"Lord Potter, I'm Lady Daphne Greengrass," the petite blonde girl bowed as she entered Harry's compartment on his first trip to Hogwarts. He was enthusiastic to make some friends, but didn't really like the ones who only cared about him for his status. And besides...
"Lord?" he raised an eyebrow. "What piece of land do I rule over?"
"Umm, Godric's Hollow?" the girl shrugged, sitting in front of him.
"That's the village my parents lived in," he said, keeping his eyebrow up. "Lords usually live in big mansions on the hills, not in cottages inside little villages. They also get tributes from their folk, and have responsibilities towards them, neither of which I've ever dealt with."
"Well, that's just because you were sent to live with muggles," she nodded.
"Oh... is the royal family magical, too?"
"Royal family?" Daphne asked. "We don't have a royal family."
"Well then, whose authority backs the lords? It's the royalty that appoints the nobility, you know."
"Oh, no, lords are just the rulers of rich old families," Daphne clarified.
"That's not the defi—you know what, fine," he sighed. "Maybe you know better. It's just that I haven't seen anyone in the magical world talk about lords and ladies, and believe me, I've met some stuck-up rich people."
Daphne laughed. "Oh, how funny! Next you're going to tell me that women in our society have equal rights and aren't treated as property by their parents!"
"Two of the four Hogwarts founders, and several Ministers for Magic have been women," Harry deadpanned. "Some of them work in law enforcement, too. It seems the wizarding world had embraced women rights a thousand years or so before the muggles."
"Oh," Daphne's face fell.
"Is something wrong?" Harry asked the strange girl.
"Well, um, are you going to believe me if I said we have to get married because of a marriage contract that our parents drew before we were born?" she asked hesitantly.
"No."
"I can't believe it, you're in Slytherin!" Daphne said as Harry joined her at the house table after his sorting.
"Why is it such a big deal?" Harry asked, looking around in annoyance at all the stares he'd been getting.
"Because! No Potter has ever been sorted into Slytherin!"
"How would you know?" Harry furrowed his brow. There was no way she researched his family history in such detail, right?
"Everyone knows it. That's how it always was. All Potters are sorted into Gryffindor, never Slytherin," she said.
"Huh. Doesn't that kinda goes against the whole idea of free will and not being defined by your family?"
"The what?" Daphne asked.
"I mean, children are rarely exact copies of their parents. Usually they are significantly different and have their own personalities. Surely that means they could get sorted into different houses, like I just did?"
"Hmm... no, I don't think so," Daphne shook her head. "Pretty much everyone in the wizarding world just acts exactly like their parents and believes in what they tell them."
"...Right."
"Anyway, you'll have to be careful. Most of the students in Slytherin are from families that belong to the Dark faction," Daphne said in a hushed voice.
"The Dark faction?" Harry raised an eyebrow.
"The Wizengamot is divided into Light and Dark factions," Daphne said matter-of-factly.
"Huh," Harry said. "Why are they called that way?"
"What do you mean?" Daphne furrowed her brow.
"I mean, what makes the Dark faction, well, dark? Does it mean they use dark magic?"
"I'm glad you're finally starting to catch up," Daphne said.
Harry rolled his eyes. "But isn't dark magic, uh, used to kill and torture and hurt other people? You know... the kind of stuff that's illegal?"
"Yeah, mostly," Daphne shrugged. "Where are you going with this?"
"It's just that, well, why would those families just proclaim themselves Dark? Isn't that, like, admitting that you're breaking the law?" Harry asked, straining his voice with sarcasm in a struggle to get the point across. "Wouldn't it make the population and government hateful and suspicious of them? You'd think the cunning, Slytherin thing to do would be to proclaim yourself 'Light.'"
Daphne put a finger on her chin. "Hmm, that makes sense. Maybe that means the Light families are actually Dark, and Dumbledore is a Dark Lord?" she shot a suspicious glare at the staff table.
"Umm, yeah, that's not really where I was going with this," Harry said.
"So, what are you going to do about the Death Eater kids killing you in your sleep?" Daphne asked frantically.
"Nothing," Harry sighed. "It's a school, Daphne, not a battleground. Do you really think a student would risk expulsion and a life sentence in Azkaban on his first day just to kill a high-status kid he doesn't even know? Surely the staff would find out if something like that happened, considering they can read minds."
Daphne frowned. "They can curse you and then Obliviate you."
