Harry Potter 1 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

HP 1 - Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone

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CHAPTER SEVEN
THE SORTING HAT
T  he  door  swung  open  at  once.  A  tall,  black-haired  witch  in  emerald-green
robes  stood  there.  She  had  a  very  stern  face  and  Harry’s  first  thought  was  that
this was not someone to cross.
“The firs’ years, Professor McGonagall,” said Hagrid.
“Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here.”
She pulled the door wide. The entrance hall was so big you could have fit
the  whole  of  the  Dursleys’  house  in  it.  The  stone  walls  were  lit  with  flaming
torches  like  the  ones  at  Gringotts,  the  ceiling  was  too  high  to  make  out,  and  a
magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.
           They  followed  Professor  McGonagall  across  the  flagged  stone  floor.
Harry could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right —
the rest of the school must already be here — but Professor McGonagall showed
the  first  years  into  a  small,  empty  chamber  off  the  hall.  They  crowded  in,
standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about
nervously.
“Welcome to Hogwarts,” said Professor McGonagall. “The start-of-term
banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you
will  be  sorted  into  your  houses.  The  Sorting  is  a  very  important  ceremony
because,  while  you  are  here,  your  house  will  be  something  like  your  family
within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your
house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room.
           “The  four  houses  are  called  Gryffindor,  Hufflepuff,  Ravenclaw,  and
Slytherin.  Each  house  has  its  own  noble  history  and  each  has  produced
outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will
earn your house points, while any rulebreaking will lose house points. At the end
of  the  year,  the  house  with  the  most  points  is  awarded  the  house  cup,  a  great
honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours.
“The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the
rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can
while you are waiting.”
Her eyes lingered for a moment on Neville’s cloak, which was fastened
under his left ear, and on Ron’s smudged nose. Harry nervously tried to flatten

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his hair.
“I shall return when we are ready for you,” said Professor McGonagall.
“Please wait quietly.”
She left the chamber. Harry swallowed.
“How exactly do they sort us into houses?” he asked Ron.
           “Some  sort  of  test,  I  think.  Fred  said  it  hurts  a  lot,  but  I  think  he  was
joking.”
Harry’s heart gave a horrible jolt. A test? In front of the whole school?
But  he  didn’t  know  any  magic  yet  —what  on  earth  would  he  have  to  do?  He
hadn’t expected something like this the moment they arrived. He looked around
anxiously  and  saw  that  everyone  else  looked  terrified,  too.  No  one  was  talking
much  except  Hermione  Granger,  who  was  whispering  very  fast  about  all  the
spells she’d learned and wondering which one she’d need. Harry tried hard not
to listen to her. He’d never been more nervous, never, not even when he’d had to
take a school report home to the Dursleys saying that he’d somehow turned his
teacher’s  wig  blue.  He  kept  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  door.  Any  second  now,
Professor McGonagall would come back and lead him to his doom.
Then something happened that made him jump about a foot in the air —
several people behind him screamed.
“What the —?”
He gasped. So did the people around him. About twenty ghosts had just
streamed  through  the  back  wall.  Pearly-white  and  slightly  transparent,  they
glided  across  the  room  talking  to  one  another  and  hardly  glancing  at  the  first
years. They seemed to be arguing. What looked like a fat little monk was saying:
“Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance —”
“My dear Friar, haven’t we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He
gives us all a bad name and you know, he’s not really even a ghost — I say, what
are you all doing here?”
A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years.
Nobody answered.
“New students!” said the Fat Friar, smiling around at them. “About to be
Sorted, I suppose?”
A few people nodded mutely.
           “Hope  to  see  you  in  Hufflepuff!”  said  the  Friar.  “My  old  house,  you
know.”
“Move along now,” said a sharp voice. “The Sorting Ceremony’s about
to start.”
Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away
through the opposite wall.

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           “Now,  form  a  line,”  Professor  McGonagall  told  the  first  years,  “and
follow me.”
Feeling oddly as though his legs had turned to lead, Harry got into line
behind a boy with sandy hair, with Ron behind him, and they walked out of the
chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great
Hall.
Harry had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place. It was
lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four
long  tables,  where  the  rest  of  the  students  were  sitting.  These  tables  were  laid
with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long
table  where  the  teachers  were  sitting.  Professor  McGonagall  led  the  first  years
up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the
teachers  behind  them.  The  hundreds  of  faces  staring  at  them  looked  like  pale
lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students,
the ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Harry looked
upward  and  saw  a  velvety  black  ceiling  dotted  with  stars.  He  heard  Hermione
whisper, “Its bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in 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

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The Sorting Hat can’t see,
So try me on and I will tell you
Where you ought to be.
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.”
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 —

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“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 stool for almost a whole minute before the
hat declared him a Gryffindor.
“Granger, Hermione!”
Her mione 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.”

