"Just sit still for a minute!" I said to Roger Davies, who squirmed out of the way of the Sorting Hat. "I swear it won't hurt!

"I just want to sit in peace!" Roger yelled, his feet dangling off the side of one of the tall shelves in the library. "Leave me alone!"

Ron waved his long arms to distract Roger. Ron was on the ground while I stood precariously on the top of the library shelf with the Sorting Hat in hand. Roger looked down at Ron, and I shoved the hat on his head. He became an enormous egg with very long legs.

"Got it!" I yelled.

Roger suddenly didn't care that the hat was on his head, and just scratched his smooth white skin with a gloved hand.

"Can't I just shove him off and get it over with?" I asked Ron desperately from atop the shelf, which had transformed into a stone wall because of the Sorting Hat.

"Better not," Ron replied, so we waited. I looked for a way down, and found a rope ladder a few feet away. I climbed down, and Roger started to whistle an upbeat tune, swaying back in forth. His round body couldn't keep balanced and he over-swayed, pitching himself forward off the wall.

"Oh no!" he cried as he fell, and then he smashed into pieces. I looked over at Ron from the ladder. Ron just stared at the gooey mess, where the Sorting Hat, two gloves and a couple of large eyeballs floated.

"Well this is traumatic," Ron said, gawking at one of the round eyes that unmistakably belonged to Roger. A few moments later, horses arrived carrying a few fifth year students on their backs. They surveyed the damage, and tried to put the pieces of shell together but couldn't do it.

"It's hopeless," one of them said. "We can't put him back together." At that, the horses turned into students, the wall turned into a shelf, and everyone but Ron and I looked thoroughly confused. Roger rubbed his head as if he had bumped it. I snatched the Sorting Hat.

My legs were aching from running all through the castle. We had finished a few quick stories, nursery rhymes mostly; Humpty Dumpty, Old King Cole, Jack Be Nimble (which had been the easiest), and another song like the Muffin Man that I didn't even know.

We made our way to the front of the library, where Mrs. Pince looked quite angry, examining the dirt on her desk.

"What's wrong?" I asked her, holding my arm out to keep Ron from walking ahead. It was much easier to figure out what story a person was from if I asked a few questions.

"This place is a pigsty!" she complained, looking down at us from above her vulture-like nose. "But it's not like I haven't got someone to fix that... Cinderella!

"Bingo!" Ron said, turning to me. "Who did you say were in Cinderella?

"Padma and Parvati," I replied. "And some second year girl.

"Well then let's get them!" Ron turned to Roger and the other students from Humpty Dumpty. "Make sure she doesn't leave!" he yelled at them, pointing at Mrs Pince. "Unless," he added, "her outfit transforms or something like that, then let her go!" They nodded, and we sprinted out of the library. Cinderella was an undertaking we had not yet attempted. How long would it take? Would we really have to wait until midnight, and then another whole day to try on slippers?

I groaned inwardly thinking of wasting a whole day on a story; our run turned into a trot, and then into a walk.

"I'm tired," Ron admitted as we approached the staircase where I last saw Parvati and Padma. I nodded in agreement, but tried not to lose heart as we searched for the Patil sisters. We had been at it all day, and night was approaching. I looked out a window and over the darkening grounds, watching small dark silhouettes disappearing into the Forbidden Forest.

I pointed this out to Ron and he sighed.

"We're not going to have to go into the forest, are we? I've been there enough to last me a lifetime!"

I didn't answer, knowing that we probably would have to go into the forest to resolve some of the stories. While we tried to count how many people were walking into the trees, a loud crash from a nearby classroom startled us from our daze. A female's scream of frustration immediately followed the crash.

We rushed toward the room, wands and Sorting Hat in hand. The Patil sisters were there, yelling at the small second year girl who had dropped a platter of teacups onto the floor.

"There's no way mother will let you go to the ball now!" Padma screeched at the helpless girl, who tried to clean up the mess.

"But I must go," she said in a tiny voice, cutting a finger on a shard of the broken china. She grimaced, placing the finger in her mouth. Parvati took her foot and roughly kicked the girl's hand away from her mouth.

"You dirty little mouse!" she said.

I exchanged glances with Ron. This was very uncharacteristic of Padma and Parvati, and also uncomfortable to watch. Also, without the hat on, the girl who was Cinderella would receive real bruises from the kicks.

"Let's just hurry it up," Ron suggested, motioning toward the Sorting Hat.

"Okay." I placed it on Cinderella's head. The classroom turned into a fancy sort of bedroom with matching canopy beds. Piles of clothes littered the room. Padma and Parvati were wearing extravagant undergarments, obviously trying on clothes for the ball. Cinderella was wearing rags, her face covered with soot... or bruises. I really couldn't tell.

The sisters took forever to get ready while Cinderella silently helped them dress. Ron and I sat on one of the beds, tired and bored. How long does a girl have to look in a mirror in order to be satisfied and just move on? An hour later, Mrs. Pince entered the room in a glamorous gown.

"It's time, girls," she said, clapping her hands. Parvati and Padma each looked in the mirror one more time before hiking up their long dresses and gliding towards the door.

"May I go, too?" Cinderella asked meekly. Mrs. Pince just laughed, and left the room. Cinderella started to cry.

"I'm sorry," she said, turning to us, wiping her smudged face. "I just wanted to go so badly, and I can't help it.

"We don't mind," Ron yawned. "Cry all you want.

And cry she did. First she sobbed, then she sniffled, then she wept silently, and then started sobbing again.

"I can't take much more of this," Ron said quietly, shaking his head. I agreed. Where was that fairy godmother?

