My hot take: that’s not how the Hat works at all.
After reading the first book for about tenth time, I finally realised that the most important part was the one that was made out by author (whom I despise as much as the next fan by now) to be most important. Rowling isn’t that big and hidden codes and meanings. The inportant part was that Harry intensely didn’t want one of the houses.
The Hat always keepa on mind what the hild wants because a person can change and evolve so many different ways outside the four vaguely-defined groups that were created in the first place just to make the teaching process easier.
My hottest take: Bellatrix is a Gryffindor.
An exemplary one at that.
But all of the purebloods at some point in history decided Slytherin was the equivalent of a Posh Private Ivy League Exclusive Fancy Business Class College and raised their kids to want to be Slytherins, to be close to their cousins and their kind in general, to belong with their family. That’s what, I believe, motivates Draco, amongst others, and most other pureblood children.
Notably, Sirius very much did not want to be like his family and wanted to get the furthest away, and was probably honest with the Hat, and the Hat listened.
Another hot take: the Weasleys were the reverse Slytherins. Molly and Arthur may well have supported those stereotypes about Slythring being the baddie club. After all, they lost actual family in the First War, when a lot of Death Eathers were following a notable Slytherin and shouting that the actual founder would have supported their views. So their children grew up wanting to be like their parents, and Very Much Not Slytherins (Ron tells Harry about not wanting to be in Slytherin, and where would he get that opinion from). And then the Weasley children kept coming, and kept wanting to be with their family, so the Hat listened.
Ginny also would have fit Slytherin very well. But I bet she wanted to be close to people she knew and could have reached more easily for help and support. And the Hat listened.
I strongly believe that only when a child doesn’t have those strong connections at heart to begin with, then the Hat offers a few pointers, to see what sparks the interest of a child, to then get thrm interested in the crowd with vaguely similar interests. And that was the cause behind Hermiones long sorting. Hat clearly said that she would be a great Ravenclaw, but what was the girls wish and why? We can only speculate as her discussion with the Hat is not shown in detail, but bear in mind Hermione read most books before the start of school year, and might have formed her opinion on what kind of person she would like to be, so she chose Gryffindor. And the Hat listened to her presentation and debated the little witch a bit, but in the end, the Hat granted a wish.
The Hat listens to what the kids want, because they are small and their personality could change about five dozen times in seven years, and there are more personality types than four and in the end they know themselves best.
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