Author's Note: Hope you enjoy, let me know what you think in a review!

P.S. Sorry about any grammatical errors, this story doesn't have a beta.

Little Gem

It was nightfall when the Hogwarts Express pulled into the Hogsmeade station. Harry was beyond anxious as a giant of a man called all the first years together. Harry had to push through a crowd of older students who were headed towards carriages that pulled themselves to make it to the other first years. When they had all lined up the giant had led them from the platform and down a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on both sides that nobody spoke a word and put their full concentration into where there feet fell.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," the giant man called in a booming voice over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."

At the exact moment Harry looked up there was a loud "Ooooh!" from the group of first years. Harry felt his mouth drop open in shock. The narrow path had opened up to the edge of a great black lake. Perched on top of a high mountain on the other side was a huge castle alight in an orange glow, its towers and turrets so high that they seemed to melt into the starry sky.

"Now now more'n four to a boat!"

Harry could barely tear his eyes away long enough to get situated in boat and he didn't look at who joined him. The only thing Harry could think of were the facts that he had read rolling through his mind in awe. Seven stories and a hundred and forty-two stair moving staircases – built in 993 AD – designed by an unknown magical architect and Rowena Ravenclaw – built by the four founders – all magic cast within the castle's ground creates a magical atmosphere that destroys technology – said to house more secret rooms and pathways than any other castle ever built –

Suddenly Harry couldn't wait until he was free to explore the castle. He didn't mind if he were sorted into Hufflepuff or Gryffindor, he'd suffer through so long as he was free to map out the ever changing castle and discover its secrets.

The boats pulled themselves after the large man in a boat to himself yelled, "FORWARD!" Harry was pulled away from shore.

Harry couldn't tear his eyes away from the castle as the boats pulled them forward. With every foot the castle grew impossibly larger and Harry's heartbeat grew louder. After a few minutes the boats pulled ashore and the students clambered out with their necks craned, almost unable to stop staring at Hogwarts.

They were lead up a large lawn that was slick and in some parts muddy much to several students chagrin. One boy in particular, a thin pointed face boy with hair so blonde it was almost white, was particularly vocal about his new dragonhide boots getting dirty. Though Harry didn't say so out loud he had the same concern, he had just purchased his new boots and cloak and now they had mud on them.

But all grievances were forgotten when they stopped in front of a huge wooden door and the large man knocked – a great thundering sound that was similar to canon blasts – three times. The doors opened and Harry smiled when he saw Professor McGonagall standing there in emerald robes and a black witche's hat.

"The firs' years," Hagrid said proudly.

"Thank you Hagrid," Professor McGonagall replied, "I will take them from here."

McGonagall led them into an entrance hall so big that Harry had to turn his head to take it all in. The stone walls were lit and the only thing in the giant hall was a massive staircase that lead to the upper floors. Instead of waiting here however, Harry and the group were led into yet another room. This antechamber was smaller and they had to squish together to fit inside.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," Professor McGonagall called loudly from atop a small set of stairs, "The start of term banquet will begin shortly but before you can take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is very important because while you are here your house will be like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room.

The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts your triumphs will earn you house points while any rule breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours.

The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting. I will return when we are ready for you. Please wait quietly." – SS, 114.

Harry ran a sweaty hand through his hair, making sure nothing was sticking up wrong. He watched one girl with bushy brown hair mutter to herself about every spell she had learned while a boy next to her fidgeted with his cloak that was fastened wrong. The blonde boy was trying to scrape mud off his boots using the wall and a red head was looking like he might faint and was whispering about fighting a troll.

This made Harry roll his eyes because honestly, they were being sorted not killed. Harry was more eager than nervous; he was excited to both be sorted and witness the process. Supposedly the Sorting Hat could see into your head and Harry very much wanted to know what kind of magic could enchant a hat to peer into your mind.

McGonagall came back not long after ghosts floated through the chamber above their heads. "We are ready for you now, follow me."

The group of forty or so first years was lead into the Great Hall and it took his breath away. The cavernous room seemed to open up to heavens, the long four tables were packed with students trimmed in green, blue, yellow, or red; sitting on a raised part of the hall were teachers in their high backed chairs, and the banners that hung in the air had large Hogwarts emblems. Harry took it all in with a sense of wonder and then his eyes found Professor McGonagall who held a roll of parchment, beside her was a three legged stool with a very old, dirty hat sitting upon it.

