A/N: Three orders of business before the chapter.
1) Updates will be on Fridays unless college eats my life.
2) A lot of people said they'd rather have Elphaba in Ravenclaw. I totally understand where you are coming from, but I have my own reasons for Sorting Elphaba into Slytherin. Actually, after the chapter, if you care to take a gander, I'm going to post an explanation of WHY I think she is more of a Slytherin than a Ravenclaw. Your mileage, of course, may vary. Personal opinions and such. It is not going to make a huge issue in this fic, as this fic is post-Hogwarts and it will just be used as identifies if at all.
3) WARNING: This chapter includes domestic violence! Read at your own risk!
A Surprise Apartment Assignment of Fate - Chapter 4
Sixteen Years Previous
A small toddler with cream skin and a shock of silky black hair sat in a high chair as a very-pregnant woman stirred away at a small cauldron that bubbled over a small gas stove. The toddler was playing with an ovular piece of glass, holding it up to catch the traces of afternoon light in the small kitchen and makes pleased noises at the ensuing refraction.
The woman, the child's mother and undoubtedly a witch, paid the child no mind, focusing with single minded intensity of the cauldron in front of her. She checked the potions book floating at eye level to her left, and then added a pinch of something powdered. The potion shone for a brief second, then settled down to the color of parchment. Satisfied, the woman reached up for a small vial, but was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening.
The door slammed, making the tiny cottage house shake. The clomp of boots on the worn wooden floors was deafening. The woman looked up in fright as her husband burst into the room, dressed in what would be considered his ministerial best, had it not been mussed. The man had a deranged and angry gleam in his eye as he snatched his wife's thin arm and pulled her towards him.
"You've been screwing that street trash Turtle Heart behind my back!" he exclaimed thunderously, making the woman quail a bit and the toddler in the high chair pause.
"Frex, please!" the man's wife begged, trying to free her arm from her husband's iron grasp. "You're talking nonsense!"
"Both adultery and lying are sins before the eyes of God, Melena!" Frex roared. "How many other times have you sinned?! You already put distance between and Him with your blasphemous witchcraft! Must you add others—"
"We've had this discussion before!" Melena exclaimed, tugging at her wrist. "I can't help that I was born—"
"A freak!"
"A witch!" Melena said firmly. "Turtle Heart understands, why can't you?"
"So you have been seeing him!" Frex exclaimed, victorious.
"Like you haven't!" Melena snapped. "Don't think I don't know, Frex!"
The minister pulled away as if stung—and he was. There was a mild Stinging Jinx behind Melena's words, unintentional and non-verbal, but welcome as it freed her arm from Frex's iron grasp. The two stared at each other, Frex looking like he'd been forced to drink sour milk. Then Melena leapt, or more like lunged like a breaching whale, for her wand. Her husband, realizing what she was trying to do, grabbed for it.
A loud and expanse of light flung the two apart. A curse or jinx (nobody knows to this date exactly what it was), that was intended for Frex missed by a hairsbreadth, ricocheted off the pots hanging from ceiling, and struck the toddler sitting in the high chair. The child seemed unaffected and watched her parents panic, because even as they watched, their daughter started to turn green.
The parents had their daughter looked at by the best Healers imaginable. Spell after spell after countercurse after potion was tried to reverse the damage. Frex prayed day and night, performing several exorcisms on his young daughter.
Nothing helped. Spells and potions did nothing. Holy water made the child blister and burn. Despite the best efforts of her parents, young Elphaba Thropp remained unnaturally and unequivocally green.
A/N: Thanks for reading! If you care about why I put Elphaba in Slytherin, read below!
Sorting Elphaba
I actually struggled myself for a very long time to place Elphaba. I wavered between Ravenclaw and Slytherin for a long time, but I finally placed her in Slytherin. And here's where I'm going to tell you why! (Your mileage, of course, may vary. I personally believe Elphaba would have been a Hat Stall or a Near Hat Stall. But I digress.)
Ravenclaws are of (Songs) Ready mind, wit, and have a desire to learn + (Pottermore) pride intelligence, wit, wisdom, creativity, originality, and individuality.
Slytherins are (Songs) Cunning, loyal to their Housemates, and use any means to achieve their ends + (Pottermore) favor traditionalism, resourcefulness, cunning, ambition, leadership qualities, self-preservation, determination, cleverness/intelligence, fraternity, and a desire for power.
