Houses of Hogwarts Fest FIC: Hogwarts (G)
Title: Hogwarts
Author/Artist: sickle_girl
House Category: Hogwarts
Summary: A little glance to what Hogwarts is.
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Random unnamed students.
Characters/Pairings: Gen.
Genre: Gen.
Beta:
Rating: G
(Highlight to View) Warning(s): Just a bit of Teen Angst .
Can we link from Tumblr?: Yes.
If yes, your Tumblr username: justcallmenoe.tumblr.com
It is more than a school, more than a building where they go to classes and more than a large ground where they can play. It is a maze, at first. The walls are endless and the corridors look always the same and the stairs always take you to whatever destination they feel like taking you.
"Look" a muggleborn girl says on the first Friday afternoon of the School year, "I don't want to take this as something personal because I know you do it to others first years, too, but is there a way we can sort this out? From stair to um-- human being?"
She is sitting with her legs crossed on the floor and her school bag lying partly open next to her.
"I have never been late in my entire life," she continues because the staircase hasn't even moved a tiny bit in response to her previous statement, "And, for the record, I was able to not arrive late to any of my classes this week despite your obvious efforts but I need to know if this is a first year in Hogwarts thing or a first week in Hogwarts thing."
She waits then, for the staircase to move or something but the staircase remains uncharacteristically still, as if it were a regular, completely harmless, muggle staircase.
"Look," the twelve year old starts again, "if it is your job, I get it. If it is a way of teaching us, fresh years, to not be overconfident with our time, to be aware that there are factors that can delay us and that it is our responsibility to get into class on time, no matter what, I get it. I really do. I have seen enough films and series, those are like muggle fiction works, by the way, about it, but I really REALLY need to know that you won't be trying to get me to the wrong floor or corridor every single day for the rest of the upcoming seven years."
There's a moment of silence then, filled by the distant laughter of students thanking Merlin about the school week being over and a sole "is that first year talking to a staircase? Damn were we that mental on first year?" that the girl chooses to ignore.
"I am not mad. Not really, I am tired and I don't want to pick up a fight, I am just new to all this, you know. Owls carrying letters, invisible horses, staircases moving around. I mean, don't get me wrong, this place is grand, honestly. It is like a dream come true but it is so big and unfamiliar and unpredictable and I kind of really need to get to the very comfy sofa in my common room, in one go, if possible."
The staircase moves, finally, and the girl recognizes the corridor that leads to her common room. She smiles brightly then and grabs her bag and gets up and feels like kissing the banister. She doesn't do it, though. It would be too weird, even for her. She settles with hugging the banister, which is not entirely less weird.
"Ah, you guys can mess up with me, once in a while, though," she confesses, once she has stepped on the corridor and feels safe of any staircase shenanigans.
The staircases take her word and mess with her, once in a while. She jokes around breaking the rules and using a broomstick to move around on every April 1st, and no one really gets why the staircases act to mischievously to her or why she laughs so hard.
When her last day at Hogwarts comes, the staircases move and move around, taking her from a staircase to another, making her walk the familiar steps once and again for what it feels hours. It is not just a joke, though. She can tell. It is a goodbye and maybe a way of saying that they don't really want her to go. They do, of course. They always let them go, eventually.
It is their home, for seven years, at least. It is their shelter, and sometimes their Eden's garden.
"I could live here" a boy says one evening, lying on the grass and watching the sun going down on the horizon.
"Yeah, right," his boyfriend replies with a sneer, "you can't sleep if your two pillows aren't properly stuffed, but sure, you could totally live in the open air with absolutely no commodities."
"Not live here as in live actually here,"
"That makes sense."
"I meant the spiritual atmosphere, not the physical one. It is nice and all, though, I would like a garden like all this, maybe smaller. But anyway, I meant that I could live with a setting sun and fresh air, and a sense of wildness and liberty, and the sense of still being at Hogwarts, you know, of still being in the castle and outside."
