Chapter 10: The Sorting Hat
Professor Flitwick used to think he’d seen it all. He’d been Charms Professor at Hogwarts for nearly fifty years, after all- and his Ravenclaws, while not as rambunctious as the Gryffindor lot, were perhaps the most imaginative House, resulting in a lot of the strangest things he’d ever seen.
Then Hagrid had been arrested, and Hogwarts had been implicated. Dumbledore had stood Hogwarts’ place in the trial- and while nobody had gone to prison in that case, Hogwarts had lost over half of its budget for the next ten years. On the other hand, that had left nobody to ferry the first-years across the lake to get their first impressions.
So he had taken the job. Hagrid was tall, and used that height to wave a lantern to get the first years’ attention. Flitwick, on the other hand… was short. He had a disadvantage where Hagrid had an advantage.
But he wasn’t a Ravenclaw himself for nothing, so he’d enchanted himself a shiny silver surfboard that would serve as a broomstick he could stand on. He’d had some fun engineering the safety spellwork such that he couldn’t fall off without intending to.
That hadn’t been the end of the summer’s surprises. No, of course it hadn’t! When he’d arrived at Hogsmeade Station ahead of the train, intending to set up for the first-year introduction… he’d done so to find no less than twenty aurors chatting and sitting in lawn chairs on the station platform, including none other than Director Bones herself.
Director Bones waved when she saw him. “Ahh, Professor Flitwick,” she greeted. “Where’d you get that surfboard?”
He hovered at a comfortable height for the conversation- about six inches off the ground, as the Director was seated. “Enchanted it myself, Director,” he answered. “I designed it as a standing broomstick.”
She rubbed her chin. “A standing broomstick… You could probably sell that for a pretty penny.”
He laughed. “Oh, no, I only needed a lift for the First Year Voyage. What brings you to Hogsmeade Station?”
“Ahh,” she nodded. “As for us, a dead man with a posthumous Order of Merlin has reappeared as an unregistered animagus with a pulse, so we’re here to take custody of him and find out what really happened.” She sighed. “I’ve also noticed that Sirius Black, the man he got the Order for confronting, never had a trial. On top of that, as the House of Black is a Most Noble House, he has a right to a swift trial with Veritaserum evidence- and Mr. Peter Pettigrew himself is likely the only man on Earth that can provide that evidence.”
“... Ahh,” Flitwick muttered.
“I’ve sent half the remaining Aurors to retrieve Black from Azkaban for transfer to a Ministry cell, pending trial.”
“The remaining Aurors?”
She shrugged. “Peter attacked the Head of a Grand Royal and Most Ancient House on the train today,” she answered. “In a case like this, there’s no such thing as too many aurors.” She sighed. “It’s a good thing a high-level Royal Guard of Equestria was on the train with them; she was able to stop his attack in its tracks.”
A whistle blew in the distance- that was the train, signaling to Flitwick that it was about to pull into the station.
“Oh, here it comes,” Director Bones observed, rising from her chair. “On your feet, Aurors!”
Flitwick nodded slowly and conjured a large lantern in his hand, hanging on a long rod that he could wave over the crowd.
“We’re getting a lot of stares,” Hailey observed, as she, Morning, Hermione, Ron, and Silver all stepped off the train.
“No, we’re not,” Morning observed in turn. “Well, not most of them. They’re getting most of them.” She gestured before them, at the small army of Aurors that was carrying the still bound and gagged Peter Pettigrew to their secure jump point just off the station. “Most people don’t get to see that many law enforcement officers in one place without going to a law enforcement office.”
“C’mon, let’s get to the Professor,” Hermione muttered, then grabbed Silver’s hand and started dragging them through the crowd to the Professor at the edge of the platform. “Uh- Professor?” she called.
The tiny man imitating the Silver Surfer as he waved his lantern-on-a-stick looked around, apparently unsure where her voice had come from.
She pulled Silver closer. “Professor?” she called again.
He spotted her this time. “Ah, yes, miss… Ahh, don’t see tagless very often. Is something wrong?”
“Ahh- yes. Silver here got mixed up in a bit of a magical accident on the train, and now she looks like someone completely different.”
There was a second of silence. “Ahh,” the Professor nodded slowly. “Alright. When we get up to the Castle and Professor McGonagall takes charge of the rest, I’ll take you two to the Hospital Wing. Unless it’s something serious, we should make it back down in plenty of time for the Sorting.”
Silver snorted.
As it turned out, Hermione returned in time for the Sorting, but Silver did not. According to Hermione, the Professor- Professor Flitwick- had stepped out of the room while they explained to Madam Pomfrey, the nurse… and Silver would be staying in the Hospital Wing overnight. She would have a quick private sorting ceremony before she went to bed with a five-hour dose of sleeping potion.
After letting the first-years fester in another room for a few minutes, during which Hermione had returned, Professor McGonagall- the severe-looking woman that had taken over the guidance, as Flitwick had promised, at the front door- had led them into the Great Hall. There were four long tables groaning under the weight of the clean dishes set out across them- even the serving dishes. They were each sparsely populated by black-robed students with tall black hats, just like all of the first-years- though of course, unlike the first-years, a vast majority of them had ordinary hair colors like black and brown, which didn’t stand out against their black robes. There were a few odd colors, but they were a distinct minority.
