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Slytherin
Imagine that you’re at Hogwarts for the first time, and the Hat goes on your head. “I’m so sorry,” it whispers to you, before saying loudly, “Slytherin!”
It’ s your first year. You’ve won the House Cup and you’re getting ready to celebrate.
And then Professor Dumbledore awards just enough points to take the win away from you, with no warning to the House that had won and now lost.
Can you imagine how that would feel? The older ones and Snape trying to convince you that Dumbledore doesn’t hate you? Them trying to convince you that the entire school doesn’t hate you simply because of the colours you wear, while the words taste like dust and lies in their mouths and sound like the lies they are to your ears?
You spend the next six years trying to rise above what everyone thinks you to be, you want to scream and shake the blood purists and the bullies and yell at them, “Stop being what they hate! Stop giving them a reason to hate us more!”, but experience has taught you they won’t listen.
You’re small for your age, you always have been, and in your third year, a pair of bullies beat you bloody for what happened to Hermione Granger and her teeth. It wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t, but you were there and you wear silver and green. Professor Snape finds you and takes you to the hospital wing where you have to stay overnight and he is so angry he’s white because the bullies got twenty points taken away each and that’s all. “What do you expect, Severus? They have witnesses saying that he attacked them first. Obviously they went too far, but they have the right to defend themselves.” You roll away from the words, unable to stomach them.
It’s not the first time you have to spend the night in the hospital wing.
Every Sorting, you whisper for every child, “Don’t be a Slytherin, don’t be a Slytherin.” You wouldn’t wish on anyone this hatred from people who don’t even know you and simply hate what you are.
You’re in your seventh year, almost free of this place that’s so magical to most but has become a hell for you and things get so. much. worse. You are expected to cast torture curses at your fellow classmates. You, who cried the first time you had to feed one of Hagrid’s creatures a live animal, have to torture people you’ve gone to school with. But the Carrows are scary and you don’t want to be on the receiving end, so you do it.
Every time you do it, it gets a little easier and you think that maybe, everyone was right about you. You are evil, you have to be, or you’d be able to stand up instead of hurt. Everyone that hated you, they were right, they were right, they were right, and you start breaking apart.
Imagine that you’re at Hogwarts for the first time, and the Hat goes on your head. “I’m so sorry,” it whispers to you, before saying loudly, “Slytherin!”
It’ s your first year. You’ve won the House Cup and you’re getting ready to celebrate.
And then Professor Dumbledore awards just enough points to take the win away from you, with no warning to the House that had won and now lost.
Can you imagine how that would feel? The older ones and Snape trying to convince you that Dumbledore doesn’t hate you? Them trying to convince you that the entire school doesn’t hate you simply because of the colours you wear, while the words taste like dust and lies in their mouths and sound like the lies they are to your ears?
You spend the next six years trying to rise above what everyone thinks you to be, you want to scream and shake the blood purists and the bullies and yell at them, “Stop being what they hate! Stop giving them a reason to hate us more!”, but experience has taught you they won’t listen.
You’re small for your age, you always have been, and in your third year, a pair of bullies beat you bloody for what happened to Hermione Granger and her teeth. It wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t, but you were there and you wear silver and green. Professor Snape finds you and takes you to the hospital wing where you have to stay overnight and he is so angry he’s white because the bullies got twenty points taken away each and that’s all. “What do you expect, Severus? They have witnesses saying that he attacked them first. Obviously they went too far, but they have the right to defend themselves.” You roll away from the words, unable to stomach them.
It’s not the first time you have to spend the night in the hospital wing.
Every Sorting, you whisper for every child, “Don’t be a Slytherin, don’t be a Slytherin.” You wouldn’t wish on anyone this hatred from people who don’t even know you and simply hate what you are.
You’re in your seventh year, almost free of this place that’s so magical to most but has become a hell for you and things get so. much. worse. You are expected to cast torture curses at your fellow classmates. You, who cried the first time you had to feed one of Hagrid’s creatures a live animal, have to torture people you’ve gone to school with. But the Carrows are scary and you don’t want to be on the receiving end, so you do it.
Every time you do it, it gets a little easier and you think that maybe, everyone was right about you. You are evil, you have to be, or you’d be able to stand up instead of hurt. Everyone that hated you, they were right, they were right, they were right, and you start breaking apart.
Imagine that you’re at Hogwarts for the first time, and the Hat goes on your head. “I’m so sorry,” it whispers to you, before saying loudly, “Slytherin!”
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Dumbledore had a lot to worry about. I don't think that any of his actions were maliciously intended. But I don't think he ever really stopped to think about how things like Harry's first end of school feast would effect the Slytherins who'd had no warning.
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I've always wanted to know more about the Slytherins that weren't bad. I think that there should be quite a few of them.
One of my favourite head canons is that Moody was a Slytherin.
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As much as I love the books, and am gkad that JK wrote them, I can't help but wonder how they would have been if a more experienced writer wrote them. Or even if she herself went and wrote them again now.
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