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Chaos-Pand4 OP t1_j1xmzqe wrote
Meanwhile every victory of Slytherin is a proof that they are far superior than the half-bloods and muggle-borns.
Tom could have carried it further than others though. He was smart enough and angry enough and disillusioned enough by the life he had led thus far to carry it much, much further than any other Slytherin might.
That potential comes up in a person every now and then. Truth be told I have done this before. I have sensed the potential heir of Slytherin before… four times before to be exact.
No one likes to admit a contentious relationship with their progenitor, but Salazar was a Knob… I said what i said.
So I have squashed it before and I will squash it again. No one needs a basilisk stalking the halls of Hogwarts. No one needs another dark wizard raiding the restricted section of the library and attempting a return to the dark ages.
This story is getting long, so I’ll end it.
I sorted Tom into Hufflepuff. I sort MOST potential dark wizards into Hufflepuff. I haven’t had a dark wizard in all my years.
They go in angry, they go in wanting power, they go in convinced that they’re the best thing to hit the wizarding world since self-slicing bread.
Then they meet a rather jolly fellow Hufflepuff. Maybe a half-blood, maybe a muggle-born, maybe a pureblood who just doesn’t mesh with his family all that well.
“Slytherin is terrible!” That person tells them. “We always root against them in Quidditch, no matter who they play against.”
“Here, have some cake,” they say, “The house elves always treat us the best.”
“You can stay with me this summer if you like,” the natural-borne Hufflepuff says to the emotionally neglected, potential villain, “I can tell you don’t want to go back to that orphanage. My mom makes really great chicken curry!”
They’re eleven and they are above all, MALLEABLE.
Most of them turn out fine. Some of them turn out fat. A few of them remain jerks, but powerless jerks… because unlike Slytherin, a house for recruiting evil minions, Hufflepuff is not. Nor do the products of Slytherin find it easy to take a Hufflepuff seriously.
So yes. I made Tom Riddle a Hufflepuff. He currently works at Honeydukes. He isn’t as happy as he could be, but his friend Isidor Jenkins (who more or less adopted him in first year), takes him out for butter beer nightly.
“If I could work at Honeydukes I would DIE of happiness, Tom. You’re so lucky!” Isidor works for the Ministry, and it is boring.
“I should be more, I could be more!” Tom cries.
“You’ll run your own shop one day. Sure as rain. You make the best chocolate frogs anyone ever saw.”
“Chocolate frogs are stupid.” Tom cries.
“If you say so, Tom. You know candy better than anyone alive!”
Tom is slightly mollified. He DOES know candy better than anyone alive!
“Chocolate grasshoppers would be better.” He says, “grasshoppers can jump much farther respective to their body size than frogs. We would get much more jump per chocolate than with frogs.”
“Have you told your boss that?” Isidor asks.
“Yes.” Tom says. His boss said it was a really great idea too. It made him feel nice, to be acknowledged for his brilliance that way. He really was very smart.
“You really are very smart.” Isidor tells him. “You could have been a Ravenclaw for sure.
He could have been, Tom knows. Frankly he always felt that the sorting hat did rather badly misplace him. He wasn’t especially fond of chocolate, his excellence in enchanting it aside.
Is Tom as happy as he might have been, if I had placed him into Slytherin? Maybe not.
Maybe instead of inventing chocolate grasshoppers, he would have ruled the wizarding world (or some United Kingdom-sized portion thereof). Maybe he would have been less happy, and running a shop selling shrunken heads in knock-turn alley (again… I sort them when they are ELEVEN).
He hasn’t split his soul into eight or nine pieces either, though, so I will take the win.
I am the sorting hat of reality 4789, signing off.
Gaelhelemar t1_j1z4i25 wrote
Haha, this sounds exactly like a Sorting Hat monologue.
HopingToWriteWell77 t1_j1zo4z0 wrote
Tom Riddle Sr. was under the effects of a love potion when Tom Marvolo Riddle was conceived. It is canon knowledge that when one parent is under the influence of a love potion at the time a child is conceived, that child will be unable to feel love of any kind. Tom Marvolo Riddle was born without any ability to love, or feel compassion for, any living thing.
