Eyes followed him as he crossed to the far end of the hall and sat at the end of Slytherin table nearest the head table. The Slytherins looked at him but no one said anything, and after a few moments they resumed their meal and seemed content to ignore him. Harry felt strange sitting there. He'd never sat at Slytherin before, not even during study hall. He stared at the empty plate in front of him for a long time before his stomach grumbled reminding him that he was there for a reason. He carefully picked up the spoon in the egg bowl, as if he might damage it somehow and draw the wrath of his... housemates, and put eggs onto his plate.

"It's about time Gryffindor," came a voice next to his ear as someone sat down beside him. It was Thomas.

"What?"

"It took you long enough to man up and come over here to sit with us. Everyone thought you thought you were better than us."

"I don't have any friends here."

"Whose fault is that? You haven't made an effort to make any, am I right?"

Harry looked down at his eggs.

"Don't do that. Don't look ashamed to be here. You're in Slytherin. That's just as good as any other house and we think it happens to be better. You're setting a bad example for the first years and Snape will have your hide if he catches you looking sorry for yourself."

"Oh."

"Now, you're not sitting at Gryffindor. Does that mean you've accepted being here?"

"I guess." He shrugged and couldn't keep the meloncholly out of his voice.

"I guess. What kind of an answer is that. Be a man Potter. Yes or no."

"Yes."

"Good. Because you play Quidditch and we need someone to replace McMillan. I know it's not Seeker, Draco's got that already, but we need someone and you're able on a broom."

Harry stared at him. Thomas was the team Captain this year for Slytherin. Was he really offering for him to play?

"You- you want me to play Chaser?"

"If you're shite at it I'll kick you back off the team, but I've seen some of those daredevil stunts you pull up in the air. You can have McMillan's broom too. It's a model higher than yours."

Harry waved his hand. "No, I- I can't take somebody's broom."

"It's not his, it belongs to Slytherin. Draco's father bought them for the team, not individuals. I don't know how things work in Gryffindor, but in Slytherin we share. I'll make sure the broom gets to your dorm tonight along with Quidditch robes. You'd better show up for practices on time too or I'll have your hide. There's another rule that only applies to Quidditch players. No detentions within two weeks of a game or you don't get to play. Our next game is in one week with Gryffindor so you'd better stay out of trouble. Be on the field at eight am tomorrow and 6 pm every night until game day."

He got up and left to go back to sit with his friends further down the table. Harry was stunned. It had all happend so fast. Three days ago, he was still sitting with his friends at Gryffindor table laughing and talking, and today he was at Slytherin, and was no going to play for Slytherin team. There was an upside to this. The winning team was always awarded ten points to each team member who played. His time was running out and if he could help secure a win, it would be an easy ten points to add to the fifteen he already had. It would get him halfway to his goal.

He turned around to see if he could see Ron or Hermione, but caught Ron glaring at him. It dampened his mood again. He wanted to share the news that he'd just gotten onto a Quidditch team, but he had no one to share it with.

In the dorm later that evening as Harry sat studying on his bed, Draco sat at his desk and stared at him. The other boys were in the common room or library.

"I know what you're doing Potter."

Harry looked up from his Charms book.

"You heard me," Draco said. "You think you're going to earn a present from Snape by earning points. Well guess what, it's not going to happen. You're not going to come on to our team and become the star either."

"I don't want to be a star."

"Right, famous prince Potter with his famous big head doesn't want any more fame and fortune than he already has. How humble of you. This still isn't your house Potter, and I'm not going to let you earn points."

"You'll stop me?"

"That's right. I'm smarter than you, it shouldn't be a problem." He turned back to his desk and his own studying and popped a black liccorice snap into his mouth. Harry stared at the back of his blond head for long minutes and then set his book down. Be a man, he thought. If I'm not a Gryffindor anymore, than what am I? The only answer is Slytherin. He stood up and went to stand behind Draco. He leaned down, startling the blond, and said, "I'm a Slytherin. I will earn the fifty points, and I will play on the team, because I want to." Then he went into the hallway just for a dramatic exit. Let Draco chew on that for a while. He smiled to himself. It wasn't one of hapiness but rather of humor. He knew how to be a Gryffindor. Being a Gryffindor meant being coragous and selfless, true, and loyal. So much for loyalty he thought as Ron and Hermione came to mind. Slytherins valued other things. They weren't selfless, they wanted things for themselves. Harry certainly wanted a father for himself so he supposed in that respect Ron was right, he had switched sides. Maybe if he showed that more, he would fit in more here. He supposed Slytherins weren't all about themselves though. They took great pains to protect each other and the house points. Was that loyalty and self sacrifice? He didn't know. It was something. Gryffindors didn't do that. Gryffindor usually lost half the points they gained and had to work double hard to get them back. Slytherin would have won the cup last year if it hadn't been for Dumbledore's last minute points to him, Ron, Hermione, and Neville.

