The next day, after the flying incident, was a Saturday. Harry headed to the library as normal, hoping to see Hermione there and maybe get chance to see if Neville was ok. But as he entered the room, his books secured under his arms, he immediately wanted to turn tale and walk out.

Hermione and Neville were sat at their usual studying spot but surrounding them were a crowd of students sporting the Gryffindor red uniform. Harry remembered some of the boys to be those who would glare at him in the corridors and would call him a filthy snake. Ron was among them.

Maybe Harry could find an empty classroom instead. The Slytherin common room was full of people this morning when he left, and Draco was probably still angry from his detention and Harry wanted to avoid that confrontation for as long as possible. Yes, Harry thought, an empty classroom would have to do. There was no way he was going to go over to sit with his friends with all the other lions guarding their den.

Harry nearly made it too, until there was a call out to him. “Harry! Over here!” Hermione’s voiced called (which received a harsh “Shh!” from the librarian, Madam Pince.) Harry cringed, not wanting to turn around, knowing the attention would now be on him. “Come on, Harry. We saved you a seat!”

Harry was right, as he turned, he felt everyone’s eyes on him and he wondered slowly over to the table, keeping his eyes firmly on the ground. Hermione patted the seat beside her, and another Gryffindor girl was on the other side, she was the one who also backed up Neville. She gave Harry a soft smile and Harry hesitantly returned it before hurriedly pulling out his books, if only to try and cover up how much his hands shook.

“Hiya Harry. I heard about what you did for me.” Neville spoke from the other side of Hermione. “That was really cool of you. Hope you didn’t get in too much trouble for it.”

Harry smiled softly at his new friend. “It was nothing.” He shrugged, very aware of the eyes on him from the other sides of the round table. “Are-are you ok now?”

“Oh yeah, Madam Pomphrey fixed me right up.” Neville replied, holding up his arm as if to demonstrate he was fine. “But, yeah, thanks for sticking up for me Harry. It meant a lot to me.”

“It was really nice of you.” the Gryffindor girl beside him chimed him

“Yeah, and you’re not even a Gryffindor.” Another joined.

“Could’ve fooled me, I’m not brave enough to stand up to that prick, Malfoy.” Another chimed in and Harry felt himself in awe. He was getting praised by Gryffindors, he felt himself blush a little.

“Even if it was extremely dangerous, and against the rules.” Hermione added and Harry had to smile a little knowing she meant in in jest.

Harry snuck a glance to Ron who was sat on the other side of Neville. His eyes were cast down and he looked ashamed. Harry guessed that he was still ashamed of ever being friends with Harry, praise from his housemates did not change anything. Harry tried to ignore him.

“What are you working on?” Hermione asked, prodding at the books still tucked in his arms.

Harry relaxed a little, the topic of conversation finally off him. “I was going to do some of the questions Professor Sprout set us…”

“That’s what we’ve just been doing!” Hermione laughed.

“Here, you can look at our answers if you want, Harry!” Neville handed him his book and Harry saw that they had completed five questions already.

“No, Neville, Harry needs to complete them himself, or he won’t learn anything-“

“Lay off him, Hermione.” Harry was shocked to hear Ron’s voice chime in for the first time since he had joined the Gryffindors. Until then he was sitting quietly his eyes cast down. Harry guessed he didn’t really agree with his housemates, and they had just dragged him along. It certainly made sense with what he had said to Harry last week. Go find some of your other snakes to hang around with.

“But-”

“No buts, we owe him after what he did for Nev.” Ron argued, and Harry knew he was staring then but he couldn’t bring himself to look at Ron yet. He didn’t trust him so soon.

“Ron, I will not consent to cheating by showing Harry the answers I worked hard on-” Hermione protested but Ron wasn’t having it.

“Budge over then.” He interrupted simply.

“I really don’t need-” Harry tried to dampen an argument starting. He didn’t want to be the reason the Gryffindors fell out.

“No Harry, I’ll swap places with Hermione, and you can look at my answers. Then Hermione doesn’t have to worry her pretty little head about it? Yeah, sorted.”

Hermione begrudgingly agreed to swap places with Ron, her cheeks turning a little red when some of the other Gryffindors started teasing her (“Come over ‘ere Pretty Hermione- ““Shut up Seamus!”)

“Here,” Ron passed his book over to Harry, and offered him a soft smile. “I was just finishing up question six.”

“Thanks.” Harry all but whispered. He felt like Ron’s gaze on him was burning a hole through his face.

“It’s nothing, as I said we owe you…” Ron muttered. When it seemed like the other Gryffindors were talking again amongst themselves, he lent over again. “Um, I guess what I mean by that is that I owe you.”

Harry did look up at him then, in surprise. Only then did he realise how uncomfortable Ron looked. His ears were bright red, and he was biting down on his lower lip.

“You were a really good friend yesterday. For Neville.” Ron said. “I’m sorry I was such a crap friend to you.”

Harry’s eyes widened. An apology? That was the last thing Harry expected from Ron and now he was speechless.

