"How was your summer, Severus?"
The hook-nosed man sniffed at the question, picked up a glass of wine and took a sip.
"Quiet," he said bitterly, throwing an annoyed look at the loudly chattering armada of dunderheads marching into the great hall.
"And did you manage to make use of your... quiet-time?" the brunette woman asked with a teasing smile.
He took another sip.
"You might want to check the September-Edition of the Silver Cauldron Journal"
"Aww, not even a hint?" she said with a pout.
"It's on page four," he added helpfully.
He received an eye-roll at that.
Really. Septima kept pestering him over his experiments every year, and every time he had turned her down. He didn't know what she had been expecting. Severus sighed, and tried to divert his thoughts to some other topic than his looming year of exploding cauldrons and teenage drama. He threw another annoyed gaze across the hall, and froze, as his eyes caught a familiar pair of emerald green.
His mind immediately did a 180-degree-turn as he processed the face which the eyes belonged to.
Potter.
After all these years, his spawn had finally come to Hogwarts. The same ridiculous hair, the same accursed glasses, everything the same. Everything but the eyes.
Lily.
He immediately wrenched control over his thoughts before he could fall any deeper into that rabbit hole again and forced his gaze to move on, only to be figuratively double slapped.
Next to him stood another girl, looking very similar to him, but there was also very definitely some of Lily in her. Not just the eyes, her hair was not just black but a slight deep shade of red, her face a bit narrower, her chin just like Lily's.
Why?
Why oh why couldn't she just be like the boy?
He was sure she was just as much of a troublemaker as her father, just like the boy undoubtedly would be. Now he had to confront the ghost of Lily as well whenever Potter's spawn would inevitably get up to no good.
He buried his face in his hands and let out a deep sigh.
"The newest batch of alchemically distilled life magic has combined with several interesting ingredients. Some of them show promising applications for existing healing potions which could possibly double their potency, as well as open doors to entirely new potions."
Septima stared at him in disbelief.
He looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
"It's not that impressive of a result," he said deadpan.
"Wh- well it is, but that's besides the point. It's just... You've never actually talked about your work before."
He just shook his head.
"Well, you did ask."
Not wanting to think about the Potter brats anymore, he resumed his reluctant explanation on his summertime experiments, as Minerva stepped up to begin the sorting. He clapped for Milicent Bulstrode, Vincent Crabbe, Tracey Davis, Gregory Goyle and Daphne Greengrass. All of which, on a completely unrelated note, had been sorted into Slytherin.
He interrupted his explanation as he heard the name of his honorary Godson being called.
Although there wasn't really any question where he would be sorted.
"SLYTHERIN!"
The hat had not quite settled on his head, yet it already announced its decision.
He applauded as enthusiastically as someone like him could get, as Draco walked over to his table and joined Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Goyle. While he tried to continue his explanation, he didn't get very far as he immediately had to applaud for Lily Moon, Theodore Nott and Pansy Parkinson as well, causing Septima to roll her eyes again.
He had barely settled in when he heard that dreaded name.
"Potter, Harry!"
His black eyes lanced out in a glare and found the accursed boy meekly walking up to the stool, while the hall descended into hushed whispers. The boy's gaze drifted and found his eyes for a second, before he winced and looked away again.
He sat down on the stool and disappeared beneath the hat.
Severus' glare intensified, as his fingers gripped his glass tightly. If he had any less control, the hat would probably have caught fire.
What in Merlin's name took so long to just chuck the brat into Gryffindor?
After an agonizing minute of staring and ignoring Septima's jabs, the accursed piece of fabric finally deigned them with its voice, to announce—to nobody's surprise:
"GRYFFINDOR!"
Luckily, he had pre-emptively covered his ears. Because a second later, the hall descended into pandemonium.
Not even the call of "Potter, Iris!" from Minerva could fully silence the crowd, although it did cause some more whispers.
And of course, the infernal hat took its sweet time again.
The whispers had died down, the only noise remaining was the Gryffindors who were still making a ruckus over their newly acquired pet celebrity.
Severus sighed deeply. He was very tempted to just force Septima into continuing the conversation right now, but from her intense look he could guess she was just as invested into this spectacle as the rest of the blasted hall.
