Strange Hats and Terrible Singing

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

When the boats pulled up to the castle, they were met by Professor McGonagall, who dismissed Hagrid and led the disembarked children into the castle.

When they reached a large door, McGonagall turned around and faced the collected first years with a critical eye.

With a no-nonsense tone, she welcomed them to Hogwarts and gave a brief rundown of what was about to happen. The would be sorted into one of four houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin. The members of these houses would be their new families for the duration of the year.

Doing well during the year could earn points towards your house earning the House Cup. Breaking rules would see those points taken away.

She looked around to make sure that no one had questions, then nodded to herself.

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting."

Once more, her eyes moved critically over the gathered students, resting a little longer on some students, and usually causing them to try and sort themselves out.

"I will return for you when we are ready for you," Professor McGonagall said. "Please wait quietly."

As soon as the professor was gone, people immediately began to chat. Although none of it came above a whisper, as if they were frightened that the strict teacher that had just left would return with punishments if they disobeyed her.

The topic of the conversations was easy for Shirou to guess, especially since it was being repeated right next to him by his boat mates.

"Which house do you want to be sorted into?" Hermione asked.

Neville paled immediately when Hermione posed the question, but managed to stutter out "Gryffindor."

"Me too!" Hermione said. "I've been reading all about the famous witches and wizards that came from Gryffindor. I'd love to be in that house."

Hermione looked like she wanted to rattle off every fact she knew about the house, but held herself back and turned her curious gaze towards Shirou and Iris.

The two turned towards each other to see if one of them would answer first, and after a moment, both just shrugged.

"I don't know anything about any of the houses… so… I guess I don't have a preference." Shirou said.

Jumping at the perceived question, Hermione immediately began to speak.

"Gryffindor is the house of bravery and daring; Ravenclaw is the house of wit and wisdom; Hufflepuff is the house of hard work and loyalty; and Slytherin is the house of ambition and cunning."

Hermione looked like she was ready to give the full history of each house, but stopped when the hall quieted down. Professor McGonagall had returned.

They were brought into the Great Hall, where most of the first year students paused for a moment to gape around in wonder. Shirou couldn't keep himself from looking around at everything in the hall. Not only was it a majestic room, but it also gave off a distinct feeling of otherworldliness and magic. The ceiling seemed to be a live version of the night sky, including moving clouds and the occasional bird. The hall was lit by candelabras that floated throughout the room, their flames burning bright, but never seeming to melt the candles.

Four tables filled the hall, all filled with young men and women wearing robes. The far side of the hall had a raised dais, where older men and women sat looking down on everything. Shirou assumed that they were the staff, although there didn't seem to be very many of them. At the center of the staff area, was an old man with an incredibly long beard wearing incredibly garish robes. His presence alone added to the magical feeling of the place.

Directly in front of the first year students, there was a small stool with a beaten up conical hat on top of it.

As Shirou watched, the hat twitched slightly before bursting into song. It sang an incredibly off key, poorly structured limeric that summarized the houses. Something Hermione had done better in a fifth the time.

When the singing ended and everyone had clapped politely for the hat, Professor McGonagall once again stepped in front of the new students.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted." She said in her no-nonsense voice.

One by one, students were called up to the stool and put on the hat. For each one, the hat would be silent for a moment before shouting the name of the house they were assigned to. Each sorting would be followed by applause from the entire hall, usually with the most applause coming from the house of the newly sorted student.

Finally, Shirou's name was called and he made his way over to the hat to be sorted.

After putting the hat on, Shirou sat and waited for something to happen.

When nothing happened for a whole minute, Shirou began to wonder if something was wrong with the hat, so, without really thinking about it, he used Structural Grasping on the Sorting Hat.

What poured into his mind was a mountain of information about the thousands of intricate spells that went into the creation and maintenance of this 1000 year old magical artifact. The finesse that went into the spell creation was breathtaking, and from the information he could gather about the hats creation, the creators were incredibly powerful.

On top of his head, the Sorting Hat burst out laughing.

"I guess that's only fair!" It shouted out.

Every eye in the room was now locked onto Shirou. Everyone there, bar the first years, had experienced the Hat talking in their heads. But other than the traditional song, none of them had even heard of the Hat saying anything other than a school name when it was sorting.

Sorry about the delay. A voice said in Shirou's head. It's not often I sort dimensional travellers, and there was a lot of information about your world that I tried to gather from you so I could have the correct context to sort you. Still, that's the first time anyone has analyzed me while I've analyzed them.

