A/N: Okidokie! I originally posted this story what feels like a lifetime ago. I am still very much in love with my idea for this story, and the characters in this story, and I am very much going to be, at some point in my life, updating/writing this story. I literally have all 7 years/7 fics plotted out. However, in all honesty, that may not be for another several years. In the meantime, though, I no longer like the prologues-they're confusing and they give waaaay too much away. So I took them down, along with almost everything else. I want to keep the story up, though, because it is going to be written, so here's the first chapter! (slightly revised)

Chapter 1: Of Sorting Ceremonies

"Ha ha Black, you're going to be one of the first ones sorted!"

"Ha ha Potter, you're going to be one of the last!"

-James Potter and Sirius Black; the 1971 Sorting Ceremony

James couldn't believe it—he was finally here. He was finally at Hogwarts, the place that his dad had always said was his first real home, where he became best friends with Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron, where Uncle Ron had crashed into the famous Whomping Willow—the same Whomping Willow that hid a tunnel leading to the Shrieking Shack, where his two namesakes and their best friend ran around on full moons having adventures. James, his patience finally having paid off, was at Hogwarts, inside Hogwarts, about to be sorted.

With a grin on his face, James turned to Ian and Ethan who he had sat next to on the train.

"Can you believe it? We're actually here!" James beamed. Ian and Ethan grinned back.

"I know! It's exactly how Dad described it!" Ethan smiled like a mad man, bouncing on the heels of his feet.

"I just can't wait to see the Great Hall!" Ian said enthusiastically, before adding with a bit of a frown, "Although, I wish we didn't have to get sorted in front of everybody. Do you think it'll hurt?"

"Nah. It wouldn't still be going on if it did." James tried his best to sound confident,, ignoring the small pit that suddenly appeared in his stomach.

He hadn't thought much about the sorting—he'd just assumed he'd be in Gryffindor like the rest of his family.

"Yeah, I guess," Ian said. "I still wish it was done."

"Same here," Ethan agreed. "What house do you guys think you'll be in?"

"Gryffindor," James replied immediately. "Everyone in my family has been so far."

"Really?" Ethan suddenly looked nervous, "My family's Ravenclaw. Has been for the last century."

James's pit grew.

"My mum and dad were Hufflepuffs." Ian looking stricken.

James, Ian and Ethan exchanged panicked looks, before James quickly spoke up.

"Well, that doesn't mean anything for sure, right? I mean, people don't always go into their family's houses, right? We could still end up together, yeah?"

"Yeah," Ethan said, looking relieved. "Yeah, we could."

"Definitely," Ian agreed quickly.

James looked at his two new friends, his stomach twisting. Earlier that day, when James had first arrived on the train, he had joined Ian and Ethan in their compartment. They had all hit it off immediately. They all played Quidditch, they all supported the Appleby Arrows Quidditch Team, and they all collected Chocolate Frog cards. To James, it seemed like a solid base for friendship. And now, it might be ruined.

"What…what house do you guys want to be in?" asked James.

Before either of them could reply though, Professor Sinistra, the tall dark women who had led them from the boats into Hogwarts, reappeared in the doorway.

"Make a single file line and follow me, please." Professor Sinistra said.

James flashed Ethan and Ian, who still looked worried, a quick grin before strolling into the line as confidently as he could. He hoped they couldn't tell he was nervous too—he didn't want people to think he was a scaredy-cat or something.

Professor Sinistra waited until everyone had clambered into line before she turned swiftly on heel. The tiny red-haired girl at the front of the line scrambled to keep up. James followed the curly-haired boy in front of him out of the small chamber, across the hall, and to the large wooden doors James was sure led to the Great Hall. As the doors opened, James craned his neck to try to see above the heads in front of him into the hall. It took about ten more steps before he could see a thing and, then, what he did see almost stopped him in his tracks.

James had heard descriptions of the Great Hall growing up and had even seen it in the background of old photographs but he had never understood it before. The Great Hall was huge and thousands of candles were floating in the air under a starlit sky that looked exactly like the one James had just seen outside. It was astounding and, a little less astounding but still amazing, was the rest of the hall.

There were four long, long wooden tables set with glittering gold silverware and goblets. That was where the rest of the student body was sitting in a sea of black.

