"Oh my god, pouty Mcpouty, I was not gone that long!" Harry laughed pointedly in Draco's face as they were clambering off the train into a throng of people. Everyone was dressed in their robes (unfortunately, Harry's awesome outfit only having seen a couple hours that day) so it was like a flood of black as everyone seemed to know what they were doing except for the tiniest ones of the sea, who were getting shuffled along well enough anyway.
Draco, true to form, only pouted harder.
"You ditched me!" He insisted.
"I had things to do, Draco. We're going to Hogwarts, we're going to have tons of things to do from here on out…! Aw, come on, would you like me to hold your hand too? I typically only do it for people who are having a bad day but for you, I'll make an exception." He teased wickedly. Neville just shifted, not having said a word since reuniting with Draco but just pressed close to Harry's side.
Harry had looped his arm in his new friend's and refused to let go, especially when it was clear that if they weren't careful they'd be swept up in the crowd. Neville was the sort of just get pushed all the way back onto the train, and he'd let them out of sheer unwillingness to stand up for himself, so Harry held on for dear life and Neville allowed him—one hand even fisted in his sleeve as if that'd keep him grounded.
Draco had been pouty and dramatically annoyed with him since they'd reunited, just as they needed to change into their robes. Harry had found a pleasant looking upper year who turned out to be in Ravenclaw and told her about the toad—and now Trevor was safely in Neville's pocket where his free hand was holding him in securely. After that though… Harry had done a little tour of the nearby compartments to scope out the kinds of people he'd be going to school with and get a vibe for what kind of people were in each house. He hadn't clung to Neville but the boy had trailed after him, saying he'd never found a compartment to sit down in since he'd been looking for Trevor this whole time. Harry didn't mind the company as Neville… well, hadn't made a sound other than trail after him and quietly answer when spoken to—he had offered for him to go back and sit with Draco but Neville had just shook his head rapidly with a panicked look on his face. They'd lost the loud brunette girl somewhere although Harry was honestly not sure at what point that had happened.
And now, Harry had a wallflower on one arm and a bratty blond making a fuss on the other, so he felt some light-hearted teasing was in order to get everyone to relax a bit—he hadn't gotten a chance to mess with Draco over letters very much (well, that wasn't true, but it was easier to do in person) and felt it was long overdue.
Instead of snapping back that he was his own man or getting defensive in his masculinity about the hand-holding comment though, Draco just turned bright red and gaped at him like a fish, his mouth opening and closing like he was trying to say something and no words were coming out.
It was so bad the blond was almost knocked over by an upper year pushing past him distractedly and Harry just rolled his eyes at how hopeless his new friends were and hooked Draco's arm securely in his too, pulling him out of the line of traffic.
"It wasn't a hard question Draco, calm down." He teased gently, and although Draco was stiff as a board his face stopped turning colors and he actually did calm down a bit.
"You are the worst."
"You just learning this now, Draco? And here you told me Slytherins were supposed to be clever."
"The absolute worst!" He hissed vehemently—though the corner of his mouth twitched like he was fighting not to smile so Harry considered it a win in his favor.
"Firs' years! Firs' years this way!" A booming voice down the platform started yelling, a huge hulking form of Hagrid emerging from the distant shadows holding a glowing lantern over his head. Harry felt Neville tense up a bit beside him, somehow even more than he already was.
"Oh it's Hagrid! Neville you're gonna love him, he's an oversized marshmallow I swear. Literally oversized, he's like eight feet tall and blunt as they come but he's totally harmless. He showed me around Diagon Alley." He babbled cheerily to the boy beside him and Neville glanced at him quickly before nodding his head slightly.
"Gran told me about him a bit…" He admitted.
"Well you've got to meet him; making your own impressions is important." He chirped, feeling like he'd said this approximately a hundred times today already and he wasn't even at the school yet.
Wizards, he shook his head to himself, again for the hundredth time.
"Where did that loud-mouth go?" Draco abruptly brought up, glancing around the crowd and still somehow looking down his nose despite the fact most of them were taller than him.
"Who? The girl?"
"Her name's Hermione…" Neville chimed in, voice so low there was no way Draco had heard it on Harry's other side. He seemed far too afraid to actually talk to Draco for some reason, but Harry wasn't going to push.
