Stay grounded PV Rebecca Lark Finished

⋄ December 15th, 2023 | Grounds ⋄
⋄ Interactions: @Finnegan Conner | Mentions: None ⋄

𝓣here was a very evil advent calendar that had made a home for itself in Bex's brain, steadily and incessantly counting down the days until their classes paused and winter holidays began. Normally the arrival of the holidays was a godsend to a cooped up 11 year old, but there was little Bex would be unwilling to give at the moment for just a little more time.

8 days just wasn't enough time to turn a P in Transfiguration into an E, or even an A, especially with how precariously close to a T that P was currently teetering. Logically she understood that the math was just not on her side with this one, but Bex, sad little perfectionist that she was, just genuinely didn't know how to stop. She had already given her blood, sweat, and tears, and, left with little else, had resorted to giving her sleep, too.

She'd never had particularly healthy sleeping habits to begin with and had a nasty habit of staying up far later than she should for the time she'd need to get up in the morning. The sense of dread that had been mounting inside of her these past few months had only exacerbated the problem, as she threw herself into as many hobbies as she could in order to avoid her failures when it came to her schoolwork, which left her with less time to sleep when she inevitably panicked and returned to cramming for her classes, which in turn sent her straight back into the loving arms of whatever new distraction she could find when it all began to crumble around her again.

It was a vicious cycle in her brain that reminded her of a particularly clownish game of ping-pong, bouncing back and forth between the two extremes like she didn't already know how the match was going to end.

She was currently in the sleepless-study portion of the Bex-cycle, and it was taking its toll on her. She'd fallen asleep in Charms this morning, but had thankfully been shaken awake by one of her mercifully charitable housemates. She should have probably just gone straight back to her dorms after classes had ended and gotten some sleep, but there was no time. Every day she fell further and further behind.

She didn't remember falling asleep, but she must of, as before she knew it she was heaved ingloriously back into consciousness as something lightly smacked her in the back of her head. At the call of "Wake up Miss Lark." she shot right up to attention, almost falling out of her seat in her haste. Had she fallen asleep in class again?

She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and attempted to claw her way back into coherency as the voice next to her kept speaking. "The library is not for sleeping. Perhaps you'll find scouring the abandoned toilets for a week more stimulating?"

The voice then revealed itself to be a mischievous Gryffindor lifeguard, who plopped down into the seat next to her before poking her playfully with his potions book. Oh, I'm in the library.

"Finnegan?" She asked blearily, "What are you doing here?" Was he a library aid? Was sleeping against the rules of the library???

She certainly hoped not. Finnegan had seemed nice enough at the swimming lessons, and she'd hate to have made his potential library aide job harder.

"You look like you're dying in here, or sleeping. Either way I doubt the librarian will approve. I'm going to escape this prison, go outside, be free! You should come along, unless you want to be miserable and dull of course."

"Maybe I do want to be miserable. And dull." She replied, watching as he got up from the table. She couldn't help but glance down at the book she'd fallen asleep in. No amount of studying had ever gotten her anywhere when it came to practical casting. She could memorize the theory, write the essays, and answer the questions, but she couldn't actually cast the spells. Not without her life on the line, anyway, and that wasn't typically something her Professors could recreate in a classroom setting.

She was just wasting her time no matter what she did. But is this how she wanted to waste it? If she was going to be a failure no matter what she did, she could at the very least go and be a failure outside. Mind made up, she shoved her textbooks into her messy, overflowing bag before standing up to follow after the Gryffindor boy.

"No, never mind, wait up. I'm coming with you."

F I N N E G A Nx⳧xC O N N O R

☙ Stay grounded, 15th of December 2023 ❧

So she had indeed been sleeping. How disgraceful, though perhaps Ravenclaws were rather used to sleeping with their books.

He crossed his arms over his chest and did his best impression of a disappointed Professor, a look he had much experience observing. "I'm watering the plants, duh, what's it look like?" he said in a hushed voice. "Actually I was withering away, nodding off, getting a headache, in short: reading." His expression softened into a flickering smile upon noticing her overflowing, messy schoolbag which wasn't too dissimilar from his own.

