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[attr="class","orange"]Old Pine

[attr="class","vanilla"]free as the birds who fly

[attr="class","gummies"]Outside, in the courtyard, there was a tree. It wasn't the Willow, but it was still something, still something that they could start climbing on the second year of their escapades. Now that they were second years, finally, Lizzy was certain that they could climb the Willow. They hadn't quite failed, last year, but they hadn't succeeded. The Whomping Willow had not wanted them on her, and they had only made it a few branches before being tossed off. Thankfully, all injuries were minor, and their resolves were not injured in the flight. They were fine, all three of them, and they were determined to succeed this year. They would get there. This time, Lizzy was going to be as comfortable in a tree as Henry was, and they were going to befriend the Willow as well. With plans in mind through the summer-- and finally ready to be enacted-- Lizzy dragged Henry with her to the Transfiguration Courtyard just as soon as classes were done for the evening.


"This one's a nice and easy one to climb," Lizzy said decidedly, dropping her school bag off and brushing down the uneven hem of her robes. She had worn extra shorts under her school robes that morning so that she could climb better, and she had her history book tucked under her arm so that they could sit and go over the notes. She wasn't doing as poorly, so far, what with the extra studying and Henry and Dominic and Carin(a) helping her. She also wasn't falling asleep during the class, now, with three friends nudging her awake each time she drifted off. It wasn't that she wasn't getting enough sleep; she just found the class boring, most of the time. She knew that it was all fantastic stories-- and true ones! But it wasn't as active, and the words swam around the chalkboard, and her notes simply looked like gibberish. "Does up there look okay?"

She waited for the okay from Henry before grabbing her wand. "Wingardium Leviosa!" she cast, pointing at the book. Last year, she would have tried to find a way to hold it. Now, she could cast the spell and float the book upwards to a comfortable place for them to sit. It took a few extra seconds of extreme focus before she was able to get the book to drop at the exact place she wanted it. Then, she moved to start climbing up the tree. She wasn't as good as Henry was; she had also forgotten to practice over the summer, and she still hadn't grown very much. At least she had more muscles in her arms, which was nice.

[attr="class","cherries"]# Henry James Blanchet   | # 446  | # holla

[attr="class","credz"]♕fai

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Old Pine

Steady as the stars in the woods

After their failure last spring, they had all been disheartened. For about an hour. Then they had become sensible again and decided to continue trying. Nothing spoke against it. He had had a large bruise on his thigh from when the tree had thrown him a few feet, but that seemed the worst any of them had had. And bruises always had to be taken into consideration, and they had all been in places where Nick hadn’t been able to see them, so he was none the wiser, which was better both for them and for him. After all, the bruises were, all things considered, a positive sign. The tree clearly hadn’t meant to hurt them, just keep them away, so they hadn’t been viewed as actual enemies. Everything pointed to that it was possible to gain her trust. There was therefore absolutely no reason to simply give up. No, they were the three Musketeers, and one of their goals was to climb the Whomping Willow. A Musketeer didn’t give up on their goals lightly. They had now made a first acquaintance with the tree, and Henry was convinced that the next time they’d go to it, it’d remember them.

They would have to come up with a plan to befriend the willow. His last suggestion was to sneak out daily and saying a couple of nice things to her while trying to get as close as possible without making her twitch. After a month or so, it’d become clear whether there was any improvement. But apart from getting on good terms with the willow, they couldn’t neglect their climbing training, so he hastened after his friend as soon as the bell rang the end of the lesson. Looking up at the tree that he had almost forgotten because of how used to it he was by now, he nodded to himself. Lizzy was right, it was an excellent choice for practice.

“That looks perfect,” he said, tilting his head to the left to get a better view. Then he pointed upwards. “There. The three… five… sixth and seventh branch of the easiest route, that looks perfect to place our books with how the branches fork out.” He followed his friend’s example and let his book float down next to hers. Then he measured the height of his friend and where the branch closest to the ground grew. “You should be able to grip it if you jump.” She’d be able to pull herself up effortlessly, he had no doubt there. It was very important for a Quidditch player to get back on if they slipped from the broomstick. He had seen Lizzy often enough on a broom to know that she was more than capable of this. Waiting until Lizzy was safely on the branch, he heaved himself up after her.

