Idiosyncrasy |Harry Potter

Chapter Nine

It was a startling sight for Franklin as he witnessed Zakari squirming uncomfortably in his seat, paired with tears streaming down his face. The Sorting Ceremony was meant to be a pleasant experience for first-year students, many of them were thrilled with the Sorting Hat's decision. However, even the students that were sitting closer to the stage began whispering amongst themselves as they saw the pure distress that was taking place before them.

Even Professor McGonagall had quickly become concerned by the reaction as Zakari took it upon himself to attempt removing the Sorting Hat from his head.  Other students gasped as the Sorting Hat had yet to give its House decision. It left Franklin to quickly leave his seat and make his way over to Zakari to stop him. The hat was nearly off when Franklin placed his hands over Zakari's and stopped him.

Franklin watched Zakari began to squirm in his seat, and caught sight of the tears streaming down the boy's face as other students that were closer to the stage started whispering to themselves. Duncan sensed the boy's distress as well and walked over to lay across the boy's feet. Professor McGonagall became concerned as Zakari lifted his hands to remove the Sorting Hat from his head. Quickly moving towards him and placing himself in front of Zakari, Franklin lowered Zakari's hands before lifting the hat up slightly to observe the child.

The eleven year old seemed furiously upset as his brown eyes glistened with angry tears.

Franklin couldn't help him if Zakari didn't tell him what was wrong. However, he had to continue to fight the boy who kept trying to remove the hat from his head. He couldn't understand what had gone wrong except for the hat placing him in a house that he didn't want to be in. But Zakari didn't seem like the child who would put up quite the fuss even if he didn't get into the same house as his parents had been in. Something else had obviously upset him and Franklin had to get him to a point where he could calmly explain himself. The interpreter felt terrible as he could hear the whispering behind him coming from the students, it was obviously going to be a challenge for Zakari to make friends after this incident.

Finally, he was able to get the boy to keep his hands down, long enough so he could lift the hat up a bit and get Zakari to focus on him.

Wasting no time, Franklin asked him what was wrong, wanting to know what had upset him. The answer was not something he had expected. The child explained that he was angry that no one had explained to him that the Sorting Hat was going to communicate with him telepathically and to have the Sorting Hat be the first voice he had ever heard, only made matters worse.

Franklin didn't even consider the possibility of the hat doing such a thing, he assumed the Hat was just taking it's time trying to place Zakari before speaking. Now he realized why it had been so quiet for those passing moments. When Zakari confided that he wanted to hear his mother's voice first above all voices, Franklin felt even worse realizing the moment had been stolen from the child.

It may have not seemed like a big deal to most, but Franklin could understand why it was a big deal to Zakari. He remembered when his sister received the cochlear implant back in the muggle hospital years ago, and the memory of hearing her family's voices for the first time would forever be in his mind. It had been such an emotional moment for all of those involved and while Zakari's deafness could not be assisted with a hearing device or healed with magic, the boy had still held out hope of hearing his mother's voice one day.

The event had bothered Zakari enough that all he did was continuously sign to Franklin that he wanted to go home. In that moment, Franklin felt like a complete failure as he had allowed the boy to get hurt, and that had been his mother's first and foremost request, to make sure that he wouldn't get hurt during his time. She hadn't meant only physically, but emotionally and mentally. He couldn't allow the child to miss out on the experience of a lifetime over one matter.