“Harry Potter!”
Professor McGonagall’s voice echoed from the front of the Great Hall—clear, resonant, and resolute—accompanied by a sudden burst of buzzing whispers throughout the room.
He was first.
Despite standing at the very back of the line, his name had been called first.
It seemed that many people cared deeply about his Sorting.
Setting aside the thoughts he had yet to fully untangle, Harry watched as the young wizards before him hastily backed away, parting to leave an open pathway.
He walked forward until he arrived at the stool beside Professor McGonagall and took a seat.
The hat was placed atop his head.
Inside the Great Hall, every neck craned forward, waiting to see which house he would be sorted into.
The Sorting Hat emitted a troubled hum.
“Well, this is quite a predicament. I’m afraid… I don’t know which house you ought to go to.”
Due to the distance, the people in the hall couldn’t hear the Sorting Hat’s voice, but standing right beside him, Professor McGonagall turned her head in surprise.
“…….Hey, that mass inside your mind is remarkably dense—I can’t quite see through it. Little wizard, why don’t you pick one yourself?”
The Sorting Hat spoke with great difficulty.
“I’ve never met a student as peculiar as you—not even that transfer student from over a century ago. Or perhaps we can sort you through a proper chat? Let me offer a few suggestions: are you driven by ambition, or are you exceptionally brave, or perhaps…”
It babbled on continuously.
“Which house has better dormitories?” Harry interrupted its rambling.
Having established that being sorted into different houses wouldn’t affect his coursework, his sole concern was the living environment.
After all, he would be staying there for seven full years.
The Sorting Hat fell silent for a moment before letting out a suppressed, amused snort.
“Concerned about living conditions? That’s a first—nobody’s ever asked about that first. Fine, I’ll tell you: Ravenclaw’s dorms are located at the top of the West Tower—grand, with views of the starry sky above the vaulted ceiling, overlooking the school grounds.”
The Sorting Hat began its breakdown.
“Gryffindor’s dorms are on the eighth floor of the tower—warm, cozy… well, nothing particularly special.”
“Slytherin is down in the dungeons—you wouldn’t want to go there. It connects directly to the Black Lake, and students can see sharks through the windows. And, of course, Hufflepuff—in there…”
Harry pondered briefly.
“Hufflepuff, then. Someone’s already introduced Hufflepuff’s style to me: bathed in plenty of sunlight, close to the kitchens, quiet, and stable. Sounds quite nice.”
Back in his dreams, he had to brave endless perils just to get his hands on knowledge.
Now, he could acquire it with complete ease and study it systematically.
Compared to the other houses, what he needed was a stable, comfortable environment to live in.
Beside him, Professor McGonagall looked even more astonished.
“What a gluttonous little wizard,” the Sorting Hat chuckled like a kindly old man, shouting aloud, “VERY WELL, THEN—AS YOU WISH, HUFFLEPUFF!”
The moment the declaration was made, an uproar erupted throughout the hall.
Harry could even see Draco’s face turn unsightly once again, staring at him in utter disbelief.
In contrast, Cedric held his arms high by his house table, cheering loudly.
Harry took off the hat, nodded politely to Professor McGonagall, and made his way toward the Hufflepuff table.
“Hannah Abbott!”
Professor McGonagall’s voice continued in the background.
“You’ve surprised me once again, Harry.”
The moment Harry sat down, he saw Cedric swap seats with someone else to sit right beside him.
“At first, I thought you’d go to Slytherin—well, that’s what all the newspapers were saying anyway—and then I thought you’d go to Gryffindor, and then I figured maybe Ravenclaw. The only option I never expected was for you to end up in Hufflepuff! Why?”
Cedric asked, while the surrounding Hufflepuff upperclassmen turned their gazes toward Harry as well.
“The Sorting Hat let me choose for myself,” Harry replied.
“And as you mentioned, the Hogwarts kitchens are near the Hufflepuff dorms, so I chose Hufflepuff.”
“Ha! We won the Savior’s favor simply because our dorms are right next to the dining hall!” an upperclassman nearby chuckled warmly.
“Alright, that’s as solid a reason as any! Harry, I just hope you don’t put on twenty pounds by the end of the school year!”
He gave his own belly a pat as he spoke, drawing chuckles from those around him.
Before long, a burst of applause interrupted their conversation.
Another Hufflepuff.
