Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter franchise.
"What's this about again?" The Sorting Hat was not having a good day. It had been rudely awoken from its rather peaceful slumber by one Zacharias Smith, who had roughly snatched it off its shelf in the Headmaster's office and carried it down to the fifth year Hufflepuff boys' dorms. Dumbledore, the old coot, just let the brat come in and manhandle the Hat! The Hat was pretty sure it hadn't been treated so poorly since that blasted Harry Potter had come demanding answers. Psh! As if the Hat could tell him what he wanted to know. The Hat just looked at the information given and Sorted, that was all there was to it.
"Come up with a better song," Ernie Macmillan ordered.
The Hat balked. "Excuse me? I'll have you know, boy, that it's widely agreed that I'm the best singing hat in all of Scotland! I'm older and wiser than all of you little brats put together."
Susan Bones shook her head. "Don't say it like that," She admonished Macmillan gently. "What Ernie's trying to say is that…your songs are wonderful, really, but we have an issue with the way you treat Hufflepuff House every year."
The Hat frowned and shook itself. "Why? Every bit of it's true."
"That may be so," Justin Finch-Fletchley conceded. "But, well, it gives us 'puffs a bad reputation among the rest of the school." The Hat remembered Finch-Fletchley. Bit gullible, but a nice enough chap. Of course, now the Hat didn't feel quite so kind towards the whelp.
The Hat briefly considered telling them that they might not want to go around stealing ancient magical artifacts and see if that would improve their reputation. Especially if they had a kid like Smith doing all their dirty work for them. But it recognized that insulting one Hufflepuff meant insulting all Hufflepuffs, and it was just a simple, defenseless Hat, so it stayed quiet about that. "Well, what do you want me to do about it? Hufflepuff's always been the house of the loyal, hard-working, and fair. You can't just try and change your house after a thousand years! Helga certainly wouldn't stand for it."
"We're not trying to change the house," Megan Jones told him quickly. "We're trying to change the way people look at the house."
The Sorting Hat tried to wrap its nonexistent head around this. "Get out there and do something about it then. Why are you bothering me?" Couldn't it just get back to its shelf already?
Wayne Hopkins grimaced. "If you think about it, the whole problem's partly kinda sorta all your fault." Hopkins bounced lightly on his bed, digging around for sweets under his mattress. "D'you know how many kids get disappointed when they're sorted into Hufflepuff every year? Some of them don't even know what Hufflepuff is until they get in the Great Hall! Rose Zeller cried her first night because she didn't want to write her parents and say she'd gotten in the weak house."
"She's an emotional girl." The Hat dismissed this. "Besides, I don't think I've ever said anything that reflects badly on Helga or Hufflepuff—"
"Yeah right!" Smith snapped, glaring. "'Teach the lot?' What kind of bloody line is that? It makes it sound like Hufflepuff just gets all the leftovers!"
"That's not true!" The Hat defended itself, straightening. "I divvy up the leftovers equally between all four houses. And Helga did really say that."
"It's not that we doubt what she said," Hannah Abbott assured him. "It's just—couldn't you find something she said that makes us sound better?"
"You don't even have to use a direct quote," Macmillan chipped in, standing and pacing excitedly. "Just mention how great she was at Healing, or Charms. That ought to get kids interested, right?" The Hat wanted to sneer something snide at Macmillan, but unfortunately, the pompous blonde had a point.
"Or how friendly and kind she was!" Jones piped up.
"Or how she treated the house-elves," Finch-Fletchley suggested.
"Bet Granger would love that," Smith muttered, laughing under his breath.
"Don't be rude," Bones reminded him. "Anyway, can you see where we're going with this, Mr. Hat?"
