~`3`~
Sometimes...well alright, a lot of times, Tom forgot he wasn't actually Tom Riddle anymore.
Well, that wasn't quite right either. Because he had made absolutely certain that he could never forget that he was Tom Riddle, initially because identity crisis/being a mudblood, but later on so he wouldn't forget how badly his life could turn out. It served as a reminder to him not to go that far into insanity and megalomania anymore, to live his new life to the fullest.
But see, being so adamant on remembering that he was Tom Riddle meant that sometimes his plans came out to shit.
Example: He had planned to watch Potter being sorted and then follow him into his house. Perfectly sensible.
Unfortunately he forgot that he was Lestat Granger not really Tom Riddle. Which meant that McGonagall read out his name long before she did Potter's.
He had tried to sway Harry into choosing Ravenclaw instead but he didn't know for certain if it would work. After all, the boy was unpredictable. The few moments he had spent inside his mind the last time around had made that very clear.
(Fifteen year olds, no matter how hard their life is, usually had plenty of wank material cluttering up their mind, subconsciously at least, if not consciously. Harry Potter for some reason kept on looping his experience in the Chamber of Secrets, with a focus on Tom's younger diary self twirling his wand.
It was strange.)
Tom knew how messed up the whole system within Hogwarts was. Once he had lauded the separation between houses, it had made recruitment so much easier. It was like employing Colonial Britain's Divide and Conquer motto only he didn't have to do any dividing.
But it meant that if he was in a different house to Potter, they'd probably never become friends.
So, as the Malfoy brat (Draca? Drogo?) jeered at him whispering 'Nervous, little mudblood?' under his breath Tom took a shaky breath and walked up to the hat. He settled down on the bench and prepared to talk to the Sorting hat for the second time in all his lives.
'What do we have here? Smarts and cunning, remorse, but no less ambition. Oh Tom, you have been busy haven't you?' The Sorting Hat whispered and Tom practically shouted 'RAVENCLAW' in his mind.
T-That had to be it, right? Dumbledore went on and on about choices, there must be a choice here too. So, here Tom was, choosing Ravenclaw.
"SLYTHERIN!" The Sorting Hat yelled and as a state of unrest began outside of his mind as Draco Malfoy loudly proclaimed 'It must be a mistake, he's a bloody Mud-Muggleborn!' and the tables began whispering, Slytherin table indulging in particularly hostile whispers, there was only word reverberating in his mind, an endless looping, echoing a single syllable word.
'FUUUCK!'
Harry frowned. His new friend was sitting at the Slytherin table, looking dazed and broken. It didn't help that the people sitting on the table had moved away from him with jeers when he sat down, as if he was a bug or some diseased person. It didn't help that they looked at him the way the Dursleys looked at Harry.
Harry didn't know much about the houses. Hagrid had said that no one who went bad that didn't come from Slytherin. But...that didn't mean they weren't good when they went into Slytherin right? Only when they came out of it.
So, maybe the house changed people.
Harry liked Tom. He didn't want him to change.
That Malfoy boy whom he'd seen picking fights with the red headed boy outside the school was up next. He'd been the one to yell that Tom was a Muggleborn, and it was only after that that the Slytherin table had looked so disgusted.
"SLYTHERIN" the hat said the second that it fell over Malfoy's head and when that tosser walked up to the Slytherin table, it was to dignified applause and pats on the back.
Yes, Harry was not happy with any of this. For a moment he wondered why the teachers weren't doing anything about this, surely they must have noticed what was going at the Slytherin table? But that thought crumbled and he all but laughed at his own naiveté.
How many times had he watched the same thing happen to him? How many times had Dudley gotten away with murder while Harry was punished in his stead? The grownups never did anything then and they weren't doing anything now.
And with that, his illusions of Hogwarts shattered. He had thought it would be better, a new start for him. If something as unbelievable as magic was real in this world then perhaps the just as unlikely concept of 'fairness' would be real too.
Clearly, it wasn't.
"Potter, Harry," Said the teacher who had introduced herself as McGonagall and as whispers started up, awed and amazed, Harry walked up to the stool and sat down on it, ignoring them all. As the brim of the hat fell down over his eyes, the last thing he saw was Tom at the Slytherin table, giving him a wan little smile.
"Hmm," said a small voice in his ear. "Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, my goodness, yes — and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting… So where shall I put you?"
Harry gripped the edges of the stool and thought, 'Slytherin, Slytherin, Slytherin'
"Slytherin, eh?" said the small voice. "Are you sure? You could be a hero, you know, it's all here in your head, and while Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that — Gryffindor could be your home."
And again, Harry thought fervently, 'Slytherin, Slytherin, Slytherin.'
"Well, if you're sure, better be SLYTHERIN!"
There was no thunderous applause, or any sound really. Only silence and then whispers. McGonagall was gaping, they all were really. And Harry took the hat off, put it down on the stool and walked up to the Slytherin table where a ton of free space was waiting for him right next to Tom.
"You're in Slytherin b-but, you're the Boy-Who-Lived!" Tom stuttered in his shock and Harry grinned.
"Couldn't let you have all the fun."