Fanfic / The Scrambled Sorting Saga

The Scrambled Sorting Saga by Tendrael or TendraelUmbra (depending upon which site you use), is a Harry Potter AU story.

The houses of Hogwarts are growing stagnant, and a certain sentient Hat is dismayed over this turn of events. Unfortunately, it has also gone a little bit mad from isolation as Albus Dumbledore, working three jobs, never has time to talk to it…

So, it decides to take matters into its own unhinged hands, taking advantage of several obscure rules to sort students where the Hat wants them, not where heredity or their own desires want them to be. The result? A mess that gradually pulls the student body into utter chaos, while gradually shifting the tides of fate as it does.

It can be found on AO3 or on Fanfiction.net.

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The Scrambled Sorting Saga contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Petunia and Vernon were this to Harry, trying to essentially beat the magic out of him. Snape notes however they did their research, so nothing they did technically falls under being illegal.
• Amazon Chaser: Carmichael, Chief Gatherer for the Dark Mistress of Knowledge, is highly attracted to the muscular, female centaur who saves him.
• Be All My Sins Remembered: A quiet one with Dumbledore, who holds himself responsible for the rise of both Grindlewald and Voldemort. With the latter when he had seen similarities to Grindelwald, Dumbledore had believed a firm, disciplinary hand (which his former friend had never received) would prevent the same problems. Unfortunately, Dumbledore knows he created an even worse Dark Lord because he was so fixated upon those first impressions that he failed to recognize Tom Riddle for a mistreated orphan who had survived by using whatever power he had available, and thus came off too strict and destroyed any chance of rehabilitation.
• The Beastmaster: Dumbledore is incredibly adept at handling magical creatures. Not only does he casually manage baby Norbert, having a phoenix as a pet is acknowledged as a major achievement, and can communicate with Fawkes.
• Blatant Lies:
  • Tracey claims that they went after the Philosophers Stone to save it, not to steal it for her to use.
  • When the issue of baby Harry's guardianship was first raised, his godparents were not an option, and both copies of the will were destroyed within the house, leaving the person with the strongest legal claim to be Narcissa Malfoy. Knowing this would be a disaster, Dumbledore lied to the entire Wizengamot that Lily had invoked ancient sacrificial magic to bind Harry's protections to her blood, making Petunia the best candidate for the boy's safety. He also erected wards around the Dursley's house which appear to be extremely formidable, but in reality, are all a deception.
  • Lucius' claims that he was under the Imperius curse. Only Draco seems to believe this, and assumes anyone who doesn't believe it simply didn't know.
• Blood Magic: What Harry discovers within the restricted section of the library, and really takes to as it enhances his combat magic. It greatly enhances the power of his spells, but he has only learnt how to do so with a few of his regular ones. However, it is also highly illegal within Britain, and only through Loophole Abuse can he legally learn it within Hogwarts.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer:
  • Tracey Davis is extremely bright, observant, best in her class at potions, and highly adaptive. However, she is also arguably the most wild and dangerous student of her year with her impulsive, hyperactive ways, and proclivity for explosives.
  • For all that he is a Reasonable Authority Figure, see below, Dumbledore is definitely this as well. As much as he loves teaching, helping others, and using his wisdom and cunning to make things better, he vents his stress by being a secret prankster and absolute troll while pretending otherwise. The whole challenges he had put in place in Harry's first year were never meant to stop Voldemort from getting the Philosopher's Stone but were instead a harmless obstacle course to focus his students' wild energy into something he had some measure of control over.
• Caring Gardener: Neville's response to the Venomous Tentacula is to incapacitate his friends who had been fighting it, gently talk it down, and then repeatedly lecture his friends for weeks afterwards for their mistreatment of a lovely plant which had not known better, was hungry, and frankly scared by them.
• Celebrity Is Overrated: Harry absolutely loathes his celebrity status, even more than canon. Due to his being placed within Slytherin against everyone's expectations, he got an early look at how fickle fame can be, and then after things settled down people started flocking to the 'Boy-Who-Lived' to cozy up to him. By now if anyone but his friends approach him, he draws his wand and tells them off if they are here about it before they even get a word out.
• A Child Shall Lead Them: As much as Parvati comes off as Jumping Off the Slippery Slope, and the degree to which her 'minions' are humouring her, there is no getting around that at age eleven she became the employer of students of all years, and successfully leading the whole organization, and now even graduates are sending her back information. And while said 'minions' are well aware they are pandering to a pre-teen with massive delusions of grandeur, she is still paying them very well to do gossip, which is something most of them already enjoyed doing all the time.
• Civil War: What Slytherin House basically devolves into. The expected power structures never happened due to how basically nobody went into the Houses they were 'supposed' to, and those who did try to establish themselves as top dog fell short, and years-old grudges boiling over, leading to duels breaking out everywhere. The common room becomes an almost never-ending battlefield. Snape might have been able to get a grip on things to hold it off, but the sheer idea of Harry Potter in his House made him avoid the dormitories like the plague until the situation devolved so badly he could no longer muster the proper authority against them whenever he left their sight.
• The Dog Bites Back: As soon as he was old enough to no longer have to worry about the trace, Snape made a point of having a little 'visit' with his abusive father. He also gleefully tells Petunia that Harry might one day return to do the same to the Dursleys.
