September 1991, 1st year
Harry stared at the castle in muted horror. All around him, the other children were staring, too, but for entirely different reasons. It was a magnificent castle, beautiful and majestic and the view from the middle of a lake made it all the more impressive. But it was also a magical castle. Full of raw and wild magic. Not only did that mean that the castle was probably very dangerous, it also meant that Harry would be constantly distracted by everything – and other people wouldn't even understand, because seeing magic was apparently not normal.
He could already see the headache coming. This he had not taken into account when he had first learned of the existence of a magical school. He should have known, though. Diagon Alley had been overwhelming, already – why would a literal school of witchcraft and wizardry be any different?
"You look like all your nightmares just came true," the girl sitting in front of him said with wide eyes. "Are you afraid of the Sorting? I am sure it will be fine." She chuckled nervously. "Not that I know what we have to do to get sorted, but it can't be that bad, can it?"
Harry was saved from deciding whether to answer by their arrival at a harbour underneath the castle. From there, the big man that had greeted them at the station led them up a flight of steps to a set of heavy wooden doors. A stern-looking witch took over, then, leading the first-years to a small chamber, where she gave them a little introductory speech, before disappearing into what Harry assumed was some kind of assembly hall.
A few people started whispering to each other, the bushy-haired girl was muttering under her breath and someone shrieked in fright when a ghost appeared.
Harry whipped his head around to stare at the translucent beings that came floating through one of the walls, talking among each other. Ghosts. There were ghosts in the castle, real ghosts. There was no way he wouldn't seize the chance to get every little detail about their past lives out of them. Ghosts were bound to have at least one interesting story – that of their death – and judging from their clothes most of them had died centuries ago (unless wizards still wore such outdated robes). There was so much potential there.
"Potter," someone murmured and Harry's attention snapped back to his surroundings.
The stern-looking witch had returned to lead them into the 'Great Hall', were all the older students were already seated at four long tables on which golden plates and goblets had been placed. The first-years walked past the watching student body and came to a halt in front of the staff at the Head Table.
Harry looked around.
There was so much to see, he didn't even know where to begin – but his gaze was drawn to the ceiling and what a ceiling it was! That is to say, there was no ceiling. Or to be more accurate, you couldn't see the ceiling. A lot of complicated magic, layers upon layers of magic, made it imitate the nights sky outside and it was magnificent. Harry loved magic.
Meanwhile, the stern-looking witch had procured a hat that had definitely seen better days from somewhere, placed it on a little stool and now stepped back, looking expectantly at the hat. And the hat began to sing.
Harry blinked and looked around. This was apparently normal.
"When I call your name," the stern-looking witch said, "you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted."
Harry wondered how long it would take for him to find out what kind of magic was enabling the hat and whether he could start mentally taking it apart from where he was standing – he couldn't, there was too much noise (of magical nature) all around him – and how long it would take for each student and whether he would have enough time to inspect it when it was his turn.
"Nott, Theodore" became a Slytherin, settling down next to the blonde boy that had annoyed Harry so much on the train earlier.
The two minions were there, too. Among other people.
Harry hadn't really thought about the houses very much until now. He didn't really care where he went as long as he could find someone quiet to have at his side and be otherwise left alone. At least that was his plan for now. He could adapt if necessary.
'Nott, Theodore' was a quiet someone, but not the only quiet someone.
Now that Harry had already started thinking about the houses, he supposed he could actually give the whole topic some serious consideration. He had read about them, of course – he had read plenty, because the magical community of Britain put a lot of weight onto your Hogwarts House. Harry didn't quite understand why, but it was a fact and he could not change that fact.
From what he had learned about the houses so far, Slytherin –
"Potter, Harry!"
Oh, well. Never mind that.
People were already whispering. Right. He was still famous. He had kind of forgotten about that and now he became rather annoyed with the fact that the Sorting had to take place in front of the whole school. Having his classmates know who he was would have been more than enough, already.
