Placing the hat on his head pushed his hair forward so that it cascaded over his face, and the crowded room disappeared behind the dark greasy veil. And they were silent, waiting for the hat’s verdict. He was alone. Well, they could all wait with hushed anticipation, but Severus himself felt none of the anxiety that the other students went through. He was quite confident. His mother had told him all about the ritual, he knew the hat would talk, and he knew what it would say. Slytherin. He thought to himself.
 
Slytherin, hey? Severus jumped a little, despite himself. He had expected the voice to be loud and triumphant, not this weaselling niggling whisper that tugged at his insecurities. Oh yes, I can see the desire for power, for recognition. A chance to prove yourself. Yes, and I see the pride of Salazar Slytherin himself. But I also see strength, endurance, bravery. Perhaps it will be…Gryffindor for you? No? Hmm, a good mind too. Perhaps too good. Ravenclaw would help you to develop it to its upmost potential.

 Slytherin. Severus thought more forcefully, not sure if he should speak aloud.

 Aaah, yes, I do see your desire for that particular house. Yes, you would do well in Slytherin. Very well. You could be Head Boy, you could be Head of Slytherin thereafter. I see it. But I can see more than that. I can see your desires, your strengths, but I can see your weaknesses too. And your needs. A bit of love, and bit of care, wouldn’t go astray. You could well use a lesson in kindness yourself. You could do well to have your mind broadened rather than narrowed. Yes. Oh, yes. The best place for you…is not where you desire to be.

 "Gryffindor then, with Lily!" Severus muttered, and blushed at having spoken out accidentally. 

 "HUFFLEPUFF!" The hat announced to the room. The Hufflepuff table let out a cheer and the rest of the assembly gave a polite smattering of applause, mingled with the odd snigger. 

 "Hufflepuff?!" Severus cried as the hat was lifted off him. He had never felt so insulted in his life, and that was saying something. He felt a cringing fear burn into his stomach, and came close to tears. The teacher in charge of the ceremony gave him a friendly pat on that back and pushed him towards the Hufflepuff table. "Go on, dear. Your classmates are waiting for you."

 "But there must be some mistake!" He tried desperately, but the teacher simply smiled and pushed him a little harder, "The hat has his reasons, and he hasn’t gone wrong once. Go and join your table, there are more students to be sorted."

 Severus let his feet carry him to the gold and black table and sat down in stunned silence. No. No. Mother’s going to kill me. How will I tell her? Hufflepuff? I was supposed to be in Slytherin, the best house, mother’s house. She never said anything good about Hufflepuff. It even sounds pathetic. Huflepuffle. HR Pufnstuf. I s’pose Dad will be happy. 
 
While Severus moped several more students were placed in their houses, including two more to Hufflepuff who attempted to celebrate with him but gave up when he refused to even look at them. He only looked up when he heard "Slytherin!" called out once more and he looked over to their table where a pale haired prefect was genially welcoming their new classmate, everyone cheering and clapping the young boy on the back. His face screwed up in envy, it should have been him. It was too much to bear, to finally be here at Hogwarts, and to be denied his rightful place in Slytherin. He tore his gaze away and flung it towards the Gryffindor table. The boys from the train were there, Lily sitting beside them and laughing. And with them, two more boys, one small and pandering, the other shy. He felt longing and envy dig at him again. I don’t want to be in stinking Gryffindor, Severus thought angrily to banish the feeling. But it didn’t go away. It grew worse as he saw Lily smile and laugh at something that Potter kid said. Then they all looked at him. Humiliation burned his face. Lily smiled apologetically and gave him a tiny wave of her fingers. Sirius Black made a face and pulled on his nose before bursting out laughing, and they all turned back to their table again. Severus stared into his empty plate. Wondering if his hatred would burn a hole through it.

****

 "Cheer up, old boy." A pink cheeked boy said gently, and placed a hand on Snape’s shoulder. Severus shrugged it off violently, and went back to picking at his food. The feast was amazing, but he wasn’t in the mood, despite never having seen so much food at once before.
 