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[attr="class","orange"]Cecilia & the satellite

[attr="class","vanilla"]i'm the satellite and you're the sky

[attr="class","gummies"]Each member of the Musketeers had something that they were good at, something that was their strength above all other things. For Lizzy, it was Quidditch, Quidditch above all else. For Henry, it was the trees-- among other things, of course, but climbing was the only thing that Lizzy could think of for the moment. Prideful though she was, climbing trees was the thing that she easily deferred to Henry to. They had met through tree climbing, of course, and she was particularly interested in the how of it all. She wasn't nearly as skilled at it as her friend was, but she tried her hardest, and to her that was very nearly enough some days. It was quite like Keeping, for that matter. There were days where she struggled to keep the Quaffle away, and no matter how frustrated she was, she was able to accept it as a thing and roughly move on from there. So she worked as hard as she could, trying to make sure that she had grips and arm strength and all of the things Henry had informed her would help with climbing.

Trees, Lizzy had decided, were awfully nice places to study. To know that her mother wouldn't like it made things quite a great deal better, too. Her uniform was constantly in disarray, and she was often reprimanded by the Gryffindor prefects (or just elder lions) for seeming extremely out of sorts. So what if her tie was often askew and her socks were untidy? Her school robes were always going to look like that if she wanted to have an adventure. And Lizzy always wanted to have an adventure. She and her friends were going to explore every single inch of Hogwarts if they had any say, and they were going to climb the Willow. They were able to. She knew it. It was going to take a lot more preparation this year, and they were going to do there best to finally succeed. It was a very difficult thing to do, too. Maybe people would write about them in history books-- not that she would read them, anyway. They were too boring. Even ones that may be about her. She would have to get someone to read them out loud, or she would need to put a great deal of focus into the thing.

Lizzy didn't even care to read Quidditch Through the Ages. Reading was just... It took her a very long time, and she did not like things that took a very long time. The letters swam and then she got angry, and then she had too much to do and very little time to do it. Nicky wasn't very helpful-- not that she was talking to him. Nope, he barely existed to her. But, either way, nobody was very helpful about it but her friends. Not that she told anyone that she was struggling. She just went ahead and tried to figure it out on her own. Just like climbing-- except she listened to Henry when he suggested what to do. He was smarter with that. She looked towards the third, fifth, and seventh branches, scanning the way up. She could do it. She tucked her wand behind her ear and tried to jump to grab the branch lowest to the ground. It took another try; she didn't clear enough ground the first time. Then, her legs darting dramatically all over the place, she made an effort to pull herself all the way up. "I need to grow," she complained, launching her leg all the way over and using the counterweight to pull herself all the way up.

[attr="class","cherries"]# Henry James Blanchet   | # 611  | #here we goooo

[attr="class","credz"]♕fai

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For some reason, the days at Hogwarts seemed always much shorter than at home. He had been able to explain some of it with the sun being longer up in the sky during summer, the time he was at home the most, and for a while he had been very proud of himself that he had come up with this explanation. But then, he had admitted to himself that this was only half, if even that much, the reason. That he had less time at Hogwarts than at home was more of a feeling and not a fact. At home, unless he was meeting friends, he spent the day doing whatever he wanted, studying or playing with Gunther or writing letters, or doing nothing at all, until his aunt was home, and then they’d spend time together. During the best days, of course, she wasn’t working but with him the whole day. Thus, at home there was little he needed to do regularly. At school, on the other hand, they had classes five days a week, which was quite a lot in Henry’s opinion. And a lot of their breaks had to be filled with homework. Not that he had something against homework theoretically, but they had them every day.

And only having to do homework was a waste of the time the three Musketeers should spend exploring the castle and the grounds. It would soon be too cold again to attempt climbing the Whomping Willow, but he had done some research about magic trees and their properties, which had pointed out to him the importance of the roots. But how was he supposed to sneak out and get a closer look at the roots when he had to write an essay on a potion that in his opinion was perfectly explained in three inches, but for some reason a foot was required. Henry did not really understand why he was required to do more homework than he needed to. He of course did them, for otherwise he’d get detention and that would both hurt his auntie to hear it and use up more time than the homework. And they could use the time for homework to be together and profit from each other. But it was not really that exciting. He and his friends had so much more to do than just rehearsing spells — though that could be fun too, at least more than trying to make Lizzy interested in History. Not that Professor Binns was exactly helping his cause…

