Retelling

[danzanelfuoco]

 Fandom: Harry Potter

Rating: Safe

Challenge: COW-T, w5, m1

Prompt: colpo di scena 

Wordcount: 2736 parole

Not beta’d, we die like men. 

Severus Snape had feared this day for eleven years. And now this day had come. 

He closed his eyes, leaning his head against the back of his chair at the High table, trying to collect the strength to face up the Sorting ceremony. 

 

It will be over soon, he tried to comfort himself. Just a couple of hours. 

He knew it was a lie. He would have to deal with the boy for the coming seven years. 

Severus had thought multiple times to leave Hogwarts in the past year. Dumbledore, that old manipulative bitch, had, of course, twisted every single word he had spoken against him, proving that Snape wasn’t so good in dialectic has he thought. 

 So here he was, pretending the little Potter brat didn’t matter anything to him. 

The doors of the Great Hall opened, the new students entering in an ordinated line, some overwhelmed by the splendor of the room, other astonished by the ceiling enchanted to reflect the outside sky, almost all stunned by the school they only had heard from their parents if they ever had heard at all. 

Severus spotted a glimpse of black hair and looked away, clenching his jaw. He didn’t want to focus on him, not right now. He wasn’t ready. 

He met the gaze of the Headmaster, who winked at him, with a knowing look on his face. Severus suppressed the anger that threatened to overpower him. More humiliation added to the humiliation. 

It wasn’t enough that he had to choose the wrong side just to displease the girl who could never love him. It wasn’t enough that she married the bully that spoiled his adolescence and had a baby with him. It wasn’t enough that she and said bully killed his Lord - not a great loss if he should say - becoming suddenly two of the greatest heroes in the history of the Wizarding World. It wasn’t enough that he managed to stay out of Azkaban and was discharged by every accuse only because of Dumbledore, having James Potter testifying against him at the trial. 

Now he had to teach the boy, see him at every meal, bear his Gryffindor bravery and his senseless display of stupidity, hear him boasting the action of his parents with the typical vainglory of the Potter family. 

Severus was so lost in his thought that he suddenly became aware of what was happening around him only when a dead silence fell over the Great Hall. Every single person in the room, from the teachers to the students, even the Headmaster, even the Muggleborn first-year students who didn’t understand what was happening, everyone was standing still, watching the boy that McGonagall had just call to be sorted. 

Harry Potter climbed to the chair and put the Sorting Hat on his head. His jaw was clenched, his expression blank. Snape couldn’t read anything on his face, and surely wasn’t going to use Legilimancy on the boy. 

Seconds passed. Severus thought the Hat would have just screamed Gryffindor the very instant it touched a single Potter hair. More seconds passed. 

The Great Hall was no more silent, whispers between the students, even McGonagall seemed a little concerned. Snape didn’t care. 

He reached for the glass of water in front of him and started sipping slowly. 

Then the Hat opened his sort of mouth. 

“Slytherin!”

Severus chocked, splitting water around him. 

His reaction went unnoticed in the chaos that was reigning now. McGonagall had dropped the parchment with the new students names on it, Dumbledore had paled wordless, Flitwick had fallen off his chair and was trying to regain his composure, Sprout was acting like she had been Petrified and pretty much all the students were trying to talk at the same time - except for the first year who didn’t grow up with the fairytale of how the beautiful Lily and the brave James had defeated the bogeyman and were now trying cluelessly to understand what was happening, and professor Binn, who could not be bothered by anything in his non-living state. 

Potter took off the Hat and left it on the chair, reaching to Slytherin table. 

It was only when he sat there, the details of his clothes adjusting to the right shade of green and silver, that the rest of the school seemed to understand that there was nothing left to argue about. 

No one had ever questioned the decisions of the Sorting Hat since… well, since never. The Sorting Hat had never been wrong. No one was going to start now, not even Dumbledore, not even for Harry Potter. 

Snape realized he would have to deal with the boy even more than he thought, he being the Head of Slytherin house and Potter being a Slytherin now. 

 

Potter being a Slytherin… 

It was so wrong on so many levels, Severus opened his mouth to protest. Then he closed it. It was pointless. 

He could not tell what the Hat was thinking, what the Potter brat was thinking - he knew the Hat often met the wishes of the students, sorting entire families, generation after generation, into one house. Severus himself had begged the Hat to be sorted in Slytherin instead of Ravenclaw just to be in the same House his mother was. If Potter had only made an objection…

Maybe it was some sort of evil plan to damn Severus’ whole existence. He discarded the idea. The brat was too young and he knew James would have cut off his whole right arm instead of letting his son be in Slytherin, revenge fantasy or not. 