Laser-like beams shooting from the librarian assistant's eyes burned into his back, dripping with disapproval, pushing him forward. Not half an hour ago he had come sauntering in, sighing and slouching like a petulant toddler, and now he was leaving without ever having turned a page. Whatever. He hadn't broken any rules and so the librarian assistant was powerless to give him any grief.

"You made the right choice," Finnegan piped up when they'd left the cloying confines of the library behind. "This way," he motioned with his head, "It's a shortcut, there's a door there pretending to be a wall, but if you tickle the hinges...". He had only recently come into the possession of a rather useful map, but young whippersnapper Rebecca needn't know that. For the time being he rather preferred looking smart, as though he had figured out the Ticklish Doorway all by himself. "Do you have a quill on you? Best get it out now, we'll want to be quick when we get there, avoid prying eyes and all that."

He needn't have worried. The hallways were as good as empty since most of the student body had either already finished their final assignments or was currently holed up in the library working desperately to get them done. He lead her down a flight of broad, flagstone stairs, past a large tapestry of a dragon chewing on a knight and down another set of corridors. The air was filled with the subtle scent of evergreen and the soft shimmer of gold and silver decorations floating gently overhead. Frost had clawed its way up the tall, arched windows and some of the sets of armor wore festive hats and scarves in anticipation of Christmas.

Finnegan stopped suddenly at the end of a narrow hallway. "Right here.". There didn't seem to be anything there, just a plain, stone wall that needed dusting off. "Quill please," Finnegan said, holding out one hand, expecting the item to be delivered promptly to it. In case she didn't hand hers over, he would grumble something under his breath and fetch his own.

Either way, he'd wave for her to step closer and pointed to a few spots where the mortar seemed to be missing. "Watch closely, you've got to find the right spot or it'll kick you in the gut." Slowly, cautiously, he pushed the feathery end of the quill between the stones and wiggled it around a bit, only to quickly move to a different spot much higher up. Soon enough, a low rumble sounded from within the wall, growing in strength until suddenly the stonework rolled back, much like the London entrance to Diagon Alley. "Ladies first," he said, shoving her forward into the pitch-black darkness. No sooner than he had stepped into the hidden passageway behind her, the stones closed back up, leaving them in utter darkness.

"So do you want to fight the giant spider guarding the exit, or should I do it?"

He let a brief silence fall between them, working its magic. After a second or two he gave her a light, playful shove. "I'm only joking, don't worry. Lumos. We can go and pop out near the courtyard from here, or go all the way down to a spot that exits closer to the grounds, your call."

Note for moderators:

Reducio

I've taken the liberty to make up a ticklish doorway based on some of Rowling's first descriptions of the castle (where she describes "walls pretending to be doors"). It offers no benefit and is solely used here for the purposes of flavor. The idea is (as will become clearer in my next post) that this stone doorway just cuts across from one corridor to a parallel one, next to it. The corridor they end up in is not secret or hidden, just not used very frequently and dark(er) because it's somewhere in the dungeons.

Stamina 10 ✶ Evasion 10 ✶ Strength 2 ✶ Wisdom 4 ✶ Arcane Power 5 ✶ Accuracy 10

⋄ December 15th, 2023 | Grounds ⋄
⋄ Interactions: @Finnegan Conner | Mentions: None ⋄

𝓘f Finnegan was a library aid, he certainly wasn't a particularly good one, seeing as he was currently tempting her away from the library, as though he was an especially sarcastic Pied Piper, leading her out and through the corridors to her doom. She wasn't nearly as sure as he was that she'd made the right choice in following him, but she intended to see her course of action through until the end. Which sounded far cooler and more dramatic than the actual truth of the matter, which was that at this point Bex was willing to sign up for just about anything that would get her out of the library.

She shot Finnegan a quizzical look as he explained the ticklish door to her. "There's been shortcuts in Hogwarts this whole time? Why do they keep making us take the moving staircases then? Do you have any idea how many times I've been late to class because they decided to plop me down somewhere else? I'd have been tickling walls this whole year if I'd have known."