• The Dreaded: Voldemort. It is noted that he committed horrible atrocities against those who just called him "Voldemort," hence why people call him You-Know-Who instead. It is for this reason Dumbledore is hesitant to reveal the truth of Tom Riddle, aware that Voldemort would do his best to kill anyone who knows.
• Drunk with Power: What happens with Parvati Patil, a.k.a. the Dark Mistress of Knowledge. She creates a school-wide information network and quickly ends up raking in lots of money, bribery and blackmail material, and eager minions which she exploits with ruthless cunning and brilliant insight. However, she also starts believing herself an actual dark lady and major power player beyond even Hogwarts, and her parents' attempts to reign her in fail miserably. This is not helped by the fact her closest followers indulge her in this, with her most 'fanatical' really just practicing his roleplaying. By her first summer, she is willing to risk maiming her sister in a bid to escape the manor where she is grounded.
• Found Family: Daphne's mom is Tracey's godmother, and Tracey spends most of her time when not at Hogwarts living with the Greengrass', so while they are technically only friends, their relationship is more of sisters.
• Happily Adopted: While not legally, this is essentially what the Grangers do for Harry. The idea that people care for him and are willing to help him as his guardians is very confusing for the poor boy.
• An Ice Person: Daphne as a natural affinity for ice magic, being able to in first year perform fifth-year spells in an emergency. This has also led to Tracey calling her Ice Queen, which is a nickname she absolutely hates.
• Indy Ploy: Tracey's philosophy in life is to live by this.
  Tracey: Of course I don't have a plan. The first step to having your plan foiled is having a plan in the first place. Your enemy can't come up with a way to counter your next move if no one, not even you, knows what your next move will be.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain:
  • Tracey mocks the idea of Quirrel ever being a threat to them, completely unaware of what they are up against.
  • The teachers who do have some inkling of what Parvati is up to believe the gossipy girl is just playing some sort of silly teenage game, with absolutely no idea the 'Dark Mistress of Knowledge' is running a school-spanning (and expanding) intelligence network while going increasingly off the rails. During the summer between first and second year she nearly maims her own twin.
• Odd Friendship: Due to how everyone was sorted about here, several of these friendships spring out as the first years look, sometimes with increasing desperation, for at least some friends so they are not too lonely. A shining example is Draco, Neville, and Ernie; for the record, the latter two take a while to realize Draco thinks he is their friend, and are weirded out by it, but do not otherwise object.
• Photographic Memory: Hermione has one, by managing to intuitively create for herself a mindscape with some thanks from magic. This is the most advanced achievement of occlumency possible. It's a magical mental construct that gives perfect memory and recall. It's also extraordinarily challenging to make. Few masters of the art ever achieve it, and she did it as a child. It is not until she is eleven that she even finds out this is unusual. Unfortunately, this comes with a price, since it severely hampers her ability to learn regular occlumency.
• Point of Divergence: The act being the Sorting Hat taking a different approach to how it handles the students. Ranging from calculated decisions to where they should really go, to increasingly impulsive and erratic ones as the strain grows. Which has numerous consequences:
  • The Slytherin Civil War broke down the sense of unity that the House tries to project, allowing Tracey to feel free to give reign to her impulsive, ADHD side which in canon she would have been pressured to keep quietly constrained.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • For most of the first year it appears Dumbledore is very much not this as he blithely dismisses concerns about Quirrel stealing the Philosopher's Stone, or even having such a coveted artifact hidden amongst school children. Except:
    • In reality there was a serious miscommunication, and the Stone was in France the whole time, and he was appalled at the idea people (particularly his teachers) thought him irresponsible enough to have it at Hogwarts.
    • He lied to the Wizengamot about Harry's blood protections to ensure he would not be raised by the Malfoy's, but upon learning how unpleasant it was at the Durseley's, laid out the whole situation to Harry, and then discretely advised him on how he could go to live elsewhere, and sends Snape to clean up any loose ends. Since Hermione is a close friend of Harry's and may be targeted for that, and where Harry is living, he also personally places protective wards upon their house.
    • He has also been annually trying everything he can to remove the curse upon the Defense Teacher's position, to no avail.
  • Isabelle Greengrass, Daphne's mom who used to work in the Department of Mysteries before quitting for ethical reasons. She approves of and aids Harry's relocation to a safer, healthier place, and helps her daughter, goddaughter, and their friends in learning rare magic.
• Secretly Wealthy: Harry is, and it is so secret not even he knows… except it is fairly common knowledge to others. His wealthy is from both his inheritance, and bounties for defeating Voldemort. The fact that Harry still wears "atrocious muggle rags" offends the likes of Draco.
• Shout-Out: Gilderoy Lockhart, Gentleman Adventurer!
• Take the Third Option: Tracey's response during the chess match where they cannot see any way to beat the enemy chess pieces without sacrificing one of each other? Start shooting spells at the chess pieces to break them. Helped by the fact that their numbers had already been reduced by the game.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: The Flamels had been actively considering destroying the Philosopher's Stone as they had become bored with life. The appearance of the Masterstroke has reawakened their drive, and after dealing with him are planning to maybe go on one more sabbatical to learn all there is to know about magic.

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