Chapter 709: The Journey of the Sorting Hat

Felix, after wearing the dirty, crumpled, and patched Sorting Hat, asked in a whisper, "You have something to tell me?" As he spoke, he stole a passing glance at the portrait frames on the wall, and the portraits immediately closed their surveying eyes and snorted.

"I have nothing to tell you, you're the one who keeps coveting me." A subtle voice rang out in his head.

"I am just curious about your method of existence."

"What's there to be curious about?"

"You've existed for too long, and your material is too ordinary-"

"Think about the Headmaster's portraits on the wall, and then think about the Peeves Ghost." Sorting Hat said in a mellow tone.

"Portraits? Peeves Ghost? They-" Felix's expression froze, "Wait, you're part of the school?"

"That's right, as long as the school exists, I will continue to exist, even if I'm just a hat made of ordinary material."

Having cleared up a long-standing puzzle, Felix was somewhat relieved and also a bit lost, and after thinking about it, he calmly asked in his mind, "By the way, why did you assign me to Slytherin in the first place?"

"Oh, let's see - calm, level-headed, worship of power, ambition to reach the top of the wizarding world on the first day of school, and - with all due respect - a clear awareness of the dark side of human nature at a young age, and adequately prepared, all these are very rare to come across entirely in one person throughout my sorting career."

Felix smacked his lips, "So I perfectly matched Salazar Slytherin's philosophy of selecting students?"

"Philosophy, what philosophy?" The Sorting Hat asked with a wide grin.

"Of course, the ideology of the four founders of the school-"

"So you think I have a little slip of paper with lots of rules and regulations printed all over it sewn up in my lining?"

"I thought there would be something like that." Felix said calmly, "Like a fixed pattern of thinking, or a standard process." Sorting Hat interrupted him indignantly :

"--then wouldn't my job is to hide behind the student's mind and tick off the notes one by one?"

"Well, have you got a different opinion about that."

"Of course I do! Yes! My job is much more important and complicated than you think," Sorting Hat yelled loudly, "and although I'm just a hat, I have a mind and a personality of my own. I'm smarter than most people, yet I don't have human flaws, I don't have to eat or sleep, my mouth is just for conversation without any other purposes mixed in - I'm also hell-bent on useful thinking, and well, most of the time I reminisce about the past and compile new songs ... "

"It's amazing." Felix said although he wasn't quite sure what there was to reminisce about, could it be about all those years it spent in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts, spying on the affairs of successive Headmasters? But is there any sense of involvement in that? Or savouring the memories of nearly 1,000 sorting ceremonies all by itself, but the question is will it really not get confused ...

The Sorting Hat seemed to choke for a moment, it remained silent for a while and said, "I'll show you personally."

"Okay."

Felix closed his eyes and waited, and for a good deal of time, the Sorting Hat did not make any move. He was surprised.

"Remove the defences from your mind." Sorting Hat said sullenly, "I can't see anything other than surface thoughts, it's like bumping into a thick wall of stones ..."

"S-sorry." Felix mumbled as he withdrew his shielding, and after a few more seconds, he felt an invisible force tugging at the top of his head and lifting it upward, as if to pull him up to the sky, or into the hat, which reminded him of how the thinking room worked, and he didn't resist.

A blur appeared in front of his eyes, and he materialized in the darkness. Gradually, colours appeared in the darkness, and Felix stared at a string of lights that appeared out of nowhere and crashed down, splashing out sparks of gray-green and silver-white, which formed a long, muddy pool of silvery light and green foam that stretched into the distance.

A solitary figure waded through the murky shallow water.

Salazar Slytherin, holding a wooden pathfinder stick, walked past Felix at an unhurried pace. When the two passed, his expression did not change, his simple robe seems to be tied with a whole piece of black cloth, and several small snakes followed him.

Light and shadow flickered, this time transforming into a wilderness. Felix saw a young man walking on a country road, straight back, with brisk footsteps, and red hair flowing in the wind. Young Godric Gryffindor jumped on a boulder, looking back at the small village from which he came, and then resolutely walked towards the distance.

He naturally did not know that his hometown would later be named after him.

On the tranquil riverbank, Rowena Ravenclaw quietly gazed at the flowing river, which reflected the blue sky, where an eagle streaked across the surface.

In the golden valley, Helga Hufflepuff twisted ears of wheat that glittered in the sunlight, and the ears of wheat blossomed into a small flower.

It dawned on Felix that this would be the memories of the four founders of the school, and then new doubts rose up, according to what the sorting hat had said at previous sorting ceremonies, they had collectively infused it with their thoughts, and Felix had always assumed them to be ideologies, but ideologies would inevitably become outdated, medieval moralities would not necessarily fit the modern era, but the work of the sorting hat never ceased.

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Now he kind of got it, the four founders did inject their thoughts into the Sorting Hat, but it's not some shallow concepts, but rather the footprints they walked on.

Felix shuttled through the darkness, every minute there is a new scene, slowly, he grasped the pulse, and peeked into the hidden corner of history - why Gryffindor and Slytherin were able to become good friends? Because they both seek great power; why did they ultimately go their separate ways? Felix had a vague answer in his mind when he saw Gryffindor learning swordplay from the Muggle knights and Slytherin relentlessly eradicating the threats in his way.

Such a vague understanding became even keener when he met Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.