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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.
“Potter, did she say?”
“The Harry Potter?”
The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the
hall full of people craning to get a good look at him. Next second he was looking
at the black inside of the hat. He waited.
“Hmm,” said a small voice in his ear. “Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of
courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There’s talent, A my goodness, yes — and
a  nice  thirst  to  prove  yourself,  now  that’s  interesting….So  where  shall  I  put
you?”
           Harry  gripped  the  edges  of  the  stool  and  thought,  Not  Slytherin,  not
Slytherin.
“Not Slytherin, eh?” said the small voice. “Are you sure? You could be
great,  you  know,  it’s  all  here  in  your  head,  and  Slytherin  will  help  you  on  the
way  to  greatness,  no  doubt  about  that  —  no?  Well,  if  you’re  sure  —  better  be
GRYFFINDOR!”
Harry heard the hat shout the last word to the whole hall. He took off the
hat and walked shakily toward the Gryffindor table. He was so relieved to have
been chosen and not put in Slytherin, he hardly noticed that he was getting the
loudest cheer yet. Percy the Prefect got up and shook his hand vigorously, while
the  Weasley  twins  yelled,  “We  got  Potter!  We  got  Potter!”  Harry  sat  down
opposite the ghost in the ruff he’d seen earlier. The ghost patted his arm, giving
Harry the sudden, horrible feeling he’d just plunged it into a bucket of ice-cold
water.
He could see the High Table properly now. At the end nearest him sat
Hagrid,  who  caught  his  eye  and  gave  him  the  thumbs  up.  Harry  grinned  back.
And  there,  in  the  center  of  the  High  Table,  in  a  large  gold  chair,  sat  Albus
Dumbledore. Harry recognized him at once from the card he’d gotten out of the
Chocolate Frog on the train. Dumbledore’s silver hair was the only thing in the
whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts. Harry spotted Professor Quirrell,

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too,  the  nervous  young  man  from  the  Leaky  Cauldron.  He  was  looking  very
peculiar in a large purple turban.
And now there were only three people left to be sorted. “Thomas, Dean,”
a Black boy even taller than Ron, joined Harry at the Gryffindor table. “Turpin,
Lisa,”  became  a  Ravenclaw  and  then  it  was  Ron’s  turn.  He  was  pale  green  by
now.  Harry  crossed  his  fingers  under  the  table  and  a  second  later  the  hat  had
shouted, “GRYFFINDOR!”
Harry clapped loudly with the rest as Ron collapsed into the chair next to
him.
“Well done, Ron, excellent,” said Percy Weasley pompously across Harry
as “Zabini, Blaise,” was made a Slytherin. Professor McGonagall rolled up her
scroll and took the Sorting Hat away.
           Harry  looked  down  at  his  empty  gold  plate.  He  had  only  just  realized
how hungry he was. The pumpkin pasties seemed ages ago.
           Albus  Dumbledore  had  gotten  to  his  feet.  He  was  beaming  at  the
students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than
to see them all there.
“Welcome,” he said. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we
begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit!
Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!
“Thank you!”
He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Harry didn’t know
whether to laugh or not.
“Is he — a bit mad?” he asked Percy uncertainly.
“Mad?” said Percy airily. “He’s a genius! Best wizard in the world! But
he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Harry?”
Harry’s mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now piled with
food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef,
roast  chicken,  pork  chops  and  lamb  chops,  sausages,  bacon  and  steak,  boiled
potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup,
and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.
           The  Dursleys  had  never  exactly  starved  Harry,  but  he’d  never  been
allowed to eat as much as he liked. Dudley had always taken anything that Harry
really  wanted,  even  if  It  made  him  sick.  Harry  piled  his  plate  with  a  bit  of
everything except the peppermints and began to eat. It was all delicious.
“That does look good,” said the ghost in the ruff sadly, watching Harry
cut up his steak.
“Can’t you —?”
“I haven’t eaten for nearly five hundred years,” said the ghost. “I don’t