At his request for a quill she softly hummed her assent, yawning widely as she dug through her bag to find one. Bex was many things - stubborn, disorganized, quick to anger, and suggestible, if one was only looking to name a few - but thankfully unprepared wasn't one of them. She'd been in the library to study, and as such had brought plenty of quills with her. She stuck one of them in the pocket of her robe and slung her bag back over her shoulder, scampering ahead after Finnegan in order to keep up with him.

As she followed him through the corridors, it became increasingly more apparent how little of Hogwarts she'd actually seen during her time here. Hadn't exploring Hogwarts been the one thing she'd been actually looking forward to before the start of term? She'd grown up hearing stories about the school's labyrinth-esque structure and expansive grounds from her dad, who talked about his own years at Hogwarts with a sort of reverence and awe that was uncharacteristic of her normally reticent father. While Bex wasn't Muggleborn like he had been, seeing magic for the first time through newly opened eyes, she'd still been excited to start uncovering Hogwarts' many mysteries for herself.

She hadn't done any of that though, had she? She hadn't even made an attempt. Four months here, and what did she have to show for it? She glanced over at Finnegan, for whom she couldn't help but feel a growing respect for. He exuded both confidence and familiarity with whatever he was intending to show her, and it was quickly turning her previous hesitation into tentative excitement. As they passed a gruesome and unfamiliar painting of a dragon enjoying the spoils of war, she gave into the urge to reach out and run her fingers across the surface of it as they passed, feeling the grooves and whorls in paint that was likely vastly older than she herself ever would be.

"How do you know where you're going?" She asked, only to hear how confusing her words had come out and quickly rephrase. "What I mean is, wherever we're going, how did you find it? Do you spend a lot of time exploring the castle, or did someone show you?"

Without warning, Finnegan stopped ahead of her, causing her to knock into the older boy with a soft oomph. She mumbled a quick, "Sorry!" to him before removing the quill from her pocket and handing it over to him as he requested.

She peeked her head over Finnegan's shoulder, watching as he located the appropriate spots to tickle. "Finnegan, how could the wall kick you? It doesn't even have any feet." She paused at that, suddenly uncertain. The wall didn't look like it had a door either, and yet apparently it had exactly that. "Wait, hang on, does it have feet? Invisible feet?" Bex could only imagine the myriad of applications this could have for football alone.

She should have been expecting it really, as familiar with Diagon Alley as she was, but the appearance and opening of the door still startled her, and she took a step back away from it, eyes wide. Finnegan wasn't having any of that, though, as he shoved her forward through the doorway and into the darkness. Bex luckily managed to stay on her feet, and was more miffed than anything else when she heard the door close up behind her.

For a second she wasn't sure that Finnegan had followed her in, and a nauseating mix of fear and anger began to creep into her at the possibility that the Gryffindor boy had tricked her, and now she was trapped here, alone in the dark. It was only a moment though before Finnegan's voice manifested itself next to her, calmly asking, "So do you want to fight the giant spider guarding the exit, or should I do it?"

For two glorious, luminous seconds, Bex felt nothing but pure, unadulterated relief at the sound of Finnegan's voice. Then the third second arrived, during which the full meaning of his words hit her like a drunken bicyclist, and she let out an ignominious shriek that she would later look back on with a truly devastating amount of embarrassment.

As Finnegan's Lumos lit up the room, Bex simmered, considering her options. Despite his assertions that it had all been a joke, Bex was as tense as a bow string, and wanted nothing more to than to punch Finnegan right in his grinning mouth, or spend what was left of her afternoon pelting him with bludgers. But despite the dubious charms and hospitality you'd expect of a mischievous pre-teen boy, Bex couldn't deny that Finnegan had done exactly what he'd promised to: she was, at this very moment, inside of a Hogwarts secret passageway.

She was in a secret passageway.

The sudden thrill that overtook her was electric. "All the way through, to the grounds. Oh, um, please. I want to see how far it goes."