As the best witches of their generation, and a pair of close friends, they have travelled together through many places, joining hands to help the weak. While Hufflepuff has a loving heart, treats everyone equally, and is always willing to look out for the underserved, Ravenclaw is clearly more comfortable dealing with someone who is flexible, as it assists in solving issues quicker. The two worked well together, with the former neutralizing a lot of unnecessary strife and the latter being good at coming up with ideas to solve problems once and for all, such as building a windmill.

Felix saw the culinary magic of the future Hogwarts kitchens and the beginnings of the castle's architectural structure in the travels of these two women.

Naturally, the experiences of the four school founders when they were young also laid the groundwork for future disagreements.

Of the four, Salazar Slytherin was the most radical, or rather - the most withdrawn, living a life closer to that of a monk, walking alone through the chaos of the world. He sought power like Gryffindor, but he was more unscrupulous; like Ravenclaw, he was aloof and indifferent, but he was also more indifferent to himself; like Hufflepuff, he was sympathetic to the young wizards who lived in poor conditions, but this sympathy was extremely stingy, and he never shared a single bit of it with unrelated people.

These four best male and female wizards of the same generation met, and having heard of each other, they exchanged their knowledge of magic among themselves. To Felix's surprise, in the beginning, except for Hufflepuff, the three were clearly more talkative, and Slytherin was not shy about pointing out that the magic Hufflepuff studied as "worthless and useless in a chaotic world." Fortunately, there was a calm Ravenclaw and enthusiastic Gryffindor to mediate between them, coupled with Hufflepuff's usual good temper, this conflict did not become a storm.

As their exchange progressed, Hufflepuff proved herself to be an excellent witch, who not only excelled at cooking magic but also at identifying herbs and mixing potions.

Finally, the four decided to build a school of magic together.

They travelled to the Scottish Highlands, a remote, untouched, and inhospitable place, with ancient rocky shores cleaved by water and glaciers forming ravines and streams, where Ravenclaw picked out a cliff with a lake, encircled by emerald slopes, wearing white snow caps, with a deep ravine running below, and a lake bordered by dense woods.

The four men unanimously agreed that this would be an ideal place to build a school.

Among them, only Ravenclaw had the experience of building a house with her own hands (with magic), and she designed the school's floor plan, especially the main building's flexible and movable revolving staircase, while the two guys brought in all kinds of materials, and Hufflepuff searched for flowers and greenery to decorate the school, and accidentally found a wild Wiggentree in the nearby primeval forest.

The castle gradually took shape, and the four worked together to arrange the most tightly organized defensive magic for the school at that time, and when they considered that the castle would be filled with students in the future, they even came up with a genius idea - a unique innovation at that time - to rely on the castle to collect the escaping magic power, which would function as the most important part in maintaining the magic supply of the castle and strengthening the defense system.

Felix watched the scene with rapt attention.

He didn't expect to get advanced magic knowledge from the Sorting Hat, at first he was just curious about its state of existence, and later he wanted to talk to the four founders inside the Sorting Hat, provided that it would be possible. But an unexpected surprise came out of the blue -

The four founders of the school unreservedly and enthusiastically worked together to create something which allowed them to demonstrate what they had learned. The secrets of Hogwarts Castle unfolded in his eyes, and Felix's eyes followed the movements of their hands, and the Book of Runes hovered close to his chest, automatically turning the pages. With him at the center, waves of rune symbols spread along the ground in all directions, climbing up the walls, burrowing through the doorways, and extending outward ...

The magic channel inside the Headmistress's office revealed itself clearly through the air and received the power of the ancient runes, and soon this new power flowed throughout the castle like gushing blood along the magic channels. After passing through Myrtle's abandoned lavatory, it split off into a new fork and headed straight for the Slytherin Chamber.

In the Charms classroom, Professor Flitwick just made a wonderful demonstration for the students below, then he suddenly paused, reached out his hand, and flicked his wand in the air, the tip of the wand brought out a chain of golden rune symbols.

The students looked up, the walls and floor looked like small billowing ocean waves, and in the blink of an eye, everything returned to calm.

Professor Flitwick cleared his throat, "Students, let's continue the lesson ..."

In the school kitchen, the house elves worked busily to prepare lunch for the students, when a breeze passed by, they seemed to sense a friendly gaze, the house elves looked around but found nothing. In the kitchen, there is a plain portrait of a woman with a benevolent gaze. This painting is not connected to the school castle, nor does it have any semblance of magic, rather it simply has been passed down from generation to generation in the house elf community.

Every house elf has heard an ancient legend for as long as they can remember: "It was Lady Hufflepuff who brought them into Hogwarts, gave them shelter, respect, and work, and taught them culinary magic personally ..."

Felix opened his eyes with the last scene still lingering in his mind, that of the four founders standing together, infusing their thoughts - their life paths - into the Sorting Hat, with Slytherin wearing a locket, Gryffindor holding a sword, Ravenclaw with a diadem on her head, and Hufflepuff with a golden goblet in her hand, at the last moment, their gaze held a relief.

Felix slowly stood up and placed the Sorting Hat back in the compartment. His eyes lingered on the glass case next to him, which held the pendant, the sword, and the golden cup, with the exception of the Gryffindor sword, which shone brightly, the other two relics of the founders were somewhat dull.

Felix took the Ravenclaw diadem out of his ring and gently placed it beside the other relics.

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