“I, um, I was a real twat to you,” Ron continued. “I was honest on the train, I really liked you, it was just really sad to see you go to Slytherin and for some reason I felt…betrayed.”

You felt betrayed? Harry felt like screaming. Imagine meeting your first friend only for him to turn on you because of something out of your control.

“So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m… sorry.” Ron lamely finished, a shy and hesitant smile on his face.

Harry smiled back. He didn’t quite trust Ron yet, but he wasn’t about to deny a clearly heartfelt apology.

After the initial awkwardness of Harry joining the Gryffindors in their little study group, he found himself really enjoying himself. And while he was sat the round table surrounded by the boisterous laughs of Ron and Seamus, the silly jokes from Dean and Parvati, and the gentle reminders from Hermione to keep their voices down, Harry felt like for a second, he could pretend, just for a second, that he belonged with them too.

---

“Potter!” Snape made Harry jump as he shouted across the room at the small boy. “The instructions clearly say to dice the mandrake roots! Not mash them to a pulp!”

Harry bit down on his lip hard. It was a common occurrence now for Snape to berate the boy in class. He learnt it was better to keep his mouth shut, that way, Snape at least would get bored and move on to another student.

Hermione caught his eye across the room and gave him a tight smile of sympathy. As did Neville and even Ron sent him a supportive glace.

It had been a few weeks since the flying incident and Harry was still serving his detention with Snape and Malfoy each night, and while Harry’s head of house and housemates were cruel as ever, Harry found himself able to cope with their constant jibes.

Harry was used to being picked on and embarrassed, but he was not used to having a group of friends. His year mates in Gryffindor looked out for him like he had never felt before.

Of course, there wasn’t much they could do able his dormitory where Zabini and Nott would mess with his belongings, or in detention when Malfoy would sabotage his work to make Snape yell at Harry, or when Crabbe and Goyle would trip him over and kick him in every opportunity (His legs were getting quite bruised in result of this). Yet just the presence of the Gryffindors at break times where they would laugh and joke and help him with his homework, helped him forget about it, even if it was just for a split second.

Although Harry never spoke about the other Slytherins to them much, the Gryffindors had surely figured out that he was not accepted there. It didn’t take a genius to work that out. Maybe that’s what made them decide he was ok to be friends with, because he wasn’t ‘like them’.

After one particularly bad morning where Harry woke up to find his toothbrush and soap shoved down the boy’s toilet, Harry guessed he must’ve looked particularly downtrodden at breakfast because suddenly Hermione ran up to him outside the Great Hall and wouldn’t let him go to class until he told her what had happened.

The Gryffindors were outraged when Hermione relayed what Harry had told her. Harry tried to shrug it off as he realised that he had caused a fuss, and they only let it go when Harry finally begged them not to tell McGonagall. All she would do it tell Snape and he would say Harry was lying. There was no point.

Harry was currently walking into the Great Hall for dinner. He looked longingly at the Gryffindor table where his friends all sat, boisterously laughing and joking. Harry spotted Ron’s brother’s Fred and George throwing a quaffle back and forth over Ron’s head.

Just as he turned to sit at his usual spot (alone), at the Slytherin table, Harry heard his name called.

“Harry! Come over!” Ron yelled, his face beaming.

“Yeah, we have something for you!” Neville shouted, looking equally as happy as his housemates. Harry felt himself grow hot as he noticed all the stares that settled on him from Slytherin. It wasn’t very normal to have inter-house friendships in Hogwarts, he'd never really seen people sit at other house tables, and definitely not any Slytherins.

But what about Harry had ever been normal?

“What is it?” Harry asked cautiously, as he perched hesitantly on the Gryffindor table, as if it would shove him off immediately or curse him for being a Slytherin. It didn’t, but Harry still felt worried.

All at once the first year Gryffindors produced a pile of belongings. There was a toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, shampoo and a bar of soap. Harry’s face screwed up, puzzled.

“I-I don’t understand-“

“What those Slytherins did to you was plain nasty, Harry.” Hermione explained and the others nodded along. “You don’t deserve that, so we looked around in our stuff to see if we had any spares, and this is what we found.”

Harry was speechless. Never had anyone done something so kind for him. And now he had a whole group of people willing to give him their own belongings out of the kindness of their hearts. Harry was lost for words.

“It’s not much but we want to help, Harry.” Ron shrugged. “You’d do the same for us, even if you aren’t a proper Gryffindor.”

“Thanks.” Harry gasped, looking around at them all individually, afraid his voice would crack if he said much more. “You really didn’t have to.”

Little did they know this was the first time anyone had given him any of those things. He’d used the same toothbrush since he was 4 years old and his other toiletries were all things, he’d had to get himself, or steal from the Dursleys.

“We wanted to, Harry.” Parvati said, her eyes kind.

“You’re basically an honorary Gryffindor you know.” Dean chimed in.

Honorary Gryffindor. Hmm Harry liked the sound of that, as he smiled at his friends, hoping now one realised his eyes slightly watery.

