What's at Heart

Nicolas Flamel

The room is stifling warm after the last drafty class they were trapped in. The sturdy, plush chairs and couches caught everyone with a whump of impact, and nobody even almost fell in the fireplace.

They sat up in battle preparation to find themselves in the Gryffindor common room, red carpeting and crackling fireplace relaxing them into the circular space. Harry had landed right in his favorite chair and found himself smiling down at a pile of chocolate frog cards, Dumbledore's on top as if Neville had just given it back to him. There were scraps of homework scattered on all sorts of tables with a few lingering Christmas decorations of holly and thistle wreaths some house-elves had apparently been too cheerfully reluctant to take down with Boxing Day falling behind them.

As was usual now, Harry gave a begrudging smile to see everyone, except Malfoy, coming to circle around him, chairs running out fast of course. Neville opted to sit on the floor rather than cause a fuss before Hermione just duplicated hers and plopped down next to Ron, while Tonks chose to perch on the edge of Remus's rather than drag one over to smash uncomfortably like Sirius's did as he looked around every detail, his nose even twitching.

"Glory, place hasn't changed a bit," he murmured like he now expected to see James come waltzing in complaining of Evans again any moment. It was so vivid in mind, it might even be a real memory...

"I guess you didn't get much of a good look last time you were in here," Ron said as he swiped a frog into his mouth and chewed with relish, as if the detail that occasion had been to practically scare him senseless in his bed was an afterthought.

Hermione hovered with the book in her hands, staring from Sirius's vacant, tired face to Malfoy slamming his fists in slow, but determined precision onto the Fat Lady's portrait. She almost grudgingly admired his determination to keep trying to find a way out of this except the obvious solution as she ran her fingers over the cover and instead edged out of her seat to gently offer, "I'm going to see if at least the dorms are open. We've had a long day, sort of," they all made an eerily similar face. Not one of them could really guess what 'time' it was.

Ron jumped up and followed her up the stairs, almost managing to use the swishing of his school robes to mask the kick he aimed at Neville to come.

He jumped up, but reluctantly hesitated to leave Harry in the company of Malfoy, even with the Auror, teacher, and Sirius Black around.

Harry noticed none of it behind his skew glasses from rubbing at his tired eyes, like the many nightmares plaguing him of his parents vanishing in flashes of green light and that high, cold voice laughing at him in the graveyard once more were all coming back next to the lulling warmth of the fireplace.

Tonks took the hint for Neville and went over to Draco Malfoy, tapping gently at his shoulder.

He startled, but gave her the mildest of scowls he would any of them, if still with an upturned nose for that pink hair his mother would scoff at.

"I'd get comfortable laddie," she told him gently while gesturing at a couch, trying to steer him through gaze alone to the farthest one away. "I think everybody could use some shut eye."

"As if I could catch any sleep with a bunch of mudbloods and monsters in the room," he spat non-to quietly. There was a bang from up the stairs, and Tonks guessed it was more from Ron hitting a door than slamming it shut, judging by the echoing scolding coming down.

He swaggered over at least, as if it were his idea to go to the cold window niche, the cushion hardly large enough for even his thin frame as he tapped the stained glass with his wand for good measure to see if it would open. With no new results, he sat to glowering out it instead on the frosted grounds in disgust of the view, that servants house in the distance, the disturbing, menacing forest filled with more unseemly creatures. Who could ever get comfortable in this smothering, cramped tower?