So it was it. Maybe the boy was just a Slytherin and the Sorting Hat had managed to convince him that Snape’s house was the best option. Probably the idea of his son not being Gryffindor had never crossed James' mind, so he didn’t feel the need to warn Harry to refuse other Houses. 

Maybe there was nothing else. 

Still, he would have to deal for the next seven years with the symbol of what he couldn’t get, of what James Potter had taken away from him, of what - he admitted it to himself only in the darkest hour of the night - he never had a chance to have because of himself and no one else. 

His life was going to be even more than a Hell. 

How fitting.

* * * 

 

Platform nine and three quarters was crowded. The Potters left early from their house, but there wasn’t much to do with fame and notoriety. 

 

Lily Potter was holding Harry’s hand, while James was driving the truck through the crowd. Hedwig, Harry’s new owl, screeched in her cage, ruffling her feathers when James hit a curb to avoid a person. 

 

“Mrs. Potter?” 

 

Lily stopped and turned to watch a girl in a Gryffindor uniform who was shyly holding a piece of parchment and a Self-Inking Quill. “Mrs. Potter, may I ask you your autograph?” 

 

Harry could see his mother face turn from ‘normal mother’ to ‘famous hero’ in one and a half second. “Of course, my dear,” she said. The girl blushed, probably excited by the fact that she had been called ‘my dear’. Harry refrained from rolling his eyes. His mother called all the fans ‘my dear’ or ‘sweetheart’. Always. 

 

“Mum, we’re gonna be late,” said Harry, grabbing her Muggle coat in order to gain her attention. 

 

“Don’t be silly, Harry, my dear” she replied, using Harry’s truck to sign the parchment. “If this pretty girl is still here, we sure aren’t late. What’s your name by the way?” she asked the girl as if to was the most important thing she needed to know. 

 

“Clarice,” she replied, the pink on her cheeks darkening. 

 

Lily added her name with a flourish and returned the parchment to Clarice. “Here you are, darling.” 

 

The girl took a deep breath, then, biting her lower lip, glanced hopefully at James. “Would it be possible-?”

 

James, who had waited patiently next to the truck, exhibited his best smile. “Of course” he winked, taking the parchment again. 

 

Harry sighed, checking his clock. According to it, they had just ten minutes before the departure, then he would be gone until Christmas. Ten minutes and his parents were spending them with the girl Clarice. 

 

Finally, the Gryffindor understood it was about time to leave and went away, happy as a clam. 

 

His father helped him to tuck away his trunk on a corner of the empty compartment, before returning to the platform where his mother was waiting. 

 

“Do you have everything you need?” asked James. 

 

“Yes, got all my stuff.”

 

“Should you have forgotten something home, I’ll send you by owl in the next week, ok, darling?” added his mum while his dad looked in his pockets and gave him some money. 

 

“Try not to eat too many sweets when the lady with the trolley passes by, ok?” he winked at him. 

 

Harry nodded, knowing perfectly what his father was talking about. His parents had plenty of stories about their time at Hogwarts, they told him almost everything in details, giving him smart bits of advice on what to do, how things worked and also when Lily wasn't listening and James was in a good mood, how to bend the rules a little without being caught. 

 

“Behave yourself and write home”

 

“Yes, mum,” he said, suddenly thinking of his birthday present well locked at the bottom of his truck. Surely when dad had secretly given him the famous Invisibility Cloak, belonged to the Potter Family for generations and generations, he thought otherwise than Harry's good behavior. He had winked at him and whispered "I'm sure you'll need this, surely more than the closet where it was left to gather dust. Use it wisely." Then he had put in Harry's hands a badly wrapped package and hurried him away before Lily could see them. When Harry had opened the present couldn't believe it, to him his father's Invisibility Cloak was a pure legend - he never told his father, but he had thought good part of his adventure as a Marauder were rather exaggerate and far from the truth. However, the very existence of that Cloak could mean that his father's stories were true... 

 

A whistle sounded. The train was about to leave. 

 

“You’ll be a wonderful Gryffindor,” his father said to him, ruffling his already messy hair. 

 

“I’m so gonna miss you” added his mother, kneeling to kiss him on his cheek. “Now, hurry up,” she said with her sweetest voice, “we don’t want you to miss the train.” 

 

Harry hugged her, smiled at his father, then he got on the Hogwarts Express.