Let me make it clear here that Slytherins are NOT evil, just many who strive to make a difference or who want something tend to be ambitious, determined, and have other Slytherin characteristics. (More on this later.)
(1) Elphaba has, no question, Ravenclaw intelligence, individuality, and wit in spades. But, both by the book(s) and the musical, she does not show much creativity or originality. Her cause is essentially hijacked off of Dr. Dillamond's research, experiences as an Animal, and subsequent death (books)/imprisonment (musical). Creatively speaking, Elphaba is rather bland. Her spells are for purpose, not for show, and they get the job done. Which leads to how I beleive Elphaba would fare better in Slytherin.
(2) Elphaba shows resourcefulness, cunning, ambition, leadership qualities, self-preservation, determination, cleverness/intelligence, fraternity, and, to some degree, a desire for power.
(2a) Elphaba is resourceful-she uses what she has. Instead of Magicking up a Glinda-esque bubble, she Magicks (consciously or not) a broom found in the attic; in the Musical, instead of Magicking Nessa herself, she Magicks Nessa's shoes, again using something that was already there.
(2b) Elphaba is ambitious and determined. She wants to make a difference in the world, and she will do it even if she has to face down all of Oz and the Wizard to do it. She takes on Oz and the Wizard, alone, to do what is right. Her ambition for power is so she can do good.
(2c) Elphaba has leadership qualities. In the books, she becomes the leader of the "gang" of friends. Avaric, Tibbet, Crope, and Boq all get pulled in to her passion for the Animal cause over the summer, and she generally calls the shots. In both the musical and the book, she acquires the respect of the Monkeys and they look to her as their leader-not Chistery, who is arguable the actual leader of the monkies.
(2d) Elphaba has a strong sense of fraternity in both the book(s) and the musical. She takes care of her own. Her main concern in the musical at the end is Glinda, of whom she is fiercely protective of in the books. She worries about how Chistery might loose his voice for good if he does not speak. Out of the entire class of Dillamond, when she Magicks the class, she does not (consciously) Magick Fiyero. In the books, she worries about the safety of Fiyero and she hides her work from him to keep him safe.
(2e) Elphaba has, for the most part, a strong sense of self-preservation. She knows when she needs to get out of the Emerald City at the end of Act 1 of the musical. She knows, in the musical, when it is time to 'surrender' because if her plan does not work then, she will not have another opportunity to be 'killed' and when she runs into the Gale Force, they really WILL kill her.
(2f) Elphaba is, as stated earlier, intelligent. Very much so.
(3) The Sorting Hat takes the Sortee's opinion into account. Elphaba grew up being told by her father that she was basically the scum of the earth and she was destined for the Underworld the moment she died. (This is shown more in the books than the musical; in the musical, it is stated her father just hates her.) If one grows up listening to that, they will, to some degree, believe it true. Elphaba constantly says through the books that she has no soul and considers herself wicked and heartless, etc. In the HP world, it is obvious where everyone thinks the 'bad guys' should go-Slytherin. It is my opinion that 11 year old Elphaba asked for Slytherin because she deemed herself 'bad' or 'evil' and therefore belong in a House with her supposed wicked peers.
This is, of course, where we get to the slippery slope of 'is Elphaba evil' which is where the whole 'Slytherins are evil' dichotomy comes from. Elphaba was not really evil-she was just ambitious. She was PAINTED as evil/Wicked by the Wizard and Morrible, and it stuck because (a) she let it and (b) because, at some level, Elphaba believed she was wicked.
This is kind of a tangent, but I'm just making clear that I did NOT Sort Elphaba simply because she was a 'bad guy'. I Sorted her into Slytherin because she had a LOAD of the characteristics of a Slytherin. And she 'goes bad' because she wants to make a difference in the world, not because she is inherently evil.
HOPE THAT HELPS CLEAR THINGS UP. The whole Slytherin/Hufflepuff thing does not really make a huge thing in my fic, as this is post-Hogwarts and in the real world, that kind of stuff doesn't really matter...which is why, generally, it is not mentioned. Elphaba just uses it to describe G(a)linda because, for the longest time, she just knew G(a)linda as 'that Hufflepuff that talks shit about me', until Elphaba bothers to retain her name...and I don't want to identify G(a)linda forever as That Perky Blonde, so ex-Hufflepuff identifiers it is.
TL;DR: I thought long and hard about sorting Elphaba, eventually putting her in Slytherin because that is where I felt she fit most of the characteristics.
