Chapter Six- A Subconscious Sorting

September 1st 1991- On the Hogwarts Express

"So it is true, the famous Harry Potter has come to Hogwarts" the sneering voice of Draco Malfoy proclaimed to the carriage.

Harry, who still hadn't sat down since the four girls had left the carriage turned around and came face to face with Draco Malfoy, the pale boy with the bleach blonde hair who had been considered Harry's rival in his previous lifetime, although in Harry's mind right now he wasn't sure whether he could be bothered to go through such a rivalry again considering he had potentially just set up another rivalry with Ron.

One thing Harry had got good at throughout his school years the first time through had been to think on the spot and learn quickly enough to get through troubles, as such Harry wanted to use the pureblooded bravado that he had dealt with when Daphne and her group had come in against Draco Malfoy, the boy who attempted to use his bravado the most.

Harry put on his stiffest upper lip and gave his best impression of the aristocracy that he had seen on the news channels and throughout his visits to the Wizengamot.

"I do not believe that we have been introduced, so please refrain from such familiarities. I am Harry, Heir of House Potter and my companions here are Neville, Heir of House Longbottom and Hermione, Heiress of House Dagworth-Granger, I pass the floor over for your introductions"

Draco was taken aback by the knowledge of pureblood culture that Harry had just shown, he had been informed by his father that Harry would be completely useless and that he would be able to teach Harry and mould him into their way of thinking. But the boy that was standing in front of his exuded charisma and knowledge of their world.

"Of Course Heir Potter, my name is Draco, Heir Malfoy and Heir Black and behind me you will find Vincent, Heir Crabbe and Gregory, Heir Goyle. I come to offer you a guide through this world, I'm sure you will find that some people are better company than others, I can help you find the best"

Harry looked into the eyes of Draco Malfoy, remembering the broken man that he had become towards the end of the war, and the risk that he had taken by saving their lives at Malfoy Manor, and that wounded dog was still in this boy even at such a young age. Harry had always wondered what this boy had been through at such a young age, feeling dependent on his aloof and viscous father throughout his adolescence before having his father and support structure taken away whilst being held hostage in his own house by Voldemort and given a task by a manipulative man that seems impossible at face value. Harry knew exactly how that felt.

Harry wasn't going to accept Draco's offer, still laced with the vile of blood supremacy, however Harry did not want to spend the next six years feuding with the blond boy, and who knows maybe there could be a redemption for the Malfoy scion. If Harry plays his cards right he would be able to break the young Draco out of the manipulative reign of Lord Voldemort, just like Harry wanted to break Ron out of the manipulations of Albus Dumbledore.

"Heir Malfoy, While I do not accept your offer as I doubt the motivation behind it. I hope that we can be cordial with each other and potentially become friends more naturally throughout our school years"

Harry reached out his hand to show that there was no ill will within his words and was surprised when Draco reached out and shook it. With a sigh of relief with his masterclass of crisis aversion, Harry nodded to Draco and sat down, giving the implication for Draco to leave.

Once Draco had left, Harry looked around and saw Neville and Hermione looking at him gaping about the show of power that Harry had just shown. Neville was the first to speak up with a meek voice he stuttered

"What just happened"

Harry turned to face the nervous wreck sat next to him, hoping that with more strong friendships it wouldn't take literal torture for Neville to become the best version of himself

"That was diffusing a bomb before it had even been built, notice the difference between how Daphne and Draco entered the room, both of them were pure-blood like you Neville so would have been taught the same etiquette. Yet Daphne came in and treated us all like equals whereas Draco came in and acted as if he owned the room. So I just introduced us the exact same way that Daphne introduces herself and her friends, to show Draco that he wasn't better than us"

Harry was relieved that Daphne had come into the carriage as it had given him an excuse as to how he knew about the pureblood interactions. In truth he had been taught them by Sirius in his fifth year at Hogwarts and Eleven year old Harry would have had no idea what to say, well Eleven year old Harry did have no idea what to say and it led to a rivalry which almost led to one to the death of Draco had Professor Snape not been around at the perfect time.