At the table to the far left, James could see his cousin Victoire, with her short silvery blond hair and numerous piercings, beaming at him, while Teddy Lupin, his dad's godson and his honorary older brother, was waving at him, his bright blue hair easily visible amongst all the blondes, brunettes, and red-heads.

James felt himself grin a little despite his sudden nerves and gave them both a small wave, before searching the table for two of his other cousins, Molly and Dominique. While he had nine cousins, only three of them were older than him and at Hogwarts already. Before James could find the girls, he banged into the boy in front of him.

"Hey, watch it," the boy muttered with a small frown.

James' cheeks heated up a little but he grinned anyway. "Sorry. Wasn't looking where I was going," he whispered back.

"S'okay," the boy replied after a bit of an awkward pause.

Then James leaned out of the line a little to see what was going on.

Sadly, James found that most of the people in front of him were unnaturally tall and were blocking his view. If he craned his neck and took a tiny step out of line, though, James could see Professor Sinistra place an ancient looking wizard's hat on a stool. It was patched, frayed and, if James wasn't mistaken, a little bit charred.

Staring at the hat like the rest of the hall, James bit his lip and tried to ease some of his nervousness by making up stories about what could have happened for the poor hat to get so beaten up. However, before he could get too inventive (or the pit in his stomach grow too big), the brim opened up and the hat began to sing.

"Welcome one and Welcome all,

To this great and happy hall!

Here we are, and here you've come,

Step forward, put me on and don't be a bum.

For I might place you in Gryffindor,

If courage and chivalry are what you stand for.

Or in the house of Ravenclaw,

If wit and smarts are your hurrah.

Maybe you're a Hufflepuff

If hard work and loyalty to you is no bluff.

Or perhaps Slytherin is your future,

If ambition and stealth are to what you defer.

But please, remember this, my friends:

It matters not what house you're in

And Sortings are better than a kick in the shin."

"So, it's just some hat that's going to tell us where we go? That's a bit of a letdown," Ethan muttered behind James.

James flashed a smile over his shoulder while Professor Sinistra pulled out a very long scroll of parchment and announced, "Ackerly, Julian."

A small boy with brown hair stumbled up to the stool and jammed the hat on his head.

After several minutes, the hat declared, "Slytherin!"

The table to the far right burst into applause as the boy placed the hat back on the stool and scrambled to take his spot at his new house.

"Boot, Leon," Professor Sinistra called. Leon was quickly made a Hufflepuff

James watched the sorting with interest for several minutes. However, by the time the tenth person was being sorted (Byrne, Malcolm—and how could they still be on the B's?) James's interest began to slip and his thoughts turned towards his own sorting. He wondered just how the Sorting Hat decided how to put people into houses and if there was any way to convince the hat to put him in Gryffindor.

Nobody in his family—not his parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins or godbrother had breathed a word about it. While clearly he had to try on the hat, he didn't know what the hat really did. Obviously, it put them into houses, but how?

It didn't seem to say anything except the name of the house. Was it enchanted to squeeze your head really hard to see how you reacted to it or something? James speculated wildly.

If it did that, James was sure he had a chance of making Gryffindor—he had a pretty high tolerance for pain (James figured it came from falling off his broom so many times) which he figured was a pretty Gryffindor-ish trait.

As James's mind continued to invent ways the hat could tell where he belonged, the pit in his stomach kept growin. What would happen if he didn't get put into Gryffindor? What if he was put somewhere else, like Slytherin? James was a pretty good liar and could sneak out of bed at night without his parents knowing—did that make him a Slytherin? And what would happen it did? James panicked. Would Uncle Ron, who hated Slytherins, still talk about Quidditch with him? Trying to ignored these unsettling thoughts, James turned toward Ethan.

"Who're we on?"

"Millie Davis just got sorted," Ethan muttered back, looking a little green. "She's a Gryffindor. But what do you think is taking so long? How many people can there be before the H's? I've already counted 19 people—"

"Ravenclaw!" The hat shouted and a small girl stumbled off the stool to the table directly to their left.

"20 now," Ethan corrected, "who've been sorted and we're only on the D's! Dad said his class only had about 40 people total!"

James frowned and glanced up and down the line—there were definitely more people in the line than 40. In fact, James was willing to bet there were more than 50 people still in line and 20—

"Slytherin!"

21 people had already been sorted.

James uneasily wondered if this was the usual amount of people in a class or if theirs was just huge.

