Gryffindor! The voice called aloud suddenly, the shift startling Allen somewhat. He reached up to remove the hat and pass it back to McGonagall who was standing poised to say Ron's name. But the hat had something else to say before it was going to let Allen do that. I won't keep you much longer, but before you go I must urge you to keep looking, Allen wanted to ask it what for, but the odd voice kept talking, and I must also admit you are a unique challenge, the likes of which I have not before seen, and your placement is less about you and more so about a firm belief I will continue to swear by; I have placed you in the house of my master because I believe you will do Godric proud, Mr. Walker. Allen wanted to ask it why, ask it what it could possibly have seen. But he couldn't. Time was passing quickly and the hat had already made its declaration, the longer he sat there with the hat atop his head the stranger he looked to the rest of the hall. He knew well enough he could accomplish that himself without the hat's help.

He hopped up onto shaking legs, feeling strange in a way he didn't quite know how to explain. He returned the hat to McGonagall who gave him a soft smile that shouldn't have fit on her face but did. He kept his eyes trained on the teachers' table and the floor in front of him, looking anywhere he could that wasn't the other students who were staring at him without shame. The teachers looked much calmer than the students did, maybe because they were more accustomed to out of place things, maybe because they felt a professional obligation. Allen noticed the man from Harry's card sitting central. He was the only one that made eye contact with Allen, a glimmer in his electric blue eyes telling Allen that he'd intrigued the teacher.

Allen slid onto the bench beside Harry. Ron joined them soon after and his brothers sidled towards them. The twins were grinning, faces alight with mischief. "Nice to see you boys again, it's great Ickle Ronniekins has finally made some friends!" One said.

"Piss off," Ron sounded indignant and there was a fluc]sh creeping up his neck that could have been either frustration or embarrassment. Harry and Allen just thought it was funny.

"Albeit odd ones," The other said.

"Piss off," Harry and Allen said.

After the sorting had ended, Dumbledore had given an incredibly odd speech and the students had all sung the equally odd, vaguely composed school song, the feast began. The food appeared on the table as if by magic, all the elements of a sunday roast (with a few odd additions like the… lemon sherberts?), piled high on ornate tableware. The steam from the piping hot, freshly-prepared food drifted up into the air, making the space feel warm and comfortable. There were goblets rather than glasses at each place setting, golden cutlery set up neatly to either side of the plates, and napkins folded intricately into origami-like shapes. Allen didn't think he'd ever seen so much food at any one time. Harry would concur.

Ron was one of the first to reach across the table, scooping up turkey, yorkshire puddings, roast beef, roast potatoes, parsnips, some broccoli because he felt like he should, and grabbing the patterned ceramic gravy boat when he was satisfied with his plate. He may as well have been in heaven. Harry and Allen were showing a similar lack of restraint.

When the dinner food and the empty plates were all cleared away and replaced with the sweet aromas of the desserts-ice creams and steamed puddings and little dishes of custard and bundt-shaped jellies-Allen realised, as he sat there, content and comfortable, that this was the first time he could really remember not feeling hungry. Still, he wasn't full enough not to reach across the table to grab some steadily steaming sticky toffee pudding and a scoop of vanilla ice cream (the posh kind with the little black flecks that was white in colour rather than yellowish) that somehow wasn't melting. Probably magic.

Soon after, they were being led through the winding stone hallways of the castle by the house prefects. Somehow, the rough stone, decorated with the occasional sporadically placed painting that moved around within their frames and sometimes disappeared from them entirely-much like the photo on the card from the chocolate frog-was even more enchanting than the great hall. There was a sense created by the cold chill of the wind that blew through the corridors like a waif in search of a sense of belonging, the distinct tapping of their soles on the bare floors, the high ceilings that disappeared into shadows overhead. It was as though they had been transported to times past.

Allen looked around as they walked, not really paying attention to where they were going, knowing he'd get lost regardless. He didn't miss a detail. He smiled at every painting he passed, noting the surprised look some of them gave him before returning the further. He supposed the surprise was more to do with them being used to being ignored rather than his appearance; they'd probably seen all number of oddities in however many years they had spent inhabiting the school walls. There was some sort of familiarity somewhere that Allen couldn't place. There was something in him that was saying he wasn't quite home but he was as close as any memory could place him. If he was home he would imagine he might feel fulfilled or warm or something, but the feeling of almost but not quite provided that only fleetingly. Then it just turned hollow.