Gaelhelemar t1_j1zxif9 wrote
Well that’s sucky worldbuilding there. Tom didn’t become evil on his own, he was destined to be evil. I don’t like that one bit.
HopingToWriteWell77 t1_j228dgb wrote
Well, he did enjoy torturing the other kids at the orphanage, didn't he? "I can make them hurt, if I want to." He got another boy's rabbit to hang itself from the rafters, and a couple of younger kids were so traumatized by him that they were, according to the orphanage head Mrs. Cole, "never quite the same after."
Gaelhelemar t1_j22duz1 wrote
Yeah, that's upbringing, not because he was literally souless.
HopingToWriteWell77 t1_j24inq9 wrote
Harry had a horrible upbringing, too, but did he torture other kids for fun? No, he just learned how to run really fast and avoid being punched.
However, if you look at Tom Riddle - who was well cared for, if not given as much love and attention as a child should have since there were so many of them at the orphanage - what do we see? We see a kid who collects harmonicas and other odds and ends from his victims when he is ELEVEN. At eleven years old, Harry was looking forward to not having to go to the same school as his cousin. Tom was a clever, sneaky liar who assumed Dumbledore was a doctor sent by Mrs. Cole to look at him, possibly take him away to a madhouse, and then promptly told Dumbledore that Mrs. Cole was the mad one who didn't like him and that he never touched any of the other kids or anyone's pets, and that she'd made it all up. He was a manipulative, clever, and downright disturbed child.
Chaos-Pand4 OP t1_j200p0t wrote
That doesn’t really change the fact that putting him in slytherin gives him access to all of the tools, associates, and philosophy that he needs in order to become a Dark Lord.
I don’t necessarily state that he loves being a candy maker… just that he likes having his ego stroked about it.
There are lots of psychopaths out there who DON’T become serial killers too.
HopingToWriteWell77 t1_j22adg0 wrote
It was Tom that was the problem, not the house he was in.
I agree, given the right circumstances, he might have turned out all right, but from the moment he was born he was doomed. As a child, he actively hurt the other children at the orphanage, to the point where two of them were never quite the same afterwards and everyone else was afraid of him. He kept trophies, too - at age eleven!
But he still could have been saved at Hogwarts - if the wizarding community had realized his home life was poor, and had a system in place for orphaned or unwanted magical children, and he'd been taken in by a family like the Weasleys. He could have been taught proper right and wrong, and perhaps he could have been saved.
Tom hunted for his father everywhere in that school for years, assuming that he was the magical one because he believed that had his mother been magical, she could have saved herself. He only looked for Marvolo once he'd been unable to find any Tom Riddle in any records, finding Marvolo Gaunt and his son Morfin. When he was fifteen, he went to see if Morfin was worth knowing, found a filthy, hairy wreck, and was told he looked like a Muggle down in the village that his mother had once run off with. At fifteen/sixteen, he killed his father and paternal grandparents, framed his uncle, and took his uncle's family ring as a trophy. He assumed, and was never told otherwise, that his father had only left his mother because he found out she was a witch - he did not know about the love potion.
He was obsessed with power at age eleven. That stayed throughout his life. He assumed, at age eleven, that dying made his mother weak and non-magical. He kept trophies of his victims, at age eleven. No matter where he was placed, he would likely have turned out evil, because he would have had classes with the Slytherins and been exposed to their ideologies.
Although, yes, he may have become a candy maker.
Chaos-Pand4 OP t1_j22bjdo wrote
Yeah but there’s Voldemort evil and there’s Umbridge evil. I think he would always be a shit person, but without the tools to spin it into anything, he might just be middle-management levels of evil.
HopingToWriteWell77 t1_j24hsow wrote
Possibly - but what kind of child enjoys hurting other kids like that?
Chaos-in-a-CookieJar t1_j1xkbpe wrote
“HUFFLEPUFF”
Hufflepuff? Tom didn’t know what that house was all about, but those kids wearing yellow were smiling and waving him over, so he shuffled over to their table and reluctantly sat next to a girl from his year. Anne Laurent was her name, if he remembered correctly.
