Welcome back, dear readers, to "Infinity Keeps Me Alive"
Take your time.
A Proper Sorting
"... So put me on! Don't be afraid!
And don't get in a flap!
You're in safe hands (though I have none)
For I'm a Thinking Cap!"
Students and staff applauded vigorously, except for a few first-years way too intimidated to move from the spot where the very idea of a sentient and singing hat had stuck them. Seeing those, Harry's mind went back to his first Sorting. Yes, a house of the apprehensive and intimidated would be perfect.
Professor McGonagall stepped closer to the hat, unrolling the parchment listing the names of the new students.
"Abbott, Hannah!"
"Hufflepuff." whispered Harry.
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
Daphne' eyes snapped at him, but he was too focused on the stool to notice.
"Bones, Susan!"
"Hufflepuff."
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
It was boring.
"Bulstrode, Millicent!"
"Slytherin."
"SLYTHERIN!"
Oh. So boring, it seems, that he had missed out a few names. But did it really mattered? Boot and Brocklehurst had gone to Ravenclaw, Brown to Gryffindor, and Tracey was about to go...
"Davis, Tracey!"
"See you soon." whispered the young witch, walking up to the stool.
Behind her, Harry nodded, a small smile tugging a his lips.
"SLYTHERIN!"
Smiling, the brunette removed the Sorting Hat, winked at him – what was wrong with that girl? – and moved to her new House's table.
Okay, back to boring old regular Sorting now.
"Finch-Fletchley, Justin!"
"Hufflepuff." stated Harry, back to his reflexive previsions.
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
There. As he'd just said, boring.
Hey, he was allowed to be bored, it was stated in his contract. Why his Death would include a whole section about that, he didn't understand, but still... it was perfectly legal.
"Granger, Hermione!"
"Gryffindor."
Besides, it wasn't as if anything would surprise him here. He knew precisely what would happen and...
"RAVENCLAW!"
Wait, what?
Okay, so maybe he could still be taken by surprise.
Hermione had apparently ended up with the Ravens and Neville had just gone to the Puffs' table. As for Daphne, she was seated in Slytherin, nothing surprising here.
"Potter, Harry!"
That was something he definitely hadn't missed, the whispers. Potter she said... the Potter... yes dammit, but that wasn't giving them the right to gawk at him. He sat on the stool and prepared himself for a conversation that would surely be...
"Fascinating." whispered the Sorting Hat, directly into his mind.
Harry had only heard him talk on a few occasions, but surely never on such an amazed tone. The hat sounded like a three years old in a candy store.
"You're a marvel, Harry James Potter." continued the enchanted headpiece. "Your little speech with Ms. Greengrass inspired Ms. Granger and Mr. Longbottom so much you had me impatient to meet you. Imagine it, the last Scion of Potter, aiming to be in Slytherin. Unthinkable and yet so brilliant. I was already picturing your school years."
Wait, was he being... smug?
"But you just had to exceed every single one of my expectations, didn't you? Seriously, time travel, I hadn't had that one in a few centuries and definitely not so frequently. It's actually pretty annoying. Three times have I sorted you, your next House has already been decided and you've accepted it… so what's the point of this discussion? You're ruining my fun there, Mr. Potter."
The hat sounded outraged for a millisecond, before returning to his overjoyed state.
"Well, I suppose I can live with it if you promise me to stay as interesting as you were in your other lives."
That got a smile out of the young wizard.
"Hello again, hat." he greeted the fabric, glad to see him again.
"Hello again, Mr. Potter. Or is it Lord Potter now?"
Harry was pretty sure that on the outside, the hat was smirking.
"I would appreciate it if you kept that fact to yourself."
"Don't you worry, I will."
Infinity Inc. would like to thank Nathaniel Hatfields for keeping Mr. Potter's situation silent.
The Death's voice had seemed to boom in the entire hall, but Harry knew that only the two of them had heard it. His future co-workers were clean workers and would never allow such a big mistake… he hoped.
"Nah, you're welcome. You know I'm bound by the same kind of oath that links mediwitch and patients, the headmaster and the Minister of Magic themselves wouldn't be able to do anything about it."
"That's a relief... and did she just call you..."
