Author's Note: Up until the sorting, the events of this fic are identically to those in the canon story of Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. The deviation happens in the middle of chapter seven. The first nine paragraphs of this story are directly taken from the book, as is some of the dialogue. All of the characters (with a very few exceptions) belong to JK Rowling.
There weren't many people left now.
"Moon"..., "Nott"..., "Parkinson"..., then a pair of twin girls, "Patil" and "Patil"..., then "Perks, Sally-Anne"..., and then, at last --
"Potter, Harry!"
As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.
"Potter, did she say?"
"The Harry Potter?"
The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him. Next second he was looking at the black inside of the hat. He waited.
"Hmm," said a small voice in his ear. "Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes -- and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting... So where shall I put you?"
Harry gripped the edges of the stool and thought, Not Slytherin, not Slytherin.
"Not Slytherin, eh?" said the small voice. "Are you sure?" A flash of doubt hit Harry at the question, and the voice continued seductively. "You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that." The image came to mind of Dudley; Harry remembered the beatings and imagined the opportunity to turn the tables. He need never be powerless again... "Ah, yes," said the voice. "I see. SLYTHERIN!"
Harry heard the hat shout the last word to the entire hall. He took the hat off to the explosive applause of the Slytherin table, who had risen to their feet. Draco Malfoy, whom Harry had been sure would not warm to him again, was applauding along with the others, triumph in his face. All of the Slytherins, in fact, looked like that -- covetous and victorious. It was a dirty kind of joy, and Harry's relief drained out of him.
The faces nearer to him were equally revealing. Professor McGonagall's look of shock was fading already into her earlier prim tightness. Ron Weasley looked as though Harry had just stuck a knife into his stomach – horrified, betrayed, and a bit sick.
But it was too late now. Harry rose from the stool, placing the hat on the stool and moving to take an empty seat at the Slytherin table. There were only four people still waiting in the group, and Harry stole a look at the head table as "Thomas, Dean" was called.
Hagrid was staring at him with a look too similar to Ron's – disbelief, as if someone had killed his pet dog and the pain hadn't quite penetrated yet. At the center of the table sat the Headmaster, whom Harry recognized from his chocolate frog card. Dumbledore's eyes were unreadable behind his half-moon spectacles, and his mouth had an interesting shape, somewhere between a smile and a frown, but far from neutral. Professor Quirrell, the man from the Leaky Cauldron, was wearing an unattractive purple turban, and seemed almost to be avoiding looking at Harry. He wasn't watching the sorting, but staring at his twitching hands.
Dean Thomas went to Gryffindor. When Harry started to applaud for him, a few of the people near him at the table cast him dark looks, and he stopped, feeling embarrassed and awkward. Lisa Turpin, who followed him, went to Ravenclaw. Ron Weasley was one of the two people remaining, and looked faintly ill.
As Ron approached the Hat, Draco Malfoy spoke from beside Harry in his lazy drawl. "Wouldn't it be funny if he went to Hufflepuff? It's where that whole family belongs, really. Although Gryffindor is the house for courage, I suppose they must be brave, to be willing to show their faces in public."
"GRYFFINDOR!" Ron took the hat off his head, looking faint with relief, and ran to the Gryffindor table, where he was enthusiastically greeted by his relatives and generally applauded. Harry wanted to clap, as well, but the disapproving glowers when he applauded for Thomas left his edgy and uncertain; he kept quiet, watching Ron's welcome.
"Well, there you go," Draco said snidely. "It's probably best to keep the damage confined to Gryffindor, anyway. We wouldn't want Hufflepuff infected with Weasley; they're in enough trouble as it is."
Harry could feel his face heating, but he didn't say anything. With Dudley, any attempt to protest his nastiness generally only served to focus it squarely on Harry. He imagined Draco Malfoy would be similar, and he didn't want to alienate his entire house. After the looks he'd received for politely applauding a Gryffindor, if he actively defended one, he would likely be universally scorned.
The final boy was "Zabini, Blaise", and he had the hat on his head for several long seconds before "SLYTHERIN!" was declared as his destination. Harry applauded with the rest of his table, though his grin was forced and felt as though it must look terribly artificial. Blaise moved to the Slytherin table, settling in across from Harry to the congratulations of his new housemates.
"Hey, congratulations," Harry said after the rush of noise had died down, and Blaise looking over at him with ill-disguised curiousity. He was a black boy with high cheekbones, tall for their age.
"Thanks," he said. "I suppose you're really the Harry Potter?" He tried to sound casual, but it wasn't really working. Several eyes at the table, and a few from the neighboring Ravenclaw table, were on them.
"Er, yeah," said Harry, feeling awkward. "It's nothing special to me, though. I didn't know that being Harry Potter meant anything until I got my letter."
Blaise pulled back a bit, as though abruptly afraid Harry might have some kind of contagious disease. "Oh," he said, his voice slightly disapproving. "Then you're Muggle-born?" He looked confused. "No… you can't be, can you?"
"My aunt and uncle raised me," Harry explained. "They're Muggles. The worst sort. But my mum and dad were magic."
Blaise looked extremely relieved. "Oh. Good."
Professor McGonagall had rolled up the hat by now, and removed the stool. Albus Dumbledore rose from his seat, and the hall fell silent. Harry glanced at his empty plate and wondered how much longer it would be before they were allowed to eat.
Dumbledore opened his arms as if to embrace the entire student body and offered them a twinkling smile. "Welcome!" he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!
"Thank you!"
There was applause as he sat down, but Harry was a bit baffled. Next to him, Draco Malfoy muttered: "Barmy as a bat."
Harry turned to glance at him. "He's… not quite sane, is he?"
"Sane?" said Draco. "Senile. He's been crazy since day one, though. Worst thing that ever happened to the school, according to my father."
One of the older Slytherin girls added, "It's probably his fault your parents are dead."
Harry felt like he'd been hit in the stomach. "What – What do you mean?"
The plates in front of them had filled with food, but Harry scarcely noticed. He no longer felt very hungry. The girl took a spoonful of potatoes as she responded. "My mother says that during the war, Dumbledore led the resistance against… You Know Who. He recruited warriors from his student body. They probably would never have gotten involved if Dumbledore hadn't been here. An awful lot of Dumbledore's warriors were teenagers or young adults. And he let them go into danger, where they got killed."
She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, and Harry turned to look up at the staff table again, still feeling a bit ill. Dumbledore was quietly speaking with Professor McGonagall as he poured gravy onto his potatoes. This man had let Harry's parents get killed?
"Lamb chops?" The girl sitting next to Blaise held the platter out to Harry with a smile. He remembered that she'd been sorted a bit before him; she was "Parkinson, Pansy." She was a pretty enough girl, but there was definitely something artificial about her dimpled smile.
"Oh. Thanks." Harry took the plate and slid a piece of the meat onto his plate, then looked around at the assortment of food. There were astonishing mounds of food in dozens of varieties – beef, chicken, steak, pork, lamb, sausages, several styles of potatoes, and close to all the vegetables known to man. With the reminder from Pansy, he realized again just how hungry he was, and reached for the boiled potatoes. "Thanks," he said again, with a bit more force this time.
Pansy smiled at him. "So, you really were raised by Muggles?" she asked. "It must have been horrible for you. I think I'd rather die than be forced to live with them for so long."
"Yeah," agreed Blaise. "I'd be afraid of infection."
Harry felt, for some odd reason, compelled to defend the Dursleys. "They aren't always that bad. I mean, my aunt and uncle are horrible, but it's mostly because they didn't know what to do with me, I think."
"They bloody well should have known," Blaise said with some heat. "You're Harry Potter. Their place was to provide for you, and feel privileged to do so."
"Well, they didn't think I was anything special," Harry said. "They didn't care about things in the magical world."
