Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone By J. K. Rowling chapter one the Boy Who Lived

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. 

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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.” 

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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 

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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. 
“