Chapter 14
“Abacus, Golden.”
The Sorting Hat watched amusedly as the first years shuffled about, as the first one this year- and with a strange name, to boot- worked their way forward. There looked to be about twelve thousand, two hundred ninety… six of them, by her quick count. And of course, she hadn’t missed the immensely powerful and unfamiliar spellwork that had gone up over the entire Great Hall immediately after Minerva gave them their instructions.
Nor the much more subtle, and equally unfamiliar, spell that had blanketed all of the first-years before they had finished entering the room. Of course, anyone and anything that wasn’t as sensitive as she, including the esteemed Albus Dumbledore, wouldn’t have a clue they were there, but she didn’t particularly care. It didn’t seem hostile, to the school or otherwise.
Golden Abacus made it out of the crowd, and turned out to be a girl, with brilliantly red hair, and a lot of energy. The girl tipped her in salute to the four houses before putting her on; she was sorely tempted to call the girl out as a Gryffindor before she even landed on her head.
When she did land, she got…
… nothing. That more subtle spell was blocking her normal access, but it wasn’t sourced from this girl. She couldn’t tell where it was sourced from- and started contemplating on how to communicate the issue.
Then, very suddenly, that subtle spell shifted, ever so slightly, and she had access.
If she’d had a jaw, in the normal sense, it would have fallen to the floor under Golden’s feet. She most certainly wasn’t a normal first-year- as a matter of fact, she wasn’t even human.
The girl was, in fact, twenty three years old… and a gold-colored pegasus, with an abacus as her ‘Cutie Mark’, whatever that was.
And of course, when that spell had shifted to give her access, a message had preceded the flow from the girl’s mind, placed no doubt by the spellcaster. Do not reveal what you find.
Which posed no problem, because she only read peoples’- and ponies’, apparently- minds in order to sort them… and never shared anything she found in anyone’s- or anypony’s- mind with anyone- or anypony- else.
There was something rather indisputable about the girl’s mind, though, right from the start.
She was a…
“GRYFFINDOR!”
Besides, she had over twelve thousand more Equestrians to look at. She didn’t need to spend too much time examining their civilization through the eyes of one… and could always recall it later, thanks to her photographic memory.
“Abbot, Hannah.”
That name sounded human, compared to the names she’d found in little-old Golden Abacus’ mind. And, true to the name, the girl turned out to be a regular British human.
“HUFFLEPUFF!”
Her next surprise came when she landed on the head of the girl that had responded to “Bonbon”. The girl had approached in a manner that had made her wonder if she’d be a Slytherin, then…
To find out she was actually a thirty-five-year-old earth pony was completely unsurprising. She’d come to expect that kind of thing from the Equestrians by that point.
The real surprise was that the girl was not just a member but one of the absolute finest amongst a secret Equestrian government organization termed the ‘Royal Intelligence Agency’... or, simply, the ‘Agency’.
She was a trained spy, monster hunter, and so on. She could crumple steel in her bare hands, without breaking a sweat. She could stop a train with a one-hoofed kick- even Applejack, the apple farmer that harvested apples by kicking trees, couldn’t do anything like that.
This girl wasn’t dangerous. Her hooves, now hands and feet, were weapons of mass destruction. Her eyes and ears were the most powerful- and undetectable- scrying spells there were.
She was a force of nature.
She also already knew her mind would be read. Her friend Lyra Heartstrings had told her, via… telepathy? Very few first-years knew how to do that!
“You’re not going to tell anyone, right?” the girl asked.
“I will not,” she answered. “The contents of your mind are yours and yours alone.”
She was on the edge of trying for an agreement with the girl- to reduce the potential danger to the school- when she realized what mission the seasoned fighter was on.
Her mission… was to keep her fellow Equestrians safe as a first priority, but the second priority was to help the school year go smoothly. Which, the girl understood, meant minimizing destruction.
There was a lot of cold logic in those orders, and in how she had understood them… but she had to conclude that, powerful though she may be, this girl was not a danger to the school. Then…
Sorting her was easy enough. She wasn’t brave, so much as fearless. She believed in honesty, but had absolutely no issue with hiding the truth for the greater good- which reminded her of someone a very long time ago. And she didn’t seek knowledge, so much as she sought the ability to perform her part.
But it was only thanks to her expert leadership that the Equestrians had managed to get all their stuff on time. She had created and used resources most wouldn’t even have thought of, and would always complete her mission on schedule, no matter what. She was the very best there was by a fairly large margin, but still sought to become better- and had identified for herself many points in which she could still improve.
Oh, and she was all that at the very young age of thirty-five. Apparently, Equestrians normally lived for as long as four hundred years.