He went to the bathroom and then went back into his dorm room. Draco was still sitting at his desk where he left him, but Harry had the impression he was only pretending to read. Maybe he'd scared him. Good. Maybe he'll leave me alone, he thought.

* * *

Playing for Slytherin was different than playing for Gryffindor. Practices were more grueling. They did excessive ammounts of drills on the field, and once back in the common room they went over plays for hours on end. Harry had to sit with the team at meal times too in the week leading up to the big game, where Thomas questioned them on every move in their play book excessively. Harry was dreaming about these plays too. He literally felt like he was eating and sleeping Quidditch. It felt good though to be back on his broom and to feel like part of something again. No one on the team talked to him much except Thomas. The others sometimes shouted things at him up in the air, especially if he made a mistake. He'd never trained as a Chaser before so this was all new to him. He liked it. He still felt better suited to Seeker, but he could live with being a Chaser for now. They also had back up players. Players who weren't as good but who could jump in and take the place of an injured team member. Gryffindor had two of them, but Slytherin had one for every position except Seeker and they practiced and drilled with the main team in mock games. Even though the backups weren't as good, Thomas drilled them hard too.

"You're the backup for Seeker Potter," Thomas told him one day while he was on the ground drinking from a water bottle. "If something happens to Draco in game, you're in and one of the backup Chasers will fill in for you."

"You can't give him my spot!" Draco shouted from a few feet away.

"Cool it Draco," Thomas held up his hand to forestall any more complaints. "I said he's your back up. Don't get hurt and you won't need him."

Draco sneered at Harry and then took off up into the air. Harry didn't want to deal with him, no matter how much he wanted to be the Seeker again.

By the game on Saturday Harry had earned five more points and felt he was better than ever at Quidditch and hoped to help them win so he could gain ten more points. Draco shoved past him in the locker room as he went out to take his place on the game field in the air above Madam Hooch.

"Don't even think about him Potter," Thomas told him as he passed by him and out the door as well. Harry mounted his broom and flew out to take his place as Chaser. He knew that somewhere up in the stands were Ron and Hermione and his other peers from Gryffindor. He hoped they weren't cheering against him, but thought that they probably were.

Harry expected Fred and George to aim the Bludger at him more often than the other Slytherins now that he had changed teams, but was surprised to find that they went out of their way not to hit him with the Bludger. Thomas told him during time out to use it to his advantage and had the other two Chasers start passing Harry the Quaffle more often. Harry wasn't sure what to think about the twins sparing him like that, but in the end it helped him score more goals. Draco caught the Snitch, being better trained than Gryffindor's new Seeker Bill Berkle, and they won. Harry had his ten points. He was now up to 25 and his goal of fifty seemed a lot more achievable even though he only had four weeks left to secure another 25 points.

Just like in Gryffindor, Slytheirn celebrated their win though the celebration took place after the Halloween feast down in the common room. No one celebrated Harry and he was mostly left to himself, but he still sat in the corner and tried to be happy about doing so well in his first game as Chaser. He'd managed to snag a nice little bag of candy at the feast so he sorted through that and tried different kinds. It was a lot of strange candies he'd never had before, but that wasn't saying much becuase he'd never eaten much candy before. There were liccorice snaps that tried to bite your fingers, and if you weren't careful bite your tongue, a new line of Bertie Botts that had all sorts of exotic and tropical flavors (including cow patties), mango flavored liccorice, mini cold ice creams that only melted when they hit your tongue, and chocolate crickets that played their music when you chewed them up amongst other things.

The party was still going when Harry went back to the dorm to study. He still had 25 points to earn.

