Slytherin Common Room Chapter 9:
The Hufflepuffs and the Slytherins walked down the staircases together until the second-to-last staircase, at which point Gilbert had given up extricating himself from Rachel. She didn't say anything, just hung around him, very close. She didn't stare at him either, or make funny faces towards him, only occasionally widening her eyes so that tears pooled in them and tightened her mouth in a weird smile. But she'd followed him when he lagged to say goodbye to Elizaveta and the others, when he'd sped up because he wanted to see where they were going, everywhere.
They'd gotten to the dungeons now, a slight moist part of it, with rooms on either side of the creepy (although Gilbert would never admit that out loud) hallway, only illuminated by green lanterns that barely cast a glow. But the Prefects seemed to know where they were going.
Finally, they stopped by a stretch of bare, damp stone wall.
'Nigellus!', the male Prefect (easily recognizable as one of the Kirkland clan because of the bushy eyebrows) said.
A door that had been so thoroughly concealed in the wall that it had been impossible to discern it, slid open. The First Years were hurriedly waved into the low underground room which was long and contained carved chairs and an even more elaborately carved mantelpiece, above which were a large escutcheon with a snake in profile with its beady eye glinting green and on the mantelpiece proper was five skulls, ostensibly from snakes, situated right ahead of them where a fire was crackling. The light was predominantly green, not only because of the round, greenish lamps hanging on chains from the rough stone ceiling that matched the walls, but also, Gilbert noted, because the glass windows situated around the common room were showing the Great Lake, which body of water gave off a green light.
'So,', the Kirkland Prefect started, 'the start of the term spiel; the purple tapestry to the left which I doubt any of you saw when you came in, leads to the boys' dormitories. The tapestry to the right, which you also probably missed, leads to the girls' dormitories. The dormitory you're going to use, for both cases, is the one with "First Year" written directly on the door. I'm Seamus Kirkland and my colleague, silent but deadly, is Kate Diggory. Have a good night!'
The dorm, at least the one Gilbert was in, was brighter than any other part of the Slytherin Basement. A tough room, it reminded Gilbert of the upper basement floor at Beilschmidt Villa, except for the wall-to-wall carpet and the five beds, of which he chose the one in the middle, directly across from the door.
Changing into his pajamas, and laying on the bed, he sighed in relief at finally being rid of Gregson. She was way too clingy. Not like Elizaveta. He looked forward to seeing her tomorrow.
And with that thought happily swimming in his head, he fell asleep.
Author's notes:
And then we were done with the Common Rooms.
In the next chapter:
Elizaveta sat down, biting her nails.
'Now, there's no reason for biting your nails, Héderváry. What we're about to tell you isn't so very dreadful, though it might shock you.'
'There's nothing wrong about you, so to speak, but something different. Not an everyday occurrence.'