Roommates

Roommates

"All right, before everyone goes to bed, let's sing the School Song together!" Dumbledore raised his wand and gave it a light tap. A line of words twisted from golden ribbons floated before them.

The members of the Hogwarts Choir also took the stage. The Prefect beside Albert was among them, and several Choir members in the front row were even holding large toads.

With a wave of Dumbledore's wand, all the students and staff began singing the School Song to their own rhythms.

Albert mingled among them, moving his lips and pretending to sing along.

He couldn't help it. The song was incredibly cringey, and it was no wonder the professors at the teachers' table looked rather stiff. They clearly weren't too willing.

Kids were one thing, but a bunch of adults singing a school song like this was off-the-charts embarrassing! "Hogwarts, Hogwarts..." Beside Albert, the mischievous Weasley Twins were singing to the tune of a funeral march, completely out of sync with everyone else. Several new students around them kept glancing over.

"...We will work hard until we turn to dust." Even after the song had ended, the two of them continued singing slowly. Albert suddenly had the urge to cover his face and pretend he didn't know them.

Once the final echoes of the song faded, Dumbledore told everyone to go back and rest.

The welcome feast was finally over. Everyone surged forward at once, instantly creating a traffic jam.

Albert now understood why the new students had been arranged at the front.

If they followed students from other years, they might really end up in the wrong place. Just imagine a Gryffindor student accidentally following the wrong group into the Hufflepuff Common Room, only realizing at the end that they had gone the wrong way. The scene would be something else.

"New students, follow me." The person leading the Gryffindor newcomers was the Prefect who had just performed onstage.

He led them through the noisy crowd, out of the Great Hall, and after climbing the Marble Staircase, they split off from the new students of the other houses.

The group of new students passed through the corridors and wound their way around the castle, not taking the supposedly moving staircases.

Many portraits hung along the corridors. As the new students passed, the people in them whispered among themselves, while some of the portraits even greeted them.

The Prefect led the new students through the castle. You could never guess where the entrances were.

There was clearly a closed wooden door ahead, yet they passed through a stone doorway opposite it. Some doors only opened if you touched the exact right spot. Others were hidden behind curtains or portraits. But none of that was the worst part, because an Unlucky one had just gotten stuck in the stairs. They looked no different from ordinary stairs, but at a certain step, you had to stride over it. Otherwise, if you stepped on it, your foot would sink inside.

For newcomers who had just arrived, it was practically a disaster.

"You okay?" Albert reached out and pulled Lee Jordan free.

"No," Lee Jordan said irritably. "I got scared out of my wits just now. I really don't get why the school has so many strange things."

"I think it's fun, don't you, George?"

"I think so too."

"These were defensive measures left behind from the old days. They've now become one of Hogwarts's defining features," Albert explained. "Hurry up and catch up. I don't want to get lost."

After who knew how long, just as Albert felt his legs beginning to ache, they finally reached the Eighth Floor. They passed through a long corridor and arrived at its end. There hung a portrait of a very plump woman. Without question, she was the legendary Fat Lady, the gatekeeper of Gryffindor Tower.

"Password?" she asked.

"Balderdash." After the Prefect said it, the portrait swung open like a door, revealing a round hole behind it.

He did not rush inside. Instead, he turned to the newcomers and said, "You must remember the password. You can only enter the Common Room by telling the Fat Lady the password. The current password is Balderdash."

With that, the Prefect led everyone through the hole in the wall. Inside was the Gryffindor Common Room.

It was an old, round room with many sofas. In one corner, a fire blazed in the fireplace, with a large pile of firewood beside it. Several people were sitting on the sofas chatting. When the newcomers entered, they looked over and waved at them.

"You're in luck. Tomorrow is Saturday, which means there are no classes. This is a rare opportunity. I suggest you spend these two days getting familiar with the castle. The castle is more complicated than you imagine. If you don't want to get lost, you'd better figure out where the classrooms are as soon as possible." After speaking, the Prefect pointed at two doors. "Girls go that way. Boys, come with me."

After greeting another female Prefect, he led Albert and the others through the other door and down a narrow spiral staircase. They passed many doors along the way, and the Prefect introduced them to the new students' rooms, washrooms, and bathrooms.

Of course, the washrooms and bathrooms were shared. Fortunately, the bathrooms had stalls, thank goodness.

As for their own rooms, they had to find them themselves. Each door had a nameplate.

Albert, the Twins, and Lee Jordan were assigned to the same room. There were only four of them.

The room was not very large. There were four curtained beds, with each person's luggage beside their bed.

Albert easily found his trunk. Covering a yawn, he pulled out his pajamas and changed into them.

"Please take care of me from now on," Albert said with a smile, greeting the other three.

"Likewise." The four looked at each other and couldn't help laughing.

"Tomorrow, I'm planning to explore the castle. Are you coming?" Albert took a camera from his trunk, stepped back to the doorway, and snapped a photo of their dormitory.

"Of course. Remember to wake me in the morning." The Twins looked at each other and spoke in unison.

"What about you?" The three of them all turned to Lee Jordan.

"Of course I'm coming too." The dark-skinned boy clearly did not want to be left alone.

"Good night."

Lying in bed, he was clearly exhausted, yet he still couldn't fall asleep. Whenever Albert arrived somewhere unfamiliar, he tended to suffer from insomnia.

The others clearly did not have that problem. Full and satisfied, they fell into deep sleep not long after lying down.

Albert turned over and opened his Task Panel. His exploration progress had already reached 3%.

He wondered how much it would increase if he explored the castle tomorrow. Then he flipped through his Skill List, which had several whole pages.

Most of the spells were only level 1, while a few had not even been mastered.

Looking at those skills still at level 0, Albert suddenly had the urge to spend experience to raise them to level 1.

It was a bad habit left over from playing games. He was always used to maxing out his skills.

Albert took a deep breath and closed the panel, lest he accidentally spend all the experience he had worked so hard to accumulate. That experience was tied to his future life.

Half-asleep, Albert drifted off. He dreamed of his past-life self, holding a book and reading through it. He still remembered that it had been the first time he encountered the book Harry Potter.

Was all of this a dream?

No, it was not a dream. Ever since the moment he had opened his eyes again after dying, he had confirmed it again and again.

This was not a dream.

He felt more like the author of a fanfiction, creating another Harry Potter fanfiction story of his own. Only this time, he could not freely write whatever self-indulgent fantasies he wanted as an author could.

Ah, being pretentious was a sickness.