Harry went back to the changing room and selected "Harry Potter (Wizard)." Immediately he was dressed in his school robes.

Hm.

Judging from Hagrid's reaction, nobody would notice if he looked like somebody else. Not even taking on Lord Voldemort's appearance had elicited a reaction from Hagrid. Harry started paging through the avatar list. Was there anybody he wanted to look like?

Harry briefly lingered on Cedric Diggory's name. Did he want to "dress up" as Cedric? The student was handsome enough to interest Cho Chang. Perhaps Harry would enjoy being good-looking, even if nobody else could tell.

Then Harry noticed the entry just below that: "Cedric Diggory (corpse)". Harry involuntarily recalled the sight of Cedric's corpse hitting the ground, Voldemort's cruel voice echoing "kill the spare". Dressing up as Cedric, Harry decided, would just be in poor taste. That went double for whoever decided to include a dead-but-living Cedric Diggory in the avatar listing.

It has to have been somebody's poor idea of a joke, Harry thought to himself. Honestly, who would even be interested in an undead version of that guy?

Shaking his head at the poor taste of some people, Harry kept paging through the list.

"Next. Next. Next."

Harry eventually got to the end of the list. None of the options he saw really interested him.

Oh, well. Wizarding Harry is as good as anything, I suppose.

"Cancel."

Harry stepped outside again.

"Hey there, Harry," Hagrid said, exactly the same as he did before. "Are you ready to go?"

Harry responded, "Yeah, Hagrid. Let's go."

Everything faded to black. White text appeared over a black backdrop, then scrolled up and disappeared.

And so, Harry caught the Hogwarts Express from Platform 9 and 3/4's and left the muggle world far behind.

Reality faded in as it usually did following such narrations, and Harry looked around to figure out where he was.

He didn't have to look far. He and several other children were following Professor McGonagall to the front of the Great Hall. Unless Harry was mistaken, this was the Sorting Ceremony. Harry sighed. He had been looking forward to meeting his friends onboard the Hogwarts Express, before they arrived at school.

Still, I suppose I didn't miss too much, he thought to himself. And it's not like we'll be in separate houses, anyways. I'll probably see them again in a few minutes.

Still, Harry was a bit disappointed.

Harry waited at the front of the Great Hall with the rest of the first-year students. He recognized most of the teachers; there were Professors Sprout and Flitwick. There was Snape with his greasy hair and hook-nose. Dumbledore was there too, but he wasn't sitting in his usual Headmaster's spot. In his place was a middle-age man wearing tweed formal robes. The man had short hair and a rather large bald spot. Also at the staff table was a young woman, apparently in her early twenties. Unlike all the other people at the table, she dressed more like a muggle than a wizard. She wore black skintight fabric with a pink cloth tied off to drape over her torso and waist as well as red baggy armwarmers. She had green hair and long green webbed ears that stuck straight out to either side of her head. She was animatedly talking to the diminuitive Professor Flitwick, who was smiling and engaged in conversation with her.

This woman, Harry concluded, must be the Professor Stoat that Hagrid told me about earlier.

The man in the tweed robes stood up. "Greetings everyone, and welcome to another year at Hogwarts. I am Professor Forsett, and I am the Headmaster here at Hogwarts. To the first-years I say welcome, and may you have an enjoyable seven years in which to learn and grow.

"Now, there are a few things to address before the Sorting Ceremony commences. First I would like to remind everybody that the Forbidden Forest is strictly off-limits. Additionally, use of combat spells outside of their designated classrooms is strictly prohibited. Finally, there have been some unfortunate lapses in security in the past, so I must remind everybody here that any creature not on the approved familiars list must be screened by the appropriate Ministry of Magic process before it is brought into Hogwarts. Failure to do so could lead to severe consequences, up to and including permanent removal from Hogwarts."

A dull murmur started up as the students discussed this with each other.

"Not to worry, though. If you brought an owl, rat, or frog as indicated by the letter, you should be perfectly fine. If there is any uncertainty, you may ask your Head of House about it later. Now! Let the Sorting commence!"

Professor Forsett sat down as Professor Mcgonagall stood up and called students to the Sorting Hat, one by one.

"Abbot, Hannah!"

Just for fun, Harry amused himself by trying to remember which house each student would be called to before the Sorting Hat made its decision.

"Hufflepuff!"

He managed to remember over half the students before they were sorted, and he recognized most of the rest once the Hat sorted them, but some of the students had names he didn't recognize at all. Apparently he'd never interacted with Mandy Brocklehurst (Ravenclaw) or Stephen Cornfoot (also Ravenclaw) or Tracey Davis (Slytherin). The other students waiting for their turn under the hat were nervous, but Harry was just bored.

