Longbottom, Neville
"What have we here? Nervousness, yes, but underneath all that. . . my, what an interesting case. Which house to sort you into?"
I know I'm a Hufflepuff. Gran's told me loads of times that's where I'll end up.
"Hufflepuff? Well, you do have loyalty, and your sense of justice is strong indeed. But behind that justice is so much anger!"
Anger? No, I'm not angry.
"You can't put up a brave front with me, my boy. I can see what's inside you, after all. I see your loyalty, yes, but even stronger, your courage and a deep capacity for selflessness, for sacrifice. . ."
You - you can see all that?
"Oh my, yes! I also see the seeds of ambition in you. . . with the right encouragement, you could go on to greatness. Slytherin could help bring out that side of you."
No.
"Not Slytherin then? Well, -"
They all came from Slytherin. I'll never be one of them. Just put me in Hufflepuff and be done with it.
"Aha! There's the spark coming out. It can be kindled in many different ways, you know. It's up to you which way to go."
I want to go to Hufflepuff.
"Do you, then? With all that valor in there, I would have thought - but no, you've decided on Hufflepuff."
Er, yes. Or, hold on, what valor?
"You could do great things as a Gryffindor. It wouldn't be easy, I'd imagine."
I could work at it.
"Yes, I think you could."
My parents. . . were Gryffindors. Are Gryffindors. I never thought I was like them. Gran always said. . .
"You have what they had. Could follow their paths."
I can do that. I will.
"You mean that, don't you? And you understand all that that may mean. You have bravery indeed, young man. Well, there's no doubt then that you will make your mark in -"
GRYFFINDOR
A/N: I've got some more of these planned out, but I wanted to put up a few to get some feedback on the format and general idea. I'm trying to make these agree with any direct descriptions of the sorting (mostly from the Sorting Hat chapter in SS, though some details come from later books, like Hermione's admission in OOP that the Hat was "seriously considering putting her in Ravenclaw") but mostly I'm going off of my own interpretations of the characters, so I'd love input and critiques. And as I said, I have a whole list of these I'm thinking about, but by all means let me know if you think a certain character definitely deserves the spotlight.