The Wrong House


"Slytherin."

Silence rang out through the hall. The type of silence that hadn't been heard since years before when Sirius Black was put in Gryffindor and everyone watched the redhead slide from the chair, his eyes moving to the Gryffindor table in shock.

The twins were whispering amongst themselves and Ron was frozen to the spot. He looked at the Professor who had just sorted him.

"Off you go, Mr Weasley," she said and he slowly began to walk towards the table that his family despised. With a worried look at three of his brothers at the Gryffindor table, he stopped at the end of the Slytherin table and dropped into an empty seat.

He glanced around him at the faces of Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle and the rest of the newly sorted students and ran a hand through his red hair.

His father wouldn't be pleased.

He was so sure that he would be a Gryffindor. He'd speak to Dumbledore about resorting him. Hopefully tomorrow he would be moving into the right house.

Gryffindor like the rest of his family.

...oOo...

Ron Weasley sighed as he settled on his bed the next night. His attempts to get Dumbledore to resort him were fruitless. The Headmaster insisted that the hat was always right. After an extremely long and confusing lecture where Dumbledore explained that the hat chose your most prominent qualities and that Slytherins weren't always dark, Ron headed back to the dorm.

The dungeons.

Not the tower where he thought he'd be. He had hoped to make friends with Harry Potter, they had gotten along so well on the train, but now he was alone, with the snakes for company.

One good thing came from his sorting. He wasn't in the same house as the twins, so they couldn't sneak into his rooms and turn his belongings into spiders anymore. He wasn't going to let the Slytherins know his fear, he had a feeling that they would do something a lot worse to him.

...oOo...

Draco Malfoy looked severely out of place in the Burrow. Ron tried not to take offence that Draco refused to touch anything there, looked appalled at the thought of degnoming the garden and questioned why he'd have to share Ron's room whilst he stayed.

It was better than constantly bringing him to the headquarters where Potter, Granger and Longbottom were.

After he found out his family were joining the order, Ron signed up too. He was asked to keep an eye out for anyone recruiting for Death Eaters in his house, and to give the list of names to the headmaster, hoping that it would stop students becoming Death Eaters and Ron was in agreement.

That was how he discovered that Draco had been forced to take the dark mark and had to do something - and Ron didn't know what - to prove himself and save his family.

Ron had told the Order and The Malfoy elders were quickly put under the Fidelius charm to protect them. Draco was staying between the dark house that the Order were almost living in and the Weasleys.

He had confessed to the Order after his parents were put under the charm that he was ordered to kill Dumbledore. But Draco had now defected, Lucius Malfoy was shrewd and knew he could barter his way out of Azkaban this time around, and offered all the information he had on Voldemort, knowing that it would work in his favour when he was eventually arrested for being a Death Eater.

And he had a lot of information.

The Order was hopeful that they would take the madman down.

Ron contemplated how things would have been if he had been in Gryffindor. Who would Draco have turned to about his dark mark, or would he have had to suffer in silence? Would he have had to go through killing the Headmaster to keep his family safe?

Ron was thankful they didn't have to find out.


Written for the AU Sorting Ceremony Challenge: Write a character in a different house.

The Pick a Number Challenge: Ron Weasley. AU - Different House.

The Game of Life Challenge - Prompt: Moving