Open For Research Purposes

[Ralph Easterling]

It was a really nice Sunday afternoon. It was the first time that Ralph decided to take scouting more seriously. After all, he wanted to find some nice place where he could sink into quiet solitude and get away with only the pursuits that interested him. For example, finding a new species of plant or repeating the subject written in class. In such cases, people disturbed him a lot. So, armed with a small backpack containing everything he needed, the boy, instead of reading a book or relaxing with his friends, wandered off towards the forest.

The further the boy went, the closer he came to the border of the Forbidden Forest. Ralph knew from the first years tour that it was forbidden for Hogwarts students to go there, and he was about to turn around and leave when he noticed some solid Leaping Toadstools. Such mushrooms could only be bought at his cousin Kiara's apothecary. Wonderful. Ralph smiled to himself and approached one of the mushrooms with the knife.

 

[Sparrow Lacewing]

Sparrow wanted to know what the big deal about the "forbidden" forest was. He knew his sister went in there all the time - there weren't any other forests in the school that he could find, and he'd heard all the stories of what Hogwarts was like from her over the previous two years. She wouldn't take him with her, which Sparrow thought was honestly so rude, so he'd have to go exploring himself. He didn't know what exactly the school expected he was going to do after being specifically told not to go somewhere. Of course, he was going to do it. That was just common sense.

He squinted as he saw one of the other kids from his year around the edge of the forest, a little put out that somebody else had stolen his idea before he'd gotten to it. Sparrow was curious what the other boy was up to and exactly why he had a knife. He didn't know they let students bring weapons to school. Now he just wanted a sword. Sparrow crept up to the other boy until he was right next to him. "'cha doing?" he asked, staring at the other boy.

 

[Ralph Easterling]

It was easy to get scared in a place like the Forbidden Forest, and Ralph didn't expect to hear a voice come out of nowhere. His eyes widened and his mouth turned into an O shape just after the speaker came over and spoke. For a moment he thought the voice was a figment of his imagination, but turning around, he saw a boy his own age, also with glasses.

”I… I was picking mushrooms.” Maybe he shouldn't have revealed what he was doing right away. But it was already too late. And there was nothing to worry about because it was just a teenage boy and not the one he encountered last week when he got punched by one of the Styx brothers. ”Just mushrooms, nothing more.” Ralph defended himself and realized that he had raised the knife in a gesture. This must have made the other boy more suspicious. Of course, it was a pocket knife of small size, which was a very useful tool whilst hiking.

 

[Sparrow Lacewing]

Sparrow hadn't meant to scare the other boy, but he hadn't remotely tried to announce his presence so startling strangers was to be expected. He squinted curiously at the boy's knife, accepting his answer. Mushrooms were cool. Going rogue in the forest and fighting monsters might be even cooler, but Sparrow highly doubted that anyone his age was going to be a secret fearless monster hunter. It would be cool, but implausible. "For food or poison?" Sparrow asked, raising an eyebrow. He supposed that poison also could count as food - probably only once, but it counted if one wanted to be technical about it. "Can I help?" He was curious about what kind of mushrooms could be found in the forest, especially if he could find any poisonous ones to test if he could make them explode.