As Tom began to space out watching the sorting, the girl sitting next to him suddenly turned and began speak. “Hi, my name’s Annie!” Her voice was bright and lively, a welcome break from the strict and angry tones of the matrons from back home.
Tom didn’t quite know how to respond, the kids back home didn’t really talk to him, except to mock or bully him. The closest thing to a friend that he ever had, was Matron Millie, who was slightly less strict than the others. So when a random nice girl tried to talk to him, the only thing he could say was, “It’s nice to meet you Annie, my name is Tom.”
“It’s nice to meet you too Tom. So Tom, class are you the most excited for? I can’t wait for herbology, I love plants!” The truth was, Tom hadn’t thought much about his classes. He’d agreed to come to this school only because it meant he didn’t have spend the winter in his cold little room back at his home. But he couldn’t say that to Annie, crushing her enthusiasm like that would put distance between her and him.
“I’m excited for herbology too, I just find plants some cool. Besides, I heard Hogwarts has some awesome magical plants. I can’t wait to see them in real life.” Whew, he successfully redirected the conversation. Then, Annie went off. She raved and ranted about different magical plants she’d read about, and all Tom needed to do was listen and say “yeah” or “mhm that’s so cool” every once and a while.
When the food came, Tom was overwhelmed, but that’s wasn’t new. Everything he had encountered since his first meeting with the mysterious wizard Dumbledore had been frankly fantastical. A whole world of magic, sitting just under his nose and in his bloodline. An explanation for all the anomalous chaos of his childhood. And now that he had begun hanging out in the social vicinity of Annie, as well as other members of Hufflepuff house, he found that he was not alone.
r/CookieJarOfChaos
Chaos-Pand4 OP t1_j1xml0m wrote
I also put in Hufflepuff
Chaos-in-a-CookieJar t1_j1xq4w6 wrote
Yeah I figured that would be the predominant take, yours was really great tho better than mine by far
Chaos-Pand4 OP t1_j1xqd2a wrote
I liked yours. I was just stewing about mine for longer.
Chaos-in-a-CookieJar t1_j1xqgm2 wrote
Oh yeah mine was just a quick little thing
Chaos-Pand4 OP t1_j1xr0qz wrote
I watch the series around the holidays and just pick something to stew about every year.
Gaelhelemar t1_j1z4y4s wrote
Well, I hope Annie isn’t like Hermione in her first year, pushy and whatnot, and let’s him have some personal space, but overall looks like a good What If.
GroovyNoob t1_j1yociz wrote
Do you know what a sorting hat does all day?
You see, I don't have legs or hands, but I am fully conscious and sentient. When most people realize this, they grow a little horrified, which I appreciate. Most people never think about it. For a long time, I didn't either.
I was sitting on the shelf in Headmaster Dippet's office staring at the wall, which is what I did 364 days out of the year, when Amicus Tosser sauntered into my life for the third time. He was a fat, bespectacled boy with poor posture and two muggle parents, who had the marvelous ability to oscillate his expression between keen, almost predatory intelligence and bewilderment, as though he were rarely sure exactly how he had gotten to be where he was. Indeed, I had found him exceedingly difficult to sort; he was ambitious and coldly-calculating, but was also muggle-born; brave, though usually accidentally so; and of course, highly intelligent. I had put him in Ravenclaw.
The second time I saw him was brief. Dippet had been in at the time, and they had a brief conversation that none-the-less grew quite heated about whether or not owls were suitable message carriers. Amicus insisted that using the muggle post would be much more efficient in the majority of situations, and that if we insisted on continuing to use birds, we could at least switch to something more suitable to the task, like carrier pigeons. It ended in Amicus getting detention.
Overall, it had been quite entertaining.
This time, though, Dippet was not in. Amicus looked around until he spotted me.
"Hullo, hat," he said amiable, shuffling over to the shelf. "Do you know where the Headmaster is?"
"You'll be waiting a bit," I said. "He's gone off on some business at the Ministry of Magic."
"Fine by me, then," he replied, and looked around. "Out of curiosity, do they often let students wander in here unaccompanied?"
"Might as well," I replied, "as everything is warded anyway."
