Harry stared at the last line for a while, then shrugged. Fine. Professor McGonagall's office it would be. If she was the Game Controller...
Okay, honestly, Harry had absolutely no idea how he would feel if Professor McGonagall was the Game Controller. His mind was just drawing a complete blank. It was, literally, unimaginable.
A couple of portraits later - it wasn't a long trip, Professor McGonagall's office wasn't far from her Transfiguration classroom, at least not on Mondays on odd-numbered years - Harry stood outside the door to her office.
He knocked.
"Come in," said Professor McGonagall's muffled voice.
He entered.
Chapter 14: The Unknown and the Unknowable
Melenkurion abatha! Duroc minas mill J. K. Rowling!
There were mysterious questions, but a mysterious answer was a contradiction in terms.
"Come in," said Professor McGonagall's muffled voice.
Harry did so.
The office of the Deputy Headmistress was clean and well-organised; on the wall immediately adjacent to the desk was a maze of wooden cubbyholes of all shapes and sizes, most with several parchment scrolls thrust into them, and it was somehow very clear that Professor McGonagall knew exactly what every cubbyhole meant, even if no one else did. A single parchment lay on the actual desk, which was, aside from that, clean. Behind the desk was a closed door barred with several locks.
Professor McGonagall was sitting on a backless stool behind the desk, looking puzzled - her eyes had widened, with perhaps a slight note of apprehension, as she saw Harry.
"Mr. Potter?" said Professor McGonagall. "What is this about?"
Harry's mind went blank. He'd been instructed by the game to come here, he had been expecting her to have something in mind...
"Mr. Potter?" said Professor McGonagall, starting to look slightly annoyed.
Thankfully, Harry's panicking brain remembered at this point that he did have something he'd been planning to discuss with Professor McGonagall. Something important and well worth her time.
"Um..." Harry said. "If there are any spells you can cast to make sure no one's listening to us..."
Professor McGonagall stood up from her chair, firmly closed the outer door, and began taking out her wand and saying spells.
It was at this point that Harry realised he was faced with a priceless and possibly irreplaceable opportunity to offer Professor McGonagall a Comed-Tea and he couldn't believe he was seriously thinking that and it would be fine the soda would vanish after a few seconds and he told that part of himself to shut up.
It did, and Harry began to organise mentally what he was going to say. He hadn't planned to have this discussion quite so soon, but so long as he was here...
Professor McGonagall finished a spell that sounded a lot older than Latin, and then she sat down again.
"All right," she said in a quiet voice. "No one's listening." Her face was rather tight.
Oh, right, she's expecting me to blackmail her for information about the prophecy.
Eh, Harry'd get around to that some other day.
"It's about the Incident with the Sorting Hat," Harry said. (Professor McGonagall blinked.) "Um... I think there's an extra spell on the Sorting Hat, something that the Sorting Hat itself doesn't know about, something that triggers when the Sorting Hat says Slytherin. I heard a message that I'm pretty sure Ravenclaws aren't supposed to hear. It came the moment the Sorting Hat was off my head and I felt the connection break. It sounded like a hiss and like English at the same time," there was a sharp intake of breath from McGonagall, "and it said: Salutations from Slytherin to Slytherin, if you would seek my secrets, speak to my snake."
Professor McGonagall sat there with her mouth open, staring at Harry as if he'd grown another two heads.
"So..." Professor McGonagall said slowly, as though she couldn't believe the words that were coming out of her own lips, "you decided to come to me right away and tell me about it."
"Well, yes, of course," Harry said. There was no need to admit how long it had taken him to actually think of that. "As opposed to, say, trying to research it myself, or telling any of the other children."
"I... see," Professor McGonagall said. "And if, perhaps, you were to discover the entrance to Salazar Slytherin's legendary Chamber of Secrets, an entrance that you and you alone could open..."
"I would close the entrance and report to you at once so that a team of experienced magical archaeologists could be assembled," Harry said promptly. "Then I would open up the entrance again and they would go in very carefully to make sure that there was nothing dangerous. I might go in later to look around, or if they needed me to open up something else, but it would be after the area had been declared clear and they had photographs of how everything looked before people started tromping around their priceless historical site."
Professor McGonagall sat there with her mouth open, staring at him like he'd just turned into a cat.
"It's obvious if you're not a Gryffindor," Harry said kindly.
"I think," Professor McGonagall said in a rather choked voice, "that you far underestimate the rarity of common sense, Mr. Potter."
That sounded about right. Although... "A Hufflepuff would've said the same thing."
McGonagall paused, struck. "That's true."
"Sorting Hat offered me Hufflepuff."
She blinked at him as though she couldn't believe her own ears. "Did it really?"
"Yes."
"Mr. Potter," McGonagall said, and now her voice was low, "five decades ago was the last time a student died within the walls of Hogwarts, and I am now certain that five decades ago was the last time someone heard that message."
A chill went through Harry. "Then I will be very sure to take no action whatsoever on this matter without consulting you, Professor McGonagall." He paused. "And may I suggest that you get together the best people you can find and see if it's possible to get that extra spell off the Sorting Hat... and if you can't do that, maybe put on another spell, a Quietus that briefly activates just as the Hat is being removed from a student's head, that might work as a patch. There, no more dead students." Harry nodded in satisfaction.
Professor McGonagall looked even more stunned, if such a thing were imaginable. "I cannot possibly award you enough points for this without giving the House Cup to Ravenclaw outright."
"Um," Harry said. "Um. I'd rather not earn that many House points."
Now Professor McGonagall was giving him a strange look. "Why not?"
Harry was having a little difficulty putting it into words. "Because it would be just too sad, you know? Like... like back when I was still trying to go to school in the Muggle world, and whenever there was a group project, I'd go ahead and do the whole thing myself because the others would only slow me down. I'm fine with earning lots of points, more than anyone else even, but if I earn enough to be decisive in winning the House Cup just by myself, then it's like I'm carrying House Ravenclaw on my back and that's too sad."
"I see..." McGonagall said hesitantly. It was apparent that this way of thinking had never occurred to her. "Suppose I only awarded you fifty points, then?"
Harry shook his head again. "It's not fair to the other children if I earn lots of points for grownup things that I can be part of and they can't. How is Terry Boot supposed to earn fifty points for reporting a whisper he heard from the Sorting Hat? It wouldn't be fair at all."
"I see why the Sorting Hat offered you Hufflepuff," said Professor McGonagall. She was eyeing him with a strange respect.
That made Harry choke up a bit. He'd honestly thought he wasn't worthy of Hufflepuff. That the Sorting Hat had just been trying to shove him anywhere but Ravenclaw, into a House whose virtues he didn't have...