Can we bring back hufflepuff tony?
SURE WE CAN!
Seriously though, for Tony, picking Hufflepuff when that hat got dropped on his head was the easiest decision in the world. Because from the moment he’d arrived at school, everyone had been so sure of who he was going to be already. ‘He’s a Stark, they’re all Ravenclaws, obviously’, he’d heard one boy say to his friend as he’d passed through. ‘But you know what the Stark family are like- I’m calling Slytherin, his blood’s probably cold enough for it,’ said another- which, for starters, was blatantly prejudiced, but also, what the fuck.
Tony had been pissed off the moment he’d stepped a single foot in the great hall, and determined to prove absolutely everyone wrong. His father, his peers- they didn’t know a damn thing about him.
So when his turn had come, he’d sat on that stool, he’d held his head high as the hat had fallen over his head, and he had let the thought ‘not Ravenclaw’ take up the entirety of his thoughts.Because he knew that was where he would have been most likely headed. Unfortunately, the boy he’d passed had a point. For generations, Starks had been in Ravenclaw. His father had been convinced that was where he’d been going too. And for good reason- Tony was smart, he was quick, and he was dedicated to the things he set his mind to. Really, the wisest choice would probably have been to just accept it and get on with it. And it wouldn’t exactly have been a bad thing- Tony probably would’ve loved it, being challenged like that. But he was just... he was just so sick of adhering to everyone’s expectations. He was sick of living in his father’s shadow.
He was his own person, and Goddamn it, he was going to make sure everyone knew.
The Sorting hat had heard all these thoughts in his head, of course, and after a quick chuckle, Tony had begun to hear it mutter. “Hmmm- you’re a stubborn one, aren’t you?”
Tony swallowed, but nodded just a fraction. No point denying it, really.
“You’ve got a lot of heart. Brave. You’d make quite the Gryffindor,” the hat continued, and Tony blinked a few times, biting nervously as it continued: “but then again, you’re very ambitious. Quite wily. Slytherin traits, definitely.”
Tony winced a little, and there was an interested hum from the Hat above his head. “Not a fan? That’s fine. Everyone has aspects of each house in them- you though, boy, you’re pretty evenly split. Although- now I’m really looking, I can see... loyalty. Selflessness. You- you care about everything a lot more than most, don’t you?”
Tony breathed in quickly, nodding just the tiniest bit. He was growing more and more nervous with each second- and yes, okay, he might have been playing it off to everyone, saying how it wasn’t a big deal, but in reality, he may have been fronting just a little bit. Because he was looking at the hall in front of him, full to the brim with students watching him, and he could hear his heartbeat in his own ears, almost drowning out the memory of his father’s voice telling him ‘you get yourself in Ravenclaw or you don’t come back, you understand?’
He knew, in that moment, exactly what he wanted. -To piss his dad off, as much as humanly possible.
The hat laughed then- loud and croaky and very, very amused. “HUFFLEPUFF!” it yelled, and unable to contain it, Tony beamed in relief, getting back to his feet with shaky legs and turning his head to the table on the left of him. There were loud cheers and clapping from the Hufflepuffs- although the rest of the hall were mostly just staring at him in shock.
A Stark? In Hufflepuff? Who’d have thought, huh?