Chapter 21: Sorting
Professor Dumbledore smiled to himself as he read a letter on the morning of September First. It was from Amelia Bones, the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement- and one of the best… Well, she technically wasn’t a legilimens, but she didn’t need to be. Even Occlumency couldn’t fully defend against her watchful eyes.
He took pride in how frustrated she got whenever she was trying to get information from him.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t nearly so good at reading her- and she was very good at occlumency herself, so whenever she didn’t want him to find something out, he would never find it out from her. It bothered him from time to time, but he wasn’t all that overly worried about it; it wasn’t like she often had important information he didn’t.
And in this letter, she was telling him about just how hard he was to read- how she even ranked him as the number one hardest to read, even over professional nobles like the Malfoy Family.
Then he reached the last sentence.
P.S. I have now met eleven-year-old girls that are harder to read than you are.
He stared at it, reread the letter. That was the only mention. In a letter that was completely full of commending him for being so incredibly difficult to read… eleven-year-old girls were harder to read?
No, it had to be some first year girls, not all of them.
But then, who? And what was their secret, that allowed them to hide their minds so incredibly well?
“Albus?” Minerva McGonagall asked, seated next to him at the breakfast table.
“Yes?” he asked, looking at her.
“You’re doing it again,” she informed him.
He blinked, taking only half a second- with no legilimency involved- to realize what she was talking about. “Right, sorry.”
“Granger, Hermione.”
Hermione, who had spent much of the last week trying to figure out how the sorting worked- to no avail- and much of the train ride learning as much as she could about the various houses, half-ran to the Hat once she was clear of the line.
The sorting was a bit of a challenge to her, and possibly even dangerous as well- thanks to her stupendous strength, which she had yet to fully control, she knew she could very easily accidentally rip the Sorting Hat in two.
Even though, by some miracle, she had yet to damage any of her clothes or books.
So she stopped at the stool, lifted it carefully, and allowed it to settle over her head as she sat down gently.
She was really hoping she, Harry, and even Silversong would be in Gryffindor, no matter how sure Silver was that she’d be in Slytherin.
There was a tiny chuckle in her ear. “I’m sorry to say you can’t affect their Sorting, but I can definitely put you in GRYFFINDOR!”
She twitched slightly as she heard it yell the final word to the entire hall, then lifted it- equally carefully- off of her head, smiled at where Silver and Hailey were standing next to one another in the line, and headed for the cheering Gryffindor table.
“Malfoy, Silversong!”
Silversong stepped sideways out of the line, then danced forwards, humming a tune. She was showing off, being as ridiculous as she possibly could, in the hopes that she would be sorted even before she reached the Hat… and not into Slytherin.
Her father had gotten her two ‘bodyguards’- even he had used air quotes- before he sent her to school… for appearances. Because the Head of the Malfoy Family, no matter how impulsive or indestructible his foster daughter was, must be seen taking care of his family to the best of his ability.
She gave her skirt a twirl; she’d practiced this little ‘dance-walk’ back home. Her heavy robes kept her skirts from flying anywhere near high enough to be a problem.
Both of those two bodyguards had already been sorted into Slytherin. She knew that she would be there too- and those two were so utterly stupid she was glad she would be in the girl’s dormitory, rather than the boys’ dormitory… and while she could enter theirs, they would be unable to enter her dormitory.
She somersaulted over the stool, plucking the hat from its place while she was upside-down. It was only thanks to her practice that she managed to avoid flashing anyone in the act.
She landed with a bow, then swept the hat up to her head and sat down while about half the room, scattered across all four houses, applauded her performance.
She noticed that the Weasley Twins- she had encountered them during one of her first trips to Diagon Alley- were cheering the loudest, and even standing up to do so. “You go, girl!” they cried.
She smiled as the hat dropped down over her eyes.
There was silence, aside from the last of the applause, for almost a full second, before she heard a small voice in her ear.
“Now that’s interesting,” it mused. “Very interesting. Twilight would definitely have been a Ravenclaw.”
She tensed, listening for the word that would doom her to sitting between those two idiots at every meal.
