Knock Knock, who's there? Closed

Annabel hurried down the stairs of the third floor. Her dress shoes were silent against the old carpet staircase that seemed to be recently cleaned by the castle's house-elves. It was 9:00 pm, and she was on her way to the Slytherin common rooms. The windows produced a moonlit glow throughout the halls, and the floating candles had become dim.

Annabel turned the corner to the second floor, looking along the long, stretching corridor that would lead her to the stairs of the first floor. The old wallpaper of the corridor was peeling, no matter how much effort the house-elves would put into it.

As she silently hurried down she noticed another student running his fingers along the wall. She first noticed the shine of the moonlight from the top of his light brown hair. He was shorter than most other the students, standing at about 4" 6. Annabel noticed that he also had green and silver robes on. Another Slytherin, Annabel thought to herself. Maybe he needed help to the common rooms?

Before she could call out to him, the boy turned to face the wall. He knocked on it thrice while giggling and said, "Knock knock instant passage to the library, you can show yourself any time now, you know?"

Annabel stood, dumbfounded. As a muggle-born, she had no idea the properties of the magical school. Could she really just ask the castle to take her to the common rooms?

Annabel shook her head and smirked. No, she could tell that the boy was just being silly. She cupped her hands around her mouth with a giggle, and called out to the boy, "What are you doing?"

"What are you doing?"

Sebastian spun his head around to look behind him and grinned at the girl behind him. "Well you know how it is in all of the books, tap the right brick and the secret passageway opens. I figured that the magical castle of amazement and wonder might do me a favor and throw me a hidden door or two. It'd be kind of funny if the founders had just built one here and left on under our nose this whole time."

Although thinking about it, maybe his joke has been closer to the truth than he'd thought. This was the same school that had you running through a solid brick wall to get to the train platform after all. Probably a good thing his parents had noped out before they got to that point or Hogwarts might just have had a lawsuit on their hands.

"I mean, there are hidden passages to get into Diagon Alley and we have to run through an actual wall to even reach the train but they can't provide you with a measly hidden passage when you're too tired to walk any further? I call false advertising!"

Laughing a little after his last remark he looked down at his watch. "Then again it is getting pretty late, I'm probably better of skipping the library anyway, I have enough books crowding up my dormitory as is. I guess you're heading to the common room too?"

"They can't provide you with a measly hidden passage when you're too tired to walk any further? I call false advertising!" joked the boy with a smirk. Annabel smiled. You didn't see many people around here with a good sense of humor. The boy almost reminded her of her own father...

The boy slightly pulled up the sleeve of his robes (which were too big for him) and peered at his watch. It was a muggle watch, Annabel realized. It was rare to see a Muggle-born like herself here in Slytherin. The house was almost entirely pure-blood and half-blood.

"I guess you're heading to the common room too?" continued the boy, bringing Annabel to the present. He was still smiling merrily from his joke. His smile was contagious.

Annabel smiled back. "Sure am, wanna come with?" The boy nodded and they continued down the old hall together. Annabel wanted to be sure he was a muggle before asking. She would hate to be wrong, and a Slytherin would be furious if they were pure and accused of being a 'mudblood'. But would this boy? No, surely not...

Annabel dug into her pocket and pulled out a small flat-bottomed teardrop looking candy. It was wrapped in silver tinfoil with a narrow strip of paper producing at the top that read 'Hershey's'. She handed the chocolate to the boy. If he was a muggle, he would surely know what this was.

"My name's Annabel Cooper, by the way."


The candy is a Hershey's Kiss if you couldn't tell by my description lol

"Sure am, wanna come with?"

"Sounds like a plan, let's make our way down to the merry old dungeons then. Sebastian gave his legs a quick stretch upwards and followed the girl towards their common room, the rest allowing him to keep up with her as they walked along the corridor.

It was nice to walk through the castle like this, when the majority of people were wrapped up in their own business. Not because he was a particularly antisocial person, on the contrary, Sebastian loved talking pretty much anyone. He liked to figure people out, liked to mess with them, make them laugh. The strange thing was that he didn't think that the school felt any less empty at night. Something about this place just made it constantly feel alive. Realistically that was probably due to the talking paintings, plus the number of ghosts who seemed to float around the place but Sebastian thought there was something else too.

It was almost as if you could feel the magic left by the student who'd previously studied here, centuries of people laughing, fighting, learning. It was probably a natural aftereffect of the school being here for so long but he thought it was a powerful one and knowing he was part of that was an amazing feeling.

His train of thought was broken as he felt something being pressed into his hand. Moving his gaze towards his palm he saw what looked like a small piece of chocolate. Moving the wrapper at the top to get a better look, he smiled as he spotted the word 'Hershey's' at the top of the label. Looks like he wasn't the only student making their house founder roll in his grave this year. Putting the chocolate in his pocket he felt around until he found the small object he was searching for and pulled it out.

"Here, you shared something with me so now I'm sharing with you." He placed a small Kinder bar into her hand with a quick wink. "Nice to meet you Annabel, my name's Sebastian, Sebastian Boyd."