Disclaimer: I am not J K Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.
Note: The following is a one-shot touching on some of the highlights of the first term at Hogwarts in 1991 in an alternate universe where Harry Potter did not fit the Sorting Hat's criteria for Gryffindor. It's from the perspective of various figures involved in events during the autumn term.
Update (6th September, 2012): Author Notes corrected/revised.
Update (2nd October, 2014): Repeated punctuation error corrected.
The Sorting Hat considered the child currently squirming under its brim and the particularly tricky question of where to sort him? This was the so-called 'Boy-Who-Lived' – in a thousand years or so of sortings, the Sorting Hat had noticed that the wizarding world had a fondness for frequently overblown soubriquets, and the boy currently trapped between it and the latest in a long line of wooden stools definitely qualified as the possessor of not just an overblown soubriquet but a well and truly overblown reputation. 'The-Boy-Who-Lived'? Harry James Potter was more 'The-Boy-Who-Cowered' or 'The-Boy-Who-Ran'. Both his parents had been viable Gryffindor material but this boy was cut from a wholly different cloth. He had spent his whole life running away from things or hiding from problems. A few moments ago the hat had been considering him for any of the four houses, but when the hat had offered him Slytherin the boy had imploded, pleading not to be sent there because he was terrified of Draco Malfoy – who reminded him of some close relative. The hat ditched Gryffindor as a choice in the face of such abject cowardice, which – since he clearly did not wish to be in Slytherin – left Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Whatever wits the boy might possess would never stand up to the challenges other, more confident, Ravenclaw students would pose him. He'd tamely fold and earn their everlasting contempt and scorn. He'd rapidly end up the unwanted fledging of the flock, turned upon and pecked apart by the rest of the house. The hat discarded Ravenclaw.
That just left Hufflepuff.
The hat sighed, inwardly, and sent him there. Maybe he'd find friends. He could definitely do with some. And he was good at following orders given to him by others, which could be generously viewed as 'loyalty' if one was prepared to squint really hard.
Unfortunately it would make him an object of ridicule to many at the school – 'The-Boy-Who-Lived' being sorted into Hufflepuff, of all the houses – but the hat doubted that would do any more psychological damage to the lad than however many years it had been of living with the Dursleys had already done to him.
Somehow, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore managed not to visibly wince when he saw Harry Potter sorted into Hufflepuff. The-Boy-Who-Lived was supposed to be a big brave hero, following in the footsteps of his Gryffindor parents, not a limp dish-rag who looked as if he were going to melt into tears on the spot.
And as he remembered to start clapping, and led the applause for this sorting, as he would for any other, Albus wondered for the first time if Minerva had actually been right in questioning the wisdom of placing Harry with the Dursleys? Albus didn't have any idea what may have been happening in Privet Drive, but the Dursleys had certainly managed to destroy any shred of confidence or scrap of self-belief Harry might otherwise have possessed. As a child of prophecy, it would have been helpful to Albus if Harry had been pliable – but as an utterly spiritless flop, he was completely useless. He was worse than useless in fact. He was a liability.
Albus was clearly going to have to have very stern words tomorrow morning with Arabella Figg, the squib he'd placed in Privet Drive to keep an eye on Harry. She had completely failed to keep him fully informed of what was going on there.
The headmaster turned his gaze in the direction of the Gryffindor table, and the unpromising but nonetheless defiantly Gryffindor Neville Longbottom.
Possibly time to switch to his backup plan…
"…Our new celebrity, Harry Potter…" Severus Snape sneered in the midst of roll-call in the first Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff potions lesson of the year for the new pupils.
The child promptly burst into floods of tears, to the laughter of the Ravenclaws, and the sympathetic glares of his fellow Hufflepuffs.
"Ppp….please, sir…. I'm… nnnn… nothing… special." Harry Potter stammered.
Severus Snape surveyed the sobbing first year, and concluded any resemblance to James Potter was indeed purely superficial.
He could derive no satisfaction from lashing this pathetic wretch with his tongue.
