The Hat's Story

Hi. I'm the Sorting Hat, a proud honorary staff member of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Pleased to meet you. I don't suppose you can even begin to imagine how boring it is being in my position, can you? No, I didn't think so - you can't possibly understand. I can try to explain it to you though.

I work one day a year, some may call it a blessing, but apart from that one day, I'm ignored and left on a shelf to amuse myself. Not the most luxurious of lifestyles, you have to admit. All three hundred and sixty-four of my unemployed days, I compose music. I hate to boast I'm sure, but I'm quite the musician you know. And on that one day, September the first of every year (you would think they'd change it once in a while to keep me on my toes wouldn't you?), I perform my piece. A little altered every year, but Dumbledore makes me keep to the same principle. Dull isn't it? Oh, Dumbledore's the headmaster by the way. Smart man, smart man. Anyway, after my performance, I have to put up with being lifted up and down constantly by McGonagall (one of the professors), and being put on top of countless first year heads. Basically, my job is to take a peek inside their minds, decide which house they would best be suited, and shout it out for the world to hear.

A lot of responsibility isn't it? Upon my shoulders (despite my obvious lack of shoulders, this is the phrase I'll use. I'll correct it as soon as someone comes up with some practical phrases for particularly intellectual hats - it may be a while as I have my suspicions that I'm the only one), lies the future of the entire student body. Wouldn't you think that that responsibility alone would be a great motivator? It's not. Not really. OK, so I suppose it was once. For the first two hundred and something years perhaps, I took my job very seriously. But really, after a while it just became so... repetitive. Tedious, in fact.

But I do like my job though. I doubt I'll be able to get another at least. I mean come on how many job offers are available to a talking (and highly intellectual), hat in this day and age? Not many. So I cope with it. No one can seriously expect me to put up with the same thing again and again though can they? Well I hope not, because I don't. Oh I get the job done eventually, of course I do, I still work here don't I? Haven't been thrown out yet. But occasionally, I tease the students. Usually around the 'M's' and onwards. That's when I begin to get bored. Just a little tease, just to confuse them and make them wonder. Honestly, the thoughts that go through those children's heads are quite hilarious. I quite distinctly remember one girl thinking, "No, oh please not Ravenclaw, if I'm stupid people will think I'm an idiot. Put me in Hufflepuff so if I'm dumb people will expect it and if not I'll be praised for being clever!" Very funny at the time anyway, that girl has surprisingly squeaky thoughts - painful to the ears. Very painful. But yes, the point I'm trying to get across here is that making the students suffer a little on their first day makes my job more interesting. There was just this one boy though. Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, Apud Puer Si Adiuvare, El Muchacho Que Ayuda, Le Garcon Qui A Survecu, Den Jungen Der Lebt. Call him what you will. The point is, my teasing of him wasn't spontaneous like it is for most other students, I had pre-planned it when I realised that he was one of the children I'd have to sort the next day. I didn't know what I was going to say of course; after all, I had no idea which house he would be in, or how he would take the news when I told him.

I wasn't meant to muck up his housing arrangement though.

He was meant to be in Slytherin. It was a slip of the tongue so to speak, an easy mistake to make. Anyone could have done it. It just slipped out.

Well it wasn't my fault. I didn't expect the boy to get so melodramatic over it anyway, it was just a bit of a joke you know. A laugh. I don't exactly get much exhilaration being a hat an all, so it's not the most awful thing for me to tease one of the students a bit is it? Give myself a bit of fun? Not my fault I confused myself in the process. Well he shouldn't have been muttering at me like that! I mean really, I heard that Harry Potter was going to come to Hogwarts all shy and...You know... not pushy. But he was sat there, muttering orders at me! How can I be expected to concentrate on my teasing whilst some arrogant would-be-slytherin's hissing away underneath me? He's meant to just sit there quietly and listen! He shouldn't have tried to interfere. Honestly! I try to tell him all his qualities (and was rather surprised at how many he had actually), and then I suggest the house that would be best (as is my normal routine), but before I could even begin to worry him by saying I'll put him in a house where he'll be alienated, he starts yelling at me! Or as good as at least! So, he couldn't handle the truth. Well naturally, I kind of just... Carried on insisting on his Slytherinity. But with him hissing "Gryffindor, Gryffindor", under me, my shockingly large brains didn't quite manage to get "Slytherin" out.

"Gryffindor!"