"Not against being read, though," he muttered to himself, wandering over behind the headmaster's desk. Careful not to touch anything, he peered through his glasses at the various letters and notes scattered about it. I wondered again if I had put him in the wrong house.
"Do you know you have a strong streak of Slytherin in you?" I asked him.
"I actually don't really care," he replied, without looking up. "It's all rubbish anyway."
This hurt my feelings a bit, and in my mind he moved a bit closer to Slytherin. "I just didn't know if I could justify putting a muggle-born into that house," I pressed on. "For some reason, they tend to be very concerned about bloodline over there."
He looked up then, as though really seeing me for the first time. "Fascinating," he said, after a moment. "Are you a genetic determinist, then?"
I had never been asked this before, and honestly had no idea what he was talking about.
"Do you believe that a person's capacity is determined at birth," Amicus pushed on, "or do you believe people can substantially change?"
"I... well, I suppose I had never really thought about it," I replied. "Personally, I don't see much significant change after I sort people, for instance."
"Of course," he countered, coming out from behind the desk, "because you group them by type." He paused. "You know, I'm suddenly doubting your credentials. By what criterion DO you sort?"
That was even more offensive, and I'll admit I got a bit snippish. "I was enchanted by the four founders of Hogwarts to have their intelligence," I replied. "When I sort a person, I sort them as accurately as would the founders themselves!"
"Ah," he replied, "and suddenly things make so much more sense. You're basing your decisions on reasoning that hasn't been updated in a thousand years." He looked around disdainfully. "Which is much the problem with this whole school, actually. Very condescending to muggles, despite the fact that 'muggles' keep improving, and wizards really don't."
"Young man!" I reprimanded him. "Do you want to get expelled?"
"I'm honestly not sure," he said. "It's been quite difficult to keep up with muggle high school and Hogwarts at the same time. But they tell me that if I don't learn to use magic, I'll become dangerous, so..." and he shrugged. "Anyway, not important. Do you read?"
"Of course I can read," I replied defensively.
"Not 'can you,' DO you?" Amicus pressed.
"How would I turn the pages?" I growled back. "I don't exactly have hands, you know."
"Huh," Amicus said, as though just noticing. "Can't you use magic?"
"I am an enchanted object, boy, not a person. I can't use magic beyond what I was enchanted with."
[NOTE: I am realizing this is far more ambitious than I had originally thought, and it is 3 am. I'm going to go back to bed, but if you're invested, let me know and I'll write more.]
GroovyNoob t1_j1ztneu wrote
"I am an enchanted object, boy, not a person. I can't use magic beyond what I was enchanted with."
"Huh," he said again, sounding displeased. "There's a book I want to show you, but that's not going to work if you can't read it."
"Again, I was imbued with the intelligence of the founders, including minute knowledge of most of the library."
"It's a muggle book," Amicus replied. He had noticed a skull nearby and was staring at it thoughtfully.
"I don't know what I could expect to learn from muggles," I said.
"You'll be surprised," Amicus said. "My father especially, who is a child development research psychologist."
"I literally don't know what you're talking about."
"And therein lies the problem. What do you do all day? If I had thought about it, I would have assumed you were either asleep or doing some sort of research. It appears I was wrong on both counts."
I didn't much feel like telling him, truth be told, and luckily didn't have to, because at about that time Headmaster Dippet arrived. A similar argument ensued which ended with Amicus in detention again, and by the time he left the office I was almost convinced that, unlikely as it was, I had made a terrible sorting mistake.
Amicus began to get in trouble much more often after that, and I began to notice a pattern. It seemed that the instant Headmaster Dippet disapparated on business, Amicus would mouth-off to a teacher or play a silly disruptive prank, and end up in the office with me again. I began to expect and even look forward to it.
"I've come with an article from Nature," he might say, or "where did we leave off?" as he retrieved a book from his satchel.
And to my surprise, I did have a lot to learn from muggles. Do you know they study the workings of the mind? And not just the effect of magic upon it, but how it operates normally, and what can cause it to turn. I approached the next sorting with an enthusiasm I had not seen in quite some time. Clever though the muggles are, they do not have the gift of legilimency, which is where I specialize.
