Cowboys and Angels

moment twelve: then you'll be a man, my son (September 1986.)

Marcus looked at the gathered mob of scared children, and immediately decided they were beneath him. He was the same age, sure, but half of them were almost pissing their pants, overly awed by the spectacle around them. He shrugged and looked up at the ceiling. So it looked like the night sky. So what? His father had warned him about it in advance; there was nothing to scare him here.

He swaggered as they marched towards the front of the Hall, staring back at those who eyed him with a mixture of curiosity and disdain. He might just be a First Year, but Marcus knew he could be bigger and tougher than any of them here. He'd proved it playing with other children - and at that word, Marcus inwardly sneered. He wasn't a child anymore; probably never had been. No, he'd always been an adult, strong and hard, and capable. Not afraid; certainly of this self-important, pumped up group in robes. He came here to be a wizard; to learn to use his power, and play Quidditch. That was all.

The Hat wasn't what he expected: it was the one thing his father had been silent on. It carefully asked him questions, jumping from topic to topic in a seemingly random manner, tendrils running through his mind, probing. For weaknesses, Marcus assumed, but then, he knew he had none. Perhaps if despite himself he turned out to be a sap, Marcus would get put in Gryffindor, or lacking social skills, Ravenclaw. Dad told him once the whores went into Hufflepuff. Looking at the group sitting at the Hufflepuff table - he knew it was them cause of the large badger-splattered pennant that hung above them - Marcus had silently agreed.

The Hat was rather annoyingly dispassionate. It brushed over the first time he flew, or his first training session with the local children's Quidditch team - the Perivale Penguins, and fuck it was a daft name, but he was their lead Chaser, so he figured he could perhaps be vaguely grateful, although who else would they choose, some hack? The Hat seemed very interested in his relationship with his father, and pushed.

Marcus sat up straight in the chair, and tried to will it away. Still, the cool tendrils of though persisted, turning over things Marcus had thought he'd put behind him long ago. Childish things, when he'd been too busy practicing or doing homework to mind the chores or cook dinner, and his father had punished him. The harsh embrace of memory clutched him into her arms, and Marcus' mind swum with remembered fights. It always went worse if he tried to argue, he remembered dimly. His father called him ungrateful, and only beat him further. It was the same if he cried.

Please, Marcus cried in his head, please stop.

//Why?//, the Hat asked, cool, and distanced.

Because I'm big now, he told it. I'm big and strong and I don't need to think about those things. He heard his voice, strained with emotion and recognised the childishness in the tone. Briefly, he despised himself.

Marcus could almost feel the quaking terror he'd felt, huddled in a ball in a cupboard after he'd escaped from being belted rather severely, and shivering, hearing his father, half drunk, storm around the house trying to find him. He was reliving the memory, because the Hat wanted to see what lay at the core of him.

Please, he begged. I'll do anything.

He remembered what happened when his father had finally opened the cupboard door, wrenching him out by his collar. The bruises had taken weeks to heal, and Marcus had thanked his father - gushed almost - for gratitude at his fair and just punishment, so his father wouldn't give him anymore. He'd been forbidden to play Quidditch or even touch a broom for three months, and that had hurt more than anything.

//Why did you do this?//, The Hat asked, examining the image of the young Marcus, virtually grovelling at his father's feet.

Because I deserved it, Marcus told both himself and the Hat. I needed to be punished. If I hadn't been such an ungrateful child, Dad might have loved me.

He could feel the Hat gather up the full force of its will and direct its gaze at Marcus in one moment, before turning from him.

"Slytherin!" it announced, and Marcus hopped off the seat, glad that at least in this, he hadn't disappointed his father. He would be the best Slytherin, Marcus told himself. Cunning and strong and hard, and he'd grind any of those kids into the ground.

As he settled onto the bench at the Slytherin table, Marcus heard his father's words flood through him, the thing he always said after punishment, when the boy was snivelling, red and raw, welts raised on the flesh. His father said it with disgust, disgust at what Marcus' own stupidity had made him do.

"...Then you'll be a man, my son."