Frowning, Harry looked down at his robes and was dismayed to find that the cuffs were no longer red, but green. "What?"

Hermione was looking at Harry's robes now too. "The Gryffindor crest has gone," she said, and Harry felt like his eyes were going to bug out of his head when he pulled his robes away from him to see the Slytherin crest there on his chest instead.

"I didn't do anything to them," Harry said.

"Well take them off, before people notice." Feeling glad to do as Ron had said, Harry unbuttoned them and let them fall to the floor. He only had two pairs of robes, and wasn't sure what he was going to do with this green robe now. He wondered if the Slytherins were secretly playing a prank on him and had transfigured them, but after a quick look at the Slytherin table and a sneer from Draco, he didn't think that was what had happened.

"We should burn them," Ron leaned in and whispered.

"I don't have money to buy new ones," Harry said, and just then Hermione cleared her throat beside him.

"Are you wizards or not?"

Ron glared at her from across the table and Harry looked confused.

"Give them here," she ordered in a teacher like voice, and Harry reached down to the floor to hand them to her. He and Ron were still staring at her three full minutes later however when her last several attempts at transfiguring them back hadn't worked.

"Check the name," Ron said wisely. Every student's name was always embroidered in the tag on the inside. Hermione peered into the robe and handed it back to Harry.

"It says Harry Potter," Harry mumbled, stuffing them down under the table again.

"Probably just a prank," Ron said, feeling sage and not seeming perturbed at all by the color change. This was Harry Potter after all, who had defeated the biggest Slytherin supporter of all time. How could he be anything but a Gryffindor?

"Do you think... you know, that it has something to do with him?" Harry gave the tiniest tilt of his head sideways towards the staff table without actually looking up there. He didn't even want to think of Snape let alone look at the man.

"He can't change the rules," Ron said. "He hates you anywa- OW!" he jumped and Harry jumped as well before he realized that Hermione had kicked him under the table. Ron gave her a fierce glare before rubbing his leg and continuing, "It's not like he can demand the Sorting Hat change you into a different house."

"Oh." Suddenly Harry stared down at the table and allowed his stomach to do a full summersault.

"Oh what?" Ron asked.

"Oh, the hat," Harry said, looking up at his friend and feeling a little queasy.

"Harry?"

"Well I was in Dumbledore's office, and the hat started talking to me. It's a strange hat really..."

"And..." Ron was anxious for Harry to hurry the story along.

"It was talking about love and stuff and it wanted to know if I wanted to try it on, and I said yes."

"You asked it to change your house?" Ron's mouth fell open.

"NO! I just put it on. I thought it would talk to me or something. Well, I don't know. When I took it back off it didn't shout out Slytherin or anything. It just said go get to know my- well, you know, him."

"Oh Harry," Hermione said then, reaching over to touch his wrist.

"Oh Harry what?" Ron was confused, and Harry really was feeling like he was going to be sick now.

"Harry, I think it was telling you it put you in a position to get to know him... a position in Slytherin."

No, no. Harry was shaking his head. He felt like he was going to spaz out again and got up and hurried out of the Great Hall before he ended up throwing a plate at someone. Professor Sprout's pots were still fresh in his mind, even if he had missed Draco and Crabbe. In the Entrance Hall, he found out that Ron and Hermione were right behind him.

"No, no no no no no," Harry said, pacing back and forth with quick steps, turning rapidly each time. "This can't be happening to me. Why is it always me?"

"Whoa whoa," Ron said, "let's just go to Dumbledore, ask him to let you into his office. I'm sure the hat will change its mind again."

"No it won't!" He felt like he was headed for a full on panic now.

"Sure it wi-"

"No no it won't!" He shouted now, but Ron hadn't seemed to take offense. Harry knew that in the Weasley house, with so many children, voices often got raised to get a point across. "The hat said he- you know- him- that he put the hat on lots of times and asked it to change him to Gryffindor, and the hat always said no!!"

"Don't be silly, that git would never ask the hat to-"

"But he did!" Harry was gripping his hair now on both sides, feeling panicked. He didn't have anyone but Hermione and the Weasleys, and they were all in Gryffindor. What would he do if he had to fend for himself in Slytherin? They'd probably beat him to a pulp.

"Look Harry, maybe it's all just a mistake, a coincidence. Let's just go up to Gryffindor tower and see if the Fat Lady will let you in."

Harry lowered his hands and looked at Ron. He hadn't cried yet, but it felt like he'd already been crying and was just now approaching calm. "Ok," he said quietly. They looked at each other silently for the space of three full seconds before Harry ripped off up the stairs, Ron and Hermione hot on his tail. Harry had never made it to the entrance to the common room so fast before.

The portrait of the Fat Lady stared down at him. Despite the fact that his robes were still downstairs, she seemed to know something that Harry didn't want her to.