The voice chuckled. “Well, I suppose the Malfoys are generally placed into Slytherin- but before I send you there, would any Slytherin you know have let themselves get caught dead doing that little dance?”
She could feel the heat rushing to her face. That answer was, very definitely, a no.
“See? You’re not a Slytherin. Probably would have been, before Twilight came along, but you have used the knowledge she gave you to change not just what you are, but who you are as well.”
A flood of relief washed through her so powerfully that she very nearly let it show.
She did wonder, though- if not Slytherin, then were? Perhaps Ravenclaw, since she had so much knowledge? Or even Hufflepuff, because of her strength?
The voice chuckled again. “Ravenclaws seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge,” it informed her. “And while you probably would do well there, that’s not your defining trait. And Hufflepuffs aren’t necessarily strong, they’re just unafraid of hard work. Think about your actions- what have you been doing since Twilight gave her magic to you, and what do they suggest?”
She blinked at the dark inside of the hat. What had she been doing?
She had been going on so many shopping trips she’d had to replenish the Floo Powder not once but twice, she had met not just Hailey and Hermione, but dozens more witches and wizards. She had played with basically anything she could get her hands on, making herself out to be a bit of a ditz, constantly finding new things to play with, even at her parents’ expense.
But that wasn’t who she was, no matter how much she enjoyed playing like that.
“Well, do you want to turn back into Draco?”
She surprised herself by wrinkling her nose in revulsion.
“Exactly.”
But then… She thought for a second. That’d make her a Hufflepuff, wouldn’t it? Doing so much, working so hard, and all? She really didn’t want to be a Hufflepuff.
The hat chuckled a third time. “Oh, no, you’re no Hufflepuff- though that’s not to say you wouldn’t do well there too. You’ve got traits from each of the four- but you probably would never have left the Manor if not for your defining traits. After all, you’re no ordinary Malfoy- you’re a GRYFFINDOR Malfoy!”
Silver couldn’t believe her ears- and by the sound of it, neither could about half of the students in the room. With as deep as her family was into the Dark Arts, she was certain that it would be impossible for her to get into Gryffindor, and so hadn’t allowed herself to even hope for it… but she was almost immeasurably happy about being sorted into it.
Measured Happiness, the author of Emotions and How to Measure Them in Twilight’s library, could go to the Crystal Empire without a jacket. The scale he had come up with couldn’t even hope to contain how glad she was.
So, grinning broadly, she startled Professor McGonagall by backflipping straight off the stool, depositing the hat back onto it while she was upside-down. She bowed to the room, then danced her way to where the Weasley Twins were cheering loudest, next to a Hermione that was far too stunned to cheer herself. She made sure to give both twins high-fives- she’d practiced controlling her strength before she’d ever come up with her dance- before slipping herself onto the bench next to Hermione and giving her an awkward sideways hug.
“Potter, H- Hailey.” Professor McGonagall exaggerated her first name, making it very clear that it was not Harry.
Hailey scowled, and stepped casually out of the line to march up to the Hat, ignoring the waves of curiosity, sorrow, and even sympathy that were sweeping the suddenly silent room, making Silversong’s ongoing beacon of happiness seem all the brighter in comparison.
As she reached the stool with the Hat, she swept it dramatically off of the stool, perched it on her head, and sat down. A quick stability spell, pulled from Chrysalis’ repertoire, kept it from falling over her eyes without requiring her to shapeshift her head bigger.
After all, for as much as Silversong was convinced her problem of using unicorn magic without a horn was unique, it really wasn’t. Hailey hadn’t mentioned it, but the changelings faced that problem every time they tried to use unicorn magic while disguised as something other than a unicorn. Chrysalis just happened to be among the select few that managed that complicated technique… though she didn’t know very much magic. She had learned most of what she knew explicitly for the attack on Canterlot, after all- and everything else was geared towards Hive maintenance and defense. She had let the Hive Mages take care of any more complex spellwork she needed.
