Snake Skin

Chapter 1

The entire Great Hall is dead silent as McGonogall takes the Hat off Harry's head. Then the Slytherin table loses their minds, cheering, clapping, even a few wolf whistles. When Harry made his way over to the table, it was louder than any other house before them. He sits next to Draco, and a girl who was sorted earlier, Pansy Parkinson. He watches Ron get sorted into Gryffindor. When he waves at the redhead, Ron just glares at him, thoroughly cowing Harry. Draco whispers to him. "Told you. Wrong sort." Harry nods, surprised by the sudden change of attitude from Ron. Was it because of his house? Someone called Blaise Zabini gets sorted into Slytherin and sits across from Harry, giving him a slight wave.
Dumbledore stands from his chair, beaming at the students. "Welcome," he began "to a new year at Hogwarts. Before we begin the banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are. Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you." The old headmaster sits back down while students laugh and cheer. Harry was caught between the two.
He looks to an older student. "Is he mad?"
The senior Slytherin shrugs. "Dunno. He's done a few impressive things in his time, but he might be a bit mad by now. Potatoes?" He gestures to the plates in front of them and Harry is flabbergasted by where all the food came from. He'd never been starved per say, but he didn't eat as much as the Dursleys. He piles his plate high with everything, and is in the middle of eating when something white passes through his food and the table.
He looks up to see a ghost covered in chains and dripping with spectral blood. "Bloody Baron." He introduces himself. "I look forward to winning another house cup this year." The Baron floats away while the desserts replace the mains.

While he helps himself to some treacle tart, Harry looks up to the high table and sees Hagrid talking to McGonogall, and his eyes drift along the table before landing on Professor Quirrell talking to a teacher with black greasy hair and a hooked nose. The dark-haired teacher suddenly looks past Quirrell and straight into Harry's eyes, and a hot pain shoots through his forehead. "Ow."
Harry holds his head while the Slytherin senior looks on in concern. "You alright?"
Harry nods as the pain fades. "I'm fine." He thinks back to the dark haired teacher. He looked weirdly confused for an otherwise intimidating person. "Who's that talking to Professor Quirrell?"
The student looks up at the high table. "Ah. That's Professor Snape, our head of house. Potions Professor. He's really good. Just make sure to study before your first lesson with him. He likes to test his students on the first day."

Harry nods and the desserts dissapear and Dumbledore stands again, the Hall falling silent. "I would like to say a few more words. First years should note, that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all students. A few older students could also use the reminder." His eyes sparkled in the direction of the Weasley twins. "I have also been asked by Mr Filch to remind students that there should be no use of magic in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of term, and anyone wanting to try out should see Madam Hooch. And finally, I must tell you that the third floor corridor on the right is out of bounds to anyone who doesn't want to die a most painful death."
Harry laughs, but only a handful other students do. He whispers to Pansy. "He's not serious is he?"
Pansy shrugs. "Must be. I doubt the headmaster would joke about it."

The headmasters smile widens. "Now before we go to bed, let us sing the school song." The teachers faces become stony, even Hagrid seems stiff. Dumbledore waves his wand erratically and ribbon shoots out of the end to form words in the air. "Pick any tune you like." The school sings the song, the Weasley twins finishing last and Dumbledore claps. "Beautiful. Music. Magic like nothing we do here. Now, bedtime. Off you go." A Slytherin prefect leads the first years through the crowd and down a marble staircase.
Harry hears yelling from far above them. "Peeves!"
The Slytherin prefect snickers. "That'd be Peeves the school Poltergeist. He's too afraid of the Bloody Baron to go after the Slytherin students, so he goes after the other houses." He takes them down a lot further before stopping at a blank wall. "Runespoor." The wall slides open to reveal a large room with green lamps hanging from walls, windows that let in natural filtered light from the lake outside the school and a fireplace crackling underneath an ornamental mantelpiece. The prefect stands in front of the group. "Girls room on the left, boys on the right. Take some time to get ready, then lights out."

The prefect goes right, most likely to bed. Harry looks at Draco and they wander through the boys room till they find their beds next to each other near a window into the lake. The beds were as impressive as the room, four poster beds with silk green curtains. Their trunks were already at the foot of their beds, so they simply put on their pyjamas and hopped in bed. Harry was going to ask Draco if he tried the treacle tart, but he was already asleep. Harry follows suit, but he has a strange dream. He was wearing Quirrell's turban, and it was whispering to him that this was his destiny. Harry tried to pull it off, but it tightened to a painful degree and there was a flash of green light, and Harry woke up. He went back to sleep, and didn't remember his dream the next day.