I do not own Harry Potter.

For the rest of the trip, Harry alternated between naps and staring at the scenery below. It was an uneventful trip, but it served to loosen and relax him. Scotland really was a beautiful place. It was lush and green and the lands that they passed held no sign of human disturbance. Only nature reigned beneath and that in itself gave the place an air of frontier and mystery.

When they neared their destination, a set of new robes appeared on its own accord on the seat. Harry had made sure to travel with simple brown robes of his own. The majority of his wardrobe back in the manor had been expensive and elegantly black with the telltale insignia of a silver snake coiling around the sleeves to indicate his affinity with the Dark Lord. Anybody who dared to inflict any harm upon him would receive death and only death. Harry had to actually steal the simple brown pair he had been wearing from one of the lower Death Eaters. It just wouldn't work to wander into Light territory with Tom's mark on his clothing.

The robes that had appeared in the carriage were a simple black with a gold insignia divided into four colors and "mascots". One quarter was a rich red with a lion poised to attack, another was a warm yellow with a badger, the third was a deep blue with a raven, and the last was emerald with a coiled snake. Harry shivered at the snake. It reminded him too much of Tom's symbol. He distracted himself by reading the Latin, "Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus". A sleeping dragon is never to be tickled. That was the strangest school motto Harry had ever heard.

The carriage came to a stop in front of one of the largest and oldest castles Harry had ever seen. That was saying something, considering he'd been in a virtual castle his entire life. Its walls were completely made from stone. And tall towers reached towards the sky. The entrance gate itself seemed to span three times as large as the carriage and violently powerful spells fortified it. Harry could literally feel the waves of magic in the air.

A severe woman with a tall witch's hat stood in front of the iron gates. Her long robes stood a millimeter's length above the ground and she stood poised with her hands behind her back. She was neither smiling nor frowning but Harry could still see the stiffness in her spine. The woman was tense…why?

Harry pulled himself out of the carriage as two stable hands came to unharness the pegasi. He watched them for a minute, wishing the winged beings were thestrals, before he turned to see that the witch had made her way over.

"We received word of you, Mr…?"

"Evans," Harry smoothly smiled. "Harry Evans."

"Well it's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Evans. You may call me Professor McGonagall. I am the Transfigurations teacher here. I'm sure you'll find Hogwarts much to your liking. We have separate dormitories for Squibs, but you are all Sorted, magical or not, and you can still choose to attend magical courses in addition to your standard Muggle ones." The professor's lips twitched in amusement. "You might have me as a professor if you so choose to do so."

Was that supposed to be a good thing? Because Harry had a vague unsettling feeling just listening to her. She seemed formal, but everything about her screamed Light. Being with so many Dark in his life, it was difficult to swallow her mannerisms and tone. They were miniscule changes, but Harry picked up on them. The people here spoke with higher inflictions, creating a generally happier tone, and they apparently didn't have the unsaid rule of keeping their wands ready at all times – just in case. It was so different and it was going to take some getting used to, but Harry had a feeling that once he did, he just might "take a liking to Hogwarts" as the professor put it.

As she spoke, Professor McGonagall opened the gates with the flick of her wand and led him towards a set of massive doors leading into the castle. Harry had no idea what a Sorting was or what "Muggle standards" entailed but there was no point in asking now. He would probably find out sooner rather than later.

The interior of the castle was a little drabber than Harry had expected. Its walls were a stone gray (given the walls were made of stone) and there was an immediate chill to the air. Random suits of armor dotted the entrance hall and unlit torches were placed evenly along the walls. Harry couldn't help but stare as they passed the moving staircases and ran across several ghosts floating about as if they had every right to be there. Perhaps they did. Harry wouldn't know. Back at Tom's manor, ghosts were only allowed in the garden and even then only pureblood ghosts were given entry.

They paused in front of yet another set of massive doors at the top of a (unmoving) staircase where the professor turned around and said, "Mr. Evans, here at Hogwarts, there are four Houses. Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and…Slytherin. I am Gryffindor's Head of House and, as thrilled as I would be to have you as part of Gryffindor, you are viable to any of the Houses."

Harry gave her a shrewd look. "Will I be choosing which House I will reside in?"

"No." It was the only answer she gave him before she spun on her heels and opened the doors.

Harry wasn't one to be shy, but he absolutely hated excess attention and crowds especially. So when hundreds of eyes turned to look at him from their respective dining tables, Harry couldn't stop the sudden rush of heat to his face. He certainly hoped he didn't look like a tomato, as Tom so elegantly put it. Harry tried to ignore the many students' eyes and followed McGonagall down the rows. Only when he neared the front did he realize that there was a separate long table overlooking the mass. Apparently, the teachers sat here because this table was the only one housing witches and wizards of age.

Harry stiffened and nearly froze when he noticed one particular person at the head table. Although he had never laid eyes on him before, Harry automatically recognized the ridiculously dressed old wizard with the annoying sparkle in his blue eyes. Ollivander hadn't been lying when he said Dumbledore was the Headmaster. A tiny part of Harry had been wishing the wand maker were pulling his leg.

