⊶ Maps of Ancient Treasures ⊷ PV

@Airlia Winter

After a long day of focusing on the straining subject of transfiguration, River decided it was time to head for a walk. Her lungs ached, and craved to breathe different air than what was in the Ravenclaw common room. Her destination was not entirely clear, she just needed a break from the books, and a walk seemed fitting, as the corridors were not all that crowded on this hour.
As she rose from her chair, the little owl fluttered over and landed carefully on her shoulder. River sent him a smile, as she began heading out to the staircases of the Hogwarts castle. The faint sound of conversation between students echoed through the corridors as she walked on.

The Ravenclaw had reached the second floor, when the sound of her light footsteps on the stone floors stopped abruptly. "Hoot, get back here!", she hissed, as she noticed the little owl had left her side and glided into one of the nearby rooms. The door was ajar, and she knew which room her companion had entered.
River had grown used to her owl wanting to stretch his wings, and flutter off all of a sudden, he'd always come flying back, but she didn't like the abandoned toilets. One never knew what could go down in there. Her small feet carefully made their way over to the slightly open door. She pushed it open, without touching the handle, and peaked inside. It was dark, her eyes could barely make out the outline of the stalls. She searched for a light switch, and as her small hand found one, she pushed it and the room lit up. It wasn't any less creepy with the lights on though.

The first thing her eyes jumped to when the lights flickered, was a little familiar bird perched up atop the open door of the nearest stall. She walked closer, "Hoot, you get down from there this instant", she commanded, "This place is super gross, you don't know what...", her voice slowly trailed off as her attention was caught by something in the corner of her vision.
Sticking out, from beneath a loose tile on the wall, was a tiny piece of parchment. She walked over and hesitantly gripped the paper between her fingers, and began to bring it out of it's little slot. As she pulled, she noticed that the parchment wasn't so tiny after all. When the parchment had fully left its placement, River unfolded it, curious to see what she'd find written on the paper.
Her eyebrows furrowed as she could see what the paper showed. It was a map. Finding weird things in this place isn't exactly... well weird.

Before River had managed to investigate the map any further, a voice piped up from the doorway. Someone had entered the room, and River spun around to see who it was.
The one walking towards her was a girl, small, with long, fair hair that waved down her frame. Her skin was pale and fair too, kind of like River's, but not exactly the same.
As she approached she spoke again. Her name was Airlia, from the Hufflepuff house. River could swear she'd seen her around before.
"Oh, yeah sure", River answered, as she realized Airlia ask to see the parchment of which she was holding in her frail hands. She turned it around for the girl to see.
"Wow! A treasure map. Where did you find that?", she asked as her eyes had scanned the paper. "Oh, ehm I found it over there, in the wall", River answered, and pointed towards the broken tile of the bathroom wall. She wasn't sure if this was something she'd like to investigate.
Going out on some adventure had never been her idea of fun. Still, her curiosity kept nipping her in the back of the head, like a knat. "So, what do you think we'll find if we chose to follow the map?", she asked as she pushed a curl of red hair out of her grey eyes. She leaned down and looked more closely to the map. There was something strange about it. She couldn't understand what it said, it was foreign to the Ravenclaw. "And who in the world made it?", she looked confused. "I've never seen a language like this before", one could nearly hear the cogwheels of her brain whirr as they tried to think of a time when she could have perhaps come across something like this before... But nothing.

River squinted her eyes down at the fragile paper in her had. The language was so strange, it told her nothing whatsoever. Not that it should have, as she’d never been too interested in learning new languages. She was competent in a couple, and she felt very satisfied with them.“I mean who knows…” she said, and sighed in a disappointed manner. “Perhaps someone’s just messing around”, the redhead added, as she furrowed her brows and flipped the map upside down. “For all we know, this isn’t even a real language, or a real treasure for that matter…”. Airlia said she didn’t know of this language either.
River felt a little frustrated. Even just knowing which language this was would have helped immensely, but it was very much foreign.
River was sure that with enough time and research, she’d be able to find out if this really was a used language, and which language I would have been. She was good with her research, and loved delving deep into some unknown subject that interested her. And this one did. Only issue is that she knew she wouldn’t have time for all of that, as homework was crazy enough these days. And on the other hand, River wasn’t planning on wasting her precious study-time on some treasure map that might just be some student messing about.

River heard the girls voice speak up again, she definitely sounded excited about their discovery. She’s right about that, treasure maps usually do lead to some sort of treasure…, River though, and looked up at the girl. She pointed to the map, and River’s eyes closely followed. Sure enough, it did refer to Hogwarts, looking at the structure there was no doubt about that.
River out her hand to give the map to Airlia. She had something against the thought of germs, and holding this map was beginning to make her want to wash her hands. Before the girl had managed to take it, a familiar sound came from the stall door of which Hoot was comfortably perched upon.
“Oh, Hoot, get down here”, River called out for him as the hufflepuff turned around to see what had caused the sound. The little big-eyed owl did a little hop to the edge of the door, and in a swift motion swooped down to land on rivers narrow shoulders. “This is Sir Little-Hoot”, River said, “He usually goes by Hoot though” she added. The red owl puffed up his chest a little and looked at the girl in front of him. “Oh right, sorry”, the redhead remembered, and stretched her empty hand out, “I’m River by the way, River Dewlight, ravenclaw”. She smiled politely to Airlia.

As she retracted her outstretched hand, she gave the map to Airlia, and nodded carefully. “So, if we’re going to try to figure this thing out…”, she started as she felt a twinge of excitement begin to stir in her tummy, “Where do you think we should begin?”, and she looked down onto the yellow parchment once more, hoping to find any clue of where to look for a beginning of their new upcoming adventure.