Sometimes, when I wake, I wonder how no one ever sees or hears me sleepwalking. It's possible to walk down the stairs in my house silently, yes, but it requires a stealth I doubt I possess while asleep.
Tonight, I'm standing in front of a portrait that I know is the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. The portrait is of a fat lady in a pink dress, or at least it was when I saw it earlier. Now, though, the portrait's occupant has left its frame, perhaps to visit friends. Randomly, I wonder if portraits need sleep as well. I saw some napping portraits when Chester led us to Ravenclaw Tower, but perhaps they just like the comfort an untroubled sleep brings.
I should find my way back to my dorm. I don't want to be found standing in front of another house's common room when people start to wake up. But when I walk for awhile, I realize that I'm lost. I don't know the general layout of Hogwarts yet, and the staircases and suits of armor have moved around, making it even more confusing. The darkness adds yet another layer of difficulty, casting shadows where before there were none and making everything look different.
"Lost?" I jump when I hear the voice behind me. I turn and see the boy from the common room. Like everything else, the darkness has changed his appearance, softening the sharp angles of his face. There's no trace of his earlier anger in his voice.
Hesitantly, I nod. Some paranoid part of me worries that this is a trick, that he plans to lead me to wherever Filch is patrolling the halls before making a run for it, leaving me to be punished.
"This way," the boy says, setting off in a direction that I can only hope is the right one. I run to catch up.
The boy looks at me, his expression unreadable. "I don't think I've introduced myself," he says. I shake my head. "I'm Caleb Green. You're Celena Serantos, Jacob's little sister." He says my name without emotion, but spits out Jacob's like it's poison.
"Can I ask why you hate my brother so much?" I ask. My feeling from earlier hasn't faded, that this is more than just the usual stuff about the Cursed Vaults.
"My sister Olivia was one of Jacob's best friends," Caleb says.
My eyebrows go up. Jacob never mentioned any friends. Now that I think of it, Jacob never mentioned his fellow students at all.
If Caleb notices my surprise, he doesn't mention it. "They were searching for the Cursed Vaults together. It started as an accident. Jacob opened the first vault. Olivia tried to close it, and they ended up working together.
"Jacob was always the leader of them, the one searching for the vaults. Olivia didn't care as much, but once they were open she felt obligated to end the curses.
"You know the stories about the treasure inside the vaults?" I nod, even though Caleb doesn't really want an answer. He continues with barely a pause, "Olivia said the lure of the treasure was slowly driving Jacob mad. He became obsessed with opening all of the vaults. His grades dropped. Olivia had to slip him potions to get him to sleep."
When Caleb pauses again, I try to think of how it must have felt for Olivia, watching her best friend slowly slip away from her, from everyone, disregarding everyone's safety in pursuit of his own dream. Part of me doesn't want to believe what Caleb is saying. Because if he's telling the truth, then the Daily Prophet was right about him, and I didn't know my brother at all.
I realize that Caleb has started speaking again and force myself to listen. "Olivia said that being expelled was the best thing that could have ever happened to Jacob. She hoped he'd go home to his family and forget about the vaults. But of course, that's not what happened."
For the first time since he started telling his story, Caleb turns and looks at me, really looks me right in the eyes. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been so rude to you earlier. I just wanted to make sure you stayed away from the vaults, so that your friend doesn't have to go through what Olivia did."
I nod, and we finish our walk to the Ravenclaw common room.
It's not until I've climbed back into my bed and curled up under the covers that I realize something doesn't feel right about Caleb.
I wake before dawn the next morning. No matter how fitful my sleep, I always wake early. It's both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because it frees me from nightmares and leaves me with enough time to wash all signs of tears from my face before anyone sees them. A curse, because not all sleep is restless, and there are times when I would rather not wake up.
I walk to the Great Hall before anyone else wakes up. It's not really that late, almost six, but evidently Ravenclaws are late sleepers.
There's no one else in the Great Hall. I'm confused by this. Surely I'm not the one early riser in all of Hogwarts.
Almost no one. I spot a purple-robed figure sitting in the chair at the center of the head table. I hesitantly make my way to him.
