12) Hufflepuff

The entire hall was silent as they stared at the kid who was currently sitting on the stool. More than three minutes had already passed and all of a sudden, they saw tears rolling down his cheeks.

Professor McGonagall raised her hand, shutting down all the murmurs. She frowned with worry as she looked at Keith and waited, knowing that she couldn’t interrupt the sorting hat.

Soon, Dumbledore got up from his seat and walked towards the stool before stopping. The students watched as he whispered something to the deputy headmistress and saw her smile widely.

Neville stood in place, holding onto Tracey’s arm tight as he stared at his friend worriedly, not knowing what was going on.

A total of five minutes fifty four seconds later, the hat finally opened it’s mouth wide.

“HUFFLEPUFF!!”

The students sitting by the Hufflepuff table cheered happily but Keith heard claps behind him too, so he turned around. There sat a squat, cheerful looking woman who smiled warmly as she clapped excitedly.

He then turned to look at the woman with short spiky hair and smiled at both of them. Some of the other professors were also applauding, but he could see the difference in the enthusiasm.

Before he could move to his house’s table, he finally looked up at the person who was standing beside him.

“Dumbledore?! I mean, Professor Dumbledore! No no, Headmaster Dumbledore?” Keith said quickly, panicking as he took a step backwards.

The man he had admired, the greatest wizard of Great Britain was currently standing right in front of him. The Hufflepuff table could wait.

Dumbledore smiled warmly but his eyes held a spark of playfulness as he fished into the inner pockets of his robes and sighed.

“Well, I don’t have anything on me to give you. But I believe you’ll find my words useful once you understand them.” he said as he looked down at Keith.

The people in the great hall seemed to have decided to hold their breaths as they waited for Dumbledore to continue.

“Magic, Keith. Is not in the incantation, but in the intent. Now off you go.” he said and smiled.

Keith frowned as he memorised the words but listened to Dumbledore and walked over to the Hufflepuff table. He sat down right beside the only other first year, Hannah Abbot.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Hi, I’m Keith. Nice to meet you.” he said as he gave her a cheerful smile, which she returned quickly, “Nice to meet you too! You should already know my name though.”

He nodded, “Yes, I do. Hannah Abbot isn’t it?”

Then, he was interrupted by the hat as he yelled, “HUFFLEPUFF!!”

He turned around and saw Susan Bones skipping over to the Hufflepuff table and smiled at her.

“Won’t it be funny if everyone here gets sorted into Hufflepuff?” he asked as he turned to look at Hannah, who chuckled but shook her head.

“It would be funny but I don’t think it’ll happen.” she said as Professor McGonagall called out the fourth name.

“Boot, Terry!”

Just five to six seconds after the hat was placed on his head, it yelled, “RAVENCLAW!!”

Susan Bones had taken a seat beside Keith by now and Hannah spoke once the hat yelled it’s answer, “I told you it’s not possible.”

“Yeah, but it would still be funny if everyone did get sorted into Hufflepuff won’t it?” Keith said as he leaned forward to look at the other Hufflepuffs. Most of them were bigger than him but almost every single person gave him warm or cheerful smiles.

‘Maybe Nymphy was right… Hufflepuff feels nice to be in already.’

As the sorting continued, Keith began to lose himself in his own thoughts.

‘Magic is not in the incantation but in the intent…’ he thought as he tried to make sense of it. Every single spell he had seen, needed an incantation.

The only things that worked with intent were his telekinesis and his ability to go into the minds of creatures.

‘Maybe he knows about my secrets already?’ Keith wondered as he turned to look at Dumbledore, who caught his eye and gave him a smile.

Keith hurriedly turned away, not familiar with the feeling of having his inspirational figure showing him so much attention.

‘Just why…’ he thought as he turned to look at the staff table again but the headmaster’s eyes were now on the student on the stool. Keith shifted his gaze and saw Harry tightly clenching the edges of the stool.

The famous Harry Potter getting this much attention was nothing surprising and yet, he saw the squat woman looking straight at him. To his surprise, she waved cheerfully and he couldn’t help but wave back at her.

‘Did something happen?’ he wondered as he saw the difference in which this woman looked at the other students and at him. It was similar to how his mother Andromeda looked at both him and his sister.

“High Expectations?” he muttered, feeling slightly confused and conflicted at it.

Susan nudged him with her elbow and whispered, “What did you say?”

“Oh, nothing important. I was just talking to myself hehe.” he said, feeling slightly embarrassed with his answer.

“Longbottom, Neville” he heard Professor McGonagall say and immediately focused on his friend.

He stumbled to the stool nervously and sat down. Then, silence ensued.

One minute, two minutes, three minutes.

Finally, the hat yelled, “GRYFFINDOR!!”

“NO!” Keith yelled back as he stood up, but immediately sat back down as he realised what he had done.

He felt his cheeks go hot with embarrassment as he stared directly at the table in front of him, not wanting to look at anyone else.

“Is he a really good friend?” he heard Susan say softly from beside him, and nodded in response.

He sighed and then spoke, “He’s my first friend. We met at St Mungos when I was eight and we just became friends.”

“I heard that you’ll lose some of your friends if they’re in different houses.” Hannah joined in but Keith shook his head.

“That will never happen. I’ll never break my friendship with Neville, he’s my best friend.”