Chapter 10
"SLYTHERIN!" shouted the hat.
Harry re-raised his Occlumency barriers and took off the hat, taking two full steps towards the Slytherin table before he noticed the utter silence in the hall.
He paused, taking in the room filled with hundreds of stunned faces before shrugging and continuing onwards to the Slytherin table. He arrived and sat down in a suddenly empty bubble of space on the benches, only to look up to see a ring of Slytherins with shrinking shock and growing anger on their faces before an angry voice suddenly called out into the quiet.
"But… he should be a Gryffindor! …the Slytherins must have tricked the hat!"
A surge of something like agreement rippled through the hall as the atmosphere suddenly became charged with tension, Slytherins on one side turning as one and practically freezing the atmosphere with their disdainful glares at the accusation while the Gryffindors' hotheaded return glares tried to incinerate the Slytherins where they sat.
Harry opened his mouth to respond when a voice interrupted him, causing his eyes to flick up to the head table.
"I highly doubt that Slytherin house had anything to do with this." The headmaster spoke calmly, seemingly amused at the interjection. "The sorting hat can't be fooled or tricked. I imagine that the Slytherins were just as surprised as the rest of us to discover that Harry has taken after his grandmother rather than his mother or father."
After a few seconds, a light smattering of applause began from a select few Slytherins and the staff. The applause quickly grew to encompass the whole hall, however it remained far more subdued than what the kids sorted earlier had.
The tension died quickly with the growing applause, although a few Gryffindors kept glaring at Harry as though he had betrayed them. More interestingly, Harry noted a few whispered conversations springing up at the Slytherin table, and looks more considering than angry started being shot his way.
He was well aware of the political weight his name carried as the 'Boy-Who-Lived', but the intense anger the Slytherins and Gryffindors had shown him for initially for his sorting had been unexpected. Apparently the cultural fracture between 'Good' Gryffindors and 'Bad' Slytherins was far deeper than the books he had read on Wizarding Britain indicated.
He had known that statistically most of Voldemorts' followers came from Slytherin, and he had known that families tended to go into the same house, but he would have thought that most of the pro-Voldemort rhetoric would have been stomped out by now through societal pressure and his greeting would have been wary rather than wrathful.
Apparently not.
Harry sat, watching as the hall quieted and another student walked up to be sorted.
The defensive and unified reaction the Slytherins took on his behalf to the Gryffindors' directed anger was unexpected as well. It seemed they were at least willing to defend him in public at least as a fellow member of the house, even if he was to be ostracized in-house.
He could work with that.
'How can I work with this?' Dumbledore wondered, frowning as he examined the distant form of the Chosen One and recalculated his plans to guide Harry into fulfilling his destiny properly.
It wouldn't do to have Harry defeat Tom just to rise as the next dark lord after all. Fortunately, there was little chance of that.
From the regular updates Nicolas had sent him on Harry's progress in magic (and in spite of the fact that the reports had been sorely lacking in information that would let him make a personality profile of the boy), he had managed to deduce that Harry had been nursing a rather severe grudge against Tom for the past ten years. That suggested that Harry would react badly to anything that made him seem more like Tom. While the hatred itself was slightly concerning, Harry definitely wouldn't follow Tom's path to darkness precisely because he hated the man and didn't want to be anything like him.
That last fact had been comforting enough to Albus to let skip the painful task of making time in his (still) horribly busy schedule to meet with the boy in person. Why bother struggling to squeeze some free time out of his schedule and possibly ruin his efforts in other areas when Harry wasn't in any danger of becoming the next dark lord? Nicolas did know how to raise children after all, having done it several times before, and Albus had thought that the old alchemist couldn't mess up Harry too badly for his plans- certainly no more so than his second choice of protection, the blood-wards and that shrew Petunia.
That assumption may have been a mistake in retrospect.