Professor Dumbledore looks up as I reach him. "Ah, Miss Serantos," he says. "Please, have a seat." I take the seat next to him, which is Professor McGonagall's.
"Why is there no one here, sir?" I ask.
"Breakfast isn't served until seven to allow the house elves ample time to prepare the food. In the future, if you are awake before then you are expected to either stay in your common room or help the house elves in the kitchens," Professor Dumbledore explains.
I nod. Three hundred people eat a lot of food. I wonder how many house elves Hogwarts has.
"Why are you here so early, sir?" I ask hesitantly. "If you don't mind me asking."
"The beginning of the year is often very chaotic. I like to have a quiet hour to myself in the morning." He points upwards at the ceiling of the Great Hall, which mimics the predawn sky outside. "I could be alone in my office, of course, and I very often am, but it's not the same without that ceiling."
I nod as I look up at the fake sky. It really is beautiful.
"The house elves will be finishing up with breakfast soon, so I would head back to your common room so your friend doesn't worry," Dumbledore says. I nod again and stand to leave.
"Oh, and Miss Serantos?" Dumbledore's voice stops me before I get very far. "Every year at Hogwarts is interesting, but something tells me this year will be more interesting than most. Please, do your best to stay out of trouble."
Rowan snores. A lot. I return to our dormitory to find that all of our roommates except for Badeea, who is an impressively deep sleeper, are clustered around Rowan's bed.
Alana Morgan looks up as I enter. "Run away from the buzzsaw?" I try to remember what impression she made at the Welcoming Feast, but the truth is, she didn't make any impression at all. She spoke just twice, once to say she's a Muggleborn and once to make a joke about a pirate getting seven Cs on his report card.
"A what?" Tulip asks.
Alana's shoulders sag. Both of her attempts at jokes have fallen flat. "A spinning circle that Muggles use to cut things."
Tulip's eyes light up. I can tell she's thinking of all the ways a buzzsaw could be used for pranks. Unfortunately for her, a buzzsaw won't work in Hogwarts.
"There has to be something we can do about this," Helena Ross says, folding her arms with an expression of annoyance on her face. Her sour gaze turns to me. "You're her friend. Ask Madam Pomfrey for a potion or something."
"We'll go after breakfast," I say, wondering in amusement if Rowan's snoring was what made me sleepwalk last night.
Rowan finally wakes up with a loud snort. She looks up at the rest of us with bleary eyes. "Why are you all over here?"
"Your snoring woke us all up," Helena says.
"Sorry," Rowan mumbles, crawling out of bed and opening her trunk. She pulls out her robes and hat and heads into the bathroom. The rest of us find our uniforms and follow her in.
The floor of the bathroom is smooth, cold marble. I wish I had put on socks before coming in. There's a row of sinks, each with a faucet shaped like an eagle's head.
Rowan ducks into the first of a row of changing stalls. The doors are blue and the handles are bronze. Helena beats me into the one next to her. I take the middle stall, leaving Tulip and Alana with the last two.
Inside the changing room is a bench made of marble and a large mirror, topped with a carved eagle's head. It's a good thing I like eagles. And blue. And bronze. I'll be seeing a lot of them in the next seven years.
When I've finished changing, I find that Helena, Tulip, and Alana have already left. Rowan is waiting for me by the door. I follow her down to the Great Hall.
"Is my snoring really that bad?" Rowan shoots a sideways glance at me.
"It really is that bad," I say with a laugh. "I promised the other girls we'd go see Madam Pomfrey about it after breakfast."
"If you think I'm bad, you should hear Finch," Rowan protests.
I shudder in mock horror. "I don't think I want to."
Rowan laughs and loops her arm around mine, pulling me along towards the Great Hall.
I take the seat on the end, with Rowan next to me. Alana and Tulip both seem friendly, but for now, I prefer to keep my distance.
Rowan piles her plate high with scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. "Hungry?" I ask teasingly.
"Very." Rowan rips a piece of toast in half and shoves part of it in her mouth. Helena scowls disapprovingly and cuts a small bite of ham for herself. Next to her, Tulip is turned around and deep in conversation with Tonks. Their plates are untouched. On the other side of Rowan, Alana has been forced into a conversation with Andre Egwu.