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need to, of course, but one does miss it. I don’t think I’ve introduced myself? Sir
Nicholas  de  Mimsy-Porpington  at  your  service.  Resident  ghost  of  Gryffindor
Tower.”
“I know who you are!” said Ron suddenly. “My brothers told me about
you — you’re Nearly Headless Nick!”
           “I  would  prefer  you  to  call  me  Sir  Nicholas  de  Mimsy  —”  the  ghost
began stiffly, but sandy-haired Seamus Finnigan interrupted.
“Nearly Headless? How can you be nearly headless?”
Sir Nicholas looked extremely miffed, as if their little chat wasn’t going
at all the way he wanted.
“Like this,” he said irritably. He seized his left ear and pulled. His whole
head  swung  off  his  neck  and  fell  onto  his  shoulder  as  if  it  was  on  a  hinge.
Someone  had  obviously  tried  to  behead  him,  but  not  done  it  properly.  Looking
pleased  at  the  stunned  looks  on  their  faces,  Nearly  Headless  Nick  flipped  his
head  back  onto  his  neck,  coughed,  and  said,  “So  —  new  Gryffindors!  I  hope
you’re going to help us win the house championship this year? Gryffindors have
never gone so long without winning. Slytherins have got the cup six years in a
row!  The  Bloody  Baron’s  becoming  almost  unbearable  —  he’s  the  Slytherin
ghost.”
Harry looked over at the Slytherin table and saw a horrible ghost sitting
there, with blank staring eyes, a gaunt face, and robes stained with silver blood.
He  was  right  next  to  Malfoy  who,  Harry  was  pleased  to  see,  didn’t  look  too
pleased with the seating arrangements.
“How did he get covered in blood?” asked Seamus with great interest.
“I’ve never asked,” said Nearly Headless Nick delicately.
When everyone had eaten as much as they could, the remains of the food
faded  from  the  plates,  leaving  them  sparkling  clean  as  before.  A  moment  later
the  desserts  appeared.  Blocks  of  ice  cream  in  every  flavor  you  could  think  of,
apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate eclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries,
Jell-O, rice pudding…
As Harry helped himself to a treacle tart, the talk turned to their families.
“I’m half-and-half,” said Seamus. “Me dad’s a Muggle. Mom didn’t tell
him she was a witch ’til after they were married. Bit of a nasty shock for him.”
The others laughed.
“What about you, Neville?” said Ron.
“Well, my gran brought me up and she’s a witch,” said Neville, “but the
family thought I was all-Muggle for ages. My Great Uncle Algie kept trying to
catch me off my guard and force some magic out of me — he pushed me off the
end  of  Blackpool  pier  once,  I  nearly  drowned  —  but  nothing  happened  until  I

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was eight. Great Uncle Algie came round for dinner, and he was hanging me out
of an upstairs window by the ankles when my Great Auntie Enid offered him a
meringue  and  he  accidentally  let  go.  But  I  bounced  —  all  the  way  down  the
garden and into the road. They were all really pleased, Gran was crying, she was
so  happy.  And  you  should  have  seen  their  faces  when  I  got  in  here  —  they
thought I might not be magic enough to come, you see. Great Uncle Algie was
so pleased he bought me my toad.”
On Harry’s other side, Percy Weasley and Hermione were talking about
lessons  (“I  do  hope  they  start  right  away,  there’s  so  much  to  learn,  I’m
particularly  interested  in  Transfiguration,  you  know,  turning  something  into
something  else,  of  course,  it’s  supposed  to  be  very  difficult  —”;  “You’ll  be
starting small, just matches into needles and that sort of thing — ”).
Harry, who was starting to feel warm and sleepy, looked up at the High
Table again. Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor McGonagall
was  talking  to  Professor  Dumbledore.  Professor  Quirrell,  in  his  absurd  turban,
was talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin.
           It  happened  very  suddenly.  The  hook-nosed  teacher  looked  past
Quirrell’s turban straight into Harry’s eyes — and a sharp, hot pain shot across
the scar on Harry’s forehead.
“Ouch!” Harry clapped a hand to his head.
“What is it?” asked Percy.
“N-nothing.”
The pain had gone as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake off was the
feeling Harry had gotten from the teacher’s look — a feeling that he didn’t like
Harry at all.
“Who’s that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?” he asked Percy.
           “Oh,  you  know  Quirrell  already,  do  you?  No  wonder  he’s  looking  so
nervous,  that’s  Professor  Snape.  He  teaches  Potions,  but  he  doesn’t  want  to  —
everyone  knows  he’s  after  Quirrell’s  job.  Knows  an  awful  lot  about  the  Dark
Arts, Snape.”
Harry watched Snape for a while, but Snape didn’t look at him again.
At last, the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to
his feet again. The hall fell silent.
“Ahem — just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I
have a few start-of-term notices to give you.
“First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all
pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.”
           Dumbledore’s  twinkling  eyes  flashed  in  the  direction  of  the  Weasley
twins.