"Oh, what’s the kafuffle? This is a feast! All that terrible waiting is over; we’re in a house now. I don’t know about you, but I was awful nervous about that hat business. But now that it’s all over, I feel a bit foolish. Everyone here seems awful nice. My name’s Barnaby, by the way. It’s Severus, isn’t it? Jolly good to meet you."

 The ridiculous boy held out his hand. Severus glared at it. After a few moments Barnaby let his hand fall. "Well, I suppose I’ll see you in the dormitory."

 "I wouldn’t count on it." Severus muttered. "The hat made a mistake, I’m really in Slytherin. I expect the Headmaster will sort it all out before the end of the day." 

 "Slytherin? Are you sure? My dad says that Slytherin is full of dark wizards and toadeaters, or toadies, or something, and that they’re mostly bad news, and often quite dim." He paused as Severus gave him a scathing look. "Er, but he also tells me not to judge people over things they have no control over, which I suppose includes which House they get placed in. But surely you don’t want to be in Slytherin? A jolly bit of good luck I’d say it was, the hat getting it wrong."

 Severus curled his lip in a sneer that Barnaby decided to interpret as a smile, and the cheery boy walked off to sit at his own plate surrounded by the rest of the Hufflepuff family. Severus took a quick glance and noticed that everyone was at least two seats away from him. Bitterly humiliated again, he grabbed a pumpkin pie and set to devouring it.

****
 In the first year dormitory it was quickly established that Severus didn’t wish to be there. He stared at the yellow curtains around his bed, and with a quick slash of his wand, turned them black. He turned his back on the appreciative gasps and whispers of the other boys, and crawled onto his bed and closed the curtains tight. 

 While the other boys got to know each other with jokes, and pillow fights, and shared candies, Severus stayed shut behind his black curtains and unpacked his meagre belongings. A tattered photograph of his mother, and a threadbare grey nightdress went under his pillow. His wand and a battered copy of Hogwarts: A History (first ed.) went on the bedside table. Out of his robes he drew a handful of tarts that he’d smuggled from the welcoming feast, and stored them in a draw for a midnight snack. His single change of clothes he slipped into the trunk at the end of his bed. Then he dragged his bundle of text books onto the bed and untied the string keeping them together. He looked at their dilapidated state; he had only been able to afford the cheapest of second hand copies. And still two were missing. As if it wasn’t bad enough to be poor in the muggle world, now he faced a lifetime of being poor in the wizard world as well. He thought wistfully of the green thread his mother had secretly sewn into his robes, certain he would soon be the darling of Slytherin House. He still hadn’t sent her an owl, and wasn’t certain if the school sent them on his behalf. It was possible that his mother already knew of his disgrace. He thought it best to put off the moment as long as he could, still hopeful that the mistake could be remedied.

 Within the week he had lost all such hope.

 In his first potions class he had met the head of Slytherin House, Professor Slughorn. He had impressed his teacher by being the only student in the class to successfully make a simple potion. Severus had found the lesson tedious, having made more complex potions at home to drug his father with, and found the teacher’s praise somewhat distasteful. It was not as if he had done anything of excellence yet, he had merely been surrounded by fools. And yet it gave him a chance to speak one on one with the Slytherin Master, and he gratefully took the opportunity to mention his situation. 

 "…and so you see, Professor, the dilemma I’m in."

 "Oh, and you expect me to wave my hand and have you transferred, is that it?"

 "Surely you can manage it." 

 "Well, perhaps if you were somehow ejected from your own house, and were floating as a free agent as it were, then I suppose I could step in and take you, but to poach you. No, I’m afraid the sorting hat does the sorting, and that’s that. I can’t go around poaching all the best students for my own house, now, that would never be allowed! And now, Hufflepuff’s a fine House, perhaps not so fine as Slytherin, I grant you, but you’ll soon find your feet!"

 And speaking to the Head of Hufflepuff had only earned him detention. His punishment: to write a four foot parchment on the virtues of Hufflepuff and the prestige of its alumni. He had been forced to grudgingly admit that Hufflepuff was not such a disgraceful House to call his own, and yet he remained adamant that it was still not his.

