New Experiences

Another year, another Sorting. The Hat wished he could say that every mind had its own joys, but he really couldn't. Maybe if they'd been adults, if they'd had some time to get some experience into their little noggins, it would be a different story, but 11-year-olds just weren't all that interesting. Sure, there had been a few bright spots over the centuries—a few crazy or imaginative ones, a few who'd actually managed to grow up enough to have a real personality—but mostly, they were all the same.

It had gotten old before he'd been Sorting for five years. And he was a hat! Even if he was an intelligent hat, he was still nothing more than a hat. No matter what spells had gone into his creation, it should have been impossible for him to get bored of the very thing that he'd been created to do. It wasn't as if he had anything else to do with his time—as much as he tried to compose good songs, he'd heard so little music that there was no way he'd managed to learn how to make them good enough to do that professionally, and he knew all too well that objects without any more use got vanished. He might not be alive, but even he was afraid of dying.

Children. He didn't have anything against them, really, but at eleven few children had done enough with their lives to know what kind of personality they had. The ones with good parents were loyal. Few, if any, were hard-working when they didn't have to be. Neither of those were desirable traits to 11-year-olds. Intelligence was laughed at. Few 11-year-olds knew what cunning actually was—or what "using any means to reach their ends", as his song this year said, actually meant. And bravery…they were children who still thought that war was noble. Quite frankly, there was no way to sort any of them according to their actual personalities. Mostly, he went by what they wanted, Sorting children who wanted to be brave into Gryffindor, those who wanted to be smart into Ravenclaw…loyal children of all backgrounds into the houses their parents came from.

And now it was time for another year's Sorting, another session of twisting his seams trying to figure out what traits the children's minds represented. He could only hope that there'd be at least one bright spot in the entire blighted class.

***

"Pierson, Adam!"

If he'd been a drinking hat, he would have reached for a bottle long before now. These professors just didn't understand what they were asking him to do. He'd gotten a dozen death threats already this year, and he was only a bit more than halfway through the alphabet. And the images in these children's minds, even the ones who hadn't threatened him…there were some things that hats just were not meant to see.

For a change, he was picked up and set down gently, not jammed on a dirty head with no regard for his condition. He wasn't a young hat, but few children seemed to care that by this point he was held together by little more than spellwork. This one, though…this one was different.

A quick glance into the mind, and he knew why…and almost staggered with that knowledge. An adult, coming to Hogwarts! And not just any adult, but an adult who had lived for millenia. Oh, how he wished for more time on this human's head, but reflex had made him shout out "SLYTHERIN!" as soon as he'd touched down—if he wasn't Slytherin, nobody was.

Normally I'd hesitate to place a muggleborn in Slytherin, but you can take care of yourself, he said, and felt Methos go through a rapid array of emotions: shock, fear, paranoia, and back to relatively mild curiosity and wonder at the magical world, the emotions gone so quickly that they might as well have not existed in the first place. It was fascinating to watch. But I'd like to talk sometime, if you're interested. He received a feeling of cautious acceptance in response, before he was carefully lifted off of Methos's head and returned to the stool.

The cheers for "Pierson" were hesitant, weaker than they had been for the children before him. There was no doubt about it, he'd placed the man into a tough situation. Unless something changed soon, no Slytherin would accept him, and the House prejudice would ensure that no member of another House would either. But honestly, it wasn't as if things would have been much more comfortable for an adult in any other House, and maybe he'd actually manage to fix a few things that were wrong around here.

"Potter, Harry!"

Ah yes, time to Sort the next little anklebiter. And this one was famous, how exciting!

…Look, he tried to be as neutral as it was possible to be when one was forced to read the deepest innermost thoughts of dozens of children every year, but before he'd even met the kid, he was already sick of him. For ten years straight (and even before that, though not to the same extent), he'd had to sit in Dumbledore's office and hear about the kid. It was Harry Potter this and Harry Potter that and "Oh dear, Harry's grades are slipping" "I told you they were the worst sort of muggles!". For ten. bloody. years. And at least another seven to look forward to! He was a bored enough Hat already, the least they could have done was vary the topic of conversation a little. Talk about the other kids, for crying out loud! It wasn't like there wasn't any shortage of them running around in the school—he should know, after all he had gotten to know them all far too intimately for his tastes. But noooooo, except for an occasional detour to talk about troublemakers, it seemed like all they did was talk about Harry bloody Potter. He was beginning to despise the boy as much as Severus Snape did, and the horrors he'd witnessed in James Potter's head had been nothing to the torment that Severus had endured. But…he was a professional, unlike most of the human employees of Hogwarts, and he'd do his job right regardless of his feelings towards those he was asked to Sort.

Hesitant hands placed him onto a small and thankfully lice-free head. Well…it wasn't as bad as he'd feared. The boy was nothing like either of his parents, nothing like what any of the professors had expected. Oh, he could go to Gryffindor, and would likely do quite well there: even with the home life he had, he hadn't learned how to think before acting. It would certainly be the easy choice. Everybody expected him to become a Gryffindor, because of whatever had happened that Halloween (just why was every human convinced that he had survived a killing curse, when the only survivor of that night had been too young to tell what had happened? He hadn't been consulted, and everyone knew that legilimency and the extraction of memories for pensieves had detrimental effects on children so young).

You have a choice, he told the boy. You can go into Gryffindor and be the hero everybody expects you to be, and accomplish what they expect you to accomplish. Or you can go into Slytherin and accomplish what you want to accomplish—perhaps even something greater than you've ever dared to dream.

But Slytherin is evil, isn't it? Harry asked, remembering everything he'd heard about the House.

I fear for any society of which a quarter of the people are evil, the Hat replied. No House is all good or all evil—or do you believe that the man Sorted before you is evil?

He seemed nice, Harry replied. But— He'd been betrayed before, often enough that even though he was only a child, he'd learned to be cautious.

I am unable to comment on others' Sortings, the Hat said. But you've been betrayed before. Did he seem insincere? What would he gain from it?

He could feel the boy's resolve bubbling up from deep within him. Everybody expects me to be a Gryffindor. Maybe I'd be happy there, but I don't think I want to live my life doing what everybody else wants me to do. And if Slytherins are hated…well, at least I'll know to watch my back and won't get taken by surprise.

It almost scared him, how quickly the boy had gone from a normal child's attitude to planning how to minimize the damage caused by betrayal that he thought was inevitable. It was enough to give the Hat second thoughts. Are you sure? It won't be easy, being the Boy-Who-Lived in Slytherin.

There was uncertainty for a moment, but the boy's resolve strengthened once again. I'm sure.

If you're sure, it'd better be… "SLYTHERIN!" he cried to the Hall. The Gryffindors started a cheer that quickly cut off as they realized that he had not, in fact, cried out Gryffindor, but rather Slytherin. The Hall was silent except for the scarce clapping of those few who didn't care about House politics as the boy removed the Hat and walked to take his place next to Methos.

Eventually, Minerva shook herself out of her stupor and called the next name. "Thomas, Dean!"

Only a few more children, the Hat reminded himself. Just a few more, and he'd have a whole year to try to recover. He just had to last that long.