"Nathaniel Hatfields, that's me. Or it was, in another life."
"Once a hat, always a hat?"
"Too true, Mr. Potter."
There was a small hint of sadness in those words, even some regret. Thankfully, it disappeared with the next words.
"Now, I believe you have a few questions for me."
"I do."
"Well, bring them on."
Okay, he definitely sounded smug there.
The Great Hall had stayed silent for close to ten minutes now. That is, until curiosity and an increasing feeling of malaise grown on the students' body. Hushed whispers were now making themselves heard from the four tables… wait, make that five, Minerva McGonagall had just gone to the main table to talk with the headmaster.
"Albus, what's going on?"
"I'm afraid Minerva, that I'm as clueless as everybody else on this matter." replied Albus Dumbledore, any twinkles having left his eyes for quite some time now.
Truth be told, he was growing impatient himself, in addition to being slightly troubled. Between Hagrid's report and the letter he had received from his old friend Ollivander, he had been wondering for a month if everything was quite alright with the boy. With this new event, he was really getting worried.
"We'll have to wait and see." he concluded, both to his Deputy and himself.
And they waited.
Forty-seven minutes, Harry Potter had sat on the stool and received the Sorting Hat forty-seven minutes ago.
He was still on the stool and aside from the hat making a face from time to time, you could have sworn that spot had somehow been frozen in time. It was unheard of, probably magically taxing for the castle and most of all SO. DAMN. BORING.
The few first-years still waiting to be sorted had just sat on the floor, tired of being forced to stand.
The older students had quit trying to be discreet and were talking at a normal level, glancing at the stool from time to time, still wondering what was wrong with the boy but clearly no longer interested in the ceremony. They weren't allowed to eat because of it and the little firsties were a lot less important than their stomachs.
McGonagall herself had returned to her place behind the master table, joining the other professors in their own conversations.
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
The hat laughing manically took the whole hall by surprise.
The talks ceased, some students fell from their chair, some awoke mid-dreams with drool on their lower-jaw and it was a god-damn miracle that no one went into cardiac arrest. All in all, it would have made a great promotion picture for the school.
"You're a wonder, Harry James Potter." stated the smiling hat. "I hadn't had such a pleasant discussion in almost a millennium. We should definitely do it again."
A few 'Please, don't.' came from the student body.
"Not now, you morons."
That got him a few raised eyebrows.
"Anyway, should we go on with your sorting Mr. Potter?"
"Please Nat, do." replied Harry, his face still hidden from view and his voice smothered by the thick leather.
"All right."
The hat seemed to take in a breath, which was surprising for a piece of clothing, animated or not.
"Professors, school staff and students, may I have your undivided attention please?"
"You have it." promptly replied McGonagall, as eager to end this mess as everybody else.
"Thank you, Deputy Headmistress." he said with a deep bow, before turning back toward the hall. "Mr. Potter's sorting is proving to be a rather peculiar case and while I normally wouldn't be able to discuss it due to several confidentiality oaths, it's with his full consent that I'm hereby speaking openly to, I hope, avoid further questioning and unnecessary suspicion toward his person. Under other circumstances and for the sheer bravery of this full disclosure, Mr. Potter here would normally be going to Gryffindor. I sadly have to inform you that it won't happen."
McGonagall's ego deflated greatly. She was about to protest, to ask for a proper reason, when the hat carried on with his talk.
"You see, I commonly stop myself after looking at surface thoughts and a few selected episodes of one's life to sort him or her. Looking eleven years' worth of memory would take way too much time… approximatively forty minutes."
Nathaniel let the words sink in and smirked when his audience finally gasped in understanding.
"I just reviewed Mr. Potter's entire life and came to the disturbing conclusion that he just can't be sorted properly." explained the hat, eliciting another round of strangled gasps.
"How can that be?" asked a worried Dumbledore from the master table.
The hat gave the equivalent of a shrug.
"He would fit in any House."
That seemed to reassure the old wizard, who sighed quite loudly. He'd probably feared a stranger, darker reason for the impossible situation.
"Kid'sso loyal that he'd follow his friends to hell and back, making him a perfect candidate for Hufflepuff." began the hat. "But he's brave and foolish enough to face Death itself on the wayand come up on top, which is absolute Gryffindor dumbness."