"I have a scarf that would look great on you," Andre insists. Before Alana can protest, he pulls a royal-blue-and-magenta scarf from his bag and hands it to her.
"You don't have scarves for the rest of us?" Rowan asks teasingly, trying to distract Andre from poor Alana. Alana smiles faintly and shoves the scarf in her bag.
"Not yet," Andre says. "I knit all my scarves myself, so it will take awhile. I have a sweater that would look good on you, though."
"No, thank you," Rowan hastily refuses. "I have enough sweaters already."
"I'll take it," Helena purrs. Rowan rolls her eyes, as does Alana. Classes haven't even started yet, and Helena is already getting on everyone's nerves.
Andre eyes Helena critically. "It wouldn't look good on you," he decides. "You have warm undertones."
"Everything looks good on me," Helena pouts.
"You'll get your own scarf when it's ready," Andre says with a note of finality. Helena looks like she's going to say something else, but she's cut off by the arrival of hundreds of owls.
A few of them swoop down near us, depositing our timetables. Rowan, of course, is the first to snatch hers off the table, her eyes scanning it eagerly. Helena is the last to take hers.
We have seven classes. Each of them happens three times a week, with the exception of Astronomy, which happens twice- one practical and one theory.
"Yes!" Rowan cheers. "We have double Charms first!" She looks at me. "What class are you most looking forward to, Celena?"
"Hmmm..." To be honest, I've never given much thought to that. "Herbology," I decide. I like plants. Jacob and I had a garden in our front yard. After he disappeared, I stopped tending to it. Now it's nothing but weeds.
"Well, we have Herbology on Tuesdays and Wednesdays," Rowan says, still looking over her timetable. "And- no, History of Magic isn't until Tuesday." She manages to make Tuesday sound unbearably far away, when it's in less than a week.
"You won't be so excited when you finally have History of Magic," a second-year not far from us chuckles. "Professor Binns' class is the most boring."
"Well, at least the textbook is interesting," Rowan says. She fills her mouth with scrambled eggs, making it clear that the conversation is over. I smile and realize that I still haven't gotten any food for myself. I place a few pieces of toast on my plate and smear them with jam.
What seems like minutes later, the students begin to pour from the Great Hall. Rowan and I join the stream with the other first years.
This time, I'm the one who pulls Rowan over to my trunk when we reach our dormitory. "Come on," I say. "Let's see what our wands say about us."
"All right." Rowan rattles off a description of her wand as I page through the wandmaking book from Diagon Alley.
"Let's see... unicorn tail hair core," I find the page I'm looking for. "Unicorn hair cores make for a faithful, though not particularly powerful wand, and are the hardest to turn to the Dark Arts. Hazel is sensitive, and- ooh, this is interesting- possesses a unique ability to sense water underground. A unicorn hair and hazel wand is very likely to die with its owner."
"That'll be handy if I ever visit a desert," Rowan jokes, a smile growing on her face. I realize that growing up on a tree farm, she probably knows some of this stuff already, and search for my own wand.
"Phoenix feather cores are the most rare and are capable of the greatest range of magic, and also have the most initiative. Pine is most sensitive to non-verbal magic, almost always paired with those destined for long lives, and it enjoys being used creatively." I laugh as I read the description of the ideal owner of a pine wand. "'The straight-grained pine wand always chooses an independent, individual master who may be perceived as a loner, intriguing and perhaps mysterious.' That definitely sounds like me."
"Hmm... I'm not so sure about 'intriguing'" Rowan jokes. "You seem pretty boring to me."
I give her a gentle shove. "Hey!"
"Can you look up my wand?" I recognize the soft voice as Alana's. I look up, startled. When did she come in?
"Of course," I say. "What is it?"
Alana lists the characteristics of her wand as Tulip and Helena come in. I find myself describing their wands when I've finished with Alana's.
Maybe Hogwarts won't be so bad after all, I think. Even Helena has started to put aside her prejudice.
The thought that comes to me next has nothing to do with me at all. If only it was so easy to change a Death Eater's mind.