Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

The Sorting Hat

A loud and sickeningly cheerful music rang out through the entire Hogwarts, and soon, half-asleep and grumbling student body flooded into the Great Hall. Harry and Snuffles made their way towards the Great Hall, neither willing to be late and face the consequences. Well, Sirius would love to annoy her, but Harry didn't want to give her more opportunities to put him in more detention.

When they entered, students were clustered around the Gryffindor Table, howling in laughter at something they held in their hands. Harry frowned, trying to get hold of one of those, but they noticed him in the last second and whipped it away. Irritated, Harry decided to directly ask his friends, who seemed to be handing them out.

"Okay, what is going on?"

"A surprise won't be a surprise if we tell you. We'll tell you later." The Weasley twins said mischievously and Harry's frustration grew as Remus allowed Sirius to take a peek at whatever the thing was. But he sighed and let go of the matter. He would corner them later.

Hermione patted a seat next to her for him to sit while reaching out for some healthy food. She glared at Ron who was stuffing his face with everything that were within his reach, not even swallowing the stuff before he spoke.

"Hey, mate, where were you this morning?" Ginny took action and smacked her older brother's head, her patience with her brother' eating habits running thin. Ron quickly gulped the food in his mouth and started speaking again. "I mean, you weren't in the dormitory."

"I just went for a walk with Snuffles. No big deal." Harry waved it off, swiftly leaving out the part about his nightmares.

"Lucky you. A least you didn't wake up by a lovely music right ringing right next to your ear." Ron grumbled, sarcasm dripping from every words. Harry winced in sympathy at that, figuring it was similar to waking up from his aunt's shrill voice.

"He practically woke the rest of us with his screeching." Neville said, shaking his head. amused. "He was running all around, screaming that his ears were damaged permanently. Personally, I think he made my ears deaf and Dean and Seamus even fell out of their beds because of him."

"Hem hem." Their chat was cut short when Umbridge cleared her throat, and she smiled sweetly at the whole students. "I am very happy to discover that all of you managed to be here-"

Her speech was cut sure when the Dursley family chose that very moment to barge in.

"Is Uncle Vernon wearing a dress?"

Harry's jaw dropped, completely taken aback and certain that he was hallucinating. Vernon Dursley was wearing a battered, white dress that clearly had seen better days. His mustache was half-burned, and his face was red, which Harry guessed was because of running from how he was trying to catch his breath.

Dudley looked as if he attempted to transfigured himself into an animal, but failed and each of his body parts took a form of a random animal's. However, the effects seemed to be fading, and they could see Dudley slowly turning into himself.

Petunia was covered in pie and chocolate, like the rest of the Dursley family, and her clothes were singed as well. She probably had screamed a lot since her voice was raspy and dry.

The Great Hall burst into laughter, and even the professors were ducking behind their seats to hide their snickers. The only one who weren't laughing outright were Umbridge (she was scowling at the noise people were making and how nobody was paying attention to her), Fudge (he looked confused how he should react at this situation), and Snape (but then again, he never laughed at least in public but even he had a smirk on his face that seemed to irritate Petunia in particular).

"This is your doing, isn't it?" Harry hissed in the chaos, and the twins answered him after wiping off the tears they got from laughing too much.

"Yep, and we have these pictures." He showed off some he had left. They contained Chocolate Frogs leaping at the Dursleys who were screaming, Dudley turning into mixture of animals, Petunia getting her face full of pie and Vernon's mustache getting burned by a fire dragon.

"Unbelievable." Harry breathed out, staring at the photos. Then suddenly, a mischievous smirk appeared on his face. "Hey, Fred, you won't mind if I take these, right? I mean, I don't have any pictures of my dear relatives."

Fred seemed surprised for a moment, but quickly recovered. "Sure, I can always ask Colin to make more copies. We are gonna recount the story again in the Gryffindor common room. If you want you can join us. I'm sure all Gryffindors are going to come to listen."

