2 September 2012
Sunday at 8pm
Headmaster's Tower

It was late. An early autumn wind buffeted the headmaster's ancient tower and rattled the windows in their panes. Inside, a fire in the large hearth heated and lit the multi-tiered space. In the center of it all, among the eclectic collection of furniture and artefacts, under the gaze of a dozen dark portraits, dead as a doornail sat the large leather Sorting Hat.

It sat on a circular stone table which seemed designed for this scrutiny. All of those gathered at Headmaster Knox Greyfriar's invitation could move around the old enchanted hat in full three hundred and sixty degrees. They could of course find seating in the chairs by the hearth, or the bold could lean against the headmaster's large wooden desk up on the next level. A spiral staircase to the bookshelves was also an easy perch, where Hannox the young orange cat lay watching it all.

The Sorting Hat was still as utterly lifeless as it had been at yesterday's doomed Sorting Ceremony.[1] Even when the thing was quiet, it had always had some kind of perceptible vitality in its creases and brim. Looking at it now, it could have been a model.

Knox crossed his arms then uncrossed them to put his hands on his hips.

"It's not as if we have fireside chat. It's there, all the time, in that cupboard. Hardly says a word," he was explaining the normal day-to-day life of the object. "A grumble maybe. A cough, but that could have been Dippet. Then, at the appointed hour, it's brought to the ante-chamber before the sorting ceremony. Straight to the stool, then straight back, then I bring it back up with me following the meal."

He was grateful Professor McGonagall had come so quickly. He dreaded that he somehow had deserved a disadulation for having presided over what could be Hogwarts' final actual Sorting.

"There's really a small window for tampering with it."

1.	1 Sept 2012 - Sorting Feast 2012 - Hold Your Tongue

The Headmaster's owl the night before[1] had brought both his plea for aid and a chill wind. The owl had departed, the wind remained. Though the brisk breeze was common for a Scottish autumn evening, news of the Sorting Hat leant the air an almost cynical air. That ominous wind had followed her all the way to the head tower. The tartan cloak she'd wrapped around herself on the short walk from Urquart House lay discarded by the hearth, draped over the back of an armchair.

Being back at Hogwarts was neither a thing for celebration nor dispair for Minerva McGonagall - it simply was. She felt no burst of nostalgia for the halls nor the portraits lining them, for her time away from the esteemed castle had been too brief. She had greeted those hanging Upon the walls within the tower as old friends and colleagues upon entering - they responding in kind. 

The General of the Battle of Hogwarts was always welcome within her halls.

It seemed to the elderly witch that every time she tried to retire, Hogwarts drew her back. Thankfully, this visit she was simply a consultant - the responsibility rested on Knox Greyfriar's capable shoulders. The last time she'd been on the Board of Governors, she had been given Herschel Reid's resignation[2].

Shortly thereafter Minerva was reinstated as Hogwarts Headmistress where she had met Atash Hendurabi - a member of their group she was shocked to see. She was no longer in charge, so it wasn't her choice, but letting a new professor with such close ties to Durmstrang examine one of Hogwarts' most ancient traditions was unwise in her opinion.

She listened as Knox detailed the life of the Hat and Minerva could only nod along. She had naught to add - his synopsis seemed to be much the same as her own would have been. She kept the hat in a different spot, but Albus had kept the thing in another spot entirely - placement was as unlikely to be the issue as tampering.

Minerva McGonagall leaned upon the table, left hand hovering inches above the lifeless cap. "And how does it feel adorned?" She asked, raising her gaze to look upon the headmaster. Visually, the hat would tell her nothing. It was truly bizarre how dead the hat seemed, lying there without any semblance of sentience.

1.	How Are You With Handling Hats?
2.	Leadership descends from Character

Knox seemed stoppered up at that.

"I haven't worn it," he said with a hint of scandal. "That is, I have worn it once and not since."

The thought had not honestly occurred to him, to don the Sorting Hat as some kind of test. Knox crossed his arms; he didn't disapprove of the notion but seemed unwilling to be the one to do it.

"I would offer Professors..." Interjected Ravindar Singh quietly. He gave the slightest of gestures to his religious head covering which he would not remove. Not even to place the world's most famous hat on his head. "Like the Headmaster I have worn it once but not since."

He approached the hat and summarized what had been proposed so far. "We have established it has not stopped working during the sorting. Or has become physically damaged." It was tatty but was not sporting new holes. "We are unaware of any reason for it to become cursed or sabotaged as it is kept securely. We have not ruled out that it has worn out or lost its magic." Powerful magical artifacts could degrade over time but it was usually due to something else interfering with it or damage.

