DESTINY'S HAND

Harry eventually woke up to the sound of the other students leaving the train, and he quickly pulled his robe on and rushed out of the train. He followed some children he thought were around his age and reached the lake to be cheerfully greeted by Hagrid and ushered into a boat. The sight of the enormous castle suitably awed him, and he quietly waited in line as a strict professor herded his fellow first years.

The professor, McGonagall she introduced herself as, soon left them to their own devices and took a battered old rag of a hat and placed it upon a small stool. Harry stared and wondered what such a dirty thing was doing in the opulence of a hall filled with gold and almost jumped with surprise when the hat started singing. The fact that they were sorted by simply putting a hat on caused a series of relieved sighs from those who had expected to wrestle trolls.

Professor McGonagall quickly started calling out names of the first years, beckoning them forward to be sorted. Harry waited patiently for his turn and watches as the hat yelled out words like "Huffelpuff!", "Gryffindor!", "Slytherin!" and "Ravenclaw" and suddenly dearly wished he had read up earlier and found out more about the houses, all he knew was what the hat had sang. A sudden silence permeated when Harry's own name was called, and he vaguely recalled Hagrid saying he was famous in the wizarding world, but he had never expected an arrival quite like this. Wrong-footed by his reception, he scampered over to the hat and pulled it over his head, watching as it dropped to completely engulf his small head.

"Hmm," said a small voice in his ear, causing him to let out a involuntary squeak. "Difficult. Very Difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind, either. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes – and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting… So where should I put you?"

Harry gripped the edges of the stool and thought, "Wherever you think I'll be best."

"Wherever you could be best eh?" said the small voice. "You could be great you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on your way to greatness, no doubt about that – So you'll go in SLYTHERIN!" While Harry had thought the previous silence was bad, he was nowhere near prepared for the ringing hush that greeted the Sorting Hat's announcement. He shuffled over to a seat in his new House, wondering why his sorting had caused such a surprise, and then he heard the harsh whispers that cut through the hush and suddenly wished for the peace of silence again. Professor McGonagall cleared her throat and continued with the sorting, though even she looke da bit surprised.

Once the last boy – Zabini, Blaise, was sorted, Professor Dumbledore raised to give the singularly most odd speech Harry had ever heard before clapping his hands to fill each table with food.

"So you are Harry Potter," drawled a voice, which Harry quickly recognized to belong to Draco Malfoy. "Well Potter, we probably got off on the wrong foot, but you'll soon find that some wizarding families are better than others, and you don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there." With that he held his hand to shake Harry's, but Harry calmly refused the hand.

"I can tell who the wrong sort are myself, thank you, and you fit firmly into that category," he coldly replied.

"I'd be careful if I were you Potter," Malfoy said slowly, a slight pink tinge appearing on his face. "You wouldn't want to go the way of your parents, especially seeing you're entering the snake's nest." Turning on his heel, Malfoy walked to another corner of the table, leaving Harry alone again.

After dinner, Professor Dumbledore gave a small speech regarding the rules, and expressly forbade anyone from going to a corridor in the third floor, unless they wanted to die a painful death. Harry found this a bit odd, but was interrupted from his musings when the prefects gathered up and house and led them towards the dungeons and away from the other three houses. Deeper and deeper the prefects led them, until eventually they stopped at a bare, damp stone wall. Harry thought the prefects to be daft for stopping in the middle of nowhere, when one of them muttered, "Mudblood", and a concealed stone door opened, revealing the Slytherin common room. Harry was, to say the least, disappointed, it resembled a long, bleak corridor, with occasional green lamps chained to the ceiling. The only thing that looked remotely like any effort had been made while making it was the elaborately carved mantelpiece. There were carved chairs scattered across the common room, mostly near the fireplace.

A prefect took the first year boys to a remote corner of the common room and pointed at a dark carved door that opened to stairs descending even further into the castle's depths and informed them that their dorms would be at the end of the staircase. Before any of them could enter the doorway, however, the prefect stopped them and directed them back to the center of the common room, where they found a professor with greasy hair, a hooked nose and sallow skin awaiting them.

"This is Professor Snape, the head of our illustrious house, and the Potions Master," was the last thing the prefect said before bowing and retreating into the shadows.

"I am Professor Snape and I am the head of your house," the professor began, "and I would like all of you to remember that fact, and treat me the deference that warrants. Anyone who undermines my authority," here he sneered at all the first years, pausing to glare for a while at Harry. "Will be dealt with severely. As your head of house, I control your fates, should you put one miserable toe put of line, I will have you expelled, you shall not befoul the name of Slytherin!

