Slugs
It was evening by the time Professor Dippet was finished with him and turned him over to someone who he introduced as Professor Slughorn, the head of the House that he was being put in. Bakura obediently followed the jovial, overweight, professor to the common room, watching the other's disapproving back as he walked. The man was obviously unhappy with having an older student join as a first year, thinking that it was due to some mental deficiency and not to a lack of schooling as was in fact the case.
Coming to the entry in the dungeons, the professor looked back at him. "There is a password you must know to get into the Slytherin common room. Listen closely and try to remember this password. If you give out the password to anyone in anther house the penalty will be severe." Bakura nodded, not really too concerned with the threat, concentrating more on trying to figure out how to trigger the release mechanism of the door which was rather badly hidden behind a section of the wall. He could just use the password that Slughorn had mentioned, of course, but it was always better to have a backup plan just in case.
"Veritaserum." Slughorn said in what Bakura thought was an overly dramatic tone. It wasn't as though the door wasn't easy to see. Honestly didn't mages in these days give any thought to anything other than magic?
Entering the room, Bakura found himself confronted with a sea of curious faces watching him and the professor. Professor Slughorn beamed around at the class, giving an especially wide smile to a tall, handsome youth with dark hair and a secretive air about him. "This is a new student who's come to join us." He declared, refraining from patting Bakura on the shoulder only because that would have made even more obvious the height disparity between them. "Dippet hasn't told me much, but it seems this is his first encounter with the world of wizardry so he's being put in with the first years despite his advanced age." Glances were exchanged, and Bakura knew that he was going to be the target of several would-be thugs, but he felt sure that he could handle them. There was a ban on using offensive magic, after all, so if they did so he would be able to retaliate in kind, with Diabound.
"Now remember," Slughorn cautioned, apparently having noticed the looks. "We Slytherins have to keep up a united front. Whatever you may feel, it stays inside the common room." He smiled at them again, trying to lessen the sting of his words, and Bakura felt his face twist into a sneer that he hid by bowing his head so that his hair covered his face. There was nothing to gain by alienating a teacher, no matter how stupid he was.
When the man had left, Bakura looked up and around at the gathered crowd with open disdain. It had only taken him a moment to size up the general quality of people in the common room, and the hat's words lingered in his mind. Slytherin is the house for people with ambition, people who want to put themselves first. You should fit in well, boy, as soon as you look into your future rather than your past. It had been an odd thing to say, he had thought at the time, especially for an item with the ability to read minds. He knew that the past was gone. The Items had been destroyed, and he needed to find a new life here and excel in it.
He wouldn't do anything now, however. The professors already had their eye on him; he didn't want their watchfulness to turn into anything more serious. Instead of making a move to dominate as he would have back home, Bakura simply smirked and walked right past the assembled thugs into the corner where he had seen a familiar face.
"Myrtle Pryor, correct?" If he had her name wrong then it was just too bad, but if he had remembered correctly it would be a point in his favor immediately.
The girl nodded, flushing and glancing behind him at the people who he could hear whispering behind him about losers staying together. "Yes. I'm Myrtle. And – and you are?" She was stammering in her embarrassment, and Bakura could tell that the negative regard was getting to her.
"Bakura." He said his name flatly, then shrugged at her downcast look. "I do not have another name, although you do not have to tell anyone that." The glare that he sent over his shoulder at the watching people made them look away, some moving further away from him, although he knew that he had spoken quietly enough that no one else would have been able to hear him without magical aid.
Sick of feeling eyes on him, Bakura stood. "Perhaps we will talk later." He wanted to make sure that she wouldn't tell anyone else what she had seen, but he had the feeling that she'd keep her mouth shut – at least for now. If they ever had a chance to talk in private he'd bring it up; if not, it didn't really matter. The secret would come out sometime. He'd just rather it was after he'd settled in a little.
Following the instructions that he had been given, Bakura found the room that had been prepared for him – a room of his own because of his age and the fact that the headmaster didn't want him corrupting the little children. His books and the robes that had been bought for him were already there, along with notes from each of the teachers saying what he needed to read to catch up to the rest of the class. Bakura picked up the first of the books with reverent hands and opened it, still only half-believing that he'd really be able to read the writing.
As Dippet had promised, however, Bakura could understand the written words as well as he had been able to understand the strange speech that people here employed. After closing his eyes for a moment to relish the thought that he was now able to read just as a scribe could, Bakura began to read the pages that he had been assigned.