Title: Then There Were Three
Rating: PG
Summary: The Sorting Hat is tired of a problem not being fixed, so he/it works to improve the issue.
A/N: Reminder, this stories in this series are abandoned and have typos and think-o's and probably other problems. Read at your own risk.
Harry looked around the Great Hall, thrilled that he was at Hogwarts. Magic! It was cool and he was going to learn it over the next seven years. Most of the others around him looked as thrilled as he was; a few were even entranced - like the Granger girl.
He saw Professor McGonagall at the front of the room with a floppy hat on a stool. He smiled when he heard Ron's relief at not having to fight a troll. He was further in awe as the brim of the hat opened and began to sing in a surprisingly good voice:
We have a house
That everyone thinks is a louse
Where children are treated like adults
And adults act like children
It has been this way for years
Causing many to shed tears
It's time to stop this nonsense
And make the changes no one else will
They say Gryffindor is brave
But acts like a knave
That is not the real Godric
And I should know
Ravenclaw is said to be smart
But that is only a part
Brains will only take you part way
And Rowena was so much more
So many look down on Hufflepuff
But they do know their stuff
Without Helga's fine house
We would have been lost long ago
So make your choices from these three
Tell me where you'd like to be
Since the fourth will no longer be
Available for you to see
The entire hall was silent after that. Harry noticed that all of the professors, starting with McGonagall, were in shock and looking at the hat as if it had done the impossible and they couldn't believe it. He wasn't sure what the problem was though.
By the time silence was becoming tense, Harry was relieve to hear the hat break it. "Well, Minerva, are you going to start the sorting or not? That is your job, is it not?"
The older witch looked up to the center of the head table for guidance and let out a weak, "Albus?"
Harry watched Dumbledore, the same likeness as the one on the chocolate frog card, stood and walked around the table to stand next to the hat on the stool. "Could you explain what you meant? It sounded like you planned do away with Slytherin."
"Eventually," the hat replied. "Those that are already there will remain and finish their years in it, but I will not sort any more new students into it until I believe that will not be a problem. Now, are we going to sort or send all the new ones home?"
A professor with greasy hair that touched his shoulders stood suddenly. "You can't get rid of my house!"
"It not going away, you'll still have it for this year and the next five. After that, it will not be used until I decide otherwise," the hat answered with a small twist to look backwards. Returning to face the incoming students, it shouted, "No more questions, let the sorting begin!"
Dumbledore still looked partially shocked but gave a limp gesture towards the list in McGonagall's hands and return to his seat.
"Abbott, Hannah," McGonagall called out while the greasy-haired man looked outraged but had no choice but to sit as the Headmaster was doing. The hat shouted, "Hufflepuff!", as the girl's robes changed to colors for that house.
Harry paid attention to some of the sorting, but he was still looking around trying to take it all in.
"Bulstrode, Millicent" It didn't take long for the hat to shout out "Gryffindor!" as her robes changed to red and gold. She shrugged and walked over to the proper table as it clapped for her.
"Crabbe, Vincent" went to Hufflepuff, walking as if taking a stroll in the park. The clapping was little muted but it was still there.
"Davis, Tracey" went to Ravenclaw.
"Goyle, Gregory" also went to Hufflepuff as his friend did.
"Granger, Hermione" sat under the hat for longer than a ten-count before the hat shouted, "Gryffindor!" Harry was glad for her to get what she wanted.
"Greengrass, Daphne" went to Ravenclaw.
"Longbottom, Neville" ended up in Gryffindor after a longer than average time.
"Malfoy, Draco" walked to the front when his name was called and Harry couldn't help but noticed the blond looked upset. Harry had barely reached the count of three before Malfoy shouted, "No, I want Slytherin!"
The hat opened its brim and shouted, "It will be Gryffindor!" and the boy's robes changed to gold and maroon. Based on his experiences with Malfoy so far, Harry wondered if he wanted to be in Gryffindor now.
"No, I refuse!" Draco shouted as he threw the hat to the floor and walked towards the Slytherin table.
"That will be twenty-five points from Gryffindor and a week of detentions!" the hat shouted as it jumped back up on the stool on its own. "Now go to your proper table or it will be two weeks."
Harry heard a sound above and behind him and looked up to see a number of black rocks or something in the container that was marked Gryffindor. He also noticed that McGonagall looked livid.
"Mr Malfoy," McGonagall called frostily, "move to your proper table in the next ten seconds or I'll make it three weeks of detention."
With anger written in his expression and in every way about him, he rose and practically stomped to the other side of the Great Hall. "Wait until my father hears about this; you'll change your tune," he said poisonously as he walked by McGonagall.
"You now have an extra week of detention for your disrespect, for a total of two weeks, Mr Malfoy," McGonagall said with a glare and looked like she was daring him to say something else. He sat at the end of the table away from everyone else and wisely said nothing more as he crossed his arms in a huff.
