At the end of the hall, there was a painting of an elderly witch surrounded by a stack of books. "Attention everyone!" Said Amanda, "The password this year is 'Cobston's dictionary' so please remember it. You will not be allowed inside without it." "Right you are, dear." Said the witch in the painting as it slid to the side, revealing a passageway. They all walked through the short passageway and entered a large, well-lit room. It looked like a library in fact, complete with tables and chairs to sit and read. A large round fire was in the center of the room, with a stone chimney leading up to the ceiling (which was several stories high).
"Please go directly to your rooms and rest or unpack." Said Amanda. "Your trunks should already be there. We will have a social back here in the common room at 9pm." Ryan came walking out of one of the doors leading out of the room. "I've already shown the first years to their rooms and told them to join us at 9." "Thanks Ry. Bhamini? We can show you where to go now." "The other Ravenclaw classes already have their own dorms. Since you transferred here, there aren't any extra rooms, so you get to share the Prefect's corridor with us."
They walked towards the multiple doors at the end of the room. Bhamini noticed that each one was labeled by year. The one in the middle was labeled "Prefects". Behind this door were three other doors. Ryan spoke up, "The door on the left is my room, the one in the middle is the bathroom, and the one on the right is Amanda's room. You'll be sharing it with her." Alyssa followed Amanda into the room on the right and gasped. "It's so big!" She was obviously impressed. At Manchester they had their own rooms, but they were much smaller. "Yes, well the Prefects are allowed larger rooms. Since there were going to be two of us in here this year, the Headmaster permitted that the room be expanded temporarily."
There were two large canopy beds, two large desks, two armoires, two small bookshelves, and a couch set up in the room. All the upholstery was in dark blue velvet. "Each House has a different mascot and color." "Ours is blue, Hufflepuff is yellow, Slytherin is green, and Gryffindor is red." Amanda gestured to the bed on the right side of the room. "That one is yours. Professor Langley, the head of our house, has apparently already ordered some Hogwarts robes for you, with the Ravenclaw crest on the front. I'm sure she has already sent an owl with the bill to your home." Indeed, three robes were folded neatly on the foot of the bed.
"I guess we should start unpacking then." Amanda nodded in agreement. It was about 7 o'clock, so they had time to talk and unpack before they were supposed to meet in the common room again. Bhamini opened her trunk and lifted out the clothes folded inside, placing them in the armoire. The next layer contained some pictures, which she magicked onto the wall beside her desk and bed. There were some other personal items in here as well. She took out a lifelike stuffed black cat. Blushing, she explained to Amanda that it was a gift from her father when she was a child, and has kept it ever since. She also took out a small sliver box that she set on the desk. Amanda looked at it questioningly. "What is that?" "It's a type of music box. You tap the lid with your wand and tell it what kind of music you want to hear. When you open it, it will play for you." "Oh, I think I've heard of those. They're really expensive though, I haven't seen one until now." Bhamini emptied out the remainder of her trunk, which contained enough books to almost fill the bookshelf that the school had supplied. She looked over and noticed that Amanda's bookshelf looked quite similar.
Amanda also appeared to have a white rabbit, which was hopping around the room quite happily, occasionally turning into a black top hat with a small 'pop'. "This is Artremis." She said, scooping the rabbit up. Do you have a pet as well? "No," said Bhamini, "We weren't allowed them at my other school." "That's alright, Art is an attention hog." As the rabbit 'popped' back into a hat. She set it down on the floor again, giggling. "You don't mind if he is loose in the room do you?" "No, it's fine."
After the feast, Severus had followed his peers down to the dungeons of the castle. They stopped in front of a sculpture of a snake, and the boy with the pale blonde hair spoke up. "The password this year is 'sinistra serpent' and if I hear that any other house members find out about it, you'll all be answering to me!" With that, the sculpture slid over, revealing a staircase leading down. The boy turned to Severus and said, "I'm surprised Dumbledore didn't make you Prefect this year. I'll have to do it this year with her." He gestured to a chubby girl with a sour looking face. "I don't care Lucius," said Severus, "I won't have to deal with keeping all these runts in place." Looking over at the first year Slytherins. "Yeah, you weren't much of a leader anyway." Said Lucius coldly, and walked away.
Severus sneered at him as he walked to his dorm. He didn't even have many friends in his own house. He was often studying so much that he didn't join them in their pranks against the other Houses. Sometimes he wondered if he should have been in Ravenclaw instead, but quickly dismissed that, remembering that every Snape in his family had been a Slytherin at Hogwarts. It was in his blood.
He found his trunk next to his bed (Mars was already asleep on the dark green covers) and Severus opened it to unpack. After lifting out his robes, he gasped as he saw the painting of his Grandfather. "What are you doing here?" he asked the painting. "Don't take that tone with me boy. Your parents requested that I watch you this year, so Keely slipped me into the trunk while he packed for you." "Damn elf." Muttered Severus. The old man continued, "So don't think of hiding me where I can't watch you because they will hear from me if you step out of line." Fantastic. As if I don't already have enough pressure as it is. Now this old badger is going to be babysitting me all year! Severus set the painting on his nightstand and continued to unpack. His father had given him several volumes of text as supplementary reading to his schoolwork. Finding extra time for reading them would be no easy task, for he was sure this year would be his most academically demanding yet.
There were two other beds in the room, but their occupants hadn't bothered to unpack yet. Severus was grateful for this. They were the lackeys of Lucius: Victor Crabbe and Dwayne Goyle. Lucius, as a prefect, was given his own room this year and was probably showing it off to his friends at this very moment. Crabbe and Goyle were little more than thugs…they were sneaky, but not sly. In any case, most of their time was spent following around their leader or finding innocent victims to beat up. Severus knew that he would have the dorm pretty much to himself (and now his Grandfather as well) this year.
He had finished his book on advanced properties of mind-controlling potions on the train ride to Hogwarts, so he picked up a new book from the pile. This one was required for his course on Defense Against the Dark Arts and was titled: Advanced Graduate Studies on Curses and Hexes. Severus enjoyed this subject. It was probably his favorite, with potions coming in at a close second. In addition to these two courses, he would be taking Advanced Graduate Transfiguration, Advanced Charms (section 1), and an elective in Foreign History this year. He got through the first two chapters of the book before Crabbe and Goyle came stumbling in. It was near midnight, so he thought it was best to go to sleep before the other boys started snoring.