Really, what was there to discuss? It's not like the girl would let the hat put her anywhere other than with her broth-
"SLYTHERIN!"
The hall fell into shocked silence.
A clattering of metal onto porcelain came from the direction the headmaster was sitting.
Severus watched with a horrified expression as the girl slowly rose off the seat and removed the hat.
Then she turned back to Minerva—was the brat actually smiling? —and gave back the piece of headwear. Slowly, she turned her gaze back to the hall, as it became more and more apparent that everyone was sitting in complete and utter silence.
A solitary clap echoed through the hall. At the Slytherin desk, a girl had gotten up and was clapping—had her name been Davis? Just before he could even try to comprehend why this exact girl, another student started clapping. When he found the culprit, he completely lost the plot for a second.
Why in Morgana's name would Draco Malfoy of all people stand and applaud the Potter girl?
With him rose the Crabbe and Goyle kids and joined in. After only seconds, more and more students from his house got up to join in, until most of the house was giving a more than polite applause. The rest of the houses sat just as shocked in silence as him.
He looked back at the girl, as she skipped over to a space next to Draco with a smile, and sat down. In that moment, he found his mind involuntarily thrown back into painful and yet happy memories of a much different time.
Almost mechanically, before he even knew why he was doing it, he raised his hands and slowly started to clap.
~V~
"Hi, I'm Iris Potter, nice to meet ya."
"Vincent Crabbe, call me Vince," said the tall boy with short black hair smoothly.
"Greg. If you ever call me Gregory, we're going to have words," the ginger boy said with a smirk.
"Weren't you the one who insisted to Bones on the train that she had to address you by full name and title?" Draco cut in with a grin.
Greg's cheeks turned slightly pink. "Don't start with that again!"
"If you insist, Sir Gregory of the Noble House of Goyle," said Vince with an exaggerated flourish.
In response, Greg kicked Vince under the table, causing Iris to giggle.
She shuffled to the side as Vince next to her got shoved over by the boy next to him, making room for Blaise Zabini, who had just been sorted into Slytherin as well.
Honestly, Iris still wasn't sure if she had made the right decision. In the end, she could hang out with Harry either way, according to Tracey. But this was a chance to hang out more with her new friends. And not only Draco but Tracey too had ended up here. Still, the initial reaction by everyone had come kind of unexpected.
Luckily, the Slytherins seemed pretty friendly so far.
She glanced over at Tracey, who was sitting a few rows over, and wished she could talk to her as well.
Then, she was distracted, as suddenly a literal feast appeared on the table. She had never seen so much food in one place, and the smell was heavenly. She wanted to try it all.
Honestly, Iris kind of lost track of time after that. She had made an honest effort to try as much of the food as possible, as most of the meals were things she had only ever seen on TV, far too creative and extra to ever grace the Dursley household, much less that she would be allowed to taste it. She didn't even know what half the meals were, just that they tasted amazing.
At some point, regrettably, the food suddenly disappeared. She looked around for the cause and noticed as the old man at the center of the staff table rose, and began to speak, and immediately she was forced to look over at Tracey and descend into giggles.
She had really nailed her impression after all.
"Who's that?" she asked with a giggle, which awarded her some odd looks.
Draco chuckled and said "That's our venerable Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. He really is quite ridiculous isn't he."
Iris blinked, as she took in the man's appearance. "Well, I guess? He does sound kind of barmy," she admitted and giggled again.
Draco smiled and said, "looks like you're going to fit in with us just fine."
Iris didn't know what to make of that statement, but smiled back anyway. Then she frowned.
"Did he really just tell a hall full of kids to not go into a corridor if they don't want to die?"
Draco paused, rewinding the speech in his head, and said, "I suppose he did."
"Do you think he is being serious?" Iris asked in worry.
"Who knows with that senile codger..." Draco said unhelpfully.
"Bet you two galleons the first group of Gryffindors gets caught down there before the end of the week," said Vince.
"I don't take losing bets," said Draco sagely.
Iris chuckled and turned her attention back to the headmaster's speech.
"Also, I would like you all to give a round of applause for our newest Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts!"
At that, the man in the purple turban stood and gave an exaggerated bow before the great hall, causing some laughter and a lot of clapping and cheering.
