As the other houses led their first-years out of the Great Hall through the front doors, the Hufflepuff’s prefect, Gabriel Truman, led them through a side door into a servant’s corridor leading to the back of the Great Hall, where the kitchen was located. He led them along the corridor, down one set of stairs, and stopped as they came into a corner leading left, from where they could hear the sounds of cooking. On their right was a nook where huge barrels were stacked.

“To get into Hufflepuff’s Common Room, you have to tap this barrel here five times in to the tune Helga’s painting is humming in the Common Room that day.”

Gabriel states with a smile, as he tapped the barrel two from the bottom, the middle of the second row, with two fast and then three slow taps. Suddenly, the barrel’s lid swings open and Gabriel crawls in.

The first-years looked at each other, not sure if they should follow, but then Almira gives a giggle and crawls in, making the other first-years follow after her.

After crawling through the barrel, they find themselves in a round room, with earthy walls, low-ceiling and small round doors leading to every direction. There are lots of pots filled with plants hanging from the ceiling and, though it’s supposed to be dark outside, sunlight is pouring in from the round windows high on the wall. On the windowsill there’s a masterfully carved wooden badger and below it, hanging on top of a round stonefireplace, is a painting with a humming, plumb woman dressed in yellow dress, with a wide smile on her face. On each side of the fireplace there’s a round door, just big enough to crawl through, and around the room there are overstuffed sofas and armchairs upholstered in yellow and black.

“The tunnel on the right leads to the girl’s rooms, the tunnel on the left to the boy’s rooms. You should all find of your stuff already brought to your rooms, which you’ll recognize from the names on the room’s door.”

Almira dived into the girl’s tunnel, eager to see their room.

There were a few round doors in the tunnel, but Almira waited until she found the one with the four girl’s names on it, and climbed through.

She came into a huge circular room with four four-poster beds in it, with their ends towards the middle of the room. There were no windows, but the room was illuminated by warm copper lamps. On the beds there were patchwork quilts and on the wall there were copper bed-warmers.

On top of one of the beds Almira saw her own suitcase, with Monthy perched on top of it.

“Woah, look at this!”

Almira turned around and saw Susan, Hannah and Megan climb into the room.

“Yeah, if only we didn’t have to crawl in through tunnels to get in here.”

Hannah answers Susan’s surprised yell, that she let out after seeing how awesome their room was.

“But it’s fun! Kinda like a secret base!”

Almira says with a huge smile on her face.

“Well, I guess.”

Susan says, seeing Almira’s excitement on this “secret base” of theirs.

“Um, why is someone’s owl in here? Shouldn’t it be at the owlery?”

Hannah asks when she sees Monthy sitting on top of Almira’s bed.

“That’s Monthy! But I don’t know why he’s in here. He was here when I came in.”

Almira answers happily, but even she’s perplexed why the owl is here underground with them and turns to look at him. Monthy, noticing that all the girls are looking at him, hops of from Almira’s bed, walks in front of Almira and does a deep bow towards her. After this he continues his walking and disappears out of the door the girls left open, closing the door behind him.

The other three turn towards Almira with questioning eyes, but Almira’s not sure what it is that they want to know as she doesn’t see anything out of ordinary in how her owl behaved.

The standoff lasts for a while, but is interrupted as Megan raises her hand and asks:

“Toilet, seen anywhere?”

The other three turn to look at her and realize that they weren’t told where they could find the toilets.

“Didn’t we get a map of the school to find where our classes are held? They should be marked on that right?”

Susan asks and immediately starts looking through her stuff to find the map.

“Here it is! Lets see, toilets, toilets, toilets, there, girl’s lavatory!”

Susan finds the map from her bag and starts looking for the toilets and finds them after some searching.

“Where is it?”

Hannah asks and comes closer to Susan to see the map.

“It’s at the end of the first floor of the castle’s left wing.”

“Eh!? But that’s like miles away!”

Hannah yells after hearing what Susan said.

“Too far.”

Even Megan is shocked at how far she would have to go.

Seeing the other girls troubled faces Almira gets an idea.

“I know, I know!”

The other girls look at her questionably as Almira excitedly takes out her wand.

“Lets see, crour- no, scourgify!”

Almira chants the incantation of the cleaning charm and waves her wand at Megan.

“Mira! You can’t just cast spells on others without saying anything!”

Susan yells angrily as Almira cast the spell on Megan without explaining what she’s doing.

“I know, sorry. But Megan, did it work?”

Almira apologizes as she knows she should have said something, but then turns to Megan to ask if the spell worked how she hoped. Megan is not sure at first what Almira wants to know, but then answers:

“Don’t need to go?”

Susan and Hannah are puzzled at first, but then realization hits them.

“What, really!?”

Hannah yells.

“Mira, what did you do?”

Susan asks Almira.

“I used the cleaning charm to clean Megan.”

She says with a proud smile on her face.

“You have to teach us how to do that!”

“Must.”

Hannah yells and Megan joins her in asking Almira to teach them the cleaning charm.

“Sure, but don’t you want me to first cast it on Susan and Hannah too?”

Almira casts the cleaning charm on Susan, Hannah and herself, making them all feel as if they had just taken a shower, before proceeding to teach the charm to the other girls.