Chapter Text
If there was one thing on this earth that Siobhan Serpent was certain of, it was where she would sleep tonight. Tonight she would sleep in a bed even more comfortable than the one at home, deep below the surface of the lake she was currently crossing, back impossibly straight on the rickety old boat. Many of her fellow passengers were shaking, though the evening was as balmy as it had been for the past fortnight, with summer refusing to give way to autumn. It had been a month since her family had shared bread and the temperature had only increased. But no matter, the temperature would soon drop, just as surely as she would be sorted into Slytherin House within the hour.
Her unsteady companions did not seem to share even a shred of her certainty. “Oh God…” Was muttered next to her, a phrase she heard was a muggle swear, and she curled her lip at the display of ill manners. “This thing is gonna sink, I just know it.”
“Oh do pull yourself together.” Siobhan drawled, shuffling away from the white-knuckled girl. “They're enchanted, obviously, they can't sink, we're not even rocking.”
“I'm not imagining it.” The girl huffed. “We're definitely rocking.” Even in the darkness Siobhan could watch the girl pale.
“Oh we ain't gonna sink,” chirped an unconvincing redhead. “We'll be fine.” This statement cheered absolutely nobody, and Siobhan could not have been more relieved to reach the castle and remove herself from this cloud of anxiety surrounding her boatmates.
Unfortunately for her, her own anxiety reared its head as they ascended the steps of Hogwarts Castle, and doubt began to creep in. It hadn’t occurred to her until this moment that there was a possibility that she may not be sorted into Slytherin. Which would be nothing short of humiliating, really. She was a Serpent, for Merlin’s sake, there hadn’t been a single member of her family sorted into any other house. Ever. Her mother liked to claim the Serpents were the most direct descendants of Salazar Slytherin himself. And obviously everyone believed her.
As far as her family were concerned, it was not a question of if she would be sorted into Slytherin, only how quickly it would be confirmed. According to rumour, the hat had hardly touched Doireann, her sister, before sorting her. Siobhan’s outcome would be equally as certain, surely.
Still, her stomach tightened as the doors swung open.
The Great Hall was dazzling. Hundreds of candles floated in midair, casting a warm glow over long tables filled with staring faces. Above, the ceiling reflected the night sky, darker now, endless stars scattered against black velvet.
A stool and a patched Sorting Hat waited in the center.
Names were called. Students shuffled forward one by one, the Hat proclaiming them for Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Slytherin. The cheers rang out, each House celebrating its newest member. All the while, Siobhan could feel Doireann’s eyes on her, hovering nervously. She probably should have paid closer attention to the names of her various new classmates, particularly the new Syltherins, but barely any of them registered, not until her own name was finally called.
She stepped forward, steady and deliberate, her back rod straight, as instructed. Whispers rippled through the Hall at her surname. The Hat slipped down onto her head, over her eyes, and a voice filled her mind.
“Ah, a Serpent, you think you already know where you belong don’t you… ambitious, sharp..yes, you’d do well in Slytherin, I suppose. But what about… there’s a good brain in there…hmmm, there’s more of a lion in there than you wish-”
“-No, please,” Siobhan thought. “There’s only one answer.”
“Indeed, if you insist,” the Hat chuckled. “Better be… SLYTHERIN!”
Her table clapped politely, and she took her place next to her fellow first-years, though not before a quick hug from Doireann in the prefect’s section of the table.
With her fate firmly sealed, Siobhan finally took the time to scan the hall for the rest of the fresh recruits. She spotted the nervous girl, from the boat, gazing up at the ceiling from the Hufflepuff table. Likely muggle-born, she thought, if the nerves and shock were anything to go by.
Being towards the end of the sorting, she didn’t have much time to take note of the others before the feast appeared before them and she was pulled into conversation by her housemates.
Xx
Doireann had been right about the beds at Hogwarts, so right that Siobhan had wondered for a bit if they were made that way by magic. The rest of the dorm was, if she’s honest, a little creepy. The Slytherin common room was vast and shadowed, its stone walls lit by eerie green lamps which didn’t seem to give off any of the cozy warmth of regular oil lamps. The ceiling arched high above, carved with twisting serpentine patterns. Beyond the tall windows stretched the depths of the Black Lake — dark water pressing against the glass, shapes moving lazily in the murk. Every now and then, a shadow flickered past.
Green and silver tapestries hung on the walls, and armchairs upholstered in black leather were scattered around the fire — a fire that burned cold and white instead of orange. The air smelled faintly of iron and damp stone.
Siobhan could only hope at this point that she would fall in love with the place, find comfort in the gloom. For now though, she had to get to her first day of classes. To start, Charms.
To start classes with the Deputy Headmistress was intimidating, to say the least, and only made more so by Professor Weaver’s clipped tone and sharp wandmovements as she demonstrated their very first spell. In the name of unity and clique prevention Weaver had paired the students up in alternating houses, sitting Siobhan with the nervous girl from the boat.
Vivian - whose friends at home apparently called her Viv (which Siobhan would not be doing) - nearly jabbed her eye out with her enthusiastic wand movements. The feather she was supposed to be levitating trembled, rolled sideways, and promptly burst into flames.
Students shrieked. “Opps”, Vivian laughed, batting at it with her sleeve until Weaver appeared next to them, snapping her wand toward it.
