Notes: Written for the 12 Days of Christmas Style challenge.
Warning for child abuse.
When the brim of the Sorting Hat rips open and says "Slytherin!", no one takes much notice, and that's how you like it. You hop off the stool, concealing the wince of pain (quite neatly, you think), and politely hand the Hat back to the stern-looking professor. The Sorting Hat's words echo in your ears, the pity making your shoulders hunch up as you walk to your new table.
No one budges up, but you expected that, really, so you simply quietly perch on the end, hands folded in your lap. You aren't surprised when Malfoy's Sorted into your House, but you are surprised when Harry Potter is. You didn't think the Boy Who Lived would be a Snake, but here he is, sliding into a seat next to you and offering you a slightly awkward smile.
"Hey," he says quietly, and you murmur something back. You aren't used to people wanting to talk to you. You're just Millie, that girl who's too clumsy and blockish to be properly feminine, the girl who doesn't like makeup and wouldn't understand proper fashion if it bit you in the arse. The girl who's barely considered a girl at all.
Except late at night, when everyone else is abed and your father slips into your room...
But you don't want to think about that, and you refuse to think about that, and instead you pay the utmost attention to your dinner, forking it up in small, steady bites, and trying to hold a conversation with Harry Potter even though you never thought you'd even be on his radar. Malfoy keeps shooting you angry looks down the table, but then again, he's had his chance with Potter, hasn't he? And blew it? The thought touches a small smile to your lips, and it feels like one of the only real smiles you've had in a very long time.
When dinner's over, you don't want to get up, don't want to break the magic of your first real friend since you were five years old, but you know you have to. All dreams come to an end after all, and there are no happily ever afters for a girl like you. Your family's certainly shown you that, and when you get up from the table, you have to remember to hold your robe sleeve down so no one sees the purple bruise flowering on your wrist.
"Come on, Millie," Harry Potter says, and smiles, and you hurry to catch up with him, hoping that maybe, just maybe, this dream won't ever end.