After dinner, the eight years were slowly walking back to the room, feeling drowsy after their big meal.
"You know, Neville, I never thought you would be the one trusted with the password." Harry said, as Neville pushed open the door.
"Times change." said Neville, smiling. He stopped, staring at something in the room. Harry peered round his shoulder. Four of the ugliest, dirtiest trolls Harry had ever seen were sat in the middle of the room near to the statue, shouting about something.
"Naw, I Grifdor!" One of them was saying, spit trailing out of its mouth.
"You S…S…S… the S one!" another said, grabbing his huge club, which was just a tree trunk sawed into a vague stick shape.
"Oi, jus go and get a hole, boys!" growled the burliest troll. The others tramped off, and the big one took the remaining hole, which happened to be Gryfindor. Neville was dumbstruck.
"W…Who are you?" he said, taken aback.
"Fletchers emergency security trolls. Guarantied one hour delivery time. Affordable rates." the big troll recited.
"Fletcher?" said Harry, "Mundungus Fletcher?"
"Dunno the details." said the troll, looking worried. "Jus doin me job."
"The schools must be pretty desperate, buying from Mundungus." Harry muttered to Ron.
"The sooner they get portraits the better." said Ron, eyeing a troll rhythmically banging a huge stick on the ground.
A determined expression on his face, Neville started to enter the common room.
"Oi!" said the Gryfindor troll. "Was the password?"
"Tantacular." Said Neville.
The troll shoved his face up to Nevilles.
"You sure about dat?"
"Y…Yes." Neville said.
Without a word, the troll slumped to the floor. Cautiously, Neville stepped past him and climbed into the Common Room. Harry approached the common room, expecting the troll to ask for the password, but it didn't move. He climbed after Neville, hearing more people moving behind him.
The common room was just like the old one, except the armchairs seemed a little bigger and plusher than he remembered. He grinned at Neville.
"This is great!"
Neville slumped into chair.
"Yeah." He said. Harry took his favourite place by the fire, and watched the other Gryfindors filling into the room.
"Even with everyone in here, it's not that full." mused Harry.
"Well, there's only two years, isn't there?" Neville said. Harry slumped further into his chair.
"Ugh, we've got to get up early tomorrow." he said.
"Why? Oh yeah, that goblin." said Neville. "I'm not too bothered to be honest."
Ron pushed his way towards them.
"Listen, first chance we get, let's go down and help Hagrid. I'm not gonna work like a muggle!" Ron said.
"Good idea." Harry said, thinking seeing Hagrid would be a good alternative to scrubbing stained corridors.
"You can't, Ron prefects are supposed to supervise the building." Neville said.
"What?" Ron shouted, collapsing into a seat. "That's just unfair! Hey," he said, twisting round to watch Neville. "Why don't we swap? You can be prefect!"
Neville started.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course." said Ron.
"Okay. I'll do it!" said Neville happily.
"Yes!" said Ron. "Cheers Neville."
He yawned. "I'm off to bed.
"Me too." Harry said, and followed Ron up to the dormitory. "Night." he called to Neville, who was still grinning about his promotion to prefect. Neville nodded at him.
Harry climbed the stairs and looked at his new dormitory.
"Is it just me," said Ron, "or have the beds got bigger?"
Harry studied the beds. They were larger, and it looked like they had more pillows and padding as well.
"They are!" Harry laughed, and went over to his trunk to start unpacking.
"Jesus. We already have four posters, and someone thinks we need bigger ones." said Ron, sitting on his enlarged bed.
"That would be me." said Seamus, coming up the stairs and grinning as he saw the huge beds. "I actually imagined these massive thirty foot ones, but it looks like you guys balanced it out."
Ron grinned
"You idiot, Seamus!" he said.
"Hey, it worked! It was a great idea."
Ron surveyed his new bed.
"You know, I might agree with you there." he said, and lay down.
"Where's Dean?" Harry said, getting his night things out of the trunk.
"Just talking to some people in the corridors," Seamus said. "I'm tired as hell so I came up here to get some sleep."
Harry clambered into bed in his pyjamas, finding it a lot plusher then he was used to.
"Cheers for the bed Seamus." Harry said.
"It's fine, it's fine, no need to thank me." said Seamus, taking a mock bow.
"Turn the light off." muttered Ron sleepily. Seamus obliged and they were plunged into darkness. It didn't take long for Harry, stuffed with food and tired out form the events of the day, to drop off to sleep, thinking about trolls and goblins and Dumbledore's portrait.
Harry woke to find light streaming in through the window. He put on his glasses and went over t look out on the view… the same view that was in their old dormitory!
"Oi, Ron, you've got to see this." he said, shaking Ron.
"Whaisit?" he mumbled.
"We've got exactly the same view as our old room." Harry said.
"Huh?" Ron said.
"Look out of the window!" said Harry, getting impatient. Ron stretched, and shuffled over to the glass.
"I don't see what's so…this is the same view as our old room!" he said suddenly.
"Cool, isn't it?" Harry said, smiling.
"This room can do anything!" Ron said, "Whoever charmed it must have known their stuff."
"Come on, we've got an early start today." Harry said.
"Huh. I'm going to Hagrid's anyway, what use are building lessons?"
"Everyone has to do it, Ron." Harry reminded him.
"I know, I know. Let's get down to breakfast." Ron said, resigned to his fate.
They walked out of the common room and into the Room's entrance hall. A security troll jerked awake as they passed and asked for the password.
"But we're going out. " said Ron. The troll raised its club menacingly.
"Tantacular." Harry said, quickly. The troll backed off.
