1300 AD
The the sorting hat slipped easily into the mind of yet another child. It quickly skimmed the surface thoughts. As usual, the child was preoccupied with being watched by many people. Despite all the incredible variations in young minds, children almost universally failed to realize they would be forgotten the moment the next child was called forward. The hat instantaneously comprehended the entirety of the child's existence: eleven years of memories, emotions, and hopes, each so vivid. There was a swirl of images, people and places tied to complex, personal meanings. After hundreds of years of experience, the hat clearly recognized the most important memories. It lingered briefly on one memory, deep in the past, temporarily perceiving the world as the boy did.
ooooooooooooooooooooo
He landed painfully on the dusty road. He could hear loud voices from every direction and horses neighing. But large towns were always overwhelmingly noisy and chaotic compared to his village so, at first, he only thought of his sore knees. Then he heard Henry, his older brother, and recognized the panic in his tone. A couple seconds too late, he turned his head and saw a wagon rapidly rolling towards him. He knew, with terrifying certainty, that, although the horses might avoid trampling him, the wagon wheels would hit him before he could move or it could swerve. He did not even have time to scream.
Briefly, there was darkness followed by bright light. For a moment, he thought he was dead but then he recognized the clear blue sky. The wagon had passed over him harmlessly.
Henry's horrified face appeared above him. "Tommy, are you…" He trailed off as he saw that his little brother was unharmed and a new type of fear showed in his expression. He crouched down and urgently whispered, "Pretend you're in pain."
Tommy was too surprised to react. Henry glanced around anxiously at the crowd that had gathered around them. The onlookers had become strangely quiet. "Cry or something," Henry demanded, anger mixing with his fear. Instead, Tommy started to ask what had happened.
"Quiet!" Henry hissed and, to Tommy's confusion, picked him up as if he were a baby or asleep. Henry stumbled under his brother's weight as he hurried away from the murmuring crowd, the confused wagon owner and the frightened horses.
He had not got far before someone exclaimed, "The wagon flew!" Immediately, more voices joined in, their volume rising as they reached the inevitable conclusion that they had witnessed magic and that the little boy was the source of it.
Tommy abruptly found himself standing as Henry roughly set him down and, before he could find his balance, yanked at his arm. They ran from the townspeople.
Later that day, Tommy's family quickly packed their few valuable possessions and began a long journey to a new home where they might be safe from rumors. Tommy wondered sadly if his family would have been better off if the wagon had killed or injured him, as it would have to any normal child.
ooooooooooooooooooooo
The hat selected another memory, formed several years later.
Tommy woke to an unusually loud hoot from an owl. In the darkness, he could just make out the large bird on the floor beside him. Looking closer, he saw that there was a roll of parchment attached to its leg. He was not entirely surprised. Henry had received a letter from a magical school called Hogwarts when he was Tommy's age. So Tommy untied the letter and tucked it under his pillow. He would wait until morning to read it rather than lighting a torch. In any case, going to Hogwarts was out of the question. The journey to Scotland would be long and very dangerous. His family could not afford the fees so he would owe many years of labor if he enrolled.
So he would stay with his family. His life ahead was grim but necessary. He would try to suppress the bursts of magic that still escaped him when something upset him. He would continue to move from one village to another as locals grew suspicious. Most recently, Tommy's family had fled when rumors spread that they had cursed the village with plague because they had been amongst many villagers who contracted it but they had recovered quickly while all of the others died.
ooooooooooooooooooooo
A few weeks after Tommy read and burnt his Hogwarts acceptance letter, their village had a feast. Although they usually tried to avoid large crowds, not attending would have aroused suspicion. It was a wonderful summer day and, although Tommy tried to keep an eye on his two younger sisters, Agnes and Beatrice, he could not help feeling relaxed. Henry hesitantly started speaking with the teenage daughter of the village's blacksmith and the two girls joined the other children for a game.
Tommy was taking a second helping of fish and trying to not to laugh at his brother's awful attempts at flirting when he heard an argument amongst the little children. A boy was holding Agnes's beloved clay doll out of her reaching, taunting her as she tried unsuccessfully to snatch it back. She had probably been showing it off to her new playmates when the older boy took the opportunity to grab it.
As Agnes began to cry, Tommy hurriedly approached. The simplest option would be to accuse the boy of picking on little girls and challenge him to a fair fight. But this raised the problem of what would happen to the doll if Tommy lost and what the village would think of his family- because newcomers are only barely tolerated- if he won. Instead, he needed to distract the him.
