A Bite of Hogwarts - chapter 55

Simulating the Sorting Ceremony

“First-year students follow me.”

Professor McGonagall nodded at Alina, her lips slightly less pursed than before. She turned to her side and opened a door, indicating that the new students should follow her in.

Hogwarts Castle was built on a much grander scale than the majority of buildings in Europe. Just like Gringotts, it had clearly been built to accommodate a large number of guests from the Magic World.

As the group walked through the wooden doors into the Entrance Hall. Blazing torches burned on the walls, and the ceiling was so high up that it could barely be seen. On the other side was a large marble staircase that led to the higher floors.

Professor McGonagall led the first-year students to a small room on the other end of the Entrance Hall. Folding her hands in front of her ink-green robes, she stood up straight and cleared her throat, her eyes scanning the nervous faces of the new students.

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” Professor McGonagall said. “However, before the start-of-term feast, there were a few important matters I must explain to all of you…”

When Alina heard Professor McGonagall start on the familiar introduction to the school and the houses, she rolled her eyes and subtly curled her lips.

Putting aside the fact that this part was one that many fan writers in her previous life used to inflate their word counts, she had read this part herself numerous times. But for the next seven years, these words became something infinitesimally close to nonsense.

This wasn’t anything wrong with the words themselves. It was just that once Harry Potter entered the school, Gryffindor House began to openly cheat.

Until Harry’s sixth year, it was essentially irrelevant how many points were deducted from the house over the year. At the end of each term, Dumbledore would find a pile of seemingly reasonable excuses so that the Gryffindor House would always win the House Cup.

Of course, Alina didn’t think it was a bad thing. After all, this meant that no matter what sort of mayhem she created for herself, it would have no effect on who eventually won the House Cup, freeing her from any sort of psychological pressure or self-rebuke.

Just when Alina was getting bored and starting to bother Hermione—such as secretly scratching her palm or playing with her hair—Professor McGonagall finally reached the end of her introduction.

“Some of the higher-year students have yet to arrive at the castle. It will be about an hour until the Sorting Ceremony begins.”

Considering how rare it was for new students to wait this long, Professor McGonagall took out her wand and waved it. As the new students called out in surprise, the stone floor transformed into a soft wool rug.

“You can sit here and rest until then.”

Professor McGonagall sharply looked around at the young wizards and added, “When the time comes, do your best to remain quiet.”

After saying this, she left the room.

Once they saw Professor McGonagall leave and the heavy wooden door close shut, the young wizards sighed in relief. With little concern for outward appearance, they sat down on the soft wool rug and began to chat.

Professor McGonagall had spoken a great deal, but whether intentionally or not, she had not said a single thing about the most important Sorting Ceremony.

“Oh, I heard about the Sorting Ceremony from Fred. It might be very painful for us, though I think that they were mostly joking.”

Given that he had five brothers who had attended Hogwarts, Ron quickly became the center of attention. Quite a few young wizards had gathered around him, hoping to gather information about the Sorting Ceremony.

“That’s not for certain. My cousin said that the Sorting Ceremony is for everyone to cast a spell to prove that the school didn’t send an acceptance letter by mistake. I wonder if I’ll be able to use Lumos Maxima when the time comes.”

Neville glumly said, his round face stricken with worry.

Pft~

Draco Malfoy, who had been sitting on the side with his arms folded, couldn’t help but scoff. Raising a light golden eyebrow, he arrogantly wagged a finger.

“How could that be? My father is a member of the Board of Governors, and he told me that anyone who can accurately recite the names of the twenty-eight pure-blood families could pass the assessment.”

“Did none of you ever think about why they gave us an entire month with the textbooks?”

Hermione impatiently cut Malfoy off. Pulling on her wavy brown hair, she spoke in a slightly frantic tone.

“It must be an entrance exam! Oh my god, I didn’t think about bringing a textbook with me from the train!”

As the young wizards shared the various Sorting Ceremonies they had heard about from their siblings or parents, an uneasy mood began to spread.

Alina could basically conclude that if one wanted to enter Hogwarts, one had to single-handedly fight a monster, perform a tapdance, and then take a test that could contain all sorts of questions…

In short, based on the descriptions from these young wizards, Alina could understand with a sense of great satisfaction that Hogwarts’ fine tradition of frightening the first-year students over the ceremony had been successfully executed and passed on in every family.

“Alright, everyone, relax. From what I know, it’s just a very simple assessment.”

As the mood in the room grew increasingly nervous, Alina helplessly sighed and revealed the truth.

“People of different personalities will be placed in different houses. Although I feel that this is a very casual and irresponsible way of placing people…”

Alina glanced at the suspicious faces around her and suddenly changed the subject, adopting a mysterious tone.

“Now that I think about it, I have this mysterious testing method that can predict what house you will end up in. Want to try?”

Alina wasn’t just making things up. Her questions all came from the official Harry Potter website: Pottermore. The Sorting Ceremony quiz had been published on this site.

Many fellow fans had always been very curious about something. If the characters from the novel were sorted according to their results from the official quiz, would they still be placed in their original houses?

Of course, in order to confirm her own authority, Alina would not show any bias in the results she announced. After all, she was an expert transmigrated Harry Potter series fan. If she couldn’t guide or predict such things, someone would definitely end up using the Imperius Curse or Memory Charm on her.

Looking around in satisfaction as her first-year friends bobbed their heads like chickens pecking at rice, Alina smiled.

“Then, the first question: dusk or dawn…”