'It is our choices . . .'
OK, here goes . . .
This was not the fic I intended to start with, to be honest. I wrote this one hurriedly over the weekend, to my own great surprise, in the intervals of working on a job application (!), and as it is rather shorter and rather more complete than anything else I have available, I decided that it should be my experimental first post.
I make no great promises for its originality. I'm sure I' m not the only person who has seen Snape as a sort of anti-Harry, and imagined the Sorting Hat giving him much the same choice of houses. I'm pretty sure I've seen this discussed (unfortunately, I can't remember where), and I suspect that there are quite a few similar fics out there. However, I enjoyed writing this one, and hope you enjoy reading it.
To start with, the disclaimer: the Sorting Hat, Severus Snape, and all the other places, people and things in this story are the creations of J. K. Rowling - I am writing this for fun, and am making no money out of it. I have always thought that Snape's family were not Slytherins: the idea that they (or some of them) might have been Ravenclaws was suggested by the Red Hen website, as was the idea that they may have had an apothecary's shop.
'It is our choices . . . '
As his surname came towards the end of the alphabet, he had plenty of opportunity to see where the other first-years were sent. When at last he was called, he stepped forward eagerly, sat down, and put the hat on. It fell forward over his eyes, shutting him into its own little world. After a few seconds it spoke to him in a still small voice, as his mother had said it would.
'Hmm . . . you're a pretty problem, aren't you? What are we going to do with you?'
'My mother was in Ravenclaw,' he thought, nervously: but even as he thought it, it didn't feel quite right.
'Ravenclaw . . . yes . . . I remember your mother - and you've certainly got the brains for it. They'd respect you in Ravenclaw, all right. But you're not really a Ravenclaw, are you? Knowledge for knowledge's sake? Not you - you want your knowledge to work for you. So no, not Ravenclaw, I think.'
'My grandmother was in Hufflepuff.' Even as he thought it, he knew that he was clutching at straws. The hat laughed.
'Hufflepuff? Yes, I remember her, too. But you? In the house of brotherhood, hard work and fair play? My dear child, they'd eat you alive - if you didn't get them first, of course. No, definitely not Hufflepuff.'
But that left . . . He shut his eyes, tightly. 'Not Gryffindor, please please not Gryffindor.' He put all his effort into the thought.
'Not Gryffindor? It's not often I hear that. Do you have any idea whose hat I was, young man?'
'Yes. Sorry. It's just . . .'
'You would do very well in Gryffindor, you know. You've got plenty of courage there - I see, you already know that - and they'd broaden your horizons for you. You might want people to admire you, but what you also want is to do the sort of great things you would be admired for, and Gryffindor would help you to do them.'
'No!'
'No?'
'No.' The afternoon's train journey came back to him, vividly. Seven years of sharing a dormitory with those boys . . . seven years of Black's patrician scorn and Potter's contempt, not to mention Pettigrew's hilarious attempt at a Yorkshire accent - no, he could not bear it. He could still hear Potter's cold, hard voice, saying, 'So, do you actually know any spells that don't involve hurting other people, then?' and the compartment erupting into laughter as he realised that, once again, he had somehow failed to make the right impression. 'I know I'm brave,' he thought miserably at the hat, 'I'm just sick of having to be brave all the time. It would be so nice to be somewhere where I could fit in, for a change.'
'And you think you would fit in in Slytherin? That's the alternative, you know.'
'I know.' What did he know about Slytherin, after all? That 'Slytherins look after their own', as his grandmother said - well, that was all right, he wanted to be looked after, didn't he? And why shouldn't they look after their own, he said to the vestiges of his grandmother's Hufflepuff conscience, when no-one else ever seemed to like them very much? Being disliked he could certainly do - he had grown up with that one. They were ambitious - well, he was ambitious, and what was wrong with that? What good had his mother's years of patient service at the Ministry, or his grandparents' proud ownership of the best apothecary's shop outside Diagon Alley (or inside it, from what he'd seen) ever done them? The Slytherins just walked right over them - the Gryffindors too, who were all out for themselves, really, but dressed it up in noble language to pretend that they weren't. No-one in his family had ever been in Slytherin. Why shouldn't he be on the winning side, for a change? They were overwhelmingly purebloods, of course, and often very snooty about it . . . His heat missed a beat.
'Would they have me, do you think?' he asked the hat.
'They would have you. You might find it rather difficult - you'd have to make yourself useful to them, and even then some of them would never quite accept you. But you'd certainly not be the first half-blood to end up in Slytherin - or to do well there. But are you really sure that's what you want?'
'Yes. It is.'
'Quite sure? I do think Gryffindor would be more likely to bring out the best in you . . .'
'I'm quite sure.'
'Very well then. SLYTHERIN,' the hat screamed to the waiting hall. Severus took it off, stood up, put it back on the stool, and started to walk awkwardly towards the Slytherin table, overwhelmed by the sudden noise and colour. He sensed, rather than saw, Sirius Black's I-told-you-so expression, and the smugness of his fellow-Gryffindors. Forget them, he said to himself, you're in Slytherin now. The house for winners, remember?
He looked up at the Slytherin table as he walked towards it, and his legs nearly gave way under him. A sea of unfamiliar faces, all very handsome, very . . . well, pure-blooded, very well-dressed. It must be very obvious to them all that his own robes were second-hand. But they were smiling and clapping, cheering him loudly as he came up to them. Of course they would - he was one of them now. And it did help that this had been a thin year for Slytherins - almost everyone seemed to have been sorted into Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. They would be grateful for anyone they could get, and that too would be to his advantage. His heart lifted as he sat down next to a tall prefect with a mane of ash-blond hair, who had moved up especially to make room for him. He would make this work for him. He knew that he could.