Even though Harry wanted nothing more than to leave the room in revulsion, he knew all too well what a bad impression that would give. He couldn't attract the Light Lord's attention now. The way he was stiffening, he probably already did. Harry inwardly gave himself a push and continued to follow McGonagall to the small stool with an old hat sitting on top of it. Anybody watching him would have only noticed a small hesitance in his step rather than the full-blown desire to run. To them, he was just another nervous student.

The professor addressed the crowd, "We will be having a new student. His name is Harry Evans and he will be entering the Squib department." Harry noticed how some of the students in the crowd perked up while a much larger population automatically deflated and looked away. "Please welcome him after the Sorting."

Harry now had a vague feeling that the Sorting had to do with choosing which House he was in and the hat on the stool. If he put two and two together…oh, surely not. They wouldn't let a hat decide which House he belonged in, right?

When Professor McGonagall indicated for him to sit down and placed the hat on his head, covering his eyes with the wide brim. Harry was abruptly hit with a realization of how insane the Light side was. Tom was right about yet another point. Really, he had to give the Dark Lord more credit. Apparently not everything that came out of his mouth was a lie.

"Interesting."

Harry flinched. He had expected the hat to be enchanted to contain a certain degree of intelligence, but he didn't think it would be this sophisticated. It took a lot of power and will to put some sort of human inflection on an inanimate object.

"Smart one, eh?"

Harry noticed how none of the students seemed to be able to hear this conversation. So the hat was talking in his head. That didn't well with him at all. Nothing got in his head. He wouldn't allow it.

"Yet here I am," the hat purred. "Not to worry. I only see the facets of your personality, none of your secrets. I am merely looking at the bare surface of your mind. I can go no deeper."

Harry still didn't relax. He just wanted to get this over with and this thing off his head.

"Cautious…hostile…automatically assuming the worst and counteracting…you are incredibly brave and bright…but you're not the kindest person, are you? I see darkness in your personality and while you are righteous in many ways…there also many other areas where you lack morals that should be there. Your bravery would make you fit in Gryffindor but your self-preservation would make you an outcast. Your intelligence would make you shine in Ravenclaw, but you do not learn for learning's sake. Hufflepuff? That House is your complete opposite. No, you would not do well in the House of the kind at all." The hat laughed aloud and Harry tensed. "I do not name many members of this House now. Not since the Light barrier came down."

Harry flicked his eyes under the hat's brim over to the emptiest table and saw that it held only one-tenth of whom the other Houses had. So his house was…

"Slytherin!"

There was a frozen silence in the hall before the gazes of almost all the students turned frosty. Only the students at the Slytherin table remained amiable. The silver and green-garbed students were looking at him in astonishment and excitement.

The hat was abruptly pulled off Harry's head and he calmly made his way over to the lone table. Somewhere along the way, Harry felt a small tingle of magic and quietly noted that the crest on his robes had changed into that of an emerald snake set against a silver background and his tie had turned the same colors. He couldn't suppress the shudder that followed. It felt like he had been marked with Tom's symbol again yet it made him feel at home. He had escaped the Dark Lord, so why was such a similarity to his old life so comforting?

Only when he had settled down for a few moments did the Headmaster stand and speak, diverting the students' attention.

It was going to be a long year.

~0~

"So this is all ours?"

One of the Slytherins, Blaise Zabini, nodded. "There's not many of us so that's why it seems so big down here in the dungeons. But, to answer your question, yes. All of these are ours. You can pretty much choose any bed or room you wish."

The rest of dinner had gone without incident. The rest of the Houses were vaguely curious for a few moments after the Headmaster's speech ("Nitwit, Blubber, Tweak!"), but they quickly lost interest. Harry was supposedly just a Squib and a Slytherin. Both served to make him less than worthy of their attention, apparently.

Harry had waited until the rest of the Slytherins had calmed down as well before asking why there were so few of them. Only Blaise and another Slytherin, Astoria Greengrass, had spoken up.

"Slytherin used to be the House for Purebloods and the like. The Dark Lord was once a part of Slytherin and many of his followers were as well. With this being a Light school, there won't be many in this "Dark" House," Astoria had explained.

"Stupid, I think," Blaise had scoffed. "They claim we're selfish and devious but I think we just have self-preservation to a larger degree and cunning. It's not like we'd ever go out of our way to hurt somebody for Merlin's sake. Everybody's against us, you know? Here in Slytherin, we've got each other and only each other. Our House is alone in a pack of hungry wolves but it makes us stronger. We're probably much closer than any other."

