"SILENCE... Mr Potter, accusations like that are extremely severe, and you should not joke about them." Lectured Dumbledore in his sternest disapproving voice that carried throughout the dining hall.
It was a blatant attempt to discredit Harry, like the boy who cried wolf, and he was not going to let it go unanswered!
"Who is joking you old bastard? Someone just tried mind r*pe me, and you call me a liar? Let us call the Aurors if you are not going to take this seriously, they can also take me home."
"Mr Potter, keep a civil tongue and do not insult me." Commanded a peeved Dumbledore, this was quickly getting out of hand for him, he had expected to cower the boy easily.
"You insulted me first, sir, so I will return your words back to you. You calling me a liar makes me question if it was you that attacked me. We were, after all, arguing about a mind-reading hat and an oath you were going to give me. Do you also have the ability to read people's minds, Headmaster?"
Suddenly a calming aura spread out and encompassed the dining hall. Harry was quickly able to shrug it off since he practised Occlumency, but everyone else was affected. The room was quickly pacified, and Dumbledore decided to stop pressuring Harry to put on the hat. He had overplayed his hand and had nothing to keep Harry from leaving, he might even drive him off entirely if he kept pushing. This was not the child that Mrs Figg had reported to him.
This Harry Potter had a backbone and seemed to be at least partially aware of the wizarding world. The Dark Lord cursed Rita Skeeter for her interference, the boy he had seen in Hagrid's memories was the perfect offering to increase his reputation. Now he was aware that he had been railroaded into ignorance and had chosen to read a few books to educate himself about his new situation.
The Weasley child he selected to guide the boy into Gryffindor had done the complete opposite, instead, making Harry step back from the Gryffindor/Slytherin conflict to concentrate on studying! Now the boy would be harder to influence, and plans would have to be modified. And where the hell was Quirrell? Dumbledore had too much running through his mind and had fumbled what should have been a straight forward ceremony.
"I apologise, Mr Potter, it was not my intention to insult you. It was just too unbelievable to think you may have been assaulted while under my protection. Since you feel so strongly about the Sorting Hat, we will skip the procedure and have you join Ravenclaw. Your debating skills reveal your wit, so you should fit right in. Professor McGonagall, could you please resume the Sorting Ceremony." Albus glossed over all accusations and steamrolled anything Harry may say by prompting McGonagall to continue.
Harry didn't mind too much and actually preferred to finish the argument quickly. He wanted to be as low key as he could, well, as much as a famous person could be. Even though Harry had damaged his credibility a little with his orphan propaganda, he still wanted to keep an equally good impression with pureblood nobles, half-bloods as well as muggle-borns. He had not wanted such a confrontation over the Sorting Hat, because he didn't want to draw so much attention to himself and make it harder to enact his plans.
It could have also been construed as spitting on traditions, so he made sure to explain his reasoning and hopefully gain endorsement. But he was not expecting Dumbledore to so actively push for the Sorting Hat to be used. This 'performance' had probably lost him favour with those students that were blinded by the Leader of the Light routine, but they were sheep anyway. In canon, they jumped from worship, to fear, to worship, and then back to scorning the boy-who-lived, so he did not place too much faith on it. But a poor first impression could be detrimental.
He was also not too fussed if he actually had to leave Hogwarts, as all the European schools seemed to be at the same level anyway. The Tri-Wizard Cup competition proved that both Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum were at the same level as Cedric Diggory in terms of skill, tactics and spells. Beauxbatons may have even been a better choice as they had a majority of female students attending. Cho Chang was considered the best Hogwarts had to offer in terms of beauties, and while she was quite cute, she was nothing special. A broader selection of seventh years to look at would have been nice.
Still, there were a few things he wanted to accomplish at Hogwarts and joining now would make things easier than raiding the castle once Dumbledore was away, not to mention his retaliation for leaving. As he took his seat at the Ravenclaw table and noticed the inquisitive looks from his housemates, he discerned that Dumbledore's calming aura had only quieted their thoughts, not removed them. They still remembered the new first-year calling the Headmaster and old bastard and bringing to light the questionable situation of the Sorting Hat.
He wondered how Dumbledore would stop this from getting out to the student's parents. But then again, if he could manipulate the information leaving Hogwarts about a Troll attack, Quirrell dying at the hands of a student and a giant Basilisk roaming the halls turning people to stone, a mind-reading hat should be no problem. Little did he know that Ms Skeeter would be receiving a memory of tonight for tomorrows paper. He had organised a pensive delivered to her for occasions just like this.
