Hat
Ginny, open-mouthed, dazed, started to doze off. Her head sank, hit the armrest, and woke up. Thinking this was not the way to go, she got up and quickly cleaned the headmaster's office.
After she carefully settled the last grain of dust, she picked up the bucket and was just about to go out, but a voice rang in her ear.
"Kiddo, gimme a hand."
Ginny was scared and almost threw the bucket away.
"I'm just here to clean."
"That's why I'm asking you."
The voice came from the closet and sounded harmless. Ginny stepped forward and jerked open the door. There was no one inside but a hat who was speaking.
The sorting hat was sitting leisurely on a pile of old papers, a book titled Educational Administration spread vertically in front of him, with an odd glowing plant next to it, illuminating the otherwise dim closet.
"Help me turn the page."
Ginny did as it said.
"Thanks." The hat nodded slightly, "It's inconvenient without Fawkes, no one's turning the page for me, and Dumbledore has to write his own papers now.
"He didn't write the papers himself before?" Ginny was curious.
"I used to dictate Fawkes's notes. How diligent do you think Dumbledore is? If I did not help him take care of this stuff, the school would have been in disarray. I recall a hundred and thirty years ago…"
"Can I leave?" Ginny did not have the leisure to listen to the history of magic, so she interrupted the hat.
"Young girl, this is very rude. What's the hurry, sit down and have a chat with me. Look at Fawkes, he can't turn the pages for me, and with Dumbledore away, it's no fun to be alone for me."
"But I have urgent business to discuss with my friends."
"How urgent can your stuff be? Can't do your homework? Gaining weight? Your little boyfriend ran off with someone else?"
"None of that boring sort!" Ginny sincerely wanted to throw the hat and his provocative attitude into the washing machine.
"No? Does that mean-" the hat stammered tastily, "that you saw something you shouldn't have seen, remembered something you shouldn't have remembered, and is going to pass it on to your friend?"
A bolt from the blue struck Ginny.
Damn, the hat has a high possibility of knowing what just happened. If it founds out that I remembered it all, will I be dragged to brainwashing again?
"See what? What to remember? Ginny decided to play dumb, "By the way, Who's Fawkes? Tell me about it, there is no place to find someone as knowledgeable as you."
"Gee, that's sickening." The sorting hat was coaxed into extra comfort. "Fawkes is Dumbledore's Phoenix, look at that shelf over there."
Ginny glanced at it perfunctorily.
"Liar, I've seen pictures, phoenixes are beautiful, they're not like this. This is what they call a turkey in my hometown."
" He just burnt himself. Phoenix was like this when he was little. You never heard the story of The Ugly Duckling? I'll tell you about it… "
The hat excitedly told the history of the Phoenix and the story of The Ugly Duckling. The more the hat said, the further the topic went. Even Dumbledore's anecdotes have been taken out one by one.
"...That time he asked me, 'Sorting hat, sorting hat, who's the greatest person of all?' I said probably Audrey Hepburn. Guess what he said… "
Wow, I've found someone more talkative than Mum, Ginny thought.
She stood on the side distractedly listening, thinking the hat has a big mouth, it won't be difficult to try to get some information out of it.
She looked for a gap in the hat breath and interjected.
"Dumbledore has been away lately, where did he go?"
"Who knows, anyway, every time I am left alone." The hat said, full of unhappiness. "Bosses are all the same, excuses of business, but go outside for pleasure, eating and having fun."
"How good is that, who won't be happy for nice food… Oh, do you think Phoenix can be eaten?"
"Maybe in the East you can."
"Is it like, extra nutritious? Like after eating it you'll become stronger or something?"
The hat did not answer, the folds of its body one by one wrinkled together, tangled for a while. It finally said slowly:
"You know what? I think you do remember everything."
The hat changed its attitude too fast, bluffed Ginny's momentary speech.
"Uh… I… What did you say?"
The wrinkles on the hat stretched out and stared at Ginny for a moment.
"Lemme tell you a story," the hat cleared his throat, "There is a Hogwarts honours student who met You Know Who. The man asked him one plus one equal to what. The honour student said it equaled two, and You Know Who gave him to Avada. Do you know why?"
"Why?"
"He knows too much."
"... "
"Don't play your tricks with me. I am warning you. Learn to behave and mind your own business, it's bad luck to know too much."
The hat dares to be so arrogant! Exposed Ginny is really not happy, grabbed the hat upside down on the sycamore wood frame, then put the bare Fawkes inside.
"So Fawkes won't be cold."
"Come back and take Fawkes out-"
Ginny locked the door, shutting the sorting hat and its endless whining behind, exited the Headmaster's office. She found Colin waiting for her in the hallway, and together they went down the hall, found the trio, and Ginny repeated what she had just overheard originally.
