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🥀 "Oh, come on. You're seriously charging me full price? It's your birthday - mixed - Halloween party!"

The two Ravenclaw girls were walking through the Hogwarts grounds, arms linked and laden with various woollen scarves and blankets. Autumn was evident in the frosty air, their cheeks and noses stingingly cold as they huddled together, conserving the slight bit of warmth eachothers breaths caused. The Highlands were always furiously chilled, but there had been a vast temperature drop the night before, hence the reason they were carrying a bizarre amount of warm blankets and gloves.

Briar struggled to catch her footing again after tripping on a loose bit of earth, unable to catch herself as her arms were perfectly busy carrying a bundle of clothes she could hardly see over. "No exceptions, Kimmy! You're lucky I'm not charging you extra for spoiling the surprise."

Kimmy was a girl with her head always in the clouds (maybe that's why she was always bumping into people?) and her nose in the books. She was a vastly pretty girl who was dating a Slytherin boy in the year above and had been since their first year in hogwarts. Briar juggled her jealousy at their relationship with her confusion at how they managed to stay together after countless screaming matches in the centre of the Great Hall. They even sent eachother Howlers when they were too furious to face eachother.

She suddenly turned sheepish. "Well... that's not really fair, is it? I'm out here on a Sunday when I could be getting Christmas presents at Hogsmeade, only to leave the trip super early and help you cart all this crap back up to the castle, and you won't even give me a bargain on the butterbeer I'm missing out on by helping you?"

Briar blew a stray curl from her face impatiently, inwardly cursing herself for not making sure all of her thick hair was tied back before deciding to take the journey uphill. Her hair puffed behind her prettily, but the hair in front didn't do well for how much she was sweating. "I thought your new year's resolution was to help me with my new year's resolution, Kimmy?"

Kimmy groaned. "I didn't realize that you'd actually remember. And halfway through the year, too - way harsh, because I thought I was in the clear."

The two Ravenclaws were what you could call inherently privileged.

They grew up in fully magic homes, purebloods beauties who wanted for nothing but the presents their parents would buy them at Christmas, having already bought them too much for their birthdays. However, while their privilege was similar, their upbringings were vastly different.

Kimmy was raised in a manor, surrounded by the pureblood children of her parents friends. Briar was raised in the Three Broomsticks, the most popular pub in Hogsmeade from it's homely warmth and sweet drinks which tasted just better than from the bottle.

Where Kimmy was surrounded by fellow younger witches, mainly Slytherins or Ravenclaws, Briar had met countless species' of creatures and people before the age of ten. Since the little girl could crawl, she would sit on the bar as her parents worked, listening as they made happy and idle chit-chat to the customers of each shape and size. There were humans and goblins, shady salesmen and warty witches. There had been a banshee in a thick woolen scarf, and a gaggle of vampires which she only got to see if she stayed up past her bedtime. There was a half-giant, a blue person with gills and a trio of veela, all wanting the last drop of firewhiskey from the tap. She'd sworn that she'd seen an actual living werewolf once, but her parents just kissed her on the forehead and sent her off to bed since it was just someone's lost dog wandering in.

Not only did she see an arrangement of peculiar appearances daily, but she made it her mission to hear their stories and tales with unwavering intrigue. You get all sorts of folk in the Three Broomsticks, she remembered hearing someone whisper outside the window before they went inside. What if they let in a harpy?

Briar's eyes would shine with excitement at their voices as they steered clear from entering, slightly confused at their aversion. She couldn't understand how there were people who existed who didn't find all sorts of creatures the way she did - absolutely beautiful and fascinating.

Poorly raised, Kimmy didn't share the same beliefs. It made Briar furious at her close-mindedness sometimes, but she knew that it wasn't entirely her fault. Which was why she had coerced her friend's new year's resolution to be helping her with her own! A foolproof and airtight plan, if she did say so herself.

(It would've proved a lot more beneficial if she hadn't only just remembered it halfway through the year, but still.)

Briar was going to do everything in her ability to help the strange and isolated creatures all around her: more than her usual passing kindness, she would go out of her way to greatly impact the ecosystem instead of getting angry in debate classes of people who couldn't understand the humanity creatures held, or getting sad and crying in Care of Magical Creatures classes when they learned about the prejudice many of them faced.

The first step in her plan? Blankets.

"Shut up, will you?" Briar finally said, heaving like she'd run a mile. "Just - keep up."

The first place they went to was the paddock which remained empty for their entire stay at hogwarts. When Briar had opened the rusted gate, she crawled through the gap and started laying blankets down on the floor.

