Stairs Fall
After an uneventful but pleasant double lesson of Defence Against the Dark Arts with the Gryffindors, where they met their teacher, Professor Pettingale- who seemed lovely, but utterly incompetent- Adhara went back to her common room with Elodie and Ophelia, where she met Narcissa, and excitedly told her all about her first day, until she went with Elodie and Ophelia to the Great Hall for dinner.
She left Elodie and Ophelia chattering away to each other after they’d finished eating and hurried over to Sirius who was starting to get up and leave with his new friends. He smiled when he saw her, and dropped behind James and Peter to walk with her.
He started to excitedly explain where the quidditch pitch that he and James had found earlier, whilst exploring the castle grounds, and Adhara suspected they had gotten lost and stumbled across it, rather than the exaggerated tale she was hearing, which involved the Forbidden Forest and a secret passage.
She wandered back to his common room with him, but before she could see where the doorway was, the group of boys in front had stopped, and were talking to a portrait of a large lady dressed in some sort of toga.
She looked at Sirius bewilderedly and asked where his common room was, before seeing the portrait to swing open and reveal the small entrance. She thought it seemed rather impractical, but didn’t say so as she tried to follow Peter in.
Until the lady in portrait screeched, “Absolutely not! You are not allowed in another House common room, young lady! Especially not mine.” She said, haughtily, her nose turned in the air. Adhara stood back up and closed the portrait slightly, giving the woman in it a reproachful stare.
“And what are you going to do about it?”
The portrait spluttered at the rudeness, but as Adhara was holding open the entrance, there was nothing she could do, so Adhara crawled inside whilst Sirius held the portrait and then followed behind her.
Having heard the conversation from inside the common room, Peter looked at Adhara and muttered, “Maybe the fat lady was right, if you’re not allowed…” Sirius looked down his nose at Peter and raised an eyebrow, looking scarily like their parents, before James slapped Peters back and said, “I’m sure there’s no harm in it, come on, mate.” And steered Peter towards where Adhara assumed their dormitory was.
Adhara looked around the Gryffindor common room, which was warm and filled with comfortable looking furniture, not feeling particularly impressed. “I prefer the Slytherin common room.” She told Sirius and Remus, realizing he hadn’t left with the others.
Luckily, most of the students were still in the Great Hall, and there wasn’t really any people there to question Adhara’s presence, so she wandered around the room. “Where’s your dorm Siri?” she asked, and trailed behind him as he lead the way up the same stairs James had taken Peter.
She suddenly wondered whether the other boys would be ok with her sleeping there, even if it was to help Sirius. Adhara definitely wouldn’t want a random boy in her room.
They had climbed 3 flights of stairs, and Adhara’s legs were starting to ache before Sirius finally opened the door to the first years Gryffindor boy’s dorm, and they walked in to a room piled high with clothes and books and robes and all manner of junk.
Only two of the beds were visible through the mess, one made immaculately, and the other just less messy than the rest. Peter and James were sat on the floor sorting through some of the mountains of stuff.
James blinked at Adhara in surprise. “How did you even get up here?” he questioned, frowning in confusion.
“I walked up the stairs…” she said, and wondered what other ways James thought there were to get here. Peter narrowed his eyes at her,
“Are you a boy?” He asked, and Adhara would have thought he was joking, if not for the genuine curiosity she heard in his voice.
“Not since I last checked.”
“But Frank said the stairs turn into a slide if we go into the girls’ dorm. Because we’re not girls.” James sulked, “Double standards,” He muttered.
Adhara looked at Sirius, who was sitting on the bed to her right trying to push a pile of clothes off the side of it, not noticing her. She sighed and turned back to James. “Well, there’s only one way to find out if its true.” At least she might get a laugh if Frank was right.
They all traipsed back down the stairs into the common room, Remus and Peter rather unwillingly, and Adhara looked around at them. “Who’s going first?”
James and Sirius glanced at each other, and both raced for the girl’s stairs. They cautiously got up three steps clinging onto each other, and started to gain confidence, before stepping onto the fourth, and the whole staircase seemed to collapse and flatten underneath their feet.
Their faces switched to twin expressions of shock, theirs eyes wide, and Adhara could see their brains thinking uh oh.
Their legs were knocked out from beneath them, and they slid back down the short distance, landing at Adhara’s feet and giggling uncontrollably as she looked down on them. Remus and Peter were laughing at them from behind Adhara.
They stood up from the ground, still leaning on one another and laughing as Adhara made her way up. She was slightly concerned that the staircase wouldn’t allow her up either, because she wasn’t a Gryffindor, but hesitantly stepped onto the first step.
She walked up to the fourth step, and when it didn’t flatten beneath her feet, she confidently walked up to the top. She grinned at the boys below, who were all looking indignantly up at her.
As she was about to go back down to them, something knocked into her back, pushing her down the stairs. She landed in a heap at the bottom, groaning in pain and annoyance at the weight on her back which was scrambling to get up off her.
