Thank you for the reviews! I'm afraid that most questions about the plot won't be answered yet; they'll unspool slowly throughout the story.

And here's the next chapter!

Chapter Three: Arguments With the Sorting Hat

Harry listened to the murmur of awe all around him as the first-years rode the boats across the lake towards Hogwarts. He was busy studying the castle, too, and he had to admit it was beautiful, a welcoming blaze of light in the by-now-absolute darkness.

He suspected he was looking for slightly different things than the rest of the students looked for, though. They would gasp and exclaim at the windows, and the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall when they reached it, and the soaring turrets of stone that broke the horizon in odd places. Harry studied the thickness of the walls, the width of the windows, and the crackling, glowing haze of those spells he had managed to train himself to see. Hogwarts looked as if it were on fire in that kind of sight, though the fire did not consume the stone but slowly and continually shifted on top of it, altering colors. And Harry was sure that many spells he could not see also defended the school. They would range from new to old, some doubtless laid down by the Founders themselves.

But were they enough? Would they keep Connor safe if Death Eaters came hunting him? If Voldemort did? If an accident nearly deprived the world of the Boy-Who-Lived, before he got the chance to strike the final blow in the battle?

Frowning, Harry barely noticed Connor nudging him in the side to get him out of the boats as they slid to a stop. He did get out, but it was training that kept him close to his brother, and not attention or anticipation. He knew all about the speech that someone—the Deputy Headmistress McGonagall, from the sound of it, and his future Head of House—was giving to the first-years. He knew about the Sorting Hat and the ghosts who swooped through the waiting room and the blend of surging excitement and nervousness that consumed his peers like an echo of the spells on the castle.

He did not know how much he could trust Hogwarts yet. Until he could, he had to keep an eye on it.

"You aren't frightened, are you?"

Harry blinked and turned his head, at least once he could be sure that the question was addressed to him. He didn't know what to make of the tone once he found Malfoy standing next to him, staring at him intently. Was Malfoy taunting? Asking a serious question? Asking it in admiration? His eyes and voice gave nothing away anymore. Harry found himself relieved. He would prefer not to have to smooth things over between Connor and the possible future Death Eater all the time.

"No," Harry said, and faced the doors again.

They swung wide, which prevented Malfoy from asking anything else. McGonagall herded them along beneath the enchanted ceiling, over a stone floor, beneath the gazes of both professors and other students. Harry heard constant gasps from around him, even when the Sorting Hat began to sing, and wondered why. The only overwhelming, and therefore interesting, things were the lines of spells that danced down from the ceiling and curled like ivy around the student tables. He knew only one or two of them, such as the ones that would soothe thoughts which might lead to deadly displays of magic. He would have to learn the others.

"Abbott, Hannah!"

Harry watched as the girl trotted forward, placed the Hat on her head, and got Sorted into Hufflepuff. He nodded. The Sorting Hat worked exactly the way that his parents had told him, then, and any possible danger was removed. He leaned sideways to watch the green tracery of a spell snake around the Slytherin table. He wondered what it did. Its signatures were similar to those that enclosed a defensive spell, but it had sharp projections from the sides, as though it were meant to act offensively.

His attention returned to the Sorting only in fits and starts, such as when there was an extremely long silence between "Granger, Hermione!" and the Hat's announcement. Harry leaned forward, curious, to see the girl sitting firmly beneath the Hat. He could hear a faint murmur of voices, and thought she was arguing with it.

"GRYFFINDOR!" the Hat shouted.

Granger put it back down on its stool and trotted away, looking very pleased with herself. Harry concealed a smile .So she was going to be in Connor's House, then. He hoped she would become his friend. Someone so determined might be a good ally. And she had a name he didn't recognize as belonging to any wizarding family, which meant she was a Muggleborn, which meant she would have more reason than some of the others to be on Connor's side.

He also paid attention when a name he recognized came up, and was pleased beyond words to see Neville Longbottom go into Gryffindor. Lily had told him the solemn story of how Neville's parents had lost their minds to the Lestranges' Cruciatus curses. Harry had wondered if their courage would pass into their son. It seemed it had.

Malfoy went into Slytherin. Harry was absolutely not surprised. He didn't understand why Malfoy felt the need to smirk at him as he walked over to the Slytherin table, though, nor why he sat down and kept watching until Harry grimaced at him and turned away.

Then came the moment he'd been waiting for.

"Potter, Connor!"

