Open Now Is the Start

[Harper Alston]

Introspection, it turned out, was hard. Harper was used to rushing through life, flitting from moment to moment, and she found it unnatural — self-indulgent even — to spend so much time looking backwards. Similarly, she had never been one to look too far ahead, preferring instead to meet challenges as they came. But ever since Professor Abberline had cancelled her animagus lessons, Harper had resolved to do more of both. She'd spent the past few months trying to take stock of who she was and what she wanted, and that's why she'd decided to spend today looking forward — past exams, past graduation, past the break — to seventh year. It would be her last year at Hogwarts, and she wanted to make it count.

Maybe it was a little cliché, maybe it was a little cheesy, but Harper had decided to create a bucket list. First, the obvious. In block letters, Harper wrote Graduate!!! at the bottom. Then she added Get straight O's on NEWTs and Become an animagus. Those were all obvious goals, however, and she wanted this to be fun. Thinking of a couple school legends, Harper added the next three items: Find the Room of Requirement, See the eel, Meet a mermaid. What else? Harper glanced around the Student Lounge for inspiration. It was a little quieter than usual since a fair amount of people were studying for exams, but the room still hummed with conversation, and there were pockets of students hanging out. Maybe it was time to crowdsource some suggestions. Her gaze landed on someone sitting nearby who didn't appear to be too engrossed in their studies. "Hey, do you have a second? Let's say you were creating a Hogwarts bucket list. What would you put on it?"

 

[Isadora Novak]

Isadora was trying really hard to focus on her studies. She kept thinking of how her parents would scold her for bad grades again if she didn't, but it still wasn't enough motivation to really try. After all, her parents would usually find something to scold her for, especially in comparison to her perfect sister. So even though Isadora had her Potions book in front of her, with a few half-hearted notes next to it, her mind kept wandering. She sighed, looking up at the ceiling as she wondered what her friends were doing. Were they having fun without her? She hadn't seen them anywhere today.

Isadora was snapped out of her thoughts when someone spoke to her. She looked up in surprise to see Harper Alston looking at her, one of the Gryffindor prefects. It took Isadora a few moments to understand what she was asking. She blinked a few times. "Oh, uh." She said, thinking for a moment. "Find all the hidden corridors... maybe pull a massive prank?" She paused, remembering she was talking to a prefect. "In theory, of course." She added hurriedly. "Maybe... find the kitchens and eat a bunch of desserts?" She smiled, enjoying the question. "What do you have so far?" She asked, sitting up straighter to look over at the girl's paper.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper knew she'd asked the right person when the younger Gryffindor started listing off suggestions. "It might take more than seven years to find all the hidden corridors here," Harper said with a grin, "but I like the prank idea. Speaking hypothetically of course," she said even as she wrote down Pull a massive end-of-year prank. Doing that with a prefect's badge would be a little tricky, but Harper thought she could come up with something fun that the professors wouldn't find too bothersome — something like the indoor beach prank from a few years back but less messy. She chuckled at the girl's last suggestion. "Have you been to the kitchens yet?" Harper had already found them (and eaten desserts there), but if that was actually on the girl's bucket list, she would gladly provide directions.

Harper tilted her paper so that the girl could read off of it. "Aside from stuff like pass my NEWTs, I've got 'Find the Room of Requirement,' 'See the eel,' and 'Meet a mermaid.'" she ticked off. It seemed there would be a lot of swimming in her future. Harper tapped her pen against her chin as she contemplated the list. "What do you think? Am I missing anything else lake-related?" she joked. She supposed she should start thinking about goals that weren't related to school legends.

 

[Isadora Novak]

This conversation was definitely interesting, and Isadora forgot about her studies quickly. She turned to the girl, sighing a bit at her remark about the hidden corridors. "Probably." She said, unable to hide her disappointment. "Shame." She giggled in surprise as the girl considered her prank idea seriously, wondering quietly how she had gotten her prefect badge. She was so different from Natalia, who had kind of been Isadora's example of what a prefect was like. Isadora shook her head at her question. "No, not yet." She said. "Is it difficult to get in?" She asked,still a little wary of the girl's prefect badge. The question could be a trick to get her in trouble, but this girl didn't seem the type for that.

Isadora tilted her head to read the list properly. She glanced at the girl in shock. "You want more than just to pass your NEWTs." She said, looking at her goal with wide eyes. "All Os would be impressive." She said, pretty sure she had never gotten an O for an exam in her life. Isadora pushed that thought away, trying to focus on what the girl had written. She tapped her chin. "Maybe move away from the lake and to the forest? There's interesting stuff in there." She paused. "Theoretically." She added again.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper shook her head. "The dungeons can be kind of a maze, but it's not too hard to find." She was about to explain the normal route to the Kitchens when she remembered the girl's look of disappointment. While Harper still didn't think it was possible to find all of the hidden corridors in seven years, she could give the girl a head start. "There's actually a secret stairwell that leads straight to them. You know that statue of the witch by the Trophy Room? If you shake her hand, she'll move and reveal a set of stairs. Follow them, and you'll end up next to the Kitchens entrance. Just make sure you ask the elves before taking any food. They're pretty chill." Harper had personally never bothered asking for permission, but she figured she should probably be a good prefect and encourage the girl to do so.

Harper was a little surprised by the girl's shock, and she gave a modest shrug. "Figured since it's a bucket list, I should aim high, you know?" Maybe she was severely underestimating the difficulty of NEWTs, but Harper had always done well in school and she didn't see why that would suddenly change during her last year. At the comment about the forest, she had to fight back a look of amusement. The girl was bold. "There is," Harper agreed, thinking of the centaur she had once met in there. Of course, she didn't mention this. It was one thing to give directions to the Kitchens; it was quite another to encourage a younger student to explore the Forbidden Forest. "If you're interested in the forest, you should take Care of Magical Creatures," she suggested with a kind smile. The girl looked like she might be a second or third year. "Most of the fourth and fifth year classes are held there, and you get to see a lot of pretty impressive creatures."