She didn't know what to expect when she walked into the common room that night. The fat lady in the portrait had scolded her for being awake at such an hour, but sleepily let her in once she heard the password.
Stepping through and making her way down a candlelit hall she crumbled the piece of paper containing Gryfindor's password into the back pocket of her jeans. Her heart pounded and she crossed her fingers hoping nobody was in the common room. When she entered the open and spacious area, she only saw a little curly haired first year, sleeping face first in a book. With a sigh of relief she allowed a small smile to creep across her face, her grip on the 10" Cherry Tree, unicorn tail wand slackening just enough to relieve the tension in her arm.
Stealthily, she crept towards a flight of stairs on the left and placed one petite pink-socked foot on the first wooden stair. Her weight made no impact on the maple and she hastily tiptoed up the staircase. When she reached the landing she had to choose which set of widely spiraled staircases she would venture up. Her mind racing as she considered each staircase, light beaming from candles along the walls. Remembering her instructions, she snuck up the middle staircase.
The circling stairs stopped every ten or so steps to offer the climber a room to enter. The directions given to her played over and over in her head while she counted the doors she passed until finally she came to the sixth landing. Hesitantly, she stretched out her hand, placing it on the doorknob as she pressed her body against the wall next to it, as if attempting to become one with the brick wall.
Wrapping each delicately manicured finger around the golden knob, she twisted it until it became unlatched, silently. She slid her socked feet along the wall and into the room, not picking her foot up an inch in the fear of her weight shifting one of the floorboards.
She entered the circular room, seeing red and gold four posted beds set against the walls around the center point of the room which was a four sided fireplace with a flame dimly lighting the room, the smoke rising up the chimney that stretched through the ceiling. With this small amount of light, she was able to find what see came for.
The first bed she went to was of a particular red head. She rolled her eyes at the blood traitor as he mumbled and whispered in a girlish tone through his sleep. Twirling her wand around between her fingers she schemed, eventually grabbing correct grasp of her wand and silently cast a spell at each bed in the room.
Admiring her work, she casually glanced around the room. The bed on her other side was hosting a boy with a head of shaggy black hair. Once her eyes caught the unmistakable glasses on the bedside table she delightfully snatched them and held them tight until the lens began to crumble in her hand. Leaving the mess of glass and metal on the table she glided out the door, placed her wand on the doorknob and whispered one final incantation, this one much more advanced than the others, and fled down the stairs.
She hardly paused at the end of the stairs, only giving herself enough time to check that the common room looked exactly as she had left it. Ina blur of jet-black hair she dashed out the painting hold, caught her breath and whipped out a permanent marker from her pocket. Lightly shaking in her hand she signed the bottom corner of the fat lady's portrait with a lofty sweep and loop and ran off as the fat lady yelled after her.
**I do not own any of the Harry Potter franchise, otherwise I would be writing from a lounge chair in Bermuda instead of my dog-fur covered couch**