Shirou blinked as he figured out from what the voice had said, that the Sorting Hat was both reading his mind, and speaking to him in his mind.

Wait! Shirou thought, hoping that thinking words was the correct way to speak to it. Don't tell anyone about my travelling. If they know about me-

You have a lot to learn about this world, kid. It isn't quite as cutthroat as yours. But no need to worry, I won't reveal anything I've learned here to anyone. All of this is just to help me sort you.

I have the context I need now, and it'll just be a second as I… WHAT!? You've met a future version of yourself… and you hate him!?

I guess that will help me sort you. Hmmm… WHAT ARE ALL THESE SWORDS DOING HERE!? Kid! Why is your head full of swords!?

This is… one of the more interesting sortings I've had to do. But I have the information I need now. Let's break it down.

Gryffindor is the obvious choice. The House of the Brave would easily welcome you. Your dreams of being a hero match them well. But, if courage is willingness to face danger despite the consequences, then I don't know if you are truly courageous, since you don't value your own life.

No, Gryffindor seems obvious, but putting you in there would only encourage you towards stagnation and, as your friend puts it, distortion.

Slytherin also has its appeals. Your ambition is unmatched by any Slytherin I have sorted before, and your future self has shown you what cunning would allow you to accomplish.

Shirou frowned at that. He would admit to being similar to Archer in many ways, but he didn't have to like being compared to him.

The sorting hat hummed inside of his head, which was a weird feeling in an of itself.

I won't argue too much for that one, since there is a better fit anyway. You are strong now because you've put in your due diligence. You've become what you are now through blood, sweat, and tears. The best house for you is

"HUFFLEPUFF!" The Sorting Hat shouted.

The hall broke into cheers, especially from the Hufflepuff table. Shirou rose to join them at their table and noticed that his robe had acquired yellow coloring. Wondering how many changes this set of robes was going to see in the next few days, he used Structural Grasping on it and saved the Hufflepuff colored version into his Reality Marble.

He sat down among the other first years at the table. He quietly shook hands with the people around him and nodded his thanks to the frequent whispers of "welcome" and "congratulations" he received from further down the table.

His eyes traveled down the remaining line of assembled First Year students when a particular student near the end caught his attention.

Black hair and sharp blue eyes. Shirou recognized her features, even if they were on a much younger face. She had a proud cast to her features, which was somewhat undercut by the pigtails she was sporting.

His first thought was that Rin had somehow followed him to this dimension, and had likewise been de-aged.

He stared at her, both in recognition, and in the hopes that he could meet her eyes, and confirm for himself that she truly was the Tohsaka Rin that he knew.

Her eyes cut across the room, taking note of everyone. Shirou met her eyes for a moment, and any thoughts of her being the Rin from his own dimension faded away. This girl showed no recognition of who he was. Given how similar her features and demeanor were, she was an analogue of his dimension's Rin, but a native to this world, and she had clearly never seen Shirou before.

Rin had explained the concept to him before. The Kaleidoscope allowed access to an uncountable number of other dimensions. Sometimes, those dimensions contained copies of yourself or people you knew. Much like how Archer had once been a Shirou, but from a different world, one where Rin had summoned someone else to fill the role of Archer.

He nearly fell out of his seat when the rest of his table leapt to their feet and applauded.

A quick glance around revealed that another student had been sorted to Hufflepuff while he had been distracted.

Shirou rose to his feet to join in on the applause.

He continued to watch and clap politely at all of the sortings, but his eyes were continuously drawn back to the girl who greatly resembled Tohsaka Rin..

Both Hermione and Neville had longer than normal sorting times, but ended up in Gryffindor.

When Iris Potter's name was called, the entire hall got deathly quiet, with the exception of a few people muttering "The Girl-Who-Lived".

Everyone watched with bated breath as the small girl approached the Sorting Hat and placed it onto her head. Even the teachers up at the staff table leaned forward to wait for the Hat's decision.

And boy did they wait. The minutes dragged on, and whispered conversations began to start up.

Although Shirou couldn't see her face, the little movements of her body seemed to indicate that she was actively conversing with the Hat. Shirou idly wondered if she was also from another dimension, and that's why it was taking so long. She was the only person he had met so far that seemed to know even less about what was going on than he did.

Eventually the hat let out a shout of "GRYFFINDOR!", and a good portion of the student body actually leapt to their feet to begin applauding. Even most of the teachers were standing to applaud. The Slytherin table was the only one where no one was standing. In fact the most that any of them did was give a polite couple of claps before actively ignoring the thundering applause that filled the hall, and that was the polite responses.

