Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone: Chapter 7 - The Sorting Hat
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Chapter 7
The Sorting Hat
“Is everyone here?” asks Hagrid. “Right then!” They follow him up a large flight of stairs to a huge front door made of hard oak wood. Hagrid raises a gigantic hand and knocks three times on the castle door. The huge oak door opens immediately, and loudly.
Standing there is a tall witch with black hair, wearing emerald-green robes. Her face is very severe. The first thing Harry thinks is: I do not want to make this person angry! “Here are your first year students, Professor McGonagall,” says Hagrid. “Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here.” She opens the doors all the way and the students enter the hall.
The hall is massive. There is a magnificent marble staircase in front of them that goes to the floors upstairs. Up ahead on their right, there is the sound of hundreds of people in conversation. “Welcome to Hogwarts!” says Professor McGonagall. “You will join your classmates in a moment for the opening banquet, where you will be sorted into your houses. Follow me, children.”
Professor McGonagall continues, “The sorting is a very important ceremony because your new house will become like a family to you here at Hogwarts. You will have classes with your housemates, you will sleep in your house dormitory and you will spend your free time with the other children from your house in your house common room.”
“There are four houses at Hogwarts. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own important history. And each house has produced great witches and wizards. If you perform well, your house will receive points. If you break the rules, your house will lose points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points will win the House Cup. It is a great honor. I hope each of you will be of help to your house this year.
The Sorting Ceremony will begin in a few moments, in front of all the other students.” As the group walks through the dark hall, several of the children scream! “What’s that?” someone yells. Harry looks around and gasps - there are about twenty ghosts that suddenly appear in the hall. They are passing through one of the walls and floating towards the great hall. The ghosts are white, the color of pearls, and transparent.
They float in the air across the hall. They are talking to each other. They ignore the group of first year students who are standing there in shock. Then one ghost, a fat friar, notices them. “Are you about to be sorted?” he asks. The children just nod their heads up and down in shock. They cannot speak! “Let’s go Hufflepuff!” yells the fat friar ghost as he disappears through the other wall into the great hall.
“Come along now, children,” says Professor McGonagall in a stern voice. “The Sorting Ceremony is about to begin. Follow me, in a line.” Harry is very nervous. His legs feel like they are made of iron. Ron is behind him in line and they enter the Great Hall through a large doorway. Harry has never seen or imagined anything like what he sees. It is a strange but splendid place.
There are thousands of candles floating in the air, illuminating the room. In front of Harry there are four long tables, where all the other students are sitting. The tables are covered with golden plates and cups.
At the end of the hall, there is another table where all the teachers are sitting. Professor McGonagall leads the students towards this table. There are hundreds of faces looking at them in the candlelight. Sitting with the students, here and there, are the ghosts!
Professor McGonagall places a four-legged stool in front of all the first year students. On top of the stool there is a pointed wizard’s hat. The hat is old and extremely dirty. Harry does not know what is going to happen. Maybe he will have to pull a rabbit out of the hat, he thinks with fear! All of the first year students are now looking at the old hat. Suddenly, a tear in the hat, near the brim, opens like a big mouth, and begins to speak:
"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,
But do not judge on what you see,
I'll eat my own self if you can find
A hat that is smarter than me.
For I am the Hogwarts Sorting Hat,
and I’ll tell you where you should be.
You might belong in Gryffindor,
where live the courageous hearts,
You might belong in Hufflepuff,
Where justice sets you apart,
Or maybe in wise old Ravenclaw,
if you have an intelligent mind,
Or perhaps in Slytherin,
where real friends you will find.
So put me on! Do not be afraid!
For I am the Thinking Cap,
And I will come to your aid!
All the children in the hall begin to clap and cheer when the hat finishes. “So all we have to do is put the hat on?” Ron says to Harry. “My brothers told me it was very painful and that I would cry! I’m going to kill Fred. He said it was like wrestling a troll!” Harry smiles. Yes, just trying on the hat is much better than casting a spell. But Harry wishes he doesn't have to try the hat on in front of all the other students.
