294. Sorting Hat!AU – ft. Alastair the Sorting Hat and the Avengers, + Bucky, Sif, the Warriors Three & Loki
Thor Asgardr is placed in Gryffindor. He's eleven years old, brash and impulsive. Alastair can see into his head, and he can see that his behaviour can lead him many paths, with two distinct endings: the first, leading to hate, arrogance, and naivety well into his lifetime. The second is of justice, morals, responsibility. Gryffindor would test him, change him, force him to make that decision.
Hopefully, other Gryffindors would temper him – Alastair had his eye on the young Lady Sif Dall, and Hogun of House Grimm, and Volstagg Valiant. Fandral Alfheimr, too, may be of assistance. They were all Gryffindors, all older, except for Sif. Alastair cannot wait to sort his young brother, Loki, next year – he was pegging him for Ravenclaw.
Clinton Francis Barton…now there was a conundrum. Alastair loved hatstalls usually, but Clint was frustrating. The young wizard was so…good. So intelligent. So determined. So chivalrous. He had all the traits of all the Hogwarts Houses, which was surprising for someone so young, but at the same time, not, considering the circumstances of his childhood. So: he was a hatstall. It took Alastair over ten minutes to sort him, within which time Alastair requested Albus let the boy walk about – ADHD in Clint Barton made sitting on a stool for that long torture. While Alastair decided, Clint did a couple of cartwheels and somersaults off the stairs that led up to the teachers tables, giving half the staff heart attacks, and wowing his peers and fellow students before finally getting into Hufflepuff.
Steve Rogers, well…he was a special case indeed. Thirteen years old, rather than eleven, unknowingly held behind wards that hid his presence from Britain, tricking the Hogwarts Register into thinking he wasn't in the catchment area anymore. He went into Gryffindor. Alastair had argued for any other House – he was too much of a Gryffindor, Gryffindor couldn't help him, couldn't guide him into being the man he should be. But ultimately, Steve chose Gryffindor.
It helped that his best friend was already there, jeering and calling him a 'punk' for being a wizard and not telling him. Steve had certainly shown his true colours, politeness fading away in an instance as he cursed like a sailor to his 'boyfriend' for not mentioning it either, from his place on the stool.
Tony Stark was the most insecure person Alastair had ever sorted – he was a hatstall too, no matter how much he argued for one House or the other. Alastair was silent the entire time he sat on Tony's head, the boy talking his mouth off. Gryffindor might have been a good choice. Ravenclaw might have been perfect, considering his genius. Slytherin…well, he had ambition, and was certainly able to get what he wanted with a little application of knowledge or some artfully woven – impromptu – speech. Hufflepuff might have been good too, with his drive.
Alastair might have chosen Hufflepuff, if only to help him become more secure in himself, if only to help the famous little boy make friends. But he was a genius. His mind worked too fast for others to keep up. He needed to keep busy, keep himself focused, or he could spiral – so Ravenclaw it was.
Bruce Banner, he'd sorted two years before, with that James boy – Steve's boy. Bruce had been so scared of what he was, so terrified he'd destroy the castle, murder every student inside if he lost one millimetre of control. Alastair put him in Slytherin. Ravenclaw would have been a good choice, but Alastair had been feeling a slight something that reminded him of vindictiveness. Logically, it worked, but in practice…Slytherin would help him, Slytherin would teach him the control he did lack – it would teach him confidence, and how to do things that the other Houses wouldn't in the face of imminent transformations.
It worked in practice. It only made him lonelier though. So when Alastair sorted Tony into Ravenclaw, maybe he pointed him in the clever were-giant's direction.
Natalia 'call me Natasha Romanov' Romanova was a minx, a viper who Alastair sorted into Slytherin, making the mistake of not looking deeper, not only scanning her surface thoughts full of strategy and details she'd noticed about Hogwarts, including exit routes. Later, when it came out that she had been abducted as a child and forced through things beyond his imagination, being taught skills only the worst kind of people knew…Slytherin was not the right choice, even if on the outside, she was Slytherin to the core.
(Years afterwards, when she would come to Hogwarts with Clint Barton, who was looking for a job, she placed him on her head again. He looked inside and silently, guiltily, called her Hufflepuff.)