Albus didn't have anything against Slytherins (even if they were frustratingly difficult to manipulate), but a Slytherin could hardly lead a group of brave Gryffindors into battle against the forces of evil- the general public just wouldn't accept it. The idiot masses wanted a bold storybook hero, not a pragmatic and crafty warrior. A Gryffindor could certainly fill the hero roll, a Hufflepuff could suffice, and a Ravenclaw might be able to match up even if it was a bit of a stretch, but a Slytherin?
Not a chance.
He had expected Nicolas to have raised Harry to be a Ravenclaw from his reported bookishness, and he had plans in place to that effect… like allowing the Lovegood girl into Hogwarts a year early to re-enforce the Light side of Ravenclaw (and hopefully steer Harry that direction) and persuading the Patels to come to Hogwarts, since one of the twins was likely to go into Ravenclaw and the other was apparently a shoe-in for Gryffindor, providing a bridge between those houses and allowing Harry to gather allies in both second-hand.
Of course, that plan was ruined now that Harry was in Slytherin.
The Slytherin and Gryffindor rivalry had only gotten worse over the years despite every effort he made to stop it.
He knew, knew, that it was mostly peer pressure and poor home environment that was driving the Slytherins deeper and deeper into the 'Dark' and thus away from the generally 'Light' aligned Gryffindors. Nobody was born evil, and most of them were pressured or seduced into it. Sure, there was the occasional bad egg like Tom who simply took to evil like a fish to water, but they were few and far between.
Even Gellert hadn't been evil. Not really. A genius scientist obsessed with fixing what was wrong in a world he thought beyond repair, yes, but an evil master of mindless slaughter, not so much. Gellert did master the art of magical warfare and he was responsible for a lot of wide-scale destruction, but that was merely a byproduct of his attempts to do the right thing. Gellerts' initial betrayal had been based on doing what he thought was right even though it would mean destroying their friendship.
A twisted and extreme form of 'right' to be sure, given that he had intended on committing genocide, but that's exactly what Gellert had thought he was doing- the right thing.
Gellert had wanted to fix the society that let muggles worldwide rule the lands and people with pettiness and cruelty. He had wanted to fix the society that had passively retreated from the world instead of facing its' false accusers during the witch burnings, and he had wanted to fix the society that didn't (couldn't) punish the boys who beat Arianna until... until…
…well, even if nobody else remembered the surge of revolutionary and ill-considered ideals and the oaths sworn without thought in the heat of the moment during Grindelwald's initial rise inside Germany, he still remembered.
He remembered vividly the things peer-pressure could make one do.
That was exactly why he didn't reign in Severus' so-called 'excesses'; he didn't want to cost the man the 'fellow Slytherin' image that he had managed to create through his suppression of the other three houses' chances for the House Cup. It made the Slytherin house members think he was on their side, allowing Severus to pass on the worst of the plans he got wind of (such as any planned rapes or murders… of which a few popped up every year unfortunately) while simultaneously acting as an inferior role-model of what a 'cunning Slytherin' should be.
While the plan wasn't perfect, and most of the Slytherins developed some cunning over the years, most remained far less adroit at manipulation and underhanded dealings than they would have otherwise been. An example of this plans' success was young Marcus Flint, whos' natural cunning had little opportunity or reason to grow in the relatively blunt and ham-fisted house he had found himself in. Even his Quidditch strategies reeked of brute force rather than cunning guile.
The obvious cheating both in their schoolwork and on the Quidditch field was easy to overlook if it helped Severus reduce the number of girls who left Hogwarts due to rape (and who were then either murdered or disowned for 'dishonor' by their family) to zero.
For the Greater Good.
Fortunately, Severus was one of the best Slytherins to come from that troubled house in recent years (even if he had been misguided and angry as a youth), and he would pick out the few decent potentials from each year to craft into what a Slytherin was actually meant to be: crafty, sly, noble, and focused on doing right in addition to doing well.
Dumbledore twisted slightly in his seat to examine the teacher his thoughts had been centered on and nearly chuckled at the expression of shock Severus was struggling to hide.