Hermione was quick to issue a follow up question that Harry was already expecting

"Why did you say Dagworth-Granger to Draco but only Granger to Daphne, also who is Dagworth-Granger?"

Harry looked over to Hermione, who looked annoyed with herself that she didn't know something.

"Hector Dagworth-Granger was the founder of The Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers, an absolute genius at potions, one of the greatest ever"

Despite having the answers to her second question it didn't seem to cheer up Hermione as she this had led her to even more questions regarding Harry's actions

"Then why did you say his name? I've never heard of him so I can't be related to him, can I?"

"Well, it was to protect you," Harry sighed. "Draco didn't strike me as the person who would be pleased about you having muggle parents, so I mentioned a Wizarding family with a similar name to yours to keep him off the trail. As for Daphne, her and her group never gave the vibe of caring about blood status, I still gave you the same introduction as I gave to Neville because it would have been insinuating you were less because of your parentage if I hadn't"

Neville chimed into the conversation,

"Harry is right, I've met some of the Malfoy's before and they are some of the worst people around, and giving you the pureblood introduction puts you at the same level in conversation, even if the person you're speaking to doesn't have supremacist views"

Harry, excited that Neville was using his pureblood knowledge to patch over the cracks in Harry's story and prevent any awkward questions finally answered the question that was bugging Hermione the most

"And as for if you're related to Hector Dagworth-Granger, well there's always a chance. You learnt about how traits and genes pass down from parent to child in school right", Hermione nodded which Harry was relieved about,

"Well imagine magic being an exceptionally recessive gene, some people are born to magical parents but have no magic, well what if they still have a magical gene and eventually one of their descendants turn out to be magical. On paper they would be considered a muggle-born but they could be from a powerful wizarding family"

Both Hermione and Neville looked completely dumb-founded by Harry's line of reasoning, in Neville's case he could spot nothing wrong with Harry's thought path but it went against everything he had ever learnt about the wizarding world, as for Hermione she was regretting cutting Harry out for the past month as he could have taught her so much in that time, deep down she was terrified that because of her non-magical upbringing she was going to be so far behind.

Harry quickly changed the subject over to looking forward to their classes at Hogwarts and what they were looking forward to, Neville surprised Harry by saying that the classes he was most looking forward to were Herbology and Potions. It made sense considering how intrinsically linked the two subjects were but considering how much Snape had been his greatest fear it was sad to see the optimism before it had been drained out of him.

Hermione had said that she was most looking forward to History of Magic as she was looking forward to learning all about Merlin and the founders and the different Magical Wars in the book that Harry had got her in Diagon Alley. The irony again was prevalent but it made Harry think about the failure around Hogwarts, two separate students who for entirely separate reasons would be majorly disappointed in the subject that they were most looking forward to.

The rest of their journey went by seamlessly with only a few people popping in to say hello, including the prefects with Percy Weasley, to let them know that they will shortly be arriving at Hogwarts and to make sure they're in their uniform. Then it was finally time to return to Hogwarts.

The familiar booming voice of Hagrid ran out as he called for the first years over to him, taking them over to the boats as Harry got ready for his second first look at Hogwarts. He was not prepared for the wave of emotion that would rush over him when he saw it. Compared to the Hogwarts he had left, what he saw in front of him was a castle that still had its innocence. This castle hadn't seen a brutal war fought on its very grounds, this castle hadn't been taken over by Death Eaters who used the cruciatus curse on first years as punishment. This castle hadn't seen death littered through its very halls, some of those deceased sat in the boats surrounding Harry at this very moment. All of a sudden Harry felt a fear about returning to Hogwarts, what if his mental state wasn't ready for this. What if Harry wasn't even going to be able to turn a corner without seeing where a corpse had been in a previous life. Harry had a PTSD for something that hadn't happened yet and nobody could know about it.

