She was dressed in very pretty green emerald robes, Laertes could tell you would not be able to cross her, yet she did not seem cruel, just strict. With a clearing of her throat the entire hall went quiet.

"Welcome to a new year. For those of you returning I'd like to remind you to help those that are new. This year's head-boy and girl are Kevin Pimlock and Susan Creevy. Please look to them if you have any questions or need help. You will all receive your timecards Monday morning. As a reminder, just because you do not have classes tomorrow, term has started and you can and will get points taken away if you step out of turn. Also the Forbidden Forest is still out of bounds…" she seemed to glance at the Gryffindor table for a moment before continuing, "Except when accompanied by staff. Now with that all out of the way…enjoy." As she said this she began to sit down and food of all sorts appeared on the table.

Soon everyone was shoveling food onto their plates and into their mouths. Laertes turned to his friends to listen to their conversation.

"I'm half, you know. My mother, she's a witch, magic is all over the house; apparently my dad took a long time to get used to it; but for me, it's just been normal. My mum was so pleased when I got my letter." One of the new Gryffindor girls, JoAnne, was saying.

Gwyn immediately jumped in. "We're sorta half, both our parents are a witch and a wizard but our mum, she's a muggle-born. But Laertes here, he's totally muggle-born, aren't you Laertes?"

Laertes, with his mouth stuffed, quickly swallowed causing himself to choke slightly, Faux trying to help beat on his back repeatedly until he stopped coughing.

"Yea, but apparently my mum's parents were magical, but they died before I met them. So I've never seen any sort of magic up until recently."

"Wow, never seen any magic?" JoAnne asked, wide eyed. Laertes nodded. "Wow. How did you live?"

Faux laughed at that, everyone turned to him puzzled. "Our mum would be so offended by that!" He was still chuckling and Gwyn even grinned. "Since she's muggle-born and a bit obsessive about equal rights; and well, muggles live fine, they have all sorts of things we don't to get along. We use some of them at home; there are areas in our house that are 'non-magic' areas cause of the muggle stuff."

"Non-magic? Why?" Tyler popped in, his plate already emptied.

Gwyn went to open her mouth but before she could, "because magic shorts out electricity…" Judas, the boy everyone had gone so quiet for said, his voice very subdued.

Everyone turned to him; no one had even noticed him move over to them, though Laertes was not completely surprised. All of the first years had somehow banded together in one area and as he was also a first year it made sense.

However, Gwyn did not seem too pleased. Laertes glanced over at her and saw a frown on her face, but surprisingly she didn't open her mouth to say anything. Tyler, in fact, spoke.

"That's weird…do you know why?" He was nervous, but his voice was strong and Laertes was very proud of his shy friend.

"I don't really know…" Judas looked relieved that someone had spoken; again Laertes had the feeling that he wasn't a bad person at all.

Gwyn's lips were pursued very tightly and even Faux seemed unkeen to be in Judas' presence, but before either one of them could say anything the older students were getting up and a pretty red head was standing up calling for first years.

"First years, please gather round; we'll be heading to the dormitories now. Please! First years, over here!"

Slowly everyone began to shift around, moving to stand near the girl calling them all together. As everyone got together she smiled, "alright everyone, I'm Desi Weasley, and I'm going to be showing you to your home for the next seven years. Try to stay together; we don't want to lose anyone." And as she said it she began to lead the group out of the Great Hall.

Gwyn, apparently having retrieved back her voice, was quickly rushing up to Desi. "Des! Des! Look, I'm in your house! I told you all I'd be in Gryffindor! Did you see?"

Desi laughed and looked down at her cousin, "yes, I did see Gwyn. I'm really proud of you."

"Me too Gwynie!" An older boy yelled as he walked by, first years also following him. Gwyn smiled and waved exuberantly at him before turning back to the group.

Laertes went to ask who that had been but just as he opened his mouth they headed up the stairs and he was baffled by the moving paintings. So intrigued by them he barely heard Desi begin talking again.

"—to be careful about the stairs, they are really prone to moving around, so keep a close eye on them whenever you're on them. Now we're on the top floor in this wing, the seventh floor. Ah, here we are…"

"Hello dear." The painting said to Desi; Laertes was glad when he saw one of the girls jump slightly, for he was just as surprised.

