As soon as Gwen realized what was going on, she was grateful her name was thoroughly middle-of-the-alphabet. That way she didn't have to go first, and she didn't have to be the last person standing up there. She watched with interest as students before her got sorted. It was really cool. There was a magical hat that looked inside your brain and decided which qualities you had the most of, then moved by itself, and spoke. Gwen had never seen anything quite like it, and she had been exposed to a lot of strange magical things within the past few weeks.

Finally it was her turn. "Jensen, Gwenhwyfar" was called out, and she made her way over to the stool. The professor had pronounced her name correctly at least. The hat was dropped on her head, and Gwen gasped as it started talking. It seemed as though only the person wearing the hat could hear it. She even peeked out at the students seated at the long tables to make sure they didn't know what it was saying to her.

After what seemed like an eternity to Gwen, though in reality was only a brief moment, the hat opened it's brim wide and shouted "Ravenclaw!" She knew which one that was. One of the students a minute ago had been sorted there. The hat was taken off of her head, and Gwen headed over the the blue and bronze table, trying desperately to look confident about it.