Harry had seen that. The Slytherins didn't need to ask for a plate to be passed. It seemed like everybody knew everybody and they knew what one preferred and they passed plates without so much as a word. They were quiet, but it was a sort of quiet understanding that could only exist between close friends. It reminded Harry a lot of Riddle Manor again. Maybe their dinners had been occasionally interrupted by torture session when one follower came in to report a failure, but Harry had always eaten alone with Tom. Tom had only liked to eat with himself. They had always eaten in silence, but Harry couldn't remember a time when he had ever been uncomfortable. Wary and cautious, yes, but never uncomfortable.

"No offense," Astoria had hesitantly pointed out. "We're happy to have another member of Slytherin and all, but you're the very first Squib we've ever had and it might take some getting used to on our part. We're all accustomed to each other's having magic and you might have to deal with it for the first month or so. This is known to be house of Purebloods and the other Houses will probably point that out to us a lot."

Blaise had given him a fierce look. "We took pride – and we still do take pride – in our superiority. The other houses, especially Gryffindor, thought it came from our belief in blood hierarchy, but it's a necessity. If we believe we're better, then we are better. And we are. It's not even belief. I know it. Astoria knows it. All of Slytherin knows it. All you have to do is look at our hourglass. (Oh, the hourglass? That's what keeps track of our points. The point system? We'll explain that later.) We have the highest marks in all classes…except for Quidditch."

"Ugh," Astoria had groaned. "Only those pea-brained idiots called Gryffindors are actually good at that so called sport. It's just a way for them to show off their brawn when they can't show off their brains."

Harry had chuckled at that. He couldn't have helped it. All of them had reminded him so much of Tom and the Death Eaters that it was almost comical. Harry was grinning again as we wandered the dungeons with both Blaise and Astoria at his back again.

Blaise gave him a strange look. "What are you grinning about?"

"It's cold down here," Harry vaguely replied.

Harry could almost hear the gears turning in the other Slytherins' heads trying to figure him out. From what he had seen, Slytherin was supposed to be a sort of mini-Dark surviving in a Light environment. That meant the members of the House were supposed to ultimately be like Tom and Harry knew what that looked like all too well. If Blaise and Astoria were true Slytherins, they would pause and try to see what he was made of, assess whether he was a threat to them or not before planning their next course of action.

"Why…would you be grinning because it's cold?" Blaise asked.

Well…it was close. They had paused to think about their next action, but they hadn't come to the correct conclusion. Had Harry been in their position, he wouldn't have asked at all. He would have waited and observed to find the answer, only asking directly when he was desperate and had no other conceivable way of finding the truth. It wasn't tactical to ask so bluntly. Harry could easily give them a false answer and deem it a settled case, never revealing the truth. If they hadn't expressed interest in it, he would have eventually let down his guard on the subject and tell them in time. Now he would keep it in mind that they had already asked and gotten their answer.

Harry shrugged. "Because it's interesting."

"You're a masochist then," Astoria grinned.

Harry couldn't suppress a sigh. He had just traded one torture chamber for another.

Wow, another chapter so quickly :0 So guess what that means? I have writer's block for my other HP fanfic...wonderful :l

Anyways, I still only have a vague idea of where this is going but I've pretty much decided which side Harry's going to be on.

****Okay, so below there's a mass of explanation regarding my story that I put in. It's mostly a lot of clarification and background so if you don't care for that stuff, skip it. If you ARE interested, then go right ahead!

No, Draco and his lovely bodyguards aren't at Hogwarts. Remember that the UK wizarding society is split (both physically and figuratively) between the Light and the Dark. Draco and his goons CAN'T be at Hogwarts because it's in Light territory and Draco's father (as well as Crabbe's and Goyle's) are part of Voldemort's inner circle so they would, of course, be in the Dark territory learning Dark things :)

And I forgot to mention this before, but Voldemort was never vanquished. (But I'm pretty sure you were all intelligent enough to figure that out already.) He did initially go to kill Harry because of the prophecy and yada yada, but when he killed James and Lily and went on to kill Harry, he dodged the rebounding Killing Curse he sent Harry's way and quickly deduced that Harry could possibly be a Horcrux after feeling a burning feeling. (Hey, if Voldemort was really as badass a they claimed him to be, he should have been able to dodge. Plus he's a supposed genius so he should have figured out that Harry was a possible Horcrux. That and the combination of PAINFULLY SPLITTING HIS SOUL would alert him to something. So he took Harry back, did a few tests, and then took Harry in.)

Does Harry hate Voldemort for killing his parents. Duh. Of course he did. But notice how I put "did". He spent the majority of his childhood hating him but he eventually accepted the loss and moved on. No, he didn't just let it go (who could?) but he came to conclusion that he can't do anything else about it. There's also a lot more that changed Harry's mind but that would just be ruining the story, wouldn't it? All that plus the fact that a part of Tom's soul is HIS soul so it would technically be like hating himself.

Harry is showing signs of missing his old life, or at least searching for it as a source of familiarity. Of course I made it that way :) He's lived like that all his life and such an abrupt change would be weird for anybody. That, and maybe he just misses a place he won't admit is home...