 His final ray of hope had appeared and disappeared during lunch on the Saturday. Severus had refused to sit or talk with his fellow Hufflepuffs but had sat at the very end seat of their long table, and eaten in silence every day. This day, however, he had found his seat to be occupied by a seventh year, and unwilling to confront him, Severus had turned away. The entire length of the Hufflepuff table was filled with students, although many spare seats presented themselves they were interspersed throughout the crowd. It was almost as if they had done it on purpose, to force him to sit beside one of them. Well, thought Severus, it’s Saturday and I can eat in the common room, while you’re all out. But as he walked down the aisle to reach the food he liked, someone tugged on his robes. It was someone on the Slytherin table.

 "Aren’t you the kid who wants to be in Slytherin?" The boy asked. He looked like a second or third year, another boy beside him was clearly his brother. A whole gang of them was looking at him; including the pale-blond prefect, and two pretty girls, one blond and the other with dark hair. A few Slytherins further down the table were looking up at them with sycophantic grins on their faces, including the boy he’d watched during the Sorting Ceremony.

 Severus gulped in anticipation and struggled to speak clearly, "Yes. I suppose that’s me."

 "I don’t blame you. Think you’re good enough for Slytherin do you?"

 "Yes." He answered with as much certainty as he could. The boys laughed in a manner that seemed well natured and friendly, one muttered "Got the attitude". 

 "So you can get me in, can’t you? I can be in Slytherin."

 The older blond boy, the prefect, smiled directly at him. The kindest, best smile Severus had ever seen, a smile that seemed to say I’ll let you in on a secret, I’ll let you in to my private circle. And Severus inwardly prepared for the joy he was sure to feel when he was welcomed into their fold. 

 The blond smiled, and leaned toward Severus, "The sorting hat didn’t think so."

 And they all burst out laughing. It wasn’t friendly or well natured, it was mocking and cruel, and had taken Severus by devastating surprise, as he just stood there with his mouth hanging open. 

 Suddenly anger flashed within him and he shouted "The Hat lied! It told me I could be in Slytherin and it put me in Hufflepuff, but it said, it SAID I would do well in Slytherin! IT SAID!"

 His outburst only made the Slytherins laugh more, and made heads turn from the other tables to glance at him. But he was too worked up to stop himself.

 "It said I would be Head of House! I’d be the master of Slytherin one day! I’m better than all of you!"

 The laughter reached a ridiculous pitch and the dark haired girl actually fell off her chair. People in the furthest reaches of the dining hall were standing up to get a better view. The prefect sneered and made a quick cutting motion to silence his classmates, succeeding with all but the girl who was now wriggling on the floor, cackling like a fairy-tale witch or hyena. He stared at Severus until he calmed down, then he spoke quietly with a voice gentle and charming.

 "I am Lucius Malfoy. I come from a long distinguished pure blood family. I am prefect of Slytherin House. When I go home during the summer it is to a mansion. When I am lonely I have that gorgeous girl there" he motioned slightly in the direction of the blond girl, who simpered, "Narcissa, to keep me company. Look at my robes…" Severus did, and they were beautiful, if a little effeminate, "…and then look at yours. I have a dozen more like this, and nicer. And you have… what? What do you have? Who are you?"

 Seething inwardly, Severus tried to sound dignified, "I am Severus Snape!"

 "Snape…I don’t recognise it. You cannot be pure blood, then?" Lucius phrased it as a question, but it was really a challenge.

 "My mother’s a witch! I’m no mudblood!"

 "And yet you’re still a dirty half-blood, who even the Sorting Hat can see isn’t worthy of Salazar Slytherin’s name. Why would we waste our time on you."

 Severus turned and ran out of the hall. Behind him the cackling girl was calling out in a sing-song voice "Half-blood Hufflepuff! Half-Blood Hufflepuff!" 
 
He wanted nothing more than to run to the dungeons that his mother had described to him as home, but he couldn’t. And he couldn’t face the cheery warm Hufflepuff common room, so he ran to the library, where he found a deserted aisle and sank to his knees, and cried.