After moving up a final flight of stairs, the first year Gryffindors were stopped firmly by another of Ron's brothers-one of the prefects. They were left standing in front of another wall, largely bare aside from a large painting in an ornate frame. There was a large woman sitting in the centre of the frame, dressed in a garish pink draped dress. Her painted cheeks were ruddy, her nose upturned, eyes kind and welcoming, thin, painted lips turned up softly at the corners, causing her cheeks to begin to dimple.

"Password?" Her voice was high and her inflection was as reminiscent of the past as anything else in the castle. Allen felt another pang in his gut. He still didn't get it.

"Caput Draconis," Percy responded. The frame swung open like a door, revealing an entrance. Before any of them walked through it Percy turned to them, "The password will change at the beginning of every week. Be sure to remember it,"

"Welcome to the Gryffindor common room," the female prefect who had earlier introduced herself as Jane announced as she led them through the entryway.

They were standing at the top of a staircase that led to the floor following the curve of the brick walls. The room was round with two more sets of staircases at the opposite end with a delicately woven maroon carpet running up the centre of them. Everything was maroon and gold, only broken up by the more subtle reddish hue of the bricks and the yellow of the licking flames in the large fireplace. It was all so warm and so comfortable and it didn't give Allen that sick feeling of almost.

They were led down the stairs into the main body of the room. There was a window on either side of the room, with a sort of soft fabric-covered seat jutting out from the windowsills and two sets of curtains-one lace, the other a much heavier, darker fabric-pulled back and tied to either side. Around the fire sat a series of squishy armchairs and sofas, a cherrywood coffee table in front of them sitting on top of a thick rug. There were more armchairs scattered about the room, alongside the occasional beanbag and chaise lounge. The brick was broken up by the occasional tapestry or painting, the space lit by the flickering from the fireplace, the occasional steadily melting candle, and the great, golden, hanging chandelier in the centre of the room.

It looked wonderful.

"Girls follow me," Jane told them as they all looked around in awe, "Boys follow Percy," And then, with the girls in tow, she disappeared up one of the sets of stairs at the back of the room. Percy led them to the other one and Allen couldn't help but to reach out to run his fingers along the surface of a tapestry as they passed it. Unlike in the paintings, nothing was moving. He could feel every individual stitch he ran the pad of his finger over.

Harry's appreciation of the room was restricted to a single wide-eyed, breath-taken "Wow," Allen nodded. Ron looked between them, probably missing something, but appreciating that there was something pleasant at play.

Allen was expecting the air to smell musty, but there was some sort of pleasant, spiced sense filling the air, like cinnamon, nutmeg, and maybe a hint of ginger with something sweeter, brighter, more aromatic, and completely unidentifiable thrown in. Harry grinned at him as they made their way up the stairs, still somewhat at a loss for words. He smiled back. The stairs gave way into a thin, plain hallway. It was long, with wooden doors scattered along the length of it at regular and considerable intervals and a final one at the end. They were taken along the entirety of the hallway and left right before the final door. With a few more words of encouragement and information about what would soon be their lives at Hogwarts, Percy left the small group of five of them standing there.

"Do we… go in?" One of the other boys asked. He had early introduced himself as Seamus.

"I guess so?" The other boy that was not part of their little group responded unsurely. He'd introduced himself as Dean. He ran a hand over his short, tight coils of hair instead of making any move towards the doorknob. Ron reached awkwardly past him and pushed open the door. The hinges squeaked as it fell open to reveal a room that seemed to be much larger than they would have suspected. There was a large round rug in the middle of the room, a desk and a handful of chairs alongside the five large four-poster beds that lined the walls. Their trunks were resting on the floor against the foot of the bed. Without argument, they all dispersed to the bed that their belongings had been placed alongside.

Allen ended up with the bed by the window, Harry to his left and Dean to his right. Ron was on Harry's other side, Seamus was on Dean's.

"So what now?" Ron was the first to ask after they had all spent a few minutes sitting on their beds in silence.

"Does anyone else have posters?" Dean asked.

Seamus and Ron both moved to retrieve their posters whilst Harry and Allen both kind of sheepishly shook their heads. Dean looked at them disbelievingly, one of his eyebrows raised, a rolled up poster held loosely in one hand. "You don't have any posters?"

"Nope," Allen said simply and the room returned to a somewhat awkward sense of silence he really hoped was just a phase they were going to get over soon. Ron was the one who broke the silence after being shocked that Dean's Westham United posters weren't moving.

The idea of their first lessons at Hogwarts were nerve wracking to even the purebloods like Ron who had grown up around magic. Harry woke up as the sun was creeping into the pink-ish early morning autumn sky. As soon as the disorientation faded, it was replaced with a sort of sick, anxious feeling. Ron, Seamus, and Dean were all still snoring softly in their beds, duvets tucked up to their chins, but Allen was dressed in his uniform, sitting on the end of his bed with a book in his lap.

