Thank you for reading! I don't own any of Harry Potter! Please let me know if you enjoy! Updates every Saturday!

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As Minister for Magic and personal friend of the headmistress, Severus was invited, along with Harriet, to attend Maggie's sorting.

Harriet happily chatted with Hogwarts' staff while Severus engaged in stoic conversation as he wore a serious frown, to make it appear they had come to the castle on Ministry business that night.

McGonagall was hoping to avoid an influx of letters from angry, jealous parents who had not received the honour of being present.

Although Harriet and Severus continued their conversations as the doors to the Great Hall opened and the new first year students cautiously stepped inside the room, they both glanced over as their daughter entered.

Hogwarts' older pupils eyed the newcomers while they whispered to one another, but Maggie shrugged aside the curious stares she received as she rolled her chair down the aisle.

She was too preoccupied talking to Scorpius to harbor any qualms about acceptance.

The soft smile on her lips lit up her face as Scorpius's grey eyes sparkled while they spoke to one another.

Severus frowned at the children.

Harriet scowled.

As the first years gathered around the platform at the front of the room, McGonagall stepped forward and began the Sorting Ceremony.

While the stool and Hat were brought over, Harriet whispered to Severus, "We can let her make a friend, I suppose, Sev……Even if he is a Malfoy. Besides, he'll go to Slytherin and she'll be in Gryffindor like me, anyway."

Severus narrowed his dark eyes at his wife as he replied in his low drawl, "Nonsense……she's cunning and ambitious…….The Hat will certainly place her into Slytherin as well."

"No, she-" Harriet scowled as she began to retort.

McGonagall's shrill voice cut her off.

"-Scorpius Malfoy!"

Whispers rang out as every student in the Great Hall discussed Scorpius's family while he stepped forward and sat on the stool.

Maggie watched along with everyone else as Scorpius's expression melted into a miserable scowl while he waited for the Hat to place him into his father's house.

"Hmm……." The Hat mused as it wrinkled its brim, "Bit of a chain breaker, aren't you, boy? Very well, then, very well…….GRYFINNDOR!"

Scorpius's grey eyes snapped wide open as his lips parted in absolute shock.

Gasps of surprise rang out but Maggie just clapped her hands.

"G-Gryffindor?" Scorpius asked as he swallowed thickly, but McGonagall had already removed the Hat from his head.

"Go on, Mr. Malfoy." She nodded as he stood from the stool, trembling with surprise, "Your new housemates are waiting for you."

Silence fell over the Great Hall as Scorpius stepped down from the platform.

Harriet hadn't quite told Maggie all of the stories from the past.

Maggie didn't understand why her new acquaintance's sorting was of any real significance as she smiled at him and whispered, "Congratulations, that was my Mum's house!"

Scorpius stared at her with his mouth still agape and his eyes still wide as he passed by and sat down at Gryffindor's table.

Severus and Harriet couldn't help but feel sympathy for the boy as his housemates quickly scooted away from him to leave him sitting by himself, shunned and rejected.

Although the war had ended over a decade ago, Malfoy remained an unwelcome, ill-respected name amongst Gryffindors.

Severus glanced over at Harriet with a sad frown as she nodded and whispered, "He'll be alright, she'll join him soon."

Severus frowned at his wife.

"Maggie Snape!" McGonagall called out.

Maggie encountered her first setback since her arrival at the castle.

She narrowed her eyes as she wondered how she could get her chair onto the platform as she moved back and forth a moment.

The other first years stared at her quizzically before McGonagall nodded and hurried over, "Don't fret, my dear, don't fret, here, stay still and I'll guide you."

McGonagall pulled out her wand, but Severus acted too quickly.

Unable to sit idly by while he watched his daughter struggle, he swept over to his little girl and lifted her into his arms before Harriet realized he had moved at all.

Maggie usually loved her father carrying her, which made her words hurt his heart even more as she frowned and hissed in a whisper, "DAD! No, stop! Everyone's looking!"

Maggie was right.

Everyone was looking.

Unaccustomed to seeing someone in the wizarding world who could not use their legs, Maggie's plight and Severus's assistance spawned several, mean-spirited snickers as whispered taunts circled through the Great Hall.

After what seemed like an eternity to Maggie, her father finally sat her down on the stool and resumed his seat.

By then, she was close to tears of humiliation.

"QUIET DOWN, ALL OF YOU OR I'll BE TAKING HOUSE POINTS!" McGonagall snapped as the whispers crescendoed.

Her threat succeeded in stopping the jeers as she gazed at her students with a disappointed frown before she turned to Maggie with the Hat in her hands.

"Now then, Miss Snape…." She nodded.