"Hermione? I'm not sure, she disappeared while we were talking to the Ravenclaw prefects."
"She's clearly a Ravenclaw herself. Even for a mudblood she knew about summoning charms in detail enough to make an advanced leap about being able to summon a non-magical toad, and those are upper year spells. Must've gotten her books and memorized them immediately." Draco scoffed.
"Oh, like you weren't hounding me to take notes on my texts since I got them?" Harry immediately challenged and got a glare for his efforts.
"D-don't… call her that." Neville actually spoke at a semi-normal volume and when Harry turned back to him was legitimately shocked to see a pair of blue eyes meeting Draco's gray ones with startling sternness. He was shaking like a leaf of course and looked half a second from crying, arm a near death-grip on Harry's, but his head was held steady as he met the young Malfoy's eyes firmly. "She's… sh-she helped me. S-so don't call her that." He repeated, a tiny bit more forcefully though his voice wavered.
Harry felt something in his temple twitch.
"Draco."
Be it the iron-clad grip he now held on the blond's arm or the tone he spoke with promising a thousand painful deaths, or maybe even the fire he felt in his eyes as he turned and commanded Draco's now too-forced-to-be-natural blank gaze to meet his own… whatever it was, the blond was still and shut up to listen.
"What does mudblood mean, exactly?"
"It's a term for a muggleborn." He said, although the high note to his voice meant he was clearly avoiding something.
"N-no more than c-calling a pureblood an inbred b-bastard." Neville had just enough nerve to say this while looking directly into Draco's eyes, and Harry felt kind of impressed with both Neville's spontaneous grit and how many shades of red Draco's pale skin could color.
Neville shrunk like a turtle retreating at Draco's snap. "You insolent-!"
"Draco." The blond froze at his tone, and Harry glared at him with every ounce of warning he could muster. "I will push you off this platform. Are we clear?"
…he nodded once.
"Great. Don't say it again."
Another quick nod, and the rest of the walk down to where Hagrid was standing was spent in silence—both boys on his arms now too tense to do more than pretend to be unbothered while Harry dragged them forward.
Again, not a pleasant conversation but at least they got that out of the way. He had a feeling making sure they were all on the same page before they got to Hogwarts was important.
He also made a note to run the things he learned from Draco by Neville first since clearly the blond, while a wealth of information, was not unbiased. Not that he'd ever thought Draco unbiased, but this just proved the level of his actual bias to be something more concerning than he'd thought.
"Ya al-righ' there 'Arry?" Hagrid's booming voice snapped him out of his brooding and he realized they were in a crowd of people more their height, the upper years having filtered off somewhere. The giant man beamed down at him through his wild beard, a lantern held high above their heads.
"Sure am Hagrid!" He called up to the man.
"Well ya will be wantin' to be up front ta get a good view, come on," A huge hand waved them forward and Harry found himself dragging Draco and Neville with him. It was a blatant show of favoritism that Harry found himself not minding—it wasn't because he was Harry Potter but because he was the son of people Hagrid once cared about. For some reason that didn't bother him nearly as much as he thought maybe it should.
And when they got to the top of the hill Hagrid had been ushering them up, and saw what he'd been talking about… Harry found himself entirely unrepentant.
That's Hogwarts…? It's… beautiful.
000
"I heard we have to fight a troll," Ron Weasley's voice was somehow loud enough to cut through the throng of nervously chattering first years after Hagrid left them to their devices outside of a huge set of wooden doors that seemed to be where they were going to get sorted in a minute.
"How thick can you get?" Draco muttered at a far more appropriate volume beside him and Harry just shook his head. While he wasn't sure what this sorting would entail, facing a troll would only prove you were brave (and likely stupid enough) for Gryffindor. How were you supposed to prove you were in Slytherin against a troll— talk it into submission?
Harry had a mental image of Draco trying to do just that and snorted to himself at that entertaining picture.
"I met his older brothers on the platform—I'd bet that they were just trying to mess with him. They're the playful sorts like that." He responded instead, Draco nodding along to that. "Your parents didn't tell you?"
"No; they talked about everything else, but this is tradition to go in blind." He shrugged. His show of nonchalance didn't stop Harry from noting that his shoulders were tense with nerves.
