#15 Quiet Time

As he waited for a response, Oscar had started to wonder if he should really be bothering the headmaster for such a silly reason. Sure, he wanted to be able to truthfully tell his family that he had been doing something productive over the holidays, but that was hardly a good enough reason to bother the headmaster! He was probably a very busy man and Oscar should have just gone to do some studying in a quiet corner or-

Oh, the headmaster had answered. Too late to change his mind now.

Oscar carefully pushed the door open, not wanting to bang it on anything and probably annoy the man further. He poked his head around first to check that yes, that was the right room and the right man, before he entered.

"Good morning, Headmaster," he greeted, feeling rather awkward after his minor panic outside the office. "I, er- heard you let people help arrange your books?"

Oscar looked over to where the headmaster pointed and nodded along. Alphabetical, okay, he could do that. He could always completely remember the alphabet... He was going to be humming the alphabet song a lot. What had he gotten himself into?

"Yes sir," he said and moved over to the shelves without bothering the man any further.

He placed his bag down next to the crate and then turned to look over what he had to do. That was a lot of books. He doubted that he would get through that many, but every little bit helps he was sure.

As he was looking over where the last person had left off, he caught sight of the Sorting Hat. So that was where the hat spent its year. Did the old thing come up with its new song from up on top of a shelf every year? How did it get its inspiration?

Oscar spent a few minutes silently wondering that, enough time to sort a couple of books, before his curiosity got the better of him.

"Hey Hat," he said, shooting the headmaster a glance as he did to make sure he had not disturbed him. He hoped he wasn't crazy for talking to the hat, but then the thing was smart enough to sort the students so it was likely that it could talk about things other than the sorting too. He wondered if it got lonely. "You sing a different song every year, right? And you come up with them yourself? How do you come up with your inspiration for the year?"

Oscar hummed as he listened to the hat, thinking over its answers as he sorted through more books. He only had to take one quick run through to double check that yes, R did come before S, but then he was back to thinking about what the hat had to say. He realised that it seemed quite focused on legacies and wondered why it was fixated on that. Was it that important to the hat?

"Well, they're nice to listen to," he said to the hat, thinking back to that years song. Oscar liked to listen to the song every year, he figured that the song was part of the sorting and that each new batch of first years deserved to have people pay attention to their sorting. It was only polite.

"Legacies?" he asked slowly, as he tried to remember the right words. "You sang something about that this year. You said something had gone wrong though? That something was forgotten or untold?" He was pretty sure he was remembering it right.

Thinking about it, that did not sound good. Was the school not as the founders had intended all those years ago? Or was it as simple as not remembering the people themselves right? That was wrong. They had worked hard to build something that had lasted for so long and brought so much meaning and joy to the magical populace of the United Kingdom. The least people could do was remember the founders right.

"Can you tell people what? Maybe it can be sorted out. I could ask the headmaster over?" he glanced back over at the man in question. He would hate to disturb him but if this was important? He would get over himself and do it. For Hogwarts.

Oscar was not sure why he was letting himself be drawn into a mystery when all he had wanted was peace. But the hat seemed to have a problem so it was polite to try to help.

Those worthy? Did that mean that no one, in the whole time Hogwarts had been open, had been deemed worthy? That was a lot of people. A lot of people who were probably great and went on to do amazing things.

That ruled him out then, Oscar thought.

Maybe he could be a helping hand to the right person though? Maybe if he could find whatever it was then it would help in it getting to someone that was worthy, and then they could do whatever was needed to help Hogwarts.

"The founding artefacts? Is that what needs to be.. found?" he asked the hat, once he had resigned himself to helping. Sure, it meant that his quiet time to get prepared for classes starting again would be gone, but if Hogwarts needed help could he really say no? The school was important. "If they are found then whatever went wrong can be fixed?"

He frowned back at the hat as it implied that telling the headmaster would not be useful. But- he was the adult. Surely it was his job to help fix whatever was wrong with Hogwarts? Would old Dumbledore have been better?

"Can you help? What even are the founding artefacts?" How could something be found if you did not know what to look for? If the hat wanted them found so that whatever the founders had wanted to happen could happen, then surely he would be helpful in saying what they actually were, right?