It took her an age to arrive, or maybe it just seemed that way because I was trying to keep myself from falling asleep on the soft canopy bed. She came through the window wearing a long pink dress. Her face was covered with glittered makeup, and my heart fluttered when I saw it was Cho Chang. She looked very nice with her fairy wings keeping her afloat next to Cinderella.

They talked for a while, and before long, Cinderella was decked out in her own gown and glass slippers, also looking slightly goofy with the Sorting Hat on her head. She went to leave the room, and Ron and I looked at each other, each of us lounging on the bed.

"I don't want to get up," I said.

"Me neither," Ron replied.

"Someone has to follow her."

"I vote you," Ron said.

I looked at my watch: Ten o'clock.

"How much would you bet the ball is in the Great Hall?" I asked Ron.

"I'd bet your Firebolt."

If she was going to be down there for two hours, and there was nothing I could do to help anyway, why not just take a little nap and then follow her after midnight? Nothing too bad could happen, and I was completely exhausted.

Before I could even make a decision, I closed my eyes and felt myself drifting away.

It was only a few minutes later that I was jolted awake by Ron.

"Harry!" he said, prodding my side. "Wake up!

"Fine, I'll follow her, but it's just going to be a dumb ball anyway."

"No! Wake up!"

I reached over to the desk next to the one I was lying on, where I had unconsciously placed my glasses. But then I realized that the bed had disappeared. Early morning sunshine was leaking into the classroom.

I got to my feet in a flash. I had been asleep for hours, not minutes!

"Where's the Sorting Hat?" I cried.

"I don't know," Ron said, "but that's the least of our worries. Come on!"

I followed him down the stairs and through the large oak doors to the grounds. Hagrid's hut was surrounded by students who had been set free from their stories.

"I saw them out the window," Ron said breathlessly as we ran to the wooden hut. "Something's got to be wrong."

Neville ran out to meet us when we were about a hundred meters from the hut.

"Harry! Ron! Where's the Sorting Hat? We need it now!"

"Why, what's going on?"

"Hagrid is the giant from Jack in the Beanstalk, and Colin Creevy is Jack. They met each other before we could find them and now we can't keep Hagrid from trying to kill Colin!"

I then realized that half the students were putting their weight against the front door of Hagrid's small house as he tried to burst his way out. The other half was in his back garden, guarding the back door. I could see Cho and Parvati, which meant that Cinderella must have concluded.

Colin stood outside the hut, looking very frustrated that so many people were in his way.

"I need to get the hen that lays golden eggs!" he said suddenly, trying to push his way through the crowd.

"Ron! Hold him back!" I yelled. He complied as I rushed towards the students in the front of the hut.

"Cho!" I yelled over the sound of the banging front door. She turned and looked relieved to see me.

"Luna Lovegood told us everything! Where's the Sorting Hat?" she asked.

"I was about to ask you the same question!" I said, adding my weight to the door to help keep Hagrid inside.

"You mean you don't know?" she shrieked.

"I fell asleep."

Thud!

"When did you last see it?"

Thud!

"On Cinderella's head!"

THUD! I could feel the wooden door beginning to splinter under my hands.

"What are we going to do?" Cho yelled, putting her shoulder against the door. "If we don't put the hat on Colin's head, he could really get hurt!"

"I don't know"

THUD! The wood gave a threatening crack, but held together. Hagrid must have sensed it weakening.

"Fe fi fo fum!" he boomed from within the hut. "I smell the blood of an Englishman!"

I braced myself against the door, waiting for the final blow. The footsteps within took a running start and then... stopped. The hut began to fill with white smoke and even looked like it was growing larger.

"Stand back!" someone yelled, so I ran, making sure Cho got away too. The hut began to levitate, and then suddenly shot into the air like a cork, bringing the white smoke with it. Except, the smoke wasn't smoke at all, but a huge cloud. It stopped when it became level with all the other clouds.

A huge beanstalk started growing where Hagrid's hut used to be. It wound its way up towards the sky like a serpent. Colin approached the base, the Sorting Hat placed firmly on his small head.

I turned to Ron, and saw him grinning next to Remus Lupin.

"Lupin! What are you doing here?" I asked wildly, trotting over to him and Ron.

"Helping you out, it would seem," he said. He motioned for me to come with him out of earshot of everyone else. Ron followed. We passed the girl who had been Cinderella; she held a small mirror in front of her face and gawked at the bruises she had received while engulfed in her story.

"Both Dumbledore and Snape missed an important meeting last night at the Weasley's home," Lupin said in an undertone, glancing at Ron. "I decided to investigate their whereabouts this morning through Dumbledore's fireplace, and found two students kissing quite passionately in his office.

"Was one of them wearing the Sorting Hat?" I asked quickly. Lupin nodded.

"I asked the Sorting Hat what was going on, and he explained everything as the students transformed back into themselves. I told them to stay put and came as quickly as I could. I saw something going on next to Hagrid's hut when I arrived, so I went to Dumbledore's office, grabbed the hat, and came down. Lucky for all of you," he added.

"I don't know WHAT we're going to do," Ron said, scratching his scalp. "We've got dozens of stories to finish, and only one Sorting Hat. Hermione's stuck up in the Gryffindor tower kissing a toad, Dumbledore is frozen in place somewhere."

"And Snape's locked in his dungeon with a sleeping draught that put him out cold."

"How'd you manage that one?" Lupin said with a slight smile. I started to explain but he put a hand up. "Doesn't really matter, but we should try to hurry and resolve all these stories."