The Hat seemed to take forever to speak. Hailey had known it could speak, and even had an emotional signature. It didn’t actually produce any emotional energy, the energy that changelings lived on- but for as much as Hailey was technically a changeling herself, she also technically wasn’t. She still had to eat and drink, after all- at least, she was pretty sure. She wasn’t sure how complete the transformation really was… though she had confirmed that, unlike the changelings, her base form did not have a carapace or visible holes, only very sensitive privates and a lightning scar that seemed to always be on fire.
“Wow,” the Hat finally muttered, shocked. “I… I can’t say I’ve ever seen that before.”
Hailey smiled at the Hufflepuff table, and used the empty hivemind to answer it. “Not surprised.”
“So… Hmm. It looks like you’d do equally well in either Gryffindor or Slytherin. Preference?”
She raised an eyebrow in the hivemind- not her real one- while she smiled instead at the Ravenclaw table. “Preference?” she asked it.
“Well, Amelia was correct,” the Hat informed her. “You are a Princess, and completely above wizarding law. Even Godric Gryffindor himself didn’t have the same power- either political or magical- that you do! Besides, I usually honor choices anyways.”
She raised her other eyebrow on the hivemind as well, and made a silly face at the wall opposite her, directly between the two tables. The first-year line had trailed in across the head of the room, across the base of the staff table behind her. “You can probably guess.”
She was amused by the flash of worry, then the embarrassment, that she sensed from it. “Yes, I suppose I can, can’t I? After all, your friends are in GRYFFINDOR!”
She smiled broadly as the Gryffindor table burst into cheers, tasting their excitement as she returned the Hat to its stool and walked towards them. Even so, though, the excitement was somewhat subdued- and the reason for such indicated itself when one of the ones emitting an aura of worry- his hair matched Ginevra and Ariel’s hair, and he wore a prefect’s badge- spoke to her.
“I’m sorry about Harry,” he muttered.
She smiled, blowing off his concern with a wide, cheerful smile. “Oh, he was an idiot, and a jerk,” she informed him loudly- and only partly to be heard over the cheering. “Kept trying to claim extra authority as the ‘boy who lived’ and all, never did anything himself. Good riddance, I say.”
Then, Professor McGonagall- filled almost to bursting with sorrow- spoke the next name.
“Potter, Harry.” She gave the name a slight emphasis, separating it from Hailey’s name- and, while her voice remained fully professional, Hailey could tell she was teetering on the edge of bursting into tears, only barely keeping her voice from cracking.
The entire room fell completely silent, and nobody moved.
The silence held for nearly ten seconds before a brave Ravenclaw broke the silence. “Didn’t he die?”
“We can hope,” McGonagall answered the girl, before glancing up at Hailey- at which her mouth curved slightly in a bit of a smile. She took a deep breath before she continued. “That his legacy- what he has represented to wizardkind, not what he actually was- lives on in all of us.” She bowed her head.
There was silence for a second, as the atmosphere of mourning shifted to one of denial and confusion- then Hailey picked a moment to applaud McGonagall’s statement, clapping loudly.
She was the only one.
She looked around. “What? Harry might’ve been a jerk, but if a baby can defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort by screaming at him, we can defeat something quite a bit scarier than that. So I applaud Professor McGonagall’s wish for that kind of ability- of positivity- for us all.”
The Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore- who she recognized because of the chocolate frog card on the train- led a wave of applause across the room, which brought with it a mix of thankfulness, hope, determination… and, in McGonagall’s case, embarrassment.
“Weasley, Ronald.”
Ron was one of the very few remaining students in the line by the time his name was called, but he didn’t let that get him down. He marched purposely up to the stool, accepted the hat, put it on his head, and sat down.
“Interesting,” the Hat muttered. “Very interesting.”
Excuse me, he thought deliberately, but what’s interesting?
It answered him, sounding amused. “Why, you’re probably the most Slytherin Weasley I’ve seen yet.”
He could feel the color draining out of his face. Slytherin? He couldn’t be!
The hat chuckled softly. “No worries, you’re not one. Had you actually been one, you would’ve taken Flurry Heart’s power without a second thought, rather than refusing it. Which, by the way, was a very GRYFFINDOR thing to do!”
