The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

The Ambition of Lucius Malfoy

"Snape, Severus!"

Severus looked over at Lily.

She was talking to James Potter.

A strange feeling swept through Severus, like his intestines were being twisted like a balloon animal inside of him. He grit his teeth and balled his fists and walked up the steps to the little stool, his heart threatening to crack down the middle. A very sinister part of him wanted to shock them all and be sorted Gryffindor - family tradition and expectation be damned, at that moment all he wanted was an excuse to go over to that table and take back Lily's attention.

He sat and Professor McGonagall dropped the hat upon his head. There was no conversation, no debate, no hesitation on the part of the hat. It landed, thought for about twelve seconds, and bellowed out it's decision, "SLYTHERIN!"

Severus didn't even look over at the Gryffindor table as he climbed off the stool and rushed down the steps. If she cared about him she'd have been watching when he walked up the steps to begin with! He'd always known, from day one, that there was a possibility of her being swallowed up into one of the other houses - a possibility that was more likely than not given that she was muggle born, but he'd been in denial. He just hadn't ever wanted to imagine his life without Lily in it everyday. Being in separate houses might as well have been different planets. Especially Gryffindor and Slytherin! If she'd only been sorted to Ravenclaw, it would've been a bit easier to mingle more often but it had to be the dead opposites, the greatest opponents of the whole school.

And she had to have been sorted into the same house as Sirius Black and James Potter.

"Welcome to Slytherin, Severus," Lucius Malfoy, one of Severus's cousins, said, greeting him with a firm handshake. "Mother said we might see the son of Eileen Prince come today." He held his chin level with the floor, staring down his angular cheekbones at Severus as he spoke. He waved a hand to the bench for Severus to sit down.

"Yeah," Severus nodded, "We heard you got Head Boy."

"Yes," Lucius reached up and polished his badge with the sleeve of his robe.

"Luce," hissed a black haired boy beside Lucius, nudging him with his elbow, "Did you get a load of Bilius Weasley's hair? What happened, he stick his hand in an electric socket then?" The boy sniggered.

Lucius leaned to look around the head of the witch seated across from him at a squat boy with flaming red hair at the Gryffindor table. His hair was wildly sticking up in every direction and his old, second hand robes were an odd color, not quite black and not quite brown, just something in between. "Pathetic," Lucius murmured with a smirk.

"Isn't that your cousin next to him?" the other boy asked.

Lucius glared at Sirius Black. "Yes..." he murmured.

"Why's he in Gryffindor of all places?"

Lucius shrugged. "I haven't the faintest."

"He was talking big on the train," Severus spoke up, "With that Potter boy next to him, boasting how he wanted to be the one to break the tradition of the family being sorted to Slytherin."

Lucius snorted. "Figures."

"Who's that other kid with him over there? He looks familiar."

"That's Lyall Lupin's son," Lucius answered.

"I thought Lupin's kid died?"

"No, Mulciber," Lucius answered, "Obviously. He's right there." He rolled his eyes.

"Well obviously I know that now, didn't think he was a ghost or nothin'! I'm just sayin' I ain't never seen Lupin's kid before. Have you?" Mulciber demanded.