Well, I wasn't exactly going to admit to my mistake and contradict myself in front of the whole school now was I? So I just let him run off and tried to forget it. Dumbledore was pleased though, I don't think he wanted him to be in Slytherin much. It makes no difference to me though, the point is Harry Potter could have lost me my job. I'm still rather narked about that.

And then he came back to me the next year! Just can't get rid of that child, he's like a boomerang, I tell you! Whoosh! Turnsandcomesback! Whoosh! Turnsandcomesback! Annoying or what? Don't understand why humans enjoy throwing those things anyway. Surely you would have thought that if they threw something away, they wouldn't want it anymore, and they would only get angry and resent it for its stubborn return. Humans are queer. But yes, back to the year where the Green Eyed Boomerang-Boy came back to see me. Didn't even realise why he was there at first. I was busy working on another song (surprise surprise). I'd left it a little late that year regretfully (it ended up as a bit of a flop when the new first years came), and then I find myself on him again. Not having much to do in the way of entertainment, I flatter myself in being the master of grudge holders. Seriously, I challenge anyone, human, hat or otherwise to try to hold a longer grudge than me. Impossible! So naturally I was still peeved at him for interrupting me during the sorting.

Boomerang-Boy's a bit dim actually. He just doesn't understand the crude resentful humour coming from a superiorly intellectual hat. When I said, "Bee in your bonnet, Harry Potter?" I meant I wished that there were. I wasn't offering to listen to him! The point didn't seem to get through to him though. Stupid interrupting Boomerang-Boy. So, demonstrating my superior brainpower, I cut him short and asked his question for him. Now, if it were someone else, I may have laid it down a bit gentler, but considering it was him, I told him he would have done well in Slytherin.

Well I was feeling pretty good about this, maybe even ready to forgive him, who knows? But then. Oh then! That boy just couldn't resist could he? He contradicted me! Me! I was too outraged to speak, no one has ever questioned my authority before! How dare he? Doesn't he understand that I not only have three times as much brain power as him (having come from four different people, each as intelligent as the last), but also years of experience in my work? Well? Doesn't he? Surely anyone who understood that wouldn't be so incredibly stubborn. What's so wrong with Slytherin? I'm quarter Slytherin you know, people always seem to forget that.

Well anyway, I thought that that was going to be the highlight of my year until my performance on September first. How wrong I was. And guess whose fault it was? Yep, you guessed it (I know you see, I read it in your thoughts, you don't have to say anything). It wasn't long after that when the Boomerang-Boy struck again.

Apparently (and I found this out much later by the way - I'm always the last to know anything! It's not fair), one of the red headed Gryffindors had been kidnapped by Salazar's old pet. And hey, it seems I'm not the only one who can't get rid of him, because as soon as he realised she was gone, Boomerang-Boy (I probably need an abbreviation for that - Boom-Boy? I'll work on it), ran off after her. Poor girl can't get any more peace than I can. Even when she's hiding in a large slimy pipe miles under ground - under the very lake no less, he still wont get the hint. Stupid interrupting contradictory child.

Well, this wouldn't have concerned me in the least, but that Phoenix of Dumbledore's. Idiot bird, it just couldn't leave me alone could it? I was sorting the finer details of my melody (something lesser intellectuals would not understand), when I saw him look up suddenly and fly through the door in a frenzy. Fawkes isn't exactly prone to acting normally, and even though to this extreme was out of character, I thought nothing of it. No more than five minutes had passed though, when he was back in, clenching me in his claws (which are in desperate need of a trim - will have to remember to mention that to Dumbledore), and flying away with me.

Despite my shock and moral frustration at being cleverhatnapped, I can't deny that I did enjoy the trip. It certainly stopped the melancholy at any rate. I just put Fawkes' strange behaviour down to him realising my boredom and thinking to take me for a flight, forgetting me in the first place due to his excitement at the idea, and then coming back for me. If I had only taken the time to read his mind though, I'd have known that he was trying to play the hero. Typical limelight stealing fowl.

So, I was having a nice fly around the castle, until I realised how cold and damp the air was getting. Then I thought about Salazar's pet basilisk - which happened to like it down in that private recreational room he built himself before he threw a hissy fit and left. Assuming that that was where we were going, I found it rather odd - no one was even supposed to know about his secret room - this was a serious invasion of his privacy, and smelly old overemotional git as he was, I was irritated on his behalf. It's an honour thing, don't ask. That and I share quarter of his brain with him but hey, whatever.

