The Sorting Hat Speaks
Godric Gryffindor himself
Plucked me from his very head
And now for a thousand years
First years' minds I have read
Yes, I'm the Sorting Hat. An odd sort of job, but not without its benefits. Every year, for a short time, I, merely a scruffy hat, hold all of you rapt with attention. A new song at the ready for performance. It has to be a new song - each new year brings new students, and they couldn't listen to the song I performed for the Founding Four the year Hogwarts was opened. The language would be too archaic for them.
Of course, it was very different then. The castle of Hogwarts had lain derelict for a hundred years, when the four wizards came to make it into a school, to train up the young witches and wizards. It was soon transformed into a centre of life, hundreds of children growing up within its walls. Godric Gryffindor taught Defence Against the Dark Arts, for the world of magic was troubled, and the Dark Wizards destroyed their own kind and Muggles alike. Godric was noble indeed, courageous and perhaps the true leader of the Founding Four. He fought to maintain magic for good and not for evil.
Rowena Ravenclaw taught Charms - ah, Rowena was sharp, an intelligent woman who passed all her thirst for knowledge onto her students. She liked clever students, and she ensured the Library was filled with books. She saw to it that the young people under her teaching employed spells with wit and instinct.
Helga Hufflepuff was a gentle woman, a champion of Muggle-borns. She taught Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures, for she understood the links all people have to the natural world, and the gentle magic that exists within all living things. She encouraged her students to be loyal and honourable, to support one another and to welcome strangers. She understood that good had to be grown within the heart. A person must allow it to grow within themselves, but others can help by watering it with their generosity, by not allowing weeds to grow around it.
Salazar Slytherin taught Potions, and he understood cunning and ambition. His students were wily - he bred in them skills of deduction and manipulation. He was right to make them resourceful and determined, but sadly ambition is double-edged - and as the years went by, Salazar was ambitious for harmful things.
As the centuries passed, I have put all the children who have worn me into one of their four houses, for better and for worse. I am not responsible for either the good or the evil they have created; it is their own choice what they do. I am merely the guide, the aid to their introspection.
Noble and courageous,
Unflinching in face of fire
Gryffindors are fearless folk
What admiration they inspire
Now I hear you say that this doesn't sound like the Gryffindors you know. You can understand how Dumbledore gained the title, indeed, but when it comes to Neville Longbottom, you're not so sure.
Dumbledore, indeed. I see that you have never considered how he was as a child, that an eleven year old boy called Albus Dumbledore once put me on.
Believe me, I saw nothing exceptional. Oh yes, that seems a sacrilegious thing to say! Wasn't Dumbledore born old? Wasn't he as brilliant as child as he is an adult? He was intelligent, certainly, and I briefly considered Ravenclaw, however he had a strength of spirit that was a seedling which would grow. Yes, he had insecurities. His magical father was distant, and his Muggle mother could not understand her son's gift. He was a half-blood - I see your surprised expression - but that mother, Muggle though she may have been, had a Gryffindor spirit that she fostered within her son. It was clear from his mind that he could grow into a fine Gryffindor himself - and so he did.
Neville Longbottom is a similar story, oddly enough. He was not exceptional and not brilliant. Like the young Albus, he was insecure and nervous. He had feared magic, for it was magic that destroyed his parents - his mind showed me all this. But although he feared it, and although he thought himself ungifted, he was determined to fight that fear, to learn what he could in order to somehow make his family proud - to be a credit to his poor, insane parents. Don't let his lack of skill and vulnerability fool you. He, too, has that seedling within him. One day he'll be a force to be reckoned with - he has seen the insanity of the Cruciatus curse - but has not broken. He is courageous indeed.
I am sure you would like to hear about Harry Potter, but on the other hand I am sure you have already heard much about him. He is an interesting character, true, but don't let that distract you from some of the other interesting characters you could meet. His friend Ronald Weasley - often underestimated, and underappreciated, has a great gift of bravery, and so has Hermione Granger. I didn't put her in Ravenclaw for a reason, you know, although Rowena would have been thrilled to have her. But enough about Gryffindor - I am sure you would like to hear about the others.