He shuddered as he took the hat off and headed for the cheering Gryffindor table, face white as chalk. He could have sworn the Hat had said he could have been a Slytherin! He scanned the table, looking for a space that wasn’t between Fred and Percy. He wasn’t sure how he was going to go about proving himself- and hoped, prayed, that that wasn’t why the Hat had said that.
… There was a space next to Hailey Potter, the girl that had spoken so derisively about the famous Harry Potter, almost like she had known him. In any case, she was probably going to get at least a minor celebrity’s worth of attention, so proving himself might as well start with her. He picked the seat next to her.
She looked at him, as soon as he sat down. “Ronald Weasley?” she asked, emphasizing his surname.
He nodded. “Yes?”
“Brother of Ginevra and Ariel?”
He blinked, alarmed. “How do you know…?”
She shrugged. “I met them in Diagon Alley. So… I hear you met Flurry Heart?”
He sighed, looking down. “And refused her power- left her to die.” His sisters had already been on his case about that.
“Was it within two minutes?”
He blinked, looking up. “Is that important?” His breath caught in his throat as he realized that the three girls- Hailey, the bushy-haired girl on her other side, and the silver-haired Malfoy past her- were all watching him intently.
Hailey only nodded.
“I…” He took a deep breath. “I refused it immediately, if that means anything.”
Hailey hugged him, out of the blue; he was fairly sure he gasped in surprise.
“And in so doing, you saved her life,” she stated simply. “Which in turn makes it possible for us to resurrect the other four. Completely aside from keeping Equestria’s ruling party from being completely annihilated, and saving the nation as a whole.”
He gasped. “She was young!”
“Cadence and Shining Armor taught her well,” Hailey smiled. “She was young, but I’m sure Cadence would have trusted her to make the right decisions.”
“What about Celestia?” the girl in the middle asked, tilting her head.
“Oh, no,” Hailey informed her. “Celestia wouldn’t trust anyone. And Twilight wouldn’t even consider whether she trusted her or not, she’d just evaluate that Flurry would probably get the job done.”
“Too true,” the last girl nodded.
Stats
Page generated in 0.025 seconds
Total duration
1,000 users online
1,710,969 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
This was a really good chapter
Cool! Yayyy! Silversong's in Gryffindor!! Haily seems keen to keep up her cover story though, interesting
My suggestions for the story going forward in spoilers.
Really in first year Halloween, Christmas, and the final encounter are important. The whole dragon egg and detention are next important as all they did was show the hurt unicorn. With your story the first potions lesson is not going to have the weight it had in canon.
So I would just montage to Halloween and show how the girls handle the troll. I can see them getting Ron some needed growing up so he will not drive away one of them in tears. I would shift the bodyguards to Fred and George because they would simply be better at it. Christmas is where I would have Dumbeldor start putting together a better idea of what is going on and the girls figuring out the deal with the mirror.
I think it would make sense that Voldemort would think that someone just used magic to change Harry into a girl to hide him from his loyal followers and he grabs Hailey to get the stone. All this does is make people feel sorry for Hailey because she go drug into something that shouldn’t envolve her.
Over all this was a nice chapter and now things can really change.
Hailey made extremly clear that she doesn't want have anything to do with Harry.
10683902
Thanks for the ideas.
To add to that, technically speaking, the midnight duel is also important... in that it's what got them behind Fluffy's door to start getting curious about the Stone. But, especially if Hailey is going to be dragged down by Voldemort, that becomes irrelevant...
Naturally, I can also see Hailey getting "dragged" down, especially if she recognized the evil... because according to Quirrell, she's just an ordinary girl, not an indestructible overpowered girl...
I'd consider reading the first book again and making a list of important events that occurred. Evaluate their relevance to the four...or five if you want Ron to have more impact in the story, and decide how you would see them dealing with said events. If you find the method interesting, then include it. If you can't find an interesting way for them to deal with it and the event doesn't have too much impact on the story itself, then mark it for consideration for being ignored.
10683957
... Did you forget Ariel?
But otherwise, yes, that's about what I'm doing.
