CHAPTER SEVEN
He was starting to feel definitely sick now. He remembered be-
ing 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, Sea-
mus,” 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!”
Hermione 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.”
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!”
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