#postbellumstarter

Terry was sitting in one of the study halls where noise was permitted, trying his best to study though everyone knew that wasn’t going to happen. How was he supposed to study when there was important food to be eating that was in front of him. There here was, studying about some stupid fairy when he decided to take a bite from his bowl of spaghetti that he took from the Great Hall. He really needed to date a Hufflepuff to have better access to the kitchens rather than travelling a hundred light years just to get to his tower. Just as he took a bite of the noodles, Terry immediately swallowed his food but had a giant look of disgusts across his face. Not only did they taste undercooked but it seemed as if they didn’t try. This was unacceptable. Terry was a semi-kind individual who had always been an advocate of Elves cooking but to undercook an easy and supposed-to-be delicious meal was highly illegal and unholy in his mind. 

“Wow. I’m seriously going to need to speak to the kitchen manager about this.” Terry shook his head. He was clearly joking but still upset about the fact that it was gross. “Accio better quality.” He mumbled, putting the cover back over the bowl and slamming his book shut. “How am I supposed to act like I’m reading this book on an empty stomach?” Terry hadn’t realized there was a person across from him, and couldn’t get a read on if they were agreeing with him, angry at him, confused, or just happy.

So now he was sitting comfortably in the grass, propped up against the trunk of a tree near the greenhouses, squinting through the sunlight that was shining directly in his eyes, trying to figure out what to say to his mother so that she’d stop worrying for three seconds in her life. 

At least, he was squinting until someone stepped between him and the brightly burning setting sun. They were a few metres away, just far enough that their shadow fell across both Seamus’ letter and his line of vision. Perfect. 

“Ah, could ya stay right there for a moment?” he asked loudly, before they could walk away and leave him blinded by the light again. “Just two more seconds,” he added quickly, trying to dash off the last few lines of his note before glancing up. 

It was after the chaos of the feast died down, after the first years were led out by the prefects and the older students began to trickle out of the Great Hall--after the cacophony stopped echoing from the high ceiling, meant to look like the night sky. 

There was a strange sort of serenity in a barely-full hall that always calmed him after the chaos of the feast. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy it--no, he definitely did. It was nice to see his friends again, nice to laugh and shout together while the plates kept filling themselves again and again. But the quiet afterwards was just as nice, if not even a little bit nicer.

Neville let his eyes close, resting his elbows on the wooden table. He wasn’t ready to go up to Gryffindor tower just yet--there would be time for that later. This was the very last time he’d get to relish this moment, and he wanted to make it last just a little bit longer. He hummed to himself with contentment, his stomach full and the soft candlelight flickering, the sounds of murmured conversations just barely reaching his ears.

He was pulled from his own peaceful moment by the thunk of someone sitting down across from him at the table, and Neville began to speak, his eyes still closed. “Hello there,” he greeted, a lazy half-smile still on his face as he spoke, opening his eyes to see who was sitting with him. “Not ready to go off to bed yet, either? I just... I thought I’d let the moment last a little longer. This’ll be the last welcoming feast for me, after all.”

Ginny sat in the Great Hall, a strong cup of coffee in her hand. Three books were placed strategically around her, each open on a different page. A thin piece of parchment sat to her left. Hovering above it was a quill recently dipped in ink. She exhaled, taking a large mouthful of coffee and letting it wake her up. She was exhausted. She’d had prefect rounds the night before and hadn’t gotten to sleep until the early hours of this morning. Her mind wandered away from her potions work and found itself outside, on the Quidditch pitch. She was up on her broom, whipping through the air, her hair blustering behind her as she chopped through the sky. 

“Godric” Ginny murmured, a frown set upon her face. She would kill to be outside right now and nowhere near Slughorn’s workload. She looked up, willing anyone to come over and distract her.

Parvati found herself wishing to escape to that little chamber in the North Tower more and more, craving familiarity as most things felt strange and warped and wrong. Her escapes could never last forever, though. She was leaving the small classroom, though, trading it for the greyish stone and talking paintings of the Hogwarts corridors. It was like being sobered up --- a bucket of cold water hitting her drunk face --- every time she left that place, as if she was being thrown back into the world that had so drastically changed over the past years. 

