Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Other People's Choices	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 24374 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story

Chapter List
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Thank you for all the reviews! I will be continuing this story, roughly weekly.
Chapter Two—The Next Morning
Harry opens his eyes. Well, really, they spring open. He feels the way he did when he was in the cupboard under the stairs and Dudley was tromping down them above him.
He has green curtains around him.
Harry sits up quietly and reaches for his glasses. He can hear snorting, which isn’t really a surprise when he now shares a room with Crabbe and Goyle. He can also hear a soft rustling that might be someone turning over in their sheets, or reaching for a book.
He doesn’t plan on staying long enough to find out. He has to see Hermione and Ginny. He has to be sure they’re all right. And he wants them to find out the truth from him—if Ron hasn’t told them already—not just see him walking into breakfast with a Slytherin crest on his robes.
Harry’s robes from last night are still lying beside the bed, and Harry quickly drags them inside the curtains and changes. He grimaces at the crest and tie, but he really can’t do much about it, so he flips the curtains back, intent on escaping Slytherin as soon as possible.
Malfoy is sitting up in his bed, curtains open, staring at him.
For a minute, Harry recoils, but it’s not like Malfoy can really stop him. Harry glances at him without interest, makes sure he has his wand in his pocket, and then walks across the room and towards the door. Everyone else is still snoring.
“You’ll never be a real Slytherin!” Malfoy calls after him.
“That’s what I’m counting on,” Harry mutters, and doesn’t care if Malfoy hears. He slips out the door and down through the Slytherin common room, grimacing at the snakes on the walls and the filtered green light coming through the windows that look out on the lake. Honestly, Salazar Slytherin had depressing taste.
Harry steps briskly out into the corridor, and jumps when he sees who is waiting for him.
“Mr. Potter,” says Snape, folding his arms so that he looks almost like a statue of a Buddhist monk Harry saw once on the telly. “Do you mind telling me where you are going?”
Yes, I do. But Harry still has to live with Snape as his Head of House for—God knows how long, and so he manages to blink and hold his tongue the way he sometimes does at the Dursleys’. “Just going to see my friends, Professor.”
“They are still in the hospital wing. Did you intend to walk all that way alone?”
“Well, yes,” Harry says, a little baffled. He thought Snape might get angry about Harry leaving so early, but not about him walking alone. What? “The basilisk’s been defeated, sir. I’m safe.”
“Did you not think that your former Housemates might treat you badly now that your allegiance has changed?” Snape pivots to walk alongside him as Harry starts up towards the hospital wing, tired of this conversation.
“No.”
“I think you may be underestimating how much Gryffindor enjoyed having you as part of their House.”
Harry manages not to flinch and glance sideways, but it’s a near thing. Snape almost sounded like he was complimenting Harry there. But, of course, it’s really an insult to Gryffindor. Once Harry thinks about it in that sense, then he can see the insult in it. He shrugs a little. “They’ll get over it, sir.”
“But not right away.”
There just seems nothing to be said in response to that, Harry thinks. It’s like trying to have a conversation with Uncle Vernon: he knows when to give up. He walks, and Snape drifts along beside him like a bad smell, except that he goes in front of Harry to enter the hospital wing. Harry shakes his head. He will never understand Snape.
The first thing Harry sees is Hermione sitting up in bed. He runs towards her and holds out his hands. She ignores that and hugs him as hard as she can, making Harry oof a bit. Falling rubble must have hit him or something.
Snape tries to say something, but it’s buried beneath Hermione’s squeal. “You’re in Slytherin?”
Harry only nods, and says, “Yeah. It’s—the way it is.” All the honest things he wants to say will have to wait for when Snape isn’t there. “You were brilliant, by the way. We never would have figured out it was a basilisk without you.”
Hermione blushes and then sighs. “Not careful enough, with the way I got taken off-guard like that.”
Harry grins. “I said you were brilliant, not careful!”
“Perhaps a problem for Gryffindors in general.”
Hermione pauses, but Harry won’t let Snape ruin the moment by being his un-understandable self. “Anyway,” he says. “How’s Ginny?” One glance was enough to tell him she was still asleep, and he thinks he knows why. She might not have got bitten by the basilisk, but she was drained so badly by Tom Riddle. It must be like being eaten.
“She woke up and ate a little last night,” Hermione says, giving Ginny’s bed a concerned glance, too. “And she apologized a lot to her mum and dad. They had to go home for the night, but I think they’ll come back soon.” She shakes her head, and Harry can see everything he feels in her eyes, too. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice.”
“No one did,” Harry says softly, and squeezes Hermione’s hand. “Her brothers, either. I mean, I think Percy thought she was homesick or something, but that’s a long way from knowing she was possessed by an evil diary.”
Hermione nods. “Is—Ron taking this okay?”
Harry wishes he could think she’s talking about Ginny, but the gesture she makes is towards his Slytherin crest. He sighs and nods. “Yeah. I mean, I think it probably helped that he knows it wasn’t my choice—”
“The Sorting Hat’s?”
“Yes. I wish I’d never let the bloody thing on my head!”
