"What's wrong?" Seeing Professor White staring intently at the Sorting Hat, Dumbledore felt a bit uneasy, unsure of what she was planning.
"This hat… do you lot never wash it?"
Professor White's question caught Dumbledore completely off guard. For a moment, he didn't know how to respond. As far as he knew, the Sorting Hat didn't require cleaning.
Helga Hufflepuff walked straight up to the hat and picked it up in one swift motion.
Dumbledore: !!!
Before he could react, Professor White drew her wand and cast a Scouring Charm on the Sorting Hat.
Watching Professor White handle the Sorting Hat like that, Dumbledore felt as though his heart was about to leap out of his chest—what if she damaged it? How would future students be sorted then?
But Hufflepuff hadn't thought that far. First of all, she was very skilled in household magic and was absolutely confident she could remove centuries of grime without harming the hat itself.
Secondly, even if something did go wrong, she was sure she could fix it—and if not, she'd just call Salazar and Rowena to fix it with her.
She picked up the hat and, with a few quick spells, had it cleaned spotlessly in no time.
Sorting Hat: What's going on?
Most of the time, the Sorting Hat was in a dormant state, but today it was suddenly awakened—it sensed a familiar yet strange aura.
The Sorting Hat squirmed in confusion, feeling an odd itch, like it had just shed a layer of skin. It was as if someone had dragged it into a bathhouse and given it a thorough scrubbing.
It tried to reach out with its senses, and then froze completely: it seemed to have just spotted someone utterly extraordinary!!!
Helga Hufflepuff placed the now-clean hat on her head and began speaking with it.
[Long time no see, Godric's Hat.]
[Ah! It really is you, Lady Hufflepuff!]
[I go by Smith White now—don't forget it, and don't say anything you shouldn't.]
[Y-yes… Understood. Did you know, Sir Slytherin—]
[I've already seen him.]
[…]
After a brief conversation with the intelligent hat, Hufflepuff took it off her head. Dumbledore, moving with a swiftness unbefitting his age, rushed over, took the Sorting Hat from her hands, and began carefully inspecting it.
He examined the hat inside and out, and only when he found nothing amiss did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.
"Professor White, that was far too reckless of you!" he said in a mildly reproachful tone. "This hat is a relic of the Four Founders, imbued with their wisdom. If it were ever damaged, the consequences would be irreparable—we would lose the standards by which the Founders sorted new students."
Hufflepuff: "..."
The way he said that… something felt off. Besides, she had a feeling that her old friends weren't exactly satisfied with how their respective houses were being sorted these days. At the very least, Salazar was extremely dissatisfied.
"Don't worry, Professor Dumbledore," Hufflepuff said kindly. "A hat infused with the Founders' 'wisdom' wouldn't be damaged by a simple Cleaning Charm. If you don't believe me, just ask the Sorting Hat and see what it says."
Dumbledore looked down at the now "refreshed" Sorting Hat, which showed no signs of protest.
Since the hat itself had no objections, he couldn't say anything more and simply placed it back on the shelf.
Once back on its familiar perch, the Sorting Hat's taut nerves finally relaxed. It muttered silently to itself: Why are all these people coming back? First it was Salazar a few years ago… and now Helga…
"Professor Dumbledore, do you think if the Founders were alive today, their sorting standards would still be the same as they were a thousand years ago?"
This question made Dumbledore wary once again.
It wasn't something he could answer easily—because, in his opinion, he didn't have the right to.
"I get the feeling that if Salazar saw the current state of Slytherin House, he'd probably be very disappointed." Seeing that Dumbledore remained silent, Hufflepuff simply continued speaking on her own.
Dumbledore continued to stay quiet.
"I'm not saying this to provoke anything," Hufflepuff said sincerely. "I just want to tell you, don't fear change. Sometimes, injecting new ideas into the Hat is a good thing."
Dumbledore nodded outwardly, but deep down, he didn't agree with Professor White's words.
The older one gets, the more conservative they become. Dumbledore no longer had the energy to make such changes—after all, he was already a hundred and eleven or twelve years old. At that age, even waking up from a nap wasn't guaranteed, let alone having the energy to imbue the Sorting Hat with new ideas.
But there was still one thing he had to do before he returned to the earth—destroy Voldemort, the demon born from his own hands.
"We'll talk about the Sorting Hat later. For now, let's take a look at Professor Trelawney's prophecy. I have a feeling I might need to give her a raise," Dumbledore said as he led Hufflepuff to a cabinet.
He opened the cabinet, and a silvery light shimmered into view. Dumbledore pulled out a shallow stone basin and placed it on his desk.
Hufflepuff recognized it at a glance—it was the Pensieve she had excavated all those years ago.
At the moment, the Pensieve was filled with a substance that looked like both liquid and gas, radiating a bright silvery glow. These were the accumulated memories of headmasters through the ages.
Back in their time, since the Founders had the ability to directly project scenes from their memories, they had little use for the Pensieve. She hadn't expected that a thousand years later, the basin would be nearly full.
"These are priceless treasures," Helga said, feeling a sudden urge to dip her wand in and stir the basin. Who knows—maybe she could glimpse memories of headmasters from hundreds, even nearly a thousand years ago.
"Indeed—" Dumbledore was just about to explain how the Pensieve worked to Professor White, but then he saw her use her wand to extract a strand of her memory and place it into the basin.
Seeing that she already knew how to use the Pensieve, Dumbledore said nothing more and simply leaned in with her—
In the next moment, the two of them appeared inside the Divination classroom in the West Tower, where Trelawney was conversing with Hufflepuff from half an hour earlier.
The two found a cushion and sat down together, watching as Professor Trelawney entered a trance amidst the herbal smoke and delivered a prophecy concerning the Dark Lord.
As Lavender burst into the classroom and interrupted Trelawney's prophecy, the memory came to an abrupt end, and the two of them returned to Dumbledore's office.
"I was wrong—I should give both of you a raise," Dumbledore said, trying to lighten the heavy mood with a small joke after witnessing Trelawney's prophecy.
But Hufflepuff immediately pulled the original contract from her robes.
"Wonderful, then shall we discuss how much it should be raised?"
Dumbledore: "..."
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