7: The Sorting Hat

The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out on a tiny, dark platform. Harry shivered in the cold night air. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a booming voice: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"

A half-giant man with a big hairy face was beaming over the sea of heads.

Harry felt a nudge on his side to find Draco and his henchmen walking next to him. "Thinking about going without us, eh?" the boy teased which he returned with a smile.

"C'mon, follow me," the half-giant man introduced himself as Hagrid, keeper of the keys and grounds of Hogwarts. "Any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"

Slipping and tumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Harry thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. Neville, the boy who kept losing his toad, sniff once or twice.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."

There was a loud "Ooooh!"

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its shadows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Draco immediately occupied the closest boat he could get into allowing Harry and the other two boys, Crabbe and Goyle to tag along.

"Everyone in?" Shouted Hagrid, who had a boat all to himself. "Right then – FORWARD!"

And soon, the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

"Heads down!" the giant yelled as the first boats reached the cliff. They all bent their heads, and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

"Oi, you there! Is this your toad?" said Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.

"Trevor!" Neville cried blissfully, holding out his hands. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smoot, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.

They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door.

"Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?" Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.

The massive oak doors swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald, green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and Harry's first thought was that this was not someone he would want to cross.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here."

She pulled the door wide. The entrance hall was so huge you could have fit the entire Grimmauld Place in it. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.

They followed Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. Harry could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right – the rest of the school must have already been here – but Professor McGonagall showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," she told them. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within the school. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room."

She went on explaining the different houses one by one – their noble history, the witches and wizards these houses have produced, as well as the system of gaining and losing points for your own house depending on the merits.

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting."

Her eyes lingered for a moment on Neville's cloak, which was fastened under his left ear, then trailed onto the tall red-haired boy who had a smudged nose. Harry remained standing trying to stop himself from ruining his wavy hairstyle out of nervousness.

"I shall return when we are ready for you," she went on. "Please wait quietly."

She left the chamber. Harry swallowed.

"How exactly do they sort us into houses?" he heard one of the boys behind him ask.

The red-haired boy whose name he learned was Ron answered, "some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking."

Harry's heart gave a horrible jolt. No way he's performing magic in front of the whole school, or his uncle would definitely get another angry letter complaining about the entire castle collapsed into ruins. He looked around anxiously and saw that everyone else looked terrified too. Even Draco. No one was talking much except Hermione Granger, the girl on the train with the bushy brown hair who was whispering very fast about all the spells she'd learned and wondering which one she'd need. Harry had the urge to shove his copy of 'Hogwarts, A History' into her mouth to shut her up.

He kept his eyes fixed on the door. Any second now, Professor McGonagall would come back and lead him to his doom.

Then something happened that made him jump about a foot in the air – several people behind him screamed.

"What the –"

He gasped. So did people around him. About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be arguing over something. What looked like a fat little monk was saying: "Forgive and forget, I say, we out to give him a second chance –"

"My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserved? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not really even a ghost – I say, what are you all doing here?"

A ghost wearing ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years.

Nobody answered his question at all.

"New students!" the Fat Friar exclaimed, smiling around them. "About to be sorted I suppose?"

A few people nodded their heads mutely.

"Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!" He told them cheerfully. "My old house, you know."

"Move along now," said a sharp voice. "The Sorting Ceremony's about to start."

Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.

"Now, form a line," she told the first years, "and follow me."

Feeling oddly as though his legs had turned to lead, Harry got into line behind a boy with sandy hair, with Draco and his bodyguards behind him. They walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.

Harry had been to several magical places, but he had never imagined such a strange and splendid place – well, except perhaps Castle Dracula. Then again, this one hit different. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were seated. Professor McGonagall led the first years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Harry looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. He heard Granger whisper, "it's bewitched to look like the night sky. I read about it in Hogwarts a History."

So she must have swallowed the entire book then, Harry thought. Nonetheless, it was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn't simply open on to the heavens.

Harry quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool, she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. He doubted Uncle Teddy would ever let it anywhere in the house.

For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Everyone in the hall was now staring at the hat, and so he stared at it too. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth – and the hat began to sing.

"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,

But don't judge on what you see,

I'll eat myself if you can find

A smarter hat than me.

You can keep your bowlers black,

Your top hats sleek and tall,

For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat

And I can cap them all.

There's nothing hidden in your head

The Sorting Hat can't see,

So try me on and I will tell you

Where you ought to be.

You might belong in Gryffindor,

Where dwell the brave at heart,

Their daring, nerve, and chivalry

Set Gryffindors apart.

