Every season (or two), Doctor Who gets a bit of a facelift. The Doctor regenerates to become a new version of the same character. As a result, the Doctor also usually gets a new traveling companion to see the universe. Though Doctor Who is a science fiction series, and far from the fantasy realm of Harry Potter, that doesn’t mean fans haven’t wondered about where their favorite companions would fit in at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A little help from the Sorting Hat would give us the answers we need.
A companion traveling to the far reaches of space and time would need a curious mind, making a Ravenclaw seem fitting. Not all companions are the same though, and the knowledge of the universe isn’t what motivates them. Some just want adventure, like any good Gryffindor. Others want to help people, like a Hufflepuff. The rest, well, they hope a bit of the Doctor rubs off on them enough to make their lives a bit less ordinary. Those are the ambitious Slytherins.
Surprisingly, it’s the Slytherins and the Hufflepuffs who seem to come into the Doctor’s life most often.
Rose: Gryffindor
The first of the “New Who” era companions, Rose Tyler took a step into the Tardis and never really looked back. An ordinary young woman working in a shop, the idea of aliens and time travel were something out of the movies for her.
Rose embraced the experience wholeheartedly, always reaching for just one more adventure. She wound up far from home for months at a time, making her loved ones worry, but that was just the first step. Rose eventually became a warrior, traveling to a whole new dimension with a version of the Doctor to start a new life.
Martha: Ravenclaw
Known as the Woman Who Walked The Earth, Martha Jones literally spread the word about the Doctor around the entire planet - on foot. That kind of dedication could make her a Hufflepuff, but it’s her planning that makes her a Ravenclaw.
Martha Jones entered the series as a woman who was just shy of completing her residency to become a physician. She cataloged information as quickly as it was presented to her, and she managed to become a great doctor while on her travels. She created a plan that saved the Doctor and became the real hero of her series working for organizations like UNIT and Torchwood.
Donna: Hufflepuff
Donna Noble thought she was simply ordinary. Both the Doctor and Rose informed her, however, that she was the most important woman in the whole world.
Suffering through a string of temporary jobs, Donna hadn’t found anything to give her life meaning before becoming caught in the middle of one of the Doctor’s adventures. With her eyes opened to the strange things in the world, she started seeking them out, trying to help people. That’s how she wound up as one of the Doctor’s companions, and sorted as a Hufflepuff. She served as the Doctor’s conscience during their time together, famously urging him to just “save one” person if he couldn’t save everyone.
Tragically, after becoming Doctor Donna and saving the world, Donna’s memories of the Time Lord part in her brain had to be suppressed so she could go back to living a normal life.
Amy: Slytherin
When Amy became the Doctor’s companion, she’d actually already had a few experiences with him. She received visits from him as a child that made her long for adventure.
Amy always needed to be at the center of the story. She frequently manipulated events in her favor, though whether she did it intentionally or not is up for interpretation. Infatuated with her experiences the Doctor, but in love with Rory, Amy got to be the center of both their worlds by bringing Rory along for their adventures. The two rarely did anything she didn’t want to do. Her manipulation of the circumstances makes her a pretty deft Slytherin.
Rory: Hufflepuff
Rory Williams became something of a myth. The Last Centurion to stand guard over a locked box, he spent nearly 2,000 years keeping it safe. That kind of commitment came from his love for Amy, and his nature as a Hufflepuff.
Rory’s entire arc in the Doctor Who series is a result of how much he cares about Amy Pond. His best friend growing up, he didn’t even show interest in any other girls because he loved her as long as he could remember. It’s his loyalty to Amy and his faith in her that keeps him going on adventures with the Doctor and proving himself to be a hero.
River: Slytherin
When it comes to Hogwarts houses, like mother, like daughter. River Song came by her Slytherin tendencies honestly.
Like her mother before her, River was very adept at manipulating the people around her to her advantage. Sometimes, that manipulation was overt, like her holding the Doctor and her parents hostage for her “first” trip in the TARDIS with them. Others, not so much.
She also spent a large chunk of her life living as the best friend to her parents with them none the wiser, citing her “spoilers” policy for never telling them the truth. In reality, keeping the truth from them allowed her to get to know them as people rather than parents.
Clara: Ravenclaw
Clara Oswald might just be the smartest of all of the companions. Growing up as a lover of science and literature, she eventually became a teacher.
Beyond that though, becoming caught in the Doctor’s own timestream and shattering into “echoes” of herself, her intelligence never lacked amongst all of those echoes. Each version of Clara that existed in the Doctor’s own life exhibited a curiosity that comes with being a Ravenclaw. Following her experiences with the Doctor, Clara’s thirst for knowledge grew into one for adventure as she wanted to see everything the universe had to offer.
Bill: Hufflepuff
Though Bill Potts was more the Doctor’s student than any of the other companions, it wouldn’t exactly be right to sort her as a Ravenclaw pursuing knowledge.
Instead, Bill fits more neatly into the Hufflepuff role. Bill’s clever mind isn’t what she used to save the world on more than one occasion. It’s her big heart. Her memory of her lost mother, her need for fairness, and her refusal to give up are all things we see from her during her time with the doctor.
Ryan: Gryffindor
Ryan is one of the Doctor’s newest companions, and one that goes on some of the most crowded of trips. The Thirteenth Doctor has not just one, but three regular companions along for the ride.
Much of Ryan’s journey with the Doctor has been about realizing and battling his own fears. For a lot of his life, he’s been frustrated by being boxed in because of his skin color or his dyspraxia. He’s also often given in to fear. With the Doctor, Ryan has been able to push beyond his fears and frustrations, and step outside of the boxes other people placed him in, proving himself a true Gryffindor.
Yasmin: Slytherin
Yasmin’s quick mind might make some think she’s suited for Ravenclaw. Others might think her sense of justice suits her for Hufflepuff. The truth is, she’s able to combine both aspects of those houses with her own training as a police officer to effectively manipulate those around her, making her a pretty decent fit for a Slytherin.
Yasmin isn’t manipulative in a bad sense. Rather, she knows how to use her skills to both extract information from people and comfort them during stressful situations. It’s one of the reasons her ambition to become the police officer calling all the shots is so well suited to her.