The Joys of Being a Gryffindor || Harry Potter

ONE

The Great Hall was teeming with spirit and colour, lights hanging delicately from the ceiling and illuminating the grandeur. The tables stretched across the entire hall, seeming larger than they normally were. Around them sat hundreds of students, all talking, loud and excited, eyes watching the first years eagerly as they were led to the front.

Draco Malfoy watched all of this with carefully contained excitement, his eyes wide with delight. He was flanked by Crabbe and Goyle, both lumbering on either side of him like his bodyguards, their mouths slack. Draco cast a look at the Slytherin table and smirked. Soon, he would join the long line of Malfoys who's all taken their places there.

Behind him walked Potter and the Weasley boy, but he ignored them, anger igniting him at the thought of Potter's refusal. He had collected every picture and newspaper story of Potter, displaying them in his room as only infatuated little boys do - only to be rebuffed! Publicly!

He'd been given two tasks from his parents: Become a Slytherin and befriend Harry Potter. Well, he'd already failed them on the latter, so he'd have to settle on being a Slytherin for them, instead. They weren't even loathsome tasks, like when they made him practise his spells for hours on end until he was tired and hungry. No, he wanted to be a Slytherin, and he wanted to be Harry Potter's friend.

Stupid Potter.

The Professor who'd led them in began to speak about the Sorting Ceremony and how it would commence, but Draco didn't listen. He chose instead to imagine what Slytherin would be like, what the common room and the dormitories looked like, who he'd friends with...

It would be a relief to create some distance between him and the Mudbloods and Blood Traitors, like the Weasleys.

He vaguely heard names being called and watched them with disinterest as they were all sorted, only perking up when they were in Slytherin, like Crabbe and Goyle. He sneered at those in Hufflepuff. Goodness, imagine being a Hufflepuff.

"Draco Malfoy!"

Draco set his jaw, squaring the hat with a hard look as he made his way to the seat. He didn't care that the entire school was watching him, as he was used to attention, but his heart began to beat rapidly in his chest. One glance down at his hands showed that they were shaking.

This was it. The hat was placed on his head, the fabric old and plebeian to his superior tastes, but he felt the immense power that the hat held, and almost shied away.

However, the hat did not speak for a moment, and it did not call out for Slytherin as he'd thought it would. His heart dropped into his stomach.

Then, the hat hummed thoughtfully. "Interesting. Another Malfoy. I distinctly remember you all being Slytherin, as I can feel you want to be."

Yes! Slytherin! He prayed silently for the hat to stop talking because he knew that everyone could hear it and was now staring at him in confusion. He didn't want to be a hat stall!

"You may want to be in Slytherin," it continued, "but I'm not sure you should be. You'd suit it, of course, but you wouldn't succeed. I can see you being much better elsewhere."

"No!" Draco cried, startling the students and himself, "I want to be in Slytherin! I have to be in Slytherin!"

"I see self-preservation, resourcefulness and the capacity for lying. However, I also see recklessness, not a bad quality, if in small doses. What else? Determination, courage somewhat..."

No. Draco could tell where this was going, and cried, "No!"

He knew he sounded like a petulant child, but he was desperate now. The hat was lying, there was no way he'd be better elsewhere- he was raised to be a Slytherin! His parents would disown him! This couldn't happen.