Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: The following slightly-silly one-shot is set in an alternate universe, on the first of September, 1991. It's something I wrote in between rearranging geography, trying to flesh-out prefects, and agonising over whether the third floor corridor should in fact be the ground floor of the semi-abandoned 'empire wing' (on which latter count 'rearranging' might be considered closer to 'reinventing') of an entirely unconnected story. Some characters mentioned in this story are different to some degree from their canon counterparts.

"Well, well, if it isn't 'Lord' Longbottom!"

Harry looked up from his potions textbook with a sigh, to see an all-too-familiar face in the door of his compartment of the Hogwarts Express – with a couple of only vaguely familiar ones lurking behind it. Harry had been hoping for a quiet journey with a compartment all to himself, and had warded the door accordingly with a nifty charm his mother had devised to keep others away, but it stood to reason that Draco Malfoy would notice it and be able to push past it.

"What is it you want, Draco?"

"My father heard that The-Boy-Who-Lived is emerging from wherever Albus Dumbledore's been hiding him for the past decade, to start at Hogwarts this year. I figure, therefore, that he must be somewhere here on this train right now. How about coming with me and Greg and Vince to look for him?"

Harry Longbottom had a strange association with Draco Malfoy. The Malfoy family ordinarily would have looked down on Harry, on account of his muggle-born mother, but that same mother was without known living rivals in her generation when it came to sheer talent at potion brewing – and was in fact the potions mistress at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And since Draco's parents had been anxious to get their son as much of a head-start as possible when going to Hogwarts, they had held their metaphorical noses, and requested Lily Longbottom's private pre-Hogwarts tuition of Draco, accompanied by an offer of large sums of gold, and (when that alone failed) vague promises to moderate their stances on muggle-borns, at least in public and in politics.

Consequently, Harry had been seeing a good deal of Draco Malfoy during the summer and winter holidays of the past couple of years, when Harry's mother wasn't busy with her regular school schedule.

Draco was resigned to being the second best potions brewer in their year – after all Harry had grown up at his mother's knee, and inherited a good deal of her talent – but was confident that he would be miles ahead of everyone else.

And since, through his deceased (war hero auror) father, Frank, Harry was the heir to an ancient name and estates, (or what the war had left of aforementioned estates) Draco tried to be more cordial to Harry than he was to most other half-bloods of his and Harry's ages.

Harry considered Draco's question carefully, and then shook his head.

"Nah." he declined diplomatically. "I still need to re-read chapters five, seven, nine, and ten of our potions book and revise my notes. Mum told me she was going to be extra-hard on me, in potions class, so as not to be seen to be showing any favouritism, so I really need to make sure I know everything back-to-front, Draco. She also pretty much promised that whichever house I end up in, she intends to grill me with a spot-test of what I know in front of the class, first lesson. Probably for every lesson in the first term, in fact."

"Rather you than me." Draco shuddered. "I'll see you around when we get to Hogwarts then. Any last minutes thoughts on what house you want?"

"Any of them." Harry shrugged. He'd rather not have the potential embarrassment of his mum as his head of house, but he certainly wasn't going to come out and say that to anyone.

"My father told me he expects me to get into Ravenclaw." Draco said. "Since most of the children from families that it's 'proper to associate with' will also be aiming for there. I don't know he'd mind that much if I ended up in Slytherin, since both he and mother were in it, but he'd definitely pretend to be disappointed if I did, no offence intended to your mother, mate."

And then Draco Malfoy disappeared, taking Greg and Vince, who hadn't at all contributed to the conversation (or for that matter even looked as if they understood all of it), with him.

Harry blinked.

Had Draco Malfoy actually just referred to him as 'mate'?

Draco's nerves must be really getting the better of him, Harry concluded.

Harry got up to reapply to the door the charm which Draco had broken and was forestalled by the advent of several upper years whom he was sure were Hufflepuffs.

"I say, Tonks, what luck, a nearly-empty compartment with only a firsty in it by the look of it." one of the older boys said. "I wonder how nobody else spotted it?"

"Maybe he's a man-eating spider in disguise, Bonksy. Oh hang-on, I think I recognise him. Isn't he one of the professors' children?..."

So much for getting in some undisturbed reading, Harry thought with a sigh. Never mind, if they were Hufflepuffs, maybe he could get them to test him on some stuff, anyway…

Being the child of a Hogwarts professor, and having practically grown up in and around the castle for much of his life, it was hard for Harry not to have become aware of the exact mechanics of the sorting; consequently, upon his arrival at Hogwarts, the revealing of the hat and that it was in fact a singing hat did not exactly surprise him. He paid careful attention to the song, though, in case it was going to be one of 'those' years, where the hat did something unusual, but it was just one of the relatively 'standard' hat songs, introducing itself and the houses.