A little girl trotted stumble-legged over to their table and sat down across from Harry.
“Susan Bones!”
“HUFFLEPUFF!”
“Justin Finch-Fletchley!”
“HUFFLEPUFF!”
“Ernie Macmillan!”
“HUFFLEPUFF!”
Whenever a new student was sorted into Hufflepuff, Harry joined the others in clapping, though his eyes lingered more on the high table.
Professor Snape showed no emotional shift whatsoever over Harry’s failure to land in Slytherin.
He sat there expressionlessly, not even bothering to glance over in their direction.
As for Dumbledore, when Harry looked his way, the Headmaster raised his goblet slightly in a silent toast.
The feast commenced shortly after.
Out of nowhere, roasted beef, roast chicken, pork chops, lamb chops, and a vast array of dishes materialized on the table.
Harry winced slightly, his brow furrowing.
“According to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration, food cannot be created out of thin air, can it?”
Granted, as Professor Snape had put it, textbook material only represented the “passing baseline,” and practical application depended on the wizard themselves.
Still, the sight before him directly contradicted the supposed law.
“Actually, the food is prepared beforehand by house-elves, and Dumbledore simply teleports it over here,” Cedric explained.
“Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration? Sounds like you’re going to be quite the scholar, Harry.”
“Indeed! Back when I was a first-year, I certainly didn’t pore over books with such dedication,” Malcolm Preece, whom Harry had met on the train, leaned over to join in.
“Our house is counting on you for the House Cup this year, Harry!”
Harry looked at him and offered a polite, tactful response: “…I don’t care much for points, but I will fulfill my responsibilities properly.” You are reading on g.com, the official source.
“Points aren’t important, child. In Hufflepuff, you can simply choose what you excel at and what you enjoy most.”
A plump ghost floated past the table, chiming in with a gentle reminder.
“Spot on, Fat Friar!” Malcolm greeted him.
“How were your holidays?”
“A bit lonely… I found myself missing all of you constantly,” the Fat Friar replied with a mournful sigh.
“Rest assured, I’ll see to it that we win the House Cup!” a voice interjected from nearby—it was Ernie Macmillan.
“Harry, if there’s anything you don’t understand during classes, feel free to ask me!”
He patted his chest confidently.
Harry cast a odd look at him, nodding without turning down the offer.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Macmillan.”
“You can just call me Ernie,” Ernie offered warmly.
Sitting on his other side, Justin Finch-Fletchley spoke up hesitatingly, “Could I ask you questions as well, Macmillan?”
“Of course, of course! I’ll take good care of all of you,” Ernie declared loudly.
“Even though I come from the Macmillan family—one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight—my family isn’t keen on pure-blood nonsense. I’d be more than happy to guide you all toward success.”
Perhaps he should have been sorted into Slytherin instead?
Harry mused privately.
“Hannah, you don’t hold those kinds of ideas either, right?” Ernie turned to Hannah, who was sitting across from him alongside Susan.
“I recall you’re from the Abbott family.”
“N-No, not at all…” Hannah replied in a tiny voice.
Harry sliced off a piece of lamb chop and popped it into his mouth.
Rich juices coated his tongue with hints of rosemary and a subtle garlic base; cooked to perfection, the exterior was lightly seared while the inside remained tender and juicy.
Listening to Ernie’s relentless chatting, Harry managed to piece together details that were never explicitly written out in newspapers or textbooks.
For instance, the “Sacred Twenty-Eight” didn’t mean there were only twenty-eight pure-blood families in the entire wizarding world.
Rather, those twenty-eight families functioned more like an alliance.
Beyond these twenty-eight, other pure-blood families existed in the wizarding world—such as the Potter family.
That was right: his father’s family was pure-blood as well, though after his father married his mother, the other families had unilaterally declared him disowned and removed from their ranks.
Then there were the Prince family, the Goyle family, the Crabbe family, the Goldstein family, and even the Diggory family to which Cedric belonged…
All of these were pure-blood families outside the Sacred Twenty-Eight.
Furthermore, as Ernie explained it, no family was genuinely pure-blood in an absolute sense.
Trace almost any wizarding family far enough back, and you’d find marriages to half-bloods or Muggles—some people simply refused to acknowledge it.
This revelation, however, reminded Harry of something important.
It seemed his family inheritance amounted to far more than just what was stored in Gringotts.
Hey!
Where’s the rest of my money?!