"Hi," Said through a yawn, voice scratchy having just woken up.

"Hi," Allen responded, noting his page number and shutting his book, "Once your dressed do you mind-"

"Taking you down to breakfast because you'll get lost on your own?"

"Yeah, that,"

"You're useless,"

"I have uses," Allen insisted, "My sense of direction-"

"Or lack thereof,"
Allen made a face at him. "-Just isn't one of them,"

Ron joined them for their trip down to the great hall. The seemingly never ending supply of food was something all of them were pretty sure they could get used to. The hall was much less populated in the mornings than the evening because people simply came and went as they pleased: there was no real schedule so long as anyone who wanted breakfast managed to fit it in before their first lesson.

The first year Gryffindor's first lesson of their Hogwarts career was a transfiguration lesson with the Hufflepuffs, taught by their very own head of house. And Harry, Ron, and Allen were running late. In spite of Harry's adamant refusal to let Allen lead them in any direction, they had managed to get themselves thoroughly lost. The winding stairways and corridors of Hogwarts would have been confusing without the addition of magic, but as it was they were almost entirely impossible to navigate. The stairs moved and twisted and morphed into all different shapes, a hallway would lead you to one place one time you walked down it and an entirely different one the next, the landmarks changed so it was almost entirely possible to pinpoint places in the layout.

They found their way to McGonagall's classroom eventually, decently late but (hopefully) not inexcusably so. The other students were lined up in neat rows, sitting behind individual desks with their parchments, quills, and inkwells all laid out neatly in front of them. The desks were facing a larger desk that sat at the front of the room, almost directly in front of the door. They were expecting to see McGonagall sitting on the rather large chair situated behind the desk but she wasn't there. Instead there was a grey cat sitting primly atop a sheet of parchment, decorative inkwell sitting undisturbed close beside it. The cat's tail was curved elegantly into a sort of question-mark shape, and it had dark, spectacle-like markings around it's intelligent, almost unnaturally so, yellow-green eyes.

Ron let out a breath. "Thank God McGonagall isn't here," he missed the way the eyes of the other students turned to him in warning, simply wiping a hand across his brow and grinning dumbly, "Can you imagine the look on the old crone's face?" Harry and Allen joined the group of students waving their hands at Ron in a gesture that inarguably meant stop. He didn't see them either. The other thing in the room that he missed was the fluid movement of the cat behind him as, in a swift motion that was really most comparable to a drink being decanted, it turned into a familiar stony-faced witch.

"Thank you, Mr. Weasley," She stood behind him, almost looming. The second he heard her voice he gulped and span on his heel so he was facing her, head bowed and looking suitably humiliated.

"Wicked," he breathed. Harry and Allen weren't quite convinced he had meant to say it out loud.

"Thank you once again, for that assessment. Now, might it be convenient if I were to transfigure Mr. Potter, Mr. Walker, or yourself into a pocket watch?"

"Sorry Professor," Allen bowed his head.

"We got lost," Harry explained weakly.

"Then a map, perhaps?" She looked down at them over the thin wire frames of her rectangular glasses. Harry felt like shrinking. "Sit," She commanded. They quickly dispersed to the three empty desks in the room, thankfully all close by to each other, and pulled out their writing implements.

Aside from their late arrival, the lesson appeared to be going largely to plan. To begin, McGonagall demonstrated the proper technique on how to move their wands in order to cast a spell. She had them practice a few times without any actual spells involved and then they were all handed a small handful of buttons of varying sizes. Allen stacked his on one corner of his desk in the order of largest to smallest as he listened to McGonagall explain that they were to turn them into pill bugs using the spell she was demonstrating. She ended her demonstration and explanation with something of a disclaimer: "Don't be discouraged if it doesn't work this lesson-you'll get there eventually," And with that she allowed them to figure out the spell. She left her desk and began meandering around the classroom, long robes making it appear as she was gliding about like an apparition. She stopped and spoke to the students as she passed them, making sure to go to where she was called and answer any questions asked of her in full.

Allen picked up his wand how he hoped he was supposed to and aimed it at the small tortoiseshell button he had placed in the centre of his desk. He said the spell somewhat unsurely amongst a room full of students who were doing the same whilst producing minimal results if any. Regardless, he felt a similar feeling to that he had felt in Ollivander's crawling through his veins, a combination of freezing and burning that wasn't as entirely unpleasant as it should have been. There was something familiar about the feeling but not in that way where it felt as though something was being dangled just outside of his reach. It felt like maybe something was right, or at the very least heading steadily in that direction. The light was radium green again. If McGonagall's demonstration and her hurried dash to his side when the flash of neon had begun to emanate from his wand were anything to go by, it shouldn't have been.

