Dorms
Standing in the small hallway waiting for the elevator to finally reach the lobby, Regulus debates running away. The tiny lobby to the dorms is packed with many eccentric characters, surrounded by luggage and doting parents. Regulus holds his own small green suitcase between him and the family next to him, the matriarch loudly reading off a checklist of belongings that the rest of the family confirms. Finally the elevator dings and opens. Regulus quickly goes in and presses the number 10, suppressing a groan as far too many people for his liking pack in after him.
The ride feels like an eternity, eventually leaving just him and one other person left, both riding to the same floor. The boy is absurdly tall, with sandy colored hair and chocolate brown eyes. He’s wearing a jumper despite it being late August and this city’s tall buildings seeming to trap all the smog and humidity, leaving you feeling like you’re in an oven. Not that Regulus is anyone to talk, wearing a thick button down shirt. The boy sends Regulus a shy smile, making him realize the boy has a scar across his left cheek and also realize he has been caught in his analyzing of the boy. Regulus looks forward again, cursing his tiredness from the flight making him less stealthy than he tends to be.
The elevator finally dings and Regulus rushes out as quickly as he can while still remaining proper. He just wants to get to his room and away from anyone else’s eyes. So imagine his surprise as the tall boy follows him all the way to room 10D.
“Oh,” The boy intruding into his room says, “you must be my roommate. Uh, Black something right?”
Regulus is shocked to hear the boy also has an english accent. Not the same as Regulus’s, much more Welsh influence. But he can’t help feeling a bit relieved he won’t have to share a space with some irritating American.
“Regulus. Regulus Black,” Regulus says, reaching out his hand to shake. He may not be pleased at his plans of alone time being ruined, but that’s no reason to make an enemy of his roommate on his first day.
“Remus Lupin” the tall boy, Remus apparently, reaches out and shakes his hand.
Regulus drops his hand and takes in the room. It is tragically small. He knew coming to the city he shouldn’t expect the magnificence he had grown up with at the manor. And he didn’t even want that, he had decided to leave that environment after all. But this room barely even qualified as a room, he’d seen closets with more space. He dreaded how he was meant to survive sharing this space with this Lupin person.
Remus drops his duffle bag next to the bunk bed set up on the right side of the room.
“Do you have a preference,” Remus asks, looking over his shoulder, before crouching down to unzip his bag.
Regulus thought back to when he and Sirius would talk about having a bunk bed. How they’d run away to their cousin Andy’s flat and share a room with a bunkbed. Sirius would have the top and Regulus the bottom, he was the younger sibling after all. But Sirius would’ve let him lay on the top bunk to look at the shitty glow in the dark stars they’d stick on the ceiling now that their mother wasn’t there to tell them it wasn’t proper. This all being before Sirius actually did run away, leaving Regulus behind to pick up the pieces.
Remus clears his throat, startling Regulus out of his thoughts and reminding him he’d been asked a question.
“Top. I’ll take the top,” He said, yet again cursing his eight hour flight for clearly messing up his ability to function.
“Works for me,” Remus grabbed out his bedding and began putting it on the bottom bunk.
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James and Sirius raced through the hallway of the lobby, pushing through families waiting for the elevator and darted up the stairs to the second floor.
“I definitely won that one,” said Sirius, grinning and panting slightly as the duo burst through the doors onto their floor.
“Oi, only because you shoved me as we rounded the corner on the stairwell! Could’ve killed me,” James pouted a bit.
“Nah, I think you’re just slow,” Sirius grinned.
“I think both of you boys are ridiculous,” Said Effie as she stepped out of the stairwell, helping Fleamont carry the boys’ bags.
“Sorry Mum,” James rushed over, grabbing a couple bags from her.
Sirius meanwhile took in the common area. Not many people had arrived to the second floor yet, a few boxes and bags strewn outside room 2A, but no other signs of their soon to be floor mates. Sirius grabbed his bags from Fleamont and began the search for room 2E, peering into all the other rooms as he went. He wanted to take it all in. It turned out room E was down another set of stairs and as Sirius pushed open the door he let out a loud WHOOP of excitement.
“What?” asked James, shoving the boy slightly out of the way.
