As it turns out, James, Remus (the boy on the train; I learned his name at the feast), and Peter (the other boy) were all sorted into Gryffindor as well. I could imagine Remus and James, but Peter seemed a rather cowardly boy. The hat can't always be perfect right?

After the sorting was the most magnificent feast. The food literally just popped out of thin air! Plus it was delicious, probably one of the best meals I'd had in a long while. Everyone was talking, and laughing. James, Sirius, and Remus really hit it off. They were probably the loudest people of the whole table. Peter just sort of seemed like a tag along.

Molly Turner, a third year girl with hair that was more red than Lily and mine's put together, introduced herself. She was so nice and motherly. Thin as a twig though. We also met Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor house ghost. Ghost! Can you believe it? They were all twinkling and silver. There was also the Bloody Baron, with silvery-white blood everywhere (Slytherin), The Fat Friar, a chubby monk (Hufflepuff), and the Grey Lady, a sorry looking woman (Ravenclaw).

After the feast, the two prefects for Gryffindor, Samuel Reed and Katie Westin, lead us up to the common room. All the way up to the sixth floor, there were moving pictures everywhere. Moving! I was so amazed I could hardly speak. There were all kinds of paintings from blushing brides, to noble nights in the most silver of armor. At the last stairwell there was a picture of a very large lady in a pink dress that appeared to be sleeping. Samuel Reed yelled, "Wake up!" to her very loudly. The rest of us silenced.

The Fat Lady jerked out of her sleep, still drowsy. "What?!"

"Good Evening!"

"Yes, it would have been a better evening if I was still sleeping!"

"Yeah, Yeah, Anno Domini!"

"Fine!" The lady cried. Her picture swung open, almost hitting the two prefects in the face, I'm not sure, but I think I might have heard a giggle from the other side of the painting. Once her portrait had cleared away, it revealed a large round hole. Everyone clambered in (I believe a couple people stumbled right out on the other side, I heard about a couple of bruises).

Lily stumbled through, and I followed after. I managed to get through in one piece, and was very proud of myself.

The common room was absolutely amazing in a home-like comfortable and cozy way. I know that sounds way girlish but it was true. There was fire crackling in the fireplace at the end of the room; there were armchairs everywhere, and beautifully carved wooden tables with matching chairs scattered among them. It was the first time in what seemed like eternity that I felt truly content and at home.

Now if the common room wasn't something, than the dormitories sure were. We found our way to the First Year girl's room with the help of Katie. It was a big round place with a big old-fashioned iron stove in the middle. There were five four-poster beds carved out of maple with velvet, scarlet hangings. There was another door on the other side of the room. It was like being in the middle of a theater set. It felt so unreal, yet so comforting. My trunk was in front of the bed on the far left side. I noticed Lily's on the near right side. I walked over to my bed. I opened the hangings and sat down.

"Lily this is so great!" She seemed at a loss of words but replied anyway.

"And something besides soup for dinner!" I giggled. I knew Lily meant no disrespect to our mum, but we had soup almost every night.

I gasped. "Oh my gosh! I think the mattresses are down!"

"No way!" she walked to her bed and felt. "They are! And the comforter to!"

"This is like a dream."

I heard footsteps clunking up the spiral staircase leading to the hall of girl's dormitories. Someone opened the door, and two more girls walked in. I noticed them from the feast, and said hi. One girl came over to me.

"I remember you two from the feast! I don't think we've been formally introduced yet, though. I'm Tina Wood. This is my friend Cecilia. " She said pointing to the other girl.

"Nice to meet you Tina and Cecilia, I'm Laurel, and that's my sister Lily." Tina turned around.

"Whoa, there are two of you!"

There was a tiny tap tapping on the stairs and the door slowly creaked open, a small head poked around the side. The girl had coconut brown hair, and eyes that were pale blue and shining like ocean water. She stepped fully in. She was very short, and seemed a little nervous, or maybe just shy.

"Is this the first year dorm?"

"Sure is!" cried Tina, she was loud, but she seemed like a generally nice person.

The girl stepped all the way in and sat down on the bed that wasn't taken. We were all here.

"I'm Tina, and this is my friend Cecilia." She said in a perky hyper voice.

"And I'm Lily Evans, and that's my sister Laurel."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Demi Finnigan." She seemed a little more comfortable now that she knew where she belonged. Suddenly her eyes grew wide, "Hey, your father was killed a couple weeks ago wasn't he?"

I choked up. How did Demi know and why did she care anyway? Was it really her business? Luckily, Lily kept a cooler head than I did.

"Umm, yeah."

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

"How did you know?" I butted in, hoping I didn't sound rude.

"Daily Prophet." She must have seen the quizzical looks on our faces, because she continued. "Wizarding newspaper. Actually," she started to rummage in the messenger bag at her side, "I have that issue here in my bag. She got up and handed it to me.

There was a small article in the corner of the second page that read:

MINISTRY OFFICIAL KILLED IN TRAGIC ATTACK.

I read on:

Early last Tuesday night, Richard Evans, from the Department of Mysteries, went missing. A few select wizards had seen the dark mark floating over a farmer's field near Cornwall. As soon as reports started flowing in, the Ministry acted. They found the man's body and immediately extracted it from the scene. More news will follow shortly.

There was a small picture of the field. The scary thing was, it was the exact same field from the dream I had two nights after we got the news.