The Forgotten Olympian |BOOK 1| PJO X HP | Alexandra Marine

Chapter 121 - Alex - Sorting Ceremony

The bunch of us separated at the doors of the Great Hall, promising to see each other after dinner.

Jason, Percy and I joined Harry, Ron and Hermione at the Gryffindor table, where they'd somehow found the friendliness to save us seats.

"I knew most of you would be Gryffindors," Hermione told us. "It's almost like it's written all over your face."

I smiled awkwardly and sat down. "Thanks. I'll take that as a compliment."

"Who's that?" Hermione said sharply, pointing towards the middle of the staff table.

Dumbledore's head was inclined towards the woman sitting next to him, who was talking into his ear. She looked like somebody's maiden aunt: squat, with short, curly, mouse-brown hair in which she had placed a horrible pink Alice band that matched the fluffy pink cardigan she wore over her robes. Then she turned her face slightly to take a sip from her goblet. She had a pallid, toadlike face and a pair of prominent, pouchy eyes.

"It's that Umbridge woman!" Harry exclaimed.

"Who?" said Hermione.

"She was at my hearing, she works for Fudge!"

"Nice cardigan," said Ron, smirking.

"Aphrodite would be jealous," Percy joked silently next to me.

"She works for Fudge!" Hermione repeated, frowning. "What on earth's she doing here, then?"

"Dunno..." 

Hermione scanned the staff table, her eyes narrowed.

"No," she muttered, "no, surely not..."

A few seconds later, the doors from the Entrance Hall opened. A long line of scared-looking first-years entered, led by Minerva, who was carrying a stool on which sat an the ancient hat we hated so much, heavily patched and darned with a wide rip near the frayed brim.

The buzz of talk in the Great Hall faded away. The first-years lined up in front of the staff table facing the rest of the students, and Professor McGonagall placed the stool carefully in front of them, then stood back.

The first-years' faces glowed palely in the candlelight. A small boy right in the middle of the row looked as though he was trembling. 

The whole school waited with bated breath. 

"What's happening?" I whispered to Hermione.

"It's going to sing," Hermione whispered back urgently.

Then the rip near the hat's brim opened wide like a mouth and the Sorting Hat burst into song:

In times of old when I was new

And Hogwarts barely started

The founders of our noble school

Thought never to be parted:

United by a common goal,

They had the selfsame yearning,

To make the world's best magic school

And pass along their learning.

'Together we will build and teach!'

The four good friends decided

And never did they dream that they

Might some day be divided,

For were there such friends anywhere

As Slytherin and Gryffindor?

Unless it was the second pair