"I love my house back at home and I want to have my own place-- our place," he adds, shyly, "but I wish I could take Hogwarts, specially the outside grounds, with me because there is like something important here, something I don't want to do without... Ah, just forget it. I am not making any sense."
"It's okay. I do get it."
And he does. Two years ago, when studying was overwhelming, and passing the O.W.L.s seemed the most impossible thing to do (and the mere idea of sitting for the N.E.W.T.s two years later was just mental), he had ran out of the castle in a rush and yelled at the wind outside until he was at the edge of the lake, gasping for air.
He had watched the surface then, stared at the exhausted reflection and wondered, not for the first time that year, if there was a way out. He had felt so stupid through the last weeks, so insignificant when compared to his older brother with all this O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s and perfect, absolutely, perfect job and life.
All his teen angst thoughts, however, had been abruptly interrupting by a wave of water.
For some seconds he had stood still, drenched and confused, trying to figure out the Giant Squid's action and what that tentacle was holding in front of him.
It was a toast, a watered toast that the creature had decided to give to him, had decided he needed the drenched piece of bread more than it.
He had laughed, then, full heartily and light for the first time in what felt years, and he had accepted the gift and thanked the creature before heading back to the castle in search of dried clothes.
"Maybe we can visit when we graduate," he says, back to the present, with his eyes set on the lake and his fingers mindlessly caressing the curls of the boy lying on his lap.
In the end, it is and it will always be their home. Even if they don't go back as teachers, even if they barely set a foot on the school again, they carry Hogwarts in photographs and memories, in the house scarves they seldom use again, in their children's retelling of their own school life. Hogwarts is there and here, always, and there is a piece of them too, left in the castle's walls or wandering the school grounds.
That's Hogwarts, they guess. More than just an impressive building and lessons and Quidditch matches. It is the spells they shouldn't have casted in the hallways, the hurried steps when arriving late to class. It is the bonds of friendships and the desolation of teenage romances and the shared laughter and unrepressed tears. It is what each of them lived and felt during those seven years and what will still linger in a corner of their heart for the rest of their lives.
Noelia/Hufflepuff/43 (1310 words)
Author/Artist: sickle_girl
House Category: Hogwarts
Summary: A little glance to what Hogwarts is.
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Random unnamed students.
Characters/Pairings: Gen.
Genre: Gen.
Beta:
Rating: G
(Highlight to View) Warning(s): Just a bit of Teen Angst .
Can we link from Tumblr?: Yes.
If yes, your Tumblr username: justcallmenoe.tumblr.com
It is more than a school, more than a building where they go to classes and more than a large ground where they can play. It is a maze, at first. The walls are endless and the corridors look always the same and the stairs always take you to whatever destination they feel like taking you.
"Look" a muggleborn girl says on the first Friday afternoon of the School year, "I don't want to take this as something personal because I know you do it to others first years, too, but is there a way we can sort this out? From stair to um-- human being?"
She is sitting with her legs crossed on the floor and her school bag lying partly open next to her.
"I have never been late in my entire life," she continues because the staircase hasn't even moved a tiny bit in response to her previous statement, "And, for the record, I was able to not arrive late to any of my classes this week despite your obvious efforts but I need to know if this is a first year in Hogwarts thing or a first week in Hogwarts thing."
She waits then, for the staircase to move or something but the staircase remains uncharacteristically still, as if it were a regular, completely harmless, muggle staircase.
"Look," the twelve year old starts again, "if it is your job, I get it. If it is a way of teaching us, fresh years, to not be overconfident with our time, to be aware that there are factors that can delay us and that it is our responsibility to get into class on time, no matter what, I get it. I really do. I have seen enough films and series, those are like muggle fiction works, by the way, about it, but I really REALLY need to know that you won't be trying to get me to the wrong floor or corridor every single day for the rest of the upcoming seven years."
There's a moment of silence then, filled by the distant laughter of students thanking Merlin about the school week being over and a sole "is that first year talking to a staircase? Damn were we that mental on first year?" that the girl chooses to ignore.