"I appreciate your concern, Daphne, but I doubt it," Harry said, giving her a smile that he hoped was reassuring. "I mean, we came here to learn magic. The kids in our year can barely cast the Lumos charm, not to mention advanced memory charms. If they could, why would they waste their time attending classes and doing assignments to learn magic that they already know?"
"Fine, be logical," Daphne huffed. "But I get to tell you 'I told you so' if something happens."
"I told you so."
Something did happen, and Harry was attacked by his dormmates. They didn't even use magic - Malfoy commanded Crabbe and Goyle to punch and kick Harry for refusing his offer of guidance.
The following morning, all three were swiftly expelled and banned from the castle forever. The staff had some tolerance to fights, but not to outright attacks.
"So, what did Dumbledore say?" Daphne asked cautiously, watching Harry step into the common room with agitation written all over his face.
"Just wanted to clear some things up," Harry sighed morosely. "Turns out he's the one who sent me to live with the Dursleys."
"I can't believe it!" Daphne gasped. "That bastard! Did you tell him to shove his crooked meddling nose up his ass and threaten to reveal what he did to the Prophet if he ever meddles in your life again?"
Harry frowned. "Uh, no. I didn't do that."
"But why not?" Daphne sputtered.
"Well, it just doesn't sound very... cunning," Harry said, shrugging. "I mean, the headmaster has a lot of power. Did you see all those fancy titles in the Hogwarts letter? Plus, he has a lot of knowledge that not many people do. I'm sure I can benefit from a relationship with him much more by acting friendly. I figured the smart thing to do would be to keep him on my side and use him for all that knowledge and power. That's what Slytherin is all about, isn't it?"
Daphne wrinkled her nose. "No, Harry. Slytherin is about being a smarmy, self-important asshole who alienates everyone, not being actually cunning and subtle and making powerful allies."
"Huh," Harry said absently. "Could have sworn it was otherwise."
"You're really lucky that you have me."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I would really prefer people didn't know how I grew up, since it means they'll view me as weak, so I'm hardly going to expose it in the Prophet. That certainly wouldn't be very Slytherin."
Daphne looked down her nose at the monster-sized pumpkins decorating the Great Hall. "Can you believe it?! Dumbledore wants us to celebrate Halloween, instead of Samhain!"
"Why would we celebrate Samhain?" Harry furrowed his brow.
"Because it's the tradition of our ancestors!" Daphne said, her eyes wide with outrage. "Not like that muggle holiday, Halloween!"
"Um, Daphne," Harry said, watching his blonde friend wearily. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we're English."
Daphne frowned. "So?"
"So," Harry stressed, "Samhain is a Celtic holiday. Celebrated by both magical and muggle Celts, in the past."
"I don't see your point."
Harry rolled his eyes. "My point is that the English aren't Celts. In fact, the only reason we live here in Britain is that our Anglo-Saxon ancestors came from across the sea, and either exterminated or pushed out the Celtic Britons in order to carve out their kingdom. The Runes we learn were the Anglo-Saxon writing system. The Wizengamot is based on the Anglo-Saxon Witenagemot. Pretty much all Hogwarts founders had Anglo-Saxon names, except for Slytherin, who came from Portugal, so it wouldn't make sense that we'd celebrate a Celtic holiday here, seeing as our ancestors subjugated that culture."
Daphne bit her lip. "Well, umm..."
"I mean, it would maybe make sense if we celebrated the Germanic Yule—"
"We do that," Daphne said.
Harry stared at her incredulously. "You celebrate holidays from two completely different belief systems?"
"Well, it's mostly just me..." she admitted bashfully.
Harry sighed. "Anyway, even in that case, Britain was Christianized centuries before Hogwarts was founded, and it seems our society only formed after that era."
Daphne took some time to process Harry's rant while he poured himself some pumpkin juice. "So does that mean you don't want to come to my house to celebrate Lughnasa? It falls right on your birthday..."
Harry gulped. "On second thought, maybe it could be fun to LARP as the people our ancestors subjugated." Surely that doesn't count as cultural appropriation.
He'd take any excuse to ditch the Dursleys.
A/N: This isn't an exaggeration. I've seen all those tropes in fanfics multiple times, including a case where they celebrated both the Celtic Samhain and the Germanic Yule. Those traditional wizards are just so multi-cultural!
Just something I wrote on the spur of the moment because some cliches pissed me off.