Quidditch fever was spreading like wildfire.
The first match of the season — Draconis versus Slytherin — was only days away, and every hallway buzzed with talk of brooms, lineups, and impossible dives from the previous year.
I might have ignored the whole spectacle if not for the sudden explosion of green-and-silver banners plastered along every corridor.
Apparently, Lucius Malfoy had "donated" a full set of Nimbus 2001s to the Slytherin team.
The entire team strutted around like they'd won already.
The fact that their Seeker — my half-brother — was still flying a Nimbus 2000 though did not go unnoticed.
I could be that Harry refused a 2001 seeing as he already had a 2000, but the ever cocky Slytherins were quick to declare their victory even after having seen our own teams Aeriusbolts the previous year.
"Money buys you speed," Daphne muttered as we passed them in the courtyard, "but not brains."
"True," I said, watching Draco Malfoy polish his broom like it was Excalibur. "Though to be fair, he doesn't have enough of either."
Hermione snorted, Cho tried not to laugh, and Daphne didn't bother.
The four of us — House Draconis in full — were on our way to the pitch, not to play, but to practice our dueling drills on open ground.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans.
"Oi! Look what slithered out of its hole," Draco called, hovering a few feet above us. Behind him, the Slytherin team hung in a loose formation — Crabbe, Goyle, Pucey, Warrington, Montague, even Harry — all sneering, well except for harry.
"Didn't know Hogwarts let charity cases book the field."
"Funny," I said. "I was about to say the same thing about trust fund larvae."
A few of the Slytherins laughed — quickly silenced by Draco's glare.
"Watch your mouth, Snape," he spat. "Or should I say… Draconis? Heir to a fallen ancient line pfft as if!?"
"Names don't make blood," I said coolly. "Actions do."
His smirk sharpened.
"Speaking of blood—" His eyes flicked to Hermione, who stood just behind me, chin raised but jaw tight. "How's it feel, Granger, pretending you belong here? Everyone knows you're just a mudblood playing witch."
The world stopped.
Even the wind itself seemed to hesitate.
Hermione's face went white.
Cho gasped.
Daphne's wand was out before mine, but I followed in the same heartbeat — the air crackling with spelllight before anyone could blink.
"Cassius—!" she began, but the words were swallowed in the blast.
"Terræ vorare!" I shouted.
The ground convulsed.
Earth split beneath the Slytherins like jaws snapping open.
The stunned Snakes had been blasted with a petrification charm from Daphne, falling from their brooms before being swallowed up by the earth which had opened below
In a flash of dust and screams, the entire snake team found themselves buried alive up to their necks.
Harry's nimbus ran a bit rampant without its rider, until it crash landed on the ground, whil the other seven 2001's just lazily hung there in the air levitating.
Hermione stood frozen, eyes darting between me and the half-buried Slytherins.
Cho and Daphne flanked me wordlessly, wands drawn, their faces cold and calm.
Waiting for instruction to continue with a lesson in manners.
The courtyard erupted with shouting.
Students poured from every side, screaming, laughing, or cheering.
Fans from all other houses seemed to pour out like a tidal wave, pointing and laughing at the scene of the growing snakes that had been planted within the courtyard.
Then — the voice.
"CASSIUS ATREIUS SNAPE!"
Lily Evans's scream split the courtyard like thunder.
The crowd scattered.
Professors stormed down the steps, but she reached me first — red hair like wildfire, eyes wide with something between terror and rage.
"Stop it! All of you stop!" She pointed her wand, and with a single flick, the ground released its captives.
Mud and dirt exploded upward as the Slytherins stumbled free, coughing and shaking.
Harry had been freed, as well only to find himself trapped in his mothers embrace, as she cared not for soiling her own clothes, meanwhile his eyes darted from me to Malfoy.
"Cassius," Lily said, her voice breaking. "What have you done?"
I looked down at the trembling Slytherins, then at Hermione, who still hadn't moved.
"Defended my housemate," I said evenly.
Malfoy spat mud and fury. "He attacked us! He buried us alive!"
Cho stepped forward, voice like steel. "After you called her a slur."
"What?" Lily turned sharply toward him.
Draco sneered. "What? Mudblood's just the truth. Everyone knows what she is."
The courtyard went dead silent again.
Even Lily's hand trembled.
"Draco Malfoy," she said quietly, "you will not use that word in my presence ever again."
Her eyes snapped to Harry. "And you—did you know? Did you hear that?"
Harry stammered. "I—he said it so fast—I tried to stop—"
But her expression told him the damage was already done.
Malfoy, perhaps sensing his only defense collapsing, turned back to me with venom.
Only for his smile to falter.
A great looming presence had appeared behind me, i didnt even have to turn to confirm it.
The look of fear on everyones face already had.
Severus Snape, had arrived at the scene after hearing the commotion.
His steely eyes scanning the students before him.
It was clear the slytherins had been attacked, but seeing Lily's own confusion as she fussed over her son's supposed injuries made him understand that whatever had been done was of their own making.
"Fifty points from Slytherin house."
His voice was calm and cool, but his words, undercut the pride and cunning of the little snakes.
Their own plot had cost them, their cunning being revealed as meer arrogance.
Some started quibbling trying to defend themselves onto to have their lips snapped shut by a wandless casting from Professor Snape, before he sent his house members packing.
Before turning to look back at Cassius just once.
He didnt yet know the full story, but was sure to get an earful from Lily, whereupon he'd find out what his son had gotten up to.
Though seeing the fire in the girls eyes, his son was surely a veritable hero of justice in this case, and seeing the muggleborn witches confusion, it could only mean it was that...
That very same word which had torn the love of his life from his arms and into the hands of his rival.
~
That evening, the castle whispered again — not with ghostly fear this time, but rumor.
"Cassius Snape buried the Slytherin team alive."
"They say he made the earth scream."
"Professor Evans almost hexed him herself."
In the Draconis common room, Hermione was being cared for by the other girls, each telling her not to mind the slur, even Daphne a pure-blood by birth had come to hate the term.
Sure it was derogetory, but look at hogwarts as it is now.
More than half the students within are muggleborns, then look at the school test scores, muggleborns dominate the top ten save for their own year in recent years.
They may be nomag, as the Americans call them, but their blood was far from mud.