Author's note:
WOW! I never got so many reviews before. Thank you all. Therefore here is already the next chapter.
Note: Then numbers 1234567890 and such are simply to mark a new scene, as my other marks were often eliminated while uploading.
Last chapter:
"Mr. Potter… what are you doing?" McGonagall asked really shocked as Harry pulled off the hat without being sorted. The hall was completely silent now, waiting for what was to happen. Then the sorting hat opened its 'mouth' again and…
Chapter 21 Founder's student
…the hat began to sing, but this time a different tune.
Powers and cunning of great Slytherin
Kindness and patience of dear Hufflepuff
Wisdom and intellect of smart Ravenclaw
Bravery and courage of bold Gryffindor.
Child of light, a member of all houses four,
The best traits of all united.
So students of Hogwarts four,
listen to what I have to say.
Be it Slytherin or Ravenclaw,
Hufflepuff or Gryffindor,
welcome this child of light in your houses all
for he is one of you.
(Sorry but I absolutely can't write a poem of sorts in a foreign language.)
There was silence but only for a moment, then excited whispering broke out all through the hall. Harry was completely lost. What did that mean? It couldn't mean what he thought, could it? But that wasn't possible, how could he be in different houses at once?
Finally Dumbledore tapped his glass to get the attention of the students.
"It seems as the sorting hat has decided to make Mr. Potter a member of all four houses. As the hat said, accept him into your house and treat him as a member of your house."
There was stunned silence. Harry looked equally surprised as everyone. That wasn't a joke? But, but…
Minerva remarked Harry's uneasiness and all the stares he was receiving and said.
"Mr. Potter, why don't you get a seat, let's say at the Gryffindor table for tonight, that way we can continue the sorting?"
"Yes ma'am." Harry said quietly, thankful to get away from the front. He quickly made his way to where Hermione and Neville were sitting as Dumbledore began to clap, followed by the Gryffindors and some of the other houses that weren't too surprised to move. Then the sorting continued.
"I didn't know you could get into several houses." Hermione whispered.
Harry just shrugged unsure. He wasn't sure what to say. He looked at the head table and Dumbledore gave him a gentle smile, while most of the teachers were looking about as confused as the students. With the exception of Snape off course who had his mask firmly in place.
The sorting ended with Blaise getting into Slytherin.
The hat and stool were taken away and Dumbledore stood up.
"Welcome to Hogwarts! I do not want to let you wait any longer so let the feast begin."
The plates before them filled with many different and delicious looking dishes. And everyone started to fill his or her plates.
"Are you really the Harry Potter? And how did you get sorted into all houses?" A girl opposite Harry asked giggling nervously.
"Uhm… I don't know about the sorting. Well it just happened." Harry shrugged unsure.
"So are you really in all houses now? And how does that work with the house points?"
"How should Harry…"
"know about that."
"But forget house points…"
"more important is…"
"How about quidditch?"
The twins contributed to the discussion.
It wasn't the last time Harry's unusual sorting was the subject of conversation. Also on other tables the older students wondered about it, even though the first years were mostly occupied by their new surrounding and their own sorting to care too much about it just yet.
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"Albus do you know what that means?"
Minerva asked at the head table.
"Didn't you hear the song, Minerva?" Dumbledore teased.
"Of course I did, but how can Ha… Mr. Potter be a member of all houses, how can that work?"
"I do need to look up a few things but I remember a similar happening some years ago, I wasn't headmaster back then. I seem to remember that a young witch got sorted into Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. But as said, I must look up the details, or ask the hat."
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Before sending the students to bed Dumbledore leaned over to Snape.
"Severus, I assume you give your Slytherins your usual speech."
Snape nodded shortly.
"Good, good. Can you take Mr. Potter along? After all he's also a Slytherin and therefore should be there."
Snape wanted to comment first but Dumbledore cut him off. "You heard what the hat had to say. Minerva and I will meanwhile look up the necessary information."
With this Dumbledore got up and began the start of term notices.
"First years, and some of our older students" – he glanced at the Weasley twins who smiled innocently - "should note that the Forbidden Forest on the grounds is, as it's name suggests, forbidden to all students without a teacher present.
"Mr. Filch, our caretaker, wishes to remind you that no magic is to be used in the corridors between classrooms.
"Quidditch trials are in the second week, and are open to anyone above second year. Anyone interested in playing for his or her house team should speak with Madam Hooch.
