Chapter Text
After hours of curious excitement, it was anxiety that now settled deep in the pit of her stomach and squeezed her heart with its chilly roots. The flicker of the candles and torches on the walls danced across the faces of the children around her and illuminated the entire staircase in a warm orange, which however did little to ease her frayed nerves. Back on the train, she had overhead a few of the older students complain about having to witness the sorting ceremony yet again at full length, and the inevitable boredom it would cause the entire student body this year all over again. Oh, what she would give for some boredom now… or maybe not. Both anxiety and boredom were some of her lesser favorable options when it came to emotions to feel right now, and she desperately wished to just have it behind her already.
But some dunderhead obviously had deemed it an appropriate idea to have the entirety of first years, however limited in number they seemed to be in her eyes, wait outside the great hall in a small pulk of anxious whispers and excited babbling. Gosh, she already was annoyed by her soon-to-be classmates, even if that annoyance quite possibly stemmed in her general discomfort. But seriously, was it so difficult to just stand still for a moment? To be quiet and considerate of others' emotions for a mere few seconds? Obviously it was.
For the entirety of the train ride from London to Hogwarts, she hadn't spoken to anyone besides the candy lady, and simply had stuck to doing some reading in the textbooks she was to bring for her classes anyway. Studying was easy, had always been throughout elementary school, and learning was both comfortable and a welcoming distraction. People however were difficult, noisy, intimidating. That's what she'd stuck to all throughout her eleven years of life, preferring solitude over company that made her uncomfortable, because that's what worked for her. She had no intention to change that now.
These children… they were rather repelling in the way they shoved each other and screeched like chalk on a dry blackboard. They were all the same age as her, and they were all waiting to be sorted into houses, as a stern looking professor had explained a few long minutes ago.
Admittedly, she was among the older ones in the group… she would already be twelve in roughly two months. Just like all the other kids whose eleventh birthday had been shortly after the start of the term last year. She'd had to wait quite a while to be here now, and frankly she was so done with the waiting already. If everyone could just hurry up a little, she would be most grateful.
With every minute that had passed with her just standing in the crowd and waiting for the grand door to open, she had gotten closer to crying. Anxiety definitely had done that to her before… had made her burst out into tears of discomfort and despair only to be mocked and laughed at by her peers for being a crybaby. Had turned her skin into a nervous blotchy ashen instead of the normal cool white for days on end. Had stolen hours of sleep, night after night.
But that had been in elementary school. This was Hogwarts. And she had decided in the very moment she had entered this magnificent castle that she would not let the others mock her for showing her fear. No, from this point on, she wouldn't let anything or anyone intimidate her. She would be strong, hard working, and self-sufficient. And nobody would get to see her crying.
That decision however had not yet made the way from her determined eleven year old mind to her racing heart, nor to her clammy hands. With an annoyed huff, she wiped them on the fabric of her skirt that was almost completely hidden beneath the black robe she had been told to wear.
Robes, candles, moving paintings… whatever she had imagined Hogwarts to be like, this wasn't it. And yet, this old castle held such a serene, bone deep calm in every atom of stone and wood that she couldn't help but feel comfortable in this place. Safe, almost, hadn't it been for the impending ceremony and the always dreaded first time meeting with her classmates.
Maybe she should make an effort to talk to someone… anyone at all. The thought alone made her stomach churn in dread and nervousness. Deep breath. She could do this, she simply had to.
Just as she was about to open her mouth to voice a croaked 'hello' to the dark skinned girl standing next to her, the heavy doors flew open with a startling creak, and gone was the chance to possibly make a friend. Well, an acquaintance, at least.
Only whispers, quiet chuckles and the shuffling of many feet on the stone floor were heard as she was ushered into the great hall together with the other students, and it only subsided once the group of children came to stand at the very front of the large room. Ahead she spotted a long table that was risen slightly higher than the ground level she stood on, and that was the only reason she could spot it in the first place, behind the heads of the students standing before her. Ironic, really, that she was one of the oldest and yet one of the smallest.
Before she had the time to dwell on getting a better view though, the female professor in the front started explaining the procedure, which then was followed by an odd kind of song and finally by a long list of names being called.