"There is one further possibility we might consider..." Professor Singh turned to the others assembled. "The Sorting Hat is on strike...?"

Professor Singh escaped the general wrath of the Deputy Head because the Sikh was near-impossible to rattle, and placid as a cauldron full of cold water. This hat business was definitely putting the cat amongst the pigeons, if the pigeons were any of the adults who had once been Hogwarts students. That numbered many more people in the room than did not. Personally he didn’t care much for the raggedy hat and its arrogant little songs each September, the bloody hat had one job to do on one night a year. How dare it have the audacity to go on strike when it took at least 300 years to clock up the annual average working hours of a mortal being?

As such, the silver-haired wizard clad in his customary dark robes wore his trademark scowl over sharply folded arms. In between inwardly cursing Godric Gryffindor’s ancient hat he had been weighing up recent threats to the school. Werewolves, governors with noses out of joint, angry parents, insane Head Unspeakables, joke shop managers…

“Are you suggesting it has a reason to?” He queried Professor Singh, speaking for the first time since they had all rolled in and begun the discussion. “Has it motive, or past form for doing such?”

"No," came Headmaster Greyfriar's gruff reply, rudely laid atop a query meant for Professor Singh.

Catching himself, Knox took a breath, made a sort of thinking gesture. "If I were to simply describe what is known of it, without guessing at what might be the cause of this trouble I would say that other than being generally flawless at placing the students according to the Founders' original intent, the hat is an ardent proponent of unity in adversity, and general well-being of the castle and its inhabitants."

"And, failing today, it really hasn't surprised anyone since it hatstalled Professor McGonagall. Well. Unless you count Harry Potter pulling a sword out of it."

Greyfriar stopped and looked to the two Gryffindors in the room with a raised eyebrow.

Professor Duerr, though a teacher at the school, was another appointment from the alumna of other magical schools. Beauxbatons, her own school, was situated in the Pyrenees which one might compare to the mountainous landscape of Scotland at a push. However it was a chateau rather than a castle, and considerably warmer than the northern climes of Great Britain. They did not have a sorting hat, nor subscribe to the very British tradition of school houses.

As was ordinary, she had taken to observe rather than leap in to contribute, and was studiously notating in a familiar little black book. The Arithmancer was always keen to apply her numerology to situations, whether personality traits, romantic possibility, or auspicious dates.

“A sword?” Camille asked, clearly having not heard of this story. She had not grown up on the extensive tales of Harry Potter, but had heard the key points. She was looking up from her notes quizzically. “Does it need to be returned?” She suggested, erring on the thought that it might be some kind of key.

Professor Duerr asked about the sword. "It came to Harry Potter in time of great need. To slay the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets. It is a relic of the founders. Gryffindor a sword. Hufflepuff a cup. Ravenclaw a diadem..." He looked about them for the sword in question. It was ordinarily on display in the Headmaster's office.

Professor Singh was right. The Headmaster (since 2011 in his most recent tenure, after a three year absence) turned on the spot, wondering if he'd seen the thing in here before. The office was a clutter of artefacts, heirlooms, and the like, all of them Hogwarts property. They sat and sat. The history was somewhat interesting to History of Magic Professor Greyfriar, but he did not spend a great deal of time in any act of inventory.

"Accio sword" he tried, despite the risk of summoning a blade at one's person. But he was not in peril for nothing stirred in the large, warren-like tower office. He stood perplexed once again.

"Your predecessor has loaned it out." They all looked up. It was the voice of the notorious Severous Snape. "How embarrassing of you not to notice. They always said you were self-centered."

"Oh, do they?" Knox asked of the painting, placing his hands on his hips. "So fill us in."

Snape smirked, as he'd done so well in life. "Ried[1] gave it to the Museum of Wizarding History. Can't believe he didn't tell you. Leave it to a Hufflepuff to be so apathetic. 'And all the rest'. Hmm."

It was only a painting, wasn't it, and not worth the breath of retort, so Knox turned back to his flesh-and-bone colleagues. "An owl is in order, I think."

He didn't seem confident this was the key to all of it, as there had been several Sortings since then, but perhaps the experts there had some idea.

1.	Herschel Reid

Minerva offered a small smile as Professor Singh told his little joke, a very small smile. This was a matter of some urgency, after all, and was no time for levity. Few people alive had spent as much time in the presence of the Sorting Hat as had Minerva McGonagall and she had never experienced anything like this before. Asking if anyone had worn the hat was not simply cheek - it was a test of sorts. Someone who had been sorted by the hat would know how it felt to have the hat's consciousness meld with their own and could, therefore, tell if that consciousness had fled along with the hat's stirrings of life.