Harry doesn’t feel courageous, or intelligent at the moment. He wishes there were a house for boys who are scared and insecure. That is the house for him, he thinks. Professor McGonagall walks forward and holds a long roll of paper, a parchment scroll. “When I call your name,” she says, “you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted.”
“Abbot, Hannah!” A young girl with a pink face walks forward. She picks up the hat, sits down and then puts the hat on her head. It falls right down over her eyes! There is a pause that lasts only a moment and then the hat yells, “HUFFLEPUFF!”
All the children at the table on the right begin to clap and cheer. Hannah walks over to the table. The fat friar ghost is at the table. He floats over to Hannah and shakes her hand.
“Bones, Susan!” yells Professor McGonagall. “HUFFLEPUFF!” the hat shouts again. Susan follows Hannah and the table begins to cheer again.
“Boot, Terry!”
“RAVENCLAW!”
Another table erupts with cheers and clapping. Several children from Ravenclaw stand up and shake hands with Terry as he sits down with them.
“Bulstrode, Millicent!” Millicent is the first child to be sorted into Slytherin. Harry has heard about Slytherin, but when he looks at all the children sitting at the long Slytherin table, they do not look like very nice children. Harry hopes he is not chosen to be in Slytherin. Then suddenly he has an even more terrifying thought: what if he is not chosen at all? What if the sorting hat doesn’t say anything, and Professor McGonagall has to make him leave Hogwarts in front of all the other children?
Harry finally returns to reality when he hears, “Granger, Hermione!” Hermione runs quickly to the stool and pushes the hat hard onto her head. Almost instantly the hat screams, “GRYFFINDOR!” Ron makes a groaning sound, “Ahhghhh!”
When Neville Longbottom, the boy who keeps losing his frog, is called, he trips on the stool and almost drops the hat. The hat takes a long time to decide. Finally, it yells, “GRYFFINDOR!” and Neville runs off to the table still wearing the sorting hat on his head! Professor McGonagall has to go after him to get it.
“Malfoy, Draco!” Malfoy walks forward full of confidence when his name is called. The hat barely touches his head when it screams, “SLYTHERIN!” Malfoy joins his other friends Crabbe and Goyle at the Slytherin table. He seems very happy with himself.
Soon the moment Harry fears the most arrives: “Potter, Harry!” Harry walks forward nervously. The whole room becomes silent, then everyone begins whispering to each other - “Potter? The Harry Potter?” the children say quietly. The last thing Harry sees before the hat covers his eyes is the Great Hall full of children all looking at him.
There is a low voice in his ear. “Difficult. Very difficult. You have great courage, I see. Your mind is good, too. There is lots of talent. And…oh, yes, you have a strong desire to prove yourself. That is interesting. So…which house do you belong in?” Harry closes his eyes tightly and thinks, not Slytherin, not Slytherin!
“Not Slytherin?” the voice says. “Are you sure? You could be great, and Slytherin can help you find greatness. But, if you’re sure, if that’s where you really want to be…GRYFFINDOR!” Harry takes off the hat slowly. He is very relieved. He walks over to the Gryffindor table. He does not realize it, but he is receiving the loudest cheers of all. Percy, Ron’s brother, who is the leader of Gryffindor, the Prefect, gets up and shakes Harry’s hand vigorously. Harry sits down with a big smile on his face.
From where he is sitting, he can see the High Table clearly. He can see all the teachers, and he can see Hagrid there, too. Hagrid gives Harry a big “thumbs up”. Harry smiles at him. And there, in the center of the table is Albus Dumbledore. Harry can see Professor Quirrell at the table, too. He is wearing a large and strange purple turban.
Finally the sorting comes to an end, and Professor McGonagall picks up the sorting hat and carries it away. Then Albus Dumbledore stands up. He is very happy to see all the new students. “Welcome,” he says, with his arms open wide. “Welcome to a new year here at Hogwarts! Before we begin, I would just like to say a few words: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! That is all! Thank you!”
Many of the new children think Dumbledore must be crazy! What do those silly words mean? Harry does not know if he should laugh or not. Then Percy asks him, “Potatoes, Harry?” Harry’s eyes open wide. Just moments before, the plates on the table were empty. Now they are full of all kinds of different foods - roast beef, roast chicken, bacon and steak, sausages, pudding, carrots, and piles and piles of mashed potatoes!