"Honestly." said Ron. They continued towards the great hall, abusing Mundungus and his trolls as they went.
They walked through the huge doors into the already bustling hall. It looked like plenty of people had got up early like them.
Ron sat down and grabbed a piece of toast. Harry wondered weather he would get any post as he pulled up a chair.
"Hey, Ron, now we don't get the prophet, do you think we should order it? Find out what's going on in the world?"
Ron looked confused.
"Why?"
Harry shrugged. "I was used to getting it, I suppose."
"There's no point. Hermione will have it ordered already."
"Of course." Harry had forgotten about Hermione.
"When's she coming back?" he said.
"Tomorrow." moaned Ron, like he wished he could say today.
Harry smiled.
"Must be pretty annoying, when you just start going out with someone, they go on a huge holiday." He said.
"Too right." Ron said, head in hands. An owl swooped down and landed in front of Ron. Harry looked at the tiny owl, hopping about in pleasure at delivering a letter. It was Pig. He was reminded with a pang of Hedwig, but forced the thought out of his head.
"Oi, Ron, you've got mail."
Harry tapped Ron's prone form.
"Uh…" he said, looking up, "Oh, Pig."
Ron took the parcel attached to pigs leg and let Pig help himself to Ron's toast.
Ron slipped open the letter. It was a newspaper clipping, and a note. Ron peered at the note.
"It's from mum!" he said, passing Harry the note and grabbing the cut out. Harry looked at the note.
'Dear Ron' It read 'I hope you're finding your stay at Hogwarts all right. I thought you might like to read this, it's from yesterday's prophet.' Harry peered over Ron's shoulder at the cut out. Noticing Harry's gaze, Ron moved the paper in between them so they could both read it.
Ministry Dodges Cauldron Crash!
Was the headline. Intrigued, Harry read on.
The ministry for Magic yesterday defied the world cauldron market in an amazing move. Just before yesterdays cauldron meltdown, the ministry sold off all of its cauldron stocks. It is now buying them up again at a cheap price.
Some experts have been predicting a crash for months, but one man found conclusive evidence and timed it perfectly: Percy Weasly, junior secretary to Elena Hogekins, head of the department of international wizarding co-operation. Mr Weasly only recently arrived at this post in the Shaklebolt reshuffle.
We spoke to Mr Weasly yesterday shortly after the ministry's revelation that they had sold off all their cauldron stock before the cauldron crush.
"As I had already done work in this area, I was familiar with the market, and I saw at once that the Romanian potions trade was about to collapse. I simply gathered information and explained it to the trade minister."
But how did he work out the exact time of the crash?
"To get the time, I used Gauguin's economic neutrality principle to…"
Harry stopped reading and looked up at Ron, wide eyed. Ron smiled awkwardly.
"Well…Perce is making a big impact, isn't he?"
Harry nodded, still dumbstruck by the article.
"I never realised he was that good." Harry said.
"Well, he was head boy. I think he got all outsandings on his NEWTs. He was just too stuck on promotion, wasn't he? First he sucks up to a death eater boss, then he takes the undersecretary jog without thinking about why he was chosen. Now his head's deflated a bit, I suppose he'll rise to the top." Ron said, glumly. "Wish I could get all outstandings." Ron added, a wistful expression on his face.
"I wonder when Percy'll go back to the burrow?" Harry said, thinking back to the holidays when Percy had knocked on the burrow door… Percy had already sent a letter to say he and George were going to stay at shell cottage, saying they both needed time to think. So it was a surprise to see him walking through the tiny garden, a nervous expression on his face.
Mr Weasley answered the door. (A/N: only just realised how Weasley's spelt. My bad.)
"P…Percy?" he said, dumbstruck.
Percy bit his lip.
"Hi…dad." He said, and they embraced. After a while they broke apart, and Mr Weasley, still looking awed, said,
"What brings you here, Perce?"
"Well, I just came, to… say sorry." He said, "To all of you." he added, looking at Harry, Ron and Ginny, who were stood in the hall, not saying anything.
"Where's M…Mum?" Percy said.
"She's in the kitchen." Mr Weasley said, scratching his head and looking Percy up and down.
"I'll go." said Ron, at once. He practically ran off to the kitchen. A few seconds late there was a shriek, and Mrs Weasley burst into the room. She slowed down.
"Perce?" she whispered.
"Mum…" he said, "I just came to say… I'm sorry. Really I am."
She ran up and hugged him, tears streaming down her face, and he began to cry too.
"It's been so long…" she blubbed.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry!" Percy said, sobbing too now. Harry slipped away at this point, and left the Weasleys to it. Late they sat down and talked over a meal.
"Me and George are still at Bill and Fleur's cottage," Percy was saying, "We just need to get our heads together, you know?"
"How is George?" said Mr Weasley. They had barely seen George since the fall, and the times he had visited he was pale and stony.
"Still bad." Percy said. "Fred dieing, well, it just totally crushed him. He's letting David Jones run the Wizarding Wheezes now, he's an okay guy, but he lacks that spark, you know?"
Percy gulped, as though deciding something. "Why don't you come and visit us. You know, see Bill and fleur and little Teddy?"
"That'd be wonderful, Perce." Mrs Weasley said, eyes red and puffy from crying.
After more hugs and a few drinks, Percy disappeared into the night…but then something happened to drag Harry back to the present.
"Hey!" he said, "Hey Ron!"
Ron was studying the article as thought checking it was real. "There's something you should see." Harry said.
"What?" Ron said, turning. And then he saw her.
She looked drowsy with jetlag, and was perhaps a little bit more tanned than usual, but she still had the same bushy brown hair.
It was Hermione.