"I'd like to be in Slytherin, with Severus." The request was polite and a little gentler than the Sorting Hat was used to hearing from students to be sorted. Usually, the ones that wanted to pick their house simply ordered– and expected to be obeyed. "If I get any say in it, that is," the girl added. The Hat could not really see her, but it thought she might be blushing at her own presumption.

She was very concerned with doing things properly, Lily Evans was. It was not a trait that would serve her well in Slytherin, where the appearance of propriety was the only thing that mattered. Helga had always been the one most concerned with actual propriety, but Evans's principled determination not to overstep her bounds smacked more of Godric's sense of morality– although it was tempered with more humility than Godric ever did manage to develop.

Godric, tempered by Helga. That was the impression the Sorting Hat got of Lily Evans. It certainly made it a great deal easier to sort her than some of the other children.

"Where you are sorted is entirely up to you," the Hat said. "Your character and aptitude determine which house you will be placed in."

"But I don't get to pick." Unlike most students who had plumbed for this particular bit of information, the girl was not disappointed. She seemed to like the idea of the Hat deciding for her, the way that it might tell her something about herself that she didn't already know.

There was wisdom in that, and in another child it might have been the making of a Ravenclaw. But Evans had an inner fire that the dispassionate nature of Ravenclaw would suffocate. She could not simply back up from a situation so that she could see it better, she needed to be in the thick of things and Ravenclaw would not be able to stifle that without also stifling her wonder for the world.

"Not in the way you hoped that you might." The Hat said. "The House for you is GRYFFINDOR!"