The fire from the center of the girls dormitory crackled as Soot took his rightful place by the flame. Grace had named her Soot because of just that, his love of fireplaces and his gorgeous black coat that mimicked her name. Grace took out a small collection of books and neatly placed them on the windowsill using her favorite blue agate bookends to hold them in place. Something she purchased from a muggle spiritual store.

"Wow, those are pretty." Exclaimed a beautiful tall girl with dark skin and rows of braids falling down to her mid back. She pointed to the crystals.

Grace couldn't help but smile, "It's blue agate." The glossy blue rocks reflected the flames from the fire, "I'm Grace." She extended a hand to the new face. 

"Angelina Johnson." She said cheerily pulling out a poster out from her trunk and stuck it onto the wall above the bed next to Grace's. The picture began moving and the athletic girl on the front mounted her broom and flew around in circles a couple times before floating back to the ground looking pleased by her performance. Grace didn't recognize which quidditch teams robes she wore so she assumed she played in an amateur league.

"Who's that?" Grace questioned admiring her confidence and swagger.

"Don't let me start, I'll never shut up." Angelina joked, "Her name's Mullet, she was a chaser for Gryffindor a couple years back, she is insane, I'm betting she's gonna be big one day." She did not lie, she kept talking about her for quite some time, recalling the time she saw her play last summer. She seemed to idolize Mullet, she knew how many points she had garnered over her career and all of her stats.

The two new friends excitingly babbled about their favorite quidditch players and teams, of course Grace had to bring up Ireland. Not too long into their conversation and another Gryffindor first year Alicia Spinnet joined the conversation. Although Alicia knew nothing about quidditch coming from a muggle family, she was happy to learn all about it, and Grace and Angelina were more than happy to convert another quidditch lover. Alicia listened intently and asked rudimentary questions, but picked up pretty quickly. She had always loved muggle sports like soccer, so she couldn't wait to hop on a broomstick and try quidditch out.

The conversation morphed into a slew of things throughout the hours of night: going from quidditch to hot historical wizards, to cute boys they saw on train, to annoying students they already despised (Cassius had also given Alicia a hard time), to their schedule for the semester. 

"I honestly really love potions." Grace confessed after Angelina groaned when reading double potions on Friday mornings.

"You're not going to love the professor, I heard Snape is quite harsh, especially to Gryffindors." Angelina warned. 

"Aren't they all a little strict here?" Grace laughed.

"This surpasses a little..." Angelina gave a deterrent look. While Angelina went on about the rumors and lore about Snape and his cruel and unusual punishments. Alicia watched bug eyed a little shocked at the forms of punishment given at detention at a magic school.

The hours flew by and the stars grew brighter by the minute. Alicia ended up dozing off on the floor in between Grace and Angelina's bed. She took that as a sign to make her way back to her bed. After Alicia left Grace crawled underneath her covers and titled back her head to see the night sky speckled with stars, and the first constellation she noticed was Cygnus a swan with outstretched wings. 

That night as the fire died chilling Grace's feet as she huddled in bed, but as she drifted off to sleep thoughts of the dark greasy man she saw during the feast started lurking in her mind. In her dreams he haunted her, she dreamt of losing her knack for potions, fumbling the simplest of potions whilst Snape taunted her yelling in her face that she'd never be a good witch, taking 100 points away for being so clumsy.

Grace awoke in a sweat with her heart beating so fast it felt as if it could run right out of her chest. The room was pitch black except for the galaxy shining in through the window and the faint glow of the remaining embers in the pit where Soot slept soundly. Grace stumbled around in the dark still not acquainted with the room, she dug around under her bed until she could finally feel the smooth cool leather of her bag. A faint meow came from the darkness as Soot delicately leaped onto Grace's bed a cuddled onto pillow.

Opening the drawstring bag inside of the leather one a bright light radiating a cool halo beamed dully out of the bag. Uncorking the top of the vial the glow intensified, filling the room. Grace saw Angelina toss to her other side turning her back to the light. Grace tried to shield the light slightly by slipping the drawstring bag over vial allowing the flames to shoot out of the top of the bag. Looking over at the clock it read 4:02am, Grace couldn't sit still for another minute she was too anxious for the day. She walked over the creaky floorboards and down the spiral staircase to the common room. 

Down in the common room the fireplace still glowed a little allowing the lounge area to be lit dimly. She paced around the room for a maybe 5 minutes, examining everything in the room, noticing where the wallpaper peeled off the walls, and how the portrait of Godric Gryffindor hung on a slope. Grace fixed his frame carefully as to not wake Godric from his snoring slumber. It must've been 4:15 when Grace had become fed up with counting all of the lions she could find in the common room (she was up to 34). She stared at the exit of the common room for a few moment before taking steps in that direction. She knew she shouldn't but something pulled her towards the corridor. She readjusted the belt on her pink satin bathrobe preparing to enter forbidden territory. 

Then all of a sudden she heard a huge CRASH! A loud shattering noise echoed from the hall, then came a screech that sounded eerily shrill. The portrait flung open and in stepped two snickering identical boys, the one entering first shushing the latter, but still just as loud.

"What was that?" Grace announced startling the Weasley twins into silence.

"Oh, Flourish, were you waiting our return?" One boy commented.

"No, just mine." Replied the other, immediately Grace knew that boy was Fred.

"What was that?" Grace reiterated.

Again deflecting the question George's eyes went wide and turned the attention to Grace's hand, "What is that?" He prodded at the bag in Grace's hands and squinted his eyes as he stared for too long.