When Dumbledore had apparently reached the end of the speech, she picked up movement across the table. One by one, the students in green and silver seemed to cover their ears one way or another. As Draco, Vince and Greg followed suit, she hastily joined in, unsure what was going on.
Her questions were answered only seconds later, when Dumbledore raised his wand like a conductor, and the whole hall descended into madness.
A cacophony of voices assaulted her ears. The school song really didn't deserve to be called such. She didn't know what this was, but it definitely wasn't music. The Slytherins kept awkwardly glancing at each other. Iris was pretty sure a glass had shattered somewhere down the table.
Finally, the bearded Headmaster gave a small twirl and a bow, presumably ending the so-called song.
"Ah, music. Truly a Magic beyond all we do here. Now, bedtime. Chop, chop!"
All across the hall, students got to their feet and started moving in all directions. Iris was looking around in confusion, when an older blonde girl approached them and introduced herself.
"I'm Gemma Farley, your fifth-year prefect. If you'll follow me, I'll take you to the Slytherin dorms," she said curtly.
Iris got up with all the other first years, as they tried to move to the door behind Gemma. She caught Harry's eye in the crowd, as he gave her a worried look. She just grinned and waved back at him, and then shuffled her way over to Tracey.
"Hey! Congrats on getting into Slytherin!" the girl beamed.
Iris smiled and said, "Congratulations yourself. It really seems to be an interesting house, I have to say."
"That it is. How come you aren't in Gryffindor with your brother?"
"Oh, well after what you said, I figured I could hang out either with him or with you guys anyway, no matter which house I was in. Also, I wanted to spend some more time with Draco to get to know him, and you of course," she added.
"In the end, I asked the hat where I could become the best witch, and it put me here."
Tracey raised an amused eyebrow at that and cocked her head.
They started to walk down a long corridor, following Gemma down the stairs and through several turns.
"Still, why did everyone react like that? Was that only because my brother is the Boy-Who-Lived and all that?"
"Well, that, and the fact your parents were both famously in Gryffindor," Tracey mused.
"If you haven't noticed, there is sort of a rivalry going on between Gryffindor and Slytherin," she said with a smirk.
Iris paused. She had noticed that, at least somewhat. The confrontation between Draco and Ron had been the first warning sign.
"Still though, is that really down just to the two houses? I mean Draco and Ron were almost at each other's throats, and none of them were sorted at the time."
Tracey paused, and continued in a more hushed voice.
"How much... do you know about the last war?"
"Eh... not much? There was a dark lord or something, and apparently Harry defeated him. That's pretty much it."
Tracey had a strange expression on her face.
"Let's talk later, somewhere more... private."
Iris glanced at the happy group of Slytherin students trotting along besides them presumably towards the Slytherin dorms.
She gulped and nodded. That wasn't ominous at all.
They finally came to a halt in a dark corridor. Iris glanced around, her eyes found a patch of wall, and she gasped.
"What's that?" she asked in awe, tugging at Tracey's sleeve.
Tracey looked confused. "What's... what?"
"That wall! It's so pretty!" Iris said in awe.
Tracey stared dumbfounded. "Its... a wall."
That, it was. As Iris kept looking at it, it looked for all intents and purposes like a regular wall. Nothing one would describe as anything particularly noteworthy.
Yet, when she had looked at it, her brain's first reaction had been 'Pretty!'
What was going on?
It was definitely a completely regular and boring wall, but it was also very definitely pretty.
Couldn't Tracey see how pretty it was?
Said girl was still looking at her in confusion.
"What's so... pretty about it?"
"Err... I don't know. It just is!" Iris said with a blush.
Tracey gave her another odd look and she shrugged. At that moment, Gemma stepped up and spoke.
"This is the entrance to the Slytherin common room. To get in, you have to whisper the password at the wall right over here." She gestured at the wall, right where Iris had been looking. Both hers and Tracey's eyes met and went wide.
The prefect stepped up to the wall and said in a low voice: "Septiformis veritas"
The wall shivered, and the bricks started to part, revealing a slowly widening gap.
"The password will be posted in the common room at the start of every week. Come along."
