Random fic is random. But I enjoyed it. Hope you do too. :)

"Abercrombie, Evan."

The terrified-looking boy Harry had noticed earlier stumbled forwards and put the Hat on his head; it was only prevented from falling right down to his shoulders by his very prominent ears.

Harry scanned the staff table as they waited. His eyes landed on that Umbridge woman again, and he resisted the urge to gag as she stared out primly at the students, a tiny, toad-like smile on her face that didn't reach her eyes.

A minute passed.

Then two.

The mutterings that had died down after the Sorting Hat's new song were slowly flaring to life again as the students wondered what was taking so long. Harry managed to catch one final glimpse of Umbridge's smile fading slightly before Hermione brought his attention to her.

"Wonder what's taking so long?" she pondered aloud. Harry turned his eyes to her.

"I don't know," he shrugged.

"I hope it hurries up; I'm starving," Ron groused, looking down at his plate with a pitiful kicked-puppy look on his face.

"Oh, Ronald, think with something other than your stomach," Hermione shot back, giving him a light slap on the arm. With that, she turned her eyes back to the boy on the stool. "I haven't seen the Hat take this long with anyone. Except you, Harry," she amended, sparing him a glance. He simply shrugged in response.

"Maybe he's just hard to place."

"Or maybe the Hat can't place him and he's really a Squib!"

Hermione shot the redhead a withering look. "Ron, that's a horrible thing to say!"

By now, the whispers had grown into full-fledged chatter, almost as loud as when everyone had entered the Great Hall.

"What? You never know!"

"Maybe so, but that's still a horrible thought! How would you feel if—"

Harry was so used to his best friends' bickering that he tuned them out easily. Just in time to catch the tail end of the Hat's announcement.

"—PUFF!"

The chatter died down somewhat, and all eyes turned to look up at Evan Abercrombie as he tentatively removed the Hat from his head and handed it to McGonagall.

But something was off.

Harry blinked as the boy didn't move, simply staring at his shoes and fidgeting, as if waiting for instruction. A number of teachers at the staff table were blinking at him as well, as if unsure what was going on.

But it was the look on McGonagall's face that was the most strange. Harry had never seen his Transfiguration professor look so utterly bewildered in all his years at Hogwarts.

A number of whispers had broken out again.

"M... Mister Abercrombie, please put the Hat back on," McGonagall slowly said, holding out the tattered item to the now-terrified looking eleven year old.

"Put the Hat back on?" Harry mouthed to his friends, bewildered. Hermione and Ron both shrugged, just as confused as he was.

Evan Abercrombie shakily sat back down on the stool and put the Hat over his head.

There was no delay this time.

"GRYFFINPUFF!"

The entire hall went silent this time.

The boy once more removed the Hat and handed it to McGonagall, who, if it was possible, looked even more bewildered than before. Evan fidgeted even more under her gaze—and the gaze of every pair of eyes in the Hall—before asking in a tiny voice that nonetheless carried throughout the hall, "Um... Where... where do I go, Professor?"

That seemed to snap McGonagall out of it, and her grip on the Hat tightened slightly as she straightened.

"Please stand to the side, Mister Abercrombie. We'll try again after."

The boy's eyes widened, and he stepped off to the right of the stool, behind the professor, with a look on his face that suggested he was walking to his own execution. Harry would have felt sorry for him, if he wasn't so confused himself.

"Gryffinpuff?" he whispered incredulously to his friends as McGonagall called the next name with far more certainty than Harry himself would have.

Ron's eyes were wide as his gaze darted from the Hat—now being lowered onto another nervous-looking eleven year old's head—and the boy standing to the side, then back again.

"Maybe... Maybe it couldn't decide," Hermione suggested, but her eyes told him that she didn't believe it herself.

"You think he really is a Squib?"

This earned Ron another smack from Hermione.

Harry cocked his head slightly. "D'you reckon—"

"RAVENDOR!"

The students went silent again. Harry thought he actually heard a snicker or two from somewhere towards the back of the Hall.

McGonagall looked like she'd swallowed a lemon as she directed the girl before her to go and stand by Evan.

"Definitely jinxed," Hermione decided with a stern look on her face as she watched the third first-year step up to the stool.

"SLYTHERCLAW!"

There were a few more chuckles this time as the boy was directed to join the other two 'Sorted' students, his cheeks flaming.

"GRYTHERPUFF!"

"HUFFERIN!"

"RAVENPUFF!"

By this time, a small group of first years had formed to the side of the staff table, and most of the students in the Hall were laughing outright as the Sorting Hat's house names became more and more creative.

"GRYFFINCLAW!"

"SLYTHERPUFF!"

"RAVENDORIN!"

"SLYFFINDOR!"

Most of the Slytherins and Gryffindors looked utterly disgusted at the last name, and the small girl who removed the hat was subject to a number of glares from both the red and green tables.

"GRYFFLECLAW!"

"HUFFINCLAW!"

"SLYFFENPUFF!"

Harry was sure that he heard two distinct, identical voices laughing the loudest as the final student was called.

The Hat seemed to deliberate seriously, before declaring...

"GRYFFLESLYVENDORINPUFFCLAW!"

It seemed the last straw for McGonagall.

The Deputy Headmistress snatched the Sorting Hat from atop Rose Zeller's head and turned to the Hall, a furious look on her face.

"Whoever is responsible for this jinx, I can assure that the punishment will not be taken lightly!"

A number of students shivered at the voice they'd only heard a few times—the voice that told them that they would not like it if they were on the receiving end of her wrath.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to quell much of the laughter.

McGonagall's eyes flashed, and she plucked up the three-legged stool—probably a little too violently—and carried it and the Hat out of the Great Hall.

"That was bloody brilliant!" Ron laughed, wiping tears of mirth out of his eyes as he leaned back.

"It was not! What are they going to do with the first years now?" Hermione snapped, giving him a glare and including Harry in it as the Boy-Who-Lived.

"Oh, come on, Hermione, you have to agree that that was hilarious!" Harry snickered, trying to cover it up to escape some of Hermione's wrath.

"Oh you... boys!" she growled, slamming her hands down on the table.

"I'll betcha it was the twins," Ron chuckled. "Wish I'd thought of it! Greatest prank ever!"

"Ron! They could get expelled!"

"Only if they get caught! This'll totally be talked about for years!"

Harry let his eyes trail up to the staff table as he let Ron and Hermione bicker. Most of the teachers looked rather appalled, though it seemed that Flitwick was trying to conceal a smile. Umbridge's face looked like she'd been sucker-punched in the gut. Snape was scowling slightly more darkly than usual. Dumbledore's eye twinkle seemed to have magnified a hundredfold, even though his face was serious.

"Can we hurry up and eat?"

Harry laughed, and Hermione cracked a slight smile, even though she tried her hardest not to.

The first years ended up eating at a newly-conjured table at the front of the Great Hall, and, that night, slept on the Hall floor. The next morning, it seemed the jinx on the Hat had been removed, and the students were successfully Sorted at breakfast.

They never did manage to prove that the Weasley twins were actually at fault. But Harry was sure that he heard Ron begging them to teach him how they did it later that night.

Fin.