The common room isn't as trashed as the rest of Hogwarts, but you can tell that no one has been here for a while. It's surprising how much a place can change in a year. Dust covers most of the furniture, and cobwebs coat some of the furniture. The old scarlet decorations and furniture are the same as always but they appear to be filthy. The stairs leading up to the dormitories are cold and dirty. The place smells musty.

I climb the stone stairs and enter the girl's dormitory. I find my bed. The red and white blankets and sheets seem a little dirty, but not that dirty. I open the old wooden chest at the foot of the bedpost. Inside are all my things. A locket from my father with a picture of him and I in it, a potion brewing kit, stacks of unused parchment, my quill, ten bottles of fine ink and three books. One book is called the tales of beedle the bard, which is a book of children's stories that my father used to read me when I was a child. The other two are about potion making. One is called advanced potion making. I know that there was a copy of it in the restricted section of the library. If you got one of these potions wrong the effects would be disasterious. I wear the locket, but stuff everything else into my knapsack.

I exit the room. "Got everything?" Asks Hermione. "Everything." I mutter. The Gryffindor common room is the one thing special to Gryffindor that wasn't destroyed by the death eaters, so we cover it up with the remains of the broken picture frame, canvas and glass, that used to be a part of the portrait that concealed the common room. I want the common room to be protected forever, because it is one of the only things to prove that our house Gryffindor, ever existed.