The Things You Think You Cannot Do

The bathroom was a mess. A number of the bottles and containers which normally stood against the talking mirror were either scattered on the bench or had rolled onto the floor. The mirror itself was cracked and shards of broken glass lay everywhere.

Harry was curled painfully against the freezing bathroom wall. His back being coloured by the small drops of blood that escaped from the wounds that his so-called friend had caused — more painful than any that his so-called uncle had given him.

His face rested on arms which pressed his knees tightly to his chest. The stream of tears that fell from bruised and battered eyes ran over them. Harry's breaths were shallow and unsteady; never being held for the same amount of time, instead, escaping in unheard cries.

In his hand, almost forgotten, lay a small black stick. Its cap was across the room, having been lost in the fight. The missing lid, however, allowed the dull cherry colour of the lipstick to be seen. The same colour that he had put on his lips.

Harry had made a mistake — a big, big mistake — and it had cost him everything.

"You're a freak!" Someone shouted through the door, "You deserve to die!"

The stick slipped, more tears fell and the name that Vernon had given to him echoed over, and over.

'You must do the things you think you cannot do.' —Eleanor Roosevelt

Dumbledore's face was sombre as he spoke, "I understand what you wish to happen, my boy, but I fear that you may be disappointed. While the hat sorts students based on their characteristics, it takes into account their own preferences. Our choices and the way that we grow as people is so often shaped by the house we enter,"

"Please, sir," Said Harry, "I really do believe that I will be sorted somewhere else,"

"Are you sure, my boy?" Dumbledore asked.

Harry nodded enthusiastically, his composure lighting up.

"Then I will allow it. But if it places you back in Gryffindor — which is the most likely outcome — then that is where you must stay for the rest of your Hogwarts education. I know that you wish for something else, but I can not be seen to have favourites and allowing a student to enter a house in which they were not sorted... I am sure you understand, my boy,"

"Yes, sir," Harry responded. Dumbledore, frail yet not weak in old age, stood from his chair and collected the Sorting hat. He placed it on Harry's head and took a step back. The hat — which had fallen over his eyes in first year — now sat comfortably on his head and, just like first year, it began to creep through his mind, commenting on what it saw.

Eventually, it stopped its exploration and turned to Harry.

You've changed a fair bit since I first saw into your mind. Though still courageous and still with a thirst to prove yourself, It said, your fear of what you are has changed you. You are scared of remaining where you are now but it is your determination that led to your rash decision to be re-sorted. Courage and loyalty overruled by fear, wisdom and self-preservation. Where to put you? Where to put you?

Not Gryffindor, Harry chanted, Not Gryffindor

Not Gryffindor, eh? The hat said in Harry's head before it opened its brim.

"Slytherin!" It cried.

'You must do the things you think you cannot do.' —Eleanor Roosevelt

"—and this is your dorm room," The Slytherin prefect finished.

He had been called out of class and into Dumbledore's office after Harry had been re-sorted. The headmaster had instructed him to take Harry to Gryffindor for his things and then show him to the room which was where they were now, making sure that they avoided as many people as possible on the way.