As they are eating, one of the ghosts says, “Oh, that looks so good! I haven’t eaten in more than four hundred years, but you never forget how delicious a good steak tastes!” “I know who you are!” Ron says suddenly. “My brothers told me about you. You’re ‘Nearly Headless Nick’!”
One of the other children asks, “Nearly Headless? How can you be ‘nearly’ headless?” Sir Nicholas the ghost looks unhappy. He is hoping the children do not talk about his name. But he feels he must explain: “I’m nearly headless because of this!” He raises his arm over his head and pulls on his opposite ear. His whole head swings almost completely off his neck, like it is on a hinge.
Someone has obviously tried to decapitate him, but they did not do a complete job. He pushes his head back onto his shoulders and says, “New Gryffindors! I hope you will help us win the house championship this year. We have not won in so many years, I am beginning to worry if we will ever win again! We must end Slytherin’s record - they have won six times in a row!!”
Harry eats happily and talks excitedly with his new housemates. Dessert arrives and he eats many plates of delicious ice cream. He is feeling relaxed and a little sleepy. He sits back in his chair and looks at the High Table and sees Professor Quirrell talking to another teacher with long black hair and a hooked nose, like the beak of a bird. He is very pale.
It happens very suddenly. The teacher with the hooked nose looks over Quirrell’s shoulder, straight into Harry’s eyes. Harry feels a sharp, hot pain across the scar on his forehead. “Ouch!” Harry covers the scar with his hand. The pain leaves as quickly as it arrives. But Harry cannot stop thinking about the look on the pale teacher’s face. It seems like the teacher does not like Harry at all.
“Who is the teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?” he asks Percy. “That’s Professor Snape. He teaches Potions. But everyone knows he wants Quirrell’s position. Snape knows a lot about the Dark Arts.” Harry looks at Snape for a while. But Snape does not look at him again. The meal finally comes to an end. The desserts disappear, and all the plates and cups are magically clean and shiny.
Albus Dumbledore stands up once again to talk to the students. He warns the new students to avoid the forest - it is full of monsters and very dangerous! He also tells them that they cannot use magic in the corridors between classes. Quidditch trials will begin in two weeks, he says, and anyone interested in playing for their house should talk to Madam Hooch. And finally, he tells the new students that this year, the corridor on the right-hand side on the third floor is prohibited, unless they want to die a terrible death.
Harry is not sure if he should laugh or if Dumbledore is serious. But before he can ask, all the students stand up and the Prefects of each house call out to all the new students. Percy, the Prefect of house Gryffindor, yells, “Follow me newbies! Stay close, you don’t want to get lost!” They follow him out of the Great Hall and up the magnificent marble staircase.
They go through many passages and up long flights of stairs. They go through hidden doorways and behind hanging tapestries. Harry is beginning to get tired when finally they stop in front of a large painting of a fat woman in a pink dress. She is moving! And then she speaks! “Password?” “Caput Draconis,” says Percy, and the painting swings open like a door. And there, in the wall behind the painting, is a round opening that leads into the common room of house Gryffindor.
It is a comfortable round room with big puffy sofas to sit on. Percy shows the boys to their side of the house and then he shows the girls to their side. Their trunks are already waiting for them in their rooms. Each room has five large beds with red curtains. The boys are too tired to talk. They put on their pajamas and climb into bed. Harry falls asleep immediately.
He has a very strange dream that night. He dreams he is wearing Professor Quirrell’s turban. And the turban talks to him. It tells him he must transfer to Slytherin immediately, it is his destiny! Harry tells the turban he doesn't want to be in Slytherin and he tries to take off the turban. But the turban becomes tighter and tighter.
And then he sees Malfoy in his dream, laughing at him. Then Malfoy turns into the hooked nose teacher, Snape. He hears that same high, cold laugh and the burst of green light. Harry wakes up suddenly! He is sweating and shaking in fear. He rolls over and falls asleep again. And when he wakes up the next day, he doesn’t remember a single thing about his dream.