"An important announcement for everyone. The third floor corridor on the right hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."
There were some laughs but Harry didn't even smile. If Professor Dumbledore said something like that he didn't joke. Actually he had also forbidden Harry to go into any locked corridors or rooms in the holidays. And speaking of it, he had come across this door and it had been locked. He shrugged it off, just wanting to make sure not to get in there.
After that they sang the school song. Harry remarked Minerva looking sterner than usual; apparently she wasn't fond of this. Not that the song seemed that great to Harry actually. In contrary though Professor Dumbledore seemed to enjoy himself as much as he did when he got a new supply of lemon drops. Then they were finally sent to bed.
'What now?' Harry thought. 'Will I sleep in Gryffindor or where do I go?' Hermione asked him the same question a moment later.
"I don't know, I should probably ask a teach…" He was interrupted.
"Mr. Potter." A cold voice called from behind.
Harry spun around to come face to face with a sullen looking Snape.
"You are to follow the Slytherins. Hurry up they don't want to wait for you."
"Thank you sir." Harry quickly said, nodding to Hermione and hurried over to the Slytherin table.
"Hey Harry, nice sorting." Blaise greeted him. "You coming with us?"
"Yes, it seems so. I don't really know where I'm going to sleep and everything."
"First years, follow me!" A Slytherin prefect called. He led them towards the dungeons and stopped in front of a wall. "The password is aconite," he explained and the wall opened to reveal the Slytherin common room. It was underground, all decorated in green and silver. Personally Harry thought that the Gryffindor common room (Minerva had taken him on a little tour of the tower) was more comfortable but he certainly didn't say anything.
"The rooms are up these stairs, girls to the right, boys to the left. We Slytherins are the only house that has single rooms. If you'd rather be in the same room with someone, say so, but mind you, it will stay that way all school year. Now Professor Snape will come and explain a few things about what being a Slytherin means. I advise you to show him respect and not to interrupt him while he is speaking. While he favours us in front of other houses he expects respect and has no problem in punishing you if you don't show him any. Understood?" He looked around, spotting Malfoy talking to one of his guards, snickering.
"You there, Malfoy wasn't it?"
"Yes?" Malfoy asked arrogantly.
"Listen when a prefect or teacher is speaking. We don't want to lose the house cup because of a first year."
Malfoy grew slightly red and was about to retort when the wall opened again and Professor Snape strode in, his robes billowing behind him.
"Sit and listen." He quietly commanded, pointing to the couches nearby.
They all saw that opposing was rather stupid and did so.
"Welcome to Slytherin house. I wish to make a few things clear about what it means to be a Slytherin."
"Sir, what is he doing here? He's no Slytherin." Draco spoke up, pointing to Harry.
"First rule of all Mr. Malfoy is to be silent when I speak! I may be easy on you in class, not taking off points, but the same doesn't apply in here. If you can't behave you will serve a detention, understood? Mr. Malfoy?"
"Yes." Malfoy replied pouting slightly.
"Good. Now our house has won both the house cup and the quidditch cup in the last several years and I expect that to remain so. I expect you to use your mind before driving into a confrontation, not like a Gryffindor. Slytherins are often private people and this is certainly a good thing. However, we also are one house and we do not attack any of our fellow house members. If you can't stand someone, avoid him or her. I will not have people of my house attacking each other, not here and much less in front of others."
It went on like this for a while. Harry thought that Snape seemed to expect a lot of his house, not that they should be nice little boys, but it was clear why ambition was a Slytherin trait. Finally when he had ended he asked. "Questions?"
A girl held up her hand. "Miss Parkinson?"
"Is Potter sleeping here or what does he do here sir?"
"If you had listened what the hat had to say, you would know that apparently Mr. Potter is also a Slytherin and therefore is to be included in this house. This certainly means that he should know what it means to be a Slytherin."
"But he can't be a Slytherin and a Gryffindor at the same time. Can't he just go to them?"
Draco wasn't happy about Harry being there. He was angry about the encounter on the train. After all Potter should have told him who he was!
"Are you criticizing an object created by the founders of Hogwarts themselves Mr. Malfoy?" Snape asked a bit dangerously. "Good. Now if that's all you can go to your rooms. Potter stay down here, until it is clear where you sleep. Someone will get you later." With this Snape turned around and left, his robes again billowing. Harry remarked that in the holidays they had hardly done that. It seemed only to be used in case of anger, or when Snape wanted to intimidate someone.