F I N N E G A Nx⳧xC O N N O R

☙ Stay grounded, 15th of December 2023 ❧

Now probably wasn't the best time to tell her this particular passage wasn't all that secret or that they'd merely crossed into an undecorated, ill-used corridor in the dungeons. She'd figure it out by herself sometime. Probably. Maybe. Likely around the same time she would discover that detentions didn't involve fighting fire-breathing slugs and that no one had been hung upside down by their ankles in the dungeons for at least a century. Out of all the tall tales Finnegan had heard during his first-year, the one about having to scrub off troll boogers, by hand, off of some prized silverware had seemed frightfully plausible for a long while.

"In your defense, tickling the walls wasn't my first instinct either," Finnegan said matter-of-factly while he lead the way. He could hardly have picked a better time to give the impressionable Ravenclaw a tour of the castle; his uneven wand-light casted stretched shadows upon the ancient stone. Now that the castle was practically deserted, every tiny noise, every trickle, every critter scurrying across the stone floor only served the illusion that they'd entered some kind of secret, forbidden passage. While the secret part might have been a ruse, the corridor did ultimately lead back up toward the grounds.

"I guess the wall doesn't really kick you, it's more like it jettisons a brick in the general direction of your face, or worse, lower." He had half a mind to throw in a pained grimace for good measure, but he was feeling a little bad for the fright he'd given her earlier. "It's probably rubbish though, I'm just passing on what I've been told. This way."

As they passed through the depth of the dungeons, taking a few turns along the way, the only sound was that off their footsteps, riccocheting down the corridor. At last they ascended a flight of winding stairs, passed through a tiny wooden door and stepped back into the light and Christmas cheer of the castle near the bottom of the great stairs. The warm, comforting blanket wasn't to last however as Finnegan marched on, leading them outside into the frigid, open air after a muttered "Nox".

Stepping outside, they were met by a fierce gale pelting them with wet snow. The winter aur stung their cheeks and bit at their ears and noses. "Lovely weather for a game of Quidditch, don't you think?" Finnegan joked while he ushered Rebecca toward an alcove so they'd be at least a little sheltered. "I heard you play for Ravenclaw? Lots of firsties have a stab at it, not that many last though..." He arched an eyebrow at her, curious to learn if he was in the presence of a determined opponent or yet another hopeless wannabe Quidditch star. "You don't really know if you're cut out for it until you've been knocked off your broom once, I think."

Stamina 10 ✶ Evasion 10 ✶ Strength 2 ✶ Wisdom 4 ✶ Arcane Power 5 ✶ Accuracy 10

⋄ December 15th, 2023 | Grounds ⋄
⋄ Interactions: @Finnegan Conner | Mentions: Erin Ryan, but there's no way in hell I'm tagging Lear ⋄

𝓘t was easy to forget, sometimes, that Hogwarts was labyrinthine and ancient. There was a certain level of mundanity that was inherently assigned to the building, as it was the place where, if you were unlucky enough to be born magical, you'd spend seven years of your life eating, sleeping, revising for classes, and bickering with your fellow classmates. The realities of day to day life were often the death of whimsy, and as such this was perhaps the first time that Bex had seen the castle as anything other than her irredeemable holding cell. For one marvelous afternoon with Finnegan Conner, though, Hogwarts felt full of possibility and potential.

When she was little, and she'd stay the night at her maternal grandparents' home, her Grandma Becca would entertain her with shadow puppets in the dim light of the guest bedroom. She found herself suddenly reminded of it as Finnegan's Lumos projected soft, distorted light onto the dark stone walls, and she discreetly made the shape of a bird with her hands, casting it's shadow up onto the wall. It felt like saying Bex was here, even if she was the only one who would ever see it.

"I'd actually prefer to be kicked, I think, if a brick is the only other option." She hoped he was right and it was rubbish, though you could never be too sure at Hogwarts, where the odds might be low, but were never zero. "I don't think lower would be quite as much a problem for me as it would for you though, so I may honestly be partial to that over my face."

She was - hopefully - starting to get a little bit of a handle on whether or not Finnegan was joking, though she was quickly getting the impression that it was very possible that everything he said was a joke. But just like with the secret passageways, every once in awhile there was some truth to his words. It was pretty confusing all around, but despite all the maybe-lies and semi-gentle bullying she'd endured today, Bex couldn't help but find herself enjoying Finnegan's company, and as such resolved to do her best to play along with whatever he decided to throw her way. Treat it like a quidditch match, even, and try to beat the bludger back at him.

