A/n: I (unfortunately) do not own the Harry Potter Franchise and all characters are my own creation apart from Professor Herbert Beery. All credit goes to J.K Rowling.

"'CAUSE I LIKE YOU QUITE A LOOOOOTTT . . .". Bea opened the door to reveal around 20-30 people dancing and singing terribly to a song on the radio. The common room was a large, circular room adorned with plants and paintings that had already been turned upside-down. There were sofas and armchair around the outside of the room, leaving an empty space in the middle of the room where the residents of Murphy were currently frolicking.

"Let's have Johnny and Chris in the middle!" The group formed a circle around a short, dark-haired boy and an obviously older and laughing boy. Amelia glanced at Bea, who was smiling amusedly next to her. She didn't seem to find this out of the ordinary at all. The group went on dancing until the song finished. The two boys in the middle the worst of them all, shimmying and shoulder-dancing like no one was watching. Then suddenly a girl with unusually big eyes called out: "Hey! It's the new girl."

The mob suddenly rushed over to the door and Bea introduced Amelia. She was overwhelmed at how friendly they all were - they all wanted to talk to her and no face didn't have a smile on it.

"Calm down, everyone. She's probably scared out of her wits. In she walks to a school for performing arts just to find us singing out of tune and Johnny and Chris dancing!" The remark from the same big-eyed girl was met with laughs and people edged back to give Amelia the space to stop her feeling claustrophobic.

"So now that everyone's calmed down," Bea looked pointedly at Johnny and Chris, "this is Amelia, the new girl from Hogwarts." The mob all greeted her while Bea led her to the other side of the room to sit down on a sofa full of cushions with Ciarán Murphy's face on them. "Okay, so Beery, the head of our house, is gonna come in a few minutes for registration and you'll probably get to know everyone's names then, so I should probably explain a few things. What you just walked in on, is what we like to call 'that thing we do when we see each other for the first time in ages and dance to what Annie calls bad music'. It's a pretty regular occurrence. Also Cerys, Halima, Nick, Annie, Johnny, Sana and Jim aren't actually in this faction, Chris is but he's in a different year."

"Yeah, we should probably leave now. Our Heads will be coming soon." The septet opened the door only to bump into a middle-aged professor with a weary expression on his face wearing a worn waistcoat and a startlingly bright blue bowtie. He sighed.

"You lot should hurry to your factions. By the way, Cerys, Annie and Nick Professor Carter's already visited your faction and is currently looking for you." The three of them took one look at each other and ran while Professor Beery dodged the pus a bubotuber in the corner fired at him.

"Well, nice to see you all again. You know I don't have an inspirational speech like Prof Regan, or a scary one like Professor Carter," the group sniggered. They seemed to be fond of the Professor, as he was of them. "So we'll just do the register, and if I'm correct we have a new student . . . ah! There we are. You must be Amelia. Welcome to W.A.D.A and Murphy (the best faction), I'm sure you'll fit in just fine here. You're not the first transfer we've had. I'm guessing that these lot probably didn't strike up the best first impression," He looked pointedly at the big-eyed girl who had a mischievous smile on her face, "but I'm sure they'll take great care of you, won't they?". The entire room nodded, despite their lack of attention to what Professor Beery was saying. He pulled out a folder that matched the blinding colour of his bowtie.

"Beatrice?"

"Here, sir."

"Nice to see you, did you have a nice holiday?"

"Wonderful, thank you." Beatrice seemed like that one girl who all the professors loved, but at the same time she wasn't a suck up.

"Oh no, did Hannah come back?"

"Of course I did, sir. I know how much you miss me during the holidays." Hannah's big eyes were twinkling like stars.

Registration went on for a while, Professor Beery asking each individual how they were and occasionally teasing them about something that happened last year or attempting to speak French or German.

"I've also got your dorm lists as well," as soon as the professor spoke there were excited whispers and many crossed fingers in the room. Amelia bit her lip, praying that she'd be placed in a dorm with someone friendly like Bea, or someone who seemed fun like Hannah or that Ava girl. Stop worrying. The worst-case scenario is you're stuck in a dorm with no one who speaks English, and I doubt they'd do that to a new pupil anyway.

