Felix, wearing a dirty, wrinkled, pudding-covered Sorting Hat, whispered, "Do you have something to tell me?" As he spoke, he stole a glance at the picture frames on the wall. The portraits immediately closed their eyes and began to snore.

"I don't want to look for you. It's you who has been coveting me." A tiny voice sounded in his mind.

"I'm very curious about the way you exist."

"What's there to be curious about?"

"You've existed for too long, and your material is too ordinary."

"Think about the portrait of the headmaster on the wall, and then think about Peeves." The Sorting Hat said in a smooth tone.

"Portrait? Peeves? They..." Felix was stunned, "Wait, you are also a part of the school?"

"Yes, as long as the school exists, I will always exist, even if I am just a hat made of ordinary material."

Having solved a long-standing confusion, Felix felt a little relieved and a little dazed. After thinking about it, he asked calmly in his mind: "By the way, why was I sorted into Slytherin?"

"Oh, let me think about it. Calm, sober, worship of power, and the ambition to reach the top of the wizarding world on the first day of school. Excuse me, but also have a clear understanding of the dark aspects of human nature at a young age, and have made sufficient preparations. This is very rare in my entire working career."

Felix smacked his lips, "So I fit Salazar Slytherin's concept of selecting students very well?"

"Concept, what concept?" the Sorting Hat asked carelessly.

"Of course it is the thoughts of the four founders of the school."

"So you think there is a small note with requirements sewn into my lining?"

"I thought there would be something like that." Felix said calmly, "For example, a fixed thinking pattern or a standard process." The Sorting Hat interrupted indignantly:

"Then my job is not to hide behind the students' thoughts and tick the boxes one by one on the note?"

"You seem to disagree."

"Of course there is! It is much more important and complicated than you think," the Sorting Hat shouted loudly: "Although I am just a hat, I have my own ideas and personality. I am smarter than most people, and I don't have the shortcomings of humans. I don't need to eat or sleep. My mouth is used to speak and will not be mixed with other uses. I am also obsessed with useful thinking. Well, most of the time I am reminiscing about the past and composing new songs..."

"It's amazing." Felix said, although he didn't quite know what to recall. Could it be the years when it was in the headmaster's office at Hogwarts and eavesdropped on the work of the successive headmasters? But does this feel participatory? Or savoring nearly a thousand sorting ceremonies alone, but the question is, will it really not get confused?

The Sorting Hat seemed to be choked. It was silent for a while and said, "I'll take you to see it with your own eyes."

"Okay."

Felix closed his eyes and waited. For a long time, the Sorting Hat did not move. He was surprised.

"Remove the defense of your brain." The Sorting Hat said sullenly, "I can't see anything except the surface thoughts. It's like hitting a wall..."

"Sorry." Felix muttered, and he removed the defense. After a few seconds, he felt an invisible force pulling his head up, as if to pull him to the ceiling or into the hat. This reminded him of the working principle of the mind cabin. He did not resist.

Then his eyes blurred and he appeared in the darkness. Gradually, colors appeared in the darkness. Felix stared at a string of light points that appeared out of thin air and suddenly fell, splashing gray-green and silver-white sparks. They formed a long, silver-glowing and green-foaming quagmire that stretched into the distance.

A lonely figure waded through the muddy shallow water.

Salazar Slytherin walked past Felix at a leisurely pace, holding a wooden stick for exploring. When the two passed by, his expression did not change at all. The simple robe on his body seemed to be made of a whole piece of black cloth, and several small snakes followed him closely.

The light and shadow flickered, transforming into a wilderness. Felix saw a young man walking on a country road, with a straight back, brisk steps, and red hair fluttering in the wind. Young Godric Gryffindor jumped onto a stone, looked back at the small village he came from, and then resolutely walked into the distance.

He naturally didn't know that his hometown would be named after him in the future.

On the quiet riverside, Rowena Ravenclaw quietly watched the flowing river;

in the golden valley, Helga Hufflepuff picked up an ear of wheat that was shining in the sun.

Felix suddenly realized that this was the memory of the four founders of the school, and then new doubts arose. According to what the Sorting Hat said in the previous Sorting Ceremony, they had injected ideas into it together. Felix always thought it was a concept, but concepts will always become outdated. The moral concepts of the Middle Ages may not be suitable for the present, but the work of the Sorting Hat has never stopped.

Now he understands a little bit. The four founders did inject ideas into the Sorting Hat, but they were not shallow concepts, but the footprints they had walked.

Felix walked in the dark, and new pictures appeared every minute and every second. Gradually, he grasped a trace of the veins and peeked into a corner hidden in history. Why did Gryffindor and Slytherin become good friends? Because they both pursued powerful strength; why did they part ways in the end? When he saw Gryffindor learning swordsmanship from Muggle knights and Slytherin ruthlessly eliminating the threats in front of him, Felix had a vague answer in his heart.

This feeling became stronger when he met Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.