Room 2E as it turned out was significantly bigger than any of the other rooms they had passed. Most floors had rooms A, B, C, D, E, and F. However, due to some mistake that Sirius was now thanking every deity imaginable for, floor 2 only went up to E. With that room being twice the size and having it’s own bathroom.
“Holy shit,” James breathed out, laughing.
“We’re the kings of floor 2,” Sirius yelled, jumping over to one of the beds and flopping on to it before Effie shooed him off of it.
“Let’s get some sheets on it first” She smiled at him, mussing his hair. Sirius’s hair was something to be taken very seriously and one Mrs. Effie Potter was the only person alive allowed to touch it.
Sirius looked around the room, practically bouncing off the walls with glee. His whole life he had dreamed of this. Dreamed of coming to the city, of escaping his strict upbringing, of getting to learn to perform, of getting to be free and have fun with a bunch of other people who just wanted to be free in the way you can when you’re performing.
He had honestly thought for a long time it was impossible. His mother had huge crushing expectations of him, ones that would never have allowed him the freedom to do this. That’s when James Potter came into the picture.
Sirius had met James in the posh boarding school his mother had forced him to attend. The school was full of prats from families just like his. But James was different. James had this light to him, I mean it practically exuded out of him. And he wanted to be Sirius’s friend for some goddamn reason. When James Potter wants to be your friend there is no escaping him. And thank god for that. James had been the one to finally convince Sirius to audition for the school’s theatre program. James had been the one to comfort him when he came home from holiday break after that bruised after his mother had learned about his “straying from his educational obligations.” James had been the one to make sure Sirius never went home for another break, opening his home to Sirius without a second thought.
Which is how now at 19 Sirius has flown 8 hours away from England to go to one of the oldest acting schools in the world with James at his side.
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As Lily walked into the room she would be spending this next year in, it was absolute chaos. Clothes and books and strange rocks strewn about the space. The source of this hurricane full of color was no where to be seen.
Lily sat on the unmade bed on the left side of the room, the only spot of the room that was left untouched by the chaos and took in the scene. She picked up one of the rocks that was sat on the windowsill, examining it and it’s maroon color.
“Red Jade. Nice choice,” came a soft voice from behind Lily. Startled she sat the stone down.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to touch your stuff,” said Lily, cursing herself internally for already making a bad impression on her new roommate.
“Odd to not mean to and still be able to pick it up,” the girl said, not rudely but as if she was just stating a fact. “Red Jade is meant to give luck in creative pursuits, it’s a stone of passion.”
“Seems like a good one for starting acting school,” Lily tested, not quite sure how to contribute to this conversation she had somehow found herself in.
“You can have that one if you’d like,” the girl offered.
“Oh I couldn’t-” Lily began.
“It seems to call to you, maybe you need it. Especially if you weren’t meaning to touch it,” Her roommate smiled, clearly toying with her.
“Well, thank you,” Lily said, placing the stone on the small desk next to her bed gingerly. “I’m Lily.”
“Pandora. It’s nice to meet you” Pandora grinned at her, and began bustling around the room, the hurricane that had clearly began long before Lily arrived continuing.
Lily sat watching the girl, Pandora, for probably too long and amount of time. For all the chaos that the room seemed, Pandora moved with an ease to her. There seemed to be no order in how she set up the room, one moment she’s hanging a shirt, the next she’s on the other end of the room beginning to organize her many books as if she didn’t have a whole pile of clothes that she had not yet addressed. Lily lived her life following a strict sense of order. Everything had a place it was meant to be, a time to be done, a way to do it. Yet she couldn’t help but smile as she watched Pandora, someone who seemed so free from any of the weight Lily found herself carrying all the time.
As Pandora began placing her colorful crocheted blanket on her bed, Lily realized she was still sitting on her starkly bare mattress. Quickly Lily set to work unpacking herself. Compared to all Pandora pulled from her seemingly endless bag, Lily felt like she had brought nothing with her. She couldn’t help but wonder how Pandora had managed to bring so much stuff. The girl had a posh English accent, and she seemed to have come alone like Lily had. Yet she had an immense expanse of belongings. How she had managed to get all of it to fit in the limited bags you’re able to bring on flights was a mystery. Lily somehow felt this wouldn’t be the only mystery she’d wonder about Pandora. She also felt somehow excited by this prospect.