A Distinctive Sorting

The Sorting Hat was certainly unable to finish its song. Alecto Carrow's condition for compromising was that the Sorting begin immediately.

Naturally, the Sorting Hat disagreed. After all, it only got this one chance every year to sing the song it had written to all of Hogwarts' students.

But there was no helping it. Snape agreed to the request in his capacity as Hogwarts' headmaster.

Thus, during the Sorting ceremony that followed, the Slytherin freshmen became the slowest group to be Sorted. The Sorting Hat would always remain silent for a long time, only speaking lazily after the freshmen had grown restless and everyone else was starting to lose patience.

Once everyone caught on to the pattern, they knew that if the Sorting Hat went more than ten seconds without announcing a result, it had to be a Slytherin freshman.

At the same time, something else left many people equally puzzled.

Besides the parchment listing the freshmen's names, McGonagall also held a box.

At first, no one knew what was inside it, until a Hufflepuff freshman put on the Sorting Hat.

When the Sorting was over, McGonagall selected a wand from the box and handed it to him.

In an instant, a buzzing murmur spread throughout the Great Hall.

They had never known the Sorting ceremony included a wand-giving segment. Shouldn't students buy their own wands before school started?

Though many people also knew that the Death Eaters had occupied Diagon Alley, leaving the freshmen with no chance to buy their own wands. Even so, wasn't it too careless to hand out wands like this?

Anyone who had been to Ollivanders Wand Shop knew that wands were not something one could use by simply picking one up. A wand that did not suit its owner was practically useless for casting