One by one, she watched as the students around her walked to the front, and a fairly short amount of time later, the hat that was placed on their heads called out their destined house.
She sighed. Her knowledge of the houses was limited, graciously spoken, as was her knowledge of this magical world in general. With two normal human beings as parents –'muggles', as they were obviously to be called– she had spent her eleven years on this earth as a not-quite-so ordinary girl in a desperately ordinary family. Now all of that was to change, and it left her feeling more numb than anything else. She wanted to be excited, really, but it was so much to take in all at once… too much, almost.
As the row of students in front of her thinned out slowly, she suddenly found herself standing at the very front of the group, with a clear view of what was happening in front of her. A stool, a student with a ridiculously old hat, and the female professor with a roll of parchment.
Behind it however lay the head table, the professors' table as it seemed, which immediately caught her interest. Back there she found the most bored looking and also the most excited adults she had seen in a long time. Well, this certainly would be the teachers then. How many times had they seen this ceremony already? Must be terribly dull indeed…
Slowly her eyes scanned the staff one by one, on their own account rather than for her decision to actively do so. In one long row sat a very tiny man, a very large man, a chubby woman, a woman with spiky hair… She found that she couldn't exactly pinpoint much about these people. Only once her eyes roamed over the figure right in the middle, the headmaster, she suddenly got the lingering impression that however kind and friendly the grey haired man looked down at his students, he was still surrounded by a heavy cloud of power and danger alike, which seemed to radiate off him in palpable clouds. A power that could reach unfathomable heights. He was certainly not someone she would mess with, ever.
While her eyes continued trailing along the line of teachers, she found nobody was spiking her interest quite like the headmaster, and she almost would've focused back on the ceremony right in front of her, had it not been for the person sitting at the very end of the table.
In but a fraction of a second, her straying eyes were glued back to the man with the raven hair and matching robes. He seemed rather young for a teacher, surely not older than thirty. Maybe around the age of those people her parents taught in their university classes. How was someone this young already in such a position? Or… what was his position in the first place? Who was he?!
In a moment of mental cringing, she chastised herself for her blind guessing. Maybe he was a guest, or a teacher's assistant… but whatever he might or might not be wasn't for her to judge. However it would certainly explain why he seemed to be at least twenty years younger than everyone else at the table. And why he was the only one who seemed to prefer his own company over that of the other adults.
As she watched him, oddly intrigued by his long hair and deep frown, she felt the same aura of power and danger radiating off of him that she had noticed about the headmaster as well. Only that this man reminded her much more of a bottomless abyss than of unfathomable heights. Maybe–
"Robin Mitchell." The sudden ring of the female professor's voice caught her off guard, as at last her own name was called out loudly. Robin couldn't tell whether it was for being startled out of her staring at the professors, or because she found herself at the solemn center of attention now, but her heart immediately jumped back into its painfully fast drumming. Hell, she should just get it over with and move on with the evening. Hadn't she just promised herself not to be such a child anymore?!
With a face set in stone, and strides that luckily did nothing to betray her nervousness, she took the remaining few steps to the very front and sat down on the stool to face the entire student body. All eyes were on her indeed, as the sorting hat was placed on Robin's head rather awkwardly to fit over the long wavy ponytail she had forced her dark hair into just that morning. Her immediate reaction to wearing the old thing was an unsettling feeling of discomfort. Like icy fingers clawing at her skull and trying to dig into her brain to suck out her soul. Piercing eyes drilling into her mind to unveil her deepest thoughts and emotions. Robin shuddered upon the mental image.
'Well, what do we have here?' A voice suddenly rang out in her head, clear as day, and she had to suppress the startled yelp from bubbling past her lips. Maybe she really should have talked to some of the other students beforehand, for many of them at least had seemed to actually know what was going to happen during this ceremony. Well, too late for that now.
'Interesting… Very interesting indeed.' The voice sounded in her head once more, and this time Robin remembered that she had sworn not to be frightened anymore. Not even by a creepy voice in her mind.
