Chapter Two
"I'd say you'd make a fine Ravenclaw." The Hat whispered into Harry's ears.
Harry blinked and wondered how. From what he's heard, Ravenclaws were studious bookworms. He couldn't imagine spending more than an hour a day with his nose in a book, sitting in one place for a stretch of time just reading.
"Ravenclaws aren't just readers. They're endlessly curious and eager to find solutions and knowledge. Aren't you, Harry Potter?" The Sorting Hat rumbled with what must've been laughter. "You're desperate to learn about death!"
He flushed. Could the Hat see everything in his mind? "What House do I belong in then?"
"Brave as a Gryffindor…Loyal, yes, but exceptionally? As ambitious as any Slytherin, too! My, or my! What are you, Harry Potter? It's been years since I've had such trouble sorting a student, but then it was clear what he wished to be…" It trailed off.
Harry looked around the Great Hall, casting a quick look towards the first years standing in a line, waiting to be sorted themselves. Ron was looking out at the Gryffindor table. When Harry turned his eyes over to the Slytherin table, his eyes met with Draco's.
They both seemed like very good, potential friends. Harry also knew they despised each other and he didn't know how he'd manage to make them be friends. He supposed he could let the Hat decide.
"Well, well! I've made my mind up, Potter!" The Hat chortled. "SLYTHERIN!"
Harry slid off of the stool and took of the Hat. He handed it back to Professor McGonagall. Before he stepped towards the Slytherin table, he looked back at Ron Weasley and offered a smile.
The boy looked at him, perplexed, before smiling painfully back.
Harry sat down next to Draco, who seemed gleeful. "I knew it." He said immediately.
"Knew what?" Harry asked.
"That you were going to be in Slytherin, obviously." Draco rolled his eyes. "I've already introduced you to Crabbe and Goyle," He gestured towards the two boys who were sitting across from them. "That's Theodore Nott," He pointed. "Pansy Parkinson. Daphne Greengrass. Over there, is Marcus Flint. He's the Quidditch captain and my father knows his father."
"Is that good?" Harry wondered.
Draco looked at him like he was incredibly stupid. "Certainly not fit to be a Ravenclaw." He muttered.
"The Hat thought I'd be a good one." Harry said.
"Must be more than I'm seeing." Draco said. "It is good, by the way. Means next year, it'll be easier for me to get on the team. Can't wait until I can play Quidditch."
"I've played it a lot with my dad and godfather." Harry said. "But I don't know if I'm any good." And, he didn't quite enjoy it. It wasn't something he was interested in very much, though the feeling of flying is quite nice.
"Next year, we'll both try out then." Draco said, determined.
The Sorting Ceremony had continued while they'd been talking. Harry looked up at Professor McGonagall in time for her to shout, "Weasley, Ron!" The boy moved quickly from the few first years and sat down on the stool, pulling the Sorting Hat on proudly.
"Gryffindor." Draco muttered.
"You never know." Harry said.
"Weasley's are Gryffindors." Draco rolled his eyes.
"My entire family is made up of Gryffindors." Harry said. "I don't understand how someone's House can be linked to blood. I assume it's personality and someone's own inner-workings. I don't believe personality is inherited."
Though, potentially, maybe he was. Harry thought it'd require further thought. Briefly, his mind conjured the image of magical child being born with strangely colored organs to suit the House they'd be sorted in. He was happy that wasn't yet, he liked all the fleshy pinks and reds.
"I guess." Draco sighed. Harry blinked, slightly surprised the blond boy had responded.
From where he was sitting, Harry was able to see the mouth-like seam in the Hat open. He gave out one last hope Ron would be sorted into Slytherin. The boy was much like Draco, flowing barely-filtered emotion, which he thought would be the perfect learning experience. He could learn from either one, but he'd prefer both.
"GRYFFINDOR!" The Sorting Hat screeched.
Harry sighed. He supposed the Hat chose what was best, otherwise it wouldn't be trusted to sort the students every year.
"I knew it." Draco said proudly.
The last to be sorted was Blaise Zabini, who came to sit at the Slytherin table. Draco must have known the boy because he'd said a quick greeting and a congratulations, to which Zabini had responded with, "Like I'd be anywhere else."
