She had a very stern face and Harry's first thought was that this was not someone to cross.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here."

She pulled the door wide. The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of

the Dursleys' house in it. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones

at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase

facing them led to the upper floors. They followed Professor McGonagall across

the flagged stone floor. Harry could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway

to the right — the rest of the school must already be here — but Professor McGonagall

showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing

rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly,

but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses.

The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something

like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house,

sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room.

"The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its

own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts,

your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rulebreaking will lose house points.

At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great

honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours.

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school.

I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting."

Her eyes lingered for a moment on Neville's cloak, which was fastened under his left ear,

and on Ron's smudged nose. Harry nervously tried to flatten his hair.

"I shall return when we are ready for you," said Professor McGonagall. "Please wait quietly."

She left the chamber. Harry swallowed. "How exactly do they sort us into houses?"

he asked Ron. "Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it

hurts a lot, but I think he was joking." Harry's heart gave a horrible jolt. A test?

In front of the whole school? But he didn't know any magic yet —what on earth would

he have to do? He hadn't expected something like this the moment they arrived. He looked

around anxiously and saw that everyone else looked terrified, too. No one was talking

much except Hermione Granger, who was whispering very fast about all the spells she'd learned

and wondering which one she'd need. Harry tried hard not to listen to her. He'd never

been more nervous, never, not even when he'd had to take a school report home to the Dursleys

saying that he'd somehow turned his teacher's wig blue. He kept his eyes fixed on the door.

Any second now, Professor McGonagall would come back and lead him to his doom.

Then something happened that made him jump about a foot in the air — several people

behind him screamed. "What the —?"

He gasped. So did the people around him. About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the

back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one

another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be arguing. What looked like

a fat little monk was saying: "Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second

chance —" "My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all

the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not really even

a ghost — I say, what are you all doing here?"

A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years.

Nobody answered. "New students!" said the Fat Friar, smiling

around at them. "About to be Sorted, I suppose?" A few people nodded mutely.

"Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!" said the Friar. "My old house, you know."

"Move along now," said a sharp voice. "The Sorting Ceremony's about to start."

Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite

wall. "Now, form a line," Professor McGonagall told

the first years, "and follow me." Feeling oddly as though his legs had turned

to lead, Harry got into line behind a boy with sandy hair, with Ron behind him, and

they walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors

into the Great Hall. Harry had never even imagined such a strange

and splendid place. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating

in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables

were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another

long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall led the first years up

here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers

behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering

candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly

to avoid all the staring eyes, Harry looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted

with stars. He heard Hermione whisper, "Its bewitched to look like the sky outside. I

read about it in Hogwarts, A History." It was hard to believe there was a ceiling

there at all, and that the Great Hall didn't simply open on to the heavens.

Harry quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool

in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. This

hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Aunt Petunia wouldn't have let it in the house.

Maybe they had to try and get a rabbit out of it, Harry thought wildly, that seemed the

sort of thing — noticing that everyone in the hall was now staring at the hat, he stared

at it, too. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near

the brim opened wide like a mouth — and the hat began to sing:

"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty, But don't judge on 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 be.

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 folk use any means To achieve their 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!"

The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of

the four tables and then became quite still again.

"So we've just got to try on the hat!" Ron whispered to Harry. "I'll kill Fred, he was

going on about wrestling a troll." Harry smiled weakly. Yes, trying on the hat

was a lot better than having to do a spell, but he did wish they could have tried it on

without everyone watching. The hat seemed to be asking rather a lot; Harry didn't feel

brave or quick-witted or any of it at the moment. If only the hat had mentioned a house

for people who felt a bit queasy, that would have been the one for him.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she

said. "Abbott, Hannah!" A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled

out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moments

pause — "HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat.

The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff

table. Harry saw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.

"Bones, Susan!" "HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat again, and Susan

scuttled off to sit next to Hannah. "Boot, Terry!"

"RAVENCLAW!" The table second from the left clapped this

time; several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined them.