But if he pushed her again, she was going to punch his dumb Gryffindor lights out.

They made their way up an old, winding staircase that felt far less structurally secure than Bex would have preferred, and before she knew it they'd passed through a door and were suddenly beneath the great stairs. It was jarring, being back in such a populous place when they'd essentially been in spiderweb hell for god knows how long now, but the sudden assault of light and sound was short lived, as soon enough Finnegan had led them back out the doors and onto the grounds.

Bex, who was notoriously terrible at handling the cold and who had certainly not gotten dressed for an adventure outdoors this morning, grit her teeth and stuck her hands into the pockets of her robes, determined to keep herself warm through sheer force of will. What was magic if not mind over matter and all that? A witch's will made manifest? This would definitely work and was certainly not dumb as all hell.

Regardless of her mentally drafted 1 star Yelp review for the current temperature of Scotland, she couldn't help but grin sharply at Finnegan in response to his question. "All weather is quidditch weather. I'd play in a blizzard if they'd let me."

Following Finnegan as he led her under the alcove, she breathed harshly on her hands to keep them warm. "Yes, I play. I'm a beater, but I'm just second string at the moment. Though I got a surprising amount of play time at my first match."

She snorted at the mention of getting knocked off her broom. "I bet you'll be thrilled to know I got knocked right out by one of the older Slytherin girls last game, I think her name's Erin? Lived to tell the tale and everything, I'm sturdier than I look. Have'ta be, to be a beater. Otherwise you're like, mega-dead, just a splat on the pitch they'll send back to your parents in a box."

F I N N E G A Nx⳧xC O N N O R

☙ Stay grounded, 15th of December 2023 ❧

Finnegan chuckled dryly at Rebecca's commentary regarding the bricks. "It's not just the walls you've got to worry about, there's rugs that pull themselves out from under you, sets of armor that'll chase you down the hall, steps that go missing in the stairs, books that'll give you papercuts if you don't treat 'em right, oh and you really want to stay out of the way of the Bloody Baron. He's a terror, he is and will ruin your day," he cast a mischievous sidelong glance at Rebecca, "or night."

After they had stepped out into the cold he paused a short while, letting her do the talking. "So you are cut out for it," he muttered, "I thought you might be." Some people you could just tell were build a certain way. Loose hair, loose clothes, scuffed shoes, voice dripping with determination when she talked about playing in a blizzard. No questioning that, it wasn't bragging, just a statement of fact. "Aye, Ms. Ryan is a real menace." You'd be sent home in a matchbox, he added in the privacy of his mind - she really was quite short, "but she won't be around much longer. Guess I'll have to be afraid of you instead," he snorted, not entirely insincere.

He tore his gaze away from her, leaned his back against the cold, hard wall and studied the sky with pursed lips. "Well, it's not a blizzard, but not the worst flying weather." He paused, letting the silence between them work its magic. She looked cold, probably wanted to go back inside and get some hot cocoa with extra cream on top or sit near the large Christmas tree in the great hall and listen to the tiny enchanted bells. Had to beat freezing to death next to a boy she barely knew, hadn't it? But just before she could formulate those thoughts completely, Finnegan spoke up again. "Flying on the grounds outside of class or Quidditch practice is strictly forbidden," he declared. "If they spot you, that is." He gestured vaguely toward the grounds, the castle and the thickening curtain of snow between them and it. "Seems a bit empty today, doesn't it?" He finally turned back toward her, eager to see if he'd guessed right about her eagerness to prove herself. All the lithe girl now needed was a carrot, and didn't he just have the thing. "Have you ever flown a Silver Arrow before?"

He saved mentioning the part about breaking into their locker rooms and getting their gear for later. Just focus on the very juicy, dangling carrot please Ms. Lark, and we'll see how sturdy you really are.