"My mum said that the magical population boomed after the Dark Wars—apparently Hogwarts is almost swamped with people and Headmaster Flitwick is considering—" Ian stopped talking and his face went white.

"Finch-Fletchty, Ian," Professor Sinistra repeated with a frown.

"Oops. Talk to you guys later," Ian muttered.

"Good-luck," James murmured as the boy passed him.

"Where do you think he'll go?" Ethan asked nervously.

"Dunno." But James secretly hoped Ian would be a Gryffindor.

"Hufflepuff!"

"There, I guess," James added quietly, his heart dropping.

"Yeah, I guess," Ethan agreed with a nervous laugh as first 'Finnegan, Bronwyn' ("Hufflepuff!") and then 'Finnegan, Olivia' ("Gryffindor!") were called up.

James stared ahead unseeingly as Ethan fidgeted behind him. He hoped the next ten letters would go by really quickly. He wasn't sure how much longer he could wait.

Apparently Ethan agreed as he muttered, "How much longer will this—"

"Higgs, Ethan."

"Oh."

"Good luck," James muttered once again as his second friend hurried forward to try on the hat.

James crossed his fingers for Gryffindor but, the moment Ethan shoved on the hat, it yelled, "Ravenclaw!"

James's stomach sank to his toes. Neither of his friends were in Gryffindor. They weren't even in the same house as each other, so there was no way the three of them could all end up together. And even if Ethan had been made a Hufflepuff, James wasn't sure it would have helped—he really, really wanted to be in Gryffindor.

However, before he could mourn the loss of his two new friends, a voice that sounded a lot like his Aunt Hermione barged into his head, "Just because you're not in the same house doesn't mean you can't be friends. Honestly. That's what's wrong with the House system. It separates people when they don't need to be separated."

This, oddly enough, made James feel a little better, although he did make a small mental note to stop paying so much attention to his parents and aunts and uncles—it was a sign that he did it too much if he had them in his head.

James glanced at his watch—almost an hour had gone by since the sorting had begun—and then at the rest of the hall. Most of the students were talking quietly to their friends, a few of them were dozing off in their plates and James caught sight of Teddy changing his face so that he had a pig's nose, an elephant's ears, vampire fangs, yellow eyes and bright pink hair.

James sniggered.

A little too loudly, apparently, as the curly haired boy in front of him turned around, frowned, and asked, "What's so funny?"

James just discreetly pointed at Teddy before sniggering again.

"Whoa. How can he do that?" the boy breathed as Teddy's face returned to normal.

"Teddy—that's the boy whose face is changing—is a Metamorphagus."

At the boy's blank look, James added, "Means he can change how he looks at will, without a wand or anything. It's pretty rare."

"That's wicked," the boy murmured, looking almost reverent.

"You should see his impressions of the Professors here," James grinned.

Then, "Lewis, Parker," was called forward and they both fell silent as they waited for the hat to call out the house. After a moment, it yelled, "Gryffindor!"

James sighed loudly.

"How long do you think we have until the P's?" he asked the boy in front of him.

"We have, what, only three letters to go?" the boy said. "You'll probably get sorted in another hour or two at the rate this is going."

James snickered, "You're probably right. With my luck there'll be like a billion O's or something."

The boy groaned, "I hope not. This'll take long enough the way it is."

"What letter are you?"

"W, for White. My luck, I'll be the last one sorted."

"Nah, I heard from my uncle George, that's there's a Zonko this year, so you'll probably only be second last."

"Gee. Thanks. That makes me feel better," the boy muttered sarcastically.

James grinned. "No problem; I'm here to help."

The boy just snorted and watched as "Nott, Edward," was called forward.

James stared ahead unseeingly for a while, trying not to think about his stomach, which was beginning to feel increasingly empty. His thoughts kept wandering towards dinner and what they'd be having. The more he thought about the delicious food he'd hopefully be getting to eat, the hungrier he felt. He was sure his stomach was going to growl any minute.

Finally though, they reached the P's. First "Partridge, Jill," then "Perks, DeeDee". James began to wonder if the world was just mocking him when, finally, "Potter, James."

"Thank Merlin," James muttered as he stepped out of line and quickly walked toward the hat—the faster he put the stupid thing on, and the faster he was sorted, the faster everyone else was sorted and the faster they could all eat. Plus, then, hopefully, that huge pit in his stomach would go away.

