No wonder Dorcas' grades were so bad! She and Lydia were holed up in the library and every fifteen minutes, every time someone would pass by them coming in or go out of their way when they left, they give a little wave and whisper. "Hey Doe!", "Until tomorrow, Dorcas!", "Are you going to the party on Sunday?". This happened for the whole three hours they were there. Lydia sat dumbfounded. Dorcas could study, she concentrated well enough and understood the material and Lydia mistakenly assumed that was what they would be working on but she hadn't anticipated this. People of every grade, from every house seemed to know her and Lydia realized that Hogwarts was obviously a much larger school than she had thought. She was convinced that a handful of people had come in just to speak with Dorcas and not for the library itself.

"Maybe we should study in the Quiet Library." Lydia suggested.

"I wanted to suggest that-", Dorcas' voice trailed off. Lydia raised her eyebrows and leaned in questioning. "That's your place, Dees. I didn't want to impose."

Lydia reeled back. Her eyes flew open in genuine surprise this time. This was unbelievable. The only reason Lydia knew about the Quiet Library was because of Dorcas. She shook her head as she packed her bags.

"Let's go." Lydia said.

-

Lydia was still getting acclimated to having so many people treat her so well. She kept to herself, suspicious of others' intentions and motivations and in any other house this might have made her into a pariah but in Slytherin, everyone had the same air but for slightly different reasons. Even as a first year, this made her even more impressive. She saw no point in trying to impress anyone and everyone in turn noticed and applauded the focused and staid peer. She distinguished herself in her classes early one. She had no friends then, or at least she didn't recognize anyone as her friend though several people could have sworn she was theirs, so she read out of boredom. She read out of loneliness and mistrust. She curled up in a chair by the fire close to the windows where it never really got very dark unless it was night and even then, in the moonlight, the entire wall you might still be able to make out the shadowed silhouettes of whatever grew or lived in the lake. There was always a greenish, dark turquoise light that filtered down, down to where the common room was and she liked the contrast of the fire's color and the blue of the water. The warmth of the heart and the coolness of the heavy glass. She had once said as much out loud. She didn't understand why.

"Ah, an artist!", the prefect had said. Here it was, finally. She braced herself to be mocked. But it didn't happen. He nodded looking at the fire and the enormous window.

"What do you make?"

"Excuse me?"

"You paint, draw, dance?"

She didn't understand why she was even entertaining him. She would never have admitted then or now that she had been lonely and it felt a little nice, if not terrifying to think that maybe, maybe… But she didn't let herself get too buoyant. Just answer the questions. The fewer words the better and don't run your yap next time about contrast or whatever. She could have kicked herself.

"Well, I play some piano."

"Do you?"

She nodded. He nodded and smiled a little and got up and left. She exhaled and her shoulders dropped. Maybe they were mean in a different way here. Maybe he was just being nice and got bored. Her heart was racing and she tried to concentrate on the words in the book but they kept running into the margins or widening into a blur. She gave up when she felt her chest tightening and her eyes stinging. She rushed off to bed hoping her dorm mate was asleep.

When she arrived back for a break in between classes the next day, she found all the furniture had been moved. The chair she sat in was angled so that both the fire and window were in view. The remainder of the big furniture was moved around to accommodate different views. Several smaller pieces had been magically fused together into a strange but still elegant mutation against part of the glass. She heard someone bounding down the last few steps from the South dorms.

"Ah, I'm glad I found you. Well,?" He looked around with his arms crossed.

"It's really amazing." She said earnestly. "But I-" She stopped herself. Lydia, enough! Stop talking! She yelled at herself.

"But, you?" She shook her head. She would not have said anything if he had suggested kindly but instead he gave off the same level of waning patience she would very soon feel for some of her housemates in the not so distant future.

"Maybe we could move that, over there and it would create a little more space over there. For studying but also, you could put your feet up."

