I opened the door and stepped in.

My new bedroom, like the rest of the Hufflepuff common room, was circular with a low ceiling. The walls were earthy and rough, and the floor was the same honey-colored wood that was used for the furniture in the main room. There was a comfortable-looking wooden bed pushed against the wall that had drawers underneath, and it was covered in a yellow and black patchwork quilt.

There were several empty bookshelves that curved with the walls, and a brown circular rug was in the center of the floor. There was also a small couch, and I realized that the couch also had drawers underneath. There's also a small wooden table that fits into a small hole in the wall. My trunk was lying on the floor, beside Novus's broken cage.

I got some unpacking done, and then fell asleep, thinking of all the cool things I am going to learn in this magnificent castle.

September 2nd, Saturday, 2017

I woke up before any of my roommates and was reading Easy Spells to Fool Muggles, fully dressed when there was a knock on our door. I opened the strange circular door to see the blonde girl Prefect.

"Hello, I've got your guy's schedules. Classes are every Monday through Friday, and breakfast is at 9:00. Got it? Tell your roommates."

She left, hurrying to the next door down. I shut the door and set our schedules on the table in the middle of our mini-common room, taking mine. It looked like all five of us had the same classes.

(If you want to look at the schedule system I made for my main characters, you can use this link - ht t p s : / / docs. go ogle. co. m/ spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vR_OsfPITR48BcBHhPqh95rbKI_ILtJnhezlzux-eYB6LPwoE-nbSxR_8deEIIlMg/pubhtml - you have to take out the spaces and the period between 'co' and 'm'. If that doesn't work please tell me in the reviews.)

I sat on the floor against the wall, with Novus in one of my pockets. It was only 7:00, so I read my schedule, trying to figure out if there was any best way to get to classes. I decided that after breakfast, I'd try to find Trinity and find our way to all of our classes. After all, on Monday we probably had the same schedule until 3:00 in the afternoon. I found myself wishing for some way to navigate the crazy castle, a map, or a compass or something. In Hogwarts: A History I'd read about the moving staircases, the trick doors, and the poltergeist, Peeves, but even the book gave no way to successfully navigate the hectic castle. With the common room so close to the great hall, I actually hadn't seen any of the magic staircases yet.

Just then, a boy stepped out of one of the other bedrooms. He was sort of tall, and he had dark-ish skin and dark brown eyes and hair.

"Um, hi, I'm Areti. One of those is your schedule," I said, pointing at the table, "And breakfast is supposed to be at 9:00."

The boy nodded and chose out his schedule. "Hi. I'm Remus Rosier. D'you know what time it is?"

I grinned. "It's like 7:15, we've got ages till breakfast."

He nodded again and knocked on one of the other bedrooms. The nameplate read VIOLET HUBBLE.

"Oi, Vi, You should probably get up soon." There was a groan of protest on the other side of the door. "Vi, I can't get through the door until you tell it you know me. You're gonna have to get up."

The girl on the other side of the door muttered something before calling, "Oi! Door, Remus Rosier is my cousin. He can come in, you useless piece of wood."

The door swung open to let in Remus, before closing shut behind him. I kept reading Easy Spells to Fool Muggles, and Novus climbed out of my pocket to rest around my shoulders. She was still pretty sleepy and was lazily tasting the air around us.

"One of your roommates has a rat."

I looked at her, sternly. "You are most definitely not allowed to hurt anybody's pets. Got it?"

She sighed. "Fine. That eliminates a large portion of the castle's rodents, but I'll live."

"Good. I can't really talk to you outside of my room, so I've got to stop talking now."

Just then, as I finished my sentence, Hazel Pennet-Perks stepped out of her room, yawning. "Hello, Areti. How are you and that scary snake doing?"

I grinned. "The scary snake and I are doing just fine, thanks. You're schedule's on that table, there, and breakfast is at 9:00."

She nodded sleepily and picked up her schedule, only glancing at it before stuffing it in her pocket. "Met any of our other roommates yet?"

I shrugged. "Remus Rosier came out earlier, he went in to make up Violet. Apparently, they're cousins."

"Cool. I saw Rome Finch last night when he claimed his room. Have we all got the same schedule?"

"Yeah, but there are so many first-year Hufflepuffs that I assume it differs between rooms. Astronomy looks dreadful. We have to stay up till 12:00 every Monday?" this had been disturbing me. I love being awake at night, but the hard part was waking up the next day.

"Yeah, but I suppose that we could sleep for a while after dinner and then wake up beforehand?"

I nodded. "That makes sense."

Then Violet Hubble and Remus came out of Violet's room. Violet was tall like her cousin, with the same dark brown hair and eyes, and they looked like they could be siblings. I waved at Violet. "Hi, I'm Areti Runites. Your schedule is on the table."

She stretched and nodded, and as she walked towards the table I saw a small rat poke its head out of her pocket. Novus watched it until it saw her, and then the thing gave a small squeak of alarm and ducked back into the pocket. I couldn't help but grin.

Violet glanced down at her schedule, biting her lip. "We've got Astronomy at 12:00?"

Hazel nods. "Yeah. Astronomy is at midnight every Monday, Ret and I think we can probably sleep in between dinner and then."

Violet grimaced. "Man. As Remus here can tell you," she elbowed her cousin, who was reading his schedule in one of the armchairs, "One of my favorite things to do is sleep. When you spot me sleeping in class, please wake me up."

I grinned. "When we catch you sleeping? Is it that inevitable?"

Violet smirked. "Yeah, Remus's mom likes to say that I can and will sleep through a thunderbird storm."

Just then our fifth roommate, Rome Finch, stumbled abruptly out of his room. "Hello, I'm Rome. When's breakfast in this place?"

Violet blinked. "Um, breakfast is at 9:00. Your schedule is on the table."

Rome blinked. "Y' mean I've got a whole hour to sleep?"

Remus looked up from his schedule. "Not really? Breakfast is in an hour, but it'll take you a bit to get dressed-"

Rome stumbled back into his room and shut the door, quite loudly, behind him.

Hazel laughed. "Pleasant guy, isn't he?"