Open Doesn't Matter If We Take a Fall

[Harper Alston]

((open after @Flynn North))

As far as Harper was concerned, Hogwarts was pretty great, a lot better than her old school in just about every way. But the one thing it was missing was a playground. She knew that made sense since most of the students were older. But at the same time, she really missed doing flips on bars and jumping off swings. She especially missed swing sets. And that's why Harper was determined to do something about Hogwarts' lack of playground equipment and build a rope swing. She'd first gotten the idea at home during the break, but now it was time to put it into motion before it became too cold to comfortably play outside.

Harper had already done a fair bit of prep. Given the amount of time she spent outside exploring the school's grounds, it hadn't taken long to scout out a decent tree from which to hang her swing. Her family had had a bit of leftover rope from when her dad had built a rope swing in their backyard, and she'd brought it with her to Hogwarts. Now she just needed to find a bit of wood. Harper didn't have the tools to make a proper swing with a seat and everything, but she figured that if she tied a large enough branch to the bottom, she'd at least have something to stand on.

Her backpack, the rope coiled neatly inside, was already sitting at the base of the tree she'd picked out. She'd just finished rummaging around the other trees and had found several large fallen branches, which she dumped on the ground next to her stuff. Harper surveyed the sticks before choosing one that seemed like it could be sturdy enough. Now she just needed to make sure it could hold her weight. She angled the stick against an exposed root before stomping hard in the middle. Nothing. She then jumped on it, and the stick snapped with a loud crack. "Crap!" Harper frowned before moving the next fallen branch into place. Surely one of these would be strong enough.

 

[Flynn North-McGowan]

Lessons were chugging along and it felt weird that his first year of Hogwarts was quickly coming towards its end. It had certainly been... interesting. Some of the lessons had been far more enjoyable than others, though he had learned some pretty cool spells along the way and was actually eager to get into his second year to learn even more of them. But, for now, there were some months of the school year left and then the long break he would have to head back to the stupid orphanage. He'd just received a letter that he would be spending some time over the winter in a new foster home as well, so right then, he wasn't feeling in the best of moods.

Hands shoved in his pockets, the Gryffindor kicked aimlessly at a stone at his feet as he wandered around outside. He didn't really have a set destination in mind and was just walking to pass the time, but the sight of a girl he recognized from the common room doing something with rope and sticks did catch his attention. "What ya doing?" He asked as he wandered over, looking between the girl and the sticks. Maybe it was something fun to do.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper was just about to step on the second stick, when a voice startled her. She flinched slightly and looked up, frowning, but relaxed when she saw that it was another Gryffindor first year and not a professor. As far as she knew, there were no rules against building swings, but she'd tried to choose a spot facing away from the castle all the same. "Hey!" Harper said, smiling. She didn't quite remember his name, but she knew him from her classes and he didn't seem like the type who would try to rat her out to a professor. "I'm trying to build a rope swing."

Taking a step back, Harper gestured to the small pile of sticks. "I'm trying to find one that's strong enough to support me. Then I'll tie one end of the rope to the middle so I can stand on the stick, and the other end will go around that branch," she pointed above, "and voila, rope swing." That was the plan anyways. She didn't see why it wouldn't work. She had the supplies. She knew how to climb trees. And if everything else failed, she could at least levitate one end of the rope up and hopefully get it to knot itself around the branch via magic.

Harper eyed the other boy. He looked to be about the same height as her, which probably meant they weighed roughly the same. "Wanna help?" Testing the sticks would go faster with the two of them, and she didn't mind sharing the swing once it was up. She was a big believer in the saying "the more the merrier."

((This is what Harper is trying to describe))

 

[Flynn North-McGowan]

A rope swing sounded interesting enough, he supposed. Though he did have to scowl a little as she explained how she was going to do it as if he didn't already know. "Yeah, I know how to make a rope swing, genius," it wasn't exactly rocket science and he really didn't need the explanation she had just given him. He had made them as a young kid every single time he had found a decent looking tree that looked like it had a brach that could support his weight. And while he didn't really know if Hogwarts was the sort of place that was going to let them do something like that (there was probably some stupid rule against it), Flynn hardly cared very much about rules and it sounded fun enough. At least, it was something to pass the time.

"Guess it sounds like fun," he offered after a moment with a small shrug of his shoulder as he moved a bit closer, inspecting the sticks she had managed to find. "It's not hard to find a big enough stick, just find a really thick and big one and it's usually good enough." And if it broke, it was not a big deal. You could always just attach another one.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper stared at the other boy, a bit surprised at his scowl, but after a bit she shrugged easily. "I can never tell what wizards do and don't know about. Half the school's never heard of the internet or still uses quills and parchment like it's the medieval ages." It was kind of shocking what some of her classmates didn't know about. Maybe swings were also a foreign concept in the magical world. Why else wasn't there at swing set at Hogwarts? At the very least, she would have expected some other student to hang up a rope next to the lake for jumping in.

