Pranking the Sorting Hat

As Professor McGonagall placed the sorting hat on it's stool Fred winked twice at his brother and started the count down in his head. The timing had to be perfect. When he got to three both brothers closed their eyes. The flash that lit the great hall and temporarily blinded everyone was bright enough that even Fred, with his eyes closed, found himself blinking spots away from his vision as he lined up on his target.

He cast his spells with all the magic he had been building up for the past ten minutes into it. He rejoiced as the glittering orange spell hit its target just prior to the purplish spell from his brother also hitting the target. Quickly stowing his wand he took to rubbing his eyes like everyone else.

"Silence!" Professor McGonagall's stern voice halted the murmuring, complaining and arguing.

Dumbledore looked across to Professor Flitwick with questioning eyes and was about to ask something when the sorting hat burst into song.

"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,

But don't judge on what you see,

I'll eat myself if you can find

A smarter hat than me.

…"

The Weasley twins looked at each other in disappointment. All that work and the song was nothing like what they had written, it was just a normal sorting hat type song. Obviously the magic of the sorting hat was just too much for their spells to overcome.

After the applause Professor McGonagall stepped forward and started to speak. "When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted. Abbott Hannah!"

"SLYTHERIN!" shouted the hat and the confused pink faced girl slunk off towards the far table.

"Bones, Susan!"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

"Boot, Terry!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Brocklehurst, Mandy"

"SLYTHERIN!"

"Brown, Lavender!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

"Bulstrode, Millicent!"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Along with the normal greetings of the first years when they reached their tables there was a lot of confused murmuring and a little complaining. The twins exchanged slightly worried glances.

"Crabbe, Vincent!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

"Finnigan, Seamus!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

"Goyle, Gregory!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Granger, Hermione!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Fred pulled out two pages of notes and handed one to George. They set to started reading them all but ignoring the sorting as it continued. After a while they glanced at each other, shrugged, exchanged pages and went back to reading.

"Longbottom, Neville!"

"SLYTHERIN!"

"Malfoy, Draco!"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

The murmuring and complaining reached a new peak and Professor McGonagall had to call for silence twice more before the sorting could continue. The twins kept reading.

"Moon, Lilian!"

"SLYTHERIN!"

"Nott, Theodore!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Parkinson, Pansy!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

Fred gasped and grabbing George's shoulder pointed to a paragraph messily scribbled on the bottom of one piece of parchment.

"Patil, Padma!"

"SLYTHERIN!"

"Patil, Pavati!"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

George looked at Fred and mouthed, "Oops"

"Perks, Sally-Anne!"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

"Potter, Harry!"

The noise rose again but Professor McGonagall was quicker to shout out "SILENCE!" this time. The twins turned together to stare at the confunded hat.

Finally the hat shouted out...

Author Notes: Just an idea I had on the train. Edit April 2014 - Fixed a few things.