September 1st 1991- The Great Hall, Hogwarts

Sat at the head of the massive dining room was the self-proclaimed leader of the light Albus Dumbledore, this had been the day that he had been looking forward to for Eleven years, the day the Harry James Potter arrived at Hogwarts. Dumbledore believed he had everything planned perfectly, Hagrid had told Dumbledore that Harry had asked to go find out more about his family which Dumbledore refused to allow, but Dumbledore had hoped everything else had gone according to plan. Hagrid hadn't given Harry enough information to get onto the platform, thanks to a good confundus charm. Harry would have no memory of his trip to Privet Drive, so Molly Weasley would be able to sweep in and lead Harry towards her son and daughter. The proof that Dumbledore's plan was going perfectly would be shown to him when Harry walked into the Great Hall with Ron Weasley by his side to be sorted into Gryffindor.

A lot of the teachers were having thoughts along a similar path, though without the manipulations. They were all looking forward to having the son of James and Lily Potter, two of the brightest students to ever walk through these hallowed halls, in their classes and they thought that even if he was half the student his parents were then he would be a powerful wizard whatever he wanted to go into.

There was one teacher who was not looking forward to seeing Harry Potter in Hogwarts, and that was Professor Severus Snape. He was terrified with the thought of seeing the living representation of his greatest regret and failure walking throughout the halls, he was under strict orders from the Headmaster to not hold back on Harry Potter and to use the child as his own therapy punching bag.

But the fear that Snape had was shared by the manipulative headmaster as his deputy walked through the doors with the new first years. Behind the deputy headmistress stood a trio of Neville Longbottom, Harry Potter and a girl that Dumbledore wasn't familiar with. Nowhere near them was the red headed boy Ron Weasley, he was walking at the back of the pack on his own.

Once the pack had reached the front the Headmaster stood up and with such murmurings from around the hall went silent, anxiously awaiting the sorting of a new batch of Hogwarts students. Dumbledore spoke to the crowd as they waited on his every word, he did enjoy having control of such malleable minds.

"Welcome all to another year here at Hogwarts, before we get into the sorting I just want to say a few words Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"

Harry had grown to resent the old man standing at the podium, and now found his wacky grandfather act to be patronising and annoying. But Harry knew that unlike Voldemort, he would have to put up with Dumbledore's direct actions for a lot longer than he wanted to.

Professor McGonagall stepped forward holding a large roll of parchment, which had all the names of Harry's year at Hogwarts down in alphabetical order. Harry had seen which houses everyone had been sorted into before so during the Sorting Hats Song and for most of the sorting Harry didn't particularly pay attention.

The first name which got Harry to focus was when the Scottish Teacher shouted- "Granger, Hermione". Harry was pretty confident that Hermione would still be put into Gryffindor but since Harry wanted to be close to Hermione from the outset this time round he didn't want to seem rude by being vacant during her sorting. Eventually after some time deliberating the sorting hat shouted out Gryffindor, Harry had always suspected that the sorting hat had considered putting Hermione into Ravenclaw, she was the brightest witch of her age after all. However Hermione had shown time and time again why she was a true Gryffindor at heart. Just like in the generation that preceded them, the brightest witch of their age had not been a Ravenclaw.

Straight after Hermione, was "Greengrass, Daphne", who despite some hesitation from the sorting hat had been put into Slytherin just as she was last time. Whilst Harry had only really interacted with her on the train and very rarely in his previous timeline, there was a feeling that Harry had that she would be an important ally to have. He would just have to complete the tiny task of breaking down generations worth of house rivalries, compared to two dark lords how difficult could that be.