It was times like these that Harry was thankful he didn't give a troll what house he ended up in. The pressure was way off like that.
"Hello there students! Oh look at them all, oh so tiny and ready to learn!" A new voice cut in and Harry glanced up with everyone else, jaw dropping as several shouts of startled fright ran out as a dozen newcomers arrived to the party… only they were translucent and flying over their heads.
"What the heck!? Ghosts? Magic is one thing, but no one ever said anything about ghosts!" He blurted out before he could stop himself, and Draco snickered quietly beside him.
"How rude young man!" A plump man scolded him as he floated over his head and drifted towards the double doors. "I hope you are not in my house!"
"House?"
"Each house has a ghost, and I think that was Hufflepuff's ghost." Draco filled in.
"Oh… well, guess I'm not friendly enough then."
"I th-think you are…" Neville finally piped up on his other side and Harry smiled at him.
"Well I'm rude too I suppose, so maybe if I do end up in his house I'll just have to tell it to his face until he likes me."
"Why do I get the feeling you'd actually do it too," Draco gave a long-suffering sigh. Harry just maturely stuck his tongue out at him.
"Y-you don't care if you're in H-Hufflepuff?" Neville asked quietly, blue eyes earnestly interested.
"I don't care what house I'm in—any one of them sounds find. I don't particularly feel brave or clever or friendly, but then again this sorting will probably tell me something about myself. This prat will be in Slytherin, or so he tells me, and I'll be friends with him anyway so different house or not it's not going to put a damper on my plans." He chatted, Neville eyeing him curiously.
"I see… I think. My… my parents were in Gryffindor but I don't… I thought maybe I'd be in Hufflepuff."
Harry elbowed Draco before he could say whatever he'd opened his mouth to say. It'd only been a day and he already knew whatever it was wouldn't help Neville's stuttering.
"To be honest I know the least about Hufflepuff, so if you are you'll have to tell me all about it. Or we'll both be there and we'll learn together! How's that?"
The nervous boy paused only a brief moment and then nodded once, seeming lost in thought about something.
Harry might've continued chatting just to get rid of the silence when a woman came striding up to them, her hair in a tight bun and a look on her face so stern it might've been carved in stone.
Draco scoffed lowly. "Remember what I said about the transfiguration teacher?"
Harry glanced at him, then back at the witch, and realized he was probably right. Alright, good to know—absolutely no goofing off in that particular class. Not that he was about to but one look at her face and he knew he was in for it.
The witch introduced herself as Professor McGonagall and gave a short and less-than-sweet synopsis of the houses—giving no more detail about what they stood for than Draco had but at least was clear on the procedure from here on out. The house competition, the dorms, the basics. Good thing he'd had Draco's letters over the past month and change because it wasn't a very in-depth explanation but given they probably only had ten minutes max, was good enough for the time being. He found himself pitying the muggleborns who waltzed in here blind.
"Speak a little louder Weasley, people in London didn't hear that." He snapped out of his thoughts to see Draco glaring at Ron from across their little group huddled before the doors, pretty much everyone eyeing the two uneasily. The ginger-haired boy was turning a dusty red color while Draco was doing his somehow-looking-down-at-you-without-being-taller thing again.
"Wait, I was zoning out, what happened?" He asked lowly to Neville beside him, who was just clutching Trevor to his chest and looking like he was trying to not be seen standing so close to Draco.
"Um… I think his name is Ron? He said something about being a bad sort…"
"A bad sort?" he repeated, knowing Neville was editing by the way he immediately looked at the ground instead of meeting his gaze, but let it go.
"You heard what I said," Ron stuck his jaw out stubbornly and Draco looked about ready to rip him a new one when a familiar bush of brown hair planted herself between them.
"Stop that! No fighting—the Professor will be back any second now and you'll be expelled before you even properly enter the building!" She scolded them, and Harry got the feeling she and McGonagall would get along famously.
"Move it you-"
"Draco."
The blond snapped his jaw shut at Harry's quiet, but no less threatening reminder from behind him and settled on glaring impressively instead.
"This is between me and Weasley, Miss…?"
The girl looked a little startled. "Oh… I'm Hermione Granger, nice to meet you!"
