A Muggle Life

Harry collapsed onto one of the infirmary's soft beds and stared at the ceiling. What

was he supposed to do now? Wait till Voldemort returned and tired to kill him once again.

There's no way to be proactive in the whole mess, continue as normal seems the only

solution thought Harry.

"Penny for your thoughts." said Cho who was on a bed on the other side of the

room.

"Pretty steep if you ask me." said Harry. "Say isn't that a Muggle expression"

"I'm not pureblood. Mom's a Muggle." said Cho.

"Do you ever wish you had a normal, dull, Muggle life?" he said.

"No, wouldn't miss falling to my death with you three times for all the useless

Muggle pennies in all of Britain." said Cho.

"I guess we have to play another Quiditch match huh?" said Harry.

"Yup, only this time it won't be a tie." grinned Cho.

"Congratulating my already?" said Harry.

"Shut-up unless you want a second funeral, tonight." said Cho.

"G'Night." said Harry.

"Good night." said Cho.

After some tossing and turning, Harry finally fell into a deep, thankfully dreamless,

sleep.

Harry woke up early, well rested, and bored. Harry remembered Dumbledore

telling him not to leave the hospital wing until they had talked, so Harry began to pace back

and forth down the aisle. Cho was still asleep, using a rare opportunity to sleep in. Harry

looked out the window at the flat lake. A ripple spread from the middle as something large

past underneath the dark waves. The large squid was patrolling its property. Finally, fed up

with waiting, Harry pulled some parchment out from a desk and wrote a note to

Dumbledore explaining that he had returned to Gryfindor's Common room and that Harry

would be glad to talk to Dumbledore after breakfast. Leavening the note on his bed, Harry

quietly slipped out of the room and shut the door.

When he made it two the portrait of the old lady he realized that he didn't have the

password wich was replaced the Monday of each week. The old lady was sleeping so

Harry took a seat on the top stair leading to the door and waited for someone to open it.

Harry idly traced the seams of the stone floor, scraping dirt from the cracks. When he

finished one stone, he began on the next. On the thrid stone, Harry noticed that the gap

filled with dirt was significantly bigger. Using his fingers, Harry scraped out as much

dirt as possible, but still the small gully on all sides of the rocks had dirt deeper down. If

only I had my wand, thought Harry realizing it was still in his dorm. Concentrating,

Harry began to feel about his mind for the place where magic began. A long moment

passed and Harry shut his eyes in silent effort. Slowly the stone began to lift out. Harry

opened his eyes and guided the stone down to the floor beside its empty socket. Looking

down into the dark hole, Harry cautiously reached his hand down and felt nothing.

Throwing any sense of caution to the wind, Harry shoved his entire arm into the dark crevice.

He could feel the sides of the pit but not the bottom. Harry heard sounds from inside the

common room and quickly replaced the stone, intending to explore later when he had his

wand.

The old lady got up and appeared to face the opposite direction and talked to

someone Harry couldn't see or hear. The curtain parted and a shocked Hermione dropped

her armload of books.

"Harry!" she yelled hugging him.

"Hermione! Off to the library already? It's Saturday lighted up."

"I'm so glad your ok!" she blurted.

"Yeah, me too, well what's the password to this damn thing anyway?" said Harry

"The boy lived again." smiled Hermione.

They walked back into the common room and sat down in the comfy chairs.

Hearing the commotion and Harry's name the rest of Gryfindor was soon up and

congratulating Harry on surviving. Everyone wanted to know what happed but Harry

wouldn't tell them because he hadn't talked to Dumbledore yet.