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Meanwhile in the headmaster's office:
"Quiet the sorting, was it?" Dumbledore asked amused.
"Albus, can't we just find out what that meant. Also, what about the song from the sorting hat. What did he mean with the powers of Slytherin for example."
"Why don't we ask? Hat, care to enlighten us?"
"Now, now headmaster, you do know that I never tell what I see during the sorting. But I thought there were more urgent questions you had?"
"Actually yes. I could of course look it up, but it would be much easier if you could tell us what it means. I don't remember much more than that one student, she was an outstanding student at that, but concerning school rules and sleeping arrangements I must say I forgot."
"And I have never even heard of this. Why isn't this in "Hogwart's a History"?"
"Oh that's simple Professor, but let us start at the beginning, shall we?"
"You all know that in the time Hogwarts was founded magical schools were unusual. Mostly children were apprenticed to an adult. Now with the school this seemed to be less important. But still the more powerful families, or families with a particularly talented child thought that their children weren't challenged enough in a normal class. Not wanting to only have the less talented children here at Hogwarts the founders began the concept of the founder's apprentices. In this time the founders already had other teachers at school, helping them to teach. Therefore they had more time. They decided to still take on some sort of apprentices, condition were that they went to Hogwarts. They would pick the most talented once they were showing signs of talent beyond their classmates. These students were called founder's apprentices, because they received personal instruction from one of the founders, in addition to the normal lessons of course.
In some very rare cases a student would be trained not only by one but by several of the founders. Now as their time passed and I was created to do the sorting they were thinking about if they should continue with this tradition. They decided that they wouldn't separate possible 'founder's apprentices' from others by the sorting. You see it would bring too much attention, mark them as possible powerful witches and wizards from the beginning. In times of apprentices, having a powerful master also meant that this student would be powerful, but the master could defend the apprentice until he, or she was ready to do so himself. So they told me to simply put those students in the normal houses. They could of course still become an apprentice of a teacher later on, if they showed promise.
But what to do about the students who would have been taught by several of them? Only those of extraordinarily talent were given this honour and they simply wanted to have a way to insure that those would be supported accordingly. Thus they decided to still sort these particular students into several houses at once and then let me explain what it meant. Because those students were rare, it wouldn't be so much of a danger for people to find out the reason for their unusual sorting. In addition they performed a charm that prevented people from recording such happenings. You could write it down, but about 10 years later it simply changed into one of the houses the concerning student was put in. They also changed the name slightly and thus such students are now called founder's students, which is easy to explain a student's of the houses of several founders."
"That's quite a lot of information." Minerva said. "But one thing I don't understand. You said that the most talented were sorted into several houses. But from your expression, I see that you weren't one Albus. Why not?"
Here the hat chuckled slightly.
"Not only the talent is important. You also need to have the different traits of the houses. And the last condition is important too. You have to be open to all houses, and to those you get sorted into them in particular. Now our esteemed headmaster here was, if you excuse me saying so, quite the stubborn young man, yes he was."
Dumbledore chuckled a little embarrassed while Minerva looked surprised but also amused.
"I did indeed plan on putting him in Gryffindor as well as Slytherin, yes you do have some Slytherin traits headmaster."
Then turning to McGonagall the hat continued.
"But you should have heard what our young Mr. Dumbledore had to say about that particular house. Threatened to burn me if I put him in Slytherin, yes he did. Well after that it was quite clear he wasn't accepting of his possible second house, so I left it at Gryffindor."
Minerva was now having a hard time trying to conceal her laugher. It was difficult to imagine Albus as a boy, much less as one who threatened the sorting hat.
"You must see, all my family were Gryffindors." Albus finally said. "But I have become more open now."
"Yes, yes headmaster. And you used the other possibility to get some extra studies. If I remember right you were apprenticed to the headmaster sometimes during your schooldays."
"Yes, after my O.W.L.'s. But I think we should come back to Harry. What does that mean for him, concerning school rules, sleeping arrangements and such?"
"He will of course sleep where the founder's students were sleeping back then. You know these rooms well headmaster, where apprentices live too."
At this Dumbledore smiled. "That's certainly practical. Let me call a house elf to have them prepare a room. He can sleep tonight in his room with Minerva."
Snapping his fingers twice he called "Timmy!"
"Yes headmaster Dumbledore sir? What cans Timmy do for sir?"
