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Hari (golden) / Henry (he who rules the home) [1911]
The children around you are all staring and staring and staring.
You know (having been told by your father when the strange, too pale man holding the tin can had come to collect you) that you are part of an experiment. You are to prove to these people, somehow, in some way you haven’t quite discovered yet, that your people can be educated, that your people are worthy of effort.
Or maybe you are just there to be a spectacle.
You suspect it's the latter.
It’s a strange thing to feel, at eleven, that you are hammering on the walls of a display case and no one in the world cares enough to save you.
Maybe you have been brought here to save yourself.
Maybe you can make this opportunity mean something.
You're going to be the greatest wizard they've ever seen.
The hat touches your head.
Gryffindor.
Chandrashekhar (the moon is his crown jewel) / Charlus (free man) [1929]
You were born as the First World War wore down and it shows in the way you carry yourself, in the way you think and feel and speak. You were born to a mother whose in-laws didn’t let her stay in school and a father who publicly argues for the education of women but has already told your sister she will not join you at Hogwarts. You can’t wrap your head around the hypocrisy of it all but what you do know is that you will be better.
You will tell the truth, even if it hurts.
Your father named you Chandrashekhar, his crown jewel, the accomplishment he was proudest of.
His heir, his legacy.
He couldn’t have known all you wanted to do was burn it down, expose him for the liar he is, and be your own man. You will kick off his shackles and make sure everyone sees your family for what it is -- a failed experiment, besides you, considering the only other children your parents have seen fit to have are a sister no one will let touch even the fringes of her potential and a too quiet brother (who used to be a twin, but not anymore, not anymore) who busies himself with odds and ends he finds on street corners and in the garbage pails outside woodshops, trying to build himself a little shard of happiness.
Relatives call you an uncommonly cruel little boy, hardly a child even when too young to be called anything but, whisper in hushed voices when you walk by like a man on a mission, eyes like hot stones and ambition like a brick in your chest, beating fists against your ribs and screaming to be let loose.
You are the only chance Henry Potter has to succeed and you will throw it in his face while laughing.
The hat doesn’t even touch your head.
Slytherin.
Narayanan (shelter of man) / Ray (royal) [1934]
You don’t remember your little brother (your twin, he was your twin, you shared a birthday and a face and so many other things) too well anymore.
Manoharan, he who enchants, he who ensnares the mind. A name meant to serve him well, a name meant to match yours, the two of you were supposed to be matching, matching, matching--
You like to make things. You trust your hands. It feels like his hands are guiding yours, pushing you towards ideas and solutions you would not have found yourself. You imagine a world where you are both together, a world where you create and create and create and no wells run dry and no one goes hungry and no one dies because the village doctor is on vacation and the hospital in the city is too far and-- and--
Appa asks you to go to Hogwarts and you say yes, because Mano will follow you there, he will learn what you learn and you can still be great together. He would have loved to travel, nearly pissed himself in excitement every time you’d take the train down to Thanjavur to see your mother’s family. You look at the Hogwarts Express, scarlet and steaming and beautiful, and wonder what he could’ve done to it, how he could have brought it to life.
You look up at Shekhar, stone faced and lips curling into a scowl, and think that he might be wondering too.
You know how he feels about you. You know how he felt about Mano. You know how he misses him and wishes he were missing you instead. Amma keeps saying that you have to make do with what you have and Shekhar isn’t convinced. He’s never been convinced. You don’t remember too much of what he was before Hogwarts (he was something, before, but then everything changed after that green and silver noose wrapped around his neck) but you miss it. He won’t even sit next to you now, and when his friends spot him, he runs off toward them without a look over his shoulder at you.
When you are helped onto the stool, you don’t even spare a glance in his direction.
Amma keeps telling you that you have to make do with what you have.
Maybe you don’t have him.
Gryffindor.
Neil (champion) [1963]
You and your father don’t get along.
It’s no secret -- you’re only eleven but you’re headstrong, more your uncle’s son than your father’s, and it makes him nervous. You like it. Your mother adores you and your father is ambivalent toward you and it burns a bit but you like them both well enough. When your father is at ease (which happens about once a century, considering the size of the pole up his arse), he is kind. Something in his eyes reminds you of your uncle, who always laughs at your jokes and used to let you sit on his shoulders during the Deepavali fireworks so you could get a better look back when you were small enough.
Your father never came. He never saw the point. It was always you begging to tag along with your uncle’s family, desperately trying not to feel like you weren’t intruding, trying to find home in a part of your father he’d locked away.