'You're the hat, right? What are you doing in my head? Can you read my thoughts?!' She tried to phrase the sentences in her head in the same fashion she had heard them coming from the hat before, and for a brief moment she wondered if it would be able to read her mind far enough to know how scared she truly felt. Or maybe it couldn't dig that deep. Maybe it would be fooled by her attempt to show nothing but a focused and collected calm.
'You certainly are a peculiar little thing, all worked up over nothing...' The hat's voice sounded almost mocking now. But even if it hadn't been this condescending in its tone, anyone referring to her as 'little' would make Robin take up a defensive stance immediately.
'And you are a rude, old piece of clothing that's being ridiculously inconsiderate of people's feelings! You know nothing about me!' She defended herself on instinct, very well hearing the pout in her own mental voice but finding herself unable to care at the present moment. Fear made her lash out, that simply was a thing that happened.
'You certainly have some wit, child, but you will find that this is rarely appreciated here. However I appreciate your honesty, an equally rare trait unfortunately… What am I to do with you?'
'Well, you're the one supposed to know where I belong, aren't you? That's your job. I'll be delighted to hear what you have to say then.'
'You embody a rather conflicting set of traits, child, and some of them run deeper than even my perception is made to follow.'
'What does that mean?' Robin questioned silently, with a very much visible frown, but in return was met with nothing but mind numbing silence. The quiet chattering of impatient students graced her ears once more, and her heart picked up speed in accordance. 'Hello? Mister… hat… sir?' Nothing.
What was going on here? The other students had been done within seconds, and she had already been sitting on this stool for multiple dreadful minutes. An eternity compared to the others!
In a small rush of panic that was now ebbing through her, Robin looked up at the professor standing by her right side. She felt terribly small next to this graceful woman, terribly unimportant and most of all terribly insecure, which didn't help in her attempt to refrain from showcasing her nervousness in front of every single Hogwarts student. The professor however was looking down at the parchment in her hands with what could only be described as the calm nigh-indifference of routine.
Frustrated with the woman's ignorance, Robin turned her head further, looking over her shoulder at the raven haired man at the head table, whom she had wondered about before being called up here, and whom she hadn't quite gotten out of her head ever since. She didn't know why she sought out him in particular, and neither did she get to think about it, for in that very moment, he was staring right back at her.
Her breath caught in her throat as soon as her eyes met his, for but the briefest moment only, and yet, right in that moment, the hat's voice rang out once more.
"Slytherin!" It yelled loud and clearly for everyone to hear, and this time Robin almost fell off her stool at the sound, while her eyes snapped back to the student body in front of her. A few claps and whistles could be heard from one of the long tables, and the joy that sprang to her mind upon the cheering was yet weighed down by awkwardness. Luckily she only had to do this once, the sorting and being in the spotlight, and after that she would be left alone if she wasn't mistaken.
As soon as the hat was taken off her head, Robin jumped off the stool like it burnt her skin. At least the difficult part was over now… Relieved beyond reason, she made her way to the long table that seemed to be taken up by the Slytherin house. Her house now, as it seemed. While she slowly regained her sense of curiosity along with the slowing down of her heartbeat, she risked another quick glance over her shoulder just as the next name was called. To her great relief, nobody was paying attention to her anymore, as they now listened to the next sorting. Robin let out a long breath, and allowed her eyes to travel over the professors once again. Nobody was looking her way... Nobody but the elderly man right in the middle, who gave her a brief and utterly unreadable glance, before at last averting his eyes as well. Good… Robin finally felt like she could breathe again, and thus took the final few steps to her table with confidence for once. These people would be her family from now on, or so the professor had said.
"Your name is Mitchell?" An older students asked the very second Robin sat down. She had said a quiet 'hi' upon her arrival, but never received a greeting in return.
"Uh, yeah…" She replied more insecurely than she would've liked, and sat up straight in an attempt to force herself into a more confident attitude. "I'm Robin Mitchell."
"Hmm." The older boy frowned, but didn't say any more than that. Instead, he shot the girl sitting next to Robin a peculiar look, who exaggeratedly rolled her eyes in return.
"So, are you a half blood or pure blood?" The girl asked nonchalantly, but with such an edge to her voice that Robin immediately felt the defensiveness creeping up to the front of her mind again. Was everyone in this world so underlyingly hostile?