"Can you please get one of the rooms on the second floor behind the Hogwarts flag ready? You know where the apprentices sleep if there are any. It's for Harry Potter."
"We is knowing sir. We has seen Mr. Harry Potter sir is a founder's student. We has already done so sir."
"Well then, thank you." Dumbledore was once again surprised at how much the house elves knew.
The house elf bowed and popped away.
"If that's taken care off, let us get into the rest of the questions." Dumbledore wanted to hear more of the hat's story. The history of Hogwarts had always fascinated him. And he was really curious about what the hat had to say. About 30 years back he hadn't gotten that kind of information, and he probably wouldn't give it to the other teachers now either.
But Minerva interrupted. "It's getting late Albus. If the room is ready we should see that Harry goes to sleep. We can explain everything later, but it won't do for him to fall asleep in the Slytherin common room."
"Of course your right, grandma" Dumbledore joked.
Minerva swatted him lightly on the head, if Harry would call her that, all right, but not Albus, who was about eighty years older.
"I shall have Severus show him there, we still have a few things to work out."
Minerva nodded. "I can already see the questions we'll be bombarded with tomorrow, and Harry too of course."
"Are you sure you don't have some hidden seer blood in you?" Dumbledore inquired, the twinkle in his eyes working overtime.
"Albus!"
"Yes, yes, now I'll have Harry visit here tomorrow before breakfast, to explain at least a bit. So then let's call Severus."
"Tell him, that he should tell Harry that I'll come to say goodnight later."
Dumbledore smiled at Minerva and nodded. Then he tossed the powder into the fire and stuck his head in.
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A few minutes before in the dungeons.
"Severus!" A voice called from the fireplace.
Snape turned to it, pretending to be surprised. After all not everyone needed to know about the monitoring charm he had on his fireplace that alerted him of any person calling and gave him the possibility to stop the connection before it was even complete.
Good evening Lucius, what can I do for you?" He asked in an emotionless voice.
"Just had a little time and so I thought I might call you old friend."
"Draco is in Slytherin." Snape replied directly. "It was one of the shortest sortings I have ever seen."
Lucius nodded shortly; after all he hadn't expected anything else.
"Anything else?"
"He will probably complain that I criticized him. But I can't have him interrupt me in the Slytherin common room. He will need to learn some discipline for his later 'career'" Snape's tone implied what he meant also without words.
Lucius only nodded. "Anything else interesting happened? From the year the Potter boy should have come to Hogwarts. How is our saviour?"
"He is indeed here. The sorting was rather strange though. The hat sorted him into all houses, I don't know if he just didn't have enough qualities to fully get into one. But I do not know anything of this yet. I will get back to you later. Now if you excuse me, I want to check up on the little snakes."
Lucius's head vanished.
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The next floo call was more welcome.
"Albus? What have you found out?"
"We will inform the staff tomorrow. But Harry does get his own room, as he is what's called a founder's student. Simply because he is in the house of several founder's. Students like that are not too common but not too rare either. They simply have balanced traits of the houses, but I'm getting off the point. Harry's room is in the east wing, near the head boy/girl rooms. The rooms where apprentices live if there are any. Can you take him there? Minerva and I have to see about the school rules and all. And do tell him Minerva is going to come say goodnight later and that he should come to my office before breakfast." Then he gave Snape a few directions how to enter the room.
Snape nodded, surprised by the news. So this sorting into several houses really existed. At least Harry got his own room. He didn't think that it would have been good for the boy to house with a bunch of insensible Gryffindors. He mentally shook himself. He really had to watch out, he sounded nearly… well caring even if he hated to admit it. But thinking of it, it was actually quite nice, not that he would admit that to Albus. The man would have a field day if he ever said something like that.
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"Potter, come with me. It seems they have found a place for you to sleep." Snape called harshly as he entered the Slytherin common room.
Harry quickly got up and walked to the exit. It seemed that some of the Slytherins wanted to ask questions but Snape's glare stopped them.
"Come on Potter, I don't have all night. It's bad enough that I have to play messenger for our new celebrity."
Harry followed Professor Snape through the corridors. They were again in the entrance hall and then walked towards the part of the castle where most of the classrooms where. Taking another turn left and climbing another few stairs they were finally in another corridor Harry only knew from passing. Snape stepped to the Hogwarts sign on the wall and told Harry to place his hand on it as Dumbledore had instructed him.