Kimmy watched her from outside of the paddock, expressionless. "Right. That's it, then. You've finally gone barmy."

"What?" Briar was barely listening to her.

"You! You, laying down a bunch of blankets in a fenced area that we've been staring at from the common room tower since we got to this school. Briar, it didn't have any animals in it then, and it doesn't have any in it now."

"Don't be stupid, Kimmy," she said, carrying on arranging the blankets into a sort of nest. "there are animals, we just can't see them."

Kimmy side-eyed her. "You'd tell me if you were finally able to get your hands on some weed, wouldn't you?"

Briar sighed. "Thestrals, Kimmy. The things that pull the schools carriages?"

Her nose wrinkled instantly as she took a few steps back from the paddock. "Eurgh. Eurgh, you mean those ugly things you can only see if you watched someone snuff it?"

"It's nesting season," Briar carried on arranging the blankets, happily not listening to Kimmy's insults. "I was reading in one of my Care of Magical Creatures books that there could be thestrals giving birth in cold areas, and, well - at least there'll be something soft for the babies to land on. Apparently they usually graze their heads when they're born -"

"That's actually minging," Kimmy interrupted her grossly. "and if you keep talking about invisible animal birth, I'm puking."

Briar stood, admiring her handiwork as the blankets started to rustle. She beamed at the sight while feeling a sort-of presence trot past her on her left, the hairs on her arm standing up as it did so. She made her way out of the paddock slowly and blindly feeling around herself so she wouldn't bump into any of the graceful creatures.

"You look like such a lemon,"Kimmy giggled at her. "walking like when Marlene put that charm on Alice's shoes for April fools, remember? She'd already made them about five sizes bigger, mind..."

"Yes, well the matron in training put her feet right in the end," Briar shook her head with remorse at the reminder of the spectacle. Instead of doing secret santa, that year all the 3rd year girls from each houses had entered a sort of April fools lotto. Luckily, Briar had a sweet Slytherin girl who sent her an erasing ink quill which she profusely apologized for afterwards. Unluckily for the ginger girl, however, Briar had picked Lily Evans as her 'secret prankster' and spent months brewing the perfect polyjuice potion with one of her own hair's in it, just to terrify her into thinking she had a secret twin.

"Is that it, then?" Kimmy stretched out, her wand levitating the other blankets since they'd arrived back on the castle grounds and were finally allowed to use magic again. She yawned, "what're the rest of these for?"

Briar looked at her, scandalised. "We haven't even started yet! C'mon, Kimmy, there are creatures all over the grounds who could use our help. I've spotted a bunch - and I've been mapping out the best spots to put them so the most independent ones can come across them on their own!"

"Ooh!" Kimmy said, suddenly excited in the conversation again. "Ooh, did you manage to find out what creature lives in the Shrieking Shack, Boos?"

Briar sighed with frustration. "No, but it's killing me. The Grey Lady told me that it can't be a ghost because it doesn't rattle often enough, and you've been studying about spectres and poltergeists-"

"They don't howl like that." Kimmy added in agreement. After a pause, she said, "I still don't see why we can't try and break in."

"That place is practically rotting, Kimmy," Briar wrinkled her nose in disgust. "now, come on - we need to get to the clearing of the Forbidden Forest by Hagrids hut." at Kimmys frightened look, she hastily added, "by the Forest, not straight inside. Don't be such a chicken."

They made their rounds around the mainly empty grounds, chatting animatedly about all sorts of topics which randomly sprung to conversation. They'd been to a few feet from where there was a suspected colony of bowtruckles, for which she laid a few small blankets and scraps of fabrics for their nests. She left some at the foot of the tallest pine trees, swearing on her life that she'd seen rather large and exotic looking birds perch on top of them. They left some in the unicorn paddock and fed the graceful creatures some sugar cubes, avoiding the large lake harbouring the overly playful hippocampus and only getting close to the rocks to lay some blankets in case the selkies came out and needed some warmth other than their pelts.

This was where the lake had started to lead into the forbidden forest, and Kimmy was starting to get nervous. She chewed on her bottom lip and danced around the outskirts of the trees as Briar almost submerged herself into the wood, having to be pulled back by Kimmy's voice interrupting and calling out,

"Come on, Briar. I'm absolutely freezing, and I need to get some transfiguration homework knocked out before dinner."

Slightly disappointed, Briar masked her look of longing to the loom of the forbidden forest with her own affects of the cold. Her nose felt like it was going to freeze and fall off, her fingers feeling like icicles.