He had almost reached the stool when a loud voice yelled, "Go James!" and then another one shouted, "Rock on, Little Coz!"

James glanced over to see Victoire standing up and giving him a 'rock on' hand signal while Teddy clapped and grinned at him.

"Yeah! Way to walk to the hat!" Dominique, who James suddenly spotted at the far end of the table, cheered sarcastically.

"And don't worry!" Molly, who was sitting sort of near Dominique, yelled sincerely, "We'll love you no matter what!"

James felt his face heat up as the rest of the students in the hall stirred to see what was going on, some of them tittering.

James scowled at his family—they weren't making this any easier—before sitting down on the stool and jamming the hat on his head, so that he could no longer see his stupid cousins. As the rest of the world was suddenly covered up by the black inside of the hat, James waited, wondering what was going to happen now.

"Interesting," a small voice—the hat, James realized with a jolt— said, "Very interesting… A bright mind and a lot of curiosity… A bit of a cunning streak but … Loyalty definitely, but—ha! May want to put a little more effort into life, hmm?" The voice suggested, sounding a little amused. "You're brave, definitely, and you've a touch of recklessness too, but… Just a mess of contradictions, you are…"

James hoped the hat would finish up soon. James wanted to eat and, while he knew the sorting was very important, he just couldn't forget his hunger long enough to care. Also, that pit in his stomach was beginning to churn too, even though James was studiously trying to ignore it.

The hat chuckled, "Alright, then, you'd better go to…. Gryffindor!" The hat shouted the last word to the rest of the hall.

"Thanks," James muttered to the hat quickly as he took it off and hurried over to the Gryffindor table where everyone was cheering—and those who weren't cheering weren't only because they were too busy laughing at Teddy and Victoire, who had both stood up and begun stomping their feet while clapping and making very odd sounding war cries as they danced around in place.

James thought they looked stupid and would have teased them about it if they weren't so deeply entrenched in upper-class territory. As it was, the fifth and seventh years were probably best to avoid for the first couple of weeks, James thought as he sat next to another first year boy at the end of table.

"Hey, I'm James Potter," James introduced himself as he sat down.

The boy he was sitting next to shot him a grin, "Harry Peterson. And these are Chloe Moore, Stephen Creevy and Tom Darcy," Harry said, pointing out the first years closest to them. "I don't know the rest of them," Harry shrugged.

"Nice to meet you."

"You too," the boys and Chloe all muttered before turning back to watch as "Puecy, Calliope" ran off to the Slytherin table and "Reese, Lilian", the small redhead who had led them in, sat down to get sorted.

"Gryffindor!" The hat yelled and Lilian ran over to join them. She slid in next to Stephen and across from James.

"Hi," she said breathlessly before turning back to the Sorting.

James watched for a while and clapped when "Rising, Ellie", "Ryans, Sophie", and "Scrooge, Holly" joined the Gryffindor table.

However, James was finding it harder and harder to pay attention to anything besides his complaining stomach. By the time, "Thomas, Benjamin" joined the Gryffindor table, James wasn't doing much besides staring at his plate and longingly wishing for food to appear.

However, he did glance up when "White, Antares," (the curly haired boy in front of him in line) was called and grinned and clapped enthusiastically when he joined the Gryffindor table.

"Ha!" Antares grinned at James as he sat down several seats away, "I was sixth last, not second last!"

James laughed before cheering as "Wolfe, Romulus", a pale-faced boy with big eyes and glasses, joined the Gryffindor table.

Then, finally, "Zonko, Juno" was sorted and the feast began in a whirl of delicious food, smells and laughter.

James talked to almost all of his classmates as the dinner wore on, finding that it seemed that he liked all of them, except for maybe Stephen Creevey, who kept scowling at him for some reason. He endured Teddy, Victoire, and Dominique's good-natured taunts and Molly's earnest, if a bit annoying, welcome, which involved her dragging him away from the first years to be introduced to her second year friends. Most of them seemed like a bunch of giggling, silly girly girls.

And then, when he finally finished all of the delicious food he could eat, Headmaster Flitwick, a very tiny man with white hair, stood up on his chair in the middle of the Head Table.

As he stood, the Great Hall slowly fell silent.

