A Quiet Common Room

[skyeshes]

Time: 1:00 a.m

By one in the morning all midnight studiers and tired gossipers had slowly filtered out of the common room. Finally Sky could have it to herself. She loved the way the dying flames of the orange fire danced over the stone walls; the slow, steady breathing of the portraits, or how there was just enough light to read, draw, or write. Well, lets just say that Sky was in love with the night. Well, She thought, if this is all that I have to love, then I might as well make the most of it..

She glanced through the window- at the glow that beamed through the overcast sky, hoping for snow. She leisurely sat down on one of the plump, deep blue couches that sat in front of the fire place. Peering into her book bag she extracted a small black box. She'd been waiting to try these out, and since the clouds shrouded the stars that night, it was the perfect time. Gingerly, she removed the wooden lid. Sprinkles of bright light began to shoot out; soon the domed ceiling of the common room mimicked every celestial body in the sky. She quickly put out what remained of the fire, letting the stars shine to their full ability.

Sky looked up in awe, unable to believe that she had easily snatched this from a junk shop in Diagon Alley. Well, that's magic for you she mused.

[Jasper Swift Kinney]

"looks perfect" Jasper said stepping out of the shadows and looking up. He walked slowly around the room still watching the fake sky. "Interesting magic though I supposed nothing should surprise me in this house." He smiled as he finally found a good place to settle on the floor far from all the tables and sofas. He stretched out on his back, hands over his head

[sing0for0me]

Star made her way from the girls dormitory in her gray pj pants and a t-shirt that had stars all over it with her black slippers. Trying to avoid walking into someone or something she moved slowly downthe hall but being the klutz she was tripped over her own feet and fell flat on her face right when she entered the common room. she muttered "Ow" and stayed like that hearing voices and when she fell she saw a light. Her head really hurt and she scrunched her face up still face laying on the ground on her face.

[Taryn McGadey]

Taryn had been tossing and turning for over an hour. Finally, he stared up at the ceiling in annoyance, sighed heavily and then got out of bed. "Mebe Ah can go daownstairs and read for awhile until Ah get a wee bit tired. There weren't very many people left daown there when Ah came oop here. Naw' tha' it really matters.....so far Ah hardly know anyone....." and with that he grabbed one of his spellbooks and headed down the spiral staircase on the opposite side of the room, careful not to make any noise, lest he disturb one of the other guys.

As he came close to the end of the staircase he heard some voices. "Ach, there's still people daown here!" With that he turned to go back up, but then he paused. "This may be a good opportunity to meet a few more people. Ah could really use some socializing." He turned back around and walked into the common room.

Taryn was amazed at what he saw. The Common Room was pitch black, save for the ceiling, and a beam of light coming from one side of the room. The ceiling had somehow become a miniature model of the night sky! He figured that the source of the millions of tiny dots was the box with the light. " Wow! Tha's really nifty! Ah'll need ta find meh one of those sometime!" He then proceeded to walk over towards the light, assuming that the person responsible for the stars would be there.

[james3260]

Nick is over in a quiet corner of the room, having finally, he believes, figured out the formula to harden a Muggle item against the Hogwarts magical field, just like Jasper apparently did with his stereo a while back. A few days ago, he'd mailed a package of electronics back to his parents in London, and now he's just received them back by (many, many-)owl mail.

Two nondescript cardboard boxes stamped with the Ministry of Magic logo lie to one side, and Nick is rummaging in his bag for scissors and his screwdriver. With a triumphant grunt, he extracts them, using the scissor blade to cut away the masking tape.

Apparently his parents hadn't gone low-budget. Inside is a Toshiba Satellite X205 laptop, worth almost five hundred Galleons on the grey market (four hundred and seventy seven Galleons, fourteen Knuts) with accompanying equipment. Along with that are a wireless router, a modem, an odd-looking and tiny satellite dish, and two strange trinkets of a stone-like substance that appear to have standard power and telecom ports carved into them.

In the other box is a stack of CDs, a larger stack of conventional Muggle-style paper, and most importantly a couple of notes from his parents. Apparently this is all on the Ministry budget, since they want to go about adapting specific Muggle hardware to high-magic environments. Nick gets to be the guinea pig.

After a few minutes of quiet fiddling, cables are forming an orderly chaos along Nick's side of the room, the little satellite-dish thing is sitting on the windowsill (to Nick's quiet delight), and the laptop is booting. Apparently this hardening thing does work, but he resolves to run his own manual scan of the computer to make sure the Ministry isn't monitoring him.

Now that that's done, he hops up, props the laptop on one of the boxes (Solidifying it with a muttered 'Duro' first) and stands up to lean against the wall, hands in his pockets. This thing will likely take all night to start working well, but it's a first step ... speaking of which, he should probably keep it in his trunk, because he doubts the staff will take well to having Muggle clutter along one side of the common room.

Only then, deprived of an objective to focus on, does he notice the spectacular false sky, and he lets out a quiet but carrying whistle. "That's rather ... well ... impressive, if you'll forgive my understatement. Do you know what the, er, projector-thingy," he mimes the shape of the box awkwardly, "is? Where it comes from? I'd definitely be interested in finding out."

[amy]

Amy walked into the common room from her most recent night stroll to the owlery. Her brother had sent her a family photo album, and Amy had spent the past two hours flipping through its pages trying to familiarize herself with the dozen of Icefires that she had never gotten a chance to meet. The picture of her parents at their wedding reception was her favorite. But she had needed to get a start on the homework that she was putting off.

She had expected an empty common room, but she was hit by a beautiful star light glow that seemed to be coming from a box that a girl held. There were several people gathered around, admiring it. Not wanting to disturb them, Amy quietly settled in a quiet corner. There was a boy at the table next to her playing with a muggle electronic. Intrigued, she asked, "Is that a laptop? How is it not going haywire here?"