Chapter 43
Harry Potter knew he wasn't good at a lot of things. He wasn't any good at cooking, despite his aunt's unending attempts at forcing him to be so. His steaks were so chewy they could have been mistaken for a Star Wars character and he had once put enough ginger into a macaroni to turn it into a Weasley. He also knew that he was rubbish at writing, mostly due to his terrible handwriting and his god awful glasses. But one thing Harry knew for sure that he was quite good at was keeping his cool when he was thrown into random as all heavens situations.
So when he was somehow transported out of the Great Hall and into a massive white room with four very dead people in it, Harry stayed firm and didn't panic.
There was no shrill screaming or tossing fireballs in the general direction of those people…none at all.
"What the bloody hell am I doing in this place?" Harry asked after he had finally calmed down and taken a seat in one of the all-white chairs in the room. The chairs mirrored nearly everything in the room. White walls, white furnishing, white chandelier, white table, white everything.
Even the four people sitting in front of him were white.
"Language!" The plump lady in yellow said.
Harry flatly stared at the woman, before ignoring her remark. He'd had more than enough weird situations being thrown at him to warrant a few curse words. "Now please tell me what I am doing with…you all…I can't even believe this. The Founders! Didn't you all die a million and a half years ago?"
"A thousand," the man in green corrected him. "And how did you know who we are?"
Harry raised an eyebrow. "You are quite literally wearing red, yellow, green and blue, the House colors of Hogwarts, and I was transported here when I put on the sorting hat said to be imbued with the founder's intelligence. Not exactly a Sherlockian deduction to make…"
"I suppose not...not for a Ravenclaw at least," Rowena Ravenclaw, the lady in blue spoke with a smirk on her face before answering his question, "The Sorting hat uses Legilimency, more specifically Salazar's skill of Legilimency, to show us the to-be-sorted child's thoughts for us to assess and sort them into our houses. His skill at the arts is so great that most children don't even notice the probe. Yet for some reason…it just bounced off your consciousness, reflecting itself back and turning it on its own user."
Harry's eyes widened with shock, "Wait a minute, are you saying what I think you're saying?"
Godric Gryffindor nodded, "You're in the consciousness of the Sorting Hat. Its very mind, if you will imagine it so."
Harry quickly remembered what he was thinking about this magical artifact holding so much knowledge before one of his earlier thoughts flew back into his head.
"Bloody Hell! You guys have to teach me everything! There is so much I have to ask about magic. And Hogwarts! I mean, you're the founders!" he rambled nervously, hoping to all the heavens above that he hadn't alienated these people.
"Calm down child," Helga Hufflepuff stopped his ramblings, sharing an amused look with Ravenclaw, "I'm afraid we can't give you any knowledge, nor can we teach you our arts. The only reason our souls were allowed to return to this school was that we agreed to bind ourselves to the ancient rules of non-interference. We can't interact directly with any living person, nor can we influence the living in any way at all. You coming here is an… anomaly." She said before she turned and smirked at Salazar Slytherin, "Now why don't you tell us how you have such powerful shields on your minds. Salazar has been trying to break through them since you got here. I do think he'll pop a vein if he doesn't figure it out soon."
"No."
Slytherin raised an eye, "Excuse me?"
"I said no. I won't explain how I do it," Harry replied, getting more and more confident with every word, "I have read of the ancient laws you speak of. They are prominent features of Greek mythology. They mention a barter system. A give or take of sorts between those bound by the laws and those not. A reward system...So I will tell you what I'm doing, but in exchange I want you to give me a reward. Your knowledge."
They were all silenced for a bit, and then Gryffindor let out a full-bellied guffaw. "Looks like this one is headed for your house Salazar," He spoke between bouts of choking laughter.
Helga Hufflepuff spoke, ignoring the chortling bearded man beside him, "Yes. There is such a system Mr. Potter. And yes. We will grant you a reward for telling us how you blocked us. Now please, do reveal your secret."
And Harry, after extracting a promise of confidence, told them about his powers.
"Extraordinary" muttered Slytherin, stroking his goatee while Gryffindor had Harry describe all the mechanics of his video game. Hufflepuff almost had an aneurysm when he told them of the werewolf, and Ravenclaw only watched with glinting eyes.
"And that's it," Harry concluded and waited for the founders to fulfill their ends of the bargain. They looked at each other for a second, before leaning in together and discussing something in a hushed voice.
Soon, they turned to him as one. "Each of us has a haven inside Hogwarts." As one they spoke. "In each of those are our greatest achievements. Our greatest creations. Find them, and they will be your next clue. Your path will lead you to the unknowns we once traveled in our primes in each of our own quests for knowledge and power. But beware, Harry Potter, for the trials in those paths will test your very limits."
"Well, wasn't that cryptic," Harry muttered as his Gamer's Mind dissected their every word for clues, storing away into perfect memory everything from their tone to their facial expression while they spoke of the dangers.
"We've lost many great pupils to this path Mr. Potter, be careful, should you choose to follow it. It's not for the faint of heart," Hufflepuff spoke in a gentle voice.
Harry nodded and they all sat there in an awkward silence.
It was a minute before Harry spoke, breaking the ominous atmosphere in the room, "So…is this it? Do I go back to Hogwarts now?"
Gryffindor shook his head, "Not quite. We still have your sorting left. You certainly have the mind of a Slytherin. And then there is the Parseltongue."
Slytherin sighed, looking at Harry with calculating eyes, "While that may be true, my house will have him with many of his enemies' children. He will not be safe there. And thus it will not be the best place for him to grow into the man that must explore our pasts."
"I don't think my puffs can quite handle you, Mr. Potter. No offense of course," Hufflepuff said with a smile. Harry nodded and smiled back, deciding that he liked the kind woman.
"Well, I for one won't reject such a promising student. He would certainly do well in Gryffindor. However, I do believe that he'd do better with the over-obsessive book-heads he is so similar to. Plus he'll have privacy there to do his personal quests," Gryffindor said.
Ravenclaw didn't reply, but it was obvious that a conclusion had been arrived at. With a nod and a wave of his hand, Slytherin sent Harry and his chair flying back, where he slammed into the wall behind him surprisingly painlessly before promptly blacking out.
"RAVENCLAW!" The hat yelled as Harry came back into consciousness in the real world, hearing it shout out the last word to the whole hall.
With a smile, he took off the hat and started walking towards the Ravenclaw table when suddenly his legs almost buckled underneath him as a massive head splitting weight seemed to fall onto his shoulders. Pain like nothing he'd ever experienced ripped through his body, and he almost crumpled to the floor then and there.
'NO!' he thought. He couldn't draw attention to himself. Not now. Not after what had just happened.
Steeling himself, he fixed a nervous smile on his face and walked shakily toward the table. The Prefect, Clearwater, got up and shook his hand, jostling Harry and making him wince under the extreme pain he was under. Every muscle in his body was turning into fire. Harry sat down opposite the ghost he'd seen earlier. The ghost patted his arm, giving Harry the sudden feeling he'd just plunged it into a bucket of ice-cold water.
It was a momentary relief.
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