You're One Of Us

A/N

I honestly don't know what you expected, of course I am going to write a Drarry fanfic =D

The song is just the one I have been listening to on repeat whilst working on this!

You're One Of Us

Harry shuffled down the corridor. Why did Hermione and Ron not just come along? It's only one year, a non-compulsory 8th year, they still would have had their place at the ministry had they joined him in this. They would agree to traipse around the country for a year, admittedly to defeat the Dark Lord, and this year only succeeds in getting them unnecessary qualifications, but still. He was allowed to complain, he had granted himself this: permission to groan when faced with DADA - because that's all he spent his time doing last year -  he would acquiesce moaning when faced with the prospect of a re-sorting, because 'they had all changed so much!' and so on. Truly, he was just giving this year to becoming every other teenager.

He had not left Hogwarts from the battles completion to now, he could not leave her walls till she was standing tall again. Aiding with the rebuilding had been back-breaking, soul-destroying work - as labour-intensive as it certainly had been, the scenes that flashed before his eyes outweighed this pain, with one of a different calibre all together.

There was a ringing sound, that resounded through the endless hallways, definitely Professor McGonagall, using sonorous joined with some other spell to create such a noise. Though an unholy racket, it is effective in getting any slow-moving students to converge on the Great Hall, which of course nobody thought to open both doors, so, squeezing through a small gap, Harry emerged into the room that he spent the most time fixing, for this was where he felt the safest, in all his years, inexplicably so, thus wanting to ensure that new first years would be closer to seeing how it was before the war, just this time, sans Voldemort.

Before many people could move, Professor McGonagall was informing all to sit at their house tables from before, or go to the front to be re-sorted, is they so wished. Harry had spent hours upon hours dithering: 'what if he was simply re-sorted into Gryffindor?', 'what if he was sorted into a house where he knew no one?', 'what if the house he was sorted into had a vendetta against him for some reason (namely Slytherin)?'... All these questions and more, running rampant in his muddled mind. Making a split-second decision, Harry turned away from the Gryffindor house table, to go stand in the line with the first years, and the - maybe four-dozen - other students from varying years and houses, all willing and wanting to be sorted a second time.

The little first years were done before the rest, of course, to take the pressure off of them, all seeming pleased with their houses, pleasantly so, all smiling when given their house by the hat. Moving onto simply first-come-first-served of the rest or the hoard, McGonagall smiled reassuringly at each student in turn, before slipping the hat onto their heads once they were seated on the same rickety, old stool as always. Harry was near the back, having been too nervous to be further up the line. Susan Bones, the girl before him, sorted into Ravenclaw, was his last safety-blanket. When the Professor turned to smile at the next person in line, a look of surprise flitted across her features, before settling on a comforting expression, motioning him forwards.

He couldn't breathe. He stood, stock-still, for god-knows how long, before a jarring jab in the back pushed him towards the stool. Stumbling slightly, Harry moved to sit on the seat, feeling as much of a first year as he had in ages, disconcertingly so. The hat, lowering to cover his eyes, even now that he had grown, began murmuring into his ears.

"Oh. Harry Potter.  Well, well, well. How nice that we should meet yet again! And unexpected. What do you wish to achieve in this?"

"I want to be put into the house that you recommend, do not take my opinion into account, please. I want to find out where I should be, not where I want to be."