 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.
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"Well, move along, then!" said Professor McGonagall sharply to the bedraggled
crowd. "Into the Great Hall, come on!"
Harry, Ron, and Hermione slipped and slid across the entrance hall and through
the double doors on the right, Ron muttering furiously under his breath as he
pushed his sopping hair off his face.
The Great Hall looked its usual splendid self, decorated for the start-of-term feast.
Golden plates and goblets gleamed 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. Harry, Ron, and
Hermione walked past the Slytherins, the Ravenclaws, and the Hufflepuffs, and sat
down with the rest of the Gryffindors at the far side of the Hall, next to Nearly
Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost. Pearly white and semitransparent, Nick was
dressed tonight in his usual doublet, but with a particularly large ruff, which
served the dual purpose of looking extra-festive, and insuring that his head didn't
wobble too much on his partially severed neck.
"Good evening," he said, beaming at them.
"Says who?" said Harry, taking off his sneakers and emptying them of water.
"Hope they hurry up with the Sorting. I'm starving."
The Sorting of the new students into Houses took place at the start of every school
year, but by an unlucky combination of circumstances, Harry hadn't been present
at one since his own. He was quite looking forward to it. Just then, a highly
excited, breathless voice called down the table.
"Hiya, Harry!"
It was Colin Creevey, a third year to whom Harry was something of a hero.
"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, Ron, and Nearly
Headless Nick. "Brothers and sisters usually go in the same Houses, don't they?"
he said. He was judging by the Weasleys, all seven of whom had been put into
Gryffindor.
"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?"
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Harry looked up at the staff table. There seemed to be rather more empty seats
there than usual. Hagrid, of course, was still fighting his way across the lake with
the first years; Professor McGonagall was presumably supervising the drying of
the entrance hall floor, but there was another empty chair too, and Harry couldn't
think who else was missing.
"Where's the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" said Hermione, who
was also looking up at the teachers.
They had never yet had a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who had lasted
more than three terms. Harry's favorite by far had been Professor Lupin, who had
resigned last year. He looked up and down the staff table. There was definitely no
new face there.
"Maybe they couldn't get anyone!" said Hermione, looking anxious.
Harry scanned the table more carefully. Tiny little Professor Flitwick, the Charms
teacher, was sitting on a large pile of cushions beside Professor Sprout, the
Herbology teacher, whose hat was askew over her flyaway gray hair. She was
talking to Professor Sinistra of the Astronomy department. On Professor Sinistra's
other side was the sallow-faced, hook-nosed, greasy-haired Potions master, Snape
- Harry's least favorite person at Hogwarts. Harry's loathing of Snape was matched
only by Snape's hatred of him, a hatred which had, if possible, intensified last year,
when Harry had helped Sirius escape right under Snape's overlarge nose - Snape
and Sirius had been enemies since their own school days.
On Snape's other side was an empty seat, which Harry guessed was Professor
McGonagall's. Next to it, and in the very center of the table, sat Professor
Dumbledore, the headmaster, his sweeping silver hair and beard shining in the
candlelight, his magnificent deep green robes embroidered with many stars and
moons. The tips of Dumbledore's long, thin fingers were together and he was
resting his chin upon them, staring up at the ceiling through his half-moon
spectacles as though lost in thought. Harry glanced up at the ceiling too. It was
enchanted to look like the sky outside, and he had never seen it look this stormy.
Black and purple clouds were swirling across it, and as another thunderclap
sounded outside, a fork of lightning flashed across it.
"Oh hurry up," Ron moaned, beside Harry, "I could eat a hippogriff."
The words were no sooner out of his 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 Harry, Ron, and Hermione 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 Harry recognized as Hagrid's moleskin overcoat. The
coat was so big for him that it hooked as though he were draped in a furry black
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circus tent. His small face protruded from over the collar, looking almost painfully
excited. When he had lined up with his terrified-looking peers, he caught Colin
Creevey's eye, gave a double 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;
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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," said Ron. "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."
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. Harry caught a glimpse of Cho, the
Ravenclaw Seeker, cheering Stewart Ackerley as he sat down. For a fleeting
second, Harry had a strange desire to join the Ravenclaw table too.
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"Baddock, Malcolm!"
"SLYTHERIN!"
The table on the other side of the hall erupted with cheers; Harry could see Malfoy
clapping as Baddock joined the Slytherins. Harry wondered whether Baddock
knew that Slytherin House had turned out more Dark witches and wizards than
any other. Fred and George hissed 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.
About twice as tall as a normal man, and at least three times as broad, Hagrid, with
his long, wild, tangled black hair and beard, looked slightly alarming - a
misleading impression, for Harry, Ron, and Hermione knew Hagrid to possess a
very kind nature. He winked at them as he sat down at the end of the staff table
and watched Dennis Creevey putting on the Sorting Hat. The rip at the brim
opened wide-- -
"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat shouted.
Hagrid clapped along with the Gryffindors as