 

He searched for the compartment where he left his truck, only to find it occupied by a red-haired boy. Harry was still wondering if he should ask permission even if had the seat before or if he should just walk in when the boy stood up. 

 

“Everywhere else was full, I hope you don’t mind…”

 

“No, ok, it’s fine” he replied, smiling.

 

“I’m Ron Weasley, by the way,” he said, sprawling on his seat.

 

Harry had heard about the Weasleys by his parents' anecdotes, so he knew that his family was one of the most old pure-blood - if someone was still interested in that nowadays - wizard family, mostly because the boy’s father worked at the ministry along with Harry’s mother. 

 

One would suppose that Harry, as the son of two of the most important wizards of the century, would already have friends on the train to Hogwarts, but the truth was Harry didn’t know anyone and that was because he went to a Muggle school - his mother kept insisting that she and his father could teach him some magic home, but that it would be better if he learn the basics such as reading, writing, and arithmetic from an actual teacher instead of a magical tutor. 

 

“Harry Potter” he replied, sitting in front of him. 

 

Ron regained his posture, opening his mouth and watching him as if he had grown a second head. “You- You are Harry Potter?”

 

“Yes,” he said, sharply. “It's me.” He didn’t even bother to shift his fringe to show his scar. 

 

Ron must have known something was wrong with him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to annoy you”

 

Harry sighed. “No, it’s not…” he replied quickly. The worried look on the red-headed boy softened. “Look, I’m sorry, it’s just I don’t like people watching me like I actually did something I should be famous for.” 

 

“But you did something! I mean you survived the Killing Curse."

 

"Yeah, just because my mother killed him first. She did all the job, I was just there. Look it’s all in the book my mother wrote, so I don’t really want to go through this every time I meet someone." 

 

"Well, I don't think you have that much choice," said Ron. 

 

Harry was about to reply when the door of the compartment opened and a girl peeked in. 

 

"Sorry to bother you, but Neville has lost his toad, do you happen to have seen it?" 

 * * * 

The feast was awkward. Harry didn’t feel like talking with anybody around him. 

He knew it had been a mistake. What was he hoping to gain? 

He had been reckless and there was no turning back. He had seven years to spend in Slytherin and he shivered at the thought, relieved just by the fact that at some point his parents would get used to the silly act of rebellion he had made when he put on the Sorting Hat. 

 

“Hmm,” said a small voice in his ear. “Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There’s talent. Ah, my goodness, yes! And a nice thirst to prove yourself. Now that’s interesting… So, where shall I put you?” 

 

Harry, his eyes closed under the old cloth who would anyway prevent him from seeing, couldn’t stop his thoughts. Not Gryffindor. 

 

“Why not? You have the bravery and the heroism in yourself, I can see it. Just like your parents.” 

“That’s precisely the point,” he said, repeating a variation of the same speech he had tried in his room for the past three months. “I’m not my parents. Could it be possible being sorted in another House, please?” he almost begged. 

The Hat took a few seconds to think about it, to Harry, it seemed hours. 

 

“What about Slytherin?” 

“Slytherin?” Harry asked with uncertainty. He had thought about something less visible, something like Hufflepuff, where he hoped he would fit well, feeling just like any other, or maybe Ravenclaw, the days he dared thinking himself smart enough to be sorted there. But Slytherin? It would be like slapping his father’s face. He couldn’t do anything like that. Could he?

 

“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.”

 

“What if I don’t want to be great?” 

 

“For some strange reason, I got to thought your problem was you wanted to be just Harry and not only the son of James and Lily Potter, Heroes of the Wizarding World. You don’t get that just by sitting in a corner, young boy.”

Harry didn’t think about it enough to allow himself to change his mind. 

 

“Brave enough” the Hat approved. “So it is… SLYTHERIN!”

While the rest of the room exploded with chaos, he reached for his table, feeling strangely good. He had thrown the expectations others had on him out of the window. The Sorting Hat was right, that was the way he could just stop being the celebrities' son.

However, the good mood soon started to falter. A single act wasn’t enough, he knew it, but he was only eleven and he was young and impatient. 

He kept telling himself that this was just the start, but somehow he cultivated the hope that the start was enough. 

Of course, it wasn’t. 

They were still trying to figure out how a Potter could not be a Gryffindor, how James and Lily’s son could be a Slytherin. 

“I’m not gonna offer you again my hand to shake, Potter.” Draco Malfoy interrupted his thoughts. He was sitting next to him, 

“I wasn’t gonna take it anyway.” 

Malfoy smirked. These were gonna be seven interesting years.