"I am not mad. Not really, I am tired and I don't want to pick up a fight, I am just new to all this, you know. Owls carrying letters, invisible horses, staircases moving around. I mean, don't get me wrong, this place is grand, honestly. It is like a dream come true but it is so big and unfamiliar and unpredictable and I kind of really need to get to the very comfy sofa in my common room, in one go, if possible."
The staircase moves, finally, and the girl recognizes the corridor that leads to her common room. She smiles brightly then and grabs her bag and gets up and feels like kissing the banister. She doesn't do it, though. It would be too weird, even for her. She settles with hugging the banister, which is not entirely less weird.
"Ah, you guys can mess up with me, once in a while, though," she confesses, once she has stepped on the corridor and feels safe of any staircase shenanigans.
The staircases take her word and mess with her, once in a while. She jokes around breaking the rules and using a broomstick to move around on every April 1st, and no one really gets why the staircases act to mischievously to her or why she laughs so hard.
When her last day at Hogwarts comes, the staircases move and move around, taking her from a staircase to another, making her walk the familiar steps once and again for what it feels hours. It is not just a joke, though. She can tell. It is a goodbye and maybe a way of saying that they don't really want her to go. They do, of course. They always let them go, eventually.
It is their home, for seven years, at least. It is their shelter, and sometimes their Eden's garden.
"I could live here" a boy says one evening, lying on the grass and watching the sun going down on the horizon.
"Yeah, right," his boyfriend replies with a sneer, "you can't sleep if your two pillows aren't properly stuffed, but sure, you could totally live in the open air with absolutely no commodities."
"Not live here as in live actually here,"
"That makes sense."
"I meant the spiritual atmosphere, not the physical one. It is nice and all, though, I would like a garden like all this, maybe smaller. But anyway, I meant that I could live with a setting sun and fresh air, and a sense of wildness and liberty, and the sense of still being at Hogwarts, you know, of still being in the castle and outside."
"I love my house back at home and I want to have my own place-- our place," he adds, shyly, "but I wish I could take Hogwarts, specially the outside grounds, with me because there is like something important here, something I don't want to do without... Ah, just forget it. I am not making any sense."
"It's okay. I do get it."
And he does. Two years ago, when studying was overwhelming, and passing the O.W.L.s seemed the most impossible thing to do (and the mere idea of sitting for the N.E.W.T.s two years later was just mental), he had ran out of the castle in a rush and yelled at the wind outside until he was at the edge of the lake, gasping for air.
He had watched the surface then, stared at the exhausted reflection and wondered, not for the first time that year, if there was a way out. He had felt so stupid through the last weeks, so insignificant when compared to his older brother with all this O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s and perfect, absolutely, perfect job and life.
All his teen angst thoughts, however, had been abruptly interrupting by a wave of water.
For some seconds he had stood still, drenched and confused, trying to figure out the Giant Squid's action and what that tentacle was holding in front of him.
It was a toast, a watered toast that the creature had decided to give to him, had decided he needed the drenched piece of bread more than it.
He had laughed, then, full heartily and light for the first time in what felt years, and he had accepted the gift and thanked the creature before heading back to the castle in search of dried clothes.
"Maybe we can visit when we graduate," he says, back to the present, with his eyes set on the lake and his fingers mindlessly caressing the curls of the boy lying on his lap.
In the end, it is and it will always be their home. Even if they don't go back as teachers, even if they barely set a foot on the school again, they carry Hogwarts in photographs and memories, in the house scarves they seldom use again, in their children's retelling of their own school life. Hogwarts is there and here, always, and there is a piece of them too, left in the castle's walls or wandering the school grounds.
That's Hogwarts, they guess. More than just an impressive building and lessons and Quidditch matches. It is the spells they shouldn't have casted in the hallways, the hurried steps when arriving late to class. It is the bonds of friendships and the desolation of teenage romances and the shared laughter and unrepressed tears. It is what each of them lived and felt during those seven years and what will still linger in a corner of their heart for the rest of their lives.
Noelia/Hufflepuff/43 (1310 words)