Nicola sat curled up in one of the large green armchairs near the fire. It was late, likely past curfew but she didn't care. She couldn't sleep and she didn't want to be in her dorm room anyway. She stared into the dwindling fire trying to ignore the foreboding green glow that seemed to emanate from the very walls of the Slytherin house.

She pulled the knitted throw tighter around herself. The hand made blanket had been her mother's and was in the blue and beige of the Ravenclaw house. The house she should have been in. She was supposed to be up in the clouds, soaring with the other eagles not trapped under the lake with the snakes. Everything about Slytherin made her feel uncomfortable. How could she have been sorted into Slytherin?

Sure she had family in the house. There were her cousins Finley and Erin who were only a year older than her and of course there was her 'brother' Kyson but he belonged here. Despite the fact that she had grown up with him (and thought he was her brother for most of her life) Ky was still a Cavanaugh, they Didn't have house loyalty, they belonged everywhere. Even his older sisters had been in other houses.

Nicola' s mother had been a Ravenclaw, her father a Gryffindor. The twins were sorted into Ravenclaw together and her youngest brother Harrison had made it into their father's house. How in Rowena' s name had she become the odd one out? The black sheep of the family? Was there something wrong with her? After all almost every Death Eater in the last war had been a Slytherin . . .

A parchment lay discarded beside her. She had been trying to write a letter to her parents about her first day at Hogwarts but she couldn't bring herself to finish it. How could she tell them about her sorting? What if they were disappointed?

Nicola wiped at the tears that streamed down her face and stared into the fire again, wanting nothing more than to go home or take back the last twelve hours.

This was horrible.

Noriko couldn't remember ever being more disappointed in her entire life.  Not even when she'd been nine years old and her parents had told her that they wouldn't take her to the Muggle the Bear and Friends tour had she ever felt so upset.  It was as if the Sorting Hat had heard all of her prayers and wishes, and then decided to do the exact opposite.

How could an inanimate object be so cruel?  First, two years ago, it had sorted her horrible brother Taiki into Slytherin along with Noriko, giving him free reign to terrorize her during the school year as well as at home.  And now, when she'd finally been excited to introduce her other brother Daichi around Hogwarts, it had done the opposite of what she wanted and sorted him into Ravenclaw.  How was life so unfair?!

Noriko had been so upset that she had left the feast as soon as she could.  Now poor little Daichi was all alone in Ravenclaw, and she was stuck in Slytherin with stupid Taiki.  Why couldn't the Sorting Hat have switched her brothers?

But now it was late and she couldn't sleep, and so she'd come back to the Slytherin common room to read for a little bit.  The greenish light that filtered in through the great glass windows had seemed creepy when she'd first been sorted into Slytherin years ago, but now, it had almost a comforting feel to it.  She'd brought along her Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook to start reading ahead, in hopes that she could beat Eirene to some of the answers in their first class on Tuesday.

Within moments after entering the common room, she'd realized that she wasn't alone.  A small figure was curled up in one of the armchairs by the fire, wrapped in a knit blanket.

The sight made her pause.  It didn't seem so long ago that she had been that age, spending her first night in Slytherin all alone.  Of course, she had been curled up in her bed, afraid to move under her blanket.  After getting a glimpse of the giant squid shooting by a window on their introduction to the Dungeons after the Welcome Feast, she had been terrified of coming into the common room alone for weeks and weeks.

Even if she was disappointed, she couldn't leave this new little Slytherin to be scared all by herself.  Sighing, Noriko tucked her textbook under her arm, and made her way over to where the girl was huddled.

"Hullo," she said in a friendly tone, giving the girl an encouraging smile.  "Are you all right?  It's okay if you're homesick -- almost everyone is, at first."

After a long day of sitting on the train, followed by more sitting in the Great Hall, Naomi had quickly sorted her belongings and then flopped onto one of the dorm beds to stare out the underwater window. She hoped that the shimmer of rising bubbles and the movement of swimming shadows would lull her into a sleepy trance. However, once most of Slytherin house had retreated to their dorms, Naomi was still awake.

Still staring.

When it became obvious that staring out the window wasn't working, Naomi finally rolled off the bed in a flurry of long locs, dunked her hand into her trunk, and fished out a knot of netted gourds, bottles, and spice jars before she strode out towards the common room fire.

Naomi sat down and deposited her netted belonging on the floor and then  wrapped her locs into a ponytail as Wakahisa consoled a blue and beige bundle of a first year.

The older Slytherin gave a curious raise of her brows as she untied a netted empty gourd and jar of beans from, "Oh?" then she raised the jar of beans towards the younger Slytherins so that the glow of the fire revealed that a whole section of the beans were cyan-colored, "Somebody feelin' blue?"

Naomi's lilt was gentle and her expression retained her passive curiosity, despite the unintended joke. "Don' mind sharing wit' somebody who gets a little rough wit' Cavanaugh." Suddenly, Naomi popped the lid off the jar and the rich and better scent that filled the air made it clear she was holding a colorful assortment of cacao beans.

Cole had been thinking, hoping, that she'd be alone for the rest of the night. Then again it may have been better not to be. She just wasn't sure how to interact with the other girls that had joined her. They were obviously older than her though the darker one seemed to be even older than the first one. However she had been raised to be polite and diplomatic, she didn't think she should be telling either one what was really wrong with her.

