck yes!” Emily enthusiastically replied. She then busied herself with her breakfast.

“But before we do anything, I’m getting an explanation out of you, Emily.” Draco persisted.

Emily looked up at her name. “Ah, fine! If you insist, but I’m going to warn you, it’ll take a hell of a lot of time to explain everything.” Emily said to Draco. She turned to Blaise and said, “Looks like that swim will have to be at night.”

“That’s fine,” Blaise said with a smile, “We can skinny dip then.”

Emily smirked at him. “I like the way you think!”

The Slytherins hurried through their breakfast and made it to Harry and Draco’s dorm without any hindrance. Harry and Draco took seats on Harry’s bed while Emily sat on Draco’s and Blaise sat on the floor between the two.

“Hmm, so you two want to know how I did what I did yesterday, correct?”

“Yes, and how you know Harry and how you guys found out about how Dumbledore and the Gryffindors betrayed Harry.” Blaise said.

“And how Harry got a new wardrobe, which I am eternally grateful for. Seeing you walk around in those rags was almost painful.” Draco said playfully.

“Hey! It wasn’t my fault that all I got was my cousin’s hand-me-downs and that he was the size of a baby whale.” Harry defended his wardrobe, horrendous as it was.

“All you had were hand-me-downs? How did that happen?” Blaise said, confused.

Harry looked at Emily and sighed. “It looks like you’re not going to be the only one doing some explaining.”

Emily looked a little pissed. Apparently she didn’t know about the hand-me-downs either. “Damn straight,”

A/N: Please review!! I appreciate each and every one and they are vital food for my muse!