As outstanding witches of their time and close friends, they traveled to many places hand in hand and helped the weak. Hufflepuff is full of love and treats everyone equally, and her eyes are willing to stay for the weak. Ravenclaw is obviously more willing to deal with people with flexible minds because it is more helpful to solve problems. The two cooperated seamlessly. The former eliminated many unnecessary disputes, and the latter was good at making plans and solving problems once and for all. Felix

saw the prototype of the cooking magic of the Hogwarts kitchen and the castle's architectural structure in the future from the travels of these two ladies.

Naturally, the experiences of the four school founders when they were young also laid the groundwork for future differences.

Among the four, Salazar Slytherin was the most extreme, or the most closed-minded. He was more like an ascetic, alone, traveling through troubled times. He pursues power like Gryffindor, but is more unscrupulous; he is as alienated and detached as Ravenclaw, but more indifferent to himself; he also sympathizes with young wizards who live in harsh living environments like Hufflepuff, but this sympathy is extremely stingy and he will never share even a bit with irrelevant people.

The four best witches and wizards of their time met and had heard of each other. Not surprisingly, they exchanged magical knowledge with each other. What surprised Felix was that the three people except Hufflepuff got along very well. Slytherin even bluntly pointed out that the magic studied by Hufflepuff was "not worth mentioning and useless in troubled times." Fortunately, the calm Ravenclaw and the enthusiastic Gryffindor mediated, and the Hufflepuff's usual good temper prevented the conflict from causing a storm.

As the communication gradually deepened, Hufflepuff proved that she was also an extremely good witch. She was not only proficient in cooking magic, but also excellent in identifying herbs and mixing potions.

Finally, the four decided to establish a magic school together.

They came to the Scottish Highlands, which is remote, primitive and desolate. The ancient rocks were divided into canyons and lakes by water and glaciers. Ravenclaw chose a cliff with a lake, surrounded by emerald hillsides, wearing white snow caps, with deep canyons below and dense woods next to the lake.

The four agreed that this was an ideal place to build a school.

Among them, only Ravenclaw had experience in building a house by hand (using magic). She conceived the floor plan of the school, especially the flexibly movable spiral staircase in the main building. The two men brought various materials, and Hufflepuff found flowers and green plants to decorate the school. They also accidentally found wild wand trees in the nearby primeval forest.

The castle gradually took shape. The four worked together to arrange the most rigorous defensive magic for the school at that time. When considering that the castle would be filled with students in the future, they even proposed a genius idea. This was a unique initiative at the time. Relying on the castle to collect the scattered magic power was the most important part of maintaining the magic castle and building a defense system.

Felix watched this scene intently.

He didn't think he could get any magical knowledge from the Sorting Hat. At first, he was curious about its existence. Later, he wanted to talk to the four founders in the Sorting Hat, if possible. But the surprise came suddenly.

The four school founders did the same thing without reservation and passion, and put their knowledge to good use. The secrets of Hogwarts Castle unfolded before his eyes bit by bit. Felix's hands followed the movements, and the Book of Runes hung on his chest and began to turn pages automatically. With him as the center, circles of rune symbols spread outward along the ground, climbed up the walls, and extended outward along the cracks in the door...

As a magic center in the castle, the magic channel in the Room of Requests appeared from the thin air, accepting the power symbolizing the ancient runes. Soon, this new power flowed through the magic blood vessels like surging blood throughout the castle. When passing Myrtle's abandoned bathroom, the passage branched off a new path and went straight to the Slytherin secret room. In the

Charms classroom, Professor Flitwick had just made a wonderful demonstration for the students below, and then he suddenly paused, stretched out his hand, and gently poked the air with his wand, and the tip of the wand brought out a golden rune symbol.

The students looked up, and the walls and the floor were like fine waves, and everything returned to calm in an instant.

Professor Flitwick cleared his throat, "Students, let's continue the class..."

In the school kitchen, the house elves were busy preparing lunch for the students. A gust of wind passed by, and they seemed to feel something. They looked up and looked around, but found nothing. There was an ordinary portrait hanging in the kitchen, and the woman in the painting had a kind look. This painting was not connected to the school castle, nor did it have any magic. It was just passed down from generation to generation among the house elves.

Every house elf has heard an ancient story since they can remember: "It was Ms. Hufflepuff who brought them into Hogwarts, gave them shelter, respect and work, and taught them cooking magic personally..."

Felix opened his eyes, and the last picture was still lingering in his mind. It was when the four founders stood together and injected their thoughts and life trajectories into the Sorting Hat. Slytherin wore a locket, Gryffindor held a sword, Ravenclaw wore a crown, and Hufflepuff held a golden cup. At least at that moment, there was relief in their eyes.

Felix slowly stood up and put the Sorting Hat back on the partition. His eyes rested on the glass box next to him. In the box were the locket, the sword and the golden cup. Except for the shining sword of Gryffindor, the other two relics of the founders were somewhat dull.

Felix took out the crown of Ravenclaw from the ring and gently placed it beside him.