Harry sat down on the stool, put on the hat, and waited – not idly, he had to examine the hat's magic as much as he could while it contemplated where to put him. The thing could talk to him with some sort of telepathy – Harry didn't pay any attention to what it was actually saying – and apparently look into his head, or his mind, or his inner self – what was it looking at? He needed to know. He needed to find out how it worked. He wanted to see whether he could do that too, whether he could use that, whether his Gift made it possible – oh, what was he talking about, of course his Gift would make it possible. Harry was special. Harry was gifted. There was nothing Harry couldn't do, he would make sure of that.
"Well, Mister Potter," the hat said, "you make a compelling argument for Ravenclaw."
Ravenclaw, Harry thought. Hm.
"No?" the hat asked and then it chuckled. "No, I don't think so, either."
Wait –
"SLYTHERIN!"
But he wasn't finished, yet!
Harry glared at the damn thing as he set it down and walked to his table. He was so busy processing all the information he had gained – not enough, not nearly enough – Harry only noticed how silent it was when he sat down next to Nott.
People were staring at him.
Idiotic people, not having anything better to do than staring at an eleven-year-old. Couldn't they just leave him be and move on with their lives already?
Harry decidedly ignored every single one of them and looked at the stern-looking witch. Who was also staring at him. And here he had thought the woman was a sensible one. He looked at the headmaster. He looked at the other teachers. One of them had a rather dark expression on his face, unlike the shocked one the rest wore, but in the end, he was staring at Harry all the same.
So much for blending in. He should have known, really.
But there was hope. Humans tended to get bored easily – Harry was a very good example of this, himself – if his plan to blend in went smoothly, they were bound to get bored of him, eventually. As long as he did not stand out in any way, they would forget all about him sooner or later. They would get used to him. The Boy-Who-Lived, ordinary. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. He was anything but ordinary. But people did not need to know that, he reminded himself, it was better if they didn't.
Someone shouted something about a mistake and more shouts followed, but Harry did not listen to them, resolutely staring at the stern-looking witch.
The Sorting resumed eventually.
o
Slytherins, Harry noticed, were well-mannered and polite and held proper public appearances in high regard.
All the house tables were different. The Gryffindors were the loudest of the bunch – there was the occasional shout across half the table (or half the hall), people talking with their mouths full, lots of laughter and everyone was talking. The Hufflepuffs were comparatively quiet, holding conversations at normal volumes, passing food around, making sure everyone was included, engaging their new first-years. Some of the Ravenclaws had completely forgotten about the food, so engrossed where they in their heated discussion, others exchanged quieter words, some had even taken out some books and from what Harry could see one particular group was playing some sort of quiz show.
The Slytherins were holding polite conversations. They were not loud and not quiet, either. There was no fighting, nor arguments, not even disagreements – or if there were, you wouldn't notice, because their polite tones never wavered. Harry found the last part the most interesting.
The first-years had started by introducing themselves, although half of them already knew each other. Pure-bloods, Harry thought. Then the blonde boy had gotten into an argument with one of the girls – also blonde, but not as pale as him – but neither raised their voices even once. Had Harry not been sitting within earshot, he would have never even suspected anything.
The dark-skinned boy with the permanent smirk on his face was exchanging polite nonsense with the girl with the bob, who was sitting right next to him. The two girls next to the one the blonde boy was kind-of arguing with were having a quiet conversation. The rest was silent.
Harry swept his gaze over the multitude of food choices in front of him, decided on some steamed vegetables with roast beef and then looked around, observing again. The Great Hall was buzzing with magic and he had to consciously ignore the urge to look at it and take it apart before it gave him a headache. The students were of no interest to him so far, but the teachers he decided to take a closer look at. It would probably be wise to learn and remember their names, too, at some point.
There was the old man on his throne in the middle of the Head Table, the headmaster, smiling at the stern-looking witch next to him. Next to her, the large man from the boats conversed with a man as small as the goblins and a man whose face was littered with scars. Then there was the man who had given Harry such a dark look earlier, greasy hair and hooked noise, listening to a man with a purple turban.
The teachers on the other side of the headmaster were a bit more difficult to make out, because they were sitting further away from Harry. They were basically a gaggle of witches all talking with each other – a plump witch with a tree branch stuck on her hat, a witch that looked like a hawk, one that had warm brown skin and wore midnight blue robes with twinkling stars on them, three that were rather unremarkable from what Harry could see, and, lastly, a witch draped in numerous shawls and cloaks and bangles, covered in sequins and beads, wearing rather thick glasses. The last witch wasn't talking to anyone, instead staring at nothing in particular while absentmindedly picking at the food on her plate.
