After dinner the students of Hogwarts were sent to their house dormitories. Remus, Sirius, and James followed a slightly short prefect with blue eyes and peach fuzz hair to Gryffindor tower.
Soon the prefect stopped at the intersection of three hallways, facing a large painting of a large lady in a frilly pink dress. "Password?" the woman inquired haughtily.
"Venomous Valiant," the prefect answered.
Remus' heart gave a sigh. Rieka would have absolutely loved the password… Remus watched as the lady in the pink dress smiled in welcome and the painting swung outward—as if on hinges. A large, oval-shaped hole in the wall was revealed, which the students all passed through. Entering a large, cozy, circular room with over-stuffed armchairs and plush couches standing before a roaring fire, the first-years gasped.
"This," began the prefect, "is the Gryffindor common room. I am Kyle, Head Boy." At this Kyle puffed out his chest and gave the new students a dazzling smile, a glimmering golden badge pinned to the front of his robes. "Girls' dormitories are though the hall and upstairs to the left, while boys' are on the right."
Remus, James, and Sirius, not bothering to stay for whatever Kyle had left to say, trumped up the spiral staircase to the top of one of the towers. Finding a cylindrical room with five four-poster beds, the exhausted boys collapsed onto their respective beds.
Shortly a small, mousy boy with ear-length chestnut hair-who Remus remembered to be called Peter—scrambled into the room. Puffing lightly, he looked around nervously then darted to his bed and dove under the covers.
"Shy bloke," Sirius remarked absently.
A large boy with a tangled mass of brown hair stumbled up the last few steps, panting heavily. "'ello," he managed, then crawled the last few feet to his bed and dragged himself onto it. The bed protested loudly as the boy reclined into the cloud of pillows behind him. "Meh name's Rubeus," Rubeus introduced himself.
"Remus," he replied. "They're James and Sirius," he said, pointing to both in turn.
"Nice ter meet yeh." Rubeus drew the scarlet curtains on his bed and muttered, "G'nigh.'"
"Night," Remus answered, but Rubeus had already began to snore.
Shortly all of the boys were asleep, dreaming of their coming adventures at Hogwarts.
~ * ~ * ~ * Meanwhile… * ~ * ~ * ~
Rieka followed a tall, raven-haired girl to the Ravenclaw dormitories. Winding through corridors and stomping up and down staircases—and making sure they didn't move—the Ravenclaws eventually made it to their dormitory. A small brown door—one that Rieka nearly overlooked—had a silver knocker on it in the shape of an eagle's head. A melodious voice floated out over the assembled students, saying, "I'm as big as an elephant but as light as a feather. What am I?"
The raven-haired prefect smiled and answered, "The wind."
"Very good," the voice praised, and the door swung open.
The prefect waved the other students inside and beamed at them all. "Hello," the prefect called out in a strong, clear voice—much like a babbling brook. "Welcome to Ravenclaw house. This is your common room," she spread her arms to indicate the room around them—walls covered in shelves of books, all ringing an octagonal wood floor. A fire danced in a pit in the middle of the room and royal blue couches and armchairs trimmed with silver stood around it. Near the shelves were long tables covered in ink wells and rolls of parchment, six in all. There were two doors in the wall directly across the room from the entrance, and they had silver plaques over them: "Boys' Dormitories" and "Girls' Dormitories."
"The door on the left leads to the boys' dormitory, and the one on the right to the girls'," the prefect continued. "Oh, and by the way, I'm Silicia." Silicia, with a dreamy glance around the room, sank into one of the plush chairs by the fire.
Rieka, filled with awe at the splendor of the Ravenclaw common room, resisted the urge to twirl around the room, inspecting everything closely. Instead she turned to her friend Leslie and said, "Everything is so pretty! I love it!"
Leslie nodded eagerly, then skipped to a shelf and fingered the spines of the books. "Yeah. Books, parchment, ink… Everything I've ever wanted. Well, not really, but…yeah." Grinning, she flopped down on a silver-trimmed royal blue sofa.
Rieka threw herself onto the sofa next to Leslie and laughed. "This is awesome."
"No, this is epic," Leslie corrected Rieka with a smile.
Rieka giggled. "Yeah. But I think I'm gonna hit the hay. Don't wanna miss out on my first day at Hogwarts just because I slept in." Standing up, her book clutched to her chest, Rieka started toward the girls' dormitories. "Y'comin'?" she asked Leslie.
"Of course! Don't think I'd let you explore any more without me!" Leslie laughed, catching up to Rieka.
Together they skipped through the door on the right. Stopping at a stone wall, the two exchanged confused glances.
"What the…?" Rieka mumbled.
Leslie grinned as a thought hit her. "We've got to say something. A password… A magic code…something."
Rieka cocked her head to the side in thought. "I've got it!" She stepped up to the wall and called softly: "Prosím, daj nám priechod."
As she expected, the wall melted away to reveal a corridor with silver and blue-painted doors on each side. At the end of the corridor was a stained glass window picturing an eagle in flight. Like all of the pictures in Hogwarts, the eagle moved. Letting loose a scream; the eagle flapped his wings in welcome.
"What'd you say?" Leslie breathed in awe.
Rieka chuckled. "I just said, "Please, grant us passage." In Slovakian, of course."
Leslie whistled in wonder. "You've gotta teach me that."
"Later. Let's get to bed." Guided by an impulse, Rieka skipped down the corridor to the last door on the right, bowed extravagantly to the eagle, and dashed inside. Leslie eagerly followed.