Amicus also frequently argued for the scientific method, and though I counter-argued, one question wormed its way into my head and wouldn't leave me alone: how do we know what we know? For instance, I had always known that the sorting was important, and that it was the best thing for the students. Now, I was beginning to grow unsure. Amicus strongly believed that the act of sorting students caused them to act certain ways, not the reverse. "Tell a child that he is bad," Amicus would say, "and he will believe you." I didn't buy the argument, but I didn't have a great counter-argument.
So, I decided to experiment.
During the next sorting, I was placed on the head of a boy from a well-known Slytherin family. Even at eleven, I could immediately tell he was the perfect Slytherin. He was proud, ambitious, cunning... maybe a little cruel. The intelligence of Salazar demanded him.
"Ravenclaw," I squeaked out.
There was a stir. Within the boy's head, horror surfaced, followed by doubt and...
...and what was this? Curiosity?
It had never occurred to him that he might be something other than a Slytherin. And then, he started having the most fascinating thoughts.
Well, I am smart, aren't I? he thought. I stick to things I've started. I get good grades. I'm a good reader...
Oh, my god. Was Amicus right?
I sorted the next several normally, until I hit one who should have been an easy call for Griffindor.
"Hufflepuff!" I called out.
Well, the girl thought, I'm not scared of hard work.
What was happening?
There ended up being eight I sorted into "wrong" houses. I picked eight that very obviously belonged to a single house, and put them into another: and as soon as I called out their false house, they children began to justify it!
"I don't like it," I said to Amicus later. "It makes me doubt myself."
"Good," he said. He had gotten a skull from Filtch, and was turning it over in his lap as we spoke, studying it. "But of course, the experiment has only just begun. We'll need to follow the students throughout the year and see how they act. Now tell me; how does one construct a limited arcane intelligence?"
Amicus was right... at least mostly. The boy I had sorted into Ravenclaw wasn't the smartest, but he got top marks in all his classes. I heart from Dippet (who was quite confused as to why I was suddenly taking such a keen interest in the students) that he gained a reputation for staying up late to study, getting up early to work, and generally outperforming the other Ravenclaws for whom academic work came much more easily. He had confided in Dippet that he would like to be head boy, and was working his way towards it.
So, still ambitious, but also quite academic. Interesting.
It was much the same with the others. The Griffindor-to-Hufflepuff would approach the most unsavory task with unstoppable determination, blowing through work that even the other Hufflepuffs hesitated at. A Hufflepuff-to-Slytherin became surprisingly shrewd, and gathered around her the most actively ambitious of her housemates, creating a clique that was known for its efficiency and consistency. At eleven!
"What are you doing?" Dippet asked, looking up from his desk.
"Reading," I replied. I was perched atop the skull, with a book open on its spine nearby. Turn, I thought to the skull, and a page drifted up and over as though caught by a delicate breeze.
"You... didn't used to have a skull, did you?"
"No," I replied. "Mr. Tosser made it for me."
"Oh, did he?" Dippet said mildly. "Do you... enjoy spending time with Amicus?"
"I rather think I do," I replied. Life had definitely grown more interesting with him around, I had to admit.
"Well, I suppose that's a puzzle solved, then," Dippet muttered. He thereafter arranged time for Amicus to come and visit that wouldn't interfere with his studies, and our visits became more regular.
At the next sorting, I did about half of the students randomly. At the sorting after that, I randomized them all. And at the sorting after that, I began to sort students into houses based on what I felt the house needed, not what it wanted. Hufflepuffs were incredibly useful, I found, as they could temper the more extreme ideals of the other houses, especially Slytherin and Ravenclaw. Griffindors were useful in Slytherin, as they would encourage the True Slytherins to live their lives authentically, and many of the Slytherins began to break with their unsavory family traditions. Ravenclaws were useful in Hufflepuff, as the Hufflepuffs could sometimes have a tendency not to innovate (which I admit, I related to). And Slytherins, I found to my surprise, did well in every single house...
Except Slytherin.