Shirou rose as well to applaud, despite not really knowing why Iris was getting this level of a response.

He caught her looking at him as she made her way towards the Gryffindor table and he smiled at her. She smiled weakly back and then ducked her head down as she finished her trek to her house's table and sat amongst the first years.

When the celebration finally died down, the sorting continued as normal.

Shirou became more and more tense as the number of students dwindled, and the girl he recognized came closer and closer to being sorted.

Finally it was her turn.

"Rin Tohsaka." McGonagall called out, and the girl stepped forward.

Their names were the same.

Once again, Shirou attempted to make eye contact with the girl, hoping that he might have been mistaken about her being of this dimension. But she was too intent on the Sorting Hat, and didn't look in his direction.

This younger Rin placed the Sorting Hat on her head, and the whole room waited while it deliberated.

Finally, the Hat shouted out: "Ravenclaw!" And the room burst into applause.

Shirou couldn't help but stare at the familiar girl as she made her way to the Ravenclaw table.

After all the first years were finally sorted, and seated at their respective tables, the old man with the long beard at the center of the staff table stood.

"New students and returning students alike," he spoke in a conversational tone that somehow managed to carry throughout the Great Hall. "Welcome to Hogwarts. For those who don't know me, I am Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of this prestigious school.

"I know better than to stand long between hungry children and their food. But, before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"

Dumbledore then waved his wand and a huge feast appeared at each of the tables.

Even with food in front of him, and conversations picking up around him, Shirou found himself sneaking glances at the black haired girl who stood out as a bastion of familiarity in this strange new world he found himself in.

-o-o-o-o-

Shirou and the other first year Hufflepuffs trailed a good distance behind their upperclassmen. Gabriel Truman, one of the Hufflepuff prefects was at the head of the first year students, and he would occasionally stop their group to point out something in the castle, allowing the other Hufflepuffs to get further and further ahead.

He stopped them once again in front of a portrait depicting a bowl of fruit. The rest of the upper classes of Hufflepuffs turned at the next corner and disappeared from sight.

"I'm going to point this out, since a lot of Hufflepuffs end up being early risers, or late workers." Gabriel said. "You might get hungry during a time when there's no normal meal planned for awhile."

"This," he said, gesturing towards the portrait of fruit, "is the entrance to the kitchens."

Smiling at the looks of confusion worn by the first years, he walked over to the painting.

"You have to tickle the pear." He said.

He pointed out the fist sized pear located about stomach height on the right side of the painting. Then he reached for it and tickled it.

The pear in the painting began to squirm, before it laughed for a second. Then it curled up, and pushed itself straight out of the painting, forming a pear-shaped door handle.

Gabriel grabbed the newly formed handle and gave it a twist and then pushed against the wall.

The first years all started as a doorway shaped section of the wall opened like a hinged door. They then gasped at the bustling activity beyond as dozens of small impish creatures busied themselves cleaning pots and pans and carrying about plates of unfinished food and uncooked ingredients.

Shirou heard one of the students identify the creatures as "house-elves".

One of the house-elves noticed the open door and ran up to the assembled Puffs.

"Is there anything you be needing, Young Masters?" It asked, wringing its hands and shifting from foot to foot.

"Not at the moment." Gabriel replied. "I was just showing the new Puffs where to find kitchens should they need it. I hope it won't inconvenience you too much if they should show up outside of the normal dining times."

"Not at all!" The little creature yelped, shaking its head hard enough to distort its own speech. "We be keepin' leftovers for just such a thing! Just ask, and we do our best!"

"Thank you." Gabriel said, smiling down at the elf, who had returned to wringing its hands. "And thank you for dinner tonight."

The elf froze at Gabriel's words, and was staring up at him with unconcealed happiness.

"Oh! Master is most welcome!" It finally replied.

Closing the door, Gabriel turned to look at his charges with a serious look on his face.

"Those were some of the Hogwarts house elves. Be nice to them when you interact with them. They work very hard for us."

Shirou heard a few of the first years scoff at the instruction, but he nodded along with the rest of the new students.

"Now," Gabriel smiled as he continued, "I think it's about time we got to the dorms."

Turning, he led them around the corner the other Hufflepuffs had taken earlier and down a hall that ended in a dead end near a large stack of giant barrels.

"Here we are." He said, gesturing towards the stack of barrels. "Home, sweet home."

He laughed at the flat look that most of the new students were giving him.

"If you haven't figured it out by now," he said, walking over to the barrels, "then let me spell this out for you. Not everything at Hogwarts is as it first appears."

