Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, no matter how much I wish I did.

Chapter Ten: Sorted

Quite a mind, young Mr. Potter, mused the Hat on Harry's head. A good mix of the house qualities, I see. I must say, I'm quite stumped. The Sorting hat made a sound of indecision.

'I want to go where I can do the most good,' thought Harry, and felt the hat nod from it's perch on his head.

Well, I'm no fourtune teller, said the Hat. Just a mind reader. You really have no objections to any house? So very odd. I'm so used to students with colorings one way or another.

Harry felt eyes on him from every corner of the Great Hall. 'Not to sound rude, but can we hurry up, please? They're staring." The Hat snorted out loud.

In a rush, are we? Well then I guess you had better go to SLYTHERIN! The Hat shouted this last part verbally and Harry swept it off his head. He didn't know what he was expecting. Applause, like everyone else had gotten, maybe, but not the intesified stares he had now. He looked over at Slytherin table and saw, to his dissapointment, that they seemed loath to welcome him with the same ethusiasm they had the last one to be named a Slytherin, Draco Malfoy.

"If you would, please, Mr. Potter," said McGonagall a bit stiffly. He looked up at her and got off the stool. This seemed to be the trigger. There was that sound again, like a disturbed hornet's nest, only much louder. Even the teachers seemed to be making it. He looked up at Snape as he walked along to the table, but didn't meet his gaze. Snape was not looking at him, but a spot somewhere over his right shoulder.

Harry reached the table, and found no purchase for a seat. He got one at the end of the table, where no one else was to block him out. Not five minutes into being sorted, and already he was feeling the Hat had made a grave mistake. He tried to make himself as small as possible.

Soon after, the sorting finished, and McGonagall carted the Hat away. Dumbledore, instantly recognizable from his picture on the Choclate Frog Card and his possition in the middle of the staff table, stood up and addressed the student body.

"Welcome, first years, welcome back to everyone else!" he proclaimed. There was a slight shifting about, as if people didn't know whether to clap or ask the question Harry had heard buzzing about the table he was currently sitting at. 'How did Potter get into Slytherin?'

Dumbledore looked around a bit. "I'm sure we're all very hungry from the train ride, so lets tuck in, shall we?" He sat down and Harry looked around for a place to get food from. Instantly, however, food appeared all along the table.

Unfourtunatly for Harry, whose stomach was like an empyty sack, he wasn't able to grab very much. Everytime he reached for something, another Slytherin would snatch it away, even if they already had some, there was some readily availible in front of them already, or they had to go far out of their way to get it.

Harry grabbed a roll, and was only able to get it when everyone else was to busy to notice. He subsided on that because when he went for another, the food dissapeared entierly. Harry simply sighed.

Dumbledore stood up again. "Now that we're all fed and watered," he said with a sweeping gaze and smile. Harry's stomach rumbled, but it went unnoticed save for the few snickers along the table. "I have a few announcements," he continued.

"First off, Mr. Filch has asked me to remind you that a list of banned items are available on his office door. Second, the Forbidden Forest is off limits. Third, the Thrid Floor Corridor is also off limits, to anyone who does not wish to suffer a painful death."

His words were met with renewed murmering. He smiled at them all and said "Now, off to bed I think. Chop-chop!" He waved them out.

Harry's place on the table was, as he soon found out, not the best for him to be. As opposed to the general chaos that were the other three tables, the Slytherins all stood up in double-file lines and marched, military style, led by the Head Boy and Head Girl.

This put Harry at the front of the right hand line. As they exited the double doors, a foot snaked between Harry's and he tripped. His glasses slid off and the line simply went around him. There was a soft crunch as boot sole met glass. Harry gritted his teeth and waited for the line of people to pass and stop stepping on his glasses before he picked them up. They were hopelessly mangled. He scooped up the glass, and hoped someone might now how to fix it.

He blinked slightly as tears welled up in his eyes. It was unfair. They hated him, and it was just plain unfare! He considered sitting there for the rest of the night, before he realized just how childish he would look. His pride wouldn't allow that much of a blow on top of everything else. He scrambled back to his feet and followed the blurry black shapes that were his house mates.

They walked through the dungeons, and Harry nearly lost sight of them. He would have if it weren't for the warm glow of the torches in brackets along the walls. He hadn't realized they'd stopped moving, and walked directly into the person in front of him. "Shove off," said the boy, and elboyed Harry hard in the ribs.

Harry went down again. He waited until they started moving, presumably into the common room, before he got up again and scrambled inside.

Snape was waiting for them, though Harry couldn't tell. His eyesight was rather horrid. He only noticed him when he spoke.