The other boy agreed to help out, and Harper moved to give him some more space. At his explanation of which sticks would be suitable for a swing, she grinned. "I know how sticks work, genius." She paused. "This was all I could find nearby, but if you spot any others that could work, let me know." Using her foot, she rolled some of the sticks away from the original pile to make two smaller groups. "Wanna test those?" She nodded toward the half that was closer to him.

 

[Flynn North-McGowan]

"I'm pretty sure everyone knows about rope swings," he would actually be surprised if it turned out there was someone around the castle who actually had no idea what one of those even was. And even if they didn't, he assumed it was probably easy to picture what one might look like in your head without thinking about it too hard. Then again, he had come across a girl who didn't know what a skateboard was so there were some people out there who happened to just live under a rock.

She tried to be clever and use his 'genius' line back at him, but he thought it just didn't work as well. "Clearly not if you are busy faffing around trying to pick the right stick from a pile you've already collected. Why did you bother bringing back sticks which clearly aren't going to hold your body weight in the first place? Like this one," as if to prove his point, he bent down and picked up a rather thin and long looking stick and held it up. He could probably break it with one hand. Didn't matter if they were the only ones she could find, no point in even picking that one up in his opinion. "Don't need to test any of 'em," testing was so boring, "Just gotta find a really big and thick stick is all."

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper just shrugged when the other boy insisted that swings were a thing in the magical world. She hadn't seen one at Hogwarts or Obsidian Harbour, so she assumed that wizards didn't know about them. It didn't seem like a giant leap of logic to assume someone who had no idea what a pencil was wouldn't know about swings. But this wasn't really an argument she wanted to waste time having. There were more important tasks at hand.

The other boy didn't seem to appreciate her joke, but his argument didn't make much sense. "In case the others don't work," she said simply. "That's why I'm testing the thicker ones first." It wasn't like it had cost her much energy or time to add a couple of the more borderline ones to the pile. Sometimes the thinner ones were more sturdy than the thicker ones, especially if the thicker ones were rotted through. "Well, I'm not going to waste my time tying the rope to a stick only for it to break as soon as I step on it," Harper retorted when he said testing them was pointless. "You don't have to help if you don't want to. If you'd rather just stand back and watch, feel free," she said with a shrug. She eyed the pile before selecting another stick and angling it against the tree's roots and stepping on it. It held her weight for a few seconds before she heard the tell-tale sound of cracking wood. She moved to grab a different stick.

((Sorry this forever and a half))

 

[Flynn North-McGowan]

The divide between muggles and magical people really did confuse him somewhat. How could anyone possibly think that magic was more advanced than simple muggle technology? That was just stupid, they didn't have pens and pencils or electricity or proper heating. And, apparently, they didn't know what fun really was if they didn't even know what a rope swing or skateboard was. And it was at times like this he was thankful he grew up in both worlds - the muggle more than magical after his parents died - and wasn't just stuck in the magical one.

That just made no sense, "If the big ones don't work, then the stupid thin ones you've brought really aren't going to work." It was like she didn't even know how to build a proper rope swing or something, "You just wasted time in picking them up." And then came the argument about tying up a stick only for it to break the moment you touched it and Flynn just rolled his eyes. "So don't use one which is going to break." Obviously. "It's not hard to tell which ones are going to work and you don't need to stand there testing every single one. Half the ones you've picked up look dead, so of course, they're going to break." It really wasn't this hard. "Also, the way you're testing them is stupid as well," he couldn't help but point out, "You're testing them at an angle, but when it's attached, it's not gonna be at an angle." This was why you couldn't let girls do anything, they were useless.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper wondered if the other boy had even built a rope swing before. How were you supposed to know which stick was going to hold up if you didn't even test it? It was impossible to tell by eyesight which ones would work. And she'd much rather spend a little extra time to make sure whatever stick she chose worked than to waste her time stringing up the swing only for it to break on her, forcing her to start over. Harper was starting to tune him out when his comment about her testing method being stupid caught her attention. "It's barely tilted," she said, now more amused than anything. It was clear that he was just trying to nitpick if he was criticizing the angle of all things. As she spoke, she rolled the next stick into place and stood on the middle. "Once it's up, the pressure's not always going to be applied evenly." Besides, when she stomped on the sticks at a slight angle, she was essentially applying force perpendicularly.

Harper realized that the stick she had been standing on had held up for the past several moments. She jumped once on the stick before taking a step back and stomping hard on the middle. It held. "Looks like that didn't take long at all," she said, smiling. In one smooth motion, she pushed down on the end hanging over the tree root with her foot so that the other end swung up into her grasp. Harper walked over to the rope and sat down, beginning to wind it around the middle of the branch. "Having fun watching?" she asked. She didn't see why he bothered to stick around if he was just going to stand off to the side and criticize her. That seemed far more boring than the "testing" she had been doing.