"The other Heads of houses will not be delivering a similar speech to their first years, but I feel that our much maligned house deserves separate treatment. Any and all conflicts between yourselves should be resolved, and quickly, only inside the walls of this room, outside we must be united, because no one else will stand up for any of you. For better or worse, you are on your own, it would do you well to remember that fact.

"And now, I must move onto the most pressing topic, regarding one Harry Potter. Potter, I use this opportunity to remind you that your, ah… celebrity status will amount for nothing here in Slytherin, or Hogwarts for that matter. I don't know what perverted God would send you to sully Slytherin's name, but I will stand for none of it! Should you commit a single mistake, I will be forced to come down especially hard on you, after all, someone needs to flush that arrogance out of you. I suggest you remember that Potter, for if the Slytherin's will make an exception to our unity, it will be you who is excluded." With a flourish of his robes, Professor Snape was gone, leaving Harry once again to the mercy of the Slytherin's who seemed to have taken Snape's hint.

"Refusing to shake to hand of a prominent pureblood is hardly going to improve your reputation here in Slytherin, Potter." A prefect snarled, "Need I remind you that your mother was a mudblood? We don't want your kind here, and we would be more than happy to show you to what lengths we are willing to go to keep you in line." At the periphery of his vision, Harry was sure he could see Malfoy smirking, but he didn't dare tear his gaze away from the intimidating prefect in front of him.

Then as suddenly as the lecture began, it ended, with the prefect calmly walking away, and the tension in the room visibly dropping, not knowing what else to do, Harry silently walked to his four poster and curled up in bed, trying to sleep.

The next day, Harry woke up early and left for the Great Hall early to avoid meeting any more of his housemates, it wasn't the smartest thing he could have done, since he had no idea now to get to the Great Hall, and was hopelessly lost within a few minutes. He decided that his best option would be to climb as many stairs as possible, since he remembered that the Slytherin common room was deep inside Hogwarts dungeons. He occasionally met a few older students of different houses and asked them how to get to the Great Hall, but they merely gazed at him suspiciously before ignoring him and leaving. It was with increasing desperation and frustration that Harry continued to search, finally stumbling upon the Great Hall purely by chance. Once inside the hall, he quickly ran to his table and started to eat, since by now he was late for breakfast.

Only one thought repeatedly passed through his mind as he ate, 'Why are the students here so mean? What did I do to warrant that kind of attention?' While these bleak thoughts were racing their way through his mind, Professor McGonagall came and delivered his timetable, and he got even more depressed when he saw that he had a class with that horrid Professor Snape that day itself.

The defense against dark arts class with Professor Quirrel proved to be exceptionally odd. Professor Quirrel was a slight man, with a large turban obscuring most of his head and spoke with a pronounced stutter, none of this helping to prove his claims of fighting off vampires and werewolves. To Harry, however, the oddest thing about Professor Quirrel was that when class was starting, and his name was called in roll, Professor Quirrel had stared at him for an abnormally long period of time, and he had felt a sharp stab of pain on his forehead. The pain had quickly disappeared, but it still made Harry curious.

The potions classed passed as he had predicted with Professor Snape being exceptionally strict with him and handing out a week of detentions.

The Gryiffindors were not openly hostile like the Slytherins had been in the dorm the previous night, but were distant and tended to ignore him given the chance. Harry felt a slight pang of hurt at their attitudes, wondering again what he had done, before putting it off to house rivalry.

Transfiguration was exciting, with Professor McGonagall transforming from a tabby cat into her usual self, and transfiguring her desk into a pig and back. It was disappointing to hear that they wouldn't be able to do that just yet, but it was exciting knowing that they could someday. Professor McGonagall was strict, but at the very least, Harry thought, she was favor, not outwardly favoring any house, quite unlike Professor Snape.

History of magic with Professor Binns was exceptionally dull, and Harry started to wonder if the rumors that Professor Binns had bored himself to death with his own lectures had some substance in reality. The ghost taught in a dull monotone, and spoke purely of goblin revolutions and names that sounded infantile in their creation like Buckhammer and Strongboot.

Charms was fairly dull and only memorable by the fact that the tiny Professor Flitwick fell over while calling Harry's name in roll.

