The Sorting Ceremony.

Each year this important process scares the crap out of the first-years by deciding the next seven years of their life for them; where they'll sleep, who they'll have classes with, who their friends will be.

Well, really it just determines which house they belong in, but all that other stuff comes with that.

Bruce Banner's Sorting is rather uneventful:

The Hat sits on his head for a few seconds, ultimately deciding upon Ravenclaw. Bruce goes and sits at the cheering table, smiles shyly at the other students, and proceeds to quietly watch the rest of the Ceremony.

It's a student near the end of the list that catches everyone's attention. Professor McGonagall calls the name 'Anthony Stark,' and suddenly tons of hoots and hollers erupt from the crowd.

Everyone knows who Anthony is, of course; he's the only child of famous spell- and broom-inventor Howard Stark. And rumor has it that he is just as much of a genius as his father.

Anthony struts up the steps, a cocky smile plastered on his face. When he reaches the top he turns to wink at some Gryffindor girls, making half the hall laugh and the other half roll their eyes. He sits on the stool, but stops McGonagall's hand in mid-air.

"It's Tony, by the way." He says, and then gestures grandly to her. "Now, hat me!"

McGonagall says nothing, only purses her lips and drops the Hat onto the rather arrogant 11-year-old's head.

It sits there for a minute. Then two. Tony frowns at one point and says "No! No way!" Apparently he and the Hat aren't agreeing, because it's another minute before it yells, "Ravenclaw!" The Hat sounds rather pleased with itself. Probably because it won the argument.

Tony sighs, but puts his grin back on, running over to his new house's table. He sits next to Bruce, shoulders only drooping slightly lower than when he'd walked in. However, it wouldn't take any divination to see that Tony did not want to be a Ravenclaw.

No one is surprised by the sorting, per se. Howard Stark had been a Ravenclaw, as well as a Prefect and Head Boy. He'd excelled in the house of geniuses, and from what they'd heard about Tony, he would too. Then again, from what they'd seen of Tony in the past ten minutes, he might make a good Slytherin. He was a pure-blood, after all. In any case, the only one upset by Tony's placement seems to be the kid himself.

But that little fact is mostly overlooked. The Sorting is soon finished, and the feast begins.

…

A year later, there is a whole new batch of first-years to terrify.

Among them is Pepper Potts; Tony's only friend from home. He spends the Ceremony shooting mini paper airplanes at her with his wand. Bruce doesn't bother trying to stop him, seeing as it won't accomplish anything.

Finally, after a muscular, miniature-mountain of a boy is put in Gryffindor, Pepper's name is called. Tony ceases his air force attack before she is truly ready to kill him.

"Ravenclaw!" The Hat proclaims after barely five seconds, and Tony makes sure to cheer louder than any of the other kids at his table. He has to reach around Bruce, but he manages to pull Pepper down beside him before she can sit with the other newly-sorted kids.

"Told ya so," he says with a smirk. She just rolls her eyes and turns to watch the Ceremony. Tony decides that instead of attempting to make her talk to him, he'll make sarcastic comments about the other first-years. One kid in particular catches his interest: a skinny, scrawny, pale boy with short blond hair.

"And here," he whispers to Pepper, "we have the prime example of a boy destined to be a Hufflepuff."

"Hush." She whacks him lightly on the arm.

After struggling up the stairs, the scrawny kid all but collapses on the stool. He's staring at his hands, and breathing heavily.

"Gryffindor!" The Hat cries. It doesn't even take a second. Quite a few kids (Tony included) just stare, and the scrawny kid himself looks confused.

But the Gryffindor table still applauds, and they receive him happily once he's managed to get to the table.

"And here," Pepper looks over her shoulder at Tony, "we have the prime example of a boy destined to be wrong about nearly every person he meets."

Tony shakes his stunned look away, frowns, and hits Pepper's arm. "Shut up."

