Library Lock-In Ravenclaw Closed

Adam grinned as the sounds of his peers outside flooded into the library. The event he'd worked so hard on putting together with Phaedra was finally about to begin, and the thought that this was all because of them made him feel terrifically proud. With final exams in all of their classes just around the corner, Adam and Phae had decided that their event would have to be timed for maximum stress-relief -- and while he knew that some of his peers might have preferred to be huddled up in the corners of their common room with a stack of textbooks and a new quill, this opportunity would be good for all of them. They were eleven, after all, and you couldn't expect eleven-year-olds to work too hard without a break.

The library itself had been the perfect venue. With its tall ceilings and spacious rooms, students could move around freely without fear of knocking something over. The shelves provided excellent cover for games of hide-and-seek or tag, and the little gathering-space that he and his fellow prefect had created in the center of the room would serve as Lock-In HQ for the night. Phaedra had been smart in bringing along a variety of games to play during downtime, and they had both made sure that plenty of snacks would be present for their seemingly insatiable classmates. The moonlight that poured through the library's grand windows would give the entire room a feeling of mystery and awe when it got dark enough outside; in fact, it gave Adam chills just thinking about how exciting the dimmed atmosphere of the room would make their lock-in feel.

There had been some trouble in the process, of course. He and Phaedra had underestimated just how excited his classmates were for the event to begin, and when they'd pinned a sign-up sheet to their common room's bulletin board, the 25 allotted slots had filled within two days. Realizing how difficult it would be to keep control over a group of Ravenclaws that size, they'd had to come up with a solution, fast. That had been sorted out, though, and the two of them had moved on to other problems that had stood in their way. Creating interesting games and challenges was much more difficult than it looked, but with the help of Professors Wright and Yornikovych, the prefects had been able to concoct a suitable list of activities. Finally, there was the issue of obtaining their event space itself. Adam had figured that it would take some work to get the school librarian to allow her room to be requisitioned by a crowd of unmanaged first-years, and though the prefects promised to leave it exactly as they found it -- perhaps even better -- she'd still seemed hesitant. Adam suspected that her eventual agreement was a result of a conversation with Professor Y. He couldn't be sure, of course, but he knew that their Head of House had been in support of their idea, and now it was really happening.

The clock finished its ringing, and Adam braced himself for the tide of students that was sure to overtake him. He smiled back as Phaedra addressed him and watched as she walked for the room's massive doors. 9:30. The time had been chosen deliberately, of course, so that all of the attendees could reach the library without fear of breaking curfew. In hindsight, he wasn't sure why they had been so worried about tardiness at all; every one of their classmates seemed to be outside that door, as punctual as possible, and ready to begin. He couldn't believe that this was finally happening, after all of their preparation.

As the doors flew open, he smiled brightly at the students, filing in with their possessions. Phaedra checked them off as they entered, and once the last students had found their way in, he began his introduction.

"Welcome again, everyone! Hope you're all ready for the night of your lives -- er, your year, anyways! Feel free to put your stuff down and claim a spot in the center of the room! There are snacks and games on the table that we encourage you to make use of, and we have activities planned for you all throughout the night. Phae and I are just getting a few last things ready to start the night off, but for the rest of you, come in and enjoy! You'll have this time to talk with your friends and maybe some people you don't know, and make your spots comfortable for the night. Come up to either of us if you have questions. Thanks, and talk to you soon!"

With that, the night that Phaedra and Adam had worked so hard to put together burst into action. The Library Lock-In had begun.

Valerie had been in the Hogwarts Library enough times to know her way around, of course. As a Ravenclaw spending a lot of time with books seemed to be a requirement, and even thought she didn't have the same love for reading up on all kinds of things as some of her year mates had. She loved history above anything else however and had a certain knowledge in architecture to boot thanks to her aunt Aurore. Therefore she was very familiar with the history section. Suffice to say that with the age of Britain's magical community and of course Hogwarts itself it was one of the biggest sections.

As they had been instructed she was wearing comfortable sweatpants and a dark blue shirt that was too big for her, but which she loved because it was souvenir from Le Mont-Saint-Michel and had the silhouette of the castle printed on the front. She was carrying a blanket her grandma had quilted, her favorite pillow and her travel edition of Taboo under her arms - Valerie didn't know if the other kids would even know or like the game, but her family always had fun playing it.

She listened closely when the prefects welcomed them to the Lock-In and explained a bit about how the night would progress. The snacks looked good, but she'd had dinner late so Valerie wasn't hungry at all. She ventured father into the library instead, looking for a familiar face among the other 24 Ravenclaw students. Some of her dorm mates had also signed up, so she hoped to find one of the other girls.

