where: the great hall, ravenclaw table when: september 2nd, 1945 ; morning who: open to all !!
He’d been up with the dawn, out and down to the pitch to greet the sun. There were few places he could truly think clearly -- the sky afforded this. Although there was little time to indulge in a lengthy fly, he had shot skyward, letting out a huffing breath to loose the tension that always lived between his shoulder blades. It escaped into the sky -- and then thudded back down to the earth with him, as it always did. The sun peered, un-judging, over the horizon as he had trudged off to take a cold shower in the locker rooms, for it was still too early for the water to be hot, and gritted his teeth against the heart-stopping cold that assaulted his shoulders, his back, dripped from his hair and chattered at his lips. He took it -- he needed to be awake. A painful shock was often better than coffee.
And he still dripped as he settled at the Ravenclaw table, gripping a mug so hot by comparison that it nearly burned his palms. The silence of early morning was steeling, and though his hair dripped in an unsteady, distracting rhythm upon his shoulders, he found peace in it. Peace that would, undoubtedly, be broken by the sleepy throngs at any moment. And so he took advantage, producing his journal from within the bag slung on the table beside him, and flipping to the latest drawing: a wand, already dappled at the edges with the last time he had dripped post-Quidditch shower water upon its pages.
And as he began to sketch, tendril of steam rising from the mug in his other hand, the last moment of early morning silence was broken. He shivered once more -- though not at all from the water upon his shoulders -- and pressed on, fingers and shoulders alike already beginning to ache.