"Say Harry James Potter, founder's student of Slytherin, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff." He told Harry who dutifully did so, suppressing the urge to ask what a founder's student was.
The Hogwarts sign glowered slightly and then the door opened into a large living room, similar to the Gryffindor common room, even if not so big and not in red and gold.
Snape had Harry step in and then looked around. He himself had never been in here before. He had made his potion mastery outside Hogwarts and hadn't even known about these rooms. Seeing that Harry looked dead on his feet he decided to get to the task at hand.
"Come along, your room is somewhere through here." He told him and walked out of a door with a sign of 'private rooms'.
Indeed they found Harry's room quickly, it was again labelled.
When Harry opened the door he gasped slightly. It was really similar to the room he had with Minerva, nearly as big and also nicely decorated. There was a door leading into a shower, toilet room.
"But… but sir, I mean… why… are the Slytherin rooms also this big?"
"No they aren't, but I think this will be explained later. From what Professor Dumbledore has told me, these rooms are normally used for apprentices and therefore are bigger. But that will be explained tomorrow. You are to go to the headmaster's office before breakfast, it will be explained then. Now I propose you get settled and such. Minerva has said that she will come by to say goodnight or something like that." Snape told him with his usual mask up.
Harry nodded and thanked him.
Before Snape left he turned and smiled slightly at Harry.
"By the way, congratulations on being made a Slytherin." Then he left.
Harry went to unpack his things only to find that his cloths were already put away. 'The house elves must have done that.' He thought. 'I must thank them when I go visit next time.' He decided to change for bed and then settled on the comfortable bed with the defence book to wait for his guardian.
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It was already half past ten when Minerva and Albus had finally worked out the important points about Harry being a founder's student. They had read about the school rules in a book that was passed down from headmaster to headmaster. It only contained the rules and such, not the reasons why someone would be made a founder's student. The hat was solely responsible of that. He would have known about the rules too, but he declared that he was tired. "Sorting students, singing an additional song and talking for so long makes one tired. And I'm not the youngest anymore, so good night." He had said and after that they hadn't heard anything of him.
Minerva startled when she saw the time.
"It's late Albus, Harry will probably be waiting for me, knowing him he doesn't dare to go to bed when someone comes to visit him, so I'd better go."
"Of course Minerva. Do you want to run there as Tabby or would you care to know a little secret about the apprentices rooms?"
She merely raised an eyebrow.
"You see, it is connected to the interhouse floo. That's pretty practical if one wants to visit, let's say a little boy, isn't it?"
Minerva only smiled and waited for him to give her the floo name, knowing full well that any question would lead to some other teasing or vague answers. She knew Albus very well and the games he liked to play.
"Alright, I see you just want to go there. Well what chance has an old man like me against the youth." He sighed and shook his head in mock disappointment.
"Albus! Would you stop that? Harry should get to sleep today preferably."
"My apologizes. It's 'founder's room'. Good night Minerva."
"Thank you, good night Albus."
Minerva was gone with a swish of green flames.
Arriving in the founder's room she saw immediately the reason for the name. There were four portraits decorating the room, one of each founder. Unfortunately the portraits weren't like modern wizarding portraits; they didn't contain a part of the person on them and therefore couldn't speak. This was a relatively new technique, only a few centuries old.
Minerva made her way towards the rooms and saw Harry's name on a door. She knocked quietly. After she got no reaction on another knock she finally entered the room, and smiled. Harry had apparently been waiting for her. He was sitting on his bed, a book in his lap, parchment on it and quill posed as if he wanted to write something soon. Eilean was lying next to him, blinking tiredly. And Harry… Harry was fast asleep, his head lolling against the head of the bed. It was such a peaceful picture that Minerva simply watched him sleep for a while. His face looked so young and untroubled, he seemed to be truly at peace.
Finally she used a levitation charm to transfer him under the covers without waking him. She wrote a short note and asked a house elf to wake him at 6.30 the next morning.
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Author's note:
Thanks for all the great reviews, it seems I need to do cliffhanger more often,….oh alright, just joking. Continue to review and I won't.
So this was probably one of the most important chapters so far. What do you think? Please tell me, I need to know it to continue writing.
So the right answer was Harry gets sorted into all houses, several of you guessed correctly, I hope all the emails arrived.
The next chapter will be the first day of classes, but I will take longer to update than this time, I just didn't want you to have to wait long for what's going to happen.