The students were ushered forward and Harry could feel the eyes in the hall roaming over him. "When I call your name you will sit and I will place the Sorting Hat upon your head." Professor McGonagall instructed after the Sorting Hat finished its song about Hogwarts and without further ado she opened the rolled up parchment.

"Abbott, Hannah!"

Harry watched as a pink faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled forward. The hat fell over her eyes and after a moment's pause it yelled, "HUFFLEPUFF!" The table to the right exploded in cheers and the girl ran to join her house.

"Bones, Susan!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!" The hat cried out again much to the girl's obvious relief.

"Boot, Terry!"

"RAVENCLAW!" Harry watched the second table from the left erupt into cheers and he felt his pulse quicken.

"Brocklehurst, Mandy!" Mandy stepped forward with a look of determination and once the hat covered her eyes Harry watched her smile brightly before –

"RAVENCLAW!" Harry found himself clapping for her as she skipped her way to the table.

"Brown, Lavendar!"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

The names kept going but Harry found his gaze wandering past the sorting ceremony to familiar purple robes and a turban. Harry tensed as he watched the timid looking man clap softly for each student that was sorted. He didn't look evil or as if he were plotting Harry's doom; so why would a foe glass show him to Harry? He continued to stare at the man in contemplation; the professor had non-descript features…muddy brown eyes, thin face, and straight nose - there was nothing remarkable about him at all. He looked utterly ordinary, forgettable.

Until he looked at Harry.

Brown eyes met emerald and Harry felt his scar prickle for the first time in his life. Almost as if the cavernous room had caved in around him, Harry found himself feeling cramped and unable to breathe. The sound of cheering faded away and Harry couldn't tear his eyes away from those muddy brown ones. Even though they were so ordinary they held something so striking that they held Harry captive.

Then the professor looked away and room exploded into noise just in time for Harry to hear Professor McGonagall call, "Potter, Harry."

Harry gulped loudly as he slowly stepped forward. He bit his lip as he sat down and he could hear the whispers about the Boy-Who-Lived as the Professor placed the hat on his head. The Great Hall vanished and Harry nearly jumped when he heard a voice in his mind that wasn't his own.

"Hmmm, difficult." It whispered in his mind.

"Can you hear me?" Harry thought toward the hat.

The hat chuckled, "Of course I can Mr. Potter, I am inside your mind."

"How are you inside of my mind? What magic is that called? And how are you talking without someone controlling you, are you –"

"Perhaps this isn't such a difficult decision after all," The hat teased. "You have a desperate thirst for knowledge Mr. Potter, yet you are so very cunning and resourceful. You would do well in either Ravenclaw or Slytherin."

Harry felt a little stunned, he hadn't thought of Slytherin for himself. "The talent…" The hat continued in contemplation, "Oh yes, you have so much talent. But where to put you?"

"Are you really not going to tell me how it is you're inside my mind?" Harry persisted while the hat contemplated. He wasn't too worried because either house sounded fine for him.

Once again the hat laughed, "It's not Legillimancy, don't worry." Harry caught on to that like a life line and made a promise to research it as soon as he could. Reading minds was powerful, the brain was the single most complicated organ in the body and learning to read it could quite possibly lead to a greater understanding of how it functioned.

"Ah greater understanding," The hat repeated, "Mr. Potter you were tricky but I see it now… you crave knowledge intrinsically first and foremost, unafraid to use it when necessary. That is why you will be great in –

"RAVENCLAW!"

The Great Hall exploded into cheers and Harry smiled brightly as Professor McGonagall took the hat off his head. Happily he joined the Ravenclaw table, taking a seat near Nanette who was the first to congratulate him. Sophie was next to shake his hand, followed by Maria, a girl named Penelope, Mandy, Jeremy, and then Robert who turned out to be Head Boy.

Ravenclaw table was abuzz with conversation as soon as the table filled with food, after Dumbledore's odd words of welcome. Maria and Penelope seemed to have picked up an argument from earlier and were heatedly discussing something called Gamp's Second Law, which apparently stated that you couldn't manufacture love. Apparently they were still discussing Gemma Farley's engagement to Grant Montague.

Further down Mandy was in conversation with Terry Boot about the enchanted ceiling and how it was apparently different from the one at the Ministry of Magic. The one in the Great Hall was enchanted to show the weather and how the sky changed and the one at the Ministry was enchanted to just show night or day – but always clear skies. Harry had to admit that it was impressive and he couldn't help but wonder how it was done.

Harry turned to Nanette as he gathered food on his plate. The crimson haired girl was idly playing with her food and humming a song Harry had never heard. "What's being a Ravenclaw like?"

