Azkaban

After climbing Hogwarts' stone steps and passing through its quaint, beautifully crafted stone corridors, the young wizards followed Professor McGonagall into a room to wait.

"I thought you'd go tell a teacher."

Ezio spoke to Draco in front of him, making Draco jump. He wasn't an idiot; he knew who he could provoke and who he couldn't. Telling a teacher would definitely help. His family was close with the Potions teacher at school, Severus Snape, and his father were in contact, and Snape was also the head of Slytherin. If Draco told him, Snape would surely stand up for him.

But even thinking it over with his little fingernail, Draco knew how terrible the consequences of telling on Ezio could be. Ezio hadn't used the Killing Curse back then, but whether he'd used it wasn't the issue anymore. The issue was that he knew the spell, and had even dared to joke about using the Killing Curse on Draco. Draco really didn't dare bet on whether Ezio had the nerve to use it.

"I don't know anything. I don't know anything," Draco muttered under his breath, shaking his head slightly. He might as well pretend everything that had just happened was a hallucination, a nightmare.

"Don't be nervous. We're going to be classmates, after all," Ezio said kindly. The hairs on the back of Draco's neck stood on end.

There's no way this guy could end up in Slytherin! No way! Only Pure-bloods can go to Slytherin! But... but he... he can't possibly be Muggle-born, right? Countless thoughts flashed through Draco's mind. After much deliberation, he ruled out the least likely possibility: that Ezio was Muggle-born.

In the eyes of someone like Draco, who came from a traditional wizarding family, Muggles were practically synonymous with fools. Wizards' sense of superiority over Muggles, who couldn't use magic, was practically etched into their DNA and passed down through the generations. Draco would never believe that a... crazy monster like this could come from among those stupid Muggles.

It wasn't Draco's fault. The blame lay with prejudice—and his lack of experience.

If wizards read Muggle history books and learned about the world beyond the Wizarding World, they surely wouldn't have PTSD over the word Voldemort. There was no need to look at the whole world to judge how evil Voldemort was; compared to Britain alone, the things Britain had done in the past were truly too numerous to record. Next to those leaders, Voldemort's misdeeds seemed as pure as a little white flower.

How many people had Voldemort slaughtered? Britain had killed a million people in just one Irish famine, not to mention the large-scale genocides of the Indigenous peoples of North America and Australia. The death tolls of under a million were too numerous to count.

You could say Britain was useless, but you absolutely couldn't say it wasn't evil. Voldemort was a mere ripple in Britain, a land teeming with exceptional people.

The wizards of the Wizarding World simply didn't pay attention to any of that.

Draco's palms were so sweaty with nerves that he didn't even notice a Hogwarts ghost passing through the room. He only slowly came back to himself when Professor McGonagall reappeared.

"Now, form a single line," Professor McGonagall announced. "Follow me."

The anxious young wizards filed out of the little waiting room and came to a corner of a lavish hall. The older students were already seated at four long tables. Harry, dazzled by the sight, let out an awestruck "Wow!"

Just as everyone was letting their imaginations run wild, the battered hat resting on a four-legged stool suddenly split open along a seam and began to sing:

You may not think I'm pretty,

But don't judge a book by its cover.

If you can find a hat more handsome than me,

I'll eat myself!

The Sorting Hat sang in a lilting rhythm, performing the song it had spent the whole year pondering and piecing together. When it finished, the young wizards below gave it a warm round of applause.

"When I call your name, put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," Professor McGonagall said, pulling out a long roll of parchment. "Hannah Abbott!"

The little girl with her blond hair styled like braided handlebars stumbled out of line. After a brief pause—

"Hufflepuff!" the Sorting Hat shouted.

"Ezio, aren't you nervous right now?" Harry asked in a whisper, turning his head to the side as he clenched his sweaty palm.

"If I were on my way to the chopping block, I might give it a little more thought."

"Thought about what?"

"Thought about how many different ways I should kill all the witnesses."

"That really is worth thinking over," Harry said, rolling his eyes. Suddenly, he felt much less nervous. After all, all he had to do was put on a hat, not wait on a chopping block to be beheaded.

It wasn't long before Professor McGonagall looked up at the young wizards.

"Ezio Auditore."

When Ezio, with his black hair and gray eyes, walked to the front, a murmur spread through the previously quiet Great Hall. The girls whispered among themselves. Among this year's new students, Ezio was rather eye-catching.

