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!

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxSortingxXxHatxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

sSs

WHY TO SORT A STUDENT IS A HORRIBLE JOB

A TEACHER'S CASE – THE BEGINNING

sSs

"Welcome to our first staff meeting of this new school year," Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore intoned while the last of the teachers entered the staff room.

"Please sit down. We'll begin with our new first years before going on to…"

"Oh, stuff it, Albus," Pomona Sprout said huffing. "Everyone of us knows that this meeting will be mainly about the Potter child!"

Albus opened his mouth to object but Minerva butted in before he could even say a word.

"And of course about the pranks plaguing Hogwarts since the beginning of the year," she added to Pomona's sentence.

Snape huffed at that.

"If I didn't know that Potter is a dunderhead I would think that it was him doing them!" he declared fuming. It was just a day ago that the prank on his classroom finally lifted itself and he was still cross about it.

"Severus!" Minerva admonished him instantly. "Mr. Potter is an eleven year old child! There's no way that –"

"Like I said, Minerva," Snape sneered. "If I didn't know that Potter would be far too lazy to do research in a magnitude like that, I'd say it was him. Since I know he's far too lazy, I'd recommend we punish the Weasley-brats like we should have done after the first prank this year!"

"It isn't them, this time around," Minerva said sighing.

"Of course its them!" Snape sneered. "They're just lying in your face, Minerva!"

"What do you mean 'it isn't them', Minerva?" Filius Flitwick asked at the same time. The Deputy Headmistress sighed.

"I spoke to them," she said. "In the end, they confessed that it wasn't them but that they would love to… work… with this new prankster…"

"They're lying!" Snape repeated.

Pomona frowned at that.

"Neither one of the twins ever lied when they were caught pranking," she said frowning. "They always confessed."

"There's always a first time," Snape answered coolly.

"The pranking style is different as well," Flitwick said.

Snape's eyes widened at that.

"Pranking style?" He spluttered at that. "Pranking style?!"

Flitwick nodded earnestly.

"Yes, Severus," he said. "The Weasely twins normally prank one or two students – not the whole school at once. They also don't prank the professors."

"And just because they're doing something different this time around you don't think it's them, Filius?" Snape sneered. "No wonder you're always unable to catch those pranksters…!"

"Severus, please!" Albus finally reentered the conversation. "There's no evidence…"

"There's never any evidence, Headmaster," Snape sneered. "That doesn't change the fact that it's them! Have you ever thought that maybe their… style… changed thanks to Potter entering into their little club? I'm quite sure that Potter is quite able to create havoc like that with all his little Gryffindor friends –"

"Severus! He is a first year!" Minerva objected.

"And he is a charming boy who has until now never created any trouble," Pomona Sprout added.

Snape looked at her as if she had gone insane.

"Potter," he said slowly. "Was responsible for the tap-dancing troll that nearly killed Ms. Granger on Hallowe'en!"

"I'm quite sure that it wasn't Harry who made it possible for the troll to enter the school back then," Albus sighed.

Snape looked wide-eyed from one frowning face in front of him to the other.

"Have you forgotten who you're dealing with?" he asked them in the end, sounding nearly desperate that time. "This is Potter we are talking about! Potter! Think about that little cretin's irresponsible father! The arrogant boy thinks he's the boy wonder of Gryffindor! A gift to all wizard kind! Letting in a troll to fight it is exactly what Potter would do! He wasn't even at the feast!"

There was a short bout of silence after his out-burst, then Filius Flitwick spoke up hesitatingly.

"Severus," he said. "Mr. Potter was at the feast."

Snape opened his mouth to object the charms master when Pomona Sprout added her own observation.

"Severus," she said. "Mr. Potter is a Slytherin. He was sitting with his House at the Hallowe'en feast…"

Snape closed his mouth at that, unable to object her.

Slytherin.

The boy was a Slytherin.

Somehow this part of Potter still wouldn't stick in Snape's mind. He could deal with a lot of things, but thinking about that damn boy as a Slytherin – this was something he simply wasn't able to do.

"That brat doesn't belong in my House," he finally huffed and when he saw the concerned glances of the other professors he sighed. "I know that he's wearing green and silver," he amended with gritted teeth. "But that doesn't change the fact that Mr. Potter has clearly been miss-sorted."