You only have one name.
You once asked your father (who used to have two, but he is only Charlus now, scowls when anyone calls him anything else) why, and he told you it was because some things were better left untouched. No need to introduce unnecessary complications into a situation already fraught with trouble.
You wish you had a second name. You wish he had thought to find one for you. You wish he hadn’t locked you into a path you did not ask for, but that’s what fathers do, isn’t it? That’s what his father did to him and it happened to your grandfather and his father before that and went on and on back through eternity, a father and a son burning a bridge over and over again.
You will hold this grudge, but you won’t act on it.
You’re only eleven anyhow.
What do you know of the world?
The hat takes a little longer with you and all you can think, with every passing second, is that your father will be so angry that you’ve distinguished yourself like this. He’s always been about the right choice -- speak right, behave right, marry right -- and you’ve always struggled with that. Your mother says you wouldn’t last a day in Slytherin and she’s right -- you don’t need to see it to believe it, and seeing as half her family’s in Slytherin, you’re more than happy to call her an expert.
“Half Potter, Half Black.” The hat says in your head, and you nearly fall off the stool. “A curious little boy. Any guidance?”
“This is your whole job.” You think back, and the hat laughs raucously. “What do I know that you don’t?”
“Brave.” It says. “Talking back to a magical artifact older than your family.”
“I dunno.” You think back. “My grandparents are pretty old.”
“A curious mind. A thirst for originality. You want to walk your own path… hm, interesting, but no ambition. None of your father’s fire.”
“What did you tell my father?”
“That he should calm down a little.” The hat snarks. “I know where to put you now. None other than--”
Ravenclaw.
Janardhan (one who helps people) / James (supplanter) [1971]
“Put me where my father was.” You demand. “I want to be a Gryffindor.”
Neil, now a first year in the Auror Training Programme, told you it could speak in your head, that it would listen to you, and you are delighted.
You have always dreamed of Gryffindor, of red and gold, of bravery and courage and glory. You are lucky to have Neil, your big brother, just old enough to pass on secret knowledge (big boy knowledge, he calls it, with a harsh, barking laugh) to keep you slightly ahead of your peers. That knife edge of an advantage is fun to tread, and you run back and forth along it, fully aware that you look a bit of a fool, if not self-centered and mean, because it’s worth it to have a little fun.
You can’t think of a single reason you might not suit Gryffindor perfectly.
“Are you sure?” The hat asks, and oh, that’s weird -- Neil had described the feeling well enough but that didn’t mean you were ready for it to happen to you. “I would think you’d make an excellent Hufflepuff. You’ve got that kindness in you. You can find loyalty there too. Hufflepuff will help you find better friends than you might get in Gryffindor.”
You think of Sirius Black from the train, loud and expressive, brightly colored fireworks in a glass bottle, already sorted before you. You think of Remus Lupin, his kind, shy smile, the way he’d spent the whole train ride staring out the window in awe. You think of Peter Pettigrew, his shaky laugh, the way he scrunched his nose up every so often not out of disgust, but because it was just something his body did. All of them gone before you, sitting at the Gryffindor table.
You want to be theirs.
“I think I’ve found great friends.” You tell the hat, joy in your heart strong enough to bubble up your throat to your head, nearly bursting out of your ears. You will win, you can feel it in your bones, you will get what you want. “I think I’ll be happy there.”
“If you’re sure, Potter.” The hat says, amused.
Gryffindor.
Hari (golden) / Harry (he who rules the home) [1991]
The one thing you are painfully aware of, when you look around the sea of eleven year olds before you (all so much taller than you, how could any eleven year old be that tall ), is that you lack history. All you’ve got is an inheritance in the form of brown skin wrapping around all of your sharp angles and prominent bones. The rest of these kids know where they come from. You know your father’s name is James and that your mother’s name is Lily, and that they were murdered but you were not, and that’s about all you’ve got to go off of.
Draco Malfoy tries to shake your hand and you decide then and there, not Slytherin.
Anything else is fine.
You are not used to asking for things.
You are not used to getting what you ask for.
You are not used to the world waiting on you.
“Not Slytherin”, you say, futility seeping through the cracks in your heart, thick and viscous, settling in the pit of your stomach. “Not Slytherin. Not Slytherin. Not Slytherin.”
And someone listens.
And maybe it’s a thousand year old hat and not a person, but maybe it means this place will be better for you.
Gryffindor.