Harry watched the next few children abstain from the mind-reading hat and choose the house they wanted to sorted into. Since they had made an exception for Harry Potter, they could only break tradition and allow it. It seems like he had made a positive impression on most of the children, and there may be hope for intelligence in wizards after all. But this thought was too premature.
"Weasley, Ronald."
After watching the kids before him abstain from the potentially dangerous artifact, he thought he would show his bravery and use this opportunity to gain some prestige.
"I don't know why everyone is afraid of a hat, but I'm going to be a Gryffindor! We are not scared of anything!" He proclaimed as he sat on the stool to be judged.
A second later, the hat had shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"
The smug little git swaggered over to the Gryffindor table like he had just done something amazing. He was unaware of the many looks of derision, some even from his new housemates. Even Hermione had gone a bit pale at the implications that her thoughts were recorded for others to analyse. They had put the hat on without thinking of the consequences of having their mind read, if they had the chance to do it again, they would opt out for sure.
With the Sorting Ceremony finished, Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there. His friendly, twinkly-eyed grandfather act was back in full force.
"Welcome," he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are. Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!"
He sat back down, and everybody clapped and cheered, though probably not as much as they would have before tonight. Harry didn't know whether to laugh or not at either a cryptic insult of the houses or a sign of the old man's madness.
The tables filled with food and Harry had to face his next challenge, Hogwarts food. It looked delicious, but as proved by Fred and George with their pranks, anyone could tamper with it. It was for this reason that Harry had ten of his elves infiltrate the Hogwarts house-elves. Well, he said infiltrate, but there was no protection at all against foreign elves. The Hogwarts house-elves didn't seem to mind the new additions, and there were no wards to prevent their magic or teleporting abilities, according to the elves he sent on ahead.
Harry had at least expected a little pushback from the local house-elves seeing as they were bonded to the current Headmaster, to be transferred over when the position changed. An explanation that they were bonded to some of the new students had them nodding their head as if it was natural, especially when they deferred to the locals in any work that needed to be done. 'They would only serve their masters' was apparently good enough to settle any conflict.
A plate of food appeared in front of Harry with the correct markings on the plate to identify it as something prepared by his personal house-elves, and he happily started eating. There was polite small talk from the Ravenclaw students, but no invasive or personal questions. It seems that a house focusing on wisdom weeded out personalities like Ronald Weasley. There were eight other first-years sorted into Ravenclaw, and he made sure to at least be on good terms with them.
He was a thirty-plus-year-old man in a child's body, so while there would be no serious friendships or romantic interests, he could at least create a positive impression for them know him by. 'Willing to help out anyone, but kept to himself' was the image he was going for. The fanfics that he read with self-inserts becoming best friends or lovers with their classmates quite frankly weirded him out. It bespoke a lack of maturity that they would be able to so easily relate to children and regress their mentality to suite.
At least with Ravenclaw, he didn't need to worry about this as much since they all seemed to give off a solitary or mature vibe. As expected of a house full of children dedicated to learning instead of playing around at school. In his original life, Chad didn't show such determination, wasting his potential by being lazy and playing instead of learning. But that was muggle school, if he was learning magic when he was eleven, he would have sacrificed his left nut to learn it!
While he ate and fielded questions from inquisitive children, he wondered at what Vernon, a magic hating bigot, would do to Mrs Figgs. He had given a parting gift to the Dursleys in the form of revealing that the crazy cat lady across the street was, in fact, a failed witch and was spying on them. He also tweaked their minds to express all the hatred they had for Harry Potter on the defenceless old woman that happily watched and reported the slavery of a child while doing nothing to help.
Harry had no problems with the Dursleys as they treated him with nothing but love, Dudley, on the other hand, had a rough upbringing. Harry was Mrs Figg in that equation, but in all fairness, he rather Dudley in the cupboard than himself. If they did nothing to Mrs Figg, then he was okay with it as he really didn't feel the need for any revenge like canon Harry should have done. But he kind of doubted that the Dursleys would be able to resist the temptation.
Especially when a compulsion that made them think any consequences for their actions would go unreported, much like what happened to canon Harry. Also added, was a command to not hurt her cats for any reason. As a person that liked cats, he didn't want to see them killed for his revenge against a woman that would have happily watched him suffer.
This would ensure that the old b*tch got her comeuppance and the Dursleys got to cause trouble for Dumbledore. To be honest, they did get shafted by the old goat, but there was no need to behave how they did to an innocent child. Chad was a petty person and would never let Mrs Figg go unpunished, even if he was never going to return to number four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, to see the results.