Friendship is... PV Ravenclaw

Curfew.

He was told that curfew is strictly at 9pm for him.

That's what he remembered at 8pm when he was sitting in the Library, going through notes for his recent classes in the week.

It didn't help he left his Marauder's Map in his bed for safekeeping. Now he was lost.

After taking many wrong turns, and disturbing too many portraits than he was hoping (he was hoping two), he was finally able to reach the door to the Ravenclaw Common Room.

He felt proud looking at the door in front of him. While the others had to remember a password or a pattern, their door was more unique: it asked the person a question to answer before being allowed to enter, which in his opinion felt right for a Ravenclaw.

As he approached the door he realised another person, who appeared to be of his age, to be standing outside the door.

"They might be of another house trying to enter Ravenclaw but wasn't able to answer the riddle.", he thought.

But as he approached the person, he could see the blue on their robes, matching that of a Ravenclaw.

"Strange" Aaron thought.

He approached the person and saw they were highly nervous and scared.

"Hey there! Are you stuck outside by chance?"

he asked, which seemed quite stupid as he could see they were stuck, else they would have entered by now.

"Let me give it a go."

and with that he knocked at the Eagle and heard it speak:

"What is Friendship?"

That was strange. He didn't recall of hearing such a riddle being asked beforehand. Was this even a riddle to start with? Not wanting to waste his one shot to answer he thought he'd get to know what the previous person asked.

"What did you answer? Just so that I don't repeat a wrong one."

he asked.

Credit to Jay Valkyrie

@Saturnalia Sutton-Smith | @Aaron Schwartz

To Aislin's great dismay, there was already coursework to do by the tenth day of the school year. Yes, this was rather central to the entire idea of school, but she detested all the long hours of sitting in one place and reading facts she was half-interested in all the same. With her newly acquired first year roommates, she'd tried to spend the evening studying (certainly not an idea that originated from her). The success of this attempt was gauged best in how, as soon as Saturnalia left with toothbrush and quiet steps, Aislin hopped up and announced she was going to patrol.

(Obviously when she told herself she was going to be more responsible this year to ease her poor mam's worries and live up to the badge she'd been given, using prefect duties to avoid academic duties was not what she had in mind. It was a one-time thing, though. But if she read one more paragraph of her A History of Magic textbook tonight, she might chuck it out one of Booted Eagle's many windows. And then she'd have to march down to ground floor, find it in the dark, and hope for the best with her mending charmwork.)

It felt good, briefly, to be out of Ravenclaw House and in the corridors. There were far fewer people in the halls demonstrating an annoyingly diligent day-ten focus. Aislin was not actually needed on patrol at the moment, so she wandered (truly, the two were not that visually distinguishable for her), tracing her fingers over the stone-bricked walls and staring out each window. She asked a few questions to the passing portraits (the ones not feigning sleep or genuinely snoring) and essentially just did a loop, back at the common room entrance before long.

What she found was the beginnings of a minor pile-up. This happened, from time-to-time, as the eagle knocker pulled some real stumpers out of its brain(?)space. "Hi, Saturnalia," she greeted her bunkmate. The redhead had not talked to her much yet, but Aislin was sure they could get there. She didn't know the boy but assumed it would be rude to ignore him. "Hi, fellow Ravenclaw."

Saturnalia had not been gone very long, so the riddle might not be so horrible, just difficult enough for the time of night. "On a scale from Manticore Glue* to spooked billywigs, how stuck are we?" She could set expectations, then evaluate those expectations when she heard the riddle itself.

Date: September 10th, 2026
Time: Evening
Location: Ravenclaw Common Room Entrance, Hogwarts

Xio was out of breath as she approached the entrance into the Ravenclaw Common Room after climbing what seemed like endless stairs, an experience that she felt she would never quite get used to.

She had spent the day getting completely lost at Hogwarts, poking her head into classes, learning the grounds, and even causing some mischief towards older classmates. But now the fun was over and she looked forward to nothing more than a long bath and watching the ceiling sky change from evening to night in her bunk. But that was quickly seeming more of an effort than necessary as she she saw there was a cluster of students already forming at the door in front of the Eagle statue. Frustration and irritation immediately rose to her surface.

"Ohhh maaan! Is the riddle hard TODAY TOO?! This castle is full of psychological warfare!"

Xio complained loudly as she stepped closer to the crowd, acknowledging @Saturnalia Sutton-Smith, @Aaron Schwartz, and @Aislin Darragh.

"The riddle earlier this week was really annoying too! How was I supposed to know that 'a tree' was the right answer to 'What reaches for the sky but never moves?' That could be literally anything that is TALL. What is your madness today, you sadistic bird!?"

Xio exclaimed as she knocked on the stone in determination.

What is friendship?