While Harry had been busy observing the teachers, the main course had been replaced with pudding. The options were just as numerous, but Harry only had eyes for the treacle tart. Nott raised his eyebrows when Harry took a whole plate all for himself, but didn't comment on it.
Only now did Harry notice that no one had addressed him as of yet. And, frankly, out of the whole feast that was the best part. In addition to his housemates' behaviour in general. Harry was still mad with the hat for cutting his inspections of its magic short, but he had to admit that the old thing had at least seemed to put him in the right house. Compared to the other three tables, Harry much preferred the one he was currently sitting at.
Later – when the Welcoming Feast was over and the headmaster (who was definitely senile, Harry had to agree with the blonde boy there) had held his speech and forced the students to sing a horrendous school song, after the prefects had brought them to the Slytherin Common Room and given them some time to take in their surroundings – Harry learned why his housemates behaved the way they did.
There were rules.
Rules specific to Slytherin House. Harry loved them.
Slytherins did not fight in public. Period.
Conflicts between housemates would be taken care of in private. Conflicts with other houses would be taken care of with the full support of all of Slytherin, no matter how one thought about the individuals in trouble.
There were the standard rules about not causing trouble, not being caught breaking rules, not losing any House Points, doing your best in class, keeping the common room clean, and so on.
There was also a rule about never traversing the corridors alone – and 'alone', in this case, meant 'without the company of another Slytherin'. It was a necessity caused by the fact that the other houses viewed Slytherin as the evil house and therefore sometimes thought it was justified to ambush them. They mostly got away with it, too, because clearly 'the Slytherins must be at fault'. That did not bode well for Harry's plan to be left alone.
"Slytherins look out for their own," one of the prefects repeated. "Always remember that."
"Now, off to bed you go," another prefect said. "You will want to unpack and get some proper rest before starting your first proper day at Hogwarts. All matters relating to ranks and hierarchy can wait until you have settled in."
Ranks and hierarchy?
"I advise you to be careful about forming alliances so early on, too," the prefect continued. "Temporary, sure, but do not make them binding just yet. You never know who might prove to be the most … advantageous in the future."
Alliances?
Wait, had his eyes just lingered on Harry when he had said that?
"Now, off to bed with you. Boys, with me. Girls, please follow Gemma."
While the common room had been impressive in its own right – green lights, cosy fires and large underwater windows – the dormitories were quite formidable as well. Whereas the common room was located completely underneath the lake, the dormitories were on the same level as the surface, which meant that the moonlight shone through the windows at which the water was lapping soothingly.
The room was furnished in dark wood and green and silver. They all had a bed, a side-table, a small wardrobe and a desk with a chair each. Their beds were luxuriously large four-posters with green silk-hangings and embroidered bedding. Underneath their feet was a soft carpet. On the walls hung fancy tapestries. From the ceilings dangled silver lanterns.
It was elegant and beautiful and Harry loved it.
Someone had already brought their belongings from the train and Harry was relieved to see his luggage next to the bed furthest from the doors to the corridor and the bathroom and he was perhaps also a bit happy that the bed next to his would be occupied by Nott. Then came the boy with the permanent smirk on his lips, then the boys Harry didn't bother to try to distinguish from each other – the minions – and then the blonde boy. Whoever had decided to arrange them like this was a genius.
"So, Potter," the blonde boy called from the other side of the room. "Decided to –"
Harry silenced him with a wave of his hand. He did not want to deal with this now.
There was a pause.
Then, a low chuckle.
"You are someone one should not mess with, aren't you?" the smirking boy said. "Full of surprises, too."
Nott was looking at the blonde boy contemplatively.
The blonde boy was furiously glaring at Harry.
The minions were already asleep.
Harry raised an eyebrow at the smirking boy, who raised his hands placatingly.
"Alright," the boy said. "Let's call it a night. Tomorrow already promises to be full of surprises."
AN
Why can't you just use names like any other person, Harry?