For knowledge hungers the Ravenclaw
Who'll read books and books on end
If you possess the wit and perception
Then Rowena is your friend
Rowena's charges are oft left by the wayside when Slytherin is considered, and it is sad that you don't know more about them. Don't confuse them with being good students - look to Hufflepuff for them - or for the kind of first year who'll use a seventh year curse against someone who annoys them. True, Rowena and Salazar shared their desire for knowledge, but only Rowena for truly scholarly reasons. The intelligent folk in Ravenclaw (unlike Hufflepuff) tend to cut corners with projects - not out of wily Slytherin cunning but simply because they are hungry for the next piece of knowledge they can acquire. They are incredibly quick-witted.
I am sure that you consider Professor Flitwick another teacher who has never been young, and yet I have seen his eleven-year-old mind, too. He was a dueling champion, I hear, beating even the proficient Slytherins of the day, and this is not surprising. A Ravenclaw understands how to lose - young Filius was a boy who knew the meaning of learning from his mistakes. A Slytherin does not remember his mistakes, and will not even admit to making them - but save Severus Snape for another time.
A Ravenclaw knows things - they make valuable friends and interesting dinner companions. And unlike a Slytherin, they won't poison you, or extract useful information from you. Interesting information, perhaps.
Friendly, good and loyal,
Hufflepuffs do their best
Always to stand by you
Regardless of the rest
As is sadly human nature, Hufflepuffs tend to be ignored or overlooked. Like Rowena's students are considered merely mild Slytherins, Helga's are considered Gryffindor 'losers', if you'll pardon the term. To announce oneself a Hufflepuff is considered synonymous to saying, 'Please exploit me', and good, honourable Hufflepuffs are unfairly characterised as naïve and weak.
This is total rubbish. I hear everyone discussing young Cedric Diggory who was passed over like a stepping stone for Tom Riddle - yes, I use that name. His eleven year old mind was a good one - and unlike the others, Helga Hufflepuff encouraged goodness primarily in her students. A good, true and loyal friend is not necessarily gullible, and Cedric was no more weak minded or stupid than any Gryffindor, Ravenclaw or Slytherin I have seen. The Hufflepuffs have strengths like all the others - they have strength in their recognition of good within other people.
It's odd how, when it comes to fighting skills, this is not one of them. Hufflepuffs have far fewer enemies than their peers - I believe those who disliked Cedric did so out of jealousy, for he was not the type to be malicious. Do not think of him as perfect, because he was not - he could sometimes be selfish, occasionally rude, occasionally thoughtless. But it would do you well to remember that Hufflepuffs win battles before they start any, by winning over those who could become their enemies.
Of cunning heart and scheming mind
Are the members of Slytherin
Determined and ambitious,
These folk will aim to win
So you're curious about Tom Riddle? Ah, most people are. He was Slytherin's heir - but a mass of conflicting voices lived inside his head.
Do not think he was confident, because few first years are confident, and he certainly was not one of them. Yes, evil people are often brashly arrogant, but young Tom Riddle was not evil. Do not misunderstand my meaning - he was not a saint, not a pure soul who had been corrupted by years of abuse. I saw fear and weakness in that mind, but neither good nor evil dwelled as master.
He was a half-blood, to whom the wizarding world had been a mystery only a few months earlier. He had been neglected in his Muggle Orphanage, and had borne these years with fortitude and determination. Like many of his classmates, he was difficult to place. I am not naïve, and I would not put the heir of Slytherin into the house of his ancestor merely because of his heritage, for many of Slytherin's heirs had passed through, and many behaved in a way that made them more worthy of another house. Tom Riddle showed courage, intelligence, and even a small spark of Hufflepuff worthy loyalty - although he felt this for no one but his long dead mother. But most of all, he showed ambition. It was an ambition that could make him an excellent Minister of Magic - yes, ambition can be used for good. Or it was an ambition that could drive him to destroy all those in his path. It was his choice, and he chose.
I will read your very thoughts
I can search right through your mind
And whatever you've kept hidden
I am always sure to find
Lastly, do not be confused into thinking that I am the final authority on which house you go into. Nothing would have been more displeasing to the Founding Four than a student who did not want to be in the House in which he or she was placed. I can look, I can direct - but I am the second opinion, not the rule. Does that surprise you? Granted, the first years are not presented with a form or a manifesto with which to choose their house, and I agree, it does not seem optional. Yet you would be alarmed if you knew how little people understand of their own heads. That is why I am here - to pick out the choice they would make if they had any idea who they were and what they could do. Of course, many of them have an inkling - if a student pleaded with me to not put him in Slytherin, you surely do not believe that I would anyway?
In truth, as with all things, the final choice is yours.
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