"I…" She started, but found herself unable to finish her sentence. Was this girl asking what Robin thought she was? For her blood group? Or her heritage, as in… dog breeds? A sigh directed at her broke Robin out of her thoughts.
"I swear these first years get more ridiculous every single year." The strange girl groaned under her breath, and the boy on the opposite side snorted indignantly in return. Robin frowned, but the girl spoke on. "I'm asking if you come from a wizarding family or a bloody half and half!"
"Actually… both my parents are normal. Not magical, I mean." Robin replied, and added with just a subtle touch of pride to her voice, "I'm the only witch in my family."
As if someone had flipped a switch, the lively chattering at the table close around her subsided and gave way to an uncomfortable silence. Various pairs of eyes locked on Robin in equal shock, doubt and disgust, and she suddenly wished she hadn't said anything at all. Her words, or at least her choice thereof, had clearly been wrong.
"You're a mudblood? Seriously?!" The boy sitting on the opposite of her stated with another incredulous snort. "Seems like they let anyone into Slytherin these days. Sorting hat seems to have had just as many doubts, going by the time it took..."
Honestly, Robin didn't know for sure what a mudblood was, but she had been on the receiving end of such a great variety of insults over the course of her life that she could spot one when it came her way. However, the realization that she ought to feel insulted still didn't give her a clue about how to properly react, and she decided to angrily glare at the rude boy to cover up her embarrassing lack of good responses.
"Just so you know, I won't let you sit next to me again!" The girl next to her suddenly snapped at Robin, in feigned disgust, and scooted as far away as the person on her other side would let her. "People here don't want to be associated with someone like you. So… just sit somewhere else, will you?"
"Whatever…" Robin muttered under her breath and moved an entire seat over into the other direction, while she watched the remainder of the ceremony happening at the front. Just because two or three or six people were being unreasonably hostile over something she didn't even have the slightest control over didn't mean that they all were like this in Slytherin… right?
In an attempt to distract herself from the situation, Robin let her gaze wander to the head table once more. It first drifted to the extremely large, bushy haired man who seemed to be two heads taller than everyone else, and at least thrice as enthusiastic about the start of term. Then her eyes flickered over the headmaster, whose carefully considering eyes were intently taking in the students being sorted. Finally she focused on the sinister young man in black again, who was subtly ignored by the other teachers and looked like he was dreading this entire situation almost as much as Robin herself did. Oddly enough, she felt a bit less terrible when she observed him in his dread of everyone and everything. At least she wasn't alone in her misery.
Hopefully someone else would be sorted into her house soon, would take the empty seat next to her and let her talk to them. Someone nice, hopefully. Or just anyone at all.
_______________
After the rather rough start at the welcoming feast, Robin's first weeks at Hogwarts went by quite successfully. Most of her time went into studying and working by herself, as almost all of her professors had given plenty of homework even in the first few days. Learning about magic turned out to be quite delightful actually, and while Robin became disenchanted with it rather quickly, coming back to the reality of going to school did nothing to reduce her willingness to study hard and learn as much as she could to get perfect grades. Every day for the first few weeks she found herself in the library, sucking up information like a sponge in the desert. In regards to learning, Hogwarts was her paradise. One class in particular, or rather one professor in particular, fueled her perfectionism more than any other and pushed it to the very limits. Potions, with Professor Snape. She had yet to figure out if that was a good or a bad thing though.
It had come as an honest surprise to her to find that the mysterious raven haired man she had observed so intently during the welcoming feast was not only the head of the Slytherin house, but also the potions professor, and as rumor had it, also the most feared teacher at Hogwarts. While the first potions class had been nothing short of intimidating, filled with sarcasm, subtle insults and reproaches about underwhelming preparation, Robin had actually felt rather drawn to do well in the class. Potions was a hard subject, admittedly, and not only because the professor was beyond strict and brutally demanding. The topics and pace weren't for everyone either. Right during the first week they had covered the safety regulations, basic ingredients, equipment and procedures, and then in the second week they had written a lengthy test on it already. In other classes, they had often times not done much more than 'say your name and practice how to properly hold your wand' at that point.