"Hello Lady, these are the new first years." Desi said smiling as she gestured at them.

"Oh, how grand! Hello my dears, it's good to meet you all! I'm sure you'll all be assets to the House of Gryffindor!" Laertes smiled slightly, she seemed a nice portrait, not that he had much to compare it too.

"Now," Desi began as she turned to them all, "for every common room or dormitory there is a password, currently ours is 'borage', commit that to your memory now, because the Fat Lady here won't let you in without the password." Desi turned back around "Borage." She said firmly, and with a smile the Fat Lady swung open.

Laertes gapped but walked in the same as everyone else. As they entered the common room he was amazed by it and couldn't wait to spend time there. Before he could go very far with that, however, Desi turned again to speak to them all.

"On the left are the boys' dormitories, girls ours is the right. I believe you're all on the second flight up; the door will be labeled your year. All your personal items have been taken up, so you all should be set. I suggest you all get up to bed, tomorrow will be a long day for you."

Once up in their dormitory Laertes immediately found his bed and was sitting on it looking around, wide eyed. He'd never seen a room quite like it, and he loved it.

Suddenly Faux was bounding on his bed a huge smile on his face. "This is great! Tomorrow we have a free day! What should we do?"

Laertes moved slightly to rest his back against his bed frame. "I don't know…" he had a smile on his face as well.

Tyler was soon on the bed with them. "We could explore. It's a huge castle, it could be fun." Tyler suggested in his quiet voice.

"Did you say explore?!" The other Gryffindor boy dropped in, Laertes thought his name was Ben or Bill or something.

Faux turned to the boy and grinned. "Yea. Apparently there are secret passages and stuff!"

"Wow! Do you mind if I come?" The boy asked as he walked over to Laertes' bed.

"Course not! It'll be great! What's your name?" Faux asked, moving over to allow the boy room.

He gratefully got on the bed with the other three, with a giant smile. "I'm Ben Finnigan."

Faux's face lit up. "You're the one with the sister!"

Ben's face contorted. "Yah…"

Laertes looked at him confused, "what's wrong? Don't you like your sister?"

"O' course I do…it's just, she's younger than me, but 'cause of our birthdays she got to come at the same time…I shoulda came last year but I didn't turn 11 until the 11th so they wouldn't let me."

"Don't feel bad, my cousin, Lance, he got sorted into Ravenclaw—"

"Yea, didn't a professor yell when he did?"

"Yah, that was his mum, she was in Ravenclaw too. Anyway his birthday is on Monday, so he shoulda gone last year too…but they wouldn't let him either.

"Sucks…"

"Yah…well my sister will be happy, means we are the only twins in our year."

"Sister?"

Faux's ears turned very red suddenly, "er, yah, she was the one that threw the Sorting hat…"

Comprehension slowly dawned on Ben's face and suddenly he was laughing hysterically. Tyler also had a huge grin on his face and Laertes couldn't help it, he laughed too. Pretty soon Faux's ears cooled down and he started in as well. They were all enjoying each others company when suddenly a bang happened from the other end of the room and they all stopped to look over at the source of the noise.

Judas' pale face was alight with color; he jerked his head up trying to seem proud, but Laertes could see that his eyes were glazed, as if he were trying not to cry. Forgetting the way Faux and Gwyn had reacted to him Laertes opened his mouth to call him over to join them. Before he could, however, Faux noticed and tackled him, his hand shooting over Laertes' mouth.

"Don't." He hissed quietly, "we don't want him…"

Laertes pushed his friend off of him and sat back up. "Why not? He seems nice enough."

"His dad was a Death Eater!"

"Yea, Peter told me, so?"

The three other boys looked at him appalled, as if he'd just suggested having tea with a grizzly bear.

"Death Eaters are the meanest, cruelest people in the world!" Tyler supplied.

"So? That doesn't mean he's one. I mean he is in Gryffindor."

That seemed to make Tyler and Ben stop and think, but Faux was still glancing heavily at the proud boy across the room, as if waiting for him to attack.