I couldn't help it. I audibly gasped along with the rest of us at the majestic dining room. Flickering candles hovered below the inky black ceiling littered with twinkling stars.

"It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in "Hogwarts a History"," a girl whispered to no one in particular behind me.

Stone walls towered over us, imbetween them four long tables stood filled with students in black flowing school robes. One long table was at the far side of the room, perpendicular to the other four. As all the inhabitants were of age, I figured it was the staff table. This is were we were lead.

I had met Dumbledore once before. He had appeared to have grow older and brighter since the last I saw him. In front of him was an old crusty hat perched on a stool. The sorting hat.

The professor backed us up against the East wall and took her post next to the hat. Startling me a bit, the old hat peeled at the seam and began singing!

"Oh you may not think I'm pretty
But don't judge 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 bbe.

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 Ravenclaw
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 folks use any means
To achieve the 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!"

I enthusiastically clapped along with everyone else. My mind was reeling with new information and pro and con lists of each house. When the hat described them, not one house seemed particularly distasteful to me anymore. Slytherin, I am wary about, but it doesn't sound all that bad! And Ravenclaw or Huffleuff sound nice.

I still ached to be in Gryffindor though. I wanted to follow in my father's footsteps.

The applause died down until only two lanky, red-haired Gryffindors were continuing. Competing to get the last clap. I rolled my eyes; how mature. The professor in green robes raised a scroll of parchment to eye-level and the two boys finally stopped.

"When I call your name you put the sorting hat on your head and your bottom on the chair." A few snickers erupted from the Gryffindor table. "I assure you, there is noting humorous enough to interrupt." She spoke normally but her voice carried throughout the hall. "Abbott, Hannah."

A round faced girl with pigtails took a seat on the stool, the hat sank over her eyes. The flap opened up once again and called out, "HUFFLEPUFF!" Right after her, "Bones, Susan" was sorted into the same house

Taking the opportunity, I scanned over the Great Hall. Closest to me was the Slytherin table. With the emerald green table clothes and the banner hanging above it made it easy to deduce. A serpent was stitched onto the banner.

I, like the girl from before, had also read "Hogwarts, a History". I was familiar with the schools houses, including their ideals, symbols, and and history.

The Slytherins didn't look nearly as unpleasant as I had imagined them to be. Well, most of them anyway.

Decorated in a mellow shade of yellow stood the Hufflepuff table who I must say looked cheerfully friendly. Extraordinarily so when compared to their Slytherin neighbors. They had a badger crested banner.

Further past the Hufflepuffs was the Ravenclaw table. It looked quite magnificent adorned in blue and silver. The banner bore an eagle with spread wings which I thought symbolized their group perfectly. I noticed a large amount of residents at that table had books they were trying to hide under the table clothes. I guess the hat wasn't kidding when he said they were eager to learn. Maybe they should learn how to hide a book under a table; i'm sure everyone can see they are reading.

I was the reminded of the Intro to Charms and Simple Spells book I paced at the top of my trunk for the train ride here. My cheeks turned hot when I realized I wasn't very different from them.

Last but not least was the red and gold table at the opposite end of the room. The Gryffindors! A lion hung above their table, stuck in mid-roar. I smiled, imagining my father, many years before, sitting right over there accompanied by Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.

They burst into applause. A girl with brown bushy hair and a skip in her step had just joined their house. Soon after, a boy on the chubbier side also joined their table. Longbottom was his name if I heard the Professor correctly. I began to drift of into my own thoughts again...

"Lupin, Renea," I heard her call. I jumped out of my stupor and walked to the stool a bit faster than necessary. My fingers drummed the sides of the wooden stool in anxiousness and the hat plunged me into a pungently leather darkness.

"Ah, another werewolf, eh?" I love how that's the first thing he says when roaming my mind. Glad to hear that's my most prominent trait. Good thing only I could hear him.

"No offense meant missy, I was just thinking of Remus."

"My father?"

"The one and only! He nearly fainted, poor boy, the day he was sorted. He was worried about being a werewolf and being put in Slytherin because of it."

I can understand that.

"What's so wrong with Slytherin? You could achieve much in that environment, you have the cunning. The wit."

