A/N:
I did read the Pottermore introduction to Slytherin, and decided to keep some elements of it and ignore others! I did find it interesting, given that throughout the book J.K. showed the Slytherins as decidedly evil, but the introduction she's written for Pottermore is much more sympathetic. I suppose she couldn't exactly tell a good portion of Pottermore users that they were evil! (And also of course there's the fact that they're kinda not, necessarily!)

I don't necessarily agree with the Slytherins being evil thing, but at least for the purposes of this story, a lot of them are going to be pretty snobby at first – they may come round eventually though!

Also, sorrysorrysorry! This gap is even longer than the last one, which is particularly bad since I promised to try be quicker! But I do actually have a reasonably good excuse: i'm in Japan. Not just for a holiday, for the whole of the next year! I've been here a month now, and have had to fill out a stupid amount of paperwork, negotiate a lot of hidden-costs in my accommodation, and started my lectures at the university. It's great fun, but very time consuming.

Anyway, I did actually manage to find the time to write somewhere, and all that writing is now sitting on my broken computer, which refuses to boot up even in safe mode. So, the whole chapter has been rewritten sans plans (which are also on the computer) and therefore took a while longer again!

I strongly suspect I'm going to have to buy a new computer, which, of course, means more money, and more negotiating of strange things in Japan. So, this has been written courtesy of my iPad mini, and Starbucks wifi, both of which have been absolute godsends in the last couple of weeks! It does mean it may be a little dodgy on the typo side though, so please bear with!

Oh, and also, a lot of my quotes from the book here may be slightly wrong, as I don't have an English copy of the book or use of the internet to check them, so I've had to translate them from my Japanese copy of the book and hope I got the wording roughly right! They still belong to good old J.K. though!

Soo, here it finally is, I hope you enjoy it, please pretty please let me know what you think!


Harry's first experience of the Slytherin common room was underwhelming at best. The entrance was just through a blank wall in a thoroughly unremarkable corridor, and the common room itself was dark, and not particularly pretty looking. The room was long and fairly narrow with roughly hewn stone walls and a low ceiling. The only light came from green-ish coloured lamps set into the walls. There were several large windows which took up most of two of the walls, but they were totally dark without even a hint of light coming through – this didn't really surprise Harry given that they were underground, he was more curious as to why they were there in the first place. The only allowances to comfort were the dozens of high-backed chairs arranged around a huge ornate fireplace at the far end of the room.

The prefects sat them down on a large rug in the middle of the common room's stone floor and let them chat for a few minutes, before hushing them as the entrance opened for their Head of House. Harry gulped – it was the man from the Great Hall, the one who seemed to simply loathe him. The man marched in dramatically, and spun un-necessarily to lean against the wall, his voluminous cloak sweeping around behind him. He was scowling rather less fiercely than before, until he caught sight of Harry looking at him, at which point the glare from the feast seemed more like a cheerful grin in comparison. Clearly this was at least one person who did not want to see him in Slytherin. Playing the shy-boy, Harry ducked his head and stared at the floor for a bit. He looked up again after only a few moments, this time focussing on one of the prefects who had begun to speak at the angry-man's nod.

"Congratulations! I'm prefect Gemma Farley and this is Frederick Greengrass, we are your prefects for this year. Your head of House is Professor Snape, who teaches Potions."

Gemma nodded respectfully to Professor Snape who inclined his head in return.

"You've probably noticed by now that our house colours are green and silver, and our emblem the wisest of creatures, the snake. Our common room, as you now know is in the dungeons hidden behind a false wall – this may be difficult to find at first, but you will find it protects us from unwelcome intruders far better than the flashy entrances of some of the other common rooms. The windows of the common room look out into the lake – it doesn't look that impressive at the moment, but during the day the light filtering down through the windows is really quite spectacular. It's not unusual to see the Giant Squid and other inhabitants of the lake drifting past. I can guarantee that every one of you will at some point catch yourself staring gormlessly out of one of the windows! The sound of the water at night may take some getting used to, but I tend to find rather soothing – I now struggle to sleep without it when I go home! All in all, we like to think that our common room has the atmosphere of a mysterious underwater shipwreck."