“Aguamenti,” she said crisply, dousing the fire in an instant.
Vivian turned to her with a sheepish grin. “Thanks! I suppose I got a bit carried away.” Weaver simply nodded and produced another feather.
“You think?” Siobhan interjected coolly. “You were wielding that wand like you were trying to beat the spell into submission.”
Vivian chuckled, completely unoffended. “Well, it worked. Just… not the way I wanted.”
Siobhan pressed her lips together, torn between annoyance and something dangerously close to amusement. This Clark girl was chaos wrapped in a smile. While Weaver explained the movement to Vivian again, Siobhan’s feather levitated gracefully into the air.
Xx
Slytherin seemed to have an inordinate number of classes paired with Hufflepuff. Siobhan had to wonder if there was some kind of calculation behind it, or simply some cruel twist of fate. Because for every single one of these classes, Siobhan ended up paired with the same Hufflepuff.
“Not again,” Siobhan muttered under her breath, dropping her bag on the potion’s bench when Professor Knight called out the pairs.
“God, I’m buzzing for this one, aren’t you? Actual potions…” Vivian’s eyes actually got a little misty. “Probably so much cool stuff you can use potions for, I bet medicine is the bollocks for wizards. My mum’s a nurse, I was going to be one too. I was really excited to start properly studying science, this is probably the closest thing you lot have, huh?”
“Clark.” Professor Knight interrupted.
Vivian nearly dropped her quill. “Sir?”
“If I asked you to tell me the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane,” Knight drawled, “would you be able to?”
Vivian blinked. “They’re… um… both plants?”
A ripple of laughter went around the room. Knight’s lip curled. “Idiotic. They are the same plant. Ten points from Hufflepuff.”
Even Siobhan wanted to wince. Taking points on the first day like that, from a muggleborn, for not knowing something like that? That was too harsh. Vivian’s ears went scarlet. She hunched low in her seat, avoiding Siobhan’s eye..
“Serpent,” Knight said suddenly.
Siobhan’s head snapped up. “Yes, Professor?” This was her moment, she hadn’t had a proper chance to prove herself today, and first impressions are important. She could feel the rest of the class watching her.
“What would I obtain if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”
She didn’t hesitate. “The Draught of Living Death, sir, a powerful sleeping potion.”
Knight’s eyes gleamed. “Correct. Ten points to Slytherin.”
Their first task was to brew a cure for boils, much to the dismay of many of the other first-years. Boils were hardly glamorous, but they were easy to cure. “Try not to ruin mine,” Siobhan said coolly, measuring out her ingredients.
Vivian bristled. “Yours? We’re partners, aren’t we?”
“I’d rather not be.”
Vivian snatched up a knife, chopping her dandelion roots with more force than finesse. “Then you’d better keep up, Serpent, because I don’t plan on failing.”
They worked side by side, tension humming between them like a taut string. Siobhan’s cuts were precise, her stirring smooth and practiced. Vivian’s technique was messy, but even so she was focused, barely taking her eyes off her textbook while she measured. Her stirring technique left something to be desired, but in the end, their potion earned a tilt of Professor Knight’s head that they took to be approval, and Siobhan strained the potion into vials for storage.
“Told you.” Vivian smirked. “So you can get off that high-horse you’re on, I might not have been doing this since I could crawl, and my family may not be famous or anything, but you aren’t any better than me, and I’ve not done anything to you…yet.”
Xx
Siobhan slid into her seat at the Slytherin table, settling next to a few first-years she still barely knew. She surveyed her Housemates; older students chatting quietly, prefects keeping watch with sharp, appraising eyes, Doireann stopping to throw her a wink. The Great Hall smelled of roast meats and fresh bread, a heady mixture that made her stomach growl.
Across the Hall, at the Hufflepuff table, Vivian Clark was waving at someone she had just met, laughing like she had no care in the world. Siobhan set her jaw and looked down at her plate, stabbing at a roast potato with deliberate force.
“First day gone well, Serpent?” asked the girl seated next to her, a second-year with sleek black hair, her mouth tilted up in a smirk.
Siobhan shrugged. “As expected.” She kept her gaze on her plate, though her mind lingered on Vivian — that reckless, clever, infuriating girl who had already managed to cross her path more than once, and would, it seemed, be her class partner for the foreseeable.
The Slytherin table erupted into quiet laughter as an older student recounted a story from last year, and Siobhan let herself relax just enough to eat. But her attention kept flicking back across the Hall, toward that sunny Hufflepuff table. Vivian was now leaning forward, elbows on the table, talking animatedly to a first-year boy who was clearly trying not to snort with laughter.
Doireann stood, raising a hand. “Heads up, first-years. Curfew is in an hour. Make your way back to the dorms promptly.”
Siobhan nodded, rising. She walked past the Hufflepuff table deliberately, not breaking her stare. Vivian met her eyes again and winked- a deliberate, teasing motion.
Siobhan’s stomach flipped. She scowled but kept walking, ignoring the flush creeping up her neck, she’d been challenged, and she was not winning.
Back in the Slytherin dorms, she sank into her chair by the fire, staring at the green flames. Today had been a test -the Sorting, the lessons, the first meals - and tomorrow would be no different.