Chapter 88: The Sorting

"Hermione, I just remembered, I forgot my paper for Astronomy." I said, as the carriage took us up towards Hogwarts.

"I don't see why you're telling me this." she snapped.

"Because I was hoping that you would let me take a look at yours, so that-"

"Oh no you don't, Ronald Weasley!" said Hermione, sounding almost like Mum. "I won't have you copying off my paper just because you are too irresponsible to remember yours."

"Oh come off it, Mione, I don't wanna copy! I just needed a start!"

"I already said no, Ron." said Hermione, crossing her arms. "You better copy Harry's or something.

"But I don't want to fail." I said, giving Harry a sideways glance.

"Bugger off, Weasley." laughed Harry.

"You bugger off." I said back. "You suck at Astronomy, mate."

"You wanna know what you suck at?"

"Could you not, Harry?" said Hermione, rolling her eyes.

Lightning flashed across the sky as their carriage came to a halt before the great oak front doors, which stood at the top of a flight of stone steps. People who had occupied the carriages in front were already hurrying up the stone steps into the castle. The three of us and Neville jumped down from our carriage and dashed up the steps too, looking up only when we were safely inside the torch-lit entrance hall, with its magnificent marble staircase.

"Blimey," I said, shaking my head and sending water everywhere, "if that keeps up the lake's going to overflow. I'm soak - ARRGH!"

A large, red, water-filled balloon had dropped from out of the ceiling onto my head and exploded. I staggered sideways into Harry, just as a second water bomb dropped - narrowly missing Hermione, it burst at Harry's feet. People all around us shrieked and started pushing one another in their efforts to get out of the line of fire. Harry nudged me and pointed up. Floating twenty feet above us, fucking Peeves face contorted with concentration as he took aim again.

"PEEVES!" yelled an angry voice. "Peeves, come down here at ONCE!"

Professor McGonagall had come dashing out of the Great Hall; she skidded on the wet floor and grabbed Hermione around the neck to stop herself from falling.

"Ouch - sorry, Miss Granger -"

"That's all right, Professor!" Hermione gasped, massaging her throat.

"Peeves, get down here NOW!" barked Professor McGonagall, straightening her pointed hat and glaring upward through her square-rimmed spectacles.

"Not doing nothing!" cackled Peeves, lobbing a water bomb at several fifth-year girls, who screamed and dived into the Great Hall. "Already wet, aren't they? Little squirts! Wheeeeeeeeee!" And he aimed another bomb at a group of second years who had just arrived.

"I shall call the headmaster!" shouted Professor McGonagall. "I'm warning you, Peeves -"

Peeves stuck out his tongue, threw the last of his water bombs into the air, and zoomed off up the marble staircase, cackling insanely.

"Well, move along, then!" said Professor McGonagall sharply to the bedraggled crowd. "Into the Great Hall, come on!"

We slipped and slid across the entrance hall and through the double doors on the right, I muttered furiously under my breath as I pushed my sopping hair off my face. Seemed like everything that could go wrong to me, was going wrong.

I blamed the fucked up dress robes.

The Great Hall looked its usual brilliant self, decorated for the start-of-term feast. Golden plates and goblet shown brightly by the light of hundreds and hundreds of candles, floating over the tables in midair. The four long House tables were packed with chattering students; at the top of the Hall, the staff sat along one side of a fifth table, facing their pupils. It was much warmer in here, thank Merlin. Harry, Hermione, and I walked past the Slytherins, Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs, and sat down with the rest of the Gryffindors at the far side of the Hall, next to Nearly Headless Nick, who was looking quite festive.

"Good evening," he said as me smiled at us.

"Says who?" said Harry, taking off his sneakers and emptying them of water. "Hope they hurry up with the Sorting. I'm starving."

"You and me both, mate." I said as I proceeded wringing out my hair.

The Sorting of the new students into Houses took place at the start of every school year, but because of what happened at the beginning of second and third year, Harry hadn't been present at one since his own.

"Hiya, Harry!" said Colin Creevey, Harry's third year groupie.

"Hi, Colin," said Harry warily.

"Harry, guess what? Guess what, Harry? My brother's starting! My brother Dennis!"

"Er - good," said Harry.

"He's really excited!" said Colin, practically bouncing up and down in his seat. "I just hope he's in Gryffindor! Keep your fingers crossed, eh, Harry?"

"Er - yeah, all right," said Harry. He turned back to Hermione, Nearly Headless Nick, and I.

"Brothers and sisters usually go in the same Houses, don't they?" he said.

"Oh no, not necessarily," said Hermione. "Parvati Patil's twin's in Ravenclaw, and they're identical. You'd think they'd be together, wouldn't you?"

"I always forget that Parvati has a twin." I said.

"Sadly, I think she does too sometimes." said Hermione. I shrugged her words off, not knowing what they meant.

"Where's the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" said Hermione, who was looking up at the teachers table.

"Good question." said Harry. "Wish Lupin was coming back."

"Oh yeah." I agreed. "He was brilliant."

We had never yet had a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who had lasted more than three terms. Our favorite by far had been Professor Lupin, who had resigned last year.

"Maybe they couldn't get anyone!" said Hermione, looking anxious.

I was starting to grow impatient. "Oh hurry up," I moaned, feeling myself waste away, "I could eat a hippogriff."