"Welcome to another year at Hogwarts!" Flitwick beamed. "I have a few start of term notices, but I'll try to make them brief. Firstly, the Forest at the edge of the grounds is forbidden for all students, and the Whomping Willow is not a toy. For those of you eligible to visit Hogsmeade, I would like to remind you that the Shrieking Shack is off limits for everyone as the Ministry has trapped some decidedly nasty spirits in it. Also, our caretaker, Mr. Hugh, would like me to remind you that no magic is permitted in the corridors, and all Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes products are strictly prohibited."

James exchanged grins down the table with Teddy. Uncle George, who owned WWW, had made Teddy an offer that summer that involved Teddy selling the products to the students. Teddy had let James in on the secret in exchange for James's letting Teddy use his owl to help smuggle the products into the school.

"Now, if the Prefects would please lead the first years to their Common room, I believe this night is finished!"

As soon as Professor Flitwick sat back down, the Great Hall burst into a dull roar, as everyone began talking and going to their dormitories at once. James frowned and shifted as he exchanged glances with his fellow first years—where were their prefects? Then, James heard a very familiar voice.

"Oh, damn! The first years! OY! Jeremy! We got to help the firsties!" Victoire shouted as she fought her way back over towards them. James bit back a grin as, behind her, a tall boy with glasses swore loudly and followed her over. Finally, they stood in front of them.

"Okay firsties, I'm Vic Weasley, this is Jeremy Smith and we're your 5th year prefects. So follow us and we'll get you to the tower in no time flat. Just keep up, okay?" Victoire told them bluntly, her tongue piercing flashing oddly as she spoke.

Looking around, James saw most of his classmates gaping at her. Tom Darcy's eyes looked they were going to bulge out and Lauren Burke had shrunk back.

Victoire, however, took no notice of them and swept around. James, grinning at everyone's reaction to his cousin and her many piercings (she also had two eyebrow piercings, a nose stud, a lip ring and five holes in each ear), stood up and casually strolled after her before everyone abruptly stood and hurried to catch up.

As they took numerous twists and turns, climbed staircases and went through hidden doors and passageways, James felt his feet begin to drag—he was exhausted. Just as James was about to collapse and very dramatically cry that he could go no further, they reached the end of a long corridor where a portrait of a fat lady in a pink dress stood.

James perked up—this must be the Fat Lady! Mum and Dad had told loads of stories about her!

"Password?" she asked.

"Tufty Turban," Jeremy replied and the Fat Lady swung open to reveal a round hole in the wall. "This is the Fat Lady," he explained briefly. "You give her the password—which will be posted on the notice board—and she'll let you into the common room." Then, he turned around and disappeared behind the portrait.

James was the first to scramble through after Victoire and Jeremy and he looked around the common room happily.

It was round and cozy and had a lot of squishy armchairs.

James just knew this year was going to be great.

"Alright," Victoire said once they'd all climbed through, "Since there are so many of you, we're doing something a little bit different this year. There will be four rooms for you lot instead of the usual two—there will be two in the girls' dorm and two in the boys' dorm and you'll have to sign up for your room. So, girls follow me and boys follow Jeremy." And with that, Victoire marched off one way with the girls trailing behind her, while Jeremy led the boys up a spiral staircase.

Once they reached the very top of the staircase, Jeremy threw open a door to reveal a comfortable looking room with five beds.

"Okay, who wants to sleep in here?" Jeremy asked.

James looked around. The first person who stepped forward was Stephen Creevey, which decided it for James—he wasn't sleeping down here with the boy who seemed to hate him. No way, no how.

Luckily, it didn't have to seem too obvious that James didn't want to stay there as Tom Darcy, then Harry Peterson, Ben Thomas and, finally, Jack Wood, all hurriedly stepped into the room, signing their names on the crumpled sheet of parchment Jeremy had pulled from his pocket.

"Okay. You guys are Dorm Two then," Jeremy told them before turning to face James and the three boys still standing with him—curly-haired Antares White, pale-faced Romulus Wolfe and a small weedy boy James was pretty sure was named Parker Lewis.

"And then you guys will be in Dorm One."

Jeremy, for some odd reason, looked at the ceiling and then back at James and the three others.

"You might want to step down a couple steps."

Exchanging looks of confusion, they quickly did as told while Jeremy waved his wand at the ceiling and muttered something. To James' utter shock, a small section of the stone ceiling turned into a thick wooden trap door. It quickly opened and a rope ladder tumbled down.

