School
It wasn't long before the feast was coming to an end and the prefects lead the first years and the few upperclassmen who hadn't gotten the memo for the new password, to their respective dorms and common rooms. The Ravenclaws went to the West Tower, the tallest tower in Hogwarts. Morgana had read that they had no portrait password, but rather a bronze knocker of an eagle that would only open if you answered the riddle it posed. The Hufflepuffs went down to their common room in what was known as the Hufflepuff basement. It was located closest to the kitchens and was apparently, the coziest common room out of the lot. The Gryffindor common room was located in the Gryffindor tower on the East side of the school. Structurally, it was the second tallest tower in Hogwarts, but back in the '40s a group of Gryffindor students attached a pole of their own making to the very top with an irreversible sticking charm which technically made their tower the "tallest."
The Slytherin common room and dorms were located in the dungeons of Hogwarts. It's weird to think that a castle that has only ever been a school would have dungeons which, in medieval times, were often for torture, imprisonment, and solitary confinement. They, of course, had never really been used for such purposes and were just for the aesthetic. The problem with dungeons, as any good person knows, is that they are dark and damp and hardly suitable for housing, let alone housing children. Nonetheless, their prefects continued deeper and deeper into the bowels of Hogwarts.
Eventually, their male prefect, Lucius Malfoy, stopped in front of a snake gargoyle. They had passed several such statues and the first years wondered what made it different from the rest. However, an explanation was afoot.
"This... is the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room," Lucius declared and motioned to the snake. "It will always be the 13th statue on your left starting from the gargoyle above the potions room which you will learn to identify... For the first week, the statue will display itself in a slightly askew position, as you will now see."
He stepped aside and his female counterpart, a girl who had introduced herself at dinner as Eva Lisque, pulled out her wand and tapped the snake's head. As if awoken from a great slumber, the snake's stone eyes blinked and its tongue darted out. Some of the students stepped back as the stone form magically raised its head higher and opened its mouth. All the other snakes in the row adjusted their position too so that it was like when you pause a scene and go frame by frame. Then the snakes on the other side, going farther into the dungeon did the same in reverse so that the statue that was the door was raised as if ready to strike, the scene's climax.
"No one from other houses is to come into our common room under any circumstances. Your friends, your siblings, no one outside of Slytherin has entered here in over 100 years and we intend to keep it that way. You may go elsewhere, but the Slytherin family is sacred and will not be tarnished. Passwords change bi-weekly and will be posted for 3 hours from 6-9 am on the day of the change," Lucius continued. "The current password is ritual. No, you may not write it down."
When he said the password, the snake shifted again and curled itself around a wall where a hole opened up and they walked in.
The Slytherin common room was nothing like the rest of the dungeons. It wasn't dark or dank or smelly... The floor was covered in a rich black carpet that was thick but not so thick that it was squishy. There was a great fireplace where above on the mantel sat a portrait of their house founder: Salazar Slytherin. Around the said fireplace, there were squishy leather chairs where a few upperclassmen were already relaxing. The walls were lined with books on deep mahogany and black elm bookcases. There were titles that Regulus and Morgana knew and had read, knew but intended to, didn't know but would, and those that made them fear this house just a bit... There were small and great oak tables with lambs for studying or for playing the games of wizards chest that had weirwood and ebony pieces. There were about 6 black marble pillars holding up the ceiling and wrapped around each of them in various positions. And of course... the ceiling that arched and turned into one great window that looked out into the black lake.
The upper-classmen that had been with them darted to their respective dorms, no longer needing the help of their prefects. However, Eva turned to the children and spoke.