You might belong in Hufflepuff,

Where they are just and loyal,

Those patient Hufflepuffs are true

And unafraid of toil;

Or yet in wise old Raven claw,

if you've a ready mind,

Where those of wit and learning,

Will always find their kind;

Or perhaps in Slytherin

You'll make your real friends,

Those cunning folk use any means

To achieve their ends.

So put me on! Don't be afraid!

And don't get in a flap!

You're in safe hands (though I have none)

For I'm a Thinking Cap!"

The entire hall burst into an applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again.

"So we've just got to try on the hat!" Harry could hear Ron complaining to the boy next to him. "I'll kill Fred, he was going on about wrestling a troll."

Harry smiled weakly. Like the other boy, he also had the urge to ram into his uncle for scaring the hell out of him by not giving him a warning. Yes, trying on the hat was a lot better than having to do a spell, but he did wish they could have tried it on without everyone watching. The hat seemed to be asking rather a lot; Harry didn't feel brave or quick-witted or any of it at the moment. If only the hat had mentioned a house for people who felt a bit queasy, that would have been the one for him.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Abbott, Hannah!"

A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of the line. She put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moment's pause –

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat.

The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. Harry saw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.

Two more students were called before he heard his own name was announced.

"Black, Hadrian Orion!"

There was a moment of silence as Harry stepped forward. The last thing he saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was Draco's face nodding encouragingly at him. Next second, he was looking at the black inside of the hat. He waited.

"Aaah, a descendant of the Blacks," said a small voice in his ear. "It was always easy to sort your kind in the past generations, but now… it seems difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, oh… my goodness, yes – and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting… so where shall I put you?"

Harry gripped the edges of the stool and remembered his uncle's words: "It is not our name who defines us for what we are, but our actions." And then his mind trailed back onto the Sorting Hat's song: The brave at heart, the just and loyal, the ready mind, he can be any of those… but then, he remembered… in Slytherin, you'll make your real friends.

He'd never really had friends before. Until…

"Well, well… it looks like you have made a decision, young lad," said the hat.

"Do you have a better suggestion that could work for me?" He countered.

"Your choices would always be up to you." He could imagine its brim tearing into a wide smile.

"Then just put me where you think I should belong," he said finally.

"If you are so sure – better be – SLYTHERIN!"

Harry heard the hat shout the last word to the entire hall. He took the hat and walked shakily toward the Slytherin table. He was still so nervous he hardly noticed the Slytherins cheering for the first time and for having the first student to be sorted into their house that evening. A tall young man wearing the same badge he saw Percy the Prefect wore got up and shook his hand, while a few older young men who looked like brutes were cheering loudly behind him.

Harry sat opposite a horrible-looking ghost, with blank staring eyes, a gaunt face, and robes stained with silver blood. He nudged his arm, giving Harry the sudden, horrible feeling he's just been plunged it into a bucket of ice-cold water.

The Sorting Ceremony continued.

"Bones, Susan!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat again, and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.

"Boot, Terry!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

The table second from the left clapped this time; several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined them.

"Brocklehurst, Mandy" went to Ravenclaw too, but "Brown, Lavender" became the first new Gryffindor, and the table on the far left exploded with cheers. Harry could see the red-headed twins catcalling.

"Bullstrode, Millicent" then became another Slytherin who chose to sit among the upper years.

"Finch-Fletchley, Justin!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Sometimes, Harry noticed the hat shouted out the house at once, but at others, it took a little while to decide. A few more names were sorted into different houses such as Granger, who looked so proud when she was sorted to Gryffindor, as well as Finnigan, Seamus, the sandy haired boy next to him a while ago, Ron Weasley who felt quite relieved to have joined his brothers in the house of the braves at heart, and surprisingly, Neville Longbottom, the boy who kept losing his toad.

Draco swaggered forward when his name was called and got his wish at once. The hat had barely touched his head when it screamed, "SLYTHERIN!"

He rushed to their table and immediately took the seat which his friends, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle saved for him. The very same seat right next to Harry's.

There weren't many people left now. "Moon" … "Nott" … "Parkinson" … then a pair of twin girls, "Patil" and "Patil" … then "Perks, Sally-Anne" … and for some reason –

"Potter, Harry James!"

There was a deafening silence.

"Potter, did she say?"

"The Harry Potter?"

Everyone looked around, waiting for someone to step forward and wear the hat, but nobody did.

"Potter, Harry James!" Professor McGonagall repeated, who now seemed a bit worried. To everyone's horror, no one answered. All the teachers stood from the high table where they were seated, trying to get a better look at the remaining first years in the middle of the hall. All of them alarmed to realize that Harry Potter was never among them.

Questions began to erupt from the crowd. People whispered among themselves asking...

Could the boy had wandered and got lost around the castle somewhere?

Or maybe not… he may have never made it to Hogwarts... in the first place.