Chapter 15: Azkaban! (Edited)

Before the astonished gaze of the new students, a score of white, translucent ghosts emerged from the walls and glided around the room, not paying much attention to the freshmen: every year there were new students and they had seen hundreds of them. But a plump monk-like ghost greeted them all anyway.

"I hope a lot of you can get into Hufflepuff!" said the fat friar: "I used to go to that house."

Someone asked him about the selection ceremony, but he walked away as if he hadn't heard the question.

Professor McGonagall also returned. The moment she walked in, Harry had the illusion that she was about to lead him to his doom. Professor McGonagall had the new students line up and led them into the Great Hall.

The Great Hall at Hogwarts was also the dining room, lavishly decorated, with the students seated around four long tables, thousands of candles floating above them, and the silverware and glasses gleaming gold. There was also a long table at the top of the dining room, where the professors sat. The new students were led to this table by Professor McGonagall, who lined them up in front of the entire school, with the rest of the staff facing them.

Professor McGonagall placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years, on the stool was a tattered, pointed hat. The hat was patched and looked dirty.

After being placed on the stool, the hat twisted, a slit in the shape of a mouth opened and the hat began to sing. Who knows what it was singing, but it wasn't the Hogwarts school song. At the end of the song, Professor McGonagall stepped forward a few paces with a parchment in her hand. The student she called on had to put on a hat and sit on a stool, to be graded by the hat.

Hearing how simple the grading was, several of the students who had been alarmed in line blushed, but no one cared about them at the time.

"Hannah Abbott!" Professor McGonagall called out the name of the first first-year student.

Hearing the name, Tom was inexplicably relieved, and watched a young woman with two blonde braids step out of the line, put on her hat, and a moment later the hat shouted, "Hufflepuff!"

The students at the Hufflepuff table clapped and cheered for her, and even the fat friar waved cheerfully.

Next, Professor McGonagall called the young wizards one by one: Susan Bones, Justin Finch, Ernie McMillan and others entered Hufflepuff, Terry Boot and Mandy Brocklehurst went to Ravenclaw, Millicent Bulstrode was the first new student to enter Slytherin and Lavender Brown became the first new student in Gryffindor....

It was Hermione's turn. She ran to the stool and hurriedly put the hat on her head.

The hat hesitated for a moment, but then shouted, "Ravenclaw!".

Relieved, Hermione stood up from the stool, gave Tom a smile, and walked over to the Ravenclaw table to be greeted by the older students.

Tom was the last to be sorted, not because he was special, but because his last name had the initial 'Y' in it, so he was last in line, and was called by Professor McGonagall only after Blaise Zabini was sorted into Slytherin.

He placed the hat on his head, which was a little big on him and slid down to hide the view.

A little voice popped in his ears, 'Well, you're a good Slytherin...'

'I'm definitely not going to Slytherin,' Tom thought to himself.

'Oh? 'But you would fit in there, Slytherin could help you rise to greatness, there's no doubt about that...' said the Sorting Hat.

'I don't think Tom, the orphan, would fit in well in that house...', Tom replied inwardly.

'It's my job to sort the young wizard into the right house for him, so...' said the Hat.

'I swear, if I get sorted into Slytherin today, my magic will rip you to shreds,' Tom said, breaking his mask of kindness, 'Use your head! What would happen to a wizard like me in Slytherin? If you don't make it easy for me, I'll make it hard for you.'

The Sorting Hat fell silent.

"Azkaban." He muttered in the softest of voices, and Professor McGonagall felt as if she had a hearing problem.

"What did you say?" asked Professor McGonagall.

"Nothing..." The Sorting Hat squirmed, finally abandoning the idea of shouting "Slytherin" or "Azkaban!".

"If you don't like Slytherin, well, then, suit yourself, Ravenclaw!" the Sorting Hat shouted.

With those words, there was a round of applause around the Ravenclaw table, as well as applause from the other houses, but more because the sorting ceremony was finally over and it was time to eat.

In addition to the applause, there were also changes to Tom's system.

First, in the character section, Tom Yodel's name was changed to [Tom Yodel (Wind)], and he became a character of the Wind attribute as a result of joining Ravenclaw.

Then the main quest came up, and he accepted a quest called [The Wind Hunt], which he decided to investigate in his dorm room at night.

'If I get assigned to Gryffindor, will the main quest be [The Fire Hunt]?', Tom thought to himself.

Relieved that everything had settled down, Tom took off his hat and ran to the Ravenclaw table. There was an empty seat next to Hermione, and as he settled into it, Professor McGonagall rolled up her parchment, picked up the Sorting Hat and left.

At that moment, Professor Dumbledore also stood up, he, like all Headmasters, had to stand up at the last moment to say a few words, but luckily, he really only spoke a little.

"Welcome everyone, welcome to the start of a new academic year at Hogwarts! Before the party begins, I'd like to say a few words. That's right: Nutcases! Whiners! Trinkets! Pinched! Thank you all!" And with those few words, he sat back down.

"Seems a bit crazy, doesn't it?" one of the Ravenclaw house seniors, sitting across from Tom, smiled.

Because of the small circle of the magical world itself, and the special atmosphere of Hogwarts, the older students here were particularly kind and welcoming to new students of their house, even Slytherin was no exception.

"Robert Hilliard." He introduced himself.

"Tom Yodel," Tom introduced himself.

"Actually, that phrase has a unique meaning," Robert said patiently, lecturing the first-year students. "Actually, it's a description of the four houses - Ravenclaw always thinks everyone else is stupid, Gryffindor thinks everyone else is a coward, Slytherin thinks those houses containing non-pureblood wizards are scum, and Hufflepuff are screwed."

The new students had strange looks on their faces.