It was only logical that Parvati felt a little off balance. 

With her bag swung over her shoulder and her head still with her private session with her favourite teacher, she paid little attention to where she was going. She wasn’t usually clumsy, really, but she had grown absent-minded as of late, which explained why her bag crashed against one of the suits of armor. Her bag hadn’t been in the best state before --she had wanted to buy a new one in the summer, but had kept postponing it for reasons unknown to her -- and it ripped, its insides spilling and rolling over the stone floor of the corridor.

“Morgana’s saggy t---,” she started, swallowing her swear before she could fully speak it. Parvati bit the inside of her cheek, frustrated with herself as she crouched down to gather her things.

And if it reached the stage after that sensation- well, that was when Alice had to run until it was over. Her muscles all tensed up, she couldn’t breath but to stay still would be to give in to the fear and collapse in a corner. So Alice ran until she stopped seeing death eaters around every corner.

They were still there now, and so Alice kept running. She’d be late for potions class, taking a big loop around the grounds that purposefully avoided her usual haunts. Normally nothing could make Alice late, especially for potions. But she had to run out the fear, had to pound her feet against the grass until the world made sense again.

Of course, the castle had changed--a battle was fought within its walls and on its grounds, after all, and it only made sense that it would bear the same scars as those who fought for its honor. It had done its best to help them, the Room of Requirement keeping safe those students who stayed behind, the stone facade that typically housed a place of learning suddenly acting as battlements and shields. After all, it was a castle, and in old times those were used as fortresses. Rolf didn’t understand what everyone expected.

Still, spending his whole summer on back-and-forth trips to Hogwarts with his grandfather to re-establish the creatures in their homes had certainly helped the transition back to school after the war. Of course, the other students hadn’t had that opportunity, so he supposed it made sense that it was a little bit harder for his classmates to settle back into Hogwarts, especially without the impending doom hanging over their heads that had seemed to always be there before.

The biggest problem that Rolf was having was figuring out which creatures to visit first. He wanted to make sure that they were all settling back in okay, as well as check on the house elves and the lake and even check in with the centaurs to see how the creatures of the forest had fared.

It was late in the morning when he finally decided that sitting around in the Hufflepuff common room wasn’t going to help him any. He jumped up from the overstuffed couch that he was sitting on and made his way over to the little tree in the corner.

“Morning, Pickett,” he greeted, crouching down to see where his little friend was. Rolf chuckled when the Bowtruckle showed his head. “I’m going to go visit some of the creatures today, do you want to come?” He held out his hand and Pickett climbed on willingly, so he tucked his friend into his shirt pocket, and off they went together.

As he tried to decide where to go first, he found himself wandering the corridors, not going outside just yet because he couldn’t decide which direction to go in. Instead, he stopped and looked out the window nearest him, leaning against the frame and hoping that if he stood here long enough, he’d be able to make a decision about where to go.

"I can't." Laura muttered, sadness and disappointment in her eyes, as once again she got up from her bed. 

Six nights had gone by and still she wasn't able to sleep, still she couldn't do anything but keep her eyes open at night, scared of the nightmares that followed her, scared that if she was to sleep someone would approach her in the middle of her dreams, someone real, someone mean, someone capable of doing to her all the bad things that had already been done in the past year. 

She didn't want it, didn't want to feel that way, but so far nothing could stop her brain from thinking, wandering. The only option was to stand, to leave the Common Room and search for a place that the memories couldn't follow ‒ there wasn't a literal place, maybe it was her head, her tired head after hours walking with no destiny in mind.

So Laura started doing that. Every night. Her body, her guitar or cello and too many thoughts followed her ‒ she never knew where would she stop, who would she meet, not even if she would be caught by one of the prefects, but still she was sure to leave. Laura wasn't afraid of detention or punishments, last year she only wished detentions were the way they might be now, but the thought of standing still in a bed when she couldn't sleep, that she couldn't bear with.

So once again Laura left, once again she thought of songs that could keep her company. Songs she had written last year, thinking of those who were hurt or dead, thinking of herself, but also the ones she had known before. Songs of joy, though, those she couldn't sing anymore. Anyway, keep going. Keep walking. That's what she wanted to have in mind right now.