The Sorting Hat's Decree

Teddy slept well enough that night. His roommates weren't all so lucky.

“Blimey, Lupin, you snore like a troll!” said Albus, as they got up the next morning.

“I do not!” Teddy protested.

“You do, mate,” said Colin. Edan nodded.

Teddy was dumbfounded. No one had ever told him he snored before. He slept in his own room in his grandmother's house, but he had stayed over with the Weasleys or the Potters on more than one occasion, and his younger cousins, he was sure, would have said something. He looked at Alfred as if hoping for refutation, but Alfred shrugged.

“We all learned to pretty much sleep through anything when we were little,” he said.

Teddy was still disgruntled as they made their way to breakfast. He found Chloe waiting for him in the common room. He thought she was quite dressed up for a school day, and he suspected a teacher would be having a word with her about her makeup. He didn't exactly know the rules for cosmetics, but he'd only seen older girls wearing it.

“Good morning, Teddy!” she exclaimed cheerfully, turning heads throughout the common room. Albus, Alfred, Colin, and Edan all grinned at him, and they weren't the only ones. Chloe kept inducing a sensation he was having trouble categorizing – it was somewhere between “gooshy” and “hapless panic-state.”

“Morning,” he said, swallowing hard.

“Listen up, everyone!” called out Danny Boyle, giving Teddy a precious few seconds to collect himself and control his hair. The Prefect looked around at the Gryffindors who were streaming out of their rooms. “Just so you know, I've just spoken to Professor Longbottom. The Headmistress is going to address everyone at breakfast. So hold all your questions until then, all right?”

Chloe giggled. Teddy glanced sideways at her. “What's so funny?” he whispered.

“Professor Longbottom? Is that really his name?” she giggled back.

“Yeah.” He frowned slightly. “Neville Longbottom is the Head of Gryffindor – and one of the bravest men alive, says my godfather, and he ought to know!”

“Oh.” Chloe raised her eyebrows at Teddy. “I just thought it was... a funny name,” she whispered, her voice trailing off.

“We'd better get to breakfast,” he muttered. Chloe followed him, resting a hand lightly on his arm as they proceeded down the ever-shifting stairs towards the Great Hall.

A Ravenclaw Prefect announced much the same thing to the Ravenclaws descending from their tower that morning.

“So, the hat doesn't usually do that, then?” Gilbert asked, following after Kai, Rodney, and Connor. “Missort people and threaten to go on strike?”

“The hat never does that,” said Kai. “Not in the last thousand years, anyway.”

“You know that You-Know-Who actually set it on fire, during the siege of Hogwarts, right?” said a first-year girl ahead of them. “My brother says it's been acting a little dotty ever since.”

“You-Know-Who is Voldemort, right?” said Gilbert, and then put a hand over his mouth as most of the students around him winced. “Oops. Sorry.”

“Yeah,” said Kai, “and you know, we really shouldn't still be calling him 'You-Know-Who' when he's been dead for over ten years! Even the Daily Prophet has started actually printing his name. You know what? I say, from now on we should just bloody say Volde–”

Connor rounded on him angrily. “I lost my parents on account of You! Know! Who!” he snarled. “So don't just start throwing his name around like he's some storybook villain!”

Kai held his breath, and waited until the bigger boy turned away and resumed stomping down the stairs.

“All right, maybe not,” he muttered.

“So do you think some of us really were missorted? I mean, if the hat was trying to make a point it seems stupid to put people in a house they're not suited for, doesn't it?”

Overnight, Kai had fallen into the role of Gilbert's guide through the wizarding world, and he wasn't entirely thrilled about it. The Muggle-born boy had a lot of questions, which Kai could understand, but he'd noticed that Gilbert also tended to repeat his questions a lot.

“Like the Prefect said, I reckon we'll find out at breakfast,” Kai sighed.

When they reached the Great Hall, Connor ran to join his sister, who was among the Gryffindors streaming out of their tower. The red-headed twins embraced. “Were you all right on your own, Colleen?” he asked.

“I'm fine,” she said. “Everything all right with you?”

Teddy and Chloe had followed Colleen down, and had to go around them when they stopped to hug in the entrance to the hall.

“She was crying all night,” Chloe whispered to Teddy, a little disdainfully. “Honestly, you'd think she'd never been separated from her brother before!”

“Guess they're close,” said Teddy, wondering what it would be like to have a sibling. “Kai! Wotcha!”

Kai grinned, and he and Teddy clasped hands.

“Guess we got sorted all right, at least,” Kai said.