The words were no sooner out of my mouth than the doors of the Great Hall opened and silence fell. Professor McGonagall was leading a long line of first years up to the top of the Hall. If the three of us were wet, it was nothing to how these first years looked. They appeared to have swum across the lake rather than sailed. All of them were shivering with a combination of cold and nerves as they filed along the staff table and came to a halt in a line facing the rest of the school - all of them except the smallest of the lot, a boy with mousy hair, who was wrapped in what looked like Hagrid's moleskin overcoat. The coat was so big for him that it looked as though he were draped in a furry black bear skin. He gave Colin a thumbs up and mouthed I fell in the lake! He looked positively delighted about it.

Professor McGonagall now placed a three-legged stool on the ground before the first years and, on top of it, an extremely old, dirty patched wizard's hat. The first years stared at it. So did everyone else. For a moment, there was silence. Then a long tear near the brim opened wide like a mouth, and the hat broke into song:

A thousand years or more ago,

When I was newly sewn,

There lived four wizards of renown,

Whose names are still well known:

Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor,

Fair Ravenclaw, from glen,

Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad,

Shrewd Slytherin, from fin.

They shared a wish, a hope, a dream,

They hatched a daring plan

To educate young sorcerers

Thus Hogwarts School began.

Now each of these four founders

Formed their own house, for each

Did value different virtues

In the ones they had to teach.

By Gryffindor, the bravest were

Prized far beyond the rest;

For Ravenclaw, the cleverest

Would always be the best;

For Hufflepuff, hard workers were

Most worthy of admission;

And power-hungry Slytherin

Loved those of great ambition.

While still alive they did divide

Their favorites from the throng,

Yet how to pick the worthy ones

When they were dead and gone?

Twas Gryffindor who found the way,

He whipped me off his head

The founders put some brains in me

So I could choose instead!

Now slip me snug about your ears,

I've never yet been wrong,

I'll have a look inside your mind

And tell where you belong!

The Great Hall rang with applause as the Sorting Hat finished.

"That's not the song it sang when it Sorted us." said Harry, clapping along with everyone else.

"Sings a different one every year," I told him. "It's got to be a pretty boring life, hasn't it, being a hat? I suppose it spends all year making up the next one."

Hermione rolled her eyes at my statement as she clapped.

Professor McGonagall was now unrolling a large scroll of parchment.

"When I call out your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool," she told the first years. "When the hat announces your House, you will go and sit at the appropriate table.

"Ackerley, Stewart!"

A boy walked forward, visibly trembling from head to foot, picked up the Sorting Hat, put it on, and sat down on the stool.

"RAVENCLAW!" shouted the hat.

Stewart Ackerley took off the hat and hurried into a seat at the Ravenclaw table, where everyone was applauding him. I caught Harry glancing over at Cho, the Ravenclaw Seeker, cheering Stewart Ackerley as he sat down. I gave Hermione a knowing look, and made myself a mental not to ask him about that later.

"Baddock, Malcolm!"

"SLYTHERIN!"

The table on the other side of the hall erupted with cheers; we could see Malfoy clapping as Baddock joined the Slytherins. Fred and George hissed at Malcolm Baddock as he sat down.

"Branstone, Eleanor!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Cauldwell, Owen!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Creevey, Dennis!"

Tiny Dennis Creevey staggered forward, tripping over Hagrid's moleskin, just as Hagrid himself sidled into the Hall through a door behind the teachers' table.

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat shouted.

Hagrid clapped along with the Gryffindors as Dennis Creevey, beaming widely, took off the hat, placed it back on the stool, and hurried over to join his brother.

"Colin, I fell in!" he said excitedly, throwing himself into an empty seat. "It was brilliant! And something in the water grabbed me and pushed me back in the boat!"

"Cool!" said Colin, just as excitedly. "It was probably the giant squid, Dennis!"

"Wow!" said Dennis, astounded, as if that was his fondest wish come true.

"Dennis! Dennis! See that boy down there? The one with the black hair and glasses? See him? Know who he is, Dennis?"

Harry looked away, staring very hard at the Sorting Hat, now Sorting Emma Dobbs. I couldn't help but snicker.

The Sorting continued; boys and girls with varying degrees of fright on their faces moving one by one to the three-legged stool, the line dwindling slowly as Professor McGonagall passed the L's. This shit was taking way too long.

"Oh hurry up," I moaned, massaging my growling and more than likely eating itself by now stomach.

"Now, Ron, the Sorting is much more important than food," said Nearly Headless Nick as "Madley, Laura!" became a Hufflepuff.

"Course it is, if you're dead." I said.

"I do hope this year's batch of Gryffindors are up to scratch," said Nearly Headless Nick, applauding as "McDonald, Natalie!" joined the Gryffindor table. "We don't want to break our winning streak, do we?"

"Pritchard, Graham!"

"SLYTHERIN!"

"Quirke, Orla!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

And finally, with "Whitby, Kevin!" ("HUFFLEPUFF!"), the Sorting ended. Professor McGonagall picked up the hat and the stool and carried them away.

"About time," I said ecstatically, seizing my knife and fork and looking longingly at my golden plate.

Professor Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was smiling around at the students, his arms opened wide in welcome.

"I have only two words to say to you," he told us, his deep voice echoing around the Hall. "Tuck in."

"Hear, hear!" yelled Harry and I loudly as the empty dishes filled magically before our eyes.