"You guys are going to be in the actual top of the tower. No one's had to use it in the past two centuries or so, but the House Elves cleaned it up, so you should be fine. But, uh…" Here Jeremy scratched his head, looking a little sheepish. "There's no bathroom up there, so, if you have to go really badly, I think you have some chamber pots. Otherwise, just wait till the morning and use their," he gestured toward the staring boys of Dorm Two, "bathroom. Also, make sure you pull up the ladder when you're all in and close the trapdoor at night, but keep the door open and ladder down during the day. And I think that's it. Night." And with that, Jeremy hurried away.

Jack and Tom gave them weak and a little bit relieved smiles before shutting their door behind them.

James stared at the rope ladder as a feeling of dread slowly came over him.

"Well, let's get to it, I guess," James muttered as he walked forward and carefully climbed up the ladder, trying not to let it sway too much.

Finally, after what seemed like forever to James' poor, tired limbs, his head peeked through the trap door. Letting a small smile of triumph cross his face, James put his hands on the cold stone floor and started to push himself up… only…

"OW!" he yelped, immediately ducking back down again.

"James?" Romulus asked cautiously, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just peachy," James grumbled as he craned his neck to see what he had banged his head on. It appeared to be the underside of a desk. "Just banged my head on a desk on top of the door, that's all."

James lifted himself up a little and crawled on his belly into the room.

"Let me move it out of the way and then you guys can come up okay?" James called down.

"Yeah."

"Great."

James stood up and looked around the room that would be his home for the next seven years.

His first impression was that it was very small. The dorm was completely circulatory and around the room, arranged like spokes in a wheel, were four beds, their headboards against the wall and their footboards pointed toward the middle of the room where the desk and trap door were situated. In between each bed there was only enough room for a small dresser and the trunks placed at the foot of the bed were only about three steps away from the desk which was carefully arranged on top of the trapdoor.

James' second thought as he began to awkwardly drag the desk back toward the trunks was that it was a very good thing he wasn't scared of heights. Above each headboard was a large window that stared out into the dark night and down about twenty stories.

However, before James could verify that, one of the desk legs got caught on a trunk as he tried to maneuver the desk. The leg snapped off, causing the leg to go flying and the desk to drop to the floor with a crash.

"James?" Another voice, this one Parker's, called up, "What's going on up there?"

"Stupid thing," James grumbled, before calling back, "Nothing! You can come up now!"

So they did. Parker climbed up first and stared at the room uncertainly before grabbing the desk leg and walking over to where James stood trapped behind the desk and between two beds. He skirted the hole that Romulus was now cautiously climbing out of and held the leg out to him.

"Er, here."

"...thanks." James accepted the desk leg with a dubious look.

Finally, Antares climbed out of the trapdoor. As soon as his head cleared the door, he gave the room a doubtful look. James suddenly noticed that some of the stone in the walls were crumbling and that it was much colder up here than it had been in the hall below.

"Nice place we've got here," Antares said wryly, his eyes finally landing on the broken desk, James, and the table leg he was holding.

Antares pulled up the ladder and pushed the trapdoor shut. It closed with a loud bang that probably would have shaken the floor if it hadn't been made of stone.

"Take it you broke the desk?" he asked blandly.

"Yep. You want to help me move it?" James asked, gesturing at the rickety old thing with the table leg.

"Not really." But Antares walked over to him anyway and, together, they lifted the desk and put it back over the trapdoor and ladder.

"Where's the chair?" Antares asked once they finally decided to leave the desk leg off and try to fix it in the morning.

James shrugged.

"Doesn't have one, does it?" Antares asked after a moment.

"Don't think so."

"Great," Antares replied in an inflectionless voice.

"It could be worse," Parker piped up after a minute of silence where they all surveyed the room (which, James realized had to be in the very, very top of the tower because their roof wasn't flat—it narrowed out to a point).

"Yes," Antares agreed as he calmly walked over to a bed. "It could be infested by bugs."

"Or have a whole bunch of animal droppings," James added as he walked to the bed next to Antares' where his trunk was.

"And it doesn't leak," Romulus added quietly as he climbed into the bed next to James'.

"Right," Parker agreed as he finally claimed the bed across from James. "Besides, we've got a great view."

But, as James lay freezing under his covers, he couldn't help but wish he'd volunteered to go to Dorm Two. They probably weren't freezing, even if they did have to deal Stephen Creevey, the-weird-kid-who-glares.