BBS - Chapter 12 : A formal protest, Failed Landing & Too Cool to be Normal..... (Patreon)

The Bat, The Billionaire & The Shenanigans [12]

Disclaimer - I don’t own anything. Disney does, Warner Bro does, and Rowling does.

Hogwarts

–Tony Stark–

So, apparently, the whole House system was all hinged on the decision made by a Magical Hat. Yup. A centuries old Magical Hat decided which house a student could do. And one might ask, how did that happen?

Well, the wizards were dumb or intelligent enough, based on what they were smoking at the time, to have a Magical Hat read their kids' minds and then make a decision. It was just so pants on the head stupid that he found himself looking at Minnie for over a minute until she prompted him, wondering if there was just something wrong with Hogwarts’ water or food.

Because he simply could not fathom why they would do that. Plus, the concept of Houses for school should only really be extended to sports or extracurricular activities. Here, they had divided the entire school based on those houses.

Different dorms. Different House Heads. Different schedule. Different classrooms. Different Dining Tables, for God’s sake.

It was such a stupid division based method he couldn't help but think that whoever did that wanted to just create an air of enmity in the air of Hogwarts. Even if any first year wanted to mingle with their friends from other houses, they would then have to deal with their own seniors and the seniors of the other House before they could even talk to each other and be friends, or be civil.

It was a whole lot of baggage, and it just boggled his mind that old, ancient wizards could not see what they were doing. 

Plus, there really was no mechanism to change their houses after being sorted, or if they wanted to object to the decision taken by an obviously stupid and inanimate object. The students should be able to object and choose their house. Even if they did not embody the values of that house, which was just a bunch of crap if he’d ever heard one, they should not be forced to go where they did not want to.

The point of this school was to learn and make friends. How was a kid supposed to do that if he was just forced into a house that had people of supposedly similar thoughts and personality? Wouldn't it just create an echo chamber one couldn't escape from?

Wouldn’t being in that echo chamber all the time stop the kid from growing in any appreciable manner? Plus, some of these values could easily be found in a single kid. Then, how was the Magical Hat going to make that decision?

Plus, what if the kid wanted to be brave, but right now wasn’t? Yeah, it was a clusterf*ck of a system he did not want to be near at all. And he was making that position extremely clear here, in front of Minnie, after deliberating for only a few hours. That was more than enough time for him to form an opinion and reject this system.

“I am sorry, Minnie, but yeah, I am not going to do that.” He smirked at Minnie, knowing full well that she hated being called that. It was something he picked up on as she was his sole point of contact when it came to all the administrative stuff he had to do about school.

Minnie sighed and replied, “And I told you, Tony, that there is no other option. You will have to undergo the Sorting Ceremony and be sorted based on what the Hat tells us. You can sort out your opinions with the Hat itself.”

He shook his head. “Nope. That is not going to happen, and you know it, Minnie. I am not going to go to some house I don’t want to simply because some old magical, probably out of date and malfunctioning, Magical artifact told me to. I did not come here to participate in stupid House politics. I came here to learn. You know that.”

She removed her glasses and looked at him seriously. “Look, Tony, the tradition is older than I am, and I don’t think there is a way you can skip the process. Plus, I am sure the Hat will take into consideration your thoughts as well. Its decision is not based on a single parameter. If you will just talk to it, you will know that.”

“Do I look stupid enough to fall for that?” He deadpanned at her.

She rolled her eyes at him and simply went back to doing her work, ignoring him. Well, he, for one, was not going to take it lying down.

After all, he was not really worried about being sorted into the wrong house. He was simply above such things. Even if some seniors were dumb enough to try and bully him, well, then they would simply be introduced to the fist that had taken care of many farm chores, along with the body that was capable of very high speed movement, atleast on par with Minnie here, who must be some hotshot, considering that she was the Headmaster’s right hand. Or rather, both his hands since it did not seem like the Headmaster did any of his work, based on just how busy Minnie was.

No, the main reason why he was wary of having the Hat placed over his head was because it could read minds, and he had no idea what reading his memories might do to a Magical artifact. Minnie here says that it had limited sentience, and could even have limited conversation with people, learn and remember stuff, and more. From what he could tell, there was a mind in that damned hat.

And he was not sure what it would do when he realised that the kid under it was a reincarnated adult, with knowledge that would seem downright ridiculous to the hat. Plus, considering that it was an official property of Hogwarts, it might just be duty-bound to tell any threatening secret about the kids to the Headmaster or the Head of House. After all, he refused to believe that they valued kids’ privacy to the point that the Hat would not alert the professors about some kind of school shooter mentality.

He simply could not believe that. In a school where everyone was carrying about a weapon that could be used to easily kill scores of students, there must be some preventive screening methods. Hell, he’d thought that the Magical Hat was the first in line to do that. After all, what was the best way of screening someone’s threat level than to simply read their mind under the pretext of sorting them into Houses, an otherwise useless activity. 

Apparently, the House thing really was that big of a thing here, so he was not really sure anymore. If the Hat was not that, he would really doubt the intelligence of the magical community. Either way, he was not going to let them read through his memories, and that was final.