Stopping in front of one of the barrels, he turned and address the first years.

"This is very important, so listen closely. Second barrel from the bottom, in the middle of the second row. In order to open it, you have to knock in a specific pattern. This pattern is very easy to remember though."

Gabriel raised his hands and clapped out the pattern in time with the mnemonic.

"Hel - ga… Huf - fle - puff"

He then proceeded to knock out the pattern on one of the barrels.

When he was done, the top of the barrel popped out and he opened it the rest of the way, like a small door.

"Take note." He said. "If you knock on the wrong barrel, or use the wrong pattern, you get splashed with vinegar and locked out for a while. Now, in you go."

One by one, the first year students climbed up into the barrel and crawled through it.

On his way through, Shirou noted that the barrel wasn't too bad with his seemingly 11 year old body, but figured that having to crawl through a barrel with an older body would probably be a pain.

When he reached the other side, he was helped to his feet by a set of hands and then pushed into a gauntlet of handshakes, smiles, and pats on the back. The upper year students had stayed in the common room to welcome the new students.

When he came out the other side, he found himself, once again, among the first years. He stood with them and took the opportunity to examine the room he was in.

It was a large round room, with a relatively low ceiling. Burnished copper lamps and chandeliers lit the room with a constant light. High up on the walls, many circular windows looked out into the night sky. The walls were all earth tones, but were broken up by large wall hangings depicting a black and white badger on a field of yellow leaves. Large curved overstuffed couches hugged almost all of the outside wall space, and cozy looking chairs were scattered throughout the room, all of them upholstered in yellow and black. There were coffee tables in front of almost every couch, and a few card tables with higher chairs. On every other shelf or flat surface of the room, and in some cases hanging from the ceiling, some kind of plant rested in a pot. A large circular unlit fireplace occupied the space opposite the entrance, and on either side of it stood large circular doors.

When the last new student was through the welcoming gauntlet, the upperclassmen broke up and settled themselves onto the couches or chairs throughout the room.

Gabriel once again ended up in front of the clustered first years.

"Congratulations!" He said, moving his eyes over the assembled first years. "Welcome to the Hufflepuff Basement, this is the common room. In case you didn't pick up on it, our emblem is the badger, and our house colors are black and yellow.

"There were a few final things I wanted to go over as the prefect before I let the rest of the house have you. First of all, let's deal with the myth that gets tossed around every year about this house. We're often called the house of the left-overs, as in, the students that weren't brave enough to be in Gryffindor, smart enough to be in Ravenclaw, or cunning enough to be in Slytherin. I like to think that we're all just better rounded than the rest of the houses.

"It's a common misconception that no one amazing ever comes out of Hufflepuff. That's just plain wrong, people just make the wrong assumptions about them. If a witch is a brilliant potioner, then she must be from Slytherin. If a witch is a professional dragon wrestler, then she must be from Gryffindor. If a wizard blazes new trails in the understanding of magic, then they must be from Ravenclaw. We're just as good as those other houses, we just don't brag about it near as much."

Gabriel took a moment to grin at the assembled first years.

"Next thing up is the House Cup. McGonigal has already explained the basics, do well: earn points, break rules: lose points.

"Well, Hufflepuff House has its own saying when it comes to the House Cup. 'Toss it.'

"That's right. I can respect what the House Cup is trying to do, encourage students to do better by establishing rivalry and competition between the houses. That's just not how we do things in Hufflepuff. The only competition you have in this school is yourselves. In Hufflepuff, we strive to be better than ourselves of yesterday. The only ones that can truly evaluate if your succeeding are yourselves, and the only points that matter are those you grant to yourself.

"This doesn't mean that getting points is meaningless. It means that the teachers are acknowledging your work, and as fellow Puffs, you should congratulate any of our house that are earning points.

"On the other hand, losing points is something else entirely. As Hufflepuffs, we have each others' backs. If one of our own is getting picked on, and you don't want to jump to their defense on the off chance you could lose points if it escalates, then throw points out of your head!

"The only absolute rule in Hufflepuff is that we stand together. If a fellow Puff is going to do something dangerous, then you try to talk them out of it. If they convince you that it's something that has to be done, then you support them to the greatest extent you can."

Gabriel looked solemn as he finished speaking. Looking over all of the new students to make sure they understood what he had just imparted to them.

After a moment of quiet silence, he grinned again.

"Now that we've covered everything, I think it's about time we had our private welcoming party."

With a cheer, the rest of the Hufflepuffs rose from their seats and descended on the unprepared first year students.