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“Ron!” a familiar voice called, and he stiffened at that, a feeling of dread overcoming him right then as he spotted his oldest brother still in the school making his way over to him. Idly, he wondered if he’d have felt the same if it were Bill or Charlie making his way over to him after a somewhat disastrous first day in the castle. It was a miracle the twins hadn’t already tried to prank him or otherwise make him miserable.
All because he had a green crest on his robes.
That was where his problems had begun. Or maybe they had begun even earlier than that? There had to be a reason, after all, why that blasted Sorting Hat had screamed, “SLYTHERIN!” instead of yelling, “GRYFFINDOR!” like everyone had expected it to.
“Ha! Another Weasley,” the hat had greeted as its brim had fallen over his eyes, made for a head size much larger than the average eleven-year-old’s. Maybe there was some truth to the rumour that it had once belonged to Godric Gryffindor… Ron mused, the events of the last twenty-four hours replaying on repeat in his brain.
“Ron!” Percy called, robes flaring out as he ran to catch up with him, hand landing softly on his shoulder then as his brother – his probably most annoying brother, if he was being perfectly honest – stopping him short in the corridor in the early hours of the evening. It was well before curfew – well before the time he would have to trundle down to the dungeons and sleep in the room with Blaise Zabini. He had been the only Slytherin boy who had been willing to room with him in a double. Malfoy had turned his ferrety nose up at the idea of sharing a dorm room with a Weasley, and had nabbed Nott to bunk in a double, while Crabbe and Goyle had opted to share a room.
Slytherin was a weird place – each year group had a little common area shared between them, and then there was the main common room where groups of all age ranges could mingle.
“What is it?” he grumbled, reluctantly allowing himself to be guided over to the nearest bench.
“Can we talk?” Percy asked plainly, something like concern glimmering in his eyes even as he didn’t sit down and instead remained on guard against attack. Malfoy had got him with a tripping jinx earlier before they had left the common room proper. After that he’d been bound by Slytherin rules to keep a united front.
“Okay?” Ron answered, gesturing then for his brother to hurry up and get to the point.
“How’s… Slytherin been?” his brother questioned, stumbling over his words slightly. “I know how our family is viewed in some circles…”
“And most of those circles run in Slytherin,” he remarked then, long since having figured it out for himself by the sheer lack of welcome that a Weasley had received upon returning to the Slytherin Common Room in the dungeons. It was jarring, to not be in the tower his brothers had been talking to him about for years, ever since Bill and Charlie – and the Percy – had set the precedence for Weasleys being sorted into Gryffindor. Or at least all of their generation being sorted into the house of red and gold. “I figured that much out… besides, it’s not like I was expecting to get along with Malfoy. He’s a tosspot.”
Rather than berating him for his language as he’d almost expected, Percy only smiled. A soft, faint thing he’d never really seen on his brother’s face. “You’re going to be housemates with him for the next seven years or so,” he reminded gently. “It would probably… be in your best interests to at least be civil with Malfoy.”
“He’s a tosspot,” Ron reiterated. “You should have heard some of the things him and some of the others were saying about muggleborns. If I had a galleon for every time I heard the word… you know, the m-word… mudblood being used last night, I’d be a rich man by now,” he said, watching as Percy’s smile became that much thinner.
“These days Slytherin is well known for… well, being a house full of blood purists,” Percy said, looking off into the distance then.
“Is that why you’ve come over?” he demanded then, indignation rising within him. “To make sure I haven’t somehow become one of them. Fred ‘n George have probably already written to mum about my sorting and how I’m an evil little snakey who’s already cavorting with blood purists… I’ll probably get a Howler any day now, accusing me of being the family disgrace,” he muttered, gut churning at the thought of his mother’s voice echoing out across the Great Hall. And for what? Daring to wish that his family were in a better off position and actually looking into methods which could earn him more money? It was why he had gone to bed so early when Malfoy had started bringing his family’s financial situation into the conversation. Was it truly wrong to wish for that much? Angrily, he sat down on the bench with a huff, just waiting then for the righteous judgement that his brother undoubtedly wanted to heap upon him.
There was a soft sigh which rang out so loudly in the quiet which fell for a few moments in the wake of what he had just said.
“You know,” Percy said, sitting down next to him – the first of his family to do so since his sorting had sent him to the house of cunning snakes. “The hat considered me for Slytherin too.”
Ron blinked, head snapping around to face the grim expression his older brother was wearing. “You?” he barked. “Slytherin?”
A wry smile curled at his brother’s lips. “Yes,” he said. “Me. Good old Perfect Percy was almost a shoe in for Slytherin. Is it that surprising?”
“Bloody hell, yes,” Ron said, turning properly to face his brother. “But how did you end up in Gryffindor then?” he asked, wondering then why Percy had almost gone to Slytherin rather than Ravenclaw.
“The hat gave me a choice,” Percy said, smiling somewhat sadly then. “And with Bill, Charlie… and everyone else expecting me to go to Gryffindor, I did… I… I was a coward, for all that I chose the house of the brave. Then again, I do want to learn to be a bit braver… then maybe I could be a bit more like you.”
“Like me?” Ron blinked. “What’d you mean?” he asked, feeling inordinately confused then, ignoring the fact that Percy had a choice, unlike the flat out telling of where the hat had said he was meant for.
“There hasn’t been a Slytherin Weasley in over a hundred years, Ron – at least not one born in the family that is. You might just take after Cedrella Weasley née Black a bit more than the rest of us – you know, dad’s mum, our grandmother… Dad told me stories about her once,” he said, and Ron could only blink at the mention of the infamous House of Black. He’d almost forgotten about the rather close relationship, given all things wizard. “She was in Slytherin too, and I don’t think grandfather would have married her if she’d been a blood purist… we’ve been known as Blood Traitors for a long time now,” Percy explained, still smiling ever so gently at him. “There’s nothing wrong with being a Slytherin, Ron,” he continued, climbing to his feet then. “Let me know if the twins give you any trouble – I’ll set them straight.”
“As much as you can set the twins straight,” Ron muttered, not looking forwards to any sort of retaliation for his sorting from the twins.
They were notorious for pranking Slytherins, after all, and like it or not – that was what he was from then on.