Although, a thought struck Harry, the world has been pretty weird recently. What if the Sorting Hat refuses to sort me again? And I just sit there with the Sorting Hat on my head forever, until Professor McGonagall says 'there's obviously been some mistake, you'll have to leave Hogwarts at once.'

Okay, now Harry was nervous.

Oddly enough, although Harry didn't realize it, the fears that went through his head then were almost exactly the same as the fears he experienced the first time he was Sorted.

Finally, after Perks, Sally-anne (Unknown, Harry had been lost in thought), Harry's name was called.

"Potter, Harry!"

Harry listened for the murmured "Did she say 'Harry Potter'" that inevitably made its way around the audience, but to his relief there was no more or less chatter for him than there had been for any of the other students.

It would be something of a relief, but Harry was still nervous about the impending ordeal. His hands felt clammy and he felt butterflies in his stomach as he walked up to the Sorting Hat.

He wasn't prepared for what happened next.

As he stepped in front of the Sorting Hat, a window appeared. Everything but the hat on the stool and the window faded to black. The window wrote text on the screen at the exact speed the Sorting Hat spoke it.

You're approached by a frenzied classmate who yells "I'm going to cast metaphilofrogistan on you!" You:
A: Say "Really? What does that do?"
B: Say "Calm down, let's talk this over."
C: Draw your wand to defend yourself.
D: Look forward to defeating this obvious lunatic.

Harry looked at the text on the screen. He looked at the hat on the stool.
"I am dying," Harry said, "and these are the hallucinations of my oxygen-starved brain."
Harry looked at the text again, sighed, and answered it.
"B. 'Let's talk this over.'"

"Hmmm. Interesting," the hat said before continuing with the text.

What job would you like when you graduate from Hogwarts?
A) Researcher
B) Minister for Magic
C) Auror
D) Bartender

Harry thought about this. Before his second life, Harry had plans to be an Auror. Now that the world had gone crazy on him, Harry just wanted a nice, calm, peaceful existence.
"D. Bartender."
"I see," said the hat thoughtfully.

A rare and probably dangerous monster is wandering in the corridors. You:
A) Attempt to drive it out of Hogwarts.
B) Stick around to learn more about it.
C) Walk away. It's not your problem.
D) Run to inform a teacher.

Harry chuckled as he remembered the Troll that Quirrel had let into the castle.
"A. Drive it out."
"Oh, very good," said the hat.

Which magical creature would you most like to encounter:
A) A friendly magical creature.
B) A rare or poorly-understood magical creature, to learn more about it.
C) A dangerous magical creature, to face it in combat.
D) An obedient magical creature, to do your bidding.

Harry thought about the creatures he could remember facing: Centaurs, Goblins, a Basilisk, werewolf... they had all tried to kill him at some point. Why couldn't Harry ever meet a nice, friendly horribly threatening monster?
"A."

"Hmmm. Yes, I see," said the hat.

You enter your intimidating teacher's private room when nobody is looking and look around for...
A) Advanced reading material.
B) Incriminating evidence.
C) The teacher. Face your fears.
D) A friend of yours who is always getting herself lost.

Harry thought of getting caught looking through Snape's private stash of potion ingredients. None of the options fit the scenario, but the closest one would probably be "looking for incriminating evidence".
"B."

"Very well, it seems that you would do best in..." the window disappeared and the Great Hall returned, "Hufflepuff!"

Author's notes:
For everybody telling me that my chapters need to be longer: I'm sorry but I can't promise anything. As I've stated in my profile, I suffer from anxiety issues. The best way for me to get anything done is to split it up into small pieces. The more I try to accomplish at once, the more likely it is that I'll get overwhelmed and not do anything. Also, I'm also something of an anti-perfectionist. I like to get everything done in one run, even if it's not perfect. Smaller chapters work better for this.

When I imagine Professor Stoat, the mental image I have is that of a minor character from an anime I watched when I was younger. The first person to correctly identify the anime and the character gets a walk-on cameo or the answer to any question I can answer. If nobody gets it by the end of Harry's first school year, I'll just tell you.

Also, there were two more questions I had in mind for the quiz (If you've played Morrowind or Fallout 3, you know what my inspiration was for this), but I wound up not using them. I think I was going to use one as a tiebreaker, in case Harry preferred two or more houses equally. It looks like that wasn't necessary.

The questions were:

What would be the worst thing for somebody else to call you?
Ordinary
Ignorant
Cowardly
Selfish

How would you most prefer to be described?
Smart
Cunning
Loyal
Brave

If you can't figure out which answers would correspond to which houses... well, let's just say you shouldn't be sorted into Ravenclaw. =P