The first-year students crowded into a small room off the entrance hall, their anxious whispers buzzing like a swarm of startled bees.
Tension, excitement, and the faint scent of paraffin wax hung thick in the air.
Stelle stood slightly on the outer edge of the crowd.
Her distinctive gray hair gleamed softly under the torchlight as if bathed in its own filter, setting her apart from the nervous and excited atmosphere around her.
“Move along in a single file,” Professor McGonagall returned, her voice shattering the noise like a shard of ice.
“Follow me.” Stelle quietly fell into line.
She looked over the heads of the students in front of her toward the massive oak doors about to open.
A warm, bright light and the combined sound of hundreds of voices leaked through the gap.
Curiosity piqued, she stood on tiptoe, trying to peer through the gaps between students to see what was happening ahead.
The doors swung open.
Stelle followed the line into the Great Hall of Hogwarts.
Thousands of candles floating in midair illuminated the vast space, their flames reflecting off lavish golden plates and goblets with an inviting shimmer.
Above, the velvety black ceiling sparkled with starlight, making it look as though they were standing beneath the actual night sky.
Students filled the four long tables, their faces illuminated by the candlelight, blurred yet bursting with life.
At the far end sat the professors behind a high table, looking down over the hall.
The line came to a halt before the staff table, facing the rest of the school.
Professor McGonagall placed a four-legged stool in front of the line, then set an ancient, battered, patched, and filthy pointed wizard’s hat upon it.
The first years, along with the entire Great Hall, stared at the hat.
In the silence, a wide tear opened near the brim like a mouth, and it began to sing.
Stelle listened with a thoroughly displeased expression as the hat finished its song about the traits of the four houses and its own solemn duties.
When the hat sang its final line and bowed to the four tables, thunderous applause erupted across the hall.
Stelle rubbed her ears, feeling as though they had just suffered a miscarriage.
“So we just have to try on the hat?” Ron muttered to Harry a short distance in front of Stelle.
“I’m going to kill Fred.
He said we had to wrestle a troll.” The corner of Stelle’s mouth twitched imperceptibly.
Wrestle?
This was more like a faction alignment assignment.
Sounds just like the Tuning Ceremony and String-Testing Exams back at Paperfold University.
Professor McGonagall stepped forward, holding a roll of parchment.
“When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted,” she said.
One by one, the new students were called up.
“Hannah Abbott!” “HUFFLEPUFF!” “Terry Boot!” “RAVENCLAW!” …
When “Harry Potter” was called, a flurry of whispers rippled through the hall.
Stelle watched Harry nervously step forward and put on the hat.
After deliberating for a few minutes, the hat shouted, “GRYFFINDOR!” The Gryffindor table erupted into the loudest cheer yet, and Harry practically ran over.
Names continued to be read.
Stelle waited quietly, her golden eyes remarkably calm beneath the candlelight, looking like two pools of molten gold.
She had already started secretly counting the floating candles, but lost count halfway through and had to start over.
Finally, Professor McGonagall called out clearly: “Stelle!” No surname.
Whispers rippled through the crowd as everyone watched the gray-haired, gold-eyed girl walk forward calmly and take her seat on the stool with complete composure.
“That’s so cool!” Ron gasped.
“Just like those ancient great wizards with only one name!” Hermione reasoned precisely, “In certain ancient civilizations, a single name was believed to hold a purer form of magic.” Over at the Slytherin table, however, sneers broke out.
Draco mockingly dubbed her “that freak who doesn’t even have a last name.” Professor McGonagall placed the Sorting Hat on her head, its brim coming down far enough to cover her golden eyes.
Then, the Great Hall fell into an unprecedented silence.
One minute passed…
two minutes passed…
The hat said nothing.
The first years began exchanging uneasy glances, and the murmurs among the older students grew louder.
Another Hatstall.
Harry and Ron craned their necks to watch.
Hermione wrung her fingers nervously.
Five minutes passed.
Inside Stelle’s mind, a fierce debate was taking place.
The Sorting Hat: *Strange, how strange…
You possess the loyalty of a Hufflepuff, but in a way that makes it look like you want to lick every trash can in existence; you have the curiosity of a Ravenclaw, yet you’d rather research which parts of the castle are edible; and you certainly have the courage of a Gryffindor, if only to pull off absurd pranks…* The Sorting Hat: *Yet I see something even deeper.
A ‘Cosmos’ lies within you, yearning to be explored…* Just as the Sorting Hat was seriously analyzing her soul, Stelle suddenly cut it off with her thoughts, asking the question that had been weighing on her mind for ages: *Hey, do you know which house common room is closest to the kitchens?
And which house gets control of the school’s trash cans?* The Sorting Hat’s voice filled with utter bewilderment: *Wh-what?!
Kitchens?!
Trash cans?!
I am dissecting the mysteries of your soul, and you’re worried about this?!* To the students, all they saw was the battered hat squirming violently on top of Stelle’s head, as though experiencing a massive storm from within.
As if defeated by a colossal, terrifically pragmatic force, the Sorting Hat murmured in utter despair: *Fine, fine…
HUFFLEPUFF!
It has to be Hufflepuff!
Just to get you closer to the kitchens, by Merlin’s beard, I can’t take this anymore!* After a moment of dead silence, the brim of the Sorting Hat snapped open, screaming at the top of its lungs in a tone bordering on a mental breakdown that reverberated throughout the Great Hall: “HUFFLEPUFF—!” The voice resounded with absolute, desperate finality.
“Pfft—” Someone snorted, unable to hold back a laugh, and the next second, the entire hall erupted into a wave of laughter, applause, and immense confusion.
Though no one could hear the actual conversation, the hat’s five-minute silence, followed by its violent twisting and that emotional scream at the end, clearly indicated how extraordinary the process had been.
After a brief moment of shock, the Hufflepuff table broke out into particularly enthusiastic cheers and laughter, pounding on the table to welcome their new member who had just broken the Sorting Hat.
Stelle happily took off the hat and handed it back to Professor McGonagall, whose expression was a complex mixture of shock while her mouth twitched slightly.
She stood up, her gray hair swaying gently amidst the cheering.
Her eyes accurately locked onto the wildly clapping Hufflepuff table, and she walked over with steady steps.
Finding a seat at the long table, a boy beside her with a gentle smile and curly hair said, “Welcome to Hufflepuff!
I’m Cedric Diggory.
That was really quite something just now.” Stelle turned her head, her golden eyes looking at him as she nodded earnestly.
“Thank you.
Also, do you happen to know where the exact entrance to the kitchens is?
And does our house have priority bidding on cleaning the school trash cans?” The smile on Cedric’s face froze for a tenth of a second before softening into a somewhat helpless friendliness.
He realized that this new classmate was probably going to give Hufflepuff a whole new vibe this year.