[A/N: I actually wrote this in an RP in which I play Albus, but I thought I'd post it here! Actually, all these things are edited versions of posts I wrote for Albus in this RP. I'm thinking about making a fic based off him using these posts some day. Whatcha think? Any questions, just ask! Basically all you need to know at this point is: Albus was sorted in Slytherin, he's best friends with Scorpius Malfoy, he hates his brother and his cousin Hugo Weasley, and is at odds with his dad because of how Harry promised him the Sorting Hat would let him choose which house he wanted to be in. This is sorted out in later chapters [no pun intended], so read on! Enjoy! :)

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Albus Potter or anything Harry Potter-related, in fact, and I don't mean just people related to Harry Potter, but anyone and anything related to the Harry Potter series by JKR. This is all dedicated to her and her series. Thanks, JKR! I hope I've done Albus justice. :) ]

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I have been wondering for the longest time—since my first night at Hogwarts, actually—why I was sorted into Slytherin.

Everyone seemed okay with me as a person until that stupid hat contradicted my wishes. James and I got along as decently as brothers can, and nobody referred to me as the black sheep or the family fuck-up. That's my favorite: Family fuck-up. As if I did anything that could be considered fucking up. Do any of them know how much I begged the Sorting Hat to sort me into Gryffindor? No, none of them know that, and none of them ever will, because I changed my mind. All it took for me to change my mind, and theirs, was for me to be sorted into Slytherin. And now I am a stigma in my own family.

And still I wonder why I was put here.

I wonder what makes me different from the rest of them. I wonder why I was born with this incessant phobia of heights, and why it had to be me of all people, me who belongs to a family of Quidditch players. I wonder why I have green eyes, while my brother and sister have brown. I wonder why Hugo was sorted into Ravenclaw when he is the most immature and unintelligent human being I have ever had the displeasure of knowing, much less being related to.

Mostly I wonder when I became different. Was I sorted into Slytherin because I am different, or did I become different after I was sorted into Slytherin? It is a paradox to me, and I do not understand it. I am proud to be different. I do not want to fit in with the rest of them, but mostly because of the things they say to me and how they've alienated me simply because of a decision a hat made. But the Hat only makes those decisions based off what it sees inside of a person. What did it see in me that I still have not seen?

What has it seen in anyone? It seems to me that that hat has been wrong a number of times. Take Peter Pettigrew for example. He was a Gryffindor, and yet he committed the mother of all crimes—betrayal. He is the reason I will never meet my paternal grandparents. Dad says that he learned how Pettigrew never once exhibited any of the traits of the house into which he had been sorted, so why was he sorted there?

And what about Severus Snape, the man who not only donated his name to me, but also killed the man from which I received my first name? He was a Slytherin, but Dad says he was the bravest man he ever knew. Apparently they hated each other, but that didn't stop Dad from naming me after him. He must have been an amazing person for my father to name me after someone he hated. So the hat must have switched up Peter Pettigrew and Severus Snape when it was sorting that day.

Maybe it switched me up with someone, too.