And yet, when the light cleared there was no button on the table. Instead there was a little pillbug scuttling in tight, confused circles. Allen could see another glow coming from his hand, lingering, not fully obscured by his glove. He tucked his hand under the desk, not quite sure why, as McGonagall arrived by his side.

"Well done, Mr. Walker," She sounded flustered, maybe a little lost, but there was an element of pride in there, "I can't say this isn't something I've ever seen before, but I can say one thing: Impressive!"

The bushy-haired girl from the train was looking at him from across the room, in the very front row, beside the window. The corners of her mouth were tilted down into something of a grimace and she was so clearly envious that her eyes may well have been green. But they weren't. They were smiling at him, congratulatory and friendly. He sent her a quick smile, gently poking his nail beneath his bug so that it rested on his finger, crawling over his glove. She grinned back and after what was probably her third attempt, held up a bug of her own. Allen's grin widened and her frown almost immediately juxtaposed itself.

When Ron and Harry were leaving after the lesson ended they made to hang back for Allen but he waved them along, said there was someone he wanted to talk to and he would just catch up with them later, they had their next lesson together anyway. They nodded and warned him not to get lost.

Hermione was surprised to see the strange white-haired boy standing in the doorway waiting for her after the rest of the class had cleared out. McGonagall was looking at her, features softened slightly in a way that probably counted as warm from her. "Hello," She said unsurely as she slung her messenger bag over her shoulder and approached him.

"Hi," He said back. He didn't seem nearly as timid as she did, "I'm sorry if this is weird, but I was wondering if you want to walk to the next lesson with me? You didn't look like you had anyone else to walk with and I wanted to say well done for figuring out the transfiguration so quickly. Also I'll definitely get lost on the way to potions if you say no so maybe consider that before answering please?"

Hermione giggled. "Then it'd be mean for me to refuse, no?," she smiled, cocked her head, and they began to walk side by side "But why would you be congratulating me? You're the one who got the spell right first try!" she grabbed his sleeve gently and swung both of them around a corner and down a flight of stairs Allen had almost walked straight past. "Did you grow up around magic?"

"Not at all. I had no clue it existed until I got the letter,"

"Me neither," around another corner, "So you're muggle-born too?" through a long, straight stretch of corridor.

"I don't think so," he screwed up his face unsurely and Hermione was more entranced than she'd care to admit by the movement of the bright red scar that dominated the left side of his face. "Or, well, I guess I thought so. I never knew my parents and I always assumed they were just, like, normal people, but, according to Ollivander, no such luck,"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Hermione grimaced, scared she'd done something that might jeopardise the potential friendship that was already starting to make her feel a little less out of place, "Please, just forget I said anything, I didn't know it would be a sorespot,"

"It's fine, really. What do your parents do?"

"They're dentists. When the desserts showed up on our first night here I swear I've never had so much sugar," They both chuckled as they walked down that final set of stairs that finally brought them to the dungeons, "I really am sorry you lost your parents," She added after a moment.

"I'm not. From everything I've heard about them I think I'm better off,"

That time, Hermione didn't ask.

Darling we all know these days word of our Lord is scarce and hope amongst us is running thin as we are reminded constantly of the space left behind by those of us who are held within those dreaded walls. Still, scarce does not mean absent and I am fighting for hope. I have contacted the bug and she is not currently available but that is not to say that she won't be-she is prepared to offer her help once her hands are free and you can trust me, for my word is always good, that I will not rest until the beast is slain and we can be both satisfied and free. Of course, by free I mean free in all senses, you will not be left to rot so long as I have the faculties to work against your oppressors.

There are more like us inside those castle walls. We will not simply lay in waiting for the bug when there are others we can use. There is much to know and, unpleasant as it may be, I am determined I will discover all of it. And I will use it. And as soon as it has been put to use and that creature has met its finite end I will simply banish those memories. This is not an unsolvable problem. I will not let it become one.

Darling I do not know if you are getting these letters, I do not know if they are reaching you, I do not know if you are unable to write back. I know very little but I am clinging to hope as if it were my life raft and I am clinging to you because I fear I am losing you and I can only hope I am not. It is strange, my dearest, that I am hoping I am irrational. But this is where they left me when they took you away from me. They left me either irrational or isolated and I beg of you, do something-anything-to prove to me which it is.