Harry Potter 04 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

anxious.
    Harry scanned the table more carefully. Tiny little Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was sitting on a large pile of cushions beside Professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher, whose hat was askew over her flyaway grey hair. She was talking to Professor Sinistra of the Astronomy department. On Professor Sinistra’s other side was the sallow-faced, hook-nosed, greasy-haired Potions master, Snape – Harry’s least favourite person at Hogwarts. Harry’s loathing of Snape was matched only by Snape’s hatred of him, a hatred which had, if possible, intensified last year, when Harry had helped Sirius escape right under Snape’s overlarge nose – Snape and Sirius had been enemies since their own schooldays.
    On Snape’s other side was an empty seat, which Harry guessed was Professor McGonagall’s. Next to it, and in the very centre of the table, sat Professor Dumbledore, the Headmaster, his sweeping silver hair and beard shining in the candlelight, his magnificent deep-green robes embroidered with many stars and moons. The tips of Dumbledore’s long, thin fingers were together and he was resting his chin upon them, staring up at the ceiling through his half-moon spectacles as though lost in thought. Harry glanced up at the ceiling, too. It was enchanted to look like the sky outside, and he had never seen it look this stormy. Black and purple clouds were swirling across it, and as another thunderclap sounded outside, a fork of lightning flashed across it.
    ‘Oh, hurry up,’ Ron moaned, beside Harry. ‘I could eat a Hippogriff.’
    The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the doors of the Great Hall opened, and silence fell. Professor McGonagall was leading a long line of first-years up to the top of the Hall. If Harry, Ron and Hermione were wet, it was nothing to how these first-years looked. They appeared to have swum across the lake rather than sailing. All of them were shivering with a combination of cold and nerves as they filed along the staff table and came to a halt in a line facing the rest of the school – all of them except the smallest of the lot, a boy with mousey hair, who was wrapped in what Harry recognised as Hagrid’s moleskin overcoat. The coat was so big for him that it looked as though he was draped in a furry black marquee. His small face protruded from over the collar, looking almost painfully excited. When he had lined up with his terrified-looking peers, he caught Colin Creevey’s eye, gave a double thumbs-up and mouthed, ‘I fell in the lake!’ He looked positively delighted about it.
    Professor McGonagall now placed a three-legged stool on the ground before the first-years and, on top of it, an extremely old, dirty, patched wizard’s hat. The first-years stared at it. So did everyone else. For a moment, there was silence. Then a tear near the brim opened wide like a mouth, and the hat broke into song:
     
    ‘A thousand years or more ago,
    When I was newly sewn,
    There lived four wizards of renown,
    Whose names are still well known:
    Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor,
    Fair Ravenclaw, from glen,
    Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad,
    Shrewd Slytherin, from fen.
    They shared a wish, a hope, a dream,
    They hatched a daring plan
    To educate young sorcerers
    Thus Hogwarts School began.
    Now each of these four founders
    Formed their own house, for each
    Did value different virtues
    In the ones they had to teach.
    By Gryffindor, the bravest were
    Prized far beyond the rest;
    For Ravenclaw, the cleverest
    Would always be the best;
    For Hufflepuff, hard workers were
    Most worthy of admission;
    And power-hungry Slytherin
    Loved those of great ambition.
    While still alive they did divide
    Their favourites from the throng,
    Yet how to pick the worthy ones
    When they were dead and gone?
    ’Twas Gryffindor who found the way,
    He whipped me off his head
    The founders put some brains in me
    So I could choose instead!
    Now slip me snug about your ears,
    I’ve never yet been wrong,
    I’ll have a look inside your mind
    And tell where you belong!’
     
    The Great Hall rang with applause as the Sorting Hat finished.
    ‘That’s not the song it sang when it sorted us,’ said Harry, clapping along with everyone else.
    ‘Sings a different one every year,’ said Ron. ‘It’s got to be a pretty boring life, hasn’t it, being a hat? I suppose it spends all year making up the next one.’
    Professor McGonagall was now unrolling a large scroll of parchment.
    ‘When I call out