Harry wasn't sure about that yet, but perhaps he would reserve judgement until he had seen the room in daylight. The prefect continued to talk for a good few minutes about all the wonderful benefits of Slytherin house – he didn't really like her attitude towards the other houses – he was pretty sure one of the Zonko's founders had been in Hufflepuff, so the inventor of the Self-Soaping Dishcloth surely wasn't the peak of Hufflepuff achievement as Gemma was implying. She certainly had a strong case of Slytherin-Superiority-Syndrome, something his Dad had warned him was often one of the drawbacks of members of this house. Every house had to big themselves up, he supposed, but this girl was laying it on pretty thick.

When she finished speaking, their new head of house took to the floor.

"Good evening, and welcome to Slytherin," he drawled, stretching out each word for maximum effect – definitely a man with a flair for the dramatic, Harry decided.

"As Miss Farley has mentioned, I am Professor Snape and will be your Head of House throughout your years at Hogwarts. She also mentioned the Slytherin tendency to stick together and protect our own – this is not. Optional. Should any of you have, or notice one of your Housemates having a problem with any student, outside our house or, within it," he paused and looked at Harry, who looked back puzzled – what had he done?

"I expect to be informed immediately. Our house has a long history of winning both the house and quidditch cups, and, as such, any student losing more than 5 house points in one day will have to give an explanation to our prefects, and," he sneered, once again directing his ire towards Harry, "repeat offenders will answer directly to me. I hope you will all take advantages of the opportunities you have been given here at Hogwarts and be a credit to your noble house."

With that, he turned sharply and swept his way out of the common room, his cloak billowing in such a choreographed manner that Harry was struggling to keep a straight face.

Their head of house gone, the prefects pointed the students in the direction of their dormitories with instructions to be up and dressed in the common room for 7am where they would be led in a group down to breakfast to ensure they didn't get lost.

The first year boys were all in one room together, but this by no means meant they were stuck for space – each of the boys had their own huge four poster bed with green and silver hangings and sheets. Their trunks were in the middle of the room to allow the children to choose their own beds. Malfoy and his gorillas pushed through to claim the beds nearer the door, leaving Harry and Blaise by the window with the rabbitty boy in-between.

Harry was really quite happy with these arrangements – his bed by the window was furthest away from the door – admittedly not ideal for making a swift exit, but it also meant that he wouldn't have people tramping past him whenever they wanted to go down to the common room or the bathroom. Malfoy claimed loudly that he now had first dibs on the bathroom, since his bed was closest, but Harry wasn't convinced that was the real reason he had chosen that bed – it had basically no other advantages. Perhaps Diddy Draco was scared to be right by the big lake. Harry, however had no such concerns and changed quickly into his pyjamas before dozing off to the soothing sound of the water outside his window.

He woke early, to the light filtering through the lake and dancing in ripples across his face. Pleasant as it was, he would have to remember to close the curtains of his bed in future if he ever wanted a lie in. Thinking of his crummy curtain-less bed back home, he had a sudden realisation that he had been extremely lax in his self-preservation. Malfoy's fancy watch was still in the pocket of his robes, hanging in his wardrobe where anyone could go in and find it. There really was no excuse for that, especially since he did not have a much more secure hiding place than behind a wobbly brick. Checking that none of the other boys were awake, he eased himself out of bed and crouched beside his trunk. When sleepily setting up his belongings the night before, the one thing he had been careful with was the placement of his trunk. It was tucked up against the wall on the other side of his bed to the rest of the dormitory so that if he knelt beside it and was reasonably careful, no-one would be able to see what went in or out.

His trunk was one of his most prized possessions. It had been given to him by his Dad as the 'late birthday present' he had promised. It wasn't much to look at – it was shabby and had several dents in it and a few cracks so it looked at least fourth-hand. This or course was all just misdirection, this trunk was actually brand new and custom-made for Harry. Normally it opened like a regular trunk, but if Harry pressed his finger to a particular knot in the wood as he opened it, it revealed a whole other secret compartment. The best part about this was that anyone else looking, even when he opened the secret section would only see what was in the normal part of the trunk, so Harry could hide his ill-gotten gains in that part of the trunk without anyone else being any the wiser – and he wouldn't even have to be too sneaky and arouse suspicion.