Xio stared at the Eagle bird for a uncomfortably long time. It was like a ticking time bomb, it was only a few moments before she threw her arms up and stomped her foot in frustration.

"Are you trying to make me hate every aviary?! That's not even a riddle!"

She complained to the statue while shaking a frustrated fist towards it. She took a look at the students around her, it seemed like everyone was discussing what it could possibly be.

"Do we have any indicator if this bird is just trying to trick us? I am learning to not trust this bird the more I just try and get in..."

OOC Note: Don't mind her energy, she just has trouble directing her mood productively

Date: September 10th, 2026
Time: Evening
Location: Ravenclaw Common Room Entrance, Hogwarts

Xio quickly lost steam as literally trying to 'fight' a stone Eagle statue was taking significantly more effort than she was willing to sacrifice. She leaned over the banister on her stomach which was allowing her to look down at anyone who was either walking up or down the stairs leading to the Ravenclaw Common Room.

"For TOO long..."

She managed to complain finally towards @Marigold Wesley as she let out a frustrated and disgruntled groan. Allowing the pressure from the banister to press the air out from her chest.

"All I wanted to do was get ready for bed...why must our comfort be sacrificed 'in the name of knowledge'?..."

Mindlessly, and quite recklessly, Xio took out her wand and began tapping the banister in a inconsistent rhythm, she needed noise and movement. The pile of stranded students waiting for their stubborn Common Room door to open was making her antsy.

Tap...tap tap...tap tap...tap...tap tap tap...

"Has anyone tried any spells on the thing? The rock bird? Maybe its hexed or some cruel and sick joke..."

Xio suggested as she rolled onto her back, stretching out her arms and pulling the muscles tight until her back made a quiet pop noise. Although satisfied with the relief, she clumsily let her wand slip through her fingers.

Fwhip...tack!.....tack.......tack....
She gasped and watched as it fell only a few steps down and rolled slowly down onto the next step mockingly. Then the next one, and the next one...until Xio grew agitated again and finally but begrudgingly retrieved her wand that was persistent in not letting her actually retrieve it from the stairs.

"'Hold onto your wand carefully, Xio'...'you don't want to drop your wand, Xio'....ugh I hear my older siblings already...how frustrating..."

Xio mocked under her breath in irritation, rolling her eyes, and then shaking her wand like it had cobwebs on it and then sliding it carefully back into her the sleeve of her house robes.

OOC Notes: woot lets break down the door! jk

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WC: 594

Interactions: Open but ideally someone she considers a friend interact or an older student. She's scared and in pain right now.

Date: 10/09/26

Time: Past 8:30pm

OOC Note: Reducio

Mentions: Reducio

Speech: Reducio #6397b0

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Curfew was fast approaching and Fawkes had yet to get to the common room. The girl had been up in the Astronomy tower sketching out star charts for the month and had lost track of time. And now she was running over to the Ravenclaw tower as fast as she could. She nearly tripped numerous times in her half asleep, exhausted state. She had barely slept the last few days. Especially since.... that incident.

When she finally reached the tower, she held onto the wall and caught her breath for a moment before she looked up. What in the world- she blinked owlishly looking at the group of Ravenclaws already standing there. The only ones she recognised were Aislin and Marigold. There was another girl, Xio? she believed was her name? whom Fawkes had met during summer camp. But aside from them she didnt exactly know the others. She presumed they were all first years, besides Aislin obviously.

Y'all aren't able to solve the riddle? She asked her head tilting slightly to the side. She looked towards the knocker and went up to it. Lemme give it a try. Fawkes walked up to it and waited.

What is Friendship?

Oh uh Friendship is a voluntary relationship of mutual affection, trust, and support between people. She replied with a yawn at the end. She really couldn't wait to get to bed at this point. She stepped to the side and waited for the door to open but it didnt. Wha- Hey I know that's right! Open up! She exclaimed, glaring at the knocker. Oh come on! It's curfew soon. Surely you can just let us in- but nope. The door stayed stubbornly closed.

Fawkes was quite frustrated by this point. She was sleep deprived, exhausted and frankly just very cranky at this point. She began to knock on the door in hopes that it would somehow open but it didnt. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. She balled her hand into a fist and aimed it at the knocker. She then punched it at full strength.

There was a sickening sound of bones breaking and Fawkes yelled out in pain. Pulling her fist away from the knocker, there was a large gash where it had made contact with the eagle. She bit down on her trembling lower lip and tears pricked the edge of her eyes. It hurt. It hurt like hell. Her hand was definitely broken. But she wasn't going to give up just yet.

She reached into her robe with that very same hand and pulled out her wand. She pointed it at the door. Vespertilifo- she let out a choked sob and her wand fell out of her hand before she was able to finish the spell. The aspen wood rolled away from her while she crouched down, her left hand covering the broken right in an attempt to try and reduce the pain. She was full on sobbing now. Was it because of the pain in her hand? Was it from the lack of sleep? It was probably a mix of both.