"Welcome to the Slytherin common room. While we are more than pleased to have a great number of young students joining Slytherin, there are a few things you should know. Firstly, the House of Salazar Slytherin has held great respect in the wizarding world for thousands of years. We pride ourselves on our resourcefulness and ambition to do great things. The second point is far less cheery," Eva paused and looked over the sea of about 50 new freshmen. "With great minds and great strides, comes those that would rather not see us as great... Many of you are from a family tradition of Slytherin, and some of you aren't. Many of you believe in the purity of blood, some of you won't... Despite what differences you may encounter with each other, do not let it turn you against each other, we get enough of that from the other houses... You will have rivalries here, you will have people that annoy you to no end, but here, you have a family. That much you will keep... Many people like to see us as villains, don't let them tear you down, don't turn into the villain they see."
A silence settled among the kids. Morgana and Regulus looked at each other. They always knew that this was hard, but hearing it said like that was eye-opening... They were either disgraces to the world for being in Slytherin to their family by being anything else.
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"Travers?"
"Here."
It was their first day of classes and despite their attempts to stay together, Morgana and Regulus had been put in separate groups from each other in their first class, Transfiguration. She was sitting next to a set of twins, Olive and Luke, and Regulus got stuck with a rather annoying girl by the name of Rose Clearwater. She kept going on and on about how her parents had given her a wand a year early and that she really should be a year ahead.
"Welcome to Transfiguration, arguably one of the hardest forms of magic to master
McGonagall demonstrated how to turn a match stick into a needle and they all set off to work. Morgana followed the instructions to a T and just like that, with a bit of mental concentration, the match was a needle. The twins looked at her in surprise as their matches hadn't changed form at all.
"How did you do that?" Olive exclaimed after another 5 minutes of fruitless tries.
Morgana shrugged, "I just followed her instructions and focused on my intention."
McGonagall, who had been wandering around the room trying to help students who were struggling, which was everyone, paused at their table. Ana could have been hallucinating, but she thought she saw something flicker in the old woman's eyes. She'd seen it once before from her mother but she wasn't sure what it was. It made her feel good though. "Well done, Ms. Travers... Now use the same incantation and idea to turn it back."
Ana nodded and turned to her needle and proceeded to turn it back with only a little more difficulty. She turned to McGonagall for approval and she saw that glint again but this time she recognized it: Pride.
"10 points to Slytherin."
Morgana smiled, success made her feel a sense of worth. Before she walked to the next group, McGonagall took the match stick off Ana's Desk and placed a piece of string and a piece of paper with instructions to turn it into a worm.
By the end of class, the only people who had gotten close beside Morgana were Regulus, of course, a boy called Derick Zabini, and Gretta June, a Ravenclaw. Ana's second challenge was significantly more difficult than the first and she'd only been able to get the string to wiggle and squirm.
Next, they had potions and this time, Morgana and Regulus got to sit together.
"How did you do it, Ana?"
"I don't know. I just sorta focused and followed her instructions and it seemed to work."
"Mine only got pointy and a little bit grey."
"Well, we both know you'll be great at potions so don't sweat it."
Professor Slughorn began with attendance, pausing at a few names to talk about older siblings or parents. Rose Clearwater seemed to like the attention, but Reg and Morgana just wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. They were used to having to interact with people they didn't want to and had high expectations (or lack thereof), but it still sucked.
Just like Ana said, Reg was amazing at potions. So was she, of course, but he held a certain artistic talent with it that it was almost beautiful. They were starting with a simple cure for boils, which was easy enough for both of them. Standard potions had been one of their little classes that their parents had mandated before Hogwarts. It was less of the actual mixing and creating and rather ingredient theory. They learned about the different acidity levels of different kinds of animal plants; what pH levels meant in contexts of death, healing, and other magical forms; different methods of extracting juices from beetles and various magical creatures. Walburga and Dahlia had a friend that was into in some darker forms of potion making and so as a favor to them he would come in once a month for 8 hours with the children and they would help prep some of his ingredients and learn about them. It made them understand the precision that potion-making required. By the middle of class, they both had perfect cures for boils and Slytherin was 20 points richer. On top of that, Sluggy let them leave early.