But aside from the admittedly steep progression of the class, Robin enjoyed the logic and structure that seemed to be inherent to potion making in general. While she couldn't in good conscience say that she was studying so very hard purely because of her enjoyment of the subject, she still felt undoubtedly intrigued to find out more about it. In her own interest, not just for class. The ingredients sounded complex and interesting, while the instructions were demanding in both focus and patience. The only thing she couldn't quite wrap her head around yet was the functionality of some of the potions mentioned in her textbook… Could one really brew fame by throwing a bunch of herbs and animal parts together? How the hell was that supposed to even work?!
And then of course, there was Professor Snape. He still gave Robin the chills, much like he had during the feast, and while she tried very hard not to be intimidated by him or his dangerous demeanor, she often times found herself failing miserably at that goal. Yet, she couldn't help wondering about him.
Severus Snape had taken on the position of the potions professor and head of the Slytherin house two years ago, at the mere age of 21. Since then, he seemed to have made an effort to become the most feared and the most dreaded professor at Hogwarts. That at least was what the members of Robin's study group had told her, those fourth year Ravenclaw girls she eventually had found the courage to sit with. Upon Robin's careful inquiry about who the man teaching her favorite class actually was, they hadn't been short of scoffs and harsh words. And in the end, their stories had all come with a rather direct and elaborate warning. 'Don't disrespect him or his class', 'Don't talk to him unless asked to', 'Never do things you're not explicitly told to do'... All the unwritten rules to follow around the dark professor had made Robin's head spin, and the horror stories about his classes had made her stomach churn. Could a teacher really be as bad as his reputation?
While she honestly appreciated every piece of advice she received from the older students, as well as all the information about the wizarding world in general, she simply couldn't understand why everyone seemed to despise Professor Snape quite this much. Sure, he was brutally honest and unforgiving of misbehavior, but Robin had gotten the impression that most of the time his insults and punishments were either well deserved, or at least somewhat justified. As long as people did as they were told and tried their very best in class, he would leave them be.
Robin for her part had come to realize that the best way to survive Professor Snape's classes was to always come prepared, and to always work harder than expected. So that's exactly what she had been doing ever since the first week. And as of yet, he had not insulted, scolded or even mocked her once, which was as good an outcome of her efforts as she could have wished for. Especially considering the bad experiences other students were making with him. Overall, Robin believed to have the hang of all her classes by now, a little more than four weeks into the school year. Foremost she believed to have understood potions, and even Professor Snape. Gods, she couldn't have been more wrong.
It all had started in potions class (where else would it begin) in the third week of the term. At the very end of class, Professor Snape had assigned them a four page essay on the use of the three main ingredients they had been using in class that day, which would be due the following week. It was the very first essay Robin would have to write for any class –as opposed to the in-class tests they had previously done in potions and the practical assignments done in other classes– and she honestly found herself excited about the rather mundane task of written homework for once. Perhaps, this was her time to shine.
Foremost, she considered herself lucky for the first time since coming here that her parents were muggles. They had taught her the basics of academic essay writing (in the format they both taught in their respective graduate classes at university), which left Robin with a decent advantage over her classmates. Hadn't it been for her parents, she might have been quite as clueless as the other first year students about how to approach this assignment. The realization of this small muggle-induced advantage barely made up for the poor treatment she still received from most of her housemates, but it had at least made her feel confident in her abilities for once, and that was something at least. She would show them how terribly wrong they were about her, and about muggle borns in general. For Robin, it all started with this essay.
Thus, more than determined to get a top grade in that essay and no less determined to prove to her professor that she wasn't as big of a dunderhead as the rest of her class, Robin worked through every book about those three bloody ingredients she could get her hands on. It honestly was a good mixture of wanting to impress and actually finding interest in the subject itself that made her work her butt off for a week, but as she handed in her essay during class in the fourth week at last, she felt positive that her efforts would be rewarded. She felt positive, right until she made the mistake of bringing her essay up during dinner with two of her study mates.
"You did what?!" Jessica, a short girl with curly blond hair asked while she desperately tried not to splutter her pumpkin juice all over the Ravenclaw table they were seated at.
