A Hufflepuff's Loyalty

Chapter 9

The next couple of days passed by rather uneventfully, but I worried non-stop. Dumbledore's warning would not leave my head, it dictated every single decision I made. I kept my head down, never snapped again.

As wrong as it felt, I really wanted to stay at Hogwarts. If only to be able to figure things out and get my life back on track. I had to figure out what I wanted with my life, now that my family had abandoned me.

Dumbledore had not been wrong. With the war over, my family gone, I had a decision to make. Stick with the cause and remain loyal to the people who granted me this life? Or betray them and create a life of my own?

One of his comments that day had remained with me. Dumbledore had said that Hogwarts finds everyone who is magically gifted, whether they are growing up in a wizarding family or not. I wondered, would he have found me if I hadn't been with the Death Eaters around my eleventh birthday? What would my life have been like if he had?

Something was changing, too. With Hani's help, my housemates were starting to accept me. The more I got to know them, the more I realised that they were good people. Liam, the boy I'd threatened at the start of the year, spent his free time organising and leading group sessions to help people get over the horrible things they'd seen and experienced during the war. Hani used her chattiness to do some good, too, by helping students from all houses understanding and getting better at her favourite subject: Herbology. And then there was Kimmy, who stood up for her Ravenclaw friend when the new teacher professor Trelawny unfairly gave her a bad grade for Divination.

The Hufflepuffs were kind, loyal and fair. The Death Eaters... Well, they sure as hell weren't kind, that much was certain. And apparently they weren't as loyal as I'd always believed either. But they were my family. I couldn't just turn my back on them, could I?

These were the thoughts that tumbled through my head on Friday morning, as I sat at the Hufflepuff table next to Hani for breakfast. These were the thoughts that had been keeping me awake for days, and still wouldn't leave me alone. I thought she'd been chatting to her friends – after all, she always was. I jumped when she suddenly poked my arm.

"What?" I asked, finding it hard to shift my attention from those heavy thoughts to Hani.

"Are you okay?" she asked with a strangely worried look in her eyes.

"Of course I am," I said dismissively. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"It's just... You've been acting strange lately. Stranger than normal, I mean. Like you have something on your mind. You know you can talk to me, right?"

Before I could stop myself, a scoff had left my mouth. Had I been a normal teenager, with normal problems, Hani would be the first person I'd go to. But the things that were bothering me... She could never know about them. Nor could anyone else in the castle. I couldn't trust anyone.

"You can trust me," she said. "It's not still about that chat with Dumbledore, is it? Was it really that bad?"

I hesitated. "No, that's not it. Not really, anyway."

"Then what is it? Come on, talk to me. What's the worst that can happen?" She smiled at me encouragingly.

The thought "I could die" ran through my head, but I swatted it away and sighed. I couldn't tell her anything, but I could still ask her a question.

"Loyalty is a good thing, right?"

"Yeah, of course it is," said Hani, obviously lost as to where I was going.

"Well, what about loyalty to bad people? Is that still a good thing?"

Her eyebrows raised in confusion. "What do you mean?"