He looks over to the Gryffindor table, where the mountain-like boy has his arm around the scrawny kid's shoulders and is shouting happily.

The rest of the Ceremony bores Tony, and eventually the feast starts, just like last year. Nothing really changes.

…

The last Sorting to really interest anyone (Tony) comes the next year, and right at the beginning too.

The boy's name is Clinton Barton, and he is blessed with what the other students officially deem the 'Hatstall from Hell.'

Most kids' Sortings take a few seconds, some up to a couple minutes. Some near-hatstalls occur (Tony had been one), but true hatstalls, lasting five minutes or more, happen very rarely, and Clinton's is the worst even the teachers have ever seen.

Nine-and-a-half minutes.

It takes nine-and-a-half silent, grueling minutes for the Hat to decide upon a house for Clinton.

Now, that's not usually incredibly long in normal time, but even five minutes can feel like an hour when you're sitting on a stool in front of the entire faculty and student body on your first day of school. And all of them are perfectly quiet, and staring at you.

Professor McGonagall begins to grow concerned after the first five minutes are up and the Hat hasn't spoken at all. It doesn't even seem to be Clinton arguing about some conclusion that the Hat has already come to, since the boy isn't speaking either. He just stares upwards, looking almost cross-eyed.

When he notices McGonagall's expression, though, he begins to panic a bit.

"Um, is there a problem?" he asks her. "Did I break it or something?"

He reaches up to take the Hat off, but the professor bats his hand away.

"You can't break the Sorting Hat, dear," she assures him. "Just be patient."

But once minute seven passes by, even she is starting to suspect something's wrong with the ancient garment. Kids are whispering to each other in the audience. Clinton tilts his head back and pulls the Hat forward, covering his eyes and nose.

"You ok up there?" he asks the Hat.

Either it doesn't respond or he doesn't like what it says, because he groans, puts it back in its normal position, and drops his chin into his hands.

Two minutes later, when the situation has passed amazing and strange and is getting into just plain irritating, the Hat finally speaks.

"I have made my decision," it announces to the hall. Clinton jumps to his feet, now completely cross-eyed with his stare boring into the brim of the Hat. "The house you belong in is…"

"Come on already!" Clinton yells, bouncing on his toes.

"Hufflepuff!"

Clinton does a fist pump and shoves the Hat back into McGonagall's hands. He all but sprints to the Hufflepuff table, high-fives some older students, and drops into his seat with a giant sigh.

It all happens so fast that the rest of the hall barely has time to react. Frankly, they're still processing the fact that he was put in Hufflepuff. Hatstalls never end up in Hufflepuff; usually the Hat decides between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw or Gryffindor and Slytherin.

Of course, no one knows who Clinton is, nor have they heard of any wizarding families with the name Barton, so he is likely a muggle-born or half-blood, and therefore can't be in Slytherin.

That theory is shattered near the end of the alphabet, though, when another girl no one knows somehow does manage to get into Slytherin. While everyone has heard of the powerful Romanoff family from Russia, most of them also know of the whole family's murder nearly a decade ago. Either this Natasha girl is the first muggle-born to get into Slytherin, or she had mysteriously survived the massacre of her entire family by Voldemort. Both would be amazing, but neither will win her any friends in her new house.

That marks the end of the interesting Sorting Ceremonies. Well, interesting to Tony, anyways. On the other hand, it also marks the beginning of several very interesting years at Hogwarts.

[}{] ][

Okay, so this was originally going to be a one-shot, only focusing on the Sortings, but as I was writing I started getting some ideas for funny little stories to write about their years at Hogwarts. There probably won't be anything in way of a plot, just a bunch of stand-alone chapters that could be one-shots themselves, although I'd keep a continuity going. Also, they won't all be from Tony's point-of-view like this one (kind of) was. Just let me know what you think (hint hint, please review, hint hint). I love comments, questions, and suggestions!

Thanks for reading!

Chocochino =D