It really was the perfect present for a first-year miscreant, and it meant all the more to him since he had a vague idea how much it must have cost. It wasn't the financial value that made it special, but the fact that his Dad was by all accounts a terrible saver of money, and must have had to struggle against his own nature for weeks, maybe even months to save up to pay for this. Knowing Mundungus had actually managed to win that fight against himself to get a great gift for Harry gave him a warm feeling in his stomach. There was pride for his Dad for actually managing to resist his temptations for a while, and for himself – that he had been enough motivation for Mundungus to do that.

Rising silently he slipped the door to his wardrobe open, thanking Merlin when it didn't creak, retrieved Malfoy's watch from the pocket of his robes, and returned to his trunk. He popped it in, shut the lid and grinned. His first Hogwarts heist.

Harry was a morning person, so despite Malfoy's calls of first dibs on the bathroom, he was showered and dressed before the other boy even woke up. Half an hour later, the other boys began to stir, and found Harry perched on his bed with his nose in his charms textbook.

Harry was very much looking forward to his first charms lesson. Until the other boys had started to get up he had been carefully going over some of the core movements for charms work. He was fairly sure he had finally gotten the hang of the wrist movements for the Unlocking Charm. Oh he was plenty skilled with the use of lock-picks, but this would be so much quicker! Alohomora was a first year charm, but it was near the back of the textbook, apparently complex enough that they wouldn't be able to get it until right at the end of the year. He couldn't really see where the difficulty came from though – the incantation was easy enough once you worked out the pronunciation, and the wrist movement was just a point and jab-type manoeuvre. Maybe it was just to ensure there weren't a bunch of door-unlocking firsties running around all year…

He had wanted to try the charm out on something but the bathroom door had proved to be warded against the spell (probably a good idea), as was his trunk. He would have to find somewhere to try it out later.

He decided to head down to breakfast early, which quickly proved to have been a huge mistake, as it was not until 7 wrong turns later he realised he was totally lost.

The stairs hadn't helped, of course. He had somehow wound up on one of the upper floors (though he only remembered going up one flight of stairs from the dungeons) and jumped on a staircase heading down,thinking he could see the doors to the entrance hall in front of him. However, at the last moment the staircase swung round and deposited him ungracefully on another landing in totally the opposite direction to what he had been aiming for. Looking back, the staircase had swung around once again, and, no matter how he swore at it, it refused to come back to get him.

With a shrug, Harry decided to carry on walking in the hope of finding either another way to the hall, or someone who could help him. He rounded a corner and yelped in shock as two redheads walked firmly into him, grabbed him by the elbows and began dragging him back the way he had come.

"Now now Mr Potter,"

"You don't want to be going down there."

"Why not?" Asked Harry, rather confused.

"That's the forbidden corridor Harry!"

Harry grinned.

"Really? Great, let's go look!"

The twins gaped.

"Really?"

"I mean, we were planning on taking a look..."

"But you're only a firstie..."

"You sure?"

Harry nodded, trying to look a little nervous rather than just excited, and the twins exchanged a glance.

"Alright," one of them said after a moment, "we've decided you can come."

Together the three of them advanced down the corridor until they reached a large heavy looking door at the end. One of the twins raised his wand to try open the door but Harry stopped him.

"Hang on a moment," he said, "I just want to try something."
He pulled out his own wand and aimed it carefully at the lock, jabbing it sharply as he cast the spell.

"Alohomora."

To his great surprise, the door sprang was speechless. Apparently, this door promising painful death had less security than the Slytherin first year bathroom... Looking back at the twins they seemed similarly surprised.

"Well that was... Underwhelming."

"Nice one though Harry. When'd you learn that? You haven't even had any lessons yet."

Harry ducked his head and pushed a blush to his cheeks.