The murmurs started almost at once. Harry saw his brother flush and stumble a bit as he hurried forward to the Hat, as if he hadn't expected this. Of course, he had, but it was one thing to imagine it and another to hear it, Harry thought, heart aching with sympathy. Luckily, Connor made it to the stool despite the voices that followed him.

"Is that really him?"

"The Connor Potter?"

"Can you see his scar?"

"I don't know, he looks smaller than I imagined him…"

Connor put the Hat on his head and closed his eyes. Harry could see his brother's lips moving, and knew the kind of reassurances he would try to murmur to himself. Then he went still, and Harry knew the Hat's voice was speaking into his head.

It lasted a very short time, as Harry had known it would, but that moment still had claws, and they prickled all up and down his back as he waited.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

The Hall erupted into noise—cheers from the Gryffindor table and relieved shouts from the others, all except Slytherin. Harry nodded as Connor took the Hat off his head, beaming. Of course he was essentially good. He had defeated Voldemort, hadn't he? But this was the first time that someone outside his family had ever judged Connor. It must feel good to be told that his family's instincts were right, Harry thought.

Connor settled at the Gryffindor table and then turned around and grinned at his twin. Harry smiled at him and walked forward as McGonagall called his name.

The Hat settled over his ears, and chuckled into his mind. You already think you know your House, don't you?

I think so, Harry responded, calmly. His mother had told him that he could think and the Hat would hear him. It was valuable advice, as his enemies might possibly be able to gain something of Harry's private thoughts if he spoke aloud. I'm going into Gryffindor, to protect my brother.

You want to go into Gryffindor, the Hat corrected him. That doesn't mean that you wouldn't be better-suited for another House.

Harry had the odd, uncomfortable sensation of the room spinning around him and turning sharp-edged, as though the Hat had put his vision into another part of his brain while it looked at his memories. Then it said, No one can question your loyalty. Or your courage—how many children are prepared to die for their brothers at eleven years old? For some reason, it sounded sad about that, but Harry didn't get the chance to question it. Or your intelligence, for that matter, to learn so many spells so young.

But what holds you together, Mr. Potter, is your cunning, your care, your ability to hide what you really are and your determination to succeed. I think you're hiding better than most people will ever know, it added cryptically.

Harry didn't care about that last sentence; his mind was on the one before it. But you can't mean to put me in—

"SLYTHERIN!" the Hat boomed cheerfully.

For one flaming moment, Harry thought about arguing. He was supposed to be in Gryffindor, that's where he belonged, that's what they'd planned on, and how was he supposed to protect his brother when he wouldn't even see him for large portions of the day? The Hat had known all that, and it still put him elsewhere. Harry wanted to scream or shout. For the first time in years, he thought he might even want to cry.

But then he stifled the impulse and stuffed it back down into the small and secret box of his thoughts. No, he couldn't protest. That would call attention to himself. Besides, there might be advantages to being in Slytherin. He'd have access to the children most likely to belong to the opposite side. He didn't think he could pretend to be one of them, ever, but simple proximity and familiarity might make them careless around him.

He took off the Hat to a moment of dead silence, as he'd expected. Harry schooled his features into calmness and faced the Slytherin table. He'd walk over there, and the silence would continue, and then the Sorting would start again. This would be only a small bump in the road, he fervently hoped. There were other students to put into their Houses. If Connor—

Then the silence broke.

Harry stared as Draco Malfoy stood up from the Slytherin table and began to applaud. He did it as coolly as if this happened every day of his life, and his eyes were fixed on Harry's face, not glancing around to see what kind of attention he could draw. A few other Slytherins staggered to their feet and joined in, but, mostly, Harry walked to the table under the aegis of exactly one pair of clapping hands, making the entire sorry performance even more noticeable than it already was.

Then Malfoy had the audacity to wave the boy sitting next to him over, so that Harry had an empty place to sit down. Harry took it, his face flaming, since he suspected that avoiding him would only prompt Malfoy to do something even more dramatic and ridiculous in the name of—what?

"Do you think it's funny to embarrass me?" Harry hissed at him. He could hear the Sorting begin again, luckily. He could also feel his twin looking at him from the Gryffindor table. Coward that he was, he didn't think he could meet Connor's eyes yet, so he settled for glaring at Malfoy, who only leaned back and smiled at him.

"I wasn't aware that I was embarrassing you," Malfoy drawled. "I was only welcoming the newest member of House Slytherin. I suppose that your impeccable manners don't extend to a friendly welcome, then? For shame. You're clearly different than I thought you were." His smile grew wider, a smirk, and he watched Harry to see what he would do.