She chuckled softly at Naomi's joke before addressing Noriko, "No, It's not like that. I'm used to not being home. We travelled a lot for my mom's work growing up."

She turned back to the oldest Slytherin, pulling her blanket a bit to let her small smile show. Had she been feeling less upset she likely would have bragged about punching Kyson. Not just in the Great hall but earlier on the train as well. He was used to it though, "Kyson's my brother." She offered then shrugged, adding, "Sort of. My parents raised him when his Dad couldn't. I actually thought he was my brother for years before my other brothers started making fun of me for it."

She sat up a little straighter, "I have three other brothers, all here at Hogwarts." She offered another smile to Noriko as if to prove that being surrounded by family would make it impossible for her to feel homesick, "They're all in different houses though." Her face fell again hinting at her earlier misery. It wasn't so much that they were in different houses than it was that she was supposed to be in their house with them.

There was a big difference between not being home because one was traveling with one's family, and not being home because one was away from one's family at school.  But even as she thought this, Noriko was too polite to say it out loud.  If this new little Slytherin wanted to tell herself that so that she seemed less frightened, Noriko wasn't about to correct her.

Naomi Foley -- back in the dungeons after a year abroad -- had turned her attention to them, too.  Noriko gave the older girl a tight smile, as she got a whiff of an earthy smell coming from Foley's jar.

The little snake was talking now about her three older brothers -- or four brothers, if she also counted Cavanaugh? -- here at Hogwarts, although the though at the end of her sentence seemed to make all the difference.  Noriko frowned slightly, glancing at Foley to see what she made of this.  The poor little first year just looked so sad!  She hoped that Daichi wasn't feeling this sad, all alone in Ravenclaw House tonight.

"Well, you said Cavanaugh's like your brother too, right?" she put in helpfully.  "And you'll see your brothers tomorrow!  It isn't so bad being in different houses.  My best friend is in Ravenclaw," she ventured, giving the girl a shy smile, "and we see each other all the time, except at night."

Naomi went to untangle two large wooden gourds as the two housemates continued speaking. The older Slytherin poured blue and green beans into their own gourds, which each began to echo with hollow rattles as the first year revealed Kyson as, basically, an older brother. While the firstie continued talking, Naomi continued filling each gourd with a splash of cacao pulp juice, dropped a couple blobs of pulpy cacao fruit into the green bean gourd, and then added some hushes of sugar the gourds just as it was gloomily revealed that the firstie's other brother's were in different houses.

With a raised brow, Naomi caught Wakahisa's own gloomy glance. The youngest Slytherin was exercising a lot of emotional restraint, for sure, and the oldest Slytherin wasn't sure it was entirely helpful.

As Wakahisa spoke up again, Naomi pulled out her wand and cast a few enchantments and charms on the gourds before pushing one into the fire and casting a freezing charm over the other. Then, with some muffled sloshing and slushing, the innards of both gourds began to magically grind and blend their ingredients into two different beverages, a steaming blue cocoa drink and a creamy and chilly  green-creased foam.

"Unless you're gon' sneak out wit' 'dem," Naomi added with a mischievous grin.

Then she leaned back as she waited for her cocoa brews to finish. "But Wakahisa is right, it's easy to stay in touch. You could also figure out a game to play wit' 'dem or somet'ing if you want to feel closer or talk regularly, as siblings."

Cole listened to the two girls, her preconceptions about Slytherins fading ever so slightly. At least, so far, these two seemed nice and they were certainly helpful. She almost felt bad that she had fabricated a problem for them to solve. Despite how nice they were being she still thought telling them the truth would have been a very bad idea.

"I suppose it won't be too hard, and I've lasted so long without my oldest brothers being around anyway." She only spent the previous year completely on her own while all four boys attended Hogwarts. Although prior to that it had been just her and Harrison, with Kyson and the twins now in their sixth year, "Just expectations you know?" Perhaps she could convey the idea of her problem without actually saying what was bothering her.

"Grant and Kelly are in Ravenclaw together. Harrison's in Gryffindor." She sighed, "wasn't expecting to end up in Slytherin."

She glanced over at the oldest of the three girls, curious as to what Naomi was doing with the gourds. She sat up a little straighter before leaning forward over her large blanket. Happy to change the subject, "what's that all about?"

Noriko pursed her lips slightly, glancing again at Foley.  She didn't quite understand why this little Slytherin was so sad that her brothers were in other houses when she'd already said she had a close cousin in Slytherin.  It was different than the problem she faced with Daichi, who had been sentenced to be all by himself in Ravenclaw.

But there, at least he probably had Eirene and Frank.  Noriko could almost imagine them in her mind's eye, helping her little brother settle in to his new blue-themed house.  Frank, sharing more sweets with him in a kind-hearted attempt to make him feel more comfortable.  Eirene was probably giving all of the first years a lecture on what to expect from their professors, and who to stay away from.  The thought of it made Noriko feel the tiniest bit better.

The new Slytherin girl changed the subject, directing a question at Foley.  Noriko glanced at the older Slytherin student, both content to let the new girl change the subject and curious about the answer as well.