Our Choices Define Us

Chapter Four

After a few moments of debate, the Hat visibly took a deep breath and shouted the name of the House in which Emily had been placed.
“SLY-” the Hat began and stopped short.

Harry looked at Emily with a puzzled look. She held up a finger and closed her eyes. Harry knew that look; she was trying to do some serious magic.

The brim of the Hat opened again, “GRY-”

Emily’s eyes popped open. She ripped the Hat off her head and glared at it. “You listen here, you stupid hat, I’m NOT going into Gryffindor. So don’t even think about, you little shit head.” Emily growled at the Hat, forgetting that it could hear her thoughts. She shoved the Hat back on her head and closed her eyes again.

Harry was in shock, the Hat never faltered when sorting someone. And it had tried to put Emily in Gryffindor! There couldn’t be a worse place for her! If she went there, she wouldn’t last ten minutes without hurting someone in frustration. Harry knew that she wouldn’t be able to handle the naïve, gullible lions.

Emily’s eyes once again flew open, looking straight at Harry and what he saw in those eyes scared him shitless. Pure, raw panic. Emily never showed her emotions that clearly in public. She stormed off the seat, throwing the Hat on the ground. She practically sprinted to Harry, grabbed his hand, and dragged him out of the Great Hall.

Once the doors of the Great Hall had shut, Emily started pacing, tears falling down her face. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!” she threw her fist at the wall. “OW!” she then exclaimed, holding her bloodied knuckles.

Harry watched this is confusion, but then walked over to Emily, grabbed her by the shoulders, and turned him to face him. “What the fuck is going on?” he asked Emily calmly, it wouldn’t do for both of them to freak out right now. “Calm down and tell what that all was about.”

Emily sniffed and wiped her face with the back of her good hand. “We’re totally screwed.”

“What do you mean?” Harry didn’t really see what the problem was. Yeah, she almost got sorted into Gryffindor, but she had almost made it into Slytherin, as well.

“Okay, there was something over the summer that I didn’t tell you about. There was this guy in our apartment lobby and he was magical. Now, I know no big deal, right? But, the freaky thing was when he looked at us, he got real excited like. I saw him a lot after that. I figured it had to do with something totally different, so I didn’t really see the need to tell you.”

“What did you think it had to do with and why didn’t you tell me?” Harry asked her, pissed. They both knew that Dumbledore had people looking for him then.

“That’s not the issue right now. What is, however, is that I was wrong and that it was probably one of Dumbledore’s guys. Dumbles now probably knows how close we are and is now trying to split us up. He figures that I’m the reason you went away and now want to get resorted. Mind these are all assumptions. But what isn’t an assumption is that the Hat had some kind of controlling magic on it, making it want to put me in Gryffindor. That’s why it was confused. I think that Dum-” Emily was cut short by the doors flying open.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” McGonagall seemed to be the first person to recover from Emily suddenly getting up and leaving with Harry.

“Talking, come on.” Emily said really fast and then began running into a corridor, Harry on her heels. She ran into the first room she saw and after waiting for Harry, closed the door and cast strong locking and silencing charms on it.

“So wait, you think Dumbledore is forcing the Hat to put you in Slytherin? Why don’t you just call him out, about using the spell?” Harry asked.

“Yeah, but what I think Dumbledore counted on was that the Hat learns from its mistakes. It kept mumbling about how you talked it into putting you in the wrong House and how it screwed shit up. Not its words exactly, but whatever. And I used a really hard, Dark spell to find out that it was even under a spell. We can’t let Dumbles know I’m that powerful. But, that doesn’t change the fact that we’re fucked.”

Harry thought for a minute. “Not necessarily,”

“What do you mean, not necessarily?! They want to put me in Gryffindor! Do you want me to lose my mind?!” Emily yelled, waving her arms everywhere.

“Well, I think that, while the Hat is confused, we bargain with Dumbledore. You spend two weeks in Gryffindor and then two weeks in Slytherin. During these four weeks, we work on trying to break the spell the Hat is under. Then you can try the Hat on again and hopefully be sorted into Slytherin. And while your in Gryffindor, give ‘em hell in case we can’t break the spell, then the Gryffindors won’t want you back and will hopefully get the Headmaster to keep you out of their House.” Harry smiled at the last part. He ruffled Emily’s hair. “It’ll be fine. Now let me out of here.”

“Wait, Harry?” Emily looked like she had just found out that she would be dying in two days.

“What?” Harry asked cautiously, knowing he was going to get bad news.

“If the spell was on for me, it will be on for you,”

“Oh, shit, you’re right… Wait, you said that the Hat was mumbling about how he made a mistake with me, right?”

“Yeah,” answered Emily, not really knowing what that had to do with anything.

“Well, let’s hope that the Hat will be able to override the spell knowing that it’ll be able to rectify a mistake. Now let me out of here. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re keeping me hostage for naughty purposes.”

Emily laughed a small laugh and took off the charms on the door and walked out of the room with Harry.

They totally ignored McGonagall, who was giving her lungs a workout, shouting at them and walked back to the Great Hall. When they got in, the room was full of chatter, but quickly fell silent. Both Harry and Emily walked confidently to the Head Table and approached Dumbledore.

“Since that possessed Hat doesn’t know where to put me, we came up with a solution. I’ll spend two weeks in Gryffindor and then two weeks in Slytherin and then try the Hat on again and then we can see if it can make up its mind.” Emily said, getting right to the point.

Dumbledore began to think this over. Emily and Harry could both see the fury underneath the thoughtful look in his eyes. They had both become experts on reading people. The fury confirmed Emily’s suspicion; Dumbledore had spelled the Hat and was now pissed because it hadn’t worked.

Harry looked at Emily and saw that her hand was still bleeding. He poked her in the side and when she looked at him, he pointed to her knuckles. She glanced down and saw that blood was still trickling out of the wounds. She took out her wand and spelled bandages around her hand.

“Hmm… I don’t really see the problem in that, but I insist you spend the first two weeks in Slytherin.” Dumbledore finally said.

Emily glanced at Harry, who was just as confused as she was. Why would Dumbledore want her to be in Slytherin first? Emily shrugged. Actually, this was even better, she could now help Harry settle in and she was sure that the Slytherins would be more accepting if she was there. “Deal.” was all she said and went to sit at the Slytherin table after wishing Harry luck.

“Now, how can I help you, Harry?” Dumbledore asked pretending to be uninformed that he was getting resorted.

“Headmaster, Mr. Potter requested a resorting,” McGonagall said slowly, wondering why he hadn’t remembered.

“Oh, yes! Now you are sure that this is what you really want, Mr. Potter? That this is not something that was put into your head by someone else.”

Harry looked away, gritted his teeth, and turned back to Dumbledore with a false smile. “That is precisely the reason why I wish to be resorted, sir.” Harry mocked Dumbledore.

“Please take the Hat and put it on, then.”

Harry walked over to the stool and placed the Hat on his head for the third time in his life.

“Ahh, Mr. Potter, I see you are back. ” The Hat’s voice rang in his head.

“Yeah, yeah, now just put me where I belong. ”

Harry then heard quite a lot of muttering. It sounded like the Hat was arguing with itself. It was probably trying to overcome the spell.

After a while, the Hat had made its choice. “SLYTHERIN!” Harry smirked and after taking off the Hat, took a seat beside Emily.

Dumbledore got to his feet. “Now that the Sorting has ended, let the feast commence!”

A/N: Please review, I am always motivated to write after reading a nice review. =)