Harry recognized the baiting, but only had one choice, and he suspected it was the one that would please Malfoy the most. He took a deep breath and forced a smile. "Of course not," he said. "Forgive me. I misunderstood. I thought I was going into Gryffindor with my twin."

Malfoy leaned nearer to him, implying a familiarity that Harry didn't think was there. "Twins are different sometimes," he whispered. "At least, I always thought so. And I thought from the first moment we met on the train that you would be a Slytherin."

Harry jerked his eyes away from Malfoy and swallowed. Shit. What did I do wrong? he thought in misery. What kind of—of thing in me makes me a Slytherin so that someone else can see it? And why didn't my family ever tell me?

He still didn't feel up to looking across the room, even as Ron Weasley became a Gryffindor, so he looked at the head table instead. He nodded in gloomy unsurprise when he realized that Severus Snape, the head of Slytherin House, was staring back at him. His father had told Harry all about the rivalry between the Marauders and Snape when they attended Hogwarts, but also about the wizard's debt that Snape owed James, and that the scowling, snapping, sniping man was a member of the Order of the Phoenix. Snape would help protect Connor, but he would hardly make his life pleasant. And he didn't look pleased to have a Potter in his House, either.

Harry abruptly hissed. His head hurt. He raised a hand and rubbed it across his scar, then blinked when he brought it down and found the palm smeared with blood. He shoved it under the table in confusion

Malfoy, of course, tried to grab his arm. "Let me see."

"No!" Harry said, and twisted away. Confused, lost, needing some taste of home, he lifted his eyes and looked across the room, to the Gryffindor table where he should have been, where Connor and Ron sat in camaraderie.

Connor was staring at him, as though he hadn't stopped since the moment Harry was Sorted. His eyes were big, and he shook his head back and forth, back and forth. Harry winced and turned away again. It was the first time he'd ever seen betrayal on his brother's face.

He breathed carefully to himself, ignoring Headmaster Dumbledore's speech and the appearance of the food, at least until Malfoy leaned over and said, "Everyone's going to think you're sulking if you don't eat, you know."

I can't afford this, Harry thought. I can't afford to draw attention to myself. People will think too much about me, and they'll not look at Connor as much as they should. I have to get control of myself.

It was his mother's voice that came back to him. "You're the lightning bolt. You strike hard and fast, and you don't leave any remains behind. Connor's the heart. Protect his innocence, Harry. Make sure that he's still pure and unspoiled at the end of it all."

Harry let out one last anxious breath, the last one he'd permit himself, and then started eating. He could do this. It was only another challenge to protecting Connor. No one had ever said it was easy. Harry tended to fling himself at challenges and batter them until they were gone. He could do it with this one, too.

"Do you want some pumpkin juice, Harry?"

Malfoy had decided to address him by his first name? This was news to Harry. But he managed to nod, and smile, and even say, "Thank you, Draco."

Draco poured. Harry kept his eyes away from the Gryffindor table for right now. He would explain to Connor that being put in Slytherin House didn't mean his goals in life had changed, but he would do it tomorrow, when they weren't in front of so many other people.

Draco wasn't stupid. He'd seen the blood come out of Harry's scar. He certainly hadn't missed the panicked expression on Harry's face when the Hat had announced him for Slytherin, or the way he had noticed his brother and Snape and the Weasley all staring at him as if he'd grown a second head.

Draco didn't care. Anticipation sweetened every mouthful of food he ate and every move he made, especially now that he'd managed to shield against Harry's pure power. He'd known what to expect at Hogwarts from his father's tales of it, and what standards he was expected to carry and maintain as a Malfoy. He'd known that the Boy-Who-Lived was coming, and all things considered, he wasn't surprised that he and that Gryffindor prat were probably going to wind up enemies. He had expected to enjoy Hogwarts a little, but be bored out of his skull most of the time.

No one had told him about Harry. For all Draco knew, his father didn't consider the existence of the second Potter twin important.

But he is, Draco thought, and poured the pumpkin juice so that he'd have an excuse to keep watching Harry. He's powerful, and he acts like he doesn't know it, and he certainly didn't expect to be put in Slytherin, so he doesn't know much about his own character, either. I've got a leg up on Harry and Potter, and maybe even on Snape, too.

I don't know exactly what's going to happen next, but it's going to be so much fun.