* * *

Earning points in class was taking too much time. He had to do more but what? Hermione had said to go above and beyond, but what did that even mean? He couldn't think of much of anything until he was packing up at the end of Transfiguration one day and saw that the blackboard was filthy. He hated cleaning, but years of doing it for Petunia made him feel like a clean freak. He hated to see things as filthy as the blackboard. Some mess he could handle, like the dirty clothes at the bottom of his trunk, but not too much. Most of the class had gone and McGonagall had just left, so he went to the front of the room, grabbed the eraser, and hurriedly began taking the excess chalk dust off of the board.

"She's gone Potter," Draco drawled from somewhere behind him.

"So?"

"So what are you doing?"

"It's really dirty." He couldn't hear Draco's eye roll, but he was certain it was there.

"Mr. Potter." He spun around. McGonagall had come back into the room. Why had some come back?

"Maam?"

"What are you doing?"

His hand was still paused midway up the board with the eraser in hand. "Cleaning?"

She pursed her lips and Harry noted that Draco's mouth was half open as he watched the scene unfold. "2 Points to Gryff- Slytherin for going out of your way to do something unnessarily nice."

"Um, thank you Professor," Harry said. He turned his head a little further to see that Draco's eyes were about to bug out of his head now and then went back to cleaning the board. McGonagall stayed until he was finished and then Harry hurried out with Draco so he wouldn't be late to his next class.

"Suck up."

"What are you talking about? She wasn't even in the room."

"You knew she would come back somehow."

"Did not." Draco gave him a sideways glance and Harry couldn't help but to grin as if he had planned it. In Charms later that day Draco tried to hurry to the blackboard and erase it for Flitwick at the end of class, but Flitwick told him that was what charms were for and didn't award him anything. Draco gave Harry a dirty look as he left the room and Harry laughed earning himself a dirty look from Ron.

Draco had done it wrong, Harry thought. He could try to earn points by doing more cleaning or 'unnessarily kind' acts. He decided to try in Potions the next day. He had more than one motive to do it in Potions though. The more he worked to get the points and the present, the more he had fantasized about his father of approving of him. Maybe if he did something nice for him, he'd get there a little quicker.

Harry knew that Snape used different sizes and types of cauldrons for different classes and often hurried to put away the cauldrons at the end of class becuase students didn't have time to before their next class. So at the end of class as the room was emptying out, Harry left his bag at his work bench (which was now on the Slytherin side of the room) and went desk to desk, stacking cauldrons to carry into the work room. Snape looked up and stared at him for a full ten seconds before Draco burst back into the room, surprising them both, dropped his bag on the floor and raced to the Gryffindor side where he began stacking cauldrons. He shot Harry a dirty look, paused, and then started throwing cauldrons on top of each other. Harry took this as a personal challenge and almost toppled the four cauldrons he already had stacked. He made it to the front row of desks at the same time as Draco and they both breathed hard, not realizing that Snape was watching this scene with some ammount of irritation and curiosity.

"Dare I ask what that was about?"

"Just wanted to help out sir," Draco was quick to speak first and Harry sent him an irritated look.

"I see." He traced his bottom lip with a finger. "Thank you." Draco's face fell at not getting a point and he grabbed is bag and headed for the door. Harry's face fell quite a bit further than Draco's as he took his bag and headed towards the door as well.

"Potter." Harry turned.

"Do not do that again."

Harry frowned. He wasn't allowed to help? He hadn't expected praise from the man but he hadn't expected him to be angry either.

"Sir?"

"You heard me." Snape pointed at the door and Harry let his shoulders fall as he opened it and went out.

"Not in Potions freak," Draco said. He was waiting in the corridor. "This is still my house."

"You're a second year, you don't run the house."

"And you're a Gryffindor. I don't care who your father is, you'll always be a Potter."

Draco hurried away and Harry turned and did something he'd never done before. He slammed his hand into a wall, which hurt a lot more than he thought it would considdering the wall was made of stone, and then slumped down against the wall and put his head in his hands. He had a free period anyway. Technically he was supposed to go to study hall if he had a free period, but madam Hooch never went looking for or reported students that didn't show up unless a whole group of them was missing.

He's not right, he tried to tell himself. He's not right. He'll see when I get that present. They'll all see. He'll see how hard I'm working to do well in Slytherin and win the cup for Slytherin and he'll start being nice to me. He'll take me home for Christmas and then the summer and I'll never go back to the Dursleys again. Harry was lost in his misery and his fantasy, head still in his hands as his father walked by. He never said a word to Harry and Harry never knew he had passed by him at all.