“Language, Mr. Potter.” Snape moves forwards and bows his head a little, as if he wants to use his beaky nose to stab Hermione. “I think you should come along to breakfast. You have gone quite long enough without eating, and Miss Granger needs her rest.”
Harry opens his mouth, but his stomach chooses that moment to remind him of its existence, and he grimaces. Right. He won’t get regular meals the minute he’s back at the Dursleys’ anyway. He supposes he should eat all he can.
“It’s all right, Harry,” Hermione says softly, and squeezes his hand again. “You can come back and visit later.”
Harry nods, hugs her one more time, and then turns and leaves the hospital wing. Snape paces along beside him, of course. It’s not too bad when Harry ignores him. He makes for the Great Hall, scowling when he thinks of how he’ll have to sit at the Slytherin table and the way that that will be the way most people learn of his House change. Well, he’ll do what he needs to.
“Mr. Potter.”
Harry halts and looks up. “Yes, sir?”
Snape stares him in the eye, and then shakes his head as if he sees something there that’s different from what everyone else sees. “You act as if it doesn’t affect you at all.”
Harry narrows his eyes a little. “Of course two of my friends almost dying affects me! Three,” he has to add after a second. Ron could easily have been crushed by that rockfall in the Chamber. It’s pure luck he wasn’t.
“I did not mean that,” Snape says, and then goes on staring at him.
Harry folds his arms. “Pardon me, but I don’t speak Slytherin. Why don’t you just say what you mean?”
That would have got him a detention yesterday. Harry almost hopes it does now. Then at least one thing won’t have changed. But Snape only shakes his head as though a little surprised at Harry’s words, and still stares him in the eye as he says, “I mean that you do not seem affected by almost dying, yourself.”
“That sort of thing happens too often.”
Harry starts to walk over towards the Slytherin table. A few students have walked past them already and given him and Snape curious glances. He supposes they might think that Snape is just bringing him from the hospital wing where he stayed overnight, but he wants to get this over as soon as possible.
Snape catches his shoulder. Harry hisses and controls the impulse to jerk away. He hates it when people grab him like that.
“You will explain the meaning of your statement,” Snape murmurs. His eyes turn to stare straight ahead, and he moves Harry with him into the Great Hall. Towards the Slytherin table, Harry notices, and listens to the buzzing voices with a sigh. Great. Couldn’t he just have one thing to deal with at once?
“I mean I almost died with Quirrell last year, and I almost died with the basilisk this time, and I almost died in Quidditch a couple of times,” Harry says, rolling his eyes. Before this, he thinks wistfully, Snape would just think he was joking or being arrogant or something. “It’s just—what would happen if I went around screaming every time someone threatened me? I wouldn’t get any homework done!”
There. That should get him either a detention or Snape distracted into a lecture about the importance of homework.
To Harry’s stunned surprise, it does neither. Snape only eyes him even more closely, as if he thinks that Harry might jump off a cliff to cap off his rant. Then he nods. “You will speak with me before you leave for the summer, Mr. Potter.”
“Like I have a choice,” Harry says, but he mutters it under his breath as Snape walks away.
That leaves him with the dreadful fact of having to walk into the Great Hall and face everyone staring at him. But at least he gets to do it in his own way, rather than Snape either hovering next to him or announcing he’s a Slytherin in some…underhanded way.
Can you announce something in an underhanded way? Harry wonders, and then walks into the Great Hall and over to the Slytherin table.
Halfway there, people have definitely noticed him, although maybe some of them are looking because Hermione and Ginny still aren’t there. Their voices go up to a murmur, then a shout, then a roar. Harry does his best to ignore it as he sits down and picks up a bowl. There’s porridge with honey and fruit, and he’s not about to miss it.
“Sleep well, Potter?”
It’s Zabini, who Harry reckons isn’t too bad. At least Malfoy is sitting five places away from him, and by his turned shoulder, doesn’t want to interact with Harry anyway. Harry nods and scoops up some porridge. “Yourself?” he adds, when Zabini doesn’t turn away and is clearly waiting for something.
Satisfaction, maybe, dances in Zabini’s eyes. “Yes, well,” he says, and faces his own bowl.
Harry eats with his head down. Most of the other Slytherins are deliberately ignoring him. Maybe that will be the way it is from now on, Harry thinks with some hope, and even after they come back from the summer. Then he can go and hang out with the Gryffindors who still like him, and other than when he has to go to the common room or the Great Hall, it will be like nothing’s changed.
“Potter. What?”
Harry blinks and looks up. Oliver Wood stands in front of him, his arms folded and his glare—well, it’s not even so much a glare, Harry has to admit. Honestly, Oliver looks like he’s going to cry.
“Er,” Harry says. “The Sorting Hat fell on my head and Sorted me into Slytherin.”
“But—tell me you can still play Seeker for Gryffindor!”
Harry opens his mouth, but Zabini breaks in, leaning over and speaking as though he was talking to Harry all along and Oliver is the one who’s interrupting an important conversation. “Of course not. Students can’t play for any House but their own. You ought to know that.”
“Gryffindor is Harry’s House.”
