Author's Note: Slytherin has turned out more Dark witches and wizards than any other house, but I have a hard time believing that means every Slytherin will be a Dark witch or wizard...

I've always gone unnoticed. Even in my first year, during the Sorting, I was invisible, because that was the year Harry Potter, the Harry Potter, came to Hogwarts, and, after Professor McGonagall read his name, no one remembered anyone else.

I recognized Harry Potter, of course. Everyone did. Unruly black hair, round glasses, small and skinny. Everyone was always telling him he looked just like his father, and it was true—my mother was a Slytherin Chaser at the same time James Potter was the Gryffindor Seeker, and she liked to reminisce about the time he dove fifty feet for the Snitch straight down and pulled away from the ground with only two inches to spare. (Slytherin lost that game, but only by thirty points, and only because James Potter was an infallible Seeker.) Even without seeing the lightning scar, I recognized Harry just from the descriptions my mother had given me of his father. But he had the scar, too, of course.

We stood next to each other in the line of first years about to be Sorted. He looked as queasy as I felt. I smiled at him. I don't think he ever even saw me.

I was Sorted into Slytherin, he into Gryffindor, and we never interacted.

But I watched him. Everyone did. The famous Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, proved again and again that he was far above average. Seeker, Parcelmouth, Tri-wizard champion, underground Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, raving madman, roving outlaw—no matter what he was doing, he was doing it spectacularly. So many times I wished I had introduced myself to him as we were standing in line waiting to be Sorted. I'd imagine myself holding out my hand and saying, "Hi, I'm Sally-Anne Perks, and you're Harry Potter, my mother played Quidditch against your father when they were in school."

Having never done it, I couldn't imagine what he would have said back. Maybe nothing. We were all beyond terrified that night.

Slytherin. It wasn't the den of evil the rest of the school made it out to be. I didn't have any friends in my own year—there were some pretty repulsive people like Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson in my year—but there were decent, hardworking, honest people in it, too. I hope to count myself among them.

I stayed at the end.

And here is where my story differs from the official one. The official story is that the entirety of Slytherin house stood up and left when Harry Potter asked the school to fight You-Know-Who in our seventh year. But that's not true.

I stayed. I stayed, and I fought, and I died at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange. I was in Slytherin, and I stayed.

Harry Potter never noticed me—he was too busy destroying horcruxes to know that not every Slytherin was against him, to see me practicing curses and counter-curses to myself in dark corners of the halls while You-Know-Who tightened his grip on Hogwarts itself. He was too busy fighting You-Know-Who personally to notice the silver-and-green of my tie as my body laid sprawled next to Professor Lupin, the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher my year ever had, just one Slytherin amongst all the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs.

I've never been noticed. Harry Potter never even looked in my direction; to him, I was nothing but a Slytherin, and therefore out to make his life as miserable as possible. The only person to ever notice me was my murderer.

I am invisible.