As they shuffled through the gap one by one, Tracey kept shooting her odd looks.
The hallway looked like just a straight unremarkable hallway, but the further they walked, the wider the hallway seemed, despite it still being straight every time she looked. It was more like they were getting smaller, or the hallway itself was expanding as they walked.
When they reached the end of the hallway, it was now somehow as wide as the great hall, despite having never gotten any wider. There were hallways branching off in all directions, stairs into the ground, along the walls, up on the ceiling. If she looked too long, she could no longer tell which way was down.
Gemma guided them up a short large staircase along the wall that seemed to lead to nowhere, yet when they reached the top, they found themselves on a platform that hadn't been there before, containing an assortment of chairs, couches and a fireplace along the wall.
"Please, take a seat, our head of house will be with us shortly."
Tracey gasped and looked up. Iris followed her gaze, and saw a group of students walking up-down? one of the stairs on the ceiling. It looked like they were somehow sticking upside down to the stairs. No, scratch that, their robes were also hanging upwards. It was like gravity was completely reversed up there.
In the ceiling, and the walls, there were large round glass windows, which showed the open night sky. Moonlight was refracting through many of the windows, and from several directions, seemingly unable to decide where the moon actually was. Iris had a stray thought that she would hate to lose her physics book in here.
The first years slowly settled into the chairs, still looking around in awe and whispering amongst themselves.
A girl with sleek black pigtails asked, "Do all the houses have common rooms like this?"
The prefect girl turned to her and smirked, "No, in fact, Slytherin house is a bit of an outlier here. You see, we used to have a regular common room like all the other houses, but somehow some fifty odd years ago, it was turned into... this. Nobody knows for sure how, or why, but it is believed that the Dark Lord himself was responsible. They say that it has it out for those who break their promises. So it's just another reason why you should keep them."
Iris was confused. She turned to Tracey and whispered "Why would the Dark Lord create something like this?"
The girl shrugged, "No idea. Well, he was famously in Slytherin, and he also claimed to be the Heir to Slytherin's legacy. So, I guess he did it to prove a point?"
"And they just... left it like that?" Iris asked in worry.
"I guess they couldn't manage to reverse whatever he has done... I mean, he was the Dark Lord after all..."
Iris' follow up question got cut off by the appearance of a large man with long black hair and a hooked nose. He looked like he would rather do anything else at the moment. He glowered down at the group of first years, and for a long second, his eyes seemed to rest on Iris.
"Slytherin house works by slightly different rules than the rest of the school," he began to speak in a low and deliberate tone.
"You have joined the house of the cunning and ambitious," he declared in a dry tone.
"Many of you came here with different expectations, plans, ambitions, perhaps even vendettas..." his gaze swept over the assorted first years, bearing down on them.
"And yet..." he continued, "you may find it wise to leave them at the door."
He paused again, his eyes narrowing as he looked at all of them one by one.
"All the other houses mostly share a firm belief that our house is not to be trusted. You will find yourselves having a hard time making allies outside of this house." At that, his eyes rested on Iris for a second.
He turned away from the students and looked over the edge down into the maze that was apparently their common room.
"We are at a disadvantage. And the worst thing we could do in this situation, is fight amongst ourselves."
He swirled his cloak dramatically, as he turned back around to face them.
"The following rules have been imposed on Slytherin house to ensure our success for the last seven consecutive years."
He took a deep breath and began to recite the rules to them.
"First, there will be absolutely no fighting within Slytherin house. If you have a dispute with one of your housemates which you cannot resolve through negotiation, you may bring it to the prefects, or if necessary to me. The final option of course is the dueling ring, if both parties agree to that. If any party resorts to using their wand, casts a spell, or in any other way causes one of their peers to come to harm, both within the common room or without, rest assured that you will not just suffer my displeasure, but that of the entire house."
He let that sink in for a moment.
"Second, if you happen to be caught breaking school rules, you will find the punishments the rest of the staff come up with might pale in comparison to whatever punishment I may deem necessary."
Iris swallowed at that.
"Third and final, the Truce remains in effect. Anyone violating it endangers the peace we have been working so hard to keep. Absolutely nobody will be saying or doing anything that can endanger it. And believe me, I will. find. out."
