Major Arcana: X Fortune, Wheel of

 
Major Arcana: X Fortune, Wheel of

Meaning of the card facing you: good luck, karma, life cycles, destiny, turning point
Meaning of the card facing away from you: bad luck, negative external forces, out of control

So when I did this, I had to cut out the drawing that I made so that I could make sure that I got it exactly the way I wanted it (as I have done for about 1/2 of my cards so far). The cut out made a beautiful negative space shape thing in the white paper. I don't have a picture of it right now, but I'll post it as soon as I get it because wow it's really awesome.

The Sorting Hat is a had the sorts the incoming first years into their Hogwarts Houses, Ravenclaw, Hufflypuff, Gryffindor, and Slytherin. It kind of reads the minds of the children that it sorts and places them based on who they are (and possibly bloodline). It has been around since Hogwarts was founded and has never failed to sort students.

I'm not sure how much the Sorting Hat represents good luck or bad luck, though it does sing about the bad things that it thinks is going to happen and gives good advice, though interHouse unity is not really something that Hogwarts students practice (which honestly makes me very sad. If someone what just been there for all those poor Slytherins, the wizarding world would probably not be in such a mess). It can be karma because it can look inside your head and places you based on what you've done/ have inside you so there might be some karma going around over there.

In Harry's case, the Sorting Hat has a lot to do with his destiny. Harry finds a home in Gryffindor House and becomes who he is because of it. Also, the Hat shows Harry that he had two possibilities: Gryffindor or Slytherin and he sealed whatever destiny he had when he chose Gryffindor. My personal opinion is that he would have thrived in Slytherin and managed not to become a dark lord, he might have picked up some really good qualities along the way as well. In general, for most people, the Sorting isn't that big a deal aside from the fact that you get placed with a bunch of people for the next seven years of your life. But for Harry, it was a very significant part of his life and impacted his outlook on life and the way he dealt with things.

During times of "negative external forces" and things are "out of control", the Sorting Hat can be very useful to a Gryffindor student, Harry and Neville being the examples for this. For Harry, the Sorting Hat came to help him defeat the Basilisk in the second book. Harry got the Hat from Fawkes and managed to pull the Sword of Gryffindor out of it which he used to slay the Basilisk. The snake, the memory of Tom Riddle, the diary, the Chamber of Secrets, and every thing in that place made it negative and out of control and without the Hat, it would have gotten worse. Actually Neville's story is very similar though the snake he was killing was Nagini in order to defeat Voldemort- this time in a more solid form.

Like most things in these books, the important things kind of creep up on you. They've kind of always been there, we just didn't know it until it was made clear for us. The Sorting Hat is a lot like that. It became a constant familiar thing that was kind of cool but not really because Harry needed it once and all that, but then Neville used it and we saw how much it was worth, how important it was.