The next day, while eating breakfast Harry heard Malfoy talking to his two apish bodyguards about an attempted robbery in Gringotts, from vault seven hundred and thirteen. The vault sounded familiar to Harry and then he suddenly remembered that that was the vault from which Hagrid had withdrawn that grubby little package, effectively emptying the vault. It seemed an odd coincidence that the same day the object was removed someone had tried to steal it, and he decided that that was probably the reason it was removed, and thought the timing lucky. The bell rang and he quickly dismissed the thought before getting up and hurrying towards class.

On the way he heard a loud confrontation around the corner, and turned it in time to see Malfoy sending a curse to a retreating Ronald Weasley's back. The curse struck true and Weasley's front teeth started growing at an extraordinary rate. Malfoy suddenly turned around and seeing Harry, seemed to get an idea, and yelled out, "Keep out of my confrontations Potter, I can handle myself!" Professor McGonagall came around the corner, and saw Weasley on the ground clutching his face and Malfoy telling Harry to stay out of his problems, but two and two together and assigned a week of detentions to Harry and took twenty points from Slytherin. Harry tried to profess his innocence but was ignored and sent on his way in clean view of a smirking Malfoy.

"Told you you'd regret your decision Potter," Malfoy smirked before leaving for potions, to which Harry arrived late, again earning a detention. Harry's terrible mood wasn't helped by Professor Snape's frequent snide comments and by the end of the class he had earned himself several more detentions and wondered how he managed to book off the entire month worth detentions in less than two working days.

At the end of the day, while Harry was going to the Great Hall for dinner, three mops of read hair cornered him. "Thought you could mess with one of us did you, Potter?" one of the redheads, Fred Weasley Harry recalled, demanded. "Well, we have ways for dealing with your kind," and with a swish of his wand, Harry had pink hair and no way of removing the color. He fell down, shocked, as the Weasleys left, shaking his head and wondering if even in this world, the people would treat him just as the Dursleys had.

After dinner, Harry decided to go to the owlery to see how his owl, Hedwig, was doing. Hedwig flew down and landed on his outstretched hand when he reached, and playfully nipped his hand. Smiling, Harry gave her some of the food he had brought for her from dinner. He stayed with her for a couple of hours, slowly stroking her feathers and wondering exactly what he had got himself into by agreeing to join Hogwarts.

Eventually Harry realized that it was late, and if he didn't leave for his dorm soon, he might get another detention for wondering around the castle past curfew. He slowly got up and told Hedwig to go back to the owlery's rafters before trudging towards the Slytherin common room. When he reached, he realized the password had been changed without anyone informing him, and with a tired sigh, went to the wall and hunkered down for a cold night alone in the dungeons.

The next morning Harry was awoken by a sharp kick in the stomach that sent him sprawling against the wall. He looked up to see a furious seventh year, "So… You thought we'd allow to go around throwing Slytherin's hard-earned points away did you? Attacking another student in plain sight of a teacher? We may have ignored you before Potter, but you've really pushed your luck this time." With a sharp gesture, a prefect snapped his wand and hurled Harry into the common room. "Oh yes, you will be punished," the seventh year growled.

An hour later, a battered Harry crawled towards the Hospital Wing, and told an alarmed Madam Pomfrey that he had fallen down a flight of stairs. Pomfrey frowned at that, but didn't question him and sent a barrage of healing spells his way before giving him a few potions, which she told him to take every night for a week.

When Harry arrived in potions, Professor Snape merely said, "After class, Potter". He was so nervous about the upcoming punishment that he didn't hear the bell ringing, and was shaken out of his reverie only when Professor Snape twirled his wand and vanished the chair Harry was sitting on, and he fell hard on the unforgiving stone floor. "Potter, are you really thick enough to ignore all my warnings?" Snape hissed dangerously. "Are you so stupid that you did not realize that a professor was around when you chose to hex Weasley? Did you choose to come to Slyhterin merely to make my life hell and ruin our chances at the house cup? There is only so much one man can take Potter, do not try me again, one more foot out of line and I'll make sure you'll be expelled, make no mistake. Now get out of my office, I'm sure my Slytherins have already taught you enough of a lesson." Professor Snape smiled and with s swish of his robes had left for his office.

As Harry walked towards the owlery again, after a full day of classes filled with barbs from the other students, he simply couldn't comprehend what he had just heard. A professor had heard about the atrocities the Slytherin's had committed, and far from punishing them, he was encouraging them to take matters into their own hands. Harry let his first tears in years fall as he stroked Hedwig wondering why he was so badly cursed.