I drag my trunk across the stone floor, the sound echoing off the walls like a confession. Prefects and older students have already retreated to their dorms, leaving me alone in the vast, underwater silence.

The password—pureblood—slips from my lips like a curse, and the spiral staircase to the boys' dormitories creaks to life.

Fourth-year dormitory. Door at the end of the hall.

I push it open.

The room is smaller than I expected. Two bunk beds, one desk, a single chair. A door on the far wall leads to what I assume is the bathroom. The curtains on the bed nearest the window are half-drawn, revealing a figure—still as stone—sitting on the top bunk, spine rigid, a book open in his hands.

He doesn't look up.

I drop my trunk by the bed. The mattress is thin, the sheets stiff. I sit, then lie back, the springs groaning beneath me.

A wave of exhaustion hits me—the Sorting, the feast, the stares. I close my eyes, willing the ceiling to swallow me whole.

From above, the faint rustle of a turning page.