"Mr. Potter. I believe you're in the wrong place."

"No," Harry said, voice high. "I need to get in to do my homework and go to bed."

She raised her brows. "I cannot open up for you. You have a new password."

"A new password for Gryffindor?" He knew he wasn't going to like the answer but before she could tell him what he didn't want to hear, Ron had shouted the password to Gryffindor and the portrait swung open, allowing Harry to scramble through and run inside.

Up the stairs and into the second year boy's dormitory, Harry fell to his knees on the cold stone floor in front of where his things had been at the foot of his bed. The trunk was gone, the homework off the top of his desk was gone, and the ratty old bear he kept hidden under his pillow was also gone.

Ron appeared a moment later to find Harry staring at the floor on his knees, defeated.

"Oh," Ron said.

"Do you think my things are already down in the dungeons?" Harry asked. If they were, he knew they'd be destroyed by Malfoy and the other nasty Slytherins. He'd yet to meet a nice one, except maybe the new first years for the first week or so, but as they were nearing the third week of school now, he doubted that even the first years were nice anymore.

"They- well, they might be," Ron said, voice sounding cautious but also as defeated as Harry felt.

"Maybe I can just keep sleeping here," Harry thought out loud. "I don't need clothes, do I?"

"You'll get in trouble for not wearing robes, or for wearing them with the green crest," Ron said, and Harry stood up and walked out the door.

"Hey, where are you going?"

Harry reached up with one hand to tug at his hair again. "To save my stuff," Harry said. "I need my broom at least. Maybe I can sleep in an empty classroom."

"You're just going to march into Slytherin?" Ron asked, sounding incredulous as he hurried down the spiraling stairs after Harry.

"Well I can now can't I? If I'm one of them?"

"Don't say that," Ron admonished. "You'll never be one of them. You're always a Gryffindor."

Harry's heart swelled then to know that his friend had not turned on him, and as he made the portrait hole again he wondered where Hermione had got off to.

"You'll be needing the password dear," the Fat Lady said as they exited back into the hall.

"Yeah?" Harry gruffed. He was feeling in a sour mood suddenly. Irritated and angry felt better than pitying himself at any rate.

"Newt," she said simply, and Harry turned again, followed by Ron and made his way down through the castle.

In the Entrance Hall Harry was glad to find that Ron was still with him.

"I don't think they'll let you come in with me," Harry mumbled as they turned for the staircase that went to the dungeons.

"I don't think they'll let you go in," Ron said, hoping it was true.

"Well I have the password and Slytherin robes, don't I?"

Just then Hermione appeared behind them on the wide staircase and said, "Harry, here."

He turned and saw the robes he'd left under the table in the Great Hall. "I think you'd better put those on," she said. It went unsaid between the three of them that the more he looked like a Slytherin the better chance he had at survival down there.

"Thanks," he muttered.

"I'm going to go find Professor McGonagall. I thought she would still be in the Great Hall but it seems to have emptied since we left a few minutes ago. Good luck Harry."

He sighed as he listened to her hurried footsteps against the stone as she hurried back up and out of sight.

"Maybe McGonagall can fix it," Ron suggested, trying to inject some enthusiasm into his voice, but it didn't take and Harry scrunched up his nose. They were finally at the bottom of the stairs, and Harry lead off towards the corridor they thought Slytherin was in.

"I really don't think this is a good idea," Ron said. He was aware that he had been holding a very one sided conversation up to this point. "Maybe you should just come back to Gryffindor."

"I want to," Harry said. "I at least have to get my things first though."

"Well, if they destroy them you can have some of my clothes."

Harry turned with a real look of gratitude towards his friend and said sincerely, "Thanks."

As they turned a corner they saw a first year coming out of a bare patch of wall with an extra torch, and Harry's stomach sank. They were there.

"Want me to come in with you?"

"Yes."

"Ok then." Ron's voice took a turn at turning a higher pitch now, but Harry knew he wouldn't back down.

Standing with his shoulders square to the bare patch of wall, Harry said boldly, "Newt," and the wall slid open to reveal a short corridor with another door at the end. Before he changed his mind, the fate of his Nimbus and family photo album at stake, he stepped inside. He heard a soft "oompf" then and turned to see Ron still standing in the corridor.

"Damn," Ron said. "There's some kind of barrier spell. It won't let me through." To show Harry he wasn't lying he pushed with his hands towards what appeared to be open air and actually leaned against the barrier, which didn't budge. He gave Harry a sorry look.

"It's ok," Harry said. "I'll go in, get the trunk, and come back out."

"But what if you don't?"

Harry's bravery faltered then, and he said, "Then make sure McGonagall knows where I went and why."

Ron nodded and Harry disappeared through the door at the end of the corridor.