Yes, the Slytherin prefects! "I'm Timothy Way, this is Euphemia Prewett, welcome to the House of Salazar Slytherin! You're going to follow us downstairs." He gives Zachariah a hug. He points them down the stairs.

Down into the dungeons the Slytherins go.

And here they are. There is a passphrase, it is 'astra inclinant', don't share it but there are also other protections against students entering the wrong common rooms. There is a common room. It is lovely and spacious and ancient but not quite crumbling. 

"Alright," Euphemia says, "now you can introduce yourselves properly - who you are, who your parents are -"

"What you see yourself doing in ten years, and in a hundred," he adds -

And when the round of introductions gets to Miranda she says, "I'm Miranda Swan - Miranda is my middle name, please don't even try to pronounce my first name - and my mum's name is Nnenne and she teaches primary school in London. I'm looking forward to Charms and interested in politics but I'm not sure yet what the next century will wind up presenting as the best opportunities to use that."

"What about your dad?" asks the Malfoy girl next to her.

"My parents are divorced," says Miranda firmly.

And when all of the children have participated Euphemia Prewett confirms that she is the daughter of Delphia Gamp and Edson Prewett and the granddaughter of Erasmus Prewett and she plans to own a Quidditch team and expand her family estate -

"And my father is Finis Way and my mother is Nell Avery, Larkin Avery's daughter, and I should like to be Minister of Magic and then of the whole world but I can't guess whether I'll be able to do it inside a century. Welcome to Slytherin! You are probably simultaneously exhausted and bursting with questions; let's answer a few and then save the rest for tomorrow."

Miranda does not have any questions that seem pressing to address right now (she's assuming it will be fairly obvious, or told as a matter of course, where they're sleeping). The Gamp girl wants to know if they get assigned their own house-elves or if they're communal and if the latter are they on a neither-seen-nor-heard protocol? A boy wants to know what time breakfast is and where they get their class schedules.

They get their schedules tomorrow morning at breakfast, which is at eight, the prefects will be here to escort them to breakfast if needed; the house-elves are communal and on a neither-seen-nor-heard protocol but if she requires something of them she can have a message sent. Rooms are down this hallway for the girls and this hallway for the boys, don't try to enter the other one.

The Malfoy girl wants to know what happens if somebody tries.

She will find that the door opens on somewhere else in the castle, where seems to be random but possibly gets more and more inconvenient if you try it a lot. 

Miranda giggles. Oh, she does have a question after all, how can she find the Owlery to put her owl away tomorrow morning?

"Tomorrow's a Monday so probably leave the Great Hall through the leftmost door, go up every flight of stairs you see for a while, then when you're on a floor that has faded wood flooring - should be five flights of stairs but could easily be seven - head north."

...Miranda writes that down.

And bedtime!

Bedtime! Miranda gets the bed second farthest from the door, between Madeline Malfoy and Hester Gaunt. Philomena Prewett and Rhea Gamp fill out the room.

In the morning she gets up promptly and goes to put Amber in the Owlery and then makes her way down to breakfast. She has to ask directions from a portrait on her way back but she makes it in plenty of time to eat.

And they get class schedules! First thing Monday mornings is Charms with the Ravenclaws.

Yay Charms! ...Where's Charms?

Charms is hard to find, even with prefects and portraits. There is a hallway here, see, and the first time you reach it you should go straight, and then soon you'll find yourself there again and this time you should go left, and then there might be a staircase but if it's hiding you can usually draw it out by oinking like a pig and at the top of the stairs turn around and go back down them and you'll be at Charms.

.......okay. Fifteen minutes between classes is looking kind of optimistic here. But to Charms she goes. She sits next to a Ravenclaw girl who has gotten there early.

He doesn't get there early, because he's convinced several of his new classmates to help him determine what happens if for one person it's their first time down the hallway and for another person it's their second time down the hallway.

He does get there pretty much on time, despite the fact that the answer is 'it takes you off some third place'.

"Hi Way," says his housemate over her shoulder.

"Dwimmer! Wonder what counts as having gone through it twice," he says, "in the last few minutes? The last day? Does it count if you don't remember it? Is there some place at Hogwarts that is amazing but that you can only go to once because it's through some hallway that ever after sends you elsewhere?

Swan," he adds as an afterthought, recognizing Miranda.

"Hi. You were playing with the trick hallway? What'd you find?"

"I was curious what happened if two people walked through it together and for one it was their first time walking through it and for the other it was their second."

"And what happened?"

"Takes you to the Astronomy tower."