* * *

Harry didn't know how he got pointed out as the one who had skipped study hall, but at dinner that night a detention slip was delivered to him. He'd be serving detention that night after dinner with Madam Hooch in a room just off of the Great Hall that he'd never been to. Harry picked at his food, still feeling bad for himself, and waited until most everyone had cleared out of the room before he headed to the door at the right side of the head table and knocked.

"I'm in here Potter," he heard Hooch call from inside. He opened the door and was surprised to find an office with large windows over looking the grounds and in the distance the Quidditch Pitch.

"You missed study hall today Harry," she said.

"I'm sorry."

"I believe you are and I believe you must have had a good reason. You didn't look too happy during dinner."

He looked down at his shoes then. He hadn't been happy since the first night of school when he'd found out about Snape.

"You still have to serve detention though. Don't worry, I won't keep you terribly long. At least you're not missing Quidditch practice tonight since Ravenclaws have the field. They've got an advantage since all of their team members are above fourth year and they can stay out later to practice." She pointed out the window and through the dim light Harry could just make out tiny dark figures above the pitch.

"Have a seat. You can help me clean some school equipment and I'll have you back to your dorm before curfew."

She motioned to a rag and a small bucket of soapy water and a box with several beat up quaffles and old riding gloves. Harry picked up a Quaffle and the wet rag and began polishing.

"Your father played Quidditch you know," she said as she wrote something on parchment on the other side of her desk.

"James?"

"He played too. No, Professor Snape Harry."

"Oh."

"You don't sound pleased."

Harry stopped polishing and stared at the desk in a daze.

"Is Professor Snpae the reason you missed study hall today?"

He looked up and began polishing the Quaffle slowly again. "Sort of."

"Where were you?"

"Sitting in the corridor outside the potions room."

"I see. And you didn't want to go to study hall?"

"I didn't think about it. I guess I just wanted to be alone."

She put her quill down and gave him a look he couldn't decipher. In the end he decided it wasn't malicious though.

"You know, I run study hall because my office is right here. Professor Snape runs it occasionally if I have to be out for flying lessons. But if there's ever a time when you have study hall but want to be alone, you are welcome to come and sit in my office."

Harry looked up and he supposed his eyes were filled with gratitude but she didn't react if they were. "I- I can?"

"I trust you Mr. Potter. Even if you're in Slytherin, you're still a Gryffindor at heart. Perhaps you're a Slytherin at heart too. I wouldn't have thought that except I saw you play your very best in the game last week and only a Slytherin would try that hard to win for Slytherin. Whatever you are, I know this: you're still you. You're still just Harry. Don't let others make you forget that."

He stared at her and blinked several times. Finally he looked back down to the Quaffle. "Thank you."

"Finish polishing that and the other four Quaffles and then you can back to your dorm, unless you want to stay longer, then you can finish the box."

Harry looked up and gave her another look of gratitude and set to cleaning and polishing. So far this year, this was the one room in the castle where he'd been allowed to just be himself. She didn't expect him to be a Gryffindor, or a Slytherin, or a Snape, or a traitor, or anything else. She'd given him permission to just be him, and it was a relief. He didn't have to preform for her. He did finish the entire box, and he made it back Slytherin just two minutes before curfew.

"Out sucking up to more teachers Potter?" Draco sneered when he came in. It looked like Draco was involved in a study group with Teddy, Blaise, and several second year girls at a table by the fireplace.

"Detention," Harry said.

"Loser," Blaise said and some of the girls laughed. Harry continued past them and went to his room where he pulled out his books to study. For a short while, he was himself, but now he was back here and he had expectations he'd set for himself to live up to. He had to be Hermione for a few more weeks so he could earn those points so he could be what Snape wanted him to be. In truth, he didn't really know what Snape wanted him to be, but he hoped this was it. He studied well into the night until the others had gone to sleep and then closed his curtains and lay under the covers. He pulled out the tattered bear from under his pillow, the only stuffed animal he'd ever had as a child, and held it close. He liked to think his mother and James had given it to him. He knew the Dursleys would never give something like it to him, so they must have. He kissed it's head like he did every night, feeling foolish for only a moment for cuddling a bear at 12, and then slept, knowing that even if he fell alseep right away, he'd still be tired tomorrow.