The old, intricate game of wizarding chess drew her attention. Putting her blanket, pillow and game on a free chair Valerie went to study the old chess pieces, that clearly had seen better days. Wizarding chess fascinated her, but she'd never had a chance to play it before. "Maybe that will change today," she thought while tried to figure out which style the art of the pieces reminded her of.

Feel free to approach Valerie!

After the period's bell rung, Emma sprinted up to the common room, ignored the stammered yells flying at her direction. She could not have been more excited to get to the library lock-in. She grabbed her bag that had already been prepared, for she forgot to take it with her to classes. Inside contained a blue Genie onesie, a two cotton blanket, along with two pillows, and some snacks of her own just in case she didn't like the snacks served. 

As she caught up with the crowd, she heard the library books burst open. Still, out of breath, she pulled herself together whilst panting slightly through her mouth. Emma listened to the perfects lecture the fellow Ravenclaws about the Lock-In. She really didn't know they'd be locked in the library throughout the night, but then again, she didn't really care. As long as Emma could bond with a few people, this wouldn't be a complete waste of time.

After the announcement, Emma went to go scout of available spaces to set of her own little pallet. Hopefully, she'd be the last one to fall asleep. That way, she wouldn't be the one to be the prankster's guinea pig. The snacks inside her bag crunched loudly as she threw her bag down and began to empty the containments on to the floor. There go my Doritos... Emma said picking up the red chips, it was a bad idea to put chips at the bottom of the bag. 

After she had finished her pallet, she looked down at it. It seemed so unprotected, though she knew it would be risky to use enchanted snowballs, but at least she got a corner spot away from the crowds. Maybe Emma would sleep facing the books. Wandering around the library, she picked up a book and started to read, though she just skimmed them for a minute before putting them down. She had a lot of books before she could claim that she had read the whole entire library.

It had been stupid to sign up for the lock-in Carmen thought to her self as she followed the other Ravenclaw first years to the library. She was terrible at talking to other people, it was always unnatural and awkward.
The library was already full of other students when Carmen arrived. She spotted Phaedra at the front of the throng of students explaining the plans for the night. I'll just follow her the whole night and then hopefully no one will approach me. , Carmen thought to herself. She started across the library but before she could make it to Phaedra she was stopped by another Ravenclaw girl.
"Hi, do you..." Surprised and nervous Carmen sped away from the girl without listening to what she was about to say. She looked around for Phaedra but she was nowhere to be seen. The other Ravenclaw prefect Adam was in view but if Carmen followed him around he would probably talk to her or think she's some creepy stalker.
Carmen turned to see the girl that had approached her a few seconds ago walking towards her again. She quickly sat in a near chair facing a girl messing with a pawn on a chessboard.
"Hi." Carmen said nervously.

I hadn’t signed up due to timing issues but Phaedra told me over Discord I could join in!

Jeronimo poked his head in.

“Am... am I in the right place?”

He looked around, seeing a collection of other Ravenclaw students. He shrugged.

“Alright that works.”

Jeronimo walked in, dragging his sleeping bag behind him. He accidentally bumped the bag against a nearby table, knocking some books over. He bent over to pick up some of the books, then knocked some other ones down.

“S-sorry,” he muttered to nobody, really.

He continued to drag the sleeping bag, plopping it down somewhere a little far from the others. Jeronimo looked around and noticed, for the first time, how alone he was. Surrounded by people, sure. But he knew nobody, and everybody else knew somebody.

One way to fix that, he supposed.

Food first.

Jeronimo strolled over to the table of snacks and shrugged.

“I’ll take a cupcake,” he muttered, again to nobody.

Jeronimo considered how crazy he must seem. After all, he was a young boy talking to himself when he was in a social event designed for new people to introduce themselves and get to make friends. He hated this part of new schools. The anxiety of “will they think I’m mad or will they tolerate me”. His mum had told him that feeling went away, eventually. He hoped so.

Swallowing the last bite of the cupcake in hopes that it would free up the choking feeling in his throat (it honestly didn’t), Jeronimo strolled up to a nearby student with feigned confidence. A girl. That didn’t help with the nervousness. She was in the process of skimming through books, wiping what looked like Dorito dust off her fingers. That made sense. Dorito dust never comes off.

“Um, hallo,” Jeronimo said quietly. After all, he was in a library. “I’m Jeronimo Khan. Who are yo- What’s your, uh, what’s your name?”

Ben had been rather antisocial lately and felt he needed to be out more. This lock-in with the Ravenclaw House seemed a good time to not only meet others, but also read some books. A true nerd was still buried inside the Scottish lad who still struggled with his classes. He hated being seen as slow in class, especially wearing the blue of Ravenclaw where people expected better. The kid was smart but he didn't have the wizarding world experience until he showed up at Hogwarts. It took a lot to get him caught up and now with the help of Bloom he was finally feeling like one of the wizard kids rather than a muggle. Nonetheless, he tried to keep the muggle history quiet when around people he did not know well.