There were also three times as many first-years as there were students seated at those tables.
A moment later, the sorting began.
It went surprisingly quickly, for the number of people they needed to go through- a vast majority of students barely tapped the Sorting Hat to their head before it called out their House. Hermione was no exception.
Hailey was, though. McGonagall paused, staring at the scroll, for a couple of seconds after the student before her- ‘Hadfield, Chris’- had departed to his House table. “Hailey,” she finally called, then looked up at the row of students waiting for Sorting. “Princess Hailey?”
The murmuring started right away as Hailey, one eyebrow raised, stepped out of the row and approached the Hat. She quirked her mouth in a grin as she scanned the room, accepting the hat graciously and setting it deftly on her head. Harry might be famous for being attacked by a mass murderer, but now she was going to be famous for being a Princess with no surname!
It was amusing, she had to admit.
And probably going to be annoying.
Then the Hat spoke in her ear. “Oh dear,” it muttered. “I don’t see that very often.”
“You don’t see what?” Hailey offered, speaking in her mind.
“People that are normally boys but can sneeze to become girls. That’s… I’ve never seen it before.”
She snorted. “I suppose that counts as ‘not very often’,” she observed.
It laughed. “It does. Even less often is when I get to sort someone who is part magic. So, ahh, any preference in House? You’d probably excel in any of them.”
She paused for a second. “Hmm, Hermione went to Gryffindor,” she observed.
“She did,” the Hat agreed. “Very interesting girl, that one, though I can’t say any more for privacy reasons.”
She gave a mental shrug. “Eh, then I’ll join my sister in Gryffindor. Though… I’m told I should mention-!”
“The Lord’s Quarters to me, yes. And yes, I am the one that controls initial dormitory assignments, so you’ve got some Lord’s Quarters in Gryffindor Tower. I’ll also assign Harry the same Quarters- and you’ll each have a personal house elf to tend to your needs. Yours will be by at the end of dinner to show you around the castle, and explain the various rights and privileges you have as a Grand Royal that I don’t have time to explain right now. That work?”
She chuckled softly. “Excellently, thank you.”
Then she slipped the Sorting Hat off her head, handed it back to Professor McGonagall, and went to sit next to Hermione.
As she walked, the Hat suddenly made a noise like a cough. “Oh, right, I’m supposed to call the House out, aren’t I? GRYFFINDOR!”
Hailey laughed with everyone else.
Draco- or ‘Silver’, when anyone other than Madam Pomfrey was in the room- shivered as he lowered the Sorting Hat over his head. He was sitting on a bed in the Hospital Wing, having completely skipped the Welcoming Feast due to his predicament- and had also skipped the standard Sorting as well.
The Hat spoke. “Oh, another one, huh? Though… Though your family doesn’t have the standing to get Lord’s Quarters. That could be complicated.”
“Complicated,” he repeated.
“Well yes,” it informed him. “Your fellow Gryffindors might be-!”
“Gryffindor-?” he echoed in horror. “My dad’ll kill me if I’m not in Slytherin!”
There was a moment of silence.
“... And he’ll kill you if he finds out you can sneeze to turn into a girl, won’t he?”
He shivered. So apparently that would be how he could re-transform after reversing. “Yeah.”
“Then I can safely sort Draco into Slytherin, for his very Slytherin-like determination to end up in the wrong House, and Miss Name-Pending, currently going by Silver, into Gryffindor.”
“... Yeah,” he conceded. “And make it Silversong.”
“Or Silver for short, I like it,” the Hat agreed- then spoke aloud.
“It’s complicated.”
Draco snorted.
Professor McGonagall, the only person in the room aside from Draco and Madam Pomfrey, let out a sigh. “Of course it is. So. Specific to this appearance?”
“Gryffindor.”
“And the other one?”
“Slytherin.”
There was a moment of silence.
McGonagall let out another sigh. “You’re right, that is complicated.”
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The Lords Chambers can have multiple parlours, and doors in those parlors dont have to go to th same location as other doors attatched to teh same quarters, just like most normal rooms, ecept most normal rooms ajascent doors dont open up a quarter mile apart on different levels unless its Dexters Lab, and then you have no idea where, when, how or who you arrive?
Hahahaahahahhah
Yeahhhhh, this is gonna be fun!
I can just see discord falling out of his chair and popcorn going everywhere.
You know, I was thinking "Silver Surfer" as I read this.
Aww, you gave it away immediately.
Didn't you have Harry snorting last chapter? And now ...
Ok, is everyone destined to become a pony transform going to snort for us? :-)
Hold on -- I've never seen someone who can sneeze, but this is even less often than never?
...
This only makes sense if you consider that by chapter end, one has been seen twice, and the other only once. In all of Hogwart's history.
The line of the hat forgetting is definitely funny! Also lmao "for his Slytherin-like determination to end up in the wrong house" why couldn't the actual books have made that the reason Dray was put in Slytherin and he's actually a genuinely good person- enjoyed very much!!