Fred swiped his hand over the flame intrigued by the chill, "I could use this..." Fred trailed of mischievously. The twins looked ay teach other and as if telepathically communicating they smirked and nodded at each other.

"I'll tell if you do." Grace lifted her eyebrow as her eyes gestured to where they entered. 

"We just explored the castle a bit, looking for secret passages." Fred continued admiring the flame in a bottle, "Does this catch, will it burnisher stuff?"

"The loud noise?" Grace questioned.

"We just scared that lousy cat Mrs. Norris. She was going to rat us out to Filch." George casually brushed it off. Grace imagined them doing something horrible that cat but George could see the fright on her face, "We may have beheaded a statue but no one's hurt, not even that creepy cat."

"Your turn." Fred started setting scraps of paper on fire.

"I made it." Grace could sense the bombardment questions and continued, "I didn't learn it, I stumbled upon it while experimenting with some potions. You can't suffocate it." She plugged the cork and swished around the fire. It became a little liquidy at the bottom from the disruption and returned to its fiery state once it settled again, "And I don't know how to put it out really, just blowing out works most of the time, but I haven't dealt with a huge fire yet... so be careful!" 

George was about to throw a piece of burning parchment paper on the couch but blew it out instead. The twins goofed around for a bit seeing where it could spread to, pleasantly surprised when they found out they could write in fire. Dipping the tip of a quill in the shaken up liquified potion they used it as ink and as soon as it hit one of the pages of the notebook the letters shot up cold light.

"Could we get some?" George pulled an empty vial from his robe pocket.

Grace hesitantly agreed, she still had mixed feelings about the pair but something drew her to them. She swirled the bottle in circles until the flame turned into a liquid consistency, and poured some into George's vial. As soon as the substance hit the bottom of the glass it shattered, the glass shards cutting open a gash on the palm on Grace's left hand causing her to drop her own vial to the floor. "WHAT WAS IN THAT?" Grace recoiled putting pressure on the dripping wound. 

"I dunno mustache growth serum I think" Fred said dumbly.

Grace was astonished he would hand her a contaminated container, she let go of her own hand to examine the wound and a large amount of blood dripped onto the carpet, "Dammit it got on the carpet... THE CARPET!" Grace stared wide eyed at the flamed rapidly increasing in size on the red and gold Persian rug. Grace knelt to the floor and tried to blow it out but there was no use, the flames kept spreading. She stomped on it but there was no avail, there's no suffocating this thing. It kept getting colder and colder, it was no longer cold it was freezing.

"Water?"George suggested but Grace already knew that was a bad idea.

"No it just makes it stronger." Then frantically Grace asked, "Water's no good, any other suggestions?"

"Fight fire with fire?" Fred shrugged. Grace really hoped he was on to something. She grabbed multiple pieces of paper and twisted them into a bouquet of sorts and the twins followed her lead. She lit the bouquet from the sputtering fire in the fireplace and brought it towards the magical mess, the boys copied.

"It's working!" Grace sighed with relief as the freezing cold started to fade.

"It's getting a little too hot..." George noticed.

"Shit, well at least we know how to put out an actual fire." Grace sighed.

"Auguamenti." The boys shouted in unison, Grace knew that spell was supposed to create a jet of water but the boys could only produce a sprinkle, a shower at most, it was probably their first time attempting it. Grace dampened a blanket that she found on the common room couch and smothered the heat stomping on it for safe measure. She pulled back the blanket to reveal a badly burnt rug. 

Grace wiped the sweat from her forehead with her right hand and felt the sting from her left. Fred offered to preform a spell to speed the healing process but after the lame attempt and the water conjuring charm and the fact they hadn't taken one class yet she passed on the offer, opting to visit the nurse in the morning, well in a few hours.

"That was quite fun." Then Fred's amused face looked a little disappointed, "To bad we can't get some of that fire now." 

"I've been wanting to replicate it for a while now, I'll let you know if I have any breakthroughs." Grace chuckled shaking her head as she wrapped her hand in the pink satin tie of her bath robe staining it a dark red color. "Why do you want it anyway?"

"We like to experiment as well, always trynna come up with stuff you'd find at Zonko's." George admitted, "That stuff is cool but our stuff could be better." 

"Not to mention, cheaper." Fred emphasized 

Grace appreciated that answer. In a way they had the same goals, the three of them were witches and wizards that wanted to create more. That's when it hit her, Grace was surrounded by people like her in Gryffindor. Passionate people like Angelina, curious people with an open to learn like Alicia, and creative determined people like the twins. Still, she felt a twinge of guilt because she didn't continue the Hufflepuff legacy of her family or at least follow in the footsteps of her mother getting sorted into Ravenclaw.

After rearranging the furniture to hide the scorched carpet and simply throwthing the blanket out, it was already after 5:00am, Grace returned to her room and sat on the side of her bed near the window that luckily faced the sunrise and began to write an owl to her parents.

Dear Mum and Dad,

I haven't gotten into any trouble... yet. I've met quite a few new people and made some good friends I think. Off to a good start, I even got the bed next to the window. It has the best view of the sunrise. Did you know the girls dormitory in Gryffindor tower faces east?

Lots of Love,

Gracie

Grace nervously folded the letter in a neat rectangle carefully and placed it in a cream envelope that had a gold sheen on it and sealed it with her monogram in gold wax. Soot rubbed his head up against Grace's arm which was a signal Soot gave when he wanted to cuddle. Grace wedged the envelope between her marked up copy of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection and the blue crystal bookend and climbed into bed next to Soot. Grace told herself she'd send the letter out before breakfast.