Albus' eyes started to twinkle at that.

"You're right, Severus," he said. "I'm quite sure that Mr. Potter shouldn't have been sorted in your House with a personality like his."

Filius Flitwick frowned at that.

"I'm not quite sure if I can follow, Headmaster," he said. "Mr. Potter has been sorted into Slytherin…"

"Yes, he has been," Albus answered softly smiling. "But I'm quite sure that no one here can make out any trait of Slytherin in Mr. Potter's behaviour. I watched him myself for quite a while and I haven't found any indication in his personality that would make him a Slytherin until now…"

Snape sneered at that.

"Of course you wouldn't," he said scratchily. "This is Potter we're talking about! There's no way a Potter would ever have the ability to act like a proper Slytherin!"

"And yet he was sorted into the House of the cunning," Pomona Sprout reminded them softly.

"M…maybe h…he w…was r…really miss… miss-sorted?" The DADA teacher, Quirinus Quirrell spoke up the first time. "I… is th…this po…possible, Hea… Headmaster?"

Albus frowned at that and patted his beard.

"It's unheard of," he said. "But then, the Sorting Head seemed a little bit out of it while sorting him…"

"Albus!" Minerva spoke up at that moment. "You can't tell us that you think the Sorting Hat made a mistake!"

"Well, Minerva, my dear," he sighed. "You can't forget that the Sorting Hat is a relict of the Founders' time. Maybe the enchantment on it is waning after such a long time?"

"I don't think that that's the case, Headmaster," Filius Flitwick spoke up. "I'm quite sure that Mr. Potter is in the House he truly belongs…"

The Headmaster just shook his head at that before finally changing the subject to other themes.

Filius Flitwick just frowned at the Headmaster at that, but decided to not speak up again.

After the staff meeting he returned to his office where a cat was sitting on the top of his desk. Filius looked at the cat for a moment, before closing the door and activating the wards on his office so that no one could hear anything going on inside from the outside.

"There's more to it than a few pranks and an old Sorting Hat, isn't it?" he asked the empty room.

The answer was a laugh.

"You have no idea, Filius," a female voice said. "You have absolutely no idea. He's back! He's finally back! And instead of apologizing the only thing I get is mayhem in the library and biscuits!"

"And yet you're here, crying and dancing at the same time," the half-goblin observed.

The answer was a laugh.

"Because he's back!" the female voice said. "Because he's finally back! He's back and that means he has truly never left us in the first place!"

Filius Flitwick just shook his head and righted one of the photos of the pranks over the last months on his desk.

"Who exactly are you talking about anyway?" He asked, half-amused, half-exasperated.

The answer was a brilliant laugh and then he was enveloped in a hug.

"I'm talking about him, silly!" She snickered. "Who else should I be talking about?"

And with that, Filius had to rescue the next photo in danger of careless destruction.

Never mind that he didn't get an answer he could truly understand…

sSsSsSs

"You know," one twin said to another. "I wonder if this thing can malfunction…"

The other twin frowned at that.

"It hasn't malfunctioned in the last two years we had it," he said frowning.

The first twin nodded at that in contemplation.

"At least I never saw it malfunctioning," the other twin added, still with a frown on his face.

"I never saw it as well," the first one contemplated. "But that doesn't change the fact that there's something odd going on with it now –"

"You mean like it showing names unclearly?" the second twin asked.

"Or names flickering in and out of existence?" the first one added.

Then the two looked at each other.

"Now…," the first one said, an evil looking grin spreading over his face.

"Is it truly malfunctioning?" the second one said with a matching grin.

"Or is there something else going on here at Hogwarts?" The first one said.

"Maybe," the second one added. "Maybe we should search out one of those names and ask them themselves…"

At that, the twins grinned at each other before leaving the tower in search of one of the odd names they had stumbled on while looking over their favourite toy.

Helga Hufflepuff was their goal.

Helga Hufflepuff – because Rowena Ravenclaw was currently in a place the twins couldn't enter undetected.

sSsSsSs

"Didn't you want to prank the whole school at Hallowe'en?" The Sorting Hat asked the boy in front of it interested. "You know – Hallowe'en was three days ago…"

The boy just rolled his eyes.