There was laughter – and mocking smirks – from three quarter of the student body. The last red and gold quarter merely grumbled in annoyance.
"Ravenclaw… well, best discussion of the millennia and I meant it."
The eyes of a certain part-goblin professor unexpectedly started to twinkle, startling many.
For his part, Albus Dumbledore wondered if his diminutive colleague had successfully broken down his charm or recreated it from scratch.
"But again, he's cheating so… maybe not Ravenclaw."
"Cheating?"
That question had just been asked by the frighteningly pleased voice of the local Potion Master. The man was openly smiling, thought it was not his usual sneer but an actual smile. It sent shivers down the spines of much of the children and several of the adults, who never before had witnessed such a horrifying sight.
"Kid's not thinking like a kid, he's thinking like an adult." explained Nathaniel. "Makes him more analytic than most, but not actually smarter."
"Hey!" huffed a voice from inside the leather.
"He doesn't hoard knowledge, doesn't even want it… he just doesn't have the right mindset." finished the hat. "That's why I'm putting him in Slytherin."
That caused an uproar, outraged 'What?', 'Why?' and 'Slytherin?' reverberating around the room. A certain Defence professor almost chocked on his food.
The commotion finally died down when Severus Snape banged his hands on the table, rose from his seat and shouted at the hat.
"You can't do that! You just said that he couldn't be sorted!"
"No, I said that he couldn't be sorted properly. Doesn't mean I can't just choose a House anyway."
"Why not Gryffindor then?" continued the professor, sounding almost desperate.
"It would be counterproductive." denied the enchanted headpiece. "You see, I'd normally just ask Mr. Potter where he wants to go, but we talked and the kid doesn't seem to care one bit."
A muffled 'No~pe!' came from under the leather.
"So I have to settle for the next best thing, the House that'll be most beneficial during his schooling. Hufflepuff and Gryffindor won't teach him anything that he doesn't already know, and Ravenclaw's out because he's both suited and not suited for it."
Nathaniel marked a pause and shifted toward the green and silver table, enjoying the looks of incredulity on the students' faces.
"Now, Slytherin? It could teach him a thing or two."
"How so?" asked the once-more worried Headmaster, not that enthusiast at the prospect of his champion of the Light being taught anything in the one House most renowned for its dark magic practitioners.
"Mr. Potter can be sneaky and cunning when he wants to, of that there is little doubt. He also has a healthy amount of disrespect for rules and authority figures that should make him feel right at home… but you didn't hear that from me."
The hat smirked as murmured threats emanated from under him. The audience began to wonder if he wasn't enjoying this a bit too much.
"When it comes to politics and other social interactions though, our young friend is hopelessly ignorant." he continued, ignoring the menaces which had just reached a whole new level of sadism. "He could use some advices and etiquette lessons."
For the second time that night, the headmaster released a breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding.
Only to suck it right back in with the next comment.
"Seems more logical too, with him being a natural parselmouth."
A few choked sounds – more like a few hundred – were heard. This time, the Defence professor did choke on his food.
"Anyway, Harry Potter is herebyand irrevocably send to the House of Cunnings. Thank you for your attention." casually concluded Nathaniel, completely dismissing the sea of incredulous, horrified stares directed his way.
As Hogwart's magic accepted the sorting, putting trims of green and silver on his robe, Harry hopped down from his seat and returned the hat to the stool. He then gave a deep bow.
"Thank you, Nathaniel Hatfields."
"No, thank you, Mr. Potter." replied the Sorting Hat. "With you here, the years to come are sure to be interesting ones."
The time traveler and talking piece of attire shared a knowing smile, the former finally leaving after one final bow, this one for the Headmaster. Completely ignoring the fearful looks, pointed fingers and whispered questions, the not-so-young wizard approached the Slytherin table and sat next to Daphne.
"You had to make a scene, right Potter?" she welcomed him, sighing.
Even his best poker-face couldn't hide the mirth in his voice when he replied "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Seems legit." snorted Tracey from across the table.
Around them, what was supposed to be a banquet was slowly turning into a riot.