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The silence under the Hat was a unique kind of pressure, not physical but psychic. Oscar Piastri felt it seeping into his thoughts, cool and invasive as mountain air.
Orderly, came the voice, a dry rustle in his mind. Precise. A mind that appreciates systems. You see the world as a series of solvable equations, don’t you? Ravenclaw would suit that intellect. You could unlock mysteries there, master arts that would make others' heads spin. Your name would be etched beside the great innovators.
It was a compelling argument. Oscar’s mind did work that way. He liked clean lines, predictable outcomes, and the quiet satisfaction of a correct solution. Ravenclaw’s blue and bronze promised a sanctuary of logic.
But logic, he was learning, had little to do with the most important variables.
Yet... the Hat continued, its tone shifting to one of curious observation. There's an interference pattern. A frequency that disrupts your calculations. It’s not coming from you. It’s... an external signal. Loud. Persistent. And you are constantly tuning yourself to it.
Oscar didn’t need to look. He could feel the source of the interference like a gravitational pull from the Gryffindor table. Carlos Sainz. Sorted barely five minutes prior, he was already the epicenter of a minor vortex of noise and gesture. He wasn't just sitting at the table; he was conducting it, laughing with a group of brothers Oscar would later know as the Leclercs, arguing good-naturedly with a boy named Lando about Quidditch tactics. But every few seconds, Carlos's eyes would flick back to the stool, to Oscar. Not with worry, but with a blazing, confident anticipation.
The Hat saw the thread connecting them. Ah. The signal has a name. It values bravery. Or perhaps, a very specific kind of stupidity. It wants you in Gryffindor. The question I must ask is: do you want Gryffindor, or do you want him? There is a difference. One is a house. The other is a lifetime of recalibrating your systems to accommodate his chaos.
Oscar’s breath was steady. The Hat was presenting it as a flaw, a compromise. An engineer accepting noise in his data stream.
But that wasn't right. Carlos wasn't noise.
Carlos was the catalyst. The unexpected reagent that transformed a stable, predictable compound into something entirely new and far more potent. Oscar didn't just accommodate his chaos; he analyzed it, anticipated it, and, when necessary, redirected its energy. It was the most complex and rewarding problem he'd ever been presented with. A living, breathing equation that smiled.
He focused his mind, not on a shouted demand, but on a simple, undeniable statement of fact, presented with the clarity of a proof.
If he is in Gryffindor, then that is the correct solution. The system only functions with both variables in the same equation.
The Hat was quiet for a long moment. He sensed not resignation, but a sort of intellectual respect.
A pragmatic sort of courage, it mused. Not a seeking of glory, but a commitment to a chosen variable. Very well.
"Let it be GRYFFINDOR!"
The shout echoed. As the Hat was lifted, the roar of Gryffindor was a wave of sound, but Oscar was already navigating through it, his path a straight, efficient line toward the disruption at the red-and-gold table.
Carlos met him halfway. There was no cheer, no playful shove. In the heart of the cacophony, a pocket of sudden, charged stillness seemed to form around them. Carlos’s hands came up, not to clap Oscar’s shoulder, but to frame his face, his thumbs brushing the line of Oscar’s jaw. His expression was stripped of its usual theatrical confidence, showing only a raw, blazing certainty.
The kiss was not a question. It was a conclusion.
It was the final, necessary step in the proof they’d been writing since they were boys. A firm, grounding pressure that shut out the roar of the Hall, the hundreds of staring eyes, the floating candles, everything. It was the only logical outcome. Oscar’s hands came up to grip Carlos’s wrists, not to pull away, but to anchor himself in the face of this perfect, inevitable variable.
When they broke apart, the world rushed back in—the screams now tinged with shock and wild glee, the scandalized gasp of Professor McGonagall, the booming laugh of the ghost Nearly Headless Nick.
Carlos didn’t look at any of it. His eyes were only on Oscar, his grin returning, wider and more real than before. “Took you long enough,” he murmured, voice low.
“The calculations had to be exact,” Oscar replied, his own voice steadier than he felt.
"It's not a problem," Carlos corrected, handing him a goblet of pumpkin juice. "It's a partnership."
And there it was. The Hat had been wrong. This wasn't Oscar abandoning a system for chaos. It was him choosing a more dynamic, co-authored system. One where the brilliance was not in solitary discovery, but in synergistic function. In Ravenclaw, he might have learned to build a perfect clock. In Gryffindor, with Carlos, they would learn to race them.
He took the goblet. The juice was too sweet. The table was too loud. Carlos was already explaining a wildly flawed plan involving the castle's moving staircases.
It was, Oscar thought with a deep, certain satisfaction, the optimal solution.