Open Musings of a First Year

[Charlotte Astor Williams]

Charlotte wasn't quite ready for the school year to end, but at the same time, she was ready to go back home. She hadn't made any real friends like many of her classmates - there was no one she automatically went to after class or to study with. She enjoyed the clubs, but she mostly wanted to pick the brains of the older students, who were not interested in engaging with an twelve year old. The Hufflepuff decided to embrace her loneliness and work on a solo art project. She levitated her basket in front of her as she walked across the grounds, feeling proud that she had mastered such a basic but useful spell. However, her landings weren't always the greatest, and the basket clunked onto the ground as a few rolls of ribbon fell out. Lottie gathered the ribbon and then sat on the grass, looking at the large tree in front of her. She wanted to decorate it with the ribbon and string and yarn to make it all kinds of colors to put together a piece of how she felt about the last year. Her grandmother had helped her decorate many of the trees at her home with crocheted and knitted scarves and wrappings. While this wasn't quite the same, Charlotte still wanted to brighten up the tree, even if it was just for her.

 

[Jasper Beese]

Jasper felt like his first year at Hogwarts had gone by so slowly, everyone said it went quick but he disagreed, he felt like he had been at Hogwarts for a lifetime. It was very familiar to him now and he'd explored almost everywhere, except he still hadn't found this room that apparently came and went. Tori had told him about it last term but Jasper wasn't convinced that it even existed, or if it did, it went away a lot more than it ever came. Apart from this room, he found his way around relatively easily and could confidently navigate his way from the Gryffindor common room to outdoors without any issues. Today he went for a walk across the lawn, stopping when a girl from his year was sat looking at a tree. Intrigued and deciding that going over and talking to her wouldn't do any harm, he did exactly that. "Hey," he said in a friendly way as he approached, "Nice tree, do you know what species it is?" He said to start a conversation but generally Jasper did suck at starting conversations.

 

[Charlotte Astor Williams]

Charlotte had started pulling out all the ribbons so she could organize them by color - it always helped when started an art project - when she was interrupted by a boy from her class. "Uuuuuummm, I think it's... Kahikatea," she said, trying to remember the word for it. "It's a pine tree, but I'm going to help it look a little more pretty," she continued, hoping this boy wasn't going to go tell on her in case there was some rule about decorating the school grounds without permission. "What's your name?" Lottie asked with a twinge of guilt in her voice. There were so many people in her class, and she didn't really interact with many outside of Hufflepuff. He looked like a Gryffindor, but she couldn't remember.