"I was struck with the Obliviate. But strangely enough, I am standing here telling you all everything I should have forgotten." She said in a book-like manner, "Isn't it amazing?"
"Yeah." Hermione scribbled down everything Ginny said, but in a rather cold manner.
"Give me some reaction, Hermione, this information is hard to come by, I risked my life coming to tell you!" Ginny looked at her curtly.
Hermione continued to organize the records without expression, and in order to avoid the atmosphere from continuing to be so awkward, the others decided to join the shock for Hermione and discussed the topic enthusiastically.
According to the discussion, Hermione recorded a few important pieces of information.
First, Astoria is most likely another Mary Sue, that they were already aware of on the train.
Second, she said she was going to look at the person, most likely to be Aquamarine Weasley.
Third, she and Snape, Malfoy most likely have crossed paths, and probably knew each other before. This suggests that Snape probably also most likely be on the opposite side of Aquamarine.
Fourth, there are other people on the opposite side, most likely including Dumbledore.
Fifth, combined with Ginny's memories of what she saw of Aquamarine and what Astoria did, Mary Sue is most likely to enhance their power by absorbing other magical creatures and wizards.
Sixth, Astoria likes manga and has a strong sense of animal protection.
The number of fine entries grew, and Hermione carefully took notes of each one.
"Hermione, why did you write so many 'most likely'?" Colin glanced at the notebook.
"Doubt is always the closest to the truth. These are just inferences, and sometimes the most obvious inferences are a hundred thousand miles from the truth." Hermione's brow furrowed as she checked up the entry, "Things are getting worse if you just look at inferences."
"I think it's okay, at least we found someone else alongside us," Ginny said optimistically.
"There is nothing to be happy about if this is true, it means that Aquamarine is even trickier than we thought, otherwise we wouldn't need to raise so much of a fuss. Look at number five, absorbing other creatures, what a monster…"
"Uh… Sorry, can I rephrase that?" Ron raises his hand nervously, "My family suddenly becomes a monster, I cannot quite accept. And, about Mary Sue or whatever, I've been thinking about it for a long time… Is there really such a thing? I mean we couldn't find any records at all from the library. Maybe Aquamarine is just naturally powerful or something…"
"Did you forget about all those things that weren't right last school year! You even told me yourself!" Ginny sounded a little annoyed "Do you mean I lied!"
"It's not, but…"
"She's a monster!"
"Ginny, she's my sister, and she's your sister! Are you sure you want to talk about your own family like that?"
The two siblings stared at each other in tit-for-tat rage, neither one refusing to budge.
"Shut up, both of you." Hermione's tone was not angry but did enough threatening, "You want the whole world to know about this? This is not the point of the conversation now, go home and sort it yourselves. Ginny, I have two more important things to ask you, you said Dumbledore has been away since school started?"
"Right." Ginny stopped paying attention to Ron, "Every time I've been there no one was there."
"Which means you haven't turned in that diary by now?" Hermione had a threat in her eyes.
"I…"
"Isn't that true!"
"Well… But I listened to you, didn't talk to him."
"Hmph, it better be." Hermione snorted, "As soon as Dumbledore gets back you give it to him."
"As ordered."
"Also are you sure you were cast with an Obliviate from Snape?"
"Yes, because I heard them say it… But… The sorting hat seemed suspicious…" Ginny added the matter of the sorting hat. She had expected Hermione to scold her for talking too much, but Hermione didn't care at all.
"Don't worry about that off-colour hat, if he's not on the same side as Snape, Snape won't care about him. If he is, it doesn't matter, because most likely Snape already knew you hadn't forgotten and gave you a pass when he cast the spell."
"He's that kind?" Harry asked.
"Not kind, maybe there's another purpose."
"What purpose?"
"No idea." Hermione spread her hands and began to sort the things on the table into her bag, "I can't think of a better explanation than that he let it slip."
"I know!" Ginny burst out in excitement, "I have superpowers, I'm magic-free!"
"Impossible." Hermione gave Ginny a rare smile, then said to the others, "It's almost time for dinner, the crowd is getting bigger and bigger, we'll discuss when we have new information. For now, you three come with me to the library."
The boys got up, though not quite willingly.
Only Ginny sat where she was and asked Hermione's back, "Why impossible?"
"Just impossible."
Hermione replied clearly, walking to the library with the other three.
It wasn't until after lunch that Ginny understood why Hermione hadn't called on her and understood the meaning of the word "impossible".
At some point, she was glued to a chair with a magic spell.
That afternoon around one o'clock, many people at Hogwarts witnessed the high and mighty Lord Chief carrying a chair through the corridor.
I really need to see a psychiatrist.
Ginny was in tears the whole way, feeling like Macbeth, a tragedy.
