Herman had no time to refuse and could only drag his suitcase as Draco pulled him forward. The two turned the corner at the end of the corridor, and sure enough, the doors of the dormitory on the right were almost a hand's width wider than those on the left. There were several silver snake-shaped carvings on the door frames, and even the stone bricks on the ground were laid flatter.
Harry was standing in front of the door at the far end of the corridor, the key in her hand just turning the lock, and the door pushed open inward.
Draco pulled Herman along quickly and peered inside. The room was at least a third larger than the ones Herman had glimpsed on the left. The bedposts of the four-poster bed were adorned with silver-green vine carvings, and the desk was wider than the one on the left. The window, or rather the magically treated lake-like transparent ceiling, was almost twice the size of the room on the left. A large expanse of lake water flowed slowly overhead, and light filtered through the ripples, casting a clear, stream-like green shadow in the room.
Herman silently withdrew his gaze, then subconsciously glanced back at the door on the left side of the corridor, where the person whose key had been mistakenly assigned had opened it a crack.
The light filtering through the crack in the door was dim, and the lake water on the ceiling was somewhat murky. The bedposts were bare and without any carvings, and the desk was pressed tightly against the wall, making it feel as cramped as a small cubicle temporarily partitioned off in a warehouse.
Herman's lips twitched; so the boy was just incidentally sent to the shantytown.
"It's so much better!" Draco looked around Harry's new room with satisfaction, then turned to Herman with a "see, I told you so" look. "My father's influence really works; the girls' room is definitely more comfortable than the boys'."
Herman opened his mouth, but ultimately said nothing. He simply stared silently at Harry's expressionless face as she calmly placed her suitcase at the foot of the bed, offering no comment whatsoever about the change in room size.
Herman even thought that Harry probably didn't realize the room had been deliberately switched; she probably just thought it was randomly assigned.
"Goodbye, I need to go tidy up my shack," Herman said curtly to Draco, then dragged his luggage and turned to walk towards his room on the left side of the corridor.
As he pushed open the door, he was still thinking that it wasn't surprising that Snape had rearranged Harry's dorm room, but what was surprising was that he had also arranged for someone like himself, who was unrelated to Snape, to live in the opposite room.
The label "orphan of the Wizarding World " probably carried some weight with Snape, though Herman wasn't sure what the underlying meaning of that weight was—sympathy, vigilance, or nostalgia for the past.
He sighed, shoved his suitcase at the foot of the bed, and looked around his room, which was clearly much smaller than before. The desk was right against the wall, and the chair would hit the edge of the bed if pulled out. The lake light on the ceiling was dim, as if covered with a layer of dust.
Okay, at least it's still a single room.
Herman flopped onto the bed, staring at the murky water above him, silently labeling this semester's life as more lively and crowded than he had imagined.
The next morning, Herman was abruptly pulled from his sleep by the sound of a bell.
The sound came from the clock in the common room, clearly under some kind of stubborn spell, able to penetrate his head precisely through several stone walls and a corridor, like a tireless woodpecker repeatedly tapping the inside of his skull.
He groggily crawled out of bed. The magical lake on the ceiling above him was already letting in the morning light, and the green ripples moved back and forth on the dome, immersing the whole room in a layer of cool, watery light, making it hard to tell whether it was morning or dusk.
He rubbed his eyes, propped himself up from the edge of the bed, quickly washed up, changed into his school uniform, grabbed his timetable and glanced at it. The first class was Transfiguration, and the classroom was on the fourth floor.
As he straightened his crooked tie, he opened the door and nearly bumped into someone as soon as he took half a step.
Harry was walking back from the other end of the corridor, clutching a yellowed parchment map in her hand. A few withered leaves clung to the shoulder of her school robe, and her hair was still damp with morning mist. She looked like she had just come back from outside, but where she came from at six in the morning was certainly a question worth pondering.
"Good morning." Herman fastened his tie and looked her up and down. "Where have you been?"
Harry casually tucked the map into her sleeve, her tone as indifferent as if she'd been asked what she'd had for breakfast, "Just went for a walk, familiarizing myself with the castle layout."
"At this hour, the portraits in the castle shouldn't be awake yet," Herman suspiciously, glancing at the withered leaf on her shoulder. "And that leaf on your shoulder... did you go to the Forbidden Forest? Are there leaves that big inside the castle?"
Harry brushed the fallen leaves off her shoulder and said without changing her expression, "I got lost and wandered around to the back of the greenhouse. Of course, it's inside the castle. There are trees and a lake in the castle." As she spoke, she pointed to the lake above her head.
Herman glanced at her with some skepticism, but didn't press the matter. Forbidden Forest or Greenhouse, a first-year student wouldn't be going to solo the Forbidden Forest on the second day of school, would they? Besides, what business was it of his? He decided not to delve into it further and to stay as far away from Harry, that little devil, as possible.
He turned his head to look at Draco's room on the right side of the corridor. The door was closed, and it was so quiet inside that it seemed no one lived there.
Herman hesitated for a moment, but still went over and knocked on the door. As the "big sister," it was really embarrassing to be late for the first class on the first day of school.
" Draco, wake up, you're going to be late."
There was a three-second silence inside, followed by a flurry of footsteps and a muffled thud as something was knocked over.
Then the door was suddenly pulled open a crack, and Draco poked half her face out. Her long, golden hair was disheveled and half of it was still tangled in the collar of her nightgown, which was clearly buttoned incorrectly.
The buttons on the shirt were misaligned by two full positions, skipping from the third to the fifth. The shirt draped askew over the shoulders, revealing a large expanse of fair skin below the collarbone, and one rounded shoulder was also exposed.
She had clearly just been woken up; she was still somewhat dazed and soft, her cheeks flushed from the pillow creases, and her eyes blinked a couple of times, half-open and half-closed. Upon recognizing Herman, she paused for a moment, then exclaimed "Ah!" and hurriedly pulled the door closer, leaving only a narrow crack.
"Why didn't you knock!" Draco's voice was still soft and sweet from just waking up, but the end of her sentence was already tinged with embarrassment and anger. "No... I opened the door."
It seems she wasn't fully awake yet; her mind was a beat slower than her mouth.
As she was about to back up and close the door, her movement was too hasty, and the hem of her robe got caught in the door crack. With a sudden tug, the neckline was pulled open even further, revealing more of her delicate skin and a loose, dark green camisole.