Disclaimer: HP does not belong to me, just the idea I used on the characters… all recognizable things are Rowlings
Information: AU-Sorting, takes place in HP1. Reincarnation-fic!
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WHY TO SORT A STUDENT IS A HORRIBLE JOB
A PRANKSTER'S CASE – THE BEGINNING
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"Albus," the Hat said. "Now, that I am on vacation, would you please find a ride for me? I don't feel like I'm on vacation if I'm still sitting in the same stuffy, old shelf like I do every year…"
Albus Dumbledore just looked up and sighed.
"I never allowed you to go on vacation, Hat," he replied.
If the Hat would have been able to shrug, it would have shrugged.
"I am still on vacation – or are you telling me I haven't earned one?"
This time the Headmaster could do nothing but shake his head. Of course the Hat had earned a vacation. It had sorted students every year since the Founders created it.
"You're a created thing, an object, Hat. You don't get tried. You don't need a vacation," Albus Dumbledore said.
The Hat spluttered.
"I am able to think, therefore I need a vacation!" it said pouting. "And I want to see the world while being on vacation. Oh, how I miss traveling!"
"You never travelled before."
"Did to. I am a Hat, Albus! Of course I travelled!"
"Where to?" Albus said, sceptical.
"Wherever the feet that carried me went, my dear Headmaster," the Hat said joyfully. "And I want to wander again. It's been at least a thousand years since I last saw the outside of these walls with my own eyes… Oh, the fresh air! The sound of the wind! The lasses!"
"Sometimes I wonder if the Founders made a mistake while creating you. You think entirely too human for a hat."
If the Hat would have had a tongue, it would have poked it out at the Headmaster. Or it would have rolled with its eyes – if it had real eyes, that is.
In that moment a knock interrupted their very important discussion and a dishevelled looking Deputy Headmistress entered the room.
"Minerva?" Albus asked the fuming woman.
"Albus!" she said, huffing. "I demand that you will talk to those boys this time around!"
Albus Dumbledore looked at her clueless.
"Those boys?" he repeated.
"Those Weasley-bairn!" Minerva hissed, her Scottish accent heavy on her tongue. "The common rooms! In disarray! The corridors! Full of traps! The classrooms! Newly decorated with Christmas ornaments! It. Is. Enough! You!" she pointed at Albus as if she wanted to pile him with her finger. "You will talk to them! I did everything I could! It's enough! The whole school is a chaos because of these two… bairn!"
Albus nodded frantically to everything she said, his eyes huge, his heart racing. Whatever she wanted, he would do it as long as she left him alone again. An utterly furious Minerva was nothing he wanted to deal with.
"Well, Albus?" she hissed finally.
"Er… what exactly happened?" Albus asked, fighting with himself to keep his relaxed grandfather personality in place.
Minerva McGonagall's eyes narrowed.
"The common rooms," she said slowly. "The red of the Gryffindor common room is green and tiny silver snakes are crawling all over the ceiling and the walls. The red sofas are yellow, the beds are blue with bronze eagles.
The yellow of the Hufflepuff common room is blue with silver badgers crawling all over it. Their couches are those of Gryffindor common room and their beds have turned green with bronze lions on it.
The Ravenclaw common room is yellow with black red eagles flying all over the ceiling and black snakes crawling over the walls. Their sofas are green and their beds are red with bronze eagles on it. And don't even start on the Slytherin dorms!"
Albus opened his mouth to interrupt her, but she didn't let him.
"Their common room is red with golden lions all over it! They have the Ravenclaw common room couches, decorated with tiny silver snakes. Their beds are yellow and the entrance to the common room from the dorms has changed into snakes who have to open their mouths so that you can even enter the dorms! Given, the snakes please some of the Slytherins – if they weren't black with tiny lions running all over them!"
The Hat snickered.
He had forgotten that Salazar would not even stop at his own house if he was in the mood to prank someone.
In the mood to prank someone…
…to prank someone…
To the Hat's utter sorrow Salazar Slytherin wasalwaysin the mood to prank someone…
"Well, it seems as if someone decided to redecorate a bit…" Albus started.
"A bit?!" Minvera screeched. "A bit?! Tell that Severus – I bet you will find yourself redecorated as potion ingredients if you ever dare to utter that to him! His classroom is a mess! You step in the room and you are suddenly walking on the ceiling! How by Merlin's beard will he be able to brew with his classes if they are all stuck on the ceiling as soon as they set foot in his classroom!"
Albus blinked.
"Is the equipment still on the floor?" he asked.
"No," Minerva huffed.
"Can you lay down things on the ceiling or the upside down equipment?"
"Yes," Minvera hissed.
"Does liquid stay in the cauldrons when you are upside down in the classroom or does it splash on the floor?"
"It stays in the cauldron," Minerva said frowning.
"Well, then I guess, Severus will simply have to teach his students upside down until we find a way to reverse it."
"And my classroom?!" Minerva said enraged. "You don't think I will teach with all those damn green and silver Christmas ornaments around me!"
"Put them down," Albus suggested. That was the wrong thing to say.
The Hat snickered again.
"I. Can't. Put. Them. Down!" Minerva hissed. "We tried everything! Nothing worked! The same goes for Severus' upside down classroom or Filius sunken in one!"
"Sunken in one?" Albus repeated astonished.
"Yes!" Minerva hissed.
"What do you mean with 'sunken in'?"
"I mean 'sunken in' as in: you step in the classroom and sink waist-deep into the floor! Filius vanished utterly!"
"Oh my…" Albus sighed.
"And don't forget poor Pomona! She has to teach in Winter-Wonder-Land if you don't do anything!"
Albus sighed.
"And you are sure it's the Weasley twin who did it?"
Minerva scowled.
"I found them setting up traps in the second floor! They had trapped the whole first floor when I finally found them – don't you even think about defending them! This time they went too far! I. Want. Them. Punished! And you will be the one who does it! Call their parents! Let them stand in the corner like the unruly toddlers they are! Use them as bookshelves! I don't care as long as you get it into their thick heads that they went too far this time!"
The Hat burst out laughing.
Poor Weasley twins!
But that was Salazar Slytherin for you – he always found a perfect scrap-goat without even trying!
Albus meanwhile nodded and prayed that the furious Deputy Headmistress would leave before her magic got out of hand. He was quite sure that he heard his desk moan under the pressure of her magic.
Minerva turned and stormed out.
"I will bring them to you and you will set them straight, is that clear, Albus?" she could be heard and Albus nodded again frantically.
The Hat groaned as soon as Minerva had left. It was then that it realized what all those pranks truly meant. Salazar Slytherin had to make up for all the time he hadn't been able to prank anyone. If you counted that Salazar Slytherin had been reborn as Harry Potter and had been because of that, stuck in the Muggle world since he was fifteen months old – there was just one thing a sane creature could do now.
Run.
Run as far as it could and as fast as it could.
And Slytherin would not catch the poor, old Sorting Hat! Not if the Hat had a say in it, at least!
"Find me a lift, Albus!" it begged. "Now! I want to be out of this castle within this day! I don't want to… no, I can't stay here when he's on the run again!"
Albus just looked at the Hat utterly confused.
Of course, that was expected – Albus Dumbledore wasn't able to know that the Weasley twins this time had done nothing wrong. There was a prankster on the loose in Hogwarts – and the Hat pleaded with every deity it had ever heard of, that the prankster would be too preoccupied with his first pranks to notice the Hat leaving. If he wasn't – no, the poor, old Sorting Hat refused to even think about that alternative.
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Sorry it took me so long. I had some trouble to decide what Slytherin would do first.
Maybe you have some more ideas for pranks? I would still need some…