"No Potter, you're not, and I'm relieved to see that your fame has not gone to your head." Severus Snape moderated his tone somewhat. "This" he addressed the class now in general, "is potions and pupils who think they are something special or that they know-it-all are accidents just waiting to happen." He raked the Ravenclaw side of the classroom with his gaze, observing their reactions to these words, and making a mental note, accordingly, of which ones looked likely to be trouble over the next seven years. Severus Snape actually liked most Hufflepuffs – not that he would ever admit it – because they tended to be both hardworking and willing to help one another out if they saw a fellow badger about to make an error or otherwise in need of aid.
Then he went on with the roll-call.
Hallowe'en was eventful for the headmaster, not least because it turned out that a terrified Miss Granger had somehow, in her desperation, managed to kill a troll. Oh yes, she may have ended up in the infirmary, but the troll was stone-cold dead.
Albus had inspected her wand with priori incantatem and then hurriedly erased the results of his inspection. Not that he could fault Miss Granger for what she had done – given that her life had been in extreme danger – but he was surprised that as a muggle-born she had apparently even heard of – or perhaps read – magic like that.
Minerva, once she had discovered the truth of just why Miss Granger had been alone in a girl's bathroom long after everyone else had headed for the feast, had torn Mr. Weasley of the Ronald Bilius variety off several strips and – perhaps even more effectively – informed Mr. Weasley's parents. A howler had resulted the next morning, which had practically blistered the culpable Weasley's ears.
But by then the damage was done, and Miss Granger who had passed into a phase of semi-hysterical relative calm was demanding to be re-sorted, quoting various passages from Hogwarts, a History and citing several other examples too – and threatening to write home to her parents if a re-sorting was not immediately forthcoming.
This was unfortunate in the headmaster's view since had she opted to remain in Gryffindor, so long as the precise details of just how she'd done it had not come to light, killing a troll would have gotten her a good deal of credit.
Albus saw her re-sorted into Slytherin and figured that if she could take a fully grown troll, she could probably handle a few comments about her magical heritage, or lack thereof. Although given that she had dealt with that troll, most Slytherins would probably conveniently forget their usual prejudices when it came to Miss Granger. Slytherins respected power and those who had it. Especially when it involved lethal force.
Albus had to hope, though, that he hadn't just witnessed the start of the rise of the next Dark Lady.
Ronald Bilius Weasley was not having a very good first term at Hogwarts. The Granger girl had been annoying for the first half of the term, with nobody in Gryffindor willing to admit that they could stand her, but now that she was gone, her absence was noticed. She'd sort of become part of the furniture of Gryffindor in those few weeks she'd been there, and she had character, and guts. Merlin, she'd even been able to take down a troll somehow. That was definitely heroine material!
But immediately after that, she'd demanded to be re-sorted and ended up in Slytherin, and suddenly Ronald Weasley's name was mud. Because he was clearly the reason Gryffindor had lost a troll-killing heroine. With those choice few words uttered in a temper during a charms class, in response to her instructions on pronouncing wingardium leviosa, he had driven her out of the house, and into the arms of those disgusting Slytherins who were no doubt laughing themselves silly right now.
No, Ronald Bilius Weasley's life was not at all pleasant at the moment. Indeed it was almost something of a relief that he would not be going home over Christmas, as that meant he'd get longer to try and redeem himself before he'd have to face his mother. The howlers she'd sent expressing her opinion over the troll incident had been bad enough. Christmas would be far too soon for Ron to have to face his mother in the flesh without anything in credit against his name.
Draco Malfoy's first term at Hogwarts was proving to be interesting. He'd been unable to attain Potter's alliance, but the boy was utterly pathetic anyway, and a reject who'd been tossed into Hufflepuff by the hat. Apparently he'd burst into tears in the first potions class he'd had, so wasn't exactly a loss right now in terms of friendship. But then, in the middle of the term, the Granger girl had been tossed into Slytherin – she of troll-slaying infamy – and overnight mudbloods had magically become muggle-borns, at least within earshot of the newest Slytherin.