More names were read out as Harry looked around the room and noticed that the Slytherin table didn't seem anywhere near as threatening as they had before. When he had previously stood in this position he had thought that they looked like a right unpleasant lot, but I suppose that having met Draco and having Ron constantly referring to all Slytherins as evil might have clouded his view point. But all of a sudden something popped into Harry's mind, another manipulation and lie told to him by Ron Weasley and Hagrid, possibly at the behest of Dumbledore

"There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin", Harry remembered the words that Hagrid had told him, but Harry knew that that wasn't true, Peter Pettigrew was a Gryffindor and he had been the one to hand Harry's own parent's over to Voldemort. But even though they hadn't known that at the time the person they suspected was Sirius Black, everyone said that he was Voldemort's right hand man, but he was also a Gryffindor.

Harry got out of his stupor to see Draco being sorted into Slytherin before the hat had even touched his head. Realising that he had missed Neville's sorting whilst in his own head he quickly checked around and spotted that Neville had gone to sit next to Hermione over on the Gryffindor table.

Eventually after Pansy Parkinson had gone to Slytherin, the Patil twins had been split up, which Harry hadn't spotted how devastated that had made them previously, and Sally-Anne Perks had gone to Hufflepuff it was finally Harry's turn to face the sorting hat.

"WHAT THE FUCK"

Harry was startled by the loud voice inside his head, the sorting hat had been confused by him before but to shout like this inside his head was a different level. Before Harry suddenly realised something, the Sorting Hat could see into his subconscious, the Sorting Hat could see where Harry had come from. The Sorting Hat could see the future.

Harry started to plead inside his mind that The Sorting Hat would be able to keep a secret only to be reassured that its enchantments were designed to see into student's minds but it physically could not repeat what it saw. The founders were very strict on student privacy it would seem.

With this revelation Harry had a genius idea, and spoke to the hat inside his own head. "Then you know what my goal is, you can see the people that these students become. Can you help me?". The last part was almost a plea, as Harry still felt that his goal was completely un-achievable so any little help he could find would be appreciated.

The Sorting Hat went completely silent, it just sat there on top of his head for what felt like an eternity. Until the Hat finally said "Thank You, You Will Succeed" inside Harry's head before a bellowing "Gryffindor" rung around The Great Hall

The Gryffindor table burst into a rapturous applause and were cheering as if they had just won the world cup, Percy Weasley quickly got up and shook Harry's hand as the twins were chanting "We Got Potter" to anyone from any other house in earshot.

Harry wasn't sure whether the rest of the Weasley family had any involvement in their mother and younger siblings plot, they had been ushered through the barrier before Mrs Weasley had spoken to the youngest two, but until Harry could be certain he thought it would be best to keep them at an arm's length for now. As such Harry went a little bit further down the table and sat next to Neville and Hermione.

The final few names were sorted as Harry half concentrated on what was going on, Dean Thomas had joined them in Gryffindor, Lisa Turpin had gone to Ravenclaw, then the shout of "Slytherin" bellowed through the hall as Harry assumed Blaise Zabini had gone to the green house, until he suddenly stopped and looked up from his lap. There was one name left before Blaise. Harry turned his head up to the stool at the head of the hall and there sat under the sorting hat was the lanky freckled redheaded boy, Ronald Weasley.

The redheaded contingent of the Gryffindor house started to protest quickly that their brother had been sorted into Slytherin. Even Dumbledore looked shaken by this shock revelation. Ron was sitting on the chair screaming at the hat that it had made a mistake and even tried to snatch it out of Professor McGonagall's hands when she took it off his head. In the end it took Professor Snape standing up and barking at Weasley to go and sit with his house for Ron to sheepishly head towards the opposite side to the hall as where Harry was sat.

Harry however was beaming with this revelation, The Sorting Hat had given him a major piece of help and taken away Dumbledore's greatest asset in his manipulation of Harry, his spy. On the other side of the hall the faces were less bright, there was nothing Ronald Weasley wanted less than to be in the house of Snakes, and from the looks of it there was nothing the Slytherin house wanted less than Ronald Weasley.