Old School Week Turn the Whole Thing Upside Down

[Harper Alston]

It was a warm day, so naturally, Harper had decided to spend it outside. She'd spent most of the afternoon tucked away on a low tree branch, reading, but now her eyes needed a break. Nestling the book in some branch above her, she surveyed the Great Lawn. An idea came to her. She inched down the branch, gripped it with her knees, and then hung upside down. It was too bad Hogwarts didn't have a proper playground, but this would do.

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

“Woah!!” A girl suddenly appeared infront of her hanging upside down. Startled, Lillith fell to the ground. The back of the girl‘s head was facing her. She composed herself and stood up, brushing off the leaves that had gotten onto her clothes. Lillith was getting ready to go on a run, wanting to get a bit of exercise before heading back into the dorms.

 

[Harper Alston]

Someone very close to Harper's ear shrieked, causing Harper to scream too. "Ahhh!" Luckily, her instinct was to tighten her knees' grip, so she didn't fall and just flailed a bit, swinging back and forth. Harper reached up and pulled herself up so that she was sitting on the branch. She peered down to see another girl. "Have you been there the entire time?"

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

“No. I wasn’t” She said to the girl who was still hanging upside down. Lillith was a bit annoyed, but the feeling passed quickly. “Um. I was going to go on a jog.” Lillith gestured at her outfit, it had a bit of dirt on it now. Which was unfortunate, she hadn’t received it too long ago.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper raised her eyebrows and frowned as the other girl seemed to be angry. Wasn't she the one who had yelled in Harper's ear? She could have fallen and hurt herself! But at her next sentence, Harper's gaze softened. "Oh? Do you run? I thought I was the only runner here." Well, her and Hunter. Everyone else seemed to prefer flying.

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

“Yeah. I haven’t been running in awhile, but I do so often.” She said as she tried to wipe of the dirt from her leggings. Guess it’s not coming off. She thought, frowning. As she looked up from her pants, she realised that she recognized the girl infront of her. “Wait. You’re that girl I raced with! The one from the flying class, a bit ago?”

 

[Harper Alston]

"That's cool," Harper said, genuinely meaning it. Since coming here, she'd barely met anyone who liked Muggle sports. "Maybe I'll run into you sometime," she said, smiling, a bit too pleased with her pun. The other girl suddenly exclaimed that they had met before, and Harper paused, trying to remember the flying class in question. She readjusted her seat on the branch and leaned forward slightly, trying to get a better look at the other girl. "Oh yeah! You're in...Hufflepuff?" Either that or Slytherin.

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

“Mhmmm, Yup.” If Lillith had her robe on, she would have been spinning. ”And you’re in Gryffindor, I’m guessing.” The girl in front of her fit the Gryffindor mould like a glove, that she would have found it odd for her not to be in the house. “Uh. So what are you doing.. up on a tree?” Lillith asked as she stretched her legs a bit.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper nodded. "Yup, Gryffindor." She paused. "I'm Harper, what's your name?" There hadn't really been time to properly introduce herself after their race during Flying class. At the girl's question, Harper replied, "I was reading. It's nice out but I didn't want to be bothered, so I figured I'd come up here." People rarely bothered to look up. "But now I need a break."

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

“Lillith.” She said when the girl asked for her name.”Huh, that’s pretty smart. Did you climb up the tree by yourself?” The branch wasn’t too high but it was still pretty impressive. Lillith had tried to climb trees back when she was at home, but her parents kept telling her to get back down before she could even reach a branch. Which back then, was a bummer and now, was still a bummer.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper nodded. "Yeah, it wasn't too hard.." She wasn't even sure how one would climb a tree with the help of someone else. It sounded awfully unwieldy and probably took a decent amount of coordination. "Wanna join me?" She patted the spot next to her. There was plenty of room on the branch she was sitting, and if Lillith wanted her own branch, there were a lot to choose from.

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

It looked like her jogging plans would wait. “Sure.” Lillith walked towards the tree and started climbing it slowly. Luckily for her, Lillith had always been the athletic type. She soon reached the branch that Harper was on and got on it. “Hey, you’re right. That wasn’t too hard.”