For a second she eyed him funnily but then she said, "Freeing."

"How so?"

"There are a lot of stigmas that play into the houses," Nanette said as she sipped from her goblet, "Gryffindors are supposed to be courageous and strong, but also prejudiced against anything that seems morally ambiguous. Slytherins are supposed to love everything evil and so are watched with suspicion. Then Hufflepuffs are supposed to be a lot of duffers, which I tell you isn't true.

"But Ravenclaws? Some might think us cold, callous, or stuck up but we're known to be smart, clever, eccentric, and all around scholars. We are accepted by every house and we are free to blend into the background and study wherever our curious minds take us."

Harry pondered this as Nanette fell silent. It almost sounded as if Nanette was saying that there were things that weren't allowed to be studied, but Harry brushed away the thought. How could someone ban knowledge? He figured she meant that Ravenclaws were generally left alone in their endeavors and solitude was great, having to explain things to others while your brain was racing forward by leaps and bounds was always an annoyance.

"How is it the food just appeared on the table?" Harry watched Nanette smile as if she were expecting the bombardment of questions. "Surely you can't just wave a wand and have all of this cooked food appear; I mean there are at least four hundred people here!"

"Of course not," Nanette agreed, "I'll lend you a book about Gamp's Laws of Elemental Transfiguration once we get back to the common room. The short answer though, is that Hogwarts employs somewhere around a hundred house elves who make the food and when we're ready send it to the table."

Harry almost felt bad about asking all these questions that plagued him but Nanette's smile never faltered. Eventually Harry asked the one that had been eating at him, "Who's that professor in the purple robes?"

"Oh that's Professor Quirrell, he'll be our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher." Harry's gaze wandered from Nanette to Professor Quirrell. Almost as if he had felt Harry's scrutiny his brown eyes looked up and caught Harry's gaze. Harry quickly looked back down to his plate.

When everyone had eaten as much as they could Dumbledore had the whole Great Hall sing the school song. When the last of the song had finished, two red haired boys had drawn it out painfully slow, Dumbledore spoke again and Harry watched the man who had placed him with the Dursley's with narrowed eyes. "Now, a few announcements before we send you to your dormitories.

"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well." Harry watched as the headmaster looked over to the Gryffindor table. "I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used in the hallways."

"Don't worry," Nanette whispered conspiratorially to Harry, "no one ever follows that rule."

Harry smiled at her and Dumbledore continued, "Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of term. Anyone interested in playing for their house team should contact Madam Hooch.

"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third floor corridor on the right hand side is out of bounds to all who do not wish to die a most painful death." Harry's eyes widened and he watched Nanette's mouth drop open.

"He's serious?" he asked in disbelief.

With a crease between her brows she answered, "Must be. Usually he at least gives us a reason for why we aren't allowed somewhere."

"Now, off you trot!" With that the students were dismissed and the headmaster sat back down watching them.

Immediately Robert Hilliard stood and called the first years to him as the upper years disappeared. "I'll meet you in the common room yeah?" Nanette asked in parting then disappeared before Harry could respond.

The other first years looked miserable as Robert led them through corridors, up flights of stairs that had steps you had to jump over, through a tapestry of Marigold the Martyr, and up several more flights of stairs. "Just a little farther," Robert assured them. He didn't say much other than a random tidbit of knowledge here or there, he seemed to know how miserable it was to walk so far when you were so full.

"Why do they call them common rooms if only people from a certain house can go in them? Doesn't that make them uncommon?" Terry Boot asked as they climbed.

"No," Robert replied, "because Hogwarts has no rule on who can enter the common rooms. As long as you know how to enter then you're free to do so. It's not so common for other houses because they have passwords that change periodically, but it is common to see a clever Slytherin or Hufflepuff in our common room because we have a different way to enter our common room."

"Well how do we enter?" Padma Patil asked.

"You'll see."

At last they came to the base of a round tower and began their trek up the rounded staircase. When they reached the top Harry stopped with the others in front of a large wooden door with no doorknob or keyhole. There was only a bronze knocker in the shape of an eagle.

For a second every first year waited for Robert to do some kind of trick for the door to open, but then the knocker moved. It seemed to shake itself awake and Harry watched, fascinated, that then gave a yawn and said, "Where is the line between creativity and insanity?"

Robert turned to the first years with a smirk, "Alright you bunch, in order to get into the common room you have to correctly answer the riddle. Good Luck." Then he leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms.

As tired as they all were, no one seemed upset. Every face looked eager and whispers started.