"Well, see, when I first got my books I was so excited about magic being real and all, so I read through them all, and that one seemed kinda useful so I learnt it this morning."

"A boy after our own hearts!" The twins grinned.

"Anyway, shall we take a look?"

Harry nodded again eagerly, and the twins pushed open the door. The three of them poked their heads around it quietly and gasped at what they saw there.

Two huge front paws resting on a small wooden trapdoor... Two sets of vicious looking claws scratching against the stone floor as the dog stretched it's legs out in front of it. Three wet noses, each the size of Harry's whole face, sniffing suspiciously at the air.

Three loud growls as each of the dog's three heads realised it was not alone. Three cavernous mouths dripping viscous drool. Three sets of gleaming teeth longer than Harry's fingers, longer than his whole hand, snapping at Harry's heels as he and the twins leapt out of the door, slamming it shut behind them.

Three small boys running frantically away with angry booming barks echoing along the corridor behind them.

They didn't slow down for several minutes, Harry following the twins as they raced around several corners,up and down at least 4 staircases and finally ducked behind a tapestry on what Harry thought might have been the ground floor.

They turned back to him, but rather than the abject terror one might expect given the chaotic nature of their flight, their faces were stretched into wide grins which matched Harry's own expression.

"That. Was. Awesome." They breathed.

The three boys spent several minutes going over their experience in excruciating detail, lingering excitedly over their descriptions of the dog, and the account of their escape, which was increasingly exaggerated until they were almost convinced that their escape through the castle had been pursued by the cerberus itself as it snapped viciously at their backs. Fred (or George) found a small tear in his robe which he stubbornly insisted had been caused by the dog's teeth.

Finally, at the prompting of their rumbling stomachs they struck out from the tapestry towards the Great Hall, where Harry was immediately set upon by one of the Slytherin Prefects.

He more or less ignored her lecture, but was sure to look contrite and apologise occasionally in character with his meeker his mind was really on though, was the food. Once the prefect had released him, he plonked himself down in the only space left next to the quieter girls from the evening before and piled an almost obscene amount of bacon on to his plate.

He established, in-between mouthfuls, that their names were Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis. They were both purebloods,Daphne from the more prestigious family,but neither of them had any particular problem with Muggleborns or Half-bloods - except, as Tracey commented pointedly as Harry forced an entire sausage into his mouth, that their manners were sometimes somewhat lacking.

oOoOoOoOo

Their first lesson that day was Charms with the tiny Professor Flitwick, followed by Transfiguration. Charms was fairly easy. Professor Flitwick falling off his chair in excitement at calling Harry's name was a little embarrassing, but admittedly quite funny, so Harry didn't really mind the laughter of the rest of the class.

They mostly went over the specific wand movements required for first year Charms, which, of course Harry had already done. As a result, he earned his first house points for Slytherin for being the first to correctly cast the Lumos Charm they learnt in the second half hour of the lesson. Flitwick seemed delighted that Harry had taken the time to learn the movements before the lesson, and told him with a fond smile that his Mother had been something of a charms prodigy herself.

Harry had not known this, and learning something of the Mother he could barely remember gave him a strangely warm feeling inside. He spent the rest of the lesson helping some of the other students get the hang of the wand movement, which earned him another few points for his house.

Transfiguration was no more eventful. The lesson began with a lecture on the theory behind transfiguration, with Harry taking sporadic notes, along with most of the other students. The only exceptions were Hermione, Daphne and Tracey who took careful and complete notes.

The spellwork segment of the lesson was also much harder than charms. They were given a matchstick each and told to turn it into a needle. Despite having gone carefully over the wandwork and spell with Professor McGonagall, Harry could not for the life of him get his matchstick to change completely. He had it shiny, silver and pointy, but the little hole at the end of the needle was evading him, no matter how hard he tried.

