"Normal speech"

Thoughts

"Mental speech"

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling, her publishers, and Warner Brothers own Harry Potter.

A/N: This is a one-shot, but it can be read as backstory for my longer fic, Darkness Visible.

"Snape, Severus," the tall, stern-looking witch called out.

The pale, greasy-haired boy wearing the threadbare school robes that had once belonged to his mother stepped forward, desperately hoping that his nervousness did not show. As the deputy headmistress placed the tattered Sorting Hat on his head, he caught one last glimpse of Lily. She watched him anxiously from the Gryffindor table, and he remembered his promise to her.

We'll still be friends, no matter what. It won't matter that you're muggleborn. I'll watch out for you once we're at Hogwarts. I'll protect you.

And then the Sorting Hat covered his eyes, blocking his view of the hall.

"Oh, my. Oh, my indeed. What an interesting mind you have, Mister Snape." The voice of the Sorting Hat echoed in Severus's mind. "Now where to put you?"

"With Lily," Severus thought desperately. He had wanted to go to Slytherin. His mother had been a Slytherin, and she had told him it was the best House for making connections. He needed those connections if he wanted to help his mother get better.

But he had promised Lily that he would protect her.

"With Miss Evans? Yes, you are very fond of her, aren't you? And you certainly have a great store of courage, no doubt about that. But not quite the sort of courage that Gryffindor looks for." Severus got the sense that the Hat was frowning at him. "No, sending you to Gryffindor won't do. You ignore your own wellbeing enough as it is."

"Ravenclaw, then," Severus thought at the Hat. "Mum said Ravenclaw's neutral, at least."

"Hmmmm . . . no, that won't do either. You have a good mind, don't mistake me. Very clever. A bit too clever for your own good. It's a virtue, but hardly your dominant virtue." Severus scowled, and the Hat laughed. "Why aren't you pulling for Slytherin, anyway? I can see that it was your first choice."

"Slytherin and Gryffindor never get along. I promised Lily. I promisedher."

"Interesting. Very interesting. Well, you're certainly cunning and ambitious enough for Slytherin, but as loyal and hard-working as a Hufflepuff. Now that is a split I seldom see. Not since the 1896 Sorting ceremony. So, Mister Snape, it looks like you get a choice. What is it that you're looking for in life?"

Severus paused, thinking hard. He wanted so many things. To escape from his desperate poverty, to be a great magical inventor, to save his mother from his horrible father, to be with Lily.

"And which of these are the most important to you? Your duty to others? Or your personal happiness?" the Sorting Hat asked.

Mum and Lily. "My duty to others," Severus replied. Happiness was rare in Spinner's End. It had arrived with Lily. If he failed her, there would be no happiness anyway.

"You'd place their happiness and safety above your own?"

"Yes," Severus thought back firmly. He always tried to protect Mum when Da was in a drunken rage, and he had the marks to prove it.

"Protecting them won't be easy, you know."

"Doesn't matter."

"Are you sure? There's nothing wrong with a bit of selfishness, you know," the Hat said.

He was disappointing the Hat, he could tell. It wanted him to go to Slytherin, just like he had wanted earlier. He shook his head slightly. Mum and Lily came first. They had to. Even if that meant he had to go to Hufflepuff. He just hoped that their reputation for being the useless leftovers was wrong.

The Hat sighed. "Very well. Don't say I didn't try to help. If you really want to protect them, there's only one place I can put you."

The Hat opened its brim and shouted for the entire Great Hall to hear, "SLYTHERIN!"

As the deputy headmistress removed the Hat from his head, Severus heard the Sorting Hat sadly murmur, "Helga would have been proud of you."

A/N: Please review!