“I am so sorry! Oh Merlin, I’m really sorry. Are you okay?” Adhara looked up to see an older girl with short brown hair crouching down beside her, her hands hovering anxiously over Adhara, unsure what to do.
Adhara waved her off. “I’m fine, I’m fine, don’t worry,” she said, “Sorry for-“
“Why are you apologizing? I’m the one who knocked you, and you’re only a tiny first year- wait, you’re a Slytherin! What are you doing here?” She asked in surprise.
“Seeing my wonderful brother,” she said, waved vaguely in Sirius’ direction, and glaring at him as he stood laughing uproariously next to a shocked looking James, Peter and Remus.
The girl looked between them curiously, “You two must be the Black twins, right? Lots of people are talking about you, you know.” Adhara paled slightly, and Sirius stopped laughing quite as much, nervous that older years knew who they were, and were obviously gossiping about them.
She obviously expected some people to know of them, being the heirs of the House of Black- or at least Sirius was- but for people to be gossiping? Something was bound to make its way back to mother.
Adhara looked at the girl haughtily, putting up a mask of superiority and slight disgust. “Who are you?” she huffed, hoping she sounded like her mother, and she quickly extract her self from the embarrassment of this situation.
The girl blinked in confusion at Adhara’s change in attitude, and defensively announced herself to be Alice Fortescue, a Gryffindor prefect.
Adhara realized she was still sitting on the floor and stood, brushing herself off. She subtly changed her expression again, not wanting to be in more trouble or gossip after only her first day, and hurriedly said what a lovely name Alice was etc, etc, before rushing off back to the boys dormitory, dragging Sirius behind her.
Alice and the rest of the boys watched them go with confused eyes. James shrugged and did an awkward half run to catch up with them, leaving Peter and Remus to share a look and follow.
When Adhara pushed through their door, she stopped suddenly, seeing Kingsley sat on the less messy bed, reading a Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook. She inwardly groaned. Wasn’t this evening bad enough already? He looked up at her and smiled, “Hey Adhara! How’s your legs?”
She frowned slightly, not really sure what he was going on about, until she remembered the potions lesson earlier, which had ended in her first trip to the hospital wing. “Fine, thanks, Kingsley.” She answered as she distractedly wondered how so much could’ve gone wrong over her first two days at Hogwarts. At least she wasn’t the one in Gryffindor, she thought hopelessly.
Sirius jumped onto his bed dramatically, crossing his legs. James had the bed next to him, and he sat perched on the edge as Peter and Remus went to sit on theirs (The tidy bed was of course Remus’s).
Adhara, still standing near the door, raised an eyebrow, “This feels like a meeting.”
Sirius nodded, and said very seriously, “It is. I’m calling a first year Gryffindor boys dorm meeting.”
“We definitely need a catchier name than that.” Peter rolled his eyes, and a small chorus of voices announced their agreements.
“Well, we can think of one later. For now, I’m telling you all that Adhara will be sleeping in here from now on. Or at least tonight. We’re going top to tail. Is that ok with everyone?” Sirius had adopted an imperious tone for his proclamation, and no one objected as he looked around the room. “Good.”
----
Later on, Adhara had brought all the stuff she needed to the boys dorm from her room, and explained the situation to Elodie and Ophelia (of course not mentioned Sirius’ nightmares- and therefore the real reason she was sleeping with the Gryffindors). She didn’t talk to Alecto though, remembering her and her brother flicking peas and fighting with Ben.
When they were all ready for bed, Adhara climbed under the heavy duvet, stole a pillow from Sirius, and was close to drifting off- it had been an exhausting first day- until Sirius poked her cheek with his big toe.
She hit him away, and when he wriggled his foot closer, she pinched it as hard as she could. He yelped and she sniggered under her breath. After that, he left her alone and she fell asleep.
Sirius had always had nightmares, for as long as she could remember, and he’d never got much sleep because of them. Maybe that was why he wasn’t a morning person. Usually they weren’t very bad, unless he’d had an especially rubbish day, or was feeling anxious about something.
She suspected that the stress of joining a new school, and maybe being Sorted into Gryffindor was making it worse at the moment.
Most of them were warded away by him simply just not being by himself, and Adhara suspected that was why he didn’t seem to have any that night.
About half an hour after Kingsley’s alarm went off in the morning, Adhara found herself dragging Sirius out of bed by his leg, whilst he tried to kick her and clutch on to the sheets, whining at her.
He eventually fell onto the floor with a thud, and went to go get ready moodily. Knowing how long he would take, Adhara waved the other boys down and waited for him by herself.
When he was finally ready, breakfast was nearly finishing, so they hurried down to the Great Hall, trying to remember the way and not get lost. When they got there, they went over to the other Gryffindor boys, who were all nearly finished, and grabbed some toast.
They had different classes first, so Adhara went to sit with Elodie and Ophelia, who were a few tables away. Her ears needed a break from Sirius, James and Peter’s noise anyway.