Chapter 5: The Sorting

Professor Chang led the first year students into the hall.  Two rows of tables were set on each side, leaving an open space in the middle.  All but the first year students, having arrived sooner by carriage, were already seated. 

The instructors and staff were seated at a table set on a raised platform at the end of the room, opposite the door.  The table was set perpendicular to the other tables in the room, everyone seated with their backs to the wall, so they all faced the students.  A stool stood on the floor in front of the platform.  On it was a tall, brown, crumpled, hat, pointed at the top.

Professor Chang led the way. When they reached the platform, she stepped onto it, turned to face them, saying, "Stand there until I call your name; then we'll proceed with the Sorting. First Professor Dumbledore would like to say something."

Horatio recognized Professor Dumbledore from the card he'd found in his Chocolate Frogs. He looked just like the picture in the card, which wasn't surprising, since the picture had three dimensions and moved, sometimes even walking out of the picture frame. "I would like to welcome you to Hogwarts.  We will now begin the Sorting," he said.

When I call your name," Professor Chang said, stepping down off the platform and unfolding a scroll, "step forward, have a seat on the stool, and I'll place the Sorting Hat on your head. It will determine which house you'll be placed in. It's decision is final. There is no appeal." She looked at the scroll, reading off the first name, "Horatio Abernathy."

"Why do I have to go first?" Horatio asked, his voice little more than a squeak.

"Tonight, we go in alphabetical order," said Professor Chang, ":since your name is Abernathy, that means you are first. Please take a seat on the stool"

When Horatio took a tentative step toward the stool, he heard Malfoy say, "Stupid mud-blood." Looking at him, Horatio saw he had a sneer on his face. He didn't know it, but Harry's father would have recognized that sneer. He had often seen an identical one on Draco Malfoy's face. With it smeared across his face, Orion Malfoy was no longer beautiful -- at least, not to Horatio.

There it was again -- mud-blood. It seemed, even among other wizards, Horatio wasn't accepted. He was still an outcast. Would he never belong anywhere. He sat down on the stool, feeling his eyes cloud over. He didn't want to cry, not sitting on the stool, facing all the others. He especially didn't want Malfoy to see him cry. Malfoy would be one to take advantage of any weakness he perceived in others.

Professor Chang placed the hat on his head. It fell down over his forehead, almost covering his eyes. It crinkled up, the wrinkles forming a face, "Hmmmmm," said the Hat, "bright, very bright. You're a sharp one, aren't you? Plenty of ambition, too. A desire to prove yourself -- an almost fanatical desire to prove yourself; but there's something else, something I can't quite read. You have great potential -- but for good? I wonder. You would be successful in any house --"

Horatio interrupted the hat. "Griffindor," he said, "Put me in Griffindor."

"No," said the Hat, "not Griffindor. You would be good in any house, but you are suited for just one -- SLYTHERIN!" it shouted.

He saw Orion Malfoy's jaw drop. "How can a filthy mudblood like him get put in Slytherin?" he said.

Professor Chang hit him over the head with the scroll, "We'll have none of that," she said.

At first, there had been scattered applause from the Slytherin table, but it stopped after Malfoy had said mudblood. "He's a mudblood? A mudblood in Slytherin. It's an outrage," Horatio heard someone from the Slytherin tables say.

Dubledore stood, clinking again on his glass with his spoon. That will be ten points taken from Slytherin house. I won't have that word used in this hall."

No one at the Slytherin tables said it aloud again, but they continued to murmur among themselves.

Horatio remained sitting on the stool. Slytherin? It was the last house he wanted to be in. He would lose the only friend he had, possibly the only one he would make, the way things were going. Harry had said he couldn't be friends with anyone in Slytherin. It was obvious that no one in Slytherin wanted him. Why had the Hat placed him there? He looked around at Dubledore, appealing to him with his eyes.

Dumbledore smiled, a compassionate, but sad, smile. It proffered Horatio sympathy, but no hope. Professor Chang, after taking the Hat off his head, held her hand out, palm up, the tips of it pointing toward the Slytherin table. "No appeal," she had said. Horatio wanted to protest, but she had said there was no appeal. Why would the Hat place him somewhere he didn't want to go -- where no one wanted him? It was all Horatio could do, not to cry. Why had he come to Hogwarts?

He wanted to go home. At least, his mother loved him. Maybe his father did, too, although he seemed to fear Horatio more than he loved him, especially now that he knew Horatio was a wizard. Still, it was better to be where someone loved him -- even if it were just his mother -- than here, where everyone seemed to despise him. It wasn't his fault his parents weren't wizards.

He walked over to the Slytherin tables, taking a seat, an empty chair on one side of him, an older student on the other. When he sat down, that student stood up, walked to another chair, and sat down, leaving Horatio seated between two empty chairs.

The sorting continued, but Horatio didn't hear any of the names. He was lost in his thoughts -- in his despair. A girl was placed in Slytherin, but she didn't sit next to him. He didn't really care for girls. Most eleven year-old boys don't, and Horatio was no exception to that rule, but when a boy was placed in Slytherin, he also made a point to sit elsewhere.

