A scream pierced the night, and West sat bolt upright in bed. Maybe
the scream had been part of her dream, but it sounded familiar. Too
familiar. She had heard the sound dozens of times, whether in jest or in danger, and she knew exactly who it belonged to. Jade.

Clambering out of her four-poster bed, West pulled
on her slippers and padded down to the common room, pushing past the
annoying portrait and running down the halls.

"Where the heck is their common room?"

Past
the kitchens, past a stack of barrels, halfway to the Potions classroom
when West tripped over the back of her slipper and turned to see a
piece of yellow fabric caught on one of the barrels. Leaning in for a
closer look, she saw that it had thin black stripes running the length
of it and a tiny embroidered badger face on the tip like a pin. So this was the Puff entrance. Now, how to get inside?

Pulling
on the barrels did nothing. Neither did pushing them. Finally, giving
up in frustration, she started hammering on them with her fists.

Boom-boom-boom boom-boom.

A
jet of sharp-smelling liquid squirted from the barrel in the center,
dousing her clothes and hair, plastering it to her head. West sniffed
her wet finger cautiously, then licked it. When the stuff touched her
tongue, she recoiled. Vinegar. Not harmful, not even mildly painful, just smelly and wet. But the banging had been a trigger...

Two
minutes later, after having tried every combination of thumps and slaps
known to mankind, West sank to the ground, annoyed. First one elbow and
then the other hit the barrel in the center, followed by the palms of
her hands, and then her forehead, which hurt. One-two, one-two-three.

There
was a slight shift in the wooden surface of the barrels, and West
rolled away out of instinct. The barrels slid noiselessly into position,
forming an arched doorway. She stood and charged through, her
vinegar-soaked slippers squelching on the marble.

The
Hufflepuff common room was warm and mostly dark, but the crackling fire
in the hearth cast flickering light around the space. The room was large
and circular, with a comfortably low ceiling and honey-colored wooden
floor. The walls were papered in buttery yellow with a print of
thistles, and the windows that ringed the room near the ceiling were
framed in dark bronze. There were large and squashy couches and arm
chairs in varying hues of yellow scattered about, accompanied by small
tables made out of rough wood. Potted plants, empty mugs with dregs of
cocoa, and half-eaten plates of cookies decorated every surface, and
everything smelled like wood smoke and fresh bread.

Two small
sets of stairs lead up to dormitories, and West ran up the one which
bore a sign reading, "Girls" with messily painted flowers snaking across
it. She made a face at the sweetness of it all, but continued up the
stairs, scanning each door for the names of its occupants.

"Helen, Claire, Evelyn...nope. Lily, Gracie, also nope. Hannah, Mallory, Jade- here we go!"

She pulled the door open and crept in, trying not to wake up any of the other girls who were asleep. Hannah and Mallory were both tucked up under duvets, but Jade's bed was empty, as she had suspected.

"NO!" Alana's yelp shattered the silence, and West whirled around, expecting something horrible. Instead, what she saw was Alana, sitting up in bed with eyes closed.

"Mister Fluffy, don't eat the cheese weasels! They're my breakfast!"

West sighed and rolled her eyes. Jade had told her ages ago that Alana talked in her sleep- why hadn't she remembered? She reached over and prodded Alana on the shoulder. The sleeping girl winced and opened her eyes.

"Ouch, what are you doing?" She looked up and noticed her friend's face. "West! Are you a Hufflepuff now?"

"No, it's important. I heard Jade screaming- in my dream- I think she's- we need to-" West panted and dropped to a knee on the floor, her mind incapable of forming a coherent sentence.

"Breathe, Wes. Just take a second to inhale some of that stuff called oxygen. Now, what happened?" Alana tied the sash on her dressing gown and sat on the floor with her friend.

"I was asleep, and I heard a scream. Not in my dream- it was like it pierced through my sleep. I've heard it enough times to know that it was Jade's, she's a bit of a wimp so she screams a lot. I got scared and woke up."

Alana put her fists on her hips, not aggressively. "Are you sure that wasn't a dream?"

West shook her head vehemently. "I know it wasn't! I got this weird feeling, like something else was prodding me on, telling me that I needed to go- now. I thought I would wake you up so that you could help me find her. If you can't be bothered, you can just-"

"West." Alana's voice was soft, reassuring. "Of course I'm going to help you. But please, do we have time for me to put real shoes on?"