"This is outrageous!" Vernon bellowed, not being able to deal with people laughing at them. Unfortunately for him, his effort for trying to look intimidating was useless, seeing how he was in a dress. "I demand that whoever did this to embarrass my poor family to be punished! I also want to be sent to our home immediately because of this rudeness. You should be ashamed of yourselves!"

"Ah, now Mr. Dursley, I'm sure the students who did this only did it for some fun. No need to get so angry." The Headmaster spoke up, but his twinkling eyes only seemed to irritate Vernon.

"You!" Vernon roared, pointing at his nephew who was watching the whole situation. "You did this! How dare you-!"

"Excuse me, Mr. Dursley, but are you saying I, the Head of the House, won't know if the students went out of their dormitory after the curfew?" Professor McGonagall asked, glaring with little more intensity than needed. Vernon seemed to shrink under the stern professor's gaze.

"Right, then." Umbridge huffed, finally gaining control. She waved her wand over the Dursley family and they returned to normal. "Let's get started, shall we?"

Harry didn't really pay attention to any of this because he was busy observing his so-called family. He noted with surprise that Dudley didn't dive mouth-first into the piles of food in front of him. Huh, must be something related to what happened last night. At least he would be dieting.

[Page 121 - The Entrance Hall was so big you could have fitted the whole Dursleys' house in it. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts...]

"Great observation skills, Harry." Remus complimented, and Harry blushed. Suddenly, Ron made a face, causing Hermione to frown at him.

"What's wrong?"

"I just had a thought. If Harry keeps being this descriptive, then imagine how he will describe the adventures he went through."

"Oh, I didn't think about that." Hermione shuddered, and glanced at Harry worriedly. "Harry? Do you have any idea how you would have described them?"

"Uh, no actually. But I'm pretty sure nothing's so bad...I hope." That didn't reassure them.

[Page 122 - "Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly..."]

"Hey, her speech is same as the one I heard when I was first year." Bill exclaimed. "Huh, I guess there is no need to change it."

Meanwhile, Professor Sprout eyed the Transfiguration Professor slyly. "'Smarten yourselves', Minerva? You know that would scare the already frightened kids."

Professor McGonagall chuckled. "Well, it is rather amusing to see their reactions. They look like they are about to go into battlefield instead of school. Besides, I'm not the only one doing that. The ghosts, for example, always turns up at the exact moment when the first years are left alone, pretending to talk casually."

The Dursleys scoffed as they heard the conversation. Hah, as if ghosts existed! It didn't cross their minds that wizards and magic was also considered as myth. Only Dudley looked scared at the possibility of meeting the actual ghost.

[Page 122 - Harry nervously tried to flatten his hair.]

"It won't work." Remus said amusedly. "James once tried to tame his hair and with the help of Lily, he used about five bottles of gels. Unfortunately for him, his hair only became spiky and it wasn't tamed."

"Water doesn't work either. Remember in the second task in Triwizard Champion, Harry's hair was so wild even when it was soaked with water." Neville grinned at the memory while Ron snickered a bit.

"Thank you, thank you. I am really confident in my looks right now." Harry deadpanned.

[Page 123 - He'd never been more nervous, never, not even when he'd had to take a report home to the Dursleys saying that he'd somehow turned his teacher's wig blue.]

"You turned your teacher's wig blue?" Bill asked amusedly, but his tone changed into worried one. "Wait, the Dursleys didn't punish you, did they?"

"A week in the cupboard." Harry mumbled reluctantly, and the three muggles received venomous glares. The Weasley twins discretely opened a Chocolate Frog package and sent one towards them.

"Ack!"

Dudley, who still hadn't completely changed into himself, let out a squeal that sounded like a mixture of pig's wail and monkey's cry. He jumped backwards to get away from the frog and fell from the chair he was sitting in the process.

The other two weren't better. They also stumbled backwards and in their haste to get away, they knocked down some desserts. In the end, the three of them looked as if they had just come from a dessert war.