Still, there were hours, sometimes even days, during which they didn’t need to think about school. Today, sadly, it would only be minutes. On the bright side, Henry’s favourite side, they’d be learning up in a tree again, the one and only and absolutely best place for studying. They would have to use the tree here in the courtyard more often, now that Lizzy had thought of it. It’d be a good way to stay fit during winter. And Lizzy would have to train jumping… it’d certainly come with the Quidditch practice. Keepers had to stretch all the time to intercept the Quaffle. That could also be used in tree-climbing. “You’ll grow,” he said with conviction while he followed her up the branch. “But if we grow, we’ll also be heavier, and that’d make things more difficult too. We’re more mobile like we are now.” Being small had advantages, especially when there was Carin with them too, who could report to them what was going on further above. Maybe, one day, he’d catch up with them… though there was something like regret in his chest when he thought that soon he might be taller than his auntie. That simply didn’t feel right. “Here, the next branch,” he said, shaking the thought off his mind and pointing. “Shouldn’t be a problem to get to our books. You go first, okay?”

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[attr="class","orange"]Old Pine

[attr="class","vanilla"]free as the birds who fly

[attr="class","gummies"]She know that she had been the one to say it, but Lizzy was already picking through the logic in her own plan. It wasn't fair for her to think that growing up would help things. In fact, she thought that it might make everything worse. When you were older, you had more responsibilities. She didn't think that anyone older than a certain age would really be up to climbing trees. And to Lizzy, the current quest of climbing the Willow was of the utmost importance. What would happen if she had suddenly grown up? She would probably lose her mind. She didn't think that she could handle it! More responsibility, more homework, and more books. Nope. There was no way that Lizzy was going to be growing up like that anytime soon. She was perfectly content with being little and tiny, even if it was making climbing just a bit more difficult. Then again, what if she grew physically! Just a bit. A tiny bit.

Lizzy was sure that she would look like some oddly contrived skeleton, but it was still an idea. She wanted that extra few inches. She wanted to be able to grab for the branch and she wanted to be able to stretch out, just a bit more, so that she could catch things better during practice. And, on top of that, she and Henry were shorter than Carin, and she hated it. She wanted to be tall! She wanted to be tall enough that it wasn't even a problem. But she knew that, sometimes, you had to make sacrifices. She would have to be short because she was younger. She would deal with it, of course. She was good at dealing with things. She was dealing with her brother, with her family, with school... And she was good at it! Unless it had anything to do with history class, and then she was really barely able to handle it as is.

"You're right," she said confidently, taking a deep breath as she pulled herself up the first branch. Lizzy would rather be light and nimble for Quidditch. She reached up for the next branch, and her arm slipped slightly. It took one more try for Lizzy to actually get a good footing, and it was with effort that she pulled herself up.

[attr="class","cherries"]# Henry James Blanchet   | # 388  | # here we goooo

[attr="class","credz"]♕fai

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Growing taller, growing… up. Lizzy was certainly right that there would be a lot of advantages to it like seeing far better what was going on around them or being taken more serious by the professors. And they had without a doubt grown a lot during the last year. He hadn’t noticed, but considering how small the first-years were this year, it was the only logical conclusion. He didn’t feel any problems climbing yet, but this could change, not only because of the weight. The latter he had already observed a couple of times with he trees around home, which he had been climbing as long as he could think. He had to find new routes over and over because branches that used to support his weight had suddenly become unreliable. While this was an inconvenience, it was something he could adapt to. What frightened him far more was the prospect that, one day, he might wake up and not want to climb trees anymore — or, worse, Lizzy and Carin would suddenly decide that they didn’t care about trees anymore. This loss of interest, as incomprehensible as it was to Henry, would come one day. His auntie had never wanted to climb trees apart from assisting him during his humble beginnings. Neither had he ever been able to convince Nick and Atha that tree-climbing was an excellent way of spending free time. And the rest of the older students and adults were all exactly like that.

The three of them had, absolutely had, to realise their dream about the Willow. Otherwise they’d have wasted their years at Hogwarts, and Henry didn’t doubt that, even if he should turn into a tree-climbing hater (it did sound impossible), he’d always regret if they didn’t succeed. No, he wouldn’t live dreading a day that would make them forget their dreams. Now they were the three Musketeers, now they wanted to climb the Whomping Willow. Nothing else mattered.

Henry felt almost proud as he watched Lizzy climbing from branch to branch. She still wasn’t as used to it as he and Carin, but she had come a long way since they first met in the park. “We’re almost there!” he said once Lizzy had heaved herself up another branch. “Try to move more carefully so that the branches want start moving and throw down our books.” Summoning Charms existed, but they wouldn’t be taught for years, and the idea of having to drop down again to get the books didn't sound that good to him. They did have Magical History to rehearse, and Lizzy needed someone more alive than Professor Binns to go over the last lesson once more.

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