“Yeah,” said Teddy, hoping that he sounded as confident as Kai did.

Chloe made a little noise, like a slight intake of breath, that wasn't quite a sigh and wasn't quite a sniff, but somehow brought Teddy's attention back to her. “How does she do that?” he wondered, as he turned back to the girl, who was standing there with a small, expectant smile and a raised eyebrow.

“Umm, this is Chloe. She got sorted into Gryffindor too. Chloe, this is my friend, Kai.”

“Nice to meet you, Kai,” Chloe said, with a perfectly pleasant voice. She extended her hand. Kai shook it, momentarily flustered.

“Gid oot de way, yur maekin a raet steer inna gangway yew peedie whalps!” bellowed a huge boy with the ugliest face Kai or Teddy had ever seen, and a Slytherin Prefect's badge. Chloe squeaked, and the enormous Slytherin grinned nastily at her. “Moof!” he roared, and plowed through the knot of firsties that had been blocking the entranceway. Everyone scattered, and he continued on to the Slytherin table.

“Bloody Hugh Truncher,” snarled another Gryffindor. “One of these days, we're going to sort him out proper!”

“Seeya!” Teddy said, waving quickly to Kai, as he joined Chloe, who looked shaken as she continued to stare at the retreating Slytherin. They and the rest of the Gryffindors went to their table; Kai went with the Ravenclaws to their table, and they sat down to breakfast.

Dewey had two Muggle-born roommates, but they had little in common other than that and both having been sorted into Hufflepuff. Simon Norman was a slender boy with angular features and curly brown hair, and he didn't speak much, just listened. Dewey had rather appreciated that last night, since by the time he got to his room he was tired and just wanted to go to bed after making the obligatory introductions. But the other Muggle-born boy, Edgar Hargrave, was big, effusive, enthusiastic, and talkative. He thought that discovering he was a wizard was the best thing that had ever happened to anyone, and he couldn't stop talking about it.

“How long does it take to learn to actually transform things? Will we really be able to do lead into gold? Is it true that this castle is a thousand years old? There weren't even castles a thousand years ago, you know! At least not in the Muggle world! When everyone says Merlin, are they talking about the real Merlin, from King Arthur? I mean, that Merlin is real, right? Have you been able to do magic since you were little? My parents always said they thought somehow I made my little brother's hands stick to his arse when I was eight, they accused me of using super-glue, can you imagine? Except I didn't do it, or rather, I guess I did, but I didn't know I was doing magic! Did accidents like that happen to you all the time too when you were little?”

And so on.

He continued talking even after lights-out, until his roommates had to start ignoring him, and even after they were all pretending to be asleep, Edgar kept talking happily about their classes tomorrow and how he couldn't wait to learn how to use his wand, and he hoped he'd be as good a wizard as the kids who'd always known they were magical...

And so on.

Eventually Edgar fell asleep, and only then did everyone else.

Their fourth roommate was Alduin Beauxjour, who'd been very polite but a little cool towards Simon and Edgar, and somewhat friendlier towards Dewey.

“It must be difficult, having your brother's picture hanging in the common room,” he said, with apparent sympathy. Dewey had just nodded. He had never heard of the Beauxjours, and he supposed they originated on the Continent, but Alduin had made mention that they were an old pureblood family. This struck Dewey as a little odd; Hufflepuffs rarely admitted to caring about such things. His father had never had much patience for talk about blood status.

Now as they got ready for breakfast, Edgar was chattering away non-stop. “I haven't finished reading Hogwarts, A History yet, but it said something about elves. Do you reckon we'll see any today? I wish we could take Care of Magical Creatures in the first year! You reckon we'll actually do magic in Charms and Transfigurations today?”

“Edgar, mate,” Dewey said at last, putting a hand on the bigger boy's shoulder. “Relax a little, eh? We're going to be here for seven years, you know.”

Edgar blinked at him, and then grinned, with a slight blush coloring his cheeks. “Right, right, I guess I am talking a lot, huh? I'm just so excited, I mean, we're wizards! Real wizards! We're going to do real magic! This is so boss!” Edgar looked ready to burst with excitement.

Dewey laughed. He couldn't help it. “Boss?” he asked. But Edgar's enthusiasm was infectious.

Simon was just listening, while Alduin was looking at the door as if he were thinking about sneaking out.

“Oh, I've been meaning to ask you,” Edgar went on. “That Cedric Diggory fellow above the tunnel, I heard someone say he was your brother. What happened to him anyway?”

