A Broken Hat
“Potter, Harry.”
When no little unsorted first year moved from the crowd of small bodies in the centre of the great hall, many began to frown and try fruitlessly to find the child who’d been called from their seats, if only to catch a peek while whispering loudly about doing so, however for one Minerva McGonagall she was focused not on the children but on the parchment grasped in her hands. It had become a habit to read out the names on the scroll without much thought, a habit that was on occasion shown to be an utter failure, and each time it happened it would lead to her screaming at the headmaster until she was purple in the face during the mandatory staff meeting that took place after the students were settled for the night.
She glares at the scroll before turning said glare to the old coot in his thrown; he was meant to keep the list of incoming students on a constant updating state via magic granted as his position of Headmaster, which it seemed he neglected to redo until it wore down enough to not do so, multiple times through the years… Either that or he deliberately stopped it due to their incoming students’ statuses. Usually, she would move on until it was only the mistakenly named child left to get their real or preferred names, however before she could do so, she practically jumped out of her skin when a deep voice boomed over every other, bouncing off stone walls and high ceilings.
The voice of the Sorting Hat.
“DEPLORABLE!” Silence filled the hall, all heads snapping to the front and many others jumping just as much, if not more so, as their Deputy Headmistress. The tattered magical artifact cleared its non-existent throat before calling out in a somewhat softer, yet still loud in the silence, tone. “Potter-Black, Harlow.”
Movement from the unsorted children caught everyone’s attention as a very small boy made his way through the group, so small his head would barely just be able to rest on the other first years’ shoulders, an entire head smaller than them; he couldn’t be more the 4’1” compared to an average height eleven-year-old at 4’8”. As he broke from his year mates, his hands fell from where he’d pulled back and tied half his thick mane of unruly curls that held, seemingly, random scatterings of small, decorated, braids, uncovering his previously hidden face. The very same face held more than just a small lightning-shaped scar that they’d been led to believe in the stories many read growing up. No, this face’s scar was of Lichtenberg figures that ran from the centre of his forehead near his hairline, in which the locks of hair were starkly white, and across a large portion of his face. To seemingly make matters worse in their opinion, his right jaw line and neck held burn scars that they could easily deduce continued further past his robes, and thick twisted scars that wrapped and layered around the boy’s neck from what could only be rope burn.
Murmurs and whispers of disbelief, and some even of horror, break out among the great hall, loud enough so that only the other members of staff sitting close to one Filius Flitwick could hear his soft intake of air and his emotion-filled words. “Those are duelling scars.” At the looks shot his way, he quietly explained as his hand subtly, unconsciously, rose to his own throat. “The spells left residue in the scars; in certain circumstances, Goblins can see such things more often than not… The wounds that led to those scars were never treated correctly. He… The boy was hit with the Incarcerous Spell and either the Fire-Making Spell or Blasting Curse, depending on the casting position. And those are only the ones we see rightnow.”
When the tiny child got closer and walked up the steps to the hat, McGonagall and a few sharp-eyed members of staff noticed some smaller scars scattered over his exposed skin, how even a few of the boy’s fingers were bent wrong, and he held the slightest of a limp, in which none could tell if it was because he was trying to hide it or if it was natural for him at this point. This was the boy-who-lived, the one they praised for defeating the Dark Lord Voldemort… and this is what they left him to be subjected to… This is what they created of him. What they left him to become wherever he had been hidden away. What had the Wizarding World of Britain done to their infant saviour? One thing was for certain though: Dumbledore sure had many things to explain as he was the one that had, supposedly, been keeping a close eye on the boy.
“Come, come, pick me up and place me on your head.” The hat spoke softly, loud enough for the boy and those closer to hear it. Then the hat was being picked up by crooked fingers and popped onto the boy’s head, said boy not bothering to waste time in struggling to get on the stool just a bit too big for his small form, choosing to instead stand in front of it, facing the Great Hall and the majority of its occupants.
Humming fluttered through his mind before the hat began to laugh, frightening everyone as the sound had been aloud and not residing in the boy’s mind. Their conversation from there though did reside between them and them alone. “Hello, Sorting Hat Alden.”
“Oh ho ho. Now aren’t you an interesting one? I must say I have never had someone use Legilimency on me, nor have they been able to, never mind doing it at the same time against the person using it on you. Very well done for doing what was, seemingly, the impossible.”
“Thank you.”
“No, no, thank you for lowering your guard enough for me to wiggle through. Now, let’s have a lo-”
“You are broken.” The hat went ridged and magic began to ripple from its fabric, the boy's own following quickly after as they intermingled, clearly keeping each other’s magic at bay, stopping it from exploding across the Great Hall; still, McGonagall took a few steps back and some of the closer staff members felt a brush of it before it was being reigned back in. “Someone has broken you, Sorting Hat Alden.”
The boy stood in the room that was the Sorting Hat Alden’s mindscape. The walls were blue with redwood flooring, and furniture dark green with accents of yellow littering the room; a rather comfy and pleasant-looking room fit for Hogwarts, despite what one might think. But he didn’t go further from where he stood, having enough respect not to. On the table in the centre of the room before the couch sat the magical artifact, in far greater condition than it currently was as if it were just freshly created for its job of sorting children. But quickly, his attention is drawn elsewhere; disgusting sludge oozes and tendrils creep from upper sections of the right wall and the corner that connected the next, and it’s easy to see that it’s being held at bay by the magic residing within Sorting Hat Alden. Because of the effort the hat is using its magic on, it’s clear that the hat is having some issues using the rest on the sorting.
“Quite noticeable, isn’t it?” At the silent invitation that hung in the air, the boy moves to sit on the floor to be closer to the hat, both staring at the foreign magic that is trying to eat away at the artifact's own.
“Very…” Silence sits between the pair, as they begin watching, studying, and looking at the mess sorrowfully. Both forget for a moment the purpose that brought them here in the first place.
“I believe we have forgotten why we are here.” While true, it’s clear the magic hat is reluctant to say as such.
“Sorting Hat Alden… if you like I can go through and see how this happened while you go through and figure out my house?”
“I don’t want to be a bother.”
“Not a bother. I am rather curious and mad at whatever caused you to be broken. I also worry as you are a great sentiment of Hogwarts, as is the castle herself.” With the hat's silent agreement, they flicker through each other’s minds.
Meanwhile, outside the little bubble of mind and magic, the Great Hall is filled with not-whispered whispers; it had been 10 minutes already, something that had never been documented or seen before and while it left the majority of the students curious, confused, bored, and annoyed, it left almost all the staff worried. At one point McGonagall had gone to stand closer, whether to check on the boy or take the hat off, not even she knew, but the action had quickly been stopped when the Great Hall – no – the entire castle gave a shuddering groan of warning. Finally, after another 20 long minutes, everyone in the room jumped at the Hats call of…