Apparently Severus wasn't expecting James Potters' son to be a Slytherin either.
He'd have to 'suggest' that Severus consider the boy for a spot as one of his chosen Slytherins. Whether Severus' intervention and nurturing would be enough to prepare Harry for his role as the Chosen One was questionable however.
'Maybe I should keep Harry in mind while setting up the trap for Toms' pawn?'
Dumbledore considered the thought.
If he did it correctly, the events to come would let Harry show the school his competence and 'heroic Gryffindor' side and at least appear to be the hero the world wanted as well as partially introducing him to his role as the Chosen One. Harry could assist in actually trapping the pawn, which would also give the two of them a shared 'battle' experience and would eventually allow him an 'in' with the boy for supplying information and advice in the future. That, in particular, would be important since quite a few people just came to him with important information solely because of his reputation. One example of this was what had started these events in the first place.
He had received word completely out of the blue several weeks ago from one of the Seer conclaves that Voldemort would make a move for the Philosophers' Stone in an effort to regain his body. In response, he had immediately asked Nicolas to borrow it in order to keep it safe and to expose whoever was acting as Toms' hand. Nicolas had agreed, and he had sent Hagrid to clear out the dummy vault (which actually had a chunk of inert amber in it). He had received word that the real stone would be delivered sometime tonight.
If information like that warning appeared in his hands and he couldn't get Harry to believe it or listen to his take on it, then quite a few people could be hurt.
His initial plan had been for the real stone to be locked in a Fidelius-charmed chest in his quarters while a dummy was placed in the gauntlet trap, with the whole edifice more or less separate from the school, allowing the thief to make a move for the stone without harming the students. Tom could determine the general location of the stone (such as 'in the castle') though divinations, which was why the stone needed to actually be in the castle to begin with, but Tom would be incapable of actually stealing it if he used the Fidelius plan.
'Now that Harry has become a Slytherin however… perhaps I should place the real stone in the trap?'
Certainly an alchemist taught and regarded as 'acceptable' by Nicolas would be able to quickly determine if the stone in the trap was fake if he investigated it, and if Harry didn't bother to protect the stone when the final confrontation came about with the Tom's pawn then he wouldn't be able to establish himself as a hero rather than as a prospective dark wizard in the eyes of his peers (who were likely going to be on the front lines of the coming war when Tom got his body back).
…and Harry definitely needed his peers on his side to face the Death Eaters, just like he had needed his peers at his flanks to face down Gellert's Reapers.
It was the way of things for the hero to be accompanied by his heroic companions.
He'd have to make sure that Harrys' Slytherin label would not prevent those Gryffindor companions from coming to his side as the hero of the story.
But before that, he had to be sure that supporting the boy wasn't a mistake… he had been wrong about one dark lord before and had hesitated in acting on his suspicions before another went dark after all. Even pointing Severus in Harry's direction could prove disastrous if the boy had even the slightest inborn inclination to go dark.
"Severus," Albus started quietly, leaning towards his second in command, "I need you to check something for me…"
Harry looked up to the head table as the desserts vanished and the headmaster rose to his feet, ushering the hall into silence with his presence.
"Now that we are all fed and watered, I have a few start-of-term notices to give you."
Harry' eyebrow twitched upwards in disbelief.
'It seems my initial impression of the headmaster was correct: eccentric.' Harry thought with surprise, frowning slightly. 'Why else would he subtly insinuate that the students were like cattle with his word choice?'
"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is named 'The Forbidden Forest' for a very good reason: it is forbidden to students. There are a few exceptions, namely certain sixth and seventh year classes whom are granted temporary permission to enter the forest under strict supervision by their professors. However, none of those exceptions apply to any first through fifth years, a fact of which I believe some of our older students need reminding."
Dumbledore's gaze paused on a pair of redheads for a moment before he continued.