Dewey just stared at him for a moment, completely caught off-guard. Edgar blinked back at him innocently. Behind him, Alduin's mouth dropped open and Simon's eyes were wide. Edgar remained oblivious.

And then Dewey laughed again. Edgar seemed to have all the tact and sensitivity of a brick, but he was devoid of guile or malice. In other words, a true Hufflepuff.

“It's a long story, mate.” He put an arm around the other boy's shoulders, steering him towards the door. “Let's go to breakfast and I'll try to tell you the basics, all right?”

“You're going to be late.”

Decima Caul was addressing Nagaeena Indrani, who was sitting on her bed brushing her long black hair. Nagaeena cocked an eyebrow and shrugged eloquently, as if to say, “There is nothing in the entire world I could possibly care about less,” and continued running her hairbrush slowly through the length of her hair, over and over again.

“I brush my hair one hundred times, every single morning,” Nagaeena said. “And one hundred times, before I go to bed every night. It's not just a matter of keeping my hair beautiful,” she murmured, holding a handful of silky black hair out at arm's length to look at it adoringly. “It's a matter of discipline as well. If you can't even master basic personal hygiene, how can you master magic?”

She gave the other girl a pointed look. Decima was tall, pale, almost skeletally thin, and her own black hair hung in lank strands around her face, and didn't look as if it were touched by either a brush or water very often.

But Decima simply shrugged indifferently, and turned away from Nagaeena, who resumed her brushing.

“So, Violet,” Nagaeena said casually. “I understand you're starting a year early. That would make you the youngest here, wouldn't it?”

“Evidently.” Violet was quite content to put a clip in her hair and leave it at that, and she was also quite willing to go to breakfast and leave Nagaeena behind. The older girl had other ideas, though.

“Well, we'll take care of you, won't we?” She looked at the other two girls. Decima looked back at her sullenly, while Bernice Selwyn, the fourth girl in their suite, squinted and frowned. Bernice was tall, chunky, and blonde, easily outweighing any of the other three girls, and whereas Decima generally seemed sullen and indifferent, Bernice usually gave the impression of being sullen and annoyed. Nagaeena reached a hand out and patted the bed next to her. “Why don't you sit down next to me, Violet?”

Pansy Parkinson had never been considered particularly bright, but when she was in school, she had ruled the other Slytherin girls, mastering the subtle, vicious politics of schoolgirls with ruthless instincts that only another girl could appreciate. Violet was not nearly as interested as her mother in fighting those battles, but she had picked up a few things. She knew an opening move when she saw it.

“I don't want to be late for breakfast,” she said, and turned around to head out the door. Nagaeena frowned, and resumed brushing her hair.

Bernice and Decima trailed indifferently after Violet as they joined the other Slytherins going upstairs to breakfast. Violet heard Hugh blustering his way through a bunch of other firsties ahead of them, and followed the path he made.

“Hey! Violet!”

She paused, and saw Dewey waving to her from the Hufflepuff table. She waved back. The Hufflepuffs around him looked at Violet and back at Dewey, puzzled.

“Do you actually know him?” Bernice asked her, as they sat down. It was the first time Bernice had addressed her directly, other than a terse exchange of names the previous night.

“Yes. We met on the train.” Violet's eyes were scanning the room. Teddy, at the Gryffindor table, was distracted by Chloe. She saw Kai at the Ravenclaw table, who grinned at her and waved. She nodded back.

Bernice and Decima followed the direction of Violet's gaze, and looked back at her.

“You hang out with Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws?” Decima asked skeptically, reaching for a piece of toast.

“I just met them on the train.”

“You need new friends,” said a third-year next to her named Elizabeth Krupp, whom Violet had identified as the leader of her own circle of older Slytherin girls.

Violet shrugged. Any further discussion was curtailed by the arrival of the Headmistress, who strode into the room, followed by the four House Heads, and stood behind the high table at the front. The other professors sat down, while Professor Llewellyn remained standing, and conversations died as voices fell silent throughout the Great Hall. In the corner of her eye, Violet saw Nagaeena slinking in, walking at an unhurried pace to the Slytherin table, but clearly trying to evade notice by the way she edged along the wall.

“Professors Longbottom, Slughorn, Flitwick, Peasegood, and I spent a great deal of time talking to the Sorting Hat last night,” said Llewellyn. “I will not burden you with the details of that discussion. I will go directly to the substance. What the hat said is true; relations between the four houses are terrible. This is something the staff has been aware of for quite some time, and we've been trying to address it, but it's been very difficult. Hogwarts has always encouraged an intense but friendly rivalry between houses. In times of trouble, that intensity has had a tendency to become rather less friendly. Now, although the troubles of the previous generation are past, many of you still bear the scars.”