Horatio still had an empty chair on either side of him. A voice in his head -- the one he'd been hearing more often lately -- said, "We don't need them. We don't need anyone. We're better than they are." Then it was silent.

The voice still frightened him. He'd only begun hearing it recently. It seemed to have begun with a dream he'd had that first night he and his parents had spent at the Leaky Cauldron, while they were preparing for his trip to Hogwarts. It wasn't as if he were hearing his own voice, but someone else's, like someone else had taken up residence in his head. Was he going insane? Didn't crazy people hear voices? But he didn't hear them all the time, only when he was distracted, as he was now.

Then he heard a name that caught his attention, "Orion Malfoy," Professor Chang said. Malfoy stepped up to the stool, sitting down on it.

She attempted to place the Hat on his head, but before she could, the Hat shouted, "SLYTHERIN!" To Horatio, the Hat seemed to recoil from being placed on Malfoy's head. The face its wrinkles formed seemed to be filled with disgust -- if that were possible -- if Horatio weren't just imagining it.

When the Hat called out, "SLYTHERIN," everyone at the Slytherin tables-- except for Horatio -- stood and cheered. Horatio didn't even look at Malfoy. Malfoy was beautiful, but Horatio saw him for what he was. He'd seen how he really looked, because Horatio was certain the other look, that bird-like appearance, was Malfoy's true appearance. He didn't want to like Malfoy, not since Malfoy apparently hated him. Malfoy sat down at the opposite end of the table from him, as far away from Horatio as he could.

The Sorting proceeded without incident. Horatio wouldn't have paid attention, but he didn't want to hear the voice in his head again. As long as he was interested in something, he didn't hear it, only hearing it when he was distracted or daydreaming. Finally, Professor Chang said the name Horatio had been waiting to hear, "Harry Potter."

A hush fell over the Great Hall. Even though Harry wasn't as famous as his father, everyone knew who he was. Horatio watched as the small, red-haired, boy climbed onto the stool. Even from where he sat, Horatio could see his green eyes sparkle, magnified as they were by his thick glasses. Harry smiled, but nervously. Everyone was nervous about being sorted. It was almost like being told who you were to marry.

* * *

Harry had been disappointed to see Horatio put into Slytherin House. From one glance at those sitting at the Slytherin tables, he knew he couldn't be friends with any of them, especially not with Orion Malfoy. His father and Orion's had been enemies when they'd been at Hogwarts and afterward. It had been Draco Malfoy that had expelled Dumbledore's wand, leaving him defenseless, allowing Snape to kill him.

Their fathers had fought afterwards, too. It had been Harry's father -- as Khurban -- that had killed the other members of Draco Malfoy's family, his father, mother, and aunt. It was no wonder that Draco hated his father. Apparently, he'd instilled that hatred in his son, not only for Harry Potter, the father, but for Harry Potter, the son, too.

He felt sorry for Horatio. He had genuinely liked him, thinking they could be friends; but how could they, with him in Griffindor and Horatio in Slytherin? Real enmity existed between the two houses. Of course, none of the other houses sided with Slytherin, but none hated them like Griffindor did. Practically a state of war existed between the two houses.

Harry was nervous, but confident, too. All of his relatives had been in Griffindor, his father and grandfather both seekers on the Griffindor Quidditch team. It was inconceivable that he'd be placed in another house. After he was seated on the stool, Professor Chang placed the hat on his head. It fell down across his forehead, stopping when it hit the top of his glasses.

"Awwwk...," said the Sorting Hat, "another generation of Weasleys -- but wait. There's more: a Potter, too, both with a long tradition of Griffindor." Harry started to get down from the stool, but the Hat continued talking. It had said Griffindor, but it hadn't shouted it, as it always did when it selected a house for a student. "Yes," continued the Hat, "in any other year, it would be Griffindor, but not this year. He is needed elsewhere. EVERYTHING depends on his being placed in SLYTHERIN!:

An absolute hush fell over the Great Hall. It was so quiet that it seemed no one was even breathing, then it started, a murmur that became a roar. Malfoy's voice was heard above the rest, "No! It's an outrage. Not in Slytherin. Not a Potter."

Harry sat on the chair. He was in shock. Had he heard right? Had the Hat really said, "SLYTHERIN?" But it had. It had shouted it. There must be some mistake. That's it; the Hat had made a mistake. He didn't belong in Slytherin. Needed in Slytherin? How could he be needed in Slytherin? He pushed the Hat up, out of his eyes. Professor Chang hadn't taken it off his head. Normally, she would have as soon as the Hat had made its choice. He looked up Professor Chang. "It made a mistake," he said. "Make it choose again."

Taking the Hat off his head, she said, "I'm sorry, Harry. The Hat doesn't make mistakes."

Dumbledore stood -- appealed once again for quiet. Harry got down from the stool. Professor Chang didn't hold out her hand toward the Slytherin table, as she had with Horatio. It was as if she, too, didn't want to admit the Hat had chosen Slytherin for Harry.

Quieted by Dumbledore, those at the Slytherin tables sat in silence -- all but one. Horatio stood and clapped. He was the only one in the room that did.