Robin felt the heat rising to her cheeks as she suddenly dreaded having to repeat herself. "I, uh… wrote an Oxford style essay for Professor Snape's class? With, uh, with multiple opinions on… on the subject. And arguments for each, and… stuff."
"Oh dear god, Robin…" Marleen, another one of Robin's closer acquaintances, sighed softly and covered her eyes with her hands. "Didn't anyone tell you what those essays are supposed to look like?"
Robin shook her head vehemently, as a deep frown settled on her face in unison with a deep crimson. Who on earth should've told her? There was nobody who spoke much with her besides the currently present suspects, and even they avoided talking about Professor Snape and his classes in a general manner. Besides, Robin had been so utterly convinced that she was doing things right for once that she hadn't bothered asking anyone about it.
"Well, in these essays you're supposed to write down what was explained in class, and what is written in your textbook. Just repeating what was already said, you get me?" Marleen explained with that certain condescending edge to her tone that she often took on when explaining things to Robin. At first Robin had felt furious about the belittlement, but soon enough she'd realized that it was just Marleen's way of explaining things to anyone in general, even to people her own age. "You're not supposed to look for further and quite possibly wrong information in just any random book and whatnot."
"But I did write down what was mentioned in my textbook, and also what he explained. But it just seemed so ridiculously little, you know… How does one fill four pages of parchment with ten bloody sentences?!" Robin defended herself, partially against her peers and partially against her own feeling of embarrassment at her error. "If anything, I did more than what was expected of me. How's that wrong?! I was just trying for an 'outstanding'..."
"For Snape, everything that's not asked for is wrong. And he NEVER gives an outstanding to anyone, not even his own folks." Jessica muttered gravely as she dug into her dessert with a spoon way too large for the tiny pastry. Robin, upon witnessing the brutal assault on the carrot cake, found that she had lost any and every appetite over the sheer anxiety the conversation had left her with.
"Yeah, Snape will definitely have your head." Marleen stated as a matter of fact while she carefully cut her piece of cake into bite sized bits. "But since you're a Slytherin, he might let you off the hook with a mere week's worth of detention."
"A week?!" Robin croaked out, ignoring the familiar churning of her stomach the best she could. "But is… Is that really considered a 'mild' treatment?! And I'm not even a REAL Slytherin! For all I know, he might just treat me like everyone else does at this long and turn me into a maggot or… something!"
"Pure bloods and their bullshit elite can be a nasty business." Jessica shrugged with her mouth full of cake, while deliberately ignoring Robin's comment about Snape. "Guess it's just bad luck that you ended up in the wrong house. Pity, you would've made a decent Ravenclaw."
"Hey, it's hardly Robin's fault that she's gotten herself into Slytherin!" Marleen snapped right back at her friend before Robin even had the chance to defend herself. "It's not like she chose to be stuck with those snobs."
"That's why I said 'it's bad luck', idiot!" Jessica rolled her eyes at the scolding, and Robin for once stayed suspiciously silent. She couldn't stand when her peers trash-talked her house… it left her feeling more sour about her current choice of company than encouraged by their words of attempted comfort. And they did it a lot.
They didn't understand what life as a muggle born in Slytherins was like. Instead of the few odd glances and insults coming from but the very minority of students in the other three houses, Robin had to face a vast majority of this kind of wizards every single day. And not just at dinner.
Still, oddly enough, Robin felt proud to be where she was. Not like she truly belonged there, but proud nonetheless. However she wouldn't voice that thought in front of her companions, mainly out of the fear that they wouldn't want to have her around anymore if she showed that sense of pride in her house. And if they wouldn't have her, she would be left entirely alone for the moment. In addition to that, Robin actually quite enjoyed occasionally learning some fourth year magic on the side. However, tonight she had enough on her mind already.
"Uh, I'll… I'll head back to my common room. Study a little… make my testament before Professor Snape has me hanged for the essay…" Robin tried to joke as she rose to her feet in a sudden hurry, and went on to feign a nonchalant smile. "I'll see you guys tomorrow."
Dear gods, what had she done?!