Draco had written to his father consulting regarding the Granger girl. The reply had come back promptly that ability – at least when it consisted of the capacity to apply lethal force and the demonstrable willingness to use it – mattered far more than blood, and that (although Draco was not to repeat this) it was rumoured that the Dark Lord might have been a half-blood. Draco was to treat her with respect for now, make further assessment of her abilities and character, and to prepare to make a long and detailed report on the Granger girl to his father come Christmas.
In particular, Draco's father was interested in the possibilities of whether she might have been adopted, or might have recent unidentified squib ancestry?
And in the meantime, Draco was to do his very hardest to repair any damage that his unfortunate meeting with Granger on the Express may have done.
Hermione Granger was surprised that the Sorting Hat, upon her re-sorting, had put her in Slytherin, as she'd been rather more expecting to end up in Ravenclaw, but apparently the hat had read her barely contained fury at all things Gryffindor and Weasley in particular as some sort of ambition and placed her in Slytherin.
And at least here in Slytherin she got respect and none of the incessant whining for assistance with essays or people trying to disturb her reading time. Nor were there no 'know-it-all' sneers from her new housemates when she acquired house-points in classes for answering questions or being the first to master a new piece of magic. There was simply a quiet sense of appreciation that things were the way that they should be, with Slytherin forging ahead in the house-cup.
Hermione was slightly surprised it was so quiet, around her. When the hat had said 'Slytherin' she'd been worried that she might come in for at least name-calling and derogatory comments, and started to try to work out a strategy to cope with that, but it had never materialised. Stories of Slytherin prejudices against those without wizarding parents or grandparents were, it seemed, vastly over-rated – or maybe such prejudices existed but just didn't apply to Slytherins.
Even the Malfoy boy, Draco, who'd been rude to her on the train was polite to her now, and was nothing but helpful, although Hermione didn't entirely trust him at present, and would wait to see if he was still behaving like this by the end of the year before making any permanent revision of her opinion of him.
Of course the troll-killing incident might have something to do with how things were playing in her immediate vicinity right now – Hermione wasn't naïve enough to think otherwise – but life in Slytherin right now was comfortable, and her new head of house, Professor Snape, had invited her to a couple of private evening potion-brewing sessions to demonstrate to her the limitations of blindly following what was written in textbooks. The man was a genius, and it was no wonder he regarded verbatim recitations with disdain.
"Think, Granger." he'd said. "A competent witch or wizard repeats what someone else has said or done. A great witch or wizard experiments and understands and has their own techniques and ways of doing things."
And Hermione Granger was going to be a truly great witch, of that she was sure.
Author Notes:
In this particular universe, Harry Potter has as a result of being constantly called a freak, being brought up in a largely loveless environment, and being chased and bullied by his cousin and his gang, ended up with virtually no confidence or self-esteem. When the hat offers him Slytherin during his sorting, and he rejects it, it's not so much because he doesn't like the look of the Slytherins as because he's absolutely terrified of ending up there. And so he ends up in Hufflepuff, and the ripples from that spread through other events of the first term.
Correcting my previous Author Notes, the 'midnight duel' episode in canon happens after and partially as a result of the flying lesson incident between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. The flying lesson Harry is involved with in this universe is Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw and passes without any incident where Harry 'proves' himself against a rival (this Harry is probably relieved he manages not to fall off the broom, and he certainly isn't up to any first-time-ever-flying fancy stuff) and Draco has no reason to seek out and provoke anything against Harry which would put Harry in the trophy room at close to midnight. It's conceivable Draco might taunt Ron Weasley (who is a Gryffindor after all, and whom Draco dislikes) but I doubt it would go so far as to result in a 'challenge' being issued. (Ron Weasley on his own isn't sufficiently worth Draco's attention.) And without Harry on a quidditch team, any matches in the term pass without any broom-jinxing murder attempts by any members of staff.