Severus watched as Potter Jr. strutted towards the Gryffindor table, ready to bask in the cheers and adoration the house was already shouting at having the Boy-Who-Lived in their House. Already, the boy was taking fabulously after his father's footsteps. Black, messy hair. James Potter's features were completed with the round glasses that perched on the boy's face. Harry Potter was an exact replica of Potter Sr… And oh, how he despised Potter.
His silent seething was only halted when he felt the weight of a person's gaze. Violently occluding those memories, he scanned through the crowd and found her immediately. The first-year was easily a head smaller than all the other miscreants that he would no doubt get the displeasure to teach. Pale skin. Mop of long raven-black hair reaching past her shoulders.
He frowned faintly as large blue eyes peered at him with an odd sort of familiarity. Impossible. He didn't know her; had never met her. His gaze turned more severe—usually that would be enough to terrify the children—but the girl simply cocked her head and continued to study him. How… quaint.
Impassively, he met her eyes and held.
She blinked, flinched as if realizing what she had done, then turned away.
"RAINE, CYRNA."
As the child walked up to the hat, he saw the Headmaster lean forward ever so slightly—interested. But for what reason? His eyes narrowed on the girl.
Indeed, there was something about her...
Snape kept her name in mind as the hat swallowed the upper half of the child's head.
.....
The brim of the Hat fell over her eyes and ears, muffling the noise of the Great Hall that slowly died into silence the longer she sat on the stool. Maybe she was more nervous than she thought, because time felt like it was passing exceedingly slow. It felt like forever before she finally heard the hat's voice. "Blacked out spots in your memory… ah, and what I do see is quite extraordinary. Memories starting from the summer of 1990 though you are clearly much older… no signs of mind magic," the Hat grumbled as it shifted with slight agitation on her head. "It's almost as if your mind exists as a separate entity from your body…"
"Then just sort me somewhere based on the memories you see," Cyrna said after a beat of silence. Were her memories of her past life protected? Even if it was— "Please put me in Ravenclaw."
The Hat seemed to come alive at that. "Ah, but why Ravenclaw? No," it hummed—excuse me?— "You would not fit with the Gryffindors and the Hufflepuffs, but what of Slytherin? You know, you are quite the Slytherin too."
Cyrna restrained the urge to fidget. "Well, because I genuinely believe that there is nothing more important than knowledge." With it came power, money, status, safety… what could be more important?
"Is that it? But I see differently in your mind."
She dropped her pleasantry, and her eyes turned bitingly cold. "I'm sure I would do better in Ravenclaw."
"Because knowledge is the most efficient tool to survive in the world," mused the Hat as it observed how that particular thought underlay her every study session, in every book she read, in almost every piece of her interactions she had with other people. "Is that not what you think?"
The Hat continued before she could reply.
"Ravenclaws learn for the sake of learning—for the simple joy they find in expanding their knowledge. When have you ever learned something for that reason?"
"I—"
"You discard things—be it people or information that you would deem—and perhaps rightfully so—as useless in your daily life while a Ravenclaw would hoard such knowledge."
"That's irrational." Cyrna pointed out with mounting anger and horror. "Ravenclaw is the most logical, the most rational house in Hogwarts."
"Yes, but sometimes even the most rational person may be prone to irrational judgments when faced with certain things," the Hat replied, thinking fondly of Rowena Ravenclaw. "Perhaps one's irrationality may be another's rationality."
"But—"
"Every action you have taken was for self-preservation—"
"Everyone besides Gryffindors would have some level of self-preservation!"
The Hat fell silent. And Cyrna held her breath.
She could hear Professor McGonagall shift beside her. How long had it been if even a professor was getting impatient?—
"I think," the Hat finally said, "that even among the Slytherins, you would find many willing to lay down their life for someone or for a purpose that they cared for. That is the 'sympathy' you are seeking to understand, no?"
Each of its words built the roar in her ears; the haze in her mind. A sick feeling twisted in her gut.
"But what am I, if not defined by my intelligence?" Cyrna thought faintly. That was all the people had praised and complimented her for in her past world. "Take it away and you are left with nothing—nothing special at least. Knowledge and intelligence are important to me," she restated. "Ravenclaw would help me develop my strengths—develop me."
There was a pause then— "It's tragic to see someone so young think the way you do."
Cyrna's breath caught in her throat. Was she being pitied?
"Truly, you could be so much more than your intelligence and knowledge if you would just give yourself a chance… and it is for this reason that I will sort you in—"
Cyrna tore the hat off in fury. However, it was all for naught for once the Hat made its decision, it would stay with it. Her hands tightened around the Hat in a bruising grip—like she could squeeze the life out of it—as her finely knit plans for surviving the Harry Potter universe shattered before her eyes with a single word:
"SLYTHERIN!"
....
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