Then the sorting got underway, and Harry watched several of his friends (and his obnoxious cousin, Dudley Dursley – it had tremendously dismayed Harry's aunt and uncle to discover that their precious 'Duddydums' was in fact a muggle-born wizard) – being sorted into various houses, and then Harry's turn under the hat came and it sent him to Slytherin.

Oh great, his mum had ended up as his head of house, after all.

At least he wasn't in Gryffindor though, with Dudley.

Several sortings after Harry, Draco came under the hat and was sent (after a lengthy pause) to Slytherin.

"I hope father doesn't send me a howler as if I were a Weasley who'd disappointed their parents." Draco said, firmly positioning himself at the Slytherin table next to Harry. "I kept telling the hat Ravenclaw, but it ended up putting me here instead. Something about my wanting to achieve greatness." Draco glanced over at the Ravenclaw tables where Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, and Millicent Bulstrode were all already congregating.

"If he's angry or upset, your mum will rein him in, I'm sure." Harry said. "And they both love you, deep down."

"Nonetheless…" Draco said, and flinched as Theodore Nott was sorted into Ravenclaw, too. "Merlin's rod, there goes another of the children our age I'm supposed to be associating with into Ravenclaw. If everyone but me gets in there this year, I'm going to look a complete failure, I know it."

Harry did his best to pat Draco on the back in a non-embarrassing fashion.

A few more sortings passed, and then 'Neville Potter' was called.

He was a small, dark-haired boy in glasses, who trembled as he walked up to the hat, and was clutching desperately at a toad.

"Oh, it's him", Draco said in astonishment. "Well no wonder I couldn't find him. I saw him several times on the train, but he was always on the move, looking for his pet toad, which he'd lost. Well, it looks like he found it in the end."

Neville Potter looked very small and frightened as he sat on the stool, with the hat flopping down over his eyes.

His sorting went on practically as long as Draco's had.

In the end the hat said 'Slytherin' and Neville pulled it off, and with a look of relief on his face scuttled in the direction of the Slytherin table.

A yard away from safety, he tripped on his robes, and went sprawling on his face, to the bemusement of the hall.

"Oh, someone grab his toad, before it gets away again!" a bossy sounding first year girl with bushy hair and a scowl which had been affixed to her face ever since she'd been sorted said, from further along the Slytherin table.

Draco and Harry exchanged glances, then Draco dived after Potter's toad, and Harry went to actually help Neville up.

"Sorry about that." Neville Potter mumbled, as Harry helped him to the table. "My great-uncle wouldn't let me wear robes until I 'proved myself a proper wizard' and I'm still getting used to them."

Author Notes:

In this particular universe, Frank Longbottom married Lily Evans, and James Potter married Alice (the Alice who in canon married Frank - I'm uninformed of her maiden name at the time of writing these notes in March, 2014). Voldemort concluded that Neville Potter was his target, once he heard about the prophecy, and went after Neville with much the same result as going after Harry in canon (though he tried to spare Neville's parents because they were pure-bloods). I have no information on which side of canon Neville's family his 'Great Uncle Algie' is related to him on, but in this universe I assumed it was on his mother's side, so Neville got brought up by him. Whilst having apparently defeated a dark wizard at the age of one was a fairly convincing demonstration to his great-uncle's mind in this universe that Neville wasn't a complete squib, he still had rather high expectations of Neville...

Severus Snape is presumed deceased. He was a loyal Death Eater up until the end of the Wizarding War, when the Lestranges decided it would be fun to go after the Longbottoms to try and find out what had happened to Lord Voldemort. The Lestranges took him along, which turned out to be a bad idea for them. Severus had a rather low opinion of the idea of torturing Lily to try and persuade Frank to talk, and a three-way fight broke out in which he was an incidental casualty.

Albus Dumbledore appointed Lily as Horace Slughorn's replacement as potions mistress at Hogwarts and (in an attempt to reform Slytherin house), made her head of Slytherin, too. Rather than have their children in a house run by a muggle-born, (former) Death Eaters started telling their children to get themselves sorted into Ravenclaw if at all possible, instead of Slytherin.

Dudley Dursley turning out to be a wizard in this universe is artistic liberty.

Draco is familiar with the measure which Harry took to try and ensure his privacy on the train, having seen it in use, presumably, when having potions lessons, and probably having developed a slight resistance to it.

The bossy, bushy haired first year sorted into Slytherin is Hermione Granger. She really wanted to be sorted into Gryffindor (Albus Dumbledore's house), but alas, the hat was not going to be deterred from sending a young witch of such great ambitions (who just happened to be a muggle-born) to Slytherin in this universe. (And obviously Ravenclaw would not be an option in this universe, because of all the anti-muggle-borns there who have Professor Flitwick tearing what remains of his hair out.)

This story is a one-shot.

Update (30th March, 2014):

To clarify, Frank Longbottom in this universe was killed in the same fight as that in which Severus was a casualty, after the Lestranges decided that they would use the Cruciatus Curse on Lily to make Frank talk, and Severus forcefully objected to the idea.