"What a load of codswallop?!"
The words galloped across the Great Hall on hooves of steel.
Nobody looked at where the words had come from. Nobody minded the utter breaking of silence. Nobody could care about Ron Weasley, who had unwittingly, but honestly, blurted out the sentence.
They were all thinking the same.
Draco Malfoy, son of Lucius Malfoy, had just been sorted into Gryffindor!
If that was all, then it wouldn't have been enough to send the wizards and witches into a shocking silence.
Not only did Draco become the very first Malfoy to be sorted in a House other than Slytherin, but he also became the longest case of Hatstall in the history of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The Slytherin table was dead silent.
The Gryffindor table was also possessed by the ghost of a silence, whose nature couldn't even be defined.
Ron and Harry were flabbergasted, daring not to believe what they had just heard.
Especially Harry who had gone through so much with Hagrid first, and then during the Battle of Legends. Now he believed it by heart that only the worst kind of students went to Slytherin. No wonder he had already considered Draco the face of Slytherin House, then. But…
Professor McGonagall blinked at the name on the scroll, leaned under the Sorting Hat and blinked at the boy. Then she straightened her spine, blinking at the name again.
On the High Table, Professor Snape's thin lips had flattened themselves into the thinnest line.
Professor Dumbledore had also pressed his back on the chair's support. An imperceptible smile danced across his lips, hidden under his thick mustache and beard.
Of course, the most shocked among all wasn't anybody but Draco himself.
He hadn't even needed confidence. He had sat down on the stool knowing he would be a Slytherin. What else?
Slytherin was their House. Malfoy's generations had gone in and out of the dark common room of the House one after another.
"Uh-hmm-hmm," Dolores Umbridge cleared her throat, her high-pitched voice screeching through the ears. "Now that's marvelous! I will be the first to tell Lucius this… good news."
The pink-cladded witch hadn't even finished her words when an owl took off from her side, clipping a letter between its beak.
Snape's lips twitched seeing the readiness.
Professor Dumbledore knocked on the table. "Minerva."
Professor McGonagall snapped out of it. "Oh, yes, yes," she mumbled, taking the hat off the blond-haired head. "Please join your… House table, Mr. Malfoy."
Draco left the table without knowing about it.
His feet took him to the Gryffindor table where no one wanted him.
Most of the students there sat with their faces hard and blank, their eyes staring at the incoming boy as if a bad fish had been dropped into a pure lake.
Over to the Slytherin's side, Hermione squeaked, "Why's no one clapping for him?"
"Shut up, Mudblood!" a Slytherin snapped under his breath. "Don't talk to me."
They had already asked her about her background, which Hermione had been more than happy to reveal. Her parents were dentists and muggles, of course. That had marked the end of conversations with her.
Hermione winced at the remark and shifted away with a frown on her face.
She looked up and realized the boy, Draco, carried the exact frown on his face as hers.
Draco approached the table with slow steps and suddenly paused. On one side, there was Seam-something, sitting next to the first-year girl, along with that goofball Neville. On the other side, the Weasley twins eyed him, the Mudblood sleeping next to them.
Draco's frown deepened as he contemplated which was worse; Goofball or Mudblood?
"Tch!" he tsked and sat next to Black, the colors of his robes turning red and yellow. Father's gonna… kill me… he gulped.
But more than his father, he was worried about his sister.
Darcie will never let me forget this day… Draco shook his head and then slammed it on the table, joining Black in his silence.
*
*
"I am impressed," the Sorting Hat praised, flicking the rim of its hat. "You answered right."
Black looked at Draco as memories related to the original main storyline Character surfaced in his mind.
Yes. He had gone with Gryffindor after seeing the boy's memories.
"Courage is not only standing against the entire world," Black said, closing his eyes. "Courage is also standing against oneself and one's morals and ideals just for the sake of one person."
"Isn't such a Courage selfish?" the Sorting Hat asked.
Black ruminated over it, squeezing his eyes. Then he shrugged. "Courage is Courage."
"Courage is Courage…" the Sorting Hat squinted the yellow blobs under its hat. "Very well. Let's move on. We have already spent… Hmm?"
On the brown-robed figure's side, the corners of Black's mouth lifted. "… enough time," he said, finishing and distorting the sentence.
…
[Elementary Ad Infinitum: +1%]
…
Unknown to even the Sorting Hat, Kai wasn't just missing one yellow crystal from his mindscape, but two; one each from Kai and Black's Ad Infinitums.
One had been taken by the Sorting Hat, plucked right off the yellow nebula.
The other had been dissociated by Kai thoroughly with a timer, storing it in Darcie's Spirit Companion—Lilith, the Lethifold.
It contained the lucky feeling Black had experienced before the colossal hand's appearance. It also contained the very basic computation power of the Ability, raising its Proficiency by 1%.
And once the Ad Infinitum gained 1% of its abilities, nothing could stop it from spreading itself like a virus.
To code and decode and code and decode…
This was Ad Infinitum's basest nature.
Just as the Sorting Hat was about to move on with the next student, thin yellow, circuit-like strands began crawling up over its brown robes.
The Sorting Hat swatted the creepy circuits but failed to rub them away.
…
[Elementary Ad Infinitum: +11%]
…
"Haha!" Black laughed, opening his eyes. They were bloodshot.
He slid off the stool and walked toward the Sorting Hat, who was also now standing on the creaky, wooden floor.
…
[Elementary Ad Infinitum: +37%]
…
"This mindscape of yours," Black mused with Calm, "is marvelous. But it's also a double-edged sword, isn't it? You never considered that? Oh, what am I saying? With your flamboyant attitude, there's no way you thought someone would just barge in and bug you, right? Right?"
Black's mocked the Sorting Hat with the same words it had used in the beginning.
"I didn't begin hacking you right away, not because I couldn't, but because I didn't need to. Forgetting about it… was more than enough, you see."
…
[Elementary Ad Infinitum: +77%]
…
"Get these off me!" the Sorting Hat thundered, now covered in yellow, circuit-like lines all over.
"Ad Infinitum…" Black said, flicking the rim of the Sorting Hat's hat, "… Overburn!"
…
[Elementary Ad Infinitum: +99%]
…
"Ahhhh…" the Sorting Hat screamed. Its brown robes had almost gone completely yellow.
Cra-ck-kk!
Black-yellow bolts of lightning thundered around Black as he let go of the pent-up feelings, his Haki running wild across the wooden bar.
Flesh blisters popped off his body as both AIs pushed themselves to their limits, blood seeping out of his nose, ears, and eyes.
But Black was an Item.
He could push himself beyond return and still return.
"Haha!" Black laughed again, seeing his Ability complete the corruption of the Sorting Hat. "Are you really gonna let this happen…"
There was one more memory Kai had hidden in the second yellow crystal.
The Sorting Hat had given him no notification when Black had put it to his head. Meaning, it wasn't an Artifact.
Meaning…
"… to your Item."
The Sorting Hat went into a shock as it heard Black's words. But then it couldn't care any longer, either.
"Help me!" it cried. "Master!"
**************
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