A long time ago, in a burg that would one day be named after one of its most famous inhabitant, said boy was longingly looking at the hat-maker's shop.
"I want one like Lord White's," he said to the boy next to him. "All big and pointy." He nodded to himself. "A true wizard needs a hat like that." He then looked at his right palm and smiled. "When I can finally use magic, I'll buy one."
The boy dubitatively shrugged. "It seems impractical. I mean, it'll fly away at the merest breeze."
"Ah, but with magic-"
The blonde helplessly shook his head at the red-haired who was now grinning. "Godric, if you want to become a knight, I doubt having such a hat will be useful."
"Why not?" he protested. "It'll remind everybody I'm a wizard first! I'll buy one hat, and I'll never let it leave my head! What about you, Henry? When you finally use magic, how will you celebrate it?"
The blonde put his finger on his lips and winked. "Secret."
And, no matter how much the six years old tried to get his friend to confess, it was only when Henry forced his first flower to grow that Godric learned his secret.
"I prefer the idea of the hat," he mumbled when the blonde grinned as he showed him the bracelet his mother's made for him.
"Such hats are expensive, you know?"
Godric knew. That was why he was working in Lord White's castle every day, cleaning everything he could. From the floor and the windows to the horse' shit.
Sometimes, Godric would open the door to the sorcerer's study. Just slightly, if only to see how the old wizard was brewing potions or using magic.
Many years later, Godric realized the old man must have known he was doing this. They had never mentioned it, but there was no way he hadn't known that, everything he's known at the very beginning, he's learnt it from watching him.
When at seven Godric finally managed to heal the injury of a horse, the boy ran to the hat-maker's shop.
"Are you really sure?" The man sounded worried.
Godric, unable to see him with the hat covering his eyes, nodded. "It's perfect. I know it is."
"It's just… a little too big for you. I don't… I don't even think you can see anything."
"No, no!" The little boy shook his head and grinned. "It's the correct size! I just need to grow up! It's the one, I know it is!"
It was the right hat, it was the only hat for him.
Godric just had to grow up to be worthy of it. He just had to grow up. As a wizard, and as a man.
A millennium later, the wizard that had once been Godric Gryffindor laughed, the large hat covering his eyes once more.
He'd have to grow up again.
"Did you really try to sort me in Salazar's house, dear friend?"
"Gryffindor… Oh dear God, Gryffindor…"
"Come on, Hat, after all these years, I believe you have earned the right to call me Godric. Or Harry, perhaps. That's my new name in case you've forgotten already."
The child would have to think about this. Was he really Godric Gryffindor, or Harry Potter? How should he call himself in his head?
Godric Gryffindor was dead, he finally settled. He had a long life, it was time for his reincarnation to trace his own path. If he could avoid it, he'd try not refer himself as Godric. Old habits die hard though, so he might slip once or twice.
"B-But how?" Hat mentally spluttered.
Godr- Harry smiled. "You know the legends as well as I do, old friend. It seems the one about love and souls was true."
His friends and he hadn't meant for it to happen, but the magic they had taught was deeply linked with their own soul. If somebody could have done this little miracle, it was them.
"Harry Potter is my reincarnation, but it's you, Hat, who brought me back. Until you were on my head, I had no idea I used to be Godric Gryffindor."
His soul must have recognized his magic and the slivers of his old soul as Godric Gryffindor imbedded in Hat's fabric, he supposed. Such miracle was only possible because Hat was Hat and he was Godric Gryffindor and the bound between them had survived an entire millennium.
As Harry left the stool and walked where the cheers were the loudest, he decided not to think too much about it.
"You know, when the other three and I imagined funding a school, I had no idea I'd be a student myself." He mused. "I suppose the way magic is used must have vastly changed."
"Oh, you have no idea."
Harry smiled.
And blinked when he heard a few giggles. "What? What's wrong?"
"You still have the Sorting Hat on you!" somebody laughed.
Hat's fabric stiffened and Harry tried an apological smile. "Sorry, I'll bring him back."
He got up under Hat's protests. "No, Godric, no! Please, don't leave me!"
"My friends and I gave you a duty," he thought. "And the Sorting Ceremony is not over yet. Before I forget, I met a red-haired I rather like. Ron Weasley's his name. One worthy of being sorted in my house. Try not to send this one in Salazar's too, will you?"
And under Hat's outraged protests, Harry took the Hat off his head and winked at him.
"Sorry." He gave a contrived smile to Professor McGonagall. "I just rather like hats."
