The first year students are led into a small chamber to wait before they are to start their sorting ceremony and enjoy their first Hogwarts dinner feast. The Sorting Ceremony decides which house of Hogwarts they will be put into for their duration at the school. The first-year students wait some time in the chamber until they are led into the Great Hall.
Once in the hall they stand in a line before a stool upon which sits an old, tattered wizard's hat. They are each called, one by one, in alphabetical order to the stool. Each student puts on the hat in turn, and the hat declares out loud to the entire student body and faculty the house of which that student is to be a member.
There are four houses in Hogwarts, each.....
