When the dormatories for the foreign students were ready for moving in, not everyone relished in the thought of getting settled. Corey, for one, was not excited by the prospect of being confined into such close quarters with some of his classmates. Many of them were snobby and pretentious and probably would use the area to gossip and belittle their foreign counterparts.

Corey planned to spend very little time in the dorms. If he thought he could get away with it, he would set up a tent on the school grounds and rough it beneath the stars like he was so often used to in his travels. But he didn't think the caretaker would be amenable to that sort of arrangement.

So Corey was stuck for the time being. And he had resigned himself to making do with the situation for the rest of the year.

On the morning after the Welcoming Feast, Corey was the first to wake in the dorm he shared with several other seventh years. He quietly got out of bed and began to dress for breakfast.

He was about to head for the bathroom when he tripped over someone's trunk which he hadn't seen as he attempted to wipe the remaining sleep from his eyes.

"Merde!" he cursed under his breath. His eyes went wide and he quickly looked around to the other beds, hoping that he hadn't woken any of his other classmates prematurely. "Sorry..."

The sound of someone's legs colliding with the trunk at the foot of his bed brought Etienne around from half-asleep to fully away in a matter of seconds. Etienne didn't like to dawdle with all this 'waking up' business, and liked to get it over with as quickly as possible, so now that his eye were open, he pushed himself upright and swung his legs over the side of the bed in one fluid motion. He glanced over towards the source of the disturbance, noting Gaubert's apology without very much interest.

'Up early, aren't we Corentin?',[1] he said mildly after glancing towards the unrisen forms of their dormmates. He chose not to acknowledge Gaubert's stumble; anyone was liable to be a little clumsy after just waking up in an entirely new environment. There was no need to embarrass him by calling attention to it.

Keeping his voice low to avoid disturbing the others too much, he added, 'How did you sleep?' There was a slight trace of genuine concern to Etienne's voice, one of the few hints that would hark back to the days the two of them had been foster brothers, but the pervading tone was mild curiosity. Etienne tended to ask polite questions as though he were conducting a scientific research survey. In this case, The Effects of New Sleeping Quarters on Seventeen-and-Eighteen-Year-Old Wizards.

1.	All of Etienne's dialogue in this thread is in French, unless otherwise stated.

Corey winced at the sound of Etienne's voice. He had hoped his noisemaking would not wake anyone but it was clear he was not so lucky. But he also winced because Etienne used his proper name, which always sounded so pretentious coming from his former foster brother's mouth. No matter how many times Corey requested that he use the more informal version of his name, he was always Corentin to Etienne.

"No sense in staying asleep when there's so much excitement going on," Corey grittily supplied, also in their native tongue. And that was true. Corey was excited about the prospect of interacting more with the people from the other schools and finally getting to explore the castle more fully.

Corey sighed at Etienne's continued interrogation regarding sleep. "I slept fine. I didn't even hear you snoring," he joked. He wasn't even sure if Etienne snored at all, or any of his roommates for that matter. Corey slept so soundly that he wouldn't  hear anything anyway. Still, he figured such an accusation would annoy Etienne just as much as the usage of Corentin annoyed Corey.

Grinning, Corey reached down and picked up a dirty sock from the floor and as he straighened to his full height, he tossed it in the other boy's direction.

Etienne's hand shot out to the wand resting on his bedside table, but not quite quickly enough. The sock, perhaps flying a tad farther than Corey had intended, landed with a soft flump on Etienne's shoulder, where it rested like a severely deflated parrot. Etienne raised an eyebrow, then coolly flicked his wand to send the offending garment sailing to the foot of Seraphin's bed, where it came to rest in a neatly-folded little bundle on top of the covers.

'We shall need to invest in a laundry basket,' he said, dusting off his shoulder nonchalantly. 'I'm glad your rest was undisturbed, at any rate. I do worry you'll wake yourself with the sound of your own snoring.' He gave his dormmate an 'I see what you did there and I can play that game too' kind of look, then stood up, stretching a little.

'I suppose you're right that there's no sense in staying asleep, though. There's plenty to do even before classes start. Have you got much of a feel for the lay-out of the castle yet?' He drew his lips into a thoughtful kind of frown. 'I hear that it keeps changing, depending on what kind of mood the staircases are in.' Etienne didn't automatically disapprove of everything that was different from what he was used to; in fact he felt it advantageous to have as many different experiences under one's belt as possible. Still though, he didn't like the idea of being caught off-guard by anything.

Corey's eyes glimmered with triumph upon seeing that sock toss affected Etienne just as he knew it would. For inasmuch as the use of Corentin annoyed him, Corey knew a trivial thing as sullied laundry annoyed Miroux. This had been learned after several years of living together.