"I have been asked by Mr. Filch, our caretaker, to remind you once again of two rules that remain in effect this year. Firstly, that no magic should be used in the corridors between classes, and secondly, that your student handbooks-" the headmaster gestured with a hand, the books suddenly appearing in front of each first year much like the food had appeared on the plates earlier, "-have a self-updating list of banned items which you are required to follow."
"Madam Hooch has decided that Quidditch trials this year will be held in the second week of the term, and she has suggested that anyone interested in playing for the house teams should contact her to schedule a tryout."
"Finally I would like to note a change this year from previous years- the third floor corridor in the east wing of the castle, the door to which is now locked and marked with a 'Closed' sign, is out-of-bounds for those who do not wish to suffer a painful death."
"And now, before we go to be, let us sing the school song!"
Harry picked up his student guide and began flipping through it briskly, looking for the words to the song.
"Everyone pick their favorite tune," Harry flipped through the book faster, "and off we go!"
Harry dropped the handbook and clapped his hands over his ears at the incredible wave of horrendous noise that only vaguely resembled a song crashed over him. That was when he looked up and noticed the golden words floating high in the air above the tables.
Reading quickly, Harry caught up with the words about halfway through the song, but he refused to add his voice to the bedlam when he had a ready-made excuse for why he wasn't singing. From a quick glance around the table, it seemed that a number of Slytherins had managed to construct their own excuses for not singing (judging from the smug expressions on the quiet ones and the distaste on the ones still going).
Harry grimaced and removed his hands from his ears slowly as the school song shuddered to slow death, drawn out for nearly an extra thirty seconds by the pair of redheads Dumbledore had eyed earlier.
"~Ah~" Dumbledore said, wiping his eyes dramatically, "Music! A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"
'If that was 'Music', then I'll eat my staff.' Harry thought to himself, before frowning at the headmasters' poor word choice once again.
He almost stood as the other three houses stood and left the hall simultaneously, but he managed to catch himself and remain seated with Slytherin house as they waited a few moments for the crush of humanity in the hall to clear.
Then, almost as one, they stood and began heading towards the doors.
Harry moved the other direction and headed towards the head table, stopping in front of the headmaster.
"Yes, Harry my boy?" Dumbledore asked kindly, "Can I do something for you?"
Harry blinked once at the overly-familiar tone.
"I have a package I was told to deliver to you, headmaster." Harry said shortly, glancing down and handing over the brown envelope. "Dad said I could save him a trip by delivering it."
Harry almost missed the expression of shock on the elderly man's face, but he looked up just in time to catch the end of it before the emotion was submerged beneath what he now recognized as was a grandfatherly mask.
"Thank you my boy. I've been expecting this package. Now off you go, your housemates seem to be waiting on you."
That was a clear dismissal if Harry had ever heard one.
Unfortunately it was also true, the whole house appeared to be watching the exchange in silence with calculating gazes.
They didn't appear happy that he was associating with the headmaster either.
"Why were you talking to Dumbledore?" A blond-haired first-year boy ('Malfey I think?') asked suspiciously as the group started moving towards the dungeons.
Harry noted several eavesdroppers get subtly closer as he considered a response.
"I was asked to deliver a package by a mutual… acquaintance." He wasn't sure whether Nicolas was actually friends with the headmaster or whether their master-apprentice relationship changed the dynamic. He hadn't ever seen the two of them speak to one another after all, so any judgment he made as to their relationship would be circumstantial.
The blond considered this before seeming to come to a positive, or at least neutral, conclusion.
"I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. Pleased to meet you." Draco said as they stopped and waited to file through a thin door one at a time.
'Probably a defensive measure from when the castle was used as a fortress.' Harry evaluated for an instant before the newly-named Draco continued onwards blithely.
"You'll find that there are some families that are better than others Potter, but you're off to a good start by getting into Slytherin. I can help you a bit more there." He offered his hand.
Harry hesitated for an instant.
