Disclaimer - I own nothing you recognise.
AN - Written for Ami's Title challenge and Rayne's Rock Paper Scissors challenge.
Lasts A Lifetime
You watched as the Gryffindors bonded boisterously in the Great Hall, pronouncing themselves the best of friends already, though they'd only met a few weeks before. You were jealous, though of course you hid it well. You wanted to make friends with people that easily, but that's not the way it happened in your house. You knew that before you'd stepped foot in Hogwarts. It was just the way things were.
The Hufflepuffs walked around in groups, chatting happily amongst themselves, always happy, always smiling. You wished you could show your feelings as easy as they did, but in your house, it just wasn't allowed. Blank faced, emotionless, that was the fa ade you had to wear in public. The slightest slip would have been your biggest failure. You were jealous of the happy faced Hufflepuffs, but you hid it behind a sneer. The way you knew you were supposed to. It was just the way things were.
Books and intellect and smarts. You had the most in common with the Ravenclaws, you knew, even though you weren't sorted into their house. You thought you could have found some common ground with them if you'd had half a chance. If you'd tried. But you couldn't. They wouldn't have been seen with you anyway. It was just the way things were.
You wondered, as the years passed by, if you would have been happier in any of those houses. In your younger years, the answer would have been a definitive yes. You would have had friends, and been happy, and been able to argue theory in the library. You could have enjoyed meal times with a smile on your face, instead of the blank, emotionless mask you were forced to wear instead.
Now that you are older, you know better. You may not have been loud about your friendships like the Gryffindors. You may not have been smiley and happy all the time. You may not have spent time in the library just because it was a place you liked. What you did have was something altogether more fulfilling.
As a Slytherin, you didn't make friends. You became a part of a family. The bonds you forged in your seven years at Hogwarts are stronger than any chains, stronger than water, in some cases, even stronger than blood.
You hear, as years pass by, about the endings of childhood friendships, about the endings of relationships that were predicted to last forever, and you know you have it better. The coldness you felt in school melts away when you realise that the bonds you created in Slytherin House are still inside you. You are still linked, closer then mere friendship, to those people you lived with in the dorm rooms, the people you shared meals with in the Great Hall.
You know, as you see your daughter onto the Hogwarts Express, that when she feels lonely in Slytherin House, you can tell her that things will get better and she'll be happy to be a Slytherin.
In Slytherin House, friendship lasts a lifetime.