I gave a short sarcastic laugh. Slytherin, that's funny. Embarrassingly, I had accidentally laughed aloud and could feel the schools eyes on me. They were starring at me. I don't really blame them.

I felt the flap move against my brow as the hat began to laugh aloud to the school. I didn't quite see what was so funny.

He only spoke to me again when he continued. "No, no... Ha! No, not Slytherin then? You don't have the thirst for power anyways, i'd say it's a No-Go."

My entire body visibly relaxed and I began to appreciate the hats easy going personality.

"I find that flattering, Renea. Now, let's see, less about me more about you, what else have we got..." The hat remained silent for a good two minutes. I started getting antsy. What if I don't even belong anywhere?

"I've got it!" he concluded, startling me by his abruptness from the silence. The flap moved and I heard him shout, "Ravenclaw!"

The hat was lifted from my head revealing the blue table to my near right clapping in approval. I took a seat next to the girl I had recognized. She was behind me in line during our march to the Great Hall, the was with surprised features.

"Hello," she said in a dreamy whisper of a voice. "I'm Luna, Luna Lovegood. And this is Terry." she added pointing to a freckle faced boy across the table from us. He had darkly tanned skin and strikig green eyes, He had medium length brown hair that tangled with his eyelashes.

"Hi," was all he said.

"Renea Lupin," I replied smiling and the strange pair.

"Malfoy, Draco." I sniggered at his name on impulse.

"It's not that bad of a name," Luna said, "It's not like people call him 'Looney Lovegood' behind his back." Her face was pan, still as light and surprised as it was when I sat down.

I instantly felt bad.

But Draco practically strutted up to the stool, and I wanted to laugh even more. My stomach hurt from restraint.

"What was her name again?" I whispered to Luna.

"Draco?" she asked.

I snorted a bit at the thought of Draco in a dress and his gelled platinum hair in pigtails. "No, the Professor calling off names."

"McGonagall," Terry said. I noticed that his husky voice didn't quite match his boyish face. I guess puberty decided to skip the whole physical appearance thing for now.

"Ah, that sounds familiar." Luna faced the front again. Draco had been declared a Slytherin. He stalked over to the green table to sit with his friends from the train. Blaise was the only one I really remembered, but he was still waiting to get sorted.

"Malfoy, Syreni."

Her walk remarkably reminded me of her brothers. Did they take catwalk classes together as toddlers? The hat barely made contact with her head when it screamed, "SLYTHERIN!"

She shot a sorry look my way and scampered off to sit with the other snakes. Or should I say slithered off?

"Potter, Harry."

The entire Hall went silent for a moment in time. Then hisses of whispers broke out among the crowd.

"Harry Potter?"

"His forehead!"

"The Harry Potter?"

"The boy who lived?"

"He's going to Hogwarts?"

"Woah!"

"Look at his scar!"

Harry's face blushed red as he sat down at the stool. I wonder where he will be put.

"Gryffindor, I suppose," a boy down the table said. "He did beat You-Know-Who for crying out loud."

"But he was just a baby," a girl next to him added. "It's not like he chose to fight him and live, he just did. That doesn't make him brave."

An older student in large spectacles leaned forward and waggled his finger. "If we look at it from a different perspective, we could theorize that Harry Potter is in fact a dark wizard."

"What?" the girl scoffed.

"Well think about it this way. How else could a small child be able to defeat something trained wizards, experts in their field, couldn't conquer? He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was defeated by a greater darker power, it makes sense!"

"Bullocks," the other boy snickered. "The Boy Who Lived - Dark Wizard? Ha!"

"GRYFFINDOR!" The sorting hat shouted.

The red and gold table erupted in applause. The boy shouted over the din, "TOLD YOU! Dark Wizard, Indeed!"

"You can only conqeur darkness with light!" The girl added.

Others were then sorted along with a guy named Seamus. I recall him becoming a Gryffindor mainly because he had a funny name. The others I paid little attention to, I was too busy evaluating the teachers.

To my immense disappointment, "Zabini, Blaise," was also sorted into Slytherin. He was the last to be sorted.