They started walking back, huddling closer together and shivering as the wind had picked up from earlier. There were still a few blankets left in the boulder of a heap Kimmy's wand was levitating behind them.

"So, about the butterbeer-"

"I'll knock 3 Sickles off," Briar weaned. "but that's all, okay? I need to set an example, I'm a woman of business!"

The walk back seemed shorter, but it could've just been because they were on more even ground than straight uphill. As soon as they reached the gates, however, they were both thoroughly shattered from the day.

"I'm absolutely knackered," Kimmy moaned, stumbling through the courtyard and ignoring giggling second years as Briar caught her. "fucking hell, I've been on my feet all day, and I have to walk up all those stairs to our common room..."

"I need to make a detour," Briar admitted. Before Kimmy could start to cry, she quickly added, "you don't have to come, though, don't worry. I was just going to take the rest of the blankets up to the hospital wing since the last time I was there 'cause of potions, I saw that the bed sheets had a lot of holes, and stuff. Just save me a seat besides the fire, if that's okay?"

"I'm going into your emergency stash." Kimmy insisted, past the dramatics of pretending she wasn't going to steal some of her precious drink from home. " - not even hot chocolate can warm me up after all that."

With matching pink noses and skin so cold to the touch you would've wanted to quickly envelop them in a warm, cozy blanket, they departed from eachother as they reached a crossroads and bore matching shivers as they stumbled.

Though Briar's face was insistently cold and the vast and lonesome castle didn't do much for her as she walked, the Ravenclaw girl felt her cheeks getting warmer and warmer with every trudged step she took up towards the infirmary. She seemed to be daydreaming, as she snagged her foot against a trick step and even had to have a bronze suit of armour jump out of her way as she walked by, wagging a sword at her as her eyes were too busy wandering.

Her face numbed with cold couldn't hide the hints of a blush creeping over her cheeks. Honestly, she was quite surprised how none of her friends who were supposedly Ravenclaws noticed her lame excuses for sneaking off into the infirmary since halfway through the last school year. Briar was sure she wasn't covert about it, either - Rosie Rosmerta's cheeks always suited her name with a delicate flush whenever she thought about going to see Remus Lupin.

And it wasn't that Briar was a stalker, okay? That would take a lot more effort than she was willing to put in. It was just well-known that the boy was the clumsiest in the entire school and had a knack for getting injured in one of him and his friend's many wacky experiments - and so what if Briar found herself straying over to the infirmary every so often? It couldn't possibly be stalking him because stalkers know every in-and-out of their stalkee's schedule, and 9 times out of 10, whenever Briar was there, Remus wasn't.

Remus goddamn Lupin.

He wasn't Briar's first crush, and not by a long shot. But he certainly was the newest, and Briar found herself lovestruck when she realized she couldn't shake him out of her head after a few miscalculated meetings which included butterbeer, Sirius Black chasing Severus Snape down the hallways and a poor, first-year bystander who didn't deserve to be hit with four curses. She couldn't think of a meeting they'd had which didn't entail a furious amount of chaos, dating all the way back to the first time they'd met in quidditch tryouts in first year.

Briar knew she wasn't going to make the team by a long shot having been a lot younger than the already made up team, but she supposed she would try and get her name on the mind of the Ravenclaw Captain at the time for future consideration. She didn't get a chance to, however, when four new Gryffindor students strutted in for their trials and single-handedly created a rule which would be passed down from generation to generation, banning first years from playing quidditch.

She supposed that was where the admiration had sparked a light in her for the first time. She had a knack for adventure, and the so-called 'marauders' had already claimed the word as their middle name.

They'd been sharing classes for years, and her heart had recently started to ache with such a longing to speak to him when their proximity was increased by Briar's trips to the infirmary. She hadn't managed much yet but a few shared glances and quick smiles. He was the type of boy who bowed his head and hid it low, the sort which avoided eye contact like it was dragon pox. Briar was the type of girl who smiled so brightly it was almost impossible to not take notice.

But Remus wasn't just introverted - he was smart and sweet. He was friends with some of the most annoying boys in the school, but still managed to make them seem popular and bearable when he was with them. In Hogwarts, you had about twenty five other people who were in your year, which meant that you usually crossed paths with about everyone your age no matter where you went. It granted them a sort of familiar intimacy with everyone from all the houses, even if you didn't really like eachother. Gossip was easy because you knew just who everybody was talking about, and Briar had heard many stories about him.

As she opened the great wide doors to the infirmary and spotted him in his usual bed sitting up and reading a thick book, Briar just wished that he'd only heard good things about her in return.

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