Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 308 Helga: A Fresh Start

"What's wrong?" Dumbledore felt a little uneasy when he saw Professor White staring intently at the Sorting Hat, wondering what she was up to.

"Don't you ever wash this hat?"

Professor White's question caught Dumbledore off guard, and he was momentarily at a loss for words. As far as he knew, the Sorting Hat indeed did not need to be washed.

Hufflepuff walked straight to the Sorting Hat and picked it up.

Dumbledore: !!!

Before he could react, Professor White drew his wand and gave the Sorting Hat a "fresh clean".

Watching Professor White fiddling with the Sorting Hat, Dumbledore felt his heart was about to leap out of his chest—what if Professor White damaged the hat? How would future students be sorted into their houses?

Hufflepuff, however, didn't think that far ahead. First, she was highly skilled in various forms of life magic, and she was absolutely confident that she could remove the millennia-old grime from the hat without damaging it. Second, even if the hat was damaged, she was confident she could fix it—or if she couldn't, she could call Salazar and Rowena over to help.

She picked up the hat and cleaned it thoroughly in no time.

Sorting Hat: What happened?

The Sorting Hat is usually dormant most of the time, but today it was suddenly awakened—it sensed a familiar yet unfamiliar presence.

The Sorting Hat writhed aimlessly, feeling itchy all over, as if a layer of skin had been peeled off, like being dragged to a bathhouse and then given a thorough scrub.

It tried to sense its surroundings, and then the whole hat froze: it seemed to have spotted something incredible!

Hufflepuff put the clean hat on his head and began talking to the Sorting Hat.

Long time no see, Godric's hat!

Ah! It really is you, Lord Hufflepuff!

My name is now Smith White. Don't get it wrong, and don't say anything you shouldn't.

Yes, yes...you know, Slytherin—

I've seen him.

【…】

After exchanging a few words with the Sorting Hat, Hufflepuff took it off her head. Dumbledore, with an agility beyond his years, rushed to Hufflepuff, took the Sorting Hat from her, and began to examine it carefully.

After examining the hat inside and out and finding nothing wrong, Dumbledore breathed a sigh of relief.

"Professor White, you are being too reckless!" he said with a hint of displeasure. "This hat is a relic of the four founders, containing their wisdom. If it is damaged, the damage will be irreparable—we will lose the founders' standards for the Sorting House."

Hufflepuff: Hearing you say that, something feels off, and it seems like her old friends aren't very satisfied with the admission standards of their respective houses? At least Salazar is very, very dissatisfied.

"Don't worry, Professor Dumbledore," Hufflepuff reassured him gently. "The hat that embodies the 'wisdom' of the founders won't be damaged by a mere Cleansing Charm. You can ask the Sorting Hat what it has to say."

Dumbledore glanced down at the "newly renovated" Sorting Hat, which indicated that it had no objections.

Since the Sorting Hat itself didn't seem to have any objections, he couldn't say anything more and could only put it back on the shelf.

Back on the familiar partition, the Sorting Hat's tense nerves relaxed. It muttered to itself: Why are all these guys back? A few years ago it was Salazar, and now it's Helga…

"Professor Dumbledore, do you think that if the founders were alive today, their Sorting Standards would still be the same as they were a thousand years ago?"

Professor White's other remark made Dumbledore wary once again.

He couldn't answer that question because he felt he had no right to do so.

"I think Sarah would be very disappointed if she saw Slytherin House now," Hufflepuff said to herself when Dumbledore remained silent.

Dumbledore remained silent.

"I'm saying this not for any other reason than to tell you not to be afraid of change. Sometimes it's a good thing to inject new ideas into your hat," Hufflepuff said sincerely.

Dumbledore nodded outwardly, but inwardly he did not agree with Professor White's words.

As he gets older, he becomes more conservative. Dumbledore no longer has the energy to make changes, as he is already 111 or 12 years old. At this age, it's uncertain whether he'll even wake up from an afternoon nap, let alone have the energy to inject new ideas into the Sorting Hat.

However, there were some things he had to do before he turned to dust, and that was to destroy Voldemort, the demon born from his own hands.

"We'll talk about the Sorting Hat later. Let's look at Professor Trelawney's prophecy first. I think I need to give her a raise." Dumbledore led Hufflepuff to a cabinet.

He pulled open the cabinet, revealing a gleam of silver. Dumbledore took a shallow stone basin from the cabinet and placed it on his desk.

Hufflepuff recognized it immediately; it was the Pensieve she had dug up years ago.

At this moment, the Pensieve is filled with memories that are both liquid and gaseous, emitting a bright, silvery light. This is the accumulation of memories from successive principals.

Because they all possessed the ability to directly materialize scenes from their memories, they rarely used the Pensieve back then. Unexpectedly, a thousand years later, the Pensieve was almost full of memories.

"These are all invaluable treasures." Helga had an urge to dip her wand into the basin and stir it. Perhaps she could see the memories of the headmasters from hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

"It's like this—" Dumbledore was about to explain the use of the Pensieve to Professor White when he saw her use her wand to pull out her own memory, and then put that memory into the Pensieve.

Seeing that Professor White knew how to use the Pensieve, Dumbledore didn't say anything more, but simply buried his head in the Pensieve with her.

The next moment, the two appeared together in the divination classroom in the West Tower, where Trelawney was chatting with Hufflepuff, whom she had met half an hour earlier.

The two found a cushion and sat down together, watching Professor Trelawney enter a meditative state amidst the smoke of herbs, making a prophecy about the Dark Lord.

When Lavender burst into the classroom, interrupting Trelawney's prophecy, the memory abruptly ended, and the two returned together to Dumbledore's office.

"I was wrong. I should have given you both a raise." Dumbledore, who had witnessed Trelawney's prophecy, was heavy-hearted but still made a small joke. As a result, Hufflepuff pulled out the original contract he had signed from his pocket.

"Great, let's discuss how much of a price increase we should make?"

Dumbledore: ...

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Update here. I'll get back to writing, so everyone can check it when you wake up in the morning!

(End of this chapter)