Stamina 10 ✶ Evasion 10 ✶ Strength 2 ✶ Wisdom 4 ✶ Arcane Power 5 ✶ Accuracy 10

⋄ December 15th, 2023 | Grounds ⋄
⋄ Interactions: @Finnegan Conner | Mentions: @Avery Leveret ⋄

𝓕innegan had a way of looking at her that somehow simultaneously made her feel like she was in on of some secret joke, but also a little like she was the joke. She grinned back at him anyway, determined to keep her challenge to herself of meeting him head-on. "You make Hogwarts sound so angry, I can't imagine what its beef is with the student body. Shouldn't a school want to have healthy, living students inside of it? I've had my fair share of trick-steps, though none of the other stuff you mentioned. I've gotten rather good at jumping." She'd also fallen on her ass quite a few times, but he certainly didn't need to know about that. "Isn't the Bloody Baron Slytherin's house ghost? What's so bad about him?"

While the alcove did its best to offer them a fair amount of protection from the elements, the snow dancing about in the air was the determined sort, and quite a few of it's operatives still managed to find their way onto her robes and into her hair. Bex stuck her tongue out as she listened to Finnegan, catching one of the snowflakes on the tip of it and watching cross-eyed as it melted. Was she going to freeze to death? Almost certainly. But good fun and good company made the prospect far more bearable.

"Afraid of me? Only if you're good enough to make yourself a target, I suppose. Do you play?" She hoped he did. The Gryffindor boy was fun, and people tended to be even more fun on a broom.

She followed his gaze up to the sky, a gray and brooding backdrop to the snowfall they were currently receiving. He was - technically - right. It wasn't the worst possible flying weather. There was visibility, for one, and no tornadoes. So the weather could be far, far worse, and she'd meant what she'd said to him. She could be cold, could be miserable, could be sniffling, feverish, and hacking up a lung, but if she had any say in the matter at all, she'd be all of that while on a broom.

Rule breaking, though, was a completely different story.

How funny it was that a girl who was willing to fly full speed at a heavy iron ball charmed to incapacitate children was so deeply afraid of a detention. But she was. Utterly so, to the core of her. She wanted to be good, and to stay out of trouble. She wanted to avoid the consequences of deviating off the path, as those consequences had a tendency to pile up on her until she couldn't see over them anymore.

But she also wanted to fly. And, if possible, she wanted to impress Finnegan, to convince both him and herself that she was worth his time. "If they spot us." She repeated back softly, her slowly ramping up nerves wiggling around like worms in her stomach.

She thought of his alluded to Silver Arrow covetously, the same model of broom that had served as Avery's sun-bound chariot just a few weeks prior. If he'd meant to bribe her into ignoring her own reservations and self-preservation instincts, he had certainly chosen a very good bait. Perfectly catered to her, even. Finnegan was an anglerfish, light bobbing tantalizingly bright in the darkness, and she was one very malleable fish.

Swallowing down her fear was quickly becoming second nature to her. How easy it was to ignore the howling of the wolves when there was such a boon waiting for you out there in the woods. This would almost certainly not end well for her, and she could only imagine that she'd come to deeply regret her choices later. But she didn't care. Silver! Arrow!

"No, I haven't. Are you offering?"

F I N N E G A Nx⳧xC O N N O R

☙ Stay grounded, 15th of December 2023 ❧

"He's Slytherin's house ghost, that's what's bad about him," he pointed out. "Well and the fact he's stained with blood, means he's murdered someone." Bit slow on the uptake for a Ravenclaw, but he supposed she couldn't help being first year. To think he'd once been just as wide-eyed and ignorant until Saint George Henry had come swooping down to tell him all the ins and outs of Hogwarts life.
"Seriously, you want to stay out of his way if you can, he's got a temper like a steaming kettle." he added pensively, his gaze transfixed on the heavy, gray clouds overhead. "Even Peeves' scared of him."

He doubted he needed to tell her anything about Peeves. The poltergeist had a penchant for tricking ickle first years in particular and was probably involved in at least half the trick steps Ms. Lark had endured.

Her question elicited a bemused snort. "Do I play?" he asked rhetorically, "of course I play! Haven't you heard of me?" The grin that accompanied his question ought to make it clear he wasn't half as offended as he pretended to be. "I'm a Chaser, I am. Anyway, I'd appreciate it if you didn't aim for the head, I've got enough trouble with Charms and Potions already."