"Second through seventh years, you may go to your dormatories," he said with a bored lilt, as though he'd said it hundreds of times before. There was a general commotion, and Harry was left standing with, from what he could gather, eight or nine other people.

"Sit," directed Snape. They did quickly

"Welcome to Slytherin," said Snape. "As you head of house, it feels my duty to welcome you properly and get you set straight on the ground rules. First and foremost, Mcgonagall told you earlier that your house is your family in Hogwarts. This is more true in Slytherin than any other house. Slytherins are reviled, and so you must stick together."

He paused breifly, and looked them over.

"If you find yourself in a possition where you can help a housemate, do so. If you are in a possition where you need help, ask. This does, of course, bar cheating on homework and other asignments. If you feel that you are being treated unfarely, do not hessitate to bring it up with me. I have always got the time to speak with you." Snape said this knowing that many students came from broken homes, and had many problems from it.

"Now, off to bed." He waved them away. "Except for Mr. Potter."

Snape watched them leave and then sat down across from Harry. "Mr. Potter, you're a fool if I've ever seen one. Care to expalin what kind of conversation you had with the Sorting hat to get you placed in the lion den?"

Harry felt anger buble up inside him, but let it pass. "I asked it to place me where I could do the most good," he said, simply.

Snape shook his head. "I think it needs respelled. There is little good you can do here. Most of these students are not going to except you. A lot of their parents were supporters of the Dark Lord."

Harry looked up sharply. "And what have I got to do with that?" he asked, biting back a sneer. "it's not my fault some lunatic can't work a spell and got himself blown up!"

"Be quite," said Snape in the calmest voice he could muster. "They don't see that, and many of them, maybe all of them, never will."

Harry shut his eyes, partly in frustratin, p[artly because his bad vision was giving him a headache. Snape finally seemed to notice they were missing.

"Where did you glasses go?" he asked and Harry pulled them out.

"I tripped and they broke," he said. It wasn't a lie, just an ommision of facts. Snape took them and examined them.

"Hardly damage that could come from hitting the ground."

"Ok, someone might have accidentally stepped on them."

"Someone?" asked Snape.

"Alright, fine! A whole line of people walked on them!" Harry shouted as he lost his temper. His eyes swam with angry tears. What had started out as an amazing dream was quickly turning into a nightmare.

Snape tapped his wand on the destroyed glasses, and they mended, as good as new. He held them out to Harry, who took them with a word of thanks.

"As for your eating habits, I doubt a single roll was enough to sustain you," said Snape.

Harry snorted a bitter laugh. "I would have had more if the others hadn't taken it away every time I tried to get some."

Snape nodded in contemplation. "I will speak to them about it."

Harry looked up, startled. "No!" he said, jumping to his feet, wide eyed. "If you do that, then they'll all think I asked you to, and they'll just pick on me more for being a crybaby!" He said all of this very fast. The last threads of pride he had were tenious at best.

Snape placed a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Sit, and calm down," he said. It was not a sugesstion. Harry sat, but didn't seem ready to calm down.

"Believe me when I say that you are not getting special treatment," said Snape. "I have had to speak to my students many times before about mistreatment. I have a little more power over them than you give me credit."

Harry calmed down slightly. "I don't want to be in Slytherin anymore," he said with a downward look. He pulled his knees up on his chest.

"That is not up to you, Mr. Potter," said Snape. "Though I will speak to Dumbledore about a resorting. Such a thing is unheard of, really, but I think it would probably be best to at laest ask about."

Harry looked hopeful, and Snape shook his head. "I very much doubt you will get a resorting, but I will try. Now, I think it si time you get to bed. You have a full day ahead of you tomorrow. And from now on, you are to address me as Sir or Professor."

Harry nodded. "Yes, Sir," he said, before making his way to the dormatories. Snape watched him go and shook his head. 'Maybe I glorified Slytherin too much,' he thought. 'As loath as I am to admit it, he would have been so much better off in Gryffindor.'

He watched the door to the First Year dormatories shut before getting up to go to bed as well.

As Harry walked into the room, he looked about for an empty bed. He spotted the only open one, which he assumed as his, since it had his trunk at the foot of it. As he crawled under the covers, he heard the person in the bed next to him whisper.

"Why'd you come here?" the boy asked, and Harry only just remebered that he couldn't see him shrug.

"I just asked the sorting hat to put me in the best place for me," he replied, closing his eyes.

"This isn't it," said the voice, and then went silent.

AN: Ok, so Harry has been sorted. I'm trying to make it as true to cannon as possible. The Slytherins are not going to accept him without a lot of hard work, and I do mean a lot. Anyway, stay tuned, kiddies.