"Creativity is a positive trait and insanity is a negative one." Someone said, though Harry couldn't tell who.

"No, no that's not it. Creativity is about making things, art if you will, but insanity is more about the destruction of things." Su Li said with a hopeful look. The bronze knocker didn't respond and so the first years began to theorize.

"Aren't they the same thing?" Harry asked and Mandy nodded excitedly.

"Harry's right they are the same thing, they both describe what a normal person wouldn't think of. They just have different connotations."

Michael Corner broke in this time, "But that's not the only reason they're the same, both are subjective ideas."

"By nature neither can be clearly defined," Harry said and he could feel himself grinning, "so there is really no line between the two."

"Rather than being separate," Padma continued, "the two are intertwined and complement one another."

Every head looked to the bronze knocker and Harry felt great relief when it said, "A wise answer." With that the door swung open and Robert led them inside.

"Good job!" Robert praised but it was lost on the wonder of the common room.

Ravenclaw common room was a giant circular room the cream colored walls, cathedral like windows, and a second story balcony where giant bookcases were stored. Giant blue curtains hung from the walls, there was a giant white marble statue that stood at the entrance of a library on the other side of the common room, and the ceiling was painted to look like the night's sky. There were blue carpeted floors and comfortable looking chairs everywhere. To the left there was a giant notice board and beside that was an even bigger chalk board which had, "Is conception under Polyjuice Potion possible?" written at the top in loopy cursive. In the back half of the room there was another, smaller, chalkboard with a few equations Harry couldn't understand on it. Next to that chalkboard was a giant black piano.

Harry couldn't help but fall in love with the enormous, lofty common room. It reminded him of what Nanette had said earlier about how being a Ravenclaw was freeing; the whole common room gave you the impression of personal space and freedom. The giant windows that looked down on all of Hogwarts seemed more than beautiful to Harry, they seemed almost metaphorical. He loved to explore, to broaden his perspective, and he loathed being hindered from that. The view of the Hogwarts grounds were as unhindered as they were vast.

Robert cleared his throat and Harry's focus snapped back to the Head Boy. Behind Robert were Nanette, Jeremy, Penelope, and two others Harry didn't recognize. "I'm Head Boy, Robert Hilliard. These are Prefects Nanette Desford, Jeremy Stretton, Penelope Clearwater, Duncan Inglebee, and Megan Davis.

"We all are delighted to welcome you to Ravenclaw, the house that soars where others cannot climb. We are the clever and the voracious. Here you are encouraged to follow any and all of your intellectual pursuits wherever they may lead you, no matter how unorthodox they may be. You will always find someone to help you uncover the mysteries of Alomancy or to debate the ethics of Love Potions." Harry laughed quietly as Robert gave a long look to Nanette and Jeremy.

"There is no judgement here no matter your scholarly interest or eccentric habits, so we ask that you give your peers the same courtesy. Speaking of eccentrics, you will notice our Head of House, Professor Flitwick, is particularly tiny. If you ever need anything or are finding yourself overwhelmed, he will always be there to guide you to answers or charm cupcakes to dance for you. I highly recommend you see the performance, it's highly entertaining.

"With all that said I have only one more thing to discuss before we show you to your dorms. Tomorrow morning before breakfast, most of us are down here around six-thirty; the six of us will be here to teach you the three spells every Ravenclaw must know. It's not mandatory, so if you want to sleep in your more than free to, but if you do want to learn a few charms to make your life easier then meet us down here."

With that Robert lead the group of curious students through a door behind the statue of Rowena Ravenclaw and into the turrets that held the different dorms. Nanette caught Harry briefly and slipped him a book called Gamp's Laws: Elemental Transfiguration. Which left Harry wondering if Gamp had made other laws not regarding elemental transfiguration.

Harry wished he had more energy to take in his large dormitory that held five absolutely huge loft beds made from dark polished wood. The beds themselves were adorned in sky blue silk sheets and thick blue cotton comforters. Underneath the beds were corner bookshelves where they could store their personal books and a large dresser where they could keep their robes. To the side of each bed was a desk and rolling chair. Harry spotted his trunk at the foot of a loft bed across the room and quickly made his way over, smiling when he saw Lorelei in her tank on top of his dresser.

I never want to be in here again, she hissed angrily at him.

Harry laughed quietly and promised he'd find a way to make her more comfortable in the morning. The boys didn't say much to each other, all too tired and wanting to sleep. So Harry changed into his pajamas and crawled up the ladder and into his bed with Lorelei.

Good night, he whispered quietly and then he was out.