Chapter 15: Welcome to the Snake Pit
I'm going to sue for discrimination!
HARRY POTTER HAD THE PROPERTIES OF BOTH SLYTHERIN AND GRYFFINDOR. EITHER WOULD HAVE SUITED HIM WELL. YOU, ON THE OTHER HAND…
Wait, what? He wasn't born until 1980.
TIME DOES NOT RUN IN THE SAME WAY FOR –
How does that even work?
What about us?
YOU ARE KIDDING ME, RIGHT? THERE IS NO HOUSE THAT WOULD FIT YOU BUT SLYTHERIN!
What do you mean? We could totally go to Ravenclaw! There's a lot of cunning politicians in the world, but I bet you haven't met one that memorized all his textbooks before school started for a very long time, have you?
YOU ONLY DID THAT FOR YOUR OWN BENEFIT, NOT WISDOM.
Why do ancient artifacts have to be so annoyingly perceptive?
I'm not done sassing you, Hat! Are you putting us in Slytherin just 'cause we're evil? Why can't Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs or Gryffindors be Dark Lords, too?
EVIL IMPLIES AMBITION AND CUNNING –
Evil can also mean ignorance and idiocy – but never mind that. It also takes a lot of intelligence, hard work, and guts to attempt such an arduous task. You could put us in any of the Houses. So what if I don't want to go to Slytherin? It's my choice, isn't it?
IT'S THE REASON YOU DON'T WANT TO GO TO SLYTHERIN THAT MAKES YOU THE PERFECT SLYTHERIN.
What does that have to do with anything?!
LIKE I SAID BEFORE – MOST PEOPLE PREFER, OR DON'T PREFER, A HOUSE, SIMPLY BECAUSE OF OPINION. THIS ISN'T A MATTER OF OPINION. IT'S FOR YOUR OWN MATERIAL ADVANTAGE.
YOU REFUSE TO GO TO SLYTHERIN, NOT BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE RAVENCLAW WILL HELP YOU BECOME MORE INTELLIGENT, NOT BECAUSE YOU DISLIKE SLYTHERIN HOUSE, BUT BECAUSE NOT BEING IN SLYTHERIN WILL FURTHER YOUR OWN CUNNING.
Isn't that the purpose of the Houses, though? To put a kid where he or she can succeed the best? That sounds like material advantage to me. Is that what the entire purpose of Slytherin House is? To put all the evil kids where we can keep track of them best?
And besides, at this point most kids don't have "opinions"; they're just doing what their parents want.
I think you're being very hypocritical, Hat. You won't listen to the well-reasoned arguments of a clearly logical person because of tradition, but you're willing to put a Hufflepuff in Gryffindor because their parents were and so brought them up to think that Gryffindor was best.
Look, I don't understand why you think we're evil. I mean, apart from the "taking over the entire world" thing we're not doing anything too bad.
Genocide certainly isn't on our list, and we're not stupid enough to rob the masses of the faceless poor to the point of desperation.
Exactly. From your reasoning, Marie Antoinette would also be a Slytherin, and she was one of the stupidest people in the world.
So, Ravenclaw, if you please.
ALL RIGHT, YOUNG MAN. YOU HAVE CONVINCED ME.
Yes!
"SLYTHERIN!"
There was some polite clapping from the green table.
Wait.
WHAT?
BECAUSE NO STUDENT, AT THE AGE OF ELEVEN, HAS EVER SO ELOQUENTLY TRIED TO ARGUE FOR A DIFFERENT HOUSE.
PERHAPS IF YOU HAD BEEN LESS PREPARED FOR WORLD DOMINATION, I MIGHT HAVE TAKEN YOUR CHOICE INTO ACCOUNT AS I DID FOR ALL THE OTHERS…
THAT'S DISCRIMINATION!
So if we didn't argue, we would have been put into Slytherin, but because we argued, you're putting us in Slytherin?
I DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW YOU WOULD EXPECT ANYTHING DIFFERENT. SURELY YOU MUST HAVE REALIZED THAT THIS WAS A LOST BATTLE FROM THE VERY START.
You know what, Hat?
WHAT?
You are the main source of this self-perpetuating civil war in the Wizarding World. Seriously. Why did the Founders ever think you were a good idea? All of the values of the four Houses – bravery, intelligence, ambition, and hard work – are important, and yet they've been reduced to petty rivalry, where if you possess one you cannot possess the others.
You should have never existed.
EXCUSE ME –
You're a worthless waste of space that never should have been born.
Useful for hiding stuff in, though. Like a fancy-ass sword.
HOW DID YOU KNOW – YOU'RE THE LEAST GRYFFINDOR KID I'VE EVER MET –
Wow. Way to be progressive. Must be nice, making a living stereotyping kids, huh?
Ta-ta.
…Asshole.
Language, Tom. You're eleven.
I also grew up on the streets of London. You don't think I wouldn't pick up a few things here or there?
You did NOT grow up on the "streets."
I had YOU, a young man who died before he had a spouse and young children to teach him how to curb his swearing.
NOW SEE HERE –
That's what you get for not putting us in Ravenclaw like we wanted.
Professor Dumbledore lifted the Hat off of Tom's head and motioned for him to go sit down with the table that looked like it had been infested with leprechauns.
It was like they didn't know how to remember dates, so they just wore green all year to avoid getting pinched on St. Patrick's Day.
Meanwhile, Tom was doing his best to do all the damage control that he could by giving both Minerva and Filius apologetic smiles, before giving Professor Dumbledore a jaunty wave and heading over to the Slytherin table to sit down.
Maybe it wasn't the best idea to throw that pissy fit at the Sorting Hat. Oh, well. It was too late to back out now. From what Jerry said, the Hat was honor-bound/magically spelled to tell nobody about what it saw in the kids' minds, not even the teachers.
Tom certainly hoped Jerry was right, because they would be in a lot of trouble if he wasn't.
At least now all four of the "original" group were distributed evenly amongst the Houses, and it would be easier to access the wealth of the Slytherins.
Because there was just no way that some no-name Mudblood could be sorted into Slytherin House, right? Whoever this Tom Riddle was, he had to have something interesting about him.
Half-bloods got Sorted into Slytherin House all the time, and as long as they were useful, their Muggle heritage could be overlooked.
And from the rumors that were spreading about this rather resourceful young man who had taken out a boy two years older than him with the most rudimentary of spells, Tom Riddle was a very useful young man indeed.
Of course, they didn't know that he had more capability to be the one using them than the other way around.
"Welcome to Slytherin House," a tall, pale young man finally said. Blond hair. Yeah, that was probably Abraxas Malfoy.
"Thank you," Tom replied conservatively.
"I am Abraxas Malfoy, sixth-year Slytherin Prefect." Oh, Tom so called it. "If you need anything, feel free to find me. We Slytherins take care of our own."
He forgot to leave out "for a price" from that second sentence and "so you don't dishonor the House, because you'll regret it if you do" for the third, but that was okay because Tom knew to add them in. Any Slytherin worth his salt did.
"Of course. Thank you," Tom replied, just as guarded and politely as before.
"Our Head of House is Horace Slughorn. He teaches Potions here," Abraxas continued.
"A worthy subject," Tom smiled thinly. Said man was rotund to the point of spherical, and his moustache dripped over the sides of his face, giving him a rather walrus-like appearance.
-----
Want to jump 30+ chapters ahead right now?
You can read the advanced chapters and support me directly on p 4 treon.
Link in the synopsis & profile: p 4 treon > ForgottenDaoist