When Harry got up the next day, he was as existed as any other child.
Perhaps more, for when Professor McGonagall transfigured her desk into a pig he was the only one to get up and clap.
"Brilliant! T-Twenty points to Gryffindor!"
At the other side of the castle, an hourglass started filling itself.
"Mister Potter, I do believe you've misunderstood how the point system works." Professor McGonagall sighed and shook her head. "It's the professors who are giving points, not the other way around."
A few in the classroom started giggling. Harry tried a smile. "Sorry? It's just…" He pointed at the pig with a smile. "It's just absolutely wicked."
Oh, Godric Gryffindor could have done the same. But not like that, and it would have been far more complicated and exhausting.
"And you're going to teach us how to that?" He couldn't stop an excited grin. "How to turn tables into pigs or-or lions? How to bend the soul of every object to shape them the way we need them to be? Or, better, how to shape them back?"
Professor McGonagall's stern expression softened. "Before you and your friends attempt such spells, you will have to learn the basics." With a swish of her wand, words started appearing on the blackboard and there were matchsticks on everybody's table. "So, everybody take your wands and try to follow the instructions on the blackboards. I will walk around you and raise your hand if you're having questions."
Harry nodded and softly sat back.
He had never used a wand before, Harry thought as he took his holly wand and started whispering the spell, trying to replicate the wand movement on the blackboard. Only the likes of Salazar and his house could afford one. He knew Slytherin had been correct in his idea that they were wizardkind's future but Godric had been too used practicing magic with his own hand to really make the transition smoothly.
From what Harry could see, they were using magic in its purest form. He tried the incantation and grimaced when nothing happened. Perhaps it was less rough, and more precise but it was also vastly different from how Godric Gryffindor's actually learned and taught magic.
Oh well, a good teacher also needed to be a good student. He was going to get the hang of this eventually.
After one hour of fruitless attempts, the class went to their first Charm lesson. And Charms was as amazing as Transfiguration. Not as impressive at first glance, but Godric's reincarnation hardly was an amateur and he knew where to look to see past the apparent ease.
Godric Gryffindor had never thought much of the future, but he would have been vastly disappointed if magic hadn't changed, if great wizards hadn't pushed the boundaries of magic to make it better. A millennium, of course he needed to learn how to use magic the way everybody was now using it.
And how many of these genius had sat on these chairs? How many had been in Ravenclaw? In Slytherin? In Hufflepuf? In Gryffindor? Was it arrogance for him to hope that it was because of the four of them that these ordinary miracles were happening right under his eyes?
Because, if it was the case, if it was the first school in magic that was the stepping stone of this world, then Godric and his friends had every right to be proud of themselves. And all their sacrifices would have been worth it.
Of course, not everything was perfect, as Harry found out in Potions.
There's always one bad apple. Still, it had begun so well…
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking," the Potion Master began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but the students caught every word. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."
That, Harry raised an eyebrow as he was taking notes, would be absolutely amazing. If he could actually do it, Harry would be impressed.
"Potter!" said Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
Harry mused. Having taught potion when he was Godric Gryffindor, he'd be disappointed if he couldn't answer that one. Sadly, you got nothing with two ingredients alone. "I cannot answer you, sir." It could be a powerful sleeping potion, or even the beginning of a healing or cleansing balm.
Snape's lips curled into a sneer. "Tut, tut - fame clearly isn't everything."
Harry raised his eyebrows while Professor Snape ignored Hermione's hand.
"Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"
Hermione stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat. "What kind of bezoar, sir?" Seeing the man raising an eyebrow, he shook his head. "Fastest place to get it would be the owlerly but killing an owl is usually bad manners." A few students started looking at him in abject horror. "Not as effective as the bezoar of a goat but it'd do nicely most of the time. I'm going to assume there's one in this room though." He leant on the table and began. "So, if you're good at what you do, I'm tempted to say the cupboard on my left, your right. Best place to grab it while still keeping an eye on the rest of the class. In the back bag I can spot, I suspect."
"Five points from Gryffindor for your cheek."
Harry scoffed. He knew he was right.
"One last chance. What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching toward the dungeon ceiling.
Harry pitifully shook his head. He knew only one of them but he had nailed the man to a T now. "It's the same plant, sir." Isn't it?
Snape's lips thinned. "I suppose even a broken clock can give the time once or twice."
Harry rolled his eyes. God, wasn't the man a caricature of Potion masters.
