I Wish I Wasn't a Slytherin


Deep down, she's ashamed to be in Slytherin.

Because her sister is a Gryffindor and her mother is a Gryffindor and her father isn't anything, because he went to Durmstrang, but he's still the bravest man she knows, and he'd have been a Lion in a heartbeat.

So she spends her first nights curled up in her bed, sniffling in time with the dripping ceiling and longing for a warm fire and a cozy common room that's not built under a lake.

(She's never realized it before, but her worst fear is drowning.)

And once everyone else has gone to sleep, she chants it like a mantra: "I wish I wasn't a Slytherin."


The first spell she learns is Wingardium Leviosa.

And she doesn't see the point.

Because what good is it to make a feather fly - what good is it to have magic at all - if you're stuck in a house you hate?

The other Slytherins don't talk to her, except to tease about her height and her weight and her voice, and she tries not to look at the Gryffindor table, where everyone is friends and nobody is cruel.

Sometimes, when she can't bear to eat lunch with them, she slips off into the library and hides among the bookshelves.

She finds a releasing spell - Relashio - and it's not what she wants, it can't release her from Slytherin, but she learns it anyway, and the next time one of the Snakes touches her, she'll be ready.


"Why don't you like Slytherin?" a first-year dressed in redandgold asks her - and it's ages later, she's already made Head Girl, her name is carved into plaques all over the school and nobody dares to bully her anymore.

(She can't admit it, even to herself, but the reason they leave her alone is because she's worse than all of them combined.)

"It's not that I don't like Slytherin. I'm just indifferent."

"Is it because you know Gryffindor is better?"

Her eyes tighten. "Gryffindor isn't better. Gryffindors are fools. And that's detention for you, Arthur Weasley."

(But as time goes on she realizes that no, she isn't indifferent - she simply hates all the houses equally.

Because Ravenclaws are stuck-up, especially Xenophilius Lovegood, who raises his hand to correct her during Charms class.

And Hufflepuffs are hopeless pushovers, especially the clumsy Amos Diggory, who's so bad at magic that he'd be better off if they snapped his wand and sent him to live as a muggle.

And Gryffindors are the worst of them all, because they're kind and helpful and loyal but only to each other.

And she's caught between envy and resentment, but in the end the dislike wins out.

At least the Slytherins are honest.

At least the Slytherins can admit they're only in it for themselves.)


The day she graduates, she swears she's never coming back to Hogwarts.

But she does.

Of course she does.

There's unfinished business there, after all. There are Ravenclaws who need to be put in their places. There are Hufflepuffs who need to be toughened up. There are Gryffindors who need to be punished.

And there are Slytherins like herself who need to be reminded that their house is great.

"Everyone," Albus Dumbledore says at the opening feast. "Please welcome our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Dolores Umbridge."


[Wishes of the Dark Side Competition: Lord Voldemort Level - Umbridge, indifferent, relashio, "I wish I wasn't..."]

[100 Prompts: flying]