Still, it was not for nothing that the others seemed unwilling to try wearing the hat themselves. There was something oddly personal about wearing the hat, as if all a person is - all a person will be- was laid bare. It wasn't an experience many were eager to repeat. Plus, as anyone who has studied even the least bit of magical theory would say, it was wise to be cautious with ancient magical relics. There was simply no telling what might happen when dealing with an enchantment as old as the one placed on Godric Gryffindor's old cap.

The retired headmistress gave the current headmaster a nod when he mentioned her first experience with the Sorting Hat. She felt no need to elaborate further - the hat couldn't decide between putting Minerva into Ravenclaw or Gryffindor. It was a rare occurance but it wasn't unheard of, nor could her experience over half a century before had any effect on the hat's current state.

The sword, however, was an excellent topic to discuss. Minerva was the only one in the room to have been around when Harry Potter had pulled forth the famous blade. She, actually, was acting as headmistress at the time as Albus had been removed temporarily from the school. Lost in her memories, she missed the bit where Knox tried to summon the blade unsuccessfully and was brought back to the present by the voice of Severus Snape.

He was as abrasive as he had been in life and much as she did while he had been alive, Minerva chose to ignore him. The sword itself was unlikely to be of any help anyway - it had not caused any issues with the hat since being removed from its depths decades before, though it had been through many adventures since. If it hadn't disrupted the Sorting Hat when Harry Potter used it to destroy horcruxes it probably couldn't disrupt the hat at all.

"The sword has been pulled from the hat twice, actually," Minerva said, "Once by Harry Potter and once by Neville Longbottom. It is a goblin-wrought blade and only takes in that which makes it stronger. I doubt that there is a witch or wizard alive today who could manage to harm it,"

"Still," She continued, "It would be wise to check,"

Minerva wasn't thrilled with the knowledge that the sword wasn't on hand. It was, after all, a Hogwarts artifact and should be housed at Hogwarts, not in a museum. "You might consider requesting to have the sword returned to its rightful home, headmaster," she continued. It was no longer her place to make decisions for the school, that was up to Headmaster Greyfriar, but she could very well make suggestions and expect for them to be listened to.

"As for the other founder's relics, I believe them all to be destroyed. The sword and Gryffindor's hat are the only remaining items belonging to any of the founding four,"   

As Professors Singh and McGonagall gave a potted history of Godric Gryffindor’s other relic, Professor Storm’s attention had instead turned to the stack of post in a gold-plate in-tray upon the present Headmaster’s desk. He did not care exactly for precise history of Potter, and McGonagall would be quick to oblige any corrections, along with her painted predecessors. One day she two would be hanging in the office with them, ensconced in her own frame.

Perched upon a nest of unopened envelopes and coiled parchments sat a copy of The Daily Prophet’s evening edition. Often the issue were a slim affair of updates that had missed the morning’s deadline, or quidditch results and the like. He did not subscribe to the extra edition on this principle (and that it did not contain an additional crossword for he and his wife’s pleasure), but it appeared the Headmaster, or the school, were subscribed to the evening update. It was folded over, but the headline differed enough from the morning’s edition to warrant his distraction.

“The sword has been pulled from the hat twice, actually…”

GRYFFINDOR SWORD SWIPED

Museum staff left shocked at overnight break-in at the National Museum of Wizarding History. A flabberghasted source (who wished to remain anonymous) claimed “nothing had been touched, save for one artefact”. Late this afternoon, Head Curator, Fiona Lloyd confirmed that the only item unaccounted for was indeed the sword of Godric Gryffindor…

“.. are the only remaining items belonging to any of the founding four…”

“Once, twice, three times a charm?” Professor Storm interrupted, holding the front page up to the others assembled, expression grim.

The unfamiliar sound of the portrait of Professor Snape laughing rang out, a brief unpleasant sound like it was out of practice.

"That will be all!" Knox insisted to the painting. "Thank you very much!"

The current Headmaster took his turn with the newspaper then handed it off to whoever wanted to see next for themselves. Meanwhile the hat continued doing nothing, keeping them all hostage.

"That's an owl for the morning if I ever saw one," he said. "Unless any of you have a speciality in haberdashery that I don't know about, I see no need to detain you all here. The first years will be comfortable enough where they are for tonight, but will likely need somewhere better soon. And someone to watch over them."

They were only eleven after all, some of them twelve. They'd need a minder who wasn't Peeves. That and it wouldn't due to have them get too rooted in where they were now, randomly slotted in, only to have the Hat fulfill its duties and mix them all around again.