Chương 43: Interesting Morning

I'm the first one awake in the morning. And seeing as how I'm feeling hungry, I decide to head down-up?- to the Great Hall for breakfast. I don't even have to make sure that I leave food for Arianna since it's apparently done by servants of the castle.

I walk through the empty common room after getting into my new robes, appreciating the 'evil lair' aesthetic as I do. There's something relaxing about it. I glance out the window, but don't see the giant squid. My morning now slightly more disappointing, I leave.

Going through the oversized doors once again, I see the same four long tables stretching down the room. So it wasn/t just for the welcoming ceremony? I shrug the thought off.

I can see a few people scattered across the room, eating their breakfast. Not seeing anyone I know, I decide to sit at the table just to the right of the door. It's not the 'house table' for Slytherin, but it doesn't really matter for anything other than special events, right?

I'm proven wrong when I'm halfway through my stack of pancakes, which were stopped up with sliced bananas, strawberries, and whip cream. And of course I didn't forget to drizzle syrup over the whole thing. Since every meal is basically an all you can eat buffet, I think that I'll need to start exercising. No way am I not going to be stuffing myself at every meal.

Anyways, one of the students in a Ravenclaw's Prefect robe approaches me when I'm halfway through my pancakes, a frown on his face.

"What do you think you're doing here?"

I quirk an eyebrow. "Eating. Why do you ask? Are you blind? There's probably a spell for that."

His frown transforms into a scowl. "This is the Ravenclaw table. Your robes clearly mark you as a Slytherin."

My eyebrow remains quirked and I take another bite of my pancakes. "So?"

He bristles. "So that means you should be eating at your house's designated table! Do you need directions? I suppose that I shouldn't expect someone outside of Ravenclaw to think about how things work."

I look at the table behind me, a few of my upperclassmen staring my way with interest. I look back to the guy in front of me. "I'll keep that in mind."

He stands by my side, glaring at me while I continue eating my pancakes. I've almost finished when the guy seems to have reached the end of his patience.

"Are you going to go back to your table, or will I be deducting house points for breakfast?"

I think back on the four large hourglasses I passed by on my way here. I'm assuming that they're supposed to show how many house points each one has, but given that it's barely the first day of school…

"You know that there are no house points to deduct, don't you? You can't deduct from something that isn't there. And I thought that Ravenclaws were supposed to be smart." His face turns red, though I can't tell if it's in anger at my words or at the fact that my house doesn't have any points for him to take away.

It only gets worse when a girl sitting a bit away from me giggles at my words. Seeming to have had enough, the Prefect storms down the table without another word. I nod at the dark skinned, haired, and eyed girl. "Misha Potter."

She waves her hand. "Padma Patil. Nice to meet you. I understand that he was being rude, but did you really have to antagonize him like that?"

I shrug. "Yep. This is really good food." She looks down at her own plate of chicken and waffle, nodding in understanding before taking a bite.

Having finished my food, I'm relaxing as I sip some orange juice when the loud sound of a bell resounds through the hall, making me and a few others jump.

While we're looking around in confusion, one of the Hufflepuff Prefects stands, moving her arms in a placating fashion. "It's ok, that's just the eight o'clock bell. Which means that breakfast will stop being served in about an hour. Honestly, it's pretty rare that more than a handful of first years make it here before it goes off. It really shows who's going to be diligent in their time here." Nodding in satisfaction at our perceived work ethic, she sits back down.

After wiping juice off of my face, I exchange a bemused glance with Padma when a thought strikes me. "Oh yeah, I forgot my schedule back in my room."

"That's unfortunate. I don't know where your dorms are located, but ours are at the top of one of the towers, so it's fairly far."

"Well that's inconvenient. Ours is the opposite, though closer. They're under the castle, and we even have a view into the lake."

She gives me a queer look. "Don't you mean of the lake?"

"Nope. Our dorms are below the water level. Anyways, I better grab my schedule. See you later!"

I wave goodbye to her as I leave, ignoring the shocked look on her face. As I walk, I ponder on our dorm locations.

'Would it be better to have a view of the entire castle? Or will I prefer looking out into the darkness of the lake? On one hand, there is a sky view. On the other, we can see a giant squid. Hmm.'

I open the door leading down, only to let out a yelp of surprise when I see what's behind it. A man in a frilly outfit with puffed up hair stands in the corridor, chains weighing him down.

And he's covered in blood. And also transparent.

Realizing that it's the ghost I saw at the Slytherin table the previous night, I let out a sigh of relief before glaring at him.

"You shouldn't just hang out behind closed doors, what if you gave someone a heart attack! Though I guess suddenly bursting out from behind something would have the same effect, so it would basically be the same…"

As I consider the difficulties of ghosthood, the Bloody Baron looks at me in surprise. Before I can devolve into introspective pondering, he speaks. "Are you not afraid of me? Of my appearance or what I might have done while I was alive given how I look in death?"

I shrug. "Not really. If you wanted to do any harm to the students here, I doubt that you would be allowed to stay. Besides, from what I heard last night you don't really do much."

Now he looks offended. "Are you implying that I am lazy? The nerve! I'll have you know that I haunt the halls of Hogwarts quite frequently. And I help to keep Peeves in line."

Now that's interesting. "Who's Peeves?"

"He's one of the- well, he's not really a ghost, he's a poltergeist. Nobody knows where he came from, he just appeared one day as if he'd always been here. He's also able to interact with things. The lucky bastard." He mutters the last part to himself.

Well that's interesting. A not ghost who can interact with things? I'm about to open my mouth to ask him more when a head pops out of the wall next to me, followed quickly by a handful of cream.

Yelping in surprise yet again, I instinctively shoot my hand out and knock the hand into its owner's face. The two of them stare at me in shock for a moment while I scowl at the newcomer. "Watch it with that. If you aren't careful someone could get seriously hurt."

Ignoring their frozen forms, I walk through the Baron-who's still floating in the doorframe!- and head to my room to get my schedule.