you raise me up || harry potter (revamped)

Chapter 4: A Daughter, A Son

There was not a single sound in the Great Hall after the Hat's voice rang out, and it was left to fade away into the stunned silence. Some turned to each other with disbelief; most simply stared at Harry as McGonagall, after a slight hesitation, gently took the Hat off her head.

Harry looked out into the crowd of her would-be classmates. Had her Sorting been this anticipated? And she certainly didn't think they would be so shocked upon her sorting into Slytherin. She just didn't want to go to Slytherin — she hadn't realized no one else had wanted her to, either.

The Slytherin table didn't look very eager to welcome her—in fact, they too looked on in bewilderment. None of them had expected these turn of events.

Harry had half a mind to jam the Hat back onto her head and demand it to reconsider. A very Gryffindor thing to do, she thought scathingly. But that thought was swept away when Draco, looking very small indeed at the Slytherin table, caught her eye.

The Hat had stalled a bit for him too, Harry recalled, even after all the confidence with which Draco insisted he'd be in Slytherin.

Harry got up, keeping her eyes on that familiar face. She couldn't bear to look at Ron, couldn't bear to see how he must be looking at her in disgust, so she didn't. No one applauded. She was finally beginning to see how this might have played out if she were walking toward the Gryffindor table. They would have cheered, and shook her hand, and tripped all over themselves the way the strangers at the Leaky Cauldron had. The twins probably would have stood up and hollered something ridiculous, like "We got Potter!" And she would have liked the feeling of being included, perhaps, but she would have hated it, too.

I'm famous because my parents died and I didn't, Harry thought, and stumbled a bit as she sat down next to Draco.

The ceremony continued, but the applause was noticeably muted for the rest of the Sorting. Everyone kept standing up, peeking over each other's shoulders, all of them straining to see the Girl-Who-Lived, their hero that had been put into the most hated House.

And through all of it, a small and slender hand snaked under the table, and grasped Harry's loosely for a brief moment. Draco's hand was warm.

♢ ♢ ♢

Harry tried to hide the amazement, the sheer delight she felt when all that food appeared on the table in front of her.

I'll never go hungry here, she realized. And with that thought she took some mashed potatoes and a drumstick tentatively, wondering if she was allowed to take as much as she wanted. She looked around her. Everyone heaped their plates high, laughing as they did, shoveling food into their mouths (although the Slytherins did it a bit daintier than the Gryffindors), not paying much mind to how much they were taking.

That was enough for Harry. She served herself a steak and poured gravy over her mashed potatoes. She almost felt Aunt Petunia slapping her wrist like she usually did when Harry poured her gravy at the Dursleys, no matter how little she took. But there was no Aunt Petunia here, and no Dudley to steal her dinner as Uncle Vernon looked on with a smirk.

Harry smiled to herself as she helped herself to more vegetables. Take that, Dudley, she thought with satisfaction. There was more food here to eat than Dudley could ever imagine. Freak, indeed!

"Goodness, Harry," Draco said, after swallowing a small bite of his chicken. "You look like you haven't eaten in days."

Harry felt herself bristle. "And?" she snapped, hyper-aware of the fact that her cheeks probably looked like a chipmunk's moments before.

Draco put up a defensive hand. "Merlin, it was a joke!"

"It wasn't a very funny one," she muttered.

Draco stared at her for a moment, then went back to eating. But not before he said quietly, "Sorry."