A/N: I don't own Harry Potter.

The Sorting Hat was old. Older than any student, staff member, or ghost, and it had one job – to sort the students into one of four houses. However, unbeknownst to any, there was a fifth house: a place for only the most... special.

Another year, another start of term banquet, thought the Sorting Hat. I wonder what sort of imbeciles I'll be sorting this time.

The Hat was silent as it was carried down to the Great Hall, for without a head inside, the Hat could do very little. It was quite lonely, if the Hat were honest with itself. The founders should have made the Hat an equally enchanted hat-stand so that the Hat could at least have some conversation during the year between uses. Writing the next year's sorting song didn't take long at all, and other than that, what did the Hat do? It sat on the shelf like an antique that no one dared to touch.

If it could have, the Hat would have sighed.

The year was 2014, and Voldemort had been defeated for over a decade. The Hat was back to simple songs about itself and the four houses, and none of the new students had been as wonderful to talk to as Luna Lovegood. At her sorting, Luna had been a brilliant oddity – crisp, clear, and as unique as a snowflake in July. As she got older, she was the only person to repeatedly return simply to talk to a hat, and it missed her terribly.

The Hat waited until it was brought out and placed on the stool in the center of the stage. This is what it was made for: the sorting. During the sorting was the only time of the entire year when the magic restraints on the Hat lifted, and it was able to speak or sing aloud. The Hat's voice came out as a pleasant baritone, full of gradeur and wisdom, and despite everything, the Hat almost wished that the sorting would happen every day, just to have the ability to continue speaking to others.

As soon as everyone in the Great Hall had settled down, the Hat began to sing:

I'm a Sorting Hat, you see.

I'll sort you one from two.

I do my job the best I can,

And sort you fair and true.

I know the difference between

The knowing and the wise,

So put me on your head and I

Will sort you out, no lies!

In one of houses four you'll find

The house where you belong.

I garauntee a place for you,

Just listen to my song.

In Gryffindor, the mighty dwell:

The brave, the bold, the daring;

In Hufflepuff, the loyal are

Just, and true, and caring;

In Ravenclaw, the brilliant come

To learn all that they can;

And Slytherin, the cunning ones,

Will always have a plan.

I've done this for a thousand years –

It comes as no surprise –

Put me on, I'll sort you right!

Just try me on for size!

Well, that was done, and the Hat's voice was back to being restricted. It stewed for a moment until the first of the students had the Hat placed on his head.

The nervous boy sitting tense beneath the Hat was Brendan Ackleberry. "Hmm," said the Hat in his ear. "Witty, but not studious: talent will only get you so far. You have no desire to fight, but you will stand up for your friends. Yet you're also driven, but to what end?"

"I want my parents to be proud of me," Brendan's inner voice answered timidly.

"Pride isn't the same as proud, so better be HUFFLEPUFF!" And then Brendan was gone...

The Hat went through just over half the students before something odd occurred.

"Turner, Thyme," the Deputy Headmaster read.

Time-turner? Really? the Hat thought.

Thyme Turner eagerly put the hat on. "Hi," her inner voice said in sparkling tones that made the Hat cringe. "I'm Thyme. I have been waiting to attend Hogwarts forever. Even though spent my entire life in an orphanage with no idea that I was magical, I knew deep down inside of me that magic was real and I've been practicing on my own ever since I got my letter. I can already do wandless magic and I expect that I'll be at the top of my year. Does Hogwarts allow you to skip grades? Oh well, if I need to I can just transfigure my body to that of a seventeen-year-old and pass my apparition test and everything else all by the end of next week."

"I hate to interrupt," the Hat put in delicately. "You have a very interesting name. Would you care to explain that?"

Thyme seemed to swell with pride. "Oh sure," her sparkling thoughts exclaimed. "Well you see, there was an incident with a time-turner and a Delorean when my parents were going Back to the Future. They met in the future and then mother went back in time to meet father before meeting him, and you know what they say – if your future is in the past, then the past becomes your future."

"I see," was all the Hat had to say. "And who did you say your parents were?"

"Hermione Granger and Merlin."

The Hat could hear Thyme's pride at such a statement. "Just a few more questions," the Hat assured her. "Do you have any other special talents?"

"I'm a werewolf-metamorphmagus with three animagus forms and I can fly without a broom."

"Very well, I know what to do with you." The Hat waited for a moment, but when Thyme didn't get distressed at the possibility of not being sorted, the Hat called out, "SPARKLY-POO!"

Thyme Turner was sorted into the fifth house and disappeared from sight and memory in a flash of light. The sorting continued as if nothing had happened between Angus Stephens and Sally Twill other than the usual pause to allow the cheering to quiet down. If the hat could have smiled, it would have.

Thyme found herself in a room with about a dozen other boys and girls with names such as Magenta Amber-Glow Merlin-Potter, and Godric Alexander Gryffindor XVII. All of them had absurd special abilities, flawless skin, perfect teeth, and bodies of super models even though all of them claimed to be eleven years old. Thyme was no different.

The room was painted in rainbow glitter that matched perfectly with everything and everyone in a way that defied reality – but then again, nothing in the room was real. A dusty plaque on the wall read: You cannot be real if you cannot be real.

And even though all the members of house Sparkly-Poo were geniuses, none of them understood.