Harry noticed that absolutely no one had clapped for Malfoy, which he supposed he couldn't blame them after the ponce had cost the house points before the sorting was done.
"Nott, Theodore" was sent to Ravenclaw.
"Parkinson, Pansy" looked like she was struggling not to cry as she was sent to Hufflepuff. The 'Puffs didn't look appreciative of that and their applause was minimal.
"Patil, Pavrati" walked to the Gryffindor table and stood there for a moment, looking to see if there was anywhere else to sit rather than next to or across from Malfoy. The rest of the house took pity on her and moved down the other way so there was still a buffer between Malfoy and the rest of the house.
"Potter, Harry" He heard his name called and he walked forward to whispers and a few people pointing at him, causing him to shake his head slightly; he didn't think he deserved that - his mother deserved the recognition from what little he knew. McGonagall put the hat on his head.
"Hmm, what do we have here? Interesting," Harry heard in his head. "If I was going to put someone into Slytherin you'd be a good one as you are a true one, not someone who thinks he should be there just because of his family."
Harry couldn't help his snort and he heard something like laughing.
"Well, if not Slytherin, then it needs to be" … the hat shouted, "Gryffindor!"
With a grin, Harry handed the hat back to McGonagall and admired his changed robes as he walked over and sat by Neville. He noticed the entire table, minus Malfoy, was clapping for him and Ron's twin brothers where making a spectacle of themselves, causing him to grin. He also noticed that Malfoy looked even more upset now.
"Weasley, Ronald" came to join him soon enough and everyone squeezed a bit so Ron could sit next to him.
"Zabini, Blaise" was the last to be sorted and was sent to Ravenclaw.
"Can you believe it, no more Slytherins," Ron gushed as he reached for the food when it appeared.
"Hogwart's: A History has no record of that happening before," Granger added.
Harry just smiled and took it all in, not sure what to think of it. He didn't say much and continued to take it all in.
When the feast ended, Percy Weasley stood looked at first-years, most of whom were sitting together. "First-years, follow me. I'm a Prefect and I'll lead you to Gryffindor Tower." He leaned over and spoke quietly to the girl next to him. She didn't look happy but nodded and walked towards Malfoy.
Harry shrugged and followed Percy like his friends did.
Percy explained a few things on their trip, including the current password to get into the tower. He also led them to their dorm room where he stood there for a moment.
"What are you waiting for Percy?" his brother asked.
In answer to the question, the girl Percy had spoken to before seemed to shove Malfoy into the room before she turned and left.
"The last thing you need to do tonight is to choose a bed," Percy told them.
It took Harry a fraction of a second before he literally ran past Percy and claimed the bed next to the door to the bathroom. Neville was only a few steps behind him and claimed the next bed. Ron came next, then Seamus and finally Dean, who looked put out as that placed him next to Malfoy's bed near the door.
Percy looked unconcerned at the choices and floated the trunks that were stacked in the room to the end of each owner's bed before saying, "Remember, be downstairs at seven for us to lead you to breakfast." Then he was gone.
"This is stupid!" Malfoy claimed as he sat on the end of his bed. "Slytherin dorms give every person their own room. My father told me so."
"Then leave us and go complain to him," Ron retorted as he opened his trunk and started pulling things out.
"Shut up, Weasel, no one wants to hear from a pauper like you," Malfoy said derisively.
"And no one wants you here, Death Eater spawn," Ron retorted with hatred.
Harry looked at Neville who just looked back and shrugged. Neither really knew what to do about this, but both figured it was going to be a long seven years if this kept up.
— — —
The entire staff filed into the conference room while the Prefects were taking care of their charges. Everyone watched Dumbledore enter and take a seat at the head of the large oval table and place the sorting hat in front of him. Snape sat next to Dumbledore and stared at the hat, obviously in a major snit. McGonagall took the other end of the table and the rest of the staff sat in the middle seats.
"Hat," Dumbledore said a little wearily. "Can you explain yourself more now? Why did you refuse to sort any of the new students into Slytherin?"
The hat turned slightly to face the Headmaster, but it was clearly heard by all. "I've been singing about unity for years, but you never listen or do anything, Albus, and you let their head of house make it worse. Year after year has Slytherin changing, go further away from Salazar's ideals. They are ostracized and disliked by all the other houses. It's your fault but I'm going to try to fix it since you won't. The current second year Slytherins will be the last for decades to come."
Several gasped at that while Dumbledore closed his eyes and sighed.
Snape stood and with his fists on the table leaned forward and tried to glare the hat into submission. "You can't do this. The founders created four houses."
"The founders created four houses because there were four founders, not because that was some magical number," the hat replied as it turned to Snape. "I should know, I was there. And I can too do this, it's in the original charter that I, and by extension the school, operate under because we were created this way. You don't have any say in this."
"I say we ignore it and send some of the first-years to Slytherin anyway," Snape said as he sat.