She surveyed the room. Every eye was on her; the Hall was silent.

“I could make a plea for you all to get along, to set your grudges aside, to reach out your hands in friendship to one another, but we teachers are not so naïve as you sometimes think we are. You'd nod in agreement, and then go back to your houses and resume your bitter feuding.”

Violet saw that Ophilia was watching the Headmistress with a perfectly composed expression of rapt attention, her hands folded on the table in front of her. Hugh's jaw was working, and his nose was scrunching up, as if he'd started chewing on something foul and were trying not to spit it out. Some of the younger Slytherins were looking away from the Headmistress now, sullenly staring at the table in front of them or casting resentful looks at the other houses' tables. She let her eyes dart sideways, and saw that the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws, likewise, were listening politely, but many gazes had now broken away from the imposing woman at the front of the room.

“Therefore, we are going to let the Sorting Hat's decree stand,” Llewellyn went on.

All eyes snapped back to her.

“I am already receiving owls from parents, demanding that I 'fix' the hat, or somehow compel it to change its mind, or failing that, replace it. I will not.”

At the Ravenclaw table, Kai's mouth fell open. At the Gryffindor table, Teddy ran his hand slowly through his hair, smoothing it out and glancing briefly at his reflection in the side of a fruit bowl. At the Hufflepuff table, Dewey frowned a little at Edgar, who was still chewing the mouthful of sausage he'd stuffed into his mouth before the Headmistress had begun speaking, but at least it was keeping him from talking, and he did seem to be listening intently.

“We will take steps to encourage inter-house cooperation. The first change we are making is that this year, all classes will be double classes. Your professors were all burning the midnight oil last night to arrive at such a drastic schedule change on short notice, but beginning today, every class will mix students from two houses. Your Prefects will be giving all of you your new schedules after breakfast.”

“We shall hold the House Cup competition, as in years past, but I have instructed all staff to put particular emphasis on awarding points – or taking them away – for acts of cooperation, or lack thereof, between houses.”

“We will not be tolerating the duels and mean-spirited pranks that have filled these halls for the past few years.”

“All of these are measures we can take only to encourage you to get along. We cannot force you to change your way of thinking.”

“Therefore, know that more than at any other time since the war, the future of Hogwarts is in your hands. If the Sorting Hat is not satisfied, by year's end, that the houses of Hogwarts are once more united, then there very well may be no more houses!”

A murmur now went through the Hall, as students couldn't help whispering and muttering to each other.

“How do you satisfy a hat?” asked Alfred, at the Gryffindor table.

“She can't do that! The Board of Governors won't allow it!” gasped the Ravenclaw Prefect, down the table from Kai.

“What will they do, just make one big house?” mumbled some older Hufflepuffs, at their table. Dewey saw that the girl, Annabelle, who'd spoken so forcefully against Slytherins the previous night, looked particularly outraged.

“We've never been united!” sneered Elizabeth Krupp, at the Slytherin table.

“They have,” muttered Bernice. “United against us!”

“Silence!” Ophilia snapped, without looking at the younger girls.

Professor Llewellyn waited. Eventually the murmuring died down.

“Each of you will play a part in deciding the future of your houses, by the decisions you make every day,” she said, when she had everyone's attention again.

She paused, then continued. “As for the Sorting Hat's last statement; I cannot share its reasoning with you, frankly. I can tell you that very rarely is anyone so obviously suited for one house that any other choice is inconceivable, and that the Sorting is not a matter of inevitability.”

Teddy thought about what Harry had said: “Wherever you get sorted, that's where you belong.”

But you also said 'Trust the Sorting Hat,' he thought. How can I trust it if it decided to put us where we don't belong?

“The Sorting Hat did make one concession,” Llewellyn said. “It agreed to perform one final sorting, or rather, a re-sorting, at the end of the year, for any students who feel they were placed in the wrong house.”

Once more, voices fell silent. Students stared in disbelief. Kai felt his mouth go dry.

“It may be meaningless, if there will be no more houses thereafter, or perhaps the Board of Governors will ask for my resignation and the new Headmaster or Headmistress will devise some other method to divide students.” Llewellyn looked stern and unbothered. “But for the first time in the history of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, you first-years will have an opportunity to transfer houses at the end of the year, if you so desire.”

And with that, she sat down, and the conversations immediately became a roar throughout the Hall.