He was almost half a head taller than the other young wizards. His posture was straight but not stiff as he walked, and every step seemed precisely measured, giving him a pleasing, graceful air. His handsome profile was almost expressionless, making him look like a cool, aloof young man. That type of boy had plenty of admirers.

For an ordinary assassin, being handsome and attracting attention was a drawback. But Ezio's kind of assassin wasn't bound by any strict requirements on that front. In the end, it all amounted to "perfect stealth," where no one ever found out.

Ezio liked to be clean, but he wasn't a neat freak. It wasn't as though he'd never hidden in a muddy swamp to ambush someone. He calmly picked up the hat, set it on his head, and narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Hmm..."

The Sorting Hat let out a low murmur.

"How curious... How curious... I see an empty mind before me, but even kind Hufflepuff wouldn't be interested in a student with an empty mind."

"If you're not an idiot by nature, perhaps we can talk?"

"So you don't determine where to sort people by reading their memories or anything like that?" Ezio raised an eyebrow. He knew about the Sorting Hat, so he'd made quite a few preparations.

"Read memories?" The Sorting Hat sounded as though it had been insulted, and its voice grew louder. "I'm a hat used to sort students into the house that suits them, not a memory thief who sneaks around spying on people's privacy. The Four Founders of Hogwarts infused me with some of their thoughts. Even Slytherin would disdain doing something so intrusive."

"I can sense the qualities of your thoughts. They're something a person could never fake. They can change, but they can't be pretended. And yet you managed to conceal them so skillfully that old hat here can't see a thing."

"I simply emptied my mind. You could call it a kind of meditation."

"Oh, yes, meditation. Rowena Ravenclaw loved to meditate. Her wisdom was such a burden that she needed to empty her mind to relieve the pressure. But you're the first case like this I've ever encountered." The Sorting Hat seemed to understand, and continued slowly, "So are you also someone troubled by an intelligent mind?"

"I don't think so, but I can let a little more of my thoughts show."

"That's exactly what I wanted to see. To be honest, I'm very curious about you. In more than a thousand years, I've seen countless young wizards come to Hogwarts, but cases like yours are very rare."

"So there have been others?"

"Ah, yes. A hundred years ago, Hogwarts had a very unusual fifth-year transfer student. I nearly sorted him into Azkaban. I don't know how to describe the qualities of his thoughts. I can only say he was a little too unrestrained."

"He must have been a lot of fun."

"Of course! That fellow caused all sorts of trouble at Hogwarts. The headmaster at the time was Phineas Nigellus Black. He was a terrible fellow, but even that awful headmaster ended up shutting himself away in the Headmaster's Office for a long time because of him."

The Sorting Hat reminisced about some amusing old stories.

"Now, it's your turn."

Ezio emerged from the state of Assassin's Focus he'd maintained for so long. It was an instinct honed through countless killings, allowing him to set aside distracting thoughts at any time and maintain the utmost focus. It let him react immediately to any unexpected situation, keeping his mind clear while dividing his attention among multiple things. Those contradictory qualities blended perfectly in a capable assassin.

At that very moment, the Sorting Hat, silent for a while, suddenly opened its mouth wide—

"AZKABAN!!!" the Sorting Hat roared inside Ezio's mind, its voice edged with hysteria. "Everyone else's thoughts are full of images of what they hope for in the future. Merlin above! Why is there a Shinigami in your head kicking around a ball made of skulls? And what kind of evil number is that score, 1001135:0?!"

If the Sorting Hat had legs, it would have leapt away right then, scrambling and rolling as it ran to Dumbledore.

"Could it be because my thoughts are a little unconventional? Also, what color is the Shinigami you see?"

"Oh, damn it, why are these things all pink and kind of cute?" The Sorting Hat's voice suddenly turned uncertain. "Old hat here must be seeing things. Azkaban's much scarier than what I'm seeing here. Dementors are awful. The more I look at your Shinigami, the more... um... adorable it looks?"

"But ambition, yes, ambition, and unprecedented determination; a hunger for adventure and thrills; a rebellion against rules and restrictions; a keen mind and a thirst for knowledge. You even have a measure of gentleness and kindness, though not much. All right, all right, old hat here owes you an apology. You're not a bad kid."

The Sorting Hat muttered to itself, but soon reached its final decision.

"Better go to Slytherin. You'll have room there to fulfill your ambitions. Of course, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw aren't out of the question either. You're just a little too driven for Hufflepuff."

"Slytherin, then," Ezio told the Sorting Hat.

"Then—Slytherin!"

The Sorting Hat shouted, and applause rang out from the students below.