Story name: undecided

Genre: Family(severitus)/Friendship

Rating: T

Category: Harry Potter

Harry trudged up to the common room after having hidden on the third floor. It was almost curfew and the teachers would kill him if they found him out this late. Especially with all those attacks. Not that it mattered. Everyone but Ron, Hermione, Fred, George and Neville thought he did it. Dean and Seamus hadn't said anything either way but still...

He sighed and said the password, the Fat Lady giving him a sad look as she opened. The common room went silent as he slid in, everyone turned to look at him. He had just taken a step forward to go straight up to his dorm when the seventh year boys all blocked his way.

"Hey Potter. Get out of here. We don't want any evil, slimy snakes like you in here."

Harry took a step back. "W-what? I'm not-"

"He's right. We took a house vote and everyone agrees. You're not welcome here. Get out."

"Piss off Slytherin."

"Slimy snake!"

"Freak!"

Harry looked around but was unable to see any of his friends through the crowd that had now gathered. Almost everyone in the tower was shouting out now, calling and shouting for him to leave. He looked over at the Head-Boy only to get a fist to the face. He staggered backwards and backed into another of the seventh years who shoved him forward. What followed was almost a half hour of the worst beating he'd ever had.

When he came too he was lying in a hallway in the dungeons. He tried to push himself to his feet but found he was unable to move either of his legs and one of his arms. He could feel several broken ribs and every part of him ached. He could feel how cold and wet the floor was, and by the smell it wasn't one of the more used parts of the castle.

Harry sobbed quietly and reached out, dragging himself across the floor with one hand. He didn't know how long he was pulling for before he finally saw a staircase. He slowly, and painfully pulled himself up, noting five broken and nine fractured ribs as he did so. Finally he was somewhere he recognised, he pulled himself into the middle of the entrance hall and looked around, he had come from a passage hidden by some shadows and a suit of armour.

He lay on his back breathing heavily, feeling his breath coming in shorter and shallower gasps. He could barely breathe and if that metallic taste was any indication, his lungs were filling with blood.

'If I survive this. I want to get resorted.'

There was the sound of something heavy moving off to one side. Harry turned his head, squinting through his broken glasses (They'd at least had the decency to leave them on his face), his vision failing. "He...p..." he broke off in coughs. Blood and spittle flowing freely from his mouth. He flopped back onto the floor and closed his eyes.

.oOo.

Harry gasped and struggled to sit up, his lungs still full, he couldn't breathe he needed to breathe he was gonna die and-

Someone said something and he felt like he was throwing up with his chest. Blood and... something else... flowed out into a bucket.

He was pushed onto his back and two voices, one male and one female sounded from above him. He was too tired to make out what they were saying.

He blacked out again.

He must have because when he opened his eyes the room was dark and he wasn't in nearly as much pain as before. He looked to either side and realised two things. First, he was in the infirmary. Second, Professor Snape was sitting... no sleeping, in the chair beside his bed.

"Fessor?" he croaked.

Snape shot up, fully awake. He blinked for a second. "Mr Potter." He leant forwards. "How are you feeling?"

"Trd... hrts..."

"Hurts?" Harry nodded. "Where?"

"Evrywr..."

"Everywhere?" Snape picked up something from the end of Harry's bed. Before casting a quick tempus. "Ah, good. You can have another pain potion." Snape walked off and came back with a tiny bottle. "We are giving you an extra strength one. You were very badly wounded."

Harry nodded and drank the potion, passing back out again.

When he next woke, his curtains were pulled shut and seemed to block out a lot of light, though he could see the ceiling and floor on the other side brightly lit.

"Mister Potter will not be receiving visitors, Headmaster. He is much too injured and you know as well as I do as to why. That boy will not be returning to the Gryffindor common room."

Harry smiled slightly towards Madam Pomfrey's general direction.

"Nonsense, Poppy. You know how kids are. I'm sure they were just exaggerating, pointing the finger for someone to blame."

"Albus, he was savagely beaten and the portraits confirm it. They stunned, bound and silenced his friends and beat him up, dumping him in an unused part of the dungeons and left him to die."

Harry frowned. So that was why his friends didn't speak up...

"Poppy. He is a Gryffindor. He has to go back to Gryffindor tower."

"What if I don't what to be a Gryffindor anymore?"

The room silenced. His curtain opened and he saw Madam Pomfrey, the Headmaster and professors McGonagall, Snape, Sprout and Flitwick standing there.

The headmaster shook his head. "My boy, you are a Gryffindor and that is where you have to stay. You can't just go into another house."

Flitwick shook his head. "Not exactly, Albus. You know if he formally requests a sorting, the four Heads of House, the Headmaster and the Sorting Hat agree, then he can be resorted. It hasn't been done in a very long time since the sorting hat rarely agrees, but it can be done." He turned to Harry. "Do you think it will agree, Mr Potter?"

"Yes, of course. Considering it didn't want to put me in Gryffindor in the first place." He smirked slightly at the gobsmacked expressions on everyone's faces. "Hm... 'Not Slytherin eh? Are you sure? You could be great you know, and Slytherin would help you on your way to greatness, no doubt about that. No? Well then, if you're sure. Better be, Gryffindor.'"

Snape rocked backwards slightly. "Slytherin... the sorting hat wanted you in Slytherin?"

Harry nodded. "I told it not to since Ron and Hagrid both told me that Slytherin was evil and all of Voldemort's followers had been in Slytherin. And I'd met Malfoy twice and the first time he made me feel like a complete idiot, not knowing over half of what he said, and the second time he insulted the first friend I'd ever had, so I didn't want to spend seven years living with him."

Poppy hummed. "I can see why. Well then, if the four heads are in agreement?"

McGonagall nodded. "Aye."

Flitwick nodded. "Aye."

Sprout nodded. "Aye."

Snape nodded. "Aye."

The Headmaster shook his head. "Nay. Mister Potter is fine in Gryffindor. This kind of thing won't happen again."

Harry shook his head. "The school turned on me last year after Hermione, Neville and I lost a hundred and fifty points in one night for being out after curfew. They turned on me again this year because they think I'm the heir of Slytherin. I don't want to see what they do next year. I can't go through that again. I can't keep taking these beatings."

Snape looked sharply at him. "What? This has happened before?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah. All the time. Every time I lose points or get a detention they turn on me. It's not so bad sometimes but if I lose a lot they hurt me. This was the worst one."

McGonagall frowned. "Why didn't you report it?"

Harry shrugged. "Why should I? I lost points, it was my own fault. Besides, you wouldn't believe me. You'd just think I was lying, like last year when I told you about the stone. If that was three of us telling you about a real issue, you would never believe me over something little like this. It's just a few beatings. I can take it."