Harry watched Draco with some interest.  

Aside from the frankly embarrassing exchange they’d had back on the train, Draco was an interesting specimen to watch in action.

Though unpolished, Draco’s mask was fairly sophisticated.  He dealt with their future peers with superiority, arrogance, and a certain style that intrigued him.  

Harry wondered whether the Draco he had met on the train was actually the real one.

Perhaps he wouldn’t write Draco off so completely after all.

. . .

The Sorting Hat was an enigma to him.

Did it sort students based on what their inner characteristics suggested would be their best house?  Or did it sort them on their outward masks?

“Or maybe, Mr Potter, it does a little of both,” The Sorting Hat stated plainly in his mind.  

The brim of the hat settled over his eyes, blocking the view of the rest of the peering eyes of the Great Hall.

“I’m not Mr Potter,” He objected.

“Ah, I do see that.  Well then, should I sort Potter or Harry?”  It asked.

“Maybe . . . maybe I’m neither of them,” Harry admitted, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Let me tell you what I think.  If you were Potter, I’d sort you into Gryffindor.  And if you were Harry . . . hmm, perhaps Hufflepuff.  Or even Slytherin.”

He couldn’t help it.  He snorted, his wild giggles threatening to break out of his chest and explode into the room at large.

“Then what am I?”

“Use your logic, child.  What’s left?”  

“You can’t be serious.  Why would you put the dullard in Ravenclaw!?”  He mentally exclaimed.

“You’ve never been stupid.  Far from it, I’d say.  I think you should do well in RAVENCLAW!”

The last word was shouted and he dragged the hat off his head and practically threw it at the older professor behind him.

He didn’t know what he had hoped for.  Maybe Slytherin.  Not Gryffindor, but he’d never in his wildest dreams . . .

A hand was nudging him the direction of the wildly cheering table replete with an visual overload of blues and golds.  His insides froze and he fought the urge to turn away.  

Real Potter would swagger to his spot at the table, reveling in the cheers.

Petunia’s Harry would do what he was told.  Maybe get lost on the way, but be ultimately obedient.

So what do I do?

He didn’t know.  He couldn’t just sit down on the floor and act like a petulant child throwing a temper tantrum.

He took a step.  And then another, his feet carrying him mindlessly to the Ravenclaw table.  His fingers found the polished wooden edge of the cheering table and he fell into a seat.  There was no smile on his face, but he managed a nod to some of his housemates.

“Hard to imagine Harry Potter not liking attention!”  One of his older housemates exclaimed in his ear.

He put his head in his hands.  Potter might like attention, but he sure as hell didn’t.

. . .

Dumbledore had watched Harry’s sorting with more than a little surprise.  The boy--and he was a boy--was so much smaller than the rest of the first years.  He looked so lost after being sorted.  Perhaps he had hoped to be in the same house as his parents.  Poor child.

The only other surprise that happened that evening was the sorting of the youngest Weasley boy.

Ron had been . . . surprised at Harry.  The other boy said he wasn’t a hero.  

But he was Harry Potter.  The sorting had proven that.  And somehow Harry Potter had been sorted in Ravenclaw.  

Ron gulped hard.  Harry Potter said he wasn’t a hero.  Harry Potter was a Ravenclaw.

These two truths made the reality of his life tilt hard to the side, creating a paradigm shift unlike anything he had ever experienced.  

His plan to follow Harry to the house of his family was no longer in place.  

“Oh, you are in a quandary, aren’t you?”

The voice in his head made Ron jump.  He hadn’t expected the hat to talk in his mind.  Idly, he wondered where the Hat kept its brains.

“A good thought.  Maybe if you ask nicely, I’ll tell you about it.”

He wasn’t entirely certain that he wanted to know.

“Before you met Harry, I’d wager that you would have been a Gryffindor.  It’s all here in your head, you see.”

“And now?”  

Harry wasn’t a Gryffindor.  He wasn’t a hero.  He didn’t like the attention.  

Ron saw the other boy freeze after being sorted.  He saw him find a seat blindly and then drop his head into his hands and hide his face.  What sort of hero did that?  

“It won’t be easy, you know.  This Harry, he isn’t going to be particularly popular.”

. . .

George and Fred looked at each other in confusion.  Other than Harry’s, this sorting was one of the longest they had ever seen.  How difficult could it be to sort another Weasley boy?

Beside them, Percy drummed his fingers on the table.  He had a hunch that Ron wasn’t going to be sorted into Gryffindor, but if not their house, then where?  Percy had long thought that calling Hufflepuff the ‘house of the leftovers’ was unfair.  Being loyal and hardworking weren’t exactly easy talents to possess in the face of dislike and peer pressure.  

Sure, anyone could wave a wand and pretend to be valiant, all while turning against those they didn’t agree with.  He’d seen Gryffindor house do it more than once.  Bravery, he had long scoffed, was overrated.  It was like getting rewarded for stupidity.  

Maybe--and this was a hope he had secretly harboured since learning that he was so different from the rest of his family--maybe Ron had seen that too.  Maybe Ron would be different too.  

Maybe.

. . .

“So I’m different now?  But all I did was get kicked out of a train compartment,” Ron argued.

“But he made you think, did he not?”  The Sorting Hat countered.

“I don’t . . . like how he made me think.”

“Wouldn’t you agree that before you met him, you hadn’t done much thinking at all?”

That, that galled him a bit.

“What about chess?”

“Do you ever apply those strategies in the rest of your life?  In arguments?  In Quidditch?  In planning revenge against your brothers?”  The Hat argued.  

“Revenge is . . . is bad.”  

His mother had said so, hadn’t she?

“Sometimes it is, and sometimes it’s not.  It depends on the situation and what you’re trying to get out of it.”

“Listen, can’t we discuss this later?  People are starting to talk,” Ron asked as the noise around them started to rise.

“If you’re friends with Harry, people will talk then as well.”

“He said I didn’t get to be friends with him,” Ron complained.

“He said that you didn’t to make assumptions about who he was. He was right.”

“He’s supposed to be a hero!” Ron argued, feeling offended all over again.

“He’s supposed to be a child.”

“Then what am I?”

“A child with a better childhood.”  

Ron laughed out loud, making the noise around them dip briefly and then swell again.

“Your assumptions are wrong about him.  Anything that you thought he was, he is not.  Still want to be friends with him?”

“ . . .”

“I’ll give you the option of a resorting in two years,”  The Hat offered.

He sighed.  He had a feeling that the Hat didn’t offer resortings very often.  Maybe not ever.

“Yes.  I still want to be friends.”

“Better be RAVENCLAW!”