Items The Sorting Hat

'Harry quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first-years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Aunt Petunia wouldn't have let it in the house.

Maybe they had to try and get a rabbit out of it, Harry thought wildly, that seemed the sort of thing - noticing that everyone in the Hall was now staring at the hat, he stared at it too. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth - and the hat began to sing.'

- Chapter Seven, "The Sorting Hat, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone"

The Sorting Hat places first-year students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry into one of four houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin.

Sometimes the Sorting Hat knows immediately which house a student should be in, other times it takes a little while to decide. Those who linger longer than five minutes under the brim of the Sorting Hat are known as Hatstalls, although this is a rare occurrence.

The Sorting Hat is imbued with the intelligence of the four founders of Hogwarts, making it an extremely clever and enchanted object.

There have been many artistic interpretations of the Sorting Hat submitted to Pottermore. Here are some of our favourites from the Pottermore Galleries:

- The Great Hall -

by ThestralDust108

by HazelCharm136

by RoseSilver145

by HazelSnidget13

by SkyShadow157

We also wanted to know what you thought the Sorting Hat would say to you, and whether you think it would know which house to put you in straight away. Here are some of your comments:

(s via @MISFITSIERRA, @WESRFORD, and comments from our FACEBOOK FOLLOWERS.)

Credit: candle-magic.blogspot.com