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper moved over a bit so that Lillith would have more room. "Isn't this nice?" She swung her legs a bit, enjoying the cool breeze that had kicked up, before peering curiously at the other girl. "Is this your first time climbing a tree?"

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

“Yeah it is!” It was a breezy day and though it was sunny, the leaves shaded the both of the girls pretty well. “Not really, but I never reached the top. Most of the time someone would tell me to get down before I even got halfway there.

 

[Harper Alston]

"That sucks." Harper supposed she was lucky that back home, her parents were usually too preoccupied with taking care of her baby brother to notice it when she engaged in less-than-safe activities. "At least now there's no one to tell you off." The independence boarding school brought had been strange at first, but Harper had taken to it easily. She glanced up at the tree's intertwining branches. "You could probably reach the top before anyone noticed. If you wanted."

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

"That's true." Lillith definitely loved the freedom that came with going to hogwarts. Her parents were worried and didn't want her to come, but Lillith had managed to convince them to let her go to the school. Lillith looked up at her statement and then glanced back at her. "Hmm. Wanna race?" Lillith cocked an eyebrow at her.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper raised her eyebrows. "Race? Like, up the tree?" She'd never had a climbing race before, but it sounded fun. "How'd that work?" Harper looked up, her mind already whirring as she tried to figure out the logistics and figure out the fastest path up.

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

“Yeah, up the tree.” There was probably a low chance that Lillith would win, after all, she hadn’t climbed that much. But, it gave her that much more reason to try and win. “Here I’ll cross over to that branch over there.” Lillith said pointing at a branch at a similar height as the one they were on. “And we can start the race once we’re ready.”

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper nodded, eager to start. "That sounds good to me!" She maneuvered herself so that she was standing on their branch and holding onto the one above it, taking care to avoid her book. Getting hit in the face by it would definitely slow her down. Harper glanced over at Lilith. "Ready when you are!"

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

Lillith took a deep breath and took hold of a branch above her. “Ready..” She said prompting Harper to count off with her. “Set...” Lillith readied her right foot for climbing. “Go!” They both shouted at once. Lillith lifted her arms and feet one after another at a quick pace. She paid no attention to her opponent as she focused on going up.

 

[Harper Alston]

At the end of the countdown, Harper immediately started climbing up. She quickly ascended the first several feet, where there were many branches and each was quite thick. Things got trickier as the branches started to thin out. One snapped off in her hand. "Crap!" Harper found a different handhold and kept going, slowing down considerably.

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

Lillith continues to go up the tree as the race continues. Going a bit too fast that she almost misses her footing a couple of times. Leaves and small twigs get stuck in her once neat ponytail as she goes through the bushy foliage. “Woo!!” Suddenly, there is a lot of light coming from the sun, as her head pokes out of the tree. Lillith closes her eyes as she tries to catch her breath.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper lost track of Lillith as she continued to climb. The tangle of leaves and branches obscured her vision, and she concentrated on choosing branches that would hold her weight. Before she knew it, she was suddenly at the top. Harper looked around to see Lillith already standing there, twigs stuck in her hair. She giggled, not unkindly as she knew that her own hair was likely even more of a mess. "Congrats!" Harper surveyed the grounds below them. "Wow, you can see everything!"

 

[Lillith Montgomery]

Lillith opened her eyes to see Harper giggling. “Thanks.” Lillith said to her congrats. She raised her hand to her ponytail and removed the hair tie, letting the breeze blow through her hair. “Yeah! The people look like tiny little ants.” She said pointing at the group of students and professors walking past, not noticing that there were two girls up on a tree.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper's gaze followed Lillith's finger to see a group walk by. "They really do," she said, nodding in agreement. She felt powerful up here, like a ruler surveying her kingdom. Harper plucked a couple of leaves and let them blow away in the wind, watching them swirl next to the group before drifting away. No one even bothered to glance up. "How long do you think it'll take before someone notices us up here?"