"Which is why Muggles should never be allowed to think for themselves," Draco said. "They're just too stupid for that. Imagine how much better things would be for them if we took over."
It was hard to argue with that, although Harry knew that most non-magical folk would object to it fairly strenuously. Wizards simply had more power. They could do more to treat disease and provide for people. If Ron Weasley's family represented poverty in the wizarding world, Harry knew it had to be much better than the Muggle world.
To avoid talking for a bit, he dug into his food and listened to the conversation shift to families. Most of the people at the table seemed to be able to recite their family tree back several generations, and took great interest in comparing notes. Most of them seemed to be related at one level or another.
"Ida Bones Nott was your great-grandmother? My great-great-grandfather was her brother – Leopold Bones."
"If Mary Stallworth was your great-aunt, then we must be cousins…"
Harry, naturally, knew very little about his family, other than his parents' names. He remained quiet, saying little. The arrival of a forbidding ghost stalled conversation for a moment as he settled into the empty seat on the other side of Draco from Harry. He was tall and gaunt, with an unseeing gaze and silvery stains on his robes that looked unsettlingly like blood. Draco did not look particularly pleased by the seating arrangements.
"Meet the Bloody Baron, children," said Jacob Peterson, a sixth-year boy with a nasty smile. Harry felt instinctively wary of him, like a rabbit meeting his first fox.
The Baron said nothing, simply turned to stare blankly through Harry. Harry swallowed and tried to look normal as he reached again for the Yorkshire pudding and gravy.
The conversation started up around him again, and before long the dinner plates emptied and a wide assortment of desserts appeared. Harry, who had never been allowed much in the way of dessert at the Dursleys', was a bit overwhelmed by the selection. He watched to see what Blaise took, and reached for some of the same. Blaise offered him a smile.
"I love trifle," he said. "The house-elf at home makes it as a specialty."
"House-elf?" Harry repeated, confused, but taking a bite of the trifle, which was delicious, seeming to convert directly to taste on his tongue, leaving little solid behind.
"Yeah," Blaise said. "They're a sort of servant, tied to the house. They love to do all the things other people don't like doing – cleaning, cooking, carrying things. Nothing makes them happier than serving a noble wizard family."
What an odd evolutionary niche for a race to fill. Harry imagined having a house-elf at the Dursleys' home, and realized how much of his day would be freed by it. There was definitely some real brilliance in the way this world worked. "Wish I had one," he said enviously.
"Your father's family may have had one once. They were old blood, right? It's generally only people with big estates that have house-elves." Blaise took a bite of his trifle, his expression one of grudging approval. "It's not like it is at home, but it's not bad."
Harry was remembering the piles of Galleons in his Gringotts vault. Did he have a house somewhere, too? A place to go live once he was old enough to leave the Dursleys?
"My family has a house-elf," Draco said. "They're fairly stupid. He runs around all the time doing things wrong and punishing himself for it. It's fun to just tell him to beat himself and watch him do it."
Harry felt faintly ill again. Suddenly, the idea of house-elves wasn't quite as appealing.
"Your house-elf is a nutter, though, Draco," put in Pansy Parkinson. "Ours is much better behaved, and really loves the family. You just have a freak."
Blaise smirked. "Maybe the Malfoy Manor is defective."
"Apologize, Zabini!" Draco said angrily. He pulled out his wand menacingly.
"What, are you going to curse me in the middle of the Great Hall?" Blaise said, not sounding very intimidated.
"Back off, Malfoy!" Harry said hotly.
Draco turned to glare at Harry, but was interrupted before he could speak. "Put it away now, Malfoy, or it'll be detention." It was a fifth-year girl, one of the prefects. Harry remembered her name to be Maria Marcos. Draco looked mutinous, but obeyed.
Harry turned his attention back to the head table, feeling very out of his depth in the conversation. Hagrid was watching him in return, and at the hurt look on the gamekeeper's face, Harry dropped his eyes to the table, then felt a flare of anger and looked up again, defiantly. He hadn't asked to be put in Slytherin! He had, in fact, specifically asked not to. If the stupid hat had put him here, they could all be hurt, angry, and betrayed at the hat instead.
