Daphne slipped out of her dorm as Millicent's snores crescendoed, grating against the dim, glowing air. Pulling her cardigan a little more closely about her, she felt a shiver briefly pass through her. The emerald glow of the dorms, pulsing softly with the patterns of the lake, were beautiful and soothing, but sleeping beneath the lake did make for a slightly cooler bedroom than the one she had left behind at Lockley Park.

Slowly, she edged her way past Pansy's bed. She and Pansy might be friends, inasmuch as sitting beside each other in class and spending weekends gossiping with each other constituted friendship, but something about their conversations left her feeling stretched and dry, and time seemed to pass that little bit slower than it ought when they were together. And Pansy was far too light a sleeper.

She was not entirely certain why she was so secretive about her exit; it was not as if she was going to venture beyond the Common Room. I am only going to see my little sister. And it was Astoria's first night at Hogwarts.

Yet she had dallied while the others prepared for bed, and the later it got, the more awkward she felt a visit would be, until it was so early in the hours of the morning she suspected she would end up looking like a pathetic, ghostly figure, hovering like an anxious mother over her sleeping younger sister's form. Nevertheless, the longer she had lain in bed, the more the pulse of the waters had filled her body, persistently pounded in her ears- remember your first night? Do you remember how I soothed you when you nearly cried for want of Mother and Father and Astoria? it seemed to say, and the chill of the lake seeped into her bones, spreading as ruthlessly as Fiendyfire until she had sat bolt upright and resolved to leave.

It was a curious thing, the way that the Hogwarts wings continued to expand; her bed was still her bed, though the wing had changed. On the one hand, it was nice to have something familiar, but part of her wondered why Hogwarts allowed students to foster such levels of possession about unimportant, inanimate objects when it continued to move them around in strange and different environments on a regular basis. Perhaps that was the point. It still meant that she was utterly disoriented.

One could go to Hogwarts for a hundred years and still it will have secrets, her mother had told her, smiling placidly.

She did not feel like smiling herself, as she hovered by the entrance of the nearest wing. Was it the first year wing? Or was this where the seventh years had once stayed?

Why did you come, Daphne? You'll see Astoria in the morning. You didn't even agree to meet up. What if this is where the current seventh years are?

Mortification rose and seized her throat as her ribs turned to ice.

Little Greengrass getting homesick already?

No, she thought, preemptively, no, I'm here for my sister-

Oh, for her sister!

No, no, she couldn't do this. Why had she left her room? This was foolishness. Sentimental foolishness. No, she would head back, right now, sleep, and speak with her sister in the morning.

Even as she whirled about to leave, a small figure in the corner shifted, rising like one sitting up. The figure seemed to have seen her, was already moving out of bed, and Daphne wondered whether everyone would wake if she turned now and fled back to bed. She might be able to pass it off as sleepwalking, but the thought of Pansy laughing at her for sleepwalking as almost too painful to bear.

Stilled - yet again- by indecision, she stood by the doorframe, until the figure was closer.

"Who are you?" a voice whispered, her voice so loud Daphne felt it brush against the hairs of her arm.

"Daphne Greengrass," she whispered back, unsure of whether she was more grateful for the darkness that obscured her flaming cheeks or humiliated by the swirling waters above that seemed to magnify even the softest whispers.

"Daphne!" the voice said. "Astoria's sister?"

The figure scurried back to the darker recesses of the room.

"Astoria, your sister's here, she's come!"

And then a small figure that Daphne felt she ought to recognise instantly shifted, moved, and as she came nearer, Daphne saw her pale face shrouded by a mass of dark, unbrushed hair, saw Astoria's left eye crinkle upwards, the way it did whenever she smiled, and felt herself reaching out.

"Come on," she whispered, grasping Astoria's small, cold hand. "Let's go to the Common Room."

The fire in the Common Room was still burning, though the film was low on the grate, when Daphne curled up on a chair, patted the space next to her.

In a single bound, Astoria was on the seat, her feet tucked beneath her, her head leaning against Daphne's shoulder.

"I'm glad you're here, now," Daphne said, and shifted her arm to drape it around her sister's small frame. "It's been a little lonely without you."

"Lonely because you're too afraid to fight with anybody else?" Astoria said quietly, but Daphne could hear the smile in her voice, and she laughed.

"Perhaps," she admitted, "but I'm still glad that you are here."

There was the slightest pause, the slightest hesitation in her sister's voice as she replied, "I'm glad, too."

She had only been at Hogwarts for one year. Had her sister changed that much in such a short space of time? Had she? Why couldn't she read Astoria any longer?

"What do you mean?" she asked, cautiously.

What do you mean, Daphne?

And why were they speaking in code?

"Astoria, what is it?"

Her sister had shifted, ever so slightly, away from Daphne, and her eyes were trained on the dying flame.