Headmaster Dumbledore was the last traditionalist in the office. He was a good man and a powerful wizard, but we butted heads often. He really didn't like having a hat-driven skeleton walking around in his office either, but I was quite unwilling to give up my autonomy, so he eventually assigned me a classroom of my own. He also counter-productively tried to play-up the traditional house differences, but there was little he could do. After all, I am the sorting hat.
Oh, Tom?
Yes, he's a boy I sorted into Ravenclaw the third sorting after meeting Amicus. He spent time as a prefect, where he was generally regarded as tough but fair. Taught defense against the dark arts for a few years, fell in love with a muggle girl, got married, had a surprising number of little witches and wizards. We occasionally have him in as a guest lecturer, though nowadays he mostly prefers spending time with his grandkids.
Why do you ask?
Gaelhelemar t1_j1zxbnd wrote
Oh my! Tom, marrying a non-wizard, being happily married and a grandfather to boot? I’m looking forward to the final installment.
Constant_Living_8625 t1_j1zw82b wrote
Loved it! Great stuff!
GroovyNoob t1_j1zwve8 wrote
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
oluyinkai t1_j20342y wrote
Amazing!
bouncing_strawberry t1_j21ey0m wrote
It's amazing! You talk about issues in the book I struggle with. Like the fact that wizards do not evolve or that they reject all stuff related to muggles even though it could be useful. I find your story fascinating ! Love it!
GroovyNoob t1_j21q4ff wrote
Thanks, that means a lot to me. I hesitate to criticize choices made in one of the bestselling series of all time, but I feel like I'm not overreaching to say that some of the worldbuilding is pretty illogical.
Anyway, thanks for reading!
Gaelhelemar t1_j1z4qyo wrote
I’m interested to see where Riddle comes into this. Continue.
GroovyNoob t1_j1ztpv5 wrote
Alright, part 2 is up. Thanks!
CthulhuisIkuTurso t1_j1yp686 wrote
Please continue!
GroovyNoob t1_j1ztrbh wrote
Alright, part 2 is up. Thanks!
Constant_Living_8625 t1_j1ypqi7 wrote
I'm invested, please continue!
GroovyNoob t1_j1zts2x wrote
Alright, part 2 is up. Thanks!
oluyinkai t1_j1zgxu9 wrote
Very invested!
GroovyNoob t1_j1ztuo8 wrote
Alright, part 2 is up. Thanks!
[deleted] t1_j1zgz73 wrote
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[deleted] t1_j1zh57i wrote
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NotMuchChop t1_j1yu2kc wrote
Hmmm. Let’s see now. What have we got here...
Drive. Lot’s of it, too. Oh, yes. You could do great things with that. Terrible or terrific things — great either way. Hmm. A good dose of unearned, unburdened power, too — but...smart as well, it seems. Lucky, lucky you. Willingness to learn...however, unwilling to be chained down and yoked by...rules.
A deft hand. A keen mind. A heart aflame with want.
“Place me hat. We both know where I need to be.”
No.
“No?”
No you want to be in Slytherin, Boy. But, what I and I alone know is...“You shall be!...In therapy!”
“What!? That’s—there’s no—you can’t!”
Gaelhelemar t1_j1z4tpj wrote
Quite the unorthodox house.
HopingToWriteWell77 t1_j1zokxi wrote
Perfect! His inability to feel love - caused by his father being under the influence of a love potion when he was conceived - can be managed if he was given proper care and therapy and taught how to deal with it!
teruteru-fan-sam t1_j20zweg wrote
This kid has problems, I thought. Trauma laced childhood and desire to kill people, including all muggles and "mudbloods". Also he acts on his violent tendencies sometimes. Did I mention he's ELEVEN!? I also had some anxiety that maybe this kid could be the Dark Lord, a murderer, prohibited from being 5 feet away from muggles, or all 3. Yes, I am a hat, yes, I am at a wizard school, but I understand muggle Phd-level psychology and ethic decisions. There are jumping chocolate frogs and phoenix feather wands at your local charity shop (or as the Ilvermorny students call them, thrift stores), what do you even expect when you're a wizard? Or a hat surrounded by wizards, in my case.