"Brocklehurst, Mandy" went to Ravenclaw too, but "Brown, Lavender" became the first new

Gryffindor, and the table on the far left exploded with cheers; Harry could see Ron's

twin brothers catcalling. "Bulstrode, Millicent" then became a Slytherin.

Perhaps it was Harry's imagination, after all he'd heard about Slytherin, but he thought

they looked like an unpleasant lot. He was starting to feel definitely sick now.

He remembered being picked for teams during gym at his old school. He had always been

last to be chosen, not because he was no good, but because no one wanted Dudley to think

they liked him. "Finch-Fletchley, Justin!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!" Sometimes, Harry noticed, the hat shouted

out the house at once, but at others it took a little while to decide. "Finnigan, Seamus,"

the sandy-haired boy next to Harry in the line, sat on the

stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor.

"Granger, Hermione!" Hermione almost ran to the stool and jammed

the hat eagerly on her head. "GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat. Ron groaned.

A horrible thought struck Harry, as horrible thoughts always do when you're very nervous.

What if he wasn't chosen at all? What if he just sat there with the hat over his eyes

for ages, until Professor McGonagall jerked it off his head and said there had obviously

been a mistake and he'd better get back on the train?

When Neville Longbottom, the boy who kept losing his toad, was called, he fell over

on his way to the stool. The hat took a long time to decide with Neville. When it finally

shouted, "GRYFFINDOR," Neville ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales

of laughter to give it to "MacDougal, Morag." Malfoy swaggered forward when his name was

called and got his wish at once: the hat had barely touched his head when it screamed,

"SLYTHERIN!" Malfoy went to join his friends Crabbe and

Goyle, looking pleased with himself. There weren't many people left now. "Moon"...

, "Nott"... , "Parkinson"... , then a pair of twin girls, "Patil" and "Patil"... , then

"Perks, Sally-Anne"... , and then, at last —

"Potter, Harry!" As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly

broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.

"Potter, did she say?" "The Harry Potter?"

The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the hall full of people

craning to get a good look at him. Next second he was looking at the black inside of the

hat. He waited. "Hmm," said a small voice in his ear. "Difficult.

Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, A my

goodness, yes — and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting... So where

shall I put you?" Harry gripped the edges of the stool and thought,

Not Slytherin, not Slytherin. "Not Slytherin, eh?" said the small voice.

"Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin

will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that — no? Well, if you're sure

— better be GRYFFINDOR!" Harry heard the hat shout the last word to

the whole hall. He took off the hat and walked shakily toward the Gryffindor table. He was

so relieved to have been chosen and not put in Slytherin, he hardly noticed that he was

getting the loudest cheer yet. Percy the Prefect got up and shook his hand vigorously, while

the Weasley twins yelled, "We got Potter! We got Potter!" Harry sat down opposite the

ghost in the ruff he'd seen earlier. The ghost patted his arm, giving Harry the sudden, horrible

feeling he'd just plunged it into a bucket of ice-cold water.

He could see the High Table properly now. At the end nearest him sat Hagrid, who caught

his eye and gave him the thumbs up. Harry grinned back. And there, in the center of

the High Table, in a large gold chair, sat Albus Dumbledore. Harry recognized him at

once from the card he'd gotten out of the Chocolate Frog on the train. Dumbledore's

silver hair was the only thing in the whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts.

Harry spotted Professor Quirrell, too, the nervous young man from the Leaky Cauldron.

He was looking very peculiar in a large purple turban.

And now there were only three people left to be sorted. "Thomas, Dean," a Black boy

even taller than Ron, joined Harry at the Gryffindor table. "Turpin, Lisa," became a

Ravenclaw and then it was Ron's turn. He was pale green by now. Harry crossed his fingers

under the table and a second later the hat had shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"

Harry clapped loudly with the rest as Ron collapsed into the chair next to him.

"Well done, Ron, excellent," said Percy Weasley pompously across Harry as "Zabini, Blaise,"

was made a Slytherin. Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting

Hat away. Harry looked down at his empty gold plate.

He had only just realized how hungry he was. The pumpkin pasties seemed ages ago.

Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened

wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

"Welcome," he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet,

I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

"Thank you!" He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered.