Where We Belong

Chapter 5 - Home for the Year

Jack and Rook followed the rest of Slytherin House down a steep, dark flight of stairs. They wandered through the hallways and eventually came to a wall.

Rook frowned, looking confused. "Why'd we stop?"

"Well, there's a wall there. We can't walk through walls."

"I know that, I'm not thick! But-"

One of the prefects hollered, "Listen up! This is important. This is how you get into the common room. You say the password to the wall. The password right now is 'ambition.'"

The wall opened into an archway.

"What were you saying?"

She looked even more confused. "There's an archway."

"Yeah. Magic remember?"

"The... The wall. The archway," she continued as if she hadn't heard him, "There wasn't a wall, Jack. Why was that guy talking about a wall?"

"I don't know what you're going on about, Rook, but there was a wall. It was big and dark and..." A thought occurred to him. A bad thought. "Why?"

She stared at the archway; she hadn't seen a wall. She didn't doubt that Jack had seen it, but the fact remained; she hadn't.

"You two! Keep up!" They hurried into the common room.

The walls were bathed in a dull green light, and there was a fire blazing. They were under the lake. She stared out the windows, and breathed a soft sigh of relief.

"Girls to the left, boys to the right."

Jack walked into his dormitory behind the rest of the first year Slytherin boys. He looked back at Rook, who was staring confused at the place where the archway had been - it had disappeared and left an intricate stone rim on the wall.

She turned around and met his eyes. She gave him a small smile, and disappeared into the girl's dormitory.

Inside his dormitory, there were seven green-curtained, four-poster beds. Jack found his bags by the bed closest to a window. He looked down at the floor, and watched the sharp line of swirling, green light. There wasn't a single shard of moonlight that could make it into the room.

Rook found her bags by the bed closest to the window as well. There were only three first-year girls in Slytherin, and none of them spoke a word to each other as they fell asleep. Rook stared out the circular window, watching the murky water swirl by, thinking of the full moon that was shining down, unable to penetrate the depths of the lake.

~~~~

Merida, Derek, and Indigo followed the Gryffindor prefects up several marble flights of stairs and stopped at a life-size portrait of a woman in a pink dress. "This," one of the prefects said, "Is the Portrait of the Fat Lady-"

"-Oh! I am not fat!" the portrait snapped, but she was smiling.

"-And this is how you get into Gryffindor Tower. You just tell her the password, which is Caput Draconis at the moment." The portrait swung open, revealing a hole in the wall. The bottom of the tunnel was about a foot off the ground.

They walked into the common room, and gasped. There were several floor-to-ceiling windows, letting in large patches of moonlight. There were several couches and armchairs that looked extremely comfortable, along with a few tables at which to work. There was a large opening that framed a wide, wooden staircase. "Boys, up the stairs, and to the left. Girls, to the right."

They went their separate ways, and Merida walked into her dormitory. There were five four-poster beds with scarlet curtains. Her bags were by the window, and Indigo was right next to her. "Indigo! Your hair just turned brown!"