No Wand to Fight With
Chapter Three

"Welcome to Hogwarts. I am Professor Snape, Head of Slytherin House. You will follow me to the Hall. You will be Sorted. You will cause me endless amounts of trouble and be punished proportionally. Am I understood?" He sneered with disdain.

Many of the students marveled at his kindness. Hogwarts: A History had painted a much harsher picture of him than this. Several were pale, thinking of what kinds of torments lay in store for them. Several remembered other passages, and laid preliminary plans to seduce him.

He would have been nauseated to find the true depth of the hero-worship that that damned book had pointed in his direction. The luck had it that he hadn't read it, or the grubs would have been met by a roaring monster instead of a chill mentor.

A stool, and a hat. Neither surprised her; both were unexpected for several other students. She didn't disdain them for not reading it; the book cost money, after all. Just because she knew that books were better than food didn't mean that other people were as insightful.

"Ganymede, Leslin." The professor's disinterested voice rang the Hall.

Eek. Faces turned to her. She raised herself to the stool, donned the hat (and thrilled at this situation, where her heroes had sat! This hat had called them first to their stations.)

Girl, I would call you a passable Gryffindor, if I were blind, deaf, and dumb.

Why, thank you.

You do realize that your Head of House won't favor you.

I caught that.

So, Slytherin it is then. But… The Hat deliberated. You're not as tough as you need to be yet, girl. Ravenclaw could fill your dreams almost as well.

I can adapt.

Don't adapt too far. Don't look weak, girl.

"SLYTHERIN!"

Green banners waved for her. She sat, was shook, congratulated. Someone pressed a snap-cracker into her hand and pulled. Garter snakes flew in all directions. She grinned and shook the hand that was offered her. "I'm Shot. We've never yet got an ophidiophobic, but…"

The girl sitting next to him smacked his arm. "Don't mind him. Drunkard. All those big words. An utter inebriate, he is; Shot stands for shot glass, by the way. I'm Aires."

Shot downed whatever was in his glass… Leslin looked at the glass with suspicion. "Aires short for Inertia." The two glared at each other.

"Taylor, Rafael."

Leslin looked at the stool, seeing a tall boy heading for the hat, and Snape looking bored.

There was a long moment of silence… "RAVENCLAW!" The table that the Hat had said could almost fill her dreams erupted in cheers.

Later, in the dormitory, she recalled the Hat's words. "Don't look weak, girl." Tomorrow morning they'd receive their schedules. Sooner or later she'd need to produce her wand. The wand that she didn't have.

In the common room, Snape had said that they were welcome to come to him with problems which they could not solve themselves… was this such a problem? He had one hell of a fierce sneer.

"As your Head of House, when you have a problem which you cannot solve yourself, you are expected to come to me first. That does not include your Potions homework." Sneer. "While I have no hopes that any of you will be actual credits to this esteemed house for quite a while, you are expected to stand up to yourselves and behave with honor and guile." He frowned. "While you are at Hogwarts, I am your champion."

A that sentence, Leslin had wanted to hold her face in her hands and hiccup helplessly. She'd held as still as she could, as still as the other girls and boys facing their esteemed mentor in the green-themed common room.

He glared at each of them. "I am, for the nonce, on your side." He turned and strode from the room, cloak flaring behind him. Scared chatter broke out in his wake.

In the end, she decided to go down to the kitchens and ask the house elves what to do- she rather suspected that they could get her a wand. Hogwarts house elves were friendly and willing to help… and she could always tell her fellow Slytherins that she had demanded it of them, rather than asked. Not the coward's way out- the smart way out.

She wandered out of the common room, weaving around a group of older boys and a pile of books on a table. She assumed that that there was a person and a quill somewhere behind it.

Thank Merlin for Hogwarts: a History, the revised version. It included the location of the fruit-bowl portrait, and a description of what to expect beyond it.

The house elves recommended that she talk to her Head of House, and fed her hot chocolate and cookies. Not a one of them was anything like Dobby.

There was, she supposed, nothing for it. Snape's office was three corridors down from the Slytherin common room, and that was where she went.

She rapped twice at the door, and took a step back.

She really couldn't solve this one herself, beyond stealing someone else's. Which might be expected of her… Crap.

A/N: I… like words. I use words, and I read a lot. In casual conversation and casual writing, I use words that are not usually found in casual conversation. Today I've chosen to not edit them out. Definitions, if you are hebetudinous enough to not look them up online (two seconds, I assure you) or to simply not know them in the first place… well, I give definitions.

For the nonce: for the moment, for the occasion. (Nonce- the present or particular occasion)

Ophidiophobia- Fear of snakes. Duh.