How can this be taking so long?

Padma bit her lip nervously, watching her twin sit on the rickety stool in the front of the Great Hall. Padma hadn't even been this anxious when she was trying on the Sorting Hat for herself. She was desperate for Parvati to be sorted into Ravenclaw, the house she'd been sorted in only moments earlier. Parvati gave Padma an easy smile, and they both held up crossed fingers.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Padma's heart sank to somewhere around her knees. Of course Parvati was in Gryffindor. Hadn't Parvati been the one who snuck into Mama's bedroom for chocolates when they were five? Hadn't she always been the bravest? The twin's own mother and father had preferred to keep the houses traits quiet, because 'whatever house their children were sorted in was just fine'. However, Padma had the houses' traits explained to her on the train by some snooty know-it-all with bushy hair. Which was just as well, really, as the hat explained each of the houses in great detail.

Padma watched gloomily as her twin walked to the Gryffindor table, Parvati glancing only once at Padma as if to say, "Who knew?" The twins had always been close, no matter their differences. They could finish each other's sentences, but they laughed at different jokes. Papa had said that siblings "usually got into the same house". Either way, he'd said that this would be a great opportunity to meet more people.

At this, both twins had nodded enthusiastically, but secretly, Padma had thought she didn't need any more friends.

We haven't slept apart since the day we were born. At this thought, Padma's heart fell the rest of the way to her feet. How would she fall asleep without Parvati there?

The answer to that would be: She wouldn't.

Padma had been lying awake for over an hour, attempting various position on her bunk to no avail. The bunks were extremely comfortable, but it was empty without her twin there beside her.

Deciding that sleep was an impractical thing to hope for, Padma got up and headed downstairs to the Ravenclaw common room. Maybe she'd stare at the ceiling until the felt tired. There was a distraction, however. Someone was outside the door to the Ravenclaw common room, fiercely whispering.

Warily, Padma stepped over by the door to eavesdrop. A familiar voice echoed back at her.

"Intelligent? Clever? Sharp? Quick? Intelligent?" The voice Padma knew could only be Parvati's was apparently trying to guess the password into the common room.

"You already guessed intelligent. Go back to your own common room, little girl," the stout man in the portrait replied unenthusiastically.

Immediately, Padma pushed her way out of the portrait hole and into the hall. "Parvati! How did you know the way to Ravenclaw's common room?"

Parvati smiled. "I watched your group head this way. From there I guessed."

She sighed and sat on the floor. "I can't sleep, Padma."

Padma sat down beside her. "I can't sleep, either."

"Me, in Gryffindor. Why do you think this happened? We were supposed to be in the same house." She sighed again. "I mean, it's a great house. The girls in there are really nice. …Well, except for that bushy know-it-all girl Hermione Granger."

Both girls giggled.

"Well, I had the pleasure of being introduced to some loony air-head, Luna Lovegood."

"I watched her get sorted." Parvati smiled. "Hermione said that Gryffindor sounded like the best house."

Padma knew her sister wasn't trying to gloat. Fishing for compliments, maybe, but not gloating.

"I thought it sounded like the best house too." Padma stared down the hall a moment as the tried to best formulate what was going through her mind. Her house ghost drifted by, so Padma tried her best to look invisible, but the lady specter seemed not to notice her. Padma glanced over at her double, who was watching the gray ghost drift by without concern.

"Parvati, you belong in Gryffindor."