"I almost didn't get here," she said, in a voice so small it nearly died in the spark of fire that leapt and sizzled on the edge of the grate.

"What on earth do you mean? I sat next to you on the train," said Daphne, almost insistently. "We arrived at the station with nearly twenty minutes to spare. You were here just fine!"

Astoria crossed her arms around her knees.

"I know," she said, still softly. "But I mean here. In Slytherin. The Hat wanted to put me in Hufflepuff."

Hufflepuff?

Daphne could not quite explain the feelings that recoiled and reared in her gut.

"Well- at least it- it didn't want- Gryffindor," she said, weakly.

But was it much better? She recalled Father's sneer, the night before she had gone to Hogwarts, when he spoke about the Blacks' shame that Andromeda's daughter had been sorted into Hufflepuff, place for blood traitors and fools.

What would Father have said if Astoria-

"Why would that have been worse?" asked Astoria defiantly, her cheeks flushed in an expression that Daphne would have thought anger if she wasn't so aware of her sister's defensive behaviour. "You said the Hat considered putting you in Ravenclaw. Wasn't Hogwarts founded by four founders? Was it only the great Salazar Slytherin who started out school?"

"Astoria, stop!" Daphne hissed, a desperate and slimy cold seeping outwards to her skin. "Think about what you're saying!"

But now Astoria's eyes were trained on her, and there was something in the tilt of her face, the lock of her jaw, that Daphne was not familiar with.

When did you grow up? You're only eleven.

But Astoria had always been far older than her years.

"You're such a snob, Daphne, and for all that you're terrified of what your friends will think of you," she said, flicking a stray hair off the seat cushion. "I have thought of what I was saying. I've had an entire year to think about what I was saying. And people laugh at the Hufflepuffs, but there are Purebloods in that house; Madam Bones' granddaughter is in Hufflepuff, and you wrote home once about how good looking that Digory boy is, and how nice he was to younger students, even those from different Houses. And there are half-bloods in Slytherin. And there are plenty of purebloods in Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, too, even if they're strange and poor like the Weasleys. It's not like Slytherins are the purest of the pure."

"I am not afraid of what my friends will think of me," Daphne said coldly, wondering why that was the only part of Astoria's rant that rankled with her. "But if Father heard what you were saying-"

"Well, it's a good thing Father's not here, isn't he?" said Astoria, her voice strangely bitter. "And he doesn't need to know about Hufflepuff, anyway, since it didn't happen. He can be proud that we kept it in the family, didn't humiliate him, the way the Blacks have been humiliated."

They sat in silence for a while, the fire dimming and growing lower until it was the softest ember, with the lightest film ghosting above it.

Like the old times, Daphne thought, but there was a strange distance now, and the girl sitting beside her, head resting on her knees, had Astoria's face, sitting in Astoria's favourite position, and yet she felt she didn't quite know her.

"Why Hufflepuff?"

Astoria's chin trembled, and she kept her gaze fixed determinedly on the fireplace.

"Because I wanted to be with you," she whispered. Her words flickered across the distance, settled on Daphne's skin. "I wanted to be with you, and the Hat said that was loyalty, and that I was more loyal than I'd ever be ambitious, or even smart. And you know I've never been particularly brave. But I fought with the Hat, Daphne, I told it I wanted to be with you, in Slytherin. That I could make it work, even though I don't have enough ambition to fill a hat."

She uncrossed her arms and looked at Daphne, tentative, afraid, looking younger than eleven, more uncertain than a girl thrust into a strange room with girls she only knew briefly from social afternoons, far, far from home.

Daphne threw her arms about her sister, buried her face in Astoria's hair, felt Astoria shake against her.

"Even if you'd been in Hufflepuff, I'd be glad you're here," she whispered.

She could not quite bring herself to say I'd be proud of you. She wasn't sure she could mean the words. And anyway, it was ridiculous. Why should anyone be proud of a first year for being sorted on the basis of their personality, anyway? And yet, wasn't that what Mother and Father had said in their letter after her Sorting? We are so proud of you?

She felt Astoria's arms tighten around her for the briefest moment, and then her little sister was pulling away, brushing phantom tears from her almost already composed face.

"I'm glad I'm here, in Slytherin, anyway," she said, only the slightest tremble in her voice. "I look terrible in yellow. Who thought of that horrid colour combination, anyhow? Black and yellow. Like a bumblebee."

Neither of them laughed, although Astoria gave a short bark and hiccough.

"I'm glad you're here," Daphne repeated, taking Astoria's shaking hand in both her own.

"Thank you," Astoria whispered.

And they sat together, side by side before the dying flame, the soft lull of the lake pulsing soft emerald in silent waves around them.

A/N: Apparently bus trips between Sydney and Canberra bring out all my Greengrass sister feels.

If you've read this far, please drop a review and let me know what you thought! :)