"Draco Malfoy, and I can't say the same." Draco deadpanned and Harry felt like facepalming. Hermione just looked shocked, but Draco didn't break stride. "Mind your own business Granger—and Weasley, shut your trap before you regret it."
Ron inflamed. "I'll open my mouth all I want and a snake like you can't boss me around!" He snapped.
"This is my business if my classmates are going to be expelled!" Hermione got over it in half a second and joined in on lambasting Draco's less-than-stellar introduction.
Neville made a soft sound of distress beside him and Harry decided this was enough with a pointed roll of his eyes.
"Draco, leave it be. Sorting, remember? McGonagall did say to smarten yourself up before we got to it and responding to schoolyard taunts doesn't seem very intelligent to me."
He said it to Draco but the other two clearly heard him by their startled expressions—and everyone else who'd been watching the fight unfold was looking at him curiously. Seems they didn't recognize him which was good, but he'd unfortunately caught their attention by getting involved, which wasn't optimal. With an internal eye-roll he realized Draco seemed to be the type to make a scene just because he could with no thought to the attention he was getting and realized this whole friendship thing was going to be interesting.
Draco luckily seemed to listen to him although he continued glaring at Weasley for all his worth—and Ron would've responded in kind if Hermione didn't turn on him and start scolding him for fighting when it became clear Draco was off limits thanks to Harry and Neville standing too near the blond. Most people had distanced themselves from the ginger haired boy once the confrontation had started and none returned afterwards, especially when Granger started in on him—and he didn't look to be having a great time under her care either.
"Y-you… you shouldn't fight…" Neville got out uneasily, squeaking quietly when Draco turned to give him a look. With a somehow-graceful eye roll of his own Draco abandoned his glare-off and turned back to them, looking pissy.
"Honestly the nerve of that welp." He sniffed haughtily.
"And here I was thinking you and Hermione would get along famously. You've both got an arrogance about you." Harry commented 'innocently'.
"What? Screw you Potter," Draco sneered. "And I was talking about the freckled freak. He's got no right to say who you should or should not hang out with."
"What?" Harry lifted an eyebrow. "To be honest I didn't hear what he said."
Draco balked a bit. "Oh… well yeah, he said something to that effect. About how hanging out with… the wrong sort could get you in trouble."
It took Harry approximately six seconds to realize what Ron had been getting at and scoffed audibly.
"Let's be clear on one thing Draco—no one tells me who to be friends with or not. Most certainly not Ron, and not even you." He smiled calmly at the gray eyes that paused a bit as his tone. "Thank you for sticking up for my honor or whatever Mr. White Knight, but I'm not interested in going to this school to fight. I'll pick my own battles and Ron Weasley is not even on my radar of things to give a quaffle about right now. You told Granger to mind her own business, so would you hit me if I told you to follow your own advice?"
Draco looked like he'd just swallowed something nasty but then gave a dramatic sigh.
"Fine," he groaned, going back to pouting like a child.
Honestly, this guy.
"…did you just use a quidditch term to curse?" Neville brought up curiously, and Harry burst out laughing.
000
"Abbott, Hannah."
Okay, so a talking hat is pretty cool. Very clever, and if it can read minds then it's an awesome way to sort people into houses. Not as troll but definitely cool enough.
Magic was still new enough that when the hat had started to sing Harry had grabbed onto Neville's arm beside him in surprise, causing the both of them to stumble and several upper years stilling at the nearby tables had to muffle laughter so as to not interrupt the hat's song. Neville had turned bright red but Harry's self-depreciating, apologetic grin seemed to calm him some.
"Granger, Hermione."
"GRYFFINDOR!" The hat shouted for the hall to hear, Hermione looking a little startled as she made her quick escape. Draco looked surprised too, given he'd announced that she'd for sure be in Ravenclaw.
Harry was only surprised for half a second though. While she'd been a loud know-it-all in the short time he'd known her, he'd also witnessed her planting herself in the middle of a fight and introduce herself to a whole train of new people in search of someone else's toad. She might be smart, but she was way more bold than the traditional bookworm and given the hat's speech he wasn't shocked by the turn of events.
Names continued to drone on and then:
"Longbottom, Neville."