"I know," he said. "I know, Godric, I know."

"Then why…?"

"I was preoccupied with the troll that day," the boy answered and rolled his eyes at the hat while folding his legs in a different way beneath him so that he wasn't kneeling anymore but sitting cross legged on the cool stones of the floor.

"And yet, except of the library you didn't do another prank since then," Godric said.

At that, the boy sighed.

"I didn't," he said.

"Why?"

The boy shrugged and pulled out his knife to play with it.

"There's no answer to that question, gúþwine," he said.

The Sorting Hat snorted at that and it would have rolled its eyes if it had any, that is.

"I've lived with you for over a hundred years, Sa'zu," it said. "There aren't a lot of reasons for you to not do something you planned to do – and a lot less for not making up to it later on if you hadn't had time to do it like you planned."

The boy shrugged at that.

"I wasn't in the mood to do anything," he said, indifferently and suddenly, the Sorting Hat was worried.

"Sa'zár," it said softly. "Why weren't you in the mood to do anything?"

The knife in the boy's hand flew through the air and was caught at the tip by the child before sailing through the air again in a macabre jiggle of trained hands and a dangerously sharp blade. If Godric wouldn't know that Salazar had always done that and had never hurt himself while doing it, he would have feared for the will to live of the boy playing with the blade.

The boy said nothing.

"Salazar," the Hat said softly. "It's three days after Hallowe'en. What happened that you sit here, not contemplating a prank but thinking about… who knows what?"

At that, weary eyes looked up to look at the Hat on the wet floor.

"Did you know that since that day… since that one day… I tried everything, everything I could think of, and yet, it was never enough?" The boy whispered, looking back down at the floor, studying its dark stones while playing with his knife.

The Sorting Hat frowned at its friend at that.

Never enough?!

"Sa'zu," it finally said. "We never blamed you."

At that the boy looked up again, his eyes bitter and old.

"You should, Godric, you should," he said.

"Why? It wasn't your fault…"

"I cast the wards, Godric! I am the one who cast the blood-magic to hide Hogwarts! I! Not Helga! Not R'ena! Not you! I! I was a ward master, a ward smith! One of the only two in the whole known world back then! I knew the dangers! I knew the potential consequences…!"

"And you told us the risk and we trusted you to get it right!" Godric interrupted the boy in front of him. "We trusted you, Salazar Taliesin Haraldr Iacomus Potter-Slytherin! We. Trusted. You!"

"Yes! Yes, you did! And you suffered for it! I betrayed your trust and…"

"The only time I remember you betraying our trust was the day you left and never returned," the Sorting Hat interrupted him coolly. "Not one of us ever blamed you for forcing us to remain – we only blamed you for leaving us alone in our task…"

At the confused expression on the boy's face, the Hat sighed.

"Salazar," it said. "The wards in this place are different than all the other wards I have ever seen – whatever you constructed here, there was no way of knowing what would happen…"

At that, the confusion on the boy's face crumbled into agony.

"But that's it, Godric," he whispered. "That's it. I knew! I knew – and that's why I left you… I thought that if I left, the cursed wards would spare you… and yet, here you are; suffering because of me!"

Then he broke down crying his heart out on the cold, wet stone floor of the hidden, dreary and dark Chamber in the heart of Hogwarts.

It was the first time in centuries that Godric longed for his hands – just to be able to embrace the crying child that was once his best friend. As it was, he could only sit there and watch, stuck in a form he suddenly hated with renewed passion.

And like that he sat there, unable to do anything but fill the silence of the dreary Chamber of Secrets with meaningless words while a man he had ever only known as a fun loving prankster or ruthless dark lord showed a human side of himself Godric had never wanted to see, breaking down in grieve for a deed he had done to safe them all while damning them at the same time…

sSs

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxSortingxXxHatxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

sSs

Explanation:

gúþwine - old English for 'Comrade in war'

sSs

So, that's it for today.

Sorry that it took so long. I was in Japan for a while – I loved the country! – and couldn't write while being there.

Well, 'till next time.

Ebenbild

PS: I'm working on 'Basilisk-born'! I promise! It's a lot more complex than this story! So please no begging about that story here – I'm writing as fast as I can! T.T