The boy sounded pompous and arrogant, but he didn't want to make enemies before his first day even began. It was safer to simply make as positive an impression as possible with as many people as possible. Not to mention that Dracos' father was, in all likelihood, Lucius Malfoy, one of the few Death Eaters to escape both Azkaban and the Veil. He was a man who would likely be amongst the first to know if (when) Voldemort returned. If nothing else, his son could act like an early-warning system.
'Know thy enemy and all that rot.' Harry mused, shaking the outstretched hand once and turning to take his turn going through the thin door.
He missed the pinched looks on the faces of the more Grey-aligned Slytherins.
They entered the round Slytherin common room, a cool and elegant space with expensive dark wood accents surrounding furniture and hangings of green silk in various shades. Several level hallways proceeded outwards from alcoves half-hidden by the hanging silk, leading to areas for individual dorm rooms. A massive fireplace took up the main section of the wall directly across from the entrance and a small fire burned within it, almost failing to warm the room yet providing enough heat to maintain the current, cool, temperature. Standing before this fireplace was one of the professors that Harry recognized from the head table earlier.
He stood with his back to the door, seeming to watch the fire as the last of the Slytherins filed in.
The entrance hole, an otherwise uninteresting stretch of blank wall, finally closed behind the last Slytherin and the professor finally turned, facing the students.
Harry noted his hook-like nose, his rather shiny black hair, and his black eyes, gleaming with intelligence.
After a few moments examining the students, the professor spoke softly.
"I-" He started dramatically, somehow managing to make the shortest word in the dictionary sound sinister, "-am Severus Snape, Hogwarts Potion Master and Potions Professor."
Harry blinked in surprise.
'Severus Snape is going to be my potions professor?'
That was certainly a pleasant surprise. Harry had read a number of research articles published by this very man during his alchemy training in the last year as well as a short interest piece in Potions Weekly a year or two ago on his potions making technique. The man wasn't quite up to Nicolas' level, but then very few people were. With enough time, Mr. Snape would likely rival and even surpass Nicolas as a potioneer, given that Snapes' achievements already rivaled Nicolas' own despite his (relatively) tender age.
Snape was the youngest British potions master in three hundred years, as well as the youngest internationally-acclaimed potions master ever. The man had close to sixty unique and totally distinct discoveries to his name since gaining his mastery at twenty, and a great many more that were minor offshoots or interesting side-discoveries of his primary research. He was not an alchemist himself, however he had enough understanding and appreciation of the art that his work always included directions for performing continuing research on top of his discoveries using alchemy.
And now Harry was learning that the man wasn't even a full-time researcher?
Harry made a mental note to never anger the man, because his work ethic and determination alone would make a formidable opponent, completely ignoring any truth there was in the rumors that he had spent some time as a Death Eater.
Harry focused on the young genius and readied himself to take mental notes.
"I am also the head of Slytherin house. Any problems or concerns you have you should bring to me before you take it to a higher authority. That having been said…"
Professor Snape paused dramatically again, causing Harry to smile internally as he noticed the other Slytherins hanging on his every word. Snape certainly knew how to play to a crowd- his timing and manner were impeccable. His lectures were likely to be quite interesting.
"…I do not interfere in house matters for things that can be solved by you, yourselves. If you have an argument with another Slytherin, use one of our dueling pits and determine the victor in the old ways. If you have difficulty understanding a subject, find a tutor amongst your colleagues yourself. If you dislike someone, then curse them. I will not stop you."
A breath.
"Aside from this culture of self-sufficiency and individual power, Slytherin house has a great many unwritten rules, but there is only one of these that I expect you to follow. Be united."
"This means, quite simply, that you are to present a united front before the rest of the school. A Slytherin at Hogwarts can only rely on other Slytherins, at least generally. In private, feel free to disagree, but when in public, present a monolithic front to stave off the dogs of the light."
A murmur of agreement swept through the room. Snape cleared his throat and glared and the unrest quieted instantly.
