Better Be Slytherin!

'Only the boy's memory!' Severus growled. 'Which we both observed through the Pensieve, if you'll recall.'

'And I believe we concluded it was difficult to be sure of the identity of the attacker. The voice was rather distorted, after all.'

Hardly believing what he was hearing, Severus clenched his teeth in an attempt to not say something he would likely regret. This is the same nonchalance the Headmaster had expressed when faced with Severus' account of the Dursleys' misuse of the boy. How could Dumbledore treat Harry's life so casually?

Once he finally had his temper under control, Severus said, 'What of Harry's nightmares, and the burning in his scar when he comes into contact with that stuttering fool?'

Instead of answer the charges, Albus merely smiled and popped another lemon sherbet in his mouth. Around the sweet, he said, 'It's 'Harry' now, is it, Severus?'

Severus' mouth opened and closed several times before he snarled, 'I don't see how my form of address has any bearing on this discussion.'

'Quite right, my dear boy, quite right. Alas, since we have no firm evidence of wrong doing on the part of Professor Quirrell, we shall just have to wait and see.'

Severus jerked a nod, past the point of making objections. It would obviously be solely his responsibility to keep the Brat alive. But then, that responsibility had fallen to him the day the boy had arrived at Hogwarts and been sorted, when the others had washed their hands of him. 'Very well,' he said in the same dangerous tone that most of his students knew to avoid at all costs, but which seemed to roll off the Headmaster like water off a squid's back. 'If that is all?'

'Yes, Severus, that will be all. Thank you for seeing me.'

With another sharp nod, Severus spun on his heel and headed for the door. He had opened it and was preparing to step through when Albus issued his parting shot.

'And Severus? Do make sure to keep an eye on the boy's study mates. It would not do for Harry to be less than diligent in his school work.'

Not dignifying such a remark with a reply, Severus slammed the door closed, with himself on the other side, and swooped down the revolving stairs like the bat he was often accused of being. In his seething rage, he did not notice who was watching him from the shadows.

TBC . . .

A/N: Thank you, readers and reviewers and those who are both, for your wonderful support on this story! We've hit two thousand reviews, and that milestone was achieved with a review by Dalou28, yay!

Snapalicious hugs for all!

*Chapter 27*: Chapter 27

Better Be Slytherin! – Chapter 27

By jharad17

Disclaimer: Not mine. I imagine I'll get over it.

Summary: As a first year, Harry is sorted into Slytherin instead of Gryffindor, and no one is more surprised than his new Head of House.

A/N: Two words: Sinus infections suck. Wait, that's three words. Okay, three words: Antibiotics are Da Bomb. Hm, that's four words. Four words: Holidays are a time sink. Er, that was five . . . um, let me come in again . . .

Previously:

'And Severus? Do make sure to keep an eye on the boy's study mates. It would not do for Harry to be less than diligent in his school work.'

Not dignifying such a remark with a reply, Severus slammed the door closed, with himself on the other side, and swooped down the revolving stairs like the bat he was often accused of being. In his seething rage, he did not notice who was watching him from the shadows.

Harry was in the library, working on an essay for Transfiguration, when he figured out the mystery of the chocolate frogs. Teddy and he had researched magical signatures, and then analyzed the two boxes of frogs Harry had received. After they eliminated their own signatures, plus the one or two people who had touched the boxes aside from Harry, they discovered that, yes, there was one signature on both boxes that they could not identify. The boxes were both from the same person.

All that remained was Harry going about and testing the signatures of all the people in Hogwarts who could have sent him the sweets to see if their signature matched the one on the boxes. The incantation to test someone's signature was Reveleo Quisnam, and the wand movement was a simple side to side swish. Easy.

But few people in Hogwarts took kindly to have a spell cast at them, even if it didn't hurt them. So Harry had to do it sneaky. That was okay. He was in Slytherin House, after all, and one thing he'd learned over the last month and a half was that Slytherins would take the behind the scenes route to solve a problem instead of hitting it straight on. Straight on, he knew, was usually fraught with danger.

Harry himself had done plenty of sneaky things growing up with the Dursleys. Sneaking food, sneaking out of his cupboard, sneaking to do his homework. He knew better than to oppose their rulings straight on, but he got his tiny revenges. Like when he cut Dudley down with a well placed barb, or 'accidentally' trimmed a prized shrub of Aunt Petunia's till it resembled a bowling ball, or 'completely unwitting,' encouraged a cat in heat into making a nest in Uncle Vernon's company car.

Oh, yes. He could do sneaky.

This time, though, he had only cast the spell on three people -- Teddy, not completely sure the other boy wasn't having him on the whole time, Draco, 'cause, well, he was nearby and vulnerable to having a spell cast on him, and Pansy Parkinson, who seemed to dislike him altogether and it would have been odd if she sent him