Maggie blinked up at her for a moment before McGonagall plopped the Hat onto her head.

"Gryffindor." Harriet whispered to Severus.

"Slytherin." Severus whispered back in a barely audible tone.

The Hat needed little time to sort their daughter.

A second after their quiet exchange, it confidently called out, "RAVENCLAW!"

More whispers erupted throughout the room as a harsh pout formed on Maggie's lips.

Severus and Harriet glanced at each other in shock.

As they processed the Hat's decision, Harriet stared at her scowling husband and shrugged, "Alright, then…….Ravenclaw."

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After Maggie was helped back to her chair, she rolled all the way down the aisle until she came to pause at the very end of Ravenclaw's table.

Silently, she braced herself for the cruel remarks and the ugly sneers she knew she would certainly gather, but to her relief, none came.

The boys and girls who sat closest to the table's end blinked at her as she frowned back at them in silent response.

Her heart sank as she looked across the room at Scorpius, who sat at Gryffindor's table.

Although she wished her new friend would have found some company, it did provide Maggie with a small bit of comfort to notice Scorpius also seemed to be an outsider in his new house as well.

From the High Table, Severus and Harriet stared at their daughter with anxiousness in their hearts.

No one in Ravenclaw commented on Maggie's chair or her breasts.

In fact, no one made any comments to Maggie at all.

As the Snapes' eldest child began to eat her first meal in the castle, she found herself completely and utterly ignored.

Maggie's housemates busied themselves with conversing to one another about what to do.

Should they speak to her?

Befriend her?

Reject her?

It was a difficult deliberation for the house of the wise.

Maggie Snape was the daughter of the one who had defeated the Dark Lord, but she was also the child of the Minister for Magic and a former Death Eater.

Ravenclaw students were not rash.

They refused to act without giving the matter careful thought.

Regardless of their hesitation, it made Maggie frown that two other first years sorted into Ravenclaw after her were eagerly welcomed by her housemates.

She huffed as she ate her dinner and silently wished her parents had been as anonymous as those of her peers.

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The first evening at the castle was rather difficult for both Scorpius and Maggie as he continued to find himself ostracized and she became more ignored than in the Great Hall.

While they both laid in their dormitory beds that night, isolated from their housemates, Scorpius and Maggie both stared up at their ceilings with frowns on their faces.

As they contemplated the dizzying reality of seven years worth of misery, they both lamented the tragedy of their separate sortings.

If only they had been placed in the same house, they could have at least had their classes and meals together.

Hours of friendly companionship during their days would have made their nights much less lonely……..

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Harriet and Severus didn't know what to say to one another once they returned home from their daughter's sorting.

Each had prepared to bask in triumphant victory once Maggie had been sorted into their own house, but Ravenclaw was a first for both Harriet and Severus.

"I did want to see her be placed in Gryffindor, Sev." Harriet confessed while they laid in bed a short while later.

"With her mother's kind heart, I had hoped she would bring light to Slytherin." Severus purred as he let his fingers deftly trail through Harriet's hair.

As she pressed a gentle kiss to his chest, he mused, "However…….We've acted selfishly, my love."

"And how's that?" Harriet sighed, "We bought her the best, comforted her before we saw her off to the castle, sent Rabbie with her, and-"

"-And yet, we've tried to fashion our daughter into who we desire her to be." Severus finished.

Harriet turned to frown up at him as she met his dark gaze.

"I remember the strength of her will when I held her through those first, fragile days of her premature life." Severus mused as he gazed at Harriet, "I cradled her against my heart while you slept…..She wheezed and whimpered, but she lived, my love, she lived…..We named her after a tree known for its strength and beauty…….A name she could make her own, with her own life……We should not push our projections onto her. I'm sure she'll offer many contributions to Ravenclaw."

It annoyed Harriet how close to tears her alpha's words had brought her.

She sniffed as she laid her head back down on his chest and sighed, "Actually, I think you would have been brilliant in Ravenclaw too, Sev."

Severus blinked as he asked, "...Do you?"

"Yeah." Harriet sighed as she let her hand splay lovingly over her husband, "I do."

Severus kissed the top of Harriet's head as he held her close.

Eventually, Harriet drifted off to sleep, but Severus laid awake.

In the generous privacy afforded by the dark stillness, he allowed heavy, silent tears to roll down his pale cheeks.

He remembered the soft weight of Maggie's frighteningly small body that fit perfectly in his hands like some sort of living doll.

He remembered the way his daughter had gazed at him in the hours and days following her birth.

He had seen that same gentle, trusting kindness in her face as the train had pulled away and he had waved goodbye.

Severus closed his eyes while he sucked in a breath.

Where had the time gone?