"You can try, but they will never wear Slytherin colors nor be considered part of the house. The original charter says that I and only I can sort the students. If you don't use me to sort, then they won't be considered official students and they can't attend class. That's the way the founders set it up. I've sorted and they are not Slytherins."
"Fine," Snape said, though it was obvious he didn't think it was fine, "but we could still send some of the students to the Slytherin dorms so they aren't too crowded in the other three."
"No you can't," the hat told him. "Students are to officially reside in their sorted dorms. If they do not, they can be given detentions and if there are enough unserved detentions, the student can be expelled … again, according to the founder's rules."
"Hat, what about the punishments for Mr Malfoy. Are those real?" Dumbledore asked.
"I saw the point counter change. Never has Gryffindor gone negative before classes have even started," McGonagall pointed out a little angrily. "Mr Malfoy will be serving his detentions with me so that he might learn to respect his betters."
Dumbledore didn't look happy with her, but he looked back at the hat. "What if the Board of Governors changed the policies? Maybe we could resort the students."
The hat turned back to the Headmaster. "They can change whatever they want, but it won't change the student's house. That and admission is determined by me and the magic of the school in accordance to the founder's rules."
"Maybe we could change the hat," Snape suggested as he glared at the hat.
"If you try to change me, that will break the charter of the school and it will cease to exist."
Snape smiled ever so slightly. "Maybe that would be for the best."
"You don't understand," the hat said pointedly as it turned to the Potion teacher. "I mean that literally. The castle would send all of you out and then it and I would disappear. No more Hogwarts - you'd have to start over and that includes building a new castle. How do you plan to explain that to your precious Board of Governors and the Ministry?" the Hat said scathingly.
"Severus, desist!" Albus told him before looking around and seeing the shock on everyone's face at the thought of Hogwarts literally disappearing. "It seems that the situation will have to stay like it is for now and there will be no first-year Slytherins."
Snape all but threw himself back into his chair, still upset at the idea of his house going away, even if it wasn't immediate.
"Minerva," Dumbledore looked down the table, "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to draw up new timetables for the first years."
Flitwick spoke up for the first time in this meeting. "All classes would have to be double-periods because of their increased size." He looked at the Headmaster. "Or maybe better since the classes are a little large even now, we might even have split the group in thirds by houses because the class size might be too big otherwise." Several groaned as they realized the truth in his statement.
"On the other hand," Flitwick continued, "this might be for the good as it only one-third of the entire year would be a smaller than normal class size and we could teach more individually as needed."
"But can we even fit that many classes into our schedule without adding new teachers?" Sprout asked. "We're already over worked as is, and that's even more true for those of us who are a head of house and teach seven years of classes."
Those who taught core classes and had seven years of students all nodded, even McGonagall who was considered a master of time-management by the others.
Dumbledore sighed again. "I'll approach the Board of Governors about finding a few part-time teachers to help out." He also glared balefully at the hat as he considered what Lucius Malfoy would say and try to do about this.
(A/N: While this is a fun thought, I don't feel like writing a full story surrounding this. That being said, here are a few ideas on what could (needs to) be worked in:
* Ron and Malfoy will have increasing fights as time goes on (especially after what happened on the train); Malfoy will hate being there; they will each spend a lot of time in detention.
* Need a scene with Lucius confronting Dumbledore, who has to give the same arguments the hat gave; could even have Malfoy bring in Fudge for more pressure. Draco is still in Gryffindor at the end of the day.
* Milli (who is a HB) will have a hard time in Gryffindor but Hermione will reach out to her and they will become friends by the end of Sep.
* Since Milli is Hermione's friend, when Ron insults Hermione at Halloween, Milli will belt Ron in the courtyard and go after Hermione and she won't spend the day in the WC (she'll come out by the end of lunch) so won't be in a fight with the troll.
* Harry stops being as friendly with Ron (since he's always fighting with Malfoy) because he doesn't like the constant tension because it reminds him of the Dursleys and Harry starts to spend more time with Neville, leaving Ron to have to spend time with Dean and Seamus.
* Draco becomes a loner. Tries to spend time with Parvati (but he doesn't like Lavender because she's a HB), causing Parv to ignore him? Tries to spend time with the older Sly (& gets into trouble as they look down on him and treat him like an outsider). McGonagall catches him doing bad stuff and "slaps him hard" (with punishments) and Draco "sees the light"? (if you want to redeem Draco) Or Lucius could pull Draco out and send him to another school like Durmstrang? (probably not) Maybe Draco will have to change the image he presents to survive, which turns him into a true Slytherin? - Yeah, need to determine what to do with Draco.
* A fun variation would be to have the hat remove Slytherin immediately, forcing a resort of the existing 6 years of students, which means Snape is instantly no longer a head of house.
As usual, this is up for adoption. Please let me know if you post a story based on this so I can put a pointer here to your story. - Kevin)