Harry wondered if it was prestigious to be in Slytherin to some, though many others, such as his own family, held contempt for the House. He supposed he should've fought the Hat about being sorted into the House, but he hadn't thought of it at the time. He began to worry what his mum would think of his Sorting.
He had been paying so little attention, Harry hadn't heard whatever the Headmaster had said- drawn out his thoughts by noisy clapping and cheering.
"What did he say?" Harry asked Draco. "I wasn't paying any attention."
"Gibberish." Draco declared. "He said nitwit, blubber, and two other words I don't care to remember. Then he just sat down. My father does say the old man's mad."
"My parents know him. They've never he's mad." Harry said. Dr. Bates had once told what he saw the world was different than what other people saw. He had always thought people all saw he world the same way, except for him. Perhaps, people themselves were divided in what they saw, but, then, why was the way he saw it odd? He found himself growing even more confused.
"It depends on politics." Theodore Nott declared from Gregory Goyle's left."Your parents probably agree with him, politically, so they like him and say he's perfectly great. Draco's father doesn't agree with him politically, so he doesn't like him and calls him mad."
"Oh." Harry said.
Looking down at the table, which had filled up with food, Harry decided not to think too much on this matter.
He thought he was going to learn a lot from the boys around him. He couldn't wait.
'Initium novum' was Latin for 'New beginning', according to Draco. It was also the password into the Slytherin common room and dormitories. Buried deep in the dungeons of Hogwarts Castle, was the House of Slytherin's home. Harry thought it rang true with the House animal, a snake. Snakes often lived underground or underneath things. The House of Slytherin lived underground, beneath much of the castle. It fit.
Harry was to sleep in a dormitory with five other boys. The dorm room was quite massive, everyone had their desk, four-poster bed, and shelf that was separated by thick green curtains that hung from the ceilings, wrapping around the spaces in a demented half-oval against the wall. Though, they had to share a bathroom. Luckily the bathroom had shower and toilet stalls, but it was still quite unnerving. Everything inside the bathroom was either silver or carved white marble, but Harry would prefer a disgusting bathroom all to himself.
The first morning, Harry had the sudden urge to take his hairbrush and shove own Blaise Zabini's throat. He counted to twelve, took slow, deep breaths, and instead simply brushed his hair before taking his things back to his trunk.
He noticed Blaise stared at him, with cautious eyes that reminded him of his mum's whenever he was given something sharp. He thought he must be imagining it, there was no way Blaise would tell there anything odd about him. Yet.
Before leaving to breakfast, and desperately trying to ignore Crabbe and Goyle walking around without shirts (how easy it'd be to gut them), Harry wrote short letters to his parents, Remus, and Sirius. He hadn't been told not to write Sirius, so he thought it'd be fine. He hesitated only slightly to tell them he'd been sorted into Slytherin. He had gone down to the school owlery, borrowing three owls to send out the letters. He was very grateful the school had so many owls, free for the students to use.
There was much Harry had to get used to, at Hogwarts.
The ghosts weren't very bothersome, thankfully. Peeves was quite annoying, the poltergeist had, for some reason, decided to avoid him. He didn't find it odd, Peeves left many of the Slytherins alone. Harry tried asking one or two for directions when he'd gotten lost Hogwarts' great corridors and many stairways, but they either ignored him or gave him unhelpful information such as, "Oh, my, turn at Abigail's portrait down that way and take a few rights!" Or "I think if you go straight from here and go up then down some stairs, you'll find it."
When Draco wasn't looking, Harry punched the wall. His knuckled tingled with pain, but it made him feel slightly better. He desperately wished for his medical kit and a warm animal.
His classes weren't as interesting as he'd hoped they'd be. He preferred his lessons at St. Mungo's.
He attended Herbology in the greenhouses. Harry did like this class, having gardened for so long. It was one of the few things he held an interest in. Herbology was not, however, gardening. A tad harder, as he was handling herbs essential for potions and rituals, not pretty flowers. He asked many questions and the Herbology professor, Professor Sprout, was very eager to answer even his strangest of questions. Harry was also one of the only Slytherins in the class who had no problem getting dirt on himself, Draco was extraordinarily happy to enlist him to do his dirty talk.