If they spot us The tiny cogs in her head began to whirl. Smirking, Finnegan watched her trepidations melt away like the snowflakes she'd caught on the tip of her tongue. What was nervousness compared to the sweet nectar of intense, burning curiosity? Quite the Christmas Present, offering her to break into the Gryffindor Locker Room at risk of detention, but that was nothing compared to the risk to life and limb that came with flying a dangerously fast broom. Had she ever flown anything quicker than a School Broom before? There couldn't be any doubts now, no backpedaling, no trepidation about this fantastic plan could be permitted to show on his face. He'd offered misadventure on a whim and intended to keep true to his word.

"Follow me."

~~~

Any worries about being spotted were soon alleviated. By the time they reached the Quidditch pitch the snow had thickened into knife-like streaks of white, dancing and turning at the wind's command. His growing concern about her flying ability had turned into a more immediate and pressing concern: would she be able to hold on? He supposed she'd become a Beater for a reason, but still, this was beginning to show some uncanny resemblance to a snow storm.

Located to the side of the pitch, tucked away underneath the towering stands, a narrow dirt path sloped down to the Gryffindor Locker Room. Shaking the snow from his head like a dog, Finnegan halted before a small, double door and tried the handle.

Locked.

"Alohomora."

A rattle sounded, but when he pushed the handle again, the door still wouldn't budge. He turned to face Rebecca and shrugged. "I guess some Professor figured out that teaching us an unlocking charm makes regular enchanted locks useless. Not to worry though, they didn't think about making it muggle-proof, look." He took a step back and pointed up. A small, arched glass window sat above the entrance, just large enough for skinny eleven-year-olds to slip through.

He was about to aim his wand at the glass when he thought of something better. "How's your aim?" He bend over to collect a fist-sized rock from the ground. "Catch," he said before gingerly lobbing it at her in a lazy, wide arch. "If you smash it, I can give you a leg-up and you can clamber through and open it from the inside, unless you'd prefer to switch?"

Stamina 10 ✶ Evasion 10 ✶ Strength 2 ✶ Wisdom 4 ✶ Arcane Power 5 ✶ Accuracy 10

⋄ December 15th, 2023 | Grounds ⋄
⋄ Interactions: @Finnegan Conner | Mentions: None ⋄

𝓞f all the house ghosts, the Grey Lady was by far the most boring of the bunch; the Gryffindors' house ghost could take his head off, and yet to the extent of Bex's knowledge, the only thing that set her own house ghost apart from the others was that she was proper rude. She'd never paid much attention to the Bloody Baron, which felt unwise now that she knew he'd apparently killed someone at least once before, and could very well do so again should he decide it suited his fancy.

"I've already been avoiding the Grey Lady for these past few months, so I guess I can just add the Baron to the list. Who'd he murder, do you think?"

She minded Peeves far less than other students did, she imagined. Sure, his behavior could be annoying at best to semi-perilous at worst, but sometimes it was nice to have something nebulous and unshakable to focus your anxiety and frustration on. It was a shame he had such a knack for bothering you at the least convenient times, though. She wouldn't have minded if he'd chosen to interrupt some of her least liked classes rather than when she was, like, trying to eat an egg.

She met his Cheshire grin with one of her own. "Like I told you at the swimming lessons, I did technically hear about you before I met you. Not about your Quidditch prowess though. Just about how many galleons your unconscious body is going for these days. Though I suppose I would find it rather impressive if you were able to play Quidditch like that."

She pantomimed knocking her fist gently against her skull. "I hope you're good at ducking, then. I do my best not to miss."

The humor died on her tongue as they approached the Gryffindor Locker Room. She felt wrong-footed and off-kilter, with the curious mix of anticipation and anxiety brewing inside of her leaving her feeling stretched out and cavernous. To make matters worse, the algid weather only continued to worsen with every step the two of them took towards their destination, like a minatory omen from on high. She continued in her efforts of breathing on her hands to warm them, but soon gave this endeavor up as a lost cause and just shoved her hands under her armpits, bemoaning her lack of foresight when she'd gotten ready that morning.