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“I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that
no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.
           “Quidditch  trials  will  be  held  in  the  second  week  of  the  term.  Anyone
interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch.
“And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the
right-hand  side  is  out  of  bounds  to  everyone  who  does  not  wish  to  die  a  very
painful death.”
Harry laughed, but he was one of the few who did.
“He’s not serious?” he muttered to Percy.
           “Must  be,”  said  Percy,  frowning  at  Dumbledore.  “It’s  odd,  because  he
usually gives us a reason why we’re not allowed to go somewhere — the forest’s
full of dangerous beasts, everyone knows that. I do think he might have told us
prefects, at least.”
           “And  now,  before  we  go  to  bed,  let  us  sing  the  school  song!”  cried
Dumbledore.  Harry  noticed  that  the  other  teachers’  smiles  had  become  rather
fixed.
Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick, as if he was trying to get a fly
off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the
tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words.
“Everyone pick their favorite tune,” said Dumbledore, “and off we go!”
And the school bellowed:
“Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald
Or young with scabby knees,
Our heads could do with filling
With some interesting stuff,
For now they’re bare and full of air,
Dead flies and bits of fluff,
So teach us things worth knowing,
Bring back what we’ve forgot,
just do your best, we’ll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot.”
Everybody  finished  the  song  at  different  times.  At  last,  only  the  Weasley
twins  were  left  singing  along  to  a  very  slow  funeral  march.  Dumbledore
conducted their last few lines with his wand and when they had finished, he was
one of those who clapped loudest.
“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here!

---

And now, bedtime. Off you trot!”
The Gryffindor first years followed Percy through the chattering crowds,
out  of  the  Great  Hall,  and  up  the  marble  staircase.  Harry’s  legs  were  like  lead
again, but only because he was so tired and full of food. He was too sleepy even
to be surprised that the people in the portraits along the corridors whispered and
pointed  as  they  passed,  or  that  twice  Percy  led  them  through  doorways  hidden
behind  sliding  panels  and  hanging  tapestries.  They  climbed  more  staircases,
yawning  and  dragging  their  feet,  and  Harry  was  just  wondering  how  much
farther they had to go when they came to a sudden halt.
A bundle of walking sticks was floating in midair ahead of them, and as
Percy took a step toward them they started throwing themselves at him.
“Peeves,” Percy whispered to the first years. “A poltergeist.” He raised
his voice, “Peeves — show yourself.”
A loud, rude sound, like the air being let out of a balloon, answered.
“Do you want me to go to the Bloody Baron?”
           There  was  a  pop,  and  a  little  man  with  wicked,  dark  eyes  and  a  wide
mouth appeared, floating cross-legged in the air, clutching the walking sticks.
“Oooooooh!” he said, with an evil cackle. “Ickle Firsties! What fun!”
He swooped suddenly at them. They all ducked.
           “Go  away,  Peeves,  or  the  Baron’ll  hear  about  this,  I  mean  it!”  barked
Percy.
Peeves stuck out his tongue and vanished, dropping the walking sticks on
Neville’s  head.  They  heard  him  zooming  away,  rattling  coats  of  armor  as  he
passed.
           “You  want  to  watch  out  for  Peeves,”  said  Percy,  as  they  set  off  again.
“The Bloody Baron’s the only one who can control him, he won’t even listen to
us prefects. Here we are.”
At the very end of the corridor hung a portrait of a very fat woman in a
pink silk dress.
“Password?” she said.
“Caput Draconis,” said Percy, and the portrait swung forward to reveal a
round hole in the wall. They all scrambled through it — Neville needed a leg up
—  and  found  themselves  in  the  Gryffindor  common  room,  a  cozy,  round  room
full of squashy armchairs.
Percy directed the girls through one door to their dormitory and the boys
through another. At the top of a spiral staircase — they were obviously in one of
the towers — they found their beds at last: five four-posters hung with deep red,
velvet  curtains.  Their  trunks  had  already  been  brought  up.  Too  tired  to  talk
much, they pulled on their pajamas and fell into bed.

---

“Great food, isn’t it?” Ron muttered to Harry through the hangings. “Get
off, Scabbers! He’s chewing my sheets.”
Harry was going to ask Ron if he’d had any of the treacle tart, but he fell
asleep almost at once.
Perhaps Harry had eaten a bit too much, because he had a very strange
dream.  He  was  wearing  Professor  Quirrell’s  turban,  which  kept  talking  to  him,
telling  him  he  must  transfer  to  Slytherin  at  once,  because  it  was  his  destiny.
Harry  told  the  turban  he  didn’t  want  to  be  in  Slytherin;  it  got  heavier  and
heavier; he tried to pull it off but it tightened painfully — and there was Malfoy,
laughing  at  him  as  he  struggled  with  it  —  then  Malfoy  turned  into  the  hook-
nosed teacher, Snape, whose laugh became high and cold — there was a burst of
green light and Harry woke, sweating and shaking.
           He  rolled  over  and  fell  asleep  again,  and  when  he  woke  next  day,  he
didn’t remember the dream at all.

---