"Is there a problem, Mr. Dursley?" The Headmaster asked politely.

Blushing like three tomatoes, the Dursleys quickly sat on their bench - after checking if the Chocolate Frog was gone, of course - and tried to act as if nothing happened. This was proving to be difficult since the students were laughing their heads off and they were covered in sweets. However, no one made a move to help them clean themselves. So they had no choice but to stay like that.

[Page 123 - About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall.]

"Wait a minute." Charlie exclaimed. "They did exactly same thing when I first came to Hogwarts. So they do that on purpose? Huh, the ghosts never stroked me as mischievous side."

The twins seemed to perk up a at the idea.

"Just imagine what brilliant ideas of pranks they would come up with!" Fred gushed, visibly trembling with excitements.

"And think about how they won't even get caught." George grinned his Cheshire grin. "When we make an alliance with them, we will be able to do the greatest pranks ever!" The twins whooped in joy, and immediately started planning how they would convince the ghosts. Susan and Hannah also scooted closer as they debated on the best way to persuade them.

"Maybe we can offer them something?" Hannah suggested, then shook her head. "No. Does the ghost even need anything? I mean they are ghosts so they won't need any food or clothes."

"Oh, I know! Let's have Peeves in our prank team as well! Everyone knows how good he is at playing a prank." Susan shouted gleefully, rubbing her hands together in anticipation. The other three perked up at the idea as well, completely delighted.

"That's a fabulous idea! He'll be a great help!"

"But how do we know whether he won't turn on us or something?"

"Don't worry. He loves pranks! He'll never risk ruining a prank." The twins said confidently.

[Page 125 - He heard Hermione whisper, "It's bewitched to look like the sky outside, I read about it in Hogwarts: A History."]

"Is there anything that you don't know?" Terry asked the Gryffindor curiously and a little enviously. Hermione seemed to be flustered at the question, and Ron answered him.

"Yeah, she doesn't know how to not know something." Hermione's friends snickered when she turned to smack Ron's head. Luna on the other hand, considered Ron's answer thoughtfully.

"That statement is not true because if she doesn't know how to not know something, then she knows how to not know something. But in that case, she doesn't know how to not something, and the statement becomes true..." She mused, while the others tried to understand what the blond Ravenclaw was saying.

"Okay, so Hermione knows everything. Let's leave it like that, much more easier." Ron decided, giving up on trying to wrap his head around Luna's statement.

[Page 125 - A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth - and the hat began to sing.]

"A singing hat? Completely crazy, the lot of them." Vernon muttered darkly under his breath, and tried his best to ignore the sticky substance that was covering him. The staff scowled at him as he continued insulting their traditions and their mood sunk even lower when they realized he really didn't care if they heard him or not. It was disgusting how rude and close-minded this man was and they were thankful Harry wasn't similar to him in any way.

Meanwhile, students were cheering along their book-selves as if the sorting was happening again. They outright ignored Umbridge's demands for silence and clapped enthusiastically whenever someone was sorted into their House. They also agreed wholeheartedly at the nervous thoughts the past-Harry was having as they could easily relate to it.

Harry, however, wasn't enjoying himself as much as his friends were. He was starting to get worried about their reactions if they found out the Hat considered putting him in Slytherin. He didn't care a lot about the public's opinion since he knew even if they viewed him as their hero and practically worshipped him now, the second he did something wrong, they were pointing fingers and spreading awful rumors about himself. But it still hurt when they readily abandoned him and if he was a bit scared for the public's opinion, he was completely terrified of what his friends' would think. They were, after all, the only family he ever had. What if they were disgusted by him? Or thought he was a Dark wizard? Will they be mad he never said anything about it? What if they never wanted to see him again?

"Harry, is everything alright?" Remus gently shook his shoulders, jolting him out of his mild panic attack. He blinked, then realized Remus was still waiting for his answer, concern evident in his eyes. "Oh, yeah, sure. Nothing's wrong."

