I was in for more surprises of the wizarding world, it seemed, just as I began to head towards our dorms, whereupon I found that there were not only moving portraits (which I had seen in Diagon Alley anyway) but also moving staircases. I joined the confused first-years after a prefect called Pansy. As opposed to all the other students, who seemed to be heading upwards towards their dorms however, a sea of black robes and green ties was slowly making its way in the opposite direction. We kept on down and down, switching staircases as we went and fending off ghosts (for as I soon learnt, they are freezing if you go through them) until we reached a damp, dark corridor, on the end of which there seemed a wall. With no door.
Malfoy, a prefect badge flashing on his chest as well, stepped forward proudly. "Listen up, everybody! The password for this fortnight is pure-blood." There was a cheer from some in the crowd, and full bellied laughs from the rest. I didn't understand, but even the first years around me seemed to be laughing. I tried breaking down the word. Pure blood. Someone who is pure of blood. Magical blood probably. Somebody with two magical parents! That explained the Slytherin attitudes towards muggle-borns, those born of muggle blood. Mud blood. I truly heard the word now, somewhere in the back of my mind, Malfoy was sneering, they really are filthy creatures. I found myself confronted with true disgust. What and elitist group of racists! I was reminded of the BNP at home, a political party who believed only those who had been living in England for centuries past would be allowed to remain there if they ever came to power. I feared this would be the same for the Slytherin house. Why would I be sorted into it anyway?
The wall began to move, and slowly we were herded through the ever widening gap into a high ceilinged, cold room with a slightly greenish tinge to it. In many corners sat black skulls, high-backed, commanding black armchairs and to one side, a notice board. At the back of the room, two more corridors leading to the dorms stood. The kids all checked the notice board as if this was routine, and then bounded off to their own rooms where they were told their baggage would be waiting for them. As more dispersed and I got nearer and nearer, I saw that it was a list of dorm rooms. Scanning for my name, I found that I was sharing a dorm with three other girls, a dorm called SALAZAR. I recognized the name. Salazar Slytherin was the founder of the very house I was in. At the bottom, printed in bold were the words: GIRLS: LEFT, BOYS: RIGHT. ANY PUPILS FOUND GOING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION WILL BE PUNISHED
This information in mind, I made my way over to the left corridor, where a small stream of girls were going. I found myself descending yet more stairs. The girls in front of me went off one by one to the various rooms on the sides of the staircases, and I felt myself pulled further and further down until, nearly at the bottom, I found SALAZAR.
I entered to find another green room, this one warmer than the first. Four beds sat a little distance away from one another, and on three of them sat girls, all who turned to look at me in a way of half guilt and disdain which meant they had just been talking about me. However, one girl made her way off the bed and came over, hand extended to greet me, she even smiled a little.
"I'm Stella Wingtip, you must be Angeline," she came over and took my hand, leading me into the room. The other two girls stood. "This," Stella continued, pointing to a plump, mean looking girl, "is Millicent Bulstrode," and then, turning me in the direction of a prettier girl who I recognized by the glint of a prefect badge attached to her robes, introduced "Pansy Parkinson, who you're sure to have met seeing as she is a prefect, and well deservedly so." I smiled at her as if to agree. She didn't look at me.
Stella then shepherded me towards what I assumed to be my bed, as it had my trunk on it. The other two girls, Millicent and Pansy, went back to their own conversations. In the meantime, Stella showed me how to unpack. "The easiest way to unpack," she began, "is with a levitation charm. Watch closely." She opened my trunk and showed me a swishing and flicking motion she did with her wand. I drew mine and mimicked her. "Wingardium Leviosa." she said, and to my astonishment, my spare set of robes lifted out of the air and slowly settled inside an open drawer. "That's second year stuff really, but it's useful I'll tell you that. You have a try."
I looked at her worriedly, I didn't really know any spells. I had spent half my summer frantically reading all the books from the past four years, and my living room had been turned into a rule free space where I was permitted to do magic despite the Ministry's laws against the use of magic in the muggle world for those under the age of seventeen, but I had been to focused on potions and simple transfiguration to go through all the charms.
"Not everybody gets it right the first time round," she said encouragingly, and then stepped back, apparently waiting for me to make my move. I felt the eyes of the others on me as I stepped back, drew in a breath and spoke the unfamiliar words, moving my wand in the action I had just been taught. "Wingardium Leviosa." amazingly, up came some of my clothes and right back down into the drawer, neatly as anything, for one incredible moment, hanging in thin air. I felt empowered. I quickly finished the packing, suddenly more confident, laughing and joking with Stella until a dull voice appeared over some kind of tannoy system, though there were no speakers I could see.
"Lights out." said the drone, and as we all lay down in bed and I head Pansy whisper "Nox." I realised that our only light source had been a glowing orb floating in the air. An orb which had just gone out, plunging us into darkness.