Professor McGonagall seemed pleased with his progress though. Apparently there was a knack to the visualisation that sometimes took a while to get - some people never really got the hang of it, she said. Hermione, of course, had changed her needle perfectly within the first five minutes of trying, which earned her a full 5 points to Gryffindor and an approving smile.

oOoOoOoOo

On Fridays, the first year Slytherins had Potions in the morning with the Gryffindors, and, as Harry found out from the twins when he stopped to talk to them on the way, it was a very bad idea to be late. They quickly sent him running off in the direction of the dungeons with horror stories about weeping Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors in detention for a month ringing in his ears.

He arrived in he classroom barely a minute before the lesson began, and was surprised to see that Blaise was sat at a desk partnered with Malfoy. Feeling slightly betrayed, he looked around the classroom and saw that the only remaining free seat was next to Hermione. She was staring unseeingly at the desk and looking rather sorry for herself, so he slid in next to her with a cheerful grin.

"Fancy seeing you here!" He said, and she jumped slightly but returned his smile. Before she could reply the door to the classroom flew open with a bang and she jumped again, this time joined by everyone else in the class.

Professor Snape whirled into the room with a flourish of his black robes just like his entrance into the common room a few days before. He looked like nothing more than a oversized bat, but was nonetheless rather intimidating.

Upon reaching his desk, he turned to face them with his robes whirling around him and drew himself up to his full height. Harry and Hermione caught each other's eye, and he knew they were both thinking of how nicely this fit with their 'impress the muggleborns' theory.

The professor's poetically composed speech was another mark in favour of their theory, and really was very impressive. Harry would never admit it in a thousand years, but even he had gotten chills at from the drama of it all.

The mood was quickly ruined though, by Professor Snape suddenly switching from the hypnotic tones of his speech to sharp, biting questions which, for reasons unknown, he directed solely at Harry. The first question, Harry missed entirely, the second - well, what self-respecting back-street dealer didn't have a Bezoar on hand in case of poisoning? Of course he knew that one.

When Snape threw the third question at him with a thinly veiled smirk, Harry glared at him. He didn't know what Monkshood was, but he was pretty sure Wolfsbane was the same thing as Aconite. His dad had been selling a slightly-illegally obtained package of the stuff one time. Going by the Professor's smirk Harry guessed it was probably a trick question. After all, if a plant had 2 names, it might as well have three.

"I'm not sure Sir, but isn't Wolfsbane another name for Aconite... So maybe Monkshood is too?"

The Professors lips turned down in a frown - it almost seemed like he had been hoping for total incompetence.

"Well, Potter, 'maybe' is not really good enough when selecting your ingredients is it. Tsk, it would appear that fame is not everything."

Glancing at Hermione's still raised hand next to him, Harry couldn't resist answering back.

"Well Sir, Hermione seems to know. Why not try asking her?"
The rest of the class sniggered a little, but the Professor's frown only grew more pronounced.

"Sit down Miss Granger," he snapped. "One point from Gryffindor for your impertinence. For your information, Potter, if you add asphodel to wormwood you would get a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the draught of the living death. A Bezoar is indeed found in the stomach of a goat, at least even you know that. And Monkshood and Wolfsbane are indeed the same thing, also known as Aconite, but that is something you should know, not something you should -" he paused with a sneer "-guess."

He paused again, frowning around the classroom.

"Well? Why isn't anyone writing this down?" He barked.

They brewed a simple boil cure potion during the rest of that class, whilst Snape prowled around the classroom praising the Slytherins in his most silken tones, and removing points from the Gryffindors in an equally biting voice. He didn't seem quite sure what to do about Harry and Hermione, as they were a mixed-house pairing and he seemed to have no love for Harry, in spite of his house placement. He eventually settled for ignoring them, other than to occasionally throw threatening glares at them across the classroom. This lack of harassment meant that Harry and Hermione finished the potion very quickly, and, after bottling their samples they chatted in hushed tones, under the pretence of discussing the textbook.

Reading between the lines, Harry gathered that Hermione was struggling to make friends in Gryffindor. He wasn't really surprised, Hermione seemed to have a much more studious character than all of the other Gryffindor first years combined. She also seemed rather upset about the Professor's treatment of her, which Harry quickly told her not to worry about.

"Apparently he's the same with all the Gryffindors." He said, "Fred and George said he finds any excuse he can to take points. Not quite sure what he's got against me though..."