The prefect didn't hesitate. He waved his wand and bodily pushed some of the furniture around. He walked around the common room. Shaking his head with approval.

"I get it. Very nice. Nice."

A few Slytherins trickled into the common room, from class.

"What in the bloody- who on earth?"

The prefect glanced over his shoulder, nonplussed.

"Try it first. Walk around, sit on the seats."

The Angry Slytherin walked around and Lydia held her breath.

"I don't like it." Lydia didn't feel deflated per say, she hadn't moved anything after all and something in her was willing to say so if she needed to but, she could feel herself getting nervous all the same.

"So you miss knocking your shins and climbing over the settee, then?" The Angry Slytherin snorted dramatically sat in the chair that Lydia occupied the evening before and made himself strangely comfortable for everything he had just said moments before.

The prefect rolled his eyes and looked at Lydia who was emboldened by her confusion.

"Maybe if the furniture is rearranged, we can get a repeat performance…", she said. Even as it was leaving her mouth, even as she was saying it she thought, what a bad idea, and then another followed after that said, but he's being an actual arse! and the another said but can I go seven years without these people liking me…

The Angry Slytherin looked around the chair, eyed her from top to toe and smiled besides himself.

"This was your idea then? Is that why you're so bothered?" She said nothing.

"I moved everything around but with some of her suggestions." The prefect said. Here it was. Now everyone would hate her.

"It's awful." Said the Angry Slytherin who by now had turned his back to them both. But three things happened. The prefect shook his head in exasperation and, though he might have meant it, she could hear in the Angry Slytherin's voice that he didn't mean it and might have even been teasing her and the most important realization, she had not died. She was not dead. Even if they had hated it. She could have just gone home during holidays and requested a tutor forever and not gone back but even the though was dramatic she knew because she was there, alive and even a little buoyant. People had been mean to her and it hadn't killed her then as it would not have now. It had been unjust and it had made her angry and more than sad. She had been lonely and hurt but now, she knew, she could be herself here. She wouldn't push it too far wouldn't test the boundaries too much, it still smarted from before but she let herself think that she could have friends here or at least not be the odd one out. Not be the loser.

The high of that only lasted as long as it took to prepare for her next class. She could feel herself deflating at the thought that, fine, it was one Slytherin but the entire house would have to pass through the common room. She dallied in the Great Hall, she walked to the library and around and around and checked out a book she'd already read. It was getting late and she was getting tired. She steeled herself figuring that everyone would soon be heading to their own dorms to sleep. Sweet relief, that wizards and witches still had to sleep. She entered the common room after mixing up the password. And felt a the crush of a headache coming on. It was full of people. The common room was full of her peers, waiting, she immediately thought to yell her into oblivion, to sneer her into non-existence. She might die of that, she thought. But no people were studying and in some patches just talking and enjoying themselves.

She went over to one patch of students carefully.

"Is there something going on? Why is everyone still up?" The Shrugging Slytherin, shrugged.

"Who knows? Everyone else was up and I'm not tired." The Nice-Voiced Slytherin next to him replied,

"Someone finally changed the seating in here. We live in a dungeon but for Merlin's sake, does it also have to be so dreary?"

The next day, Lydia went to the common room earlier and it was full again. Someone called her over to sit and talk and she did and felt the muscles in her shoulder unwind. She could get air into her chest as she relaxed. And then, they felt it, the room heat up almost imperceptible and the room fill with a bright turquoise and then a strange orange glow and then deepen to darkness and blue again. The room was plunged into coldness and the fire started automatically. The sun had just set and just about all of them had had a comfortable view and were stunned to reverent silence.

The conversations picked up slowly with mentions and questions of the sunset. Had that always happened? What time of year was it but it always had, they just had a better view. Lydia wanted to thank the prefect but didn't want to come across as being a grub. She would send him a note maybe. She turned to the Angry Slytherin staring a hole into her shoulder blade.

"Still hate it.", he mouthed. Lydia turned back to her conversation, renewed and smiling.