"I'll do boys first . . ." The boys all seemed happy with the dorms they'd been allocated although there were a few heart-felt (over-dramatic) goodbyes as they ventured off to their dorms.

"Nicky my darling heart! Don't fret, I won't let them tear us apart!"

"It looks like this is the end of us, Leo."

Professor Beery ignored their cries of despair, he was obviously very familiar with them. "Then in Dorm 19 we've got Bea, Hannah, Ivanna, Amelia, Heidi, Ava and Yi (wherever she is)." Amelia breathed a subtle sigh of relief, she hadn't realised she'd been holding her breath.

"Good luck Amelia, the worst in the year these pests are." The girls mockingly glared at him before dragging their trunks up to their room.

"We've got a really good dorm this year, haven't we?"

"Yi won't be too happy, but . . ." The girls all seemed overjoyed at the news of their dorm-mates.

Amelia pushed open the heavy door with struggle, and almost let it fall back on top of her when she got distracted by the room. The walls were painted blue, not the loud, almost neon blue Amelia had been exposed to at several different points of the day but a calming shade that was a nice change from the harsh colours of the common room. There were 4 bunk beds made for them on the outskirts of the room, and a space where the fleecy, cushiony carpet abruptly ended to make way for a space with a beech sprung floor intended for dance practice. It was spacious, yet somehow cosy. Perfect for Amelia.

"Do you like it?"

"Of course she likes it Heidi, she's standing in the doorway staring at it!"

"Sorry, I just got a bit distracted."

"It's no problem, we did that the first time." The girls dragged their suitcases into the room and sorted out beds. Amelia knew she would most likely fall off of the bunk bed, despite its considerable width so she made do with a bunk underneath who she thought was called Ava.

"Everyone should probably introduce themselves. You know who I am, obviously." Bea motioned to the rest of them.

"Ooh! Let's do a name and interesting fact circle! And you have to participate this time, Bea"

Bea rolled her eyes. "Fine, Ava. My full name is Beatrice Abbott, and I have a cat called Diane who I might be slightly in love with." Amelia smiled, although she was extremely awkward around any animal.

"And I'm Hannah Bagman and I have had at least fifteen different hairstyles in the past three years." Her hair was currently an unkempt dark brown bob, but that was probably due to the intense dance session that had just occurred.

"Fun fact about Hannah, she's the loudest in the year," the blonde girl sitting on the bunk above Hannah grinned.

"Shut up, Ivanna!" Hannah scowled in false anger.

"To be honest you are, Bagman. You just aren't really, really loud - we're just not as loud as you."

"Anyway, it's Ivvy's turn."

"First of all don't call me that, second of all my full name is Ivanna (with two Ns) Grace Curry and I am the reason these lot are alive."

"It's true. Ivvy's like the mother of the group." Ivanna ignored the use of the nickname she (pretended to) despise so much.

"Hi, everyone. Sorry I'm late." A Chinese girl burst into the room panting heavily. She was met with smiles and greetings from her dorm-mates.

"This is Yi, Amelia."

"Oh yeah, you're the new girl."

"That's me," Amelia smiled. She didn't really like being labelled as 'the new girl' so often, but she wasn't in any hurry to get on the bad side of someone she'd be spending the rest of the school year with.

"One thing you need to know about Yi is that she is one of the most sarcastic people to exist and she also makes a really nice mango sorbet."

"That's me." Yi bagged the last bunk bed for herself and listened to the next person to introduce themselves.

"I'm Heidi O'Brien, and I believe we are next to each other on the register, which means you get to spend a lot of time with me if we have similar lessons, you lucky girl!" The girl who had been standing at the side of the dancing crowd of Murphy students taking photos winked jokingly.

"And I'm Ava Vogel (which translates directly into 'Bird Bird') and I live in Germany, hence the accent."

"You're going to have to get used to all the different ethnicities around the castle. I'm actually from China, like Jiaying, but me and Ava actually speak pretty good English for foreign students." Yi had an odd accent, but her English was clear and she sounded like she'd been speaking it for some time. "We should probably get to the feast now . . ."