Preparations

[Aya Matrim]

There was no such thing as a quiet spot in the student lounge, but Aya had forgotten the password to the Gryffindor Common Room, and this was the best place she knew of to find another Gryffindor. Her assumptions, however, had been incorrect. In fact, the student lounge was mostly empty, with one game of wizarding chess going on, a couple making out in the corner, and a splatter of students simply talking to each other. The day had been long and exhausting, filled with dealing with people she didn't want to and trying to find an end to the never-ending maze that was the castle, and all Aya wanted to do was lay down and go to bed and reenter the realm of dreams. She sat down on the farthest couch she could find, trying not to pout like her little brother did, and enjoyed the warmth of the fire that glowed.

She began to imagine figures in the fire, and her eyes slowly began to close when there was a clattering sound and then a shout of victory. She shot up and glared at the two boys that played, but they paid no attention to her, one of them busy looking sullen while the other one did what she guessed was a victory dance. She rolled her eyes and sat up more properly, putting her head in her hands and desperately trying to remember the stupid word that would let her back into her common room.

 

[Casey Daniels]

Casey had mixed feelings about being back at Hogwarts for the new year. He had enjoyed being home for the break, it had allowed him to gain some perspective about his first year and everything that he went though. One thing he hadn't missed during his time at home was the cold unwelcoming atmosphere of the Slytherin common room. He had only been back in the dungeons twenty minutes, the time it took to unpack his bags, before he was back out in the castle doing everything he could to avoid going back. It would be difficult, having spent a full year at the school there was few places he could go to for the first time.

The student lounge was somewhere Casey hadn't spent a lot of time in, for the most part when Casey wanted to get out of the common room he would head to the grounds and spent sometime at the lake. The weather was cold outside. Casey loved winter but he wanted to stay warm and stay inside. Casey hadn't expected the lounge to be so empty, only a handful of students were to be found. Two boys in the corner playing chess, a couple kissing on the sofas and a girl on her own with her head in her hands. Casey didn't want to disturb her but there was space around her that he could sit on the other end of the sofa, away from the others in the room. He took a seat and leaned back on the sofa.

 

[Aya Matrim]

Aya felt herself sink slightly, signaling the arrival of someone sitting next to her. She peaked through her fingers at the new boy and before she even could get a proper look at him blurted out, "You wouldn't know the password to the Gryffindor Common Room, would you?" Only milliseconds after she'd asked she realized it was useless, with the Slytherin crest on his robes instead of the lion she sought. Her hands fell away and she sighed. "Sorry, I'm having the worst time trying to remember..." she mused, more to herself than to the student beside her.

Looking over him again Aya realized he was probably a little older than her, but not much. Maybe a 2nd or 3rd year. He probably knew more about the castle than she did, maybe not passwords, but where a lot of the Gryffindors actually tended to populate. Besides, it was a huge place, extremely different from home, and she was already beginning to feel a crippling loneliness, one she'd have to remedy soon. The only way to do that was to talk to people, so she would try.

 

[Casey Daniels]

Casey remembered what it was like to be a first year, to look around the castle and feel lost. Casey hadn't felt lonely when he first arrived, because he had met Alison before he arrived but nonetheless he knew how it felt to fee alone at Hogwarts. "Sorry I can't help you there I'm a Slytherin," He said with a bitter tone. Casey had a knack for meeting Gryffindor students, everyone he met a constant reminder of the house he was rejected from. However he smiled at the girl, he knew it was important for first years to feel welcomed by the people they met. "I envy you, I wish I could forget my common room password, then I'd have a reason not to go back but sadly I'm not that lucky," Casey knew that one day he would have move past his anti-slyherin agenda but he knew that being in Slytherin had cost him so much and that he would never be able to truly accept being a snake.

 

[Aya Matrim]

Aya tilted her head curiously at the Slytherin before her, noting the bitterness in his tone. From what she had met of the snake house so far, they were proud to be there, or indifferent, but none that she'd met displayed the harshness in their tone when revealing their house. He smiled at her nonetheless, and felt a little bit better about talking to him, knowing he wouldn't actively be angered. "What's wrong with being Slytherin?" she asked curiously. Her father had told her that he had made friends in every house, even if Slytherin had a bad reputation, most were good people. Maybe a tad on the manipulative side but nonetheless not evil villains.

 

[Casey Daniels]

Casey smiled knowing she had heard the bitterness in his voice, he hadn't exactly tried hard to hide it. In all truth Slytherin hadn't been as bad as he thought it would be, at least the people weren't the cold blooded monsters in the making that some people would have first years believe. It wasn't that they were bad people, but they were cold, at least the ones he had met. No one had gone out of their way to make the first years feel welcome so the new Slytherins stuck together to get by. Casey however had distanced himself out of bitterness and no it seemed too late to be accepted. It wasn't just the people that made him feel unwelcome it was the common room itself. The whole place felt cold and unwelcoming. "I was expecting Gryffindor, there's not necessarily anything wrong with being in Slytherin, I just spent a long time hoping for something else,". While he was home for the winter break he hadn't brought himself to take down the Gryffindor decorations down from his bedroom walls and instead chose to spend the winter in denial, cut off from Hogwarts and cut off from reality. So I spend as much time away from the common room as I can,"

 

[Aya Matrim]

Aya nodded, understanding where he was coming from. She'd partly hoped for Ravenclaw herself, due to that being her father's house, but it was not nearly as much as the boy had wanted to be in Gryffindor, that much she could tell just from how he talked of it. "I'm sorry. If it makes you feel better Gryffindor isn't exactly a dreamboat." Several times she'd caught her housemates staring at her or glancing at her while whispering. The young blonde took no offense from it, knowing she acted oddly compared to the more outgoing people around her, but it didn't exactly give her perfect images of her house either. "The more time you spend away the less likely you are to actually like your house. There's always a reason for where the Sorting Hat puts you," she pointed out to him. Now if I could only figure out why I'm here, Aya thought, leaning her head on her hand and tapping her cheek.