Perhaps more so than old Salazar himself, this girl was very definitely…
“SLYTHERIN!”
When Professor McGonagall called the name “Discord”, she had a very… peculiar experience.
The boy did his best to break the timeline, using his very unique magic, because he apparently wanted to be sorted instantly, and without ever touching the hat.
She agreed whole-heartedly that such a sorting would fall perfectly in line with who he was, and help him get started on his life’s mission of sowing harmless chaos.
Well, as much as an immortal draconequus that was born alongside the magic of his homeworld at least eighty thousand years ago could have a life’s mission. As a matter of fact, as she dug a little deeper, she found that he hadn’t been born alongside that magic, and also technically wasn’t alive- he was the avatar of that magic.
Fairly rare she got to sort one of those.
It was certainly a novel experience. He had all the information she could need right up front for her to look at, and decide.
“Making chaos already, eh?” she muttered.
He grinned. “Yep. Figured I could get started with being sorted without wearing the hat. Any other ideas?”
She chuckled. That was true, he wasn’t satisfied with only his hat trick. “Hmm… I know a lot of people like whistling while they work here- perhaps you could whistle something that can’t normally be whistled?”
“Oooh, I like that one! I could whistle Bethoven’s Fifth! … No, that’s too close to possibility. An orchestra? Nah, too far out- it’d just pass over their heads. Hmm…”
“How about a drum solo?”
He snapped a talon, despite not having any in his current human form. “Ah-HAH, thank you! That’ll be perfect!”
She chuckled. “Alright then. SLYTHERIN!” Time unfroze for the final word… and everyone, including the staff, turned to stare at her. True to his plan, he hadn’t moved yet- and she was still sitting on the stool.
“What?” she asked, moving as if looking around the hall. She didn’t normally need to, as her ‘vision’ was already omnidirectional.
Discord stepped out of the crowd, passing straight through a couple other students to do so, and leaving them completely unphased- they were Equestrians, and probably expected something of the sort. “Well, that was easy.” He then headed for the Slytherin table, whistling an upbeat drum solo.
Lyra Heartstrings was easily the most… interesting Equestrian. All of the instructors were staring at the girl. And, when she landed on the girl’s head, she had a massive, active spell to weave her way past before she could reach the girl’s mind… and instantly understood why everyone was staring.
This was the girl that had been first through the Gate, and been the first Equestrian representative.
She found quite a bit more of interest, too. For example, this girl was the source of the anti-legilimency spell (which the girl thought of as a ‘mental defense spell’, and the reason there was a hole in said spell calibrated specifically for her. She was also one of several maintaining the massive, complex spell covering the Hall. This spell- actively maintained by Lyra, Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer, Sunset Shimmer, and Princess Luna- was a very powerful time manipulation spell intended to allow the sorting to proceed as normal… and yet take exactly ten minutes. And of course, for every participant to also experience it as just ten minutes.
Something she whole-heartedly approved of, despite not having a heart. Without it, it would take days- literally- to sort them all. With it, it would only take ten minutes… and nobody would notice.
Completely aside from her magical prowess, which offered her a future in Slytherin, the girl also had perfect recall- she literally couldn’t forget. Very rare, those, and almost always Gryffindors.
Not to be outdone, Lyra was the embodiment of the perfect Gryffindor. Mad scientist, always experimenting, exploring, and seeking new, strange things to play with… Specifically play with. And of course, she also had that disdain for rules that any Gryffindor carried.
At least safety was her number one priority, unlike a certain other almost-certainly-Ravenclaw mad scientist the girl could name, making her uniquely powerful- and potentially destructive- perspective rather less of a danger to the school and those in it than a toad. It amused her to consider just how differently the instructors would answer that, as this ‘Papa Tango’ she was working on, with a ‘test subject’ already selected, promised to be one of the most powerful magics ever used on Hogwarts grounds.
“GRYFFINDOR!”
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I distinctly remember the hat having a male voice in the first movie, so calling it a "she" is inaccurate. Unless the book specifically says it's a "she", and the movie messed that up...
10255202
The movies are non-canon to my story.
... And the book never specifies- always an "it". I call it "she" because that's the personality I see it as having. Voice too, probably.
That was great. Discord's was very funny. I couldn't tell if you were intentionally trying to confuse us by not explaining what Discord meant by being sorted without going to the hat until the end, but it was very well done. Nice idea making the hat a she, and since we only saw Hannah I'm assuming every wizard got the same house they did in Philosopher's Stone?
10255209
Yep, no changes. Things might have taken different amounts of time, but there were no changes in House assignment. I didn't see the need to make a long, boring Sorting scene to cover everyone.