With that, he turned around in a swirl and stalked off into a dark hallway.
A comparatively cheery voice jolted the group out of their thoughts.
"Well, that was our head of house. Don't worry about him, he likes to act like that, but you can always come to him if you need help or have any questions. His office hours are 5 pm to 7 pm on weekdays. Just knock on his door and wait."
Then she clapped her hands, causing some of the group to jump.
"Alright, now that's done, I'll show you to your dorms. Girls, follow me, boys, you follow Robert Mortymer over there, he's your other fifth year prefect."
Iris and Tracey got up and followed behind Gemma. They went up a series of stairs, mixed in with several right turns. At some point, they ended up in a hall that looked eerily similar to the one they had started in, except somehow different. Then Iris saw the platform with the couches and the fireplace—it was on the ceiling. Or rather, they were on the ceiling. Despite having only ever walked up and right. Iris went dizzy just trying to memorize their path.
Then, the hallway turned into a longer corridor filled with stone statues, that held several doors at each side.
"This is the first-year girls corridor. The bathroom and shower are right over here, the rest are your dorm rooms. Each dorm has two people, please check the names at the door to see which one you have been assigned."
Iris gulped. Assigned? They wouldn't get to choose? She had hoped she would get a room with Tracey.
Excited and yet worried, she looked down the corridor for names. The first door was the bathroom. The next door proclaimed Milicent Bulstrode and Pansy Parkinson. Iris shrugged and moved on.
The third door appeared, and it caused a small jab in her chest. Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis.
Her smile fell. It looked like she wouldn't be able to room with Tracey. There was only one door left. Iris swallowed. Who would be the mystery girl she would have to room with? She approached the door, and read. Iris Potter and Lily Moon. With anticipation, Iris pushed open the door.
There wasn't much to see. It was almost pitch black. A whisper of moonlight was shining in through the windows. She could make out two beds adjacent to each other, a large cupboard, and not much else.
With a frown, she raised her hand, and called forth her light.
The room was bathed in dancing colors. There was a gasp from the door. Iris whirled around, to find a girl with short black hair standing there wide-eyed.
"Oh, Hi! Are you Lily?" Iris asked, light still dancing in her palm.
"Uh... Y-yyes! You're Iris Potter? W-What are you doing?" the girl stammered, somehow seeming scared of her.
"Checking out the room. It was pretty dark in here. Nice to meet ya by the way!"
Lily just stared back at her.
"Soo... any preference which bed you want?" Iris asked.
The girl shook her head.
"Alright," Iris shrugged, and moved to the bed closer to the window. She made her light float up to the ceiling somewhere over her bed, and walked up to the cupboard, only to find her trunk and her things already unpacked inside. Her book came floating out of the cupboard, did a loop around her head, and moved over to the bed. She followed it with her eyes, until her gaze came to rest on the windowsill, where there was a familiar cage. Pale green eyes were gleaming back at her in the iridescent glow of her magic light.
"Salem!" she exclaimed, bounced over to the cage and opened it, freeing the annoyed looking cat. "How have you been?"
"Mrowr!" Salem exclaimed grouchily, jumped up on her bed and began to lick her paw.
"He's cute," Lily exclaimed shyly.
"Well, technically, she," Iris corrected her.
"But... he- she's named Salem?" the girl asked in confusion.
"Yeah, so? She looks like a Salem," Iris declared, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Iris walked back to the cupboard and fetched out her night clothes and toiletries. Lily was quiet, but finally managed to speak up again.
"Uhm... What's up with the book?" she said and pointed at the physics book which was currently floating in circles over her bed.
"Oh, don't worry, it just does that," Iris explained helpfully.
Iris left for the bathroom to brush her teeth and use the loo, and returned to find her light had gone out, and Lily was sitting in the dark.
She lifted her hand, causing a new orb of iridescent light to appear in her palm.
"H-how are you doing that?" Lily asked, sounding scared.
"Uhh..." Iris shrugged. "Practice?"
The girl didn't know what to say to that.
"Well, I'm gonna read a bit and then head to sleep, just tell me if you want me to put it out."
That caused Lily to nod carefully. Iris sighed. Lily seemed nice and all, but she really would rather have roomed with Tracey.