The boy in question hadn't let got of his death grip on Harry's hand since they'd entered the Great Hall, and Harry gave him a reassuring squeeze before giving him a not-so-gentle nudge forward. Once he had some momentum Neville managed to get to the stool without much issue and put the hat on with slightly shaking hands.
A soft croak distracted Harry enough from watching for his friend's result eagerly, forcing him to glance down and see a toad sitting on the stone where Neville had just been standing.
Oh for the love of—
He scooped Trevor up and slipped him into his robe pocket quickly and hoped not too many people noticed.
He was sufficiently distracted enough by the toad to jump a bit when the hat abruptly shouted "GRYFFINDOR!"
Harry quickly beamed and started clapping wildly, Neville looking stunned but softly happy when the hat came off and he made his way to a very loud table behind them.
"Malfoy, Draco."
Okay, here we go, how funny would if be if he were in—oh and it's over already.
The hat didn't even properly touch his stupidly styled blond locks before it shouted Slytherin, almost as if it didn't really want to waste time on an already done deal.
Harry fought so hard not to roll his eyes at the definition of smug expression on his friend's face and was not sure if he succeeded. He wanted to make fun of the blond so bad as he waltzed over to the Slytherin table like he was honoring them with his presence, the arrogant prick.
Harry was equally torn between fondness and annoyance, between laughing and booing supportively at him. He'd wanted to be in Slytherin after all, so he was happy for his friend, but did he have to be a smug bastard about it?
Yes, apparently he did, because he was puffed up and positively preening at the table clapping for his arrival politely.
Note to self: I've befriended an attention whore.
In short order, only a few more names were called before clearly his name was coming up. He figured this was it when McGonagall paused just a second too long looking down at the list in front of her, but her face didn't give a thing away thankfully.
"Potter-Monroe, Harry."
Oh, so that's what the goblins meant by his name being official. Well, that's one way to announce it to the whole school.
Immediately whispers broke out across the entire hall, and Harry wanted to sigh. He stepped forward instead, approaching the stool and being slightly surprised by the sudden silence.
He glanced around quickly at the abrupt lack of noise, and realized he was getting a lot of wide-eyed looks. From his fellow first years, from the upper years, and especially from the teacher table. There wasn't a single teacher whose eyes didn't startle when they landed on him—even McGonagall did a double-take.
The old man with a long white beard who had been watching the whole procession with a grandfatherly like expression with polite applause for every student who was sorted seem to raise his brows straight up into his white hair, although he collected himself the fastest.
He didn't have time to evaluate all of their reactions because in a few short seconds he was on the stool and McGonagall had regained herself enough to lend him the hat. He did however watch one man with long black hair (which needed serious help, to be honest) choke on air when he saw him, which was by far the weirdest of all the reactions he was getting, but he didn't have time to ponder over it at the moment.
They must have really been expecting him to look like his dad, like Draco had said, because it was very weird to have surprised literally hundreds of people all at once. He got a sinking feeling in his stomach that told him he had not quite grasped just how famous he apparently was.
His thoughts on the matter were derailed when a voice that was not his own suddenly spoke into his brain.
Hm, where to put you…
Wow, the hat is talking into my brain. This is so weird.
Glad to entertain, Mr. Potter. Now hush and let me consider this…
Harry very much wanted to ask how the hat worked but refrained from doing so. He sensed the hat was amused by this thought and thankfully didn't comment on it.
Is it that hard a choice?
I've narrowed it down to two. You'd be decent in Hufflepuff and likely bored in Ravenclaw, though you'd hate neither of them. Your heart is pure Gryffindor for sure, but your mind has a spark that would do well in Slytherin.
I could be with Draco then.
He thinks to himself, and it's not a bad idea. He planned to be friends with Draco no matter what house he was put in, but to actually be in Draco's house would mean they could share a dorm and common room and simply have more time to hang out. It would be easier, and he liked the Slytherin ideals so he wasn't against it and silently told that hat so. The hat seemed to give a mental nod of agreement.
Slytherin will lead you to greatness. You will become a powerful wizard in no time there.
Harry paused. A flood of doubt abruptly washing through him and seeming to take the hat off guard.
What's this?
I… don't want greatness. I just want to be who I am.
