7 Sorting

"We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately." A voice echoed through the train.

"I will leave you, ladies alone" as I took my robes out of my trunk and opened the compartment door and walked out.

I am disappointed. I was looking for a chance to Hermione, but she hasn't come to our compartment. I just assumed she will barge into all compartment to look for the toad.

This also made me into understanding the fact, even if I know about the future, I can't just blindly assume about it

Outside I saw Draco Malfoy rushing out of the compartment with his goons Crabbe and Goyle behind him.

I could guess what had happened just looking at them,

Draco should have offered his friendship to Harry Potter. However, Harry didn't like the disdainful attitude Draco expressed towards Ron Weasley, with whom Harry had already made friends. Thus, he turned him down.

I kinda understand why Draco always targeted harry through their entire schooling,

It. In the wizarding world, usually, when people don't turn down friendship when offered, it is considered stepping on the dignity of the one that is offered.

When the train finally stopped. People rushed their way toward the door and out the platform.

"First' years! Firs years over here! All right there, Harry?"

"C'mon, follow me -- any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Fir's years follow me!" the half-giant Hagrid called us to climb the boat.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Susan and I entered the boat, followed by Daphne and Tracey.

After crossing the Lake in boats where we catch their first glimpse of Hogwarts.

Hogwarts Castle was a large, seven-storey high building supported by magic. It was built in a valley area — surrounding mountains were part of the landscape — with the fairly large Great Lake to the main building.

The huge main oak front doors that led into the Entrance Hall

The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face. "The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here," said Professor McGonagall

The new students are greeted at the castle door by Professor Minerva McGonagall, who explained the four houses of Hogwarts: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin, as well as the rules of the House Cup. McGonagall led the first years into a small room off the Entrance Hall and told them to wait until she returned.

I was very anxious, I prepared twelve years of my life for this moment, and now I'm starting to panic about the feasibility of my plan. When I thought about the failure of my plan and hard work, I wanted to run away from this place. If the sorting hat read my memories, it's over for me. I started to sweat. Susan can over and hold my hands

Then the students were led to the Great Hall where the entire school and a battered old hat on a stool waited for them. They see an old pointy hat on a stool.

Everyone in the hall was now staring at the hat, For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth -- and the hat began to sing:

Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,

But don't judge on what you see,

I'll eat myself if you can find

A smarter hat than me.

You can keep your bowlers black,

Your top hats sleek and tall,

For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat

And I can cap them all.

There's nothing hidden in your head

The Sorting Hat can't see,

So try me on and I will tell you

Where you ought to be.

You might belong in Gryffindor,

Where dwell the brave at heart,

Their daring, nerve, and chivalry

Set Gryffindors apart;

You might belong in Hufflepuff,

Where they are just and loyal,

Those patient Hufflepuffs are true

And unafraid of toil;

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,

If you've a ready mind,

Where those of wit and learning,

Will always find their kind;

Or perhaps in Slytherin

You'll make your real friends,

Those cunning folks use any means

To achieve their ends.

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 are lined up and their names read aloud alphabetically. Each then takes a seat on a stool and the hat is placed on his or her head, it announces the house in which they are placed.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

"Abbott, Hannah!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat. The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table

"Bones, Susan!" "HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat again, and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.

"Bones, Jason" Professor McGonagall called out my name. I stood and kept using my mind shield at full force, it made me calm down. And the hat was a palace on my head,

"Difficult. Very difficult. I see. Not a bad mind either. OH, I see Occlumency. Don't worry I won't pry into your mind"

Yeah, as if I am going to believe anything you say when you are reading my mind

"It is rare to see people developing mind arts these days. Now that's interesting... So where shall I put you?" Slytherin maybe. " Slytherin, eh?" said the small voice. "Are you sure? Well, if you're sure -- better be "SLYTHERIN!"

I didn't even notice booing from Hufflepuff and Gryffindor as I walked to sit alone at the Slytherin table.

It worked, my hard work over the years has been paid off. I can be sure now on my Occlumency skill, though it is not perfect still it manages to fool the sorting hat.

During my years of practising and experimenting with mind arts, I figured it's possible to enter anyone's mind, even one if one trained his mental shield to an unimaginable level.

So no matter how hard I build my mental shield, someone can breach across it.

Even for someone as skilled as Snape, Dumbledore, it is entirely possible to break into their mental shield. All you need to do is make the target open up to you as much as possible. There are a various way to establish a connection with the target, like physical, connection, emotional, psychological, torture.

The more the target opens up to you, the stronger the connection you make with the target, once the connection is established, you can access their mind and it is entirely possible to read their thoughts.

Accessing their mind doesn't mean you can get to access their thoughts, now it all depends on how skilfully you break across their mind shield, some people immediately notice the intrusion on their mind, while some lay traps on their mind shield, making you believe it is easy to navigate only to trigger the traps.

But if you aren't skilful enough in navigating their mind they will notice it immediately, from here it was a battle of will. If you are strong-willed you can overpower the target and forcefully break their mental shield and read their thoughts and memories.

But the sorting hat is an exception, it's a sentient object at Hogwarts that magically determines which of the four school Houses each new student belongs most to.

Since its sentient object, it doesn't need to establish any prior contact with the target,

All it needs is to place it on the target's head, Voila, it has complete access to the target mind.

The sorting hat has been in Hogwarts since the beginning, it has been accessing the mind of all wizards and witches for centuries, it can easily navigate any mental defence that I build. Sometimes it takes more time in navigating the mind of the students to learn their deepest desire and secrets to sort them into their respective houses.

I cannot allow it access to stay longer on my head, the longer it stays on my head, it will be easier to expose my secrets. So I know it will access my mind, even if I put any defence, it will just take a long time to navigate my mind.

When I searched for possible solutions, I came to a crazy theory.

That is, having two mind palace, so I know my mind will be accessed by sorting hat, the stronger I put my mind shield, the longer the sorting hat will take to break it. So no matter what I tried, it always entered my mind.

But if I had two mind palace, I can hide one of my mind palace using another one.

While one acts as a decoy and the other has all my secrets in it. It was a feasible plan. But creating another mind palace was easier than done.

At least I can't do it. I haven't even thought about it. All these years I am trying to increase my mental defence, I haven't had enough time to experiment in creating another mind palace.

The only solution I can come up with is, partitioning my existing mind palace into two, and expanding it all over again.

Now that I have two mind palace, I filled one with fake memories of my childhood and put some decent mind shields on it. So when the sorting hat enters into my mind it only sees the fake memories I placed on the mind palace while I'm hiding my secrets from others.

Like this, I fooled the sorting hat and entered Hogwarts.