Between his classes and adjusting, Harry had gotten a response from his dad on Wednesday morning. He had felt relieved, though he worried his family's reaction to his Sorting. Not for the first time, he wished he had argued with the Sorting Hat.
He picked off the envelope and tore it open and pulled out the letter. He did hesitate then, wondering briefly if it was his mother telling him to never come home again or his father telling him with half-meant reassurances that they still loved him, but then he unfolded the parchment and read;
Dear Harry,
Sirius and I had a bet going against Remus. We thought you'd be Gryffindor, but Remus swore Ravenclaw. We all lost, so no one's lost any gold. I'm surprised you've made it into the Slytherin House. Has anyone given you any trouble? Are you making friends? If someone's being mean, go to Professor McGonagall. I know she'll help, even if you aren't in her House.
Be careful in Slytherin. The Head of House is Severus Snape, as you obviously already know. I gave him the worst when we went to school together, he doesn't like me very much. If he gives you too much trouble, write me and I'll try to handle it, but still try to avoid to his wrath. It won't be good to get on his bad side. Normally, he's very biased towards Slytherins, but I can't guess how he'll react to you.
Your mum and I are making up a care package to send to you for Friday morning. I hope you enjoy it!
Love forever,
Dad
"From your parents?" Draco asked.
"My dad." Harry said, folding the letter and sticking it back inside of its envelope.
On Thursday night, he and the Slytherins gathered in the Astronomy Tower to study the skies. Typically, he copied everything off of Draco there. "My mother's family are all natural astronomers." He had said. Harry was tempted to believe him, as Draco had to have inherited the trait.
Harry spent History of Magic imagining creative ways to drain blood from the human body, sketching out memorized maps of veins instead of listening. The professor was a ghost, Professor Binns, who had died in a staff room fire. His voice was both tiring and enraging, so he tried not to listen and instead copied Draco's notes after class. So did Crabbe and Goyle, who used the class time to catch up on their nap hours.
Charms was purely theory, as was Transfiguration. Harry realized it might become usual of him to simply copy notes off of Draco, for he had little interest in actually paying attention to any of his professors speak or read chapters out of his books. Sadly, Professor McGonagall caught him staring at blank parchment took a point away from his House. She made him finish his notes before allowing him to join the rest of the class in turning a matchstick into a needle.
He was quite proud he had managed to transform the match by the end of the class. It was very easy to imagine a needle. Harry had barely stopped himself from jamming it into the nearest hand that wasn't his own before Professor McGonagall saw it and congratulated him. "A point to Slytherin, good job, Mr. Potter. I do expect you take notes as you should, however, despite any success you make in your spell-work." She said.
On Thursday night, he dreamt of a bleeding cat head yowling at him as he tore into the body with knives-for-fingers.
In the morning, Draco told him they had potions with the Gryffindor House.
This is actually the second version of this chapter! The first one hadn't been very good, I thought, so I changed it around. I think this is a little better, and I hope it isn't total garbage but idk. I'm scared I'm giving Harry TOO much emotion in certain things, not displaying him right, or properly showing what I see in my mind...I hope y'all think it's alright because I honestly I have no goddamn clue.
I've officially chosen the inciting incident for the story! I think it'll hit in the fourth or fifth chapter. The main conflict is still being cut between one and two, both of which seem like rlly good ideas and can be formed off of the inciting incident BUT I can't decide lmao. I want to include Ron more in this story, but I haven't quite decided how. I also want to start mixing more elements of the ongoing war, as well as more information of a lot things Harry doesn't know about yet or not much of.
Idk when I'm gonna reveal the cause of Snape being the Potions Professor, what happened to the prophecy, what exactly the Dark Lord's been up to and how much he's actually grown in influence and power despite it not being quite realized (thnx to him ACTUALLY BEING FUCKING STRATEGIC), plus a good number of other things. I also feel like I'm struggling with Draco's character! gaaaah
The third chapter is already in the works. It's at nearly 800 words right now, which consists of half of what the chapter needs. I think I might try to add more into after I bring in what it needs, so that it's longer. This came out to 2.2k words and I like that amount. I don't want the chapters to be very short, but I also don't want them to be extremely long.
THANK YOU FOR READING! review if you wanna boost my ego lmao