Harry didn't look again at Hagrid, instead letting his eyes move to the end of the table where Professor Quirrell was talking with a sallow-hook-nosed man with black, greasy hair. He looked like his mood matched Harry's. As Harry watched, the sallow man looked up, past Quirrell's turban, and squarely met Harry's eyes. A flare of pain shot through Harry's scar, and he let out a startled cry.
"What is it?" asked Pansy, looking faintly distressed.
"Uh, nothing," said Harry. "Just… something went down wrong." The pain was already gone, and the man had looked away, but Harry had seen something nasty in his expression in that moment of contact. "Do you know who that man is?" he asked. "The dark-haired one, talking with Professor Quirrell?"
It was Draco who answered. "That's Professor Snape," he said. "He's our Head of House, and a good friend of my father's." He said that last with a bit of a snide edge to it, as if expecting some degree of favoritism. Harry didn't know if the expectation was justified, so didn't comment on it.
"He teaches Potions," added Theodore Nott, another first-year. "My father says that's one class I have no excuse for doing badly in. We have to be careful in most classes, because so many of the teachers have it in for us. Especially McGonagall. She favors the Gryffindors; you'll see."
Harry nodded, though he wasn't at all sure he agreed with this. He looked down at his trifle again, but was no longer hungry.
"Really, Snape should be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts," said the prefect girl, Maria. "He knows more about the Dark Arts than Quirrell any day, and it's the post he really wants. Dumbledore won't give it to him."
"Probably because he doesn't trust Slytherins," said Draco. "The old fool."
Eventually, the food vanished from their plates, just as dinner had, and Dumbledore rose to his feet. He held up a hand and the hall went quiet, all eyes turning to him.
"Ahem- just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.
"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well." He looked towards the Gryffindor table as he said this, and Draco smirked.
"I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, our caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should used between classes in the corridors.
"Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch.
"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."
There were a few laughs at this last, but not many, and Harry turned to look at Blaise, who gave a little shrug.
Dumbledore then led the school in a truly cacaphonous rendition of the school song, for which the first-years sat and stared blankly. It was hard to even find the words in it until the end, when two twins, tall and redheaded, droned out the final lines far behind everyone else as a funeral dirge. Once the song was over, Dumbledore dismissed the students.
"And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"
Harry had no idea where he was going, but fortunately, the prefects were there. "First years, this way!" Maria called. They grouped together with the prefects, who led them through the thronging masses down corridors and staircases, descending lower into the castle. They walked directly through one solid-seeming wall and behind a tapestry as they threaded the maze of hallways that made up the dungeons beneath the school, until they finally came to a damp stone wall. "Serpentigenae!" Maria said to the wall, and it slid away to reveal an elegantly decorated room.
The room was long and low ceilinged, and the walls were of rough stone. The harshness of the construction only lent it grandeur, however. An enormous fireplace stood opposite the door, with an elaborately carved mantelpiece. Green lights hung from sturdy iron chains. The room had a sense of barbarism contained to it. Harry felt a bit of a chill to know that he would be here for the next seven years, but it was a bit gratifying to know he belonged in this room.
Doors led out of the room on both narrow ends, and Maria pointed the boys through one and the girls through the other. Through his, Harry found their bedroom – six four-poster beds hung with silk-lined green curtains and silk bedding. His trunk was waiting for him at the foot of his bed. Without talking much to the other boys, Harry changed into his pajamas and got into bed.
The other boys were asleep quickly, but Harry had more trouble. He lay awake for a long time in the darkness, tired but unable to relax. It had been an odd day. He was still not certain how much he liked the house into which he had been placed, and the day had done little to soothe his sense of not belonging.
Most disturbing, however, had been the look he had received from his new Head of House. Professor Snape, he could tell already, did not like him, and possibly never would. It remained to be seen how well Harry would be able to deal with that.