The Trouble Tails of Life at Hogwarts
Chapter Four
We followed the Slytherin prefect through the entrance hall and down to the castle dungeons. The dungeons were cold and dark; just what you would expect a dungeon to be like, except for the lack of rats, dead bodies and torture devises (pity really). Ismarina and I barely paid any attach to the words the prefect was saying but I think he was giving us warnings about things in the school, and passageways (takes all the fun out of hidden passage ways if everyone knows about them). At least, we found ourselves standing before a stretch of bare stone wall. This wall must be the entrance to the Slytherin common room.
"This is the entrance to our common room…" the prefect explained, even though I was pretty sure we all figured that one out ourselves when he stopped in front of it. "The password is…Dendroaspis Polylepis." The bricks of the wall folded away to revile a long underground room. The walls were made with rough stones. From the ceiling hung greenish lamps on chains, the lamps and the fire burning in the large fireplace was the only source of light in the room.
"Dendroaspis Polylepis?" I could hear Pansy Parkinson mutter. "What in the world is that?"
"It's the proper name of the poisonous snake the Black Mamba," I answered.
"Why would you know that?" Millicent Bulstrode asked rudely.
"I research the world's most poisonous snakes one summer," I explained.
"Girls dormitories is the through the door to the left, boys to the right," the prefect's words interrupted our conversation after all the first years were inside the common room. "You will find that your belongings have already been brought to your rooms," and then he left, walking through the right door to the boy's dormitories and was soon followed by the first year boys.
"Did you really research poisonous snakes one summer?" Ismarina asked as we walked through the doors that would lead us to our dormitory.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"I was bored, and I always had a liking for deadly things."
"You are a weird one, you know that," Ismarina said with a laugh as we made our slow move down a flight of stairs.
"You have no idea just how weird," I muttered I found the door that held a plaque with our names on it. "I think this is our room."
"Hey, we're roommates," Ismarina said with a smile as she pushed open the door.
The room was circler, with five four-poster beds spaced evenly around, each draped in dark green curtains. The bed blankets on the bed were green with sliver trimming. At the foot of each bed sat a trunk. My trunk sat in front of the bed directly to across from the door. Ismarina's sat at by the bed to the left of mine. We shared our dorm with none other than Millicent Bulstrode, Pansy Parkinson, and Cassandra Underwood.
"Well, I'm beat. I think sleep sounds great," Ismarina said as she opened her trunk to get her pajamas.
"I would have to agree," I said following her lead.