Chapter 19: Hufflepuff

Without hesitation, Kyle took a few steps and came to the stage.

Having survived the ordeal, he patted his chest and looked at Professor McGonagall sincerely, "Thank you, Professor."

Perhaps not expecting such a polite child at Hogwarts, Kyle's sudden action caught Professor McGonagall off guard. It took her two or three seconds to react before she shook her head and said, "This is my duty."

Although she said this, Professor McGonagall's originally serious expression softened a lot. And before putting the Sorting Hat on Kyle's head, she even patted the dust off it.

"Such a polite child, it would be great if he could be sorted into Gryffindor."

Professor McGonagall was a little hopeful. What Gryffindor lacked most was this kind of model student.

Last year, she dreamed of bringing Cedric to her house, but unfortunately, Sprout and Dumbledore both disagreed.

It would depend on this year.

Professor McGonagall stared at Kyle with burning eyes and prayed in her heart that the Sorting Hat would be reliable for once.

...

"Strange, too strange."

As soon as Kyle put on the Sorting Hat, he heard a faint voice in his ear, "You thanked me sincerely? That shouldn't be the case, I mean, are you that kind of good kid?"

"Of course I am!" Kyle said seriously, "You can go and ask around, both the Weasley family and Mr. Scamander have said that I am the most polite good boy they have ever met."

"So please don't slander me, otherwise even if you are just a hat, I will complain about you."

"..."

The Sorting Hat fell into a rare silence. The tip swayed back and forth unconsciously as if it was at a loss for words or struggling with something.

After a long time, it continued, "Your shamelessness reminds me of more than a thousand years ago, but at that time, I was just an ordinary hat, right on Godric's head."

"So, how about Gryffindor? I feel like it should... forget it, it's not suitable for you."

"I think..."

"Let me think." Kyle just wanted to speak, but was interrupted by the Sorting Hat, "Slytherin is still better, there you will achieve greatness, there is no doubt about it."

"That..."

"Wait, wait."

For the second time, the Sorting Hat interrupted Kyle again, "No, it's still not suitable, and if you go to Slytherin, Snape will pour some strange potions on me in the future, let me think again..."

"Dumbledore has given me a big problem... It's a pity, if only Azkaban also belonged to Hogwarts, or Nurmengard would be fine."

...

The more Kyle listened, the more creeped out he felt. What was going on? He didn't seem to have done anything wrong, at most he just scared Kanna a little. Could it be that he would be sent to Nurmengard because of this?

Was there any reason left in this world?

Besides, the whole wizarding world did this, and many people said things more exaggerated than him, why were they okay?

This was too much of a double standard.

Kyle felt that he should do something. If he let the Sorting Hat say it out loud, he would be screwed.

Azkaban would be fine, it was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Magic, and it wasn't a place you could go just because you wanted to.

But Nurmengard was different, Dumbledore had connections there, and sending someone there would be too easy.

Kyle knew in his heart that the reason why the Sorting Hat, with its petty nature, said this was probably because it was dissatisfied with him saying he wanted to complain about it just now and wanted to get back at him. It couldn't shout out that place.

But what if...

A hat that had existed for more than a thousand years and had an independent consciousness, no one knew what it was thinking. What if it had an impulse and wanted to shout it out to liven up the atmosphere?

It was all possible.

"That..." Kyle showed a harmless smile and said, "The song you sang just now was good especially the first few lines. The lyrics were concise, the tone was light, much better than those clichés of the Weird Sisters."

Hearing this, the Sorting Hat immediately became interested, "You think it sounds good too, right? I told you, it took me a year to come up with that, how could it not sound good? Only Dumbledore doesn't know how to appreciate it, he even advised me to sing the school song, that old bee!"

Uh...

Kyle didn't plan to badmouth the headmaster under his nose, that would be too risky, even if he couldn't hear it.

After coughing twice to cover it up, Kyle continued, "May I ask, your song sounds a bit familiar to me, is it in the style of rap?"

"Rap..." The Sorting Hat asked curiously, "What does that mean?"

"You don't even know! You must be self-taught, that's amazing." Kyle first pretended to be shocked, then explained, "Rap is also called rap or hip-hop, it's a very popular Muggle music style."

"Muggle music..." The Sorting Hat became even more curious.

"Yes, I think you can give it a try, it should be very suitable for you." Kyle said sincerely, "If you need it, I can give you a gift related to this at Christmas."

"Okay... no, I mean, let's finish the sorting first, it's been a long time, you must be hungry too, it wouldn't be good to delay the dinner." The Sorting Hat cleared its throat, "By the way, where were we?"

Kyle smiled, "You just said that I am a polite good boy, but you think that Gryffindor, Slytherin, and Ravenclaw are not suitable for me."

"Huh? Did I mention Raven... oh, I almost forgot, that's right, you're right."

"In that case, the result is already obvious..."

"Hufflepuff!"

The moment Kyle's sorting result was revealed, thunderous applause erupted from the entire Great Hall, including the staff table.

After a full twenty minutes, this longest sorting ceremony in Hogwarts history was finally over.

They were really hungry too, after all, at this time in previous years, the dinner would have already begun.

The Hufflepuff table was particularly lively. Cedric didn't care about the Quidditch team anymore and came over enthusiastically to hug Kyle.

"That's great, Kyle, I knew you would come to Hufflepuff."

Kyle smiled, "You have better taste than the Sorting Hat."

"Huh?" Cedric was stunned for a moment, not quite understanding what he meant.

But Kyle just smiled and didn't explain.

Just then, a few older students came over to shake his hand. Judging from the badges on their bodies, they should be Hufflepuff prefects.

This was also a custom in every house, to welcome the new students and get to know them.

Kyle smiled and greeted them, then sat down in the empty seat next to Cedric.

The person who sat here before was a prefect, but after finding out that Kyle and Cedric knew each other, he took the initiative to give up the seat.

...