The Harry Potter Sorting Hat

Project work

“The Magic World of Harry Potter. The Sorting Hat”

Made by: Sosnitskii Egor 2B

Tutor: Novikova I.S.

Moscow 2023

Harry Potter is one of my favourite book characters. Joann Rowling created the whole magic universe with a great number of characters and unique artefacts.

 The Sorting Hat is one of the most well-known and important magical objects in the “Harry Potter”. But what is the Sorting Hat?

Hogwards was founded over a thousand years ago by four powerful wisards: Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff. They chose to divide the students into four “houses”. For each house the students had to have certain abilities and personalities.

To do this, Godric Gryffindor used his magic hat, which is now known as the Sorting Hat, to decide which children should go into which house. So every year there has been the Sorting Ceremony that places each new pupil into their own new home.

The Sorting hat is a conical leather wizard’s hat with folds that look like eyes and a mouth. To choose the house the Sorting Hat can read minds. The houses which the Sorting Hat sends the children to are:

Gryffindor.

It was founded by Godric Gryffindor. To get into Gryffindor you need to have qualities such as courage, chivalry, nerve and determination.

The Notable members are Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley.

Hufflepuff.

It was founded by Helga Hufflepuff. In Hufflepuff they value hard work, dedication, patience, loyalty, and fair play in its members.

Notable members include Cedrick Diggory and Nymphadora Tonks.

Ravenclaw.

It was founded by Rowena Ravenclaw. Members of this house were characterised by their wit, learning, and wisdom.

Notable members include Luna Lovegood, Gilderoy Lockhart and Filius Flitwick.

Slytherin.

It was founded by Salazar Slytherin. Salazar instructed the Sorting Hat to pick students who had a few particular characteristics he most valued. Those characteristics included cunning, resourcefulness, leadership, and ambition.

Notable members include Severus Snape, Draco Malfoy and Lord Voldemort.

Interesting facts about the sorting hat.

        The Sorting Hat contains the intelligence of the four founders, can speak and read minds and has the ability to summon the Sword of Gryffindor.

        The Sorting Hat is around 1000 years old. At first the four wizards selected their students themselves. However, as they grew older, they had to decide who would sort junior witches and wizards into houses when they themselves were dead and gone.

Their solution was to create a magic hat with their combined intelligence, to Sort on their behalf.

The Sorting Hat usually makes a decision in few seconds. However, there are cases when it had to think longer. It means that the student has qualities which will suit more than one house. In such cases the Sorting Hat can listen to the student’s wishes.

The Sorting Hat sings a brand-new song every year. Usually, the Sorting Hat’s songs are funny, but sometimes the Hat warns the staff and students of dangers awaiting the wizarding world and tells all four Hogwarts houses to unite.

The Sorting Hat made few wrong choices. But it never admitted to making a mistake when Sorting students. For example, there’s Peter Pettigrew, who was also placed into the Gryffindor fold, only to prove himself a coward – suggesting the Hat made a mistake.

Joann Rowling tried several sorting ideas before the hat. First, there was an idea that statues of the founders would spring to life and Sort young witches and wizards as they entered the school. Then she wrote down all the ideas she had and liked the simple action of drawing names from a hat, and – after adding some magic, the Sorting Hat was born!

The Sorting Hat sorted Voldemort instantly. After all Tom Riddle was practically everything Salazar Slytherin wanted in a student. He was highly intelligent, supremely talented, ambitious and hated anyone who wasn’t a pureblood witch or wizard.

 The Sorting Hat only thinks aloud in the movies. Although the Hat is very chatty in the books her voice is audible only to the students who are wearing it at the moment. But in the movies the Sorting Hat loudly speaks everything it thinks about the students’ character.

In the last “Harry Potter” book the Sorting Hat was almost destroyed (burnt) but was restored it appears 19 years later when Harry’s son comes to Hogwarts.

References

1. https://screenrant.com/sorting-hat-harry-potter-trivia-secret-facts/
2. https://harrypotter.fandom.com/ru/wiki
3. https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Hogwarts_Houses#Sorting
4. https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/the-sorting-hat