It had taken him some time to find this one. The Flying Machine (who really needed a name, and a personality, he thought, dryly) had been hovering in an alleyway behind a thriving Muggle pub (interesting, how many of Hogwarts' ex-students could be found in pubs these days) for a while before she slipped in through the darkness, so neatly that if he had been looking out for her with eyes that actually worked and not his magical feelers, then he may have missed her entirely.  

This was how it went. Some students popped up all over the place, while others were harder to track done. In Jezebel Bain's case, the Hat suspected, it was combination of her job, her hard-headedness (the stubborn ones were always harder to track down), and the timing. That was something the Sorting Hat didn't quite understand himself. Why were some people more receptive at some point and not at others? Why were some people always accessible except for a few days in the year? Why could he not magically find everyone he needed too? Why did it have to be a case-by-case sort of  thing? He was not clear. Being very old and very wise, he has several inklings and intelligent guesses, but he didn't exactly know. He was only an instrument - albeit an integral instrument - of whatever was going on at the Castle. And he knew Jezebel Bain, for her loyalty and her ferocity, and perhaps something slightly more, was essential for what was about to unfold. 

That didn't change, of course, that her response to him was far less than seemly. 

"That's really nice language to use when talking to an old Hat!" the Hat informed her sternly. "I have looked for you all over the place, Jezebel Bain, and to find you in this place, of all places! I'm not surprised that you think you alone mourn this day," he added, tartly, aware he would be rankling her a bit, prodding at her sadness with a stick. But the Hat had his own sadness. For a piece of magical clothing, sadness felt like a sodden sock. It was really not pleasant. "There are better monsters for you to fight, if you're up for it, at Hogwarts." He wondered if he should mention the one unnameable piece of the puzzle he could, by definition, not name, but figured it would be very confusing for her Hufflepuff brain. "You know, if you're done poking the monsters in your own head!"