He resolved himself then to be sure he would always be able to answer questions in Potions from then on, and, if possible, become one of the best students - if for no other reason than to irritate the grumpy potions master.
By the end of the lesson, Seamus and Neville had managed to melt what would be the first of many cauldrons, and Neville had gone to the hospital wing fir the first of many visits.

Snape, of course, somehow managed to blame the accident on Harry and Hermione, claiming they had intentionally let Neville get injured to make themselves look better. Harry didn't even bother trying to reply, nudging an open mouthed Hermione in the ribs to stop her from protesting the lost points. He waited until Snape was gone and rolled his eyes at her, whispering,

"See what I mean?"

Hermione was practically apoplectic with anger by the time they finally left the classroom. Her face was red and her hair frizzy, and she looked like she was on the edge of tears.

"That man is ridiculous!" She raged, "he's horrible! How can anyone learn anything in there? I was so looking forward to Potions, but now I'll be dreading it." She looked like she was going to continue ranting for a long time, so Harry put his hand over her mouth. Her eyes widened with shock, but she stopped talking, still breathing heavily as she calmed down.

"I got a note from Hagrid today asking if I wanted to go down to tea this afternoon - wanna come? He's nice, promise! No nasty questions and no points loss!"
Hermione smiled shyly and opened her mouth to reply but was cut off before she could get a word in.

"Asking the mudblood on a date, Potter? Ewww who'd want to touch that?"

Harry's earlier feelings of betrayal returned as he saw his friend Blaise stood behind Malfoy. He wasn't joining in, but he wasn't saying anything against it either.

"Sod off Malfoy, Hermione is my friend. Though I can't imagine any of you really know the meaning of that. It's all just 'politics,' isn't it?"

He couldn't help the jibe at the end and he glared slightly at Blaise as he finished, the other boy looking suddenly guilty. Malfoy, however, didn't seem to care.

"Better that then being a mud-wallower like you, you filthy blood traitor idiot."

"Is that really the best insults you can come up with?" Harry asked, incredulous - he'd known better insults than that before his eighth birthday.

"What like you could do better?" Malfoy challenged.

This, as it turned out was the wrong thing to say as Harry unleashed a string of curses and insults that made most of those present blush. He saw Blaise struggling to hold in laughter and felt a little better, but didn't stop until Hermione dragged him away, scolding for his language even as she herself threatened to be overtaken by giggles.

"Where did you even learn all those... Words?" She asked incredulously. "You really shouldn't speak like that, you know."

"I learnt them from my D-" Harry stopped, realising he had nearly slipped up.

"From Dudley, Dudley my cousin. He hung out with a kinda dodgy crowd at school so they taught him, then he... Err... Yelled them at me. My Uncle too sometimes."

There. Reluctant as he was to be pitied, a healthy dose of feeling sorry for him should distract Hermione from his near-slip. Sure enough, her face fell and she didn't call him out on it.

"I'm sorry Harry, I didn't know. That's... Not very nice of them." She finished slightly lamely, looking surprisingly upset.

Harry felt a little guilty for making her feel bad, and promised to try not to slip up again. He supposed it would be difficult for people to hear about the life of his alter-ego. The depressing thing was, it was at least semi-true - or at least, it could have been. Finding out he was hated quite so much by his only living relatives had been hard for Harry to take, so it was all to easy to fake the bitter, sad descriptions of his cover-story.

Still, he shrugged her apology off saying he was used to it, and they left together for the Great Hall.


A/N:

I was slightly appalled and alarmed to discover that in the Japanese version of the book it's the fourth floor corridor that's out of bounds, as Japanese works like in America and starts from the 'first floor' not the 'ground floor.' This led me to the question as to whether this is the same in America - any Americans reading? Tell me, which corridor do you have out of bounds in the American version of the books, third floor or fourth?!

(I now really want to watch a Japanese dubbed version of the HP films to see what peoples voices sound like... If Hermione has a high-pitched anime voice I may break something. Bet Voldemort sounds hilarious though!)