10684013
Honestly, Ginny and Ariel are so close that I consider them a single item since they seem like they do almost everything together.
amazing chapter just totally has the wow factor.
All it took was just one short line to rattle the prideful Dumbledore. Great job! I really curious what kind of face he had when McGonagall called him.
Hailey also inherit the hivemind? Does this mean she still connect to the changelings on Equus? In that case, wouldn't they know by now that their Queen is still alive?
10683933
If you want to do the duel then I would recommend that the two who where supposed to be Silversong’s body guards challenge Hailey and Granger to a duel and the girls then curb stomp them and make sure that they do some serious detention. I think Hailey could be quite creative in how she would frame them.
10684141
Hailey got Chrissy's magic... which includes the Hivemind, yes. Unfortunately, though, interdimensional communication is beyond the range of the Hivemind.
10684197
that would work nicely add a lot to the story in terms of depth and consistency in my opinion (was unsure if spoiler tag was neaded)
How different this story could have been. Still this will change things.
She probably hates that part of herself
10684952
... Who probably hates which part of herself...?
I've already forgotten what happened to Luna. I think she and Shining Armor were just... petrified, right? So they're probably in less immediate trouble- or more, depending on how you see it. I just lowkey forgot the reason Luna's powers weren't taken in, though I remembered that there had to be one.
Anyways, I'm not sure how to go about crossover rewrites of canon stories when they've changed so drastically. It's a problem I might have to face myself in the future, with a Harry Potter crossover of my own; this is mildly concerning... I have very little imagination when it comes to plotting ahead, especially in regards to going off the rails of an established story. I wish I could be more helpful; at the very least, I can offer commiseration on the problem, whenever I actually get around to writing that story.
10685321
Harriet hates Harry
10685368
Well, I’m sure we can offer an assist on the Discord if you need it, when the time comes :)
10685380
It’s not so much that she hates Harry as that she’s distancing herself from his fame.
10685397
Self hate
10685474
Except she doesn't hate herself, she hates her past... which she has escaped from.
10685499
Close enough
10685393
I'm not in the Discord, but I appreciate the offer! It's not a pony crossover, though, I'm afraid; in fact the central element revolves mainly around the characters from the other fandom, placed into the Harry Potter universe. It's a slightly obscure fandom; one of the issues is timeline, though that's less of a problem since I just plan to skew the Harry Potter side of things to "ambiguously modern" to better match the other. A major issue is how much their presence changes the HP timeline, though, and in what ways. It probably won't deviate too much early on, especially since I'd only just be cutting my teeth with the concept. I'd have to poke at it some more and see, though.
10686761
You never know, though, you might be surprised just how supportive we are on my Dissy... if you want to join it, the link is in the
descriptionauthor's note, sorry.10687030
I'll consider it! The other fandom is super niche, but it might be nice to get perspective on the HP side of things. Also, mayhaps you should stick a link in the description in the near future.
10687621
Heh heh... Technically, the link is in the description... On a chapter? Look for the A/N. On the story page? Look up. No, higher, it's in the author bio. And if you're on Patreon... I haven't looked, but if your Discord account is linked, it'll take care of that for you.
Some of us on the Dissy have had some pretty good other crossover environs, and a couple of us have even started our own original fiction (and promptly done crossovers with it)... Yeah, anyone's welcome, really
But you are still going to force all of them in a single house for reasons, aren't you?
10688899
Well yes, but no. My interpretations of them all actually do fit Gryffindor, so...
Damn, ran out of chapters. Can I get some more?
10689659
Yes.
... Tomorrow. Or behind a paywall on Patreon, if you don’t want to wait...
I do really like this one, I have to say. I'm worried a bit because of how ambitious it is, but I'll be very pleased if you successfully pull that off.
I love stories with powerful, smart characters, so this has been quite fun to read.
The thing is, if you look, a third of the book is before Hogwarts, and half is berween then and January!
10715360
This is true.
Meaning, I've got some pretty good precedent for massive timegapping... I don't like doing that, but it's probably the best choice, unless something interesting happens in the meantime...