The school song died in the rafters, every student finishing at their own tempo just as Dumbledore had invited, and the feast ended.
The Slytherin first-years fell in behind a prefect, threading through the crowd and out of the Great Hall.
Corridors, two marble steps down, deeper into the castle, until they stopped before a stretch of damp stone wall that looked like nothing at all.
The prefect faced them.
“Our common room. Password required. When it changes, you’ll find the new one on the notice board inside.” She glanced both ways down the corridor, then turned to the wall.
“Ambition.”
Stone ground against stone as a hidden door swung open, and the first-years surged forward, curiosity and excitement spilling over.
The Slytherin common room sat in a cavernous basement, walls and ceiling of marble, a vast floor-to-ceiling window looking out into the black stillness of the lake.
Green light filtered through the water, dim and cold, casting the room in something that felt almost noble.
The young wizards took it in with satisfaction—for now.
Elias eyed the damp stone.
Prolonged exposure, he figured, and half of them would have rheumatism by Christmas.
Down a staircase, the boys’ and girls’ dormitories branched off, another flight descending into a long corridor.
The dormitory itself was dark and damp, but not cold.
Four beds lined up against the window, trunks already waiting beside them.
At night, a simple roll over would give them a lovely view of whatever lake monster happened to be passing by.
A few wooden tables, chairs, wardrobes.
Nothing else.
Elias’s roommates were the three who’d sat across from him at dinner: Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle.
Crabbe and Goyle flanked Malfoy like hired muscle.
Malfoy, for his part, looked at Elias with something between sympathy and discomfort.
Even at school, he couldn’t shake the tedious formalities of home.
No one offered a greeting.
Elias didn’t wait for one.
He unpacked quickly, grabbed his pyjamas, and headed for the bathroom.
Hot water, in a basement like this, was a small mercy.
When he came back out, all three were already asleep.
Elias didn’t linger.
He climbed into bed and let sleep take him.
Hogwarts was a labyrinth of hidden doors and staircases that moved when you weren’t looking.
But the basement was close to the Great Hall, and Elias found his way in ten minutes.
He’d barely sat down at the Slytherin table when Hermione burst in.
The hall was nearly empty, so she spotted him instantly and dropped onto the bench beside him, slamming a book down.
“Thirty minutes!” she said.
“It took me thirty minutes to find this place. I finally ran into Nearly Headless Nick and he brought me here. Nick’s our Gryffindor ghost, and he’s—he’s really quite nice, actually.”
She shoved the book closer to his plate.
“My roommate said if we don’t go early, we won’t get a seat in the library. It’s been worrying me all morning. We don’t have classes, and I wanted to borrow some books, maybe do some prep work—”
The words came out like machine-gun fire.
Elias handed her a glass of milk.
Hermione stopped, took it out of habit, and drained it in one go.
That bought him ten seconds of quiet.
“No rush,” he said.
“The Great Hall’s empty. How could the library be full? Besides, do you really think every other first-year is racing to the library on the first morning of term?”
She set the glass down, took a breath, and then her bushy head bumped lightly against his shoulder as she stole a bite of the sandwich he’d been assembling.
“Will you come with me?” she mumbled through the mouthful.
Elias took a bite of his own.
“No classes this morning. Where else would I go?”
Hermione’s cheeks went faintly pink.
She snatched the rest of the sandwich onto her plate.
“I’ll make you another one.”
He didn’t object.
“How are your roommates?”
She nodded, but it was the kind of nod that didn’t believe itself.
“They’re… all right, I suppose.”
Elias let it lie.
He could picture it easily: Hermione in the dormitory last night, chin high, saying to her roommates in that shocked tone of hers, “Oh! You don’t know that spell? I’ve never touched magic before, but I’ve been practicing at home for a month, and I’ve got every single one to work. I thought someone from a wizarding family would already know it.”
After breakfast, they found the library together.
The Hogwarts library was vast.
The largest collection in the wizarding world, according to the school’s own descriptions.
The sheer volume of books swallowed them whole.
Elias let his instincts guide him, scanning shelves until he settled on two yellowed, untitled journals tucked into a forgotten corner.
One appeared to be about ancient history; the other, a record of someone’s adventures at Hogwarts.
Most students would never touch these unless they had a very specific reason.
Elias figured that was exactly why he might find something interesting inside.
He chose a table by the window and opened the ancient history journal first.
Nothing about Voldemort.
The history wasn’t old enough, then.
He’d need to start with the volumes whose script he couldn’t even read.
Hermione returned a moment later, staggering under a stack of books that reached her chin.
She thumped them onto the table.
Elias noticed the librarian’s expression darken further—Hermione, in her enthusiasm, had clearly pulled several books without filling out the request slips.
“Do you need help carrying those back?” he asked.
He didn’t bother asking if she could finish them all.
He already knew the answer.
“It’s all right. I’m not borrowing all of them. I just want to see which ones I want to read first,” she said.
Elias nodded and turned to the adventure log.
The wizard who’d written it had been restless, curious, the kind who mapped every hidden passage and forgotten room.
The journal detailed dozens of explorations: tunnels behind tapestries, staircases that led nowhere, a room on the seventh floor that only appeared when you needed it.
The writer called it the Come and Go Room.
“The Room of Requirement,” Elias murmured.
A room that furnished itself according to a person’s thoughts.
According to what they needed.
He sat back, the possibilities settling into his mind with a slow, deliberate satisfaction—the kind that didn’t announce itself, just quietly took up space.
[Pride +1]#