"If you say so." Clearly he didn't believe it for a second but dropped the subject. Harry sighed, mentally bracing himself since he knew as a fact that they would be strong reactions when the fact was revealed.

[Page 127 - "I'll kill Fred, he was going on about wrestling a troll."]

"Can't believe you believed that." Fred snickered. "I mean, did you really think Dumbledore would let first years fight troll without any knowledge?"

"Does your family have a seer blood? 'Cause it sure looks like it." Ignoring Fred's comment, Harry whispered to Ron who agreed with him. Seeing this, Fred stared at them in growing horror. "Wait, don't tell me. Did you really wrestle a troll?"

"No, of course not." The Golden Trio immediately replied, too quickly for Fred's comfort. "Why would we ever wrestle a troll?"

"Wait, but you three did mention something about becoming friends by facing a troll." George cut them off, eyeing them suspiciously. "Did you really wrestle a troll? And don't bother trying to lie 'cause we are the master of lying. We will know if you don't tell us the truth. Now, did you? Well?"

"Uh..." The trio glanced at each other uncertainly, no sure how they should answer. "It will be explained in the book?"

"You know I'm really getting sick of hearing that." Neville muttered, grabbing some potions that were nearest to him. He was trying to save some for when his friends' real 'adventures' would start since he had no doubt they were completely reckless and suicidal. Good thing Madam Pomfrey filled the empty vials yesterday.

[Page 130 - "You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that..."]

"Sorting Hat wanted to put Harry Potter in Slytherin?" Someone said the question which was going through everyone's mind aloud. Everyone had varying reactions.

Snape seemed to be indifferent on the outside, but mentally, he was hopelessly confused. Harry bloody Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, in his House? Son of his old enemy, James Potter? That wasn't possible. Every Potter should be reckless Gryffindor's, ready to jump head-first into any trouble they find.

And yet, here it was, the very proof how his belief was wrong. If it wasn't for that Weasley and Hagrid, Potter would have been placed in Slytherin and under his responsibility. He didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed. But he was disappointed in himself.

He failed to see that. Lily's son was abused and couldn't help him. There were many abused children in Slytherin, so out of all people, he should have seen the symptoms and helped him. For the first time, Snape felt guilty, and promised to himself that he will help Potter no matter his personal feelings, like Poppy wanted him to do.

The Slytherins were the most baffled group. Most of them had hated, no, loathed Harry Potter. But he could have been one of them.

"This is crazy." Draco muttered disbelievingly, slowly shaking his head. "Potter a Slytherin?"

"I wonder what would have happened if he did come here." Astoria mumbled to herself, and Daphne nudged her with her elbow. "Now is not the time to imagine things. What's done is done."

"But do you think we can talk to him? I mean, he should have been a Slytherin if it was not for the Weasley boy." Astoria looked up at her with wide, hopeful eyes. "I just want to know if he's really a Gryffindor like everyone says. Seeing how the Sorting Hat tried to put him in our House, I don't think he's as reckless as we believed."

Daphne met Astoria's eyes. Damn it. She sighed. After all, she always had a soft spot for her sister. "We'll think about it later, Astoria." She beamed at her, and turned her attention to some whispering Slytherins. Daphne glanced curiously at the raven haired boy.

Despite how disinterested she looked, she wanted to see the true Harry Potter as well. Perhaps they would be lucky and he was a real snake among the lions. Or maybe he was just a typical Gryffindor. She didn't even know which one she should be hoping for. However, small part of her couldn't help but hope for the former.

It would be nice to have a friend since she had none except for her sister because of her icy attitude. As soon as that thought came, she fiercely shook her head. No, it would be stupid to hope for that. No one would want to be friends with the Slytherin Ice Queen. Once again, she gazed at the teen with emerald eyes.