"Book of souls, book of... spells," he said to himself going through a shelf. "This will make good reading while I wait."

A thud was louder than he intended as he set the book down on a table. He glanced around with a forced smile before sitting and popping it open to one of the spells he had been learning in class. It was something he often did, read about class spells that is. He needed the extra help and study to make sure he truly could perform the things. His parents would be proud. Perhaps more terrified than proud. He still couldn't bring himself to send an owl home and scare them again.

It wasn't that Ben wanted to be alone, but he preferred to learn rather than play awkward meet and greet. Anyone would be free to join him. The ex-prefect would likely be recognizable to a lot of them. His only worry tonight would be perfecting the next spell and maybe helping his house with a fun event if he really had anything to add.

Tonight was the night of the long-awaited Ravenclaw Lock-in! Evianna was more than excited, rushing immediately to her dorm as soon as the bell rang and hurriedly tossing down her backpack next to her bed. She threw on her snowy owl onesie (it seemed fitting for some reason) and draped her blue blanket around her shoulders. She dumped the contents of her backpack into her trunk and stuffed her school uniform, toiletries, and her little bag of contraband (s'mores makings, a deck of playing cards, and a random assortment of Muggle and wizard candy) into it. Finally ready, she threw the backpack over her shoulders and tucked her pillow and her sleeping bag under her arm. She rushed out of the dormitory and down the stairs, then dashed out of the common room and down three flights of stairs to the library.

She joined the line of Ravenclaws outside the grand library doors. They all shuffled impatiently as the prefect with the sheet of paper began to check people in. Once she was at the front of the line, Evianna gave her name; the prefect nodded, put a tick next to Evianna's name, and waved her into the room. With a grin, Evianna picked a spot near a bookshelf and unrolled her blue sleeping bag. She tossed her blanket over it, then turned to her bag. She pulled out her little bag of sweets and cards and poured the contents across her makeshift bed, then picked up the pack of cards.

Opening it, she brought out the deck, shuffled it, removed the jokers, then began to play solitaire. She had brought them in order to play spoons or go fish or something, but no one seemed to want to talk right now. Typical Ravenclaws, she thought.

This game of solitaire wasn't going anywhere fast, and the whole point of coming to this lock-in was to be social. Evianna gathered up the cards and reshuffled them, then turned to the other Ravenclaws. "Does anyone want to play a card game?" she asked tentatively.

Valerie looked up from the pawn she was holding when she noticed that another girl had taken the seat opposite her. She studied the girl on the other side of the chess board. Unlike many other the other First Years she hadn't seen her before. The girl was very pretty, though, with long blonde hair and eyes of a different color. One was blue and one was green - how fascinating.

"Hey," Valerie echoed the greeting, a smile on her lips at having gotten company. Her companion looked a little shy however and hadn't said anything beside the initial hello. Maybe she was nervous about meeting new people.

Thankfully Valerie was used to seeing now faces and wasn't afraid of strangers at all, which was a habit that had scared her mother a few times when she'd just followed other people on the market when she'd been younger.

"I'm Valerie, nice to meet you," she said. "Your hair is really pretty. What's your name? Do you like chess?"

Maybe she was a little too straight-forward, but Valerie was only elven and didn't really understand how to be gentle with introverted people yet, even when she tried hard. Her good mood and enthusiasm were usually contagious, therefore so far she'd had only few problems when getting to know new people.

Emma looked up from one of the books she was skimming, she heard footsteps coming in her direction, followed by a voice. It was a boy, she hadn't met a lot of boy-friends. Putting the book up back on the shelves, she turned to face him a bit shakily. She wasn't exactly used to people coming up to her, she wasn't used to talking to men.

“Um, hallo,” Jeronimo said quietly. “I’m Jeronimo Khan. Who are yo- What’s your, uh, what’s your name?”

Emma had noticed that he had restrained himself from saying a phrase that might offend her, but not exactly, it didn't really offend her, mostly because she tried to stay polite. It was funny how many times she went over in her head saying that phrase, and every time it came out a bit rude. She noticed him studdering but lacked the confidence to ask why. That was it, maybe he just lacked confidence, a bit like herself.

Still, the brunette held out a hand for him to shake it, baring a small smile, "I'm Emma." She paused trying to imagine if it was okay to say her last name. It seemed so formal, but still, the boy named Jeronimo said his last name. "Hill," she finished.

She figured now would be a good time to start up a conversation before he found her a bore. Nothing about Quidditch, something told her that wouldn't be a good topic. Maybe about the Lock-In? "What do you think the first task will be?" She asked him curiously, she had no idea what to prepare for. They certainly couldn't duel in the library, could they?