Oh? A wise man once said some are born with greatness, some have it thrust upon them. It seems you are a mix of both. An unambitious Slytherin is almost unheard of, however when placed in that environment I see you will overcome this hesitancy and be great nonetheless.
I don't want to be great, I want to be ME.
What a Hufflepuff thing to say, the mental voice tisked. And here I've already crossed them off the list. Well, Slytherin will force you to become great, as they're all about politics and ambition. You'll need to be cunning to get far there, but what I'm gathering is that you don't want to put in that effort?
Well when you put it like that I sound lazy. He huffed back with annoyance. But I don't want to have to WORK to be friends or be accepted, I don't want to have to wear masks anymore. I know Slytherin and Gryffindor don't get along, but Draco is already my friend and I didn't have to try for that, I could just let it be. If I go with Gryffindor because I don't want to have to pretend to be someone I'm not in Slytherin, someone who I could become but don't necessarily want to become, that doesn't mean I can't still be a little bit Slytherin, right?
Given I just sorted that boy I wouldn't say you being personable is necessarily what prompted him to talk to you, the hat hummed in a very amused tone, but moved on before he could ask. And of course you could be someone of more than one house; if you are Gryffindor then you will only go farther as a person and a wizard by embracing the ideals of other houses. That is why the Founders hoped for after all, but thought having like-minded individuals to bolster yourself as a young man or woman would be more helpful. Four houses, but one school--one people. It will not be an easy task for you to branch out from whatever house you are in, but if you're sure about your interest in such a thing then I think I have made my decision.
Oh? And this house will help me?
Yes, I believe so. Simply think like a Slytherin and you'll figure out why. Better be… GRYFFINDOR!
It shouted the last word out for the whole hall to hear, and it erupted in cheers as the hat was lifted away, especially the supposed Gryffindor table. Harry's eyes were drawn to the noise first and saw Neville smiling widely as he clapped for him.
Ah, I can give him Trevor back more easily this way. Wait—
Remembering a bit too late why he wanted to be in Slytherin, he snapped his head back over to the other side of the hall and seemed to lock eyes with a gray gaze, somehow finding him immediately amongst the crowd. Draco, for all his boasting of Slytherin's cleverness, was very easy to read… and his big eyes were clearly disappointed. His smile was real and he was clapping, but Harry saw he'd been holding out to the hope that maybe they could've both been in Slytherin.
Harry resolved not to tell him that it'd been his choice. At least not until they survived being friends of rival houses.
And while he'd never regret nor apologize for his willing decisions, it didn't mean he didn't feel a bit guilty about what how his choices would impact Draco, and so he smiled his most apologetic, warm smile he could at his friend, which seemed to sooth the blond a fraction.
He finished up by moving briskly towards the Gryffindor table—being clapped on the back by some ecstatic Weasley twins out of nowhere and several people trying to shake his hand while Neville scooched over to make room for him by his side. He thought of Draco but knew the blond would be fine on his own for now, and that this wouldn't change anything. He was a Gryffindor now, and took the opportunity to look around and greet his housemates properly.
The hat had said he was in Gryffindor for a very Slytherin-like reason, and so he was going to get to work and see what he could make of this turn of events in his new adventure.
000
Unbeknownst to him, a certain potions professor was watching the exchange and having a bout of deja-bu so intense he almost needed to lie down. As it was, he gripped the edge of the high table for dear life, his head spinning in the sheer, painful nostalgia that coursed through him.
When Lucius had said the Potter brat looked like Lily… Jesus Christ he hadn't been exaggerating and Severus had not been nearly prepared enough.
But even at this distance, he just…
And oh, it got so much worse than just looking like her. Her hair, her face, her eyes…
So much worse.
When Lily had been sorted, she'd looked back at him with an identical look that her son had just given his godson. Apologetic, comforting, encouraging, hopeful. Hopeful that despite being in warring houses they could still be friends.
James Potter's son had been sorted into Gryffindor and instead of looking at his new housemates, the first place his eyes went was the Slytherin table—remorse and apologies spilling off of him as he made his way down from the stool.
Draco's composed, but clearly disappointed face was like a physical punch to the gut. It reminded him so much of his own emotions from what felt like a lifetime ago, he wasn't sure what to do with himself.
The feast continued on, but Severus just sat in his seat, numb to it all as his past haunted him.