She'd said she'd play in a blizzard, and she meant it. Her hair had grown damp and frozen as the snow melted in it only to freeze again as the temperature dropped, and if she still had a nose, she certainly couldn't feel it. It would be the most miserable broom ride she'd ever been on by far - save for the time she'd crashed her dad's Bluebottle into the side of the shed - and yet this was the part she was least nervous about. Missing out on desperately needed study time, blatantly breaking school rules, possibly ending up a frozen corpse lost in the snow until springtime: these were all things that weighed heavily on her, and fed the little voice in her head urging her to turn back. But flying was easy; it was the easiest thing in the world.

She genuinely didn't expect the door to be locked. It was Finnegan's broom and his team's Locker Room, so the idea of needing to break in to retrieve it hadn't even crossed her mind. She wasn't sure if she was disappointed or relieved that Alohomora hadn't worked. It made sense that they'd have better locks at a magical school than ones that any 12-year-old could open, but it did mean that their quest had come to an early end. She wanted to ride his Silver Arrow desperately, and the dejection of it all stung deep and bitter. On the bright side, she'd have another shot at getting her homework done, and maybe wouldn't lose any toes to frostbi-

Finnegan Conner had handed her a rock. How's your aim? She stared at him in shocked silence as she held the rock loosely in her hand, as frozen and heavy as the panic slowly winding through her chest. Her aim, of course, was not in question, nor was the strength she could put behind it. She was a beater after all, which was likely why he'd given her the rock. That, or, as he'd shown time and time again today, maybe he just liked to toy with her, dangling her over the cliff's edge so he could watch her scrabble for purchase against the rocks. "You're joking." She said, suddenly very certain that he was not, in fact, joking.

She looked up at the window, gripping the rock tight with shaking hands as she pictured herself lobbing it against the glass, shattering both the window and all of the years of progress she'd made. She could do it. More than that, she wanted to do it. Like a controlled burning, a healing destruction brought on by her own two hands.

She remembered her mum crying at the kitchen table, the sound of her parents screaming at each other through the phone behind the pitiful wooden barrier of her mum's bedroom door. Sitting in detention with bruised knuckles and scraped knees. Practicing breathing with Lucie, control and purpose made manifest. One, two, three, four. She could feel that same tide as before reaching out it's fingers towards her again, chest tight and tongue heavy.

You can boil a frog, sure, but the 12-year-old Gryffindor boy next to her was no Michelin-starred chef. He'd cranked the heat up too high too fast and Bex, fearful and primal, leapt gracelessly out of the pot. She shoved the rock back into his hands, before stomping her way over to the door, pressing her confusing mix of emotions down into the far more comforting feeling of anger. She tugged on the door handle uselessly, for no other reason than to confirm for herself that the door was actually locked, and not another one of Finnegan's tricks. When the door proved to indeed be as locked as he'd claimed it to be, she kicked at the bottom of it for good measure, biting her tongue to keep herself from crying out when this predictably yielded absolutely no results outside of a sore big toe.

It was a matter of pride now, finding a way in. She wouldn't let herself literally break and enter, but perhaps she didn't need to. She stood underneath the window and called out to her companion, "Still willing to give me a leg up even though I won't play your dumb game?" Finnegan was willing, it seemed, and with his assistance she just managed to reach it, her short height once again exerting its influence to make everything five times harder than it ought to be. She made a quick plea to whatever deity wasn't out to lunch at the moment and pushed her palms hard against the glass, almost slipping when the window opened far easier than she'd been expecting.

With a remarkable lack of finesse, she pulled herself up and through the window, landing on the floor of the Locker Room in a bruised heap. With the weather outside obscuring any light that would have normally bled through the window, Bex was left to feel her way along the wall in the darkness before finally managing to reach the door and unlock it, swinging it open to welcome Finnegan inside.

"Ta-da!" She had a single moment of untarnished pride before the reality set in that oh my God she'd just broken into the Gryffindor Locker Room.

OOC: The winks better be electrifying and the cheese absolutely rapturous.