“That’s right,” and suddenly Fred and George are behind Oliver, nodding in support to Harry. Harry smiles, but he can feel the sharp spike of irritation in his chest. This is making him the center of attention all over again. He wishes there was some way of handling this in private. He wishes they could go away and leave him alone.
“Not anymore,” says Zabini. He’s smiling a little, his eyes sharp. Harry wonders why he’s there, but then takes one look at those sharp eyes and knows. He’s having a little fun baiting Gryffindors. Nothing to do with Harry, especially. “You ought to look at his crest and tie and know that as well as we do.”
“But this is a special Sorting,” Oliver says, and his arms tighten until Harry thinks he’s going to break his own ribs. “It’s never happened before. That ought to mean we can break the rules. What do you say, Harry?” He looks at Harry.
I say that I want you to go away and leave me alone. But it’s not going to happen, and that means Harry has to make a decision. He knows that. He just wishes it wasn’t so.
But wishes never changed anything with the Dursleys except when he was too little to realize what real danger was. So he leans forwards and says quietly, “You’ll have to talk to Professor McGonagall and Snape and see what they say.”
“I’m going to do that right now!” Oliver declares, and marches away. The Weasley twins linger behind, staring curiously at Harry.
“You can probably say the word and have this all over right now,” Fred murmurs. “You saved Gin from a basilisk. The school owes you. Dumbledore—”
“Owes you,” George confirms, nodding. “You think he would let you play for Gryffindor if you want to?”
Harry takes a deep breath. His face is tingling. God, he hates being stared at. He’ll hate giving up playing Quidditch, too, but right now he thinks he can do it, if it just means that everyone will go back to looking at their food.
“Would you say that you’re grateful I saved Ginny?”
“Of—”
“Course! Don’t know what we’d—”
“Do without you, Harrykins!”
Harry hears Malfoy snicker, and frowns, knowing Malfoy will probably use that nickname from now on. Well, nothing Harry can do about that. “Then please. Leave me alone. If Professor McGonagall and Snape say they can’t do anything, make Oliver leave me alone, too.”
The twins both stop laughing and look at him seriously. Then Fred nods. “If that’s what you want.”
“Please go tell him. I mean, if Professor McGonagall and Snape say that I can’t play for Gryffindor.”
“Right,” says George. “And you know what they’re going to say. Especially since McGonagall always insists on playing fair.”
“I know.” Harry smiles at them and wonders, dismally, if he’ll get more homework done next year because he won’t have Quidditch practice. Hermione should be thrilled. Ron, not so much. “Thanks, you lot.”
George and Fred both salute him and wander away from the Slytherin table. Harry sighs and starts eating again, but he only manages five bites before he turns around and says, “Zabini, stop looking at me.”
“You’re interesting, that’s all,” says Zabini, narrowing his eyes as if he wonders what the point of Harry’s complaining is. “I wonder whether you think Professor Snape will really let you sit out the Quidditch season and not join Slytherin.”
“First of all, Malfoy is Slytherin Seeker, and I wouldn’t dream of taking that away from him,” Harry says, and he must be doing something right, because both Zabini and Nott, sitting on his other side, grin. “And second, I wouldn’t dream of playing for Slytherin.”
“Why not?”
Harry stares back, long enough for Zabini to start shifting around uncomfortably. “Head of House that made my life hell for the last two years, Malfoy always trying to get me caught breaking the rules, people who were all happy to hear about the Heir of Slytherin and my friends getting petrified…why would I play for you?”
“Hey, I didn’t do that. I may not have defended you, Potter, but that would be suicide anyway.”
Nott nods vigorously behind him. Harry sighs and slumps back in his seat. “Maybe not you personally, but I’m not going to play Quidditch for Slytherin. Ever.”
“And being an actual member of Slytherin?” Zabini asks quietly, his eyes piercing again.
Harry begins eating his porridge, because he knows what he wants to say, and he knows what Zabini wants to hear, and they’re nothing alike. Although only Merlin knows why Zabini cares what Harry’s going to do.
And anyway, there’s something at the bottom of Harry’s soul, a core of stubbornness, that can resist anything. It resisted the Dursleys when they wanted him to stop being himself and stay quietly in his cupboard. It resisted the basilisk when it wanted him to die. It resisted Snape when he wanted Harry to blush and stammer and apologize for existing.
It’s going to resist the Slytherins if they really want him to be part of the House.
The best we can hope for, Harry thinks as he finishes his breakfast, is an armed truce, and the sooner everyone realizes that, the better off we’ll all be.
*
Chester258: Well, now it's continuing!
Kain: Now you will get to see some of those things!
I'm unsure if this will cover all seven years, but I can promise that it does change things in Slytherin and Ron and Hermione continue to stand by him.
I don't think Harry would be more at risk in Slytherin itself than he would in the general school. For whatever reason, even when he easily could have done it, Voldemort never commanded anyone else to kill Harry. And as we saw from Draco's attempts to kill Dumbledore, it's not that people outside Slytherin were untouchable for a Slytherin. I think Voldemort simply wanted to kill Harry himself.
Harry is going to be the center of a political maelstrom, yes, even though he is still thinking very hard, Leave me the fuck alone.
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