Harry shifted uncomfortably under everyone's gaze. There was a reason why he kept that part of information as secret. He didn't even tell Ron and Hermione! Now he knew he would be accused for being dark, again. The victorious glint in Umbridge's eyes promised that.

Though he couldn't gather enough confidence in himself to look at his friends but he risked a glance towards the student population but wished he hadn't. They looked wary, wary of him. His heart sank, and desperation took over. He started searching people's face, praying any of them - anyone - didn't think he was dark, but a voice stopped him.

"You should try to develop your Slytherin skills." Luna blinked up at Harry, either unaware of the gaze of entire students or ignoring it. "You are going against a very powerful Slytherin, so I personally think you should at least have some skills. But of course, wizards will say you are going dark." Luna frowned and sighed. "It's so sad that most wizards are so close-minded."

Harry merely gaped at her for being so calm and for saying that. He started when he felt something touching his right arm, only to realize that it was Sirius. The grim gave the teen a bark and snuggled closer, as if trying to say, 'I will always be with you no matter what.' To Harry's relief, his friends patted him as well and even threatening to hex students who were gawking or glaring at him.

Although the suspicious looks didn't completely stop - as Luna said, wizards could be very close-minded - his friends didn't think he was becoming dark and that was all that mattered to Harry.

[Page 133 - "How did he get covered in blood?" "I've never asked," said Nearly Headless Nick delicately.]

"Well, I wouldn't ask him how he died, either. I mean, Bloody Baron is downright frightening." Parvati shuddered, remembering the ghost's appearance. Then, she and Lavender let out a scream when they saw something silvery move right in front of them, only to see the twin's smirking faces.

Meanwhile, the other Gryffindors were busy for betting. The Weasley twins who were responsible for recording the bet scribbled on the parchment furiously to keep up.

"Three galleons for Harry finding out why he's covered in blood."

"Two for not knowing it."

"Why do people keep betting that I will find out whatever information that they don't know?" Harry asked to no one in particular while staring at the group strangely.

"'Cause there's a big chance that you will." Ron answered simply as he put two galleons for Harry finding out. "I mean, you managed to find where the Secret Chamber is while no one else could."

"I see your point." Harry agreed, somewhat reluctantly.

[Page 134 - "My great-uncle Algie kept trying to catch me off guard and force some magic out of me..."]

Professor McGonagall frowned at that information. "I need to have a word with Augusta. You shouldn't force magic out of a child. He could have been severely injured!"

Susan covered her mouth and looked at Neville fearfully. "That's horrible! You could have died! How could they even think about risking you drowning or breaking your neck? Her gaze snapped to rest of the Gryffindors. "How could you not report this to professor?"

The Gryffindors grimaced. "I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before. I'm so sorry, Neville." Hermione apologized furiously. Neville seemed flustered and waved aside the apology.

"Hey, it's okay. I'm alive, am I not?" Neville's attempt to calm her backfired and only worried her even more.

"You do realize that you sound like Harry right now?" Ron asked. "Harry always say he's okay and not to worry about him. He would have made a great Hufflepuff."

"Is that a compliment?"

"Uh, yes?"

"Well, then, thanks."

"...You are so weird, Harry."

"Gee, thanks Ron."

[Page 137 - The Gryffindor first-years followed Percy through the chattering crowds...]

"Hey, we are gonna hear about how to get to Gryffindor dormitory!"

Gryffindor's exchanged uneasy glances as they noted mischievous looks that appeared on many students as they pulled out their quills and parchments, ready to write. They had pranked them before, and now by the looks of it, it was their turn to get pranked. It was going to be a long year. Fortunately for them, book-Harry didn't describe the exact way to the dormitory because of his fatigue. However, he did explain the entrance: a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress.

"Harry, if we get pranked, I'm blaming all on you." The twins accused, pointing a finger at the teen.

"It's not my fault that you two always go around playing pranks on everyone you stumble onto." Harry retorted, smiling in satisfaction when the twins didn't find anything to say back to that.