But before Tommy could speak, the other boy dropped the doll and began to stamp on it, quickly destroying it. Agnes cried out in despair and suddenly the older boy fell backwards, as if he had been shoved with great force. He stood and Tommy quickly grabbed the back of his tunic so he would not attack Agnes, who he clearly thought had pushed him. It was then that the boy noticed that the doll, which just moments before had been in pieces, had returned to its original state. He screamed and the other children quickly joined in.
The adults abandoned their feast and surrounded the children, who quickly told them what had happened. Tommy and Agnes were trapped as more and more people encircled them, accusing them of evilness. In desperation, Tommy tried to use magic, hoping to hurt or scare some of them in order to clear a path of escape. But all he could create was a few sparks. The closest villagers stumbled backwards but, realizing they were unhurt, they surged forward again, now emboldened by this clear evidence of sorcery. He knocked a few of them over with magic but there were so many attackers and only one fell at a time. Once they they were within reach, Tommy's pitiful magic could not compete with the strength of adult men. He could only try to shield Agnes with his body as hands grabbed at him.
Just in time, he noticed a disturbance amongst the villagers and realized that Henry and his parents had worked their way towards the center of the circle, combining their limited magical abilities to knock people aside. They could not, however, stop every blow directed at them. Bruised and terrified, the family escaped the villagers.
Days later, as Tommy walked with his family, now owning nothing but the clothes they wore and the little food they could find in forests, he thought about the terrifying mobs of Muggles. With his fear came anger. They had surrounded his small family, a tiny group of witches and wizards. Their magic was useless against so many violent attackers. He and his family lived in fear and poverty, hiding their powers instead of using them. Those Muggles would not have hesitated to harm even his youngest sister, who was so young that she had yet to show signs of magical ability.
"I will become powerful," he promised himself, "so that nobody in my family will ever be threatened by a Muggle. People should fear us instead of us fearing them."
First, he needed to learn to control his magic and to understand more about the world. And for that, he would need to become a student at Hogwarts. It would be a long walk to Scotland but he was determined.
ooooooooooooooooooooo
The sorting hat's decision was easy. Already the boy had deceived Muggles and convinced his family, against their better instincts, to let him come to Hogwarts. Salazar would have been glad to have an apprentice with such ambition and cunning.
"Slytherin!" it shouted and it felt a burst of the boy's excitement before his mind vanished as he yanked off the hat.
ooooooooooooooooooooo
Several centuries later, the somewhat weathered sorting hat entered the mind of another boy. His decision was clear the moment he touched the boy's mind but it was careful to look deeper, just to be sure.
This child's memories were vastly different from Tommy's. He had lived in luxury, spoilt with every toy a child could ask for and assured, from his earliest memories, of his worthiness and importance. But it had been a very restricted childhood. He only played under the careful observation of adults and house elves. He learned to conduct himself like a miniature adult at social events, speaking politely and glancing frequently at his parents, fearing disapproval and hoping anxiously for pride. He was loved, but distantly, as if signs of affection were unbecoming of civilized people. And there was a constant tension. Although the child did not understand it, this family was clearly scarred by the recent war. The hat quickly found the boy's strongest, most deep-seated memory.
ooooooooooooooooooooo
He sat beside his father in a vast room, with clearly expensive artwork and furniture. Despite the overwhelming sense that this was not a place in which anyone could speak loudly, laugh freely or otherwise relax, the boy considered this to be home. His little feet dangled far from the carpet below but he resisted the urge to move them and tried to imitate the dignified posture of the man beside him. He was very excited because his father had summoned him when he usually would have been taken to bed by one of the house elves. Since his father was a very important and powerful man, it was a rare opportunity to spend time with it. He knew he mustn't ruin it by showing his excitement or otherwise behaving childishly.
"The Malfoy family has a long and impressive history," his father began and spoke for some time about their ancestry. Draco listened eagerly, memorizing details to tell his friends. Malfoys had been ministers, famous inventors, and successful businessmen. They could trace their ancestors- all of them pureblood- as far back as Thomas Malfoy who lifted the family from obscurity and became very wealthy in the medieval ages. At last, he concluded, "We must be powerful so that we are not threatened. People should fear us."
ooooooooooooooooooooo
Over the next several years the boy internalized his father's hatred of Muggles and everything related to them, even their magical children, although neither he, nor recent generations of his family, had experienced anything to justify it. But he also learned to share his father's commitment to continuing their family legacy. He couldn't wait to prove himself as a worthy Malfoy heir. He would do so by any means because his father would be so proud of him. It was this cunning and ambition, so reminiscent of countless other Malfoy children, that convinced the hat of its original judgement.
"Slytherin!"