The Hat drew itself up proudly. At last, a youngster with some manners! It had been starting to wonder if they were going through yet another period of loose morals. "Why, yes, I believe I can. You're lucky I haven't started working on my song for the new year yet—"
"Do you have to mention Helga Hufflepuff, or can you just mention any notable Hufflepuff?" Abbott interrupted. Her cheeks flushed pink as she twirled one of her blonde pigtails. "Because I was thinking…well, Cedric was chosen by the Goblet of Fire to be in the Triwizard Tournament, and a Hufflepuff was picked over the whole school!" The dorms went silent for a few moments. The Hat desperately wished to know what they were all thinking, but unfortunately, it had to make contact to read thoughts.
"Don't forget, Harry Potter was picked too," Hopkins reminded them.
"Yeah, but he cheated." Smith waved his hand carelessly. "Cedric was the true Hogwarts Champion!" He
"Zach, don't you think it's obvious by now that Harry didn't enter? Besides, Cedric agreed that Harry was telling the truth," Bones chided half-heartedly.
"Hold on there, you want me to talk about Diggory in the Sorting Song?" The Hat could hardly believe its hat flap. "The boy never even graduated school!"
"Because he didn't get a chance to. If Cedric had lived, he would've gone on to be one of the greatest Hufflepuffs ever." Macmillan's eyes gleamed enviously. The Hat remembered him as an ambitious little bugger. He almost stuck the kid in Slytherin, but then he realized Macmillan had morals, and un-compromisable ones at that, so to Hufflepuff he went.
"Oh, wouldn't it have been wonderful if he had lived?" Jones sighed dreamily, resting her head against the poster of the bed.
"Maybe Cho Chang would stop crying," Smith mumbled. The Hat mulled this over. Diggory and Chang, eh? It wouldn't have predicted that, but stranger things had happened.
Hopkins rolled his eyes. "I think there's more to be happy about than that! What if Cedric had won?"
"At this point it doesn't matter if Cedric won or not, because he'd have shown the whole school that Hufflepuffs are the best," Bones declared firmly. "Doesn't that deserve a mention in the song, just to prove that we're a great house?" The badgers agreed loudly and turned to the Hat.
"Look, I'll give you better lines about Hufflepuff, but I'm not mentioning a kid in my Sorting Song. It's one of the only responsibilities Albus bloody Dumbledore will let me have, and I'm not going to let a bunch of fifth years take that away from me. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going back to sleep." The Hat yawned loudly and stretched its fabric.
"Wait!" Abbott called. "You'll really do it?"
"Yeah, yeah, of course. Now can I take a nap?"
"Oh, thank you Mr. Hat!" Bones picked it up and gave it a small squeeze. The Hat choked loudly and squirmed until she put him down again. "Thank you so much!"
"Huh. I gotta admit Zach, I wasn't expecting that one to work." Finch-Fletchley appeared sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck and shrugging.
"I can have good ideas every once in a while," Smith announced proudly. "Now, I'll take the Hat back to the Headmaster's office, and we can go get some food from the kitchens afterwards." The Hufflepuffs cheered gleefully.
"The kitchens?" The Hat stopped pretending to sleep at once. "You're going to the kitchens? I haven't been there in at least a century! Take me with you?"
Smith bit his lip hesitantly, glancing at his friends. "I dunno. I promised Dumbledore I'd bring you right back…" Smith looked full of indecision, turning the Hat in his hands.
"Oh, come on, he doesn't need to know," The Hat cajoled. "Just one quick trip, and my curiosity will be sated for a few more decades, I swear." Freedom was within its grasp, if it could just convince this one little 'puff!
"Zach!" Bones gasped, horrified. "If you promised, then you have to keep it!" The other badgers nodded solemnly, aghast at the mere idea of breaking a promise.
The light left Smith's eyes. The Hat felt its chance slip away. "You're right. I need to take the Hat back. I'm sorry, Hat, but I did promise."
The Hat nearly choked. Stupid Hufflepuffs, with their honesty and loyalty! See if it ever did anything for them again. It didn't even have to put their requests in the song, it could just edit those parts out. Hogwarts would get its normal Sorting Song, just like every year. And the only ones who would be any wiser were the Hufflepuff fifth years in this very room! Yes, the Hat would get its revenge, just like it did on Helga a thousand years ago. But then, that was a story for another time…