I (being the ingenious intellect that I am), measured our descent into the chamber, and very skilfully worked out when we stopped flying straight and were merely circling. I opened my eyes (what? How would you like to fly along at that speed with your eyes wide open?), and for the first time ever, I found myself inside the chamber. So this was his recreational room was it? Some people have no taste.

What? It had to be said!

Anyway, I looked down because no one of my intelligence could degrade themselves to being afraid of heights. Down there, I saw Tom Riddle (which was queer as Tom looked not a day over sixteen, although I couldn't help but notice he looked like a badly projected image from some muggle projecting devise... thing), standing to the side of a red haired Gryffindor who I noted to be the first year Ginny Weasley (which was even odder - unless she had brought Tom Riddle back from the past to elope with him in Salazar's private recreational room, nothing explained her being there). I was ready to greet the two (having found I liked them both in the past), but then I saw Harry Potter again. Everywhere I went he seemed to be there too!

Just then, Fawkes burst into song (the stupid oversized tie-dyed pigeon), and everyone knew we were there. Before I could even begin to persuade him otherwise, he flew us both down to Harry. And do you believe the nerve of it - he dropped me! Right into the dirt! Cheek! I never did like that bird.

Well, I was lying there, outraged, when that Riddle boy began to laugh at me! He called me an 'old hat!' That stung. How dare he? You're as young as you feel damn it! I did of course realise that he was the mini version of Lord Voldemort, but I thought he might act like it too! But no, that boy was the very essence of rude!

Naturally, I was furious by then. And still no one had lifted me from the dirt! Looking back on it, I really will have to class that as worst day ever. Interesting, yes, but worst nonetheless. Especially when after that, Henrietta (Salazar's pet basilisk), came out to play. I never liked her that much, she's just so dominating. If ever I met an attention seeker, it was her. It's all a cry for help though I suppose, after all, being stuck in a loveless statue mouth must have its ups and downs. She was just going through a rough patch.

Oh! And speaking of cries for help! Despite it being the worst day in the history of my existence, I did one thing that I was truly proud of. Well you see, what had happened was that Fawkes (who as it turns out, has a violent sadistic side I never realised he had), had pecked out poor Henrietta's eyes. Drops of blood fell on me and that of course merely added to my towering temper. I've never been able to wash all those blood and slime stains out you know! And as for the smell... Well, I'm sure you can imagine. So when Green Eyed Boomerang-Boy shoved me on his head and begged for help, I blanked him and then tried to squeeze his head into oblivion. It didn't work, but I did the next best thing and tried to knock him unconscious with some old sword Godric (Gryffindor founder - nice bloke. Great at the ancient art of Gobstones), had left with me. Well, he wasn't totally unconscious, but his thoughts certainly went blank for a few seconds. That relieved some of my frustration at least.

I was feeling kind of bad by the end of it though. Not for the whole 'I hate you and am going to knock you out now Harry', thing, but for Henrietta. Boomerang-Boy killed her. I know I didn't like her much, but she wasn't a bad basilisk. She was just in need of a councillor - if only I'd thought to give her the number of a Samaritan.

Fawkes took us all back up to Dumbledore's office. Damned bird. I didn't hear the end of it for weeks - it was he who'd braved the infamous (and poorly decorated), chamber of secrets. Him. All him. And did anyone congratulate me on having provided the sword that won the battle? No. No surprises there then. It was Boomerang-Boy who got all the praise. Just another reason why I loathe him so. Next time he tries me on, I think I'll give him Rowena's old hammer. Hehehe.

Well after that year, nothing much happened. Not to me anyway. As usual. Cruel and infuriating as it all was though, I did enjoy the distraction. Maybe in a couple of years they'll find out about Salazar's private room of experimental theology. He was trying to breed Helga's giant squid last I heard. Quite interested to see how that went.

So anyway, that's my life. Understand the boredom yet? Yeah, that's what I thought, you're still completely clueless. Typical. However, you've been a good listener and haven't jeopardised my job or my life yet, so I'll give you some advice (which you should listen to as you know I'm intelligent enough to be right). Beware the Green Eyed Boomerang-Boy! He'll bring you nothing but anger, he's positively the most irksome little toad I've ever had the misfortune of meeting... I'm gonna start looking for that hammer, excuse me.