After Professor McGonagall left, the young wizards waiting for the Sorting began to chatter excitedly.
"Hey! Harry!" A red-haired boy nudged his friend standing next to him, his voice filled with schadenfreude. "Turns out it was Malfoy and his crew who got hit by that water dragon."
Seeing Malfoy's misfortune, Harry felt a swell of delight. In a tone very similar to Ron's, he said, "I really wish I could have been the one to hit Malfoy with something like that."
The two of them had just had an unpleasant run-in with Draco on the train earlier. Draco's high-and-mighty attitude had left a bad impression on Harry, and Ron had nearly gotten into a fight with him.
"How exactly do they Sort us into our Houses?" Hermione's face was written over with nervousness.
Kyle shrugged. "Professor Dumbledore said we have to duel a troll, and they'll decide our House based on our performance."
In reality, the Sorting Ceremony just required wearing a tattered, old hat, which would then announce which House the young wizard belonged to.
However, Hogwarts had a "fine tradition" of the "Sorting Scare" for first-years. It was possible their parents had been fooled this way before.
They must have felt they couldn't be the only ones tricked, so this "Sorting Scare" was inexplicably passed down, becoming an unspoken tradition.
Hearing Kyle's words, Hannah, Hermione, and Neville all turned pale.
"We're done for, we're done for! Is it too late to drop out?" Hermione's voice was full of terror. "I've barely mastered any magic! How am I supposed to fight a troll!"
Kyle, who knew the truth about the Sorting, looked at the three panicked students with a satisfied smile.
Just as Kyle was savoring his prank, Neville, who was next to him, suddenly leaped three feet in the air. High-pitched screams came from behind them. Kyle turned his head to see what it was—ghosts.
About twenty ghosts had suddenly burst out of the wall behind the crowd. Their entrance method was certainly frightening.
The pearly-white, translucent ghosts glided across the room, muttering to each other, paying little attention to the first-years.
A ghost wearing a ruff and tights suddenly noticed the new students.
"Hey! Kyle! Hope you get Sorted into Gryffindor!"
Kyle smiled and greeted him, "Hello, Sir Nicholas. That will depend on the Sorting Ceremony."
Standing behind Kyle, Hermione tugged on his robes. "You know them?"
"I lived here for a few months before this," Kyle explained.
As the ghosts drifted away through the wall, Professor McGonagall returned.
"Now, form a single line," Professor McGonagall told the first-years, "and follow me."
They walked out of the chamber, crossed the Entrance Hall, and went through a set of double doors at the back into the magnificent Great Hall.
The students from the other years were already seated at the four long House tables. Kyle, mixed in with the line of first-years, kept waving at his companions from the "Father-Grievers Alliance."
The twin brothers stood up from the table, cupped their hands around their mouths like a megaphone, and shouted at Kyle: "Kyle! We hope you come to Gryffindor!"
Kyle pressed a hand to his forehead in exasperation. Why did every single person want him to be Sorted into Gryffindor?
Was it just because the last Dumbledore graduated from Gryffindor?
Compared to Gryffindor, Kyle much preferred Hufflepuff.
As a Taijutsu practitioner, the most important thing was nutritional intake. If he went to Hufflepuff, it would be much more convenient to visit the kitchens.
Kyle swore it absolutely wasn't because he was a glutton.
Professor McGonagall led the first-years up to the front, lining them up facing the student body, with the teachers at their backs.
In the flickering candlelight, the hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns. The ghosts also shimmered, their misty silver forms interspersed among the students.
To avoid their gazes, Hermione looked up at the ceiling and saw a velvety black expanse sparkling with stars.
She whispered, "It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts, A History."
Er... Kyle really wanted to tell her that the dining hall in his family's castle had the same ceiling.
But that would sound like bragging, so Kyle dismissed the thought.
Professor McGonagall gently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first-years. On top of it, she put a pointed wizard's hat. The hat was patched, frayed, and extremely dirty.
Everyone in the Great Hall was staring at the hat. The previously noisy hall fell completely silent.
Kyle silently took out his wand and cast a silencing charm on himself.
The next part, if he wasn't mistaken, should be the Sorting Hat's song. Kyle had already experienced the Hat's ear-splitting magic-sound several times in Dumbledore's office.
This silencing charm was prepared specifically for this moment.
Sure enough, the Sorting Hat twitched. A wide rip near the brim opened up like a mouth.
The Sorting Hat began to sing.
"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,But don't judge on what you see..."
"So, we just have to put on the hat?" Hermione whispered to Kyle after the Hat finished its song.
Kyle's body suddenly stiffened.
Crap. He'd had so much fun lying earlier that he forgot he'd be thrown to the wolves once the truth came out.
"That... well... Professor Dumbledore told me that, too," Kyle said, turning his head to whisper the explanation to the "little beaver."
Hermione gave Kyle a suspicious look. "Is that really true?"
"Now! Quiet!" Professor McGonagall suddenly called out, saving Kyle's bacon.
Professor McGonagall stepped forward, holding a roll of parchment. "When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be Sorted."
"Hannah Abbott!"
The little, blond-haired "blacksmith" loli stumbled out of the line and put on the hat, which fell right over her eyes. She sat down.
The Hat paused for a moment, then shouted: "HUFFLEPUFF!"
The table on the right cheered and clapped, welcoming Hannah to sit with them.
"Susan Bones!" "HUFFLEPUFF!"
"Terry Boot!" "RAVENCLAW!"
Soon, Professor McGonagall called Kyle's name.
"Kyle Dumbledore!"
A sudden buzz of whispers erupted in the Great Hall, like the sizzling of a small fire.
"Dumbledore? Did Professor McGonagall just say Dumbledore?"
Hearing Kyle's surname, Malfoy was terrified. Did this mean he had spent all this time grievously offending Headmaster Dumbledore's relative?
Up at the High Table, a pale-faced professor wearing a strange turban was shooting odd glances back and forth between Dumbledore and Kyle.
However, neither Dumbledore nor Kyle noticed his strange stare.
As Professor McGonagall placed the filthy hat on Kyle's soft blond hair, the Sorting Hat, having already received Dumbledore's instructions, opened its mouth: "GRYFFIN—"
A hand clamped over the Sorting Hat's mouth. "Shut up!"
Dumbledore, who had thought everything was under control, felt the smile on his face freeze instantly.
Professor McGonagall's expression also turned ugly. Her lips were pressed tightly together, her brows furrowed so deeply they nearly stood on end, and even her glasses flashed with an intimidating light.
A subtle curve tugged at the corner of Snape's mouth.
Kyle kept his right hand clamped over the Hat's mouth. With his left hand, he pulled his wand from his pocket and aimed it at the Hat. The wand tip ignited with a spectral blue flame—the ancestral fire of the Grindelwald family.
Although it was just ordinary fire and not Fiendfyre, the color of that flame was enough to make Dumbledore's mouth twitch.
"Say! Hufflepuff!"
As Kyle's voice rang out, the very air in the Great Hall seemed to freeze.
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