The moment the oak doors of the Great Hall were pushed open, the first-years let out a collective, suppressed gasp.
A massive space stretched out before them.
Four long tables ran from the entrance to the very end of the hall, each packed with students wearing black school robes.
Above the tables floated thousands of candles, their flickering light illuminating the entire vaulted ceiling.
The ceiling was enchanted.
It looked as if there were no ceiling at all.
The night sky was dense with stars, and the occasional wisp of cloud drifted past, looking exactly like the real sky outside.
“It’s bewitched to look like the sky outside,” a bushy-haired, brown-curled girl in front was explaining eagerly to the person next to her.
“I read about it in *Hogwarts: A History*.”
No one paid her any mind.
Led by Professor McGonagall, the first-years filed in a single line down the central aisle of the Great Hall.
The older students at the long tables on either side scrutinized the fresh faces.
Some looked curious, some bored, and some were placing bets on the sorting results.
Aaron walked at the very back of the line.
With Divine Shielding fully active, under the gaze of hundreds of eyes, he was like a pocket of empty air in the line—present, yet completely unnoticed.
But at the very front of the Great Hall, right in the center of the staff table, someone noticed him.
Albus Dumbledore sat in his golden headmaster’s chair.
His long silver hair and beard gleamed softly in the candlelight.
His half-moon spectacles perched on the tip of his nose, and his bright blue eyes looked out over the line of first-years.
His gaze appeared warm and kindly, like a benign elder admiring the first batch of children for the new school year.
But as Dumbledore’s eyes swept over the line of first-years, there was an extremely brief pause.
Less than three-tenths of a second.
It stopped at the very end of the queue.
To the eye, that spot seemed vacant.
Or rather, there was someone there, but the headmaster’s brain was receiving an “unimportant” signal, attempting to make his attention skip over that spot.
Dumbledore did not let his attention skip.
He gently pushed up his half-moon spectacles and narrowed his eyes.
*Interesting.*
He saw a black-haired, grey-eyed boy standing quietly at the end of the line.
He was small of stature, with a placid expression, wearing the same black school robes as the other first-years.
He looked entirely unremarkable.
But Dumbledore’s eyes saw far deeper than the surface.
In his more than a century of life, he had met far too many people who hid themselves.
Some hid their strength, some hid their identities, and some hid their ambitions.
But what this boy was hiding…
Dumbledore blinked.
He attempted to use Legilimency to gently brush against the boy’s surface thoughts.
Not an invasion, but an extremely shallow touch—like glancing through a window while passing by.
His mental tendril reached out.
And then hit a wall.
No.
Not a wall.
A wall was tangible, textured, with a perceptible material and thickness.
The thing he had encountered…
It was like reaching a hand into a bottomless, boundless, completely empty void.
Your hand went in, touched nothing, yet could not advance a single step.
Dumbledore withdrew his mental tendril.
His expression did not change in the slightest.
He maintained his kindly, benignly smiling elder’s face.
But underneath the staff table, his right index finger tapped twice against the wood.
Sitting three seats to his left, Severus Snape felt the faint vibration from those two taps.
He did not turn to look at Dumbledore; he merely gave an almost imperceptible nod of his chin to indicate he had received the signal.
Professor McGonagall stepped up onto the dais at the front of the hall.
A three-legged stool had already been set in place, and upon it sat a patched, frayed, and extremely dirty pointed wizard’s hat.
It looked as though it had been salvaged from a rubbish heap.
The Sorting Hat.
The Great Hall fell silent.
The hat twitched.
A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth, and it began to sing.
Aaron didn’t listen to the lyrics.
He was observing the hat.
The information fed back by his Sensory Network indicated that an incredibly ancient magic clung to the hat.
It wasn’t the magical residue of some wizard, but an independent, self-sustaining magical construct.
It possessed self-awareness.
A sentient, ancient magical artifact.
The sorting process was said to involve mind-reading.
The hat would delve into the wearer’s mind, judge their personality, abilities, and potential, and then assign them to the most suitable house.
Aaron leaned against a stone pillar and pondered.
What would this hat see in his mind?
A fifteen-hundred-meter Divine Kingdom?
More than three hundred insect believers?
A Demiguise, a Horned Snake, and two Fire Salamanders?
A white jade altar and a volcanic lava zone?
Or perhaps…
Would it see the Godhead itself?
That was indeed a question.
But not a major one.
If the hat saw something it shouldn’t, he was confident he could suppress its consciousness before it could take any action.
Within his Divine Kingdom, he was the absolute ruler.
The hat’s mind-reading was, in essence, a form of mental intrusion, and any mental intrusion that collided with his Godhead would end the same way.
Just like Dumbledore’s Legilimency just now.
It would hit a wall.
The song ended.
The Great Hall erupted into applause.
Professor McGonagall unrolled a long roll of parchment.
“When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted.”
She began to read the names in alphabetical order.
“Abbott, Hannah!”
A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line.
She sat down, and the hat was placed on her head, slipping down right over her eyes.
A pause of two seconds.
“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat.
The sorting continued.
Name after name was called, and the first-years took turns stepping forward.
The time the hat spent on their heads varied; some were sorted in a single second, while others took ten or twenty seconds of deliberation.
“Granger, Hermione!”
The bushy-haired girl who had been reciting *Hogwarts: A History* the entire way practically ran to the stool and eagerly jammed the hat onto her head.
The hat pondered for about five seconds.
“GRYFFINDOR!”
“Malfoy, Draco!”
Aaron noticed a small detail.
When Malfoy’s name was called, he stepped forward from the waiting area near the Slytherin table.
His stride still carried the standard, leisurely grace of a pureblood heir, but Aaron’s Sensory Network captured the sudden spike in his heart rate.
It was about forty percent faster than normal.
The hat had barely touched Malfoy’s hair when it screamed:
“SLYTHERIN!”
Malfoy’s lip twitched.
Not in a smile, but in sheer relief.
As he walked toward the Slytherin table, his gaze swept over the crowd of waiting first-years.
And then his face paled.
It was only for an instant.
But Aaron saw it.
Malfoy had located his face.
Under the influence of Divine Shielding, the surrounding students wouldn’t notice Aaron, but Malfoy was different.
Their encounter on the train had left a deep imprint on his soul.
For someone thus marked, Divine Shielding did not cause him to overlook Aaron; on the contrary, it made him hyper-sensitive to Aaron’s presence.
He was like prey that had been hunted by an apex predator, instinctively scanning the air for its scent wherever he went.
Malfoy quickly made his way to the Slytherin table and sat down at the spot furthest from Aaron.
Crabbe and Goyle immediately flanked him, serving as two human shields.
The sorting continued.
“Potter, Harry!”
The Great Hall instantly erupted in a din of noise.
Whispers broke out across all four long tables like ripples from a stone cast into a still pond.
“Potter? Did she say *Harry* Potter?”
“That’s him! Did you see the scar on his forehead?”
The black-haired boy stepped forward, his expression a mixture of nervousness and anxiety.
The hat was placed upon his head, slipping over his eyes.
Seconds ticked by.
The hat was hesitating.
This took much longer than anyone else’s.
After about a minute:
“GRYFFINDOR!”
The Gryffindor table erupted into the loudest cheer of the night.
The Weasley twins stood up, chanting, “We got Potter! We got Potter!”
Harry took off the hat and ran toward the Gryffindor table, his face flushed.
Aaron watched his retreating back, his face expressionless.
The list of names continued.
As the remaining first-years dwindled, Aaron knew he would be called soon.
“Klein, Aaron!”
Professor McGonagall’s voice echoed through the hall.