Having the Miroux's as a his foster family had hardly been the end of the world for Corey. He had had far worse and for that he was very thankful. But it had not been easy either. Corey fully acknowledged how noble it had been for Etienne's family to set aside some of their personal beliefs to take him in, even temporarily. Still, early on it had was apparent that Corey did not fit into their way of life and it was debatable who that was harder on.

Corey stretched a bit and when Etienne attempted to toss the snoring comment back at him, he lightly countered with, "I rarely sleep deep enough to be able to snore properly." Which was true. Or at least true when he slept in unusual surroundings. Truth be told, Corey was most comfortable sleeping beneath the stars. If he had his way, he'd probably live out of a tent for most of his life. I suppose I ought to end up where the weather is always nice, he told himself.

With a sigh, Corey addressed his former foster brother's other question. "Not yet. I spent more time out doors getting to know the grounds." Naturally. That was the type of thing that interested Corey. Everything nature related came first. He was less concerned about decoding the puzzle that was the castle itself. Smirking, he suggested, "Perhaps, then, you should be nice to the staircases. I bet if you tiptoe up them, they won't be inclined to change so much."

'Hm.' Etienne raised a quizzical eyebrow at Corey. 'When in the world have you ever known me to tiptoe?' But he gave a small shrug, and continued, 'Little though I'd like to be cowed by a flight of stairs, though, perhaps I should bear that suggestion in mind. See if manners do have any bearing on architecture. One never does know.

'Besides,' he added as he flicked his wand to and fro to make his bed, 'we all ought to be on our best behaviour here anyway.' Of course, Etienne always considered himself to be on his best behaviour. He rarely said or did anything he wouldn't say or do if his grandmother was in the room. (His grandmother, as it happened, did not object to subtle snarkiness.)

'I should have guessed the grounds would be of more interest to you, Corentin. Have you ventured as far as this Forbidden Forest I hear tell of?' The briefest hint of a smirk brushed his lips. 'Find any dragons?'

"So you stomp with lead feet then? That is sure to make the stairs happy. And that is hardly a walk of princes and kings....or purebloods for that matter," Corey teased, eager to see his roommate's reaction to his gentle ribbing.

He was of the mind that more of his teasing affected Etienne than the other way around. There were very few things that his former foster brother could do to ruffle his feathers. He supposed it was because there was very little Corey valued or cared too much about.

Except maybe being called Corentin.

His lips formed a grim line for a moment before he finally replied. "Last I knew, Corey," he said pointedly, "Had yet to make it into the Forest. All in due time. And if dragons are around, i]Corey[/I] will find them, you can be sure."

Etienne did actually have to suppress an amused smile at Corey's insistence on the use of that dreadfully informal nickname. He did briefly consider the willfully ignorant reply of, 'Corey? Who is that, pray tell?' but decided instead on something a bit less provocative. 'Do you know, I think Hrothgar the Conqueror had a tendency to refer to himself in the third person too,' he remarked dryly. 'Up until he was deposed. But I digress.'

Satisfied that the bed was as neat as if it had never been slept in, Etienne used his wand to summon his boots to him, intent on proving a point. Corey's pureblood comment hadn't passed him by, and he wasn't fond of being reminded, however subtly, that his foster brother was one of the few people who knew that descriptor did not apply to Etienne. 'I think you'll find there is in fact a alternative to both sneaking and stamping. Don't tell me I need to give you an etiquette lesson on how to walk. Besides,' he added airily, casting a quick charm on his boots and then dropping them carelessly to the floor, where they landed without a sound, 'if I wish not to make any noise, there are easier ways to mute footsteps than to tiptoe.'

"Hmmm..." Etienne's reference to Hrothgar had Corey thinking. The other boy always seemed intent on throwing about his false sense of superiority in nearly everything that was done. And to others, is was a genuine sense of entitlement, because they all believed that Miroux was pureblood. Corey would have thought so as well if he did not already know the truth. But such truth was not his to reveal for all the world.

Still, if Etienne insisted on being pretentious, Corey was going to rib him a little.

"Ahh....but at least Hrothgar was seen by others as honest and a good and fair rule, despite his demise. And even the most courageous and noble of leaders can be toppled by those with evil motives. In his case, it came in the form of a back stabbing relative. So the story goes."

Corey kept his eyes on his Beauxbatons classmate, his brows raised with interest to see how he might take that rebuttle. He finally turned away and continued with his preparations for the morning. Though he made his bed, it wasn't with as much precision as Etienne and he was sure that if it bothered the other boy enough, when he left, he might resort to redoing it anyway, even if it wasn't his responsibility.

As Corey finished changing into his casual clothes the day, he shook his head when they continued talking about sneaking and stamping and muting footsteps. He drawled, "Indeed. Your wandwork is so precise, mon frere, that it's a wonder anyone knows you're about at all."