-----

It was with a spring in his step that Harry wound his way down to the dungeons for his daily detention with Professor Snape. Today would be the first day without Draco there as well as he had finished his week already.

He thought he would be nervous and dreading to start the one-on-one detentions with Snape, the attention would most certainly be more on him, and he would be alone with his potions professor who hated him. Yet with the kind deeds that his friends had just done, he couldn’t find it in himself to be afraid.

It would probably be easier too, without Malfoy trying to sabotage every two minutes. Perhaps he’d even impress his professor. No, don’t get ahead of yourself Harry.

“Enter.” Snape’s deep voice sounded after Harry had placed a gentle knock on the door to his classroom.

Harry slowly entered the room as he had done for the last week and took as seat in front of a bucket of some sort of nasty potions ingredient. As usual, Snape didn’t even look up to acknowledge Harry, just pointed to the bucket.

“You’ll be disembowelling that bucket of toads for tonight’s detention, Mr Potter.” He snapped, but his head didn’t lift from his marking.

Harry winced in disgust and peered into the bucket. Yuck.

“What are you waiting for? Begin!” Snape yelled and Harry jumped to it immediately. It wasn’t too bad; he’d been doing just as disgusting work when Draco had been there, so he didn’t mind so much. At least Draco wouldn’t be there to through the guts at him this time.

He worked in silence, the only sounds filling the echoing dungeon was the scratch of Professor Snape’s quill and the sloshing sound and Harry dropped toad into a bucket and reached for another one.

Harry got so used to the monotonous sounds that he noticed the stark difference when Professor Snape suddenly stopped writing. He felt the Professor’s glare on him before he even looked up.

“Do you have a problem with Slytherin house, Mr Potter?” Professor Snape snapped, breaking the silence. His eyes were gazing into Harry’s eyes, as is he was trying to read his mind. Harry hoped he couldn’t.

“Sir?” Harry asked, his heart rate beating faster and faster. What happened to the routine of silence Harry had come to expect from these detentions?

“You do not sit with your housemates. Nor have made any effort to build friendships with your peers.” Snape’s hands laced together as he rested his head on them to gaze at Harry more intently. “When it is clear you do not wish to spend any time with your fellow housemates during class, outside of lessons and even now at mealtimes, it is only clear for one to assume you have a problem within the house? Wouldn’t you agree?”

Harry gulped. This must be about him sitting with the Gryffindors today at dinner. Maybe Hermione was wrong about there not being a rule about that.

“Yes sir, but I-“

“Do you not wish to be a Slytherin Potter? Do you see yourself as above the rest of your housemates?” Snape hissed, his knuckles slowly growing white. Harry recognised that as a sign of anger and took a step back. He didn’t even realise he’d stood up out of nervousness.

“N-no sir.” Harry all but whispered.

“No?” Snape laughed cruelly, standing up from his desk towering over the boy. “Then why, pray tell, don’t you show your noble house the respect it deserves?”

“I’m sorry-“

“Don’t.” The Professor cut off Harry’s apology, fiercly. “Don’t apologise, answer my question. What is your problem with Slytherin house and why do you refuse to respect it?”

This seemed like a trick question. Aunt Petunia used to use that strategy a lot when she’d try to get an excuse to punish him.

“I do respect it-“

Snape laughed cruelly again, but no smile graced his face. “Do you believe ignoring and bullying your housemates to be a sign of respect? Not even bothering to present a united front to the school and eat dinner at another house’s table?”

“Bullying? I…” Harry was so startled by the accusation that he couldn’t help but let his thoughts slip out in confusion.

“Do you think me a fool? That I can’t spot bullying when I see it? You are just as arrogant as your father.” Snape was positively raging now.

Yes, I do think you a fool! Harry thought, Why can’t you see it’s them that are the problem! Not me!

“I didn’t realise I wasn’t allowed to sit with my friends from Gryffindor, sir.” Harry decided to say after a long pause, his eyes casting down as he shoved his robes into his robes to stop them shaking so bad. “I won’t do it again, I’m sorry.”

Harry was used to apologising, it was a survival mechanism built into him from the Dursleys. Not that if did much good, but sometimes it made the outcome less severe.

“See to it that it doesn’t, Potter. And while we’re on the subject, see to it that the bullying of your housemates desists immediately.” The Professor instructed, finally sitting back down in his chair. That was good, it meant he wasn’t as angry anymore. Harry let out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding. “I have a zero-tolerance policy and if I find out you’ve been singling out my snakes, there will be severe consequences. Do I make myself clear?”

It wasn’t amiss to Harry that Snape didn’t feel the same protectiveness over the students in his house that he did to Harry. There was a separation between his snakes and Harry. Snape didn’t want Harry in his house any more than Harry wanted to be there himself.

Even Snape knew Harry didn’t belong in Slytherin.

“Yes sir.” Harry replied, his heart heavy with his recent realisation, sitting back on his stool and picking up another toad with a shaky hand.

I never belong anywhere.