Chapter Two

As the three students walked up the steps, they were all in awe: Aden and Aideen from the sheer size of the castle and Hermione from being the only three people in sight. They dropped their trunks simultaneously with a big "thunk". Suddenly a house elf appeared. Hermione didn't recognize the elf, so she figured the elf was probably new.

"Right this way, please." The elf squeaked. She walked fairly quickly considering her size. The group passed the great hall and went to the marble stair case. Instead of going up three floors first to get to Gryffindor Common room, the group went up one flight and then turned right. At the end of a long corridor, was another set of stairs. This one made of stone and very narrow. They walked each walked onto a step and the circular stair case started moving. Up and up they went. Hermione realized that this must have been one of the towers. The four-some ended at a picture of three horses, almost identical to Pogo, Silver, and Corky. "Saddlebag." The horse on the left shook its mane and the portrait opened. At that moment, the house elf popped out and the three were left to fend for themselves. Again, the "thunk" sound could be heard as they dropped their trunks.

Their common room was ornately decorated. Everything was carpeted, in mini-shag no less. The black and grey specked carpet went perfectly with the dark, potion bottle green of the leather seats. The three, dark, mahogany desks over to the left faced each other to make one large table. The fire was ablaze and the large "L" couch and love seat framed a sort of room around the fire. Directly across from the entrance was a stair case leading to an upper floor. This place reminded Hermione of a muggle hotel suite. To the left of the staircase was a grand piano and a book shelf. It seemed strangely empty to Aden. He decided to look into that later. To the right of the stair case was a very muggle kitchen. There were all the muggle comforts that normally ran off of electricity.

Hermione was the first to break the silence, "Why don't we go check upstairs and choose rooms. Then I want to check out that bookcase." They practically ran up the stairs and, with out comment, chose separate rooms each with its own bathroom. As Hermione stepped into her room she noticed—nothing! There wasn't any furniture or even carpet! She approached the bathroom apprehensively. Again, nothing! When Hermione returned to the room she noticed a large parchment envelope. She opened it and read:

In the middle of the packet

You will find a check list

On it is a list of all items

Available to have in your room

If you wish to have an item in your room

Simply take this quill

And write the number, color, and relative position

You can only have one balcony though, sorry

Get started right away and then meet me in my office

The password is lemon flavored ice

Professor Dumbledore

Hermione heard a loud squeal from the room next to her. She figured Aideen had found the check list. "Well I guess I better get to work. This is going to take a while and I still want to check out the book case down stairs." She scratched Crookshanks behind the ears, sat down on the floor, and picked up the quill. Hermione glanced down at the list and made some mental decisions right off the bat and continued down the list, 'Blue mini-shag carpet, kind size canopy bed, balcony….totem pole?'

"Hermione!" Aideen stuck her head into the room. "Look at this list!" she said squealing in delight.

"I know, calm down!"

"How can I when this is possibly amazing and enchanting! I get to have my own BALCONY!"

"That's great Aideen, now get to work!" Hermione instructed.

"Oh, alright. You're no fun sometimes, you know that Hermione?" she turned and walked out of the room.

Hermione continued down the list, marking items, placing numbers next to them, and defining their colour (hehe…English spelling!). After a few minutes she heard voices coming from Aden's room. They weren't happy voices either. Hermione got up and headed to see what was going on.

"Why don't you ever let me into your room?"

"Because my room is my space and you should respect it!" Aden barked at his sister.

"You mean like how people are supposed to respect personal space?"

"Exactly!"

"Well maybe this is news to you, but I DON'T respect personal space!" Aideen stormed over to her room.

"Why can't she just be normal?" Aden asked Hermione.

Hermione didn't know what to say. "I d-don't know…you know her better than I do…"

"That's a real help," he said as he shut his door in Hermione's face.

Hermione felt awful. She knew siblings fought, but knowing that Aden had slammed his door in her face…and Aideen was just plain upset… She tried finishing her list, but her mind kept wandering back to the argument. Aideen could be heard singing "Look what you've done" by Jet in her room in a sour tone. Hermione felt like she was responsible for this, even though she knew she wasn't. She settled it by sulking in her room, afraid to do anything.

Hermione unhappily went to Dumbledore's office and cheerfully greeted him, even though her heart was in shambles. In giving him her list, she returned to her room only to have the guilt flood back to her. That night their rooms were magically filled with the items they recorded down. The night was uneasily spent, knowing that all of them were uncomfortable with each other at the moment. But then the morning came…

"Hermione, come see my room!" Aideen jumped into Hermione's room and yanked her out of bed.

"Aideen, aren't you still mad at Aden?" Hermione asked puzzled.

"No, how could I stay mad at my brother that long? I just spend a little while sulking and then poof! All better! Now Aden on the other hand, he gets upset and he stays that way. That's why mom says he has a darker personality."

"But last night, I felt like that was all my responsibility…"

"What? No Hermione! Me and Aden do that all that time!"

"You mean Aden and I?" his voice was coming from his door frame. Aden was standing there just watching his sister ramble on about nonsense.

"Hi Aden! You still mad at me?" Aideen asked curiously.

"A little, but I can't stay mad when you're always hyper." He grinned at the both of them.

"So…can I see your room?" Aideen hopped up and down.

"Oh, alright," he shoved them in to his domain. They stared at it—dark. His sheets were indigo, red, and black plaid. The carpet was a navy that matched the sheets, and a black lounge chair was in the corner along with his CDs and other items. Three bookcases were all filled with books and a dresser was against the wall. There was however, something that Aideen noticed.

"Aden, you don't have a balcony!"

"…I didn't want one…" he said, "I got a totem pole instead!" Sure enough, a large totem pole was in the corner of his room, hidden by all his books.

Aideen just stared at it in disbelief. Hermione was trying hard not to laugh, but suppressant (I don't even know what that means…) giggles were escaping her.

"Well, now you all have to see my room!" Aideen grabbed Aden and Hermione's arm and yanked them into the next room.

"Gosh Aideen…" was all Hermione could say. Her room had a pale pink carpet, white sheets, and silky pink curtains and drapes around her four-poster bed. She had a whole equipment system specially set up that would play CDs in the wizarding world, and her CD collection took up an entire bookcase. Another bookcase, small, yet there, was holding few books that were needed for classes. A fluffy white chair was in the corner next to the balcony draped in the same silky fabric that was around her bed.

Aideen walked out onto the balcony and smiled. "I love it sooo much, I feel like a princess in here!"

"You would," muttered Aden who was clearly uncomfortable being surrounded by so much pink.

"Aideen gave him an evil glare, yet said, "You haven't seen Hermione's room yet!" She yanked them into it with a hue grin across her face.

Hermione's room was simple, yet nice. Everything was perfectly organized, Books straight on the shelves, no clothes on her blue carpet, the dresser was perfectly ordained in pictures and trinkets, not overly done like Aideen's, and there was one word to describe it—neat.

"Now this I could live in!" Aden said. "Well, once we make it a bit darker of course—"

"Don't even think about it," was all Hermione had to say.