It seemed some things never really changed.
"I thought the twins were joking when they said Potions was bad," Ron said during lunch, "but it's even worse than that! I mean, why did he even take you points? If you hadn't pushed Neville out of the way, he could have been hurt!"
"He's a Potion Master," Harry said as if that explained everything.
"What are you doing by the way?" Ron asked as the raven-haired was writing something.
"I want to buy something I think I saw in Diagon Alley." He answered as he finally finished his letter and posed his quill. "If I'm lucky and send it before the next class, I'll receive it for tomorrow. What do we have next?"
"Let me check…" Ron took a glance at his timetable and grimaced. "History of magic. The twins say the teacher is a ghost and very boring."
"It's important to know history." Harry assured him. "You need to know your lore or you'll operate blind."
"Yeah, yeah," he mumbled.
"I mean it. Before Hogwarts, stories were all we had."
Godric's mother would tell him stories before going to sleep. About magic castles and dangerous dragons. About the lone traveller who knew magic and has learnt the way to calm the monster. About Mother Magic who would grant her children the power to do extraordinary feats if they could only just listen to her song.
Harry wondered if his mother would have done the same.
"I suppose I'll have to update my lore," he mused as they got up and went to class. "Say Ron, what kind of fairytales did you learn?"
"Fairytales?" Hermione who has been eavesdropping couldn't stop herself from asking. "Please, be serious."
"Fairytales are serious business," he earnestly told the bushy-haired. "Very serious business…" Seeing she wasn't convinced, he tried again. "Two months ago, you thought magic and dragons were just fairytales."
"That's different," she protested.
"No, no, fairytales are what is left in the end. When everything is gone, when everybody has forgotten, when everything should have vanished…. They are the soul of the story surviving despite everything."
And souls were the most powerful magic of all.
While the wizard that had once been Godric Gryffindor was roaming in the castle, somebody was crying. Or he would be crying if he wasn't a hat.
The Sorting Hat was back on his shelf, back where he now belonged.
Alone. Alone, always alone.
Perhaps that was even worse than before. It was death that tore him from Godric's head once. But this time, his owner has taken him off and left him without looking back.
What had he hoped for anyway?
This reincarnation of the founder was young, and Hat was…
He was…
He was way past his prime.
The first day after the Sorting Ceremony, Hat had waited. Waited for a miracle, a sign that yes, what happed was real and he wasn't mad.
The third night however, Hat had to listen to reason.
There would be no knight in shining armour to rescue him from this half-life that had been his since Gryffindor's parting. And he would never leave that shelf nor feel the sun on his fabric ever again. That desperate hope had been nothing but an illusion, a mirage.
Somebody coughed.
Hat's fabric tensed and slowly tried to feel his surroundings.
"Hat? Are you there? Please, say you're here."
Now that he was trying to feel his surrounding, he could 'see' in the darkness that soul he has been looking for.
"Yes, I'm here!" Hat exclaimed. "Godric, I'm here!"
"Where? I can't." The child coughed. "I can't see you. Wait a sec."
The eleven years old took a matchstick from his pocket and lit it before doing the same with a candle he had in his hand.
"Ah yes!" Harry finally spotted the Sorting Hat on the top shelf. "Yes, I see you!"
"You… You're late!" Hat exclaimed.
"Yeah, sorry for the wait. I needed to grab a few things before taking you." Harry coughed. "Damn, Salazar's secret passages mustn't have been cleaned in centuries. The dust."
"Get me out of here!" Hat hissed.
"Any protection I should be wary of, Hat?" Harry asked. "Some secret ward that will activate if you don't give me the code?"
"Don't worry about that. Just hurry up and save me!"
"Sure, sure." Harry walked in his direction. "Damn it, Hat. You're even more a damsel in distress than Lady Madeline."
"Don't compare me with that-"
Harry raised his hand to grab Hat.
The hand didn't reach the top shelf.
"Oh, don't you dare."
Harry tried standing on tiptoe but he was still too small to touch the Sorting Hat.
Oh, Hat suddenly thought while Harry posed the candle on the nearest candle holderstartedand and started jumping, you're still a child.
Five minutes later, Harry finally grabbed Hat.
"See?" Harry trimphantly exclaimed as he put Hat on his head. "No need to use magic! Now, we need to warn the Headmaster you're leaving!"
There was no denying it now, his knight in shining armour had no armour. And he also had neither horse nor sword.
Still, Hat had his knight back so he wasn't going to complain