Ezra Ashworth's Sorting

Ezra was squirming in anticipation, unable to hold still any longer when he was so eager to find out what the hat was going to do. Had he broken it somehow? That wouldn't be good. He hadn't meant to break it! He didn't even know how he had!

Wait.. finally! Something was happening.

Oh wow. He knew that the hat could talk but he hadn't realised it would be in his head. That was wicked! Could other things talk in his head? If he read enough could he make things that could do that? Oh! Could he control what it said from far away like it was him talking? If he could then he would never have to wait at the window for a letter again! Just think of all the things he could spend his time on instead.

Maybe if he managed it he could give Auntie one and then his siblings would never have to wait forever for any letter from her again! They could just instantly contact her on the... what to call it? Hmm, the instant-non-howling-howler? That worked! Anyway, they could contact her on that and then surely she would not forget to reply because it would be instant.

What was he doing again? ... Right! The sorting!

"Hi," Ezra whispered, trying to keep his voice as quiet as possible. Wait, if the hat could talk in his head then could it hear him too? Deciding that it was worth a try, he focused as hard as he could in what he hoped was the hats direction, "Hi Mr Hat! Can you hear me?"

He was difficult? How was he difficult, he was just Ezra. Nothing hard about that.

Oh, the.. the hat wanted to know his opinion? That was enough to distract him from wondering if the hat had insulted him or not! Hogwarts houses were really important - everyone that he had talked to on the train had spoken about them - yet the hat wanted to know what he thought? It was enough to shut him up for a surprised moment.

Gryffindor or Ravenclaw? They were both in towers that stretched really far up, so that was a pretty good start to Ezra! He had always wanted to sleep so high up, he figured it would be like sleeping amongst the stars and he really liked stars! Oh, oh! If he opened the window that high then would it be like he had climbed the tallest ever tree?

He tried to stop himself from getting distracted too much by thoughts of what it would be like that high, though it was very hard to do.

Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, hmm.. Ravenclaw he would have his oldest brother, one of his favourite people, around. He really liked the thought of that, he had missed him so much the last four years whenever the older was at school and he always felt the safest with his oldest siblings there. He thought it was a shame that he could not just have all of his siblings in one place.

If he asked the hat nicely enough, would it let him be sorted in all his siblings houses at once? Probably not, he had never heard of that happening before after all.

Which house would be better? Gryffindor would be awesome, and he really did love to explore, so maybe... But Ravenclaw. That house had to be full of all kinds of really smart people just waiting for their brains to be picked. And what if they had super top secret Ravenclaw-only books hidden away that he would miss out on otherwise! The thought of missing out on that kind of gold mine was terrible!

"Mr Hat? I think I would like Ravenclaw, is that alright?"