Now the kid himself-Thomas Riddle-just screams Slytherin. But if he were to be in Slytherin, he could be much worse. His father used a love potion to conceive him, for crying out loud. He was born without love! He doesn't care about anyone! He was pretty intelligent, but couldn't be in Ravenclaw. He was brave, but couldn't be in Gryffindor. And Hufflepuff...well, their could be a curse upon the school.
But then I remembered-there was another option. A new house introduced just this year. It would be perfect. It could save him from going to Azkaban, or worse. He could make the first friends in his life.
I finally shouted my decision across the large dining hall, so loud even the squirrels outside ran away:
#"SPECIAL ED!"#
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sg3niner t1_j1y9335 wrote
A garbage disposal.
ankuprk t1_j1zbwk9 wrote
Hufflepuff. He finds his love for farming. All the hard work brings him calm, peace and gives his mind space outside all the trauma he faced in his childhood. It ain't much, but it's honest work.
PhilosopherActive677 t1_j1zvk1z wrote
- AZKABAN! - the hat howled.
[deleted] t1_j1ywpn4 wrote
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Chaos-Pand4 OP t1_j1xmxsz wrote
One thing is certain. If had placed him in Slytherin… there would have been problems. Maybe big, world-spanning problems… maybe just “the minister of magic is a jerk” kind of problems… but problems.
With some people you can just tell. With Tom Riddle, you could really tell.
This kid was bad. Torturing kids in a sea-cave bad. Head full of snakes bad… potential heir of Slytherin bad.
Now, I need to say this: I’ve been a hat for a really long time. I’ve seen everything there is to see inside of an eleven-year-old’s head. Sorting them into a house based on their personality at eleven is HARD. Bit of a knob? Slytherin? Not afraid of closet monsters? Gryffindor. Good at maths? Ravenclaw. Like food? Hufflepuff.
Then, once they’re sorted they’re stuck there. The Ravenclaws get smarter, of course, because they’re surrounded by people fond of forming study groups. The Gryffindors get braver, because they’re rewarded for acting precociously. The Hufflepuffs mostly get fat, but if I’m being honest I envy them… they have the easiest go of any other house… low expectations all around.
The Slytherins though… and we need to talk about them, because what I’ve done is deeply based upon what I know they are… The Slytherins are just a textbook example of why sorting people into groups based on their traits is a bad idea.
They’re all mad.
They all grew up being told they are superior…or feeling as though they were superior… to muggles.
Most of them have heard that notion reenforced by parents or grandparents or aunts or uncles.
And once they are in school and safely sorted into their ticking-bomb of a house, that’s all they hear from their friends and well.
All while getting angrier, by the way, because even though they ALL agree they are fabulous, evidence to the contrary rears its head FREQUENTLY.
No house cup for you, Slytherin. Gryffindor was braver. Ravenclaw was smarter, Hufflepuff chugged along as Hufflepuff does, and won the war by sheer consistency.
No one likes you by the way.
Mostly it comes to nothing. The kids grow up to replace the parents… younger versions of some old do-nothing member of some venerable wizarding family.
Tom Riddle was different though. He could have pushed that carefully cultivated anger and that sense of superiority to new heights. He could have been a dark lord.
(Or a really bad minister of magic… Have I mentioned that this is hard?)
He could even have been the heir of Slytherin.
Yes that Slytherin. One of my four parents. Snake-dad.
I’ve actually averted several heirs of Slytherin over the years… people who checked all the genetic and attitude related boxes… and on that note, we come to the point of my story.
Tom Riddle was unequivocally a Slytherin. Everything in his head screamed of me to put him into that house. He was even a Parseltongue.
I did not.
Judge me all you like. I’m a bad, bad sorting hat.
But, oh. It would have gone the way it always goes.
“You’re special, Tom.”
“You’re better, Tom!”
“You deserve more, Tom!”
All ideas that Tom had anyways. Trust me.
Special Tom would have underperformed in herbology, though… Danika Swick of Hufflepuff would take top marks.
Better Tom would not be as good on a broom as Charles Zair of Ravenclaw. A half-blood.
Deserving Tom would interpret all of this the way that most Slytherins do… as a massive injustice that took place through no fault of his own.