So, as a formal way of protest, he did something that he had been working on for the past week or so. Well, in a manner, he had been doing the same thing for years before this, but only recently had he been able to bring it up to the surface instead of just letting it reinforce his internals.

Coating his entire body with magic, and charging it to the point it was visible to the naked eye, he simply sat down in front of Minnie and leaned in his chair, trusting Minnie’s excellent senses to see what he was doing.

Minnie paused in her work, dropped the Quill back into the Ink pot, before finally looking up with a sigh, her eyes widening minutely as she saw what he had done. It was kinda draining, but as long as he did not suffer any impact that threatened its integrity, he could keep it for hours. Probably.

“What are you doing, Tony?”

“Well,” He leaned back in the chair, crossing his legs in a haughty manner, “Dear Minnie, this is what I call a Pro Gamer Move.” Man, was it fun to mess with people here using lingo that would not be mainstream for decades to come.

“Merlin help me, there is another one of them.” She whispered to herself before looking at him with renewed focus, her eyes zeroing in on the thin film of magic he had cast upon himself.

“What is the point of this, Tony? Aside from being an excellent showcase of your natural control over your magic. For a muggleborn, you have better control over your magic than even some Seventh Year students here.”

He wagged his finger at her. “Ah. Ah. Flattery will get you nowhere, Minnie. Though, yes, I am smart and powerful. But that’s not really the point here. The point is that this magic,” He used his knuckles to tap on the shield, creating ripples on the shield, “is something that totally isolates me from outside physical and, to an extent, even magical interference.”

“...And you are threatening to use this to render the whole Sorting Ceremony useless?”

He gasped, putting his hand on his chest in mock offense. “I am not just threatening, Minnie. I am guaranteeing that I will do this. I will not use the Hat.”

“Then how will you get sorted?”

He shrugged, “Doesn’t really matter to me. Keep me unsorted. Sort me into a House of my choosing. I won’t use that hat as a matter of principle.”

She deadpanned at him, “You are eleven. You don’t have principles.”

“Age is only a construct of the mind.”

“A fascinating concept, I must say.” A voice came from behind him as he flinched, flying out of the chair and sticking to the wall like a Spider, looking down at the amused gazes of the Headmaster as well as Minnie. Clearing his throat, he adjusted his position and then acted as if this was his plan all along.

“What’s up, Headmaster?”

The Headmaster lowered his colourful glasses before looking at him with clear bemusement dancing in his eyes, “I believe it is you who is up, Mr.Stark.”

He sighed internally before dropping from the ceiling, landing on the ground with his signature three point landing, the chair in the hand that was raised in the air. Only, the coolness factor of the landing was reduced immensely when he realised that his arms were simply not long enough to hold onto the chair and kneel down properly to do the three point landing, resulting in quite the awkward position. He closed his eyes and simply pretended that he did not hear Minnie snorting quietly behind him.

Straightening up, he set the chair down and sat on it, looking up at the Headmaster casually. “So, what can I do for you, Headmaster?”

Headmaster Dumbledore only continued to look down on him with a pleased smile on his face, clearly enjoying the whole act.

__xx__

Fast forward to the Sorting Ceremony

And that was how he managed to convince the Hogwarts management to forego the whole Sorting Ceremony when it came to him. Yes, that's right. He was probably the only student in the school who was sorted based on his own preferences instead of the Stupid Magical Hat. And seeing the process in person, he could confidently say that yes, it was stupid.

Ignoring the looks of his fellow housemates, he looked as the peculiar kid, the one with a similar magical net like him, walked up to get sorted.

Bruce Wayne. What an odd name. Just like his own. So, it was likely that the kid was also a muggleborn.

As the hat was set atop the kid’s head, it went silent, which was rare, but not unheard of. Sometimes, the Hat was barely placed on the kid’s head when it declared its decision, and sometimes, it took its sweet time. The Hat was clearly malfunctioning, or some of the kids were just that simple to sort. It could be either one of those things or both of those things.

Either way, the Hat took its sweet time with this kid, which meant he had some modicum of personality even before coming here.

Shrugging, he took one more look around the entire class, and even after he was done surveying the whole table, the sorting was still happening. At this point, the Sorting had gained the attention of even the older kids who were previously just lost in their own world, clearly having gotten bored of seeing the process after seven whole years of being here.

The minutes went by, as the Hat did not announce its decision, as the kid was simply sitting there, ramrod straight. After a while, even the teachers looked confused, as Minnie went forward to ask the Hat something.

The hat did not reply, which drew concerned looks from the teachers. He leaned forward, kind of interested in what was happening. Was the kid that interesting? Or maybe his mind was hard to read? Or maybe it was something—

“Ah! I give up!” The Hat screamed out of nowhere, startling Minnie, whose hand was creeping forward, as if hesitating whether to take the Hat off or not, only for her to shoot away from the Hat at the exclamation. The voice was frustrated too.

“I give up, you brat! What House do you want to go to?”

The kid calmly took the Hat off and placed it over the stool before turning to Minnie and formally stating in a calm voice, “I would like to be sorted into Ravenclaw, please.”

“O-Okay.” Bruce just nodded and made his way to the Ravenclaw house, cool as a peach.

Okay, that was way too cool and collected of a response to be normal for an eleven year old kid.