A/N: Alright, my first try at a HP fic... it is going somewhere so I hope you enjoy. R&R!!
Disclaimer: I do not own this disclaimer, if I did I'd charge a dollar every time someone wrote a bad one.
Tessa let out a long, exasperated sigh. There was no way that she would be able to master her Charms homework in time for her classes tomorrow. She hadn't meant to leave her practices till last, but finishing her Astronomy charts from that evening 's lesson had just been too tempting; even if her next class wasn't till the full moon. Concentrating hard on the task at hand, she pointed her long, slender wand stubbornly at the abandoned hat that was resting on a carved wooden bench near the hearth. 'Wingardium Leviosa,' she muttered under her breath hopefully.
The rim of the hat twitched teasingly before it settled back onto the bench. She was reminded briefly of her sorting ordeal two years earlier and her silent wish not to shame her family. She suppressed a shudder at her train of thought; her family wouldn't have been merciful if she had been sorted into a different house. There was a very long line of Slytherins in her family to live up to, not to mention her brother. Stupid Hat, Tessa's thought lashed out; she hated thinking about her brother. The hat continued to sit discarded by some other Slytherin on the bench, carved snakes winding around the four wooden legs to meet on the armrests. Tessa half imagined that they were watching her, laughing. That's stupid, snakes can't laugh, she reminded herself.
Stretching her protesting joints, Tessa decided to call it a night. She started gathering her books, quills, wand and the multitude of crumpled parchment that had been her earlier attempts at her Astronomy charts. Dumping the used parchment carefully into the guttering fire Tessa watched, fascinated, at the slow curl of the parchment as it shied away from the heat and caught light. At last, as the final piece disintegrated in a puff of blackened char, she turned towards the winding staircase down to the girls' chambers.
As she padded barefoot across the cold common room floor Tessa heard a muffled bark of laughter and the slow grating of stone on stone as part of the Slytherin common room wall opened to reveal three silhouetted figures. She crouched quickly into the shadows of a high-backed wooden chair, silently pushing her books behind another. The three continued their banter, the dim green lights from the lanterns overhead distorting their facial features in the dark; they hadn't heard her. Relieved Tessa crouched further into the shadows.
"Did you see his face when he rounded the corner?"
"Priceless," laughed a second voice.
"Teach that stupid Prefect to come snooping down here at night," replied the first voice.
"Fucking Mudblood," growled the taller of the three in a deep baritone.
Tessa didn't need light to recognize the third voice; her brother and his friends often roamed the castle after lights-out. Their latest pet of terror, or so she had heard, was a Bogart they'd found in an old closet in one of the abandoned hallways on second floor. She definitely pitied whom ever they'd terrorized tonight.
"Almost wet his cloak," continued the voices as they descended the stairs to their chambers.
"What idiot is afraid of bloody bats?" The laughter echoed hollowly in the stairwell.
After the three had gone and Tessa was sure she was alone, she let out a breath of relief that she had unconsciously been holding. Picking up her books Tessa hurried downwards to the girls' dormitories, taking two at a time. Her brother's insulting attitude never failed to annoy her, but it suited the rest of her family perfectly. A long line of pure blooded witches and wizards were the pride of her family, and her friendly nature was a constant disappointment to them. She prided herself on being more compassionate than the rest of her family, other than her mother. Tessa smiled at the remembered excitement her entrance letter had caused, as well as how it had deprived her brother one of his favourite insults. Her grandmother had almost died of shock and relief when it became common knowledge that Tessa was not, in fact, a squib. In her family's eyes a pure-blooded squib was as bad as a mudblood; two terms she despised. Her thoughts had lead her to the chamber she shared at the bottom of the winding stone staircase. Quietly, Tessa opened the dormitory door, slipped in, changed, and climbed gratefully into her bed without disturbing her slumbering room mates.
That night her dreams lead her on a confusing chase of a snake wearing the sorting hat, with glimpses of how her life might have been if she hadn't been sorted into Slytherin. Tessa nestled silently into her covers as the first snow of the season started to fall.