How exactly does power scaling work in this story? You can't take exactly what you saw in the cartoon at face value for this, since there would be glaring inconsistencies all over the place. Then again, that might be the intention here.
So far, all I've seen is that the ponies are simply superior to humans in every way. More power, higher morals, longer life, less sickness/disease, This seems to be the point where the human wizards become irrelevant to the story, and we focus just on the Equestrians.
10255221
There is some of that, yes. Less than last time, but still.
... On the other hoof, you've just named one of the reasons this story is told exclusively from the British perspective.
10255218
Fair enough. Looking forward to the next chapter
Interesting to see from the sorting hat's POV.
Poor Twilight, denigrated by proxy.
Ah, Discord. Ever the type to reuse a joke from the previous universe. If "Chapter End" in The Gate is canon, then it's likely that he's well aware of that call, and the implications
of parallel worldsit holds.Hm. I think I can tell who your favorites are. Personally, I’d prefer to see what the hat thought of the Princesses.
... Until some Ravenclaw does the math.
Well the hat's certainly a clever sort isn't it?
If Twilight, Celestia, and Luna are all here, who's running things back in Equestira?
10255221
If regular humans have some sort of advantage with technology that we haven't seen yet, that would definitely go a long way towards leveling out the power curve.
10255809
Probably not, since it seems the ponies are able to fully comprehend our tech almost instantly, and therefore, know what it would take to replicate and make use of it themselves.
10255857
Yeah, it looks that way. Most Muggle tech isn't supposed to work in Hogwarts anyways, so it probably won't come up.
10255798
Celestia isn't here. Luna and Twilight are.
10256104
Huh. I could have swore somewhere in one of these chapters someone said all three princesses were attending Hogwarts this year. My bad.
Would that, by any chance, be "Heterodyne, Agatha"?
Ron:
Ron's purpose in the books was to provide Harry with someone from the wizarding world to talk to, to allow the "I only know the muggle world" person someone to talk to learn the wizarding world.
In your current story, who will Harry learn about the wizarding world from? There's plenty to teach him about the Pony world, but that's different.
Who will be his wizard-world friend, to give him contacts in that world? Imagine what happens if he cannot contact anyone at the start of the year, and no one decides to break him out of home?
No one to stop Dobby from hiding all mail.
Heck, no reason to give Dobby a sock, so Dobby won't be an issue.
No one to take a car to rescue him from his uncle.
No one to make sure that he understands Quiddich, or it's importance; so no real drive to become seeker.
No one to make sure that Molly/Arthur is looking out for his safety. Heck, no connection between Harry and Ginny for year 2.
Harry reacts to the plot. Ron creates the plot. Without Ron, the entire story changes.
10256250
... No, unfortunately.
I've contemplated writing a crossover with her world before, but I don't think I'd be able to write her convincingly.
10256299
Exactly my point. It's a different story.
Suffice it to say, I have a plan for a different "wizarding world contact" for Harry. And a different way for Ginny to, ahh, make contact with him. And... I haven't gotten to the whole Harry-out-of-the-Dursleys part just yet, but since Hermione now lives close enough to walk instead of fifty miles away... that could contribute, potentially a lot.
That said, he never had any real drive to become a seeker. He was basically inducted into that, without much a choice. Ron or not, I feel like he would have agreed to participate in basically anything Professor McGonagall was asking him to.
10255208
The canon Sorting Hat is one of my favorite characters.
Personally, I think Discord would be a better fit for Gryffindor. He is a major prankster and the fact that what was said earlier about the Gryffindor point system being the most unstable of the four. He would always be looking for new, creative ways to get something done. The most chaotic being would be perfect for the most chaotic house.
On the other hand, he would get picked for a non-Gryffindor house because he would be expected to be in Gryffindor so he ended up in a different house for the sake of predictability.
10310169
To build the case for him being in Slytherin, he's extremely manipulative, has complete control over something completely disorganized, and would want to be in Slytherin so he can shake up the house.
I personally find referring to the soring hat as female to be weird. It took me some time to realize the hat was thinking in the first paragraph since it doesn't have a gender and it would be more accurate to describe the hat.
10473420
Yes, it does feel a bit strange- but when I applied a personality to the Hat, as different from making it just another robotic tool, it was a female personality, so....
Well done circumventing the time constraint 12k+ student would need to be sorted. I am thoroughly and pleasantly surprised
Great story, not enough of The Great and Powerful Trixie!! though.
11321587
Yeah, I really should involve Trixie a bit more in my stories, shouldn’t I?