She was 12. Of course a broken hand was going to hurt badly. As much as she tried to stop crying, she just couldn't. There was blood falling onto the floor below her hand now. It had begun to stain her sleeve as well. Where was her wand? Surely there was some spell she knew that would get rid of the pain right? But she couldn't think straight right now. She just remained there, crouched down in pain and crying.

━━━ Prodigal Astronomy Learner | Wandmaker ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Jeremy was absolutely loving his first few weeks of Hogwarts. He’d been the first in his family to end up somewhere besides Slytherin, ending up in Ravenclaw instead (which had taken him away from most of the kids who were bothering him). He was finally getting to do ACTUAL spells and in a house that valued knowledge, and reading, and all that other cool stuff that a lot of wrong people thought was boring.

Ravenclaw house was actually perfect - you couldn’t just walk inside. You had to be clever. It was a foolproof system, that made sure that only Ravenclaws could enter. Jeremy knew that it wasn't nice to act like you were smarter than someone but he DID think it was nice to have a door knocker that made sure you were clever. Of course, Jeremy had usually been getting back to the common room after meals and classes when a whole group of kids were there and he hadn’t had to solve anything himself yet, but he was just waiting for the time when he could.

Today was strange, because today he saw a large grouping of people huddled outside of the door. He'd always imagined there might be a large group of people outside the door - Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Slytherins who just couldn't get in. But this time was much stranger than his imagination, because this time they were all Ravenclaws.

He listened to a few of the wrong answers. The door riddle had really stumped them?

He looked in wide-eyed worry at the hand of @Fawkes Chaos (his first fact-booth customer all the way back in August) after her...unconventional attempt to solve it, and at the sound of her sobs. He didn't know how to help her - he didn't even really know any spells! But he did know what COULD help. They had to get inside, and he was the one to do it.

People sometimes acted like just because he was a first year he was a little kid or something, when he wasn’t at all. Well, if he was a little kid, then tell him this - why did the little kids always have to solve everything?

“Guys, I got this, don’t worry,” Jeremy said, holding out his hands and stepping up confidently. Finally, it was his time to shine.

“It doesn't want a definition. It's a riddle. It's never what you think it's gonna be, or what it sounds like the first time you hear it. You gotta think about it and then flip it around. Okay, so it says 'what's friendship' right? But it doesn't really mean 'friendship' like the word. Think about it. It’s probably something about a real ship. Like you know. A ‘frieeeeeend ship’. (air quotes) "Like a boat. Get it? So maybe a ship of friends, or a ship for friends, or a ship that IS a friend. Or..." Jeremy paused, slapping himself in the forehead. Of course. It was so obvious!

"Ok, think about it. 'What's friend ship'? What's a friend of a ship? Who or What is friends with a boat? It’s gotta be….A SAILOR!” Jeremy said, crossing his arms proudly.

Nothing happened.

Jer squinted.

“Wait no…a dolphin.” But of course you could only guess once.

He'd been wrong? They'd ALL been wrong? How could a whole CORRIDOR full of Ravenclaws be wrong? How many Ravenclaws does it take to open a door? Just one!

“Guys, I think it’s broken.” Jeremy decided.

Date: September 10th, 2026
Time: Evening
Location: Ravenclaw Common Room Entrance, Hogwarts

Xio clapped and laughed at each of @Fawkes Chaos and @Jeremy Slater attempts at the statue's riddles, both attempts ending with the statue blankly staring at both and unmoving. Xio herself had moved to sitting on the banister instead of hanging on it.

"Ooooh those are really clever! We have such talent and creative birds amongst us! Man, this is getting interesting! Who's keeping track?! I want to start making bets on 'how many Ravenclaws does take to open a door?"

She stood on the banister, a precarious thing, but she gained her balance so that she had a better view of the small cluster of students that were gathering at the Ravenclaw entrance.

"Step right up! Who want's to take a chance, come on up, who want's to prove this sick oversized chicken whose boss?!"

Her cheerful voice called that echoed throughout the staircase and reverberated off the stone walls so that it could probably be faintly heard even at the very bottom of the staircase set.

Xio pulled out her sketchpad that she had stored in her uniform sleeve and a quill from the deep inside pocket and started to notate and tally how many attempts there have been so far.

Attempts: |||| ||||

"Step right up folks, don't be scared, c'mon! I want nothing more than for this to be my next favorite riddle! Who dares to take a courageous jab at this wicked pile of feathers!? Truly, this is the new age-old question, its all in the pursuit of knowledge!"

OOC Notes: I hope it doesn't seem like shes bullying anyone, she's just trying to see the light of the situation