"Now that I have gone over the major points I wished to cover, I wish to make my yearly announcement for the first years… which the second years and above should remember from their first year."
"Each of you should each read ahead of my assigned material in 'Magical Drafts and Potions' by one chapter. You should also read the reaction tables for every ingredient you use. We have a small communal library of reference material containing this information." Snape gestured to a few dark bookcases in the corner.
"Doing this will prevent you from making mistakes that could melt a cauldron or ruin a potion. It would be terrible for you to not have this knowledge, as I am usually too distracted by the brewers in the other houses to notice such errors. Obviously, the responsibility for making sure that ones' potion is not… accidently… ruined lies with the dunderheaded brewer who failed to read the reaction tables. It would also be quite terrible for me to… forget… to mention the existence of reaction tables to the members of the other Houses."
"I assume you understand my meaning?"
The older Slytherins almost to a man were sporting evil grins while the first years slowly began to join in with smiles that would make a shark jealous as they worked out the poorly-hidden message.
Harry was simply confused.
'Reaction tables are well and good for beginner brewers and slightly helpful for the intermediate ones, but for advanced brewers it usually causes more problems than they are worth. Reaction tables allow one to copy a relatively simple potion with accuracy, but they impede actual understanding. While it is true that the tables aren't wrong, strictly speaking, the starkly defined artificial categories of ingredients in the tables conceal a great deal of information that makes the difference between an amateur brewer and a professional. For masters who are interested in making new discoveries it is anathema.'
Harry hummed thoughtfully as he watched Snapes' face as he, in turn, watched the first years come to the realization that Harry had already dismissed as a fallacy.
'That being the case, why is Snape stressing the importance of reaction tables to them? Dosn't he want potions masters coming from the house of the snake? If he actually favors Slytherins as much as his comments seem to imply, he would have likely mentioned that the tables were only guidelines.'
Harry's eyes widened and he locked onto those glittering orbs, full of what he now realized was malicious intelligence.
Snape turned and met Harry's eyes.
'He doesn't want-'
Harry's thoughts were interrupted by the sudden expression of quickly-concealed pain and shock that crossed Snapes' face as he looked away from Harry, coinciding with a pressure somewhere behind his eyes that indicated a Legilimency attack.
"Now get to bed and don't bother me for the rest of the night." Snape snapped, his suddenly unfriendly tone parting the students like the Red Sea as he billowed his way out of the common room.
Harry stood silently, one shocked thought prevalent in his mind as he watched the fire as the remainder of the House started to make their way to bed.
'Snape just attacked me with Legilimency.' Harry thought dumbly. 'Why would he do something like that?'
It seemed that just as he was about to figure out the answer to his question about the reaction tables, another mystery dropped into his lap.
'This is going to take a while to figure out.' Harry thought, sighing as he made his way down the hallway the prefects had indicated earlier was the first-year boys' this year.
NOTE:
Dumbledore may be manipulative, but he really is trying to do the right thing. He just happens to think that his way is the right way and that people need guiding.
His unhappiness at Harry going into Slytherin is quite reasonable, since he was clearly setting up Harry to be the vanguard of the light in the next war against Voldemort. How else would people have 'known' that a baby defeated the dark lord rather than James or Lily?
No, it would be much more likely for people to believe James/Lily had killed the dark lord and then expired from their injuries. However, when a trusted person in power fed them the unbelievable story that it wasn't the adults, but the BABY who defeated the dark lord, wizarding society lapped it up since they were already primed to believe that a 'Chosen One' would succeed where others could not.
Examples of this social priming are Quidditch (the value of the snitch almost completely overshadows the other players' contribution), Grindelwalds' defeat (he rampaged for years until Albus 'The next Merlin' Dumbledore took him down almost solo), and their entire society (which seems to think that some people are more special than others based on birth- the whole House system and the Wizengamot with hereditary seats being the only form of law-making body).
